World of Final Fantasy: awesome, or are my standards too low by now?

Buy here.

Against my better judgment, I purchased a full-price copy of World of Final Fantasy shortly after it came out. Most Square Enix games I've played in the last few years have been crushing disappointments, but I guess old habits die hard. For better or for worse, my hindbrain associates Square with games I enjoy. I briefly considered buying Deus Ex: Manking Divided even though I know it's not the kind of game I like to play. It was published by Square Enix, apparently.

The only logical, if unflattering, explanation is that I'm not as immune to bitter brand loyalty as I like to pretend I am. For now, I'll console myself with the fact that, at least in the case of World of Final Fantasy, brand loyalty didn't lead me astray. I've not had this much fun playing a videogame since Fire Emblem: Awakening. And considering Awakening is one of my favorite games ever (Chris, I'm still gonna harass you into buying a 3DS and playing this game), that's saying something.

Much like Persona Q, World of Final Fantasy is a blatant play for long-time fans' wallets. And much like Persona Q, I was floored by how much the developers seem to have cared about making a fun game even though name alone was going to move copies.

You play as a pair of twins that. . . honestly, who cares? They travel from dungeon to dungeon, meet heroes from previous Final Fantasies, while catching classic Final Fantasy monsters like they're Pokemon. I can't even pretend to be able to judge this game with any objectivity because did you read that description? 

That being said, I'm going to try.

Devil May Cry and $8.00 USD cranberry juice

It's been a busy month for me, to put it mildly. Cancer hasn't let up, although I've been pretty lucky autopsy-wise. Only two this month, and one was neuro-only. But I've had at least one presentation a week and, during the first half of the month, had to deal with at least one colon cancer a week. I've gone out with friends only once all month, and though I had fun, I'm still bitter that I an NYC bar charged me eight dollars for cranberry juice. And not even good cranberry juice. At one point, I had a whole post ranting about it, but that was at least a week ago.

Anyway, I think I wrote a post about getting a PS4 and Final Fantasy Type-0. . . wait. Looks like I did. Mild update: Type-0's story is an abomination that hinders a promising battle system and an open map that at least tries to be engaging, unlike some other Final Fantasy games I could name. I gave up after two chapters, too many days ago to remember all the complaints I had for a blog post dedicated to the whole mess. Suffice it to say that my cautious optimism for Final Fantasy XV is more cautious than ever. 

Moving on to better news, I'm really loving this game so far:

Apparently fans complained about it when it came out?

Fire Emblem: Fates is offended that you thought Awakening was easy

As I said before, Awakening is a pretty easy game. Even hard mode is no big deal as long as you pick casual mode (and what adult with a job and limited time wouldn't?). Beat the first couple of chapters, rack up supports, and join characters so their important stats basically double. I can only imagine that someone at Intelligent System didn't like the watering down, and thus came up with new ways to screw with players, even those who picked casual mode, in Fates. 

The first major change is to the Pair Up mechanic, which essentially rendered Awakening into a "press A to win" joke in everything but the highest difficulties. Enemies can now pair up as well, meaning that it's not a good idea to just pair up a Swordmaster with a General and place them at the center of the map so enemy units can rush in for suicide. In that light, it's probably for the best that paired units can now either defend or attack together. I'm not sure I'd want to deal with a paired up set of tanks that not only blocks attacks, but also dishes them back out.

Dragon Veins, which seemed fun in the beginning, serve to further complicate the hell out of some maps. I believe the internet hates Takumi because of that water-draining incident in Conquest chapter ten. There was also a late Hoshido chapter that had the Dragon Veins appear and disappear, which trapped me in some booby-trapped floor with no healing items or healers while the games spammed Faceless units at me.

And then there's the RNG, which delights in screwing with players. More than usual. I hear this was common in the older games, but I started playing way back in high school, and I don't remember stuff like this happening:

Thanks to my friend Jean for capping these.

For those of you not playing this, that 4% on the right is the chances that "Ragnarok" would hit the your unit. I don't know if my friend was playing Classic mode at the time (permadeath mode), but let's hope not.

But that's just a one-time thing, right? Apparently not, because:

Ryoma is literally the strongest character in the game.

Theatrhythm: Curtain Call; a shot to the limbic system

As I discussed recently, SquareEnix and I have broken up. At the moment, I'm bracing myself for hating that FFVII remake they have in the works, dreading the time I will purchase the necessary consoles to play it like a good little consumer. This post it not about that. This post about something that SquareEnix actually got right: Theathrythm: Final Fantasy.

Buy on Amazon. At once.

If you like Final Fantasy music, and I'm pretty sure that anyone who's ever played the games does, then this game is distilled nostalgia. Like the introvert that I am, I've spent most of the day playing tracks on this rhythm game (the battle themes for FFIV, in case anyone is curious). Well, I also wrote some, went running, and practiced Portuguese, but most of my time has been at my 3DS.

This is the only thing that has tempted me to play Final Fantasy games in a long time. Whatever else about the newer games sucks, the music remains superb. My current favorite is FFXI's Opening Theme (hey, there's Spanish in this video):

The gameplay itself is . . . I don't actually care. This game kills my ADHD (meaning I suck at it because I keep missing targets, especially the hold triggers). To be honest, I should probably be just buying the soundtracks, though I suppose I wouldn't be as engaged if I wasn't trying to get things perfect despite my suckitude.

If you're a completist gamer, I would suggest you stay away from this game. There's always three levels to each song (Basic, Expert, and a third level I haven't bothered to try). There's grading for each track, the highest being SSS. There's getting perfect chains for each track. There's getting all criticals in for each track. There's unlocking all the characters via that crystal thingie at the end of each track. There's something called CollectaCards, which resemble Pokemon but more pointless (still want all of them).

By the way, there are at least a hundred tracks on this thing, plus God only knows how many I haven't unlocked.

Ever played three videogames in one? Persona Q is kinda like that

Buy on Amazon

I started playing Persona games at some point in high school. Though I suspect it was later since I don't recall playing with my brother, meaning he'd already joined the army when I first got my hands on Persona 3.

For the uninitiated, Persona 3 and 4 are about special transfer students at different high schools who must battle "Shadows" while becoming the most popular boys in school. They're part dating simulator, part dungeon RPG crawlers that really love tarot motifs.

As I understand, the first two games in the series are quite different from the last two, which has caused some . . . heated discussions in Atlus fandom. For better or for worse, 3 and 4 (specially 4) have become cash cow franchises for Atlus, as evidenced by this cute little cross over that I thought would be little more than a cheap grab at more of my money.

Don't get me wrong, it worked, but I expected to be an angry little ball of fake geek girl rage twenty minutes into the game. I could not have been more wrong and jaded. This game is really, really, really fun.

Fire Emblem: Awakening; like Pokemon but with shipping

With multiple residency interviews coming up, an rotation through the pediatric emergency room, and a cold, I haven't had much time to write. Or read. Or the energy to exercise. Basically, I've done little that can be called productive all week. I haven't even played videogames, though I've been eyeing the game systems scattered throughout my apartment, all of them collecting dust.

Being a videogame fan is expensive. I own a PS3, a 3DS, and a PSVita. All of them I bought for like one specific game. I made each purchase in a moment of impulsivity, with my frontal lobe screaming you don't have time for this anymore the entire time. The 3DS I bought to play Fire Emblem: Awakening. 

I started playing Fire Emblem when I was a freshman in high school after a recommendation from my childhood BFF. I played with my brother and our favorite character was a little mage called Erk. At every sequel, the game mage was always "the Erk". We played the sequels religiously, usually saved pennies to buy them and begged our mother for money when they came out to the store. We couldn't afford pre-orders and they were usually sold out by the time we got to our local Gamestop. Ah, the early 2000s.

I like to think of the game as chess for people with short attention span. It's easier (unless you play the game "seriously"), and it usually has pretty funny characters keeping you engaged. It's divided into chapters that take place in a big board like this:

You pick a unit, move it up close to a enemy unit, and engage in a one-to-one duel. Whichever unit is stronger wins. There are several rock-paper-scissor type games within the game: sword beats axe, axe beats lance, lance beats sword; a magic thing with thunder, wind, fire that I don't remember off the top of my head; special units with bows, special support units that help other units move twice in one turn, and special flying units riding pegasi and wyverns.

Terrain and movement also play a big part. Horsed units can move much father than units on foot, unless it's a desert or mountainous map. Mages aren't perturbed by difficult terrain, but they usually need armed units to defend them. Archers can attack from more than one space, but they cannot defend themselves from close-up attacks. Also, units can form support relationships with each other that increases their defense and evasion.

And the more I talk about this game, the more complicated I realize it is. Still, it's simple enough that children can easily play it. Awakening, especially, is very welcoming to new players. Older entries in the series were unforgiving about letting units die in battle. If your favorite swordsman got ambushed by a cavalry of lance-armed horsemen, then you either restarted that map or accepted that the swordsman was dead forever. In Awakening, there's a casual mode where characters only retreat until the next map (barring death of the main character).

Awakening also lets you marry almost any two units, then they have babies which travel back in time to join you in a battle against zombies and an evil dragon intent on universe destruction. It is as awesome as it sounds.