1980: A Right Way and A Wrong Way

I know I said I wouldn’t write about Heavensward again today and I’m not going to focus on it too much, but it will enter into the discussion a little, for reasons that will shortly become apparent.

The separately-sold “expansion pack” as it existed in the ’90s and early ’00s is something of a rarity these days, typically confined to the MMORPG subgenre, while other types of games tend to leverage the high-speed Internet connections most people have these days by offering lots of smaller bits of piecemeal downloadable content.

In some ways, this works well; the “a la carte” approach of piecemeal DLC means that you can pick and choose the things you want to bolt onto your game for a lower price without potentially being stuck with some things you don’t want. On the flip side, however, in my experience, a lot of DLC — though not all — is significantly less substantial in terms of content and value for money than your average expansion pack. There are exceptions, of course — Oblivion’s Shivering Isles DLC springs to mind, as does Burnout Paradise’s additional island whose name escapes me right now — but those are actually both getting back into “expansion pack” territory again, and thus are outliers to a certain degree.

Bungie’s MMO shooter and “thing that isn’t Halo” Destiny had its new expansion announced recently, and it’s kicked up a bit of a fuss, specifically over its pricing. The base game of Destiny has plummeted in price since its original launch, meaning that the new expansion — which costs the same as a full game at £40/$60ish — will, in most cases, be more expensive than the main game. But that’s not what’s got people riled up: the problem is that there’s a super-expensive “Collector’s Edition” coming that features some exclusive content that can only be acquired through this special edition.

Nothing unusual, you might think, until you hear that the Collector’s Edition is only available as a bundle deal including Destiny, its expansion and the pieces of DLC that have been released to date. This means that fans of Destiny who want to get their hands on the exclusive content pretty much have to buy the game and DLC again just to play the expansion. And the alternative means of buying the game for new players — a bundle including Destiny and its expansion for around the £55 mark — effectively means that new players are getting the expansion for considerably less than veterans.

I can’t say I care a whole lot personally because Destiny simply isn’t my type of game, but what surprised and dismayed me a bit about the whole situation was this interview on Eurogamer with creative director Luke Smith — a guy I don’t know that well myself, but who used to work with my brother and was, as I recall, part of the 1up crew. Smith was, to my recollection, always rather outspoken about things, particularly when it came to companies doing shitty things, so it was a tad disappointing to read his responses to Eurogamer coming out as little more than PR-fed “we can’t talk about this” nonsense. And if it was PR-fed, the PR company wants sacking, because Smith’s responses did nothing to alleviate the concerns of players who are upset over all this, and more than likely infuriated them further.

The reason I brought up Heavensward at the beginning is because it’s actually in a similar position to Destiny’s expansion. Final Fantasy XIV itself can be picked up for a pretty low price these days, but Heavensward is not-quite-full-price-but-nearly. The difference, however, is that both existing and prospective players have plenty of choices of how they pick it up. They can buy A Realm Reborn and Heavensward separately. They can buy a bundle including both A Realm Reborn and Heavensward. They can buy Heavensward by itself, in standard and special editions. And they can buy most of these options in both physical and digital formats.

As such, even though Heavensward might seem expensive for an expansion pack — though it’s worth noting that in terms of content, it’s seriously rivalling A Realm Reborn’s base game, at least in terms of story length, sidequests and open-world areas — the player base has had absolutely no objections to how it’s been positioned and sold. In fact, I’ve seen more new players in the game in the last week or so than I have for a very long time — and those new players won’t even be able to touch any of the Heavensward content until they complete A Realm Reborn and its five subsequent content patches.

But they don’t mind, because they’ve been given options, and those options have been made clear. Where Bungie is falling down with Destiny — and where they’re going to lose a lot of previously loyal players if they’re not careful — is this communication side of things. Smith’s responses suggested that Bungie was either unwilling or unable to listen to player concerns on these matters; it may well be a matter of the company’s hands being tied by publisher Activision, but still. That’s not how you build loyalty. That’s how you destroy loyalty.

P.S. Heavensward is amazing. (Sorry.)

1979: One More Post Where I Gush About Heavensward, Then I’ll Find Something Different To Talk About Tomorrow (Probably)

Level 56 now, and I’m starting to really get a feel for the new skills that have been added to Paladin.

Paladin often drew some criticism — or, rather, accusations of being “boring” — for the fact that it was a relatively straightforward class to play, with only two real combos of abilities to use in different circumstances compared to a much wider array of things to do if you’re playing a Warrior. Its main perk over its raging counterpart, however, was its survivability; Warriors have a ton more HP than Paladins, but they also take more damage, while Paladins have fewer HP but a lot more in the way of defensive abilities to mitigate or even nullify damage.

Still, though, I understand the criticisms; once you unlocked all the abilities to form your basic combos, it very much became a case of pressing ability 1, 2, 3 and occasionally stepping out of enemy ability telegraphs. Post-50, though, things get a lot more interesting.

The oddly-named Sheltron, for example, is an ability whose usefulness doesn’t become immediately apparent. What it does is guarantee that you will block the next physical attack you take. Blocking an attack is usually determined by random chance, influenced by the stats on the shield you’re wielding alongside your sword. Sheltron guarantees a block, and while blocking doesn’t nullify damage altogether, it does reduce the damage by a significant amount. It also has the handy side-effect of restoring some of your magic points when the block goes off, meaning that the Riot Blade combo is no longer the only way to regenerate MP.

Blocking also allows you to counterattack with a move called Shield Swipe, which is actually one of the Paladin’s more potent offensive moves, and also inflicts a status that prevents the enemy from using abilities of the “weaponskill” type. It’s not quite as good as a Stun or Silence, but it can be helpful and give a moment’s grace. The damage is very nice, though — particularly as it’s been buffed since its original incarnation — and it also now generates aggro, meaning you’re not losing out by weaving in a Shield Swipe when it’s up.

The other ability I’ve had the opportunity to play with now is Goring Blade, which follows on from the Riot Blade combo, previously used just for regenerating magic points to allow you to keep casting Flash, your main means of controlling larger groups of enemies at once. Goring Blade, meanwhile, has a solid initial hit followed by a damage-over-time effect. Paladins don’t do a lot of damage generally — it’s not their role, after all — but adding the ticks of damage to what you’re doing anyway — particularly if combined with other DoT effects like Circle of Scorn and Fracture — you can actually put out some fairly respectable numbers. Plus Goring Blade has like the coolest visual effect of all Paladin’s moves that I’ve unlocked so far.

I just reached level 56 this evening, which is a level at which I unlock another new ability. I’m not sure what it is yet, but I’m very much looking forward to finding out and experimenting with it — one of the most exciting things about the new expansion is the fact that everyone is getting these new abilities at the same time, so there isn’t yet an established “right way” to do things. As such, experimentation is key, and it’s really rewarding to work out an efficient use of abilities for yourself.

But anyway. That’s three days in a row I’ve talked about Heavensward. (It’s really, really, really good.) I promise I will attempt to talk about something else tomorrow. Probably. Maybe.

1978: Some More Heavensward Thoughts

Spent some more time playing Heavensward today and am having an absolute blast with it.

It’s been an odd adjustment to move from the rather freeform, “pursue your own goals” gameplay of a level cap character back into the routine of doing quests, exploring and all manner of other things. But I’m enjoying it a lot, particularly as so far Heavensward is proving itself to have a wide variety of things to do and ways to earn those all-important experience points.

The main story quests have been very good so far. They always were mostly quite interesting (though in the post-50 ones there was quite a lot of lugging boxes around and other menial tasks in between the more dramatic moments — not exactly the Warrior of Light’s finest hour) but Heavensward has raised the bar somewhat.

One way in which it’s done this is through the use of instanced quest battles — scripted encounters that take you out of the main multiplayer world and put you in your own private little area to complete objectives. In A Realm Reborn, these were usually fairly small scale but fun; in Heavensward they’re much more ambitious affairs with their own unique mechanics. One particular highlight relatively early on sees you running through one of the earlier dungeons by yourself in the attempt to rescue a prisoner — while you do so, their captors start filling the place with poison gas, so you have to deal with that as well as finding a way to release them.

The main story itself is interesting and feels more focused than A Realm Reborn, too. Taking a somewhat darker overall tone, the plot thus far has seen the Warrior of Light (you!), one of your erstwhile companions and two other characters who each played roles in A Realm Reborn exploring the lands beyond Ishgard in an attempt to stop a war between the Dravanian dragons and Ishgard that will doubtless end with much death and destruction on both sides.

A Realm Reborn set up dragons mostly as fearsome, dehumanised foes to be treated with respect but defeated nonetheless. They played a relatively minor role in the overarching storyline until the latter hours and the Binding Coil of Bahamut storyline, but they were there nonetheless — and as you progressed, particularly through the Bahamut narrative, it became very apparent that they weren’t quite the simple foes you might have expected them to be based on their appearances in other fantasy media.

Heavensward runs with this theme, with both the main story and sidequests going some distance to help us understand the dragons a little better. One questline in particular sees you helping out an Ishgardian who is essentially a “racist” of sorts against dragons — he refuses to believe they are anything more than monsters, but as you complete his quests, both you and he come to see that the dragons apparently have feelings and society just like the humanoids of the world.

The sidequests are kind of interesting in that they further your understanding of the game world much like in A Realm Reborn, but unlike the base game, the darker tone seeps in quite often, with many quests ending in less than perfect circumstances. In some regards it feels like some cues have been taken from Nier — also published by Square Enix — by demonstrating that sometimes, even with your best intentions and god-felling skills and abilities, you simply can’t bring about a happy ending for everyone. It’s sobering, but very much in keeping with the overall tone.

Then you have boss fights in which you and seven friends take on a giant insect god with a penchant for swinging four gigantic swords around at once, and you remember that this is still very much a Final Fantasy game at heart — and oh, do I love it for it.

1977: To The Heavens

Well, it’s finally here: Final Fantasy XIV opened the doors to its first full expansion Heavensward today — for those who preordered it, anyway — and I’ve spent literally all day playing it.

It’s good.

The story follows on directly from the end of the 2.55 story arc, which I won’t spoil here for those who haven’t seen it in all its ridiculous and tragic glory. Suffice to say, however, that it provides good reason for the Warrior of Light (that’s you!) and occasional companion Alphinaud to head in the direction of Ishgard, a region which had previously been closed off to outsiders, but which became a little more open-minded after seeing how you (and seven friends) fended off an absolutely massive dragon towards the end of A Realm Reborn.

The city of Ishgard itself is beautifully rendered, being somewhat similar in design to a cross between Final Fantasy XI’s cities of San d’Oria and Jeuno. It has its own very distinctive character that is separate to the three previous city-states we had the opportunity to visit in A Realm Reborn — the verdant, nature-filled environs of Gridania; the tall towers and tall ships of Limsa Lominsa; and the juxtaposition between extreme affluence and extreme poverty of Ul’Dah — with an austere, almost unwelcoming facade and some beautiful architecture. The kind of place where you’d be slightly afraid to touch anything, lest you befouled or defaced it in some way or another.

Outside the city, things get interesting. Early on, the main scenario quest sends you off in two separate directions: in one direction lies the Coerthas Western Highlands — a snowy, mountainous region similar to the existing Central Highlands region, but with more in the way of sheer cliff faces and inconvenient but impressive-looking lumps of rock all over the place — while in the other lies the Sea of Clouds, a floating archipelago of islands in the sky where skies are often clear and blue by simple virtue of the fact that the islands are above the clouds, but whose altitude drops the temperature to less-than-inviting levels. There’s a huge contrast between these initial two areas; Coerthas is drab, monochromatic and somewhat grounded in reality for the most part (huge dead dragon corpse aside), while the Sea of Clouds is dramatically colourful, the stuff of pure fantasy. I haven’t proceeded further afield just yet, but the main story is shortly to have me heading for Dravania, home of the dragons, so I’m interested to see how that compares.

One really striking thing about Heavensward is its sense of scale. A Realm Reborn was no stranger to sprawling environments that were impressive to behold, but Heavensward takes it to a new level. Ishgard is gigantic and imposing in the same way an old cathedral is; meanwhile, the field maps are huge in terms of both surface area and variation in altitude — the latter aspect of which is, in part, designed to accommodate the new flying mounts you can ride around after completing the surprisingly enjoyable task of hunting down a number of hidden “aether currents” scattered around the region.

Another striking thing about Heavensward is nothing to do with its architecture, however: a good 80-90% of the original voice cast appears to have been replaced, meaning some characters sound quite different to how they sounded in A Realm Reborn, with several even having picked up regional accents (primarily Yorkshire so far) in the intervening period. It’s initially somewhat jarring, but overall the quality of the voice acting is much better than A Realm Reborn. This isn’t particularly difficult, however, because although A Realm Reborn had an excellent localisation (albeit one that diverged quite a bit from the original Japanese script and took on something of a life of its own) its voice acting was passable at best and woefully awful at worst. At least in English it was, anyway; the Japanese voice acting makes use of well-known voice talent like Rie Tanaka (Hyperdimension Neptunia) and Eri Kitamura (Senran Kagura) and as such has always been pretty good, but it’s clear that the English dub was perhaps, to put it politely, done a little bit on the cheap side.

It’s not entirely surprising, mind you; A Realm Reborn was a huge risk for Square Enix given Final Fantasy XIV version 1.0’s critical and commercial failure. As such, the decision to perhaps skimp a bit on the voice acting budget — many scenes in A Realm Reborn and indeed Heavensward also are unvoiced — was understandable. However, since A Realm Reborn achieved the seemingly impossible and rescued an all-but-dead MMO from oblivion, turning it into one of the company’s greatest success stories in the process, it’s gratifying to see that a bit more effort has been put into aspects of the presentation such as voice acting — even if the change in some characters’ voices is a little surprising the first time you hear it.

I’m yet to try out a huge amount of the new gameplay features — I’m concentrating on levelling my main class Paladin to 60 before levelling anything further — but the new skills for existing classes look interesting, and the altogether new classes seem to be really cool, though it looks as if “lolDRK” is going to become the new “lolDRG”. (Context for those unfamiliar: for the longest time, Dragoons (DRG) were notorious for dying a lot, due in part to their low magic resistance but also due to awkward animation locks on certain skills making it difficult to move out of the way of attacks; hence, “lolDRG” as the response to a Dragoon’s inevitable death; Dark Knights (DRK), however, appear to be ready to take up the mantle for themselves, from what I’ve heard so far.)

Oh, and the music is amazing. And the story is interesting. And I’ve fallen in love with this stupid game all over again. There goes the next few years of my life…

1975: Bahamut Down

In the early hours of this morning, Wuckle and I achieved something I hoped we’d achieve before Friday: we defeated Bahamut Prime in The Burning Heart, bringing our expeditions into the Final Coil of Bahamut to a close — for now, at least; we have some members of our static raid group who are still yet to clear these fights, so we’ll be helping them through at some point soon.

As the “true final boss” of the game, I was hoping that the Bahamut Prime fight would be pretty spectacular, and sure enough I wasn’t disappointed. Here’s a video (from my character’s perspective as a Black Mage) of our clear:

The fight is not only a suitably challenging battle to bring the main endgame raid of “vanilla” Final Fantasy XIV to a close, it’s also a fitting conclusion for a Final Fantasy game. Japanese role-playing games are often known for getting a little… peculiar in their final confrontations, with final bosses often being fought in space, in clouds of darkness, in strange swirling miasmas or inside the cores of planets. In the case of Final Fantasy XIV, your battle against Bahamut Prime takes place within Bahamut’s own heart — Bahamut Prime, it seems, is not literally Bahamut himself (since he is both absolutely massive and in the process of being regenerated by the various Coils) but rather a manifestation of his will and rage.

This doesn’t stop him being a formidable opponent, mind you. The fight combines mechanics from a number of earlier battles to create a confrontation where you have to use everything you’ve learned about handling mechanics to be successful. There’s heavy amounts of damage. There’s people taking responsibility for ensuring the group isn’t wiped out by carelessness or inattention. There’s puddles of nasty shit on the floor that you have to drop carefully. And, of course, there are Divebombs, Final Fantasy XIV’s most notorious enemy ability, first introduced in the Turn 5 fight against Twintania, later seen in a somewhat different format in the Turn 9 fight against Nael deus Darnus and finally seen from not one but two independent sources in the Bahamut Prime battle.

Divebombs are notorious because in the case of Turn 5 in particular, they were the “roadblock” that stopped a lot of groups from progressing further, simply because they’re tricky to handle properly and can have devastating consequences for the whole group if handled incorrectly. Their inclusion in each of the three “final” battles in the three separate parts of Coil shows the battle designers’ awareness that they are a challenge — albeit a surmountable one — and a desire to test players’ abilities to the maximum, often without the helpful visual telegraphs that many of the other enemy attacks in the game have.

But anyway. You didn’t come for a deconstruction of the mechanics of Final Fantasy XIV’s raids. (Probably.) You came to hear me enthuse about beating a spectacular final boss fight — and, if you’ve watched the video, you’ll see that it most certainly is.

As I’ve written about a few times previously on these pages, I’m a big fan of well-done final confrontations, and a big part of an effective one in my book is good use of music. Turn 5 and Turn 9 (the previous “final bosses” of the game prior to the introduction of Final Coil) both had great music that was unique to the fight (or “almost unique” in the case of Turn 5 — it’s also used for the final boss of the main 2.0 storyline as well as a later confrontation); Turn 13, meanwhile, makes stunningly effective use of the game’s main theme song “Answers”.

“Answers” is one of the first things you hear in A Realm Reborn, since it accompanies the dramatic introduction sequence that depicts the end of the 1.0 world through the Calamity — an event that those who played the original incarnation of Final Fantasy XIV actually lived through.

The Calamity saw the descent of the artificial moon Dalamud as a result of the machinations of Nael van Darnus, an overly ambitious Imperial legatus and the main antagonist of the 1.0 storyline. As the moon approached Eorzea, however, an unexpected thing happened: it burst open to reveal a very angry Bahamut, who proceeded to lay waste to the realm in his somewhat understandable rage — after all, you’d be pissed off if you’d been locked inside a moon since ancient times, wouldn’t you?

All looks lost for Eorzea, but the intervention of Archon Louisoix, a major character in the 1.0 storyline and quests, sees something mysterious happen that no-one quite understands or remembers. Everyone wakes up five years later in a realm that is somewhat different to what it once was, but still very much intact. This is how A Realm Reborn kicks off, but the main storyline then goes off in its own direction and the truth of what really happened in the Calamity doesn’t start to be revealed when (if) you venture into the Binding Coil of Bahamut.

Through your explorations of the three Coils, you discover not only the truth behind the Calamity, but also what happened to a number of important characters who had apparently disappeared or died — most notably, Louisoix himself and Nael. Needless to say, everything comes back to Bahamut in the end — but during your investigations you also discover exactly what it was that led to Bahamut’s imprisonment inside the artificial moon, and why he’s so full of rage and resentment towards humanity.

Since “Answers” is a song so closely tied to this storyline, it’s fitting that it should be the accompaniment for its final conclusion. And it’s used beautifully throughout the fight, too, beginning with the mournful baritone lyrics speaking of suffering and pain, moving through the gentler, sweeter female lyrics that speak of “the land’s light of justice” and walking free before eventually culminating in the gloriously thick-sounding choral finale. The music isn’t just played straight through, though; the simple, sparse baritone singing is used in the fight’s first phase, the female lyrics come in in the second phase as you start having to deal with Bahamut’s minions as well as the dragon god himself, and the explosion of passion that is the finale comes as Bahamut Prime begins casting his ultimate attack Teraflare: a devastating blast of flaming energy that, assuming you survive, signals the beginning of the end.

Final Fantasy XIV uses music spectacularly well throughout to help with its storytelling. Each of the story’s main confrontations are accompanied by their own unique theme tunes, many of which have relevant lyrics. The presentation of the game’s absolutely, positively, definitely final battle (until Heavensward, obviously) is no exception to this, and I’m very excited to hear what Soken and his team come up with to accompany our new adventures.

It’s now 1am, though, and since I’ve had like three hours sleep, I think it’s probably time I caught up a bit.

1970: Phoenix Down

We cleared The Final Coil of Bahamut, Turn 3 (aka Turn 12) in Final Fantasy XIV this evening. That means there’s only one more boss left to go until I’ve officially cleared everything in the game at least once. Said boss is a biggie, however; I’d expect nothing less, both for the “true final boss” of the game and for the “true final boss” of a Final Fantasy game.

Turn 12 is an enjoyable fight, though. It took a bit of practice to get it right, but we eventually got there without too much difficulty and frustration. It’s interesting in that it’s quite unforgiving of any mistakes you might make, but also relatively straightforward and easy once everyone knows what they’re doing. There’s a lot less in the way of randomness than some of the other encounters (particularly in Coil) so there’s a lot less in the way of unexpected things for the party to deal with — any unfortunate happenings can usually be traced directly back to someone doing something wrong somewhere.

Interestingly, a guildmate pointed out that the fight is very unforgiving because unforgiveness is an important narrative theme of the confrontation itself. I won’t spoil the story context of it for those who are yet to clear and hoping to remain unspoiled — it’s a significant narrative moment in the grand scheme of Final Fantasy XIV’s overarching storyline, particularly the spectacular cutscene that follows your victory — but I found it really cool that the mechanics of the game mirrored the narrative themes so nicely. It’s a subtle thing, but as someone who is very much interested in the different ways interactive entertainment can tell stories, I liked it very much.

I’ve been a little burnt out on the game recently, as prior to the imminent expansion Heavensward it’s been going through its longest drought of new content since it launched, and it’s been hard to motivate myself to keep running the same things over and over again, particularly as in some cases the things I “need” to run for various quests are things that have been in the game since launch, and as such I can probably do them in my sleep. (The Aurum Vale is a bit of an exception; I kind of like that there’s a dungeon that can still kick the arse of an unprepared or complacent party, even if it can be frustrating to plough through sometimes.)

There’s also the fact that with Heavensward comes a level cap increase, too, and as such a lot of the shiny, top-end gear that everyone’s been stocking up on will probably be irrelevant in a matter of weeks following the expansion’s release — though not much has been revealed about new gear as yet, so it will be interesting to see how they deal with the discrepancy between character level (currently capped at 50, rising to 60 with Heavensward) and gear level (currently capped at 130, with a couple of individual items being level 135) without revamping the whole system. (Or perhaps they will revamp the whole system, I don’t know. Either way, I’m looking forward to it.)

Running T12 tonight, though, reminded me the main reason I play this game; it’s not to always be running new and exciting things, it’s not to bring down fearsome foes — though that’s cool — and it’s not to experience the story (which is also great) — but instead it’s to have a good time with people who have become really good friends over the course of the last couple of years. The feeling of camaraderie you build when playing a game like this over a long period is unlike anything else in all of gaming, and it’s a delight to be able to team up for nights like tonight, where everyone bands together against a common challenge and helps each other out.

So yeah. I may be a little burnt out on grinding for tomestones and the current gear treadmill, but there’s still plenty of life in Eorzea’s champion Amarysse yet; and I have no doubt whatsoever that Yoshi-P and his team will deliver a spectacular experience with Heavensward that will make me fall in love with the game all over again. Only 6 days until Early Access starts… man, I better finish Omega Quintet before then…

1963: Cold Steel

XSEED Games, localisation specialists extraordinaire, made a number of delightful announcements for fans of Japanese games earlier today. Firstly was the entirely expected but now thankfully confirmed news that Senran Kagura Estival Versus is coming to Western PS4s and Vitas later in the year — I’m supremely happy about this, as Senran Kagura is a fantastic series with some of the best characterisation out there.

Secondly, the more “major” news for many was the announcement that Trails of Cold Steel — known to Japanese fans as Sen no Kiseki or its previous unofficial English moniker Trails in the Flash — is also coming West. Not only that, the first of its two chapters is pretty much finished and almost ready to go.

For the unfamiliar, Trails of Cold Steel is part of the Legend of Heroes series by Falcom, a long-running and deeply, deeply respected series of role-playing games. We haven’t had a lot of them over here in the West, but PSP (and later PC) installmentTrails in the Sky First Chapter came out a few years back to critical acclaim — I wrote some words about it here — and its own Second Chapter is coming shortly having nearly killed poor Andrew Dice of Carpe Fulgur, who worked on the mammoth job of translating its extremely substantial script.

After the initial joy at the announcement came some concern from long-standing series fans who had played Trails in the Sky’s follow-up games Zero no Kiseki, Ao no Kiseki and Trails in the Sky Third Chapter. Unlike many of the previous Legend of Heroes games, the Kiseki games have a deep relationship with one another, with each of the three “groups” of games (Trails in the Sky, Zero/Ao no Kiseki and Trails of Cold Steel) unfolding on a different part of the same continent. The games all refer to one another and act as “prequels” to one another, so some fans were concerned that newcomers to Trails of Cold Steel would be thrown in at the deep end having missed three whole games’ worth of lore and background. And the Kiseki series is not what you’d call light on lore; in fact, it features some of the most well-realised worldbuilding of any RPG I’ve played.

Brittany “Hatsuu” Avery of Xseed, one of my absolute favourite people in the games industry, took to the Xseed blog to address some of these concerns. And she’s certainly set my mind at rest.

To summarise, the reasons why we’re not getting Zero and Ao — yet, anyway, since there’s a strong suggestion that they will come at a later date, probably on PC — is partly due to technological and marketing concerns. Zero and Ao are PSP games, you see, and while there are still a few PSP games trickling out here and there due to their Vita compatibility — Trails in the Sky Second Chapter will be one — the PSP as a platform has technically been “dead” for some time. As such, it makes sense to push out Trails of Cold Steel for PS3 and Vita, since both of those platforms are still relevant at this time — PS3 is on the decline somewhat, but while developers such as Idea Factory/Compile Heart, Nippon Ichi and Square Enix have made the transition to PS4, there are still a number of PS3 titles incoming for the next year or two at least. Vita, meanwhile, for all the press’ attempts to declare it “dead” every few weeks, is enjoying a small-scale but successful existence as the go-to platform for fans of role-playing games and other Japanese fare.

Hatsuu also notes that Xseed took this decision with the full approval of the games’ original developers Falcom, whose original intention was always that the three sub-series of the overarching Kiseki storyline could stand on their own and be played in any order. In fact, what you’d get from playing them “out of order” would be an experience and perspective on the overall story unique to Western players and different to what Japan had. Kind of like the difference between watching the Star Wars films in chronological order of release or watching them in “canonical” order from I-VI.

Trails in the Sky First Chapter was a stunning game that I enjoyed very much, and I’m glad to see the rest of this highly regarded series is coming West. It may not be in the “right” order and that may have a few snooty fans being a bit salty, but I’m more than happy to support Xseed taking on ambitious projects of this magnitude and delivering them with aplomb. Xseed are one of my favourite developer-publisher-localisation outfits right now, and they deserve the support of anyone who loves Japanese games.

1961: Sound Shapes

I remember first seeing Sound Shapes at a Gamescom I was covering for GamePro back when GamePro was still a thing. I found it immediately intriguing — partly because it was a game on the then-new-and-shiny Vita, but also because it looked to have some interesting ideas. Now, some several years later, thanks to a significant PlayStation Plus discounted price, I’ve finally played it. And I’ve been quite surprised by what I found.

Sound Shapes, if you’re unfamiliar, is ostensibly a platform game, but with a few peculiar twists, the first of which being that you don’t play as a “character” as such, instead this weird sort of ball thing that can switch between “sticky” and “non-sticky” states at will. When in its default sticky state, it can stick to certain walls and even ceilings; when in its non-sticky state, it moves faster and can jump further. These are the only controls you use in Sound Shapes; where the game gets interesting is in the sheer variety of ways it uses these very simple mechanics.

The “sound” part of the title comes from the fact that the game is heavily music-based. Elements of each screen you visit — no scrolling here; only old-school 8-bit style flick screens — move in time with the music, and the collectible objects in each level are “notes” that affect the soundtrack once you’ve picked them up. Indeed, when you make use of the level editor, you’re not only putting together some fiendish platforming puzzles, you’re also composing a piece of music.

And there’s a surprising amount of variety, too. Shipping with a number of different “albums” and providing plenty more to explore online, Sound Shapes sees you exploring a number of different environments according to special guest musicians and artists. The first “world”‘s art is done by Capy, for example, while the second is a collaboration between Jim Guthrie on music and Superbrothers on art. The two contrast hugely; Capy’s world is very organic and smooth, looking like it’s been drawn in flat-shaded vector graphics. Guthrie and Superbrothers’ world, meanwhile, looks very much like their well-known game Sworcery, but appears to be some sort of introspective reflection on the futility of modern everyday office life.

What I like about Sound Shapes is that it’s arty without being pretentious about it. You can treat it as a straightforward platformer if you like, or you can treat the stages as works of interactive art, where the overall multimedia experience has been crafted to put a particular image in your mind, or make you feel a particular way. Some are more successful than others, but all are satisfying and fun to play.

I’ve been really surprised at quite how good Sound Shapes is. It’s a shame I didn’t pick it up sooner, really, but I’m having fun with it now, at least; I can recommend it if you’re in the mood for some straightforward, pick-up-and-play platforming with a very distinctive, striking audio-visual aesthetic.

1939: Ah, So That’s What PlayStation Plus is For

Up until now, I’ve been a bit resistant to PlayStation Plus, the subscription service that Sony provides for its PlayStation platforms.

Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t been outright against it or anything; it’s more that I’ve never really seen the need for it in my life.

A bit of context for those less familiar with it, then: PlayStation Plus is required for you to play online multiplayer games on PlayStation 4. (It is not required to play online with PlayStation 3 and Vita.) This aspect of it I can take or leave, since I don’t play a lot of online games — Final Fantasy XIV is the only one I play with any regularity, in fact, and I play that on PC.

PlayStation Plus also allows you to upload save games to “the cloud” so that you can easily, say, transfer them between different devices or delete a game and restore your progress later on. Again, I haven’t had much need for this; the one and only time I wished I had it was when I had a downloadable review copy of Hyperdimension Neptunia: Producing Perfection on Vita, subsequently got a physical copy (because I like physical copies) and discovered that it was impossible to delete the downloadable version without also deleting its save data due to Vita’s somewhat restrictive file system. If I’d had PlayStation Plus, I would have been able to back up my save, delete the downloadable version then bring it back in to play with the physical version.

PlayStation Plus also provides you with discounts on games from the PlayStation Store each month. These are often quite significant discounts, but you do have to bear in mind that you’re paying the subscription fee each month, so you’re perhaps not saving quite as much as you think you are.

And finally, PlayStation Plus provides you with “free” games each month. I put the term “free” in quotation marks because you don’t own them in the same way as you would if you’d actually bought them outright, either in physical or downloadable form. Rather, you have unlimited access to them for as long as you continue to subscribe to PlayStation Plus; they’re effectively extended rentals, if you like.

Now, this latter aspect had been the part I’d probably been most “against”, because I like to own my games, preferably in physical format, and PlayStation Plus didn’t seem especially compatible with that mindset. What I hadn’t counted on, as I’ve discovered since I signed up for my trial period on my new PS4, was the fact that PlayStation Plus actually provides you with a risk-free means of trying out some things you’d perhaps found interesting, but didn’t really want to hand over the money for in case they weren’t all that good.

This month, for example, one of the “free” games on PS4 (and PS3 and Vita, for that matter) is a title called Race the Sun. This is an independently developed game in which you fly a low-polygon spaceship across a randomly generated low-polygon world that changes every real-time day, attempt not to crash into anything and usually fail. It starts extremely simple, almost insultingly so — I nearly put the game down a few moments after starting it because it seemed so bare-bones and simplistic — but gradually grows in depth and complexity as you complete objectives and “level up”, with new mechanics gradually unlocking as you progress through the levels. Now I’m about halfway through the unlocks and finding it an addictive little affair; the somewhat Star Fox-esque aesthetic is appealing, the music is good, the gameplay is frustrating but addictive and it has a somewhat more satisfying feel than your average mobile phone endless runner — which, let’s face it, is basically what it is, with a few extra knobs on.

Would I have spent money on Race the Sun? Well, I certainly wrote about it a bit when I was still working at USgamer, as I thought it looked interesting. It had never quite looked interesting enough for me to actually want to hand over the cash for it, though, and as such it initially passed me by, though I still contemplated it every time I saw it in a Steam sale.

Here’s the power of PlayStation Plus, then; it allows me to investigate these games that I’ve found interesting but, for one reason or another, never bought my own copy of. There’s no risk in me doing this, and I get a decent selection to choose from each month. It’s more effective than a demo because you get the whole game. And it’s less morally questionable than piracy because you’re still paying for the game and the devs are getting a cut — it’s just getting to them via different means.

And if I end up actually really liking something I’ve got through PlayStation Plus? There’s nothing stopping me actually buying a copy to keep permanently in my collection even if I let my subscription lapse.

So okay, I admit it; I should have probably checked PlayStation Plus out sooner. But better late than never, huh?

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!