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Can Sonic reclaim his former glory? (Part 2)

When we last left our blue hedgehog, I posited the hope that Sonic's first foray into the RPG genre would be good. With Bioware at the helm of this game, I hoped that I was in for a good game. At this point, I was hoping that this wouldn't be just another game that lent itself to more humiliation. Sonic's suffered enough. So here, finally, after a couple of months of delay, here's the second and final installment of this review.

So the result was Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, released on the Nintendo DS. It opens up light-hearted enough, with Sonic returning from a vacation—probably to get away from all the bad games he was forced to star in. However, he is made aware by Tails that Knuckles has gone missing—a problem if Knuckles is the guardian of the Chaos Emeralds, including the Master Emerald. From there, the story develops, and you're taken on a comical romp through various Sonic levels (with some new ones as well), acquiring characters (Sonic, Tails, Amy Rose, Big the Cat, amongst others) to add to your party, each with their own unique abilities that have use either on the world map or in battle.

Battles themselves are nothing too dramatic—they're standard turn-based battles; you enter commands for the party, and watch the round play out. You do have some element of strategy—on the top screen, you can see the order in which your characters will go. However, you don't see where an enemy is going to cut in line, so there's also a small element of guesswork. If a character is running low on HP, do you want to wait further down the lineup to throw out that potion, or use it immediately and forgo using a powerful attack? Also, you have the option (and if you have skill as well) of not initiating combat. Enemies are seen on the map, and if you're spotted, the enemy will make some sort of extremely annoying sound that gets old quickly, especially if you're dashing through a section of the map with an abundance of enemies. Nothing like hearing sharp, shrill shrieks or the sounds of your DS constantly making farty, burpy noises to let you know that battle's going to ensue if you're caught. Another downer is that while enemies can be seen, they are also challenging to avoid. Often times, I found myself being pursued by two or three enemies, only to be caught by one, battle, win, then immediately get caught by the enemy just behind him before I can even use my stylus to move Sonic...it reminded me of Final Fantasy games of old, where battles often occurred one step after returning to the world map.

Also, the initiating of powerful moves (and the blocking of powerful moves unleashed by the enemy) require skilled timing of the stylus. By tapping the stylus in sequence on various locations of the bottom screen, you can determine whether an attack or block will be effective. Nail each tap perfectly, and you're guaranteed a hit or block, unless a special status dictates otherwise. You can even unleash powerful moves by tag-teaming with other characters in your party—to the point where you could utilize all four characters in your current party in one massive, destructive attack. The more complex the attack, the quicker your stylus reflexes will have to be.

In fact, this is the first DS game I've played that uses the stylus exclusively. This game does not use any of the buttons for anything—the stylus is used for every function of the game, from moving your characters on the world map, to menu navigation, to battling. And surprisingly, it does it well. I found it very easy to pick up and work my way through without remembering any sort of button configuration, and for that, it's a definite plus.

The script itself is definitely amusing at points, and campy in others. At various points of dialogue, you (as Sonic) will be given some choices on how to answer a question, usually with a nice response, a snarky, sarcastic response, or indifference. No voice-acting here; it's all reading. As for extras, you can find Chao scattered amongst the world—these Chao can be equipped to party members to provide additional support, be it a boost to individual stats, an increase to some form of elemental resistance, an increased chance of finding rare items or getting extra EXP from battle—plenty of Chao to go around. If you utilize the game's wi-fi connectivity, you can trade Chao for extremely rare ones.

Finally, one major plus for this game—this game contains a feature I wish more games, particularly the long, epic, RPGs, had: the ability to save your game anytime, anywhere. This fact alone makes the game that much more enjoyable. Too many times I play a long game like the later Final Fantasy games and find myself having to go two hours in between save points, only to die during a battle and lose all that progress. Here, no need to worry. The only time you can't save is in mid-battle, obviously.

While overall, a decent game, it's not the type to blow you away. The game's story is a bit predictable, for one, and I found the game way too easy. Of the 25 or so hours I spent on it, I only died once in the early part of the game. Also, there's no real replay value, unless you're a completist and want to get every ring and every item and every Chao in each of the game's levels. There's no multiplayer or other online activity other than Chao trading, and only one ending. Once you've finished it, I really doubt you'll play it again. However, these don't really detract too much from the overall game. While certainly not a shining, amazing first attempt at a Sonic RPG, I enjoyed it, and would play a sequel. As it's called Sonic Chronicles, one hopes that there will be more than just one. With some modifications, primarily in plot, perhaps a great sequel might be in store. However, I don't see this game being memorable and classic--even though I enjoyed the game, it's already starting to make its way into bargain bins in game stores. For now, though, Mario still wins.

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Can Sonic reclaim his former glory? Or at least attempt? (Part 1)

So this is what the blue hedgehog is reduced to? A copycat?

It's become public knowledge by now that Nintendo has indeed won the console war that began in the early 1990s. For those of you that weren't even theoretical yet, or maybe just starting out in life, it was an epic war. A war that spanned many years, games, and spawned many memorable commercials. It was an all-out war between Nintendo and Sega—Mario and Sonic fighting for supremacy in a world that was seeing Nintendo lose its iron hold on the video gaming industry and creating rifts amongst gamers who now had split allegiances. The war spanned for most of the '90s, until finally, with the downfall of Sega's Dreamcast, combined with the sudden new popularity that upstarts Sony and Microsoft amassed, the first console war ended—game, set, and match, Nintendo. All the proof you need is found on video game shelves in stores everywhere—Sonic is now seen in Nintendo games; hell, he and Mario have now in been in several games together.

To the victor goes the spoils, they say, and with Nintendo now Sonic's master, this once-proud icon of hip, cool, awesome, and super speed, has been reduced to lapdog; the last few years have not been kind to the hedgehog. Games starring the blue ball of speed have been critical and commercial failures, despite Sega's best efforts to maintain Sonic's former glory. Sega seemed to have forgotten what made Sonic great—a simple story that involved nothing more than 2D side-scrolling action, collecting rings, Chaos Emeralds, and fighting the annoying Dr. Robotnik and another of his evil robotic incarnations—a game without many bells, whistles, frills, extras, and plot. You knew what had to be done and went through level by level. There were no stories to remember, no plot points to follow. The additions of Tails and Knuckles proved useful and fun, especially if you were playing multi-player. Alas, these days have long since passed.

With Sonic reduced to nothing more than a laughingstock now, Sega has been trying to find ways to get them back toward making Sonic relevant again, and so they've begun to see what Nintendo's done with Mario. Mario has been in all sorts of situations and stories, many of them meeting with success—one such situation was that of an RPG. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars for the Super Nintendo was a critical success. Mario, for the first time, could be played alongside a cast of characters in an RPG setting, complete with all the mechanics one could expect. How awesome! Being able to customize and level up Mario to the point where you could blow Bowser to oblivion! But wait! In a surprise twist, Bowser JOINS Mario on his quest!

For Mario's first foray into RPG-land, Nintendo turned to none other than Square (now Square Enix) to make the game. Giving the task of making an RPG to the company that's amassed billions of dollars making Final Fantasy games was an excellent decision, and they did not disappoint. Sega, now in 2009, saw that, and decided that it was Sonic's time to star in his first RPG. So Sega turned to another company with great success in RPGs. The company was Bioware, famous for games like Mass Effect, Jade Empire, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and the Baldur's Gate series. It was to BioWare that Sega charged with the task of making a Sonic RPG—and please, make it good.

Do they? Find out next week when I post Part 2.

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Now, what was I supposed to do next...?

The original Final Fantasy Tactics Advance was a bit of a UFO in the Final Fantasy saga. Yes, it was similar to Final Fantasy Tactics in terms of gameplay, yes, it featured moogles, chocobos and a Cid, but that was where the similarities stopped. The game was set in a modern-day world, for a start, which is already odd for a Final Fantasy. Then, there were the storyline and characters: the latter were mostly uninteresting schoolchildren, and the former broke some kind of fourth wall, as it was trying to prove that retreating to a fantasy world in order to escape your problems was not a solution…Not exactly the best way to sell a fantasy game, as I’m sure you’ll concur. Basically, the one real selling point of the game was its battle system.

For some reason, Square-Enix has since decided to make a sequel to this game, a puzzling decision if there ever was any, as it wasn’t exactly the biggest of hits. Yet, here we are, and Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift is a true successor to its ancestor, as it keeps the exact same formula that ensured its “success”. The characters are just as unlikeable as before (*slaps Adelle a couple of times*), and include a plethora of cameos from FFXII: Vaan and Penelo (*groan*), Montblanc and his brother Hurdy, and Al-Cid, the only mildly entertaining one. The storyline is, once again, pretty much nonexistent: a boy is grounded at school for being late and sent to tidy up the library. There he finds an old book, and for lack of anything better to do, decides to write his name in it (thus idiotically designating himself for subsequent punishment for defacing school property). This has the effect of whisking him off to another world, where all he has to do to go back home is…explore and have fun. Yep, that’s it. There are some side-storylines interspersed in this morass, but they mostly have no connection to each other. So once again, that just leaves the battle system to save the day.

Luckily, that is what the game does best. For those who are familiar with FFTA, you’ll feel right at home. Your characters are still supremely customizable, the jobs are still race-based, but there are more of them, and 2 more races have been added: Seeq, the ugly pig-people from FFXII, and Gria, dragon-like females, previously not featured in any Ivalice game. You still get super-strong summons that are usable after performing successful actions in battle, but instead of having only 5, you now get the whole set of 13 from FFXII, probably in a bid to make them more familiar—and thus, more likable—to the player base, with variable success. Thus, Ultima and Shemhazai are now officially awesome, due to their new attacks, while Zodiark is for the suicidal.

Laws and judges still exist, but the former are more lenient, and there is a lower penalty for breaking them: no one goes to jail, you just can’t revive your dead for the duration of that battle. Your clan also has its own beneficial laws, which it can unlock by performing Clan Trials of variable difficulty. These Trials also grant you titles. The higher tier titles lower the prices of items, but also make new recruits want to join. The Bazaar system also makes a comeback from FFXII, and works quite well.

The territorial system has been improved, as you no longer have to build your own map and hope that you’ll get some good treasures out of it, a truly TERRIBLE idea from the first FFTA. You also no longer need to constantly defend your turf from the attacks of other clans. Instead, control of a region is auctioned off at a certain time each year. Gain control of one whole region, and you become master for life, which means that, not only can the territory never be taken from you, but also that the auction for that region will now allow you to acquire rare items.

In short, it’s all good fun...until you get bogged down by the sheer number of missions you have to perform. Yes, just like in the original FFTA, you have 300 missions, both mandatory and optional—which you can now fortunately keep track of with a grid—plus some random encounters (monsters or disgruntled clans who are pissed off at you for winning an auction), as well as an optional dungeon called Brightmoon Tor, a tower composed of some 40 floors which contain nasty monsters and nifty rewards. But my point is, this abundance of material is an artificial way to lengthen gameplay. Sure, it’s fun for the first 10-20 hours or so, but when you realize just how *many* more missions you have to go through after you reach the 50 hour mark, a distinct feeling of déja-vu and discouragement sets in. I’m currently finishing up Brightmoon Tor, and my timer has gleefully skipped over the 160 hour mark. And I really wish I were kidding. Don’t be surprised if, after a while, you find yourself wondering “wait...so where was the storyline going already?” Or maybe you won’t. Because, in the wonderful words of 1337-speak: lolstoryline.

So it all boils down to this: if you want a game with no strings attached (no caring about characters or what happens next), something you can pick up whenever you want a bit of fun tactical fighting, FFTA2 is pretty much perfect. If, however, you like to have some storyline meat on the bones of your gameplay and don’t fancy getting lost in oodles of mindless missions...you might want to reconsider.

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Oh, I wish I wish I hadn't killed that fish...

A long time ago, in a world that still had such delights such as lolcats and the Cheeky Girls to come, a little game known as Chrono Trigger was conceived inside the little grey cells of Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi. This was a time before the drink abuse and five AM hallucinations convinced him to create a $137 million box office face palm, in which Sakaguchi even succeeded in securing Yuuji Horii and Akira Toriyama of rival Dragon Quest fame to create a world destroying dream team in desperate need of a rock guitar theme song. Being the JRPG nerd that I am then, it will probably surprise you then that I have never played the bastard love-child of the two most popular Japanese series' of all time.

It's rather curious that the classic Square-Enix formula of jazzing up the graphics for games past their sell by date was not used on the love-child, something I can presume was the result of a miscommunication between Square head office and the riverside sweatshop from which ports and remakes are sent out on a rolling conveyer belt. Despite how many lost sells Chrono Trigger DS may have received from not looking as "hip" and "with it" as Imagine Babies, I'm personally delighted that Square took the hit so that Europe could receive the game in its original 2D glory. Besides, they can always remake it again with Chrono voiced by an Australian surfer next year.

Chrono is an interesting character by the virtue of being mind blowingly boring. Silent protagonists were all the rage back before Sega showed us how incredible FMV games could really be, but Chrono does an impressive job at not only being a mute, but by also being utterly removed from the world around him. So far in the couple hours of Chrono Trigger that I have played, our cast of merry men have traveled back in time, saved a princess from the claws of an evil foe, returned home only to be sentenced to death, successfully avoided that unscathed and made their houdini escape by traveling into the future. Through this entire experience Chrono has yet to bat an eyelid, and while the other cast members may occasionally address him, they are never really looking for his input, but instead are simply checking to see if he's still conscious out of common decency. All this made me wonder who the hell Chrono even is. This guy has the ladies hanging from his arms, wields a mean sword, has spiffing hair and the ability to travel in time and he still lives with his mother? Really Sakaguchi?

By this point the whole narrative of the game comes into discontent. While I have clearly only seen just a small part of the whole pie, I can already see where it is going. One of the things that really strikes me about Chrono Triggers story is how incredibly light hearted it really is. Our merry crew find themselves in an apocalypse future in which the surviving inhabitants are starving to death and their first reaction seems to be to giggle and laugh. Even when Chrono is sentenced to death by a malicious middle management type, the follow scene proceeds not to show us signs of lost hope or misery, but an escape plan MacGyver would be proud of in which the whole "execution" thing can just be shrugged off. Looking back at what Squaresoft would later produce; it's surprisingly what a difference a couple years can make.

Reading this you probably get the impression that I absolutely hate Chrono Trigger. Following such hype and fanfare the cynic in me actually wanted to dislike the game just to prove the world wrong, and yet I simply can't. Despite it's questionable hero, story and tone, the raw classic JRPG game play is so pristinely perfect that I've become hooked to it like a baby to breasts. The musical score composed by Yasunori Mitsuda and Nobuo Uematsu is just incredible despite the DS's craptastic speakers and the 2D presentation of a world that allows you to span history itself is just gorgeous.

While the tale Chrono Trigger has to tell has yet to truly hook me, the game play is more than I could have ever asked for. I will return to report how my feelings have changed when I have made more progress, but for now, why not let me know what you think?

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