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Harry Potter and the Philospher's Stone (PS)
by dramaxxqueenxx05
After seeing the first Harry Potter film, I was dying to buy the playstation game, however I got it for christmas and the first thing I did when I opened it was play on it! Mind you I was only ten at the time, but I was annoyed I couldn't get it to work, and then my dad discovered that it was for PC not playstation! So I had to wait till ... the next day to get it changed (as it was christmas day and no where is open)
The game is about Harry Potter joining Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry and discovers the world of Hogwarts, one of his first quest is to meet the people of Hogwarts which include Dumbledore, Ron Weasley and his twin brothers Fred and George, Harry's biggest enemy Draco Malfoy and his beloved owl, Hedwig (whom Malfoy has stolen at the beginning of the game)
Some of Harry's tasks in this games are: finding objects for other students and teachers, attend lesson like charms class, biology, defence against the dark arts, potions and transfiguation and this where Harry can learn spells to help complete his first year at Hogwarts, find new pathways and defeat many magical evil creatures such as a troll in the girls bathroom and step pass fluffy, the three headed dog.
But one of Harry's biggest tasks to find the man who killed his parents and confront him - he who must not be named - Lord Voldemort. But one teacher in his school knows about this man, but which one is it even though Harry, Ron and Hermione believe that it is their worst teacher, professor Servous Snape and their potions teacher.
I thought this game was awesome when I was ten and I used to play it every day from first thing in the morning to bed time sadly I was so close to completing it! The part I got up to was the chess boards I got pass the first two but couldn't get through the last one! I was gutted! But i do believe that some levels are tricky and take a while to get to as they are so tricky! But it's a good game for Harry Potter fans.
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Final Fantasy IX (PS)
by Benjammar
I regard Final Fantasy 9 as one of my all time favorite games. I played it for the first time when I was 11. Now I'm almost 21 and I recently started up a new game to experience the World of Gaia one more time. It's nearly 10 years since it came out so the question is; does it still create that magical wonderful experience? In short; I ... think I love this game more than ever.
The Plot
Being a Final Fantasy the plot is long and detailed covering a traditional Good vs Evil story with an evil villain trying to dominate the world. FF9 focuses on the story of Zidane, a young thief from Lindblum, and his friends and companions as they travel the world trying to stop the impending doom that awaits. The plot starts off slow and steady on a small scale before erupting into a dramatic climax where the fate of the world rests in their hands. The characters start off relatively insignificant but become the hero's and savior's of the world of Gaia.
Accompanying Zidane are a bunch of diverse characters. There's Garnet; the Princess of Alexandria, Vivi; a small black mage, Steiner; Captain of the Pluto Knights whose role is to protect Garnet at any costs; Freya; A dragon knight from Burmecia, Quina; a complicated and random character whose main interest is eating; Eiko; a small girl with the powerful ability to summon eidolons and Amarant; a mysterious red headed character whose motives and interests are unclear.
The Setting
The story is full of sub stories, extra characters, twists, turns and more. You can't sum up the games plot in a review. In short it's a wonderful journey from start to end with plenty of extra stories accompanying the main quest. The 8 characters you control bring their own unique flavor to the game. FF9 features some of the most bizarre characters in the series. Where as FF8 and the following ones took a more serious approach to the role playing genre FF9 took a quirky, cartoony and weird approach to it. This is perfectly summed up by Quina; a fat round blue 'thing' with a giant floppy nose who only cares about food; even in the face of great danger.
This quirky world is full of random and peculiar races. Oglops, dragons, dwarves and black mages are some of the most recognizable. Even the regular humans are all different from each other. For example Zidane has a tail, some are tall and thin whilst others are fat and round. One man even has 4 arms! This weird world is rather odd but gives it's own personal charm. It makes the game more light hearted and is much easier to hop in and enjoy. It doesn't take itself too seriously so it's very funny in places but manages to portray serious emotion and feelings between characters. You might look at some of the characters and giggle a little but will always understand the difficult situations they are in and feel for them when they are down and upset.
The Graphics
It's a Playstation 1 game so let's face it, they are not up to scratch in 2010! At the time FF9 was one of the most beautiful games to grace the PS1 and funnily enough the cut scenes still look stunning and are a joy to watch. The regular in game graphics are nothing special but the world of Gaia is still beautiful to roam around and has been brilliantly drawn. You still feel the grandness of the castles in the game whilst Treno, the city of the Nobles, still feels as posh as ever.
The Sound/Music
Being on the PS1 the characters don't speak but this doesn't hold the game back. One of the joys of the earlier Final Fantasies was that the voices would be up to your imagination. What Quina and Vivi sound like we will never know but everyone will have their own version for it.
The music that accompanies the game is perfect. In times of peace it is relaxing, calm and soothing where as in the heat of battle it is typically quirky and very Japanese influenced. It might be 10 years old but the music is still some of the best in a game. Certain tracks may be a little repetitive for certain areas but these are few and far between. I still love the funny music that accompanies a Chocobo whilst the music that plays when you fly in an airship genuinely puts a smile on your face
The Gameplay
I've waffled far enough now so time to get down to the bare bones of the game. FF9 is a typical turn based RPG game. You control 4 characters at once in a battle. Battles are random in areas where combat can happen. Each character has 4 commands to choose from in a fight. Attack and Item are available for every character whilst the other 2 are dependant on the character. Unlike other Final Fantasies there is no room for change on this front. For example only Vivi can cast Black Magic, Dagger and Eiko only White Magic and so on. Each character has unique abilities which can't be learnt by other characters. At first this seems like a bad thing because it reduces customization however this means each character is unique and offers something different to a battle. Often where you can chose what people learn every character ends up being the same which is a bit boring.
Where you have control over your characters come in the form of abilities which you can equip to take into battle. Each character can equip up to 5 different pieces of armor/weapons which alters their features (Strength, Defense, Spirit, Magic, Speed, Evade etc). Each piece of armor/weapon enables a character to learn different abilities. There are loads and loads of abilities to learn. To give an example some include Auto-Haste (Automatically casts haste at the beginning of a battle), Bug Killer (Deal stronger damage to bug type enemies) and Antibody (Makes you immune to Poison and Venom). Different characters will learn different abilities from the same item meaning a certain item is of more use to certain characters.
What abilities you equip depend on your characters max ability points. As you level up your characters max ability points increase enabling you to equip more abilities. The customization in FF9 comes from what armor you chose and what abilities you equip. It's a fairly simple system but also a very effective one. It's easy to get to grips with but very enjoyable to progress with throughout the game. You can make some very tactical decisions later on the game with your abilities and it's vital you equip the right ones.
Combat is fun but not too challenging. Unless you are seriously under leveled or accidentally hit a high level area you shouldn't die too often (Or at all) throughout the game. This means it's accessible for all but it still has hidden bosses for the people who enjoy a tougher challenge.
So the core aspects, combat and character development, are spot on. But what about the rest? There's a lot to cover here so I won't try to talk about everything. The balance between combat and cut scenes is fair. You won't have to sit there for hours on end listening to drab dialogue before getting back into the thick of it. You're regularly involved so you will never get bored. The story is deep and enjoyable and will keep on your toes. Character interaction is fantastic and is often very entertaining. The world of Gaia is wonderful to explore. The open world game is huge and has plenty of places to explore and plenty of things to do
Mini Games/Extras
The extras (Things not associated with the main story) is one of the highlights and low points of the game. The 2 main mini games are Card games and Chocobos. The card game is probably the only disappointing aspect of the game. In FF8 the card game was fantastic. Easy to pick up and play and had a long life span as well as being very rewarding. Sadly in FF9 it is the complete opposite. It's complicated and confusing; even 10 years later I still don't understand it properly. There is also little to no reward to progressing with it. It's a shame as there was a lot of potential there
On the other hand the use of Chocobos here is brilliant. Chocobos regularly feature in the FF series however here their role is spot on. Riding a chocobo is no longer just a handy transport method but now a clever treasure hunting game. There are now 3 areas where you can play a hot and cold digging game as well as hunting for treasurer across the whole world map. At first it sounds too hard but once you get into it is very rewarding and entertaining. It is one of the best mini games to have ever graced a FF game.
Aside these two there's plenty more to do. Stellazio coin collecting, frog catching, ultimate weapons, coffee bean hunting, Quina's Blue Magic, Moogle's Mail. This is all on top of living and enjoying the game world; talking to people, treasure chest hunting and learning about the history of the world of Gaia. People you meet early on the game will make appearances later on in the game and it's an absolute joy to see how non playable characters who have no impact on the main story develop. It makes the game a very believable world and fun to just be part of
Lifespan
Being a Final Fantasy this is no quick game, believe you me. Following just the primary story line ignoring the extras (Which is very difficult as they are very tempting and addictive) will you take you at least 24 hours of solid playing. My first time play through 10 years ago was well into the 60-70 hour region. It's so easy to get lost in the game. If you're a completionist it's very easy to play over 100 hours. There is a challenge in the game to reach an area on the 4th disc in under 12 hours however you have to take a few nifty short cuts to do this. By doing this you also ruin the point of the game. Basically, it's a very very long game and is well worth the money
Overall
A truly magical game. I'm currently playing it at the moment and despite being 10 years old I still love it. It's so much fun and such an enjoyable experience to play through. It's a little bit quirky but that's what separate it from the bunch of very unoriginal RPG's out there. It's probably a bit easier than most RPG's but that doesn't stop it from being a lot of fun. Apart from the card game any time you pour into this game is well rewarded. I can not recommend it any higher. The last review for this game was written in 2001 but the fact I'm still playing it now should indicate it's a must play game
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Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver (PS)
by KK-Slither
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
Back in 1999 Crystal Dynamics released Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, a sequel to Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain which was developed by Silicon Knights. After a messy legal battle Silicon Knights lost the rights to Crystal Dynamics and so development and in turn style shifted. Soul Reaver is a 3D ... action-adventure game and although I say that it's a rather unfair label, with complex (at times head scratching) puzzles, huge exploration and touches of platforming elements Soul Reaver is a game with plenty of dimensions running through it.
The story sees Vampire lieutenant Raziel tossed into a whirlpool by his master Kain as punishment for taking the evolutionary step of growing wings before him, a punishment that should have killed Raziel. A creature named the Elder has another fate in mind for Raziel however and resurrects him then tasks him with eliminating Kain and his minions. The plot to the Legacy of Kain games can only be described as EPIC... I know that's an over used term on the internet but considering there are a total of six games in the series in total all connected together by the presence of Kain. This means there's one very important thing to remember, if you do enjoy this game and join the critics (and myself) in praising the plot you will not get all the answers from this game or indeed many of the games as the stories are directly linked.
Exploration is a big part of Soul Reaver's gameplay with ledges to jump (or glide) to, blocks to push and a clever mechanic which allows Raziel to switch between the physical and spectral planes. By doing this you effectively have two versions of every area in the game which is crucial to utilize when trying to solve some of the game's puzzles, on that subject it's worth saying again that these aren't the simple "here's a lever" puzzles and are in some cases are very clever. There is combat in Soul Reaver but not as much as you might expect, be that as it may the developers also put some thought into the combat system, you see you're fighting vampires and as we all know vampires aren't like people, you can beat on them all you want but if you want to kill them then you'll have to either impale, incinerate or expose them to sunlight or water. The souls of dead enemies can be devoured by Raziel to replenish health which is very useful considering that Raziel's health depletes slowly over time.
When playing Soul Reaver it won't be long before you realise that the environment is huge (yes if you've played Morrowind or Two Worlds then this isn't that huge but remember this is PS1) and not only that but unlike other games there is no loading of other areas as the game uses a "fog of war" style mechanic for areas in the distance allowing the environment to be constantly streamed from the CD, while the "fog of war" thing may sound bad it really isn't as the fog actually adds to the gothic atmosphere. Graphics wise this is very impressive for a Playstion game with nice realistic lighting and fluid animation, when Raziel picks up a torch it looks like he picks up a torch, when he jumps to another platform it looks like he's jumping, when he logs onto the SSBlastoff blog... (well maybe not that but you get the idea).
Sound has no real issues, it really comes down to taste as far as the music is concerned, I found for the most part that music is suitable for the setting and quite original (I can't think of too many games with a distinctive almost archaic while at the same time modern feel at the same time... yes it's a paradox... I know) so enjoyable enough. Voice acting is done very well and is on par with anything you'll find on the market today, Soul Reaver proves that with a good script and competent actors who take the idea of a game being a story seriously means you can produce high quality western voice acting.
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver is a game with class in abundance and plenty of reasons to like it, at first the sheer scale can be a little overwhelming with a sense of a lack of any real direction, once past this initial phase however you'll find a game that deserves to be in any list of must haves for the Playstation. Definitely a slow starting game that requires a lot of patience (and time if you plan on seeing as much of the story as possible... six games...) but persevere and you won't be disappointed.
At A Glance.
Gameplay ~ 8/10
Story ~ 9/10
Graphics ~ 9/10
Sound ~ 8/10
Replay Value ~ 4/10
Final Score: 39/50
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