Posted on 2008.12.18 at 03:47
Current Mood: geeky
Altaïr Ibn Al-Ahad (translation :P), essentially "The Flying One, Son of None" is quite now officially my favorite video game character. Assassin's Creed is a gaming staple, a step in the direction of where games should be, and while it's not perfect, it comes pretty damn close.
The story itself weaves between the events of the Third Crusade (creative liberties, yes, but a damned lot of it is historically accurate) near the end of the 12th century and the year 2012 as the modern character, Desmond Miles, is thrust into the genetic memories (everyone hark! A Dune reference!) of his ancestor, the aforementioned Hashshashin, Altaïr. As some conspiracy nuts may know, December 21st, 2012 is supposed to be one of the end-of-time dates, and the game makes full use of that in the modern storyline, through conversations, in-game events, and e-mails pillaged from the various researchers.
The gameplay is wonderful. As an assassin, Altaïr follows three main tenets: not to harm an innocent, always be discreet, and not to compromise the brotherhood--the Assassin's Creed, if anyone was curious about the name of the game. You wander throughout three main cities--Jerusalem, Acre, and Damascus--in order to reach your targets, gathering information and performing little side-things, such as collecting flags, climbing high points for map updates, and saving citizens from being hassled by guards.
Stealth is paramount, so you can't run amok killing everyone in sight, however much fun that might be. Main weapons are a wristblade, that extends from a sheath and past the stump of an amputated ring finger (very useful, very silent, very fun), a short blade/throwing daggers (depending on the range), and a regular ol' sword. When exposed (i.e., guards know where you are, or who you are, or you pissed them off enough to earn their ire), you have a great deal of options to escape, such as hiding in hay piles, in rooftop gardens, blending in with the crowd, and a few more.
The combat is wonderful, in actuality, and its truly a pleasure to fight. Blocking allows for a set of increasingly more devastating counterattacks as Altaïr is awarded higher ranks, ranging from a simple punch to the stomach to a disembowelment. Altaïr can hold his own in a flat out fight, but that's not the fun of it. The fun is the story, the sneaking, and frankly, the free-running, which involves almost free movement over every single surface, horizontal or vertical, giving extreme mobility that makes it that much easier to get away from guards or get close to a target.
Killing a main target leads to an almost-intimate interlude between Altaïr and his victim, where they explain their motives, their reasons, Altaïr's folly, things like that. It's actually very well done, a very nice touch (although in most cases impossible in reality because at least I tend to kill my targets in the heat of a battle, having intentionally or accidentally exposed myself, mostly to catch the target before they flee, or kill someone, or something of the sort, but I agree it's an excellent plot device).
There's the little fluff, too. The cities are extraordinarily detailed, and not just graphically. The amount of citizens is insane, not the odd one here and there but filled to overflowing, with thugs, beggars, normal citizens, marketeers, guard patrols, scholars, and more. Further, Altaïr, when leaping between buildings, casts a sort of eagle-shadow, due to his fluttering robes, the point of his hood, and is a nod to his name.
The game is technically linear, but it's akin to a fly being contained in a mansion--it's got walls, and there are ways you have to go, but for the most part you can do as you bloody well please. It's not really open-ended, but it's close to such as to make no difference.
The only flaws to it--some of the missions for information are ungodly difficult, and it has a little bit of a malware thing; every so often, it tries to send your computer's information to an Ubisoft server that hangs the game, but the workaround is to simply disable all of your computer's network connectivity; two simple clicks, really.
In essence, Assassin's Creed is a staple for any gamer, whatever kind you are. It has its faults, but its glorious gameplay, deep story, and memorable characters are things that far outweigh any small slights. It is simply gorgeous, a must-play.
There is a confirmed sequel in the works. I'll be sad if Altaïr isn't in it. But I'm just desperate for 2010, when it's supposed to come out. Time, time!
Posted on 2008.08.23 at 02:30
And lo, we shall start... from the beginning!
Well, not from the beginning of the ones that I've played, else it'd be all over the place, but in the order of those that they are known as.
Final Fantasy I (Release I Played it On: NES):
I loved this little game, and I still do. It was simple, direct, and to the point, consisting of two continents (North and South), separated by a body of water that was impassible through any means but a ship and later, one's very own airship. You begin the game with a party of six archetypes (of which you pick four) (Fighter, White Mage, Black Mage, Thief, Red Mage, Black Belt) of your choosing, which, a little over halfway through the game, change classes into their upgraded ones, allowing greater access to weapons, armor, or spells, depending upon their class.
The purpose is to collect Orbs from four Fiends that are threatening the world before going against their ruler, the demon Chaos. The combat was completely turn-based, thank god (I, personally, despise real-time RPG combat), and the different characteristics you could make your party up of made for actual replayability, even way back when. The storyline was very thin, but was deeper than (when I was playing) anything the dumbass DM I had for D&D could ever make up, so I was happy there, too. It had some grindy bits, I admit (I recall having to play two days of constant grinding on Ogres (near the beginning of the game) in order to gain the proper levels to advance the story decently), but after that it was a fun experience.
Final Fantasy III (Release I Played it On: DS):
This... was not what I really expected it to be. I did not finish it, in fact hocked it soon after, because it suffered from several very major flaws: it had almost no plot, was almost entirely a grind from dungeon one, and there are places where one could become irrevocably stuck (i.e., having to almost restart the game). Further, the music was terrible.
Not very recommended. It's pretty bad, and I'm sorry that they converted the original NES game into a DS port, because I hear that III was the best of the NES bunches. I'll probably be picking it back up again when the price goes down just to play it (I may not have given it the best of chances, and, granted, one could say that the irrevocably stuck part was my fault for only using one savegame), but as it stands, there's no rush.
Final Fantasy VI (Release I Played it On: SNES):
I adore this one, on the other hand. There are sixteen playable characters in this one, and a full fourteen are entirely fleshed out characters. The world is vast and deep, and the story is rich and engaging. And the music, gods the music. The story has to be the deepest I've had in a game in... well, a very long time.
6 also has the highest tech level of any Final Fantasy except for 7, which works for a very weird mishmash sometimes. The "evil empire" shtick uses Magitek, which is magical weapons refined from sucking the lifeblood (essentially) out of captured espers. Very few people can use actual magic in the game unless they've got espers (see below), so its a tad off in that respect.
Kefka, the main villain and subsequently the final boss, is of the usual megalomaniacal fare, but throws little temper tantrums and drinks very deeply of his own (gained) power and becomes quite insane (as if he weren't already, he just gets moreso), which makes him amusing; plus all his theme songs are kewl.
Magic is gained by equipping espers, which need AP won from battles to learn that magic; this is good, in my point of view, because I don't like grinding, but I do like grinding if there's another purpose as well as gaining levels (in this point, magic :) ).
Damn good game.
Oh, one final point: that One Winged Angel theme that everyone adores and drools over in 7? It's got nothing on Dancing Mad. Furthermore, Sephiroth's "angel" phase is a direct lift of Kefka's final appearance, wings and all, and even right down to how he dissipates when defeated. People need to play 6: then they'd get over 7.
Final Fantasy VII (Release I Played it On: PS1):
EDIT: This sucked. That is all.
FURTHER EDIT: The music is not that bad at all, I will give it credit for that. Yes, One Winged Angel is good, but there are plenty of other songs within the game that are wholly uncredited and are undeserving of that lack. Cosmo Canyon's theme. The Nibelheim sequences. AVALANCHE runs. One Winged Angel is not the One True God of Uematsu's music. It's just a wee bit better than most. Wee bit.
The story is atrocious. I played the game through trying to decipher what in the hell was going on (I understand Meteor, Jenova, Mako, and the origin of Sephiroth and Cloud due to Hojo's experiments, but beyond that, it doesn't make any fucking sense), and then read the Wikipedia entry and several OTHER synopses of the plot, and I still have no fucking clue what a lot of the story means, why it was included, and what hell purpose it serves in the game other than to take up two discs of shit before the third, which consists mostly of just Sephiroth (a tradition to be continued in 8, but in a much better way).
Only characters I like (and I was just expecting to like one) are Vincent Valentine and Bugenhagen, Red XIII's grandfather. I like Vincent (and expected to) because actual thought was put into his backstory. Barret's is flimsy, weak, and he curses a lot. I hate Cid for the same reason. Cait Sith is just fucked up, I mean seriously fucked up, Tifa has no story to speak of and the same holds true for Yuffie and Cloud, and Red XIII is just a weird cat/dog science experiment that hates everyone at first and then whambam suddenly realizes that Hey! Maybe things aren't so bad after all! After seeing his petrified father, which apparently Bugenhagen hadn't been allowing him to see for his entire freaking life, just so that he could boil that little hatred pot to a simmer. Bugenhagen also apparently doesn't have any Softs.
But Vincent's different, and I won't spoil it completely here (although I should, considering that NOT spoiling it would mean that some poor soul would actually have to play the goddamn game), but I like the fact that he was a Turk (even though I hate the Turks, think they're stupid, and ergo anyone who likes said Turks are guilty by association (this is a valid logical fallacy, for there isn't any reason why the Turks should be so "cool" (which they aren't), or why people should like them as much as they do.) ), and the also-fact that he knows more about Sephiroth than Sephiroth does, simply from having been an employee of Shinra for so damn long, and, frankly, being locked in a coffin in the basement while Sephiroth did God knows what just outside.
Bugenhagen is just crazy. He floats around, goes "Ho ho hoooo!" a lot, which is endearing, and seriously has no feet. Old guys without feet that float around via no visible means and giggle are pluses in my book. Plus his floating around made me overlook occasionally that Cloud doesn't have hands, he has hooves. I mean seriously, look at them. They're HOOVES. Horseshoe jokes abound, but I don't want to get into that. The graphics were gorgeous for what they were at the time and the capabilities of the PS1, but I mean come on people. At least give him gloves or something, or perhaps a reason why he has no opposable thumbs yet wields a big damn sword all the time.
The FMV sequences were odd. They were very good, I won't deny, but they were just odd, and popped up at random, nearly incomprehensible times.
No emotional attachment whatsoever for the death of Aeris. None. Sephiroth just fell from the sky, poked her through the back, and then turned around and congratulated himself (take a look through the game: every time Sephiroth does something, he turns his back to people, holds his arms straight out at his sides (usually with sword drawn), and has his head slightly tilted back. Insert the needed "Yaaaay! Look what I did!" and there you go).
Back to the story. Aeris's praying for Holy to stop Meteor slightly confused me, because how I got the game in my head, the LAST time the Cetra prayed for something, Jenova slammed into the planet and killed all of them. Apparently the gods mistook what they were asking for. And just threw a hideous man-beast (which they just HAPPENED to have lying around) at the planet enough to make it Cry (capitalization for dramatic emphasis! Look for it in game!).
Lastly: the Lifestream is stupid. It can't fly in a straight line enough to save the hundreds or thousands of people living in Midgar who are dying as Holy and Meteor are RIPPING APART THE CITY.
Actually, lastly lastly: the very final scene of the game is three hundred (or five hundred, I don't remember) years later, and a much-grown up Red XIII (I refuse to call him Nanaki, Nanaki sounds like a body wash, or something the cat did on the carpet ("Marge! Fluffy just left a Nanaki on the couch!") ) running dramatically along a canyon (which wasn't near Midgar at all) to see a "greenified" Midgar. Why is this scene included? It doesn't wrap up anything at all, and all it means is that everyone except Red XIII and Vincent of the original cast have been dead for a shit long time. My science factor also wishes to point out that centuries later, that city would've been reclaimed by nature a LOT more than it was.
Final Fantasy VIII (Release I Played it On: PS1 / PC):
This one is almost purely a love story, and so far its the only good one (in terms of romance: a lot of the other ones try, but tend to fail miserably); the music during the really heady love bits is terrible though--Uematsu: Don't Let People Add Vocals To Your Music!
Unfortunately, the game is very grindy, but not of the characters. The lower level you are, the easier things will be, actually. The main leveling is for the GFs (Guardian Forces: read: espers, in essence), and they, plus the magic that you have to farm (you literally just Draw magic from enemies everywhere in order to Junction it to various stats to raise them. Ergo, using magic hurts your stats if its Junctioned), give your characters their statistics and abilities. The GFs are very strange, also. Some of them are funny (Jumbo Cactuar being my favorite on the WTF scale, popping up and being Mexican for a while, while Eden ranks a close second, being a Shiva-esque rail-thin woman with very pert breasts balancing a major power conduit on her head that throws an enemy into the supermassive black hole of a nearby galaxy).
Seifer is stupid.
It's very grindy. Limit breaks are the only way you can defeat the final boss, from ONE character, the others just support him and keep him alive while he does so (read: Can be up to 100,000+ damage for it). Also, there is no armor, or weapon changes. You collect various items, some VERY VERY HARD TO GET OR HORRIBLY RARE, in order to upgrade their basic weapons, but only the final weapon of Squall (aforementioned Limit Breaker) needs be done, because THAT'S the one that deals the damage. The others are just gravy.
Pushing out damage is difficult in the game, but its fun, and the story is quite good, so I do like it! Only thing I don't really like about the ending is the fact that what with all the highfalutin' time travelin' goin' on, sawtooth snaps occur like wildfire, and I don't care what people say, Ultimecia is Rinoa, officially disproved by Square-Enix or no.
Final Fantasy IX (Release I Played it On: PS1):
I love 9. It's my favorite of all of them so far. There is no grinding as the level you are when you reach the boss/next area is exactly built for it, the ability system (equipping weapons that will teach you abilities via AP gained from battles) is intuitive and unique. The Music is ABSOLUTELY. GORGEOUS.
Kuja, the villain, is also my favorite. He's better than Kefka (6) or Sephiroth (7) put together for his weirdness, his flamboyance, etc. I don't know what else to say other than that I love it.
Final Fantasy X (Release I Played it On: PS2):
This I also strangely like. Again, no grinding, and no real levels; there's a Sphere Grid that fighting enemies gets you Sphere Levels, which allow you to move around the Grid, popping in spheres that add abilities, magic, stats, etc, and all based on each character (none of the six, by the way, are ignored in the game). It's easy to play through the game, following the principles of 9's example. Unfortunately, it takes 10 hours for the game to get into a swing that's really enjoyable. The battle system is unique, and I dearly wish it stayed that way for all FF games. There's no "Choose Quickly or you Die" method, you have all the time in the world to choose things in battles, all battles. Also, each character has a specific advantage over a specific type of mob (like flying, hard shelled, nimble, etc).
Only three problems: the sidequests are ridiculously hard, the final boss needs some SERIOUS grinding to defeat (and the cutscene, unskippable, is maybe 5-7 minutes, and I tried the boss seven times), and if you haven't completed one or two of the hard sidequests done, you can't do it, plain and simple. Further.... the music... for said boss... is hard metal rock complete with grunting and groaning vocals. I think Uematsu cried.
Good game though! Enjoyability high, because the battling is actually fun, no pressure to be quick or anything :) Oh, but.. the blonde guy in this one is worse than Vaan (see my 12 rant), and that takes some doing. And a word of advice: do try not to have Lulu win battles, there's only so much gratuitous disgusting melonball breast jiggling I can stand before I start using the wrong characters to fight monsters so she can't get the final blow in.
Final Fantasy XII (Release I Played it On: PS2):
This is a very long game that has a plot that is somewhat incomprehensible due to its length, but enough gets through for me to like it. There are three blonde dumbasses in this one, though... the main character, Vaan, who whines and bitches a lot, his chick Penelo, who is utterly useless to the story AND in battle, and the Queen person, Ashe.
They spent a lot of time on the cinematic FMVs. Vayne Solidor (final boss)'s hair is crazily detailed. I also like the battle system here. No real grinding, again, but you need to go to a similar-to-10 grid to unlock items to use, or Espers, armor, weaponry, etc. It also dumps the "walk around and have a screen shift for a battle," and introduces the ability to see monsters, and engage or evade as you feel fit to do so. It's very cool. Also, there are things introduced called Gambits, which is essentially other character's AI so you don't have to completely micromanage.
Cid, here, is gorgeous. He's insane. It's wonderful. I want him.
There are a lot of ass shots of Fran, who incomprehensibly has bunny ears. I hate Japan. This is not to slam Fran, who does a crapton of damage long range, has the neatest Quickenings, and can heal like nobody's business to boot. It's just a little gratuitous to see brown bunny ass in every single cutscene.
Balthier is my favorite character here. Regularly breaking the fourth wall and pissing people off, he's the Han Solo-esque type (excuse my use of a Lucas related metaphor, I shall cleanse myself thoroughly after this and then self-flagellate), but a lot cooler. Not really very useful in battle (at least for me) except for blowing his Quickenings enough to chew away at the monster HP a bit before the main party wandered in, or scurrying out to resurrect someone and then going back to wherever he hides during fights where he can't actually FIGHT, but can come out at will (Liz and I theorized multiple personality disorder, and there are actually just three characters in the entire game). He's also Cid's son, an ex-Judge (hell, EVERYONE is an ex-Judge here), and makes fun of Vaan the entire game.
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