Square-Enix had several playable demos available at E3. Here are my reviews of
the games and what I thought of them. Keep in mind that these are my views only,
so they may differ from others.
Before Crisis
The first thing that impressed me about this game was the graphics. Not having played
any "decent" cell phone games before I was amazed at the quality which was comparable
to the graphics of the Gameboy Advance. The characters were detailed for a small
screen, and the areas were detailed and scrolled smoothly.
Although the game was in Japanese, this didn't cause a problem with being able to
play the game. However wondering what the storyline was about was another thing.
As far as I could gather, you played a Turk character who was pursuing a group of
enemies.
Battle system: The battle system is very simple. You control a character,
you move, you attack. It is all in real time and is very fast paced. The only downfall
is due to the size of a cell keypad, it became awkward at times. Magic could also
be selected through a menu. However if you were not standing in front of your enemy
at the time of casting the spell, the spell may be wasted. Battles became challenging
when there was more than one enemy, however this would be counter-acted if playing
the game with friends.
Overall: This game definitely has potential for the cell phone market.
It brings cell phone gaming to a whole new level in both graphics and game play.
An enjoyable game, but often difficult to control due to the keypad limitations
of a cell phone.
Final Fantasy VII Snowboarding
This appeared to be a direct port of the original snowboarding game from Final Fantasy
VII. The snowboarding course and obstacles appeared to be the same as the original,
and unfortunately the controls also did not offer any improvement, with it being
difficult to turn the board when compared to the more sport orientated snowboarding
games. Although only a cellphone game, the simple and original approach seemed to
suit it well and it seemed to have a unique novelty value about it in many ways.
Kingdom Hearts II
Four demo levels were available to play with this game. Two story based levels
and two boss levels. I played both of the story levels, one of which included a
boss anyway.
The first level I played was with Auron in the party. You needed to defeat enemies
in order to proceed further and complete a boss battle against Cerberus at the end.
The second level was based on Disney's Mulan with Donald and Goofy in your party.
It was more of a story based level than a game play level.
Battle system: In general, the battle system has not changed that much from
the original. You still control Sora and have two backup characters to help you
out. Basic attacks are exactly as they were before. What had differed is that there
is now an overdrive gauge which builds up when you attack enemies. The overdrive
can be used either at it's full level [3] or at a lesser level. It appears that
the overdrive varies depending on either the world you are in or the people you
have in your party. On the level with Auron, it allowed for a dual attack with Auron.
On the Mulan level, it allowed the use of two keyblades and a faster attacking speed.
Overall: Overall I found Kingdom Hearts II to be a very fun game.
Even though not much seemed to have changed since the original, the addition of
the overdrive gauge definitely looks promising. It should be a good sequel to the
original.
Dragon Quest VIII
It appears that Square-Enix are attempting to get people to notice the Dragon Quest
franchise outside of Japan. The game featured prominently at the booth, and DQ Slime
toys were given out to those who attended the presentation.
In some ways the game could be compared to Final Fantasy, but only really due to
the turn based battle system. The player can actually customize how they play the
game a little more in that sense. In the default mode you choose each party member's
attacks in the usual way. However you can also choose to allow the other party members
to follow a more automatic path which saves on gameplay time. At the start of each
battle you can choose to change the strategies which allows the other characters
to choose their attacks based on what that strategy dictates.
Battles also appeared to have a very fun feel about them. Most of the enemies had
funny names/attacks and the animation had a very fun feel to it.
The demo also had a storyline based level which allowed for part of the story to
be played through. The player needed to complete the standard tasks of a RPG in
storyline mode in order to proceed through the level.
Overall: This game definitely has a fun feel to it in both gameplay
and the anime style graphics. It is a lot less serious than Final Fantasy appears
to be. Definitely a game franchise to look out for which should appeal to many RPG
players.
Full Metal Alchemist 2
As I haven&'t played the first game in this series apart from last year's E3
demo, my comparison may be limited. I did however find the game to be easier than
what I played of the first one. I played one demo level in this game. The battling
was again in real time, and a special attack could be performed which was much more
effective than the standard attack. Like the first game, you are helped out by another
character. Enemies varied in strength. The game appeared to follow a set path to
follow.
Radiata Stories
This has to be the most unique demo that I have ever played. Instead of being
taken from the game, extra dialog was added which referred to it being an E3 demo,
which tied humor into it. The demo allowed you to watch the opening scenes or play
a dungeon level. The dungeon level was quite exploratory in nature. The battle system
was mostly a standard real time system with three other computer controlled characters.
A special attack gauge filled up each time an attack was performed. The main problem
that the battle screen appeared to have was that you had to go to the main menu
every time you wanted to heal yourself. There didn't appear to be any obvious way
to do this. The boss battle was also frustrating as he would often freeze or turn
you to stone, and you could not access your menu to use healing items during this
time. Leaving you vulnerable to attacks and being able to lose HP.
Romancing SaGa
This demo [which may have been the full game] was in Japanese, so it was a little
confusing to work out what was going on until I asked one of the SE representatives
about the controls. The battle system appeared to be long winded in some ways, as
you needed to choose attacks for 5 party members before proceeding and then watching
the battle animations. On a plus side, combos could be performed if you chose the
right combination of attacks [kind of hit and miss in my case]. The game also appeared
to have a lot of exploration and places to go which interested me the most.
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