Street Fighter 4!!!! (!!!!!!) !!!!)!(!)

After years and years (and years and years) of Capcom teasing us. Making its fans feel like an abused wife who has somehow done something wrong (Why didn't you buy the FIFTH re-re-re-re-release of Street Fighter Alpha???), they've come out and done something beyond nice. Street Fighter 4 is a reality. While this news makes me extremely happy, I can't help but think there is some catch. No platforms have been announced. Who is developing it? What systems? IS IT 2D????? The last question perhaps the most important.

I've become jaded as far as Capcom and fighting games go...I WANT to be optimistic, but I can't help but think that there's something rotten in this apple.

New Capcom Fighter?

"Brian Dunn, also of Capcom, later extended the tease, writing "We have our Gamer's Day event in London next Wednesday (10/17), but there will be announcements and things starting to come up on Monday (10/15) and continuing all week." Dunn also added, somewhat conspicuously, to the comments thread "everyone at Capcom knows all the fans are extremely anxious for a NEW SF game, believe me. That's about all I can say about that..."

Hmmmm??? I love the emphasis on "new."

[12:10] Skilletor: or the huge announcement that was them publishing GTA in japan
[12:11] MrWizard: trust me
[12:11] MrWizard: its a huge announcement this time
[12:11] MrWizard: not some poll to vote for achievements lol
[12:11] Skilletor: that's fine, but i've been saying I WANT SF4 for years with cockteases like this from capcom

Hmmmm???

As much as I would love to believe this, and I would love it as much as I will my first born child, I will not believe anything Street Fighter and Fighting game related until screens are released. As I said, this has been ongoing for years now without capcom giving the fans what they want. I'm expecting Street Fighter: Chun Li's shower adventure to go along with the stupid movie that's coming out sometime in the future.

The King is dead. Long live the King.

Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first.

Yes, FFT does have slowdown. It happens on just about every special attack in the game.
Yes, FFT does have some wonky sound effects. Only on special attacks, though.

The slowdown is particularly annoying on spells or attacks that hit multiple characters. I hear that the slim gets rid of this problem but have not had official confirmation.

Okay then. That's the bad stuff, on to the good.

Everything else.

10 years later FFT is STILL the pinnacle of SRPG gameplay. It is ridiculous how well this game has aged. I'm a huge fan of SRPGs and have played a lot of them in the 10 years since FFT saw its initial release. FFT plays the best. Still.

I don't know if it's the active movement in the game that gets rid of the Your Phase/Enemy phase, making battles more dynamic and exciting.

I don't know if it's the job system with some of the most customizable characters ever in an rpg. FFT on psp also adds the Dark Knight and Onion Knight into the mix, although I haven't been able to unlock them yet.

Or it could be the amazing soundtrack, which still has some of the most amazing music ever in a video game.

Maybe it's the new translation which, only 10 hours in, already has severable memorable moments:

Agrias: You would have us slaughter them? That would play into Lord Goltanna's hands. All we need do is rout them.

Gaffgarion: I find dead men rout more easily.

I haven't played the original in several years, but I remember being very confused. I eventually stopped paying attention to the story and just played it for the gameplay. Not so anymore, the new translation is not only a hell of a lot better, but you can actually comprehend it. The tension between the nobles and common is palpable. The scene with Algath (was algus) and Delita after Tietra, Delita's sister, gets kidnapped also stands out.

It's probably all of these things, along with the animated cutscenes which are as great as the rest of the game, that combine to make FFT such a great game. It has its flaws, but the rest of the game is so good that I simply don't care. The entirety of the game more than makes up for a little bit of slowdown. Would I like it if the slowdown was gone? Yes, of course. But it's there and I can't change that, so no use bitching. I hardly notice it anymore in any case.

There aren't very many games that I can go back to so many years after where the gameplay is just as good as it was the day I touched it without the power of nostalgia lending a hand. Super Metroid, Castlevania: SotN, to name a couple. I'll just add FFT into that elite list of classics.

SRPGs own your soul.

Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions comes out next week. For the uninitiated, shame on you. This is, perhaps, the best Strategy RPG ever created. Definitely in the top two. The new psp port comes packed to the gills (!!!) with new job classes (Dark Knight and Onion Knight), new cutscenes with voices exclusive to English Localization, and, most importantly, a new translation. That's right, lines like "Surrender now or die in obscurity" are no more. Instead the game reads much like a George RR Martin book (go read, now.) Complete with calling people "ser".

In the interim, I've been playing Crisis Core and Jeanne D' Arc. I got to Nibleheim in Crisis Core, which was just all types of awesome. Although Tifa's skirt is a lot lower than I ever remember seeing it. At about 20 hours, I've completed 31% of the missions. I probably won't try to get all of them as I don't want to turn around and do it again when I play it in English. Sephiroth still wins you and seeing Cloud as a little noob SOLDIER is hilarious.

Jeanne D' Arc is a really solid title from developers level 5. It takes the historic figure in Ms. D' Arc and turns it into a fantasy SRPG. I'm not familiar with the actual history and honestly couldn't care less how accurate this game is to it. The gameplay is great. Unlike a lot of other SRPGS, and maybe it's just me here, the game really emphasizes movement and order thanks to too systems inherent to the game: The "Burning Strike" and some guard thing that I forget the name of at the moment, haha.

The Burning Strike (Screens from IGN and also, apparently, retranslated in the final version).











This little burning thing appears behind the enemy when you attack them. A person standing in the aura will receive a major attack bonus on his or her next strike. Planning out your attacks and the order in which you have your characters go becomes a little bit more important because of this. Maybe your little thief, Colet, could use the exp. boost from killing this enemy (being so damn weak and all), so have Jeanne attack, making the enemy turn around and have Colet sneak up inside the circle for the attack boost from behind. It's a very little thing, but it adds a lot to the overall gameplay.

UNIFIED GUARD! Ha, I just remembered, just now. This happens when you have your characters grouped together. It gives everybody a defense boost, which is really useful for keeping weaker characters alive.

And, as with most level 5 games, there is a really deep skill creating system. Your characters, instead of having set classes, get to equip Skill Stones. These include magic, special attacks, and stat augments. Later in the game you'll acquire the ability to combine these stones to create even more awesomer skills (complete with a cameo from the Frog that did much the same thing in Rogue Galaxy). It's fun to combine skills only to see that you won't be able to use the damn thing for 10 more levels.

And now to continue waiting for FFT. 8 days.

Yay for English class.

I have an idiotic English instructor.

On the first day of class she showed up 45 minutes late. She had no materials with her. She said that she would email the syllabus and first assignment to us. Three days later I still had no email.

On the second class we had a writing assignment that I turned into her. I handed it to her, she took the paper from me.

The next week she told me that I didn't give her anything. After reminding her that I had in fact done exactly this, she admitted that she might have, just possibly, put it in a folder with another class.

Huzzah.

On this same day, we had peer editing for an essay due that day. I am not sure why exactly we have an essay due on the same day that we are supposed to edit it in class. I am not the brains of this operation. But this is how it is done. 3 hours of peer editing. One student told me that my opinion isn't clear in my essay. Another told me that my critical analysis of MLK's "Letter From Birmingham Jail" was too much like a critical analysis. They meant it as a bad thing; I ignored them all and took the essay home and changed some things that I had noticed. I emailed the teacher the essay at 5:31pm that Saturday.

The next week the teacher had not graded it. She also had not recorded my grade for the in class writing assignment.

This week I got both back. A 100 on my essay, a 98 on my in class writing. Apparently I can write. But I'm still going to have 3 hour classes of other students telling me things contrary to this. Now this is fine since we have to. But I don't think any of us students should be going over another's paper, especially not with an intent to correct something. Giving me an opinion on a topic sentence or something would be fine. My thesis isn't clear. Hey, thanks. But what a waste of 3 hours of my life to have somebody tell me that I should have "I" in my essay much more and that my analysis is too much of an analysis.

I love school.

Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core

I have to preface this by saying that I'm a /huge/ fan of Final Fantasy VII. This seems to affect other people's views on another's opinion for some reason. Now, I am not an FFVII "fanboy", but I do love the game. I loved it when it was released, I love it just as much now. I can, however, realize that the game has aged and not well. It is not the be-all-end-all of rpgs. But I think it IS a great game. One that I adore.

So that out of the way, on to FFVII:CC. It starts out with a scene that anybody who has played FFVII should be familiar with: A train rushing towards its destination, a man in blue clothing aboard. The direction of the game continues the over the top action that Advent Children began. Zack jumps off of a helicopter, lands lightly on his feet, and makes short work of some grunts that are shooting at him. When the train stops and Zack gets off, it sets up the major differences between Zack and Cloud. Where Cloud couldn't be bothered to say anything more than "I don't care." for the first 20 hours, Zack is talking on the phone when some enemies run up to him. He continues talking even when the soldiers show that they want to fight. He reluctantly hangs up his phone and pulls out his sword and you get your first glimpse of the combat of Crisis Core.

You get to move around in realtime with the D-pad or the Nub. Circle is attack, Square is dodge, Triangle is guard. You have 5 different slots for actions: Attack, 3 materia slots, and Item. You can not mash attack all willy-nilly. Actions seem to be timed, although it isn't very extreme: half a second at most between attacks. Magic has a little bit of charge, leaving you open to be hit by opponents. This WILL interrupt your casting, which I think is a nice touch for strategy. And enemies will move! Blizzard creates the typical block of ice that drops down on your opponent. The only problem is that it drops down on your opponent...and they move. In contrast, Fire and Thunder track the opponent. Maybe Blizzard will be better when I level it up. What I'm surprised by is how much skill that you can put into the battle. Enemies shoot a Fire spell, and if you're paying attention in between attacks you can easily dodge it. Fighting two big, slow, lumbering brutes I managed to defeat them with minimal damage due to smart attack management, guarding and well-timed rolls. I loves it.

The subsystem of this game is called "Digital Mind Wave" or DMW for short. This is the slot machine thing that's been seen in screenshots. It will randomly stop and give you a "Modulation Phase". If you get favorable faces lined up, three Sephiroths say, then Zack will unleash a special attack similar to limit breaks from FF7. Zack's skills make Cloud's omnislash look like a low level ability...and I've only got 4 hours. It's a weird system, though. It's completely random and seems to control everything from leveling to HP boosts. Not sure what I think of this yet.

The game is mission based. So far there isn't any type of world map. You can talk to people to progress the story or access optional missions. They show the assumed difficulty of the mission beforehand so you know what you're getting into. Since you can only access them from save points there's little risk to them except for the time you spend if you die. They net you items or materia, some of the summons are optional missions.

I'm shocked at how good this game seems to be so far. It looks amazing, topping MGS for the best looking portable game ever. The CG is advent children quality, the voices sound awesome. The music, most of it so far, is remixed FF7 tracks. Given the change in direction the kind of rock alternative really fits it. I love the new boss music.

If I have any complaints, it's that the camera isn't always the best. But I've yet to play a 3d fighter where the camera isn't a minor complaint.

Yuffie wins you.

RIP: Robert Jordan

Not the update I'd had in mind :(. Robert Jordan, Author of The Wheel of Time, passed away. The breadth of his imagination was incredible. It is saddening that he did not live to complete the work which spanned over 18 years of his life.

He inspired me to want to write, to create something with as much vision as he has had for Rand al' Thor. He was an extraordinarily talented being.