Fantasy-lite

Thanks to a housemate of mine recently picking up Final Fantasy XIII, I've recently been dabbling in it's delights, when previously I had no intention to do so. I was less than keen on VII's treatment as a "project" rather than just a game, partly due to that aspect of it being decided much further down the line. With XIII supposedly going to be a project that's double the size of VII, I decided I'd rather avoid getting involved entirely.

Despite that, seeing it in action did help. While it's rarely a strong selling point for me, the graphics and presentation are gorgeous, even though I'm currently limited to an aged SDTV, it still doesn't fail to impress. If I do enjoy it enough to see it through to the end, I could potentially return to it at a later date in HD, which is has clearly been made for, as shown by it's large borders and occasionally minuscule text.

While I don't intend to get too involved in talking about the storyline, I feel it's worth saying that it's actually rather good so far. It's told in a very disjointed pattern, with the game beginning near the end, and then sometimes hopping back in the timeline to fill in the blanks on character history and motivations. It helps that it's done well, some RPGs have tried this before and it just didn't really work that well. It's not quite as sparse as XII, and definitely not as compressed and simplified as X was. It's something close to a happy medium. It is very cutscene heavy though, moreso than usual, so it's less tedious than some games make it.

Music wise, I'm very impressed. It's changed again from XII, which had Hitoshi Sakimoto doing the soundtrack. Having previously worked on titles like Ogre Battle and Odin Sphere, the grandeur his music offers was very well suited, but obviously with XIII being rather different, that wouldn't really fit. Instead, they've gone with Masashi Hamauzu, who I've only experienced before in Unlimited Saga. It's a not more contemporary and varied, something which lends itself very well to XIII. While it's always a shame to not have Uematsu on board, more variety like this is definitely something that Final Fantasy as a whole can benefit from.

The game's system and battle sequences have been drastically streamlined, with levelling and recovery being removed entirely. It seems like less of a solid RPG, and more like an extended cutscene with RPG elements in it. While I'm still in the early stages, character customisation seems to present itself as an illusory method of decision making. While you can develop a character as you progress with new abilities, it's very linear, meaning you can quite happily continue through the game with the required skills and statistics available to you. While I do often agree with the idea of cutting out needless complication in games, it seems a bit misleading to present the player with the idea that they're developing a character when really, that could also be done automatically. I've yet to encounter any difficulty spikes as it's all so linear at the moment.

That's not to say that I'm not enjoying it, however. One thing it does succeed with is offering an enjoyable experience. While I was quite happy to let this one pass me by, I've found myself hooked to some degree. I'm not sure yet if I'll consider it one of my favourites, but for the time being it's a nice little distraction. It just so happens that playing such a simple RPG, I'm finding myself even more eager to sink my teeth into something like Dragon Quest.

Farming Factor

Around the time I was introduced to emulation, I started playing Harvest Moon. To my knowledge, the SNES version wasn't released in Britain at the time, which is a bit odd, as you'd imagine a game about farming would have quite a market here. To this day, I still consider it one of the best titles in the series. As odd as the concept was to me, I found myself hooked, and ever since then I've maintained a passing interest, playing at least one of the many releases that each generation of consoles receives. Despite that, I never bothered with the somewhat recent spin-off series, Rune Factory. That is, until I picked up a Wii.

Perhaps it was because I really didn't like Harvest Moon on the Game Boy Color, but I shied away from Rune Factory, as it started on the DS, and has two sequels on said format. Perhaps I had some sort of preconception about the quality of portable Harvest Moons, but it never appealed enough for me to play it. For some reason though, I was quite eager to play the Wii version, Rune Factory Frontier.

While the other DS games are standalone sequels, Frontier features the hero and heroine from the first game, along with a few other characters who have come along for the ride. In a bizarre act of continuity, there are original characters who do and don't remember the hero, which I really can't seem to get my head around. Especially as he can marry most of those characters in the original game. It's as if the first game did and didn't occur. Minor gripes aside, I'm really rather keen on the game itself.

For those unaware, Rune Factory takes the basic concept of farming and relationship building from Harvest Moon, and adds dungeon exploration and combat. It might be because I'm already keen on going into dungeons and bothering dragons and their kin, but I've become hooked. Such a simple addition has almost reinvigorated the love that I had for the very first game. Another addition is my favourite aspect of Magical Melody, one of the Harvest Moon titles, which allows you to build friendship with any of the villagers, rather than just potential brides.

However, due to the story's progress being closely linked to how successful your dungeon exploration, villager relationships and crop growth, it's very slow moving. In one instance, I had to unlock a gate. To do so, I had to develop a friendship with a resident near to the gate. Doing so introduced a character who merely appeared, said nothing, and walked off. Upon following him, the following areas had a couple of substantial difficulty spikes, which I've yet to conquer. The problem is, to survive said spikes, I have to make my farm a lot more profitable in order to have access to better equipment. It's not a game that can be rushed.

That, however, is possibly what I find most appealing about both Harvest Moon and Rune Factory. While Rune Factory has added some degree of excitement to it with the dungeons, they are still essentially time sinks. Both series are perfect examples of how to reward effort, though. The more time and effort you're willing to put in, more variety and content becomes accessible. I find, though, that I enjoy the slow pace of the game. For a game that started off about daily life and building friendships, the ever so gradual development that exists in Rune Factory is perfectly suited to it. Provided I don't get too bored, I'm hopefully going to see this through to the end. After that? I might take the plunge and try one of the DS titles, portability be damned.