Ask anyone who knows me, and they’ll tell you that I’m obsessed with all things Square Enix. Or they’ll tell you I’m nuts and shouldn’t be allowed around sharp objects. Either way.

That in mind, if you’re imagining that I had the latest foray into the Kingdom Hearts universe pre-ordered months ago, you’d be correct.

Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days (the correct pronunciation of which somehow works out to “Three Five Eight Days Over Two”) fills in the missing information concerning Sora’s Nobody, Roxas, during Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and leads into the beginning of Kingdom Hearts 2. While Sora sleeps, Namine rebuilding his memory bit by bit after his adventures in Castle Oblivion, Roxas is off on his own adventures with the other members of Organization XIII.

The story begins as Roxas awakens as a Nobody and is recruited by Organization XIII. He soon meets and becomes friends with Axel, as well as another mysterious Nobody by the name of Xion. He shortly learns that he and Xion are “special” Nobodies, though it doesn’t become fully clear to them just what, beyond their ability to use the Keyblade, it is that makes them special until much later.

As usual, Square Enix is in fine form, storywise, bringing back old characters and introducing new ones, toying with the the player’s emotions, and ultimately delivering a fine tale that raises as many questions as it answers.

The gameplay of 358/2 Days is more similar to it’s console-based siblings than to the GBA’s Chain of Memories. Mostly forgoing the DS’s touchpad (though it is used for repositioning the camera), most of the action is the usual button-mashing Kingdom Hearts fans are already familiar with. I will say that I found a lot more use for magic this time around… in previous games, I just wailed on whatever was attacking me with my keyblade, rather than bothering with a magic attack. Magic is a bit more effective in this installment, and occasionally even necessary.

Roxas’ abilities can be customized by earning panels and slots to put panels in. Panels equip just about everything: skills, magic, items, weapons, accessories… there are even level panels, which puts an interesting (though occasionally frustrating) twist on outfitting the character before battle.

In terms of the game as a whole, the one thing I missed most was the lack of exploration. Early in the game, access is limited to only a few areas of the various worlds Roxas must visit… other avenues are blocked of by barriers until later quests. 358/2 Days looses a lot of the sandbox feel Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 offered. Additionally, there are only a scant few worlds even available. I have to say that I was a little disappointed not to see Atlantica, Hollow Bastion, or the Deep Jungle from the first game, or China, the Pridelands, and Port Royale from the second. But then, Roxas’ time is limited, so I suppose that it only makes sense that he can’t go everywhere Sora could and meet everyone that Sora met.

So how does it stack up overall?

Gameplay: 6/10 - I was glad to see the return to the KH1/2-style hack and slashing, but it felt awkward on the DS. I missed my analog sticks, and trying to simultaneously control the camera and my attacks with one hand resulted in an untimely death on more than on occasion before I finally got the hang of it. Sort of.

Characters: 10/10 - Kingdom Hearts has some of my favorite characters, hands down. I was thrilled to get a glimpse into the Organization members we saw so little of in the other games.

Story: 9/10 - While you kind of have to wonder how Axel, Roxas, and Xion don’t weigh half a ton given all the sea salt ice cream they eat on a daily basis, the story is well-paced and entertaining from beginning to end. Bonus points for managing to make me cry at one point.

Overall: 8/10 - There are some flaws, and the feeling that it could have been more… but as with many Square Enix games, most fans are in it primarily for the story, and on that level it delivers.

Though it hasn’t been released in the U.S. yet, I finally broke down and imported this one from Japan a while back. Dissidia is sort of the Super Smash Bros. of the Final Fantasy world, bringing together the heros and villains of the series and letting them beat the stuffing out of one another. Exclusive to the PSP, the game is slotted for a release in the U.S. some time this summer.

The premise of the game is that in the war between the goddess of harmony (known as Cosmos) and the god of destruction (called Chaos) things have suddenly shifted in Chaos’ favor. Though evil appears to be winning, a small band of heros band together to restore the balance.

The game itself is a straight-up fighter, very much in the vein of Smash Bros., with a little Soul Caliber thrown in. The battle field allows you to move the characters in full 3D (one of my major grips about SSB Brawl was that it lacked true 3D environments), including the ability to wall-walk and climb pillars and other structures, and slide on rails. Like most fighters, the object is to reduce your opponent’s HP to zero.

During battle, both opponents begin the match with equal BP (Brave Points). Damage to HP is dealt based on the difference between your BP and that of your opponent. There are two basic attacks… a BP attack, which steals BP from your opponent and adds it to your own guage, and an HP attack which depletes your stores of BP in order to damage your opponent’s HP.

In addition, battles also feature Break Mode (in which a character’s BP is reduced to zero and all attacks against him or her result in critical damage), and EX Mode (in which the EX Gauge fills and enables the character to use their EX Burst, Dissidia’s version of a limit break).

The story mode is completed by clearing “chapters”, each chapter being represented by a chessboard-like field that contains battle, treasure, and bonus icons. The object of each chapter is to move and battle your way across the field until you capture the Chaos square (usually occupied by a boss icon).

Each and every hero has his or her own storyline to play through that contributes to the overall plot, and a hero from Final Fantasy I through XI is included in the line-up. Access to the villains (who also have their own storylines) must be unlocked by earning Purchase Points during gameplay and then purchasing them in the in-game shop. Adding to the playtime, clearing the initial “chapters” unlocks the Shade Impulse “chapters” (which in turn, when cleared, unlocks Distant Glory and Inward Chaos).

My overall impression of the game was very favorable. Though it lacks the combo moves that many gamers expect in fighting titles, Dissidia is a solid fusion of one on one fighting with an RPG feel to it. Admittedly, I probably missed out on a lot of the story-related content, my Japanese not being exactly fluent, but it didn’t really detract much from my enjoyment of the game.

So overall, how did it fare?

Story: n/a
I’m going to refrain from giving this a rating until I have a chance to play it in a language I fully understand. But what I did manage to pick up gave me the impression that Square Enix’s strength in crafting a plot hasn’t diminished.

Characters: 9/10
It’s hard to go wrong with classic, well-loved Final Fantasy characters. The only reason it didn’t get a 10/10 is because I wish they’d included more than just two per game.

Gameplay: 8/10
Controls are easy enough to pick up, even without an English language tutorial. Sometimes, maybe a little too simplistic. But that doesn’t mean the game itself is a breeze. There’s plenty of challenge packed in there.

Overall: 9/10
I’m still having a lot of fun with this game, and I’m eagerly looking forward to the U.S. release so I can figure out what all that dialog is about.

Despite being ridiculously busy at my real job (sadly, I don’t get paid to play games and blog about them…) I finally had a spare moment to download the Knothole Island content for Fable 2.

Priced at 800 MS Points (somewhere in the realm of $10, give or take), it’s a worthwhile expansion that adds new items, new quests, and new achievements to to the game. If you’re looking for another 20 hours of content, you’re not going to find it… but the pack does add some things that players have been clamoring for.

Like, for instance, a weight loss potion. No more hunting down eleven tons of celery after a night of binge-drinking and pie-eating. There are also other appearance altering potions to be had in the Knothole Island shops that affect things like height and scarring. And players who invested in the Limited Edition of the game and have picked up Hal’s armor, may also be interested in a certain item at the Box of Secrets.

As for the three new quests, while you can easily finish them in a single session of gameplay (or maybe I just play too a little too obsessively), they’re entertaining and a little more puzzly than most of the ones in the main game.

But the real appeal of the download, at least for me, having chosen the Needs of the Many option on my first playthrough (which, naturally, was the one character that completed the Gargoyles quest and had the Rammer crossbow… along with all 50 Silver Keys), is the Resurrection Shrine. I won’t spoil it for those few out there that haven’t finished the game, but I was very glad to see that little shrine sitting there on the island.

If you’re like me and Fable 2 was on the top of your games list for 2008, the Knothole Island pack is well worth it to keep the fun going.

I know, I know… this game came out over two months ago. It took me this long to get through the damn thing.

I can’t remember seeing a Game Over screen this often since my first attempt at Super Mario Bros. when I was eight (and for some god-forsaken reason, they didn’t add a continue option to Last Remnant, so on Game Over, you have to wait for the title screen to load up, wait for your save to load up, and work your way back to wherever you died).

The Last Remnant, currently available on 360, coming eventually for PS3, is the story of a boy named Rush Sykes, who watches his sister get kidnapped and subsequently heads off on his own to search for her. Along the way, he meets up with the Marquis of a small city called Athlum, and his four generals… and in typical RPG style, they come to see that they have a common enemy and join forces.

Actually, there’s a bit more to it than that. The story really revolves the Remnants… artifacts of great power, controlled by the lords of the land. When a mysterious warrior known only as the Conqueror appears and begins collecting Remnants for his own unknown desires, it sends the entire continent plunging into political turmoil and to the brink of all-out war.

The story, as is usually the case with Square Enix, is great. In fact there are times when it’s very easy to forget that you’re not playing something in the Final Fantasy series… which, as this is intended to be an entirely new IP, may or may not be a good thing. The characters, too, are likable and easy to connect with. Some are even memorable.

Unfortunately, where this game falls short is in the gameplay. I’m not a fan of strategy RPGs to begin with… but Square Enix of late has been creeping just a bit too far into the realm of games-that-play-themselves. It was noticeable in Final Fantasy XII (though, truth be told, I enjoyed that game a lot), and it’s even more prominent in Last Remnant.

It actually got to the point that, when I had four or more unions on the field during a boss battle, I could give my initial set of orders and walk away, sometimes for upwards of five minutes… which I ended up doing quite a lot, because watching the same battle animations over and over gets really boring after the first few hours. The battles themselves were obscenely long, too… One of them (which was basically a mini boss) had so much HP it took me almost two hours to whittle it down to the point that it was at critical status.

And then it killed me in one round, and I had to start over.

That wasn’t exactly a one-time occurrence, either. It seems like victory is often dependent on luck over skill. Case in point… one battle, the first attack hit every member of my party with Curse, which has about a 50/50 shot at KOing any given member every round. All four unions immediately had their leaders KOed, at which point I could no longer take any action for the remainder of the battle… which lasted two or three more rounds.

On my second attempt, the boss never even cast Curse until he was a sword-poke away from dying himself.

So overall, how did it rate?

Story - 10/10
The story is a good one, and lets face it… when you play an RPG of any sub-genre, story is what you’re primarily in it for.

Characters - 9/10
Good, solid characters, a none of whom are in the mold of Square Enix’s usual angst-ridden fare. In fact the main protagonist is so upbeat, it’s almost comical at times. The voice work, too, is better than average.

Battle System - 1/10
I don’t think I can stress enough how much I disliked how battles worked in this game… largely because there was almost nothing for me to DO during battle. When you’re outnumbered 2 to 1 on the field, it’s a LONG time between command inputs. Beyond that, I’m no expert in strategy, and maybe I just never really grasped the finer nuances of party make-up, but it really never seemed to matter much who was in my active party or how they were positioned. The most important characters were always the leaders, and the others were just there to boost the HP pool and and take a swing at the monster that was trying to eat us all.

Technical Polish - 5/10
Visually, it’s a beautiful game. It really is… but it’s very, very slow. Battle animations lag and loading screens are all over the place. At first, I thought it was just me, but I’ve seen other gamers online commenting about it as well.

Replayability - 2/10
If I ever dig this one out again, it will probably be to do the sidequests I missed the first time through.

Overall - 5.5
Despite a plot that I really felt myself getting into, the frustration level of The Last Remnant will probably deter many traditional RPG fans from even bothering to finish it. The battle system is governed more by luck than by skill, and the sheer length of the battles (especially throughout the second disc) make it stretch on to the point that you just don’t care anymore after awhile.

Fable II is a game I’d been looking forward to for months. I hadn’t had the opportunity to play the original, since I went with PS2 last generation and couldn’t afford multiple consoles on a part-time hardware store cashier’s salary (hurray for full-time employment!), but I picked it up a few months before the sequel’s release and was impressed. The same can be said for Fable II.

Half of Fable II’s (and it’s predecessor’s) charm is the many, many, many things you can do in the game that are completely unrelated to the main story. Thus far, I have:

-Gotten married
-Had a child
-Had an affair with the neighbor and caught an STD
-Married the neighbor
-Been divorced and had my child taken away from me for marrying the neighbor
-Been divorced by my second husband for not paying enough attention to him
-Married and had another child, then killed my husband and had the kid taken away
-Hooked up with a prostitute and then married her
-Bought most of the gypsy camp
-Bought several shops and jacked up the prices
-Slaughtered a village
-Went on a treasure hunt
-Freed some slaves
-Killed a family and then bought their house at a discount
-Commissioned statues of myself
-Done community service
-Become something of a kleptomaniac (Stealing is fun. And profitable.)

Well, anyway, you get the idea. Probably 3/4 of the time I’ve logged in the game has had nothing to do with the main quest. It’s addictive, and it’s fun. The original Fable had a lot of random stuff to do, but they really went all out in Fable II.

Overall, Fable II is awesome. A few minor things, though…

First and foremost, the main quest feels short, especially in comparison to the amount of time you spend running around doing random sidequests and other activities… which is not necessarily a flaw, but still seems odd for an RPG of this scale. The story that is there isn’t the strongest plot, either, but it is entertaining.

Second, the stats. Now, I realize that it’s just a numbers game, and you have to figure out the system, but really… I spend literally DAYS running around the countryside, swimming across lakes, and hacking evil creatures, townspeople, and cute fuzzy bunnies to pieces, but eat a few pies and suddenly my avatar is a freaking whale? WTF?

On the whole, though, Fable II was worth every penny I spent on it, and has the bonus of having a ridiculous amount of replay value.

So how do things break down?

Story - 7/10
The main story is weak and short, but does hold your interest. It would have been nice if it had gone a little deeper, but considering the sheer amount of other stuff in the game, it’s understandable why they cut back on plot.

Characters - 7/10
The characters are about on par with the story. Aside from your own avatar, it’s hard to connect with any of them, and the principles in main story have an annoying habit of constantly thinking out loud and blatantly explaining their motivations.

Gameplay - 8.5/10
With the exception of the Will powers (which I’m still having some difficulty learning to use effectively in battle), the controls are excellent. Switching between sword and gun works extremely well, and even the dog occasionally comes in handy. The menu is a bit laggy, though, and I really wish they’d thrown in a better map system, as I have a horrible sense of direction and a tendency to get lost very easily.

Replayability - 10/10
There is just so much to do in this game, that it’s hard not to want to experiment. My current avatar has maxxed out on the evil side of things. I think next time, I’ll try to be good.

Overall - 8.5/10
This is a great game that’s easy to put way too much time into. It does have a few flaws, but for the most part they’re easy to ignore. And the music is just awesome, by the way.

I’ll admit, I’ve been looking forward to this game… and I’m not exactly disappointed with it, but to be honest, I’m nowhere near as impressed as I thought I’d be, especially with it being a game coming from Square-Enix (though to be fair, they only published the game… it was actually developed by TriAce).

First the good points.

The story is engaging. The characters are likable. The environments are pretty, colorful, and varied enough that it’s not one of those annoying games where every dungeon looks the same. The gameplay, too, is mostly solid, if a bit hack-and-slash (not that there’s anything wrong with that… I actually enjoy it). It does have it’s issues, but more on that in a minute.

Infinite Undiscovery is the story of a boy named Cappel, who right off the bat is tossed into the local prison because he happens to bear a striking resemblance to a rebel leader by the name of Sigmund. Sigmund and his allies have been traveling the world, battling the Order of Chains, and dangerous group who seeks to enchain the moon for their own devious motives. Cappel is rescued by Aya, thinking that he actually is Sigmund, and even after realizing her mistake, she still drags him along with her to meet us with the rest of the Liberation Force.

I won’t spoil the plot for you, because it really is a decent story that’s entirely worth playing through… if you can tolerate the less likeable parts of the game.

The first of these is the voice acting. I’m not even going to beat around the bush here… it’s awful. Really awful. Not all of it. There are a few well-done voice-overs, but they’re few and far between.

The other thing that bugs me… even more than than bad acting sometimes, is that lip syncing is almost non-existent throughout the game. The dialog isn’t exactly great in a few place, either, but that at least is tolerable. But with the lip sync (or rather, lack thereof), after awhile you get the impression that they didn’t even make the attempt.

But realistically, bad voice acting isn’t exactly uncommon in games, and poor lip syncing can be ignored if you put in a little effort (especially if you mute the voices). Some things that are a little harder to tolerate are the sometimes bizarre motivations of the characters. Every once in awhile there’s a situation where it feels like they decided to skip a few key events in character development altogether and beat you over the head with one character’s feelings towards another with no explanation as to how we arrived at that point. Unfortunately, this occasionally carries over into the plot as a whole, as well.

As for the gameplay itself…

My first qualm is that it’s not always clear what your next goal is supposed to be. For example, you’ll finish a mission, and then wind up in whatever town or locale you’re supposed to be in, with only a very vague idea of where to head next. There are hints… but they’re easy to miss, because they’re often spoken aloud by one of your party members as you’re heading out into the world map. Sucks for you if a random monster jumps you right out of the gate, because you’ll never hear the hint, and as far as I’ve been able to find, there’s nothing in the menus that states your current goal (which is a real pain in the ass if you stop around 2 am to sleep, then attempt to pick it up two days later and have no memory of what the hell you were doing the last time you saved).

The second thing that annoyed me was the multiple party system. Or rather the way it’s managed. See, you don’t always have multiple parties… which is fine because sometimes it’s not a good thing to have twelve people running around doing their own thing. You really don’t have much control over the secondary parties when you do get to use them. There are also a number of characters that are only allowed in secondary parties… which really sucks, because a couple of them seem to be pretty damn effective mages, and it’d be nice to have that in the main party once in awhile. The choice of ranged fighters is kind of limited.

And finally, two comments on the menu…

1) It’s nested like crazy, so it’s hard to find anything quickly.
2) God help you if you need to use a recovery item during battle.

All in all, it’s not a bad game, but it’s by no means a great game. It’s also a little on the short side for an RPG (I made it through the first of two discs in under 9 hours, taking my sweet time, and the second disc, at the beginning anyway, seems very cutscene heavy, limiting actual play time). The story is a good one, though, and there are some genuinely funny and emotional moments along the way.

My ratings on this game:

Story: 8/10 - Good plot, engaging events, but occasionally predictable.

Characters: 5/10 - There are a few memorable ones, and even some great ones. The villains, unfortunately, are rather weak, though, and there isn’t a whole lot of development of the main protagonists… even the ones closely tied to Cappel. I think this largely stems from the fact that there are just so many (18 playable characters can only get so much screen time for backstory).

Gameplay: 6/10 - In general, it plays very similar to Kingdom Hearts. Run up to an enemy, and button mash. But some of the things are extremely awkward. “Connecting” with other party members to control their special ability and give them a target, for example, is almost ineffective during battle because it’s such a pain to activate. The menu, too, as I mentioned is a challenge to work with.

Overall: 6.5/10 - It’s decent… worth at least one playthrough… but forgettable, which is a pity, because it had so much potential.

Yes, I know this is a gaming blog, but I’m writing a book report anyway. So…. you remember that Metal Gear Solid book that came out awhile back?

Let me tell you, it was pretty corny. Granted, I wasn’t really expecting much from something that tries to condense a 40 hour video game into a scant 336 pages. Unfortunately, it was a lot worse that I’d thought it would be… not only because it reads like a transcript of the game (right down to the phrase “his trademark punch-punch-kick combo” being used more times than I cared to count), but also because it really didn’t give much life to any of the characters.

I guess if you just wanted to brush up on the story, it’s fine… although some of the additions the author makes are entirely unnecessary… like the gratuitous mention of the 9/11 attacks, which had nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of the dialog on that page, or the cheesy jokes that were thrown in at random.

The novel seems to be written very much for readers who are too lazy to play the game all the way through. The author might just as well have written a walkthrough for the game and posted it to gameFAQs.com. You can literally tell where every cutscene, every boss battle, and every shift in gameplay occurs… mostly because there is no smooth transition between any of them. One moment Snake is sneaking around, the next, a boss is challenging him, and then they fight.

It also suffers from one of my biggest pet peeves in literature. “Intelligent”-sounding words that aren’t especially common in everyday language (or even in popular literature, for that matter), thrown in, seemingly at random… usually during an inner monolog or description of action being taken or planned. A couple times I actually had to go back and reread a sentence because the use of language was just so odd and out of place for the tone of the story at that point.

In the end, I made it through the book (which wasn’t really that much of an effort… 336 pages is short to begin with, and it has large print) before I made it through the game (I’d started MGS about a week before the book arrived). The book could have been halfway decent, if the author hadn’t written it from the game almost directly. I do realize there’s a significant level of difficultly involved in novelizing something that is primarily visual, like a movie or a video game, but this one was just poorly done in so many respects that it’s hardly worth the effort unless you don’t plan on ever playing MGS but need to know the plot for some reason.

Damn you Square-Enix. You do this to me every time… I’m busy playing one game, and then you go and release something new, and said game instantly begins collecting dust on my game shelf (in this case, Dead Rising is the poor unfortunate). It happened with Final Fantasy XII, it happened with Crisis Core, and now, of course, it’s happened with My Life as a King.

My Life as a King is available as WiiWare from the Wii Shop Channel for a somewhat pricey 1500 Wii Points (it’s actually the most expensive off all the U.S. WiiWare launch titles), and I’ll be honest… I’m cheap. If it hadn’t had the Final Fantasy moniker, I probably would have passed.

The first thing you might notice when and if you download Square-Enix’s first foray into WiiWare is that Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King is *gasp* not an RPG. Apparently they can make other kinds of games over there in Sephiroth-ville. No, My Life as a King is, in fact, a civilization simulator in which you are a king and you must rebuild your kingdom.

That’s not to say the standard Final Fantasy gloss hasn’t been put on this game. Even though it is a sim, it still sort of has the feel of an RPG. There is a battle system, even though you yourself don’t do any battling, and there is an engrossing (if somewhat simple for the franchise) plot that is revealed gradually through cutscenes that seem to come up about once a month (game time, obviously) or so.

To be honest, the first few days in your kingdom are a little boring. You spend a fair amount of time talking to Chime, your chancellor, whom you summon to your side by ringing a bell. Chime is in charge of the command menu, and will help you build, boost morale of your citizens, and tell you when it’s time to go to bed. Things are linear, you have almost nothing to work with, no one to talk to, and you’re stuck in tutorial city learning how to do the fun stuff but not really doing much of it.

And then the fun begins. Once you pick up the necessary fundamentals, you have a lot more freedom, and things get a lot more interesting. Instead of just doing what the game dictates, you can begin to commission adventurers, send them out to fight monsters, and build new structures to bring in more people to get more money to hire more adventurers to fight more monsters, and so on and so forth.

Initially, the days are short, cash is low, and buildings are limited (all you can build at first is one kind of very simple house). What really makes this game work for me is the desire to find more stuff. You know there’s stuff out there to unlock and you want it, damn it, so you start sending people out to unlock it.

Half the fun of the game, like many sims, is trying to keep up with the needs of the people. The adventuring system adds a nice touch, because in addition to keeping your adventurers in good spirits, you must also make sure they’re trained well enough to complete the the dungeons you send them to, make weapons and other equipment available to them, and ensure that they have time to rest. Things may start out slow, but they pick up quickly, and soon you have a lot of people who need bakeries, and parks, and sharp, pointy swords.

My Life as a King is also the first (and currently the only) WiiWare title to utilize the Pay to Play feature, which allows you to download additional (but optional) content for the game. There are already a number of options currently available:

1. Dungeon Pack (300 Wii Points) - adds 11 new dungeons to the game

2. Lilty Hut (300 Wii Points) - adds dungeons to unlock houses for Lilties

3. Selkie Den (300 Wii Points) - adds dungeons to unlock houses for Selkies

4. Yuke Shack (300 Wii Points) - adds dungeons to unlock houses for Yukes

5. Triple Race Pack (800 Wii Points) - combines the Lilty Hut, Selkie Den, and Yuke Shack content into one, slightly discounted download.

6. New Royal Outfit (100 Wii Points) - a new costume for the king

7. New Chancelor Outfit (100 Wii Points) - a new costume for Chime

8. Luxurious House (100 Wii Points) - unlocks a new house style that greatly increases income.

9. Sacred Shrines (200 Wii Points) - unlocks Shrines, which temporarily boost your adventures’ stats.

The nice thing about My Life as a King is that you can pick it up and play it for ten or fifteen minutes, or you can sit and play for 3 hours at a time, depending on what kind of mood you happen to be in.

The downsides? Well, for one thing, there’s a lot of repetition. For the most part you’re really just doing the same series of actions over and over to unlock more content and advance further into the game… but then that’s true of just about every sim I’ve ever played (which is probably why I don’t often get into them). For me, though, the story and the adventuring system somewhat make up for the repetitive nature of the game.

On the whole, it’s by no means my favorite Final Fantasy title, but it’s still fun and strangely addictive. I give it an overall 7 out of 10.

So I just happened to pick up a little game called Mario Kart Wii (Yeah, ok, fine… I had it on preorder for over a month). I’m still not convinced that the series will ever surpass the greatness that is Mario Kart 64, but Mario Kart Wii comes damn close.

Let’s start with the courses. There are lots of them… 32 of them, to be exact, not counting the battle mode courses. Not only is there a plethora of all new speedways, there are also revamped retro tracks from the previous games. Many of the new courses (and some of the retro ones) have “hidden” paths that can either help or hinder you position in the race, and I think there are more places to go careening into a bottomless pit than ever before. Either that or I’m just a horrible driver.

All the old favorites are back in the drivers’ seats, and so are a few new additions, including Funky Kong, Rosalina from Mario Galaxy, and baby versions of Mario, Luigi, Peach (my favorite right now), and Daisy. A number of them have to be unlocked by playing a certain number of races, or ranking high enough in a given cup.

In addition to the unlockable characters, there is also a host of unlockable vehicles, of both the kart and motorcycle variety. There are also some new items making their way onto the track, like the POW Block and the Thunder Cloud.

Things I like about the game?

For one, the Wii Wheel. I wasn’t sure about this when I first saw it, but after giving it a try, it actually makes steering a lot more intuitive. I’ve found myself a lot less likely to oversteer as I have in past Mario Kart Games, even though I’m sure I look like a complete idiot using the thing.

The mid-air stunts are a nice touch, too. Pull one off, and you get a small speed boast. You can also do wheelies on the bikes.

Oh, and the new version of the Rainbow Road track is truly awesome.

Things I don’t like?

Well, actually not much. About the only thing that really aggravates me is the frequency with which disabling items like lightning bolts, bloopers, and blue shells hit you in the solo grand prix mode. In fact I once got hit by all three literally one right after the other and was dropped back to 12th place on the final lap. *shakes fist at game*

I also had some issues with the online mode, but I have a sneaking suspicion that has to do with my wireless connection (which I hope to rectify soon, as apparently there is going to be an online tournament… anyone know why my Wii keeps dropping the connection after about 2 minutes?), not the game itself.

You definitely want to pick this one up. It may or may not have surpasses Mario Kart 64, but it easily blows Double Dash out of the water.

It took me longer than I thought it would, but I finally made it through Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. And I’m very happy to report that it managed to live up to my expectations, unlike a certain other entry in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII.

The game itself is a prequel to Final Fantasy VII, chronicling the events during the five years that lead up to the original story. Crisis Core follows Zack, Soldier 1st class, and Cloud’s friend and mentor. Spoilers follow, so if you’re still in the middle of the game, or haven’t started it yet and don’t want to hear them, stop reading now.

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