Final Fantasy IV (DS)

More than 15 years ago, SquareSoft shocked the world with its masterpiece Final Fantasy II (which was actually the fourth game in the series but only the second released in North America). For the first time, console role-players weren't given a few generic heroes and charged with stopping the evil wizard and saving the world; instead, they were introduced to a wide assortment of realistic characters who struggled with complex adult issues such as love, hate, honor, duty, betrayal, and redemption. Now, this epic saga has been entirely remade in 3D on the Nintendo DS, and whether Cecil, Kain, and Rosa are new faces or old friends, this is one adventure that you shouldn't miss.

Cecil is a man with a dilemma. Though bound by his duty as the lord captain of the Red Wings of Baron to serve his king and country, his conscience is heavy with the sins that he is committing in their name. The formerly loving and caring king who took Cecil in as a child and taught him the ways of the dark sword has become a sinister and greedy tyrant who covets the sacred crystals of the world for reasons unknown. Upon returning from a mission to Baron's friendly neighbor Mysidia, in which Cecil and his men were forced to steal one of the crystals like common thugs, he finally dares to question his king's motives. For his insubordination, Cecil is stripped of his rank and sent on an errand north to the village of Mist, where his destiny is revealed to him and his journey of atonement begins.

Throughout his quest, Cecil is joined by a number of intriguing characters: Kain, his best friend and a dragoon of considerable skill; Rosa, his lady love, who became a white mage to support him on the frontlines; Rydia, a summoner capable of calling the legendary Eidolons (referred to as summon monsters in other games) to her aid; Tellah, a revenge-driven sage who's forgotten more than most have learned; and many more. Together, they represent some of the most diverse and thoroughly fleshed-out characters in the long history of the Final Fantasy series. Standing on the other end of the spectrum across a sea of monsters is the sinister Golbez, a larger-than-life mastermind of evil clad in full body armor as black as night. His lieutenants, the four elemental archfiends, are equally memorable, particularly the urbane Rubicante, who insists on healing your wounds before doing battle with you so that you can fight him with all your might.

Golbez and his goons may have most of the cards, but that doesn't mean that Cecil and his pals don't have an ace or two up their sleeves. Each of the characters that make up your party have a set class that they grow more powerful in as they gain levels. Each class has its own unique abilities, such as the dark knight's darkness, which casts a self-buff that doubles damage for a few turns at the price of the wielder's own HP, or the sage's recall, which randomly casts an otherwise unavailable high-level spell. Though class-specific abilities aren't anything new, in this DS remake you now have the power to customize your characters by giving them additional abilities called augments. Augments can be found throughout the world, given to you by leaving party members, or even stolen from certain enemies, and they can do everything from passively increasing stats such as HP and MP to granting class-specific abilities like darkness or recall to normally nonqualifying characters. If you look hard enough, you may even be able to learn the abilities of the elemental archfiends, such as Cagnazzo's tsunami attack.

If you're willing to put the time into experimenting with augments, you will uncover a slew of powerful combinations that just may give you the edge you need--and you'll need all the help you can get because the difficulty in this iteration of Final Fantasy IV has been increased tremendously. A majority of the bosses require very specific strategies to defeat, and the uninformed will likely perish several times in these encounters before they grasp how to claim victory. Even if you're a seasoned veteran who knows all of the tricks, don't expect things to be simple; some bosses have changed just enough to throw you off of your game, and all of them are a lot tougher than you remember. By the end of the game, even the normal monsters found in random battles are tough enough to wipe the floor with a superpowered party of heroes if they're unprepared.

Besides the radical addition of the ability to customize your party, several other minor gameplay tweaks have been made. The characters in your party now share their thoughts with you on the menu screen, offering personal anecdotes and potentially helpful advice about the current situation. An entirely new quest line featuring Namingway--a moogle-like wanderer who in the original version was satisfied with renaming your characters when asked to--has been added, in which Namingway renames himself as he tries out a number of different professions with humorous results. Finally, Rydia receives a unique new Eidolon named Whyt that can be completely customized by conversing with Fat Chocobo, who fans will likely remember as a bank for extra-item storage (that service is no longer necessary because the item cap has been removed). Through Fat Chocobo, you can customize Whyt's appearance, assign him an assortment of attacks, level up his various stats by participating in touch-screen-heavy minigames, and even battle your friend's incarnations of Whyt in one-on-one matches via local DS wireless.

However, outside of Whyt's minigames, there isn't much going on with the touch screen. When not in battle, the bottom screen is occupied by an area map that automatically fills as you explore dungeons, and it's possible to navigate your party around the world by manipulating the stylus. At most other times, the touch screen is nonfunctional. Thankfully, the button controls are very effective, and so it's generally best to not even try to mess around with your stylus.

Final Fantasy IV is easily among the best-looking 3D games on the Nintendo DS. The heavily stylized characters are impressively expressive, from the manner in which Cecil broods as he reflects on his guilt to the way that Rydia hops up and down and waves her hands to get your attention at a shop when you find something that she can equip. Now that dungeons are rendered in three dimensions, there is a vast sense of size and depth (particularly in the final dungeon) that wasn't previously there, and it makes your journey seem that much more awe-inspiring and epic. As part of the new graphical update, key moments of the game are shown off in cinematic-style cutscenes, many of which are accompanied by full voice acting for the characters. Unfortunately, as excited as series fans may be to finally hear Cecil speak, the voice acting is actually the game's weakest point. Some voices seem completely out of character or introduce unnecessary melodrama.

Although it has been rereleased several times throughout the years, this full remake of one of the most celebrated stories in video game history is in many ways more poignant and impressive than it was all those years ago, despite minor irks with the voice acting. With a cast of memorable characters and villains, a more accurate and authentic translation, a new skill-customization system, and a few important new story elements that help to better explain key plot points, this is the definitive version of Final Fantasy IV that everyone should experience.

Arkanoid DS (DS)

In the beginning there was Pong. Then there was Breakout, and 10 years later there was Arkanoid. Taito's bat-and-ball block breaker first appeared in arcades more than 20 years ago, and in the years since it has graced numerous home computers and consoles. Arkanoid DS, which comes to North America and Europe minus the paddle controller that it was bundled with in Japan last year, introduces a handful of new features to the Arkanoid mix but thankfully doesn't do anything that's detrimental to the classic gameplay. Multiplayer options, new power-ups, unlockable audio and visual options, and the objective-based Quest mode make Arkanoid DS easy to recommend. The lack of a paddle (you can import one) is disappointing and the D-pad option is best avoided, but the stylus works just fine.

Arkanoid's traditional Clear mode should be the first one you check out, given that visiting levels there unlocks them for use in the new Quest mode. Taking the controls of the Vaus (that's the name of your bat at the bottom of the screen--it's actually a spaceship), Clear mode tasks you with destroying every block in a level using a ball (some kind of sci-fi energy projectile, no doubt) that rebounds off of everything it touches without ever losing momentum. You keep the ball alive by using your bat to prevent it from falling into the bottom of the screen, and the longer it takes you to hit all of the blocks, the faster the ball gets. Previous incarnations of Arkanoid worked like pinball in that losing a ball was the same as losing a life, and anytime that happened you just launched the next one until you ran out. Arkanoid DS does things a little differently: You get only one ball, ever, and if you lose it then it's game over. A number of energy barriers that span the bottom of the screen make it impossible for your ball to drop early on, but if you use one you lose one, so starting every level with three barriers means that you get three lives. You might think that having that many lives for every level makes Arkanoid DS too easy, but considering that the game doesn't stop or slow down when you hit a barrier, the real difference between this and previous games is just that this one keeps you playing at a more brisk pace.

Clear mode consists of 28 worlds arranged in an inverted pyramid shape. Each world is made up of five levels, and your goal is to get from the bottom of the pyramid to the top by taking any route you please. Every world that you beat along the way unlocks two new worlds, and by the time you get to the last row, you can end the game with any of seven different worlds. Given that they consist entirely of square bricks, level designs in Arkanoid DS are rarely much to look at, but occasionally the bricks are arranged to create pictures of everyday objects or recognizable characters from classic Taito games. Additional variety and challenge come in the form of blocks that take two hits to destroy, blocks that move, and blocks that simply get in the way because they can't be destroyed at all. Some of the level designs are truly fiendish toward the end of Clear mode, and many are designed in such a way that even power-ups don't help much. For example, equipping your Vaus with lasers is no help at all if the blocks that you need to shoot are hiding behind an indestructible wall. Other power-ups in Arkanoid DS include a longer Vaus, multiball, additional barriers, a powerball that can plow through multiple blocks, and more.

The same 140 levels from Clear mode appear in Quest mode, but there's no map to navigate, and you can attempt to complete them in any order you like. Rather than tasking you with clearing every block in a level, Quest mode hits you with level-specific objectives that must be completed either within a time limit or without hitting the ball more than a specific number of times. For example, you might have to clear all yellow blocks from a level within 45 seconds, or destroy 10 blocks while only hitting the ball three times. Objectives like these force you to play quite differently, and they're a great way to hone your skills before you check out the multiplayer options.

Arkanoid DS supports both local wireless and online play for up to four people (using friend codes or random matchmaking) in two different modes, and one copy of the game is all that you need to play with up to three friends locally. Bust All mode is a race to see who can clear a level first, whereas Bust Color mode is a race to see who can destroy all of the blocks of a specified color. The levels that you play on are randomly selected from all that the game has to offer, and you can keep an eye on your opponents while playing via small thumbnail images that appear alongside your own play area. Multiplayer games play out in the same way that single-player games do, except that any negative power-ups (power-downs, if you prefer) that you collect are passed on to your opponents. Shrinking other players' bats and slowing their balls are perhaps the most obvious ways to upset them, but multiplayer-specific pickups, such as one that randomly drops a handful of additional blocks on opponents' screens, are also worth pursuing.

Regardless of whether you're playing solo or multiplayer, you're rewarded for almost everything that you do in Arkanoid DS with points that serve as currency in the game's shop. Items for sale include new background music, new sound effects, new block and Vaus graphics, and new artwork for the backdrop. None of the unlockables impact the gameplay, and the additional audio options aren't nearly as agreeable as the default setting, which combines electro music with sound effects straight out of the '80s. But, if you've always dreamed of playing Arkanoid on a leopard-skin backdrop, with a Vaus made of wood along with blocks that look like Space Invaders, now you can.

There's more than enough fun to be had with Arkanoid DS to justify its budget price tag, and the multiplayer content and online leaderboards that compare your performances in the single-player Clear mode ensure that there's no shortage of replay value if you're the competitive type. Arkanoid was a great game in 1986 and it's still a great game in 2008. Arkanoid DS is even better. If you have any interest whatsoever in destroying blocks with a bat and ball, you won't be disappointed.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (PSP)

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII achieves a striking balance of old and new, and juggles fan service with pure role-playing satisfaction. It's striking how these elements have been shaped into such an appealing and emotionally affecting prequel. There are some new characters and plenty of fan favorites too, such as Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith. However, the characters you're most likely to empathize with are unlikely ones, including protagonist Zack, and Sephiroth, who is complex, troubled, and even sometimes likable. The way their personal stories weave in and out of each other--and set the stage for the events in Final Fantasy VII--makes Crisis Core not just the finest role-playing experience available on the PSP, but also one of the best Japanese RPGs in years.

Zack isn't new to the franchise, but he was a mere flashback in Final Fantasy VII, which may not make him seem like the best choice of leading man for a prequel to one of the best RPGs ever created. Yet he's as interesting as any Square Enix star, and transcends the usual spiky-haired heroism and teenage angst with an uncommon maturity that develops as the game continues. Revealing almost any plot point could be a spoiler; the Gaia world is rich with mythology and complex character motivation. What's important is how the characters interact, change, and grow. Scenes between Zack and Cloud are both effortless and poignant, and stem directly out of Zack's most impressive character traits: trust and loyalty. As each plot thread twists together and the game reaches its inevitable conclusion, your heart will soften and you may shed a few tears. Crisis Core tells a memorable and exciting tale, but more importantly, it makes you care about its characters, even if you are new to the lore. The game's final scenes are amazing and heartfelt, and one sequence in particular that brilliantly mingles gameplay with narrative is one of the most incredible and moving moments in role-playing history.

The game's stunning cutscenes have an immeasurable effect on the emotionally resonant story. There is a harmonious mix of prerendered cinematics and in-engine cutscenes, and both were created with precision. Dramatic camera angles frame Crisis Core's greatest moments, from earth-shaking soliloquies to the quiet pauses Zack and Aerith share. There is a standout scene in which Sephiroth comes into deep focus using a cinematography technique familiar to Alfred Hitchcock fans. This kind of range is rare in cutscenes, even in RPGs, yet it's never forced or overdone here. The quality is further enhanced by incredible voice acting. Past Final Fantasies have sometimes suffered from awkward English voice-overs, but each actor here delivers the right degree of emotion at the right time, which in turn gives weight to the story. As Zack matures, you can hear the newfound confidence replace his adolescent arrogance; when Angeal tells Zack that he's just a little more important than his sword, you can hear a subtle grin in his deep, commanding baritone.

If you enjoyed Final Fantasy VII, this kind of attention to detail won't come as a surprise. However, you may be startled at how the combat works. Crisis Core is an action RPG. Granted, it does have many of the same elements as FFVII: materia, limit breaks, and so on. However, it plays nothing like its inspiration, which may irritate some fans. This doesn't make it better or worse, but it does make it different, and once you get used to it, it's a lot of fun. Battles are almost exclusively random, with the exception of those that end your side missions (more on those later). When combat begins, you are limited to a contained area, but you can move freely within it. To target an enemy, you simply face in its direction, and to attack, you hit X. It's not quite real-time, but rather a series of quick turns that give you a smidgen of time in-between to select a different spell or attack. You can switch among different options and spells on the fly using the shoulder buttons. If you're familiar with the Tales series (Tales of the Abyss, and so on), you'll have a rough idea of how the combat works in Crisis Core.

You can also guard and evade oncoming attacks, though doing so spends action points. A number of special attacks, such as assault twister, also use action points. Other attacks, like spells, use up magic points. To perform them, you need to possess and equip the corresponding materia. Zack can't use an unlimited number of materia in battle; he's limited to a certain number at a time, so you'll want to choose wisely before you head into late-game combat, especially if you know a boss fight is imminent. You can also fuse materia together to make new spells or enhanced attacks, such as the impressive Thundara Blade. There are times when you'll need to take advantage of your materia and dodge oncoming attacks. Nevertheless, for the first half of the game, Crisis Core is remarkably easy, and a lot of battles come down to mashing on the X button. There is no shortage of potions and gil (the series' currency), either, and given that you can purchase items at any save point, there's no reason not to be fully stocked.

The combat is fun, and it will get Final Fantasy fans talking. But no mechanical element is bound to get more attention than the Digital Mind Wave, or DMW. The DMW is a slot reel that holds the key to two important facets of Crisis Core's gameplay: leveling up, and powerful attacks called limit breaks. The reel contains six slots: three that contain character portraits, and three that contain numerical digits. As you fight foes, you earn soldier points, which in turn function as currency that keeps the DMW in the top left corner spinning. When the left and right character portraits match, you enter a separate limit-verge screen where you wait for the digit slots and the center character slot to stop spinning. If you match all three portrait slots, you unleash a limit break, which is accompanied by a dramatic cinematic. If you match numerals, you may level up an equipped materia or Zack himself. The DMW also controls some status changes, such as temporary invincibility, though they aren't signaled by a change to the limit-verge screen.

This all sounds very confusing, and it may take you some time to figure out exactly what's going on. Essentially, leveling and limit breaks are left to the roll of the dice (or in this case, the spinning of the reel). The idea of random leveling and special attacks may make you squirm, and on paper, it sounds like a bad idea. In practice, it works out far better than you'd think. Just like when you pull the lever of a real slot machine, it's exciting and intriguing to see if you make a match. You can't skip past the limit verge screen, but if you could, you'd be missing the point (and be warned that you can't skip past cutscenes, though you can skip out of the long summoning animations and the flashbacks that occasionally crop up during limit verges). Your results are not completely random because your character's heightened emotions make it likelier that the DMW will spin up a positive result, such as after a phone call with Aerith. However, you may go a while without leveling up, only to level up multiple times in a short period of time. Sure, it's a strange system, and it will make your head spin at first. But it will become second nature, and in the end, it works. The downside is that it takes control of the game's most impressive attacks out of the hands of the player. Not everyone enjoys having the game do the grunt work for them, but the system is original and streamlined, and likely to grow on you.

Outside of the main story, there are plenty of side missions to keep you occupied. Most of them boil down to entering an area, killing a bunch of creatures, and earning your reward. It's simple, sure, but incredibly addicting, perfect for players on the go, and you may find yourself losing hour after hour to mission after mission. This is Crisis Core's grinding mechanic, but the combat is entertaining enough (and the DMW mesmerizing enough) to keep you involved. Some of the missions also weave in cameos from other characters, such as a charming set of missions centered on an impish Yuffie. Yet the action and limited customization goes only so far, and it seems that Square Enix understood that. Crisis Core is on the short side, clocking in at around 20 hours if you do a reasonable number of side missions, though you could add another 10 if you want to see every secret the game is hiding--and there are some good ones that will get fans talking. That may make the game feel less grand than previous entries, but in actuality, the length feels just right and keeps the action from wearing out its welcome.

You'll marvel at Crisis Core's visual and sonic beauty. Environments were designed with painstaking detail, from the slums of Midgar to the crystalline vistas of an underground lake. Character design is equally terrific, from Genesis' solemn sneer to Zack's gleaming blue eyes. Monsters look great too, and the imposing and astonishing bosses are particularly awesome to behold. The game sounds as good as it looks, starting with the terrific musical score, which includes both grinding rock tracks and haunting orchestral interludes. There are moments in which the action is undercut not with the same heart-pumping guitars we've heard before, but with softer tunes. These battles feel even more important because the music connects them so well with the emotional scenes that came before. Additionally, familiar sound effects have been updated and new ones added to make for combat that sounds as tremendous as it looks.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII is a game you must play if you own a PSP, if you like RPGs, or if you want to get lost in a gripping story. Like most Final Fantasy games that came before it, it has its quirks. However, this is one of those cases where you should embrace them for their originality and charm because they add something uniquely compelling to the game. The only truly disappointing aspect of Crisis Core is reaching the end, because Gaia is a world you want to stay in, populated with extraordinary characters who will move you.

Heroes of Mana (Nintendo DS)

Heroes of Mana is not the first Nintendo DS game to employ PC-style real-time strategy mechanics, but it's the first one to do it so thoroughly. There's a solid basis for a game in here, wrapped up with a terrific and sensible interface that RTS newcomers will pick up quickly. Veterans will also appreciate its simplicity and versatility. However, it can be a frequent disaster, drowning its lofty aspirations in a deluge of appalling unit pathfinding. The bizarre and unbalanced multiplayer setup will also turn off anyone looking to experience it with a friend. You may find some fun here and there, but the game tries its best to hide it from you.

Of course, this is a Mana game, so even though the gameplay is nothing like previous games in the series, fans will still enjoy the references and familiar creatures. Rabites and the elemental spirits alike have a role to play, so if you were worried about the new gameplay direction, you can at least hold onto them. The story isn't particularly engaging, but it's pleasant enough. It sends your rebel adventurers down a bleak path, only to gradually restore hope to them when all seems lost. While the narrative is fine, the frequency with which it intrudes upon gameplay is annoying. You'll have to tap your way through dialogue multiple times in each mission, which is a reminder of the series' role-playing roots, but it's a frequent frustration and a blow to the game's already inconsistent pace.

As in most RTS games, you need to collect resources (in this instance, gaia stones and treant fruit) and create structures to churn out battle units. Your base is a mobile airship, so it can move about the battlefield, but it must be fastened to an anchor point on the map to produce units and collect resources. Rather than buildings placed on the map proper, structures are contained within your base itself. Once you have enough stone, you simply enter your ship and choose the structure you want to build. Once the upgrade is complete, all you have to do is select the structure and choose which units you want to create, and then they pop right out.

These traditional mechanics are held together nicely by an intuitive interface that makes it easy to create units and move about the map. Gameplay takes place on the touch screen, so giving an order is as simple as touching a unit and choosing a destination. You can also issue group orders, either by tapping an icon at the bottom of the screen that chooses all similar units or by drawing a circle around the units you want to command. Getting around the map is likewise a breeze. You can use the D pad for free-form scrolling, but Heroes' best feature is its screen flipping. Tapping an icon swaps the top screen's minimap with the touch screen's gameplay map. You can then choose a destination on the minimap and swap the main map back onto the touch screen to give orders. This system makes it simple to order units around and to move quickly to skirmishes in progress.

But if issuing commands is quick and easy, getting your units to go where you ask is almost impossible. Heroes of Mana features the worst, most broken system of unit pathfinding ever devised. The map is actually a grid that comprises invisible squares, so units don't move freely toward their destination; they take an insane route based on what squares are available at the time the command is issued. The resulting stupidity may induce tears. If you build enough units at once, they will all crowd around your base until you give them an order, which keeps your gatherer units from returning resources. If a nearby square is already occupied when you issue a command, the unit will brainlessly take a route that sends it to the far reaches of the map, directly into enemy territory. To make it even worse, many of the maps have ramps, walkways, and other features that ground units must traverse to reach their objective. On those maps, you'll watch in agony as groups of units scatter, get stuck, or simply go nowhere because the game is incapable of finding a way to get them there.

Other development miscalculations also take their toll. In each battle, you choose a number of hero units to lead the way. Yet even with the various loot and spells you can equip them with, they're incredibly vulnerable. More often than not, you'll simply keep them out of the action, lest you lose the one that ends your mission. Pace is also a major factor, because units move…so…slowly. Yet other design elements are obviously designed to keep things moving. Resource nodes have very little for you to gather, forcing you to spread out quickly, and missions can be completed within 20 minutes or so. Therefore, the tempo feels really off; it's as if developer Brownie Brown decided to extend the game's length by slowing the units down.

Nevertheless, as shoddy as these elements are, Heroes of Mana has some nice things going for it. The balance between ranged, ground, air, and heavy units is simple but solid, so you should always be able to counter any given attack with the right unit. Elemental spirits, which let you unleash imposing assaults on your unsuspecting foes, are nice supplements, as are the accompanying cutscenes. The production values are terrific too. Maps and units are colorful, while the touch screen is often overflowing with the explosions of battle, as well as the clockwork movement of gatherers. The sound effects are fine, if a bit tinny, but the soundtrack is lovely and the perfect complement to the fantasy visuals.

In addition to the campaign, you can take on a friend locally, provided that he or she has a copy of the game. This is your chance to play as the Peddan army, Heroes' second faction. As you can guess, playing against a buddy is more fun than playing against the artificial intelligence, but it's too bad that the basic multiplayer design is completely moronic. Both players are required to unlock heroes, units, structures, and maps in the campaign before they can be accessed in multiplayer. This ties your multiplayer tech tree to your progress in the single-player game, which means that unless both you and your opponent have completed the campaign, the match will be totally lopsided. Not only does it limit your map and unit choices, but it annihilates the most important element inherent to RTS multiplayer: balance.

You may occasionally find yourself enjoying Heroes of Mana in spite of its shortcomings. At the very least, it confirms that RTS works on the DS. Sadly, vital aspects of its strategy gameplay are deeply flawed, which leaves you wondering what could have been if these major issues had been corrected. It's a step in the right direction, but it's a tiny, tiny step.