Did that help?  I don’t even know that I expect it to; it’s really tough to get a grip on this game unless you’re playing it, in large part because it’s actually four games, all of which share only the restriction that you must complete your task in thirty seconds.  Hence the name.  See what they did there?

1. An Odd Sort of Balance- It’s not balance at all, actually.  At least, I certainly didn’t think so.  As I mentioned, there are four single player modes (with one more that opens up after you’ve beaten those four): Hero 30, Evil Lord 30, Princess 30, and Knight 30.  The game plays very fast, and it’s very addictive, so I ended up playing the whole thing in only a few sittings of goodly length; what this made me notice, however, is that the developers seemed to focus much more on the Hero campaign than on any of the others.  I don’t just say this because the other campaigns are shorter, although that is definitely the case, but more because only the Hero campaign really seems to have any depth to it (or as much depth as you can have when you’re only playing 30 seconds at a time, I suppose).  Each character’s story is designed to follow a particular gameplay style: Hero 30 is the RPG, Evil Lord 30 is the RTS, Princess 30 is the shooter, and Knight 30 is the action game (which turns out to be one big escort quest.  Yippee.).  I don’t know whether my personal viewpoint might be a bit skewed due to my own preference for RPGs, but I felt that the others were just kind of half-assed, although admittedly fun (for the most part… there were a few spots in Evil Lord 30, for example, that I cordially invite to die in a fire).  Time-wise, my theory holds; I think that the other three campaigns together *might* have taken me as long to get through as Hero did, although again, if they were truly holding to the game types, this isn’t exactly unheard-of for an RPG.  According to Kotaku, the announced sequel looks like it’s going to focus on the Hero end of things exclusively, and I have to say, I’m okay with that.  I appreciate the attempt at variety, but not when the effort is barely there.

2. Simple on the Surface- This point (or “thing,” if you will) focuses mostly on Hero 30, largely for the reasons I mentioned above; in fact, I think it’s why the Hero section seemed to outweigh the others by so much.  Each of the sections contains its own method of manipulating time, whether it be to slow it down, rewind it, or reset it, and these methods may be used to differing effect throughout the game.  While it’s largely just gimmicky in most places, though, it’s actually an integral part of the story in Hero 30.  The actual battles here don’t consist of selecting actions as they do in traditional RPGs, but rather of slashing your way across the encounter screen while your opponent attempts to do the same.  Much like in the Wario Ware series, however, the true challenge doesn’t lie in actually executing the actions needed to succeed, but in processing what is needed before you get to the actual part where you pull it off.  Your brain has to be pretty speedy to pull something like this off (I know, right?  How did *I* finish it?), and the fact that you’re actually completing multi-part quests within these constraints means that the complexity of the game can be a bit surprising at times.  I found this rather nifty.

3. 8-Bit Awesome- You might be fooled, by looking only at the box art of Half-Minute Hero, into thinking that the game utilizes some sort of stunning graphics/cutscenes/whatever.  Not so.  Instead, the characters and their surroundings take a cue from games of yore and go about it all 8-bit style.  Far from being a detriment, though, this actually proves to be a brilliant choice.  More complicated sprites would simply look silly speeding through the levels at the pace required, and–again, Wario Ware comes to mind here–adopting less ornate graphics allows the player to concentrate more on what needs to be done rather than on drooling over the pretty pictures.  The PSP has plenty of gorgeous games already; the aim of this one is different, and the art style reflects that.  Lest I sound like I’m putting it down, however, allow me to clarify; by no means does Half-Minute Hero look bad.  The sprites are designed and put together quite well; they’re there to lend an air of nostalgia to the story while still being functional.  Speaking of that, my next point…

4. Nostalgia- It’s not just the looks; basically everything in this game is intended to appeal to those of us with fond memories of, say, the original Final Fantasy or Dragon Warrior.  Characters are frequently aware of their own ridiculous stereotypes, and when they aren’t, YOU are.  Take, for example, the bumbling king of Princess 30, or the numerous villagers and shopkeepers of Hero 30.  These are characters that would look and sound perfectly at home slapped down in a NES game circa 1987, and they’re absolutely perfect.  The nostalgia factor of this game, for me, made it even better than it would have been had I never played one of the legacy games it emulates, and I suspect the same is true for many people.  I’m definitely not saying it wouldn’t have been fun otherwise, but that really made it stand out for me.

5. Auto-Save My Ass- There isn’t one.  Guess how I know that?

Next time, it’s back to the console as I talk about Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands!

1. Not So Random- Is there anyone who actually enjoys random encounters in games?  I really can’t imagine that there is.  Personally, I try to fight as many enemies as I can throughout the normal course of events in these sorts of games just so that I’m not stuck level-grinding later on, but it’s admittedly nice to have the option to skip around a fight or two, particularly when you’re on a mission of some sort or just don’t want to deal with a particularly difficult type of monster.  Lunar falls into the yes-you-can-see-your-enemies camp, which I love; as I mentioned, I do frequently enjoy scouring the map to clear it of all its outstanding vermin (even knowing that they’ll be back if I change screens enough times), but that’s the point: you can make PROGRESS, and know that there are a certain amount of fights you’ll have to win in order to have caught them all.  I guess that’s just me being a weirdo completionist again.  I do think, though, that being brought up on games where any step could potentially dissolve into monsters who were invisible a moment before but now seriously want to snack on your face has contributed to making me kind of jumpy and high-strung.  I mean, really.  How do you not notice that you’re walking straight into a Behemoth?  You notice!

2. Vaguely Creepy- I guess it’s not really a surprise when a JRPG is a little bit creepy about its female characters.  JRPGs are strongly related to anime, after all, and although I don’t have much experience with anime, I have enough to know that schoolgirls are frequently involved.  So to speak.  Don’t get me wrong; I really like the ladies in this game, particularly Jessica, who may have been my favorite character (She hits things with a big fucking hammer!  *I* want a big fucking hammer!).  However, they do have boobs, which leads to a few kind of creepy situations.  For instance, there are cards you can find during the course of the game which can be equipped as accessories by the male character associated with each girl (Alex gets Luna’s, Kyle gets Jessica’s, and Nash gets Mia’s).  At best, the cards provide minor stat boosts, and so aren’t particularly useful in that way.  However, if you select to view them in your inventory, you find that each card displays a picture of the girl in question in some sort of suggestive (usually an “oops, you found me and I don’t even know you’re taking my picture” style) pose.  The collector’s edition of the PSP port even came with physical versions of the cards.  What’s more, there’s an optional bathhouse scene you can unlock where you are treated to a video of the ladies splashing merrily in the buff.  To be fair, though, there’s also a male version of that particular scene. 

3. La Di Da- It’s been a while since I finished this game, and I’m currently playing Arc Rise Fantasia (which, if my current habits continue, I should get around to reviewing sometime in 2012…), which greatly resembles it in many aspects, so I think that’s what brings me to this topic.  I’m not at all against the use of music as a weapon against evil in games, but have you ever noticed that the task generally seems to fall to singing girls?  I’m not trying to point an OMGSEXIST  finger at this or anything, but I do find the character of the plucky-but-physically-fragile-songstress an interesting one, because it’s an unusual place to center what generally turns out to be some pretty formidable power.  Luna, after all, is the reincarnation of a goddess, and drawing the line from there to Arc Rise, Ryfia is treated as royalty in her land due to her abilities.  These ladies are far from powerless, but they can’t do much just by hitting things, either.  I think this is why I liked Jessica so much; she has magical abilities, which aren’t as extreme as Luna’s (or Mia’s, for that matter), but she can still kick some ass.  Regardless, I’m not quite sure what I think about the whole songstress thing, but this is making me want to write a more general article on video game women.  We’ll see.

4. Giving and Taking Away- It’s always irked me when a game puts a character in your party and makes you think that this person will be with you for a long time, then snaps them back out again, sometimes taking your hard-earned equipment (and at the very least taking the time you spent leveling them) along.  I think this is why I’ve always held such a grudge against Aeris; why make me waste my time with her if she’s just gonna get stabbed at the end of disc 1?  I don’t have a problem with guest characters, nor do I mind when characters are rotated in and out of the party, as is frequently the case here, but I do like to know when someone’s not going to be around for very long.  I’m thinking of Ramus here; he’s not exactly up to par with Luna and Alex, combat-wise, but the way he’s presented in the beginning, when he’s a permanent fixture in your party, makes you think that he’ll be around until the end.  Or, well, that’s what it made *me* think, anyway.  It’s not that big a deal, but it would have at least been nice if the amount of time you spent with Ramus would have translated into something else, like discounts at the shop he eventually opens or some sort of special item, perhaps.  Luna herself poses an even bigger problem; she doesn’t exactly turn into your enemy, but she’s definitely not on your side after a certain point, and since you’ve invested quite a bit more time into her than Ramus by the time you lose her, this can be pretty frustrating. 

5. Morphin’ Time- I can’t think of another game that has undergone quite as much editing and change between different versions as this one seems to have.  Sure, the Final Fantasy titles, particularly the early ones, exist in roughly half a million forms across multiple platforms, but the actual storyline tends to remain pretty much the same.  Lunar, by contrast,  has gone through no fewer than four iterations in English alone, each of which has massively altered some aspect of the game.  I won’t go into the details here, because I haven’t played any except the PSP version, so I can’t speak firsthand about how these changes affect the gameplay or the overall feel of the story; what I will say is that I don’t think I like the idea of spreading these kinds of changes out like they did.  Wouldn’t it make any kind of meaningful dialogue more difficult if one person played a version with a completely different ending than another?  Then again, I loved Heavy Rain, so who can say for sure?  I guess it’s all in how they’re connected….maybe I’ll have to track down another version and see for myself.

Next time I’ll stick with the PSP and blab about Half-Minute Hero!

1. Are You Paying Attention?- I admit up front that I am pulling the following statement out of my ass, so if you would like to dispute it and/or present differing examples, please do: God of War is one of the first games that really latched onto the idea of quick time events (the bane of many a gamer, myself frequently included) as a major gameplay feature.  It’s an interesting choice, because you can get away with a largely button-mashing approach through a lot of the combat portion of the game if you are so inclined, but the QTEs ensure that you have to at least have some connection to the fight.  Yes, it’s frequently annoying, and yes, I’m quite sure it’s resulted in many, many, MANY broken controllers over the years, but I’m just putting it out there: quick time events serve a purpose.  Even if you don’t think they serve a mechanical purpose in the fighting, you have to admit that they do allow for some pretty badass cutscenes and death animations (for the bosses, that is…. for repeated larger enemies they admittedly get a bit annoying).

2. Shinier and Shiner Swords- This isn’t a complaint that’s unique to God of War, but to me it does seem pretty pronounced here; while you do get some pretty sweet weapons throughout the course of the game, and they are definitely fun for the first ten minutes or so after they show up, the weapons you have at the start are the ones I used pretty much consistently throughout the whole thing.  Sure, there are times when different ones are either necessary or just more efficient, but once you’ve spent so much time on one set of sharp pointy things, there’s really just not much of a reason to switch them out unless you have to.  So, while the upgrade system was neat and all, I (like many others, I’m sure) basically just ended up dumping all of my orbs into the Blades of Chaos until they were as good as they could get, and then remembering that I also had other weapons.  I mean, they’re blades permanently chained to his arms.  Should there even BE other weapons?  I think it’s debatable.

3. I Get It, You Loved Your Wife- I joked about it in the introduction, but in all seriousness, Kratos actually is a pretty interesting character, and behind all the blood and boobs, there is a cool story to the series.  I’ve got to say, though… the sequence at the end where you have to hug your wife while you’re being attacked by a billion clones of yourself?  I could have done without that.  And when I say I could have done without that, what I really mean is ARGHRGHADHGAHGUIKRR. 

4. Look At The Size Of That Thing- One of the things that really sticks out for me about God of War is the sense of scale you feel when fighting bosses.  I wish I’d played the game when it first came out, because I bet it was even more impressive and striking when it wasn’t quite as commonplace as it’s become with more recent games, but even now, it’s pretty damn awesome to walk into a fight with something many, many, MANY times your size and walk out with one of its bleeding appendages as a trophy.  The scale is a huge part of what makes you feel like a badass in God of War, and feeling like a badass is what the game is all about.  Well, that and boobs.  Speaking of which…

5. That’s What She Said- It would be easy to have a knee-jerk reaction to the female characters in God of War, and I’m sure that many people have.  I’m sure many have also had a something-else-jerk reaction to them, as well.  (*rimshot*  Thank you, I’ll be here all week.)  While the nudity is admittedly pretty gratuitous, though, there’s actually more to the female cast of GoW, such as they are, than T&A.  The Oracle of Athens is the one who tells Kratos how to defeat Ares, Athena literally has the power to make him into a god, and the girls he bangs at the beginning of the game…. well okay, they are just T&A.  I played that minigame real good, too.  Even Kratos’s wife, much as I may resent her for making me hug her, and even though she doesn’t have a very direct role during the actual events of the game, is incredibly important, because it’s her death (at his hands) that sets off his slicey-bleedy rampage, so without her, there wouldn’t even be a God of War.  It’s really interesting (well, to me at least, and this is my goddam column) to ponder how the effect of the ladies here might have been different if they weren’t so hyper-sexualized.  I’m not saying it would have been better or worse, necessarily, but I definitely think it would have changed things up.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a JRPG, hasn’t it?  I’ll rectify that next time with Lunar: Silver Star Harmony.

1. Re-Imagining- I may have ranted about this before, but it’s especially appropriate here; this is one of my least favorite terms for a recycled idea (be it video game, movie, or otherwise) ever.  I’m not sure exactly why it rubs me the wrong way… perhaps it’s that you’re not really re-imagining anything; the imagination bit came around the first time, so either you’re ripping off someone else’s creative vision with minor cosmetic changes or you’re applying a big name to your own (mostly) original idea so that it goes over better with a pre-established audience.  (Side rant: This was my problem with Rob Zombie’s Halloween “re-imagining.”  It was a fine film, but it wasn’t Halloween, and I didn’t really see the reasoning behind not just making it its own stand-alone piece, other than the benefit of having the name attached to it.  Waaaaaaay beside the point, though.)  Despite my own personal misgivings, which are mostly semantic in nature, Shattered Memories can (I suppose) be described as a “re-imagining” of the original Silent Hill game.  You play as Dad-of-the-Year Harry Mason, on a quest to locate his daughter Cheryl in the creepy town of Silent Hill.  Without that particular setting to connect it, the game would have little to do with the first installment, for reasons I’ll detail in some of the other Things; this doesn’t mean that I think it was bad (I don’t) or that I don’t think it belongs in the series (I don’t… mostly), it just means that I’m not so sure it really merits the badge of “re-make.”  I guess that’s why they went for “re-imagining” instead.  Hmmm. 

2. Winter Wonderland- Now, correct me if I’m wrong here (it’s been known to happen), but I’m reasonably sure that this is the only Silent Hill game in which, instead of going into a sort of rusty industrial setting when things go all wonky and we transition into Evil Silent Hill, we go to a frozen-over version of the town.  I’m not really sure why this particular change was made, but it does work in its own way; while I personally don’t find it quite as unnerving as the traditional rust-covered venues for which the series might best be remembered, it does lend a unique air to the title (although, at the same time, this distances it from the series a bit, so… I don’t know if it’s a good thing or not).  The snowy surroundings do serve a more practical purpose as well, occasionally blocking off paths or posing different puzzles than those you might find in the “normal” version of the town.  As in other Silent Hills we have known, though, one thing definitely stays the same: when the shift between realities occurs, you’d better be ready to encounter some creepy creatures.  This leads me to my next point… 

3. Like Alan Wake, If Alan Wake Were A Giant Pussy- I was a big fan of Alan Wake, as you may be able to ascertain by reading the Five Things I wrote about it.  SHSM shares a *lot* of features with Alan Wake, from its flashlight-wielding protagonist to the fact that you spend an inordinate amount of time wandering around in the woods faced off against badass well-protected critters who can only be called off by the use of said flashlight.  Here’s the major difference, though, and it’s my biggest problem with SHSM: you don’t have a gun.  In fact, you don’t have *anything.*  You can’t fight AT ALL; you just have to run away.  The light you carry will slow down your enemies to a point, and you do gain access to flares that, much like Alan’s, will keep the baddies at bay for slightly longer periods of time, but there is no permanent way to stop the monsters that constantly pursue you through the nightmare town.  Occasionally you can slow them down by pulling obstacles into their path, but ultimately, if you aren’t quick enough, they will catch you; if they do, you can shake them off…. but really, you can’t even punch one in the face?  I just picture Harry shrieking “GET IT OFF GET IT OFF” like a little girl trying to kill a spider.  I would have understood if SHSM wanted to solely get rid of firearms or… well, or anythng you wouldn’t normally find lying around streets not located in downtown Philadelphia.  It would have been nice, though, and saved a great deal of annoyance, if there were *some* way to effectively damage your enemies using your surroundings.  Can I at least have a plank of wood or something?  A tire iron?  Something?

4. Profiling- Perhaps the biggest departure that this Silent Hill installment takes from the rest of the series is that, periodically, you take the role of a patient in a psychiatric therapy session who seems to be Harry (spoilers: it isn’t).  As the story progresses, you answer questions and perform tasks designed to subtly produce a psychological profile of you as a player.  It’s far from unknown for games to screw with the player’s head (for my very favorite example of this, go play Eternal Darkness), but SHSM lends another element to the mix by using your own responses to determine what will mess with you the most; this means that each playthrough could potentially be different depending on what you do, how you play, and what responses you give in different scenarios.  Some of the changes are a bit heavy-handed and obvious, such as the colors of characters’ clothing changing according to how you color them in therapy, but some are surprisingly subtle and cool; I really thought this was a nice touch, if perhaps a bit rudimentary and unfinished-feeling in places.  I’d like to see a game really take this mechanic and run with it even further.  The whole thing culminates in a full psychological profile of the player at the end of the game; fans of the series will be aware that there are always multiple endings available, but this goes beyond even that.  After the game ends, a series of notes appear about ”the patient” (you) that purport to describe your real-life personality.  Of course, you can manipulate these responses if you are so inclined, but if, in general, you answer the questions honestly and play “as yourself,” you’ll actually get some interesting (and relatively accurate) results.  I did, anyway. 

5. Brevity- I played Silent Hill: Shattered Memories in a single sitting.  This can mean multiple things for a game; it can mean it’s incredibly gripping, it can mean that the player has nothing better to do, or it can just mean it’s short.  Given the title of the paragraph, I’m thinking you can figure out which one applies here.  My playthrough clocked in somewhere between four and five hours; I don’t necessarily think that the length of the game should count against it, but if, say, the developers might have added some combat, it could have drawn things out a little and solved one of my other major problems with the game as well (see above).  There were, admittedly, times when things just felt rushed; running away from enemies with absolutely no incentive to slow down and check out your surroundings will do that, I suppose.  Given that one of the strongest features of the series has generally been its tendency to reward exploration and puzzle-solving prowess, the whole RUN AWAY mechanic seemed like it mostly made you skip merrily along through sizeable portions of the game.  Don’t get me wrong; you still solve puzzles and explore some places, but I believe there was definitely room for fleshing out parts of the gameplay that felt a bit underdeveloped.  There’s definitely some replay value to be had here, though, so I suppose I’ll have to try that out as well.  You know, because I don’t have any other games to play.

Next time, put on your retro hats for God of War.  Yup, the first one.

1. What Did I Miss?- I was genuinely curious as to what the differences might be between Cake Mania 1 and 2, because I didn’t play the first one.  Wikipedia came through for me on this one, noting that instead of a cookie oven, as was present in the iteration that I played, Jill (the protagonist) instead utilized a cupcake oven.  Sounds like she downgraded to me, but I suppose it depends on the type of cookies she was baking.  That’s pretty much the only difference, so in the time that you imagine you would normally have spent reading this point, I want you to go look at this page, which I clicked on as I was “researching.”  Now, go make cupcakes.  And send me one.

2. Storyline- I’ve never really seen why games like this bother to give themselves a storyline.  I mean… I guess I *do,* but do they really think it’s going to make that big of a difference?  People playing Cake Mania aren’t there to agonize about whether Jill can keep her bakery open, achieve domestic bliss, and retire in the countryside with 2.5 kids and a golden retriever, they’re there to click on stuff.  And then click on stuff some more, a bit faster.  You’re not getting your jollies in this game by building a deep, lasting empathy with the main character, but by using your own skill to get through a demanding pattern series and see the happy screen at the end that pats you on the back for your efforts.  I almost feel like they should play Ode to Joy there.  (Peggle joke!)  Maybe that’s the next step in the series.  Not Peggle music, but character development.  Just think about it.  CAKE MANIA RPG!  Coming to DS, Wii, iPhone, and your toaster this fall!

3. Dumbing it Down- Not that this style of game requires a PhD to get into in the first place, but having played Diner Dash before, I couldn’t help but feel, picking up Cake Mania 2, that it was much simpler than its ancestors.  I’m not sure that that’s necessarily a bad thing; I actually remember getting seriously pissed off at some of the later levels of Diner Dash the last time I played it (whenever the hell that was), whereas I had no trouble whatsoever clearing all of the Cake Mania 2 levels.  There are just a lot fewer things to keep track of; it was one of those situations where I was doing so well that I eventually ran out of things to upgrade in my kitchen, and would occasionally end up standing around, even on higher-difficulty levels, because there was just nothing for me to do but wait.  I suppose the point here is that if this is your style of game, you may find it a bit easy for your tastes.  I don’t really think I have a problem with that, but some elitist bastard might. 

4. Porting Problems- Since Cake Mania and its sequels have come out on pretty much every platform imaginable, I suppose it was inevitable that at least a few of them were going to come out with some problems.  I played the version that was released for the DS, and I think that may have been a poor choice, because while the touch screen does lend itself well to this style of game, the size of the screens definitely worked against me, even with a DSi (perhaps I do need an XL…. NO LEAH THAT’S A BAD LEAH).  Some of the cake shapes look very, very similar to each other at this size, particularly when the customers start requesting that they be stacked on top of each other.  I can’t tell you how many times I baked a circle instead of a heart just because the kitty cat topper was blocking my view.  Yes, I am aware of how ridiculous that sounds, incidentally.  The other aspect of the screen size that gave me problems was that the touch zones would occasionally be a little off, causing me to frost a cake incorrectly or attempt to deliver it to the wrong person if the targets were particularly close together.  There’s no way to cancel an incorrect action, so oftentimes if you screw up, you’re just stuck.  I suspect that many of these issues would have been solved had I played on my computer instead of the DS, so perhaps if I play Cake Mania 3 (oh yes, there is a Cake Mania 3), I’ll go that route instead.

5. Flashbacks- Anyone who has ever waited tables for a living will tell you, upon playing Diner Dash, that it is frighteningly accurate.  I’m one of those people, and while I’ve never baked cakes for a living, Cake Mania 2 held kind of the same vibe for me.  People order shit from you, and you bring it to them, all the while catering to their demands so that they don’t get too bored or impatient.  Sometimes their demands are perfectly reasonable, and sometimes people are just bitches.  Something that leads me to believe that the creators of these games must have had experience in some sort of customer service field is that you can often tell how a customer is going to react simply by what “type” they are.  This is less of a concern in Cake Mania 2 than it was in Diner Dash, but the basic idea still stands; the astronauts are very busy and important, so their happiness meters drop quickly, but the sumo dudes are very chill… they just like to have second helpings, so they’ll be there a while.  While I do enjoy these games, though, I can’t play them too often because of that very accuracy; otherwise, I end up feeling vaguely anxious and uneasy.

I’m going to write about Silent Hill: Shattered Memories next, but I’m waiting until the fever is gone.  I actually want that to be a GOOD article.

 1. Continuity- I really enjoy it when a series takes its own mythology seriously enough to pay attention to detail and carry over important facets of its characters and events from one installment to another.  Really, for this particular type of game, it shouldn’t even be a remarkable thing when this occurs, but sadly, it often is.  Not where BioWare is concerned, though!  One might say that this is kind of their “thing.”  It’s definitely an option to start a brand-new Shepard at the beginning of your game, so if you hated how yours turned out, no longer have access to your save file, or are adventurous (read as: dumb) enough to start with the second game in the series without playing the first, you can just go right ahead.  However, if you have a save file from the first Mass Effect that you would like to import, quite a few of the decisions that you made and actions that you took carry over and have consequences in the new game.  Perhaps the most notable of these involves the Citadel Council, who you can either save at the end of ME1 or let die while you focus on other stuff going on.  So essentially, you decide who leads the galaxy in the second game, which has a pretty big impact; in my own game, I let the council die and put Captain Anderson in charge.  If, however, I had saved them and put Ambassador Udina on the council, I would have ended up with a completely different configuration.  Your “romantic” choices of the first game are referenced as well, although, at least in my case, you don’t have the opportunity to get your former paramour back, as such.  Kaidan got really cranky that I was “dead” for so long and didn’t call or write or whatever.  He’s a damn crybaby.  Most of the changes that occur as a result of your choices are things that I imagine wouldn’t be all THAT difficult to fit in, but they are incredibly nice touches, and contribute heavily to the immersion factor of the game.   

2. Ladies and Gentlemen- Mass Effect has gotten a lot of attention (and, I believe, rightly so) for being one of the relatively few games that actually offers a fully fleshed-out female character in addition to the male option when you create your Shepard at the beginning.  If you choose to play as a lady (as I did) you don’t get just a boob-skin slapped on top of the pre-existing male, and you don’t get a hyper-sexualized space slut, either; instead, you get…. well, you get a person.  Regardless of the gender of your character, choices surround you, and while some of them DO rely on your character’s gender, you’re not going to find that certain choices are less important than others, they’re just… different.  I feel like I’m not explaining this very well; perhaps you simply need to play as a female and as a male Shepard to really absorb the differences.  In a nutshell, BioWare nailed equality.  In space.

3. Bow Chicka Bow Wow- Hey, remember how Fox News made a gigantic fucking deal about there being side-boob in the first Mass Effect?  IS IT A RAPE SIMULATOR?  Uh, no.  And neither is the second one.  You can, however, have all kinds of space sex, regardless of whether you choose a male or female Shepard.  Some of the options, I am led to understand, are even the same.  Rather than opine on the relationships of Mass Effect 2 in general, I think my own specific playthrough experiences may actually illustrate the whole deal better.  As a female Shepard, I was fully prepared to go back to my “relationship” with Kaidan from the first game, only to find that that wasn’t an option.  What was a girl to do at that point?  Well, what I personally did was immediately start hitting on nice, dependable Jacob.  We had a pretty good thing going for a while, but it was way too slow for my rakish heroine, who had, after all, been dead for a while and was up for a little more action.  The real trouble started once we took Jack on board.  After going for reliable, steady dudes for so long, this unstable, uninhibited convict seemed pretty different and exciting.  Surprisingly, though (or at least it was to me), Jack is not open to relationships with the lady-types.  Oh well.  At least we had a friendship of sorts going on.  By that time, the seed of doubt had been sown in my time with Jacob, though, and I started looking around in other areas of the ship for companionship… which is how I ended up with Garrus.  The “romance” dialogue options with Garrus are downright spectacular, as are some of the side effects around the ship(notably, when Mordin offers tips on such topics as avoiding chafing).  Jacob became offended and withdrawn after that, but I suppose that’s to be expected.  Bitch shoulda put out sooner.  (Oh wow, that’s terrible…)

4. Upgrading- Prepare for me to be angry, because I am angry about this.  Very angry.  Throughout the game, you are given the opportunity to upgrade different aspects of your ship.  I say “opportunity” as though you really had any choice in the matter, because I was under the impression that you *did.*  I didn’t focus on the parts of the universe where I could have searched for resources, because I wasn’t really having any trouble going through the storyline, and while I did go through some of the side-quests (particularly the loyalty missions), I mostly focused on moving forward.  There really didn’t seem to be that many points where the condition of your ship affected gameplay, particularly if planet exploration wasn’t exactly your forte.  Then we rolled around to the end of the game, and I was subjected to a most unpleasant surprise.  If you don’t upgrade your ship, you automatically get three crew members killed.  What.  The.  FUCK?  Other crew members can (and in my case, did) die for other reasons, but this particular pitfall seemed completely arbitrary to me, particularly since there are no warnings or reasons to think that this would be the sole reason for their survival.  Grrrrrr.

5. The “RP” Part- Surprisingly enough, this is something that I don’t actually do a whole lot in video games.  It’s too easy to see when a game will punish you for choosing the “wrong” dialogue option, even when you supposedly have the freedom to go through whichever character development route you want.  In the Mass Effect series, your Shepard follows along the general paths of “Paragon” or “Renegade,” but that’s not all there is to it.  The dialogue is masterfully written, as is BioWare’s way, to the point where you can actually develop a personality for your character beyond simply “good” or “bad.”  This development is bolstered by the ability to give him/her a background, which can thusly inform your choices, if you are so inclined.  Of course, if all you want is to make the galaxy’s most evil motherfucker or to portray a shining example of humanity…. well, you can definitely do that.  Again, though, I’ll bring my own Shepard into play to illustrate what I mean when I say that your character just seems more real than in other games.  Kat Shepard grew up surrounded by the military lifestyle, so it was no surprise when she entered the service herself; when her entire unit was obliterated except for her, she developed a hard outer shell designed to keep most people from getting too close, but her own survivor guilt meant that she still desperately wanted to be loved, because that might mean that on some level, she was forgiven.  Playing this Shepard, then, meant that she was intense and practical, weighing her options with as little regard to outward emotionality as possible, to the point where most people would kind of think of her as a cold bitch.  For those who would bother to get to know her, though, she would be fiercely loyal and protective… as long as they were still useful to her, of course.  So yeah, I got a little more into my character than in many other games of this type, and I think it’s a mark of BioWare’s excellence that they were able to draw me (and, I’m sure, many other people) in like this.  I admit, I’m plenty excited to see what direction the third installment will take, and I can’t wait to get Kat back out into the galaxy.

Next time, I’ll be stretching my brain to see how the hell I can get a full article out of Cake Mania 2.  No, really.

Alan Wake, AKA The Game of Eternal Development Time, is a bit difficult to put an accurate plot synopsis to in a sentence or so, but I’ll give it a try: a popular writer takes a vacation with his wife in a rustic mountain town, where she disappears under mysterious circumstances.  Creepiness ensues.  There is, however, quite a bit more to it than that, which I can hopefully shed some light on (see what I did there?) with these Five Things.

1. Stephen King- I read books like many other people watch TV; sure, there are a lot of times where there’s something specific I want, but every once in a while I’ll just have something around as background noise.  Stephen King novels frequently fall into that category for me.  I don’t say that to be insulting or derivative; I enjoy reading them, or I wouldn’t be doing it in the first place.  However, they’re not generally something I must have immediately, nor are they usually ground-breaking or particularly surprising.  You usually know what’s going to happen.  Frim its very first line of dialogue, Alan Wake makes absolutely no effort to hide its unabashed ripping-off of essentially all of the conventions that make Stephen King what he is.  Before I even started playing, a friend told me it was “like playing a Stephen King novel,” and he was absolutely right; that’s what they’re going for, and they definitely hit it on the head.

Interestingly (and, to me, humorously), the developers didn’t stop at emulating the best parts of King’s style, but rather went for everything, even when it ended up being sorta silly.  Small town filled with creepy locals hiding some kind of dark secret?  Okay, I’m with you on that one.  HAUNTED TREES?  …..okay, we probably could have done without that.  There are times when the whole “poltergeist” mechanic is genuinely creepy, but to me, it just seems shoehorned in most of the time; it’s like whoever the guy on the dev team is that has that signed Stephen King poster above his bed was allowed to go wild, and no one stopped him when he said, “Hey, you know what would go really well here?  POSESSED SHIT!  That’s what Ki…. that’s what *I* would do.”  The name-dropping is also a little excessive, but I guess if you’re going to plaster a guy’s work all over your own, you should at least give him a shout-out now and then, right?

2. The Light Thing- I guess I should go ahead and get this one out of the way.  You can’t really talk about Alan Wake without talking about its core schtick, which is the use of light and darkness to signify safety and danger, good and evil…. well, light and dark.  This is actually really cool, because it’s different.  You can survive without bullets (and if you intend to pursue the achievement “Gunless Wonder,” as I did, then you’ll need practice at this…), but if you run out of light… well, then you’re really fucked.  When fighting enemies, you must first use your chosen light source (usually a flashlight, although flares and car headlights are also frequently available) to remove the protective dark film around them before you can shoot them.  When you start running into posessed stuff, the light is actually all you need; if you can dodge around until you zap them completely, you’ll never even have to fire a shot. 

I’ve never been much good at traditional shooters (although I have gotten much better recently!), so the setup of Alan Wake was a refreshing change for me; you can’t simply shoot everything before it gets to you and starts gnawing on your face, because there are too many of them, and they are much faster than you.  They’re also eerily quiet, so when the camera helpfully slows down and zooms in on an incoming pack, remain on your guard, because there’s probably at least one behind you as well.  You’ll need to learn which enemies have their covering removed slowly and which quickly, and use that knowledge to keep things stunned while you pick them off.  Oh, and flashbangs.  They were my very bestest friends. 

3. Scarcity- One common complaint I’ve heard about Alan Wake is that it’s possible to run out of batteries and ammo much too quickly, leaving you vulnerable to the nasties that lurk in the literal shadows.  Maybe it’s because I’m a veteran of the survival horror genre, but I really didn’t have a problem with this.  It’s true that supplies aren’t exactly abundant, but would you honestly expect them to be?  AW at least makes an occasional attempt to explain why you can find shotgun ammo lying on benches around town (The not-actually-crazy-but-rather-the-only-one-who-knows-the-truth lady left it there!  Of course!), which is more than you get out of most games of this sort.  It’s true that I did get a little annoyed when I would end a chapter or sequence with a well-stocked armory tucked in my digital pockets only to have some contrived occurance (oh noes!  I fell out of a helicopter!) strip all of that from me and make me start over.  It was like the Metroid syndrome, only ten times in the same game.  However, with just a bit of rationing, I didn’t have any trouble making my supplies last.

A moment while I climb on my soapbox.  I’ve probably addressed this in the podcast before (and I know I did on Gamehounds a couple of weeks ago), but I feel it’s appropriate here; while I, like any other gamer, will yell and curse and squeak when I run out of ammo, in a survival horror game, it’s almost part of the experience that you should do so from time to time.  If you don’t have any fear for your own safety, then it’s not really horror, is it?  And if you’re provided with a constant stream of bullets and health, then you’re not going to be concerned about your survival.  The uncertainty and the need to watch out for yourself are what makes the experience unnerving and thrilling.  This is something that the Silent Hill series does extremely well, and I feel that Alan Wake does also.

4. Faces- I’m not normally a graphics snob.  I don’t care all that much if a game doesn’t look perfect, as long as I’m having fun.  So, when I say that the facial animations in Alan Wake were kind of an issue for me, you can take that as meaning that they pretty much sucked.  It’s a real shame, too, because the rest of the game was really immersive for me, so breaking into a cutscene where the characters’ mouths weren’t moving anywhere near the dialogue I was hearing was jarring, to say the least.  Alice was a particularly bad offender in this category; every time I saw her, I just thought that she didn’t look right at all.  The character models themselves were pretty good; upon looking through the artbook that came with the limited edition strategy guide, the similarities between the in-game graphics and the live models was quite impressive.  Even Alan’s body animations during gameplay, beyond perhaps an occasional clip or jolt, were fine…. but once they opened their mouths…. no good.  You’d think a game that was in development for this long would have gotten that sort of thing straightened out, but apparently not.  Oh well.

5. Product Placement- Oooooookay.  I understand that you have to pay for your game somehow.  I understand that you need sponsors, that you need to be able to pay all those people you’ve apparently been keeping employed for the last eight or nine years.  I can’t help but wonder, however, what the fuck Energizer and Verizon were doing that the developers felt obligated to kiss their asses quite this much.  Were they perhaps providing hookers?  Cocaine?  Free ham sammiches?  Whatever it was, it resulted in branded batteries being slapped into Alan’s trusty flashlight every thirty seconds (which seems a little backwards to me… wouldn’t you want your batteries to seem like they last forever?  I guess the fact that they repel evil was good enough for the marketing folks) to the point where there is actually an achievement called “Energized” that you essentially can’t help but get.  Likewise, Alan’s cell phone is provided by Verizon (similar to my Energizer complaint above, I can’t help but notice that Verizon’s product never seems to work when it’s really important), and while there isn’t an achievement related to it, there are quite a few in-game billboards that get thrown in your face any time you might have been in danger of forgetting who the top wireless provider is in these parts.

Overall, I was completely hooked on Alan Wake, and I’d definitely recommend it if you enjoy the Silent Hill franchise, or even if you’re just looking for something different to tide you over until… I don’t know, Halo or Call of Duty or whatever.  Just stay in the light.

Next time I *promise* I’ll get back to Mass Effect 2.  You understand, right?

1. The Pokewalker- I am an adult, damn it.  If you follow me on Twitter, this is something that you already know.  And as far as I know, it’s acceptable for an adult to carry a pedometer.  It’s some kind of exercise thing, right?  Perfectly acceptable.  Responsible, even.  What probably isn’t respectable or responsible is that for the duration of the game, I carried my Pokewalker everywhere I went so that my team didn’t miss out on all the tasty, tasty experience that I could get while *not* playing.  The basic gist of the Pokewalker is that you load whichever of your minions you like into the thing and toss it into your pocket while you go about your daily life.  As in the game, your pal follows you around the “overworld,” and gains experience based on how many steps you take.  When you return it to the game proper, you can also obtain items and extra captured Pokemon to use in your adventure.  I assume that Nintendo, in its infinite marketing genius, saw a twofold bonus in adding the Pokewalker to these games; firstly, they can point to it as a “fitness” feature–look, we’re encouraging kids to spend time away from the game every once in a while!  (Given that it is exceptionally easy to cheat the device into registering many more steps than were actually taken, this is probably a bust….not that I ever did this.  Well, actually, I did spend some time attaching one to a ceiling fan, but that was for a friend.)  Second, and most important, they can jack the price up five American dollars from its already comparatively pricey thirty-five.  Smart, Reggie.  Very smart.  If the feature is fun, though, I’m willing to shell out, and although it may not have been the most adult thing I’ve ever done, damned if it didn’t make increasing my friendship level with Eevee that much easier.

2. Adorableness- I think this is why I could never be a truly effective Pokemon trainer: instead of choosing my team by strengths and weaknesses, or by their battle stats, or overall badassery, I tend, instead, to choose them by who’s the cutest.  I mean, really, there aren’t that many un-cute Pokemon, but if my team doesn’t make me say “awwwwwwwwwwww” every time I open my DS, I’m doing it wrong.  I will admit that I revised this policy at least a little bit throughout the course of the game, but it was still a struggle to not immediately go for whoever had the biggest eyes… and even more so to let many of them evolve when the weaker form was just so gosh-darned adorable.  In case you’re curious, my team at the end of the game was composed of Typhlosion, Onix, Umbreon, Lugia, Noctowl, and Gyarados (who was shiny!  And red!).  I also carried Swinub around for a while, purely for the awwwwwwww factor.

3. Intricacy- I know this is kind of a weird thing to be touting in a game that, on the surface, at least, is aimed at kids.  I want you to do something, though, if you haven’t already.  Pick one of the links I listed above for my team members and open it.  Do you understand everything there?  Neither do I!  Anyone can play Pokemon, true, but if you really want to get into it, there’s a ton–and I do mean a TON–of content, stats, and minutae surrounding each and every character.  Skimming just one of these entries seems daunting enough, but just think: there are 493 Pokemon altogether, and they each have just as detailed a background.  If I was told I had to learn all of this stuff by heart, I’d curl up and cry, but kids thrive on this!  Ten years from now they’ll be crying about organic chemistry exams, but right now they can tell you exactly how to evolve a Pokemon at what time of day and with what friendship level holding what item to get a desired result.  In the tall grass.  With the revolver.  Sorry, got sidetracked. 

4. Catching Them All-  Being the completionist weirdo that I am, I really thought that this would be more of an issue for me than it ended up being.  Did I really think I would be able to catch all of the Pokemanz?  Of course not.  I don’t have *that* kind of patience, even for rounding up adorable death-dealing critters.  Call me an underachiever, though, but I didn’t really go hunting for more Pokemon than I found throughout the normal course of the game.  Now, when I saw one that I didn’t have, I generally made it a point to catch at least one, but I didn’t go through a whole lot of extra trouble to get the species I didn’t just come across naturally.  To some folks, though, this is quite the process, and they’ll go to great lengths to make certain that they have all of the Pokemon possible, through special events, breeding, trading, and just plain ol’ evolution.  Children (and some adults!) take this so seriously that they’ll burst into tears if they can’t get the special distribution character of their dreams… believe me, I’ve seen it happen, and it’s ugly. 

5. Marketing Genius- I touched on this earlier, but I really think that it’s important to note how goddamn brilliant the idea of Pokemon actually is.  The games by themselves are lucrative enough, but then consider, if you will, that many gamers like to have the guidebook, particularly when they contain detailed instructions on catching ‘em all–and for the latest installments alone, there are THREE different versions to be had!  In a proper quest for completion, one would also need to get both versions of the game (in this case, HeartGold and SoulSilver), even though the differences in the actual gameplay are minimal, simply to ensure that all the characters exclusive to one or the other would be available.  In order to have a complete set of the current-generation games with guides, then, you’re looking at close to $150, or more than two brand-new 360 or PS3 games.  Then, there are the toys, the books and manga, the TV show and associated movies… really, the list just goes on and on.  It boggles my mind, for sure.  All of this from a bunch of little cartoon monsters?  I was surprised too… but if you haven’t tried it, it’s actually worth a shot.  Take it from a former hater; this is actually some pretty good stuff.

Next time I’ll be getting all growed-up again with Mass Effect 2!  (Yes, finally.)

For some reason, I had convinced myself that the last Kingdom Hearts title released in the US was Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories for the GBA, later re-released as Re:Chain of Memories for the PS2; admittedly, I didn’t play the port, but the GBA release was unmitigated crap, and I expect the PS2 version didn’t make things any better.  That said, upon actually checking the dates, I found that Kingdom Hearts 2 wasn’t actually released until over a year later, so that makes me feel a lot better about my faith in the series as a whole.  Still, that means that by the time 358/stupid name came out, it had been close to four years since the previous installment, and I, for one, had been waiting with bated breath, as I’m sure many other fankids with mouse ears were.  Here’s five things about it:

1. Prettiness

I seem to make this point a lot (perhaps because I play a disproportionate number of their games), but Square really doesn’t go half-assed when it comes to presentation, and appropriately enough, this means that Kingdom Hearts is one of the best looking DS games that I’ve ever seen.  The cutscenes, relatively infrequent though they are, are lovely, and the in-game sprites are amazingly detailed and animated perfectly smoothly.  Too often, 3D rendering on the DS gives the characters that blocky PS1-era vibe, but this game avoids that particular pitfall admirably; it’s still a DS game, of course, and so there’s only so much that can be done, but at the risk of sounding cheesy, they really do take the system’s capabilities and run with them.  Color me impressed.

2. Customization

I think that a good one-quarter to one-third of my game time was spent doing one thing: fiddling with panels.  (Not a euphemism.)  This, to me, was both a good thing and a bad thing, but it tended heavily toward the good.  The way the game rolls is that each time you finish a mission, you are awarded, aside from the standard experience points, an additional slot wherein you may install a panel.  Everything you do in the game is stored on a panel, from your weapon to your magic to your levels (this is the one that bugged me, but I’ll come back to that).  The more missions you complete, then, the more stuff you can do/use.  This works as incentive to actually *do* the missions, rather than skipping the ones that don’t interest you as much, but it also forces you to really think about how your setup works.  This is proving a bit more difficult to explain than I thought it would be, so I’ll refer you to the image to the left as an example.  To the lower left, you see the panel deck: a series of blank squares that have been filled in with doodads of the player’s choice.  If it doesn’t appear on this deck, Roxas cannot use it in battle, and there is no deck management allowed once a mission has begun, so you must plan carefully and make sure you have everything you need.  In this particular arrangement, the panels in the upper left corner raise Roxas’s level, the ones in the middle left are his weapon and its enhancements, the upper right holds some of his spells, and the entire top row holds health-recovery potions.  Since it’s not only your choices that continually expand, but also the space you have to put them in, you essentially need to review your options after every mission to make sure you’re using the slots to their maximum advantage.  Sometimes this is as simple as adding a potion to replace one you used in the previous mission, and other times, you might find yourself wiping the entire deck clean and rebuilding around a new weapon or ability that you just have to have (I did this more than a few times).  It’s possible to store different configurations so that they can be selected again later, and in some situations, this would have been a great help, but I never really took advantage of it; rather than tailor myself to each individual mission, I tried to have a good all-around deck, which served me pretty well, but I can definitely see how some folks might have spent even more time than I did building just the right set for each different situation.

The major thing that I didn’t care for (and this is more a nitpick than anything else) was that your levels are on panels as well.  This effectively means that you can do all the missions in the world, but if you fail to equip the level-ups in your deck, then you get no benefit from all those tasty experience points.  It’s not a huge problem, because I did find that I rarely had to sacrifice much, if anything, in order to use all of my levels, but it just didn’t seem to fit like the rest of the panel system did.  As I said, it’s a minor complaint; for the most part I really enjoyed the system (which was so very much better than that stupid card system…. really).

3. Variety

This is where I really felt the game suffered.  There are only so many ways that you can send someone out to kill a bunch of Heartless before it starts to feel a little same-y, and believe me: by the end of 90+ missions, you are definitely feeling the same-y-ness.  One of the major reasons this seems to occur is that the worlds themselves aren’t particularly varied, or at least not as much as they are in the console titles, or even (I shudder to say) in Chain of Memories.  There are only six Disney-specific realms in which you can explore and accept missions, as opposed to about twice that in the other games.  Furthermore, you never actually get any Disney characters in your party; they are restricted to cutscenes only (they’re not even enemies), which fits with the storyline, but is still sort of a bummer, as that’s kind of been their “thing” from the beginning. 

Variety is also noticeably absent from the between-mission cutscenes; okay, yes, I get that we want to establish a relationship between these characters, and I get that we need a certain amount of plot exposition that might be difficult to deliver in a different fashion.  But really?  I am very, VERY sick of watching those three fuckers a) eat ice cream or b) angst it up about why one of them is missing their little ice cream date.  If it’s just going to be a throwaway scene, then just don’t bother putting anything in there at all; a few times would have been perfectly sufficient.

4. Portability

Traditionally, handheld systems haven’t been very kind to RPG enthusiasts.  It’s just kind of the nature of the genre that you frequently face long periods of time where it’s difficult to break in order to save your game, and (if you’re me) the use of a strategy guide impedes the ability to carry around the game with you as well.  It kind of defeats the purpose of a handheld system if you have to play it on your couch or risk losing hours of progress.  The points I’m taking away from Kingdom Hearts for variety, though, I’m giving right back for portability.  Missions rarely last longer than ten or fifteen minutes, and you are offered the opportunity to save after each one, so it’s perfectly reasonable to play in bite-sized chunks whenever you like.  Additionally, most of the missions are pretty straightforward, eliminating the strategy guide issue (yes, I did still use one.  Hush.).  Thinking back, I really can’t come up with another handheld RPG that’s untethered itself so successfully, so even though this really shouldn’t be an issue (that’s what the system is FOR, after all), I do have to give major credit to Square for finally figuring it out.  Everyone else, take notes.

5. Series Integration

 This is where that whole pesky “story” thing comes in.  Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is situated between Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2, and covers the period (of 358 days, conveniently enough) that Sora was out of commission between the two.  Roxas, the character you control at the beginning of KH2, is the protagonist of this one; he’s the Nobody of Sora, but doesn’t know it.  The bulk of this installment, then, deals with Roxas’s returning memories and his eventual struggle to stay his own person rather than returning to being a part of Sora.  It’s interesting to see the series dealt with from a different angle, although I’m honestly not sure that the story and the gameplay fit together very well.  I’m not really complaining, because I enjoyed the game a great deal, but the actual Story Of Roxas might have been better explored in a different medium: anime, maybe?  Comics?  I’m not sure, but it feels a little strange to me somehow.  Regardless, after a somewhat confusing beginning (which may have been simply me forgetting stuff), things fall into place neatly as the game goes along, and you end up right where KH2 kicks off: with Roxas waking up in Twilight Town.

Oh, and I was a little slow on picking up on this, but the reason that whole dual-Keyblade thing at the end looked so familiar?  It’s because it’s this (the secret ending to KH1).  Nice touch, that.

That’s my five things.  Next time I’ll be tackling Pokemon SoulSilver, so hang on to your pants.

The basic idea behind Five Things will be that every time I finish a game (however often that happens…), I’ll give it a write-up, and I’ll choose five outstanding features or categories (”things,” if you will) around which the discussion will center.  I’m going to try to stay away from generic things like “music” or “gameplay” in favor of more game-specific criteria, but I can’t promise that I won’t get lazy every once in a while.  This is probably going to result in an interesting mish-mash of review material, as I’m likely to mix new games in with things that everyone else played years ago (as is my wont).  Anyway, let’s give this a test run so that you folks can let me know what you think; Final Fantasy XIII seems like a pretty good place to start.  For science!

I think I can honestly say I’ve never waited as long or as expectantly for a game as I did for Final Fantasy XIII.  I even bought a PS3 for it, back in the days when we all thought it would be an exclusive.  It’s been about three and a half years since the series’ last numbered console outing on the PS2, but it’s felt like so very much longer.  Under normal circumstances, a newly purchased game can expect to wait on my shelf for anywhere from a few weeks to a few months before I get around to it; that’s just the nature of the beast that is my backlog, and I doubt it’ll change anytime soon.  Final Fantasy XIII was, of course, a totally different story.  I picked it up at a midnight launch and started playing the next day, barely paying attention to any other games until I checked it off as completed 70-ish hours of play time–three weeks–later.  Here, then, are five things about Final Fantasy XIII:

1. Control

Not as in “game controls,” but rather as in “the game CONTROLS its players to a ridiculous degree.”  Hand-holding this long should really be followed by a request for a second date.  There are thirteen chapters in the game, and in chapter nine, I was still getting tutorials.  Square games have never exactly been light on the instructional periods, but this felt excessive even for them; I’m guessing that they were banking on attracting something of a new crowd with the series’ transition to the next-gen systems, and therefore were making allowances for people who hadn’t played their games before and simply picked it up because it looked all shiny and pretty.  Well, guess what, Square?  I’m going to go ahead and say that MOST of the people playing Final Fantasy XIII have, in fact, played at least enough of the series to know how to maneuver their way through a battle without being stopped every five seconds to adjust the angle of their sword or remind them that if they run out of health, they will die. 

Outside of battle, the game controls where the player goes to a degree that really does feel out of place in a Final Fantasy game.  As a general rule, exploration is sort of a big thing in these titles; getting a hovercraft or boat or airship with which to traverse the world map is pretty much a rite of passage for any budding party.  There IS no world map in Final Fantasy XIII.  There are only linear maps for the first major chunk of the game, and once you get to a point where you can wander around even a little bit, it’s still a royal pain in the ass to get anywhere with any kind of efficiency.  It’s only much, much later that you obtain the ability to ride a chocobo (which I actually loved in this game, but I’ll get to that), and later than that when you can teleport between more than one or two waypoints.  In short, the game doesn’t want you to fuck around too much before it’s good and ready to let you go.  Given that it’s still not exactly short, this didn’t actually bother me all that much, but I know some folks were pretty miffed that they couldn’t wander hither and yon as in previous installments.

The last control issue was one that I actually sort of liked; up until quite late in the game, the game actually chooses which of the six playable characters you will have in your party at any given point, as well as who the leader of the party will be (i.e. who you as the player will be controlling in battle and in the field).  Once I was allowed to pick my own party, I ran with the exact same configuration through the rest of the game, contrary to what the strategy guide wanted me to do. (They said to use Hope… fuck that, says I.  Sazh made a perfectly legitimate back-up medic.  So what if I had to spend a ridiculous amount of his crystarium points to make it worth the effort?  Things were mostly busy smacking Fang around anyway.)  By choosing my party for me, though, the game ensured that I at least got experience using each of the characters for long enough to know how to make them effective.  Also, I don’t have to simply infer that Hope is a whiny little bitchface; I’ve seen it in action.  I know.

2. Character Progression

I love job systems, and at its heart, that’s what Final Fantasy XIII uses: a job system squared.  In battle, while you don’t control what each individual character is doing at any given time, you do control how they interact and work with each other.  That sounds a little complicated, but it really isn’t; beforehand, you set up what they call paradigms, which are essentially battle plans that you can deploy whenever necessary.  For most normal running-around, I tended to use Delta Attack, which consisted of a Commando (stabbity fighter/rogue), a Ravager (casty-type/mage), and a Sentinel (tank/warrior). 

Let me pause here to note that I giggled like a schoolgirl once I figured out that all six of the roles pretty much directly correlate to WoW classes: Commandos=Rogues, Ravagers=Mages, Sentinels=Warriors, Medics=Priests, Saboteurs=Warlocks, and Synergists=Shaman.  Do I think they did this on purpose?  Of course not, but I still got a kick out of it.

Anyway, while you will undoubtedly have a favored configuration or two, you are free in battle to choose whichever you like (the deck allows you to have six at the ready) and to swap in and out of it at any given time.  This way, if you find yourself in a tight spot, you don’t have to give up the fight and come back, as long as your paradigms have been properly prepared ahead of time.  Again, it’s worth noting that the game holds your hand regarding this system for a looooong time, but once they actually allow you to USE it instead of simply thinking that it looks shiny and potentially fun, I found it to be a very effective and enjoyable way to fight.  The only thing I didn’t like about the setup here was that if you switch a member into or out of your party (or if the game forces you to do so), all of the pre-existing paradigms that you have created are wiped out, even if you go back to the same configuration of party members immediately afterward.  Granted, it only takes a couple of minutes to rebuild them, but I don’t think it would have been too much to ask for the game to remember what I had going on for any three particular characters. 

The actual progression of the characters through each of their roles is handled through something called the Sphere Grid…. er, Crystarium.  Yeah, so it borrows very, very heavily from Final Fantasy X, which is just dandy by me.  With each battle, you gain CP (Crystarium Points), which are then used to progress through each role, unlocking abilities, stat enhancements, and so forth.  There are really only two differences between this and the Sphere Grid: first, the different characters’ paths are unrelated, whereas there’s only one Sphere Grid, and second, you can, if you so choose, work on multiple roles at once rather than being restricted to one path (i.e. you can dump points into, say, Medic and Ravager at the same time, although it’s generally much less efficient to do so than to simply focus on one role at a time).  I suppose there actually is a third difference, although it doesn’t directly involve the grid; characters gain CP regardless of whether they actually participate in a battle or not.  This makes things so much easier later in the game that it’s simply amazing.  As I’ve said, I tended to run with the same crowd once given the option, but there were a few points where I really needed the extra healing power (and thus was forced to endure Hope for a fight or two) or called in support for something really specific (like the two hunts where I abused Vanille’s simply unfair Death spell).  By giving these characters enough CP to keep up with their more active comrades throughout the entire game, they weren’t in danger of simply being one-shotted once I actually gave them their time in the sun.  True, they weren’t as well-developed as the others, by virtue of me ignoring their equipment and upgrades, but they weren’t totally helpless (which was one of the major problems that I had with FFXII…but I digress).  I think, actually, that this particular progression system might be my favorite in the series to date.  Gasp! 

 3. Backstory

There’s a lot of backstory to FFXIII.  A *lot.*  Unfortunately, most of it doesn’t actually manifest during the game itself.  Of course, there are plenty of cutscenes, and you get enough information to get along, but the great majority of the exposition takes place either in the datalog entries (which are abundant enough that even I stopped keeping up with them after a while) or through the strategy guide, which actually has a rather lovely series of entries that explain the “Day X” flashbacks that, without some extra guidance, are just confounding.  I found this whole setup to be a little frustrating; should I really be required to do background reading and outside research just to get the whole story of the game?  Don’t get me wrong– I don’t have anything against them including extra content to flesh out some things that might not have gotten a complete treatment in the main story, but it seems as though some pretty integral things were just left out, and things felt a little disjointed as a result.

4. Side Quests (and the lack thereof)

I would have liked to see more side quests in Final Fantasy XIII.  In fact, I would have liked to see ANY side quests IN Final Fantasy XIII, because for the most part, you can’t even do any of the damn things until the game is over and you’ve already taken out the end bosses.  Even the strategy guide tells you “oooo, yeah… you might wannna hold off on that, ’cause you’re gonna get spanked,” which is NOT a good sign.  I think this is another integration issue; yeah, the content is there, but it’s not accessible unless you go the extra mile, which… well, I guess if that’s what they were really going for it worked, but why withhold explanation, or content, or whatever from someone who’s more casually playing the game and less rabidly rushing for completion?  Wouldn’t it draw more people to the series if you were to, say, offer most of what there is during the main storyline and then hinting that if you’re REALLY interested, guess what?  There’s a bit more for you too! 

Now, I say this, of course, as one of those who WAS rabidly rushing for completion, so I’m not sure whether that makes my thoughts any less valid… at any rate, I did complete the side quests, or rather, the side quest (singular).  Yeah, there’s really only one.  Much like in Final Fantasy XII, you are tasked with “hunts,” wherein you track down a specific creature or set of creatures and annihilate it/them.  Nothing to it.  Of course, some are vastly more difficult to find and/or kill than others, but the whole thing is still pretty much straightforward.  You do get some pretty badass stuff out of doing the hunts, but a lot of it would have been much more useful during the main game.  For example, the use of chocobos is unlocked through a hunt, and it’s one that you would have likely not been able to complete much before the final areas (if at all). 

Another digression here: I’m on record as not liking chocobos very much.  I may, at some point, have even suggested that Colonel Sanders open up an Ivalice branch, or something to that effect.  I don’t really remember.  However, Final Fantasy XIII is the first game in the series where I can unreservedly say that chocobos were done right.  Aside from the initial side quest that allows you to use them, there’s no stupid requirements, no chasing, no fighting, simply walking up to them and pressing a button does the trick.  The only mini-game associated with them requires practically no effort; if they sense treasure, they get a symbol above their head that leads you straight to it, and then they dig it up.  It’s how you get your first Ribbon.  Done and done.  Thank you, FFXIII.

I put somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen extra hours into the game after the final sequences, which is pretty good, and I finished all but three hunts (the last two I didn’t even try, and that goddamn Cactuar is not possible for a human to defeat), but for a series that has traditionally allowed and even encouraged so much extra exploration, I really would have liked to see more.  It felt like there was even less than there actually was, I think mainly because all of the side quests were tied together; if there had been roughly the same amount of content, but spread out along a few objectives instead of simply the one, maybe I would have been more satisfied.  I dunno.

5. Final Fantasy-ness

This is the key, isn’t it?  Many people, me included, waited a very long time for this game, and a lot of that waiting was chiefly because of those two words.  Does it live up to its legacy?  Well, you tell me.  Where else have we seen a game open up with stoic, environmentally-monikered military hero riding a train into the heart of the bad guys’ domain with a stereotypical wisecracking token black sidekick?  OH RIGHT, that was Final Fantasy VII.  That’s just an example, of course.  Traditional series good (chocobos, Cid) and bad (tonberries, cactuars) guys make appearances, causing fankids like me to squeal just a little, and the established character roles are nicely filled; aside from those I’ve already mentioned, there’s also the whiny little weakling who becomes a badass (or maybe he did… I don’t really know, *I* didn’t keep the little pussy in my party)(Tidus), the cheerful bouncy girl that I always hate (Yuffie, Selphie), and the raging badass (Auron, Red XIII) that always becomes a permanent fixture in my party.  The music and the setting, as always, are lovely, there are cutscenes a-plenty, and the production value is… well, it’s Square.  They don’t generally fuck around.  Yes, this is Final Fantasy. 

Overall, I don’t think it’s going to kick out FFVIII as my favorite game of the series or anything, but it’s a perfectly respectable first outing on the next-gen systems, and I didn’t feel cheated in the least having purchased my PS3 in its honor. 

Now, get to commenting.  I want to know if this column is worth continuing.  Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days will be next, just to let you know.