The Gamer’s Quagmire #46: Pauly Shore and EA
Everything you wanted to know about gaming, and less.
by Jamison DeLorenzo
Who doesn’t enjoy bashing companies like EA? Memorial day weekends bring that type of thinking to my mind. Anyway, judging by sales figures over the past couple of years it seems lots of people not only have been annoyed by a lack of good games from EA but many people have been also quite annoyed by many of their acts (overworking employees, buying out competition, destroying good gaming franchises, and creating monopolies with exclusive gaming licenses to name a few). As someone who has been steadfastly against anything EA has done for the past 3 years, I believe it is time to, at the very least, look at the cesspool that is their company and see if there is anything worth being salvaged.
It is true that avoiding their games has only been exacerbated by an unhealthy addiction to World of Warcraft. It is easy to avoid games when you only have interest in playing one. I am a much happier gamer now that I have moved on from that addiction. I still refuse to buy any new games with the EA logo on them, but enough time has passed where I can at least examine their current franchises to try and find something that may make me say that they are not operating at a 100% evil capacity anymore. They did pull the plug on their James Bond games finally, so they are starting to figure something out.
I will not make it a secret that the impending release of Spore next year is part of my motivation. I won’t even try to deny that Warhammer Online has piqued my interest. There have been a couple games that I would have given a chance recently had it not been my credo to avoid any of their products. I have not gone as far as convincing myself that what they spit out is covered in e-coli (yet) because most of their games have been garbage. Madden and NBA Live have been their most shining examples of trash games for three years running. This has made their exclusive license push all the more aggravating. It’s like the old saying goes- you cannot force feed your customers garbage. As they were topping the garbage with sewage I have not been hungry for any of their services.
Let us look at their main franchises to get an idea of what they can do to turn their name around (in terms of quality games).
Madden- Their most popular series in terms of units sold, this franchise has been dead to me since 2002 and many joined my way of thinking once the Sega 2K series started taking off and surpassed Madden in overall game quality and presentation. For many this series became dead once the exclusive license hammer dropped. I published a list of fundamental problems with the gameplay within the past year that I have had since 1999. The way I see it, until these problems are resolved and the exclusive license expires the franchise will stay dead.
NBA Live - If you are a sports junky like me you have been pained by this series for a good chunk of time. NBA2K has been the better franchise for 3 years (despite Shaq being on the cover), and really the problem is that Live dropped the ball after 2004. The 2003/2004 timeframe for Live presented great gameplay for basketball, only the franchise has regressed since then. The franchise mode does not feel as complete anymore, the constant changing of the jump step is annoying (first it was overpowered, and then it never resulted in anything but a charge or travel- make up your friggin’ mind people!), and the AI is terrible. I’m happy with 2K and have no intentions of going back. The Live games need to be completely revamped before I can consider giving them a chance again.
SimCity - To be fair this game was so good I didn’t even know that EA owned Maxis until SimCity 3000. I didn’t know Maxis made it until deep into my SimCity 2000 phase. I didn’t care. While there have been a plethora of Sim titles over the past 10 years SimCity is the flagship and the best of any of the other Sim games. That is, until SimCity 4 came out. By the grace of God I managed to borrow the game from someone before simply buying it. 3000 is my favorite of all the iterations in the SimCity franchise, so seeing 4 fall flat on its face was, in fact, heartbreaking. The economy in the game was completely broken- the fact that you needed to build a city whose sole purpose was to take in garbage and power from the city you wanted to build was very annoying. I was in the group of people who never had a problem making money in any of the City games in any of the first 3 titles, but somehow in 4 generating revenue became impossible. Sure, the integration with Sims to get people to give you feedback on neighborhoods was quite cool, but when you can’t have fun building a city you know the game is broken. Maybe the next title in the series will be fine, but until then nostalgia will win out on this series.
Sims - If you want to talk about addictions, this is a great place to start. The appeal of playing a game where you simulate someone’s life is difficult to explain. In college I coined the Point Blank Theory, which states that some games look less appealing than a Pauly Shore movie until you sit down to play them. The overall definition of the theory is still in flux because those movies are still highly unappealing when you sit down to watch them, which blows apart the gaming theory as a whole. Anyway, people went from openly mocking the game to refusing to give up the controller after 30 minutes. I mention this because the game didn’t look fun until I sat down and gave it a whirl. After years of playing the original I came up with a list of changes that I thought would be good shifts in game’s fundamentals. Three of them made it into Sims 2, which, to me, proved that my advanced degree in computer science paid off (nevermind the whole job thing). The downside is that the number of expansion packs for these games is a running joke in the gaming community, despite their high sales numbers. Reducing the number of expansion packs by making the packs larger would go a long way to rebuilding the character issues people have with the company.
Command & Conquer - One of the staples of the RWS (Real-time War Simulation) genre (a.k.a. RTS, but as I’ve said in the past real-time strategy is a horrid genre name because that name applies just as well to Tetris as this franchise). Quite honestly I was never as big of a fan of this franchise as WarCraft (before WarCraft 3), but these games have been genuinely solid. There has not been a lot of fresh ideas in the genre as a whole in a while, let alone this franchise, but if they did make the next game as fresh as the first and second games were people would eat it up. People are dying for a great new RWS- evidenced by the fervor surrounding the announcement of StarCraft 2.
Battlefield - Not being much of a war game fan it is hard to really get behind them and defend them as a good potential cornerstone for EA, but Battlefield 2 was a fantastic game at its core. There were some issues with multiplayer that hurt its reputation before some early patches, but this game was very well done as a FPS. Commandeering vehicles was fantastic, but the coolest part of the game for me was the ability to play the role of a general and drop in supplies and reinforcements. It isn’t that hard to bring in fresh ideas into such a young genre, but when you throw down the improvements that Battlefield 2 did you a great franchise starting to catch steam. War games are not my thing, but I can tell you that the reception the gaming community gave the last installment in the franchise will only serve as a launching point for fans and production budget for Battlefield 3.
Need for Speed - If you like driving games at one point you had to have given one of the Need for Speed games a shot. If you are like me you waited until Underground 2 in 2004 before you bothered looking at it. Right now I am knee deep in my used copy of Carbon and am loving every second of it. I used to think that GTA and Carmageddon were the only games where you just drive around and cause vehicular mayhem. Within the past two years I discovered this game and one other. The car customization combined with the street racing is entertaining. I don’t know how much fresh air can be breathed into this series considering the numerous iterations to date, but if EA keeps this franchise breathing then they can start to win people over again.
Burnout - This is the other game that involves vehicular destruction. This game is so similar to Need for Speed I wonder why EA continues to make it- other than to milk money off of a franchise name. This game doesn’t have a career where you build up a car like Need for Speed, but you do have several challenges for races and destruction. This franchise made sense to me when Akklaim held it, but right now it feels like the only thing this game has going for it is the destruction challenges. The game felt old to me after one iteration, and in my opinion this franchise should be buried and forgotten.
If you include the upcoming Spore release, the only positive things I can see coming down the pike from EA revolve around simulations, probably Need for Speed, and maybe Command & Conquer. Nothing else under the EA franchise name holds any appeal for me at all. Really the message I want to send here is that I want to lighten up on EA and give them a shot, but their lineup is not helping me get there. So while my earlier movie analogy failed, right now I honestly can state that this sentiment makes think of EA as the gaming version of the Wachowski Brothers.
No… that wasn’t a compliment.
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April 18, 2007
The Gamer’s Quagmire #44: The Gaming Motivational Spectrum
Everything you wanted to know about gaming, and less.
by Jamison DeLorenzo
Sometimes all you need is a little motivation. Even when your job is completely draining you and you have no mental energy when you get home to do anything but stare at the wall sometimes some slight motivation is all you need to do something you have been meaning to do for months. Don’t get me wrong, staring at a wall is a lot of fun and soothing and everyone should do it every day. The fact that I have not been in the mood to even look at video games at all in over 3 weeks has been consternation and I have been struggling to understand why. Wrestling with your conscience sucks.Okay, the fact that I have not written anything in 3 weeks because of a severe lack in downtime is also a motivator. In case you were wondering why I felt compelled to release an article in the middle of a week, there’s why.
In all fairness I know exactly what the problem is and have been unwilling to admit it for several months now. Like any addict in need of help it is time to face the problem head on. World of Warcraft has completely drained my willingness to play games. It’s a lot of fun to play, collecting gear, killing stuff- everything an RPG fan wants for online play (outside of a coherent universe). I regret none of the time I have spent playing this game. The problem is that after playing it for close to 2 years I really have to question what I am still logging in for. I’ve got multiple level 70 characters, a couple more in the 60’s, and have been into and through mostly every dungeon. Finding the motivation to play more is quite a struggle.
When I wrote about Gaming Connoisseur Detachment Syndrome and Adventurer’s Perfectionist Disorder I apparently knew more than I realized at the time. APD kept me playing World of Warcraft for such a long time that the tightly wound ball of perfection that kept me playing for so long finally unraveled. I want to keep playing as there are still plenty of different challenges left uncompleted (the APD side of the equation), but caring enough to complete them has not happened. The problem, once again, is motivation. It is comforting to finally know what my own breaking point is for such games.
Misguided or aimless motivation is much worse than no motivation, however. After discussing the intricacies of the gamer points systems for the current generation of gaming consoles there was one question that currently remains unanswered- what do these points really buy you? Can you use achievement points to retrieve prizes or are these points nothing more than a way for gamers to measure their egos? Do 20,000 online points make you a good gamer or does it simply mean you are a mindless points zombie? Granted, it is very comforting to know that Microsoft managed to create a system where people mutually started an arms race for points which has turned into nothing more than an inflated revenue stream for gaming rental outlets.
This point, by the way, needs to be the lynchpin for anyone who wants to write a gaming industry doomsday article. I’m not saying this just because I miss reading these silly articles either. The internet and housing bubbles have burst and there is a pattern to it. I’m not one of those people that looks to blame the worlds’ ills on Microsoft (the unbearable console hard drive is enough for now), but you cannot dismiss the effect gaming points have on rentals.
Incidentally, the virtual king of the mountain is an exciting event to witness. Honestly I am having trouble believing this is anything but a virtual Cuban Missile Crisis game. People are stockpiling points that, as of this point in time, they will never use. It’s not like you can unlock content or download special items if you have an obscene amount of points. I have about 2,000 and I’m already completely disinterested in collecting any more. Granted, there is no impending doom or worst-case scenario of massive fallout or a nuclear winter with online gaming points, but when gamers force themselves to play games of the Fusion Frenzy 2 variant. Note the word choice- this points race is viral and you need to understand that. Anything less than accepting this is… unacceptable.
Is there a challenge out there that is worth chasing? I have fun playing many different games, but when you feel like you are simply biding time until the release of a couple games for the PC can there really be any motivation to play what is currently available? This poses a major motivation threat to online games. You see the ticker on the clock for when you know you will stop playing the game, so is there a real point to running yourself into the ground when, after you leave, you know you aren’t coming back? Sure, online game developers have the great ability to add new levels of content to appease the hardcore player, but there’s only so much you can do to distract a gaming connoisseur before he realizes there are about 30 different games he needs to catch up on.
What the sickening part of the online points system is that I have been looking for ways to lay down may gaming credentials against everyone else. I’ve had a knack for racing games for a long time, and while both Gran Turismo and Gotham City Racing provide good challenges, GTR provides a great online challenge system up to a point. When the toughest challenges in a game boil down to can you keep your car in a skid for 5 minutes you are forced to ask yourself why you would be proud of being the best at driving like a complete moron. This is a challenge I’ve convinced myself that people in Rochester have an ongoing competition for (with the current winner being someone driving around half a mile in reverse on the highway in the middle lane because they missed an exit), but that doesn’t mean I want to enter my name in the running. Believe it or not, not all challenges need to be faced. This lesson is usually learned by the time you inflict massive amounts of damage during a psychotic bicycling or skating stunt or you realize afterwards you really shouldn’t have attempted. With any luck you stopped during the dares to eat certain spoiled foods… something those on Fear Factor never quite figured out.
But I digress. Yes, the game also has the multiplayer race challenges which do provide the exact challenge I’m looking for and I’ve done very well in those, but that challenge is quite old. It is very easy to find challenges in games when you look for them. I really need to ask myself what the happy medium is for me. I’m stuck with no motivation but fear the arms race of achievement points. What do I do?
The most troubling act is that I have locked myself into waiting for Hellgate: London, Spore (which forces me to consider making a one-time exemption to give EA money), and GTA IV. In the meantime I’ve reverted back to playing Sims 2 on the PC and Final Fantasy VI on the GBA. While I will defend those games to the bitter end as 2 of the top 20 all time games I still have games like several games on the bench with unresolved challenges. This includes completing Civilization IV and The Movies on the hardest levels (although I haven’t unlocked everything in The Movies on the lower levels), San Andreas (when the only open mission is gaining favor with a dominatrix to get into a bank vault- the quintessential example of no motivation), Final Fantasy XII (I have no explanation for why I don’t plug this game back in), NBA 2K7 (my franchise hasn’t run long enough to get my player into the Hall of Fame), PGR 3 (I don’t have all of Platinum Medals in the true racing challenges), and Crackdown (collecting all of the orbs can be an infuriating task).
On the plus side every Diablo II challenge was completed several times over, so thankfully there’s no going back to some games. What I have to realize is where that line is for online games much sooner than I already have.
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January 31, 2007
The Gamer’s Quagmire #38: Start Baiting Your Breath
Everything you wanted to know about gaming, and less.
by Jamison DeLorenzo
It may have taken a couple months to catch on, but I think people are starting to find their way over to my camp on the new Nintendo console. It is entirely possible that Nintendo is going to land a haymaker on Sony and Microsoft this time around, but if it is going to happen it better start happening soon. Launch lists are always a telling sign as to what is happening with a console. Right now the only one that looks to be getting games that I am eager to play is the 360, which not so coincidentally is thriving right now (in no small part thanks to Gears of War). This situation will only improve once Halo 3 hits the market.Things are not as one-sided, however. The Wii had a phenomenal launch and continues to sell very well. Sure, the install base for it is quite impressive, but that is hardly the stat you want to point to for success of a console. It is a great way to kick things off, but you never win a war by winning the initial skirmish. You may want to ask Dreamcast fans how that one turned out (especially the bitter ones, it’s very entertaining). Still, even someone as turned off by the Wii as I am, admittedly I am thinking about picking one up to test out Zelda because a person who loves puzzle and adventure games can only hide from the franchise for so long. In some respects I feel like a caveman just thawing out from an ice chamber.
As a Nintendo fan you need to move past this initial victory. Sony is still gaining profit as a company and the PS3 is anything but dead (it is best to ignore people who think the PS3 is already dead because these people may be more deranged than the people who think NASA faked the moon landing). The 360 now has PGR3, Oblivion, and Gears of War under its belt as major gaming titles that have produced huge sales figures. Twilight Princess has done very well indeed, but looking at the Wii launch list you can’t help but wonder when the next game is coming out that will compete with these figures.
Despite my apprehension towards giving Microsoft more money, it looks like we are in the throws of the Xbox becoming the new hot console for this generation. It is the only console that is generating new franchise names without completely killing them off. Nintendo had Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and Pokemon. Incidentally, I would have included Viewtiful Joe in with the household franchises had it not been whored out beyond belief on the Gamecube. I have no problem with turning successful games into franchises, but inventing a new side-scroller in this era of gaming is dumb because the staying power simply is not there anymore. Side-scrollers officially died when Castlevania, a franchise whose success is completely dependent upon 2D, switched over to 3D (Castlevania now exclusively resides in the realm of handheld gaming, the only place side-scrollers have any remaining clout).
If the death of the side-scroller bothers you at all you should be upset that there was never a ceremony to bury the icons of the genre. Contra, Gradius, Mega Man, and Castlevania each deserve a fond farewell. Mega Man transitioned into the Battle Network series that is now more overplayed than the Macarena. Castlevania was able to find a home on the handhelds. Contra III was the last memorable installment and the two soldiers were put out to pasture. Gradius and the rest of the space shooters, let’s face it, as popular as the once briefly were, just met natural selection.
All this is not to say I hate the Wii. This is far from the truth. I may hate the name. I may hate the naming scheme that generated for the Wii’s peripherals. I may hate the Nintendo fanbots more than anyone else. The problem is that it is hard to ignore generations of really enjoyable gameplay and the new controllers are relatively intriguing. What is preventing me from jumping in, aside from a heavy and potentially lethal World of Warcraft addiction, is that past Zelda I cannot see myself playing any of these games. Maybe the new major Mario title would be worth checking out. I say this because after having a lot of fun with Mario Brothers 1, 2, 3, Super Mario World, and Mario 64 seeing the new Mario adventure game with a fresh control scheme would be entertaining. The only problem is that two games does not make buying a console worthwhile. We have a term for where that purchase makes sense, and it’s called a garage sale.
Not knowing any people firsthand who own a Wii I am forced to rely on everything I can find online to formulate an opinion on why people love this console (or any console or game for that matter). Filtering out all of the expected posturing, warped logic, bandwagoning, and straw men I am left with a pretty good idea as to why Nintendo is doing so well. And so you know, it has nothing whatsoever to do with why the PS3 is doing so poorly (that reason, in case you’re confused, is cost). There is more than one reason at play here, so this will not be quick. The primary reason is the innovation in the control scheme. Right now I do want this to succeed because controllers may be the next part of gaming whose development truly evolves even past the Wii controller. The graphics capabilities are going to level off very soon, so controls seem like the next logical step with the possible exception of AI.
I think there is another driving force at play that people seem to be ignoring. This ties in with a lot of the negative press video games have been getting and the swarm of anti-gaming legislation that a plethora of state legislatures are looking to pass. Nobody is ever going to accuse Nintendo of producing a violent game or one that sparks enormous controversy (or not in the foreseeable future at least). No, I don’t think that gamers are really worried about that part of it. Swarms of people talk about the fact that over the Christmas holiday season, something that all consoles look to capitalize on, they were playing the Wii with their parents, relatives, girl friends, and friends who would put about just as much stock into gaming as they would Euro Disney.
What I am struggling with is why would I even care about that? When have I ever purchased a game so that my family would want to play games with me? Call me crazy, but when my parents were purchasing games for me I had no troubles playing with them. I was also under 10 at the time so it also helped that the games that appealed to me then were the much simpler ones. They bought at least two games every year that we all could play and have fun with, but the number of people that purchase consoles so that they can play games with their relatives is miniscule. I’ll be honest, having party games like Wii Sports is a good thing and party games are, for the most part, underrated. When you have several friends over the party game is almost always a great option. However, if you’re going to venture out onto a limb with that as a reason to buy the console you are going to plummet to your untimely demise.
A console with family entertainment is a market, but it is hardly, at this point in time, the dominating or sustainable market. Maybe these games will catch on and maybe the controller will too. Right now it is just a fad with a bunch of people making excuses. If you think a company like Sony would not get raked over the coals for making a controller whose wrist strap kept breaking thusly causing the controllers to be winged across the room then you are in complete denial. Maybe the games will become more appealing for someone like me. Anything’s possible.
As a closing thought, I will state that I was in this exact position around a year and a half ago with the DS and the PSP. The DS felt more innovative and the PSP had more potential. The only difference was that the DS had the game library because of the GBA cartridge input. Now, if anything, the PS3 will eventually have the games advantage. Both handhelds basically failed in terms of promise. Despite the overwhelming sales advantage for the DS the stylus simply isn’t going to take off as a good gaming peripheral. When I can read my own writing at the supermarket checkout with a stylus then, maybe, I’ll believe it is a good thing for gaming. In the meantime, enjoy the next several months as we will get a crystal clear view of which consoles are going to deliver the gaming experiences we hope to enjoy.
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January 22, 2007
The Gamer’s Quagmire #37: 2007 Gaming Sabbatical - Part I
Everything you wanted to know about gaming, and less.
by Jamison DeLorenzo
Adventurer’s Perfectionist Disorder, it’s back! The 2007 year kicked off with one of the greatest gaming experiences of my life. Being a gamer at heart I know that if I had it my way I’d be out in California as a game tester and all of my money would go towards an apartment and my entertainment system. It’s an interesting experience to be at work year-round and then take almost two weeks of your life and just sit on a couch and play video games. It honestly feels like a vacation.Sure, you can travel, learn some history, go to an amusement park, visit relatives, go camping, live it up on beach, enjoy a cruise, or whatever suits your fancy. Any real vacation should only be about one thing- avoiding everything about your normal life and just doing something you want to do. I’m always amazed by people that bring laptops on trips and make sure they don’t fall out of the loop while they are away from the office. The last time I had the opportunity I forced someone to leave the laptop at home by convincing them it was in the car when it really was back at the apartment. I’m a good friend that way.
What does any of this have to do with APD? Allow me to bring you on that journey. The last two weeks of 2006 were a vacation from the office for World of Warcraft where I was making leaps and bounds leveling my new character. It’s rough being in a guild where the only way to keep up with the top players is to not have a job, but I still enjoy it immensely. After another week and a half my gaming sabbatical took place in Seattle, something which I hope turns into an annual tradition. During this sabbatical the perfect mix of gaming past and present took place.
Let me present to you my experience of the Playstation 3- it matches what the X-Box 360 brings to the table with the exception of the online play system. I realize that expecting Sony to match Live with their first go at an online delivery system is just insane so that’s okay, but there is a problem. Considering the cost of a fully loaded console with hi-def playback, the 360 is noticeably cheaper than the PS3. I have yet to characterize why. The cosmetic issue of the 360 requiring a peripheral for their HD-DVD drive pushes the aesthetics trophy over to the PS3, but that that can’t be everything can it? If the 360 could handle HD-DVD at launch then the 360’s look would be the best of any of the consoles. The PS3’s design is average at best, same for Nintendo.
Microsoft does not nearly get the beating they deserve for their HD-DVD peripheral. A console having an attachment is inexcusable, reprehensible, sacrilegious, nauseating, and unforgivable. In the age of hi-def entertainment this type of lunacy just shouldn’t happen. It’d be like serving ice cream in a bowl and then bringing along a cone 10 minutes later (you know, because that is what you really wanted and refuse to admit it). That’s not even why they deserve a flogging or two. They announced that the 360 was not about hi-def entertainment, that consoles don’t need it, and Sony was doing too much with their console which is why their launch was delayed so much. Hypocrisy is a major irritant, and this statement reeked of it.
Anyway, the pricing issue is the primary reason why the PS3 is getting crushed right now in the console wars. The 360 is established (for those of you keeping score at home, you need to now admit that the early launch was a good idea) and the Wii offers something that nobody else has. Of course the Wii’s success is based on a gimmick. Zelda is the only game with any good depth to it and the console will not survive on titles like Wii Sports, whose popularity will diminish quicker than the Macarena. Trust me when I tell you that unless a host of good games come out for Nintendo the console will crumble and fall. If the PS3 gets a couple good games out for it then people will eventually flock over to it once the inevitable price cut occurs.
What scares me about my gaming sabbatical was that despite playing good titles on the PS3 and 360 the highlight of the trip involved one of the old classics- Final Fantasy VII. Okay, perhaps it was destiny that picking to play through this game one more time after writing how that was the defining game of the PS2 era for me that VII would once again highlight a gaming weekend. For what was perhaps one last time, our small little group from Gettysburg which set out on the Final Fantasy VII voyage together took the vessel out for once last spin.
As you would expect, simply walking through the game would not be enough. Goals were to capture everything we possibly could before the final dungeon ending in the showdown with Sephiroth. We captured the Gold Chocobo during the final hours of the trip. This felt like the proper ending, but something was wholly unsatisfying about the achievement. Do not misunderstand my apprehension to call it a success. Three people obtaining Knights of the Round in 4 days while playing other games at the same time was a remarkable achievement. What bugs me was that due to a wireless controller issue North Corel was not saved from the train wreck. The blue Huge Materia was not rescued from the spaceship despite me somehow recalling that circle-square-x-x was the password (seriously, I entered the password and picked it up… it was weird). The scales required to put out the fires in the Wutai mountains were missed. Several key Enemy Skills were not uncovered. The Mime materia was not located. The Earth Harp remained a complete mystery. The Battle Square was not conquered.
I’ll be honest with you, as a gamer I was impressed that I remembered certain things about the game. Remembering the song for the piano in Tifa’s house and the spaceship combination was quite prolific (for whatever reason checking my mail every day is still something I forget to do). The fact that so many important items were missed along the journey may making one more last run through the game necessary despite still having my perfect save on a memory card that still remains in my possession. This is a direct effect of a severe case of APD. I should be able to let something like this go. The game has been defeated multiple times with precision, but because my previous run failed spectacularly, in my eyes, it warrants another potential run.
All of this ignores the fact that I still have not made my way through Final Fantasy XII, a game which I claim may be the new champion of the franchise. Vaan, it’s nothing personal. Cloud is a much more compelling hero. Sephiroth is the quintessential villain, something that Vayne cannot claim. It’s not that I think VII is a better game, it’s just that the story in the game is perhaps the best of them all and the Materia system has its place etched in gaming history. Also, not being able to cope with missing several key spells and abilities is eating away at my conscience. Not even Full Cure will ease the pain- only completing the game one more time will. If you have ever played through one game multiple times then you understand my pain. You also understand that there will be one more inevitable article about Final Fantasy VII.
After all, Aeris does deserve a proper burial.
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