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Shogi

June 11, 2013

hughjodonnell Gaming , , 1 Comment

Last night my husband and I played shogi for the first time in a long while.  We did fairly well, although we did have to look up the wiki to double-check all the piece starting positions and movements.  I picked up the board as a gift for Jeremy when I was living in Japan, and we used to spend afternoons playing in the park behind the house.  Breaking the board out again was a pleasant end to our anniversary weekend.

Shogi is a Japanese chess variant, and I prefer it over the European game.  In Shogi, captured pieces are retained “In Hand.”  That is to say instead of being dead once they are taken off the board, your opponent can place captured pieces in their army and use them against you.  I’ve always really liked this mechanic.  It makes me a lot less willing to rush ahead and sacrifice a piece for an attack.  I play more defensively.  Defense is really the name of the game.  Shogi doesn’t have a queen piece, but rather two pairs of generals, gold and silver.  These pieces can move one space in any direction forward, as well as a few other spaces.  Gold generals move one space orthogonally.  Silvers move diagonally.  They basically serve as a set of guards for the king.

The writer in me really likes the thematic elements of shogi.  The defensive game, and the idea that nothing really ends when a piece is cleared of the game board is intriguing to me.  The game is a bit difficult to find in the US, but if you are a fan of chess and other strategy games. you should try and find a set.

Final Fantasy III: An RPG with Class

March 17, 2013

hughjodonnell Uncategorized , , Leave a comment

After FF2’s dramatic departures, Final Fantasy III is a return and refinement to the style of the original Final Fantasy. While there is a bit of hand waving to establish the four unnamed children of destiny as orphans living in a remote village, We’re pretty much back to the non-character party of Final Fantasy. Later remakes worked a bit harder at this, but for the NES era, we have four tabula rasa, which actually fits the premise well. This time, you they aren’t stuck in the same job for the whole game. This is the game where Square introduced the popular Job change mechanic.

How it works is players receive Job Points as they progress through the game along with experience and gold. As the game progresses, the story unlocks more available jobs to change into, allowing new classes for the characters. This gives the player a chance to experiment with different abilities without being corralled by the game.

Although it was originally released in Japan in 1990, the rest of the world didn’t get to (legally) play Final Fantasy III until 2006. The game was a late addition to the Nintendo Famicom library, and Square chose to release its 16-bit successor in the US as Final Fantasy II instead. For being released so late in the console’s life, the game takes better advantage of the hardware than the two previous entries. The game’s palette is brighter, the sprites are more detailed, and the game world is larger and more complex. Many of the games textures and sprites would be upcycled and reused in the Super Nintendo release of Final Fantasy IV.

The basic plot of Final Fantasy III combines the mechanics and exploration based gameplay of the first game with the more dramatic elements of the second. The player characters are four orphans in silly helmets who fall into a cavern after an earthquake. There, they discover a magical crystal, and are charged with solving the mystery of what caused the elemental macguffin to be sealed away in the first place, along with the other three, of course. The crystal gives them the ability to have and switch between a variety of different jobs. Each one has its own strengths and weaknesses, and gives the characters benefits when they level up. Fighters use swords and give more HP when leveling up, White Mages use magic and give better Magic Defense. As with the other entries in the series, These are old hat ideas now, but were excitingly innovative at the time.

As the game progresses, and the player explores more and more of the game world, each new crystal discovered grants new jobs. A colorful cast of NPCs provide the plot, and drive the story forward. This is where Final Fantasy III shines, expanding on the job-based gameplay from FF I and the drama-laden narrative from FF II.

This drama comes in the form of NPC characters who join up with the Light Warriors as they traverse the fields, forests, caves and ruins of the world. The party’s driving goal at any one time is determined by the needs of the tag-along characters, even if they don’t ride shotgun in battle the way they did in FF II. The party helps Cid get home safely, rescues the Prince of a war-torn kingdom from his possessed father, and more. Each of these episodic diversions feels like more than a simple side quest. They breathe life into the game world, and provide a welcome break from the 8-bit formula of now go to this dungeon and get the next crystal formula. And at the climax of the game, it is the good the player did in the world that proves more powerful than the arcane jewelry they spent the last 20 hours focusing on.

Final Fantasy III is the height of RPG craft in the NES era, and it is a shame that fans never got to play it in the days of its 8-bit glory. The game doesn’t hold up so well today, even with graphics and story updates. Much like the Disney film version of “John Carter of Mars,” this is something we’ve seen expanded and perfected in the years since it was originally devised. Going back to it is a fun history lesson, but only the hard-core need apply. Also, avoid the mobile versions. The control scheme is unworkably terrible.

Final Fantasy II: The One With The Evil Empire

October 7, 2012

hughjodonnell Uncategorized , , , Leave a comment

Original Release Date: 1988

System: Nintendo Famicom

Final Fantasy II is a game that is that feels both very different from its predecessor and very similar to its sequels. It is perhaps the strangest and most frustrating installment, but at the same time laid the foundation for many of the themes and plot elements that would become series standards.

First of all, this is a difficult game. Its learning curve is a bit steeper than the first game, and it doesn’t wait around for you to get warmed up. After the brief introductory text screen, the player is brought straight into… COMBAT! What’s more, this is a battle that your four starting characters have no hope of winning. You are completely outclassed, and MIGHT have the chance to attack once. You won’t do any damage. Rather than getting a game over screen, the characters wake up to find that they have been rescued, for the moment. Unfortunately, it’s just the three of them. One of them wasn’t found.

This missing crewman is a nice touch because it works for both the story and the gameplay, the holy duology of game writing. Leon’s disappearance personalizes and escalates the tension of the war. Having only three permanent characters leaves a slot open for new characters to join or leave the party as the game progresses, adding variety. This is a narrative trick that is commonplace later in the series, sticking characters together both for dramatic effect and to allow the player to experience multiple play styles.

While finding your missing companion is somewhat a goal of the game, the characters quickly become swept up in a rebellion against the evil empire attempting to wipe them all out. Rather than commanding a host of military units, your three characters go on supply runs, rescue missions, and commando raids to help turn the tide. This mission structure allowed FF2 to tell a much deeper story than FF1, with standout moments of betrayal, sacrifice, and triumph. The more rounded characters and personal story elevate the plot of Final Fantasy II above the comparatively retrieval quest of the first game. The thematic elements of a small band struggling against a powerful, omnipresent imperial force became a series staple.

Gameplay was also refined in the second game. Final Fantasy II completely ditched the experience points found in other games in favor of a more organic system of advancement. Instead of gaining levels by obtaining experience points, your characters’ actions determined their progress. You increased your strength by attacking, your magic by casting, and your hit points and defense by getting attacked. Weapon skills and magic worked the same way. This meant that your three characters were extremely customizable. It also meant that in order to keep gaining in power, you had to fight enemies that were more powerful than you, unless you cheated. There was a bug in the original versions of the game that allowed you to gain hit points and strength more quickly by attacking yourself. This led to some pretty unique leveling up. However, it does contribute to the game’s thematic elements. Rather than simply ticking off rungs on a latter, if feels like your characters really are developing organically.

Another unique feature to FF2 was the password system. During certain dialogues with NPC characters, the player had the chance to choose a phrase that the character had memorized, much like the dialogue trees in later Bioware RPGs. These choices usually just provided clues to the player about where they had to go next, or brought up some humorous bit of extra text. The player wasn’t able to significantly change the story by using them. It was a very basic system, but an interesting development for the time.

Despite the game’s many positive points, there are quite a few problems. The most glaring issue is the advancement system. As I stated above, the game doesn’t tell you when you gain experience, so it is VERY difficult to tell if you are making real progress. Also, because the magic system works the same way as all of the other advancement systems, your spells start out very weak. This is even true for the powerful magic you obtain late in the game. This pads out the game into a bit of a grind as the player has to fight enough random monsters so that the ultimate magic actually does a fair amount of damage.

The other major problem the game his is the hardware limitations of the 8-bit Nintendo Famicom (NES) system. FF2 has a lot of standout story moments, but many of the key plot points happen while the player is far away, searching for some macguffin in the depths of a cave on the other side of the map. Coming back to find the whole town died in the Empire’s latest attack gets old after the first couple times. Unfortunately, the 8-bit cartridge just didn’t have the power to tell the kind of story later games in the series could.

Final Fantasy II was never officially released internationally until 2003, so there is a bit less nostalgia for the game than others in the series. The game introduced some of the most enduring themes and story elements of the series, but in many ways it remains the black sheep of the Final Fantasy family.

Next up: Final Fantasy III, the point where the series began cultivating class.

Final Fantasy: This is what happens after we save the princess.

August 29, 2012

hughjodonnell Gaming , , , Leave a comment

Release Date: 1987

Original System: Nintendo Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment System

This is the first in a series of blog essays examining the games in the Final Fantasy Series. We’ll be considering plot, mechanics, design and other aspects of each game, and how they work together as an experience. As a far bit of warning, these essays are going to be chock full of spoilers.

This is the one that started it all, and it did something cool right out of the gate. At first glance, Final Fantasy doesn’t have much of a story or plot. A slowly crawling text screen, almost an 8-bit equivalent of the “Star Wars” opening text crawl reveals that the world is ending, and only four brave youths, each carrying an orb, aim to stop it. Next, you choose the names and jobs of your characters, making them fighters or mages. This is the only game in the series where you choose your characters’ jobs at the beginning and have to stick with your decision. Once you’ve picked out your favorite team of Fighters and Mages, the game unceremoniously deposits your party on the map screen, in a forest ringing a huge castle town.

“Final Fantasy” and the other well known Japanese RPG of the era “Dragon Quest” both stick very close to the mold of computerized Dungeons and Dragons clones. Although there are some interesting twists in the first installment, and later games create more of an identity for themselves. The first game was chock full of giants, hordes of D & D style undead, and even beholders! And much like the style of tabletop RPGs at the time, Final Fantasy did not hold your hand or give much in the way of hints, aside from pointing you in the direction of evil and demanding that you ‘Rekindle the Orbs.’

At the start of the game, the major problem is that Garland, a formerly gallant knight, has kidnapped Princess Sara and is hiding out in the creepy ruined shrine to the north. No one in the kingdom is a match for him, so it’s up to you to go knock him down. So your characters march through the goblin-haunted forest, fighting monsters and hopefully leveling up a bit before meeting your heroic destiny and saving the princess. At the time, of course, saving the princess or other damsel in distress was so common that just about every game (except for Metroid, Samus Aran is a self-rescuing princess.) featured an end goal of freeing some captive lady from a dastardly villain who set a few hours of obstacles in your path and waited patiently on the last screen. But here’s where “Final Fantasy” does things a little differently.

Slaying Garland and rescuing Sara isn’t the end goal of your long and perilous quest. It’s just your first step on a much wider and grander adventure. This may not seem like much today, but from the mindset of 1987, it was huge. Final Fantasy didn’t just present a challenge, it creates an arc.

This is a common literary device, and I wish games used it more often. Like the opening sequence to a summer blockbuster, the audience is given a compact introduction based on action rather than exposition. In the 8-bit era, the story for a game was something often left for the instruction booklet. Final Fantasy embraces a more literary aspect, while at the same time creating a ‘newbie area’ for the player to learn the gameplay without wandering into a fight they aren’t ready for.

The reason this really works is that the player doesn’t even know this until they return the princess, collect their reward, a lute that seems to be important, but has no known purpose, and leaves town.

When the player reaches the new bridge, filled with a new purpose to discover what is ill in the world, something very different happens. Credits roll. Final Fantasy might be the first game to include credits at the front of the game, much like a film.

Things get more difficult for the player on the other side of that bridge, but the game has a pretty balanced difficulty curve. Final Fantasy is essentially a huge map, and the player is invited to explore more and more of it as he overcomes challenges. These are not merely physical challenges in terms of having stronger enemies in new areas, either. The narrative functions extremely well here. As with the bridge at the beginning of the game, new methods of exploration become available and obstacles are removed from your path as you complete the story. In some cases this could feel artificial or illogical, but Final Fantasy is rather elegant about it.

The player helps a blind seer recover her crystal ball, and receives vital information about the quest. The player frees a harbor town from invading pirates, and takes their boat as a reward. The player feeds a hungry monster and opens the path it blocked. This not only progresses the story and keeps the player invested, but it gives the player a sense of agency in the game world.

Focusing on challenge and exploration does come at a cost, however. While NPC’s are are interactive and change to some degree as the story goes on, the player is piloting a barber shop quartet of tabula-rasas across the game. The Light Warriors themselves don’t have any personality at all, and their accomplishments nest very simply on the shoulders of the player. The game is much more a power fantasy than an epic.

The plot still has the ability to surprise the player, however. Late in the game, after saving the world from three arch-fiends, and firmly entrenching the world of swords and magic, the plot throws a spanner in the works.

Late in the game, something falls to earth and is buried in a cave. The player explores the cave full of monsters and discovers… a robot. It seems the last archfiend has hidden herself in the last remnants of an advanced civilization’s technology, and you’ll have to go up into space to fight her. This isn’t a medieval fantasy, it’s a post-apocalyptic one. This is a really cool twist, and one of the mainstays of the series. It is reinforced in the final dungeon, when all four now lit orbs are brought back to the Chaos Shrine from the start of the game. The real plot of the game’s villains is to use the orbs to create a time-loop which makes them immortal, at the expense of the rest of the world, and the agent responsible is of course the original princess-kidnapping knight, Garland.

Final Fantasy’s plot is bare bones, but it presents the player as an agent of change, and the antagonists as bringers of a terrible status quo. This is a refreshing standout in a medium where heroes usually served as Princess retrieval services. Final Fantasy is a game about breaking out of damaging patterns and changing the world for the better, and it certainly changed the face of electronic entertainment.

Next up: Final Fantasy II, the black sheep of the family.

Hugh supports Gaymercon and rants a bit

August 6, 2012

hughjodonnell Gaming , 1 Comment

I just supported a kickstarter for Gaymercon.  I doubt that I will be able to make it to the actual event next year, but I am amazed by the courage and awesomeness of the organizers. This is an incredible idea, an incredible convention. It is something that makes me proud to be a geek. And there are people who are complaining about it. They are complaining that it is being EXCLUSIVE and FRACTURING THE GAMING COMMUNITY NEEDLESSLY. I’ll let you read those big old capslock letters again. Welcome to privilege town, ladies and gentlemen.

I am a gamer. Two months ago, I married my wonderful partner of eleven years. We wore matching red and blue waistcoats, and we exited the ceremony to a version of the Final Fantasy Prelude. I was very happy that I could include gaming in our wedding, because we finally got our good ending.

I have never set foot in X-box live, and I steer clear of gamin message boards. Some of the hate spewed in those places is ignorance, some is childishness, and some is a tactic. But it lessens my experience. It reminds me that I’m different. That I’m unwelcome. Gaymercon is an event that is going to bring the gaming community together, to support our identities and our hobbies, and to say that the two are not mutually exclusive. I’ll be damned if some hetero-normative bully is going to tell me to sit down and shut up about it. Gaymercon is important and it is necessary because of this, and this, and let’s not forget this.  Gay, lesbian, transgender, hell, even FEMALE and NON-WHITE gamers have had to fight for their seat at the table in this community.

There is a lot of support for diversity in the gaming community, but there is a lot of hate, too. And that hate has one hell of a large bullhorn. Things are changing, if slowly for the LGBTQA community in gaming. Gaymer con is going to be a great step in making gaming a safe place for everyone. I’m supporting them, and if you feel the same way I do, regardless of your gender identity or sexual orientation, I urge you to do the same.

Final Fantasy Origin

August 4, 2012

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This year is the 25th anniversary of Final Fantasy, which is to say that Final Fantasy was originally released in Japan in 1987.  I learned of the series ten years later, as an awkward high school student.  My best friend gave me a 3.5 floppy disc (kids, ask your parents) with a DOS NES emulator and a rom of Final Fantasy.  This was the same time when Final Fantasy 7, with its CGI videos and polygonal graphics was tearing up the PlayStation, but I didn’t care.  It was something amazing.  It was a game that changed my whole outlook.

Playing Final Fantasy games brought be back to fantasy and science fiction as a reader.  They were genres I had abandoned in favor of horror and thriller paperbacks.  But these games brought me back to them, and showed me that there was something great in those stories.  And I fell in love with fantasy so hard that I started writing it myself.  It’s funny to think that a video game could be the reason I became a writer, but it’s true.

In the fifteen years since I made my first party (Lugh, Bobo, Bill and Maev) the series has had its ups and downs, sequels, spin-offs, mergers and MMOs.  I’ve traveled and journeyed as well, from school to the working world, to living overseas and coming home, and getting married.  And I’ve been playing and loving Final Fantasy throughout everything.  A lot of writers, myself included, have literary heroes they admire and seek to emulate.  For me, Hironobu Sakaguchi, the designer of Final Fantasy is just as much in my pantheon of legends.

Each Final Fantasy game is different, and each one has its own flaws and strengths.  And each one has something to teach about its design, even to writers.  I am going to spend a few weeks looking at the story and plot of each Final Fantasy, to see what makes it tick, and why the game works, or doesn’t.  It’s going to be quite a ride, and I hope you stick with me on it.

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