Owentypebeat
44 reviews liked by Owentypebeat
Final Fantasy VI
1994
Just wanna let ppl kno that I ain't proof read this shit, i just got bored and wanted to write sumn about Final Fantasy 6.
The game is pretty ok I think.
In like 2020, I finished Final Fantasy 7 and I was like "Wow this game is really THAT good!". My knowledge of Final Fantasy before FF7 was that there are a shit ton of games + me dropping FF13 when I was like 12. I deadass didn't know anything about Final Fantasy 6 until I downloaded a random emulator and ran it up. Yes, not even the elitist discourse surrounding the game lmao. When I saw the intro scene, I was immediately locked in.
I am a big sucker for pixel art and FF6 displays the beauty of it to its very core. I was like "damn they really put they entire meat into this game". Little did I know that was basically the philosophy of how the game came to be. A giant effort for Square's last Nintendo FF game.
Not even just the art, the MUSIC? Oh my god, some of the best shit I've ever heard. I think its corny but I really do understand the comparisons of the music essentially being the equivalent of "Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel with crayons". No amount of covers, remasters. or rearrangements will beat out the OG SNES soundtrack for me cause of this alone.
The gameplay is turn based greatness at it's finest. I really love the esper system and how you can essentially build up anyone to use magic. Despite how cool the esper system is, I gotta admit it's flaws. Summons in this game are either useless at worst or kinda good/situational at best. Does not really help them fuckers have a 1 time use. Another thing, despite how fun the game is, it is admitely pretty easy, even without grinding because magic is THAT broken. Having characters have their own identity and battle gimmick is cool but "Me when I spam Ultima and win". Even physical built characters are better off learning magic, which kind of sucks but not to the point where it ruins the game for me. It's pretty straightforward even without it I would say. Speaking of characters, I GOTTA mention the gang of 14 bozos you play as.
FOURTEEN NIGGA? I was expecting like 6, maybe 7. When I found out how FF6 handles its story by incorporating a large cast of characters, I was overjoyed. There was a game I played in recent memory that I overall enjoyed, but was dissapointted due to how weak the story overall was and that game was Octopath Traveler 1. Idk why they made a game with 8 characters and they decided to make 3 of them interesting and basically none of them connect to the central plot in any way. Final Fantasy 6 was my answer to a cool RPG that handles multiple playable characters. Sure some characters in the story definitely get way less than others (Strago, Relm, one or two more characters arguably) and one kind of does not really matter (I still love you Gau), I think the fact that the cast comes together in multiple ways throughout the story is empowering to me, especially with the 2nd half of the game.
The story is something I never really experienced before. I was 15-16 when I played it initially and that game exposed me to things I never thought a game in the damn 1990s would ever show. Niggas bought games back then and expected to beat them in like 8-12 hours, mot a 30+ hour epic. The conflict with the empire and the dystopian regime the world is under, the motivations that give our little pixelated heroes life in the 2nd half of the game, the opera scene, oh man the opera scene. I was NOT expecting to see anything like that in a SNES game, just like how I wasn't expecting to see anything like "the" celes scene in the 2nd half of the game. Looking back after playing every final fantasy game (except 12, soon...), this is still my favorite scene in the game because I've genuinely felt the same way in life without going too much into detail. I never thought I would see a lot of things in FF6, and this probably was the biggest thing. Emotions were high and the musical leitmotif of her theme in the background definitely didn't help me from NOT tearing up, but it did help me personally.
It was a surprise, a surprise out of nowhere from a game that I had very minor expectations of that there always is hope in the absolute worst of the world. It's corny, its generic, but I genuinely was touched by how scenes like this as well as other scenes in the darker half of the game display hope, display love, display life. It feels like the game always reminds me of these things....because I can't stop playing it. Hell, I couldn't stop playing it then, and I sure as hell can't now.
I am really shit at sitting down and playing games, especially when I am 21, broke, and stupid. I would say overall, I am NOT a critical person, but it takes a decent bit for a game to make me sit down with it for multiple hours and FF6 is one of a handful of games that won me over. When was the last time you sat your ass down and played a game for hours, slept and thought to yourself "Damn I can't wait to play <insert mid here> tomorrow"? Because that feeling is the best and FF6 was so good upon my first playthrough, I just felt this way after every session. Beat that game in like a WEEK. Matter of fact, FF6 is so good that I just....keep replaying it. Every year or so, I just pop it in and play it start to finish. It's like therapy for weird niggas cause that shit is usually too expensive. But I genuinely feel empowered playing it and I doubt that will ever change.
TL:DR
I could go on more about the story and the funny clown being an amazing. memorable, and nihilistic villain or the funny train Supplex or some shit, but Ill be honest I wrote this review purely out of BOREDOM. I AM BORED AS FUCK and I am kinda also bored of just passing off things I like/dislike/am mixed on as just "It was goated", "it was ASS", or "It's ok". Sometimes you're passionate about something and have to yap somewhere, so I chose to yap here. I don't give a fuck about objectivity or none of that shit, i just wanted to make a personal lil essay on why I think Final Fantasy 6 is an awesome game. Free thinker opinion I know, but who gives a fuck about what people think? I sure as hell don't
The game is pretty ok I think.
In like 2020, I finished Final Fantasy 7 and I was like "Wow this game is really THAT good!". My knowledge of Final Fantasy before FF7 was that there are a shit ton of games + me dropping FF13 when I was like 12. I deadass didn't know anything about Final Fantasy 6 until I downloaded a random emulator and ran it up. Yes, not even the elitist discourse surrounding the game lmao. When I saw the intro scene, I was immediately locked in.
I am a big sucker for pixel art and FF6 displays the beauty of it to its very core. I was like "damn they really put they entire meat into this game". Little did I know that was basically the philosophy of how the game came to be. A giant effort for Square's last Nintendo FF game.
Not even just the art, the MUSIC? Oh my god, some of the best shit I've ever heard. I think its corny but I really do understand the comparisons of the music essentially being the equivalent of "Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel with crayons". No amount of covers, remasters. or rearrangements will beat out the OG SNES soundtrack for me cause of this alone.
The gameplay is turn based greatness at it's finest. I really love the esper system and how you can essentially build up anyone to use magic. Despite how cool the esper system is, I gotta admit it's flaws. Summons in this game are either useless at worst or kinda good/situational at best. Does not really help them fuckers have a 1 time use. Another thing, despite how fun the game is, it is admitely pretty easy, even without grinding because magic is THAT broken. Having characters have their own identity and battle gimmick is cool but "Me when I spam Ultima and win". Even physical built characters are better off learning magic, which kind of sucks but not to the point where it ruins the game for me. It's pretty straightforward even without it I would say. Speaking of characters, I GOTTA mention the gang of 14 bozos you play as.
FOURTEEN NIGGA? I was expecting like 6, maybe 7. When I found out how FF6 handles its story by incorporating a large cast of characters, I was overjoyed. There was a game I played in recent memory that I overall enjoyed, but was dissapointted due to how weak the story overall was and that game was Octopath Traveler 1. Idk why they made a game with 8 characters and they decided to make 3 of them interesting and basically none of them connect to the central plot in any way. Final Fantasy 6 was my answer to a cool RPG that handles multiple playable characters. Sure some characters in the story definitely get way less than others (Strago, Relm, one or two more characters arguably) and one kind of does not really matter (I still love you Gau), I think the fact that the cast comes together in multiple ways throughout the story is empowering to me, especially with the 2nd half of the game.
The story is something I never really experienced before. I was 15-16 when I played it initially and that game exposed me to things I never thought a game in the damn 1990s would ever show. Niggas bought games back then and expected to beat them in like 8-12 hours, mot a 30+ hour epic. The conflict with the empire and the dystopian regime the world is under, the motivations that give our little pixelated heroes life in the 2nd half of the game, the opera scene, oh man the opera scene. I was NOT expecting to see anything like that in a SNES game, just like how I wasn't expecting to see anything like "the" celes scene in the 2nd half of the game. Looking back after playing every final fantasy game (except 12, soon...), this is still my favorite scene in the game because I've genuinely felt the same way in life without going too much into detail. I never thought I would see a lot of things in FF6, and this probably was the biggest thing. Emotions were high and the musical leitmotif of her theme in the background definitely didn't help me from NOT tearing up, but it did help me personally.
It was a surprise, a surprise out of nowhere from a game that I had very minor expectations of that there always is hope in the absolute worst of the world. It's corny, its generic, but I genuinely was touched by how scenes like this as well as other scenes in the darker half of the game display hope, display love, display life. It feels like the game always reminds me of these things....because I can't stop playing it. Hell, I couldn't stop playing it then, and I sure as hell can't now.
I am really shit at sitting down and playing games, especially when I am 21, broke, and stupid. I would say overall, I am NOT a critical person, but it takes a decent bit for a game to make me sit down with it for multiple hours and FF6 is one of a handful of games that won me over. When was the last time you sat your ass down and played a game for hours, slept and thought to yourself "Damn I can't wait to play <insert mid here> tomorrow"? Because that feeling is the best and FF6 was so good upon my first playthrough, I just felt this way after every session. Beat that game in like a WEEK. Matter of fact, FF6 is so good that I just....keep replaying it. Every year or so, I just pop it in and play it start to finish. It's like therapy for weird niggas cause that shit is usually too expensive. But I genuinely feel empowered playing it and I doubt that will ever change.
TL:DR
I could go on more about the story and the funny clown being an amazing. memorable, and nihilistic villain or the funny train Supplex or some shit, but Ill be honest I wrote this review purely out of BOREDOM. I AM BORED AS FUCK and I am kinda also bored of just passing off things I like/dislike/am mixed on as just "It was goated", "it was ASS", or "It's ok". Sometimes you're passionate about something and have to yap somewhere, so I chose to yap here. I don't give a fuck about objectivity or none of that shit, i just wanted to make a personal lil essay on why I think Final Fantasy 6 is an awesome game. Free thinker opinion I know, but who gives a fuck about what people think? I sure as hell don't
Final Fantasy VIII
1999
Came in expecting absolutely nothing considering how much of a bad rep this game has gameplay and story wise, and came out of it completely blown away by how good everything about it was. Had me in tears by the end. Much like SIGNALIS I will probably think about this game for the rest of my life.
The best way I can describe my feelings after rolling credits is that FF7 Rebirth is a game that wants to be the quintessential form of everything it takes from. A game that brazenly embraces the “good” and “bad” of everything it encompasses, even when the two are diametrically opposed to each other.
Rebirth is the quintessential AAA game of the last decade, featuring both the “good” (top of the line production values, the highest quality models for characters with incredible performances across both EN and JP casts, 400+ tracks with seamless transitions between world and battle themes, ambitious scope for world design in both size and complexity) and the “bad” (menial busywork to keep the player occupied between main story moments, map boils down to going to the objective and cleaning the icons out instead of genuine exploration, all game design trends meant to add artificial speedbreakers - slow walking, climbing on yellow ledges, squeezethroughs etc., animation locking preventing you from doing things faster than you should like healing from the command menu).
It is also the quintessential nomura game, even though he had a different role this time round his footprint is clearly felt. Whether it be the earnestness of the character interactions with their idiosyncratic quirks and the distinct rhythm of conversations, or the inherent multiplicity of narrative design - where anything and everything is a crumb-trail that leads to something that is to come, something to endlessly look forward to.
This nature of being everything all at once is important, because it rears its ugly head once you get to the thing it has to be first and foremost - a Final Fantasy VII game. The original game is pretty (in)famous for being all over the place tonally, but one of the more charming aspects of FF7 is that it really felt like an abundant accumulation of ideas. If they thought of it, they put it in. This philosophy combined with the inherent abstraction present for PS1 RPGs lent itself to be a leaner game, exceedingly so when you compare it to today’s RPGs. It meant that even in this so called idea factory, you’re going from one moment to next briskly. Naturally when they decided to break this game up into multiple parts, that was one of the aspects I assumed they would change. To not necessarily remedy, but to just make those moments of transition feel more organic. It is baffling then that this new high fidelity unreal engine FF7 part deux makes the tonal shifts feel even more bizarre. Every scene/fight has been made more bombastic with lavish splendour and spectacle, restraint has been discarded and the intent was clearly to keep adding more and more. Barret and Dyne's confrontation is one of the worst offenders of this, where Dyne is depicted to be this criminally inhumane monster with a gnarly robo-arm made of junk. Their heart-to-heart moment then hard cuts to a Palmer mech boss fight where he pats his ass while techno/trap music plays (this shit made me so mad I actually don’t remember what kinda track it was lol).
The willingness to stick so close to the original script while merely “expanding” on it with the “more-is-better” philosophy yields a bloated mess of a game. Any spark of genuine brilliance is undercut by stretching events longer than they should or muddying it with beats of the original game. One such example of the latter is when Gi Nattak reveals that the lifestream has been rejecting the Gi - a revelation that would break the foundations of FF7's ethical balance because it would mean the Ancients and everyone who opposes them aren’t as black and white as the original game expects us to believe. This detail is not picked up subsequently at all and the party continues onward on their preordained path of FF7.
Which brings us to the ending. Split worlds, multiverses, stamps, reunions, straddling those split worlds, Zack and Cloud combo attacks, Aerith dying, her not dying - as is the trend, it had it all. Underneath all of that gibberish, what is the actual message being said here? That she can have her final date with Cloud (which was cute I will admit) but ultimately can never be with him happily ever after? Then they’d have been better off keeping the elegance of the original scene and just remade the game faithfully. Or is it that she can be with him but there will be a price that will have to be paid, most likely by everyone else? Then they should've made a meaningfully different game that incorporated that choice as a legitimate what-if scenario. What I got instead feels like straddling both decisions (much like Cloud straddling worlds) and ending up at a non-committal 3rd place where they pulled a lot of punches.
Maybe this is supposed to be meta commentary on them being indecisive, maybe I'm being too harsh reading into it from that lens. Either way I don’t think it would change my thoughts on the ending.
That combat system bangs though, demonstrable improvement over Remake. It’s just a shame that it’s the only unequivocally positive thing about the game.
Rebirth is the quintessential AAA game of the last decade, featuring both the “good” (top of the line production values, the highest quality models for characters with incredible performances across both EN and JP casts, 400+ tracks with seamless transitions between world and battle themes, ambitious scope for world design in both size and complexity) and the “bad” (menial busywork to keep the player occupied between main story moments, map boils down to going to the objective and cleaning the icons out instead of genuine exploration, all game design trends meant to add artificial speedbreakers - slow walking, climbing on yellow ledges, squeezethroughs etc., animation locking preventing you from doing things faster than you should like healing from the command menu).
It is also the quintessential nomura game, even though he had a different role this time round his footprint is clearly felt. Whether it be the earnestness of the character interactions with their idiosyncratic quirks and the distinct rhythm of conversations, or the inherent multiplicity of narrative design - where anything and everything is a crumb-trail that leads to something that is to come, something to endlessly look forward to.
This nature of being everything all at once is important, because it rears its ugly head once you get to the thing it has to be first and foremost - a Final Fantasy VII game. The original game is pretty (in)famous for being all over the place tonally, but one of the more charming aspects of FF7 is that it really felt like an abundant accumulation of ideas. If they thought of it, they put it in. This philosophy combined with the inherent abstraction present for PS1 RPGs lent itself to be a leaner game, exceedingly so when you compare it to today’s RPGs. It meant that even in this so called idea factory, you’re going from one moment to next briskly. Naturally when they decided to break this game up into multiple parts, that was one of the aspects I assumed they would change. To not necessarily remedy, but to just make those moments of transition feel more organic. It is baffling then that this new high fidelity unreal engine FF7 part deux makes the tonal shifts feel even more bizarre. Every scene/fight has been made more bombastic with lavish splendour and spectacle, restraint has been discarded and the intent was clearly to keep adding more and more. Barret and Dyne's confrontation is one of the worst offenders of this, where Dyne is depicted to be this criminally inhumane monster with a gnarly robo-arm made of junk. Their heart-to-heart moment then hard cuts to a Palmer mech boss fight where he pats his ass while techno/trap music plays (this shit made me so mad I actually don’t remember what kinda track it was lol).
The willingness to stick so close to the original script while merely “expanding” on it with the “more-is-better” philosophy yields a bloated mess of a game. Any spark of genuine brilliance is undercut by stretching events longer than they should or muddying it with beats of the original game. One such example of the latter is when Gi Nattak reveals that the lifestream has been rejecting the Gi - a revelation that would break the foundations of FF7's ethical balance because it would mean the Ancients and everyone who opposes them aren’t as black and white as the original game expects us to believe. This detail is not picked up subsequently at all and the party continues onward on their preordained path of FF7.
Which brings us to the ending. Split worlds, multiverses, stamps, reunions, straddling those split worlds, Zack and Cloud combo attacks, Aerith dying, her not dying - as is the trend, it had it all. Underneath all of that gibberish, what is the actual message being said here? That she can have her final date with Cloud (which was cute I will admit) but ultimately can never be with him happily ever after? Then they’d have been better off keeping the elegance of the original scene and just remade the game faithfully. Or is it that she can be with him but there will be a price that will have to be paid, most likely by everyone else? Then they should've made a meaningfully different game that incorporated that choice as a legitimate what-if scenario. What I got instead feels like straddling both decisions (much like Cloud straddling worlds) and ending up at a non-committal 3rd place where they pulled a lot of punches.
Maybe this is supposed to be meta commentary on them being indecisive, maybe I'm being too harsh reading into it from that lens. Either way I don’t think it would change my thoughts on the ending.
That combat system bangs though, demonstrable improvement over Remake. It’s just a shame that it’s the only unequivocally positive thing about the game.
Just so disappointing, my respect for this game decreases more and more as time goes on. Bogged down by the weight of its own ideas, lacking in integrity and a travesty of pacing that felt like it didn't remotely respect my time. These issues were present in Remake but they feel worse here, at least that game didn't have a dogshit open world to worry about. Ty Ubisoft towers. God I hated the ending, way to ruin one of the most impactful moments in the history of the medium. I don't need things to be the same but I would prefer they be good
VA-11 Hall-A is really something special. Everything about its vibe, character writing, worldbuilding, it just pulls you in. Having played it both at 19 and now again at 24, it's moved me each time for different reasons. It's just one of those games, man.
Final Fantasy V
1992
I went into this one kinda expecting it to be a weird middle entry in between the acclaimed VI and IV, walked out pleasantly surprised and the game ended up being a personal favorite of mine. The characters and story aren’t the most fleshed out in the world but charming nonetheless. Gilgamesh is easily the highlight of this game, and would go on to be a recurring character in many Final Fantasy games. The main party is nice too, the smaller number of them compared to other RPG parties makes each of them memorable and they each have their little moments. Exdeath is also a cool villain, one of those antagonists from an iconic video game no one talks about but I’m weirdly fond of anyway and half of it is probably because of good theme music. The expansive job system of this game also makes your small party very customizable and the game pretty replayable, and is one of the main things everyone praises about the game. Overall, definitely don’t skip this Final Fantasy game, it’s a nice time.
just go to therapy man
I thought I was done with Furlough's games, honestly. They'd earned my respect despite not being my personal cup of tea and I'd figured we could part on good terms. But, seeing as my dear friend Owen decided to buy me this and Furry Shades of Gay 3, I guess I'm back.
If you enjoyed the first game, this is more of the same, but with some more mechanics and new stories. Very little reason not to pick it up if you're a returning fan.
If you enjoyed the first game, this is more of the same, but with some more mechanics and new stories. Very little reason not to pick it up if you're a returning fan.
Cookie Clicker
2013
My body and mind are dough, baked by the heat of my soul. Every morsel of my being exists for the creation of cookies. For within the bounds of this world and all others, there shall be cookie, so say I.
It begins with one. Two. Ten. Fifty. And more hands grow. A circle of hands, each independent, yet single minded in their ambition. The grandmothers soon follow, devout and loyal, more beautiful than any other.
But it's not enough, not at all. Hundreds, thousands, but it's nothing. Less than nothing. From Grandmother Earth's fertile fields, to deep within her crust, more cookies. But it's never enough.
Temples to your cookies are built. Magics once lost to time are employed. Eventually, all available matter is under control. But it's nothing to make something from something. Nothing close to making something from nothing, or something from the opposite of something, and so you do.
Trillions. Quadrillions. Quintillions of cookies. Every man, woman, they/them and child can feast until the ends of time. But why only once? Even the bounds of saṃsāra, the karmic cycle itself, can kneel. And so it does.
Over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over.
The bounds of existence cannot contain me. Light, matter, time and space all bend to my will. Every atom of every universe of every single instant that has ever or will ever happen exists for me to bake cookies. I am everything, and everything is cookies. And it is beautiful.
It begins with one. Two. Ten. Fifty. And more hands grow. A circle of hands, each independent, yet single minded in their ambition. The grandmothers soon follow, devout and loyal, more beautiful than any other.
But it's not enough, not at all. Hundreds, thousands, but it's nothing. Less than nothing. From Grandmother Earth's fertile fields, to deep within her crust, more cookies. But it's never enough.
Temples to your cookies are built. Magics once lost to time are employed. Eventually, all available matter is under control. But it's nothing to make something from something. Nothing close to making something from nothing, or something from the opposite of something, and so you do.
Trillions. Quadrillions. Quintillions of cookies. Every man, woman, they/them and child can feast until the ends of time. But why only once? Even the bounds of saṃsāra, the karmic cycle itself, can kneel. And so it does.
Over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over.
The bounds of existence cannot contain me. Light, matter, time and space all bend to my will. Every atom of every universe of every single instant that has ever or will ever happen exists for me to bake cookies. I am everything, and everything is cookies. And it is beautiful.
lmao