PKMN.NET Forums
Misc => Gaming => Topic started by: Lord Raven on August 08, 2013, 04:14
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Hiya everyone,
So to spark activity on this board I love so much and call home, I will be doing weekly game reviews and discussions for games that I wish to talk about and pique my interest. Hopefully this will provide some insight into some games, will give people recommendations and will encourage discussions about the nuances of one of everyone's favorite hobbies in life - gaming.
I will write my first article tomorrow. Hopefully I can get an archive sort of thing going with my OP, and hopefully the discussion will be constructive as well. I also want some constructive criticism in my writing too - I don't want to be a professional reviewer or anything but if there is some thing about anything in my posts that can rub you the wrong way then please point it out. It encourages discussion in that sense too!
One warning in advance: either keep spoilers to a minimum or mark them. I believe the best way to deal with spoilers is to put spoilers in big bold font then put everything else in a subscript with yellow font. Err on the side of caution with them.
Example:
SPOILER:
aeris dies
Archives;
8/8/2013: The Last of Us (http://pkmn.net/forums/index.php?topic=104869.msg2339683#msg2339683)
8/20/2013: Tales of Xillia (http://pkmn.net/forums/index.php?topic=104869.msg2342400#msg2342400)
8/28/2013: [url=
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This is a pretty cool idea, looking forward to seeing what games you decide to write about.
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Do it do it do it...but please spare us of every single FE game known to man. :P
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I haven't played much FE in months Turner so you can count on that ;) FE: Awakening may be covered as one of the first 10 but simply because it's new, not due to my love of the series.
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Will these be posted to the site itself, or in this topic? Either way, I like this idea. :>
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The second I saw this I thought you'd cover FE:Awakening at some point... It sounds like a good idea though
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I look forward to this. :angel:
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(http://thegamefanatics.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/The-Last-of-Us1.jpg)
Developer: Naughty Dog
Publisher: Sony
Platform: PS3
Release date: June 14, 2013 (WW); June 20, 2013 (JP)
Rating: M (ESRP)
Genre: Action-Adventure/Survival Horror
The Last Of Us is a game that has made me scream "holy crap" from the get-go. There are many plot developments to be had in a game that feels short (but really took me 30 hours to beat blind). Every single cutscene almost felt like it progressed the plot considerably and it was overall a well-paced game that gave me bouts of paranoia.
If you haven't already seen the opening cutscene then please take around 20 minutes out of your life to do so (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlEzMNRJYDo). The plot begins somewhere in Texas where you see a man around his 20s/early 30s talking to his brother, hanging out with his daughter (who gives him a watch for his birthday). All of a sudden, you're watching TV and the town goes nuts- your neighbors are breaking into your house and trying to kill you, people are running all around the streets and the main character, Joel, goes nuts around town with his brother Tommy and daughter Sarah trying to escape and avoid all the people running around. The mood is generally frantic and there's lots of paranoia to go around.
Eventually they wrestle their way out of some of the more interesting citizens (known as the infected) and confront a soldier whose purpose is to prevent people from escaping the city and spreading the disease any further than it already has. Joel, with Sarah in hand (leaving Tommy behind to block the infected) begs him to help them and says that he's not infected. The soldier receivers orders to shoot them and do so, making the two of them fall. The soldier is about to kill Joel when Tommy acts like a big damn hero and shoots the soldier in the head. And, they see Sarah, now having seen the soldier nailing her in the gut and she dies. News reports show that the disease has spread throughout the world, and mentions a movement known as the fireflies.
Cut to 20 years later, where Joel and a woman named Tess are in a quarantine zone. They now work as smugglers and smuggle supplies into the zones, doing what amounts to effectively despicable acts to get by. As time goes on they go into the outside world and meet with Marlene, leader of the organization known as the Fireflies, who gives them the task of transporting Ellie throughout the US on what is effectively an escort mission. They have to evade other infected and the military in order to go from place to place. The military, being as paranoid as it is, will not let you outside the quarantine zone without killing you - they are absolutely ruthless, but I can't name a single faction in this game that isn't. Well I can, but that's a spoiler.
Now, we get to the spoileriffic part, so if you plan on playing the game or watching a playthrough don't read this. If you don't, then read on. (IMO not *that* bad a spoiler but it gets the plot going, and most trailers you see are after this cutscene).
Spoiler
Eventually you find out that Ellie is an infected. However, her strain is weird because she has been infected for what amounts to years, whereas it takes only a few hours for someone to display the aggression associated with being infected. This leaves Joel to speculate that Marlene was setting them up the whole time, but they bear with her for a while. When we finally meet the Fireflies, they are dead, causing Tess to freak out - at that moment we find out that Tess herself is infected and instills some faith in Ellie because her infection has gotten significantly worse in a few hours than Ellie's has in a few years (let alone the few hours they've been traveling). The military find them here and Tess takes a final stand against them, and Joel and Ellie are left to fend for themselves for the rest of the game, meeting people and visiting current US landmarks that have become barren due to the outbreak of the disease.
The plot is quite magnficent and it's nothing ground-breaking but it's well-paced, well-written, and shocking as well. You do see certain things coming but it's not blatant foreshadowing. It does a good job of showing the world in a good light despite being in a 24/7 fight to survive. The characters and character dynamics are genearlly quite good and some characters develop while others either have tragic occurences or tragic backstories associated with them - as expected from a post-apocalyptic world. Unfortunately, you will meet a good number of characters in this game, some cool, some giving you a warm fuzzy feeling, and some that are disturbing in every sense of the word. They convey a unique dynamic that is necessary in a game like this, instilling sorrow, hope, and tragedy all at the same time. The voice acting is phenomenal as well, Troy Baker is Joel for reference and he does a damn good job. He starts out as a young yet distressed father and 20 years in the future he sounds world-weary and cynical without being gruff and tough like other protagonists (Solid Snake, Cole) tend to be.
The graphics do quite a bit to amplify all of the moods in this game; there's a lot of color and green, but it conveys such a barren feeling at times which reminds you that you are playing in a game that borders on survival horror (but only borders on it). They are beautiful and the actors are motion-captured, giving fluidity in animations and motion and makes the game seem almost realistic. They add to the experience of the game greatly.
The gameplay is quite enjoyable and doesn't particularly get stale. It is more or less a third person shooter/stealth game. Most of the time you're going around and trying to open doors for whatever reason, sneaking past soldiers and infected, collecting items, or all of the above. And fighting enemies too whenever you need to. There's also no such thing as a pacifist runthrough of this game; you can, in theory, do it but it's incredibly hard simply because people are trying to kill you every which way. It's very fast-paced at points, and at other points it's slow-paced and stealth-based (with the super-powered hearing and random shiving/choking that comes with the stealth genre). There are times where you absolutely cannot survive by making noise and walking around and casually killing things you see, because you have to be tactical in the way you play. Other times it's a basic duck-and-shoot type.
The enemies come in two different forms; hunters and infected. Hunters are your basic humans that carry many of the same weapons you will, and you need to be considerably more tactical and stealthy when it comes to these guys. Your melee combat blows unless you have blunt objects or something, so you can't engage them physically without them taking you down. Sometimes you'll be up against Snipers with deadly accuracy, other times you're up against many enemies with semi-automatic rifles and running straight into them is a death sentence. They are about as tactically efficient as you are.
Then you have the infected. They are far more erratic and would much rather charge headfirst into you than anything else. They come in four forms; runners, stalkers, clickers, and bloaters. Runners are your most common infected and are the first stage of infected; they just run towards you en masse and are generally harmless but can kill you if you're not careful. Stalkers are the most rare and they're the second stage; they hide and catch you by surprise. Clickers are the third stage and second most common; these are by far the most annoying of all of these guys because there's no failsafe way to kill them. They can hear almost everything you do unless you're crouched and not touching anything, and when they touch you they will instant kill you. You can only fight them with blunt objects, shiv them from stealth, or use brute weaponry. Dealing with more than one of them at a time will 99.999% of the time lead to your death - luckily for you they're blind and can only do things through hearing. But they go crazy when they hear something and their clicking sound is the sound of my nightmares because of the amount of times these assholes have killed me. Finally is the bloaters, who throw fungal spores at you which gradually chip at your health, kill you the moment you get in contact with them, and take forever to kill unless you have a flamethrower or molotov to chuck at them (in which case they become really easy). They aren't annoying because there's exactly 4 of them in the game or so, one a mini-boss and the rest are just regular enemies that you can avoid if you're good.
There are the enemies, but what can you fight them with? Well, you have a good assortment of weapons; Pistols, Revolvers, Sniper Rifles, Machine Guns, Shotguns, Flamethrowers, Bow and Arrows, etc. You also can shiv people if you sneak up on them (if you want; either Shiv or choke, or even hold hostage like many stealth games). Finally, you can pick up objects off of the ground and hit people with them, but they only have a little but of durability (can last like 5 hits, enough to kill like 2 people at most). There are some bomb weapons too; Molotovs and a frag Grenade is all I remember off the top of my head (and may be it) but they're incredibly useful. You can also forge scissors onto your blunt objects and have them last another two hits; both hits will be insta-kills on any enemy that is not a bloater. So that's four enemies total you can kill with a weapon. Blunt weaponry becomes better as you progress in the game, because you can instakill enemies with machetes and axes which last around 5 hits.
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And yes, there is forging in this game! Sorta. It's really upgrading your weapon with certain items rather than forging. You can combine various sorts of tools to make health kits, grenades, smoke bombs, add-ons to your blunt object, and shivs. All are incredibly useful items and the game gives you enough that you're almost never short of these items. You can also get experience points and purchase upgrades such as faster forging time, faster healing time when you use a kit, more stability in your aim (it's a realistic game in the sense that you will have drift in your aim), and a few other things I don't recall. And you can upgrade your weapons to include things such as a better scope, more clip capacity and etc, the basics you'd want from an upgrade to a weapon. It ensures the gameplay doesn't stay stale.
Difficulty is about average I would say; I haven't found anything particularly difficult once you get the feel for the game and the only real issue I have with the game is the fact that your aim drifts quite a bit. That is actually incredibly annoying at times, but thankfully you don't need many headshots in this game (and some other times a more stealth approach is better than a headshot). You can ramp up the difficulty during the gameplay and if something proves to be too challenging (like this one fight in the game, which was pretty bad on normal mode imo) then you can lower the difficulty and play it. There are also higher difficulties to play on where the AI just generally approves; one segment I played had a noticeable amount more difficulty in normal compared to easy because the enemies had this tendency to be super aggressive and fight in bigger numbers.
As a whole, I really liked The Last Of Us even though I would say it's only a good game I would recommend buying this game or at least borrowing it from a friend because it will entertain you, and the gameplay is dynamic enough that you won't stay bored at all. The plot moves quick but it's easy to grasp, and it has undertones of social commentary related to the nature of humanity when all order is gone and the willingness to do despicable acts to survive. If there's one thing I'd say that detracts from this game, it is the fact that the music is forgettable, because I don't remember a single track from this game or I don't even remember if this game has music to begin with.
For more informationa nd if you want to take a look at the first two hours of gameplay, look at this Youtube video. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUZ3MKvUjx8). Some good examples of the gameplay itself starts around the 1:30:00 mark (warning: swearing).
There is a multiplayer but I can't tell you much about that since I haven't gotten around to playing it yet. My backlog is too big.
Sorry for the game choice. I did enjoy it but I'd have rather done something else; yet, this game has universal appeal to some extent and it was sorta safe to do it in. I kinda wanna draw people into the thread before I alienate people with my random cult classic favorite games and stuff. I've played and beaten this game and thoroughly enjoyed it, I just feel it was too mainstream so I have a little bit of a poor taste in my mouth from this. But, it's also very new, having come out this summer, and people are still in hype mode about it so I just ran with it.
Please comment and tell me what I am doing wrong or right, and also feel free to just talk about the game itself or ask questions or anything. Just getting a discussion going is all.
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The game sound like a good one. You gave a lot on info, and I'd play it of I had a PS3, well, depending on the rating. Great job.
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I don't give numerical ratings. I don't believe you should pick up a game based on some arbitrary number or scale I made up, I'm just hoping to fill in some information, give my personal opinion on it, and maybe encourage you to take a look at it, watch youtube videos of a playthrough so you can get what is effectively a great story and interesting gameplay or whatever.
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Ooooh! Well, I definitely enjoyed it - The Last Of Us is a game I've been wanting to play, so any reviews are definitely worth a readthrough so I know what kind of thing to expect. With that being said, some cult games would be nice to hear about; what kind of titles were you thinking of?
In terms of critique... It's largely personal preference, but I'd prefer more discussion of the good and bad aspects of the game, rather than just going over the gameplay features (after all some features sound cool, but come out clunky and awkward, while others don't actually sound that great but when you try them you can't get enough of them). To be fair though, maybe that comes across less here because it's a game you had a more neutral opinion of?
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I don't give numerical ratings. I don't believe you should pick up a game based on some arbitrary number or scale I made up, I'm just hoping to fill in some information, give my personal opinion on it, and maybe encourage you to take a look at it, watch youtube videos of a playthrough so you can get what is effectively a great story and interesting gameplay or whatever.
Not that kind of rating. The ESRB rating, than again it's probably M or something like that.
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I've wanted to play TLOU since a few friends got it and started hyping about it constantly, and this is really selling me on it. I've seen the first 30 or so minutes streamed and it looks like it plays really nicely, which is great, although the A.I seemed a ~little~ whack. But yeah, TLOU is apparently all about the atmosphere and plot and that and I've just heard nothing but great things about that so I'm gonna have to borrow this from a friend or something.
Pretty well written review Muhed, looking forward to more of them!
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@Kit: I had a generally high opinion of it, the thing is I don't generally like to hype games (especially since TLOU receives ALL THE HYPE) and I prefer the audience to make their own choice about what they think about the game. Another problem I have is that I'm trying to do it all in one post which I may have to exclude in the future, otherwise I would include more gameplay videos. This was just a test run more or less with a semi-popular game to see what people think, but your critique is valid and I think it's better to have a video to supplement the gameplay as well.
As for cult games, I was thinking (from this past decade) Nier, Drakengard, Shadow Hearts, Ys, Tales of Legendia, etc. Some old and some newer games. But basically more obscure and niche games in general, which also brings out games like FE and Final Fantasy.
@Del: Thanks. It does have a great atmosphere and plot and one thing I would've loved to touch upon had my character limit not run out is the graphics and how they are actually pretty amazing. The characters are motion-captured and the background isn't nearly as brown as other "realistic" games tend to be. Lots and lots of colors and green, which adds to a hopeful-yet-still-bleak atmosphere that this game brings to the table.
(your post actually convinced me to go into a multi-post format if necessary just because there are some games where there are many things to touch upon. Still, this was a test run and I am thinking about something similar for another forum so I can actually repost this whole review if necessary).
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When The Last Of Us came out a lot of my friends at college were pretty excited to go and get it because all of the hype that was surrounding it. From that point, I've mostly heard good things from it (people staying at home to play it lol), in line with the things that were outlined in this review. The solid gameplay, plot, etc. I don't have a PS3 myself but I've ought to try it, even though I hadn't really given it much of a second thought. Personally, I didn't know about the forging and skills aspects and thought this was more or less just shooting zombies. I have been enlightened. ;)
As for the topic, I really would like to read reviews of more cult or niche games. I think you were banging on about Shadow hearts to me at like 4am a couple of years ago, and I still haven't gotten round to checking it out. I'm terrible.
Keep it up, dude. :police:
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So I just updated the review/column/whatever you wanna call it and expanded it to two posts. Much of it is the same but I added a few paragraphs and leaked it over to the second post. Also added a video to showcase the storytelling and gameplay (gives a good impression of the first two hours of the game) and cited a reference point to get a feel for whatever I want to describe.
My question for you guys is: Is there anything specifically you like to see? I'm here writing this not only for my satisfaction but to entertain people and get some discussion going and such. I personally do not wish to keep on writing articles that everyone's gonna nod their head to. Bear in mind, I'm not a writer, I'm a guy who wants to become a physicist when he's done with school, so I know my writing isn't polished and probably won't sell video games (especially since I am attempting a more neutral tone, and sometimes my biases do slip through) but that's not my purpose. My purpose is just to broaden someone's scope, maybe talk about a game no one's really played before, and whatever else. (Also, to promote discussion on pkmn.net) I don't mind anything so long as your critique doesn't come off as standoffish (I am an adult and yet I absolutely despise that attitude).
I also thank you all for the compliments but I prefer just hearing about what you guys want me to do more and such.
Also, another thing is: are there any games you'd like to see? Feel free to suggest anything - if I've played it then I can do it at some point. If I haven't, then I could try my best or, hell, I could allow you to write a Game of the Week in this thread and put you in the OP! This is meant to cater to a community and not me personally.
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Good Post for the Last of Us! (though you made a tiny mistake, Joel's from Texas, not California, shhhhh) but besides that. Great! Really good read.
Oh. Oh. It's a fair way away, but when GTA V comes out that'd be cool to see your Game of the week Take on it!
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Yeah I preordered that game too. :D
Joel's from Texas, right, but I thought they lived in California when Sarah was killed? I think we can all agree that Joel's from Texas and that they started the game in Boston.
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It was Texas, at Tommy's Dam when Tommy hands Joel the photograpth he says he 'went back home, to Texas' where he got the photograph.
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I hit ctrl+f on the wiki and got nothing under California. Will change that now. What in the hell was I thinking of?
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I'd suggest playing a campaign on some grand strategy game (eg Hearts of Iron, Europa Universalis). You could develop your own narrative and run us through your decision making process.
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The only real compliant I have about the TLOU is that sometimes stealth feels a bit unrefined, it's fun, but it's not on the same level as say Metal Gear Solid 4's, and it doesn't feel as polished, but it's serviceable and competent enough to be fun.
What I really love about Gameplay is the survivor part of it, looking for supplies and building from that is very fun, and the combat is enjoyable within that context.
Also the Bloater encounters were just so fun. Terrifying, but enjoyable encounters, and I felt they were used just enough without becoming tedious, something I felt the Clickers suffered a little bit with.
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I had a swear filled rant about the clickers in another thread/forum, and frankly they are the single most disturbing thing I have ever seen in a video game. And I have played through 2 and a half shadow hearts games and seen a Koudelka LP and everything. It's the fact that it's so human yet not human at all and just click click click click click out of nowhere (though thinking of Boomhauer when I say click repeatedly helps quite a bit because I had a slight amount of legit PTSD when I saw a clicker in a video today).
Clickers were good simply because only a few times have I ever had to play through a clicker segment without going stealth. If there were times where I'd aggro clickers then it'd be when there's a jillion other enemies anyway, so I just throw bombs and unload shotgun rounds on all of those guys. They were fun to get around because I'd just throw bottles and bricks away from where I was going to get rid of them.
However I don't think the stealth was meant to be particularly refined which actually adds to the game. MGS' stealth is the way it is simply because that's the nature of the MGS games. MGS games have you as a spy-soldier, whereas TLOU you're just a guy who has to improvise to survive. Which is generally what the stealth is about. I personally played stealth in the sense that I would lure people out to take them on one at a time and such. Kinda like Batman except it's Troy Baker. But yes, that is something I forgot to mention - the pure survival horror nature of it.
Bloatedfish has a great idea, but sadly I don't own any of those. Maybe when I get more time and less of a backlog (on top of a million other games I'm looking forward to this coming year).
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Sorry it took so long; feedback where possible please. I'll be getting another one this Thursday-Saturday too.
(http://operationrainfall.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/xillia-cover.jpg)
Developer: Namco Tales Studio
Publisher: Namco Bandai
Platform: PS3
Release date: September 8, 2011 (JP); August 6, 2013 (US); August 9, 2013 (EU/AUS)
Rating: T (ESRP)
Genre: Action-JRPG
Where do I begin with the Tales series? Let me start with the fact that I have a general distaste for the series at times. I have only seen a single game with a good plot since Symphonia, and that would be Tales of Legendia. Tales of the Abyss had a decent sense of chemistry between the characters, but every other game had too much... variance between characters (will expound on this in a moment) that leads to the game just being really awkward. The story telling is generally monotonous and too syntax filled, and personally I feel in a modern RPG the cutscenes shouldn't focus on infodumps so much as the storytelling.
Look at FF13; say what you will about the plot itself (I personally believe it was amazing but it's confusing if you don't have a supplemental source to aid you with it) but the storytelling was phenomenal. The datalog explained nuances and concepts, the characters interacted on the field in a very fluid way, and the models didn't seem so stiff all the time. Stuff like that is my problem with the Tales series. They have improved in the sense that they use motion capture for certain cutscenes, but when characters are walking around and interacting in certain cutscenes, they look like dolls or something because they just look so stiff. It's grating at times and I feel like a huge PS3 game like this can do much bettter.
The story is quite simple and, as per usual Tales fare, can get unnecessary complicated at times. From the start you can choose to have either Jude Mathis or Milla Maxwell as your main character. The story, afaik, is slightly different for each but follows the same general concepts (I've always been told Jude's story is much better but Milla has better music - compare Jude's battle theme (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joeqabwqMz4) to Milla (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eXXpKLI2Uk). Milla's is much more soothing to me which I prefer).
(http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110804233038/aselia/images/e/e5/Cast_of_ToX.jpg)
Jude is the guy with black hair, Elize is on the bottom with blondish hair, Milla is on the bottom right, Alvin is the brown haired guy at the top left, Rowan is the old man, and Leia is the girl with the orangish hair in the middle.
Jude Mathis is a 15-year-old medical student studying at Fennmont when he's called to a research facility to observe his professor receiving a prize for his research. The guards tell him that his professor is not there and Jude gets super skeptical because of the invitation in his hand. Then he meets Milla Maxwell near the sewer entrance to the research facility and he follows her around, only to observe that his professor is being experimented on to power a weapon. Milla is revealed to be Maxwell, the lord of all summon spirits (Tales of Symphonia folk - you guys remember him right? And no, not Origin) and she is there to stop that weapon, known as the Lance of Kresnik. In trying to disable it, she takes away its spyrix (a magical device you'll learn about as you progress) and fights against some weird crazy lady. As a result of doing all of this, she ends up losing her power to channel and summon summon spirits and effectively weakens to near human levels. Your purpose throughout the game is to stop any latent wars, get Milla's powers back, and stop the Lance of Kresnik from being activated. Throughout the game you are basically trying to get back to Fennmont, which is proving very difficult to do because war is imminent. Along the way, you meet some new characters.
Jude's fighting style is not unlike Senel's from Tales of Legendia. He's a pure martial artist with group healing spells, and fights with effectively knuckle attachments. Milla is a mage-fighter type character, where she's balanced between magic and physical attacks. She specializes in aerial artes and a lot of her skills are air-based.
Alvin is a mercenary that nobody knows very much about, but seems to know almost everything about everything. He's also flirtatious and the jokes involve how much he checks out or hits on girls. Think Kratos and Zelos fused together and that's who Alvin is - he even has their moveset mixed with Lloyd's.
Then you have Elize Lutus, who is a young girl found by a village and continually told that she doesn't belong there. She's effectively locked in a wine cellar to prevent these interactions by their mayor. She is also the white mage in the sense that she creates area healing spells (as well as some... dark magic spells) and can't fight effectively. Elize's partner is Teepo who I don't know what the hell he is, he just has the filter of a 5-6 year old and talks like someone from Sesame Street. Damn helpful in battle though because he recovers your TP.
Rowan is an old man who is talented and knowledgeable of everything - he is a butler for a royal family that opposes the dealing behind the Lance of Kresnik. He is generally a mage-type character. If you've played Tales of Graces f, his physical attack style isn't too different from Cheria. He's kind of a smartass old man type charcter you see in anime, who can get away with most jokes with a straight face.
Our final character is Leia Rolando, who is one of Jude's childhood best friends. She joins him because of some spoileriffic stuff that happens leading Jude back to his hometown, and they help each other fulfill the goal they need. She's a generally energetic young girl, around 15 like Jude, and surprisingly doesn't succumb to that stereotypical childhood-friend-with-crush stereotype that girls like these tend to follow. She fights with a pole and uses martial arts, just like Jude, to fight. She is also a healer, but her healing style is more focused on a single person than Elize or Jude. In fact, she's the sixth recruitable character yet the first to use First Aid as an arte; back in Symphonia we had at least 2 users by the time we finished the first dungeon.
But who cares about the storytelling for now? Gameplay! Another thing I don't like about the Tales series is that their battle system has like 10 words in it. Maybe not exactly 10 but it's still long: Dual Raid Linear Motion Battle System. Does that mean anything to you? Let me start with the basics and dissect it.
You explore towns, dungeons, and the overworld (btw there is no world map in this game - games these days are going for density as opposed to a wide-open world, which is nice, more on that later). The overworld is effectively a road between areas, dungeons are where you'll spend a decent amount of time, and towns are towns. Typical RPG stuff more or less, nothing groundbreaking. Monsters are on the field and you can approach them from the back for an advantage (they lose half of their HP and enter a stagger state where they're immobilized for a few seconds), the side where they lose around 10% of their HP, or the front where the battle starts like normal. Or they can approach you from the back where you're surrounding. Again, nothing particularly unheard of in an RPG.
In battle, like regular Tales fare, you're in a 3D plane but when you are targeting something, you are in effectively in linear motion relative to that enemy. So your approach towards them doesn't take any twists or turns, it's more or less straight to them. And it's just like a fighting game; you have your regular attacks, HP, and some other techniques (formerly known as Techs if you've played Symphonia but later known as Artes) to use and combo together. A few things you'll notice; a TP bar. Using artes costs TP, so it's basically the word for MP in this game except it's not just magic. And something else called the AC, the Assault Counter. This dictates how many more techs/hits/actions you can chain together before you have to rest for a split second while they recover (they recover quickly and automatically when you're idle). If you have played Tales of Graces f, then it is exactly like CC (Chain Capacity) except every arte takes away 1 AC at a time. The more you use an arte, the more features you can unlock with it. For instance, using Demon Fist 200 times will make the projectile travel a longer time, whereas using it 400 times will not only make it travel long but it will allow it to go through enemies. There's at least 20-30 artes per character that have this growing effect; there are guides to this too, but a lot of artes have their uses and they do get easier to make combos with as you use them more.
So that effectively covers the Linear Motion portion of the title. Quite a mouthful so far. So what is this Dual Raid thing?
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Well, you can have four people in battle at a time right? Well, that means two groups of two. Basically, what I'm getting at is you can pair two characters together in this game and have them do many things. First of all, they will always be around one another and attacking the same person; often times, you will get an instance where one character sets up an attack for another person to respond to. Other times, the other character has an ability that allows them to do various things to their partner. For instance, Elize has the ability to restore the TP of her partner, whereas Alvin can break the guard of the person his partner is targeting. These actions all significantly build up a unison gauge of sorts (think the unison attack bar back in Symphonia). When this bar reaches a new level, then you can activate a combination arte of sorts; this arte takes the elements of two artes used by both of the linked characters and attacks the enemy with it. For instance, if Jude uses Demon Fist then presses R2 when the unison gauge is at a certain point, and if he is paired with Alvin, then they will both use Demonic Chaos combining both of their Demon Fang attacks together.
Pretty spiffy because it's basically a free attack. Now, as you get more and more of these going (they can only activate when your unison gauge hits a certain point) and your unison gauge is full, you can activate them once and get a chain going. All you have to do with a chain is activate the arte shortcut of an arte you haven't previously used in the chain and you will continue to fire combination arte after combination arte until your unison gauge expires. If you don't manage to get another chain in time, then you can take advantage of the gauge by attacking as much as you want; your AC does not go down at all while the unison gauge is whittling down. Eventually, you run out and your unison gauge is empty. Then you have to restart the process, which is not very painful at all surprisingly. Here's a good example of what I'm talking about except the text is in Japanese. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFlegvp0QH0) One thing you'll notice is that at his first chain, he'll use an arte, then have a circle with two cross-swords inside of it; at this point you press a button to activate a chain. It's very simple and its use is situational. Remember, it's a fighting game.
(One thing about the video - if you notice a glowing color background around a character's HP/TP bar at the bottom, then if they are the same color between characters that means that the two characters are paired/linked. It's a simple press of the D-Pad to link them together; the bars are strategically placed so that the D-Pad directions correspond to where you're linking them).
Remember in FFX when you could switch out your party members for another character in the game just in case your current party members were inadequate for the battle at hand? Well, Xillia has taken the next step in this regard and given you the ability to do exactly that! If you press R3 in the middle of battle and hit the D-pad in any direction (it becomes obvious) then you can switch out a character in favor of another one just in case. It's really nice especially if your characters in your current party are running low and you need to switch in a healer or something. Of course, like FFX, you can't switch out someone who is KO'd. And yeah this game has multiplayer; your friend can hook their controller into one of the four slots on your PS3 and control another character. Because the AI is kinda wonky at times (they take too long between combos) it's always nice to have one, that way you can stagger your combos (so your partner can start their combo during the tail end of yours and vice-versa). They should fix the AI or something so they can respond to those situations accordingly because it's annoying to see some enemy get a good combo on you when you're really just setting up your partner for another combo -_-
This game is also long; for reference, I am 25 hours in and I am at roughly the halfway point of the game. I've been doing sidequests too, but supposedly there is cool postgame stuff. You can either start a New Game+, where you can transfer many bonuses depending on your Grade, or continue from the final save point and access all the New Game+ features without having to restart the game. Pretty nifty huh?
If you've played other Tales games or not, it doesn't matter, because Grade functions much differently in this game than any other. You gain Grade through Titles. Unlike previous Tales games, each character doesn't have their own titles; instead, they're more like achievements which reward you with grade. Many titles give you actual PSN trophies, too. If you haven't played other Tales games, it's basically achievements but putting a Tales throwback term into the mix.
You don't really need replayability if you have access to a ton of post-game stuff, and the only replayability this game has is New Game+ and revisiting old sidequests you've forgotten. There are around 100 sidequests and many of them lock you out after a certain point. Many are short too and have no reason to really lock you out between points aside form becoming irrelevant. Luckily there's a GameFAQs guide for this. You can also replay the game to view the other character's version of events and/or music if you want to, as well, which I do recommend because it's a fun game.
Overall I wasn't impressed by this game but I was not disappointed. I didn't have high expections of this game, because in gameplay I prefer Abyss and Graces f but in terms of plot I prefer Symphonia and Legendia. So it's definitely not a Top-5 Tales game but it's not the worst one either. I recommend waiting for a price drop before getting this though, I think it was long enough that it was worth the money but it requires a lot of commitment to get through. I wouldn't say the atmosphere is the best, either, but games like this strive to get you the plot in a most deadpan manner and they tend to give a rather neutral mood to the plot itself. The battles are infinitely more exciting than the cutscenes, though. I felt like I was too lost in the background details at times to really understand or care about what was going on in the plot.
There's a supposedly much better sequel slated for 2014 localization. It's released in Japan as of 2012, though. Tales games are pretty bad about western release, but lately it's been Namdai's only international profit so be on a lookout for the series!
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Tales is one of those series that I really wanna try but I just never get around to it. I think I played the Vesperia demo on the 360 a few years ago and it seemed fun. Then I watched someone stream Graces F and it looked pretty great, but I didn't watch enough of it to really get a feel for the plot.
It sucks that Xillia seems to have a pretty mediocre plot because plots are a big thing for me in JRPGs, but then you say the plots are usually always pretty pants so I dunno. Being able to pick your main character and having subtle story changes is cool though.
The gameplay from the Vesperia demo was pretty fun, so I imagine this is the same, and the Dual Raid mechanic sounds pretty cool, and being able to switch out characters mid-battle (one of the best features about FFX) is definitely really cool, being able to tag people in and out depending on what you need for a certain battle adds a cool extra layer of strategy (or so I'd imagine).
Sounds like there's a ton of stuff in the game content-wise too, which is nice. Good value for money and all that. I don't know if I'd pick it up though, since you mention Graces F had more preferable (better?) gameplay, and I imagine that'd probably be a bit cheaper than Xillia by now.
Really nice review though Muhed, I'm definitely more interested in the Tales series now. You barely touched on the music though (it's a JRPG, you gotta let me know if the soundtrack is good or not man!), but otherwise solid review.
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I'm really enjoying these reviews, they're both games I've been looking to buy recently which gives me a well judged opinion on them :)
Do you think that this Tales game is a good place for someone to start exploring the series? I've never really seen copies of any of the Tales games before so I've never played them - would you suggest starting with this one and moving onto earlier releases, or start off on an earlier game?
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Yeah it's very similar to Vesperia in a lot of ways. My problem when I played Vesperia was that there wasn't much in terms of frontline units (it was mainly just like... Yuri) so it got really annoying to deal with certain things sometimes. But Vesperia's not particularly bad; I didnt like its plot either but people generally enjoyed Vesperia.
The music I felt was average-ish at best. Motoi Sakuraba's OSTs are very hit or miss. The town themes give a very Asian feel at times whereas the battle themes are either like Jude's or like Milla's; fast paced or orchestral. It depends on whose path you took, to be honest.
The thing about Graces f's gameplay is that the game itself is fairly easy until the future arc, where it amps up the difficulty a little bit. The gameplay is fun because you can have long combo chains because of the way its battle system works. No need to deal with TP like other Tales games. And magic users have reduced casting time if the magic is used towards the latter end of a combo. It makes it much easier to lock onto a combo and it makes your combos varied quite a bit as well. Also a set of 16 or so artes are mapped onto one button whereas you can map 4 onto another button (and 4 on the joystick) giving you, effectively, 24 Artes at your disposal from the get-go. This allows you to vary your combos considerably giving it a dynamic feel. You can assign up to 16 artes in Xillia, but you have to hold a button to access the other 8 (which makes it inconvenient because those buttons do a lot of other things).
Webby - I would say no if only because then the older games would seem like kind of a drag to play. My personal favorite out of all of them was Symphonia, though. Legendia had a great plot, great characters, and a beautiful soundtrack but its gameplay was a drag and was probably comparable to PSX Tales games (ie pretty bad). Problem with Symphonia is that it was out in like the early 2000s for the Gamecube so idk if you have the resources to play it. It's fairly rare to find. Another good starting point is Abyss (PS2) because it has a lot of modern Tales elements to it while still having a classic Tales feel. You may not know what this means but Tales used to be a very traditional game before the newer released kinda destroyed whatever tradition it once had.
Overall though I would just look for the cheapest console Tales game if you can. Xillia's 60 dollars atm which is too expensive, and I'm not sure how much the other games are these days.
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(http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130201203808/fireemblem/images/6/62/FireEmblemAwakeningThinBanner.png)
Developer: Intelligent Systems
Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: 3DS
Release date:
Rating: T (ESRP)
Genre: Strategy-JRPG
"Two sleepings dragons - one a sacred ally of mankind, the other its sworn destroyer. Two heroes marked with the symbols of the dragons. Their meeting heralds the dragon's awakening, and the word's ending."
The newest entry to the Fire Emblem series and the one that did enough and more to keep the series alive and popular. This FE game was remarkably popular considering lots of people I've talked to have heard of it and liked it. Nintendo did a decent job advertising it considering how much it made, and it outsold every game in the entire series individually in its first few weeks. After being released a few weeks in the US it outsold the other games international sales greatly. This is a great sign of revival of the series, and it comes in a very fresh and interesting way. These are games that have thrived on their simplicity (for reference, calculating damage is as easy as this: Str + Weapon Attack - Enemy Defense +/- weapon triangle bonus) and somehow managed to be innovative and fun all the same. The basic stats still exist - Str/Def dictating physical attacks, Mag/Res for magic attacks, Luck doing whatever it wants, HP being what HP has been in every video game ever, Skl to determine accuracy, and Spd to determine evasion and whether or not you attack twice. Attack, Evasion, Hit rate, Dodge (which is ability to avoid critical hits) and Critical hit ratio (critical hits triple your damage output) are determined from these stats and they're very simple formulas that are easy to look up.
I was not too fond of the plot or anything, I don't care for any of the characters except like Stahl and Cherche, so I will leave Lottie to post that on the next post. But the gameplay I was incredibly fond of and despite being easily taken advantage of, it is a step in the right direction and opens up an incredible number of methods to play this game.
So previous Fire Emblem games have kept the same formula for gameplay with a few tweaks here and there. You take turns with the enemy, and on your turn you can survey the field, select a unit, have them move, and then have them do one of many things. They can end their turn, use a staff, attack with an equipped weapon, use an item, trade items with another unit, and rescue/drop/transfer other units. Of course, if you don't feel you moved to the right place, so long as you didn't input a command, you can reset your movement. But this is getting to the general stuff, since there are character and class specific options that everyone has, and I'm not going to get into that because there's just a lot of those throughout the history of the game.
This game got rid of the whole rescuing shtick and included pairing up. A unit can move and land on top of another unit, and they become paired up. Upon pairing up you can do quite a lot of things. The most obvious thing is that you can drop the person you're paired with, switch them with someone else's paired up partner or transfer them to someone else. In other games, this was more or less the rescue mechanic, however in those games Rescuing would slice your skill and speed in half (in Thracia 776, it cut everything but HP, Luck, and Bld in half). Now, you gain statups depending on the unit's stats.
The units in a pair up have a "main" unit and a "paired" unit. The main unit is the one you control on the map, and his movement and stats are used as a base. When you attack or trade, you are trading his inventory and attacking using him. The paired unit? Gives boosts based on his class, skills, and stats. The paired unit also has a certain chance (in %s that are listed when you engage in battle with another unit) to attack alongside the main unit (Dual Attack) or take a hit for the main unit (Dual Guard). If you have two units adjacent and neither of them are paired, then instead of the paired unit we have a secondary unit (the unit that does not issue a command). That unit has a chance of doing all of the above and not any more than that (but since they're not paired you don't receive the same stat-ups as you do with two paired units). The main unit and the paired unit can switch their statuses as main and paired units just in case; so if your HP goes down
As you can see there's a lot of strategic depth which results from this. It also retains the features of all of the previous games as well while taking away some of the more annoying and broken ones. One of the most annoying features from previous games were status staves; they do not exist any more, which is good because Poison, Silence, Sleep, and etc were actually very annoying. (They lasted 5 turns and most maps get done in like 8-9 at most in older games). Magic, instead of existing as a trinity (Light/Anima/Dark or Wind/Fire/Thunder) exists as one weapon type with several vastly different weapons. This was annoying in older games because while there was a trade off for every weapon type you only ever were able to level up one weapon type. The others were a pain in the ass to level up. Finally, no constitution stat or some similar system; no weapons decrease your attack speed no matter what, whereas it used to be that if the weapon weight were above a certian threshold (either your Strength stat or a Con/Bld stat), you would lose speed based on the difference between that threshold and the weapon weight.
Some of the more broken removed features were the Warp staff (can warp you anywhere either in a certain range or anywhere on the map depending on the game) and Bonus Experience (which was free EXP you could use from a base menu to level up your units). Another broken feature of previous games were E-ranked Steel Axes, which allowed any user that promoted and gained Axes to start with an incredibly powerful Axe from the get go and never look back. Fire Emblem uses weapon ranking to dictate when you can use more powerful weapons, requiring you to level up proficiency in that weapon. Not always more powerful weapons, sometimes unique ones too, like you need a C in axes for an Axe that boosts your critical hit rate by 30%. But instead, we have the following system; all units tend to start with E- or D-rank in certain weapons. E-rank weapon users use pathetic Bronze weapons, whereas D-rank goes up to Iron, C-rank to Steel and Killer, B rank to Silver, and A rank gives you access to Brave weapons (allow you to strike 2 or 4 times instead of 1 or 2 times).
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You can forge weapons as well, but you can't vary the parameters by more than a certain amount total. It is sometimes cheaper than investing in a new weapon and other times it is more expensive but a much more effective weapon comes out of it. It is also useful for training weaker units that start with a weaker weapon and need more power and accuracy to help kill the opponents. You are allowed to forge as often as you want but money is always an issue for forging.
Furthermore, there are Support conversations. This gives the characters a ton of depth in terms of personality and character development and most units can support with most other units. These supports add to double boosts, add to the chance of getting a Dual Attack or Dual Guard, and they add to various other things like Dodge, Evasion, Hitrate, and Critical rate when your unit is adjacent. It is very useful and it is good to get as many supports as possible so your units are as flexible as possible. Some units can also fall in love and get married, too!
Each unit is assigned to their own class. Your main character, Chrom, has the "Lord" class which has solid bases and growths, can use Swords, and has some skills associated with it. As you progress through the story, once a character reaches around Level 10 (max Level is 20) they can be promoted, like in traditional Fire Emblem games, and gain stat boosts, extra weapons, some abilities, etc. In this game, you gain stat boosts relative to your class bases; basically, if you want to promote from a Cavalier to, say, a Great Knight, then you lose a point or two of Speed because a Great Knight's Speed is a little lower than a Cavalier's. On the flipside, they gain a huge amount of Str and Defense.
However, classes used to be little more than just some sort of aesthetic thing for each character. This game is considerably deeper with classes. There are three brands of classes - "unpromoted," "promoted," and "special" classes. Unpromoted classes can use Master Seals to promote, promoted classes cannot promote further, and special classes have a Level cap of 30 instead of 20. However, they also learn skills at different rates.
This game reintroduces the concept of Skills from FE4/5/9/10 and Tearring Saga. Every class has its own individual skills that it learns at varying levels. Unpromoted units learn them at Level 1 and Level 10, promoted at Levels 5 and 15, and special classes at Levels 1 and 15. So that is a grand total of four skills except... wait a moment...
Like in FE8, every unpromoted class (except Lord) has two classes it can promote to. These two choices are often balanced; sometimes you're trading speed and certain skills for an extra weapon and some defense (Cavalier -> Great Knight or Paladin), or you're sacrificing monstrous Str/Def/HP for Speed/Swords/Movement (General and Great Knight). The choice is yours to make in the end but it does decide a lot of things. If that is not enough, if you did not like your promotion selection, then what oyu can do is level up to Level 10 as a promoted unit and use what is called a Change Seal... which changes the unit's class to something else. It doesn't promote them or anything. But every unit has a pool of 3 classes to choose from.
So Chrom can be a Lord, Archer, or Cavalier and all of their promotions; so his full class selection is Lord, Great Lord, Archer, Sniper, Ranger, Cavalier, Great Knight, Paladin. He can Master Seal and Change Seal indefinitely (if unpromoted, he must be Level 10; if promoted, he can Change Seal at any moment but can only Change Seal to other promoted classes at Level 10, until then he can only Change Seal to unpromoted classes). He can learn all of their skills and everything.
The skills aren't like they used to be. There's not as many "% chance to attack 5 times in a row" or "% chance to nullify defense" like we used to have. There's a few others, like "Recover 50% HP when you kill an enemy on Player Phase," "Once per turn, move again if you kill an enemy on Player Phase," or even something as simple as "Heal 5 more HP when you are healing another unit." There are around 40 classes with 2 skills each and every unit has access to an average of 10-15 skills, so you have a lot of options and paths to choose from. Be warned that if you are picking up a new weapon due to a class change, you are restricted to the "E-rank" weaponry. So if Chrom class changes to an Archer, then he will start with E Bows because he hasn't used Bows prior. If he class changes to Cavalier, then he is likely to retain a high Sword rank (because he uses Swords as a Lord) but he has E Lances.
Like FE8 we have a world map. We can visit any point of this world map and buy items from their shops or confront enemies that have taken the space. However, these enemies are entirely optional if they have taken the space; you do not have to fight them but you cannot buy items from them until you fight them and defeat them. Thankfully, you have an option to go back to the world map if you enter a level completely overwhelmed and unable to beat it or enter a map battle unable to beat it. This game would be annoying otherwise.
Unless you find out how to break this game in two, it is a fairly difficult game. Without pair up it is extremely difficult because you have no way of getting the stat gains that help you beat other enemies down. With pairing up, it can be a lot easier but it requires more planning (for instance, if you have a healer, there are less units on the field so the healer is far more exposed than they would be normally). Normal Mode is not too difficult generally, Hard Mode has some difficulty spikes that happen at points (but get easier), and Lunatic makes Hard Mode look like My Litle Pony. Some classes can trivialize this game easily, as well as some weapons and skills, whereas if you aren't keeping up with the fandom or anything the game gets to be difficult. Even despite all of this, enemies will hit hard no matter what mode you are on; it just matters with what accuracy they hit you with. Doesn't matter how broken your units are because they will manage to find a way to hit hard.
When units die they die forever. You can restart a level or map to get that unit back, but you lose all progress because you are starting from the last time you saved effectively. You can save in the middle of a map but it's only a quick save type of thing, where you can shut off your game and load that save again (but then the save is gone).
If that doesn't tickle your fancy, then there is a "Casual" mode. The above is known as "Classic" mode. In Casual mode, if a unit loses all of their HP, then at the end of the map or chapter they come back to your party unscathed, with all their equipment, and with the same level ups as before. Chapter saves are now more like permasaves, where you can save before you make a decision then reload if you didn't like it or whatever, exactly like a save state. This is great because if you didn't like Classical Fire Emblem stuff then the Casual version will make it considerably less irritating for you. I know it was an integral part of the game for a dead unit to be gone forever, but that's why I play Classic (and you can too if you like that!). Others play Casual because, well, it's a less irritating game and irritating games can be boring and tedious after a while.
While there is a World Map that you can continue to mess around with after you beat the game, there is also paid DLC which has maps with pretty good design. They can range from very easy to incredibly difficult like the later ones, and they give you new items, classes, and characters. I'd say a select few items are worth it, but that's about it. You may also want to buy some of them for the story, since they have one that treats all past FE games as Spirit Characters that are trapped in some sort of weird limbo and another one about the bad future. Also, they have one that is basically a swimsuit paradise, but sadly the localized version has a slightly censored version of that. If you've got more DLC questions then shoot away!
Also a very replayable game. ~40 characters, many different class trees and one more feature that I will not go into (if you get the game you will see for yourself) that creates a ton more variety.
The music in the maps is absolutely beautiful and it has very powerful melodies combined with a more serene ambiance. There are also two versions of all map themes; one for the map itself and one for when you enter battle and watch animations. To see the effect, here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM5TzX_xRQ8) (also contains a lot of gameplay information if you want to skim through his videos; I can look for specific timestamps upon request of different things I describe, as well as different videos - don't worry, you can skip animations and the fact that the game cuts away to battle). Two of my favorite pieces are known as Destiny (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJBjmvOb0iA) and Duty (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8OV2O12lu8). There are some throwback pieces in there; for some reason one of them is a mixture of Ike's Resolution from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance... and that is actually my all-time favorite track in this game (but I don't think many of you would like it), but I want any FE9 fans to find it in the game and listen to it and feel what I felt (which was mind numbing joy). The expedition theme for map battles against the Risen is a remix of the Fire Emblem Main Theme, also pretty cool.
From here I'll have Lottie take over and talk about the game from her point of view. I avoided plot almost entirely because I was not pleased... but my expectations are unrealistic as hell.
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Fire Emblem: Awakening is the latest in a series that, depending on your own tastes and gameplay style, you will either love, or hate. Fans of the series in particular might feel different to my own views as someone relatively new to it, but I digress. I will, however, state this now. Muhed and I have conflicting opinions on much of this game. So let us start from the beginning and see where it leads us.
Gameplay.
I am going to admit straight up that the Fire Emblem series is not my first taste of an RPG revolving around battles and developing particular units and classes. When people ask me what these games are like, I can only find one game series that I have played to use as a basis of comparison. Age of Empires. Yes, yes, I know. But let me explain. FE in its purest sense is a game largely based on tactics, whereby the goal is to ultimately use your army to defeat the enemy. It is a lot more focused on plot, which contributes greatly to its charm. Unlike AoE, units all have personalities. You are no longer controlling a flock of sheep, but people.
Regarding how the game has developed over time, I can only really use one point of comparison. Much of what I say in this respect will relate to Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones (FE8 I believe) simply because it is the only other FE game to this date that I have played. (I have since started Shadow Dragon, but given that I am only in the second chapter, I do not feel at this point that I can make an adequate comparison.) Awakening is the first Fire Emblem game for the 3DS, a console which is quickly giving our favourite games and characters a whole new perspective. (Quite literally a new dimension!) Given that it is a game for the same line of consoles, the controls are fairly similar. The game itself is played on the main screen, whilst the touch screen provides the details of the particular chapter: your selected unit’s stats and inventory, and a map outlining where both you and the opponents are. On the main screen it is also your overworld map, which is incredibly useful in terms of not getting lost if you’re off training rather than progressing with the game. The touch screen capabilities are not fully explored, however. It is simply a second screen for keeping your units in check.
In FE8, the only gameplay option you have (other than difficulty settings) is that when your units die, they die. They do not come back. I can tell you that the further you get into the game, losing one of your precious units is incredibly frustrating. Being a little bit OCD, I cannot tolerate losing a unit. It is far too much like losing a limb and I have been known to ragequit on numerous occasions. FE13 gives you the option of keeping your units after a battle. I have two save files on this game: one where they die, and one where they do not. The latter I have set at a higher difficulty as I feel that, having played through the game once whilst trying to keep a full quota of units, standard gameplay would just be made too easy. Complacency would not be particularly becoming.
Whilst it is a relief knowing that you can sacrifice some of your favourite units for the greater good of the game, I don’t quite think I like this setting as much. You develop a sort of masochistic tendency whereby you willingly put yourself through the anguish of having to restart a chapter because at the very last hurdle (usually the boss) Stahl will take an arrow to the face, or Lon’qu just won’t be up to speed and they lose their lives. The torment is almost unbearable, especially when you get closer to completing the game and it just happens all too frequently.
Needless to say, the graphics for this game are incredible. Compared to Sacred Stones, Awakening is visually stunning. I have been asked what I mean by this before, and my response is always the same. “I have never seen anyone be stabbed in the chest so beautifully.” And it’s true. The animation is so fluid that it really brings the characters to life. The 3D aspect almost makes you feel like a spectator in a jousting tournament (especially if you’re dealing with knights and paladins wielding lances).
Plot.
Regarding what actually goes down in the game, the story has a pretty similar feel to what goes down in other FE games. (From what I can tell, anyway. There are a lot of parallels with Sacred Stones, and I can see some in the prologue of Shadow Dragon too) For veterans of the series, there is a large degree of familiarity with the plot, but it is nonetheless a refreshing take on the concept of saving the world from a great, other-worldly evil. If you do not know what to expect from the series, FE13 has some amazing plot twists and develops in a way which feels right. A lot of games seem to rush the plot to get to the point, but in this case the development is part of what goes on – there is no reason to rush.
I was genuinely talking to a friend (who isn’t Muhed) about the game, and he commented that “It's strange that Fire Emblem has some of the best written dialogue and characters I've seen for a long time.” Regarding dialogue and the ever-present humour that has kept my attention throughout both FE games I have played, I would have to agree. The dialogue sets the tone of each chapter in a way that prepares you for what is coming, but emphasises that these characters, although to some extent are exaggerations of our own characteristics, are essentially human.
The dialogue in support conversations especially demonstrates just how diverse these characters are. From a timid, stage-frightened dancer to a hasty, headstrong knight the game presents a range of personalities large enough to accommodate a lot of our own traits. I find myself more attached to characters who share aspects of my personality. The conversations they have between them demonstrate that your units have their own fears and aspirations outside of simply fighting for a cause and it becomes increasingly clear that these characters often would never consider associating themselves with each other under different circumstances.
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Great review as usual Muhed. Not gonna say you sold me on FE because I've legit got the one they gave away for the 3DS Ambassadors (or whatever that stuff was where I got 10 free GBA games for my 3DS) downloaded and ready to play, I just haven't got around to it yet, but if I wasn't already sold I'd have been sold.
I like that there's a "Casual" mode in Awakenings, losing a character in a game is always rubbish, so I'd probably play it on that. I'd heard most of the other stuff you'd mentioned through friends who are hella into FE, but still a great read.
Also this music is fantastic.
Really cool to see someone else get involved and review as well. Pretty great write-up Lottie, cool to see that the plot is good (despite Muhed not really being too fond of it), and I like that you touch upon the writing which I don't think would have been mentioned otherwise.
Great job guys, looking forward to the next one.
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Naww thank you =]
Just gonna add, with Streetpass mode I'm getting a lot of extra teams to battle. It's interesting to see what kind of characters people have made for the game, and who they use in their team =]