And So This Is... Starlight Celebration?

I have never played FFXI. Not once in my right mind did I believe that FFXI was worth my time at all, and during those days I felt that WoW was a million times better. It probably still is, but it may be outmatched when compared to FFXIV. Anyway, even though I never had any real desire to play FFXI, I always feel a slight tinge in me whenever I think of the game's Starlight Celebration, which has always seemed more fantastic to me than WoW's Christmas lookalike of which I forgot the name. Things just seem so extravagant and pretty, and being the Christmas fanboy I am, I am drawn by the game's less cartoony and and slightly better-detailed Christmas "decorations," like the huge trees and all. In point, I would love to try out this game for a little while, then put it away and never look back on it again. Happy Starlight Celebration to those who do play this game.

New Characters for Dissidia 012

I apologize that I have a prequel to the turd that was Dissidia under my spotlight, but you must understand how interested in it I am now that Lightning and TIFA are in the game. I know, that's old news. I haven't reported here in a long time, that's why. So here is the lineup of new characters:

• Lightning
• Kain
• Tifa
• Laguna
• Vaan (Wait a minute, WTF?)

Yeah, Vaan is in the game too. I think I mispelled his name... let me check... right, on the list I originally put Vann, not Vaan. His name isn't that important, so lets move on. So first we have Lightning, the star of Dissidia. I don't care about the Warrior of Light, because he is a fail robot character, a machine without a human purpose. Firion is also weird: "A dream of a field full of roses." Get the hell out of here, Firion, if you are not going to take this seriously. The Onion Knight is not really a bad character, but I hate him for being the epitome of spam, and the game's hero cannot be a spambot. Bartz is a failure, Terra is cool... huh, I guess she could be in competition with Lightning here, Cloud is retarded in Dissidia. "Why am I fighting?" Get the hell out of here. Squall is alright, I guess, but there's just something about FFVIII that I just don't like about it. Zidane is annoying, and Tidus is even more so with his horrible voice acting. Shantotto is not even a protagonist, and she comes from FFXI, an mmorpg that charges you money  even after they release ANOTHER mmorpg named FFXIV (they just keep wasting away the numbers in their series), so therefore she is eliminated as a possible central character. Vaan makes Zidane look like a god and Tidus the Auron of this game, and that is really saying something. Trufax: Vaan sucks soooo much that his weapon is the worst weapon in all of FFXII, which is the mythril sword that pointlessly drops after you defeat the hardest boss in the game.

Oh, wow, and of course there's Cecil, who fails so hard in Dissidia that I completely forgot about him. As for the other new characters, they can't be protagonists either. Kain has that same stupid class switching that Cecil has, which utterly crippled him in Dissidia, so I wouldn't doubt that it will do the same to Kain. Laguna can't be the protagonist for two reasons: 1) he comes from FFVIII, and 2) his storyline in the game seemed irrelevant to me, for the quarter of the game that I played. As for Tifa... you know what, yeah, she'll share the spotlight with Lightning because 1) she's a chick, and 2) she kicks just as much ass, but without a weapon :D

Last of course, you have the villains. But what sense does it make to make them protagonists? Absolutely none, that's for sure. For now, I don't want to say much, so I am just going to leave with a couple of new gameplay videos where my two girls get raped by idiots.

Dissidia 012 - Lightning Gameplay Demo

I know, this is more like a stupid video-camera recorded film... and it might be a bit hard to see Lightning being awesome on the screen... and there are some random morons standing in the way of the camera, but it was either this or a different video of somebody playing terribly as Lightning. The guy in the other video was retarded, as he kept getting Bravery broken and he would just stand there and take it from Terra. I was so pissed watching that retardation. He made it seem that Lightning failed at the game, but no, it was just him and his stupidity. This guy in this video proves Lightning's epicness by showing us how badly she can rape if she is played well.

Square's Newest Chick

Alright, well we all know that I love Lightning, and yes I do recall proposing to her at the end of our wonderful adventure through FFXIII; and I know this is supposed to be a Final Fantasy blog, but ah what the hell, I'll add Kingdom Hearts to the mix. In that case, I ought to add some more characters to the list I got here...

So as I was saying; Lightning, you kick ass, you are amazing, but for now, Aqua has the spotlight. Why? First of all, Aqua is in a game that I would always prefer over FFXIII any day. Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep is far batter than FFXIII in the sense that absolutely none of the characters fail, that the storyline makes somewhat more sense and does not feel rushed, that you actually have to earn your weapons (upgrading weapons is a bothersome task that should be left for just the Ratchet and Clank games), that the universe is free to explore... sort of (it isn't linear, that's all that matters), that you can choose who you want to play as in the beginning of the game, and that there are actual sidequests. So, even though Lightning is still by far my favorite Square character, Aqua deserves more attention now for being in a game that completely satisfied me.

What is the first thing that drew my attention to Aqua when I first started out as her? That would probably be the same thing that is shared between most of the female characters Tetsuya Nomura came up with. I swear, if that man was God and created all humans the same way he creates his characters, every man in the world would be sexually active at the age of nine. Yes, nine specifically. Why? Well, I suck at putting these kinds of things into my own words, so I am just going to quote the great Blue Highwind on the matter of Aqua's appearance, which could be applied to many of Nomura's other characters: "She's so sexy that I can foresee quite a few preteen sexual awakenings occurring right on the PSP screen." Nomura was prety elaborate on Aqua's appearance, if that's the word I'm supposed to be using. What I find hilarious is that he had to change her clothing several different times because she was considered by him to be too "revealing." I don't remember seeing any older designs for Aqua, but I do remember watching one video where her back is so uncovered you could almost make out the top of her butt, where the tailbone is supposed to be... I think. Now her lower back is covered up, but her outfit is so damn tight in this game that it actually might just be a complete character model colored differently on some parts. In other words, the parts of her clothing that are supposed to be clothing, including her leggings and her shorts or whatever, are likely to be her actual skin colored over. It's like what they did with Jessica Alba in the movie Machete, where in the shower scene she appears naked, but in reality she was actually wearing undergarments that cover up most of those private areas. That's the way it is with Aqua, but reversed.

One of Aqua's original renders. Okay, I guess my statement about seeing her tailbone area was exaggerated. Besides, this isn't TOO revealing :P Dammit, Nomura.

If you don't want to agree with me, go ahead; but I'm just saying because I can really make out what Aqua's under-regions supposedly look like due to how tight her shorts appear to be. Anyway, I remember reading somebody comment on Blue's review of Birth By Sleep that Aqua's outfit may just be the true intention for Kuja's outfit, and I couldn't have agreed more. My God, Kuja was probably one of the worst examples of awkward character design... hold on a second, I just saw an article for the next Dissidia, and I must report on it. Okay, sorry about that, it just needed to be done. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty hungry, so I'm just going to post this thing now and then I'll work on it later. Besides, Aqua's appearance makes up half the reason why she's being praised here on my blog.

Welcome back. That queer looking man you see above this paragraph is the guy who had a similar outfit to Aqua's. Unfortunately, he was around way before Aqua was even a concept, I'm afraid, so therefore whoever was the character designer for Kuja was an epic failure. The sad part is that he is actually an end boss. How it is that somebody with that bad of a fashion sense could be an evil end boss is a mystery to me. Too bad that I don't feel like playing FFIX, or else maybe I could've sympathized. This design of Aqua shows how the outfit should've been put to use. Anyway, I don't think I have a whole lot to say about Aqua anymore. So far she seems cool, she is the only one of the three characters who become an official Keyblade Master. She also really cares about both Terra and Ventus, like any good friend. I kind of think she is in love with Terra, but I suppose it is too early to decide that, even though I just finished Radiant Garden, which is supposedly the game's midpoint.

(Spoiler Alert!) I already spoiled some of the game for myself, so I already know about how Aqua goes back and makes Castle Oblivion out of The Land of Departure, and how she ends up fighting the possessed Terra at the true end of the game. Gameinformer said that her story is weak, but I beg to differ due to its significance to the whole series. Also, she finds herself having to fight both Ven and Terra since they become possessed by Vanitas and Xehanort, respectively, and I think that having to go through such a situation would be heartbreaking; although I can't imagine it happening in real life. That's what makes me like Aqua more, all the shit she goes through. Yeah, I like it when people have interesting problems. The way how they behave towards those problems are what defines their character to me. I know, it is weird, but that's just me. That's all I have to say about Aqua right now, so until next time.

Additional Note: Is it just me, or has Tetsuya Nomura suddenly developed a fetish for turtlenecks? It seems to me that that is the new thing now with his female characters. I remember when it used to be belts... boy were those days interesting.

BREAKING NEWS! TETSUYA NOMURA IS NOT AN IDIOT AFTER ALL!

With the release of Birth By Sleep, I slightly felt assured that Tetsuya Nomura was not actually on the same road to failure as everyone else seems to be at Square Enix, but I was still under a lot of doubt due to how much he wants Sazh in the next Dissidia. For countless days, I have been complaining about that statement and praying to god that he wouldn't do something so retarded. It seems that Dissidia 012 was the answer to my prayer. Here's a trailer:

Never mind, couldn't find one, but here's the link to Lightning's very on Dissidia page on The Final Fantasy Wiki! YAY! Nomura did not ultimately fail and piss me off like I thought he would, instead he proved himself worthy of fighting against the "trend" amongst Square where everyone decided to be a failure at life.... Nah, screw the link, I'm gonna save all the pictures and post them here.

Look at her! Finally, those internet arena fights can cease!

Pretty funny to see her in a non-next generation render.

I seriously think Yoshitaka Amano is colorblind

Yeah Garland, you fail. End of story.

OH SNAP! The EX Burst is the Gestalt attacks! Yeah, I saw that one coming. Her EX Mode also gives her the Omega Weapon, so yeah, Lightning officially wins. Also, look at Garland getting anal raped. Sheesh, he sucks so much.

Wtf?  So... Lightning in a biker outfit... this is exactly what I was talking about with Nomura earlier, in the post about Aqua.

So as one could clearly see, Lightning is going to be in the next Dissidia, and that is all I need for me to be convinced to buy it. I don't care if the game's storyline is as retarded as the first Dissidia. I don't even give a damn if the story mode is the same damn thing as it was before with the stupid board game navigation. Lightning is in the game, and that is all that it takes for the game to be an epic win. We will now return to my post praising Aqua for being awesome.

In Defense of Final Fantasy XIII

Sorry kids, but my job with FFXIII is not finished yet. I just read a forum thread that denounced the game, and although I am not one to react to such silly rants by angry fans, I decided to post something here to defend the game because there really is nothing out there on the internet that seems to be supporting the game.

Now before I start, let me give you my background. The Final Fantasies I played include VI, VII, VIII, XII, and XIII. I don't remember a lot from FFVI though, so it might not really count. Before I played XIII, I only played VI and XII, neither of which I remembered very well when FFXIII came out. Unlike many people, I wasn't anticipating this game as I was not such a die-hard fan of the series back then, so I did not pay much attention to any of the trailers that were released; so when I sat down and played FFXIII I did so without any expectations aside from two things: for the game to be way better than Cock of Duty Modern Whorefare 2 and for the chick on the cover to be a badass. Both of those expectations were instantly fulfilled because 1) anything is better than That as COD 6 is now referred to, and 2) because I learned that the chick on the cover was the super badass Lightning when I saw the opening cutscene.

Also, I decided to give a list of grievances against the game just to prove I am not some loser kissing the game's ass, much less Square Enix (who has been added to my list of companies I hate. More on that later). Here's the list:

• The game is linear. My god I remembered how badly I wanted to go back to Palumpolum after I had beaten the end boss. I loved that place. I also miss the racetrack course from Eden, and for some odd reason I really liked the Hanging Edge. Square pretty much says that they traded the game's gameplay for the storyline, but I believe it might also have to do with the fact that this game went multiplatform, since they also say they had cut out so much from the game that it was considered enough to make another game out of it. Such a large amount of cut content should suggest that at some point they were planning this game to be an open world, but unfortunately that stuff never made it to the game... which leads on to my next grievance.

• The fact that Square traded the old battle system for a less exciting one. I remember after beating the game, I looked up a bunch of videos related to the game so I can learn more about it's development, and I saw an old gameplay trailer where Lightning was doing what she does best, only it looked so much cooler and a bit more confusing. Here's the trailer
  
  
  
  Clearly, the game was going to feature much more exciting combat, but unfortunately Square Enix continues to refuse to give us that "Advent Children cinematic combat" that they don't shut the hell up about. If you're a developer that is constantly claiming your games are going to have something, don't cut it out at all. It just makes you look like a complete turd, getting everybody worked up over something that will only be shown for two seconds in a video. This is what happens when companies reveal their games too early. I bet that the fact the game went multiplatform also had an influence on the decision to remove the original combat, which leads me to my next grievance (I know, I just chained three grievances together! See how I am not kissing up to them after all?)

• The game was released for the Xbox 360. Here's where a little disagreement might come into play. I understand how many of you fans who only have an Xbox would feel, I only have an Xbox too. After playing the game, I thought about how disappointed I would be if I never had a chance to try it out if I actually was anticipating it, but that still does not change the fact that I am not happy with the multiplatform release. You see, the thing is that developers have equipment that is usually suited for a specific console, unless if you're like Bethesda Studios or whatever they're called and released Oblivion and Fallout 3 for the computer, Xbox 360, and the PS3 without any problems. However, the problem I see is that the Xbox 360 is probably not as big of a console as the PS3 or the Wii since those latter systems are manufactured in Japan and whatnot. Maybe what I said wasn't entirely correct, but the general idea I am trying to convey isn't. Now, the probable reason why Japanese developing companies like Square mainly create their games for Nintendo and Sony is likely to be that the convenient systems available to work with are those made from Sony and Nintendo. Since Square has been developing many games for Sony, one could conclude that most of the games Square develops are mainly developed for the products created by Sony. Final Fantasy XIII is no different, it was originally being designed for the Playstation 2, but with the release of next generation consoles it was redesigned to be played on the PS3 (maybe the cut content was from the Playstation 2 version of the game, but I highly doubt that).  Now we have FFXIII for both the Xbox and the PS3, and I find it interesting how the PS3 version of the game comes in an uncompressed disc while the Xbox 360 version comes in three compressed discs. What does all this mean? Well, basically this: since Blu-Ray discs can hold more data than a regular DVD, Square basically had to split up the game and put it all together in three separate DVD's since not even two are enough to hold the game completely. What's even more sad is that the files had to be compressed in order to fit onto three DVD's. We would've been looking at maybe five to seven discs if the game wasn't compressed to fit onto the DVD's (okay you got me, more like four to five. That's still ridiculous). This has to explain why Square removed a whole bunch of stuff from the game. Sorry Square, your choice to make FFXIII multiplatform is now viewed by me as retarded. I don't care if I never got to play the game, your choice was still bad. Shame on all of you. Also, this grievance leads to yet another grievance in this marvelous chain I am building.

• The PS3 games are messed up. This really has more to do with the company than the game itself, but I just thought I throw that one out there. Because it's already been about five months and Square still hasn't done anything to fix the problem is the reason why Square Enix is officially on my hated companies list... but I still like most of their games anyway.

• There are hardly any sidequests. Aw man, that means no optional bosses to rape when I am seriously under leveled. I loved it when I raped Ultimate Weapon in FFVII right after the WEAPONS were released from the Northern Crater... I think that's what it was called. That was a sad excuse for a sidequest superboss, but hey, I got the Ultima Weapon after beating it several times (the boss would always fly away. That's what made it so easy). Plus to say, it's not like I didn't have fun. I was bawling with laughter. In my opinion, the best RPG's are the ones you can exploit legitly and reap the best weapons and rape the hardest bosses early on in the game. What did FFXIII have to offer? Nothing at all, just a bunch of stupid pseudo FFXII hunts called Missions that were boring because most couldn't be completed unless you were really high in the Crystarium ranks. Absolutely ridiculous.

• The weapon and accessory upgrading system. Just cause there is a gunblade in the game doesn't mean we have to make it anything like FFVIII. Seriously, I actually preferred FFXII's retarded chest system over this. As if the lack of sidequests, this upgrading system prevented you from getting ultimate weapons early on in the game. Some may say, "How so if you can upgrade your weapons at any time after Chapter 4," to which I respond by saying that none of the components you get from chests or enemies are really worth anything. At Chapter 12, when you could start farming for these things called perfume which sell for plenty of gil, weapon upgrades are most available because with all that money you get, you can buy a ton of sturdy bones which pretty much max out your experience multiplier (thirty-six will do) and just by as many Ultracompact Reactors or Superconductors or whatever it was, I forgot, and use those to upgrade your weapon very quickly. However, that's only at chapter 12 and after. Pretty much every component you get before that point sucks. Also, you need something called a Trapezohedron to upgrade your weapons into their ultimate form, which you also cannot really get until Chapter 12.

• The fact that you can't decide who your party leader is until midway through Chapter 9. I WANT TO PLAY AS LIGHTNING, NOT AN AFRO-PEDOPHILE-FAIL SKY PIRATE!!

• The fact that there's no Victory Fanfare. I can do without the Prelude song, it felt corny as hell, but the game's soundtrack could've been better.

• (Warning, storyline spoilers begin here and continue throughout the entire blog post) Lastly, you have about half the characters and the game's plot. They were minor issues to me, but the plot felt a bit rushed... like it lacked thought or something. What am I really fighting for? Everyone is all like, "Let's save Cocoon," but Barthandelus is all like "You must destroy it!" The main objective of the game's central characters, Snow and Lightning, is to free Serah from her crystallized form. How are they supposed to do that if they become crystals themselves after completing their Focus? Even when the game is drawing near it's end, you still have no idea how anything is making any sense. Even after the game's finished, I was wondering how the hell did Serah, Lightning, Snow, Hope, and Sazh become un-crystallized; and why did Fang and Vanille remained crystallized? You could even feel how rushed everything is in the story, it really was that weird. Also, I hated Sazh and Hope. Hope's character was a very generic "Oh I lost my mommy and I am pissed at this guy for not saving her, but later on I'll decide to forgive him," character, and Sazh was just an utter failure. I don't understand what it is with video game developers and black people. They always give them a remarkable role in their games. Louis from Left 4 Dead was a fail AI, but not as bad as Rochelle from Left 4 Dead 2. Holy shit, don't get me started with her and how many times she would die when the campaigns start. In some other games, black characters are superhuman, which is alright with me so long as they didn't fail. Square, however, gave Sazh a new "black guy role" when they were trying and failing at making him the comic relief in the game. Not only does Sazh fail due to how he claims he can fly airships yet all of them end up in pieces in a place nobody intended to be in, but he is also a pedophile. That's the new role. Don't believe me, huh? Pay closer attention to the cutscenes that feature only him and Vanille, for that matter. I couldn't give three damns if Vanille is actually hundreds or thousands of years older than Sazh due to being a crystal for so long, her mindset as well as her physical appearance is that of an eighteen-year-old or maybe even younger. In Chapter 4, right after Hope and Lightning depart from the party, you can see a wonderful cutscene where, as Vanille is trying to climb up a ledge, Sazh catches a glimpse of her nether-regions and does not even look away instantly! He's just standing there staring for a couple of seconds, and it takes that chocobo chick to put an end to his stupidity. After that, I thought "oh there's no way Sazh is just going to go through the rest of the game, with Vanille, and not act like a pedophile," and sure enough I was right. I don't remember the other weird cutscenes between him and Vanille, but I'll be sure to address them in my future playthrough of FFXIII. Next, we have Snow, who doesn't really fail but he is so Westernized that it is almost insulting. I'm not even going to begin to describe him, just look up Snow Villiars and just look at him, and you'll already know what I'm talking about. Last, we have Vanille. She is not really a terrible character or anything, that's why I put her last, but it's just that I don't like those bubblegum type characters that much. However, I will give Square props for at least not going overkill with her. She is a bubblegum character, but she really isn't too annoying. She is tolerable, so I don't mind her that much. Also, her story and characterization is a thousand and one times better and more original than Hope's anyway, so there you go. Fang and Lightning are not really fail characters in my opinion, but I am not going to get into that right now.

Now that I got the list of complaints out of the way, let me begin my defense for Final Fantasy XIII. It seems that the main reason why people hated this game is because it did not live up to their expectations. The fault, however, lies in the players. You can't just place a ton of expectations in a game or else it will never turn out the way you want it to be. You and the developer are two completely different people, therefore when the game is released, your mind comes into conflict with the minds of the developers. The only people that are excused from expecting things in a game are pretty much the developers themselves. I know, it seems that I am standing up for Square rather than FFXIII itself, but this issue must be brought to the table because it is the common reason why many things, not just video games, turn out to be flops.

One of the first things a player may notice about the game, aside from its inexcusable linear setup, is the apparent dullness of the combat system. Only three options are available, and only two of which are really filled with commands (or a command as I should say) that you'll be using throughout the game. Attacking in the game's first stages is pretty much down to a two strike assault and then a return to your ground on the battle screen, then you wait a few seconds and repeat. Every now and then, you'll have to use a potion, but that's about the only difference in the routine. I know, it sucks, but you can't just throw the game away after playing for just three chapters. Unfortunately, battles don't really get heated until late after Chapter 5, but that's pretty much the way most games are. If you want otherwise, quit wasting my time here and go play a piece of shit like Modern Whorefare 2. Chapter 7 was when I started finding myself doing a lot of Paradigm switching, and trust me, when you enter a battle where you absolutely must paradigm shift more than six to eight times, you are in a heated battle. I'll never forget the fight against the Vercingetorex, the games hardest enemy. I must've paradigm shifted a hundred times, and there were many instances where my party's health was in the red. You need to give the game some time in order to develop your characters first, and then things will start to get interesting.

A lot of people complain about the characters and the story. I don't mind the complaints about the story at all, because I personally agree that the storyline was pretty weird, and I don't mind the complaints against the characters neither, so long as they aren't stupid statements like "LIGHTNING IS THE GAYEST FF CHARACTER!!" "Why?" "BECAUSE SHE SUCKS!" Listen kids, unless you provide good justification that is backed up by logical and acceptable reasoning, your opinions are futile. I would understand (and still disagree with) the person who says he didn't like Lightning because her characterization was a bit generic (a protective sister who hates her sister's boyfriend, but accepts him as the story concludes). Sure, that is pretty generic, as well as the fact that she starts off being a hard ass but in the end she opens up to others and all. I thought it was a bit silly, I'll agree; but when you start counting her character's background and all that, it isn't too bad. Besides, the generic silliness can easily be forgiven for five reasons: 1)Lightning is a chick, 2) and a hot one too, 3) she pretty much kicks ass in every cutscene, 4) she can be very level headed and is probably the smartest in the group (okay, maybe that will go to Fang for having lived the longest and knowing more, but still) and 5) she has pink hair.

Several people have found Fang's more masculine traits a bit weird, but I am not going to comment on that because I really don't remember noticing any point in the game where her masculine traits made me uncomfortable and appeared too prominent. As for Vanille, the argument I will give is that she is an improvement. She is MUCH less annoying than Yuffie, that is for sure. I think Penelo in FFXII was supposed to be this bubblegum typecast, but she apparently failed at it. Her character was very dull, so in comparison to Vanille, I would prefer a game with Vanille than Penelo. I'm also going to throw in Tidus in here because I've played Dissidia and it's enough to know that Tidus is also a cheery character. Vanille is a million times smarter than Tidus, in my opinion. I never want to even look at that kid's face, but unfortunately I'll have to when I play FFX. Maybe I can get off lucky and find a way to not make him the party leader... but I doubt it. Anyway, the only thing that I'll say about Vanille is that her voice acting is, while not horrible, somewhat odd. Her accent shifts around at times, but you really have to be listening carefully or else those shifts in her accent aren't going to be as noticeable. They still will be, there are some instances where she prominently sounds different, but I'm not going to get into that.

This is the next thing I am going to cover: the game's voice acting. Square Enix has always appeared to me as a company that is unfamiliar with English voice acting. I am not sure of any other language out there, I've never played a Japanese, Spanish, Dutch, French, Italian, German, Russian, Chinese, Nigerian Final Fantasy before, and I never will, so don't come to me with one of them. Just English, because that is the language I prefer my games to be in, for practical reasons as well as convenience. In FFX (I know I haven't played it, but I did see a cutscene from it) I nearly wanted to shoot myself. In FFXII, the voice acting was better and more interesting, but the sound in that game in general was weird and there were a few characters I couldn't stand listening to (*coughs and says Vaan*). Then you have Dissidia. Tidus once again makes a return to annoy the hell out of me, but other characters including the Warrior of Light and Exdeath or however his name is spelled. When I sat down to play this game, I was sort of expecting some more annoying voice acting, but it turns out I was wrong. As stated before, Vanille's voice acting had some minor issues, but everyone else was just fine, thus making this the first Final Fantasy I played where the voice acting was done just fine. I especially loved Ali Hillis's voice acting for Lightning, it was just freaking awesome and contributed towards my liking of Lightning as a character. There might have been some people I didn't really like the voice acting for, like Serah maybe, but I don't remember. Characters like her were only in the game for about two seconds, so those voice actors don't matter that much.

Another thing that I like is the Crystarium. Even though it's not the simple system in older Final Fantasies where you gain stats just by leveling up, it is still a wonderful and actually quite simple system to develop your characters. You just have to be a bit smart about what you choose to put your points in, but then again you could always farm and fill up the roles until they're at their limit for the chapter. Also, considering how retarded the license board was in FFXII, this is a vast improvement. The Crystarium enables you to have characters that take on specific roles, much like any other good RPG let alone Final Fantasy. In FFXII, though, there pretty much was no such thing as specific roles for each character. Every character in that game is basically the same, only slightly tweaked according to base stats and equipment, but honestly the differences are hardly noticeable. One guy has a bit more strength than the other, another has about a hundred more HP (which is nothing) and so on so forth. It's really stupid, and do not come to me with that International Zodiac Job version because that doesn't count. If the developers were going to put a job system in FFXII, they should've done so with the original release. Thankfully the redeemed themselves on terms of giving character's specific roles in FFXIII. At least we can all agree that no matter what happens, there will never be a system worse than the Junction System. My god how I hated that.

Which reminds me, the Eidolons in this game are incredible... well to an extent at least. Eidolons are the summon entities of Final Fantasy XIII, and I think so far that they are the best on terms of gameplay mechanics. To be truly honest, though, I never used them too much. The one I used most was Odin, Lightning's summon, then you have Bahamut, which I used on occasions, but I never really toyed much with the other summons. However, I'm still placing the summons in this game as the best on terms of gameplay. Of course, they'll never be any better than Knights of the Round, but let me explain to you how unique these summons are. Unfortunately, you can only control one character, therefore you can only use on summon in a battle. However, they are extremely effective on certain occasions, and they are especially useful for emergency situations. Before I get into the functions of a summon, you have the emergency situations where if your party leader is in the red with a load of status effects and your healer is dead (most likely Hope) and your sentinel is taking a harsh beating, you can release your Eidolon and your entire party will be revived, cured of status effects, and brought back to full health; so they make very good panic buttons. Now, the main thing that makes an Eidolon interesting is that each one is unique to their respective character (that's right, you can't choose who uses what Eidolon, but remember I did say they came with limits) and will utilize several abilities and actions that will compliment the roles that your character is supposed to be using. The summons in this game act as a party member, although other characters in your party are temporarily gone until the summon is dismissed. Now an example concerning how the summon compliments the character. Lightning's summon is Odin, one of the most iconic entities in the Final Fantasy series (and also at times one of the best summons you could ever find). To start, Odin's elemental affiliation is the Lightning element, so right away he has a connection with the character, but there's more. Along with other Eidolons, his attacks can ignore pretty much any resistance to the Lightning element. Other Eidolons can also ignore elemental resistances that match their respective elements, so don't just think that all Eidolons ignore just the Lightning element. Anyway, Lightning's main role is supposed to be the Ravager role, which focuses on doing this thing where you raise a gauge on the top of the screen to the point where your enemy pretty much becomes crippled. This role is usually ineffective when several enemies are focusing on Lightning, though, and also requires the presence of a Commando (which is basically a pure physical attacker. Lightning is good at that role as well, but you cant be in two roles at the same time) in order for that chain gauge to remain from dropping to nothing. Odin's attacks serve as Commando attacks, and they also cause all enemies to focus on the Eidolon. At some points, Odin will raise his shield and act as a sentinel, which will prolong the time he stays with you by reducing the damage the enemies inflict on him.

So we have two great uses for a summon: they restore our party to perfect condition and they work with our character to take down enemies effectively. Sometimes I think that the AI programmed into these things are far more advanced than party members (*coughs and mentions something about Hope failing at healing*). However, there's one more thing that Eidolons have that truly makes them stand out amongst all other summons in the series. When you summon an Eidolon, another gauge appears below your health. It's the gestalt gauge, and by performing specific actions relative to your summon (for Lightning, you must fill the chain gauge on an enemy in order to raise the gestalt gauge) you fill up the gauge. When the gauge is full, you can press X or Square and your summon will transform into some type of vehicle or creature and your character will mount up on it. You don't necessarily need to fill up the gauge to enter gestalt mode, but the gestalt mode will be more effective if you do so. In gestalt mode, you can use a set of cinematic attacks that pretty much rape your enemies. In Odin's gestalt mode, the summon will turn into the horse Sleipnir and his lance, the iconic Zantetsuken, will be picked up by Lightning and split apart so that it appears as if she is duel wielding scimitars (I know, it sounds really weird. Look up the use of an Eidolon if my description here isn't so accurate). Once she is mounted on Sleipnir, which is still really Odin but I call his gestalt form Sleipnir as that's his horse's name, you can use the set of attacks to pummel your enemies. I don't think that they really cause a whole lot of damage, but they build up the chain gauges of your enemies like nothing (which thus shows that the gestalt form's abilities correspond with the character's best role abilities). Once your time is up, you'll do one last attack, completely cinematic, that causes either a significant amount of damage or raises the chain gauge all lot or inflicts status ailments or so on; it all depends on the Eidolon you're using. Odin's last gestalt attack raises the chain gauge significantly, while Bahamut's causes a ton of damage (I once did a little over 999,000 damage. It's crazy). The summons are so useful that I even found myself using them later on in the game when relying on them too much becomes more of a problem. Of course, that is to say that I wasn't using them recklessly. If you're smart enough, you can put a serious dent in your enemy's status by using the right Eidolon.

Now that I am done having an orgasm over those things, I understand that the Guardian Forces of FFVIII also played a similar role in complimenting your characters' stats, but remember the Junction System of FFVIII was retarded, so they do not count. I also heard that the Aeons of FFX were also very useful, but I never played that game so I wouldn't know. I just remember how completely useless the Espers were in FFXII. I swear to god, never have I encountered such a huge waste of disk space in any other video game before. You'd might as well ignore all the optional Esper battles in FFXII due to how useless they all are, unless if you're trying to complete the Sky Pirate's Den. Anyway, point is that the Eidolons of FFXIII are actually very useful and very cool to use... however there are some that I don't want to find myself wasting my time with. Shiva, as iconic and cool as she is (or they as I should say, since this summon comes with two sisters), has an awkward gestalt mode where the two sisters pretty much scissor each other and become a motorbike. Their normal form is kind of useful since one heals you while the other attacks, but it's pretty basic. They aren't as bad as Sazh's Eidolon, though. My god, at one minute you have this Grim Reaper ripoff (hence Grim Ripoff) that is affiliated with fire, and when it goes into gestalt mode, it turns into a racecar. I think the developers were really smoking something when they had that Eidolon's concept in mind. Then you have Alexander, which I still do not understand it's role after having the game since it's release. That's more or less half the summons in the game, but I think my lack of taste in them is due to the way how I play the game. A lot of who you play as and what summons you use and such has to do with the way you prefer to play, so you might actually hate Odin as much as I like him.

I don't have much time left, so I am just going to place all the last things I have in mind in these last paragraphs. First and foremost, one significant thing about this game is that magic abilities do not require MP. There isn't even an MP bar in this game. I don't know about you, but that is awesome to me. Gone are the days when I had to deal with the nonsense of running out of magic in the middle of an important battle and thus having to wing the conflict due to a lack of ethers or whatever. God I'll never forget the moments in FFXII when I was magically deprived, those were horrible... especially due to how much of a hard time I had finding ethers in the first place. I could never find any of them in the stores! Well, in spite of the pretty much free magic abilities in FFXIII, you still have something called a TP gauge. There are certain abilities in the game that you can use as any role as pretty much any character, which include Libra and Quake (your only Earth-based magic attack) and of course Summon. They use up a gauge that consists of five technique points maximum. Might sound like a load of shit, even when the most a technique takes is 3 points (which is the summon technique), but trust me your TP gauge restores pretty much without you even noticing... that is if you don't suck at the game. so the only real gauges that you have to worry about depleting are the health and chain gauges, but both can be easily managed throughout most encounters, that is once again if you don't suck.

Speaking of abilities, each character also has a special ability unique to the role of which they are best at (aside from a couple, including Hope. He's the best at the medic role but his special ability is in the ravager role). Each ability does something specific to that character's role. They're pretty much the limit breaks in this game, which can be used as much and whenever you please. However, they are only useful for specific things, and some don't even do a lot of damage. Lightning's Army of One ability, for example, is meant to raise the chain gauge really fast, but I only notice it happen on enemies with a weak chain resistance, so the ability is barely useful. However, I do like using it just to watch Lightning kick the target's ass. It's always fun to watch. The best ability I've used so far has been Fang's ability, which is Highwind. I really like how Fang's role in the game is that of a Dragoon, due to her ability's iconic name, as well as her strength and her Eidolon Bahamut. Even her spear is known as a coiling dragon staff. That's why she is also an awesome character in the game. Highwind also does a ton of damage like Bahamut's Megaflare, but the most I remember seeing from Highwind was two hundred thousand or so. It's been a while. So yeah, while you have pseudo limit breaks that aren't all useful, they're still pretty much available whenever you want them, so there's another good thing.

Now for the small stuff. Graphics are undoubtedly incredibly wonderful. Character models/renders are great, skyboxes (backgrounds) are cinematic and beautifully picturesque. The only place I couldn't stand looking at was Lake Bresha, that place gave me such a headache. The gunblade for once doesn't look cheap, but most weapons in the game only differ by a pallet swap... Oh and that reminds me, Lightning pretty much has the best ultimate weapon out of all the characters in the series. While in most games the best weaponn is the Ultima Weapon, Lightning's weapon is the Omega Weapon, so haha! Hers is a grade higher than everyone else! Anyway, back to the good things about the game, the combat system (though not seemingly as good as the original combat system) is actually pretty nice and can be fun to use later on in the game. It is a faster and much improved traditional combat system (like in FFVII). The camera and other controls are pretty neat, too... but if there are any games out there that still have a problem with controls and camera and whatnot, then those games are pretty stupid (like Dissidia. Don't get me started on its retarded controls) for letting this problem continue to exist. The menu system in this game is also good (unlike FFVIII where you spend hours trying to raise your strength by five and trying to equip commands), and the treasure chest (or sphere as I should say) system has returned from that horrible random spawn chest system featured in FFXII, so if you beat FFXIII and missed a few chests or if you beat the game and hadn't played it in ten years and decide to go back and play it again, you can always expect those chests to be right where they always were (and hold the same items they always held). The chain gauge is another thing that is pretty good about the game, because it enables you to easily dispatch almost any enemy. The only problem is that some enemies are harder to stagger than others, but if all the enemies in the game were so easy to stagger, the game wouldn't be as challenging, now, wouldn't it?

That's about everything really, because all I have left to really say are about technical things that most video games should already excel at now that we have all this new technology and crap. If you still don't agree with me and still think that FFXIII is a piece of shit, fine you're free to like or dislike as you choose. After playing FFXIII I figured that if I liked that game, I would really like FFVII (and boy was I right). However, after playing FFVII and a quarter of FFVIII and half of FFXII and remembering some of FFVI, I think I can agree with several people that this game did not live up to its standard as a Final Fantasy, much less an RPG in general. It lacked certain elements that I already listed on my list of grievances, in case you forgot about that. However, as a game in general, FFXIII is pretty damn good, and I would most certainly play it over in spite of how my second run-through might pretty much be the same as my first. It is actually one of the greatest games I ever played on the Xbox so far, and that's saying something (I wonder how amazing Fallout 3 will be if I thought this game was good. I wonder how amazing FFVII would be if it was remade for the Xbox 360 PS3). This game gave me faith that the Xbox 360 and its games could be redeemed of the widely-commercialized-yet-completely-horrible video games that are released such as Halo 3 and Modern Whorefare 2. Those games are just trying to hoard in money for the developers, guys, can't you see that already? Sheesh... okay so maybe Square is no different, but we can't let that prevent us from enjoying a game, right?

Note: It turns out that Odin along with Shiva and Brynhildr (Sazh's fail Eidolon) can all bypass Fire, Ice, Lightning, and Water resistances, not just elements that they are affiliated with. It's pretty neat in spite of the fact I've never seen Odin use any Fire, Water, or Ice attacks on an enemy. From what I've read, it seems Alexander is useless, since he is too slow and his gestalt form keeps him in one position, so attacking enemies from afar is not very effective. Vanille's Hecatonchier is also pretty damn good, as it ignores anybody who has halved or immune defense against physical and magic attacks, which are both used by the Eidolon.

IGN Causes Some Good Lulz

Sorry about the spammage, I must feed this blog as many posts as I can to get it started. Here's a video created by IGN when FFXIII was still in development and lacked an English trailer. I thought this was a bit funny. It'd be nice to have this dialogue in the game. My apologies for all the FFXIII stuff I'm posting here, I was just reminded of this video when I was writing the rant against Tetsuya Nomura.

Why Are You Trading the Hot Chick for the Black Guy, Tetsuya Nomura?

In spite of how disgusting Dissidia truly was at heart (come on, have you even listened to the dialogue or the story in the game?), I actually would like to see a second Dissidia. Who knows, maybe, just maybe, Square will put more thought into the sequel, remove the stupid "board game" story mode, and make it so that all of the characters you play as already have their abilities and such, like in Super Smash Bros. There's absolutely nothing wrong with using a similar format as Super Smahs Bros., Square. I seriously doubt Nintendo is going to get pissed at you guys for making a character selection screen (as well as the availability of character abilities from the start).

To be honest, though, those were issues I overlooked in the game when I became level 100 as Gabranth and Terra. I might just overlook them if they reappear in the next Dissidia, but only if Lightning is in the game... BUT WAIT! Lightning might not be in that game at all. Why wouldn't she be in the game if she is the the actual main character of FFXIII? Has Square gone mad? No, not really, just Tetsuya Nomura, the character designer of most of the Final Fantasies, as well as the creator of the pretty good Kingdom Hearts series. You see, originally, he along with the rest of Square were planning on putting Lightning in the first Dissidia, but then they decided not to since they didn't want to give away her powers (since FFXIII wasn't released yet). It's understandable, since the company didn't want to spoil their next game and ruin it for everyone, although most people I've seen didn't like the game anyway. Now there's the idea of a second Dissidia, because fans are raving for a sequel in spite of the first Dissidia's mediocreness (after all, what fan of the series doesn't want to see their favorite characters bash it out in a fighting game? Those are the best, mainly because it puts an end to those silly internet fights such as "Squall vs. Firion" or whatever). Sounds like an excellent chance to put in Lightning now that the game she starred in was finally released, right? Well, not so much.

"Nomura has said that a potential sequel would include Kain Highwind, Gilgamesh, and Sazh Katzroy representing Final Fantasy XIII, but would not include Kingdom Hearts characters."

I don't mind the Kingdom Hearts characters so much, since there aren't many original characters and all that, and the additions of Kain and Gilgamesh do sound interesting, but really? Sazh? What the hell did he do to get in the next Dissidia? All he does in FFXIII that I remember clearly is complain about everything, crash airships because he's a fail Sky Pirate (not literally, I'm just saying. Don't be so quick to assume, I know very well that there are no Sky Pirates in FFXIII), look at Vanille's pussy, make friends with many of the iconic creatures of the series (which really felt a bit awkward at times), and shoot a couple of guns that can be put together to form a rifle (remind you of anyone? Does Xigbar ring a bell?) Meanwhile, Lightning rapes every one of the soldiers that try to put down her and the rest of the game's main characters, uses a gunblade that actually doesn't look stupid for once (and actually fires ammo, even though such gunblades did exist in earlier compilations [which don't count]), kicks even more ass when she is unarmed, is actually an Einstein compared to Sazh, jumps off of heights that don't exist on Earth, has the second-most badass summon in the game (Sazh has the worst. A race car? Has Square gone mad?), and has pink hair. Not to mention that the game's storyline is mainly driven by her and some other character named Snow (who, in spite of not really being a fail character, disgusts me due to how cliche he is), Lightning makes the best character to represent FFXIII in the next Dissidia.

"Alright, students, continuing our lesson: this is 'hot'...

"

"... and this is not." Notice how I made the picture smaller? Ha ha.

Come on, Square, you can't just sit there as Tetsuya Nomura takes over the whole company! Okay, fine, so maybe he's not taking over the company, but seriously are you just going to let Lightning sit there, trapped in the uproarious controversy known as FFXIII? I think not. Lightning is a far more memorable character than Sazh, in my opinion, in spite of how I noticed the few instances that were supposedly designed to show Sazh's role as a comic relief character, but still. Oh well, what do I know; I am just an upset fan on an e-rage against Tetsuya Nomura's apparently bad decision. We'll see who'll be sorry when the next Dissidia is released.

A Little Bit of Info About This Blog

First of all, I want to welcome you Readers to my Final Fantasy blog, a blog which I expect to die within the next two years. I do not think that by that time, I will be able to keep this blog up to date due to how busy I might be. I tried so hard to fight against having to grow up but unfortunately we can't all live like children forever. Hopefully, by the time I am done with college and all that real life garbage, I might be able to enjoy Final Fantasy like I used to.

So here's what should be on this blog once it has flourished into something as beautiful as my Final Memorandum. Here, on the Home Page, I'll try to post some opinions and other things relating to Final Fantasy. On the other pages which don't exist yet, there will be playthroughs of the different Final Fantasies I decide to check out. I can put up a total of ten pages, so therefore, I can play ten Final Fantasies that can be featured on this blog. I want to write a playthrough on Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy Versus XIII, and Final Fantasy X since I really liked FFXIII and since I haven't played FFX nor Final Fantasy Versus XIII (well duh, it hasn't come out yet). I originally thought of playing FFVII over again to write a playthrough of it, but there's just way too little time. Here's a list of Final Fantasies that you should'nt be expecting playthroughs for:

Final Fantasies I-V (according to my sources as well as my deductive reasoning, they are mediocre, and somewhat dull)

Final Fantasy VI (all the emulators I use just keep deleting the save files I make in that game, and I am not playing it in one sitting)

Final Fantasy VIII (I grew tired of it after the part where Edea becomes the ambassador or whatever the hell happened)

Final Fantasy XI (I already quit WoW. Why am I going to go back to another game that will consume my life?)

Final Fantasy XII (Unfortunately, I started it over around a month before I started this blog. I am not starting it over again for a third time)

Final Fantasy XIV (Hello! If you really need the reason, you're a moron. I already said before, I am not playing another MMORPG)

And that's about it, aside from all the compilations beside Versus XIII. Why am I not going to play the compilations? Well, let's just say that most, if not all of them, make their creators look like goofballs. Also, I am not playing Agito XIII. I have little interest in it. Stay tuned for a rant against Tetsuya Nomura for choosing Sazh over Lightning!