Tag Archives: PC

From the Archives, MoeGamer 1.0

Why You Should Be Playing Trails in the Sky Right Now

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Today marks the release of the English PC version of The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, a fantastic JRPG from Japanese developer Falcom and localisation specialists Xseed Games. You should probably grab a copy.

Tempting as it is to leave this article as nothing more than that introductory paragraph — existing Trails in the Sky fans will know what I mean — I’m well aware that there are plenty of you out there who probably need a little more convincing than this, so let’s take a little while to ponder the game, why it’s so noteworthy, and why you should definitely support it. And also what on earth it is, for those who are unfamiliar with either Trails in the Sky specifically, or the Legend of Heroes series as a whole, which is entirely possible.

Grab yourself a drink, arm yourself with a suitably hefty-looking quarterstaff and prepare yourself, then; we’re going in.

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From the Archives, MoeGamer 1.0

Eorzea Diaries: How to Build a World

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Regardless of the type of overall game experience you’re going for in a massive, open-world game like an MMO — be it mechanic-centric or narrative-heavy — one of the most important things for the development team to get right is that feeling of “place” — of the virtual world feeling truly convincing.

This is something that Final Fantasy XIV’s predecessor Final Fantasy XI did very well, particularly within the main city-states, and it’s a tradition that A Realm Reborn continues with aplomb.

Worldbuilding is a far more complex matter than simply plonking some rocks and trees down at the side of pathways, however. It’s even more complex than the overall geometry of the environments that you explore over the course of the game — it’s a combination of things, all working together to make the virtual world as convincing as it possibly can be.

Let’s explore how A Realm Reborn handles this.

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From the Archives, MoeGamer 1.0

Eorzea Diaries: The Hunt Begins

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Final Fantasy XIV’s third major content patch Defenders of Eorzea is here at last, bringing with it some significant new story content, some great new dungeons and a bunch of new game features.

One of the most anticipated new features in Defenders of Eorzea was the new Hunt system, a Final Fantasy XII-inspired activity that tasked players with several things: tracking down daily Marks from among the regular enemies that wander the world; tracking down a single weekly Elite Mark in exchange for significant rewards; and taking on any other Elite Marks you happen to stumble across in your travels.

While a sound idea in principle, so far The Hunt has had a somewhat questionable introduction to the people of Eorzea, even going so far as to make quite a few people disappointed, upset or even angry.

Let’s look in a little more detail at what’s up with The Hunt.

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From the Archives, MoeGamer 1.0

Eorzea Diaries: Countdown to 2.3

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Final Fantasy XIV’s third major content patch, Defenders of Eorzea, is set to launch tomorrow, promising, among other things, an epic battle against iconic recurring Final Fantasy character Ramuh, the continuation of several narrative threads, plus a host of new game systems.

Square Enix has been gradually teasing the various new features over the last few weeks, culminating in the publication of the preliminary patch notes late last week. And while these patch notes don’t tell us absolutely everything about what to expect, they, along with the most recent Letter from the Producer direct from Naoki Yoshida, give us a pleasant preview of what the adventurers of Eorzea will be spending the next three months indulging in.

We took a preliminary look at what was coming in the new patch in the previous installment of Eorzea Diaries; let’s today take a look at some more specific details — plus some interesting tidbits of information that were quietly snuck into the patch notes having not really been mentioned prior to today.

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From the Archives, MoeGamer 1.0

Eorzea Diaries: Defenders and Ninjas

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When Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn launched last year, it was promised that the game would enjoy significant new content updates every three months — and it’s a promise that Naoki Yoshida and his team has kept.

Not only that, but between the three-monthly big patches — which tend to advance the game’s main story, introduce new dungeons and endgame encounters as well as numerous other bells and whistles — the FFXIV team has been generous in providing players with a bunch of smaller updates in between times, helping keep the game fresh and interesting as well as improving the general quality of life for everyone playing.

The last of these smaller patches to hit the game introduced a few little tweaks to gameplay as well as the enjoyable but infuriating collectathon that is the Sightseeing Log — a system that finally makes the weather in the game relevant, but which in the process will cause you to curse it on a regular basis — but now, as we approach July, we’re looking forward to the next major content update: patch 2.3, known as Defenders of Eorzea.

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From the Archives, Katawa Shoujo, MoeGamer 1.0

Artistic Temperament

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Having explored the narrative paths of all the other girls in the Western-developed, Japanese-inspired freeware visual novel Katawa Shoujo, it’s time to turn our attention to the final girl: Rin.

As I’ve noted in the previous explorations of Emi, Hanako, Lilly and Shizune, one of the interesting things about Katawa Shoujo is that while you initially — for better or worse — recognise each of the cast members through their disabilities, all of the narrative paths throughout the game serve to show that people most certainly aren’t defined by their most obvious physical characteristic. In many cases, they can surprise you greatly.

Rin is one such example. Despite having no arms, Rin is an artist, and a great deal of her path explores the way she deals with having an artistic temperament — and how protagonist Hisao learns to appreciate the beauty in everything around him. Thematically and tonally, it’s one of the more complex, difficult paths in Katawa Shoujo, but it’s also one of the most rewarding to explore.

So let’s do just that.

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From the Archives, MoeGamer 1.0

Eorzea Diaries: Those Who Play Together…

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I’ve tried to get my “real life” friends into MMOs in the past. Lord knows, I’ve tried.

And, for a brief, blissful period in World of Warcraft’s early heyday, it was successful. We were all playing together, enjoying ourselves and having a blast. Then the inevitable happened: one of us started playing more than the others, and started steaming ahead. Then another person did the same. Eventually, we were left with something of a split group, unable to practically and productively play together because of our level disparity.

This is a common problem that has plagued MMOs since their inception, and different games have tackled it in different ways. (Some games haven’t tackled it at all, for that matter.) Final Fantasy XIV, for my money, handles it in a fairly elegant manner that helps ensure that all the content in the game remains relevant, regardless of whether you’ve just levelled up enough to try it for the first time, or you’re a level 50, item level 97 veteran who has run it hundreds of times to date.

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From the Archives, Katawa Shoujo, MoeGamer 1.0

Out of the Comfort Zone

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Your average visual novel tends to have a number of different narrative paths to explore, each of which focuses on a different character from the main cast. The free visual novel Katawa Shoujo is no exception, with each of its routes focusing on one of five different girls — each of whom has a different disability — and what the protagonist Hisao learns from his relationship with them.

I found the path that centred around the deaf class president Shizune to be rather interesting, because I spent a lot of it not being entirely sure if I actually liked her or not. Her competitive, dominant, bossy nature is somewhat at odds with what I personally find attractive, and so I found myself wondering if pursuing her would have the same degree of emotional impact as the other girls Emi, Hanako, Lilly and — still to come — Rin.

I still haven’t quite made my mind up about it, as it happens, but it was certainly an interesting story, despite being the least interactive of all the paths through the game, with only one meaningful choice to make.

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From the Archives, MoeGamer 1.0

Eorzea Diaries: Do Unto Others…

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One of the things that can make or break a massively multiplayer game like Final Fantasy XIV is the community.

You can have all the great content and regular updates in the world, but if your community is largely made up of obnoxious morons, you’ll end up driving away the passionate but thinner-skinned players, leaving behind only the aforementioned obnoxious morons. And thus the problem continues to compound itself.

For the most part, in my experience, anyway, the community of Final Fantasy XIV has been a mostly very helpful and supportive place. And I think it’s important to keep it that way.

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From the Archives, Katawa Shoujo, MoeGamer 1.0

Scars

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Let’s talk about Hanako, one of the heroines from 4 Leaf Studios’ excellent free visual novel Katawa Shoujo.

As you’ll know if you’ve read the previous posts on Lilly and Emi, Katawa Shoujo is a bold, remarkable work that tackles a variety of difficult subject matter. The most obvious demonstration of this can’t be missed: it’s a game where the main characters all have disabilities.

But that’s not all there is to it. It becomes abundantly clear over the course of the five main narrative paths through the game — each focusing on one of the heroines — that all of the characters are dealing with deep-seated issues other than the outward signs of their disability.

Hanako, the character whom you first come to recognise as the shy girl with the burn scars all over one side of her body, is no exception. Understandably traumatised by the events that made her look the way she does, she’s a character riddled with mental health issues — many of which are highly relatable to a general audience.

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