The End of a Dynasty (plus a game review)

My wife deleted her blog today. Brown Hair, Brown Eyes is gone.

If you saw the closing entry then you know why, but if not let me bring you up to speed: Essentially, she'd lost interest in it. She'd gotten to the point where she didn't blog about anything other than "This is what I did with my day, point by point." That ceased to be entertaining for her, I suppose. I can understand that; I've frequently wished I could spend a day in her head, just so I can know what it's like to live in a brain that's constantly on overdrive.

I'm the semi-proud owner of the new Star Ocean game. I'm a big fan of the series, but I've got a feeling this one's gearing up to disappoint me. The worlds are beautiful, the soundtrack is perfect, but so far the plot is completely useless and the main characters are all people I wish had *died* in the first shipwreck. They're not only of the young, plucky, huge-eyed youth variety, whoever did their art used a strange blend of realism and anime, resulting in models that are downright CREEPY.

I can't stand to look at our main hero too often. His face, pristine and glowing, maintains the same expression no matter what is going on. Seriously, he looks like he was molded from plastic and they're just using him to model a spacesuit like a mannequin. His blond hair shimmers and shines in the sun, blinding to an ordinary man and barely tolerable by me.

His girlfriend is so sweet I feel like every tooth in my head is developing a cavity just listening to her. Everything is nice and thankful and helpful; if she were married tomorrow she'd be a typical Japanese doormat. Only once has she broken from this: She went off on a tantrum, demanding that everyone stop treating her like a child. Well, sorry honey, if you go around in a spacesuit that makes you look like a schoolgirl with *pink ribbons in your hair* (I am not even kidding), you're going to get that reaction from people.

Next onto the roster is a Tolkien elf. Again, I'm not kidding, it's heavily implied that this alien species is what J.R.R. Tolkien was writing about in The Lord of the Rings. When we first saw the screenshots of this fellow, we were compelled to stare for a full *ten minutes* trying to figure out if this alien was male or female. If I hadn't heard others refer to him as a 'he' in the game, we *still* wouldn't be sure, and that's even after hearing his voice.

Speaking of voices...

Their voices--all of them--make me want to cram female sanitary napkins down each of their throats and cry "Plug it up!", with respect to Stephen King. We are on the railroad to whiny on this one, folks. I'm not very far in the plot, but this is a Tri-Ace game, which means things are going to be taking a turn toward the grim here very soon. I'm two hours into the game and we're already seeing the first hints of devastation. I shudder to think of how these irritating voices are going to express sadness and despair. I'm thinking we're doomed to Tidus Syndrome all over again.

I said I'm semi-proud as a game owner, didn't I? It does have some good points, and they're not small ones either. You might say they make up the saving graces of the game.

In the plus column, the combat system is lively and responsive. You only control one character at a time, leaving the AI to fend for itself while you focus. Normally this would make me cringe, but in this case I'm truly glad. The AI is so far flawless. Characters you aren't controlling respond appropriately to combat situations and get the hell out of the way when they're in danger. You know, like they're supposed to. Archer girl stays in the back and attacks from range, and jumps away when things are coming after her. Mage elf uses a healthy blend of his melee skills and magical ability. I'm not sure what Hero does when I'm not controlling him, since I always control him, but I'd imagine he does fine too.

This is a complete 180 from the last game. In that one if you didn't micromanage every member of your team, the first thing they'd do is fling themselves into danger and remain there while they were massacred, all the while not really doing anything to help the overall situation. To say I am both surprised and pleased by the change in this installment would be an understatement.

As I mentioned before, the environments are amazing and make good use of the technology it was deployed on. The soundtrack is excellent, but we knew it would be; Sakuraba does it again, after all. The spaceships, and the technology inside of them, are real treats for a huge nerd like me to be presented with.

In conclusion: Like Final Fantasy X, I have a feeling that this is going to be a game I play because it's fun, and because I like how parts of it look and sound, and not because I give a flyin' about anything that's going on. That's fine, truly; I've played a lot worse for a lot less, let me tell you. Also, to be fair, I haven't seen everything yet. It could well be that this thing will engage me soon. It's happened before.