Thursday, July 22, 2004

You got 1,000 Force Gems! It's good to be alive!

	Ah, the joys of having the location of every Big Key in Zelda: Four Swords Adventures memorized, so that you can snatch up the contents of Big Chests before your friends even know what's happening. Ain't it grand? So anyway, I called up a friend at about 9:30 AM and asked if he was free. He was, so he came over around noon and we ended up playing Zelda: Four Swords Adventures and Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles for about six hours. (It's handy that between us we own both worthwhile connectivity-focused games as well as three GBAs and cables). It was a lot of fun; we completed levels 5 and 6 in FSA, and in FFCC we beat one new dungeon, as well as the first dungeon on the third cycle (my brother was playing with us on a new character, so the later levels tended to kill him rather fast). About Four Swords Adventures. . . . It's a wonderful single player game, but it's really just an absolute joy whenever I get to play it in multiplayer mode. Even with only two people, the simple fact that there's some real cooperation/competition going on adds a lot of fun to the game. I cannot wait until I get to play the game in three or four player mode. Another friend, upon seeing my FSA shirt at church this evening, said he wanted to get together with me and the friend I had over so he could play multiplayer mode, so hopefully that will happen soon. And about Chrystal Chronicles. . . . I've heard a lot of people complain about this game, but really, I find it to be plenty of fun. Maybe it's just because I've only ever played the game in multiplayer mode, and having enough GBAs was never an issue, but I really don't see all that much wrong with the game. Yeah, there are things that could've been done better, but that's true of any game. I enjoy FFCC for what it is -- I don't dislike it for what it isn't. I mainly find the combat to be a lot of fun. Most of the time, if you just run up and start hacking away, you'll die pretty quickly. But if you're good, you can actually anticipate enemies' attacks and dodge out of the way, or you can have someone sitting back casting spells to help keep the fighter types from taking as much damage, such as when me and my friend were fighting up front with a group of enemies and my brother was sitting back and freezing them with ice spells. (Which brings up another point: I really love the magic system in FFCC, as it fits in perfectly with the real time combat). There's really quite a good amount of depth to what you can do with what at first appears to be simple hack and slash gameplay, if you care to delve into it and use teamwork. So while I haven't gotten to play FFCC an incredible amount, not owning the game myself, every time I have played it, it's been a lot of fun. It seems kind of odd to say an FF game is underrated, but I think FFCC is somewhat underrated. If you've got some friends and some GBAs, I think it's one of the best multiplayer games on the GCN. Or at least it's one of my favorites, at any rate. Oh, and just a quick note: It's All About the Rupees has been moved to http://www.wrappedinplastic.net/rupees/ so be sure and update your bookmarks (if anyone out there has bothered to bookmark my site).

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