The Witcher (2007)

 

Genre: RPG | Players: 1 | Developer: CD Projekt Red

        In a crapsack medieval world where peasants are terrorized by monsters, bandits and an encroaching empire coming north to conquer the kingdoms, the peasants only recourse are Witchers; Humans enhanced with alchemy and a lifetime of training that give them a longer life, heightened senses and greater strength to hunt monsters. Witchers roam the land killing monsters or solving problems for a price, but they are a dying breed of warrior as the process to make witchers is both deadly and requires obscure arcane knowledge as well as regular humans fearing and shunning them despite the service they provide.

     A veteran witcher Geralt awakens in the forest close to his home fortress of Kaer Morhen, dazed and close to death. He is found by fellow witchers and taken home where a sorceress named Triss helps heal him. They are glad to see Geralt as he was thought to be dead for some time. Geralt has lost his memories, but before they can try to help him recollect bandits led by a rogue mage with a pet monster attack the fortress. Geralt and the witchers repel them with the help of Triss at the cost of the newest witcher recruits life and realize the mage managed to steal the knowledge and ingredients to the witcher process. Geralt sets off to hunt them down for revenge, to return the witcher secrets and to find out more about his past that he can't remember with the only clue being the insignia some of the bandits wore.

      The game looks like an early PS2 game and controls like a 90s point and click rpg despite being released a decade after. Aged as well as the sidequests where you collect sexual conquests as trading cards. Thankfully there is a 3rd control scheme you can select that uses mouse and keyboard with a fixed over the shoulder camera that makes it closer to a decent action game. The one click swordplay is very unengaging especially at first, but gets mildly better as you learn to switch sword-styles for different enemies. You can enhance your abilities with alchemy and books, but both require expensive materials. Some enemy parts needed for quests can't even be harvested unless the player has read the matching book first. You would think just rooting around in the corpses would be enough. Exploration is fairly open ended as Geralt travels around talking to NPCs looking for any paying work while investigating the main quest. The game is also plagued by a few bugs like character hair models that can't stay still and fly around like a flag in a storm, animations that don't load and random crashes. The characters and story are still quite good and may be enough to tough out the slog of the gameplay, but non hardcore fans may want to just watch a recap video or wait for the announced remake.

Buyer's Guide: An enhanced edition is available in most online storefronts that fixes bugs and removes the censorship that was in the original North American release. Can also wait for the announced remake by a new studio overseen by CD Projekt Red.

2 Bangin a witch near the mob tryin to kill her out of 5 

Final Fantasy VIII (1999)

Genre: RPG | Players: 1 | Developer: Squaresoft

VIII went out of its way to create a very unique and strange system, but it ironically ended up producing a very one-dimensional experience, even compared to bog-standard RPG systems. Basically, you equip stocks of spells as armor and stat-boosts. Of course, this drops your inclination to use magic to absolute 0. Well, close enough. You’ll usually end up collecting two full batches of the various Cure spells, so you can actually use them, as intended, but that’s it. Outside of that, when you cast magic, you’re decreasing your stats! Why would you ever want to do that?

There are two ways to get magic, but all that changes between those methods is HOW you’re going to be significantly waylaid. You can ‘Draw’ magic from enemies, resulting in a duplication of leveling. You’ll be leveling yourself and grinding for spells whenever you come across an enemy with something new. Ideally, you don’t want to level, because enemies’ levels increase right alongside yours. But, you need AP to teach your summons new abilities, especially if you’re using the second method. Ergo, you ARE going to level to a normal degree, unless you specifically modify EVERY non-boss enemy into its playing card, from the game’s preeminent mini-game, Triple Triad. That only increases the time necessary to complete the game a MILLION fold. You ARE going to level. It is…inevitable...

The second method involves modifying Triple Triad cards and item drops into collections of spells. Again, that only means that you’re going to spend aeons playing cards, or getting drops, instead of Drawing spells. There is no escaping the eternity of VIII, unless you’re a speedrunner, but their fate is still mostly the same.

VIII commits a fundamental sin. I consider a fundamental sin to be an act that goes against something so BASIC to the structure or purpose of something, that it should have never had to be spoken of, in the first place. The joy of grinding in jrpgs is based on the very simple concept of reinforcement. The more you level, the stronger you become, and USUALLY the more money you acquire. The stronger you are, the faster battles end. This creates a very nice curve, and cycle, of reinforcement.

VIII says, ‘NO.’ An early boss battle sums the problem up, perfectly:

'Oh, no! HELP ME!'

'Yo, I got you, girl...just wait for about 30 minutes while I Draw these 3 new spells from this thing and its minions. Don’t worry, I’ll get around to defeating them, eventually.'

You get stuck in singular battles for extended periods of time, Drawing spells. The joy of getting into and ending battles swiftly is largely denied. It doesn’t help that the battle animations feel like they’re in slow-motion, and there’s a healthy delay to getting into battles AND starting card games. Again, there is no escape.

What inevitably happens (if you don’t quit immediately) is that you put up with this and equip the spells and summons as best you can, in three sets, that you can switch between characters. This is largely a farce, though, since you’re just going to attack Squall until he’s in critical HP, and then have him spam his Renzokuken Limit Break endlessly, since it hits a large amount of times.

If only there was a game that allowed you to hit multiple times, without having to be on the verge of death. Oh yeah, Final Fantasy I… It’s utterly incomprehensible that VIII chose to make class-specific skills into Limits. Why isn’t the Blue Mage casting Blue Magic? Why isn’t the Monk doing his special attacks, at will? Why isn’t the gunman using special ammo? Why is the Beastmaster not using her beast? The ways to prevent players from spamming these skills are MP pools, fighting game inputs, and ammo supplies. They had all of this down pat two games prior! But, here, they all have to be nearly dead to use their special skills. What? Why?!?!

I’ll address Triple Triad, here, because I want to end with some discourse on the story and characters. When I think of VIII, I'm always struck by how I remember the events of it, but virtually nothing of the characters. They are character sketches, at best. Ideas jotted on a napkin, by a writer, that were never brought to life, never developed. It's exactly the same in Uchu Sentai Kyuranger. At the end of the series, because there have been no personal interactions between them, no bonding, no hanging out, the Senshi are STILL just character sketches. 50 hours, or 50 episodes, and there's nothing to show for any of these characters beyond: "This is the brooding lead." "This is the sickeningly cute girl." "This is the chef.” Many members of the party in Xenogears only have their introductory story event to their names. This is honestly much more than most of the party in VIII can claim. They’re almost like Transformers: they’re definitely personalities, but not really characters.

Part of the issue is that Squall is given carte blanche to turn them off like light-switches. Quistis TRIES to be a character, but Squall flatly says, ‘NO. Not on my watch.’ No one should ever be given this manner of power.

When it comes to the story…I still don’t entirely understand it. I’ve definitely heard some theories about it, but none of them have helped me. The resolution to this amorphous issue is honestly awe-inspiring, in the worst possible way. You are going to be presented with the most bald reasoning I have ever witnessed. It’s like an animatronic that has been stripped of not only its skin, but also all of the plastic shielding holding its wire guts to shape.

You can’t do that. You have to come up with some explanation, guys. It doesn’t have to be elaborate, but it has to EXIST. I’m talking Care Bears, here, guys. Care Bears. Oh, and technically the game's biggest surprises are spoiled by the computer you can access at the very beginning of the game. But, who reads things? Oh wait, people who play RPGs... 😡

There was a time when I actually strolled into a forum and claimed that this was my favorite game. Do you know why? Because it helped me waste time. It gave me something to do, while I was coming to grips with something I had lost. First came VIII, then came XII. I needed time and distractions. If that’s all you need, have at it. It’s great for wasting your time, but little else.

A dumpster fire, from stem to stern. I don’t understand how things like this and Kyuranger make it out of development, in such a state.

 

I'll stick with Dirge, tyvm~

Buying Guide: Originally a PSX release. Also, PC. It's been remastered, so it's on PS4, Switch, and Xbox One. I've seen some screenshots. They definitely half-assed it. I'm honestly not surprised. Wait, didn't they lose the source code, or something? Some things are lost for a reason, mir?

0 Dreamy Cowboys For Selphie To Bang, Even If She Wrote This Fanfiction out of 5

Bastion (2011)

Genre: Action Adventure | Players: 1 | Developer: Supergiant Games

The protagonist known only as "The Kid" wakes up in his bed to find an apocalyptic event called "The Calamity" has shattered the land and only random pieces of landmass float around as he makes his way to the titular Bastion; an emergency evacuation place for the city of Caelondia. Only one other person survived to make it to the Bastion; An old man known only as "the Stranger" who also provides the wonderful, low growl narration. The Bastion can be enhanced by finding Cores; huge crystals that used to power the city. The more cores that are found makes the Bastion larger and more functional. It also allows the Skyway that shoots him to remaining landmasses to send the Kid to farther landmasses. While exploring the wild, the Kid will fight various monsters with a variety of upgradeable weapons and search for cores and survivors while the Stranger narrates about the background of the places visited and sometimes snarks about what the Kid is doing (usually something the player did).

The Kid runs around in an isometric environment with the maps revealing themselves as the player explores in a beautifully rendered, highly colorized artstyle that somewhat contrasts with the downer scenario. The combat follows the old adage of "easy to pick up, difficult to master". It is fairly straightforward, but with nuance and the various weapon combinations add more as players progress. The Bastion can also be upgraded to add a forge for weapon upgrading, a distillery that allows for equip-able potions that offer a variety of passive buffs, and a shrine that adds more challenges when the various gods are invoked. The soundtrack is a wonderful new mix of old time western tunes with some more modern electronic and heavy bass. The controls were at first obtuse and janky on the PC since aiming with the mouse made a weird disconnect with attacks especially with melee weapons were The Kid would attack where the  cursor was instead of the direction he is facing which feels unnatural and is probably different with a joystick. Having gotten used to it though it still worked pretty good and eventually I couldn't put it down. With the great story, wonderful fresh genre soundtrack, and a fair amount of replayabilty with different weapons, modes and New Game Plus makes this one an easy recommendation.

Buyer's Guide:
Available on Steam, Xbox Live Arcade, iOS, OnLive and as a browser game for Google Chrome.

4½ Level-starting Faceplants out of 5

Ys: The Ark of Napishtim (2006)

Genre: Action RPG | Players: 1 | Developer: Nihon Falcom Corporation

 Ys is a long running series and this installment picks up from a previous game. The main hero is Adol; a red haired, do-gooder pirate who was thrown from his ship in a storm and has now washed ashore on the Canaan Islands which are home to a mystical race of people called Rehda. Now he must figure out how to leave the island which is no easy feat as the storm that brought him here is actually a never-ending vortex surrounding the whole island that has a reputation for stranding lost travelers, so he must instead try to keep peace between the native Rehda villagers and the settlement of stranded humans.

Gameplay is a standard action-RPG variety. Adol can attack in real time with various upgrade-able swords and can boost his stats with new equipment. There are also a small selection of special moves and a magic spell that changes depending on what weapon is currently being used which must be charged by giving or receiving damage. The enemies are surprisingly varied and the action is quick and simple, but still satisfying. The art and music are top notch though the PSP version was downgraded to sprites from the PS2/PC version with full polygons that change based on Adol's equipment. The only thing really wrong is the loading times. They are far too long and far too frequent. The game loads after exiting EVERY. DAMN. ROOM and can take up to 20 seconds which is sometimes longer than the time that will even be spent in said room. It is massively annoying to load and enter an empty room for that long and then it takes 3 seconds to turn left and boom there is another loading screen. The game was good enough to force my way through it, but it was still problematic. One more nitpick is I had to turn down the SFX volume because the sound of Adol's footsteps were loud as fuck and sounded like he had hooves.

Buyer's Guide:
Available for PC, PS2 and PSP. Go for the PS2 version if you can for full polygons, voice acting and to avoid the chronic load times. The only thing the PSP version has going for it is a few added fetch quests and an unlockable media database.

3 Anti-hero assholes in all black out of 5

Xenogears (1998)

Genre: RPG | Players: 1 | Developer: Squaresoft

I missed this one the first time around, but being an avid fan of all things Square I pulled it off PSN. The game starts with our protagonist Fei Fong Wong who has been brought to a small town with a bad case of that ever-so-useful amnesia. After a few years of peaceful living, a centuries long conflict between the 2 nations of Aveh and Kislev spill over into town and the town is destroyed in the battle between the armies' huge mechs called "gears". Now Fei must travel the continent with the town doctor Citan and discover the origins of the conflict and the forces behind it that may go back even farther.

Gameplay is a fairly standard RPG model with a twist on the turn based battles. During each character's turn, they are assigned attack points that can be used for either low, medium or high powered attacks that are mapped to the triangle, square and X buttons respectively. Using different combinations will allow the use of special deathblow combos that can be learned with experience. Unused AP can also be saved and then used for a long string of deathblows for devastating damage. There is also ether points (EP) that are this universe's form of magic which acts in an identical way to most other RPGs, but the main draw for most is probably the battles inside of the gears. Gear battles are pretty much the same except AP is replaced with fuel which every attack consumes as well as any special abilities the gear might have like healing. Woe be to the player who gets stuck fighting a gear sized enemy without their own gear.

The story starts out almost cliche, but gets more interesting as more subplots and characters are added. Then it goes too far in the opposite direction with so much going on that the whole narrative becomes muddled and confusing. The majority of the subplots are never resolved and it comes to a head on disc 2 when they are all mostly dropped completely as is most of the actual game.The story becomes a long slog of characters narrating events to the player instead of actually playing it out. Only sparse scenarios interrupt this shift with things like the world map and visiting towns and such disappearing completely until the endgame. This fault line was so bleh that I almost stopped playing, especially when I sat for over an hour reading narration with no gameplay. Whatever the reasons for the rift, it mars the game and it took considerable effort to maintain the motivation to keep going which I did mostly to justify the hours already spent. The themes based off of different psychological practices were interesting until they became overblown like everything else. There is a bunch of stuff ranging from reincarnation and gene manipulation to nano machines and living gods when just picking one would have made a much more cohesive experience. It feels like a bad case of spectacle creep and a nasty extension of the weird habit Japan has of giving divine qualities to large robots that I am rarely willing to accept. They can never just be weapons.

Otherwise the game held up better than most of the time even if the sparse anime cutscenes are nowadays nothing special and the voice-overs for them are laughably out of synch and there are way too many random battles, often within a few seconds of the previous one ending. Altogether, an interesting experience if not always an enjoyable one.

Buyer's Guide:
The original PS1 release is a collectors item, so expect to pay a premium for it even though it is now available for download on PSN.

2½ But at least there was kung-fu and gun-slinging priests out of 5

Final Fantasy IX (2000)

Genre: RPG | Players: 1 | Developer: SquareSoft

The ninth installment of Square's flagship series is a return to its roots, ditching the cyberpunk and sci-fi trappings of VII and VIII and returning to a more classical medieval fantasy setting with a generally more lighthearted tone in both plot and character design. The main protagonist Zidane is a thief whose group of thieves/theater actors has been hired to kidnap Princess Garnet of the Alexandria kingdom. He is surprised when she actually wants to be kidnapped, but Queen Brahne of course isn't happy about it. After their airship crashes during the escape an adventure begins at first to get Garnet to safety and then to explore the reasons for the Queen's increasingly aggressive actions that threaten to plunge the whole of the known world into war.

The return to roots in setting is also in the gameplay mechanics such as the return to a 4 member party limit and exclusive classes between characters as well as numerous callbacks and references to the series as a whole. The leveling and abilities have been simplified and the whole game is much more accessible and user-friendly, making this a good entry point for new players. Though the game feels much shorter than other installments and it actually is since it is possible to complete the game in less than 20 hours which is a fraction of most JRPGs. One sidequest even requires a time limit to the endgame of 12 hours. Of course how much the player chooses to indulge in the leveling, minigames and sidequests will affect how much time and joy they get out of the gameplay which is good for experienced players.

The aesthetics are very well-designed with the bright and slighty cartoony backgrounds as well as the more stylized and deformed characters ranging from standard humans to anthropomorphized hippos and anteaters. This is only hampered by the limits of the console it was designed for as the PlayStation was on its last legs at the time of this release. The pixels on top of polygons effect that was used does squeeze more detail out of the hardware, but adds to it sometimes grainy and muddled visuals. Whatever that lacks in visuals though is made up in story and characters. The 8 main characters are all likeable and relatable with each trying to overcome their own problems ranging from existential crisis, the nature of duty and honor, love and loss and loneliness, etc.  The adventure is not only a quest for a goal, but also a personal growth journey for each of them. My personal favorite of the series as well as that of the series' creator as it represents everything that the series was envisioned to be.

Buyer's Guide:
Can be found for the original PlayStation in both the original and Greatest Hits releases and as a PSone Classic on PlayStation Network.

4½ Surprisingly no palette swaps of enemies out of 5

Final Fantasy VI / III (1994)

Genre: RPG | Players: 1 | Developer: Squaresoft
Credit to Dr Faustus, fellow Nut author, for this wonderfully altered artwork.

I don’t believe it’s entirely possible for someone to be unbiased when talking about their favorite game. That’s sort of the consequence of playing it countless times over the course of 19 years.

In essence, this is an ensemble cast game done right. There are 14 main playable characters in addition to the handful who’ll join your party temporarily. As daunting as that may seem, from a narrative perspective, the story does rest on set pieces crucial to the lives of the most central personalities. Still, even the most peripheral have heartbreaking and poignant experiences. Hell, there’s even a very plausible storyline hinted at for one of the optional members!

This small army is put up against one of the most demented and successful villains in the history of fiction. To save the world, they will have to be ground a fair deal. Here, the name of the game is magic. Its resurrection in a time of high technology is the impetus for the conflict at hand and you would do well to teach most of the spells to at least 6 or 7 characters to compensate for the multiple party mechanic utilized throughout the game. There is hope for speedy completion in the form of the Vanish glitch. But, it has been patched in almost every subsequent port of the game. Boo.

The music is stirring and highly memorable and the graphics stand as some of the greatest sprite work ever produced. While there are MANY highlights, the brightest is still capable of bringing grown men to tears, to this day.

More than a SNES turn-based RPG, more than just a Final Fantasy, VI is a masterpiece that should be at least tried by all.

Buyer’s Guide: In the end, the original SNES and VC releases are the way to go. The PS1 port should be avoided at all costs because of the lag to opening the menu. That version on PSN? Exactly the same. It appears to be a straight disc rip. The GameBoy Advance overhaul has a completely retranslated script, additional Espers, and extra dungeons. I imagine this will be fine for anyone who won’t get mental hiccups from the changes. The SNES Mini has the Woolsey translation and I'd wager it's the ROM from the VC.

 

The Pixel Remasters look like ass trash. They are a smidge better than the abominations they cooked up for mobile phones. JEEBUS H. FISTO. Sprites forever!

5 Promises to Find One Another out of 5
A review of Peter Olafson's Players Guide can be found here.

Jikandia: The Timeless Land (2011)

Genre: Action RPG | Players: 1-2 | Developer: Idea Factory

A group of classmates are on a train when they are suddenly thrown into a portal that takes them to the land of Jikandia. A little blue cat thingy tells them he brought them there to stop Time from restarting in Jikandia which will apparently start a bunch of bad shit.The story is actually kind of blah, but the game is at least partly aware of it and is sometimes passive aggressive toward itself. Those moments are chuckle-worthy, but are few and far between. Annoyingly the story is delivered through the smallest test box I have ever seen. It comes half a sentence at a time and often during the action which means players will most likely miss it. There is some time distinguishing between the different characters, but it is sparse and not engaging. The only difference that matters is each classmate uses a different attack. Switching between them adds some strategy to the randomly generated levels.

The game seems to advertise those dungeons as a selling point as well as the "feature" that lets you decide how long you want to be in them; ranging from 3 to 30 minutes. This is a catch 22 as spending too little time will not gain players enough strength to defeat the progressively stronger enemies, but the randomly generated levels aren't interesting enough to warrant a longer time. Longer times will net you more loot and cash, but the cash is useless as the store in the one town is woefully inadequate with a seemingly also randomly generated selection that pales with what players gain fighting enemies and opening treasure chests. I finished the game with over 500,000 bucks and having bought nothing. Each floor only takes a few seconds to run through with varying bonus directives that range from killing all enemies to getting to the next floor in a certain time limit. Completing the directive gains players a star that gives bonuses when five are maintained. Failing to complete them takes a star away, but they are not necessary for advancement.

The RPG part of the game is the most interesting with various weapons with widely varying attack styles and stats to try as well as equippable crystals that enhance stats and give new abilities. Even that variety isn't enough to make the longer time an attractive option though. There is an ad hoc option to go dungeon crawling with a friend and the retro pixel art style is kind of cute, but the game is a barely average button masher that only the most OCD of players would want to keep playing for 100% completion.

Buyer's Guide:
Available on PSP and downloadable on PSN.

2 Dead Like Me name-drops out of 5

Golden Sun: The Lost Age (2003)

Genre: Role-playing | Players: 1-2 | Developer: Camelot

The Lost Age picks up where the last game left off, but you now play from the perspective of Felix whom you had been chasing in the first game. They now journey to light the remaining elemental lighthouses and restore the ancient force of Alchemy.

Gameplay is mostly unchanged from the first installment. Standard RPG fare enhanced with equip-able Djinn familiars. There are a few tweaks in that now there are equip-able items that can change your class, you can mix different elements of Djinn for new summons in addition to the old summons and this installment is quite a bit more non-linear. The previous game let you revisit locations and do some events out of order, but this one is even more so. There are also certain game elements that change if you transfer your completed game data from the first game via either a link cable or a password taken from the first game cartridge. It isn't necessary to finish the game, but it can give some bonuses like extra items and some new scenarios depending on your actions as the first protagonist, Isaac. It is also the only way to get all Djinn. The battle mode is also still available via the link cable.

Puzzles, animation and exploration are all ramped up with new spells and locations to visit and then revisit with new spells to unlock hidden areas. The game also falls on the easy side, but less so than the first game. It also moves at a slower pace which can be grating at times. It takes a good way into the adventure just to get your 4th party member. There are new enemies, but like the first there are a limited number and new enemies are often just recolored sprites of the original enemies. Even the new main villains are just similar stand-ins for the first game's lost ones. Just as good as the first with some new tweaks.

Buyer's Guide:
This one carries a higher price than most for some reason. Used copies can be had for $15-25. New copies can go much higher. From $25 to $100.

4 The "spear-wielding, desert tribe in need of a witch doctor" section might come off a bit racist out of 5

Golden Sun (2001)

Genre: Role-playing | Players: 1-2 | Developer: Camelot

I'll give Doc's style a shot.

Golden Sun is a role-playing game for the GBA that is very reminiscent of old school SNES rpgs. In a sprite based cartoon art style, players control silent protagonist Isaac and his friends as they journey across the continent in pursuit of the villains who have not only stolen mystical and dangerous artifacts from the village, but have also kidnapped 2 of Isaac's friends as well. They must recover their friends and the artifacts before they can be used to unseal the ancient force of Alchemy.

Battle against monsters and humans alike with the usual swords, axes, etc. and this game's form of magic called Psynergy. Each character has an innate element based on the four classical elements (Fire, Earth, Water, Wind) that they can use to cast spells both in and outside of battle. These can also be modified using Djinn; elemental familiars you can capture to equip and modify spells and stats. Mixing elements will make new spells such as adding a water djinn to an earth innate will give him plant based spells that outside of battle can grow climbable vines to access hidden areas. Djinn also have unique abilities that can be used in battle like one turn invulnerability and enhanced attacks. Or they can be unequipped at the cost of stat boosts to be summoned in battle. The more Djinn used (max of 4) summons more powerful creatures. All this adds more layers of strategy to the standard RPG battles. Two GBA's can be linked to battle other players as well outside of the single player game.

The game does fall a bit on the easy side. While this eliminates level grinding it also makes all the strategy options they give you all but unnecessary. You can go through the whole game without once mixing Djinn or summoning if you're not a complete idiot. But it is still a fun game full of detailed animation, hidden areas and bosses, special weapons, light puzzle solving and a lighthearted adventure.

Buyer's Guide:
Can be found used and new for between $10 and $20.

4 One eyed magic rock monsters who seem powerful enough to do this shit themselves out of 5

Fable (2004)

Genre: Action RPG | Players: 1 | Developer: Lionhead Studios

Found a beat-up copy in a box. Thought I would give it a shot.

Gameplay:
Journey across the land fighting monsters and such with a myriad of augment-able weapons and upgradeable spells in a sandbox-type environment. The hook here is the morality system that gives good or evil points based on your actions. Neither path is wrong, but it doesn't really matter since it only affects your appearance and a few alignment-specific spells. Choices that actually affect the story can be chosen either way regardless of alignment. It's a little harder to get laid when your evil, but nothing a new haircut and clothes won't fix. The marriage stuff affects nothing story-wise anyway.

Controls:
Combat is straightforward. Choose a weapon or spell and press attack. Dodge occasionally to keep up your combo and boom, you win. Simple, but the best part of the game. The system for selecting items and hotkeys is a little unwieldy.

Graphics:
Pretty with some pop-in issues. A few times textures failed to load.

Story:
Your hometown is attacked and your family is murdered, so you are taken to train at the Hero's Guild. Then you can journey across Albion to uncover those responsible for the attack and complete quests.

Buyer's Guide:
Easily found since it was a good seller. Can be found for as low as $7 online for Xbox and PC. There is also the expansion The Lost Chapters.

2½ Union Jack underoos out of 5

Dragon Force (1996)

Genre: Real-time Strategy | Players: 1 | Developer: Sega

An overlooked title for the US-ignored Sega Saturn that has become a cult classic.

Gameplay:
The game takes place on an over world map where players choose one of 8 kingdoms and attack and defend castles to take territory and conquer the other 7 kingdoms. Battles take place from a side view of the battlefield where players control a general and an army. Players choose formations, give commands and use special moves to defeat the opposing army before the timer runs out. Armies can be comprised of up to 100 soldiers on both sides. Troop types range from standard soldiers and cavalry to more mythical ones like harpies and zombies. Each type has strengths and weaknesses versus other types. For example, soldiers are great against beasts, but lose to cavalry and cavalry loses to beasts. Sort of a rock-paper-scissors with more options. Quick and simple, but fun and even addicting.

Graphics:
Sprites are done in a charming cartoon style and the game doesn’t chug even with full 100 man armies on both sides. Quite a feat back then. FMV’s are done in an anime style, but the old video quality doesn’t hold up as well as the sprites.

Sound:
The soundtrack is quite good with various character themes, relaxing “at rest” melodies and catchy battle tunes. Each troop type has only one death sound which is kind of funny when many die in quick succession, but overall not very noticeable.

Story:
The kingdom of Fandaria has declared war on the entire continent of Legendra and the player must unite the kingdoms while searching for the titular Dragon Force.

Buyer’s Guide:
The game is a collector’s item so expect to shell out cash to own it. About $200 will get a mint copy and $50 might get a used one online. Or you can import the PS2 re-release that was only available in Japan.

5 god-fighting holy dragons out of 5

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006)

Genre: Role-playing | Players: 1 | Developer: Bethesda

I was not initially very enthusiastic about this game when it first came out. I had never heard of the series and I had watched others play and it seemed less than enthralling. Then I gave it a shot one day because I had already sat down and was too lazy to get up again and change the disc. This spurred me to buy a copy off of Steam.

Gameplay:
The action can come in a 1st or 3rd person view as you journey across Tamriel on a great adventure. Or just dick around killing wildlife and completing sidequests. It's your choice.
The environment is huge and full of towns, characters and caves to explore. It can almost be too huge causing over-reliance on the fast travel feature which undermines the adventure feeling a bit.
The choices are also vast. Everything from your stats, leveling and what you wear or use. I spent countless hours just in the character creation messing with all the options for race, hairstyle and facial features. I set out to make the ugliest bastard I could. He ended up looking like Doc Brown. Still satisfying.
This is also where things can get complicated. While there are many choices for stats, there are really only a few ways they can be implemented if you don't want to be screwed by the weird, disjointed leveling system. I recommend choosing a path and sticking with it. Mixing and matching classes will only lead to wasted skills and underpowered characters.
Spells can be bought or you can make your own with some equipment and come in all types. They can be straight up destruction with fire, lightning, etc or They can be used to augment yourself, your weapons, armor or those of your enemy. Melee Combat is just as varied with a wide range of weapons and armor. All this makes the game very customizable and replayable. All this can be used on enemies ranging from wildlife like wolves and bears to bandits and wraiths. Or you can spend your time talking to citizens and taking quests that range from missing persons to dungeon crawling and assassination.
Overall: Great variety, imperfect execution.

Controls:
The controls can be daunting since the games range of choices necessitates a large menu system to handle all your options. It may require some time to learn. Learning and taking advantage of hotkeys will let you switch and use items on the fly and shorten the amount of time you will spend in menus.
Melee combat I found was better in 3rd person view since it gave a better view of the fight. Better for retreating and such.
Magic and arrows however pretty much require 1st person if you want to actually hit anything. Another reason not to mix classes. Advantage goes to the PC version for this.
Overall the controls could have been a little smoother and more precise. Small things like ending conversation or picking up small items(or dropping items) should be quicker and less of a hassle. Advantage goes to the console version here as some of these tasks can be done with the push of a button.

Graphics:
They may be a bit dated now, but they can still impress with grand vistas and crisp vibrant colors that can really make the landscape look great. This is of course only if you have a system that can handle it which can be a problem as it can still cause computers to chug even after so many years. If you have to compromise too much, it will make everything bland. I only experienced slowdown in one place which made me turn off grass causing everything to be very flat and boring.

Sound:
Sound effects are clear though they can be irksome sometimes. I don't need to hear the clink of my armor all the time especially since it sounds like the same clink over and over.
This lack of variety is also a problem with the voice acting. What is there is generally OK, but with only a handful of voice actors you find yourself speaking to the same 3 people over and over. Especially takes you out of the experience when a person switches between voices mid-conversation. I can read faster than they talk so turning off subtitles made me actually listen which made the game more engaging.
The music is the stand-out here as it is both epic and mood-enhancing though probably not something you would listen to by itself.

Story:
You are inadvertently released from prison as the Emperor flees assassination. You are tasked with finding the forces behind these events along with other major quest-lines.

Buyer's Guide:
The game is widely available on either the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC along with expansions and downloadable content. The Game of the Year Edition contains all of these for only a few bucks more.


3 Looted Bandit Corpses out of 5