I still feel that FFXIII had so, so much potential. I keep imagining what the game would feel like if just a few simple steps had been taken:

1.) The story was straightened out and delivered in a less roundabout, confusing manner

2.) The characters were actually developed

3.) There was just a little more to do in the world other than defeating boss monsters (missions). Just one little side quest for each character and it would’ve been enough.

The most important, of course, is #2. I can tolerate a story that doesn’t really make sense or go anywhere – hell, as long as it’s not completely dull or predictable, it’s basically fine with me. But they can’t eliminate the character development. It just won’t work that way.

I mean, I’m pretty brilliant at thinking up my own imaginary pasts, imaginary character relationships, imaginary thoughts, fears, desires or regrets for the individual characters (see: my fanfiction collection) – but this game is really just giving me nothing to work with. I try to imagine how things will be for the group after they save the world (as in, where would a sequel start?). But I just can’t, really.

Character Bonding – Where the Hell is it?

[Warning - spoilies ahead!]

The characters have almost no bonds with each other. In FFX, every character was strongly related to the others somehow. They couldn’t be separated just like that. Tidus knew Auron. Auron had strong ties with Tidus’s father and is connected to Yuna through her father as well. Lulu, Wakka, and Kimahri are all devoted to protecting Yuna and have known her since long before the start of the story. Rikku is Yuna’s cousin and deeply cares about what happens to her. Even the villains are connected – Jecht is Tidus’s dad and Seymour was engaged to be married with Yuna. They weren’t just random beings or Gods or Fal’cie or whatever, out to murder the world.

But in FFXIII how are the characters related? Okay, Serah and Snow will be married. Lightning finally accepts their union. Those guys, I get. And Fang and Vanille are sorta… dead (crystallized, anyhow). But how ’bout Sazh? Guess he just goes home with Dajh? No more hanging around the others? And Hope goes right back to where his dad is? Like as if the whole “saving the world” stuff didn’t even exist.

Well, that kinda sucks.

I just can’t imagine what happens next. The ending is just so incredibly vague, like the rest of the story. I keep feeling like the writers left crucial parts of the story purposely confusing and impossible to understand so that they could fudge it a bit and twist it around to suit any of their needs, without threatening the credibility of the story.

The Quote Unquote “Ending”

I didn’t understand 90% of what happened after I confronted Barthandelus (the first final boss).

Okay, so he was some kind of puppet himself, after all. So Orphan came out and tried to make Ragnarok destroy the world. Fang actually became Ragnarok and all the others (barring Vanille, mysteriously) turned into Cie’th. Then, due to some cheesy flashback sequences and the “awakening hope in their hearts,” the heroes all magically transformed back into humans and Fang also returned to normal. After that, they easily defeated Orphan (who had only moments ago seemed so much more powerful).

Umm… okay.

Finally, Vanille and Fang become some powerful creature (or summoned it?) who somehow helps stop Cocoon from crashing into Pulse and also makes everything on that planet messed up and crystallized. Surprisingly, no one is hurt in this entire process. Afterwards, the world is saved and everyone (except for Fang and Vanille?) is happy-happy, buddy-buddy.

And that’s what I understand of it.

…

Oh well, at least Hope was cute in the closing scenes (^^;; )

Closing Remarks

They really need a sequel for this game. In fact, I’d be pretty damn surprised if they didn’t eventually come out with some kind of addition or spin-off for this game. The ending is practically begging continuation.

Well, in the end, this was a very, very confusing game that did indeed revolutionize some things… while sorely messing up some others. If they’d just added in about an hour more of development for each character, the game would literally be twice as good. I just want to know who these people are exactly and what’s important to them.

Then again, that’s the way of Final Fantasy (at least since FFX) and it seems to work for them. “Make the characters as enigmatic and mysterious as possible. Let fans fill in the blanks.” I guess that works… in a way. But they used to talk about pasts and likes and dislikes and fun things in the FFVII – FFIX range. Wonder what changed?

So what was it? Well, I’ve reached the final chapter of FFXIII. Yep. Not much time left for it to save itself, and I highly doubt the ending scenes will be extremely redeeming either. Let’s hope they are…. For God’s sake, please make those scenes at least make sense!!

So Much Right, So Much Wrong

FFXIII drives me crazy. Why? Because it does so, so much right but manages to get so much terribly wrong at the same time. There are so many things about this game that have impressed me, that have left their indelible mark. Its presentation is absolutely flawless. The detail and graphical perfection of the world is absolutely stunning. The cutscenes were done well. Localization is better than I could ever have hoped for. I personally like the battle system, Crystarium, and other stream-lined elements. And the story/characters, while awkwardly presented and underdeveloped, had the potential to be quite good – at least they were original… memorable.

But really, the story is shockingly bare-bones. I mean, I still don’t know who the characters are really, what they’re fighting for, and/or what their plan is for “saving the world.” None of it makes any sense, to be frank.

Who Are These People, Again?

The characters are the hardest to forgive. They look beautiful, they’re beautifully voiced, they’re animated flawlessly and could really become some of the best FF characters in existence – I could sense that potential. Yet, for whatever reason, the potential only remains potential.

We know appallingly little about Lightning’s background, how she and her sister lost their parents, how Serah and snow met.

I still don’t understand why Hope decided to abandon his father and go save the world (is it just the hip thing to do these days?) Where did he come from exactly, anyway?

And Vanille and Fang… how are they related, again? I know they’re the best of friends, but… why?

Don’t even get me started on Sazh. He just sticks out like a sore thumb the whole time. It’s not just because he’s black with a crazy hairdo and an annoying chocobo chick in his bird’s nest of hair – it’s because his story is told so awkwardly and his role is too uncertain. Comic relief? Tragic figure? Tired old father? He keeps switching back and forth, back and forth, depending on what’s needed in that particular scene, until we’re just not sure why he’s actually in this game. And whatever happened with his son, anyway?

Ugh, nothing makes sense. I won’t even attempt to go over the story and its flaws. That’s just a total mess.

Characters – Just BOND Already!

I dunno. I had the most uncanny feeling, after 45 hours of play, when I’d nearly gotten to the final dungeon, that this was where the story should have begun. Or closer to it, anyhow… For the first time in 45 hours, it seemed like the “heroes” finally had some kind of purpose, and some kind of serious problem. I felt like they were just ready to begin “bonding.”

Sadly, I knew that the characters were supposed to have bonded already (apparently) in the past 40 hours. Even if there was very little evidence of it.

Every bond that I thought was “going somewhere” ended up just fizzling out for no apparent reason. First I thought Vanille and Hope had something going on (they do… well sort of… not really… maybe… right?). Then it was Vanille and Sazh. Then Lightning and Hope (I really wanted that one to happen!). Snow and Fang seemed to have something going on too. I also liked Snow and lightning’s “one-sided grudge/friendship” dynamic, and I also thought it would be interesting if Snow and Hope’s unlikely friendship grew further as well. But nope: nix on both counts. All their preciously scant moments of “development” were really for nothing after all.

Still, there were some pretty good times to be had from this game. I still think around the point where Lightning and Hope fight against Odin to around when the “gang” joins up with Cid Raines and Fang and goes out to “save the world” – those were the best parts of the game. Well, really, all the “fugitive” portions were better than the rest of it. At least I actually understood the characters’ motivations then (for the most part). And you can always identify with a group that’s on the run. Not so much for a group raring to “saving the world” for some obscure reason, though.

Wasted Potential

God, to think what they could have done with the game (and to think that this took them 3 1/2 years to develop!!)… I had fantasies of being able to pair off into groups (of 2 or 3) like in some parts of FFVIII and having to rely on each other for survival. I mean, they really should’ve split up the party more often. At least then I’d have a reason to use Sazh & Vanille at all.

I just found all the “split up” moments far better than the “big group” ones. And I really, really loved how the pairs would actually talk to each other in battle quite personally (saying their names, personalized phrases, etc). That was all so excellent. Why couldn’t they have kept it up with that level of quality?

It’s like the development ran out of steam after making the first 20 hours and had to resort to cliche “saving the world” stuff to fill up the rest of the game.

I dunno. The game seems to have lost its “zing” for me. At the beginning it was so refreshing, new, unpredictable. It was fun. The characters had character development. There were so many pleasant surprises along the way. Playing the game was like slowly unwrapping a Christmas present and finding goodies tucked away under the folds of the wrapping.

But now things have gotten repetitive, dull, and predictable. The game was good until about the start of disc three. Okay, maybe slightly more than that. Well, I’ll say the first 15 hours of this game deserve a 95% rating from me; the next 10 hours an 80%, and now… probably even less than that.

Can the Story PLEASE Figure Itself Out?

The story is mixed up. Seriously.  It keeps jumping around from plot point to plot point and I still feel like I’m trying to just figure it all out. The characters’ actions and motivations are almost impossible to figure out. Okay, so if you guys don’t figure out how to stop your brands, you’ll become monsters eventually. I get that part. That makes sense to me. But what does that have to do with “saving the world,” killing Fal’cie (basically the demigods of the world), or going to Oerba (the “Zanarkand” of this game… sort of)? How on earth do the characters know that going there will help them in any way?

I still feel the game made far more sense when the team was perpetually split up. I mean, the characters have practically zero chemistry when put together. Even characters that once had great chemistry seem to be completely lifeless and flat now. I just don’t get it. All the characters who seemed to be bonding earlier have suddenly just stopped. Interrupted by the plot, I guess? It’s like their bonds never even existed. Even worse, bonds that were never formed in the first place are now accepted as real. Wth?

I just don’t get it. As far as most of the characters are concerned, Fang (for example) is a total stranger who they know nothing about and have very little in common with. How do the other characters (aside from Vanille) even trust her?

What the heck happened to this game? It was going so well before. I feel like I just dreamt up all the character interactions from before… but I really didn’t. They did exist! (the creators have just temporarily forgotten about them)

I really started losing  my patience with this game during that hellishly annoying “Tower” dungeon. Ugh, there’s three hours of my life I don’t want to every repeat again. Boring, time-consuming, repetitive, not exciting at all. Well, at least the boss at the end was kind of interesting. Sort of.

[Warning: spoilies!]

But seriously, what happened to the spice the game originally had? I thought we were going to find out the characters’ pasts, understand their deep motivations…. I don’t understand anything right now. For example, how come Sazh doesn’t seem to care about his crystallized boy anymore? Why has Lightning mellowed out all of a sudden? Why exactly did Vanille have to lie about what happened and keep running away, etc?

FFXIII: FFX, FFX-2, FFXII & FFVII Wrapped into One

And why is this game ridiculously similar to FFX?? Okay, it’s actually like a mix of FFX (story, characters, general atmosphere), FFX-2 (“girl power!” – lack of world map and other traditional RPG elements, the fast-paced, hectic battle system, “jumping” around in the field), FFXII (missions and other minor things), and FFVII (atmosphere of the world, main character, beginning of the game (train, soldiers, Midgar-like city), “City of Dreams” was like a shitty version of Golden Saucer).

It’s most similar to FFX, though. The only real difference is that they swapped naive, whiner Tidus with badass Lightning (good move). Essentially, Tidus became Hope (okay, not really, but they do share similarities and they have a similar look/hairstyle/clothes/walk), Rikku became Vanille (and Yuna… wrapped into one), Wakka is Sazh, Lightning is kind of like Cloud, Fang is… a female Cid Highwind? (okay, I dunno about that one) Snow is really the only “new” character of the bunch. (and even he’s just a weird mix of Zell and Seifer!) I mean, I really love Lightning and Hope, but they’re mostly just cliches done well.

How is this game like FFX? Let’s see… starts out in a “Zanarkand”-like floating walkway/highway/etc. Lots of high-tech entertainment like at Bodhum (reminiscent of Blitzball). Starts out with the goal first being survival, then “completing the ‘Focus’/Summoner’s journey,” then learning that that’s evil and inhumane so they decide to go it their own way (ie, smash the god(s) who created this wicked system in the first place). Having to sacrifice someone in order to “save the world.” Lots of flying airships, etc. Repeating a cycle of destruction and rebirth…

I’ve just gotten to the point where you find out “what” Cid Raines is and are forced to fight against him (didn’t beat him, though). Honestly, I was expecting him to be a shifty character from the get-go, but I didn’t predict this! I mean, Cid can’t be a bad guy?!

It was an interesting (well, at least surprising) plot twist, but it was too cliche and not properly foreshadowed by earlier events to have the right effect. The problem is, we never really trusted Cid in the first place. We aren’t told exactly who he is, where he came from, why he’s helping us, what his goals are, etc. He isn’t given any opportunities to even prove that his heart is sincerely set on helping the heroes of the story. So when he turns around and betrays us, our reaction is “meh” instead of “omg, traitor!!!” Betrayal only works when the player actually trusted the character in the first place.

(see any Tales game, particularly Tales of Symphonia or Tales of the Abyss for reference ^o^)

Also, what’s with all the sudden reduction of characters to moving plot explanations? Seriously, it’s getting really old. If my favourite character’s gonna open his mouth, can you make it character development instead of plot repetition? I mean, it’s a sure sign that the plot is far too complex and hard to grasp when you’ve got every damn character on the cast trying to make sense of it for the audience.

Goddamn You and Your “Saving the World”…

I preferred it manifold when the story (as in the first disc and a half) was about survival and not getting caught instead of all this “saving the world” nonsense that’s suddenly being tacked on to the game. Before, I felt like the characters were actually in constant danger and had their lives at stake with every choice and decision they made; I felt it might be possible for them to really fail or lose their lives. But now, I’m not feeling that urgency and sense of “survival instinct” that I was earlier. The game has lost its urgency.

Look, you creators, in order for people to care about something that might be lost or is being lost, you have to show us what that thing is really like, what’s so good about it, why it matters if it’s gone. At this point, I don’t care whether the whole freaking world disappears or not, because you haven’t shown me more than 2 or 3 places worth caring about. I don’t care about Cid, that evil “Pope” guy, or any of the other so-called villains. I even care more about Serah (who has had practically no development at this point) because at least they showed us exactly what she was like and how nice she was to everybody. When Serah turned to crystal, we actually cared about her fate and felt it was a tragedy (well, a little bit anyway).

More is Not Merrier!

I really, really liked it better back when the group was all split up. Not only was it way more challenging and exciting (battle-wise), but it just made so much more sense. The characters actually had character development. The best part was how much the other person in the team would chatter on the field and especially in battles. God how I miss those “Thanks, Hope!” “Follow my lead, kiddo!” “Would this work better, Light?” I really liked those times. I felt like the characters in the party really cared about each other.

Right now they just seem plainly focused on defeating the enemy (whoever the hell that is). How boring. I just feel sad when Lightning no longer personally thanks Hope for healing her, just mutters a stiff, “Thanks.” Ugh. Why? I mean, they’ve already recorded the voices, might as well make use of them for the entire game.

God, I hope they split up again at some point. That would be wonderful.

—

I atually don’t think I’m unnaturally biased towards Hope as a character (well, not that much anyway).  I actually think he’s just a decently developed character – at least compared to the other stiffs in the group. Not only has he changed a lot and gone through vastly different experiences since the beginning of the game, he’s also formed some pretty deep bonds with highly unlikely people. None of the other characters have really done this – I don’t buy Vanille and Sazh’s “connection”… just doesn’t seem right (maybe it’s the humongous age difference?). And Vanille and Fang kind of creep me out….

I have a feeling the game’s going down, down hill from here – actually, I had it last night too and I wasn’t wrong. Too much “saving the world” nonsense, not enough character development… and to be 25 hours in the game and still not understand the plot!!

Planning too much kills the fun out of any pleasure. Anticipation often actually makes the experience worse. And there’s nothing worse than being disappointed. It’s best to always have somewhat low, or non-existent, expectations, so that you’ll always be pleasantly surprised. I think a huge part of my total enjoyment of FFXIII is the fact that I never really expected to like it so much. The lukewarm reviews gifted me with an outlook of low expectation. And boy, was I surprised.

Because I think FFXIII is well on its way to becoming my favourite Final Fantasy of all time. There are so many reasons why I say this. Basically, I feel that FFXIII is like FFX but with a set of characters who, in my opinion, are more original and unexpected than previously, and also with an innovative battle/customization system. I really appreciate the originality presented in this game. It’s just completely not what I expected, and I love that about it.

Revolutionary?

I’ll say it straight. I’m tired of the clichéd, obligatory “boy meets girl” love stories, the straightforward “save the world from impending doom” stories, the parties full of archetypes with little originality (sure, the characters were often detailed, creative, moving and likeable, but they always had this underlying blandness, this “been there, done that” feel to them). I’m tired of turn-based battles, random encounters, and other such outdated nonsense.

FFXIII is a shining example of originality and uniqueness without compromising enjoyability. FFXII was innovative in some respects (or at least deviant), but unfortunately, the characters were totally uninteresting and the story was, for the most part, boring, hard to follow, and cliché. I like all the new ways that FFXIII has chosen to do things. I like how the characters don’t easily fit the archetypes you thought they would. They’re complex, and they feel real to me. I might not necessarily like them as much as other characters in previous games, but I feel refreshed to see them, hear them, play as them.

It just feels amazing to play an RPG where the main character (in this case, Lightning) doesn’t seem to fall in love with the other, opposite sex main lead (Snow). In fact, I highly doubt she will fall in love with anyone in the end (maybe the game will prove me wrong… but I doubt it). I mean, how weird is that, really? A Square-Enix game with no obvious canon love pairing? Of course, I expect this won’t be an extremely popular move with the “masses,” but I for one really, really love it.

Girls who Kick Ass

This game surely has the highest count for “bad ass females” of any RPG I’ve ever played. Actually, in this regard (and some others), the game sometimes reminds me of Chrono Trigger. Weird, isn’t it? And the females aren’t just “sorta bad ass” – only to “soften up” later on and become all girly, loveable, and male-crazy. At least it doesn’t seem that way so far. Lightning isn’t treated as some kind of sex object with a personality attached – far from it. I am deeply thankful to the creators of this game for that.

Not only is Lightning severely bad ass, there’s also the warrior-woman Fang and the ever-fearless Vanille. I don’t claim to like either of the latter two characters all that much, but I do feel that their inclusion in this game is refreshing. It’s like as if someone opened the windows and let in a breath of fresh air. Ahh, so soothing and invigorating.

I’ll admit I wasn’t quite expecting the strong overtones of “lesbian-ness” present in many parts of the game… I mean, this has got to be the most “unorthodox pairing” RPG in the history of gaming. Not only does there seem to be a very, very strong bond between Fang and Vanille, but Lightning’s devotion to her sister Serah is also somewhat hard to accept as pure sisterly concern…. (Please don’t take me too seriously. ^o^; )

And I never would’ve expected that Lightning and Hope, or Sazh and Vanille (apparently?), would form such close bonds. I’m not so sure about the latter, but the former is entirely without doubt. I mean, apart from Serah, it doesn’t seem like Lightning cares about anyone else in the game more than she does Hope. She seems to be constantly worried about him and even lends him her birthday present (a knife), which I assume she was given by Serah, who’s beloved to her (well, then again… I suppose Snow could’ve given it to her, considering it’s a knife and not jewelry or a bath set).

My Guilty Obsession

Gods help me, I love Hope so damn much. He just seems to elicit caring and love from me with no effort at all. I melt almost every time I see him in the game or hear him speak. Sure, he has some dumb lines now and then and I still think his “Operation Nora” (plan to get revenge on Snow) is completely bonkers, but those little negatives don’t seem to affect my adoration of him one bit.

He’s just… perfect. In every way. He doesn’t feel like just a character to me. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s the same for some of the other characters in the game, too (mostly Lightning and Snow). It’s like they’re actually real, living people who I get to know intimately by playing this game, in which their words and actions have been captured in some time past. I feel like whoever created them wasn’t merely writing a character, a figure who would self-consciously please the fans or move the story along… It’s like they’re actually recreating a person who they knew, at some time in their lives, very intimately.

I know it’s a little stupid to say such things, especially considering some of the lines the characters say are completely ridiculous and most of their motivations are pretty hard to believe. But it’s a feeling I get, a really very real, persistent feeling that doesn’t go away even as I progress more and more through the story. It’s a combination of their masterful voice acting, their wonderfully localized lines, their very realistic, detailed reactions to the events in the story, and their beautifully, meticulously animated faces/bodies. Their expressions, the way they move, the way they stand, sit, talk and fight…. It’s all so very real to me. It seems almost incomprehensible to me that nowhere in this world do these characters actually exist, in the flesh, real live human beings. It actually seems more probable to me that these people do exist somewhere in this world (or universe?) than that they’re just characters created solely for this game.

Do Snow & Hope Get Together? …What?

I love Hope to bits. Where shall I start? Which are my favourite scenes, my favourite lines? Which parts did my heart melt? Which parts were I so glad and excited to have been able to play? Which parts made me cringe (either with disbelief and disgust, or with empathetic pain)?

Well, the part where Hope finally corners Snow and confronts him was a little over-the-top and ridiculous, but I still loved it. And especially the aftermath. I absolutely adore Snow’s unfailing devotion to doing good, his pure, heroic heart. I really love characters like that (it surprises me, even). Characters who are just so pure-hearted, heroic, courageous, self-sacrificing. Who don’t really think twice; who just do.

It was heart-melting (for me, anyway) to see him after the two of them fell a number of stories staggering to his feet and trying, with much painful effort, to carry Hope on his back. I mean, can you just imagine that? Some kid you hardly even know verbally attacked you, blasted you with a magic spell, threatened you as you hung over a cliff, and was about to really kill you… and you still try your very hardest to save their life, at any cost to your own. I know in real life it’s hard to imagine this could be the case, but some how, I didn’t find it unbelievable at all when I watched Snow do it for Hope. I really believe he’s that good of a guy. That he would never abandon anyone if he could help it – even a kid who tried to kill him.

I really want to find out how that whole Snow-Hope thing turns out. And what Hope’s home will be like, whether they’ll meet his dad, what his dad’ll be like. I don’t really want to even think about what will happen, because it’d probably ruin the surprise, but I’m guessing that Hope will eventually realize how much effort Snow is putting into saving him and being the “good guy” that he’s made himself out to be, that he’s truly trying his best for everyone and never meant for Hope’s mother to come to any harm. I mean, how could he not? He’s not that stupid of a guy. Probably, he expected Snow to try to fight back after hearing he caused Nora’s death, and that he would be very angry at Hope for his threats and accusations. When he realizes that Snow’s reaction isn’t what he expected, he’ll probably realize there’s nothing more he can do and give up trying to exact vengeance on Snow.

I loved that awkwardness and desperation in that “three-way” phone call between Lightning, Snow, and Hope. Lightning urgently tells Snow to take care of Hope, Snow happily obliges; she also furtively begins to warn him about Hope’s plan for revenge…. Then Hope butts in, tells Lightning he’s going ahead with “Operation Nora.” Interference cuts in, Lightning urges him not to do what he’s thinking, the line cuts off. It’s just great… great way to build up the tension in the situation. Everyone wishes Hope would just listen to Lightning, or that Snow would realize what happened with his mother, and for a moment it seemed like it was almost going to happen. But – nope! It’s a perfect device.

But ah, FFXIII. Now, this is what I call a true, beautiful masterpiece of a game. I’ve only gotten through ten hours of the game so far (actually, less – though I’m already onto the second disc strangely enough), but from what I’ve played I believe I will have much, much more to look forward to. I had my doubts in the game at first due to my dislike towards FFXII (and fear that this was more of the same bland convolutedness), and the fact that the gamerankings score for this game has hardly been extremely enthusiastic. It must just be that the Western audience for this game is getting a little tired of the FF series formula, or perhaps this game deviates too much from what people consider “Final Fantasy”? Is it because neither Uematsu or Sakaguchi are participating in this project? Is that why this game apparently only deserves an “above average” (85%)?

I think all those buffoons are completely wrong. I see nothing wrong with this game, absolutely nothing so far. Okay, I’ll admit the story has me a little lost and many of the cutscenes are rather… strange, shall we say. Well, how shall I put it, the story seems a little too jerky for my tastes. Starts too far into the action, doesn’t explain enough, not exactly fully coherent as a whole. I’ll admit that: the story is weak, regarded as a whole.

But ah, the individual parts! In the ten hours of play so far, I haven’t encountered a single environment, scene, or character that I have disliked, found boring, or that lacked detail and effort. In my opinion, the highest crime that a game (or movie, book, anime – any story-related material for that matter) can commit against the player is to bore him/her. You can do a lot of other things, such as confusing them or even frustrating them, and it’s not as bad (to me) as boring them. Boredom is an absolute no-no in a game. We play games for excitement, new experiences, interesting personalities, absorbing gameplay, engaging worlds. We do not play games to find ourselves in a bland world, with a predictable story, unoriginal gameplay, uninteresting characters. That is the worst that one can do for a game.

While FFXIII may not be quite as coherent and conventional as some other RPGs (or Final Fantasy games), the fact remains that it is a thoroughly interesting game. At this moment, I am utterly addicted to progressing through the game; I find it so very hard to detach myself. The characters and the care and effort with which they are presented are a big draw for me. I also love the battle system, character development system, and other customization systems. To me they are not only full of originality and depth, but they are very fun to use. The music is very distinct in this game and creates a feeling I quite like, that I think is quite appropriate…. Final Fantasy has indeed evolved greatly from its roots, and the new style of music aptly reflects this. The English localization and voice acting for this game is also absolutely phenomenal. Hands down the best I’ve seen for any game, period. I’ve yet to encounter a bad or even mediocre voice actor in the game, and the dialogue and other text is translated to perfection as well.

Okay, I think in order to get my points across more efficiently, it might be best to make a list of things I love about this game, or that it does right at least, and expand each one in greater detail, one by one. There are really too many things I love about the game to talk about them all at once. Many of the things listed below may seem strange or even undesirable at first glance –because they are a deviation from usual RPG conventions – but there is a definite wisdom and creativity involved in these choices. I heartily applaud FFXIII for making some rather strange-seeming (initially) decisions in order to improve the game experience or otherwise boost the uniqueness of the game.

1. Stats are reduced from the usual full array of about six or eight stat parameters to a mere three: HP, Strength, and Magic.

Yes, you heard right. In FFXIII, all the characters have only three stat parameters: HP, Strength, and Magic. I can imagine some people already groaning at the “stupidity” of this move. I mean, what happened to character individuality? Don’t we need parameters like Magic Defense or Speed in order to truly give uniqueness to each character and create balance between them?

What do I think about this? I think it’s a brilliant move. I’ve always wondered whether we really need a bazillion stats for each character when (1) generally speaking, characters with high Magic tend to also have high Magic Defense, and (2) Defense in general is a rather redundant parameter when there’s already HP to help determine how easily a character falls in battle. I love how simplified FFXIII makes stats. So much easier to manage and understand. And to me, it’s like a whole new artistic statement. It’s like saying, “Ha, we can do the same with 3 stats what you guys do with 10.” And I think they’re absolutely right. I hope more games go in this direction in the future.

So far I have seen no disadvantages to this reduction method. Characters who are supposed to have less physical stamina still fall faster than characters who are supposed to be hardened and tough; there’s no need for clunky Defense stats when HP handles all that stuff.

Speed is a moot point in this battle system, which is active and essentially gives the same chance to act for every character and enemy. This is one move that I don’t agree with quite so wholeheartedly. I do think it might be better if faster characters charged their action gauge more quickly than slower ones. Allowing this option would’ve helped to balance the characters more evenly, to give a chance for the less “naturally endowed” fighters in the team to be just as useful as their more buff companions.

Which brings me to the next thing…

2. The characters are actually not balanced. Not naturally, anyway.

I still have yet to discover everything about the way the systems in this game works, but I believe that the characters are naturally unbalanced. That is, some of them are simply better than some of the others. A noticeable example is how Lightning, in the same point of the game and with the exact same level of opportunity to be developed, is consistently much stronger in every one of the three stats than most characters – most noticeably, Hope.

To be honest, I find it quite amusing that Hope (who happens to also be my favourite character, of course) has such horrible stats. I remember when I got him in my party I eagerly looked at his stats, comparing them to the others and wondering what he was good at. At first I assumed he was a Magic type of character (which he is, really) – then I switched to Lightning and noticed that not only was her Strength and HP far greater than his, but also her Magic! How could this be? I wondered. After all, there’s this unspoken rule in RPGs that characters must be balanced. At least somewhat. If they’re unbalanced, it must not be too obvious. But here was this strikingly obvious example of a character who just wasn’t really good at anything. I mean, Lightning could beat Hope in every respect. There’s nothing that Hope is better at than Lightning.

To me, as a hardcore RPG enthusiast for such a long time, this is quite surprising. Obviously, it’s not just Hope that suffers from sucking-ness, and not just Lightning who is way too good for everyone else. It’s a strange choice that the designers made, and at first I thought it rather peculiar and not something I wanted. But then I realized, I’d really been waiting for an RPG to do this for such a long time.

I mean, screw balance. Face it, some characters should be better than others. The fact is, Hope is some random kid who just happened to be there at the wrong time, and Lightning is a trained and highly gifted soldier with some years of experience. It would be rather laughable, actually, if Hope excelled in some area that Lightning didn’t. And besides, lack of balance only means that the characters are allowed to show their individuality more. In a weird way, it makes me feel prouder when I choose to use Hope, even knowing that his stats are inferior to other characters. When I use him, it’s not, “Oh, that’s ‘cause he’s best mage in the group” – it’s “because I like the challenge of using Hope, I like the character himself, therefore I use him.” I don’t feel obligated to use any of the characters just because they’re extremely good at something the other characters aren’t good at. And I like that.

And it’s not like there’s no way that Hope can ever be stronger than Lightning. There are many mechanisms in the game that allow for balancing, if you really want to use them that way. For example, upgrading weapons and accessories, the Crystarium system (basically the “experience point/leveling” system), and the various “roles” that characters are given according to the Paradigm system (sort of like job classes, I guess). For example, even if Hope’s stats are pretty crappy, he has some useful roles (such as Medic) that can really come in handy. And if you choose to concentrate on upgrading his weapons and accessories he can become quite powerful, just like the other characters.

I like the lack of balance between the characters. It’s really refreshing. Too much balance honestly annoys me. I’ve always wished that characters who really, truly have the training and experience in battle could actually reflect their skills and toughness in their stats; and those who are serious chicken-wusses can also have their weakness reflected in their stats. It only makes sense.

3. The battle system is fun and engaging.

Okay, so it was a little hard to get the hang of at first and it’s still a touch too clunky to feel extremely natural to me, but I really enjoy it. It’s quite innovative and certainly isn’t like anything I’ve played thus far. Basically, in each party of up to three characters, only one character is actually controlled manually. And even then, much of the control is automated, facilitated by a “Auto-Attack” sort of command. Yes, it sounds boring at first – I mean, isn’t this just like more of FFXII? But really, it’s not.

Not only do you actually have a decent amount of control over your “leader” character, but you can control the other party members quite effectively by way of “Paradigm Shifts” during battle. These are basically changes of the roles or “job classes” of various characters, including the “leader” character. For example, a character that was previously ordered to attack using magic spells could then be changed to healing only, or to attack with physical attacks. When using Paradigm Shifts, the roles of all three members change at the same time. The set-up of these Paradigms is easily customizable in any combination you want, within the limits of the characters’ capabilities (as far as I know, each character has 3 different “roles” available – maybe more are gained later, I don’t know).

In effect, what you mostly do is spam “Auto-Action” for your leading character while changing between various Paradigms as needed. For example, at the beginning of the battle you might want one member in the “Synergist” role to boost the capabilities of other members and another in the “Saboteur” to give negative status effects to the enemies. After this, you might switch to a more directly offensive Paradigm in order to build chain attacks (chaining attacks – in other words, landing many hits on one enemy consecutively – leads to the enemy becoming “Staggered,” which generally means they take more damage and are easier to defeat), and as the battle wears on and your members take hits, you might switch to a Paradigm with at least one Medic so that you can get back to top health.

Even though this all sounds very clunky and somewhat circuitous (after all, wouldn’t it be easier just to order the members of your party directly?), but in actuality the battles are very fast-paced, exciting enough (visually and auditorarily flashy, that’s for sure!), and they play much more like a strategy battle than a button-mashing tactical battle. I find that I actually have to use my brain somewhat more than most other RPGs when playing this game (a good thing, in my opinion). The actions in these battles go by very, very fast. If you’re not alert and thinking all the time, you can easily get to dangerous levels of health and end up spending lots of time defeating the enemies, even in a “normal” battle. On the flip side, if you do take the effort and have the mental alertness to keep switching between Paradigms all the time, the battles are not at all unfairly difficult. In fact, they are some of the most satisfying random battles I’ve played in a long while.

I should, however, note that FFXIII follows a general trend I’ve been noticing recently (or maybe I’ve just gotten too old and played too many RPGs?) in that it’s quite easy. I really love a good challenge in my games, but most of the battles, especially bosses, in the game are really child’s play. Well, they’re definitely not much easier (or harder) than most RPGs these days, but I was really hoping for something more. Hopefully the game will get more difficult as it progresses and/or there will be some very, very challenging side quests and boss monsters later.

So far there has only been one battle which I found to be of a satisfactorily challenging level. I actually failed this battle three or four times (mostly so I could enjoy the challenge again, heh heh…). It’s one where you have only two characters, Lightning and Hope, and you fight against an Eidolon (a summon, basically), Odin. Not only does Odin look super bad ass but he’s also tough as hell. Relatively speaking, anyway. The thing with Eidolon battles (which I also love to bits, by the way) is that there is a time limit on defeating them (by way of a “doom counter”) and that they are not defeated in the conventional way (ie, by reducing their HP to zero). Instead, you must use various actions to “impress” them into joining you; for example, one Eidolon is impressed when you defend against its attacks, another likes to see you healing the injured.

This one particular battle against Odin was extremely enjoyable because of the challenge presented by: (1) having only two characters (one of whom is “Hope”lessly deficient in HP); (2) the super-fast attacking speed of Odin, who often unleashed combos of three or four moves, each one capable of taking out a sizable chunk of HP; (3) the time limit, which made sure I didn’t spend too much time healing or doing other non-attacking actions. I don’t think I had to switch between Paradigms as many times during any other battle as I did in this one. Every time I healed up to full HP again, it was just as easily reduced to critical levels within five or ten seconds. The hard part was balancing healing (mostly keeping Hope alive, as the battle is basically impossible without his healing help) and attacking, always trying to make the right decisions at every point of the battle.

4. Characters’ HP is restored after every battle.

That’s right. Another RPG convention discarded. Yes, in this game, HP only matters within the battle. Afterwards, even if party members were downed or their HP was reduced to critical levels, it doesn’t matter. Everything is restored to full after the battle.

You might be thinking this reduces the difficulty of the game, but it doesn’t really. It actually just makes the game more streamlined, convenient, and easy to play. I love being able to say goodbye to constantly opening the menu after every battle, locating my healer, and using Cure repeatedly until satisfied. Really, it just saves a lot of time and doesn’t eliminate anything necessary to the game. The difficulty isn’t compromised by this decision because, in exchange for auto-healing at the end of battle, the characters all also have quite ridiculously low HP stats and very slow rates of growth.

For example, after nearly 10 hours of play (I’d probably be around level 12 or 15 if there were real “levels” in this game – oh yeah, did I mention they took those out, too? I love that about this game! So reductionist!), most of my characters’ HPs are still around the 500-600 range. When the average single attack from an enemy does about 50 HP of damage, that’s quite a low number. My characters usually start to hit critical levels of HP after about 40 or 50 seconds in the average battle (where most battles last about 35 seconds), if I withhold on the healing. I suspect in a “normal” RPG at about the same level of development as I am at right now, most characters would have more like 1000 HP, which is only gradually chipped away by successive battles.

As for why I think the designers chose to eliminate after-battle healing and the like, it’s probably because none of the magic in this game actually costs MP. Another thing I like about FFXIII. Yes, no longer are mages limited in using their spells. No longer must one conserve “Cures” for boss battles. Magic is really a lot more useful in this game because of the lack of MP. I mean, it’s become less potent than is the custom in other RPGs, but it’s also become a lot more easy to use and accessible. And since there’s no such thing as MP in this game, of course it wouldn’t make sense to have players manually heal characters after battle. Thus, smartly, they made the decision for auto-healing.

5. Save-points galore!

There is literally a save-point for every 5 to 10 minutes of gameplay (sometimes even less). Yes, crazy isn’t it? I think one single level in this game has about as many save-points as many games do in their entirety (okay, that’s stretching it a little… but not much).

I’m not sure exactly why there are so many save-points, but I sure as hell like it. I’m a save-point whore. I love having a file just before every major cutscene, especially the CG ones. Luckily, due to the amazing abundance of save-points, I actually do, in this game. Oh yeah, and FFXIII allows you to save as many files as you want on your hard drive (as far as I know). There seems to be no limit to the number of files saved. Hurray!

Also, the save-points in this game have the additional functionality of allowing you to shop and upgrade weapons. I really like this. Even though at first I thought that would make the game too easy (especially seeing as there’s no end of save-points in all the levels and dungeons in the game), it actually just makes it more convenient. No longer do you have to travel all the way to that one special store in the game just to buy the weapon or accessory you need – just find any save-point and you can get to your shopping right away, with no hassle!

6. I like the Crystarium.

This is the “leveling up” system in the game, since there are no actual levels in FFXIII. The system acts pretty similarly to the Sphere Grid in FFX (though that’s a little hazy in my memory), just with an updated look and also being more tailored to individual characters than before. Although it’s slightly more on the gimmicky side than it is truly innovational, I do like it. It’s at least as good as the Sphere Grid, which I had few problems with. And light-years better than a conventional level-up system. I mean, people like having control over characters’ development and customization options – even if the control is somewhat illusory as in this case. Even recognizing its limitations and its slightly phoney character, I still think the Crystarium is a fun way to level up and is definitely good enough to be in this game.

7. Upgrading weapons is fun.

It’s hard to explain exactly why this is, but I’ll give it a try. Basically, in FFXIII, when upgrading weapons/accessories you use parts and pieces you obtained (mostly as loot from slaying enemies) in order to “level up” the weapons/accessories. Each loot item has an inherent “EXP” value, and each equipment item to be upgraded has its own required EXP for each level of upgrade. Thus, you use up loot items in order to level up equipment. Not only does this make upgrading equipment convenient and gives a real purpose for those “useless” loot items you’re always picking up, but it’s actually quite fun. You see, at certain points in each level of the equipment (I’m not sure if these points are random or deliberately assigned), you’ll gain EXP bonuses that can be applied to the next loot items that are being used. For example, a “EXP x2 bonus” means that you earn twice the amount of EXP from each loot item than you would normally. Somehow, this system really works to encourage me to keep upgrading my weapons and to find the best parts for upgrading.

8. Gil and other items are quite scarce in this game.

So far, I only have about 2500 Gil. Yep. And I haven’t spent a single penny of it in a shop yet. Considering that the average beginner’s weapon costs about as much as the total sum of my current “bank account” right now, it really is quite a big deal.

Yet somehow I find it doesn’t actually matter very much. It only makes the game more realistic and makes money that much more valuable in this game.

9. They’ve eliminated a lot of conventional RPG systems in this game.

Another I almost forgot to mention is the lack of equipment in this game. There are only weapons and accessories. To start with, each character only has one slot for each. That’s right, there are no “armor” items such as helmets, gloves, body armors, etc. And guess what? I’m sure you can predict my reaction to this by now, but nevertheless, I have to say I really like this. How annoying I always found it to be to have to constantly be purchasing and equipping, again and again and again, new pieces of armor for all the members of my party. I mean, sometimes we just want to stop micromanaging with everything and just get on with the game, damnit. FFXIII recognizes this in its players and cuts away everything unnecessary and time-consuming. It’s refreshing not to be swimming in hundreds of various pieces of armor and equipment and weapons.

So far, every character has only about two or three choices of “starter weapon” to purchase or have found somewhere in the game. Since weapons can be upgraded, I don’t really see this as a deficiency in any way.

Okay, now that we’ve gone over most of the “game system”-related points I wanted to make, let’s talk about other important elements of the game… characters, story, music, fields, etc.

Overall Feel of the Game

1. The game, so far, seems to be predominantly sci-fi, and spends most of its time in urban environments, industrial settings, the sky, inside airships, in futuristic places, etc. While I’ll admit that sci-fi is not exactly my favourite genre and I was expecting less of an influence on this Final Fantasy game, I have to say I don’t really mind it one bit. It’s just done so well. All the environments feel very real, detailed, thoroughly created and designed. They’re imaginative. Definitely very few clichés here. There is a great feeling of “fantasy” in most of the environments as well.

Most places are absolutely gorgeous. Even the “random dungeons.” I especially enjoyed spending time in one place, Bodhum, a seaside city with a lovely beach, futuristic buildings, and an overall feeling reminiscent of the living Zanarkand in FFX.

2. Running and so on on the field is pretty functional and there’s nothing wrong here. The camera is easily controlled (unlike the static environs of FFX) and there are many opportunities (similar to FFX-2) for “jumping” around, say from ledge to ledge, up and down a pile of boxes, etc. These are pretty basic and don’t involve much control. Enemies are also encountered by running into them directly, rather than random battles (thank God!!), which is a definite improvement. Due to the very narrow, linear nature of most of the environments, enemies are rarely avoided. Not that I mind, of course, since I actually find myself voluntarily running into enemies and enjoying every battle quite a bit.

The control of the leading character in the field screen (by the way, all characters can be controlled in the field screen – not just Lightning…. This is a very team-oriented, individual-oriented game that lets every single character shine and have a piece of the action – I love it) is a little awkward and imprecise. The characters float around a bit too much and are slow in reaction time. It might take some getting used to if you’ve just played a game that has very accurate, tight controls. But nothing major, definitely.

3. There are many, many, many, many cutscenes. If you’ve played any one of a number of J-RPGs recently that just have a complete explosion of cutscenes, far too many, one after the other… try playing FFXIII. You’ll probably be astounded by the frequency of cutscenes, which probably number more than any other game I’ve played. Luckily, all cutscenes (in fact, every line of dialogue in the game!) are fully voiced (and beautifully so), and they’re often quite short – not exactly full-blown cutscenes with whole paragraphs of dialogue. Sometimes it’s just a brief exchange between two characters, taking less than thirty seconds to watch. Still, it can be slightly overwhelming. It’s definitely a different experience, since you can expect to have only five or ten minutes of unbroken gameplay before the next cutscene.

Personally, I like it. Especially since cutscenes are actually advertised in advance on the field map (there’s a little icon that shows up on maps indicating forthcoming cutscenes!). It’s actually a lot less annoying to be interrupted when you know you’ll be interrupted. I find the cutscenes, for the most part, to be very well integrated into the game and not too jarring or abrupt.

Story

1. Okay, I’ll admit it, the story has me lost most of the time. Yes, it’s quite complicated. There are a lot of terms that are not really explained, just thrown out there (you’ll have to do your own research in the stupendously-detailed “Datalog” to find out just what’s what). Characters’ backstories are pretty much never given and only rarely explored or discussed. Even after 10 hours, I have little idea just who exactly any of the characters in my party are, let alone what their motivations are, where they’re from, or why they’re actually sticking with the rest of the party. The main story itself is pretty hard to follow. I’ll admit I think they could’ve done a slightly better job making the story clear and intelligible. As it is, you’ll probably be left guessing most of the time. However, of course this is not without its advantages, as it lends an air of mystery to the events and characters of the game and makes the player curious to progress through the game.

The story is interesting enough. That’s for sure. You can tell the creators spared no effort in making the story and its world as detailed as humanly possible, and it really shows. Everything seems to happen for a specific purpose – I just have to wait to find out what exactly that is later, it seems.

Characters

1. One of the things I love the most about this game is the way it gives every character the chance to take center stage and shine in his or her own way. Not only does the game do a great job of introducing each member of the eventual party separately at the beginning of game (only to have their stories intertwine later, of course), but the game also tends to “split up” the characters frequently, dividing them into pairs or individuals and mixing up the combinations often. I really like this. More games should be like this. You know, I really get bored of always following a single character, controlling a single character on the field, letting a single character lead. What if I don’t like that character so much? This game opts for diversity by letting you control every character individually at some point in time.

It also allows each character to develop a bit more individually through separating them. When there’s five characters all together all the time, some of them may have almost no say in what happens in the events of the story; their individual voices are drowned out and, if there’s one special character that you like (who’s not the main character), it’s rather annoying that you’re rarely able to control him/her or see them really make a difference in the story. I like having the spotlight shone on each character for a time. Really makes it seem like each one matters. So they’re not all just random “followers” or obligatory “members of the party.”

And the way in which the party is split up is often quite interesting. It’s not just some kind of arbitrary splitting up of the party into groups to “explore multiple paths” often seen in RPGs. The characters actually decide for themselves, through different events, which way they want to go, who they’ll go with. Their stories are all actually different throughout the game; they’re not all on the exact same path. This is very refreshing. It’s also more fun to see pairs of characters interacting together, alone, having to rely on each other alone. The bonds that are formed between pairs seem more real when they were formed alone than when it’s within a huge party.

2. I’ll admit I don’t love all the characters. They’ve done a good job making them all come to life, but I don’t love all of them to death. Lightning is very cool and has a definite personality, a very refreshing one, and I do like her. But to be honest, she hasn’t been developed as much yet as I would’ve expected (ditto for pretty much all the other characters) and she’s somewhat more of a goal-oriented, cold bitch than I at first assumed. Okay, not really, but still, she is pretty damn “no-nonsense” and can be kind of a bitch at times.

Snow, I surprisingly like more than I expected. He’s really a good guy and has an interesting and surprising character. He’s soft, naïve. He’s pretty courageous. He’s funny and a good leader. I like how he looks. I like his obsessive devotion and reckless determination when it comes to anything involving Serah (his fiancée).

I still don’t really like Vanille or Sazh extremely much. Vanille was pretty fun at first, when she was with Hope at the beginning (constantly hyperactive, hugging him, etc). But as the story went on, I just don’t really get who she is or why she’s so damn energetic and enthusiastic about everything. I can’t figure out her personality. She’s rather 2-dimensional to me right now. As for Sazh, he’s okay, honestly, he’s not that bad. But he doesn’t have a very distinct personality. He’s pretty much like a “token black comic relief” kind of guy that I was expecting. Sure, he’s got a more serious side than that and is actually quite intelligent and leaderly, but besides this, he’s a rather flat character who seems to have few intricacies.

Of course, my favourite character is Hope. I hope it doesn’t say anything about me that I already knew he’d be my favourite character a long, long, long time before I ever even considered buying this game? Well, honestly speaking, he’s even more gorgeous and somewhat more interesting than I expected. I definitely love his voice (well, yes, all the voices in this game are perfect – but especially his. It’s literally like spot-on… not a single bad line, not a single imperfection or awkwardness in it). His character model, both in CG and the in-game version, is just… delectable. It’s not really just the way he looks. I mean, when you see a still image of him, he’s not that gorgeous. It’s really the way they animated his face.

The facial movements, bodily mannerisms, and other such animated personality features in this game are really, really, really good. Even the way the characters’ eyes move – something as simple and innocuous as that – seem to give them so much life, character, wonder. I love the way they animated Hope especially, though they’re all good. One look at his face, the way his eyes shift, the look of faint desperation in his features, and you can tell what he’s feeling: doubtful, nervous. It’s easy to see why the voice acting in this game is so damn good, so damn spot-on: it’s because the in-game animation makes it crystal clear what the character is feeling, what the words mean, the tone of the phrase, etc.

Which gets me to my next point…

3. The voice acting is so damn good!!! I know this doesn’t really have to do with the characters, but I figured I’d add this in anyway. After all, without the voice acting, the characters wouldn’t be half as wonderful as they are to me now (okay, that’s exaggeration, but still; Hope wouldn’t be Hope without his voice; Lightning wouldn’t be Lightning).

All the voices in the game are good. I can’t really pick out any noticeable bad eggs, even among the NPCs and characters who only appear for several lines. They’re just all so damn good. And it’s not just the voice acting in itself. It’s the way it’s so skillfully, so seamlessly integrated into the cutscenes. There’s literally not a single line that’s not matching the mouth movements of the character models. I find this extremely amazing. Not only that, but there are no awkward pauses, spaces, strange phrasing, etc, that’s often inevitable when dubbing to precise mouth movements. It’s absolutely perfect. I have no idea how they managed to do it, but it’s amazing. Not just the voice actors, of course, but the localizing team. How they managed to choose phrases that were just the right length in English to match the Japanese ones… I really don’t know.

And what’s so damn amazing about the voice acting is not just the quality, but the quantity. There is a lot of it in here. A lot. Every single line of dialogue in this game is voiced. Yes. Not just the cutscenes or main characters, but even the NPCs you talk to along the way. And many NPCs have many more than one line of voiced dialogue. Some have just loads and loads of it… 10 or more lines. Not an exaggeration. To have so much voiced dialogue is just a perfect feat. I can hardly imagine how they managed to do it.

Music

I find the music very appropriate and quite memorable, addictive, and overall good quality. Some people may disapprove of the continued lack of Uematsu’s “special Final Fantasy touch” but I honestly couldn’t give a damn. I love Uematsu’s work as much as the next person, but I think the feeling of the new composer and his work is quite in line with the game and its own new, unique feel.

The music is generally quite complex. It’s not like the old, catchy repetitive themes of yore. The pieces are pretty long by game standards, they use a lot of instruments (almost entirely orchestral), and they generally have a feeling in them that I can only describe as mystical and urgent. Many of the themes are quite moving. I, personally, enjoy the battle theme a lot.

Oh yeah, one last thing. The Eidolons (summons) in this game are soooo cool. Even if they’re the same-old, same-old from the other Final Fantasy games, they’ve just been given a serious cosmetic upgrade in this one. They look a whole lot cooler, their summon animations are awesome, fighting against them and using them in battle are super cool. All around good job they did with the Eidolons. They just look so stylin’. I mean, the Shiva sisters transform into a motorcycle and Odin becomes a horse with a long double-bladed sword. It’s just incredibly cool to see them summoned and use them in battle. Very, very, very cool.

Hmm… what else shall I say? I’m almost out of thoughts about FFXIII. Well, I know there are other things I want to say, but I think I’ll leave it there for now. This is long enough already, as it is….

[there may be spoilers from here on. Don’t read if you don’t want to potentially be spoiled! This next part is more a commentary for those who have already enjoyed FFXIII]

Hope… Stupid Name, Cute Face

Ah, but I do love Hope. It’s funny, because I don’t really understand his character yet (same goes for the others, really). But I just feel so drawn towards him. Unlike the other characters, he at least seems to have changed significantly since the beginning of the journey (though a predictable change, it’s a change nonetheless). I find his supposed “hatred” of Snow (he doesn’t really show it much, though, does he?) to be kind of awkward and unbelievable. I mean, didn’t he see how hard Snow tried to keep his mother from falling to her death? And it’s not like Snow forced her to join him or anything; it was her decision alone. I understand Hope’s just a kid and he’s got to be irrational and stupid once in a while, especially after something like that (his mom’s death) happened to him. But still, I don’t really get it.

And why can’t he just spit it out already, if he really hates Snow so much? Why wait forever and ever just to tell Snow that he killed his mom? I don’t really see the point in that, except to build up the tension in the story. I get that Hope lacks confidence and he’s not really the confrontational, up-front type, but that’s just going a bit too far.

Oh yeah, and does anyone else think Snow reminds them of Seifer? Heh heh.

Anyway, back to Hope…. Yeah, I’m definitely in love with him. I love his voice. It’s perfect. Not one of those annoying fake-sounding “young puberty boy” sort of voices, and definitely not a woman’s voice thank God (not that there’s anything wrong with that in general, just that Hope looks like he’s definitely past that stage). He actually sounds like a young man. Wow. Seriously, that’s more than I can say for just about 90% of video game or anime characters below the age of 17 (16 seems to be the magical age threshold for which you’re still a “kid”… at 17, you’re ready to be a full-fledged hero, according to RPG convention).

Unlike Tidus (who Hope does, unfortunately, frequently remind me of – he’s not nearly, not even one fraction, as annoying as Tidus though), Hope doesn’t have a whiny or irritating voice in any way. He sounds mature for his age, like a thoughtful, reserved, studied young person. He clearly lacks confidence and is often frightened of things that don’t seem to frighten the other hardened members of the party (seriously, I think he’s the only member of the party who doesn’t have previous battle experience or is somehow strangely impervious to feeling afraid or uncertain in any way (ie, Vanille), but his fear is not exaggerated or emphasized in a particularly unflattering way, and he rarely appears cowardly or weak like Tidus did. The things he’s afraid of, I’m willing to suspect that pretty much anyone in this real world, playing the game, would be afraid of. And he doesn’t complain. He doesn’t whine about going home. He doesn’t even seem to show much outward emotion at his mom’s death. It’s like he hasn’t accepted it happened, yet. He’s pretty brave about all that’s happened to him so far, I feel.

I love the parts of the game where he’s alone with Lightning. I don’t know, I just get a good vibe from seeing those two together. The softest member of the party with the hardest. It really works well. Hope clearly has respect for her (unlike with Snow), so he doesn’t get annoying or anything, and his efforts to try to keep up with her, learn from her, and not get in her way actually make sense and seem believable. He doesn’t question her decisions, complain about them, or mess up in an annoying way. I like this.

I kind of wondered why he chose to stick with Lightning so many times instead of being around Vanille, who he was with originally in the first place. But I think it’s pretty obvious now. She’s probably a more admirable and motherly sort of figure to him than Vanille, who’s too hyperactive and touchy-feely for his tastes. He’s a pretty serious person despite his age, so I figure he wants to learn from Lightning and become more like her. He doesn’t seem like the type of person who wants to have “fun” and do trivial, frivolous things. Hence his natural incompatibility with the other party members.

I liked the scene where he goes to sleep against a rock and Lightning watches him. She notices him mumbling “Mom?” in his sleep and smiles. “Not by a long shot.” It’s just a good scene because it shows how Lightning is taking a liking to him and also that she does indeed have a soft, caring side. It also reveals Hope’s vulnerability, something that he makes an effort to hide when he’s awake.

I just really like all the exchanges between Hope and Lightning, in general. Like when she asked him to call her “Light.” I found that kind of cute. (not that Hope actually took her suggestion afterwards) And when Lightning got extremely vexed at having to “babysit” him and started yelling harshly at him; after Odin appears and is defeated, she apologizes for being hard on him and tells him: “We’ll toughen you up.” I liked seeing Lightning’s soft side as much as I admired Hope’s determination to get stronger and be of some use to Lightning.

At first it seemed there were some cringe-inducing moments, and I even felt the anime producers didn’t really understand the characters or the heart of the story. Some parts didn’t make much sense. Others were awkward – especially the transitions between scenes. Very jolting, not much indication of passage of time or what just happened between then and now. The animation, while good, was used a bit too sparingly for my tastes. The voices didn’t seem up to par (I honestly thought it was Raine reading out the bit on the ancient war in the beginning!). The anime seemed too simplistic.

But my God how my view changed within the first fifteen minutes. I realized this animation, like the game before it, meant serious business. This wasn’t just some cutesy little foray into the ToS world for the benefit of the fans and the wallets of the producers – this was just as skillfully implemented and lovely and breathtaking as the original game.

Perhaps the anime adapters didn’t have too much of a job to do, since the story in the original game was already so good. But I may even venture to say the first two OAVs were better than the equivalent parts in the game. They effectively skipped through all the boring “Seal” parts and portrayed all the characters adeptly in a minimal amount of screen time. I especially like their portrayal of Genis and, surprisingly, of Colette (compared to the original, anyway). It was a very good idea to start off with the weakest character (Colette) and develop her personality a bit right off the bat. So that we didn’t have to cringe whenever she spoke or appeared on screen for the next few hours. I really got a good sense of what she was thinking and feeling at all times, and I even sympathized with her (something that just didn’t really happen in the original).

Genis is another matter. Somehow, they’ve made his character even better and more stand-out than the original. The original was a good character, interesting enough, and amply supportive of the main cast – but he lacked any real substance or purpose (at least for a good portion of the game, before you discover his past and so on). It was literally as if he’d been planted in the role of “Lloyd’s sidekick” and/or “Raine’s substitute child/beat-up doll.” In the anime, however, I thought his personality and true motives shone through much, much better, more clearly. It was immediately obvious to me (and I hope to anyone watching it, even if this is their first experience of ToS) that Genis’s personality hinged very much on getting approval from those around him. His standing by his sister, his tacit obedience, even his admiring glances at the immensely powerful Kratos, showed exactly how much it meant to him that he was liked and accepted. Also, I liked how they toned down the brattiness and braggart side of Genis, making him more like the insecure, unconfident, often self-deprecating person he really is inside.

Lloyd was nicely portrayed in all his scenes: there was less idle “save-the-world” chatter, he seemed more serious and as mature as a 17-year old should be, and his relationship with his “Dad” seemed more fleshed out and poignant than in the original. Having him cry when he received his gift of two swords from Dirk, and then almost simultaneously bursting into a spontaneous grin of complete satisfaction afterwards, did wonders for my sympathy/respect towards him as a real, living, breathing human being.

Raine didn’t get much screentime in the first episode, and neither did Kratos, but I could sense their personalities clearly enough that it didn’t really matter. (I still am troubled by Kratos’s deep old man’s voice, though, even now. I mean, he’s friggin’ 28, for cryin’ out loud! By the standards of our society, that means he’s still a young man. And yet in the Japanese he sounds like he’s about sixty!)

The second episode was far, far superior to the first and absolutely thrilling to watch. Not only was the fight scene between Sheena and Kratos wonderfully done, but every little touch in the dialogue or in the characters’ expressions showed careful planning, thought, and clear understanding of everyone’s motivations. Sheena’s appearance was awesome, to say the least. Although it was a bit confusing during that part she hesitated in killing Colette, the later scenes with her were amazingly good. I loved her mysterious silence and her deadly determination. They made her (and Kratos, I noticed!) into a far more stoic, reticent, self-involved person than she seemed in the game. She went to the point of being antisocial and arrogant, whereas in the game she came across as just “desperate and naïve.” The part where she lost the battle to Kratos and was panting and sweating in a panic, realizing she had truly been defeated and obviously thinking “What the hell have I gotten myself into!” was very good. I don’t remember ever being so impressed with Sheena’s personality.

Every interaction between the characters shows perfect knowledge of everyone’s quirks, as well as a love for the characters and a sensitivity towards the behaviors of real humans. The anime writers realized that cliché dialogue has no place in such a high-quality story, and cut away exactly all the redundant parts from the original story. They also realized that one doesn’t necessarily express oneself through open words, open actions, and such: a concerned glance at a friend speaks a thousand words, and a stony, impassive silence indicates much more than just quietness. One narrowing of the eyes was enough to give Kratos all the personality he needed for an entire scene. One hand on Colette’s shoulder was all Raine needed to reveal the kind, caring heart inside her. One anxious look at his sister was all we needed to understand why Genis wasn’t speaking like he wanted to. One nudge of her face against Sheena’s was all Corrine needed to show how close the two were.

One short 10-second segment of the second OAV particularly surprised me. At first I didn’t understand what in the hell was happening. Then, as I paused to think about it, it dawned on me how clever it was and how wonderful that they actually thought to put this segment in! It was when (with audio overlaid on top so there is no dialogue) they showed a short clip of Genis devouring a slightly burnt-looking fish with a huge manical grin on his face, while Lloyd and Colette looked on in some surprise and dismay. “Huh?” I thought. “They’re trying to characterise Genis as a big eater? Okay, that’s a surprise….” I didn’t understand what the other two’s reactions could mean. Then Raine came into the picture, bearing a bowl of some other disaster she had made, and all three of the kids cringed in reaction to it. Then I understood: they were showing that Genis had been conditioned to eat his sister’s horrible cooking with no complaint, making a show of how much he liked it in order to avoid upsetting her, while Lloyd and Colette were staring on in disbelief that he could actually touch something like that!

The little plasticine (or whatever) stop-motion scenes at the very end are a nice bonus and very, very cute. At first I thought, “Are they making fun of Tales of Symphonia? It is not some simple, average game!” Then I realized the creators had done it purely out of love for the characters, out of their own passion for the story. I felt tears mist my eyes when I realized that. When I thought about how much this little game could mean to some people… how much it meant to me so many years ago, how much it still meant to me even now. How I want to live in that time again, when Tales of Symphonia was fresh and new and exciting, and I fell in love with it, and it changed my life forever. Oh, how I want to be 14 all over again, even if it comes with all those follies, embarrassments, mistakes, ignorance….

Yeah, I don’t want to be too harsh since I only managed to play the game for about 45 minutes – far too brief an encounter to really pronounce final judgment – but seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever felt like both crying and laughing at the same time quite so much in the first half an hour of a game as when playing Spectral Force 3. To be honest, I don’t know if I can even call what I did “playing.” It was far more like work. At best, I could call it a “study” of game design – studying how not to make a strategy RPG.

Let’s start at the beginning. How did this game come into my hands in the first place? Well, lately I’ve been in the habit of visiting certain bookstores and libraries in my city, as a means to escape the stifling conditions I’m forced to live with at home at the moment – once I found out our central library stocks games I was quite sold on the idea of visiting on a regular basis. Anyway, I had already taken out Blazblue: Calamity Trigger and Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, both quality games which I’ll probably talk about another time, and unfortunately that pretty much was the extent of the “A list games” they had there. So I decided to pick up the only console RPG that was available on their shelves: Spectral Force 3.

Since I’d never heard of it before, I knew it was probably a shit game; in fact, I could just tell by the cover presentation and packaging (and the fact that it’s an Atlus game…) that it was a shit game. But I figured the characters might be interesting enough to make it worth my while. You never know where good writers or character designers could be lurking. Besides, it said something about being a “true SRPG” on the back – I could only take their word for it.

So why do I seem to find this game so pathetically laughable?

I was surprised, actually, that they even went to the expense of creating fully animated movies for the beginning of the game and having extensive (well, at first, anyway) voice acting. If you don’t mind the fact that everything and everyone looks like it came straight out of an old-school fantasy anime you may already know of (Record of Lodoss Wars?), the anime sequences aren’t even half-bad.

It’s when you get to the actual “meat and bones” of the game that things start becoming very apparently wrong.

The story is told through the old “Fire Emblem” style of having a bunch of half-body portraits (usually two at a time) appearing on the screen above a big box of text. Only it somehow looks much, much worse than it does in most other games that use this style… Why? Well, the character designs aren’t exactly much to look at, but besides that, the text is presented in a very unpalatable format, and one doesn’t get a clear sense of scene perspective (usually given by having a distinct, descriptive background, showing the characters in proportion to their actual sizes/heights, having characters clearly facing each other or turning their backs, etc).

The story basically starts off with some animated scene involving a creepy, androgynous-looking, really quite revolting elf-like mage person shooting tentacle-like weapons at a bunch of soldiers and killing some important horse-mounted king. Next thing you know, you’re suddenly thrown into the “game” with a bland portrait-based scene and about 6 different characters (mercenaries) who you’re neither properly introduced to nor have any reason to care about. They all look pretty “blah” and they’ve also violated the standard RPG rule where you can’t have a party of characters who are all one gender (in this case, male). It’s just boring, y’know? And it makes it just so hard to tell apart one character from another.

Character Introduction

Let me give you a brief (satirical) introduction on the first few main characters you get to know:

Begina: His name is not pronounced like the other similar word beginning with V, but rather it’s basically pronounced just like “beginner.” (yay for subtle puns) As the name indicates, he’s the ordinary teenage guy with a sword who, despite being a shrimpy little rookie, is obviously going to end up becoming a great hero and saving the word. Umm… no, I can’t speak of any personality. He’s black-haired, armored, and kind of wussy (or just ordinary) looking. At least his voice is decent.

Judo: Big tough guy who’s the captain of the mercenaries. Also, since he starts at level 11 while all your other characters are level 1, you know he’s obviously going to die very soon. True to his nature, he does. Right after the second battle. (incidentally, probably amongst the funniest and most irritatingly drawn-out death scenes I’ve ever seen) Of course, once he dies “Begina” inherits the captaincy despite having no special aptitude whatsoever.

Cassius: Some long-haired guy who looks elfish and uses a spear. Hmm, yeah. That’s pretty much it. I think he was supposed to be the “dashing, mysterious lady’s man” sort of type, but he doesn’t really have a personality actually.

Dragan: Yay for more subtle names. Yes, it’s pronounced just like “dragon.” At first (looking through the manual) I thought he would be the “tough, strong but silent mercenary” type. He certainly looks the part. But actually, he doesn’t really do anything but be constantly annoying and assish. He’s basically cocky, arrogant, always complaining, doesn’t follow orders, etc. His voice has got to be one of the most annoying voices ever.

Diaz: Probably the character that I would have liked if they had done him properly! I mean, Jesus, they should have a “Characters for Fantasy RPGs 101”; the people who wrote the dialogue for this game certainly could use it! So, this guy’s a young healer type who’s Begina’s longtime friend. From the moment he appears you can already tell there are going to be some pretty gay (literally) scenes between the two of them. He’s got a soft, surprisingly non-annoying voice, and has self-esteem issues (don’t they always?). As for character design, I’ll just say this: I had to look in the manual at first to find out if he was a guy or a girl. Well, to be honest, I had a gut feeling he was supposed to be a guy, but honestly do they really need a bazillion male characters (with varying degrees of actual maleness) in this game with no females in sight?

Why do I say I would have liked Diaz? He’s effeminate, for starters. That’s generally a good thing in my world. His character design is at least somewhat appealing. He’s a male healer (when’s the last time I saw that?). And he actually has some semblance of a personality (as cliché and improperly done as it may be). In about 100 lines of dialogue, I think he was the only one who actually had a personal opinion on something.

The problem isn’t in the character concept – all that the characters represent in this game have been done before in other games, quite successfully – it’s the execution, the presentation of the characters. Diaz is described in the game manual as being indecisive and easily pushed around by others, which is a perfectly fine personality for a character – but that doesn’t mean you’ve gotta have him acting like a total girly wuss all the time. You’ve gotta let the players actually respect him a little bit first before you show his insecurities. I mean, Jesus, even when it’s as simple as answering “Yes” to an order at the beginning of the game, he’s all “…!” (gasp/stutter/etc) multiple times. And later, when you get a scene that’s supposedly character development, where he and Begina are chatting about their situation, the past, etc., isn’t it a bit much to make Diaz act like an anxious little mouse who has zero confidence and can’t even talk normally to his best friend?

Not to mention the conversation between them was probably some of the most “feminized” dialogue between two guys that I’ve seen recently. Seriously, I’m all for making guys sensitive or a bit more buddy-buddy than they might normally be in reality, but there is a limit on where you can take this. There’s just a certain way guys talk and think – about themselves, about their friends – that’s distinctly masculine; to deny this is to essentially neuter the characters, making everything a senseless, incomprehensible mess.

Some things that guys don’t do (without sufficient reason/explanation):

-         act like they literally can’t live without each other

-         say that they’ll follow the other wherever they go

-         worry about how useless they are

-         suddenly burst out and tell the other person that they should stop fighting and go home because they’re afraid of dying (“And I don’t want you to die, either!”)

I mean, this is just from experience and I don’t literally mean that guys would never ever do these things, just that it’s much less likely than represented in certain bad dialogues, that it shouldn’t be done in video games unless you want to make the characters look totally ridiculous and/or unintentionally gay, and that if you are going to do it, there are very special, much more subtle ways of doing it than just dumping it in a random conversation.

Yeah, I’m getting way too into this, but hey, that’s just the way I am. I love nitpicking dialogue, characters, character development – hell, anything really. (Though I wouldn’t really consider this “nitpicking”… more like “touching the tip of the iceberg”)

So anyway, on to the gameplay, shall we?

Gameplay

It’s actually not as bad as it looks and the game could actually be fully playable if you don’t mind really bad controls and graphics/field design that looks like it came from the early PS2 era.

The map that you see when you’re battling is pretty similar to what you might expect – a tile-based field with different terrain heights, some elements like trees, bushes, treasure chests, etc., and units that occupy one square each. The gameplay is also pretty intuitive (at its base): select a unit, move it according to an “AP gauge,” use attacks or specials until your gauge runs out. All pretty standard. Actually, I even kind of like this whole idea of having an AP gauge which is used up both when moving and using moves.

Now, the problems. First of all, there’s absolutely no explanation for how to do anything and the captions for the buttons (your only guide in how to play) are tiny and really ambiguously described. For example, B = Cursor (um?), A = Back (back to what?) or RT = Assist (…?) You’ll literally be guessing what you’re supposed to do for the first 10 minutes, guaranteed. The controls are also hilariously bad. The menu is set up to be as irritating and non-intuitive as possible, apparently. It’s hard to explain why it’s so bad without visual examples, but basically, there are multiple “pages” or sets of button mappings, and in order to do anything you have to press a sequence of buttons to get to the right “set.” It’s certainly not always clear what order you should press them to get to a certain action. Just ending your unit’s turn is pretty hard to figure out how to do.

You’ll be given a bunch of options even when you do simple actions like attacking, for example “Heavy” “Medium” and “Light” – but what exactly do these mean? What’s the difference between a Heavy and Light attack? There’s no explanation whatsoever. You’ll just have to try it out and see for yourself whether there’s a difference or not.

The rules of the game seem somewhat intricate and perhaps even interesting to get to know, but unfortunately there is no explanation provided anywhere (I guess you could read the manual… but I never do). Leaving you to muck around and try to vaguely grasp how things work.

Supporting Elements

The graphics are pretty horrid. Some of the larger-size polygonal sprites aren’t that bad, but the sprites used in the battle map (where you’ll presumably be spending most of your time) are just… well, they’re tiny, not so detailed, and generally look like they belong in a game made about 10 years ago. The enemies look ridiculous. And yes, you’ll be fighting killer bees, cute blobby forest creatures and undead skeletons in your first battles. Original, eh?

Music is certainly nothing to speak of. Probably some new composer’s first assignment or something (well, it probably isn’t… I don’t mean to sound like a complete ass since the music isn’t the most horrible I’ve ever heard). The sound effects, though… I don’t know how they even made it to a real finished game. They’re just impossible to take seriously. A sword slash just becomes a dull “blah” of sound and all the footsteps sound identical and completely unrealistic.

The interface is pretty laughable. Looks like it came straight out of a low-budget PSX game or something. The main “base” you return to after each battle to tweak your equipment, units, get new missions, etc., has just about the most generic and “barebones” presentation you could expect.

Basically, nothing in this game has an explanation. That’s probably the worst part of it. If there was actually some kind of explanation for how to play, or something to set the scene for the main characters (I seriously have no idea who they are, why we should care about them, where they are, or what they’re fighting for), some introduction of some sort, the game easily could have been playable. As it is, I honestly can’t imagine anyone playing this game without feeling like they’re just stuck completing a repetitive chore.

Disc One

Orchestra Side
01 – The Theme of Grandia
02 – Ganbo’s Sandy Beach
03 – Delightful Adventure
04 – The Parting From Sue
05 – Ancient Illusionary Castle
06 – Mullen
07 – The Beautiful Woman of Alent
08 – The Ghost Ship
09 – The End of the World
10 – Approaching Crisis
11 – Leen~Love Theme
Total Time:
46′25″

Disc Two

Synthesizer Side
01 – Prelude
02 – The Streets of Parm
03 – Seagull Restaurant Lily
04 – Saruto Ruins
05 – New Parm~Frontier of Our Hearts~
06 – Dom Ruins
07 – Duel with Gadwin
08 – Dight Village
09 – Gambo’s Festival
10 – Twin Tower
11 – Village of Kafu
12 – Zilpadon
13 – The Snow Village Laine
14 – Stand and Rise! Justin
Total Time:
51′15″

01 – The Theme of Grandia

I’ll say it right away, the first disc is strong. There are literally no weak, boring, or unmemorable tracks: in addition to full arrangement and orchestration, each track is a beautiful stand-alone with separate fleshed out sections. The first track itself already represents a full range of emotions—from adventurous freedom to loneliness, quiet sweeping beauty, and through loss or depature, before returning to adventure and outrageous excitement—as well as three or four prominent melodies to illustrate these.

Iwadare is brilliant here, even including an electric guitar solo amidst the more traditional trumpet, trombone, flitting woodwinds, and orchestra. A pop-ish beat greatly improves excitement throughout, unifying the piece. Beautiful quiet violin solo to break the solid advancement; when the rest of the string orchestra edges in to accompany it, driving the solo steadily back into the main theme, this captures the greatest emotional moment in the piece. This is the one track that inspired me long ago to enter the realm of VGM. (10+/10)
02 – Ganbo’s Sandy Beach

One of the most delicate, understanding, artful pieces I’ve ever heard—literally, in the whole history of my musical experiences. If only they could have attached a more poignant, appropriate name to this immensely emotional track. A piano plays an introduction of the melody, then goes on to accompany the main soloist, a weeping, powerful violin: the song is about departure, repressed grief, and changing times. Interestingly, the accompaniment, with its descending chord motif, invariably sounds like the beach’s tides sweeping softly in and out, retreating on the second, lower and unemphasized chord. To demonstrate the perfection of both arrangement and performance, I must point out that at the melody’s climax the violin soloist does get “painfully” loud and into the high registers; however I have never minded this once, as the composition is itself so wonderfully heart-rending that it already borders the painful.

If all this wasn’t enough to satisfy, straight after the conclusion of the first theme (itself a solid three minutes), the track includes an extension of it that sounds like a unique piece. Granted the same instruments reprise it, along with an appropriate tide-wash-like ambience, but this second part is quite different in nature, and unbelievably, even more powerful than the first theme. While the previous theme may be more memorable and emotional exacting, this development is complex, changes often, and has a delectable, gorgeous ending. Here not only grief is represented but also hope, the mystery of the unknown, and the inevitable (fate). If this illustrated a story, this would be the part that the character really does depart, amid noisy sobs and waving hands; then the softer ending is the reflection afterwards, where each party discovers there is no regret, only good will for the other.

In the piece’s true conclusion, the main theme comes back solidly, fading away in one of the most effective and well-designed endings ever. (10+/10)
03 – Delightful Adventure

Bam! Suddenly, an upbeat “Delightful Adventure” pops in with trumpet fanfare, xylophone, ecstatic strings, and exciting pop dance beat. A refreshing piece, also effectively portrays the development of the “hope” in the previous track—not only do the characters carry on with their lives, but what fun-filled, exciting lives they are! The piece seems to “stumble” (intentionally) for a moment, descending crazily, the pop beat removed so that strange, refreshing silence remains—but no, the action kicks up once more, this time with sparser instrumentation, still raging though.

Then, after several more “stumbles” to separate the chaotic action, the piece settles down for real. A more perilous, thrilling section puts a leash on the extremely upbeat, ambitious, non-stop excitement. Something that could even be battle music, with clashing solo notes from alternating brass and strings/woodwind/xylophone, followed by tense, pursuit type string rhythm. However, this all soon dissolves into more humourous, blaring “adventure” fragments. The main theme comes back, ending at an oddly-designed “cliffhanger.”

I think this is one of the most successful, though perhaps unfocused, attempts at creating a fun and exciting piece for RPG use. Unlike the also-happy “Theme of Grandia,” “Delightful Adventure” never slows down quite so much, so it can leave one absolutely physically breathless. A masterpiece: with its different sections and styles, this piece really succeeds at handling all expressions and dimensions involved in an “adventure.” (10+/10)
04 – The Parting From Sue

An extremely depressed, foot-dragging tune played on piano and flute, with string accompaniment. “Parting From Sue” feels similar to “Ganbo’s Sandy Beach,” but due to different instrumentation it best portrays a totally different character. The melody is basically chromatic, its individual notes usually ascending; the phrase itself leads steadily downwards. At first the melody is very simple, with only the piano to express it. When the flute succeeds it, a more serious, obvious sadness unfolds: Sue is not just showing signs, she’s a goner.

The next section is played by oboe, along with all other original instruments. The result is extreme beauty: the piece enters a sweeping, majestic, fantasy stage, as if now we are not the only ones concerned with Sue, but the whole planet itself weeps.

An ambitious character section follows, including a solo violin and pizzicato strings as the only background. One really senses that Sue is not just any woman, but a fussy young girl you’ve known long enough to be your sister. Afterwards, repeated main theme and beautiful, perfect ending. Nothing is overdone, nothing lacks development. An expertly handled piece—if a little heavy on the depression (at least “Sandy Beach” had one hopeful section)—that is, in my mind, the definitive “parting” theme. (10+/10)

05 – Ancient Illusionary Castle

Opens with a mysterious creeping theme. This one is a little less successful than its predecessors, in my opinion: the instrumentation is often dull, lacking power and conviction. The bassoon, bass clarinet, and sparse strings sound kind of distant and play a comparatively non-descript melody. The whole theme is a bit cliché as well, up to the pizzicato and syncopated snapping noises. Obviously, it’s successful in its purpose and highly enjoyable, but without quite so much charm as the previous themes. The second reiteration of the theme is more interesting in my opinion.

Abruptly, the theme enters into a glorious passage obviously referring to the “castle” element. Not too interesting, serves its purpose without any development or feeling.

As suddenly as before, we are thrown into a waltzing ballad that sounds distinctly upper class. At first it is strings en masse, but gradually flutes and then brass are added. An evocative passage, but again not altogether interesting. The following renditions of the theme are much more listenable than its first statement, in my opinion. The ending is suiting but rather cliché. In the end, “Ancient Illusionary Castle” doesn’t fit its description exactly, and comes across as confused and incomplete, but taken each section alone, still great. (9/10)
06 – Mullen

Thankfully, a much stronger melody and instrumentation this time. Starting soft, the piece grows into a bombastic, proud military theme for full orchestra. I think “Mullen” is highly enjoyable, on par with Uematsu’s “grand castle themes,” though (similar to Uematsu) its development is a bit cliché and uninteresting. The theme, played predominantly with strings, brass, and military percussion, can get repetitive in its many variations (including a boring key change): the main, unadulterated theme, however, never gets old. The ending section is probably the most interesting, with more diversive harmonies and a climatic feeling.

“Mullen” is definitely one of the more imaginative military style pieces in RPG history. Unfortunately, while the beginning is extremely captivating, featuring quiet woodwinds, the piece sort of loses interest after the fourth or fifth reappearance of the theme. Still, other than it’s not perfect for repeated listenings, this piece is a winner in its department. (10/10)
07 – The Beautiful Woman of Alent

A captivating, engrossing rhapsodic melody. With the beautiful, dreamy female vocals and electric piano accompaniment, this piece paints a shimmering, mystical scene of an “angel on earth.” The melody is extremely well-suited to the voice, including little drops in the phrase where one might breathe naturally. However, disappointingly, “Beautiful Woman of Alent” features hardly any development at all. The effect of the vocals is at least good enough to make you forget this, but still, some break from the melody could have been used. When the piece does develop, it’s with rather annoying (synth-sounding?) string orchestra; the beautiful harp used in the background and mysterious ending, though, is delightful. A single-minded piece that achieves its purpose well. (9/10)

08 – The Ghost Ship

A much-beloved and nostalgic theme for me. “The Ghost Ship” definitely is everything the title promises, and much more. This piece manages to be both terrifying, engaging, and humourous (sparingly though). I love this piece, though perhaps it is a bit exaggerated and heavy, especially when it was played in-game. This does nothing however to discount from “The Ghost Ship”’s enjoyability, effectiveness, and genius as a composition.

First, an intimidating introduction that creates some great effect (through timpani hits, drum roll, and soft-to-loud dynamics) of a rolling, swaying ship’s hold (I’m getting dizzy just listening to this, truly!), or perhaps the fierce waves carrying it. This theme, intriguing by itself, bridges with a puzzled, tense string section, into the final main theme: this part is terrifying, aggressive, and even depressing. Slightly reminiscent of great Final Fantasy Tactics OST, this section utilizes string trills, a repeated-note ostinato, and pumping, intimidating percussion. The melody in brass and then woodwinds is very inspiring and musically interesting: I can almost imagine the melody as a choir, wailing like ghouls as they suffer abroad the harrowing ghost ship.

Next, a climax that softens immediately into a tense melody mostly in oboe/flute (with the same ostinato as before played by overbearing strings). The tune has threatening moments, until it almost reaches tenderness, dying away into silence. The main theme takes over at this point, but in a non-threatening, mysterious, ominous sort of way.

Then comes the most interesting and evocative section. Iwadare is brilliant, I mean it, especially at establishing a certain atmosphere or scenario: not only is the melody memorable and entertaining, instrumentation suitable, but the title is absolutely accurate here. I feel totally transported to the ghost ship, with this gentle, strange melody in clarinet and then oboe (the oboe plays the main theme in its own distorted way). In the background, a soft velvet of pizzicato strings and brass chords. The tipping effect of the ship is not totally removed from here either, by the background mentioned plus ornaments of strumming harp and sudden plucked bass intervals. Especially in contrast with the previous bombastic theme, one feels as if they have entered the silent, empty, sea-soaked corridors of the ghost ship. The ending to this section is a little weird and not really to my tastes.

Suddenly, the main theme returns in an excellent, frantic rendition. In total silence, a desperate, questioning flute (and oboe) and responding french horn quietly foreshadow the coming danger; then, with great skill, Iwadare links the next section by playing this foreshadowing melody (it’s the main theme disguised) with hysteric, loud strings. The main theme returns in the most effective arrangement for it thus far: a raging, climatic end to a fantastic, supremely entertaining piece. This is how danger sounds, RPG composers! (10+/10)
09 – The End of the World

A thoroughly grand, solid theme. Starts with a pumping, victorious fanfare, making you feel as if you’ve just climbed to the world’s greatest heights ever and a spectacular dawn is unfolding before you. Once this leaves, a tender, mild theme comes in, as if in recollection of this event. This theme is so important it was prominently heard in the “Theme of Grandia” as well. This time it is expanded properly and even more breathtaking than before.

Another part, played in flute, oboe and strings with sparse accompaniment (among which include clarinets and plucked harp), reminds me truly of drifting through a misty landscape: it is so tender, so full of movement, so hopeful and reminiscent. Every part of this piece is perfect, though perhaps not as experimentative and original as the previous. A deeply moving piece that somehow, though more subtle in its intentions, manages to be more emotionally provocative even than the poignant “Sandy Beach” and “Parting of Sue.” The main element here is nostalgia; listening to this piece one feels immersed in memory, hope and regret, reflection.

One of my favourite parts is when brass play a single repeated note throughout a certain passage, strings etc suspended, the only variation in volume—a widening, boldening crescendo that then fades once again into the new melody. This is just so wonderfully designed and executed; this simple repeated pattern really successfully conveys a sense of moving, floating, ever upwards, as if to even greater heights.

Suddenly, the piece breaks into excitement—as if the characters have realized truly what they have accomplished and begin running around frantically—at first sounding similar to “Delightful Adventure” but turning out to be another extremely moving, full theme. There is just so much content here packed into one track; it outshines most of Uematsu’s short, undeveloped accomplishments by a large mile. Here the theme conveys an even more effective sensation of lifting, of departing on a grand adventure. This theme is so complete and universally satisfying, it could be played as the background to any number of scenarios and still work: an airship taking off; a grandiose train adventure; chocobos dashing off into the distance; a ship departing with lengths of colourful streamers; sailing on a dragon or cloud; jumping for joy after the graduation ceremony, and so on. Triumphant, exalted, and proud, in fitting in with the track as a whole.

When the main theme returns, you will have completed one full circle, one grand adventure. You will feel as if you really have accomplished something immense and are now panting exerted breaths of amazement and delight. (10+/10)
10 – Approaching Crisis

Admittedly, not my favourite track. Not only is the sound quality somehow lower in this track, but the arrangement and themes are unoriginal and far too single-purposed here. Obviously, with its complexity, a piece like this is not wasted, but it’s a far cry from perfect. This piece somehow seems a little bit too grandiose and supreme, mixing a variation on the “Theme of Grandia” along with it, and doesn’t achieve its purpose of conveying “crisis” too effectively. In simple terms, this track is just too loud and stupendous; whenever I play it, especially in contrast with the previous tender and moving themes, I feel as if my head while explode from the apoplectic excitement going on.

The chromatic scales and trills in the strings whizzing throughout nearly the whole piece, while unifying it, are dizzying. Maybe if it weren’t orchestrated, the effect would be less severe, but here it is literally dizzying. Every melody in this piece, except the “Theme of Grandia,” is emphasized with way too many heavy instruments: the crash cymbals constantly pumping, brass fanfares, reverbed string orchestra, everything is too deafeningly loud.

Of course since “Approaching Crisis” terrifies me and makes me dizzy as if peering up at a colossal monster, it obviously has not failed in its purpose. Some moments are truly worth the listen, especially in the development sections where the melody enters major keys, “Theme of Grandia,” or the piece quietens. In general, however, this is a weaker piece in this soundtrack that I generally avoid—unless I’m seriously pumping myself up. (7/10)
11 – Leen~Love Theme

Whew. Once you make it through, you’re treated with a long-awaited, extremely sad theme. Iwadare’s romantic themes always give me the impression of sorrowful loss, somehow. Of course the melody is very tender, with vibrato flute and oboe solos, beneath which are delicate strings and harp arpeggios. This piece is handled very sparingly and tenderly, just like love, as if it might break if too much pressure or emotion is applied: this only serves to make “Leen~Love Theme” even more impressively emotional however. One of the best parts in the first two minutes is played by a clarinet in high register (almost mistook it for an oboe), with a playful bassoon countermelody. This is just so beautifully expansive, emotional, and yet playful at the same time. Somehow I always imagine that the clarinet is leading me up to play and float by a wide silver moon: it is just that magical and romantic.

The expressive vibrato woodwinds take us to the next section: the same theme on the strings this time, a french horn countermelody. After this, the woodwinds wind us through a beautiful, persistent melody that is so loving it at times even becomes dark; all the while the strings and piano in the background convey a sense of moving faster and faster, into the distance, below the insistent melody.

After that musical climax, a new section emerges. It has a simple style and an echoey outdoor feeling, as if we are now observing the new spring buds and fresh stems of grass. Very delicate, sweet, and again playful. I can imagine the lovers are finally truly reunited here: this section wraps up in happiness and expansive glory, almost fanfare style.

The concluding section is very emotionally satisfying. It begins mysteriously, almost ominously, but eventually unfolds into the heartwarming ending we’ve been longing for. Bells and a flute play the very last statement of the theme, in a cute and touching manner. The piece ends thoughtfully and delicately, the last peaceful notes to signal rest to this disc’s grand legacy. (10+/10)

Reviewing Score: 95%

Practically the closest you can get to VGM perfection under my judgment.

02 – The Streets of Parm

An original, quirky and highly enjoyable piece that transitions well from the “Prelude.” Light and playful, like the street urchins that inhabit the town, this piece is well designed, showing not only direction but a lot of creativity. The background consists of a strange mix of percussive instruments and noises (one of which, a metallic hit noise, is also heard in disc four, “Parm Harbour”), along with a droning low woodwind synth. Bagpipes that are not annoying play the melody, resulting in a very sweet, nostalgic tune. This piece is solid entertainment, and never really sounds repetitive due to the constantly changing melody. At one point, a small-sounding flute jumps in to a quieter section, portraying the young protagonists and Parm’s hoodlums. (10/10)

01 – Off Runs Sue

Great memories from this track, and that’s not just nostalgia talking. This is a stirringly effective piece, evocative of a certain scene, even with its extremely condensed length. The opening is cute and compact, a high-hat ticking throughout, and adorable little pizzicato strings. Even jingle bells are used. I love the trombone jumping up and down the octaves, gives an otherwise irreproducable pumping, swaying feel. The strings whirling around in escalating scale passages are also effective, though perhaps cliché (reminds me of Uematsu’s “short scene tracks”—FFVIII’s “Retaliation,” “Blue Sky,” etc). A very short, effective piece that should have been more! (I only marked it down due to its length and lack of complexity) (8/10)

02 – Justin Hits the Scene

It’s Justin! The upbeat, adventure-loving, almost hyperactive redheaded protagonist. This arrangement of “Theme of Grandia,” while cliché and not as memorable as the others, is still breathtaking. The whole theme is reminiscent of “Victory Theme”—a rockin’ style that Iwadare tends to overuse. Exuberance is displayed through the profuse percussion riffs, flute tremolos, and ragin’ trumpets and electric guitars. More pop than rock feel. One complaint is the simplicity of the solos—while serving to show Justin’s one-track mind, it is to the detriment of this track’s interest.

The development section is, in my opinion, more beautiful than the main theme. When it comes in, the progression feels very logical and anticipated. Here, more diverse instrumentation is used, and rather than non-stop loud melody, the piece manages to convey a level of complexity to Justin’s character: we learn (through another electric guitar solo) that he’s fallable, lovable, and liable to suffer his own moments of weirdness, doubt, and tender feelings. (7/10)

03 – Angel Culture

An impressive piece in style, but not so much in composition. The beginning, with long, long suspended chords in uninteresting strings and choir, is bound to bore anyone: it takes great patience to listen through to any hint of a melody in this piece. Well, it does come, in the form of an oboe playing “Leen’s Love Theme”—it’s rather buried by the heavy background though.

Essentially “Angel Culture” is a more boring, unflattering version of the excellent “Leen’s Love Theme.” While it does have its moments, it is mainly a weaker reiteration of the already-heard theme. There are not many strengths this version holds over the orchestrated perfection on disc one. That is not to say that it is intolerable or even actually boring at all: definitely a worthy listen (unless, like me, you’ve heard “Leen’s Love Theme” way too many times) that will still tug your heartstrings. (7/10)

04 – Deck Swabbing

Mr. Iwadare really likes those upbeat, snappy snare drum intros and beats, doesn’t he. Unfortunately, I’m not so big a fan. While it’s not bad—it’s a cheery, sweet little tune—“Deck Swabbing” sounds like filler…because it is implemented in a lame “deck swabbing mini game,” after all (doesn’t that sound like “boatloads” of fun?). Somehow I can’t help but feel this would almost have made a more appropriate victory theme than the one further along this disc: that’s what this track feels like, a spirited, congratulatory tune with lots of electric guitar and percussion.

However, there is the matter of the constant repeated synth string beats dominating the bulk of this piece: they add a vigour and “push” not present normally in victory themes. Altogether, an uplifting but tragically simple, get-fast-old filler track (I have to congratulate Iwadare for making even filler this enjoyable, though!). (6/10)

05 – Sult Ruins

Despite its name and general dungeon style, this is actually quite an interesting piece. I mean with the various bleeping noises, strong timpani, and the harmony (when it exists) in the strings. The repeated-note-ostinato that is now famous is, I agree, highly annoying and likely to deter the ears from repeated listening; stylistically, however, this is about as extreme as you get. The ostinato practically never lets up. It’s quite interesting to see how Iwadare creates a little variation to restore your ears’ confidence. I’m not saying he was totally successfully with this theme, but I still think it must’ve proved quite an endeavour on his part to create this so consistently. Yes, later on, some semblance of a melody appears, and more diverse rhythms are introduced. But yes, I still wouldn’t say it’s worth your time and patience. While sharing some qualities with Xenogears OST, “Sult Ruins” is not a very enjoyable track at all. (4/10)

06 – Battle Theme

In my opinion, Iwadare seems (like Mitsuda) a little weak in conveying the “traditional” battle scene. The problem is that he handles them just like ordinary pieces, with similar structure, instruments, and trying to make them too thematic (rather than relying on rhythm and instrumentation like in a “proper” battle theme). Also, the synths are sometimes quite annoying here. I feel as if this piece is very much on the slow side as far as battle themes usually go (it’s even slower than the battle theme in Chrono Trigger!). The drum rhythm used in the background seems to clog the theme down considerably, as well as the heavy, oddly arranged melody. In terms of composition, this theme suffers nothing, though: attention is paid everywhere to maintaining interest, building up to a climax, development, addition of the “Victory Theme” as foreshadowing, and so on. It just fails in execution. (6/10)

07 – Victory Theme

While I have memories of this being annoying (perhaps because it opens exactly the same way to the battle theme), the “Victory Theme” has excellently effective instrumentation. The opening fanfare of three seconds’ length, for example, is passed between the strings, the “woodwinds” and the lower brass, all together. Then the rhythm section takes over for a bit of quiet and rest. When the melody returns, it becomes immediately obvious that this is the widely reused “Theme of Grandia” in variation. The whole piece seems bogged down again, although this is slightly less annoying than in “Battle Theme.” Well, with no serious development, this theme is obviously one of the weaker ones on the soundtrack; as far as victory themes go, though, it’s definitely not bad. (6/10)

09 – Gaia Egg

Disappointingly, this is a very boring, highly skippable “scene event” track: usually it is expected that these condensed forms of a real track are refined to be worthy of such short track-time. Gaia Egg, however, is all parts tedium. The blaring synth in the background of the first half is not welcome; the instrumentation is quite boring. This theme, in case you’re interested, is reminiscent of the Galiel army theme. (2/10)

21 – Village of Ruku

A successfully ambient-feeling piece that is not in fact ambient whatsoever. Melodies, though not prominent, float quite distinctly throughout, dominating over the background setup as strongly as the sun sails through mist. The melody ends with a pleasingly puzzled, questioning limb—very beautiful, this particular part. Throughout the weak but shining melody, the background of assorted synths, metal guitar (and bass guitar), and most effectively marimbas, steadily gains more momentum and weight, making this piece not so directionless as it at first seems.

I admit this theme can be so disorientating as to cause dizziness: the background synths, as always, seem a bit overdone to me. The marimba, however, is terrific. The instrumentation of the melody is mostly appropriate—flute, guitar and some oriental oboe-like woodwind—although sometimes it can feel as if a stronger, heavier sound would be very welcome, amidst all this seemingly ambient noise. The ending, using a solo guitar and the same marimba pattern, is the best part, at least in effectiveness: reducing the instrumentation from four or five parts to just one lonely guitar really helps convey the isolation and desolate surroundings of the Ruku village. (7/10)

03 – Three Young Women

Surprisingly for such an obvious, simple theme, “The Three Young Women” (referring to the three posh, humourously non-threatening soldiers under Mullen) is compelling and, like later with “New Parm Sake Bar,” will have you hooked with its cheery light-headed charm. A simple repeated chromatic scale variation opens the piece, but this is one of the most memorable chromatic scales ever. The theme carries on with dance pop beats, profuse orchestra hits, beeping trumpets (mimics a car’s horn), and a melody on the shrill, slightly annoying pan flute (it could even be a high organ, I’m not sure). The overall feeling is good will and humour; they make a few stumbles and can be a nuisance, but looking past the idle threats they’re really a pack of fun.

After the common electric guitar solo, the piece begins to develop a more dramatic, dark theme. Unlike the common pattern, though, this ending section is definitely the weaker half of the piece: just some buzzing, bouncing beats, orchestra hits and random entries of the strings. It is definitely not interesting and fails to convey much other than a tame, vague sense of threat, ultimately dissolving into the previous upbeat excitement without so much as a hitch. Because of the weaker development, this piece feels only passable. (6/10)

04 – Boss Battle

My personal favourite of all four regular battle themes in this game. While it is a bit lacking instrumentation compared to the others, it’s rather effective, especially in its introduction. With its distorted organ, synth strings, and electric guitar, along with unnameable sound effects, “Boss Battle” is also experimental and creative, venturing out on a limb that most other composers wouldn’t dare for such a traditionally significant theme. Once the piece develops past its more “atonal” stage, the theme furthers its interest with a nice organ solo. This piece is quite perfect, though it loops noticeably sooner than most of Iwadare’s compositions. (9/10)

05 – New Parm Sake Bar

Captures perfectly the boisterous, irreverent party atmosphere—imagine a tavern at noon packed chock full with rowdy adventurers, swearing sailors and vigilantes. This piece is repetitive but very loopable, its background full of exquisite interesting noises: a fun trumpet pattern, another in saxophone, string bass, and piano as well. At certain points in the music each of these patterns takes center stage, like a mini jazz solo, or else drops out in favour of the others. Cymbal or orchestra hits spice it up even more, making for one hell of a lively piece. Due to its lack of development and a very weak sense of melody, however, “New Parm Sake Bar” cannot be termed as beautiful as its companion pieces. It is definitely an insistent, addictive theme that will endear you totally—at least until the cheerfulness of it all starts to feel heavy and annoying. (7/10)

10 – Galeil

Due to its development, use of strong instruments, and stunning opening, “Galeil” succeeds as the enemy army’s main theme. The heaviness of the bass drum/timpani beats is almost indescribable: one can really grasp the sensation of marching through just these beats (snare drum is only sparingly used). After the first few main themes, the piece develops in proper Iwadare fanfare style with competing high note-low note battles.

Next, the march-paced army stronghold theme flies off into a battle-esque arrangement with a feeling of highly mobile, potent action. The brisk pace of this section is refreshing after the previous overbearing lumber. Still, this area does tend to get repetitive, with little to no variation in the actual theme’s statement.

The most surprising aspect of this piece is its ability to transform, quite suddenly, into a compelling piece of courageous swiftness based on “Mullen”: rather than oppressive evil, “Galeil” becomes noble, heroic, and desperate in its own efforts. The piece even ends this way, in a major dominant cadence! With this expansion the composer seems to be offering us a glimpse into the more virtuous, appreciable side of the enemy: Mullen, Leen, and the three quirky generals—each have human pride, wants, and fears as powerful as the protagonists’.

14 – Short Loop 2

I don’t know why the publishers just had to condense all these themes into one track—granted they are quite boring and unlistenable, but I don’t like tracks that fade in and out into completely unrelated sections.

16 – Battle Theme 3

Reminiscent of Grandia II’s main battle theme. I felt this one was handled the best of the three battle themes, although still it’s far from perfect. While engaging and a good piece on its own, it sort of lacks that “battle” feel. Again, a slow tempo, lagging melody, and heavy drum beat. Maybe, since Grandia has slower paced battles than normal (with strategizing a more common feature than in, say, Final Fantasy), this is all acceptable. The composition definitely is fine. For example, the electric guitar is pleasant to listen to. The developed second statement of the main theme is quite nice, too. This piece can be very climatic and nice on its own, something not all battle themes are known for. I also appreciate the integration of the “Theme of Grandia” into this as well. Iwadare is a knowledgable thorough composer, for sure. This battle theme is at least twice as long as most other RPG’s, which is a feat in itself. (9/10)

This review will be a little difficult to compose, as honestly the rank of the arrangements often depends on the quality of the original composition. Keeping this in mind, let’s see how each of these tracks stands with me….

01 – Battle Scene (FFI)

Definitely a heart-pumping opening to this piece. Tension is introduced immediately by the disruptive percussive hits that cut through the early melancholic synth notes. The gritty electric guitar and new rhythm is very enticing.

The strange-sounding synth solo immediately following, however, is not quite as attractive. The weird string-like high notes also sound a bit off. Fortunately, this unusual section is broken off by the more appropriate, lovely electric guitar; you will almost feel relief upon hearing its snarly solo. The organ/synth after this is acceptable to the musical palate—but honestly, even the slap bass in the background is much more appealing to me.

The very tired organ and synth sounds in this piece will wear you out, but aside from that “Battle Scene” does not do anything particularly wrong. It left me feeling uncertain and unaffected, but at least not offended. (6/10)

02 – Clash on the Big Bridge

The soft, melancholic openings followed by all-out rockin’ chaos will almost become a cliché for this album. However the effect is, as always, perfectly achieved. The electric guitar at the beginning isn’t quite as “in-your-face” as perhaps it should have been, but other than that, the first minute or so of this piece will leave you begging for more.

Quite honestly, the best moments of this piece—and virtually any other piece on this album—occur when the electric guitar is the most prominent instrument to be heard. The player is just so stylish and creative with his solos, and the quality of the recording is absolutely superb. The focus on the organ in the middle section is pretty effective, but sticks too much to the original composition. Also, a bit of dynamic contrast would probably have fared well in this section.

The following synth solo is not very appealing to me, personally. It sounds weak and artificial compared to the wonderful live instruments in the recording. It is not terrible—but not extremely appealing or imaginative. I much prefer hearing the electric guitar. (8/10)

03 – Force your Way

This one is quite similar to the original from FFVIII: both feature organ, electric guitar, wild drum set, and synths, making the arrangement an easy and natural one. Still, I feel the arrangers have done an admirable job here. The arrangement is heavier, more urgent and compelling than the original, with electric guitar used far more prominently in melody, rather than the tamer organ sound.

The piece opens with choir synths that evolve progressively into sounding electronic: while original and effective, it’s a bit annoying and, like most of their arrangements, takes too long to get into the meat of the piece. Once the rhythm is established and all three prominent instruments have entered, we have the urgent string synths from the original, and then electric guitar on the melody. For much of this piece’s body, the guitar and organ will take turns “jamming,” up until “Force Your Way” reaches its highly pleasurable climax. Here, toward the piece’s end, the arrangers stuck closer with the original, but I can only say the effect is augmented.

I love how the instruments alternate and answer each other—a feature unseen in the original. The only instrument that could have perhaps stuck out more is the drum set, in my opinion; it has no solos and stays too much in the background playing a rather standard, unchanging beat that won’t pique your interest. (8/10)

04 – Battle Scene 2

Strangely, while the melody is emphasized in this piece, it is the background—the bass line and rhythm section—which really shines. The electric bass provides a nice balance and countermelody to everything that is going on above, while the organ gives the piece its needed sense of forward motion. The melody in my opinion is usually too straightforward and uninteresting; even the harmony often loses its effect due to its redundancy. A strange solo with electric guitar, synthed violin and what sounds like harpsichord, marks the beginning of the new section which, if anything, is even more boring than the original melody.

The tempo is slow enough to almost feel laid-back and relaxing, as if we were cruising along in a car rather than warriors tearing into feared enemies. While giving relief from the comparable “chaos” of the previous themes, “Battle Scene 2” becomes rather sluggish standing alone. This is one of the less attractive pieces in my opinion. (6/10)

05 – Decisive Battle

Again the piece begins with a quiet, reflective introduction. This one is more effective than its predecessors, treating us to a soloistic clean guitar instead of unmelodic rhythm patterns. The chaotic “full throttle” afterwards is rather unseemly, however, offering little points of interests in its long introductory passage.

The electric guitar duo works brilliantly here with the melody. The result is pure entertainment; the raging, non-stop-action style manages to almost give a sense of danger, while delivering all the exhilarated excitement we expect from heavy metal. The percussion too is effective—more cymbal crashes than should be possible in a single arrangement. Due to the activity of all parts (especially compared to the languidity of the previous piece), this piece succeeds in giving what its audience asks for.

The developed section of this piece is a little weaker, but still a thrill to listen to. Losing the last threads of the melody, the organ pumps out a squealing solo that seems to complement the background rather than truly standing out on its own. The original melodic section in “Decisive Battle” is probably the main attraction, here. (9/10)

06 – Battle Theme (FFVI)

Exciting opening—the rest of the piece has a pace just a little too slow. The oft-heard, repetitive electric guitar in the melody doesn’t really help matters. A little bit of variation in leading instrument would have been greatly appreciated here. The rhymthic mixing-up later on, as well as the more creative guitar solo, adds a touch of interest to this otherwise impersonal-sounding piece, but still there is nothing particularly special about the performance or arrangement. I would’ve recommended more prominence in the drum set or bass here, if only for variation.

While the theme itself is certainly quite an exciting, blood-pumping composition, this piece lacks the necessary vigour and variation to sustain its momentum for very long. The main problem of this piece is its lack of “adding” or “subtracting” elements as it progresses, to create tension or forward movement. An average arrangement. (6/10)

07 – J-E-N-O-V-A

I don’t really know what happened here in the arrangers’ minds. First, an exciting, promising opening featuring screaming guitar, the original theme’s motif, a really effective bass part, and probably best of all, a percussion rhythm that fits remarkably well with the other parts.

Then, suddenly, we arrive at the bulk of the piece, and it all fades into disappointing mediocrity. While the rhythm section continues churning out addictiveness, we expect to be surprised with something a little deviant from the original melody here—sadly, all we get is the rather starchy, stiff tune stuck in a non-descript synth part, doing its duty solemnly. The rest of the piece follows this exact fashion with very few changes, including the bass part that, while refreshing originally, will really start to sound like a broken record by the three minute mark (it does not change whatsoever from the very beginning).

The notable violin solo is nice but falls short of being truly effective: not only is it not entirely appropriate in this synthesized, rock setting, but its melody is awkward and never quite develops into the right climax. It carries a feeling of uncertain purpose, probably due to the repetiveness of the rhythm section; the accompaniment should have changed to complement the unexpectedness of the violin.

Though this piece is lengthy, it fails to use much of its air-time effectively. The result is lots of repetitive drivel, awkward unexplained developments, and overall tedium in listening more than once or twice. To obtain maximum economy, they should have cut out about 50% of the length (six minutes with almost no development is a very long time!) and showed variation in the rhythm section. The ending was sort of disappointing and unnotable as well: the piece fades away on a low point rather than ending near the climax (if there were one). (5/10)

08 – Those who Fight Further

Not a whole lot of variation here, but that is actually a good thing. This piece is much more compact, packing more punch for its buck, and hardly ever suffers from totally languid immobility, unlike the previous track. Non-stop action from the electric guitars, which comes across as neither surprising nor poorly done. In the percussion, I particularly enjoy the cowbell—it has so much more bite than the weak, pale drum part in the original. The organ in this piece actually feels refreshing, rather than slow and lacking like in previous attempts. Altogether, not a particularly experimental or stand-out track, but a naturally effective theme to set in the heavy rock idiom. (9/10)

09 – Dancing Mad

Omitted from this review.

10 – Fight With Seymour

Like many of the pieces in The Black Mages, track 10 is slow-moving and repetitive. However, despite the many bars with little change, it is not a bad arrangement. The beginning of this piece is attention-grabbing—languid and peaceful synth strings with the electronic pattern in the background hinting of the impending action. After this introduction, the preparation for the main theme is no less exciting; the wide effect of the crash cymbal is very pleasant to the ear, and the rhythmic groove being established does everything right.

The piece moves smoothly into rhythmic section after rhythmic section, mixing it up all the time with new solos or percussion. Once the expected synth solo comes in, the excited energy of the piece begins to cool down, as the following two or three minutes of barely broken-up soloing is rather tiring to the ear. However, there are just about enough rhymthic variations to keep up the interest, especially for those who have never heard the original composition.

All-in-all, an overly long and unexperimental endeavour, but a well-arranged one nonetheless. The ending is spectacular, particularly when the much-awaited electric guitar can be heard. This last solo is the highlight of the entire piece. (7/10)