Easy Mode

Two games that I know of, namely Golden Sun: The Lost Age and Chrono Trigger, allow players who have beaten the game once to use their characters from when they beat the game in a new game.

Lost Age refers to this as easy mode, and beating the game also unlocks hard mode: you start a new game with normal characters but the enemies are tougher. Oddly, one cannot play hard mode with their characters from a previous game...

Chrono Trigger is a bit different. See, there are (I believe) 18 separate endings avalable, each one unlockable by beating the boss of the game at different times (one of which is right at the beginning of the game), as well as losing to him.

Chrono Trigger allows you to keep your items (I think), which means that you can start a new game with the best stuff in the game, and there are also these little things you find every now and then that increase your stats, so playing through a game multiple times allows you to (theoretically) max out the stats on all your characters. I haven't gotten around to starting a new game, but even though I am something like level 50 the boss fight was hard (and I had my pick of characters from the whole game).

Chrono Trigger is so long, though, that even with just the main character I will probably be able to kill bosses in one hit for a significant portion of the game. Thing is, you don't get to keep your gold or most unique items.

Golden Sun, though, has a different purpose for easy mode: aparently there is a maximum of level 99 in Golden Sun, and apparently starting a new game in easy mode allows you to somehow pass that maximum.

Other games allow you to do the same, but it is not as obvious and there are other applications. The Baldur's Gate series of games, Neverwinter Nights 1&2, and (I think) Icewind Dale 1&2 have a feature where you can save your character, so what you can do is start a new game with any character you want. Most of those games, however, feature scaled monsters. That means that the monsters and other people that you fight in the game get stronger as you get stronger.

The save character feature in Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance saved me a lot of thought and heartache. See, you can only carry so much stuff at one time, and I was in this area where you can't sell the stuff you find and you also can't go back to somewhere that you can sell your stuff. So what I did was whenever my pack was full I would save my character and import it into a savegame file I had that was at the beginning of the game, sell my stuff, and save again and go back to the original save file.

Personally, though, I want to see something like that in Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, since that game has excellent scaling of monsters, and since it takes place on an entire continent and you can go anywhere at any time I don't have to worry about the items and bosses and whatever being too weak.

Fainaru Fantaji

Recently a friend of mine started playing Final Fantasy 3, and he was having such a fun time that I decided to dig out my game boy and the cartridge for Final Fantasy 1&2 and start playing them again (I stopped playing them a while back after I beat them).

FF 1, or Fainaru Fantaji, is fairly straightforeward as far as character class is concerned - you start with 4 little people, and each of those people is either a White Mage, Black Mage, Red Mage, Warrior, Thief, or Monk, and they level up every now and then to get stronger. The fun of the game is in doing the quests, beating tough monsters, and getting stronger so you can fight tougher monsters and do more quests. That is why I like it - I don't have to worry much about training this skill or that skill, I just level up (usually on my way to fighting the next boss) and that's it.

At least near the end of the game you can upgrade your characters to better classes. Black Mages, White Mages, and Red Mages become Black Wizards, White Wizards, and Red Wizards respectively, Thieves become ninjas, Warriors become Knights, and Monks become ... something (I never use monks).

On the other hand, FF 2 (Fainaru Fantaji tsu) doesn't feature levels (although every few kills your health does go up), and you increase your skills by using them (so, if you want to be really good at using swords, you have to go out and hit people with swords). It does involve a bit more thought and work, but it allows for much more customized characters. For example, I started a new game recently, and I decided that I wanted the 3 core characters to not only be good at hitting people with various types of weapons, but also with magic. So, I bought them some tomes that teach some basic spells, and had them cast those spells a lot. They got better at casting those particular spells (so, more damage) and at magic in general, and now they can use magic to exploit particular weaknesses that enemies have.

Heck, I even managed to take the wimpy character that is supposed to be a mage and turn her into my most powerful character (best at magic, most  damage, second most health, etc).

While I am talking about FF 1 and 2, I might as well talk about the other Final Fantasy games I have played.

FF4, or Fainaru Fantaji Fo, was apparently the first Final Fantasy game to include a real-time battle system, as opposed to the player selecting actions for each character at the beginning of the turn and then the characters perform those actions in an order based on their speed. While the real-time battling in FF4 is primitive compared to the one in Chrono Trigger (another excellent game), it added some suspense and excitement to the battles that wasn't there in other games.

The main reason I didn't really get into FF4 is because the only version I have is for the PlayStation and, therefore, not portable, yet the graphics and whatever in several game boy games I have (such as Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age) are better.

I have a copy of Final Fantasy 8 (or is it seven?) but since I have never gotten around to playing it I don't have much to say.

Then there is Final Fantasy 10, or Fainaru Fantaji Ten, which I have to get around to beating sometime. I know the basic plot and what heppens in it from playing it's sequel, but it features some interesting features, such as people with melee weapons such as swords being able to hit flying creatures if they are fast enough. Add to that the fact that the graphics are good (featuring movie-quality cutscenes every now and then), there are non-fighting challenges (such as the blitzball tournament I am about to lose), and a level-up system that allows customization as well as preventing people from getting the best stuff right away.

Finally, Final Fantasy X-2 (also known as ten-two because it is FF10 part 2) or Fainaru Fantaji Ten-Tsu, Is one of the only Final Fantasy Games I have heard of that doesn't feature character swapping (whether that be 'one character leaves your party and another takes his place' or 'I want to use this other character for a while instead of that one'). Add to that the possibility for a character to be any class at any time and swap classes at pretty much a moment's notice, and the fact that you can (theoretically) go anywhere at any time, whether or not you have a mission there at the time.

There are many other Final Fantasy games out there (not restricted to Final Fantasy followed by a number), and as far as I know they are pretty much all good games (although I have heard a few bad things about a FF7 spinoff called Dirge of Cerberus... but that's probably just because it is a mix of RPG and FPS)

More Red Alert 2

I was playing Red Alert 2 over the weekend (several skirmishes to be specific).

The first one, I was the French and I was fighting Russia. It was during this game that I realized just how much I turtle. I was building defenses and things, and there was this annoying group of tanks in the middle of the map. Ordinarily I would have sent in some planes and killed them that way, but they had some anti-air tanks with them and planes in RA2 are hideously easy to shoot down.

I thought about it for a while, and I realized that a few prism tanks would probably have the range and power to dislodge them (and perhaps even destroy a few in the process), but as I was about to build some prism tanks I thought to myself "what am I doing? A grand cannon would be so much better!" And then it hit me: I am putting off building units to build stationary defenses: I am turtling SO much.

The second game I was Korea and I was fighting against Russia again. I was doing pretty much the same thing (just no grand cannons since only France can build them), but I was relying on my Black Eagles to fight for me (Black Eagles are Korea's special unit - a plane that does twice as much damage as the regular ones). I had two groups of eagles, with 12 planes in each. I decided to cripple the computer, so I sent them all in with orders to destroy his construction yard (what allows him to build stuff, and he can't replace it without having a building that he doesn't have). The first group blew up the Construction Yard, so they all turned back (taking heavy losses but crippling the computer).

After I had blown up everything of value and he sent all his remaining troops at my base's defenses to be blown up, all that was left was me and whatever submarines and things he had (to win, I have to kill all of his units and buildings). So, what I did was build this cheap little hovering tank and send it out over the water near my base (this was on an island). Sure enough, it got attacked almost instantly, and I then had my planes come in and bomb the heck out of that area for a while.

When I realized that I wasn't really doing anything, I decided to build a prism tank since it's weapon has an area that it deals damage in. I had my prism tank firing at the water in a search pattern, and when I saw it hit something I would send in the planes to where the submarine looked like it was going and try to shoot it.

In the end, I had built something like 20 or 30 units and destroyed my enemy, taking something like 10 casualties.

A Game of Tiberian Sun

I was playing Tiberian Sun over the weekend, and this time I decided to play a skirmish so that I could use most or all of the technology. There is this little slider that lets you determine the level of technology used in a skirmish (I think it goes up to 8), and I had it set 1 below the highest because I didn't want to have to worry about superweapons.

Since I like to play as GDI (and I don't know how to change things about the enemy in skirmishes) it was GDI vs GDI. I, of course, turtled - I had a few titans and some infantry in my base, and since I got 2 invisible MLRSs early on I had them exploring the map. Then, eventually, right around the time I got my base built up enough, my enemy sent in a unit I hadn't seen before (I later learned that it was an Orca Bomber) and my anti-air stuff was unable to shoot it down (which surprised me, since Orca Fighters get shot down almost instantly).

Nothing of mine was permanently damaged, but I had to spend a bunch of money on repairs, so I got interested in these Orca Bomber things. After I added a bunch more anti-air defenses, I started building helicopter pads and Orca Bombers. I had a group of 4 of them that was relatively successful in blowing up enemy tiberium harvesters, and I had plenty of money from my harvesters, so I started building more.

I ended up with 2 groups of 6 bombers blowing up harvesters, until I decided to cripple my opponent. I sent in my 2 groups of bombers to blow up his construction yard (it's the thing that lets him build buildings and he can't replace it). They flew in and blew it up with minimal damage, and after reloading and repairing I had them fly in again and blow up his anti-air defenses. He was crippled and defenseless.

Soon, my bombing raids had blown up his means of producing units, and he decided (in that way that CnC AIs do at the end of a game) that if he sold all his buildings and had all his units run into the range of my considerable base defenses that he might win. Of course, he didn't.

Why I Don't Buy Many Video Games Anymore

Video games are oddly expensive these days. Of the three systems that have come out recently (Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii), the cheapest is $250 and the most expensive is $600.

I remember when I bought Neverwinter Nights for $20, same with Baldur's Gate 2, and Red Alert 2 (which are three excellent games). Heck, I got Halo for $10! Now, Neverwinter Nights 2 costs $50 and it's basically just NWN with a few patches, worse frame rate (but the same level of graphics), and a new plot. Don't get me wrong, NWN2 is a great game, but video games these days are falling into a never-ending spiral: they get more expensive, so people can't afford to buy as many of them, so they raise their prices again.

It's the same way with movie theaters - I never go see a movie in the theaters these days unless it's some sort of get-together with my friends (and even then, we usually just go to somebody's house and watch stuff we already own).

It's been this way with console games ever since I got into them with the Nintendo 64 and it's $50-60 games. For some reason, the people who make consoles and the games for them believe that if they have their stuff be horribly expensive that they till make no money, while the only way I am ever going to be able to buy their new stuff is if I win the lottery or something.