If you haven’t heard of Square (either Enix or soft) then consider me disappointed. Even if RPGs aren’t your thing, you probably know of them. Maybe you’ve played Vagrant Story on the PS1, or simply seen the Kingdom Hearts or Star Ocean series in shops. So far, Square has released 26 Final Fantasy games in total in Europe. These range from the hugely popular classical series, to tactical games such as Final Fantasy Tactics and even 3D fighting games like Dissidia

I’d first like to point out that there isn’t really a lot of information on FFXIII Versus’ story so far, despite its announcement six years ago back in Summer 2006. There is a hefty amount of information about the characters and the general gameplay, though.

The story is separate from Final Fantasy XIII’s so you never meet Lightning, Snow or any of the others from that game. It has been classified under the “XIII” title as both games share the same mythology. In other words, Etros, the goddess of XIII, is still kicking about in Versus and the story is driven around the Crystal mythology.

The game revolves around Noctis, who is a descendent of the Royal family, although he is not the King. His kingdom holds the last Crystal which he must protect from neighbouring kingdoms who have lost their Crystals while at war.

"Hey, I'm Noctis. Look at all my weapons!" ... Okay, he doesn't ACTUALLY say that.

The game itself is said to be similar to that of the Kingdom Hearts series. You’ll have three characters in your team at any one time and the battle system is also said to be similar, going with the action-role playing genre. However, there also appears to be a third-person shooter element to the game as well, should you control the character Prompto. The game also promises to have many real-time events, where you have to control your character’s movement at all times, even during cut scenes. However, the “REAL-TIME EVENT” screen from Final Fantasy XIII-2 won’t conveniently pop up so you’ll need to be prepared at all times!

There is also a day / night time system being developed to make the game more realistic. Square Enix wants to make this the most realistic Final Fantasy game, with believable characters and diverse cities with varying levels of technology. Some cities will feature castles, whereas others will have skyscrapers and cars. The world map will make a comeback! Finally! One of the things I loved the most about Final Fantasy was the world map and physically running from A to B, instead of skipping large chunks of the journey. The world map in Versus is going to be massive. Not only do Chocobos make an appearance, so do vehicles (which includes Tanks!) and, of course, the airship.

There seems to be a huge array of weapons available in the game, and Noctis, the main protagonist, can use them all. He can generate weapons out of thin air, and can attack in a very fluid manner, appearing to use Telekinesis to control the weapons. He is also able to teleport to the locations of where his weapons fall. Stella, another character in the game, also uses the same weapon generation as Noctis, although she uses Yellow Runes to generate her weapons, whereas he uses Blue Runes. Whether this has any significance on the game has yet to be confirmed.

Stella.

The game does look similar to Kingdom Hearts but without the light-hearted Disney feel. After all, this has been promised to be the “Darkest Final Fantasy yet.”

At the moment, there is no information as to when this game will be released, or even on which console(s).

Well that’s it for the Final Fantasy series for now. Look out for my next blog on “Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance“.

To Be Continued…

So, if you’ve read any of my previous blogs, you’ll already know I love pretty much any and every Namco Bandai game that comes out, especially if it’s an RPG. If you can remember my first blog way back in November 2011, you’ll know that my favourite game is “Tales of Symphonia” for the Gamecube, made by Namco Bandai.

Regardless, “Tales of Graces F” is set to be released this summer! So Tales fans won’t have long to wait before they can sink their teeth into another Tales game. “Tales of the Abyss” was released for the first time in Europe back in November. Two Tales games in six months is a real treat!

The game is being developed by the Namco Tales Studio and is set to be the first Tales title developed for the PS3 to be released in Europe. Apart from the Tales Series, Namco Bandai has made some truly terrific games. These range from the video game adaptations of the “Naruto” series, “Beautiful Katamari” and “Eternal Sonata”, to the more recent “Dark Souls.”

The story starts when the main protagonist, Asbel, and his brother, Hubert, climb a hill near their home to see the Sopheria flowers bloom in the nearby meadow. However, as they approach the summit of the hill, there is a flash and beam of light, and a mysterious girl with no memory appears before them. Asbel then takes this lass back to their nearby town to see if anybody knows her. They don’t ‒ unsurprisingly! Anyway, Asbel’s father disapproves with his son’s actions and reminds him of his station ‒ when he is older he will become Lord of Lhant, the home town of Asbel and Hubert.

After some other events which include visitors to Lhant, the befriending of the prince from the capital and an assassination attempt, Asbel leaves his home town, forsaking his station to become a knight in the city of Barona, in the hopes he becomes strong enough to protect those he holds dear. The game then bypasses Asbel’s training (thankfully!) and takes us seven years into the game’s future, allowing the progression of the main story.

If you have played any Namco Bandai game, then you know just the kind of quality you're going to get. It's going to be anime style, and it's going to be awesome.

Luckily for us, the “F” in the name stands for ‘Future’ (supposedly), which includes an epilogue. It’s not a tiny epilogue either ‒ it’s said to be at least ten hours long, so once you’ve completed the game, you’ve got this to go through as well! Sorry, Japan, you got Vesperia for the PS3, we get additional content. I think it evens out! Almost.

Take this, Big Beastie!

I would imagine the battles to be similar to the previous Tales games. You’ve got a team of up to four people per battle, and there are various preset classes per character.  You can chain together combos by tilting the analogue stick in one particular direction and unleashing artes. However, each character has two different fighting styles which can be freely changed during the course of the battle. Mystic artes make a comeback, which is a character’s ultimate attack.

Titles make a comeback but instead of not offering any bonuses (except the occasional outfit change) like in Abyss and Vesperia, they offer status bonuses like in Symphonia. Titles are automatically acquired during the main storyline, by doing side quests, using artes a certain amount, etc.

The game reminds me of every Tales game I’ve ever played. All the good bits at least. With each Tales game that gets released, Namco Bandai builds on the positive feedback and tries to correct the negative criticism to make bigger and better games, and I’m sure that this one is no exception.

Anyway ‒ my next piece will be on “Final Fantasy XIII Versus” but until then… keep reading; keep playing; keep having fun!

To Be Continued…

There are various Modes to this game, there’s a Story mode, Tournament, Training, and Survival modes. You know, the usual for any fighting game.

The Story mode is a total -albeit brief- recap of the anime / manga, and it is broken up into individual character storylines. For instance, there are the following modes; Young Naruto, Teenage Naruto, Sasuke, Jiraiya, Minato, Zabuza & Haku, Itachi, Kakashi (both young and old), Tobi and Killer B. All of the stories briefly cover the anime of the respective character in question, for example, Young Naruto’s story is from when he passes the Ninja Academy exam, through to fighting Sasuke at Valley of the End. This whole story line lasts for round about 10 battles, so there’s a lot of anime to cover, and not a lot of battles to cover it!

Although saying that, the studio has drawn over an hour’s worth of new anime content,  and it’s very pleasant to look at. Something I recommend you aim to do is complete all of the story stages to unlock Killer B’s story (which you unlock by completing all the other characters’) which has some very interesting and amusing scenes.

The battle system is exactly the same as that of the Ninja Storm games, with the close combat attacks being chained together by mashing a button, and the combos of which change depending on the direction the left analogue stick is being tilted. There is also the option of utilising long distance attacks, and chakra attacks. The support gauge makes a reappearance, as does Team Ultimate Jutsu. These have by-and-large not changed since “Ultimate Ninja Storm 2.” There are 72 playable characters, and 15 characters designated to the support position.

A new addition to the combat system is the substitution gauge, which sits below the chakra gauge. This bar is divided into four segments, which represents the number of substitutions your character can make. This adds a new strategical element to the game, as the gauge refills over time, so long gone are the days of endless substitution!

Another new element to the combat system is the, what I like to call, CD2C. This stands for “Combo-Dash Cancel – Combo.” Halfway through a combo, if you have enough chakra, you can do a Chakra Dash which cancels the combo but enables you to immediately start a new combo straight away. This tactic is very useful in clocking up hits, especially when your opponent hasn’t got any substitutions left! Hello 50 hit combo!

The Tournament Mode is pretty fun. You can choose between an online or offline battle. So far I’ve only done the offline setting, but from there you can start either team battle or a single battle. (I always go for a team battle. I like to obliterate the opponent with a Team Ultimate Jutsu to finish the battle!) And there are various ‘ranks’ to the tournaments. The first rank is Genin and there are three teams which you have to beat in order to advance to the next rank of the tournament. Progressing through each Rank increases the difficulty and the amount of fun to be had.

If you really love the game, you may consider purchasing some Trading Cards, which you can only get from Zavvi. Why? Well, each card has a code on it, and if you go to the “Collectibles” menu, and “insert code,” you can unlock some really cool stuff in the game. These range from art work for your profile, to fighting a mini-battle to unlock new bonus skills for your characters. It’s well worth a look into if you’ve got some cash to spare.

All in all, a very good game, especially if you love Naruto half as much as I do. I was sad to see the Role Playing element of the game go, but it turned out to be a welcome change. Although I do hope that Namco Bandai returns Naruto to the Role Playing elements that it once was in the future. Regardless, it will be exciting to see what they do with the series next!

Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, is a new game set to be released in the Spring of 2013, and is a JRPG, which combines a heart-wrenching storyline with fluid real-time strategy elements effortlessly, right from the word go.

The game is developed by both Level 5 and Studio Ghibli. Anime fans all around the world will recognise Studio Ghibli. Well… they should do! Studio Ghibli is a Japanese Animations and film studio, famous for making “My Neighbour Totoro”, quite possibly the trippiest film you’ll ever watch! “Princess Mononokoe”, an absolute beast of a film, and the critically acclaimed ”Spirited Away”.

Level 5 has had a hand in making some truly awesome and unique games. My favourite being “Dark Cloud”, a game for the PS2, it’s sequel “Dark Chronicle”, The “Professor Layton” Series for the Nintendo DS, the “White Knight Chronicle” series for the PS3 and many more.

Although the story starts off quite depressingly, it captivates you right from the start and is bound to keep you on your toes. “Ni No Kuni” revolves around a 13 year old boy called Oliver, whose mother had just passed away while saving him from drowning. Just like any human, Oliver starts crying over this loss and his tears fall onto a teddy which his mother gave him. His tears bring the teddy to life, and it claims to be a fairy. This fairy then gives Oliver a book, which lets him control magic and enter the world of “Ni No Kuni”, a world which lies parallel to his own and in which his mother may yet be alive. So Oliver, naturally, accepts this offer to try to find his mum… otherwise it would be a very short game! As Oliver sets out on his journey in this new and foreign world, he meets people from his own land… just not as you’d expect!

Oliver and his Summon... I hope it

The game is, unsurprisingly, beautiful. The detail that has gone into this game is amazing. The game is in an Anime style, which is my favourite. The game is similar to that of many RPGs in the fact that there are battles every so often, which are initiated by touching monsters and other beasties on the field.

The battles are quite unique. It comes across as a “Pokémon” meets “Kingdom Hearts” style battle. By this I mean Oliver does not take directly part in the battles but rather summons various creatures, which you then control. In the DS version of the game, which was released in Japan, you drew spells on the touch screen, which Oliver then cast. Whether or not this feature returns for the new version of this game, I don’t know. We’ll just have to wait and see!

The game itself, reminds me of “Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King” for the PS2. Considering it did so well, it doesn’t surprise me that Level 5 have stuck with this style of game.

The game is set to be released on the PS3 at the end of the year for North America and for those of us in Europe, we are scheduled to get this game at the start of next year according to various websites at least. Japan – unsurprisingly – have had this beauty of a game since November for the PS3 and since 2010 on the DS. The lucky guys!

If you’re a “Tales” fan, keep checking Ready-Up! The next piece I’m doing will be focused on “Tales of Graces”

It’s been a long time coming, a new RPG for the Wii that wasn’t a Zelda game, and by Hironobu Sakaguchi – the father of the “Final Fantasy” series.

However, it almost pains me to say it, but I didn’t find that the game ‘was all that’. Some elements of the story I’d seen before, some parts even mirroring games that I’ve played before – games produced by Sakaguchi himself. I expected more. A lot more.

As the opening story sequence begins the first thing you notice is the graphics. They aren’t great, they are reminiscent of a Playstation 2 game, and an early one at that. It’s very pixellated and blocky. Although I’m still debating whether that’s because the game has been produced on the Wii, which has no HD capability, or if the game was left that unpolished.

Then, you hear the voices of the characters… they all sound like they’re from different areas of Britain, which is great – except their voices are very bland. For instance, if there’s an enemy running up behind you, you’d like to hope there’s some urgency in the voices of your comrades, but there isn’t any. The voice acting is devoid of nearly all emotion. There isn’t even an option to change the voice language.

If you’ve ever played Final Fantasy IX, you will instantly make the connection between Garnet/Dagger, and Calista. They are both users of “White Magic”, both sheltered members of a Royal Family, knowing little to nothing of the world outside their castle. Both are taken in by a ‘gang’ – Garnet by Tantalus (a band of thieves) and Calista by a bunch of mercenaries. They both end up going on a grand adventure around the world, and let’s not forget to mention that Calista instantly falls in love with Zael, it’s almost painfully obvious. It’s almost as if they recycled Garnet as if nobody would remember her.

Anyway that being said, after the first five or six hours, the game gets pretty decent… if you can look past some of the many flaws.

After the opening sequence and once you gain control of Zael (the only character you can control for a VERY long time), the tutorials explain how to move and vault over obstacles, the basic game mechanics. You can even vault over your allies if they’re in your way, which is pretty awesome!

Then you get to the battle tutorials… have you ever tried battling with the same analogue stick that you use to move? It’s difficult. It was so difficult that I had to change the settings to make “Attack” the “A” button, but in doing so, Zael’s attack power automatically decreases! Way to hinder your players. But with a flourish here, and spells being cast there, it’s easy to enjoy the fast paced battles.

As you play through the tutorials, you get taught that you can direct your mages to blow up bridges and other constructs which prevent a continuous supply of enemies from thrashing your team. I have to admit, that’s really neat and one of the more strategy based elements of the game.

Before the conclusion of Chapter one, Zael gets his “Gathering” ability which draws the attention of all the enemies to himself and this makes him the sole target of enemies (except bosses). This ability is a double edged sword – your mages now are safe to cast spells to their hearts content, but Zael’s health and defence stats aren’t that great, so when you use the “Gathering” ability – keep an eye on his health!

The game really steps up a gear with the introduction of Zael’s Gale ability. When a mage casts a spell, it leaves a residual magic circle, and if Zael uses his Gale ability inside the magic circle, the effects “Disperse”. For example, if Calista casts a healing spell, only characters contained by the circle will get healed, but should Zael use Gale inside the circle, everybody in the party gets healed, although the healing effects are reduced. There are many different Dispersion effects depending on the residual spell circle, these range from dealing damage, inflicting hindering status effects on enemies, to healing the team, then there are overlap Dispersions… it gets pretty complex, but, you get the hang of it quickly.

The game is divided into a series of “Chapters” and until you get to Chapter 15/16 (which sees gaming time clock up to about 7 or 8 hours) prepare to be bored, frustrated or an unhealthy combination of the two. “The Last Story” does turn around… Eventually. And when it does, prepare to lose yourself in a pretty decent game. Before you know it, the birds are singing outside and you’ve spent 10 hours gaming straight.

Another famous Japanese gentleman – Nobuo Uematsu, is also working on this title. Nobuo has written many notable pieces for many games, such as “To Zanarkand,” “Eyes on Me” and “Melodies of Life.”

If I’m honest, the logo looks similar to that of Final Fantasy but it still does the job. If you saw this in a shop, would you pick it up? I would. It’s so simple, with a punchy title – the perfect ingredients to catch a gamer’s attention.

As far as I know, the game revolves around a set of mercenaries, who are each experts in one area of combat. For instance, Calista (the main female protagonist) is skilled at using Holy Magic – which no other party member can use and Lowell who appears to be a combat mage of sorts, using a sword and Ice magic.

Not only is there a new unique combat system, where players must utilise abilities such as “Gathering” which provokes enemies to redirect their attention from the rest of your team to a tank, which then allows the mages to safely cast their spells without interruption. The “Focus” technique involves attacking NPCs with long-range attacks to find out individual weaknesses of certain enemies… or to blow up a bridge with enemies on it. If you’ve seen the trailer (it is in Japanese, though) then you will have already seen these tactics already, although briefly.

Although not as beautiful as the graphics on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 (as the Wii lacks an HD function [which has been rectified for the Wii U!]) this game is perhaps one of the most beautiful games released for the Wii to date. If you’ve seen some of the art floating about for this game, it may tempt you into buying the limited collector’s edition.

Star Viewing Tower.

The island where the story is set.

It certainly looks like things are looking up for RPG gamers if you own a Wii. My current game collection for the Wii is two “Legend of Zelda” games, “Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of a New World,” “Super Smash Brothers Brawl” and “Rabid Rabbits” which is still in its cellophane wrapper. I’m actually looking forward to  dusting off my Wii, plugging in new batteries for the remote, and actually turning it on for the first time since December. Not to mention, I don’t need to buy a new piece of Wii remote equipment to play the game!

]]> http://ready-up.net/2012/03/02/a-long-time-coming-the-last-story/feed/ 0 http://ready-up.net/2012/01/30/gaming-too-easy-lets-turn-it-up-a-notch-or-not/ http://ready-up.net/2012/01/30/gaming-too-easy-lets-turn-it-up-a-notch-or-not/#comments Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:00:09 +0000 Ben http://ready-up.net/?p=48276 I’ve recently been thinking about the difficulty of some games. This is because I saw “Bayonetta,” for £4.99 in PC World when I went home for Christmas. Awesome! I’ll pretty much buy any Xbox bargain I can find!

As per usual, I got home, got changed into my jammies, sat in front of my TV, popped in the game and played. Just as always, I set the difficultly to “Normal”. I do this until I get a feel for the game mechanics, so once I feel that I’ve got the flow of the game, I pop the difficulty up to Hard just for fun.

Now, the prologue of “Bayonetta” is a wee bit deceptive; you don’t have a health bar, so you think you’re amazing at the game, which leads you to believe that you’re totally indestructible. Happy days!

"Are you looking at my Big Guns?"

Then they introduce the health bar in chapter one, which is fair play to be honest. What’s the point in playing a game if you can’t die? So after the initial training and chapter one, I thought, “Yup. Got the hang of this, up to Hard we go!” Well, that was a big mistake. Not only did I well and truly get my arse handed to me, it wasn’t a one off either. Once I had died three times by the middle Chapter Two, I got the picture. I decided I didn’t actually have the hang of the game. Back to Normal I went!

That would normally be it but that’s not the end of it. By the end of Chapter Four I’d lost count of how many times I’d died. I’ve got my fingers, so means that I’d died at least ten times, but the problem was that after that I’d run out of fingers! I was mortified. I’d died too many times for it to be enjoyable.

Back to hell I go... again. Again. Again. Again.

I can’t remember the last time in a game I’ve put the difficulty to Easy. It’s almost embarrassing to admit. The problem that I had, was that I now walked through every stage with minimal damage and ergo, there was no challenge. I was in a real pickle. The game now bored me to tears because there was no challenge. I was the ultimate “Bullet Witch” but lets be honest, I was playing on Easy. So I cranked the difficulty up to Medium… and completed the chapter, with minimal casualties.

Chapter Five brought a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.’ I was really triumphant at dying but that didn’t help my cause. If I put the difficulty to Easy, I was going to be bored. At the time, though, I was getting pretty bored with dying.

There was a simple solution. Turn the Xbox off and walk away. Put Bayonetta under the bed in Northern Ireland and come back to Glasgow. Forget the whole ordeal. Problem sorted.

Crush3D isn’t boring. Crush3D isn’t predictable. Crush3D is not easy. And most importantly: Crush3D is fun.

The game starts with a humorous introduction scene between Dr. Doccerson, his best friend Danny, and the sentient computer C.R.U.S.H, which stands for Cognitive Regression Utilising pSychiatric Heuristics. The Doctor constructed C.R.U.S.H to allow people who use this machine to investigate their dreams and their fears. Danny, being the Doc’s best friend, willingly takes the position of Guinea Pig. However, not everything proceeds as planned. C.R.U.S.H. has started to develop her own opinions and feelings and she decides to take the test run to a whole new level, which can only spell trouble for Danny.

Much like the PSP version, the game revolves around moving about the environment, collecting marbles and progressing to the next level. Sounds easy? Think again. You need to manoeuvre Danny through the stages, manipulating the environment to achieve your goals.

What do I mean by manipulating? Initially you start off in a 3D stage, but you discover that Danny can “Crush” which squishes the screen from 3D to 2D. That doesn’t sound too bad, but, you crush in the direction of the camera. This means that you’ve got five different directions in which you can crush and alter the environment. You use the D-pad to change the camera direction, which rotates the view 90 degrees. In addition to being able to rotate the camera around Danny, you can also take a birds-eye view, looking down upon our protagonist. You can also Crush from this angle adding a whole new dimension to gameplay.

Don’t expect to Crush whenever you want – there are rules to Crushing! For instance, if you crush while you stand in front of a brick wall, expect to be pushed off the platform you’re standing on. Fear not; C.R.U.S.H. won’t let you die, you’ll reappear at the last checkpoint completely unharmed! There are many rules which you’ll be introduced to, and all of these rules add a new challenge to the game.

As if that’s not enough, you also need to collect marbles in order to proceed through the game. There are three colours of marbles and each colour is worth a different number of points. A Blue marble is worth one point, a Purple marble is worth three points, and the Red marbles are worth ten points. Blue marbles are dotted about the stage, generally speaking so are the Purple ones, but you need to search in both 3D and 2D to find the Red marbles. The catch? You can only proceed to the next level if you collect half of the total number of points available on the current stage. If character customisation is a must for your gaming, you should aim to collect every marble in the stage, as doing so enables you to unlock a new dressing gown for Danny to wear.

Marbles aren’t the only thing you collect in this game; you also can collect Memories (in the form of a floating photo album) and Trophies (which are… trophy shaped!). There is one Memory and one Trophy to be found in every level, except the tutorial stages, and you need to apply everything you learn to collect them! If you’re like me and you don’t like playing puzzle games, I urge you to try playing Crush3D; it takes puzzle games to a whole new dimension!

Dungeon Defenders is a Tower Strategy action game, with the idea being that you have to protect your ‘Eternia Crystal’ by erecting defences unique to the character who you are  playing as. There are four playable characters you can choose from, with each character providing their own difficulty level. For instance, should you choose the Apprentice, you play the game on the ‘novice’ difficulty. The other characters are; Squire – with a ‘medium’ difficulty, Huntress – with a ‘veteran’ difficulty and a Monk – with the ‘master’ difficulty.

Each level starts with a “Defensive Phase” which allows you to construct preliminary defences before the first wave commences. After you sucessfully complete each wave, you return to the defensive phase to construct more defences to cope with the ever increasing number of enemies.

In order to install these defences, you need a certain amount of “Mana” and as you’d expect, the better the defence, the higher the Mana requirement. Defences range from simple barricades to Missile Towers.

A unique feature about this Tower Defence game is that your character is not a simple avatar that runs about constructing defences then hides away during battle. Your character, should you choose to do so, can run into the fray and participate in the battle, which in some circumstances can significantly turn the tide of the battle.

In order to unlock more defences, you need to increase the level of your chosen character.  In order to do this you need to kill a few enemies. As your character levels up as the game progresses, you receive a fixed number of “points”  to increase the stats of your character… or your defences. The choices you make at this point can alter the course of the battle. So what’s in a few points? Well, a point in your character’s stats increases the stats of your character (obviously!) but put a stat point into the constructed Defences column, and you increase the stats of all your weapons. The choice, is yours.

Unlike many other Tower Defence games I’ve played, enemies take a set path through the stage and you need to organise your defences accordingly. Not in Dungeon Defenders. The stage where the battle takes place is huge and the baddies take any route possible to get to your Eternia Crystal. So in order to play this game you need to have a good head for strategy. Luckily, you can plan ahead and place your defences accordingly as the game developers have very kindly indicated what kind and how many enemies will be coming through each entrance to the stage.

All in all, this is a fun game but if you’re playing by yourself it can get boring. Luckily, the developers thought about that too! Not only is there a local co-op option and online co-op option, but the game is co-op cross compatible from the Playstation 3 to the PC. How awesome is that!?

EXAMS

We all know it...

Two weeks ago I had three exams. Three Chemistry exams to make the dreaded word sound worse than it already is. And my head has gone completely do-dally because of them.

Yet, in those rare moments when revision stopped and insanity commenced, it wasn’t my beloved RPGs that saved the day – it was mindless Hack and Slash. I normally swear by RPGs and don’t normally play or buy games like “Dynasty Warriors” or “Trinity: Souls of Zill O’ll” but over the last month or so, I’m glad that I had them in my gaming library.

There’s something very therapeutic about mindlessly mashing every button on the controller to totally and entirelly obliterate thousands of enemies. And the best part of it is… it’s not complicated. You can give your brain a well deserved break. If you don’t fancy picking up a new game and trying to understand the new game mechanics, or if you can’t be arsed to understand the storyline, play a Hack and Slash. Whether you’re chopping enemies up as Cao Cao, or flinging enemies to Timbuktu as Zhuge Liang, nothing beats the feeling of satisfaction you get when you reach 1000 KOs.

Stress – Gone

Anger – Gone

All that remains is a very contented and stress-free gamer

Now that my exams are over, and Christmas is upon me, I can once again look forward to playing my RPGs, and put the Hack and Slash games back where they belong… in the revision box, for when I need them most.

Seeming as my exams have now finished I did let my credit card take a beating and I bought “The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword” which I was really looking forward to playing – but I can’t play it because I don’t have a Wii Motion Sensor Plus. I’m begrudging spending more money to buy this new fangled accessory just to “enhance the sensitivity of the remote” to play the game. Be grateful if you aren’t on my Facebook – my friends got quite a few status rants about it!

Anyway. I’m going to end it with just how crazy my exams made me: I made my flatmate a cup of tea yesterday… and I didn’t put the water in the mug. Exams make me go totally Do-Dally.

So to students everywhere – if you had exams recently, I hope you all did really well! If you have exams coming up, I wish you the best of luck!

If you do have to do my trick and step away from the console – it’ll be lonely without you, so don’t forget to step back to it!

These are just a few of the hopes that spring to mind when you pick up any new game.

Tales of the Abyss is all of these and more.

The game was originally released for the PlayStation 2 back in 2005 for Japan and 2006 for North America. Unfortunately, Europe never received it. It’s an anime-style RPG that leaves you hungry for more.

Tales of the Abyss is set on a world called Auldrant, which has been created by elements called Fonons which are present in everything in the world. There are seven known Fonons: shadow, light, fire, wind, water, earth and sound. Anybody who can use Fonons to cast spells are called Fonists, however, a Fonist who uses the Fonon of sound (or Seventh Fonist) are rarely found, but are very powerful as they can use it to read the future. One such Seventh Fonist, Yulia Jue, foresaw the future of Auldrant, and this future is now recorded on Fonstones. The future Yulia Jue foresaw is called The Score.

The story begins with Yulia giving us an excerpt from The Score related to our protagonist, Luke, and how the world has been prophesied to have unlimited prosperity. Our protagonist was kidnapped seven years ago by the enemy empire and as such robbed him of his childhood memory. Due to his kidnapping, he has been confined to his manor until he reaches the age of 20. However, events are in motion which sees him travel the world before this age, and in doing so this allows him to makes new friends, enemies and inadvertently oppose The Score which Auldrant has come to rely on. Due to this, Luke could potentially rob the world of the promised unlimited prosperity…

You control the difficulty the of the game, much like all RPGs – if you see an enemy on the screen, you run into it, initiate a battle, win the battle, get experience, then beat the game. So in other words, you could potentially avoid every enemy to make the game really difficult – just fight the bosses in the storyline, avoid every other enemy and beat the game while you’re at level five. I wouldn’t recommend it, but you could do it.

The battle system itself starts off fairly easy but new gameplay elements are added periodically which increase the difficulty and enjoyment of the game:

1) Overdrive System: each character obtains the use of Overdrive when they reach level 15, which when activated makes them more resilient to staggering, increases their defence slightly and overall battle skills.

2) Mystic Artes: when your characters reach level 30, they obtain the ability to execute an Ultra-Cool-Super-Strong-Uber-Amazing Arte when they are in Overlimit.

3) Field of Fonons: my personal favourite, when you (or an enemy) uses an elemental spell, a ring will appear on the floor of the battle screen. When a second spell of the same element is cast in the same battle, the ring becomes imbued with that element. If your character stands in that ring, and uses an Arte which is compatible with that element – the special ability will change, and become imbued with that element which will then increase the damage, healing-capability or support characteristic of that Arte. For example, if Anise uses ‘Eagle Dive’ while she is inside a Water-imbued Field of Fonons – she will then unleash ‘Frigid Raptor’ instead of the original Arte.

Anise using an Arte altered by the "Field of Fonons"

Once you finish the game – as with all Tales games – it doesn’t stop there! As you battle throughout Auldrant, you obtain Grade. At the end of every battle you will receive an amount of Grade proportional to how well you battle. For instance, if you don’t get hit and complete the battle in under five seconds, you will receive more “Grade” than you would if you got the stuffing beat out of you, nearly died and took twelve minutes to finish.

Once you finish the game, you gain access to the Grade Shop, which allows you to alter a new game slightly. For instance, if you have enough Grade you can increase (or decrease) the amount of experience you receive from battles, carry over the contents of your wallet, etc.

The Tales series wouldn’t be the same series it is today if it wasn’t for the Titles you can get throughout the game. You can get them for accomplishing various feats, getting them during main story line or any of the side quests. Some can even change the outfits which your characters wear.

The only bad thing about this game isn’t really a problem with the game itself. The only issue that I have is that it lacks in the 3D department. I’ve noticed that only the speech bubbles become 3D, even if I push the setting up to the maximum… then I just get an eye ache, so I have to turn it back down.

Anyway! Tales of the Abyss is an amazing game, and if you want to try a new style of RPG, I encourage you to try any of the “Tales” series. (Except Tales of Symphonia Dawn of the New World for the Wii). They are all incredible in their own way,  and if gaming isn’t your thing… then I have two things to say to you:

1) Go watch the Anime!

And

2) Why are you on a gaming website?

I’m not one for looking at the little bits and bobs  inside a console, nor do I know how they work. But does anybody truly appreciate the time and effort that goes into making a game look as good as does? I certainly don’t! Well, didn’t until quite recently. The game that has made me start to think about this, is actually “Star Ocean: The Last Hope.” I started replaying it (again) and it’s never actually crossed my mind as to how much detail Graphic Designers actually go to, to make a game so beautiful.

Just look at the quality of that!

I understand that that is their job, and they have to do it well to stay in the business.  Yet, have you ever stopped running from town to town in your newest RPG, or stood over your latest victim in your new FPS and thought “that’s a pretty sweet shot” or “that’s a beautiful… corpse?”  Well maybe not that far.

I’m starting to appreciate the scenery and detail to characters in games more and more. Especially if you consider at one time, the games that we used to play had characters with blocks for hands… well… they still do have blocks for hands…

Anyway, it’s pretty amazing to think just how far graphics themselves have come in the last 10 years. When the one (or maybe two) minute CGI animations were the height of graphic technology, that kind of technology, or more advanced tech,  is used pretty much in our day to day gaming world. It’s almost unreal to think just how far things have come.

For instance, just compare the graphics between these two Metal Gear games;

Metal Gear Solid - 1998

Metal Gear 4 - 2008

Ten years isn’t that  long a time, but I wonder how long is ten years in ‘techo-time?’ Somebody once said to me, that if I had bought a brand new state of the art PC, by the time I got it home, the computer would be out of date. Do you think that that if we bought a new game, the same rule applies? By the time we get a new game home, would the graphics be out of date?

It’s pretty interesting — well to me anyway. I’d love to get a day trip to Microsoft, Square Enix, Bethesda, Silicon Knights — anywhere really — and find out just how everything works.

The next time you pop in your brand new game, take a look at the world around your character. And before you dash off on your new adventure, spare a thought for the talented people behind the scenes. Albeit a very quick thought; wouldn’t want to keep you from your game!

We can’t mention Tintin and ignore his faithful sidekick, Snowy. His exceptionally intelligent white fox-terrier. Or dog, to put it plainly, who accompanies Tintin on many, if not all of his adventures.

As Tintin reaches his 83rd birthday, it seems fit for him to début on the big screens in 3D and on our consoles. The story begins with Tintin purchasing a model ship at a bazaar, and just in the nick of time, as a collector appears shortly after the purchase who desperately wants to buy the model boat from our young hero. Tintin declines the offer, informing the collector that it is his boat.  The collector then walks off, but not before imparting some chilling threat. Snowy then barks indicating that the boat is not all as it seems, which leads the journalist to then find a secret compartment which contains a mysterious piece of parchment that ignites Tintin’s interest, and ultimately, his sense of adventure.

Moving onto the actual game itself. The graphics are of a very high quality, as you’d expect. The attention to detail is second to none, whether it’s the detail to the motorbikes, aeroplanes, boats, characters or buildings, I can guarantee, you will not be disappointed.

The game itself is very straight forward. There are two types of areas. There is the three-dimensional free roam and the the linear platform areas, which are very… linear. These areas consist of moving up and down onto various platforms, moving left, right, and jumping over holes in the ground to proceed onto the next area. To proceed in some areas, you need to K.O. a certain amount of bad guys. Some of which are easier to knock out than others. Some need a simple three-hit combo, but some enemies require you to use the environment and various objects lying about to knock those bad boys out. The ones in a scuba diving suit are particularly annoying, but fear not! No enemy is safe from the deadly banana weapon!

One point to note about the free roaming area is that you can’t control the camera. It remains fixed behind Tintin (or Snowy). But don’t worry, I’ve not actually come across any bad guys lurking around the corner of some building… yet.

As you continue through the story, Tintin, with the Captain in tow, has to escape torrents of water, being chased by bad guys  and other such terrible events, which you’d expect could only happen to Tintin. The camera angle at these points remains fixed, where you are looking towards Tintin, and you can see what’s behind him, but not in front: the SnorriCam technique. This ensures that you’re kept on your toes when you have about a second to bash the jump button to hurtle over a barrier or some other obstacle when it comes into your field of view. The guys and gals at Ubisoft got the length of the these chase scenes absolutely spot on. They aren’t too short, and they aren’t long enough for you to get bored, or frustrated enough to stop playing should something bad happen.

The game also boasts a variety of mini games, from throwing a grappling hook to manoeuvre across the sides of ships, to grabbing a parrot to fly you about the stage. The driving and shooting mini-games are pretty fun. I have to mention the remarkable talent of Tintin and the Captain, who are able to effortlessly move from the passenger seat of a motor bike to the driving seat without crashing!

My name is Ben, and this is my first blog for Ready Up and I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, but none of my friends particularly care! So I thought that it would be fun to put my thoughts up here.

For a game to become a classic, does it necessarily  have anything to do with the age of the game? Can a game instantly become a classic when you play it?

For instance, look at the original “Final Fantasy”. It was originally made in 1987, the playable characters had (and still have!) no personality, the graphics and music were amazing for that time, considering what we have now, and let’s not forget to mention how many remakes it has had! Yet, just because it’s ‘old’ and had a few face-lifts in our time, does that make it a classic? Would it have still been a classic without the subsequent releases of the title? Would it be a classic, without the release of “Final Fantasy 7″?

If you look at “Prince of Persia” next, it was released in 1989 and it has also become a series. With an impressive eight main titles under it’s belt, not forgetting the blockbuster film as well, that’s pretty good going.  But lets face it, the games are pretty repetitive: jump over ditches, switch… switches, beat the bad guy, save the girl (except for Forgotten Sands).  The game itself is well loved, despite the repetitive gameplay. Yet, it is still a classic.

So should a game ever be deemed “a classic” by the media?

There seems to be many different categories of classics if you ask me;

The Golden Oldie classic like “Tetris.”

The Contemporary Classic like “The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time.”

The Modern Classic like “Red Dead Redemption.”

It seems silly to have so many categories of classics, but the category that is most important, is Your Classic.

I’m going to leave you with my classics. I can’t decide between “Tales of Symphonia” for the Gamecube, or “Tales of Vesperia” for the Xbox 360, they are my favourite games of all time, by Bandai Namco. When I played them, they became instant classics to me.

As soon as I turned the console on, I fell in love with both  games. I don’t know how many times I’ve actually replayed them.

The landscape is beautiful, the story line second to none, don’t get me started on the plot twists? Who could have seen those coming?

We can’t forget to mention the characters, their interactions with every character in the game was significant in some way. Whether it was Colette naming the dogs to get a title, or Zelos talking to EVERY woman in the game — he got free stuff from them. Everybody you met in the game, had something to say or something to give.

So what makes a great game a classic? Who knows?

I can tell you though, it’s your games,

your choice

and your classics.