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Trials of Mana

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/20/2020

Posted in: Android, iOS, Mobile Reviews, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Switch. Tagged: jrpg, remake, square enix, trials of mana. Leave a comment

Publisher: Square Enix

Developer: Xeen

Release Date: 04/24/2020

Also Available On

I’m not the biggest JRPG fan as I don’t like grinding or the typical tropes that go along with them. They usually are extremely bloated with dozens of hours added just in battles alone and this is why I only play them if they have a particular something that stands out albeit the story or the gameplay. Trials of Mana stands out as neither of those, but it does everything in a neatly tightened JRPG package that cuts out the fat and streamlines the genre for the modern world.

The story is nothing to write home about but isn’t bad either. You can choose between 6 different characters with three being in your party. Each character has to class specializations and this is important when your class up and balances out your party. It’s recommended to have a fighter, magician, and middle ground class. I chose Reisz, Duncan, and Angela for my playthrough and it worked out perfectly. The overall story revolves around a typical JRPG plot of saving the world from an evil entity. The Goddess of Mana is being targeted by a particular evil force and wants to be the only existing god. There are other evil kingdoms racing to get the Sword of Mana which is said to hold untold powers. Yeah, it’s trite, barely interesting, and towards the end of the game, there aren’t many cut scenes left. The English voice acting, in particular, is incredibly bad so please do yourself a favor and enable the Japanese voice-overs. The characters themselves are very likable with great designs and they stand out and are somewhat memorable, they have typical JRPG hero personalities, but I grew to like them nonetheless.

Let’s dive right into battles. Trials of Mana is a real-time battle system played out in closed-off areas. Once you are in sight of a creature the game surrounds you in a barrier that you can escape from by running toward or just fighting it out. There are heavy and light attacks as well as the same while in the air. Once you progress far enough and depending on your class, you will unlock Moves that are class-specific that consume MP, and then there are Class Strikes. These strikes use up Stamina that is acquired as crystals that enemies drop when attacked. These strikes are powerful and you get a new one with each new class. These must be strategically timed with boss battles as they are essential to winning and doing massive damage. Battles overall are intense and fun with the ability to adjust your AI mates in the Strategy section of the menu. Here you can adjust how often they use their strikes, moves, items, and how to focus on enemies. This is really important to adjust for later boss fights.

While combat is fluid, looks good, and is probably what you will be doing 85% of the time in the game it is essentially very simple and may seem dull to people who are used to more Western RPGs with more action. While it works in the context of this game, it beats the hell out of random encounters. Leveling up also occurs rather quickly and the use of cookies allows you to gain additional XP, but these are rare. There really isn’t much in terms of exploring or hidden items as most chests contain standard items, seeds, and rarely armor or weapons. Seeds are actually an essential part of the game and are required in order to get Class 3. These seeds are grown at pots in inns or near certain Mana (save) statues. These range from item seeds to illusive question mark seeds that drop talismans needed to get to class 3 to rainbow seeds which have high-end armor and weapons. You can level up the box by planting more seeds thus dropping rarer items.

Of course, you can buy most things in towns and the single night market as well as reset your skill points there. Leveling up is a big deal in this game and you can allocate points towards various stats like strength, stamina, intelligence, and so on. I highly recommend leveling up where you want your character to be strong and saving your points once you reach the cap for that class level. Once your class up you will have tons of points to advance your character even further without wasting them on stats you don’t need to focus on. Getting a higher class also grants a new costume and access to higher-level weapons and armor in addition to more ability slots. Leveling up stats grants abilities that add passive stats such as healing after battles, additional damage when entering them, sacrificing HP for additional damage, etc. The great thing is that these abilities are shared amongst all characters once unlocked to really customize your style.

Exploring in Trials of Mana is fine, but not wholly necessary. Exploring only gets you basic items, and the very rare weapon or armor piece and the question mark seeds in Chapter 5 needed to get to class 3. Grinding is also very minimal in this game as you will mostly stay just behind or ahead of the current area demand. I recommend staying above two levels of the next boss and it will make life much easier and you will chew through fewer healing items. The levels are very linear as well and it’s hard to get lost as a golden star will always lead you to your objective as well as on the map. I have to commend Square for implementing this as one of my biggest issues with JRPGs outside of random battles is never knowing where the hell to go. This allows you to just enjoy the game and not worry about whether or not you’ve been going the wrong way for the last hour.

With all of that said, Trials of Mana also looks fantastic. While not groundbreaking, it has bright visuals, detailed textures, high-poly models, and great animations. The effects are slick and the bosses are very well designed. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of regular enemies as they are just standard JRPG fodder like rabbits, slime, knights, dragons, and various fantasy creatures, they do require strategy as each has different attacks and debuff effects. So with that said, Trials of Mana won’t change the minds of those who don’t like JRPGs, but those who love them will truly enjoy this. I finished the game and even continued to the additional optional chapter that can grant New Game+ if completed. This is one of two Super Bosses and requires a level 75 party. This final dungeon is about an hour long and combines a piece of every area you have visited in the game for one mega-dungeon. It’s a challenge and fun, and I recommend completing it. Trials of Mana is one of my favorite JRPGs of the last decade and I can easily recommend it to most people.

Final Fantasy VIII Remastered

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/08/2020

Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Switch, Xbox One. Tagged: final fantasy viii, hd, jrpg, remastered, square enix. Leave a comment

Publisher: Square Enix

Developer: DotEmu

Release Date: 09/03/2019

Also Available On

Oh boy, this review has been 22 years in the making. I have been trying to finish this game since I was 8 years old, but just could not do it. I will admit, I’m not the best JRPG player as I don’t have the patience to do insane amounts of grinding and play into the earlier Final Fantasy game’s crazy summon hunting. FF8 eluded me for so many years because of one thing: The Junction system. I absolutely love the characters, art, and story in this game, but the Junction system nearly ruins it for me. And yes, I had to play with cheats/boosters activated and even then, I almost couldn’t finish the game.

I did, however, play the game normally. I collected spells, tried to get Guardians when I could, leveled up a good amount, and finally got past disc 2! The issue lies in the overall complicated nature of FF8‘s systems. You no longer just buy weapons and armor and change them out when you get to the next town. Instead, you collect spell cards that are finite and they can be traded amongst other members. In theory, this sounds fine, but it’s hard to strategize a specific player role when everyone can use magic. Some argue that you can give certain spells to certain characters and break it all up the way you want, but this is flawed because if you don’t collect cards found throughout the world, or stolen from enemies, you don’t get to use any magic.

Weapons are only upgraded this time by using parts found on monsters, but a lot of these parts are hard to find and to upgrade to a new weapon, you must find a magazine to unlock the weapon. This just keeps piling up the frustration as it hinders progress. Characters also have Overdrives which are powerful unique moves, but some characters, like Rinoa and Quistis, can only acquire new ones but using certain items or finding magazines. FF8 heavily relies on exploration and patience, this is not a game you can just blow through the story mode like previous games. The Junction system also functions as a way to equip Guardians which are bosses found hidden throughout the world. I only found about half, as the other half requires exploring the overworld map and finding their hidden locations. Accompany this with insanely frequent random battles and you will spend 2/3 of your time in the game just battling.

If this doesn’t sound complicated enough there are hidden features not explained in the game such as being able to “Card Mod” only using Quezacotl’s ability. This allows players to turn found enemy cards into items that are then used to turn into weapons, but this is a very obscure out-of-the-way thing for such an important gameplay element. FF8 is riddled with things like this and it made learning the Junction system like learning math. It was boring, not fun, and incredibly frustrating, and just imagine as a kid there’s no way I would have understood any of it. Even after I finished the game I still felt I hadn’t quite grasped it all and I missed something.

Outside of the awful (or good) Junction system the rest of the game is standard Final Fantasy fair. Turn-based battles allow you to do various attacks, use items, and there’s an option for real-time battle or waiting. Players also need to make sure they equip actual functions for each player otherwise you can only attack. GF use, items, and magic are all optional attacks that you can choose, but you can only have 4 menus. Another irritating thing about the Junction system. You must sacrifice GF use if you want to use items and magic for example. FF8 is also standard with an awful overworld map. This map has no camera controls and is horribly designed. It’s a 3D map, but eventually, you get into a ship, then a car, then a giant flying ship to traverse faster. This is when you can explore more and find Guardians.

Let’s finally talk about the story and characters. FF8 has some of the most memorable characters with Seifer, Squall, Rinoa, Quistis, and Selphie just to name a few. They are all well-written and designed characters and I cared for them greatly throughout the entire game. There are long written dialog bubbles that go on for dozens of minutes sometimes, but the mix of pre-rendered cut scenes with real-time models on top is a trip even to this day. There are some imaginative scenes in this game, and it’s a shame it’s hindered by the disc space of the PS1. The story in itself is one of the most controversial in the series with no real ending being explained and it is open to fan theory. I won’t get into those, but after reading some theories online they made a lot of sense and it’s a good story to talk about long after finishing.

But, also like Final Fantasy games, it’s heavily unbalanced, with the final boss having four whole phases and requiring you to be an insane level towards the end that normal story progression won’t get you towards Even with boosters activated I still got stuck and was required to level up normally and the game could easily take 50+ hours just to finish properly. I can’t bash the game for this as there’s a huge audience for it, but it’s not for me. It’s one of the few things I won’t knock this game for is how much of a hardcore RPG it truly is. This is a game you must play exclusively for days or weeks and just grind out, and some people love this. The story is thankfully rewarding enough, and after finishing a tough boss the satisfaction is exemplary.

Overall, FF8 is a strange game indeed. With an awful or good, Junction system that changes everything you know about the game, but one thing can’t be denied, it’s too complicated. The game looks fantastic with amazing pre-rendered scenes, great enemy design, a superb music score, and classic gameplay. For me, there’s just too much that keeps it from being fun outside of the story. I often gave up on this game for years, and even with boosters, the game is still a grind fest. However, if you like those things, then you will love this game. When it comes to the remastered part of the game it disappoints. The game suffers the same issues as the Final Fantasy IX Remaster with updated character models on upscaled original backgrounds. It’s lazy remaster with only new music and some boosts added. There’s no widescreen support or anything else.

Rogue Trooper Redux

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 07/07/2019

Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Unknown, Steam Deck Verification, Switch, Xbox One. Tagged: eidos, hd, rebellion, redux, remaster, rogue trooper, square enix. Leave a comment

Publisher: Sold Out

Developer: Rebellion

Release Date: 10/17/2017

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When playing Rogue Trooper I kept asking myself “Why?” to everything. Why is there no plot? Why was this game even considered good enough to remaster? Why did this game exist in the first place? It’s not all bad, definitely playable, and has some challenging gameplay, but it could have been so much more, right? Well, meet Rebellion! Famous for some of the most mediocre games in the early to mid-2000s that weren’t horrible, but barely passable and very forgettable. I played the original on PC back in 2009 and it wasn’t all that great back then either.

You play as a GI named Rogue (how original) who is a blue alien dude stuck in the middle of a war with a race called the Norts. There’s your story, have a nice day! I’m not kidding at all. This game has more plot holes than a screen door and it boggles my mind as to why they even bothered. These GIs are immune to every poison known to exist, okay…but why? Then there is a single poison that was found to work and the Norts want to mass-produce it to wipe out the GIs, again, why? There are no answers just lines of dialog that need a lot of backstories to explain what is even going on. The characters are paper-thin, don’t have much screen time, and the voice acting is atrocious. So the only reason to play Rogue Trooper is for the shooting and that’s average at best.

Rogue has a gun that is “smart” as well as his backpack and helmet. He installs chips that are cut out from dead comrades and it gives his equipment an AI. That’s a pretty neat idea and it’s the only thing in this game that seemed to have been fully fleshed out. Rogue gathers salvage from dead bodies and piles and uses these to craft ammo, new weapons, and upgrades. You don’t pick up any ammo in the game as you can only craft it. You do have a pistol on hand that has infinite ammo in case you run out, but there’s a constant challenge of keeping your supply up and looting dead bodies. There are a few on-rails levels to mix things up, so the game isn’t boring ever, and the challenge is quite nice as standing out in the open for too long will get you dead and there’s a halfway decent cover system in place.

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Rogue can also equip a silencer to his machine gun and sniper rifle as well as use a decoy and attraction tool, but I never actually used these. The game even has a stealth mechanic in place, but after I got the silencer I didn’t bother sneaking around as sniper shots are one-hit kills. You can also place your Gunnar as a turret so it can cover doors that get unlocked, but again, this seemed like a wasted mechanic as the game isn’t quite sure if it wanted to be a tactical stealth game or a run-and-gun shooter. This game is a living breathing embodiment of early to mid-2000s third-person shooters and it hasn’t aged very well. Extremely linear level design, awkward animations, barely manageable aiming, and lots of on-rails and scripted events.

At least the game had a marginal graphics update and looks decent enough but you can still see the age of the game behind the shiny new surface. There’s also a multiplayer mode that is basically pointless since no one is playing this online, and never really did, and the entire game can be beaten in just 4 hours. There’s absolutely no reason to go back either. So I go back to my original question, why? Why should you play a dated 15-year-old game in 2019? Maybe to experience a type of shooter that was incredibly popular at the height of the PS2 era? Maybe you have curious memories of this game and want to relive them? The answer is, that you’re not missing out on anything if you skip this, and you don’t gain anything from playing it. Thankfully it’s dirt cheap, and I can only recommend this to the curious.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 07/02/2019

Posted in: Linux, Mac, Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Playable, Steam Deck Verification, Xbox One. Tagged: cyberpunk, deus ex, eidos, mankind divided, montreal, nixxes software, shooter, square enix, stealth, third person shooter, tps. Leave a comment

Publisher: Square EnixDeveloper: Nixxes Software/Eidos Montreal

Release Date: 08/23/2016

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Deus Ex is an old well-loved franchise and the reboot with Human Revolution was well received despite its many flaws. Mankind Divided is a direct sequel taking place right after the terrorist bombing from the end of the last game, and Adam Jensen is at it again trying to solve murder mysteries, stop more terrorists, and put an end to the hatred against augmented humans. Dealing with racism, discrimination, classism, and many other dystopian issues, Mankind Divided delivers an atmospheric world to explore with great characters.

The gameplay elements from Human Revolution carry over and feel more polished and nuanced, but this game has its own set of issues. Starting with exploration, Mankind Divided has small areas in Prague you can explore and complete side missions, and sadly that’s all. You can’t talk to 90% of the characters, and there are only a dozen side missions in the whole game. Prague just feels very cramped and small in scope and the Deus Ex franchise has enough lore and interesting things going on that it could be an open-world game. Despite the areas being full of NPCs, open buildings, police walking about, etc., it just feels so empty and lonely. The amount of interaction is so little and there’s no real point in exploring anything except to hack computers to read emails and find ebooks, but even these don’t really give a lot of insight into the surrounding world.

Once you get into a mission the combat is actually rather versatile. You can go completely stealth using silenced weapons and takedowns, or augment yourself for combat with powerful melee moves, more health, shields, and more. I went the hacker/stealth route upgrading all my hacking augs and bio cell meter for stealth shields and extra takedowns. Every area has multiple routes to get to the goal by either shooting through all the enemies, hacking your way around turrets, cameras, and security, or just taking everyone down one by one and sneaking through vents. It’s rather satisfying to find your own path and I rarely had issues in which I didn’t know how to get to a particular area. The shooting is rather satisfying as well, but sadly the game is designed to use very little of it. I never used anything outside of my silenced pistol despite holding on to 4 different weapons through the entire game. You can pick up grenades, software to help to hack, and various healing items, but I never really needed most of it.

Outside of shooting, cover mechanics, and various combat abilities, there’s nothing else to the game. The story and characters are interesting enough to keep you going, but it’s mostly forgettable. The overall terrorist plotline is done to death in other games, and I’d rather know more about the surrounding world and how the people live day to day in this dystopian police-state world. That interested me more than anything Adam and his cohorts were working on. I honestly enjoyed the side missions more than the main storyline which is odd for a video game in general. There are some persuasion dialog mini-games where you must sway a character in your favor, but it’s easy and the outcomes don’t really affect the overall story.

Thankfully, Mankind Divided is for both action fans and stealth fans despite the game being built for stealth gameplay. There are no bosses this time around and the game has a lot of technical issues. At launch, the game was nearly unplayable for most people, and now after many patches, the engine is incredibly unoptimized even two video card generations later, the engine struggles to stay at 60FPS with load times for menus even! MSAA is nearly impossible to enable with frames dipping into single digits, there’s a lot of chugging when turning the camera as well. On anything but the latest GPUs you’re not going to enjoy this game at all and it will murder your system. The game looks really good though with good lighting, high-res textures, and great character models.

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Overall, Mankind Divided expands on its predecessor, but not on the overall series. More interactive areas would have been great, bigger areas to explore and more side missions, and even more insight into the day-to-day lives of the citizens in Prague. With a terribly optimized engine, and the fun factor of combat and stealth varying from satisfying to incredibly frustrating within minutes of each other, Deus Ex just needs a reboot before coming back. The story is enough to keep you moving along, but it’s nothing memorable.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 09/27/2018

Posted in: Linux, Mac, Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Playable, Steam Deck Verification, Xbox One. Tagged: action, adventure, crystal dynamics, lara croft, shadow of the tomb raider, square enix, tomb raider. Leave a comment

Publisher: Square Enix

Developer: Eidos Montreal

Release Date: 09/12/2018

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Lara Croft’s adventure since 2013 has been amazing. The reboot was one of the best in the game industry in the last decade and it turned a sexy heroine full of corny stories and janky gameplay into an open-world complex trilogy. Shadow of the Tomb Raider continues Lara’s saga against Trinity and Doctor Dominguez trying to basically destroy the world.

The game opens up with an epic prologue just like the last two games and we see how hardened Lara has become since the last game. The entire game is about Lara and Jonah trying to find something called The Box which is a Mayan object that can stop the world from ending. It’s a little more complicated than that, but the story is much better than Rise’s story. At least we get more glimpses of Lara’s past and some advancements in her character like we saw in the first game.

However, I feel the story is a little more unbelievable than the first game. Instead of just trying to survive and escape an island, she’s doing some crazy Hollywood stunts that are totally unbelievable like running along with debris in a flood. It made me shake my head, but I kept pushing on as it was exciting but felt like a total departure from the first game’s atmosphere and ideas. The world also isn’t large and open like the last two games. Instead, it’s broken up into smaller parts that can be fast traveled to with the largest part being Paititi city which is a pain to navigate, to be honest. I didn’t like this change very much and as I played through the first third of the game I was waiting for it to open up into the big open world like the last two games, it just felt more cramped, and claustrophobic. I also got bored exploring some of these areas trying to find all the secrets. It’s just not as exciting or varied as the last games.

That’s not to say the world here is bad. The new jungle theme is a nice departure and feels organic, is highly detailed, and features some new combat ideas. Lara is in full commando mode as she can cover herself in mud, hide in trees and vines along walls and take people down. She looks badass doing it and the combat is much more refined here, but some of the other ideas from the last games almost feel pointless here. All of her upgrades and crafting don’t really fit in here much as the game’s focus isn’t so much on survival. There are various upgrades for different ammo types, longer breathing, and not having to press the action button she does long jumps. Some upgrades are repeats, and I never used any of the special ammo as there isn’t as much combat in this game as the previous two, it’s mostly restricted to the story missions. You can craft outfit pieces that grant different passive abilities, but again, these felt pointless as there isn’t much combat in the game and it’s highly focused on stealth.

The story itself is quite a shortcoming at about 4-5 hours if you skip all the side stuff. It also didn’t feel as epic or as impactful as the last two games. While Rise’s written story was pretty bland it had some great gameplay set-pieces throughout the entire story and this game only has a few. I don’t want to bash on the game making it sound awful, but it’s just trying to evolve while towing stuff from the first game with it and it feels like extra baggage. I really enjoyed Shadow and wanted to get all the side stuff and had fun solving the puzzles and climbing around the gorgeous areas, but it just didn’t have as big of an impact on me as the first game did. I loved seeing Lara again as her character is fantastic, but it’s all more of the same and feels very safe.

As it stands, Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a safe sequel that’s shorter and tries to cut corners and do less while dragging to gameplay ideas for a larger-than-life world with it that just doesn’t fit in. The combat has been greatly improved, but there isn’t much of it, the story is short despite being a better story than the last game, and the large open world is basically gone. What we get is a mix of the last two games with some new ideas here for a new game. It’s a culmination of the best that all three had to offer but just not enough of it. The graphics are out of the world amazing with beautiful animations and voice work, but it’s just not enough to make it the king of the action-adventure genre again.

Final Fantasy XV

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/30/2017

Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Xbox One. Tagged: 15, final fantasy, square enix, xv. Leave a comment

Publisher: Square Enix

Developer: Square Enix

Release Date: 11/29/2016

Also Available On

The JRPG genre, in general, is probably the stalest of them all. I understand the Japanese market is a lot different than ours, but the Western audience is always looking for something new and always interested in change. Final Fantasy is one of the most popular and highest-grossing video game franchises of all time, so it’s no wonder that Square Enix finally took the leap and made drastic changes to the series before they lose all their fans and can’t gain new ones. Final Fantasy XV takes a huge step forward and leans more towards Western RPGs such as Skyrim, Fallout, Mass Effect, and Fable.

The first thing you will notice is the game is a mostly open world. The area of Lucis is huge and wide and expansive and can take over 15 minutes to travel from one end to another by car, probably over 30 on foot. But let’s back up a bit and talk about the story. The game has quite an interesting story albeit straightforward and not as expansive or in-depth as other games in the series. You play as a team of four lifelong friends who are trying to stop an immortal from destroying the last remnants of Prince Noctis’ kingdom. You play as Noctis and your other three companions, Prompto, Ignis, and Gladiolus, are all fighters in their prime. The story goes from very subtle pieces broken off to an unbalanced acceleration of linearity and difficulty.

I can’t give away more of the story or I would spoil it, so let’s get into combat. The game is not turn-based like previous games and not even like Final Fantasy XII. The game is completely open combat and if you want to run away from a battle you just leave the red area on your mini-map. Noctis locks onto an enemy and uses a button combined with analog stick movements to slice and dice. You can equip up to four weapons including magic (yes it’s equippable and you have to craft it) so it’s very diverse compared to turn-based combat. The other three can use special moves when your meter goes up that can do devastating damage. Noctis can also warp to a point and hang there to recover MP and HP to take a breather. The combat is quite in-depth and fun to use, but the camera is just plain awful and without locking on you won’t be able to hit anything. The camera swings around and gets stuck everywhere forcing you to blindly fight enemies off-camera sometimes.

The game starts you out on a tight leash but slowly lets you out into the world. The biggest disappointment about this game is that this huge and beautiful world is wasted on just side quests. While these side quests are addictive and I spent more time with those than the main story, I still wish there was more to do and see. The only other activities are fetching items on the world map like ingredients for cooking, and treasures, and that’s about it. You don’t even get achievements for these which make it less worth doing. You wind up with plenty of ingredients and items just from combat alone so wasting time driving around this big world to do these mundane tasks is unnecessary. I wasted a good three hours, in the beginning, doing this only to realize that the items respawn so it’s pointless. The treasures are no more than consumable items and rare weapons that you can easily buy at a store.

So what we have here is a huge open world for side quests and the main story funneling us from the open world to a linear scripted second half of a game that feels more repetitive than fetching useless items. Now that may sound harsh, but the game’s dialogue, story, and characters make it worth going through all this. Like most other Final Fantasy games there is a level-up and skill progression system, but this time it is two-fold. Each character has a set skill such as Prompto taking photos throughout your trip. This is a great feature as when you rest you can just pick what photos you want from what he took. As he levels up he learns new filters and it’s a lot of fun. Gladio will increase his survival skills increase item drop, Noctis can fish for ingredients, and Ignis will learn new recipes. Some may not care at all about this, but it’s optional for sure. The second progression system is a node-type layout similar to Final Fantasy X where you use AP to unlock skills ranging from combat, teamwork, Arbiter skills (basically an ultra move), and so forth. It takes forever to unlock all of these and even with 50 hours of gameplay put in I still didn’t acquire them all.

Once you get the hang of the entire game and get combat under your belt you will blow through side quests, acquire items in the game, and finish the story. The story can’t be beaten without completing most sidequests and you need to be at least level 40 before getting to the end. The strongest enemies in the game are the daemons which come out at night, and you can’t even start tackling them until your level 30. Driving the Regalia around at night isn’t safe and Ignis will always suggest you rest and not travel at night. So if you need to be level 40 before getting to the end are the side quests really optional? They are fun and allow you to see the entire game as this is a gorgeous world that Square Enix has built.

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The visuals in the game are amazing and the character models look great. This game supports HDR and it looks gorgeous on a 4K TV, but there are some ugly bits such as texture issues and NPCs aren’t as detailed as the main characters. While Final Fantasy XV is far from perfect it’s also far from bad. If the camera was fixed in combat, there was more to do in this open world, and the story didn’t spiral into a linear unbalanced mess, it could be the best FF game ever made. As it is, though, you will have to forgive the game’s shortcomings and learn to appreciate how far the series has come in 25 years.

Side Note: I’m surprised this went by completely unnoticed by most people, but this is the first Final Fantasy game to appear on an Xbox console since Final Fantasy XI for Xbox 360!

Lara Croft GO

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/17/2016

Posted in: Android, Editor's Choice, iOS, Linux, Mac, Mobile Reviews, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Unknown, Steam Deck Verification. Tagged: android, go, iOS, lara croft, puzzle, square enix. Leave a comment

Publisher: Square Enix

Developer: Square Enix Montreal

Release Date: 8/27/2015

Also Available On

Lara Croft has made a huge comeback thanks to 2013’s Tomb Raider reboot. With her spin-off top-down series, Lara was bound to find her way onto the mobile market. Feeding off the success of Hitman GO, Square Enix takes another popular franchise and ups the ante on the GO series. With fantastically designed puzzles, great graphics, and easy controls, Lara Croft GO is the best mobile game released this year.

If you played Hitman GO you will be in familiar territory. The levels are comprised of squares that Lara moves along, these squares have dots on them so you know which ones you can land on. There are various puzzles that will make you really think before advancing to the next level. From pulling switches, avoiding enemies, killing enemies, moving platforms, moving stone pillars, and various other gameplay tidbits. It’s not just as easy as pulling this switch over here and that switch and be done. Enemies play a huge role in this game and movement is key here. Every time Lara moves a space so does an enemy. You must line up your moves to avoid the enemy or go around them. The puzzles are brilliantly laid out here and will constantly keep you in check.

The game also felt progressively balanced in difficulty. I started off clearing levels quickly and then slowly had to start thinking. Once I thought I had mastered certain gameplay elements another was thrown at me and made me think all over again. I can’t stress enough how well these puzzles are designed; they feel like they were made with care and delicate thought in each and every square. In between solving puzzles there are hidden vases throughout the level that hold gems that will unlock outfits for Lara if all are found in the level.

Lara-Croft-GO-Bomber-Jacket-Windows-10-screenshot

The game is also quite a decent length. It took me a good two weeks to finish the game and there is replay value here. Throughout the whole game, I never felt like it was impossible or too hard. It was always something that stared me right in the face and when I figured out the puzzles slowly I had a lot of “Aha!” moments which are so satisfying. Some puzzles I really had to work on and some were quite easy, but the easy ones in-between keep it from getting too frustrating.

The graphics in Lara Croft GO are beautiful papercraft models with great lighting effects and high-quality textures. This is a high-end mobile game at its finest and I firmly believe every Tomb Raider or puzzle fan must own this. I hope to see more games in the GO series as they are addictive and so wonderfully crafted. This is a hidden gem and an oasis among awful and ugly free-to-play games.

Final Fantasy X HD Remaster

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 04/27/2014

Posted in: Editor's Choice, Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Playable, Steam Deck Verification, Switch, Xbox One. Tagged: ffx, final fantasy x, jrpg, playstation, ps2, ps3, psvita, rpg, Sony, square enix, vita. Leave a comment

Publisher: Square Enix

Developer: Square Enix

Release Date: 3/18/2014

Also Available On

Final Fantasy X was a game in the series that really shifted things around. It broke some common JRPG rules and was a bit all over the place. This was the first JRPG I had ever beaten as a kid and was the first Final Fantasy I ever finished. I have a lot of fond memories of this game and the HD Remaster brought a lot of those back.

The core game hasn’t really been touched, but US gamers will finally get a taste of the tougher International version which adds an expert sphere grid, and Dark Aeons which are the toughest enemies in the game (some have millions of HP). Outside of the game, the game is still the same with great characters that are memorable and beautiful locales. The story is a bit confusing at first but very original – if not very deep. You play as Tidus who is a young man sent forward in time hundreds of years into the future. His original home is now a sacred ruin and a giant being called Sin is destroying humanity. Every 10 years this Sin comes back and the Calm ends. Another summoner must go on a pilgrimage to gather all the Aeons and takedown Sin for another 10-year Calm. Your goal is to put a stop to this cycle. You gather your crew along the way to level up and put an end to all this nonsense.

Before you jump into this game you must have a mindset from when the PS2 first launched. This game was fantastic back in the day and still holds up well. Most JRPG gamers will be thrown off by the Sphere Grid. There is no traditional leveling up where you gain levels. Instead, you acquire AP and get sphere points which allow you to freely upgrade various attributes and skills for each character. The expert sphere grid allows you to use keys to go off your path and learn other abilities from other characters. This is a lot of fun and gives you total freedom over your character.

Outside of the sphere grid is the obvious combat. Yes, there are random battles and some areas are so bad that you hit one every 2-3 seconds; literally. A max of three characters can battle at once with the freedom to swap out. It’s the usual JRPG turn-based battle system but there are overdrives that are crucial to winning boss fights. Characters learn new drives as they battle. Aeons are also essential but only Yuna can send them in. They are large heavy hitters that will take away massive damage and can also be overdriven which is probably the #1 technique to winning tougher boss fights. Like any other JRPG learning enemies’ weaknesses and battling with magic is a must. Some bosses nearly turn into puzzles where you must cast Reflect on them so their healing spell bounces off of them onto you. Some bosses will cast status ailments that can cripple your entire party. If you don’t grind a bit and stay ahead of the game you will struggle.

Outside of battle, there are the Cloister of Trials which are a huge pain and aren’t fun at all. These are puzzles in which you place various spheres to unlock doors. Another huge pain is the Blitzball mini-game. This isn’t fun at all and requires math to actually play. It’s stiff, shallow, and just plain boring. I hated it as a kid and I hate it even now that I know math better. It’s all nearly luck-based and is a roll of the dice. You have almost no control over characters.

FFX is also full of pre-final boss content but there are a lot of requirements to get this stuff. Ultimate weapons are a must-have to do more than the 9,999 HP damage limit. However, they require you to be in certain areas, acquire certain other items, or even get through harder areas that require getting through other areas just to get to that area. Sounds confusing? It is. I spent a good 15 hours just trying to figure all this out and could get only one optional Aeon (Yojimbo). Anima is another optional Aeon but requires getting through a tough boss with the 3 weakest characters (Tidus, Rikku, and Wakka) and then getting all the destruction spheres in every Trial. It’s a huge pain and requires a lot of running around and backtracking and can make you frustrated. You can also monster hunt but this requires training a Chocobo (which is tough as nails to get through) and then capturing the toughest monsters in the game easily requires Ultimate weapons which require more backtracking. It’s a frustrating mess but also somehow extremely satisfying once you do it.

With the main game out of the way let’s talk about visuals. The HD upgrade isn’t exactly what you think. Most of the game has been remodeled and all the main characters are completely redone, however, many monsters and NPCs just had a few passes of texture filtering and that’s it. It really looks ugly in spots but isn’t so bad if you’ve played the game before. I just wish the Japanese voice track was on here since the English voice acting is so terrible and embarrassing to listen to.

Note: Shame on you James Arnold Taylor for your terrible voice acting of Tidus. You’ve done better! Like Ratchet from Ratchet & Clank, Gabriel Logan from the PSP Syphon Filters, even Marty McFly on the Back to the Future adventure games!

Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/26/2014

Posted in: 3DS, Nintendo Consoles. Tagged: 3ds, final fantasy, Nintendo, rhythm, square enix, theatrhythm. Leave a comment

Publisher: Square Enix

Developer: Indies Zero

Release Date: 7/3/2012

Available Exclusively On

Final Fantasy has had some strange offshoots like Chocobo Racing, Kingdom Hearts, and the TBS Tactics. A rhythm game is probably the only genre Final Fantasy hasn’t touched and it’s one that the game belongs in. Final Fantasy is full of some of the best video game music ever created. While later titles aren’t exactly up to par, there are plenty of songs here that fans will love across all 13 core titles.

The basic gameplay is broken up into 3 stages that are randomized. BMS is Battle Music Stage. Usually, one song from each game is picked that was used in a battle, usually a major boss fight. Your four characters stand in front of bars similar to a horizontal Guitar Hero. The entire game consists of only 3 tap types. Hold, tap, and slide. The speed and combination of these 3 can make things really difficult on the Ultra mode but the standard model is just way too easy even for beginners. EMS or Event Music Stage is a song picked during some sort of popular or well-known cutscene and the said scene plays in the background to the music. It’s great seeing Rinoa and Squall waltz in Final Fantasy VIII or watching Aerith’s death scene in Final Fantasy VII. The game is mixed up a bit where the ring you tap flies around the screen as you follow it to complete the required taps. The final stage, FMS or Field Music Stage, has your leader character walking down a re-rendered field from each game collecting chests and the field music from each game accompanies it. This stage consists of one bar that you can move up and down to follow waves. There’s a third boring stage where you tap a crystal in the center of the screen as bubbles fly into it, these are for the opening and ending themes in the main mode which are as boring as ever.

This may sound simple, but the other half is leveling up your cute chibi FF characters and equipping items and weapons to last through the harder difficulties. Characters with higher HP won’t die as easy (meaning you can mess up more) and this includes their armor (they won’t take as much damage when you do mess up). Characters with higher luck infield stages will find more items. This is a unique twist on the rhythm genre and helps push it forward in a way that’s never really been done. Thanks to the many extras such as fully rendered trading cards and DLC there’s a lot to be had in this package. If you like the lesser-known songs in these games the Dark Notes mode will help you here. You can acquire new songs vita StreetPass or battling friends in multiplayer for the highest score. These are all set to the hardest difficulty so practice is needed.

With such a content-heavy rhythm game it begs the question as to who this title is for. Rhythm game fans will appreciate the mechanics and use of the touchscreen, but may not care for the orchestra and chiptune heavy music. Final Fantasy nuts may love this game but not really like the fast-paced rhythm action. It’s something that can appeal to anyone who even hates RPGs, but the Final Fantasy only music may turn Rock Band and Guitar Hero fans away. Despite who this game is made for, whoever picks it up will enjoy a simple yet rich game full of detail, content, and attention to detail that hasn’t been seen since the earlier days of Final Fantasy.

Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII – 7 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 08/22/2013

Posted in: PlayStation 2, Sony. Tagged: dirge of cerberus, ff7, final fantasy vii, playstation, ps2, shooter, Sony, square enix, vincent valentine. Leave a comment

Publisher: Square Enix

Developer: Square Enix

Release Date: 8/15/2006

Available Exclusively On

This is one of those games that Final Fantasy fans don’t want to admit they played. It got a lot of hype when it came out because it was a shooter set in the FF universe, that’s very odd and abstract from the typical JRPG formula. Many people didn’t have high hopes for it since Japanese gamers don’t really play shooters, but I passed it up due to the flack and poor reviews it got. It came out at the tail end of the PS2 life cycle and was overlooked by the hype of the next generation and many other games coming out. This was one of the projects for the Final Fantasy VII extension. This game tells the story of Vincent Valentine and how he came to be and delves deeper into his relationship with Lucrecia, the FF7 team, Hojo, and a few other characters. Honestly, the story is very confusing unless you have played FF7 already, in fact, all the FF7 projects make no sense unless you have played the PS1 classic. I never played it as a kid so the story made no sense. Even if I had, it’s pretty dry and dull and uninteresting until the very end. Vincent doesn’t really say too much and the story is poorly edited and feels chopped up and mixed around.

The action is at least halfway decent and pretty fun. You get three different guns in the whole game, a pistol, machine gun, and sniper rifle. You can customize these weapons with different barrels, materia for magic, and various other effects. It’s nice to see this in an FF game, but the customization feels very limited due to the limited gun types. As a Final Fantasy game, you can use various potions, limit breakers, and phoenix downs which revive you when you die. The game has the Final Fantasy vibe all around it, but the action part is lacking greatly. It feels fast-paced and snappy, but the game is linear to a fault and offers almost no challenge. I blew through boss after boss without even dying or losing much health. Once you level your weapon parts up enough you are unstoppable early on. You chew through enemies like candy and there is just a huge lack of challenge. There are a few turret sections, and a couple of cinematic on-rails segments, and that’s about it. 90% is running around the same bland environments shooting the same bland enemies for 6 hours.

There is some melee combat thrown in, but it’s very weak. Just a quick 3-hit combo, but when you are in beast form you are more powerful using melee attacks. There are items scattered all over the place and hidden items for extra endings and whatnot. It’s the same dated shooter stuff with keycards to open gates, button pressing, and other dated shooting mechanics. The game is only fun because the environments change up a lot, but they are still bland no matter what. The enemies repeat often and this really weakens the game. The hallways can be so small that they are the width of Vincent himself which just feels restricting. On top of all that, the game is just poorly balanced. I stuck with the pistol through the whole game because switching up weapons isn’t really necessary because the game is so easy. The final level is really awesome because Vincent is in Chaos form and you are mega-powerful, but it’s all a ruse to JRPG players who aren’t veterans of shooters. You can tell this game was geared toward casual players and really just FF fans. The confusing story is evidence of that.

Overall, Dirge of Cerberus is a fun weekend rental but nothing more. Non-Final Fantasy fans won’t really care for this because there are much better shooters on the PS2 that offer more depth and better stories. Final Fantasy players won’t really like it because it’s too action-heavy and gives a false sense as to how shooters really play out. It tries to run a middle ground and veers off constantly with no real direction. A few months of polish would have done this game some good. It’s a nice departure from the series and an interesting side project. It doesn’t really fail but rides on the borderline of being a bad shooter.