Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age review

How old are you?

Boredom is a funny thing that takes us to strange places- unless you're a gamer in which case there's very little guess-work about the places your boredom is going to take you. For me, however, the boredom which led me to finally delving into the vast world of Final Fantasy (for which my only prior experience was a bit of XIII, the entirety of XV and the 7 games) was tinted with anticipation over the upcoming launch of XVI on PC. A launch which has apparently not been very profitable for Square, maybe because it was so under-marketed that I only knew it was happening because my sickly seventh sense for upcoming video games poked me to search for any news on the PC port randomly only to find it due within the coming month. (My sixth sense is the ability to know a good or bad game or movie before release with a high rate of accuracy, for those keeping track.)

Picking up and immensely enjoying that demo was enough to secure my purchase, if not the majority of other gamers, which meant that FFXVI would be on my mind for the next month- how would I deal with that? Well, there was always the vast well of other titles with more traditional JRPG systems to keep me entertained- I thought- and surely they could keep my attention for at least a bit of that torturous waiting period. Surely I wouldn't actually end up finishing an entire Final Fantasy game within that short time for what legendarily massive adventures they are. But I guess that's the thing about legends, isn't it? You can never live up to them. I ended up beating FFXII just before XVI launched and experienced enough to have some very definite thoughts about my time and it only took me- give me a moe... Yikes, Steam says '62.9 hours'. I withdraw my point- I'm an addict.

Now, it's very important you understand my reasoning and expectations going into Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age so that you can be on the same level with me in that experience. I wanted a Final Fantasy type game to bide over my time that gave me familiar JRPG vibes of your everyday Japanese title. The kind of turn-based tactically light stuff I play from indie devs off Itch.io running on RPG Maker every other week. I also knew actually nothing about this game, or really any Final Fantasy I haven't played aside from the major ones like... I think there's a guy called Tidus in... FF X? And... is VIII the one with Squall? (That silly bugger who calls himself Leon in Kingdom Hearts.) As for XII? I actually didn't know the protagonist's name and spent a decent chunk of time wondering how I was ever going to take a guy called 'Reks' seriously over the course of an entire game. (Thank goodness that young boy got murdered in the prologue... uh... spoilers I guess. The game is eighteen years old, I'm going to spoil at least a little bit of the story.)

Now with those expectations, those who are familiar with FFXII might understand exactly where I'm going with this. My face dropped the moment I started playing the game and found out to my surprise- the combat isn't turn based. Not really. It's this weirdly horrific mix of MMO-reminiscent auto-attacking accompanied with acquirable skills and an 'action cooldown' that has your player stand around awkwardly between slashes in combat. It's weird and ugly to look at... but when you're playing a 60 hour JRPG there are things you just have to get used to and this was one of them. I grew to... endure this combat system and in doing so came to reflect a bit more on Final Fantasy as a whole to realise- I'm not sure if they've ever had a traditional combat system!

I mean I assume the pixel games have, 1-6 look like they do from screenshots I've seen, but all the titles I've played have some kind of hybrid between tactical turns and straight action gameplay or are simply just action games out-and-out. It really did surprise me how 30 odd years of video game legacy just kind of clouded my actual analysis, as I think it did a lot of people who assumed FF16 suffered from breaking away from FF's formula- despite the franchise not really having a clearly defined gameplay formula really ever. I guess that's why Final Fantasy is a monolith- you really never do know what you're going to get next.

So after surviving that combat-jumpscare, my next point of remark was the world of Final Fantasy XII both visually and within the plot. For which I have to say- Final Fantasy always covets some of the quality world building throughout all JRPGs. I couldn't tell you the name of the starting towns in half of the average RPGs I've played but every Final Fantasy world exists with distinction in my mind. FFXII is a great example of this with Ivalice serving as a fantasy world plucked straight out of the fruits of the imagination tree. With unique and interesting fantasy races, (alongside the race of tall bunny girls that5 have half their asses hanging out at all times) fabulously grandiose middle-eastern inspired architecture and really striking character designs. It's all really rather inspired if you ignore the very obvious Star Wars Prequels influence.

Rabanastre might be pretty much fantasy-Naboo but it's all a richly beautiful and diverse city teeming with people going about the open-air bazaars, taking in the fabulous courtyard water fountains, and gazing up at the giant maximalist structures that will make you wish the game let you look up a bit more reliably. I feel like a real-estate broker saying all this but seriously, the work put into bringing these spaces alive is truly excellent and whilst I think the first city is probably the most brimming with character and visible culture- that design excellence persists throughout. Sure the black armour of the Inquisitors looks like a take on Darth Vader's famous armour- otherwise the obvious Japanese Samurai helmets have literally no visual place within these design themes- but I find something nostalgic about going back into the era of prequel-mania- even through the eyes of a... visual copycat feels a bit dismissive but I mean that with all the love in the world.

To accompany this visual treat we have the writing and acting which is... the quality of a 2006 game. Far enough along in the game that actual actors who know what they're doing are being employed, but not enough for decent recording equipment and/or sensible sound mixing practises to become the wide-spread norm. Then maybe there's a lack of enthusiasm in some cast members, and some rather clear poor direction resulting in ill-fitting performances of the odd line. But overall I wasn't offended by the quality of the voice work and coupled with rather gorgeous and well-parsed verse in the script, I found some meat on the bones to latch onto. Of course, I speak of the writing here, less what the writing actually says- and that's because I'm trying to start off positive. But I guess in the pursuit of an authentic review I'm going to need to expand my feelings.

I don't like the combat. I don't like that when you start it takes no fewer than three button presses in order to perform a basic attack. I don't like that in order to 'overcome' this limitation that game expects you to literally write basic if/and conditional code using their rudimentary interface so that the Ai presses the buttons for you. I hate how the sign of a well-balanced and wisely deployed team is a battle that fights itself with minimal, sometimes even no, input from the player whatsoever. I don't like the fact that the 'Esper' system the game employs in place of traditional summons appears to be functionally useless by the time you reach the mid-game, also that it takes forever and is bad. I hate the fact that basic spell upgrades which every other boss enemy has are hidden as one-time drop items tucked away in the deepest recess' of the most out-of-the-way dungeon instead of, you know, cool thematic items that flesh out the world by simply existing where they do. And finally- I think the dungeons are kinda crappy too.

Ah- but as you picked up in the midst of all that- I do like the game enough to want to learn more about it's world- I wish it related to the gameplay more. And I also wish that the complex lore snippets earned by extensive monster slaying and bestiary filling pertained to lore that more closely linked to the plot in even the most abstract way. You know, like if the extensive religious pantheon they spell out were in any way presented in the actual gods that appear in the plot! Imagine how silly I felt learning about the various myths and legends only to be told "Actually, nah these are different deities who we failed to set up in the story sufficiently before literally launching them at you." But I'm getting ahead of myself.

What is FFXII's story on an even basic level that it eventually involves the gods? A redundant question, this is a JRPG- the game could be about maintaining a successful farm and somehow end with a duel against god. (I'm still only on the first month of Harvestella but I'm pretty sure that's where that game is heading too.) FFXII actually surprises as a tale that doesn't so much ground itself in a heroes journey against the heavens as many other FF stories do, but instead takes a more macro sweeping eye at wide-stage geopolitics as the various co-existing nations of Ivalice are threatened by... >sigh< an evil empire... This one isn't just a Star Wars reference, rather a reference to Final Fantasy's many reoccurring plot elements. Little sick of it by now, to be honest.

In this pursuit FFXII took a rather drastic sacrifice of the individual stories being told throughout the game, not that you don't get characters with personal drives to them- just that they don't drive the plot as much as are carried along by it. Much of the plot is actually pretty lazily strung along with a 'do this and then do that' structure that belies connective tissue and makes it hard to really feel the pulse of the plot. Unless you engage with discovering the world, like I did, I can definitely see this boring people expecting a narrative to the level of, say, Final Fantasy VII at least. As for the wider nation-shifting narrative- there are some problems there too. Problems very much highlighted in gusto after my playthrough of the narratively excellent Final Fantasy XVI which managed to marry complex nation movements and individual character storytelling without skimping on either. (Guess 20 extra years of storycraft is going to amount to some improvement.) 

What we have here is a story of plucky rebellion against overwhelming power, and the nature of power of what it comes to wield it eventually being brought to the table and... left about for inspection. Final Fantasy has never been the most introspective of theme-examiners and XII is no different, but I respect there was at least an attempt to establish a heart and it shines through. From a distance, on a list, the game has all the formulas it needs to give us a tale about the human cost of power, whilst in practice it sort of plays out a bit more unfocused than that. And perhaps the game would have a better time figuring itself out if it wasn't for it's protagonist problem, Yes, we're talking about Vaan in this review. 

Now I have to come to learn that little Vaan has something of a cultish devotion which, upon examination, seems to have spung up for a very particular purpose. You see, Vaan is singular amidst Final Fantasy protagonists as being... how do I put this... not particularly good. And that is a pretty vague sentiment which could go in a million directions, but I keep it general rather to highlight just how overwhelmingly 'not good' the man is by every metric. Is he interesting? No. Is his journey engaging and dynamic? No. Does he take charge in the narrative? No. Is his perspective an invaluable perspective to providing a complete story? And this is the tough one because it really is the last bastion that his fanbase rally to... but honestly the answer is still no. Vaan is laughably redundant in every aspect- so why do so many insist otherwise?

There has been at least one complete essay written in his staunch defence and when you actually take to the word of the argument it becomes pretty clear why. The sentiments are wavy but follow a similar vein- 'Vaan is the audience perspective', (despite that clearly being Ashe) 'Vaan represents the common man in a story about powers which dehumanise the human cost.' (only he offers no presence or perspective in key moments concerning such costs, nor does he seem all that impassioned about the plight of 'the people' in general.) And finally the 'Well why does Square keep putting him up as the face of the good characters every crossover fighting game if he's so bland?' (Precisely because he's bland. There's no ambiguity to him. No depth, no contradiction. He's just along for the ride and will hop aboard anything short of genocide.) So what's the heart behind his impassioned defence? It's actually pretty simple. It's the underdog effect.

Vaan has been in the crosshairs of everyone confused about his protagonist status since the game launched, and when you love a game (as some do for FFXII) it's natural to default to defending the thing. It's easy to push away the glaring flaws and hold up your project on a pedestal as some sort of eternal monolith of perfectly logical consistency, instead of a product developed by people who sometimes get it wrong. Just ask Square developers why they made Vaan. Their last game, Vagrant Story, garnered some criticism for their adult protagonist and so they decided to err towards a younger man for the next game. It feels right to create some sort of excuse, to fill in the blanks with your own imagination and conjure some genius interpretation of the character when if you just be objective, look at the character plain, and most importantly- observe the effect he has on the audience: he's just a dud of a character. Even if we lived in a world were the writers had knowingly cooked up a protagonist so inactive to the plot that he literally doesn't even share any words with the end-game antagonists, all in some thrilling subversion of expectations- (in a game with an already shaky narrative) it pretty clearly failed to translate to most of the critical audience. Maybe Vaan is a stroke of genius, (he isn't) but he didn't pan out that 'genius' in a way that enriched the narrative. So Vaan's crap, rant over.

As for the rest of the cast? They're fine. I get the feeling that FFXII was born at a time of rapid improvement in technology, were studios had to really put down their foot to keep up with the changing times and maybe some more fundamentals, such as rounded character writing, got lost in the scuffle. The original Final Fantasy 7 arguably had some much simpler characters, but they gave each cast member time to develop- with FFXII it feels like they picked favourites constantly. Fran was a decently interesting character; (Choice to have her voice direction be so quiet she can barely be heard in the sound mix aside) but her story kind of fizzles out so Balthier can take the stage. Balthier actually has a really solid narrative on paper, but his actually solid character connections with his father and the parallels his origins shares with other members of the cast and the theme of power in general feel rushed. I know! 'Rushed' in a 60 hour game! Maybe we should have had more time to unravel his character and connections- which we could have done were he the protagonist? (Actually Balthier is a pretty early companion, they had plenty of time to make him more than 'the rather ironically soft-spoken supposedly 'suave' swashbuckler-type who gets vague about his past all the time.')

Ashe is the real protagonist of FFXII in all the ways that matter. She has the impetus of the story laid upon her, her's is the internal struggle that plays out detailing the core theme of the plot and it is from her perspective that the world and it's people are slowly uncovered as we explore the vast lands of Ivalice. She's also the princess who's Kingdom is stamped upon by the Empire, and who's bloodline just happens to hold overwhelming significance to the plot. I would go so far as to call her presence the connective tissue which pulls events together if this were a slightly tighter narrative that I could confidently call 'pulled together'. And she is... a fine character. I'd categorise Ashe less of a 'dull character' and more a 'product of her time where protagonists had to be a certain way'. Some Final Fantasy protagonists break from the 'middling scope of personalities' available to that generation of storytellers, but most didn't. I understand why Ashe, nor most of her party, wind up at the top of 'favourite Final Fantasy characters' with the exception of Fran. But her popularity is so deeply tied to her looks that when Final Fantasy XIV respectfully yoinked the bunny-race of the 'Viera'- they effectively plucked all of Fran's cultural relevance with them. Rather mean of them if you ask me.

What this game does wonderfully, as I hope out of any Final Fantasy game, is provide that sense of vast adventure across a wild and fascinating land of varying cultures, peoples and traditions. Travelling the land from one edge to the other, as is genuinely asked of you from time to time, will take you from snowy outcrops writhe with winged beasts to hollowed out ancient oil rigs plunged across a vast desert haunted by dangerous tribal scavengers. There's so much diversity and intrigue to Ivalice that I held absolutely no surprise to learn this land ended up being the setting for the much beloved 'Final Fantasy Tactics' games. Games which are still not legally purchasable on modern hardware for some insane reason! (I'd love to try them out.)

Ivalice also treads a curious line between the manifested gods of Final Fantasy lore and the more grounded aspects of less fantasy-driven world building. The famous summons of the series for example, Odin, Bahamut, Shiva are present not as summons but rather gigantic airships that are central to the narrative as unstoppable machines of war. Much of Ivalice culture is based around skytravel, (despite there being no actual sky-plane gameplay for some insane reason) so these flying fortresses determine the shape of the world in a much more tactile way than magically shifting mountains and waging celestial warfare. It's a really inspired subversion of the typical Final Fantasy reoccurring factors, only slightly dampened by the fact that they did actually try to include their own magical summons through the 'Espers' system, only for those Espers to be vanishingly forgettable and crappy by comparison to the old summon system. 

I particularly love the inclusion of optional 'hunts' to encourage the player to explore. High level and sometimes gimmick strewn duels that will drag you all the way over Ivalice and really put you to the test. There's a progression tree to committing to them, actually substantive rewards for the early game and an invaluable familiarity with the quirkier aspects of the combat system up for grabs for those that engage- as well as some curious tidbits about the history and biology of these creatures in the log book that a Monster Hunter lover like me just finds invaluable. It's really right up my alley. Some of these hunts even carry curious side-quest style plot threads with them that offer some of the really unique moments which stick with you after the game. The system is still a little finnicky though, with there being no real neat way of tracking which bounty belongs to which applicant if you do something sacrilegious and 'take a break from the game and forget what you were doing'. (Hell, I didn't take any breaks and still struggled keeping everything straight!)

And of course as you get deeper into the game the optional content starts to bloom outwards, although unfortunately a lot of that delves into the more 'ultra obscure game guide bait' style of content. Side Quests with ludicrously vague steps you'd never happen across in a normal playthrough, secret weapons so obscure you would literally never know they are there unless you looked it up and the route to one of the superbosses being an utterly impenetrable maze of near-identical hallways scattered across a slog of a dungeon. That's another point, these dungeons kind of suck. Final Fantasy never really boasted the most interesting dungeons in JRPGs but FFXII in particular seems to subscribe to the 'drag it out until the player wants to tear out their hair' school of design. I might actually consider calling SMT 3's dungeons better by comparison, until I remember how trail and error the last one in Nocturne was. Yeah, I'd rather slog through a near endless dungeon then bash my head against a maze of invisible teleport traps for the rest of my existence.

All this belies the fact that despite how much there is to do and see around Ivalice, the main story actually doesn't do a great job of handling a geopolitically driven narrative. You hear about the rising tensions of the various world nations under the blustering of the Empire and yet none of it feels as tactile as it should. You hear about Bhujerba's rivalry to the empire but the Bhujerba you visit is little more than a relatively tiny floating town with a prominent mining community, they don't really sell the 'independent city state' vibe very well in the actual presentation and game - it seems unfeasible to think of that as the basis for so much as even a military annoyance for the giant empire. And what about the... I have to look this up... the Rozzarian Empire, not to be confused with the more obviously antagonist Archadian Empire. They have such little actual presence in the game the fact they exist is only brought up when their debonair harem-wielding prince saunters into a scene halfway through the game to shameless flirt at a totally nonplussed Ashe and vaguely threaten global warfare against the Archadians. This isn't how you handle political drama guys, you need to give us a proper global overview of the world situation first so we understand and respect the weight of individual shifts of state across the various nations later- which is exactly how Final Fantasy XVI does it.

Now I've talked a lot about 'Final Fantasy XII' but where does this 'Zodiac Age' come into it, you may wonder. I was actually quiet curious about this one going in, speculating that these 'Zodiac' might refer to some aspect of the lore which this rerelease edition expanded on to some greater degree and I was half right. Kinda. The Zodiac are one of those vaguely mentioned sub-lore aspects that are buried by the actual gods present in the narrative, and as for 'The Zodiac Age'. That entirely refers to the revamped class system. Yeah, they named an entire rerelease for a job system that bares no relevance on the plot. (Simpler times.) The Zodiac job board presents a kind of semi free-hand system of class building where you pick a couple classes and then use battle obtained points to select 'licences' to use certain spells and equipment. It's... serviceable as far as RPG systems go. But very sterile and bland too. When all your levelling amounts to static stat block increases or the 'legal right' to equip a certain tier of armour, progression can feel pretty passive. And in passive progression systems I usually prefer to be hands off and let the stats build in the background, instead of in the forefront picking the hardly noticeable power increases by hand. On the flipside this system does uniquely allow for extreme low-level playthroughs if you are that deranged enough- so there's that.

But if you've followed along with me this far you'll no doubt how picked up on a certain passion with how I speak about this game and it's world, no matter if I'm praising it or digging at it. And that's because I did actually really enjoy playing it! For it's faults and gaffes there is a heart to Final Fantasy XII which makes it fully understandable why some out there hail this as a formative game for them- it may not be perfect but it's hardly a bad game by really any metric- it just shapes up poorly in comparison to actual masterpieces out there- which is no great shame. I even think that somewhere, with some spit'n'shine and a total rewrite of Vaan's character so that his driving motivations don't almost completely disappear the second Ashe joins the party, and I think this game could make for a blinding Remake one day. Unfortunately, I'm sure there are far more deserving Final Fantasies worthy of a remake first- so I'm not sure XII will ever see that day.

Final Fantasy XII is a strange one. Solidly made but structurally flawed, evocative yet unfulfilled, ambitious yet narratively absent. And also I don't like the combat but I'll confess that's a personal bias. As far as Fantasy games go, however, Final Fantasy XII nails it where it counts for someone like me, who flocks to this genre for fascinating worlds that spark the imagination. Ivalice is another unforgettable world in a franchise full of them and it's light alone deserves a recommendation if just to see the grandeur of Rabanastre if not to stick around for the whole game. The story does kind of fall on a flat note and I'm not sure any character really feels that fully developed- and the player character really let's the story down in terms of connecting the audience with the moment. I think my feelings can be summed up in one scene: at the very apex of the game, when the protagonists and final villain finally meet, and that same tyrant turns to our heroes and says "Who are you?" It's the beginning of a middling speech but by god in that one moment I thought "Right! Who the hell am I?!" Which shouldn't really be your take away by the time of the plot climax. FFXII deserves it spot in fantasy games history, if not exactly a plinth of honour for all it achieves. Which leaves me with a tentative recommendation if all those negatives I just described doesn't fully turn you away and a arbitrary review grade of... this one is hard... I'm going to go C. C+ if you just love fantasy enough. Not a failure, but far from the best this franchise is capable of and what this world deserved. 

Metaphor Refantazio review

 Fantasy lives on...

Persona has risen very much from the depths of niche-hood into the very heart of relevance thanks to the runaway smash-hit of Persona 5. Just like the Yakuza franchise had done before it- 5 introduced a whole new breed of potential fans to the wonders of the Japanese game market- wherein forgoing the absolute cutting edge of technology allows for quicker turn arounds, developers who are more familiar and adept with their current toolsets and, usually, more introspective and interesting stories. I still find myself utterly stunned with just how many ATLUS projects we've seen in the past 5 years compared to the best of the western world. Five games in as many years- (with one technically being a re-release with more content in 'Persona 5 Royal') What about Naughty Dog? Last of Us Part 2 and... remasters of both games. With an upcoming second remaster of Part 2 soon. My point is- the Asian gaming market is on the rise and for good reason.

Of course I did find myself wondering just how transitive the success of Persona would ultimately be on ATLUS as a whole. I mean sure- I ended up really gelling with the brand and introducing myself to the wider world of their products- but I'm an anomaly with too much time on my hands. Shin Megami Tensei V certainly did decently, but it's still a niche brand in comparison to Persona and it seemed like ATLUS really understood that what with how thoroughly the team committed to milking Persona 5. What else did they have? Soul Hackers 2? That game got panned, unfairly so I'd argue, for the crime of not really being anywhere near as good as the Persona games. (Not that it was really trying to be- you could feel the lower budget seeping through every aspect of that game.) Which is what brought me to considering Metaphor a risky proposition.

Don't get me wrong- from an artistic standpoint I thought that marrying the ATLUS formula with the creative freedom of a pure fantasy world was such a no-brainer that it honestly astounds me that the team seem so surprised that they went this direction ultimately. The tacit comprehension of complex themes disseminated and personified into tangible aspects of a thematically driven plot, broad and emotionally driven character writing that colours shades of personality into even the most drab places, a deep grasp of various international cultural myths and the intellect to cleverly appropriate those aspects to create fascinating world spaces. (Take note: 'Devil May Cry'; you haphazard culture-nicker, you!) ATLUS had been cultivating these skills with every one of their projects up until now- of course they were primed to bring it together into a fantasy. In fact, a fantasy setting could even be the perfect melting pot to bring all those talents to their ripe-most fruition!

Now those are very bold proclamations that I make, and it was with a tempered heart I reflected on what Metaphor would actually be. First off, ATLUS were forming a new team to make it, Studio ZERO- which could either be an investment made in confidence that this would form a team worthy of carrying their own legacy for years to come- or a calculated risk to isolate a limb in the off-chance it may need to be cauterised if things go south. In a manner so very fitting for the subject matter of the day, I gave into my fear of the unknown and allowed anxiety to close off my heart to the hype train for Metaphor- only really re-engaging around about release time when I figured- "Eh, there's a free demo- might as well see what it's like." Needless to say, I brought the game on the spot soon after.

In many ways Metaphor feels like a marriage of everything ATLUS has achieved up until now, in every aspect from the character writing to the storytelling to the gameplay. But for the sake of observable and easily communicable evidence, lets start with gameplay. Metaphor borrows the press-turn combat system from Shin Megami Tensei alongside it's buff/debuff stacking kit- accessing the much greater tactical burden and reward afforded this system over the more pithy, albeit quicker and punchier, Persona route. Yet it neatly nicks the celebrated Social Link relationship heart of the Persona games in order to bring the relationships to the forefront of the narrative and world every bit as successfully as that franchise does. Picking and choosing.

This comes from the pedigree of Studio ZERO which is picked from across ATLUS' greatest hits with talent from Neon Genesis and elsewhere padding out the other artistic positions- presumably lending to the uniquely lively style of ReFantazio's visual artistry. And personally, as one deeply entrenched in ATLUS' emotionally-poignant examinations of the human condition, I am so happy to find Metaphor not just full to bursting with one of the studios most complete breakdowns of their theme, but a beautifully evocative commentary on so much more besides, from the very nature of power to the purpose of art as a concept. Once more ATLUS amaze with how aware and clever their narratives can be- leaving not a pinch of doubt in anyone's mind when they took the 'Best Narrative' award at the Game Awards.

Metaphor presents a fantasy world that slips away from many of the usual go-to tropes that Japanese fantasy in particular falls down- there's no World Tree- thank god! In fact- there's no central worshipping force around which all the world revolves- sorry, Final Fantasy. Instead there's a deeply grounded soul to the world of Euchronia. (very cute synonym there, by the way- with 'Euchronia' literally meaning a utopian era of technological and social achievement- in stark contrast to the world present.) The world is made up of fantastical races split into tribes, with Elf-like Rhodanthe prized for their martial strength to the bat-like Eugief who are treated as an ugly and dirty people- likely for how distinct they look from other more humanoid style peoples. This is a land of social struggles and racially-enforced classism that leads to strife and discord across the land- it's a near endlessly rich world depicting a society on the brink in such a tangible way.

Such a turbulent world is brought to a boiling point where the king is brutally assassinated by a villain we establish directly from the get-go- Louis, or as I like to call him: "Fantasy-Dio". Forgoing the cat-and-mouse of later Persona titles we have our man of the hour front and centre before we even have controls in our hands which gives Metaphor plenty of time to give us one of the best villains ATLUS has ever made. Both distant enough to remain a point of intrigue for a good portion of the story and oppressively present so that his essence looms over proceedings finally complete enough that when the puzzle pieces do start coming together, it feels every bit as rewarding as you'd hope. Louis feels like the perfection of the Takaya-style Strega character that ATLUS have been taking a shot at every now and then ever since Persona 3.

That 'conflux of good practises' comes to a pinpoint in the combat too, which really seems to nail all it aims for. Aside from hitting on a more tactically rich space than Persona without getting overwhelming, Studio ZERO also built in one of the most user-friendly features I've ever seen from a JRPG. At the press of a button you can instantly reset any fight to the start in order to try it again. If ever things aren't going your way, or you used too many resources that one time, or maybe you just missed an opening you really wanted to nail and are willing to save scum to get it right- Metaphor gives you that power in the most seamless way possible and I simply love how accessible it makes an otherwise potentially foreboding fight system. You can get to learn a fight by slamming yourself up against it before starting again with a clearer idea of how to tackle it. Clever- but that's just the iceberg.

What they did for dungeons is hats-off brilliant yet so-very simple. As you can imagine- dungeon delving is an important part of Refantazio, both in side-questing in the surprisingly rewarding side-content on offer or simply hitting the main dungeons throughout the core game. Each of these spaces are visually distinct and usually filled with their own brand of thematically appropriate enemy, sometimes with cute gimmicks such as a fear of mages that causes goblins to flay into a rage whenever they see a staff and becoming much harder to kill. But engaging with these dungeons takes valuable days to commit to- you don't want to waste a trip on an ill thought-out loadout, do you? Thus was born the informant system. People shoed up in Inns who, for a small pittance, give stories about locations of interest stuffed with hints about the kinds of monsters there, the gimmicks at play and what sort of weaknesses you'll want to exploit or shore-up against. Suddenly you're gearing up for dungeons beforehand- spending wisely on appropriate gear, changing up your party makeup prematurely. In a simple hint system built within the game's fiction Studio ZERO have reinforced the 'adventurer fantasy' so beautifully that I'm going to be asking for something similar out of my future RPGs. That alone has reshaped the standard. So smart! 

And that's without even touching on the boss fights themselves! Metaphor contains some of the most interesting boss fights across the ALTUS catalogue by, again, just injecting a little bit more core creativity in design. Of the larger bosses you'll find mechanics built into various targetable limbs that serve different functions throughout the battle and offer specific steps-up if you target them, explicit attack patterns that demand study and dutiful response and classic attack chains that challenge the player's rounded party composition. Once again, these take the best from across the board. The gimmick fights of Persona 5, the attack patterns of Soul Hackers and the attack chains of SMT (and some choice Persona 3 bosses.) Identifying the best-of-the-best is one victory- bringing them together so deftly is yet another.

These flexible fights are made feasible by the archetypes system, which is personally the only aspect I'm still not in-love with when it comes to Metaphor. It presents the overall flexibility of demon/persona-collecting with skill-swapping and collecting in a manner somewhat reminiscent of SMT. Which it gives a lot of play variety, I personally found it robbed the individuality of your teammates until the very late-game when your builds are set in stone. Which in some ways is very much the point of the system, allowing for definite replayability when it comes to totally fresh party builds- but I guess I just have a soft-spot for knowing who my damage dealer is from the moment I lay my eyes on their stat sheet. More of a personal preference issue I guess. Also I'm not a huge fan of the over-designed style of the archetypes, a lot of which look indecipherable at a glance- but that is the first and last time you'll hear be critiquing Metaphor's art style.

Refantazio is ATLUS' most gorgeous looking game by an absolute country mile- solidifying the company's refined anime style just as some bigger slop studios were starting to work their way around to something similar. 5 decent-quality anime waifu-collector games dropped in 2024 and Metaphor totally shot past the rapidly-deprecating generalised anime visual with grace. Metaphor breathes with swirls and patterns that dance in the sky and even in the shading on people's bodies. There is constant subtle movement painted into the groves of this world that conjure to my mind some of the abstract of JOJO's art-style, and which make the otherwise intentionally grim environs, such as the backstreets of Gran Trad, alive and almost squirming. It feels flowing and never stagnant, matching the beating heart of the world and narrative neatly.

And then there's the music, oh the music! Had I been on the Metaphor hype train and spent months listening to what was coming, I probably wouldn't have got it. The bombast, the weird monk chants- none of it gells with the typical ATLUS image in a vacuum- but in context it is pitch perfect. Dramatic, ritualistic, anxious, alive! Music is actually canonical to the fiction of the world, presented as 'the first music' and played within the protagonist's head by his guiding fairy, Gallica, and that pans out with the how every track perfectly enhances the moment. From the hollow tones of the Sandworm burrow to the rapid rap-pace of the 'surprise' theme- ATLUS have once again proven utterly singular in the art of game soundtracks, even when stepping into ostensibly well-trodden musical mediums.

What more can I really say whilst keeping this a specifics light-review? I loved every single character dearly, from the core cast all the way down to the incidentals who show up once or twice but leave an impression. I am absolutely enraptured by the world of Metaphor that even though I feel it almost sacrilege to the spirit of the game to do so I simply yearn for a sequel. Or prequel. Or re-release with more content. Just anything to keep me in this world! Once again ATLUS have nailed their ending in a way only they can. Beautifully rich and narratively fulfilling- they make it look easy. I've come away thinking about this game, it's story, it's themes and mulling over the messages it imparts. I haven't felt this buzzed about an ATLUS game since I first discovered them, and that is the highest praise I can muster given how they are my current favourite JRPG developer. 

After having Baldur's Gate 3 totally redefine the standard for Western RPGs last year I absolutely was not expecting to have similar bars raised over in the Eastern world. And to be fair, Japanese RPGs tend to be distinct enough that there isn't really a thing as 'overall bar raisers'. But if any title was going to do it, it would be Metaphor Refantazo. A step-up from what many, myself included, believed to be their defining game in Persona 5- Metaphor does the near-impossible by encompassing the best of what ATLUS is and distilling it into an inspiration of a product. The game is art and none of my little gripes here and there with things like the Archetype system or certain aspects of the endgame (particularly the final boss composition) detracts enough from my view of Metaphor- as an example to the artform. And you know what examples get, don't you? A recommendation, of course, and an S grade in my arbitrary review scale- which technically breaks my school-theme I've got going for these grades but I gave the same to Baldur's Gate so I figure the ship's already sailed on that one. If you only ever play one JRPG in your life (and I strongly recommend you make the time for at least a few more) let it be this one. 

When it rains

 

Even given my time stepping back from the forefront of the news cycle to literally do anything else, somehow I find myself constantly faced with the sheer insanity of the daily goings-ons in this fair industry of ours. And wouldn't you know it- somehow Ubisoft have remained the centre of my ire even after all this time? I should rename the blog into 'The Ubisoft hate circle' for the amount of times they appear on the pages- but I guess I just can't help the fact that, for some insane reason, their management is determined to make themselves a cancer upon the industry. I'm talking- genuine danger to the health of gaming as an artform- that seems to be their biggest goal in life; beyond even making a profit. I don't even know if EA were ever this bad. Or at least, EA did a better job at hiding their active disdain for games and those who buy them.

Of course I'm referring to the recent rumour popping about (big underline with the 'rumour' part of this, the source is unnamed and i've yet to see anyone reputable back this up- it just happens to fit the Ubisoft MO so horrifically well.) Star Wars Outlaws. Apparently Ubisoft have acknowledged the flop internally and expressed a desire, alongside some other unnamed accomplices, (I imagine Sony must be one) to pressure Steam into restricting their API access. Basically they want strict provisions put around the data that the public have access to so that they can keep figures such as Player Numbers private- to what end? All this would achieve is giving Ubisoft the anonymity to gussy up a flop in front of investors- essentially giving them the authority to white lie when they want to. Which is illegal so I'm not accusing them explicitly of lying to investors- just that they happen to want to pursue the very tools that would facilitate such lying.

And I want to impress just how largely useless such a move would be. I know that companies like Ubisoft are so desperate to divest themselves of responsibility for any mistake they'll accept any old scape goat that flies through their window- but it takes a special kind of delusional to think that the observation of player numbers would drive people away from a single player open world game. A multiplayer title? Sure. I'll bet that at least some people considered buying Concord only to see it on the path to crashing and burning and decided against that purchase. Outlaws? Not a chance. More likely they saw the developer, weighed their reputation up and decided to wait for a sale. That's pretty much how I think of Ubisoft- that developer who puts out games that are never worth their RRP. And, well... that's the kind of reputation which is pretty well earned!

But that's not the only story of the day. How about FromSoftware, kings of the Souls-like, currently being hunted by Sony for an acquisition. Oh good lord, why do the horror stories never end. Sony have proven themselves ill partners in the modern age of the live service order, which has already documented at least two strictly single player studios having their arm pulled into spitting out live service prototypes- both of which proved not interesting enough to be developed to launch. FromSoft have their art nailed down to perfection, they've managed to iterate upon their own greatness and reach ridiculous heights- and they seem to be one of the only modern respected studios building themselves to be generational, so that when the current guard inevitably move on- the studio will retain that sparkling standard with the next generation. (take note Bioware.) They don't need Sony stepping on their back.

Now as far as we're aware the Sony acquisition is not entirely their own volition. They're being called to the role, as if they're saviours bearing down from up high. But that doesn't change the fact that their proven track record has been atrocious, they have themselves a FromSoftware game they've bitterly refused to work in the slightest. Not porting it to their newest consoles, let alone to other platforms, the same as with Metal Gear Solid 4 which has been trapped on it's release platform since release. (Although in fairness that one is just as much due to Konami being mean.) I don't want Playstation standing guardian over who gets to play game this big. Heck, it's been under a Sony exclusivity deal that the once biggest JRPG in the world, Final Fantasy, has floundered and failed to make the cultural impact that it- following my actually playing FFXVI- fully deserves to. That game slaps! Sony just aren't the partners they need to be right now.

And the last point of this dying embers of the year is hardly a revelation but deserves mentioning all the same. Bethesdsa just really don't seem to get any of the heat that has fallen their way. Now obviously I really liked Starfield for what it was, not for what people wanted to be or even what I hoped it was going to be. (Although to be fair, I gave up on my hopes years before launch the very second they made it clear the game wasn't going to be 'fun' sci-fi. So maybe that's just low expectations going in.) But the game honestly isn't a patch upon it's predecessors and it has nothing to do with it being a new IP that goes in a new direction that fans aren't sure about. Metaphor Refantazio dropped this very year from a pedigree that mainlined Shin Megami Tensei and Persona for decades beforehand and it might just be the single most complete, thematic strong, relatively lean and mean JRPG of all time. What's the difference? ATLUS gets it. Bethesda don't.

From the absolute barest of the bare faced peep- sure, we can look at the fan dissatisfaction with Shattered Space and conclude that people would have been happier if the game saved up some of it's free releases and dropped them with the DLC (As Todd Howard was said to to have proposed during a chat with Phil Spencer). I objectively believe that would have been partially true, even if buggies actually don't gel well with the DLC's environments specifically. But that wouldn't have been real satisfaction. That wouldn't have been solving a problem. That would be like sticking a pacifier in the mouth of a screaming child- give something to focus on for the next few minutes but not actually addressing the route issue. That issue? Shattered Space just wasn't very good. It lacked a core thesis, I don't know if they even know what sort of fantasy they were working towards providing, I personally think it's visual palette was frightfully uninspired and dull, (which is a hot take, apparently) and it stands as perhaps the least engaging full-blown DLC's that Bethesda has released for one of their mainline games ever. That should be a significant wake-up call. And it hasn't been.

Now at the tail-end of all this is a reminder that no- this hasn't been the end of everything this culture has to offer. This has been such a solid year for games that I genuinely have a dissociative moment whenever I see anyone claim otherwise. If you haven't managed to find at least one game that released in 2024 that hasn't scratched at your best-of sensibilities then I have to be honest- that is a skill issue. Unless you're a sports game fan but those folk should be used to disappointment by now. (Actually, they did get their College Football madden-style game they waited 10 years for- so even that crowd should be pleased.) But it's important to take the lumps with the porridge. To not let compliancy cloud what could be improved, what might not be going the way it should and how next year might grow to even greater heights. And man, for the companies mentioned here today (sans Ubisoft) I sincerely hope that they do. They deserve it all.

Live Services fall, long live the industry

 

Yeah I simply had to chime in to talk about my favourite story of the year once again. The answer to the question- "Why is it that video game players feel the need to opine on their entertainment?" It seems like such a loaded question to begin with, and one that I find almost grossly dismissive on the rights of a paying consumer to find their product wanting or impressive- not everyone needs to be a nuanced critic, meanwhile anyone can offer their in depth opinion on a product they brought- I have no idea why these are concepts that need to be fought for and against in some circles. But if you want the slam dunk answer as to why it isn't some great imposition on the universe to allow gamers to give their view once and a while about what they like and don't, what they're tired of and what they want more of, maybe it's because the old adage of "you think you know what you want but you don't" more often than not is a 'get out of jail free card' for people who really should know better themselves. Because literally no one wanted Concord, and now it is quite possibly- if the suspected figures behind are indeed as true as people vehemently claim- the biggest flop in entertainment history. Let that sink in.

Brought about from a bunch of industry 'exs', including some folk from the other end of the multiplayer barrel over at Bungie- Sony invested a prohibitively steep wallet in order to not only buy the project and push it over the metaphorical finish line, but also to keep the studio behind it in-house just to keep the machine running. This being just the latest in the 'Live Service push' that gripped the industry in the wake of the one that changed it all- Fortnite. One must remember the breakout success of that story from a relatively niche-studio to producer to a Rockstar level mega-developer in the space of a mere year. Fortnite really is the kind of northstar that executives go to sleep dreaming about and wake up changing underwear over. Recurrent monetisation with no tie to style or vice paid by other advertising arms in order to expand their catalogue- the lazy dream... but not everyone can substainate that.

It seems bizarre that we have to learn the lesson again and again that 'games are hard to make' but it really does seem like this industry legitimately never learns. Back when World of Warcraft was the biggest thing ands god's green earth everyone and their mother wanted to get into the subscription-model for their own competing MMO's that would sweep the market with a grand total of one single conceptual shift away from what WOW was already doing. How'd that work out for them? A plethora of studios learnt that MMOs are stupidly big, stupidly expensive productions to run and the more of them that exist the harder it is to secure a viable user base. Then we did the exact same for survival games, albeit that was mostly a war waged by indie developers and Bethesda, for some reason. Battle Royales squeak in there too as an honourable mention- largely spurred by PUBG and Fortnite until people figured it was actually the Monetisation model which was the lesson to learn from. We're edging into the 'extraction shooter' meta next.

It is apparently so very difficult to comprehend the fact that maybe there is no easy schematic to success within a creative field were ingenuity and uniqueness are championed. When you catch all those doom-and-gloomers, largely in the public coloum of the Metro, whine about how terrible the industry and how hard it must be to get feedback on your work and how everyone is literally on the verge of transferring to the much more profitable general IT industry- they largely miss the point of why anyone desires to make art in the first place- because they want to create. The reason why seasoned developers flake out of big studios is because they long to make a substantive contribution to projects which is only possible in smaller teams. Developers want to make interesting games, and players want to play interesting games- the only sore point in this relationship is the publishers and the producers that insist a level of formulaic nonsense be stuck in there for good measure.

But the good news is this- recent years have shown the industry get absolutely trounced over their live service drive attempts. Suicide Squad, untitled Last of Us game, Hyperscape (bet you forgot that one), Final Fantasy 7: The First Solider, The Culling 2, Anthem, Radical Heights, The Day Before (if we indeed categorise that as even a game), Babylon's Fall (Wow! There's a blast from the past!), Lawbreakers, Marvel's Avengers, Paragon and now Concord- the biggest flop of the lot. Of any lot. A colossal disaster-piece. And I think that bow on top was Sony making the decision not to try and pave over the wreckage with a free-to-play launch that would have inevitably drawn in a crowd of the curious and made the game seem a little better than the worst failure in entertainment history- they cancelled their plans and even dissolved the studio: Sony let this lesson lie in the history books.

And now we've just received word that Warner Bros. has seen the writing on the wall. Their recent best seller was a single player only game- the live Service push has only cost them money. There's even an unspoken surliness towards Multiversus being discussed as though the re-release isn't doing as hot as people might have expected. (Which I personally contribute to terrible marketing that failed to convey that the original release was a beta and that this is supposedly the true launch.) For once the consumer has finally won out with the shear strength of apathy. Leaving the idiots to flounder in their waste and empowered by actual developers out there releasing banger alternative purchasing options in better genres has left it's mark. 'Live Service' is now the scarlet letter.

The only hope now is that the wrong lesson isn't learn from all this- which is not helped by the doomsayers attempting to manifest gloom with their portends all over the shop. The amount of interviews I've seen from previous industry officials condemning the modern games industry as a death spiral is alarming- considering there is seldom a point in all of the games industry history that could be considered 'swimming'. The conversation about the strangling of game budgets is not a unique one, and we'd have to be certifiable idiots not to acknowledge that bigger bets into less risky releases are scoring more failures than wins- but the market appears to be teaching that lesson soundly enough- whispering doom from the rafters is only going to serve to scare off your Warner Bros. or your Disney's who see this entire venture as a side-gig to begin with.

Still, it's good to actually win one for once. At the cost of untold millions lost in waste- unfortunately the case when we're dealing with hairbrained suits so desperate not to do their jobs it's painful, but the hopeful result is that we can move towards a future with a bit more hope where further billions can be saved. Make more games for less, sanitise scope, stretch out the big blockbusters a bit more, throw away the saturated ideas. Make more games for the younger generations so that they get into this industry! Maybe this one stone rolling down the hill can pick up traction and lead to something great. That's how I'm choosing to look at all this.

A coming change

 

I have been at this blog game for a while now- and with a body of work behind me I'm going to make a change. Starting from today there will be a drastic reduction of blogs on this channel as I split my free time towards creative writing efforts and the development of more essay-style blogs up here- so I'm not going to just be abandoning this blog or anything- just toning things down quite a bit.

 I expect to keep a monthly visit quota, but anything about that can change as I move into a new cycle. Still expect reviews and the odd off-the-cuff topic blog about something that catches my attention, but don't expect this to remain my daily diary blog space. Thanks for reading.

Gaming's newest enemy has dropped

 Or a returning one?

So even though I am not of the country and pointedly never speak of it- I am very aware of who Donald Trump is and the goings-on of the Election he is currently barrelling towards with all the grace of an elephant riding a Big Wheel. Those yanks and their crazy conundrums are just across the pond from little old me, as such it behooves me to stay abreast. Not least of all because theirs is the home to 99% of the video game developers in the world right now. (Although it should be noted that many of the best are further afield.) As such when rumours start to spread that, according to the allegedly words of Donald Trump, that territory might soon be going to war with Video Games- I get a little worried. But not before I gawk at the sheer gall of such idiocy.
 

I get the need for incendiary rhetoric in a position such as his. The man is a hairs-breadth away from an election just clear of two assassination attempts that no one seems to care about and a supreme dud of a VP choice he clearly made when he thought his opponent was too much of a dementia riddled fading mind to notice. Now all of a sudden all of his directed attacks at age and how doddering Joe Biden is have bit him in the ass, and people are taking more notice of his meandering speeches that shed away the larger rally crowds, or the concentrated thirty minute dance break recess he took for absolutely no reason a week or so back. How do you convince people you're not falling out of your saddle? Double down on the rhetoric! Let people know you stand for things and hopefully it's the kind of things they will decide they care about- because that's modern democracy, baby!

Still, even with all that readily apparent in my mind- sometimes the targets he picks are so stupid you wonder if the man even knows where he is half of the time. To be clear, I'm talking about the comments Trump made about the "glorification of violence" in society which "includes the gruesome and horrible video games that are now commonplace." (I see that, once again, a popular dictator from a foreign country has slipped their rhetoric directly into his mouth- what a shocker!) Although not clear on any plan of 'banning' or taking any action whatsoever, making this not so different from his video game violence mix-tape from a few years back, he did foretell a need to "stop or reduce this substantially." Which falls just short of a promise so the man can happily forgrt about this the moment he waddles back into the Oval Office.

Now at no point does this actually rise to the point of being a 'ban', but this is the kind of talk that sends a shiver up Jack Thompson's little thompson. Still- let's take a look at this from an objective angle- shall we? Donald Trump essentially just demonised the number one pass time of a lot of middle Americans, at a time when he really needs every vote that he can score in a tighter election then anyone would be comfortable with. Then again his base is the puritanical Right- the kind of people desperate to find an enemy in anything other. Also the base that is rapidly getting aged out as they move into retirement age- mix with with a paranoia over encroaching gun control and literally anything can become a scapegoat. But let's take this a bit further.

Say Donald does start throwing down the legislature against the video game world- that would literally kneecap the single most profitable entertainment industry sector in the entire world: this from a candidate who lionizes their financial savviness. They claim that America is on the ropes and they want to revitalise the economy- though I seriously wonder how crashing a multibillion dollar industry would achieve that. Then again- I'm operating under the very weak belief that these guys are intelligent and think before they act. But uhh... well, that isn't really something you can take for granted, now is it?But just for fun, let's play out how this would go.

So first off, all of the big companies would literally just move out- basically feeding industry to other countries- not very 'American first' of you, eh Donald? Of course, you can bet that most employees won't be able to make such a jump, so this would result in a complete degradation of current industry talent- probably leading to a giant crash. Smaller to medium studios would be absolutely incapable of leaving the country and would be forced out of work. Perhaps their talent would filter into the tech sector- who can say. Either way Donald would end up making many of his own countrymen destitute in order to force a false scapegoat. And is anything more American than that?

Long story short, is Donald Trump the new bad guy of the Games Industry? Nah, but he's certainly much raking in the dumbest areas for a man who is apparently looking to score some last second votes. His base is locked in- they don't need to be catered to anymore- yet all in he goes making hairbrained promises that twist the vast majority of younger Americans out of his grasp. The further this goes on the more flabbergasted I become at the 'strategy' of the man, if indeed such a thing exists. Honestly some morbidly curious part of me would love to see what would happen if he does end up winning- watching to see if the man even remembers any of the enemies he made along the way... It would be funny, you have to admit.

I'm still waiting for 007

 

It has been actual years since IO Interactive first unveiled the fact they're working on a 007 game built off all their learnings with Hitman- and often times that can be cause to worry. We're no longer used to extended reveal, development, expanses outside of Rockstar- thus whenever a title starts to leave our mind it gradually loses it's possibility of ever reaching the finishing line. With all the backroom reporting I don't think anyone is buying it when whoever is currently holding the 'KOTOR Remake' potato promises the thing is still chugging around somewhere- despite how much of a slamdunk victory such a game would undoubtedly be with even the minimal amount of effort put in to bringing it up to snuff. But with recent titters from the IO camp that they are still very much on the grind- my passions are reignited for what feels like the perfect Bond game on the way.

Now first off, I love IO Interactive. Their handling of the Hitman franchise has been straight revolutionary to a brand that felt destined to fall off as we slid into the modern age. It's not that I don't like Hitman, it just seemed like the exact kind of formula game that would be homogenised into being 'just like everything else', in some desperate bid to become some other studio's answer to Uncharted or something, if it hadn't been picked up by IO. Heck, we already saw that attempted with Hitman Absolution, which was not bad by any stretch of the imagination- I actually really like that game- but it doesn't play into the strengths of the brand too well. IO's recent stint on the Hitman trilogy, however? Sublime.

The pursuit of ultimate replayability across their levels challenges a level design mastery I genuinely think few other studios could legitimately match- but the eye that IO interactive's staff has for the manipulation of geometry, contextual interactivity, NPC AI route coding- everything a fantastic stealth games needs- birthed the ideal Hitman experience. Those levels are near endlessly repayable, and even knowing them all as too-heart as I personally do; some remix of the traditional can still trip me up when I least suspect it. I adore the Hitman games and I just know there's a vertical for a fantastically stylish Spy thriller wrapped up in there. Heck, they literally laid out such a framework across their work on Hitman- just give them a half decent budget and let that team cook!

That being said, I will say there's not exactly a recipe for what would make a great James Bond game out there. I mean sure, you would throw up your hand and announce that literally one of the most influential games of all time was a Bond game in GoldenEye, were this a test environment- but I'll push back on that a little. Whilst undoubtedly revolutionary to the shooting genre- is the spirit of James Bond really conveyed in a full blown shooter? The intelligence of spy work, the occasional subtlety offset by bombastic explosiveness? I've said it before and I'll maintain it- the single best video game on the market right now that perfectly captures all a Bond story can be doesn't even have the brand stamped to it's cover. It's 'Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater'.

Bringing us to the beginning of James Bond's legacy is something that hasn't really been attempted since the days of Young Bond- the novel series by Charlie Higson; (Which I love, by the way.) IO really are stepping into grounds all of their own, presenting a gameplay loop of honing one's spy skills until they become that iconic superspy everyone knows. I can just picture how neatly that concept marries their 'repeat into mastery' loop of design. Revisiting the same missions, becoming more insightful, gaining new equipment, learning the extent of your ability to manipulate the world to your own ends- all whilst your own Bond builds their legacy and talents. I assume this is IO's next multiyear franchise and if they perform it right I am absolutely hear for it. Especially if they go in with some of the cooler aspects of Hitman that they started experimenting with after the series was done.

Who remembers the whole Hitman 'Freelancer' mode? A very clever rogue-like spin on the formula that gave you challenges, random targets and a death consequence built into gear acquisition - this mode deftly reworked the base Hitman game with an entirely new progression system built around the same basic loop. Getting to slowly fill of Agent 47's house with increasingly grand accoutrement's feels like entirely inconsequential fluff but it provides a fun little glimpse into the home life of a character we've grown so very close to- and getting to unwind between extremely stressful missions wherein a single mistake can scupper giant chains of planning and set-up missions is a welcome addition to the formula. I hope that can rub off on this Bond game somewhat.

Now we already know that the plan is to shoot for a trilogy with these games, similar to how Hitman was a trilogy. This actually marks itself as something of an uncommon approach to typically serialised Bond stories, and I wonder how an ongoing metanarrative will end up effecting the quality of the Bond fantasy. Sure, Craig's tint was proposed to present us with an ongoing narrative but that shaped up to little more than stapled on narratives atop each last movie creating a disjointed feeling story where at the end of the day the majority of the progress felt like it was being made in his love life... despite Bond's love life constantly being reset to zero every movie too. It was a bit of a mess, to be honest- and how funny would it be if the video game ended up nailing the narrative better than the actual movie did. Oh I would giggle!

As it stands IO interactive are some of the best high quality niche developers on the market and as long as they stand as beautifully pro-consumer as they are I don't think anyone is going to begrudge their continued dominance of the puzzle-stealth-sandbox market: whatever you call a sub-genre like that. I shudder in excitement to see what they'll do next, how they'll expand and evolve into bringing their action gameplay up to snuff, or moving towards other forms of engagement all together! Bond is big into his cars, right? Can we except maybe a little bit of car combat? Set pieces? Role Playing? The possibilities, like their future, is bright and endless

Pokémon and the leak of the century

 

We all want to be the very best, that no one ever was- as famously uttered for the very first, and very best, Pokemon theme song. But what if I told you that Pokemon was not, 'the very best'? They were not the very best at their own genre of game having been recently outshone by a random go getter indie project so disastrously that daddy Nintendo is having to slit throats in a pathetic display of legal manipulation to supress competition. And now neither have they been the very best when it comes to computer security after suffering a leak so horrific this is has been effectively dubbed the 'Teraleak' in reference to the franchises latest gimmick-feature in Terastallization. Very droll, I'm sure Gamefreak just loved seeing that across the headlines. (I know some others are saying it's because there's over 1 terabyte of leaked info- but that's the boring explanation, live a little- will ya?)

Now this is of course considered a 'Hack', but before you start summoning up images of multiscreen hacker-men typing at three thousand words a minute, cutting through firewalls like paper- let me give you the image. According to the Discord leaker who detailed the incident, this was entirely a failure on behalf of internal security who left a big vulnerability in a very not-secure location that ended up providing a back end into Gamefreak's network. And this leak is bad. Not just for the security of whatever slop Gamefreak are planning to feed us for the next few years, but for the actual employees there because, yes, this is one of those 'personal details leaked' kind of security flubs. Always a stressful time for the people just trying to make good games out there who really don't deserve this kind of headache on them. If they wanted their personal details leaked, all they needed to do was sign up for a PSN account in the UK.

So what did people get? Everything. Literally everything. We now know the production codenames for every Pokemon title across the past twelve years, alongside what is widely understood to be the codename for the Switch 2- whenever that is expected to show up. (At this point it's going to competitively launch with the PS6) We also have the codename for the next mainline Pokemon game and a spin-off which I won't mention a single detail about not to keep it's secrecy clear but because I just don't want to invite that kind of chaos into my life. It's like letting in a vampire from the chaos realm through the front door- better off just pretending you didn't read that stuff. What is much more inline with my own personal interests are the various concepts arts and old sprite sheets that have leaked. Some of the unused art is viscously cool, and another reminder of how hard it is for studios to convey the dynamic excitement of a great piece of concept art into even a 2D animated sprite. Square Enix are the only one's who can reliably put it off, Pokemon's just make me feel sad for the missed opportunity.

Next, good lord above- Game Freak actually has an internal lore diary! I'm not sure why that surprises me but with how haphazardly new conceptual deities appeared to be thrown into Pokemon I just kind of assumed that only the fans were putting in the work to make sense of it all but no- Game Freak literally have a kabbalistic-reminiscent creation graph detailing the inner workings of the universe, including what legendary trios are ranked in the overall Pokemon pantheon. Impressive and humbling. (Feel like Rayquaza should be higher than Kyogre and Groudon considering he literally stands between them as a balance- but I understand why he would be considered betwixt the pair.)

One provision I will never understand from the corporate world is the incessant requirement to hold onto every little insignificant chunk of nothingness that literally no one would ever need to reference again in their lives, which incidentally is how the minutes of various important Nintendo meetings got leaked. One such involved the discussion to end Ash's run on Pokemon and cited the direct reasons why. Declining viewership was a factor- as well as the very reasonable approach of bringing in new characters that a new audience can connect with rather than this weirdo kid who seem to rebirth himself every few years or so. Surprsingly levelled headed of Nintendo here, I was impressed.

But where things get less level headed would be in relation to some of the 'background lore' that people have allegedly dug up. Now I will say that I have not personally delved into the leaks but rather seen several databases that has collated the important and interesting parts, which means I haven't personally seen this Typhlosion lore dump that set the world on fire- but assuming this is as real as the rest of the leak- I can understand both why people are so up in arms and why it even exists in the first place. It's a matter of the context of both the story and Pokemon as a whole- but that doesn't make it any less weird to the literal observer.

For yes, in as-of-yet unreleased Folk-lore regarding one of the dullest four legged Pokemon of all time- (Yeah, I don't like Typhlosion- fight my, Ty-heads!) people have found themselves yet again confronted in horror about how very close Pokemon and Humans actually are. And I don't just mean that personably. Within the Pokemon universe Humans and Pokemon are literally cousin species, both birthed by the first born (first made?) children of the literal almighty god. The four legged Dailga created Pokemon and the upright Palkia created humans, both supposedly in their own image but I think we've seen plenty of bipedal Pokemon who would put that under the microscope. But at least now you know what is meant by 'a time back when the line between Pokemon and human was blurred'.

And yes, within the- honestly messy and confused- story we see Typhlosion impregnate a human girl who then gives birth to... a Slakoth for some reason? The Typhlosion also shape shifts, which fits the Yokai inspiration of the creature but not the actual Pokemon itself who holds no such ability- that's Ditto's gaffe. It's just an understandably off-the-mark addendum to Pokemon lore that never made it to print. And yet remained attached to Gamefreak archives because, like I said, corporations have this annoying tendency to cling hopelessly onto absolutely frivolous junk that no one benefits from. How long as it been since they were actively writing lore for Typhlosion? And yet this story was just allegedly pinging about? Bizzare!

Overall I think the biggest take-away from the Gamefreak Leak is not some crazy reveal about their upcoming schedule. You know like how when Insomniac was hacked and their next decade worth of truly ambitious projects were leaked so we really know the heights they're attempting to reach for over the next generation and beyond? Yeah, Gamefreak have none of that. There's no ambition. No excitement. Nothing grand in the pipeline they're working towards, building up their skills to achieve. In fact, as far we can tell, Gamefreak literally plan their core games only one in advance. And doesn't that just sum up the Pokemon company perfectly? No grander plans, no rumbling ambitions. Just taking the blows as they come and shrugging with the times. No wonder Terapagos sucked so bad. 

ReFantazio tops the top

 

When it comes to ATLUS I truly do consider them to the pinnacle of modern day JRPGs, and I play quite a bit of them to make such a claim! Modern Day RPGs all throw truly commendable acts of creative fruitfulness to make their genre feel original whilst familiar, sometimes coming up with truly original spins on the basics, othertimes depending a bit too heavily on gimmick systems that don't quite achieve everything the developers want it to do for a full video game length's worth- which is why I don't begrudge it when a studio like ATLUS finds a niche and kind of just develops that, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel over and over. On it's surface ATLUS just presents the 'weakness hunt' gameplay loop, but it takes just a little bit of familiarity with really any one of their games to know that system is really just the basis for a largely foundational RPG slice they've explored exhaustively.

Though I consider them always improving, in terms of the core of the game and how ATLUS handles their RPG elements I really did think they were close to hitting something of a wall- what for the past twenty odd years of doing this. Persona 5 pretty much rewrote the trajectory of the company and how they worked- honing in on presentation and style- cranking up playability and accessibility. Persona 3 Reload really hammered down on that sensation of 'we've hit our peak', what with a lot of design concepts borrowed from 5 in UX speed and personability- as well as gameplay variety like Theurgies and Shift attacks that were introduced new into the remake. Which is probably why 'gameplay' was the last place I expected to be surprised by when it came to Metaphor ReFanazio.

What blows me away with Metaphor is all the number of what that the team essentially took what wasn't objectively broken and works on it anyway because the team simply can. Because that team feels some insatiable urge to challenge their own boundaries whether they feel their backs rubbing up against the wall or not- (Can you imagine Ubisoft ever feeling something like that? Passion for their craft? Neither can I.) The Persona formula wasn't broken, activities in the daytime and hunting in the nightime- the classic superhero dichotomy- and I very much expect that to return for Persona 6 and I would be happy to engage with it again when it does- but despite being very drawn from the same mould as Persona, with some Shin Megami Tensei mixed into the pot for good measure, ReFantazio takes the formula further.

Now we have a narrative based around forward momentum, where the team is on a world wide adventure and visiting new lands- activities are visited between day long trips spanning them out to feel like treks- the environments change, the routine feels dynamic. Of course, this is natural evolution upon the Roadtrip concept for Persona 5 that was originally scrapped, which would have seen returning locations across the franchise as well as at least one old character reintroduced as a potential companion. Metaphor takes that idea to a new world and fresh genre spin, proving their ideas relied on solid bones and not nostalgic gimmicks like some assumed.

One thing I love about Fantazio is the renewed take on making challenging and unique boss encounters, specifically for side content. Odd wisdom led to trial and error gameplay where typically you'd be thrown into a battle, figure it's peculiarities through trial and error and then reload a save before the fight and prepare- or just grind through the mechanics. Fantazio totally leap frogs this antiquated system with a new swathe of creatively designed boss mechanics and an intractability with the world. Now you can visit an informant before you ever even leave for the hunt, who teach you about vulnerabilities and potential 'no no's. (Such as equipping a certain class that automatically rages the enemy.) Then you have NPCs throughout the dungeon, some for flavour and some for a last few special clues- such as not picking off all the adds least it makes the chief unkillable. Prep time actually feels purposeful and directed, and mechanics are fun to learn and engage with- rather than the reward to figure out after knocking up against a brick wall.  

Of course little can ever be said of an ATLUS game without bringing up the Music at this point- and I'll agree that this was the toughest sell going in. Previously ATLUS have been so good at mixing contemporary music into their world with stupidly talented artists perfectly conjuring unforgettable soundscapes that marry beautifully with the themes and mood of the game. Bringing us into the Fantasy realm would rob them of the ability to use the contemporary believably, just ask Final Fantasy's bizarre Linkin Park song in 'Stranger to Paradise'- weird. But when it came to being more traditionally orchestral and bombastic ATLUS never loses their unique edge which marks them so very different to their contemporaries in a field you'd expect to me mined dry.

Everyone is going on about the obvious thus far, the throat singing mumble rapper who accompanies the advantage and regular fighting themes- and that is because he is great. Outside of the context it might be hard to figure out why he works so very well but when you're in that moment, facing down the twisted monstrous 'humans' of this world, listening to the deep throaty drone racing alongside your heart- it's impossible not to feel the moment! But even beyond that I want to spread my praise. The background tracks for many of the dungeons you visit on your journey are unique and gorgeous to listen to. Whether it's the haunted broken arias of the Sandworm cave or the ringing cries of the castle dungeon track- the music is absolutely unforgettable once again- I can scarcely believe they pulled it off!

ReFantazio had such an act to follow considering the franchise it spawned from and I think we've all seen similar titles of it's type struggle and fail to capture the magic of their parent franchises. Bethesda's Starfield is a good game, but nothing in the face of Fallout and The Elder Scrolls- but I suppose that was never going to be the case with ATLUS, was it? They managed to effectively spin off SMT into a more successful franchise- and now they're spinning off Persona and SMT into something possibly greater than that. (I'll see how the story builds and improves before labelling any victories or successors just yet.) And I am so happy to see the unreachable ceiling that ATLUS shoots for. Good god, I need to play more right now! 

Looking towards TES VI

 

With Shattered Space out of the way a lot of eyes are not turning towards the horizon. More specifically, to Elder Scrolls VI. I think the consensus was to follow the Starfield yearly train for a while until TES VI was closer- but considering that is what the team consider billable content for their ailing game, I'm pretty sure most people have finally written off Starfield entirely. The game could be saved, no doubt- but Bethesda aren't interested enough in receiving feedback to do it. They're happy with the small base they got and consider them the Starfield fans, who are content with that level of output and thus do not require any catering to. Thus Starfield probably will never be worthy of being considered a main Bethesda franchise. Maybe when 2 rolls around in 2040- who knows? Either way, now the pressure is back on The Elder Scrolls.

Maybe pressure is the wrong word. Too light. It might be more appropriate to say that the weight of all the stars in heaven are beaming down on TES VI with an expectant glare. Bethesda seem to really struggle with developing on themselves, lovers of one of their games will find something essential missing in the next one along and it's making it very difficult for hardcore fans to stay attached to a developer that either doesn't understand what won them over to begin with, or are simply driven by some inexplicable vision that grows increasingly anathema to the rest of the Roleplaying world. I won't deny that Bethesda games truly are unique, but I'm starting to worry that in times to come that uniqueness will be best described in the way they cram endless monetised content farms into their entirely single player RPG worlds.

I was down for the idea of paid mods a long time ago- but they don't care enough to make that idea a respectable one. They've already grown tired of it and are moving on towards the next implementation of the system in the next game. It kind of reminds me of an irritable creative without expectations and deadlines, free to pick up and drop an idea at the change of the wind- never quite riding great designs and concepts to completion. All of which is why personally, I'm expecting The Elder Scrolls VI to break a lot of hearts when it finally arrive and finally tells us all what we don't want to hear- that Bethesda just don't have it anymore. That special spark which made Skyrim a generational masterpiece- which has been slipping since Fallout 4- might be finally gone from their eyes.

But then the stubborn delusional side of me wants to cast all that aside and say no- Skyrim was such a special game and you would have to be a straight fool not to see why! The tangible world space, living stories, space to paint whatever adventure you could imagine on the canvass of creativity. Even before the word 'mods' enters the conversation Skyrim was so very ahead of it's time. But let's talk about mods for a second. Skyrim was so very accessible to mod in a way that Starfield is proving... difficult on. Lacking official animation tools (cross fingers they're coming) animators are currently incapable of even porting old kits over. (Unless they use a tool that relies on the Script Extender, but Starfield's new paid modding system has literally cut a giant swathe through the community that many mod creators are avoiding third party compatibility tools so they might remain compatible with consoles. It's a whole mess right now.)

What I think The Elder Scrolls could do with, going forward, is a change up in their scenario management. Honestly, I think the assumption that a tight and excellent story can't fit into an open world RPG game in the style of Bethesda's is frank under ambition talking. Get a half decent fantasy writer on the payroll and let them go nuts, reign in the delivered product where needed and squeeze the rest of the simulation around that. The impact of a great narrative isn't just a solid boon nowadays, it's expected to get people through the door. Bethesda's best storylines have been Morrowind, which relies entirely on the quality of the world building, and Skyrim's- which is so simple and straight forward it doesn't have a chance to sag. All the others, their Fallouts, Oblivion, Starfield- all suffer under weak writing, soft scenarios or lacking commitment. They're so afraid of railroading players, when what they should be caring about is giving enough motive that players will give their RPG characters into the scenario. Ultimate freedom sounds good on paper- but few games that pursue that end up in the annals of history. 

Of course, we also need a total revision to the way combat works. First person melee combat is always a conundrum to solve- but Bethesda have never been there. Morrowind's combat was a mistake that was realised into the fall game for some reason, Oblivion's combat had some small promise but lacked commitment, Skyrim's was a regression of Oblivion's for some reason. Bethesda's latest games have shown a surprisingly solid grasp of their combat, with Starfield and Fallout's FPS touches- we can't go back to the land of noodle swinging come TES VI. It's just not possible. Give us just some of the basics. Dodges, parrying, stance breaking- I know I'm starting to sound like a Souls-nut but to be honest- Souls has established the bare minimum for satisfying medieval combat- this should be the foundation that a game like TES VI builds from. But considering modern Bethesda and their bar of 'quality', I'm just praying they even hit the industry bare minimum at this point...

 And most importantly I think that TES VI could really use some more focus. As much as Bethesda want to pretend they're making vastly different games between their three series- the truth is that Bethesda really carry the same basic bones from game to game, build upon that and then try and squeeze a new genre out of it on the backend. Most early fundamental working is fixing up the allgame under all the nonsense. Which is why I have to beg Bethesda not to get lost sticking in another superfluous settlement builder mode. It just doesn't fit The Elder Scrolls. Hearthfire was limited and focused- it was designed to fit into the world. Starfield's settlements serve little to no real purpose in the fantasy of the game- keep your focus, Bethesda- please!

I am scared for the next Elder Scrolls game, and that's because I've not really seen the hallmarks of the trendsetting Bethesda for a very long time now. But what scares me even more than that is just how delusional they seem to be internally about that. They still think of themselves as leaders within DLC, despite CDPR soundly trouncing them in that department over two of their most recent releases. They consider Starfield the best game they've ever made in some respects- which defies belief. They call Shattered Space the product of veteran talents who's work really shows on screen- which reads like an actual insult levied against them. Is this the Bethesda who has it in them to change the trajectory of their company and become a leader once again? I hope so. I really do.

The movie tie in curse?

 

Not too long past there was a time when the phrase 'movie tie in' was a curse uttered upon the gaming world. For those with more power than sense would see the production of a movie as synonymous with that of a game, and expected a full quality game to be whipped up within the year or so of filming in order to coincide with movie release schedules. This would, obviously, result in the worst possible games as developers desperately struggled to produce something working under the horrific constraints which inexplicably made a reputation and a bit of money because of the name association alone. At least, that was until they grew so bad that people knew not to waste their time anymore. Now the movie game is largely just a thing of myth, but every now and then one does pop around to surprise us and raise the question- does the curse of the movie tie-in still exist?

The early 2000's were rotten for the worst of games like these, with some coming out as little better than a mobile trash product from an amateur coder might. Of course I'm talking about the original Iron Man game- good god that disaster haunts me in my sleep and I only played the demo! Ugly, unintuitive, boring- just the worst of all worlds. At least people who fell for the 'Thor' tie in game got a terrible God of War rip off to pass the time with. Not exactly glowing- quite atrocious actually, but at least they got the Hemsworth to voice for it. And Tom Hiddleston! And the music of Inon Zur? (I need to stop reading the Wiki before I end up playing the thing.) For my money the best of that era, at least within the confines of the MCU was Ang Lee's Hulk the movie the game. Not as iconic as Ultimate Destruction, but a competant little smash 'em up action game with a totally unique narrative set after the film that touched on areas of Hulk lore I've not seen addressed outside of a comic since. Ravange, Madman, Flux- when the last time you heard any of their names?

Of course there are some genuinely good tie-in games. The King Kong game was way better than it had any right to be, presenting itself as half a semi-horror shooter game where you have to survive the mutant monstrosities of Skull Island, and the other-half a third person Kong fighting game. And then there's the king of movie licence games, a game so good it set an example that similar games tried to top over the next 14 years- Spiderman 2. What can anyone say about Spiderman 2 that hasn't already been sung from the rooftops? It was freeing, fantasy encapsulating, graphically pretty, mechanically sound, stuffed full of memorable encounters and moments, and accompanied by one of the best Super Hero movies ever made. So if you want evidence against the existence of a curse at all- those will be your best bet. Alongside Golden Eye, I guess?

But lo, just recently this very month we had ourselves a movie tie in title in 'A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead'- a first person survival game that appears to fancy itself a 'survival horror' despite featuring no significant resource management. (Are there no standards to genre picking anymore? Simply having to survive being murdered does not itself warrant the 'survival' addendum, else Until Dawn would be a 'survival Horror' now wouldn't it?) The Road Ahead is actually half decent, kind of borrowing the vibe of Alien Isolation to a small degree it mimics the core conceit of keeping super quiet by jacking into your computer mic and listening in on your breathing. (After you allow it to, of course.) All under a goofy little storyline that believes itself to be more dramatic than it honestly is. (Love a little silly horror plot now and then.) I would commend the game for slapping down the curse... but what movie release is this supposed to coincide with exactly? Day One? That movie dropped in June! (Eh, it's close enough, I suppose.)

Of course there are also movie franchise tie-ins, that are connected to a particular movie but rather a cinematic brand. Actually, there aren't many games like that because there aren't many cinematic brands that can survive past a few entries. I recall a pretty lacklustre VR John Wick game which just got a lot of people back into playing Payday 2, because that was what it played like. And more famously there was the sure-hit certain-success product Avengers which managed to bomb under the utterly moronic direction of the team who made it. Having recently actually tried to play the thing myself I can say first hand how desperately the game buckles under the weight of level gating and side content bloat it just doesn't need! Any designer worth a fraction of their paycheck would have been able to spot that giant flaw in the game's makeup, and if they failed to get that actioned upon then they failed in their role. And in doing so, Avengers failed despite all around it.

In fact, you might say the tie-in curse seems to hit Marvel the worst off. Any Marvel game that isn't directly tied to Spiderman has an inordinate chance of bombing despite the apparent permeability of the Marvel fandom and it genuinely astounds me. Perhaps it's the cynicism surrounding the very apparent over-extension of the brand- or maybe just none of these games really nailing the fantasy that people are searching for. Even Midnight Suns, which I figured to be a pretty decent game, didn't quite capture the heroism it was shooting for and ended up feeling like a half-step away from the XCOM style the studio was known for an a half-step towards something entirely different they weren't confident enough to commit to. Whatever the case- it bombed with all the others.

But could it be considered as bad as, say, Street Fighter the movie the game? Yeah, you read that right. Street Fighter the movie, an adaptation of Street Fighter 2, was adapted into a video game. And you might think- "how does that work"? Cast your mind back to Mortal Kombat and you might remember the stop-frame picture animation work which defined the bizarre style of that original game- which Street Fighter neatly avoided thanks to it's gorgeous animation work. Well the movie game took us back to that Mortal Kombat style only with pictures derived from the movie counterparts of these characters. Yes, it is visually repulsive to witness- and apparently the game plays pretty stiffly as well- which is astounding for an adaptation of a movie of one of the most responsive fighting games of all time.

The movie game curse is a warning that art is nothing to be trifled with, and that the work of making a video game cannot be condensed into the cycle of film development. It truly was born from a superiority complex that games were a lesser form easily squeezed into a Hollywood marketing schedule and it's the pig headed stubbornness of that industry which kept this sordid tradition alive for as long as it did. Maybe video games growing to such a size that they neatly eclipse films what was put an end to this. Why the potential lost revenue of a bag guy far eclipses what an entire movie marketing team can afford to commission- who is going to give them the time of day? At least nowadays those that make the plunge do so with their priorities in check and the power-balance tilted the right direction.