Brick and Mortar Finds: A Summer RPG Edition.July 29, 2014 by


Slightly disingenuous title, but summer time yard sales, gotta love 'em. Especially when you decide to drop by, spur of the moment, zero expectations, and get surprised. It goes to show you, spend some time looking through old boxes and bursting shelves of used games, treasure awaits. Short version, I picked up Shin Megami Tensei IV, Final Fantasy Tactics A2, Bowser's Inside Story, and some pretty cool books. Cool version, I only spent $12 on the two pretty good DS RPGs (carts only), and a factory sealed copy of SMT IV. I met a really nice lady who, honestly, didn't know much about video games and was very willing to negotiate the price to unload "clutter," as she put it. I was thrilled to do business with her! However, I can't help but feel like I've been unwittingly complicit is some kind of mid-summer revenge sale. Whomever's games these were, they got pretty good taste in RPGs.

Shin Megami Tensei IV


I'm still kinda numb to the reality that I just got a sealed, new copy of SMT IV for less than $10. I've wanted to play this game since it came out, but was in the middle of going crazy buying digital games on the eShop. I grew a backlog. The dangers of falling victim to digital sales I guess. So I waited. Waited for the price to come down, waited until I saw my opportunity. Sure the digital version was on sale a few times, but I wanted the cart, the case and the booklet.


I've played Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne, Devil Summoner, Persona 3 FES and Persona 4. The only one I didn't finish was Persona 3. Despite that, I still feel like I'm about to start a game which will consume huge portions of my free time. Dive into the deep end, if you will. Gotta love Atlus.

Final Fantasy Tactics A2 and Bowser's Inside Story


Boy do I have a weakness in my heart for Ivalice. I know the Ivalice Alliance games were mostly terrible, I don't care! I love the setting, the music is beautiful, and what's wrong with a fun jaunt through a fairy-tale land anyway? Even if it is sprinkled with a bunch of stick-in-the-mud Judges. In all seriousness though, I played this when it was released and traded it in soon thereafter. Always a mistake. At the time, I was looking for a big story. FFTA2 does not have this; what it does have is gameplay systems in spades. So many mechanics, systems have adjacent systems which influence other critical dynamics relevant to a proper power leveling Guild. It's an epic spiraling rabbit-hole of gameplay systems. If I can dig into it, I think I'll have a great time.


Super Mario RPG was a joyous revelation when I played it on my SNES. Paper Mario was a strange twist, but well executed. The Thousand Year Door was hysterical, sometimes inappropriate, but always full of charm and character. I mention that because I think the track record shows that Mario can star in a good RPG. I thought that Super Star Saga was a cool experiment, with undoubtedly good writing, but I never got past the first three or four hours. I admit, this is one of those series that I've almost completely neglected. But after listening to a really another superb episode of Retronauts, discussing the development of RPG battle systems, I got inspired. This game got name dropped as the game which pulls off timing-based RPG mechanics the best. Even if it's not, I know the writing will be good and I know I'll be able to play as Bowser. Sold.


The Books

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Ultimate Visual History and a translated copy of The Outlaws of the Marsh. The former I grabbed at a local giant bookstore because it exists and I must have it, the latter I got at the same yard sale as the games for $2.


I'm half way through the TMNT book, so far it's a really easy read, filled with surprisingly candid information, and tons of high-quality scans of the Turtles history. If you are a fan, it's worth your time. Laying it out in a sequenced narrative, it is really surprising when reflecting how quickly the brand exploded. The Outlaws of the Marsh is more of a curiosity than anything. I guess the simplest explanation is that I had fun with Suikoden and would like to read its inspirational source material. Huzzah classical literature!

You pick up anything cool recently?

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Thoughts on my Journey Through SuikodenJuly 23, 2014 by


I've recently been playing replaying Suikoden for the PS1. The thought initially came to me an excuse to revisit an old JRPG I was fond of but never finished, then my ambition grew. The trek became a little longer. Now I'm in the midst of doing something I've always wanted to do, a personal platinum trophy if you will. The 100% playthrough of Suikoden 1 and 2. 108 Stars of Destiny, both games, back to back. I've accepted the necessary use of FAQs in this, but I'm limiting myself as much as possible. No walkthroughs, only appendices, never using them to look ahead in the game, only for retroactive collection purposes. I've also been alternating between five save files (remember doing that?). At the time of writing, I'm about 20 hours into the first Suikoden, and here are some of my thoughts on it.


If I had to put it simply, I like it. It's still presented like a 16-bit JRPG, so the dialogue is more like reading  a play than a novel. The way I see it, the story is juggling three separate narrative threads, all of which get tied together. The conflict set up by the evil witch Windy, established in the beginning. Then there's the civil war that you're leading against the corrupt empire which ripped your family apart. And the "Outlaws of the Marsh" themed spiritual/political journey of gathering the 108 Stars of Destiny. The first part is mysterious, the civil war is an interesting look at what "liberation" means, and the 108 characters serve as vehicles to tell local back-story where ever you go.

Because you are going to meet 108 character allies and a handful of antagonists, its near impossible to develop each characters back-stories and motivations in great length. This inevitably means that you can group dozens of characters into tiers: from major reoccurring characters, to extras, and everything in between. Minor people who join your side sometimes need to be in your current party to recruit someone else, but it leads to some interesting moments which only hint at these characters larger lives.


Suikoden_tirmcdohl4This is a very straight forward JRPG in its basic mechanics and presentation, but actually accommodates the 108 Stars of Destiny theme pretty well. The story beats constantly require you to take two or three different people with you at a time, allowing you to choose the remaining slots of your six-member party. But this doesn't mean that you constantly level grinding to keep dozens of characters at a similar strength, because the game kind of lets you break it.

Experience yield dramatically changes depending on the level of the character gaining it. Low level character rocket upwards in levels while your main character seems to sluggishly gain exp throughout the game. But it never feels too hard.

suiko graf

Even more important than leveling, equipping your character correctly is what actually makes a difference. That means you need tons of money. Any equipment you saw at various villages stores all appear in you headquarters market, forging your weapons (it's really just paying money to make its Atk value go up, characters can't change weapons) can be done by your blacksmiths, and money can be earned at your very own gambling den. All within the comforts of home base, so long as you've recruited people to staff these amenities. It creates a really interesting, insular feeling to developing your characters. It's cool that throughout the adventure, you are getting more powerful, your army is getting stronger, and eventually have near limitless potential to make any character amazing. It invites you to break it, which is great. But I just can't help but think it could have been presented a little cleaner. A fifth of my play sessions are running around my castle, why can't I just have some centralized menus?



I believe that art direction and execution are the key ingredients that make a game look good, not necessarily the technology behind it. That said, your graphical expectations for this game should not be on par with other PS1 RPGs. It's an early, pre-FF VII role-playing game. It's more comparable to Final Fantasy IV, or SoulBlazer. In fact, most SNES or Genesis games probably have a greater depth of animation than Suikoden does.

1-3Dynamic sprite work is limited, so much so that I think the developers are slyly mocking themselves in the loading screens. Each loading screen has an animated sprite from the game, but there are so few in the game that you literally see every sprites animations presented on the loading screen. It's sort of pathetic. The character portraits are very nice, and I like the battle effect where the camera zooms in for a critical hit and the sprites scale up. The spells show us how developers were trying to use polygons for a "wow" effect early on; neat, but a tad drawn out. When everything is said and done, this games graphics might be its biggest challenge when returning to it.


Lovely. It's subtle, exotic, and varied. The songs that you hear often (your home base, battle theme, over world) tend to begin soft and their volume crescendos. It's gives a good sense of transition because it fades in and picks up at the part of the track it was playing earlier.

Everything considered, I've had many of this games tracks stuck in my head since I began playing. So I guess that's a pretty good sign.

Conclusion... so far

I expect that I have five to eight more hours left in this game. I'm also glad that I'm finally replaying it to completion. I would recommend that if someone wants to play this game, they should pick it up on PSN. The episodic splitting of the games chapters lend themselves really well to handheld gaming. Ultimately, I think the game is alright, but certainly not the best on the system. Which brings me to the real point of playing Suikoden: continuity and investment with Suikoden 2. Arguably one of the greatest JRPGs, irrelevant of age. It's worth your time if you want to explore this genre on the PS1, particularly if you're interested in what Japanese developers did with role-playing games before they had a model to draw on. Thanks for reading!


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MyIGN Weekly Community Blog Theme #9: Video Game music!July 11, 2014 by

This week's MyIGN Community Blog Theme is, game soundtracks and the music that helps our games come alive. As excited as I was to read the prompt, I had a really hard time decided how I would approach this topic. I've been gaming since the late 1980's, so there are a lot of great examples of video game music done right. Even a quick list of my favorites immediately seems too big for a single blog; so instead I will focus on one game. One game that is uniquely singular for its time in how it used music. I give you, Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete!

lunar coversource

Game Arts and Working Designs: You got Disney in my video games!

The primary reason this game stands out to me so much is the way music has been worked into the narrative of Lunar. It's unlike most of its contemporaries, and still executes better than many games do today. The games music isn't only used as simple background tunes, or a way of communicating tone and tension. In a way that is strikingly Disney-like, the music serve as characterization for the protagonists. Just based on the opening, it feels like it could be the Studio Ghibli film that Disney produced in the West in an alternate dimension.

The musical themes reoccur several times throughout the story, emphasizing different characters thoughts, or hinting at their intentions. Music is treated as another avenue for expression, a way to develop characters and a means to explore inner monologue.

I love it because it ties together the many uses of music in performance art: music is used to give a sense of environment (as video games do), to indicate intentions or reminiscence (like theater), to tie together over arching character themes (like movies), and even to characterize serialized conflict with antagonists (like television).

Early cut-scene and some fan love.

I would be remiss if I wrote a blog about Lunar, and didn't include its original Sega CD opening. Fair warning, you will not get sweeping melodies here; only some awesome 80's styled butt-rock. It's so bad it's good.

*guitar solo* Evil forces, TAKE HEED!

Lastly, here is an acoustic guitar rendition of Luna's Boat Song. The manliest song ever. Seriously though, this guy is a bad-ass.


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Filling in my Gaming Omissions: Final FantasyJuly 8, 2014 by


There are those moments in a gamers hobby where we've finishing up a few games and ask ourselves, "What next?" Since I'm not in a place right now to be purchasing a ton of new games, I find myself glancing at my gaming shelf every few minutes and distractedly thinking about what fantastic world to traverse next. I typically play two to three games at the same time, jumping back and forth: a new game, a replay and a retro game recently acquired or plucked from my pile of shame.

So in the spirit of the 2014 MyIGN Video Game Tournament, I come to all of you for opinion and advice. I've loved JRPGs for as long as I've loved video games, and Final Fantasy has been a significant part of that. I have my favorites, as everyone does, but there are also titles I've missed. In the last four months, I've been doing some game collecting, filling in holes in my library and looking for titles which deviate a little from classic game designs.


In your opinion, which of these games did you like the most? Are any of them special to you? Why? I intend to play them all, but it might take me years to get around to each one. Which most demands my attention now? What's the bigger omission?

Final Fantasy VIII


This copy was generously given to me by a dear friend when I told him I'd never played it.

I remember when this game came out,Edna-final-fantasy-viii-7264596-335-360 I remember the hype and I remember my friends excitedly watching the opening cut-scene for the first time, awed. I also remember how strange it felt in comparison to Final Fantasy I, II (IV), III (VI), Mystic Quest, VII,  and Tactics. In retrospect, I think the variations in the series are something to be admired. I never got past disc 1 though. Is the tale of Squall and Rinoa worth returning to in 2014?

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance


The sequel to the most infamous Final Fantasy of my youth. This copy was an amazing find online: box in pristine condition, a still-glossy manual and an unmarred cartridge.

In the order North America received the Final Fantasy sequels, Tactics on the PS1 was uniquely difficult to understand. We were never taught the basics of the Job System in Final Fantasy III and Final Fantasy V, games dubbed too late or too hard to come to the US. Retronauts was right: if Final Fantasy VII is considered an elementary course to Ffta-montblancJRPG mechanics, Final Fantasy Tactics was graduate level study. I must have played through the first half-dozen battles ten times before I understood what the game was asking me to do. It was an investment. When Tactics Advance was released, I never picked it up because I didn't want to throw myself into the deep end again. Since then, I've played and loved Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, Tactics Ogre (Knights of Lodis & Let Us Cling Together) and Disgaea 2. Does the journey of Marche and Montblanc match the stature of its peers?


Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light


I bought this game online, cartridge only. It took me a little while, but cased it and printed my own insert (I combined the Japanese front cover with the European spine and back, never liked the NA cover).

This game looks so weird, but is still so enticing for me! I first picked it up soon after its release in 2010. It was the end of graduate school for me, so I was pressed for time and never got around to it. When I moved after graduation I foolishly sold it, thinking I'd never get the chance to play it. I suppose it was my amazing time with Bravely Default that inspired this purchase. But even after all these years I'm still interested, yet know so little about it. It's a sort of reinterpreting, or reimagining, of the original Final Fantasy and I know it's battle system is a little different, but is it executed well? Is the quest of these four companions a valuable evolutionary step for Square Enix? Or just an experiment in the development for Silicon Studios and Bravely Default?

pxpk_ff4hol_1source for all other images

Thanks for any feedback

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Community Blog Week #6: A favorite game worth discussingJune 20, 2014 by



It was late in the year 2000 when I first happened by this game. I was at my oldest friends house; the friend I'd played through FFIV and FFVI with, my Street Fighter rival, my go-to guy to start a LAN party with, the Donatello to my Mickey.  On that fateful day, he asked me a simple question when I arrived, "You wanna see a new RPG... it graphics are better than Final Fantasy VII or VIII." Heresy! My mind reeled. He sat me down, and calmly put Skies of Arcadia into his Dreamcast. Within moments, any indignant thoughts flew from my mind. Treasure? Sky Pirates? Flight combat? An RPG that threatened to bury my fragile freshman social life for the next couple months? Smiling and turning to my friend, I said, "Now this looks like something special."

Admittedly, I only got a couple of hours with it over the next week or two. It's a little awkward to go over to a friend's house and say, "I'd like to play your single player 50-hour RPG... you can watch." So I only got a taste. The Dreamcast was discontinued shortly afterwards. My heart was broken, there was a very real possibility that I would never play this game without shelling out my hard-earned teenage cash on a Dreamcast. A few years later, I strolled into my local Gamestop and saw something beautiful. Skies of Arcadia Legends for the Gamecube. I promptly dropped to the floor, joy-spasms ensued. Since then, I've played through the game at least five times and I've introduced it to every girlfriend I've ever had. It was a litmus test of sorts. Not something that could be a deal breaker, just an attempt to bond over something I loved.

Exploring Arcadia

pirates grave

What I love about this game is how it makes the world feel unknown. When you get your own ship and begin flying the skies, the wonderment of "what's around the next island" is palpable. Looking at it through the cold lens of a game design critique, the world is walled off in several locations which funnels you through event after event. But it makes you feel as though you are discovering the unknown, experiencing the cultures of the world, and leaving your make on it. When you're flying the skies, you aren't just level grinding or going from one town to the other. There are Discoveries to be made! There's an Explorers Guild in one of the central towns where you can inquire about rumors of wealth and treasure. If you go to one of the vaguely described locals, your Airships compass goes haywire, press the A button and you unveil a landmark whose exact location can be sold back to the Explorers Guild.









But you aren't the only people staking their claim in the Histories of Arcadian Discovery! There are rivals who will discover some of these wondrous location if you neglect them for too long. There are wanted men and women with bounties on their heads and, depending on how you play the game, you might find your own likenesses posted on that very blacklist. You may have noticed from the introduction, the personalities that fill this game are varied and unique. You'll meet friends, forge alliances with other pirates, and recruit people from around the world to muster your forces and strike back against the domingoevil Valuan Empire. Each addition has their own quirky back story, dripping with personality. However, your plans don't always go as smoothly as you'd like. Sometimes you party gets split up and the storyline unfolds between a couple different perspectives. There's even a whole dungeon that's based around cooperating with your counterparts who are on the other side of the island.


Battling for the Skies


In the moments in between exploration and discovery, we have the Air Ships. Most JRPGs just treat their over-world as a place to save your progress, get into random encounters or occasionally use a vehicle to get to previously unreachable locations. Skies of Arcadia gives you a real sense of progression. The ship you have at the beginning of the game is pitiful compared to what you end up with. Roving pirates that find you pose a serious threat early. The games does a great job instilling panic in you when you're spotted and desperately trying to escape. Your ship eventually becomes capable of flying through different altitudes and you improve your hull to withstand damaging debris. Early in the game, you feel like a small fish in a big ocean. By the end of the game, you're a metaphorical Kraken, devastating any who slighted you in the past. The large set-piece battles soon become about more than taking down an enemy ship, but taking down Kaiju (called Gigas in game). Each in-air decision you make has the possibility of putting you in the perfect position to release hell, or accidentally opening up a hole in your defenses which gets brutally exposed.







Culture of the World

Aside from any gameplay mechanics, story progression or central conflict: how this game portrays culture is what I think is the most interesting. For better or worse, multiple levels of stereotyping are a huge part of this game. On the surface, this game is a pretty traditional JRPG for its generation. A group of plucky young protagonists (childhood friends Vyse and Aika along with the mysterious Fina), driven by their dreams, sets out in a world harassed by an evil expansionist empire. You're eventually tasked with going to each of the six regions to track down their associated mythical Moon Crystals. You clash with the Valuan Armada along the way, but guile, wit (and power leveling) allow you to usually get the upper hand. But the use of stereotyping gets really interesting when you start traveling from culture to culture. There are the "free islands" you start on, the industrialized western empire Valua, the arctic wastes, the trade focused middle-eastern empire of Nasr, the isolated pre-Columbian empire Ixa'taka , and the mythical far-eastern empire Yafutoma. Each of these are representative stereotypes of all of the varying cultures involved in the historical real world process of colonialism in the 16th to 18th century.


Like an onion, there are multiple layers of interpretation to this stereotyping. We should remember that this was a game designed by Overworks, published by Sega, and rereleased with help from Nintendo: all Japanese companies. When you consider the game as an imaginative retelling of colonialism from a Japanese cultural perspective, shrouded in the trappings of a traditional JRPG, we can begin to see pieces of evidence that suggest something more than historical lip-service. Many of the story events that happen in the game can be seen as imaginative reinterpretations of the school-taught Japanese perspectives on colonialism. Why are the Valuans evil? Capitalistic greed. How did they manage to weaken their middle-eastern counterparts? Improve navigation technology and flank them on a global scale. What did the Valuans do when they got to the New World for the first time? Resource exploitation and race-based enslavement. How does the Yafutoman Empire react to new cultures appearing on their borders? Well... this time there's a little wish fulfillment going on.

Instead of slowly allowing someskies_of_arcadia-b westerners into their country and then expelling them in the interest of cultural stability and isolationism to preserve traditional Japanese ideals, we get dynastic myth. In the game, Yafutoma is one of the strongest empires in terms of military might (Air ships) and oldest in terms of national longevity. They are cautious of newcomers and quickly determine their nefarious motivations. In fact, the games goes as far to suggest that the only possible way an exterior force could ever harm them is if it's because of internal corruption (the dastardly adviser stereotype who wants the throne for himself). I don't bring this up to criticize. I bring this up because it is fascinating how historical events are studied and remembered over long periods of time. How it gets subtly represented in cultural art, and then that art is spread across the globe and interpreted by a myriad of other cultures whose social memory might have a different interpretation. As a teenager I didn't know it, but now I think this is the reason Skies of Arcadia is so special.

 skies title

And now I'm going to go play it for a sixth time.

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