The Past, Made New

As autumn gradually approaches, the seasons of nostalgia begin for me. While Spring and Summer are often about progression and moving forward, Autumn and Winter tend to bring out my memories and fond recollections of past times whether good or bad. Often times, there's triggers for these memories. It could be smelling or feeling a certain chill start to waft in the air, or the lack of sunlight in the evenings. It could also be hearing certain music, or playing a certain game. Regardless it feeds on our longing for how things used to be, and in a time where so much has changed from one year to the next, it affects me particularly strong.

Everyone has their own story about playing FFVII, whether it was their first RPG, an anticipated one amongst a middling collection, whether they simply enjoyed it or thought it was the best thing ever. Despite popular acclaim, despite controversy, despite recent milking; it's an influential game. Anything associated with it brings me back 10 years to when it was released in the winter of '97. I had a particularly comfortable wicker chair in my room at the time, right in front of my TV, that I would always curl up in to play games. I remember the creak of it at 1 or 2 AM when I should have been asleep but just kept on playing anyway, recklessly hacking my way through the battle system I didn't fully comprehend at the time.

While I got my start on gaming on the NES, these days of the PSX RPGs were really what defined it for me. FF7, 8, Xenogears, Chrono Cross, Vagrant Story, among many others. It was a time before the constant hype on the internet, reading copious other opinions besides my own and friends'. All current news was limited to whatever magazines were glanced at within a month's time, and print ads actually meant something. It was possible to be surprised by something coming out of nowhere and shaking the foundation of the industry.

Too many things are taken for granted these days, what with copious interviews, previews, constant chatter and hype from both fans and journalists and fellow developers. Sales, press conferences, NPD numbers, review scores. In my personal golden age of gaming, I didn't care what a game scored. I didn't care what games sold the most copies. It was just about the love of gaming, and owning one system or another didn't seem to matter quite as much. Enjoying one system didn't seem to be such an obscure point of view.

Granted, that's just my perspective on things since I never was a part of this wide gaming community until the past few years. While community definitely brings us all further together, there are lot of interesting ups and downs that come along with it. I can't say whether either way is preferred, but the differences are there and it's impossible to go back.

Weekly Gaming: Enter the PSP

While most of my week's gaming has been absolutely dominated by the monstrous (length-wise) Persona 3, I've finally caved and purchased a PSP what with the advent of the new Slim & Lites coming out. The three games I've picked up so far are somewhat diverse, though I've only really dived deep into one of them in my morning/evening commutes.

Jeanne d'Arc came out relatively recently and, along with Brave Story and the upcoming Final Fantasy Tactics remake, was the catalyst for the PSP purchase. I've always been a fan of Level 5's games, though I've yet to actually complete one or be drawn into its story. Dragon Quest VIII was a game with unparalleled visual and aural appeal and entertaining gameplay, but I never really dug into the storyline and as a result moved on to other things rather than complete it. Rogue Galaxy was also along those lines, since it came out amidst a wave of hype for FFXII and my enthusiasm to approach it was dulled by a coworker explicitly naming its faults (similar to DQ8's).

And so here we are with Jeanne d'Arc, a game that is neither turn-based RPG or action RPG, but in the third major category: strategy. It also follows a familiar tale of a young woman with the ability to hear the voice of god and the quest she embarks on before a tragic end. For the benefit of a deep game however, many liberties were taken and the world of old France and England has been transformed into a fantasy mythos with a mixture of typical and obscure elements.

One early reveal that eased my initial worries about the story was that the magical bracer that Jeanne obtains early in her journey is not in fact connected to the celestial voice. At least, the second character met in the journey with the ability to transform using his own bracelet is unable to hear the voice. Otherwise, I would suddenly have hilarious mental images of medieval Power Rangers transforming and reporting to a Zordon-esque god.

So, as a relief, I'm actually digging into the storyline. Also, as per Level 5's history, the gameplay and visuals are rock solid. The graphic style is crisp and very well suited to the PSP's display and resolution. The sound effects also are very crisp and effective, but I unfortunately can't say the same for the soundtrack. I've never been a big fan of Level 5's in-house composers, and this game isn't an exception along those lines. The developer greatly profited from Sugiyama's presence in DQ8, but sadly Takeshi Inoue's tracks don't live up to my standards for SRPGs... which is perhaps a bit unfair considering that most of my favorite ones were written by Hitoshi Sakimoto, one of the better composers in the industry today. In any case, the music isn't unbearable by any means. It just isn't memorable at all, and lacks any substantial dynamic range.

Overall, however, I'm very much enjoying this game and will continue to put in sessions on the bus rides to and from work every day.

The second of three PSP games I purchased initially is something I hadn't planned on getting, but there it was at Best Buy's $10 rack at the check out... And I couldn't resist it. The game is Gunpey, and unlike Jeanne above it does make use of the full dynamic range quite deliciously. I'm a bit late to the party on this one, but I'm really digging this musically inclined puzzle game. I never really got into Lumines much, because I'm not nearly as good at block-dropping puzzlers, but I love the Panel de Pon style games like that, Meteos, and coincidently this. The concept is neat in that you're trying to connect lines rather than colors or shapes... It's interesting to think, randomly, how much different this game would be on DS with touch input (yeah I'm aware that a version of Gunpey came out for the system), but I think what makes up for it is the delicious soundtrack.

The soundtrack's interactivity didn't quite hit me until the 3rd level, but when it did I got hit hard. Level three, in particular, is one of the coolest levels I've played through in this type of game. The way the music and sound effects merged together was seamless rather than awkward, and it actually sounds like you're putting together some music while playing the game. It really encourages me to keep on going and see what other levels have in store. Definitely another to keep plugging away at.

Unfortunately, the third title Brave Story hasn't been touched due to a total lack of time. Once I finish Jeanne d'Arc, I'll get to it though. Likewise for my backlog of console games. I'll finally get to Bioshock and doing it properly as soon as I reach the conclusions of Persona 3 and Metroid Prime 3. All in good time...

As a final note, I'm going to be saving my weekly music for a little later in the week, as it's getting a bit late here and what I've been listening to needs a bit more time to digest before I can really give a proper opinion on it. 'Till then, keep rockin'.