-Final Fantasy Explorers- Review

What a first, huh? A review that of a recent game rather than a SNES RPG

I have rather little to talk about before getting into the main portion of the review which is the gameplay. Explorers was released late 2014 in Japan, taking until January 2016 to be released in the US and Europe. All I could garner for development info was the director Atsushi Hashimoto making the game based off the concept of a multiplayer Final Fantasy adventure with a job system being incorporated. Soon after the game came out my drive to purchase this immediately was rather flustered by reviews generally not going higher than 7 out of 10 (Fun fact IGN indeed rated the game 6.8/10. I presume too much Final Fantasy) but after purchase has my fears been unfounded? Well first off the game isn’t being sold for the general 50 or above euro Nintendo games get as price tags for no fucking reason so scrounging 40 euro for the game wasn’t as much of a problem.

The story? Please. This game can be summed up as a Final Fantasy version of Monster Hunter, a series that does not bother with plot as far as I’m aware. The basic premise is there for the sake of it, people who hunt for powerful life and technology powering giving crystals are known as Explorers. YOU are a Explorer heading to the island of Amostra, which is newly discovered as a vast source of crystals but on the way there your airship gets blasted by fucking Bahamut. After booking it you (I’m getting fed up with this already) get to the town of Libertas to began questing around for questing’s sake in search of the island’s Grand Crystal. After about 20 hours of doing stuff and having a rather pointless lesson in what the search for crystals do to the world you get to the Grand Crystal, the story stops pretending it’s a thing and most of the game’s quests start opening up. Now let’s get to the REAL review.

First off the avatar customisation is rather shit with a very limited number of options, though I don’t mind not spending hours increasing the size and shape of every part of my character’s face. I do mind having to shorten my character’s name to Chris due to character limits that shouldn’t be there. Like usual you start off in your Freelancer Job, to get more you need to unlock them. You unlock a bunch early after completing one of the tutorial quests but you unlock most of them by finishing the Job Test quests that you’ll get along the game. Other Jobs are unlocked by specific means such as learning Firaga, Curaga, and Blizzaga to get the Red Mage Job or killing 500 monsters to get the Dark Knight job. You shouldn’t have any trouble with the requirements except the “Make 20 Monsters” one but we’ll get to that later. Jobs as you’d expect change your stats, the abilities you can use, weapons you equip and so on and so forth.

You get equipment mainly through the shop in Liberta using the materials you get from defeated monsters to either make more stuff or upgrade your equipments’ stats until the piece reaches its stat limits (haven’t reached the Buster Sword’s one yet so I don’t plan on replacing it). You don’t level up for killing things Liberta serves as the main hub, you select your quests there and after each quest you get sent back although you can choose to explore the island but certain areas are blocked off till you get a quest telling you can pass through and then the area is unlocked for good. These area barriers get rather annoying to see and I can’t think of a reason for them to really be there. You can select main areas you’ve discovered via the airship outside of quests but the in between areas leading to the main ones like mountain passages or forests have to be travelled through during quests and they’re much more repetitive since its basically 3 similar areas till you reach the next main area.

After a certain point you can also select a number of subquests to be done during quests for rewards like killing monsters or delivering a item. Regardless all quests cost a bit of money to actually start for some reason, it’s not like you’ll ever run out of gil in this game. Quests you unlock come in set difficulties which determines the monsters’ strength and exploring Amostra is always done on the highest quest difficulty available to you but Lv. 2 and Lv.3 item drops don’t happen unless you’re above a certain difficulty whilst Lv. 1 drops are always guaranteed. If you want to make finding new materials easier use LibertaExplorer, it’s a site opened by a bunch of fans at the start of February that contains a enormous deal of Explorers info that players should definitely check out, it’s really convenient. No matter what however you will get annoyed at how enemies tend to not appear in areas that they should like the humble Chocobo which you can kill but only if it decides to show up.

Let’s get into mechanics now. Explorers can all do a normal attack and sprint. Your AP meter is the fuel for your abilities and sprinting, it fills as you attack, use a ether or stand still. For the love of god don’t overuse it and run out unless you want to be left walking after your teammates as they sprint away. You can lock on to nearby enemies by tapping R and have the camera move to in front of you by tapping L, holding L or R opens the ability lists allowing you to use what you have on them. Abilities also have a charge time after use but usually you should always have at least one ability to use if you spam all of them. Holding both L and R opens the Crystal Surge menu when the game tells you have one available. The controls do have a hefty use on the shoulder buttons but it’s easy to get used to, my main issue is how the lock-on always locks on to any boss monsters if they are in the vicinity and not the small fries unless you press “Track Small” on the touch screen.

You learn all your abilities from the Main Crystal in Liberta and they all cost CP. CP is what you get from killing things and is multiplied heavily after a quest. CP is also used during equipment upgrades and monster fusions. The Main Crystal also lets you learn any mutated abilities you’ve found. What are those? Let me explain that with Crystal Surge. You have a count of your Crystal Resonance on the top left that you raise by using abilities, when it gets over 100 a Crystal Surge can occur. The Crystal Surge menu then can be opened allowing you to choose a temporary status change for example all of your attacks are Critcal Hits or all of your attacks are Fire Elemental , but the 4 that appear are random and you won’t know what they do unless you look them up in the game or just try them out. Anyway when a Crystal Surge is active some of your abilities may turn yellow. Use them and you unlock a ability mutation which is a extra add on for the ability you have and all mutations can be stacked and added with whatever other mutation the ability is compatible with. For example:

1. I have a ability called Sonic Steel
2. I activate the Fire Crystal Surge that makes my attacks all do fire damage
3. Sonic Steel turns yellow and I use it during the surge, the game prompts me that I’ve gotten the Fire Mutation
4. I purchase Sonic Steel1 (which has the fire mutation) from the Main Crystal and replace it with the normal Sonic Steel.
5. I get a poison mutation for Sonic Steel1 allowing me to purchase Sonic Steel2 which now has a chance of poisoning and burning a enemy.

I can increase the power and chance of success of abilities by repeatedly mutating the same Surge. If you don’t want to use any of the Crystal Surges that appear in the list you can change it by using abilities a couple of times. If you want to get the most of your abilities, GET EVERY MUTATION YOU CAN.

Now there’s Magicite (no not the Final Fantasy VI stuff) which you unlock after you Encase your first Eidolon during the quest where you learn how to. Eidolons are the series’ summons that fight you in specific areas and can be defeated for items but when they are at low HP the Encase Crystal Surge can appear allowing you to capture the Eidolon and use their magicite. It is REALLY annoying trying to capture a Eidolon for the first time so here are some tips that you should keep in mind every time you attempt it:

-Use abilities or Crystal Shards that don’t damage the Eidolon to raise your Crystal Resonance

-Use the Oracle item to change the Surge list

-When playing in a team you all have individual Crystal Surges at around the same time and raising Resonance is much faster. Having 4 people with Surges increase the chances of one of them having Encase.

When you Encase an Eidolon, you unlock its Trance for permanent use and can sell the Magicite as a Eidolon. Your Trance meter fills as you attack and use abilities. When its full you can go into Trance which fills your HP and AP. It also lets you use a Trance Surge when you get another Crystal Surge which is a really strong special but what it does depends on the Eidolon you have equipped. Now WHO WANTS TO TRANSFORM INTO LIGHTNING FROM THE POPULAR FINAL FANTASY XIII!?!?!?!? Like unlocking Jobs, you can unlock Magicite from the Libertas Moogles after completing certain requirements that let you transform into veteran Final Fantasy characters in Trance and use their Trance Surge. No Final Fantasy IX characters sadly. You can also unlock and forge Final Fantasy outfits but they’re generally overshadowed in terms of protection and convenience.

Now Monster Creation. This thing mainly exists so that people playing solo can have some semblance of “team”. When a monster dies they have a chance of dropping their Atmalith…it’s their soul so to speak. You use this to create monsters to fight with you and they can…level up even though you can’t. I split Monster Creation into two catagories: Either they’re shit or they’re broken damage dealers. My personal favs are the Black Knight, Cactuar and Magic Pot who deal really high magic damage.

So people like playing with other people right? This is self explanatory, you can play with up to 3 others in different quests, the difficulty is raised depending on how many people are there so good job synergy and teamwork is necessary. This can be done with friends or people you find online that may or may not be cunts and run off whilst you try to get materials. Can’t do much in profanities though, you have a set list of things to inform the team of.

I think I’ve covered more than enough. The game is rather clunky but still great fun as it serves its purpose well. Like some other games (BRAVELY DEFAULT) I think it would’ve benefitted greatly from some more time, attention and additions to make things more convenient. The music is…decent but with a game like this you’re probably listening to music or a podcast (wink wink nudge nudge) when playing. It’s worth the price that its going for and fans of the series have already bought the game because of all the beautiful fanservice. I wish Gilgamesh and Omega Weapon weren’t the only non-summon boss fights though, some more fanservice in optional boss department pls.

Anyone want to see what review comes up next? I’m leaving that up to you.

-TheAceAlucard

Why One Piece Works So Well

Unless you’ve been living under the proverbial anime rock you’ve probably heard of Eiichro Oda’s One Piece. On the surface One Piece looks very similar to other long running, shounen series but it has consistently ranked higher with critics than others such Naruto, Bleach and Fairy Tale.

So something is clearly different here between One Piece and other shows and I think I know what might be. First off let’s look at it’s structure. Right form the get-go Oda had the ending and general structure planned out and since then hasn’t really left from that path. He originally intended for one piece to only go on for 5 years but continued the series on to flesh the story out. For most the high amount episodes and chapters will be an incredibly high barrier of entry but I would argue that in the long run it helps the series. The characters are traversing an entire world stopping on each island along the way, most islands’ stories arguably out does many other series in size and scope alone. Not only that but since the character’s  goals are such lofty or in the case of some vague such as “Become the worlds greatest swordsman” or “Chart every ocean in the world” or even “become a great warrior” it makes sense that it would take a lot of time to achieve them.

The appearance of One Piece is another determining factor.  Right from the start Oda’s art is great and only gets better over time. Not only that but Oda has a grasp on the medium he works in that few others do. He understand both what flows well and especially what looks cool in format. Luffy’s power to stretch his body already seems cool but when paired with cool perspective tricks his attacks appear incredibly flashy and badass.

Zoro’s three sword style also looks great in the way that only a non-moving comic can make it look.

Oda also never seems content to merely let events start and stop. There always seems to be a logical reason for why the characters move to the next place or do the next thing even if it is occasionally is obvious that things or character happen or appear just to move the story forward.

Finally, I would like to talk about the types of stories One Piece tells. One Piece especially recently has gotten much better at building up stories before they even happen. For example the whole Baroque Works saga begins in volume 12 telling the story of the Strawhats trying to return a princess to her kingdom and to defeat the a corrupt warlord so when we finally get to Alabasta it feels like a mini victory in and of itself. Similarly Fishman Island is first mentioned around volume 45 so when we finally get there it feels great along with this the Skypeia arc is famous for being a great self contained story that is just part of the overall narrative. One Piece also handles war arcs good too. Naruto was famous for having a long and drawn out war arc that tainted the ending for some. One Piece’s Paramount War on the other hand was is the best arc in the series.

I’m tempted to go into the themes of One Piece but I can tell many people are already bored of this as it it. So maybe I’ll do a follow up to this eventually.

Thanks Again,

Kevin Smith,

Doctor Who: Series 9 Review/Retrospective Part 2: The Zygon who Inverted

Welcome back to my piece on Organised Nonsense, where I currently look back on season 9 of Doctor Who. Not much to say on this intro, so let’s get right into it!

My Top Five Sandbox Games

A game wherein the player has been freed from the traditional structure and direction typically found in video games, and is instead given the ability to choose what, when, and how they want to approach the available choices in content. The term is in reference to a child’s sandbox in which no rules are present and play is derived from open-ended choice. While some sandbox games may have building and creation aspects to their gameplay, those activities are not required. Sandbox games usually take place in an open-world setting as to facilitate the freedom of choice a player is given.

“Sandbox game” — Wikipedia

I like a good action-packed game every now and then, but my toy of choice in the gaming playground is the sandbox. The kind of games that appeal to that excitement of opportunity, and don’t later disappoint you when you realize they’re actually mostly hollow.

Here are my top 5.

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#5 The Powder Toy(Free & Open Source, Windows, Mac)

The Powder Toy is like a normal sandbox, but 2D and with a huge variety of particles that interact with each other in useful and intricate ways rather than just boring old sand; These particles include explosives, gasses, solids, liquids, and a bunch of real-life elements(which are more like elements that are just named after real elements to give you a hint on it’s behaviour than actual realism) TPT also differs from a standard sandbox by having less toddlers, allowing you to play in it without ending up in a cell.

 

TPT’s greatest feature is the electronics. You can wire things to behave in rather specific ways, leading to interesting creations like controllable reactors, laser rifles and miniature computers. The game’s ‘wire’s are anything that’s conductive(gold, ‘metal’, iron…), and electricity is a yellow pulse that travels infinitely at a speed dependent on it’s medium. Various particles act accordingly when in contact with electricity, which can be controlled with switches, sensors, one-way wires and other brain materials.

 

And it’s topped off with an in-game scene browser which you can use to download and upload some amazing scenes. So, it’s free, it works on Win(e?)dows and Mac OSX, and it’s tiny. Might as well just download it already.

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 #4 Algodoo(Free, Windows, Mac)

Algodoo is a 2D physics game where you build contraptions from shapes, motors, thrusters, lasers and physics, and then delete them because they are all crap in comparison to stuff in the Algobox

You may remember Incredibots from 2009, well, Algodoo is like that but better. With a better engine, a (much) better interface, more object properties, scripting(Though, the custom scripting language ‘Thyme’ is probably the worst I’ve ever seen bar intentionally bad ones), lasers and Water!

Despite being 2D, there is a lot you can do in Algodoo. I’ve had a lot of fun making multipurpose vehicles, games, solar systems, and just generally messing around in this game. It runs well, is now free, and best of all: it doesn’t use Flash, earning it #4 on my list.

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#3 Minecraft(20€, mods only work on Linux, Windows, and Mac)

Missiles are piped into these silos from below. Because nothing reminds you of your sandbox days quite like liberating enemies from existance before they can sign any silly peace treatie!

You already know what Minecraft is, I don’t need to tell you.

 

But what puts it at #3 on my list are it’s mods. Specifically,  Industrial Craft 2, Buildcraft, ComputerCraft, ICBM and a Bukkit server with Factions.

Industrial Craft 2 brings Minecraft into an industrial revolution, and then some. Mining lasers, carbon armour, jetpacks, teleportation devices and a large array of power storage, transmission and generation blocks(incl. Nuclear reactors!) to power them.

Buildcraft adds mostly just item transportation pipes and automatic crafting tables, which can be used to build factories to construct pretty much anything. I use it to make automatic ore processors, missile construction factories and extremely advanced nuclear power plants.

Computercraft gives you mining turtles, portable and static computers and a few other computer peripherals, and everything is programmable using Lua. You can draw to a computer’s screen and get user input, leading to some people creating their own OSs! Mining turtles can be programmed to do your bidding as they have their own inventories, and they can attack, dig, and transfer items. You can also use OpenPeripherals and OpenCC Sensors to make them stand watch at your base and attack intruders.

ICBM adds InterContinental Ballistic Missiles, which allow you to punch a hole in the world up to 10,000 blocks away. The size of the hole they punch is anyone between ‘conventional’ TnT, to a missile with 3 nuclear warheads powerful enough to reclaim a moderately sized base back to nature. With that last bit in mind, it’s important to construct missile counter measures, such as radar & EMP towers, anti-ballistic missile silos and AA guns.

Factions is a server-side mod that allows players to claim land and prevent your low-level, unorganised griefers from helping themselves, claimed land is uneditable to anyone but the faction it belongs to. The fun part of Factions is that for claimed land to remain claimed, the owners of that land need to not die too much. Traditionally, on Vanilla servers, this meant that Faction ‘raids’ would occasionally  take place. Raiders would invade an enemy base when enough of their players were online, attempt to slaughter as much of the enemy as possible(Attackers often fell victim to clever traps, and well prepared defenders often stood a decent chance of repelling the attackers, and profiting from their *highly* precious, often beloved raiding kits)

What about when a faction simply builds a box and hides in it? Traditionally, a TnT cannon would be constructed outside a faction base by the invaders’ smartest technicians in order to breach the enemy base. With ICBM, I like to exhaust their missile counter-measures with a barrage of low-tier missiles, and then make a clean entry hole from afar.

Or if I’m feeling like the materials are worth it, convert their entire base into a crater. ICBM is awesome.

 

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#2 Garry’s Mod(10€ on Steam, free on certain other places 😉 )

If the Internet was a game, this would be that game. Garry’s mod was originally a Half Life 2 mod, abusing HL2’s (at the time, arguably still) groundbreaking engine by turning it into a Sandbox game. Eventually it became standalone, with it’s own support for mods. And when I say “support for mods”, it’s not like child support or anything added in a “I suppose we have to” sort of way, It’s closer to air support, like calling in a Wing of Enola Gays to the middle of the Atlantic and blowing other modding support out of the water. It’s fitting that “Enola Gays” was split into two lines, given the context.

 

Gmod’s modding support provides access to a high-performance engine through an easy to learn, easy to implement scripting language – Lua – with an API providing both coarse and fine levels of control. Which allows the immature newbies and people that have never scripted before to enjoy themselves, and allows the (still immature) experienced modders to create their crazy works of art exactly as they invision it.

There are two types of mods for Garry’s mod: In one type, people add content to Sandbox mode(Hey dawg…), such as Wiremod and less impressively, an assortment of meme mods like Epic Sax saxophone, a ‘This is Sparta’ weapon etc etc.

And for the more ambitious, separate gamemodes can be made. Which has led to some pretty creative games, like the iconic Prop Hunt, where players animate inanimate objects and have to hide from regular humans. Or Trouble in Terrorist Town, which is like Cluedo but with social engineering and PvP. Or DarkRP, where you roleplay as a 12 year old roleplaying as a gun/drug dealer/manufacturer trying to print earn a living in a world full of hackers guys out to shut down your meth lab legitimate business. Multiplayer mods and gamemodes thrive because whenever a player joins a server with them installed, that player automagically downloads and installs all the mods on the server, and is only bothered by them when they join that server.

Sandbox mode allows you to weld various plates, cubes, complex shapes and models together, and then attach axles, ropes and thrusters, which can be controlled from a seat or remote controller if you have Wiremod installed. All of this can lead to some pretty cool vehichles(And pretty cool combat if you have Pewpew installed), but in multiplayer mainly just equates to a lot of people getting run over and the 13 year old’s Mona Lisa constructed and painted in a large, often impressively creative variety of ways.

 

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#1 Kerbal Space Program(40€, free demo with less features, Win+Mac+lin)

KSP is my favourite sandbox game, and my favourite game full stop.

The best way to play KSP is badly. People say that it is a hard game, because they can’t readily do what they set out to, or what they’ve seen other people do.

KSP is not a hard game. KSP is a Sandbox game. When your ship disintegrates during re-entry, or crashes into Mun instead of landing gracefully, you might think “This is hard” , “That failed” or maybe even slam things if you’re prone to anger. People that I’ve managed to get into this game instead think “Hehe! It exploded!” or “That was close. Now what can I do to get closer?” like tiny green Elon Musks.

Unlike what too many think, it isn’t a game you need to be smart to play(or even to be good at). Ever wonder how a few thousand tiny green men and women manage to get to other planets without any other technology or even civilizations outside of the Space Centre? It’s because they’re relentless(And also because they seem to value science over each other’s lives, judging by all the Kerbals drifting around my Kerbol). If you cannot accept that failure is always an option, this game is not for you.

If this game is for you, do not look up anything. The game covers all the essentials  and when you look things up, you miss out on all those fun ways you can fail. Start a career mode, and just have fun, because a spectacular fail is still spectacular.

Also, take screenshots and videos. I regret not taking more, they help you remember the great moments you had.

Things of the Year 2015

Why hello there, I’m Sean Reidy and these are my things of the year 2015.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
This is a game I spent several year obsessing over every slightest detail of in the lead up to its big release on September 1st. I had seen every trailer dozens of times. I watched any appearance of Hideo Kojima for some hope of news. I watched a Japanese livestream on Christmas Day to have a chicken hat confirmed for me. I bought the big 140 euro collector’s edition with a half scale replica of Big Boss’ bionic arm. I played the game non-stop for a month and I feel it is half a perfect game. Playing the game you see the occasional glimpse of an all time great, and the game still debatably is. But it could’ve been so, so much better. The game’s core gameplay is fantastic, every movement is fluid and responsive. The shooting is great, every one of the game’s wide variety of guns feel different to each other. The story is acceptable by general gaming standards but is pretty woeful by Metal Gear standards. Some segments of the story are fantastic. Quiet manages to have somewhat of an arc without any dialogue, the “woman in the room” who I won’t mention for spoilers has a heartbreaking side story, the mission “Voices” is spectacular and builds a fantastic atmosphere in one of the game’s very few indoor areas. MGSV is a huge disappointment, but also my Game of the Year.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens
My Film of the Year was less of a disappointment. I was a big Star Wars fan a good few years ago but it had sort of subsisted into me deciding Empire was the only good one. The Force Awakens changed that, in the lead up to it I rediscovered the series I had abandoned and the film itself was the final clincher. I loved it. Almost every part of it. I understand it’s just A New Hope with new characters but I really like those new characters. Kylo Ren’s pathetic immaturity has given me one of my favourite film villains in years. Finn was well-acted, humourous. And of course, John Williams, fantastic as ever. The soundtrack is great, with the highlights being Rey’s Theme, March of the Resistance and The Jedi Steps & Finale. Rey’s Theme in particular gives a sense of discovery, hearing that song in the film I felt as if this was really it. After 32 years they got it right again. Good job, Disney.

Toast of London
Please watch Toast of London. Seriously. I don’t know a single person who watches it and it is the best surreal sitcom on TV since The IT Crowd. Toast stars Matt Berry (Douglas Reynholm from the previously mentioned IT Crowd) as Steven Toast, a failing, middle aged actor from London who is forced to do whatever job comes his way. The best of this year’s episodes involved popular US actor Jon Hamm, as Toast develops an unwanted homosexual crush on him. The show evokes memories of Father Ted, and I’d put some episodes on a level with that show’s absurdist highs like Speed 3 and The Mainland. It’s a fantastic show and, despite winning BAFTAs, I worry it has gone underappreciated.

Music Complete

The latest album from the legendary New Order is something that popped up out of the blue for me, I only knew of its existence a day before release, I’m glad I did find out about it though. The album has a perfect mix of electronica, the occasional classical instrument and some pretty good vocals. The highlights on the album include Restless, a song that sounds straight off a Joy Division album with its vaguely mopey lyricism with top class instrumentation, Stray Dog, a contemplative slower song with a spoken word angle that sounds semi-similar to Ron Perlman and Tutti Frutti, a much more house type of song with occasional disco flashes throughout. Overall the album was a tremendous surprise, and one I thoroughly recommend you give a listen to.

Bonus Thing of 2016

Blackstar, the 26th and final studio album of David Bowie was released on January 9th, Bowie’s 69th birthday. I listened to it then and I thought it was fantastic. I thought I had already found my album of the year. 3 days later, Bowie died after a secret 18 month battle with cancer. This cemented the album as my favourite, which allows me to write this in absolute confidence. Listening to the album that weekend was a strange experience. It was a fantastic album, but a weird one. A lot of things in it were unexplained. Then the news broke. It is a parting gift from Bowie, with the jazz infused tones of the album playing him out from the world. He did not take his death idly, and instead used it to fuel one last masterpiece. To my mind the best songs on the album are Lazarus, Dollar Days and I Can’t Give Everything Away. These songs are rooted in death. Lazarus is the most blunt of these, opening with “Look up here, I’m in heaven” before descending into a final verse about how “This way or no way, you know I’ll be free” and the song uses the same notes repeatedly to create an overwhelming sense of dread. It is a fantastic album, only made better by the unfortunate context.