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Feb 24th, 2007 at 05:19:14 - Final Fantasy XII (PS2) |
My second session of gameplay had a bit more action in it; I continued onward as Vaan, a street-urchin boy with surprisingly well-kept hair for all that he's a ragamuffin. Most of the action was pretty basic, running around town to various places for small side-quests and suchlike. I got a bit frustrated with the running-about-town business, mostly because I'm terrible at reading maps and had to consult the large one every two seconds and crane my neck every which way in order to divine whether or not I was heading in the correct direction. This is a personal fault, though, and I will not take issue with the game for my own shortcomings.
In any case, I figured out the basic running-around idea well enough and found myself at the Sandsea, where I needed to talk to a fellow named Tomaj in order to be sent on a little side-quest to kill, of all things, a "Rogue Tomato." It's nice to know the developers have a sense of humor. When Tomaj went tutorial-mode on me and delved into the idea of licenses, I'll admit that I was rather confused by the whole idea and decided not to give it much thought until it became absolutely necessary; while I do find involved bits of character advancement via experience points and suchlike interesting, I do not always find them easy to grasp, and this was getting a little more complex than I was really prepared for. In all likelihood it's a lot simpler than it seemed to me at the time, but nonetheless the whole shpiel was a bit off-putting.
I decided to put all that confusion aside and run down my Tomato, and did so without too many problems. After fighting some wolves and running around the Estersand a bit, I found him and dispatched him easily enough; I'll grant that he's a much easier first boss than, say, Gohma from Ocarina of Time. I have to go off-track for a moment to say that I love the inclusion of dinosaurs in this game to bits--after kicking the Tomato's weird little butt, I wanted immediately to hare off and pick a fight with the T-Rex nearby, but my friend assured me that this would be a colossally bad idea, so I restrained myself. Dinosaurs earn this game an automatic +1 in everything because I'm biased like that.
I ended with a visit to Lowtown to see Dalan about a dog--I mean, about a side-quest. I had a little more trouble with the map and navigating myself around the streets of Lowtown, but again, I think that's more a fault of my own than any problem of the game. I was running low on time in which to play, though, and my friend told me that the Giza Plains side-quest was rather long and involved, so I figured that I'd pick it up again later when I had more time.
All in all, I was less impressed with the game as a whole (other than the damn fine graphics) than with a good handful of other games that I've played, but I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt and say that it's probably quite a good game if one takes the time to log the necessary hours and really become involved in the gameplay and storyline. An hour-and-a-half session just doesn't cut it in a game that takes straight days to complete, and I get the feeling that I've only just scratched the surface of what's to come.
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Feb 24th, 2007 at 04:58:24 - Final Fantasy XII (PS2) |
At a loss for the next classic game that I should play, I turned to a friend who happens to be more well-versed in the general world of games than I, and since it was on hand she offered to let me play her copy of Final Fantasy XII. I'll admit that I approached the game with some reservation, never having played a game from the Final Fantasy series before and a little uncertain of what I might be getting myself into. I found, though, that although much of my sessions of gameplay ended up being basic tutorial mode and learning how to work the controls (after all, I got an hour and a half into a game on which my friend has logged a cool 86 hours so far), it was surprisingly easy to pick up and figure out without previous experience with any other FF game (or many PlayStation games, for that matter).
First off, the graphics are flat-out spectacular. The cutscenes have a beautiful cinematic quality to them, and the landscape and architecture are exquisite--I did find the characters' faces and expressions to be toeing the uncanny valley line slightly, but all in all everything is just beautiful. (As a side-note, the buildings in particular [as well as some of the world's inhabitants, especially the Bangaa] remind me distinctly of the Star Wars prequel movies, although this may simply be because I'm a bit more well-versed with the Star Wars universe than with that of FF.) I still love the rather goofy, blocky graphics of the older games of my N64 and Dreamcast, but I've got to give it to Square Enix; FFXII blows my mind, graphics-wise. Hoo doggy.
I did find the unfolding of the story via the opening cinematics and various cutscenes to be a bit long, but it does appear to be quite a complex story that deserves proper attention; I guess I'm just more used to playing games that either require little cursory explanation or tell the story more through the gameplay than through elaborate cutscenes. Of course, I'll admit that since I've only played the bare beginning the game probably gets more involved after the beginning fleshing-out of the various events leading up to one's gameplay, but this seems like the sort of thing that a player of previous FF games would be more willing to sit through than someone new to the series.
Most of what actual gameplay I got to participate in for the first chunk of gameplay was in basic tutorial mode, learning how the world works and how to run and fight and use potions--the solid platform upon which the rest of the gameplay will be set. Most of this was pretty easy to grasp, although I found the battle system (which seemed to be an odd mix of realtime and turn-based fighting) a little offputting when compared to previous recent gameplay experiences (as with Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which is completely realtime, or with PokeMon Blue, which is completely turn-based). I have a friend who refuses to play any of the FF games simply because of the general turn-based lean of the battle system, and I'll admit that while turn-based fighting works well with games like PokeMon, it was a bit frustrating to be forced to stand there and take damage from opponents while not being able to fight or defend myself from harm. (I also still find the PS2 controllers with their dual joysticks a bit bewildering; give me an N64 controller with one joystick and a good ol' Z-trigger any day. That's just personal bias talking, though.)
I wasn't too taken with the story itself at the beginning; unlike OoT or other games I have played, I wasn't immediately interested in the goings-on of the world and the plethora of characters didn't really evoke a great deal of emotion on my part. When somebody got hurt or killed in the cutscenes (or, in the case of Lady Ashe, committed suicide), I didn't really feel involved in their demise or sad that they were gone. This may change as I play the game a bit more, but for a first experience I simply didn't find it as engaging as other games.
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Feb 10th, 2007 at 02:36:02 - Black & White (PC) |
One thing that stood out to me on this session of playing Black & White was the fighting--when the player's Creature encounters the much larger Creature roaming the hills, former Creature to the god Nemesis, the player has to learn how to battle with the Creature. I found the controls for this aspect of the game a little frustrating, because I would do as instructed and the game wouldn't respond as I wanted it to. The battle lasted longer than it should have due to these problems, and I got rather irritated. Other than this little frustration, though, I found the game largely enjoyable once again. There's a lot of work to be done with the village and the player must be careful to balance their attention between the villagers' demands and the need to properly watch over and train the Creature. This challenge makes the gameplay very involved and interesting, and gets me more into it than I otherwise would be. I couldn't believe how proud I was of my Creature when it learned how to cast Food miracles on its own and would fill the granary of its own accord, without the slightest push from me. I know I mentioned it before, but the AI really is quite neat. It makes for a unique gameplay experience for each player and keeps things fresh for a multiple-time player.
Oh, another qualm as a player; I had some trouble getting my Creature to learn certain things, like how to use certain miracles. I'm not sure if that was because the Creature simply wasn't meant to be able to learn them at that point or what, but from a design perspective leaving these things uncertain is sort of wearing on the player. It's not that the player needs EVERYTHING spelled out for them (and certainly plenty enough IS spelled out with the signs scattered about the island), but there are certain things that one likes to know, and my impression from the signs was that my creature should have been able to learn those miracles and simply wasn't--despite the fact that I'd done as instructed and by all rights it should have learned. In any case, it was slightly confusing but not detracting enough from the gameplay to turn me off from playing.
I'll admit right now that relative to everything I didn't get very far in the game at all--I didn't even get to the second island through Nemesis' vortex. I acquired this game secondhand without the booklet, so I really didn't know what to expect in terms of game length; it was only when I looked it up on Wikipedia that I realized that it was far longer than I would've guessed. The player gets really involved in raising the Creature and taking care of the village, and I had figured that that was the be-all end-all to the game. The idea that it's much longer than what I'd seen is quite a treat to think about, and I'm looking forward to playing through the entire thing when I have the time, no matter how long it may take.
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Feb 10th, 2007 at 02:14:04 - Black & White (PC) |
I've played Black & White a few times before--or, rather, I suppose I should say I've STARTED playing Black & White a few times before. I never got very far into the game during my previous attempts to play it; this does not, however, reflect poorly upon the game, but rather upon my attention span. Black & White is a very diverting game, and if I weren't so lazy I would definitely play it more often than I tend to. In any case, I have a tendency to rediscover the disc in my room every few months, remember how much fun I had with the first hour or so of play the last time, and then start over so I don't have to catch up on what I'd been doing when I left off.
Anyway, as somebody who's played the beginning of the game a few times over, I can safely say that the first half hour does get old after awhile. Admittedly, this game is probably one that you'd probably only play once or twice and then be done, but from a player's perspective it would be nice if the "tutorial" style angel and devil (representing your good and evil sides as a god) could be turned off and on as required. I'll probably need them again later when I'm out of the area that I've played over a few times, and it's true that for a first-time player the banter between Good and Evil helps one understand the controls, but being able to skip through the dialogue if one knows what one is supposed to do is a good thing sometimes.
The game was made in 2001, and although looking at it now the graphics are a little clunky (especially the designs of the villagers the player is lording over--they have club hands!), it's still a pretty nice-looking game on the whole. (The tiger Creature is a little terrifying-looking, but that might just be my personal opinion.) The whole island is quite interesting to explore, visually, and every object is immediately identifiable for what it's supposed to be--so it's not the best (although I admittedly can't off the top of my head think of any other 2001 PC games that I can compare the graphics to), but I still like how it looks.
I went through the whole rigamarole of getting to my Creature (nothing too hard, so it was mostly going through the motions), and this time I chose the Cow for my Creature; I've had trouble in the past with the Tiger eating people from the village and reflecting badly upon me as a god, so I figured that the Cow would be less trouble. I really like that the player gets to choose; it makes the scene more interesting as one has to weigh the relative positive and negative aspects of the potential Creatures. Generally, I've found that players who choose to be evil gods choose the Tiger and players who choose to be good gods choose the Cow (the Ape tends to be ignored because it's aesthetically less pleasing and makes annoying noises), but I think the possibilities of a benevolent Tiger or a violent Cow are really intriguing. I'm also quite impressed with the AI of the Creatures, which I read was developed by Richard Evans. The Creatures tend to be willful and selfish in the beginning, and it's a lot of work to hone them into the player's obedient tool that will do what he or she desires without being told directly. This challenge does get frustrating from time to time, when one's Creature eats a villager instead of saving them from the water, but in the end it comes out to be quite rewarding.
I played through the Creature-training parts and discovered that the leash is very useful for tracking one's Creature when it wanders off across the hillside; some of the controls are a little hard with a trackpad (especially the little Silver Scroll challenge of throwing a rock to knock over another rock, which frustrated me no end), but by and large many of the controls work well enough with the keyboard keys as well, so it's not a huge problem.
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Eegriega has been with GameLog for 17 years, 10 months, and 10 days |
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