la_belle_laide (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
la_belle_laide) wrote2006-09-02 11:30 pm
la_belle_laide) wrote2006-09-02 11:30 pm
Entry tags:
On the completion of Dirge of Cerberus
When I sat down earlier and fired up PS2, I had no idea I'd be writing this tonight. After interruption upon interruption, I realized that I was actually down to the last few battles of the game. What does it say about the game when the final boss battles are the easiest things in the entire game? I struggled more with mini-bosses. I wiped these guys out--especially the very last--without breaking a sweat and took very little damage.
And then watched the ending, and the SUPER SECRET MEGA ULTRA ENDING or whatever it was. On my computer. Because the game ate TWO of my G reports, wtf.
Thoughts:
Voice acting: Not the best. Aside from the fact that Steve Burton was still Cloud, and I think that he was a very fine Cloud, and with the other exception of Rosso, who at least was interesting, I mostly hated the voice acting. Vincent sounded like your generic tough guy, only much more retarded. He actually sounded unintelligent. Lucrecia sounded like a ditzy drama queen, but maybe that was the most fitting voice. Lucrecia pretty much was a ditzy drama queen. The worst by far were Hojo and Nero. Hojo was your basic cliche mad scientist, except that he sounded like he was going through puberty. Nero just sounded like a whiney, emo psycho wannabe. It's funny how a voice can really ruin a character for you. I could not take any of his screen time seriously.
Graphics: Yup, they were good. Cut scenes, in-game cut scenes, and gameplay graphics were alld ecent. But by this point, they had better be.
Saving: Sucked big time.
The plot: I don't know, dude. It didn't seem to fit the overall feeling of Final Fantasy VII. I did love the parts with ShinRa mansion, I did love the stuff that involved Reeve, but they never really expanded on that. They could have; it was a short game. It almost seemed like two games, in fact, the first half was so different from the second. Finding out that Weiss was housing Hojo surprised me, though it shouldn't have. It's typical of the Final Fantasy plot twist / who's hiding what villain in their body theme. It was right, in a way. Vincent should face Hojo one more time. I pretty much liked that twist, as cliche as it was. Yup, I thought Vincent was dead, and I sat there with my jaw in my lap. And then, there he was, hanging around by the preserved body of the woman who royally screwed him up to keep him alive. Creepy? No, not at all. What was creepy, though, was the ten year old Shelke hitting on him. I'm sorry, I know she's supposed to be nineteen, but physiologically she's ten, and that's just badong. Okay, Gackt. That wasn't gratitous at all, not in the least. No fanservice of any kind there. The version that I saw was downloaded and not translated, so while I got the original voice (and thank goodness, because I later looked up the dubbed one and it was on par with most of the rest of the English cast,) I didn't get what the hell he was saying at the time. And even after I looked up the dubbed one, I'm still not sure what he's on about. Because, WTF? There is only one One Winged Angel. How the hell many Sephiroth clones / larva / prototypes do we need? Yes, we know he is a badass. Please leave him alone now. So, even though it was an interesting thing to see, I mean visually really so neat, it didn't have to be done. I assume it means that there will be another game, but for one thing, Chaos is dead, so who's going to take care of business now? Or will we be left with a game about Galian Beast? :/ and for another, how far into the ground are they going to run the FFVII machine? Don't get me wrong, I will look forward to, squeal over, and buy another FFVII game, just because I have to. But Squeenix should really take a page out of Nintendo's book and do like they do with Legend of Zelda: build on the myth, make better, forward-thinking games, instead of gaidens and spinoffs. What's next? A game with Yuffie Kisaragi? A game where Cait Sith sneaks around, god prevent it?
None of which is to day that I though it was a bad game. I spent some fun hours playing it and I gloried in reliving some of the old FFVII world. Seeing the ShinRa mansion rendered so beautifully was completely awesome. Vincent being Pretty Angst Machine was gratifying on some levels. Shooting stuff was fun, blowing stuff up was even more fun, and I got perverse joy out of critical hits to the head through the sniper scope. (I don't know exactly what that says about me, but I doubt it's anything healthy.)
I missed a hell of a lot of the memory capsules. I doubt if you can go back and shoot them to get the scenes they save for you. I think you have to finish the game with them, and there's no way I'm doing the whole damned thing over again. Not for a few years, at least. ;)
I heard the extra missions were loads of fun, but I just tried the first one twice and died within two minutes. WTF with not having potions and stuff?!
And then watched the ending, and the SUPER SECRET MEGA ULTRA ENDING or whatever it was. On my computer. Because the game ate TWO of my G reports, wtf.
Thoughts:
Voice acting: Not the best. Aside from the fact that Steve Burton was still Cloud, and I think that he was a very fine Cloud, and with the other exception of Rosso, who at least was interesting, I mostly hated the voice acting. Vincent sounded like your generic tough guy, only much more retarded. He actually sounded unintelligent. Lucrecia sounded like a ditzy drama queen, but maybe that was the most fitting voice. Lucrecia pretty much was a ditzy drama queen. The worst by far were Hojo and Nero. Hojo was your basic cliche mad scientist, except that he sounded like he was going through puberty. Nero just sounded like a whiney, emo psycho wannabe. It's funny how a voice can really ruin a character for you. I could not take any of his screen time seriously.
Graphics: Yup, they were good. Cut scenes, in-game cut scenes, and gameplay graphics were alld ecent. But by this point, they had better be.
Saving: Sucked big time.
The plot: I don't know, dude. It didn't seem to fit the overall feeling of Final Fantasy VII. I did love the parts with ShinRa mansion, I did love the stuff that involved Reeve, but they never really expanded on that. They could have; it was a short game. It almost seemed like two games, in fact, the first half was so different from the second. Finding out that Weiss was housing Hojo surprised me, though it shouldn't have. It's typical of the Final Fantasy plot twist / who's hiding what villain in their body theme. It was right, in a way. Vincent should face Hojo one more time. I pretty much liked that twist, as cliche as it was. Yup, I thought Vincent was dead, and I sat there with my jaw in my lap. And then, there he was, hanging around by the preserved body of the woman who royally screwed him up to keep him alive. Creepy? No, not at all. What was creepy, though, was the ten year old Shelke hitting on him. I'm sorry, I know she's supposed to be nineteen, but physiologically she's ten, and that's just badong. Okay, Gackt. That wasn't gratitous at all, not in the least. No fanservice of any kind there. The version that I saw was downloaded and not translated, so while I got the original voice (and thank goodness, because I later looked up the dubbed one and it was on par with most of the rest of the English cast,) I didn't get what the hell he was saying at the time. And even after I looked up the dubbed one, I'm still not sure what he's on about. Because, WTF? There is only one One Winged Angel. How the hell many Sephiroth clones / larva / prototypes do we need? Yes, we know he is a badass. Please leave him alone now. So, even though it was an interesting thing to see, I mean visually really so neat, it didn't have to be done. I assume it means that there will be another game, but for one thing, Chaos is dead, so who's going to take care of business now? Or will we be left with a game about Galian Beast? :/ and for another, how far into the ground are they going to run the FFVII machine? Don't get me wrong, I will look forward to, squeal over, and buy another FFVII game, just because I have to. But Squeenix should really take a page out of Nintendo's book and do like they do with Legend of Zelda: build on the myth, make better, forward-thinking games, instead of gaidens and spinoffs. What's next? A game with Yuffie Kisaragi? A game where Cait Sith sneaks around, god prevent it?
None of which is to day that I though it was a bad game. I spent some fun hours playing it and I gloried in reliving some of the old FFVII world. Seeing the ShinRa mansion rendered so beautifully was completely awesome. Vincent being Pretty Angst Machine was gratifying on some levels. Shooting stuff was fun, blowing stuff up was even more fun, and I got perverse joy out of critical hits to the head through the sniper scope. (I don't know exactly what that says about me, but I doubt it's anything healthy.)
I missed a hell of a lot of the memory capsules. I doubt if you can go back and shoot them to get the scenes they save for you. I think you have to finish the game with them, and there's no way I'm doing the whole damned thing over again. Not for a few years, at least. ;)
I heard the extra missions were loads of fun, but I just tried the first one twice and died within two minutes. WTF with not having potions and stuff?!
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Hojo made me giggle as insanely as he did. He was so over the top, it was impossible not to. And I still do not get Lucrecia's choice in men. Hojo? She had sex with Hojo? That's so wrong on so many levels, and all because she's got emo guilt problems over Vincent's dad. Ew.
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I know. I loved Sephiroth in all his badass, confused glory, but this cow is really out of milk.
And as for the next protagonist in the game, let it be REEVE. ;) That'd be kinda' fun, since it'd have to be more of a thinking game (he commands all his troops to kick ass/Cait Sith need not apply/and then has cut scenes with Rufus and the rest of the Turks because I missed them big time.
That's my kind of video game! I'd play the crap out of that one!
Hojo? She had sex with Hojo? That's so wrong on so many levels, and all because she's got emo guilt problems over Vincent's dad. Ew.
You know, if she really felt badly about Vincent's dad, you'd think she would do Vincent. But no. O_o