Warning: There may be some spoilers ahead. I will try and keep most things vague and will be sure to tag anything that is legitimately major. Those concerned about light spoilers may want to read carefully however.
Someone means business All good things must come to an end and video games are no exception. These days when we think about the end of a video game we think of some really cool or perhaps emotional cut scene that left an imprint on us. These are all fine and dandy for closing up the story arc, finishing a character's development, giving the player some message or just looking cool, but that's not really what video games are about. At their core video games are games, stuff you play. These ending cut scenes sure are fun to look at and even thought provoking at time, but, barring quick time events, you're not actually doing anything in them. That's what final boss fights is for. These last moments are of gameplay are what generally leave the largest impression on me. Was it too easy? Too hard? Simple? Convoluted? Long? Short? Fun? Seemingly non existent? Did it provide closure in terms of gameplay? When looking back at a game it's generally these feelings that help me form a final opinion. Let's look at an example that most older gamers can relate to. The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time: Fighting Ganon on top of a ruined Hyrule Castle? Man that shit was awesome. It was a little on the easy side, but it had a sense of urgency and grandeur that formed a great atmosphere making for a really cool fight. A game can be fantastic, but if the final bits of gameplay are lackluster it just leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
Sadly, it seems like this integral piece of the gaming formula has been somewhat neglected as of late. Most of those modern shooters, CoD clones, tend to just throw an absurdly difficult set piece where you can get swiss cheese'd fairly easily. Other games, Borderlands comes to mind specifically along with both of the new Fallout games, tend to just butcher the concept all together. As a whole games today seem to forgo the final boss in favor of a final set piece that supports the final cut scene in some way. These games have never really given me a sense of closure that I can feel. Yeah, I know I just dodged more bullets than any real human could ever hope to and yeah, I killed a lot of dudes, but it just feels like an extension of the regular game rather than something truly special. Of course you can't expect every single game to have a final boss that blows you away, but it's a shame to see so many big name titles plain messing it up or ignoring it all together.
To craft a perfect final boss encounter, in my opinion, you need a number of things. First and foremost, hype. If a game doesn't remind you multiple times that this dude is real bad and real powerful then everything just falls flat. Out of the blue bosses can work in some cases, but they really need to be contextualized by the dude you originally thought was the big bad. Second they need to live up to this hype in the battle itself. It's great and all if your final boss just ate a fucking planet, but if he just swings his arms at you a little bit when you actually face the guy it's a pretty big letdown. I'm not suggesting that all final bosses have to be balls hard, difficulty in final battles is for another discussion, I'm just saying the boss has to at least look and act like the badass he really is while you're fighting him. Third they need to remind you about what you've learned on your journey. Whether it's through character dialogue or through using most, if not all, of the skills and items you've picked up a final boss needs to bring some closure. It's no fun if you can defeat a final boss with your most basic of skills. Fourth and finally atmosphere is everything. If the environment doesn't fit the theme of the boss, things just don't feel right. Also the music should be effin' awesome.
One of the best examples I can think of is the final boss of Persona 3, which I will talk about in the following spoiler tag.
Nyx really just hits my criteria for a final boss fight perfectly. 1. Hype. You learn about her relatively late, but the game spends an entire month of Persona time focused on her. Heck all the main characters ever think about is their impending death thanks to her. On top of that the rest of the world is flipping a shit about her arrival. By time you get to the final day you know that this isn't just child's play. 2. Follow through. Nyx's avatar look crazy as hell. A bunch of crazy black wings, a bigass sword, being huge and having no fucking eyeballs definitely makes the thing look like what everyone was expecting. Yeah the fight is on the easy side thanks to how easy it is to over level yourself and make some broken Personas, but it doesn't really hurt it. 3. Reminders. One of my favorite parts of the fight is that Nyx essentially adopts all of the powers of the bosses you faced throughout the game and cycles through them in the same order with each getting progressively more difficult. Before each shift she also says a few words about the arcana, reminding you of certain character traits you've encountered. Again it's not particularly difficult, but it reminds you of how far you've come and how long the journey you took really was. 4. Atmosphere. Fighting a giant effed up angel thing with a huge sword on top of a tower you've been climbing for months while an enormous full moon shines in the back? I don't think you could ask for much more. Also the music fucking kicks
It takes a lot to craft a truly memorable and enjoyable final boss fight, but when done right it can really make a game shine. For the 2 or 3 of you who might have actually read this, feel free to post some of your favorite boss fights of all time or contribute your opinions on the current state of boss fights.
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Man, those dragons know what's up. I am a 20 year old male and I am a Pokémon fan. The age of denying it has long since past, I just love these damn games. Out of all the time sinks gaming has provided me over the years, collecting and training these monsters has definitely aged the best. There's just something about the design of the Pokémon and simplicity of the underlying themes that strikes a chord for me. Oh, and don't even get me started on the metagame business. Man that stuff is just insane. So when Nintendo announces a new addition to the main franchise, be it a new installment, an upgraded edition of a current installment or even a remake, I just get as giddy as a school girl. When they announced Black and White I was a little uneasy about where things seemed to be headed, but it didn't take too long for the designs of the new Pokémon to grow on me. Naturally I preordered my copy of Pokémon White because we all know Zekrom parties way harder than that other dude. Sadly the release date coincided perfectly with when midterms were at their nastiest, but since I finally hit spring break I've been Moning it up at every time a good opportunity has arisen. At this point, for those curious, I've just hit the 8th gym and I must admit that this game is pretty great. The design of the overworld, the music and even the battle aesthetics have gotten an impressive overhaul making the the game feel fresh, for a Pokémon game that is. The 156 new critters to play with don't hurt either and the fact that none of the oldies even exist until after you've conquered the Elite 4 is really fantastic.
Just about every Pokémon fan's wet dream Now let me back up for a moment here before I dig into my negative points that all of you came here expecting to read about. Not too long ago, beck in March of 2010, Pokémon Heart Gold and Soul Silver were released. Just about everyone who played Pokémon as a child remembers Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal in an incredibly positive light. These installments covered not one, but two regions boasting an impressive Pokéde You can't read that, but you get the idea x of 251 dudes to go out and find. Fans got exactly what they wanted and with these remakes, which were faithful to the originals, but improved greatly on them at the same time. The Safari Zone made its triumphant return, albeit in a different location, the Kanto region didn't keep its lifeless atmosphere, the Pokéwalker was pretty all right and of course all of those lovely features and Pokémon made it over from the current wonder kids, Pokémon Diamond, Pearl and Platinum. Sadly my time with Heart Gold was brief due to just plain not having time for video games at that point int time, but I played enough of it to get a taste for some really awesome features specifically in the UI department. Menus in Pokémon games are always somewhat of a pain, but Heart Gold and Soul Silver did it real nice by taking full advantage of the touch screen by placing the entire menu down there all the time. You could press the X button at any time to have a cursor show up down there or just tap it at any time to access it. This made the time between battles really smooth, healing Pokémon, putting up repels, attaching items, saving, checking the dex and so on felt far more natural than ever before. There was even an ability to toggle an auto-run option on and off from the menu, which was fantastic. Heart Gold and Soul Silver also for the first time gave you the ability to let any of your Pokemon follow you around in the overworld simply by having it first in your party. On paper it sounds like a somewhat shallow and silly feature, but man was it nice to be able to see my giant 30 foot, 900 pound, steel snake following me around in broad daylight. It was just one of those features that all of us Pokémon fans had wanted for a long time. Sadly there was no way to actively toggle it off and it was always just the first Pokémon in your party, but baby steps are steps just the same.
I really fucking hate hexagons. Time to fast forward back to our current friends, Black and White. In terms of UI, they are a huge step backwards after our last installments. The bottom screen is no longer an easy access menu instead it's this new C-Gear feature. C-Gear is meant to be a sort of hub for all of the connectivity between your DS and other folk's DS. It's not for battling though, it's more for just plain interaction between two people's game worlds. I believe it's somewhat similar to the underground found in Diamond, Pearl and Platinum, but with less touch screen mini-game jazz. Since I do not live in Japan and I am no longer a 10 year old C-Gear has been nothing but a terrible hexagon riddled, battery draining, waste of space that freezes my game every so often when I accidentally turn it on. When it isn't on the bottom screen is essentially blank, which is real cool. So we are back to only being able to call up the menu when we hit X and while touch screen navigation is still possible, it feels a lot more sluggish. The bag also feels a lot less easy to navigate making those necessary chores somewhat of a pain. In the Pokémon following you department, it's completely absent! Why? Don't look at me, I've got no damn clue on why they decided to leave a feature that many fans had really enjoyed and appreciated completely out. Personally I was expecting them to at least have the option to have someone follow you around with the ability to shut it off when you got bored of it, but no such luck. And in other absolutely confusing news, they took out the ability to scale your Pokémon up to level 100 for online battles. Seriously Gamefreak?
I've thought and I've thought, trying to think of some rationale behind these decisions. I suppose for the bottom screen Gamefreak was really proud of the C-Gear system and really wanted to have it in the spotlight, but that doesn't really excuse having that much wasted space while it's off. C-Gear could have fit in perfectly as a menu option on the bottom screen opening up that awful field of hexagons when someone wanted to make use of it. And the menu navigation itself, there's no excuse for how sluggish and disorganized it feels. We know you can do far better. How about the lack of Pokémon followers? I've heard some arguments that it was meant as an exclusive feature to Heart Gold and Soul Silver, but that's just some bullshit right there. The focus of the Pokémon series has always been on the Pokémon. Heart Gold and Soul Silver were the first time, aside from Yellow I suppose, where the true stars of the show were front and center. It's absurd to think that feature should be exclusive to a set of remakes. And the lack of level 100 battles... Seriously Gamefreak?
At this point you may be scratching your head, wondering why these somewhat petty complaints have me all riled up and are worth a blog post. Well first off they annoy me and I'm writing this, so I can do what I want. Second, and probably more legitimately, I am always very bothered when I see a franchise take steps backwards for no reason. I am not one of those changeophobes who flips whenever a franchise I like tries something new. When a franchise tries new things and fails, yes it's still a failure, but I give credit where credit is due and I know that trying new things is what leads to growth in the gaming world. It's when these changes lack common sense or are unreasonable seeming absences that franchises are taking steps backwards. This can be seen all over the place, especially in the UI department, which I've always found funny since UI is such an integral part to any player's experience with a game and you'd think developers would be a little more careful with it. When this happens in a Pokémon game, I find it particularly disappointing. Pokémon is a franchise that has thrived off of not changing its core formula at all and, while I love it, I welcome any experience altering advancements the series tries to make. Even when it's something as simple as the UI, I am happy to see that Gamefreak is at least dipping their toes in the pool of change for once.
I'll be straight with you guys though, I effin' love Pokémon Black and White. After I hit the post button on this, I'm probably going to go right ahead and take on that 8th gym leader. None of these steps backwards have really prevented me from enjoying these games, though I don't know about the lack of level 100 online battles yet since I'm not in meta-game mode. This is just something I wanted to bring up as it is an important topic to think about as we're starting to edge our way into a new generation of consoles on the horizon.
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In the year 2000 I was a 10 year old boy who, much like many other 10 year old boys, enjoyed his video games. I was limited, and I use this word very lightly, to a gameboy and N64. So I had
Just look at all those cool dudes! my Marios and my Zeldas and, of course, my Pokemons. Life was pretty good until one day a friend of mine came up to me and started talking up this "Playstation" thing a nd some "Final Fantasy" game. Being a 10 year old boy I was impressed by the word "final" and asked him more about this game. That afternoon I got off the bus with him at his house, went down to his basement and we booted up Final Fantasy IX beginning a long quest through the world of Gaia. It was probably the best exp erience a 10 yea r old boy could ask for, we named the characters after Dragon Ball Z characters, stayed up until *gasp* 1 am playing the game some nights and we were in a basement. Yeah, remember when you thought basements were cool? Good times. Many hours of game time, probably a few months in people time, we finished the game. I was absolutely bl own away by the game, it had giant crazy monsters in cool cutscenes, funny characters, a fairly simple story I could follow and all sorts of other stuff. I knew then that I waned to play more games like it.
So over the years I tried my hand at other JRPGs. Other Final Fantasies, Dragon Quest and tons of others. After about 10 years I've finally come to a conclusion, I don't Yeah this guy, I don't like him. really like JRPGs. The stories are orften convoluted and often get way to up their own ass. The characters can easily be broken down to a predictable set of archetypes, get real grating real fast and often get way to up their own ass. The battle systems are often repetitive, easy to abuse, overly complicated and often gets way too up its own ass. There are some notable exceptions such as the Persona 3 and 4, which have just enough wackiness and tricks to keep me interested, but for the most part the genre just isn't for me.
So what does this say about me and Final Fantasy IX? I mean that game is probably the most standard of standard JRPGs in terms of gameplay and basic story. Is it just those rose colored glasses of nostalgia caused by hours of junk food fueled fun in a basement from my childhood making me remember it fondly? Well out of curiosity I recently purchased the game off the PSN to see how I felt about it now. About 40 hours later I've realized that 10 years ago I didn't fall in love with JRPGs, I just fell in love with a damn fine crafted game.
Now I could go on an on about what I love about this game, but I know your time is valuable so I'll try not to spew too much out here. Final Fantasy IX manages to maintain a light hearted atmosphere while dealing with some real serious shit. Concepts such as loyalty, life, death, war and plain old existence are all dealt with in an incredibly tactful way, which is what I really love about this damn game. Unlike most JRPGs who hit you over the head with their whiny protagonist and just try way too hard to be dark FFIX manages to keep things on the subtle end, for a JRPG that is. The bright, colorful and almost childlike world adds to this even more making the true story of the game about a bunch of naive kids learning that the world isn't quite as simple as they thought in a powerful, thought provoking way. The best part about all this is that the game isn't above cracking jokes in the middle of intense scenes and I always enjoy it when a game reminds you that it's not taking itself 100% seriously. There's plenty of meat on the bone that is FFIX's story and while it does get a little convoluted it doesn't really reach that point in an oppressive way as other JRPGs have.
The characters are hit and miss, but those that hit, hit real hard. Zidane, Vivi, Dagger, and Steiner really have some incredible arcs and watching them learn about themselves and grow tVivi is just great. hroughout the story is just fantastic. Especially Vivi, I'm not going to go into details because I don't want to spoil the 3 of you out there who haven't played most of this game, but man does that kid have an awesome story arc. The other characters play more supporting roles, they have their cool moments and good designs, but a lot more could have been done with them. With that said, the development that those four I mentioned earlier get was more than enough for me. Since I don't want to spoil much I won't really go into the villains, but they, for the most part, were handled quite well. The only other JRPG villain that I would put on the level of FFIX's big bad would probably be Kefka. I didn't absolutely love FFVI, but that was a cool clown.
The major complaint I have about my current day play through of FFIX would be the battle system. It's slow as hell. I often found myself just mashing the X button or running from random encounters as the amount of time it took to dispatch a low level enemy during the endgame was just frustrating. Aside from its speed, the system itself is fairly solid by JRPG and FF standards. While I didn't love it, I did enjoy the simplicity of it. Yes it made the boss battles easy, but in a game where the story is really what's trying to shine having a simple and fairly easy battle system is a-ok with me.
So for those of you out there who enjoy a good video game story with some fun I urge you to give FFIX another go. It's fun, yet complex, light, yet deep and overall just a damn fun ride. Even if you aren't a big fan of the JRPG scene, like me, you should still be able to appreciate what Gaia and it's lovely inhabitants have to offer. I can safely say that after 10 years, no game has been able to match this one in terms of story. Well maybe the Phoenix Wright series, but that's a whole different kettle of fish.
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