Game Review: Brave Frontier

I remember a time when I found one of the old Final Fantasy games(More specifically the 4th game) and played though it. It was a pretty solid experience. Sadly, I lost it. But recently, I've discovered something in the App store that relives that feeling of that game. And has been eating up a lot of my time.

Brave Frontier is a game developed by Japanese studio Alim and game company Gumi. As a debut title for Alim, it was released around last year(End of the year for the International/English version), and has been on the end of praise from many, being said as most popular in Japan, Korea and Singapore.

The game's story occurs in the land of Great Gaia, where mad gods reign and oppress. The player will play as a summoner, someone who can summon the spirits of heroes and beasts into battle. Unlike the many other NPC summoners in the game, the player is actually chosen by land's great god Lucius and assisted by another goddess Tanalith(Probably spelled her name wrong but close enough), who will guide the player though to fight the Four Gods who have betrayed him.

Gameplay revolves around creating a squad of 5 units(1 unit whose leader skill affects the entire team and 4 other units) and setting up items before a quest. During battle, players will tap at a character to attack. After attacking, the character's button is dimmed out. The player's turn ends when all characters in the player's roster has attacked. Then it's the enemy's turn.

Example of a battle

Units have special abilities that they can use called Brave Bursts. When the blue bar under their Health is filled, they can execute their abilities. The game has something else that makes battles more involving, which is the 'Spark' function. When two or more unit's land an attack simultaneously, a 'Spark' occurs, dealing extra damage or activating an effect from the leader unit. This makes a player really take note of how units attack, as some of them take time before they execute an attack.

It's so sparkly.

Arena mode lets players challenge other summoners squads, though they will have no control over the battle.

Outside of battle consists of the Town, where Items and Spheres(Basically the 'Equipment' of the game, which grants buffs to the unit equipping it) can be made and materials used to make the items are also harvested here. Currency is split into two: Zel and Karma. Zel is used for Unit related tasks(Leveling up, Evolving) while Karma is used for Sphere creation and upgrading facilities in the Town.

The game really makes one feel like they're playing an old Final Fantasy game, only more intense. The Spark and varying attack timings make battles feel more satisfying when a player manages to 'Spark' properly. Having Item limits in quests also puts a degree of tactics into the fray, meaning that players cannot abuse the items for cheap wins through it. Making the Town preset with the player only needing upgrade and harvest cuts down most of the fat that other RPG games on smartphones do suffer from. Victories feel much more rewarding as quests ramp up in difficulty, with enemies being able to inflict status aliments and attack multiple times in a turn.

Units, Items and Spheres each have their own story that can be read in the menus(Assuming you possess it at some point in time) that fleshes out the world of Great Gaia, providing something else to do outside of battle. 

The developers and localization team are rather responsive on their fanpage, responding promptly to issues as soon as they can.

YET

There are still some problems. For starters, the quests can ramp up in difficulty FRIGHTENINGLY fast. Grinding may become something one needs to get used to if they don't manage to summon strong units with their free Rare summons. Leveling up units can become another type of grind as well. It would be good if the game had allowed units to Equip more than one Sphere as they can really help out players.

It's a murder from the first area.

Arena boils down to who had the rarest units and highest level. The lack of control over the battle does cause frustration when victory could be possible but is lost due to a unit not executing their Brave Burst in battle.

Server issues and game crashes can occur quite a bit, resulting in the loss of progress.

For a debut title, Alim has hit a home run. Overall, the game deserves a 8/10. It does feel like it could be intimidating to newcomers or casual players, but the depth it provides for those willing to pick it up makes up for it.

Game Review: Crysis 2

Before anyone asks, it's the console version. And sadly, I never did get around to playing the first one due to my computer being unable to handle it (Reason elaborated below). Though I will recount some history of what I know of it. Because related topic.

Crysis(And every game under this series) is a game developed by German video game company Crytek. The company is known best for this series and Farcry, both of which use the CryEngine, a self-designed gaming engine with the intent of displaying and executing the most modern graphics and gameplay(Making the processor of most computers cry in the process and why I can't play).

The nightmare of processors when under highest graphical settings

The first game(Crysis) is set in 2020, telling the story of a soldier by the callsign Nomad within the U.S Delta Force as he and his Nanosuit enhanced team are dispatched after a distress signal.The first game ends with the discovery of the alien beings and their relation to the suits, as well as their awakening.

The second game, Crysis 2(Of which is the subject of this post) takes place three years after the events of the game. Instead of Nomad, the protagonist of the first game, the main star of the game is a US Marine called Alcatraz, . Unlike the first game, he and his team aren't supersoldiers with nanosuits. That is, of course, until the submarine they were in gets attacked and sunk by said aliens(Later referred to as Ceph).

Alcatraz is mortally wounded and close to death, but he is saved at the last moment by one of the members of the team from the last game. When he wakes up, he finds himself inside the same Nanosuit, with his rescuer dead by suicide. It turns out he was infected with a virus/bio-weapon that had plagued the human population after the Cephs emerged and attacked. Seeing he had no enough time and Alcatraz dying in front of him, he made the choice to bet on the marine and hope he would continue in his place. And so begins Crysis 2.

As a first person-shooter, it stands pretty strong by itself. And you don't really need the exact context of the first game to be invested in the story. Because you are playing as someone who doesn't either.

The base gameplay is the standard first-person shooter affair,such as needing to go from Point A to Point B, with enemies trying to paint the streets with your blood or mowing down a giant enemy. What makes Crysis 2 different from other games is HOW you do that.

The unique feature of the game is the Nanosuit. It provides options to the player, with abilities such as Cloaking and Armour. This means that unlike most shooters where you tend to need to kill everything to get to your objective or go through one specific method to beat a big bad, Crysis 2 gives you options. You could sneak past your enemies or tank through. There are also upgrades to the suit that assist in the functionality.


Basically who you can be.

 The game's levels are designed so that there's no specific way to get to your objective, complimenting the Nanosuit's abilites.

A thing to note that makes the game good is the camera. The perspective NEVER leaves the first person view, be it for cutscenes or gameplay. This means that you're not controlling Alcatraz, you ARE Alcatraz. Every bit of development leading up to this point that he learns, you're learning as well. Every situation he is in within cutscenes, you're watching the situation from his eyes as well.

And as said before, even in gameplay. An example would be upgrading is done with an interface that looks directly implemented onto his body.

Buttons on the fingers. The bleeping sounds are quite lovely to listen too.


HOWEVER

The freedom to choose what path also means that the moment you choose a path that's easy, chances are, you'll go that way most often. Another issue is on the Nanosuit itself. An issue that breaks the game. And that is the Invisibility. Because suit energy is rechargeable, it's easy to just zip past squads of enemies, going into cover and hiding until the energy is recovered and repeat till you reach the end for most missions. What makes it worse is that there are only two kinds of enemies that can actively spot you, both being bossfight situations, so the normal goons can't see you unless you choose to get too close to them. It would be more intense and challenging to fight more enemies that can still threaten you while you're cloaked.

Another issue is the fact that there's a distinct lack in variety for enemies. It's either humans or aliens. The humans tend to be only different in terms of weapons while the aliens, though having variants, don't seem threatening enough outside of the major fights.

Overall, I would give Crysis 2 a 7.5/10 because the game is great for what it is and the kind of immersion it can give, but invisibility breaking the game, lack of varied threats and overly easy paths drag it down.