The Billionty-Oneth Geek: Older Than 8 Since 1991

So I started and stopped about five or six posts last summer, and for whatever reason, never got around to finishing them off. Anyhow, this is just one such posting. Final Fantasy XIII is one of the most highly anticipated titles originating from Japan this past year. The release was met with some criticism for its linearity but on an overall basis, it fell on the positive side of reviews. Even though Final Fantasy is my favourite series of games, I came out of this game liking it, but not loving it. I guess that puts me into the majority of people who have played this game. The story follows a character named Lightning who was a former soldier of a government organization called Sanctum, as part of the floating city called Cocoon. The soldiers are branded with the task of suppressing people labeled as Pulse l’Cie, who are people infected with magic after coming in contact with the land called Pulse, the world below. The Pulse l’Cie are feared because of their control from god-...

I had an urge to play old Game Boy games recently and so I went to one of my childhood favourites, Final Fantasy Legend II . If I recall correctly, I think my dad bought us the game when I was in grade 4 or maybe 5, so I was somewhere between 9 and 11. The game had such a lasting impact on me. It was an epic adventure filled with strange characters, unique combat and quite a memorable soundtrack. When you first load up the game, you're allowed to pick the character combinations for your party. There are humans. who are well-rounded fighters, mutants. who are adept at magic, robots. who are great with mechanical tools, and monsters. who have the ability to shapeshift after eating meat dropped by bad guys. The story is quite simple. There are pieces of magical fragments called MAGI scattered throughout the multiverse. You and your party traverse across all the different lands to recover these pieces of MAGI, to keep them away from the hands of evildoers. At the same time, you meet a...

The original Final Fantasy IV (II in the US) has always been my favourite Final Fantasy game of all time. My love is so deep for this game that about 10 years ago, I made it a yearly tradition to finish this game (and Chrono Trigger too), albeit with the ROM version (thanks speed button!). But now with the advent of this remake, I guess I can continue on this tradition with the DS version. I still remember my first experience with the game. I was 9 at the time and my dad borrowed the game from his friend at work. But my brother hogged all the play time and I was relegated to the backseat, where I watched him play through the game. Even so, the diverse characters, the wacky dialogue, the epic storyline and the harmonious soundtrack all worked together and gripped me that first time I laid eyes on it. When originally released on the SNES, the difficulty was taken down a notch (dubbed Easy Mode) to try and accommodate the American audience who at the time were RPG noobs. The Japa...

Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings (for the DS) is the sequel to the epic saga Final Fantasy XII found on the PS2. It follows Vaan and his band of sky pirates as they embark on new adventures. The game takes place almost immediately after the events of XII, but it can be treated as a stand alone title, though there are nods to the parent game. The gameplay is not your typical RPG affair, rather Square-Enix chose to use an action/real-time strategy system. In doing so, they were able to preserve some of the game mechanics used in FF XII in that you'd assign your characters a command, and they would follow it until you ordered them to do something else (ie. the gambit system). However, at the same time this was not like your traditional RTS where you'd have to harvest resources and create buildings. Instead, your main characters are chosen as leaders (5 maximum per mission) and often you'd take control of portals where you'd be able to summon monsters (called espers) ...

This is a bit of a late slip. I finished Final Fantasy III for the DS about 2 weeks ago. For those that know me and my gaming habits well, you'll know that I'm quite the Final Fantasy junkie. In fact, you wouldn't be wrong to assume that the FF series played an important part in forging the geek in me. This made it easy to decide what consoles to buy when the time came. It has always relied on the question, "which system will the next Final Fantasy game be released on?". FFIII was the only game in the 12 game series that had not made its debut on American soils. Instead of just a straight-up rehash and 8-bit (or 16-bit) graphics, Square-Enix took it to the next level and rendered the game fully in 3D, including a few FMVs, as well as enhancing the soundtrack. What we end up with is a beautifully looking game that pushes the DS to its limits. This game was the first one in the series to use the now renowned job system. They offered almost 2 dozen different ...