Bravely Default

On the face of it, Bravely Default looks like it will be just my sort of thing. A Squeenix J-RPG with classic turn-based combat, a fantasy epic storyline and cute adolescent characters. It was highly lauded when it came out, with many saying how it felt like a nostalgic return to the kind of game they used to play a decade ago. Perhaps this was my problem - for me, this wasn't a return to something half-forgotten. I only recently finished Tales of the Abyss and not so long before that I was was playing Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, which while based on the Tactics side of the franchise felt far more classic and refreshingly old-fashioned than this. I play J-RPGs all the time, including old-fashioned ones, and beside the best of them, Bravely Default really isn't one of the better iterations. 

As has been widely reported, Bravely Default is in essence part of the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, having begun there conceptually before diverging, but retaining much of the crystal lore as well as the familiar job classes. Rather than Ivalice, Bravely Default takes place in the world of 'Luxendarc'. If that name makes you cringe, be prepared for a whole lot of similar awful names for characters and places. Good guys are called 'Goodman', characters who live to accompany others get names like Vincent S. Court, and of course there's Airy the Fairy. One character's name is a painful anagram of 'Magic Knight', and some names had to be changed from the Japanese because a guy who looks like a rat called 'Ratz' was apparently too far...and, well, it sounds to me like they've totally changed the name of conniving desert country monarch Khamer VIII because his original name was a bit too uncomfortably close to 'Mohammad'. 

The only thing I unreservedly liked about Bravely Default was its music, which was consistently brilliant and often had me nodding along during dungeon runs. Revo is amazing and this is up there with his Attack on Titan intros, and if Linked Horizon toured Europe with their concert I’d definitely go, especially if Marty Friedman from Megadeth was there to reprise his little bit as he did in the Japan live. I only looked the soundtrack up after I saw his name on the credits – and I totally adore the live version, orchestra, choirs and pop singers included! Other than that - well, I have to say that it was a bust. 

The story is not good. The makers learned nothing from the second season of Suzumiya Haruhi I suppose: doing the same thing over and over and over is not even remotely fun. From Pan's Labyrinth to Bioshock, I have loved stories that play with free will and make you stop to question why the impressionable good guys go along with what they're told to do, but this one does it incredibly awkwardly and the ways it contrives to have the heroes not find out what their enemies are really trying to do really stretch credibility (especially over repeated meetings with the same people), and it becomes ridiculous when the game has made it incredibly obvious who the antagonist actually is - long before it starts spelling it out on the goddamn title screen - yet tries to have us believe our characters carry on their path. I’m only grateful that in only concerning a limited, if large, number of worlds, it avoids infinite world paradoxes – though presumably only one Lester of the many on the myriad different worlds had to show up, so there are plenty of others still left. 

The main characters don't appeal to me the way the best RPG characters do. I quite liked Agnes, with her 'Unacceptable!' catchphrase and utter lack of worldly guile, but she was extremely bland. Edea's character was totally ruined by the way they had to keep forcing her into battles before she actually stopped to talk to her former allies. Ringabell was kind of meant to be an annoying bastard, but unlike, say, Luke in Tales of the Abyss, I didn't grow to like him more once the angst got heaped on. He carried on being irritating all the time, and the way the game made it far too obvious who his alter-ego is (they even have him conspicuously leave the scene at just the right time, even though that's not necessary plot-wise, only a massive signpost to the 'twist') even without the hilarious original name 'Anazelle', which for most of the game I heard as 'Annabelle'. 

Then there was Tiz. Ah, Tiz, exactly the kind of character I usually totally fall for. Young, naive, good-hearted Tiz, made to suffer such terrible losses, awkward around his more knowing peers and diffident in matters of the heart, he ought to be adorable. But I really, really cannot get over his scumbag behaviour over his brother. He loses his brother in the intro, which ought to be incredibly harrowing. He then doesn't even mention it for a good few hours of gameplay. Okay, he's in denial. When he begins to finally open up about it, he fixes upon a surrogate of sorts, a little boy called Egil forced to work in the mines. He develops a bond with Egil because of how much he's reminded of his brother Til. He cares for Egil on their adventure, finds him a new family, goes to check on him often and it helps him deal with the loss of his brother.

Then when he goes to what seems like an alternate world, he doesn't even think about or mention Egil once. There is no forced child labour in this world's mines, and Tiz doesn't think 'Hmm, so where has poor Egil who had nobody until we arrived ended up?' He doesn't mention him once - and nor does the game, right up until the secret credits, in which we discover that what we thought was Tiz was just screwing with the kid anyway and has done things that will really mess with him. But mostly he’s just not even brought up. It's bizarre. And then when another world that offers everything the main characters want comes along and Til is alive, Tiz doesn't actually seem particularly bothered and never raises the possibility of fulfilling the quest as he sees it and then going back to Til, or taking this Til along, or any of the other myriad possibilities to stay with his brother. This bond that's supposed to form the core of the character is just completely unconvincing and underdeveloped, and it destroys the character for me entirely – which isn’t even mentioning the unforeseen twist at the very end which was clearly only thought of once Bravely Second was in development and means effectively we know nothing about the real Tiz at all.

Then there is the lauded combat. I can say without hesitation that it is the worst combat system of any RPG I have ever played, though possibly less annoying than the underwater speeds of the first Wild ARMs thanks to the fast-forward mode. The set-up is a conventional four-person turn-based RPG set-up...and then the add-ons to make it unique totally break it. It's not a bad idea - you can 'Default' to defend but also save up turns, up to a maximum of four at once that can be unleashed if you defended enough, or you can 'brave', spending those turns early but then being unable to move until you have repaid your debt. Good concept, right? 

Except that the vast majority of the game - on hard mode, mind - all I did against the very limited varieties of baddies was have everyone brave and then attack. Sixteen attacks in the first turn killed virtually everything I faced, especially once you start getting powerful abilities like the monk's natural talent or the ranger's precision/hawkeye combo. The times you can get problems with this are with enemies that auto-counter physical attacks, but there are various measures to get past that - rampart or utsusemi skills - before you even start thinking about using MP. 

Of course, to counter this bosses get absurdly tough, and the way the designers tackle that is to make some skills completely, utterly broken. The vast majority of enemies can be destroyed without a single chance to hit you back, including most of the optional 'Nemesis' baddies (most of them awesome in design terms, by the way), just by having four fast characters constantly doing the high jump skill with Hasten World ensuring they can do it without interruption. This even works on the hidden boss, apparently, though it being single-target meant it would take forever so I went for the similarly broken combo of a spiritmaster nullifying all damage while a dark knight deals out ridiculous damage and also heals with every dark nebula - a performer meanwhile topping up everyone's brave points. There was no strategy to this game, no reward to beating its toughest bosses - only broken combinations and hoping the semi-random approach to agility stats didn't screw you over or a lapse in concentration make you input the wrong thing and die. The Valkyrie trick also works on the final boss, which at least means you don’t have to look at the game at all, and see the bizarre image of your chin projected onto the sky of the multiverse. Please, Squeenix, let’s leave the front-facing camera out of our serious games.  

On the plus side, the voice acting is pretty solid. I was dumb and didn't see the Japanese-language option (because it's not in the sound menu, which I feel is silly), so was a good couple of hours in before making the switch, and felt the English performers were strong. The enemies were a bit hammy, but that was also true of the Japanese version, and if anything, I prefer the English Ringabel, who doesn't sound like he's way too old for his model and differentiates between his two roles better - even if that means putting on a really, really smug voice for his primary reading. Though I prefer the more ingenuous performances of the three others in the original, the English actors do good jobs, and the Airy in both versions is the right balance of cute and annoying, and fun to hear begging desperately for aid. 

I gave a pretty hefty amount of time to this game, seeing both endings, beating all optional bosses including the full council battle and the amusing surprise boss at the end of Dimension's Hasp, even when consecutive worlds had them doing exactly the same thing. There are parts I will certainly remember fondly, mostly little things like Edea's gluttony and how in one world, Victoria chairs a silly but adorable girl-power group. But I will certainly never replay the game, and much as I liked the ‘secret movie’ and its excellent use of the internal gyro, I will approach the sequel with caution. 

Borderlands 2

Midway through Borderlands 2, I really wanted it to end. I was bored of it. I was bored of it moving maddeningly slowly, and how my sniper rifle had removed almost all of the challenge, except when some ridiculously overpowered Constructor spawned on top of me. I was annoyed at how I was able to finish the story missions easily, but because I was underleveled it wouldn't even let me pick up the guns, locking them with level requirements. I wasn't engaged with the characters and I wasn't having much fun. 

Yet as I realised that the end of Angel's story wasn't the end of the game, and as I accepted that yes, I really did have to go and do the side-quests and level up before I could do a story mission 5 or so levels above where I was, the game finally began to grow on me. By the time I finally reached the end, I was genuinely enjoying myself. 

I'll be honest: Borderlands 2 is exactly the sort of game I normally avoid. I don't like this sort of brawnly FPS, where you go around slaughtering things and laughing about it, picking up bigger and bigger guns and being a macho 'badass' - a term this game loves. I didn't find Claptrap funny and I hadn't even played the first game to know what was going on. But the game had quite some critical acclaim and it was free last month on PSN, so I thought 'Why not?' Besides, I had read people raving about Tiny Tina and was curious to see what she was like. Answer - hilarious, but that twitchy eye of hers freaks me out. 

I'm aware that this isn't really a game to play alone. I'm sure it's more fun with three friends, especially when in the vehicles, but so long after the release date I didn't really want to ask around for others' help or be restricted in the times I could play. If it's really a good game, I reasoned, it has to be fun to play solo. 

And much as it took me a while to get into, ultimately I did enjoy it. It's a game absolutely stuffed with little details. It gleefully refers to everything in pop culture it possibly can, from A Clockwork Orange to Rocko's Modern Life, and pokes fun at itself and at gaming conventions as much as possible. The voice work is fantastic, not only when it comes to the main characters but also with the odd, colourful minor baddies, and though it was meant to annoy, I loved the gun that did nothing but nag at you. Finding little details like hidden shines to the Vault and a man who seems to think he's Batman kept me more interested towards the end, and oddly I found my favourite gun was one that 'lies' to you with its statistics, seeming to be useless until you notice its 5000% bonus damage. That and a corrosive shotgun together took the last boss down with very little trouble. 

The Psycho on the posters, while central to the game's marketing, was not actually anything particularly major in the game, just a recurring low-level enemy. The actual main cast of Vault Hunters aren't very interesting, but the main characters from the first game are a whole lot more engaging and well-defined. Their shady associates are often very funny, and the amoral angle the game goes for provides for some really funny moments. Handsome Jack is also a great antagonist, because you know he totally recognises what a dick he is and yet also how much he loves himself and his image. He works brilliantly as at once extremely strong and extremely weak out there on this space-cowboy planet he's turned upside-down. 

Ultimately, Borderlands 2 wasn't the most fun I've ever had with a game, and indeed took me a very long time to really warm up to. It also didn't feel like as much of a challenge as, perhaps, it should have - with the jump in strength between levels in particular feeling excessive to me and determining how much of a challenge this was. I am glad I got to the end of it...but I have to say I find myself increasingly drawn to at least finding out how much some of that extensive DLC costs...

Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition

With a partner who is a very big fan of Tomb Raider, this was always going to be a game we ended up getting. And indeed, not only did we get the PS3 version, but the PS4 update too - with graphics at least like 10% better than the old version, to paraphrase South Park. Indeed, quite a lot of work obviously went on making this version look that little bit nicer - and certainly Lara's face was reworked, a fact that actually warranted some articles on online gaming news sites - but largely the game stayed more or less the same in all but the cosmetic sense. 

I liked Tomb Raider, even if I'm not a big fan of the series, which I played back when there was only the first game out on the original Playstation but found clunky and frustrating even by the standards of the day. This reboot has a much more likeable, young, vulnerable and believable Lara, a young archaeologist with a hunch rather than some ultra-rich dominatrix type. Contentious as scenes of her narrowly avoiding sexual assault were when the game was in development, this game does well at having a strong female lead by not really paying much attention to the fact that she's a strong female. She simply destroys everyone in her path, going from confused and helpless beginner to bullet-soaking badass much in the same way any other video game protagonist does, and ends up extremely powerful. 

At the same time, though, the game somehow doesn't quite feel like an AAA title, to use the parlance of the day. While I had major problems with Assassin's Creed IV, the only other game I've played in-depth on my PS4 (80 minutes to play through a Metal Gear Solid demo doesn't count), it simply felt on a far greater scale than Tomb Raider - the graphics were more impressive, the variety of actions the character could take, the length of the story and the amount of diversions it was possible to take simply made Tomb Raider seem a bit too light on content. Sure, Lara sometimes ended up sliding down things or having to press buttons with semi-strict timing, but it wasn't like having a variety of mini-games or side-missions. 

The game was also not very satisfying in terms of difficulty. I played it on hard mode, and the difficulty was either extremely easy or very briefly ridiculously difficult. There was no sense of the game gradually getting tougher - in fact, the new skills you gained meant that it felt like you far outscaled your enemies and that the later onslaughts of vast amounts of enemies were actually easier than the ones you had faced earlier in the game. Thus the final encounters in particular had no sense of accomplishment or challenge to them, which is problematic on hard mode. 

So it falls to the story to really carry the piece. And while it's a decent attempt, unfortunately it's not quite there. This was never going to be quite the Game-of-the-Year epic Last-Of-Us rollercoaster of emotions, nor would there be a big Bioshock twist. But again, while this was certainly better than a lot of plots, including everything I've seen for an Uncharted game, it still fell a little short of what I expected. Lara and her team are searching for Yamatai, which Lara hypothesises is actually in the Dragon's Triangle. This hunch turns out to be correct as the crew get wrecked on a small island filled with shrines to the goddess Himiko, which is a neat bit of real-life archaeological mystery for the game to begin with. Himiko's shaman powers have allowed her to live on in a way, her soul transferred between vessels, and her mastery of weather resulting in every vessel in the area being marooned on the island with no way to escape. The Japanese seem to have lived on only as the 'Storm Guard', protecting Himiko and her shrine in masked armour that rather dehumanises them, while the rest of the island is mostly populated by Westerners, who have a strange tribal community, hoping to somehow appease the queen so that they can return home. Rather pleasingly and providing some of the best visuals in the game, there are vessels from hundreds of years of transportation history wrecked about the island, to be explored, climbed on or destroyed. Rather less convincingly, there are thousands and thousands of dead bodies everywhere, be they bones or bits of chopped-up flesh, with Lara at one point surrounded by mountains of bodies, which really strains credulity. 

Lara is hesitant to become a killer at first, but luckily everyone but her small circle of friends is trying to kill her, and she has the uncanny ability to be shot over and over again but get better in a few seconds of hiding, so it's perfectly reasonable for her to protect herself by gunning down a huge number of people. Most of her friends also don't make it home, either giving their lives heroically to save Lara's or betraying her and getting their just deserts, and there is a poorly-developed leader of the local tribal militia called Mathias who finds out that Lara's friend Sam is by pure coincidence (and, I suppose, sheer numbers on a family tree) a descendant of Himiko who can be used for the mumbo-jumbo supernatural rites. 

I am being quite hard on the game - as a matter of fact, it is pretty fun. The combat is somewhat unbalanced, with the assault rifle far outweighing all other weapons for power, but it is also good fun and the way Lara can scramble and roll about is a lot of fun. Some of the setpieces are inventive and extremely fun to get through, and some of the little puzzle-tombs are fiendish but never utterly baffling. Tomb Raider was a fun game that I am glad I got to play through - but it didn't quite satisfy, I'm afraid. It was a decent steak, well-cooked and very tasty - but to really be enjoyable it needed some side-dishes.