Final Fantasy The 4 Heroes of Light

If you felt that the later Final Fantasies are straying too far from its roots, then this game is for you. It brings back many story and gameplay mechanics from the olden days of RPG's. The premise of the game is not unheard of for the franchise: four young heroes go out on an adventure to rescue the world from the evils that plague it.

Story:

You begin as the boy Brandt and it is his 14th birthday and you have just been summoned to appear before the King. He mentions how Princess Aire was kidnapped by the Wicked Witch of the North and he wants you to rescue her. You are then joined by your friend Jusqua to go save the princess. Then you meet up with the castle guard Yunita and together, the three of you save Princess Aire by defeating the witch, only to return to your hometown to discover it has turned to stone!

The four of you must search for a way to save the kingdom.

/spoiling the first hour of the game

If you're expecting an in-depth, or very story driven game, then look far away. This game harbors back to the NES and SNES days where the story is a bit "episodic". You visit a village, discover there's a problem, someone in the town tells you where to find the dungeon, slay the boss, save the village, and then be off to the next town. There's very little connecting the various mini-stories together outside of the main mission of figuring out how to save your hometown.

Characters:

While there is a cast of characters, and have a bit of personality, they're not really that interesting individually, and don't display much character growth. They're mostly just vessels to play through, and it's kind of struggling to remember a damn thing about any of them.

Brandt: He's the first character you play as, and is the typical adventurous hero character. He has a bright personality and is loyal to his friends, yadda yadda.

Jusqua: He's primarily the opposite of Brandt. The king sent Jusqua to check up on Brandt, but his job in the castle is never really explained. 

Yunita: she's a knight of Horne. She's Aire's bodyguard and is a great fighter, but she lacks confidence in difficult situations.

Aire: The youngest princess of Horne. She's the typical spoiled princess, and has little knowledge of the outside world. 

Gameplay:
The game largely follows a basic template for JRPG's, from the overworld, and random encounters, but it does add a bit of a twist for the battle system. While the battle system is largely a traditional turn based system, it has a system of action points. There are no magic points in this game, and any action uses these points. Everybody in your party has 5 action points, you never gain any more. Each action takes up one or more AP, and you regain a single point each time it is the character's turn. So if you use a move that takes up several AP, then you must plot out how to conduct your next moves, or risk getting in trouble. A faster way to regain your AP is to use the Boost option, as you can regain two points, but at the cost of not doing anything on your turn.

One aspect of the battle system that many would find a bit cumbersome, is that there is no targeting system. You are unable to target any of your opponents or your party members. This is a bit annoying at first, but if you have a party member low on HP, the cure spell will automatically target the member with the lowest HP, so luckily it won't just randomly select any character.

Next is the return of the popular job system (called crowns) from classic Final Fantasy games. With this there are a few familiar faces, like the white and black mages, monk, and paladin. There are a few that are fairly pointless, like the party host, and musician crowns... Some crowns are more helpful than others, especially when it comes to magic, as casting fire 1 as any other class takes two AP, but casting fire as a black mage now only costs 1 AP. So if you want to be a magic user, then it's highly advised to equip a mage crown.

Unlike Final Fantasy III, where you had to have a certain number of points to change jobs, this one allows you to change them on the fly with largely no penalties. This is quite helpful, as you spend the first half of the game with your party split up. So you don't have to relegate one character to be the healer, and one to be the magic user. Also unlike the other Final Fantasies, the jobs don't level up from battle like your character does, you level them up by filling their slots with the respectively shaped gems, and the max level for a job is level 3.

Speaking of gems, they are very valuable items, and you need them for basically EVERYTHING. At the beginning of the game they seem pointless. You grind your characters and you collect these gems, and they don't do anything, but you can sell them at the stores for money, as they're basically the only way to earn money, as you don't earn gil in battle like normal FF games.

As the game progresses, and you gain more crowns, you discover that you can use these gems to not only level up your crowns, you will also gain access to a shop that allows you to use gems to upgrade your weapons and armor. So now these gems are more valuable than ever. You now must figure out which is more important, buying new equipment, or leveling up your equipment. Luckily the game makes you change your equipment to something that is strong against the upcoming area boss, so you at least are forced to buy equipment instead. Only near the end of the game is leveling up your armor important.

One minor gameplay issue, is limited inventory space. In this day and age, it seems a bit silly that there isn't a party inventory, and your inventory is limited to a certain number of slots the characters hold, and that includes your equipment. This isn't too huge of an issue, and is only a problem when your party is relegated to a single person, but of all the modern conveniences, did they have to revert the inventory down? Luckily your key item inventory is separate from your characters' individual inventory, so at least that issue is taken care of.

Visuals:
The visuals are pretty fantastic for a DS game. Instead of using Final Fantasy III and IV's engine, they use a different engine, and a drastically different artstyle. It has a nice chibi storybook aspect of it, and gives you a nice nostalgic feeling of reading a children's storybook.

For a game on the DS, it does an okay job utilizing both screens. Most of the gameplay is on the touch screen, and you can use the stylus to control your character, but the D-Pad works just fine, and in battle, the menus are also on the touch screen. Outside of battle, the top screen really only shows your party's HP and AP, and is really only useful when you go to the world map, and the map is viewable on the top screen. It would have been nice to have a dungeon and town map on the top screen, but it's not a necessity, it does use both screens better than Final Fantasy III.

Music:

For the soundtrack, it's fantastic. It's like your typical old school RPG soundtrack except they mix between the bleeps and bloops of the NES days and with the modern midi sounds of the DS. The end result is a unique experience.

So if you're looking for a game that caters to your nostalgia needs, but with a new twist, Final Fantasy 4 Heroes of Light is the game for you. Just don't let its cute exterior fool you into thinking this is a stroll through the park

Music: 9/10.

Visuals: 9/10.

Story: 7/10.

Content 8/10.

Overall score: 8/10

Star Ocean: First Departure

Released in 2007 in Japan and 2008 in Europe and North America, First Departure is the remake of the first game in Tri-Ace's Star Ocean series and is published by Square Enix. The original game was titled Star Ocean: Fantastic Space Odyssey, and was released in 1995 on the Super Famicom (SNES). It was developed by the group Wolf Team, and they previously released another RPG on the same console called Tales of Phantasia. After several creative disputes with their publisher Namco, after the released of Tales of Phantasia much of the development team left and started Tri-Ace and ran to another publisher, Enix. this is the reason why the Star Ocean series and the Tales series both share many similarities, and even the early games shared some of the same spells. They decided to stay way from some aspects of the typical high fantasy setting of many RPG games and focused on a heavily Star Trek influenced story and follows it up with science fiction elements.

The original version of Star Ocean was considered ahead of its time, and completely pushed the limits of the SNES. Sadly this game never saw the light of day outside of Japan, largely due to Enix closing it's North American market, and also due to it being a late SNES release, and Nintendo of America pushing the then new Nintendo 64. There is a fan translation available of this game.

In 2007 the game was finally remade for the Playstation Portable and released in the West. This version uses an updated version of the engine for Star Ocean: Second Story, and was developed alongside the enhanced port of that game, now called Star Ocean: Second Evolution. With this remake, they had help with the animation company Production IG, famous for Ghost in the Shell, and more recently Attack on Titan. There are many updates compared to the SNES version, as they added a few bonus characters, new soundtrack, and updated character designs and cutscenes. Despite all these changes, the story and gameplay is pretty unchanged.

Now for the actual review:

Story:

You play as a young warrior named Roddick Farrence who lives in the small town of Kratus. He runs a Defense Force team with his friends Dorne Murtough and Millie Chilette, and together they defend the village from robbers and thieves. They're young Fellpools who are a race of humanoid beings who have tails and pointy ears and live on the planet Roak.

After a day's work, they receive a letter that a nearby village has been plagued with a contagious disease causing everyone to turn to stone, and Dorne has the disease. They hear of an herb that is claimed to heal the stone sickness, and head off to Mount Metorx. Once they reach mount Metorx, they see a flash of light and two beings appear in front of them. They introduce themselves as Ronyx J Kenny and Illia Silvestri, and are part of a Galactic Federation, and are from the planet Earth. They have to bring the sad news that the herbs they seek won't cure the disease and bring the trio aboard their spaceship.

After Dorne is placed in medical care, the federation discovers that a rival group are supposedly creating a bio weapon by using the people on Roak. They realize that the only way to stop the disease is to find the host, but the host has been dead for 300 years. So Ronyx and Illia take Roddick and Millie to a planet that carries a time gate, and they travel 300 years to the past to find the demon Asmodeus to receive the cure for the disease. Thus the adventure begins.

Gameplay:

Largely a fairly traditional RPG with random encounters, the battle system is what sets the game apart from other RPG's. The battle system takes place in real time, and is similar to an action RPG where you can mash the action button to attack the enemy. You can assign special skills to the shoulder buttons What separates this from a real action RPG, the battles take place in another screen, and there are still menus to cast other spells, or use items. It's like a pseudo-action RPG with menus.

The rest of your party runs on AI and you can't really control them outside of setting tactics. So if you're tired of that character for always wasting their SP, you can set their tactic and tell them to save that shit up.

There's also a skill system where you can customize characters with various skills. While some of these help in battle, like increasing speed or recovery time, these skills are mostly for other aspects like item creation, via cooking meals, or creating items you can't find in stores.

There is also a feature called Private Actions, where when you enter a town, you can have the party explore the city on their own, and you can talk to them individually. This is an optional feature, and helps a bit with character development. This can also alter what happens in the various endings.

Visuals:

Since it uses the engine from Star Ocean: Second Story, with its 2D sprites on a pre-rendered backgrounds, the game looks like a game from the original Playstation. While not as graphically impressive as other PSP titles, it at least gets the job done like many other PSP ports of PS1 games. The game does feature a portrait of a main character's face in the dialog, and their face changes to depict their emotions.

Unlike the original version of the game, it does have a traditional overworld, and if you've played the original version, this gives the world a much larger feeling.

Music:

Like everything on this remake, the soundtrack was updated. It does sound a lot better than the SNES version, so while the original had a really good soundtrack, an updated version is much nicer. It does have a typical JRPG style soundtrack, but there are a few memorable tracks. The opening of the game even features the anime tradition of having a J-Pop theme song and it's a fairly likable track.

Verdict:

Star Ocean: First Departure is a pretty solid JRPG, and is a very recommendable title for those who are fond of the older RPG's from the SNES and PS1 days. The voice acting is decent, while not the best acting, and is patchy at times, it's definitely not something to cringe over. This game does show some of its age, so it may not appeal to those who want a more modern approach to their RPG's, but for those who either like RPG's in general, or want to play a lost classic, this is a very solid game to add to your collection.

Music: 7/10

Visuals: 7/10

Story: 8/10

Content: 8/10

Conclusion: 8/10

An Inside Look at the Final Fantasy Flamewars.

In 1987, Final Fantasy was conceived by a, then unknown, company known as Square. They were financially on their last legs and decided to create their final game and close their doors for good. They settled on the name Final Fantasy, a game that would reflect it as their final game, and how they wanted to create a fantasy. Ironically what was supposed to be their swan song 25 years later turned into a multi-million dollar franchise and spawned 14 sequels and countless spinoff titles. As one of video game's most beloved franchises in the past 25 years, Final Fantasy has shown that even after all these years, they still have fans that are dedicated to the series... a little too dedicated.

Final Fantasy has gained a bit of infamy over the years, not from the games themselves, but from how viciously broken their fanbase is. While it's not unheard of, or impossible to find a fan who likes most, if not all, of the games, the fanbase is famous for how ferociously they despise specific games within the main series. It's not to say that they are the only broken fanbase, not only in video games, but in entertainment in general. Zelda has its broken bit, as does Pokemon, and even the Fallout series has its broken base (despite only having about 4 games), it seems that Final Fantasy fans are the most hard headed and the most "violent" when it comes to their games. But why does it hit Final Fantasy harder than a series like Zelda which is about as old and itself has several entries.

It largely has to do with the fact that the Final Fantasy series tends to try and reinvent itself with every installation in the series. While series like The Legend of Zelda and Pokemon tend to have several familiarities with them, Final Fantasy feels like a new game every time you play a different one. Some of the early ones are a bit similar to each other, after FF6, they went for basically redesigning the game from scratch with only Moogles, Chocobos, spells, and sometimes the summons as the only familiar faces. It's gotten more diverse with its later games where they even go and redesign the battle system every game. This explains the strife between the different fans are so strong, you're almost defending different games.

Another problem with the series, is that until recently, the series was spread over several consoles. While luckily after several ports/remakes (and the Playstation classics on the PSN), the first 9 games are available on the PSP/Vita and most of them are available on the PS3 (excluding 3, and 12). With this, you can play most of the games with ease. Prior to this, it was spread over several consoles, and many people don't have the space, or money to keep all of their previous consoles, much less own multiple consoles. So to play much of the series was a bit of a hassle. With the series spread over several consoles, many fans are really only exposed to a small handful of the series. So with this in mind, it explains why many of the fans defend one or a couple of the games in the series as they're really the only ones they know. So this brings the endless question, are you really a fan of a series if you're only familiar with one or two games? That's something that really has no answer, and thus fuels the never ending flamewars.

The fanbase is largely divided into three main camps: Final Fantasy 1-6, Final Fantasy 7, and Final Fantasy 10. Liking anything else means you. Are. Wrong. If you are a Final Fantasy fan, it's wise to take note which camp is near you to prevent yourself from having a massive headache. Though despite these main camps, there are still several possibilities to still be wrong. As we have the polarizing Final Fantasy 8 and the even bigger breaker, Final Fantasy 13. Let's dive into these main camps to see why they're so dedicated to each one.

The Final Fantasy 1-6 camp is somewhat hypocritical in and of itself. The big part is that many of these people haven't actually played all 6 of them.So while they feel justified to lump them all together, it seems very silly to try and defend games that you haven't even played. Out of these 6, Final Fantasy 1, 4, and 6 are the most well-known and are all 3 landmarks in RPG's. 2, 3, and 5 are the least played of the 6, and you could say the least played in the entire series. This is largely to do with the fact that the original versions of these games weren't released outside of Japan until several years after their release, especially with FF3 being released 16 years after its original release in Japan. With that information aside, we can go back to how many of these campers either haven't played all 6 of the games, or actually only like 2, maybe 3 games at most in this group. So when you sit down and think about this, it makes the entire camp seem like a complete joke.

Why are they defending this group as a whole if they're either not familiar with all of them or don't even like all of them? Nostalgia is a big factor in this group, and also "defending the classics". We must also take note that the series, and RPG's as a whole, were mostly a niche in gaming culture at the time of their release, with many American localization teams thinking that RPG's themselves were money pits because nobody wants to play a long game, which seems silly today, because today we have the Elder Scrolls, MMO’s and sandbox games that go on forever. Since the series was a bit "underground" on the 8 bit and 16 bit days, they feel that the series was ruined by popularity when they moved to the PlayStation and became a massive hit. This ideology fits the same bill with certain music fans that after a band hits the big time, they are no longer a good band. The same goes with video games.

Now for group 2, the Final Fantasy 7 camp. As the most well known and most popular in the series, and the game that brought not only Final Fantasy to the mainstream, but also RPG’s in general, so it's unavoidable that this game alone has its own camp of dedicated fans. For most gamers that missed out on the game as late comers to the series, they probably won't get the big deal with this game. Nostalgia also plays a massive role in this camp, because for many dedicated FF7 fans, this was their introduction to the series, and without this game, they feel that they would not be interested in the series. For many fans, their first experience with a franchise tends to make the biggest impact on them, and anything after that will never live up to the expectations as their first experience. Sort of like how a drug user's best high will almost always be his first time.

From a modern standpoint, this game looks and feels very uninspiring, and will definitely confuse people with why this game is a big deal. Its graphics feel very archaic, even for a Playstation game, and the story itself is riddled with JRPG clichés. Sadly this is an aspect that many will miss out on if they didn't play the game when it was new. Originally praised as the first 3D Final Fantasy, it was also one of the earliest 3D RPG's on the PS1.It was also highly influential with its setting and story, and in its wake has been followed with several games that have more or less "ripped off" aspects of the game. So if you're a modern gamer and compare it to recent titles, this game brings nothing new to the table. But if you if you think about all these firsts that the game brought to the table, it’s easy to see why this game is held in high regards. It’s like the Nirvana album, Nevermind, of the RPG’s. Comparing it to today’s music, the album brings nothing new to you, they sound like every other gritty rock band on the radio today, but if you rewind to 1991 when it came out, this was a radical departure from the radio back then. In the 80’s Hair Metal and New Wave were all the rage, and nobody outside of a college campus had any clue with what the hell Alternative was. Fast forward today, apparently everything is alternative. Well back to Final Fantasy…

Since FF7 started a second generation of Final Fantasy fans, it started the original, and the deepest split in the fanbase. This sort of "generation war" suffers either from whose nostalgia is the strongest, or how the FF7 fans are noobs because the game made the series popular and brought what was once a well-kept secret into the eyes of the public.

Now for the final camp, Final Fantasy 10. This camp shares some of the same problems with the FF7 camp, though the large difference is that it’s not as highly influential. Like FF7, FF10 was also many people's entry into the series. Just like many FF7 fans first console was the original Playstation, FF10 fan's first console was the Playstation 2. Despite this, the game is still heralded as one of the best RPG's, if not one of the best PS2 games and heralded many firsts in the series. Even though the game is 10 years old now and is starting to show its age, it still holds its own visually to many gamers whereas Final Fantasy 7's deformed sprites and awkward navigation shies newcomers away.

As ushering a new generation of Final Fantasy fans, FF10 is hated by the PS1 generation and the S/NES gen as those fans being "tainted by the evils of modern video games". The FF10 fans are only into fancy graphics and voice acting and can't handle the "purity of the classics". And also in a slight hint of hypocrisy, the second gen view the third gen into ruining their well-kept secret, since they feel that the PS1 games are allegedly obscure and FF10 is too popular because it has the first direct sequel in the franchise's history. All ignoring the fact that Final Fantasy 7 sold more copies than 10. Another criticism is over Square's merger with rival company Enix. The older fans claim this game is ruined because the original company is no more. The biggest irony of this claim is the fact that the merger happened in 2003 and FF10 was released in 2001 and every non-greatest hits copy of the game's packaging says Squaresoft and even the title screen lists Squaresoft in every version of the game. Clearly a company that has yet to exist can't "ruin" a game, but many people ignore these facts.  A lot of people make the same claim saying Square Enix ruined the series with 10-2, even though Squaresoft developed the game, not Square Enix. Though this situation is kind of a trick question, as the game was released in North America after the merger, and only the original Japanese release says Squaresoft.

So what about some of the other games? Why are they hated? Why are 8 and 13 so polarizing? Also what's the deal with FF3 being hated despite being a missing entry? While I can't go in depth on some of this, I can do a simple breakdown with why the Final Fantasy fans rage massively hard over these games.

Let's start with Final Fantasy 3:

Final Fantasy 3

As mentioned earlier, this game was relatively unknown to most of the fans. Only the most hardcore of fans played the fan-translated roms on NES emulators, while others patiently waited for Square (later Square Enix) to release the game outside of Japan. So in 2006, their prayers were finally answered. Many of the fans were expecting a mass epic and thought Japan never released it to the rest of the world for this very reason. Many were sadly disappointed to find out that this game was incredibly archaic in story, and gameplay, and felt rather betrayed. They ignore the fact that this game was released on the NES and it's quite silly to expect a very deep and rich story when later games like FF4 and 6 were the ones who pushed the envelope in storytelling, not an NES title. Another major flack FF3 got was that it was released on the DS, not the PS2 because Final Fantasy is only on Playstation.

Final Fantasy 8

Once the most polarizing game in the series, Final Fantasy 8, while largely praised by its graphics from the fans introduced by FF7, the gameplay itself gained some flack. It had a lot of radical gameplay changes for every Final Fantasy fan. Its junction system (look it up yourself) is confusing to many newcomers to the game. It also added an unorthodox way of gaining money, and the fact that the monsters level up with you. To counter this, one must use the Junction System to hoard magic to increase your stats. Your stats increase every 10 spells you use, so if you use too many spells, it actually affects your stats. The story, depending on who you're talking to, is either heralded as a rich tale, or loathed as convoluted and too "lovey dovey". While the confusing gameplay changes are legitimate reasons for not liking a game, there are still many fans who hate FF8 because they were expecting it to be a sequel to FF7, but discovered it was a completely different game and have never forgiven it ever since.

Final Fantasy 9

Squaresoft felt that FF7 and FF8 were getting too futuristic and scifi, and created FF9 as a sort of throwback to the more fantasy aspects of the older games. Sadly for Square, this did not bode well with fans. One big criticism is that the game was given a more cartoony storybook-like artstyle to match with its fantasy setting. Many fans felt that their "mature series" was becoming too kiddy and Square are trying to appeal to children because "mature gamers play mature games, and don’t want to play Disney shit". All of them tend to ignore the fact that FF9 probably has one of the most mature storylines in the franchise. This game also doesn’t get enough attention as FF7 or 8 as it was released late in the PS1’s lifespan, and came out a month after the launch of the PS2.

Final Fantasy 11

MMORPG, enough said. More points because you have to pay monthly for it.

Final Fantasy 12

While heralded by professional critics upon its initial release, FF12 has gained a backlash from its fans. Similar to FF8, 12 gained some heat from fans for changing a lot of gameplay aspects. From its gambit system, not earning money from battles, and the MMORPG inspired battle system, it has its fair share of legitimate reasons why people dislike the game. Though a lot of fans hate it because it's "too medieval" and Final Fantasy games aren't supposed to be medieval (ignoring that the majority of the series has a medieval setting).

Final Fantasy 13

The whole game breaker. FF13 has two main grudges against it: the fact that it was released on the latest video game console generation (so basically why FF7 and FFX are hated by older fans), and how the gameplay is unorthodox from other FF games. The only universal agreement with this game is that the graphics rule.

The first criticism is in its story; some praise it to ungodly levels, and other feel that it has no story. No matter what anyone tells you, the game does have a story, and is fairly straightforward through most of the game and does very little to stray away from that. Arguably one of the most straightforward stories in the series as it's not riddled with multiple plot twists. The reason why people probably feel it has no story, is that instead of being story driven like the others, it’s largely a character driven story and copes with how the various playable characters cope with themselves. It even features some very mature situations: like how Lightning is coping with raising her little sister without her parents help, and Sazh coping with his missing son.

The main criticism is in the gameplay. First off with how about it’s linear for much of the game. Some people want their RPG's to have a lot of exploration in them, while this is a legitimate reason to dislike the game, the problem is that a lot of those people praise FF10 which is just as linear. The second criticism is the battle system. Like the story, the battle system is either praised to godly proportions, or hated with a passion. The battle system does take several hours of gameplay to finally open up and show what it’s really about, but prior to that, you don’t really do much in battle. Another aspect of the gameplay is that you automatically heal after battle and you have unlimited magic. Many feel that Square Enix is trying too hard to cater to "those filthy casuals", but ignore that the battle system itself makes things tricky and the game itself is no walk in the park as they have level caps and force you into using strategy in boss battles more than the previous games that mostly require you to just grind your level higher.

Final Fantasy 14

As the second MMORPG with paid services, FF14 suffers the same fate as FF11, though this time it's different. Out of all the 13 previous games, FF14 is the only one that's universally considered to suck, and this is not from idiot fan opinions. Riddled with glitches, design flaws, and broken gameplay, the consensus was that the game felt unfinished. Luckily Square Enix noticed its universal hatred and decided to completely redo the entire game and to reveal it as FF14: A Realm Reborn. A Realm Reborn was finally released and has gained very positive reviews, but it suffers from the same fate as FF11 with being a paid MMORPG.

As a series that spans generations of gamers, its fanbase incorporates several types of fans. With its ongoing flamewars between its various factions, there are still many sane fans that either love their preferred game, or most/all of the games. Though we could all think that if everyone had the same opinion, the world would be a fairly boring place.