What I'm Playing (Volume 142): Batman: Arkham Asylum

In my glowing review of Marvel's Spider-Man, I include some throw away line about how certain aspects of the gadget use in the game were borrowed from the Arkham games. Boy, did I underestimate just how much of that game was blatantly stolen from this game and its sequel, and with excellent reason. These games are trailblazers of how to do a modern superhero game well, and any subsequent game that didn't learn from these are idiots.

Well, I've spoiled the ending to this review, but boy is this game excellent! It's a game in which you control Batman as he tries to stop Joker's attempt to take over Arkham Asylum, his home away from home. Arkham is on an island off the coast of Gotham City, so you get a pretty generous amount of real estate to roam, explore and cleanse of the villainous filth that has spread. You'll follow the Joke from building to building, adapting your technology to face off with the devious traps and schemes your hilarious foil has left in your way, and bashing through countless crooks and super villains.

Combat is very similar to Spider-Man in a completely anachronistic way. Rather than dodging, however, you have a counterattack ability that will stop enemy attacks in their tracks and return an elbow, fist, knee, or foot in very satisfying fashion. You have access to a wide range of gadgets which you can use in combat, although I used them very little. You have batarangs, remote controlled batarangs, sonic batarangs, multi-batarangs...you get the picture. The combat is insanely fun, and doesn't suffer nearly as much from one of the main issues in Spider-Man, which is that it's actually pretty accurate when selecting which opponent to attack. The animations are not quite as fluid as Spider-Man, however, and there's a certain joy to witnessing the finesse of the webhead, even though Batman's brutality is its own delight.

Batman, however, is not just an incredible boxer, judo expert, kickboxer, wrestler, etc. He's also the World's Greatest Detective, and somehow this game makes you feel like it. You'll be decoding security terminals, analyzing DNA, tracking alcohol residue and fingerprints, analyzing evidence, and generally being five steps ahead of the menagerie of villains you'll be facing. Batman's "detective mode", a visual filter that highlights weak spots in walls, trails to follow, enemies hiding behind walls, etc. will facilitate your detective skills along the way.

The game has a superbly fun system of secrets in which you must find hidden objects and solve riddles left by...who else? These are a great little side quest, and give you the delightful Zelda-esque rush when you discover a new gadget and are able to backtrack to get that one Riddler trophy that you just couldn't figure out.

One of my biggest complaints about Spider-Man was that the stealth sections were dull and uninteresting, and would quickly devolve into you jumping into the middle of your enemies and brawling it out. Well Batman, without the supernatural spider-sense gifted to the webhead, can't just jump in the midst of his enemies without a plan, particularly if they have guns. Stealth is a must in this game, and fortunately, they made it extremely fun and rewarding.

The writing for the game, penned by longtime Batman writer Paul Dini, is flat out superb. The man knows how to coax all of the pathos he needs to out of Batman's villains, and let Batman talk with his fists. All of the baddies here are pitch perfect in tone, with a particularly genius turn from Joker, voiced by long-time voice actor Mark Hamill. Hamill is the equivalent of peak Roger Clemens in his voice work on Joker, and this is perhaps his best performance ever. He manages to wring exactly the right blend of dark humor, viciousness, and depression out of the character, and Kevin Conroy's Batman is similarly correct in tone.

The visuals for the game are really good, even today. The character models are extremely detailed, and they did a superb job making the creepiness of Arkham truly come to life.

The music is pretty good. It's pretty much what you'd expect from a Batman game, and does the job well.

While I'd like to make this review a hagiography, it's not perfect. The controls can occasionally be finicky and imprecise, particularly in the sections in which you need to glide from higher places to lower. You'll face plenty of awkward situations where Batman will feel clunky. This is one area where Spider-Man is truly miles ahead of the Bat. There are also some points that just don't feel like an authentic Batman experience, such as the Riddler conveniently leaving out maps displaying the locations of all of his secrets throughout the Asylum. I mean, come on. It's also difficult to navigate around the island, as you'll just have to walk/run, and it's pretty big. Getting to the one particular spot to which you want to get can be pretty tough. I wish they'd included some sort of subway type situation like in Spider-Man. The bosses are also not nearly as fun as they should be, and this is another area in which Spider-Man is ahead of the curve.

Spider-Man is the superior game, but it's also nearly 10 years newer than this. This game just shines in its love for the Batman universe, and created an extremely fun and inventive experience that other comic book games should absolutely emulate. Apparently, Arkham City is even better than this one, and I just so happen to be playing it through right now. I just can't get enough Batman! I'll give this one a 9.5/10 for inventiveness, quality, and huge amounts of fun.

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 141): The Messenger

The Messenger is a platformer developed by Sabotage Studio, and is also their first game. The game plays similar in controls to Ninja Gaiden (NES), but borrows significantly from other NES and SNES game styles.

You play as the titular Messenger, an 8-bit ninja tasked with carrying a scroll from the western side of his island to the east. You'll play through a variety of colorful levels on your way to deliver your message, but at the far eastern part of the island lies the real hook of the game. It's been spoiled in just about every review so far and is shown in the trailer, so I don't feel bad revealing it here. Once you progress through the first few levels, your character will jump through time, changing not only the look of all of the levels, but also your character! He'll go from 8-bit ninja to 16 bit ninja, and the music will all change to the appropriate time period. It's all very tongue in cheek and meta, but the effect is really nice.

The game really shines in its controls, which are the absolute best for any game in this style, rivaling games like Mega Man, Ninja Gaiden, Contra, and Shovel Knight. Everything you do in this game feels exactly right, from the wall jumping to the grappling hook to pull you to distant walls to the great new mechanic invented for this game, cloud stepping. This is basically a double jump with a twist. Any time you hit something with your sword, you get a cloud to jump off, making it so that you can basically stay jumping and slashing around for eternity if you're skilled enough (there are plenty of non-enemy objects to hit). The cloud stepping is insanely fun, and never, ever gets old. They also use it in some skillful game design scenarios that will ask you to use your abilities in new and more challenging ways, which is a delight. The hit and hurtboxes are exactly right, and you'll never find yourself blaming the game or the controls for your failures.

The game's approach to learning is tremendous as well, giving you low risk opportunities to try out any new skills you obtain as you go, and gradually increasing the challenge of using those mechanics throughout the levels. By the end, you'll be mixing and matching all of these skills you've trained and will absolutely feel like a real ninja. Scratch that, real ninjas were never this cool.

In addition to the flawless controls and skilled level design, the game also has some of the finest action platforming bosses ever. There are a few that aren't so fun sprinkled throughout the game, but for the most part these would be absolutely iconic boss encounters for any NES game, and they still are magnificent today. There's also a free DLC with two additional levels and extra bosses that are a ton of fun.

The look of the game is fantastic, particularly the 8-bit style. The 16-bit looks a little like an 8-bit artist's best attempt to translate from one to the other. The 16-bit graphics are not on the same level of other 16 -bit style platformers like Shantae or the more recent Castlevania handhelds, but they're good.

The music is good, if not great. There are a bunch of really good tracks here, but a couple of snoozers as well. Arranging all of the music at least twice was quite a feat, though, and the composer deserves some significant credit here. The Tower of Time song is particularly excellent.

My main complaint is that the game is simply too broad in its scope. It plays like a game from a developer doing their first game with the fear that they would never have a chance to do a second. They jammed this game full of as many homages and gameplay styles as possible. Once you change from 8 to 16-bit, the gameplay changes from linear platformer to Metroidvania, and the Metroidvania parts just aren't as good. For one thing, the fast travelling between levels is extremely cumbersome. There are fast travel points to several levels, but not to others. Additionally, sometimes parts of the levels are inaccessible from the fast travel points due to the way the levels are laid out. You'll sometimes need to trek through three full levels to get to the specific point you need to collect whatever upgrade or item you'll need to advance in the story. Fortunately, the actual process of getting from point A to point B is really fun in general. Because you're a ninja with excellent controls. But you can only slog through the same level so many times before it starts to get a little tedious.

There's also sections of the game that feature horizontal shooter mechanics, Turtles in Time style water skiing levels, and even a Punch-Out!! boss fight (note: I did enjoy this one). In general, these sections take away from the things the game does well, and shifts the focus to genres with which the developers are not quite as skilled at executing.

The resulting addition of tons of extra features took a game that felt a little short at about two hours and stretched it out to closer to ten, which is certainly too long for a game in this genre. And if you, like me, tried to 100% the game (I succeeded), it's probably closer to twenty hours, with most of the time spent cloud stepping around the map in the Metroidvania part. I would have greatly preferred if they would have made four more linear platformer levels with four more platformer bosses and had the game up to four or five hours.

The game's story and dialogue are also pretty ponderous. The writing is not great, and attempts to walk the line of parody without becoming goofy, but it rarely hits the mark. I laughed very little, and found the serious attempts at plot development a little confusing, as almost all non-Chrono Trigger time travel tales are. But plot and dialogue aren't the first things I look for in a 2D platformer, so it didn't bother me much.

On the whole, this is a really good game, and a very impressive effort from a new developer with a ton of promise. Their love of the classic games that inspired them shines throughout, and their dedication to creating a character that controls seamlessly will keep you playing this game longer than there's new content to enjoy. A too-long experience with too much trimmable fat keeps like from being an all-time classic, but it's well-worth picking up if you enjoy any kind of 2D platformer. Just play Shovel Knight first for the definitive modern retro-styled experience. I'll give it a 9.0/10. See below for a teaser for my next review, for a game I finished this weekend!

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 140): Halo: Combat Evolved

In 2001, first person shooting had always been the province of PC gamers. That's not to say that you couldn't play FPS on consoles. Doom had a passable port on the SNES. Goldeneye and Perfect Dark were really fun experiences on the N64. There were a handful of solid FPS on the PS1. But if you wanted fast paced, skill rewarding first person shooting action, you were probably playing Quake, Half-Life, or Unreal Tournament instead of their console imitators. Mouse and keyboard has always been the best way to play an FPS. The natural online and cable connected multiplayer capabilities of PCs lent well to facilitating the twitchy and fun multiplayer experiences that now comprises a huge chunk of why people play video games (this and sports games). Plus, no screen watching.

Enter Halo: Combat Evolved. It's not the first console game that had dual stick controls for a console shooter, but it's the first one that people really paid attention to, and the controls are just so superior to the auto-aiming attempts of the previous generation that it's laughable. It had the fast paced motion of a PC shooter. It had a huge, detailed world that rivaled the quality of experiences on PC, likely due to the PC-like quality of the Xbox. You could link up multiple Xbox and play with up to 16 players, mirroring what most multiplayer experiences on PC were like back in the day. You could play PC games online, but you're still dealing with a lot of dial-up connections. A fast-paced genre like FPS doesn't necessarily translate that well with lag, so many people were using LAN parties as their multiplayer experience of choice.

I recently beat the campaign for Halo with my son for the first time. I played through it a bit as a teenager, playing at some kids' house who I was supposed to be babysitting, but really just ate their food, played their Xbox, and watched their Family Guy DVDs. But I never had the chance to finish it. Having a coop campaign is a really nice touch, and it's implemented pretty well here. I have a few quibbles, like the checkpoint system, which can result in some spinny experiences where you get teleported to a friend, and then accidentally trigger the checkpoint again, and in the very similar environments it can be very difficult to remember where you've been and where you're supposed to be going. The campaign also struggles with those similar environments, where it's very difficult to know where to go in your homogeneous surroundings. But the shooting action is always really fun, you have a radar to show you where nearby enemies are (hint: if you get lost, head towards the red dots), and the enemy AI is fantastic. Each variety of unit has their own equipment and tactics, and a real personality. It's so fun to see the grunts screaming and running away from you if they get to be alone against the mighty Master Chief, and the Hunters never fail to be scary when you encounter them. The voice work is tremendous for the creatures, yielding a wide range of screeches and grunts that will immerse you in this campaign even more.

The multiplayer is excellent, if a bit limited. You need real players to play, as there are no AI enemies to insert into matches. In a game with only two players, the action can get pretty dull. This was a game made for LAN parties in an age where that doesn't happen too much anymore. Grading it for its time, though, it's really good. If you really want a richer experience, there's always Halo 2 through 5. 

While this game is still fun today, its historical impact is the real reason this game shines. Microsoft lost a tremendous amount of money on their XBox experience, and I feel pretty confident in saying that there would have been no Xbox 360 (an amazing console) without Halo. The console only sold 24 million worldwide during its life, and an incredible 4 million copies of Halo were sold! That's a pretty insane attach rate, particularly as the game wasn't a pack-in title, and the XBox had a pretty big library with plenty of options. More importantly, it paved the way for Halo 2 (which sold even more than the first), the game that defined an entire generation's first online console experience, caused people to be comfortable with paying for online gaming, and was generally just awesome.

With all of this in mind, I'll give Halo: Combat Evolved a 9.5 out of 10. It's a true trailblazer that pales a bit in comparison to its successor, but has aged really well. If you haven't played it, it's a great time! Here's a little teaser for the next game to be reviewed (I've already finished it).

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 139): Dynasty Warriors 9

Dynasty Warriors 9 is a hack n' slash game for several consoles. I played it on the PS4. It is notable for being the first entry in the series on the PS4/Xbox One, and also for attempting to translate the series' older, self-contained mission focus into a more modern world open world game.

Dynasty Warriors 9 is an absolute train wreck. To be clear, the Dynasty Warriors games have never been "good" in an objective sense of the world. The storytelling is extremely garbled and difficult to understand. The dialogue is silly. The characterizations of many characters are totally bland and uninteresting. The combat is over the top, lacking in interaction, and empty fun. The RPG mechanics are thin, at best. But Dynasty Warriors 9 somehow manages to take what was good and fun about the series and water it down, while simultaneously extracting the worst elements of modern open world games and transposing them on a franchise for which they were never suited.

In theory, open world and Dynasty Warriors should be interesting. The older Dynasty Warriors games were a series of missions that told the story of a conflict between powerful Chinese families that spanned multiple generations. These missions, however, fell fantastically short of communicating the broader scope and gravitas of the outcomes of said missions, as the player is left without any idea where Chi Bi is, or Nanman, or who these people are, and why we should care. The geography of such a story should be interesting, and Koei Tecmo has experimented with that through the Dynasty Warriors Empires series, which intercuts the hack and slash action with a turn based strategy interface that allows you to command your armies and gradually take control of the Three Kingdoms. However, this series is completely divorced from the actual quasi-historical tales from which Dynasty Warriors takes its inspiration, so it really feels more like Risk. So attempting to place your character in a real world setting, and having their actions impact the outcomes of battles, was very interesting to me, despite my general distaste for the modern approach to open world gaming.

However, Koei Tecmo has succeeded in creating an open world game with nothing of interest between the missions and a lack of ability to change the shape of the conflict beyond rote reduction of your foes' power. Finishing smaller missions has the effect, basically, of reducing the levels of the officers in the final mission. Sure, you'll see some water in a place if you execute a flood attack. Or there may be fewer small troops between you and your foe. But in reality, you always just sprint past every obstacle to reach the primary enemy, kill him, and end your mission anyway, so these smaller changes (which are rare when they exist), fail to communicate the import of the mundane tasks that always made Dynasty Warriors so delightful.

All of the tropes of modern open world games are here. There is crafting. There are towers that reveal nearby landmarks. There is a huge map with missions and icons everywhere. There are a wide variety of shops. You can hunt. There are hidden items everywhere. Ultimately, none of it is fun, beyond the basic Dynasty Warriors hack 'n slash formula, which makes you wonder, why do the open world part anyway?

In fairness, I really despise the open world style of modern games in most cases. A few, like Breath of the Wild, have succeeded in creating a world that is vibrant, filled with fun, and the exploratory delights that are rooted in classic games like The Legend of Zelda. I would count Grant Theft Auto 5 among these as well. But Dynasty Warriors 9 falls so far short of these benchmarks that it's laughable. The fact that most reviewers say the same things as me encourages me that I'm not just biased against this particular genre of game.

All of that would be enough to give this game a dismal rating, but when you throw the insane amount of bugs and genuine lack of polish to this game, it becomes an absolute train wreck. Riding horses is a hilarious enterprise that will result in you routinely shaking your head in disbelief. There's an auto ride feature that will take you to your destination, but will more likely have you running around in weird circles, going the wrong way, and taking very long routes to your destination.

When the game launched, it did not have any multiplayer. Now, there is both local coop and online coop, which is at least better. But for a game built on a long history of fun couch coop to launch without any...what a mess. However, when you play in coop mode, the graphics take a serious hit, so beware. It is slightly more fun with a friend to enjoy laughing at all of the ridiculous bugs you will find in this game.

I cannot, in good conscience, recommend Dynasty Warriors 9 to anyone. Dynasty Warriors 8 was actually a really fun experience on the last generation of consoles, so there's really no reason to play Dynasty Warriors 9. This is a truly awful game that couldn't decide what it wanted to be, and lost a lot of what made the original games so fun to play. I'll give it a 3.0/10.

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 138): Mario Golf

Mario Golf is a golf game for the Nintendo 64, and the first game in the Mario sports series  developed by Camelot (one of my personal favorite studios). Anyone who has read this blog or spent any time with me at all knows my love of the Mario sports games, and my particular love of the Mario golf games, so it may come as a surprise to some that I'd actually played this entry surprisingly little before tackling it these last few weeks. I had a cousin who had this game, and he would soundly trounce me in it, but that's about all of my exposure to this game. I played Toadstool Tour religiously, absolutely adored the GBA entry, and liked the 3DS one. We desperately need a Switch Mario golf game, by the way.

Anyway, this is just a flat out excellent game. You have a big cast of characters. It still looks nice today, although it's nothing compared to the absolutely gorgeous Toadstool Tour. You get six full 18 hole courses with a wide range of creative hole and course design. All of the staples of Mario golf are here. You have match play, stroke play, multiplayer, Ring attack, time attack, clubs slots, tournament mode, challenging AI characters, etc. The golf mechanics are really sound here, although they definitely get polished up and are more reliable in Toadstool Tour.

The soundtrack is really great. It sounded so familiar to me that I had to look up the composer, and lo and behold, just like I thought, it's the same guy who composed the soundtrack to the Golden Sun games, which are magnificent, by the way. It's not too surprising, given that Camelot makes both series, but it's nice to hear a familiar musical voice.

About the only critique I have to offer here is that Toadstool Tour does everything a little better. But they created this 3D Mario golf experience out of whole cloth for this game, and it really does work about 90% as well as Toadstool Tour. This was, without question, a must own title for the 64 when it was released. But I really don't see myself revisiting this game again, given that I have a copy of Toadstool Tour to enjoy, as well as the GBA and 3DS games for some great handheld options (GBA for the RPG mode, and 3DS for raw golf gameplay prowess). I'll give Mario Golf  a 9.0, but if you have a Gamecube, just get Toadstool Tour. It will satisfy every Mario golf need you have.

Up next on What I'm Playing is a title I picked up on the cheap last month, and I'm almost done with it. I'll almost certainly have a review up next week for this one. Here's  teaser:

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 137): Bahamut Lagoon

It dies! I think this is the oldest member of my backlog, and I finally finished it. This is a game I started many times in high school, but could never get through it before getting distracted by something else, dissatisfied with my builds, etc. It was also one of my gaming goals for the year, so I can check that one off. Here's a quick update for my faithful reader at the quarter mark of the year (roughly):

1. Clear out 30 unbeaten games:

8 so far, which puts me on track for 32 completed games. Check.

2. Buy all the new games I want, as long as it's a good deal. Also, add a really pricey game (more than $80) to my collection just for fun. Maybe Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance or Lufia II. 

Since the beginning of the year, I have purchased 19 new video games, seventeen physical and two digital. I've spent a total of $152.66 on those games. I haven't denied myself anything for the purposes of slowing the collection, only for keeping within my budget. Collecting has definitely slowed down since Covid-19, so this is probably fewer than I would like. I also haven't bought anything super-pricey, so we'll try to get that done before the end of the year. I did buy a really big lot of PS3 games, as well as Super Mario Maker 2 and another game for more than $20 that I don't want to name because I haven't reviewed it. So far, so good. I'm definitely leaning towards a Lufia collection for my pricey stuff, so we'll see how that goes.

3. Replay some old favorites again.

I did my annual playthrough of Super Mario World, and am really itching to run some Mega Man. I'd say I'm on track.

4. I MUST finish Bahamut Lagoon.

Check

5. Finish the main campaign of Final Fantasy XIV once and for all.

I have made absolutely zero progress on this. Seems like an appropriate thing to subscribe to in quarantine, though. Hmmmm.

Anyway, back to my Bahamut Lagoon review! Bahamut Lagoon, released in 1996 on the Super Famicom, is one of the earlier tactical RPGs out there, obviously following trailblazers Fire Emblem and hangers-on Langrisser and the shining series, as well as fellow Super Famicom standout Tactics Ogre. It's a very late release on the Super Famicom, with the Nintendo 64 coming out a few short months after its release.

Due to its late release and the general apathy of the American public to JRPGs, Bahamut Lagoon has never received a western release. As such, if you want to play this game, you'll need to obtain rom hacks that translate the game to English (either on a repro or an emulator), because this is not a game to be explored without some language support.

The basic concept of the game is that you control a lineup of warriors who ride dragons into battle. These dragons obey limited commands (come, go, and wait), but are generally free to target whoever they wish. Developing these dragons to have a wide range of powerful skills will be the key to getting through the game, as your warriors are mostly pointless, save for those who can attack from ranged.

In between battles, you can feed your dragons weapons, armor, and items to raise their stats, in addition to the natural leveling they will get just by battling. These levels seem to raise only the dragons' HP and MP, though, as the other stats seem to be derived solely from your feedings. This is a nice little system that has a logic to it, although I would absolutely recommend finding a guide to feeding them that details the stats you get from each item, as well as what to do if your dragon turns into the dreaded Uni Uni (feed it a heal). RPG Shrine has a good one, as do the fine folks at GameFAQs (didalos' guide).

The dragons start out extremely stupid, and will frequently heal their foes by using the wrong elemental attacks on them, but they definitely get smarter and smarter the more they develop. The dragons will turn into different forms as they develop and grow in various stats, but for the most part these are cosmetic changes only.

The translation is certainly rougher than an official release. I used the translation by Tomato and dejap. They have a pretty complete translation of most of the dialogue, although some of it seems pretty literal. The biggest problem is with the item names, and that's a BIG problem, especially when trying to use the right items on your dragons to ensure they get the stats you're looking for. It's a fan translation though, so I have to say that it's extremely forgivable. I'd still love an official western release at some point, but that's a big ask for a game that probably wouldn't sell a ton. I think the fan translation is our best option, and for a game with a ton of text in it, it's actually really good for what it is. The online guides really help close the gap, too.

The visuals in the game are extremely good. This game was released after Chrono Trigger, mind, so the folks at Squaresoft were well versed in wrenching the most impressive visuals out of the Super Famicom. It has some of the best use of Mode 7 I've seen in a game, and perhaps the biggest, most detailed sprites on the entire system.

The music is excellent as well, and is emblematic of Square's dedication to musical perfection at the time. There are a ton of very memorable tracks in the game, and it's a really great soundtrack.

The battle, development, and exploration system are just really thin on this one, and it feels like this was a patchwork game between Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy VII, which was almost certainly in development at this point. The balance between warriors and dragons is nonexistent. The AI for enemies are pretty poor, and they will almost always target your dragons or do other dumb things. You basically just go from mission to mission, talking to a few people to unlock the next mission, shop for new gear, feed your dragons, and then send your dragons out to wipe everyone out in the mission while you trail behind. Your dragons can move unlimited spaces each turn, which means they'll attack every turn, gaining experience, while your warriors limp behind, cleaning up what little the dragons leave in their destructive wake. The story is not really close to as well developed and interesting as its Squaresoft predecessors, and it feels like a first shot for Squaresoft to cut their teeth on a concept that would later be perfected in Final Fantasy Tactics and its quasi-sequel on the GBA. And that's fine! Intelligent Systems had Famicom Wars before Fire Emblem, so every company has to figure this stuff out. And it took Squaresoft three (!) Final Fantasy games before they finally hit on a masterpiece in Final Fantasy IV. But it feels like this game should have been better, given the fact that there were several games that others had produced in the same genre from which they could have learned, and also give the prestige of Squaresoft at the absolute peak of their powers, and with all of their critical personnel still in house. The modern Final Fantasy games take a lot of grief, but the reality is that most of the people who were involved in the development of those games are gone now, and that you now need huge teams of people to make games, meaning that the ability of a small group of people to make a masterpiece is greatly reduced these days. That wasn't true in 1996, though.

Don't get me wrong. Bahamut Lagoon is good. But check out this list of games released by Squaresoft in a 6 year stretch from 1991 to 1997:

Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy Legend III
Romancing SaGa
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest
Final Fantasy V
Secret of Mana
Romancing SaGa 2
Front Mission
Chrono Trigger
Seiken Densetsu 3
Secret of Evermore
Romancing SaGa 3
Super Mario RPG
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy Tactics
Front Mission 2

That's right. In six years, this company released at least 5, maybe 7, all-time masterpieces. Of the third-party developers, only a handful can say they've had 5 all-time masterpieces in their entire existence (Capcom, Konami, Enix, Blizzard, Activision, HAL, EA, Valve, Namco, and maybe a few more I'm forgetting). But I really don't think any of them ever had a six year stretch quite like Squaresoft. Maybe Blizzard from the Warcraft II-Diablo-Starcraft-Diablo II-Warcraft III-World of Warcraft run. But that was ALL Blizzard was making during that time! Squaresoft also sprinkled in a bunch of really good games in that stretch. When you look at this list, Bahamut Lagoon is clearly towards the bottom in terms of quality. And that's a shame, because it feels like this concept deserved better execution.

I'll give Bahamut Lagoon an 8.0, primarily on the strength of its visuals, music, and concept. It's a fun game that seemed like a castoff from an all-time great, like a down year for prime Roger Clemens. It will be fun to those who love tactical RPGs, but if you haven't spent time with the true greats in the genre (Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy Tactics), go there first. If you fall in love, you can spend a fun 25 hours with this one. Up next is a game I haven't teased before (finally)!

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 136): Bravely Default

Bravely Default is a testament to the fine line that separates excellent games from dreadful ones. The game is the spiritual successor to Final Fantasy: The Four Heroes of Light, a title I viciously panned on this blog for a few reasons. I hated the visuals. I hated the boring jobs system. I hated that you couldn't select targets for attacks in battles with more than one enemy. Most of all, I absolutely detested the level-up system that leveled up the enemies along with you, making grinding your team almost completely pointless. These reasons combined for me to give the game a dreadful 4.0/10.

Bravely Default starts with many of the same conceits of Heroes, which drove me away for a long time. It still has a chibi-ish, washed out art style, shown in the screenshot below. It has a decidedly retro feel to combat, lacking an ATB gauge or any sort of pressing time limitations, and preferring a turn-based approach. You have a cast of four playable characters that never rotate.

But darn it all if Bravely Default doesn't absolutely knock out each and every concern I had with the previous game, transforming literally the worst game I've ever reviewed into an excellent one with a few small design choices.

The art is definitely a lot more varied and interesting this time around, even if I am not a fan of the chibi look in general. Look at this beautiful city they created in this game:

The entire thing is based on the concept of windmills, with various gears powering the city. The whole city is a gorgeous steampunk concept that's really well thought out, and executed to perfection. There are tons of magnificent settings in the game, and everything is designed very well. The game takes a gleeful delight in design, zooming out when entering an area so that you can take in every detail of the surroundings. This is a bit of an annoyance at first, but you get used to it.

The game took the battle system from the previous game, the best part of it, in my opinion, and improved on it. Previously, you could boost to save up points and burn it all on huge attacks, but the boost function has been replaced with a command called "default" that reduces incoming damage, and saves a point up (called BP). You can then spend your BP to perform multiple actions on the same turn, or perform big ones. You can also spend into the negative, making it so that you can't default on later turns, but perhaps can put out enough damage to end the battle before you can be killed. This risk/reward function works great, allowing you to act in a riskier manner in battles with smaller enemies or if you think you are close to putting away a boss and worry that you may not have time to finish him if you think he's going to kill you otherwise.

The jobs system is extremely good, rivaling those of my beloved Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy Tactics. Like in Final Fantasy V, you can bring two sets of job abilities into battle, but also can equip several passives as well. This allows for some excellent mix and matching abilities, with a lot of creative opportunities to make the kind of jobs you desire.

For example, I made a counter attacking ninja/swordmaster. She had the ninja spell to cause all enemies to focus her with any single target attacks, as well as swordmaster spells that take reduced damage from physical and magical attacks, and counter attacking in return. For my passives, I had a skill from the red mage tree that allowed you to gain extra BP when damaged, a skill from swordmaster that increased damage dealt when counterattacking, a skill from dark knight that increased my characters stats when they took damage, and a skill from the knight that increased my physical defense. This allowed me to have a character that would draw aggression away from my big damage dealers, countering hard when hit, and benefiting from the damage I took by building up higher stats, and increasing my BP so I could use my focus aggro/counter combo more often!

The great thing about the job system in Bravely Default is that so many skills from varied jobs could be invested into magnificent combos, even if those jobs didn't seem related. In a typical job-based RPG, you are incentived to spend more time on one class of job (physical, magic damage, magic support/healing, etc.), but in this game, dancing around between classes has huge benefits, and every job has something to bring to the table. In other games, a tanky character would never spend any time as a Red Mage, but it was an absolute necessity in this game to keep my character's BP high enough to draw aggro away successfully.

You can obviously select targets in battle. I have no idea why this needed to be added.

They also made a typical JRPG leveling system in which you can actually get stronger than your foes. I also have no idea why this needed to be added.

So that handles my specific concerns about the game's predecessor. But what about the rest of the game? Well, the story is pretty good, for a JRPG. I don't want to spoil much, because there are actually some great twists and turns along the way. One in particular is some Earthbound-level of JRPG trope shattering, and I fully endorse it.

The music is quite good, with some really excellent tracks throughout. There's a lot of love for the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy sound here.

The pacing of the game is its biggest flaw. About the time the game is feeling like it's winding down, it's just getting started. What's more, there's a loop in the game (I won't say any more) that gets old very quickly. Unfortunately, to get the best ending, you need to repeat the loop several times, and I'd say that each loop will take you, at a minimum, about 5 hours. I took a lot longer than that. Fortunately, if you finish the game with a suboptimal ending, it will pop you back to before you made your mistake (if you want), and let you continue until the best ending. The pacing was extremely slow, and it made it very hard to want to finish the game. The saving grace of it all was that the grinding was so fun that I felt like there was a lot to do that was different every loop, and it gave me a bunch of chances to experiment with different builds for my characters. In total, I spent about 80 hours playing this game, and most of it felt like a retread. A trim, 40 hour RPG is totally reasonable if that's how much content you have!

In sum, I loved Bravely Default. It brought everything I love in a JRPG. If pacing is a concern for you, though, I'd start elsewhere. I'd recommend it to anyone who loves Final Fantasy V, Final Fantasy Tactics, or just loves classic JRPGs. I'll give it a 9.0/10.

Up next is a game I've already teased before, and that I've FINALLY completed. Stay tuned!

-TRO