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Making Time: Final Fantasy Adventure
This is Making Time, a column about the games we've always wanted to play, and the games we've always wanted to play again. We all have to start somewhere. Yoshinori Kitase has been, more or less, the man in charge of the Final Fantasy series since 1994. Kitase directed the operatic Final Fantasy VI, the gluttonous sc-fi epic Final Fantasy VII, the romantic head-trips Final Fantasy VIII and X, and he's been the producer of the entire hallucinatory Fabula Nova Crystalis pantheon, including Final Fantasy XIII. At this point Final Fantasy is as much Kitase's baby as it was that of Hironobu Sakaguchi, Nobuo Uematsu, and Yoshitaka Amano back on the NES. Back in 1991, though, Kitase started his career with Square on a very different project. He was the designer and writer of Final Fantasy Adventure for Nintendo's old black and white Game Boy. The project's original name was Seiken Densetsu, the predecessor to what we in the U.S. know as Secret of Mana. What's fascinating about Kitase's debut is how it bears all his idiosyncrasies all in one primitive package.
Earthbound and children at play
This is Making Time, a column about the games we've always wanted to play, and the games we've always wanted to play again. Earlier this month, a friend on Twitter asked his followers to name a "perfect game." The resulting conversation was fascinating, as hordes of players listed games while also admitting that each had "flaws," or that the plot wasn't strong enough to be considered perfect. Some refused the notion that a perfect game could ever exist, or argued that it shouldn't exist, because perfection is unattainable. After spending time with Earthbound's recent Wii U Virtual Console, I've come to think otherwise. Earthbound is perfect. To be clear, it's not perfect because it's a flawless product, but because it expresses a coming-of-age adventure in every ounce of its code. At its roots, Earthbound (Mother 2 in Japan) is like a group of children at play, in a world much larger and darker than themselves.%Gallery-195204%
The aging horror of Kenji Eno's D
This is Making Time, a column about the games we've always wanted to play, and the games we've always wanted to play again. The inspiration to whip up a new column about an old game can come from anywhere, even a sad loss for the video game industry. In February, upon hearing about the death of Kenji Eno, I scanned Amazon and eBay for copies of his games, thinking I might write them up in remembrance, but ultimately never pulled the trigger on a purchase. Two months later, I walk into a recently-opened used game shop (named ThrillHouse, if you can believe it), and what should I see under the glass? A boxed Sega Saturn copy of Kenji Eno's D in great condition, the creepy cover just as effective now as it was seventeen years ago. I gladly paid $30 for it. Having played it for the first time since I was thirteen, D isn't as scary as I remember. While it isn't a very good game, I still find myself enjoying the experience.
Getting Dark Souls all wrong
This is Making Time, a column about the games we've always wanted to play, and the games we've always wanted to play again. When Dark Souls first launched in October 2011, I picked it up immediately. Though that statement may seem to be tied to my love of the game's spiritual predecessor, the truth is I've never touched Demon's Souls. It was the rampant fan excitement for a new entry in From Software's action-RPG that drew me in. But Dark Souls didn't resonate with me.It was a combination of elements that made it easy for me to shelve my copy: the continuous discussion of its incredible difficulty and the "if you don't like it, you don't get it" attitude from fanatics. I never planned to play Dark Souls again.Early this morning, I wrapped up my fifth hour of the game on Xbox 360, after putting three-plus hours in on the (only worth playing with fan-made fixes) PC version. Dark Souls' hooks are firmly embedded under my skin.%Gallery-130900%
Reliving the controversy of Phantasmagoria
This is Making Time, a column about the games we've always wanted to play, and the games we've always wanted to play again. I have a confession to make. The only reason this column exists is because I wanted an excuse to write about Phantasmagoria, an adventure game created by industry pioneer Roberta Williams. Not that I could have told you who Roberta Williams was when I first played the game in the mid-1990s. I played the majority of the game on my friends Danny and Mikey's computer. My family didn't have much of a PC at the time, but Danny and Mikey had a 486 beast that could run Windows 95 and a glut of incredible games I couldn't get at home. (Maybe I'll tell you about my family's PCJr in a future column.)In some ways, Phantasmagoria is the quintessential 90s game, borrowing elements – intentionally or not – from some of the decade's biggest phenomena. Released in 1995, it was smack in the middle of publisher Sierra's adventure game heyday. Like CD-ROM sensation Myst, all the characters are rendered using full-motion video, while the environments are all composed of static, pre-rendered 3D backgrounds. And, like Mortal Kombat and Night Trap before it, Phantasmagoria's realistic and often gruesome depiction of its characters stirred up controversy.%Gallery-178177%
Vagrant Story: Game of a million swords
This is Making Time, a column about the games we've always wanted to play, and the games we've always wanted to play again. I'm not sure when it happened, but it must have been sometime in 1999. My friend Stephen and I engaged in a sort of foreign exchange program. We didn't go overseas or anything – we just loaned our respective game consoles to each other. I borrowed his entirely alien PlayStation and a few games, notably Silent Hill, which had just come out and that I was dying to play. Meanwhile, he borrowed my Sega Saturn. (He really liked Dragon Force, which is easily worth a column of its own.)I wound up spending the bulk of my time with Silent Hill (mostly alone, eek), but I also tried out Vagrant Story, and I remember enjoying it. Fast-forward 13 years or so, and I've finally picked it back up via PSOne Classics to finish what I started. It's taken me several hours to come to this conclusion, but I think I still like it.%Gallery-176887%
Solving the 3D platforming problem in Jumping Flash
This is Making Time, a column about the games we've always wanted to play, and the games we've always wanted to play again. I never owned a PlayStation during the 32-bit era. I had a Sega Saturn, which I loved, though that didn't stop me from envying my PlayStation-owning friends. I was lucky enough to play a handful of games on friends' consoles – Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Vagrant Story – but I missed out on most of the games that would help solidify Sony's legacy in the game industry.One of those games was Jumping Flash. It was a platformer, and it was in 3D, a mind-boggling concept back in 1995. With no PlayStation, all I had were magazines filled with glowing reviews and screenshots, showcasing a beautiful, colorful world and a cool mechanical rabbit. With YouTube still a decade away, I couldn't even watch a Let's Play. All I could do was imagine, imagine what it must be like to leap and soar over those wonderful floating islands.Now, thanks to the magic of PSOne Classics and a Black Friday Vita purchase, I can play it pretty much whenever I want. I've done so for the past few days, and it turns out that Jumping Flash holds up surprisingly well. Not only that, it makes for a great portable game.
The overlooked innovation of Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link
This is Making Time, a column about the games we've always wanted to play, and the games we've always wanted to play again. Choosing the definitive Zelda game is a fool's errand. There are those who say the series peaked with Ocarina of Time. Twilight Princess has its adherents. Others – for reasons I cannot fathom – insist that Wind Waker is the best. Heck, there are even some fans that really love the quirky (haunted?) Majora's Mask. Personally, I tend to opt for the 16-bit opus, A Link to the Past.That is only, however, if you asked me which Zelda I thought was the best. Now, if you were to ask me which one was my favorite, I'd have to go with Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link. I tend to play through it every few years, and its recent jaunt onto the 3DS eShop (just in time for Thanksgiving) gave me the perfect opportunity to revisit it again.
The Daily Grind: Which MMO are you sorry you missed?
Time is always against us, a wise man once said, and truer words were never spoken regarding the MMORPG genre. The glut of titles released over the last few years means that fans have some hard choices to make, and when those choices are coupled with the inevitable game closures, it's rare that even folks with huge amounts of free time have time enough to play everything. And since we're speaking of time: If you spend enough of it reading and talking about our favorite genre, you'll inevitably come across a game that sounds right up your alley. If you're lucky, said game will still be available to you. If not, well, you might have the answer to this morning's Daily Grind question. Which MMO(s) are you sorry you missed? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
