1930: Fun with Harmonics

Spent some more time with Omega Quintet today, and I am, as I may have mentioned a couple of times already, absolutely thrilled with how enjoyable it is — and that it's much more than a reskinned Neptunia. Don't get me wrong, you know how much I love me some Neptunia, but I'm glad that Compile Heart and Idea Factory weren't resting on their laurels with this one; it would have been very easy indeed for them to simply lift Neptunia's admittedly very fun combat system and plonk it in Omega Quintet, but instead Omega Quintet has something all of its own.

Perhaps "all of its own" isn't quite the right description, mind, since Omega Quintet's combat is executed as something of a curious blend between the battle systems from the Atelier series, the Ar Tonelico series, The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XIII. That's quite a mixture, but it works really well, particularly when you pull off something as enjoyably silly as this:

The above sequence was recorded at just level 20, by the way; I shudder to think what numbers the girls will be putting out by the end of the game.

Interestingly, the game doesn't bombard you with the complete combat system right from the get-go; it gradually increases in complexity over the course of the first few chapters at a fairly sedate pace, allowing you to get comfortable and familiar with each new concept before a new one is introduced. Ultimately, by the time the complete battle system has unlocked, you should be well familiar with all the possibilities it has to offer. At about 15 hours or so in, I haven't seen everything the system has to offer, yet; for some, this may draw unfavourable comparisons to Final Fantasy XIII, which was lambasted for having a "20 hour tutorial", but it's worth noting that Omega Quintet does sidestep this issue a little by being somewhat less linear than Final Fantasy XIII was; at any given moment, there's a bunch of sidequests to do, hidden treasures to find, new areas to open up, items to craft, special items to unlock and all manner of other things to do. (And besides, there was nothing the fuck wrong with the way Final Fantasy XIII did things, anyway. So there.)

Here's roughly how the system works. Like the Neptunia games, you can get the advantage at the start of combat by attacking an enemy before they come into contact with you; conversely, letting an enemy touch you from behind will give them the advantage. How battle begins sets the opening initiative order, and from there the game follows a clear to understand turn order system, reflected by a graphical representation down the side of the screen.

Each party member has a number of actions per turn, increasing as they increase their overall proficiency with each of the game's five weapon types — axe, gun, spear, fans and gauntlets. These actions can be used to attack, use a skill or use an item, and when all the actions have been chosen, the party member performs each of them in sequence before the turn order moves on to the next combatant. Of key consideration when choosing skills is the "wait time" — more powerful skills will push the party member's next turn further down the turn order, potentially giving enemies the opportunity to attack several times before she can go again. Conversely, certain skills increase the enemies' wait time when they successfully land, so you can manipulate the turn order yourself to a certain degree.

Attacks, skills and even items have an effective range, represented by coloured lines on the ground. Do something to someone in the green area and it will be most effective; then comes blue, yellow and finally red, which means you either can't do the action at all, or it will be at severely reduced effectiveness. Certain attacks and skills also have a radius, either circular or a range of "tiles" horizontally, vertically or both, meaning you can hit multiple enemies at the same time. At the start of a party member's turn, you can move them forward or backward in the formation, allowing you to manipulate the positioning to your advantage. There are also "knockback" skills, which are self-explanatory, and "reverse" skills, which… uh, I'm not entirely sure what they do.

Here's one thing I have to nitpick slightly; there are certain aspects the game doesn't explain very well or, indeed, at all in some cases. The stat names, for example, don't take the usual Attack/Defense/Magic Attack/Magic Defense/Accuracy/Agility format from other Compile Heart games; instead we have Song Power/Stamina/Knowledge/Divinity/Technique/Vitality. You can work out what they are from a bit of experimentation, but it takes a bit of adjustment. Likewise, some of the status effects and added effects (such as the aforementioned "Reverse") aren't made very clear at all, though again, you can probably work these things out for yourself.

Personally, I'm actually all for games encouraging you to figure out some of their mechanics for yourself. You don't need to understand these things to get a kick out of Omega Quintet, but if you're the sort of person who likes to min-max your characters and have them fighting at maximum effectiveness, be aware that you'll need to get your hands a little dirty — particularly as the characters in Omega Quintet are significantly more customisable than, say, the Neptunia girls, who don't allow you to take any control over their development at all, though they do allow you to set up your own custom combos according to how you like to fight. In other words, Omega Quintet's apparently deliberate obtuseness at times will be a turn-off to some people, but personally, I actually like not being spoon-fed absolutely everything.

Anyway. It's good. Real good. And I can't wait to play more. So I'm probably going to do just that right now; I've got a combo record to beat, after all.

1929: Another Episode

One thing I really like for reasons I can't quite explain is when one type of media uses conventions from another, and does so effectively.

I'm particularly enamoured with the idea of video games taking cues from TV shows and adopting an episodic structure. This is something that both Eastern and Western developers have been experimenting with over the last few years, and both have approached it in markedly different ways.

The Western approach involves a developer releasing a "season" of discrete, separate games (typically five or six) at semi-regular intervals, with the complete run telling an entire story, and the possibility existing for a "second season" should the first one prove popular enough. (So far, this has happened with the episodic Sam and Max and The Walking Dead games, both by Telltale Games.)

This is all very well and good — particularly as they're usually priced in such a way that buying the complete "season" is the same price as one regular-sized game, since individual episodes tend to just be a couple of hours long — but the biggest issue Western developers have had with this format is timeliness. It's rare to get episodes less than a month apart, and in some cases it's several months.

The most notoriously extreme case, of course, is Valve's Half-Life 2, which promised to follow up the original game's story with a series of three "episodes". A fair plan, the theory behind it being that releasing what was effectively Half-Life 3 in smaller episodes rather than as one big game would allow devoted fans to get their hands on the new game — or part of it, anyway — sooner than they would otherwise be able to. It didn't quite work out that way, of course: Half-Life 2 came out in 2004, Half-Life 2 Episode 1 followed two years later in 2006, and it was another year before Half-Life 2 Episode 2 appeared in 2007 and ended on a cliffhanger that now, in 2015, remains unresolved due to the continued absence of Half-Life 2 Episode 3.

This is a problem for the episodic format; the power of television series is that you can check in with them at regular, predictable intervals, and your time with the cast and characters becomes something of an "event" in your life, whether you're marathoning a show on Netflix or kicking it old-school and watching things as they're actually broadcast on TV. In order for that to work, the episodes need to be close together — typically a week apart. As Western-developed episodic games stand, however, their development cycles are such that releasing them a week apart simply wouldn't be possible unless they were all developed at the same time, in which case you might as well release them as one big game anyway.

So that's what a number of Japanese developers have done: take the episodic format (in many cases, complete with teaser, opening credits sequence, "monster of the week", cliffhanger and end credits) and stick a bunch of them together into a single game.

It's an effective approach in several ways. Narratively speaking, it allows the story to flow through a number of different distinct but interconnected arcs before reaching a conclusion that — hopefully — wraps them all together and resolves everything nicely. Mechanically, meanwhile, it provides a suitable structure for gradually introducing new concepts at set intervals so as not to overwhelm the player with overly complex systems right from the get-go.

I've played a number of Japanese games and visual novels that adopt this approach in recent years, with notable examples including School Days HQ, which quite simply was an interactive six-episode anime series, and My Girlfriend is the President, which even went so far as to conclude each episode with a "Next Time On…" teaser before immediately jumping in.

Two particularly effective examples from the very recent past and present are Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus and Omega Quintet, the latter of which I'm currently playing on PS4 and, as noted yesterday, am adoring.

Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus has an interesting structure. There are four main story arcs, each of which focuses on one of the four ninja schools involved in the overall narrative. These each tell a story by themselves and have their own distinct mood, themes and tone, but they also work together to help build up a full picture of the world in which Senran Kagura unfolds. Once you have cleared all four of the main stories, there's a final episode that wraps everything up neatly. In effect, the complete game works like one of those anime series that has an abrupt tonal shift partway through its run (either between seasons, as in the case of something like To Love-Ru, or in some cases right in the middle of a season, as seen in Sword Art Online), perhaps moving to focus on a different set of characters, a different storytelling format or simply a change of subject matter.

But it doesn't stop there. Shinovi Versus also features a short, five-level mini-story for each and every one of the playable characters in the game, with these effectively acting in the same manner as "OVAs" — short episodes, often distributed through means such as first print run mangas, preorders and the like, that don't have anything to do with the main story and are sometimes considered non-canonical. By the time you've finished these as well as the main story, you have a very thorough understanding of every single character involved in that narrative. It's an effective approach.

Omega Quintet, meanwhile, goes all-out anime in its approach, with pre-credits teasers, opening titles, self-contained narrative arcs that build up the overall story, gradual introduction and exploration of main characters an episode at a time, cliffhangers and end credits sequences. Yes, Omega Quintet is a game in which you'll see the "end credits" multiple times over the course of a single playthrough, and it's always satisfying to do so; the episodes are structured sensibly in both the narrative and mechanical senses I mentioned above and it works really well as a format. One more reason to like a game I'm already enamoured with.

I wonder if we will ever see Half-Life 2: Episode 3, though. It's become something of a joke by now, and we are, to be honest, getting to the stage where people who originally played Half-Life 2 "back in the day" probably don't care any more (I don't, though I'd play Episode 3 if it came out due to sheer curiosity) and a new generation of gamers might not even know what it is. It is the great Unfinished Symphony in gaming, and a warning to any other developers considering the episodic approach: take your cues from the Japanese way of doing it, and save yourself a whole lot of hassle.

1928: Verse Maidens

So, I've spent the majority of my evening playing Idea Factory and Compile Heart's first PlayStation 4 title Omega Quintet. And I'm absolutely in love with it.

Omega Quintet, lest you don't follow Japanese games with the same borderline obsessiveness as I do, is a role-playing game in which you take on the role of Takt, a rather sullen young man who occasionally has trouble with demonstrating the personality trait that he shares his name with. He has fairly good reason to be sullen, however; he lives in a dystopian future in which some sort of lurking unpleasantness called the Blare keeps showing up, driving people mad and turning animals into monsters. (Aside: In the Japanese original, it was called the Beep; I kind of wish they'd kept that name, particularly as the Japanese voices still use it!)

So far, so post-apocalyptic. It wouldn't be a post-apocalyptic JRPG without a band of plucky heroic types to save the day, however, so enter the Verse Maidens: young women who have the power to drive back the Blare with the power of their songs. Takt and his childhood friend Otoha get swept up in the world of the Verse Maidens as the "ever-17 Momoka" (who is actually 37, and starting to feel it) stumbles across them after exhausting herself clearing out a particularly nasty batch of Blare. Through a series of unfortunate circumstances, Otoha awakens to her potential power as a Verse Maiden, leading Momoka to reluctantly retire and make way for Otoha and two other young, inexperienced Verse Maidens called Kana and Nene.

Idea Factory and Compile Heart have proven themselves to be talented at satirical games with the Hyperdimension Neptunia series, which pokes fun at the video game industry and video games in general. Omega Quintet, meanwhile, tackles the Japanese idol industry, a subject that Idea Factory has previously explored in Hyperdimension Neptunia: Producing Perfection, and something we don't have an exact analogue to in the West. The closest equivalent we have is the phenomenon of "manufactured pop groups" like the boy bands of the '90s and the few examples of groups that have made successes of themselves following talent shows such as The X-Factor and its ilk, but neither of these go anywhere near as far as the Japanese idol industry.

Japanese idols have to contend not only with the most crazy, obsessive fans, but also with their management pretty much taking control of their entire life — including personal relationships, socialising and all the sorts of things that young girls should probably discover and explore for themselves in order to grow up as well-adjusted individuals. Omega Quintet reflects this through Takt gradually being trained up to become the Verse Maidens' manager and sternly told in no uncertain terms at regular intervals that he absolutely, positively must not do anything inappropriate with any of these girls, lest he tarnish their pure image and anger the fans — because Verse Maidens draw their power from their fanbase.

The character of Momoka is also used as a means of reflecting the falseness of the idols' lifestyles. We're initially introduced to Momoka as a young, beautiful, heroic woman whom everyone looks up to and depends upon, but as we see her exhausting herself on what turns out to be her last mission and subsequently revealing her true, rather abrasive personality, we come to understand that she's been playing a part — for twenty years, in her case. It will be interesting to see how the titular Quintet, once they assemble, will come to terms with this existence, and I suspect it will be an important part of the overall narrative.

Mechanically, Omega Quintet is fairly similar to other Compile Heart titles: there's a lot of standing around talking with some well-written, witty dialogue, punctuated with dungeon-crawling and snappy combat. Rather than repurposing the Neptunia combat system, however, Omega Quintet has its own rather deep and complex system that encourages you to be as flashy as you can while maintaining control of your characters' resources. There are some really interesting mechanics in there, such as characters being able to obtain bonus actions for their next turn by fulfilling particular conditions, and a Final Fantasy X-style "turn delay" mechanic allowing you to manipulate the turn order to your advantage. The protagonist also plays an interesting role by not directly participating in combat, instead offering passive support effects to the party and having a limited number of action points to be used throughout the fight either for follow-up "Pursuit" attacks after his current partner has performed an action, or stepping in to soak some of the incoming damage on his partner.

There's also a frighteningly deep-looking character customisation and advancement system that involves unlocking abilities on a "disc" that works a little like Final Fantasy X's Sphere Grid, choosing abilities carefully for a limited number of slots, weapon proficiencies, equipment, outfits with upgradeable durability and "amp" slots for bonus effects, formations, chain skills and all manner of other things. I'm only about 5 hours or so into the game so far and it's clear there's a lot of systems I haven't been introduced to yet; it looks like the complete picture will be quite complex, but the game has proven very accessible so far, gradually introducing concepts and giving you ample time to familiarise yourself with them in practical situations before throwing something new into the mix.

Oh, and the soundtrack is amazing. Which you'd sort of hope for a game ostensibly "about" music. And, as usual for the genre, it's the battle theme that presents one of the best examples, featuring a distinctly Final Fantasy XIII-esque feel with its use of solo violin over driving rhythms. So what better way to wrap up these first impressions with said piece? Here you go.

1927: Sharing Greatness

Spent a bit more time with my new toy the PlayStation 4 today. It is a lovely piece of kit, and the OS is a considerable refinement from the nice-looking but occasionally clunky XMB OS from the PlayStation 3. Social features are well integrated without being obtrusive, the use of Vita and mobile devices for second screen, touchpad and keyboards is a stroke of genius and the whole thing seems to work really well.

One thing I'm interested to play with a bit once I get some meaty games to get my teeth into — the first of which, Omega Quintet, is arriving tomorrow — is the various uses of the "Share" button. When this was first announced, I kind of thought it was stupid, but the idea has grown on me quite a bit, particularly when I consider how often I've shared screenshots from the Vita using its built-in screenshot function and its Twitter app.

For the uninitiated, the Share button on the PS4 controller offers a few different functions. You can use it to take screenshots — and screenshots are also automatically taken when you unlock a Trophy, which is nice, particularly for difficult ones — and then share them via various social media means. You can also record video and either directly upload it or throw it into the ShareFactory app and edit it a bit. And you can also stream gameplay, either with or without commentary from you on the microphone, and with or without your channel's chat being visible while you play. (If you choose the latter option, you have to play your game with a slightly scaled down display to accommodate the extra interface elements.)

I'm still somewhat skeptical of the appeal of streaming — particularly as it's not at all easy to convince people to come and watch you — but I'm already starting to come around to the idea a little. Today, for example, while I was waiting for something to download, I took a look at the available streams from the PS4 dashboard and managed to find a number of people playing the new Hyperdimension Neptunia game that just came out in Japan. (It looks wonderful, and I can't wait to play the inevitable localisation.) Then I took a look at Destiny and Bloodborne to confirm they were quite as unappealing to me as I thought they were. (They were.)

While I have no particular ambition to become a big streamer or YouTube star, it is quite fun to make videos and have people watch you play, and with PS4 it's really easy to do so. More excitingly, some former colleagues and I came up with the bright idea that because streaming allows you to broadcast party chat as well as gameplay footage and your own microphone, it opens up the interesting possibility of group discussions of a game while someone is playing it live. Sort of like what podcasts based around a specific game do, but with someone actually demonstrating the game — or perhaps exploring it for the first time — live on video while everyone talks.

It's an exciting possibility, and I'm interested to see if we develop anything along those lines. If nothing else, though, the built-in streaming facility allows me to show the games that I'm most enjoying to people who might not otherwise think to even take a look at them. And that, I think, is one of its most powerful, appealing features; you can talk about a game all you like, but until you actually see it being played, it's very difficult to determine whether or not it'll be something you're into. With streaming, you can effectively show your favourite games to other people as if you'd taken the disc around to their house and booted it up on their system. It's an increasingly important part of how certain games, developers and publishers build up a fan base. And I'm interested to explore it.

1924: Journeying Ever Onwards

So One Way Heroics Plus has pretty much devoured my soul with its wily ways and new features. I've been playing it a whole bunch, dying a whole lot and having a great time in the process.

I made a video of two unsuccessful runs earlier; here you go:

I'm really impressed with the additions to the base formula. In particular I'm excited about the fact that there are a number of new quests involved in unlocking the additional character classes; these quests replace the standard adventure to defeat the Demon Lord (or win in a couple of other super-secret ways) and task you with additional objectives, confronting you with new challenges and powerful foes on the way.

The small additions to the game's interface are great, too. The hotbar in particular is an excellent addition, even if you only use it to quickly access skills like Awakening (your default "stop time for three turns" ability, which is very useful for getting out of a pinch) and Lockpicking. It's also great to be able to customise the interface somewhat; it's still a little cluttered thanks to it running in 640×480 (or upscaled 640×480 now, at least) but simple changes like being able to put your gauges at the bottom of the screen and the minimap up the top make it a lot easier to see where you're going.

More subtle changes only become apparent if you've played both games. The pace of levelling has been considerably increased, but in exchange the "Goddess Statues" at which you can "spend" levels to get numerous benefits are considerably more expensive to use, and no longer provide the same possible bonuses every time. Skill merchants offer the ability to learn new abilities in exchange for stat levels, Iron Hags will make a random item for you (including "air", which just means you're out of pocket), benevolent Force practitioners will teach you defensive, utility or restorative spells… the list goes on.

And the game is still absolutely packed with charm and a surprising amount of depth. Most notably — and this was true of the original, too — is the fact that, despite initial appearances, the game does have a plot. Or, more accurately, a number of different intertwining narrative threads that only become apparent if you come into contact with the recruitable NPCs, figure out a way to stop the Demon Lord trying to set fire to you long enough to have a chat or try some of the daily "special campaigns" that add small but significant tweaks to the basic formula. A particular favourite that I had the other day was a world where every normal attack had a massive knockback effect on it, so you had to take care not to fight with your back to the encroaching Darkness lest you get slammed into it by your foe landing a blow. It shook up the way I played a great deal; unfortunately I didn't quite get far enough to take full advantage of it by whacking the final boss of the Force Knight unlock quest into the Darkness — the main means through which you deal damage to this rather unpleasant adversary — but it was an enjoyable journey nonetheless.

I'm well and truly hooked then. And if you're yet to discover the fun for yourself, I recommend giving it a look now. It's just $6.99 and it will keep you busy for a very long time. You can grab it from publisher Playism, or soon from Steam, too. (If you buy it now at Playism, you'll get a Steam key when that version releases.)

1923: Target: Bahamut

After successfully clearing The Second Coil of Bahamut in Final Fantasy XIV a while back, our raid group is now on to the Final Coil of Bahamut — the last four encounters in this particular part of the story, and, like its predecessors, some of the toughest fights in the game.

Since we're approaching the release of expansion pack Heavensward, which will feature an all-new raid set inside giant fortress/robot thing Alexander, The Final Coil of Bahamut has been "nerfed" slightly in order to allow a few more people to make it through. Specifically, the "Echo" bonus that was gradually introduced in previous Turns has been brought in, giving anyone who enters an immediate 10% boost to their maximum HP, damage dealt and healing.

This doesn't make the encounters easy, by any means — although we've all cleared Turn 10 (aka The Final Coil of Bahamut, Turn 1) several times, today we had real difficulty with it for some reason. So after a while we gave up and took a look at Turn 11, which none of us had seen at all before.

For the unfamiliar, the Binding Coil of Bahamut storyline in Final Fantasy XIV is effectively a direct follow-up to how version 1.0 of the game ended — with "The Calamity", which saw artificial moon Dalamud called down from the sky, only to burst open and reveal a very angry dragon god called Bahamut, who promptly proceeded to blow seven shades of shit out of Eorzea. Archon Louisoix — grandfather of Alphinaud and Alisae, the former of whom is a main character in A Realm Reborn's main storyline and the latter of whom serves as the "protagonist" of sorts for the Binding Coil of Bahamut narrative — did something appropriately spectacular when all hope looked lost, leaving a number of adventurers temporarily trapped in limbo until they woke up five years later in an Eorzea that was in the process of being rebuilt. What happened to Bahamut? That's the question that the Binding Coil of Bahamut sets out to answer, and you gradually discover bits and pieces about what really happened as you progress through it.

That's not all, though. Although Final Fantasy XIV's setting of Eorzea is very much "swords and magic" fantasy, with a hint of magical technology lifted pretty much directly from Final Fantasy VI, there's also a hint of sci-fi in there. Like any good sprawling role-playing game worth its salt, Final Fantasy XIV has an ancient race of long-dead weirdos who left mysterious, technologically advanced relics all over the world. The background of said weirdos — known as the Allagans — runs as an interesting undercurrent to everything else that is going on, and is specifically explored through both the Crystal Tower and Binding Coil of Bahamut story arcs, with it being necessary to complete both to get the full picture — or at least, everything that has been revealed about them so far.

The Binding Coil of Bahamut is where some of the most interesting, exciting and surprising developments in this aspect of the game's overall lore come, and it's also home to some of the most spectacular visual settings in the whole game. By jumping head-first into the sci-fi angle, the Binding Coil of Bahamut is free to let loose with some enormously creative, absolutely massive environments that are quite unlike anything seen anywhere else in the game. Turn 11 in particular, which we saw for the first time tonight, is quite astonishing to behold, unfolding in and around an enormous scale model of the artificial moon Dalamud, and I understand that 12 and 13 are even more spectacular. I'm looking forward to it.

The thing I'm looking forward to most about this, though, is the fact that it represents the "true final boss" of the game as a whole as it exists today. And, while I haven't spoiled myself on the encounters in Turn 12 and 13 as yet — though I can pretty much figure out who/what you'll be fighting there — I have had a listen to the music. And it's going to be quite the experience battling with this — the music from Turn 12 — in the background, I feel.

We have a big hydra… thing to flatten first, though, and we're taking another pop at it tomorrow. Wish us luck!

1922: Please Proceed to the Right, Again: One Way Heroics Plus

I'm planning on doing another video on this, but since I've been playing it a bunch today I thought I'd talk a little about One Way Heroics Plus.

As the name suggests, this is an enhanced and expanded version of the Japanese roguelike One Way Heroics, which I talked about a few days ago. It's positioned as an "expansion" but it's actually a new standalone game based on the skeleton of the original. Mercifully, however, you can import your saved data from the original game — though the conversion process means that you can't send it back to the original game once you've done this, but why on Earth would you want to?

One Way Heroics Plus follows the same fomula as its predecessor in that it involves you, the Hero, attempting to save the world from the ever-encroaching darkness, represented by the screen that scrolls every turn, regardless of whether you're actually moving "forwards" or not. Get pushed off the left side of the screen and you lose. Die and you lose. Beat the Demon Lord, who shows up after 400km of travelling on the easiest difficulty and at regular intervals on the other levels, and you win. There are also some other means of winning, but I won't spoil those for you now.

So what's new? Well, a few things. Firstly, the interface has had an overhaul. The original game didn't have a bad interface — although it was rather cluttered thanks to the game running in 640×480 — but doing things like repetitive actions was a little cumbersome. The addition of a customisable hotbar alleviates this issue by allowing you to set a series of items and abilities ready for quick access at any time. Other little tweaks have been done here and there, too; items now glow, tough enemies pulse red, there's a clear indicator when an enemy spots you, there's an XP bar that appears when you can XP, there's an auto-move function (with a customisable filter for whether or not it should automatically stop when enemies are nearby) and generally, the whole thing is just a bit slicker.

There are some new character classes and Perks, too, including some "negative" perks (or disadvantages, I guess they are, really) for those who want to make things a bit more challenging. There's also supposedly an expanded metagame involving collecting "Dimensional Coins" throughout your travels and using them to upgrade a castle, but I haven't explored this aspect of the game at all yet. Supposedly this unlocks new characters, quests and mechanics — I'm quite interested to see what it offers, as this is, from the sound of things, the most major addition to the game.

It's the same game at its core, though, and that's no bad thing, as the original was really solid. What One Way Heroics Plus does, however, is take that solid foundation and build an even more interesting, challenging and replayable game out of it; I'm very much looking forward to exploring it a bit more in the coming weeks — and at some point in the next few days, I'll post a video showing some of the new features in a bit more detail, too.

For now, though, I have to mourn my journey from earlier today, where I successfully travelled for over 850km and reached experience level 76 before making the ill-considered decision to swim across the ocean to a small island and rescue a little girl; sadly, my swimming skill was too low to allow me to outrun the creeping Darkness, and I, along with the little girl and Queen Frieda, who had been accompanying me for some distance (and gradually revealing her surprising backstory in the process), were swallowed up by oblivion, never to be seen again… at least until I hit the "New Game" button again.

1921: Keeper of the Records

I'm not sure what's inspired me to check out a few popular mobile games recently, but hot on the heels of Brave Frontier, which I talked a bit about the other day, I decided to take a peek at Square Enix's newest attempt to make a free-to-play mobile Final Fantasy game after the absolutely atrocious Final Fantasy: All the Bravest.

Final Fantasy Record Keeper was initially a little offputting by its association with DeNA; my past experience with this company is that they churn out identikit free-to-play games — mostly of the "gacha" variety, where you randomly draw various things each day in the hope of collecting a complete set, and can pay more to get more draws — that tend to be devoid of gameplay, polish and indeed any reason to play them whatsoever.

I was pleasantly surprised, then, to discover that Final Fantasy Record Keeper is actually a solid, interesting game in its own right. It's not a narrative-heavy Final Fantasy game, mind, but it's pretty up-front about this. What it instead provides is the "gacha"-style collecting mechanics that DeNA have so much experience with combined with some actual gameplay, with mechanics and everything.

The basic formula is pretty simple. Over the course of the game, you assemble a team of characters from past Final Fantasy games, reimagined in 16-bit era pixel art in the case of the more recent installments (VII onwards). You equip this team with "relics" (equipment) and abilities, then take them into a dungeon to work your way through a series of battles and eventually defeat a boss. There's no exploration involved; a dungeon is simply a string of predefined enemy encounters, with each costing a particular amount of "stamina" to participate in, meaning that your play sessions are throttled after a particular amount of time and until either your stamina recharges or you pay up to immediately refill it.

This is pretty much business as usual for gacha-style games, but Record Keeper actually fleshes out the battles with something akin to Final Fantasy's traditional "Active Time Battle" system, whereby battles are both turn-based and real-time at the same time: characters' "time bars" gradually fill, and when they're full, they can take an action. (In a twist on the original formula, somewhat reminiscent of Final Fantasy XIII, they then have to charge the bar again before the action is actually performed.) While this is happening, enemies are making use of their abilities in the same way.

The battles are fairly straightforward, though the ability to exploit elemental weaknesses and challenge special objectives during boss fights makes things a bit more interesting than just tapping the "attack" button over and over again. Where things get interesting is in the customisation aspect, which is always the strongest part of any gacha-style game.

In Record Keeper, the things you "draw" each day (or exchange the game's premium currency for) are the relics, not the characters. These items of equipment have set bonuses to various stats, and certain characters can only equip certain types of equipment. You can level up equipment by sacrificing unneeded items or specific upgrade materials, and when a piece of equipment reaches its level cap, you can combine it with another instance of the same item to buff it up to the next rarity level and then begin the levelling process all over again with a higher cap. Certain pieces of equipment also have special abilities attached to them, all of which are unique to particular characters and based on their iconic moves from their respective games.

Alongside this, the abilities your characters can use have to be crafted using orbs you find in battle. Each character can initially equip just two abilities, and initial abilities only have two uses, meaning you have to carefully think about whether you really need to use that ability when you're in a dungeon, as they don't recharge until you leave, are defeated or are victorious. Abilities can subsequently be upgraded using additional orbs, however, which makes them more effective and gives you more uses of them; they can also be swapped around between characters, too, so if you make changes to your lineup the newcomers don't have to start with crap skills.

Alongside all of the above, you then have the makeup of your party to consider. Characters get large bonuses to their stats and experience points earned if they are from the game the dungeon you're currently playing through is from — for example, Cloud is much more effective in Final Fantasy VII-themed dungeons, while Kain is much more effective in Final Fantasy IV-themed dungeons — but have certain restrictions on what abilities and equipment they can use. Level up an ability too much and you might find a favourite character is no longer able to use it, so you have to be a little bit careful and plan ahead.

Like Brave Frontier, I'm not sure how long I'm going to stick with the game, particularly as it appears to be devoid of any sort of social features and thus the incentive to compete against — or cooperate with — other people. For the moment, though, it's an interesting "collection"-style, battle-centric RPG featuring characters and settings from a series I'm very fond of — though I'm a bit disappointed that, as usual, Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV are ignored thanks to their "online game" status as opposed to the series' more traditional single-player installments.

You can find out more about the game and get links to download it — it's available for both iOS and Android devices — on its official website.

1920: Old-School Shooting

In the same bundle I grabbed primarily for Crimzon Clover World Ignition the other day, I also received a copy of Raiden III. I haven't played a Raiden game since the original PS1 era, when the bundle of Raiden and Raiden II that came on a single disc (Raiden Project, I think it was called?) was one of my favourite games, despite it not exactly showing off the then-new hardware to its maximum potential.

Raiden III has been an interesting blast from the past, no pun intended. Although I very much enjoy danmaku (bullet hell) shooters, Raiden III is a pleasant reminder that you don't need to completely fill the screen with bullets to be challenging, and nor do you need an overly convoluted scoring system to be interesting. Raiden III is simple and straightforward, but actually has a surprising amount of depth and strategy to it, particularly with regard to the various weapon pickups available to you.

I was pleased to see that the bendy laser I always used to find so hilarious in the earlier Raiden games is back, though this time around it's green rather than purple. I was also pleased to see that the red weapon is still capable of filling the screen with as many bullets as a danmaku shooter's default player sprite configuration. And I was delighted that the game is accompanied by an appropriately cheesy yet pulse-pounding soundtrack that complements the on-screen action perfectly.

What I was most surprised about, however, is how good it actually looks despite running at 640×480 resolution (and vertically letterboxed, to boot, thanks to most shoot 'em ups' vertical screen orientation) and having precisely no graphical options to speak of whatsoever.

Raiden III, for the unfamiliar, eschews the sprite-based ships and 2D backgrounds of its predecessors in favour of full-on polygonal 3D. The backgrounds are 3D, too, which gives them the flexibility to pitch, roll, swoop and change altitude in a far more dynamic manner than the old-school 2D backdrops, making the game quite a thrill ride. (Recent shmups from Edelweiss such as the fantastic Astebreed and Ether Vapor Remaster have continued this proud tradition in glorious 1080p.)

The most surprising thing about the visuals is how much it still looks like a Raiden game. The distinctive appearance of the player ship, its weapons and even the enemies is kept completely intact despite the move to polygonal 3D, and I think this is a large contributing factor to the game still managing to genuinely look good on a 55-inch widescreen TV at vertically letterboxed 640×480. It runs as smooth as butter, too — although I'd hope so on my rig — and has proven to be a lot more addictive than I originally anticipated when I first booted it up the other day to kill a few minutes.

Raiden III, then, provided me with proof positive that resolution really doesn't matter to me, even as the new generation of consoles has players becoming increasingly sniffy about games that don't run in "true 1080p". If your overall design is up to snuff, you could be running at 320×200 and still look great, and Raiden III, like many other ageing games, is very much testament to that.

1919: #WaifuWednesday - Shin (Criminal Girls)

The temptation to pick another Senran Kagura girl this week was very high indeed — I've just finished the main story of Shinovi Versus and there are, after all, 25 very interesting female characters in that game. But since I'm planning on doing a more comprehensive Senran Kagura writeup over at MoeGamer later this week when I've finished all the side stories in Shinovi Versus, I thought I'd mix things up a bit and show a bit of appreciation for the girl who currently graces my Windows wallpaper on my living room PC: Shin, from Criminal Girls on Vita, which I beat a few weeks back.

Spoilers ahead.

2015-03-22-001444 Shin, real name Makoto, is based primarily around the commonly used anime trope of the hikikomori, or shut-in. A renowned, well-known and somewhat notorious MMO player who was viciously bullied in real life for her interests and passions, Shin had, over time, retreated from society to live in her own private world where she felt safe. She'd done this to the exclusion of everyone around her — going so far as to lock herself inside her room and only eat whatever food had been left outside for her.

When you encounter Shin for the first time in Criminal Girls, none of this is apparent. She simply seems like an overconfident "leader type", wanting to boss everyone around and, as the oldest member of the group, believing that her opinion carries a considerable degree of weight. Her "leader type" personality is even reflected in her game mechanics; by herself, she's not very formidable, but most of her power comes from her "Operation" skills, which partner with at least one other party member to effectively deliver multiple special attacks in the space of a single turn.

Over time, her facade slips, however; she continually makes poor decisions that put the group in danger, and throwaway comments she makes gradually reveal her otaku side. It eventually becomes very apparent that she's trying desperately to be someone that she isn't, and that by hiding herself away she's hurting the people around her.

The main thrust of Criminal Girls' story surrounds the player's attempts to "redeem" the titular girls from their past sins, to prevent them being incarcerated in Hell and giving them another chance at life. Shin's sin, then, is that of neglecting others; she personifies the Deadly Sin of Envy. She envies those who have a normal life and is embittered by her drop-out, shut-in existence; the arrogant persona she initially displays is both a reflection of the character she played online and of who she thinks she "ought" to be — a persona she believes to be more likeable.

As the girls and the player character come to trust one another more, though, Shin starts to open up. She's more honest and less confrontational, though she still bickers with the rather spoiled Kisaragi; the two are more similar than either of them would care to admit. Most importantly, she learns through others accepting her that it is also possible to accept herself without being ashamed; there's no need for her to cut herself off from her problems and hide away. In doing so, in fact, she had simply made matters worse; the longer she was alone, the more she believed she needed to be alone, and so her resentment and envy towards "normal" people grew.

2015-03-22-001406

Those of you who know me well will surely not be surprised to hear that I found Shin to be one of the most relatable characters in Criminal Girls. While I haven't gone to the lengths she has — I'm fortunate enough to have a good circle of friends (both online and off) and a wonderful fiancee who tolerate, understand and accept the things I'm interested in — I can very much empathise with her feelings of isolation, the suffering she endured while she was being bullied and her envy for people who seem to be able to go about their business "normally". I've been through some of the things Shin has been through — though fortunately in my case it didn't involve a literal trip to Hell and back — and as such she occupies a special place in my heart.

A toast to you, then, Shin; you were one of numerous reasons I'm glad I made that journey through Hell.