j-rpgcrazemonth

[j-rpgcrazemonth]

How do you balance an RPG? Seems impossible to go in and just play test against every enemy, especially in classic JRPGs with hundreds of different enemies. I assume it is a lot of math, charts and graph visualization?

Time to buckle up, because you’re going to learn some system design principles today. We’re talking about formulas and shape and effect of the curves that you get from graphing them out. This is probably the most important principle for system designers to internalize.

Instead of just picking numbers out of thin air, system designers create and work with formulas that take individual factors like character level, skill rating, stats from equipment, etc. and use them to calculate resulting values like damage, health, critical hit rate, etc. By tuning these formulae, we can establish baseline numbers for RPG content that will always generate reasonably correct numbers across all game levels. Then, because we have the formula to figure out the stats for us, we only need to tune and adjust the exceptions to the rule (e.g. a hard boss fight, an easy tutorial enemy, etc.) rather than all of the content. 

There are three basic curve shapes to consider when deciding what kind of growth formula we’re building: Linear, Quadratic, and Logarithmic. Each of these shapes causes a different feeling in the player for strength/power gain when plotted against time. We’ll briefly go over each of these curve shapes, the general formula for them, and examples of how they are used in games.

The first curve shape is Linear. Linear is the most simple - a constant relationship between stat and result. The basic linear formula is Y = aX + b where a is some multiplier and b is some constant baseline value. Linear curves gain power in lockstep with the input factors. This results in a feeling of constant power gain over time. It’s also kind of boring, because the experience will be similar (and predictable) every step of the way. This is the sort of growth you want for something to be reliable and safe. One simple example of a linear curve is hit points in Dungeons and Dragons. You get one die roll (or half of one plus the die maximum, rounded up) of HP per level plus whatever Constitution bonus your character has. You get the exact same boost going from level 1 to level 2 as you do from level 10 to level 11.

The second shape is Quadratic. Quadratic curves start off with small boosts initially, but grow rapidly later on. Their basic formula is Y = aX² + bX + c, where a and b are multipliers and c is some constant base value. Quadratic curves impart the feeling of starting off weak but growing rapidly - look at how much height was gained when going from 0 to 5 compared to 15 to 20. This can be good for things like enemy difficulty to make bad guys feel like they are rapidly gaining strength as they get stronger, or making the player feel like a demigod after leveling up from humble beginnings. This kind of curve for player power heavily encourages stacking this one thing. We also often see this sort of curve for experience points needed to level up - later levels usually require significantly more experience points than the early levels.

The third shape is Logarithmic. Logarithmic curves are effectively like a rotated quadratic curve - you start with large gains early on, but then they taper off over time until the curve approaches a constant (or linear growth). The basic formula for a logarithmic curve is Y = aX + b(log X) + c, where a is a linear multiple (the linear growth you want to approach), b is a logarithmic multiple (which affects the amount of early growth), and c is your baseline constant value. Logarithmic curves are great for things like diminishing returns on things - we start with big boosts, but additional stats don’t provide as big a boost as they did at first. This also lets you establish a limit that won’t be breached by the formula, so you know what kind of theoretical power maximum you can balance around.

These three curve shapes allow for a large amount of control over how things generally feel for a player. We designers can affect how experiences feel for the entire game by making small adjustments to these formulas. Then, if we have specific experiences we want players to feel, we can make individual adjustments and overrides to specific encounters to tune them up or down. But generally, we can use these curve formulas to establish the baseline growth for the entire game and everything that works within those formulas. That’s how we can balance an entire RPG - we have formulas that govern almost everything so we only have to make sure the formulas feel good and not each and every individual item.

PS. There’s even more work done when you see how these different formulas interact with each other. The difference in the rate of change between the formulas will affect how power level changes between the interacting systems. So, combining our linear hit point growth example above with quadratic experience points for level growth, it means that player hit point growth per experience can actually be derived with a (rough) logarithmic curve because you have more hit point growth per experience at the start than you do at the end. A good system designer is able to visualize how these formulas work with each other and how to translate one term into another by deriving formulas from each other.

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[j-rpgcrazemonth]

It’s always JRPG somewhere.

I’ve been getting into buying old games and emulating systems. I’m a fifth and six generation console guy, and I have a DVD drive connected to my PC like it’s 2004, so the discs are going to good use. I have a working PS1 and PS2 connected to a 14 inch Trinitron, so I’m able to enjoy them on the original hardware too. On the other hand I’ve become quite fixated on CRT filters, so enjoying emulation as well.

Dipping my toe in the Persona 2 Eternal Punishment waters this week.

I do have the slight issue that if I want to post off-screen photos of emulated games it falls victim to my extremely curved Samsung Odyssey monitor though.

[j-rpgcrazemonth]

[j-rpgcrazemonth]

FFVIII - Lunatic Pandora Control Room

[j-rpgcrazemonth]

Ooooh

 The Gameplay of Final Fantasy XV 

[j-rpgcrazemonth]

Well, chums. We have a new contender.

[j-rpgcrazemonth]

Final Fantasy VIII Disc 1 Final Part

Let's do some thoughts about late disc one moments of note from Final Fantasy VIII then.

Tomb of the Unknown King

When our main party gets to Deling City for the first time it's already somewhat familiar from having been there in the Laguna, Kiros and Ward dreamworld. You're told to meet up with General Caraway who, far from being willing to see Galbadia conquered by the Sorceress Edea, she of the Leia coiffure and Morticia gown, Caraway is conspiring with the SeeDs of Balamb and Galbadia Gardens to assassinate the sorceress. Before they can meet with Caraway the guard at his mansion gate sends us on a fetch quest to prove our mettle. Yay game logic!

To progress to the Caraway meeting is as simple as entering the world map screen, running northeast for thirty seconds, entering the Tomb of the Unknown King and finding a dropped sword. The sword has a plaque with a three digit number on it and this is randomly generated, so you have to go this far on every playthrough. As perfunctory as it is I appreciate things like this that railroad players into actually playing the game.

While that's all you have to do to progress there is more to the Tomb of the Unknown King location if you choose to take part in it. The Tomb of the Unknown King is a little like PC classic RPG Dungeon Master in that you're given a map that doesn't mark your position and have to make your way through a subterranean stone maze to special rooms at the cardinal points of the tomb. Ultimately the aim is to lower some stone tablets into the floor and flood a moat so that you can get access to the Brothers summon. These simple minded and boisterous minotaurs, one of whom is called Minotaur, the other Sacred, are identical brothers.

Sacred is big and loud and has red horns, Minotaur small and cunning and has yellow horns. So they’re palette swapped and resized. Square worked hard on these characters in the finest traditions of the Final Fantasy series.

Brothers seems a good summon to have as it's the first to confer the HP Plus 20% Ability on a junctioned player and has an HP-J skill. Brothers carries an Earth element making the attack useless against flying monsters. In order to attain the summon and their two Triple Triad cards you have to defeat first Sacred then, in a second fight, both. It's very easy to do if you cast Float on all involved - this prevents the Brothers from healing periodically, which they do whenever they're in contact with the earth, and it keeps you safe from their main attack which hits all party members with Earth element damage. This attack like all those with an Earth element always misses if you're floating off the floor. It’s easy to stock up on Float spells before entering the Tomb because you can draw the spell in plenty numbers from the Thrustaevis of the plains.

With the Brothers soundly beaten you can leave the dungeon in triumph and go about your day. Immediately after this fight I rubbed Cid's Magical Lamp and fought Diablos to gain that summon also, because good things should come in pairs (of three). Some might say this is late in the game to obtain Diablos, but that's when I got it. This is also around the time when I began grinding towards all the Refine skills my GFs have to offer. Being able to convert items into spells and other, fewer, better items is highly recommended, and if you can believe it I actually played the whole game without knowing about it the first time through back in 1999. Because kids are idiots, man. It's not like they can be expected to read anything or understand anything they're doing is it?

Sorceress Assassination Attempt Before they've got in to see Caraway, Rinoa takes aside Squall and quietly pleads with him not to leave her alone in his house. As it turns out, she says, it's her house and along with being the leader of a politician-kidnapping-ring she's also the daughter of a Galbadian military leader. Awkward. What ensues is a classic JFK-rules assassination attempt: shadowy cabal in the government plans to bump off the figure at the top. Because that's what the JFK assassination was, right? Anyone? Cartoon cowboy Irvine, as well as being played by a ponytailed Chris Pine, is also a sharpshooter and they plan is to have him take the shot against the Sorceress Edea, taking a position in a tower overlooking her motorcade and rising up out of a carousel clock like a cuckoo of death.

Hi ladies. Jim Kirk

The SeeD party is split into two teams: Team A) Irvine on the trigger with Squall as backup, ordered to bumrush the Sorceress if the shot misses, even at the cost of his very life and, Team B) led by Quistis, comprised of the rest of the SeeDs. This team are charged with dropping a portcullis to keep the evil Sorceress's motorcade trapped in an arc de triomphe-looking gatehouse while the shot is taken. In a moment which I'm going to say belongs to a tradition of what I'm calling Anime Farce, the mission has a contrived complication stuffed into the middle of it in order to add tension. 

The complication is due to the Quistis character's bizarre actions and while it speaks of her kindness and her humility, it undermines her both in terms of believability and whether or not you view her as an idiot. As leader she's charged with the complex business of "hide here with your two teammates until the car is under the arch, which will be at 8PM on the dot, then pull a switch" reasoning that it won't be 8 for aaages she decides to desert her post and return to the plotter's headquarters to apologize to Rinoa for being rude to her earlier. Needless to say this is very unprofessional in the midst of a military operation but what makes it monumentally, Brobdingnagianly stupid is she takes the other two with her. It is boneheaded and a low point of the writing up to this point. Lazy Squaresoft, bad! Stop getting your characters into situations that could lead to them sprouting large, free-floating sweat drops! Because of course something happens that risks them never getting back to the gatehouse in time. At this point I have to ask: what kind of a sharpshooter can't hit a moving target anyway, would it really be so bad if the car was still rolling? After all, the man on the grassy knoll did it, right?

Having no taste for putting SeeDs in danger or for bloodshed Rinoa had earlier suggested an alternative - meet with the Sorceress and trick her into accepting the gift of an as yet untried anti-Sorceress item, the Odine bangle. As soon as she puts it on it'll bind her powers, rendering her ineffective and then presumably someone can crack her in the head and lock her up in the tower forever on bread and water. I guess she could never take it off, we'll stick it on with I dunno glue or something. Seems like a plan, high risk, but good. Why not try both plans? Could we risk tipping off the Sorceress that there's some ill feeling among the masses? Surely she can't know that a conquered nation whom she declares her reign of terror to, before she sets off in an open top tour of the city, might want to do her any harm?

Is this thing on?

(Can I again offer the opinion that at times the writing is pretty darn stupid?) For that matter, do none of the trained strategic minds in this assassination plot speculate on whether or not Edea might be so confirmed in her invincibility that she'll happily take an open top tour of a conquered city?  Just a thought.

But no, rather than try both plans Quistis blows up when Rinoa suggests the alternative, saying: you're not a SeeD, this isn't a game, so keep your nose out and stay here with your father where you belong. It's not too much of a stretch to say that maybe Quistis has something to apologize for, but she's doing that now. Silly teenager. Indeed, kids are idiots, man. Quistis gets back to the General's mansion only to burst in just after Rinoa has left to attempt her plan on her own. I mean just after. They must have passed each other in the hall. They must each have been so determined to go after their goal that they had to double take but oh no! it's too late because Quistis has entered the room just as Caraway locked it down to prevent his daughter running away to do something rash, and Rinoa has already escaped. This is a prime example of that thing I was talking about called Anime Farce. Giant free-floating sweat drops all round, isn't Quistis's face red?

Now with the clock ticking down towards 8PM the SeeD team must escape the mansion or who will drop that portcullis? Not the tooth fairy, that's who, or something. You're not actually on the clock here, unlike in the frantic chase back to the SeeD landing craft during the exam mission, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. It probably is because once you notice that the portrait of a lady in the room has a wine glass, that there's a shelf of wine glasses and a statue of a lady without a wine glass you might connect the dots and make a puzzle from that. You take the wine glass and give it the statue and that opens a secret escape route. Why, we don't know. Presumably in case Caraway ever accidentally locks down himself when vainly trying to imprison his legally-not-yet-an-adult daughter, and someone has painted the windows shut I guess? You then have to navigate a sewer maze with a few draw points and a magazine to collect, so I guess it's okay that it's not on a timer, because the backtracking might push you for time and be annoying. Handily the maze brings the SeeD team right up in the basement of the gatehouse. It's like it was meant to be.

Not mentioned in this write up: this bit 8PM arrives, the Sorceress is rolling, the gate is dropped and the sniper ascends. Fighting his nerves Irvine fires the shot, the bullet sears through the air and rings ineffectually off Edea's blue force field. She must have a basic, early game Protect spell. How dare she? What power. So it's up to Squall to play his part, the evil woman must die even if it's at the hands of his gunblade. He steals a convertible because he is cool and girls like him and races to the Sorceress to confront her, only to meet Seifer. Not content with failing to become a SeeD himself because he's a brash, dog hating idiot, nor with trying to kidnap the president during a global television broadcast and getting himself arrested and scheduled to be executed, he's cut a deal with Edea and stands by her side as her knight. What I particularly like about this is the impression you get that she doesn't need him at all and is just humouring him because it's a game to her to have some gallant, musclebound halfwit to impose her control over. You can think of Seifer as a young Darth Vader if you like, except I do believe that Edea doesn't need anything from their master and servant relationship, she just likes it. Seifer, torturing Squall on disc 2 proclaims that he's going to hunt down all the SeeDs to prevent them attacking the Sorceress. Very much a Vader to Squall's Obi-wan. I guess that makes Cid Yoda, Irvine Han Solo and Zell that four-armed guy with the apron in that diner? Or Squall is Aragorn, Rinoa is Figwit, Angelo is Gandalf's horse Shadowfax and Zell is Gimli. I haven't thought this through.

I hate sand, and Jedi, and your face.

So of course Squall defeats Seifer, it's only a shame he doesn't leave him burning on the banks of a river of lava. This fight is also your first chance to draw the second tier Fira spell, which he casts, so maybe do that. Putting up Shell and Protect spells makes this fight laughably easy. This fight is always laughably easy.

Seifer survives, however humbled and slopes off leaving the way to Edea clear for Squall. Joined in the combat by Irvine and Rinoa they have it out in battle, It's a very easy combat, Edea doesn't do anything more overwhelming that cast third tier elemental spells like Blizzaga, so with a few heals and a succession of summon casts, beating her isn't an issue and after a few thousand HP-worth of damage Edea takes a step back.

A cutscene begins and the Sorceress sneers at the attempt. Facing Squall Edea effortlessly cleans his clock, skewering him with two foot long projectile icicles. Squall falls backwards, stricken, Rinoa calling out in anguish and we fade to black.

That's the end of disc 1, and when we come to we're inhabiting the viewpoint of Laguna and need to get that out of the way to find out that Squall is miraculously healed but being tortured by Hayden Christensen and they're all in prison. Great plan guys.

[j-rpgcrazemonth]

Checking in

It's possible to fall off the wagon with things and I do appear to have done so. I didn't plan on resuming playing FF8 right now. I can't help feeling, late on in disc 1 that the combat really is dull compared to FF7. One of the first things I did was disable the Wait setting on the ATB gauge, because this is the least you can do to make it bearable and y'know, actually a post-FF4 Final Fantasy title, but the combat is still slow, somewhat inelegant and overly reliant on the damn GF summons. It does get better and more compelling later, but the early game is entirely carried by the dialogue and storytelling. I'm definitely getting why cooler heads found the thing so divisive when it came out while I was cooing over the OMG FMV! aspects of it. And yet I'm compelled to play through it again right now instead of pushing on with some new territory. Oh well.

[j-rpgcrazemonth]

And now a short break from blogging in which I will read 16 issues of Batman and 13 issues of Dial H. When I return expect thoughts and feelings re: Persona 4 on the PS2

[j-rpgcrazemonth]

Final Fantasy VII it's Ice to See You

Speaking of the ubiquity of Final Fantasy VII, it shouldn't be the least surprising that I'm not the only person currently playing it. Since I am deep in FF8 territory I'll tag in Melissa to write about the game at the start of disc 2 after certain Traumatic Events have already taken place. FF7 is for me, characterized by lots of set pieces - areas of the game which are self contained and have extra gameplay mechanics specific to them, such as the Great Glacier, and Gold Saucer being the most obvious. The Icicle Inn area has the arcade mini games such as the snowboarding. More than any FF game FF7 has a wide range of diversions and small ambitions to do more than just a classic RPG. Over to Melissa: In general, I don't play a lot of video games, but that doesn't mean I've never played a lot of video games. My parents found my sisters and I a NES in the Classified Ads- someone who upgrading to a SNES. As a result, I'm pretty great at Tetris, and not too bad at Dr. Mario. A few years ago, I finally managed to beat Zoda's Revenge, having been stuck on the Red Dragon for over a decade. Those same parents bought us a Playstation for Christmas. There was a lot of Crash Bandiccoting, and a lot of time spent playing the demo of Hot Shots Golf.

Then, one day, my mom brought home a borrowed copy of Final Fantasy VII, and that was that. I spent the next few years immersed in the world of J-RPGs, playing new releases, and incredibly thankful for re-releases of titles that I had missed, largely because we went straight from a NES to a Playstation, skipping the SNES completely.

Around about the time I went to University, I lost interest in both playing games, and what was happening in games. I never played FFX, and didn't care about XI. I played through (and loved) Bioshock, but that experience didn't reignite the love of gaming that I had lost. A few months ago, I was gifted with a Steam packet of Sega Genesis classics, and started playing Shining Force II, but have no desire to complete it. I was excited to play Bioshock Inifnite, and was indeed enjoying it, but then I realized that the computer that was set up in our lounge as an 'Entertainment Centre' could happily support the re release of FFVII, and have not touched Bioshock since*.

That says something in and of itself. I am more interested in playing a game that I have thoroughly played though more than once, than a new release with rave reviews. I will go back to Bioshock Infinite, because I like it quite a bit. But after all this time, and at least five years of even glancing in its general direction, I am still drawn to Final Fantasy VII, like a moth to a flame. Or Yuffie to materia.

What's going on?

After leaving the body of our deceased party member* at the bottom of some sparkly lake, we make our way through some caverns, hot on the tail of Sephiroth. HOWEVER, the trail's gone cold. How cold, you ask? ICE COLD.

What's cooler than being cool?

Since we're on some snowy plains for the next little while, I suit up accordingly. Elemental linked with Shiva on armor, and some cold draining armlets for the team, and away we go. After fighting some carrot wielding rabbits, we arrive at Icicle Inn.

The music is perfectly matched to the idyllic snow-swept town, and evokes feelings of sparkly ice vacations. I am always impressed by the themes that accompany the holiday destinations. Gold Saucer's theme is suitably bouncy and tacky for all the excitement and neon excess, while the Costa Del Soul theme is suitably cheesy for a seaside resort. Speaking of, the Inn is inhabited by speedo-clad surfers looking for gnarly powder.

Snow bikinis for some, miniature American flags for others

I'm playing this game rather frugally, so I only buy weapons for whomever I happen to be levelling up at the moment. Right now, that's Tifa (woefully neglected while I tried to level up Aeris to her final limit break) and Yuffie (in preparation for her showdown in the pagoda of Wutai). After roaming around town, I steal a map from an old man's wall, watch love blossom between Aeris's mom and dad, land learn a little about the Ancients. Trying to leave I'm interrupted by none other than the TURKS!

Well, a Turk. Elena.

I don't know if it's the PC re-release, or something to do with the music settings on this computer, but certain pieces do not sound right. Toned down, and/or subdued. It's particularly bad in the Turk's Theme, as the characteristic snapping and jingling accents are all but a faded memory. Boo. Despite this, I manage to avoid Elena's swing and send her somersaulting down a mountain slope. I can't remember what happens if you mess this up, or dodge in a different direction. Do you end up having to fight her? Anyway, it's a moot point now. Shinra Soldiers are at the entrance of the town, any attempts to fight them and leave are met with resistance- there are kids playing!: WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!? Time to steal a snowboard from an injured little boy.

I have to say-- one of my favorite things about this game are the bits that make you feel like you're playing an entirely different game- but just for a moment! It's like watching a t.v. series, and there's suddenly a musical episode. If you wanted to watch a music episode every week, you'd be watching GLEE and wondering which wrong turn brought your life to this point. I don't want to want to play a snowboard video game,** but this interlude is both surprising and welcome.. And available in Gold Saucer. That place makes all my dreams come true. I'm a big fan of side-quests, and the quests in FFVII add a certain charm that's hard to beat. FFVIII managed to come close, but a lot of it felt tacked on to the end of the game (bar Triple Triad, which was all around great and distracting), whereas in VII you do the majority of questing right before the end, but there is a build-up. A preamble, if you will, And for a side-quest-lover, the forethought makes it a real pleasure to playthrough all those extra bits.

SWEET TRICK.

I will say this - it is virtually impossible to carve on that snowboard when you are playing with the keyboard. Unless you're some ultra dexterous, many-tentacled being. Up until now, the only real problem I've had is that I cannot play one handed like I could with a controller. This was especially handy when I wanted to eat and play, thus optimizing gameplay:food in mouth ratios. I wasn't about to reconfigure the key commands, so I made due with crawling down the mountain, bumping into snow mogs and corners Thanks to a very thoughtful person (who, I can only assume, tired of listening to my curses) a controller in in the mail.

Finally, after jumping off a giant cliff, we find ourselves beside a tree. You know the one. The one on the map.

That one.

I manage to snag a few treasures here and there. Also, we touch a hotspring and make some woman angry, snagging the Alexander summon in the meantime. There's not much to say about the enemies in this area. Cast a lot of fire, and Ifrit, light on most other things. Finally, after a lot of wandering in blizzards I make it to the old Climber's house.

His sound advice about staying warm includes dancing on ledges, and absolutely nothing about wrapping up warm. Chur, bro. Consult with your frozen team, and journey on.

Keeping with my current party formation for the time being. Everyone's about to freeze to death, and soon Cloud will go crazy again. What fun.

*I have admittedly glossed over what is without a doubt the most heart-wrenching scene I have witnessed in a game, but this is to spare flashbacks to my 12-year old self sobbing on our TV room floor. I am a well-adjusted, reasonable adult now, and don't you forget it.

**Would play an entire game dedicated to catching, breeding and racing chocobos. This is as close as I will ever come to caring about anything even resembling something to do with horses..

[j-rpgcrazemonth]

The Choice for an Old Generation

I want to introduce Final Fantasy VII into the mix, that epochal JRPG super hit, the one everyone over a certain age has played and anyone who has the least amount of tolerance of the Japanese RPG is likely to enjoy. As of the start of 2006 it'd sold over 9.8 million copies, and the PSN and recent PC re-releases have meant over a quarter of a million more. As Final Fantasy games go this is the one that almost anyone with a Sony console in their past will be familiar with.

I can't account for everyone's taste but there must be something that has attracted all those sales and repeat purchases. I myself have only bought the game twice, but that means I've bought the game twice as often as almost any other of my favourites including FF8. I'm also aware that FF6 is potentially the elephant in the room with regards to the primacy of some of the things I'm attributing to FF7, but I'm choosing to ignore it for now because of its having been correspondingly less popular and ubiquitous.

I'm going to walk myself through it, the appeal of the game, starting with that first moment. The camera drifting in a gyring matrix of stars, apparently deep in space only to pull back the viewpoint and fade up to show a cascade of sparks leaking from a faulty Mako circuit. Aeris, a young woman in a pink dress, her arm linked through the handle of a basket of flowers passes the sparking power line, walks to cross a busy, smog choked road, echoes of her heavy boot-steps confronting the advertising hoardings, which proclaim 'LOVELESS' beside a withdrawn and downcast girl. The viewpoint rises through the buildings and out higher over them. The camera swings up and away until the whole of the city of Midgar, circular and framed by jets of green flame, lies below. At the hub of the wheel the conchlike tower of the Shinra headquarters building dominates the city. Our viewpoint banks counter-clockwise against the turn of the city and we see a train speeding, brakes screaming, into a station. The camera dives behind this train, comes level with the carriage roof and hangs there as it slows at the platform's edge. Waiting guards in martial uniforms stand idly by the station buildings as sudden, wildly dressed figures leap from the train and attack them with punches and kicks. The three rebels stand over the fallen guards and are joined by Cloud, hair in punk anime spikes and strapped to a featureless and cleaver-like sword as big as he is, who somersaults from the engine to the platform. The rebel leader, over-muscled and shirtless under a jungle-fighter's vest beckons to the newcomer and they charge ahead to carry out their break in.

Their plan, we learn, is to strike against the authority and machinery of the Shinra Electric Power Company, the defacto government of Midgar and the holder of a monopoly on power in and over the city. Within the first minutes of the game the player is positioned as the driving force behind a terrorist bombing that will leave innocent people dead and escalate into an abortive and destructive revolution. We'll slowly be made to face the implications of how easily the characters can justify the deaths they cause in the name of the bigger threat as the game goes on. From the start our stated cause is preventing the death of the entire planet, but this goes very quickly from being a somewhat abstract environmental message to being a literal and present threat of annihilation by increasingly greater cataclysms. What makes this opening sequence so affecting is that, when viewed from the perspective of 1997, it was more cinematic than cinema itself. CGI effects hadn't yet reached the stage where that sort of free-roaming, soaring camera was possible on film. It's worth remembering that David Fincher made Panic Room some years later seemingly solely to do this sort of thing as the technology attained enough realism to work in live action. In Final Fantasy VII this visual freedom was new, and it was engrossing. With it being tied together with a more nuanced and muddled morality than the environmental messages of the world crystals and dark lords stories of earlier Final Fantasy titles I begin the see how it could have attracted more people, and have come to mean more to them, than previous games ever had. Part of the cleverness of the game's story is that it still managed to have that environmental message as a literal, planet shattering threat to the world itself but found a way to tell it through the different, more Star Wars-like metaphor of the Lifestream versus the apocalyptic malice of the rogue Frankenstein's monster Sephiroth. It is, ultimately a Frankenstein's tale I think. It plays with the idea of disrupting the natural order, Shinra and Gast and Hojo's meddling, Jenova the alien parasite and how they together smash the balance of man with nature. It's the idea that some things man is not meant to know and that he should forbid himself from ever going there.

I don't believe that at all of course, if you can show me the gearbox of the universe I'll ask you to hook it up in such a way as can benefit mankind, but I can choose to interpret it in a more charitable way with regards to how we use science and technology. Think of the youth of the characters, their struggles with responsibility. I think of FF7 as gently pushing us to grow up in our attitudes, towards a place of responsibility to people and how we view the broader themes. It's a story which beseeches us to try to use power maturely and in a way which doesn't use up and degrade the people we live with and environment which sustains us. Think of Cloud's first lines - he doesn't care about the planet and only wants his pay and how he learns to care about the people in AVALANCHE and their cause Think of how he is himself a cipher, a fantasy obsessed together from someone else's memories, and a lighter reflection of Sephiroth from whom he was literally made, and then what he becomes as nemesis to Sephiroth's destructive nihilism.

Whether Cloud is a particularly deep or interesting character or not, he is practically half of the story, in balance with Sephiroth. He's a protagonist who doesn't just serve the action but creates the myth as well.

Final Fantasy VII works at the level of visual spectacle, as histrionic melodrama, as anime farce, as intimate whispered conversation between friends, as paranoid horror and epic fantasy. It appeals to so many because it's doing a lot of things and doing them at least as well as any other game that existed to that date. The quality of the writing might be variable or debatable but the ambition and the mass appeal is unmistakable, and ten million copies in, undeniable too. It's sold so many copies because it's an engrossing, moving and entertaining piece of fiction, and it's still that before you get into how involving and intuitive  the gameplay is. It's a blockbuster, it has a little of everything for practically everyone, and that's why it's a smash hit, and that's why more than fifteen years later I'm playing it, writing about it, and why so many people want to see it remade - they want to live through it again without losing any of the wonder that it once had at the cutting edge. I don't entirely get that impulse, and I think a remake would be a white elephant. The game exists and what it is and will ever mean is entirely contained within it, which was the point of it. If you ever liked it, you should play it again because it's as good as you remember it being.

[j-rpgcrazemonth]

Final Fantasy VIII in the Harsh Light of Day

Intolerance

I'm trying to unpack the experience of playing Final Fantasy VIII at close to fifteen years after it came out. It doesn't always compare well to Final Fantasy VII, let alone FF9. While all the in-game dialogue continues to be told in caption form and the characters act through their gesture animation you're not getting the same gameplay experience. When you think of the pacing of the character interactions in FF7 it often zips along with characters charging from place to place or gathered around in a circle to shrug their way through the conversations. I've noticed right away that FF8 often seems much slower, in fact at times it’s very slow. There are moments in the first couple of hours of gameplay when characters stroll into frame, stand still for three seconds and make languid and expansive gestures before strolling out of frame again. This lack of urgency seems designed into the structure of the game itself. There are whole screens which you have to navigate which serve no gameplay purpose outside of providing the physical space that makes a location its appropriate scale. The design of the Balamb Garden is really poor. The find yourself running across three or four screens of nothing but empty space to get from one location to another or out to the world screen. This isn’t helped by the slow fade to black when you exit every screen and the short wait before the game brings up the next one. FF8 can really lack the flow which keeps you engrossed in the gameplay, and in the Garden particularly it becomes quite boring. If you think of Super Mario Bros. as having been designed on long rolls of paper reading left to right then it has something happening at every point on the scroll. FF8 feels like it was a designed on lots of individual sheets of paper, that it doesn't always know where the next one is, and a lot of them are blank. Add to that the random battles which in some areas break up the travelling every ten feet and you can see why we don't get games like this anymore and why people would be reluctant to revisit them or stick with them if playing them now for the first time.

Final Fantasy VIII was made with a vision and I think it was fighting the technology to put it across. Where I find it testing my patience the most is where in its fundamentals it is testing the limits of mid-90s hardware. It couldn't have long scrolling screens so we get them chopped up into ten second chunks. It can't do instantaneous transitions from screen to screen so we get painfully slow fadeouts while it loads in the next area. It can try your patience now and suggests that we were more patient in the past because we accepted what was possible and not what was ideal.

Modern Times

All that said, there's something about all the PlayStation Final Fantasy games and perhaps FF8 most of all that trumps what came after, and that makes them better experiences than 10 through 13 could ever hope to be: they're filled with silent movie clips.

Silent film is experienced very differently than sound cinema. However differently you might have experienced innumerable dance scenes in however many films and animations you've never experienced anything like that in a sound film. I think that we can agree that just knowing what a person's voice sounds like changes how you experience them. More than that, I would argue that voice acting was the worst thing that ever happened to the Japanese RPG.

It used to be that JRPGs were tales of adventure with characters whom you brought to life. Now they're performed for you according to the vision of directors and actors. For all the possibilities of faster more elaborate hardware, higher budgets, more spectacle and even more mass appeal, by giving them voices it has taken away as much as it has added.

It's easy to empathize with an actor on the screen and the feeling in their voice, it's quite another to place the feeling there for yourself and to play the role in the Roleplaying Game. However much Squaresoft were known for their cutscenes and however much they came to rely on them, at this point in time they were still asking us to contribute to playing the roles and to not just control the characters. Single player videogames will always be rigidly constrained by whatever the designers  have written for the characters, but it can feel to me like adding voice acting has made the characters more constrained and the possibilities fewer, not greater. Having recorded dialogue be a part of these games means that the fun of interpreting the characters and creating their voices, which is a different type of play, is no longer there. Voice acting is one further step towards effortless naturalism, whereas reading is an act of creative interpretation. Greater naturalism in this case in leading away from engaging with a game towards another opportunity for staring at a noisy TV. JRPGs have followed the trajectory of gaming as a whole - bigger and more elaborate, more multimedia, more wide-spectrum and impressing more on our senses, but at the loss of asking us to engage in imagining for ourselves.

With the increased storage space of DVD we could put voiced cutscenes and voiced dialogue in even our longest and most verbose games, yet I think that there's something to be said for doing things the way that's the most rewarding and not the way that's easiest. I'd say that Square's modern Final Fantasy games are great examples of the path of least resistance leading away from somewhere it might be worth taking a stand at. Not the path of least resistance for the creatives involved - making voiced games is complicated, hugely expensive and requires a much larger investment than those that rely on text. It would be inconceivable that a game which had that technology at its disposal would not use it out of the sheer need to compete in the marketplace. If you're the company not spending millions on recording and animating dialogue you're the company boring their audience, not trying, not competing. For purely commercial reasons it's essential to keep up with the Joneses, and novelty being what it is, ideally get there first. It's the path of least resistance because it's always better to engage with commercial trends than fight them. It's adapt or die. And of course just because I like text doesn't mean that those involved in the design of the games haven't themselves being dying to write for real actors since they first sat down to write.

I do feel, going back, that the Playstation Final Fantasy games were among the best roleplaying experiences that linear JRPGs have offered and Final Fantasy VIII is the most ambitious of these. The later titles might be better games and more spectacular and lavish entertainment but after playing the PlayStation games for a while loading up a DVD-era Final Fantasy with fully voiced characters can feel like I'm being asked to do less, and that in asking less of me that they're inferior worlds to inhabit. 

[j-rpgcrazemonth]

Final Fantasy VIII disc 1 part 2

I don't plan on LPing the entire game by any means, though I might complete the game during this run. My aim is to hit on the points of interest, some memorable moments, interesting gameplay tips or anything off the beaten path that I might have missed on previous playthroughs. It does strike me though that the next thing to tackle is the SeeD exam sequence. This part of the game made up the original demo that shipped with the UK Platinum Edition of Final Fantasy VII, and as such is the first part of the game I ever played and has enough nostalgic significance that I can't ignore it. I still have that demo disc too.

Emulation Emusmation

There is one bizarre moment crossing the Dollet bridge when the screen tears in half vertically and flickers, but it doesn't cause any actual problems. Also the dissolve swoosh battle transitions are working now. And it turns out the Xbox controller doesn't work properly after all, more about that later.

What's Going On?

The exam takes the form of an amphibious landing and battlefield commando raid. One thing you can say about the Balamb Garden school is it makes learning fun. The first part is driving to the seaport, inside the van overeager Zell wants Squall to show him his gunblade. I'm no psychiatrist, but he really really wants to see it. Hmm.

Zell and Seifer threaten and jibe at each other and Squall asks Quistis who that girl was in the infirmary when he was recovering from getting his face busted by Seifer in the intro training cinematic. Seifer dismisses his squadmates as a chicken-wuss and a guy who just hit puberty. Quistis facepalms. I'd never appreciated how adolescent everyone is before. There's actual considered writing for teen characters going on. Landing achieved, we're rushed by G-army soldiers. I've already used the Exchange magic feature in the menu to give Seifer and Zell some of Quistis and Squall's spells so that they'll have magic of their own. Annoyingly Shiva is equipped to Quistis who isn't in our party and I fail to figure out how to de-equip her and give it to Seifer. He'll be relying on just the attack command for now then. After the battle I have a rummage and find the Switch menu for GFs and that solves it. All are battle ready now.

Fighting through the streets of Dollet is like rioting through a picturesque French seaside hamlet. The whole game is a bit like this, bright and airy locations that you charge into and depopulate of defending armed forces and any endangered species. Also there's a friendly dog and Seifer is mean to it.

Do what you want to the people but spare the dog!

Some more G-army sneak past and Seifer orders that the team follow them, breaking their orders to hold the town square. Squall says he stands by the captain's decision - does this mean he has a stick up his butt or not a stick up his butt? How are we supposed to read his choice? Only time will tell. I love that when Seifer taunts Zell and Zell gets mad the dog barks and gets worked up. That's a real doggie right there.

The way is fraught with monsters including a big snake and one squiggly thing called a Geezard. He's quickly dispatched with a well timed gunblade shot.

The team is joined by doll-haired klutz Selphie after Seifer impetuously storms off to live the dream of battle, which is convenient because it means we have a full three person party again.

We confront a Galbadian major with his co-Star Wars named co-star, but the first thing I take away from meeting them is that the Galbadian army follows the Star Trek convention when it comes to uniforms. Different primary colours for different roles. The major's shirt is red. He repairs the Dollet communication satellite dish that the invasion has been all about and it starts up in the most Fortress Maximus sequence ever dedicated to a radio in history. Once you're in battle Biggs is the first chance you get to Draw the Esuna spell, and since Zell has the highest magic stat due to his having Quetzacoatl junctioning a spell to it, he seems to be the one who can draw it most successfully so I stock him up on them.

Suddenly after a sound beating the Major and his lackey are whisked away by the whirlwind from a descending flying fiend and now we have to fight that instead. He's called Elvoret. I have Zell Draw and realize that this is where you get the Siren GF from - Zell sucks this spell up and acquires us a new GF to equip. Neato. Elvoret also has Double spells so I stock up on those. A quick Scan spell shows it has very high Spirit and is immune to poison. A close call from its storm breath attack puts Squall into Limit Break so I pound it for four hits. High Spirit means I decide on the physical approach and hit it a lot until it dies.

Seifer reappears too late for any of the glory and Selphie passes the message she was sent to deliver: all teams to withdraw to the shore to depart in 30 minutes. Another ticking-clock event, what fun. There's a big robot dog-crab coming as well, I know there is. That devil Biggs sics it on us. What a jerk.

A quick scan of the X-ATM092 reveals it's got highish Def but low Spirit so will take a beating from magic and is weak to Lightning spells, which robots usually are. Should be a piece of cake I think and cast Quetzacoatl.

I draw some Protect spells from it and cast these as it has decent physical attacks and this is the first chance to get any protect spells. We wear it down and then the game suggests we run on. It's at this point that I run into a problem with the emulation. The shoulder triggers are not working as L2 and R2 in battle which means I can't run. Only thing for it is to use a save state, rebind the controls for the shoulder buttons to the keyboard and load back up. This works and the breathless chase through the streets ensues. A second fight sees me throw a lot of lightning, the team flees again, a car is crushed beneath X-ATM092's piledriver feet and the beach is attained with robotic pincers nipping at our heels. All seems lost as Squall makes a futile leap for the boat but then Quistis makes her appearance on the turret .50 and machine-guns the electric fiend into shards. Because she is a goshdarned soldier, and it is awesome.

Exams thusly passed it's back to Blighty for tea and medals.

Due to this documenting process I'm now 4h 40m into the game, which is the longest anyone has ever ever taken to get this far since it came out.

I quite enjoyed the SeeD exam again, the character moments are strong, it's got good momentum, and the spells on offer are more advanced than i expected. You certainly don't get Protect, Blind or Esuna spells so early on in Final Fantasy VII. It indicates that there's a quite different gameplay style than FF7 coming even if the broad strokes are similar. I imagine it was that impression I and others came away with playing this action sequence as a demo in the 90s, and think they probably chose wisely to use it as one.

[j-rpgcrazemonth]

Final Fantasy VIII disc 1 part 1

So first on the slate for writing about, but not actually the first game I've been playing, is Final Fantasy VIII. I'm actually in the middle of playing Final Fantasy VII's PC re-release, which will likely be of more interest to most people, but thought I'd take a diversion into its well-loved, but oddball, sister game. I'll be coming back to FF7 very soon.

The first thing to mention is that I'm playing Final Fantasy VIII using the original PAL discs. All the PSX-era FF games have been sitting happily but largely untouched after the first few playthroughs on my shelf since they came out. I still have working PlayStation hardware to run them on, but no TV, so for the sake of convenience I'll be playing them through a PC emulator. I'm running on ePSXe version 1.8.0 using the latest OpenGL plugins made by Pete and Eternal's sound plugin. A quick google search will turn up all the software you need. Once I'd sorted out the BIOS file i needed i had to look at patching out the copy protection for FF8, you can get a patch file made by the community and place it in the plugins folder of ePSXe - ePSXe lets you run this by ticking a menu option and seems to do it in memory. The copy protection patches and explanations of how they work can again be found with a quick google search. It's also advisable to use imgburn to back-up your discs in .bin format and run them from your hard-drive, as this is faster and doesn't involve the helicopter-like whirring you get from an optical drive.

Once the game is up and running everything seems to play. Time to walkthrough my experience of playing.

Emulation Emusmation First thing I notice is that binding my Xbox 360 controller to the Dualshock profile in ePSXe doesn't work quite right, all the buttons are happy to work, including the triggers mapping correctly as buttons to the L2 and R2, but the left analogue stick doesn't want to recognise how hard I push it in the negative Y axis i.e. Squall always walks instead of runs when I'm walking down/towards the screen. Weird, will have to troubleshoot this later. Second thing I notice is that these hi-res 3D models are UGLY, everything is blobby and odd looking. Seems you can't successfully resist the drag of ancient PSX graphics. It does at least look objectively better than they ever did, even if not subjectively so, 15 years later.

Once the battle starts the swooshing screen dissolve effect is a bit mangled, showing in black and white, but basically works. This is something that has plagued the emulation of FF games as i recall. Will tweak it later.

But What's it Like?

I'm struck right away that I hate the Garden music, it's so dreary and soporific. I never had this problem before! I've changed, man. After I down the first couple of enemies I'm struck again, harder, by how much I totally love the victory music. It's so jaunty! I'm on the world screen and things are looking kinda nice actually, nice smooth bi-linear filtered textures even if the pixels are the size of tennis balls, and after playing FF7 for a week I'd completely forgotten about the 3D globe world map. Quite cool. Come the first random battle, and I'm reacquainted with the Draw system. For those who've forgotten: unlike most RPGs magic is not based in Magic Points and spells equipped through gear, your spellbook or innate ability, you have to pull different  spells out of enemies, which you can then cast back at them. A single draw will give you a randomised number of individual casts which are added to your 'Stock'. The first time I use it in battle I get 4 Fires, which would allow you to cast fire four times before you'd have no fires left. It's a unique system but a good one. It's a little odd to spend so much time hoovering up spells but it leads you to keep one eye on what the enemies can do because sometimes they'll have rare or unique spells to take. Combined with the Junction system, which allows you to bind spells to your character stats for increases it is the lynchpin of the game's systems. The more casts of a spell you have stocked, and the more powerful the spell, the more benefit you get from having it Junctioned to your stats. Finally, some spells will not benefit some stats, meaning you need to use plenty of judgment.

It is the Guardian Forces of course that are at the root of everything. These work like a hybrid of the mechanics of gear and an NPC-party member, and need to be equipped and levelled up. They also enable/are the Summon spells that all FF games have, and they've never been as central to the game as they are here. GFs level up the way your player characters do, imbuing their increased abilities on the humans who carry them. If you don't have any GFs equipped then you won't have any abilities, stat buffs or magic at all. This is all explained in the early tutorials of course, and i don't have any trouble getting back up to speed.

It seems to be all going well so far and I'm enjoying the emulated experience, so I'm going to set about the first challenge - winning the Fire Cave.

Fire Cave

Time to put our emo teens into harm's way. Venturing into a monster filled lava cave to retrieve a fire breathing djinn seems a little extreme for a school practical exam. That said, I remember I had to do the bleep test a couple of times in PE at school and I'd take slaying a flaming hell beast over that memory.

First thing I'd forgotten about was the time limit: asking me to choose to complete the dungeon in 10, 20, 30 or 40 minutes with the injunction that "it should be challenging to your skills" just makes me shrug. Is there anyone who didn't chose the 20 minute one? Well, apart from all the cocksure idiots who chose the 10 minute one. I was tempted to do that, but we'll go with 20. Not sure if I'm missing out on a reward or what. Doesn't matter, onwards we go.

The cave is a winding isthmus through a sea of lava filled with various batlike enemies and the nefarious living bombs. Soon I've smashed a couple of bats in mortal combat and get the card drops! Many monsters drop cards for the beloved in-game card game Triple Triad. Cool, I'll be playing that for next fifteen weeks am sure, endlessly trading and obsessing.

It's very fiery in here, so I quickly stock up on Blizzard spells when the first heli-rotorbat I encounter has some (apparently his name is Buel - what would we call something that was more Buel. Anyone? Anyone?) I'll be spamming these in Ifrit's face later. The number of random encounters is already a little annoying. There's a reason people don't like them or do them in games much anymore. Still, it's what I signed up for and I'll aim to make this the last time i complain about them.

A harsh beating from a gang of bombs puts Quistis into limit break mode and when i see the name of the first limit I press it so giddily i nearly bend my finger back. Laser Eyes. She can shoot blue lasers from her eyes! I'd forgotten about that. I'd forgotten ever knowing that.

The Ifrit fight is very easy and quick, just a matter of plugging away with blizzard spells and Shiva summons. Shiva's ice-element means high damage, and Ifrit panics accordingly when you cast her. Two summons is all it takes for him to announce that he's underestimated Shiva and, far from being impudent humans, he's going to join us. Defeating Ifrit drops the Ifrit card and equipping him allows your first element-Junction. Tying those Blizzard spells to your attacks will add a bonus amount of Ice-element damage to your strikes, extra useful in a place full of fire-element monsters. Woo.

So far so straightforward and logical, sort of. Final Fantasy VIII has a strange way about it, but I like it and am enjoying replaying it so far.

[j-rpgcrazemonth]

Mama weer all J-RPG crazee now

I've decided to write about my experiences of playing lots of J-RPGs across at least four different systems. Currently playing on the PSX, PS2, Xbox 360 and PC, and I can see some Nintendo DS in my future, if not Wii. The aim is to play all the J-RPGs that take my fancy, starting with a big heap of nostalgia for Final Fantasy games, moving through to "Microsoft's play-for-the-Japanese-market" Lost Odyssey and then beating Persona 4 on the PS2 As for why I'm bothering? The unexamined life is not worth living, maybe? Not sure.