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Feb 9th, 2008 at 23:14:57 - Final Fantasy (PSP) |
Gameplay
During the later parts of the game I came across another town. On the outside it appeared to be just another large village, but once I entered it, I discovered it was actually a port town. I beat some pirates up and get their ship in return for not killing the captain. "Yeah!," I thought to myself only to discover that at this point in the story, the boat can only take me to a limited number of places. Most of which are either places I've visited or areas that give me no reason to make port. Oh well, it saves me the trouble of walking back through all those forests.
Unfortunately, the game isn’t very direct in telling you what needs to be done in order to follow the storyline correctly. For example, after you get said ship, you’re apparently supposed to sail south to an elven kingdom with a cursed prince. After listening to some random gossip it is safe to assume that you must travel west in search of ruins. Sadly, they neglect to mention a fork in the road. If someone wanted to follow through "correctly" they would take the north fork to some ruins and talk to a nobleman about lifting the curse, then go to the south fork to get some other ruins to get a mystical artifact of some sort. Not knowing of this, I went in the opposite way, and as a result skipped the previous scenes and obtained the artifact. Whichever way is chosen, the nobleman turns out to be the cause of the curse and causes a boss battle. This would not have bothered me except for the simple fact that should you skip the first part, he reacts as though you spoke to him prior to that moment thus causing a simple plot development to become confusing and more complicated than it has to be.
Design
You start off the game as the main characters who happen to be the Warriors of Light. As a neat little feature, you are given the opportunity to choose each of their names and classes. It seems the game was based off of the concept of allowing the player to choose his or her character to determine how the story unfolds rather than having the story follow that of a set group of predetermined characters who already have their own names and back-stories. Also the lack of a back-story gives the player more flexibility and creativity in how they play through the game. An example would be that the player can create a character and create a back-story for said character (though the game would not recognize this back-story, it gives the player a sense of control in the flow of the game as opposed to "reenacting" a pre-made character's adventures).
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Feb 9th, 2008 at 23:13:20 - Final Fantasy (PSP) |
Summary
Final Fantasy is a fantasy-style RPG where you join the legendary Warriors of Light in their quest to restore balance to a world threatened by darkness.
Gameplay
I found the first part of the game relatively easy and managed to finish it in about a half an hour (most of the time was spent leveling in preparation for the boss fight). While the monsters encountered were relatively weak, the difficulty varied depending on which area I was in. For example, I could be standing in a section of the world map that looks like a plain and fight the extremely weak goblins only to take a single step north and fight a ‘crazy horse’ or other more aggressive and threatening creature. Though the weakest of the game’s creatures, I found myself having to stay close to the city when at levels one and two, visiting an inn every once in a while to restore health. After level 5, all of these monsters didn’t seem very challenging.
An interesting feature in this game is the ability to use magic. The way this was set up, the player must both purchase the desired magic and designate a character that can use the magic. Secondly, all of the purchasable magics of the game fall into a category of magic ranging from lv. 1 to lv. 8. As the character levels, they become able to use higher level magic and therefore become more useful throughout the story and more powerful.
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Jan 26th, 2008 at 03:24:12 - Shadow of the Colossus (PS2) |
Gameplay
As I continued to play the game, I began to notice that Wander’s began to take on a sickly appearance. This worsened, I noticed, after each time I killed a colossus. Also, Mono’s appearance began to improve as time went on. When I noticed this I remembered the conversation with Dormin, where he had mentioned that Wander may have to pay a terrible price to bring Mono back. This is interesting because it shows that his actions are taking their toll on him and the results of the decisions he makes are gradually introduced rather than sprung up on you when the game is over.
Also, the colossi have gotten harder to beat than the first one I encountered with a couple of them being infuriatingly difficult. The 5th colossus is particularly infuriating in the fact that you are forced to fight a flying colossus. This one encounter took many tries just to get on the colossus in the first place and then resulted in Wander being thrown off, often only seconds later. Aside from this sporadic difficulty, the “battles” result in gratification, mainly because a 5-6 foot person somehow managed to take down several walking mountains using only a sword…and the occasional arrow or two.
Design
Seeing as the world of this game is all one large level, it could e said that there isn’t a lot of level variation though the one level itself varies based on the character’s location. On the other hand, it could also be said that the colossi themselves are the levels of the game, thereby making it true that the levels are both similar and varied. Obviously they are similar because they are all colossi, but the variation comes in the form they take and the paths along the bodies that lead to their vital points.
The game creates conflict not through the use of traditional fighting but through the process of leading up to the strikes needed to take down the creatures (apparently it only takes about 3). Another conflict which is entirely optional is the ability to shoot the lizards with your arrows, with a select few actually giving you stat boosts.
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Jan 26th, 2008 at 01:00:19 - Shadow of the Colossus (PS2) |
Summary
In this game, you control Wander who must kill 16 colossi with the help of a magic sword and his horse, Agro, in order to bring a girl back to life.
Gameplay
When I first started to play the game, I was amazed with what I saw. The scenery was amazing and seemed almost real. I felt this same sense of awe when I encountered the first colossus, a giant creature of stone and fur that was rendered beautifully (well as beautifully as walking earth can get). Riding Agro also seemed very realistic when moving, having him turn in an arc while running.
The game has very few characters which seems to be a good thing in the case of this game, with the only ones being Wander, Agro, Mono (the girl), and the disembodied Dormin so far, and lets the player focus on finding and defeating the colossi. It allows the player to appreciate the games environment without having some useless NPC ruining things.
Defeating first colossus was a gratifying experience though it was relatively easy to do. Using the creature’s fur, I was able to scale the beast to certain vital points on its body marked with a glowing symbol of some sort and drain its energy using Wander’s sword. Because of the realism of the beast, I was gratified (as mentioned before) but at the same time I felt almost saddened at the sight of this once magnificent giant being reduced to rubble and ruins.
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sorarojas has been with GameLog for 16 years, 10 months, and 7 days |
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