Uh, hi there. Been a while, huh? I’ll get into the groveling apologies for why project GameSpite has been comatose the past couple of months in a different post, but suffice it to say we’re back…hopefully.
Final Fantasy II
MIghtyblue looks at the most maligned entry of the Final Fantasy series (well, at least until Final Fantasy X-2 came along). Is Final Fantasy evil, or simply misunderstood? I say, why not both? I think it’s perfectly feasible for the game to be wicked and vile in ways we don’t yet fully understand.
Jet Set Radio Future
At the other end of the “hella sweet” spectrum (a standard measure that was adopted by a committee of top scientists in Bern just last week), we have bobservo’s paean to Sega’s underappreciated sequel to Jet Grind Radio. Maybe it’s not quite as good as the original, as some claim. Or maybe it’s just too good for our feeble minds to comprehend. Bob lays out the case.
Thanks for putting a review of JSRF, I love the game so much and still think it is the best game on the original xbox.
Hooray!
You just had to throw in the Dreamcast controller hate, didn’t you, bob? Some of us liked that controller! Certainly it was better than the Xbox controller; and I found it was 100% reliable inputting the tags in the first game without trashing my hands.
JSRF was the only game I had when I first got an XBox. It was so good, I didn’t feel the need to get anything else!
Shame that we probably won’t ever see a sequel.
I loved the Dreamcast controller. Six nice green buttons and a heavy metal base made for some fun times with SFZ3 and MvC2.
(wait, you meant the joypad?)
I loved how in FF2 you could walk entirely around the world almost from the very beginning. It’s a strange game, certainly, and you kind of have to approach it in an unorthodox way, but when it comes to ancient grindfest RPGs I think I still prefer it to the original Final Fantasy.
Wait, didn’t FF1 already have key items?
And how did FF2 sell compared to FF1? I understand FF3 was Square’s first million seller.
I’m nostalgic about FFII. Not that I’m likely to play it again (having beaten both the NES and GBA versions), but although there isn’t much to be said in favor of the balance, it does have pretty decent story and atmosphere.
Cartman,
Yeah, FFI did have “key” items, but they weren’t segregated into their own submenu until Square started to remake it.
At first I was sad at the prospect of never getting a JSRF sequel, and then I remembered the quality (or lack thereof) of Sega’s recent releases, and I realized that the lack of a sequel isn’t because of poor management or decision making at Sega, it’s an act of mercy.
I’ll admit I’m not quite familiar with Jet Set Radio, which is why I’m finding it hard to follow this review of the sequel… (a little more ontext would help)
FF2 deserves credit as the first game that indirectly (and unknowingly) brought me to Jeremy’s writing via the Chrono Cross walkthrough, that I still have bookmarked to this day. I decided to play through that again, after dropping FF8 like it was hot (because it was terrible), and found that it had the same “use Key Items to advance the plot” thing going for it. Just like FF2 many years earlier.
Though, I am curious how FF2 Dawn of Souls compares to the original. I played FF1 from the Dawn of Souls collection and it paled in comparison to the original’s difficulty. I was at the Dark Elf (incognito in the castle) within thirty minutes of turning it on. And I only got the idea of a “speed run” after getting to Garland in ten minutes and unceremoniously dispatching him. In the face.
I’ll personally never forgive Kawazu for Unlimited SaGa though. So, I guess I’m retroactively reversed biased. Or something.
I’ll figure out how I’m biased by traversing an incomprehensible hex grid map.
A quirky, fun, cel-shaded underdogs-against-oppressive-authority game with an amazing soundtrack, published by Sega and released on the least suitable target-audience console on the market to commercial indifference? The more things change…
(by which I mean Valkyria Chronicles = this generation’s JSRF, more or less.)
The Dawn of Souls FFII removes many of the idiosyncrasies of the original–no more stats going down, and much more regular gains. Like the DoS FFI, it’s much easier.
I’m so glad to see JSRF and the return of the catalog of opinions that this place is known for! I’d begun to wonder if this had been dropped in favor of essay-ish blog posts (which was fine too).
I never played Jet Set Radio Future, but I loved the original on Dreamcast. Is it possible to play JSRF on an Xbox 360?
Yes, JSRF is playable on the 360.