Archive for the ‘Handheld Games’ Category
Final Fantasy Crisis Core – The Gem Among Common Stones
Final Fantasy Crisis Core is a PSP game that shines out around the others. The PSP is notorious for short games that don’t seem to stand up to the PS2 as they were supposed to do. Crisis Core is an exception to that rule.
The basic storyline of Crisis Core is to show where the characters Zack, Cloud, Sephiroth, and some others, originated from. Many characters recognized even by gamers who don’t enjoy RPG’s include Cloud and Yuffie as they were both featured in popular Final Fantasy franchises and even games not related directly to the Final Fantasy line.
Crisis Core is the story of Soldier Class 2 Zach, who eventually grows to Soldier Class 1. A Class 1 Soldier deserts the Soldier company and many follow him, including Zach’s mentor, Angeal. Zach is pulled into the conflict quickly, as Soldier’s ranks are diminishing and you are put in control of the character.
The battle style of the game is different from traditional Final Fantasy games. You are put into the action. Though you still choose what attack to do, you are pressured to make that attack quickly as action is the method of choice for fighting. You fight using a sword and have magical proporties as well as an ability to use special sword techinques. This fighting style is much more silimar to the Kingdom Hearts style of battle. The woman who says “Activating Combat Mode” at the beginning of every battle is very annoying though.
The game is lacking one major element; however, this element has been lacking in nearly every Final Fantasy game: Multiplayer. This game would pull off multiplayer more effectivly than others due to its action battle style. One nice feature that continues to reappear in RPG games is the option to start over with continued stats. The game is also very long, taking me about 16 hours to complete, a very long running time for a PSP game.
Bottom line, this is an excellent game, if you have a PSP I highly recommend checking it out.
Bob’s Game – 15,000 Hours of Work for a DS Game
Bob’s game is a new game to come out for the Nintendo DS sometime in the next year hopefully. Robert Pellini has spent 15,000 hours on his game, all done on his home computer with C++. He plans to find a publisher and send the game through to stores near you sometime in 2009 if a publisher can be found.
The basic concept behind the game is “Who Is Yuu?” Yuu is your character. You control the sprite and do different puzzles and other interactions around a fairly large city.
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Robert explains the game on his site, quoted below:
Hello.
My name is Bob, age 25.This is my game for Nintendo DS, a 20-hour-long retail-size,
retail-quality adventure title by a single human being-
the largest game ever made by one person.“bob’s game” is a simple 2D adventure game, with focus on
story, puzzles, item collection, and communication instead
of repetitive battles with palette-swapped enemies.Many characters (over 200 completely unique characters!)
have deep personalities that evolve, and many things
depend on the in-game time, day and weather.
It’s the game I wanted to play when I was younger,
a vision I’ve been following since then.
Monster Hunter Freedom 2 Review – Still No Online?
Monster Hunter Freedom 2 is a PSP exclusive MMO style “free roaming” killing game, released in late August of 2007. After almost a year of being on the market, the game is beginning to gain hype in the United States. Known in Japan as Monster Hunter Portable 2G, the series is extremely popular, and had no trouble selling two million copies of the game. The basic gameplay of MHF2 is quest based. You choose a quest from a list according to your skill level, then you are sent on that quest, and cannot return to the village or leave the area of that quest until you have fulfilled certain requirements, such as killing a monster, gathering specific materials, or killing an amount of monsters. You will then be allowed to return to the village to restock and upgrade armor and weapons with materials you obtained on your quests. For those people who enjoy griding to get that special weapon, or full armor set, this is a game for you.
Unfortunately, this game did not take advantage of its greatest potential, online play. Though this protects those newer players who may not have the kind of armor and abilities that other more experienced players may have, this decreased game appeal greatly. Adhoc (system to system) play is possible, allowing players to play quests with nearby friends who also happen to own MHF2, but the lack of online play throughout the world is a real drawback.
Monster Hunter Freedom 2 takes advantage of the PSP’s control and graphic capabilities. There are many things you can walk though, or stand inside that you shouldn’t be able to, but the massive size of the game makes these drawbacks acceptable. The controls take some getting used to, and at the beginning you may find things sneaking up on you due to no dual joysticks on the PSP, which reduces your ability to use the camera effectively, but after a few hours, this camera problem will be replaced by habitual scanning of areas. The controls also take a bit getting used to, but after they are mastered, they are actually well done for a PSP game.
Monster Hunter has always lacked a storyline, and Freedom 2 does not cure this problem. There is no storyline at all really. You lead the life of an average hunter, who goes on quests for people in the village you call your home. These quests range from getting herbs for some old lady, or killing a huge dragon for some coward who can’t do the job himself.
The grinding of the game can get old, but the sheer depth of the game is enough to keep fans occupied for hundreds of hours. If you enjoy MMOs this is a good game to play in the car, or if you are just bored and want to kill monsters. If you have a PSP I would recommend picking this game up, you will get plenty of play for your pay.
Screenshots of the game:
