Cam's Eye View: 3 Year Special Part 4: Dragon Quest 8: Journey of the Cursed King for the PS2 review

Welcome to the next part of the 3-year RPG special. I remember reading a pretty harsh statement from Bioware stating that Japanese-style RPG’s lacked innovation. While that may be true in some areas, I don’t think they should say that when Bioware’s Dragon Age 2 was not as good as the original, with a not-so-well-developed story, bland characters, and still had what critics called an identity crisis of wanting to know what kind of game it wants to be. It also doesn’t help with the whole controversy about that Bioware employee giving the game a perfect 10 out of 10 and calling any other reviewer biased and stupid. Even though RPG’s from Japan still use common gameplay elements like turn-based combat and have fairly simple melodramatic stories, it works out for some series since sometimes we don’t need a fully complex story with underlying political or religious themes. Sometimes, we just need a simple story with enjoyable characters and a sense of adventure and excitement without having to pay close attention to the story’s many underlying themes. This is where the very popular Dragon Quest series comes in. This is probably the most popular series back in Japan and for good reason. The franchise has had very simple, but entertaining plots (it differs from game to game since Dragon Quest 4 and 5 have great stories) and great characters with a combat system that hasn’t changed in about 20 or more years. While I have admittingly stayed far away from this franchise due to extreme levels of difficulty that does turn some people off, if you stay with the games you will learn to love them and be hooked on them for the rest of your life. This is where Dragon Quest 8 comes in for the PS2! A game that I think is far better than Final Fantasy 12 and 13 entirely, Dragon Quest 8 with its simple yet entertaining story, great characters, simple combat, and of course the artwork of Akira Toriyama added for some flare is a great RPG. Any RPG fan that likes old traditional turn-based RPG’s should get this game immediately! It’s one of if not the best RPG on the PS2 and one of my favorite RPGs. Let’s dive into the wonderful world of Dragon Quest 8: Journey of the Cursed King.

The story tells us of a kingdom that was cursed by a jester turned evil wizard named Dhoulmagus. This event doesn’t end well with the results being the king turned into a sort of frog-like man, and his daughter turned into a horse. The king is accompanied by a hefty thief named Yangus, and of course the main character named Hero (I called him Alan). It is their quest to save the king’s land and stop Dhoulmagus in his tracks before he rules the world. Along their journey they will meet two more characters, Jessica a hot vixen with a headstrong attitude, and Angelo a suave yet clever swordsman. The story might not be original, with a pretty simple plot, but if you look at a lot of Japanese styled RPG’s of today, their stories aren’t that original or unique either. Dragon Quest 8 fixes this by having only 4 main characters and the story being well told with some touching scenes, funny scenes, and some pretty dark areas. It all results in a wonderfully told story and one that you will be sticking with for awhile.

The gameplay is very simplistic in design, but like I said in so many other reviews about RPG’s, there are some tweaks done that makes this franchise so charming. Battles take place in a first person perspective, kind of like if you were playing a turn-based version of the Elder Scroll games. You take turns smacking around monsters and leveling up. Surprisingly, all of the characters can excel in specific weapons, like the Hero, who has no name of course, is actually really good with boomerangs since they can hit all enemies on the screen, Yangus can do heavy damage with an Axe, Jessica can use a whip, and Angelo is great with a sword or bow and arrow. This gives the game a lot of variety since having a hero who can hit all the enemies on the screen with one normal attack is a great thing to have since the battles can sometimes have up to EIGHT enemies on screen. Heck, I even ran into a battle with TEN enemies. Battles can be tough depending on what monsters you are fighting in that exact battle. Sometimes, they can be pushovers and sometimes they can be even harder than the boss! I kid you not, I got killed at least twice by normal enemies that happened to be in big groups, and then I blazed through the boss like melted butter. Each time you level up each character, they get skill points that you can use on different attributes that can help you. For example, Jessica has an attribute called Sex Appeal. If you focus on that specific attribute, monsters in battle will be swayed by her and not attack your party. Or if you level up Yangus’s humanity, he can have an attack later where he has a bunch of old people run over the monsters. There is a deep strategy here since the encounter rate is high, which require you to be a few levels stronger than you already are to defeat the bosses that will hit you hard if you don’t level up enough. You can also increase your attack power by doing a sort of buffing move called psyche up where your tension rises and you do more damage. About half way through the game or so, you can fight visible monsters in the overworld and recruit them to make a sort of backup army, and if you group certain monsters together, they can do special attacks and moves, kind of like in Dragon Quest 5. As you travel across the world from a third person perspective, you can find items to mix together in an alchemy pot to make new, rare, or normal items for your party, but you will have to wait awhile for the alchemy pot to finish the first item before moving onto the next. This is a smart idea since you don’t get a lot of money in the game, and items cost a lot. Sometimes, it’s better to find ingredients for one weapon instead of buying the current weapon you see at a store.

The graphics are beautiful for the PS2. Level 5, the developers of the White Knight franchise, the Professor Layton series, Dark Cloud series, Rogue Galaxy, and Jeanne D’Arc knew how to make the next game in the Dragon Quest series. They tuned this series tightly so it isn’t as drawn out as Dragon Quest 6 or 7. The characters are memorable, and they are complex and 3 dimensional, and I say that even when Jessica wears a somewhat sultry outfit and an even sultrier outfit if you find the playboy bunny outfit and the Hero doesn’t talk. They both have so much character in them that you cannot find in games like Final Fantasy 13. The character and monster designs by famed manga artist Akira Toriyama look great in this cel-shaded 3D environment. One of the best things about the design of the monsters is the personality they give off that only Akira Toriyama’s designs can do. Even their personalities affect how they attack in battles, like the Jailcat and its many color-pallet-swapped cousins will sometimes just lick themselves, and there are enemies that will just stare off into space. Even if some of the names of the monsters are terrible puns, there is just a charm to them that just brings you more into the game. The voice acting is terrific! Yeah, you can say it sounds bad because of the hammy accents, but that is part of the charm. It is like if you were watching the love child of a Monty Python and Princess Bride film. I mean, sometimes in RPG’s, the voice actors aren’t given good direction and they sound silly pulling you out of the game in result. You hear the voice acting in this game, and you just get pulled even more into its unique world. For a while, I wanted to know who the voice actors were for this game, and after some research here is what I found. Ricky Grover voices Yangus, Emma Ferguson voices Jessica, Blake Riston voices Angelo, Jon Glover voices Trode, and there are some other great voices, just look up this game on IMDB. The music is heavenly, and I get the feeling of great adventure awaiting me when I pick up my controller and turn on the PS2. The composer for this series is Koichi Sugiyama. He is famous for making that great and awe inspiring theme song that again gives you the feeling of an awe inspiring adventure awaiting you. He is also famous for working on the entire Dragon Quest series, along with film and T.V like Cyborg 009, Gatchaman, and even Godzilla vs. Biollante. His music is great and is definitely I-pod worthy, so go find the soundtrack for this game right now!

Oh my goodness, this is such a perfect game! I mean, I might be fan boyish right now with this game, but there are some minor faults. The encounter rate can be high and a tad annoying at times when you are trying to get to place to place and are stopped by constant random encounters, but that’s really only if you’re traveling by night when certain enemies come out and the encounter rate is higher. For some reason, they decided to keep the gimmick of reviving your dead friends ONLY at the church. Granted, you can get out of areas faster by using specific spells to get to the church, but it’s just the fact that you can’t revive them on the spot, which is tedious, since fights get tougher and tougher. Before I move onto the conclusion, here are some tips for people who want to play this game. Have the Hero focus on boomerangs and lances, grind until you’re about level 6 before you fight the first boss, and don’t just flail away at the boss. Look at the situation, and when you get Angelo, make sure you use him as the main healer along with the Hero, and make sure you’re about 4 levels above your past level before you go onto each boss fight. It will make boss fights much easier.

Well then, what can I say that I haven’t said already about this game? I…LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE this game! This IS one of my favorite games of all time. It’s basically everything you want in an RPG, it’s almost perfect. Heck, it IS perfect. I declare Dragon Quest 8 to be the best RPG on the PS2. You can get this game for about 10 bucks and more. If you can find it, BUY IT! You will not regret it. You could say that Dragon Quest 8 is being stubborn with how traditional it’s staying, but really? Is that a bad thing? It’s like people complaining about how Super Mario Galaxy 2 is just more Super Mario galaxy? Again, is that REALLY a bad thing?!  Sometimes, it’s better if we don’t invest our time into some new-fangled game gimmick that in the end is unpleasant, like Fable 3 and Mindjack. You will probably see me review Dragon Quest 4, 5, and 9, so make sure to look for those in my 2012 reviews. Dragon Quest 8 is hands down one of my top 20 favorite RPG’s of all time and is one of my top 25 favorite games of all time. Now, go out and have yourself an amazing adventure through the land of Dragon Quest 8!

This game gets a 10 out of 10

Cam's Eye View: 197th RPG Review Special Part 3: Final Fantasy Mystic Quest for the SNES Review

Final Fantasy 4, Final Fantasy 6, Secret of Mana, and Super Mario RPG. What do all of these games have in common? They are classic RPG’s on the Super Nintendo. I know Final Fantasy 4 was named “2” here in the states and Final Fantasy 6 was named “3” in the states during the 90’s, but that doesn’t matter right now. The Super Nintendo had a lot of great RPG’s and many of them are still played today. However, there are other great RPG’s on the system like Lufia 2 and Breath of Fire 2. With every game system however, there is that black sheep out of the bunch of classics that it is either loved or hated by fans of that system. I absolutely love this game that I am reviewing and it’s Final Fantasy Mystic Quest for the Super Nintendo. Every one knows about this game due to the minor popularity of RPG’s back in the day, and this game was made to help American gamers get into RPG’s. The results, though, were that Mystic Quest was a failure and was not very popular. Though by today’s standards with RPG’s that require hours on end and a huge amount of multi-tasking, there is a certain charm to this wonderful and simple RPG from the 90’s. I guess I should jump on the bandwagon as well, and admit that I love this RPG. Let’s start the review of the cult classic and guilty pleasure-inducing Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.

 The story stars a young warrior who’s default name is Benjamin. He is climbing the Mountain of Destiny when an earthquake destroys his entire village. Benjamin then meets an old man on top of the mountain who tells Benjamin that he must fulfill the Knight’s Prophecy and save the world by reclaiming special crystals. The story and character development is terrible and is so paper thin, you feel like you’re watching the Super Mario Brothers Super Show. However, this is definitely one of the unusual high points of the game. How many times have you played a current RPG and found your self utterly confused by the story’s plot and not feeling attached to the game’s main characters? Granted, you are not attached to them here either, but it’s much better than a lot of RPGs like Metal Saga. (By the way, don’t play Metal Saga.)

The gameplay is very simplistic for an RPG. You only have one ally, you never fight more than 3 enemies at a time, and that is just a few of the things that make this game loved or hated by fans of the franchise. The battles are turn-based, where you can do everything manually, or set it to automatic where the computer does everything. You find multiple weapons, like claws, shurikens, grappling claws, bombs, axes, and swords that can all be upgraded. Magi- wise, you get all the simple spells like fire and heal. The way that makes this game even more simplified is that the game is linear. There are no side quests at all. Grinding is also stripped down, with enemies being visible and none of them moving on the screen, and battle tokens on the map screen where you can fight through 10 battles each token. When you are in the levels themselves, it plays out much like a Zelda game, in a way, since you use said tools to solve puzzles that range from crossing gaps, climbing walls, or blowing stuff up. When you are fighting monsters, the battle system is a simplified turn-based system. Bars represent your health, but you can change it to numbers and your enemies don’t have health bars. If you want to know how well you are beating an enemy, their sprites change after a certain amount of damage. This takes out pretty much any strategy, and means you can just wail away while healing when needed.

The graphics might not look as good by today’s standards, but I think they look fine. They are not ugly looking, they don’t look out of place, and things look like what they are supposed to. There is a lot of variety in level design, where in other games like Resonance of Fate, everything just looks drab, repetitious, boring, and or uninspired. I guess the thing I am trying to say is that you will not be in the same area in two levels. The music is amazing. It’s catchy, memorable, and fun to listen to. The two composers for this game were Ryuji Sasai, who did the music for Bushido Blade 2 and Yasuhiro Kawakami who worked on Chocobo’s Dungeon 2 and Tobal No. 1. The story might be light, but there is some good humor that is in that “so bad, it’s good” category. The game isn’t that long either, with about 10 or so hours to complete fully.

However, there is reason to hate this game if you are an RPG-style gamer. The game is way too simple for its own good. Yes, they are design choices to get Americans to get into RPG’s, but there is a limit to how to properly introduce American gamers to RPG’s, and then there is the area where you feel insulted by how easy it is. While this doesn’t bother me as much, I can see why people do not like this game. The story is thin as rice paper. The story should be the most important part of an RPG due to you having to play through 50 or so hours. In Mystic Quest’s situation however, everyone comes off as bland and not interesting whatsoever. Then again, how much have you cared about an RPG character in recent RPG’s? How many times have you played modern RPG’s like Blue Dragon and just did not care who died or who survived? It is kind of hard to complain about this game since these were all design choices, so it’s hard to say that it’s a terrible game due to how simple everything is

All and all though, this is a great game to get young gamers into RPG’s with. I know some people argue that Super Mario RPG is the game to do that, but I think that’s the next step up after Mystic Quest. From what I have seen, Mystic Quest isn’t hard to find, but you can easily get it on the Wii’s Virtual Console. It’s a fun RPG for those who don’t want to play the next massive 50 hour RPG like Xenogears or Paper Mario. It sets out what it wants to do and while it isn’t fully successful, its cult status is there for a reason. This has been Cam’s Eye View and this ends part three of the six-part RPG special. Stay tuned for three more RPG’s.

This game gets an 8 out of 10

Cam's Eye View: 196th RPG review Special Part 2: Xenogears for the PS1 review

Hello,  and welcome back to another part of the multi-part RPG review, counting down to the 200^th review! I decided to take a look at a great and somewhat untouched RPG from the vault of Square’s gaming library. It’s weird that they haven’t touched this game to make loads of money on. I mean, they do know they don’t HAVE to do Final Fantasy. I know they have bought a lot of companies and their products like I.O Interactive and their Hitman and poorly done Kane and Lynch franchise. They also bought out Crystal Dynamics, who made the Legacy of Kain and Tomb Raider series, but that is for another time. We are here to talk about RPG’s. Today, we are going to talk about a game that is amazingly good, and for some reason, no sequels have been made for it. There is a so-called prequel trilogy that is supposed to be connected to the series, but the producer denied any connections to it. This game I am talking is the beloved Xenogears. Like I said a couple times, it’s weird that they don’t touch this game. I mean, it sold over a million copies by 2003. That should declare a sequel. Anyway, just like Threads of Fate, this game is great, and I would highly recommend it if you’re a rabid RPG gamer and love the old Squaresoft titles.

The story starts off with our main hero, Fei Wong Fong. Enter your Gundam Wing, “Hey, he looks like Chang Wufei!” comment here, and move on. He lives a peaceful life in a small village named Lahan with his close friends. However, after meeting up with another main character, a doctor named Citan, Lahan is under attack by giant Gundam-like robots. Fei is forced to take control of one of the robots known as Weltall. While fighting the enemies in this new robot, he goes berserk, and without him knowing it, kills his closest friends and destroys part of the village. After finding out this dark fact, Fei leaves the village to get revenge on the other kingdoms that are having a war over the land of Ignas. The story has some good moments, some dark moments, and some hidden religious themes of reincarnation of destiny, but there are a lot of side stories that kind of make the entire story confusing as a whole. The characters are well fleshed out to an extent, and it’s enjoyable. It is better than Final Fantasy 13’s story.

The gameplay is very unique in Xenogears. It uses the usual active-time battle system that the Final Fantasy franchise used to use, but it has some very interesting touches to the formula. Instead of just choosing an attack and waiting for the turns to be over, you get to control what attacks your character does. All of the main characters can perform combo attacks by pressing a certain pattern of buttons, like “square, square, triangle”. Throughout the game, the character can perform super moves ala Street Fighter if you press certain buttons in order. Characters can also learn magic-like moves, like the usual fire, earth, water, and wind attacks, but updated for the post-apocalyptic world of Xenogears. The other main gimmick is the Gears, your giant Gundam robots for the game. During most parts of the game, mostly boss fights, you get to control your own giant robots. You usually get your small, medium, and strong attack, and can only perform combo moves when you get attack points. This can happen when you perform a simple and successful hit on an enemy. Your Gears also have special powers, but they usually are what magic style attacks your characters have. You can’t always use your gears due to the fuel system that is used each time you use an attack. During the exploration of the dungeons or levels, whichever you like to call them, there are minor platforming sections and some puzzle solving, but it isn’t as in-depth as the combo system.

The graphics have that isometric look that a lot of late PS1 games had, like Final Fantasy Tactics, Wild Arms 2, Grandia, and Journey to the West shared. Battles take place in 3D, but your characters still stay that pixilated sprite look, and the animations are nice. The music is amazing with the composer being Yasunori Mitsuda who is famous for the music for Chrono Trigger and its sequel, Chrono Cross. He has also worked on games like Tobal No.1, Mario Party 2, Front Mission Gun Hazard, Graffiti Kingdom, Xenoblade, and Radical Dreamers. He is a very super talented guy with some great tunes put into Xenogears that sound in the right place due to the whole post-apocalyptic world setting. I mean, the world itself isn’t like damaged or destroyed, it’s more like an earth with grassy fields, mountains, and stone buildings that hasn’t been taken over by technology. The voice acting is nice, but there isn’t much of it. Grandia and Lunar: Silver Star Story had much more voice acting.

However, this wonderful RPG does have some glaring flaws. The first thing I noticed during the platforming sections is that the controls are awkward since you have to use the D pad to control your character. Why didn’t Sony do analog stick controllers at the beginning?! It makes platforming just frustrating and not that fun since you have to be very accurate with your jump or else you will miss it. This game came out in 1998 and it should have used the analog stick technology! I also find it hard to progress sometimes through the game due to very vague ideas on what I’m supposed to do next. I mean, it’s easier to know what to do sometimes, but it took me awhile to know what the heck I was supposed to do during some of the parts in the game. This game does use anime-style cut scenes, but you don’t see a lot of them, nor do you hear a lot of voice acting. These elements are rare and far between, and it’s annoying! If you are going to use them, USE THEM MORE OFTEN! I also wish there were more healing abilities for your Gears, since potion-like items won’t work on them.

Xenogears was a big surprise for me when I first played it. Yeah, the story might be a little Gundam-esque with some plot holes here and there, and it might be tedious at times, but it is one of my favorite RPGs. It has a unique combat system, and you get to pilot giant robots! You could go out and find a hard copy of the game, which is about 30 bucks, maybe more, but you can easily get it for 10 dollars from the PSN store. Again, 10 dollars for an RPG that takes about 40 hours to complete, if that doesn’t sound like a great deal, then I don’t know what is. Thank you for reading this, and we are now down to 4 RPGs left!

This game gets an 8 out of 10

Gaming with Killatia Final Fantasy 13

Today on Gaming with Killatia he takes a look at the much debate Final Fantasy 13, a rpg that had potential only to be hold back by game play choices by the developers at Square Enix

Also my good friend Cam's Eye had posted his own revire of FF13 before I could upload my own review. If you want to see what he thought of it just click here and check it out.

 

Cam's Eye View: 195th RPG review Special Part 1: Final Fantasy 13 for the PS3 and 360 review

Welcome everyone to a very special multi-part event. Since we are now heading toward number 200 in my written reviews, this will be a multi-part review of role-playing games. This is a genre that I hold dear to me. I have played the best, like Final Fantasy 9, and the garbage, like Quest 64. Good lord, I hated Quest 64. For this special event, I am choosing multiple different rpgs from Enix to Game Arts who I think make the best rpgs. For the first in this multi-part review, I decided to kick things off with a bang, and review an RPG that I promised myself I would never EVER review. Let’s start part one with Final Fantasy 13. It’s weird since I just hated the look and idea of the new Final Fantasy. I thought it went way too far from the source material, and it deserved a lot of the bad and negative reaction it got from the fans. It is definitely one of the worst in the franchise, but is it really that bad of a game? I played it and maybe some of my opinions of this game might have changed, but who knows. Let’s begin on this unusual adventure, shall we?

The story in this game takes place in a mystical floating world known as Cocoon. The government in Cocoon, named Sanctum, is doing a purge of all the civilians who have come in contact with the world below, known as Pulse. A former soldier of the government named Lightning is the main protagonist, and she plans to take down the government and save her sister who was captured. She joins up with 6 other characters and ends up on Pulse itself. They are tasked with an unknown assignment that is unclear to everyone. There are some interesting parts of the story, but it feels flat. It isn’t my favorite of the franchise since I think 6 and 9 have the best story in the entire Final Fantasy series, but like I said, there are some interesting points that come up from time to time. Overall, it feels like a clichéd Japanese RPG. I’m sorry I started my criticism here, but this game really bugs me. From now on, I will make sure to keep the criticism for near the end of the review.

The gameplay is a surprisingly linear active-time RPG with some turned-based elements and other elements from games like Final Fantasy 10 mixed into it. The party again only holds 3 characters at a time. I am sorry, but what is with the 3-person-only party? I mean Suikoden 5 can have up to 6 or more people during the RPG parts of the game. It just amazes me that this company has some weird fixation on the number 3, with a lot of the later games in the series only having 3 people in the party. Anyway, the gameplay kind of reminds me of Grandia, since there is a loading bar-style battle gauge, that when fully charged, you can pull off your moves. You only get to control one character and that is the leader of the group. The main gimmick in the active time battle is where you can pull off different formations called Paradigm Shifts. This is where the different characters change what class they are. There are offensive fighters, offensive magic users, healers, sabotage artists, defense masters, status helpers, and you get the idea. Each shift is useful and will be the deciding point on certain battles, which at times can get very tedious if you are not informed about what the weakness of the boss is. Each character also has a guardian they can summon to fight alongside battle, or combine with them, and for some reason, the guardians then become something that reminds me of Transformers. You don’t really level up as much as you do in Final Fantasy 10. The leveling up system from Final Fantasy 10 is basically used here to a better extent, and isn’t convoluted. Each time you win a battle, you get experience that is used to upgrade a sphere-like system for each class that your character can be. Each class will be upgraded during different times in the story.

The graphics are almost way too good for its own livelihood. I mean, yeah, the hair looks cheap at times, and sometimes you can find flat textures, but I haven’t seen such a good-looking game since God of War 3, Little Big Planet 2, Uncharted 2, and Flower.  The time between games definitely gives Square time to make their main game franchise look good. The music, while not as good as Final Fantasy 6 and 9, is still pretty good and has really catchy battle music. The music was composed by Masashi Hamauzu. He is mostly famous for games like Unlimited Saga, SaGa Frontier 2, and Sigma Harmonics. The voice acting also is good, but it feels more like a game from the Tales series, which isn’t bad, but it makes me feel like they could have done better. I mean, it’s not that the cast is bad. They have big stars like Ali Hillis, who was Dr. Liara T’Soni from the Mass Effect series. We also have people like Troy Baker, who was Jetfire and Zeta Prime from the recent Transformers: War for Cybertron and Reno Wilson who was the Black Baron from Madworld. They all do a good job, but the script kind of falters at times.

Now, this is the part I have been waiting for, the bad parts! When I first played this game I didn’t think it was that bad, but after playing it for a few days, it just showed more and more problems. First off, when I was playing through the game, I didn’t mind the linear style since it didn’t mean no free roaming monster hunting quests, like in the last game. However, it just got WAY too linear since there are no towns to visit and no people to interact with. It’s just one long corridor with no stops. There might be a few puzzles here and there, but it just got way too tedious, since you were just going in a straight line the whole time. I also hate the weapon customization feature, since when you get a new weapon, you can’t just de-equip everything. If you do unequip everything from that weapon, you only get a few things back. The parts didn’t seem to do much either. It just made me wish I could just use a stronger weapon like in Final Fantasy 9. While I like the fast-paced turn-based elements, I felt like there wasn’t too much depth to it since I kept just doing the auto battle and battle stance change. It’s like I wasn’t even playing at all. The characters are just bad and annoying. I couldn’t care less for half of the cast. I mean later in the story some characters become tolerable, but it still doesn’t change that this game feels like a clichéd JRPG. That is basically the biggest complaint I have about this game. It doesn’t feel like a Final Fantasy game. There is not one thing of fantasy left. It’s more like science fiction fantasy. If I wanted to play a game called science fiction fantasy, I would play Xenogears, which is so much better than this game. When I play Final Fantasy, I want to see some small steam punk themes here and there, but no spaceships and robot dragons. Like I said, I want to play Final FANTASY! Not Final Science Fiction Fantasy. Why are they going this way? Do kids not like swords and magic anymore?! I mean Demons Soul sold really well, and it’s dark fantasy. KIDS CAN ENJOY FANTASY SQUARE ENIX. Stop investing in games like Kane and Lynch 2, and invest on some fantasy artists, and bring back the original team for the Final Fantasy games. Heck, I would love to see a remastered version of Final Fantasy 9. At least you have a different team working on Final Fantasy Versus 13, and at least that game plays similar to Kingdom Hearts from the looks of it.

Overall, Final Fantasy 13 might be liked by few, but I HATE this game. It isn’t Final Fantasy at all! It is one of the worst games in the franchise. I feel sorry for people who played this. I feel sorry that people think this is what Final Fantasy needs to be. I cannot recommend this game for people who haven’t played this game yet. If you want to play a truly great Final Fantasy game, then download Final Fantasy 9 or just look for the Final Fantasy Chronicles or Anthology on the Playstation 1. Or just invest in that cool Final Fantasy 4 collection that’s out for the PSP and I think PSN. Square has lost a lot of my respect since Final Fantasy 11 and ongoing. Let’s hope they don’t mess up Deus Ex: Human Evolution. Now, let’s move onto an even better RPG in the next part of this special.

This game gets a  6 out of 10