Some Thoughts About Final Fantasy 13-2

After finishing Final Fantasy 13, I moved right along to its sequel, Final Fantasy 13-2. Direct sequels aren't very common in the Final Fantasy series and 13 is of particular note because it has two. Considering the ways in which FF13 deviated from the series' conventions I was excited to see how these direct sequels would learn from and iterate upon its predecessor. Today we're talking about Final Fantasy 13-2, a direct sequel that takes place two years after Final Fantasy 13.

Timeless Beauty (Presentation)

The environments in Final Fantasy 13 could really take your breath away, and 13-2 is no different. As a matter of fact, you visit so many locations at so many points in time that it has greater visual variety. You'll be exploring the usual valleys and fields, but highly technologically advanced locations as well - and just about anything in between. I found myself constantly distracted by the dozens of beautiful views this game has to offer.

A lot of the enemies and music are re-used from Final Fantasy 13. It makes sense, considering it takes place in the same world, but it's still something to consider. We'll get into the gameplay side of this later, but 13-2 has a lot more optional content and a lot more NPCs to talk to for sidequests. Their voice acting is generally fine, but there's a very limited amount of different models with very limited animation. It can be a little bit grating to watch the repetitive mouth flapping of the same face you've seen a few dozen times after watching the truly gorgeous cutscenes reserved for the game's important characters.

13-2's soundtrack can be described as having higher highs and lower lows than its predecessor. Most of the battle themes you'll hear are excellent, combining synth with orchestra to emphasize the game's journey through different time periods.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdframgnBVE

But some tracks have an almost 'grunge metal' feel to them, with screaming vocals that absolutely do not fit the beautiful landscapes and emotional story of a Final Fantasy game. The track that plays when you ride a red Chocobo, 'Crazy Chocobo' is infamous at this point. Listen at your own risk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEUOOgNzOv4

In short, FF13-2 offers more visual variety, especially in environments, but NPC and enemy designs are still regularly re-used and not particularly impressive in the former's case. The soundtrack recycles some tracks from 13, but the original pieces are mostly excellent. A few of the tracks are bad.

Time's Teachings (Gameplay)

Final Fantasy 13-2 is an evolution of Final Fantasy 13 in many ways. In this segment, I'll focus on the ways 13-2 differentiates itself in its exploration and battle system.

The endless complaints about Final Fantasy 13's overly linear nature were clearly heard and applied to 13-2.  While there are still linear segments, the game opens up almost immediately and many of its environments feature branching paths or are completely wide open. Not only that, there are many optional locations and time periods to visit for players who explore thoroughly. As free and open as the exploration is, though, the areas and time periods can feel a little disjointed because you access them from a somewhat disorganized level select screen referred to as the 'Historia Crux.' This is a small price to pay for the sheer amount of freedom and optional content, however.

Some small things were added to the exploration in 13-2 as well. You can now jump at will, and you can find secret treasures hidden in the environment by using your companion Moogle's special detecting ability or by throwing him to treasures out of your reach, an act that he very much doesn't appreciate. Enemy encounters have also been reworked; FF13 did away with random encounters entirely with enemies simply existing in the overworld. 13-2 partially returns to the traditional system, with enemy encounters appearing at random in the overworld, but not necessarily initiating a battle like the JRPGs of old. Once an enemy appears, the player can choose to try to run away, or deal a first strike on the enemy to gain an advantage in battle. This system allows you to grind certain types of enemy more easily, but can be frustrating in cramped areas when faster enemies that can actually chase you down spawn. 

In FF13's linear environments, there weren't many NPCs you could actually interact with. In 13-2, however, there are a boatload of NPCs with sidequests and lore, although most sidequests boil down to finding an item in the area or killing a specific enemy. The best sidequests play with the game's theme of time travel and have you visit an area in multiple different time periods to figure out what to do. The game even has a lot of dialogue options, but we'll discuss those in more detail under the story segment.

One final thing to mention about the exploration is that sometimes, to progress, you need to resolve a 'paradox' by solving a puzzle. These puzzles offer some welcome variation when done on occasion, but can often overstay their welcome by either being simple and repetitive or frustratingly hard. As an example of the former, there are puzzles where you just connect crystals of the same color over and over again. As an example of the latter, there are complex clock puzzles that would take more time to explain than they're really worth, but basically, you move the arms of a clock to numbers which then decide how many steps you can move the arms of the clock again, and using this method, you need to find a way to have the clock stop at every point without ever landing on the same point again. If that sounds confusing, that's because it is.

So, all in all, the exploration has changed a lot. But what about the battles?

Final Fantasy 13 shifted a lot of the focus in battles from actively choosing options to preparing and switching between 'paradigms,' where you assign each character a role like Commando or Medic. Final Fantasy 13-2 uses the same system but expands upon it in a few ways. For starters, your characters throughout the entire game are Serah and Noel, and you decide which Roles to teach them when as you level them up. This means that you not only need to think about which paradigms to use, you also need to choose between improving your current roles/paradigms or learning new ones. 

It is a little disappointing to only have 2 characters instead of Final Fantasy 13's six, but the other addition to the battle system makes up for it: monster taming. Most monsters you encounter can be tamed and acquired for use in battle. The third party member in any paradigm is a tamed monster of your choice and there are dozens upon dozens of monsters you can tame, level up, combine with each other for powerful passive abilities and even name and equip with cute cosmetics. 

Unlike Noel and Serah, tamed monsters only ever have one Role, but that makes sense considering the sheer amount of tameable monsters you can acquire.

Next to the major additions, there are also minor conveniences. A paradigm shift now happens without a small cutscene demonstrating to which role each character has switched, and if the character the player is controlling gets knocked out, you automatically switch to the other instead of getting an instant game over.

You'll notice that these additions do indeed expand on the system that was present 13, but don't fundamentally change it. I have a lot of respect for the decision to not throw the baby out with the bathwater here. A lot of people complained about the streamlined battle system in 13 because it was different, not because it was actually fundamentally flawed on a game design level. It's very satisfying to plan out some perfect paradigms and then watch your team destroy an enemy with little effort thanks to your thinking ahead, and this game pushes that system even further with added convenience and customization.

I think most of the changes made in 13-2 are for the better, but there are a few bad ideas mixed in. One of those is the quick time events in cutscenes. Usually the finishing blow against a boss is handled by awkwardly performing a series of timed button presses over a cutscene, which feels unnecessary and pretty tedious. It feels completely contradictory to how the battle system works - you've spent all this time planning ahead, setting up your Paradigms and switching between them - now watch an elaborate cutscene where Noel and Serah destroy the boss while you press the buttons it tells you to. Considering this only happens after major boss battles, though, it's not too much of a bother.

All in all, Final Fantasy 13-2 is a shining example of listening to feedback while maintaining your vision. Exploration was massively expanded, with huge open areas and optional content to explore. Random enemy encounters in the overworld generally allow for easier grinding and monster taming, but can be tedious if faster enemies spawn in enclosed areas. The 'paradox' puzzles add nice variety but outstay their welcome if you're trying for full completion.

13-2's battle system is fundamentally like 13's but with more customization. The quality of life improvements and extensive monster taming system make this one of the most fun and addictive JRPGs I've played, though the QTEs tacked at the end of some boss battles can sour the mood a little bit.

Broken Timeline (Story)

As its name implies, Final Fantasy 13-2 is a direct sequel to Final Fantasy 13. As such, there will be Final Fantasy 13 spoilers in this segment.

The Premise

The story of Final Fantasy 13-2 takes place a few years after Final Fantasy 13. It's immediately apparent that something is different from what we remember. Lightning survived the events of FF13, but when the story begins in 13-2, it's believed by everyone that she died in the battle to save Cocoon and disappeared alongside Vanille and Fang. The only person who remembers otherwise is her sister, Serah, who is one of the two main characters in this game. This premise is immediately quite interesting and it's hard not to feel sympathy for Serah. She's spent a few years knowing her sister ought to be alive because she actually remembers it happening, but almost everyone else thinks she's just been in denial all this time, incapable of accepting the simple truth.

She finally sees her memories validated when Lightning, who is now stuck in a place outside time known as Valhalla, sends a person called Noel her way. Noel is the second main character in FF13-2, a hunter from a horrific future where all of humanity has died out and he is the last remaining person. Noel brings Serah a message from Lighting; that the timeline has been messed with, leading to Lightning's disappearance and the existence of this awful future. Noel and Serah set off on a journey through time together to find Lightning and prevent this apocalyptic future from ever taking place. To help, Noel has also brought Mog to help Serah. Mog is a Moogle who can transform into a bowsword and be wielded as a weapon.

After Serah time travels for the first time the story structure goes on a little bit like this: Serah and Noel enter a new area and time period and discover there is a 'paradox' to resolve before they can move on. Paradoxes are things that don't belong in that specific time or location but have ended up there due to the damage the timeline has suffered. They resolve the paradox, open one of the 'time gates' in the area, move on to a new time/location and the cycle repeats. Along the way, they gather clues as to what caused the timeline to change the way it did in hopes of ultimately saving Lightning and the future itself.

The Characters

The protagonists of the story are Serah Farron and Noel Kreiss. Serah is a returning character from FF13, where she played a central role in the story as Lightning's sister and Snow's fiancée. A major goal in the story of FF13 was to save Serah from her crystallized state, which makes it interesting that the roles are reversed in this game, with Serah setting out to save her sister Lightning. Noel Kreiss is a new character, a time traveler from a distant future he wants to prevent from ever happening. They're accompanied by Mog, a Moogle sent by Lightning to help Serah. Serah is a very likeable and sympathetic character and we can empathize with her goal of reuniting with her sister. She does have some character flaws, like a dangerous temper, but this unfortunately doesn't come up very much in the story, which may lead some people to feel she's a bit too perfect as a person. Even though the premise of the story very much makes it look like this is all about Serah, I actually felt Noel was the real 'central' character. The journey to reunite with Lightning often feels like it takes a back seat to the journey to save the future he's from, and most character relations and interactions revolve around him. For example, Caius and Yeul (more on them later) have a connection to Noel, and when returning characters like Snow appear, they mostly clash with Noel while Serah stays in the background. To push this point further, the leitmotif that appears in all the battle themes comes from 'The Last Hunter,' which is Noel's theme. I'm conflicted about this because I think it's great they brought a new, well fleshed out character to the table but it's disappointing to see Serah fall into the background again after she spent most of the last game frozen as well. Mog is a cute character, but he's mostly there for comedy and doesn't have much to learn or achieve in the story outside of an optional quest about his home. But the victory animation where Serah hugs him is heart meltingly adorable, so at least there is that.

The antagonist of the story is a mysterious man called Caius Ballad. He fights with Lightning at the very beginning and follows the protagonists through their time travels, fighting them or hindering them at every opportunity, proclaiming that changing the timeline is a 'sin.' He's accompanied by a mysterious girl called Yeul. Caius is easily the most sympathetic and interesting villain from these three games. I can't fully explain why without getting into spoilers, but to give a brief overview: he's been made immortal to serve as Yeul's guardian, but Yeul is not immortal. She, instead, dies and is reborn as a new person time and time again. Witnessing this girl die over and over and over is what drives Caius to do the things he does in the story and paints his otherwise horrible actions in a sympathetic light. Yeul herself doesn't really have the opportunity to become an established character because every time you encounter Caius, he's with a different Yeul from a different timeline. As a result, who I'm calling 'Yeul' is actually a group of several different characters with the same voice and appearance, none of whom get very much time to be developed. It makes for an interesting character concept, though, and some Yeuls get more screentime than others.

The returning characters from FF13 are a mixed bag. Lightning provides a strong opening for the story but then passes the torch on to Noel and mostly stays in the background for the rest of the game. Characters like Fang, Sazh and Vanille barely appear at all. 

That leaves Snow and Hope, and I have a lot to say about both. I'm very disappointed in the way Snow is, or rather, isn't implemented in this story. After Serah confides in him that she remembers Lightning being alive, he proves himself the worthy fiancé by believing her without hesitation and going off to find Lightning, something that makes me like him even more than I already did. But then he just stayed away for 3 years, never coming back to Serah. When you run into him again, he's gained a stupid haircut and a new fal'Cie brand. Even weirder, there's barely any chemistry or interaction between him and Serah at this point. I really don't understand this, but the best I can think of is that the developers wanted to leave room for a Serah and Noel romance instead. Snow mostly just clashes with Noel and disappears from the story after you fight alongside him in one of the time periods, with much of what he did in the past years relegated to the data logs you can read. Most encounters afterwards are optional. Hope, on the other hand, plays a much better role in the story. He's grown up into a renowned scientist who is playing an important role in the recovery of society now that the fal'Cie are no longer functional. He believes Serah and Noel are indeed time travelers and is very eager to help them for the sake of the friends he fought alongside in FF13. He and his attempts to help facilitate a better future play a major part in the story across multiple time periods, and I only wish other characters from the first game had this kind of presence as well.

Thinking back on FF13-2 made me realize that the game's cast of important characters is pretty small. This might be a consequence of people complaining about how convoluted the story got in FF13. The only other significant side character I can think of is Alyssa, Hope's assistent. Because she's with Hope, she gets a lot of screentime, and she's actually an interesting character. The only other newcomer that sticks out to me is Chocolina, an enthusiastic Chocobo girl and trader, but she only really comments on the story rather than being part of it. Her origins aren't even explained in the main story. 

Pacing & Progression

FF13-2's story can often feel like many smaller stories stringed together. The overarching story has a strong presence near the beginning and end, but sometimes feels like it takes a backseat to the immediate threat or conflict in each given time and place. In a few words, the story feels episodic and disjointed. Many threats and enemies occur simply as a result of "meddling with the timeline," and don't really relate to Caius at all. Other conflicts do relate to Caius, but this is only explained if you happen to come across a specific bit of lore or an alternate ending. This problem only gets worse if you take the time to do all the optional content as it becomes available.

It should be said that just because parts of the story are disjointed, that doesn't mean each individual part is bad. I'll keep it vague to prevent spoilers, but at one point in the story, you enter a city in the future. This city is in a truly awful state, a miserable place to be for you and all its inhabitants. Due to some actions in the past, you then create an alternate 'good future' version of this city. Entering this 'good future' version was one of my favorite moments in the game because it communicates so clearly that the future can be changed. It's a hopeful thought that plays into the overarching story quite nicely and gives a clear sense of progression that most other areas lack. 

Quests & Optional Content

Due to the disjointed nature of the story we established earlier, it can sometimes be hard to follow. Many things are explained in the data logs, and a lot of lore is hidden within optional areas or quests. Some of the best character moments and interactions, especially between the FF13 original cast, are found in worlds that can be completely skipped over if you simply want to go straight to the end. This could've been a cool extra if the main story wasn't so starved of good interactions between the original FF13 cast to begin with. But with the caveat that some of the optional content probably should've been integrated in the main story, there is a lot of good optional content. Each unique location in the Historia Crux has its own story and its own problem to solve.

The Ending

This segment and article have already run on for much too long, so I can't fully do the discussion about FF13-2's ending justice here. But if you've heard anything about the game, you'll know that the way it ends is controversial and my opinion on it is very mixed as well. If people are interested, I may write an article just about the ending.

In Summary

FF13-2s story starts with a strong premise and characters with understandable and believable motivations, but the overarching story often falls into the background and ends up feeling disjointed in the middle. It may be disappointing to FF13 fans just how meager the presence of the original FF13 cast is and how few their interactions are. There are many highlights, however, like the antagonist Caius and several very compelling optional locations and quests.

After All (Conclusion)

Final Fantasy XIII-2 is, in most ways, a perfect example of how to make a sequel. It takes FF13's attempt at streamlining JRPG combat and makes it more involved, faster, more customizable and all-around more fun. The QTEs are a mistake, but they're rare enough that they don't ruin the experience. It allows for much more open exploration and has many hours of optional content to offer that doesn't just involve talking to a stone that asks you to kill some enemy.  Its presentation expands and experiments, and this is generally a success as well - I come back to its battle themes almost every day when I need something exciting to listen to. 

The only major disappointments the game presents are in its story. While its opening and arguably ending are strong, the main quest often falls into the background of only tangentially related conflicts. The cast from FF13 has a limited presence and many things are not well explained in actual dialogue and scenes, being resigned to data logs instead. That's not to say that the separate fragments of story are not good, but that they sometimes lack a proper connection to each other, and rarely ever connect back to Final Fantasy 13.

All in all, a great sequel - the story just wasn't what I hoped it would be.

_

Wow! It's been a few months since I wrote any articles. I've been stuck on this one for a while because I wanted to articulate how good 13-2 is, but also how many frustrations I have with the story. I hope it was a good read and I hope my next article won't take as long. Stayed tuned, and all feedback is appreciated!

Resident Evil - Saving as a Limited Resource

I recently started playing the Resident Evil games, starting with the HD Remake of the first installment in the series. The game is often discussed as a great example of survival horror, and most of its qualities have been thoroughly discussed. That's why I want to take the approach I did for my Mario Odyssey article and focus on something specific I thought was interesting about the game: The fact that there is a cost to saving, that keeping your progress is a finite resource. 

Running out of Ink

Resident Evil is possibly the biggest horror franchise in all of videogames. The first game didn't just define what the rest of the franchise would look like, but had an effect on the genre as a whole. One of the cornerstones of this survival horror classic is limited resources. There are only a finite amount of healing items and bullets, and only a few spots of inventory space to keep them in. I was aware of that, but I wasn't aware of one other resource the game limited.

In their journey to escape the zombie-infested mansion, Jill or Chris - depending on who you picked to play as - need to use typewriters to save their progress. But it's not as simple as approaching a typewriter and hitting the button; you actually need to use an Ink Ribbon to use the typewriter. And Ink Ribbons are a resource you need to find, put in your inventory and take with you just like bullets and healing items. And once you've used them, they're gone.

This idea really caught me off guard. I've seen games that reduce your ranking if you save, or games that have a super hard mode with finite save points like LISA: The Painful, but never a game that requires you to use a specific finite item for each time you save.

Inky Black Horror

Limited resources have a way of building the tension. You don't want to waste all your bullets, but being too stingy will just get you injured or slow you down a lot. It's the same for healing items, and in this case, for the Ink Ribbons as well. Waste too many Ink Ribbons and you'll have to go long periods of time without saving until you find more... but if you're too stingy and wait a long time before you save, you'll lose significant progress if you run into trouble and die. I both loved and hated this idea.

People with a passion for videogames often declare that the best games communicate their atmosphere or aesthetic with their mechanics, not just their presentation. To clarify, for example, a horror game shouldn't just be scary because it looks and sounds frightening - playing it should be a frightening experience in and of itself due to how the game actually works. The limited Ink Ribbons definitely made playing the game a lot scarier because every enemy was now a huge threat to my progress. In one of my streams of the game I ended up stuck for a few hours and wasted too many Ink Ribbons on small bits of progress - I ended up having to cross two new areas filled with new enemies before I could finally save, and that hour of excitement was one of the scariest experiences I've ever had with a videogame. Because your progress hangs in the balance, you need to be twice as careful about your other resources and be intimately familiar with the layout of each area - and even that won't protect you entirely, because some rooms in the mansion change over time.

Good ideas and effective scares, however, can eventually turn into mere frustrations when you're exposed to them too often. We saw a bit of this in Silence of the Sleep, where a certain frightening monster appeared so often and reset your progress so often that it lost its impact and turned into an annoyance. The situation with the Ink Ribbons eventually became similar, though not quite as bad. You see, the fear that comes from limited Ink Ribbons is at its strongest when you haven't lost your progress yet. The true brilliance of the idea shines in those moments of tension where you decide to bite off just a bit more and see if it pays off, or when you're desperately going from room to room with zombies on your case. But once you've actually died and lost your progress, the tension is released and replaced with frustration and disappointment. Now you have to retrace your steps, and though you're more efficient about it, it gets old fast if it happens multiple times.

The Ink Ribbons really are a double edged sword in this regard. Ideally you'd have a situation with the same tension, but not the resulting frustration, but there's no way to change the Ink Ribbons that would make that a reality. The fear of losing your progress and the frustration of losing your progress are two sides of the same coin. If you died and you didn't lose your progress, then the tension wouldn't be there, but the fact that you do lose your progress inevitably leads to frustration and repetition. As a designer, a possible middle ground I could suggest is that the Ink Ribbons are required to save major story progress, but minor things like killing zombies and gaining resources are preserved. Of course, this could easily be exploited and break the game, so I understand why they didn't go for that.

All in all, Ink Ribbons really increase the tension and really put the survival AND horror in "survival horror." But having something as necessary and usually taken for granted as saving depend on a finite resource could be very frustrating for some people. The threat of losing progress is great for horror, but actually losing your progress can lead to repetition. I think how you feel about Ink Ribbons will ultimately come down to preference, but while it's a love-hate relationship for me, I love it more than I hate it because of the exciting experience it gave me. I'm excited to experience the rest of the Resident Evil franchise and see if the way resources are handled changes much throughout.

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October's over, but I couldn't resist writing another article about a spooky game! Since I'm planning to do the whole franchise, you can probably expect more Resident Evil articles in the next few months. I hope you'll stick with me as I experience another series I missed out on. I want to thank the people on Steem again for all their support; you've made writing a lot more fun for me.

What do you think? Is it fair to have a function like saving your game depend on a finite in-game resource? Is that brilliant horror design or irritating artificial difficulty? Would love to hear your thoughts.

Deltarune

We've finally had our first look at the successor to Undertale, Deltarune. I played through the first 'episode.' It'll take some time for me to form coherent opinions, so here's some ranting and wild speculation. I'll update this post as more thoughts and facts come up. I'm also going to include unmarked, HEAVY SPOILERS for Undertale and episode one of Deltarune. Beware!

Timeline Woes
Due to the characters involved and their relationship(s), this game cannot exist in the same "timeline" as Undertale. There are monsters living on the surface, yet our protagonist Kris seems to be the only human. To complicate matters further, his facial features and skin tone are reminiscent of Frisk (also note the name similarity), but his shirt and position in the timeline (recognizes both Toriel and Asgore as parental figures, has a sibling type relationship with Asriel) adds up more for Chara.

My current speculation is that we are in an alternate universe where humans were forced underground and the monsters stayed up above. Kris seems to be the only human around, a fact that is further emphasized by the fact that Susie initially keeps calling him freak.

To make matters even more complicated, there's our adorable and peace-loving companion throughout this adventure. Ralsei is a self-proclaimed PRINCE FROM THE DARK, explicitly establishing himself as separate from the Humans and Monsters in the prophecy, and yet...
... he's Asriel. it makes sense in a way, because he was also the prince of the underground in Undertale... and yet! This makes matters even stranger because Asriel is explicitly known to the world above and is supposedly enrolled in a university elsewhere. I speculate that Ralsei is Asriel from a different timeline, since this entire game seems to be playing with the idea of an alternate universe. It's still very strange that Kris doesn't really react, while Susie actually seems shocked. If my theory is true, that leaves two possibilities: Either Kris knew all along, or this Asriel doesn't look like his brother, the 'other' Asriel.

Every time I dig into the game, things seem to raise more questions than they answer, but I'm very excited to see where this is going.

One more thing, the game distinguishes the creatures from the underground as a separate 'class' of beings, referring to both monsters and humans as Lighteners. This sets the game's theme as being a typical light vs dark story, though it's up to the player whether they want to conquer dark (by being violent) or recovering the balance (by being peaceful).

Or is it? One more thing the game emphasized is that your choices don't matter. It says this several times, especially near the start. It makes me wonder if the outcome of the story will vary as much as it could in Undertale, or if it won't; Toby Fox likes to play with the conventions of the genre, so perhaps this is a play on the illusion of choice? I actually wrote an article about the way Undertale handles choices if you're interested, you can read it if you click here.

UPDATE 2-11-18: Toby Fox posted a Q&A, which you can check here:

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sqn3p9

He answered quite a few questions. Among other things, he confirmed that Delta Rune exists in a separate "universe" from Undertale and seems to imply one does not impact the other. I'm sceptical, though, because it is my belief that Kris and Susie entered another world or timeline through the closet in their school. Being a "separate" universe or timeline does not actually separate it from the story in Undertale.

Furthermore, and this puzzles me even more, he says the ending will be the same regardless of your choices. Undertale, I feel, had something profound to say about finding peaceful resolutions; it seems Delta Rune's outcome is ultimately always the same. I find it strange that Ralsei clearly states the contrary, however. It makes me wonder if this is a bit of deception on Toby's part. Perhaps the outcome will be the same in some ways, and not in others? We'll have to wait and see.
_

UPDATE 2-11-18: After reviewing some gameplay footage, I have a few thoughts about the Lightners and Darkners.

After the adventure Kris and Susie wake up in an abandoned room in the school surrounded by many things they encountered on their adventure (poker cards, etc). It could all have been a dream, but both Kris and Susie remember the adventure and Susie still has her injury from the final battle.

All this got me thinking about what the Darkners really are.

Seam describes the Lightners as being Gods, but not just that - the Lightners are specifically named as the creators of Darkners and those who gave them purpose. And all the Darkners are based on manmade objects; the shopkeeper above is a plushy toy, Rudin and Hathy are poker cards, there are statues and poker chips, Lancer is a spade... It got me thinking that perhaps, the underground in Delta Rune is a place of lost toys.

Gameplay Joys
The battle system is basically an evolution of its predecessor, removing random encounters and introducing multiple party members. The interface buttons are a little small, though, which might be troublesome for people with impaired vision. I have little to say about it, beyond that I think it's great. Any excuse to hear more of Toby's musical talent is fine with me, and the added animations and in-battle dialogues add even more flavour.

_

Also,

That is all.

I'll share more thoughts as more gets revealed and I take more time to do research.

A Few Thoughts on SOMA

It's October, so I decided to take this opportunity to catch up on a few scary games I've been planning to play. These articles won't be full blown reviews - more like rants, really.

First up is SOMA by Frictional Games, the creators of the famous Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Amnesia played a major role in bringing horror games back into the scene but its sequel, developed by The Chinese Room, disappointed a lot of fans. Now that Frictional itself has taken the reigns again, can they measure up to their prior achievement? 

I won't leave you in suspense - the answer's no.

I don't always agree with the general consensus, but in SOMA's case, I think the critics' and audience's overall impressions are pretty spot-on: The game has great writing and visuals and deals with some powerful uncomfortable themes, but it's bogged down by problems with its gameplay. 

I won't get too deep into spoiler territory, but as its marketing material shows, SOMA is set in a more futuristic time era. In your journey, you'll be met with robots and AIs, some of which believe they are human, and others were human once. As the border between an AI and a human being becomes more and more blurred, you're presented with the notion of copying someone's "brain" leading to two "instances" of a person. Is the copy a real person? Is it the same person? For the questions and uncomfortable scenarios it presents, SOMA is well worth checking out. It also has varied and beautiful setpieces, with a lot of time spent on the ocean floor to my surprise. In those regards, I'd say it's ahead of Amnesia.

But that's about the only thing it has over Amnesia.

Amnesia and SOMA both include large areas to explore with the threat of monsters, but the exploration in SOMA is endlessly more frustrating and less rewarding. It all starts with the mechanics. Amnesia and SOMA both have a 'sanity' mechanic, but only Amnesia has real 'health.' You could check out your menu at any time to observe both in Amnesia. Additionally, you had much more influence on your sanity in Amnesia as well. How? The answer is light. To contextualize, standing in the dark slowly drained your sanity and the game offered tools to combat this:
Tinderboxes and lamp oil. A tinderbox would allow you to ignite a light source like a candle permanently, but it was fixed in place. Lamp oil gave you a mobile light, but the oil would run out eventually. This added a dynamic where light would protect you from the dark, but it would also allow monsters to see you more easily.

Not only did the sanity mechanic allow for many interesting risk/reward considerations, it also made the exploration more rewarding. Exploring the sprawling, huge areas before making progress could improve your chances of survival by finding precious medicine, tinderboxes or lamp oil. To bring it back to SOMA, there's none of that. You have a flashlight which never runs out, and although you can suffer some kind of sanity damage, you can only repair it by single use interactable objects placed in significant areas. This also takes away the elegant logic of Daniel (from Amnesia) recovering his sanity because he solved a puzzle or made significant progress, though I can't get into exactly how SOMA justifies it without spoilers. But the point here is that there's only one reward for thorough exploration: more story. It's not an insignificant reward if you're hooked on the world of SOMA, but the lack of immediate connection with the gameplay made it less impactful than finding a few tinderboxes and a note detailing Daniel's backstory.

But having just story as a reward for exploration isn't necessarily a flaw, if only the exploration itself wasn't so frustrating. Where SOMA really falls flat on its face is the monsters. Though their designs are cool and they'll certainly give you a fright the first few times you see them, the means to avoid them will soon turn them into nuisances. The rules for the monsters are generally:

1. Don't look at them.
2. Don't make any noise around them.

That's really scary at first, but the monsters are mobile enough - some of them teleport - that you'll encounter them very often. The charm of hiding in a corner for a minute until a monster passes wears off really fast. SOMA doesn't offer dedicated hiding spots or doors that need to be broken down like Amnesia, and most monsters will catch you if they're after you, so it feels like there's little to no room for strategy beyond just quietly waiting. This turns a thorough search of a complex area from a tense rewarding experience into a frustrating waiting game. Additionally, when you're caught, the monster usually leaves you for dead, giving you a second chance to escape. You only die if you're caught twice in a short time or at certain story moments. This might remove even more of the tension for some players, though it was ironically probably implemented to prevent frustration.

That about sums it up, I think! Ignoring the frustrating monsters, the game has plenty of interesting puzzles and cool areas to explore. The game actually has a version that excludes the monsters, which you may want to try. That doesn't really solve the problem, though; with no looming threat at all, the tension is completely gone. SOMA does need monsters, it just needs better ones.

To summarize this incoherent rant, SOMA is a horror game with interesting themes, beautiful setpieces and interesting puzzles, but the experience is ruined in part by obnoxious monsters who will initially scare you but eventually do nothing but slow you down and block your progress. The monsters and exploration are a huge step down from its predecessor Amnesia: The Dark Descent, even if it is the latter's superior in terms of story and themes.

Rakuen (Review)

I don't usually post 'traditional' reviews on this blog, but I really wanted to share my thoughts on this game with you. I posted this review on Steam first, but felt it would be worth uploading here as well.

Rakuen is a beautiful adventure/puzzle game about a Boy and his Mom. The Boy has to stay in the hospital, but using a special storybook, his Mom shows him the way into the magical world of Morizora's Forest. This game is played from a top down perspective like an RPG Maker game.

Story:

I don't want to spoil anything, but I will offer a general overview: The hospitalized Boy visits Morizora's Forest in hopes of getting a wish from the forest guardian Morizora. But to get his wish, he needs to help the other patients resolve their problems by going through their history and finding out what led them to where they are. As a result, the story is filled to the brim with charming and interesting characters who you really get to know as you work to help them out. And of course, there are plenty of emotional moments. There are lines that'll make you laugh, and there are lines that'll hit you like a punch in the gut. If you're looking for a story with powerful emotions across the board, look no further.

Presentation:

Having heard Laura Shigihara's work in Plants vs. Zombies and To The Moon, I had lofty expectations for the soundtrack, but even those were surpassed. The soundtrack is filled to the brim with beautiful tracks, from atmospheric pieces to melodies that will get the most stoic people teary eyed. Not only are Laura's amazing vocals present, she has also brought in several guest vocalists who all perform their pieces admirably as well.

The visuals are also strong, with plenty of recognizable character designs and vibrant areas. The visuals and story work together in smart ways, too; the colors in the hospital are much more desaturated than the bright colors of Morizora's Forest, for example.

My only minor problem, if you can even call it that, is that some characters in Morizora's Forest don't have many character portraits. Tony Bear could have used maybe one more portrait, just to shake it up. Not a completely unique pose, just a few more facial expressions, like his human counterpart.

Gameplay:

Rakuen mostly revolves around exploration with some light puzzle solving. Fortunately, the puzzles generally tie into the story and history of the characters you are helping out. They are usually not very challenging but offer a nice change of pace. Some areas are reminiscent of classic RPG Maker horror games like Ib and The Crooked Man in how they require you to figure out the environment and its interacting pieces.

My one minor problem with the gameplay, I would say, is that the game asks if you want to look at or read something a bit too often. Sometimes you'll be looking at an item with two separate 'do you want to read it?' or 'do you want to look?' questions. I understand why this is - there are lots of things to read, and you don't want to accidentally read the same thing twice, but in that case it might have been better to separate it into two interactable items instead.

Conclusion: 


Rakuen is a beautiful game with amazing visuals and music as well as a powerful story, with plenty of fantastical and frightening places to explore. Any complaints I could have are too minor to make a difference. Recommended for everyone.

Try it here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/559210/Rakuen/

Ace Attorney and the Lion Lilies: Parental Bonds #1

This article will spoil just about everything there is to spoil about the Ace Attorney series, including Ace Attorney Investigations 2. If you haven't played them yet, I strongly recommend that you do so first. I will be using names from AAI2's unofficial fan translation for this article.

Back in 2011, Capcom released Gyakuten Kenji 2, also known as Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Path. Though it never got an official English release, people who played the game or its fan translation quickly came to agree that it was one of the series' best. 

The bond between parents and their children was a prevalent theme in Ace Attorney Investigations 2. This inspired me to look into just how present the theme really is in the game as well as the games that came before it. I'm going to start with the latter and build towards AAI2. Let's go on a quick journey through the series and pay homage to the moms and dads of Ace Attorney.

The Misty Circumstances of DL-6

The DL-6 incident is a pivotal moment for the Ace Attorney series, the ramifications of which are felt throughout the entire series. The theme of parental bonds is strongly present in this case, most obviously because it is the case in which Miles Edgeworth's father, Gregory Edgeworth, was killed. The killer, Manfred von Karma, then takes Miles under his wing and raises him to stray from his father's path. Gregory Edgeworth was a righteous defense attorney who sought the truth, but Manfred von Karma raises Miles to be a prosecutor whose main goal is to achieve 'guilty' verdicts.

This part of Miles Edgeworth's story is a very important factor in understanding the brilliance of AAI2, but another part of DL-6 isn't talked about as much: The involvement of Misty Fey, Maya's mother. Just as Miles inherits his father's final case in The Inherited Turnabout, Maya - in a sense - inherits DL-6 from her mother.

source: ZSlyzer on YouTube

Misty Fey channeled Gregory Edgeworth, but the person she then accused of his murder turned out to be innocent. This failure is what caused the Fey family to lose much its reputation and caused Misty to go into hiding, leaving Maya to pick up the pieces. And she does indeed, getting herself held in contempt of court just to save Edgeworth and stealing the final piece of evidence back from Von Karma.

source: ZSlyzer on YouTube

In supporting Phoenix, she succeeds where her mother failed. Maya's support is so impactful that, according to Gumshoe, it made Edgeworth's lip tremble.

source: ZSlyzer on YouTube

I think it's very powerful that Maya gets to finish what her mother once started by wrapping up DL-6 for the better.

Morgan Fey, Worst Mother Ever 

The Fey family is shown to be quite dysfunctional, and Morgan Fey the clearest example. She tries to frame Maya for a murder to establish her daugher, Pearl, as the new Master of the Kurain Channeling Technique. If we did top 10 lists on this blog, Morgan Fey would easily earn the top spot in a 'top 10 bad parents.' One of her children ends up as a serial killer and is executed, another becomes an accomplice to murder and is arrested and she very nearly makes a murderer of Pearl as well. Her attempt to use Pearl as a tool to get back at Misty is what sets the events of Bridge to the Turnabout in motion and leads to the untimely death of Maya's mother. 

The difference between Morgan and Misty is quite apparent. Misty came out of hiding to protect her daughter and her niece, and ends up dying to achieve that end. Morgan used her daughter as tool to channel her other deceased daughter in an effort to kill her niece for completely selfish reasons. 

Maya and her mother had become estranged, but at the very end, it's revealed that the talisman Misty always carried - the thing that gave her strength - was a picture of her two daughters when they were young.

source: ZSlyzer on YouTube

And the Rest

The Fey family plays an important part in the series' overarching storyline, but there are many more parental figures on a smaller scale. They don't impact Ace Attorney Investigations 2, so I'll keep this short and sweet.

- Turnabout Big Top's Russell Berry is Regina Berry's father as well as a father figure to Acro and Bat. He dies by walking into a trap intended for his daughter.

- Viola Cadaverini, a minor character in Recipe for Turnabout, is considered a threat by Furio Tigre due to her doting grandfather Bruto. Her grandfather throwing his weight around is the only reason Furio pays for her life saving surgery.

- Zak Gramarye is Trucy's father and an all around terrible person. He abandons her, leaving Phoenix to raise her instead.

- Lamiroir is Apollo and Trucy's mother, but she has lost her memory. As of yet, Phoenix still hasn't revealed this fact to Apollo and Trucy.

- Drew and Vera Misham are forgers, though Vera does most of the work. They are both poisoned, but only Vera survives. 

- Similarly, Wocky Kitaki's parents from Turnabout Corner ask Apollo to defend him. Interestingly, Wocky also needs life saving surgery.

Hidden in Plain View

And that ultimately brings us to Ace Attorney Investigations 2.

Ace Attorney Investigations 2's theme of the bond between parent and child is presented in an interesting way. To those who have finished the game, it should be obvious that such a theme was prevalent throughout the whole game, yet someone experiencing the game for the first time might not realize it until they reach the final case. The story focuses mainly on Edgeworth's struggle on the Prosecutor's Path, which his father's position as a defense attorney plays a major role in, but other characters' bonds between their children or parents are only discussed later.

In Ace Attorney Investigations 2's fifth and final case, 'The Grand Turnabout,' all unsolved affairs and out-of-place elements from past cases are suddenly revealed to be significant. This is in no small part because it reveals many parent-child relationships that had been hidden thus far, like Justine's adopted son John. It really solidifies the presence of this theme by introducing a flower, the Lion Lilies, which are explicitly stated to represent the bond between parent and child.

source: ZSlyzer on YouTube

But I want to start from the beginning of the game to really explain just how well AAI2 plays with this theme that has long been present in the series. Please join me in the next part when we examine the theme of parental bond in Ace Attorney Investigations 2, case by case.

Thinking about helping me in my journey analysing and writing about games? Please consider supporting me on Patreon!

Paper Mario: Color Splash Critique #1 - Streamlined, Yet Cumbersome

I recently finally got a chance to try Paper Mario: Color Splash. I've been a fan of the series from the very beginning, so I was interested to see the changes and how informed they are (or aren't) by proper game design. I want to make it clear that Color Splash is a fun game with a beautiful presentation, and this critique isn't intended to condemn all the work that went into it. In this first article, I'll examine my main problem with the game, the battle system, and how it tries and fails to streamline the series' formula.

Paper Mario: Color Splash's battle system is, in a word, odd. Rather than allowing the character a set amount of moves to strategize with, the player instead relies on a finite set of cards acquired or bought in the overworld. In that sense this is very much an evolution of the battle system present in Paper Mario: Sticker Star.

source: Mario Party Legacy on YouTube

There really is no in game justification for why Mario requires cards to use the jump and hammer he is naturally armed with, but the lack of an in-world explanation doesn't necessarily condemn the battle system - only the degree to which it meets its intended goal does.

So what is its intended goal? It seems to me that Intelligent Systems attempted to streamline and simplify battles. Your average battle in Paper Mario: Color Splash takes one or two turns at most, for a few reasons: All attacks do a lot of damage (and that includes the enemies') and Mario can perform many actions in a one go. To name an extreme example: If you were two play 2 'worn-out hammer x 5' cards, you would be doing 10 hammer attacks in a single turn. You wouldn't be interrupted by any menus, everything would simply come down to your timing until your cards have run out of paint.

source: Mario Wiki

I understand and respect the basic idea of this system. You could potentially face down a tough group of enemies, and by choosing just the right cards in just the right order, defeat them before they land a hit on you. You can pack the strategy of what prior games would do in multiple turns, in just one. To further support this, the game always takes special note if you get through a battle without taking any damage and rewards you for it with a 'perfect bonus.'

source: BeardBear on YouTube

That doesn't sound so bad, does it? But that's just the concept. Let's talk about the execution.

To choose your cards in Paper Mario: Color Splash, you are required to look down at the Wii U Gamepad. From there, you can choose your cards from a list. Unfortunately, however, the UI for selecting cards was obviously not designed with the sheer number of cards in mind. You might find yourself awkwardly dragging past a dozen of the same kind of card before finally finding what you want, even if you use the game's 'organize' button. Next, you have to drag said card - and later, cards - up to its spot to confirm you want to use it. Sounds pretty cumbersome, right? But it only gets worse.

Once you have selected your cards and confirmed your selection as a separate action, the game then requires you to paint in the cards. Even if all cards you selected were pre-filled, which they thankfully can be, the game still shows this screen and requires you to confirm that you are done painting the cards. If they weren't, you are expected to hold down on each card for a while to paint it. It's slow and feels extremely unnecessary. Why have a step deciding the strength of your cards when the cards themselves already do this? You have worn-out hammers, ordinary hammers and even big and giant hammers; and you can find and buy them at will. Other cards, like the jump, are much the same. Was the extra variable and the extra time it costs to fill in the cards really necessary or useful? Most of the time, you'll want to fill the entire card, since you're unlikely to ever run out of paint anyway. On top of that, Mario's attacks don't do a clear number of damage, so it's impossible to use an "informed" amount of paint.

So after making you find, select, drag, confirm, color and confirm your cards again, the game decides to waste your time just once more by forcing you to drag the cards up. After that, you're finally in business, and can perform Mario's attacks with their Action Commands as you would in any other Paper Mario.*

The underlying thought of the dragging is cute - you're sliding the cards from your Wii U screen up to your television - but the sheer amount of dragging and selecting actions the game asks you to take every turn makes me think they never tested it for extended periods of time.

Compare this to Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, where it'll never take more than three button presses to start an attack - and it lets you actually select the enemy you want to attack, whereas Color Splash simply attacks the enemies in order, with the first card attacking the first enemy, and so on. Regardless of how many cards are at your disposal, it ends up limiting the player's choices in the end. In the end, the vast majority of them are simple variations of the hammer and jump attack.

source: SullyPwnz on YouTube

In conclusion, Paper Mario: Color Splash had a good idea to streamline battles into intricately planned out turns, but the poor implementation of the Wii U Screen, cards and paint make it so cumbersome that each battle ends up taking an unnecessary amount of effort. The system absolutely does not lend itself for the amount of battles and how repetitive they are. Paper Mario: Color Splash, like its predecessor, tries and fails to streamline the perfectly convenient battle system of Paper Mario 1 and 2.

In the next article, 'Overworld Joys and Overworld Woes,' I'll discuss the overworld you navigate in Color Splash outside of battles. Thank you very much for your time, and I look forward to your feedback.

* Update: On Reddit, I received a reaction about something I glossed over because I was too focused on the interface itself. In Paper Mario Color Splash, the Action Commands are almost exclusively timed button presses. In the first and second game, the Hammer Action Command worked by tilting the control stick, and there were a variation of Action Commands and stylish moves on top of that. This is another simplification that ends up making the battle system more tedious and monotonous than it could have been. Thanks for pointing this out, /u/rendumguy!

Choosing Through Gameplay In Undertale, Part 1

In many RPGs, the overworld holds the story while the battle system holds the gameplay. The result is choices are made outside of the game's primary game mechanics, through something like a dialogue system or choice-based menu.  Undertale approaches its choices a little differently, and I'd like to discuss the successes and failures of that approach in this piece.

It's been over a year since Undertale was released. Its story, characters and music have made a permanent mark on the Internet and pop culture. A year ago, I joined in on the conversation and wrote a piece about Undertale's design and narrative. I argued that, based on Undertale's design, Toby Fox had intended the player to kill Toriel on their initial playthrough.

Looking back on the article now, I discussed how the game's mechanics were explained, but I spent very little time on the actual mechanics themselves - and how they reflect on the game's choice based narrative. I'd like to shed some light on that particular facet of Undertale now.

The fact of the matter is really quite simple: Undertale's choices are almost exclusively presented through its battle system. Each monster you encounter can be approached in several ways - by simply fighting them until they die, by convincing them to spare you and surprise attacking them, by befriending them and sparing them or simply by running away. All of these possibilities are presented through the game's battle system, with its four-option menu of FIGHT, ACT, ITEM and MERCY.

source: Havoc teh Raven on YouTube

Such a system should be commended for the way it allows players to make their choice organically. But where does that leave the overworld and all the scenes that occur outside battles?

Like many RPGs of its kind, Undertale has a lot of text to read. There are hundreds of dialogues and descriptions, some of which change based on the player's prior choices. For an impatient player, it could quickly become cumbersome to have to read so much uninterrupted text. This is why Undertale smartly breaks up many of its conversations with choices as well.

source: Havoc teh Raven on YouTube

But these choices ultimately don't influence the gameplay. All you'll get for your choice is a unique few lines of dialogue, with perhaps a wink back to your earlier decision later down the line. But a choice made during dialogue never influences the game's overarching story or the game's ending.

Is that a negative? I feel that it is, but it'll ultimately depend on the person playing the game. I would've liked it if your choices had a greater impact on the flow of the story, or even just the dialogue, since most dialogues return to a set path shortly after a unique choice has been made. To take it one step further, I feel like there could've been more nuance; characters are simply spared or not spared, and befriended or not befriended. What if the sum of your behaviour could form a unique type of friendship or relationship with the characters? However, I realize that this hypothetical demands a lot, and perhaps isn't fair. After all, we must not forget that the game was developed by a single person. Regardless, I would've liked to see just a bit more consequence in the choices made during dialogues or in the overworld.

Perceptive readers may have two complaints about my assessment so far;
1. I commended the battle system for allowing organic choices.
2. I stated only most of the choices in the overworld do not affect the story.

To address the first point: that is true. And I wouldn't have anything more to say about choices in the overworld if Undertale was a bog standard JRPG where the overworld served only as a pathway to new battles - however, Undertale's overworld itself also holds gameplay in the form of various puzzles (like Papyrus') and even mini-games (like Mettaton's). Not to mention, the dialogue in the overworld is almost consistently important to understand the characters' history and motivations, and for this reason, it regularly interrupts the gameplay. For those reasons, I really would've liked it if the player's choices in the dialogue and overworld had more of an impact.

About point 2: I hinted at this before, but there are a few choices in the overworld that do make a difference, specifically by influencing the ending. The choices concerning Undyne are particularly interesting in this regard. 

To summarize what we've discussed so far, Undertale allows for the player to make organic choices in its battle system, but the choices in the overworld lack impact, even though a significant chunk of the game's story and mechanics do take place outside of battle. Please join me in part 2 as we delve deeper into Undertale's significant overworld choices and how they reflect on the game in general.

Feedback is appreciated! 

The Power of Disempowerment #1 - The Designer Giveth and the Designer Taketh Away

You've heard the phrase 'player agency' thrown around, no doubt. Player agency is all about the control, the influence the player has over what happens in a game. In this series of blog posts, I'd like to discuss how enhancing and limiting the player's agency can contribute to an experience. 

Before I go in-depth, I'd like to illustrate the topic with an example. In a game where the player explores a hostile environment, the ways in which they can traverse and influence this environment would be an important part of their agency. A good example of a game like that would be Retro Studios' Metroid Prime.

source: ShadowMario3 on YouTube

Metroid Prime had a lot to live up to. The Metroid series had skipped a generation where its peers had jumped to 3D, and the fans were anxious to see how a game from this franchise could work with an additional dimension. To ensure a smooth start, Metroid Prime lets the player control a very well equipped Samus in the first section of the game. Most of the power ups you'd usually be looking for in the early game are already available to you. This allows the player to experiment, traversing the environment in a flexible way - the player is given a lot of agency to begin with. This allows the player to learn the game's mechanics in a fun way.

But just as soon as the player has gotten their bearings, defeating a few enemies and even a boss, the designer kicks the crutch right out from under them. The ship that serves as the introductory area begins to explode, and although Samus escapes safely, her power suit takes a massive hit from the explosion and loses most of its functions.Suddenly, the player's left with only some basic functions.

source: ShadowMario3 on YouTube

And it doesn't end there - the player is then let go on an enormous planet that they only have few ways to traverse. Suddenly, their agency is quite limited. After having been given a preview of what abilities they could have, they are now asked to build their arsenal back up from zero. But here's the thing: the game doesn't end when you're back up to where you started. In fact, by the end of the game, you're much more powerful than you were at the start. This is true for most games where the player increases statistics or acquires abilities and items, but the initial loss of your abilities makes reaching that point much more satisfying.

I cited Metroid Prime because I personally like the way you build your arsenal through exploration, which then allows you to explore better to then improve your arsenal further. But this is actually a pretty common trope in videogames; especially RPGs. TV Tropes calls it 'A Taste of Power,' which is apt. An entertaining fact: Often when I begin to write about something, the Tropers will have noticed it before I did.

But there's more than one way to disempower the player by "empowering" them. You can offer them a brief taste of power to show them what they will - at one point - be able to do... but you can also instill a sense of foreboding.

A series I've seen pull this off properly is Final Fantasy. Take Final Fantasy VII, for example.

source: SuperAcro on YouTube

Though this might be a bit of a spoiler, Final Fantasy VII is old enough that I feel comfortable to share at least a few details. At some point in the game, the player is given control of Sephiroth in a flashback. This is significant, because Sephiroth is actually the game's main antagonist. Cloud, the protagonist who also plays a role in this flashback, is incredibly weak by comparison. So, for just a short section, the player has a powerhouse of a character at their disposal; the catch is, they'll have to face him sooner or later.

One of its successors, Final Fantasy X, tries something similar.

After facing a challenging boss, Seymour - a character who laters turns out to be a major antagonist - joins your party for the rematch. Using his powerful magic, you can crush the formerly challenging boss into the ground with no effort. But again, at this point in the story, you likely already have your doubts about Seymour; again, while you're empowered now, you know you'll have to fight against him in the future.

It really is quite interesting to see the different ways Metroid Prime and Final Fantasy use these brief moments of empowerment to motivate and foreshadow in their own ways.

Some designers give the player a glimpse of what's to come to motivate them; to make the achievement of reaching and surpassing that point all the sweeter. Other designers use it to warn the player, to add tension and atmosphere. These are just some of the ways that the designer can mess with the player's agency to empower and disempower them. I'll be writing more about this topic in the future!

I'm interested - what moments of "empowerment" and "disempowerment" in videogames did you love? Which did you hate? Your responses and feedback are welcome.