Final Fantasy 13 - PS3 (part 2)

(img: a beautiful new era.) Final Fantasy 7 traditionalists will always say that Final Fantasy 10 does not compare to the classics. Final Fantasy 3 traditionalists will always say that the Final Fantasy 7 does not compare to the classics. Then again, Final Fantasy 1 traditionalists will say the same about all the other Final Fantasy games. So every new generation of Final Fantasy seems worse than the previous. Or so it seems.

(img: the highly advanced culture of Cocoon) After a grueling 55 hours of game play, and half of it wasn't really playing, I completed Final Fantasy 13. It wasn't that bad. Any game that you put in over 20 hours on, it probably wasn't that bad. I think in the big scheme of things, it's a good RPG. It didn't fare up to the older Final Fantasies, but I still think it's a good game.

(Img: Gran Pulse is a land of nature)The adventurers fall out of Cocoon and eventually arrive on Gran Pulse, a world totally undeveloped by humans. There are ruins of course, but as far as the eye can see you feel like you're on a great plain. It reminded me of the great Veldt in Final Fantasy 6. I wanted to see if there was a young kid named Gau roaming around. The monsters are huge, and the first time you see the adamantoises you can't help but be intimidated.

Not long after Pulse, well depending on how long you want to grind experience points, the group re-enters Cocoon and Eden. Talking about crashing the party. It's one of the most intense CGI / FMV's in the game, and I'm still wondering how to replay it after the game. With them going back, a warp gate is formed and hordes of Pulse animals pour through. I'm not saying just the wolves and the winged beasts, but the giant adamatoises as well. What a fun sight.

(img: the mood before the big fight.) I won't go into too much detail over the battle in Eden. But it leads you into Orphan's cradle where you battle the evil Barthanthelus and Orphan. The battle with Orphan was actually a difficult boss at my level. I did not have a fully powered team and my weapons were barely leveled up. My final party was Lightning, Fang, and Hope; quite standard I believe and it mostly hinged on Fang being able to hold up with her Sentinel role. But with a little luck, I was able to win the game. Well, I was able to complete the central narrative of the story, but the many side quests await.

(img: why is there a couch here?)

• Game Time: 55 Hours
• Completed game
• 30% of trophies collected for PS3 version

Gran Turismo - PSX

As the release day for Gran Turismo 5 looms over us, I want to take a look back at the first Gran Turismo that started it all in 1998, twelve years ago. It's hard to believe how few racing games there were before that.

What drove me to play the game was that it almost worked like an RPG to me. Instead of gaining levels, you gained licenses. Instead of upgrading weapons, you upgraded your vehicles. Instead of fighting monsters, you raced cars. It was a numbers game to me, and I liked it. I remember the first license that you have to do is the start and stop. All you had to do was stop the car within a certain distance and do it within a certain time frame, it was like 30 seconds or something, but it was something that I couldn't do in the first try. I couldn't do it in the first five tries to be honest. The game was hard, but it was fun to play. You start buying cars and you start learning a thing or two about automobile distributors from all over the world. It was car porn and young men loved it. It sold 10.85 million copies world wide, making it one of the greatest selling titles for Sony Playstation (wikipedia).

With great music and simple menus, the game really lived up to its name as the "real driving simulator". The game was intuitive in a sense that sooner or later you learned how to slow down at S-curves and attack hair-pin turns; because if you didn't, you probably would end up losing. Sure you can use a stronger vehicle, but a lot of races limited you into using only a specific type of car. I remember the "Normal Vehicle" race, where you can only pick from vehicles with their stock options with no upgrades. I'd always use the Dodge Viper. Because it started with 400 HP and it handled awesome. My next favorite car was the Hond Del Sol, modified by Mugen. It was small and nimble so it could get through all the tight spaces easily.

And I did so to get myself to first place. I completed almost all the races and collected all of the unlockable cars. I sometimes wish I can play this on a handheld, but I didn't buy a PSP. Either way, great memories with this game.

• Game Time: 100 Hours
• Completed game in all it's difficulties

Final Fantasy 13 - PS3

Like every other RPG fan in March, I took time out of my schedule to play Final Fantasy 13. Scoreless screen shots and reviews have been written on the game and I might as well try to write one also. I'm not going to lie, this isn't a game for everyone. It's not much of a RPG game, but it is a very beautifully crafted cinematic piece of work. I'm about 26 hours in and I'm not sure if I would class this as an interactive movie or a really linear episode of Final Fantasy.

The story begins with a band of outcasts are being chased down by the local government of Coccoon. They are seen as diseased elements and all those that come in contact with them are to be "purged"; they are the L'Cie. It's not long that you realize that Lightning, a former captain of the military is the main character. Snow, the young leader of the resistance group, NORA (No obligations or Authority?), gets sucked into the mess because he's trying to save his fiancee. His wife-to-be has already been changed from L'Cie to Crystal because she had fulfilled her "focus". This will inevitably happen to all L'Cie. The other three characters that get dragged into this are Sahz, Vanille, and a boy named Hope. They later meet a fighting woman named Fang, who is in search of Vanille; she plans to rescue her.

These six characters are in search of an author. No, not really, but they are in search of some answers as to what is the connection between Coccoon and Pulse, legendary city outside of their world. They're also wondering if it's better to fulfill their focus and become crystal, or run away. They've already tried running. So they decided to take up a third alternative and rush towards the highest office of the Coccoon order, the Sanctum, and ask for answers.

So if I had to guess what happened at the game designer's table at Square-Enix, I'd have to say they were trying to concentrate all the "good" stuff in Final Fantasy and take out all the "bad" stuff. The players love the feeling of beating a boss, so let's make it so that all the battles are pretty similar to boss battles. Players loved the seeing Cloud, Squall, or Tidus slashing monsters in the air, so why not make it so that you'd get to see that in every battle?! Sounds great so far. People love cinematics, lets give them more than they've ever seen before; how about one after every chapter! Now to the bad stuff. Players didn't like talk to people in towns, let's just take out towns. Let's take out weapon shops, item shops, magic shops, and inns and put them all neatly in a save-point. Let's take out that tedious aspect of healing yourself after the battle also. Well you get the point. It's evolution, sort of. I'm not saying I don't like the game, but it sure is a different approach to Final Fantasy.

For the best, longest, and funniest review of Final Fantasy 13, please see Action Button.net's review. It's 18,000 words, and pure entertainment.