September 2014

The Final Fantasy series gets a bad wrap about its problem feeling too linear over the past couple of games. Japanese RPGs (J-RPGs) in general get this label attached to them. A big problem is that these games shifted how the player explores the world from a “make your own path“-style of traversing their worlds to a “connect the dots“-style – going from town A to town B and so on until you get to the end of the game.

[Expansive overworld] Final Fantasy 7 - The one where someone dies — [Expansive overworld] Final Fantasy 7 – The one where someone dies

Final Fantasy XIII - The one where your soul dies when associated with ancestors — [Linear overworld – exaggerated has no overworld] Final Fantasy XIII – The one where your soul dies when associated with ancestors

But, I guess what I want to discuss is that Final Fantasy games and JRPGs as a whole have never really been open-ended and non-linear but older JRPGs just did a better job at hiding their linearity from the player. It all depends on the scale of which you explore each area before moving to the next.

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Dubbed TV Shows and Fixing Voice Acting

I’m leaving Prague right now and have spent ample time on the TV finding something to pass the time during the moments when your legs and feet hurt just a bit too much to keep the adventure going for the day. With a small selection of channels to keep my viewing attention, I was able to catch some Czech TV when the BBC Entertainment and news channels couldn’t hold my interest. This meant I happened across a few dubbed TV shows from the States and UK like Doctor Who, a minute of Big Bang Theory and some South Park among a few other shows and movies being rebroadcast over in the Czech Republic. If you were watching a documentary or a series of facts, the voice over seemed very normal. But because I was watching Dramas and Comedies, the movies were not-bearable.

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September 18, 2014 0

The Room of Riddles (Escape the Room and being present in a game)

In a little town called Amsterdam, in the heart of Holland, just outside of the busybody-ism of its downtown by Amsterdam Centraal Train Station is a building with many floors. On the top of those floors there are many rooms. But of these rooms, there was one in particular designed for people to find solutions to get themselves out of the room. You’ve found the Room of Riddles.

Room of Riddles Logo

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September 14, 2014 0

Let’s Talk About: Super Time Force Ultra

Game: Super Time Force Ultra

Genre: Action Bang-Bang Platformer

On: XBLA, Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/250700/

Everything about Super Time Force Ultra (STFU) is be taken with a dash of fun, from the combat, to the setting, to the dialogue from Commander Repeatski.

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September 8, 2014 0

Let’s Talk About: Azure Striker Gunvolt

Game: Azure Strike Gunvolt

Console: 3DS

Genre: Action-Platformer

So anime, much moe. (Why is his mid-drift showing?)

Azure Strike Gunvolt is a redesign of classic Megaman X style gameplay with an evolved sense of difficulty. The bosses are varied and difficult, with is no “preferred kill-order” because power-ups from bosses don’t equate to weakness for later bosses. The platforming is well designed and the new battle mechanic is quite unique, but can get repetitive. What all of this means, I’ll get into in a bit.

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