Level Up! Seize the Experience!

On Thursday, I swore I would get this game finished by Sunday and dammit, I actually kept my word this time.

I attempted to complete all of the sidequests, I really did. However, I couldn’t bring myself to finish the last one, the Temple of Enlightenment. After three regular enemy fights in a row where I battled nine enemies with HP levels between 7200 and 22000 and barely survived each one, I turned to my husband and said that was it. The area was not any fun, this type of fighting isn’t any fun, and I don’t see the point in playing otherwise. Getting out of the Temple was just as hard, but I’m so very glad that I at least attempted it. All of my immortals learned so many skills and we leveled up so incredibly much. It made the final bosses a complete breeze. I can’t imagine how much easier it would have been if I had actually completed the Temple of Englightenment. I probably could have just sneezed on the final boss and won.

Which is kind of how I felt when I defeated the final boss in Crisis Core, and I only completed 60% of the missions. If I had finished all of them, could I have just blown the final boss a kiss?

But I digress.

So what’s next for me? Well for starters, you won’t hear anything else about this game from me. Next on my list to play is Tales of Symphonia for the Wii. I’m very interested in seeing how a RPG plays on the Wii.

So until then huzzah and good night!

IGN is hosting a slew of demos and trailers on their site. If you’re frothing at the mouth while waiting for Final Fantasy XIII, you don’t want to miss these. I enjoyed watching what is yet to come for me in 2010, even though the demos don’t really show me anything I don’t already expect. I expect the gorgeous graphics. I expect the turn-based play. I expect the incredible fighting moves from Lightning.

However, the demos also seem to show that the battles won’t exactly be random encounters. It’s more like Eternal Sonata, where enemies are running around on the field and battles (except for bosses) are triggered by encountering these enemies. That kind of goes against the normal Final Fantasy formula, but I guess it can’t hurt to shake things up a little bit.

The other big FF13 news this week was Squenix’s announcement that it would be released in Japan in Winter 2009, earlier than previously planned. Does this mean that we’ll see it sooner in the US? One can only hope!

Thanks to my nonstop harping about this fabulous RPG in IM and in the Twitter-realm, I have convinced two people to purchase the game and give it a chance. One did so about a month ago, and he’s already caught up to me. (That says one of two things: I’m slow and I blame Final Fantasy 7 for that or he has no life and he’s played it nonstop. I believe it’s a combination of the two.) Another one of my friends informed me on YIM that he bought the game yesterday.

What does this mean? It means that the game is awesome, and all RPG fans with a Xbox 360 should also follow suit.

It also means that my powers of persuasion are just as awesome. Microsoft Game Studios should pay me a commission for PR.

I have become somewhat of a slave to the Xbox’s Achievements. I will do my best to try the zany and outlandish Achievements, even if it goes outside of how I normally play games, which is more than half of the time. I know it’s silly busy work and sometimes it’s the developers’ way of showing what weird things you can do with their games (look at Fable 2 for the best examples) and the gamer points don’t mean anything, but I can’t help myself.

It started with Geometry Wars 2 and the “wax-on” Achievement. I never would have thought of gracing all four borders of the screen in the Pacifism mode, as I’m generally trying to just stay alive since I have no real weapon to defend myself. And then I saw Fable 2’s massive list of Achievement craziness. I doubt I would have gotten married or had a kid if it wasn’t for the Achievements. If I wanted to do that in normal gameplay, I’d play the Sims. On top of that, I’ve considered the Goth Achievement, the Party Achievement, and even the Swingers Achievement.

Now that I’m playing Lost Odyssey, I’m actually wasting time by having my immortals learn every skill from the mortals — including the ones they already know — just to get those Achievements.  If I don’t find all the dreams or every treasure, I’ll replay just so I can get those Achievements. It’s become quite a sickness.

I need a support group.

America’s economic recession has been hitting the international circuit, and now it appears that Square Enix is feeling it a bit as well. Sqeunix’s stock dropped 11% on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the lowest it’s been in five years. With this plummet, rumors are now circulating that Squenix may postpone releasing both Dragon Quest IX and Final Fantasy XIII, although it’s more likely for Dragon Quest than Final Fantasy.

Personally, I think if Square Enix tries to push Final Fantasy XIII back any further, rabid fans will be storming the building with torches and pitchforks. Pushing back Dragon Quest — not that I’m saying there aren’t a lot of fans of this series — is probably the wiser decision. Of course, this is all speculation. None of this has been announced… yet.

I’m learning why it’s called “Lost Odyssey,” other than the fact it’s about Kaim recovering a thousand years of memories. The story is about as long as The Odyssey, and it has the cut-scenes to prove it.

I played Lost Odyssey for a few hours last night although it was more like I watched Lost Odyssey for a few hours last night. I think I found four memories, which took about forty-five minutes to watch, and then there was a funeral cut-scene that lasted an hour. I know it lasted an hour because I saved before I started the scene and I saved immediately afterwards and the game clock is right there. The rest of the time I was running around the city, solving little sidequests, upgrading weapons, and I had one boss fight. No, wait, two. I forgot that there was a “meanwhile, in Uhra” cut where I had to play as the very shiny prince and he had to fight mud golems with his very shiny sword. (The costuming gives me much joy and mockery, especially Kaim’s midriff armor. He looks good in it, but it’s still a point of hilarity.)

Thankfully, I absolutely love the story and I’m a fan of cut-scenes. Although, at times, particularly when I find a cluster of Kaim’s memories, I feel like this game would be a better book than a game. Although, I would be robbed from the gorgeous graphics and the ability to mock the outfits. Reading about someone’s dress isn’t nearly the same as actively seeing it.

To give you an idea how many cut-scenes there are, I’ve played the game for over 11 hours, and the guide says I’m almost done with the first disc. (I’m going to write about the guide, so don’t mock me too harshly.)  I thought that Kingdom Hearts 2 had the most cut-scenes of any game I’ve played, but Lost Odyssey has kicked it to the back seat.

This is honestly the first time since I’ve owned both consoles that this quandary has come up. My philosophy used to be to always put the PlayStation first. I was more familiar with the controls, and the controller is the most comfortable. But ever since I got the Xbox, and the console has come out with far more games for me than the PS3, I can no longer keep with that argument. Both controllers are equally comfortable and familiar to me.

A couple of months ago, I decided that I would get Final Fantasy XIII on the PS3 because Final Fantasy in general seems to fit the PlayStation better than Xbox. All of the FF games I own (including remakes… I don’t own any of the remakes for the DS… yet…) are for the PlayStation, so playing a FF game on the Xbox seems a bit sacreligious. Not to mention the fact that I haven’t had the best of luck with Square Enix games on the Xbox. I know they won’t screw up FF13 for the PS3 since it’s a PS3 exclusive in Japan. Or I guess I should say that they’re least likely to screw it up on the PS3 because it is a PS3 exclusive in Japan.

So why I am wondering about which console to buy the game for?

Well, it’s a little silly. It’s the Achievements. Ever since I scored my first Achievement (defeated 10 enemies in Marvel Ultimate Alliance), I’ve been obsessed with this gimmick. I know my Gamerscore essentially means nothing, but I still like to rack up those Achievements! That’s one of the reasons why I want to play Fable 2 again. I also know that PlayStation has implemented a Trophy system — something I haven’t gotten into because I haven’t played any games on my console since the rewards arrived — but it doesn’t seem to be the same. And I’m probably just being petty.

So I’m still debating. I haven’t put in my preorder yet because I’m still debating. I have a feeling this will come down to the gods of the almighty coin toss, unless I’m able to wait and see what the reviews say.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Me? Wait? Oh God, I crack myself up.

Well I was at the grand unveiling at the Final Fantasy XIII game website this morning, and I watched the clock wind down to zero and then restart. After a brief moment of anger, the site cleared and a new trailer presented itself. The trailer is two and a half minutes of cut-scenes, views of gameplay, and some hints about the underlying story. The gameplay looks like it will be turn-based, like every other Final Fantasy game, and this is no real surprise. So far, the graphics look like Square Enix is proving that they still do dominate the CGI world. After their latest two releases, this is more than refreshing to see. I breathed a sigh of relief after I remembered to breathe after being so captivated by the beauty of the graphics and animation.

As for the story, it looks like another conflict either involving haves and have-nots or an anti-technology faction. You know, the usual. The game world is very reminiscent of the world from The Matrix, and whoa, these people are fighting against machines too. Although like the Final Fantasy games of the past, I’m sure this game is slightly deeper than just that. But I can only take what I can from a fast two and a half minutes.

What I have taken, though, has made me all the more excited about this latest installment in the series. I better get crackin’ at Final Fantasy VII!

When I first opened up the game case, four game discs popped out and gave me a heart attack. Just how long is this game? Anything over sixty hours coughlegendofzeldacough can get tedious and drop my interest. I contacted a friend who had completed the game to find out roughly how long it took her. She told me not to worry; it should take me as long as it takes to finish a Final Fantasy game.

It didn’t take me very long to figure out why the game needs four discs. The graphics are as enriching and as detailed as they are in the graphic above, no matter if it’s during battle, while walking around, or during cut-scenes. And speaking of cut-scenes, this game likes them. A lot. Most revolve around the protagonist, who is an immortal with amnesia. Every now and then, something will trigger a memory, and then the player must sit back and read a short story. My game clock is only a couple of hours, but I’m quite certain that only forty-five minutes of it was actual gameplay.

For now, I’m really liking the game for its incredible graphics, interactive turn-based play, and story telling. If the game carries this same momentum all the way through, it will rank as one of my favorite games.

Square Enix has posted a mystery countdown for Final Fantasy XIII on both their North America and Europe web sites, with no real clue what it is about other than a new vision will be revealed.  In order to find out what it is, you have to register for it and then the new vision will be announced to you on January 28th.

I’m trying to be optimistic about this new vision, but all I feel is “meh” and dread. I can’t get that excited about it, especially when I read on the Squenix blog that it’s “the first of many countdowns to come.” Countdowns for what, exactly? I know that we’re all chomping at the bit for the latest Final Fantasy installment, but are they thinking that random announcements about the new game will produce further froth at the mouth? Is this their way of trying to appease the masses since the game has been delayed?

I can’t speak for other fans, but personally, countdowns aside from the actual release of the game will do little other than annoy me. That said, it didn’t stop me from registering for the unveiling. I’m a sucker, I know.

Tune in on January 28th when I unveil the unveiling.