Final Fantasy III: Trust me, I’m a classic!

This picture defines the characters more than the actual game does.

There’s a bit of a jump between the Final Fantasy games that audiences in the United States experienced as opposed to the ones that the public saw in Japan. Both countries universally saw the original Final Fantasy, which as the legend goes single-handedly helped struggling game developer Squaresoft to stay afloat for a few more years. This is a game that I have played, albeit for only like twenty minutes tops. From there, Squaresoft picked and chose which games the US would see. Our FFII was actually Japan’s FFIV, and our FFIII was essentially FFVI overseas. Why this happened this way? I dunno. What do I look like, Wikipedia?

The number scheme has long since been corrected, with fours and sixes placed with their appropriate games here in the US. The now Square-Enix (I’ve never even seen an Enix much less a square one) likes to dig deep every so many years and bring back the glory days of RPG defining goodness. When they released Japan’s FFIII for the DS a few years back, I picked it up because, hell, it’s a classic. You’ve got to play classics. That’s what makes them great, is the fact that you play them.

Lets just say some games have aged more gracefully than others.

Super Mario DS: A remake to remind you of your failures

BEST BUDS

Here’s a little known fact about my younger days: I went through a bit of a rocky patch in my gaming ability around the same time that Nintendo 64 was released, which inevitably unleashed 3D gaming upon a poor, 2D-centric world.  At the time when Mario 64 was released, I was feeling pretty good about myself.  I had chased Dr. Robotnic out of town with Sonic and Tails, and Elrood and I were taking the fight to some jerkface aliens in Contra Hard Corps.  But, the moment Mario sprung that third dimension on me without warning, it felt like any ability I might once have had was suddenly and horribly leeched out of me by some cartoony aliens who…  you know what?  No.  I’m not going to make a Space Jam reference.  You’re welcome.

Mario 64 is one of my first failures as a gamer.  I was bad at it.  I was so incredibly bad at it.  So when Nintendo re-released it for DS as the creatively named Super Mario DS, I picked it up. Because apparently it wasn’t embarrassing enough the first time.

Mario and Luigi: Bowsers Inside Story

I don’t really have much to review this week, so I’m going to hit up an older game I’ve had laying around for a while.  I’m not sure why I didn’t review this one before now, though come to think of it I probably avoided it because the name of the game made it exceptionally difficult for me to put a smart ass title on the post.  But I’ll do it down here instead.  Mario and Luigi: Bowsers Inside Story – OM NOM NOM NOM.

Okay, yeah enough of that.  Bowsers Inside Story is the third installment of the ever popular Mario and Luigi games, bringing continuing the ongoing tradition of RPGs starring Mario being inexplicably good and an awesome idea to produce.  Though, honestly, some sections drag on a little long.

Infinite Space: The Energizer Bunny of extraterrestrial games

If you’re a regular reader here at Faceplant then you know that I’m not particularly fond of jRPGs. In fact, I’m relatively new to the whole RPG genre. But Infinite Space for the regular old Nintendo DS intrigued me. I read about it on a news post by one Tycho Brahe early last year, and finally got around to renting it from GameFly about a month ago. As I understand it, it isn’t your typical jRPG. You’re not running through a fantasy land stabbing blobs or fighting Cthulhu. Nope. You are the 16-year-old commander of a space fleet.

Final Fantasy 4 DS: It keeps happening

"M'lord! We're in 3D for some reason!"

One of my favorite probably unintentional ironies in the video game world is the fact that Final Fantasy is still a thing.  I know the original Final Fantasy was named as such since Squaresoft never intended to survive past the game’s release, but that one, sole game resurrected the entire franchise and made the name Final Fantasy a household name.  I like the fact that the last fifteen bajillion final fantasy games released have been the “final” fantasy.  Not sure why.

Anyway, Final Fantasy 4 is a game that is close to my heart.  Originally released in America in 1991, back when the console war between Super Nintendo and Sega was so violent people actually got stabbed every now and then, Final Fantasy 4 was the second game in the franchise to mosey its way across the sea from Japan to us.  I’m not sure at this point if I read this statistic or am making it up entirely, but since then, Final Fantasy 4 has seen more remakes and re-releases than any other Final Fantasy game.  I’ve been playing the DS incarnation of this game for a while now, and with the announcement of another Final Fantasy 4 compilation game for the PSP hot on the heels of an episodic Nintendo Wii exclusive sequel, I figured this was as good of a time as any to go over the game to see why.

Okamiden: Sequel to the best game you never played

As is usually the case when it comes to sequels to great games, I was very apprehensive when I picked up Okamiden for the Nintendo DS. The original game, which appeared on the Playstation 2 way back in the misty bygone year of 2006, was one of the best games of that console generation. You remember Okami, don’t you? Of course you don’t.

After a five-year gap since the last time I had a chance to play as a young wolf/sun god banishing evil from the land of Nippon, I was concerned that this sequel wouldn’t be able to do the grand Playstation 2 tale justice.  What I got instead was a nice companion piece to the original adventures of Amaterasu and Issun the gradually evolves into a deep, touching piece about (several) children and their struggle against the forces of darkness.

Radiant Historia: Do it again, whore

:(

Anyone who has been reading Faceplant! for a while is probably aware that I’m a sucker for RPG games.  I like the tedious micro management that accompanies battles and character upgrade menus, watching the best laid plans of the vapid and shallow characters in the game go completely to hell, and nothing quite beats that feeling you get when a game world completely sucks you in.  It’s kind of a hit or miss science, really, and every RPG I pick up gives me a certain sense of unease.   Waaaay back a while ago, I discussed which video game was THE BEST GAME EVER with Enosh and Elrood, and one of the things I said I look for is a game’s replay value.  To me, a truly great game is one that you keep coming back to after you’ve completed it, one that continues to suck you in regardless of how advanced of spiffy newer games have become.

Well, I guess someone at Atlus games was reading the article.  Radiant Historia has tons of replay value.  Actually, it’s required.  In fact, if you don’t go back through and replay sections of the game over BEFORE you have completed the game, you can just forget about actually reaching the game’s true ending.

Dragon Quest 9: SO ALONE.

*Insert Dragon Quest theme song here*

It’s been a while since I last graced you all with my presence on Faceplant! and there’s so much I want to review!  Comics I’ve picked up!  Games I’ve obsessively played for the fortieth time!  Commentary about how the next generation of consoles should just have two controllers duct taped together!  The possibilities are endless!  But unfortunately for you, I made a promise to myself hours, nay, days ago that I’d finally type up that review for Dragon Quest 9: Sentinels of the Starry Sky for Nintendo DS.  I figure, you know, since I’ve mentioned the game about fifty times in other articles, it’d probably be nice to actually have a review about it.

The stakes of remakes

What is it about remakes that we love so much?  Why can’t we just let something die?  It’s been an unexplained phenomenon for at least the past century, where it seems our culture wants nothing more than to take one of our beloved cultural icons and beat it with a stick, until it looks nothing like the original.

I always thought it went down like this:  somewhere there’s a large, open conference room stuffed full of old men in suits.  The old men have enormous white beards and eyebrows that look ready to rip a man’s face off.  They’re all wearing top hats and have monocles, and have been frantically discussing how to work the intercom without having someone walk outside to actually ask the secretary.  They are all over a hundred and fifteen years old.

Defeated, the men turn to their real job as presidents of entertainment, looking toward their, old gnarled CEO for guidance.  He clasps a cigar between his parchment thin lips and asks the question.