Showing posts with label Inbox. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Inbox. Show all posts

Inbox: Final Fantasy II

New for me

My first experience with a game called Final Fantasy II was what turned out to be the American port of what was Final Fantasy IV in Japan. That was a rather momentous occasion for me, cementing my interest in role-playing games, but when I discovered that the US had missed two whole Final Fantasy games and that they simply weren't getting ported, I was devastated. What had I missed?

And then, the original Final Fantasy II finally showed up on the Playstation in a multi-game remake called Final Fantasy Origins, but by that point, I wasn't invested in the Playstation platform and let the game slide by for a while. However, having recently gone back and played Final Fantasy, starting with the Dawn of Souls version, but skipping along to the PSP remake, I kind of wanted to go back and check out the game that I missed so long ago and picked up a copy of the PSP version.

The PSP version (also available on iOS) is essentially the same as the Dawn of Souls version, but with cleaner, prettier graphics and another dungeon with more loot and enemies. Being on a UMD, the game does suffer from a little lag due to loading times compared to the fast-as-can-be Game Boy Advance cartridge, but I found it bearable and the higher resolution graphics were quite pretty, considering the age and format of the game. Not having played the original Famicom edition (available on Wii's virtual console, for those interested), I don't really have a point of reference to compare the remake to as the GBA and PSP versions are similar in terms of gameplay, so I'll just stick to that experience.

Final Fantasy II is actually a substantial upgrade from the original Final Fantasy in terms of story and gameplay. On the story front, the game actually features characters with personalities, however limited they might be, three of which are with you throughout the game and the fourth is a guest character that is determined by the story and will swap in and out as the game goes. The story itself is event driven and linear, although the game is still open world, so you're able to explore (if you can survive that is) and features a story about an evil empire that's trying to take over the world a small coalition of forces trying to fight back. It's very simple stuff compared to modern day RPG storylines and even quaint, but in the world of old school, early Japanese RPGs, it's exceptionally deep, especially compared to its rival series, Dragon Quest, at the time. It's not quite enough to be compelling, but it at least has one interesting twist and establishes some themes that get revisited in future titles in the series.

In terms of gameplay, Final Fantasy II respects the turn based style of the original, but guts the class and level-based system of the first and replaces it with a system that is focused on skills and stats, which increase as they are used. So, if you get hit, you have a chance of your HP and stamina going up, casting a lot of the spell "Cure" will cause it to level up, and swinging an axe will make the character's axe level go up. It's an interesting change of pace, but one that results in a bit of time being spent fighting simply to improve your characters' stats and doing some rather illogical things to achieve that, like having your characters fight each other instead of their enemies. Furthermore, it still encourages grinding and lends a bit towards making every character a super-character, strong in both magic and fighting in order to reduce weaknesses in your team and that reduces the distinction between your characters as well as guest characters, kind of making things bland from a gameplay perspective.

In terms of art, FFII isn't much of a stretch from the original in terms of style of complexity, and with the remakes, this is especially true since they were kind of built together. The PSP edition's graphics are crisp, clear and well defined, benefiting from the newer display technology, but still based on icons and so nothing that's going to take anyone's breath away. Musically, FFII continues the series' high standards for music and it's a mix of the foreign and the familiar, certainly sounding like a Final Fantasy should without overly re-treading the same music, but it's still a nice point in this version of the game.

Final Fantasy II does feel kind of unique as far as the series and even early JRPGs go, simply because of its character system, but that's not necessarily a good thing, since the system, while interesting in intention, ultimately doesn't significantly change overall gameplay. The game is also notable with the scope and execution of its story, in context, but isn't exceptionally compelling as its characters don't really have particularly interesting stories nor are they developed. Some of the guest characters are interesting, but don't get enough face time to be anything more than a tiny spark. At least the remake provides some solid graphics and sound that helps pretty up the aging game underneath. Final Fantasy II is a noticeable step up from the original and might be ahead of the pack for its era, but all the remake polish in the world don't stop the game from feeling a bit quaint and dated throwback. One that I enjoyed simply because I like these old-school style games, but I think that's the only class of gamer that will still want to go back and play this, remake or no. 7/10.

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Inbox: Munchkin 3 - Clerical Errors

New for me

So far, expansions to the Munchkin game haven't been particularly innovative, adding to the bulk of the cards without adding new mechanics. However, the expansions do work well to keep things fresh and some of the additions do add further strategic considerations. Clerical Errors largely continues that so Munchkin lovers who are just looking for a standard expansion will find it a good second expansion to add to their game.

The advertised "new" items to Clerical Errors is both a new race, Gnomes, and a new class, Bards. Overall, both are fairly powerful additions to the game and should give players more options in terms of the race and class they'd like to be. Because of the amount of addition the game makes, a number of new versions of old cards are also added to keep the ratios in the game appropriate. I don't know how successful it is as in our plays through the game we've encountered some uneven distribution of cards here and there, but that might simply be on account of the luck of the draw.

The sense of comedy in Clerical Errors is still pretty amusing, frequently making puns "Tequila Mockingbird" or fun of fantasy conventions "Chainmail Bikini" and the illustrations are modestly amusing too. Sometimes we did find that our hands were bloated with items we couldn't use because of the specificity of class and race, but again, that might just be a matter of the luck of the draw.

Overall, Clerical Errors is a decent addition to the game. It doesn't really add anything new, but some of the cards added (especially many of the new curses) do add some spark to the way that the game is played and it's all done with good fun in mind. Even though it won't add dimension, Clerical Errors is still good for those wanting to add some more options to their Munchkin game. 7/10.

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Inbox:Replay: Final Fantasy

Revisiting past games I've recently acquired

Final Fantasy was my second great RPG love, showing up on the Nintendo Entertainment System some short time after I had spent countless hours playing Dragon Warrior, also for that system. And while I've played through Dragon Warrior only once, I've played through Final Fantasy a few times, including my most recent spin via the 20th Anniversary Playstation Portable edition.

Although I have to say, as far as RPGs go, the original Final Fantasy has not aged gracefully, the PSP edition (the iPhone also has a similar edition with touch controls) does polish up the graphics to the prettiest that I've ever seen and contains all the improvements added in the Final Fantasy Origins collection for the Playstation and Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls for Game Boy Advance. In addition to the pretty new 2D graphics and effects, the PSP and iPhone editions also get a bonus dungeon, on top of the four bonus dungeons added to Dawn of Souls. But the maps, the monsters, and the script is all left intact, minus the changes for the new dungeons.

Overall, many of the changes since its NES incarnation are quite good. First of all, the game is far less buggy than the original and all the spells and classes actually do something. In the original, the Thief was a useless paperweight of a character until he got upgraded into a Ninja, now he actually does solid physical damage, even if he still gets hit pretty hard. A number of spells that used to do nothing (Lock) now have an actual ingame effect too. Furthermore, there were some gameplay enhancements drawn from later Final Fantasy games that smooth this new edition, including automatic retargeting of attacks if the creature has died and the switch to MP instead of the limited number of casts per spell level, which highly discouraged casting.

And although the script has improved since the original translation, resulting in a more natural and less confusing read, the story is still the same. Fortunately, Final Fantasy is gifted with a more interesting story than "save the princess, save the world", although it includes both, having a bit of callback to the first boss fight in the final dungeon and boss, it's still a rather straightforward and undramatic affair. Fortunately, the absolute need to grind has been somewhat reduced, although you will still need to beat up creatures for their lunch money if you want to buy good gear and magic, but despite the high encounter rate, in keeping with the original, it still moves much faster than I remember. The bonus dungeons themselves are rather tedious and don't really add much to the story, just rooms filled with loot and nasty nasty creatures and while going through them makes the final dungeon notably easier, there's really nothing else compelling about them, even with some of the trickery in them.

Final Fantasy is a bit of a relic. You still can see the traces of its influence all over the design of Japanese style RPGs and could be said to be more influential than its predecessor in Dragon Warrior. However, it lacks the kind of dramatic story that later RPGs were able to create and so it feels a lot like a dungeon crawler as a result. This results in what can be quite a tedious play through for gamers who did not grow up with these old designs, made even more tedious for 100% completists due to the lengthy grindfests that compose the bonus dungeons. However, for fans of the original, this is perhaps the smoothest ride through the game yet and if you've never completed the game and want to give it another shot, the PSP and iPhone editions are the prettiest, shiniest, newest versions out there, full of enhancements and fixes. For old-school RPG fans only. 7/10.

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Inbox:Hardware: Munchkin - Boxes of Holding

Inbox features items that I have recently purchased or received.

Hardware covers the technology of game playing, whether PC, consoles or figurines on a board.

While I do love me some Munchkin for its chaotic multiplayer fun, I admit that it's rather chaotic when it comes to storage. It's a lot of cards and they can get quite shuffled about and messed up in the original box that it came in, especially with the Door and Treasure cards getting mixed up. The easy solution, of course, is to get a pair of simple cardboard card boxes or, alternatively, fancier deck boxes that exist for trading card games.

Steve Jackson games actually deals with this problem too, by releasing its very own pair of deck boxes to hold all your Munchkin cards, separated into Door and Treasure boxes. These aren't actually significantly different from regular old cardboard card boxes, actually, being made of cardboard themselves, but they are printed all over with Munchkin graphics and come with a pair of exclusive bonus cards as well. For the high asking price of $9.99 that's really not that great of a deal. However, the glossy printing is a lot more aesthetically pleasing than a plain white or brown cardbox box with "Munchkin" scrawled in permanent ink on it and the bonus cards are nice too.

Still, for what you get, it's not that great of a deal. But a must for fans. 6/10.

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Inbox: Munchkin 2 - Unnatural Axe

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Munchkin is a lot of fun as a multiplayer game, but when you start playing with a larger group (5+), you might find that you burn through all the cards in the original set and have to start recycling cards back into the draw decks, which is all fine and good, but the potential for surprise diminishes when that happens. Fortunately, there is a solution to that: expansion decks.

The first expansion for Munchkin was Unnatural Axe, which provides a heap of unique new cards to add to the experience. More monsters, more traps, and more overpowered treasure for sure, giving you more options to fight monsters and more monsters to die to. And while there are no significant gameplay mechanics added, Munchkin does add a new race, Orcs, who are a little more trap-resistant, which creates more choices for players. Most importantly, however, is that all these additions seem to be pretty well balanced and provided in a good ratio so that players never feel unchallenged and have options, especially when ganging up either on monsters or on each others.

The art is amusing, especially for those accustomed to fantasy-fiction trappings and there's a good number of cards. If that's not enough, Munchkin has a number of additional expansions. A good, supplemental, release. 7/10.

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Inbox: Munchkin 7 - More Good Cards

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When I got the first Munchkin game as a gift, I also received with it Munchkin 7 - More Good Cards. More Good Cards is a slim expansion set for Munchkin that doesn't add anything particularly new: no new mechanics, no new races, classes or treasure types. What it does provide is a small stack of highly powered cards that generally work to enhance the use of other cards.

This includes even more over the top versions of cards like Super Munchkin and Half-Breed, which let you stack three classes or races together, rather than just two. However, since the expansion includes a lot of cards that modify other cards, but no actual treasures, monsters, races or anything of the sort, it might actually be too much for those who are just playing with the basic box, because it throws off the ratio of enhancer cards to basic cards, which results in drawing a lot of cards that can't or won't be used.

That said, as you get more expansions and your decks become enormous, the more useful More Good Cards becomes, letting you take advantage of the three or four cards in your hand that you might not have otherwise been able to use. Bottom line: this is a good expansion for those who already have a lot of Munchkin and want More Good Cards. For those who only have the basic box, I'd look at buying additional expansions in numerical sequence to keep the card ratios even. 6/10.

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Inbox: Munchkin

Inbox features items that I have recently purchased or received.

One of America's best game designers is Steve Jackson, responsible for the design of the pen-and-paper roleplaying system, GURPS, as well as the fantastic card game, Illuminati, released during they heyday of the collectible card game craze. Munchkin, released in the early 2000's, is another game by Steve Jackson and quite possibly their most popular one yet, thanks to its comical tone, but engrossing multiplayer mechanics.

Initially designed as a send-up of pen-and-paper roleplaying games, gamers, and its associated culture, the main game features each playing taking the role of a dungeon adventurer (starting as a Level 1 Human with no class). Together, 3-6 players enter the dungeon, kick down doors, fight monsters, loot treasure and work with and against each other to this end. The object of the game is to be the first player to reach level 10. Levels are gained by defeating monsters, earning the levels in treasure and in selling equipment, but the last level may only be earned by defeating a monster. As the players encounter baddies, they can ask for assistance, bribing other players with treasure or appealing to their goody-goody nature (if they're elves) and likewise, players also frequently draw a number of "door" cards which enable them to cause trouble for each other in order to keep them from winning.

Like any card game, mulligans do happen and if the shuffled deck doesn't distribute card types well, then play can really slow down a lot. But, its inherent nature as a card game is its main weakness. Otherwise, the game is tactically simple enough that most gamers and even many non-gamers can get into it quickly after a couple demonstration rounds, but giving so many opportunities for players to help and foil each other makes every game unpredictable, while still giving the rules enough space to permit enough planning as so the game isn't entirely chaotic. I really appreciate how the game creates both a desire to cooperate with other players, as almost no player could survive without the occasional intervention of another player, but gives plenty of opportunities to backstab another player or tear them down just when they think that they might win.

The cards are published on quality cardstock that requires a little breaking in, but are durable with a strong matte finish. The latest (19th) printing takes the cards another level, including some revisions to cards to make their effects clearer and giving all the cards a color makeover. The included decks aren't enormous, so a six player game could possibly see all the cards run out. The included rules are printed in nice large print on a foldout. Sometimes the rules aren't exactly clear and it's not entirely easy to find out where certain rules lie on the page, so the instruction page could be better organized. In the case of who plays first and what order the players take turns, the game takes a comical approach, suggesting that the players roll the dice and argue about what it means. Fortunately, there is some good amount of online support, including an FAQ that resolves some questions that might come up while gaming as well as forums where a befuddled gamer can seek advice from more experienced players.

At this point, Munchkin is Steve Jackson Games' most popular product and so those that don't get their fill from just the first box have seven expansion sets to purchase. The game also has a number of spin-offs, featuring different themes from the standard set's medieval fantasy, like Space Munchkin, Munchkin Fu and numerous other themes. These spin-offs can largely also be mixed into standard Munchkin, with a few rules adjustments.

Overall, the game is a lot of fun, perhaps reaching its best point at 4-5 players. Again, a bad shuffle can really kill the momentum of the game and so the game does have that weakness, but its quality of player interaction, comical theme and solid game mechanics provide plenty of moments to enjoy with your friends (and enemies). I would imagine that standard Munchkin would be most enjoyable to those who have some background in medieval fantasy role-playing games (computer and console gamers included), due to the tropes involved, but the comedy is frequently broad enough that non-roleplayers. Some of the other Munchkin spin-offs might prove to be more accessible as well, depending on the background of the players. Highly recommended. 8/10.

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Inbox:Hardware: Microsoft Xbox 360 Elite 2010 Spring Bundle

Inbox features items that I have recently purchased or received.

Hardware covers the technology of game playing, whether PC, consoles or figurines on a board.

In the spring of 2010, Microsoft released one of their best bundles for their Xbox 360 yet: one with the improved Jasper motherboard, which reduced the failure rate of their hardware to regular consumer electronics levels. Furthermore, copies of Forza 3 and Halo: ODST were bundled with it, two Xbox 360 exclusives that were fairly well received. Perhaps the best Xbox 360 bundle yet.

And then I found it on sale for $250, so, I couldn't resist and purchased it. The Xbox 360 Elite is a fairly slick device and bears a black matte finish. It medium sized, but has a huge power brick, which fortunately has enough slack to hide it under the entertainment cabinet instead of within it. It comes with a controller and a standard AV cable. It does not have wireless internet unlike its console peers, the Nintendo Wii and the Sony Playstation 3 and it bears a 10/100 Ethernet port. A wireless adapter can be purchased separately for $100 (!). The included hard drive is 120GB and proprietary, so you have to purchase a Microsoft branded hard drive in order to replace or upgrade and the Microsoft ones are pricey per gigabyte. Oh, it also doesn't come with an HDMI cable (?!), but that puts it on par with its equally stingy PS3 peer.

I previously wrote about the Xbox 360 controller and my comments stand for the wireless version, whose only notable different is the battery pack on its underside, which accepts AA batteries or a charging pack. The system also comes with a headset, which is a rather cheap plastic over the head thing and plugs into the controller via a mini-jack. A wireless headset is available for $70 (with a much lower street price), but reviews don't treat it kindly. I'm hoping that you can replace the headset with any other non-proprietary wired headset made for mobile phones.

The system software itself is pretty slick, although I hear that's it's undergone many changes since its inception to make it more user friendly. It has a task oriented interface and while some parts of it are littered with ads, it's pretty intuitive in terms of finding what you want to do. They've also added an avatar system for your profile and the cartoony avatar is nice and as useful as Nintendo's Mii's, while more customizable (although it looks like many of the customizations require some form of micropayments). One thing I particularly like is that the Xbox 360, despite its networking hardware weaknesses, is very attuned to being an online device on the software side, complimented by a bevy of online tools and programs and robust interactive tools to help you chat with your friends, compete with them and play with them. While the Live Gold service does cost $50 a year (you can buy yearly membership cards for cheaper if you buy them at retail), the service is a head above the PS3's free service and light years beyond what Nintendo has to offer. Besides the price, the other gripe would be that the Microsoft points system isn't a 1:1 (PSN), 10:1, 100:1 (Nintendo) or even 1:1000 ratio, but rather uses a strange 80:1 ratio for points to the dollar, possibly to obfuscate how much money any person is spending on the service.

However, in a bit of a silly story, just a couple weeks after I purchased this Elite and set it up, Microsoft announced and released a new Xbox 360 Elite, with a smaller form factor, lower power requirements (including a smaller power brick), included wireless networking (!!) and a 250GB (but still proprietary) hard drive. In the meantime, they've reduced the price on the older Elite models to $250, which means that I didn't save any money at all. Boo.

While the 2010 Spring bundle comes with Forza 3 and Halo:ODST (approximately a $60 value, based on current prices for these games), I think that the additional $50 spent for the new Elite easily outstrips the value of the added games, so if you're still in the market for the system, I'd ignore the old and pick up the new.

As for me, I'm not too sore about it, as I still paid the "normal" price for the 2010 Spring bundle and after adding a switch and a very long Ethernet cable to my setup, I don't need wireless anymore. Furthermore, I can now play all the Xbox exclusive games I've been missing out on. Granted, I could've played most of them (or at least the ones I cared about) on the PC, but the DRM restrictions for PCs are often brutal and turned me away from non-exclusive PC games, with the exception of a few genres that are better played on the PC.

All in all, the 360 Elite (fat) is a fine system with (what I hope to find are) some very fine games. In terms of hardware the old model lags behind the PS3 (both fat and slim, with the exception of the old 20GB PS3), but the new Xbox 360 Elite looks like an able competitor to the PS3 slim even though I think I prefer certain design decisions of the PS3 console a little more. But the 360 has the superior controller. The Xbox 360 has the superior system software, especially because of its excellent online strength, which makes me like it more than the PS3 or Wii, despite the fact that it's a pay to play service.

However, when it comes to consoles, I don't really think that the strength and design of the hardware is the real driving force behind having the system. It's important, but the real driving force is games and the 360 seems to have enough exclusive games to warrant owning, just as the other two systems do as well. So, my recommendation is, look at the games for the system--if there are any you see that are "must-play" then get a 360, and if you want a 360, ignore the 2010 spring bundle that I purchased and go straight for the superior new 360 Elite (slim). 7/10.

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Inbox: Fallout Trilogy

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Black Isle Studios, back while they were still around, were responsible for more than a small number of my favorite RPGs back when they were still around, mostly revolving around their Dungeons & Dragons license. However, the development studio was responsible for another groundbreaking series that I had never actually played. In fact, being so far removed from when the games were released, I had almost entirely forgotten that Fallout had existed, until Fallout 3, the license having changed hands from Interplay to Bethesda and went from its isometric roots into a first person adventure RPG.

However, one thing didn't change about Fallout when the third numerical iteration was released: widespread acclaim. Granted, upon looking at the game, it seems like Bethesda just wrapped up their Elder Scrolls: Oblivion game in Fallout's post-apocalyptic setting. But it seems to have gone over well with game critics and general populace alike. That might be exciting had I any experience with Bethesda's other works, but Bethesda is not why I'm interested in Fallout, Black Isle is.

The setting is interesting and the game seems mature, in that actions have consequences and weight attached to them. And, with the return of Interplay, they wonderfully bundled up their two Fallout Games, plus the separately developed Fallout: Tactics into a compilation and then sold it for cheap. Of course, Gamestop had it on sale for even cheaper, thanks to a limited time sale, so I couldn't resist. I'm looking forward (?) to stepping into this critically acclaimed wasteland.

As far as a collection goes, it's pretty simply the Interplay-age Fallout games, updated to run on modern (Windows Vista) systems and not much more. Depending on the price you can find it at, it can be a pretty good deal, although gamers might consider digital distribution like gog.com for a more up to date port. 7/10.

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Inbox:Hardware: The Beatles: Rock Band - Wireless Rickenbacker 325 Guitar Controller

Inbox features items that I have recently purchased or received.

Hardware covers the technology of game playing, whether PC, consoles or figurines on a board.

Yes, I had The Beatles: Rock Band that came with wireless drum and guitar controllers, but that still left me short one guitar controller for the full band. Or even if we wanted to play with a pair of guitars (Harrison and Lennon) or a guitar and a bass (Harrison or Lennon with McCartney). So, wanted to maximize multiplayer options, I decided to buy a guitar controller for Rock Band. I figured, since I already had Beatles themed instruments, I might as well make sure that the next one matches. Of course, when I started looking, the limited edition controllers were out of stock everywhere, skyrocketing the prices up to more than 200%.

Eventually, they released more Rickenbacker 325's, but not Grestch Duo Jets, so I grabbed one of those. Comparing to pictures of actual Rickenbacker 325, it definitely does a good job of matching many of the details, even though it still looks more like a toy. Still, for a guitar controller, it's fairly classy, even if it's not as much of a premium product as the higher end guitar controllers and seems to be built fairly sturdily. We've played around on it a lot since we got it and we've never had a problem with it. A good piece of gear. 8/10.

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