Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

Ok, so I've had this open in my editor for like three months. It might be a bit incoherent.

So, the game I had been waiting for ever since the ending credits of Final Fantasy XIII-2 finally arrived. I have really liked the XIII series despite its flaws (refreshers: XIII, XIII-2), and I have really really liked Lightning. I was a bit skeptical about having only one player-controlled character in the game. However, that one character would be Light, and the series' developers already had a pretty good streak with game mechanics. As for the story, all I could really hope for was not-a-total-catastrophe. Honestly, with the given premises, you just cannot expect anything more. This is bound to become a long post; after all it's about the conclusion of something I have grown kinda attached to. Not a flawless conclusion by a long shot mind you, but a conclusion nonetheless. I'll start with the game itself and then write some closing thoughts about the trilogy.

1. The world is dying... or is it?

From what information we had earlier, I got the impression that it would be Lightning in a practically dead world. Apparently this is not really the case; for a dying world there sure is a lot of civilization going on. Granted, just in a couple of cities and some rural villages but nevertheless, life goes on, business as usual. There's surprisingly little to indicate that the world is dying. Sure, we are told about how the chaos is going to swallow up everything (which I thought happened at the end of FFXIII-2) and that God will awaken in thirteen days to destroy this world and create a new one. The ticking clock in the UI is ultimately almost the sole indicator that we're running out of time. That aside, this could be any standard issue JRPG world. As a quirk, people have stopped aging which makes them at least 500 years old. There's also the matter of new people not being born.

The lack of enthusiasm in the previous paragraph reflects the problem: the promising theme is underplayed to an extent it might as well not exist. The time pressure, although criticized in many reviews, does work fairly well as a game mechanic. I just didn't feel it. There are multiple problems that cause this - and we'll eventually get to them - but in general the end of the world just isn't present in the world. Another thing is that having lived for over 500 years is not really reflected in the people either. The game treats it mostly like a quirk, and makes jokes about it. I would believe living for 500 years while not getting any older ever leaves a strong impression on people, but nope, the folks you meet could be just regular people from any RPG. Apparently they have been doing the exact same thing for greater part the last 500 years. Apparently children also haven't grown up mentally at all.

If we look at the time limit from a more mechanical perspective though, it does create some dynamics. Throughout the game, Light proceeds main and side quests in four different game areas. Things also do change depending on the time of the day: different monsters are encountered at different times, certain events are timed, some areas have time-limited access etc. Time doesn't run in combat, cutscenes, conversations or menus. Light can also use her newly-acquired divine powers to temporarily freeze time provided she has the Eridium Points (EP) to do so. EP can also be used for teleporting between game areas -  the alternative is taking a train, but that option always consumes time. EP is regained by fighting monsters. It's actually not all that hard to practically gain infinite time, especially on normal (EP rewards are halved on hard). Basically the player just uses Chronostasis (the time freezing ability) constantly while stopping to fight monsters frequently enough to regain lost EP.

Once you get Chronostasis abuse down, the time limit almost entirely disappears from the game. Even on my first playthrough I was able to complete almost every quest in the game, with one exception being a quest that required visiting the NPC on four or five separate days. I discovered this quest so late that I no longer had enough days left. On my second playthrough I followed a guide and completed almost every quest within the first four days. For a game that has thirteen days that's a bit... I dunno, disappointing? On the first playthrough though the mechanic was just fine. Taking care of EP economy and completing quests efficiently were to me more interesting than just casually strolling around places. It's not super easy to regen enough EP by the way, because most small monsters give very little. EP is also useful for healing and using Overclock to defeat bosses (that's a combat time freeze).

2. Yet another quest rant

I wanted to devote an entire section to the most gaping flaw in Lightning Returns: the way the game handles its pacing through main and side quests. I think this is where it shows most that the XIII saga just hasn't been a commercial success, and developers were on a really limited budget. The main quest is divided into five independent quest threads. Each area has its own main quest, and then there's one that kind of spans all four areas. As a structure there's nothing wrong with this. However, the threads are insanely short. Like, really, really short. Most players are likely to blow through the main story content in way less than thirteen game days, which leaves them with only side quests to fill the remaining days. Not cool, Square-Enix, not cool at all. You always have to wait until the last day to finish the game, which just leaves an enormous amount of downtime.

This is made worse by the fact that you cannot continue with sidequests after finishing the game. Everything except Light's stats and equipment resets so on a subsequent playthrough, you get to do every quest again (for a diminished reward; it's worth notice at this point that stats are gained only from completing quests). So, if you actually want to do as much as possible (kind of encouraged by the game), you're stuck with doing sidequests for a long time before you can finish the game. Indeed, most of the game's content is made of sidequests. It's the same disease that is currently plaguing RPGs from every corner of the world - a topic I've been writing about on more than one occasion. As an interesting twist, this time there is actually a plausible plot explanation for doing sidequests. That in itself would be a good thing, were it not for the horrible quality of quests.

The in-game explanation is this: Lightning has to find souls worth saving so that they can be reborn into the new world. Which, as a concept, is actually quite impressive - an entire game could easily be built around just that. It's a cool concept, but the game forgets its own explanation after the very first saved soul. After that, we're off to goofville, running pretty run-of-the-mill errands for whoever has an incredibly dumb problem. Some of the quest givers are pretty much the worst people around, which is in a damn direct contradiction with saving worthy souls. This overall goofiness of side quests is also at odds with the game's theme, and is indeed one of the biggest contributing factors why it just doesn't feel like the world is ending. Doing the quests themselves is pretty decent busywork gaming and kept my ludic side entertained.

The best part about these quests is hearing Light and Hope's comments about how stupid some of these tasks or people are. I guess you could find some kind of interesting metacommentary here. Then again, with all the effort put into these quests - giving some resemblance of personality to the quest givers and voice acting every single line in the game - having even the protagonist comment on their stupidity might not be what you'd want. In fact, most of the quests are so out of character for Light that I just cannot see her partaking any of that crap were it not for her savior duty (which writers conveniently put into the game). Of course in most games sidequests feel just as much out of place and out of character. Most games don't even bother with giving a plausible explanation for doing them, and I'm not sure which is worse. For this reason I find it usually best to leave majority of sidequests for the post-game - the post-game is typically something that is entirely separated from the game's fiction anyway.

Well, people did complain when there were no sidequests in FFXIII. Now we have them by the bucket. Most of the quests are truly just busywork; the only one that requires some strategy is the quest to defeat the toughest monster in the game (no pushover that one).

3. Fight in style

Alright, we've now concluded that the game is horrible. So, how come I enjoyed playing it for about 90 hours total? As with its predecessors, the answer is mostly in its mechanical side. Since we only have one character to control, the system has been pretty heavily revamped. I was actually a bit worried about this initially because there was just no way the combat system and other mechanics from XIII/-2 would work with a single character. Fortunately the developers have done the right thing: the feel is there, but the mechanics have been tailored for a single character. The fancy word of the week is Schemata, which is basically the replacement for Paradigm. Where paradigms were role configurations for a party, Schemata is more like a class configuration. I guess you can also see it as an excuse to dress Light up in different outfits. Either way, let's dive into details.

Light can have three active schemata (I guess the singular was schema, not 100% sure but I'll go with that) that she is able to switch freely between in combat. Freely as in even in the middle of being hit by an attack. Each schema is a combination of a bunch of things. For each schema, its chosen garb defines its base characteristics. All garbs have two attributes: max ATB and initial ATB. The first of these tells how much the garb increases Light's max ATB when using the schema. The latter defines which percentage of the ATB is filled at the start of battle. These are two out of three parameters of the schema's ATB economy and we'll get back to them in a bit. On top of these mandatory attributes, a garb usually has a special ability - these can be anything from simple buffs (like +10% HP) to more complex. Finally a garb can have up to four fixed abilities that cannot be unequipped (and they can have sub-abilities). Most garbs have one or two.

Each schema also has to include a weapon and a shield. Both of these can influence the schema quite heavily, and especially the weapon is at least as important in defining the schema's strengths as the garb is. The shield has less impact and is generally chosen to complement the weapon + garb combination. Each schema also has a head accessory that can have quite huge impact, and a wrist accessory that affects every schema but has less impact. Finally, the ability slots left free by the garb can be filled with abilities from four categories: attacks, magic attacks, debuffs and guards. Each ability slot corresponds with a thumb button. Like garb abilities, these can also have sub-abilities. There's also a system called ability synthesis which I'll leave to a separate section. Finally one ornament can be selected for the schema. These are just cosmetic items and their visual design is generally so awful I never used them. I'll talk about visuals a bit more, but first, more important matters.

If we go over the list, one thing worth notice is that at any time the player can have at most 12 abilities equipped and almost always at least two or three of these are fixed because of the garbs. There are roughly three different archetypes for schemata: physical attacker, magic attacker and utility. Creating one of each is a possible approach and there are advantages to doing this. Most importantly, a lot of weapons come with a preference for either strength or magic. Focusing all physical damage on a schema with a high strength weapon would therefore make a lot of sense. There's also the matter of guarding. Usually there's no need to devote a schema for guarding - even in the most extreme case you'd only want maybe 2 guard skills on a single schema. Especially in the early parts of the game it's advantageous to have a guard ability on every schema, and behind the same button, to make guarding easier in hectic situations.

Assuming we put a guard on every schema, there's nine slots left. These should go towards damage and utility. Most utility spells are situational because enemies tend to have status immunities. There's four elements in the game, and covering all of these is advantageous for obvious reasons. It would be best to cover all four with both magic and physical damage, but that would be a bit greedy. There are dual element spells in the game though, and in some situations they can cover two elements with one ability slot - or they can bite you in the ass. Optimal ability setups are generally contextual. For each of the game's four areas, usually one element can be omitted. For some elements in some areas it's good to have two abilities, on different schemata - one magic, one physical - largely because some enemies can have huge reduction to either magic or physical damage.

My opinion on this is a bit divided. I like the fact that you need to consider ability builds and in general build your schemata so that they complement each other. The downside is that there's a lot of abilities in the game that don't really see any use because by the time all the necessary abilities have been picked, there's no space left for nice-to-have abilities. Take Magnet for instance. It's a good spell for crowd control because it pulls enemies together for easy AoE annihilation. Sadly, large groups of enemies are actually quite rare which makes it a dead ability in most encounters. The speed up in large group encounters isn't that dramatic either, so it just doesn't see use. I didn't find myself using AoE physical attacks too much either, nor did I really use single target magic attacks. Internal imbalance between abilities is of course a very common problem in RPGs but the slot limitation really makes sure that none of situational abilities get used.

There's also a UI problem that really discourages switching ability configurations. The game does allow the player to create reserve schemata and swap them easily. However this feature is pretty much useless because each garb, weapon, shield, accessory and ability can only be equipped on one schema, be it active or inactive. This means that it's only useful for creating completely different schemata and that is almost never the case. It would be far more useful to be able to store variations. This could easily be done by being able to save schemata setups - much like in FFXIII-2 where the player was able to save three different paradigm setups. A lot of the garbs are also highly situational which makes them tiresome to use because of the work involved in editing schemata. It's just more convenient to have a general purpose setup and only switch a few abilities based on which area you're in.

The system is at its best when preparing for bosses. There is no single boss setup that would be good for all of them. Here the limitations actually create an interesting planning exercise because builds can have a lot of impact. Being able to squeeze in one or two extra abilities or even sub-abilities can make a big difference. It also can matter a lot on which schema each ability is placed. For me at least shuffling garbs, weapons, accessories trying to find a solid setup for a boss was fun. This is vastly helped by the fact that there are bosses that are not pushovers. Overall, with a more friendly UI this system would be great. Now it's mostly interesting for bosses only.

4. Active Time Battle - The Game

ATB economy is another factor that heavily influences all schemata choices. Each individual schema has three ATB-related components: maximum ATB, initial ATB and ATB recovery. Each ability costs a certain amount of ATB to use, with stronger abilities costing more. Maximum ATB defines how many abilities the player can cast with the schema. Initial ATB is mostly relevant in short encounters. Having a low initial ATB makes it difficult to fight because the player cannot cast a full combo of spells at the start of battle. It's usually fine to have low initial ATB on one schema and use it to finish off enemies. ATB recovery dictates how quickly the schema will come back online after spending ATB. Some recovery happens when a schema is active, but the recovery rate of inactive schemata is much higher. The basic principle is therefore to spam abilities from one schema until it runs out of ATB and then switch.

This make the system somewhat equivalent to having three characters that take turns. Somewhat, because it really depends on things like ATB recovery. This means that, for example, if you really need to dish out a lot of physical damage continuously, having physical attacks on only one schema doesn't make sense. Kind of throws a wrench into the simple approach of having one magical attack schema and one physical attack schema. Guarding also consumes ATB which means there should at all times be some ATB in reserve on a schema with a guard ability equipped. The overall ATB economy of schemata is really important in the game because running out of ATB often means the player is in deep trouble. In all honesty it mostly just means a fight takes a longer time but... yeah, running out of ATB is annoying. If you remember how stagger works in the previous installments of the trilogy, you probably know why.

The stagger system is mostly the same. While in XIII/-2 stagger power and maintenance depended on roles, in LR each ability has both of these as stats. Generally speaking, abilities with high stagger power have shit maintenance and the other way around. Having to maintain stagger is usually inefficient and I found it better to use abilities with high stagger power almost exclusively. However, when maintenance is very low, running out of ATB before the enemy is staggered pretty much forces the meter back to zero. Likewise, enemies don't stay in stagger state for very long usually, which means having no ATB available for dishing out damage when that happens is also kind of annoying. Having no ATB available for guarding of course gets beyond being annoying to being outright lethal. All in all, ATB economy is a highly important part of the game, especially when planning schemata.

There are some other changes in the stagger system too. Enemies now have varying stagger conditions which is a welcome change. The effects of staggering also vary. Some enemies are disabled for a while, whereas others simply get some bonus debuffs that increase damage taken etc. Staggering also does not seem to be so strongly connected to attack damage. Because the fighting pattern is still the same (i.e. stagger an enemy, then max DPS), it generally makes sense to tune one or two schemata towards staggering power instead of high damage. My usual setup was to have one schema for magic damage/stagger, another devoted to really fast staggering using physical attacks and a third for guarding, physical DPS and debuffing. Most of the fighting is done in the first two schemata and the third one is visited briefly to cast debuffs, guard and finish off staggered enemies. Physical attacks are in general better for pure damage because their animation is shorter.

There are a bunch of other variables that affect ATB economy. Certain subabilities have conditional ATB recovery. For instance one of the most useful garbs in the game boosts the recovery rate of inactive schemata even further. Finally, if you use Overclock (a massive slow for a short time, almost a freeze), you instantly recover full ATB for the Overclock duration and also after it ends. This makes it insanely good for building stagger or dishing out some serious damage. Basically you can spam a full ATB's worth from one schema, then OC for more attacks and then spam another full ATB's worth again. OC costs EP however, and EP is also used for healing - so it needs to be used sparingly. Note that HP is not recovered after battles and Light actually has a very limited inventory for healing items.

Limited availability of healing is indeed another important factor in this game. Long runs without shopping in between have the risk of running out of healing. This is somewhat alleviated by the game's structure as it generally doesn't have long dungeons. I am a fan of limited healing inventory, because it means the threat of damage in every battle is more real.

5. Lightning develops

Character development has taken some interesting turns. Aside from the garb system that was already discussed quite a bit, there definitely are changes. There are no levels or experience points in the game at all. Instead you get stats directly as quest rewards. This is fine, though I have to say that stat changes are rather invisible. The difference will be noticed over a long time, but the impact of a single stat point increase is not noticeable at all. This is pretty usual in JRPGs because the stat range is generally huge and stat math is not transparent. So basically the player just goes with the assumption that more is better. Because all quests can be completed in every run, there are no real choices in raising Light's stats. The more interesting powering up system is ability synthesis.

In a way this system is a watered down version of what we had in Crisis Core - the player collects tons of abilities and can then fuse them together. The fundamental difference is that the process doesn't result in new abilities - instead, the fusion result is a slightly stronger version of the ability. The system is also really simple, because abilities can only by fused with the same ability of the same level. Abilities can only be leveled up with special items, and leveling beyond 3 is limited to NG+. Basically fusing abilities mostly increases damage while leveling up decreases ATB cost on top of increasing damage. The system is grindy as hell, because in order to level up, you first have to fuse an ability to the current level's maximum. Fortunately, abilities always retain the best value in each stat when fused. All in all fusion rules are incredibly simple, and the formula for the ultimate version of an ability is straightforward.

Subabilities add a minor complication on top of the system. Each ability has a range of possible subabilities. The subability of the ability selected first is always preserved, so the inheritance rules are really simple. Although the possibilities of the system are rather lackluster, one thing I like about the ability system is its transparency. This could be the first game in the entire series where damage can actually be calculated from information offered by the game, because each ability's damage value is presented as a multiplier. Which means you just multiply either attack or magic by that, and there's your average damage. Some experimentation is still required to figure out how good animations each attack has though. The biggest problem with the system is the huge amount of abilities the player has to obtain and carry in their limited ability inventory.

There's also a way to level up weapons, shields and accessories but only in NG+. All in all, individual development systems are rather underwhelming in their simplicity. The appeal as we discussed is in constructing schemata. But why garbs cannot be also leveled up?

6. Garbs - or garbage?

The final topic that I feel needs to be addressed is the game's garb design. If we look back at the previous FF game that had characters changing dresses, the visual design was honestly not that great. Like if you compare FFX-2 dresses to actual main dresses of characters in the series, it's fairly obvious not nearly as much effort has been put into them. It's pretty safe to say the same goes for Ligthtning Returns really. Although there are like a hundred or whatever of garbs, most of them are constructed of non-unique parts. It makes the visual design a bit repetitive. It's nice that the player can color customize their garbs, but it's not so nice that the ability to do so is rather inconsistent. Some garbs only allow customization of minor details, way more often than it's justified. I feel that full color customization would have been better, because some of the color schemes are effing disgusting.

However the big question really is: how tasteful are the designs. The answer is: it really varies. Most of the stuff is in the middle ground - not really impressive, but not bad either. There are very few really cool designs, ones that actually fit Light's character well, and then you have your skimpy fan service garbs that are just way out of character. There's also the assortment of highly impractical garbs like full blown gowns, some of which do look good. Impracticality is not much of a bother for me because it's just the way things are in Japanese hero fiction in general. As for skimpiness, in this case it does disturb me because I really feel like Light is a character and I don't think dressing up in fetish catalog inventory is her preference. I mean she's a do-shit type, and I'd expect her to dress in do-shit garbs. This is more or less in line with my previous thoughts.

So there's a bunch of garbs in the game that I look at and go "yeah, I'm not gonna have Light wear that". The upside is, I don't have to because there's enough garbs in the game to choose from. Of course it will be a bit more problematic if the fetish catalog garbs had some highly desirable abilities. For whatever odd reason they actually very rarely do. Another alleviating factor is that of the three garbs in a schemata, only one is used outside battle; and during battle, there's really not much time to be bothered by how Light looks - unless you win a fight with a garb, then it's shown in the victory screen. Most importantly, only one of the garbs is shown in cutscenes. It means that as long as one out of three schemata looks decent enough, it's easy enough to just not really care all that much.

We can of course argue how sexist it is to give the player the power to dress Light up in questionable outfits. I am mostly indifferent to this, although of course I would prefer if all garbs would be a better fit for Light's personality. Of course, my personal interpretation of Light's character is unlikely to match that of other players, who may have different ideas what can be considered a suitable garb. The amount of blatant fetish garbs is actually pretty low, and the rest, I feel, are more up for interpretation. This is something I find a bit tricky in the entire female character clothing debate. Like in this case most outfits look like someone could easily wear them in public. The thing with game characters is that we really don't often know their clothing preferences because - let's be honest here - wardrobe talk is not exactly common in games. This means inappropriateness criticism - outside blatant cases - is always based on an interpretation.

In a way I think the fact that it's a single protagonist game makes things different in the sense that it's more of a roleplaying experience - in contrast, in a typical JRPG the player observes a group of characters. But here, Light is not just Light as she has been written. Instead, the Light on the screen is a mesh of "Light as written" and "me as Light" - this effect is generally stronger in games where the player gets to create their own character, but even with a premade character I still do roleplay that character to an extent. Therefore when choosing outfits for Light, it's not just about what's pleasing to my eye - it's about what I'd feel comfortable wearing if I was Light. So for me personally the ability to choose what she wears is not about objectifying her. Rather, it enhances my ability to get invested in being Light as if she was a character I created. It's also good in the sense that I'm not forced to agree with tasteless clothing choices.

All in all, it is clear that there a certain portion of garbs are pure fan service. At the same time I would argue that majority of garbs are decent in the sense that they're not objectifying. I don't really like most of the garbs, but they don't throw me off either. So yes, the designers do deserve some flak for their decisions, but anything beyond that feels a bit stretching.

Bonus: Final Fantasy XIII the trilogy. 

Spoilers!

I have two lines of though about the entire trilogy. One concerns its story as a whole while the other is more about these games as, well, games. Back when we only had FFXIII it felt a bit odd that Lightning was highlighted as the main protagonist. Sure, she is in the game and does play a role. If you played the game though, it seems to be more about Fang and Vanille. Moreover, in the second game, Light is hardly present. Of course the third game is all her. Another thing about the entire trilogy is that the stories are heavily disconnected - especially the first game. The link between the events of Cocoon and what unravels in FFXIII-2 is extremely weak. All in all the storylines in all games are really pretty weak. In a way there's no storyline for the third game to conclude unless we actually accept that the entire trilogy is all about Lightning.

This actually makes a lot of sense. It's not just that the third game is all Light. It also establishes Light's story as a link between all the games. The reason we feel Light is not really a factor in the first game despite clearly being there, is because of the role she has taken upon herself. She's there to fight, and fight only. In the second game, she does more of the same, for another cause. Who cares about gods, the third game to me is all about Light becoming a person. So in terms of what actually happens in the game, it's pretty underwhelming as a conclusion. As a conclusion to Light's growth story though, I loved it - mostly because I love Light. Somehow the most important story content in the entire game is found on loading screens where Light reflects about her own life. These screens tell a lot more about her than the three games combined.

There's a weird pattern in FF games: the ones with good story have kinda meh mechanics, and then the other way around. FFXIII trilogy is definitely of the "other way around" pattern. I think the biggest problem with the entire trilogy is the fact that the first game didn't please fans. If that game had been done with the design philosophy of Lightning Returns, the entire trilogy could be in a very different shape. I think the poor reception echoes in the sequels. It shows that the money just is not there, especially in LR. Many things in the game scream "budget solution". Likewise, both sequels have incredibly short story content. It's impossible to tell whether better reception would have had an impact, but the fact that the first game botched is pretty damn obvious. So while FFXIII-2 and especially LR provide what people wanted from FFXIII, it's way too late.

Well, I'm one of the people who are happy that, at least, the sequels didn't get cancelled.As far as modern JRPGs go, this trilogy for me is among the better ones. It all really comes back to eclipsing popularity of the entire genre, and the ever-increasing development costs for living room consoles.

Conclusion

Whew. We're finally done here. Lightning Returns leaves a lot to desire for, but overall I'm still happy with the game as it is. The same really goes for the entire trilogy. I feel a lot of good design decisions were made, and I hope SE is not discouraged, and will keep trying out new mechanics when it comes to FFXV.

Remember Me

When previews about this game started to appear, I put it on my "looking forward to" list. The Last of Us took priority though and I forgot about this game - mostly because everyone else seemed to do so. I also had my month long summer vacation which I spent chasing geocaches all around. The game popped up again as a PS+ freebie later last year - around the time I was getting a bit tired of FFXIV - and this time I chose not to ignore it. After pressing buttons at a slow pace for three months, I was thirsty for some hand-to-hand action.

1. Tying it all together with a theme

As far as merits go, Remember Me has most of  them in visual design and theme. The setting makes for pretty delicious sci-fi - a corporation has found a way to manipulate memories, allowing people to get rid of bad ones and replace them with custom-made good memories. Naturally this has led to a dystopian society, as things developed by corporations are wont to do. The game being about memory and all, it's no big surprise the protagonist Nilin has lost hers. Fortunately this game here is one of the few cases where this actually doesn't feel cheap. The fact that there's a female protagonist in a dystopian future immediately draws comparisons to Mirror's Edge. The game is also reminiscent of Mirror's Edge because of its distinctive visual style. The aesthetic is very different from ME's exceedingly white visual style but the overall atmosphere is very similar.

Remember Me uses a lot of visual effects and filters to achieve its visual style. Generally overuse of filters and glitchy effects might be frowned upon, but it works in RM. Why? It's thematically appropriate. Overall, the game makes full use of the Sensen technology (that would be the memory manipulation tech). Through Sensen, information can be conveniently projected into the game world - and because everything is perceived through it, all sorts of distortions and visual glitches fit in just perfectly. It also extends its reach into gameplay in few segments of the game. By copying the memories of another, the protagonist is able to follow in their footsteps through memory projection. One example use for this mechanic is navigating through a minefield. Finally some of the protagonist's superpowers work by manipulating enemies' Sensen nodes - enemies without one are therefore immune.

Story also works well with the theme. It's not a nobel worth masterpiece by a long shot but better than most any way. It works better as an overall documentary of consequences of technology than it does as a story about people - much like the Joss Whedon's Dollhouse actually. So the plot in itself is not all that great, but the way it portrays how Sensen technology has affected everyone's lives is pretty solid. The moments when the game explores the darkest sides of Sensen are definitely the strongest. I recommend playing it through just for the atmosphere. It's not a long game either.

2. Finishing off with gameplay

While I'd mostly recommend this game for its atmosphere, gameplay in Remember Me ain't half bad either. It's not very original though. The game can roughly be divided into three types of segments: the aforementioned memory projection segments, climbing segments and of course combat. Climbing is heavily railroaded: usually there's exactly one option for moving forward - pretty much what is typical in heavily scripted games already. There's nothing difficult about it either because controls are accurate enough so mostly it's just mindless execution of a predetermined obstacle course. The saving grace is scenery. Although immersion is way weaker than in Mirror's Edge, at least the views are great. There's not really much else to say about climbing in this game.

Nilin cannot use weapons so she has to rely on her fists and feet to do the dirty work for her. The game uses a combo system that sounds interesting on paper: The player is granted two chains to start off with, and can assign Pressens to each attack in a combo. These affect what the attack does. Unfortunately the options are rather limited. The choice is basically between damage, healing and cooldown reduction. The fourth Pressen type is a more powerful version of whatever Pressen preceded it. Regardless of Pressens, attack animations for combos don't change. With more varied Pressens this system might have been much cooler, but as it stands it's very simplistic. As soon as I opened a third combo, I simply had one combo for each purpose: dishing out the hurt, healing and reducing cooldowns. Normal attacks aside, Nilin gains access to a total of five superpowers.

Although the mechanic is simple, it does grant some tactical depth. Much of this is due to clever encounter and enemy design. Nilin's superpowers are not just to make fights go faster - each and every one of  them is truly required. Especially towards the endgame battles become dances around tougher enemies while the player tries to build up meter for Nilin's superpowers and at the same time use cooldown reduction combos to make them available in decent time (default cooldowns are *long*). Finally, because healing is also only possible through attacking, the player really needs to stay on the offensive. Delightfully the game heavily punishes mashing - each attack in a combo needs to be timed correctly. It is also worth learning which combos include area of effect damage. Controls are not perfect, but overall encounters are fun to play precisely because they feel different from each other.

The game also has a few memory remixing scenes, which are kind of interesting. They involve manipulating a memory like a recording, skimming back and forward and changing small things like the position of a table in hopes of altering the outcome. It's mostly a more elaborate version of "try everything" puzzles in some adventure games, but thematically they're cool.  There's not that many things to try in each memory either. Fine additions to the game, but not much else really.

Conclusion

Remember Me is a solid action adventure game that is strong in atmosphere but otherwise not all that special. Although combat and climbing mechanics are not very original or interesting on their own, both are enhanced by auxiliary means: battle encounters are designed surprisingly well, and scenery in the game is amazing. Nilin's story is not that great either, but the way the game handles its sci-fi makes it worth playing. If you choose to pick it up, do yourself a favor and play on the highest difficulty.

Catherine

Yet another game I intended to play way earlier. I think there is actually a reason why I rather consistently fail to play any of these more experimental games in any decent time. My gaming is generally directed with various cravings and - here is the reason - these cravings are towards certain types of game mechanics. Experimental games on the other hand are often unfamiliar in this sense - can't crave for something you don't even know to exist. This means that these games get pushed into some unknown future time when I am free of my frequent craving gaming streaks and often when that happens, I start from cheapest games on the list. After all I often don't have any particular preference for any of these unfamiliar games over another, so might as well use availability as a metric.

Enough with the self-reflection though. Catherine was a PS+ freebie last month so I guess it was definitely the cheapest unfamiliar game at the moment. A weird game from the creators of Persona, to me that pretty much makes it a necessity to play. Especially the first trailers raised a lot of questions, but primarily this: what's with all the sheep? If the game would have been less explanatory with what was going on, it could have as well been written by David Lynch. I mean the weird stuff in Lynch's films is usually a metaphoric way to process what is going on in the characters' heads or between them. In many ways, Catherine is like that too, and the weirdness factor is definitely in Lynch category as well. Because of the game's nature, I will once again delve into the story for a bit. So here is your general spoiler warning. 

1.Persona?

First let's take a look at Catherine as a game. I would draw comparisons to games like Heavy Rain for a couple of reasons: first, both deal with more mature issues that games typically do; second, for different reasons, the both raise the question whether they should be really called games or not. In Catherine this results from the high contrast between the game's two interactive modes. The game mechanic is in a way isolated from rest of the game to the point that it could be anything - although the tower climbing mechanic is a successful metaphor to overcoming personal challenges. This part could be a game in itself so it is definitely interactive.

However the rest of the game is highly non-interactive. A lot of time is spent watching cut-scenes, and hanging in the bar has less gameplay than social links in Persona 3/4. Not that it really matters, a lot of games have their gameplay disconnected from storytelling and I wrote about it earlier. Although Catherine is a puzzle game with heavy storytelling components, it is actually very comparable to Persona. I would go as far as to claim that despite all their differences, Catherine is a Persona with smaller scale. I'll do the comparison to P4. In both, there are two very different modes of gameplay: the nightmare and the bar in Catherine, the TV world and the real world in P4. Both games also have two story layers: one of personal growth, and one of what actually happens.

One big difference is how these two layers interact: in Catherine, the nightmare builds Vincent's values, and they affect what choices he makes during the day. They don't directly affect what the player can do in the bar though - the bar actually serves the same purpose because that section also includes choices that affect Vincent's values. Nothing done during the day affects the gameplay in the nightmare. On the other hand in Persona 4, actions taken in the real world have impact in the TV world, because social links literally strenghten the protagonist. In this sense, the disconnection between the two layers is stronger in Catherine because they do not affect each other in terms of game mechanics. On the other hand though, in Catherine the player's choices affect the story whereas P4 only has one story.

Another aspect that these games also share with Devil Survivor is the protagonist's role as a paragon. In Catherine however Vincent does not really have any special powers, whereas in P4 the protagonist is unique with his ability to use multiple personas. What they have in common however is that throughout their story, they both become a source of inspiration for people they meet. Their influence inspires other people to solve their problems and find their inner strength. Both games also deal with mundane issues, in the real world. Just like in the real world, ultimately even the hero cannot solve others' problems for them because they cannot be solved with any standard issue heroics. Vincent in particular inspires others through his own growth and progress.

Personal growth in both games is heavily related to the other world. In P4, each of the protagonist's allies has to quite literally face themselves. The TV world makes them painfully aware of their darker sides that ultimately manifest as dungeon bosses. In Catherine, Vincent and other men initially don't know why they have been trapped in the nightmare but as they are chased by manifestations of their worst fears, and as they learn the nature of their plight, it becomes a possibility for them to grow. Conquering the deadly tower of blocks becomes a symbol of conquering their own doubts. Through their struggles they come to reflect their life situation, and finally get their life on the right track.In both cases it's both a very literal fight for their lives, and also a fight to gain control of their lives.

If we look at Catherine purely as an artifact of game design, it's not very good. Stripped of everything, you are ultimately solving puzzles to be rewarded with cutscenes and while the story-as-reward is a common trope in Japanese RPGs, it is not a particularly laudable game dynamic. Catherine demands us to look beyond though, because reducing it in this way is a disservice to its true strength.

2. Storytelling

Catherine is all about the glue. Not the kind you sniff, but the kind that keeps different parts of the game together. The glue in Catherine is the way it has been directed. The game builds suspense with the best of them, and it is a very gripping experience. There are a lot of individual effects I can name, and one of them is the iconic clock that ticks between cutscenes. The audiovisual design of that simple screen is magnificient, and it always feels as if it is foreshadowing something nasty. Of course, the player will quickly make this association because what follows often is nasty. Especially the mornings after Vincent awakens from his nightmare became some of the most dreaded moments. What was the cause of this dread? The fact that Vincent found himself waking up next to a pretty woman. I swear, monsters in games are very rarely this dreadful.

The player bears witness to Vincent struggling in his life, trying to resolve his situation. However it is not quite similar to watching a movie. The fact that player choices affect how Vincent tries to deal with his problems creates a sense of responsibility - is everything going to hell because of my choices? There is never a direct choice involved in the situation itself, the player can only influence Vincent's values by making choices in the nightmare and in the bar. I would probably bash the hell out of this idea if this was any other game, but the concept fits Catherine exceptionally well. The story deals with emotions, where causality is very hard to predict or even see afterwards in the real world, so it is fitting that we cannot predict how Vincent will act either.

It's hard to put a finger to the exact reasons why the game's directing is so powerful. You just know it when your heart leaps every time Vincent gets a text message at the bar, and how hard it is to write replies even though there are not that many options. Otherwise the bar is the most relaxing portion of the game because the player and Vincent can take a break from the nightmare and from the two women who are at the heart of the conflict. Scenes with either of the women on the other hand are sharp like knives and I have very rarely been this anxious while following a fictituous conversation. It helps that all dialogue in the game is written really well, and voice acting is quite solid. Of course, I would not have expected anything less from the developers.

The nightmare is also masterfully directed. Although I do not agree with all the gameplay decisions (more on that soon) concerning it, audiovisually it is very successful. The boss levels in particular are very distressing, with the boss often almost literally breathing down at Vincent's neck as the player tries to find a route upwards in panic. The normal levels are more relaxed, but audiovisually they too are quite disturbing. Even the fact that the nightmare world is populated by sheep somehow adds to the atmosphere. Even tutorials have been perfectly integrated into the game's fiction. Vincent exchanges climbing techniques with other men trapped in the nightmare, which is a convenient time to also show those techniques to the player. Coincidentally the player might just need some of those in the next level...

I personally think of Catherine in much the same way I think of Heavy Rain: I will probably never play it again. It is one of those games that I just play through without expecting any particular outcome. I will take whatever the outcome is, and label the story as my individual experience of the game. I think another run through the game would just break many illusions. I might find out how little the game changes with different choices, and ultimately it would not be able to give me anything that even closely resembles the first playthrough. Although I know there are other endings, I have no real desire to experience them because I kind of what to think of the one ending I got as the "true" ending of the game. I don't even want to go back to try and change things.

3. Dat difficulty

Catherine was notorious by the time of its release. Why? Well, the game was freaking difficult is why! They added an easy difficulty later to alleviate the problem. These days I normally play my games on hard difficulty but after hearing how "well" my friends had fared in Catherine, I chose to start on normal. After a couple of nightmares I switched to easy, which is the first time I've done so in a very long time. I did find the block puzzles quite fun, but the challenge rubbed me the wrong way. It's not that the difficulty itself is the problem, it's the mechanisms that create it. While I liked the time limits in boss levels, they felt a bit artificial in the rest. In a way I understand that having the blocks fall off under Vincent's feet if I take my sweet time does make the atmosphere in the game stronger, but it made the game more frustrating.

One thing in puzzle games I don't like is redoing sections I have already done, because it is nothing more than punishment to do the same work again. The levels have checkpoints, but from time to time they are a bit too few and far between. What makes it even more frustrating is the fact that for some god-awful reason I'd rather not know, there are limited retries. Sure they are given out quite generously but if you ever run out, it's back to the last save point - that's the start of the level, unless you forgot to save. It was actually this that made me switch to easy. Well that, and the fact that the controls are very annoying from time to time. For instance, you can move behind the blocks, but cannot rotate the camera enough to actually see what is there. Dafuq? Oh and when you are behind a block, the controls are reversed. Why?

My final gripe with the controls was one button. It is used for grabbing blocks for pushing/pulling, but for some reason it also causes Vincent to let go of a block when he is hanging. There is also a separate button for letting go, so why on earth another button also does that? Finally, although the audiovisuals were very successful in creating the nightmarish feeling, sometimes camera drives and visual effects made it very hard to see what the hell was going on. This mostly happened in boss levels. Since the game already has an undo button that allows you to take back moves far into move history, the same button could have been used to just return you to wherever you fell off. At least in the normal levels I would have really appreciated this.

4. Chickening out

This here is the major spoiler warning. You will ruin the game for yourself if you read this before playing. 

Catherine is a game about problematic romantic relationships. All the men caught in the nightmare with Vincent have one thing in common: they are dealing with emotional damage from their past or current relationships, and somehow that is what brings them to the dream. Vincent himself is dealing with two problems at the same time: his girlfriend is talking about getting serious, while at the same time he finds himself cheating with another woman. We never truly learn how Vincent ended up cheating because that information is kept from us - and Vincent too, because he seems to never remember what happened. He just wakes up next to the other woman morning after morning. The situation is uncomfortable to say the least, because both of the women are emotionally attached to their relationship with Vincent.

Catherine is a compelling human drama with a hint of supernatural. I always find stories involving cheating quite uncomfortable, because I just know that the women (in this case) will eventually find out about each other while the man is lying through his teeth to both. It is uncomfortable because from the start it is clear that at least one heart will be broken, and possibly all three. I cannot speak from experience, but it feels like Catherine does portray the difficulty of such a situation in a very vivid fashion. As I mentioned one part in this is the player's almost involuntary involvement in the drama. The really "funny" thing? At first even I was not able to decide which woman I wanted Vincent to prefer. It is quite common in games with romantic relationships to not know from start which one to go with, but Catherine forces the player into a situation where they are already involved with both.

The last few hours of the game feel a bit cheap though. Up until then, everything supernatural has felt much like the weird stuff in David Lynch movies - a metaphor to stress the gravity of the situation. Towards the end though, we learn that there is actually quite a bit of supernatural going on. The other woman is not real, and was purposefully sent to seduce Vincent because he seemed unwilling to commit to his girlfriend. He was also put into the nightmare to die with the other men. This lifts a massive burden off Vincent's shoulders, and also the player's because they are no longer (fully) responsible of the conflict. Instead we have a divine power - not evil, just twisted - and finally something for the player to fight and defeat to resolve the drama once and for all. Although this turn of events doesn't surprise me, and is actually very well written, it feels cheap.

The reason it doesn't surprise me is that it's actually very consistent with stories in other Atlus games - especially Persona. There is always some higher power that is the root cause of all problems in the game, and defeating its manifestation releases the heroes from their strife. But in Persona it feels much more symbolic - in P4 for instance, what the players defeat is a manifestation of people's desire to hide their selves behind masks so that they never need to face their weaknesses. In Catherine the antagonist is a more direct actor in the events which makes it all the more easier to pin everything on him. His word becomes proof that Vincent did not really cheat on his girlfriend, which dissolves the problem quite a bit and makes it easier for his girlfriend to forgive. This is what happened in my ending anyway, I don't know how things will turn out if Vincent goes with the other woman (or neither!).

Some of the moments during these final scenes were some of the best in the entire game, but I still have mixed feelings about this. Are we still not adult enough to make a game about problematic relationships without having some monster as the cause? At least in this game Vincent not relieved of all burden (after all, he did fail to fes up early).

5. The players

In closing, I want to make some observations that might be entirely inaccurate. The game presents a bunch of questions to the player and afterwards they can see a pie chart of how other players answered on their first playthrough. Although I have no way of knowing why players chose what they chose, there is a very clear preference for the girlfriend on first playthroughs - I think it was about 75 to 80% of players. I can come up with two different explanations as to why it is more likely to choose the girlfriend on the first playthrough. First is the fact that, although they might not have intended it so, ending up with her seems like the "good" path through this game. Even though the choices affect Vincent's preference between order and chaos, visual cues do suggest that going with order is the "good" path.

I don't have statistics, but I'd put my money on "good" paths being generally preferred on first playthroughs. This is in part due to bad design of "evil" paths, which makes the "good" path seem the experience players were intended to have. Many games with alternative paths or endings often do include one that is implied to be canon. As players we often aim for the optimal experience, and because of this history of choices, it is a general assumption that the "good" path is the one we are intended to take. Furthermore, if the player is a completionist and wants to get all eight endings, they have to answer in certain ways throughout the game. You can get three endings in one full playthrough (by altering the final choices), but to do so Vincent's values need to be fully order, fully chaos or fully neutral. Which means you would choose every answer accordingly.

The latter doesn't explain why most players chose to prefer the girlfriend, but it does explain why they would answer consistently after making up their mind. On the other hand, it is also possible players answered based on their personal preferences instead of intentionally trying to stay on the "good" path. If that is the case, it kinda looks like gamers make pretty good lifetime partners because they prefer stability over excitement. I would not be surprised if this was the case actually. Of course it's a bit far-fetched to draw this conclusion from game statistics but it's kinda consistent with real life observations. Enough with the guesswork though, let's wrap this thing up.

Conclusion

This post was a bit weird because there is not that much game design in Catherine to analyse. I have probably written stuff I'd like to take back one day. For the record, I didn't intentionally read any analysis about Catherine before playing it or writing this piece because I didn't want my observations to be affected by someone else's. Which means I may have just written the exact same thing that someone has already written. I think Catherine is a strong argument to throw at anyone who claims that games are not for telling stories. Catherine tells a very powerful story and uses the medium's strengths to its advantage. Catherine the movie would never be as powerful. The game succeeds in involving the player in its drama in a rather clever way, and the entire experience feels very personal.

I am done here.

Dead or Alive 5

Landmark! 50th blog post in this blog. In celebration I offer thee a wall of text.

I have quite a bit of background in playing fighting games. I started out as a casual player like most but eventually evolved into a tournament player (unlike most). I have mostly played 3D fighters - most 2D fighters I have ever played have simply been way too hard for me to learn because of their bigger focus on technical skills. Of the four big 3D fighter series there's one that I have not really played: Dead or Alive. The series has a stigma in the fighting game community - and I mean on top of its already questionable reputation. The stigma has more to do with gameplay than boobs though. The series has generally been considered quite mash-friendly and at some point the hold system was just way too strong which made the game stupid.

Another reason for skipping the series was platform. DOA was an Xbox exclusive for a long time. However with its return to PlayStation 3 in the fifth installment, there was also talks of finally getting more serious by the developers. Again, I am not talking about the fanrage-worthy decision of generally making breasts smaller and more realistic. More serious as in more tournament-worthy is what counts. The timing for the news was also good because I had dropped Tekken when Tag 2 came around, and my main game Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown doesn't enjoy a very large community. I had also given up Soul Calibur because they kicked all my main characters out of the fifth installment.

So I was actually open to the idea of trying out a new game. Did I ever get around to it? Nope, not until I got DOA5 as a PS+ freebie last month. I've been practicing it a bit this month and played some matches, which gives me a perfect excuse to write about fighting games in general and some observations about DOA5 in particular. I will, also, eventually get to the boobs, so you can go ahead and skip to the last section if that's what you wanted to read about. The remainder of this post will contain some fighting game jargon, which I'll try to explain as I go. If you understand the concept of frames in fighting games, go ahead and skip to 3.

1. Fighting game primer

If you are ever designing a game with real time hand-to-hand or melee combat mechanics you should study a fighting game or two properly. From my perspective this is obvious because - as the genre name suggests - these games are all about the fighting mechanics. Before you can truly study though, you need to recognize that there are two vastly different ways to play these games. Most players are casuals who play for fun. From their point of view, mastery of the game means knowing the moves of all characters, and they show off their mastery by playing random characters. They may have their own honor codes like "juggles are unfair" (juggle being a situation where you hit an enemy who is floating in the air).

Playing casually is fine, even fun. Much like playing intentionally "bad" decks in Magic the Gathering, it can be a blast because when everyone is just throwing moves without much consideration to higher level strategy, matches can be quite even. Casual players can also enjoy the single player modes and mastering them. I know I did before becoming serious. You can play a fighting game for hundreds of hours and consider yourself pretty good as you are most likely beating all of your friends who don't own the game. When I hear someone's good in a fighting game, I usually assume they are using the casual player metrics. Why? Most serious players don't claim to be good.

This miscommunication becomes rather apparent when two players using different metrics for mastery face each other. The "good" living room champ will get a severe thrashing from even a "bad" serious player. They are playing two very different games and it won't be much fun for either. Where the casual player sees cool moves, the tournament player sees numbers and properties. For the former, different moves seemingly exist to create more variety while for the latter, each move is a tool with a specific purpose. Certainly even casual players can deduct uses for a move from its visual properties but the game they play is still vastly different.

In case it wasn't clear, your job is to study tournament play. The biggest distinctive factor is a tournament player's understanding of one concept: frame advantage. Frame advantage is a universal concept in fighting games and understanding it is the key to reading situations in the game. Frame of course being a measure of time inside the game's engine (usually 1/60 of a second). In its most basic form, it tells who has the advantage after a move connects or is blocked. In a slightly more accurate form, each move has impact frames and recovery frames, although the latter is only measured in relation to the hit (advantage on hit) or block (advantage on block) stun it causes.

A move's impact frames tell you how many frames it takes for the move to hit from the moment the animation starts. This number tells you explicitly how fast a move is. The recovery-related numbers on the other tell how many frames one of you will be "disabled" after the move connects or is blocked. The math is really simple. If a move is +5 on hit, it means the opponent cannot do anything for the next 5 frames. On the other hand, if a move is -12 on block for instance, you are unable to do anything for 12 frames. If the opponent has a move that comes out in 12 frames or less, it is guaranteed to hit you. This by the way is called punishment.

If we go back to the situation where you have +5 advantage, it means that if you follow with an attack that comes out in 15 frames and the opponent also attacks but using a 12 frame attack, your attack will still hit because the opponent's attack starts 5 frames late, effectively becoming a 17 frame attack in that situation. Frame advantage is of course symmetric, so -5 for you is the same thing as +5 for your opponent. Knowing who has frame advantage is crucial because otherwise you cannot know what your options in the situation are. Usually moves give frame advantage when they hit, and disadvantage when they are blocked. Of course if they miss altogether, the recovery will be substantial because the opponent is neither hit or block stunned.

Just to give you an idea of how this relates to other genres, we can go back to stagger immunity. Basically having frame disadvantage from getting hit is stagger. Therefore if we grant someone stagger immunity, it means they will never be at frame disadvantage from getting hit which means the best any attack against them can ever be is +0 frames advantage. However, this would require an attack with zero recovery frames and they generally don't exist. Effectively stagger immunity would mean that against that character, every attack could be considered whiffed for purposes of determining advantage. Just for the record, most moves in fighting games are punishable if they are whiffed.

Quick sample math: you have a move that comes out in 15 frames, stuns the opponent on hit for 15 frames and recovers for 10 frames. Normally hitting with this attack puts you at a +5 advantage but against a stagger immune opponent, it would actually put you at a -10 disadvantage. Which means if they have a 10 frame attack, they could hit you for free every time. However they can also start an attack during any of those 15 initial frames with no risk of being interrupted, so every time you do this attack you potentially open yourself to a 25 frame attack. Since slower moves are usually more powerful, it is easy to see how unfair the situation is.

Being aware of frame advantage is therefore quite important for game designers and there is no place to learn them better than fighting games where frame knowledge is essential to all tournament players. As a game mechanic it's a pain in the ass because the only way to really go about learning frames is to memorize them. Some games are kind enough to actually show frame data in their practice mode which makes the entire system more accessible to even casual players. Otherwise frame data needs to be found from depths of the internet, and often it has been compiled by testing and might contain errors. It's not perfect, but it's a necessary practice if you want to be a tournament player.

Frame data can tell a lot about a character's strengths. For instance, characters who get a lot of frame advantage are strong in offense whereas fast moves with bad disadvantage when blocked ("unsafe moves") indicate a punisher type character who excels at defense. It can also reveal stupidities like infinite loops from moves that are faster than the advantage they give on hit. Once you understand how to use frame data to your advantage in game design, all sorts of things become easier to grasp. Besides, they are numbers, and game designers should love numbers.

2. Beyond frames

Of course if frames were the only property there would not be much need for many moves in a game. Obviously moves have other properties, like damage which is about the least interesting stat from our point of view. Fighting games usually involve a primary rock-paper-scissors system of strikes, guard and throws where guard beats strikes, throws beat guard and strikes beat throws. So far so simple, but of course it is never so. Guarding has two options: standing and crouching. In every major 3D fighter attacks come in three altitudes: high, mid and low. Standing guard blocks high and mid attacks but is vulnerable to lows while crouching guard blocks lows, is vulnerable to mids and avoids highs. Because crouching guard beats both low and high attacks, the basic mixup is between mid and low.

This makes high attacks sound rather useless, no? Being high is indeed a weaker property than being mid or low but this is redeemed by other qualities. Of the three altitudes, high attacks are generally fastest and more likely to give advantage even when blocked. Although you will never hit an opponent who just guards with a high attack, they are useful for interrupting slower attacks. Overall, high attacks have the best combination of other properties be it frames, damage, range or tracking. Low attacks on the other hand generally have the weakest properties because standing guard is much more common than crouching. Low attacks are very unsafe if blocked and can leave the attacker at a disadvantage even if they hit. Strong low attacks are slower, and can even be seen and blocked on reaction.

The usefulness of lows depends on the game because throws also beat standing guard. Lows are generally more used in Tekken, because in theory all throws can be escaped on reaction (a feat I am definitely not capable of, and therefore am quite disadvantaged in tournament play) whereas in Virtua Fighter throws are impossible to escape on reaction, and you always have to guess between three throw escapes. They also do more damage. So, depending on the game, the basic mixup is either mid/low or mid/throw. However, guarding is not the only defensive option. All games have movement options, and as we may have learned the best defense is to not be there at all when an attack lands.

In 3D fighters, as the 3D there suggests, characters can also evade moves by depth movement. Evasion generally beats linear attacks. Tracking moves beat evasion, but are often generally weaker. Tracking moves, especially those that give full tracking, are also very often high attacks. Likewise, range determines how easy it is to avoid an attack by moving back. Although all games have movement options, it gets different emphasis. Tekken is the series that emphasizes movement most for a few reasons. Most throws do not track in Tekken for instance, and movement is overall safer. In VF and Soul Calibur, being hit during movement causes a counter hit (more damage, usually more advantage, can lead to combos). Tekken also rewards movement more with easier whiff punishment.

There are more game-specific special cases for pretty much all of this. All of this stuff is involved in mind games when playing, and move properties define what are your options in each situation. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of every character's move set is definitely helpful. Some characters can have insanely good strikes, but they might turn out to be horribly linear which makes evasion strong against them. A character with good lows and mids can play a nasty mixup game in your face. Some characters have a lot of solid long range moves, which makes them perfect for playing keep-away (especially in Soul Calibur where weapon reach is a factor).

3. Finally, Dead or Alive

Now that we have establised a common ground for discussing fighting games we can take a look at what defines Dead or Alive 5. It is being said that when playing DOA, you might as well forget what you learned in other games. Although I do not find this to be entirely true, I will go through a couple of reasons why this could be the case - especially for Tekken players. The system that defines DOA as a series is its hold system. Some characters in other games have holds (called reversals) but in DOA, every character has a hold for all attack types (high, mid punch, mid kick and low). Holds are defensive moves that do damage to the attacker.

Holds are the reason why DOA has been disregarded because they (used to) make attacking very risky. If you guess what attack the opponent will go for at any time, it can be countered for guaranteed damage. If I recall correctly, in the past holds were a bit too powerful, which made attacking a losing strategy. That makes for a weird game as you might guess. While some holds on some characters are still very powerful, most holds have reasonable damage numbers. Throwing holds randomly is also a bad idea, because it is a four-way guessing game (whereas guarding high or low is a two-way mixup).

The dynamic created by holds is that being predictable is very easily punished in DOA. Especially strings that do not have many variations are very risky to throw out because they are very likely to be held. It is not the holds themselves that make the big difference though. DOA5 has a somewhat different approach to the frame game. In general, attacks give less frame advantage on hit and are more often unsafe when blocked. Especially since in DOA5, the fastest throws are 5 frames, which means a move that is -5 can be punished with a throw. Fastest strikes are 9 frames, although most characters have to do with 10 frame attacks. Sounds like attacking sucks again, huh?

Well, not so fast. DOA5 has a stun system quite unlike anything else. The less frame advantage on hit applies only to attacks that do not stun you see. Attacks that do stun can grant massive frame advantage, so that the next attack becomes guaranteed. Stuns are not uncommon in games either, but in DOA5 every character has a ton of stunning moves. It is very rare to not get stunned in a match because even basic mid attacks can cause a stun - hell, even low attacks sometimes do. Unlike other games however stun doesn't make a character entirely helpless - you can get out of a stun by doing one of the four basic holds. Stunned characters cannot be thrown either.

With each stun we enter what is called the stun game. It is an ongoing mixup, typically between highs, mid punches and mid kicks because lows generally don't give enough advantage to continue the chain. However, if the defender holds out of the stun, they can be thrown for increased damage. After being hit for enough damage, the defender will go into critical stun after which any attack knocks them down, ending the stun game. This is however a chance for the attacker to land a critical burst, which leads to an unholdable stun and therefore a guaranteed combo. There is only one CB for each character though, so the defender can avoid it every time by holding against it but this leaves them open to other attacks.

The stun system basically creates a mixup that is more disadvantageous to the defender than a normal frame advantage mixup. They have to choose between 3 or 4 options for their defense, and they cannot even try to attack until the stun ends. However it is clearly more advantageous than a stun combo which is entirely guaranteed. Furthermore, the attacker's options are also somewhat limited because the only attacks worth doing are ones that can continue the stun or launch the defender to a combo. Air combos in DOA5 do less damage than in other games too. When the defender does guess correctly and holds an attack, damage is always guaranteed (unlike other games where you might only get a mixup).

Because every other attack in the game engages the stun game, getting hit can very often lead to a serial mixup that has the potential to take over half of your life bar. This has the potential to create quite huge swings and makes the game generally somewhat faster than at least Tekken. It definitely does not make the game more buttonmash-friendly because stun chains require a lot of thought and experimentation in practice mode. Ideally, you want to find as many variations as possible for your stun chains to keep the opponent guessing. Some otherwise good moves might push the enemy back too much and so on. It's also kind of a greed game: how long will you continue the stun before launching.

Guarding is quite strong in DOA5 largely because not a whole lot of moves outside slowish guard breaks give advantage on block, and a whole lot of moves are punishable on block. However, throwing is also more powerful then usual because basic throws aside, all throws are unescapable. Fastest of these throws are 6 frames I think but attempting a throw is also very risky because it opens you to attacks. Remember that you don't get that much normal (non-stun) frame advantage in DOA5 so the mid/throw mixup is somewhat harder to get into. Throws can also do a ton of damage, but powerful throws are always slower.

Admittedly I have not fully explored the system, and I have not played against any tournament players (the game is not very popular in Finland) so these are my still somewhat initial impressions. It does feel like a legit tournament game though, and is fun to play. Whether the stun game makes it better or worse doesn't really matter, because at least it indeed does play very differently. I have also enjoyed coming up with stun chains for my main characters because unlike learning combos, there is more room for experimentation.

4. About the girls...

Normally there would be really no reason to draw attention to how women are represented in DOA because that's pretty clear. I do however need to update a particular opinion. Earlier I stated that I do not mind skimpy impractical dresses and impossible physique of female characters in fighting games because it's not like there is any character in them to ruin with unnecessarily sleazy appearance. Especially since fighting game plots tend to be... yeah, pretty ridiculous. Read a few character biographies for some serious facepalming if you haven't already. That being said, DOA5 did make me somewhat uneasy.

I guess Tekken and Virtua Fighter have gotten a free pass for their treatment of girls because they don't overdo it anyway. Soul Calibur, a series that I think might have actually passed DOA in sleaziness at some point also seems to get away with it, perhaps because the style is so far-out anyway. So what is it about DOA5 that makes me change my mind? Although I'd hesitate to call the new and improved boob physics realistic, the fact that girls do look more natural overall somehow makes all those jiggling breasts all the more embarrassing. So although they don't really have much personality, the fact that they look more natural likens them to real girls more.

On top of that, some characters have costumes where they are actually dressed to fight with the very important exception of forgetting to wear a sports bra (or whatever you would wear to get enough support there). It highlights the problem even more. With impractical dresses these things are kind of easier to dismiss because the entire notion of fighting in a gown is stupid anyway. But the actual fighting gear brings the wearer one step closer to being more real and suddenly the jiggly bits seem to send a very different message. The message from the designer seems to be that no matter how sensible and ready to fight, this girl still secretly wishes for male viewers to undress her with their eyes.

So here's how I see it: there exists an uncanny valley for video game girl sexiness. It seems that usually as long as the girl in question seems unrealistic anyway (i.e. they are not a person), it doesn't really matter how absurdly sexualized they are - they will be considered what they are: escapees from someone's fantasy. Likewise, when they are very realistic to the point that any sexiness actually feels to belong to the character, it also is acceptable - after all, sexy girls and women do exist. However between these two is the valley: girls that are made to feel realistic but then oversexualized - and this is where suddenly the treatment they get just feels wrong. It is here where everything the person is, is violently reduced to a sex object.

We can argue about the width of the valley, but if we accept this theory, the correct place to start hacking at the problem is at the bottom of the valley. Trying to destroy all oversexualization at once (the entire left side that is) will simply be met with too much resistance. I don't have much attachment to the left side of the valley; however I do like to have realistically cute/sexy/beautiful girls in games, so I will rise to defend the right side of the valley. Besides, we like to look at attractive things so it makes bloody little sense to have a crusade against them.

On a lighter endnote, I have to wonder: if breast sizes were generally made smaller in DOA5, how massive they were before?

Conclusion

Wall of text, done! After what I have experienced, I do think Dead or Alive 5 is a welcome addition to 3D fighting games on PlayStation 3. I really cannot say whether it is more friendly to beginners than the others, because the stun game does require quite a bit of studying. I think it actually puts slightly more emphasis on knowing every character's move set than the other games because of the four-way hold system. Most importantly, it is different enough. In hindsight writing the fighting game basics was perhaps a little bit excessive but then again, it does seem to be quite arcane knowledge for many gamers. It is just one of those genres where each title is really two very different games - where the "real" game is hidden from casual eyes lest they be frightened by its complexity.

Right now there's not much activity around DOA5, sadly, so I cannot say much about how it plays as a tournament game. Perhaps with the release of DOA5 Ultimate there will be a burst of activity that lets me get into the game a bit more. There will be a free-to-play version of it, so that might attract more people to try the game. I somehow feel that they are not going to add the option to have the girls wear more supportive bras, but if they did that would be awesome.

Xenoblade Chronicles

For a JRPG buff there are a lot of reasons to be interested in Xenoblade Chronicles, especially since it's been a while since its release. First and foremost, it has the magical Xeno prefix put there to pay homage to the other Xeno-games: Xenogears and Xenosaga. It has been created by Monolith Studios, who also created Xenosaga and (some of them) were involved in the creation of Xenogears. The reason this prefix carries so much weight is that as far as game plots go, both gears and saga are among the most complex. Particularly Xenosaga, which was originaly planned to run for seven episodes in total. Unfortunately it was cut down to three and it shows quite a bit. The third and final episode does tie together the main plot but leaves a lot of unfinished or hastily finished business in its wake.

Second, Xenoblade promised to honor JRPG traditions - the game has a large world and lots and lots of things to do. It also has epic length as I very recently discovered. Finally, the game has had a massively positive response in both reviews and among the gaming community. The biggest reason that was holding me back from playing it was honestly its platform: the Nintendo Wii. Let me just say that Wii is possibly the biggest disservice to the entire industry ever and a joke at best as a gaming system. Having seen how poorly The Last Story performed on the system I was not very enthusiastic towards experiencing Xenoblade Chronicles. Now that I have laid the game down, I will have to immediately say that this game is not worth all the hype. I will however have to admit that it was, in the end, a good JRPG despite its very slow start.

1. Timescale balance

The first topic therefore is what I think is actually quite a common issue in JRPGs in general: they are almost always more interesting after a good many hours into the game. Not always, but often - usually when this is not true, it is because the latter half of the game is botched horribly. What I mean to say is, these games have a tendency to start slow both story and game mechanics wise. Often the very beginning is actually quite fast storywise because something needs to happen to get things going. After this a lot of games start to falter a bit. Either they fail to introduce anything thrilling for quite a while because the characters are resolving the initial issue (which often is not the really interesting part of the plot - interesting twists later in the story are a norm in this genre).

This is what happens with Xenoblade too. The first half of the game is basically spent traveling from point A to B, through a cavalcade of points in between. For me it simply failed to inspire the sense of an epic journey - something Final Fantasy X did for me - which meant it was literally just a series of new places and rather lame subplots. Perhaps the biggest failing plotwise in Xenoblade was however that for the entire first half of the game you could easily guess what the plot twist would be after the destination was finally reached (it is the same twist I referred to in the earlier post about women in games). In a way it just fails to give the player anything to chew on. One of the major advantages of Xenosaga in particular was that it had the player going "wtf" from almost the beginning. Actually the saga's plot is so complex that the player might still be all "wtf" by the end of it but hey, that's another topic entirely. I like the sense that something bigger is clearly going on.

Another, once again rather common problem in all games that have some kind of character development, is that in the beginning the player has very limited options and therefore mechanics can become really boring. This happens in Xenoblade on massive scale - partly because I think there are some flaws in its combat design - in such a way that the game is not exactly the most thrilling to play for the first twenty or so hours either. Quite honestly if I had made this analysis halfway into the game, you would be reading some serious bashing. At this point I actually was of the opinion that the game is utter crap and massively overhyped. A word of warning: if you want to like this game, be patient enough to actually get to the likeable parts. Unless you like the design which I believe a lot of people do, because it is reminescent of another JRPG title that reviewers liked and I find outrageous.

The bottom line is, way too often JRPGs fail to truly spark any interest in the player for the first few hours - this is strangely forgiven by the time players get to the good parts. However if we stop to consider, some of the worst offenders are not particularly good before the player has put in enough time to have beaten most games in any other genre. That is not good design and it is no wonder the genre is no more massively popular. It also outrageously common to have a certain plotline in the game that requires the player to rummage through several dungeons or other places while nothing really happens to move the game forward. "Now we are prepared to face the villain... almost. We just need you to get four pieces of this ancient relic from opposite corners of the world." that kind of thing. Meanwhile, absolutely nothing happens.

2. The single player MMORPG syndrome

This is what links Xenoblade to one of my least favourite JRPGs I have played: Final Fantasy XII. This syndrome is exactly what the name suggests: the game borrows its tropes and mechanics heavily from massively multiplayer online games and tries to make them work in a single player experience. The problem of course is that they just fail miserably. The gameplay mechanics of MMORPGs are - on average - frigging boring, especially in the beginning when there are very few abilities to use. My guess is that they have been optimized for playing with latency and in general to be playable by people who are not so great with their keyboard+mouse-fu. In case you have somehow missed the World of Warcraft school of fantasy combat, it is built around abilities with cooldowns and aggro mechanics.

We will get to the combat in a sec, but first let's talk about another trope that is ubiquitous in MMORPGs: quests. Lots and lots of quests. So it is in Xenoblade; the amount of quests in this game is simply overwhelming. When there are so many quests, it is immediately clear that almost all of them will be of the simple variety: collect items or kill monsters. As if it wasn't enough to have a massive amount of quests, the game also has one annoying aspect: quests are given by people, and in some clumsy attempt to appear more realistic, the people are not always available. Instead some people are only available during certain hours, sometimes only in certain weather. I could maybe understand people missing from the streets at night but making it also dependent on the exact time of the day is just really frustrating. I was already flooded with quests so this didn't bother me that much, except when I tried to turn in some quests and the recipients were not around.

The game does feature the ability to at least fast-forward the game clock. Still this is just not the way to do things. The game also gives horribly little information about the quests - like for instance what god forsaken hours the quest recipient would be as kind to be available. This is one thing I have always hated about JRPGs: some stuff is hidden in such irrational ways that the only sensible way to go about finding it is using a guide. Usually side quests are particular to the area where you get them, but when they are not, the game sure as hell doesn't bother to give information about where it would be possible to find the required items. The world is very large, and each area contains a huge amount of different enemies, so trying to find things is a massive time sink. Which I ultimately opted not to do.

As stated, the battle system in the game is very MMORPG-inspired. Simplified yes, and somewhat conforming to JRPG tropes, but MMORPG nonetheless. The player controls one character while two other party members are AI-controlled. Characters attack automatically when close enough to a target. They can also use abilities called arts, each of which has its cooldown time. Positioning matters but only slightly: attacking from behind or sides affects how some arts work. Another thing that matters is aggro, which is used to determine who the enemies will be targeting. It's not a bad system, but it is kind of boring. There is not that much strategy involved because the effect times of most abilities are way shorter than their cooldowns. The best single mechanic is the break-topple-daze system that allows enemies to be disabled for a while and take more damage.

The single player MMORPG syndrome is not a collection of aspects, but rather a general feeling. In Xenoblade it is very strong, and I think it is a bit lazy design. The biggest problem with the syndrome is that it is definitely not the combat mechanics that keep people playing MMORPGs. It is mostly the MMO and for some players the RP. The design of the G is actually not that exciting - at least not the combat part. I do know that in some MMORPGs the combat design is actually more exciting (e.g. Guild Wars, Tera) but the basic form seen in World of Warcraft is effing boring. It likely gets better later in the game as it eventually does in Xenoblade. However, over 20 hours is a long time for combat to be not that interesting.

3. Conservative RPG design

The real problem with combat in Xenoblade is not its similarity to MMORPG style but rather all the character development aspects that affect it. Xenoblade has a very conservative character development scheme in which advancement is carefully tied to plot progress. Higher levels in arts become available only when the player discovers manuals. Equipment is gradually upgraded in every area. Even the game's built-in crafting system puts limitations on how high leveled gems the player can produce at a given stage in the game due to the availability of materials. The problem with being so conservative is in the fact that it makes half of the things kind of redundant. The game does not really need scaling equipment because their scaling speed is about the same as character level advancement. This is something I have always had trouble understanding: if equipment is just better numbers, why have equipment in the first place.

Granted, there are pieces of equipment that have fixed games attached to them, which gives them special abilities that are usually slightly better than what is possible to produce at that time using slotted inventory and crafted gems. The gem system is mostly fine, although the crafting itself has unnecessary complexity. I found myself using the same two characters to produce every single gem during my game, and was more than happy with the results. The system probably has more to give but I didn't see any way to "jump ahead of the curve" - so to speak. The choices that really matter are which arts to equip and level up, and which gems to equip in slotted equipment. Skill trees are very simple, and the skills themselves are quite conservative in how much they affect the game.

It is not as bad as, say, The Last Story, but I still felt that my control over how my party fought was not the same level as I would have liked it to be. It is true that Xeno games in general have never been outstanding in this sense, but I do feel that some of the Xenosaga episodes did have more strategical options available. As far as options are concerned there is one factor that I found especially weird: practical party compositions are actually pretty limited. It is good that characters have different strengths and in Xenoblade every character has a quite distinct role. However there are two or three cases where this is simply taken too far: only one character can cast a shield against enemy talent arts; only one character can deal serious magic damage; and only one character is good enough at healing to actually have an impact.

The first and second are borderline fine, because there are not that many enemies where you would require their expertise, but the last one is really horrible. The way the game is designed, there tends to be only one way to fight: the slugfest - outlast your enemies. This topic was earlier discussed in this blog and I concluded that games where the slugfest is the only option are rather weak. In slugfests, when fights get prolonged, it is simply impossible to last very long without a healer. This makes that one character a requirement for any serious fights and with a party consisting of three characters, that only leaves two choices for the player. Granted, getting through bread and butter combat can be done without a healer but for every boss encounter you will need this character. There simply is no other way to reduce incoming damage.

Another problem with this whole conservative approach is that the player simply doesn't get the feeling of being in control in fights. There is simply not enough agency. There are some systems in the game that do increase the sense of agency - they will be discussed shortly. Nevertheless the sense of being in control is simply quite diminished. Although you control a character in real time, there is only so much you can do because none of the arts have really drastic effects. The designers have simply done too good a job of making sure the game is in balance - the result is overbalanced. Although the characters are different, the fighting experience is alarmingly similar with every party composition. The only exception is whether you have a healer or not. Controlling other characters yourself also gives a distinct experience, but the overall strategies remain the same.

Xenoblade does get more interesting around the 30 hour mark but it still is simply not as interesting as many other JRPGs that give a better sense of agency. That, and the mechanic itself is not that satisfying to play, largely due to its MMORPG influences. In lot of JRPGs tactical variance is in fact quite low, but usually the tactics are more satisfying to carry out. Often this is linked to how well skills combo with each other. This is another thing that Xenoblade does not do as much as I could have hoped. Monolith Studios does know how to build more intriguing skill systems into a game as was evidenced by Xenosaga 2 and 3 - they have just chosen not to do so.

4. One meter to rule them all

One central mechanic that the game itself somewhat underemphasizes is the party meter. At first I thought it was a bad idea but once I figured how to manipulate it better the game actually became quite a bit more enjoyable. The meter is more or less the lifeblood of your party because it does a variety of things. The meter has three segments, and most things cost one segment. The things you can do with it are: revive an ally; get revived by an ally (if there are no segments left, you lose the battle when the main character falls); warn an ally about an incoming art (see below); perform a tri-attack which uses all three segments. The fact that you need the same bar for both the combo attack and revival made little sense at first because it made combo attacks very suicidal to perform (lose 3 revives/warnings for a combo? No thanks!).

The warning system is noteworthy. Whenever an enemy art would incapacitate or put a character on very low HP or disable them severely, the player is given a foresight of the incoming attack and (usually) 8 seconds to react (12 if it is a talent art). If the player chooses to warn another party member, they can instantly cast one art with the warned character out of normal sequence. Most importantly, even abilities that are on cooldown can be cast, and casting arts from warning doesn't put them on cooldown. So, basically it is a free cast whenever something bad is about to happen. The player can actually warn both allies for the price of two segments. The system is in no way limited to defensive abilities, it can also be used to get a quick powerful attack in hope that it will kill the enemy. It can even be used to activate buffs that are on cooldown.

It is still slightly unclear to me what factors are involved in raising the meter. Three things raise it: critical hits, triggering special effects of some arts and seemingly random affinity moments. The last is a bit unclear because I did not experience anything that controlled when you get the affinity opportunities in battles. The first two are something that the player can actually build a strategy around by using characters with easy access to high critical chance or arts that have easy-to-trigger special effects and low cooldowns. These things allow the use of tri-attacks actually quite frequently. Furthermore, tri-attacks are usually used to cause a break-topple-dazzle combo which incapacitates an enemy for a moment. The daze can also be refreshed when it wears off (the window is quite short) which means you can follow a tri-attack combo with prolonged knockdown.

My basic setup was often able to fill two segments of an empty party meter during this period of daze. This allowed almost non-stop tri-attacks. Some enemies are immune to it though, because they are immune to break. Some enemies also have a defensive mechanism that makes them return a ton of damage when they are attacked while toppled. This effect can be removed temporarily, but only by one character in the entire game. The tactic is somewhat reminescent of Persona 3 Fes where it was possible to keep an enemy in an infinite knockdown loop but better in the sense that the loop cannot be infinite (I think, I haven't tried too hard). The fact that it doesn't always work also makes other tactics useful. Tri-attacks on the other hand are not very useful if they cannot be used to cause a daze, largely because without that temporary lockdown the player will be left entirely without party meter segments for a while.

Especially towards the end of the game, the party meter played a central role in tougher battles. The battle was then more about keeping the meter high, especially because of the warning system that allowed instant free heals for the whole party whenever someone was about to die. The warning system actually has a strong familiriaty to it - it reminds me of the boost system that was used in Xenosaga. It allowed characters to skip ahead in turn order and enabled both reactive plays and ability combinations to be carried out effectively. I am quite fond of systems like this one that allow the player to mess with the normal turn order. Although Xenoblade doesn't use turns what with being real-time and all, the warning system allows the player to ignore ability cooldowns.

5. World exploration

After playing the game I kind of know why it is held in high regard by many. Undeniably the world is interesting. Civilizations existing on top of two dead titans is a concept you don't see every day. Most importantly, this shows in the game. Look up and somewhere in the distance you can see a motionless metallic face. Environments are quite varied, especially on the starting titan. Most importantly, the local fauna on each area is credible. Enemies of very high levels can be found among the normal residents which makes it feels less like everything has been put there for the player. A similar choice was made in the largest area in Final Fantasy XIII. Like in FFXIII, monsters are visible to the player and can be avoided. Battle also takes place on the world map itself, like in FFXII, and prolonged battles can sometimes be joined by wandering monsters.

Enemies are divided into four categories based on how they get aggressive towards the player. The first category never does, they just exist and will only fight if attacked first; the second uses sight to detect the party; the third uses hearing (shorter range, but 360 degree detection); and the last type is drawn to magic being cast. Because the enemies can flock to battles that have already started, some consideration is required from the player before starting to fight. I have a divided opinion of this system - I find it fine when enemy patrol routes are not too long and it is somewhat predictable when more will join the fight. However in some areas there are flying monsters with monstrous patrol ranges that can just pop into a fight. I did find a rather silly way to deal with battles with too many monsters: hit and run.

Battles end when the player runs far enough, and characters recover their hit points very quickly outside of combat. Monsters also recover their health, but dead ones stay dead for quite a long time. Therefore it is possible to run in, kill one enemy and run away to heal. Rinse and repeat. Reminds me of the very old times with dungeon crawling games like Eye of the Beholder where you could literally run in, hit, and quickly run back (one step) to make any retaliation miss. In Xenoblade this strategy is brought about because escaping is quite easy, especially when all three characters are still alive. Once aggro is off the main character, the player can just run out of combat with no risk at all. Bursting down weaker enemies one by one in this way is an effective tactic but I did find it to be rather tedious. Fortunately it was not needed very often.

Unfortunately, besides monsters there is not much in the world to discover. Collectables are scattered here and there randomly (they also respawn randomly) but the only thing that truly drives the player to explore is the scenery. I have to say that I was quite positively suprised by the game's drawing distance. This made the scenery actually look quite impressive, despite the Wii's lack of visual processing power.

Conclusion

Ultimately the biggest issue I had with Xenoblade Chronicles was that it took so long for the game to truly get started. The first 20 to 30 hours simply were not up to the hype because nothing interesting was going on in the story and battle mechanics were not particularly varied yet. Once the game finally upped the stakes by a few notches I found it to be a solid JRPG. However it wasn't particularly spectacular at any point. Most aspects of the game are "only" good. Characters, plot, mechanics... none were really spectacular. Oh and why is that if there is a silly looking race in the game, they have to behave like idiots too? I can understand why a lot of people liked this game. After all, a lot of people also liked FFXII - which is possibly the worst JRPG I have ever played - and Xenoblade does have a lot of similarities.

Curiously enough, the fact that this game was for Wii did not bother me much at all. After the framerate nightmare of The Last Story I was prepared for much worse, but in fact most of the time Xenoblade ran just fine. It is possible that I would have liked this game more in the past. Now it suffered from rather high expectations and simply did not live up to them. The plot was nowhere near the complexity of other Xeno titles. Characters and dialogue were pretty standard stock, and I found voice acting - both English and Japanese - to be really tired. It was not quite as bad as The Last Story, but quite close. I guess the low budget of Wii development carries over to other aspects of the game too. The seriousness of the plot was also hurt by the fact that armor changed character appearance and at some point in the game the best armor - for a really long time too - was practically underwear.

Xenoblade did in many ways resemble JRPGs of the old times. It is just that it retained some things that could have been left into the past, but most importantly I think most of the modernizations were misses. This trend of likening single player RPGs to MMORPGs is a bad direction to head into. Sadly it is quite prevalent. Stop the madness and start making good single player games dammit.