Final Fantasy IV: The After Years（ファイナルファンタジーIV THE AFTER 月の帰還）

Like I said in my FF4 post, I wasn't sure if The After Years was a full game that would be worth its own post. For some reason, I had the impression that "After Years" was just a quick side-story fan service game that could be finished in like 10 hours or something. After all, could one expect a "real" game originally released on Docomo, au, and Soft Bank pre-smartphone days? (Obligatory Jhipster comment: I was a die-hard au customer cause they had the best student package.) Well thank god Square ported this from those dead platforms because this ain't no quickie 10 hour game, it's freaking FF IV-2 in episodic format.

Whoa, how did au take a photo of me here? Creepy!

I played the PSP version including Interlude which took a little under 4 hours to finish just by itself. I was not a big fan of the episodic format because you end up playing through the early events of the story again and again but from different perspectives. Objectively however, I'm not sure of a better way the game could have shown you what all the characters have been up since the events of the first game. Initially, I was afraid this was going to be a game about just the new kids on the block while you watch an old decrepit Cecil milking some imps.

What more you want from me? I defeated Zeromusu for god's sake!

Fortunately, the old cast are not shat on like some other franchises. Well, it was kind of annoying that your bad-ass party is for some reason weak as fuck again but oh well, not every game can be Trails SC. As for the new kids, while Cecil's son was as boring as you could ever imagine, at least we get to see some qipao sprite art. (Gamers, get your box of tissues ready!)

Is she a blonde Chinese? Geesh, I hope she doesn't go to the prom like that cause white people will be PISSED.

Really, the first few episodes are kinda boring and super easy but at least they're fairly short. You can blast through them with auto-battle on pretty much the entire time. However, the free ride abruptly ends with Fusuya's episode. I almost thought it was a scripted boss battle, I died so hard and fast. To make matters worse, there's a level cap to prevent grinding your way through. I mean we're talking DS level difficulty here. I'm not sure how game "journalists" were able to beat this 45 hour game without a handy cheat. Oh right, they didn't.

MY mind is blown that you get paid to rant about a 40+ hour game 20 hours in but I guess I'm "weird" like that

Once you get over the baby intro portion, the plot really does start to get more interesting. It was really satisfying to see all plot points left hanging in the first game get resolved. Kain (I used to think it was pronounced "Cane" in my ignorant pre-Jhipster days) was one of my favorite characters back in the day. Will he ever come down from the mountain? Is Cecil going to resolve his relationship with Golbelza? Is Seodoa ever going to get laid? Play to find out!

The answer to the last question: "fuck no"

Seriously though, while yes the last some 30+ floors of dungeon exploring with boss after boss might scare away those who need to get paid for the next game review, I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge. I found out in the DS version due to the nature of the ATB system, slow and haste are super OP. Casting slow on the bosses that don't spam reflect and having two members that can cast haste is the easy way to win. The moon phase also really matters so make sure you sleep until white magic is strong. (What is this, a Megaten game??)

Yes, grinding under-leveled members you ignored is a pain (Seodoa, I mean you)

I also really liked the fact that I made some choices in the game that resulted in some people getting killed. Unlike the original Hollywood "everybody is ok!" story, these characters stay fucking dead. I probably would have replayed it in my younger days but as a more mature gamer, I played through with the consequences of my choices.

Score: 3.5 How dare Square create a sequel of a beloved classic reusing the same characters and places! #MINDBLOWN out of 5 (49 hours to beat)

If you liked FF4, you really can't go wrong with this sequel in my opinion, it's everything that's good about FF4, just more of it. That is of course unless you're a "pro" journalist who can't handle a game with some real challenge. If you didn't like the original game, well you can just go back to streaming Fortnite or whatever you kids do nowadays. (You'll be famous one day I'm sure, don't forget to keep up that instagram too!)

One of like 3 new songs in the game

Are the dungeons reused? Yeah duh, just like FFX-2, I mean it takes place in the same world. Could they have added some more original music besides the few songs near the end? Sure, I could've have gone for some good FF4 remixes. Was the game balance a bit grindy for under-leveled characters? I mean it's no Trails the 3rd for sure. But overall, The After Years was everything I could've expected from a sequel to an old nostalgia tears classic and really is just as good as the first one.

OH. MY. GOD. IS THAT CANE???

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Dragon Quest III（ドラゴンクエストIII そして伝説へ…）

My first reaction when I started up Dragon Quest III was OH MY GOD, it's SOOOO much better than DQ2!!!! Once again, it paid off to start the series chronologically because the graphical leap over DQ2 was huge. I mean, yeah, I'm comparing two Super Famicon remakes but it's obvious they put way more effort into the remake of the 3rd compared to the 1&2 "bargain" bundle.

Finally feels like I'm playing a SUUPA Famicon game.

Not just the graphics, the entire game feels like a breath of fresh air and restored my faith in the series after the awful previous entry. You walk way faster and the battles are fast and smooth. The killer feature is auto dismiss on the battle dialogues. Instead of having to press a button after EVERY SINGLE action, it'll just fly by based on your dialogue speed setting. Compared to DQ2 where a single turn could require up to 20 button presses, you'll only have 8 if you have four party members (attack+select enemy x4). In addition, the battle music is not absolute crap so I'm glad to be able to play this game with the sound ON this time.

Finally, battle music that's not vomit-inducing
The game starts out with an intro of your dad with some pretty awesome cut scenes and then some deity gives you a personality test and proceeds to give you some profound life tips based on your personality. I was told some deep advice that amazingly completely matched my current situation and basically saved me from a self-destructive path of sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll. The sex especially was tough cause you know chicks be all up in my biznass 24/7 G.

I'm now convinced that this game has deeply influenced Japanese society for us old fogeys... somebody should research that. Joking aside, it was definitely fresh and exciting to start off playing a short scenario that tests your personality. I got the one about the king but failed at getting the sexy personality. Though near the end, somehow my strongest equipment ended up being bikinis and garter belts so I ended up with a whole party of sexies anyhow. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


To be featured on next BBC documentary: "Shaping the weeb generation"
Speaking of sex, another nice customization is the option to pick the gender of you and your party members. Even though you look pretty much identical in my opinion, the other character classes have more variety. A nice touch is every time somebody mentions you as Ortega's son, they have to correct themselves. I'm sure it's still an sexist and misogynist game per SJW's standards but at least now I can finally create my standard waifu party.

Disgusted by sexist pink female armor, I went with a party of all bunnies and died instantly.

However, it was only later that I found out that there is NO pafu pafu with my all waifu party. Personally, as a gender-fluid sometimes lesbian female, this is EXTREMELY OFFENSIVE toward the LGBTKFCABCDEF community and we should all boycott Nintendo NOW.

ANYWAYS, getting into the gameplay, I can quickly summarize all the changes as "everything broken in DQ2 was fixed". They added the bag that allows you to carry EVERYTHING at all times and a line of text that explains what each spell does. FINALLY! No more having to google what Behoimi and Hyadaruko fucking does. However, being a classic DQ title, the random encounters are still very much a multitask repeatedly press 'A' affair or in my case 'L' for one-handed multitasking, though thankfully not as often as DQ2. I only wish holding down 'A' went faster than mashing it. Unfortunately, it's way faster to just mash. However, to its credit, this is the first DQ game where I had to use buffs and debuffs for boss battles namely Rukani, Sukuruto, Piorimu, and Baikiruto. Yeah, I have no fucking clue what those do either, which is why the in-game descriptions are so nice. It was kinda lame that Orochi has some sort of invisible health regeneration every turn but at least it made me use more than just attack and heal.

Holy shit! Explanations? Who'da thunk it?!

So yeah, on paper, this is the best DQ and probably one of the best RPGs on the FC (based on what I've seen). The SFC version definitely has some great graphics including some awesome spell effects. Yet somehow, I just enjoyed the short and simpler days of the first DQ more. There's a TON of content here and some nice surprises near the end but man, it just got kinda boring after a while. Yeah, you could conceivably play around with more jobs but you'd have to start at level 1 again. Or you could mess about with the board games and arena or hunt all those pesky metals down (meh). For me, besides the bosses, the gameplay and world setting was just too I dunno "Dragon Quest" to keep me interested. The personality stuff was cool but as far as I could tell, it has NO effect on the story or gameplay.

Score: 3 overrated JRPG reddit rant post time! out of 5 (also -10 points for no female on female pafu pafu)

Most of the game is just the standard DQ walking around + random encounter + attack + heal affair. So while technically there is nothing wrong with the game, I thought it was just OK. Also, the short, simple dialogues kind of made the story not as impressionable as it could've been. I mean, I guess it's cool for the kids since they can't read so good. I guess I should've played this like 10 years ago... ok ok 20 years ago.. ok I'm OLD, stop pushing it! There is an optional dungeon you can play after the game but I didn't bother. The sparse dialogue just didn't make the effort worth it for me.

I dunno, maybe I'm just not a big DQ kinda guy. I will however devour a Butterscotch dipped cone ANY day but wrong DQ.

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Super Paper Mario

This is going to be a short post because platformers are not really my kind of genre. However, Super Paper Mario has so much story and a leveling system, I guess I might as well blow some steam on how much this game sucks.

First of all, the story is incredibly boring, cliche, and just goes on and on. I feel like there's a Nintendo template file somewhere in their offices which is copy+pasted for pretty much every single one of their games. They just need a thin premise substantive enough to whip up a villain and end goal to justify the game. Which is fine for them I guess but combining that shallow template with line after line of dialogue was just disastrous.

The game tries so hard to be funny but it just ISN'T. I mean is this game supposed to be funny for kids? Not only is the humor too simple to be funny but the themes are weirdly adult. Even poop jokes would be preferable than this material that seems targeted at a mysterious group of fully grown adults with the maturity level of teenagers.

Trying to be clever with galge parody.... ha ha ha I guess for the kids???

The worst "joke" is when you have to sit there, jumping 100 times to press a button. HAHA Nintendo, thanks for wasting my precious time. That's hilarious!!

No really, USE the shortcut cause it's not fucking worth it (HINT: it's the disc eject button)

In addition, the puzzles are incredibly challenging for a game that's supposed to be Cero A. While I'm always game for some puzzles, somehow, puzzles on a platformer just didn't do a thing for me. Staring at a puzzle and working it out on pen and paper yes. Aimlessly walking around in a platformer of all things trying to find the hidden 3D path or some spot to point your wiimote at... um not so much.

In fact, the only time I was actually having fun was a brief segment where you fly around in space and shoot stuff. I should've taken the hint and played Ke-Tsu-no-ana instead. Ke-Tsu-no-ana is probably a way better experience and maybe even better smelling than this pile of poo.

The only brief part that I enjoyed.

Score: 1 yes, lighting your fart on fire IS funnier than this out of 5 (23 hours to beat)

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Dragon Quest II（ドラゴンクエストII 悪霊の神々）

My first thought when I started Dragon Quest 2 immediately after DQ1 was that I didn't like it. I don't want to sound like an old fogey that hates change but man, I really don't like the changes they made from DQ1.

Yes, this is totally going to be recurring theme here.

I don't want to say something as cliched and hackneyed as "with great power comes great responsibility" but dammit, you can't just tack more shit onto a finely tuned game and expect it to come out decent.

Sure, if you start a series with only one party member, the next natural progression is to add some more party members. I didn't even notice but DQ1 only had exactly one enemy each battle. Oh boy have I noticed it now!! Consider the average length of a one-on-one battle in DQ1. Yes, the whole thing is kinda slow but given that the only turn is either you or the enemy, everything ends pretty quickly. Now take that same slow battle and triple the size of the party (hence button presses) and increase the enemy count up to 7 enemies.
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You still here? Cause I think I just went into a temporary coma. Maybe the slowness wouldn't even be that bad because of course I'm multitasking this game if not for that AWFUL battle music. OH MY GOD. I thought something was up with the emulator on my PSP but NO, it's totally craptastically accurate.

Seriously, not only did I multitask this game hardcore, I did it with the sound OFF. Even though there's actually some halfway decent songs in the game, I don't even care because this is the song you will hear for like 80% of the time. I dunno, maybe it's just me? SquareEnix must have thought this diarrhea is hot shit (LOL get it??) because they included it in Theatrhythm Dragon Quest out of the total TWO DQ2 songs in the game.

Yet another example of more isn't always better is the world map, which must be about 4X+ times larger than DQ1. You can even travel to the original town from DQ1 and though most of places in DQ1 are gone and it's scaled down, you can still get a sense of how small the original map was as it's just a small part of the world in DQ2.

Everything is all hunky-dory until you get the boat, then it becomes an open world of getting lost and trying to find shit on random floor tiles based on cryptic clues from random strangers. This game is worse than even Mother in terms of aimlessly wandering around with no clue of where to go or what to do. Now, you can find a very basic world map that barely does the job but I didn't know that until after navigating vast expanses of ocean to find tiny islands in the middle of nowhere.

Even the awesomeness of the PSP wasn't enough to make this game palatable

For kids bored out of their minds with the ONE game their parents got, I get how wandering endlessly around a vast expanse of nothing but ocean would be a good way to waste time (FUN!!). But as an old fogey with 8 more DQ games on deck, the last thing I want to do is wander for hours looking for a TINY TINY island town in the middle of nowhere to find the goddamn gold key. (Yeah yeah, I talked to the random guy that said the gold key was to the south and his vague "directions" were TOTALLY over-simplified.) So once again, time to load up gamefaq and a world map on the good ol' internets.

Once you load up a walkthrough, you'll need to find item after item scattered around on the world map and also completely invisible. At least DQ1 told you how many steps an invisible item was but DQ2 has you scouring around the floor like some kind of crazy lunatic assuming you even found the clue (aka gamefaq).

Despite the dead simple story, the first game had a kind of charm as it made fun of the standard RPG tropes complete with the ohime-sama dakko. However, it feels like DQ2 actually takes itself seriously and thinks it's all that because it's selling like hotcakes. The endless fetch quest after fetch quest obviously designed to be as obscure as possible combined with the endless stream of painfully slow, random encounters flavored with the wonderful burps of the battle "music"(?) really made me glad to finally put this game down for good. I feel sorry for the poor kids in that last cave with the pitfalls, endless loops, and resetting paths back in the day without a gamefaq and the miracle of saves states.


Yeah, ok, they made some cheap and easy improvements sure. Like how you don't have to keep buying keys as using it once won't break it (that totally made no sense btw). And sure, you can save and whatnot in other towns besides the very first castle but it really doesn't make up for all the crap they added that makes the game slow as molasses. And no, throwing in a halfhearted, token pafu-pafu ain't gonna cut it either.

Score: 1 random stranger told me to crawl around the floor aimlessly searching for some "dew yarn" and now I'm in an insane asylum points out of 5.

PS. Buying the DQ collection on the Wii was NOT cheap and while DQ1 was good, I'm hoping DQ3 at least makes up for the scalper price.

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Dragon Quest（ドラゴンクエスト）

Starting all these classic RPG series from the first entry, I was beginning to wonder if they seemed bleh merely because I'm not hip and old-school enough to appreciate it. Perhaps I would have really enjoyed them if I had played them as a kid? But playing Dragon Quest made me feel a bit better because I've actually been having a lot of fun with it. Sure, I'm playing the Super Famicon version with vastly improved graphics and sound but then again, I played FF1 on the PSP and Mother on the GBA and those versions came out many years later than this version of DQ. You can see the differences in the various versions at hardcoregaming.

SFC? Pfft! I don't even care about the graphics.
In fact, I'm so hip, I refuse to play anything unless it's ported to a TI-81

Anyway, I don't know if the SFC version was re-balanced or what but boy is it the good ol' classic RPG fun I was hoping for. On paper, this game should be just as mediocre as the others. It has a fairly high encounter rate and battles consist of repeatedly pressing Attack as usual.

The menu system is the usual DQ clunky mess, but like Mother on GBA, the SFC version has the 便利 (convenient) L button that pretty much does exactly what you want whether it's opening doors or talking to people. Of course, FF fans will then ask, why even have the menu at all and I totally agree. At least it's also nice for one-handed playing and yes, this is yet another multitask game.

It's also kind of crazy that the ONLY place you can save is at the very first castle but the maps and dungeons were manageable and small enough to make exploration fun even with the random encounters unlike some other games (*cough* Mother *cough*). You also learn a spell that will instantly teleport you back to the castle just when you get tired of trudging back there. Perfect! And unlike that sorry excuse of a teleport in Mother, it works instantly without having to find a mile of clear runway (which BTW was practically impossible to do so fuck that lame PSI ability).

Even if the battle system is primitive, the level progression and the economy are so well balanced, I always felt like I wanted to play just a bit more as a bit more grinding would net me enough experience and gold to gain the appropriate levels and equipment to progress with the game. Playing DQ1 after Mother really made me appreciate the motivation factor of a good economy that wasn't broken (ie NOT instantly buy all the best equipment and accrue tens of thousands of useless dollars for the rest of the game).

It's a game I wanted to play because I wanted to beat it, not because I wanted to be done with it, if that makes sense. And just when I got tired of fighting slimes, it seemed like the game read my mind and the hero learns a spell to avoid random encounter from weak enemies at level 15. Perfect!!

While the story is also as primitive as they come, it has those nice Aikra Toriyama moments that I really enjoyed. Yeah, most of you kids know about Dragon Ball, but my first encounter with Toriyama was Dr. Slump and man, that comic is so pervy and full of toilet humor, no wonder all the prepubescent boys loved it. Anyways, personally, when I think Toriyama, this is what I see in my mind:

This fan translator sure has a sense of humor. That or he loves pu...

So it brings a smile to my face when you (literally) carry Princess Lola to the inn and the next morning, the innkeeper says, "you guys sure seemed to have fun last night".

Not sure what's so embarrassing about a fun night of scrabble and pillow fights.
Wait, what were YOU thinking?

Because that wasn't enough fan service, in the SFC version, a girl in the first town will follow you to the inn as well basically getting you laid within the first ten minutes of gameplay. These retro games don't have the resource to waste time teasing LOL. As a nice bonus, the game doesn't stop you from taking BOTH girls to the inn at the same time. Obviously, I'm not the first to discover this as a let's play on youtube went straight for the threesome. Haters don't hate, it's just the perks of being the hot, sexy, irresistible hero

Every boy in Japan probably did this in the 90s. I know I did right away.

Anyways, as a Jhipster, of course I have to point out that all of this was censored for Dragon Warrior because THINK OF THE POOR CHILDREN!! In fact, pafu pafu I guess was censored all the way up to DQ7? I am really curious to know if it was finally included in the Android and iOS releases of DQ1. Is the world finally ready to handle the sheer delights of the *censored* pafu pafu  (only 20 gold!) action in 2014? Unfortunately, I have an extremely rare condition that makes me barf at the very thought of playing an RPG with no physical buttons so only time will tell, I suppose.

Was DQ finally released uncensored for the phone 28 years later?
Or did the social justice warriors win again?

Score: 2.5 yes I'm retro hip too! wannabe out of 5

In the end, DQ1 is a very, very simple and short RPG. It has barely any story, only one party member, no airship, and the tiny world map is centered around the first castle, also the only place you can save in the entire dang game.

However, the game's perfect balance just makes it FUN, which despite everything is the most important part of a game. Despite other games that seem to know just how to be the most frustrating (*cough* Mother *cough*), DQ1 introduces the right spell at the right time to make the whole experience a smooth and enjoyable ride. I can definitely see why those Japanese kids went so crazy over this when it came out. The music in the SFC version is also pretty good. A real orchestra would have been even better but still very relaxing. Maybe in the next remake?

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely