Video Game Tuesday: Shadowbringers’ Lack of Healer

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m back with a topic I promised I’d cover in my review of Final Fantasy XIV’s latest expansion. It’s all about Shadowbringers’ Lack of Healer!

Lack of Healer?: Yes, Shadowbringers is the second expansion in a row that Final Fantasy XIV has not had a new healer job added to the game. Many people are upset that Dancer wasn’t a healer and were very quick to blame the development team for this. It’s certainly their fault, but not at all for the reasons most people assume.

So why is it their fault?: Well first off there are two archetypes of healer that work in Final Fantasy XIV’s combat system. Adding any more to that would either dilute the given identity of the already available Jobs. This is completely on the developers for getting themselves stuck with those two archetypes as the only viable options. But to be fair the last avaliable archetype isn’t really possible in any MMO if you hope to have balance.

Archetypes?: The two healer archetypes present in Final Fantasy are the Heal over Time and Shield to Prevent Damage types. These are best showcased with White Mage being the Heal over Time type and Scholar being the Shielding type. Astrologian, is both of the two with the addition of RNG cards in the mix. However Astrologian cannot switch between the two types in combat, and lacks the fairy of the Scholar to add consistent healing. In Shadowbringers Astrologian’s utility was changed quite a bit, with every card being a damage increase to two roles, like Tank and Melee Damage Dealer. However if you were when it comes down to the basic archetype it’s nothing either of the other two jobs don’t already do. No other archetype works with the combat system of XIV, everyone already does damage, so the last archetype that hasn’t been used, the damage to perform healing archetype, is completely impossible to pull off with any reasonable balance.

So what?: Well if they were to add any other shield or heal over time jobs they’d be hard pressed to come up with an option that feels different to the current three and is still able to be balanced with every other job currently in the game. It’s just not possible unless they completely redo the combat system, and while that would be something they could theoretically do, they just can’t do it reasonably with the funding they are receiving at the moment. The higher ups at Square Enix won’t really want to fund the massive undertaking that would be needed to completely revamp the combat system, and all that entails, which includes remaking every single fight in the game.

So no more healers?: I’d say most likely not, they might add one more in the future, but honestly with Astrologian already having identity issues it’s just not an option at the moment and I don’t see how they’d pull off adding another.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday.

Retro Game Friday: Front Mission

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m back with a game that was hugely popular back in it’s day. It’s Front Mission!

Plot: I forgot how sad this story is, honestly after looking up the story for a refresher I was tempted to not bother covering this game due to how freaking depressing the story is. The story is good, but damn is it dark and depressing.

Gameplay: This was a pure tactical RPG and boy did it do it well for it’s time and helped paved the way for games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Advance Wars in the future. You could customize the Wanzers to a pretty deep degree given the tech limitations and the standard of quality at the time. That being said it’s a nearly a pure single player game and while you could play with another it’s hard to do that when you shared a screen.

Art: The art was pretty great for it’s time, and it’s aged fairly well. It’s not the best of it’s era, but it holds up pretty well.

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

Overall: A great game, but if you don’t like bawling your eyes out you might want to skip it due to the dark nature of the story.

For those who like: Mechas, Tactical RPGs, Drama, Good Story, Great Gameplay.

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

Video Game Tuesday: Pokemon Let’s Go or No?

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m looking at one of the recent announcements that came out before this week’s E3! It’s whether it’s Pokemon Let’s Go or No?

Pokemon Let’s Go?: This looks to be a remake of the original Red and Blue (or Green for those JP players) and features two versions. Eevee and Pikachu, which will be the starter for each version. You won’t be able to evolve those particular ‘mon, but I’m going to bet you can evolve others you capture. In addition you’ll be able to transfer Pokemon you catch in Pokemon GO to Let’s Go, but not vice versa. This will be done through Bluetooth connectivity supposedly. Maybe those ten thousand Pidgey’s I caught in GO will be useful. Ahh who am I kidding, they’ll probably be worthless. The gameplay will feature no random battles with wild Pokemon, instead allowing you to capture them like in GO by using the JoyCon to throw a PokeBall. There will be traditional turn based battles with NPCs though. Whether this will include all the Gym battles is unknown at this time. The game releases on November 16th this year.

Would you get it?: Not likely, I enjoyed the series when I was much younger, but honestly since I don’t already own a Switch this isn’t going to push me to buy one.

What about a core game?: Well luckily for you I totally called it when I said that the Switch would be the perfect system to have a core Pokemon game. It won’t come out this year, but will release in the second half of 2019.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday.

 

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: Fable

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m back with another game from the now defunct Lionhead Studios. It’s Fable!

Plot Synopsis: On his sister’s birthday, a young boy’s village of Oakvale is raided by bandits; killing the boy’s entire family. An old Hero, Maze, rescues the boy, seeing great potential in him; Maze trains the boy to become a Hero at the Heroes’ Guild. Years pass; after honing his skills, Maze informs the Hero of a blind seeress living among a bandit camp near Oakvale, and advises the Hero to infiltrate the bandit camp.

Plot: The plot is decent, but so filled with stereotypical things that it’s also not that amazing. This is probably due to Molyneux over reaching again, but that’s more a fault of the actual game developers rather than the story writers.

Gameplay: The gameplay is okay, but honestly compared to the promises of what Molyneux wanted to include in the game, it makes this look like trash. Fable is often used as an example of never making claims of features before you’re sure of them being doable in the game, unless you specify that. Overall Fable plays like any other Action RPG , with a morality system that affects appearance and seemingly choices, but really doesn’t.

Art: The art has aged incredibly poorly, although I’ve heard it’s since been remastered in HD, so that remake might be worth checking out. Maybe.

Music: Standard Fantasy fare, it’s not all that amazing.

Overall: Skip this game, it’s one among many that tried to be amazing, but failed miserably.

For those who like: Action-RPGs, Adventure, Fantasy, Drama.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above, or tons of missing features.