REVIEW - Final Fantasy (1987)

Genre(s): RPG
Released: 1987
Available on: MSX2, NES, Virtual Console
Developer(s): Square
Publisher(s): Square
Players: 1

A little history lesson: in 1983, Masafumi Miyamoto (no relation to Shigeru) founded Square, which was originally a subdivision of a power line company and developed interactive adventure games for the NEC PC-8801; its first game was called The Death Trap, and it sold pretty well in Japan. In 1985, despite initially condemning video game consoles because of their limitations in comparison to home computers, Square began designing games for the Famicom, testing out their new endeavor with a port of the arcade game Thexder. In late 1986, the confident Square severed ties with its parent company, and soon fell into dire straits financially. After many commercial failures, the company was all but ready to close its doors. The main designer of The Death Trap, Hironobu Sakaguchi, stepped up with a console role-playing game influenced by Enix's Dragon Quest, he liked to call Final Fantasy, due to its potential of being the very last game to be developed by Square. Well, it wasn't. Final Fantasy was the breakthrough Square needed. 23 years after the game's original Japanese release, Square has merged with their old rival Enix and is one of the most respected companies in the history of the video game business. And Final Fantasy? 12 sequels, and countless spin-offs and remakes later, the very original NES game is still considered a cult classic. Does that guarantee quality? Depends on who you ask. Me? I'm a sucker for retro, as well as a huge Final Fantasy fan, and everyone knows that, but I have certain limits that the original game exceeds for multiple reasons.

Very 'eavy, very 'umble

The elemental powers of the world have failed. An old sage's prophecy tells of four Warriors of Light, who will emerge to save the world in a time of darkness. 400 years after the first elemental orb went dark, these four Warriors with different talents arrive to the Kingdom of Coneria, to begin their mission of restoring the world.

Where it all began.

Before going into how God damn awful the graphics look, I have to reflect on them for a second and think how big the game is for an NES title, that was released in '87. The budget probably consisted of at least 80% of everything Square had left at that point. So the game looks quite awful, but most likely the best Square could do at that point, or any other, much more stable company, with a game like this. Besides, the magic effects are actually quite cool in a retro sort of way; at least in this game, you can tell the difference between a fire spell and a lightning spell. 28-year old Nobuo Uematsu, who had worked on every Square game since 1985's Genesis, composed the music, and it has been proven since that when remixed right, the stuff is awesome. In this original game, it just gets on one's nerves since the game is simply that slow. The sound effects are the worst - every opening dialogue box and starting battle makes a very familiar 8-bit screech usually associated with damage. If I ever touch the original game again, I'll just mute the monitor and whip out some arranged soundtrack CD's for atmosphere.

I have no complaints about the story whatsoever, and besides, it might start out very generic and completely unimaginative, but it actually turns out one of the most captivating and unique stories of its own time as the game progresses. Did you really expect a guy that was seeing his income go to shit to mix up a delicate masterpiece of a story like those of Final Fantasy IV and VI, not to mention VII, right away, not foreseeing the game's ultimate commercial fate at all? Final Fantasy's story is very traditional fantasy fiction, basically the kind anyone could write, but just a few dare to do it. You control four mute Warriors of Light, their classes and names are up to you, and you travel around the world in an attempt to restore its four main elements - earth, wind, water and fire - to make it a happier place. On the way, you must engage in different quests to convince different people of your ultimate agenda and sincere desire to help... OR, people are just fucking with you since you're the almighty Warriors they were promised in the prophecy, and you can't actually say no to their petty requests. Save the princess. Deliver this, deliver that. Stop the time paradox. How about we Warriors just go home, order pizza and watch porn?

My team oozes with masculinity.

Well, seriously, Square was in a hurry when they created Final Fantasy. No sane man can expect miracles or the amazing gameplay from Final Fantasy IV forward - but really, the original game is extremely tedious. Extremely slow, and heavy duty. That, and it's also a cryptic mess. If you really want a positive opinion from me on any version of the game, you should wait until I get to the Game Boy Advance remake. The original game is nearly unplayable, as far as I'm concerned and I'll tell you why.

The game was probably one of the first games that doesn't begin with its title screen; the title screen shows up about an hour into the game, actually. There's a short narrative in the beginning which vaguely explains the origins of the story, then a Continue / New screen pops up, looking like a damn bundle of glitch; very promising. Well, then there's the Character Select screen. It took me forever to get past it before I figured out I just gotta keep pressing A once I've entered all the four-letter names and classes. Any other button press would've probably changed a class or two, or reset my "fabulous" choices for character names. I think Fighter's pretty much a staple choice for everyone in the game, since he's the only character that can deal decent physical damage from the very beginning, but other classes are yours to choose depending wholly on your style of playing. Besides Fighter, you can choose a Black Belt, White Mage, Black Mage, Red Mage (who has skills in both white and black magic) and a Thief. Certain attributes of all classes grow as you level up - like Strength and HP for Fighter and Magic and Spell Charges for all mages - and all classes have a Master level accomplished at a late point in the storyline. You can't change these characters or classes at any point, so choose wisely.

It's not really clear in the beginning that the Coneria castle and town are actually two different locations inside the same walls. I've got to admit I was really awestruck by the first few battles on my first time of playing, since I practically couldn't do shit to the enemies with anyone except the Fighter, and there are always about three to six, even nine enemies on the screen. Then I figured out that there's a town. Oh yeah, now we're talking: there's an Inn, in which you can save your progress - for a certain amount of money, which is a bitch - a chapel (according to the game's manual) where you can resurrect your fallen party members, and five different stores. Being a warrior by heart, I rush into the weapon and armor stores first. Oh yeah, now we're talking some more: I have 400 gil in my pocket, and every weapon and piece of equipment sells for about a measly 10 gil. I equip all of my party, which now consists of Fighter, Thief, Red Mage and Black Belt and head out much happier. Well, then I visit the mana store and find out that each spell sells for a 100 gil. Well, that's OK, since mana is very important in this game, very much more effective than any physical attack. I buy two of them, Lightning and Fire. Well, I have no money left to buy any white magic. I guess I could cope without it for a while, I'll just check in at the item store and stock up on some Potions. 60 gil each. I'm no cheapskate, but for fuck's sake: 10 gil for chained armor, and 60 gil for a standard damn Potion?

Coneria's infested with Imps.

Forgiving the game's inane logic and the cutthroats in town for now, I head into the woods to fight for money and to level up. Well, it's just not that simple. The battles in the game... let's just say that at one point in my life, I temporarily quit role-playing to primarily move on to third-person action. I just grew tired of the genre for a while. After that while, it took some time from me to get used to standard Final Fantasy gameplay again; I fell asleep playing Final Fantasy IX, while leveling up, several times at that, and we're talking about one of the series' highlights here. For some reason, I started thinking what if modern Final Fantasy games would be like the first one. What if in Final Fantasy IX, only one of your characters was able to actually do something to a small horde of enemies, each of your attacks had to be "planned" in the beginning of the battle, chosen from a slow and hard to use list of commands, and the game deemed your attack "Ineffective" when you attacked an already fallen enemy, instead of automatically switching the target to the nearest foe alive? Of course you can also miss your target with any sort of attack, and that happens way more often than it needs to. Too bad a Fighter-Fighter-Fighter-Fighter combination just doesn't work in a game like this. Black Belt and Thief are useless until they get to a certain level, and it takes forever to level up. All of the Mages are of great help once they actually have some spells equipped, but those spells cost as much as your ass can take, and you can only use each spell for a set number of times in each battle. Yeah, these battles last long. Of course they do: Fighter does all the real damage, and he probably misses each third or fourth hit. Plus, even he can't defeat an enemy with one punch or slash in the beginning of the game. Any enemy. With any weapon. Money flows in decent amounts, EXP doesn't.

This is all a bit unfair, I know. I'm just tired of some purists pushing and selling the game as the greatest Final Fantasy game ever; we normal people know that's far from the truth. It's classic because of what it started, not because of the game it is now. What's most unfair, but I just have to mention it, is my reaction towards the dialogue and storytelling. In the game's defense, I must say that my favourite game of all time, the seventh game in the main series, has big problems in the quality of the dialogue - the English version, that is. Yet, Final Fantasy has to be one of the most cryptic games I've ever personally played more than mere hours. The townsfolk speak total irrelevancies; they're not quite as high as the people in Castlevania II or Zelda II, but still pretty stoned. If it weren't for just the town, the Coneria castle and the Temple of Fiends you can go to in the beginning of the game, you wouldn't know what the hell you're supposed to do or where you're supposed to go. Everyone says different things... and some of them, the EXACT same things. You can also check fountains and remarkable items for more irrelevancies. Oh yeah, and even each pixel on the ground speaks to you: "Nothing here." Just move around and press the A button like crazy if you're bored. You'll see there's just nothing, everywhere.

Well, well. A well. Just an ordinary well. Well,
I'll be damned.

Returning to this world, the menus are extremely tiring to use even outside battle. The main menu is a scrambled mess, and I don't really understand why we should even be given the opportunity to "drop" anything. Every bit of gil in this game is ultimately a treasure, so at least I'd rather sell each item and piece of equipment I don't have a need for. Pressing Select brings up the character order menu, and the character order really doesn't make any difference for casual players. So much useless scramble. Once again, it's not that the game is so obsolete in terms of gameplay, the gameplay wasn't great to begin with. I would've absolutely hated the game as a kid. Honest. And hey, I liked any game as a kid, like I have stated before. What if I'd never played a Final Fantasy game again because of this one? I shudder to think.

Final Fantasy is a hard game, but for the utterly wrong reasons. The ultra boring battles and the amount of them you need to engage in to fully develop your party to the point that damn Chaos dude doesn't stand a chance against you are way too much to bear in this day and age. Just about everything about the game is hard to bear...

...Still, due to what this one game created, I can't find it in my heart to fully bash it. Besides, we've seen what it's like with all the tweaks that came along several sequels later: a good game, with an equally ordinary storyline, but a perfectly playable RPG. Final Fantasy is a game that used to scream for a remake, it got a few of them and none are useless. I strongly recommend you turn to the Dawn of Souls bundle on the Game Boy Advance if you want to experience the game as it was intended.

Graphics : 6.0
Sound : 6.5
Playability : 5.9
Challenge : 6.5
Overall : 6.1

Trivia

Nintendo Power ranks Final Fantasy #49 on their list of the Top 200 Nintendo Games of All Time.

The game was released in the United States in 1990. The original NES version was never released in Europe, neither were the original versions of the first five sequels.

A version of the NES game was released on the MSX2 by Micro Cabin in 1989. Since then, the game has been remade for the WonderSwan Color (2000), Sony PlayStation as part of Final Fantasy Origins (2002), Game Boy Advance as part of Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls (2004), and Sony PSP as part of Final Fantasy - 20th Anniversary in 2007.

In the North American version of the game, one of the tombstones in ElfLand says: "Here lies Erdrick". Erdrick is a character in Enix's Dragon Quest series. In the Japanese version, the same tombstone reads: "Here lies Link", which of course refers to the protagonist of the Legend of Zelda series.

Warrior of Light (voiced by Grant George) and Chaos (voiced by Keith David) are rivals in Square Enix's all-star anniversary game Dissidia - Final Fantasy, released on the PSP in 2008.

REVIEW - Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (2003)

Genre(s): RPG
Released: 2003
Available on: GBA
Developer(s): AlphaDream
Publisher(s): Nintendo
Players: 1

Mario's run in the role-playing genre began with the 1996 SNES cult classic Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. Four years later, it was followed by its spiritual successor Paper Mario on the Nintendo 64. Another three years later, AlphaDream and Nintendo presented Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, a humorous follow-up to these two popular games for their 32-bit handheld wonder Game Boy Advance. Once again, Nintendo managed to produce one of the most unique and unorthodox RPG's around, and was showered with critical acclaim. However, one of the very basic elements of the game - timing - is likely to turn many traditional role-playing enthusiasts down.

Spillin' the beans

STARRING
Charles Martinet : Mario / Luigi
Jen Taylor : Princess Peach
Scott Burns : Bowser
Kazumi Totaka : Yoshi

A good will ambassador from the Beanbean Kingdom turns out to be a fiendish witch named Cackletta. She steals Princess Peach's voice and replaces it with explosives. Mario is called in for the rescue and surprisingly, Bowser offers him his sincere help because he can't stand Peach the way she is, and refuses to kidnap her until her voice is restored. Luigi, who's planning to stay at home as per usual, accidentally gets taken along for the ride. After Cackletta's henchman Fawful interferes with their flight to Beanbean, the brothers are left in the middle of a strange land to fend for themselves, and each other.

The graphics are great, however AlphaDream could've worked on the dimensional design a tad better. Sometimes it's very difficult to make out general depth, and height of some platforms. Also, the sprites generally look great, especially in battles; the new bosses look like fine leftovers from Yoshi's Island. Bowser, though, looks fat and formless, his sprite's like a quick last minute job, seemingly influenced by old, crappy promotional art for Super Mario Bros. 3. The music's surprisingly good; I was expecting something along the lines of the annoying soundtrack of Super Mario RPG, especially since Yoko Shimomura is once again at work. There are some very annoying bits, but mostly the music's quite good and there's once again a wide array of nicely remixed Mario tunes which we all know to accompany all the in-jokes this game produces. The game is like an unofficial part of the Super Mario Advance series, even though it's a whole new exclusive title, and that means the voiceover samples are here once again. This time, they're merely sound effects, to spice up the brothers' different reactions in different situations, and they're funny as hell. The clever use of these effects supports the game's humorous agenda excellently. I don't know what the hell they're saying, probably nothing in real Italian - but every time Mario and Luigi speak, it cracks me up.

"Ohhhhh yeahhhhh! La frutti di maro! BYE-
BYEEEE!!!" A potential comment from the
bros.

First off, I'd like to make it clear to you that I haven't beaten the game yet, I'm only about 50% done with it, but I had to start this review to fully remember what it was like when I couldn't play the game. The first thing I'd like to mention, in fact, is that Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga has an incredible learning curve. From the ones I've played, it's the most difficult Mario game to learn to play proficiently, ever. I still remember December 1996, when I first played Super Mario 64 and I was convinced that I could never learn to use the Nintendo 64 controller. Thanks to all the in-game tutorials, I learned to use it like a pro in no time. Having that many buttons was actually for the controller's, and the game's, benefit. Well, there are many functions in the surprisingly dynamic Mario & Luigi, and you will simply have to learn to manage with the four action buttons of the Game Boy Advance, both in the field and battle. There are quite a bit of action-oriented puzzles in the game to go with the platformer-meets-RPG type of gameplay already introduced by the game's spiritual predecessors, and these, at the very least, force you to learn each new ability as it comes along.

The humour in this game is phenomenal. Before taking my chances with the game, I was convinced that I'd just skip the conversations, because I just finished Super Mario RPG and I couldn't have taken any more of that somewhat entertaining but ultimately inane, childish humour. Mario & Luigi pays back with sharp, clever dialogue and graphical elements that mock the whole Mario series' clichés from the very beginning, from that 1981 gorilla hassle to the present day. The main in-joke of the game is Luigi's "coming of age". For decades, gamers have kicked and mauled poor Luigi, including me, and chronologically the first reason for that is that no one ever wanted to be the second player. The second reason is that for the last decade before Mario & Luigi's release, Mario didn't even need Luigi. The "green one", as he's called by many NPC's in the game, has starred in a couple of games on his own, both of which sucked. I'm surprised that Nintendo actually admits that they sucked - even if they had virtually nothing to do with that appalling educational title Mario Is Missing! - and I'm very proud of Nintendo because of that, they haven't been known to admit their mistakes, just cover them up with new ones. Anyway, in this game, Luigi starts off actually with better stats than Mario, and while his puffier brother takes all the credit and acclaim from NPC's, it's Luigi who consistently is a naturally better character to use. Even if he doesn't quite understand that himself, having lived in his bro's shadow for so long.

My favourite singled-out character from the game has to be Fawful, main antagonist Cackletta's henchman, who's clearly been influenced by the bad English grammar in dozens of infamous 8- and 16-bit games. I sincerely never thought to laugh out loud at a Nintendo game... due to its humour at least, but whenever this guy yells out "I'M WITH FURY!", I can't help but burst out in uncontrollable laughter. Even if the gameplay is frustratingly difficult at times, the humour and atmosphere of the game savour even the worst moments. The new characters in general are very entertaining additions to the family.

The Beanbean Kingdom's full of some very
strangely named places...

The one key theme of the gameplay is teamwork. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga is kind of like what I'd call a single player co-op game. It would be an interesting co-op game in its own way, I reckon, yet not very good, since timing is very important and even those situations in which timing is irrelevant, it's much better to have just one set of brains involved. Mario and Luigi start off by just being able to jump, and each time you jump to a higher level, you need to tap both A and B to get both brothers moving. The A button always controls the brother in the front, while the B button dictates the movement and functions of the brother in the back. This basic element already will prove difficult for a lot of people to sink in, but I can assure you it gets much, much harder. You see, quite early on you will learn Bro Action, a set of special moves for field and battle. On the field, Bro Actions enable you to explore places you didn't have access to before, and they're executed by switching between Mario and Luigi and choosing the correct icons for both brothers with the L and R buttons. Both have a different Bro Action jump; while Luigi's in the front, Mario can do a Spin Jump, which enables the brothers to fly for a short time, and while Mario's in the front, Luigi can do a High Jump. When you've finally learned all there is to the basic Bro Actions, the game hits you with the Hammers.

The Hammers are weapons you can't equip off or sell. You absolutely need the Hammers in the field, as well as in battle. They have their own Bro Action functions, tutored to you a while after you initially get the weapons, and you also need them to break blocks and rocks on your path. In an indirect Legend of Zelda style, the Hammer is later upgraded to Super Hammer, which breaks different coloured rocks. I have to admit I personally did fine without the Hammers, a lot better in fact, but on the other hand, I didn't expect to just jump on every enemy in a game that would surely feature some sort of spiked enemies. The Hammers are extremely hard to put to efficient use in battle. Don't laugh, they really are at least for someone who has had better reflexes during his past life. Weapons are indeed mandatory, you can't switch them or anything like that, but you can buy armor (called fashions), and accessories (called badges) as in any role-playing game.

Timing's a very important part of the game and it becomes evident in many sorts of situations: in the minigame type of challenges that await you on many different quests, puzzles, and especially battle situations. In this game, it's possible to dodge every single attack from an enemy. Possible, yet unlikely. This is one RPG in which you have to stay on your toes the whole time. It's strictly turn-based, just like the previous Mario RPG's, but whenever enemies get their turn, each of them gives everything they've got. Even if it might first look like they're not actually doing much damage at all, you have to take into account that damage can very quickly cluster up in this game and knock out one of your bros. Defense and counterattacks, as well as special Bro Action battle commands (enabled by BP, Bro Points), and the Timed Hits already introduced in Super Mario RPG, are executed in quick time. If you're not good with QTE's, this game might prove harder for you on a personal level than it really is. Top that with the fact that you need to control two different characters, at the same time. Like I said, I'm halfway through the game, and I still haven't quite learned to control Mario and Luigi simultaneously. I have seen many Game Over screens; most of my troubles have been caused by bosses, who all have some particular strategy hard to figure out and attacks that are extraordinarily hard to dodge or counter.

This boss fight against Wiggler is a good
one to practice multiple targeting with.

You level up in this game quite fast, but enemies of your caliber are occasionally really hard to find. Also, the Beanbean Kingdom is a little too open right away, you can easily wander into places that you have no chance of surviving in. If you're quick in learning enemies' strategies, and how to dodge their attacks, I guess you could just go anywhere you possibly can in the game in the very beginning, but personally I don't recommend it. When you level up, you can manually grant Mario and Luigi an additional perk to some stat of your choosing, however constantly perking up a single stat gives you less bonus points for your disposal.

I can't emphasize Mario & Luigi's exceptional learning curve enough. It's not just that you have a lot to learn and sink in, you have to be consistently proficient in timing and the parallel control of two characters throughout the whole game to be able to beat it. I really, really didn't see this coming: a truly challenging RPG, after all general difficulty level isn't exactly the genre's thing, and on top of all it's a freakin' Mario game.

Like all Super Mario Advance titles, Mario & Luigi comes bundled with Mario Bros. Classic, which brings in the multiplayer feature (luckily) not available in the main game.

Despite being a little too stuffed with constant function toggling with not just one, but two characters, and the importance of reflexes and timing which makes it frustratingly difficult at times, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga is a fun, unique role-playing experience that is worth a try for anyone into the genre even the slightest bit. And, finally Nintendo produced a humorous family oriented game that even makes adults laugh out loud. Even moreso than those who weren't there to watch how Luigi gradually became "Mario's maid".

Graphics : 9.1
Sound : 8.8
Playability : 8.7
Challenge : 9.3
Overall : 8.8

Trivia

a.k.a. Mario & Luigi RPG (JAP)

GameRankings: 90.35%

One of the few Japanese games, especially those produced by Nintendo, that was released in the U.S. first - four days before the international release.

In late 2003, Nintendo organized a competition that challenged players to come up with the best "knock-knock" joke with the main prize being a Game Boy Advance SP, bundled with Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. Comedienne Kathy Griffin was the judge.

Area 64 was named after Area 51 and Nintendo 64. In the Japanese version, the area is known simply as Area 51.

REVIEW - Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (1996)

Genre(s): RPG
Released: 1996
Available on: SNES, Virtual Console
Developer(s): Square
Publisher(s): Nintendo
Players: 1

By 1995, Mario had been the lead character in just about every sort of game imaginable. The golden days of Japanese role-playing games reminded Shigeru Miyamoto of the genre his most beloved son hadn't conquered yet. Influenced by the success of Square's critically acclaimed titles like Final Fantasy IV and VI, and their latest unrelated masterpiece Chrono Trigger, Miyamoto and his multitalented co-director Chihiro Fujioka took leadership over a handpicked development team at Square, and created one of the most unique RPG experiences ever, released one year into production and hailed by many as a cult classic - not just Mario fans, but RPG buffs as well. I just spent three days hacking through this old favourite of mine from the last remarkable days of the SNES. So, how's the game all these years later? Not perfect, but still fun, surreal and very different from any RPG you've ever seen.

In flower power we trust

While fiddling around in Mario's garden, Princess Toadstool is once again kidnapped by Bowser. Everyone's favourite plumber enters Bowser's keep and fights his arch nemesis while Toadstool cheers for him. Suddenly, a massive sword rips the sky and falls on the castle, sending all three flying. Unable to re-enter the castle taken over by the mysterious gang of fiends from the skies, Mario sets out to search for the missing duo of Toadstool and Bowser - and gets tangled in a plot that concerns everyone in the world, his friends and foes alike.

It's-a-me, Mario! Would love some of
Toadstool's world famous cake right now!

Graphically, the game isn't quite as nice as I remembered. Most of the exterior, forested areas look plain and the empty spaces surrounding the isometric playfield look quite dumb. The towns, except those with a distinctive theme like Moleville, all look the same in architecture and there are very few landmarks to separate them from the rest. Technically, though, the game takes a lot out of the SNES. The graphical effects are excellent, and the diverse 3D sprites don't twitch at all. The wisely limited use of ACM brings some of its own spice into the table. Although the game might start to look bland from time to time, especially in maze-like areas in which you need to engage in long strains of fights to keep going, I can't overlook the juice it squeezes out of the SNES with already a half of itself.

Music has always been a crucial part of Square's M.O., however Super Mario RPG's soundtrack really ain't that special. Former Capcom in-house talent Yoko Shimomura (Street Fighter II, Breath of Fire etc.) mixes up a batch of classic, reworked Mario tunes, and a variety of new music generally influenced by Koji Kondo's works, including the Legend of Zelda series. Unique remixes of the old stuff are all quite good and the use of music is overall good and imaginative, but the new stuff doesn't really offer up anything great on Square's standards, at least before the game's last one or two hours. The battle music deserves a special mention of being quite horrid. During the first couple of hours it might sound cheery, pleasant and all that, but it's extremely repetitive and will drill a hole in the skull of anyone who's willing to beat this game to the hilt, sooner or later. The sound effects are fine, but Mario's mandatory and constant jumping might turn out as unnerving as the music pretty early on for many players, and some enemy attacks are accompanied by a sound that is very similar to that of a soaking wet fart.

The battle system's neat and innovative. It's
the battles themselves that get quite boring.

I have said it before, albeit indirectly, that for me, taking on Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars is like going into the attic to dig through my old TMNT action figures and Lego blocks - an extremely warm memory from my childhood. Well, I wasn't exactly a child, more of an annoying preteen when I bought Super Mario RPG - but it made me feel like one, and it still does... for a while, until reality kicks in. I've grown out of the humour and self-conscious naivete of the game. I can't fully appreciate its dialogue and storyboard in general as much as I did when I was younger, but I still like and respect Super Mario RPG as a game. The developers played around with RPG basics and clichés, mercilessly throwing many elements into the waste basket while putting extra weight on others. They never did quite cross the border of pissing a true RPG fan off with the game, nor did they ever apply too traditional RPG elements that would've turned kids, who thought this was just another Mario game, off. I have honestly heard of several young World of Warcraft players who got into role-playing thanks to Super Mario RPG. It really is a fine place to start for any kids interested in role-playing, but who can't quite get the basics of an RPG. Despite its simplicity, Super Mario RPG is an entertaining and unique game at least every Mario fan should experience once.

All of the basic elements of an RPG are there: leveling up, buying items and equipment, interacting with tons of NPC's and travelling through cities and dungeons for tens of hours - taking on several quests to get to some ultimate objective. However, above all else Super Mario RPG is a Mario game. You can safely expect to see a stunning cavalcade of vintage Mario elements of the past, including carefully reworked locations and familiar characters, from friends to foes, enemies to NPC's. The game has a lot of surprises in store when it comes to the universe and legacy of the Mario series. It was clearly made to entertain, and wrap up Mario's run on the SNES in distinctive style.

"No. Chuck Norris."

The game is like a combination of a platformer and an RPG. There is a LOT of jumping in this game, and the three-dimensional isometric playfield makes the inclusion of challenges based on jumping possible. Mario is known all around the game's universe for his amazing jumping ability. It's no surprise that jumping also brings on the most frustration in this game. It requires both timing and precision that might turn off players into more traditional RPG's. If the enemy encounters were random, falling all the way down during a long climb, over and over again and having to start the climb over would spell an unplayable nightmare. Luckily, they aren't. The enemies in the game are in plain sight all the time, and enemy encounters are relatively easy to avoid. Most regular enemies don't even respawn before you exit and re-enter the screen, so you are given the opportunity to struggle through even the trickiest platformer sequences in peace as long as you're willing to beat the crap out of them once. The "willing" part's the most difficult one.

Fighting in this game is very unique and fun at first. Then it gets just too damn easy and boring. First of all, fighting in the game is strictly turn-based; enemies won't attack you while your command window is open, so you have a lot of time to plan your attacks or cure yourself. There's also kind of a strange logic; the enemy's size doesn't tell jack about the enemy's physical strength or defense power - there are points in which you fight a buff, a smaller enemy guarding the main guy, for two minutes with all you've got, and defeating the main guy takes about one punch. Most importantly, if you're an avid RPG player, you'll probably try to level up as much and as soon as possible. If you spend enough time leveling up in the beginning of the game, something along the lines of three or four times the average player, and continue to fight steadily by taking care of each enemy in each screen just once, you'll overpower all enemies quite quickly, and continue doing that until the very end of the game. The arena of the final battle is the only really challenging one in the whole storyline, and even that is a snap if you've went out of your way to conquer all of the game's different secrets. Yes, secrets - there aren't many actual sidequests in the traditional sense, so the game's quite linear, too. These secrets include hidden question mark blocks all around the world, a few extremely hard additional bosses, and a mysterious casino which I have never found in the game, and haven't put much thought into finding it, either.

It's all about those stars.

I don't want to go deeper into the plot, but since the game's title already kind of gives it away, your main objective in the game is to find seven magical stars, which control the destinies of the inhabitants of Mario's world. You advance on a nifty world map that remotely reminds me of the one in Super Mario World, and travel from location to location to save people in despair and, occasionally, find one of the stars in the process. During your travels, you'll gain a party of five, including whole new characters Mallow and Geno, who are both well designed dudes and very welcome to the Mario universe on my account. The other two... well, I couldn't resist those couple of screenshots, so just check them out if you want to know. Each of the characters has a specific set of weapons and armor, but for example, Mario's fists are not his only weapons; he can also use different hammers and Koopa Troopa shells.

This kind of reminds me of my usual bar back
in the day.

This takes us back to the fighting, which is really a quite interesting concept despite of getting boring towards the game's end. There's no traditional command list, it's replaced by a Y-X-B-A scheme in which each button dictates a command; Y is for special attacks, X for items, B for defense and A for normal attacks. One of the things that makes the battles so easy and boring is just that 70% of the time, you don't need anything else but those normal attacks to get by if your stats are good enough. There are not many really useful special attacks or items. The items become even more irrelevant once a medic joins the group, with her surprisingly impressive and useful list of special commands. The items actually become a nuisance quite quickly, since there's a ridiculous inventory limit of 29 items (and 30 for pieces of equipment). I hate inventory limits in all games in general, this one pretty much takes the cake since none of the items even stack. Oh yeah, coinage is limited too, to 999. And since we're talking about numbers here, I have to say Super Mario RPG is the only role-playing game I've ever seen, that doesn't have an in-game clock. I can just estimate that beating the game is perfectly possible within 20 hours.

To just resiliently stick with the fighting, I have to bring out the bonuses. You randomly get different bonuses by defeating certain breeds of enemies, which is even more likely if you score a Timed Hit, an effective double attack that is triggered by pressing the attack button again at the exact right time. These bonuses include a temporary perk to the attacking character's attack or defense power, Once Again! which enables him or her to instantly enter another command, and Lucky! which challenges you to a double-or-nothing minigame right after the battle, in which you can double the EXP or coins gained from the battle, or lose them all by jumbling the simple "find it" type of game up. When a character levels up - all of the party gains EXP from battles, not just the active one - you'll be able to grant him or her an extra perk for strength, HP or magic each time. The characters learn new special attacks upon hitting a certain level mark.

Never thought to see those three as a team,
huh? How did it come to this? Play the game
and see for yourself.

Flower Points, FP, are this game's equivalent of MP. All of the party members share the same FP meter, and it's replenished by using different sorts of Syrup. The maximum FP is raised with different flower containers, such as jars and boxes, and of course, by leveling up. Of course, the few useful special techniques drain a ridiculous amount of FP, which makes the Syrup actually worth something.

Speaking of minigames a couple of rows back, this one's got 'em. Most of them are different race concepts introduced during the storyline, and which you are able to return to any time and try your luck with a different agenda, like just high scores, money or special items. One of the most valuable items in the game is a Frog Coin, which is like a regular coin, but green. Accumulating enough of these valuable nickels enables you to buy some really cool items and accessories that will make your progress even easier, yet a bit more comfortable and rewarding, than it already is. The minigames include a Mode 7-powered mine cart race, an obstacle course on a river and even a "Game Boy game" called Beetle Mania, accessible via the main menu once you meet a person you can buy a Game Boy from.

Every RPG's got to have a dragon. Even this
one.

Well, I've complained about a lot of things thus far, so why the final rating? Well... that's a tough question. Like I said, I don't fully get the game's humour anymore. But it was damn funny when I was a kid, and the in-jokes meant to be more clever than insanely funny are still clever. The game has some great characters, not just vintage ones, but also new ones, including those whose career in Mario games began and ended here. The quality of the actual dialogue switches between on and off constantly, but it's mostly fair, in a naive Nintendo sort of way; the thing that annoys me most about it is the inconsistency, also known as the "Ted Woolsey syndrome", in character development. Geno starts out speaking in a very clear, polite and charismatic way, and occasionally he goes all "Yo dudes!". Very distracting to me on a personal level, but overall quite a minor point. Also, I like the game because it's so different from all other RPG's, so diverse. It's like any Mario game, with an occasionally really strange, surreal role-playing scheme.

In one word, it's cool. But like I said, it's simple and easy. It's extremely fun to return to Super Mario RPG from time to time, but the thing is that the older I get and the more proficient I get in "real" RPG games, the more I see the game as a naive, effortless gallery of Mario's legacy. It's extremely fun and somehow, extremely annoying at the same time. Probably the hardest game for me to review, ever.

Since I have to come to some sort of a conclusion here, I just have to recommend the game as someone who was once a huge Mario fan; I can see how cool the game would be from one's standpoint on the first playthrough. On that first playthrough, you just don't know what to expect from the game, from its gameplay, story or the nature of its numerous secrets and easter eggs, and seeing all the surprises unfold is a blast. So, my final words: don't mock it 'til you've tried it.

Graphics : 9.0
Sound : 7.7
Playability : 8.8
Challenge : 7.3
Overall : 8.5

Trivia

GameRankings: 87.94%

Nintendo Power ranks Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars #44 on their list of the Top 200 Nintendo Games of All Time.

First and only official Super Mario game not developed by Nintendo.

The last Mario game for the SNES, Square's last game to be released exclusively on a Nintendo system, and translator Ted Woolsey's last game on Square's payroll.

The original SNES version of the game was never released in Europe due to the launch of the Nintendo 64. In August 2008, the game was finally released in Europe on Wii's Virtual Console service.

Link from The Legend of Zelda makes a cameo appearance as a customer at the Rose Town Inn.

Samus Aran from Metroid makes a cameo appearance as a house guest at the Mushroom Kingdom castle, if the player revisits the castle at a certain point in the game.

Culex, the game's hardest boss, is a tribute to the Final Fantasy series. His battle theme is the boss theme from Final Fantasy IV, and if the party manages to defeat him, the normal victory fanfare is replaced with the classic Final Fantasy fanfare. He also uses four crystals tied to different elements, which are a recurring theme in the Final Fantasy series.

The game's storyline, events or new characters are hardly ever referenced in other Mario games, but the likeness of Geno makes a brief cameo in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga.

Although a sequel to the game was planned, it never became reality. However, the game is often referred to as the spiritual predecessor to Intelligent Systems' Paper Mario (2000) and AlphaDream's Mario & Luigi series.

REVIEW - God of War II (2007)

Genre(s): Action
Released: 2007
Available on: PS2, PS3 [God of War Collection]
Developer(s): Sony Computer Entertainment, Santa Monica Studios
Publisher(s): Sony Computer Entertainment, Capcom
Players: 1

Sony launched the PlayStation 3 in late 2006, and most people, rightfully so, believed that the end of production for the PlayStation 2 was at hand. Well, now it's late 2010 and the production of even some quality games for the PlayStation 2 still hasn't stopped. However, it has been a long time since we've seen something mindblowing exclusively on the decade's finest gaming apparatus. A while after the PS3's initial launch Sony published a game that was to take up every inch of their last-generation console's capacity and at the same time, help the PS2 to make one glorious, final stand. Well, that stand wasn't final, but the sequel to one of the decade's finest action games turned out glorious and even more epic than its predecessor, and it indeed pushes the technical capabilities of its platform to the maximum. Here's God of War II.

Mortal -> God -> Mortal -> Legend

STARRING
Linda Hunt : Gaia
TC Carson : Kratos
Michael Clarke Duncan : Atlas
Carole Ruggier : Athena
Harry Hamlin : Perseus
Corey Burton : Zeus
Paul Eiding : Theseus
Bob Joles : Icarus / Barbarian King
Leigh Allyn Baker : Lahkesis / Bathhouse Girl #2
Debi Mae West : Atropos / Bathhouse Girl #1

Ever since killing Ares and being named the new god of war, Kratos has begun to remind the other gods on Olympus of his predecessor. Driven by a grudge towards the other gods, as well as his greed, ambition and selfish, merciless nature, Kratos commands the Spartan armies as he pleases and destroys just about everything he sees. Zeus sees no other choice but to take matters into his own hands; he drains Kratos of his divine power and finally murders him. Ancient Titans, fathers and mothers of gods, give Kratos yet another chance to escape death and exact revenge on the children that betrayed them ages ago. The resurrected, yet once again mortal Kratos sets out to seek the three Sisters of Fate - Clotho, Lahkesis and Atropos - to travel back in time and turn the tables on all of Olympus.

The visual design of the characters degrades when it comes to standard cutscenes and their close-ups, but during gameplay, God of War II is without a doubt visually one of the most astounding games on the PlayStation 2. Just look at all the environments, and the animation, especially in combat. It's hysterical. And dare I say, EPIC, even moreso than in the first game. I'll get to exactly how epic the game is in a little moment. The developers fiddled with a lot of different figures in Greek mythology to create a huge cast for the game and use their own imagination to go with real mythical references. The character design turned out great. More about that in a moment, as well. The script is once again superb, with just a couple of off-key moments, and the voice actors are constantly on the mark a bit better than last time around. The music's different than last time, but in the exact same vein, by the exact same four composers who worked on the previous game's score. Excellent, adrenaline fueled, epic war music.

I'm not sure where I should begin - but I must first make a comment to all of those people who think God of War II and all subsequent installments are nearly identical to the first game, just a bit nicer-looking. How long have you played God of War II, exactly? The game is similar to the first one, yes, but it has a whole different setting, which indirectly influences the variety of magic, weapons and equipment at Kratos' disposal. It's longer, more difficult, and even more epic and surprising than the first game. On top of all, arguably though, it's more comfortable to play than the first game, even if some new features make me miss it every once in a while. All in all, I've said it before but I'll say it again - at its key points God of War II makes the first game look like a prototype of itself.

The first boss in the game, FROM AFAR. Kratos
is that spot in the middle, with the glowing
blades.

Let's take a look at the design. Once again, what we have here is an array of epic, beautiful landscapes with absolutely ridiculous (but extremely cool) proportions, for us to scan and navigate as we guide Kratos to a dangerous meeting with an alternative fate. The environments are as interactive as they can be on this capacity, and you have a whole lot of new tricks to learn if you want to survive this grueling test, more than just a mind for puzzles or dastardly combat skills. Well, not all of God of War II's just an awe-inducing moment after another, it has some "gimme a break" moments when it comes to just what you see - Harpies working as grappling points is something that's really awkward and "off", some of the ancient technology's a bit corny, and the developers really could've come up with some more original enemy designs. There are too many more vicious renditions of enemies from the first game, and there are only a few really cool new fiends. The QTE kill animations have been worked on, though, and the bosses... well, let's change the paragraph.

The bosses are mostly humans, or humanoid, or things that were once humans, so there are not that many truly HUGE battles in every sense of the word, but there still are a few, and you will feel those few in your eyes and brain. The intro sequence in this game, not much unlike the intro of the first game, is like a boss fight in itself - the only difference to a normal boss fight being that it lasts for about an hour and there's all kinds of shit you have to do whenever you're not face to face with the big cheese, who just happens to be a colossal statue, brought to life by the angry gods. Besides, the fact that most of the bosses are humans doesn't make them any less epic. And besides that, you know that there are a few unworldly entities and at least one god coming your way towards the game's end, so no complaining. Overall, there are more boss fights than in the previous game, which has its own influence on the game's overall difficulty.

A friendly necklock in Kratos' patented style.

Apparently, Kratos in the first game wasn't enough of a shithead. Granted, he did redeem some of himself in the end of the game and even I felt sorry for the dude, but apparently feeling sorry for him was completely against the developers' vision. Here, every worst quality in Kratos' inhuman nature is brought out. He's so greedy and self-absorbed that he's even oblivious to clear danger, if he's tempted by something. The true plot of the game begins with Zeus handing Kratos a sword, the mythical Blade of Olympus, to strike down his opposition while he's taking down the isle of Rhodes. Kratos doesn't realize that his actions have angered the more powerful gods, or if he does, he doesn't care. Either way, the Blade is clearly a trap, a tool to remove Kratos' immortality. He questions Zeus of his sudden urge to aid him, but grabs the sword anyway, since he hungers for its power. These themes of greed and appetite for destruction are repeated constantly, along with Kratos' ridiculously selfish and cocky rants, to make sure he would never become a "hero" in any player's mind. He's just bad ass; the meanest motherfucker ever to hail from Sparta.

Speaking of Spartans, this game came out about the same time as the movie 300 hit the theaters. Somehow, I can't help but feel that one has influenced the other in some small stylistic way. I bought the game on the day of its release and it took me months before I watched the movie for the first time, and just judging by the trailers, I saw a lot of 300 in God of War II. At least the amount of blood matches... between the movie and the first 20 minutes of God of War II.

Kratos starts out in an armored attire fit for a god and a fraction of his old abilities from the first God of War game left. After the first major turning point in the plot, he's back to his old, helpless, half-naked self again, armed only with his knives and an epic attitude problem; even the mana meter takes its leave. The game's plot gives very impressive explanations on the sudden degradation of Kratos' abilities, unlike in most games. You get a new employer as the identity of the previous game's narrator is revealed, and she will guide you from location to location, until you get to your final destination, the Temple of the Fates. The journey will not be easy, as you will face more fiendish puzzles and amazing battles than you ever thought you could in a PS2 title.

The button scheme has changed a bit. You still use the same button combos in combat to execute special moves, but the extensive use of the L2 and R2 triggers is over, which does the PS3 version in particular a lot of good, since mashing the sensitivity-based R2 just to open a door didn't feel too comfortable in the PS3 version of God of War, without those rubber thingies some people use on their Sixaxis controllers. Now you just have to tap L1 once and mash O in the game's QTE style to open a door. Speaking of QTE, there's a lot more of these events than in the first game. Contrasting all the potential cynicism: the controls are great. Even the rotation of the analog stick works perfectly. It's all up to the player's reflexes now.

You'll spend most of the time, once again, venturing for key items and abilities as you make your way to the Temple. Athena is one habitant of Olympus still on Kratos' side (sort of), so she lets you keep the blades she gave up in the first game, but they're degraded to Level 1 once you really get into the game. All other but Poseidon's Trident - which gives Kratos the ability to breathe underwater - is lost, and you need to replace all the shit you got from the gods while scouting for Pandora's Box. This is where gifts from the titans, as well as trophies from your fallen enemies step into the picture. All of the basic, upgradeable abilities, like the head of a gorgon and Cronos' Rage, are somewhat similar to the ones in the first game. Kind of a bummer, but the more diverse action in the game takes away some attention from these similarities - as does the importance of equipment. The equipment are two different weapons you can carry in addition to the blades, a fleece which can be used against projectiles and beams for blocking and counterattacking, and wings you can use to travel short distances. I don't want to give it all away, but there are also flying sequences which take the basic God of War gameplay to the skies above. It's... well, due to the lack of a better word, epic. Once again.

Perseus just fucked with the wrong former
god of war.

Grappling by using the blades is a new addition to the very basic God of War gameplay experience. It's mostly automatic, but jumping off grappling points (indicated by a very clear light, props for that) demands precision from the player. Like in most games with a similar feature, grappling can get quite nasty every once in a while, and definitely not in a good, challenging way. There are a few sequences that require speed and good timing. Even if you can handle both speed and timing, you'll have to learn to handle Kratos, too, as he has a tendency to re-grapple the point you're trying to get off and move to the next, regardless of how much closer you are to your next target. I don't get it. Thank goodness for the checkpoints, once again.

So... the grappling system's a bit lacking, but the developers did fix a lot of minor issues that always bugged me about the first game, starting with the graphical twitch and occasional scanlines. I already mentioned the quality of the QTE's, and what's best about the events for regular enemies is that Minotaurs and Medusas no longer just give out green or blue orbs when you fuck them up good, instead they yield all kinds of orbs. That's practical too, since maxing out the equipment and magic in the game takes forever as it is. We need every red orb we can get. Also, ripping up certain enemies with bare-handed tactics also yields orbs, this time around. Time to get brutal in any way you want. Rage of the Titans - which, of course, replaces Rage of the Gods since Kratos no longer runs with the "bastard sons of Olympus" - can be turned on any time, as long as the minimum limit of energy is exceeded. It can be turned off, too. The Rage meter replenishes as you kill enemies and break up stuff, as before, but now you also get gold orbs from chests and battles, which replenish the meter faster.

The secrets are now SECRETS. You must really go to some distances to find all of the stuff in the game. They're still not hidden too well, but definitely better than in the first game. To motivate you a little more than a few red orbs, Gorgon Eyes and Phoenix Feathers already do, there are 20 Cyclops Eyes, obtainable by killing Cyclops', and six artifacts known as Urns of Power. These grant Kratos special abilities, unlocked by using the Urns on bonus playthroughs. Now these urns ARE extremely well hidden, or if not hidden, beyond some tricky puzzles. God of War II puts the "p" in "puzzle" for the first time in a video game since Silent Hill 3. It's practically puzzle after puzzle, in a slash-action game format.

To wrap this all up, I guess I'll go with the two things that bothered me the most about the first God of War and how these things are effectively eliminated, or at least tweaked in God of War II.  First off, the narrow walkways. They're not as narrow, so there's no psychological stress involved, and Kratos' balance in conjunction with the sensitivity of the analog stick is better. The fixed camera's still a pisser, but now the true meaning of it unfolds as some puzzles and secrets in the game are strictly based on the camera angle. At one point, Kratos gains a very, very important ability he can use only in the vicinity of a certain type of statue, and more specifically, the light they emanate. The camera's weaknesses are turned to strengths as far as related puzzles are concerned, the camera makes them difficult to figure out in a truly challenging and fun way.

"As the sun breaks above the ground, an old
man stands on the hill..."

As a game, God of War II is difficult, but once again numerous checkpoints and well highlighted solutions make it easier for the player to eventually conquer it. Gigantic deathtraps in the form of the Temple of Pandora from the first game are pretty much missing, however; most of the difficulty is based on puzzles and incredibly sweaty combat, the kind you've never seen before in a video game... just check out the last few fights in the game and you'll see what I mean. The remastered God of War Collection edition for the PS3 is 100% identical to the PS2 game, except for HD graphics and the inclusion of 35 Trophies, which add to the game's difficulty level and replay value by quite an amount. Adding to the challenge in the original game is, of course, Challenge of the Titans, as well as Arena of the Fates, which lets the player put him- or herself in the toughest bind imaginable in a freeplay mode against a set number of any of the game's enemies.

God of War II is simply one of the finest games on the PlayStation 2, I don't have much more to say about it. There are a few reasons I chose this of all times to go into the first two God of War games. First of all, I still haven't even tried the full version of God of War III. I helped a recently found friend of mine move a week ago, and checked out his very subtle PS3 collection, and I found the God of War Collection, which I intended to buy at one time, but passed on the idea since I already have the original PS2 games. Well, I borrowed it for the Trophies, and to see if the magic was still there, and I was completely hooked so fast that I absolutely had to take this trip back right now. This bundle of some of the best third-person action ever reinforced my will to buy, see and conquer the much acclaimed God of War III some day in the nearest future possible. God of War II shines as its better half. 

Graphics : 9.4
Sound : 9.2
Playability : 9.3
Challenge : 9.2
Overall : 9.4

Trivia

GameRankings: 92.62% (PS2)

Casting director Amanda Wyatt originally attached Christopher Lee for the role of Zeus, and moved Paul Eiding from the previous game to the minor role of Theseus. Due to creative differences, Lee was replaced with Corey Burton.

Harry Hamlin, a.k.a. Perseus, plays the same character in Clash of the Titans (1981).

Some concepts like the Icarus Wings were written for the first game, but scrapped due to time constraints and technical issues.

Scrapped concepts include Atlantis as a playable area, and Oceanus the Titan.

REVIEW - God of War (2005)

Genre(s): Action
Released: 2005
Available on: PS2, PS3 [God of War Collection]
Developer(s): Sony Computer Entertainment, Santa Monica Studios
Publisher(s): Sony Computer Entertainment, Capcom
Players: 1

Before taking you on the lengthy RPG ride I promised earlier, I will take you on a little trip back to late 2004, when I first heard about an upcoming PlayStation 2 title by the name of God of War. The game was promoted as "Devil May Cry set in ancient Greece", and since I was somewhat of a Devil May Cry fan back then, I was absolutely sold and found myself following every step of the game's development. What Sony Computer Entertainment promoted as their newest flagship game looked so ridiculously epic and deliciously brutal that I couldn't help but to save some money for the release date and go buy the wretched R-rated thing as soon as it hit the shelves. God of War turned out everything that Sony's Santa Monica Studios promised, and more: no less than one of the most essential action games of the decade. So essential that it was brought back on the PS3 four years after its release along with its 2007 sequel, in promotion of the third and final part of the God of War trilogy.

Homicidal suicider on his way to kill a god

STARRING
Linda Hunt : Narrator
TC Carson : Kratos
Carole Ruggier : Athena / Aphrodite
Steve Blum : Ares
Susanne Blakeslee : Oracle of Athens / Village Oracle
Paul Eiding : Zeus / Grave Digger / Greek Soldier
Christopher Smith : Undead Soldier / Greek Soldier
Gwendoline Yeo : Lysandra / Town Square Woman
Fred Tatasciore : Poseidon / Greek Soldier / Fisherman
Claudia Black : Artemis

Ares, the god of war, has gone berserk and is taking the great city of Athens down piece by piece. Since the other gods cannot take any direct action towards him, they hire Ares' former right hand man - the sorrowed and reckless mortal Kratos, for the job - with the promise of ridding him of his haunting visions and nightmares forever. Kratos sets out on a journey through Athens to find the means to get his revenge on the god of war and finally set himself free of his dark past at the same time.

Yep. It's THAT epic.

No words are enough to describe the graphical proportions of the game. The fixed camera makes sure that you see everything, even the biggest landmarks, just like the developers wanted you to see them like: huge, ridiculously epic. The game looks incredible, however there's a notable graphical twitch throughout that kind of takes away from the grandeur. The cutscenes vary in quality. Some very minor designs like that of the textboxes looks poor and low-budget, but everything else - top-notch on the original platform. You must've noticed that I just need _something_ to complain about the game's look...

The music? Four different composers worked on this game, including Ron Fish, who went on much later to single-handedly muster up the soundtrack to Batman: Arkham Asylum. Epic, epic stuff, clearly influenced by war and fantasy. The main theme is more than a little reminiscent of the Lord of the Rings movie score. The voice actors are OK, however it's the script itself that counts here. Once the amazing plot starts thickening, it totally overshadows the occasional overacting. The cast features such names from the TV and movie screen as TC Carson and Linda Hunt, and voiceover staples Paul Eiding, Steven Blum, Claudia Black and Nolan North in much lesser roles.

Before going into gameplay, I really want to take an extensive look at the game's surface design from all aspects. The game is set in ancient Greece, which is a surprisingly rare setting in videogames, surprising because there is so much fine material for action games. In the late 80's, there was Battle of Olympus on the NES, but since then, no one really got into the subject... not until 2004 when David "Twisted Metal" Jaffe officially came through with the concept of a mortal man on a mission to kill a god. The developers, led by Jaffe, took the Greek theme to its very limits. Even though it's hinted in-game on several occasions that the game is the first part of a trilogy, I don't think many people believed that a sequel could've really brought something new into the picture; the game is like an encyclopedia of Greek mythology. The locations, the enemies that range from minotaurs to centaurs to gorgons, the gallery of gods - name any element of ancient Greece and it's probably here. In an epic, breathtaking form. However, sequels did come, they did bring in something new, and they turned out better than the first game - all this seemed impossible when God of War came out. Like David Jaffe himself says in one of the interviews that come along as unlockable bonus content: God of War is fucking rad. Still can't disagree on that, even after the sequels.

Our anti-hero wondering who to brutally murder
next.

The epic proportions of the game take their toll on everything - so does the script. The surprisingly deep game begins with a bombshell that will leave the player with his/her mouth open before they even really know what's going on. Yet, that view from present time, and then the little timewarp three weeks back, immediately hook the player. Like I said, the voice acting isn't always quite on target - some of the actors have a tendency to get a little carried away - but in the most important key points the actors handle the script well, with delicacy and precision. It's made clear quite early on that Kratos isn't very loveable, and he was never supposed to be loveable, at least not in the traditional sense. He's selfish and uncaring beyond belief, the man does not know jackshit about sympathy or empathy, and calling him violent would be a sheer compliment. He's here to finish a job, only for the benefit of himself - he couldn't care less about what the gods want or the wellbeing of the citizens of Athens. The more the plot advances, the more most players will hate to love the guy, for his efficiency in combat above all else. Which finally takes us to gameplay.

Kratos starts out as an ordinary warrior... if you disregard his snow-white skin and his only choice of weapons at the time, a pair of giant knives on chains - welded to his wrists. As Kratos begins his actual quest after the extended intro sequence - that already demonstrates the game's visual proportions in the form of huge environments and an even more spectacular boss - he will soon slowly begin to develop into an angel of death with the potential to actually hold his own against a god. New abilities, key items and equipment are gradually handed to Kratos by the nicer gods up on Mount Olympus, who want to test out their little mortal tool of destruction before letting him take on their deranged brother. Just some of the abilities you will be mandated to acquire and use to get to the end of the game are the ability to turn enemies to stone by using Medusa's severed head - which you, of course, will have to sever yourself - and summon the souls of the dead to aid you in battle, by using a power bestowed upon you by Hades himself. Epic. I know.

After the mentioned intro sequence which takes place on the Aegean Sea, Kratos begins his quest in the city of Athens to find the means to stand up to his former master and kill him, as ordered by the gods. The journey is filled with hordes of monsters, a couple of tactical boss fights, occasionally fiendish puzzles, and traps and obstacles classified way beyond extreme. The basic gameplay's very similar to Devil May Cry, only a hell of a lot better if you ask me, and not mission-based in any way: Kratos' one single mission is literally a journey. You get orbs by killing enemies and from chests scattered all around Athens. The red ones are used for upgrading your equipment and divine spells, green ones are for your health and the blue ones replenish your mana meter. In addition, there's a number of (semi-)well hidden Gorgon Eyes and Phoenix Feathers, which raise the maximum of your health and mana meters, respectively. Dante's Devil Trigger from Devil May Cry is replaced with Rage of the Gods, Kratos' very own godmode, which becomes available after your first blade upgrade. Unlike the Devil Trigger, Rage isn't controlled by any additional items. Instead, it has a meter of its own which replenishes each time you hit something, be it an enemy or a breakable object.

A Cyclops gets some unwanted eye surgery.

As mentioned, combat in the game is nothing short of epic. You can't quite get "epic" by just swinging the Blades of Chaos all over the place by using different beat 'em up-style button combos, that's why QTE's have been thrown in for good measure. Almost all enemies have a specific kill animation which follows a Quick Time Event, and it's not always just for the sake of animation - you can get certain type of orbs by quick timing certain enemies, and more orbs in general, as well as from executing impressive combos. In all of the boss fights, the QTE's are mandatory. It's fine until the rotation of the left analog stick comes in as a mandatory part. The quality of the response varies in these sequences, a lot.

There are two kinds of puzzles in the game: those which demand physical action, and those which demand moderate logic and visual perception. Not much from the between. A lot of people wouldn't probably even call the first ones puzzles, but I can't think of a better word. You need precise timing in these, and the ability to calculate and estimate your actions before taking any action. The puzzles are written as magnificently as the game. Some of them just don't work as well as they probably did on paper, but the "cool factor" of being able to fiddle with ancient technology overshadows the occasional suicidal thought brought on by the more action-oriented puzzles.

General progress also has one small problem: narrow walkways, ranging from wooden planks to fallen masts etc.. You have to keep Kratos in balance at all times, or else he'll fall, usually to his death. This is fine until the camera angle starts changing in the middle of your little stroll - more about the camera in just a sec - and obstacles start haunting you, forcing you to carelessly jump into the air. Sometimes, Kratos just refuses to climb back up no matter how much you keep abusing the X button, and the analog stick's X-axis movement is a bit oversensitive at times.

In addition to these minor peeves related to all of progress, combat and the puzzles, I have a few others. First of all, the game is linear as heck. There are not too many places you can wander off to, and you absolutely need to scan most of the environments thoroughly to get to your ultimate goals in each "stage". Sure, there are secrets, but they're quite easy to come by. Secondly, the fixed camera works both ways. It makes the game look better and obscures some of those secrets meant to be obscured, but it also obscures the player's vision of things happening around Kratos, and makes certain spots in the game way harder to conquer than they really need to be - for example, one action-oriented puzzle requires you to jump "towards yourself" through a chain of fatal obstacles, step on a button, and then jump all the way back, and run as fast as you can to the door you just temporarily opened by stepping on the button. The first part, jumping towards yourself, is actually harder than the climax of the puzzle due to the camera angle. Luckily there are a lot of checkpoints.

Engineers in ancient Greece whipped up traps
that would make John "Jigsaw" Kramer proud.

The game is basically quite challenging, but like I said, there are many checkpoints and they make it a whole lot easier to eventually conquer. The last fights are pure hell and they demand the player to give everything (s)he's got. They're notably the most difficult parts of the whole game, just like they should be. PS3's God of War Collection version brings in HD graphics, which make the game look a little less of a prototype of its sequel than the original (why they didn't remaster the cutscenes is beyond me), slightly better controls, a precise time limit to rescue the Oracle of Athens, and of course, a set of PS3 Trophies. There's an impressive amount of Gold Trophies in the PS3 version, as well as a Platinum, and browsing through the list, I can't find anything that would be next to impossible to accomplish. Probably a sales point. Yet, they are very challenging; beating the game in under five hours and conquering the Challenge of the Gods aren't really the easiest feats around. A Challenge Mode is indeed unlocked after the first playthrough, along with promotional bonus content, and it will give even the seasoned God of War player a tough bone to chew on.

Minor issues, worst places - as in hellishly difficult - that you could imagine to wander into in a modern video game, contrasted by magnificent violent fun, mostly brilliant gameplay, great balance between brains and brawn, a surprisingly fine script, a few couples of bare female breasts, and an EPIC moment every two minutes, in the very core sense of the word. That's what God of War is all about. It was outdone in many ways by God of War II, but it's still not, by any means, an experience you can afford to miss out on. Alongside Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Grand Theft Auto III and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, God of War stands as one of the most important and influential third-person action games of the decade.

Graphics : 9.0
Sound : 8.9
Playability : 9.1
Challenge : 9.0
Overall : 9.1

Trivia

GameRankings: 93.55% (PS2)