FinalFantasy XIII-2

I know it is odd to talk about it, considering that the 25th anniversay is coming out. But why not? It is the latest installment of the Final Fantasy series, and it is related to Final Fantasy 7 in some way. The music is epic. The battle style is addictive. I didnt post lately because i couldn't put down the controller. And the efficient style of battle strategy is great! The graphics are something all right! But lets go with this one by one, although this is not a review of sorts.

  I mainly wanted to talk about making the battle strategies. What were they called again? Paradigm. Because of the Active Time Battle, ATB, the game makes you quickly tensed like final fantasy 7. The better things, like kingdom hearts, potions heal all. I am not a huge fan of final fantasy so i always like it when they make new features. You get fully healed once you leave battle. also the way you enter battle is fun. It makes you go out and hunt for more. SO, what has this got to do with "paradigm"? You can choose which character is offensive, deffensive, or magician, etc. and you can choose how to target enemies. Even better: you can choose your default so your battle begins with it and easily change it anytime (eg when your HP gets low, or when you are down to more immune enemies) in the middle of battle. This is the best FInal Fantasy combat system, because unlike final fantasy 7 you never feel there is a sudden random pause between your attack and the enemy's attack, because you can quickly assign your own abilities and execute them with X before you ATB guage fills up to the max if you can't wait. The remainder of the guage is not lost, too.

  For example, I prefer to start with locking down on one single target at the beginning, then switching to wide-ranged magic, then if it get this long and there are sill more than one enemy on he field I switch to one warrior, one magician. etc. You canmake the best possibilities you prefer! Isn't that great?

The "link" between Yugioh and Zelda

Correlation between Zelda and Yugioh

  It is not uncommon to find a Zelda fan that likes Yugioh. But why especially yugioh? Why not bakuman, beblade or all these other things that 4kids grouped together? Well, we all realize that Japanese Yugioh is no way for kids, but does it resemble Zelda? Read on to find out!

 Actually, explaining all that is to Yugioh that relates to Zelda or vice versa would take forever, so I will be watching the anime and uncover it bit by bit. I bet those of you who enjoy yugioh as a change of pace from Zelda games find various differences than yugioh. But somehow the atmosphere sort of connects each other. There are a few monster cards that look like Link, while others that look like Octoroks and such. This may be a coincidence, but why should it be? After all, Zelda came before the Yugioh anime, so it does sort of make sense.

  Speaking of time order, there may be opposite occasions. The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of time was released in the year 1998, meanwhile the original yugioh manga was since 1996 until 2004, which proves that Anju is the one that is based on Anzu, not the opposite. Yugioh developers were the ones that made Anzu have short reddish hair and tall figure, not to mention that she is kind and helpful, yet kind of quiet. This especially matches her in Majora’s Mask, when she doesn’t talk too much about her troubles and in Ocarina Of Time when she helps the chickens she is allergic to.

  Do you also agree on the similarities? Or do you find it teasing? Either way, I hope you enjoyed.

Heroes of Ruin Review

Heroes of Ruin Review

As a T-rated game on the 3ds, I tried the demo, and thought it resembled Zelda games. I bought the original game, and found how a game can be different from Zelda, retaining its own originality, yet have a great experience. I don’t want to ruin the story for you in the review, but I must say that Square Enix did a good job in developing a world that’s wraps around you, and makes it so well-made that you can dream about it.

Story: 10/10 The game mainly focuses on helping people with “Quests” Stolen items, kidnapped people, rare enemies (that are valued like a trophy) are things that you get from the worlds outside the hub city then return them to their respective owners to get cool prizes. It gives a great sensation when you help people because you feel like a hero (and that is the first reason why I play Zelda). The story gets a full score because of cutscenes that are satisfying. Quests are a great addition as well and they really keep you hooked (the only reason I close the game is because the 3ds ran out of battery life)

Gameplay: 8/10. Alright, in some other websites they say there is “Dungeons” trust me, it is so not Zelda, a little disappointing on that matter. The so-called dungeons are just full of enemies that you must defeat and (mostly) contain the waypoint near the very end of the quest that made you enter the dungeon itself. The combat in a fixed camera view is very hard too. It helps you die. Because you will always find yourself taking a few steps forward with every attack that makes you unable to corner your enemies or let them corner you so that you can hit multiple enemies with one strike. This makes blocking attacks twice as hard as SSBB (which I consider impossible). However if there is a defending expert that can actually defend in SSBB they can surely defend in Heroes of Ruin. A Plus to this is that combat is more fun than just bashing the B button, because you will always find yourself using the advantageous
special attacks (A, Y, X buttons) that are good. It loses score because dungeons don’t have puzzles, yet exploring is cool and combat isn’t bad, but just hard.

Re-playability: 10/10. Not much games can capture this part well, but heroes of ruin did. You have four save files and four different jobs, each job means different battle style and different armour and special attacks. There is also multiplayer (why is nobody online?) with anybody in the world, with your wifi friends, or local play. If you are like me, you will probably disconnect every five minutes so in order not to lose your progress I suggest single player. However, if you did not read this advice and got disconnected from internet, the waypoints will do you justice. The autosave feature is good. The online features (like daily and weekly challenges) are addictive because there is a merchant that sells special armour and weaponry if you complete these challenges. Like I said, I never want to put the game down! Also, all the quests have the option if you don’t want to take them, so you can always go back and accept doing the quest. The game is highly re-playable.

RPG features: 7/10 While the rewards in quests are good, The game lacks a few things on this side. 1- because it’s not Zelda. (I am not too harsh, really) 2- Because inventory is limited (but maybe that’s a good thing) and 3- No item check (however there is reserves)

To explain these: It is an action/adventure game, not an RPG game. But it does have RPG-like features, customizing character clothes and shape. Inventory space is limited to encourage you to sell useless stock and to make the game more realistic, but I do not prefer it. Reserves are a plus, but you can’t reserve potions. You can only carry 20 potions of the two types at a time which is a good thing to heat the battle field, but you may find yourself dying over and over. However it is not that frustrating. It is still passable, I guess. It doesn’t ruin the other great features of the game.

Difficulty: Moderately hard. Only in terms of combat, and exploration. There is barely any Zelda logic or puzzles. But the exploration is funny, and hitting a dead end would reward you with potions rather than let you scream in anger. Some Quests are VERY VERY hard and require running around in circles, and hardcore gamers must finish all there is in the game, so you may find yourself opening a walkthrough or something. Don’t get embaraced when that happens, because this is the sign of a truly awesome game.

Graphics 9/10. Amazing lights, nice graphics, displays the true powers of this handheld console. Only that you may have to look frequently in the map because it is a little hard to differentiate between a real path or just another fancy looking tree log, for example. And the fixed camera is not that fixed, so it isn’t boring at all.

Sound: 8/10. Good music, great voicing (like when the people talk and stuff) and OK sound effects. If you like war music then mentally give this 10/10.

Overall 9/10. A surprisingly good game for one that is not Zelda. May look gloomy on the outside atmosphere or in the demo, but like the old saying: don’t judge a game by its box art.