Kingdom Hearts 3 (PS4): Too Little Too Late

Anticipation is a dangerous concept. In a small or short dose, it can lead to excitement. Say for example the new Avengers: EndGame coming out. I only started noticing trailers for it when it was about a month from release. It's not a long wait and it's leaving me excited for what is to come.  But when you anticipate something too long, you start to have expectations. Expectations can be difficult to meet. Sometimes it grows to the point where you expect too much, see for example the ill fated Duke Nukem Forever. Almost a decade went by without its release, and by the time we got it was so utterly pedestrian it was doomed to flop.

So that's kind of where we find ourselves here. Sure, this franchise has had a number of spin off installments with canon storyline throughout the years, but the second numbered installment of this game came out in 2005, which makes it OVER 10 years since we finally got our next numbered edition of this game. It's a long time to wait, and naturally people are expecting a lot. It's a whole lot of weight and pressure to deliver now. Is it even possible? I speak of course, of......

KINGDOM HEARTS III (PS4)

Look, I am not equipped with the necessary 4 doctorates to give you the full rundown the of the Kingdom Hearts lore because it's so impossibly convoluted. If you want a good rundown, watch Barry Kramer's 30 minute "Good Enough Summary of Kingdom Hearts." It's hilarious and pretty much covers what you need to know going into this one. 

We start off picking up from the events of Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance. A battle with Organization XIII is on the horizon and the forces of light need to gather their 7 warriors. Sora is depowered so he is on Olympus with Donald and Goofy to gain his strength back and visit more Disney worlds to regain "the power of waking" which is key to becoming a true keyblade master.

Riku and Micky are off searching the realm of darkness to try to find Aqua, the keyblade master trapped and lost there after the events of Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. Kairi and Lea are off training to learn how to use their new keyblades so they can help in the coming battles. All of these stories look to converge in one final battle between light and darkness for the control of the χ-blade and Kingdom Hearts.

That is about as succinct as I can possibly make of the Kingdom Hearts storyline going into this game. Like I said, its story is incredibly convoluted and complex for no reason. Half of the reason is because literally all of the villains in this game talk in riddles instead of just providing answers. I am probably going to be pretty spoiler heavy in this review so I apologize in advance, but I am getting ahead of myself here. 

So Kingdom Hearts III is a curiously mixed hack-n-slash action adventure with RPG elements and flight sim rail shooting. There are a mutlitude of different game features that appear in the game, but I'm going to try to stick to the core ones. It uses the same action oriented menu system you might remember from the older titles, specifically Kingdom Hearts I & II (or maybe you don't remember, it's been a decade). You have a core set of abilities to use, mainly Attack, Magic, Item, and Link with the occasionally prompting for situational abilities. 

The menu requires a bit of practice to do fluidly, but they do provide the ability to quickly turn the face buttons into a hotkeys for specific abilities, so I couldn't add my heal to that X button fast enough. The rest selected were core elements that specific enemies would be weak to. The Link system is more or less your ability to summon various helpers to remove Donald and Goofy from the fray to bring in more merchandising opportunities (characters).

To the game's credit: when the combat starts to click for you it's a dream to fly around and lay waste to enemies

The core thing to remember about this combat system is three things: One, know where the attack and jump buttons are. Two, you are able to lock on to enemies. And three, Press triangle when it tells you to. There is a bit more nuance to the games system than this, but if you are able to do these three things then ultimately the game should be a breeze to play.

It's actually somewhat hard to really describe all the mechanics that take place in this game, because it uses a lot of elements from the various game engines that are used throughout this franchises history. Almost to a pretty clever design really, because it actually plays into the lore. These certain characters trained to fight a certain way, so they have their specific mechanics to use when you use those characters. I do appreciate that blending of mechanics and lore. That being said, to a new player? This will probably feel very overwhelming.

I will say that the various number of keyblades you get do offer a bit of freedom of combat style.

Now, up until about a half a year before its release I had only played Kingdom Hearts I & II and maybe a few hours of Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 days. I knew if I just tried to dive into 3 was going to feel left behind, so I powered through the entirety of both PS4 collections prior to the release. Honestly I think this impaired my review because by the time I was ready to play 3 I was pretty KH'd out. I had a play a few other games to wash the palette.

It sticks to the pretty core Kingdom Hearts formula: Soda, Dobald, and Goomby drop into a new Disney world where they meet the primary character of that franchise, the Heartless/ Unversed/Hollows show up and you fight them off, wander the world, listen to a bad guy speak in riddles to an idiot who barely understands what is happening, fight a boss, and unlock/restore that world, move to next world to repeat. This is pretty much exactly how every world in this game plays out.

I honestly didn't even know Ariel was in the game. You have so many attacks to use.

In the original Kingdom Hearts this was interesting because with each world you went to, you met various Disney and Final Fantasy characters, but they were dressing to the world Kingdom Hearts was creating. They were part of the story, and reacted accordingly to the events happening around them. This is how good crossover is done (See: Dragon Quest: Heroes). In Kingdom Hearts II however, despite having more lore to work with the borrowed characters became less integral to the story and basically recanted what famous scenes were popular in the movie they came from. This I didn't like so much because I've already seen these movies. I wanted them to be involved in Kingdom Hearts story, not watch the movie I already watched again with them occasionally mentioning something KH related.. 

Well, Kingdom Hearts III continues that tradition to an even worse degree. Now don't get me wrong, none of the actual Disney properties have any actual bearing on the core plot and haven't even in the first one, but at least they tried to make it feel like everyone was included. III is probably the worst example of literally just watching some scenes from the respective movies, and occasionally mention the heartless or kingdom hearts. However, I feel that this is noticeable to the degree you've seen the source material.

There was a chance for interesting story here. It was almost immediately forgotten.

I'll give you an example: I have never seen Tangled. I know loosely what it's based on, but know virtually nothing outside of that. These characters were new to me, and I really didn't know how the story shook out, so as I went through the respective scenes with no frame of reference I found it to be enjoyable, engaging and interesting. It might have been my favorite chapter in the game.

But then we have the Pirates of the Caribbean chapter. Literally the entirety of this story is just fragments of Pirates: At Worlds End. It basically jumps around major scenes of the film with them reacting that they met Sora before in the second game, and you recreate the big whirlpool scene for the last boss segment. It was fun as hell to play, but probably the 2nd weakest chapter of the game. 

The worst chapter of the game goes to Frozen which quite literally is scenes from the movie with the Kingdom Hearts cast literally standing off to the side not engaging with the cast. There is an exposition dump over one scene from the movie, and they go through the entirety of "Let it Go" with the occasional reaction shot from the cast. It was completely pointless. MatPat has a theory that the original idea for this chapter was severely cut down, which would explain a lot. 

In researching this, I found that yes, Tangled was essentially a recreation as well.
 But it felt like it had more freedom than Frozen did to play around with the story. 

That being said, when the game actually focuses on its own story and characters, that's when Kingdom Hearts III is at its most interesting. There were a lot of loose threads in this series that this game needed to tie up after a near decade of spinoffs, but I have to say that does an admirable job of doing so in a reasonably satisfying manner. This is probably something I wouldn't have been able to appreciate if I haven't powered through the whole series to have context for everything that is happening.

Credit to where it's due on this front, but its soundtrack is exceptional from its original tracks to arrangements to the assorted Disney sources. Yoko Shimomura has composed all of the major installments and contributed to many of the spin-offs and rightfully so. Her work and the vocal tracks from singer-songwriter Hikaru Utada are a major reason these games feel so magical as you play through them. I have always appreciated a solid classical score to my games, and Utada's vocal tracks always give me chills. "Sanctuary" is one of my favorites. The music of this game carries a lot of emotional weight in my opinion.

I appreciate that the character design has been slightly modernized for the current console generation and this works for the storytelling of the games as well. It's been almost a decade since we played Kingdom Hearts II so it seems only right that our cast has aged somewhat accordingly. But I will say that is sort of loses a little bit of its cartoonish charm in doing so. With everyone having a cartoony and anime appearance, having a realistic model included doesn't make people blend in together as well as previous games I thought.

While I can't say if the game has a lot of replay value, I will say that depending on your level of dedication to completion you will certainly get a significant amount of time out of this one. If you were just to power though the main story missions and keep your side questing to a minimal degree, that alone will still take up roughly 30 hours of time to get through. Not bad for a non-RPG. But if you throw in collectibles, hidden fights, the secret boss, and mini game completion this amount of time doubles at least. Take on trying to play it on a harder difficulty (which I should have) and you could invest a serious amount of time to this one.

I did find it incredibly frustrating that so many bosses could fly. It made for too much waiting during segments.

If the rest of this review wasn't an indication, I obviously have a handful of complaints on this one. First thing I really noticed is that this one felt too easy. I played it on normal but a coworker of mine recommended that I don't. He was correct. Thanks to the inclusion of all the mechanics of the previous games, combat is snap because the game is literally throwing special attacks at you, many of which you are complete invulnerable during.  With the exception of some early bosses that literally just fly out of range and make you wait for them come down, practically every fight in the game is trivial if you are using you specials.

Many of these moves are also one of the biggest detriments to the game's visual and sound design. Outside of the returning special moves, the team also has a series of abilities where you basically summon out famous Disney rides like the Teacups, Splash Mountain, the Carousel, etc. The attraction attacks are covered with blinking lights are constantly splashing particle effects and waves of light out. It has its own theme and each attack has their own sound effects and character reactions. It's almost a total sensory overload. By late game I wasn't even using it because I was having more fun comboing with my keyblade, and only used them when I wanted clear out groups quickly.

Sadly THIS is actually one of the spectacle-lite ones.

All of the Final Fantasy characters have been removed in this one. There was an incredibly strong focus on the Pixar sect of Disney represented in this game, the only animated film represented here was Hercules and that's a rehash from another game. So ONCE AGAIN, Robin Hood gets the snub and doesn't appear in Kingdom Hearts. Come on! He actually fights with a bow, and I don't think any of the the Jungle Book characters are represented in any of the series and they were in three different franchises. No TailSpin chapter? You know who I would have liked to team up with? Darkwing Duck. THAT should have been a chapter in this game. SHIT, WHAT ABOUT THE GARGOYLES??? Oh my god, I have to get off this train of thought.

Out of all my complaints about the story, I would have to say that my biggest one is probably that we have to control Sora. Having gone through the whole series now, practically every character to come out of this franchise (with maybe the exception of Kairi) has more depth and is more interesting to follow. Sora is just kind of a dummy who pretty much just relies on his feelings for motivation, but he rarely understands what is happening around him. Aqua is more interesting, Roxas is more interesting, Axel is more interesting. For making this seem like an ensemble piece, they did very little to let you use all the other characters which is a shame and a missed opportunity.

While I'm at it, there was literally no point to having Axel and Kairi in the game for as little as they contribute to it. You get two cutscenes of the two of them in between training sessions of them talking to each other, to kind of bridge a number of the loose ends. But spoiler, by game end they provide pretty much no assistance in the final battle and one of them gets captured immediately. If the presence of one of them wasn't required to tie up a loose end, they could have not been a part of the game and it probably wouldn't have been impacted in any meaningful way.

Oops. I've just spoiled about 90% of what these two characters do in this game. 

Now, you would think with the psychotic ranting I've gone on in this review that I'd be ready to slap a big old "do not recommend" on this one. But I can't say that's necessarily true. For all that I complained about at its core the game is solidly built and if I had played it on a more challenging difficulty I would have absolutely enjoyed it more. With the two left shoulder buttons providing hotkeys, combat was fast paced, fluid, and fun to do. Which is impressive for a technically menu based game.

Boss characters were large and interesting, once you get your appropriate skills up it's fun to fly around the battle field and take them down, and it does leave a satisfied feeling of completion when you do so. Considering this stigma boss fights have become in modern gaming, I applaud any game that chooses to include them.

I really do recommend upping the difficulty. You get so many super attacks the game gets insanely easy by the end.

I have to appreciate some of the self aware commentary that Kingdom Hearts III provided. They have some in-jokes poking fun of the ridiculous number of spin-offs and stupid naming convention this series uses. There is a stupidly over the top CG battle sequence that turns out to be a fake game trailer that basically pokes fun at SquareEnix's whole marketing strategy for game releases. Honestly it was pretty awesome to watch, really. Axel specifically indirectly breaks the 4th wall a few times about how fucking complicated this story is and that there are too many characters. Makes me wish he had a bigger role.

As I said above, the ending of this game was incredibly satisfying. That's always been Square Enix's bread and butter, making great cinematics that feel good to watch. I hated the majority of Final Fantasy 13 but I'll be damned if I didn't love that ending. Seeing that ending cinematic made it feel like the slog through all the entries of this series was worth it.

And while I was disappointed this isn't going to be the final installment of this series, I will say that the end game teasers absolutely have me excited for 2 reasons. One, it looks like it's going to include a property that was used in Dream Drop Distance and one of my favorite DS games ever, AND it looks like we might be having a hard disconnect from Disney as much of that story finally got closed out. I've always said that if this series could have been fine if didn't have any Disney and Final Fantasy crossover, and it looks like it might actually be going that route if we get a KH4.

It looks like a game I'd rather be playing now, honestly...

It's hard to say if I give this game a recommendation or not. Kingdom Hearts 3 is an offering to the patient fan base who have been waiting a decade for it. People who are fans of this series have already bought and played it long before this review came out. People new to the series are going to feel incredibly lost and put out because they are essentially 13 games behind the curve. It is a game that is not for them.

So I guess my bottom line is this: Is the game functional and playable? Yeah, very well done on that front. Did I enjoy my time with it? Sure, I might be a bit KH'd out at this point but I am glad to finally put a cap on this one. Was it worth the wait? Absolutely not. The prematurely announced the game, and then took an excessive number of years to actually get the product up. People built up too many expectations to the point of them being unable to be met. There was no way it could possibly deliver to peoples hopes at this point.

It's not a world beater, its not innovative, it just does just enough to be a palatable experience, but after 10 years of waiting that just doesn't feel like enough. Kingdom Hearts 3, in my eyes, is average at best. If they are going to follow this one up (and they are), then they gotta get it out within the next 4-5 years at most. Buy with caution.

Seriously, Robin Hood is the best.
I can't believe he's never been in these.

Hitman: Definitive Edition {2016} (PS4): Cold Blooded.

I've always had a mild affinity to the stealth genre as a whole. As I've stated more than once on this very blog, I feel like the Assassin's Creed series started off on the right foot to scratch that itch, but ultimately got bogged down by it's own story and cinematics that I never really got to feel like an Assassin stalking my prey. 

Now, I was familiar with this series from seeing my old boss at Gamestop play it more than once. It looked cool, but tricky as hell. I was never very good at these games so I never really dove all that deep into them. It wasn't until SquareEnix picked up the property and gave it a new glossy sheen, put in a hand holding mechanic, and pretty good story and suddenly I found myself to be a fan. After watching Funhaus play the new installment a bit, the stealth itch was begging for a scratch.

HITMAN: DEFINITIVE EDITION (PS4)

The prologue to Hitman serves as prequel to the introduction to the series as a whole. Shortly after Agent 47 escapes his initial handlers in the start of Hitman: Codename 47 he is brought into the International Contract Association (ICA) to undergo initiation to work for them as a hired assassin. It is here Agent 47 first meets and befriends his long time handler, Diana Burnwood.

47 makes child's play of the tests laid before him, and with a sketchy untraceable background it makes the head of the ICA Erik Soders very uncomfortable. So to force 47's failure, his final mission was meant to be a recreation of an impossibly done bit of historical espionage. 47 again completes his task and begrudgingly brought officially into the ICA with Burnwood as his official handler.  We see a montage of 47's greatest hits (ba dum tss) throughout the Hitman franchise before we catch up with him in 2019 for the first level of this installment. 

So despite the Hitman franchise having a continued narrative, this is probably one of the few games that I honestly couldn't care less about a the story when I pick up to play it. It's not to say that the story is bad, or poorly told. But if you come to play Hitman then you really aren't here for the narrative. You are here to find your target and figure out how you can kill them without being noticed or without leaving a shred of evidence behind you.

I will say that compared to the game before this one, Hitman: Absolution the story feels less important for progress. The characters in Absolution were definitely a major focal point, where in Hitman we get some framing cutscene between quests but the story tends to be brief before dumping you right into the next mission. Perhaps because of the new episodic release schedule for this version of the game the story is told it shorter polished chunks.

Now, I distinctly remember the older Hitman titles having some pretty wonky and frustrating controls. I had distinctly remembered having difficulty specifically in Hitman: Blood Money and Hitman: Contracts. Not so much that the controls were difficult, they just never felt very tight. It wasn't till Squenix came in and polished up the series in Hitman: Absolution where I really started to find my groove with the game.

While proficient in hand to hand, you will be heard doing it.
Best avoid getting into dust ups if you can help it.

This particular installment feels like the controls of the older Hitman titles with only a few splashes of some of the new mechanics. This is going to be one of those games where every button as a purpose, so you are going to need to get real familiar with the controller. They brought back 47's "heightened senses" mechanic, which is essentially the same kind of sonar hearing they used in the The Last of Us where you can see silhouettes of everyone around to find your target, or intractable pieces of the environment. It's handy to give you an idea of where you should be headed without spoiling the nuance of the surroundings. Just seeing the target 100 yards away doesn't tell you what surrounds them.

What they did take away though, was "point shooting" system from the Absolution. Essentially this was a bullet time sequence (think John Marston's dead eye aim in Red Dead Redemption), which if used at the right moment and with quick enough reflex you could use to quickly dispatch an entire room when things got hairy, or if there were enough spaces completely remove the bodies prior to being noticed. It certainly made Absolution easier and I'd be lying if I said I didn't use it for all its worth to finish that one. But I'm not unhappy to see it gone.

Thats.... Not exactly subtle, 47.....

But at its core, Hitman returns to its the roots of its gameplay. From the campaign you select your location and you are treated to a small cinematic of Diana explaining your target(s) from who they are, what they do, and why the contract is out on them. She explains some of the situation you will drop into and what you can try, and then "leaves you to prepare."

And from that point, you are on your own (kind of). As you move around the map to case the area, you will stumble across hints and opportunities that Diana can expound upon to give you a path to try. Many of these help you build level mastery and are used to completely level specific challenges. But really, it's 100% optional. The real fun of Hitman is your first blind run: Just trying to get to your target without being caught, killing them, and bailing without dying.

That's some pretty pro level blending in.

You start missions with a pretty limited inventory, but you can always pick up items around the locations to provide more options. Some missions have multiple objectives but the majority of them just require taking down your mark. Once you get a feel for a stage it's worth your while to go back to the level and try to complete the specific challenges and opportunities you are presented with. Doing so completes the aforementioned level mastery, and what this does is this allows you to start the missions in different areas with different disguises, and allows you to bring or stash additional weaponry and tools to being with.

Most of the controls are pretty 3rd person shooter standard so there isn't a lot to go on for that front, but like I mentioned before it feels very much like the old ones specifically in regards to the face buttons. These are usually used for the item interaction and the big thing to remember is that they are not just presses, but holds. So say you take down a bystander, if you stand over their body you will be prompted with a few commands, X to change disguise, O to drag body, Triangle to pick up or interact. You need to remember to accommodate for those extra few seconds. It could make or break you getting caught.

Sometimes you don't even need to be near the target

Levels are pretty much completely open from the word go. Depending on what you bring with you (based on your level mastery) you might have means to get around locked doors from the start or have the necessary keys to get past locks, or even invited in as a guest. Regardless, it's always a great idea to just spend some time wandering around the level. Get used to what path the target follows, find out who he talks to, learn what situational things might be happening to get you close or provide distraction. Perhaps you might find an errant soldier that looks exactly like the guard that get into the building the mark frequents.

But you need to be careful about how you play dress up, sometimes specific people know who is on their staff, so if you wander into their eye-shot and you don't blend in immediately or get out of sight they will become suspicious and follow you, or alert the guards. If you don't move quickly and quietly, situations can escalate in a hurry. You can always run and gun your way through levels, but it really does you a disservice for what makes this game satisfying. It's funny to create a pile of bodies in a doorway, but not long after you will just restart your save and try again.

Upon completion of the level you are rated by how well you did and given a total mission score. This is essentially just for bragging rights and do nothing towards beating the game or unlocking more mastery items, but it does give you a quantifiable number for how you are doing as an assassin. If you run and gun your way through the level, sure you will probably be able to move on but you'll get slapped with a "dunce cap, zero star, thanks for trying ribbon for idiots" at the end of the level.

Looks like it's.... Lights out for you... (YEAAAAHHHHH)

But to get an idea of how satisfying being an assassin could be, allow me to go through a scenario I played through that just made the game for me: I'm in Sapienza, and I've currently snuck into the compound of Silva Caruso. He's been working on a viral weapon with Francesca De Santis. I need to kill both of them. After sneaking onto the compound as a gardener, I'm eavesdropping on Caruso during his golf lesson. I learn that his golf instructor has been having an affair with De Santis, but the instructor denies it.

After the lesson I follow the instructor and catch him making a call to De Santis about a date. So I size the opportunity knock him out, steal his clothes, and stash his body. With his phone, I call Francesca back to meet up for our date. I set some mood music and lighting, add some rat poison to the champagne set that was waiting for us, and take a seat in the lounge chair in the shadows. Franscesca comes in, worried about these trists and explains that she's actually been spying on Caruso, and that I risk my life by continuing this with her. She's clearly nervous but wanted to be straight with me about the risks.

I started a empathize a little as she took a nervous drink of her champagne, it didn't take long for her body to start reacting to it. She quickly rushed to the restroom as I slowly rose from my chair to sauntered after her. I opened the door to see her vomiting over the shitter and felt a little bad because this was a horrible way to go, but I have a job to do. I slipped behind her and forcefully held her face in the bowl until kicking and bubbles stopped, dropped her body in the clothes bin, hopped out the window, and was off to find Caruso for his turn.

"Farewell, my love...."

None of this pontificating of Assassins and Templars, No wiping a feather on their neck bullshit, no 20 minute monologue of a death rattle about how I don't understand shit. Just cold, emotionless execution. It probably says all sorts of fucked up things about me as a person that having things go that smoothly felt so incredibly satisfying to do. But this, THIS is how Hitman is intended to be played. When you can go in and get the job done with nobody being the wiser, it makes all the effort and time spent tracking your mark worth it.

I purchased the definitive edition of the game prior to season 1 going free to PS+ members, and I'm glad that I did because it allotted me two extra campaigns to play. They all use the same maps but the targets are different. There are also a large number of increasingly difficult challenges that you can use to improve your mastery and also just generally get more play out of a level. Which in turn gives you more memorization that you can use to play the main campaigns to get better masteries. I honestly don't think you can get the Silent Assassin rank without a couple higher rank mastery tools.

On top of these missions, there is a whole online contract mechanic that I never even delved into which is basically user made custom levels, so if you for some reason you completely dive into this one 100%, you can still find use created kills to continue to stretch your dollar out on this one.

I guess stealth doesn't always mean quiet....

If I have complaints, they are pretty minimal. First and foremost is the same problem I generally with every installment of this series, and that is that Agent 47 is basically a non-character. Like Master Chief, Agent 47 is basically a blank slate that has no tonal range, no emotional expression, no physical personality to his movements. In some cases he's even worse because he doesn't even string one liners during gameplay. Now, you can argue that this contextually fits in the story since he was essentially a test tube grown clone, so his human interaction was nil.

Two, the story itself to this game kinda sucks. Like I said at the top we get a brief greatest hits prologue explaining how we got to now, but as we play through this game we end up following the actions of a character I don't actually think is ever named. He seems to know who Agent 47 is and seems to be a hand behind a behind-the-curtain war between the ICA and a shadow group called Providence. The ending, without spoiling, basically is a teaser for the upcoming Hitman 2 which is kind of frustrating.

It's most egregious problem is that this load times in this game are just unforgivably long. Especially for a title that will cause you to reload the level or reload your saves regularly, any load time that takes longer than like 15 seconds is pushing itself to be too much of a noticeable wait if you have to constantly do it. It's not as bad as Bloodborne's original 30-60 second load times, but at this point Dev's really should find ways to have the game constantly loading or able to quickload to get you right back into the action.

"Ahem, Don't mind me..."

I'll be the first to admit that the game can be a little samey after a while. Especially when doing challenge missions because it is very easy to get into a rhythm of using the same tools to secure kills in different missions. I can't think of how many times I've used rat poison in a drink to take down a target in this one.

And while the controls are polished to be as responsive as this game needs to them to be, there still feels like a degrees of innate awkwardness to them when trying to change outfits, drag, or pick something up. It doesn't feel as broken as many of the old Hitman games seemed to be, but in the early going there is going to be a curve to pick up the nuance of them before they start to feel natural.

Ultimately though, I like Hitman and I like it a lot. I've said hundreds of times that this is how the Assassin's Creed series should have played. I play it off and on quite a bit still and it scratches the stealth itch for me in all the right ways. Or I can just melt down and try to see how many people I can kill before getting taken out.

Hitman is one of those games I like to play when I want to zone out and focus simultaneously. It's generally low stress to play and I can spend well over an hour just wandering around a locale, taking in the surroundings before plotting my attack. There is just something immensely satisfying about playing this game to me. The adage of "If you liked, then you will like" applies here. If you liked the other Hitman installments then Hitman 2016 is going to satisfy in all the right ways. If you are looking for a fast paced run and gunner, then this is not the game for you.

I had to walk the catwalk in Paris for a mission.

That alone made this game worth it.

Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age (PS4) - Respecting One's Roots

The last game in this series that I reviewed actually wasn't a proper installment of the series. I reminisced a bit about my favorite one of the franchise which was the last proper one I really played. Sure, I played its remake on the DS, but I never really got around to playing a newer installment of these. Blue Dragon maybe, but it's not exactly a game in this series. 

But for those who know this game's history, you know that when a new one comes out it is pretty much a holiday. So much so that the game actually releases on a Friday in Japan so people don't skip work to play it. This game hasn't had an actual non-handheld console release since the PS2 era, so the fact that it got a shiny new PS4 edition meant this might not be one I want to miss. I speak, of course, of....

DRAGON QUEST XI:
ECHOES OF AN ELUSIVE AGE(PS4)

The tale begins in the Kingdom of Dundrasil. The King and Queen have had a child, and all the kings from the around the world of Erdrea have to come give their blessings and see the prince. But more so, the kings meet for a summit to discuss the mark that appears on the child's hand. This child is the Luminary, destined to fight the coming darkness that will threaten the world.

But this does not ease everyone who is present, the king of Heliodor has some concerns that the birth of the child will bring back the darkness that will destroy the world. During a heated discussion about the child, a horde of monsters descends on kingdom and begins to lay waste to it. The queen and the Princess of Heliodor escape with the child, fearing for his life. Monsters give pursuit, but the Queen literally sends the child downriver in a basket in the hopes that he will be spared.

He is found by a kindly old man from a simple village of Cobblestone. When we next see the child his has grown to maturity and is about to complete his ritual to adulthood by climbing a mountain oversee with his childhood friend Gemma. After defending her along the way up and reaching the summit, the sign on his hand glows with light. His adoptive mother tells him it's time to learn who he really is.  So with one final home cooked meal and the blessing of the village, the child leaves to see the King of Helidor, who might have some answers about who he is.

via Gfycat

I could really complain about the story a little bit here, but if I am going to be totally honest this is completely in step with Dragon Quest's usual wheelhouse. I don't think I can actually think of an example that I played in this franchise that didn't have some variant of the Hero of Light vs the Lord of Darkness. They did it in Dragon Quest 1-4, and in DQ Warriors. It's kinda samey and cliche, but that's what they do so it didn't bother me as much as it would if it came from another franchise.

And this is a long ass game, let me tell you. So even if I thought I knew how the story was going to unfold (and was sometimes right) there is no way I could possibly get all of the points right because there is just too much content to cover for it to be totally 100% cliche. You are in for quite the tale, so saddle up because we are going to be here for a minute.

So one of the first things that I noticed when I really started to sink my teeth into this game is the developers as Square Enix really did go to great lengths to show appreciation to the source material of its lineage. Right from the moment you start the game, as the cinematic starts to run you hear the first few notes of a boisterous trumpeted theme and you know EXACTLY what song is about to hit, and I can't lie from that moment I had started smirking.

As the beginning unfolded everything fit into the classic fantasy setting that I knew, none of this Final Fantasy bullshit where "oooh, we're a fantasy game, but were also totally cyber punk and we swords that are guns, and computers, but people still ride giant birds".  Nope. We are straight up fantasy classic JRPG and I love it.

Everything down the menus goes to recreate everything you remember about the series in an updated style. Same quest select song, same arbitrary save mechanic. Simple text box system with simple white font. Character design, familiar monster design, pretty much every little nuance the game should have that can reference the old entries of the series, it does.

via Gfycat

Likewise, when I say classic JRPG that too is a hard truth. Traditional turn based combat. Fight, Magic, Item, Defend. They do spice it up in a couple of different ways though. First is what I have been calling a "diorama mode" where you can move characters around the field on their turn and spin the camera around to change the perspective of the battle. Outside of looks, this does literally nothing to outcome of the combat. It is 100% completely vestigial.

The other, more practical way, is with a "pep-up" system. As you take turns, do actions, and take damage your character essentially charges pep. When they Pep-Up they glow with blue energy (thankfully without going super saiyan). While pepped you get an increase to all of your stats, as well as being able to expend your pep to do a powerful attack or skill. If multiple characters are also pepped you can do combo attacks in pairs, trios, or the whole party.

A good deal of inspiration from Dragon Quest IV is in this one too, because when your party wipes, they are immediately swapped out with your reserve party, and you can switch between them on the fly if necessary. It also borrows from the strategic auto-fight system so for going through the regular rank and file baddies you will tear through in the bulk of your journey so you can limit MP use, have someone stick to heal, or just mow through people without much input required.

via Gfycat

Although, compared to the old ones (and I don't know if this was the case in newer ones) Dragon Quest XI has a pretty vast and forgiving skill tree. Some characters have a couple of different branches they can follow, and you can replace sections of your skill slots for a nominal charge so you have some freedom to play around with it. A lot of them are somewhat based on what weapon focus you want, some trees will let you complete multiple while others will focus you down one. Like it said, it's not expensive to clear a block of it and re-allocate. So talk to people, research, and play around with it.

There is also a modest crafting mechanic which will allow you to get some rare equipment, and a lot of the character costumes if you get the right things. But more importantly than that you can use the crafting to improve on your equipment to boost them to +1, +2 , or +3. But you have to be careful you have the available points and skill to do it. Any reasonably finished equipment can be redone, but if you botch the job you keep the item, but don't get attempt any more improvements on it. If you do this on something you would only get one of, and that's it. You've blown your chance to fix it. The auto save is smart enough to not let you get away with closing to the game before you totally cock it up.

via Gfycat

Like I said at the top of the review and will probably continue to reference throughout it is Dragon Quest XI's appreciate to its source material. This is most primarily noted in its visual design. One of the first things you will notice is that despite the 3D world and rendered models the game uses, when a fight starts in the monsters introduction animations, their resting stands are crafted and positioned to be identical to how they looked back on the original NES.

Similarly, there are lots of little nuances to character designs of the NPCs and characters that you will be able to pick out through the Dragon Quest lineage that will ring familiar. Little wings on soldiers helmets, iconic tiara's on some characters, priests having similar color schemes and hats from the save points of old. Even the text and menus are designed in such a way that they resemble the old NES versions of the game. They did this in Dragon Quest Heroes as well.  The game is literally tripping over itself with self reference. And for the most part, this is a great thing. It's giving what people who play Dragon Quest want without just retreading old.

via Gfycat

Similarly, its sound design is also cultured to hearken back to the old ones. While the game's vast score features a multitude of new songs, there is a significant amount of old music that comes back as well, remastered in such a way that they sound new, without escaping the feeling of how they did before. For example, the opening save slot song when you first fire up the game is done with short string plucks, which modernize but emulate the chiptune sound it used to have. Playing through the game, in some iconic moments some of the famous battle and overworld themes from Dragon Quest III and IV would kick in, and hit me with nostalgia waves. It's expertly done.

Another audio thing that they did that I really liked, and again something they did in Dragon Quest Heroes is that when you travel around the world map to other countries, when you visits that area's towns, the people inside of them will have their text written in a slang or dialect for that region. There is a town that is very Japanese culture, and another that is frozen Nordic. When these characters have actual speaking lines, they speak in the accent indicative to that area. It makes the world feel more realistic, as opposed to the entire planet speaking common English. It's a little attention to detail that I really loved.

via Gfycat

There are a handful of things that I didn't like though. Some of them are backhands to things I gushed about. First and foremost is the character design. Yes, I know. I literally just gushed about it. But Akira Toriyama? I get it, you made Dragon Ball, I fucking get it. But Jesus Christ not everything you do has to callback to that, you friggen hack. The character models are beautifully designed and animated but every time I catch a whiff of DBZ I cringe.

There is one specific point late game where you meet a new race of people, and son of a bitch these things are literally Buu character meshed with Mr. Popo from Dragon Ball. It took me so out of things I almost stopped playing I was so mad. Thankfully, someone must have reeled him in a bit with the pep-ups, because thankfully there is no Super Saiyan hair to be seen in the game, although I'm sure he wanted to.

As mentioned before, the free moving battle camera is stupid. It does nothing to contribute to the combat. When I play long RPGs, I want to be able to dispatch baddies as quick as possible. So adding extra vestigial steps that don't really do anything don't help me with that. I couldn't turn that feature off fast enough.

But the other problem, and this is a big one, is with the auto commands. This worked in Dragon Quest IV very well because you had such a large cast and you still controlled your hero. It still works here, but now you can also set auto commands to your hero as well. And admittedly, this is pretty much what I did for the entirety of the game. I only really turned it off for boss fights, and 90% of the time I just let the auto fight run itself. This isn't like Final Fantasy XII where I still have control over the gambits and can make changes, the game is just auto playing. So I a lot of instances between auto walk and auto fight, I didn't even need to actually play long stretches of the game.

And really, the front half of the game feels almost insultingly easy. Using the auto battle I really hadn't hit very many significant snags in my progress, and to a point I didn't even waste my time getting new equipment either because it didn't appear to be slowing down my progress in any way. It wasn't until late into the first act or so where I started to come up on some boss fights that forced me to play a little more strategically.

via Gfycat

It's a pretty long game too. It's a JRPG so that makes sense, but apparently if you have played Dragon Quest VIII then you know that the game is not going to end when you think it does, and there is a significant amount of post game content to do as well as a multitude of side quests for you to do along the adventure as well. You are certainly going to get your money's worth of time out of this one.

Many of these complaints are nitpicks really. I could have easily turned off the auto battle, and length of the game is rarely a complaint as you'll want to stretch your dollar. Complaining about an artists  literally iconic and definitive style is really just of a quirk of mine. I didn't use the diorama camera so it basically was a non-issue. Take all that away and I basically was left with a long and satisfying JRPG that was built with the fans of the series in mind.

I played this during 2018 and while it certainly wasn't going to win my game of the year, it IS certainly an excellent addition of the series. Was it better than my favorite entry Dragon Quest IV? Probably not, but it is up there. It's certainly one of the better JRPGs I've played in recent memory because it knows exactly what it is and who it is catering to. If you come in expecting Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age to change up the genre's formula you might be left underwhelmed. But of the rest of you (and probably more accurately MOST of you) this one is going to scratch all the right itches. Highly recommended.

Ok, yes, fine. I didn't upgrade my armor so I could keep Jade in her bunny suit.
Shut up. Don't judge me.

Secret of Mana: Remake (PS4): Revisiting a familiar path.

When explaining to idiots who think I hate the Legend of Zelda franchise, I usually have to explain that I love the best Zelda game: A Link to the Past, (Yes, best. Ocarina is average at best. Fight me) But while this icon title is pretty much a masterpiece on the SNES, it wasn't the first of this top-down exploration adventure game I actually played on this console.

When they announced a remake for this one, I was pretty amped. And despite Jason Schreier of Kotaku's attempts to suck the joy out of everything in his reviews (he seriously hates every remake), I was pretty excited to play it again. I haven't played through this game in a long time, but it's always been one of my favorites as a kid so it will be interesting to see how the game has changed, and what is the same in.....

SECRET OF MANA(PS4)

Secret of Mana opens with a brief prologue about the world of this game. Human civilization prospered and advanced by utilizing magic and energy powered by Mana. They used this power to make a massive floating super weapon called the Mana fortress. In order to stop potential destruction, the world unleashed a Mana Beast to destroy the fortress.  As they clashed, a man wielding the Sword of Mana appeared riding a white dragon and defeated the beast and fortress. The world was safe, but as mana started to fade.

We flash to now, where Randi is exploring the falls with two other village children looking for a sparkling treasure they had seen below.  Randi slips on a wet passage and falls to the bottom, where he finds a Rusty sword embedded in stone. After hearing his name and yanking the blade free, he catches a glimpse of a ghost for a moment before heading back to the village.

On the trip home he notices that monsters are a lot more violent and active. Upon reaching the village he learns that he actually has pulled the legendary mana sword and it was what was protecting the village from monsters.  The Village is attacked by a larger monster called a Mantis ant, and Randi manages to fend it off. However, due to the monsters attraction to the sword the village exiles him from home. With nowhere else to go, Randi takes the advice of a knight named Jema to take the sword to the shrines to reactivate the power of Mana.

Jesus Christ. It's actually shorter to play through that sequence than it was for me to describe it. This remake is a modernization of the 1993 release. It is actually a pretty faithful rebuilding of the game from a map perspective and from a mechanics perspective. While the game is functionally exactly the same as it was before, they did make a number of quality of life improvements to the game overall.

Obviously and most notably this game got a complete graphical overhaul. Now this isn't an upgrade to make it super new and modernized like a lifelike rendering like Final Fantasy 7 is currently getting. They basically upgraded this game from the SNES graphics to a more polished version of say a gamecube era Zelda game. It manages to keep the art style from the original promotional and concept art from the original game so the overhaul doesn't feel like it's departing from its original aesthetics.

The game is now full of voice acted dialog as well, which was a surprising addition to the remake. This has been a big point of contention to the remake as a whole because whenever they announce something new or good that people want, it immediately turns into complaining about not being the same. Now admittedly it's not exactly the greatest bit of voice acting by any stretch, and it's pretty much reduced to major characters and scenes (and the innkeep for some reason) but ultimately I was not that put off by it. I played Star Ocean: A New Hope. That game is the eff'n gold standard for bad voice acting.

So functionally, the game operates pretty much exactly the same as the previous SNES iteration of the game did. Secret of Mana is a top down hack and slash adventure game with RPG elements in the vein of Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and can be played up to 3 players. It still operates with the endurance mechanic so when you swing your weapon you have to wait for a quick 0-100% counter to fill up before you can take another swing at full strength.

You still can charge up your 8 weapons depending on their level for special attacks that deal increased damage. Your support characters Primm and Popoi still can use the various types of magic they learn during the course of the game. And this is still done by the ring menu system which can be just as slow and cumbersome as it always has been. It is certainly original and unique to the series but when you are trying to level up your magic it never flows as smoothly as you would like it to, even if you have it memorized.

This is somewhat abated by the addition of a pair of hot keys that you can now program. For a veteran player like I am to this series, this is very handy to have Undine's healing spell mapped to one and whatever spell I was leveling or using for dungeon or boss to the other. This cuts down a significant amount of delay having to navigate the menu every time I want to cast a spell, which makes this a very welcome addition to the game.

This clip show's the significant difference from casting with the ring system, to the hot keys.

They have also included a little mini-map in the upper right corner of the screen, which was a nice little add-on. You can turn it off as well, which I did since I know this game like the back of my hand. But a cute little visual thing that they used for the mini map is that it uses the original SNES sprite graphics for it, which is a nice little nod to the original. When using it though, it did feel like it quickened the pace of the game because you could see a lot more of the map.

As I mentioned previously, There is additional voice acting to the game and it's usually kept to primary scenes. But they added a bit of story flavor for when you go use inns. Inns in this game were originally required to save, so when you to use it you are treated to a scene of the main characters interacting with each other about some of the previous experiences of the game. All of these are completely new and original. Some of them are cute, some are funny, some drag on much too long. To the game's credit these can be skipped, but I don't know why you would since this is new content. I will say that if you don't keep up with them, the team will talk about events you did hours ago.

The music in this game has completely remastered as well to make use of PS4s expanded memory and quality. I found the modernized orchestral iterations to be very good, but again, this is something I have seen a significant number of reviews and comments to complain about. It seems like Square-Enix was concerned about this too so the game does have option to set it back to the original SNES version of the soundtrack, which still actually holds up pretty damn well, really.

I would say that the biggest annoyance I had with the remake was the change to the AI control system. In the old version of Secret of Mana, you had a 4x4 grid based on how close to monsters you wanted your team to get, and how aggressive they were in attacking. It was pretty stellar, because I could have weaker character hang back, but still attack like crazy if something got too close.

It's now a more simplified AI control menu and I don't feel it's for the better. Because by simplifying to "attack the same", "attack another", "do not attack" or whatever they are called, I feel now attacks are wasted by hitting an enemy I've already gotten well in hand, or making some map travel frustrating because I can't get the team to keep up with me because they are chasing another monster or refusing to run past. It's happened a number of times and admittedly a minor frustration. But minor frustration that you notice a lot, becomes a major one.

This simple gird allowed for a lot of character nuance in combat.
I do not understand why they got rid of it.

I will say that in the defense of the menus, they did simply down the list of meaningless statistics that don't actually play a factor into the gameplay. It was just additional information for the sake of having it. Now it's just down to simple, easy to understand terminology with much clearer indicators of progress while you are leveling. So while I miss my grid, it's not really all bad as far as menu changes go.

The voice acting is.... acceptable, I suppose. I am always kinda taken aback when I play a game that has some bad voice acting because at this point it feels like with how many actors are in the VO scene this shouldn't happen anymore. But after some initial cringe at some lines, I am sure you would be like me and eventually the voices will sort of just fade into the noise and not bother you. I will say that some of the Inn cutscenes can be phenomenally bad. It's always usually one that runs too long.

With the rework of the menu, there is now a much more significant indication
of progression of skills, or benefits to items used. 

They also made the strange decision to not animate the mouths in this game other than a few exceptions. It gives it more of a puppet show feel if that makes any sense. Major scenes will fully animated and drop to a 30fps frame rate to give it a more cinematic feel to it, but while characters are talking and moving, the mouth is shut, or open and not moving. It's strange and feels out of place. This is also the norm for any other non-animated cutscene. It basically shifts from pose to pose rather jerkily. This feels like it would not have been much work to fix.

A lot of the old game annoyances are back too. The could have really tweaked up the combat system so that the percentage for attack could have greater influenced the damage dealt. Instead it still feels like you either get full damage, or next to no damage. If I have 40% stamina when I take a swing, wouldn't 40% damage make sense? Another combat annoyance is the "miss" rate is still ridiculous. Even at full stamina your likelihood to miss an attack is why higher than it should be, leading to combat where you are constantly taking a swing at a baddie to kill them and just constantly whiffing for no reason. This is even more frustrating when you wasted time charging up an attack.

To be fair, you far less likely to miss on a charged attack. But it still happens too frequently.

Leveling magic is still a chore. Like the weapons, you level up their efficiency by using them. That makes sense, rotate your higher weapons around so everyone is good at everything. But even with the addition of the hot keys, magic still takes an arduous amount of time. Pick your spell, wait for the cast animation, wait for the spell animation, wait for the damage to drop so you can recast it again. MP is pretty sparse in this game so you need to carry MP recovery items if you are going to grind spells for any reason.

They did add a feature that you could increase the amount of items you could carry. Typically you could only carry up to 4 of every specific item and I personally felt that somewhat added to the challenge of the game. When you learn magic it really doesn't become the inconvenience it feels it should be, but none the less you can increase that amount so it helps for grinding spells without having to constantly go back to the Inn to recover your MP.

But the flat out biggest problem of the game is the exact same one that I bitched about in my Death's Gambit review and that is that this game crashed a fucking lot. It would crash mid battle seemingly for no reason, during boss fights, during screen transitions. It was patched multiple times and I still found myself with the game constantly crashing on me. It really was souring my entire experience of the remake as whole.

Unlike Death's Gambit though, Secret of Mana has also added a very generous autosave that basically saves every time you enter a new room.  So even if the game does crash on you, you really aren't inconvenienced any more than just needing to reload the game back up and bam, you are right back where you left off just a room away, or at the start of a boss fight. It really is something that should have been taken care of immediately but honestly I don't even know if that ever got addressed.

So that leaves us with the final question: is the Secret of Mana remake better or worse? From where I stand, it comes to a matter of preference. The original holds a special place in my heart and I can always go back and play it. But it's not available to everyone now, so if you have never played Secret of Mana before I would give this a recommendation even with the problems I've cited.

Sure, a number of things could have been done better or improved upon, but it still captures a lot of the old magic that made me love the game before, and quality of life adjustments added do make for a more streamlined experience. It's only 40 bucks and it's a reminder that classic, simple mechanics can still hold up.

I am still saying "One night is 50 GP"
in old man voice

Bravely Second: End Layer (3DS): Grinding down.

When this first one came out, I quite literally dove into buying a new handheld to try it because I knew I had some long flights and a convention to spend time with it. In my review I had more than my share of nitpicks but ultimately I left it saying that I hoped that this would be come a franchise and hoped that this would have a nice linage behind it.

Well sure enough this series did get a sequel in April of 2016. And while I was enjoying it, I eventually set it down and moved on to other games. But after working through my pile I did go back to grind out and finish. So while the game has been out for a while, I got my thoughts on it now. 

BRAVELY SECOND: END LAYER (3DS)

Bravely Second picks up two and half years after the events of the first game. Agnes for her work as a crystal vestal has become a Pope in the crystal orthodoxy and is currently brokering a peace treaty with Braev Lee, the duke of Eternia. Just as they are about to sign the accords, they are interrupted by Kaiser Oblivion.

The attack is devastating and Agnes is taken hostage and brought to the Kaiser's floating sky fortress. Yew Geneolgia is the leader of Agnes personal security detail, the Crystalgard (and our primary protagonist for this game), and looks to rally his allies and the remaining orthodoxy forces to try to take the fight to the skyhold and bring Agnes back.

The game starts pretty much in battle, which is a great way to get JRPGs going

Obviously, the story of Bravely Second is more complex than that but after we pass where I've mentioned we get into spoiler territory very quickly. I will say that this time around the story is a bit more involved and fleshed out and the previous iteration. Bravely Default was by no means a simple story line but its basis was you need to restore the 4 crystals, and if you played the previous title then you know you did that a lot.

Bravely Second follows a more traditional damsel in distress trope where Yew rallies heroes to give pursuit to a new threat. And along that path there are twists and turns, old faces and new appear along the way. It does make you replay certain segments like the last one did which is something I still found annoying, but not the same amount of times so I won't ding it too hard for that.

This is probably going to end up being a shorter review than my usual shtick because this game is a pretty stone for stone copy of the original Bravely Default, so I would basically be repeating a lot of what I said in my previous review. Much like I said before, the Bravely series is basically a classic Final Fantasy JRPG in all but name: A 60+ hour fantasy adventure with turn based combat, random encounters and exceptional music. Since this is a direct sequel, many of the characters, enemies, and bosses return to reprise their roles.

Agnes is not a primary party member this time, but she is a relevant part of the story.

But it wouldn't be a sequel if they didn't add something new to switch up the palette, so with a new set of characters naturally we get a new set of bosses. And with new bosses we get a new set of job classes to use (called Asterisks in game). Twelve new jobs in all which gives you a pretty mind bending amount of variety to what your party can do. Some of them are pretty straight forward which just allow you to plow with damaging abilities, some of them are a bit more bizarre like the Patissier which requires using items to use the special abilities. Then you get some that make old ones irrelevant like the Bishop, which basically can do everything the White Mage does but to the whole party making it vastly superior.

What I always loved about how they implement the job system in this one is you have the ability to really play around with what skills you have to min/max your characters abilities. In the late game I was basically combo the right sets of jobs and abilities to make a very damaging spell attack all the enemies up to 4 times in a row and sometimes cast twice in a single turn, basically allowing me to just rain down offense in the returning Brave/Default system. Or you could go the classic route like I did in the first game and equip a ninja with as many weapons as they can hold and charge 4 attacks in a row. There are lots of viable ways to play.

Generally the combat system hasn't changed from the previous game, but the Brave Points from the old game are now Sleep Points which are used to trigger the Bravely Second ability. What this does is expends one of these point to allow one of your characters to have a free turn to use up to 4 abilities. You have to have the available turns to spend to do them still, but the benefit is that the damage limiters are removed, so if properly set up, you can unload with an attack that can reach the millions in damage. SP however can only be charged up when you 3DS is in sleep mode, so use them sparingly or you have to spend real money to buy SP drinks. Honestly I almost never needed to use this sans one story moment.

Outside of that, really there isn't a lot of change between the two games on a mechanical level. It uses the same world map, a lot of the same dungeons that appeared in the previous game, you fight a lot of the same bosses and monsters. The "build a town" with street pass mechanic returns more or less the same way (although you can fight optional bosses from other players this time around). You could say that this game basically is more of an extension or an epilogue to Bravely Default than it is a true sequel.

Bravely Second's soundtrack is pretty good as well on top of being fully voice acted. There are lots of little cutscenes and character interactions that help flesh out the story and almost all of them were fun to listen to. The only downfall to the music is that my favorite tracks that played in this one were just songs from the first game.

While all of the characters from the previous game make a return in some fashion in Bravely Second, many of them take a back seat to new protagonists Yew and Magnolia arch. The two major plots basically revolve around these two characters: Yew's mission to rescue Agnes, and Magnolia's mission to save the Moon and defeat the massive monsters (Baals) currently attacking the planet. Basically Ringabel is the only character we kinda lose between games and good riddance. I hate the amnesiac trope.

But whats nice is that even though the old characters return, it focuses on the new characters story with the returning characters as more of a supplement. I like this better because this is what allows the universe to expand and become more interesting. The Atelier games are excellent at this because when an old character drops in, They feel like a welcome Easter egg, and doesn't affect how I feel about them from the previous game.

I think there was another controversy about censoring the girls costumes again,
Honesty guys, if a little cleavage on 3DS pixels being taken away ruins your
experience of the game? You might be picking the wrong hill to die on.

What I didn't like is the flippin' tedium that the Bravely series has now become known for. If you are truly going to play this game in its full capacity, you are expected to grind all your characters up to the max level, and go through and max out all of their job classes if you want to have the right set of abilities to really go up against the tougher bosses in the game. And sorry, even with the fast forwarding mechanics grinding is still grinding. And grinding is boring. It's the problem I always have in the Disgaea games. If you are making a boss so overpowered that its going to take me 100+ hours of grind to stand a chance, I will sooner just not do it.

Which ultimately brings me to the biggest problem that I had in Bravely Second: the game was just too easy to put down and stop playing. As you can see from the date I listed in the intro, I basically played through this game over the course of two years. I would reach a point where I didn't want to waste time grinding so I could fight and had other games to play, so I would set the DS down and literally forget about the game for months on end. That says to me the story wasn't compelling enough to keep me bolted down with the game.

When raining down with 4 meteors on one turn rips baddies a sunder. But you really
need to use the right skills, or Magic can be some of the weakest attacks in the game.

I will say that the grinding aid features such as fast-forwarding the battles and being able to turn off all the random encounters makes a welcome return and honestly I don't know why every JRPG doesn't do this. I suppose it does make final dungeons that much easier, but it also takes out the path of attrition its supposed to be for the climatic final battle. Honestly, if I am grinded out to max level, I turn off random battles and never look back.

The other thing I could talk about is how the ending of the game played out. There really is no way to explain it without spoiling it to a degree, but it does the same kinda thing Undertale did when it played around with the medium and actually addresses the player and not the characters. Technically, if you go by release dates Bravely Second did it first, but only by a few months so they were in the same dev cycle, but I will say Undertale did it better. Both great though, I love how games are starting to mess with the medium to tell their story.

Edea Lee is still best girl. Love her to death.

I did ultimately like Bravely Second but the problem between the two iterations is that Bravely Default was a fresh breath of a new IP done to homage the classic style JRPG. Bravely Second is just more of Default. As said above, it's essentially a long epilogue. They are not going be caught in the Final Fantasy catch 22: Do you change things to try to make it feel new? Or do you stick with the formula and put out a samey release? They honestly can't win either way they go with it.

That being said. I'm not unhappy with my purchase of Bravely Second. It is what it is, more of this franchise. If they make a third one I'll be getting it. But I wouldn't be surprised to see the series end here. Who knows, maybe they'll make a fancy new one for the Switch?

Lol, Baal Buster. Best job class ever.