Just Beat: Final Fantasy XIII

In middle school, I borrowed Final Fantasy VI from Ryan Bristol, and fell head over heals in love with it.

Doesn't Count.

For the next few years, I played it constantly. Having entered the Final Fantasy scene a bit late, VI was the only game of the franchise I was able to get my hands on (well, except for FF Legends and Mystic Quest, but those don’t really count). Consequently, when I discovered that Final Fantasy VII was coming out for the PS1, I had my first chance to play a sequel to one of my favorite games.

Realize that I had never played another Final Fantasy and didn’t understand that each of the games was wholly unique. My view of sequels was based on growing up in the 8 and 16-bit areas when a sequel was nothing more than better levels, cooler power-ups, maybe a bit more story. To us, sequels like Mario 3, Super Metroid, Mega Man II+, and A Link to the Past, where the same game we fell in love with, just with more awesome.

And yes, there were sequels that didn’t fit this mold. Mario 2 and The Adventure of Link were drastically different than their originals. But in the gaming circle I grew up in, these games were universally shunned for not being what I described above.

Anyway, my point is, I expected that Final Fantasy VII would simply be a larger, more awesome, evolution of VI.

Instead, Final Fantasy VII completely blew my mind. It was not my SNES Final Fantasy. Sure, there were nods to previous games. The names, items, and spells were similar, but this merely created a Final Fantasy atmosphere, more than anything else. It was neither a continuation of the story, nor a simple evolution of the previous game. Final Fantasy VII was something entirely unique.

Let me (finally) get to the point.

At the start of Final Fantasy VII, you are confined to a relatively linear and restrictive setting and plot. The story takes you from one point to the next, with no possibility to break from the point A to B map sections that link the various plot locations. The setting is a mega city named Midgar and is powered by eight huge Mako reactors. Right off the bat, you destroy one of those reactors and soon thereafter take out a second.

Given the story makes it absolutely clear that there are eight such reactors, I naively assumed the rest of the game would center on the destruction of the remaining six. Although I really do enjoy this part of the game, my first time through, I missed the exploration component inherent in an expansive overworld, like the one I experienced in FF VI.

FF VII disappointed me by removing one of the primary tenants of Final Fantasy that I found really attractive: the freedom to roam the world and explore regions that may or may not take me to the next objective. I loved being able to see what would happen if I went to a town that didn’t enter into the story until much later, or go to some remote location to find items significantly more powerful than my current stock.

So, imagine my disappointment, when I thought that Midgar was the entirety of my world in FFVII. Then imagine my undeniable awe in discovering that; after hours confined in a restrictive, dark, and imposing city; I emerged onto a sunny and expansive overworld.

‘Holy Balls! This game is effing huge!’ I said (well something along those lines).

Holy Balls! That sword is effing huge!

Okay, so why do I tell this long-winded, meandering, and mostly useless story? Well, the last time I posted about Final Fantasy XIII, I had just landed on the lower world of Pulse. I had given a fairly glowing report of the game to this point; contrary to the nearly universal distaste for the game. Understand that I had just played 20 to 30 hours of a completely linear (and somewhat enjoyable) game and had finally gained access to Pulse. An entire planet awaited my exploration.

I was thrilled at the possibilities Pulse offered. I had spent hours witnessing the fear Cocoon’s citizens had of a Pulse invasion. During my time on Cocoon, I was constantly ostracized and pursued. As something called a ‘Pulse L’cie,’ my party was tasked by meddling god-like beings known as Fal’cie with the utter destruction of Cocoon. Despite rejecting this tasking, Cocoon’s populace, justifiably, wanted my party dead. Having finally fled Cocoon, I was convinced that, during my exploration of Pulse, I would see the other side of the story.

I imagined a host of possibilities, each having sprawling ramifications on the story. Maybe the citizens of Pulse would welcome my party as saviors because of their status as Pulse L’cie? Or on the other hand, maybe Lighting and her friends would be hunted down for swearing off their mission to destroy Cocoon? Do the citizens of Pulse even reciprocate Cocoon’s fear, hatred, and distrust? Do the citizens of Pulse even know Cocoon believes the two worlds are still at war? Perhaps Cocoon is the true evil power and has been subjugated Pulse since the previous war? Maybe there is a true Cold War and arms race brewing between the two worlds and my party is sending both of them dangerously close to an all out apocalyptic war?

I was eager to get this side of the story. The possibilities were limitless.

With the planet of Pulse awaiting my exploration, I felt the same as when I first stepped outside Midgar and had to shield my eyes from the bright sunlight. I couldn’t wait to see where exploration and the story took me.

My enthusiasm was quickly and brutally crushed. I learned that there were no cities, no people, no war, and definitely no world to explore. Yeah, I know: spoiler alert. Deal with it.

That’s right, after finally ‘opening up,’ there is jack shit to do. Pulse is a world of several huge areas linked together and populated by a bunch of monsters. That’s it. End of story. Oh sure, you can take on the different sidequest hunts, but these are relatively boring, and apart from unlocking some log entries, truly don’t contribute to much.

Even Vanille is shocked at how lame Pulse is.

Pulse should have been the real meat of the game, where player driven exploration could have resulted in an astonishing amount of depth. Instead, it’s merely a brief diversion before the game’s final conclusion.

If Pulse is where my enthusiasm ended, then my return to Cocoon was where it turned to outright hostility. Usually, I don’t complain (much) if the story component of a game is weak. I truly value gameplay, pretty graphics, and awesome music more than the story. Perhaps I’ve just come to terms with the fact that video game stories mostly suck, but FFXIII crosses the proverbial line.

(I suppose Spoilers are ahead, but they don’t make much sense anyway, so it really doesn’t matter).

Upon returning to Cocoon, I discovered Cid had been appointed Prime Minister (or Chancellor, or whatever). This made little to no sense for several reasons. First, I had already killed Cid. I watched him die. Granted he turned to crystal and, I suppose a Fal’cie could bring him back, but it still seemed sudden and contrived. Second, Cid’s appointment was designed to destabilize Cocoon and essentially lead to civil war.

Um, What?

How does that work?

I understand that Cid and his cavalry were fighting against Fal’cie dominance over Cocoon, but wouldn’t his followers be happy that he was made Prime Minister? I understand that his position only put him under closer scrutiny from the Fal’cie, but I feel that from this position, he could orchestrate large, sweeping changes that could unify the people and eventually cast down or mitigate the Fal’cie.

Then, in the midst of this confusing plot revelation, I witnessed the most ridiculous cutscene and ‘plot development’ ever conceived of by man.

Cid gives an inaugural address where he promises to keep Cocoon safe and blah, blah, blah. He then shows his resolve. Much like a nation that is under the constant threat of invasion, he holds a military demonstration to showcase the strength and might of Cocoon’s armed forces, and…

Wait.

He doesn’t do that.

He holds a motorcycle race.

I’ll let that sink in.

A motorcycle race. That’s like holding a Nascar race in Washington DC after a newly appointed President makes his inaugural address.

Nascar: how the U.S. won the Cold War.

Then your party comes crashing into said motorcycle race and activates their respective eidolons and start wrecking shop. Then Pulse attacks… I think. Well, a bunch of monsters from Pulse start roaming around. And, I guess this started a civil war? Hell, I don’t know. This ended it for me. I had no idea what was going on, and just pushed onward to beat the game.

What the hell happened? In the last eighth of the game, I completely reversed from ‘having a blast playing it’ to ‘screw this shit, let’s just get it over with.’

Ugh.

Having said that, I still rank Final Fantasy XIII as a game I’d play again. Someday. In the far, far, future. It has some challenging bosses, mainly due to the imposed ‘limit caps.’ Likewise, I enjoyed the (controversial) battle system. I really, really liked the music (except about four exceptions, which I hated). And, for the first time in a long, long time, I actually like the main character, Lightning. Hell, even Hope and Vanille, who I started out despising, grew on me (a little). On the one hand, FFXIII is good enough to warrant another playthrough someday. Yeah, someday when the only games left are casual Kinect and Move games that I stubbornly will not play, and I’ve gone through the majority of my backlog. Yeah, I might replay it again. However, on the other hand, it’s definitely not good enough for me to really recommend to anyone.

Just Beat: Tactics Ogre

Allow me to apologize in advance for any typos I make of the name ‘Tactics Ogre.’ Apparently, my brain continually wants to go all dyslexic on it and make it Ogre Tactics. Doesn’t that make more sense, fit better with the general ‘Ogre Battle’ series, and just plain roll of the tongue better?

Perhaps my continual inability to get the game’s title correct was a sign that pretty much nothing about this game would sit well with me. My overall feelings towards Tactics Ogre are neither positive nor negative, but conversely I am definitely not ambivalent nor neutral about it. Maybe it would be better to say that I am both strongly positive and strongly negative about the game.

Flip that coin, TwoFace, and tell me if I like this game or not...

Ugh, now I am just confusing myself. I guess my feelings about Tactics Ogre can best be put that they are like a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.

Points to those who know why this picture is here!

Why such a conflict of emotions on this game? We may as well start at the beginning…

Knowing that the choices I made throughout the game would have a profound impact on the story, I chose not to do any research before starting my playthrough. While I’m not a huge stickler about spoilers, I wanted to go through this one cold, with absolutely no preconceived notions.

Consequently, I was left scratching my head early on with the Tactics Ogre’s plentiful and overarching similarities to another ‘Tactics’ game of the Final Fantasy variety, that I happen to know extremely well. As I played on, I began to get a very sour taste in my mouth: I was playing a crappy clone of Final Fantasy Tactics! How dare the Ogre Battle series rip off one of my favorite games of all time! This would not do!

With my initial impression one of building hatred and anger, I decided it was time to go to the internet and thus I received an education in what I should have already known as someone who considers himself a Gamer with a Masters Degree in Tactical RPGs. First Tactics Ogre was a PS1 port of the original Super Famicon game, so it predated Final Fantasy Tactics by a good number of years. Second, the game was the brainchild of Yasumi Matsuno, who would later go on to direct Final Fantasy Tactics.

In the time it takes to read a Wikipedia entry, my opinion of Tactics Ogre changed 180 degrees. Instead of a poorly done clone, Ogre Tactics (doh!) was revolutionary and implemented (albeit in unpolished forms) mechanics and ideas that would later be perfected in Final Fantasy Tactics.

Given the startling similarities between the two games, it would not be surprising if Yasumi Matsuno didn’t think of Final Fantasy Tactics as a remake of Tactics Ogre and an opportunity to fix any problems from his original masterpiece.

Apparently, 'Poor Translation and Localization" was something Matsuno felt he got right the first time around.

Even with the knowledge of Tactics Ogre being the ‘spiritual predecessor’ to one of my favorite games, I still have a hard time determining how I feel. Every major positive has a rather glaring negative just sitting there staring at you. Similarly, major faults also seem to contain profound positives.

Want Proof? Positive: a guy named Boner. Negative: there are Boners all over the place.

For example, I enjoy the difficulty of Tactics Ogre. When playing at or near the levels of the enemy, the battles are challenging and require more than a bit of tactical thought. Most story battles cannot be won be simply conducting a mass charge with melee weapons.

The flip side is that, since the ability to revive dead characters only becomes available late in the game, when a character is killed, they are more or less gone for good. Thus, when a party member died, I hit the reset button. Given the above mentioned challenge, I ended up hitting the reset button a lot, which began to get increasingly frustrating. This frustration was compounded by the AI ganging up on wounded characters (a positive, as it’s a sound tactic that anyone with half a brain would use) and also seem to possess increased stats compared to my characters of comparable level and equipment (a negative, as well designed games don’t need to rely on cheating AI).

My resulting frustration would either lead to getting fed up and not touching a controller for five days or, ultimately leveling up way beyond the AI level, and consequently removing the afore mentioned challenge.

Another example centers on the job system. The character customization process is very diverse and allows quite a bit of flexibility. Want your Wizard to be equipped with a sword and shield? Go for it. There are no ‘this character can’t equip that’ messages here. Naturally, equipping a sword would reduce the Wizard’s magic power and he would still suck as a melee fighter, but if you wanted to do it, you could.

The down side however, after the first four or five hours of gameplay, I found a team that worked for me, and I never changed it the remainder of the game (with the exception of equipping some new weapons here or there). In fact, in order to prevent my characters from dying, almost all my characters were indirect attackers: i.e. archers. You see, an indirect attack, whether by bow, crossbow, shuriken, etc does not let the enemy counter attack, whereas a direct (melee) attack does. And, remember that I’m trying to prevent characters from dying, so keeping my distance and limiting the amount of damage by not giving the enemy the opportunity to counter attack seemed like a pretty solid plan.

In fact it was such a solid plan, that my party of 2 Archers, 2 Valkyries (with bows), Canopus (with a bow), 2 healers, a Wizard, a Swordsman, and a Bezerker (crossbow), were able to handle anything the game threw at them, with maybe two exceptions. Remember, I hit upon this combination at hour 5 of a 50 hour game. That’s 45 hours of essentially the same battle set up over and over and over…

The above examples are just the tip of the iceberg for the two-sided aspects of the game. Consequently, it has been hard to determine how I exactly feel about the game. On the one hand, I would replay this game in a heartbeat. If it were not for my ever increasing backlog of unplayed games, I would start a new game of Tactics Ogre today. The branching story and bonus dungeon that I only started exploring, plus all the abilities and items that I didn’t get or experiment fully with, all call me back to Tactics Ogre and make it a game I want to play.

But, on the other hand, I’m not sure I recommend it. I suppose if Tactical RPGs are your bread and butter, than yeah, go find a copy. But, even for Tactical RPG buffs, there are plenty of much more refined tactical games out there (to be fair, there are a lot worse too – Eternal Eyes anyone?). Likewise, Tactics Ogre has not aged well when compared to other Tactical RPGs of the past few generations. While Japan has a huge Tactics Ogre fan base, here in the US, the game has (at best) a cult following. Go ahead and count me as one of the members of that fan base, but I think those numbers are quite thin.

Just Beat: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Obviously, I’m a little late to the party. Back in 1997, I was too busy being a Final Fantasy fanboy to notice that there were other really good games out for the PS1. Additionally, my memories of the 8 and 16 bit Castlevania were pretty much non-existent. Spending the first 11 years of my life console-less, I relied heavily on my friends and the games they either owned or rented to introduce me to new titles and franchises. Apparently, my friends lacked gaming awesomeness because they never rented any of the Castlevania games. Consequently, when SotN hit store shelves, it didn't even come close to registering on my radar. On the other hand, had someone mentioned the term ‘Metroidvania,’ I probably would have bought it in a heartbeat, because of my unquestioning loyalty to Metroid and anything even remotely resembling it.


Since I just discovered what the rest of the universe has known for over a decade (that this game kicks serious ass), I will refrain from spending too much time describing just how it goes about kicking that much ass. Most everything about this game hits the sweet spot for me: nonlinear design, gorgeous in-game graphics, awesome music, and incredible depth of play. Without a doubt, Symphony of the Night is the newest inductee into my personal Video Game Hall of Fame.
However, I do have one mild concern. Towards the end, I’d made it through the entire castle and saved one last time before heading to the final boss. Charging in, I expected a difficult battle ahead of me; but I beat Richter without so much as breaking a sweat.

Exit Richter. End of story. Crappy final credits song.

Wait, what? That's it? That was anti-climactic.

Konami created this awesome and involving world and then just cut it off? That’s weird. I figured that there would be a little more meat to the finale. Also, when Death stole all my equipment at the beginning, didn't he mumble something about 'seeing me again?' What is he, an optional boss or something?

Truncated ending aside, the game was still awesome. So much so, that I might as well go back to my final save and explore a bit more, maybe find some of the relics and items that I missed.

Hey, here's an area that I never found. Oh, and armor that breaks spikes, awesome! Wasn't there a room off the chapel with a bunch of spikes? Sure enough, and Maria is hanging out there with a Silver Ring.

How Maria got in a room that is at the dead end of a long hallway of spikes, that also includes a door that only Mist can pass through, and another door for which I alone have the key is another matter entirely, but I digress.

Anyway, back to the Silver Ring. The item description mentions, 'In...Tower...' Okay Konami, I'm not an idiot (for the most part), I know how to use these rings. Oh, and Maria is waiting for me in another completely inaccessible area. And this time she gave me some magical sunglasses that let me see in HD!

For when real life isn't vivid enough!

I guess that's all the new stuff I can find, I'm gonna go beat Richter again. Maybe my new shades will let me see the real final boss, maybe its Death, or maybe Dracu. . .

Holy Balls!

An entire new castle to explore! Hell Yes! This game is awesome!
Now THAT is what I’m talking about.

I think I need to go change my shorts.
---

Truthfully, I never fully believed that Richter was the final boss. Something just didn't feel right after beating him. Everything, from the story to the gameplay seemed like it wasn't tied up; that there were too many loose ends. I don't know how gameplay has loose ends, but that's how it felt. But I had no idea that it would be an entire new castle to fight through. I think it was when I saw the castle materialize upside-down was the moment that I fell smack in love with Symphony of the Night.

My only two true complaints are:
When Richter is freed before the castle inverts, Alucard, Maria, and Richter stop to chat for a bit. For a fleeting moment, I thought that maybe I would be able to play through the new castle with the ability to switch between the three characters. Naturally, it didn’t turn out that way, but I think that would have been pretty cool.
Second, that ending credits song truly is terrible. Anything featuring the Saxophone in an extended solo shouldn’t be in the finale of a game called ‘Symphony of the Night.’ Or really, any game for that matter…

Just Beat: Super Turrican

Most of the time, when perusing the used game section of a secondhand store or pawn shop, I use my keen ‘Nostalgia-Sense’ to spot games that I might like. Most often, I read through the games stacked chaotically in a glass case towards the back, and just look for a title that perhaps I rented a few times way back when, or played at a friend’s house, or maybe read about in Nintendo Power, or even simply heard on the playground that it was a good game. If I see something that meets those criteria, I usually pick it up. Granted, I’m still disappointed now and again, but it beats the heck putting energy into something like researching a game before buying it.

Super Turrican only barely meets the above requirements. Somewhere, on the periphery of my childhood videogame memory vault, there is a vague recollection of recognizing the name ‘Super Turrican.’ Unfortunately, the memory is so vague that I neither know where I heard it from, nor if it was any good. I think my sole reference may have originated from an episode of Nick Arcade, but I’m unable to find a coherent list of games that the show featured.

Regardless of where I heard of it, something in my head linked Super Turrican with being a pretty good game, so I recently picked it up. In theory, this is a game I would love: 2D shooter, with large and vaguely non-linear levels, lots of weapons and powerups, some difficult platforming, and tons of secrets to uncover. This game has all the necessary ingredients for an instant classic and there is a large, devoted fan-base out there championing the original games (for Amiga, C64, Mega Drive/Genesis, NES/SNES, to name a few). There is even a significant movement to release the nearly finished, but never published, final game of the series on the Virtual Console.

However, while the devoted fans may cry foul, I say that this game fails in almost every respect. Not that it does anything really wrong, it simply doesn’t really do anything right. The entire time playing it, all I wanted to do was play Contra 3, even from before pressing start… with the intro.


Starting out, the camera pans down through an overly colorful and star-studded sky. The term ‘bejeweled’ comes to mind. The top portion of a planet comes to dominate the bottom of the screen. It’s an inviting world with swirling lime green and pink clouds, it looks more like a mix of sherbet at Baskin Robins, than a planet.

Text types across the bottom:
Stardate… 2751-11
Planet… Katakis
Class… Mostly Harmless

Uh, what? Is it November of 2751? Does anyone actually have good reasoning behind how stardates work (I’m looking at you Star Trek)? And, what the heck does ‘Mostly Harmless’ mean? What sort of planet classification system is this? Is ‘Mostly Harmless’ right below ‘Partly Boring’ and right above ‘Entirely Apathetic’?

Anyway, cut to the rear view of a generic looking spacecraft. We never see any other aspect of this craft, other than the aft view. The narration continues, ‘Lonesome, the Avalon 1 glides through the outer reaches of the galaxy.’

Okay, I don’t think that ‘glides’ is the verb I would choose for this picture. Perhaps ‘careens’ would be a better word choice, as the crew has obviously been drinking heavily and the pilot is having a hard time staying between the lines.

Flash back to 31 Flavors Katakis, which now is in the grip of a gargantuan person that looks like the artist got confused as to whether he was supposed to draw Shredder or Galactus. The narrator, who recently learned how to (poorly) use a thesaurus, states, ‘Suddenly, with a flash of destruction, the evil forces of The Machine conquer Katakis. Brutally, they freeze the people of this peaceful world in eternal enslavement.’

Wait. Is that Mutant Shredder-Galactus-spawn supposed to be ‘The Machine?’ He doesn’t really look like a machine. And, if he is so huge (as the image shows, he is clearly gripping the planet in his hands) and powerful enough to unleash a sudden ‘flash of destruction,’ why would he want to conquer a worthless planet that is classified as ‘mostly harmless?’ Additionally, what good are frozen people as slaves. I suppose they will last a really, really long time (or eternally as the narration suggests), but they really won’t be very productive, you know, being frozen and all.

We return again to the rear of the Avalon 1 as it hobbles through space under direction of its inebriated pilot, ‘Justice! The cry of a billion souls floats through space and. . .
. . . Finally reaches the Avalon 1.’

Good thing Obi Wan Kenobi is onboard the Avalon to feel the disturbance of the force, otherwise I’m not sure how exactly the crew would receive the cry of all those souls floating aimlessly through space.

The camera shows the spacecraft speed off into the distance. Then we cut back to Katakis. Fortunately, The Machine has wandered off, most likely due to Katakis being a pretty boring place, you know, with everyone being frozen and all. The Avalon, then rolls crazily to the right as the sloshed pilot sets a collision course for the landing site. The text continues, ‘Approaching Katarkis, the brave fighters of the U.S.S. Freedom Forces. . .
. . . Slip into their Turrican Assault Suits, ready to risk their lives for the innocent.’

I love how in science fiction, whenever a writer is trying to make a ship or something sound militaristic and important, they title it the ‘U.S.S. Something Epic.’ Seriously, do any of those writers understand that those letters stand for United States Ship? And to even more confound matters, we already know the name of the ship is the Avalon 1. So, what the heck is the U.S.S. Freedom Forces? Given the context, it sounds more like a branch of the military, or perhaps a special forces unit, which makes even less sense. Even more ridiculous is that these hardened solders ‘slip’ into their mech suits that contain, as the back of the box states, ‘the firepower of an entire army.’ Yet, it sounds so luxurious, ‘slipping’ into these suits made for war. They might as well wear them as pajamas if they’re so comfy.

And then we cut to a climactic image of the Turrican Suit! It looks like the designers took samples of all the best mech-suit designs out there: Samus Aran, Mega Man, Ropocop, the Transformers, you name it. Once collected, they then removed all the cool parts and blindly jammed the remaining crappy pieces together to form a disjointed, impractical suit of WTF. Oh, and the background is a bunch of blurred colors flashing by. Why? Because it’s EXTREME!

It has occurred to me that I may be overly harsh on the introduction. Many games’ openers range from oddly curious to outright ridiculous. Take Contra 3’s opener which is nearly as bad. Crappy Arial font scrolls ‘The Alien Wars begin!’ across the screen and a poorly rendered Arnold Schwarzenegger and his Look-Alike-Minority saying, ‘It’s time for revenge. Let’s attack aggressively.’ (Fortunately both Arnold and his African American Clone are sporting pretty hardcore headbands, otherwise they wouldn’t stand a chance)

However, I posit that Super Turrican’s introduction sets the tone for the entire game. Nothing quite adds up in it. For example, The Machine, or the Shredder-Galactus hybrid, never makes an appearance in the game. The end boss is basically the Queen Alien from Aliens. What the heck happened to the huge, planet clutching samurai dude? And what about all those frozen slaves? You never rescue any of them, nor even see any indication whatsoever of their existence.

At least in Contra, you end up fighting the floating face you see in the opening. Likewise, you participate (and attack aggressively!) in the war against the Aliens. It even alludes to other human resistance/military acting in said war: a bomber napalms the infested city in Level 1 and an attack helicopter fires missiles at the huge battleship in Level 4.

Having made it through the Intro and actually started Super Turrican, I was completely unimpressed. Again, I reiterate that nothing was blatantly wrong: the controls fairly tight, the graphics distinct, hit detection solid, and the levels vaguely fun. But, the game refused to do almost anything truly right.

For example, why can I only fire to the left or right? The last game I played with a similar limitation was the original Metroid and that was, what, 1986? Super Turrican was published in 1993! To further compound this curiosity, one of the auxiliary weapons, the Freeze Laser, can fire in a complete 360 degree arc. I will grant, that I rarely desired to shoot other than horizontally, as the 360 range of the Freeze Laser and various gun powerups made up for the inadequacy, but the question of ‘why?’ remains.

Another adequate, but unimpressive feature were the graphics. The game makes use of the SNES’ ability to produce a huge variety of colors as well as mode 7 graphics. However, the color combinations prove too garish, bright, and overly colorful, which ultimately portrays the environments and enemies as almost childish. Compare the color choices of Contra 3 or Super Metroid to those of Super Turrican and you will see a richer color pallet with deeper tones and consequently a more mature feel.

The gameplay mechanic also left me wanting. While I am aware that the variety and style of weapons has been around, with little variation, since the original Amiga/C64 version, I still feel that it lacks refinement. The variety of secondary weapons seems a bit thrown together. Apart from the main gun, the Turrican suit can be used to stomp enemies (Mario style), it can roll into a quasi-invincible ball that lays mines (ala Metroid), the Freeze Laser temporarily freezes most enemies and has a 360 arc of fire, and there is a super attack that fires a wide beam horizontally in both directions. About half of the weaponry gives the impression that it was very loosely designed; that there was not much thought into the purpose and capabilities of the weapons, rather they were added simply to give the player options.

If the designers allowed the main gun to be targeted in 8 directions, allowed the player to switch between using the standard gun and the freeze ray (say with a press of the X or R button), combined with perhaps one of the super weapon/mega bomb attacks, the player would have had very similar capabilities, but with a much cleaner control scheme.

Finally, when I reached the final set of levels, I felt almost betrayed. The design of the enemies and level overall is a copyright infringement rip-off of the Alien trilogy and to a lesser extent the final levels of the Contra games. Seriously, Face Huggers popping out of eggs and latching onto your face; Aliens running around; and Alien heads dripping spit are the platforms of the level. The walls and platforms composed of alien body parts mimics Contra final level design. When playing through a game, I should not be reminded of another game, a better game, a game I would rather be playing.

There are other items that rubbed me wrong as well. These were simply poor design choices that, in no way, break the game, but added to the unremarkable feel.
- On the game start screen, the Select button doesn’t move between ‘Start’ and ‘Option,’ instead, it starts the game
- In some levels, the time limit can be fairly brutal, granting very little time for exploration or mistakes. This would be fine if it was standard, but some levels have strict limits, while others provide excessive leniency
- The bosses are few in number and almost comically easy to boot. I died maybe once on a boss and I think it was because I was trying to eat a PB&J sandwich and fight him at the same time

I will grant this game one concession: the music is outstanding. No howevers, no buts, no extenuating circumstances here. The musical scores are amazing. Each track perfectly fits and reflects the specific environment or level for which it was composed. Well done.

My final conclusion for Super Turrican is, unsurprisingly, that apart from the music, I am entirely unimpressed. If you played this back in the day, you will most likely have a different view, due to your nostalgia goggles. However, when presented with it for the first time, it definitely has not aged well and is average in almost every respect.

Just Beat: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

I finished off Uncharted last night and I must say that this was one really solid game. Everything about it, visuals, voice acting, environments, story, music, everything was top notch.

I’m not going out on a limb by claiming this game as awesome. Nor have I discovered a sleeper hit or overlooked classic. But that won’t stop me from recommending it.

That being said, there were a few things that made me go ‘hmmm.’ And with that, I give you the Things I Learned from Uncharted:

1. The Flood Season in the tropics is brutal. Seriously, the flood was high enough to get a German U-Boat stuck on the top of a waterfall, that's pretty dang epic.

2. Secret Islands need Customs Houses for oceanic trade. I could understand a simple port to receive supplies from the Spanish homeland, but a Customs House implies that their would be foreign trade, imports and exports going to and from the island… the island that is uncharted and kept secret. That makes no sense!

3. Jumping ability is only one dimensional. Despite being able to set Olympic records in the long jump, even with a mere three foot running start, Drake can’t seem to jump higher than about two feet (provided there isn’t anything to really grab onto).

4. Spanish Colonial city planners favor building their cities below sea level. Okay, the game clearly states that Sir Francis Drake upon discovering the treasure had the unfortunate side effect of Zombie, ‘flooded the city.’ This indicates that there was something easy for Drake to destroy (like a dam or levee) to submerge the city. And, because the city is still submerged, this indicates that it simply wasn’t a floodplain, as the water would have subsided by now.

5. The Germans really make great film and small arms. Upon discovering the German Sub Base, Drake discovers the place in shambles. Everything is utterly destroyed; except of course, all those machine guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition that are still in perfect condition, as well as the film projector that is, not only in great shape and still plugged in, but also shows no sign of having been exposed to tropical humidity for nearly 60 years.

6. The jetski is the most potent military vehicle ever invented. Throughout the game Drake occasionally can pick up the powerful grenade launcher to rain almost instant death on his enemies. Unfortunately, it usually comes packing with a whole three rounds, making its usefulness extremely short-lived. But, when Elaina hops onto the back of the jetski with one, *poof* unlimited ammo. I’m surprised the military doesn’t use these more often, with the magical ability to grant limitless ammunition for whatever weapon you may be holding.

7. Spanish Catacombs have torches with eternal flames. Drake periodically discovers new areas throughout the game that apparently have never been seen by human eyes in at least 60-ish years (since the 3rd Reich made a visit). However, after finding the secret passage to some unknown catacomb, there just happen to be torches or burning chandeliers or something lighting the way. Oh, and a lot of times, dudes with machine guns happen to have made to the area that no one could find in time to lay down some suppressing fire on you.

8. Again with the Spanish Architects, this time they spare no expense. Seriously, I’ve seen Spanish colonial buildings in Central America and the Southwest United States. They are fairly small and simple affairs, not the huge and elaborate edifices that the Customs House, Fortress, and especially Monastery are. Holy nuts are those things colossal structures. Maybe the Spanish designer was making up for something?

9. Spanish and Nazi Zombies are intelligent, cooperative, and good with their hands… sometimes. The game is pretty clear that all the weird stakes, voodoo type figures and skulls all over the place are the work of the Spanish-Nazi-Zombie-Things. Additionally, these creatures had the capability to create fairly comprehensive torsion type booby traps in very tactically placed locations. These facts allude to a cooperative and intelligent Zombie community with a common goal. However, when they attack they become entirely mindless, use the brilliant tactic of ‘frontal assault’ and utilize no weaponry whatsoever: none of the prolific small arms lying all over the place, no spears, no clubs, nothing.

10. Waft unknown chemicals. Remember in high school chemistry, when trying to identify a chemical, you were taught to waft it instead of take a big old sniff? That’s right, waft with the hand. Sure enough that’s ammonia. Had you inhaled a huge sniff of that, you might have burned your nose so much that you would never smell again. Well, that lesson seemingly applies to mummies. Don’t look at the grotesque mummy and think, ‘I might as well take a huge sniff of this guy.’ Instead, try a small waft. It may just prevent you from turning into an Archeologist-Spanish-Nazi-Zombie.

Just Beat: Final Fantasy XII

You know those people who like to brag about the marathon they just ran? The same people who are overweight and a doctor would advise against them running any distance over a mile without medical supervision? Yeah, those people, they didn’t run anything. They waddled, walked, and rested their way through 26.2 miles. They don’t have anything really to be proud of, except that they showed up on race day and simply survived 26.2 miles.

That’s how I feel right now, nothing to be proud of, no one cares that I beat the Hell Wyrm and Yiazmat, but it won’t stop me from bragging to all my friends that I waddled, walked, and rested my way through Final Fantasy XII.

I didn’t beat Final Fantasy XII, I endured it.

But, now that the deed is done what are my Final Thoughts?

Popular opinion damns Final Fantasy XII as a departure from the series and if you've listened at all to any of my rants, you might be inclined to believe that I agree. However, I don’t spend over 100 hours playing through the sidequests of a game I hate. I believe that XII is a very solid entry into the franchise and hell, it's way better than X (which I despise). My final verdict is that I would definitely play it again, and for me, that’s saying a lot.

Just Beat: Secret of Evermore

I need to come clean about a very dark period in my life that I don’t like to talk about. I did things I don’t care to admit.

I was a Square Fanboy.

Much like most games I pick up, I discovered Final Fantasy, a bit later than most. Despite being late to the party, I was still completely hooked. My first true Square addiction was Final Fantasy III (yeah, I know that III is VI, but I’m talking North America and SNES, so relax). Granted, I played Mystic Quest and the Final Fantasy Legend years before, but I don’t think I’ll get many arguments when I say those don’t really count.

I loved FFIII, and when I heard Square was moving to the new Sony console with a new installment, I was ecstatic. As soon as I had enough money saved, I bought a PlayStation and FFVII, but I still wasn’t a fanboy. It took two more games to send me down that dark path: Final Fantasy Tactics and Einhander. Both games are consistently at the top of my all time greatest games lists. Both are original, beautiful games. Both made me believe that Square could do no wrong.

For the following few years (well, maybe decade would be a better word choice), I gobbled up all Square had to offer. For the most part I wasn’t let down. Sure, I wasn’t super excited with Final Fantasy VIII and the Bouncer pretty much sucked, but the vast majority of what I got my hands on was pretty solid.

It is hard to say when my love affair with Square started to fade. Of course I still give Square, now Square-Enix, the benefit of the doubt and play most of their franchise games. But, somewhere along the Final Fantasy X, Front Mission 4, and FFVII: Dirge of Cerberus years, my love for all things Square(-Enix) began to fade.

Now, why do I tell this little anecdote? Because Secret of Evermore came before my membership in the Cult of Square. I was playing Final Fantasy III when Evermore hit store shelves, but this was before I had any particular brand loyalty to any specific developer. In those days, loyalty was still heavily influenced by the extensive propaganda of the Nintendo/Sega console wars. Loyalty back then was to the console not a studio or publisher.

Long story short: I never would have picked up Secret of Evermore based on it having been produced by Square. Perhaps, if I had played Secret of Mana, I would have been drawn to it by the extreme similarity in titles. Instead, all I had to go on was box art. And, uh, seriously, it's not that great.


Had I been swayed by the box art and played Secret of Evermore in 1995. I’m positive my young early-teen mind would have loved it. But playing it today, I can plainly see that the box art did not lie, the game is indeed second rate. However, after finishing it, I still think it worthy of some attention, despite its general mediocrity.

This is already getting way to long, Let’s roll with the bad:

Secret of Evermore is not Secret of Mana. To be honest, this game constantly gets compared to Secret of Mana, despite the games having no correlation other than the same menu systems and similar titles. But for someone who has never had the chance to play Mana, Evermore had enough vague similarities to only served to make me want to play Secret of Mana more (and Evermore less).

Wonky Hit Detection. Hitting fast moving or flying enemies was difficult and frustrating when using anything but the Spear. In fact, I never used any of the other weapons except the spears, mainly because they could not be thrown. Even the bazooka saw very limited use with me.

Plot. Everything seemed rushed. It was like the game ran out of time and places to continue the pacing established at the beginning, so they just shoved it all in at the end. Furthermore, the plot was just plain bland. I mean, an evil robot butler? Really?

Difficulty. Once I got the hang of the combat system (and ring menu system, which proved tricky due to my lack of an instruction manual), the game went fairly easily. Then out of nowhere, the Verminator boss in Ebon Keep laid down the law. He was like a massive Santa Claus of the Rat People, reaching into his bag of presents to hit you with spells several times stronger than you had yet faced. On a similar note, the end boss was also substantially harder than the difficulty curve for game. But, that’s cool. I can dig a hard final boss.

Alchemy is useless. Aside from Heal, Cure, and Revive, the only Alchemy that saw any use were the spells required to solve puzzles. Really? Pretty much the central gameplay mechanic useless? Lame.

So, why did I still enjoy the game?

It was genuinely funny. Having been the only Square game to be completely developed entirely within the United States, it didn’t suffer from poorly translated, poorly localized, engrish. Consequently, the humor throughout the game actually had me chuckling out loud. It is pretty rare for a game to make my angry, bitter self chuckle.

Cecil. I love that Cecil was in the game. Made my freaking day. Oh, and the way he is all nonchalantly leaning on the counter, just hanging out. He’s managing his shop with a total ‘I don’t take crap from anyone’ attitude. Yeah, that was awesome. Cecil’s cool. He should have stayed a Dark Knight. Screw that Paladin crap, let a bad guy be the hero for once.

Total package. It might seem like a B movie, but the game celebrates that fact. Despite being mediocre in most respects, it is still fun and quick to play through. I was rarely frustrated or angry and I even laughed now and again. It may not have had impressive graphics, deep story, or complex and innovative gameplay, but it was fun. And I guess that is what video games are all about, relaxing and having fun.

Oh, and one more thing about magic.

What the Hell Square? In almost every other Square game, Cure recovers HP and Heal recovers from status ailments. Why are they reversed here? You didn’t have a problem ripping off so much from your other games, so why deviate from the norm here? You know how many times I wasted ingredients casting the wrong type of spell?

Just Beat: Air Fortress

Despite what the date on my blog intro states, I actually started this little quest of mine about two weeks ago. For some inexplicable reason, I decided to start with a game I knew next to nothing about: Air Fortress for the NES.


The little I did know about this game came from the Top Secret Passwords book that came with a Nintendo Power subscription. I never had a Nintendo Power subscription, I saved up the money for it at one point, but my parents wouldn’t cut me a check. They probably figured that reading about video games was just as mind-rotting as playing them. At some point in middle school my best friend at the time let me borrow his copy of the password book and, uh, I guess I’m still borrowing it (sorry Guza).

In any case, I vividly remember looking through that book and reading about all the games I had never played, or even heard of. Air Fortress was one of those games that just looked silly. The silliness was further compounded by the hero and his ridiculous name: Hal Bailman.

To start things off, why the hell was this game called Air Fortress. There are supposedly eight (well technically sixteen due to the all-to-familiar Nintendo strategy of increasing replay value by adding a second quest rehash of the same levels just with ramped up difficulty) of these megalithic space battle stations that you have to destroy. They are in space, not in the air. All I think of when I hear Air Fortress is either:

A) The B-17 Flying Fortresses that served admirably during the 2nd World War







or

B) Mega Maid from Space Balls stealing the air from Princess Vespa’s home planet.









Poor word choice aside, I started the game to quickly find the control scheme very easy. Air Fortress really didn’t bring a whole lot of innovation to the table. Although, in North America, it was the first instance of a dual gameplay type of game, with a side scrolling shooter portion, followed by a, well, different sort of shooter section, which is reminiscent of Blaster Master (which came out before Air Fortress in Japan, but after in N.A.). In the first shooter section Hal needs to fight his way to the Air Fortress’ entrance on his equally poorly named space scooter, the Light Ship. Once inside the Fortress, Hal is on his own and is subject to a low gravity physics engine, which reminds me a bit of Solar Jetman, just much easier to control.

Oh, and one more thing, Hal and his Light Ship may have ridiculous names, but they look even more insane. Hal is supposed to be the lone commando sent against this epically evil empire, yet he is outfitted in a bright banana-yellow suit with a gigantic helmet. There might as well be a crayon named after him. Next time you break out a coloring book and the standard yellow isn’t quite bright enough, look no further than Hal Bailman Yellow.

When I initially began playing, I thought Air Fortress was going to be a push-over. The first three levels were pie. Fortresses four and five were a bit more difficult, with the mazes increasing in difficulty, but still didn’t put up much of a fight. I then learned the hard truth.

This game is freaking hard.

The sixth Air Fortress ramps the difficulty up exponentially. With a much more difficult maze to work through, limited energy, much more difficult enemies, and cheap design making damage avoidance impossible, level six was the bane of my existence for three to four days. I hadn’t drawn a map for a game in years. I now have pages of maps for all the Fortresses starting with six.

See, the real problem is, that you might make it to the energy core (boss), and they really aren’t hard to destroy, but once beaten, the core activates a destruct sequence and you need to reach the escape point. The path to the escape point is equally labyrinthine and full of difficult enemies. The trick is to map out both the path to the core and the escape route and clear both of enemies, before destroying the core. Even having done this, you can be sure that the game designers provided you with barely enough time to cover the distance between the core and the escape point. I died several times due to the station self destructing when I was mere pixels away from reaching my escape ship. Each time, it made me want to punch a baby.

All this ranting may make it seem like I despise Air Fortress, and I do. But, in actuality it was a challenging game that had me addicted. I never want to play it again, for fear of placing me in a homicidal rage, but I haven’t felt such a sense of accomplishment in beating a game for quite some time.

Hal Bailman: worst choice ever as a new character in the next Smash Bros game.