My original comment was going to be something "Blehbluhblah, another burnt fanboy, and who cares about one review?"

Then I saw that the first sentence was about the camera. Generally if the first thing a review bitches about is the camera, something is VERY AMISS.

They also comment on the art being beautiful. I'll disagree with that. I liked the style in Legend of Mana, when it was new and pretty original, and it still looks good. Less creative in the portable games, but you know? Still distinct and has a nice feel to it.

Making it 3D just introduces something creepy and uncanny valley about it. The SD guys from Minstrel Song still sort of freak me out. This is even creepier. Everything looks... gooey.

Well, they mention bad controls and uninspired level design. I guess it's a throwback to the good old days in that respect, at least.

BTW, am I the only person that generally hates Japanese voice work as a whole? Unrelated, really, but just cause it was in the trailer it reminded me.[/quote]

I think we can generally agree that Chuchu was unwelcome though.

Mostly because Chuchu was just stupid, and not even comedic relief, I guess.

Man, what Seiken Densetsu style? The only thing that's really been that similar in all of the games is the real-time-ness, and a sort of aesthetic similarity. There's no consistent storyline throughout the entire series, the gameplay changes with every iteration quite substantially... It seems that when most people talk about the SD series, they're really only talking about the second.

It was funny when Deus Ex reffed Nethack.

Weren't the "imps" in FFVI really Kappas or something?

Anyway, game breakdown:

Earthbound:

Any of the alien types, really. Starmen, the UFOs, the, uh.... furry tentacle shambler things. EB UFOs look like DQ slimes sort of. Also the things you see in moonside.

Saga:

Any of the flying things from Frontier, really. And those clawshrimp things.

Wasteland:

Nuns.

Phantasy Star:

Gorgeous enemies in all the games, really :) Like, everything from PS2, most of the ones from PS1 and III, and everything from IV, again. The inexplicable mix of sci-fi and fantasy in those games reminds me of the early gameboy saga games really. Probably why I'm so fond of both.

The dragon warrior style slimes, too. I have no clue why. They're just... cute.

I meant more gameplay wise. I mean, do your party members have good AI? Do they randomly break down and just stand there, spinning in place? Are the outdoor areas unbelievably tiny, and do they lead to incredibly large and incredibly empty dungeons? I've actually heard the last two comments applied to the DC games now that I think about it.

It looks cool but for some reason it's reminding me of Star Ocean 3 which I really, really hated :| I doubt this game will show up in rental places, either.

The problem's not stories taking themselves too seriously, really. It's the problems that that can cause. Namely, stuff getting melodramatic and stuff getting funny when it's not *'sposed to.*

Except I don't think these necessarily have to be problems with a story taking itself too seriously. It's mostly a combination of a story that takes itself too seriously, CHARACTERS that take themselves too seriously, and having one of those big-arsed globe trotting adventures that covers EVERYTHING.

Oh, case in point. See, this is the main reason I like the little stories in Legend of Mana and Morrowind and Metal Saga and the SaGa games and Steambot Chronicles and other games with plots made of little vignettes like that. The stuff is generally normal and so it can take itself as serious as it wants, and still incorporate humor without it being out of place or mood-breaking. Especially cool in vignette games is like... well, in LoM, you had the heavier plot arcs with the Jumis and stuff, and then you had the lighter ones with, like, that bunny merchant. Morrowind's an even better example just because it has millions of quests. You have the darker stuff with the main plotline, and then you... have the quests involving pantsless nords. And it's cool because the plot is nonlinear, so if you WANT to jump out and get something sillier done, you can, and it's not forced on you, and hope to god you like where it's placed.

This is actually why I didn't like Oblivion. While it tended to take itself WAY too seriously, it was coupled with the fact that every single quest seemed to have too much importance. You weren't catching fish just to be a nice guy. You were catching fish because the quest giver had AIDS and his daughters were all going to get their legs cut off by orcs if you didn't catch enough fish for... some reason.

Here's another way to take yourself seriously write. Don't overwrite everything. LET'S TAKE THE SMT GAMES, SHALL WE? Nocturne takes itself seriously. That's obvious. However, the writing is minimalist -- maybe even sparse -- and incredibly objective. It's serious, but nothing is played up to be Supa OMG Important!!!

Of course, sometimes you need some humor, and I think the best way to do it is through have the characters be... humorous within the bounds of their personality. As I said, the writer should take the story seriously, but the characters don't really need to. People like Cielo or Raja or... even Kefka, really. These characters act funny, but they also have a serious side too, and really, by letting THEM have some of the humor, it really fleshes them out. Things like Ultros are silly, but they don't really add anything else. Alternatively, I think comedic relief characters like Fujin and Raijin, or, uh, Kiros and Ward, I guess, or even Solt and Peppor, if I remember correctly -- if they show more than just being silly, they also seem more fleshed out, and it seems like they add more.

I think my problem is with elements that are only there for the humor, and don't really work to add anything else to the story.

That cartoon is made of win and dongles.

Active mode doesn't seem to work with the control setup. You can't move and select commands at the same time. Not essential or anything, but... I dunno, avoiding attacks in general seems sort of useless and impossible, so I guess I wish the system was more actiony.

This is the first FF I've played though where the writing actually struck me as being, like, good.

Week later, and Stupid Dream is still sounding incredibly mediocre to me. I'll give In Absentia another spin sometime, but it looks like PT is joining Pink Floyd as one of the bands that I used to like but now REALLY dislike.

I've been playing the PSX port of FFIV and I'm possibly underlevelled immensely but I don't know. Anyway, I'm at some town before that magnet cave, and there are these porcupine creatures, and they get 2-3 attacks per each of mine, and they do about 120-220 damage per attack Given that my highest HP dude is... Puncho McFisty with 1000~, that's quite a bit.

Oh, and what else. Tellah's useless in combat so far, because most of his magics, while powerful, take enough MP to leave him completely drained after about 9 shots, which isn't really bad, I guess, but... that's not really GOOD either.

I don't know. The series as a whole isn't particularly "fair." Not, like, fair in the same way I'd consider Nocturne fair, at least. In general, though, they're also all rather easy, with the early ones only having difficulty insofar as you need to levelup a lot, and mandatory powerlevelling does not, in fact, mean difficult so much as it means artificially expanding gametime~ I don't mind having to powerlevel in the beginning like in Phantasy Star or the earlier wizardry games, but when you're doing it constantly like in FF4 or the Bard's Tale it does get sort of bleh.

FFVII isn't oldschool?

I'm not finding Hawk's controls terribly tight. He... always tends to fly around a lot on me. Riesz sounds interesting though. I've got her in my party, so I'll try controlling her for a bit.