Game Review: Valkyrie Profiles 2, Infinite Undiscovery, Final Fantasy
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Tri-Ace: Valkyrie Profiles 2 Game Review
I have been waiting for Valkyrie Profiles 3 for the last 10 years. The third part was supposed to be for Hrist. I guess the old gal never got her game. She will always be stuck playing second fiddle. Anyhow, the second part was about a princess named Alicia.
She was the reincarnation of the Valkyrie Silmeria. Due to a fluke, her body was already taken and there were two Valkyries on earth at once. This was forbidden. Since it was Hrist’s turn, she wanted Alicia dead. The game features both Alicia’s personalities. As a Valkyrie, she is headstrong and dominant.
Her normal form is meek and sweet. The areas are 2D and the world map is kind of big. The battles are in a 3D arena, and the characters have an overdrive. Alicia can control the battle by freezing opponents. To help her on her quest, she gets normal storyline people and dead people revived.
Once their soul ripens, they can be set free for real. They usually leave behind a bit of their power. Running them in the real world can also give you items. The dead people from the same era tend to talk. It is kinda cute. The game has plenty of abilities. They can be unlocked via runes.
The runes are within the pieces of monsters. This is one of the few games were you can rip the monsters to pieces, and use set missing pieces to make items. The fights in the game tend to be pretty cool, but a bit clunky to manage. The final boss was also fun as well. Overall, it is quite the entertaining game.
Infinite Undiscovery Game Review
This was another one of Tric Ace RPG. The game was about a boy named Capell. He was arrested because he looked like the rebel leaders. The game has a pretty cool presentation featuring the Dread Knight.
The Dread Knight was trying to protect a chain that was keeping the moon in place. The chains in the moon were having strange powers over the world. Anyhow, since Capell was born on the New Moon he was born without powers.
People without magic powers are treated as inferior people. Capell joins up with group of people in order to save the world from the Dread Knight. Capell is the only player that can be controlled. He can also partially control one character.
The other characters are controlled by a computer. Some of the cutest characters are the magic twins, Rico and Rucha. Their magic is quite entertaining. Despite the name of the game, there is not much to discovery in the game. I have searched all the areas and they was hardly anythi8ng to find despite the wide map.
Like the other Tri Ace game, this one had a Sphere 211 kind of special area. The area is more of a copy paste of other places. The Celestas too were copy paste characters. It was kind of depressing. Overall, it was a pretty decent game. It also did not have a true pause setting, which is odd for a Tri Ace game.
Final Fantasy VII Game Review
Final Fantasy 7 as the first of the series that I played. At the time I did not like it much since I would not get past the start of the game. After training a bit, I was able to get past the first area. I played the game when I was starting to learn English.
Playing it later on I was able to get more of the storyline. For those that have been living under a rock, Final Fantasy 7 is about a group of eco warriors that are trying to save the world from Sephiroth. Unlike modern eco warriors, Avalanche does not stand for love and peace.
They will save the world even if they have to kill anyone who stands in their way. Anyhow, this game takes place in planet earth, believe it or not. It was shown in the scale model of the world in Nanaki’s village.
The main character of the story is Cloud Strife. Despite having three female romantic interests, most people assume he has yaoi tendencies. This is in part due to his obsession with his best friend Zack and the hot final boss Sephiroth. Also, the side quest where he dressed up like a girl did not help much either.
The game is filled with Kabalistic Jewish references. In fact, the final boss is based on visions of Rabbi Akiva. His final attack is based on a parable of Akiva. He wanted to show his students knowledge. Instead, they all got scorched by the sun.
Anyhow, Sephiroth’s final attack has been the object of some hilarity. His Strike Nova attack destroys half the solar system, and he still fails to kill the main characters with the power of the sun. I could spend hour rambling about this RPG, but I would prefer not to.
This game is schedule to be remade with better graphics and fighting schematics. The first disk will probably be released in a year or two. It is a wonder how they are going to reprogram the extensive material system. Then again, materials only start to become plentiful by the middle of disk 1.
Final Fantasy VIII Game Review
This Final Fantasy VIII started out like a bizarre school for mercenaries. There were kids taken from orphanages and trained in the deadly art of combat. It sounds cruel when I put things in perspective. Anyhow, to help them on their quest they had magic and Guardian Spirits.
These teenage mercenaries were being trained for an important reason. The reason was missed in the first exposition of the game. It was later spelled out in Disk 2. The start of the game is pretty interesting with Squall fighting Seifer.
It shows how both of them got their cute little scar. However, I think both should have had their skulls split open. The game had a pretty complex magic system. The magic could be drawn from monsters and added to your base stats.
By training the GF, they gave you the ability to boots certain stats whenever one leveled up. As a result, I always trained the GFs with Squall to maximize the levels. This made Squall the weakest character. This did not matter much since I made up the dividend with high level magic like Ultima.
The world map was pretty expansive, and the GFs were troopers. The Odin side quest was pretty interesting. One had only 20 minutes to get to him and defeat him in battle. One could also get Tonsberry King GF in the same area.
At a certain point, the final fantasy viii game takes a 180 with Laguna and time travel. This was frankly one of the most confusing time traveling based games I ever played. The monster fauna was at least plentiful. Also, the Lore with Lunatic Pandora and the Sorceresses was pretty cool.
Final Fantasy IX Game Review
Final Fantasy IX was more akin to the earlier titles of Final Fantasy. It had more of a knightly feel and plenty of familiar faces. The game was about a thief named Zidane who wanted to steal the princess’s heart. The princess had a lovely maiden named Garnet.
She had the unique ability to summon Eidolons. However, this power was mostly useless for the start of the game. Since she was in a low level, she did not have enough MP to summon them. I was eventually able to get her to summon Shiva.
To maximize EXP, I would kill the unrelated characters to get the main one more EXP. Anyhow, the magic and abilities were learned from weapons, armors and accessories. There was an incentive to collect them all. Also, it was important to have the main kid steal in every battle.
Usually, all the bosses had good items. Some of the characters like Quina had weird abilities. She gained abilities by eating her enemy. Her Blu magic was very useful. Zidane also gained different overdrives depending on the weapon he was using.
These overdrives would become permanent after using the weapon a pretty long time. The game had pretty overtones and it had one staged battle. Thanks to Final Fantasy 7, the games were starting to feature music with songs.
Following in this new tradition, Garnet had a pretty annoying song she would sing when depressed. At the end, she sang it with lyrics. My favorite parts were usually the battles against Beatrice. She would always win, which was hilarious.
Final Fantasy X Game Review
Final Fantasy X was the first one to employ genuine voice actors. New generations of gaming had forced Square Enix to up their game. This was also the first PS2 Final Fantasy game. This one was about a sports jockey named Tidus.
He played a futuristic game called Blitzball. The object of the game was to score enough points before drowning. The way his arena was summoned in Zanerkan was pretty cool. One day, his home was attacked by a monster named Sin.
Sin transported him and his guardian Aaron to Spira. Tidus did not know what to make of Spira. Everyone he spoke to assumed he was insane, or he had inhaled too much toxin from Sin. As the game went along, Tidus discovered more about Sin and his twisted relationship with the Summoners.
The game had a pretty complex level up system. It was possible to max out all the stats of all characters and teach them everything as well. The summoning too was pretty elaborate. My favorite Eon was Yojimbo. He was the oddball of this game along with the Margus Sisters. My Yojimbo used to give me a lot of freebies often. He also used his overdrive often.
The PS4 re mastered version had some pretty interesting new side quests. In this one, the main character had to fight the dark Eons. They had been originally featured in the second part of the series. Speaking of the second part, it ends pretty depressing.
I never played the last mission since it was with just Rikku. It seemed as if the cast was thinned out from one game to another. Overall, the ending of this final fantasy was pretty ballsy. Almost as ballsy as what they did to Aeris in Final Fantasy 7. Still, both endings pale in comparison to the ending of Divinity 2.
Final Fantasy XII Game Review
I frankly could not spoil you the storyline of this game, since I never followed it. The best thing about this game was the side quests and the world map. The monsters were visible, which was something new for a Final Fantasy game.
The battle schematics were quite aggressive. However, the characters could be left to their own devices through the gambit system. The gambit system is like programming the character’s AI. They could take about 10 commands.
Through clever programming, I would have them fight a monster for days even. That was the only way to kill some of the special monsters like Yatman. The main character eventually joins a guild and that unlocks all sorts of interesting adventures.
The main character of the game was Vaan. There is no need to bother to remember his name since he was completely irrelevant to the plot. Another interesting gimmick was the overdrives. Through clever timing, the characters can perform 15 to 20 overdrives in a row. Once the chain breaks, they do a finishing move of an element.
The overdrive system is useful for dealing with though bosses. Each character has three colorful overdrives, with their relevant animation to boot. Despite having visible monsters, some do come out at random after meeting a certain criterion.
The hardest battles were usually against the Espers and Gilgamesh. These battles could not be won through the gambit system since these beasts were quite aggressive. Overall, the Espers were more or less useless. Still, fighting them was a lot of fun.
Final Fantasy XIII Game Review
Final Fantasy XIII was not the best of the series in my opinion. Still, enough people liked it for it to get 3 parts. That point aside, I did finish the game. The main issue was that it took way too long for the open map to come into play.
Most of the action took place on a straight road. From time to time, they would switch between characters. Most of the storyline was a long tutorial on how to use the new fighting system. Frankly, it was time well spent.
The fighting system consisted in several forms. The characters could switch between them. These forms helped them fight together. The party leader determined the change of the other forms. Around the end, the fighting got even more confusing.
Aside from this, the game had a stagger system. If the enemy was struck by its weakness enough times, it would develop an opening or become staggered. While the monster was staggered, the player could take away more damage.
The stagger system was relevant in the final boss since at a certain point, he grew immune to damage. The only way to get him was to stagger him. The game also had featured personal Eidolons. They were acquired through the curse mark or whatever from the L’ Ciel.
Frankly, the concept was better developed in Final Fantasy Type zero. In the end, Square Enix did not have the courage to make Type Zero the true Final Fantasy XIII. Considering how that other game ended, I cannot blame them. Happy endings tend to sell better.
Final Fantasy Type Zero Game Review
Recently, this game got re-released for the PS4, with better graphics. At the time, I thought this was a new game. So, I though Square Enix was ripping me off. When I was able to put it in the right time scale, I was able to appreciate the awesomeness that is Final Fantasy Type Zero.
The game was about a group of 14 elite fighters from Runbrum. The cosmology of the world is explained at the start of the game. The ending kind of struck me like a ton of bricks, since it seemed to be more of cinematic.
Anyhow, the fighting schematic gives one 100 percent control of your character. You have to attack and dodge, not press the attack command. This makes for the fighting quite dynamic. There is also 2 other AIs that act autonomously.
Each character has its own unique fighting style. One can switch between all of them depending on the situation. There are a few that work better than others. The character Deuce has some flute attacks that are frankly really confusing.
Others have more discernable skills like King, and his gun. Finding out how to work with them is part of the fun. Like all Final Fantasies, this one has the chocobos. Though, they brought back the breeding system. The chocobos can be used in the huge army battles.
The expert, army trails are extremely hard. I cannot stress this cat enough. The ending of the game also depresses the hell out of me. It is nice to see a Fantasy game with a sobering touch of reality, down the middle. This game also started with the L’Ciel cosmology. It was also the origin point of Final Fantasy’s Gilgamesh.
World of Final Fantasy Game Review
Today, I got my new Final Fantasy game. I had this game pre-ordered for more than 5 months. So far, I have only played the game for 2 hours, so I cannot spoil any important plotlines. The game came with a cute picture book. It was truly adorable. The scenery is a lot like Kingdom Hearts. I think Square Enix wanted to do their version of Kingdom Hearts game without Disney’s constant interference.
Part of the things this game has, unlike the Disney equivalent is a character that really is God. She says it in quite the nonchalant fashion. All in all, this game seems like a fusion of Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, The Last Remnant, Pokemon and Demon Souls. The Kingdom Hearts aspect is the whole traveling to other areas to complete missions related to the nonsensical plot.
The characters also have their own unique dialect. There are also two different races of people: The Chibis and the normal humans. Depending on what form you choose, is how the battle progresses. In the chibi form, one can ride a larger beast, while carrying about your own chibi in one’s head. You capture chibis in the field with your magic cube, which resembles a pokeball.
The main characters have to catch them all to recover their memories. The Demon Souls aspect comes in the form of a safe area that reminds me a bit of fire link shrine. From time to time, there are NCPs that populate the place. One can always return there when one dies. Instead of bondfires, the players must look and activate portals.
The only thing I found annoying is the safe spots. I like Dark Souls a lot because it saves all the time. Now, I must chase after safe spots and not start something serious, if I have somewhere else I got to be. The game focuses on the twins Lann and Reynn. I usually play with Reynn a lot because her brother is a total douche.
There are some odd, implied things here and there. The game might actually be a bit sordid if Western 10-year-olds actually paid any attention. The main issue is that the twins must help prevent a war. The credits were drawn in anime style, which was pretty neat. All in all, I recommend this adorable RPG game. It is certainly a nice change of pace from Dark Souls 3’s DLC.