Hello everyone and welcome back to The Love of Gaming blog, after spending an entire week writing, proof reading and editing my review for Battlefront 2 and writing the script for the narrated guide, my gaming itch finally overcame me and I booted up Final Fantasy 9. (My next target for my ABC game guide series!)
I was supposed to wait on Far Cry 5 from my rental service, but it looks like it's going to be one of those games that'll take another week or two to arrive and I'm making notes on Final Fantasy 9 so I shouldn't get too sidetracked.
Any who, I cannot remember what number play through this is of FF9? What I can say is though, it is a truly timeless game. It looks fantastic still to this day, I love the hand drawn backgrounds brimming with little details and the warmth and charm of the world is captured at every fixed camera angle. The characters and creatures that inhabit the world are full of life and I love that there are anthropomorphic animals, side by side with humans, running shops and living and breathing in a wholly realised world.
The gameplay is top notch too, it forgoes the freedom of the materia and draw systems and goes back to giving each party member a preset class. It works very well, beautifully even! (though even I cannot ignore the fact that Amarant isn't an appealing party member. He seems to be here to fill up the numbers!) It's great to see the Blue Mage appear as the enigmatic Quina, the Black Mage as the adorably courageous Vivi and the Dragoon return as the calm, introverted and skilled Freja.
Without babbling on for much longer and very much sounding like the sentimental old fool I am fast becoming, I was also very pleased to see this months Games with Gold offerings! The Witness, I have never heard of but looks interesting. (I enjoyed the Turing Test off the back of a Games with Gold offering). Cars 2, whilst not everyone's cup of tea is the perfect game to play with my children, especially my son as he is Cars mad and has about ten different Lightnings.
But the latter half of the month is most impressive! Assassins Creed Syndicate! I really did fancy a go of that when it arrived but, I was knee deep in a Call of Duty binge back when it came out and so it slid under my radar. Then coming to backwards compatibility is Dead Space 2! The magnum opus of the series, Dead Space 2 is to Dead Space 1, what Aliens is to Alien. More action, less horror, but a far superior specimen.
I liked Dead Space 3, forgiving it's poor single player balancing (same amount of enemies for single player as co-op... huh?) I played Dead Space 3 like a man possessed, but sadly the game didn't do very well, not helped by EA's at the time, maniacally aggressive micro-transaction method of operation.
Also, the world at the time had lost sight of the pleasures of an eclectic range of genres in the videogame industry and everybody was pushing for first person shooters and action games in general. It's only now we're seeing a revival of genre with big budget RPGs like Final Fantasy 15 and Persona 5 leading the way and also the pleasurable return of survival horror, which was mainly thanks to the indie movement. (Which has done some good in reminding everyone there is more to games than run and gun).
So, hopefully Far Cry 5 will find it's merry way to my door step this week and I can give it a good go for myself. It looks really good and I've done my best to stay away from any 'spoilerish' content!
Well, thanks for reading everyone and I hope you've all had a great Easter and hope you all have a great week!
Happy Easter everyone!
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