Pokemon GO

Niantic - 2016 - iOS/Android

This is probably the most timely review I've ever written since at the time of this writing, practically everyone I bump into is on their phones furiously tapping away at Pokemon GO. I was on my lunchbreak and saw people in the restaurant playing, on my way back, I saw a car pull up next to a known gym and whip out their phones, and on the way back to work, there was a lady in my elevator trying to catch a Pidgey. It's safe to say that Pokemania is sweeping the nation again for the first time since the franchise's initial release. 

So for those not swept up in the fever of Pokemon GO players, this game is a phone app that functions largely by placing virtual objects in real space by using the Google Maps API and your phone's GPS. It functions very similarly to Ingress, Niantic's other popular game, albeit much less popular. The game encourages you to explore the real world to find virtual monsters on your phone. The terrain around where you are may encourage certain types of pokemon to appear. For instance, water type pokemon are often found near bodies of water while more common Pokemon like Pidgey or Ratatta can be found pretty much anywhere.

Real world places of interest appear in the game as either Pokestops or gyms. At a Pokestop, you can restock on poke balls or other healing items where at a gym what you can do depends on what team controls the gym and also what team you've decided to join. There are three teams: mystic, valor and instinct all vying for control over in game gyms. At an enemy gym, defeating all Pokemon in the gym will allow you to claim the gym for your team and earn daily rewards as long as you still have a Pokemon present in the gym. Training at a friendly gym may increase the gym's prestige level and allow it to house more friendly Pokemon. Battles are not turn based, as in nearly all other Pokemon games. In Pokemon GO, battles pretty much consist of furiously tapping on the enemy Pokemon to reduce its health. You can also hold down on the screen to attempt a stronger attack, but this can only be done once a stamina meter has been sufficiently charged. 

Summary

The shell for a really amazing Pokemon game is all here, but I find this game to be pretty feature incomplete at the moment in addition to being very buggy. The app seems to freeze a lot when catching Pokemon or battling at a gym which can only be remedied by restarting the game completely. But the freezes only occur when you can login to the game in the first place, as the servers are very frequently down due to overloading. I'd love to see trading and friendly battles added soon, and maybe a little more depth added to the combat system, although I'd like to see server issues addressed first obviously. None of my concerns about bugs or lack of features have dissuaded half the population from playing this though and it's exploding in popularity at the time of this writing. Gotta catch 'em all!

Pocket Mortys

Big Pixel Studios - 2016 - Android/iOS

Ho ho another free to play game. And a licensed game no less. I've become a filthy casual. I guess. Developed by Big Pixel Studios and published by Adult Swim games, Pocket Mortys is based on the television show Rick & Morty and is a blatant and often self aware Pokemon clone. If you haven't checked out Rick & Morty, this game probably won't have much mileage with you. And if you haven't checked out Rick & Morty, you totally should. It's like Adventure Time but with more swearing. It's co-created by Justin Roiland (Earl of Lemongrab) and both title characters are also voiced by Roiland. It really is one of the best things on television right now. Anyway Pocket Mortys is mostly based around Season 1 - Episode 10: Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind which establishes that there are multiple concurrent timelines with multiple Ricks and multiple Mortys. In the game you play as Rick and you must collect and train your Mortys to eventually defeat the council of Ricks to get your teleport gun back to return to your own timeline.

Pocket Mortys is free to play, but also doesn't rub your face in the paid content for the game hardly at all which I really appreciated. Most of the paid content is just to buy more items which can capture new Mortys or heal your existing team, but it's certainly not necessary to pay money to progress in this game. There is also a crafting system in the game where random items you pick up throughout your adventures. Pro tip - look up all of the crafting recipes. The only other way to figure them out if by trial and error which is really tedious. Once you progress far enough in the game, it'll become clear that the core loop of this game is simply collecting and battling Mortys and there's not much more content to the game. But considering I paid nothing for this experience, I can't complain too much.

Summary

For a free game, Pocket Mortys is pretty solid even if it is a shameless rip of of Pokemon. I can't really strongly recommend this if you're not a Rick & Morty fan as a lot of the references are going to fall flat. But if you're looking for a free version of Pokemon, you could probably do worse that this

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Blizzard Entertainment - 2014 - PC/iOS/Android

For the longest time, I've never understood Magic: The Gathering. I have several friends who are way, way into it, collect all the cards and go to weekly tournaments. It just never clicked with me. Then I played Hearthstone. I get it now. Magic is still not something I'm interested in diving into, but now I at least understand its relatively large popularity and massive player base. 

Hearthstone is Blizzard Entertainment's take on Magic The Gathering. I haven't played too much Magic so I can't speak to the differences and similarities between the two games, but I can tell you what Hearthstone is. It's a two player digital card game where the objective it to reduce your opponent's hero's health to zero. All heroes have a starting health of 30, a unique special ability and a unique card set which can govern your high level playstyle. There is also a common pool of cards from which any class can draw from to compile their deck, but usually the class specific cards are slightly more powerful and can synergize better around the hero's playstyle. All heroes are unlocked at the beginning, but playing as a certain hero will unlock more of that class' unique cards. That seems to be the main philosophy behind the progression system in Hearthstone: play more to unlock more cards. Of course you can spend real money to buy card packs as well but I'm happy to report I've resisted that temptation thus far. Which isn't to say that Hearthstone isn't worth spending money on, it's just that my personal reaction to the free to play model is to see how much fun I can have with the game without spending any money on it. And Hearthstone is very facilitative to my preference towards playing free to play games as the in game currency is given away fairly liberally to encourage buying more card packs. 

There are 4 main game modes in Hearthstone: "play" where you can play against a friend or be paired up against a random online opponent of supposed equal strength. "Solo play" is similar to the normal play mode, but here you can practice strategies against an AI or pay real money to play through an adventure campaign where you can unlock unique cards. The "Arena" mode costs a modest entry fee of real or in game currency to construct a semi-random deck of cards from a semi-random list of heroes. You're given three lives to play against other players in the same mode. The longer you last, the better your reward will be. But once you die three times, you're out of the arena until you pay another entry fee. The final game mode is the "Tavern Brawl" which is a weekly event that applies different wacky game changing rules each week. One of the last Tavern Brawls I did was to construct a deck out of just two different cards. Pretty interesting. 

Summary

I've had a pretty fun time with Hearthstone. It's neat as a mobile app to pick up and play a few rounds while I'm waiting on something. I don't think this is a game I'd ever get into playing competitively as I'm of the opinion there's way too much luck involved. But it's still a neat little game that scratches the itch in my brain that enjoys making rapid cost/benefit analysis decisions.

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

 Spike Chunsoft - 2010 - iOS/Android/Vita/PSP/PC

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is a visual novel style game with elements of the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney games. I was turned on to Danganronpa after it released on Steam and I saw it was developed by Spike Chunsoft who was also responsible for 999 and Virtue's Last Reward, both of which I'm quite fond of despite their respective flaws. Even though Danganronpa and the Zero Escape games do not share the same writing talent, they do all feature Japanese anime styled characters and have similar-ish themes.

In Danganronpa, you play as Makoto Naegi - an average student who was nevertheless accepted to an elite high school academy that only admits students considered to be the best at what they do. During his first day of school, Makoto blacks out and when he comes to he finds that he is one of several students that are trapped in the high school. All the exit doors have been barred and the windows sealed. The high school is deserted with the exception of the students and a creepy remote-controlled teddy bear who calls himself Monokuma. Monokuma tells the students that the only way to escape the high school is by killing another student without getting caught. As the days go by, various murders eventually take place and it's up to you as Makoto to gather the evidence and solve each crime

After investigating a murder scene and gathering evidence, a "class trial" takes place where the facts of the case are deliberated. Here, you'll often need to catch other students either misstating a fact or outright lying and support your cause with pieces of evidence from the case that contradict what a classmate is saying. This is where Danganronpa is most game-y and most separates itself from being just a pure visual novel. It's also where I feel this game is at its worst. The evidence puzzles seem to usually fall into one of two categories. Either the puzzle is so painfully obvious that it feels unsatisfying to solve or the puzzle is so contrived and obscure that you have to trial and error your way into the game's very specific line of thinking. The latter is particularly frustrating when the game tries to railroad you down one particular line of thinking when other possibilities seemed just as plausible to me. There are also weird rhythm game sections during the class trial that feel weak and forced. I appreciate that the game was trying to break the monotony of just reading text forever, but I often found these sections to be more frustrating than exciting

The strength of Danganronpa lies with its storytelling. It's probably unfair to compare this with the Zero Escape games even if it's the same developer, it's a different writer, but I'm going to do so anyway. I felt Danganronpa had a pretty good cast of well written characters - probably a stronger cast than any of the Zero Escape games. If you like wacky high school anime characters, Danganronpa is your game. But I found the mystery of each murder and the overall mystery of the high school much less compelling than anything written in the Zero Escape games. The Zero Escape games had me on the edge of my seat trying to figure out "whodunnit" and how it was possible and the revelation of those mysteries was always mind-blowing. Danganronpa's murders seemed a little too random and contrived. The revelation of its mysteries was always weird and wacky, but in a way that was often too unbelievable.

Summary
Danganronpa was fairly solid - good enough for me to await the release of its sequel on Steam. But I can't recommend this game without a caveat. It's still probably unfair of me to compare Danganronpa to another game not even in the same series or by the same writer, but I feel these games are similar enough to warrant me doing so: If you haven't played 999, do that first. If you have, then know that Danganronpa sacrifices a focus on a compelling and well thought out mystery in favor of more character focused moments full of anime melodrama and silliness.

Five Nights at Freddy's

Scott Cawthon - 2014  - PC/Android/iOS

I don't like jumpscares. At least not the ones in movies, television or games. Strangely, I enjoy events like Universal's Halloween Horror Nights which are entirely predicated jumpscares, but there's at least a high production value and good spooky atmosphere present in the many scare houses and other attractions at the park. And that, to me, is the key. I think jumpscares are at their most effective when a good atmosphere is constructed that makes you a little nervous and on edge. Then just when you least suspect it - BAM! Something pops out and scares you. And that's it, now you've got your audience terrified. It's tempting to keep going back to the well and get more jumpscares over and over, but each subsequent jumpscare loses some effectiveness as they become more frequent and expected - especially in the case of Halloween Horror Nights where something pops out at you every 5 seconds. Which now that I think of it is probably why that event doesn't get to me. But most games/movies/TV shows know how to use jumpscares effectively, which is when I start not to like them. I just don't enjoy being scared that way... Which is why I've been hesitant to play Five Nights at Freddy's for a while. It's a game entirely predicated on jumpscares and it uses them effectively

The premise of this game is that you are a security guard who takes a night shift at a restaurant known as Freddy Fazbear's pizzeria. During your shift, it's revealed that the establishment's mascot animatronics have come to life and of course are trying to murder you. Your job is to last from midnight to 6am which is approximately 8 minutes of real time. In order to complete the game, you have to survive five consecutive nights, hence the name of the game. My question is: after surviving one night and knowing the animatronics are homicidal, why would you ever come back? Anyway, you're instructed that the animatronics only move in the dark when you're not watching them, so you're safe as long as you keep an eye on their locations. Your player is stuck at their guard post so your only defenses are checking security cameras, turning the lights on in the dark hallways adjacent to your guard post and closing the electronic doors, but each of these actions consumes electrical power, of which you have limited supply. If you run out of power, you're totally defenseless and more than likely are going to get jumpscared. This game is particularly effective at using audio, or more specifically the lack thereof, to create atmosphere. It's really unnerving to only hear the quiet humming of the security cameras or the buzzing of the florescent lights while your're waiting for what seems like an inevitable loud and disruptive jumpscare.

Since people love to watch other people get scared, this game got a huge boost in popularity from "let's play" videos on YouTube. This first game in the series was relatively critically and commercially successful and has spawned 3 sequels with an upcoming RPG spinoff as well as a movie adaptation from Warner Brothers pictures coming soon. All of this is a little much for me, especially considering the game came out only a little more than a year ago. Don't get me wrong, I liked the game well enough, but having 3 sequels and a movie deal in less than a year seems a bit excessive, no?

Summary

Five Nights at Freddy's is a game that knows how to use jumpscares effectively. It creates a tense atmosphere and keeps the player busy tracking the locations of multiple homicidal animatronics which pop out to scare the player when least expected. I think it's a good enough game, but this game's relative popularity has always been a little confusing to me... I suppose most other people a good jumpscare a lot more than I do.

Contradiction - Spot the Liar!

Baggy Cat - 2015 - PC/iOS

If you've been reading these reviews for a while now, you've likely realized that I'm a bit of a video game music nerd. I stumbled across this game when I learned that one of my all-time favorite composers, Tim Follin, had returned to the video games industry since "retiring" from it in 2005 after his amazing talents had been wasted on mostly unknown or poorly received games. It was quite to my surprise that Follin was returning to the industry to work on a game not only as a composer, but as a designer and writer as well. So how does a game made by someone with no design experience who's been absent from the industry for 10 years play? It plays about how you'd expect, for better or for worse. It's not all bad though, Contradiction is charming in a unique way that I think can only be accomplished by a first-time designer who, as far as I can tell, has been isolated from the popular design trends, progressions and philosophies that have developed in the last decade or two.

Contradiction is a full FMV murder mystery game straight out of the 90s which I admit would have been way more eye-rolling if I hadn't just played the excellent "Her Story". You play as Fredrick Jenks, a British detective who is tasked with investigating a murder in a small fictional village. All locations in the village are essentially still frames, even though some are animated, and you can move between the frames by clicking on UI arrows displayed on the screen which always triggers a short movie of Jenks strolling to where you guided him. While interviewing suspects, Jenks has a list of topics he can ask about which when selected, loads an an FMV scene where Jenks grills the suspect about whatever you selected which often then reveals more topics to ask about. The main gameplay mechanic in Contradiction is to find pieces of the suspect's story that don't quite add up or are downright contradictions, hence the title. Most of the contradictions are pretty logical, but some are a little more of a stretch or are otherwise debatable. Thankfully, this game is pretty generous with hints and gives them to you in a way that doesn't make you feel stupid or like you're cheating. Jenks can go to the phone booth and call his chief who will generally point you in the correct direction to progress the game or also may hint at contradictions suspects have made.

Follin, whose composing career work dates all the way back to the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum days, also composed the music in Contradiction. It's not quite as in-your-face as some of my other favorites of his like this or this or this. It's more appropriately subtle and blends in perfectly as Jenks traverses the village looking for clues and interviewing suspects. Aside from the music, the extremely cheesy acting is another standout in Contradiction, especially with the actor portraying Jenks who loves to smirk at his suspects with his trademark goofy deductive grin. In fact, Jenks is so excitably overanimated and the acting in general is so cheesy that it makes me wonder if it was an intentional directorial choice or if Follin actually thought his actors were delivering believable performances. In any case, I'm happy about it. The delightfully cheesy acting seems to fit the style of this game perfectly as does the music.

But in addition to the cheesy acting, there are several other strange design choices and signs of low budget production you should be at least aware of before playing this game, especially if that sort of thing bothers you. I've heard this game was riddled with UI problems at launch that have since been corrected, but one holdover is the strange combination of topics Jenks can ask about with the physical items he's carrying into one functional grouping. Your items and your topics appear together, but you can't use a topic like an item and most items you can't bring up in conversation, making this a puzzling design choice. I've also encountered a bug a few times where none of the suspect's answers were selectable as contradictions and I had to leave and re-enter the scene in order to fix it. (Minor spoilers ahead). The budgetary constraints this game was made were apparent in the poor sound quality in the FMV scenes but especially obvious in the ending to this game. The latter half of the game really seems as though its building up to something as the plot starts sprinkling in elements of the occult and mysticism. But it's all thrown away at the last second when the murderer is revealed and the game just ends quickly and unceremoniously - but not before strangely setting itself up for a sequel. I later read that this abrupt ending was apparently due to financial constraints and a sequel would only be possible with enough support of the first game

Summary
It has design problems, bugs, obvious budget problems and wonderfully cheesy acting but I really enjoyed Contradiction in spite of itself. It was a flashback to the old puzzle games I played as a kid. All things considered, Contradiction is a pretty good first attempt at making a game for someone who has no experience doing this sort of thing. At the very least, I'm glad Follin is back doing things in the games industry and I hope he gets the funding and support to make a sequel so we can see what lessons were learned and what improvements can be made

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.

Her Story

Sam Barlow - 2015 - Mobile/PC

Her Story is a very unusual in that it's a full motion video game that was released in 2015. Don't worry, the FMV aspect of this game works really well, it's totally not cheesy and the actress in the game does a fairly decent job selling her performance. After you complete this game, it's hard to imagine Her Story not being a FMV game, I'm not sure it would have worked any other way. Her Story was made independently by Sam Barlow, who was previously the writer and designer of both Silent Hill Origins and Silent Hill Shattered Memories. This game, if you can even call it a game, shares a lot of the interesting ideas and creativity found in those Silent Hill titles

The premise of Her Story is that you are digging through a corrupted database of video interviews from a murder case in the early nineties. The database has been corrupted and fragmented, so you can't watch the interview clips in chronological order, but each video clip has been completely text transcribed, so you can search each clip by any word that occurs in the clip. So for instance, if you search "murder", all of the video clips that contain the word "murder" are returned to you. The other catch is that you can only see the first 5 results that are returned to you, so you'll quickly learn to be clever with your searches. 

The story opens up pretty quickly, giving you some names of important characters or important events to search, but the interesting thing here is that the story is presented totally non-linearly. Somehow though, through that I'm sure was many hours of playtesting and clever organization of what words occur in what clips, the story seems to unfold in just the right way, even if you watch the clips out of order. There's many cool twists and turns in the plot and figuring out whodunnit, how they did it and why they did it is really interesting and rewarding. There's no central gameplay mechanics here, only tracking the mystery in your head and coming up with terms to search then watching the video clips. So if you're looking for a gamey game, Her Story probably won't be your thing. But if you like a clever murder mystery presented in an unconventional fashion, you should totally check this game out

Her Story Video Review:

Summary

I really enjoyed Her Story, it was one of those experiences that keeps you thinking about it long after it's over. The story and its twists are clever and I enjoyed the unconventional presentation. If searching and watching video clips doesn't sound fun to you, you may want to steer clear of Her Story. But if you can let yourself get engrossed in the story and sorting out its mysteries, you'll have a fun time with this game

Shatter

Sidhe Interactive - 2009 - PS3/PC/Mobile

(On my Top 10 Game Soundtracks list)

I had already been listening to Shatter's excellent soundtrack for about a year before I actually tried playing the game. I actually found this game through its soundtrack and bought it during the Steam winter sale when it was super cheap. Shatter is an Arkanoid clone made in 2009 originally for the PlayStation network. If you think you've never played the original Arkanoid before, you missed a classic. Or if you're like me, you played Arkanoid, but never realized it had a name. Other than looking and sounding gorgeous, Shatter separates itself from Arkanoid by implementing a slightly more complex physics engine where the player can manipulate the ball via "blow" and "suck" mechanics. This seems like an easy spot for a lewd joke, but I'm gonna try to be mature here and just keep going.

Shatter has several game modes including a couch co-op mode, but the only one I've played as of this review is Shatter's "story move". In story move, you play through 7 or so stages of Arkanoid-like gameplay before being confronted with a boss fight. The boss fights usually consist of trying to guide the ball into the bosses' glowy weak point using the blow and suck mechanic. It was these boss fights which highlighted what I thought was the primary problem with Shatter. I found I was hitting the bosses' weak points accidently through luck or random chance just as often as I was while intentionally trying to guide the ball with the blow and suck mechanics. The developers presumably included the blow and suck mechanics to give the player more control over the ball and add more skill and precision to Arkanoid. But it really doesn't matter. The blow and suck mechanics are implemented in such a way that it's still pretty hard to tell where the ball is going to go after you incluence it. Plus the screen is so chaotic and the balls bounce off of objects so randomly that you hit your intended target just as often through accident as on purpose. In fact, I felt the levels that required the most skill and control were the bonus levels where the blow and suck mechanics were taken away from you and there were no other objects on the screen

Shatter's somewhat mindless gameplay is given a boost by its impressive futuristic abstract graphics and hypnotic neon bloom particle effects. But what Shatter really stands on is its soundtrack. Oh my God the soundtrack. Standout tracks are Amethyst Caverns, Freon World and Granular Extractor, but the whole soundtrack is top to bottom amazing. It's the kind of hypnotic electronic trancey sound that is a perfect compliment to Shatter's gameplay. It's also great to work to or to fall asleep to. I mentioned in the introduction I actually listened to the soundtrack years before playing the game and probably would never even have given it a chance if not for the incredible music. The entire soundtrack was composed by Jeremiah Ross (a.k.a. "Module") who, to my knowledge, had never composed a game soundtrack before working on Shatter. I'd love to see him get more work; the Shatter soundtrack is truly awesome.

Shatter Video Review

Summary:

As I said before, Shatter's gameplay is kind of mindless, but I don't mean that in a negative way in this instance. It's can be a nice experience to put on the game, watch the pretty lights and colors and zone out to the amazing soundtrack with minimal interaction. If this sounds like it might be your thing, give Shatter a try. Or if you'd like to see a modern take of the classic Arkanoid, Shatter is your game

Riven

Cyan - 1997 - PC/Saturn/PS1/Mobile

Anyone else remember this game? Riven was the sequel to the massively popular game Myst which launched in 1993. It was famously one of the first games to be released on a CD and helped to popularize the CD-ROM drive. I can't even believe Myst is more than 20 years old now. I can still remember playing Myst on Windows 3.1 and how frustratingly often it used to crash. Then Riven was released in 1997 and came on 5 CDs. You had to annoyingly keep swapping the CDs out as you explored different parts of the island. There's a lot of stuff like this about Riven that requires the player to have a lot of patience. Patience that I had as a kid, but has long since left me as an adult. It's kind of a shame because I'm pretty sure that if I played a game like Riven today, I'd push it aside after 15 minutes or so and move on to something else. While there are some technical limitations and some game mechanics in Riven that have not aged well over the years, there's also a lot this game does really smartly. It's a "slow burn" type of game. If you give Riven your time and patience, it will reward you with some amazingly clever puzzles and an unusual and immersive fantasy story. 

For those not familiar with the Myst games, they are point & click style adventure games. But not quite in the same way as the old King's Quest or Monkey Island games. They're no puzzles that involve combining items together through some absurd logic that allows you to progress further or whatever. In Riven, you're gated only by how much you've explored and how deep your understanding is about the island and its inhabitants. It's a game that does a beautiful job of communicating a complex story with few words and minimal cutscenes. The only cutscene you're given for quite a while is the game's initial opening cutscene, which really gives you more questions than answers. During this cryptic scene, a man teleports you to an island called Riven after giving you nothing but two books. You arrive in a jail cell on Riven where one of the books you were given is promptly stolen by a man who does not speak your language. The thief is then quickly killed by another mysterious person who sets you free, but not before taking the stolen book for himself. You're then free to explore the island and unravel the mystery of Riven. An intriguing open, no? What's in that book that's worth killing for? And who are these people who are so desperate to get it?

Riven's story is told through exploring the island, discovering its secrets and understanding the meaning and purpose behind them. Riven doesn't tell its story through dialogue or cutscenes as in most games. When you do watch a cutscene in the game, it usually only serves to confirm what you've figured out about the island already. It's never directly or clearly communicated to you what any of the character's motivations are or even why you were sent to the island in the first place. It's really up to the player to discover and understand the deep story in Riven for themselves, and this may have been the most satisfying part of the game for me. I think the best way to go about doing this is to always ask the question "Why?" when something doesn't make sense. A lot of the fun in this game is trying to form the answers to all of the questions the game gives based on what you know about the island so far. The developers did a fantastic job of being very deliberate with their world design. Nothing is there by accident or coincidence, nearly every object or structure in the game is meant to communicate something important to you. As you explore Riven, you'll encounter many mysterious machines and contraptions. Ask "What do they do?". "Who would have put them here?". If you think on these questions, eventually the details of the story will come in to focus.

The puzzles in Riven are given to you in a similar fashion as the story. The objective or elements of the puzzle aren't given to you explicitly, but rather communicated to you subtly through the environment and world design. It's definitely a game where you have to keep a sheet or two of handwritten notes while you're playing, which is something not many games do anymore. Some of the puzzles in Riven are downright brilliant. There's one amazing puzzle in particular where I can remember feeling so impressed with myself after I had figured it out. The solutions to these puzzles are really so satisfying when you finally figure them out. I'd challenge you to play through this game without looking any of them up.

Riven is not without its faults though and some of them are unfortunately due to this game's age. The game is first person, but it's not full 3D. It's essentially a bunch of still images that have been linked together. This, to me, really makes the game feel aged. A full 3D engine would do this game a lot of good. The game's pace is also incredibly slow and it can be very frustrating to be stuck in one place for a while and feel like you're not progressing. This will likely happen a lot in Riven which can be discouraging to players if they don't have a deep well of patience. There are certain puzzles in the game where Riven may have been to clever for its own good. The puzzle solutions are fair, but they're hidden so deeply in the game's world that they're not easily discovered without a very keen eye and extremely sharp mind.

Summary:
If you've got the time and patience and love puzzle games, mysteries or unusual stories, Riven would probably be a good fit for you. Just keep in mind that this game will probably show its age and you may also get stuck frequently while playing it. If you've never played a game in the Myst series and are curious, Riven is a great place to start. It's a refinement and improvement on everything that the first game was. While subsequent games in the series improved their audiovisual fidelity, they never quite recaptured the sublime story or brilliant puzzles that made Riven a great game. Also steer clear of Myst 5. That game is terrible. Rand Miller, one of the lead creative minds behind Myst and Riven recently launched a successful kickstarter for his new game, Obduction. It sounds like Obduction will play similarly to Riven and I'd love to try another game like this to see if I still have the patience for it. I'll be interested to monitor the development of Obduction and hopefully play it soon.

Device 6

Simogo - 2013 - Mobile

As of this writing, Device 6 is only available as an iOS download, which is a shame. Now I know most phone games, and most deservedly so, have a stigma attached to them for not being "real" games. I find most phone games to be mindless time-wasters, but Device 6 is certinaly an exception. It's too bad that the only method to download Device 6 is an app store that's cluttered with a bunch of other throwaway games, but the real shame that Device 6 is iOS-only is that I have no Apple devices to play it on! I've wanted to play this game ever since its release last year when it got boatloads of positive buzz. I finally got a chance to play it this week after borrowing a family member's iPad, and let me tell you, the hype is real.

In Device 6, you control a girl named Anna, who wakes up alone in a castle on an island with no memory of why or how she got there. As you guide Anna through the castle, you'll discover lots of the castle's weird and creepy secrets. The narrative was very self-aware and sometimes humorous. There were parts that reminded me of The Stanley Parable. But it was also often creepy and abstract. I admit there were a few elements of the story that seemed to be over my head. I couldn't tell if it was just me that wasn't following the story well enough, or if the narrative wasn't doing that great of a job getting its points across. Either way, I think Device 6 is well written, it's just kinda... out there. Which isn't to say that it's bad, it's just very different.

In an industry that has far too many clones, copycats and sequels, Device 6 is proof that there is still a very deep well of creative narrative and fresh new ideas that modern games are just beginning to drill into. From a presentation standpoint, Device 6 is completely unlike anything I've ever played before. The narrative is presented to the player as text on a screen that the player scrolls across using finger swiping motions. The text will sometimes change it's positional location or rotation based on what's happening in the story. For instance if Anna walks down a flight of stairs, the text will slope diagonally downward. And if Anna has a decision on which way to go, the text will branch off in opposite directions, allowing the player to choose which way Anna will go by swiping their finger in the desired direction. While you swipe your finger to move the text, the sound of footsteps can be heard. If Anna arrives at a door, a door opening sound effect is played while the text scrolls. Occasionally pictures are shown alongside the text when Anna sees something of importance. These pictures frequently contain clues to puzzles and often employ a very cool looking parallax scrolling effect. The audiovisual presentation of this game is so unique and gives the game a very distinct style

Device 6 has excellent puzzle design, but it's different from the puzzles in a game like Braid. In Braid, all of the puzzles had to do with manipulating objects or locations in the game engine. Device 6 presents you mysteries and then offers you clues in the narrative or in the pictures included with the narrative. It's just as brilliant, but in a different way. It reminded me of old school adventure games like Myst which I used to love as a kid. Just like in Myst, I had a pen and paper out to take notes with the entire time I was playing Device 6. Not a lot of games are designed that way anymore. The only thing slightly negative I can say about Device 6 is its length. It's pretty short. I knocked it out in about 3-4 hours. Usually I'm a fan of shorter game experiences, as long as they're priced right (Device 6 is currently $3.99). But I enjoyed my time with Device 6 so much that I was left wanting more when the ending came. I guess that could also be a good thing though, depending on how you look at it.

Summary:

If you like puzzle games, unusual stories, or games that are completely unlike anything you've ever played before, you must play Device 6. It's just so unique and different and oozes creativity and style. That alone should be reason enough to play it. Just be aware that it's pretty short and pretty weird. I hope its developer, Simogo, will eventually port Device 6 to platforms other than iOS so more people get a chance to play this. In any case, Simogo is now on my "cool developers" list and I'll be looking forward to their next project.

The Wolf Among Us

Telltale - 2013 - PC/PS3/X360/Mobile

Looking back at some of the things I played last year, I think Heavy Rain might be one of the most important games I played. It was a flawed game, but I enjoyed it immensely. I loved the focus on interactive storytelling and the fact that it was not necessarily worried about being a "game-y" game. It opened the door for me to play other excellent interactive narrative games like 999, To the Moon and Gone Home. But despite the fact that I know I love these types of games, I still had to be sold on The Wolf Among Us. I belonged to the very small camp of people who wasn't completely blown away by Telltale's breakout hit, The Walking Dead game. Although I admit it probably had more to do with the setting and themes of the story than the actual quality of the game. No more zombies for a while, okay popular media? I'm burned out on zombies. But I'm happy to report that The Wolf Among Us won me over and it feels just as fresh and compelling as Heavy Rain did the first time I played it.

The Wolf Among Us is based on the Fables comic book series which I had never heard of prior to playing this game. The basic premise of Fables, and consequently The Wolf Among Us, is that fairy tale characters are real and have adopted magical human disguises to live alongside normal people. TWAU follows the lives of several fairy tale creatures, or "fables" as the game calls them, who are living in a small community called "Fabletown" within New York City. You play as sheriff Bigby Wolf (The Big Bad Wolf) whose job it is to protect and maintain order in Fabletown. Not too long into the game, one of the fables in Fabletown is murdered, which puts Bigby on the trail of a mysterious and dangerous killer

I really liked the setting and themes in this game. It places fairy tales, which we usually think of as light-hearded children's stories, in a dark, gritty and seedy New York City. It deals with mature themes like murder, drugs and prostitution. The narrative loves to dance in morally gray areas and force the player to make morally ambiguous choices throughout the game. The fables themselves are also really interesting and are brought to life through great voice acting. Being not familiar with the Fables series lead me to wonder which fairy tale would be introduced next, and it was always cool to see this game's dark twist on a classic character. In contrast to what seemed like a budgetary and game engine constraint in The Walking Dead, the comic book art style really suits TWAU. I especially liked the purple, black, magenta and yellow neon color palettes that were used during the nighttime scenes in Fabletown.

Mechanically, TWAU plays very similarly to The Walking Dead or Heavy Rain. Most of the game is spent watching a scene play out and then making dialogue choices with the occasional quick time events mixed in. The dialogue choices are where TWAU excels. Making difficult decisions in a short amount of time was the thrilling part of the game. The quick time events were... not. I get that they're included to provide tension during the action sequences in the game, but I didn't like that messing up too many QTEs just put you in a game over fail state. You then have to replay the exact same sequence over again. I much preferred the Heavy Rain implementation of QTEs where messing up a button prompt didn't give you a game over, but instead had a negative effect impact on what your character was doing in the story. That's way more intense to me because I feel more resigned to accept the result of my QTE fest and not just simply repeat it over until I get it right. 

Summary:

Overall, I found The Wolf Among Us to be another excellent interactive story game if you're into this sort of thing. And if you've never tried this kind of game before TWAU is a great place to start. I really enjoyed the characters, setting and themes in the game. Like Heavy Rain before it, the story occasionally stumbles and some of it feels like filler, but overall it's written pretty well. I would love to play a "season 2" of this game similar to what Telltale has done with The Walking Dead. Check out The Wolf Among Us if you want to take a dive into a gritty world of darkly twisted fairy tales

Minecraft

Mojang - 2011 - PC/X360/XboxOne/PS3/PS4/Mobile/Vita

(On my Top 10 Favorite Games list)

Wooo 50 reviews! Wooo!! When selecting which games I'll write about each week, I give priority to the more obscure games that people may not have heard of. I think it's important to shine a spotlight on the smaller indie titles that may have slipped through the cracks. Games like To the Moon, The Swapper and The Stanley Parable all offer amazing unique experiences and are deserving of attention and discussion, but tend to run under the radar because they're not behind big publishers. I was thinking for my 50th review maybe I would review one of my all-time favorite video games. A game that I really love, like Ocarina of Time or Final Fantasy VII. But nah, people already know about those games. So I'm here this week to shine a spotlight on a game you may not have heard of. It's a little indie game I discovered called Minecraft.

If you didn't pick up on the heavy sarcasm at the end of that last paragraph and/or are otherwise oblivious to the video game world, Minecraft is hugely popular. Like HUGE. To date, it's sold nearly 50 million copies across all platforms making it one of the best selling video games of all time, according to Wikipedia. That's more than the original Super Mario Bros. A public beta of Minecraft was released in 2009 and it spread like wildfire across the internet, solely through word of mouth. It was officially released in 2011 and has now made it's creator, Markus Persson (a.ka. Notch), like 97 trillion dollars from sales and merchandise. Don't look that last number up, but it's probably true.

So what makes Minecraft so popular? First of all, it's mind blowing. The first time I played Pokemon Red/Blue? Mind blown. First time I played Ocarina of Time? Mind blown. If you've never had your mind blown by a video game, I don't really know how to quantify that for you. The first week I owned Minecraft, I played it obsessively. And when I wasn't playing it, I was thinking about playing it. It's a completely absorbing experience. The other reason I think Minecraft is so popular is that there are just so many ways you can play the game. You can play it like a survival game where you forage for resources and see how long you can stay alive. You can play it like an exploration game, just traversing the vast landscapes and seeing what you'll discover. You can play it like a traditional single player game where you upgrade your weapons and equipment and eventually get strong enough to take down the final boss. You can play it like a creative game because the game engine literally allows you to construct whatever you can dream up, as long as you have the materials. Or you can play with friends and blow each other's stuff up. And the best part is that none of these playstyles are mutually exclusive.

I was a huge fan of LEGOs as a kid. And I guess I still am as an adult. So the creative building block element of Minecraft is really appealing to me. The entire world of Minecraft is randomly and procedurally generated each time you start a new game or explore a new area. The terrain that is generated is essentially just made up of little blocks that the game engine will allow you to remove and replace however you see fit. There's quite a bit possible with just that game mechanic alone. But then you add in the fact that there are rare blocks that are generated like the gold ore block or the diamond ore block that can be used to make more complex objects or tools in the game... this really makes the exploration aspect of the game addicting and satisfying. Then there's the redstone ore. Oh man the redstone. Minecraft's redstone actually allows the player to create complex circuitry with logic gates in the game of Minecraft. People have made calculators and functioning CPUs in the game of Minecraft. That's CRAZY. I hope that helps you understand what a powerful creative tool the engine of Minecraft is. Then there's the people that have recreated famous structures or landmarks in Minecraft. There's the Minecraft Enterprise, the world of Game of Thrones in Minecraft, and Pharrell Williams' "Happy" recreated in game through the engine of Minecraft. That's just awesome.

Summary:
If you want to learn more about Minecraft, its developers, and the impact it's had on the games industry, check out this pretty cool documentary on youtube. If you somehow haven't played this game, you really should give it a try. If you know me personally and want to play on my server, give me a shout. And if you're one of those people who've stayed clear of this game because "eww the graphics are bad", I'm gonna come smack you. You're missing out on one of the most important and unique video game experiences ever created.

Home

Benjamin Rivers - 2012 - PC/Mobile

Like the similarly named Gone Home or even The Stanley Parable, Home is an experience that may challenge your definition of what a game really is. And like those other two games, I think Home is probably best played without any expectations or prior knowledge about the game or what it is. Having said that, you should probably stop reading this if you haven't played Home and think you might want to. Just know that you should play it if you like narrative focused games or unique, thought provoking experiences. Also it's really short and probably best played in one sitting, so set aside an hour or two and play Home. And Gone Home. And The Stanley Parable. If you haven't already.

Still reading eh? I'll try not to spoil too much of this game then. In Home, your character wakes up in an unfamiliar house with blood on his clothes and an injured leg. He can't remember what he was doing before or how he wound up in the house. He soon finds a dead body and makes other unsettling discoveries which prompt him to want to race home as quickly as possible to make sure his wife is okay. Along the way, you'll find clues that may offer insight as to what your character was doing before he blacked out or why he wound up in that house to begin with. You'll also need to make some decisions that will affect how the game plays out. For example, you find a live rat stuck in a mousetrap: do you free him or leave him be?

Graphically, Home is pretty simple. Standard indie game pixel art graphics. But I think the graphic style suits the game perfectly. Home and Lone Survivor are a good demonstration of how when you have a simpler graphic style, the sound and music design becomes more impactful. The player is paying more attention to what they're hearing to as opposed to what they're seeing. I don't think Home had superb sound design, but it was a good example of less is more. Most of the time, you'll just hear the player character's footsteps and maybe the occasional background noise which are adequate to create the atmosphere. But when you hear something unexpected, it can be very surprising or unsettling. I did have a few control issues with the game though. On several occasions, I accidentally skipped some text that I was still reading and the game wouldn't repeat the text or go back to it. And the game felt a bit unresponsive sometimes when playing with a controller, but these are minor complaints.

Okay, past this point is spoiler territory. The ending of this game warrants some discussion because it's what makes the game unique and interesting. But I don't think I can dance around the ending without revealing it, so if you don't want the game spoiled, stop reading.

The game does a good job of creating suspense and setting you up with mysteries like "Who killed the man in the house? What was your character doing in that house? Where is your wife? Is she alive or dead? Are you the murderer?". Depending on your actions and decisions, you'll get clues that can support theories about the answers to these questions. But the game will not directly give you any sort of concrete ending. It's left vague and up to the player's interpretation of the clues and events to draw conclusions about them. In fact, at the end Home, the game will link you to its homepage (ha ha) where you can see other player's interpretations of the game's events and share your own. I was initially kind of put off by this. I think I was expecting the kind of ending that 999 had where there's a great twist at the end, the player is given satisfying answers to all of the mysteries of the game, and all of your questions are explained and wrapped up. Nothing like that here. After being initially dissapointed, I decided to play through Home again since it's only an hour or so long. I found I enjoyed it more the second time where I could focus on the details and try to form my own viewpoints on the game's ending.

Summary:
Home certainly isn't for everyone, but I love this style of game. I love games that tell me a good story or can make me stop and think a bit about what the game was trying to communicate. I hear Benjamin Rivers is now working on what is being described as a "futuristic sci-fi psychological romance" game. Sounds completely crazy, and I'd like to play it

Chrono Trigger

Squaresoft - 1995 - SNES/PS1/DS/Mobile

(On my Top 10 Game Soundtracks list)

I wonder why Japanese style role playing games aren't made much anymore. At least they're not released as frequently as they used to be. Especially when you compare what's been released in the last generation of gaming systems to what was released on the SNES or the PS1. It seems like SNES/PS1 JRPGs usually sold well, were usually well received and games like Final Fantasy VII (PS1) and Chrono Trigger (SNES) are now often referred to as some of the best games ever made. A video I watched recently suggests that JRPGs like Chrono Trigger are on the rise again. I sure hope so. By the way, you should totally watch all of PBS Game/Show's videos. Good stuff.

Referring to themselves as "the dream team", Chrono Trigger was the brainchild of Hironobu Sakaguchi (creator of the Final Fantasy series), Yuji Horii (creator of the Dragon Quest series) and Akira Toriyama (creator of Dragonball Z). Sakaguchi designed the battle system, so everything will feel familiar to anyone who has played a Final Fantasy game before. There's the active time battle system, potions and ethers and all that stuff. Horii wrote most of the story and scenarios with input from Toriyama. Both Horii and Toriyama were big fans of time travel fiction and wrote the game around the theme of time travel. Toriyama did a lot of the artwork for the game including the character designs and the visual styles for each time period. When I think about it, Chrono Trigger shares quite a few stylistic similarities with Dragonball Z. It's especially evident in the future and prehistoric time periods, whereas the present and middle ages feel more like they're out of Dragon Quest. So it's pretty much like playing a Dragon Quest game set in a world out of Dragonball Z with the battle system of an old school Final Fantasy.

Squaresoft also commissioned a then unknown and unproved composer, Yasunori Mitsuda to do the soundtrack for the game. Chrono Trigger has become one of my all time favorite video game soundtracks and it's some of Mitsuda's best work. Tracks like Time Circuits, Silvard, Secret of the Forest, Chrono Trigger and Frog's Theme blow my mind. Keep in mind when you listen to these they were made in 1995 on a SNES. Also keep in mind this was Mitsuda's very first soundtrack. Crazy. No one should be this good on their first try. The tracks perfectly complement the time period and scenery and art style to create mood. Exactly what a good soundtrack should do. There's even little musical motifs he repeats throughout the soundtrack, altering them slightly to fit the mood of each track. Amazing stuff. Also Robo's Theme sounds suspiciously like Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give you Up". Just sayin'.

The main character of Chrono Trigger is a boy named Crono. Yeah, Chrono and Crono. It gets confusing. I'm guessing in Japanese, Crono's name is written as some clever play on the word for "time" rather than just dropping the "h" from "chrono", but whatever. In the beginning of the game, Crono's scientist friend accidentally transports them 400 years into the past while testing a new invention. When trying to get back to the present, the party way overshoots their destination and winds up in the year 2300. When they arrive in the future, they find the world is in ruins. Few humans are left, there is no food and the Earth is a barren wasteland. The find out that the Earth was practically destroyed in 1999 by a giant monster called Lavos who emerged from deep in the Earth's core, where he had been resting for millions of years, slowly absorbing the Earth's energy. Yes, the Earth is destroyed in 1999. Keep in mind this game was made 20 years ago, but they probably should have picked a date farther in the future to avoid dating themselves. Most of the game's plot then deals with the party trying to find a way to defeat Lavos and spare the Earth from being destroyed in 1999. You'll need to time travel to different eras to learn how to defeat Lavos, enlisting help from a robot from the future, a cave woman from the prehistoric era, and even a talking frog from medieval times. The story's tone covers everything from adventurous & light-hearted to mysterious & thrilling and even sometimes bleak & depressing. It's well paced, and there are memorable characters and events that held my interest throughout the game

Gameplay wise, Chrono Trigger feels like a pretty standard old school Final Fantasy style RPG. You wait for your action meter to fill up, perform an action and repeat. There's really nothing too special about the battle system in Chrono Trigger, which is kind of disappointing. But even with a bland combat system, there's still fun to be had in battles though. The fights will feel challenging, but also not unfair. I never feel like I need to sit and grind in Chrono Trigger, and I do feel like that's necessity in some of the older Final Fantasy games and other older JRPGs. Which is fine if you like grinding, but I don't. If you get stuck on a boss in Chrono Trigger, you're probably not using the correct strategy. Some bosses are susceptible to physical attacks, while others are magic weak. Some bosses are susceptible to physical attacks, but only after using magic. Some have attack patterns you can exploit. You kind of have to experiment to find which strategies work best on which bosses. And I like having to figure out that these strategy puzzles rather than having to grind to get past bosses.

Chrono Trigger is notably one of the first RPGs to have a seamless transition between exploring and fighting. When you encounter an enemy while exploring, a menu just pops up and you start fighting, no transition or screen wipe to another battle scene or anything like that. It's also one of the first games I can think of to have multiple different endings depending on what actions you choose and which sidequests you do. There's also a good amount of optional sidequesting you can do to see more of a certain character's background story while also obtaining more powerful weapons and equipment for that character. There's even a secret party member you can unlock if you make the proper dialogue choices and do the appropriate sidequests.

Summary:
In short, Chrono Trigger is a fun and memorable adventure if you like old school JRPGs. The battle system is a bit unimaginative, but the game is carried by its well paced story, inspired art design and its incredible soundtrack. I played through its sequel Chrono Cross and... kinda didn't like it much. I'd love to see another game in the Chrono series and it seems now is a perfect time for it what with Square Enix's recent financial struggles. Another Chrono game seems like money in the bank to me. That and a FF7 HD remake.

Final Fantasy V

Squaresoft - 1992 - SNES/PS1/GBA/iOS/Android

See Also My Top 10 Final Fantasy Games List

(Author's note: This review was initially posted on 2/17/2014 and was rewritten on 9/25/2015. You can read the initial review below as a comment)

I have somewhat of a soft spot for old school turn-based JRPGS, and this is one of my favorites. FFV tragically gets overlooked quite a bit because it didn't have an official U.S. release/translation until 1999, seven years after it came out. This is really a shame because I think FFV outshines the other SNES era Final Fantasy games in a lot of ways. I'm sure this is a controversial opinion as debating which games in the Final Fantasy series always tends to get heated, but if you don't believe me and you haven't played this game, you really should.

FFV's story is kind of... ehhh. It's pretty standard template "heroes save the world" writing. Story is not where this game shines, but pretty early in the game, you’ll unlock FFV’s job system. FFV's job system is what sets this game apart from other Final Fantasy titles, for better or for worse. The various jobs are slowly unlocked at key story points as you progress through the game. You initially unlock knight, monk, thief, white mage, black mage and blue mage but will eventually unlock all 21 jobs (25 in the enhanced remake). You can assign any of your 4 party members any job and can reassign them at any time. Changing jobs will affect your character’s stats and what items they're able to equip as well as grant them different abilities to use in battle. Once you master a job’s ability you can carry it over to use with other jobs. This, to me, is where FFV is at its best. Trying to figure out which combinations of jobs and abilities were powerful and which were useless was really fun and rewarding. For instance, combining the Ninja job's "dual wield" ability with the knight class' high innate defense and ability to equip high damage longswords was pretty good if my memory serves. FFV is paced pretty well such that you'll unlock more jobs just as you were mastering previous ones so you always have new combinations and tricks to try out and experiment with. The ending of the game comes right about the time you've mastered enough jobs to be dangerous. Unleashing all of your ridiculous tricks and crazy combinations on the final boss feels like an adequate final exam of your mastery of the job system.

I think FFV is one of Nobuo Uematsu’s first really excellent soundtracks . Not that any that came before were inferior, but FFV really showcases Uematsu's musical range and his ability to create timeless and catchy tunes one right after the other, over and over again. “To the North Mountain”, “Home, Sweet Home" and "Clash on the Big Bridge" are some of my favorite tracks.

Summary:
If you enjoy old school RPGs or are a FF fan who missed out on this game the first time around, you should check this game out. If you don't mind the slower pacing of the turn-based combat, I've found experimenting with FFV's job system while listening to the genius of Uematsu to be a really enjoyable experience