Final Fantasy IX (Switch)

Spoilers!

So I continued with the next Final Fantasy I had on the Switch and what do you know, there is a fast-speed option here as well, the 12 hour challenge gonna be a piece of cake... 

*12 hours later*

... wait, I haven't even cleared the first CD portion of the game... this will take a while I fear.

Back when this game was released I remember that they discussed this game on Swedish gaming review show on the public channels and I think that was the first time I heard about Final Fantasy and I remember looking at it and being enthralled by the visuals. They showed stuff from the first part up until the escape from the evil forest. We didn't have a playstation so we never got it until we got the Playstation 2 and my parents gave me this game (together with VIII, VI, V, IV, I and II) one Christmas/birthday (for the record as mentioned other times, my birthday is fairly close to Christmas, but not on Christmas so I have a problem separate when I got what). The intro music fantastic, graphics looks good and I played it until the desert palace which broke me. I restarted this game so many times due to getting stuck at different places. I've only finished this game once before and this time I did it with a guide to do stuff that I normally doesn't get. For example the Chocobo mini game and the Mog Central.  So let's get started.

The game begins with Zidane, human monkey (?) that together with his bandits friend are gonna use a theater play to get into Alexandria Castle and kidnap Princess Garnet. Meanwhile Vivi, a black mage, tries to get in to the Castle to watch the show, but he finds out he has a counterfeit ticket so sneak in with the help of some rat boy. During the play Zidane enters the castle with his friend Blank and stumbles upon the Princess that tries to run away. Steiner, the Captain of the Knights of Pluto are sent by Queen Brahne to find Garnet and tries to stop the kidnapping. They end up on the airship where the play is played out and after some hi-jinks escape, but not until their ship is badly damaged by the cannons of the castle. The ship lands in the evil forest where Vivi and Garnet has been thrown off. Zidane and Steiner tries to save them and as Blank comes to the rescue while everyone else from the ship have escaped the forest they run out, but not until after Blank was turned to stone with the forest after pushing Zidane out of harms way. 

They are at the bottom of a valley and this world is special in that it is covered in mist which creates monsters, but is also the source of fuel for their machines. They have to climb to a mountain top where they find a town where they discover a black mage factory, since they apparently create them from the mist. They board a cargo ship and travel to Lindblum, the capital of airships. During the travel they have encounters with the Black Waltz, powerful black mages that have been sent out to bring Dagger (which is the undercover name for Garnet) back to Alexandria. In Lindblum it's revealed that Tantalus, the group Zidane worked with, was sent by the regent Cid to rescue the princess from her mother since the king died, queen Brahne became more eratic and was making deals with a weapon merchant that sold her the black mages. Cid unfortunately had been turned into an oglop (some kind of insect) by his wife Hilda when she found him cheating on her. Zidane hits the town and meets up with an old friend Freya from Burmecia that enter the traditional city hunt and Zidane joins her. After the hunt an almost dead soldier from Burmecia breaks in at the award ceremony. with news that Bumecia is under attack by Alexandria. Cid can't do much at the moment since he must gather his forces before he cam help. Zidane, Freya and Vivi decides to go, but at the bamquet before leaving Dagger put sleep weed in their food so that she and Steiner can return to Alexandria in order to stop queen Brahne. Zidane sets out and meet Quina, a quan from Qu marches that is this games weird character. At Burmecia Zidane overhears queen Brahne's plan to attack Cleyra, the sister city of Burmecia where the king of Burmecia went into hiding.  Kuja, the weapon merchant is there as well and when they protect one of the last Burmecian soldiers from Beatrix, Alexandria's finest general, they are left for dead as Kuja flies of on a dragon ending disc 1.

She hits hard

Now, in Final Fantasy VII the first disc ends on Aeris death. I gotta say, VII have a better start. More intense although they try here, but it just doesn't feel as important or dire. There are things I like more in this game though. The ability system is nice where equipment gives you different abilities depending on the character and if you get enough AP you can learn them permanently. Of course you gotta equip them from a limited pool of points each character have. This creates at least for me a reason to play every character since you don't get that unless you level up. Bad thing is, this took me between 35-40 hours to complete and then I had 3x speed on. I recalled when playing that I probably spent 120 hours to finish it the first time and the reason are the slow gameplay. They move like they walk in mud and the battles drag, but the reason for that is probably due to the player needing time to execute orders to counter the enemies attacks. I hardly needed to change speed playing VII, but here it was a good strategy to get things done without being steamrolled by the bosses. Also, sidequests suffers from the same problem as the condor strategy game, return again and again without knowing when it's supposed to. Especially the Nero family sidequest in the end. On one hand it was funny reading the lines, but the problem was that it took place during the endgame where after every story point you need to return outside and back to Lindblum (my guide said Alexandria so thanks for that) breaking the story. Also, you have 8 party members, 1 must always be Zidane, and only active party members gets EXP, meaning that some will always be left behind. Not even a trinkle down like in VII. 

Anyway, what's really going on in the story is that Kuja activilly tries to stage conflicts between the different nations and Alexandria and their grieving queen was an easy target. Plan was that Brahne wanted to rule all nations and was gonna use Kuja's black mages to get it together with the eidolons (summons) that Dagger possessed within her. Even going so far to sacrifice her. Zidane reaches Clerya which is destroyed by Brahne who was able to get Dagger and extract her summons. Zidane and friends escapes to the airship Red Rose and finds out about the order to kill Dagger so they teleport to the caste where they meet up with Steiner and Marcus, another Tantalus bandit that have the cure for Blanks petrification, that just escaped the dungeon. Zidane breaks in to a hidden basement and rescues a sleeping Dagger, but as they are about to leave are confronted again by Beatrix that subdues them, but when the order of killing Dagger comes she hesitates and questions the queen. She teams up with Freya and Steiner to give Zidane, Dagger and Vivi time to escape. This scene is awesome and the music on point. They escape by the secret tunnel that Dagger tried to enter the castle with and ends up near Lindblum where they meet Ramuh, the god of thunder that gives Dagger a stone that will teach her the summon Ramuh. They leave and at that time Lindblum is attacked and conquered by Brahne. Zidane reaches Cid that tries to keep the situation under control and they decide to strike at Kuja since without the black mages they can strike back. They reach Qu marches and meet Quina again and finds a tunnel to another continent where they meet dwarfs, find a village of black mages that awakened and hides from humans. Also the ruins of Maiden Sari, the city of summoners that was destroyed by a disaster 10 years ago. There Eiko, the last of the summoners lives with a bunch of moggles. She gets kidnapped by a mercenary that have harassed them on their way to the continent by the order of Brahne that wants the stone Dagger has. Another mercenary, Amarant frees her, but only because he wants to fight Zidane due to beng humilated by him some years ago. Zidane beats him and he joins them. They enter the Iifa tree and lears that mist are a byproduct from the tree as it siphons souls for some unknown reason. They defeat it and takes away the mist from the world. Outside Brahne's navy have arrived to fight Kuja since he is a threat to her dominance. As Alexandria summons Bahamut, the king of dragons, a giant eye in the sky appears (like the one that destroyed Maiden Sari), takes control of Bahamut and destroys the navy and kills Brahne.

You're the Queen? I never voted for you!

Dagger is to be crowned queen, but Alexandria is attacked by Bahamut, controlled by Kuja. Steiner and Beatrix (that seems to have fallen in love with each other) protects the people of the town while Dagger is drawn to a tower where the four stones of the kingdoms that Brahne gathered unleases Alexander, a summon that... is the castle? They never explained what it was, all I know it have wings that protected and destroyed Bahamut. The eye appears again and destroys the summon Alexander before Kuja can take control of it and we get to see Garland, the other big bad of the game. Zidane rushes up the tower and saves both Eiko and Dagger from the crumbling castle and they return to Lindblum. After turning Cid into a frog they set out to find Hilda since she is the only one that can return him to his self and they need him to build new airships to be able to continue search for Kuja. They travel to the black mage city where the mages have turned to Kuja since they have a limited life span and believes that Kuja can give them that. The last ones point to a desert and arriving imprisons all and Zidane have to go to Oeilvert to get a stone for Kuja. There it tells the story of Terra, a world destroyed and that they await to be resurected. Zidane returns, the others escape, Eiko gets kidnapped and rescued together with Hilda. Cid is restored and you now have an airship and can travel everywhere and the destination is Ipsen Castle where you get four mirrors and the location of 4 temples of the elements where the mirror needs to be placed in order to open the way to Terra. Done, enter Terra and it is revealed that Zidane is actually from Terra when they find the gnomes, other human monkies that are created the same way as the black mages and Kuja as well. Garland was created to ensure that Terra would survive by merging the planets, in that endeavor he created Kuja to wage war and siphon the souls so that Terran souls could take over the planet, but when Kuja grew to big for him Garland created Zidane, but Kuja tried to dispose of him and stranded Zidane on Gaia. During the confrontation with Garland Kuja takes control of the Invincible the airship that is the eye in the sky and uses it to overpower Garland and kill him. But Garland reveals the final piece of information that pushes Kuja over the top and that is that Kuja's days are numbered just like the black mages and gnomes he despised so much. Zidane evacuates all the gnomes to the black mage village and return to Terra that have been reformed by Kuja as he travels to the Crystal from where the universe sprang from in order to destroy all the universe as revenge. On the way you get an air battle with Nova Dragons as the sky fleets of Lindblum arrives and blows up the dragon while Beatrix and the knights of Pluto save the Inivincible with the airship the Red Rose. Zidane fights his way through different memories while the voice of Garland explains the story and fight of the four fiends that also guarded the different temples. You fight Kuja and then out of nowhere another boss shows up that want to bring the universe to zero appears that you still win over and then is teleported away. Cid picks up everyone up, but Zidane stays since he hears the voice of Kuja who was the one that teleported them back to Gaia and enters the Iifa Tree where the dying Kuja awaits and they reconcile since they both suffered as instruments of destruction.

Some time later we are back in Alexandria, Tantalus once again are gonna play the play from the beginning of the game. Dagger is queen, Eiko have been adopted by Cid and Hilda, Vivi has died but left a couple of kids, Steiner and Beatrix seems to have gotten together, Freya rekindled her love with her amnesiac boyfriend and as the play goes on Zidane is revealed to have survived and we get a romantic reunion as Dagger runs from her throne to jump into his arms. *sniff* I'm not crying *sniff*

*sniff* Alright I'm crying *sniff*

Loved the ending, except for the final boss. I must have power leveled a lot last time since I can't recall that it was this hard... or maybe I just leveled so much that I had enough Ability points to cover all statuses that are the biggest problem with the boss. Hate auto-death spells and apparently no armour to protect one self. Overall, a good game, it really charms me with all the references from earlier game like, Garland who was the first (and *spoiler* last boss) of the first game. The boss before Kuja looks like Chaos from the first game. The four fiends make a comeback and Dagger, a white mage is first seen in traditional Final Fantasy white mage clothes and Vivi looks like the old black mage. And the first complete party is a thief, knight, black mage and white mage, just beautiful. They referenced Joseph from the second game and one of the last dungeons are named Pandemonium like the one from II. Several items bear the name of important NPCs from III, I think the name of the last airship also is from that game. The two worlds and moons are from IV and the whole Clergya and Burmecia plot feels like the attacks on Damicya and Fabul. Also the dwarfs are back and the airfleet turning up to save the good guys at the end is the giant of Babel all over again. V... well, there is that boss that is a book, also travelling between the worlds and uniting planets feels a bit like the plot of V, but place four mirrors and enter a teleport was pretty much taken from I. A tree boss might be a reference to the final boss of that game. Could be that I haven't played through V all the way through in a long while since I jumped from IV to VII. Gilgamesh was mentioned in the game. I believe the scene where Kuja kicks Garland of the ledge is inspired by Kefka shoving off the Emperor of the floating continent. The name of a ring is named after an esper and I believe Terra might be not only another name for earth (like Gaia), but also one of the main characters from VI. You have an auction house and finally can get your hand on a model of an airship without a snot-nosed brat get his rich daddy to buy it from him. Now VII, they mention Cloud twice and for VIII you got the card game and one mention of Squall. Now music references, the volcano track is inspired by a track from I, I think Beatrix theme is taken from II and maybe the love theme is inspired by the same from VIII. Overall the music is fantastic.

I love this game with all it's references and call backs, especially now when I played all games. It's a bit slow in the gameplay department, but fixed in this rerelease. The mini-games like Chocobohunt was actually fun in the speedup version since they don't take forever and I think the games with that feature, but I like it. I actually got the card game as well this time and I actually won most of the games, but the guide mentioned that it wasn't that rewarding besides PS4 trophies... which the Switch doesn't have. The game was basically made for someone like me that liked the fantasy part in Final Fantasy and wasn't that keen on modern or cyberpunk final fantasy (which since finishing VII makes me rethink that point). Beside being a game that heavy romanticize the fantasy genre, it does have themes of being alive, having a soul and that life and death is part of it. Vivi tackles with the knowledge that he is a puppet creation, but have free will and that his time is limited. Zidane never thought of that until he is struck by the realisation he is also a construct. Even Kuja, but as the voice at the end mentioned. Kuja gave them hope in that he was the first that went against his purpose, akin to a Paradise Lost Lucifer who went against god. Also, friendship, but that is pretty much always a thing. If I ever do a run through all Final Fantasy games I might go for the cheats to speed up since who have 40 hours to spend on these kind of games anymore?

Final Fantasy VII (Switch)

I can still hear the music!

So I finally finished Final Fantasy VII. I bought this game originally for the PSOne back in the early 2000's when I was on a street fair at my grandparents town where they had this game and was the only one I didn't have of the Playstation 1 Final Fantasy games since all the others my parents bought me for Christmas and birthday present after we got our first playstation console (that being PS2). Now, I didn't finish it then. I got to the "final dungeon", but I didn't feel as confident at my capacity to win and everything else that you could do so it drifted away (mostly due to not being able to make time to sit and play since someone always wanted the damn TV). Then when I moved out and finally got myself a PS3 I thought I would give the game a whirl. I got to Junon and the military parade, but got stuck with my OCD-tendencies to 100 % it at a time since I was following a guide. And I returned to it some years after that and it wasn't worth it since I forgot how to play it, but now when it was released on the Switch I got the perfect opportunity as well as it releasing in conjuncture with my summer semester giving me 4 weeks to finish it off. Now, I finished it just after 1 playing it for a total of 25-30 hours.

It's regarded as the best Final Fantasy and one of the best games ever made and I can see it. It begins so strong with some random flower salesgirl walking in the city of Midgar as a train is on its way into a station. From the train the ecoterrorist group AVALANCHE attacks the guards and break into a Mako-reactor owned by the megacorporation Shinra and blows it up. You pay the role of Cloud Strife, a former SOLDIER (Shinra's private army) who turned mercenary and is paid by AVALANCHE to be their big muscle. AVALANCHE is lead by Barret, a one-handed black man supported by Tifa, Clouds childhood friend that put them in contact with each others. After escaping the explosion they head back into the slums of Midgar below the city and tries a repeat on the next day. They are caught in a trap and Cloud falls below the city into a church where he meets the flower girl who will guide him to his own sector if he acts as her bodyguard from the Turks, After finding Tifa who got information from a sleezy pimp about an attack on the pillar holding the city above their sector they rush back and find it enveloped in a firefight as Barret is on top fighting of Shinra's soldiers while the other members of AVALNCHE dies protecting the pillar. Cloud and Tifa runs up the pillar while Aeris (the flower girl tries to save Barrets adoptive daughter Marlene). AVALANCHE fails to stop the bomb being activated and the Turks have kidnapped Aeris and taken her to Shinra's headquarter at the tower in the middle of the city. Cloud and friends escape on a swinging hook from the destruction and climbs to the tower for revenge. They save Aeris and Red XIII (a sentient wolf) from the deranged doctor Hojo, but are captured by the president of Shinra. In their cells they are suddenly released and find blood trails in the tower leading to the presidents office where they find him dead with a sword belonging to the famed SOLDIER Sephiroth through his back. The vice president Rufus arrives and takes control and Cloud and friends escape the city in a motorbike and car and the hunt for Sephiroth starts.

They might look a bit weird, but remember, late 90's PS1 graphics

That part of the game is amazing. First that compared to standard fantasy fair that it is cyberpunk in nature makes it look cool. The music and atmosphere is fantastic and the action of that part of the game is supreme. It helps that it only took me 2 hours to play through that part since a function of the Switch port is that by pressing the R-stick speeds up the game x3. Especially important when I decided to redo the first part at Don Corneos place since why not try to 100 %? You could also give yourself the advantage to always start with "the overdrive" attack or take away random fights. I didn't use those since it took away part of the game, but it was nice be able to quicken up the long summoning sequences. And that explains 25-30 hours instead of the 60 it would probably taken me on my original run. Now, that is interesting since I recall that in Final Fantasy IX to get some secret weapon or whatever you needed to make it to a certain location within 12 hours which was impossible on its original European release since due to the PAL format it would take to long. I wonder if I will be able to with the Switch version. But I'm getting ahead of myself. So what's different from other Final Fantasy games? Like Final Fantasy VI every one can learn magic, but only through equipping materia that you level up by fighting and gaining AP. How much materia you can equip depends on your equipment and also determines how fast they will grow (or at all). Equipment is simplified to weapon, armour and accessory. The materia system was probably another reason I didn't finish it since I didn't get it. Especially since I had a hard time realising that the best strategy is choose 3 main fighters and equip them and no one else. Saves money and materia, especially since maxing a materia creates a new one that you can level up as well. And I got the tips to sell fully mastered All-materia since that would ensure no cash-problems and it did. Feels nice finally buying the house in Costa del Sol. 

So what are the themes of the game? It starts with environmentalism which is all the rage these day. The planet is dying due to mankind sucking it dry due to the megacorporations greed and they treat other human lives as trash, and then the world gets a much more concrete threat in that a meteor is heading for the planet caused by Sephiroth and only Aeris, the last of the Ancients (a highly powerful lost civilisation). Which leads to the most iconic moment of the game which I think best is summerised by the Clan of the Gray Wolf:

I miss those guys

Yes, Aeris is killed and Cloud pretty much goes into depression since Sephiroth almost made him do the deed. And that's due to Cloud being injected with Jenova cells (like Sephiroth and other SOLDIERS), but Cloud was experimented on after the incident that caused Sephiroth go haywire and Cloud lose his memory and made him merge his life with the SOLDIER Zack, that was Aeris boyfriend and the SOLDIER sent with Cloud and Sephiroth. Cloud was only a red shirt that failed to become a SOLDIER and was so ashamed that when they returned to his home town he hid his presence from friends like Tifa. Cloud falls through the lifestream, the very life force of the planet so Tifa and Barret leads the group, but when they find Cloud strapped to a wheelchair due to Mako poisoning Tifa stays and Barret elects Cid, a pilot that aspired to be the first man in space, to lead the group. Cloud gets better after another trip through the lifestream together with Tifa that unlocks his memories and confirms that he is Cloud and not just failed clone of Sephiroth. And as usual this indicates the end game and I just move back and forth until I have enough and finished the game.

I don't have the extreme nostalgia for this game since it wasn't the first Final Fantasy game I played, and I played it way later than it's release. Still I see the fun in it. The first part is amazing, and it's still fine up to the point where Cloud falls into the lifestream for the first time. It gets into aimless meandering and pretty much stumbling upon the next story point. Like me just exploring the underwater section and finding a key. Apparently important story item that I was lucky to find. Obviously people would find it by searching the sea anyway. Also, certain side quest is irritating. Take the Golden Saucer where you can gamble and get the best items of all, but you need first to pay with gil to play and hopefully win GP that you can spend on playing in the Battle Arena to earn BP so you can buy items. I hate that. Dragon Quest got it with buying points in the casino so you could play and they also enabled you to buy items. I get that due to the ease in maxing All-materia and selling it for 1.4 million gil in one go that it would break the economy, but at least skip the play to win GP segment since I suck at it and the most I got was the 30 GP from the Mog adventure that you only can win once. Even though I won't buy a Playstation 4 (or 5) for the remake I hope they fix this mistake. It's annoying. Or maybe there is some scalper somewhere and I missed it. Another side quest is the Condor reactor where you gotta play some real time strategy game and this time it was fine since I had a guide that told me every time I needed to go back to fight off Shinra, but another tip for the remaking team is that they should use the telephone to warn players that Shinra is on the move since running back and forth without a guide to see when it's possible to play it is just obnoxious. My first run I played it twice, first time stumbling upon it and the last mandatory one since I always felt pushed forward and didn't think you could return to the continent until you got the Highwind. But overall satisfying finishing the game. 

Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana (Switch)

Adol Christin is back!

While writing this I just started my vacation and if you are reading it at release I unfortunatly been working for 2 months, but what better way to spend your summer vacation with video games? And a game set on a deserted island, it screams of summer morning adventures. The latest game in the Ys-series, and I've only played Ys 1 & 2 as described here. It starts out at sea on the cruiser Lombardia captained by Barbarosa and you, Adol Christin, and Dogi work as sailors for passage over the Greekian sea. During the night the ship is attacked by what people would call a kraken and the ship is sunk. Adol ends up on one side of the island and later stumbles upon Laxia von Roswell... as she is taking a bath in the nude. Now, I won't deny that as a heterosexual man, it tries to cater to me and I don't mind that in particular, but... is the first thing you do as you washed ashore on a deserted island with several beasts on it, to take a bath? Admittedly, she had her rapier close at hand and was able to swipe at Adol as he approached... leading to her dropping her towel (where did she get that?) and exposing herself. What nagged me about this is that Adol got blamed for snooping by her, and she wouldn't let it go for the first part of the game. Which feels kinda unfair to me, I wouldn't know, but I at least wouldn't take a bath after being washed up on an island especially not alone. I've seen enough horror movies and others to know that isn't a good idea.

Besides that, you find the captain and start to look for other survivors to be able to build a camp and trying to find a way out of the island. You find some obnoxious nobleman, a doctor, Dogi, some kid and more. Meanwhile Adol, Laxia and the fisherman Sahad explores the island in search of materials and a way off the island. During the night Adol have dreams of a woman named Dana that was the Maiden of the Great Tree, a prophet of the lost empire of Eternia that ruled the island. Apparently evolved from saurian (dinosaurs) so basically reptile people. Eternia was destroyed in a Lacrimosa, a reaccuring natural catastrophe that resets the world by destroying the dominant species and you can pretty much guess that humans are next. So far it's pretty much the Lost World or other Jules Vernes work. And then it turns to Jack the Ripper. One survivor is a Romun officer in charge of apprehending the Ripper, a serial killer that was last noted aboard the Lombardia. And then the captain is attacked, then the nobleman and you have to find him... since the captain can identify that it was a man that called out to him. So the males of the camp is a suspect. There's Adol, the captain, the doctor, the nobleman, Sahad, Hummel (another playable character), the romun officer and the last person you found, a sailor with medical experience... it's the doctor isn't it? I got it 20 minutes before the game spelled it out. You fight the doctor, but he is able to fatally injure the captain, the nobleman i killed by the kraken as he tries to escape with a rowboat and the doctor is then killed himself by a freaking dinosaur. AMAZING GAME!

After that Adol tries to reach the north side of the island where the dreams of Dana takes place. The dreams become more real as you now get to play Dana as she lives through the end of Eternia with more saurian attacks, random weather phenomenas and as she gets visions of the future tries to guide Adol from the past by planting saplings that will keep ruins stable across the millenia or other "change the past" deals like moving a rock and so on. You also can do a special dungeon that tells the history of the kingdom. In the end Dana arrives in the future and it is revealed that the kingdom flourished with the help of the Great Tree that gave the eternians the power of essence, that is basically magic. That is part of the Great Tree's plan in causing evolution and rejection. It brings forth a dominant species and when it rules the world, destroys them and take one champion to continue warding the evolution. Four times before the age of man it have caused the Lacrimosa and reset the world. You enter the tree to release the caught spirits in the tree to power up your sword and after that beat up the tree. Adol wakes up and the castaways are preparing to leave. Dana is nowhere to be seen and everyone else have forgotten her. Adol travels to where the tree is supposed to be and finds a new smaller tree, with Gaia, the goddess of Earth explaining that she set up the tree to foster the evolution of all living things. And then tells them that they can meet Dana again by traveling through another dimension where they fight some creature and this for some reason brings back Dana as goddess fo Evolution and the bringer of the Lacrimosa if humans gets out of control and then they leave.

It was a fun game. While Tales of Vesperia dragged on in the end, this was fun from start to finish. It was fun gameplay with quick fights and grinding to get materials to get new weapons, armours or brew potions and other things. It had mystery about what happened to the eternians, the castaway rescue mission felt important and the characters gave me the feelings I was supposed to get. Sadly I gathered that if I had played Ys III-VII would have enhanced the game more since they constantly referenced events from other games and the only one I knew was Dogi the Wallcrusher since he appeared in the second game. Music great at times, the sad theme really got me in the end, and I think the captains death really hammered it in. Didn't help that all he talked about was his kid daughter he would see when he got home. *sniff*.

Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition (Switch)

Main character pose

So in wait for the (hopefully) coming off the Tales of Symphonia to the Switch I can at least play through Tales of Vesperia since I never played that before. And a good sign is that they actually bothered recording the song for the intro, most other games just use an instrumental version. And they also recorded voice over for the skits as well. And I like the voices here as well. I even heard Liam O'brian from Critical Role, although sometimes the text wasn't what was said. And that took me some time to get since I wondered if I heard correctly. And the gameplay is pretty much improved from Symphonia. Things like automatic use of items by your party members that you can stop by pushing the right stick and a new skill system that feels like Final Fantasy IX. Bad thing with that is that the AI goes through TP like snow in summer, and tend to use up all my TP-gels. It also have an overworld you can fly around on in the end part of the game. I like all that, and the story... kinda falls apart in the end. 

It began great with Yuri Lowell, a former knight that just hangs around the lower quarter of the Imperial capital with his dog Repide until someone cons the people by stealing their new core for the water fountain. Trying to catch the thief Yuri gets taken by the guards since they mistake him for a thief (and he has a history of causing trouble so the knight keep an eye on him). While captured another inmate gives him a clue to escape and during the break he meets up with princess Estelle as she tries to warn Flynn, a knight that is Yuri's friend and he gets dragged into that as they stop an assassination on Flynn. And the story takes of as they try to warn Flynn, meets up with Karol, a mercenary guild-member that never sticks around since he's scared (being a kid and all), Rita, the genius mage that studies blastia cores, Raven, the old guild spy, Judith, the krityan dragoon, and lastly Patty, the amnesiac girl looking for her grandfather, the pirate captain Alfried that committed a massacre. 

During the course of the adventure we explore ideas of corruption in those with power or pretty much mankind over all. They set this up with Ragou the senator and a commander of the knights who conspire to gain power for themselves on opposite sides of the imperial powerstruggle (the knights vs the senate) if Estelle or Ioder should be the next emperor. And that is fine... until Yuri kills them as he sees that as the only way to stop them from abusing power. And I can understand that. I like the idea since it also mirrors him and Flynn who chose to stay as a knight and change the system from within (and they wear black and white). The problem is that happens at the halfway point and there is no main bad guy anymore. So you travel around and try to stop the guild Leviathan's Claw that was giving the others weapons, but they aren't really the bad guys, they just profit on the struggles between others. Behind them is apparently the imperial commandant Alexei that people say had some ideals that made him go over the top to take over the world by using a super weapon from the time of the ancients. Meanwhile the Entelexeia (sentient beasts close to nature) tries to kill Estelle since her ability to destille aer (mana but not really since it appears later in the story) without blastia is a danger for the natural order. Now, the Entelexeia is trying to stop the return of the Adephagos, an eldritch abomination from the stars that feeds on aer, but fail as Alexei in his misguided search for power opens the shield that he thought was a weapon, killing him and leaving Brave Vesperia (the guild they decided to form) the ones to stop it before Duke, a characters that shows up from time to time, uses all human life to destroy it. 

It follows the rythm of the other Tales game pretty much, but where Symphonias twists and turns felt natural and the end goal was pretty clear, here I don't know. Alexei turns evil the last quarter of the game and a bit after that the Adaphagos appears in the story and then Alexei dies and leaving the Adephagos. Which you don't fight. The last battle is with Duke who belives that mankind must be sacrificed to save the planet since it was them that called the Adephagos the first time and again and again almost summoned it until now. And I agree with him, to stop this from happening take away the problem. And Duke was always this mysterious character that showed up helping the main characters, but reluctantly. But I got him. But as the final boss? No, the story fell apart there. Thank god that the gameplay didn't screw over me in the final battle. I accidentally shifted character and they all went into auto-mode and I couldn't switch back as the auto-mode wouldn't disable. Lucky my party pushed through. 

I feel disappointed by this game. Symphonia had the best final boss and Abyss the best main character. I like Yuri and friends, but Yuri doesn't have the arc of Luke and as I said, the end goal changes so you don't have that and the true final boss you don't fight. Thinking through the main cast, only Raven and Patty is interesting. And Raven I guessed pretty quickly that he played both sides. Patty took me by surprise and I don't know if I found everything in her story. Cause can't figure out why she looks like a little girl when she is apparently quite older than the others. I played the game for 60+ hours and I don't feel like playing through everything. It's not a bad game, it works and it distracted me for a while, but I don't feel anything for it. That or the fact that I stopped and played other games inbetween since the backlog is growing and soon I bought all Wii U and PS3 games again just to have them on the Switch.