You're All Bones - Medievil (PS4) - Finale

At last, we have finished our great quest. The Kingdom of Gallowmere is safe from the evil clutches of Zarok and his undead army. Despite living life as a charlatan and fraud, utter incapable of defending himself, let alone his realm, Sir Daniel Fortesque has finally "lived" up to the legend, accomplishing in death what he failed to do in life.

Join us in recounting once more the ending of this epic adventure.

You're All Bones - Medievil (PS4) - Part 3

Our bonely friend Sir Daniel Fortesque needs our help in his quest to rid the Kingdom of Gallowmere of the evil sorcerer Zarok. And as valiant heroes in our own right, who are we to refuse the call?

And where we are, things are looking positively eldritch.

You're All Bones! - Medievil (PS4) - Part 2

Sir Daniel, why are you turning all of your enemies into Roast Chicken!? Oh wait, it's because you're all bones!

Today, in our journey across Gallowmere, we encounter several powerful foes on our way through some of the best and worst Zarok has to offer.

You're All Bones! - MediEvil (PS4) - Part 1

Though the spooky season has wound down, there's still plenty of time for Fall Frights. In that spirit, I feel it is appropriate to play a game that Sony has opted to resurrect from my childhood. While not the best, it was a franchise that heavily appealed to me in many ways.

Let us join my friend, Sir Daniel Fortesque on his quest to save Gallowmere in the 2019 remake of MediEvil.



(This is a remake of a game I wrote about years ago, in case you were interested.)

Impressions #10: Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix

The fact the I am a fan of the Kingdom Hearts franchise is not much of a secret. Even after my critiques of the series, I still find myself coming back to it over and over again. When I found a copy of Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5: ReMIX for $19.99, I just had to make the purchase. Having spent much of my free time with Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix in particular, thoughts on the game are gathering in the back of my mind. Before I start, I would like to warn readers that I write this assuming you are already familiar with Kingdom Hearts, and have at least played the original release of the game. With that said....

When I started my latest playthrough of the game, I noticed that the Final Mix version of the original Kingdom Hearts changed the initial choices of difficulty. While the first version had only two choices: Normal and Expert, the Final Mix had three options. They were Final Mix: Beginner, Normal, and Final Mix: Proud. Having played Kingdom Hearts many times in the past, I decided to bring in some challenge by tackling the Proud difficulty. This became a choice I would regret at first, because the initial levels in the game are fairly brutal without Guard or Dodge Roll. Once the game opened up a bit, unlocking some magic and abilities, I changed my mind. On Final Mix: Proud, the game becomes much more about timing and positioning. If the player leaves an opening, the enemy will capitalize on it. On Normal mode, attacks do not inflict enough damage to be very worrying. Proud Mode is a different story. Foes can easily take out half of Sora's health with a single blow. As a result, I found myself utilizing magic and items a lot more than previous playthroughs of Kingdom Hearts, where I would mostly just attack, using Cure for healing. It added to the game in a way that I would have never anticipated.

Another thing I should mention are the scenes they added to the game's main story. Most of them detail Riku's involvement with the plot. None of the added scenes are absolutely essential to understanding the story. However, they do add a nice context to Riku's character and how it evolves over the course of the game. With these scenes, it is much easier to understand exactly why Riku joined up with Maleficent, and how she convinced him to work with her. Also, when Ansem takes over Riku's body towards the end of the game, the extra scenes help explain how he ends up on the other side of the door to Kingdom Hearts along side King Mickey. None of this is necessary for the plot to make sense, but it is nice to have the game explicitly answer these questions.

Aside from that, the story to the original Kingdom Hearts is all here, and it is as Simple and Clean as it was back then. The first game excelled at telling a simple, Disney-style story. It talks about friendship, heart, and the duality between light and darkness such that anyone in its E for Everyone demographic can understand. While later entries in the series will delve into the more complicated, Final Fantasy-esque storytelling, Kingdom Hearts started out differently, and the writing was better for it.

On a core level, this is the same Kingdom Hearts that I fell in love with way back in 2002. The combat feels grounded. I would not call it “realistic”, but it has a sense of plausibility that later games in the franchise did not quite recapture for me. Even today, the gameplay holds up extremely well. Hit detection is solid and the player has a lot of feedback with regards to when something takes damage or when an attack gets parried.

Having said that, there is key difference that I made a note of. In the original game, when Sora uses a technique like Ars Arcanum or Sonic Blade, he is invincible during both the initial attack and during all of the follow ups. In Final Mix, I noticed that during the follow-ups of either Ars Arcanum or Ragnarok, Sora is open to attacks, making both moves less useful overall compared to Sonic Blade or Strike Raid. I am not sure whether or not I appreciate that change. On one hand, the two moves are not as good as they used to be. On the other hand, not only were they overpowered to begin with, but their reduced effectiveness encouraged me to use other techniques instead. With the addition of new abilities and adjusted level up charts to accommodate them, the game feels fresh even for people who have already played Kingdom Hearts before.

Other notable changes help to bring the game into the modern age. In the original Kingdom Hearts, players needed to scroll down through the attack menu in order to select the contextual commands. The HD version of the Final Mix changes that by mapping them all to the triangle button in much the same way that Reaction Commands work in Kingdom Hearts 2. Follow-up attacks from Keyblade Techniques are also handled this way. Further, at the start of the game, players can choose to either stick with the shoulder button camera controls from the original game, or change it to the right-analog stick. When I saw the prompt, I personally switched it the the right stick as fast as I possibly could. These are both really nice convenience changes that improve upon the game by bringing it into the current gen. Shoulder button camera controls have always had issues, like their limited axis of effectiveness and general unwieldiness. Purists might be turned off, but I welcome the additions.

Kingdom Hearts always had a knack for looking good, even back in the PS2 era. Because of the game's use of bold colors and a stylized, cartoonish look, the game visually withstood the test of time. With the HD treatment, this is even more true. Everything looks fantastic with the higher resolution. However, given that this is still a PS2-era game, there are some noticeable graphical hiccups that games from that system were known for. For example, they did not have the technical ability to render a character's high detail face outside of cutscenes. When in gameplay, and even in some cutscenes, the faces on the characters are noticeably of lesser quality. As a port of a PS2 game, this is to be expected. Unfortunately, sometimes the higher resolution works against the game in this case. When uprezzing some of the textures for the character models, there are a few isolated cases where there is noticeable pixelation on them. Thankfully, it is no where near as bad as when Final Fantasy X-2 HD, where most character models had that issue. I only noticed in a few small, highly isolated cases. The pixelation is only a blemish on an otherwise highly polished piece of art.

Overall, Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix alone is well worth the asking price for the 1.5 ReMIX. As of the time of writing, I have yet to complete the boss fight against Unknown that was added to the Final Mix. I do not feel leveled enough to be able to fight him on Proud mode and right now I want to take a break from the game. I also do not currently feel compelled to play through Re: Chain of Memories. When it came out on the PS2, I purchased it and completed it 100%. As fun as that was, I do not feel like I want to do it again after doing it on both the GBA and the PS2. Nonetheless, I am extremely eager to purchase and play through the 2.5 ReMIX when it is released.

Impressions #4: Final Fantasy X-2 HD

Of course, after playing Final Fantasy X, I just had to jump into the other game in the HD collection. Final Fantasy X-2 presents an interesting time in the history of the Final Fantasy series. This game was the very first in the main franchise to be a “true” sequel. Up until its release, each main installment of the Final Fantasy series took place in an entirely different world with an brand new cast of characters. Final Fantasy X-2 changed that by taking place in the world of Spira two after years of Final Fantasy X, and even had one of the game's two leading characters reprise her role as protagonist. For better or worse, this is the game that helped pave the way for the Final Fantasy XIII sub-franchise. Having played through more than half of the game at this point, I have quite a bit to say about it.

One of the things I love most about Final Fantasy X-2, and was preserved in the HD release, was the revival of the ATB system from prior games. Though FFX's turn-based combat was still very solid even by modern standards, I vastly prefer the combat in Final Fantasy X-2. I have said, and will always say, that Final Fantasy X-2 represents the pinnacle of the ATB combat system. The ATB allows combat to have the strategy of a turn-based game, but with the real-time mechanics. Enemies and allies make move in real-time, with various gauges representing when they can make their moves. This gives the overall impression of more of a brawl between two parties than a tightly structured, “line-up” battle, which really adds to the game's verisimilitude.

While the ATB system was good, it is not the reason I like X-2 as much as I do. No, that reason is the Dressphere system. One of the main conceits in Final Fantasy X-2 is that the three party members have devices called Garment Grids that allow them to utilize special spheres called “Dresspheres” to change classes. Though this is similar to previous Job Class systems like in Final Fantasy III, V, and Tactics, it is fundamentally different. In previous games, players had to select classes before battle. FFX-2 allowed the three characters to class change in the middle of combat. Players can choose to assign different Garment Grids to the character and the positions of the Dresspheres in the grid. At any time, the girls can change to a Dressphere that is adjacent to their current one on the grid. The character will immediately switch classes in a Sailor Moon-inspired transformation sequence. This allows players to react to changing situations on the fly by switching to a Dressphere that is more advantageous to the current situation. The sheer freedom this system offers in combat feels a lot cooler than the turn-based combat of the previous game.

Character advancement also works in ways similar to older Job Class systems. Though the main party levels up as they would in a typical RPG, they do not learn abilities in the same way. As they use skills and dispatch enemies in battle, they gain AP which is used to learn skills for the currently equipped Dressphere. (The game presents a list of skills a given Dressphere can learn, and players can choose, within limits, which one to allocate future AP to.) This gives players the ability to truly customize their battle tactics and have each player character specialize in Dresspheres of their choice. Combined with the ability to change Dressphere's mid-battle and the revamped ATB system, Final Fantasy X-2 was a delight to play because it truly gave players freedom to do as they pleased.

This new-found focus on player freedom seems to have affected the storyline in Final Fantasy X-2 as well. Though the story will generally follow a similar course and reach the same final boss no matter what the player does, players are encouraged to explore the world at their own pace. The game expressly marks which areas in the game absolutely needed to be completed to advance the plot, but players are encouraged from the get go to put them off for a bit to explore and look for side-content. Further, some scenarios and situations will play out very differently depending on the things players choose both to do and not to do. It is a very reactive game at its core, both in the way players choose to develop their characters and in the way it gives players options.

One of the more contentious points of Final Fantasy X-2 is the overall tone of the story. Compared to its predecessor, the tone of this game is much more lighthearted. The female lead from FFX, Yuna, takes center stage as the protagonist along with her cousin Rikku, who also in the original party with her. Joining them is a new character named Paine. The fact that all three characters are female gives the game a distinct “Charlie's Angels” feel. Some people may be put off by the games “cutesy”-er nature compared to other Final Fantasy games, but those who are not can find plenty to enjoy here, despite a fairly mediocre overall plot. It is fairly campy and does not take itself all too seriously, which in my opinion improved the experience. I can see where people has a problem with it, but I personally did not mind.

As with the HD version of Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X-2 brings the extra content from the International version with it. However, unlike the case with its predecessor's Expert Sphere Grid, the content does not change the game in a very fundamental way. The game adds a few new dresspheres, the Festivalist and the Psychic. These both add some new and interesting skills to the overall skillset, but they are hardly game-changing and could be safely ignored by most players. Nothing particularly ground-breaking, but still a nice addition.

The other new feature brought into the game is the new Monster Capture mechanic. By completing certain main story events and participating in Monster Arena tournaments, players can earn “Monster Pods”, which can be use to capture monsters and event some human NPCs to use in combat. Once a pod has been obtained, the player can lay them down in specific areas to catch monsters. S-size pods capture small monsters, while M- and L-sized pods capture medium and large monsters respectively. Once captured, monsters can be swapped into the party in the place of one or more of the three main characters. A small monster only needs to replace one member, a medium will replace two and a large will replace all three. Players do not have direct control over a monsters action, but they can control a monster's moral. High moral will make them act more aggressively and low morale will cause them to be more defensive.

Monsters will level up just as a normal party member would, but only if they participate in battle. They can be further developed by feeding accessories to them to boost stats and learn abilities. Abilities can also be learned by monsters Blue Magic-style, where getting hit by certain abilities will teach them their own variant of it if they have one. Because of these limitations, it is highly unlikely that most players will even take notice of or use this feature. When a party member is replaced by a monster in battle, they do not gain experience or AP towards their equipped dressphere. This gives the player little incentive to utilize monsters. After all, every battle that a monster fights is one that a party member is not gaining anything from. Since the dresspheres offer enough variety in the way party growth/development can occur, there are almost no reasons for players to even think about using creatures. There is a “Monster Arena” that players are told can be used to test their creatures' abilities. However, since the main three protagonists can fight in there as well, monsters will still get neglected. It is extremely bizarre because I honestly cannot think of much of a reason why anyone would use them.

Lastly, it would be criminal to talk about an HD release without touching on the updated graphics. The HD update seems to be even worse here than in the HD release of Final Fantasy X. It is truly bizarre to see such low-resolution models and movements of many of the NPCs juxtaposed on this otherwise higher-res environment. The main character models fair a bit better since they have more detailed models that were easier to up-res. However, since most characters in the game are minor characters, it is easy to notice the lower resolution compared to Final Fantasy X HD. I am normally not a graphics snob, it would have been nice to do more of a touch up here because of how obvious and jarring the problem is.

Ultimately, Final Fantasy X-2 is a hard game to recommend. While I would say that it certainly plays better than most games in the franchise, the story is divisive. Further, it requires some knowledge of the previous game to truly understand the significance of many of the events of the game. People who dislike the new, extremely lighthearted tone of the plot might also have trouble getting into the game. Still, there is a lot in the game for people who do like Final Fantasy, or at least did during the PS2-era. The value here is extremely subjective, but I would say it is worth trying out at least.

Impressions #3: Final Fantasy X HD

As a Final Fantasy fan, it would be against the law for me not to buy the HD remake of Final Fantasy X and X-2. Final Fantasy X in particular holds great significance to me. It was the game the introduced me to the RPG genre way back when it was released in 2001. Sure, I had played demos of other RPGs before on those old PS1 demo discs, but this was the game that cemented what would grow into a great love for the genre. With that in mind, I was eager to see both what additions the International release brought on, since that content was added to the HD version. Also, I was curious as to how the game holds up in the context of modern game design.

One of the most striking changes the International version of the game added was the new Expert Sphere Grid. As most people know, in all versions of Final Fantasy X, character development is handled by the Sphere Grid. Characters gain “Sphere Levels” by participating in battles and acquiring AP. With Sphere Levels, they can advance along the grid, spending Spheres in order to increase stats and acquire new abilities. The Sphere Grid that most Final Fantasy X players are familiar with in the “Standard” Sphere Grid that came with the North American release. While that grid is still in the International (and, by extension, the HD) release, the option exists to switch to a new “Expert” Sphere Grid at the start of the game. This grid allows for significantly more customization of the cast.

A problem with the Standard Sphere Grid everyone is familiar with is that it basically partitions the grid evenly between all the character, dividing them into very distinct character archetypes. It was less of a grid and more like a series of corridors, where each character had their own to traverse. Though it was technically possible for characters to go into other characters' sections of the grid, that would be rare and mostly occur towards the end of the game when players had high level Key Spheres to break the locks separating them. Each character would mostly stick to their defined roles.

While the cast still have their own classes in the Expert Sphere Grid, there are gray areas where some paths along the grid intersect. As an example, Lulu's and Yuna's paths in the Expert Sphere Grid frequently have points where the ladies can encroach on each others sections. This means that Yuna can gain a bit of Black Magic and Lulu can gain a bit of White Magic while they both still generally stay on their main paths. (In my current playthrough, Yuna currently has all first and second level elemental spells.) The physical fighters also have similar intersections along their grid paths, which leads to them all being able to visit and borrow from each other as much as the player wants/needs.

I personally like this a lot better as this seems to really utilize the full potential of the concept of the Sphere Grid. While the Standard Sphere Grid might as well have been a standard leveling system for all of the customization it allowed players, the Expert version delivers on the promise of using a grid to let players more strongly control how characters develop. However, it exacerbates the problem in vanilla Final Fantasy X where Kimahri was the most useless character by far. In the Standard Sphere Grid, Kimarhi's section is the center of the grid. His gimmick is that the starting points for all other characters Sphere Grids are right next to his and blocked by low-level locks. Therefore, he can gain the skills and assume the role of another character. However, in a game where every character is a specialist against a specific enemy type, this is not all the useful. With the extra customizability found in the Expert Sphere Grid, Kimahri's gimmick is even more useless.

Another minor addition was the addition of new “Distill” abilities. Like the “Distiller” items in vanilla Final Fantasy X, these skills force an enemy hit with them to drop a specific type of sphere. (For example, “Distill Power” forces an enemy to drop Power Spheres.) These skill cost 1MP, so they are inexpensive to use. New weapons found in the game are also imbued the the property to inflict Distill statuses on the enemy. This helps players better control the spheres that are dropped by enemies. This does not help much in the late game, since spheres of all types are very common. However, this is a great help in the early game, where specific sphere drops can be more/less scarce depending on how far the player is in the game.

Surprisingly enough, Final Fantasy X holds up surprisingly well, despite some clearly dated game design principals. I think part of the reason for this may be that while modern Final Fantasy games seem to be aiming for a more action-oriented, cinematic style of combat, this one is purely a turn-based game. I do not mean to imply that real-time combat systems are intrinsically bad. (I will defend the battle systems for Final Fantasy XIII, XIII-2, and Lightning Returns.) Rather, that a purely turn-based game in the context of modern RPGs is a refreshing change of pace.

One of the things that was best about Final Fantasy X was that players can switch between members of the party at any time, even during battle. This means that if the player finds that another party member would be better suited to a particular enemy, they can swap them in to better fight them. Thanks to the way combat works, this is necessary. With the exception of Kimarhi, every character has a set of foes that they are uniquely suited to fighting: Tidus can handle agile enemies. Wakka can take down flying enemies with his magic soccer ball. Lulu can dispatch elementals and flans. Yuna's summons can take on large, tough foes. Auron excels against armored monsters. And lastly, Rikku can easily disable machines. The fact that every character has specializes in taking down specific enemies helps to sell that every party member is necessary in order to complete the journey to Zanarkand. It is a nice, small touch that adds to the game.

However, there are negatives aspects of the game as well. One of the biggest complaints that I have regarding Final Fantasy X are the Cloisters of Trials. In the world of Spira, summoners acquire new summons, or Aeons as they are called in game, by praying to the fayth, souls trapped in stone. There is a temple for every fayth. In order to reach the fayth of a temple, the summoner must attempt the Cloister of Trials to get to their chamber. (These are mostly mandatory and required by the story.) Each Cloister takes the form of an annoying puzzle that both halts the flow of the game and wastes a large portion of the players time. Usually, the puzzles are pretty easy to solve. Unfortunately, they are usually so slow to solve because of the number of steps involved in the solution. Virtually every one of these puzzles feel unnecessary and halts the flow of the game.

As for the HD graphical upgrade, it is interesting to behold. Although it is certainly pretty, it seems incomplete in a way. Though the major characters have very nice models, the secondary case and the town NPCs all still use fairly low-resolution models. Since the environments have also received a nice upgrade, this makes all the minor characters stand out for the wrong reason. There are also some interesting results obtained from the HD upgrade. As an example, Yuna's model in particular makes her look surprised at everything, thanks to the wideness of her eyes. Also despite the new visuals, the game makes it clear that it is a PS2 game at its core because of the way the characters move on screen. This is not surprising, given that it is just a visual update. Overall, the game looks really good.

As of the time of writing, I have not yet finished the pilgrimage to Zanarkand. Because of this, I have not yet fought many of the new bosses like Penance or the Dark Aeons. Perhaps when I have finished a more through playthrough of Final Fantasy X HD, I will write an addendum piece to this describing any further thoughts I might have on new content. However, I do not hold me to that as I might change my mind. Based on what I have seen though, there is enough here for both old fans of Final Fantasy X and JRPG fans who never played the original game to give it a shot.