My Games of 2012, Part 1

I have been putting this off and putting it off more than usual and that's mostly because I've been given the leisure to do so.  It is Game of the Year time, or at least, it -was-, but given that I use the voting over at a few forums, namely the Penny Arcade ones which didn't start until this week (Last Sunday, I believe), to make my list, I've just been stewing on it til tonight.  Tonight, I sat down, I opened a spreadsheet and input the games I'd played last year (well, 20 of them.  I played 21 friggin' new games last year) and began the arduous task of ordering them.  Ranking them from 20-1, wracking my brain the entire time over whether I wanted this game over that one or that game under this one.  Twenty Games is a -lot- of goddamn games, so it makes a hard decision that much more difficult, but I managed to come up with a list that I'm satisfied with even though it was damn rough putting it together.

2012 was a friggin' big year in gaming, because even as I perused the list of games to add to my own, I must've ticked off three or four games at least that I -could- own, that I -could- have played, that I sort of -wanted- to own and play, but there was just no damn time for it.  This last week and a half, I played over five of the games that ended up making my list and that's not because I was -waiting- to play them or anything, simply that it was opportune to do so.  I could swing playing them now and be able to give them a fair shake.  Granted, I did stray here and there last year playing games that I -couldn't- vote for (namely Final Fantasy XIII and Demon's Souls) but there were reasons for those (for the former, so I could appropriately judge FFXIII-2, and the latter because it's goddamn Demon's Souls) and most of these games that I played just recently weren't in my possession prior to December anyway.  Still, I'm stalling now, so I'm going to jump right in this.  As I have twenty games in my list, it's going to require quite a few posts, but I don't want to straggle them out too much.  This first post will have my bottom five, and perhaps tomorrow I'll cover a good portion of the next bit of it over a single post or maybe two.  Just to get them out there and get this done and dusted.

20.  Final Fantasy XIII-2

You're probably thinking, "Woah, hey Mogs, you hated Final Fantasy XIII-2!  Why is it on your Games of the Year list?"  And that is an entirely valid wonder to have.  Because I kind of wondered myself on whether or not it would even show up.  The only thing I had below it was MotorStorm RC (Because fuck that game, stupid goddamn drifting and grumble, grumble) and it would have been a simple matter to leave them -both- off my list, to only have 19 games to cover.  That probably would've been the wisest course to take, really, but there is something important to Final Fantasy XIII-2, much as I am begrudging to admit it.  Final Fantasy XIII-2 was Squeenix's attempt, a real honest attempt, to do all sorts of different things, to go wild after the wildly constrained Final Fantasy XIII, and to improve it.  That they failed miserably, utterly and completely is its own condemnation, but I do have to hand it to them for at least -trying- instead of directly going to the next numbered Final Fantasy game that A) won't be out for like two or three years at -best- and B) will be all sorts of different itself, possibly in good ways, possibly in bad ways, but not very likely to have a lot in common with XIII.

Final Fantasy XIII was a good game mired in bad decisions and Final Fantasy XIII-2 was a bad game dragging down good ideas.  They're victims of their own extreme natures, but that there was -something- good about XIII-2 is enough to qualify it for my list, even if it is the very bottom spot.  There is also a very small (read:  like huge) chance that the voice-work of Liam O'Brien and Laura Bailey in the same game did wonders for its playability when the actual game itself did not.  While it may a bit silly that I would hold either of those in that high regard, in some ways, there is something to be said for production values and the things associated with that, as even the most fun game could be dragged down by less-than-quality voice-overs for the simple fact that you do still have to listen to those at some point, much as you have to play a mini-game at some point (for, let's face it, like most games) or have to really take a look at some of the texture quality at some point.  It's all just to get a general opinion of a game and that is the name of the game here.

19.  Resistance:  Burning Skies

The fact that I played Resistance:  Burning Skies, got the Platinum trophy in it and reviewed it, yet I don't really remember a whole lot about it is probably a good indicator of why it went so low on my list.  At the end of the day, Burning Skies just wasn't a very memorable game one way or another.  It was decent in quality, neither good nor bad and I think that that's almost worse than being bad since it just leaves it to get forgotten as you move on to other games that actually invoke something in you, whether it is positive or negative.  It's only because I actually liked the game a little bit for not being bad that it topped FFXIII-2, for instance and otherwise it was just a game that existed, that I bought and played and then moved on from.    Really, for as much as I like Resistance as a series, that's quite an unfortunate turn of events, but is not, in itself a condemnation of the game.

Burning Skies' only success, really was showing the world that First-Person games can be competently made and played on the Vita.  Because of the way it controlled, with just a little more polish Burning Skies could have been a good game, one that you would speak of when not specifically asked about it, but doing that seemed a little bit out of Nihilistic Studios' abilities.  It's very unfortunate that they then went on to be given the reigns to the Call of Duty game that was similarly tepidly received even though I'm assured that it controlled nicely as well.  Still, people know that the ability is there, we just need somebody that will capitalize on it.  Since Nihilistic is (thankfully) out of the way, having moved on to becoming a Mobile game studio, that leaves them out of the running to make anymore FPS games for anyone else that offers a quick buck.  Regardless, Burning Skies was definitely not a need-to-play title, but I urge you, if you have the opportunity (perhaps if it is free for Playstation Plus), try it out and see that FPS games work on it, because Burning Skies will tell you that, even if it won't tell you much else.

18.  Tales from Space:  Mutant Blobs Attack!!!

Speaking of things free on Playstation Plus, for a little while there, Tales from Space:  Mutant Blobs Attack!!! was one such title offered and I snapped it up, somewhat eager to see what the little title had to offer.  I knew nothing about it other than it was a rather charming little platformer with a touch of puzzle elements and, well, that is pretty much what I got.  Those impressions pretty much put everything on the tin and there's nothing at all wrong about that.  It does make it a bit hard to say much else about the game since...well, there's not a whole lot of depth to it, really.  Even the story, such as it is, is barely interspersed between chapters with no real dialogue, relying on some basic images to convey a basic story of the blob landing on the planet, getting bigger terrorizing everything and so on.

It's simplistic and that's most of its charm really - you navigate levels, eating whatever you can to make yourself bigger so that you can advance, and then you get to the end.  The next level has you eating more things so you can get even bigger and so on.  You start out as something that one might find on their desk and, in short order, are large enough to consider houses something to hop off of like stepping stones, chowing on cows for a snack and pulling in Helicopters for a good meal.  The presentation doesn't necessarily do the scale justice, but it's done well enough that, if you think about it for a moment, it really sinks in.  As it gets more and more complicated, however, as platformers and puzzlers tend to do, it becomes less and less fun, for me anyway, and for that reason, I didn't even bother finishing the second to last and last areas, since I just got overwhelmed with the puzzle elements and just found the levels to be a chore.  Still, it was fun while it lasted, as they say.

17.  Dynasty Warriors Next

If you're even a casual reader of Kupowered, you probably know that I was a man who enjoyed a good Warriors title.  I say 'was', however, since KOEI, in their infinite wisdom, decided it was a good idea to stop making disk-based games solely for the PS3 and solely for the NA region.  Yes, yes, there's that whole story about "Sony won't let us because blah blah blah", but it's a bunch of horseshit and I'll not hear anyone tell different.  As such, Dynasty Warriors Next is probably the last Warriors game I'll be able to enjoy unless they release any new titles for the Vita since their download sizes will probably not be the 11 gig monstrosities that One Piece:  Pirate Warriors, Warriors Orochi 3 and such have been.  Next was not quite the best send-off for the series, either.

While it aspired to be Handheld Dynasty Warriors 7 in a way, it ultimately didn't live up to that specifically because the replayability is mired in a randomized, barebones attempt at an Empires game that doesn't even accomplish a good shake at that.  Still, it -played- mostly like DW7 and that is a very, very good thing.  Beyond that, it kept my interest for a long, long time, though not anywhere near the 78+ hours that would have been required for at least one of the trophies, which would put me that much closer to the Platinum for it, a task which I have fully acknowledged will never happen.  Because I just am not about that.  I don't have that kind of time.  Clearly.  All in all, however, I liked Next even if my opinion of KOEI and all things Warriors has changed dramatically since.

16.  Sound Shapes

I had a lot of fun with Sound Shapes, and in my opinion it was a pretty neat little game, even if 'little' ended up being quite the descriptor.  I'm not sure what gave me the impression, but I expected there to be full albums (which, admittedly would be three songs/stages) as DLC to accompany the post-release of the game and it was only a year later when the game got -anything-.  It was not Album DLC either, but simply new tools to use for music in the creation tool which, while welcome, did nothing to extend the actual -game- itself.  In all reality, that was Sound Shapes' biggest fault in that it just was entirely too short, especially for the build the game had going behind it.  The online community reflected that in dying off fairly shortly, or perhaps that's just me being bitter because the level I created only got 4 plays and none of them were from anyone that reads this, I don't think.  I even showed if off here, though that's only the visual side to it, not the audio, which I thought was pretty good!

Still, Sound Shapes was a fantastic little thing for what it was, and that's really what counts.  The levels were fun and varied, the music was wonderful to listen to, and the package was fully there, even if it was a bit too easy outside of the challenge levels.  If there had just been a little more to it - maybe a couple more albums, it would've rated much higher in public opinion, I think and it would've kept interest for a lot longer than it did.  It's another case of "great while it lasted" and if only it had lasted a bit longer.  If only.  I could say it again and again, but the fact of the matter was that it just wasn't and still isn't.  Maybe the community's put together something fantastic in the meantime, but I'm not sure and I probably won't be finding out since the 1 gig and change of space that Sound Shapes needs is being used up by something else that I'm actually playing.

So that was the bottom five games of my list.  That...that was pretty much the easy part.  It was everything after this where things pretty much got harder and harder to pick as it went along, and I ended up surprising myself quite a few times when faced with all the options I had.  It wasn't like some years where I had x, y and z games that were -my- games, where the rest, I just enjoyed in some form.  No, there were quite a few games that were -my- games, and it was hard putting them in order, though I think I did so in a satisfactory manner.  Hopefully by the end of all this, I'll feel the same way, because man, I'm sure I can regret it and I fear that I might because of how close it was.  Still, that's something we'll have to see about!

An Addendum to the Final Fantasy XIII-2 Review

Something that I really worried about with the Final Fantasy XIII-2 review while I was writing it and while I wasn't writing it, since I did start it and then not get back to it for a while, was the fact that it was, indeed, a wholly negative review.  It's not something that I relished doing, that I particularly -wanted- to do in the sense that I don't like being a complete negative nancy about things as I was.  However, there's absolutely no way I -could- write anything about Final Fantasy XIII-2 other than what the review contains.  The review is simply my opinions, my judgements and my appraisals of the game, just the same as any other review I've done.  The only difference with the other reviews is that, generally, the games I reviewed that aren't Final Fantasy XIII-2 are games that I liked.  Or, in some cases, games that I absolutely adored for the parts that they were compiled of.

That is the sort of pitfall I worried about way back when I considered Reviews being something beyond the scope of what I felt comfortable doing.  Obviously, I'm not going to like every game, and we've all read enough reviews that are negative that we've simply tossed aside without a care.  The reviewer didn't get this, didn't understand that, didn't know the importance of that, the list of reasons that we use to discredit reviewers that don't like the games we like is endless and they come so easily that we don't think about it.  As the reviewer, there's no way you can back up anything you write as a reason for why you dislike a game because that's what it is - a dislike, an opinion, something that's steeped solely in your view of matters which is different from everyone else's.  In the end, I just ended up feeling a little bad about writing so negatively about Final Fantasy XIII-2 is what I'm building up to, because even though I tried to be objective, tried to steep things in objective terms, it's impossible to do that completely.

Of course, when I think about the time I spent with the game, I don't feel anything but wholly and completely justified.  It's a weird balance, I suppose, and it's a weird thing to just honestly dislike the game as much as I do, but that's what it is.  Clearly I'm not writing a review of a hot new game to inspire site hits or anything, as I literally posted the review a year late for that, and I'm not trying to use hyperbole for effect.  I just unfortunately thought the game wasn't good for reasons that exist on a mechanical level, something a little more concrete than not in the wholly wobbly situation regardless.  I would try to be constructive about it, but I already gave all my constructive ideas for Final Fantasy XIII itself - the sequel went completely in the opposite direction, so all I would say is "come back and go the -other- way" which is really kind of an obvious thing.

I guess the point I really wanted to make here is that, in all reality, I'm just bummed that I didn't like Final Fantasy XIII-2.  I was all prepped to do so, and perhaps that was part of the reason why I couldn't, but whatever the reason, my time spent with it was simply miserable and it had no reason to be.  Final Fantasy XIII was a wonderful, if flawed base to make a game from, yet XIII-2 cannibalized only a few parts and not even in complete fashion, making it so that it honestly would have been better if they just hadn't tried it in the first place.  It's rare when a sequel completely and totally underperforms its predecessor, by a measure that's clear and not a difference of opinion over trivial parts.  This was a categorical failure across the board as far as I'm concerned, and unless someone can make me see the 'truth' or inform me of just what I was doing wrong, that's all I can say about the game.  It's not fact - it can't be - but being as objective as I can be, I just can't see it any other way.

That's just a real shame.  I'm not particularly thinking Lightning Returns is going to be the redeemer either.

Review - Final Fantasy XIII-2

I hate Final Fantasy XIII-2.

There.

I said it.

It is a deep, extensive and grand loathing that I have for the game and absolutely nobody is more surprised by this than I am, I assure you.  As with its predecessor I walk away from XIII-2 in a state of utter and complete confusion, but it's not at the paradoxical feeling that I like the unlikable, but rather that I am simply confused at how anyone could claim to like XIII-2.  I am saying this literally and without exaggeration because it is something that I simply cannot comprehend - it is beyond my grasp.  I do try to be objective, I say that a lot, and I have tried and I have tried, but there's just nothing I can pull out and hang on to, hold out and say "This, this is why I think people think it's a good game.  I disagree, but that's that".  I just cannot, for the life of me, say that the game is anything other than objectively bad which is a baffling statement for me and one that I don't take lightly.

The single thing, I think, that confuses me the most about Final Fantasy XIII-2 is that, where Final Fantasy XIII might have had only three real redeeming qualities, XIII-2 doesn't even have those.  All three of XIII's redeeming qualities have been filtered through XIII-2 and came out worse off overall - something that truly astounds me.  I wish I were using some sort of wacky hyperbole, that I was being uncharacteristically harsh on something for comedic value, but I just don't get it.  It eludes me.  Like nothing else has and I just can't help but express my frustration at that because I played the game.  I languished through its 30 hours or however long it took expecting a turning point and it never came.  It was un-enjoyable, mediocre drivel all throughout and perhaps with my admittedly excessive display, I'll be able to find -someone- that can actually quantify just what I'm missing, because clearly I am missing something if I am this far away from fun when it comes to the confines of Final Fantasy XIII-2.

It is for all of those reasons that it's hard to find a spot at which to start at.  Indeed, I'm blessed with a wealth of options here and that's a rather unfortunate thing, something I certainly don't relish.  I guess the best place would be to take Final Fantasy XIII's three points and extrapolate just -how- XIII-2 manages to wobble them so spectacularly, since that's about as good of an idea as any.  It really is impressive to see, which I guess is -one- positive I can say about the game:  It is interesting to watch like a train hitting a monster truck or something similarly strange.

Where Final Fantasy XIII was downright gorgeous for most of it, XIII-2 ended up dragging a little in that department somehow.  I'm not quite sure if it was perhaps just the locals, the smaller areas, or perhaps even the NPCs which might've necessitated a little pull-back, but suffice to say, for the most part it was just "above average" in the graphics versus XIII's real astounding ones.  The lessened amount of FMVs also hurt a little bit, I'm sure since there were about a handful in XIII and they were mind-blowing.  XIII-2's -do- match up here but that's because...well, it's FMV.  It's hard to make a bad looking FMV these days, especially with Squeenix.  If they're good at anything, it's certainly making shiny sparkly FMVs that are damn gorgeous to look at.  I should stress again that the game is definitely above average, and some locales are particularly striking (The Academia that isn't a horrible flatbed of monsters, in particular), but overall it just seems to lack that polish that it really needs to get up to Squeenix standards.

Something else that suffers in the graphics department, in a sense, is the actual identity of the world in which Final Fantasy XIII-2 takes place.  Apologies for the spoilers here, but XIII-2 takes place after the events of XIII in which everyone who was on Cocoon must now make a living on Gran Pulse.  You know, that place that had monsters everywhere that were looking for ways to absolutely murder everything in sight.  Australia, in other words.  Except, Gran Pulse in XIII had its own distinct style and Cocoon had its own as well, so you sort of expect something of a blend of the two....yet it's not that at all.  The game starts in New Bodham, a settlement made by Snow and his cohorts and it's on Gran Pulse of course....yet it looks exactly like it did on Cocoon.  (Plus some buildings)  Similarly, some of the later areas look strikingly like Cocoon, yet aren't on Cocoon I guess?  And some places are meant to be -from- Cocoon or something, since nobody went to Gran Pulse before XIII-2 I think?  It gets confusing and, really that is the problem - there's no identity anymore.  You're thrust into locales, told them roughly what they are and you just swallow that because there's no sense in trying to justify them in the same world.New Bodham is established on a beach fairly near to the Crystal Pillar holding the Cocoon shell high above the planet.  Yet....300 years in the future, the Pillar is surrounded by a rainforest.  Inconsistencies that take you out of things completely run amok in the design.

More than that, the character designs, which I actually praised in XIII, got out and out ri-goddamn-diculous in XIII-2 which is par for the course I suppose, but still.  Serah's....weird....bondage get up is so goddamn out of place with everything, Fashion cycles every century or so, so people in 500 AF are wearing what people in 2 AF were wearing because 'it totally came back in style' (and not because Squeenix was too lazy to invent a new look for a new society built on the ashes of Cocoon so to speak) and Caius' outfit is beyond ridiculous.  Hell, Lightning's outfit is beyond ridiculous - fully armored top, absolutely no pants of any sort (not even her XIII shorts) and a feather half-skirt.  Noel is the only player here that isn't an abomination to look at and his style doesn't even make sense either because it's Gran Pulse style (from like a thousand years ago if Vanille/Fang are anything to go on) 600 years into the future (from the starting point of 1 AF or so).  Every other character falls into the mentioned "it's back in style!" trend except for Snow who...took off his shirt and his beanie and got his jacket kind of ripped up, which isn't bad against the other glaring things.

So, one of my main complaints about the battle system in FFXIII was that it just wasn't any fun with less than the full three-man party, and XIII insisted on putting you through about half the game without the luxury of three-man teams.  So when I say that XIII-2 gives you a third party member/slot pretty early in the game, that should mean that it's good, right?  You'd think so, right?  Well, surprise, but it's not.  The third party slot is one filled by a Monster of your choice of which there are an over-ample amount of possibilities.  Through the game, as you fight monsters, sometimes you'll gain their crystal, which allows you to summon one of their ilk to fight with you at your side.  Some monsters don't convert completely - a rather imposing behemoth early on the in game, for example, simply converts into a bog-standard behemoth and other things like that.  However, even though it sounds neat, it's hardly more than a Novelty.

Every monster has but a single class to them of the six available.  Commando, Ravager, Sentinel, Synergist, Saboteur and Medic.  There's all sorts of monsters of each type and as you might figure, some monsters are simply better than others in their class, meaning there is a 'paragon' monster for each class, if you will.  You have to use a Zubat before you can use a Pigeot, if you'll excuse the Pokemon analogy, by which I mean of course the better examples of monsters are only later in the game, and most of them in certain places only.  With a bit of training, by which I mean force-feeding materials down their throats (or equivalent) any monster can theoretically become 'useful' in battle, such as it were, but even at that, it's a little bit of an issue.  Everyone in the game, Serah and Noel and monster alike, is never set up to be a shining example of their class when compared to XIII's cast.  In a sense, I can understand that since XIII's party were basically demigods or avatars granted powers by a supreme being.  XIII-2's explanation is literally "some people were able to use magic after the fall of Cocoon", which means there's as much or as little room there as possible.  They went the latter route for some ghastly reason.

The thing that I hate about XIII-2's use of the battle system is simply that it's....too simple.  XIII's pace is fast, intense and you have to orchestrate your movements carefully for the most part, even in regular battles, if just to get a high score for a five-star rank.  None of this matters in XIII-2 - first off, don't even worry about five-starring, okay?  Or rather, did you get a pre-emptive strike?  You did?  Okay, you might get it.  You didn't?  STOP TRYING.  A majority of battles simply require a pre-emptive strike to grant you a five-star ranking which is bullshit and kills the need for anything resembling strategy, though of course, so do the piss-weak monsters.  And when I say requires a pre-emptive strike, I mean just that.  In one particular area, I was running into groups of monsters that I could defeat in two seconds.  Two.  Pre-emptive strike?  Five star!  Not pre-emptive strike?  Four star!  Same amount of time, same tactics, same damage, same everything, just that extra 2000 points (I think) from PES is all the difference.  That is ridiculous by any standard.

Another casualty to the simplification process is the very core of XIII's battle system - the Paradigm Shift.  In XIII, it was a vital tool to keep and control the flow of battle, making the tides go in your favor and seizing the moment whenever it came.  In XIII-2 it's....something you will use every now and then.  If you roll with Noel/Com, Serah/Rav and a Sentinel or Ravager monster, you will not have to do any shifting for 90% of the battles you'll encounter.  Those last 10% are, of course, boss fights and special encounters where you actually -do- have to fight to survive...sometimes.  Provided you aren't ridiculously over-levelled which only counts every now and then.  I recall vividly recounting my tale of the first encounter with Caius to a friend who played XIII-2 first.  I had accidentally grinded....a little too much in an attempt to make short work of a boss and when I reached Caius, I steamrolled over him, having wondered if it was meant to be difficult at all.  The incredulity in her responses to that knowledge was palpable and offered me a little smugness as I realized only then that it -was- supposed to be an intense, gripping fight, and that was short-lived as I realized the disappointment that creeped in with my knowing that it had been such a non-issue.

The balance that Squeenix so carefully crafted in XIII's corridors and broken doors and points of no return is nowhere to be found in XIII-2 and it's both slightly liberating and incredibly frustrating all at the same time.  That little session of grinding for that one boss encounter effectively ruined the difficulty of literally the rest of the game for me - only when I was trying to gather materials did I ever 'grind' again, which is not to say that it was the goal, but merely the side-effect.  Indeed, I eventually made it to level 99 in every class for Noel and Serah both which means most battles, I can simply let the game do what it will with the standard Com/Rav/Rav paradigm I used for 80% of the game.  Again, however, classes long became unnecessary so long as those classes weren't Synergist or Saboteur since every other class proved to be useful -sometimes- (Com/Rav/Med the most, Sentinel was still limited) but Syn/Sab are useful for precisely two fights all game...if then.  Any other time, they're honestly more of a hassle than not, which means you just won't really need to have them in your paradigm deck whatsoever now, will you?

Speaking of, the Paradigm Deck is still as limited as it was in XIII, literally one of the only hold-overs, and it's further complicated with the inclusion of the monsters.  In XIII, most characters were only useful in three particular classes, with the other three being merely tertiary.  This is something I lamented, but understood.  Thus when you were making your paradigms, you usually built around those strengths.  Those strengths don't exist in XIII-2 because there are no clear advantages for Serah and Noel in any classes (beyond, again, Commando and Ravager) so you'll probably just stick with those.  The Paradigm Pack allows you to include up to three monsters for distribution within those paradigms which means that you are technically still only working with one 'person' who is strong in only three classes.  Yet the whole thing is further complicated by every monsters individual stats which give you an extra facet to consider in your planning and the only six slots for paradigms becomes all the more limiting.  Of course, since shifting is such a non-issue, this is also not that big of a deal in theory, but as someone who wanted to at least pretend it was still good, it was incredibly infuriating.

XIII's last strong point, the characterization, is similarly wasted in XIII-2 and possibly the most spectacularly of everything here.  There is perhaps an hour of content in XIII in which Serah is not a giant crystal lawn gnome statue, and that single hour provides Serah with a much better characterization than XIII-2's entirety.  In XIII-2, she is no longer the slightly tragic, tortured soul struggling to figure out her way, but is instead a vapid, incredulous upstart who cannot retain anything and is constantly amazed by the theory that Lightning is alive in Valhalla which is a theory that she herself propagated in the first place.  She has a memory of Lightning being alive, well and certainly not a crystal at the end of XIII's events, however she is the only one with said memory as everyone else thinks Lightning is trapped inside the crystal pillar.  She knows she's right in her heart and wants nothing more than to be able to prove it.  Then....she has a dream about it being true and cannot believe it.  THEN, Noel comes out of a goddamn time gate, hands her a moogle and says "Hey, I just got this from Lightning, your sister in a place called Valhalla and I was there with Lightning and Lightning said she was your sister and that it was in Valhalla AND LIGHTNING WAS IN VALHALLA, THE PLACE I JUST WAS."

Serah doesn't know what the fuck to make of that.

That is not the last instance.  Oh lord, it is not by a large margin and it becomes more and more annoying with every time it comes up.  Eventually it culminates in a meeting with Serah and Lightning herself as you might guess.  After covering in just about every manner possible (Having the memory herself, being told by Noel who literally saw Lightning and was there with her, being told by Snow that Lightning talked to him a dream and helped him time travel, seeing fucking video footage of Lightning in Valhalla, plus others) there is Lightning, fresh from Valhalla to speak to her sister who has been looking for her all game.  Looking for a way to get to Valhalla to find Lightning.  In Valhalla.  Where Lightning is and is established to be several times in the game.

So the first thing Serah says is "You're alive?!  Where were you?!"

I understand that is a spoiler.  I am not sorry.

Noel is certainly not much better, nor is...well any character in the game.  The only other real stand-out is Caius Ballad who only transcends the rest of the cast by default and because he is voiced by Liam O'Brien who is one of the best VA dudes out there.  Caius, at the very least, has a very clear purpose all game.  Caius, at least, knows exactly how the hell to accomplish his goals.  And Caius, at least, isn't prone to asking the same goddamn questions over and over again, nor is he confused when the wind blows east or similarly insignificant things that apparently prevented the main characters from retaining very vital information for hours at a clip.  Of course, Caius is the villain of the game.  This isn't a spoiler - he is literally shown fighting Lightning (in fucking Valhalla) in the intro of the game, and is made very apparent as the antagonist from every point thereon.  He's the best character, by far, in the entire game and that's not saying much since his competition, in all reality, is only Noel and Serah who are dumb as goddamn bricks if I haven't made that abundantly clear.

"B-b-b-b-b-but at least it's not completely linear!", you say.  "You have different areas and you can go explore them at will!  For funsies!"  That is, of course, true.  I hope you enjoy the random battles you'll run into on every square inch of those wide open areas, though.  Oh?  You didn't know?  About the random battles?  Well, yes, gone are the on-field battles of XIII, replaced by a system that is so stupid I cannot even really understand it in my head now, much less when I was playing.  Apparently, monsters only show up for Serah and Noel under the guise of temporal distortions (in 98% of the cases at least) which are picked up by Mog, the ever helpful magical Moogle Macguffin and he shows up as a Mog clock that displays their time in Serah and Noel's plane of existence.  Or....shows how dizzy they are after being transported to this plane.  Or something.  I forget - it's simply a thing to explain that things show up, you hit them with your sword before they hit you with their body and you get a pre-emptive strike.  Or if you get far enough away fast enough, you can force them back to the aether from whence they came.

Worth noting is that there are maybe a dozen unique locations in the game, only their instances are copy/pasted and altered to match other timelines, sometimes in dramatic ways and sometimes not quite so much.  So, I hope you enjoy hoofing the same exact terrain three or four times over simply because this version of it is supposedly 100 years in the future and the only difference is that it's dusk and there are less barriers and for some reason different monsters entirely.  Except the monsters only show up from temporal distortions?  So who else is fighting monsters unless monsters are just constantly appearing from distortions and - okay nevermind.  Of course, some -are- dramatically different in layout and such and those are the refreshing ones.  They are also the rare ones.  They also don't stand out very much in the grand scheme of things.

This 'free-roam' concept is further exploited with a 'quest' system that literally only exists as a vessel through which the player is handed useless Macguffin collectibles that will in turn grant you other Macguffin collectibles eventually.  And most of the quests boil down to "Talk to someone, find the area they talked about and open the floating cube that has only since spawned there to get item, take back to person" affairs which, again, have you contend with the random encounters that show up out of nowhere for no discernible reason.  That you have to fight using a severely hampered battle system that offers nothing in terms of enjoyment nor reward unless you hit a Pre-Emptive strike.  Which you won't have because most of the time you'll have just tried to run away from the fight because the battle system is no fun.  Problems compounding problems compounding problems - that is the name of the game in XIII-2.

No matter what, as is the order of things, you are still rail-roaded into different time periods and alternate histories eventually regardless.  And should you go anywhere beyond those areas, your only reasons are to grind or to work on quests, meaning there's not a whole lot of worth in that free-roaming.  Unless you're going to Serendipity, the Casino resort on the outside of time's constraints in which you can play slot machines and race chocobos....and play a card game if you buy some DLC.  Literally, attempting to play at the card tables will instruct you to keep your eyes out for Downloadable Content that will unlock that feature.  It's more than a little on-the-nose.  And slot machines are just as frustrating as they are in literally every other game that includes them for reasons that are beyond my comprehension since gambling in video games is as fruitless, if not more, as real life.  So of course, 100% completion -and- a separate trophy (for 100% trophy list) relies solely on winning at the slot machines.  Which relies on chance - giving you absolutely nothing to tip the scales in your favor.

That...is pretty much everything, I should say.  I covered why the story sucks, why the characterization sucks, why the battle system sucks and why the game has literally -not- improved on XIII in any way.  I understand that, to a point, it's merely my opinion, but even objectively, I can't see it.  The battle system has been nerfed considerably - there's no argument there.  It would be like if Dark Souls 2 suddenly let you block endlessly, never taking your stamina for the pleasure.  It is a subtle change but it would completely wreck the entirety of the fun of the game as XIII-2's lack of emphasis on Paradigm Shifts has done.  Gone also are the concepts of fal'Cie and l'Cie in XIII-2, taking out the singular interesting, non-character-related story element from XIII.  What's left is a silly time travel story that makes absolutely no sense at any single point in time (ha!) with characters that would have more depth if they were printed out on a sheet of paper.  That is Final Fantasy XIII-2.

The Good

• Caius Ballad is a pretty good character
• Caius Ballad is voiced by Liam O'Brien
• ...
• Caius.  Liam O'Brien

The Bad

• The story is nonsensical and poorly told
• The characterization is flimsy and barely even attempted
• The Battle system has been made less fun by making Paradigm Shifting a tertiary tactic, rather than a core mechanic
• Monster collecting should be fun, but instead it's tedious and reliant entirely on luck
• Serendipity.  'Nuff said
• Seriously, Serah is like the worst character in anything
• One area, Academia 400 AF, I believe, plays party to the literal worst section in any RPG ever thanks to the stupid Random Encounters and narrow, terrible map design
• The entire Caius arc hinges on Serah and Noel being too stupid to use common sense (Spoiler: it works)
• Random Encounters
• Did you read the review?  Literally like everything about the game

Mogs Says

Final Fantasy XIII-2 is a shallow, vapid romp through forgettable scenery with terrible protagonists playing out a stupid story that never gets off the ground and simultaneously never makes sense.  I can only fathom a guess as to how anyone found it enjoyable, and that guess would be that it is a fairly easy game with above average graphics that lets you collect monsters for seemingly no reason.  There is, however, nothing that screams 'quality' from the title, no matter how hard I really, truly tried to hear it.  'Disappointing' is not the word to use, but it conveys the gist well enough.

The Perilous Power of Preconceptions

To say that I go into every game with absolutely nothing to sway my opinion of it, positively or negatively, would be an outright lie, as it is an impossibility.  To say that I try, however is not a lie at all, but just how successful I am at it is..well, probably suspect.  The last two games I have played have probably been victims to this and the next one I am looking forward to playing will likely fall into it as well.  At least, the next game that I am looking forward to playing outside of things that I might expect as gifts or something.  Basically, the next game that I am looking forward to purchasing and popping in the Playstation for a play is the game that I worry I will not be able to judge objectively because of what I already know of it.  What that could mean means that it is, indeed, a very valid concern to have.

The game I'm talking about, of course, is the above-pictured Far Cry 3 which just got a rather glowing review from Chance that is, in fact, entirely responsible for my desire to pick it up.  I had absolutely zero interest in Far Cry 3 prior to the review, which is unfortunate, since I just saw another FPS, but I am assured that it is quite more than that, something much bigger and much better than that.  In fact, what I have been promised, by Chance, is that the game is a tantalizing package of fun that offers things that I -want- and things that I cannot get in other games.  The prospect of a compound bow, of complete stealth in a FPS setting, of situations where I can make my own 'stories' of conquest as it were is almost mouth-watering and by the end of the read, it was all I could do to -only- put the game on my "Dear Mogs, you have to buy this, Love Mogs" list, rather than try to figure out the easiest way I could go out and purchase it -now- (or the best equivalent to 'now' which is generally 'tomorrow'.)

I am excited for Far Cry 3 and that is a dangerous scenario since I was also excited for Final Fantasy XIII-2, having been assured by the echo chamber that is the internet that it was 'the fun one', and overall a 'better game' than XIII.  While I tried to stay impartial, I was -hopeful- to say the least as, even though I liked Final Fantasy XIII, it had its many, many flaws, and to say that I was disappointed with XIII-2 is like saying The Big Bang was kind of a thing that happened.  It is infinitesimally understating matters and when I get around to reviewing the game, I imagine I will make that much clear.  However, in a similar fashion, I went into Final Fantasy XIII expecting something bad, indeed almost feared playing it, yet managed to walk away with a net positive feeling of the game.  That's the rub of it all, really, we color our experiences of a game, the end result of it, by what we went in expecting and, in general, I don't think it does a -lot-, but unfortunately when it does, you can't help but wonder what could have been if you just hoped for something different.

The difference in the scenarios, I imagine, is that what Chance has offered with his painting of Far Cry 3 is something that is tangible, where Final Fantasy XIII and its sequel were always unknowns.  Hearing of sneaking to the tops of towers and shanking a guy before clearing a base with a silenced sniper rifle or, indeed, a compound bow is something that I can quantify enjoyment out of in just theory.  Basically he is describing things in a positive light because they are inherently positive, with not much left up to 'opinion' as it were.  Final Fantasy XIII's battle system, on the other hand, is more objective in that someone can basically love or hate it for the -exact- same reasons, and it just has to be something you accept and/or enjoy, or something that pushes you away completely.  I'm sure it could be argued that Far Cry 3's activities have the same propensity, but look, you know what I meant, damnit.  There just seems to be something of a thrill to be had with Far Cry 3's offerings, simply as they are, where FFXIII could always have been something that just wasn't 'for' me.

Whatever the reason, I think it speaks volumes that it took just a well-written review to put a game directly on my radar, and towards the center of it no less when I had previously intended on giving it no other look than the one I had given to acknowledge it existed.  Yet it is always those experiences, -those- stories that seem to be the ones that end in a complete high note or an unexpectedly low one simply because the amount of pressure the game actually has on it is palpable.  I am confident in Far Cry 3's ability to deliver, however, and when I pick up a copy, likely post-holidays, I cannot wait to delve into its delicious-sounding offerings.  Of course, you know that means that you are totally on the hook, Chance.  So if I don't like the game, that's squarely on your head for making me so excited for the game.  Because I am so very excited for it if that wasn't completely and totally obvious.

So, I'm Sick Again

This is me.  I am Yosuke.  Minus the need for a stomach pump.

I have yet another sinus thingy going on, and whether it's a sinus infection or just general wonkiness -with- my sinuses is yet to be established.  Like, drastic temperature/climate changes throwing me off.  It doesn't really make that much of a difference (and honestly, I'm leaning towards the latter since I do not have common infection things) because it is ruining me all the same and that's a shame.  When I'm coughing hard enough to make my back hurt and sniffling five times every twenty seconds, it's pretty much all the same thing no matter the root cause and it sucks pretty direly.    That I don't have a fever and the stuff that I am hacking up in mass quantities is clear is of little solace since I have everything else and it is terrible and I am actively miserable.

Speaking of miserable, I beat Final Fantasy XIII-2 and when I can form entire sentences of vitriol I will review it.  Spoiler:  it is terrible.  I don't want to say a lot about it here because I'll feel like I'm reiterating during the review proper, but that's a thing that's going to happen, so be on the look-out for that sometime this week hopefully.  With any luck, as the weather normalizes over the next couple days, I'll even out and feel less like death warmed over.  Until then, though, I probably won't be able to write a whole lot because even doing just this is kind of a...not a chore, but it is not pleasant since I just sort of feel wooden in my head and I worry that is translating into these words and sentences.  Also I keep losing my train of thought and it keeps getting replaced by new things which is not very good for 'flow', as it were and I like flow.  I like flowing things together.  It is a neat thing.

I'm going to try to at least type -something- on these nights where I feel terrible since it has been happening a lot lately and it's bugging me.  I used to think that a post of mine wasn't a good one unless it was at least four paragraphs, and I realize that it is silly to gauge things by that so I'll stop doing that.  Just going to type until I am done typing.  And I think I am done typing tonight since that's all I really wanted to say, and my brain is already attempting to form things for the mentioned XIII-2 review and it is just not going to happen tonight, nor should it.  But some night. Some night soon.  In the meantime, I finally get to play something else since I am not going to try and platinum it, even out of spite, because there is a goddamn trophy tied to slot machines and the winning at them and that shit just ain't happening.  That -never- happens.  I don't understand why game companies keep doing that.  It just makes people hate you.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 is Also Dumb

Ever since I popped XIII-2 in after beating XIII and subsequently reviewing it, I have been trying so very hard to like it.  Because it's apparently good!  I mean, that's all I've heard about it since it came out at the start of this year and, after what was considered a 'bad game' like Final Fantasy XIII, the idea that the sequel was, then, good seemed like it had to have a -lot- done right to earn such praise.  In most cases, even when you don't particularly like a game that is praised as 'good' by the collective known as 'the internet', you can at least see why they judged such as they did, so at the very least, even if XIII is 'bad' and XIII-2 is 'decent' if not great, then hey, you've upgraded in any case, right?  So everything's sugar and rainbows no matter what, because at least, at least you're getting Final Fantasy XIII 'if it were good'.  Surely, I'm not really hammering in this point for any reason in particular.

So, before I address what is perhaps the least subtle thing I've said in the entirety of writing this blog, I would like to once again direct your attention to a recent post titled "How Final Fantasy XIII Could Have Been Better" because I pointed out three specific areas in which FFXIII came up short - Linearity, Poor Balance in terms of the Skill System and General lack of Focus with the story and elements as a whole.  I have stated, as well, in the past that the Battle System is an unusually good aspect of the game, that the Crystarium was not wholly bad and was, in fact, close to being good and that the characters, if nothing else, were fantastically established and grown throughout Final Fantasy XIII.  For XIII-2 to be praised so highly, you would think that it would at least fix a couple of the issues while strengthening the good parts, because that's generally how things work - a clear improvement gets a cheering.  And it is because of all that, that I think Final Fantasy XIII-2 is an amazing game, because it manages to take everything I just said, good and bad, and make it worse.  Frankly, I am fucking baffled and amazed at just how the hell that works.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 is a game that knows even less about what the hell it wants to do than its predecessor and that is saying something.  Being that it's a time travel story (spoiler:  FFXIII-2 has a Time Travel story), you go into it knowing that by the end of it, absolutely goddamn nothing will make sense because nobody knows how to write a competent time travel story that isn't Chrono Trigger, and I'm sure people will argue on that one too.  That, however, doesn't excuse the absolute laziness that goes through the rest of it, hitting on the parts that aren't even directly affected by time travel dickery.  For example, and this is pretty much the biggest example and the one I've been gritting my teeth against for the entirety of today in which I put many, many hours into the game, let me tell you about Lightning.  And when I say let me tell you about Lightning, I mean I am going to openly spoil Final Fantasy XIII so if you don't want to know anything, please move on to another post, sorry for the inconvenience.  I can't very well explain the laziness in the story without explaining the story, unfortunately, and I imagine most of the folks who want to play it, really want to play it, have already and know this anyway.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 begins with Lightning in a strange land that is quickly identified as 'Valhalla' where she and Odin are fighting some dude and it's all very epic I assure you and stuff is going on.  Then one of our protagonists, Noel, is introduced and speaks to Lightning who gives him a magical moogle (I am serious) and tells him to go find Serah on the other end of a time gate.  This is important.  So, blah blah blah, Noel finds Serah and they become TIME TRAVEL BUDDIES and BLAH BLAH BLAH, none of this is actually important, really except that the gist of it is Serah says "I had a dream that Lightning was in Valhalla, so I know she's alive" and Noel says "Yeah, I was there, she is" and Serah is genuinely fucking surprised by this.  They go on to meet old friends, discuss the situation and find more evidence that lends credence to the story of the guy who literally brought a fucking magical transforming Moogle that can talk and mentions Lightning through a time gate saying he saw Lightning.  And every.  single.  time. they 'realize', with great shock that Lightning 'might' be alive in Valhalla and that maybe they can get to her through a time gate.

I wish I was kidding.  I honestly do, because this shit is offensively stupid and it detracts from the overall experience which isn't too high to begin with.  Because the game can branch, in that you can go off and dick around in many time periods at once, I assume -some- of it can be contributed to the overlap in ensuring you establish a story no matter where the player goes, but after a certain point, you're literally somewhere you can only get after Point A and Point A included a portion where this whole Lightning bullshit was talked about already, and regardless, you have to play through everything eventually, so maybe you just need to manage it a little tighter in the narrative, which, after FFXIII is a fucking -riot- to say. 

But I can't really say too much of the story or the narrative overall just yet since I haven't beaten the game.  I imagine that when I do, I'll have an entirely larger post devoted to picking it apart completely and totally because I am very annoyed.  I guess the thing that's the problem is that I just really saw potential with FFXIII and with the assurance that XIII-2 was a good game, it had earned that by capitalizing on what was good about the original.  Instead, I am greeted with something that is praised for reasons I honestly, truly cannot comprehend on any level.  I am not having fun playing the game as I was with XIII towards the middle of it.  Maybe that will change later on, as I am probably still early on in it, but I really don't know.  I know that I'm very, very over-leveled for the area I'm in, so I'm absolutely steam-rolling everything which, honestly, kind of takes away from the fun too.  Odd as that might be, being able to stomp everything, including bosses, in your path isn't even fun in XIII-2.  Perhaps not yet, but certainly not now at the very least.

And Yea, As I Prepare To Gaze Into The Abyss

...I regret nothing.

I'm closing in on the point where I will fully have AssRev in the bag, completely and totally and were I in better health, tonight would be a review for it.  Or a review for Retro City Rampage.  Both of which I -want- to do, but I can't stay focused enough to even attempt.  I need to build up a verve, an energy to really put out something of that length that maintains quality I'm happy with, so I am more than willing to wait for when it'll be right than to attempt it and fail.  Which surprises me, because I would never describe myself as a patient man, but I suppose that sort of thing just comes naturally when you care about what you're doing.  Anyways, melodrama or whatever that is aside, with AssRev out of the way, I'll be heading off to new journeys to get through the backlog that I carelessly add games to at a whim because I am extremely short-sighted or something.  My options are various and tempting, though my eye has been warily trained at Final Fantasy XIII since its release, admittedly merely because of those that came before it, and the polarizing nature of its content has had me even more curious.

I've stated various times that I feel like I am too lenient on most games, most of the time (not all of them, of course, as you'll see with the few Ragequit posts I've made) so a lot of the time, I'll still find a way to speak positively about games that others have panned, probably rightly so.  Of course, there are times where I find that my opinion falls right in with the general consensus out there, and in those cases, it just cannot be helped - you like what you like and you can't really do a whole lot about that.  Still, when I see a game so polarizing, I can't help but want to try it -just- to see which side of the fence I land on - a simple curiosity to sate rather than hoping for an experience or preparing myself for a flop.  My standards are low that way, in that I'm not expecting -anything-, but also -everything-, simply for gathering purposes, that I may come up with an aggregate of my feelings, my own thoughts, of whatever the game is in question.  That's sort of my mindset with Final Fantasy XIII, or as best at it as I can.

I fear that I may already be a little painted in my opinion of FFXIII because of 'Hope Estheim' (Who, for some time, I thought his name was literally Hope Esteem which is disgustingly cheesy and inexcusable) who seems to fill 'that role' as that character you just say "ugh" to for the most of the game before he does a turn for awesome or something and I roll my eyes because I am not swayed so easily.  What I mean is that I already have a little negativity built for the game which is unfortunate and I should know better, but I have been trying to put it aside.  It may be a few days yet before I begin the game, depending on how kind AssRev's MP is to me (and how easily this infection surrenders from my body), so I may be able to 'cleanse' myself of these off thoughts of the game, ready and eager to put it through its paces in my own way

Given my history with Final Fantasy as a series, being that I have only dabbled, never really conquered aside from a handful of games, it's actually a bit of a mystery going in because maybe I just won't beat this one either.  Obviously, you go into any game expecting to beat it, but attention spans fade when it comes to RPGs, and I can already feel the tug of Deus Ex:  Human Revolution, but I think the thing that will inspire me forward is the prospect of playing FFXIII-2, which is apparently, by all accounts, fun.  I -seek- fun, I live for it in games, and I want to always find fun in the games I play.  I expect to find -some- within the confines of FFXIII, but I expect more from the sequel.  And that alone, I believe, will be enough to bring me through the entirety of XIII, if just to be able to experience XIII-2 and try to make sense of its story, which is probably a fool's errand.  Whatever the outcome, I'm sure I'll end up throwing it out here!

Bleeeurgh

I'm not sure if it's been obvious with the last few posts, but I just haven't been feeling all that up to par these last few nights.  I've felt a little sick-ish (which teaches me to never joke about getting sick, even in the comments of one of Chance's posts) and the overall climate is just interfering with my ability to really process things.  Interestingly enough, I looked back a year and found this post this was basically around the same time (a couple weeks earlier, sure) that suggested a situation much the same as my current one.  I'm going to suggest that it simply speaks to my inability to tolerate climate changes initially, since I'm not sure if there's anything else that would follow a schedule and get me all slumpy like this.  Because I am decidedly in a slump of proportions that I dare not consider, lest I make the hole any deeper than it is already.  That's how slumps work, right?  Right?

Anyways, it's a little more than the weather I suspect and I'll not bore you all with the details (mostly because I don't care to share them), but things have been changing around in my life a bit fairly recently which also might have something to do with my day-to-day.  I got a new job of sorts, which means a newer, shinier flow of cash that has afforded me the ability to actually buy games that I would have otherwise passed up on in favor of games that I simply could not do without.  It's a foreign concept to me at this point, seeing as I've been a regular tightwad the last couple years, but the splurging -has- been a bit therapeutic and will only help myself and my blog in the long run.  In the last week, I've picked up copies of Deus Ex:  Human Revolution, Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy XIII-2 for the simple fact that FFXIII-2 was on sale for fifteen bucks and I am not about to pass that up since I actually want to play XIII-2.  XIII?  Not so much, but I cannot do things out of order, so I picked it up at the bargain (less bargainy than the sequel) price of twenty dollars at a different store because the one I purchased XIII-2 from was fresh out of copies of the predecessor, much to my chagrin.  And while I was getting XIII, I saw DE: HR and had one of those "Eh, why not?" moments - a literal whim that I have not experienced, or at least not acted on, for months - before grabbing it and throwing down the $40 for the both of them.

I've had my eye on Deus Ex for a while now - probably since before its release on premise and pedigree alone, but I never found the impetus to pull the trigger and I'm not sure why.  It has the aesthetic I crave, it's been touted as a generally pretty good game (aside from a few design flaws) and it offers a level of constrained freedom that I find tantalizing against the more 'actual freedom' design off some of the sandbox games I've been playing as of late.  It is a game that I have wanted, yet I never found the reason to give it that shot.  With any luck, my whim of throwing a twenty dollar bill at it will pay off with dividends and I will be at least half as enthused with it as I was (and remain) over a certain other game that I cannot help but associate with it in my head.  Alpha Protocol was basically -my- Deus Ex in lieu of not being Deus Ex.  The amount of replayability it offered based on making your character different, as most took to doing with Deus Ex thanks to the body mods and such, in the same world to see how it shaped around you was tantamount to wizardry for some back then, just as it remains with Alpha Protocol.

Similarly so with Final Fantasy XIII, I had always intended on picking it up, but I also never really saw a scenario in which I would pick it up for lack of time or desire.  After finding that the shine has, indeed, quickly faded from AssRev, I'm that much more wary of other games that the internet as a whole has similarly disliked, especially FFXIII, as the reasons for its reviled nature are more numerous than several other games combined.  Yet at the same time, those naysayers generally have positive, or at least less damning things to say of XIII-2 which has me intrigued certainly.  Being that I have not actually finished a Final Fantasy aside from 7 and 10 (kind of 6, but it's cheating a little - I played a game from the start of the second half of the game, beat it, and then later started a new game and made it to the point where I picked up my initial play.) and only dabbled in the other titles, who's to say I won't wring some enjoyment out of it?  Aside from common sense and the like.  Yet if I must suffer through XIII to get to its sequel, to the 'fun one', then that's something I'm willing to do.  If I beat Dark Void (well, less beat it and more conquered it with my platinum trophy) for only the sake of spite, than I can muster up enough bluster to soldier through XIII, even if it is a cluster.  (Okay, little forced, but I had to)

With any luck, this little spell I'm stuck in will be gone within the next few days and I can get back into posting things of actual substance.  Seemed to have cleared up last year, at least, so whatever's going on will clear up here as well.  I suspect one of the main problems is my lack of a definite sleep schedule as my job has me getting up and going at times where I would normally be....well, sleeping.  Meaning that I'm sleeping far less overall.  I'm sure I don't have to point out the obvious with that, so add that with the climate change, as well as the thought that I might just have a cold instead of the climate being a thing (or as well as, perhaps) then I suppose it's understandable that I find it difficult to function in the areas that I normally find it fairly easy to function in.  Still, with any luck, I'll get things sorted, but just in case, the next few days might be a little bumpy in terms of what gets posted and when.  Just a heads-up!

For a Moment, the Internet Had Hope

A domain was recently registered by Squeenix for something called "Chrono Bind" which had the internet going into overdrive at the connection of Squeenix and the word "Chrono".  Surely it was the long-awaited threequel for the Chrono series that would come by and right all the wrongs in the world and such.  But, no such luck, as Chrono Bind is simply a card game for FFXIII-2 which, I'll grant it is terribly named.  It's not even a trading card game, so far as I can tell, just some sort of Casino card game as it's described as here.  It is, by all means, simply ignorable aside from the fact that it gave the internet hope for such a short time to anyone reading Siliconera.

The thing that gets me, and I might be biased in this, is that I don't get where this blind faith comes from.  Any news of a new Chrono game possibility is met with universally positive out-pour, despite the last attempts at a sequel and a re-release were just poor.  It is Well Documented that I have issues with both games, and for that assortment of reasons, I just don't see a third Chrono game being a 'worthy' game in the series.  It might be a good game by its own standards (which people who really like Chrono Cross, but don't want to argue about it being a true sequel say (it's not.)) and if that much happens, it'll be magical, but they're clearly so far removed from the thought process that worked with Trigger to come back.  Simply because one of Trigger's many, many successes was it's simplicity which, considering the generalization of Squeenix stories since Final Fantasy VII (if not earlier), likely isn't coming back.

I guess the logical step to take here would be to suggest my idea for a third game in the series, to show off just how little faith I have in them to make it happen, but I just don't have an idea.  The way Cross has its tendrils steeped into Trigger's story all of it happening basically entirely at the end is not only fairly all-encompassing, but terribly done, so to move forward, you would have to try and find some way to justify that out.  I guess the way you'd want to go is to take the idea put forth with the previous games and run with it, going full-on spiritual sequel rather than trying to pretend it's an actual continuation of Cross' and/or Trigger's storyline.  Spoilers for both games are coming below, so if you care, haven't been spoiled on either somehow, or just plain don't like spoiling, move along.

The basic principle put forth towards the middle or end of Chrono Trigger is that Lavos isn't just a single entity, but it's implied that it is one of its kind, and its kind launches to worlds, sucks them dry of energy, spawn more of it, and those in turn carry out the same life-cycle.  In fact, towards the end of Trigger, you fight some Lavos Spawn that look, essentially, like really tiny version of him, so it's no surprise that this is a thing that happens.  So if it's established that this is not a single incident, work with that!  Pick a new world that can be as similar or different from Trigger's wold (since Cross' world is technically the same world, there's just suddenly tropical islands thanks to a computer program, no I'm not joking) as they want, and have a Lavos Spawn be living in it, or even hit it while technology is advanced, rather than when man was new to the planet.  It would be interesting to see if they could try and figure out a timeline that put an even more futuristic world into the forefront than Trigger's 1999 and 2300, which were inaccessible and ruined respectively.

If you absolutely, positively have to ham-fist a direct connection to Trigger and Cross, then I don't friggin' know what to tell you.  Cross' theme is, roughly, "You saved the world, but it's fucked anyway", showing off how bad things happened regardless of the fact that there wasn't an entity eating the world from inside except there still was because it didn't die when it was killed.  Or it did die and just got better thanks to the magical princess it ate at 12,000 B.C.  Who colored her hair blonde in the 14,000 or so years she was part of Lavos except she was part of him for time eternal or something, since Lavos in its newly not-dead form existed outside of time because it was eating time.  So anyone who was connected, realistically, with Lavos from Trigger is either dead or dying by the time Cross takes place and I don't even know what happens with that after Lavos is destroyed again because the whole theme was there's two separate timelines that were existing side-by-side.  (Except there were a lot more than two, as was revealed by the fact that there was a timeline where Serge already won and was shacking up with Kid or something, you know what, I don't know anymore.)

Not having a direct connection to Trigger and Cross means, essentially, that they have to think of a way to make it work without being a direct retread of Trigger, which is why I suggested the Lavos Spawn hit while the world is matured, rather than young, so they can research it and such to find out its terrible secrets while time and existence itself starts wrecking itself from the inside out.  Or something.  I can't really go too far in-depth with my idea since it's never going to happen as well as the fact that there's just so much terrible that I can't pick it all off to present something uniformly good.  Though I suppose now, after all that, I can see why people have a little hope for a third Chrono game as, the idea I came up with was literally on the fly and I wouldn't mind playing that after describing it.  I really wouldn't mind it, especially if they merged the two gimmicks from Trigger and Cross and had Time Travel and Alternate Dimensions.  Also a space ship instead of a plain airship because fuuuuutuuuuurreeeee.