The GBA Wireless Adapter didn’t see much use.

Pokémon LeafGreen, and its retail buddy Pokémon FireRed, are remakes of the original Pokémon games. Released for the Game Boy Advance in 2004, LeafGreen and FireRed are 3^rd generation Pokémon titles and the first remakes in the series. As such, there are major improvements over their originators. However, the improvements are primarily relegated to updated graphics, which are much more detailed compared to their Game Boy brethren. There is a decent amount of new post-game content too, mostly introducing Pokémon from newer generations. It’s a solid title, with the toughest Elite Four in the series and a selection of Pokémon that isn’t completely overwhelming.

Warning: the black label version of FFV has minor glitches when played on the PS2 and is nigh unplayable on the PS3.

When I began playing Final Fantasy V, the first ten or so hours got me down. Coming off of my completion of Final Fantasy IV, this game felt like a pause in progression for Square. The characters, protagonists and antagonists alike, felt one-dimensional. The narrative didn’t allow for a rotating party as the previous game did, and this kept the experience stale. During this early period, the combat system felt wholly similar to its predecessor too. It wasn’t until the job system was unlocked and given a few hours to come into its own, that I really began to enjoy the game.

The sky is dropping transporters.

With a traditional narrative revolving around elemental crystals and a maniacal evildoer, I didn’t get drawn into the story. After all, with a name like X-Death, there’s no questioning his motives. The protagonists were, slightly, more fleshed out though. Bartz was a wanderer who encountered the princess Reina and a stranger from another planet, Galuf, while investigating a meteorite. They joined together and set about to protect the four crystals after they witnessed one of them shattering and learned that collectively, the crystals protected a seal on X-Death.

Soon enough, the group bumped into the pirate Faris. Get this, Faris suffers from amnesia and is actually Reina’s long lost sister, Salsa. The group initially fails to protect the four crystals and X-Death is freed. With his freedom, X-Death returns to his original planet to begin conquering those who sealed him away. As the story plays out, the group learns that the two worlds were once one and in their quest to defeat X-Death, they reunite them. Galuf’s granddaughter Krile joins the fray eventually as the party composition changes partway through the game.

The battles got more interesting with more job classes to choose from.

This game adapts the Active Time Battle system of its predecessor so battles played out nearly identically. This meant time continued to flow as I navigated the battle menus, etc. The differentiator for this game was the job system. Although Final Fantasy III had a job system, the one implemented here is structured differently – I found it more fun.

Each character had a personal level and a job level. Gaining a personal level improved stats while gaining a job level unlocked related abilities. An unlocked ability could be equipped regardless of what job any given character was at the time. This meant a white mage could also use black and time magic or a samurai could heal in the clutch. The abilities and benefits were plentiful and I had many favorite combinations at different points in the game. This gameplay system kept the game interesting when the narrative failed to do so. In my mind, that’s how I’ll remember the game.

Mode 7!!!

Final Fantasy V was a slow starter. It was hard for me to get excited about the game when the story and characters weren’t doing it for me. This was concerning as I felt Square genuinely moved the genre forward with Final Fantasy IV. Eventually, the gameplay became the focal point of interest for me as the job system grew more robust and my party was earning the experience to unlock abilities. Mixing and matching the traits of different jobs and overcoming tough enemies were definitely the stars of the game.

Bundling FFIV, The After Years, and a new interlude, this version has the most content of any FFIV release.

Having played through Final Fantasy III a few years back, and now having completed Final Fantasy IV, I can see a noticeable divergence in the series. This was no doubt brought about because of a new console generation. FFIII was originally released in 1990 for the NES (or Famicom, rather as it wasn’t released in the west until the 2006 DS remake) while FFIV was released in 1991 for the Super Famicom and SNES. Despite only being released a year apart, comparatively, the narrative and gameplay are worlds more complex in FFIV.

Beginning in the kingdom of Baron, Final Fantasy IV centers on Cecil Harvey. A devout and highly ranked member of his king’s military, Cecil follows the orders of his king, to the point of attacking a neighboring city to obtain their crystal – an important and mystical object. Upon questioning the king’s actions, Cecil is stripped of his rank and assigned the task of delivering a package to another neighboring village. The package winds up being a ruse, containing monsters which level the village. After these events, Cecil begins his quest to discover the actions of his king. Ultimately though, it’s a quest to discover Cecil’s identity and rid himself of the darkness in his heart.

Dungeon crawling is a major aspect, per usual.

Although there is a clear and singular protagonist in Cecil, Final Fantasy IV features nearly a dozen named protagonists who shift in and out of Cecil’s party as major events happen. Also hailing from the kingdom of Baron are Kain Highwind and Rosa Farrell. Kain is fellow soldier, rival, and friend. Rosa is a friend and love interest to both. Cecil and Rosa are clearly meant to be together and Kain deals with his jealousy throughout the course of the game, at points, succumbing to the darkness in his heart. Cid Pollendina is another Baron native and is the creator of airships and services the king’s vast fleets. He’s a rambunctious man who lends more than a hand.

There’s also Rydia, a young summoner and sole survivor of the village Cecil inadvertently leveled. She harbors hatred for Cecil early on, but eventually realizes he wasn’t to blame. Tellah, a powerful sage, joins Cecil and his party as he searches for the prince of Damcyan. Edward, the bard prince, was engaged with Tellah’s daughter before she perished. Tellah had felt Edward was to blame until he learned of the couple’s love for each other. A strong monk, Yang, joins the fight after the antagonist Golbez brings the fight to his hometown. The twin mages, Palom and Porom, bring lighthearted humor to the narrative. While only a few years old, they’re very knowledgeable about their craft. Two late-game additions are Edge and Fusoya. Edge is a cocky prince looking for revenge against Golbez. Fusoya is a lunarian – a resident of the moon.

The party was usually stacked with five protagonists.

The dialogue in the game is very limited compared to modern video games. That being said, the characters’ personalities do shine through and the sheer number of them kept the game fresh. As this was my first time to play Final Fantasy IV, I cherished coming upon dialogue and events that I’ve heard described as classic. Experiencing and understanding the context of the “you spoony bard” line was a favorite of mine. The major events were often too, helping to captivate me. Especially the final hours of the game which saw Cecil and the party fly to the moon! This was something else after thirty hours of traveling on Earth, never expecting anything different.

Speaking of memorable and important events, Final Fantasy IV is the game that introduced the active time battle system, or ATB system as the game refers to it. Allies and enemies continue to take turns but time continued to flow while I chose a character’s action. This could be switched to pause time while navigating menus, but I chose to experience the battle system with time continuously flowing. In the version that I played (Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection for the PSP) each character had a meter representing their turn. The meter filled at a rate dependent upon the speed of the character in question. For instance, someone dainty like Rydia should be able to a get three actions in for two of Cecil’s.

Lacking the job system introduced in Final Fantasy III, all the characters in Final Fantasy IV are specialized. I wasn’t troubled by not having that customization over the protagonists. Due to the brisk narrative, characters were shifting in and out of the party frequently. Therefore, I never got bored of the composition of the party. Sections were never too tough either. The game was balanced in such a way that I was never able to blame any failings on me losing a powerful character or a healer. Yet, I did have to do plenty of endgame level grinding to conquer the final boss – an hour or two at least.

Cid is a rambunctious old man.

I was honestly blown away by how much I was captivated by Final Fantasy IV. The dialogue was relatively bare-bones, and reading up on the development proved some of my theories on content being cut, but I still was captivated. The narrative moved briskly and thanks to the always changing party composition, it was hard for me to get bored of the random battles. I played the PSP version and I can look forward to playing The After Years at some point as the games are bundled together. My only gripe with this version is the inability to play with the original graphics. I would’ve appreciated the ability to switch between the redone visuals and the original sprites as I was able to do with the soundtrack in this version. For being twenty-plus years old, I still found the game to be captivating. Much more so than the previous game in the series. What a difference a year can make!

Team Sweepy, hamming it up for the camera.

The next game my friend and I transitioned to was Greywater – an isometric role-playing game in the vein of Diablo. If Project Land Mineded was the most technologically proficient game I played, then Greywater had the strongest art direction and implementation. The steampunk influences were readily apparent at first glance and the art style was complimented by a 19^th century backdrop of a highly polluted city – hence the name, Greywater. It also seemed like there was a lot of story and character development already present in the playable demo, more than any other game I played at the show.

That said, I actually didn’t play much of the game as I didn’t gel with the control scheme. I might not be recalling correctly, but I believe movement and attacks were done via the keyboard while menu navigation was with the mouse. I would’ve preferred most everything but movement be done with the mouse. I also didn’t get a good sense of feedback when attacking enemies. I couldn’t tell if I was damaging them or missing completely. I wish I’d played more of Greywater in hindsight as Team Sweepy placed second in the game showcase and won the gallery show. Congrats to them!

If you wanna follow their progress, you can do so via their Tumblr or Twitter.

There’s hidden depth to this game and perhaps it’s my loss for not discovering it soon enough.

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/15/remembering-my-favorite-rpg-valkyrie-profile/

I’m going to approach this article a little differently than I usually do. The above is a link to a Joystiq article by Kat Bailey wherein she discusses her love for Valkyrie Profile. Coincidentally, I had quit playing Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth, the PSP remake, only a few days before she posted this article. After spending about thirteen hours with the game, I decided it wasn’t for me. Today, I’m going to riff off her article and try to get the core of what exactly it was about this game that didn’t appeal to me.

What Kat really dives into first is the combat system. She describes it as it is – “fun, fast, and interesting to look at” and I agree, but more so when she considers it serviceable. She doesn’t linger on it long and neither does the game. It’s a combat system that lacks much depth. In my time with the game I kept waiting for combat to expand and it never really did.

Towards the end of my tryst with the game, I began to see promise in the form of new skills. These augmented my roster of characters in many ways, but why didn’t I see more of these in the first third of the game? It would’ve given me more desire to customize my crew and maybe look forward to battles. There were many passive skills that increased stats with many more that seemed to only impact my ranking for sending characters to Asgard – a concept that’s barely discussed. The combat and support skills that began appearing after a dozen hours, I wish, would’ve appeared sooner.

Each face button represented a character in battle.

As she continues, Kat begins discussing the role of the plot in the game and the dueling narratives. In regards to the overall story of Ragnarok, it’s very straightforward. Lenneth is on a quest to recruit einherjar to defend Asgard in the impending end of days. The subplots of Lenneth’s past and deeper truths of other important concepts in the game are present, and intentionally obtuse. Kat describes this subplot information as “bad game design” as it’s there for the player to experience but the main narrative misleads the player. I highly agree and would add that the game really doesn’t explain much about the subplot.

I do like the concept of the game misleading the player to believe an untruth, but I find it curious that these subplots are present, but there isn’t anyone advocating these paths to the player. I guess the player is expected to stumble upon these encounters, which isn’t guaranteed because of the game’s structure. Granted, in my time spent I only had a few encounters that were related, but they explained nothing! I suppose that’s to be expected in the first third of the game – questions, not answers – but, honestly, barely anything is explained in this game.

This sounds like it could foreshadow a solution to a later puzzle.

Perhaps, the biggest detractor to Valkyrie Profile was its lack of explanations in regards to pretty much anything be it a gameplay mechanic or story beat. That being said, I was dissatisfied with the lack of attention devoted to the, admittedly, large roster of characters. Besides the initial recruitment cutscene, there was little attention paid to them again. I also felt limited by the game’s structure. Divided into chapters and further into periods, entering towns and dungeons became a commodity as I did cost benefit analysis to determine whether or not to take a certain action. After a few hours though, I didn’t really want to explore because towns offered me nothing and dungeons were hardly any better. The combat was unimpressive in the first third of the game as well. So ultimately it was a combination of EVERYTHING that left me ambivalent towards seeing how Ragnarok played out.