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.

Final Fantasy XV(PS4): An enjoyable Bro'd trip.

Sighs.... OK Final Fantasy. We've been doing this dance for what feels like 20 something years at this point. You've been my favorite series once, it's been well established that I feel you were at your best with six and ten, and you certainly didn't do yourself any favors continually cramming Lightning down my throat. It took you 3 tries to get that right. So now I read that the whole company is putting everything into making this installment a success, everything I saw at first did not lead me positively. Four dudes driving around a car in what seems to be just a Final Fantasy version of the midwest? Eh....

But then something kinda clicked while I was fiddling with one of the two demos that got released. For as long as I can remember, I always wanted to see a JRPG that kept the kinda of fantasy monsters and themes, but kept it in a contemporary setting. Well, this is as close to that as I've gotten so far that I can remember, so with renewed energy I sat down with....

FINAL FANTASY XV(PS4)

(played in 2016)

So I won't lie, Final Fantasy XV's story is a bit of a muddled mess. SquareEnix seems to be determined to make their story as confusing as possible. So much so that it is actually recommended to watch the Final Fantasy XV movie Kingsglaive prior to the playing the game. It gives a little more context to what it happening in the world of this game, but ultimately you will want to keep to some basic points to help move you along.

You play as Noctis, the heir to the throne of Lucis, a small kingdom in the world of Eos. Lucis is bustling empire which contains a magical artifact known as the Crystal, a gift bestowed by the deities of this world, and is controlled via a ring passed down through the royal family. Lucis has been at a constant war with the neighboring technological and militaristic empire of Niflheim which controls most of Eos, but they have called a armistice with the condition that Noctis marries his childhood friend and destined oracle Lunafreya.

However, as Noct and his crew travel to Accordo to reunite with Lunafreya for the wedding, it is shown (or known if you watched Kingsglave) that this was just the set up for a double cross. Lucis is attacked, the city is heavily damaged, Noct's father is killed, the crystal is stolen, and he and Lunafreya are presumed dead. With no other course of action other than the press on as the current last of the line of Lucis bloodline, Noct sets out to find Lunafreya, retrieve the weapons of the Ancient Lucian Kings and inherit the powers of the Lucian line, and retrieve the crystal back from the empire.

Ok, Prince goes to get revenge, take what is stolen, and get the girl. That's where our head needs to be because even for a Final Fantasy game they managed to weave an incredibly confusing plot. I will say that watching Kingsglaive helped with that, but there is really little reason that couldn't have just been in the game instead of as a stand alone movie. Perhaps because the film doesn't really even contain Noctis and therefore might be considered vestigial, but perhaps if you controlled Lunafreya in these segments it would have made more sense and fleshed the story about better. The demos could have probably been crammed in here too.

So while Final Fantasy has gone through a number of different iterations, but at its core it has always been a JRPG or a variant of it. Well, after numerous attempts to squash the JRPG out of the the game, Final Fantasy XV succeeds by more or less completely removing the menu based elements out of the game. Now we have almost and Auto-fight version action based of Kingdom Hearts, its designed to be both simple, skillful, and seamless all at once, and I'll be damned if it doesn't actually work pretty well.

There is no combat transitions like the Final Fantasy of old. As you wander near enemies and they become hostile the weapons pop out and you are immediately in the fray. Combat is primarily controlled by a number of button holds. If you hold your standard attack, Noctis will continue to wail on the baddie you are trained on for as long as you MP holds up, chipping a little away with each attack. If you use your Warp, you can fling your weapon for a heavier teleport strike as well as use this to leap to cover to restore you spent MP.

The combat feels fluid and fun, so despite simple controls it still feels skillful.

You also have a defense button, where if held Noct will shiftstep to avoid incoming attacks, and if held in the right moments can initiate a parry for Noct to counter and strike back for bigger damage. As you take damage, you lose HP, if you are brought down to critical, you can start to lose your maximum HP, which can really make the battles a slog to get through.

Then there are a handful of other fight mechanics to help make things easier as well. You have a pair of gauges that charge up as you deal damage. One of them is your team up gauge where you can expend 1 to 3 bars with your individual party members for a team attack, but once you learn Ignus's regroup you have little reason to use anything else because it warps everyone to him and restores everyone to near full health. You have a gauge around your weapons that when activated puts you in what I call a frenzy mode, where Noct just goes ham with the ancient weapons he's found while taking next to no damage, and can be finished with a 4 member team attack. Finally there are summons, where in this Final Fantasy they are fight enders. Almost nothing survives a cast summon. The problem is I've yet to figure out what things need to happen to actually activate a summon, so when the music changes and the prompt appears, just hit it and finish the fight.

So long as you can hold out in a fight, Ramuh will eventually finish it for you.

Items for the most part don't change in this Final Fantasy but some of their functions do differ. For example being at 0 HP doesn't mean you are out of the fight, you are just weakened and slow. If you use a potion you regain HP and can get back in the fight, but if you use an Elixir you gain your HP back and restore back you maximum HP amount. Phoenix Downs return to bring back completely wiped out fighters back in the fight, and if you are quick enough you can use them to spare you from getting a game over as well.

Experience is treated a bit differently in this Final Fantasy as well. When you are out and about the world map fighting baddies you earn experience that goes into a pool for your characters individually. This is earned by defeating monsters, completing quests, or using items if you do it properly. But it doesn't actually go to leveling up your characters until you "bank it" by resting. You can do this at various camp locations across the map, renting out trailers to stay in, or if you can swing the cash to do so stay in hotels. Why would you pay money for hotels if you can camp for free? Because the nicer location you stay in determines the bonus to the experience you get when you cash in, so you can boost your levels if you can afford to stay in nicer places.

"Camping is so comfortable thanks to this reliable and affordable COLEMAN camping equipment!"

One of the perks to camping however, is that one of party members (Ignus) will cook for the group. Cooking and eating meals can provide various party effects such as more stamina, better damage, bonus HP, or even experience boosting. You can also dine at restaurants without having to rest but obviously this costs money to do as well. Depending on the locations you've found or the quests you have done, This can be manipulated in a way that allows you to really cash in on the experience you earn to get the jump on the levels. 

Final Fantasy has finally taken that hard look at Skyrim and said "Huh, gamers really seem to like this open world thing. Maybe that's why they didn't like Final Fantasy 13's 20 hour linear corridor maps." It's about time. I don't know when Square thought less freedom was a good idea but they finally wised up and when full blown open world. Not complete freedom as some areas are locked off at the onset, and you can't drive anywhere that doesn't have a road, but it does allow for some multiple forms of travel and is pretty massive in scale.

So while you have your main story quests to complete, as you make pit stops around the map you will come across NPCs, shops, and eateries that will provide side quests for you to do. On top of the regular experience bonuses these provide they will also allow you to find new weapons and gear, hunt monsters to earn money (money is scarce in this game), unlock new recipes for bonus effects, and find more of the the Lucian weapons. I felt very reminded of Dragon Age: Inquisition or Skyrim that it was very easy to find myself moving from sidequest to sidequest and never actually getting to progressing with the story. I had to tell myself to move on at points.

Gear in this game is kept thankfully simple this time around. Noctis is the only character that can use everything, and the other 3 party members can only use specific gear so it shouldn't do much to complicate things. Get everyone the best available armor and weapons, and figure out what weapons you like to use for Noct. I personally stuck to the short sword, knives, one of the Lucian weapons, and a spell for my main slot set up.

Lucian weapons are tricky, by the way. While they are significantly more powerful than weapons you can buy along the way, but they come at a cost. Just by using them your health will immediately begin to deplete. But even if you don't use them in battle, they can have a significant affect on your base statistics. I was getting my ass kicked regularly at one point and I couldn't figure out why. Apparently, I later found out, that the Lucian axe I had equipped for my heavy weapon had reduced my defense to next to nothing for a massive attack boost, so you have to chose your gear carefully.

Magic is also a different beast. Its based around this Elemancy system they created. Essentially you have have 3 magic elementals of fire, ice, and lightning (a call back to FF1 perhaps?). You basically can collect elements along the world map, then harness them into a casting of a spell. The amount you use increases the potency which I assume correlates to how much damage they can do, and the right selection of abilities as you level allow you decrease the cost or increase the power as you make spells.

But there is a 4th option to elemancy as well where you can add a random item to the spell to give them bonus effects. Some of them use poison or stun, I used them make my spells quadra or quinta casts so using the spell once basically resulted in a massive nuclear strike for a huge area. This for some reason also hits your party as well but it doesn't appear to deal any damage to you. But the real kicker, and pretty much the only reason I used magic is you can use debased coins to make them cast with XP boost. So basically every time you cast a spell you get a free experience dump. Compounded with what you've learned about boosting experience from food and sleeping, you can really surge in levels if you do it properly.

Given everything I've said as you can clearly tell, this is not the cookie cutter JRPG that Bravely Default is for example. It's something I thought I wanted for Final Fantasy but if I am being completely honest, I actually really got into the changes to system. It felt seamless, there was still a degree of skill required to do it well, and the difficulty is skewed in a way that it really never feels easy. If something out levels you, you have to play things very carefully otherwise its going to be a constant scramble to keep using your items to keep you alive.

Much like how they started to in Final Fantasy X, there is a real sense of scale to all the baddies in this game as some monsters are teeny in size like the lovable cactaur, to brontosaurusly massive in scale to where you are only really hacking at a monsters ankles during a fight. And what I like about this is some of the lumbering monsters are generally passive in nature, so you can scoot right on by them without getting locked into a fight you don't want to be in.

As I have mentioned the game if fairly open world, so you will be doing a lot of back and forth exploring, the problem is it doesn't exactly allow you the freedom of travel like a Grand Theft Auto would provide. You are given this slick ride and given a massive map. You select a few sidequests to do and realize it would be much faster to cut across the field to get there. BZZZT. Nope, you have to stick to the roads. The car will literally not let you veer into the other lanes or off road unless there is a dirt trail to allow you to do so. So nine out of ten times you won't even bother driving yourself because there is no point. No freedom. Just let Ignis do it.

Or, just say fuck it and fast travel to the nearest point you can, and then ride a chocobo as close as you can. You rent them for dirt cheap for day spans so spend for the week and you can summon them at will. You will be covering a lot of ground so you should anyways because they get stronger and more effective as you do.

The music in this one is pretty good. I don't know if I would say that the music of Final Fantasy XV is notable, but that's because while you travel you can purchase CDs for your car of all the older Final Fantasy soundtracks, which I absolutely would rather be listening to. So most of the time I wasn't even hearing the XV soundtrack. The battle music is cool and does feel epic, and the music you hear during the weird pinball game at eateries are metal as fuck so that rocks. The game also opens up with a soft rendition of Stand by Me, which was a surprising change of pace to have an actual licensed song that wasn't from Nobuo Uematso.

I played this much longer than I probably should have.

So as I've mentioned you have your main story quests, you have your monster hunts (which seems to be the primary way to make money), and you have your side quests. The problem with this selection is that if you stick to the story quests, Final Fantasy XV is going to be an incredibly short game. I believe some Japanese gamers clocked it down to just under 14 hours. For a spectacle fighter or action adventure game that's pretty standard, but for a Final Fantasy it really isn't. So expect yourself to do some sidequests if you want to make the most of this game.

The problem with the sidequests is that the people who give them are just awful. Sure, it shows off some fairly impressive character design in the way that NPCs don't feel so generic when compared to the main cast. But a lot of them are just insufferable from a voice acting perspective. It's like they looked at the characters they were going to voice and just decided instead of finding a voice that seemed natural for the character, they would let a voice actor go nuts and try some new things they were fooling around with. They run this barrage of just awful character actor sounds: Dumb Hillbilly, Tough Lady, Italian Mobster, Annoying Bostonian. I tried to listen to quests, but some these characters were just awful.

While I'm on the subject of voice acting, let's talk about Eos as a whole shall we? I am very confused about the nature of this universe, Final Fantasy XV. You start me off meeting a widened old king and let me take control of an angsty hero, a British chef, and mullety toughguy, and wet diaper. Then literally right at the onset of the game, I feels like I'm driving in the midwest only everyone who lives there is a transplant from the deep south. With Cindy I don't mind it so much because I think she is adorable but the entire continent talking like the cast of Hee-Haw while wearing stylish future clothing is sending me a lot of mixed fucking messages.

The story in this game is a fucking mess, really. Honestly if you held a gun to my head and asked to me explain it I'd probably still be getting shot in the knee at best. I can mention some of the major aspects of it but honestly most of them main game is so unmemorable I vaguely remember what quests were actual story based missions and which were asides not based off the main narrative. Some of them I wonder why they are even in the game. It does the whole Evil Empire thing but then it will have you literally rubbing elbows with the games primary antagonist. There is a section where where you fight this hired gun out to stop you, and then literally the very next time you see her she joins your party. Consistency is not Final Fantasy XV's strong suit.

It's not a real likable main cast of characters either. Noctis is your prototypical spiky haired angsty machine. He's there to swing his sword and "pfft" or "tsch" his range of emotion during scenes. Ignis seems like he could be a cool character but honestly it seems like all the stuff that happens to him that develops him as a character happens without the player ever getting to see it. Prompto fucking sucks, he is a whiny ineffectual snot who I would leave locked in the trunk if I could. There is a particular story heavy mission where he casually drops this massive reveal about his character, that has about as jarring an effect as if you told me it was sunny out today. And Gladiolus could have been my favorite character but he's an inconsistent hypocrite, he straight up leaves the group to take care of some of his own shit and then when a major story event takes place he proceeds to be fucking shitty to a character for the remainder of the game for no fucking reason. This team sucks.

Which is a shame because there are some pretty great characters in this game. For a brief stint you get Gladiolus' sister Iris in your party and on top of fighting along side you, she's actually charming and fun. So of course she's gone before you get to enjoy it. The aforementioned hired gun, Areana Highwind, is a throwback to the Dragoon class who is a hardened mercenary and kind of bad ass, so naturally you get her for one mission and she's gone, which is a shame because as you talk to her you get a sense of where her loyalty actually is and its interesting. Hell I would have taken getting Cindy in the party just to hear her southern drawl as I traveled across the world map. In this game's defense though, I will admit I missed a lot of the individual character quests because I never made camp because there is no XP boost and camping is what makes most of them appear.

I would have swapped any of these characters to keep Iris on the team.

My hands down biggest problem with the game however, is the fucking product placement. There is one small one (a small American Express sign I didn't even notice) and 3 very egregious examples that I can cite: One, In the Kingsglaive film, in several rather prominent shots the film really drives home that they are driving around in a very stylish looking Audi (that they actually produced one of, that sold for like 350k). Two, In almost every scene where the team is at a campfire, the Coleman brand is prominently displayed on the camping equipment that is well centered in practically every single camping shot. And third, is sprinkled throughout billboards and shops are ads, and even the product of Cup Noodles.

Which would be fine by itself, but there is an actual fucking quest line about eating fucking Cup Noodles, and how you make Cup Noodles better to have the "ultimate flavor experience". Spoiler alert, it ends with the whole team realizing that after all the effort they put in Cup Noodles are just great as they are. FUCK. YOU. This was so ham-handledly crammed into the game I swear to god I almost stopped playing. Listening to Gladiolus sing the praises of the ambrosia of the gods that is fucking Cup Noodles was just product placement at sickening levels. Try to watch that mission and not get douchechills. Fuck you, Cup Noodles. Unless a particularly shitty game comes out this year, Cup Noodles is the 2017 worst of the year. Book It.

This is getting longwinded so I better wrap things up. Final Fantasy XV is not the last ditch hail mary masterpiece I think SquareEnix was hoping it would be, but it did end up being successful. They tried something different again and for the most part it does provide a pretty enjoyable experience. Is it the best Final Fantasy in the series? Not by a longshot. But that doesn't mean it isn't worth your time. If they had maybe dialed back on making everything epic in scale and fancy looking and spent a little more time formulating a more coherent storyline, and sold it all together instead of with movies and demos, Final Fantasy XV could have truly been something special.

Sadly, its not. But its still good. Definitely the one of the best showings of the game for any of the series after Final Fantasy X. They are still going to add a few more DLC chapters to the game to flesh out some of the things you can do and extend on the story a little bit but ultimately that comes as a too little too late for me. Final Fantasy XV is a pretty solid play and I would say I certainly got my monies worth out of it. Maybe a 6 or 7 out of 10.

I'd bump it to an 8 if it didn't have Promto. 

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: A score of high notes.

So since February, I had paid for and been planning for a trip to RTX in Austin Texas. I had a lot of things I would like to do and places I wanted to visit, but having been to multiple Ohayocons and a PAX East, I feel I was somewhat prepared for what to expect. So despite the fun I was expecting, I knew there would be waiting in lines, and I knew there would be waiting at airports.

I have been eyeing Bravely Default for a while, and wanted to play it greatly, but I didn't want to start it before my trip. So I had this new 3DS XL and needed something to play on it. And then I remembered that trip to PAX east, I tried out an unreleased game by Square Enix. It mixed two things I liked, and seemed to be a good fit. But would it hold over? We shall see. 

THEATRHYTHM: FINAL FANTASY(3DS)

So yeah, story. This is a rhythm game so there really isn't one per say.  It would akin it sort of to Final Fantasy Dissidia: The world is in balance because of the two gods Cosmos and Chaos, and between them is rhythm, a crystal essence that controls music. Chaos as dispersed its power so Cosmos assembles heroes from the various Final Fantasy universes to collect Rhythmia to restore the crystals power.

And that's it. That is literally the entire extent of the story. And I suppose for a rhythm game that is all I can really expect. Dance Dance Revolution isn't exactly known for its stirring narrative. Bust a Groove never weaved an epic tale within the lyrics of the songs. Guitar Hero had a handful of cutscenes that were forgotten after about as long as it took to view them. So really, from a story perspective I got about what I expected out of this.

Not the cute chibi versions. Couldn't find a decent picture to use. Sue me.

No, Theatrhythm is about the celebration that is the Final Fantasy (FF) music catalog. And honesty I can't think of a better selection of soundtracks to make a rhythm game. I have spent many a workday at the various libraries I've worked at listening to Final Fantasy radio stations, as there practically isn't a bad song. I was very eager to jump headfirst into this one.

So the game starts off with a brief little prologue basically explaining the story as I just have, then it takes you to a screen where you assemble your FF dream team from a selection of one hero from each FF game. So naturally My team leader was quickly locked in as Terra from Final Fantasy VI (because 6 is best and if you disagree you are wrong, fuck you). I balanced out the rest of the team with a combination of Cloud, Tidus, and ugh... Lightning, because it provided me the most solid balance of stats across the board. Felt this was the best way to go because I really didn't know what to expect.

There are a few different game modes, but talking about one of them will really give you the biggest gist of the game. When you fire the game up, you can go to Series mode and how this works is you scroll through the list of the Final Fantasy Anthology going from one to thirteen. In it, you will play a simple prelude and epilogue song. These are optional but if you tap along with the beat you earn Rhythmia which is used to unlock things. Once done with that, you take on the 3 game types for that FF in no particular order.

Now the play is the same for all three, its just how they are delivered is what changes. So lets say I play Final Fantasy IV. I might start off with a Field Music Stage (FMS) and play "Terra's Theme", which is usually the overworld song. There is a circle which indicates where I hit the notes, and note icon's can be tapped, held, or swiped based on the direction of the arrow. It is pretty straight forward, but in FMS mode when you are holding a note, you might need to drag the circle up and down the line to maintain the critical rating (perfect). Sometimes you might have to swipe a direction at the end of a hold, but generally it follows a singular path. Of the three play styles, I find this one easiest.

Then you might move into "The Decisive Battle" in the Battle Music Stage (BMS). These are are the most fun to play because its where you are going to find all the fast, upbeat, and fun battle music from the FF universe. In this game mode, the note lines are broken up between the 4 heroes you have selected. the notes each fly at the hero and you need to tap, hold and swipe as they arrive. Essentially the same thing as the FMS but your eyes need to jump around the screen a bit more to keep up. These are my favorite songs to play.

Then we have the Event Music Stage (EMS) where you will be treated to a cinematic of CG animation or moments from the game while you try to play "Celes' Theme". I find this one to be tricky because besides things moving around in the background, instead of having the single line, the timing circle actually moves around the the screen along a singular path and you need to tap, hold, and swipe as it crosses the notes, and not vice versa. I find this to be the trickiest of the 3 game types because I never, EVER, can get the timing of the swipes down correctly and it only seems to get harder as the game gets faster.

I botch the arrows every time.

Once completed, you are treated to the game's ending theme where you can tap along as you did at the start. once you complete all five you total rythmia is tallied and added to your running total. In between the 3 major stages of the game you earn experience like you would a traditional final fantasy game and your characters level up and get increased stats and abilities. But what for? I'm glad you asked.

For the most part, the XP system seems to be fairly set with the exception of the BMS stages. In this mode, defeating monsters by performing the song well get you a pretty substantial boost of experience at the end of the level. As your characters grow stronger, they gain more HP to allow you to mess up more times during the song. Your increased stats also allow you to hit harder, which allows you to dispatch more enemies, thus allowing more experience to be earned.

And as you level, you unlock more abilities. Some of these are passive and take place within certain game modes, such as during the FMSs. Others are active, and are only triggered when certain stipulations take place such as hitting 20 goods on the tap icons, or when the 2nd monster comes out, or when you encounter a boss type monster. As you level up you get more Battle Points to allow you to equip better version of the abilities or more of them which eventually allows you dispatch even more. So naturally you want to use them, right?

Not so fast. Unfortunately using these items or abilities come at a cost, and if you are playing a music game, you will inevitably be a stickler for perfection. If you refuse to equip any items or abilities and go in equipped with nothing, this gives you a special stoic bonus at the end of each stage of like 200,000 points. You NEED these points if you intend to get an SS or SSS rank at the end of any stage you play. It is impossible to get higher than an S with items equipped, so equip or unequip accordingly for what it is you are trying finish.

Once you go through a round of those modes, you can play the songs again individually in the games challenge mode. This is typically where you will grind and play your favorite songs. But there is also a mode called Chaos Shrine, where you will play "dark notes" of the songs in the game. These are usually 2 different types of stages and the notes in the songs are switched up. They are usually harder, and the bosses in these areas drop better rewards, such as crystal shards. By collecting these you can unlock new characters from the various games, (I'm gunning for you Rydia). There is also a multiplayer mode but as we established: I have no friends and thus, didn't play that mode.

There are also songs to unlock as you play through, such as the "Blinded by the Light" from FF13 or "Dancing Mad" from FF6. This gives me a reason to keep playing so I am happy about that. There is also a large myriad of DLC songs to download for a buck a piece, but I intend to hold off on that since an updated release of this game will be coming out in September in Curtain Call.

The entire game is presented in this kind of cutesy chibi style of itself where all of the characters sort of resemble doll versions of themselves, or perhaps like the Tarutaru from Final Fantasy 11. It is a cutesy design and obviously because of the whole tone and theme of the game not meant to be taken seriously so it fits well. And it was cool to see some of the more notable baddies from the various universes all get a cartoony appearance in the BMS stages.

There really isn't a whole lot more that I can say about this. Its a music game that is functional, fun, and effective. It throws in some interesting RPG nuances that hearken back to the genre it draws from, it borrows hits from the incredible score from this timeless set of games with soon to be much more in the coming months. It's really turned out to be pretty much everything in wanted for a game of this kind.

Rydia would whip your fucking ass, Cloud. She didn't pussy ache about her
village getting destroyed nearly as long as you did. 

If I had to come up with complaints for it, I can only think of a few. One, the menus are kind of clunky an annoying. The entire game is navigated from the touch screen and nowhere else. which I guess is fine for play control, but when I am navigating the menus there should be no reason I couldn't move things along with the D-pad and the A buttons, that has been effective since video games. So I don't know why every time someone designs a new controller they need to fuck with what already works. Knock it off.

In addition to that, and I am not sure if this is a problem with my 3DS or the system as a whole, but the touch screen doesn't appear to be a sensitive as my original DS Lite was. I have only recently noticed it but if I barely tap the screen it doesn't seem like it registers as much as if I give it a more pressured tap. Not sure on that one. It might just be my system or something I just noticed but it hasn't really played a big factor until just recently.

And as I vented, DLC is like a buck a song and there is WELL over 50 different DLC songs that have come out, and additional characters as well. It sucks for the people who purchased this game at launch, I am fortunate because the better version will be coming out in a few months, just about after I start to complete this one so that is a pretty limited complaint to me.

As I have said previously before, when it comes to a new system I try to come up with at least 7 games that I know I would like to play before I buy them. And if I get a long play through out of them, then so much the better. When I was considered getting myself a 3DS, this was one of the first games that came to mind as a must have, if not top 3.

I am very happy to say that the game delivered on pretty much every front that I'm asking for. It may not have had every song I was looking to play but I haven't unlocked everything and I know I have about 100 more songs upcoming in the Theatrhythm: Curtain Call is sure to re-spark my interest in the game. But really? It was hard for me hate anything about this. It's Final Fantasy, it's a rhythm game, its pick up and play, its got great song selection, and its fun. I am doing a great job of raging on these blogs. >:|

6, 10, 4, 7, 9, Tactics, 1, 5, 10-2, 13-3, 8, Tactics advance, Mystic quest, 12, 13-2, 13, 3, and 2.

(of the ones I played, In that order.)

Lightning Returns- Final Fantasy XIII: Running In Place.

It took effort to get caught up with the Final Fantasy 13 series. Despite a pretty heartwarming ending, I had basically nothing but negative feelings to Final Fantasy 13. Square responded by making a number of changes to Final Fantasy 13-2 and yet for some reason, despite all the improvements, my feelings were still lukewarm. Hell, I kept falling asleep when I tried to play it. I actually had to give it a full week of my time long after its release to finally force my way through it. That's a massive red flag.

So Square was basically like "God screw you people! Lightning is awesome! WHY DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?!?!?" Square really, really wants us to think Lightning is cool and you have to appreciate their gusto for trying. As videos for this final installment came out, it had some pretty polarizing opinions to it. But then I played the demo... and fuck me sideways, it was actually fun! I was completely shocked, so much that I was actually looking forward to this. You managed to get my attention again Lightning, don't fuck it up.

LIGHTNING RETURNS: FINAL FANTASY XIII

We pick up several hundred years after the end of Final Fantasy 13-2. Lightning wakes up from her time sleeping in crystal to be privy to the end of time. After the finale of 13-2 where chaos flooded into the world, much of the planet was destroyed in the process. With it came a stoppage of time, people no longer aged, and no new life could be created. But it wasn't immortality, as people could still be killed, could still grow sick and die, can still be killed from misfortune. So as they seemingly can live forever, all they can do is watch humanity slowly dwindle in numbers as the chaos that destroyed much of the world will finish the job.

One of the three gods of the realm Bhunivelze awakens Lightning from her crystal sleep, and tells her the world will end soon. He will create a new world, but he will need souls to fill it. He offers that if Lightning will become his "Savior" and save as many of the remaining souls as she can, she will be rewarded by having Serah returned to life. Lightning agrees, and is granted power by the God to fight against the Chaos and save who she can.

Back on the surface, she finds that centuries have changed people greatly. Snow oversees the revelry that takes place as humanity has decided to just party till extinction. He is a tired and depressed Snow, completely grief stricken that not only could he not protect Serah, and that he can do nothing to stop the impending Chaos. So with Lightnings first act as "Savior" she vows to save his soul first.

Wow. So Stoic. Much Angst. Many Unwanted Sequels.

OK, so as we all know the tale of Final Fantasy 13 has not exactly been a smooth one. After a great deal of excitement for the first big PS3 and XB360 the collective fanbase got hammered with a 60 hour straight line with a combat system that did all the work for you and probably the hands down worst cast in the entire franchise. (I could give a fuck less that Sazh had a chocobo chick in his hair. Aside from Fang, the cast of 13 eats shit.)

But then we had Final Fantasy 13-2, which tried to continue on with the mess of 13 but instead we were treated to Noel and Serah, the only two characters in this entire universe who had any character and more importantly were likable. They made a number of changes to the game by trying to make it kind of episodic, opened up the world more, and added a monster capture element to the game. Unfortunately it was still in the universe with the previous cast, and was cluttered by excessive menus for traversing world maps. It was better, but still kind of lack luster as a whole.

Oh yeah, and for some reason Hope is a child again. Even though
he was an adult throughout the entirety of Final Fantasy XIII-2

Lightning Returns is actually probably the closest to a traditional Final Fantasy as its been in years. Instead of a massive world map like so many people are accustomed to, the game keeps contained in 4 major areas: two parts of a city (a glitzy wealthy area, and grungier poorer section), A vast nature filled Wildlands (which has plains, craggy areas, and a forest), and the Dead Dunes (which is a desert and a large underground ruins). You can see this for a positive or a negative, it may seem like the game has taken out the ability to explore, but on the other hand its tightly contained.

The game actually has a big MMO feel to it because instead of one long overarching story, its now broken up into questing. Each major area of the game has a main story quest featuring one of the other characters, and each area has various sidequests you can partake of the various residents you meet along the way. In addition to this there is a message board with additional quests do for each area. Because of its layout you are welcome to try to complete the quests in any order that strikes your fancy.

Get used to seeing where certain people are. Because sidequests will have
 you talking to almost everyone who has any dialog in this game

So why the need for questing? Well, this is one of the big determining factor for the realtime mechanic. This is a countdown to the end of the world, and the souls you collect push the clock back and boost Lightning's stats so you want to do as many of them as quickly as you can. Completing the main quests will buy you an extra day of time, and you have little abilities you can do halt the flow of time for a brief period. Time also doesn't move when you are in battle or in menus, so while you are still pressed to keep moving, not every decision is a 100% dire rush.

Although, it does lead to the issue of possibly completing the story quests too quickly. I pretty much managed to get through them all with relative ease, maxing out my time to the 13 possible days. Unfortunately with the main story quests out of the way, I have this dead zone where I am just wandering around trying to complete all the sidequests I can find. If you manipulate the fights right, you can use your chronostasis ability really pad out the length of time, which can really bring the pace to halt. I am trying to force myself not to stop time just so I can continue on with the story.

Your stage performance will never be as good as Celes' was, Lightning.
Stick to being a soldier. Oh wait, Celes was better at that too.

The other problem I have with it being told this way is it really seemed like there wasn't any grand story I was following along with, no longer narrative to drive my motivations or characters. Just a handful of "more important" side quests intermixed with the rest of them. The strength of the story suffers because of it. I think on top of the character quests, there should have been some kind of mandatory story mission for that day as well, that would at least give the story a better sense of weight.

Personally, I like how this maps were laid out. Yeah the map is smaller and more condensed and you lose a lot of realm to explore, but you know what? I have a lot more freedom to actually explore. I am not being forced to travel down a straight line of maps like the previous installments. With some of the quests requiring you to go from one end of the map to the other, it gives the world a sense of expanse that forces your to ration your time properly. I does fall victim to making have to go back and forth unnecessarily, but once you get a familiarity to the maps it probably won't bother you and it does make the game world have a sense of "bigness" to it.

Maps may seem smaller, but the over world manages to feel big.
A massive improvement over the first game. 

And something I liked that I can't recall most other games doing, is that you can accidentally complete quests without realizing you have done so. So if missions have quest specific items its entirely possible to find them along the way before you actually accepted the quest. Or if you get a quest of the old MMO standby of "kill x amount of monsters till they drop X amount of items." It doesn't pull the bullshit move of making the drop only happen after you accept the quest, so sometimes I'll enter a new area and go to the board to find out I've already got like 4 quests done. Rock on, free levels.

What I DON'T like about the quest board is I have to manually go through and accept every one. For the main quest that's fine, for the random citizens quests that's fine. But there is no incentive to declining quests. You aren't penalized for not doing them, so can we just assume that I want to try to do all the of quests? Maybe this is means to force me to read them, I don't know. But its a pointless hassle that keeps me in menus longer than I should need to be.

Now then, lets get to the meat of the game. They said they changed the combat system, which had been my long standing complaint with this series. The changed it in 13-2 but it pretty much felt like old system, just with monsters instead of party members. You still were basically smashing auto-battle until everything died and switching roles at the optimal moment. So whatever changes they planned I expected to be negligible. Oh how wrong I was. They changed it all right, and even using parts of the systems before it, the subtle changes made make it feel completely different, but more than anything I actually feel like I am the controlling the fight.

Some of the goofier outfits can take the seriousness out of a scene.

Here's how it works: Instead of 3 party members, you instead get 3 slots to choose various job classes (read outfits) each of them with their own unique abilities and statistics. Each class gets it own ATB bar for you complete combat actions, and each job has different parameters that effect it such as as a larger ATB bar for more actions, or a shorter bar for less but with a much faster recharge time. Each job will have one or two locked abilities to that job, and you are free to customize the rest how you feel you want to. Once you are outfitted with weapons and relics you are ready for battle.

During battle its one vs all. Typically the fights will be one on one but sometimes Light will have a hoard to deal with. Each of the 4 abilities you selected will be mapped to one of the for controller buttons. Holding them down will rapid fire that attack and each uses different amounts of ATB, as you use up your gauge you can use the L1/R1 buttons to flip between your other jobs, each with their own ATB gauge to use. While you are in a job the other two will be recharging.

The combat system is the best part of the game.... For once. 

So the goal of the battle is to keep up the offensive, if you play your cards right you can continuously push with a nonstop assault. With the right selection of attacks, the ferocity of your assault can knock an enemy into stagger, where you can unload big damage.  When this happens its wise to use your Overdrive feature which slows down time, increases your speed, and gives you a fresh bar to really pile on the damage. Plus when it ends the job bar is full again, giving you the possibility of three full rushes of attack when you stagger a foe.

The block feature is also a bit more interactive as timing becomes key in your defense. Should you add one of the guards into your lineup, you need to learn their intricacies (such as one that grows in defense the more you use it, or one that heals if you hold the guard longer) in addition to getting their timing right. When an enemy winds up their attack, if you can time it right your guard will negate any damage you can take from it. If its not properly timed, it will knock off a percentage of damage but keep you from getting knocked over. Otherwise you will get knocked off your feet or into the air which gives the enemy more time to wind up their next attack and brings yours to a halt.

Monsters aren't indefinite in this one. If you kill them in droves the last one will go into a more
 difficult final form. If you kill that one you get a powerful item, but that monster is extinct.

This combat is fun as hell. I can't explain it well because it sounds like they just condensed a party of 3 to a party of 1, but I think in giving me up to 4 to 12 different auto attacks that I have to decide on, I feel like I am playing a much bigger portion of the fight and pushing the pace, and timing my blocks properly definitely adds a strategic ripple to the combat. If I had one complaint about the combat of the game, I'd say it isn't even really an issue with the combat. It's the DLC bonuses.

This is the first game I've ever played where not only was the free DLC good, but its practically some of the best equipment in the game. Oh sure, you'll find better weapons but I've yet to find better outfits in the game that superior to the ones I got. The game comes with a Cloud from Final Fantasy 7 outfit that has a locked in Heavy Attack. But if you stagger an enemy, it becomes Slayer which is practically a one hit kill for the amount of damage it does.

Occasionally you will have help in battle. But don't get used to it because it doesn't last.

The other I got from an amazon preorder is the Summoner Yuna from Final Fantasy X, her shield gives 200+ magic, and she gets the attack Elementa which hits like 20 times, for all 4 elements, and does Magic x 9.60 (to give perspective most starting attacks offer .60 or .70 damage). It doesn't do much in the way of stunning enemies though, and that can be a real problem later on (especially with that final boss). Its a good crutch early but you will have to pick other spells to keep offensive balance.

You quite literally can tear through a very large portion of the game on these two outfits alone. Hell, In the 70+ hours of play and counting, I haven't had a reason to take off the Cloud and Yuna outfits. I have been bouncing around with Dark Samurai, Sphere hunter Yuna, and Velvet Bouncer (which doesn't look like a character from The Bouncer which seems like a missed opportunity,) for my 3rd but they have been fluff pretty much, just something else to keep the attack pace up with the other two. The DLC is practically game breaking. I suppose that's a complaint for some, but certainly not for me. At least in the summoner outfit I can pretend I'm using a more likeable protagonist.

Spira's Summoner: Super kawaii and deadly to boot. Also, when you win in
an older Final Fantasy costume, it plays the Fanfare from that game. Very cool.

Which really brings me to my biggest problem in the game: Lightning fucking blows. I'm sorry Square, but I just don't understand the collective boner you have for this character. She is easily the most angst ridden character in the entire franchise (a series that contains Squall, Cloud, and Edward no less), she goes through absolutely no development over the course of 3 games, she is constantly flat in emotion and delivery, and despite seeing you put her in every fantastical situation you guys can come up with, I remain completely unmotivated to root for her. Top this off with nearly every NPC and major character being equally dry and boring you again fail to hit on one of the most important aspects to Final Fantasy as whole, and that's a compelling narrative.

Actually, that's not wholly fair. In retrospect nearly every single character has gone through a good deal of change. Snow is actually a little bit relateable this time around, Vanille has gone through some drastic change and has become a deeply conflicted character, and one of the games primary antagonists in Lumina (a dead ringer for Serah) is probably the most interesting and charismatic character in the game. Yet right from the start they pretty much tell you Lightning has had her emotions removed by god, so practically every line of dialog is flat and uninspired. It sucks because it completely kills would could be a heartwarming or tense moment as you play.

There is a lot more to Lumina that meets the eye. And she's the only one with a shred of character 

Another big story problem I have is what I call "Hideo Kojiomaism" to the writing. Much like a Metal Gear game, someone like Hope or an NPC will say a line of dialog, and then Lightning will literally repeat the exact same sentence with a question mark at the end. This happens a number of times from beginning to end. To the point where I actually said at the screen: "OK I fucking get it already, get to the fucking game." Although, in its defense I will say this game has done a better job of actually weaving exposition into the narrative. It still has obnoxiously busy datalogs like the previous 2 games, but the game does a pretty good job of keeping you up to speed this time.

Although probably the biggest overall issue with the story is you pretty much can figure out who the final boss of the game is within maybe an hour or two, if that. "Oh, the main character is tasked by a deity to save the world and offering up her sister as a reward for doing what she's told? OH, and there is a religious sect that borders on fanatical and every line of dialog is followed by a sinister laugh and wringing of the hands?! I WONDER WHAT WILL HAPPEN???"

It's a shame Vanille's character growth is marred by the most predictable
plot twist in the entire game. Seriously Square, you should know better.

Look, I'm a not a super religious guy and I'm certainly not defending religious double standards or illicit practices. But can I have at least one game where people who have faith AREN'T vilified for once? It's a tired plot line, its predictable, and its been done to death. I know some people who have faith, and most of them aren't that bad. Just the ones that blatantly ignore proven science, or use their faith to persecute. But that's a post for a different blog entirely.

My problem with this trilogy is Square seems to really think everyone loves this character, and they want to keep pushing her. We don't. Nobody does. Kotaku put up a poll if fans want more Lightning in FF games and its getting voted NO in a landslide. Stop thrusting this character in front of us. She sucks and we don't want her.

I suppose one other nitpick I could make is that outside of Lightnings outfits, the game uses a lot of the same character and monster assets over again and it seems like aside from locations this game doesn't really bring a whole lot of new to the table. Even still, the visuals really are incredible and the CG cinematic are even more impressive. (Even more so now on my new bitch'n LED TV.)

The Earth Eater is easily the biggest pain in the ass in this game

To hop off the negativity train, let me go back to a positive here. I used to think that the Final Fantasy 13 series had a pretty generic soundtrack. But as I play through Lightning Returns I realize they sprinkled in musics from all three of the games in this saga. So when one would start I'd have this nostalgic start of "oh I remember this one, oh I liked this one too". So maybe I've been a little hard on this series' score. That major violin piece for the main theme is actually really good, it just took me a longer time to realize it.... And I mean come on, Crazy Chocobo.

So after this massive diatribe I guess the question is, did I like it? It's really strange for me to say. Despite the few complaints that I had, and the fact that this game continues to address nearly every complaint I have about it, it still somehow failed to wow me at the start. I just don't understand how a game manages to fix almost every complaint I have and still leave me with an incredibly lukewarm overall feeling.

Nearly every major character gets their story finally wrapped up. We get some Closure.

But on the same token, I was never at a point where I was bored playing it and that is a massive improvement. The combat has become fun and involving, and I feel like I get to explore like a classic Final Fantasy should let me. The characters have become more relateable and interesting, so why am I not loving this?

Does a handful of awful characters really tarnish what could be a good game that badly? Or does the series as a whole just leave me with that much of a sour taste? Its hard to say. But if I were to go from the merits of this installment alone, I would say that Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy 13 is easily the best installment of the three. Despite using some old assets, the game is still visually stunning, its got a good soundtrack to it, the combat is fun to play finally, the timed mechanic keeps the games pace up, and it manages to capture some of the old magic of traditional Final Fantasy world map.

It has taken 3 tries to get Final Fantasy 13 right, and of them this was certainly the best attempt. The game might have been better if it continued to keep Serah as the protagonist instead of Lightning, but all in all I have to say that I am enjoying this one. It may not be yanking at my heartstrings like other FF games have in the past, but it certainly has done an excellent job of keeping entertained, focused, and looking to finish. Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII isn't going to blow you away, but I'd play another Final Fantasy with this system. I would say it was worth the purchase.

If you swapped out this cast for the cast of 10, it becomes infinitely better.