Kingdom Hearts is back. This time to tell the story of Roxas, Axel and Organization XIII. The best compliment I can give this game is that it has made me want to unquit the abomination that was Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories and give it another shot. That game’s stupid card system really pissed me off. But anyway this post was about 358/2.

Things I liked:

• Kingdom Hearts 358/2 tells a wonderful story, giving us the details of Roxas’ time at Organization XIII and his friendships with Axel and a new character, Xion (pronounced Shion). My favorite part of each mission was finishing it to see the scenes where the three just hung out on the clocktower eating ice cream. The story and the characters are the parts that Kingdom Hearts has never disappointed me in. I’m not going to give it away, but it’s a bittersweet story that really makes you appreciate (their) friendships, and definitely on par with the stories of KH 1 and 2. While Roxas, Axel and Xion are all obviously mirrors of Sora, Riku and Kairi, I thought they felt unique enough to stand on their own as good characters you’ll care for. On the downside, I think this game made me a little dissatisfied with my real life friends. Why don’t I know anyone as cool as Axel, or as cute as Xion?
• Difficulty was just right. Actually, it probably gets easier towards the end as you rack up the choice panels and keyblades. But overall, I wasn’t frustrated with the game at too many points, especially in comparison to all the other Kingdom Hearts games I’ve played.
• Speaking of which, I really liked the panel customization and level-up system. Although I didn’t mix and match too much, it allows for a lot of flexibility depending on the world you go to, the enemy you face, or the fighting style you prefer.
• The graphics are the best I’ve ever seen on a DS. The character models look great, and I don’t think I noticed one long-distance pop-up in the whole game. But the coup de grace was the in-game cutscenes. Fully rendered in 3D, some of them do have small issues with compression artifacts, but overall they look beautiful, and feature full voice-acting to boot. It’s almost as if they crammed PS2 quality into the DS cartridge.
• I really enjoyed being a nonessential bystander for each world, and not having to worry about doing things like solving Aladdin’s problems or standing up to the Queen of Hearts. It puts a nice twist to visiting each world again. Each of the world is faithfully replicated from what I remember in the PS2 version. I mean there’s a few liberties here and there (no Aladdin’s pole in Agrabah for example), but still impressive in how well detailed they were.
• No Atlantis. Thank goodness. It’s the worst world ever.
• I’ve never even heard of sea salt ice cream, but I really, really want to try it now.

Things I didn’t like:

• I’ve always played Kingdom Hearts for the story. The gameplay in every game has been dull to me. Hack and slash. Hack and slash. Shuffle some cards. Hack and slash. Well at least we’re back to the hack and slash formula, because like I mentioned above, those cards were a retarded battle system. On the downside, pressing a-a-a-a-a-a over and over isn’t too much of a challenge and the tiny DS control pad is probably going to give you some sort of carpel tunnel syndrome by the end of the game.
• Continuing on the weak battle system, using magic and items is a real pain, because you have to cycle through the menus to get to your spells and items. The problem with this is it takes you out of the flow of the fight and you either have to risk spending a split second getting wacked by the enemy, overshooting the magic choice and accidentally using an item, or you run away to a safe distance to use your item or to set up your magic spell. Why couldn’t they have allowed us to press pause to select an item like in normal games, and reserved the x button specifically for spells?
• While the rendered cutscenes were perfect, the one thing it did make really apparent was the lack of voice acting everywhere else in the game. You get real tired of hearing the several variations of grunts, huhs, and oomphs very quickly. I guess they used all the cartridge space on the videos. It’s a real shame they weren’t able to fit more voice acting in, because that would’ve made the story that much more powerful.
• It does have Neverland. Second worst world ever. The swimming and flying boards are just a menace to control and get around in a hack and slash game with subpar targeting.

Final thoughts:

If Tetsuya Nomura had 358/2′s story in mind when he created Kingdom Hearts 2, much respect. If he filled in the details of 358/2′s story after creating Kingdom Hearts 2, much respect. Either way, I was thoroughly impressed by the storytelling. I can’t say I’d been dying to know the story behind Organization XIII, but now that I know, I’m really glad I do. I’m tempted to replay KH 2, just because my memory’s a little hazy and I want to see how well the two tie together. But from what I remember, it seems pretty solid.

If you’re a big Kingdom Hearts fan, I wholeheartedly recommend playing 358/2. If you don’t have a DS, get it for this game. It’ll make you appreciate the events of KH 2 that much more. If you haven’t played KH 2… this might still be a good game for you. I think the only requisite is that you play KH 1 in advance. Since 358/2 fits in between the two, you can probably play them linearly and get the same effect.

Are they ever going to make a Kingdom Hearts 3? Also, I know it’ll never happen because of the Disney rights, but man, I would love if there was one day an anime adaptation of the Kingdom Hearts stories

There’s only a handful of games that have gripped me completely. Knights of the Old Republic is the first that comes to mind, for its tremendous story and gameplay. Ocarina of Time is up there, simply because it was the first game in which I felt completely immersed in a 3D world. Half-Life 2 is up there, partly for its story and gameplay and partly because when you talk about "cinematic" gameplay, no game does it better. And then there was Persona 3 FES, which caught me completely by surprise, but melded elements of RPGs and dating sims so perfectly, and so addictively.

Yet, there was something about each of those games that left me wanting. Most games don’t do a good job of wrapping up the loose ends. I guess it’s as hard to "let go" when you’re creating a 40+ hour epic, as it is when you’re playing it. So what you end up with are things like a very lame ending sequence (KOTOR), a time-travel copout (OOT), a never-ending story (HL), and in Persona 3 FES’ case, a solid, but very bittersweet ending to a long journey. There’s nothing worse than spending hours and hours on a game and finishing it and thinking "what? that was it?"

But this is where Persona 4 shines. Not only did the game address all the minor flaws of P3, but it upped the ante on the characters and the story-writing. And without giving anything away, the "normal" end is satisfying, but still leaves some questions open. But if you get around to the "true" ending, suddenly everything comes together, all the loose ends are tied up, and the 70+ hour journey truly feels complete. It’s a perfect end to an unfailingly entertaining journey.

With all that said, in somewhat backward fashion, here’s some more specific (spoiler-free) thoughts about Persona 4.

Gameplay

If you’ve played P3, getting the hang of P4 should be no sweat. They’re essentially the same game, but with a new story and a new set of characters. But to leave it at that would be selling the experience short, because the minor improvements they made, make the game that much more fun to play.

The most obvious (and important) change is you can now directly control your friends in battle. So no more wasted moves. Another great feature is, as your social links with your teammates grow, their abilities in battle grow as well. So they’ll start out by just being players in battle, but will eventually get the ability to follow up an attack of yours to lay down a critical hit, heal your characters of status effects in between turns, sacrifice themselves in battle for you, and withstand a mortal blow. I don’t know if I could go back to P3 having experienced these benefits in P4.

The dungeons are also better laid out and better set up. Tartarus felt like a slog, because it was. Nothing really changed. This is no longer the case with the dungeons in P4. Every one is unique, so the battles stay fresh.

Difficulty-wise, I played on the normal setting, and I thought it was pretty much perfect. It’s not hard, but it’s not necessarily easy. The game gets easier as you go along, but the battles can be unforgiving. If you walk into a battle carelessly, all it takes is a string of attacks hitting you or your teammates weaknesses to cause game over. I learned this the hard way in the early going (although those kamikaze dice are bullcrap, IMO).

Story

The writing is great. The translation, the dialogue, it all feels very natural. Story-wise, it’s less grandiose than the P3 story, and even though it’s a murder mystery, it feels more straightforward than P3′s story did. Nevertheless, it’s extremely well written and very engaging. I figured out who the final villain was because I checked out the artbook (whoops), but the journey was no less enjoyable.

The characters are fantastic. I thought I loved the P3 characters, and was a bit skeptical when I read reviews saying that P4′s characters were better. But man, they were right. If it feels like you’re out in the countryside, it’s because the characters make it believable. I loved everyone of my team members and their stories. Unlike P3′s more… science fiction-esque characters, the P4 characters feel much more like real people. And while there were a couple social links I didn’t get to max out, the side characters were great as well.

I don’t think I can offer a better compliment than to say that when you finish the game, it really does feel like you’re leaving a close set of friends behind.

*sniff* I miss those guys.

Design

Beautiful. Just beautiful. The bright color pallette, the detailed environments, the 2D and 3D character models, all of it was fantastic. I would’ve loved to see this on HD. The only knock is the animated sequences looked cheap and washed out. They’re a little better than P3′s were, but still look out of place compared to the rest of the game. It’s a little disappointing, because I think A-1 animated it and they’ve done some good-looking stuff recently.

Sound

The soundtrack, composed by Shoji Meguro, leans towards a more poppy and straightforward sound compared to P3′s more eclectic mix. They’re not that far off though. If you liked P3′s music, you’ll like P4′s. The OP/ED are very catchy and the intro/load screen music surprisingly addictive.

The next best part of the game, besides the story and characters, is the voice acting. P3′s voice acting was very good, but uneven in spots. P4 is near perfection. The translation and voice work is amazing – on par with the voice work for games that are developed in English. I’m not very familiar with most of the the English cast’s names, but I’d say Yuri Lowenthal (Simon in Gurren Lagann) really stood out as Yosuke, and I came to love Danielle Judovits as Chie, which was surprising, because I remember thinking she sounded way too mature when I watched some preview clips before (especially considering Yui Horie voiced Chie in the Japanese version). The only character voice I didn’t love was Yukiko’s – not necessarily because of the sound – but there were a bunch of times where I thought the delivery felt a little off. But besides that, everyone sounded exactly like you’d expect them to, from little imouto Nanako (kudos to Karen Strassman, who pulls off a rare occasion in which an English voice actor successfully pulls off cute without being obnoxious) to teen idol, Rise (whom I much preferred Laura Bailey’s performance over Rie Kugumiya’s) to all the random characters on the street.

It would’ve been great to have a Japanese soundtrack option, especially considering all the big names involved (Horie, Kugumiya, Ami Koshimizu, Tomakazu Seki, Romi Paku), but the English voice work was top notch, and from what I heard, in some cases even preferable compared to the Japanese voice work.

Final thoughts

I can’t say enough good things about this game. I bought it back in December and kept putting it off, because I knew I’d get addicted and wanted to play it during a time where I knew I’d have a pretty good stretch of free time, and it didn’t disappoint me in the slightest. The worst part about this game is that it eventually ends.

Apparently the Disgaea anime adaptation came out in 2006, but I only recently found out about it. Plus, since I only recently played the game less than a year ago, I give myself the benefit of doubt for writing a 3-year late impressions post. Pffft, not that I need to in the first place.

Things I liked:

• Laharl, Etna and Flonne looked ok… most of the time.
• The show was generally amusing
• The "Red Moon" episode was actually pretty touching (it was in the game as well, I just didn’t expect the anime to do it justice… and for a while I thought they weren’t even going to get to it).

Things I disliked:

• Unnecessary anime filler was unnecessary
• Character designs didn’t convert very well. Or more accurately, the designs and animation looked cheap and subpar. The characters actually looked better on the DS. And much better on the DS cover art.
• Voice acting was just ok. In a surprising turn of events, I think I liked most of the English VO’s much better. Laharl and Flonne sounded pretty good. Everyone else ranged from just ok (Etna, Gordon) to bad (Thursday, Jennifer). Was the English VO better, or did I just get used to it because I spent over 80 hours listening to it? Probably a little bit of both.
• WTF did they do to the Gordon, Jennifer, Thursday storyline!? The funniest subplot in the game was Gordon scheming to break free from his servitude to Laharl, after losing the battle to him. That was the episode I was anticipating most. But it never came. Instead they turned the three of them into Team Rocket, showing up for a minute at a time, before getting blown away into space. They also really neutered Thursday’s personality. I loved the shots that Thursday took at Gordon in the game. But in the anime, they were almost nonexistent.
• Not that surprising, but no Plenair

Random other thoughts:

Disgaea (DS version) is one of my favorite games. It’s a game with a shallow story, but gameplay mechanics that make it really addicting to play. But despite its shallow story, I thought maybe the anime could’ve been good in a cult hit sort of way, because the game has a really sarcastic, self-referential brand of humor that’s as charming and addicting as the gameplay. Instead it turned out to be another bad video game adaptation – and one with an apparently small budget at that – because the show looked awful. Even the last episode (which typically is one of the better looking episodes during a season) looked terrible.

The anime isn’t epically bad though. At no point did I face palm or feel the urge to gouge my eyes out or anything like that. The show was generally pretty funny. Flonne was pretty much on the money, the "development" of Laharl was nice to see, and Etna and the Prinnies were pretty amusing. But unless you’re a real die-hard Disgaea fan, there’s much better ways to waste your time.

I’ve been meaning to post reviews of games I’ve been playing for a couple months now. But things came up and one thing led to another and…

So instead here’s a cornucopia of non-review impressions instead.

Suikoden Tierkreis

This was my first Suikoden experience, so I can’t compare it to any of the previous versions. After some early irritation with the game’s auto-battle mechanism (I hate auto-battles), I actually enjoyed this a lot. It’s a pretty straightforward turn-based RPG, but it has a great story, plenty of side quests, and with 108 total characters to recruit, a Pokemon-esque desire to “catch em all.” This is the one rare game in which I went out of my to complete everything and recruit every single one of the characters, so I could see the “special ending.”

One thing that irritated me in the beginning was the voice acting. Everyone spoke really, really fast and many of them seemed to have Canadian accents. It was a little weird. I don’t know if I eventually just got used to it, or if the v/o got better, but by the end of the game, I didn’t mind it, and actually liked the fact that there was a very liberal amount of voiceover in the game. There’s also a surprising amount of animated sequences in there. Between that, the voiceover, and the generally fantastic graphics, I was impressed by how much Konami was able to fit onto the cartridge. Definitely worth checking out.

Crysis and Crysis: Warhead

It’d been a while since I played a FPS on my PC, as the graphics revolution had left me behind for a little while. But I built a new PC a few months ago, so I’ve been catching up on some games I’ve been meaning to play.

I was a big fan of Far Cry, so I was eager see what Crytek had up their sleeves with Crysis. And you know what, they knocked it out of the park. Crysis was an advancement over FC (I haven’t gotten around to FC2 yet) in every way. Graphics, gameplay, but most importantly, story. Crysis has a exciting story that really sucks you in. I also liked the varied environments. Anytime a FPS isn’t taking place in some colorless, shadowy hull of a ship is plus. It’s a must-play for FPS fans and I’d recommend checking out even if you’re not terribly keen on FPSes.

Mass Effect

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but my love affair with Bioware has ended.

I loved Knights of the Old Republic. It’s my favorite game of all time. No game sucked me in like KOTOR did. I remember the twist about 3/4 through that game just totally threw me for a loop. I actually stopped playing the game for a day or two, so I could come to terms with the twist. It shook me up man. Then KOTOR 2 came around, and I liked it a lot for the first 80% of the game, and then it became clear that they rushed it to get it out the door, because the last 20% of the game was a complete mess.

Then came Jade Empire, cool setting, martial arts, what could go wrong? Well, the story was sort of lame. The dark side/light side thing wasn’t as interesting, and overall it was just sort of boring to play.

Then came Mass Effect, and it took everything that was bad with Jade Empire and just kept going downhill with it. Repetitive side quests, NPCs that won’t talk about anything besides the weather when you’re out in the field with them, a bland story, and an uninspiring main character. About halfway through, after I realized that every side quest was identical, I decided to just try to get the main story over with as soon as possible. This is in stark contrast to KOTOR in which I played through like 4 or 5 times to make sure I got everything, checked out every dialogue tree, do the good/bad endings and max my levels as high as possible.

I probably would recommend skipping out on ME.

Call of Duty 4

Amazing what a change of scenery can do. Loved the new, timely setting. I mean how many times can you keep fighting the same war over and over? Definitely worth playing if you’re a FPS fan. Otherwise, it’s probably not interesting enough to capture your attention.

Half-Life 2, episode 2

Half-Life is Half-Life, which is to say it’s incredible. And episode 2 is more of the same, although there’s still major portions of the story still hidden in the shadows. Incredible ending to this episode though. The way Valve directs and designs the game experience is just amazing. If you’ve never played an FPS, HL is the one you should start with.

Portal

I’d heard so much about this, and was curious about the hubbub. Puzzle games are not my forte, but I actually had a lot of fun with Portal. For one, it’s short. Probably only 3-4 hours long. But more importantly, it’s challenging, but not ridiculously difficult or cheap in any sort of way. The fantastic level designs Valve did with Half-Life? Well, it shows in Portal as well. Finally, it’s a hilarious game. Murderous robots with a viciously sarcastic wit = WIN. Definitely worth playing. Especially when they do those Orange Box sales on Steam. I was able to get Portal, HL2 and all the episodes and Team Fortress for $10.

I hope I don’t invite the wrath of Chrono Trigger fanboys, but having heard so many great things about Chrono Trigger and missing out on it during its Super Nintendo glory days, I thought I’d give the DS version a shot (I was a Sega Genesis fanboy in those days, building my chops on games like NBA Jam, Mortal Kombat, Madden and Street Fighter. Ironically, I’ve owned every other Nintendo console, except the one many consider its best, but I digress).

In the end, I was sorely disappointed.

The game’s story is very solid and the characters are well developed and really likeable. I also like the fact that there’s the possibility of multiple endings depending on what happens during the game. Rarely do I actually go back to play through a game again just to get all the endings, but I appreciate the effort and thought that goes into giving gamers their money’s worth.

So all that sounds pretty good right? Then I actually started playing the game, and became increasingly frustrated by the battle system and inventory management. If it’s an action-RPG, make it an action RPG. Don’t give me this hybrid, turn-based/real-time action bullcrap. If I attack an enemy before it attacks me, my attack should hit first. Not after three of the enemies get in their strikes without any advance notice. If it’s real time, make it real time! I know there was an option to switch the battle style to a more classical mode, but that was even more disorienting and annoying.

I also thought the fighting itself was too repetitious. Maybe RPG strategy has advanced greatly in the past 15 years, but it felt a bit mindless and unchallenging (from a strategic standpoint, not from a difficulty standpoint). But maybe I feel this way because I’ve played too many strategy RPGs recently.

But I eventually sort of got used to it. Except when it took me several seconds cycling through a character’s attack to find one specific attack (or usually it was to find the heal command), during which the enemies would get in a few more hits on a character, killing them. Same thing with inventory management. It’s a bloody mess. I spent too much time cycling through an unorganized list of crap, never able to find exactly what I need when I wanted.

“Now where’s the hi-potion…”

*Character gets hit

“Not the low-potion, not panacean, where the hell is the hi-potion?”

*Character gets hit again

“WHERE THE #$&% IS THAT SON OF A BITCH!”

*Character gets hit again, dies

“Where is the Athenian water…”

*Lather, rinse and repeat

The worst part of all this is, let’s say, you had Marle queue up a Heal spell (or dropping a potion) on a dying Chrono, and before you the spell is cast, Chrono gets killed. Marle should be able to get her move back and do something else, like toss an Athenian water on Chrono and bring him back to life right? NO! She LOSES her move. How does this make any sense!? So not only did you not get to cast that original heal spell, that character becomes a eunuch for a turn. Great.

But to be honest, the game wasn’t that hard, and I actually only died maybe a handful of times. But then I got to the last boss, Lavos. Spent the first 20-25 minutes whomping all his inferior forms, and then got to his final, or pre-final form. What happens? He casts a @$%#ing confuse all spell and slowly, but surely obliterates my guys. And not only are they useless when they’re confused, even when they’re not confused, Lavos is getting two attacks in for every one I get. But just when I’d recovered from the confuse spell and was starting to get the upper hand, he casts another @$%#ing confuse all spell and kills my group off.

Let me just say, confuse attacks (and its just as obnoxious cousin, charm) are the biggest load of shit in RPGs. I can live with poison, I can live with crap like darkness and berserk, but confuse is a lame deus ex machina that games resort to to make an easy fight, unfairly difficult.

At that point I tossed the DS aside, cursed the hours I’d wasted on it and went on YouTube to watch the endings. Two can play at this cheating game.

Would I recommend this game? If you’re an old-school RPG fan (and somehow haven’t played it already), totally. If not, I would give it a lukewarm recommendation for its story. As pissed off as I was in the end, I admit that it’s not a terrible game. It was an engaging experience with flawed gameplay, IMO. I just can’t fathom how people consider it to be an all-timer.

Almost 60 hours through Disgaea DS, and I still haven’t finished Etna’s Story. Much less gotten the good ending (damn exploding Prinnies), and visited the human world, the cave of ordeals or any of the alternate universe neitherworlds. Apparently, you can reach level 9,999 in this game (and more if you “reincarnate” your character). Based on how quickly I’ve been leveling, I don’t know how many years you’d have to play to get to that point, but nevertheless, it’s a really addicting game. The story’s witty and hilarious, and the gameplay’s unique enough where I haven’t really gotten too tired of it. Maybe it’s the randomly generating boards. Maybe it’s the geo panels. Maybe it’s because it’s constantly challenging.

So I mentioned before that I only decided to buy this game because Atlus was running a holiday promo that offered a free art book and music CD with the game. The first game was easy enough and interesting enough to convince me to play the second game (I mean, I’d bought it, so why not). The second game is an improvement on the first and definitely worth a play for SRPG novices and fans.

Gameplay

It seems like SRPGs are SRPGs, there’s a grid, there’s some fighters, and you just have to position yourself right to get the best combos and hits off. There might be interesting conventions and whatnot (like in Disgaea which has got me hooked), but it’s pretty straightforward. LA2 is an improvement over LA1 in just about every aspect. First of all, the control scheme is improved and you can play it effortlessly without a stylus. What’s the big deal about this? Well, there were at least 1 time per battle in LA1, when the camera was situated in a way, usually in crowds, that i couldn’t get the characters to do what I wanted them to do using the stylus. So I’d have to waste a move by having to move a character away from the battle, just to create some breathing room.

They’ve also tweaked the leveling system, so you’re not leveling up so quickly. This makes the game slightly more challenging, and it also means you’re less likely to bother with leveling up your whole party, and instead you’ll focus on building up a core team.

The “Engage” system (which involves the infamous wedding dress scenes) is pretty neat in that Roland, the main character, has the ability to “engage” with other witches, and forms a bond by taking their unity ring, a kiss and a vow, and then gains the ability to assume some of the powers from the other witches (thus the scene with the wedding dresses). It’s integral to the gameplay, but having to sit through the wedding animation got annoying after a while.

Story

The gameplay is twice as long as it was in LA1, which allows them to develop the story better in LA2. Besides some character cameos from LA1, the story is completely new, and there’s little to no connection to LA1. It’s still a linear game, but the writing’s a bit snappier, and while the story’s not going to win any awards, it’s a considerable improvement over LA1’s story, with some nice twists built in. The characters again, are all very likeable (and there’ll be plenty of them), which makes it a pleasure to play through the game and its little intermissions.

Sound

The voice acting’s also much improved in LA2, without some of the hamminess (and flat out awfulness) of some of the voices in LA1. For the most part, I thought all the voices fit the characters well and were well performed.

The music’s pretty good, although I don’t think it’s particularly memorable. The problem is you can only fit so many songs on the DS cartridge and when a game is running 30+ hours, it’s a rare case when you don’t end up getting sick of a song. Needless to say, I haven’t bothered listening to the music CD that came with it.

The Art Book

The art book is fantastic really. I like the textured cover and the matte finish of the paper. Hardcover would’ve been nice of course, but failing that, I do like the quality. All the drawings pop, and are included with short designer commentary. Some early stage sketches are included, as well as drawings of the characters of LA1.

Final thoughts

LA1 was fun in a cheesy sort of way. LA2 is fun in a slightly more refined sort of way. It doesn’t take itself seriously, but the story and voice acting never get to the silliness level that LA1 dove into at times. Combined with the improved gameplay, and I’d say that there’s probably enough here to offer SRPG fans, whether you’re a newbie or pretty experienced.

So back in September or August or whatever, Atlus announced that they were included art books and audio CDs with pre-orders of Persona 4, Luminous Arc and Eternal Poison.

Man, what a fantastic idea.

I’d just gotten through Persona 3, which was a fantastic game, so I jumped on the opportunity to get the bonuses with P4. Then I thought, what the heck, why not just get them for Eternal Poison and Luminous Arc too (which I’ll post about at a later time, as the art books are really cool), even though I didn’t know anything about them. Besides, Atlus games apparently have good resale value on eBay, so I figured what the heck, I wouldn’t lose much if they sucked.

Anyway, back to my point. I never like playing a sequel without playing the original. Even if the stories are completely unrelated (which LA2 apparntly is). So I tracked down a copy of LA1 to play. I’d never played an SRPG before, so I was interested, even if the story sucked, which is one of the major factors for whether I decide to play a game or not.

Anyway it turns out SRPGs are really very similar to strategy games like Command and Conquer and Warcraft, so it was easy to pick up and get the swing of. And I ended up liking it a lot, because I didn’t have to be concerned with the things I disliked about strategy games, like resource management, or managing 50 different tanks and airplanes all over the map. Instead, you have your core team and you go as far as your customization and battle skills. It’s like a battle-focused, story-driven version of a strategy game. Anyway, onto the short review.

Gameplay

Like I mentioned, I’ve never played an SRPG before, so I don’t know what’s unique and what’s not. But based on my strategy game experiences, I didn’t think there was anything particularly inventive about the gameplay. Gameplay was straightforward and linear, so for a newbie, it’s easy to jump into and get involved in. While there’s “towns,” there’s really no exploration involved, as all you can do is shop, talk to your team, or advance the story. If you’re a fan of the linear style, you’ll dig it, as you’re never going to wonder what’s next. If you’re not, well, I guess you won’t.

Story

Nothing special here. Basically, you’re a knight who works for the church, and you’re supposed to go around ridding the world of witches, because they’re the “bad guys.” But then you learn otherwise, and it’s actually the church who’s the bad guy. I mean, it’s pretty cheesy stuff. The church being the bad guy isn’t really much of a twist. It’d be more of a twist if there was an RPG in which the church wasn’t the bad guy. But otherwise, you pick up team members, a.k.a, witches along the way. You have limited interaction with them, mainly through short skits you get after battles, eventually culminating in a CG screen if you score enough points with them. It’s not profound, but it’s amusing.

Sound

Keeping the Japanese language pop song for the opening was nice. Otherwise, I didn’t think the music particularly stood out. At the same time, it wasn’t bad. The voice acting was a nice addition, although it’s fairly random for when they decide to use it. Performance-wise, it ranges from bad to ok, but considering the cheesiness of the game, even the bad voice acting was fairly enjoyable

Final thoughts

It was fun to play through and addicting, even despite the so-so story. There’s something about the game style, where you just keeping wanting to get in that one next move and see how the battle unfolds. Like I mentioned, the story wouldn’t win any awards, but it was engaging for me to want to see what was next. For a veteran SRPG player, there’s probably not enough meat here to keep your attention. But if you’re new to the genre, or if you’re just looking for some brainless fun, I’d recommend it.

A good ending to a good game.

I finally wrapped up Tales of the Abyss about a week ago, after about 60+ and maybe a month and a half of playing. Never was it so gripping that I lost track of time, but it was a good game to pick up and play for an hour or two at a time.

Story

Typical RPG themes of personal discovery, growth and redemption, but I thought TOTA did a really nice job of building a world and some really interesting characters to move the story along. I also like that the story didn’t follow the clichéd pseudo-Catholic is totally screwing the whole world up plotline.

Characters

The characters were the best part of the game. And Jade, the sarcastic and macabre Colonel, was probably the the best of them all. But they all had their good parts, and were the most part were believable, likeable characters. Luke, as the main character, undergoes the most character development, as expected. Tear also serves as his straight (wo)man and his sort of love interest. Natalia strays off the standard spoiled princess route very early in the game. Guy has quite a dark backstory as Luke’s best friend. And Anise was probably the second most hilarious character in the game, as the cute, but only-sometime lovable kid of the group. Voice acting for the main characters was excellent as well. As good as I’ve heard from a J-RPG translation. To the point where if the TOTA anime was released in the US, and they used the same VOs, I’d have no problem watching the dub.

Gameplay

This is unfortunately, arguably one of the weaker points of the game. I read some stuff about bad loading times, and I’d say it’s only partially true. In the overworld, yeah the load times are horrible. Eventually, I got a bunch of holy bottles just to avoid any enemy encounters. But within the dungeons and cities, load times are pretty good, and I never really felt like my patience was being tested.

If you’re familiar with the Tales series, you know it functions almost like a 2D fighting game, and TOTA was really no different. Usage of the “Artes” is necessary to win the more difficult battles quickly, but a lot of button mashing will get you through 95% of the game. There were only a handful of battles where I had to develop a strategy. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun. But it doesn’t break any new ground.

Final thoughts

The only Tales game I’d played before this was Tales of Symphonia, which was pretty solid from what I remember. I think story and character-wise, TOTA is a little bit more interesting that TOS, but I remember TOS’ gameplay being a bit more interesting. All in all, if you’re in the mood for a JRPG with fast-action fights and you got time to burn, I’d highly recommend TOTA.

It struck me as I watched the anime version of TotA at how good the English dubbing voiceover is for the game. Maybe it’s because I didn’t have the original Japanese version as a frame of reference, but I think NAMCO did a fantastic job of picking the voice actors for the game. Jade has that perfect arrogant, sarcastic tone. Tear. Luke/Asch sound good in vascillating between arrogant and insecure. American Tear has a lower voice than Yukana Nogami does on the anime series, but I like it just as well. And Anise, Guy and Natalia sound good as well. The only one I didn’t like was Mieu’s voice, it took a while to grow on me. It was more annoying than cute. I don’t know if that’s what they were going for, but it made me fully support Luke’s abuse of Mieu early in the game. On the flip side, Japanese Mieu just sounds really cute, which is I think what they were going for. If I remember correctly, I NAMCO did a good job with Tales of Symphonia too, so maybe picking good VO is one of their strong points.

With all that said, I like the anime adaptation of the game. It’s much better than the anime adaptation of Tales of Symphonia, which was so rushed it was almost nonsensical. The only thing that weirds me out is when enemies I spent like 10 minutes beating get cut down by the characters with one swing of the sword. I guess that’s how it’s gotta be to be able to fit the whole series in, but it sure minimizes those formerly tough enemies.