Retro Game Friday: The Legend of Dragoon

Hey all I’m back for this week’s Retro Game Friday with a game I played a couple times at a friends house way back when I was a kid. It’s The Legend of Dragoon!

Plot: The plot is okay, but not that amazing either. It’s got a fairly stereotypical plot, and honestly if I hadn’t come across the name dragoon and had a flash of memory about this game I would probably not remember it at all, let alone set myself a reminder to write about this for a Retro Game Friday post.

Gameplay: What little I remember about this game was that it was mostly Turn Based and had what we now call Quick Time Events in it’s combat. Frankly I’ve always hated QTEs, a sentiment shared by many gamers I know, so the precision required for these particular ones stuck out to me as being particularly frustrating. It’s probably why I didn’t bother playing it more than a couple times at that friend’s house. The fact that the dragon transformation was rather pointless was just further incentive to disregard the game.

Characters: Dart is our lead, and honestly is as stereotypical as you can get, destroyed village, kidnapped friend and overall lack of parental figures all make him one of the more bland characters from what very little I can remember. Honestly if I hadn’t read up on the plot while finding the producer and developer information for this post I probably wouldn’t even remember his name. The rest of the cast is little better.

Art: The art is very polygonal, which means it’s aged incredibly poorly since it was released, and the CGI movies are even worse in that regard.

Overall: A very skippable game and definitely not a must play game.

For those who like: JRPGs, Mediocrity, Stereotypical Stories and Cast of Characters.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.

Retro Game Friday: The Falsebound Kingdom

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m covering a rather obscure game in a series that was a huge fad back in the 2000’s. It’s Yu-Gi-Oh: The Falsebound Kingdom!

Plot Synopsis: Yugi, Joey, Tristan, and Téa being invited to the testing of the virtual reality game “Kingdom,” created by the company SIC. When they enter the game they soon find themselves trapped within it, and they must summon the help of the game’s characters and monsters in order to defeat the game’s villain, Emperor Heishin, and ultimately stop the plans of the game’s designer, Scott Irvine…

Plot: The plot is pretty freaking terrible, although it serves as a reminder that the “trapped in game” plot device has been around for ages.

Gameplay: This plays mostly like an RPG, although there are some Turn-Based Strategy elements as well. Frankly the game wasn’t that great and the fact you’ve probably never heard of the game is a good indication of how bad it was.

Art: The art is really dated, but given that it’s almost purely 3D on a console that wasn’t known for it’s power compared to it’s competitors is another sign that this game wasn’t all that big.

Music: I don’t remember it at all, sorry.

Overall: Skip this game, it’s definitely not worth your time playing, unless you are incredibly bored. However there are better games out there that are free.

For those who like: Yu-Gi-Oh, RPGs, Turn Based Strategy.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above, terrible plots, or Konami in general.

 

Retro Game Friday: Opoona

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m covering a really obscure game. It’s Opoona!

Plot Synopsis: The planet Landroll was impacted by a large meteorite composed of crystallized dark energy. Half of the star, once lush and verdant, died from the impact, becoming the Deadlands. Life for the survivors changed drastically; the impact caused a shift in gravity, causing the sun to become tidally locked to the planet. Species died and vegetation withered in the heat; mysterious creatures, known as Rogues, emerged from the meteorite and began to attack people. Humans eventually built sturdy glass domes over Landroll’s surviving cities. Sanctuary, an island floating above the northern pole, was unaffected and habitable areas outside the domes became the wild lands.

Several hundred years after the meteorite impact, Opoona and his siblings, Copoona and Poleena, are on a family vacation from the star Tizia with their parents, Momeena, Dadeena and co-pilots Troc and Noix, travelling in a spaceship to Landroll. Momeena tells Opoona that her brother, Roidman, lives on the planet doing research on how to reduce the Rogue population. Shortly after, the spaceship is attacked by mysterious dark energy, and the three children are placed into separate escape pods before the spaceship crashes on Landroll.

Three days after the crash landing, Opoona awakens from a coma in Tokione Dome and is informed of the incident, and told that his parents are being treated by Sages in Sanctuary.

Plot: The plot is okay, but rather simplistic. It’s not super amazing or terrible, but mediocre. That’s probably why this game is so damn obscure.

Gameplay: The gameplay isn’t a classic turn based combat like you might expect of a JRPG. It’s closer to a Tales of Game, although maybe comparing it to Ni no Kuni would be better. If Ni no Kuni had no minions.

Art: The art hasn’t aged well, which is to be expected of both a game that was made in 3D and a game made for the Wii. Sorry Nintendo lovers, but almost every third party Wii game looked like crap.

Music: I don’t remember a whit of it, sorry.

Overall: An easily skippable game, that being said if you get the chance to play it for cheap or free, you might as well give it a shot right?

For those who like: JRPGs, Simplistic Art Styles, Real Time Combat Systems.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.

Video Game Tuesday: My Games of the Year 2017 Edition

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m covering my picks for my favorites of this year. It’s My Games of the Year 2017 Edition!

Best Gameplay: Tales of Berseria is by far my favorite JRPG of all time, it’s got an amazing combat system and an equally amazing story with a really kickass female lead who has tons of character depth. Berseria allowed even people with minor physical disabilities like myself to enjoy the hell out of the combat system while still feeling like you were growing in skill along with the characters growth in the game. By the time I was done playing this game I was at the hardest difficulty setting in the Post Game Dungeon beating the hell out of enemies with Mystic Artes Chains while doing tons of damage. Not many games allow for people to really grow into the combat system and still feel like it’s got depth enough to be interesting endlessly. Berseria captured that quality easily, and that’s why it’s getting my Best Gameplay award.

Best Story: This was a close one for me between Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood and Tales of Berseria. However as Berseria is it’s own complete game and FFXIV is somewhat episodic given it’s nature, I had to give the award to Berseria.  It was really close though.

Best Artwork: I might hate everything else about the game, but Destiny 2 was pretty freaking beautiful to look at. However that’s about the only good thing it had going for it. However tying this was Stormblood, it’s got a less realistic art style, but it’s no less beautiful and it had a hell of a lot more locations to explore.

Best Musical Score: Final Fantasy XIV has always impressed me with it’s amazing musical score done by the incredibly talented Masayoshi Soken. The only gripe I have is that the Stormblood OST hasn’t been released yet! I want to listen to the sounds of the Azim Steppes while I’m writing or enjoying the thrilling pace of Stormblood’s exquisite Primal fight themes while on a walk to the store. Needless to say that Stormblood impressed the hell out of me, and while the currently released music of Stormblood hasn’t exceeded the awesomeness that is the Sophia boss theme it’s equaled it many, many times.

Best Mobile Game: Fate/Grand Order wins this one. Sure it’s got some serious grinding going on, Christmas Stocking farming sucked, but the story and lack of any competitive mode made it the top Mobile Game for me. I don’t like PvP modes all that much, so the fact that F/GO doesn’t have one isn’t a bad thing.

Overall: This was a really close one for me, but Berseria beat out Stormblood based purely off the same fact that it’s not an MMO that has content patches. That enclosed experience was amazing, and while Stormblood is without doubt the most fun I’ve had playing a MMO including the days of Tarren Mill versus Southshore on a PvP server, it isn’t a fully enclosed experience. So Berseria wins this one again.

Runner up: Stormblood for reasons stated above.

A Distant Third: Fate/Grand Order, it’s at least upfront about what you’re getting into, unlike a certain space shooter…. even if you have shit luck at anything RNG like me.

Retro Game Friday: Tales of Phantasia

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m covering the first entry in my favorite JRPG series. It’s Tales of Phantasia!

Plot Synopsis: A heroic battle between four unknown warriors against an evil sorcerer, Dhaos, the outcome of which changed the fate of the world. The warriors are victorious, but Dhaos escapes through time. However, four different heroes await him: they seal the weakened Dhaos away by using the power of two pendants, thus returning peace to the world. In the town of Toltus ten years after Dhaos was sealed away, there lives a young swordsman named Cress Albane and his best friend Chester Burklight…

Plot: The plot is pretty amazing, and it really is a classic. If you’ve never played it, you are truly missing out on a great story.

Characters: Cress and Chester are the first of the cast we meet really, but the entire cast is awesome. There are some amazing quotes that can be taken from the game including one that the game opens with (at least it did for the GBA version, which is what I played). “Truly, if there is evil in this world, it lurks in the hearts of man.” It’s a classic and probably one of my favorite quotes of the series. Right up there with “Prepare to die Eggbear!”…

Gameplay: The gameplay is dated and frustrating by today’s standards, but it was truly unique at the time. Instead of controlling all of the party, you only had control of one character, although you could order the other ones to use specific skills in battle. I enjoyed the gameplay, but it could get frustrating.

Art: The art is pretty great, and while it isn’t super amazing by today’s standards it’s stood the test of time much better than 3D games.

Music: The music is also amazing.

Overall: If you’ve never played Phantasia, you are truly missing out on one of the classics.

For those who like: The Tales of Series, JRPGs, Action, Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, Excellent Plot, Fantastic Cast of Characters, Great Music, Awesome Art.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.