Toronto Thumbs

REVIEW
Final Fantasy Tactics A2

I was a latecomer to the world that is Square Enix. For the longest time, FFVII was the only game I played, before I discovered the world of Nintendo. But then I got a GBA, and one of the first games I bought for it was Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. I was immediately hooked. So when FFTA2 came out for the DS, it seemed like a no brainer.

For those not familiar with the series, the Final Fantasy Tactics games are role playing games with many elements familiar to seasoned RPG gamers. The combat system is a turn-based strategy style reminiscent of more traditional table-top games. Characters not only get stronger by gaining experience in combat, but through the use of the Jobs system, gain more and more abilities that give more options in combat as the game progresses.

FFTA2 feels like a system upgrade in a lot of respects. Just like moving from XP to Vista, (or Panther to Tiger, or Gutsy Gibbon to Hardy Heron, I’m not trying to be exclusive here,) FFTA2 is a noticeable improvement over FFTA. The look and feel got some fine-tuning. Some of the more annoying play elements got rebalanced, replaced or just outright removed. And along with those changes, new classes, new abilities and new styles of gameplay have all been added.

One of the most overarching changes was the acquisition of Loot, which are used to unlock more and more weapons, armour and accessories in the shops. Initially only a very small subset of the weapons and armour are availble, but instead of arbitrarily being awarded a broader selection when the story reaches a certain milestone, as was the case in FFTA, in the sequel you have to try to mix and match loot that will make all sorts of equiment available for purchasing. Loot is given out as rewards for completing missions, and for following the laws laid down by judges.

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REVIEW
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time

Like Bugsy (real name: Mike Pugliese), I have always had a soft spot in my cold, dark heart for the fun world of Pokemon. In fact, it was the original Pokemon title that made me dig out my original brick Game Boy back in the late ’90s. I was just starting out in college, and there I was, painfully addicted to a game marketed exclusively to kids. In one of my weaker moments, I actually played Pokemon Blue while driving, at red lights, just to level up.

This same game was what made me upgrade to the Game Boy Color. As a poor student, I could either choose to eat or spend money on other things. It was a rough week for my hunger, but I was satiated with the new lime green GBC and I was immediately amazing by how awesome the new colour screen was. Within a year, I picked up Pokemon Yellow, and played through that, too.

As a relative novice to the world or role-playing games but a fan of Phantasy Star, easing into the Pokemon universe was very natural for me. Adam Russell was actually responsible for getting me into the series, as he said something along the lines of “You know how in Phantasy Star, you’ll meet someone who joins your party and then you’re with that person for the rest of the game? Well, in Pokemon, there’s 150 of those people. Except they’re animals, and you can swap them out anytime and they all have their own unique powers.”

Well that was all a very long time ago. Since then, I’ve bought a Pokemon Ruby and Pokemon Diamond, and they’re both excellent games in the series. They both add extra dimensions to the already-established premise: You’re a trainer trying to be the best in the world, so for some perverse reason you essentially go about kidnapping Pokemon and making them fight other Pokemon to the near-death and they, in turn, somehow learn to love you. Is it Stockholm Syndrome? Perhaps it’s best not to dwell on that.

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REVIEW
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness

In general, I’m a fan of the early games in the Pokemon series, which offered simple ideas and deceptively deep gameplay beneath a cute and fuzzy exterior. In recent years however my interests have led me astray, leading me to miss titles like Pokemon Diamond/Pearl and the prequel to the topic at hand: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red/Blue Rescue Team. It looks like I may have missed more than could have expected in my absence from the Pokemon universe, as it is much different (and more populated) than I remember. I can say without hesitation that though Pokemon Mystery Dungeon offers a decent dungeon crawling experience, it lacks the charm, the simplicity, and most importantly the fun the Pokemon name has carried with it up to this point.

When booting up Mystery Dungeon for the first time, I noticed immediately that the Pokemon and the universe they live in look almost exactly as they did the last time I visited. Bright colours abound, with the world’s inhabitants instantly recognizable as Pokemon and not one of the many similar types of monsters that have come and gone over the years. Some may see this as a fault however, as a refusal to evolve the series’ look. This may be true, but there is something to be said about the familiarity offered by the decision to keep the look and style of its predecessors.

The exact same argument stands true for the sounds and music that fill the Pokemon world, keeping with the familiar tones brought forth by the various other titles carrying the Pokemon name. Again, there is nothing wrong with taking cues from the other games in the series, but there is a constant feeling that more could have been done to enhance the audio experience.

Players are thrown right into the game and almost immediately are exploring the game’s first dungeon. Controlling your Pokemon-self is fairly intuitive, unless you are using the touch based controls which seem unpolished and only added as an afterthought. Unlike the first Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games with appeared on both the GBA and DS, this is a DS exclusive entry, which is why it strikes me as strange that little to no thought was put into using the DS’ touch screen capabilities. Although I started off using the stylus to control the on screen action, I quickly found them to be inferior to the basic d-pad and buttons control scheme and quickly switched to use this style exclusively. I can’t quite pinpoint the exact reason why, but I had a much more enjoyable experience playing the game in this “classic” fashion.

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Activision to Sponsor Consumer IQ Test This June

I generally prefer to write about games I’m excited over, but with the launch date approaching I couldn’t let this one slip by. Activision’s newest entry into the Guitar Hero franchise, Guitar Hero On Tour is set to ship in late June with its four fret adaptor for your Game Boy Advance slot and a guitar pick stylus that promises to separate fans of Rock Band versus Guitar Hero even further.

A helpful “How-To” video has surfaced to walk gamers through the intricacies of strapping the DS to their left hand while strumming the touch screen with their right. While the two player battle mode made sense and worked with the DS the entire concept still left me feeling like the protagonist in a Philip K. Dick story. You know, the one where the guy sees the dead body hanging in the street but everyone else ignores it? The Hanging Stranger! It’s seriously a great read. You could easily get through it on a bus ride while the guy next to you tries to play this game before his hand suffers a horrible hand cramp that leaves him a disfigured outcast.

Regardless of which camp you fall into, it’s impossible to ignore the idea that the entire concept for this genre was in creating a genuine rock experience via the instruments. So it’s hard to see this release as anything other than yet another publisher attempting to cash in on Nintendo’s hardware sales with software less designed around what the DS could achieve as much as cramming a popular franchise into a handheld already plagued by shovelware.

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DS Gets a New Colour (Sorta)

Shown above, the Metallic Rose DS will be making its way into stores soon. It was originally packaged with a super-limited run of Nintendogs in 2007 and will now be available as a stand-alone system. Seriously, try getting it on eBay without having to sell your first-born to finance the purchase!

In related news, Nintendo’s enlisted the likes of Ugly Betty star America Ferrera and singer Carrie Underwood in commercials for this new DS colour. And in news that will make Aggies happy, Liv Tyler’s promoting the Cobalt blue/black DS.

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