A look back at: SaGa Frontier

Wonderful, I managed to finish seven entire stories worth of one game. One rather hard RPG too, then again every SaGa RPG is way tougher than its contemporaries. Seriously though, does difficulty make the game good or bad? Endgame bosses definitely are tough enough to scrape through even a middle-leveled party with ease, although with the right techniques, usage of combo attacks, and the always fun DSC, it's possible to turn those tables right around. I'm still not a fan of the encounter system that started with the Romancing SaGa games, but it's a little easier here.

Now emphasis on "easier", because I know how hard it is to survive encounters that easily do triple digit numbers of damage, and some scenarios are made harder than others. I always go for the Grail card first if I do the Arcane quest, since I mentioned how annoying the monsters are in the swamp for that scenario the more I leveled up. No bosses in that quest apart from Suzaku for the Shield card, and that's excepting the dragon bosses and the optional Suzaku recruit. I guess apart from the combos and the other stuff that I mentioned in the full review, the other thing I like is something not present in SaGa Frontier that I hated in the first Romancing SaGa, timing constraints in accordance to levels outlawing the presence of some events. Although some characters are not able to do some quests, either due to mutual exclusion or to character constraints, they at least make it not impossible to do the majority of them. That's the beef of SaGa Frontier, the sidequests. Sure, the main quests are generally good, but spending time doing the sidequests and getting the unique treasures is always welcome.

I'd love to see more out of this game though. Why so much cut content? Why does Squaresoft have a horrible habit of rushing things? They did that with the entirety of Disc 2 in Xenogears, and they cut loads of content for a release for this game. Asellus was supposed to have more storyline in dungeons that are now fully optional, for instance. Fuse's entire arc is cut completely too. Of course, I don't want to complain here, I'm happy with what was given. Especially since I probably would've taken another month just to do more quests, and on home stretches I tend to try to hurry up. Given that I decided to empty an entire memory card for seven saves and system data, I guess I have got my work cut out for me with this game.

Terrible RPG Dungeons: Part 6

Can't stop talking about these, can I? Returning to the Playstation because why not.

Swamp - SaGa Frontier

Currently, I'm playing through this game, but one sidequest that is featured in just about every protagonist's quest is the Arcane quest. One card, the Grail card, is one of the cards needed in that quest, and it's in the Yorkland Swamp. Problem is, in order to get it, you gotta get the schmuck bait. This basically means get drunk from liquor stores until they give the go to so you can head into the swamp. Only you head in there drunk, naturally, impeding your movement. You also got these eyes in places which are monsters, and they are usually a tier above the monsters that would normally appear at your current stat level (reminder this is a SaGa game so no real level ups). Every time you run into an encounter, everyone in the party is hit with a random status ailment, even with proper protection, making fights much harder than usual. The worst is the Kraken enemy which is especially tough, hits multiple times, and can use Maelstrom. To be fair, the Arcane quest is worth it, because training a mage to get Tower is worthwhile, but for those in SaGa Frontier trying to get this, do yourself a favor and get the Grail card first, and as early as possible, that way you won't have too hard a time.

Virgil Palace (Riki's quest only) - SaGa Frontier

As if right on cue, another SaGa Frontier dungeon. I've finished all the quests so far save Emelia's and Riki definitely has it the worst. Tanzer is pretty darn tough, but the real clincher in Riki's story? Virgil Palace, in Mosperiburg. Here's the deal, Virgil challenges you to eight trials, some easy, some gimmicky, and some blatant and annoying. Most of the enemies fought here are of the highest tier too, such as the Snowfolk in the Pacman maze section and the Dullahans in the graveyard part. Now those are actually some of the easier ones, along with the barrel hunt, the mini-tournament, the bowling alley-of-sorts, and the sort-of straightforward one. The high/low game show is weird but usually doable, and that leads us to two of the more annoying ones. I can't tell what's worse, the stupid spike room where deviating from the female's path puts you into encounters all the time (and she really loves to randomly move) or the magma slimes which completely take LP and are too fast (btw Riki in monster forms usually doesn't go past 7 LP, so good luck keeping him alive). And then you fight Virgil himself, in which you gotta utilize combinations to impress him up to a score of 10, otherwise he's just bound to curbstomp you. There's certainly challenges in SaGa Frontier, but Riki's easily the hardest one of all because of this one place.

Rockaxe Castle - Suikoden II

Look I like the Suikoden series but some of their dungeons can get on my nerves. Among them is Rockaxe Castle, the site of an important part of the story and a battle with Gorudo. Here though, the encounter rate is much higher than the rest, and in a way it's a bit boring if you've decided to bring some powerful members every step of the way. I think the reason I put it here as a terrible dungeon is, after the memorable event and battle inside, there's still treasure past the bridge where the event occurred. The Thunder Rune and Mother Earth Rune are rare but amazing runes here, but having to automatically leave after the event occurs, plus going through a monster-heavy dungeon all to get the rest of the treasures. It's tedious for a completionist like myself. Luckily the cockatrice enemies in this dungeon can actually drop additional Thunder Runes, and I was actually very lucky to get another one while going through here.

Honorable mention goes to L'Renouille Castle, an obvious ending fatigue dungeon which likes to give fixed soldier encounters.

Neclord's Castle - Suikoden

Again, the problem with this one is that it's long, packed with plenty of strong enemies, and while worth it in the end for an iconic battle against Neclord I again must go back through this blasted castle to get the optional stuff. It's more rewarding though, mostly because you can recruit Pesmerga as well as find a hidden Rage Rune. But still, there's so much to go through just for backtracking purposes, and an Escape Talisman doesn't work here either.

Honorable mention goes to Moravia Castle, which has a large bit of backtracking and tough enemies . The good news here is that there's no boss to fight in this one, but I still need to return to get...a useless recruit.

Darm Tower - Ys.

And now for our non-Playstation RPG, Ys. at least for the Famicom release barely had a helpful guide, and the confusing Darm Tower only caused me to be more frustrated than I would have wanted. My guide just kept telling me to go to some place that I know I couldn't reach yet for whatever reason. Add to that the enemy types which are still progressively tough, even when at the max level and absolute best equipment, and can still kick your ass, and there's just loads of frustration to do. A number of mini-quests here don't have a lot of hints to them. Lost all the silver equipment? You need them back, as Dark Fact ends up being impossible to kill unless the full set is equipped, and making it worse is that there's better equipment found in the dungeon, sometimes earlier than the silver equipment. What about that seemingly useless Evil Ring that kills you if you put it on? Need it for one small room in the tower. Then there's the mirror maze. Perhaps what really sucked was having to go back to Luta just to get the Blue Amulet, another instance of having no hints whatsoever. I'm so glad that despite it's difficulty, this game is short enough, but it's so rough and confusing that I don't want to touch it again.

RPGs: Balancing recurring characters in sequels

I have been very unorthodox with keeping this blog active. There's often not a whole lot to go by with it, but whatever the case may be, I still need to keep this active, so here we go, reviving this little blog series as I go along. This particular RPG cliche is as follows: "Whenever there is a sequel to an RPG that features the same main character as the previous game, that character will always start with beginner skills. Everything that they learned in the previous game will be gone, as will all their ultra-powerful weapons and equipment."

Yes, this one is as annoying as it sounds. The cliche is also called the Yuna Rule, as this character is a main character in Final Fantasy X and then later on in its direct sequel (perhaps the first time Final Fantasy finally decided to have some continuity with things). Of course, I sure haven't played those games yet, but I can think of others that certainly fit the bill. I've only played the first Ys., but reading a bit of story about the other games, it looks like Adol is gonna be the main character for the other ones as well. You can also look at the Mario & Luigi games. Whatever happened to those hand powers that the bros had in Superstar Saga once you got to Partners in Time? Did they just fizzle away or something? What about Disgaea's crew? I haven't played that series yet, but it looks like the main cast, despite spanning several games, isn't all too overpowered for the next sequel.

Suikoden II is a very interesting case of this, with a load of characters coming back to participate in the Dunan Unification wars. Of the ones that do come back, it's possible to train them in Suikoden, augmenting their stats, but that's about it. With a few exceptions*, these characters will have abandoned the endgame gear they had. Particularly blatant with Viktor and Flik, the first two returning faces you get to play with, and hey, looks like Viktor did dump the Star Dragon Sword by then (he'll get it back anyways though).

And then there's Growlanser II, my god, if only the first game had a proper translation so I can see what its about. But you can see that Carmaine, Xenos, and Ernest are major characters in that game, and are then playable in II, where did all their stuff go?

The only excuse for this particular cliche is gameplay balance, obviously it would be too unfair for the opponents to actually have to fight the overpowered guys from the previous game's ending. At the same token, imagine having a new protagonist with the overpowered guys, but the enemies are also overpowered. It's a tough one to compensate. It's a little better to reason with than a presumed super-powerful gladiator who joins a party only to be rather mediocre.

*Humphrey if you equip him with a Windspun Armor at the end of the game will have it (and he can't take it off), as well as McDohl himself with some pieces of equipment (can't remember which ones).

A look back at: Ys

This RPG took about three days, especially since I played the Famicom version, but do you think I'm gonna like something with a battle system similar to Hydlide? Obviously not.

It's amazing that Ys somehow became an RPG series, with a rather awful name and having this crummy battle mechanic. I guess later games end up being improvements, but I wouldn't know that until, you know, I get to them. Regardless, Ys is relatively short, but nasty hard, the guides practically prepare you for death when and if you come underprepared. I didn't even know how to equip weapons and armor at the start, thanks for NOT telling me how to do that. Ah, old games. I gotta admit though, finding a loophole in the battle mechanic and using it to gain free hits on an enemy is quite nice. All the normal enemies act the same anyways, they aimlessly wander, and if you hit them from the back, sides, or at an angle it's basically a free hit. The same for the player though. Unfortunate that the dungeons sometimes have corridors so thin that a hit could be unavoidable. Might as well stock up on the potions and better armor, oh, and they're quite expensive.

But after awhile, you don't need any more money or levels, since they cap off at 65535 XP and gold. Bleh. Anyways, the real reason I was annoyed should be obvious, the fetch quests and the easiness of getting lost. Those mines were a pain in the ass due to limited visibility, but they're nothing compared to Darm Tower. So much to do in that chapter, get to meet a few NPCs, oh wait, is that a trap where I lose my silver equipment? Yep, great. Thankfully I was able to equip the class under it for awhile, but having to find them back was kind of a hassle. There's also the teleporter maze with mirrors and the rest of the bosses. Needless to say there was a lot of frustration trying to figure out where I needed to go and what I needed to acquire. There's equipment better than the silver equipment? Cool, but I should be getting my silver equipment back first. Oh no, did you just tell me I needed to go back to that guy to get the Blue Amulet to reach the final bosses? There were no hints for that. Even worse, no hints that you have to equip all silver equipment just to hurt the final bosses (and yes there's two). Don't equip all of them and you're screwed. I'm okay with curveballs and hard difficulty, but only if I know about them, otherwise I just have WTF moments when I play things.

A look back at: Final Fantasy Tactics

Let it be known that I am not a fan of Game of Thrones. I'm also quite burned out on the classic dreary medieval setting. But even with those personal opinions of mine even I can't say no to Final Fantasy Tactics, since it makes a Tactics game with Final Fantasy traits and it works out quite well. Having to recruit and customize characters is always of importance, I spend way too much on it, and I also spend quite a lot of money making sure that equipment is of very adequate supply. Usually, you'd never want to buy so much of equipment, but here I gotta, since enemy thiefs and knights can steal or break the stuff. The propositions are a true hit-or-miss thing, they're not my favorite thing to do because they mean progressing in-game days walking back and forth. I'm actually surprised that character aging isn't actually implemented in this game. And who says it's a Final Fantasy game with a lot of bonus content. Cloud Strife as a playable? Not really too much into him here but the thought counts I guess. The Deep Dungeon being a dark multi-floored dungeon? Cool.

This is of course offset by the cool stuff you can do with characters. Throwing stones apparently is a practical way to level up characters, as is accumulating physical attack power. Mediators can invite, Dancers can dance hurtful dances, monks have a huge array of Punch Art, and then there's the different mages, plus the chemist who's an item trolley. The special units like Mustadio, Agrias, and Beowulf all get their own special default abilities which prove to be better than any of the recruitables, while Ramza has the ability to get Ultima.

I guess a complaint for this game is why exactly is the difficulty curve so dynamic? It's like if you went through one battle easy peasy due to the enemies being underprepared, and then you get a more annoying setup. Or you're in Riovanes Castle, Limberry Castle, or any multi-stage battlefield. It's seems so enticing to save once you're done with one tough battle, but having several without options to level grind have made players forfeit their entire games at Riovanes Castle for example. Thanks a lot Rafa, for suicidally attacking Elmdor when you should be running away from the enemies with the Masamune and the insta-kill/stop abilities.

On the storyline perspective, Ramza and Delita carry the game through. Delita ends up being the manipulator to a lot of nobility, while Ramza the heretic finds all the truth needed against this corrupt church and how corrupt all of the noble characters really are. The fact that this story chronicles the adventures Ramza takes makes him out to be someone who was only remembered as a heretic and not a true savior, while Delita who killed his way up to kingsmanship got all the credit. It's real sad too, you see Ramza and Alma riding Chocobos away from Ivalice since they know they can't return, while we can't be certain if Delita survives his stabbing ordeal from his queen. Still though, Final Fantasy Tactics delivered on a bittersweet story better than I expected, compounding it with numerous character deaths that the series so desperately avoids.

Final Fantasy series' inconsistences with death

I barely have anything to blog about these days. But even if that were the case, there's still some interesting things to think about. Right now, as I'm playing Final Fantasy Tactics, I'm taking note of just how many characters end up perishing in-game through cutscenes and/or otherwise. There's a lot of them in this game, and it gave me time to reflect on the series and games that had the more notable deaths. Might as well list the one's that are really notable.

II: Josef, Minwu
III: Elia
IV: Tellah, Anna
V: Galuf and the rest of the original heroes
VI: Cid (can be prevented), Gestahl, Leo, Shadow (can be prevented), Cyan's family, Rachel
VII: Aeris, President Shinra
VIII: Vinzer Deling

Those are of course the more memorable ones from the games I'm already familiar with, but there's a whole slew of characters that come near death or perhaps fake their deaths. I'm not familiar with II that much apart from what people have told me, but I know for a fact Desh in III jumps into a tower reactor, only to show up much later on. IV is incredibly blatant with its fake deaths, all of which tend to be sacrifices in some way. Yang jumping into the barrel of a powerful cannon? How could he survive that? Cid is even worse, jumping down a huge chasm with a bomb ready to deploy. And he's the FIRST character you see recovering. Somehow, despite Tellah NOT being able to cure Palom and Porom of petrification much earlier, the village elder of Mysidia could do it. Nothing makes much sense when it comes to these fake deaths.

In V's later stages, Lenna gets sucked into the vortexes during one of Exdeath's main attacks, and is eventually rescued. Although when she's back in the party, she's essentially dead, and her status also shows that when you look at it upon getting her back. But you could just revive her. You couldn't do that with Galuf, mostly due to the circumstances involving his sacrifice. There's also barely any effort to prevent Xeza's death from occurring, or Kelmar's.

Skipping over to VII, as VI had plenty of decent deaths and no real fake-outs apart from the preventable ones. Believe it or not, the two characters I mentioned above are the only two who somehow die, and both by Sephiroth's hands. Sephiroth's Masamune somehow just couldn't kill anything else. Tifa gets slashed completely across the chest in a flashback, and even falls about sixty feet down stairs, but she survives. Tseng gets stabbed in the chest at one dungeon, and is laying on the ground when you meet him there, but he's revealed to have survived despite not appearing later on. Finally, Cloud himself. He also gets pierced in the chest by Sephiroth like Tseng, but also gets lifted up. This somehow doesn't kill him, and Cloud even pulls a reversal and knocks Sephiroth below. And that's just Sephiroth's examples of not killing, there are others in this game. Palmer getting hit by a truck? Well it could be survivable and it is in his case. What about Rufus during the Diamond Weapon attack? Somehow, despite the earth-shattering beam, it's revealed he's okay. This is just not understandable.

VIII had a few of these happen, usually involving moments with Squall and Rinoa (particularly the end of Disc 1 where Squall gets outright skewered with a shard from Edea), it's hard to really follow them. The missile base mission also sees Selphie's group somehow making it out of there, using something...rather special. Laguna in one of his scenes somehow manages to push his injured comrades down a cliff, both survive (although Ward no longer can speak). Vinzer is just the unluckiest guy ever.

So yeah, get your deaths together Final Fantasy. Other JRPG series usually keep characters dead. Usually. Only a few times would they not, but this series is quite notorious for fake deaths. Not saying that death should always happen in these games, that would make things tragic and perhaps make the overall fanbase a little more secluded, but less fake-outs please.