Wonderboy in Monsterland - Arcade

Don't you just love when resolutions don't quite work

The original Wonderboy was a rather interesting little platformer that took the Mario approach, slapped in some graphics and sped up the fluidity of the gameplay. This outing of Wonderboy however has taken the adventure approach from platforming and put a lot more emphasis on combat, a pseudo RPG element to the game and thrown in a little exploration with it too.

Kill Dragon, Restore Peace. Nothing about political balance or economies.

You start off as Dicky McNoRealSignificance and before you can say "First Screen Away" you're talking to a fortune teller that lets you know that you're the last hope for the world and must go kill a dragon, and with that, gives you a sword and sends you on your merry way. What you're not told is that you'll have to fight, kill and find a hell of a lot of gold if you want to stand a ghost of a chance at getting anywhere NEAR that goal. As well as finding secret bosses, swords, weapons and everything else in between.

THE FIRST BOSS, is DEATH. (Yes I cheated and no I don't care)

Combat and movement in Wonderboy in Monsterland is very simple. Joystick for the movement, one button to attack, the other button jumps. Blocking is done automatically with a shield as long as you're not attacking and if you've got yourself a shield, while magic is cast by pressing down on the joystick. This does become problematic later in the game when enemies are dropping spells and there's ladders to navigate downwards, by pressing DOWN ON THE JOYSTICK... Anyone seeing this as a problem just yet?

Oooh, secret hidden door leading to more bosses.

Wonderboy in Monsterland, treats us to a rather jovial set of music, uplifting and jaunty as it bounces along with a slightly casual set of tunes with a light spring in their step. There's little sense of atmosphere beyond the entire game being treated as a kid's adventure and it fits in well with the graphics and setting.

"Take my large flute and blow on it... Gently..." -this is why I don't go adventuring any more.

Graphically in Wonderboy in Monsterland, everything is nice, friendly and rather cute. Even Death (your first boss), looks nice and cute for a skeleton wearing a robe and holding a scythe. Everything from snakes and yetis, to knights, demons and the last boss, the dragon, looks like a cheerful reject from some Saturday Morning show. The background and foreground are brightly coloured, clear and crisply presented while the design of the levels suffers a little in the later parts when having to jump and navigate up and down screen and the scrolling isn't enough to get through.

All healed up.

 

That said, Wonderboy in Monsterland, starts innocently enough with fairly linear levels and the unknowing behind each door that it could be a shop, a hidden trader for health and such (though in towns they'll be clearly marked) or a boss you weren't prepared to fight. That said, there's the hidden doors that are initially announced and unless you realise what the game is telling you, you have to press up to enter the door or walk past blissfully unaware that you're missing the chance to get more powerful swords and key items that will either solve the final dungeon or make Dragon very easy to defeat.

For what? A "?" and a "?" and that's all I get?

As for the final dungeon, the ramping difficulty for that last level is vertical to the point of coming back on itself as the maze is incredibly long, doesn't make it abundantly clear when you're going the right way or the wrong way at times (unless you have the bell) and is flooded with previous bosses, leaving you to the final battle against Dragon with likely far less hearts than you should have and few spells left. Though if you've the maximum armour, weapons and such, it shouldn't be a challenge. But with a strict timer throughout that drains lives, respawning enemies that stop dropping items after the 2nd or 3rd kill, you NEED to keep on the move or McNoRealSignificance will be gaining his wings sooner than expected and awaiting more cash/credits from the player.

Kid Chameleon

The Megadrive (or Genesis to those that feel inclined to rename shit pointlessly after Bible books or Musical Groups) was touted at one point in its lifetime as being the MEGA answer to something SUPER, we all saw what they did there and one particular advert rung out with "With only 6 reasons for something SUPER and over 100 reasons for something MEGA..." which basically called out Nintendo's new console as being new but not many games on it... Come to think of it that's a very flawed argument. Megaman vs. Superman is a very piss poor argument for having something MEGA. I don't hear of characters have Mega powers, but rather Super powers, so even going by comic book standards, video games based on those comics, or other such media representations, I'll take the Super option thanks.

The same applies to gaming. Yes it's 100 reasons for MEGA but if those reasons are MEGAshit reasons...

Thankfully Kid Chameleon isn't exactly one of those games, it has many redeeming qualities although seems to be known in smaller, more specialist, circles on the internet and even fewer offline (not Real Life, it's offline... All time spent is REAL LIFE...)

Kid Chameleon doesn't really offer us much that's new in the way of platform gaming or even plot. It's a simple run-of-the-mill affair where a new arcade comes to town, it has a game that has virtual reality and you can walk around and play it. Think along the lines of Star Trek's Holodeck and you're home happy. Something goes wrong and people start to not come back out of the contraption, much akin to the Joy Can in the Venture Brothers show though this one isn't powered by a forsaken child. The final boss goes programming rogue monkey nuts mental and is abducting kids and players, though it's not explained for what. So up steps Kid Chameleon looking like a big headed throw back to the Fonz, to step into the game and beat it.

Quite an assumption, beat the game to make the final boss give back the hostages. Even then, there's nothing about demands, so either the Final Boss is hosting one hell of an elaborate tea-party or there's plenty of head going around for all (the bosses are large floating heads before anyone gets the wrong punch line there. Although....)

As Kid Chameleon(KC), you get to run, jump, bash blocks with your head and generally rip off Mario in the control department for quite a run of the game, including have 2 hit points before "DIE"ing (yes the game says that as you cop the big fat one from mortality's big smiting hammer). Running, ducking, jumping, air moving and such while you're navigating the game. 100 gems gives you a life, or finding a life, or you can find continues and then, thankfully and for the want of something that doesn't scream "another Mario game", there's the masks.

The main component feature of KC, is the ability to don masks that you find within blocks. Each mask will change KC (Here's the chameleon part, they used a word and made a game play mechanic upon it. Are they not clever?) into something else with various abilities. Fly helmet (HA! Helmet, it's a dick joke and sadly there's more) makes KC smaller and stick to walls, Knight helmet (yeah, bored of that joke now) tanks his health to 5 hit points, climbs walls slowly and smashes through blocks he lands upon. Hockey Mask turns him into a rip of Jason Voorhees and throws cleavers. Rhino Helmet (...¬.¬) allows KC to charge through enemies and blocks. Purple Helmet (OH COME ON!) lets him spin rapidly and fly. Green Helmet (nasty infection...) lets him scan for invisible blocks to become solid for a moment. Crash Helmet gives him a gravity switching jet-hover-board to ride, Samurai Helmet gives him higher jumps and a sword and Tank Helmet turns him into a tank that shoots bouncing skulls.

This all sounds very wide and expansive but bear in mind that each helmet is usually (not always) found JUST where you need it most. Often with few enemies around so you can make the most of the level and learn the helmet but in later levels, if you lose the helmet and get transformed back to normal KC, you're likely to die right there and then or will need to kill yourself to get the helmet back in that level.

Levels themselves often follow various themes, from desert looking levels, to cityscapes, grass hills, hell, flying islands, beaches etc but these are just tile sets and the end to every level makes this more abundantly clear when the level is stripped down to show the grey building blocks of a supposedly virtual reality game but for the player, it's like being shown "Here's what you really played around, it's not as nice as you think it looks". Every accomplishment in beating said levels made cheaper by being shown it's not that grand as you think. What a lovely "Reward"

Every now and then you'll come up against the infamous-spiky-drill-wall-of-instant-death that turns a normal level into a manic race from A to B before dying and you'll find the usual "fuck you" situations of bouncing blocks that propel you in various directions, dead-ends, enemies that will slow you down and like Helmets that won't offer speed and certainly won't save you once the wall greets you with the Black And Decker approach to walling. (Prefer Bosch myself for drills)

However what should be said of the levels is that there are a LOT of them. In many cases, there's more than one way through a level and more than one exit beyond the flag at the end of the level. Teleports (some hidden like the one in the first level that takes you to the final boss) will be found in increasing numbers the further into the game you go, some take you to secret levels, some take you to places in the same level and some warp you ahead a few levels and some jump you back and forth between levels in different locations like some virtual architectural game of hot potato. The game gets sadistic at times with such acts, while the layout and structure of some levels require one to almost make a map at times of the labyrinthine levels, a failing I find in any game where it feels like you're a rat trapped in a maze. Yes, every level could be considered a maze but if you're able to see a maze, the illusion of the level is broken.

Of course, once you start thinking in these ways, you become a cynical prick. Have you considered writing games reviews? I did.

The sound is a rather mixed bag, some of the music that plays through levels is of a high quality and comes across clear as a bell, a few adrenaline inducing tracks for the faster paced levels go well together with the design of the game though some tracks will leave players largely unimpressed by the bland and faint tunes of other levels. Digitised speech is a little hit and miss with this game, it's not the clarity one might found of hearing "Round 1, FIGHT" from Mortal Kombat, but a few samples like "DIE" whenever you're killed or the bosses attack, are very distinguishable while other cackles and smaller sounds can be lost in the distortion.

With over 100 levels (and not all routes mapped and known, I've found a warp that I've never seen replicated on any cheat site, I might divulge it someday), various routes and shortcuts taking you from level to level, skipping whole sections and even bosses, there's a great (though not apparently obvious, look here http://images.wikia.com/kidchameleon/images/0/0a/Map.svg) combination of ways to travel the game and miss out some real gems of levels and find ways to avoid the annoyances of others. You won't get a map showing you the layout of the levels in an "over world" type of view so it's very much a "From within the box" perspective that you'll have to grin and bear it.

Replay value with the game is mixed, if you play through, beat it and manage this quickly, you'll likely not play it again. If you play through and have to restart a few times and then get to realise there's a LOT of different routes, bonuses, maps and levels, you could have a lot longer playing the game trying to speed run it, finding hidden blocks to help you speed run it etc. For a platform game with little branding associated with it, it's a very solid game and later, very tough game. Later levels become particularly unforgiving and even the time limit can be an issue when you're running around not aware of the correct route to take.

Bosses become an exercise in endurance with very high levels of health and usually an unforgiving collision detection when it comes to jumping on them and their projectiles, unless KC has some incredible soles to his shoes, he can bounce on exploding plasma but can let it hit his toes. I guess the Doc Martin's were left at home this time. Which makes for a more frustrating battle experience, made all the more difficult by the time limit which can easily overrun if you're spending a long time navigating the level just to find the sonofabitch to bounce of his bald bonce.

But now, I've an axe to wield, a mask to wear and some things on fire to chop up. Then later play this some more.

GB Link's Awakening

The Zelda franchise has been a staple product by Nintendo for decades with little changing from the core mechanics of the game. Swords will be grabbed, things collected for power, hookshots to be acquired, water dungeons to be feared, items to be traded for more and more items.

Take a look at any of the games and you'll see the same pattern repeat with perhaps a little sub note "This time it's sailing" or "This time it's flying" or "This time you're also a wolf" and so on and so forth. Monsters will be killed, princesses will be saved, Gannon (usually) gets his shit slapped back and forth (or his shadow in this case).

But why do I look at this game? Why do I ignore the 2 NES iterations for now and focus on the poorly viewable Gameboy edition? Because I feel that this game is the most suited for its console. If you were to give me a Gameboy and tell me that I had to have one game super-glued in there for the rest of its existence. My mind will likely go to Zelda rather than Tetris, Pokémon or similar themed games.

It all starts innocently enough with Link (Or dickshit if you like to rename things) being ship wrecked and waking up on an island beach where he is found by the local inhabitants, missing all of his items from his previous adventure. Would be nice to just once, start a game with all the items and weapons and KEEP them the whole time or upgrade them. Not throw in some convoluted idea of having them taken/lost/broken etc.

So dickshit wakes up and hops out of bed, talking to the nearest big-nosed citizen of the island hands back the shield he found with "dickshit" written on the inside and assumes that was his name too. Rather fortunate he wasn't a teacher with a series of heavily defaced school desks, lest he though the name was "Dave fucked Becky 4 evar" and a whole series of badly drawn, spunking cocks. Though perhaps that's just difficult to write in ASCII these days... ~ c===3 Nope, there's no excuse.

Shield in hand, Dickshit then takes it upon himself to get his stuff back together and get off the island while occasionally popping in and out to help with various problems and situations that have arisen for the island goers. Particularly that with his arrival, the monsters are getting restless and someone needs to collect 8 items (8 bosses... why does 8 seem so predominant in Zelda lore anyway?) to wake up the mystical Wind Fish that will grant a wish, or some such bull, and let Dickshit escape the island. The bosses don't want this, the island-goers want to help and various towns and villagers will aid and support throughout.

But no Zelda game is complete without side missions and quests. One long ongoing quest is the item trade, starting with a Yoshi doll and trading all the way up through bananas, pineapples, sticks, dog meat, necklaces, scales and finally a magnifying lens... "Good trade" of which helps you read the magical answer to the final dungeon. Or just read a guide. Alternatively, collecting 20 secret seashells and going into the secret seashell hut will give you the Level 2 sword which gives you laser shooting abilities at full health and generally causes more pain than the Level 1.

As you progress you'll find various dungeons, contained within are monsters and beasties and the more fun hearts that boost your health, an item that will help you get to the next dungeon and/or kill the current dungeon's boss. Another steady consistency for the series, dungeon 1 contains a feather and is needed to get to the boss and jump over holes to get to dungeon 2. Dungeon 2 contains a power bracelet that lets you pick stuff up which you need to do to break the boss's container, and pick up items in the way to dungeon 3. So the whole island can be explored and searched though only when you've enough items to fulfil those criteria.

Yes there's another hookshot and yes there's a water/swimming based dungeon though the real pig of a dungeon is the Eagle Tower where you've got to think in 3 dimensions quite extensively with little precursor for it.

During the game you'll find clues and hints to the nature of the island, help save and rescue people that will aid you in your quest and find all manner of rupees, items, shells and other such that will boost your stats and strength in various guises. You'll quickly learn where the shop is and how to get around the island quickly with regards to teleport spots and mystical musical notes. Which plays a key theme of the game with 8 instruments needing to be found to awaken the Wind Fish (in name only, for it is neither).

As it transpires the game is very much the big twist in itself except for the "you're really asleep" twist it turns out you're an unwilling participant in something else's dream and to escape the island you'll need to wake that creature up, but the bosses and nightmares of the dungeons don't want that to happen as it'll make everything disappear (and they do mean everything). Leaving a little moral dilemma of wondering whether you really should be waking up the sleeping dreamer if it means the end to all the creatures, all the villagers, the semi-focused love interest, who are all blissfully unaware of what may happen or what will happen should you succeed. To escape you have to end them all.

Now, this draws up various metaphysical arguments, like if you should care that something is about to fade out of existence that previously just popped into existence? Who is dreaming the dream? Why do chickens attack if you hit them repeatedly? ... Ok maybe not that one. Should you feel bad that an island ceases to exist just to free you from the binds that hold you or would it have been more noble to leave the inhabitants alive and living their day to day lives while you co-habit their realm with them?

Those more in touch with their thoughtful sides of nature, may have reservations about a game that forces you to destroy the entire game-world upon completing it having already exterminated the evils contained within. It's certainly not the thought provoking situation one would expect from a game that has you riding down rapids rides, playing songs with giant frogs, riding a flying rooster, or phoning an old guy for hints on where to go but talking to him in person is something he's too shy to do.

It certainly takes the shine off the heroes' perfect edge. The ending also makes you out to be a bastard too, given who you watch fade out when the dreamer awakens. (Unless you beat the game without dying once...)

Controls are very responsive to being used, navigating yourself in the 8 main directions of the compass points, your A and B button can be switched out for any combination of items you have, be it sword and shield to hookshot and bombs, arrows, magic powder, shovel, fire rods etc. Usually you'll have the sword and feather for navigation while using the power bracelet really should have been a passive item for picking up and lobbing stuff around. While moving and navigating dungeons and maps has you walking off the edge of the screen to the next area, for some that might feel a little claustrophobic from the SNES version having scrolling areas but given the Gameboy's graphic limitations and blurring, it makes the best of the situation and does admirably so.

Combat can be a little awkward at times if you're being bounced into something that causes injury, draining more hearts and then being knocked down a hole. Most holes will cause damage and respawn you at the point where you entered the screen while some (usually indicated, not always) will drop you into an area underneath though this is particularly notable for the 7th dungeon where you can fall down several floors to navigate around the dungeon. Though be particularly careful in the 7th dungeon as there's a way to trap a key item in a place you can't get to and bollocks up everything.

Though, with a game this fun, I don't mind playing through several times. Though the 1st dungeon boss can rebound you down a hole, forcing you to climb back and by the time you get there, he's back to full health... Lovely. There are parts that grate.

It certainly grows upon you and the longer you play it the more familiar you'll become with the game. Eventually you'll know exactly where everything is in the map and know how and where and when to get from the Animal Village, to the Raft Adventure, or back to the shop that now calls you THIEF!!! for stealing the 980 rupee item and doing a runner. Incidentally, EVERYONE will call you that afterwards and going back into the shop is an instant death for returning to the scene of the crime. Varying degrees of punishment and retribution on that one, everyone calling you thief and showing an inherent distrust of you, to dying for returning to the shop (perhaps with the intention of returning the item, but likely because you forgot you five-fingered-discounted the bow and arrow set like a cheap bastard).

There are moments of annoyance however when the game intentionally gives you a very useful item or colleague (Flying Rooster... Looking at you...) which acts as the key to attaining the level 7 dungeon, only to have it revoked by the end of the dungeon and ends up with some guy that looks after chickens and won't give the Rooster back. A formerly dead Rooster that you resurrected... What a git. Without it, you can't "hover" any more and are limited to jumping with the feather and running shoes to a 3 hole gap (maybe more if you're fortunate) and it feels like the potential to really explore has been removed.

The pace and flow of the game is very balanced and the game doesn't leave you at any point thinking it's too small or too large. The island size is perfect for the means and modes of transportation than are available and the dungeons evenly spread far enough to give you a suitably sized sight-seeing tour of the surrounding neighbourhoods before getting down and scrappy within the dungeons and duking it out with all manner of nasties and bosses. Special mention going to the Stalfos Knight that you have to fight several times before he does a runner.

An enjoyable romp from to start to finish brought down by a few glitches and game-breakable errors that could be happened upon if you're not careful. (Incidentally, DO take the powder with you to the final boss fight...)

Now time to get my fire rod and burn that fox and all the chickens I can find.

PSX Final Fantasy 7

Whether I get any backlash over this or not all depends upon the irate fan base that seems to worship this game above and beyond all games as, and I quote "It's da bestest game evar!" You can add your own childish voice to that line however you wish. While I'm open to admit that it's a game, it is ground breaking in its own ways and certainly seemed to open up the Japanese RPG genre to a lot of people around the world. It is by no means a game that should be held in such high regard as the "OMG #1 GAME!!11!!" as often touted by many idiots that rightly deserve to be shown some 8 bit classics or just need to get out a little more often and talk with real people.

Final Fantasy 7; even I have to admit to having a huge interest in the game when I first saw it advertised with the 3D models showing combat in based around turn/time based ordering, menu based attack systems and realising that it alone would require strategy rather than most games at the time having the need to hammer a button, repeatedly, to beat boss x, y and z before getting a credits screen.

The plot is enormous for the time. First runs often taking 60+ hours to get through (assuming you have the patience) which pales into some games today having over 120 hours of game play (padded by HUGE expanses of sitting around doing sweet fuck all...). You assume the role of "Cloud" a spiky headed hairdo of a caucasian with an improbably big sword compensating for a lack of trouser filling. You get to follow cloud through futuristic/fantasy setting from being a terrorist (you tell me blowing up stuff and killing innocents doesn't make you one and I'll point to 2 former towers) to leading a renegade terrorist group into overthrowing a company executive that runs most of the planet, escaping said capital city into an open world filled with towns, villages, ports, all with their own issues and difficulties while following one silver haired man with a big sword (more trouser department issues) and stopping him from destroying the planet because he believes himself to be descended from higher beings and being told he was an experiment set off the emo trip of destruction. Sadly they all look like dolls in shop and any attempt to express emotion is met with the same gormless facial expression.

In a nut shell; There's a lot more going on than just this with motor bike races, double crosses, killing off main characters (not a first in any game nor any Final Fantasy game for that matter either...) developing character and plot (except around Cloud who remains as confused and sword stabby as always just with a little more purpose and a better understanding of his history, that nobody really bothered to tell us about and we just wish he'd tone down the hair-gel!) Racing and breeding of large birds, submarines, Command & Conquer strategy moments, huge monsters, big fights, large annoying bosses and level grinding like a bastard.

Can't beat that boss on level 10? Run around like a retard for 20 minutes, fighting every little random (yes it's random encounter time or as I like to phrase it "computer says fuck you" time) encounter until you come back and can kill the boss just by waving your hairstyle at it or staring really hard.

I could go into every little intricacy of plot but the line "Guy joins terrorists and then realises greater threat, has to save the world" does it perfectly, maybe adding "p.s. Flashy effects ahead"

Cloud isn't alone, at any time he will have up to 2 other people directly with him and will be fighting alongside him which will be intermittently determined by the game when someone plot focused is forced into the view and you HAVE to take along the one character you didn't level up and play with because they looked/sounded/were shit or you'd already invested 20 hours in someone else and now forced to play with another character is just a waste of your time and preferences. Each of these chars will join, take over the story, and then take a back seat while you pick the 2 chars you really want with you the whole time based on usually just "I like the look".

You've the big angry black guy stereo type that swears a lot, the big titted love interest with the world's strongest lower back, the dainty intelligent girl that is better with spells than anything else and gets killed for being dull and to remove the pointlessly forced love triangle bullshit, an old guy with a hatred for most things thanks to losing his dreams, a talking cat stuffed toy comic relief character with just as comical special moves, a talking lion/dog/tiger thing that acts mysterious and speaks in an aloof fashion to make it seem he is more interesting than he really is. Completing the ensemble are the bonus characters of a mopey man with even more of a depressing story to his grief than the main characters and a token young girl ninja with more leg on show than KFC at peak hours who is playing the ditzy-but-determined clueless kid.

It's all much of a similarity that you can't find in your usual anime shows and about as complex in narrative as you'd expect.

The story ambles along at the rate at which you play and succeed. Pointless back stories and histories can even involve their own fights which pads the time you're spending and making absolutely zero progress. Getting into a fight in a back-story is one of the most ridiculous wastes of time I've seen, even if to show off one character that will be the last boss. WE KNOW he's meant to be tough, just do a flashy FMV of it instead. Back stories have the characters being forced to run around locations and talk to characters or go to locations until the right ones are done in the right order to progress plot and get the fuck on with the main story.

My gripe aside however...

Foreshadowing is used in varying degrees where some new char might show up, then be fought moments later, while the bigger opponents are given more time to be evil then offed in over the top battles. Sometimes a boss comes out of nowhere and it's a case of "yep... lets fight it" including the ones that talk to you about what's going on. Plot points can be entirely over looked at times and knowing where to go next simply becomes the point of just looking at the map and seeing which location you've not been to lately or haven't been to at all.

Combat is the usual affair for the game making up the majority of the game's structure when it's not reading text, missing some Japanese cultural jokes and watching long videos of nothing happening. It's the usual turn based system picking to fight, cast magic, summon attacks, use items, run off or other extra commands based around whichever coloured ball you pick up and put in your characters inventory.

Magic and extra functions are determined by small coloured balls you assign to a weapon or armour item. Green ones being magical spells, blue ones boost green effects from elemental inclusion to attack lots/multiple times, yellow ones give bonus commands like morphing and power attacks, red ones summon powerful creatures capable of high damage until you reach the later stages of the game when your standard attack out classes them (except for ONE summon... that takes far too long to cast), and purple balls that change stats like health and magic/mana or permit things like countering, more passive abilities.

There's a fairly complex mechanic behind this system where you can pair up some balls to get attacks that drain health from the enemy at the same time, or attack when you die which can resurrect the dead character, counter attacking with summons or spells or boosting the power of various attacks and defences. You slowly get drawn into it with the few spells like cure and lightning attacks, the more you use them, the more exp they gain and the more power spells become opened to you. Bonus points for getting maxed out EXP on the coloured balls and getting the master ones that give you everything, which you already HAVE! Another redundant reward.

The game has a plethora of items and weapons to throw at you with various effects, each char has their own weapon types, various armours and bangles are worn by all or specific to gender/race. Combined with the colour ball mechanic allows for pairing balls, multiplied exp growth for the balls and such. (Yes it's called materia, I'm using balls). Where you can put your most powerful balls together to get different effects, ball pairing was never so calculatingly fun (...no). By the end of the game you'll have so many that you'll be longing for an Optimal function and at one point your carefully collected and planned ball set will be taken away and mixed up and you're left feeling the game has fucked with you once again and you'll never get the combination back that you had before. All of your hard, progressive work, undone again.

Doesn't help that the under aged ninja kid steals all your balls in a side-quest that involves a guy you had to cross-dress for earlier in the game and if done right, lusts for Cloud more than BiggyTits and DeadByDisc1Girl.

Though despite this, it's possible to get through the game with the basic spells and attacks with a few items to help out. The only challenges that could present are the creatures that require a specific tactic (i.e. they nullify all attacks, or need potions to unlock their vulnerable sides... like that ever made sense) in order to progress further. With enough grinding of levels and stats, most bosses and enemies will fall after hitting them enough times.

There's some lengthy side quests you have to undertake if you want the more powerful "I AM GOD" abilities and spells that take up more time to cast them just to show off something before the bigger numbers land on the screen indicating strength and damage. But really the battles and the plot are two different games and the jumps from one to another all serve as a distraction from the alternative. When you're fighting you want progression, when you're progressing plot, you'd rather be fighting.

The biggest grievance though is the "finding yourself" segment of the plot, it can take over 45minutes of walking around and trying to activate the objects in the room just to unlock more videos and more text showing something that could have been fixed very quickly in just one scene without the unnecessary egg hunt for the trigger to move the game onwards.

For the hardcore, there's bonus bosses to fight, breeding racing birds and seeking the elite one to get the ultimate unlocks, bonus characters with their own storylines or the self imposed runs of "items only" for the truly depraved and self-depreciating individual. Though the game is already long enough as it is. As such it suffers the "rush it at the end" approach where the final parts of the game are just a long slog through the last dungeon filled with the toughest things so far that still die too quickly for your army-slaughtering, over-powered, warriors, to then kill the last few bosses and get the credit sequence. You just want it over by then but the game is forcing you to play it out a bit longer.

Dying in the game is the end and you'll have to go back to the last save point. If you've not saved in a while and you're surprised by a bonus enemy or secret boss without warning, you're going to be doing a LOT of backtracking to get there for round 2, or just quit the game and look it up online.

Graphically the game switches in and out of super cute deformed characters when in the over world, to pseudo anime style in battles while the FMVs switch up from one to the other with the more detailed and higher polygon graphics turning up towards the end of the game. Compare the first videos with the very basic looking models in FMVs to the last video of Cloud before the final fight and see the huge difference in styles. The lack of consistency makes me wonder just how many changes were made throughout the game. The fights themselves take the opportunity to showcase just how overboard they can go with the engine with 3D shifts and pan shots of the combatants, close-ups and zooms for attacks and power moves like they're going out of fashion in a pre-graduates media project, though you can appreciate that given the time, they likely felt that HAD to over sell it from the sprite based combat they'd had previously.

Music and sounds are rather lacklustre until the more epic pieces kick in, sound effects often sound muted and grainy and lack the impact of better quality audio that was available at the time and thankfully, no voice actors means I can imagine the large angry black man having a high pitched squeaky voice while the cute big titted girl sounds like an 80-a-day chain-smoker. I like having the choice to perceive the annoying how I choose and thankfully not with some overly cute, childish voice that fits an 8 year old kid. Having to imagine her say "I love you" while wheezing and hacking up carcinogenic lumps of her lungs, was far more entertaining them most of this game.

Nostalgia however is the biggest problem. Too many people are putting this game up as a 'wonder of gaming' all the world over and while it does have its charm and appeal, the flaws in the game are becoming more and more apparent as time goes on. No it's not because the graphics have changed, the same story is still there but it's done and done better before and since this game.

Going on a date with the only other guy in the party is still funny though.

There's a lot more going on beneath the surface but you'll need some very in depth guides and FAQs to get to them and in ways that most people will never find nor bother to find. Only once did I manage to get Cloud to go on a date with someone other than Aeris and while it wasn't intentional, certainly was amusing, though I was called out for being a liar at school until years later when it was discovered not only that it could be done but HOW to do it too. It's all about choices, I just happened to make the right ones.

Replay factor... likely most people will play this once or twice, once to just experience the game and generic story and a second time (if they didn't do this already), to get all the things they missed like the super powerful summons and spells, easily missed items by accidentally completing a dungeon too soon and so on. Or the really odd items you can miss by not having character X with the team at time Y armed with item Z for a one-off chance to find something. That "fair" way of missing something you'd never have had otherwise nor would know to look, or even care, without a guide.

Of course having a character that has a special attack called Game Over, is always fun. As it does exactly that. Game Over, no recovery, no escape. What fun THAT is after 3 hours without saving... I seriously would love to be in on that meeting "Let's put in a move that either kills the opponent flawlessly or if they fuck up the timing, kills the players" and gob-smacking every bastard who said "YES" to that proposal.

To give it credit, the game did usher in and make more accessible the Japanese style RPGs to a new generation of console and open up the genre to even more people than the hardcore RPG players, but it could have it done it in a much better and more enjoyable way.

Now it's time for me to gel my hair up and grab a sword, I've a giant chicken to rescue. And yes, Cait-Sith dying was more touching for me than Aeris.