Leyviur.net

First of all, if you haven’t read my official opinion, then go ahead and read my review here. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Finished? Good.

Anyway, that’s my official opinion as a reviewer on a site, because I have mixed in some objectiveness and the knowledge that, yes, some people like this game. That being said, my personal opinion is much less flattering to the game. It’s horrible. Everything from the story to the battle system to the general gameplay just grates on my nerves.

Let’s start with the story. I know that going into the plot in medias res is a big thing these days, but the story is just nonsensical. In order for the player to have any understanding of the plot they need to delve into the datalog (basically a collection of information regarding the game world, its culture, and events leading up to the game), which is an atrocious method of storytelling. The story was already pretty bad to begin with but having half of it ripped out and stuffed into the datalog makes it that much worse. This is not good story telling, Square Enix. This is complete and utter tripe. The characters, similarly, are a collection of idiotic tropes and clichés that really end up doing nothing but annoying me to hell. One character, Hope, is consistently pissy and pathetic, while Vanille seems like she comes from outer space since her attitude is a cross between a retard and a stupid blonde.

The horrible story’s the least of its problems, too, because it’s gameplay is similarly shoddy. Battles take place in a completely passive method, all you really do is select your party’s job and then auto battle. The fact that the game is over when the party leader’s HP reaches 0 is an absurd way to add challenge to the game; this is called artificial challenge, and this is bad. Also, the entire game is basically completely on rails. There are a few branching paths but they normally lead to dead ends or crappy treasure.

The argument most supporters of the game make is that it “gets good” about 20 hours into the game. That’s not exactly handing it a compliment, since that means the first 20 hours is just complete crap. It’s like digging through manure in the hopes of finding a few flakes of gold, not only will you have hands covered in animal feces, but you will probably not find the gold anyway. About the only thing that’s good about the game is the graphics, which are good – it’s almost like Square Enix spent all their time polishing up the visuals and no time creating a deep battle system, engaging narrative, likable characters, or a game that resembles fun in any way. Skip this game, please. It’s horrible.

The Good
+ Graphics are great
+ The music…. I guess?

The Bad
- Gameplay
- Story
- Characters
- No exploration whatsoever

The WTF
?! Whoever thought it was a good idea for the game to end when the party leader is knocked out, you’re a moron.

While the media debates the issue of games being ‘harmful’ or ‘poisonous’ to people’s minds, it never speaks of the creative capacity of the medium, as well as its capacity to incite an emotional as well as an intellectual reaction from its audience. While the media is busy lynching its latest scapegoat, it unsurprisingly refuses to acknowledge that games have a significant capacity for sending messages. Modern Warfare 2 sends a clear and simple message: War is brutal. War is ugly. War has consequences.

It hits home on a number of missions. One of which involves the player character going undercover and being forced to mow down unarmed civilians with a powerful assault rifle. It’s unsettling and disturbing, and as I watched a nameless civilian attempt to carry an injured man to safety, only to be mowed down himself by one of my “allies,” I felt a sick feeling in my stomach. In another mission, I rappel down from a cliff and kill a guard with my knife. I can see his face as he dies, while his eyes frozen in horror melts away into a dead, blank stare as the life drains out of him. The game pulls no punches, and unflinchingly shows the most horrible consequences that war has on us: not the loss of our lives, but the loss of our humanity, which is something infinitely more terrifying. Of course this will be lost on most of the gamer population who think of themselves as REAL HARD MEN who scream “YEAH I’M KILLING CIVVIES YEAHHH” or “Who cares, they’re just pixels on a screen.” The subtleties of any narrative are lost on these neanderthals.

Still, there’s a game underneath the layers of story, and while not much has changed from Call of Duty 4, it has a great deal more variety. You can find yourself engaged in a stealth operation one mission, then rooftop hopping to escape from an angry mob the next. The game literally has no missions where you can rest, as every mission thrusts you waist deep into the action. Certain missions are almost chilling in their depiction of war, especially those set in the U.S. Spec Ops is damn good, as it includes a multiplayer that does not involve killing other players and instead focuses on coop, which I enjoy a lot more (I got more out of Horde Mode in Gears of War 2 than Versus). It recreates some instances of the game, while others are completely new scenarios to tackles for those who have finished the Campaign. The Campaign itself is brief – almost too brief, as I was able to finish in about 5 or 6 hours on Veteran difficulty, but regardless, it was an incredibly experience.

The graphics use the same engine as Call of Duty 4, so it’s nothing too revolutionary, but it’s nothing to sneeze at either; it’s still a great looking game, and has no slowdown even with the myriad (sometimes dozens) of enemies on screen at once. The musical score is incredible, and it supplements each mission and scenario incredibly well, making for what is probably the most immersive game I’ve played this year.

The Good
+ Strong story with powerful emotional impact
+ Phenomenal score to enhance the experience
+ Large amount of mission variety (both within the campaign and Spec Ops)
+ Excellent graphics and weapon realism

The Bad
- Scenario clocks in at around 5 to 6 hours … on Veteran. A bit too short.
- Lag is (as of this writing) really bad, though it is like to clear up in the coming months.
- Online Versus is still incredibly newbie-unfriendly. Uninitiated players will be slaughtered endlessly.

The WTF
?! The general response to the ‘offensive material’ in the game, from the media and gamers alike.

I finally beat Lost Odyssey this past weekend, over a year after its release. I stopped playing about half a year ago halfway into disc 3, then only recently picked it back up and continued. The reasons for my doing so were threefold. First of all, the battle system is slow as molasses, which is irritating because Lost Odyssey operates on a random-encounter type system, and escaping from battle is difficult as hell, so every time the screen flashed into that battle transition, I prepared myself for a 3 to 5 minute battle. This may not sound that bad, but picture doing it all throughout a dungeon. It would drive you nuts. Though, if the story were any good, I would’ve been convinced to suffer through the battle system, which leads me to my second complaint.

The story is absolutely insufferable – and this is largely due to the stupidly obligatory child characters that every JRPG just has to have. One of the main story events involves the two kids hijacking a train in the hopes of seeing their dead mother (yeah, you read that right – I don’t get it either). You then have to catch another train to go after them and stop them from doing something stupid. Of course, if the adults were doing their job then this wouldn’t have happened in the first place, but I guess common sense is lacking in JRPG worlds. There are child characters who are characterized excellently and that I personally actually like: Lymsleia from Suikoden V immediately comes to mind, as does Nanako from Persona 4. Even Karol from Tales of Vesperia can be likable thanks to his gung ho attitude. This disappoints me mainly because the story started off really great, then dropped like a rock from the side of the Grand Canyon when Cooke and Mack (the aforementioned child characters) were introduced. Fortunately their roles are downplayed near the end of the game, where the story picks up steam again, so it gets good, but it never gets great.

Another thing I found disappointing was the skill mechanic; the immortals can learn any skill they want, but all of them are shuffled into specific roles, with Kaim and Seth being physical attackers and Sarah and Ming being mages. Having a largely customizable skill/abilities list for the immortals serves no purpose if I can’t do what I want with them. Besides that, once they get enough abilities they become so powerful that there’s no real reason to use any of the mortals as anything other than cannon fodder, because they just don’t measure up.

Still, it’s not a total loss. The 1000 Years of Dreams sequences included in the game are great. Each of them convey the frailty of life as well as how the horrors of war can warp people; if the main storyline was written in this method then perhaps it would’ve succeeded. Instead it was generic JRPG tripe. Ah, what could have been…

The Good
+ The Thousand Years of Dreams vignettes are wonderfully written and incredibly well translated.
+ The graphics are pretty good and doesn’t require five minute long effects in order to show it.
+ Robust skill/equipment system allows players to customize characters for any situation.’

The Bad
- The music is surprisingly pedestrian, and a weak effort from Nobuo Uematsu
- The story, in stark contrast to the vignettes, is bland and uninspired.
- The battle system is way too slow, making random encounters drag on and on.
- Characters are cast in one of two specific, unchangeable roles: fighter or mage.

The WTF
?! Random encounters? Really?
?! Cooke and Mack. What were they thinking?