Although I’ve been in Hawaii for almost the past two weeks, since I got back, I’ve had some time to spend with my PS3 and work on my back catalogue. The promise I made to myself at the beginning of summer was that I was not allowed to buy  any new games before I beat some old ones. That means Final Fantasy XIII, Mirror’s Edge, and inFAMOUS all needed to be beat. This also means I haven’t had a chance to play God of War 3 or Heavy Rain. I know, I’m ashamed, but I blame it mostly on Square-Enix.

Getting through inFAMOUS was a pleasure. It’s such a fantastic game. The scenes and story were engaging with a character you cared about. The combat system kept pace with the dark story and as the story unraveled, so did your powers that helped you kick serious ass. I have to say though, I picked going with the light side and I’m tempted to go back and do it as the dark side, but I don’t know if I have the time for it. Still, I do want those damn trophies. Beating inFAMOUS was not a problem. Then, I got to one of my favorite franchises, Final Fantasy. I have to say, I am all that is Final Fantasy. I have Final Fantasy 1 for NES and Final Fantasy 3-9, along with Tactics on the PSone. On Playstation 2, FFX (my favorite),FFX-2, FF12, Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII​ have all been first-day purchases. Of course on the PSP, I own Dissidia: Final Fantasy and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. Last but not least, I have Final Fantasy XI on both PC and PS2 and have recently picked it up again to get me into the MMORPG mindset that FF14 will require of me. But that’s not my RPG limit; I’ve played Suikoden 1-3, Xenogears, Xenosaga 1-3, and Brave Fencer Musashi to name a few. So when it was Final Fantasy 13 time, I couldn’t be more excited since I’ve yet to play a single RPG on this generation’s consoles.

My mini Final Fantasy shrine.

I hope you’re seeing where I’m going with this, and if not, let me help you. Final Fantasy 13 fucking sucks. It’s a horrible game, with a battle system thats designed for FPS fans. Wait, what? For example, this morning, when I was doing an hour grind session (more on that later), as a battle started, I walked out of my living room and into my kitchen to make toast. All I did during the time was push X on my controller because the game assumes you’re an idiot and pre-selects all the moves for you. Better yet, you only control one character on screen so your two other players are AI based as well. If the game is controlling more of this, there isn’t a whole lot of roleplaying going on. But you might say that roleplaying is based on discovery, and that’s so Final Fantasy. WRONG. This is not an open world where you can explore. It’s very linear based with one way in and out of an area. You might be lucky if a path segments off into two roads but if it does, you can already see what’s at the end of that road so the exploration is kept to about 8 seconds. Why an hour grind session you say? The game works in this odd way that during random parts, the enemies will get 3-fold stronger. Of course, because all the enemies are on screen now (no more random battle, per say), if you kill all the enemies, you can’t run into more unless you save, quit and re-enter the area or go far enough where once you walk back, those enemies are loaded again. Let’s get back to the difficulty level. It’s not that it’s a “hard game” but it just doesn’t make sense. Some of the enemies whose asses I kick in one battle are just considerably stronger in the next. Part of this is because of lack of controls over my own character and the horrible customization screen. I know I’m upgrading my character specs, but I just don’t see a damn difference, and finding parts to upgrade your weapon and visiting the stupid shops in the game is lame.

Having all that horrible stuff is one thing, but I have to say that I play Final Fantasy for the story. I can honestly look over all that stuff as long as they give me a plot that pulls me in. This is actually the reason why I hate Final Fantasy 13. I’m willing to look past that top paragraph and get into the story but it’s so fraking hard to follow. Every group in the game sounds the same. Pulse Lacie, Pulse Fal’cie, Lacie, Grand Pusle and the normal Fal’cie. I have no clue what on God’s green earth is going on this goddamn game. From the art direction, to the plot, to the combat system, it really seems like this game was started over 5 different times (no wonder it was supposed to be a PS2 game originally) and eventually, they took different parts that were finished and slapped a Final Fantasy title on it. If this game was called anything but Final Fantasy, it would be an okay game, but for a Final Fantasy title, this is horrible. But as all things FF, I must beat it. Plus, I’ve heard that around 25 hours in, it gets better….

A little quick piece on Mushroom Wars. Its basically PixelJunk Monsters, but not as good. I started the game with an RTS mindset. Conquer bases, get them larger, and expand. This worked for the first 10 levels, but after that, I could not win the battles. I decided to watch a few YouTube videos on how people were beating the levels and got it. The whole game is based on rush tactics. It’s based on how fast you can grow your units and just take over the enemy bases. The different structures you get later on (3) are completely worthless and there are no different unit types. For those who have strategy and base-building in mind, move right along. I personally got the game for free for being a Playstation Plus member, so I’m cool with that.

Now the bright spot of my gaming, MAG. I cannot tell you how great this game is. Especially with MAG 2.0, this game continues to get bigger and better. It’s moments like this—I look up and see an airdrop with 15 soldiers flying it, as the artillery is firing, the APC next to me is driving by with units inside of it towards the gate that is about to get blown up and me, with my repair kit towards the bunker A—when the masterpiece is truly shown. MAG is a real war game, not just an FPS, and for that, I love it.