A Green Mushroom

I really enjoyed Final Fantasy X.  I finished the whole game in a week and a half.  That's the fastest I've finished any game in the series.  It hooked me and I was engaged enough to pick up the game every single night. Overall, my initial impressions still stand.  This is a great game with wonder characters that interact in a well realized world.  The story is strong and drives the whole game.  It's not too difficult and very friendly for new players.  This is where I'm going to direct Final Fantasy newbies if they ask me where to start the series. Compared to my  initial impressions I did have a change of heart about the sphere grid.  I thought it was simply a gimmicky replacement for leveling up.  At low levels that's still true.  That changes when characters start to break out of their primary sphere grid path near the end of the game.  They get the option to cross over into other characters' paths or even telepo...

I'm playing the Final Fantasy X HD Remaster on my Vita and I'm loving it.  The remaster is also available on PS3 or you can grab the original game on PS2.  Final Fantasy X is such a great game in the series.  It's another leap forward in console generations since it's the first Final Fantasy game on PS2.  I always knew that Final Fantasy IX and Final Fantasy X were some of my favorites and this playthrough of Final Fantasy X is reaffirming that. The setting is a technologically repressed world where a giant monster called Sin runs rampant.  Sin kills and destroys for no apparently reason.  An entire religion had been built around Sin and it's effects.  One of the outcomes of the religion is a group known as Summoners.  They can call on powerful mystical creatures known as Aeons to help them.  Summoners must journey throughout the world on a pilgrimage to gather all the Aeons.  Once they have done so, they can conduct a final su...

I'm nervous to start Final Fantasy IX.  I've always considered Final Fantasy IX and X to be my favorites in the series.  I'm afraid that they won't hold up to my favorable memories of them. I had nostalgia for Final Fantasy VII and VIII, but not to this extent.  When they didn't hold up quite as well as I thought they would I was disappointed, but not crushed. Now that I'm on the verge of starting Final Fantasy IX I'm finally realizing how much I've built it up in my mind.  I sincerely hope that these next two games hold up well.  In my memories, Final Fantasy IX has the best characters and character development in the entire Final Fantasy series and Final Fantasy X has the best complete package of a game. I just needed to get this out there so that I can psych myself up to start Final Fantasy IX.  That's it for my ramblings... time to start. Final Fantasy Project Article List

Final Fantasy XIII has a problem, it feels extremely linear.  For the first hour of the game the player is literally on rails (a train track) which only goes one direction.  After the literal rails go away the player is still on rails throughout the game.  No one wants to feel like they have no say in where they are going. Once I started thinking about it, I realized that almost all the Final Fantasy games are on rails.  That isn't the problem.  The problem is the player realizing how structured the path in front of them really is.  There is most definitely a difference between a game being linear and a game feeling linear. If you take a look at the older Final Fantasy games a  few things stick out that make the world feel open.  The most important in my mind is having an overworld.  The overworld lets a player roam freely, even if they only have one destination they are aiming for.  Even in Final Fantasy X there are large areas to...

There are many ways in which games try to tell a story.  Most MMOs use text and quest logs to tell their story.  I think this is a disservice to players.  MMOs are almost all MMORPGs but many have had the RPG elements taken out.  Without the concentration on storytelling there is simply the leveling game left over.  Text is becoming antiquated in video games as the medium grows up.  We should move beyond this A step up from using text is the use of cutscenes.  Older RPGs would use text for most of the story and then reward players with the occasional cutscene.  Final Fantasy VII, VIII, and IX are all good examples of this trend.  MMOs are finally adding cutscenes, but they aren't widely used.  They usually show up at the very beginning to introduce the world and your character's place in it.  With Wrath of the Lich King Blizzard also injected a cutscene half way through Northrend. Moving up to a higher level of storytelling lea...