jotomo
5 reviews liked by jotomo
I went into Dragon Quest Treasures fairly blind, all I knew (or needed to know!) about the game was that it's a Dragon Quest XI prequel about popular party member Erik and his sister Mia befriending monsters and searching for treasure. This sort of setup with a built-in hook is actually kind of standard for Dragon Quest. We've got spinoffs about Torneko, Yangus, that one smug guy from VII, and Monsters itself as a sub-series is basically just taking V's monster gimmick and running with it. I knew this stuff going in. I'm gonna hang out with my buddy Erik as a young'n and hang out.
What I did NOT expect was the absolutely insane, brilliant, addictive, joyous, dastardly gameplay loop of this fucking thing. Once you break into the meat of the game, you will be turned into an absolute tycoon with an army of monsters acting as truffle hounds at your disposal. Wake up by the campfire, set out on the open terrain and let those fuckers loose as they get to sniffing up valuable goodies made out of 3D models of Dragon Quests past. Fan service fuels the fire in your heart to absolutely rip this shit up and cash in for LUDICROUS amounts of money. Amounts that'll make your eyes spin like slots and show up as dollar signs. It's amazing. Feels wonderful. A game that makes you feel the way that health-conscious moms do when they describe a chocolate cake as "sinful".
So yeah, you play as a rascal in this one and you certainly feel like one too. TONS of fun that doesn't overstay its welcome, don't miss it because it's bound to be overlooked in a weirdly stacked season of mid-budget JRPGs.
What I did NOT expect was the absolutely insane, brilliant, addictive, joyous, dastardly gameplay loop of this fucking thing. Once you break into the meat of the game, you will be turned into an absolute tycoon with an army of monsters acting as truffle hounds at your disposal. Wake up by the campfire, set out on the open terrain and let those fuckers loose as they get to sniffing up valuable goodies made out of 3D models of Dragon Quests past. Fan service fuels the fire in your heart to absolutely rip this shit up and cash in for LUDICROUS amounts of money. Amounts that'll make your eyes spin like slots and show up as dollar signs. It's amazing. Feels wonderful. A game that makes you feel the way that health-conscious moms do when they describe a chocolate cake as "sinful".
So yeah, you play as a rascal in this one and you certainly feel like one too. TONS of fun that doesn't overstay its welcome, don't miss it because it's bound to be overlooked in a weirdly stacked season of mid-budget JRPGs.
This review contains spoilers
I was left with way more complicated feelings on this thing than I was expecting. It's a fun game to play, with a tweaked battle system taken far past the clumsy feel of the PSP version and a nice, compact structure that makes it a super easy game to open up when you decide you got some time to kill. Those side-missions rock and they have the same sort of goofy yakuza-adjacent tone that Final Fantasy VII Remake happens to strike as well, probably mostly due to this version's HD facelift.
The story and presentation and just... everything to do with that though, that's a different story. Zack Fair is a hilariously stupid dickhead and I like him a lot for that but I don't necessarily love him. The returning cast is kind of a mixed bag with Cloud and Sephiroth's parts being great and Aerith... well, I'll circle back to that. The new additions to the cast are genuinely baffling. Just the most bizarre personalities that never crack past a surface reading, given absolutely ridiculous importance in the story. It's really stupid in both the good and the bad way.
A lot of the character relationships don't really hold together very well. Angeal is too weird and hilarious to take seriously, Genesis basically never makes sense at all, and Aerith's friendship/hamfisted will they won't they with Zack swings back and forth between being kinda cute and incredibly forced. That forced feeling does kinda start to work on me though, as I started to read Aerith as less someone in puppy love and more as someone being a friend that everyone in her immediate circle just assumes needs to be paired up with the guy that fell through her ceiling. It's goofy but when I look at the character that way it starts to sit better with me.
Zack starts the game as a boot boy through and through, totally bought into the culture of war and capital that Shinra peddles off to its working class. He admires literal psychopaths and broken weirdos and starts off the game committing war crimes in Wutai under the vague goal of being a hero. This literally always comes off as weird and even if the game's creators dont necessarily line up with that reading, this angle keeps being supported by the game's events... so I think deep inside there really was an intent to make a sort of weird ironic hero story like this. The way everyone talks past each other. Zack barely comprehends whats going on in the first half and then suddenly his idol dies and boom, he's broken too and thus a hero to the lower ranking soldiers.
He makes friends with Cloud, in which case suddenly the dialogue is really well acted and endearing. In Nibelheim the game just ascends to a new level where the bizarre inclusions of the new characters start to bring a newfound psychosis into focus for the characters. The world is being ruined by a corporation, it's breaking all the "heroes" and now they're sick and dying with nowhere to go, and this whole time those broken people they admired continue to be a north star. It's actually unsettling stuff as the game crawls to its conclusion, a funeral rite that starts well before the heart stops beating. Zack asks if you think he became a hero. The game fucking ends! It's kind of fucking amazing, man I dunno!
This is one of the messiest, most uneven games I've played in a long time but I'll be god damned if it gets dismissed as something fans of FF7 should skip over. More people gotta learn that Final Fantasy Is Real Good, Even When It Isn't. This is a series that has been steadfast in staying interesting no matter what, and that includes this fuckin weird thing. This failed little J-Drama of a video game. Never before have I seen a game go from laugh-a-minute kusoge to actual compelling drama before, at least not on this level. I know I'm giving the game and its creators a lot of credit here but dammit this game made me feel stuff. Hats off.
The story and presentation and just... everything to do with that though, that's a different story. Zack Fair is a hilariously stupid dickhead and I like him a lot for that but I don't necessarily love him. The returning cast is kind of a mixed bag with Cloud and Sephiroth's parts being great and Aerith... well, I'll circle back to that. The new additions to the cast are genuinely baffling. Just the most bizarre personalities that never crack past a surface reading, given absolutely ridiculous importance in the story. It's really stupid in both the good and the bad way.
A lot of the character relationships don't really hold together very well. Angeal is too weird and hilarious to take seriously, Genesis basically never makes sense at all, and Aerith's friendship/hamfisted will they won't they with Zack swings back and forth between being kinda cute and incredibly forced. That forced feeling does kinda start to work on me though, as I started to read Aerith as less someone in puppy love and more as someone being a friend that everyone in her immediate circle just assumes needs to be paired up with the guy that fell through her ceiling. It's goofy but when I look at the character that way it starts to sit better with me.
Zack starts the game as a boot boy through and through, totally bought into the culture of war and capital that Shinra peddles off to its working class. He admires literal psychopaths and broken weirdos and starts off the game committing war crimes in Wutai under the vague goal of being a hero. This literally always comes off as weird and even if the game's creators dont necessarily line up with that reading, this angle keeps being supported by the game's events... so I think deep inside there really was an intent to make a sort of weird ironic hero story like this. The way everyone talks past each other. Zack barely comprehends whats going on in the first half and then suddenly his idol dies and boom, he's broken too and thus a hero to the lower ranking soldiers.
He makes friends with Cloud, in which case suddenly the dialogue is really well acted and endearing. In Nibelheim the game just ascends to a new level where the bizarre inclusions of the new characters start to bring a newfound psychosis into focus for the characters. The world is being ruined by a corporation, it's breaking all the "heroes" and now they're sick and dying with nowhere to go, and this whole time those broken people they admired continue to be a north star. It's actually unsettling stuff as the game crawls to its conclusion, a funeral rite that starts well before the heart stops beating. Zack asks if you think he became a hero. The game fucking ends! It's kind of fucking amazing, man I dunno!
This is one of the messiest, most uneven games I've played in a long time but I'll be god damned if it gets dismissed as something fans of FF7 should skip over. More people gotta learn that Final Fantasy Is Real Good, Even When It Isn't. This is a series that has been steadfast in staying interesting no matter what, and that includes this fuckin weird thing. This failed little J-Drama of a video game. Never before have I seen a game go from laugh-a-minute kusoge to actual compelling drama before, at least not on this level. I know I'm giving the game and its creators a lot of credit here but dammit this game made me feel stuff. Hats off.
It's honestly staggering that Final Fantasy XII is as good as it is when you consider its famously troubled development. This is a game with one of the most brilliant RPG gameplay systems in all creation, a semi-automated battle system where the bulk of the consideration happens before the battle. The perfect midpoint of tactics and action RPGs, with one of the most addictive progression loops I've ever come across. All of this collides together and sings in beautiful concert when you consider the vast open fields and intricate dungeons that this team has designed for you. Forget Final Fantasies X, XIII and XV, THIS is what we call fucking vast. Gliding across frontiers, trudging in catacombs, I'm not sure I've ever felt more genuinely immersed in an RPG. Nocturne comes to mind but slips in dungeon design ever so slightly.
All of this! And then you consider Ivalice. How exactly did we forget to design towns and cities in this genre? It was clearly once there, this game is proof that a world can feel lived in and populated, but as budgets balloon and resolutions multiply, we continue to lose the soul of a Place in these games. Kamurocho in the Yakuza/Like A Dragon games, that's the last great JRPG town. This game has like at least 5 cities that feel huge and memorable. A modern marvel. I've spoken about Hiroyuki Ito but I haven't mentioned that this game was once helmed by Yasumi Matsuno. He created Ivalice after all, and I think even at the beginning of the game you can feel that exact same voice ring out in the story. After some internal reshuffling, Matsuno cited health problems and promptly left the Final Fantasy XII team. This is something I knew going in, I was bracing myself for the story dropoff, though hopefully not quite as cavernous as Vagrant Story's more vacant chapters.
Color me surprised then, when I found out that the story still comes away rock solid. It's maybe not quite as brilliant as Final Fantasy Tactics or as thought-provoking as Vagrant Story, but Final Fantasy XII does manage to retain that soul. People point to the characters being relative strangers as a weakness, I found it beautiful. That we could have 6 people bound by hasty circumstance, come together for the good of their homeland. People complain that there isn't a strong main character, I find that an utterly fascinating aspect of the story. It's clearly not what was intended, in early drafts it was clear that Basch was meant to be the protagonist of the game. But god, just how cool is it that we have three duos of characters to latch onto. Vaan and Penelo, the little fish in a big ocean. Gateways. Balthier and Fran, the cool, aloof, free sky pirates. Aspirations. Ashe and Basch, tragic victims learning to forgive. Heroes. This is well rounded! The game makes you care! It just doesn't throw 15 hours of cutscenes and constant dialogue at you to make it work. Final Fantasy XII trusts you to invest with your gameplay. Play the Roles. People, either jokingly or dismissively, say the game cribs everything from Star Wars. Sure yeah, Gabranth is Darth Vader. However, in every way that it is Star Wars it is also Lord of the Rings, Godzilla, AKIRA, and allegory to the occupation of Japan in the 1940s and 50s.
Final Fantasy XII. I love it. Completely and utterly. I'll be back.
All of this! And then you consider Ivalice. How exactly did we forget to design towns and cities in this genre? It was clearly once there, this game is proof that a world can feel lived in and populated, but as budgets balloon and resolutions multiply, we continue to lose the soul of a Place in these games. Kamurocho in the Yakuza/Like A Dragon games, that's the last great JRPG town. This game has like at least 5 cities that feel huge and memorable. A modern marvel. I've spoken about Hiroyuki Ito but I haven't mentioned that this game was once helmed by Yasumi Matsuno. He created Ivalice after all, and I think even at the beginning of the game you can feel that exact same voice ring out in the story. After some internal reshuffling, Matsuno cited health problems and promptly left the Final Fantasy XII team. This is something I knew going in, I was bracing myself for the story dropoff, though hopefully not quite as cavernous as Vagrant Story's more vacant chapters.
Color me surprised then, when I found out that the story still comes away rock solid. It's maybe not quite as brilliant as Final Fantasy Tactics or as thought-provoking as Vagrant Story, but Final Fantasy XII does manage to retain that soul. People point to the characters being relative strangers as a weakness, I found it beautiful. That we could have 6 people bound by hasty circumstance, come together for the good of their homeland. People complain that there isn't a strong main character, I find that an utterly fascinating aspect of the story. It's clearly not what was intended, in early drafts it was clear that Basch was meant to be the protagonist of the game. But god, just how cool is it that we have three duos of characters to latch onto. Vaan and Penelo, the little fish in a big ocean. Gateways. Balthier and Fran, the cool, aloof, free sky pirates. Aspirations. Ashe and Basch, tragic victims learning to forgive. Heroes. This is well rounded! The game makes you care! It just doesn't throw 15 hours of cutscenes and constant dialogue at you to make it work. Final Fantasy XII trusts you to invest with your gameplay. Play the Roles. People, either jokingly or dismissively, say the game cribs everything from Star Wars. Sure yeah, Gabranth is Darth Vader. However, in every way that it is Star Wars it is also Lord of the Rings, Godzilla, AKIRA, and allegory to the occupation of Japan in the 1940s and 50s.
Final Fantasy XII. I love it. Completely and utterly. I'll be back.
Final Fantasy X
2001
This game is my best friends favourite game. It's definitely not mine, BUT I was exposed to it back in 2007ish when we had a weekend experiment. We decided we would dedicate an entire week in the summer to experience a game that the other highly regarded. Not only that, but in a series that the other wasn't very familiar with or fond of. For me, that was Final Fantasy. For him, it was Zelda. We spent a week trying to convince the other that our series was great by playing through both of them. We played FFX and Zelda: Twilight Princess (it had just come out). It was a great time and he convinced me that Final Fantasy was great. From here on out I became a pretty big fan of the series going forward. Ironically, he started to like the series less and less come the next game (at the time) which was FF13. I also had a downhill relationship with Zelda for the next game (Skyward Sword). Weird.
Anyways, this game has a unique but not over-complicated battle system that other turn based games should look to copy more often. I like most of the characters and appreciate the storytelling quite a bit. The music is beautiful, as it usually is in FF games. I also replayed it on Vita in the HD Collection. That's definitely the best place to play.
Anyways, this game has a unique but not over-complicated battle system that other turn based games should look to copy more often. I like most of the characters and appreciate the storytelling quite a bit. The music is beautiful, as it usually is in FF games. I also replayed it on Vita in the HD Collection. That's definitely the best place to play.
Final Fantasy X
2001
It's hard for me to think about what to write about FFX--so much has been said about it over the years! And if I'm honest, so many of my thoughts are so tied up in the experience of nostalgia and of playing it when it was new and I was a young teenager. So in lieu of anything massively interesting to say about its mechanics (which I love), or Blitzball (which I love) or the story (which I love) or the characters (whom I love), I'll just relay some anecdotes from my freshman year of high school in the fall of 2002.
The first in-real-life girl I ever felt anything for (I wasn't out yet, not for a long time) and that I knew I felt things for and I were in that girl's bedroom. We had met at the statewide anime convention earlier in the month and only then realized that we were going to be going to the same High School. We were both nervous and both ended up talking about how what we talked about at the convention was how cool Lulu and Yuna were and how annoying we thought Blitzball was. She turned on her PS2 and loaded her save; it was at the Shoopuf landing. I felt my heart flutter as she ran around.
The first time I ever truly had my heart broken was by the dungeon master of the first D&D campaign I ever played in; I was a sophomore and my Wizard's name was Yunalesca.
The first time I was ever stopped for photos by multiple people in an anime convention hallway and had multiple cameras snapping away like the paparazzi was me cosplaying Rikku; I cut my hair so short my mother cried. I was a Junior in high school.
I love Final Fantasy X. It made an impact on me. I think you should play it if you haven't.
The first in-real-life girl I ever felt anything for (I wasn't out yet, not for a long time) and that I knew I felt things for and I were in that girl's bedroom. We had met at the statewide anime convention earlier in the month and only then realized that we were going to be going to the same High School. We were both nervous and both ended up talking about how what we talked about at the convention was how cool Lulu and Yuna were and how annoying we thought Blitzball was. She turned on her PS2 and loaded her save; it was at the Shoopuf landing. I felt my heart flutter as she ran around.
The first time I ever truly had my heart broken was by the dungeon master of the first D&D campaign I ever played in; I was a sophomore and my Wizard's name was Yunalesca.
The first time I was ever stopped for photos by multiple people in an anime convention hallway and had multiple cameras snapping away like the paparazzi was me cosplaying Rikku; I cut my hair so short my mother cried. I was a Junior in high school.
I love Final Fantasy X. It made an impact on me. I think you should play it if you haven't.