Limit Break: Why Splitting the Final Fantasy VII Remake into Multiple Parts May Be a Good Thing

The initial reveal of the Final Fantasy VII remake was met with seemingly unanimous applause just a few months ago. Now that details of its release format and gameplay have been revealed, it seems fans have become a bit divided over this bold reimagining. I have yet to complete the original PS1 version of Final Fantasy VII, but the good third or so of it that I have played, I very much enjoyed. I still prefer Final Fantasy IV, but I cannot deny how well VII has aged, nor can I deny its role as one of the most popular and critically-acclaimed video games of all time.

Which brings me to my first point: given just how well-liked Final Fantasy VII is, someone somewhere was going to be let down with at least one decision or another. It’s the nature of the beast, and probably part of the reason that Square Enix was so apprehensive to try and recreate this game in years past. Even less heavily altered updates to classic games like the 3DS ports of the N64 Legend of Zelda titles were met with criticisms regarding changes made to their save systems and the inclusion of helpful hints for gamers who may have been too young to have experienced Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask during their original release.

Also, Final Fantasy VII is a very large game, in both scale and assets. This can be said about most Final Fantasy titles, yes, but each of the areas that Cloud and company visit are full of detail, with many rooms or sections to explore, not to mention the vast expanses beyond the walls of Midgar. And given that the developers intend to add more content than was originally included in the PS1 release, it kind of makes sense that they would want to take their time and stagger the release process instead of dropping it all at once, with less content than they had planned. So long as the remake of Final Fantasy VII is released in reasonably-sized chunks at a relatively consistent rate, I see no problem with this plan. If anything, the feedback Square Enix receives from each installment will help to improve their efforts on the next one.

I admit, I’m not entirely sold on their decision to utilize a new battle system. In my opinion, ATB is one of the best battle systems in any JRPG to date, and as the old saying goes: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” At the same time, the recent gameplay trailer only offered us quick glimpses of the new battle system, and I don’t think anyone outside of Square Enix is entirely sure as to how the combat works just yet.

I’m a big fan of the character designs for Cloud and Barret. Barret is a reasonably-proportioned human instead of some cartoonish hulking goliath, while Cloud looks tall and thin, much like his in-battle character model from the PS1 version. I feel their voices are also incredibly appropriate, and so far (fingers crossed that this carries on through the rest of the remake) Barret does not appear to act the part of the racist caricature that he was in an era gone by. Obviously, only time will tell how the ultimate end product looks and plays, but I feel that this remake has quite the potential to do its original incarnation justice, and perhaps even improve upon some of the world’s locations and character interactions.

Character Select: Rydia of Mist (Final Fantasy IV)

Once in a blue moon, I come across a video game that I would consider ‘definitive’ to its genre or series. Final Fantasy IV is one such game, taking the essence of what turn-based JRPGs are all about, and cranking the gameplay up a notch with the introduction of the active-time battle system. It takes the medieval fantasy aesthetic to fantastical settings, with a skeleton wall bearing down on Cecil Harvey and company deep below the surface of their world, a massive tower that bursts forth from the ground to loom over the countryside, and a journey to the moon in order to make the final strike against the true foe of this epic adventure. And while Cecil, Kain, Rosa, Yang, Cid, and the rest of the playable cast were a lovable, iconic bunch, the one character that I adored from the moment of her introduction to the climactic finale was Rydia of Mist.

I think it is not much of a stretch to say that Final Fantasy IV spoiled me, in a way, offering me such a perfect balancing of party members over the course of the game, Rydia being chief among them. She is unquestionably the greatest black mage I have encountered in a Final Fantasy title to date, a role that has long been a core element to my strategies in JRPGs. Even more impressive is the fact that, on top of this, she is also the best summoner I have encountered in the series. I have made mention a number of times that my experiences with the proper numbered Final Fantasy titles remains limited to about six games, but even in the company of other JRPGs that I very much enjoyed, like Persona 4, Rydia still stands out as a force to be reckoned with. She never feels overpowered, per se, but the sheer variety of summons and spells at her disposal late in Final Fantasy IV is incredible.

Her story is also quite well-written – simple enough to juggle with the narratives surrounding all the other major players in FFIV, but elaborate enough to give players a reason to care about her plight. When Cecil and Kain first encounter Rydia, she is saddened by the destruction brought upon her village by the Red Wings, the very team that Cecil and Kain serve, and the fact that the two dark knights inadvertently caused the death of her mother while fighting her Eidolon. All this sorrow and anger causes the young girl to call upon an Eidolon of her own, displaying firsthand to Cecil and Kain the unthinkable powers they have upset. Though their alliance is uneasy at first, Cecil’s decision to abandon his role as dark knight and seek out the underlying machinations involving Golbez leads Rydia to see him as someone more human and trustworthy than she initially believed.

After an attack at sea by Leviathan, the rest of the party believes the young girl has died, and mourns her, only to later discover she was taken to the Feymarch, home of the Eidolons. Because time passes faster in the Feymarch, Rydia was able to hone her skills as both black mage and summoner, growing from child into young woman, and returning to aid her friends and allies when they needed her most. As an adult, Rydia is more calm and collected, and carries a noticeable air of confidence about her. There is, however, a certain element of pep and feistiness to the way that she takes on foes in battle – perhaps due to the fact that, having improved all of her abilities, she knows that her Eidolons are capable of laying waste to as many foes might stand in her way.

Character Select: HK-47 (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic)

The earliest comrades to join the amnesiac protagonist’s party in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic fit the typical Star Wars formula – Bastila is a skilled young Jedi, Carth is slick with pistols and skeptical of certain galactic factions (though whiny and far less enjoyable company than the likes of one Han Solo), T3-M4 is a whistling astromech droid, and Zaalbar is… a Wookie. The party members that joined the adventures across the stars past the game’s halfway point struck me as having more creative personalities, overall, and offering further insight into the ever-expanding Star Wars universe. Of particular note was HK-47, an assassin droid who was positively gleeful to aim his rifle at any organic being he was instructed to.

“Translation: He requires proof of good faith. We must make a contribution to his people that shows we are not a threat. Shall I blast him now, master?”

HK-47’s behavior of constantly prefacing each statement with situation-appropriate terms including ‘query’, ‘statement’, ‘observation’, and ‘advisement’ formed an endearing trait, as well as a curious complement to his twisted comedic personality. HK-47 was devoutly loyal to his comrades, even if he did insist on referring to all of his human and alien travelling companions as ‘meatbags’. He performed well as a ranged heavy hitter, blaster rifles being his specialty. Once HK-47 was counted among the misfit crew of the Ebon Hawk, I never swapped him out of my party.

“Explanation: It’s just that… you have all these squishy parts, master. And all that water! How the constant sloshing doesn’t drive you mad, I have no idea…”

Character Select: Kanji Tatsumi (Persona 4)

Sometimes the reason a video game resonates with us so powerfully has to do with the characters we encounter along the way. This post marks the first in a new series I will be adding new entries to every on a semi-regular basis, and which will explore some of my favorite characters from different video game series in brief. Simply stated, these posts will be more along the lines of quick blurbs than full-fledged articles, though I may have more to say about certain characters than others due to a variety of factors – the numbers of games they have appeared in, the degree to which I have found myself entertained by their antics or invested in their development, etc.

Following the legacy of handsome blond-haired bruisers like Final Fantasy IV's Kain Highwind, Kanji is rough, tough, and hits like a truck. What lends Kanji to stand out from the crowd is his personality, and his role as part of a modern social commentary. While other JRPGs remain rooted in the expansive fantasy realms that first put them on the map, the Persona titles opt for a contemporary setting, featuring high school kids capable of using the powers of the Arcana to summon their respective Personas and – in the case of Persona 4 – defeat the shadow monsters of the Midnight Channel as they piece together a mysterious series of kidnappings in the rural town of Inaba. Kanji is one of the Persona series’ most striking reflections of modern sensibilities, as his shadow form, a physical manifestation of his inner struggles, deals with a confusion of his own sexual identity and the interpretation of what others view as ‘manly’ and ‘masculine’ versus what he knows he is good at and passionate about. While Kanji’s actual sexual orientation is somewhat left up to each player’s own interpretation, it’s certainly easy to find yourself invested in his story, especially when it comes to accepting the fact that some people might think his sewing and crafting skills are unusual, but that it is more than acceptable for him to take pride in these. I also found the clash of Kanji’s badass scrappy external image and the fact that he could become so easily flustered when put on the spot to be entertaining, as well as facets that further lent to his progress being arguably more human and meaningful than some of his P4 comrades, and certainly a more compelling individual tale than many other JRPGs have to offer these days.

"You Look Terrible, Snake" #2 - Halo 4

"Don't make a girl a promise... if you know you can't keep it." - Cortana (Halo 2)

The release of Halo: Reach marked the end of Bungie’s exclusivity contract with Microsoft, and the end of their days developing Halo games, as they looked towards new frontiers with their next project, Destiny. But Halo was destined to remain a property under the ownership of Microsoft, who had created a department specifically for continuing the Halo storyline, dubbed 343 Industries. 343 Industries would be tasked not only with the development of future games in the bestelling series, but weaving tales for novels, comic books, and live action series that helped to fill the gaps between games. During the Bungie era, there were a number of Halo novels written that provided greater context to the Spartan program, the UNSC vs. Insurrectionist conflict that preceded the Human-Covenant War, and explored other Forerunner artifacts that Doctor Halsey had examined prior to the crew of The Pillar of Autumn stumbling across Alpha Halo at the beginning of the first game.

As part of the buildup to the 343 Industries-directed Halo 4, which would signal the start of the new ‘Reclaimer Trilogy’, two novel trilogies were launched. The first dealt with a UNSC team known as Kilo Five, and took place in the then-present day of the Halo universe, bridging the gap between Halo 3 and Halo 4, and exploring the fragile peace that existed between the Human race and their reluctant Sangheili comrades. This trilogy would go on to explain how some of the Sangheili grew restless in the post-war peace time, and opted to splinter off into their own faction to continue their warrior-like ways in seeking out Forerunner artifacts, thus setting the stage for Master Chief’s unexpected encounter with antagonistic Elites and Grunts early in Halo 4. The other trilogy of novels went far back in time to provide a direct narrative of the last days of the Forerunner empire, setting up for Halo 4’s major plotline that saw the return of the Ur-Didact and his desire to wipe humankind from the galaxy, under the belief that they proved the greatest threat to its stability in the absence of The Flood.

Many of Halo 4's highest points come courtesy of the Didact being such an intimidating villain.

While I personally found the Forerunner trilogy to be among the best Halo tie-in novels released to date, there was something exceptionally odd about their being so contextually important to the events of Halo 4. The same went for the Kilo Five trilogy – sure, I had read these precursor texts as my anticipation for the new game built, but in the grand scheme of things, only a small portion of the Halo fanbase would go out of their way to acquire and read these novels. Previous Halo novels like Ghosts of Onyx, Contact Harvest, The Fall of Reach, and The Cole Protocol did well to expand upon the existing universe, but not a single one of these was necessary reading in order to grasp the context of the games. Anyone could play from Halo: Combat Evolved up through Halo 3 and successfully gather the core of Master Chief’s story – the aforementioned novels provided further backstory to other characters and events, the majority of which preceded the events of the games by many years. But both the Forerunner and Kilo Five trilogies were so tightly connected to the narrative of Halo 4, I find it a wonder the delivery of the single-player campaign managed to come across as well as it did.

Consider this required reading material.

Halo 4’s campaign is incredibly short-lived, even when compared to the games that came before it. Yet, it hits high notes from start to finish, with Master Chief’s race to stop the Didact’s plans standing strong as the core conflict of the game. It’s quite surprising, in fact, that this smaller-scale and more personal battle between two men out of their own time handles so convincingly in a series that has long been about a large-scale conflict between an alien conglomerate and the human military. The game delivers a satisfying conclusion that wraps up its own story without too much in the way of cliffhanger content, yet leaves enough doors open the ensure future games and associated media have sufficient material to draw from.

The combination of the campaign being so brief, yet so well-written, certainly left me with somewhat complicated feelings toward it, and perhaps more importantly, toward the future of the franchise under the banner of 343 Industries. But with Bungie veteran Frank O’Connor relocating to the 343 Industries team, I was hopeful that Halo 4’s story was more a reflection of the studio wanting to play things safe during their first proper outing than a signifier that the series would teeter toward the realm of Metal Gear with a highly complicated narrative than would be as spun up in the core games as it would any and all spinoff material. While the former may very well have been the case for the campaign mode, the online multiplayer and Spartan Ops modes revealed an uglier truth.

The Halo games have provided me with a ludicrous number of hours of entertainment in online play. From Halo 2 onward, friends and I would take part in a variety of Slayer and objective-based matches, from the close quarters of Lockout and Turf, to the vehicular carnage on Valhalla and Sandtrap, to the new game types of Invasion and Headhunter introduced in Halo: Reach. Halo retained a unique identity in the online multiplayer scene. While Halo 3 and Halo: Reach both offered players the option to alter the appearance of their multiplayer Spartan avatar, these were purely for aesthetic purposes, and no restrictions on unlocks were associated with any weapons or ability loadouts. Halo 4, however, painted a much different picture – one that wandered a tad too far into the realm of every other first-person shooter on the market for my own tastes.

Highly-detailed Spartan armor cannot disguise the huge steps backwards the competitive multiplayer took.

Better weapons and abilities were unlocked at higher levels, and this sucked a large amount of the fun from the multiplayer experience. Ordinance drops of heavy weapons rewarding the winning team even more of an edge over the competition led team matches to feel incredibly lopsided. The map layouts either evoked rather direct memories of their Halo 3 and Reach predecessors, in that their designs deviated so little from what had already been established, or were too outlandish and impractical for more than one or two game types. While I abhor the competitive multiplayer format of practically every other major first-person shooter, I think it is worth mentioning that I actually performed quite well in the majority of the Halo 4 Slayer matches I did play. But the lack of enjoyment I found from them led me to abandon them so quickly, that my objective with Halo 4 became solely focused on completing the campaign, a feat which was completed in a grand total of three sittings – and I was by no means attempting to rush through it.

Spartan Ops was an abysmal series of short missions that lacked any inspiration in either design or narrative, asking little more of you, the player, than to kill every enemy along the path from point A to point B. To think that Spartan Ops replaced the spectacular horde mode that was Firefight boggled my mind, especially considering how well-received Reach's Firefight was by the Halo community. Maybe the later updates that Spartan Ops received offered more interesting missions, but one playthrough of all the default missions left me with a foul opinion of them. Perhaps if they had been included alongside the Firefight mode, I might not have received them so poorly.

Spartan Ops: for when you want to team up with friends to tackle repeatedly lackluster missions.

With all of these factors combined, it was abundantly apparent to me that 343 Industries had lost sight of what Halo was really all about somewhere during the development of this new game – at least with regards to every facet of this project outside of the campaign. But even there, the lack of consideration to how easily audiences would be able to settle into the new narrative was a significant oversight on the part of Halo’s new management. Since the release of Halo 4, 343 Industries has gone on record as stating that they will do better with the next installment in the series, though what specific points they intend to improve on remains to be seen. The push for current storylines in both tie-in novels and comic books to emphasize rebellious factions of both Sangheili and Humans leaves me concerned that Halo 5 might see Master Chief fighting other human soldiers as opposed to the Promethean Knights or some other kind of Forerunner combatants.

While I wasn’t particularly hot on the notion of fighting Elites and Grunts again for the sake of convenience in 343 Industries not having to design a whole new slew of foes, I understand that something familiar needed to be retained to avoid wholly alienating longtime fans. But the potential for future games to teeter even further into the realm of Call of Duty or Battlefield by having Master Chief fighting militarized human forces is a truly upsetting notion. With any luck, the team at 343 Industries will recognize how much the Halo community loved the old multiplayer format, and return to the series’ roots with Halo 5: Guardians, as Halo’s online component has always accounted for a good half of its identity.

"You Look Terrible, Snake" #1 - Final Fantasy X

“You look terrible, Snake. You haven’t aged well.” – Gray Fox (Metal Gear Solid)

You may have noticed how the vast majority of the games I review on this blog end up with scores of a ‘7 out of 10’ or higher. Being that this is a one-man show, I typically find that any game I feel is going to score considerably lower than that is something I’d prefer not to waste my time on. There are the occasional anomalies – within the last year I scored The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds a 6.75, while Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes fared even poorer, earning a 4.5, though to be fair, both of those titles were considerably shorter than many of the other games I completed in 2014.

This is the start of a new series of articles, one that will likely be delivered infrequently, as I don’t want to come across as a downer too often. That said, this series will explore games that left me thoroughly disappointed for a number of reasons. Some of these games were still solid products on the whole, but failed to deliver on key design points. Others are total stinkers in my book, and I have a hunch that some of you will not agree with my take on at least a few of the titles to come. But that’s one of the great things about reviewing video games – for as much time as I might spend picking a game apart and voicing a negative opinion of it, there is someone else out there who hails it as one of their personal favorites, and vice-versa. With all that out of the way, the first game in this series will be Final Fantasy X.

My familiarity with the core Final Fantasy series was, until about five years ago, practically nonexistent. I could have told you which box art went with which game, that I understood the seventh game in the series was heralded by many as one of the best video game releases of all time, and that the tenth entry was supposed to be a strong contender as well. During my college years, I decided to pick up some used copies of a handful of Final Fantasy titles, after having played FFXIII, the DS remake of FFIV, and the Wii Virtual Console re-release of the original Final Fantasy. FFVII and FFX were the two among these gently-used purchases that I was most eager to experience, and were the two titles that had most frequently been recommended to me.

I think it important to point out that I did not (nor do I have any intention to) finish Final Fantasy X. I am, however, very much aware of the fact that any meaty JRPG like those in the Final Fantasy series require patience to grow accustomed to and allow the story to take shape. And so I waited. And waited. And waited, all the while slowly growing to realize how much I did not enjoy the experience. The battle system was unnecessarily obtuse in design, making encounters with foes boring, even sometimes frustrating. The freedom to level characters up as you so desired was one of the best mechanics in the game, and I certainly appreciated its role as predecessor to FFXIII’s crystarium, but its value was brought down by the fact that the characters I had to choose from were an uninspired and cliché lot.

At least Auron is alright as the stand-in for Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Lulu was a one-dimensional byproduct of the emo/goth subculture of the early 2000s, snapping at Wakka for his saying something that upset her, yet leaving Tidus and myself in the dark as to why such a response was necessary or justified, let alone how she was supposedly a deep character with a complicated past tying into Wakka's own. Meanwhile, Kimahri’s strong silent and mysterious nature coupled with his tall and furry body made him a dead ringer as a Chewbacca wannabe. Tidus proved obnoxious one moment, with his inhuman laugh and awkward bumbling through conversations with Yuna and Lulu, then super flat and unconvincing the next, as his dialogue served to imply genuine concern or curiosity regarding his comrades and the journey ahead, yet the way these lines were delivered showed just how uninterested the cast members were with this whole ordeal. Auron, the one character that I actually gravitated toward and wanted to learn more about, was denied time in the spotlight over and over. While I realize much of this was likely due for dramatic buildup for a later plot twist, the lack of information I was being fed eventually led me to give up on caring about him as well.

I similarly found myself in a position of not giving two hoots about impossible-hair-sporting Seymour Guado. I loved the ‘bring it on’ attitude Golbez and his four most trusted generals displayed in FFIV, the laser-faced monstrosity that was Barthendelus in FFXIII; heck, even Caius Ballad was an entertaining (if not a tad shallow) extremist in his attempts to defy time and fate. While FFVII’s Sephiroth is arguably more important as a plot device than multifaceted foe, the compounding of his and Jenova’s involvement in the plot made for an ever-mysterious, yet consistently compelling major plot thread. In FFX, Seymour is just sort of a cocky and generally unlikeable individual. He only gets what he wants on account of his social status and charms, and has seemingly never been told ‘no’ by anyone. The idea that so many people held him in high regard was a mystery to me, as I was given no basis as to why he was supposed to be so well-received, and thus similarly the idea that there was a complex ‘love-to-hate-this-guy’ dynamic at play was entirely lost. As far as I was concerned, Seymour was even more boring and uncharismatic as most of the core cast members.

Seymour's hairdo is one of the dumbest video game character design points I have ever seen.

Which in turn, added to my not caring about the world, its people, or the story at large. With a game that requires so much time to complete, and that places its conflict on such a large scale, one would hope it would utilize its heroes, villains, culture, and major plot points to craft something larger than the sum of its parts. But with so many paper-thin aspects to this creative vision, it resulted in the overall product lacking any real entertaining direction, which in turn, killed my desire to continue forward with it. Giant fish that signals the end of an era? Bring it up here and there, but fail to elaborate on it when the opportunity presents itself. Blitzball? An abysmal mess that is as messy in concept as it is in execution. Each time the game was presented ample opportunity to flesh out its narrative and elaborate on what was happening and attempt to convince me as to why I should be the slightest bit invested, it casually cruised right past them.

But perhaps Final Fantasy X’s greatest sin comes from the lack of freedom in picking a play style that suits you. I understand that many older RPGs tend to focus on a core cast, emphasizing them as the game progresses. FFIV did this, but it did it well, as the game chugs along at such a pace that you are allotted plenty of time to familiarize yourself with the abilities of the White Mages, the Knights, the Summoners, and so forth, that when you reach the later legs of the journey, you are well-versed in strategizing with Kain, Cecil, Rosa, Rydia, and Edge. Each has their own specific skill set, yes, but they also offer sufficient flexibility that you are not simply going through the motions as picking the one end-all be-all path to success.

FFXIII, while host to a smaller playable cast, emphasizes two to three skill trees per character, allowing Snow to offer up his Ravager and Sentinel skills to the part, Fang to juggle Commando and Saboteur, and Hope to try his hand at both Medic and Synergist. Of course late in the game, the other three trees per character that were deemed ‘less than ideal’ are expanded upon, but by the time that portion of the adventure is reached, each character has effectively already come into his/her primary roles. FFX, on the other hand, is designed with the mentality of the player adhering to how the game believes it should be played, with a very odd and unbalanced set of roles to select from. Both Kimahri and Auron fit the heavy-hitter physical attackers, while Tidus is meant to be the sort of middle ground 'knight', albeit with significantly less impressive results that Cloud, Lightning, Cecil, or even that which the vanilla Knights from FFI offered up.

The OG Black Mage/Summoner, Rydia of Mist.

 Wakka’s enchanted weaponry gets the job done early on, but also caps out too soon for any long-term use to be a worthwhile consideration. Meanwhile, Lulu is the most pathetic excuse for a Black Mage I’ve encountered in any JRPG I’ve played to date. For a while, I thought perhaps I was simply being too harsh toward her skill set, considering I had only recently completed FFIV before I started FFX, and that it would be one heck of a tall order for anyone to stack up to Rydia. Yet, Yuna does just fine with her White Mage/Summoner combo, as unorthodox as it might be. And yeah, of course Yuna is going to have weaker defense than most of her comrades, but while Lulu is intended to be a glass cannon, her shots are practically nonexistent. Hell, the blue-robed and yellow-eyed sprites from FFI put up a bombastic display in comparison, and their attacks – while still specialized – are nowhere near as expansive as any of the Final Fantasy titles that followed.

The soundtrack is great – in my opinion, one of the best in the series. And both the graphical and art direction stood out to me as early hooks that made me want to get lost and immersed in this game’s story and style. Final Fantasy X was a game that I wanted so desperately to enjoy, and it failed me in spades.

Aesthetic appeal in JRPGs: Persona 5 and Final Fantasy XV

This morning, my Twitter feed was abuzz with word of the first proper trailer for Persona 5. While Atlus did offer us a teaser in 2014, this new footage showed off more action-packed anime cutscenes in greater detail, as well as some of the dungeon-crawling and shop-browsing. While the majority of the response was positive, my own feelings toward the trailer were a tad mixed. To be fair, my experiences with the Persona series are relatively limited – I only played through Persona 4 within the past year and a half, am currently entering the late hours of Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, and have spent a grand total of about twenty minutes with Persona 4 Arena. With that in mind, I have very much enjoyed the Persona games as I’ve played them thus far, and even the anime adaptation of Persona 4 was a solid offering, despite its need to condense the forty-plus hours required to play through its video game counterpart.

The new Persona 5 trailer

I did notice, however, one particular tweet that stated how someone had watched both this new Persona 5 trailer and the Final Fantasy XV gameplay trailer back-to-back, and how they felt it 'put things in perspective'. While I can’t speak on their behalf, I can say that this individual’s particular post led me to go and rewatch the Final Fantasy XV gameplay trailer from the Tokyo Game Show 2014, and I have since drawn some conclusions about the presentations of both titles. Obviously these titles are both a ways off yet, and we don’t know everything about the final product, so this is less my attempt at gauging the final games themselves, rather my thoughts on what we know of them so far and some concerns I have with the angle both Atlus and Square Enix are taking in trying to sell these titles.

To be blunt, I have very little faith in Final Fantasy XV. It’s been repurposed from Final Fantasy Versus XIII, which spent nigh on a half-decade in development hell. It appears to follow the action RPG formula, and the last time an FF title did that (Final Fantasy XII), it was met with heavily polarized reception. Equally strange is how un-Final Fantasy this latest numbered entry looks. There seems to be some strange obsession in the industry today that because our consoles have higher graphical capabilities than ever before, developers ought to push highly-detailed and hyper-realistic character and environment models, instead of being creative and adventurous. The problem with this approach is that the aesthetic loses its identity. Instead of colorful monsters and exciting Chocobo rides, we have been treated to dull brown behemoths and futuristic armor-clad soldiers with less variety in textures than Final Fantasy XIII’s Psicom troops. And all of this is presented through the eyes of a small group of stereotypical dude-bros with pretty faces and silly hair, getting overly excited as they spot these uninspired designs from an equally boring high-end car - one that looks like it could be driving through the Hamptons this very minute. Even the earlier trailer that announced Versus XIII’s rebranding as FFXV highlighted some (again) all-too-familiar Mediterranean architecture. There are no suits of Magitek armor to be seen, no medieval knights boarding a fight to the moon, no massive structures that combine ancient culture and space-age tech in seemingly impossible fluidity. There is a complete absence glory and fanfare in the overall presentation - just a group of handsome guys on a road trip, and their 'oohs' and 'aahs' at the other in-game assets proved a failed attempt at trying to evoke the same reaction from me.

The TGS 2014 gameplay trailer for Final Fantasy XV

Persona 5’s trailer showcases what I can only assume to be the base cast – four characters, including the neutral-looking male protagonist, his two blonde-haired friends (one male, one female), and a cat. I say the ‘base cast’ because that was how Persona 4 operated – the game offered three playable characters almost immediately, with the fourth (Yukiko) added to your crew only a few hours into the experience. From there, the other party members (Kanji, Rise, Teddie, and Naoto, respectively) were gradually incorporated into the story. Today’s trailer highlighted some chandelier-hopping, stealthy dashes down a hallway, the different places around the city that will be visited, and a couple of the menu systems and shops. It’s a lot to throw at fans of the series right off the bat, but understanding just how narrative-driven Persona titles are (yes, even a spinoff like Persona Q), this trailer has merely shown the tip of the iceberg.

What little was shown of the gameplay evoked an overwhelmingly positive response from me – the dungeon-crawling looks slightly more free-form than in Persona 4, but relies on the same general layout and design as far as I can tell. The shops appear almost entirely unchanged, albeit with new faces running them, and there will apparently be ample time spent in class or hanging out with friends. Though no fusions were explicitly shown, the Velvet Room’s Igor made a brief appearance, indicating that the familiar Persona Compendium will make a return. The aesthetic direction of this latest numbered entry in the Persona series has me unsettled, however, as the emphasis on black, red, and white is strikingly similar to the currently-popular Danganronpa games/anime.

I realize that aesthetic appeal is not something that everyone weighs with the same degree of importance. But for me, I at least want to enjoy looking at what it is that is on the screen in front of me, especially when I’m going to be spending anywhere between forty hours or more with a game. I might not be so disappointed with these four P5 characters if three of them were not such simply boring designs. The protagonist bears a striking resemblance to Vincent from Atlus’ surrealistic puzzle stacker, Catherine. Meanwhile, the blonde boy and girl have very few defining characteristics. I feel this is in part due to the darker color palette of Persona 5, as it emphasizes black suit jackets and pants for their school uniforms, and there similarly do not appear to be many distinguishing features in their bandit/super hero/vigilante costumes aside from them having different colors (which are, again, under dark lighting). I will give Atlus props on the cartoony, scarf-donning cat, who is easily the standout crew member at this point. But whereas Kanji was instantly recognizable thanks to his skull t-shirts and refusal to wear his jacket properly, Naoto's hat and coat quite becoming of a mysterious young detective, and Yosuke's headphone's and sharp smile subtle nods to his being the child of a successful business-owning family, the P5 cast - at least, as they stand right now - fall into territory that could easily have them confused for Danganronpa or generic characters from any other contemporary anime.

Rant: The "Subs vs. Dubs" Debate

I guess I really never noticed this point of debate back when I first started watching anime on Toonami. I would come home after school, flip on the television, and indulge in Ronin Warriors, Outlaw Star, Mobile Suit Gundam: 08th MS Team, and Dragonball Z. Frankly, my friends and I were plenty content with having access to these shows to concern ourselves with the possibility of watching it in a different language. But after I began watching anime on a regular basis post-high school, I've noticed how often some people feel the need to raise a stink about the "subs vs. dubs" debate.

It honestly baffles me that some people will constantly go out of their way to whine about the choices of voice actors when the dub of an anime is announced. I notice this frequently on YouTube, as I subscribe to Funimation and they upload previews of their recently acquired anime. Generally speaking, these comments prove very silly, like "this is terrible" or "they ruined the series", and are hardly ever followed up with any legitimate explanation as to why the poster disapproves. As far as I can tell, it's a simple matter of taste.

Which brings me to my main point - if these anime fans dislike the dub so much, why do they not just buy the DVDs and change the language selection to Japanese? It takes literally five seconds to navigate a DVD menu and select another language setting. I realize that when anime first came stateside, it was released on VHS, and that meant that the language setting was generally defaulted to the English dub for ease of access. But it's the year 2012. The few anime DVDs that come stateside with only one language setting are almost always presented in Japanese with English subtitles (ala the Zeta Gundam: A New Translation films).

To all the complainers out there: quit your whining and motivate your lazy self enough to click a few buttons on the remote control. Your argument is entirely invalid, and I have a sneaking suspicion that your circle of like-minded individuals are those who will never be pleased no matter what companies like Funimation, Bandai, and Viz do with the dubbing process. I will admit there are some anime series that I can't stand watching in English because of the way the voice actors deliver their lines. But I just make the switch and avoid any unnecessary fuss about it. Please do the rest of the anime community a favor and follow suit.

A Metroid Retrospective - Twenty-five Years of Samus

As Metroid has turned twenty-five, I've decided to do a bit of retrospective on the franchise. As much as I do love the series, there are a few games I have yet to play, so Metroid: Other M, Metroid II: Return of Samus, and Metroid Prime Hunters will not be included. This will not focus so much on the history of the series to present day, rather it will be a look back at what Metroid meant for me personally.

The first console I ever owned was the N64, and because of that the bulk of my early gaming experiences came from 1990s Nintendo titles. My first introduction to Samus Aran was through the original Super Smash Bros., and most of my friends were too young to have played any of the previous Metroid titles when they were first released. Thus, my knowledge of Samus was rather limited - I knew she was a bounty hunter, and that she had to have some game of her own, but I never saw a Metroid title on the N64 and kind of forgot about Samus for a while.

Not long after I purchased my Gamecube, I heard about a new Metroid title slated for release on the console. At this point I had a little more to base my judgment off, as I'd played portions of the original Metroid. From what I could gather from my Nintendo Power magazine, Metroid Prime was going to be a whole different style of game from its side-scrolling predecessors. At that time, I wasn't particularly skilled at any games that took on the first-person perspective, and I decided to rent it first. I fell in love with the game - the graphical stylings, the soundtrack, the boss fights, and the gameplay were some of coolest I'd seen in years. Needless to say, I forked out the cash and bought myself a copy, which I played through multiple times in hopes of achieving a 100% completion rate.

When the sequel was announced, I counted down the days to its release. I decorated my bedroom walls with every Metroid Prime 2: Echoes poster that Nintendo Power included with their magazine. At the same time, a friend of mine owned a copy of Metroid Fusion, and while I didn't play much of it, I got enough of a feel for the two different schools of design that the Metroid series followed. Between Fusion and Prime 2: Echoes, I also got a feel for how dark the stories could be and how challenging the games could get. Don't get me wrong, I love Prime 2: Echoes. But it has some of the most challenging boss fights in the series, and the fact that the air in Aether's Dark World harms Samus when she isn't protected by the Luminoth's crystals can get to be a bit annoying. Thankfully the Dark Suit and Light Suit counteracted this, but Prime 2: Echoes required so much backtracking and had some less-than-ideally placed save stations that I wasn't as keen to replay it as I had been with the first Prime title. At the same time, the minor issues I did have with Echoes made me realize what elements of the Metroid games I preferred.


Before Prime 3 was released, I decided to work backwards, replaying Samus' first mission to Zebes over again. Only this time it was in the form of Metroid: Zero Mission, an updated and (I would argue) improved version of the original Metroid. There's certainly no replacing what the original did in launching the series, but not only did Zero Mission look prettier and control more smoothly, it made me feel more of a connection to Samus through the narrative. Zero Mission quickly became one of my favorite Gameboy games, and my second favorite Metroid title behind Prime.

I picked up a copy of Metroid Prime Pinball not long afterwards, looking for a quick casual handheld gaming fix. While it isn't anything mind-blowing, I found Prime Pinball to be a very interesting spin on the pinball formula, combining boss fights and iconic locations from the first Prime title. The different paths the game presented made for a unique experience each time I played, with an increasing level of difficulty that was not expected but - at the same time - very much welcome.

I'd heard overwhelmingly positive responses toward Super Metroid, and decided to download it to the Wii's Virtual Console. Having played through about half the title thus far, I can see some obvious influences the gameplay style had on the design of Zero Mission. The dark and moody atmosphere also seems to have had an impact of the latter two Prime titles, as well as Fusion. And while I've always known the Metroid games to have a notable degree of difficulty to them, Super Metroid is easily one of the most challenging in the series.

Eventually I got around to picking up Prime 3: Corruption - a little later than most people, but I was still plenty excited to cap off the trilogy. One of my major concerns was the shift to motion controls. Thankfully, these were quickly put to rest following a mini-tutorial early in the game. Prime 3: Corruption felt more akin to the first Prime than it did to Prime 2: Echoes. Corruption spanned multiple planets, and though no single planet was as vast as Tallon IV or Aether, each presented beautiful and alien environments that just begged to be explored. Some voice acting was brought in - a first for the series - though this was only applicable to NPCs, and both Samus and Dark Samus remain silent for the duration of the game. The boss fights had great variety, and were as much a challenging to beat as they were a treat to play through. Some unnecessary weapons and abilities from Echoes were shaved off, and Samus' arsenal was keep to a more manageable level. That said, new inclusions were weighed more on their practicality with the gameplay, and all of that added up to an 'everything old is new again' feel about Corruption.


While I do enjoy sci-fi games like Halo, such games aim for a grand 'space battle' scenario, whereas Metroid is more focused on the solo approach of exploring mysterious alien worlds. Prime 3: Corruption and Other M are, at least to some extent, each a breakaway from the traditional Metroid formula, as they both deal with the Galactic Federation and the history of the Space Pirates. But most Metroid games tend to keep the spotlight on Samus and her personal history with the Space Pirates and the Chozo. I feel the storytelling is strongest in three games - Super Metroid, Zero Mission, and Metroid Prime. Super Metroid and Zero Mission take a similar approach to one another, revealing the narrative in cutscenes at certain points during the gameplay, though the majority of the story is meant to be tackled firsthand as players progress to each new area. Prime, on the other hand, requires players to scan the various Space Pirate computers and Chozo lore, which reveals to players not only information relevant to the story of Prime, but also ties things together with the other games in the series. Though it does require players to go out of their way if they wish to find all of the lore, the payoff is well worth it for Metroid fans.

Despite a large gap between Super Metroid and Prime/Fusion's dual release, the series has stood the test of time. Each game offers enough new features to change the game style, but never forgets it roots. Congratulations on twenty-five years, Metroid.

Some of my favorite boss fights from the series include:
- The Kraid boss fight from Metroid: Zero Mission
- The final Dark Samus boss fight at the end of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
- The Gandrayda boss fight from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

Some of my favorite songs from the various soundtracks include:
- Kraid's area from the original Metroid/Metroid: Zero Mission
- The Tunnel from Metroid II: Return of Samus
- Lower Brinstar from Super Metroid
- Hive Totem/Incinerator Drone from Metroid Prime
- Phendrana Drifts from Metroid Prime
- Submerged Frigate from Metroid Prime
- The Title theme from Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
- The Title theme from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
- Rundas battle theme from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
- Skytown from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

Character I use most often (and win the most matches with) in Super Smash Bros., Melee, and Brawl:
- Samus Aran

E3 2010: Third-party Games

Wednesday and Thursday of E3 are almost always devoted to second and third party developers, more notably the latter, as second party games are usually tied in with the big three companies’ showings. The systems the third party games are being released for appears to be rather balanced, and the genres more broad than last years’ FPS-dominant showing.

Valve gave us a taste of the much anticipated Portal 2 with a quick teaser, and it seems GLaDOS isn’t as ‘dead’ as gamers previously thought. Some time has passed since the first game, as Aperture Science is overgrown with plant life. The trailer was more focused around hyping up the game than giving gamers a good idea as of what new gameplay features would be implemented, but there is an obvious improvement in the level of detail of Portal 2’s graphics. Valve has stated that Portal 2 will be much more story-driven than its predecessor, but it is unclear as of yet whether players will once again be in control of Chell or a new test subject.

Fallout: New Vegas showed off quite a bit of gameplay, while still catering to its target audience with zany and twisted humor dominating the trailer. From what has been shown thus far, it seems Bethesda is sticking with the same engine they used for Fallout 3, so much of the gameplay will likely be very similar. Based on the events of Fallout 3 and its related downloadable content, it will be very interesting to see where Bethesda goes with the story of Fallout: New Vegas.

Although the series has hit more than a few bumps in the past as to who owns distribution and title rights, F.E.A.R. is returning with its third chapter from Day 1 Studios. This time around, Paxton Fettel and the Point Man are teaming up as the events of the second game come to a head. I was a bit uncertain if the third game could live up to what Monolith provided in F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, but it seems that Day 1 Studios wants to try and improve on the pre-existing story and mechanics as much as possible without sacrificing the elements of gameplay that already work well for the franchise.

Capcom is delivering more zombie-slaying goodness in both Dead Rising 2 and Resident Evil: Revelations. The former takes place in Las Vegas and utilizes the do-it-however-you-want-to style of the first Dead Rising, while the latter promises to close some more of the gaps in the Resident Evil story while utilizing the capabilities of Nintendo’s 3DS. Capcom has also promised a third entry into their Capcom vs. Marvel arcade fighter series.

Konami appears to be changing up the gameplay significantly in Metal Gear Solid: Rising, which may very well be built off a completely different engine than that of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. The story is meant to bridge the gap between the second and fourth games in the franchise and explore how Raiden changed so drastically in that time frame. What little gameplay was shown had Rained slicing and dicing people, buildings, cars, and even watermelon with pinpoint precision and sometimes pulling a Matrix-style slow-mo sequence for better aiming. I don’t imaging Kojima would release a Metal Gear Solid title without including some stealth elements, but Rising seems to be taking a cue from Guns of the Patriots in allowing gamers more freedom in how they wish to tackle a mission. Also, there is a distinct possibility that Metal Gear Solid: Rising could be used with Sony’s Move controller as well as Microsoft’s Kinect, as the game is slated for release on both the PS3 and Xbox 360.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow showed off plenty of gameplay, though a lot of this was already showcased at E3 2009. The voice acting cast was highlighted and the trailer put a large focus on the story of Lords of Shadow. There were some gameplay elements that distinctly resembled God of War and Dante’s Inferno, as well as Shadow of the Colossus as Gabriel scaled a gigantic foe. With all that in mind, Lords of Shadow is drastically different style of game than its platform prequels and is building up to be a strong title for late 2010.

EA’s Dead Space 2 seems to be taking more than a few cues from other horror genre games, most notably Resident Evil and Silent Hill. Developers have stated that the sequel is much more story-driven and from what the trailer shows, it seems that returning hero Issac is suffering from some sort of dementia following the events of the original Dead Space. A few new enemies were shown off, but the most notable change in the trailer is the broad range of lighting and environments in Dead Space 2, as opposed to the largely drab half-lit grey hallways of the first game.

Civilization V, a response in no small part to the upcoming Shogun Total War 2 and the recent Napoleon Total War, is being built from a completely new game engine, while including many strong elements of Civilization IV. The game will follow the same story pattern as all previous games in series as players begin in the old world and progress to the space age. There has been a significant graphical jump since Civilization IV, but it isn’t nearly as impressive as some of the other strategy games currently available for either consoles or PC. That said, the game has yet to be released, so improvements in this department are not out of the question. The developers are catering more to community mods and putting a greater emphasis on online play.

Square Enix showed off some footage of Final Fantasy XIV, which is an online title, leaving the story largely up to the player in contrast to the very much story-driven Final Fantasy XIII released earlier this year. The game appears to have a much more old-world style to it, harkening back to Final Fantasy I, II, and III. While not much of the gameplay was covered, the trailer makes a point of showcasing many different character builds and classes. Square Enix also announced a new title for Nintendo’s DS, separate from both the traditional Final Fantasy storyline and the Crystal Chronicles storyline. The Four Heroes of Light, as the game is currently titled, is focused around the DS’ multiplayer capabilities, though not much of the story has been revealed as of yet. Both showings could have been better - XIV highlighting more gameplay elements and The Four Heroes of Light showing off more than a few battle sequences - but it is nice to see that Square Enix is spreading themselves out across multiple systems and catering to different tastes.

Disney only showed off a little bit of both trailer footage and actual gameplay with Epic Mickey. The story centers around Mickey entering the world of all the rejected and forgotten Disney ideas, and the characters that inhabit that world have been fighting on the side of either Lucky the Rabbit or the Blot. Mickey uses a brush to paint in elements, such as platforms or items, to help him along his journey, while having the ability to delete things as well. In conjunction with Square Enix, Disney has another Kingdom Hearts title on the way, this time for Sony’s PSP. Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep appears to deal in large part with the keyblade wars, and can hopefully build up and provide some explanation for the eventual Kingdom Hearts III. Neither of these games was shown for very long, nor did they highlight any hugely impressive game mechanics, so hopefully Disney will have more footage and information a short while after E3.

Eidos is bringing back the Deus Ex series, much to the surprise to many gamers. Deus Ex: Human Revolution will act as a prequel to the the original Deus Ex and carries the same cyberpunk style of the other games. Though the last release was in 2003 with Deus Ex: Invisible War, it looks like Eidos is putting plenty of effort into keeping the old fanbase while trying to aim at newcomers. The cutscenes for Deus Ex: Human Revolution are being handled by Square Enix and show off some very impressive stylized visuals. The footage shown thus far focused mainly on the game's cutscenes, so gamers will have to wait to see gameplay footage.

There were many other third party games showcased and to put them all in this entry would take up a huge amount of space. I specifically chose to cover the titles above as these were titles that had little to information or footage revealed pre-E3 2010. Unlike E3 2009 wherein many game engines were directly recycled to create sequel titles with a few tweaks or improvements here and there, the games of E3 2010 are much more original and building up to be far more impressive. Though there’s really no way to tell how successful these games will be until their actual release dates, I’m personally very excited to see the finished products and it just goes to show how the third party developers are pushing the envelope in order to compete with one another.

E3 2010: First Impressions

The first two full days of E3 have now come to a close, and while there is still more to come I thought I’d offer my thoughts on the materials presented thus far. With their overhaul focus on the Playstation Move and Kinect, Sony and Microsoft seem to either want to play catch-up with Nintendo very desperately, or they simply have little new games and peripherals to show off at this year’s expo. Of the two situations, I really hope it’s the former, because – while I could certainly understand highlighting their new motion controlled peripherals on the first day – keeping the Move and Kinect the focus of two whole days of E3 isn’t a particularly effective way of keeping potential consumers interested.

Sony did a fantastic job this past year in realigning themselves to better compete with Microsoft and Sony. For the longest time following the release of the PS3, it seemed Sony could only promise games that would be coming out in the future, never giving the slightest hint of an expected time frame for said releases. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and Little Big Planet were huge successes for Sony, while titles like Resistance: Fall of Man saw a decent return. But with so few exclusive games that were actually enjoyable to play and had a great deal of replay value, Sony was lagging behind by a long shot.

With the more recent releases of God of War III, Heavy Rain, and Demon’s Souls, Sony has reminded gamers of their last-gen successes with many a PS2 title and in turn has seen a significant spike in the sales of their PS3. Second and third party titles such as Borderlands and Batman: Arkham Asylum have also helped Sony back on its feet, and the recent PSP-exclusive release of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker played an instrumental role in keeping their handheld market humming along smoothly.

With all of this in consideration, Sony should still be very cautious this coming year with their games and peripherals. Personally, I think Move is stupid, considering that Nintendo’s Wiimote controller has carried the system without a single hitch in three and a half years (not counting initial wrist strap strength issues). But if Sony wants to gamble with the Move, they better have some big titles lined up to fall back on (both new and old) in the event that their expedition into motion-controlled gaming goes belly-up.

Microsoft didn’t deliver a ton of new gaming developments in 2009 and 2010, largely due to financial reasons (with the recession both in the US and in other countries around the world). They relied heavily on second and third party developers for sequels that were as direct as they come, in the forms of Bioshock 2, Mass Effect 2, Assassin’s Creed II, and so on, though this certainly didn’t cripple Microsoft in sales.

Microsoft’s biggest seller for years has been the Halo franchise and they’ve got another title in the series slated for a September release (which, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past year, you probably already know a bit about it). This time around, Bungie is opting for more squad-based gameplay as players experience the fall of Reach firsthand. New armor abilities, weapons, vehicles, and a revamped multiplayer mode make this Microsoft’s golden goose for the Fall, but with most of the game’s major features and selling points highlighted prior to E3, it makes me wonder why this seems to be the only thing outside of Kinect that Microsoft wants to focus on. Where’s Gears of War 3? What about Dead Space 2? These and other titles have been briefly glossed over, but it seems that Microsoft is sticking with what we’ve already heard time and time again as of yet.

Nintendo, who had me both excited and disappointed by last year’s revelations, have proven that they are coming out in full force this year. The 3DS, which many people expected to be the major focus of Nintendo’s showings, has actually been reserved for later on in the show, which has me hoping and believing that Nintendo has some exciting surprises up their sleeve with the new handheld system. As far as games go, they’ve shown off plenty of the upcoming Metroid: Other M, and have finally given a name for the newest adventure in Hyrule, The Legend of Zelda: The Skyward Sword.

But Nintendo didn’t stop with the big names everyone was expecting. They’ve announced Paper Mario, Animal Crossing, Donkey Kong, and Kid Icarus all for the 3DS, as well as Kirby’s Epic Yarn for the Wii. A lot of footage from the new Goldeneye game was shown off, utilizing (obviously) the Wii’s motion controls and replacing Pierce Brosnan with Daniel Craig in one of the most critically acclaimed first-person shooters and multiplayer games of the late nineties. What all will be included as far as new material in Goldeneye remains to be seen, but the footage in and of itself was a much welcomed surprise. The lineup shows Nintendo’s desire to balance fans of new and old gaming styles, with some traditional platforming ala Kirby and the current free-roam do-whatever-the-heck-you-want-whenever-you-want gameplay of Animal Crossing. Or if players want both old-school and new-school in the same game, then they can turn to Metroid: Other M for their fix. No news yet on Pikmin 3, but there’s still plenty of time for news on that – I’m a bit eager with this one in particular, due to how long it’s been since the release of Pikmin 2 and the fact that the third title has been confirmed as being in development.

I’m not saying that things can’t turn the other way around by the end of the expo, but Sony and Microsoft better step up their game if they want to have the slightest chance of stealing any of Nintendo’s thunder. Even Capcom with Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Resident Evil: Revelations, Eidos and Square Enix with Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and Day 1 Studios with F.E.A.R. 3 are proving to have more impressive showings that Sony or Microsoft right now. I really hope there are many surprises in store from the two companies, otherwise 2010’s E3 will be a very lopsided and (frankly) disappointing expo.

Shoot 'em full of lead

I’d like to do something a little different for this post and focus on a broader spectrum than the specifics of a single game or series. This particular topic has been bugging me since about the midway point of last generation’s consoles. First-person shooters have been rising in ridiculous numbers over the past five or six years. A large part of this surge was initially due to the big three companies feeling the pressure of online gaming (or in Nintendo’s case, the lack thereof). And while games like Goldeneye 007 and Perfect Dark have stood the test of time, there are plenty of others in the FPS genre that will be forgotten in a sea of mediocre games.

When I take to a game, my overall impressions are based on three major factors: originality, story, and game mechanics. Obviously not every game has to be original to become popular. Perfect Dark was essentially a re-skin of Goldeneye 007 with a new story and weapons. But that didn’t stop it from becoming one of the more popular N64 games. That said, both those games were released in the late 1990s, during the heyday of 3D gaming. During that time, most FPS titles were still popular in arcades with laser-response gun controllers to boot. Getting back on track, both Perfect Dark and Goldeneye 007 had easy control schemes and almost never dropped frame rate. Perfect Dark obviously had the more creative and original story, as Goldeneye 007 was heavily based on the subsequent film, but that didn’t stop gamers from flocking to either N64 title to get their shooter fix.

During the last generation of consoles, the Gamecube was left lagging quite a ways behind in sales and critical reception. And while the Playstation 2 arguably won that generation of console wars, the Xbox gave the PS2 a run for its money with its more successful online gaming. The success of the Xbox was due in no small part to its flagship game Halo and sequel Halo 2. Halo was one of many FPS games that would shape Microsoft’s gaming market to make it more accessible to casual gamers. Is Halo a casual game itself? It’s difficult to classify. On normal difficulty, almost anyone can kick ass as the Master Chief. But turn it up to legendary difficulty and the game is almost definitely hardcore status. It’s unfortunate, however, that the three main Halo games don’t include a longer campaign. Bungie realized that they can basically sell the games on their multiplayer alone, but I feel that they could do a lot more with the story for those who haven’t read the novels.

Halo may have been the single most important game in relaunching the FPS genre. Games like Call of Duty and Medal of Honor were given a new lease on life and sold like hotcakes. Today it seems like there is a new FPS being announced or released almost every week. And while the Halo franchise does deserve kudos for having a strong story and a very unique arsenal, there are few other FPS games from the two most recent console generations that can come close to comparison. Call of Duty certainly has a good variety of weapons, but with the exception of Modern Warfare, the story is always a rehash of the previous game. Multiplayer is mediocre at best, and the controls are clunky (I know they want to be realistic with the weapons, but having the sniper scope fling all about gets annoying pretty damn fast). Certainly some improvements were made with Modern Warfare, particularly with the multiplayer. But the campaign was even shorter than that of Halo 3, and the story not even half as engaging.

The worst part about all this is that Call of Duty and Halo are at the top of the FPS pyramid. Medal of Honor has since been left in the dust, regardless of the fact that its games were almost the exact same as Call of Duty’s. The Conduit had both a decent story and game mechanics, but didn't really stand out as a must-have for Wii owners. And then of course there are games like Haze which promise the greatest shooter experience ever and end up being a giant pile of crap. As creative as the weapons in Resistance: Fall of Man are, the story and characters are forgettable. Killzone has decent mechanics and an okay story, but the characters are rather one-dimensional. It seems that few companies want to put forth the effort of releasing a shooter that combines fluid controls with a good story. Do I think it’s impossible? Certainly not – it happened over a decade ago, multiple times. But considering the current state of the industry, I wouldn’t bank on seeing another truly engaging FPS for some years to come. In fact, you’re better off playing adventure-shooter crossovers like Metroid Prime 3: Corruption or Bioshock for an excellent FPS experience.

Slap into a Slim Jim

Apparently the pressure finally got to Sony - the PS3 Slim is real. There have been rumors circling about the gaming community since practically a month after launch, but there was never any solid proof. Making the PS3 Slim itself wasn't entirely necessary, but the price drop was.

Before I get much under way with this post, let me say that, while I still think the PS2 is one of the greatest gaming consoles of all time, the PS3 is possibly my least favorite. I think that the PS3 has fantastic graphical capabilities and a smooth controller. The cause of my dislike for the PS3 is not the system itself, but rather Sony's marketing plan. The exclusive titles currently available for the PS3 are either amazingly epic (MGS4, Little Big Planet) or mediocre at best (Drake's Fortune, Resistance: Fall of Man). There are so few exclusive titles for the PS3, it's really no surprise why many gamers would opt to buy an Xbox 360. That way they can have a plethora of exclusives (or at least games that are only available for 360 and PC) such as Gears of War, Halo 3, and Mass Effect, while having a large library of multi-platform games including Bioshock, Resident Evil 5, and the Orange Box. I'm not saying that all of these titles affected gaming the way that MGS4 did, but there are a lot more titles available for the 360 that are considered "good" as opposed to the PS3's two "superb" games that rise up among a sea of "okays". That mixed with the fact that there are more 360 owners than there are PS3 owners, it's really no surprise why so many developers flock to Microsoft nowadays (Metal Gear Rising, anyone?)

But anyways, back on track. The PS3 slim is supposed to retail for $299, a price to compete with the 360 Pro. This would mean that gamers can play all of their PS3 and PS2 games on a cheaper and smaller system that (hopefully) will have next to zero kinks in the system upon release. If all goes swimmingly and none of the systems decide to severely overheat like some of the first batches of the original PS3, then Sony just might be able to pull themselves back up and be neck-in-neck with Microsoft and Nintendo. And the fact that the system is in fact smaller doesn't hurt either - more shelf space for your games and movies.

However, there are rumors about the 360 receiving a price drop as well. This has yet to be confirmed, but if it is the case, Sony could have their thunder stolen. Honestly, I am more a fan of the 360 than the PS3, but I really hope that this price drop works out for Sony. I do not, however, wish for them to rush out a piece of junk simply because everyone was pressuring them to make a PS3 slim. Nor do I want them to announce the PS4 any time soon. They need to fix what is broken right now, which means releasing some more exclusive games that are good. Where is Kingdom Hearts III? How far along is team ICO on The Last Guardian? Again, I don't want these projects to be rushed, but Sony is really good at teasing gamers with trailers and then not saying anything else for a whole year.