Serielley's Adventures in Gaming

I wanted to take a little break from the Final Fantasy Playthrough to review this little game called Nier.

Nier is a new IP from Cavia, the developers that brought us Drakengard 1 & 2, Bullet Witch, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, and a few anime games based off of Naruto and Death Note. Square Enix recently acquired Cavia and placed their publishing seal of approval on Nier in the attempts to get an original IP out into the wild. The reactions from both players and critics have been very, very mixed, and this game isn’t getting all that much press because of it, so I’d expect to see it taking up space in your local game store’s bargain bins in the relatively near future. I say that’s a good thing for those of you who enjoy playing JRPGs, as you’ll be able to get a really decent game for a good price. I almost didn’t pick this game up, as I hadn’t seen too much press on it, and noone was really talking about it. I’m glad I took the time to check it out!

The main strength of Nier is its brilliant, dark, and moody storyline which is brilliantly voice acted by a cast of anime and video game voice veterans who do an amazing job of communicating what can be a sometimes difficult to understand plot. I would be remiss if I didn’t give huge kudos to Jamieson Price who voices the main character, and Liam O’Brien, the voice of the main character’s book companion Grimoire Weiss. (Yes, I wrote “book companion”… it takes a lot more time to explain than you might think.) These two really bring their characters to life, and add depth and emotion to the game that you really don’t expect.

The basic premise is that the main character (Nier, if you don’t name him something else) is searching for something that will cure his young daughter of a mysterious disease called the Black Scrawl. That’s really all I can say without going into spoiler territory, so if you’re into that kind of thing…

There’s so much more to the story, and what is in the spoilers barely scratches the surface. As you progress further, the marketing catchline for the game “Nothing is as it seems,” really figures heavily into what happens. The best, and most impressive thing to me in regards to the story is that when you begin a New Game+ after finishing the first time, even more of the story becomes available, and this process repeats itself up to 3 times! That’s right, in order to see the entire story for the game, you have to beat it at least 3 times. Most games would just toss in an extra cutscene at the end to justify playing through one more time, but Cavia decides to add even more information as you play through the new game in the form of multiple new cutscenes and entirely new perspectives during the main questline. This really makes it worth your while to play through those extra times, that is, if you get involved in the story enough to do so.

One final note about the storyline. Rainbows and unicorns do not exist in this dojo. This story will seriously #$%& with your head in certain places, and can be very dark. It does have humor, and some light points, but for the most part, this is not a lighthearted story by any stretch of the imagination.

Now, on to gameplay and graphics.

As you can see, there’s really not anything too innovative about either the graphics or the gameplay. The graphics especially aren’t anything to write home about, and you frequently encounter a little tearing or artifacts. Gameplay can be repetitive at times, especially if you choose to complete all of the optional sidequests which amount to basic fetch quests. There are other diversions like fishing or gardening, but overall, playing Nier feels to me like playing an offline MMO, which I don’t have a problem with, but others might.

Overall, I’ve really enjoyed playing Nier. I’m still playing it to see all of the endings, and to complete one of the gardening sidequests. It has been a really enjoyable experience, and the storyline is one of the best I’ve come across in a long time. If Cavia can mesh their story creating abilities with better graphics and more innovative gameplay in the future, they would easily be able to have a AAA best-selling title on their hands.

Now, please excuse me, as I need to go harvest some plants.

E3 is just around the corner! I have my own predictions and hopes for the gaming event of the year, and the Final Fantasy Playthrough continues with Final Fantasy II. Coming soon!

A while back, I was examining my gaming options for the year. (Does anyone else do this, or am I just really that nerdy? Never mind, I know the answer to that…) I realized that after I finished God of War 3, I’d be left high and dry, without any new games that I was interested in until Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep is released during the Summer. Sure, I’ve got all sorts of games that I can play and some that I still haven’t finished like The Witcher, The Last Remnant, one of the new Zelda games, and another playthrough of the amazing Chrono Trigger. Yep, I could finish all of those if I wanted to, but the problem was that I didn’t really have any burning desire to do so.

As I was playing Final Fantasy XIII, I realized that there were some games in the Final Fantasy series that I’d never finished either. Whether it was from lack of interest or boredom, there were portions of the series that I had completely ignored, and as a Squenix fangirl, that bothered me, right down to the bottom of my chocobo infested soul. I took stock of what we had in the collection and realized that we were only missing a few of the games, so why not get them and then sit down and play through the entire series, from start to finish? It would be a pleasant way to spend my gaming time, and would be something I’d never done before, so why not?

I decided too that it would be a fun project to write about here on the blog, and would keep me posting on a regular basis, so it really was a win-win idea all the way around. I probably write about Final Fantasy too much, and this might be overkill, but to those of you who aren’t fans of the series, I beg your indulgence. I don’t want to write reviews about the games, since that’s been done and overdone for the last twenty-plus years. Instead, I want to write about my experiences playing the games, about the memories I have about growing up with the series, and perhaps some in-depth analysis of story and character.

Now I had to decide how I’d play them through. Would I include the spin-offs? Would I am for specific goals like leveling the characters to max level, or gaining all of the ultimate weapons? Here’s my plan for the Playthrough:

Just play.

I’m not going to burden myself with aiming high, as I don’t want to burn myself out, and I want to just experience the games again. I want to enjoy what they have to offer, and not infuse the experience with elitism. I will, however, toss in two of the spin-offs, just because I can. Here’s my playthrough order, even though it’s probably pretty obvious and goes without saying:

• Final Fantasy (PSP, 20th Anniversary Edition)
• Final Fantasy II (PSP, 20th Anniversary Edition)
• Final Fantasy III (Nintendo DS)
• Final Fantasy IV (Nintendo DS)
• Final Fantasy V (PS1 Anthology Collection)
• Final Fantasy VI (PS1 Anthology Collection)
• Final Fantasy VII (Playstation Network, played on PSP)
• Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core (PSP)
• Final Fantasy VIII (Playstation Network, played on PSP)
• Final Fantasy IX (Playstation Network, maybe PSP, maybe PS3?)
• Final Fantasy X (PS2)
• Final Fantasy X-2 (PS2)
• Final Fantasy XI (writeup only, as I’m not going to be playing this one again due to it’s online and addictive nature!)
• Final Fantasy XII (PS2)
• Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)
• Final Fantasy XIV (yes, going to write about this as well, as there is a strong possibility it’ll either be out, or I’ll be playing open beta)

Whoo! That’s a lot of gaming. It’ll be quality gaming though, and I know I’ll enjoy the hell out of it. I have no idea how long this will take, as some of these games can be well over 100 hours long. I hope though, that with each game, I’ll discover new things about each one, and won’t bore my visitors to tears. Ha!

Final Fantasy has been a part of my life for the last twenty-someodd years. I’ve grown up with the series as I’ve said before, and it has been a part of my most important friendships, not to mention THE most important friendship I have, with my husband. I’m looking forward to reliving memories of the past, and creating new memories for the future during this playthrough. I hope you’ll join me on this trip, and please feel free to add your own memories to mine as we travel together. I’d love to hear from you about how Final Fantasy has been a part of your lives, and what kind of role it played or plays in your life. That sounds really deep, and makes Final Fantasy seem like more than what it is, just a game. Is it though? This is the kind of question I want to explore as I playthrough each game.

I’m still not done with it. I could probably just leave that sentence, and let it stand for my review, but I don’t pay the upkeep on this website for nothing, so I might as well write something more, eh? Before we move forward, please look at the title of this post again so you can either keep reading or stop now. I especially want to point out the part where it says “SQUARE FANGIRL”. I am. Very much so. My husband will tell you this. It is, perhaps, one of my more fatal flaws and will surely be my downfall one day. That being said, I do have some negative things to say about Final Fantasy XIII, so this review won’t completely be chocobos farting rainbows with happy moogles flying around tossing candy about. As cool as that would be…

Anyways, let’s jump right into it, shall we? Technical stuff first, of course. I’m still playing the game on the PS3, on a beautiful 23 inch widescreen HD monitor. There, that was easy. (Easier than laying out my PC specs at least, heh.) Hubby played on the XBox 360 on the same model of monitor, so I do have a frame of reference for the graphics when we get to that part. At this point in time, I’ve logged about 90 hours into the game, and have beaten the story portion, and am now running hither and thither finishing up all of the sidequests, getting the ultimate weapons, and attempting to get all of the trophies for the game.

This is going to be a long review, so hit the jump for my novella.

(continue reading…)

What is this blog going to be about, you ask? Well, the story of this blog goes back to three years ago, when I created Adventaruing in Vana’diel as an adventuring journal for my character in FFXI, Serielley. As time went by, FFXI wasn’t the only MMO or game that I played, (not in the slightest!), and I started to feel constrained by my choice of blog. I finally broke down and bought this domain and created what you see here now.

Serielley’s Adventures in Gaming will have content similar to Adventaruing in Vana’diel, but from whatever games I may be playing currently. I may also write about casual gaming, gaming as a female, gaming as a couple, issues in the gaming industry, or other topics as they come to me.

Mostly though, I want to share my love and enjoyment of gaming with others, and this is the best way I know how. I appreciate every reader who stops by and contributes to the conversation, and I hope to meet many new faces as this blog grows and develops in the future.

Thanks for stopping by!

(For people coming by from Adventaruing, I’ve moved all of the posts over, so that everything is in one place, and easy to find if you so desire. Up in the menu, there is a button titled: Adventaruing Archive. That will show you all of the posts from Adventaruing, archived for your convenience.)