Oops, I gave it away. Silly me.
Anyway, our review is:
*cue FF opening music*
For the purposes of this thread, all references to this game will be for the WII version. Which I'm sure most of you have anyway.
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I implore you, young readers.
READ THE ******** MANUAL.
Nobody reads the manual my a**. You will likely s**t brix when you start off if you dont. Mostly because of this:
No, you're not stoned.
Ok, maybe you are.
But that really IS two screens. At the same time. In the same game.
The only logical reason is perhaps because you have to kind of make the game work on BOTH the DS and the Wii. And perhaps the only way to do that is to make two screens on the Wii version.
But fear not! You can zoom either or in with the simple + or - buttons. Plus button zooms in one, minus button zooms in the other, and zooms out the first screen.
Innovative, yes, but very perplexing.
Your story starts off as normal as most FF games can be. The biggest difference is that you MAKE your main character. You even make recruits that join you. Of course, there's mercenaries you can hire as well, but they're pretty few and far between, as I can see.
Anyway, you're 16. Your village has this great big coming of age ceremony for you, and you go through it, come back, and this girl winds up catching Crystal Sickness. Without spoiling the plot, it pretty much goes on like that.
I will tell you up front - the controls are a b***h to get down. Lucky everything in the beginning is so damn easy. You move with the control stick, you select your spells (separated by element, more on that shortly) with the side control pad buttons, and you choose your character (in single player, also more on that in a bit) with the up and down of the control pad. You'll do a bit of button mashing to get the basic feel of the game, but sometimes I think that's what the game wants you to do.
The magical elements in game are Fire, Blizzard, Thunder (obviously), Cure, Raise, and Clear. If you're playing Single Player, tapping C summons your group to where you are. Think of it as a TP of sorts. Everyone knows these, but only the truly gifted use them to their potential, which is about to be explained.
You hold C, and whatever element you had selected on the right screen is about to be cast. You move around your target ring with the control stick, and when you hit your target, you can either release for the novice version, or you can do what the game calls 'stacking' spells, by pressing A. That locks the ring in place, and you quickly call another spell to overlap the ring. Soon as you do that, the upgrade (ex fira, blizzera, cura, etc) is done. You can mix and match different elements for different results. For example, the Clear Element + Fire Element = Barrier. Clear Element + Blizzard Element = Slow. Cure Element + Clear Element = Jack s**t. Trust me, I tried.
inb4 I DIDNT GET JACK s**t
As you level, you get different abilities, depending on the weapon you're using. Examples could be you can stack more rings with your staff, or charge your lazors a sword strike, and so on. One of the good things is that your weapon grows with you, so you dont need to replace it every 3 seconds because an upgrade is available.
Speaking of upgrading existing equipment, there's a jewel system in the game as well. You unequip the weapon, go to the shop where they can customize your weapon. You add jewels that you find, convert your old equipment into said jewels, or you can even create your own items, provided you have the stuff. If you dont have the stuff you dont see nothin'.
During the course of the game, you may feel the urge to take your character to the World Wide Web. You're certainly welcome to do so, and in nearly no time at all. Provided you have interwebz, you're only a save stone away from going to the Internet. Of course, the first thing you want to do is save the game. Then you choose the option to go to Multiplayer.
Then it turns into something you'd see in Diablo. You either live in your world, or play in theirs. 'Theirs', being other people. Either your friends, or someone across the country, or even across the globe! Those are the three modes. If you choose to play in your world, you simply wait for others to arrive. Dont worry much, because they'll arrive right where you are.
Be careful with attacks, because you CAN hurt your allies. I found this out the hard way. As far as I saw, it only did one damage, but still, that can hurt. Communication is limited to just pre determined chats, but it serves it's purpose. One of the more fun things I've done with my allies is lift them up, like they were an item. This works if you have people who are being annoying and standing still. Or if they're stuck. Or if you just want to ******** with people.
When you want to go back to single player, you simply go to the save crystal and get out. A simple disconnection from WFC, and you're back to single player, pretty as you please.
This game is really confusing for about the first portion of the game, and slowly gets less confusing, until you finish the first boss, and by then you should have a decent grasp on gameplay.
I imagine the DS is less confusing at least as far as controls go, but I'm not really the judge for that.
Giving this game a quick 7. Horrible learning curve which is outshined by a good story, and varied amounts of customization.
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Funny story about online, too! Spoilers may or may not occur. You've been warned.
While I was playing, it was laggy like ******** for awhile, because one of the guys was a f** and on a horrible ISP. After awhile that mook leaves, and we're stuck to two. Keep in mind that we were in the middle of a boss battle, which was pretty bad. We take down the boss (LIKE A BOSS), and everything's gravy.
After that, we're tasked to go to a fire mountain (lol generic), and get shards of the Core Crystal. During our quest, I keep getting stuck. I blame it on it being 4 AM and being tired/hungry. Guy kept coming back for me, picking me up, and taking me with him to the destination.
He did that several times. He even asked 'Hey, are you coming?' a few times.
But there's some tips for you if you play multiplayer. If your buddy is lagging, give him a hand. Or two, as you lift him up and take him with you to you two's final destination! Remember, no items.
