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After a bunch of puzzles I enjoyed actually solving with my brain, instead of with pure luck as I did when I played this game as a kid, Cloud and the gang managed to get to floor 65 of the Shinra headquarters. This is where they met the creepy professor Hojo. He was performing experiments involving Aeris and a strange four legged animal. Cloud decided to put a stop to this and engaged. The animal escaped, but instead of attacking the gang, it went for Hojo. Aeris fell back to safety, but it wasn’t over yet. A specimen escaped its holding cell and Cloud, Barret and the animal had to fight it.

The animal wasn’t really an animal, though. It could talk and it did so fairly intelligently to. The gang asked him for his name, but he said he doesn’t really care about names. Hojo designated him Red XIII, so that’s what we will call him from now on.

With Aeris free and safe, it was time to escape the building. The mistake was, the gang went directly for the elevators and promptly got ambushed by Shinra personnel. They were put in holding cells and, after reflection, decided to get some rest before attempting to escape.

Cloud woke up in the middle of the night with the door to his cell open and a trail of blood leading through the corridor to a dead guard. He took the guards key and opened the rest of the cells. The gang followed the blood trail all the way up to the top floor, where they found president Shinra dead in his office chair, with a huge katana in his back.

Final Fantasy VII - First Encounter With Rufus

Rufus is far too smug for my liking.

When I played this game as a kid, I was stuck at this part for weeks. As I said, I owned the German version. I barely spoke the language, so I didn’t really know what I was doing. I didn’t understand how materia works, had no idea that I was able to unequip everyone before the following two battles and was low on any sort of supplies, what with not buying anything throughout the game. Let’s just say the following part was tough and leave it at that.It was Sephiroth. Sephiroth killed everyone. Before they could even talk about it, a helicopter landed on the roof of the building. The gang went up and met up with Rufus, president Shinra’s son, the former vice-president of the company and the new president. He was not willing to let them get away, so Cloud decided to hold him back while the rest of the gang escapes. Tifa couldn’t leave him, though, so she remained on the floor below as support, while Aeris, Red XII and Barret took the elevator.

Barret, Red and Aeris got ambushed by a war machine during the elevator ride. Since the machine attacked from a distance, from the other elevator, only Barret could reach it with his arm gun. Luckily, I was prepared so both Red XII and Aeries were equipped with a Bolt materia, which is the element most machines are weak to. The enemy and his backup were dealt with soon enough.

In the meantime, Cloud was battling Rufus. Rufus had a dog like beast throwing physical protection spells on both of them, so Cloud hat to use Fire magic to damage him. The beast was dealt with soon enough and after a few more casts, Rufus gave up as well and escaped with his helicopter. Cloud met up with Tifa and they continued to the lobby. Barret and the rest of the gang were waiting there, with the building surrounded. As a last desperate move, the gang took a truck from a back room exhibit, while Cloud opted for the motorcycle. They crashed through the front of the building and soon a chase on a newly built highway was in progress.

Cloud did all he could to keep the Shinra away from the truck, but eventually, they reached a dead end and had to fight one final battle against another war machine. This one was dealt with easily and they were finally free. They climbed down the unfinished road and reached the edge of Midgar. Barret decided they should split up and regroup in Kalm, a town relatively nearby.

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There was an announced power outage throughout most of the day today, so I had to fall by to my trusty PSP and my slightly lest trusty DS Lite for my gaming needs.

The thing is, my whole “no more piracy” thing kind off makes me not want to play most of the pirated games I have on my PSP, simply because I know I could fall back to one of the PSX games I actually own and be “legit” like that, at least in my mind. I’m still technically pirating the game, since I haven’t bought it on the PSN, but owning the old physical copy makes it OK in my book, and I don’t care what anyone has to say about it.

Anyway, I’ve been playing the game a couple of months ago, but didn’t write anything here back then, so I didn’t go all the way from the beginning today. I started out in Midgard, quite early, at the point where Shinra destroys a sector and blames it on the Avalanche. Aeris (NOT Aerith) gets taken by the Turks the rest of the team is stuck not knowing where to go next.

Final Fantasy VII, Shinra Building View

The Shinra building is the central point of the early game.

The Turks have also shown interest in Aeris ever since they tracked her down. She managed to avoid them until today, though. Today, she had Marlene with her, so she was forced to go with the Turks in exchange for Marlene’s safety. Upon hearing this, the gang decides to rescue Aeris, but not before Barret asks Elmyra to take care of Marlene for a while longer.Since Aeris was taking care of Marlene, Cloud, Barret and Tifa decide to visit Aeris’ mother, Elmyra. Things aren’t the way they seem though. Elmyra tells them she’s not really Aeris’ mother. She found her as a little girl next to the dead body of her real mother on a train station and took her as her own. It was obvious from the start that Aeris wasn’t normal. She would hear voices and talk about how the planet whispers to her. She even knew Elmyra’s husband died in Wutai before the official news arrived.

Since there’s no official route to the top plate and the Shinra headquarters, the gang decides to go to the Wall Market and see if they can find an alternative route. Sure enough, the collapse of the sector set a huge power cable loose, creating a possibility to climb to the top plate. A set of batteries was required to make the route completely passable, but the local weapons shop owner provided those.

Final Fantasy VII - Stairs Joke

Poor Barret. Always the comedic relief.

In any case, the gang reached floor 59 and now needed to get access to the rest of the floors. The problem was, the leadership was located on floors 60 to 65, making it extremely difficult to navigate through the security. Barret wanted to barge in through the lobby of the Shinra building directly, but Cloud and Tifa were smarter than that and decided they should take the stairs through the maintenance wing of the building. It’s an extremely tall building, though, so Barret had issues with climbing it to the top, but they eventually managed to get there. This part of the game was extremely memorable to me as a kid, even though, what with playing the game in German back then, I couldn’t understand most of it.

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My gaming experience over the last couple of months has been mostly limited to the PC. And why shouldn’t it. I know a lot of people love to scream how the PC is dead for gaming, how all we get are crappy ports and how piracy is killing the platform, but honestly, I cannot disagree more.

The complainers are making one common mistake – they are looking in the wrong direction. Sure, a lot of the big dinosaur publishers and developers seem to be having a hard time. That’s because they are short sighted and narrow-minded. On the other hand, If you look at the indie scene, it was never this big. We get small and innovative games, we get big quality games, we get a return to the old, forgotten genres as well as the creation of completely new genres. There is literally something for most people.

This should in no way be a surprise. It’s just how the market works. If it looks like things are bad, it’s only a matter of time before a revolution happens. If people want a product, there will eventually come someone who can supply that product. So, don’t worry about the future of gaming on PC or on any platform. People love games and they will get them, the good ones as well as the bad ones.

And now for some concrete info…

Skyrim

Thanks to an extremely generous person on /r/favors, I got a brand new copy of Skyrim. Bethesda did not disappoint with this game. Sure, it’s a bit simplified compared to Oblivion, but so was Oblivion compared to some of the elements in Morrowind. There are other areas, however, where the games have greatly improved over their predecessors. The graphics shouldn’t even be mentioned. The Elder Scrolls series was always at the peak when it comes to that. The music, oh the music… Nothing needs to be said about that. Again, we have an upgrade of the traditional Morrowind theme. I never thought they could make it better than Oblivion, but they sure did. The Norse theme really adds to it, in the same way it adds to the story. Norse culture always intrigued me and while this is in no way the real thing, the elements it shares with it are more than enough to keep me hooked.

Of course, the gameplay is the critical part and no amount of atmosphere can make up for that. Luckily, this, also, is an improvement over Oblivion. The controls are just as good, maybe slightly better, the combat is the same style, but slightly more complex, the magic is greatly improved and the stealth element actually added some nice moves like proper backstab attacks, rolls, etc. As for the story, it’s classic, but it fits nicely and takes from the lore of Elder Scrolls enough to be interesting. SIDENOTE: If you’re not familiar with the Elder Scrolls lore, but love to read about a fantasy universe, go read up on it now – it’s one of the best and most complex I know of.

Two More Games

One of the games I should also mention is Sonic Generations. It’s been a long time since I played a platformer as awesome as this, so I won’t write much about it here. It, like Skyrim, definitely deserves more than a few paragraphs. This one, I also still actively play, or I would, if my gamepad wasn’t acting up. As for the PSP, It wasn’t used a lot, but I did play some Final Fantasy VII on it, simply for the sake of nostalgia. In short, the game is still as good as it ever was.

In any case, there will be more to follow on all of this. For now, you got a short recap.

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The Review: Is Final Fantasy II – Anniversary Edition Worthy of Its Legacy?

This was the other remake I completed on my PSP and I have to say, it’s just as good, even better than the first. I must admit, I haven’t played this one in its original edition so I have nothing to compare it against except various reviews of the original by other people. Again we have the beautiful high resolution (for the PSP screen) 2D graphics, the recognizable Final Fantasy music and the good old Square style which seems lost on the newer games. Again, not much has changed from the original, other than the addition of the optional dungeons. Again, we have the pure retro RPG experience.

Final Fantasy II - Anniversary Edition - Screen 2

Everything looks beautiful. The graphics alone would have been upgrade enough.

So why is it better then? Because the original Final Fantasy II was better than the original Final Fantasy I. It had a more complex story, a more complex level up system and many of the “rookie” mistakes of the first game were fixed. This time, there are no levels and no experience.

Whatever it is that you use in battle is what increases after it. Use sword attacks? Your sword skill and offensive physical attributes increase. Get hit by spells? Your spell resistance goes up. Use a spell? Its level will increase. This is a system that is extremely simple to use and understand, but that at the same times creates a huge complexity in your choices. There is also no limit to it. If you use your characters in a certain way, you will get your tanks, mages, healers, and other typical roles, but there is nothing stopping you from doing some grinding and building up characters.

Final Fantasy II - Anniversary Edition - Screen 1

The high resolution 2D graphics look amazing. They boosted the spell effects to.

As I understand from other people, this system was also a bit of an issue in the original game. You could abuse the system by attacking your own party members, which would always give a more sizable increase compared to regular enemies. You were even encouraged to do so to go past the pretty high difficulty level the original game was known for. I don’t know if they really changed this, but throughout my playthrough of the remake, I never once felt the need to do this. At a few points, the difficulty of the game would increase quite a bit, but with a bit of smart spell use, my characters would quickly catch up.

The Verdict

To conclude, Final Fantasy II – Anniversary Edition is true to its roots and a great Final Fantasy game. It gets an absolute recommendation from me.

Score: 9/10

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The Review: Is Final Fantasy I – Anniversary Edition Worth It?

Since my PSP finally got hacked, I can “afford” to play games on it. Final Fantasy I – Anniversary Edition is one of the games I managed to complete in the last few months. All in all, it’s a remake true to its roots. Not much in the mechanics has changed, but the whole game received an excellent graphical face-lift, without losing its retro charm.

While the DS remakes of Final Fantasy are fun, the 3D graphics aren’t really that nice and, in my opinion, take away from the experience. On the PSP, however, Square decided to stick to 2D sprites, but made them in beautiful, high resolution which looks excellent on the PSP screen. The characters, backgrounds, enemies, effects, everything has been upgraded.

The mechanics of Final Fantasy I, however, remained the same. You get to choose between several classes, which differentiate in their stat growth on level up, equipment they can wear, and the maximum spell level they can eventually use. Each class can also, in mid to endgame, be upgraded, allowing for even higher level spells and more equipment. Final Fantasy I was one of the first proper console role playing games so the mechanics are pretty simple for today’s standards. This is why those who played these games in the past will love them, while those that started gaming recently might find them a bit dull or tedious. The frequent random battles do not help with this.

Other than the graphical upgrade, Final Fantasy I – Anniversary Edition also received a set of bonus dungeons, each with an elemental orientation and each unlocked after killing the associated elemental boss in the main story. The dungeons hold strong opponents and extra treasure, but not much else.

All in all, this is a game that true fans of the franchise should definitely play through. As for everyone else, try it. Some might give up after a while, but for those that stick with it to the end, it will be worth it.

The Verdict

Score: 8/10

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I’ve been playing this one exclusively (although not too much). I got my first esper, and I got back to Rabanastre. Most of my characters are nearing level 20. The game is really great, definitely one of the better Final Fantasy games (as hard as it is to choose). Final Fantasy VII is still number one, but this one is really close.

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For the last few days, I’ve been mostly playing Civilization IV, so nothing special there. I’ve also played some other games.

Far Cry 2 (PC)

Reached 52% on Far Cry 2 and stopped there. The game started out good, but now it’s getting really boring, really fast. It’s just the same old thing over and over again. It turns out I got it a bit wrong. Those faction leaders weren’t really faction leaders, but just the local bosses, so there’s a whole bunch of guys to kill. I also got a few new buddies. I hope they won’t die this time.

The Witcher – Enhanced Edition (PC)

I started the original, but never completed it. Since this came out, I decided to try again. I didn’t play much; just the tutorial intro, up to my first meditation.

Final Fantasy XII (PCSX2 – PC)

Since some PCSX2 plugins got updated, I can finally play this game on the PC. It works almost flawlessly. In five hours of gameplay, it crashed only once. I got to the part where I have to save Penelo with the airship. Vaan is level 10.

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We got out from the underground, and upgraded our ship with a lifting arm. With it, we transported our hovercraft to the south, which enabled us to enter a cave. In there, we’ve found the fugitives from Eblan castle, including Edge, the prince of Eblan. He joined our party and we continued to the overworld part of the tower of Babil. In there, we fought and defeated the Archfiend of Fire, Rubicante. Afterwards, we escaped in to the underground again by stealing an airship.

After telling everything to the Dwarf king, he said we should take the crystal nr. 8 before Golbez does the same. The problem is, the crystal is in a sealed cave across the lava field, and our new ship can’t cross lava. After exploring the castle, I’ve found none other than Cid in the infirmary. Is seems he isn’t quite as dead as I thought. He upgraded our ship so we can fly over lava.

Before going to the cave, we explored the other locations in the underworld. One of them is the Sylph cave where, besides a bunch of nice items, I’ve found none other than Yang. He is alive, but unconscious. Next up I will try to explore some other caves and then finally enter the sealed cave.

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We’ve found a way underground trough a mountain in the south. Down there, we ran in to a fight between the Baron Red Wings and some dwarven tanks. My ship got damaged in the crossfire, so we had to force land near the dwarven castle. The dwarves said they still have their crystal, but Golbez already has a total of six. As we entered their crystal room, first some dolls and then Golbez himself attacked us. Just as he was about to kill as, we got saved by none other than Rydia. With her help, we managed to kill him.

Rydia said Leviathan took her to the land of Eidolons where time runs faster, so that’s why she is older now. As we were leaving the room, it turned out Golbez wasn’t as dead as we thought. He snatched the crystal and disappeared.

The dwarves suggested that, while Golbez is going for the last crystal, we should steal the other seven from his tower. They would attack the tower with tanks and create a diversion to allow us to enter unnoticed.

In the tower, we fought some weird doctor guy and his creation, but failed to get the crystals. Yang sacrificed himself to save the dwarves, and latter one, Cid sacrificed himself to save us. Two more are lost to the cause.

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When I got to the top floor, I encountered Sandy, Mindy and Cindy. These were some tough enemies. At the start of the battle, the tall one casts reflect on the fat one, and then the little one bounces spells of her at my party. After taking some damage, I cast silence on the tall one, and then dispelled reflect from the fat one. That way, I could kill the fat one and the little one was actually helping me do it. After killing the fat one, I continued with the little one, and in the end disposed of the tall one.

In the next room Kain and Golbez were waiting. Golbez didn’t want to release Rosa, so Tellah lost his temper and decided to cast Meteor. It didn’t kill Golbez, but he did take his own life by casting the spell. Another friend lost!

The good news is that the damage Golbez took released Kain from his mind control. Golbez tried to kill me next, but after looking at me he realized something and left (I don’t know exactly what happened). Kain joined my party again and, in the next room, Rosa did the same. Then Barbariccia, the Archfiend of Wind attacked us. It wasn’t a really hard battle after I realized that a fully charged Yang was the only one who should attack, and that Jump could knock her back to her default form.

After the battle, Kain said that besides the four crystals of light, Golbez also needs four crystals of darkness and we need to get them first. I’m off to find the crystals.