Pookykun
This was the first Fire Emblem game I ever played. I bought it after reading a review of it five hundred times in Official Nintendo Magazine (it might also have been the same exact volume of ONM that directed me towards Hotel Dusk, another one of my all-time favourite games - talk about getting your money's worth!), which described it as being like chess, only the pieces are all characters you care about. I'm paraphrasing, or maybe I’m misremembering - I haven't read that beautiful magazine in almost fifteen years. But this isn't a review of whatever # of ONM that was. This is a review of the hugely ambitious Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, a tough as nails grid-strategy turn-based fantasy RPG, bursting at the seams with delightful dialogue, intelligent plotlines, unforgettable music, interesting and sympathetic characters, and NUMBERS (my favourite thing). Thematically, it is one of the most thoughtful sequels in video games, concerned not so much with bigger, bolder, more bombastic action and set pieces, but with the political opportunism and humanitarian disasters that logically follow the events of the previous game. It is a burning star lighting up the black sky, the heat of its light still tickling the back of my neck fifteen years (approximately) later. It is also hugely misunderstood and, in some circles, maligned, like a weird younger brother with echolalia and a vindictive streak who wears your clothes all the time and has somehow kissed both more girls AND more boys than you have. Here are some of the criticisms I’ve seen directed at this game in the past: it is too unforgiving; there are too many characters; there is not enough VA; there is too much reading; the presentation is overly simple; it didn’t sell enough copies, nearly ending the franchise; etc; etc; etc. In light of these criticisms, (most of which I don't agree with, upon reflection,) I got used to thinking of Radiant Dawn as being one of those 7/10, middling games that I just so happened to like a lot, greasy junk food, an acquired taste. It took a decade and a half, it took playing Awakening, Three Houses, and Engage, to gain the perspective necessary to see this game as it is. And what is it? What is Radiant Dawn? Well, I’ll tell you. Radiant Dawn is the last good Fire Emblem game.
For a work that was, upon release, considered conservative and old fashioned, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn is a hugely ambitious title, juggling a massive cast of characters, careful worldbuilding, thrilling adventure, and enormous stakes, all while tying itself to Path of Radiance in looks and design so that they complement each other, so that they can be played and read as two parts of a whole, as the plot so requires; without Radiant Dawn, Path of Radiance feels incomplete, and vice versa. And what is the plot? Radiant Dawn takes place three years after the end of Path of Radiance and follows what happens to the land and citizens of Daein after their tyrant king is defeated and they are taken over by the holy state of Begnion. The Begnion military rules by the sword and is not afraid to turn its weapons against civilians. Corruption requires not a mad king, nor do war crimes require a Daein army. The game's themes begin to reveal themselves early; power corrupts, military rule is abuse, and prejudice, like heroism, can come from anywhere and anyone. In an incredible and challenging twist, (a twist that IGN called “odd” at the time, revealing more about the writer of that review than the game) you are no longer battling against the armies of Daein, but are tasked with freeing its people—innocent civilians caught in the to-and-fro of war, who have rapidly had to come to terms not only with the crimes of their own countrymen, which they almost certainly supported to some extent, but with the loss of their freedom. They impotently stare down the barrel of a gun at bullets of poverty, violence, shame. They are trapped under the boot. They are trapped forever. Children, adults, elderly, all trapped, all hungry, all afraid. It's completely brilliant, and harrowing.
You set off, a girl who can give your life force to heal others, a mirror of what your ragtag band of rebels are willing to give up in order to save their people, on a desperate mission to make Daein free once more. Your enemy is a rogue Begnion general placed in charge of keeping the peace, his loyal (read: fearful of sudden murder by General) soldiers, and the wealthy politicians pulling the strings from the shadows. Characters new and old, human and not, join you in this struggle. You and your little squad use careful tactics to bring down larger numbers, getting stronger and more confident all the while, raising the morale of everybody across the land. And what happens when you succeed? When Daein is free? The game continues, of course. In fact, at that point, the game has hardly begun. I recall thinking I was at the end of the game when I won back the Daein capital, all those years ago, and I couldn't believe that the game would just keep on going, and going, and going, tackling international and inter-racial tensions as it did so, its generosity as endless as its perma-death is awful.
One thing that gives me pause, I suppose, is the incredibly positive representation of monarchies, birthrights, etc throughout both this and Path of Radiance. I am sceptical of monarchies in much the same way that this game seems sceptical of politicians and governments - but to be fair, the politicians in this game are generally corrupt and working to amass wealth and power for themselves and their friends no matter who has to die for it, much like the Tories in the UK, so I sort of get where they're coming from. Anyway, this is the great thing about fiction. It let's you pretend. Doesn't it feel better to fantasise about a nice queen who will unite the land through peace and everybody will love her and each other, rather than cheering on governments who don't even pretend NOT to steal our money and bomb our neighbours and slowly degrade the human rights we've fought and marched and died for over the years? Anyway, my favourite thing about these games is all the gay subtext between--
Stop! Get offa me! The people must know!
The people!
Must!
Knnoooooooooowww~~!!!
(is never seen or heard from again)
For a work that was, upon release, considered conservative and old fashioned, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn is a hugely ambitious title, juggling a massive cast of characters, careful worldbuilding, thrilling adventure, and enormous stakes, all while tying itself to Path of Radiance in looks and design so that they complement each other, so that they can be played and read as two parts of a whole, as the plot so requires; without Radiant Dawn, Path of Radiance feels incomplete, and vice versa. And what is the plot? Radiant Dawn takes place three years after the end of Path of Radiance and follows what happens to the land and citizens of Daein after their tyrant king is defeated and they are taken over by the holy state of Begnion. The Begnion military rules by the sword and is not afraid to turn its weapons against civilians. Corruption requires not a mad king, nor do war crimes require a Daein army. The game's themes begin to reveal themselves early; power corrupts, military rule is abuse, and prejudice, like heroism, can come from anywhere and anyone. In an incredible and challenging twist, (a twist that IGN called “odd” at the time, revealing more about the writer of that review than the game) you are no longer battling against the armies of Daein, but are tasked with freeing its people—innocent civilians caught in the to-and-fro of war, who have rapidly had to come to terms not only with the crimes of their own countrymen, which they almost certainly supported to some extent, but with the loss of their freedom. They impotently stare down the barrel of a gun at bullets of poverty, violence, shame. They are trapped under the boot. They are trapped forever. Children, adults, elderly, all trapped, all hungry, all afraid. It's completely brilliant, and harrowing.
You set off, a girl who can give your life force to heal others, a mirror of what your ragtag band of rebels are willing to give up in order to save their people, on a desperate mission to make Daein free once more. Your enemy is a rogue Begnion general placed in charge of keeping the peace, his loyal (read: fearful of sudden murder by General) soldiers, and the wealthy politicians pulling the strings from the shadows. Characters new and old, human and not, join you in this struggle. You and your little squad use careful tactics to bring down larger numbers, getting stronger and more confident all the while, raising the morale of everybody across the land. And what happens when you succeed? When Daein is free? The game continues, of course. In fact, at that point, the game has hardly begun. I recall thinking I was at the end of the game when I won back the Daein capital, all those years ago, and I couldn't believe that the game would just keep on going, and going, and going, tackling international and inter-racial tensions as it did so, its generosity as endless as its perma-death is awful.
One thing that gives me pause, I suppose, is the incredibly positive representation of monarchies, birthrights, etc throughout both this and Path of Radiance. I am sceptical of monarchies in much the same way that this game seems sceptical of politicians and governments - but to be fair, the politicians in this game are generally corrupt and working to amass wealth and power for themselves and their friends no matter who has to die for it, much like the Tories in the UK, so I sort of get where they're coming from. Anyway, this is the great thing about fiction. It let's you pretend. Doesn't it feel better to fantasise about a nice queen who will unite the land through peace and everybody will love her and each other, rather than cheering on governments who don't even pretend NOT to steal our money and bomb our neighbours and slowly degrade the human rights we've fought and marched and died for over the years? Anyway, my favourite thing about these games is all the gay subtext between--
Stop! Get offa me! The people must know!
The people!
Must!
Knnoooooooooowww
(is never seen or heard from again)
2020
An almost entirely miserable experience that gives you all the freedom in the world - to butcher, and butcher, and butcher, in unimaginative lands full of equally violent and miserable people as yourself, nobody with anything meaningful to say in their lengthy monologues, everybody sort of uncanny and ugly. It's not D+D, it's not Baldur's Gate, and it's not a good RPG. When it comes down to it, it doesn't even feel that big - it just feel torturously slow and clunky, with every battle taking forever, and painfully awkward traversal otherwise, all coming together to give the illusion of size, and of time well spent. BG3 is an enigma, if only because of how extremely shallow and juvenile the game is, and also how adored.
Well, I tried to like it. I promise, I tried. I spent more than two weeks playing this, and I can't think of a single quest or area or conversation I would like to revisit. Also, the UI is cluttered and the camera frequently worked against me. Also, it crashed 50 or so times during my time with it (on PS5), mostly when trying to load saves, sometimes after levelling up, and occasionally for no discernible reason at all. What happened to standards?
I keep thinking about all the unsurpassed freedom that this game supposedly offers. Well, I don't think a game needs to offer unlimited things to do and ways to do them, because games should focus first on doing one thing well, and then expanding where it has space to. Yet, since everybody and their grandma keeps bringing up how much freedom this game gives you...I never felt free to do what I wanted in this game. I felt trapped. Suffocated. More so than in most 'linear' RPGs I've ever played. You sort of have to do every quest you can find if you want to level up. Different dialogue choices lead to the same outcomes. You can never escape the endless vortex of (often meaningless) violence thrust upon you by passersby. There were so many fights I got into that I didn't want, so many people I had to kill that I would have liked to befriend, flirt with, talk to, be nice to... God, being nice! Acting like a regular human being to a fellow traveller! What a concept! Instead, your key interaction in this game is putting your fist through somebody's skull before they can do the same to you, through battle inputs that don't feel good or natural to use. It's mind numbing!
...Ketheric Thorm's voice acting was good. Stood head and shoulders over the rest of the cast.
Well, I tried to like it. I promise, I tried. I spent more than two weeks playing this, and I can't think of a single quest or area or conversation I would like to revisit. Also, the UI is cluttered and the camera frequently worked against me. Also, it crashed 50 or so times during my time with it (on PS5), mostly when trying to load saves, sometimes after levelling up, and occasionally for no discernible reason at all. What happened to standards?
I keep thinking about all the unsurpassed freedom that this game supposedly offers. Well, I don't think a game needs to offer unlimited things to do and ways to do them, because games should focus first on doing one thing well, and then expanding where it has space to. Yet, since everybody and their grandma keeps bringing up how much freedom this game gives you...I never felt free to do what I wanted in this game. I felt trapped. Suffocated. More so than in most 'linear' RPGs I've ever played. You sort of have to do every quest you can find if you want to level up. Different dialogue choices lead to the same outcomes. You can never escape the endless vortex of (often meaningless) violence thrust upon you by passersby. There were so many fights I got into that I didn't want, so many people I had to kill that I would have liked to befriend, flirt with, talk to, be nice to... God, being nice! Acting like a regular human being to a fellow traveller! What a concept! Instead, your key interaction in this game is putting your fist through somebody's skull before they can do the same to you, through battle inputs that don't feel good or natural to use. It's mind numbing!
...Ketheric Thorm's voice acting was good. Stood head and shoulders over the rest of the cast.
Brilliant. Probably one of the most anxiety-inducing games I've ever played. Thoughtfully made and presented with a beautiful PS1/CRT/VHS style, surprises around every corner, and tricky puzzles to work out. Not for the faint of heart. Perfect for playing with friends. Also comes with multiple difficulty modes, including a no enemies mode, and a hard mode that tracks hunger and thirst, which are fantastic additions in theory, though I haven't tried them yet.
(This is the worst review anybody has ever written. I’m sorry. Basically, I hugely recommend this game to anybody looking for a good, relaxing, wholesome experience. I should probably just copy+paste this at the top so you can know my opinion straight up and skip the rest of this nonsense.)
-
I’m a little late to the party, here, but Dragon Quest XI is the best JRPG I’ve played in years. Five or six years after release, when everybody else seems to have finished talking about it, it is my game of 2023. It is a lungful of fresh air. It is joyful like I haven’t known in the longest time. It is a mirror that shows not the adult you’ve become but the child you forgot about.
“Oh. There you are,” you might think to yourself as you’re running through the greenest grass you’ve ever seen in your life, grass that glows at the edges when it catches sun. “There I am.”
Am I being a little too sentimental? Maybe I’m just tired. Over tired. I work five days a week, man, and I write fiction every morning and lunch time, and some evenings, and I'm training for another marathon. I’m probably a workaholic. I’m probably running from something. At any rate, video games are supposed to be my down time activity. Yet whenever I sit down to play something new these days, particularly new AAA games, I find myself growing even more exhausted. Exhausted by the mindless, cynical stories with nothing to say, by the recycled, towering mechanics, all waving at you to keep your attention, by grim art styles, edgy dialogue, blood and violence without stakes or point, existing just for its own sake, because most people won’t play a game if you can’t remove somebody’s brains from their head through a hole in the back of their skull.
If I’m lucky, I’ll play one big budget game a year that actually makes me feel something. It’s completely mind-numbing, and makes me feel hopeless about an activity that used to bring me so much joy. Memories of Pokémon Yellow, Final Fantasy X, Ocarina of Time, Resident Evil (GC) and all my other childhood favourites are buried under a stinking and growing landfill of Resident Evil 7 and Borderlands and Divinity II, games that have absolutely nothing to say, just time to kill. Buried deeper, still, by ports and remasters of those old favourites of mine that just feel wrong now. Ocarina of time doesn’t feel good without the N64 controller, and Link’s weight is all wrong in the 3DS remake; FFX characters lose their expressive eyes in the HD remaster; Jill Valentine has impossibly jiggly boob-physics in the HD remaster of Resident Evil (GC) (Maybe it was always there, and I couldn’t tell back on the CRT) and there are new ‘loading’ message screens that pop up during startup, made without any effort to mesh with the aesthetics of the game, as well as an analogue control system that doesn't work with the fixed cameras; did you play Pokémon Let’s go? I could write all day about those games and how they hollowed out the originals. My favourite video game is probably FF7 on the PS1, for the strides it made but also the way it wears its faults on its sleeves, for its whimsy and strangeness and beauty (and music). The HD port, though, is full of weird audio bugs, and has these features that might well make the game more palatable, like speed up, but which end up ruining the immersion of the game. And as for the remake…! I spent about fifteen hours on it before I couldn’t freaking take it anymore and I just had to—
…Well, Dragon Quest XI is a vital reminder that big budget games can, and do, still have souls.
It is a wake-up call that, likely, will go unheeded, even by its own publisher—in interviews, developers have spoken about making the next game in the series more mature. Well, we know what mature means in gaming. Edgy humour, swearing, dark colour palettes, violence... It means, potentially, more sales. It means, certainly, creative hamstringing in a rush to make money out of what sells right now.
This is supposed to be a review, isn’t it? Well, I feel strangely unprepared to talk about Dragon Quest XI, even after 80+ hours of gameplay. Maybe that’s why I’m dragging my feet about it.
Dragon Quest XI is bursting at the seams with excellence and elegance. The simple story is bolstered by incredible dialogue and voice acting. The characters are wonderful and whimsical. The stakes are high, the pacing is on-point, the politics are navigable and entertaining, the skits are hilarious, the tragedies awful. The battles, similarly, are simple yet effective. Turn-based, slow-burn affairs where your team works together to pull off fantastic moves and spells and combos, where buffs and de-buffs become increasingly vital as you move forward in the adventure (or, if you’re starting on Harder Monsters, vital from the get-go). The character development is slow and steady, rarely overwhelming, giving you hours to think about how you’re going to develop your characters while you traverse the world map, what skills and spells you’re going to have them learn, and then which team strategies and loadouts you’re going to employ. The side quests are good. The hero’s haircut and outfit are awful to the point of hilarity. The art direction is out of this world.
…
I should feel happier about it. I have a new game to add to my list of favourites, and it is a generous one, filled with extra difficulty modes that make it extremely replayable. But it is like being in the height of summer, knowing the trees will turn soon, and then… I don’t know. Play this game at your own risk, I guess. It’s an eye-opener. It takes you by the hand and makes you stop and smell the roses, and you think, I love the smell of roses. Shouldn’t there be fields of them everywhere? Well, why aren’t there? And why is everything farmland without hedgerows or ponds or other important fixtures of local habitats? Why is all the topsoil damaged? What’s happened to the climate? Why did humans wipe out 60% of the world's populations of wild vertebrates over the last fifty years? Profits? Well, aren’t roses profitable? They’re not? But they’re so nice! What will Dragon Quest XII be? Will it also be nice? Or will it only be...?
…
(This is the worst review anybody has ever written. I’m sorry. Basically, I hugely recommend this game to anybody looking for a good, relaxing, wholesome experience. I should probably just copy+paste this at the top so you can know my opinion straight up and skip the rest of this nonsense.)
-
I’m a little late to the party, here, but Dragon Quest XI is the best JRPG I’ve played in years. Five or six years after release, when everybody else seems to have finished talking about it, it is my game of 2023. It is a lungful of fresh air. It is joyful like I haven’t known in the longest time. It is a mirror that shows not the adult you’ve become but the child you forgot about.
“Oh. There you are,” you might think to yourself as you’re running through the greenest grass you’ve ever seen in your life, grass that glows at the edges when it catches sun. “There I am.”
Am I being a little too sentimental? Maybe I’m just tired. Over tired. I work five days a week, man, and I write fiction every morning and lunch time, and some evenings, and I'm training for another marathon. I’m probably a workaholic. I’m probably running from something. At any rate, video games are supposed to be my down time activity. Yet whenever I sit down to play something new these days, particularly new AAA games, I find myself growing even more exhausted. Exhausted by the mindless, cynical stories with nothing to say, by the recycled, towering mechanics, all waving at you to keep your attention, by grim art styles, edgy dialogue, blood and violence without stakes or point, existing just for its own sake, because most people won’t play a game if you can’t remove somebody’s brains from their head through a hole in the back of their skull.
If I’m lucky, I’ll play one big budget game a year that actually makes me feel something. It’s completely mind-numbing, and makes me feel hopeless about an activity that used to bring me so much joy. Memories of Pokémon Yellow, Final Fantasy X, Ocarina of Time, Resident Evil (GC) and all my other childhood favourites are buried under a stinking and growing landfill of Resident Evil 7 and Borderlands and Divinity II, games that have absolutely nothing to say, just time to kill. Buried deeper, still, by ports and remasters of those old favourites of mine that just feel wrong now. Ocarina of time doesn’t feel good without the N64 controller, and Link’s weight is all wrong in the 3DS remake; FFX characters lose their expressive eyes in the HD remaster; Jill Valentine has impossibly jiggly boob-physics in the HD remaster of Resident Evil (GC) (Maybe it was always there, and I couldn’t tell back on the CRT) and there are new ‘loading’ message screens that pop up during startup, made without any effort to mesh with the aesthetics of the game, as well as an analogue control system that doesn't work with the fixed cameras; did you play Pokémon Let’s go? I could write all day about those games and how they hollowed out the originals. My favourite video game is probably FF7 on the PS1, for the strides it made but also the way it wears its faults on its sleeves, for its whimsy and strangeness and beauty (and music). The HD port, though, is full of weird audio bugs, and has these features that might well make the game more palatable, like speed up, but which end up ruining the immersion of the game. And as for the remake…! I spent about fifteen hours on it before I couldn’t freaking take it anymore and I just had to—
…Well, Dragon Quest XI is a vital reminder that big budget games can, and do, still have souls.
It is a wake-up call that, likely, will go unheeded, even by its own publisher—in interviews, developers have spoken about making the next game in the series more mature. Well, we know what mature means in gaming. Edgy humour, swearing, dark colour palettes, violence... It means, potentially, more sales. It means, certainly, creative hamstringing in a rush to make money out of what sells right now.
This is supposed to be a review, isn’t it? Well, I feel strangely unprepared to talk about Dragon Quest XI, even after 80+ hours of gameplay. Maybe that’s why I’m dragging my feet about it.
Dragon Quest XI is bursting at the seams with excellence and elegance. The simple story is bolstered by incredible dialogue and voice acting. The characters are wonderful and whimsical. The stakes are high, the pacing is on-point, the politics are navigable and entertaining, the skits are hilarious, the tragedies awful. The battles, similarly, are simple yet effective. Turn-based, slow-burn affairs where your team works together to pull off fantastic moves and spells and combos, where buffs and de-buffs become increasingly vital as you move forward in the adventure (or, if you’re starting on Harder Monsters, vital from the get-go). The character development is slow and steady, rarely overwhelming, giving you hours to think about how you’re going to develop your characters while you traverse the world map, what skills and spells you’re going to have them learn, and then which team strategies and loadouts you’re going to employ. The side quests are good. The hero’s haircut and outfit are awful to the point of hilarity. The art direction is out of this world.
…
I should feel happier about it. I have a new game to add to my list of favourites, and it is a generous one, filled with extra difficulty modes that make it extremely replayable. But it is like being in the height of summer, knowing the trees will turn soon, and then… I don’t know. Play this game at your own risk, I guess. It’s an eye-opener. It takes you by the hand and makes you stop and smell the roses, and you think, I love the smell of roses. Shouldn’t there be fields of them everywhere? Well, why aren’t there? And why is everything farmland without hedgerows or ponds or other important fixtures of local habitats? Why is all the topsoil damaged? What’s happened to the climate? Why did humans wipe out 60% of the world's populations of wild vertebrates over the last fifty years? Profits? Well, aren’t roses profitable? They’re not? But they’re so nice! What will Dragon Quest XII be? Will it also be nice? Or will it only be...?
…
(This is the worst review anybody has ever written. I’m sorry. Basically, I hugely recommend this game to anybody looking for a good, relaxing, wholesome experience. I should probably just copy+paste this at the top so you can know my opinion straight up and skip the rest of this nonsense.)
On the one hand, it's a robust and functional (local) co-op RPG with some addictive skill development and entertaining (if sluggish and occasionally buggy) battles. On the other hand, it's a monumentally immature, painstakingly insincere, blood and sweat drenched ode to edgy humour and apathy. It is completely enamoured with the aesthetics of violence, but has nothing of note to say about it, and though bold in the face of gore, it seems desperately afraid of feelings. If it were a person, I would stay far away. As it's a game, however, I do feel safe returning to it every now and again with my partner, just to stare, and shake my head (and this time try out being an inquistor or a rogue or etc etc blam heck yeah critical hit)
2006
I know this sounds crazy, but I've been playing this for six years and it still shreds my nerves. Dropshot, lob, topspin, slice, volley, serve, and movement differ wildly from character to character, with some having special techniques, so mastering them is a challenge and a blast. We're still finding new things out about the game, too, especially in the presentation, like tiny lizards scurrying in the backgrounds and rare barks spilling from the characters when they exert themselves. The single player game is limited, but the multiplayer mode is endlessly fun. This whimsical game feels so much better in your hands than the serious tennis games, like topspin, or world tour, which take themselves too seriously, look ugly, and feel clunky (don't get me wrong. I still played the hell out of some of them!) Everybody's tennis is a real joy to play, and it captures the true feeling of competing at and enjoying tennis in a way that the serious games don't (this is coming from a tennis club player). Cannot recommend it enough.
2021
I like the puzzles and the voice acting. I'm not keen on the plot, however, particularly the ending. The controls were also sometimes imprecise, which probably wasn't the case on PC. All in all, while I'm glad to have played it, I was hoping for better.
2019
Honestly a pretty perfect little game. Nice music and visuals, sweet writing, and fun gameplay. A bit like a tiny breath of the wild with the writing of night in the woods. A healing experience.
2020
Played this with my family and had an amazing time full of laughs and scares.
Movement control was a little slippery, but apart from that this game felt really good to play.
It sounded fantastic, even emulating disc loading sounds on the optional door-loading animations, and the ambient soundtrack is wonderful (available on Spotify, too). Visually it's a treat, with a ton of different visual options available to switch between at any point from the options menu, affecting the video quality in different evocative ways. Textures are susceptible to warping, which I think is really neat.
The story is gross, but also quite effective. The characters are fun, with silly, memorable dialogue and good voice acting. As for the horror gameplay? Genuinely frightening. The kind of cat and mouse chase play that has freaked me out ever since resident evil 3 on the PS1.
Brilliant game that I can't wait to show off to my friends. The prologue and post credits sequence are brilliant.
Movement control was a little slippery, but apart from that this game felt really good to play.
It sounded fantastic, even emulating disc loading sounds on the optional door-loading animations, and the ambient soundtrack is wonderful (available on Spotify, too). Visually it's a treat, with a ton of different visual options available to switch between at any point from the options menu, affecting the video quality in different evocative ways. Textures are susceptible to warping, which I think is really neat.
The story is gross, but also quite effective. The characters are fun, with silly, memorable dialogue and good voice acting. As for the horror gameplay? Genuinely frightening. The kind of cat and mouse chase play that has freaked me out ever since resident evil 3 on the PS1.
Brilliant game that I can't wait to show off to my friends. The prologue and post credits sequence are brilliant.
Yes, it plays better than 7, and yes, it is one of the more enjoyable Resident Evil games to come out since 4. But is it actually good?
...
Eh. Not especially. It sure passes the time, though!
...
Eh. Not especially. It sure passes the time, though!
People keep saying the beginning is good, and the game gets worse as it goes on. I disagree. I think the game is a complete mess from the get go, and hardly gets better, overflowing with bad direction and writing, tedious modern horror/shooter cliches, and mechanics that are poorly introduced and utilised. It feels unfocused in a way the classics never did. The item management, as well as the lock and key level design, if you can even call it that, is a shadow of what came before. It's not returning to its roots. It's also not going anywhere new or interesting. It's just being a modern resident evil game, which is to say that you're not missing out on much if you choose to pass on it.
The game can be scary and tense, getting jumps out of me frequently enough to earn credit, but it's awkward and stilted, as well, and too often unclear in its expectations of you. The bad dialogue, mindless pacing, gimmicky boss fights, inconsistent stealth and movement, as well as teen-boy power-fantasy protagonist--catering specifically to those who simultaneously want to possess and kill their girlfriends--ruin what might otherwise have been a fun and spooky haunted house game.
Please don't get me wrong, though. I'm not saying the latter sequences of the game are good. However, they're still better than the beginning of the game because of their proximity to the end. When you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, the tunnel stops seeming so unbearable. At least, that's how it is for me.
I would not recommend this to anyone. It is truly a gargantuan failing of modern game design. Do something better with your time. You deserve it.
The game can be scary and tense, getting jumps out of me frequently enough to earn credit, but it's awkward and stilted, as well, and too often unclear in its expectations of you. The bad dialogue, mindless pacing, gimmicky boss fights, inconsistent stealth and movement, as well as teen-boy power-fantasy protagonist--catering specifically to those who simultaneously want to possess and kill their girlfriends--ruin what might otherwise have been a fun and spooky haunted house game.
Please don't get me wrong, though. I'm not saying the latter sequences of the game are good. However, they're still better than the beginning of the game because of their proximity to the end. When you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, the tunnel stops seeming so unbearable. At least, that's how it is for me.
I would not recommend this to anyone. It is truly a gargantuan failing of modern game design. Do something better with your time. You deserve it.
The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa is a relatively short yet re-playable game about how far friendships can be stretched, how many beatings a man can take, and how we stack the deck against ourselves and pretend not to notice.
This game pushes Ringo into a poverty-induced whirlpool of violence and crime, as the only way to afford food in the early game (apart from when your friend, seemingly at random, shells out for you) is by either beating the yen right out of other dudes’ pockets, or by opportunistically scavenging coins from the unconscious forms of fallen gang members who you just watched get pounded into the dirt. In this way, you become a wild animal, a crow picking at scraps upon city pavements, consuming barely substantial crumbs one fingerful at a time.
Ringo doesn’t have parents. Nobody in the adult world seems especially interested in taking care of him, beyond coaches who, you’ve guessed it, train him to be a better fighter. Ringo’s teacher will present him with lump sums of yen every week if he gets good grades, and he will verbally encourage Ringo, yet this too implicitly rewards those who fight and scavenge on the street; to focus on school and to study effectively at home, Ringo must surely have a full belly, and in order to achieve a full belly, he must roam the city in search of other gang members to steal from. In the early game, I found myself caught in a cycle in which I lost multiple fights in a row, wasted a lot of days recovering in bed, and was always starving. I expected to receive a game over, but it didn't come. Ringo Ishikawa always got back up, no matter how I failed him, no matter how very hungry he claimed to be.
When I was a teenager, I didn’t get into fights. I didn’t smoke. I didn’t drink. I certainly wasn’t left to fend for myself, without parents, money, or food—not for any extended period of time, anyway. However, when I was about sixteen or seventeen, I went through a phase where I struggled to eat. Looking at food made me feel sick. Looking at myself made me feel sick. I replaced breakfast with extra time in bed, which helped ease the sleepless nights. I was recurrently dehydrated. I could eat lunch only on days where I could successfully separate my mind from my mouth and my organs. I had a much easier time with evening meals, though I don’t know why, and not always.
I was hungry a lot. Hungry, and empty.
I remember feeling like I was self-destructing. I often hoped that somebody might jump me on the way home in the dark, like getting into a fight might fix everything, but I wasn’t an initiator, and for whatever reason nobody initiated against me. I had become a ghost, I thought. One night, during the winter, I was looking out at the river that sliced the town in two. I thought about jumping into it from the bridge above. I hoped the shock of the cold might be enough to make me panic and drown. If not, at least it would make me feel something. Suddenly, a man I didn’t know appeared behind me, and said something about it being a nice night. This startled me. I was crying. Silently, I think, though I couldn’t be certain. I tentatively agreed with him. It was a nice night. Freezing cold, crystal clear. I…
Ringo Ishikawa is not a ghost. I don’t believe that he can become depressed. I don’t know if he can starve to death, though I don’t think he can. He can initiate fights and have fights initiated against him. No matter how bad his previous day was, he will sit down at a school bench, if instructed, and read classic literature for you—literature that was, and still is, too intimidating for me to read, regardless of the fullness of my stomach and the health of my bank account, and in spite of my degrees in writing and literature.
All that to say, this game did and did not make me feel like a teenager again.
This game pushes Ringo into a poverty-induced whirlpool of violence and crime, as the only way to afford food in the early game (apart from when your friend, seemingly at random, shells out for you) is by either beating the yen right out of other dudes’ pockets, or by opportunistically scavenging coins from the unconscious forms of fallen gang members who you just watched get pounded into the dirt. In this way, you become a wild animal, a crow picking at scraps upon city pavements, consuming barely substantial crumbs one fingerful at a time.
Ringo doesn’t have parents. Nobody in the adult world seems especially interested in taking care of him, beyond coaches who, you’ve guessed it, train him to be a better fighter. Ringo’s teacher will present him with lump sums of yen every week if he gets good grades, and he will verbally encourage Ringo, yet this too implicitly rewards those who fight and scavenge on the street; to focus on school and to study effectively at home, Ringo must surely have a full belly, and in order to achieve a full belly, he must roam the city in search of other gang members to steal from. In the early game, I found myself caught in a cycle in which I lost multiple fights in a row, wasted a lot of days recovering in bed, and was always starving. I expected to receive a game over, but it didn't come. Ringo Ishikawa always got back up, no matter how I failed him, no matter how very hungry he claimed to be.
When I was a teenager, I didn’t get into fights. I didn’t smoke. I didn’t drink. I certainly wasn’t left to fend for myself, without parents, money, or food—not for any extended period of time, anyway. However, when I was about sixteen or seventeen, I went through a phase where I struggled to eat. Looking at food made me feel sick. Looking at myself made me feel sick. I replaced breakfast with extra time in bed, which helped ease the sleepless nights. I was recurrently dehydrated. I could eat lunch only on days where I could successfully separate my mind from my mouth and my organs. I had a much easier time with evening meals, though I don’t know why, and not always.
I was hungry a lot. Hungry, and empty.
I remember feeling like I was self-destructing. I often hoped that somebody might jump me on the way home in the dark, like getting into a fight might fix everything, but I wasn’t an initiator, and for whatever reason nobody initiated against me. I had become a ghost, I thought. One night, during the winter, I was looking out at the river that sliced the town in two. I thought about jumping into it from the bridge above. I hoped the shock of the cold might be enough to make me panic and drown. If not, at least it would make me feel something. Suddenly, a man I didn’t know appeared behind me, and said something about it being a nice night. This startled me. I was crying. Silently, I think, though I couldn’t be certain. I tentatively agreed with him. It was a nice night. Freezing cold, crystal clear. I…
Ringo Ishikawa is not a ghost. I don’t believe that he can become depressed. I don’t know if he can starve to death, though I don’t think he can. He can initiate fights and have fights initiated against him. No matter how bad his previous day was, he will sit down at a school bench, if instructed, and read classic literature for you—literature that was, and still is, too intimidating for me to read, regardless of the fullness of my stomach and the health of my bank account, and in spite of my degrees in writing and literature.
All that to say, this game did and did not make me feel like a teenager again.
2001
Final Fantasy X is an epic road trip romance fantasy, sci-fi mystery conspiracy thriller, part-time sports drama, full-time daddy issues simulator, spiralling rumination on the nature of death, grief, hope, and forgiveness, Japanese role-playing mind-bending politico-navigational adventure. It is a masterclass in world-building and plotting. It is the heart on the sleeve of the video game industry.
To play this game is to refuse despair. To play this game is to engage with, and battle against, notions of racial supremacy. To play this game is to target systems of higher power and tear them down, one suit and tie at a time, until all of the historical abuses, lies, and hypocrisies are laid bare on the dirt for everyone to see.
Final Fantasy X unironically frames friendship—friendship tested by ingrained prejudices that have been expertly woven by the powerful, so finely that you can’t see the stitches, so long ago that you can’t begin to know where their commands begin and your opinions end—as the solution to depression, oppression, and cyclical violence maintained by the wealthy and the powerful. It frames friendship as radical. It frames friendship not only as a political choice, but as the political choice. Embrace the alien or kill them. Love the foreigner or hate them. What do you choose? And how do you turn that choice into action, rather than empty words? Friendship is a political pressure that, when applied radically, can and must snap the status quo in two.
That is what Final Fantasy X is. A manifesto of hope. An agenda of friendship. A fearless reaching out of hands across the border.
It presents this thematically through its magnificent plot and character interactions, while also presenting it mechanically through its rapid-fire rotational party member system. We can overcome even the insurmountable monsters of this world by working together, it is saying, by covering each other’s weaknesses and by building upon each other’s strengths. We can bring about real change with our revolving cast of radical friendship warriors. No matter the first impression, no matter the lies that we have let ourselves believe about one another in the past, we choose to work together, now, and to love each other, forever.
In a similar vein, Final Fantasy X is also about taking charge of your own life, being the change that you want to see in the world, and standing firm in the face of despair. Again, it is about choice. “Now is the time to choose,” the elder of the group, Auron, tells his comrades at one of the most heart-stopping, pivotal points in the story, when the lies, hubris, and the violent depths of those in power are undressed fully before you. “Die and be free of pain. Or live and fight your sorrows. Now is the time to shape your stories. Your fate is in your hands.”
Our lives often appear prescribed by those in power over us, by parents, bosses, and politicians, by the wealthy, by the trappings of poverty, by manipulative and violent headlines in the press, by the black and white messages we consume in television and film, by the hopeless voices in the back of our minds whispering, it’s no good, there’s no point, nothing will ever change. Yet, armed with the radical belief that anybody can be our friend, and backed up by the foreigner, the queer, the outsider, and the beast man with the broken horn, we can overcome anything, everything, no matter how high the climb or big the monster. We can bring about change. We can demand better than the endless spiral of abuse, lies, and death that is inflicted upon us by those in control.
This is Final Fantasy X. This is your story.
To play this game is to refuse despair. To play this game is to engage with, and battle against, notions of racial supremacy. To play this game is to target systems of higher power and tear them down, one suit and tie at a time, until all of the historical abuses, lies, and hypocrisies are laid bare on the dirt for everyone to see.
Final Fantasy X unironically frames friendship—friendship tested by ingrained prejudices that have been expertly woven by the powerful, so finely that you can’t see the stitches, so long ago that you can’t begin to know where their commands begin and your opinions end—as the solution to depression, oppression, and cyclical violence maintained by the wealthy and the powerful. It frames friendship as radical. It frames friendship not only as a political choice, but as the political choice. Embrace the alien or kill them. Love the foreigner or hate them. What do you choose? And how do you turn that choice into action, rather than empty words? Friendship is a political pressure that, when applied radically, can and must snap the status quo in two.
That is what Final Fantasy X is. A manifesto of hope. An agenda of friendship. A fearless reaching out of hands across the border.
It presents this thematically through its magnificent plot and character interactions, while also presenting it mechanically through its rapid-fire rotational party member system. We can overcome even the insurmountable monsters of this world by working together, it is saying, by covering each other’s weaknesses and by building upon each other’s strengths. We can bring about real change with our revolving cast of radical friendship warriors. No matter the first impression, no matter the lies that we have let ourselves believe about one another in the past, we choose to work together, now, and to love each other, forever.
In a similar vein, Final Fantasy X is also about taking charge of your own life, being the change that you want to see in the world, and standing firm in the face of despair. Again, it is about choice. “Now is the time to choose,” the elder of the group, Auron, tells his comrades at one of the most heart-stopping, pivotal points in the story, when the lies, hubris, and the violent depths of those in power are undressed fully before you. “Die and be free of pain. Or live and fight your sorrows. Now is the time to shape your stories. Your fate is in your hands.”
Our lives often appear prescribed by those in power over us, by parents, bosses, and politicians, by the wealthy, by the trappings of poverty, by manipulative and violent headlines in the press, by the black and white messages we consume in television and film, by the hopeless voices in the back of our minds whispering, it’s no good, there’s no point, nothing will ever change. Yet, armed with the radical belief that anybody can be our friend, and backed up by the foreigner, the queer, the outsider, and the beast man with the broken horn, we can overcome anything, everything, no matter how high the climb or big the monster. We can bring about change. We can demand better than the endless spiral of abuse, lies, and death that is inflicted upon us by those in control.
This is Final Fantasy X. This is your story.
1999
I played Final Fantasy VIII for the first time fifteen years ago. Despite loving the music and the visuals, I never progressed beyond disc 1 because I found the story and characters (Squall aside) to be bland. And then there was the junction system, which...well, everybody has already talked about that a million times. It's really neat in concept, but tedious in practice. (I would love to see it attempted again with some things adjusted.)
Anyway!
2020 happened, and I figured it was finally time to knuckle down and finish the game that splits opinions like Squall splits skulls.
And…
I still think the first disc and a half of FFVIII is a total tranquiliser of a game. I'm sorry. I nearly quit like ten million times. The jailbreak sequence at the start of disc 2 was especially dull. That said, something changed when I reached Fisherman's Horizon. The writing there, when you talk to some of the NPC's... It's hot shit, am I right? Like, suddenly it's firing on all cylinders. The dialogue is charged. The skits are funny. This energy bleeds out into the subsequent scenes, too. It's the strangest thing. Your characters start meshing more, and the jokes start zipping.
One of my favourite moments was right after FH, when you put together a band with your characters and set their instruments and perform a song with them for two of your party members to dance to. It's whimsical. It's cute. It's a little stupid. Like, that's the kind of thing I play Final Fantasy for. Everything is going to hell, but then your oddball characters take five and do something that totally eases the tension. It's like smiling at someone you love, moments before the moon crashes into the Earth. It's beautiful. Another example of a scene like this is the date in FF7, when you can get Cloud to kiss the wrong person in the play, and then they twirl off stage.
From FH onward, I really did enjoy Final Fantasy VIII.
Now, a sudden improvement in the writing didn't fix all the problems. The characters didn't actually get any richer, they were just used better. The gameplay didn't improve, but it felt like less of a problem because, well, at least the dialogue was hitting cleaner. And the plot... well, I quite liked the plot from then on! I know most people complain about how wacky it gets, but I think it became a lot more entertaining when it stopped making 100% sense.
(By the way, my favourite thing about the game, soundtrack aside, is the way Squall thinks to himself the whole way through the story, because he's afraid to voice his feelings. Sometimes he answers other people's questions in his head, but forgets to answer out loud, and they're like, yo, you there? and I just find that really great.)
Well, I've talked long enough about this one. Am I going to play it again? Probably not... Would I recommend it? ... ... ... Tentative yes! I'm as surprised as anyone.
Anyway!
2020 happened, and I figured it was finally time to knuckle down and finish the game that splits opinions like Squall splits skulls.
And…
I still think the first disc and a half of FFVIII is a total tranquiliser of a game. I'm sorry. I nearly quit like ten million times. The jailbreak sequence at the start of disc 2 was especially dull. That said, something changed when I reached Fisherman's Horizon. The writing there, when you talk to some of the NPC's... It's hot shit, am I right? Like, suddenly it's firing on all cylinders. The dialogue is charged. The skits are funny. This energy bleeds out into the subsequent scenes, too. It's the strangest thing. Your characters start meshing more, and the jokes start zipping.
One of my favourite moments was right after FH, when you put together a band with your characters and set their instruments and perform a song with them for two of your party members to dance to. It's whimsical. It's cute. It's a little stupid. Like, that's the kind of thing I play Final Fantasy for. Everything is going to hell, but then your oddball characters take five and do something that totally eases the tension. It's like smiling at someone you love, moments before the moon crashes into the Earth. It's beautiful. Another example of a scene like this is the date in FF7, when you can get Cloud to kiss the wrong person in the play, and then they twirl off stage.
From FH onward, I really did enjoy Final Fantasy VIII.
Now, a sudden improvement in the writing didn't fix all the problems. The characters didn't actually get any richer, they were just used better. The gameplay didn't improve, but it felt like less of a problem because, well, at least the dialogue was hitting cleaner. And the plot... well, I quite liked the plot from then on! I know most people complain about how wacky it gets, but I think it became a lot more entertaining when it stopped making 100% sense.
(By the way, my favourite thing about the game, soundtrack aside, is the way Squall thinks to himself the whole way through the story, because he's afraid to voice his feelings. Sometimes he answers other people's questions in his head, but forgets to answer out loud, and they're like, yo, you there? and I just find that really great.)
Well, I've talked long enough about this one. Am I going to play it again? Probably not... Would I recommend it? ... ... ... Tentative yes! I'm as surprised as anyone.
I remember this game getting a lot of criticism, back before I played it, for being a 'walking simulator'. This struck me as a little odd, especially so after I played it. Firstly, you don't normally criticize a game for its type or genre. Like, who has a go at mario for being a jumping simulator? I don't know. Secondly, this is less a walking simulator, and more an archaeological simulator, because you dig through a virtual space to uncover (extremely recent) history. That's fascinating, to me.
It's a short game, but the experience is rich and hugely enjoyable. Also, how did they make it feel so spooky? I always felt like I was about to get jumped! That's wild. Also, have you ever sat and listened to the soundtrack, top to bottom? What a mood.
Nice to get a strong LGBTQ+ story in a game. We're getting more of them as time goes on, but it's still slow going. From what I remember, this was a really big one for proving the potential popularity of games with gay themes.
Really touching game.
It's a short game, but the experience is rich and hugely enjoyable. Also, how did they make it feel so spooky? I always felt like I was about to get jumped! That's wild. Also, have you ever sat and listened to the soundtrack, top to bottom? What a mood.
Nice to get a strong LGBTQ+ story in a game. We're getting more of them as time goes on, but it's still slow going. From what I remember, this was a really big one for proving the potential popularity of games with gay themes.
Really touching game.