I would like to get a review on "Indigo Prophecy."
I don't know exactly how it did in sales, but it was a very good game in my opinion.
Very original and unlike any other game I've played.
It was short though.
The game was made in mind to be similar to a movie experience and it kind of was.
He's making another game, but it's totally separate from "Indigo Prophecy" but it's suppose to be similar in gameplay in some way.
It's going to be for the PS3.
anata wa wakarimasu ka.....
FINAL FANTASY X
Well, here we are!
It was been nearly 14 months since I reviewed Final Fantasy IX and vowed to go onto Final Fantasy X as soon as possible. Now various barriers in my way of doing that- mostly technology related - have passed, I stumped up the cash to buy X (and its sequel, more on that another time) and recently finished a rather exhaustive play through the whole thing, and I can now deliver on my promise. Warning- mucho spoilers ahead!
Few games split fandom more than Final Fantasy games. With Zelda, there is not normally much debate from the fans on whether the games are any good, the arguments are all about which one is the best game of all time. Final Fantasy Fans (Final Fans?) are rather more hardcore- the debate is about which games are crap and which ones are Leonardo-equivalent masterpieces. Even discounting the spin-off games, it is impossible to find any consensus about which are good and which are rubbish. There is a slight bias towards FFVIII being not so good, but even that is not universal. Asking around, I have been told that each of VII ,VIII, IX and X are both best and worst; with older games, throw in IV, V and VI as well.
This is good, because I can wade in and review and know that no matter what opinion I express it will be cherished by some and have me excommunicated by others. If it’s going to be equally bad no matter how I do it, there need be no fear of bias. Not that that kind of thing ever normally stops me from risking the wrath of many when I review things, but I would hate for people to think I did that just for the sake of it. Here, I couldn’t avoid it if I tried.
Ok, let’s get to grip with things. You do, of course, know what FF is. Still, let’s cater for those whose acquaintance may only be casual. It’s an RP game- in theory not dissimilar to KOTOR that I review at the start of this thread. Big difference is that you never play a blank cipher; all the characters have pre-defined personalities. In some FFs you focus on one and you feel you are ‘playing’ that character but also commanding a supporting cast. In others there is no real focus on one and it is a true ensemble piece. But just the same as in most computer RP games, you go around collecting stuff, doing things, going up levels, becoming more powerful and what-not. I often fancy myself as a more cerebral (to many, read: dull) games player, and in the forums for my on-line game of choice, Myst Online, I heard FF kind of games described as follows:
“You go around hitting things with a stick, as a reward for which you get a bigger stick to hit bigger monsters with, until you use the biggest stick to hit the biggest monster and it all ends.”
Which is fair, but the sentiment behind the statement isn’t. After all, in Half-Life you just shoot things and in Civilisation you just shuffle resources around to get the highest number. Fact is, strip down most games and you will find a very basic and repetitive formula. Few games leave that unclothed (Tetris is the best example of one that does not), and half the point of games these days is how well presented and engaging they make such an experience. This area of presentation is something that Final Fantasy and Zelda alike have always been very, very good at.
Also, as RPs go, whilst FF games have levels (or some equivalent) and stats and hit points or what-not, the amount of control you have over the storyline is almost nil- there are normally some token things to affect, or one or two bonus endings to unlock, but generally you are playing through a script, beating things up along the way. There is nothing like the level of complicated and changeable character interaction as in KOTOR (and, to be more similar to FF, the more recent Neverwinter Nights 2) or any of the major plot changes possible in such games. This puts the title ‘role-playing’ into some dispute. Computer RPs have always used that term hazily compared to pen and paper games; Final Fantasy has stretched the definition to breaking point as you barely play a role at all. I think more than anything else, Final Fantasy games these days- since VII, really- are better off being known as interactive stories. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is well to know what you are getting, if you want one, and there are lots of people that dislike FF for being all style and no substance.
Enough of FF in general. Very few FF games have any similarity in plot or setting except for a few token creature types and names for characters and spells. The theme is the thing; a setting is completely re-invented for each game and then generally disposed of by the end, which if nothing else allows for the most sweeping plot changes, though I think VI went the furthest, pretty much destroying the world midway through. Of the last few games I reviewed, VII’s plot was solid, with a decent bad guy, but rather preachy. VIII started well but then lost focus and later became almost entirely nonsensical and incomprehensible; unfinished, even, and with almost no identifiable bad guy at all. IX kept forgetting earlier details but was a reasonable Disney-style plot. X’s plot… I think has to be called the most ambitious yet. I think they tripped over themselves a few times, but I’ll say right from the start, it is MUCH better than VIIIs.
This is a single-character focussed game; only for one tiny portion of the game are you without the first introduced character and indeed, the game revolves around it being ‘his’ story, a line spoken many times. The man in question is named Tidus, and much as there is a vast setting around him, the game is about a bunch of stuff that happens to him and his friends he makes during the game.
Tidus lives in a city called Zanarkand, a modern industrial job. One of the slight plot flaws I shall come onto later involves Zanarkand being a city with no context- we don’t know what world Tidus (thinks he) is from, or even, really, what manner of world it is. Tidus is the star player of the Zanarkand Abes, a Blitzball team, Blitzball being a cross between football and water polo that there is a fair amount of game focus on. Whilst a star player, Tidus has long struggled to get out of the shadow of his more famous father, also once a famed player, but who mysteriously disappeared ten years ago. As befits a star mentality, Tidus is brash, arrogant, a little spoiled, and permanently feeling the need to prove himself. That last quality is going to be needed soon, as in the middle of a blitzball game the entire city is attacked by a vast creature that rises out of the waves and proceeds to lay waste to the whole place. Tidus is helped out of the disaster by a man named Auron, a man who has been helping to raise Tidus since his father disappeared. Auron is hacking his way out of the many creatures attacking the city with a big sword; he gives one to Tidus too, and very early in the game we are into fights as the two try to escape the calamity.
Auron is your bang-on-the-money cool stylish man of mystery, with deadpan voice, many secrets, cool dress and scars, and killer sword. But he’s not in the start of the game long, for when the large creature-0 which Auron identifies as ‘Sin’- sucks large parts of the city up, Auron actually propels Tidus into the sucking-effect, and the next thing Tidus knows he comes to in an abandoned old building he has never seen before, under attack by more monsters. You cannot fault the plot for being too slow off the ground, as soon Tidus is rescued/enslaved by a bunch of salvage operators on a boat who don’t speak English except for their female leader and who put him to work helping them find stuff under the water. No rest for Tidus there either; when the big sin creature attacks again, Tidus is swept overboard and comes to on a beach on a rather pretty island. The island is named Besaid and here things finally settle down so that Tidus can take stock of things. On the beach, Tidus is soon befriended by a blitzball player named Wakka, who has no idea who Tidus is but is an open and trusting guy and assumed Tidus has memory problems due to being near Sin, as is apparently an issue.
At Besaid, much of the plot comes into place. The female on the boat- named Rikku- explained some things to Tidus but there is a lot of exposition to give out here, a lot for players to take in. it is evident that Tidus is not in the world he remembers; there IS a Zanarkand but it was destroyed 1000 years ago, though blitzball is still played; Sin is well known in the world as a great evil and even mentioning he is from Zanarkand is heresy against the religion that the world is run by.
Half the plot is about Tidus trying to work out what happened- this is a good way to introduce a new setting to the player of the game, of course, and a better use than the old fashioned “you have amnesia” plot (KOTOR- guilty). The other half is about the struggle to defeat Sin, who keeps totalling people and things, even entire towns. Sin is combated by Summoners, people who can summon mighty beings known as Aeons (Espers or Guardian Forces, to earlier FF players). They gain their Aeons on their pilgrimage around the world, praying at Temples and gaining an Aeon from each. The pilgrimage is highly dangerous and so each Summoner is protected by several Guardians. If a Summoner is truly successful, he or she will end the pilgrimage at the ruins of Zanarkand, where they can obtain the ‘final Aeon’ which will defeat Sin- though only for about ten years, a period of time called ‘The Calm’. Although not fully revealed until later in the game, it is often hinted that the Summoner dies in the process, hence all the rights they get whilst on a pilgrimage.