Level Up! Seize the Experience!

I can’t have a RPG blog and NOT blog about my RPG of the year on the last day of the year.

I may get a lot of flak for this because there are some RPGs that came out in 2008 that I’ve never played, like Lost Odyssey and Mass Effect. Before you gather your torches and pitchforks, please know that I own both of those games and they are in the queue list to be played. Also please know that this is my game of the year. I’m sure IGN, Gamespot, Nintendo Power, PlayStation the Magazine, Kombo, and GameInformer will all disagree with me. Meh.

My RPG of the year was Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7. Fable II came as a close second, but it was Crisis Core that I couldn’t wait for the baby to take a nap so I could pick it up and play some more missions. It was Crisis Core that made me want to level for the heck of it, because some of the missions were fun, although a ton were outright sadistic. Crisis Core had the story that kept me up at night pondering what it meant. Crisis Core had the spazzy protagonist with a giant sword. (If you knew me, you’d know that I have a thing for the spazzes, not the emos. So no, Cloud will never replace my love for Zack. Oh, I also love swords.) Crisis Core made me cry during the entire ending sequence, and for about thirty minutes afterward. I couldn’t even tell my husband about what happened without choking up. I have never cried while playing a game before, not even when that Lucien bastard shot my dog in Fable II.  And here’s a big kicker for me: I want to play it again. Sure, I’d like to play Fable II again using a different personality, but I want to play this game again to see the exact same wonderful story. Again. Plus, there’s a spell called Hell Thundaga. How could I not love it?

But here is to Zack, and to all of you on this lovely New Year’s Eve. May 2009 be just as much fun to RPG fans!

I’m currently playing Disgaea 3 for the PS3. It’s the only RPG I’ve played on the PS3. I downloaded the demos for Eternal Sonata and Valkyria Chronicles, but they just didn’t do it for me. So while I’m working on this one freelancing project that is going to be the death of me, my mind wandered about what PS3 game I’m going to play next after Disgaea 3. I don’t have any others, and Final Fantasy XIII won’t be out for another year. *sob* So I diverted from my writing project to look at the RPGs in the PlayStation 3 library. Lo and behold, only twelve are listed on the Sony website.

I now feel bad for knocking the Wii a bit, but not too much.

I can’t believe there are only twelve, and three are the same game (Elder Scrolls IV) and five are multiplatform with the Xbox 360.

Right now, I’m examining my gaming library, and of the next-gen consoles, I have more RPGs on the Xbox (the PlayStation 2 wins overall, but that’s not fair… it’s been around for a lot longer). Sure, the Xbox has been around for a year longer, but is that really that much of an excuse?

I love my Xbox and the games on it, but it was the PS2 that brought me back into the darkside of video games so my loyalty will always be with PlayStation. I would really like to see more exclusive RPGs to come to the PS3 in 2009. They lost Final Fantasy XIII rights, so they need to bust their butts and make sure they don’t lose any others.

Right now it’s looking like I’ll have to rest my RPG hopes with the Nintendo DS, and even though that makes things a lot more convenient for me, I’d still like to use my PS3 for things other than watching movies.

I know I’m eleven years late, but I just started Final Fantasy VII this week. I have two reasons for never trying out this RPG legend until now: 1) I didn’t own a PlayStation back then and 2) until recently, I loathed turn-based games. I’ve been told by countless friends that I’m not a real gamer until I play this one, so everyone can finally get off of my back. I’m playing it!

The final push for me to play it was when some of my friends at work gave me Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII as a gift when I quit my job earlier this year. I fell completely in love with the game. I knew it was the backstory to FF7, so I knew what awful fate awaited Zack at the end, but I still cried during the extremely long ending sequence. After I wiped away the tears and tried to put on goofy faces for my infant son, who was looking at me like I was crazy, I knew I had to play the original game and see what happens next.

After just one hour of gameplay, I was hooked. Scratch that. With just the opening sequence, I was hooked. When I saw Aerith in a pink dress and holding a basket of flowers, I started to tear up. I had a flashback of Zack asking her to wear pink on the days they would meet and Zack helping her start her flower-selling business. Then I remembered one of Aerith’s 23 wishes was so spend more time with Zack. Before I became an emotional basketcase, thankfully the sequence moved away from Aerith and then to Cloud.

I know I’m going to have a rather different point of view while playing this game since I did play Crisis Core first, possibly similar to the reactions one would have from playing FF7 right before Crisis Core. Every cut through Midgar made me smile as I remembered all of the things Zack did there. Sector 8 with the Loveless play. Aerith’s church in Sector 5. The train station. Shinra. The Mako Reactors in Midgar. The well in Nibelheim. It was all so incredibly cool to me. I may have played this game without playing Crisis Core, but I’m not sure I’d have the same attachment without Crisis Core.

So be prepared for lots of blogs while I traverse through this giant. I’m eager to share my dated perspective while playing.

I’ve been wanting to try out a piece of the Tales franchise ever since the second Tales of Symphonia appeared on the Wii. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t realize how clueless I was about the series. I had no idea so many Tales games were out on the PlayStation 2. I blame Kingdom Hearts for that.

But anyway, recently while tinkering around on my Xbox, I noticed that one of my friends was playing Tales of Vesperia. I’m sure that I edited a review for that game, so I should have known that it was in existence, but sometimes reviews kind of gloss over me while I’m scrutinizing for comma splices. Either way, I’m well aware of it now. It’s time to see if I will even like the franchise, even though I’ll probably purchase Tales of Symphonia just to play an RPG on the Wii. So yet again, yay for free demos on the Xbox.

The game won me over for several reasons. 1) The graphics are absolutely beautiful. True, it doesn’t have the “realistic” graphics of a Final Fantasy series, but the anime-like style with bright, vivid colors is stunning. Who needs realistic graphics with these around? 2) The dialogue cracked me up. I love that there is a pushy character who messes around with her partymembers in the name of science. 3) I liked the idea of real-time gameplay with a party system. I may not hate turn-based gameplay as much as I used to, but I still love hack n’ slash. This hack n’ slash looks to be more manageable than the mechanics of Infinite Undiscovery, so Vesperia gets a bigger thumbs up just for that.

Vesperia has definitely been added to my wishlist and Symphonia has become a higher priority. I’m excited about finding a new RPG franchise without the Final Fantasy label.

Well I can’t leave out the DS in Nintendo Power’s big announcement for games coming in 2009, especially since the DS is getting quite a few role-playing games. At least it’s nice to know that Nintendo isn’t forsaking the genre too badly; they’re just shoving it onto the handheld, which makes sense as I’m sure more RPG fans own a DS than they own a Wii. Not everyone is as insane as I am.

Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride - Dragon Quest fans rejoice! Square-Enix is bringing over this gem to North America. This one takes the experience factor to the extreme: you play as the hero from childhood all the way to a family man.

Infinite Space - Yes, it takes place in space. NinPow calls it an “intergalactic strategy-RPG.” If you’ve ever wanted to command your own fleet of spaceships from the palm of your hand, look no further. Unfortunately, there is no quarter-release timeframe, only the announcement of to be released in 2009.

Avalon Code - You can’t stop the world from ending, only decided what is worth saving for the rebirth. Your trusty, trusty sidekick is a giant book of prophecy. I may pick this game up just for the interesting premise.

Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume - The key to this combat is arranging your characters for battle configurations. No really, that’s all it really says about it.

Suikoden: Tierkreis - NinPow claims that it keeps many of the signature elements from the past games, and it will be Wi-Fi enabled to share characters and go on additional sidequests.

Sands of Destruction - Here’s a twist for you. You aren’t out to save the world, you’re out to DESTROY IT.

Legacy of Ys: Books I & II - This is a remake of these two games with improvements to many game mechanics, such as cut-scenes, touch-based options, and an on-screen map, but it keeps some of its 80s roots, particularly in the soundtrack.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time - It’s a port of the Wii game. Or vice versa.

Mario & Luigi RPG 3 - The big news with this latest installment: Bowser may be a playable character.

Dragon Blue Plus - NinPow didn’t say anything about it other than the projected release date is March, and they offered a tiny screenshot. I can’t tell anything from it.

According to January’s issue of Nintendo Power, it doesn’t look to be a great year for the role-playing genre for the Wii. Not that this is really any surprise. If you do a RPG search on Nintendo’s own website, only twelve games appear, despite the fact that the console has been around for twelve years. And of these games, I think only two or three would even interest the rpg-fanatic. I think that Nintendo really wants to cater to this genre, but the lack of third party development hinders them a bit. However, that’s a blog for a different day.

Here is what the Wii will offer for 2009, so far.

Arc Rise Fantasia - The writers for Tales of Symphonia are putting together another RPG outside of the Tales franchise. NinPow didn’t have much to say about it, other than it shows “promise,” but the screenshots are pretty enough. It’s currently slated for a spring release.

Rune Factory Frontier - Rune Factory makes its way to the Wii with its interesting combination of RPG gameplay and Harvest Moon farming. You start out as a humble farmer, but if you need a break from your agricultural duties, there are always monsters to slay. But why slay them if you can capture them? I know I’ve always wanted a pet dragon of my very own.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time - Slap on the name “Final Fantasy,” and you have a sure seller. This one is another MMORPG for the Crystal Chronicles series.

Muramasa: The Demon Blade - All NinPow will say about it is that players can play as one of two characters and see the story from two completely different perspectives. The graphics are beautiful too, similar to Eternal Sonata or Tales of Symphonia, but they don’t hold up to any RPGs on other consoles, or even Twilight Princess. I guess that this style of graphics are all RPG fans can expect from the Wii.

So what else is on the horizon for the Wii? A few platformers, a TMNT fighting game, another Wii Sports game, a few ports, and a few first-person shooters. If you want a good RPG from Nintendo in 2009, you’re best bet is on the DS.

My husband bought me Kingdom Hearts 2 for my birthday in 2005. I didn’t play it for about a year because well, I hadn’t finished the first Kingdom Hearts game because I got mad at it for two years and then I wanted to play Chain of Memories before I played the sequel. When I finally did play the game, I blew through it like I’ve never played an RPG before and stumbled upon the final save point before fighting Xemnas at level 53. I had barely touched leveling up my forms, let alone completing Jiminy’s Journal. Since I had no interest in doing nothing but leveling for hours on end, I started over this year. Well, I STILL had to level for hours on end, doing absolutely nothing but restomping over worlds and fighting Heartless and Nobodies to gain experience and level up my forms. Oh sure, I could stop and take part in Jiminy’s sadistic Journal of mini-game bliss, but that only breaks up monotony; it doesn’t HELP ME LEVEL.

If a RPG doesn’t provide enough gameplay in the form of the main quest or sidequests, then it suffers from poor design. Not even the tournaments in Olympus — the closest thing KH2 had to sidequests — offered experience for the enemies vanquished. Why on earth would I fight in a tournament if I can’t either 1) progress the story or 2) gain experience.

The end result for me was a lot of frustration and boredom for a game that had a really, really, REALLY good story. I actually teared up a little bit during the final end sequence. But will I play this game ever again? Most likely not. If I wanted to play a game with tedium, I’d play Tetris, not a RPG, and even then, at least I got points for the tedium in Tetris.