"And he spoke out and killed the game dead"

Recently I've gotten a bit of an TBS bug. Not the Conan variety (though thats around) but the turn based strategy game. Specifically after a hankering for old Heroes of Might and Magic I reloaded my copy of Disciples III: Renaissance.

Now Disciples III certainly took the might and magic route of battle which was a disappointment as i liked the sort of old school FF style combat of Disciples II. Also much less black and more 3D has left the series brighter and less Gothic in the ravens and makeup way and more in the "this cathedral is rather ornate" variety of Gothic. This initial change past the quite frankly beautiful drawing of Disciples II left me initially rather annoyed. But after getting more into I began to re-appreciate the design aesthetics as not being Disciples II: 3D but a sort of reinterpretation of the game.

Now while Disciples III is considerably more forgiving on its its gameplay modes, disciples' II easy mode was still particularly unforgiving, the gameplay has more or less transitioned well. Old abilities of units have different uses in new combat settings while giving many call backs to II's style of play. The music in both games has been quite nice as well heres some samples.

But.

This game has THE WORST NARRATION I HAVE EVER HEARD ANYWHERE EVER. It randomly fluctuates tone, inflects randomly, its like they has some guy do the major setups for every campaign got him to read it 3 different ways and cut it together randomly. It is i take my headset off just to not hear it.

Lets compare real quick. Heres the narrator for II- a bellowing storyteller for a dark age- it fits the game pretty well:



and disciples III:



FUCKING JEEZ. Its so bad. The unit voice acting seems random sometime and fluctuates all over from lulzy to imposing. Thats kinda expected but GOOD GOD that narration is like pooping on the craft on acting. Its also bad because the world and story are actually pretty damn well done. Also that sort of impressionistic art during those scenes is rather well done.

and guess what. Anytime you load, which in this sorta game can happen often. GUESS WHO READS SOMETHING AGAIN!

I'll add another terrible example here soon of another game ruined unless its on mute heres a hint:
it made me cry tears of blood. 

XIII-2 close to call

Now I just addressed the original XIII, it was pretty okay.

SOTC in my FF- YES MORE PLEASE

Now XIII-2 as a game is pretty rad. The combat is fun and the boss fights are impressive. There is things to do that are challenging but you can just plow through if you wish. From a game design standpoint I really have very little ill things to say for this. It feels FF. It plays like a good FF. (Though the difficulty is sorta u shaped- hard on both ends easy in the middle). And its pretty generally good. It ignores plot points for game mechanics in right amounts (alt realities fade once you choose a different one- still can be accessed because thats fun though) and the save system and gate system allow some fun things and replay. Its Technically a very solid game.

also fetishes are aptly covered

If I look for some thing ill on the story the only thing I would say is Noel and Serah don't have terribly long arcs. They have enough though and a section with noel later on was a good mix of game/story/presentation that really blew me away and energized me for the last push.


BUT

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS BELOW.





You can do a couple things for an an annoying but satisfying end. World Saved- Hero dead(FFX) its sad but we accept it. The hero is alive- Villain dead- problems left (something like AC1).
BUT- You cant freaking leave the villain alive, kill the main character, destroy the world and then have a secret ending for completion which... changes none of that.

or ever. without paying 8.99

Now the thing that was okay with X2 was that a perfect got you the super happy ending. YAY super ending YAY! This one for EVERYTHING IN THE GAME COMPLETE. Nadda.

Now two DLC gripes related to the above. first off- good end not for awhile. Secondly- PAY FOR THE ENDING!>>!>! Now if it was free DLC- honestly all is forgiven. It sorta draws out side stories etc. And side stories for pay is fine. Yah ill drop 5 bucks to see what Sazh did outside the plot during that time. Its fun. But extra money on a 60 buck game for the ending- which im gonna have to get because I sunk 60 hours into the good part of the game. Thats fucking not cool- its extortion. Its enough that a game I was like WOO YAY about is now on my THE FUCK SQUARE list. Way to ruin an incredibly enjoyable experience.

Back From Cocoon

Well i found this damn password- imagine that. And what was enough to get this going again? Why yes- its final fantasy again!


I really have some beef with XIII-2 right now. But before I get to that i figure I might as well get on about XIII first. What cell shaded fps not your thing? Wait no I'm talking about FFXIII which usually incurs spits of disgust in many gamer crowds soon as I mention it. While i do enjoy the ease i have shining my shoes because of this, I don't really agree. I actually like that game a good deal. But I understand why people feel like that. And that's what this little expo will cover.

Hey your locked up and unhappy- this is analogous

Now the biggest issue XIII has is pacing. Holy hell the first quarter of this game. Now all of this would be okay as a long intro- I can deal with the long opening (I'm looking at you KH2, yes you were bad- even if I liked Roxas), but XIII is really the worst offender I have ever seen. The reason is the lack of variety of combat early on- not the jumping between characters or setting. From a plot perspective no leveling etc should really be going on- i get that- but it took me 4 seconds to think around that. Want to introduce some battle mechanics? Give snow a riot shield- hes a sentinel now- hopes boomerang is some kind of ruin based military billy club thing. Good job we just went over two things, magic damage/sentinel style. This would have made the first section much more bearable. Instead you spam standard attack for like hours... THE HELL.

Oh look things I care about more than the death star in the sky!

Now the biggest thing you hear is the linearity of XIII. And this is a double edged sword. The controlled narrative allowed them some good character development. Regardless of what people say XIII is really good at this. I really liked and felt close to all the characters more so than a lot of other FF. Not by much mind you. But I got a good sense of them yet could still be pleasantly surprised from time to time (Sazh at nautilus for example). The problem isn't even the lack of freedom for me. Its the lack of world building. Cocoon is beautiful but all I can see is a string of set pieces because character jumps and linearity don't really give me a sense of how they connect. The lack of real shops and people causes the same thing. Well who cares maybe i like character driven stories mr world lover why don't you join green peace. Well Ill tell you why jerk. The major dilemma is what the l'cie should do. This whole time the connection cocoon is in distant flashbacks and meeting hopes dad. That's it. I was pretty ready to drop the place myself. Recall your only major interactions are getting shot at. Meeting a few kind, if ill informed people, along the way would make this a much bigger dilemma. The player would ask themselves should i really endanger this place- everyone seems happy.



These problems mostly subside by later in the game, but then its you and monsters strolling around grand pulse. Yay empty. That said feels all kinds of FF by this point. And it feels good. So yah the prettiness you encounter on the way belays these and like I said the character part of the narrative is pretty solid.

Also Sazh is fucking awesome.

So I'd recommend it (assuming you beat Lost Odyssey already.)