InsaneJournal

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Video Game Love Part 2
BE WARNED: THAR BE SPOILERS AHEAD

Onto the second half of the video game discussion. I began this set by discussing my epic love of Shadow Hearts and then talking about The Games I Didn't Play, i.e. the Devil May Cry series. Today, I will continue by talking about The Games I Haven't Finished.

First up is the smiling cutesy-ness of the Little Big Planet pair. Now I played the second before I played the first. The first we only got recently for free. Two things to know: 1) The first game is infinitely harder than the second. 2) Playing the second first certainly helps to play the first. However, playing the first and the second "again" made me notice things in the second I hadn't before. Like the stickers stuff.

What I mean by playing it "again" is that I'm replaying levels. Little Big Planet has got massive replay value. For one, you can "ace" the levels, i.e. pass them without dying (harder than it sounds). Beating a level and then beating a level without dying gets you items. You can get items in the level too and getting ALL the items in a level allow you to get more. Many of which are costumes so you can decorate your sack boy/girl. Endless fun and silliness, you can play online with others and with your friends. It's got great music.

However, I have yet to beat the boss in either game, and there are still quite a few levels I have yet to beat without dying. Some of them are nigh near impossible. Bombs. Bombs suck ass when half the time it's way too easy to blow yourself up. And there are lots of spikes. Little Big Planet tries to kill you. Little Big Planet 2 at least makes the pretense that you CAN survive.

Still, too much fun to give up. It can be really addicting. And yet I can't beat the final bosses. Go figure.

In good news though I beat one of the impossible levels that I've been trying for over a week to beat! The BUNKER IS DOWN.

Aside from the final bosses of LBP 1 & 2, I have yet to complete a pretty awesome game called Lost Odyssey. Now this one is a classic turn-based RPG with a few quirks here and there. Directed by the same guy who directed Final Fantasy IX. There are some similarities, but mostly it's vastly different and very interesting. It's kind of slow paced, but it has some things you don't usually see in roleplaying games. For one, your main character is about a thousand years old. He's immortal and gets dreams or flashbacks (that you can see again AS dreams) of his thousand year life. All of them are told in text, all of them coming on the screen with visual and audio stimulus to enhance the stories being written. To read them aloud is very impacting. Just reading them is. They even form on the screen in such a way in order to deliver more impact. Most of them are tragic, heart-wrenching stories that leave you sobbing.

Or, at least, leave ME sobbing.

There are a few that are hopeful. Bright. Beautiful. But some are so unbearingly tragic that I'm just floored. But aside from these short stories about Kaim, you also have him traveling with his wife, and his grandchildren. That's right! As a perk for being immortal...he has only mortal children. So no matter what, he's got to watch them die if he has them... and he's a had a few besides the present one who is the mother of his grandkids. Not going to get into that. It's just CUTE and actually pretty moving and sweet that he's traveling with his family, along with other friends. Two of which are other immortals like him.

Now, there's this whole complex back story to the immortal thing--something I just don't quite get completely yet. Probably because I haven't finished. Currently in the game, I'm pretty high up in level, but I have to race to stop four monsters from destroying a city. Not an easy task since my navigation skills on a boat in an RPG sucks a huge amount of ass. I really can't. Doesn't matter if its Xenogears or a Final Fantasy. If I have to try and guide a boat on the ocean in a video game... I'm SPECTACULARLY bad at it. Can't tell you why. So, of course, getting to these things in the short time allotted (which by the way you've got to kill them with the clock counting down and then try to make it to the next one) is NOT easy. I got frustrated enough to put the game down for a bit.

A bit turned into a very long time. I don't even remember the game mechanics anymore, so jumping back into it is going to be one hell of a pain in the behind.

However, the story is mysterious, the characters are interesting, funny, cute, and enjoyable. There's a lot to love in this game. Classical and lovely with plenty of side quests and a handful of minigames. Funny... It almost reminded me like the way Final Fantasy used to be. Once upon a time. It's an interesting fantasy with moving stories about these characters that you grow to love. Best moment? When Seth is reunited with her son--who is now in his sixties somewhere. Not only is it HYSTERICAL, but it's so CUTE it drives you to TEARS.

That is quite epic as far as I'm concerned. And Lost Odyssey is indeed that. Very epic. In scale, in story, in character development, in world, in history of the world, in world dynamics. More layers than you'd think and all worth it. The dialogue. My god, the dialogue. The game is worth playing just for the stories of Kaim's past and the dialogue alone. Sometimes the dialogue can be a little cliche to the genre, but most of the time, it's natural, real, and honest.

And those short stories of the past... They are like visual and audio poetry. If you have ever wondered what it would be like to take one of your favorite poems or a favorite short story and just have control over HOW people read it. Timing each line. Having them slowly fade into being and then fade out. The words appearing and disappearing on the screen with the mood. The music changing as the story progresses. Shifting with the tale. The background and lighting, the visual images--often like watercolors and sometimes just abstract burst of color that enhance the moment you are reading--along with the audio. A clang as you read "clang." Deep and hollow and heart-wrenching. A child's laughter as Kaim describes himself remembering it. It's SO stunning. There's once story about people who make a living traveling through a valley where the wind is so strong and only blows in one direction. From west to east. So. They travel west. Against the wind, believing, according to their culture formed on the plains of this valley, that paradise is where the wind begins. So they walk against it their whole lives, trying to reach the place where the wind begins. The entire time you're reading this story, you can hear the howls of the wind. The visual and audio stimuli are so potent that you can practically feel the wind against your face.

There's another particular story about an island that constantly sings. People don't really notice it. It's like on a subconscious level. The entire time, amidst sound affects and everything else, you can hear the singing throughout the whole story. And when the men there refuse to listen to it, they start to go mad, and the music gets louder and louder to express that. And when the one person who DOES finally listen... the singing reaches this crescendo before finally fading into the background again. Always there. Always singing.

It gives me goosebumps.

Honest to god, no matter how much most of them make me cry, it's worth playing Lost Odyssey for those stories. Hell, I may just have to replay it. Since, you know, I've forgotten the mechanics...

But then there are times when things just don't make sense (like a ten year old in skimpy clothes trudging through a blizzard for miles in sandals). Why do games always do that? I know it's easier to have them in the same outfit all the time, but could we at least design clothes that are wearable and that would be plausible in ANY weather? Come on game designers. Please? I know it's a fantasy, but come on. We do not need a ten and eight year-olds to be wandering around in strange get-ups and flip-flops in the middle of a frozen tundra. Especially not with their grandparents carting them around. But hey, it's a video game right? Clothes never make any sense in those things.

Not even in Little Big Planet!


TO BE CONTINUED...


COMING SOON:

-Fable 2
-Fable 3
-Dragon Age: Origins/Awakening

~~~

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"When people die, they just go away. If there’s any place a soul would go, it’s in your memories. People you remember are with you forever." ~Kaim Argonar