Just finished Catherine last night and viewed seven of the eight possible endings. Oh, man where do I start?
First, let me say that I'm not really all that into puzzle video games (I should fix that). My initial interest in Catherine was that it was created by the same guys who made the Persona series, and I just so happen to enjoy pole jocking those guys. That said, I started this up with a decently placed bar of expectations- Catherine jumped well over that bar.
So, this is a game split between two phases:
The day time, where most of the cinematic parts of the actual story take place and where you have Vincent converse with certain NPCs (which has general effects on how the game ends).
The night phase, where Vincent's trapped in a nightmare and you get to deal with puzzles of blocks to get him out of it.
Gameplay-wise...this was kind of like watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It's entertaining to go through, but you'd have a hard time convincing me to go through it again. To clarify, I bitched out mid-way and turned the game to Very Easy mode, and I still had some issues on some stages. There's no one way to climb the huge tower of blocks, but because you can't always see far enough up ahead (and because you're dealing with a time limit), it can be difficult to plan your path out, and it's even tougher than that if you're trying to go for gold trophies (without cheating -___-). Like, sometimes you want to move a block just so you can move up a level, but you couldn't see that it was holding up a stack of blocks on the back side of the tower. A whole side drops and now you may have potentially destroyed an optimal path for scaling higher.
Oh, and FUCK ice blocks.
But overall, I feel the events surrounding the puzzles made the experience all that enjoyable. I mean, when I think of puzzle games, I think of something like Tetris, where it's just map after map after map of blocks, or what have you, until you get tired. Catherine actually places a legitimate story and theme into the game, and your reward for completing the challenges is being able to enjoy that story. Just as Vincent's incentive for dealing with these bullshit nightmares is to live, the player's incentive for dealing with them as well is likely driven by the desire to complete the story. Don't try to invalidate that on the grounds of that being commonplace in gaming. We all know there are a lot of games where you most certainly aren't playing mainly for story progression.
Speaking of the story, I have to say I enjoyed it, and not necessarily because it's a good story. It's alright, in my opinion. The thrills come from a lot of "Oh, shit! Vince is in some deep shit!" moments and Catherine's (the character) deviant nature. I enjoyed it more for the fact that it has an overall feel to a visual novel, which is a favored genre of mine. Essentially, every choice you make when you're not dealing with blocks leads to NPCs living/dying and eventually which of the eight possible endings you'll get when you finish. Hell, even in certain cutscenes, Vincent's inner-dialogue changes based on how you've been making choices thus far. I feel like a game's story doesn't stale as fast when you have multiple ways to enjoy it.
On a related topic (the featured one in the title), a while ago I was introduced to this pic in my usual You Laugh You Lose thread:
If you're like me, you'd probably think this is a dumb idea. As expressed in the thread, the point of a game is to play the damn thing. There are specialized games, like visual novels and Heavy Rain, where your gameplay elements are kept to a minimum so that you can enjoy the story, but an idea like that in something like an RPG? Tradition aside, that's essentially saying "I want a 3-hour book for $40+." That's cost inefficient for you as well as profit inefficient for the companies making the game, should you decide to just turn the game back in for a full refund when you're done (But hey! Maybe it'll keep rental services like Blockbuster alive! :D).
As I played through Catherine, though, I started coming up with a compromised thought. See, when you beat each stage in Catherine, you get one of three trophies based on your performance- bronze, silver, and gold. If you receive a gold trophy on a stage (on Normal or Hard modes), you can skip that stage on your next playthrough. This is very helpful for viewing all 8 endings, since you need at least three runs to view them all.
So, I started thinking, "What if more games DID allow you to skip game elements as a reward for overcoming its challenges?" Essentially this is achieved in the New Game+'s where you get to keep all of your overpowered shit and blaze through fights like nothing, but what if you could skip even that for the sake of going through the story in a different manner?
For example, take any generic RPG. For forced fights, like bosses, let's say if you win with some complicated set up, the next time you play the game (assuming the story can be changed in certain fashions, based on what you do outside of battle), you can skip that fight. Or with dungeons, if you manage to locate hidden items or make it through within a certain time limit, bam- skip to the exit/boss fight with key items on hand on your New Game+. I think it's a decent compromise for the game's premise (aka PLAYING THE DAMN GAME) and for people who like going through multiple story paths or getting certain achievements, only obtainable through multiple playthroughs, without always having to stop for a big grind/upgrade session each time. I'm sure there are some overlooked concerns and flaws with this concept, but hey, it's an idea.
So, yeah. Catherine. Awesome game. Tough challenges with relatively satisfying rewards. Fun story with some thought-inducing concepts on love and choosing between chaotic and peaceful lifestyles. Shoutouts to my man, Shoji Meguro, for the awesome music.
Recently, I've been trying to properly re-align my priorities, but even then my priorities have priorities. On the lower part of my overall list are fighting games, and with the time I'm trying to limit myself to spending on them, I'm now completely unsure where to put most of that time. My lack of funds won't get me to tournaments too frequently, but that's all good because I need a lot of time in training mode as it is anyway (properly read as: "I suck"). So, I guess this is just an outline of my internal conflict on the matter, based on each game I'm playing/interested in playing. These may just seem petty or dumb, but it's just what's on my mind as I'm thinking about it:
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
With all the "Blah, blah, blah, not a real fighting game" aside, this is the game I've played the most, competitively, and I never moved past average (if that). I've seen many of my local peers go from going even with me in matches, to completely outplaying me, even on my best days. Natural that I'd want to put in the time I've been neglecting for the longest, right?
Conflict: I really don't know what direction I want to take here. I main Marth. Practicing things solo is one thing (that I'm sure I don't do properly, but that's yet another issue), but getting the experience I need is kind of tough. As I've mentioned, I don't get out to tournaments frequently anymore, and most of the people I'd play with are *kinda* out of the way (contributing factors are part me being lazy about traveling via MARTA and part the fact that it takes me almost 2+ hours to get to what I'll assume are the most frequented venues without a ride). Playing online is painful both for the fact that it's hard (for me at least) to play my character on Nintendo's lame wifi, as well as the fact that my Brawl disc now insists on not being read at frequent intervals.
Soul Calibur 5
I suppose I should have just mentioned this earlier, but I honestly don't feel like going back up to make it fit, but one large issue about this entire thing is that I only have Brawl, MBAACC, and UMvC3.SC5 is just fortunately in my friends' possessions, so I can occasionally spend some time on it. So a conflict I won't further mention that applies across the board is my not having certain games for myself.
SC is the only 3D fighter series I really even like, and I feel somewhat hype for the latest installment, because I'm actually able to play it at the beginning of the hype, for once. I still miss Cassandra, but whatever. :(
Conflict: Access. Granted, I can chill at my friend's spot generally whenever, but all I can really do is fuck around with the characters. The spot I go to to play this game has ass internet (most times we can't even load Facebook in a timely manner), which usually tosses online out of the window, and I'm seemingly the only one of the group that intends to play competitively, so I feel there's not much I can learn on my own in this scenario, not to mention I get really bored, really quick due to that. I get the feeling that I have to have this sitting in front of me at home to get the most out of it, not to mention some good references (Point me in the right direction for this, if you would) on playing Pyrrhaω and maybe Patrokolos α.
Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3
I wasn't around competitive gaming during most of the hype for the first two Marvels, but MvC2 seemed like a staple for all fighters to have in their repertoire when I did come in, so I figured I'd compensate by having MvC3 in mine.
Conflict: Besides constantly dropping combos, I'm not completely sure. I sometimes feel like I'm generally not comfortable with using characters outside of Zero, but overall I just don't know how to play the game. How do I approach with Amaterasu? How should I defend/counterattack when I'm being locked down? Why does it feel necessary to RUN INTO HULK'S s.H EVERY TIME? Stuff like that.
Blazblue: Continuum Shift 2
It's just fun enough to watch this game played on a competent level. It was also supposed to make up for my lack of presence during the Guilty Gear era when it came out as Calamity Trigger. Conflict: I play Noel, and only Noel, because I either don't like the concepts of some of the other characters or just don't feel comfortable with them. Why is that a conflict? Logically it makes no sense for me to care about whether I can play characters other than my main (unless it's just a game where you really need a counterpick sometimes), but part of the fun for me in a lax or casual environment is being able to switch between multiple characters. Not being able to do so in this game triggers a turn-off for me. Part of me still would like to improve in the game, though.
Melty Blood Actress Again: Current Code
Probably my top candidate for focusing on, just for the fact that I love Type-Moon and many of its characters.
Conflict: Learning three iterations of the same character. Probably not needed, but it seems to be the standard and creates some flexibility, so why not? This is a conflict because I'm really slow on learning and applying things in fighting games. Hell, I'm still stuck repeating two BnBs for ONE iteration of ONE character whenever I start up the game. So, I sit here feeling like, "Waaaaah, I wanna try other characters!" and mentally retorting with, "No. Shut the fuck up and learn your main character (Shiki R.) first." Perhaps something like this will change if I were to neglect other games and put what attention and time I could on this one, but...yeah. I'd have to see. There's also a lingering fear of putting focus on a game where I couldn't use my machine to offer multiplayer unless the opposition uses a keyboard (one of my two USB ports are broken). Aka, I can't play versus my more casual-oriented gamer friends unless they happen to have themselves.
Arcana Heart 3
A number of cool looking characters with a multitude of different playstyles. And they're all female, which matters. ^___^
Conflict: I HAVEN'T ACTUALLY TOUCHED THE DAMN GAME YET.
So, yeah. There's all of that nonsense, plus the want for an arcade stick to play these games with. Even though I'd have to get used to a stick (again), there are just so many things that feel relatively more comfortable to do it than on pad. I already know that's just a matter of money, so it's not a complaint or anything, but it's still an issue to be noted and eventually resolved (hopefully).
AKA, "Why the fuck am I trying to go in on a game whose sequel just came out?" Just shut up and read. ;__;
Around early 2010, a friend of mine picked up a copy of FFXIII. We heard the mixed reviews, we tried it, we hated it. Granted, I hadn't played through much of the story, but what was there already (in addition to being biased from my friends' feedback) made me cringe.
So, a few weeks ago, I decided to borrow a copy from another friend, partially because I'm in my "give things more of a chance" phase and partially because I got a PS3 for Christmas, but only own one game for it (IT'S MAHVEL BAYBEE). I intended to give my review/opinion/rant/whatever when I was done, and since I'm pretty much done (I only really need to finish off about 4 more missions, so I'm taking some time to farm/upgrade), here's what I've got so far:
Starting with the most obvious and complained about feature of the game (feel free to skip down a bit), it's extremely linear. Experienced Final Fantasy players know about the vast worlds that comprise most of the series' games through out the story. Worlds where at some point you could break off from the "main route" to check out an extra dungeon for items/abilities, and where dungeons branched off into multiple paths and puzzles at every turn, seeking to drain you of your strength like a horde of Zubats before you made it outside. If you REALLY haven't heard about this so far, 13's entry does away with all of this. At most points during the story, if you see a path branching off somewhere, it's just a quick detour to a dead end with an item.
"But Umby, what's so bad about this? Some people just want to enjoy the story, not sit in a cave for an hour trying to figure out where the fuck the switch to the exit door is."
Oh, is that why Square Enix put most of the unmentioned parts of the story in a big log in your menu? Honestly, nothing's wrong with trading gameplay for story/cinematics (I mean, Heavy Rain is well-received and the only actions required for playing most visual novels is pointing and clicking). The issue here belongs mainly to the game's branding. It's a FINAL FANTASY game. We've come to expect certain things from this title, so the linear progression is highly disappointing to a significant number of fans. Had it been called something like Lightning's Tsundere Quest or The Search for Hope's Genitals, it's been said by some people, but I'm sure no one would have had as much as a problem with that factor of the game.
"Alright, alright, whatever. You still get a big world to explore in Chapter 11."
Oh, goodness. Where do I start with this?
First off, the game is thirteen chapters long. I sat through a mediocre story dealing with characters I don't like (I dislike Snow's "hero complex," Vanille's English VA sucks, and Hope somehow managed to have three separate demeanors in his personality and was annoying regardless) while being prompted to save after every cutscene, ran through an endless funnel (to be occasionally stopped for yet another cutscene after taking about 5 steps), and I have to wait until near the end of the story to get to a world map? On top of that, said world (Gran Pulse) isn't even that special. It's huge, no doubt, especially when you have to go everywhere on foot (until you unlock wild Chocobos), but the only thing there to "explore" is the land itself. There are only two places that actually account for dungeons there, and they're on the main story path. Everywhere else is just a sectioned of area, made distinctive by what kind of enemies show up there.
Then there's the missions/quests...
I understand that sometimes, in various RPGs, you have to go out of your way to initiate a quest. I understand further that sometimes you have to go out of your way to meet the requirements for completing a quest. But the way 13 set this up makes it feel like a huge chore. For one thing, it's not always clear which quests you are/aren't able to accept. Ideally, you want to go in order from Mission #1 to Mission #2 and so on, but let's say, for example, you just cleaned up #6, are looking for #7, but find #10 in the vicinity instead, there's some confusion to be had when you find out you couldn't do #11 afterwards because you needed have #8 done which you can't do with out #7RAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
The whole system would have worked better if you had a central place or two to accept the missions from, so you weren't out looking for where you had to initiate it. This is especially important when you have to get a mission from way out in the middle of nowhere, then go all the way across the map to find your mark, only to realize you aren't strong enough to deal with it yet (Because the A-E ratings are really relative and don't really mean AS much as you'd like to think) and general you could keep better track of what the hell you were doing. The only things you CAN keep track of at will are your current mission, what missions you ran into (but declined), and what missions you've completed. To even figure out what missions are available to you next, you'd have to pay real close attention to your map, but you can't really prioritize the missions you WANT to do for prerequisites because you won't find out which mission it is until you get there. To get an idea of why this is so troublesome, I ended up completing a lot of mid-level missions before I found out I could have been riding on Chocobos by completing the low-level missions. -_________________-
Moving on from that, let's talk about the battle system. I must say, I'm somewhat glad I actually decided to sit down more with the game to get rid of the original bias I had towards this. On the first sit-down I went, "wtf?" from seeing an "Auto-Battle" option on the screen (Note: This is a time when I was particularly irritated at the gaming industry's general direction changes towards "ease-of-use") and was a little mad that battle efficiency required its use. After getting to a certain point in the story where battle roles were more varied and I was able to use three characters in a party, I gradually gained more respect for the system.
13 really forces its Paradigm Shift feature on to the player. There aren't any raw defense stats, just HP. The thing is, your enemies have soooooo much HP that, at first, you aren't just going to straight whack them to death. The general key is the Chain Gauge/Staggering.
*** SKIP IF YOU ALREADY KNOW THIS SHIT ***
If you haven't played the game, each enemy has a Chain Gauge with varying capacity. Hitting an enemy with an attack slowly raises the gauge, and any point of inaction causes it to drop. If it drops completely, you have to start filling it all over again. If you can keep hitting the enemy before that happens, it will continue to rise until it meets its capacity. When that happens, the enemy is in Stagger mode, where they take extra damage, and with the exception of some enemies, will flinch, preventing their actions, when you hit them. You can even continue to make the Chain Gauge rise further to increase the damage you are doing.
*** MOVING ALONG ***
This is important due to the way three specific roles work: Commando, Ravager, and Saboteur.
Commandos, when attacking, cause the Chain Gauge to rise very little, but decrease the rate at which it depletes. They also do the most damage to a Staggered enemy.
Ravagers, when attacking, cause the gauge to rise more quickly.
Saboteurs, when attacking, can decrease the rate at which the gauge depletes.
So, if you're trying to bust up certain enemies (not exclusive to bosses or high profile monsters), your general pattern of offense is to attack with a Commando/Saboteur to slow down the gauge, attack with Ravagers (the more, the faster) to Stagger the enemy, then attack with Commandos to finish it off. Additionally, because you can't just walk in, guns blazing, without expecting to occasion get your shit wrecked, you've got your three defensive/supportive roles, Sentinel, Synergist, and Medic. With all six characters (in a three-person party) eventually gaining access to all six roles, you have a ton of paradigm combinations to factor into your strategy. Because all of that requires utilizing Paradigm Shift to change your party's roles (duh), already that's generally more active and requires more attention than the standard of bashing things with your strongest spells and skills- something to appreciate when other parts of the game are lacking in depth. Even going back to the topic of Auto-Battle, even though it supposedly chooses the "best" options each time, you will find that you'll need to manually make choices, usually if you're controlling a supportive role or if you want to use a character's special skill (Lightning's "Army of One," Sazh's "Cold Blood") and the game allows you to do that. It even offers a "Repeat" option so you don't have to run through the list to find what you chose again.
Another thing I pseudo-like is the way you can upgrade weapons/accessories. Instead of having armor to augment your non-existent (or rather unlisted? Correct me on that) defenses, you get accessories, which you can build up and make stronger. Same for your weapons, which means not even your initial equipment is necessarily useless once you find a new one in a treasure sphere (aka, don't immediately sell your shit). You can also get some nifty items from breaking down your maxed out equipment (aka...don't immediately sell your shit). The only issue is that the process is EXPENSIVE, and the game gives you very few ways to make enough bank to fund your upgrades. To explain, weapons have three tiers. You level the first tier up, us an item to change it into the second tier, level THAT up even mo...fuck it. It's just like Pokemon, except you use various items for experience instead of battles. You can pick up some of these items as loot or treasure, but that collective is nowhere near enough to max out something, so you end up buying your stuff. The more experience you need, the more money you need to spend on items, and you don't get the money as standard loot from fights. You have to sell items specifically made for the purpose of selling (like gold dust and perfume and all that other useless junk). Suffice to say, these types of items are generally rare drops/finds. The worst part is trying to get a tier 3 weapon, because the item you need to upgrade to one goes for 2 million gil in the shop and is a rare drop (I think 1% if you don't add on the effects of certain equipment?) from defeating GIANT TURTOISES. Keep in mind that you have six characters that you probably want to upgrade weapons for. It's not that I mind grinding, but by the time my characters have worked out enough to do all of this shit, one starts to ask "What am I..." wait, I'll let Zero finish this for me:
I believe everything I've said already is the hard-hitting stuff. Anything else I'd have to say are minor, probably insignificant, yet annoying, though that's probably what helps to decrease general opinion of FFXIII as a game: All the little things pile up. Let me see if I can't list them out (thanks to Dogysamich for insight on some of this a while before I started my playthrough):
There's battle menu lag. You know how you can't just tap X (or A) twice in a second to select the command you want? You have to wait for the fraction-of-a-second long animation to finish before you can press the button again.
That first Paradigm Shift in a battle takes up AN EXCESSIVE AMOUNT OF TIME and YOU CAN STILL GET HIT DURING THE ANIMATION.
The map on Gran Pulse is retarded. Having the minimap rotate while you're moving around is fine, but why does the MENU MAP rotate? If you were trying to direct someone to a specific place you couldn't say "it's in the northeast section of the map," because technically (technically) there's no way to distinguish the cardinal directions on the map.
There's a faggot of a monster named Zirnitra. You have to fight it about 3 or 4 times in your missions.
Why do certain things cost Technical Points (TP)? I understand Summoning, I can even understand Renew, if everyone gets it as a skill, regardless of role, but why do I have to waste such a valuable thing on a skill like Libra?
Chocobo's can randomly sniff out treasure, but the way you find it is essentially by a game of "Hot/Cold."
Did SE forget about Reflect magic?
Why is it that no one gets Curaga in the Medic role? Only your summons use it on you.
Pairing up certain types of equipment grants a character an extra passive skill. Stuff like randomly and instantly stagger an enemy on hit. That's fine, but why are some of those skills so insanely detrimental, like severely reducing your health?
Boss fight -> Save? -> Cutscene -> Save? -> Character control. Save point next to you. Walk forward 5 steps -> Cutscene -> Save? - A slight exaggeration of what happens during the story, but...whyyyyyyyyyyy?
I completed about 50+ of the 64 missions before I got to the Gigantuar mission. He still has his "10,000 Needles" skill. Only my Snow, at this point has even a few hundred HP over that amount. How do I get up to 10,000+ HP with my other characters? Oh, I have to actually finish the final boss fight to get an extra level in my Crystarium to GRIND FOR MORE CRYSTARIUM POINTS TO GET ENOUGH HP.
Sometimes I wish I could direct parts of my ATB bar towards separate enemies. If I cast Aero twice in the same attack, it has to go to one enemy. I'd like to occasionally be able to choose one Aero to hit a certain enemy, then the other Aero to hit another. I mean, the way the system is now, setting that up might be wacky, but it's still something I'd like to have.
"GODDAMNIT, HOPE! LIGHTNING IS THIS PARADIGM'S SENTINEL. YOU'RE THE MEDIC. WHY THE FUCK DO YOU KEEP DRIFTING TOWARD HER WHEN SHE'S GETTING BLASTED BY AOE ATTACKS?" *exaggeration*
.......Yeah...so it's not a COMPLETELY bad game. I'd register it as "barely okay," but so much of the little stuff could have been changed around and it might have been a significantly better experience. As of now, though, it feels like all the captivating graphics and beautiful music went to waste on a project that was less than mediocre, and on a big title name at that! Maybe I'll listen out for what people have to say about XIII-2 before giving it a shot, but with this precedence in tow, I'm not looking forward to anything but the soundtrack.
