Rock Band 3

Harmonix/Backbone Entertainment - 2010 - X360/PS3/Wii/DS

(On my Top 10 Favorite Games list)

I'm a big fan of the rhythm game genre and in particular the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games. Now there hasn't been a release in either of these franchises since 2010. This fact, coupled with the decreasing sales and popularity of these franchises caused many people to speculate that these types of games were "dead". Then out of the blue, Harmonix announced Rock Band 4 and Activision followed suit with an announcement of Guitar Hero Live. Obviously neither of these franchises are dead (at least at the time of writing) and both have new games launching in the coming weeks, but I do think there are a few reasons we haven't heard from these games in five years. First and probably foremost was oversaturation. If you include the DJ Hero games and the various portable releases from each franchise, Harmonix and Activision combined to release thirty five Rock Band and Guitar Hero titles between 2005 and 2010. I'm serious. Check Wikipedia. The American economic downturn that occurred at the end of last decade certainly didn't do any good to either of these franchises that require players to buy relatively expensive accessories. Plus I think some players decided they didn't want to have ridiculous Fisher Price-looking plastic instruments cluttering their living space anymore. I think that last point still holds true in 2015, but there obviously hasn't been any oversaturation in a while and the U.S. economy is doing better which is why I think we're now seeing releases from these franchises. So what do I want to see from either Rock Band 4 or Guitar Hero Live? Let's take a dive into one of my all-time favorite rhythm games, Rock Band 3, and examine some of the things I think it does well and some of the things it does not so well.

Let's get the bad things with Rock Band 3 out of the way first. The game has obsession with realism and wanting the player to learn real instruments. This is fine when done well, and a game like Rocksmith really shows how this concept can be pulled off successfully. But Rockband 3's execution of this was way too complicated. Rock Band 3 introduced "Pro Mode" for guitar, drums, and its new keyboard accessory. Mad Catz partnered with Harmonix to sell a "pro guitar" with 102 plastic buttons. There wasn't really a great tutorial for this instrument, and the strange chord notation was almost impossible to interpret at the speed Rock Band throws notes at you. Especially for someone who has no actual experience playing guitar (me). This was the same problem with the "pro keyboard" which expected the player to play a 25 button mini-keyboard at full song speed. I actually liked the "pro drums", which added 3 cymbals to Rock Band's normal drumkit of 4 pads. I found it to be a welcomed challenge as opposed to an impossible one. But aside from the drums, I think the whole "pro mode" experiment was a failure, especially when you consider that none of the older DLC or other imported songs supported the pro guitar, and most didn't support the keyboard at all. They strangely did however, support pro drums. My speculation is that the songs were always encoded to differentiate between cymbals and drums, even though the original drum kits only had 4 pads. I think Harmonix has recognized this failure and has removed support for pro instruments and the keyboard peripheral entirely for Rock Band 4 although they will continue to support pro drums. 

The most awesome thing about Rock Band 3 is the massive library of DLC songs you have access to. If you include importable tracks from previous entries in the series, the total of playable songs is upwards of 4,000 which is pretty awesome especially assuming Harmonix makes this library available again for Rock Band 4. You can be practically guaranteed to find something you'll like when browsing the online store. Rock Band 3 also introduces vocal harmonies, allowing there to be more than one vocalist, provided you have more than one microphone. Tracks that support vocal harmonies will show separate vocal tracks with separate lyrics for each singer. Another new feature is the ability for players to drop in and out of songs on the fly without restarting a track. This, combined with the ability to make song playlists and enable "no-fail mode" made it very accessible as a casual party game. Rock Band 3 also features an expanded career mode and a more in depth character creator. All of these features combine to make Rock Band 3 a very full featured and well polished game

Rock Band 3 Video Review

Summary

Despite it's faults and it's misguided attempt to integrate playing "real" instruments, Rock Band 3 is still the most fun I've had playing rhythm party game. I've actually already played a pre-release build of Rock Band 4 at Pax and I think it captures all of the great things that Rock Band 3 did well. If people are willing to dust off their plastic instruments and hook them up to their next-gen consoles, I think Rock Band 4 should do just fine. I probably won't buy it initially as I don't even own a next-gen console yet, but I'm glad these franchises have been resurrected and I'm looking forward to eventually playing more fake plastic instruments.

Final Fantasy IX

Squaresoft - 2000 - PS1

(On my Top 10 Favorite Games list)

(On my Top 10 Game Soundtracks list)

See Also My Top 10 Final Fantasy Games List

After the more modern/sci-fi settings used in FF 6-8, Final Fantasy IX is a return to the series roots. It takes place in the world of Gaia, a world full of knights, mages, magic, and other traditional high fantasy. The story initially follows Zidane, who is a member of a band of thieves who is charged with kidnapping the princess Garnet of Alexandria kingdom. In a twist, Garnet is actually looking a discreet transport from Alexandria and consents to the kidnapping as it fits her own agenda. They are joined by Vivi, a young child black mage who is also accidentally kidnapped and knight captain Steiner who is Garnet's royal bodyguard and is loyal to his kingdom to a fault. The four are eventually joined by other party members and are swept up in adventure, conflict and conspiracy as tends to happen in Final Fantasy games. Also in continuing with trends in other Final Fantasy games, the plot does sort of take a dive off of the deep end at around disc 3 or so. Without getting too spoiler-y, the traditional fantasy setting does get strangely thrown out the window at some point, but the game is still worth playing if you appreciate good writing.

What sets this game apart from other Final Fantasy titles for me, aside from its setting, is its well written characters. Now those of you who have played other Final Fantasy games may be rolling your eyes at "well written characters", but I think it really applies to FFIX in a way that no other FF game before or since has achieved. The characters in FFIX aren't the flat, one-dimensional stereotypes of characters that are found in most JRPGs. There's also none of (or very little of) the angsty JRPG melodrama found in the rest of the series. The characters in FFIX are more subtle and nuanced which speaks volumes for not only the writers but the translation and localization process this game had to undergo. This game even has humor. Like legitimate, actual, intentional humor. And it works. Usually when humorous dialogue is written in a Final Fantasy game, it's facepalm material. It's funny, but for all the wrong reasons. FFIX gets it right in a way that really endears all of its characters to the player.

The battle system is... well... it's just fine. There's nothing really wrong with it. But there's also nothing really right with it either. There's nothing too broken like FFVIII, but also nothing that really sticks out and grabs your attention to make you want to keep playing just one more battle like FFVII. It's pretty straightforward and standard for a Final Fantasy game. It's pseudo turn based with the ATB introduced in previous games and your characters fit into pre-defined roles of black mage, white mage, summoner, knight, thief etc. Just about the only thing noteworthy is that all abilities you learn throughout the game are learned from using a specific weapon a certain number of times in battle. For instance, if you want to learn the "fire" spell, you have to equip Vivi with the "Fire Staff" or whatever it's called. This creates a sort of interesting dynamic where the weapons and armor you have equipped for your party may not always be the "best" speaking strictly statistically. There's also the new "limit break" system called trance, where your character becomes more powerful and gets access to new abilities, but this triggers pretty much just randomly and always seems to happen when you're in a random, easily winnable battle and never against a boss when you really need it. So yeah, the battle system is... just fine I guess.

What's way better than "just fine" and another notable reason to check out this game is another superb, phenomenal, varied and otherwise spectacular soundtrack composed by Uematsu. I think Uematsu has gone on record saying this was his favorite soundtrack he composed. It's not necessarily my favorite as a whole, but picking a favorite Uematsu soundtrack is like trying to pick a favorite burger off of the menu at Red Robin. I love them all. Standouts are the "Battle Theme", "Stirring in the Forest", "Crossing Those Hills", "Border Village Dali" and "Hunter's Chance" but the whole soundtrack is really a standout as tends to be the case with Nobou Uematsu.

Final Fantasy IX Video Review

Summary
It may not have the best battle system and the plot gets a little weird about halfway through, but FFIX is still worth checking out if you like a well written story with well defined characters. The writing and soundtrack are enough to carry you through when the battle system is being dull and the story is getting weird. This game really is pretty charming once you get invested in it and it's become one of my favorites in the Final Fantasy series and just in general

80 Days

Inkle - 2014 - Andriod/iOS

I've returned from my very first Pax Prime and it was amazing. I demoed Dark Souls 3, Final Fantasy XV, Mario Maker, Rock Band 4 and played many other indie games and met some of their developers. It was a really cool convention and I'd recommend it to anyone who's really interested in games as long as you don't mind long lines. One of the things I did to pass the time in these long lines, plane trips and other downtime was download and play a game called 80 Days.

80 Days is a game that re-imagines Jules Verne's classic 1873 novel "Around the World in 80 Days" as a choose your own adventure style video game. For those unfamiliar with the novel, the book tells the story of an Englishman named Phileas Fogg who makes a wager to the tune of 20,000 pounds that he can circumnavigate the globe in 80 days. In the game, you play the role of Phileas Fogg's valet, Passepartout, and you manage finances and make decisions on how to plot your route around the globe. The setting still takes place in the 1870s, but now everything is steampunk for some reason. It was kind of an odd creative choice to rewrite the world this way. It didn't do anything for me, but then again I've never understood the appeal of steampunk.

From a gameplay standpoint, this game is sort of like a cross between the Oregon Trail and maybe FTL, but it's more narrative focused than either of those games. It's really more of an interactive novel and it never really gets too "gamey". Most of your interaction will come through picking your character's dialogue from a few choices. It's probably the largest, most involved example of a choose your own adventure book. You can pick your destinations from a map kind of FTL style, but you have to weigh the pros and cons of each decision. Each route has a monetary cost, a time cost, and a "comfortability" cost. In addition to managing finances, you also have to keep an eye on Fogg's health which may start to decrease if you take wearisome routes, or don't stop to rest enough. You can also chat up strangers in each town which may unlock new routes or faster/cheaper routes on your map. Some conversations may even extend the narrative in a surprising way. Events in the game occur randomly as well, so each playthough is guaranteed to be different, even if you take the same routes through the same cities. This is perhaps 80 Days' most interesting feature, as it grants this game a high amount of replayability.

I can remember reading the novel in middle school, I think, and little bits and pieces of it came back to me as I was playing through the game. Most of the story is entirely new, and totally random and also based on the decisions you make, but there are lots of little winks and nods to the novel like the characters being very aware that traveling eastward with the sun vs. westward against the sun will gain them extra time (Spoiler alert for a 150 year old novel). It's a fairly well written game, which is good because there really isn't too much else about this game. The "gamey" parts of 80 Days feel somewhat ancillary to the story; they exist in more of a supporting role. The spotlight of 80 Days is on the story, not the gameplay

80 Days is a well written interactive novel, but it's a game that expects its players to draw enjoyment from its plot, so you might not care for this game if you come into it expecting a strong gameplay hook. At the very least, it's an interesting example of the concept of a choose your own adventure book taken to its absolute farthest point. I personally accomplished my journey around the globe in 68 days, easily winning Fogg's wager with ample time to spare. Check this game out if you'd like to experience your own version of Jules Verne's classic novel.