Thousand Arms

One of many RPGs released on the Playstation in the late '90s, Thousand Arms was relatively novel for the time in that it's also something of a dating sim - you build relationships with several women over the course of the game through dialog choices and minigames, which in turn boosts your ability to forge stronger weapons and unlock spells.  The presentation is surprisingly polished for the time as well, transitioning between chibi-style sprites and larger anime-styled animated characters for scenes of dialog (complete with voiceover!).  That said, the rest of the gameplay is rather pedestrian, with a simplistic combat system with one active character and up to two others who mostly support the point character by weakening enemies or bolstering their abilities, and some rather generic dungeons and minigames to fill out the rest of the time.  It's not hard to see why the game has a small but loyal following - after all, it arguably inspired the social sim element of the later Persona games - but it's a bit too simplistic to hold my attention.

Developer: TOSE/RED Entertainment
Publisher: Atlus
Released: 1999
Platforms: PlayStation

Jagged Alliance 2

A low-key cult classic from one of the companies that kickstarted the world of commercial digital RPGs, Sir-Tech's Jagged Alliance 2 is a relatively grounded and realistic take on tactical combat.  But is there fun to be found in a realistic take, or does it just get too absorbed in the details?

Sir-Tech of course is best known for creating the legendary Wizardry franchise, which is a hugely influential one in the world of gaming, being a direct ancestor to just about every digital RPG to some degree or another.  But of course, that wasn't their only franchise; they branched out puzzle games and published a handful of other RPGs and adventure titles during their existence, but one IP of theirs that gets largely overlooked (especially in North America) is Jagged Alliance.  A very granular turn-based tactical RPG with a realistic bent - there's no magic, only a bare minimum of science fiction elements (with 2 having more available via a toggle) and using actual squad tactics and cover, as well as in-the-field training for your troops to hone their skills, is necessary if you want to last long.

Jagged Alliance 2 carries on in this vein, having you select a squad from a list of pre-fab characters, outfit them with equipment, and pay them a limited-term contract (with a deposit for any medical treatment they may require) to fight for you in the war-torn country of Alruco.  Unlike the first game, you're not restricted by rank in choosing whom you can hire, though as you start on a very limited budget you can only afford one or two higher-tier mercs for a day or so; although this does provide an opportunity to get ahold of some rather overpowered equipment early on if you're so inclined.  Also unlike the first game, you can create your own custom-made character who only requires a $3000 fee and no subsequent contract renewals; this is done by inputting a passcode, taking a 16-question personality quiz and tweaking their starting attributes however you choose to.

From there, the game is largely nonlinear, having you take your squad around the country, liberating territory from enemy control through turn-based tactical battles.  Superficially the combat screens bear a resemblance to Fallout with their isometic viewpoint and sprite-based characters, as well as actions being governed by a pool of "Action Points"; however, Jagged Alliance 2's control for your squad is much more granular.  You can crouch, go prone, climb atop objects, and hone your aim by right-clicking, spending more AP for more accurate shots.  Cover is a big factor too, with trees, rocks and buildings substantially reducing the chance you'll be hit by enemy fire if you position yourself between them and your enemy.  One can also throw virtually any object, whether to pass it to an opponent or make a desperate attack on an opponent with a thrown rock or knife, and nearly everything in the game is destructible, which lends itself to some tactical advantages - rather than being caught in an open courtyard, one can blast down a wall with dynamite and take cover inside a building, and of course there's the old video game standby of exploding barrels that can take out (or heavily damage) any enemies standing nearby them.  This can be particularly effective thanks to the Interrupt mechanic; basically, during your enemy's turn, making a successful Dexterity roll can cause your teammates to Interrupt, allowing them to use any unspent AP from the prior turn to attack opponents while they scramble between cover or just enter a room.  Stealth also provides an important tactical advantage in some battles, particularly for heavily fortified positions like SAM sites.

Captured territory comes with its own benefits too; capturing locations with mines will provide you with a daily revenue stream, though mines do eventually run out of salable materials, which effectively puts a time limit on the game.  Vehicles can also be captured, including a helicopter early on, though you must also take out SAM sites positioned around the island or it won't be much use to you at all.  Your enemy will of course constantly be on the move too, often aiming to take territory you've claimed right back.  The solution to this is to have your mercs train up a local militia; effectively, you have them take a few days to train soldiers, who in turn will defend that territory if it comes under attack.  Downtime between missions can also be spent training your soldiers' skills, assigning them as Doctors or Patients to give and receive healing, and place orders for new equipment using your laptop, which can be picked up at the local airfield.  Some materials can also be used to craft useful weapon addons like laser sights, scopes and silencers to gain an advantage for later battles.

That stuff's all good, but it suffers the same issue as a lot of these super in-depth sim games do; namely that there is a large emphasis on micro-management and stat crunching.  Stats and skills are handled in a fashion not unlike the Elder Scrolls games, ie you actually have to use skills (or actively train them) in order to power them up, and once you get above 90 or so making any more progress in them becomes actively arduous.  Injuries will greatly hamper your troops, causing them to get less AP and their stats to suffer until they're healed, and the only way to have them recover is to either spend several hours (or days) patching them up or use rare and expensive fast-healing drugs.  You also have to carefully micromanage your equipment, including the number of bullets in every magazine you carry, and combat just plain comes down to luck of the dice more than anything; you can be doing well, see an enemy land a lucky crit and put one of your favorite soldiers down for several days (or even permanently), so either expect to do a lot of savescumming or just get used to working with a less-than-ideal team for long periods.  Constantly having to juggle territory, resources and capturing cities at a quick enough pace to keep your employer satisfied all factor in too, and it can get pretty overwhelming if you're not scrupulously planning out your actions in advance and well-prepared to deal with unforeseen events.  I'm also not particularly fond of its sense of humor; particularly the "wacky running gag" of the evil dictatoress beating the crap out of her underling in every scene as he delivers bad news so he's constantly more bloody and bruised as the game goes on.  Just smacks of sociopathy when that's what passes as 'humor' in your games...

What it comes down to is that Jagged Alliance 2 has a lot to like with some surprisingly novel elements and staggering depth, but it's also got a lot of nitty-gritty micromanagement and slow-paced, monotonous combat.  It has a devoted fanbase who swear by its stronger elements, but as someone who is more into RPGs for the world building, interesting characters, storytelling and exploration and much less interested in endless foe-vanquishing and stat crunching, it feels a little flat; especially because the sense of humor on display throughout is more than a bit juvenile and doesn't really reflect the gravity of what's going on in Alruco.  Still, I can commend it for its emergent design and having quite a few elements that still aren't commonly seen in modern tactical combat games, and since it's readily available on numerous digital platforms for a pittance, I can say that it's worth picking up if anything I've described here sounds interesting to you.

Developer: Sir-Tech Canada
Publisher: TalonSoft, Titan Computer
Released: 1999, 2000, 2013
Platforms: PC, Mac OS X, Linux

Recommended Version: All versions seem to be identical as far as I can tell, though I have only played the Windows version personally.

Hybrid Heaven

 A science-fiction RPG developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo with the intent of besting Metal Gear Solid in terms of design (yes, really).  Every serious gamer knows about Metal Gear, of course, but the fact that nobody really talks about Hybrid Heaven these days shows that it didn't have nearly the same impact.  Not for a lack of trying, though, as Hybrid Heaven is surprisingly unique among action-RPG hybrids.  Outside of battle you jump platforms, crawl under low doors, hit switches and disable robotic drones and traps with your pistol, not unlike the Tomb Raider games.  Once you encounter a humanoid enemy, however, the game shifts into a combat mode that somewhat resembles a cross between a fighting game and Final Fantasy's Active Time Battle system.  You have a Power bar that fills over time (faster when standing still), and once it fills abut a quarter of the way, you can pick one of several moves from a menu to perform, doing more damage the more full it is.  There's a lot of them, too - jabs, hooks, kicks, throws, armbars, and so forth, and you can set up combos between fights to do more damage and potentially add a free extra hit or two if you find certain effective sequences.  Likewise, when the enemy attacks, you're given several choices - you can step back to try and avoid it entirely, block to reduce the damage it deals, or even go for a counterattack to turn the tables back on them.  Being grabbed behaves similarly, as you're given the option to try and shake out of it, take the fall intentionally to reduce damage or even turn the throw attempt back on them.  Strangely, the game utilizes both traditional levels as well as granular stat growth, but in addition to your core stats (HP, Offense, Defense, Speed, etc), your limbs all power up individually too, gaining more offensive or defensive power through battles the more you use them or they get abused by enemies.  It's not quite as fun as you'd think, though - while you do have to be at a specific range to land attacks (you can't punch someone from several paces away, obviously), countering, escaping throws or avoiding hits while downed just seem to come down to rolls of the dice, which feels like a missed opportunity - being able to recognize incoming attacks and counter them consistently could have made for a more fun and strategic experience.  There isn't much attempt made to balance out your wide repertoire of moves, either - in fact, you can generally stick to your basic jabs and kicks for the most part, and once head-targeting attacks become available, they're very abusable - they tend to knock down and stun enemies very often, leaving them vulnerable to followup hits.  Its campaign also isn't overly long, but enemies in new areas tend to take large leaps in power, requiring you to stop and grind in addition to spending a good amount of time learning how to counter all of their moves.  Its level design is rather drab too, with a lot of large empty rooms and narrow corridors; they definitely could have taken a cue from their "rival game" here, as every room in Metal Gear Solid felt distinct and had an equally unique purpose.  An interesting experiment whose components don't quite come together, Hybrid Heaven definitely isn't the most well-regarded or remembered RPG of the time period; you didn't really have a lot of other options on the Nintendo 64, though.

Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Released: 1999
Platforms: Nintendo 64

Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete

A remake of a cult classic Sega CD RPG that introduced the franchise to a new console generation and gave it some substantial upgrades in the process. But did a 2D fairy tale RPG manage to hold its own in an era where 3d graphics, cyberpunk and urban fantasy were the new norm, or did it just sink into obscurity?

The Lunar games were some of the most influential JRPGs of the early 90s - niche to be sure, being released only for the Sega CD platform, but they were among the first to show western audiences what the CD format could do for the genre.  Not just providing a solid adventure with a lot of substantial content (and not just grinding to pad length), but high-quality music, voiceover and FMV to give them more of a cinematic feel.  Lunar 2 in particular is regarded as one of the best RPGs of the 16-bit era and has a cult following that continues to this day.

All that being said, I didn't play the original Sega CD games back when they were new.  While I knew of them from game magazines and catching glimpses at stores,  I wasn't really into RPGs yet at that point.  On top of that, I couldn't afford a Sega CD addon at the time, so I mostly stuck to the stock Genesis and the Super Nintendo.  However, once the Playstation era rolled around and remakes of the games were announced, I saw an opportunity to jump on board and see what I had missed in the last generation.

Luckily, what I saw did not disappoint.  Not only was it a breath of fresh air to see an RPG in that era that used good old 2D sprites instead of rough-edged, pixelated PS1 polygons, but even in the in-game cutscenes were hand-drawn and very good quality besides; maybe not Ghibli quality, but enough to rival any big-budget anime of the era.  Also unusually for the time, it featured voice acting of surprisingly good quality, giving the characters a lot of personality and adding perfectly to the humor - even in the non-voiced lines, it makes it easier to imagine the voices and timing of the jokes.

Combat retains a traditional turn-based style, though with some slight changes.  First is the fact that your hand-to-hand oriented characters can get multiple attacks per turn, and can even hit different targets with them, keeping their power level roughly on par with your more magic-oriented ones (unlike many RPGs, where mages tend to start out weak but dominate in the endgame).  Second, the game has a slight strategy RPG feel in that for said melee attacks, one must actually approach an enemy on the field and attack them - if they are out of range, then you just spend a turn getting closer and that's it (which can put you at a disadvantage when the enemies get their turns).  Defending also allows you to manually reposition your characters, which proves to be an essential tactic in some battles (particularly against bosses with large area-of-effect attacks).  Throughout the game you are constantly accompanied by Nall, who does factor into combat too - from time to time, he will revive a downed character with 1 HP and allow them to get back into the fight.  While only sporadically useful, this is still better than Nall's contribution in the Sega CD version, where he simply gave useless advice against monsters.  New to this version as well, Nall will revive any downed characters at the end of combat, thus preventing them from missing out on any experience points gained - generally a good thing (though if for some reason you want someone to miss out on gaining XP, you now have to command that individual character to run from the fight).

Something else that was unusual for the time was that Lunar's bosses do not have fixed stats - instead, their stats are all based on multiples of Alex's level, so they effectively power up as he does to provide a consistent challenge (and reduce the player's reliance on over-leveling).  Some unscrupulous players found that they could exploit this by having Alex flee from every fight and simply let the rest of the party gain experience instead, making every major battle beyond the first hours of the game into a total joke.  Probably little surprise that this mechanic was left out of the sequel in favor of more traditional fixed-stat bosses.

Being published by Working Designs had its benefit for the game too; before virtually every game with a well-known name attached had big-box Special Edition releases, Working Designs paved the way.  Silver Star Story was probably their most ambitious one yet with additions like a cloth map, soundtrack CD, hardcover manual and even variant covers for the disc box.  Those who preordered the game got a Ghaleon punching puppet (though the Alex puppet, planned for release alongside the PC version, sadly never saw the light of day), and even the player's guide for the game was unusual in that it was a high-quality hardcover release.  Naturally, this all came at a cost, retailing for significantly higher than the average Playstation game and being relatively rare and expensive nowadays.

On the other side of that coin, Working Designs is a divisive name among RPG fans, making some controversial changes to many of the games they localized for western territories.  While not quite on the same level as Silhouette Mirage 's overhauled gameplay or having to spend Magic Experience to save one' s game in Lunar 2 for Sega CD, they nevertheless make for a substantially different experience than the Japanese release.  In general, enemy HP is about 10 percent lower, their damage output is 20-40 percent higher and XP and silver rewards were lowered around 15 percent, making combat tougher and the game require substantially more grinding.  All chests containing silver had their contents halved as well, and bosses were made significantly stronger, getting higher multipliers based on Alex's level and generally taking much longer to beat.  The translation also added many jokes (including several pop culture references and some generally juvenile moments) and a couple of puzzle solutions were obscured (mistranslated or left out completely) , making them tougher to solve.  I've never personally played the original Japanese release so I don't have a first-hand frame of reference, but I didn't find any of these to detract greatly from the overall experience.  In fact, the lowbrow jokes actually felt rather at home considering that the game also famously has quite a few fan-servicey moments, including allowing the player to collect "bromides" of the female characters to provide some cheesecake, and view bath scenes of both male and female characters with mild nudity (though the female baths are much tougher to access, being placed after one of the game's most dangerous dungeons).

But regardless of whether you agree with Working Designs' changes or not, there is no denying that Lunar is a solid update of a classic.  It provides enough old-school appeal for long-time RPG players, but enough charm, story and memorable characters to appeal to newer ones as well.  The 2D artwork in the game is downright gorgeous, the music is catchy and well-composed, and even the voice acting holds up remarkably well - while obviously not on the level of modern anime and game dubs, the cast is clearly trying and having a lot of fun doing it (with the post-credits blooper reel only providing more evidence of that).  Lunar is a fun and captivating fairy tale in video game form, and its charm will last for the ages.

Developer: Game Arts, Japan Art Media, Studio Alex, SoMoGa (iOS version)
Publisher: Kadokawa Shoten, ESP, Working Designs
Platform: Sega Saturn, Playstation 1, Windows iOS
Released: 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2012
Recommended version: If you can get ahold of a copy, the Playstation version is the one I recommend.  While the Saturn version apparently has cleaner spritework (little surprise as the Saturn was primarily built as a 2D system) and the Windows version has higher-quality FMVs, neither is available in English.  The iOS port is a hybrid of several versions of the game (based on the Saturn version's source code, using the graphics of the Windows port and having the script/VO of the PSP remake) and seems to be comparable in quality at a glance, though I have not played it firsthand.

(There are two remakes as well - Lunar Legend for GBA and Lunar: Silver Star Harmony for the PSP - that I will review at a later date)

Jade Cocoon: Story of the Tamamayu

Coming out on the heels of Final Fantasy VII and Pokemon, Jade Cocoon represents Genki's attempt to cash in on two popular giants in the RPG genre in the late 1990s.  But does the tale of the Tamamayu prove to be a worthwhile one, or is this just another forgettable copycat?

Jade Cocoon was the first (and to date, only) RPG franchise by Genki, a company mostly known for making racing games.  However, they certainly made a valiant effort to create a game that would hold its own against other RPG giants of the time.

For a start, the game has quite an impressive budget behind it.  Not only does it have a full complement of FMV videos and prerendered backdrops for the story to take place against, but character designs and animation direction are provided by Katsuya Kondo, who made his name as a  designer and storyboard artist on Studio Ghibli productions.  Also unusually for the era, the game featured professional voice actors even in its English incarnation, with a few prominent names like Michelle Ruff, Brianne Sidall and Richard Epcar lending their voices to the characters.  A surprising amount of the dialog is voiced as well - even much of the incidental dialog with minor NPCs has voiceover behind it.  Cutscenes are even able to be skipped, which, believe it or not, was a fairly rare concept in the era in which Jade Cocoon came out.

Another nice changeup (in my book at least) is that the game does not feature random encounters - enemies are always visible on the map, allowing the player to engage or avoid them at their leisure.  Most of the time, at least, as Jade Cocoon also makes the odd decision to utilize Resident Evil styled "tank controls" rather than freeform movement; in short, rather than simply pressing a direction and moving in it, the left and right buttons cause your character to rotate in that direction, while pressing up moves him forward and back moves backward.  While this does aid a bit in navigation (allowing the player to keep their bearings as the camera cuts to new angles), it can prove annoying at times too, as it makes it considerably more difficult to maneuver around enemies in some situations.

Jade Cocoon at its core is a monster breeder/combat style of game, so like Pokemon, a significant emphasis is placed on capturing and breeding new monsters (referred to in-game as "minions").  Levant himself can fight as well, but this is of limited use as he has minimal combat options and gains no stats from levels.  Instead, his primary role is either as a supporter (healing his minions with items) and of course to subdue weakened monsters, executed by using his Capture Flute; the lower their HP, the higher chance they have of being successfully captured.  As more monsters are defeated, his "capture level" will increase, allowing him to capture and control progressively stronger creatures.

Minions themselves operate somewhat similarly to the Pokemon games, having innate traits, elemental affinities, status resistances and special attacks.  However, the player doesn't get to use them immediately after capturing them; instead, they must return to the village and have the creature's cocoon "purified" to bring it under their control (or converted into cash).  Once under the player's control, they can be summoned in battle to fight other monsters and gain new skills and stats by earning experience points.

Jade Cocoon draws some elements from the Shin Megami Tensei franchise as well, as a significant portion of the game's strategy is focused around fusing captured monsters into newer, more powerful ones.  These can be slightly powered up variations on your existing minions, carrying over some of the moves, stats and elemental affinities of their parents, but some combinations will also result in completely new creatures, carrying over some traits of their parents but having their own new movesets as well.  This gets taken even further in the postgame, where the player is given the option to customize their monsters with new skins as they venture through an endless labyrinth and face progressively stronger enemies as they go.  All in all, there are some 175 minions and variants thereof to collect in the game, though it is unfortunately not possible to get them all in a single playthrough as some share a slot on the Minion List and will prevent the other from being acquired once collected.

Alongside the main campaign, there is also "arena battle stage" where players can pit their monsters against those of their friends, pulling data from their respective memory cards to make two teams of three monsters each.  This mode even has a hint of a story behind it, as well as character narration throughout the battles, showing a surprising level of polish for something that is, for all intents and purposes, a minigame.

In the end, Jade Cocoon is an interesting, if not outstanding, take on both story-driven JRPGs and monster breeding sims.  While not the deepest of these kind of games, nor the most diverse in terms of design, its high production values and well-crafted fairy tale atmosphere make it clear that Genki was putting effort into making something interesting and not just trying to churn out a low-quality cashin for a quick buck.  If you're not a big fan of this style of game then Jade Cocoon likely won't do much to change your mind, but if you've already played through Pokemon, Monster Rancher, Dragon Quest Monsters, Shin Megami Tensei and Dragon Seeds and are looking for another game with mechanics in that vein, Jade Cocoon will probably be one you want to check out.

Developer: Genki
Publisher: Crave Entertainment
Platform: Playstation 1, Playstation Network
Released: 1999, 2008
Recommended version: The game was given a rerelease on the Playstation Network, though only in Japan.  As of the time of this writing, the only way to play the game in English is on the original Playstation.

Shadow Madness

Created in part by Ted Woolsey and Paul Reed, Shadow Madness was their second attempt to capture some of the RPG limelight after Secret of Evermore proved to be a divisive game.  But does Shadow Madness succeed where their previous effort failed, or does it too get relegated to obscurity?

Secret of Evermore is a game well-known to RPG fans in the 1990s, being billed as something of a sequel to Secret of Mana despite the fact that it was produced by an entirely different studio and, other than the title and several gameplay elements, the two games ultimately shared little in common.  This led it to a mixed reception among gamers and relatively lukewarm sales, and as a result the studio behind its creation was dissolved by Square the following year.  To date, it remains Square's only game to be developed outside of Japan, as well as one of the first to seemingly be forgotten by them, never seeing another rerelease on any format and barely being acknowledged in any form since.

However, two of its developers collaborated once again, taking another shot at recognition among RPG fans.  Ted Woolsey and Paul Reed took the reigns on a new studio (Big Rain), attempting to develop their own RPG for the Playstation platform.  Financial troubles with their first publisher led to the game being picked up for publication by Crave Entertainment instead, leading to Big Rain changing its name to "Craveyard Studios".

Finally, after three years in development their game was released; a very Playstation-esque RPG named Shadow Madness.  It seemingly tried to mimic the visual style of Final Fantasy VII with its low-poly models on detailed 3D-rendered backdrops, as well as a number of full-motion videos conveying the story; however, this ended up looking dated even by 1999 standards, as Square had spent the previous two years making leaps and bounds in visual technology with games like Parasite Eve and Final Fantasy VIII.  The budget limitations the game faced are also much more apparent, with the most emblematic example being the map screen - a literal flat paper map which the model of your character walks across to reach new destinations.

Taking further cues from Final Fantasy VII, Shadow Madness attempts to work in a number of minigames over its runtime to add some variety to the proceedings.  The player is introduced to a lockpicking minigame early on, and later briefly takes the helm of a submarine in a first person shooting segment and helps to destroy a dam with a catapult.  Combat also works in timed hits a la Super Mario RPG, letting the player's attacks deal double damage if they press a button just before their attack lands.  As with its inspiration, these are ultimately nothing spectacular, but do at least add some variety to the game.

Shadow Madness also feels more than a bit dated in the gameplay department; while games like Parasite Eve, Suikoden and Final Fantasy VIII were attempting to put new twists on the familiar RPG formula, Shadow Madness unfortunately lagged behind, with its combat and overall gameplay ultimately feeling rather stock.  Items, equipment and elemental affinities all fit the usual RPG tropes with little to set them apart from any other game of their like.

Combat in the game draws inspiration from Final Fantasy as well, taking part in a system reminiscent of the Active Time Battle system that was a signature of that series at the time.  However, it does at least introduce some new twists.  Battle scenes operate on a grid, and the player's characters are required to be adjacent to an enemy in order to attack them with a melee weapon, requiring them to Approach before they attack.  However, enemies can also surround and gang up on the player, putting them at a disadvantage, so using the Retreat command to back up can spare them from heavy damage at times.  Three different types of melee attack are available as well; Guarded attacks do relatively little damage but give your character a higher chance to dodge enemy strikes for his next turn, Aggressive attacks do heavy damage but leave your character vulnerable, and Normal attacks fall in the middle, doing average damage but not leaving your characters as open to attack as an Aggressive strike.  Later in the game the player unlocks Twitch attacks, which allow for heavy damage if they are relatively adept at button-mashing.

What hinders Shadow Madness more than anything else, though, is its general lack of polish and challenge.  The game is just too easy, with overpowered accessories, spells and attacks being common sights in the game and enemies that generally pose very little threat for much of the adventure.  The maximum level in the game is also a very low 15, which you tend to hit long before the game is over; this in turn has the unfortunate effect of making the game's combat into a literal waste of time since you have nothing to gain by fighting anymore.  Even the developers were seemingly aware of this, as they give the player the option to avoid battles entirely by pressing the L2 and R2 buttons when they hear the telltale enemy roar that signals a battle, which nullifies most (but not all) random battles the game throws their way.

Fittingly for a game by Ted Woolsey, the game also tries to lay on the humor, with rather mixed results.  While it does get a chuckle here and there for its irreverent attitude, bizarre world and some actually pretty funny jokes, it never really turns it off either, which makes it difficult to take the gravity of the story seriously.  Moreso since the game is constantly accompanied by a rather bleak soundtrack and near-constant sights of death and decay, with your characters continuing to crack jokes throughout and seemingly never taking much of anything seriously even when their hometowns and families are involved.  The only time this felt perfectly on-point was was Harv-5, the robot character whose dry comments fit in perfectly with his lack of emotions and analytical approach to virtually everything.  I'm all for adding levity to an otherwise dark story to stop it getting too grim and depressing, but it has to be a) well-placed and b) used sparingly, least it undermine the heaviness of the situation.

When all is said and done, Shadow Madness is nothing if not ambitious, with Craveyard seemingly attempting to make their own Final Fantasy VII on only a fraction of that game's budget.  The end result is a very uneven experience, with clever bits of writing masked between a lot of just-barely-passable gameplay, pretty ugly graphics and overall generic design.  If one can endure all of that in pursuit of its stronger points, then Shadow Madness is probably worth a look.  But if not, those looking for a more satisfying experience on the whole have plenty of better options on the Playstation platform.

Developer: Craveyard Studios
Publisher: Crave Entertainment
Platform: Playstation 1, PC
Released: 1999, 2022
Recommended version: The game was 'ported' to Steam in 2022, in that it's the original PS1 game running inside a PCSXR emulation.  One can access a menu by pressing the Escape key, but it has frustratingly few options for resolution settings and even requires you to 'swap discs' via a key input once you reach a certain point in the story, rather than doing so seamlessly.

Parasite Eve II

While the original Parasite Eve found its feet as an action-RPG drawing cues from popular horror titles of the time, its sequel very much takes the opposite approach, becoming a straight survival horror experience with a few RPG elements mixed in.  But does this end up making it a better game in the end, or does it just lose what made the franchise unique?

Parasite Eve, billed as "the Cinematic RPG", was a surprise hit for Square, combining their strength - RPGs - with elements of action and survival horror games like Resident Evil and Dino Crisis, allowing them to put their own spin on the genre while keeping to their norms of storytelling and deep customization to provide a distinct and memorable game experience.

Rather ironic, then, that its sequel would take almost the exact opposite design philosophy.  Parasite Eve 2, while it continues the story of the first game and even carries over some design cues from it, is now much more of a traditional survival horror title.  Fixed camera angles, limited ammunition, a heavy emphasis on item-finding and puzzle-solving, and of course the infamous "tank controls" that require the player to press up to move forward and left or right to rotate, which felt a bit dated in an era where analog controls were rapidly becoming the new standard.  While some elements of the RPG genre are maintained, like spells, MP and even a shop system (more on each of these below), there is definitely a much greater emphasis here on maintaining resources and mastering the finer points of the controls than there was in the first game.

As mentioned, the game does at least retain some RPG elements.  The most prominent of these is an experience system - by defeating enemies, the player earns experience, which in turn can be used to unlock new Parasite Energy abilities (essentially spells) for a variety of effects.  Some of these return from the first game, like the ability to restore Aya's HP with Healing or do extra damage with bullets with Energy Shot, but many are new as well.  In fact, in another odd-change up from the first, these all fit within the four Greek elements of fire, water, earth and wind, and rather than simply being single-target effects, actually have zones of effect somewhat similar to spells in games like Diablo.  Combustion, for example, causes two waves of fire to launch out in front of Aya at an angle, then close in, burning any enemies they touch, while Energyball creates three electrical orbs that rotate around Aya, damaging any enemies they touch.  Each element has three spells, each of which has three levels of power, and by buying or upgrading any of them, Aya's maximum MP will be increased.

In another changeup, however, Aya's HP and damage output are not affected at all by experience levels.  These are determined solely by the equipment the player chooses to equip Aya with, with weapons they find varying significantly in overall damage, fire rate, and special effect (such as having different ammunition types that deal more damage).  As a general rule, though, pistols are the weakest weapons but use common ammunition and frequently get critical hits, making them ideal for weaker enemies but virtually useless against bosses.   Shotguns have a spread effect that can hit multiple enemies in close quarters, machine guns and submachine guns can deal heavy damage but eat ammunition quickly, and grenade launchers are very powerful but ammunition for them is hard to come by and relatively expensive to purchase, making them best saved for stronger enemies and bosses.  Weapon modification still exists, but is limited to predefined attachments that grant added bonuses like extra ammunition capacity or adding a bayonet for a powerful melee attack - a far cry from the in-depth customization of the original that let you build some amazingly destructive weapons.

What weapons the player uses throughout the game is ultimately a matter of preference and personal strategy, but the single biggest determinant factor for what play style they undertake is the armor they choose.  Different suits of armor grant different benefits, such as extra HP, more quick-slots for accessing items mid-battle, or resistance to certain status effects.  Those inclined toward a more traditional, Resident Evil styled experience can go for choices that grant extra HP and boosted fire rate, for example, while those who wish to have a more "mage character" style of gameplay can go for armor that bolsters MP and grants benefits like MP regeneration over time.  Some items can also be equipped to quick slots to add extra benefits, like a slight boost to maximum HP, extra weapon damage or resistance to a particular status, in turn adding a bit more strategy.

The game is not completely steeped in survival horror's emphasis on conserving resources, however.  While many items are found in the field, the player also has the option to purchase ammunition and upgrades by collecting "Bounty Points", earned by defeating enemies.  Boxes littered throughout the game also contain an unlimited supply of basic 9MM ammunition, allowing the player to use pistols and machine pistols as much as they wish provided they are relatively diligent about revisiting said boxes to keep their supplies up.  In another odd reversal from survival horror norms, avoiding enemies is actually discouraged - you actually lose BP if you leave a screen without killing all the enemies, which in turn encourages you to stand and fight any foes you encounter rather than try to avoid them.  In fact, enemies will frequently respawn in visited areas after story events, allowing the player to backtrack and clear them out again to rack up more BP - all but essential if you're going for the highest rankings, which require a high amount of points to be earned.

As is standard for the genre, inventory  management is a significant part of Parasite Eve II's gameplay as well.  While inventory space isn't as limited as most of the Resident Evil titles, you do still have a limited number of inventory slots to contend with, and storing useful items for the later, tougher stages of the game becomes a key part of one's overall strategy.  Befitting this, there are numerous areas in the game where items can be dropped off and retrieved later; however, you do not keep access to all of them throughout the game, meaning that leaving items in some areas and then moving on to the next chapter of the game can result in them being lost, so care must be taken to transfer useful items over before moving on.

In another nod to survival horror norms, Parasite Eve II is not a particularly long game, clocking in at roughly twelve hours once the player figures out how to get through the various puzzles.  However, replay value is introduced by unlocking new content each time the game is completed.  New equipment becomes available depending upon the rank the player attained in their previous playthrough, with new weapons, armor suits, attachment items and the like being unlockable.  One particularly humorous addition here is Squall's Gunblade, which can be unlocked under certain conditions.  While it can fire bullets and use a melee attack, both are rather weak; however, with a combination of a swing and a timed press of the trigger button one can inflict massive damage, mirroring the timed attack mechanic from Final Fantasy VIII.  The game now also allows the player to skip cutscenes, which makes subsequent playthroughs much faster.  In a flip from games like Resident Evil, though, your final rank is not determined by things like how often you heal and how quickly you complete the game, but solely based on how many points you score, so eliminating as many enemies as possible (and playing on higher difficulties) will determine what items you unlock.  More game modes are also gradually unlocked, including Bounty Mode (stronger enemies and more frequent GOLEM encounters), Scavenger Mode (Aya is weaker and the gameplay is much more centered on finding random items from enemy drops) and Nightmare Mode (an extreme challenge with low HP, powerful enemies everywhere and very few shops).

As was standard for Square games of the time, Parasite Eve II looks amazing for a PS1 title, with character models looking much less plasticy than the first game's, immaculately detailed prerendered backgrounds, and even some amazing details like seeing characters reflected in windows and polished marble floors.  The cinematics - one of the first game's selling points - remain as stellar as ever too, allowing for some grotesque transformation sequences and even a very clever opening sequence where a Aya walks toward a building, scrolling a prerendered FMV beneath her as she goes to great cinematic effect.  The soundtrack, while not quite as effectively chilling as the first, also fits within survival horror's sensibilities, lending subtle tension to the horror of the environments and scenarios the player encounters.

In the end, Parasite Eve II is a bit of an odd duck, taking what made the first game distinct and discarding most of it in favor of a more traditional and popularized format.  While it is a more polished game in some respects (with less potential to make game-breakingly powerful character builds), whether it's a better game than the first is a matter of preference that boils down to which the player likes more - RPGs or survival horror games.

Developer: Square
Publisher: Square
Platform: Playstation 1, Playstation Network
Released: 2000, 2011
Recommended version: The Playstation Network version is a direct emulation of the Playstation 1 game.

Final Fantasy V

Released between Square's much-touted baby Final Fantasy IV and fan-favorite Final Fantasy VI, the fifth game in the franchise is one of its more overlooked entries.  But is it a worthy title in its own right, or is this title generally neglected by fans for a reason?

Final Fantasy V came out a t a time when the Final Fantasy franchise was starting to gain ground in North America; the first and second (actually fourth) games proved to be hits in North America among the niche JRPG audience, and when another entry in the franchise was announced and later cancelled in favor of translating Final Fantasy VI (released as III) and Mystic Quest, quite a few were left disappointed.

However when it did finally get a western release on the Playstation, it seemed that few people actually took the chance to play it.  Part of this may have just come down to poor timing (it being released at the height of Final Fantasy's fame, when 7 and 8 were the hot new games on the market), but it may also have been in part due to a lackluster porting job.  While other sprite-based RPGs on the system like Suikoden and Wild Arms showed very few, if any, load times, Final Fantasy V had them between every single combat, which made it feel rather poorly optimized for a port of a game that was over five years old by that point.  This was paired with a rather dull translation, lacking much of the humor and character that Ted Woolsey injected into Square's later SNES titles, and which lacked in polish even in comparison to a fan translation that had been available via emulation for quite some time.  It seemed even Square didn't give much thought to one of their own games, and as a result, most of their newfound fans didn't either.

A shame, then, as Final Fantasy V is one of the franchise's stronger titles in terms of gameplay.  It  takes the class-based system of the first and third Final Fantasy games and puts some new twists on it, which allows Final Fantasy V to be a standout title in its own right.  There are a total of 22 in the game (26 in the GBA and later versions), with each having a distinct set of skills and special abilities.  For example, the Knight class can equip heavy armor and shields and take hits in place of their allies, while the Summoner can call upon powerful creatures to deal heavy damage to enemies or aid the party.  Many of these return from Final Fantasy III, though there are some new ones as well like the Blue Mage (who can learn unusual spells from monsters with a variety of useful effects) and the Berserker (a powerful but uncontrollable physical fighter that wields axes and hammers).

Final Fantasy V's most defining feature, however, is that the player's characters are not locked into any given classes' abilities when they select them.  As a matter of fact, the player can mix-and-match abilities between classes on each of their four characters, allowing them to create hybrid characters that eliminate some of the glaring weaknesses many classes possess or expand their repertoire of skills.  One can, for example, learn the Equip Armor ability as a Knight, then change class to a White Mage and keep the ability to equip armor to compensate for their comparatively weak defense.  Red Mages are limited in that they can only cast the first three tiers of spells (out of eight), but they also learn a powerful ability in "X-Magic", allowing them to cast two spells in one turn; this can be passed to the Black Mage class, allowing them to cast two powerful Flare spells in one turn in the late stages of the game.  Even the basic "freelancer" class has a purpose in the late stages - while they have only decent stats and learn no inherent skills of their own, they can equip any two abilities they've learned over the course of the game and have no restrictions on what weapons and equipment they can use; thus, they can wield the spell sets of two magic-casting classes, for example, without being held back by inferior equipment choices.  This element adds much depth and strategy to the game, allowing the player to adopt new strategies on the fly to deal with new challenges.

This does come at a price, though.  Skills are learned by gaining "ABP" after each fight, with better and more powerful skills generally taking high amounts to learn (up to 999 in the case of X-Magic), and as most battles tend to give ABP amounts in the single digits until the late stages of the game, this can amount to fighting quite a lot of mundane enemies to get a skill you want.  There are a few particular enemy types that give large amounts, which does help cut down on the grind, but nevertheless, there is quite a bit of extra combat required if the player wants to become a force to be feared, especially late in the game.

Not helping with this is the fact that Final Fantasy 5 possesses uneven difficulty at times, with several instances of enemy groups in innocuous places that are far above the player's current power level and bosses that can easily wipe the party if the player doesn't adequately prepare for them beforehand.  While not as big an issue as say, Final Fantasy II, this can nevertheless become a point of frustration. Thankfully the player is allowed to save at any time on the world map, and there is almost always a save point before bosses, allowing the player to fully heal their party with a Tent or Cottage or reset to leave and power up more if their team simply isn't up to the task yet.

Final Fantasy 5 continues in the series tradition of having a strong presentation, with well-detailed enemy sprites (albeit non-animated) and of course beautifully-detailed world, town and character sprites in each of the towns.  This was still the era before gray and brown "hyper-realism" kicked in to the gaming consciousness and color bled out of most games for the better part of a decade in an attempt to convey a "dark mood" in spite of all the silly humor and campy acting, so it's at least nice to see here.  And of course, the music is still top-notch, with some great atmospheric tunes carrying each of the new locales and conveying the intensity of some of the game's tougher battles (particularly the fights with Gilgamesh).

One of Final Fantasy 5's biggest weaknesses, though, is that it's relatively light on story and character development.  Neither the main cast nor the villains are given a lot in terms of characterization, and the story itself is rather generic, with an ageless evil force out to destroy everything and the characters dedicating themselves to stopping it.  This, paired with the lackluster translation of the early releases, made it one that many fans of 6 and 7 were quick to dismiss.  The GBA port (and later versions) do at least attempt to spice things up by adding in some humor, giving the dialog and enemy names a much sillier feel overall.  In fact, it's more than a bit reminiscent of Ted Woolsey's translations of Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6, which is a bit ironic as later versions of those games were retranslated to remove much of the humor that came from his creative embellishments.

Still, while it may not have the best of narratives and some occasional spotty difficulty, Final Fantasy V is one of my favorite games in the series.  There is much charm in its uncomplicated setup, yet its gameplay provides it with a large degree challenge, variety and replay value that many other games in the series lack.  It may not be an outstanding fan favorite, but it's one of my personal picks for the top games to bear the name.

Developer: Square
Publisher: Square/Square Enix
Platform: Super Famicom, Playstation, Game Boy Advance, iOS, Android, Windows
Released: 1992, 1998, 2006, 2013, 2015
Recommended version: The Game Boy Advance version is my favorite, if only because it has a much-improved translation over the original and none of the techncial issues of the PS1 release, plus a generally faster pace, some added content with four new classes and an extra post-game mission that expands upon the story somewhat.  Later ports to iOS, Android and Windows include this as well, but also rework the interface and visuals to be much more intrusive and gaudy-looking with clashing visual styles.

System Shock 2

The last hurrah of the legendary and influential Looking Glass Studios, as well as arguably the game that put designer Ken Levine and Irrational Games on the forefront of gamers' minds.  But does System Shock 2 still hold its own today, or is this one example of an influential game whose innovations have simply been done better elsewhere?

Looking Glass is a legendary studio among PC gamers, having pioneered many trends that would become standard in modern games.  From early '90s 3D engines with complex physics simulations to helping pioneer stealth games with Thief to a more story-driven action experience in general with games like Deus Ex and Ultima Underworld, they were games that encapsulated PC gaming at its best, taking advantage of the added capabilities of the platform to deliver a deeper, more complex and and more cerebral experience that simply wasn't possible on the limitations of console hardware of the time.

System Shock, born from the same engine as the Ultima Underworld games, was definitely a pioneer in its own right.  While it has the initial look of a shooter, there was much more to it as well - the story was revealed in fragments by discovering audio logs throughout the journey, and doors and pathsways were often unlocked not just by finding card keys, but by having to solve puzzles - discerning their locations through clues or even entering cyberspace in order to fight off security programs and make one's way to a virtual "lock" in order to release it.  Of course, it did also have its share of gunplay (with a wide variety of weapons to utilize) but there was a cerebral element to combat as well, with the player able to set a variety of traps through landmines or timed explosives.  It was a game that immersed the player not just for its strong gameplay, but for its surprisingly realistic approach to many design elements and player problems, which earned it a place in the annals of gaming history.

System Shock 2 continued in the trend of highlighting many of the studio's best elements.  While it did away with the cyberspace element entirely, it upped the ante for immersion, putting the player in the shoes of someone aboard a craft overtaken by a bizarre and hostile alien force and having them desperately try to survive against overwhelming odds.

One major element of this was that it now incorporated numerous RPG elements.  This is apparent right off the bat, as the player is given the path of three career choices at the game's beginning.  They can opt to join the Marines (which has a large emphasis on combat skills), the Navy (which puts emphasis on technical skills like hacking and research) or the OSA (psychic black ops, which serves more or less as a "mage" archetype).  Each choice therein has a few variations as well, such as opting to pursue a slightly different stat or skill build at the outset.

Beyond this, however, character development in System Shock 2 is almost entirely free-form.  Once can easily pick the Marine path at the start to get training in heavy weapons, for example, then devote most or all of the cyber modules (essentially experience points) they earn over the course of the game into technical skills, or even psionics.  Indeed, it is rather difficult to play the game as a purely  archetypal character, so mixing up one's skill set to learn a few skills in other disciplines is generally a good idea.

Another element of this comes into play with the game's equipment system.  Weapons are relatively self-explanatory, with heavier weapons like grenade launchers and the bizarre alien weapons one discovers requiring specialized training while a basic pistol only requires a single level in small firearms.  Armor and implants, however, are another story entirely.  Relatively early on, the player can find a powered suit of armor which grants significant protection, but has a battery that they must maintain, either by finding and using recharging stations or simply keeping some batteries on hand in order to recharge it when needed (which can prove problematic when a player is relatively new to the game and does not yet know where to find such things).  Implants are similarly battery-powered, granting bonus statistics or abilities as long as they are equipped and their battery holds out; when it hits zero, the player will lose any benefits those extra stats will afford them, and may be forced to temporarily drop equipment or be unable to complete certain tasks until they are recharged.  One particular oddity is a "worm mind" implant that causes 25% of all damage taken to be subtracted from one's psi points instead of HP; while it has an obvious use for psionic characters, combat-oriented characters who never touch PSI skills can use it as well to reduce the damage they take and give some use to the otherwise useless psi-hypos found frequently around the decks.

There were some hiccups with implementing this style of gameplay, however.  While many of the lower-tier weapons prove useful throughout the game (with a basic pistol having enough ammunition - and varied ammunition types - to prove effective against almost any foe), many of the higher-tier weapons are virtually useless.  The fusion cannon is one example of this; despite the significant investment in Heavy Weapons skills it requires, the large amount of energy it requires for a shot, as well as its disappointingly low damage output, often just leaves players wondering why they bothered with it at all.  Similarly, many of the exotic weapons tend to harm the player more than their enemies, and their extremely limited ammunition makes them amusing novelties at best and a waste of points at worst.  Many of the psionic powers are also rather questionable, with one of the more notorious examples being a power that shortens alert durations for a set period of time (rather pointless when one can instantly stop an alarm by clicking on any security console they encounter).  Indeed, it will likely take some trial and error (or a guide) for many players to discern which abilities are consistently useful and which are best left untouched. with the game generally favoring the ones on the lower end of the point cost scale.

Despite these problems, however, System Shock's strength lies in its design.  While the cyberspace elements of the first game are gone, much emphasis is still placed on utilizing one's skills to reach new areas and bypass obstacles.  Coming up on a turret, for example, a combat-oriented character can simply shoot it until it explodes, while a stealthier character can evade it by hacking a nearby console, or temporarily disable it with a psionic ability, allowing themselves to slip past unharmed.

Aiding this is the strong audio design in the game, which is an absolute master class in quality.  The ambient noise, distinctive enemy sounds and claustrophobic feel of the game's setting coalesce to give the player a constant sense of unease.  In turn, they are constantly urged to move slowly, use cover to their advantage and listen for subtle audio clues to warn them of danger, as even one enemy can be a significant threat to their health, if not kill them outright when they're caught off-guard.  The tension only rises further as the game progresses and the enemies the player encounters only get deadlier and creepier; if body horror makes you squeamish, then System Shock 2 is bound to make you downright uncomfortable in its later stages.

The main storyline is a strong one as well.  As in the first game, it is largely told through recovered audio files and transmissions, immersing the player in the game's oppressive atmosphere as they slowly piece together the horrors of what occurred aboard the Von Braun before their awakening.  Of course, they are also frequently tortured by the voices of the Many, from the horrifying shambling monsters the crew have become to the unsettling, calm voice of the hive mind that constantly berates their actions throughout the game.  As well, no mention of System Shock is complete without mentioning SHODAN herself - the mad artificial intelligence whose discordant voice and hostile, yet calm demeanor leaves the player with a constant sense of dread.  From top to bottom, the voiceover of System Shock 2 is utterly fantastic and lends much to the game's constant feeling of desperation and despair, even by the lofty standards of today's games.

That said, however, even this element is not without some shortcomings.  The game was clearly rushed in its late stages, which is particularly evident in its final chapter - a rather corny throwback to the first game that ends in a fairly braindead shootout with the final bosses, which is a bit of a disappointing turn for a game that, up to that point, has allowed the player to approach problems in a variety of ways.  The game also still utilizes the Thief engine, which provided for large environments with little in the way of performance hiccups, but had the downside of featuring rather ugly, flat textures on most surfaces and NPCs, lending them a somewhat stiff, unrealistic look - while this does aid the horror at times with its exaggerated motions, it just as easily lends itself to moments of unintentional comedy in the same way.

When all is said and done, System Shock 2 excels in spite of its prominent shortcomings.  While its textures and character models are rather ugly by today's standards and its overall balance leaves some things to be desired, its immersive atmosphere, free-form RPG gameplay and a true sense of tension and horror make it a sublime gaming experience.  A great atmosphere and story that still chills me to my core every time I replay it and, in my book, still the finest experience in survival horror to this day.  Bioshock certainly made an attempt to succeed it in tone and themes (and succeeded in some regards), but in my opinion lacks many of the brilliant subtle touches that makes System Shock 2 a standout classic.

Developer: Irrational Games/Looking Glass Studios
Publisher: Electronic Arts, Nightdive Studios
Platform: PC, OS X, Linux
Released:  1999
Recommended version:  I've only played the Windows version, but from what I gather, all versions of the game are essentially identical.  The Nightdive Studios release is the one to play now, as it features updates to run seamlessly on modern systems and more streamlined mod integration.

Final Fantasy VIII

Coming hot on the heels of Square's first mega-hit on the Playstation, Final Fantasy VIII was a stunning visual experience for its era.  But is there a decent game beneath its cutting-edge graphics and cutscenes, or is this just an example of style over substance?

Two years and two days after Square's runaway success with Final Fantasy VII and on the same day the short-lived Sega Dreamcast saw its North American debut, Final Fantasy VIII was released.  While it remains a well-received game and a major success for Square, Final Fantasy VIII was a letdown to many fans of the franchise, and VII in particular.  Whereas that game drew in fans with its complex storyline and characters, polished action-movie-like presentation and interesting mechanics, Final Fantasy VIII tries to bring too many new elements to the series and ultimately collapses under its own weight.

Its setting and premise at first prove promising; rather than being set in a fantasy world with some elements of steampunk or dystopian cyberpunk, Final Fantasy VIII's setting is one more in line with modern Earth - cities and towns are connected by railways and car travel, and its technology overall is comparable to ours, though with some futuristic elements like hover-boards and giant mecha.  Of course, it also retains some of the series' trademark fantasy elements like magical weapons, spellcasting and summoning creatures in battle.  This seems like an interesting idea at first, but sadly, like so many things in the game, is somehow both underutilized and overdone to the point of being farcical.

I think this is best exemplified in the playable characters' weapons.  Some are clearly grounded in fantasy, like Rinoa's wrist-mounted chakrams, Zell's gauntlets and Quistis's whips, while characters like Irvine and Laguna use more modern weapons in the form of firearms and grenades.  All good so far.  But the elephant in the room is the main character's weapon:

...A sword with a gun grip, a trigger and six bullet chambers despite having no distinguishable barrel.  It's also said to be among the deadliest of weapons, as well as one of the most difficult to master (which is exemplified in the story, as only he and one other character are seen wielding them).  But one's mind instantly boggles when they attempt to puzzle out how.  It can't possibly fire a projectile nor be comfortable or easy to swing, yet somehow it has by far the highest accuracy of any weapon, and can deal the most damage as well (getting an extra effect with a timed button press to pull the trigger in mid-swing).  In a setting which is allegedly more grounded in reality than prior Final Fantasy titles, it's just a bit too out there to be plausible.

That's just the tip of the iceberg, though.  The characters in the game are downright drab, with all but the main two only having a small handful of prominent scenes before quickly fading into the background (and considering there are only six of them, that is not a good balance of screen time nor character development!).  The story seems heavily confused about its setting and themes as well, seemingly just throwing in new elements on a whim for a bit of cheap visual spectacle.  From a corny zombie body double to the main cast randomly getting visions of a small group of characters with no clear context or purpose to a shaggy dog story about aborting a missile launch, there seems to be little rhyme or reason to how or why anything happens.  But given that abundance of CGI cutscenes in the game that accompany almost every one of these elements, as well as the extremely overdone spell and attack animations in the game that can easily stretch upwards of fifteen seconds apiece, one can easily infer that there wasn't a script-writing process on the game so much as taking a bunch of graphical demos they made and writing contrived scenes to haphazardly bridge them together into a video game script, a la Godfrey Ho.  It only gets sillier as the game goes on, too; I won't say much more for the sake of avoiding spoilers, but ask anyone who's played the game about the big revelation concerning all of the game's main cast and they'll probably have a small novel for you about how ridiculous and out-of-the-blue it was.

Still, while it is easy to pick on the game for valuing its high-budget FMVs and overlong combat animations over any actual cohesiveness in its writing, there are still more to video games than visuals and storylines.  The escalating insanity of the script could perhaps have been forgivable if the gameplay were at least on par with its predecessors; sadly, this isn't really the case either.  While it does carry on the Final Fantasy traditions of having the familiar spells and summons, as well as the Active Time Battle system that became its trademark, almost everything else has been changed for the worse.

In this regard, things primarily come down to how everything in the game is so interconnected and, for lack of a better term, bureaucratic.  Rather than being a fun diversion to give some momentary reprieve from the storyline and the tedium of frequent battles, the minigames are now an integral part of the game's design.  Indeed, a huge element of the game is collecting trading cards through playing Triple Triad with virtually every NPC in the game, then refining those cards into items, which in turn can be refined into new weapons or spells.  Additionally, money is no longer earned through battle with enemies; instead, nearly every choice the player makes has an effect on their "SeeD Ranking", which causes them to get paid a set amount of money every 300 steps or so.  Skills are no longer allocated to characters through their "job class" or even through an intuitive system like Final Fantasy VII's Materia slots, but instead are solely determined by the GFs (Summons) they equip and how many points they grind out through battle for them.  Which proves to be counterintuitive when one considers that having a higher level is actually a detriment in the game - all of the enemies one encounters (including bosses) level up with the player and gain stats at a far higher rate, easily having totals well into the ten-thousands as their level reaches maximum while giving no better rewards for defeating them.  This may be the only RPG I've ever played where fighting monsters and getting stronger is actively discouraged by the game itself.

Pushing the player for leveling is seemingly a poorly-thought-out way to push the game's Junction system, whereby the player can collect up to 100 spells of a given type and attach them to one of their statistics in order to bolster it, with individual statistics getting bonuses depending on the type of spell junctioned to it - attaching a Cure spell to one's HP stat will give a bigger bonus, for example, while attaching high-level attack spells to their Strength stat will boost their damage output dramatically.   Like most things in the game, what stats a character can junction to are determined solely by the GFs they have equipped to them.  However, this system, while interesting in theory, ultimately just compounds the game's heavy emphasis on grinding; one must either draw hundreds of spells from enemies or draw points in totals of 1-6 at a time, or refine items or cards into them in order to get the best benefit possible for a stat, which takes a significant time investment either way.  Once you've spent all that time collecting all of those spells, you probably won't want to cast them for fear of having to do it all again later.

Even the game seemingly acknowledges this as well by making most spells in the game effectively useless.  Even if one were to save some of their spells for a mage character, there's really no benefit in doing so - characters are free to summon any GF they have equipped at any time through the use of a simple command, and as each GF has their own separate HP total that takes damage in place of the character when they are being summoned, the player effectively get a free pass to summon them as many times as they wish while keeping their characters safe from harm.  Effectively, the early game simply boils down to spamming summons and watching the same overlong animations again and again and again (and, with a certain skill, mashing the X button during said animations to get extra damage).

Once the game gets going, the player gets firmly established in the Junction system and enemies start getting tougher, however, only one real factor changes.  That being that instead of being able to spam summons constantly, one is instead encouraged to spam limit breaks constantly.  The limit break system, rather than being random (as in Final Fantasy VI) or based on a gauge that fills as the player takes damage (as in Final Fantasy VII) now simply has a chance to activate at any time, with the odds growing higher as the character's HP falls lower and lower below maximum.  However, one can easily lower a character's HP to under 10%, then press the Triangle button repeatedly to "pass" a character's turn to the next until the prompt to select a Limit comes up, effectively letting them use these attacks any time they want.  This even works with a single character on a full gauge, as they can simply "pass" their turn to themselves repeatedly until they get the option to use a limit.  And considering that characters like Squall, Zell and Irvine have limits that can deliver dozens of hits for damage in the high quadruple digits apiece and enemies very rarely have more than a few thousand HP if you've been diligent about keeping your level low... well, suffice to say that the game just isn't much of a challenge at all and has no real strategy to it.

In the end, Final Fantasy VIII is a game that has a lot of ideas, but seemingly no direction for what to do with any of them.  Its gameplay tries to be fresh and unique, but mostly just ends up being slow, unbalanced and tedious.  It attempts to introduce a new style of setting for the series, but makes no attempt to make that setting credible or believable, instead simply shoving pretty visuals at the player and hoping they won't notice how anything fails to make any logical sense.  Its characters aren't memorable or interesting, rarely ascending beyond generic JRPG tropes, and their dialog is forgettable at best and cringe-worthy at worst.  The junction system is the worst offender, though, as it effectively turns the entire experience into a tedious farm-and-refine-fest that feels less like an epic RPG mechanic and more like you're stuck manipulating a spreadsheet for 60+ hours, with the actual gameplay and writing tacked on as an afterthought; it's utter lack of balance and messy, utterly terrible script ranking it firmly as one of the low points of the franchise.  Had the developers spent more time reconciling its disparate plot elements to give it a more consistent tone, making its mechanics more focused on gameplay pacing rather than grinding and rote repetition, giving its characters more screen time and development and maybe cutting the combat animations down to about half of their current runtime, I might be tempted to give it a pass as a quirky, off-beat game in the vein of SaGa Frontier.  As it stands, though, the eighth Final Fantasy is one I have no intention of revisiting. 

If there's one highlight to the whole thing though, it's Triple Triad.  Despite its simplicity it's honestly a pretty fun and addictive little game, and it's about the only thing that kept me playing to the end.  Hell, if they released it as a standalone app or something I'd probably buy it.

Developer: Squaresoft
Publisher: Squaresoft, Square Enix
Platform: Playstation 1, PC, PSN
Released: 1999, 2000, 2009, 2013
Recommended version: The Playstation version (also on PSN) features grainier visuals than the PC port while the PC versions generally have superior visuals, but substantially worse music (due to using MIDI technology rather than CD audio).  So pick your poison.

Suikoden II

The second entry in Konami's grandiose war epic RPG franchise, as well as one of their most overlooked titles period.  But does this somewhat obscure title have anything to offer, or was it overlooked in the late '90s for a reason?

In the era before Squaresoft's mega-hit Final Fantasy VII, a few other franchises attempted to gain a foothold on the Playstation and establish themselves as viable names in the JRPG market.  Among them was Suikoden, Konami's attempt to combine elements of a traditional RPG with a storyline and gameplay elements that lent it the feel of a war drama.  Drawing inspiration from the Chinese classic novel "War of the Marshes", the player was tasked with recruiting the 108 Stars of Destiny and fighting back an evil empire in a setting that combined elements of fantasy, ancient Europe and ancient China.  While it was a bit rough, especially in comparison to its sequels, the original Suikoden became a modest success, gaining acclaim for its high stakes and grandiose feel despite its somewhat limited visuals and overall low difficulty level.

Three years afterward, when a plethora of 3D RPGs were making a big splash, Suikoden's sequel quietly slipped out in the background, seeing a very limited release and only a few low-key reviews across various video game publications (more than a few of which criticized it for still utilizing "outdated" 2D graphics).  Despite becoming a hit with fans of the original (as well as those who picked it up having never played the first game), Konami barely seemed to acknowledge it, seemingly more interested in pushing their other titles of the time (most notably their cinematic hit Metal Gear Solid).

It's all a pity, as Suikoden II has quite a lot to offer any serious RPG fan.  The high-stakes storytelling of the original game continues here, putting the player into a large-scale war between an encroaching evil empire and a handful of feuding city-states whom they must unite under their flag.  Each of these takes the form of a small standalone story, where the player must solve a problem the town faces.  Each area also has at least one recruitable character within, each with their own recruitment conditions to fulfill in order to add them to the party; some will not join until your castle reaches a certain level, some may require you to bring another NPC to them, and others still require you to partake in the game's minigames and side-quests (such as earning enough money through trading or winning 10,000 Potch in Chinchirorin).

The game also utilizes its premise in three different types of combat systems.  The most common is a turn-based system, wherein the player has a party of up to six characters and combats small groups of enemies and occasional bosses in a fairly traditional fashion.  There are also one-on-one duels, wherein the player has a choice of three moves (Attack, Defend or Wild Attack) and must predict their opponent's actions based on dialog lines, choosing the appropriate action to counter theirs in a  Rock-Paper-Scissors style: Defend beats Wild Attack, Attack beats Defense and Wild Attack beats Attack.  Finally, there are turn-based war battles, wherein the player gets a small group of units to move across a grid and must engage and defeat enemy forces, with each unit having differing statistics and a small selection of special abilities (such as the ability to heal or use "Fire Spears" that damage all units in a 3-square line).

Showing off its tactical inspiration, the 6-player battles also break from JRPG norms in a few ways. Each character can only equip a few item sets at a time to use freely in battle (empty slots can be filled from the general inventory mid-fight, but they must spend a turn to do this), and inventory space as a whole is somewhat limited, though the player has a storage room at their base where they can stash extra items they don't immediately need.  Spells are also slightly more limited than in most games, giving the player a set number of "spell levels" and charges for each that can only be restored by resting at an inn.  There is also a slight Chrono Trigger-esque mechanic in "Unite Attacks", wherein two or more units can spend their turns to perform a larger attack, usually with a drawback of some kind (such as dealing extra damage at the cost of dizzying a character, preventing them from attacking for a turn or two).  Finally, the player has a unique way to avoid some fights - one can either Bribe enemies, paying them a substantial amount of money for a guaranteed escape from battle, or, if the player is substantially stronger than the enemy, they have the option to "let them off", allowing them to leave without a fight (but earning no experience, money or items).

Of course, with a large cast of characters comes the concern that many of them will see very little (if any) use, with the player simply finding a few of the strongest ones and keeping them in their party as much as possible while ignoring the rest.  Suikoden II, however, handles the idea surprisingly well by introducing a cleverly-implemented experience system.  The total experience a character gains is divided by their current level, ensuring that lower-leveled characters will gain far more points and catch up to your main characters very quickly.  Each character one finds also has a unique skill set in some way, whether it be a unique spell rune, unite attack or just some interesting animations, and not all will be available for any given mission, so the player is given encouragement to try them all out and see which ones they like best.  Enlisting some characters will also prevent others from being recruited, which also lends the game some replay value.  If one also has a Suikoden 1 save file with all of the characters recruited and the good ending achieved, they can also unlock that game's protagonist as a powerful hidden character, which is a pretty cool bonus.

Suikoden II's overall presentation is very strong; despite being criticized for having "dated" 2D graphics in an era where 3D was becoming the new norm, it's very clear that Konami's staff put a great deal of effort into making this game stand out on an aesthetic level.  Environments and character animations are immaculately polished and beautifully animated, with details like casting shadows from light sources and surprisingly realistic interaction between characters (with some occasional anime-esque slapstick) lending the cutscenes a lot of personality.  The music in the game is also quite varied and extremely well-composed, with everything from oriental-sounding themes to vocal ballads to an intense, orchestral theme for the war battles.  However, a bug in the North American version of the game unfortunately prevents some tracks from playing properly, resulting in a few scenes (and several war battles) being set to awkward silence.

A few rough edges also show themselves in the game's translation.  While the overall story and narrative is very strong, this was still the era before well-polished RPG translations became the norm.  As a result, some dialog (particularly near the end) feels somewhat awkward and unnatural, and there is even some inconsistency in how characters' names are spelled (with Jowy being referred to as "Joei" more than once).  Worse, some dialog was also not translated at all, with the player seeing screens of garbled text when talking to some NPCs reminiscent of an unfinished ROM hack; such occurrences are rare, thankfully, but it does feel out-of-place from a company that generally shows such pride in the quality and polish of their games.

Despite some minor hiccups, however, Suikoden II is a very well realized war epic in the form of a Japanese RPG.  Its strongly written characters, moody soundtrack, polished animation and overall gameplay design that encourages player experimentation all lend themselves to a fantastic experience, and the compelling lore of Suikoden's world fits it in perfectly with other games in the series (both its predecessors and those that would come later).  It's a game that never really got the recognition it should have in its heyday, but with its recent release on the Playstation Network, hopefully a few more gamers will come to recognize its brilliance.  Its only real faults are having several prominent bugs, some of which prevent you from achieving full completion, and a a number of very lackluster minigames.  Some are alright (like the cooking contest, which also constitutes a subplot) while others are just plain wretched (mole whacking, a very tedious fishing minigame with little payoff).   They're something you can largely ignore, though, and certainly don't subtract from the game's many highlights.

Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Platform: Playstation 1, Playstation Network
Released: 1999, 2014
Recommended version: As of 2025 there is now an HD remaster compilation with this game and Suikoden I, which give the game a dramatic visual upgrade, fixes several prominent bugs and even lets you pause the event timer (letting you experience all of Clive's subplot without having to rush through the game).  It's readily accessible, affordable and looks great; even as a huge fan of the original, I consider this the definitive release.  The only downsides are they did tie achievements to completing some of the worst minigames and didn't add too many of the quality of life improvements seen in other contemporary RPG remasters.