So, here's some writing about Final Fantasy 13, inspired by Spoony's Games in a Nutshell reviews. This is the latest game in the Final Fantasy series, and so far, I'm not really impressed with anything but the graphics. Off we go!

Note: I've only got the game for a week, since my brother rented it for shits and giggles. This article will be updated until the rental time's up, or I get too bored or frustrated to play, whichever comes first.

You start off seeing a train travelling through a few places. It's carrying a bunch of prisoners in cloaks, being watched by a bunch of soldiers. Two prisoners seem to be up to something.

Lightning: I'm the main character. I look like Ashe and a female Cloud Strife. I'm also an ex-soldier and use a sword, though guns would be a far better choice.
Sazh: I'm another main character. I carry a baby chocobo in my afro, and I use two pistols. I'm here to help you, I guess?
Lightning: Quiet. I have to do some eye candy fighting.

Lightning proceeds to kick the crap out of the soldiers while defying gravity and physics, which frees the prisoners. You get some eye candy FMV of what looks like a city, fighter jets (dragons?) shooting the train, and Lightning looking around. She blasts a fighter jet dragon with a rocket launcher that happened to be found by Sazh. The train is then attacked by a giant, flying scorpion robot.

Sazh: What the hell are we supposed to do here?!
Lightning: We attack it by going through a bunch of tutorials, of course.
Sazh: Can't we skip the tutorials?
Lightning: Yeah, but it'll result in frustration.

Azul Rojo: I feel sorry for any poor bastard who tries to play this without an instruction manual or tutorials. This battle system is a bit painful. I have to rush to select commands for my turns so my characters don't get beat up too much. Mashing triangle to spam a single, less time consuming skills is a way to go, too. Or, I can select auto-battle every time and let the game select "appropriate" commands for me. I actually miss the gambit system now. At least I didn't have to rush to push buttons when I set that up right! And I could run away from fights! Let's continue.

So, after a few battle tutorials, Lightning and Sazh kick the robot's ass. It falls into a gaping pit which spans the bottom of the city, for some reason.

Sazh: Yay! We win! So, I'm going to follow you. Oh, and I can talk to the baby chocobo in my hair.
Lightning: Don't really care. Oh, by the way, here's another tutorial. This one's about the camera.

Azul Rojo: A tutorial. For using the camera, which is controlled with the right analog stick. Oddly, it and character movement handle like crap. Skipping this "tutorial."

After several more battles and gravity-defying jumps, Lightning and Sazh reach a bridge, only to see it blown to smithereens. Lightning attempts to fly away, but Sazh pulls her down, which results in him getting beat up a bit.

Sazh: Hey! I said I'm following you, so stop hitting me and let me go with you! I can't possibly get out of here by myself!
Lightning: What the hell? You broke my magic flying machine gizmo. Dick.
Sazh: Hey, we can just use that elevator bridge over there.
Lightning: So why didn't you use it in the first place?

The two of them get onto the bridge, then run into more soldiers and Boba Fett an officer.

Officer: SURRENDER SO THINGS DON'T GET UGLY.
Sazh: What's that mean?
Lightning: He wants to kill us. Duh.
Officer: DIEDIEDIEDIE! *charges at Lightning*
Lightning: Guess what?
Sazh: Another tutorial?
Lightning: That's right.

Enemies get their asses kicked, of course.

Sazh: So, what's your deal, anyway?
Lightning: I'm going after the fal'Cie. Happy you followed me?
Sazh: I didn't have a choice.

Azul Rojo: So, if you don't know who the fal'Cie are at this point, that's okay. There's no mention of them until this point, unless you looked at the instruction manual, read the catalog, or loaded a save game. The catalog is an encyclopedia overloaded with information on enemies, game setting, and plot. Didn't Star Ocean 3 do this already? Also, while you're loading a saved game, the screen displays bits about the plot that weren't mentioned during the game. Honestly, Square-Enix. What happened to explaining things in an interesting way during the story? Why do I have to load my save file or go through an encyclopedia to learn these things? Screw it. On with the game.

Scene changes to a bunch of people fighting soldiers, and some guy babbling about certain people in Cocoon being relocated to Pulse, the world below Cocoon. He mentions that their sacrifice will keep Cocoon safe and peaceful, and keep others from being exposed to the dangers in the lower world. The guy continues babbling, but then someone kicks in a nearby radio, ending the speech.

Yuj: Screw that. Guy's full of shit, obviously.
Snow: Yeah, now calm down. By the way, I'm another main character. I have no relation to Seifer in Kingdom Hearts II, even though I look like a much older version of him. I punch things. Yuj, you get to stay here and help these civillians because you're an NPC.
Yuj: Okay!

Snow goes to meet up with some more of his allies. They complain for a bit until Snow shows up and gives them a pep talk. Wakka and Lulu look-alikes Gadot and Lebreau join him to fight off some enemies, then help some civillians about to be exiled.

Snow: So, is everyone okay?
Civillians: Guess so...
Snow:Good. We'll clear a path for y-
Civillians: No! We want to fight, too!
Snow: Oh, okay. Cool! Grab a weapon!
Civillians: Yay!
Lady: Hey, I've got my kid Hope with me. I'm gonna help you fight, too. Moms are tough.
Snow: Oh, that's cool. Here, have a gun.
Hope's Mom: Yay!
Snow: Okay, one weapon left. Who wants it?
Hope: No way! I'm totally scared, being a young kid/main character and all.
Vanille: Hey, I'm an obligatory cute girl with a happy attitude! I'm also on the young side. I'll take the gun!
Snow: Uh...really?
Vanille: Bang! Hee hee!
Snow: Okay, then! You look after these people. The rest of us will go kick ass!

Azul Rojo: Giving a gun to a kid when there are adults present? Great idea. Letting a mom leave her kid? Another great idea. Forced tragic plot, coming up.

Snow and his allies continue forward, and meet up with the civillians who pushed ahead. Snow and his party fight off a huge robot dog, and then a huge warship comes to attack. Most of the civillians are slaughtered.

Snow: Well, shit!
Gadot: Yeah, we're screwed now.
Snow: No, wait! There's a rocket launcher conveniently lying in the warship's path! I shall get it!

Snow jumps for the rocket launcher, but fails to pick it up. He's about to get shot, but Hope's mom got the rocket launcher and shot the warship. An explosion then rips up the bridge, knocking her flying, and sending several people falling to their deaths. Snow manages to catch Hope's mom; however, they're both stuck dangling from a piece of metal sticking out of the bridge.

Snow: Crap, now I'm hanging off a ledge, and I don't know if I can hold on to you, too.
Hope's Mom: I'm gonna die, anyway. Keep my kid safe, okay?

Hope's mom falls into the pit, along with more people. Snow loses his grip on the bridge, and also falls. Hope and Vanille watch from a distance as this happens.

Hope: What just happened?!
Vanille: ... *smacks Hope*
Hope: Ow!
Vanille: Come on. We have to go.

Azul Rojo: So, we have more falling into pits to split up the party, and a ton of tragic death to help with character development. Snow just relived a certain moment in FF7. Way to go, Square-Enix. My faith in this game is quickly failing.

The game goes back to Lightning and Sazh, who are on some sort of airship, discussing the big attack they just saw.

Sazh: That was a massacre.
Lightning: Of course.
Sazh: What?
Lightning: The sanctum conjured up a Purge to eliminate a threat. Why carry a danger all the way to Pulse? Get rid of it here.
Sazh: Did you know this was gonna happen?
Lightning: No. The Purge was PSICOM Troops, not the Guardian Corps.
Sazh: Whatever. Soldiers are soldiers. Pulse fal'Cie and their l'Cie are enemies of the state.

Their conversation continues until they're attacked by a flying bot. Ass-kicking ensues. When the bot is defeated, a siren goes off in the distance. An announcement blasts over loud speakers, telling the deportees to surrender immediately. A big
ass machine comes down from the very top of the city. Small battleships are around it. The announcements continue, saying that anyone who tries to flee will be brought to justice. The scene changes, and you see Snow climbing on some rubble. He's looking for someone named Serah.

Back to Lightning and Sazh. They seem interested in the big ass machine.

Sazh: Just what you were looking for.
Lightning: Yeah. Right in there.
Sazh: The Pulse fal'Cie. Huh.

Over to Vanille, Hope, and some other civillians who are also looking at the machine. Vanille throws off the exile robe she was wearing, then giggles and smiles at Hope. She then picks up a gun and hands it to Hope.

Vanille: Here!
Hope: Uh...
Vanille: *hugs Hope* It's too much, isn't it? Face it later! Ciao!
Hope: Huh? Uh, hey! Wait!

Azul Rojo: Okay. Vanille just saw a bunch of people die, and yet she's still giggling and smiling. Everyone else is either moping around, crying, or forcing smiles to perk up any little kids that are around. Vanille is completely bubbly and perky, despite just witnessing a massacre. You know, some people can be emotionless or in a tough, optimistic mood after this sort of thing. But giggling, perky, and happy? Thank you, Square-Enix obligatory cute girl.

Hope and Vanille run off. Scene goes back to the big ass machine for a moment, then back to Lightning and Sazh.

Sazh: How're the Pulse fal'Cie different from the Sanctum's? I'll keep wondering about that.
Baby Chocobo: Kweh!
Lightning: Jump time!
Sazh: What?
Lightning: Eye candy and physics warping stuff, of course.

Lightning jumps, then snaps her fingers to activate her flying magic thing. Instead of flying, though, she somehow uses the magic to break her fall.

Sazh: Damn. Well, I guess we can do that too, even though we don't posses the sparkly magic thing.
Baby Chocobo: Kweh!

Sazh tries to hang off the platform, but slips. His fall is broken by a platform of electricity that Lightning left behind.

Azul Rojo: Wasn't that magic flying thing broken just 10 minutes ago? And how the fuck does lightning magic break a fall and help you fly? This would've made more sense if the lady's name was Wind or Storm, and she used wind magic. But, Square-Enix hasn't liked to make sense lately.

Back to Snow, who's helping Gardot get up by slapping him in the face. Dead people are everywhere on the platform.

Gadot: What about the others?
Snow: *sigh*
Gadot: They're not dead, right?
Snow: Of course not.
Gadot: Dude, get a grip. What's wrong?
Snow: Trying to remember who I'm supposed to look after. That woman who died said to "get him home."

Suddenly, a huge piece of the big ass machine breaks off. Snow tosses Gadot a gun, and Gadot promptly aims it at him.

Snow: What the hell?
Gadot: What are you afraid of? You're the hero. Your bride-to-be is over there. Shouldn't you go pick her up?
Snow: Oh, right! Hey, those ships over there will be our ride.

Azul Rojo: Still no idea what that big ass machine is, so I'm just going to keep calling it that. I probably could find out by looking at the catalog, but fuck that. I'm going to play this like any other RPG: I'm only going to look at the catalog for enemy data and gameplay tips. I'll not be looking at plot-related info, because I shouldn't have to in the first place. On a side note, I played FF12 for a bit today. I can now confirm FF13's character and camera controls are delayed and slippery. And no, it's not the controller. It's fully charged, and isn't even a year old. Back to the game!

Snow and Gadot plow through some battles, and soon get to the ships. They cruise around and catch up with their other allies. Hope and Vanille soon show up, and Snow notices Hope.

Vanille: Didn't you have something to tell him?
Hope: Yeah.
Vanille: Let's go, then! Go go go!
Hope: I'm going to be all scared and everything.
Vanille: Okay, I'll call him over!

Snow's allies start teasing him about a wedding before he flies off. Vanille tries to get Snow's attention, but fails. Gadot left a ship behind, and Vanille and Hope take a look at it.

Vanille: Hey, do you know how to fly this?
Hope: I guess so. Most kids can do this sort of thing in these situations, anyway.
Vanille: Oh yeah! Well, in you go! Now let's go that big machine.
Hope: If we go in there, that thing could make us l'Cie.
Gadot: Hey, what are you two doing?!
Hope: Well, time to go!

Hope and Vanille take off before Gadot can do anything. They head right for the big ass machine. They soon crash, and the ship is ruined. They find themselves in a huge, seemingly empty room.

Vanille: I guess it's just us.
Hope: Well, even soldiers know not to go near the fal'Cie. If you become a Pulse l'Cie, you're finished.
Vanille: Well, I'm just going to be happy some more, and act like I don't care!

Vanille soon starts looking all over the place. She finds a staff/whip thing, and starts dancing around with it, which attracts the attention of a robot guard dog. The two of them proceed to kick the bot's ass. They soon find Snow's ship, and start talking again.

Hope: You know we're going to be in deep trouble if anyone finds us, right?
Vanille: La la la, happy happy!
Hope: Do you even know what could happen? Do you care? Pulse is hell on earth!
Vanille: Yeah, yeah! fal'Cie are bad. Hanging around them curses you, and then no one wants to be near you. Then you become an l'Cie, and have to go to Pulse. See? I actually know and care! We'll be fine, though!
Hope: Yeah. Right.

The two of them soon hear Snow looking for Serah. However, they can't see where he is. The scene switches to Snow, who is busy searching another room.

Azul Rojo: So, two kids bust into a place that most people wouldn't dare go near. One of them is having a great time, and doesn't seem to care that things could go really, really bad. The way the game's going so far, you KNOW things are going to end badly. Current amount of faith I have in this game: 80% and falling.

 

 

Yeah, I'm doing another game I actually like; the first RPG I ever played and completed, in fact. Because Phantasy Star II deserves some company in the Nutshell section that isn't ass on toast.

King of Alefgard: Descendant of Erdrick, thou art the only one that can defeat the Dragonlord. Now go forth!
Hero: I'd love to, but I'm kind of trapped in this room by a magic door. Come to think of it, so are you. How did I even get in here?
King of Alefgard: Take my treasure chests so that thou can escape and buy some equipment!
Hero: I'm on a big quest to save the world from an evil fiend and you couldn't spare more than a torch and some chump change? Well, I guess if this game was easy, it wouldn't be any fun.

This early on, the hero is a gigantic wimp, and has to take a break every 3 or 4 fights to rest off all the damage he's taking, which the game charges you for each time (of course). But once you gain the Heal spell and figure out that talking to the magician guy in the castle restores your MP to full for free, the inns become pretty pointless.

This stage of the game is pretty much just a gigantic grinding session to earn levels and buy better gear, because almost every area you need to complete is blocked off by magic doors, and you don't find any more keys until you're strong enough to survive a trip through a tunnel to the southern island, and then make the perilous trek to another town where you can finally buy the damn things.

On the return trek...

Hero: Hey, I've got these keys now. I wonder what that door in the tunnel on the way here has behind it.
Dragon: ROAAAAARRRRRR
Hero: Ohhhh SHIT!

The hero is reduced to charcoal, but the King is kind enough to bring him back from the afterlife to continue his quest. But only after extorting half of his gold from him.

King: Didn't you know? That 120 gold wasn't a gift, but a loan! And I make all of my loans at 13,000% interest!
Hero: You're... kind of a douche.
King: But a rich douche!

It's at this point that you venture into the locked doors in the king's castle and realize that there's a key shop right behind his throne room.

Hero: Why could he not just loan me another key so I could save myself a lot of time and effort? What a cheapskate!

Actually, it's a pretty elegant, if shoehorned, way to get you prepared for what lies WITHIN said dungeons - the enemies would stomp you flat if you tried going in before level 10 or so. So you venture deep into Garinham's dungeon and find a Silver Harp, which - get this - summons enemies whenever you play it!

Hero: What was the point of that? I've already got enough random bad guys trying to kill me!
Nintendo Power: Don't you pay attention to the villagers? Some guy on the other end of the island wants it!
Hero: You mean that unlike 98% of all RPGs ever made, the villagers actually have vital, important things to say? Amazing!

So you talk to the guy and get the Staff of Rain, which you vaguely remember being one of the key items you need to get to the Dragonlord's keep. Nifty.

Anyway, you venture south for a while longer (after some more level grinding) and come to Hauksness, a ruined town full of really powerful and supremely annoying monsters. Rooting around doesn't reveal much until you venture into the burned out ruins of a shop, with a tree behind it where a knight with a really big axe attacks you.

Hero: Jeez. Guy hits like a damn truck, and the Sleep spell only knocks him out for a couple of turns. Must be some good shit back here.

Sure enough, you find the Armor of Erdrick, the best of its kind in the game. Not only does it make you immune to poison swamps and magic barriers, but it also lets you regenerate your HP. Sweet!

That done, you try to venture even further south to Cantlin to load up on more awesome gear, which is an unnecessarily long path north, then west, then south, then east across a giant swamp, then north again through a maze of mountains. It would be a really short trip if you had a boat or an airship, but unfortunately that hadn't become an RPG trope yet in 1986. Just before you enter Cantlin however, your path is barred by a Golem, who hits like a bullet train and takes no damage from spells!

King: Oh, hello again. I brought you back from the dead and stole half the money you were going to spend on equipment to hopefully kill the Dragonlord with and save my kingdom!
Hero: Dick.

So, anyway, you do a little research and find out you're supposed to use the Fairy Flute you found in Kol to knock the guy out, then beat him up while he's asleep.

Hero: Why couldn't I just use the Sleep spe-- nevermind.

Killing a bunch of Goldmen to make up for what the king pilfered, you buy a shiny Silver Shield and a Flame Sword for somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 bucks a pop. Now that pretty much every enemy in the game is helpless before your might, you venture back to the tunnel to teach that dragon a lesson.

Gwaelin: Oh, hello. I'm the king's daughter that he mentioned in passing when you first began your quest!
Hero: Well, that's convenient. Should we go back to the castle?
Gwaelin: Yes, but you must carry me the entire way!
Hero: Wha... why?
Gwaelin: Because I am unnecessarily lazy!

You do just that (although it is slightly amusing to lug her around for the next few hours of the game just for the hell of it), and your reward is... Gwaelin's love. Both in a literal sense and in a surreal metaphysical sense, as you get an item in your inventory called "Gwaelin's Love". Using it results in her giving you your current coordinates, but only after you sit through a lengthy dialog about how much she loves you that never changes and cannot be skipped. But you just have to put up with it because you need it to solve one of the game's biggest puzzles.

So anyway, you get back to the quest of trying to find the three key items to get to the Dragonlord's castle, learning that one is in a small shrine south of Rimuldar guarded by a wizard guy.

Wizard: Thou claim to be the descendant of Erdrick. Hast thou any proof?
Hero: What, seriously? I have his ARMOR. That's not enough?
Nintendo Power: You need the Amulet of Erdrick!
Hero: Well, where the hell do I find that?!
Nintendo Power: 70 South by 40 East.
Hero: Oh boy.

We already know that Gwaelin's Love is the key to solving this puzzle, since it gives your coordinates relative to Castle Alefgard and all. However, I still got stuck on this puzzle because I kept trying to get to 40 WEST, which is three spaces into the ocean off the western coast. I searched everywhere for a boat, looked for a way to get past the wizard for the item he had, hoping that would somehow allow me to get to it, scoured back issues of Nintendo Power, and checked every villager in every town three times over thinking I'd missed something. I agonized over this for close to two weeks until I finally realized I read the directions wrong! (Hey, I was seven years old at the time, cut me a break.)

Anyway, rooting through that gigantic swamp you had to pass through on the way to Cantlin eventually yields the amulet. Hooray!

Wizard: Thou claim to be the descendant of Erdrick. Hast thou any proof?
Hero: Here's the amulet. That enough proof for you, chief?
Wizard: Well, I was going to give you this neat item, but you need the Stones of Sunlight first.
Hero: Well, where the hell do I find those?

Wondering if that random villager with the same line of dialog might have the other item, he returns to Rimuldar.

Villager: Thou claim to be the descendant of Erdrick. Hast thou any proof?
Hero: Yeah, right here. See? Medallion of Erdrick!
Villager: Thou claim to be the descendant of Erdrick. Hast thou any proof?
Hero: I just showed you my medallion, dickface. Acknowledge me as Erdrick's descendant!
Villager: Thou claim to be the descendant of Erdrick. Hast thou any proof?
Hero: Oh, fuck you.

Retracing his steps, he talks to random villagers and learns that the stones are hidden in Castle Alefgard. However, turning the place upside-down for half an hour earns you... nothing.

Hero: Where are the damn things? This place is two screens wide by two screens tall, it can't possibly be that well hidden!

After painstakingly searching the place tile by tile, you find that they're hidden in a secret room along the RIGHT EDGE of the castle, just south of the key shop, behind that door you need a magic key for. You need to walk south from the shop along the edge of the moat, being careful not to walk too far to the right and exit to the world map, because if you do that you have to start all over again.

Hero: Why couldn't I just see and approach this room from the outside? I mean, I know it's a puzzle and all, but this just seems a little contrived even by mid-80s standards.

So anyway, you finally have the two items the wizard guy wanted.

Wizard: I say something cryptic and the screen FLICKERS DRAMATICALLY! Oh, and have this Rainbow Drop.
Hero: O...kay. The guy who wanted the harp just kind of vanished, but that works too.

Equipped with the Rainbow Drop, we can now bridge the path to the Dragonlord's keep. And when I say "bridge", it's very literal; after a psychedelic light show, it creates a bridge for you.

Hero: See, this is another example of why the king should just build a boat. I could sail the whole two tiles across the river south of Alefgard and get right to his castle and skip all this magical item fetch quest mumbo-jumbo!

Anyway, you root around in this oddly abandoned castle and find a hidden staircase behind the throne, leading into the biggest dungeon in the game. It's also full of dragons, knights, wizards, and basically every super tough generic villain imaginable. It's also got a few misleading paths in it, which is actually kind of a rarity in this game.

Ironically, one of these leads you to Erdrick's Sword, the bane of all evil!

Hero: Why the hell would he have the ONE WEAPON that can defeat him in his castle? Why would he not just, you know, destroy it or toss it into the ocean or something?

The other throw-off path leads to a neverending hallway, which I tried to go down for about twenty minutes before catching on. Again, I blame it on being seven years old.

So after backtracking and finding another route to follow, you come to the bottom of the Dragonlord's dungeon, which unlike every floor before it is fully lit and free of random enemies. You can loot his storeroom too if you want, but it's not really worth it at this stage of the game.

Dragonlord: Join me, young Skywalker, and we will rule the world together!
Hero: And what would I possibly stand to gain by abandoning this quest I've spent weeks trying to complete and following an empty promise from the lord of darkness?
Dragonlord: Your experience meter drops to 0, I emit an evil laugh and the game locks up, implying that I killed you!
Hero: ...And I get to hit Reset and do the entire dungeon again. That's weak sauce, dude.
Dragonlord: This is a 1986 game; villains didn't start thinking ahead and getting truly devious and persusasive until the 90's.
Hero: Good point.

They duke it out, which is pretty anticlimactic since the Dragonlord dies in three hits.

Hero: Well, that was... pretty easy.
Dragonlord: SURPRISE! I have another form!

The dragonlord becomes - what else - a dragon, and is much tougher this time around since he can dish out a lot of damage and none of your spells work on him. Still, if you've got the best equipment available and a decent supply of MP for healing spells, you can outlast him without too much difficulty.

Dragonlord: I am vanquished!

You get Erdrick's ball of light back, which vanquishes all random enemies in the game forevermore, and allows you to wander around to every town in the game and get congratulated by everyone. Actually, just one town will do the trick, since they all repeat the same two lines.

So you go back to Alefgard, where the king offers you his eternal gratitude and his daughter's hand in marriage. She won't take "No" for an answer no matter how many times you try to choose it, so our hero is forced to wed Gwaelin and, once again, carry her off into the sunset. The end, roll credits.

Spoony: You know, as RPGs went on, I expected to be able to explore more of the possibilities the story could take . Like here, where the game gives you a yes or no choice, but the story won't continue until you pick "Yes"; I always just thought that was a system limitation locking you to one path. I was hoping in future games that in a similar situation you could pick "No" just to see what would happen. Like, say, the King putting a hit out on you for abandoning his daughter to the dragons! A pity that idea seems to only have caught on with American RPGs on the PC, and to a lesser extent the Shin Megami Tensei series. I mean, why do they even give you a choice of two or three options in newer games, anyway? Just to tease you?

At any rate, I like the game of Dragon Warrior; it was certainly a milestone in the console RPG genre, and although it definitely shows its age nowadays due to the bare-bones story and heavy emphasis on gold gathering and level grinding, I'd much rather play this than say... Star Ocean 4 or Infinite Undiscovery.

 

 

I didn't even play the game; all I saw was a video of them turning Yuna and Rikku into the fucking Spice Girls and decided "that's it, I'm not even going to waste my time with this bullshit". But on the plus side, it does give me a good trump card in arguments with Square fantards.

"Square sucks now, dude. They've made maybe two decent games in the last 10 years."
"NO WAY FUCK YOU THEY ARE THE BEST COMPANY AND WILL ALWAYS BE THEY HAVE THE BEST STORIES EVER WRITTEN AND PIONEERED SO MANY RPG TRENDS AND DON'T JUST WHORE OUT THEIR CHARACTERS AND FRANCHISES ALL THE TIME LIKE ALL THE COMPANIES YOU LI-"
"Ehrgeiz."
"THAT GAME WAS AWESOME GO BACK TO YOUR BUTTON MASHING STREET FIGHTER GAMES"
"Dirge of Cerberus"
"BEST SHOOTER EVER YOU'RE JUST TOO STUPID TO GET IT"
"Dissidia."
"THAT GAME WAS SO DEEP AND WELL MADE I MEAN ARENA FIGHTERS ONLY NEED TWO MOVES PER CHARACTER ANYWAY MAN, RANDOM WEAPONS, STAGE HAZARDS AND VARIETY IN GENERAL ARE FOR CHUMPS!"
"Unlimited SaGa"
"ITS SPELLED WITH A LOWERCASE G FAGGOT AND IT'S BRILLIANT BECAUSE ITS A TABLETOP RPG PUT INTO VIDEO GAME FORM, NEVERMIND THAT NO TABLETOP RPG I'VE EVER PLAYED ANYWHERE HAD MECHANICS THIS COUNTER-INTUITIVE AND GAMEPLAY THIS BORING!"
"Final Fantasy X-2."
"Uh..."
"Checkmate, asshole."

 

 

George Lucas can rest assured he's no longer the only person to ruin a classic piece of popular culture by doing everything wrong in the sequel. Hell, Square's topped his failure at least five times over by now!

Serge: I have an exciting and wonderful life in this fishing village, and I prove it by fighting the same two monsters over and over for days on end!
Leena: I'm here to partake in idle chatter, which unknown to you will affect whether or not you get an important item later in the game!
Serge: Yeah. Hey Square, next time you make a game, can you at least give some kind of clue as to what seemingly inconsequential choices will have an impact on later events? Please?

Seconds after Leena leaves, Serge gets sucked into an episode of Star Trek

Serge: All of a sudden, nobody recognizes me and everything I know is completely turned upside-down. It'd be kind of freaky if that long cinematic you watched a minute ago didn't immediately clue you in that something wasn't right.
Other Leena: You can't be Serge. Serge died ten years ago.
Serge: That's the big replacement for the time travel mechanic, huh? A parallel universe plot?
Other Leena: Yep. Everything is exactly the same except for you still being alive in the other universe.
Serge: Which somehow drastically changes the destinies of a bunch of people I've never even met.
Other Leena: You got it.
Serge: *Sigh* At least it's a better dynamic than Star Ocean 2's "choice of two protagonists with unique stories... who meet ten minutes in and never seperate for more than three minutes in the entire game".

Serge, feeling like depressing himself even further, decides to visit Other Serge's grave and gets attacked by some dickweed soldiers

Teenage Fanboy Sex Symbol Kid: Come on, let's go get the Frozen Flame!
Serge: Okay. Do you have a way to get in?
Kid: No, I'm leaving that up to you.
Serge: Your big plan is to find some random person you've never met before, let them know you're planning something illegal and very dangerous, and then leave it to THEM to arrange the whole heist?
Kid: Pretty much.
Serge: I'd berate you for this, but you're obviously thirteen years old and a bit retarded, so I'd feel bad about it later.

You have the choice of being escorted there by a wasted raver in goth makeup, a faux-french swordsman who happens to be the worst character in the entire game, or a cool-looking magician guy. I think the choice is pretty clear.

Serge: Are you... Magus?
Guile: No. Well, kind of; I was supposed to be, but they just changed my name when they couldn't find a way to fit Magus into the plot.
Serge: You're telling me that Chrono Trigger's sequel, which revolves entirely around Schala and Lavos - two characters Magus spent the entire game obsessed with rescuing and killing respectively - couldn't even find a place to fit Magus into the story, even in a bit role?
Guile: Yep.
Serge: ...Simply stunning.

They sneak into a heavily guarded palace. The guards, being dumb as rocks and such heavy sleepers that they don't hear pitched battles taking place one room over, are easily evaded or dispatched.

Lynx: ROAR, the Frozen Flame is not yours to take. Beware my furry rage!

Apparently Kid's info was a bit off (big surprise) and you're forced to flee the castle with nothing to show for your effort.

Kid: Oh shit, Lynx poisoned me and now I'm dying.
Doc: The only thing that can cure this poison is Hydra Humour, which only the dwarves have!
Serge: Uh... okay. I'll go get it from them then.
Doc: They hate humans, though, and they have tanks. Yes, tanks.
Serge: Well, this is a JRPG, so I'll have no trouble taking out something huge and heavily armored with nothing more than a few crappy spells and an impractical bladed weapon. Bye!

You quickly learn that Doc wasn't kidding, and that they have their entire goddamn army attacking you with everything they've got. As you can probably predict, none really stand a chance at all if you have some decent spells and a good supply of healing items. But, once you've begun a New Game Plus save and pick the other path, you learn that Kid survives regardless, so Serge now has the needless genocide of an entire species on his conscience for the rest of his life. What a great and inspiring hero!

Spoony: And his party members are no better for not even raising an objection to his statement of "Okay guys, we're going to go slay a whole species for the sake of one girl I barely know"!

At any rate, you take another whack at Lynx once that's all sorted out. He's kind of a douche, because unlike 99% of all RPG villains he's smart enough to target your weakest party members and use spells they're actually weak against.

Lynx: Time to swap bodies with the hero like in so many corny 90's cartoons!
Serge as Lynx: Uh... oh shit, wait guys, don't kill me!

Kid gets stabbed in the gut, Serge gets beaten to a pulp by his own party members, and then he gets tossed into an MC Escher painting where he meets an annoying green troll and Harle

Harle: I speak in zis annoying French accent, and everyzing I say is cryptique. Yet for zhome reason I betrayed zhe real Lynx and am helping you instead.
Serge as Lynx: Mmkay...

A few annoying puzzles later, they escape back to Serge's reality, where Serge is understandably disliked, being trapped in the form of the main villain and all. After a few more well-placed beatings, he convinces his village elder to help him out of this jam and they set off to find a boat. Which, not surprisingly, requires battling your way through three or four dungeons and several bosses.

LOTS of bland, pointless filler later...

Serge as Lynx: Okay, now we're at a big frozen ocean called the "Dead Sea". Creative name there, by the way.
Miguel: Oh, hi. I'm your dad's old buddy, remember me? Turns out I'm a slave to the big bad guy now, so we must fight to the death!

Miguel is, surprisingly, one of the hardest f'ing battles in the entire game. Why he can't just let you win, being your father's good friend and all, is a mystery, but regardless, he goes all out with ultra-powerful light spells and lays waste to your party. Especially Serge; being in Lynx's body, he is now WEAK against light spells. After several tries, you finally get him, causing time to un-freeze and finally letting you go back to the parallel dimension to continue the plot.

Spoony: I find that you're usually better off making a shorter game than padding it out with several hours of junk quests while the plot comes to a screeching halt. Take a look at Metal Gear Solid or Max Payne for good examples.

In any case, Serge gets his body back after another eye-candy FMV.

Serge: About time. Lynx's shitty skills and weakness to Light spells (which every single enemy and boss uses) sure aren't doing me any favors.

They set off for the other world's equivalent of the Dead Sea, spurred on by some Dragons who apparently convince them that there's some kind of world-ending catastrophe about to go down there. Other World's equivalent is a futuristic city thrown into the current time by something called the "Time Crash"

Spoony: Oh, so time is like Windows 98? When you put too much strain on it, it gets all fucky and you have to reboot it?

Anyway, you finally catch up to Lynx and Kid, who is apparently working with him despite that whole knife-in-the-gut business. Apparently she's even dumber than you were first led to believe!

Spoony: So uh, what were Lynx and Kid doing all this time? I've been wandering around for ages doing filler quests and meeting Dragons, and they've only beat us here by an hour or two?

Lynx: (Deep breath) Ten years ago, I was your father, who took you on a seaward trip in search of a cure to your condition after you got bitten by a panther demon. We came across this city, and by some hilarious weather phenomena the computer system FATE (very subtle name, eh?), tasked with controlling the destiny of all of humanity via the Frozen Flame, had shut down. When you came in contact with the Frozen Flame it not only healed you, but Chronopolis' circuits attuned the Flame to you so that nobody else could use it. So FATE turned me into a manifestation of your worst fear and sent me to kill you, hoping that would allow it to access the Flame again. It didn't, so FATE concocted some doofy scheme involving swapping bodies with the other you from a parallel world to take another shot at it. It apparently worked, but I'm going to kill you anyway!
Serge: ...That is, without a doubt, the DUMBEST thing I have ever heard. What kind of stupid computer system uses a biological component as a key? Especially in a world full of magic capable of body-swapping and cloning people? And moreover, why not just bypass or remove the offending circuits so you can use it again? Or, you know, just knock it offline again for a while and reset it to yourself the second time around?
Lynx: If you think that's bad, just wait until you see what the Prophet of Time has waiting for you later. Anyway, FIGHT!

Lynx, despite going through ALL THAT TROUBLE to get a duplicate of your body, ditches it and turns into some ugly monstrosity. He's another obnoxiously tough fight, but with the right party members he's not too bad. You're better off fighting him than Miguel, at least.

Dragons: SURPRISE, we were manipulating you all along! Now we shall take the Frozen Flame and become the Dragon God once again!
Serge: The what now?
Dragons: When Chronopolis went back in time, it drew part of a parallel world where the Reptites became the planet's dominant species into our world, and with it came the Dragon God, their ultimate creation capable of controlling nature itself. Chronopolis defeated the Dragon God, split it into the seven Dragons, and now we've just been waiting for our chance to wrest the Frozen Flame from FATE's hands so that we can become whole again and have our revenge!
Serge: I take back what I said about the whole FATE and Arbiter of the Frozen Flame business, this is even worse.
Dragons: If you think that's bad, you haven't seen anything yet!
Serge: So I've heard.

Harle: Oh yes, I am zhe seventh Dragon. So long!
Serge: ...And you were working with Lynx... why?
Harle: I attempted to manipulate him to betray FATE so zhat zhe Dragons could recover the Flame.
Serge: And then you joined me because...
Harle: Apparently, I have fallen for you. But not enough to convince me to betray zhe dragons.
Serge: A shoehorned romantic sub-plot. Hooray, now my life is complete!

Aaaaaaaanyway, after reading 70% of the plot mashed into less than twenty minutes of exposition, you learn that Kid has fallens into a coma again

Spoony: Again? Really, Square? You're putting Kid into another coma after I committed genocide to snap her out of the first one?! Is this girl I barely know really worth all this effort, or is this going to turn into another Rinoa situation where all I get is another hammy love plot between two of the blandest characters in existence?

It turns out to be neither; because the game has to go on regardless of what choices you make and who is in your party, 90% of all the party's dialog is completely interchangable. This also has the effect of ensuring that even the touted "main" characters have almost nothing to say or do, to say nothing of the 40-some others that round out the cast. Now that's a compelling RPG experience!

A few dopey sub-plots later, Serge gets his hands on the Masamune sword, revives Kid, and attains the ultimate element, the Chrono Cross.

Balthasar: In another "shocking" twist, I reveal that the one manipulating ALL of these events was Lavos, who apparently survived and vanished beyond time, where he fused with Schala in an attempt to become the Time Devourer, an entity capable of destroying all time and space as we know it. But lucky you, I set the events in motion that would send Kid (Schala's clone, oooo!) to save your life and eventually allow you to gain possession of the Chrono Cross in order to stop the Time Devourer from forming!
Ghosts of Crono, Lucca and Marle: Oh yeah, we apparently all died in that Guardia War that got mentioned in passing hours ago. Never mind that we eventually became so powerful that we were able to defeat an entity capable of laying waste to entire planets and manipulating time itself.
Serge: Do you hear that?
All: Hear what?
Serge: The sound of a freight train hitting this plot, jumping the tracks, throwing its cars and cargo in every direction and then exploding into a fireball?
Balthasar: Very funny, wise guy. Go fight the Dragon God.
Serge: *Sigh* Fine. I've sunk this much time into this crummy game, I might as well see it through to the end.

Fight ensues, fight gets won, blah blah blah. Now all there is left to do is face the Time Devourer, who can only be beaten via a method that everyone gives you a clue or two about.

Once you've pieced together the clues, you figure out how you have to beat on the Devourer for a while, cast six spells in a specific order, then finish the sequence with the Chrono Cross to win the battle. Fair enough. But what they don't tell you is that the Time Devourer's spells count in this sequence as well. This quickly becomes a frustrating ordeal as you get partway done, then watch helplessly as the asshole casts the wrong spell again and screws up the whole sequence. Which leaves you no choice but to continue with the fight and get the shitty ending, or run from the battle and try again.

After many, many tries, the right sequence finally plays out and Serge is able to use the Chrono Cross properly. The Time Devourer dies, and as you might expect, all you get is a hammy ending that doesn't satisfy on any level. Hooray.

Spoony: Yeeeeeah. To be fair, it's not as bad as some of Square's other turds of the time like Final Fantasy VIII, Xenogears, Parasite Eve II and Ehrgeiz; the game does avoid a lot of annoying cliches of the genre, it has a decent combat system, an excellent soundtrack and what are doubtlessly the best visuals on the Playstation. But none of this can redeem the stupid plot, the numerous useless subplots, the needlessly large cast of boring characters, and the letdown associated with it being the long-awaited sequel to one of the greatest RPGs ever made.

If you want my advice, skip this mind dump and play Suikoden II instead. Not only does it balance a large cast of characters much more effectively than Chrono Cross, it stays much truer to its predecessor's themes and gameplay style. It may not look or sound nearly as good as CC, but believe me, when it comes to what counts it's a far better game.

 

 

Well holy dog shit, Vinic's finally started to program the site again after nine months of sitting on his thumbs and playing shitty browser games. Hooray! Have a Nutshell for another unflushed Square Enix turd to celebrate.

"Combining elements of Eastern and Western RPGs" shouldn't mean that you're just recycling the worst and most boring cliches from TWO sources instead of just one.

The setting is a world that looks extremely similar to Final Fantasy XII; in fact, it looks like they just transplanted almost every character model and texture straight from that game without even bothering to make any improvements for the Xbox 360 hardware. The only thing that doesn't look like it's copied straight from a Playstation 2 game is the menu text, which like every Xbox RPG in existence is so small that it's barely readable.*

*I'm sure it's crystal clear on an HDTV, but come on, I don't have a thousand bucks to burn. Besides, is it really that hard to increase FONT SIZE? This is the most basic of low-level game programming here, guys - if you make a text-heavy game, make the text fucking READABLE.

The game immediately takes a page from the Hero's Book of Generic Motives and has the protagonist's sister get kidnapped by monsters. But that's not enough, oh no - he also has a magical Plot Coupon Amulet that unleashes cataclysmic superpowers whenever the story writes itself into a corner, which it invariably will. Many times. As Plot Coupon's first act, it glows and vaporizes all of Rush's assailants sans the one that has his sister trapped (of course).

Spoony: And it's all done with shiny aurora effects surrounding spheres of light. That sort of thing was visually impressive back when Final Fantasy X was released, but it's 2009 and glitter isn't fashionable anymore. Maybe you should focus more on your character modeling and less on graphical gimmicks; giving them more than one facial expression and mouth movement with a wider range than a hand puppet's would be a good start. I mean, when online-only first person shooters have more believable facial expressions than the cast of an emotionally-driven console RPG, that doesn't speak very well for you.

Some unspecified amount of time later, Rush stumbles upon a battlefield, where we're treated to our first glimpse of the game's underwhelming combat: riddled with excessive load times, graphical errors and a bunch of mechanics that ultimately have little to no effect on the overall strategy (or lack thereof). I suppose they justify it by saying that it's meant to mimic a bad PC RPG from the mid 90s running on an underpowered computer.

Thinking he sees his sister down there for some reason, he charges right into the middle of the fight, somehow never losing an arm or an eye in the process. Hooray for the plot shield!

It seems everyone associated with Square is only capable of thinking in cliches, because one side of the war unleashes a cacaclysmic superweapon that sends the hero plummeting into a dungeon of some description. Despite the distance of the fall and the fact that he lands facefirst on solid rock, he manages to sustain no noticable damage.

Spoony: Didn't Final Fantasy III open with a scene just like this too? And IV? And Secret of Mana? And Secret of Evermore? And VI? And VII? And IX? And X? And Blue Dragon? And Lost Odyssey?

The collapse is also a clumsy excuse to introduce a new party member; this time around, it's a really bitchy female knight. Pointless bickering ensues, wherein Rush is accused of being a spy (because, of course, all spies run headlong into the thick of combat with no weapons while being as conspicuous as possible). We also quickly discover that even the dialog scenes have background textures appearing and vanishing at random intervals.

Spoony: No, really, what is with all of this pop-in? I'm having flashbacks to time spent trying to play Deus Ex on my crappy old Pentium 166 with the software renderer and no sound card support. It ended... badly.

A rescue party comes down moments later. It's established that Rush is the son of two prominent scientists researching Remnants, and because of that the Marquis offers his help in seeking his sister. Upon hearing this, Rush completely breaks character to hop around and giggle like an eight year old. Yes, really. Nothing says "compelling" like a war epic starring a tragic hero who acts like a kid in a candy store. And Square fans, after sitting through all of Final Fantasy 8's dialog and now witnessing this scene, still have the nerve to bash Disgaea for being too "immature and silly"; simply amazing.

Marquis Dickhead: Behold, the generic quest list!
Spoony: Oh, fuck you. Quest list RPGs are an outdated relic from the fucking Apple II era.
Marquis Dickhead: That's the point, this game combines EASTERN and WESTERN RPG elements!
Spoony: ...Fine, fine. If you're going to replace story flow with a chore list, can you at least tell me what ones advance the plot and what ones are just meaningless busywork?
Marquis Dickhead: Of course not. That would be doing something innovative and convenient to the player, and we're clearly trying to avoid that.
Spoony: Another throwback to the days of archaic and clumsy interfaces, I suppose.
Marquis Dickhead: Of course.
Spoony: *Sigh* Fine, I'll just grab a few at random and hope that something - anything - within them convinces me that this game wasn't a complete waste of money.

A few quests are played. It quickly becomes apparent that the battles we witnessed weren't trimmed-down versions for the sake of early game demonstration; you quite literally spend three seconds choosing what moves to use and then the next three minutes watching them animate. You have almost no interaction with every single battle in the entire game.

Spoony: I knew Square loved having monster summons and limit breaks be excessively long, noninteractive movies, but every turn? That is simply unacceptable. Especially when there's this much load time and graphic pop-in between EVERY SINGLE CAMERA CUT.

At the very least the quests don't take fucking ages to finish, because while battles drag on for way too long, the dungeons are quite short. Still, it's only a matter of time and a lot of effort wasted on dead end quests before you get bored of it and desperately wish for a game where you know you're making some kind of actual progress.

Spoony: Okay Square, I've had enough. I liked Final Fantasy XII because it was completely unlike the last few games in the series. I liked The World Ends With You because it had a unique graphical style, original gameplay and several interesting characterizations; again, unlike pretty much everything else you've made in the last decade. So why in the hell would you come back to cliched, mediocre dreck like this? Was that bold new direction just your moving van's pit stop on the road to Blandville? Or do you think you can just live forever off your "cutting edge" graphics? I've got news for you, boys; they're not impressive anymore now that games like Bayonetta, Bioshock and Resident Evil 5 are out. Hell, even Muramasa: The Demon Blade has a fresher and more appealing visual style, and that's on the Wii. The Wii!

So how about this: If you must insist on making nothing but forgettable shovelware from this point on, at the very least you should optimize it for the platform you're releasing it on. There's absolutely no excuse for all of this popup and load time in an Xbox 360 game when games like Dead Rising could have hundreds of autonomous enemies onscreen at a time without even any slowdown. If a few college-age dorks on the Internet can make an emulator for the PSP that runs Nintendo 64 games almost flawlessly, there's no reason why you, with your vast programming staff and inside knowledge on the system and its hardware, can't get a Playstation 1 game running properly. I shudder to think of how badly the Xbox port of Final Fantasy XIII is going to operate; I won't be paying a dime to find out, by the way.

---

Spoony had planned to trade the game toward the Phantom Brave remake on the Wii, but unfortunately it was delayed at the time. So instead it was put toward Devil Survivor, a game which, within its first hour, manages to present a believable, detailed cast of characters, a story whose every element isn't recycled from a dozen better games, and a unique spin on the standard grid-based tactical combat system. It also doesn't take three full minutes for each combat turn to complete and graphics don't randomly drop in and out during every single camera cut; imagine that!

 

 

Or: The game Xbox owners desperately tried to convince themselves was quality because there weren't any other RPGs released on the thing.

The setting is some shithole town in the middle of the woods, which quickly gets burned to the ground and everyone within murdered except for the hero. Lucky for him, some serious-looking dude* teleports him to safety and enrolls him in a generic hero academy.

* That's a lie; he looks like Ganondorf's wimpy cousin.

Headmaster: There, now you know how to use a sword, a bow, and magic thanks to fifteen minutes of training.
Spoony: Yeah. Too bad ten full seconds of electrocution and eight arrows to the face do less damage than one sword swing.
Headmaster: You are ready to move on. Behold, the generic quest list!
Spoony: Oh god, not this shit again. Why can't "Massive, Epic RPGs" just have a contiguous plotline or a game world more than four miles across anymore?
Headmaster: No, no, it's nothing like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance or Atelier Iris.
Spoony: Prove it.
Headmaster: You can be good OR evil during each of them!
Spoony: You don't care which, huh. Fine then, from this day forth it is my goal to become the biggest bastard who has ever lived.
Headmaster: Logically I'd try to sway you from this path or at least show some sign of lament for this monster I've created, but instead I'm just going to sit here and repeat the same three lines over and over again for the rest of the game!

A few quests are completed for the measly reward of some bad Karma and barely enough gold coins to buy a single health potion. The developers try to get you to care a bit more by introducing a rival character who takes up the mantle of good, but this fails utterly because she's just blindly opposing you for the hell of it regardless of the path you choose, not because of any actual character motive.

Spoony: Say, I wonder what these F-key functions do.

It turns out they're a fart button, a belch button, and most embarrasingly, a middle finger button, apparently solely included for the game's target audience of seven-year-olds.

Spoony: ...So it's not necessary for your game to have an actual plotline or anything to do outside of boring fetch quests, but it's absolutely imperative that you include THAT piece of childish nothing. Good job, Peter Molyneux, you've really gotten your priorities straight this time.

A few more quests are done for little to no reward, and the list only grows longer and longer as more get done.

Spoony: Alright, I've seen enough. I'm bored out of my skull, the laws of Albion make no sense at all (belching and farting at people in high enough quantity is just as bad a crime as murder, but neither have any lasting consequences as long as you run back to the guild hall and call "SAFE!" before the guards kill you), and there's at least a dozen better games I could be playing right now. Forget this.
Fantards: Keep playing, dude! You didn't even give it a chance!
Spoony: Piss off, I sat here for three hours doing the same boring routine over and over again.
Fantards: It gets good soon, we promise!
Spoony: Fine, fine. At your insistence, I'll suffer a bit longer.

The fantards built a house of lies, as all that waits is more of the exact same "help this guy or slit his throat and take his wallet" dillemma we've already seen fifty times over. Picking the latter choice each time STILL has no lasting consequences as long as you can outrun the guards (which is dead easy).

Spoony: Okay, fuck this small-time crap. I'm pulling out all the stops.

Spoony decides to steal everything of value in a twelve-mile radius, murder people right in front of their crying children, and slowly and painfully cook the entire academy's student body from the inside out, one at a time, with lightning magic to see if anybody will ever break away from their busy daily routine of standing in one place and repeating the same two lines endlessly to arrange a lynch mob. But big surprise, nobody notices, nobody cares what he's done, and nobody even bats an eye when the same dude who wiped out their entire village yesterday takes a morning stroll right through Main Street unarmed, naked and totally vulnerable. In fact, all he has to show for it is that his skin has spontaneously grown tattoos.

Spoony: This is so fucking retarded. Where's the law? Where's the price on my head? Where are the pissed off relatives and mercenaries seeking vengeance? Why in the FUCK am I still getting job offers when they know I'm just going to stab them and take all of their money? If the game doesn't take any interest whatsoever in its OWN good-and-evil mechanic, why the hell should I?!
Fantards: Keep playing, keep playing! It eventually gets good after about fifteen more hours of quests!
Spoony: And what entails "good" to you?
Fantards: You can marry two men or two women! Dude that's so cool, no game's ever done that before!
Spoony: Except Fallout 2, five years ago. Anything else?
Fantards: You can fart on people, it's so FUNNY!
Spoony: Are you six years old? Try harder.
Fantards: As a matter of fact, I am. And... uh... you can sell a house to someone and then kill them and then sell it again!
Spoony: I have a better idea. Watch this.

Spoony uninstalls the game, sells it on eBay (for less than a third of what he paid, natch) and replays Baldur's Gate 2 instead, which has several interesting features Fable lacks. These include a storyline, a decent engine, a combat system that requires planning and strategy rather than mindless button mashing, and actual characterizations instead of Fable's one-dimensional, black-and-white drivel. Having consequences for your actions, whether good or evil, certainly doesn't hurt either.

Four months pass and everyone forgets about the game, just like every other piece of forgettable shovelware Lionhead Studios has ever boxed and sold. Fable 2 is eventually announced, toting itself as "the game we MEANT to make last time, but instead rushed into stores without half the features we promised or even much to do at all"; Spoony just wonders who would be dumb enough to get conned again, rolls his eyes and returns to playing Earth Defense Force 2017.

 

 

Writing one for a game I played almost a decade ago purely off memory. Whee! Oh, and like all my Nutshells and pretty much everything else I write, don't take it too seriously.

You get a choice of characters to play at the start. This makes almost no difference, since they meet up about five minutes in, you can assume direct control of any character in your party, and their stories don't diverge from one another in any significant way.

Claude: We're on a random shitplanet. Hey look, a mysterious technological artifact!

Mysterious Artifact starts up and Claude gets teleported to Disc1

Rena: Holy shit, an enormous gorilla that isn't native to this area at all!
Claude: Time to spank this monkey!

Claude destroys the thing in three hits with his awesome beam pistol, which breaks down seconds later since even though technology has progressed to the point where humanity can create anything out of thin air, they still can't make a reliable weapon. Disc1's primitive swords, bows and axes, on the other hand, never ever break down or require maintenance in any form.

Claude: 10 points for me!
Rena: Hi, I'm Rena. If you haven't guessed by now I'm the female lead.
Claude: And the only decent healer to boot.
Rena: Yep. Too bad my AI is garbage and I spend all my MP casting shitty attack spells instead even when specifically told to do otherwise.
Claude: Yeah...

A bunch of boring stuff happens, but at least the music is pretty

Village Elder: Claude, you are the hero destined to save our world. Now you must go on some vaguely-defined quest.
Claude: Okay...

They decide to go kill a generic cave monster for no real reason

Celine: I arbitrarily decide to join you. You have no choice in this matter.
Claude: Since I'm stuck with you, what can you do?
Celine: I'm a mage, which just means I stand in one spot and waste all my MP, rendering myself useless within three battles.
Claude: Well, there's nobody else to swap you out for yet so I guess I'll have to put up with it.

They plow their way through more generic enemies, earning more of Claude's imaginary points.

Claude: ....Wait a second. There's two settings for combat. As far as I can tell, the only difference is that you need to hold down the Square button to move with one of them, while the other just lets you use the D-Pad.
Rena: Yeah. So?
Claude: So what's the point of that?
Rena: I really don't know.
Claude: While we're on the topic, why does the attack command have me randomly break off from my target, run to the top corner, touch it, and run back before actually attacking?
Rena: Shoddy programming. Wasn't the constant freezing enough of a clue?
Spoony: No kidding. Even Ultima VII running on my old piece of shit 486 Packard Bell didn't lock up this often.

Like every fight so far, the battle with the cave monster ends in about thirty seconds of button mashing.

Claude: That's uh, 80 Points!
Rena: Seriously Claude, what the hell are you talking about?
Claude: ...I don't know. I'm not convinced the writers or translators do either.

They leave and come to some other town

Rena: Oh look, a tournament!
Claude: A cheap excuse for more fights. And more points!

Claude enters, Claude gets his ass beat regardless of what equipment you bring with you, rendering the choice and the entire tournament scene pretty much moot. Also, the game freezes again after you lose. This results in much frustration since you have to sit through all those scenes AGAIN.

Claude: Well, that was excruciating. What's next?
Rena: There's some plot about a war but it was so uninteresting that Spoony can't recall it at all, so he's just going to discuss the recruitable characters instead.

Dias: I'm apparently supposed to be the HARDCORE character since I have a gruff voice and treat everyone like shit. I'm also completely useless in combat because I insist on running up and then stopping dead FOR A FULL FUCKING SECOND before I swing, leaving myself wide open to attack.
Claude: Yeah, you suck hardcore. Back row for the rest of the game.

Bowflex: I shoot tornadoes out of my hands.
Claude: Awesome!
Bowflex: I should also add that my voice clips all sound like they were recorded on a shitty 1979 microphone while my actor was shouting through a pillow, but that's nothing new with this game.

Leon: I'm another crappy mage character, but at least I spice it up a little by wielding books that shoot demons that shoot swords.
Claude: Neat.

There's probably more, but I didn't care enough to check. I will say that Precis' voice is probably what you'd hear if Satan cross-bred a fire alarm with Gilbert Gottfried; it was so completely awful that I restarted the whole game to get her the hell out of my party.

More boring stuff happens and they decide to climb up a tower.

Evil Circlejerk: Boo! We are the main villains!
Claude: This game has villains? That's surprising.
Evil Circlejerk: We are a not-so-subtle reference to the twelve Apostles, and our minions are all vaguely angelic! Beware our clichedom!
Claude: Thanks a million for that one, Evangelion.

The villains are all invincible and can crush the characters' rib cages with one finger flick, so Claude's just forced to run circles around them until they get bored and call off the fight. With no explanation the party gets dumped onto some other planet

Claude: Okay, where are we now?
Stooge: Planet Disc2. Disc1 was destroyed.
Claude: Destroyed?!
Stooge: Disc2 crashed into Disc1 and somehow emerged completely unharmed.
Claude: That makes no sense whatsoever.
Stooge: Tell it to the writing staff. Anyway I'm done talking, go to the lab and get your requisite airship... err, fetus creature.

For no particular reason, the fetus creature escapes and you're forced to beat it into submission first, which proves suprisingly difficult. But after being pelted with a relentless barrage of spells and sword skills for fifteen minutes, the beast submits

Claude: Finally, we won!

The game freezes for the eighth time

Spoony: GODDAMNIT. GOD FUCKING SHIT DAMN CUNT LUMPS! CAN'T THESE IDIOTS PROGRAM A FUCKING GAME?!

The CD gets frisbeed across the room and left untouched for two months. Due to either boredom or severe masochism it eventually gets dug out from under a pile of old homework and the story (I use the term loosely) continues

Claude: Okay, the bosses on Disc1 were all really easy, so they're making up for it by making all of Disc2's bosses ridiculously cheap and giving you no good places to level.
Rena: Claude, you're supposed to use your technical skills.
Claude: No, screw that. I've thrown away so many skill points and raw materials and at best I always end up with a basic, shitty dagger that barely costs a third of what I spent on the ore. The only useful thing I've gotten of these is the stat boosts.
Rena: Well then steal something decent.
Claude: Unlike Ultima, where theft is the key to the universe, everyone in these games either carries bad checks, scribbled-on pieces of paper or just barely enough gold for one measly health potion, so that skill's also a waste.
Rena: Fine, back to more tedious grinding.

A lot of other boring stuff happens, Rena and Claude get some mediocre weapons with flashy names like "Fallen Hope" and "Crescent Moon" and they're off to the Evil Circlejerk's tower, where EVERY SINGLE ENEMY is more powerful than Jesus. Since just one of these assholes can wipe out the entire party in a matter of seconds, Claude and company just end up running past them all.

Flamecunt: WE MUST FIGHT!

Flamecunt wipes out the entire party by spamming a move where he covers the entire battlefield in flames while shrieking "OH-HO-HO IT'S HOT!" at ear-splitting volume. The party is unable to defeat him and between the frequent crashes and the overpowered enemies, they're unable to get back out and grind some more. Spoony declares this a victory for the forces of extremely lame evil, not really knowing or caring what their motives were, and goes back to playing SaGa Frontier.

 

 

At first I'd thought that Square's talent had left the company to form Mistwalker, which would account for the general awfulness of their recent games. I see now that I was mistaken.

The scene is a battlefield, where a lot of people are fighting and machines are throwing around big metal battering rams. This means absolutely nothing to the player as no setting, plot or characters are yet established. Cut to one guy recreating a scene from a bad kung fu movie; he is effortlessly taking out dozens of soldiers as they fight him in groups of no more than three at a time and give him convenient breaks to catch his breath.

Kaim: Yeah, I'm the hero of this story. I'm also an indifferent dick who broods all the time and speaks even less than Squall.

An extremely long and tedious battle against a large tank occurs. Not because you'd think a guy with a sword would have a hard time taking down a metal war machine, but because every single attack he throws takes about ten tedious seconds of load time, a lengthy animation of him running up to it, more load time, watching him hit it once and then running back. Also, there's a half-assed ripoff of Legend of Dragoon's targeting system to let you inflict more damage. Yes, Legend of Dragoon. That shitty PS1 RPG nobody bought.

Kaim: God, this is boring. When does the fun start?

Lava coats the entire battlefield, killing everyone but Kaim and a few enemy soldiers. Ironically being doused in molten granite does not in any way hinder their willingness or ability to fight; they still deal single-digit damage and die with one solid hit.

Soldier: Holy shit, someone survived! Bring him before the king!

Kaim gets carted back to town. It's at this point that we realize that, just like Final Fantasy X, nobody can wear an outfit that isn't asymmetrical or riddled with eighteen pounds of useless, tacky decorum. If wearing armor, it must also hang on their person in scraps that, in a realistic situation, would provide no actual protection and likely just serve to hinder their movement - definitely nothing that should be worn in a life-and-death battle.

Kaim: Aren't we going to see the king?
Soldier: Nope, just you. You get to walk the rest of the way. And yes, we're going to assume you know the way even though your character logically would, but the player doesn't.
Kaim: Wonderful.

Kaim bumbles around town aimlessly until realizing he's being followed. In a move that smacks of overraction since he's in no real danger anyway, he pulls the guy into an alley, strangles him and pins him against a wall.

Kaim: THIS IS MY CHRISTIAN-BALE-AS-BATMAN IMPRESSION. WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT DO YOU WANT.
Idiot: Uh, ah, uh, ah, uh, ah, uh, ah, uh.
Kaim: Nevermind, get out of here.

Kaim eventually finds the castle, which is harder than it sounds since the map screen's text is so small it's almost unreadable.

King and his Council: Blah blah blah Grand Staff blah blah War blah blah Kaim is immortal blah blah Kaim is cursed blah blah. Kaim, go check out Grand Staff.
Kaim: How do I get there?
Councilmen: We could just give you a map, but instead we're going to have Idiot guide you.
Idiot: WHINE FUCKING INCESSANTLY. Oh hi, I'm Idiot. I'm apparently supposed to be the comic relief character, but my humor just come across as really forced and my constant bitching makes the player want to bash my head in with a brick. ...Just like Zell!
Kaim: Goddamnit.
Councilmen: There's another Immortal coming with you too. You'll meet her soon.

Kaim leaves.

Girl: Hi I'm the immortal they mentioned! I'm also really airheaded and apparently later on I'm the hero's romatic interest. ...Just like Rinoa!
Kaim: Good to see Sakaguchi's departure from Square has allowed him to branch out and explore new realms of possibility that continuing work under their banner wouldn't have afforded him. As opposed to just, you know, doing the same bland shit over and over again.
Girl: I know, right? Hehe!
Kaim: Alright, fine, we leave in the morning.

After talking to some random, inconsequential boob in a bar, you get the message "KAIM RECEIVES A MEMORY! GO TO THE MENU TO VIEW IT!" Out of morbid curiosity, Kaim decides to view it.

Kaim: ....Wow. It's nothing but text on a background that changes colors once in a while.

Far too long passes.

Kaim: Okay, I'm tired of this. Can I skip the rest? ...No I can't.

Even longer passes.

Kaim: If you're not going to just show a cutscene, can you at least put more than one sentence on the screen at a time so it doesn't take three hours to read?

Yet more time passes.

Kaim: Well, that was a chore. Is there any point to these dream scenes at all?
Girl: You get an achievement for them.
Kaim: Any REAL point?
Girl: They're supposed to make us sympathize with your character and make you look like less of an asshole.
Kaim: Oh, I see. They couldn't just show me being nice to somebody.
Girl: No, that would be far too easy.
Kaim: *Sigh* at least they're decently written. Guess Sakaguchi can write more than just airheads, douchebags and background characters with a total of five or six lines.
Girl: He didn't even write them.
Kaim: Figures.

Kaim finally just goes to the Inn as more boring exposition plays. The next morning rolls around and they prepare to leave.

Girl: Hey, where's Idiot?
Obviously Drunken Idiot: Apparently I'm popular with these two women even though nobody else in the game likes me at all. Also, WHINE FUCKING INCESSANTLY.
Kaim: Let's go, dumbass.

---

Girl: Here we are, a random field of no consequence.
Idiot: WHINE FUCKING INCESSANTLY.
Kaim: Shut up already. You're not amusing or even interesting in the slightest.
Idiot: That's funny coming from you, Gothic Squall.

Puncho puncho ram ram

Idiot: Hey, a cabin. Let's stop and rest.
Kaim: We've been walking less than ten minutes in between all the fights.
Idiot: WHINE FUCKING INCESSANTLY.
Kaim: Fine, fine. Let's just waste an entire day when Grand Staff is apparently so dangerous that one small glitch can kill thousands of people.

The next day, they're on their way again.

Dragon: ROAAARRRR!
Idiot: WHINE FU--
Kaim: Say one more fucking word and I'm cutting your tongue out and feeding it to that thing.

The dragon wipes out the entire party in three turns.

Kaim: Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, why is this guy so damn hard? He's the first boss, for fuck's sake.
Girl: Because we only have three skills and we're expected to have risen at least ten levels even though every single battle takes like eight minutes to finish?
Kaim: Oh, wonderful.

Kaim grinds for a few hours and dies a few more times before Spoony realizes that he doesn't give two fucks about what happens next anyway and trades it toward the vastly superior Persona 4.

 

 

Yeah, we're actually doing a good game this time! Holy shit!

Rolf: Hi I'm Rolf, I work for the Motavian government, which is pretty much just a formality since everybody works for Mother Brain.
Governor: Rolf, there are monsters everywhere and the weather has stopped working! Find out why this is happening, we can't go on much longer like this.
Nei: I'm coming too. Oh Hi, I'm Nei. I'm apparently a hybrid of a human and a monster.
Rolf: That and you kept blocking the door until I agreed to take you along.
Nei: Yep.
Rolf: *Sigh* I knew I should have sprung for a house with a back door. Or a window at least.

The Peanut Gallery arrives to offer their assistance

Rolf: Okay, so we're not here all day, give me your credentials in 25 words or less.
Rudo: I shoot things.
Amy: Healer character the game is nearly impossible without.
Hugh: Biologist with a skill set and equipment limitations that make me all but useless after the first third of the game.
Anna: Bounty hunter who wields a kickass boomerang. TWO, even!
Kain: World's worst repairman with a side job as a Lupin III impersonator. No, I don't actually steal things.
Shir: But I do!
Rolf: That's everyone? No Obligatory Cute Girl Who Never Does Anything?
Nei: Nope, all the women here are pretty damn useful.
Rolf: Well, that's a first.

The party makes their way to the Bio Labs, which requires several detours through convoluted dungeons and bearing witness to at least one murder/suicide. Eventually they blast open some stubborn doors and acquire the logs

Governor: My god, according to this the biomonsters are multiplying so rapidly because so much power is being diverted from Climatrol!
Rolf: Well I guess that explains that. I still don't get why the floors were coated with lava though.
Governor: Rolf, you must investigate Climatrol and find out the cause of this anomaly!
Rolf: Alright, where's this next gigantic labyrinth of a building?
Governor: At the bottom of the ocean.
Rolf: So do we have a submarine handy?
Governor: No.
Rolf: Diving equipment?
Governor: No.
Rolf: A boat?
Governor: No.
Rolf: So you built a facility that controls the entire planet's weather at the bottom of the ocean and have no means of getting to or from it? Whose brainiac idea was this?
Governor: Mother Brain's.
Rolf: I'm beginning to think that leaving all of our technology and running of the government up to a spacefaring supercomputer of unknown origin was a really bad idea.

Rolf and co. end up having to borrow a jet ski from some smelly Motavians and using some magical chewing gum (yes, seriously) to get to Climatrol. After trekking through the biggest and most ridiculous teleporter maze yet they encounter Neifirst

Neifirst: (Deep breath) My name is Neifirst, I am the result of experiments with monster and human DNA. I became too beligerent so they tried to kill me, but I escaped and unleased the biomonster cataclysm upon Motavia as an act of revenge. Also, Nei and I were once the same being but she seperated from me because I'm so damn evil.
Rolf: That's... pretty messed up.
Nei: Yes. Now I must fight her alone even though she is many times more powerful than me!

Nei dies a tragic death

Rolf: Nei, your foolish attack will not be in vain!

Neifirst falls remarkably easily with three party members at the players' disposal

Neifirst: Surprise! Mota's flooding now.
Governor: Rolf, you must open the dams to prevent the lake from flooding and destroying the whole continent! Also the government's blaming you for this entire incident so all the enemies on the overworld are now robots after your blood.
Rolf: Man, why can't villains ever just go down easily?
Amy: Because then the plot would hit a dead end.
Rolf: Oh yeah. I sure hope future games learn from that example!

With the help of a really sexist musician they acquire the dam keys and open up the four dams. Not surprisingly, said dams are enormous, convoluted mazes of corridors and teleporters.

Army Eyes: YOU ARE UNDER ARREST FOR DAMAGING MOTHER BRAIN.
Rolf: I think she was already pretty whacked if she thought making every building on the planet into a rat maze was a good idea.
Army Eyes: SILENCE.

Despite the party's best efforts to fight them off, the Army Eyes capture them and take them to Gaira

PA: You shall stay here and await execution!
Rolf: When's that?
PA: Right now!

Gaira is set on a crash course for Palma, and despite running past a lot of enemies to reach the control room they are unable to stop it

Deus ex MachinaTyler: Hi, you don't know me and I barely know you, but I saved you from dying horribly. Too bad Palma itself was completely destroyed.
Rolf: The whole planet was blown apart?! How big was that satellite anyway?
Tyler: A whole lot bigger than it looked from the inside, that's for sure. Anyway, bye!

The team is dropped off back in Paseo without another word

Amy: That was... confusing.
Anna: How the hell would we even get enough materials to build such a huge satellite?
Rudo: Let alone enough to build hundreds of starships the size of small planets... oops, I just spoiled part of Phantasy Star 3.
Rolf: Friends, it's 1989. Logic doesn't come standard in video game plots until the middle of the next decade. Anyway, let's see if we can do something about Mother Brain, she's obviously batshit crazy.

They bum the last spaceship on the planet from the Governor and fly to Dezolis

Rudo: This spaceport's a real dump.
Amy: It says we can talk to cats if we wear a magic hat?
Rolf: Hi?
Musk Cat: Piss off!
Amy: It also says to look out for bootleg magic hats.
Rolf: Okay, I'll try this one then.
Musk Cat: All the animals on this planet mutated due to poison gas.
Rolf: Well that explains why we're fighting zombie rabbits and giant mammoths in a spaceport.
Anna: At least it's a nice break from all those damn robots.
Rolf: Don't look outside, then.
Anna: Damn it.

They get to a town of Dezolians. After a bit more trial and error with hats, they upgrade their equipment and head through the Crevice, eventually ending up at the Esper Mansion

Lutz: Hello, I am Lutz.
Rolf: No way, you're Noah from Phantasy Star 1.
Lutz: No, my name is Lutz.
Rolf: Okay, fine, whatever.
Lutz: Anyway, in order to stop Mother Brain, you must acquire Nei's weapons scattered around Dezolis.
Rolf: They're called "Nei" weapons?
Lutz: Yes.
Rudo: Wasn't Nei born like a year ago?
Rolf: Yeah. Either that's an amazing coincidence or there's a major plot paradox here.

(Either way, the plot offers no explanation for this anomaly)

The party travels through the most convoluted dungeons yet, acquiring several Nei items. Eventually they return to the Esper Mansion

Lutz: Nope, you don't have them all yet. Come back when you do.
Rolf: Damn it.

The party finds another dungeon they missed earlier, acquiring more Nei items

Lutz: Nope, still missing some.

The party backtracks through every dungeon they've visited - twice - finding a couple more pieces they missed.

Lutz: You're still missing some.
Rolf: Well can you give us a clue at least? This is really getting annoying.
Lutz: No.
Rolf: Asshole.

After hours, possibly days, of searching and annoying trial-and-error, the party FINALLY finds everything

Rolf: That better be the last of them. If I see one more Rabigut or Cooley61 I'm going to explode.
Lutz: There's one more.
Rolf: You son of a--
Lutz: Relax! It's in that box over there.
Rolf: Oh, okay.

Rolf gets the Neisword

Lutz: That sword can dispel evil.
Rolf: Kind of like the Master Sword?
Lutz: Not really.
Rolf: Okay... anyway, we've got all the goods, now what?
Lutz: To space with you!

They are teleported to Noah, which to no one's great surprise is large, labyrinthine and full of monsters

Rudo: Mother Brain must have a serious thing for Dungeons and Dragons.
Anna: That would explain why she's become so insane and evil.

Many teleporters later, they come to a treasure chest

Dark Force: ROAR, you have just opened Pandora's Box! It contains all that is evil!
Rolf: I doubt that, we ran into a hell of a lot of evil before we came here.
Dark Force: No, fools, I mean I'm going to make YOU evil!

The fight ensues, though much of it is spent with your party doing useless and annoying things like trying to run away, cowering in fear, or trying to steal each other's items. After a few turns of this nonsense, the Neisword shines and returns everyone to normal, usually just in time for Dark Force to afflict them again. After nearly half an hour of sneaking hits in between brainwashings, Dark Force eventually falls

Anna: Well, that was really obnoxious.
Amy: No shit.
Rudo: Since when do major bosses come in treasure chests, anyway?

They continue a bit further, eventually coming to Mother Brain

Mother Brain: I am the ruler of all of Algo. You dare defy me?
Rolf: Yup.
Mother Brain: Fools, you are hopelessly dependent on me! If I die Algo will fall into chaos and you will be forced to sit through a poorly programmed and completely plot-irrelevant sequel!
Rolf: Well, I didn't come all this way to chicken out at the last minute. Die!

Despite having some really impressive graphical effects for 1989 and dealing a lot of damage each round, Mother Brain isn't a very difficult fight

Rolf: Well, I guess we'd better get back to Motavia and try to prevent massive panic
Lutz: Rolf, you can't return again!
Rolf: I can't return? What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Lutz: ...
Rolf: Answer me, damn it!
Lutz: ...
Rolf: *Sigh* fuck it, let's just see where this corridor goes.

They walk through Mother Brain's destroyed casing and end up in a room with hundreds of people

Rolf: Okay, who the hell are you?
Earthmen: (Deep breath) We are from a planet called Earth, which we thoughtlessly destroyed after becoming corrupted by greed and power. We built Noah and set off in search of a new home. Eventually we found Algo, built Mother Brain to lull its populace into submissiveness, and were about to finish them off to claim this system for our own. And we would have gotten away with it if not for you!
Rolf: Holy shit. That Dark Force guy was a saint compared to you guys.
Earthmen: Pretty much. But now we're going to kill you and continue with our plan regardless!

Rolf and company clash with the Earthmen; their fate is left ambiguous for the next five years as the credits roll and sad music plays.

 

 

This time, we're featuring a game you probably weren't tricked into playing on name recognition!

Platina: Life is wonderful even though my mother is a terrible bitch, la la la
Lucian: Hey Platina, you've been sold into slavery, let's run!
Platina: Oh shit, we've wandered into the field of poison flowers and we're both dying horribly.
Lucian: Sucks to be us.

Time passes

Arngrim: I'm so MACHO! Behold my enormous sword and armor that barely covers a third of me!
Jelanda: I attempt to avenge you insulting my father but only succeed in making a fool of myself
Arngrim: Heheheh, idiot.
Jelanda: And now I turn into Satan and kill a few people with completely inappropriate Matrix effects.

Arngrim: She was a whiny dolt, but she didn't deserve this. Grrr, generic necromancer, I'll kill you!
Generic Necromancer: I slay you with one wave of my hand.
Arngrim: Arg
Lenneth Valkyrie: And I slay you back, foul desecrator of the dead!
Generic Necromancer: Arg
Lenneth: Now come help me recruit souls and kill thousands of the same eight monsters, swordsman.
Arngrim: Lead the way, First Lady of Awful Voice Acting.
Jelanda: I'm here too. Also I'm a really powerful sorceress for some reason the plot will never bother to explain.

They travel around the planet slaying thousands of undead and stealing Odin's goodies, taking the occasional break to deck out some new Einherjar and send them off to fight the Ragnarok war. The game eventually gets bored of handing out quests for a while so Valkyrie and crew are stuck wandering around for the last fourteen hours of the period doing nothing

Lenneth: I can apparently buy items and heal my HP while flying around on the map, so is there any point to these towns?
Freya: No.
Lenneth: So being here is just a gigantic waste of time? What's the point of even having towns then?
Freya: Beginner's trap to make you waste hours you could spend killing things and leveling up. Except you can't, because the enemies don't respawn, the game only gives out two or three quests per chapter, and occasionally it also lets you access a stupidly difficult random dungeon where everything can kill you in one hit.
Lenneth: Lovely. Is there any point to NOT taking the good items even though they technically belong to Odin?
Freya: No. It's another beginner's trap since you gain back whatever standing you lost at the end of the chapter if you sent a decent Einherjar or two.
Lenneth: Brilliant design there, Tri-Ace.

They piss around wasting time until the end of the chapter, then repeat the process a few more times before this scene finally comes up

Lezard: I have an enormous boner for Valkyrie so I'm making thousands of homonculi that look like her. It is also heavily implied that I am a pedophile.
Lenneth: Prepare to die, foul desecrator of the dead!
Lezard: Despite loving you I'm trying my damndest to kill you.

They lose to Lezard within two turns

Lenneth: Why the hell was this dungeon so hard, anyway? Everything before it was easy as hell.
Freya: Everything in this game is picked randomly; you just got an assortment of easy levels so you had no chance to power up. Also since you lost to Lezard you just botched your only chance at seeing any real plot development in the game.
Lenneth: Now I can only get Shitty Ending B and Shittier Ending C?
Freya: Yep.
Lenneth: Fuck that. Hit reset.

They luck out the second time through and get a better pick of levels and thus stand half a chance in Lezard's tower.

Lucian: Hey, remember me?
Lenneth: No. Go to Valhalla and fight now.
Lucian: Okay, then here's this earring. I have a feeling you know where the other one is.
Lenneth: Yeah, I went and got it at the beginning of the game. What's it do?
Lucian: You're SUPPOSED to go and get it after I mention it! You can't get the good ending otherwise!
Lenneth: How the hell am I supposed to know that?!
Lucian: Beats me.
Lenneth: Moreover, why even make it available from square one if all it does is screw up the game if you do?!
Lucian: Because Tri-Ace never thinks anything through.
Lenneth: *Exasperated sigh* Goddamnit. Hit reset again.
Arngrim: I'm really getting tired of that unskippable 30-minute opening cinema.
Lenneth: Suck it up.

Checking a guide, Lenneth restarts again, does the earring event right and jumps through a whole bunch of other stupid hoops the game gives you no clues for whatsoever.

Lucian: You remember who I am now, right?
Lenneth: Yeah, I'm Platina and you're Lucian. I'd better remember that after going through all that nonsense.
Lucian: Okay, let's meet again once Ragnarok's over.
Lenneth: Sure.

Several more boring quests ensue, including a confrontation with a stock vampire character. No, you can't defeat him, and if you try you'll fuck up the plot and have to start all over again.

Hrist: SURPRISE, you know too much, now I am taking over your body and erasing your memories!
Arngrim: To hell with that, I'm not sitting through that intro again.

They kill Hrist and manage to save Valkyrie's soul with the help of Lezard. Yes, LEZARD. The villain. Meanwhile, Lucian meets Loki.

Loki: With this forbidden mirror you can see Lenneth wherever she is!
Lucian: Neat. Say, why are you helping me, anyway?
Loki: So I can stab you in the back under the pretext of killing a traitor and steal the Dragon's Orb for myself to become all-powerful.
Lucian: Oh. Well I guess it suits me right, trusting the god of mischief and all.

Loki kills Lucian, murders Odin and destroys both Asgard and Midgard, rendering the entire Ragnarok plot and gameplay system irrelevant. Pretty asinine considering it's THE FOUNDATION AND CORE GAMEPLAY ELEMENT OF THE ENTIRE GAME.

Lenneth: Wait a minute, if Odin had something that powerful the entire time, why didn't he just use it to end the war instantly instead of making me send him new recruits?
Arngrim: I don't know, and given the amount of holes and loose ends in the plot nobody else will either.
Lenneth: Fan-fucking-tastic. Anyway, I'm built up to Level 35 and have the best shit I can possibly buy, let's fight Loki before he destroys the last 1% of the universe.
Bloodbath: Not so fast, you must fight through my goons first!

Lenneth and company decimate them all with one solid blow

Bloodbath: Hahaha, that was just a joke. Now FEEL MY FLAME!

Lenneth's entire party is left either dead or with less than 10% HP from a single blast, and attempting to heal and revive them is wasted effort since he'll just do it again in two turns. Simply wiping him out in one round with a powerful combo isn't an option either.

Lenneth: What the fuck? Your minions were easy as hell, why can't I even DAMAGE you?!
Bloodbath: You mean you didn't get the ring that you need to find in some obscure castle and use forty minutes of tedious object stacking to reach and then equip it to transmute this jewel into another item and then equip THAT to transmute the original ring into a better ring to be able to transmute a very specific sword into the weapon I'm weak against?
Lenneth: ...How the fuck was I even supposed to KNOW that? The game certainly didn't give me any clues. Again.
Bloodbath: HAH! You idiot! That's the only thing in the game capable of doing more than triple-digit damage to my 222,000 HP! You're fucked!
Lenneth: Damn it, now I have to go back and grind some more.
Arngrim: We can't. There's no going back once you come here.
Lenneth: You mean we're completely screwed?
Arngrim: Yep. Hit reset again and for the love of god PRAY we get a better level set this time so we don't die in two turns.
Lenneth: Forget it, I'm not going through all that crap again. Tri-Ace can either read up on plot logic and game balance or get out of the business.

Lenneth gives up in pure frustration and then the universe is destroyed. Who cares, play a real RPG.