A Link Between Worlds- First Impressions

Confession time- Outside of a few minutes at the beginning, I've never played A Link to the Past.

Now that I have your attention, let me explain. I got into Zelda during the pre-release hype for Twilight Princess, and as a result I've always been more into the 3D Zeldas than the top-down ones. That’s not to say that I didn't enjoy them- the Nintendo DS Zelda games, Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, remain two of my favorite games from the past generation- but the reason I was excited for A Link Between Worlds was more for the prospect of playing a brand-new handheld Zelda game than it was to revisit a classic.

Still, after my initial hours with Link’s latest adventure, the drive to go back and see what I've been missing out on is stronger than ever. The newest Zelda game seems poised to address many of the criticisms longtime fans have had for the more recent entries. Link’s adventure starts out humble, but within the first ten minutes he is given a sword and thrown into the introductory dungeon, a far cry from the notoriously lengthy prologue of, say, Twilight Princess. New items are acquired, monsters are slain, and before long Link is on a quest to track down a sinister man who is trapping the descendants of the Seven Sages inside paintings. The pacing, so far, is much faster.

Xenogears: First Impressions

So, Xenoblade Chronicles recently saw its US release to great critical acclaim and (so far) success. But, while I did preorder and receive a copy of this wonderful RPG, and play a little bit of it, I simply do not have enough access to a Wii in order to properly sink the required time into a massive title such as Xenoblade. You see, the Wii in our house belongs to my sister, and me being the ever-so-gracious person that I am, I decided not to impose upon her belongings and will wait to play Xenoblade and The Last Story for when I get my own Wii somewhere down the road.

That said, I wanted to start something. So, in the spirit of all things Xeno, I started playing Tetsuya Takahashi’s original masterpiece, the 1998 Squaresoft classic Xenogears. I’ve always admired Takahashi for being such an ambitious storyteller in his games, but I’ve never actually played Xenogears, despite having bought it on PSN shortly after it was rereleased.  So, what are my initial thoughts on this classic? Well, after playing the game for a couple hours this morning, I have come to a few conclusions:

Final Fantasy IX- First Impressions

It seems odd that, this Christmas, I completed my collection of the main numbered Final Fantasy titles (not including, of course, XI and XIV) when I got a PSP and Final Fantasy 1 and 2 for it. This segues into something completely unrelated, because I'm playing Final Fantasy IX as my current console playthrough after downloading it from the Playstation Network. So, there you go.

Final Fantasy IX is one of the most highly regarded RPGs of all time, one I'd been looking forward to playing for a while. While some people were put off by it's more colorful and cartoony aesthetic, myself and others really enjoy the game because of it's throwback to a more traditional style of Final Fantasy. It's more lighthearted tone and upbeat characters serve as a refreshing breath of fresh air after dealing with ennui-exuding protagonists such as Squall. It helps, too, that Final Fantasy IX is one of the best looking 32 bit RPGs ever made, rivalling Chrono Cross.

The plot stars Zidane, a happy-go-lucky bandit who, along with his band of merry men, tries to kidnap Princess Garnett of the kingdom of Alexandria. They are pursued by her loyal knight, Steiner, as well as a black mage named Vivi. I'm not very far into the story- I only just got out of the Ice Cavern- but so far, while the characters are clearly meant to invoke RPG archetypes (paladin, white mage, thief, etc.), they are still an interesting group of characters, and so far they don't seem generic or boring in the slightest. This is a game where use of classic RPG storytelling tropes serves it well.

Final Fantasy IX also has a very interesting character development system. Character abilities are tied to their equipment- by equiping a piece of armor or a weapon, characters will be able to use the ability tied to that piece of equipment (unless the character is unable to use that ability in the first place). Once enough AP is earned in battle, though, the character masters the ability and no longer needs the equipment to be able to use it- it's theirs to keep. If I could have one complaint about the game so far, it's that the Trance mode, the game's Limit Break system, takes a long time to build up, considerably more than those in other FF games. I've heard there is an ability later down the road which speeds up Trance mode, so we'll see if this remains an issue.

Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep- First Impressions

Well, I got a PSP for Christmas! With the Vita just around the corner, it's an ideal time to get a PSP, since there's lots of good games for it and the system is reasonably cheap. In addition to Birth by Sleep, I also got the first two Final Fantasies, and Crisis Core.

Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep is a game I was very excited for since it was announced. It's a prequel to the other Kingdom Hearts games, and fills in a number of plot holes while at the same time establishing the core plotline of future games (such as the much hoped-for Kingdom Hearts III).

Playing it for the first time, I am very impressed. While not quite on the level of the PS2 games, Birth by Sleep animated fluidly and the game looks very good. The environments aren't huge, but they get the job done, and the music is still (so far) fantastic. In Birth by Sleep, you play as three different Keyblade Masters in their seperate storylines. So far, I've only played as Terra, a character who focuses on physical attacks. The game's combat is also much improved over prior entries in the series. You still select commands from a menu, but rather than having to scroll through menus and submenus in order to select an action, all normal attacks are mapped to the X button. Special abilities, spells, and items can be slotted into a customizable menu, and are executed with the Triangle button. This makes combat a lot more fluid than previous games, and allows a greater degree of character customization.

I'm only a couple hours into Birth by Sleep, but so far the game is excellent fun. We'll see if this will last through the game's three storylines.

Also, I started Final Fantasy IX this morning. I haven't played enough to do a full post about it, but so far, the game is very good.

Chrono Cross: First Impressions

It's impossible to say just how excited I am to be finally playing this game. Chrono Cross, the sequel to Square's SNES classic Chrono Trigger, was released on the PSN this past Tuedsay. Trigger remains one of the best role-playing games ever made, and Chrono Cross has a lot to live up too.

It was perhaps wise of the developers to not try to capture lightning in a bottle again. Chrono Cross is technically a direct sequel to Trigger, but features enough changes to make it stand out on its own. It bears a few stylistic and gameplay similarities to it's predecessor, but as a whole Chrono Cross is it's own beast.

While the game does feature some of the time-travel that served as Trigger's main element, Chrono Cross instead focuses primarily on parallel worlds, with two similar-yet-different worlds that the player sqitches between. This mechanic is quite similar to the Time Gates from Trigger. I haven't played enough of the story to write about it yet, but the game features an entirely new cast in the world many years after Trigger ended. From what I can gather, there have been many changes in this time, so it'll be interesting to see exactly what happened. There have been a few references to Trigger already, including in the way we meet the main character (being woken up by his mom).

Gameplay-wise, Cross retains it's forbear's lack of random encounters- all enemies are in the field and can be avoided. There are also no enemies in the Overworld, which makes getting to your next destination much easier. Combat, however, is quite different from Trigger. Battles transition to a seperate field instead of seamlessly occuring in the area you were exploring, and the combat is a more traditional turn-based system rather than the active-time battles from Trigger. That's not to say Cross doesn't have it's share of innovations. I don't have a full grasp on the mechanics, but characters are allowed to attack multiple times a turn until their 'stamina' depletes. Character attacks have three levels- weak, strong, and fierce- and by successfully landing blows, the odds of landing another attack increase. Also, by successfully landing blows, you become able to use more powerful special skills known as Elements, which are similar to the Techs from Chrono Trigger. Speaking of things I haven't figured out yet, characters don't seem to 'level up'- sometimes characters earn stat bonuses after battle, and every so often they gain a new Element Slot to equip Elements with, and gain several stat bonuses, which is sort of like leveling up, but I'm not sure what triggers it. Hopefully I'll figure out more about how Cross plays quickly.

From what little I've played so far, Chrono Cross is a very enjoyable RPG. I can't quite say whether it lives up to the timeless classic that preceded it, but we'll see.

Dark Cloud: First Impressions

Like I said earlier, I haven't decided if I'm going to play Dark Cloud for review, but I've been revisiting this old favorite for a few days, so I might as well say what I think of it so far.

The game is fun. Really, really fun. It's kind of simple- the story is pretty bland, the music is cheery and the atmosphere is generally lighthearted and upbeat. What the game is, essentially, is a combination of Zelda, Sim City, and Mystery Dungeon. You play as Toan, a young boy whose villiage is destroyed by an evil genie. Toan is told that he can rebuild the world by finding the scattered pieces of it sealed inside stones called 'Atlamilia'. By traversing randomly generated dungeons, you open the Atla and claim something from the old world, which you can then use to rebuild the town you're in.

I'm only on the second dungeon, but so far the game is pretty fun. Because the layout of each floor is always different, each dungeon entry becomes an enjoyable puzzle- you have to find the Atla, any treasure on the floor, and the key to the next floor, all while battling whatever monsters ended up spawning on the floor. Combing the dungeons makes for an enjoyable enough timesink as it is, but the 'Georama' townbuilding feature seems to be where the majority of the game is. You use the parts you find in the dungeons to rebuild the town you're in however you like. You're rewarded, however, for following the requests of the NPCs.

I don't know if this will be the next game I play all the way through, but so far Dark Cloud is a really fun roguelike/zelda clone. Hopefully it doesn't wear out it's welcome later in the game.