The Digimon (Digital Monsters) Fantasy

I have torn myself from playing Digimon (Digital monsters) Story: Cyber Sleuth to post this, so let’s get this done. (oh yeah, Digimon are the Champions).

Does Final Fantasy XV actually exist?

(Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?)

Next month, Square Enix finally releases the release date for the long-gestating game known as Final Fantasy Versus 13, I mean Final Fantasy XV. That’s right, instead of just telling us the release date now, they are making us wait for them. So, does this game actually exist, or when the time comes to go get the game will millions of gamers have an M. Knight Shyamalan moment while in line at their local game shop.

Let’s start at the beginning. It was summer 2006, I was a 14-year-old who still believed everything on the internet, and just experienced the epicness that was Kingdom Hearts 2. In June 2006, after still coming down from the Square Enix high that is Kingdom Hearts 2, I heard about Square Enix’s new games that they announced at E3. I was excited and I wanted to see what the creators of Kingdom Hearts was doing next. I went to a fairly new website that put up videos for people to watch, I believe it was called You Tube (I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it). I watched the trailer for Final Fantasy 13 (it was OK), I also saw Final Fantasy Agito (looked boring), but then I saw Final Fantasy Versus 13 and I was completely blown away. Versus 13 was one of the three games that made me wait to get a PlayStation 3 (although I had to wait till 2009 for the price drop). This Final Fantasy game looked so much different than anything else and a badass main character. 

(Can it live up to the hype)

After seeing the trailer, I, like many gamers around the world, waited and we waited. Every now and then we would get a trailer. This June it will be 10 years since the game was announced. It has gone through a couple changes (new director, new name, new consoles). Now, we are possibly months away from actually seeing the game hit store shelves. The question remains, does Final Fantasy XV exist? Does this game that has been building up hype in every gamer’s mind for the past ten years live up to it? Duke Nukem Forever couldn’t, Dragon Ball Evolution definitely couldn’t, it remains to be seen if Last Guardian can do it, and let’s be honest, it is going to be difficult for Half Life 3 to live up to that too. Ten years is just too long to wait. While waiting for this ten iPhones have been released, an entire console generation has gone by, the Uncharted franchise has risen and is about to conclude, eight Assassin’s Creed games has come out, Twilight has come and gone, and I can go on forever. The problem is that everyone is a different person than they were ten years ago. Me, for example, I’ve gone from a happy go lucky person who saw the best in every movie to a cynical person who complains about everything (I don’t complain about everything, just… wow, I have gotten cynical). It is too much time for the hype to build up, and now it is almost impossible for the game to meet expectations. The demo was very good, but if that is how the game is, when gamers boot up the game sometime this year, they won’t be getting the game they had dreamed of since 2006. Final Fantasy XV is coming to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One sometime in 2016.

Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth first impressions

(Greymon digivolve to...)

Cyber Sleuth is an amazing game, especially because I didn’t know that the game is going to be that good. It’s taken the best parts of Pokémon and Persona plus a huge dose of nostalgia. In the game you raise Digimon and battle them while trying to solve a deeper mystery in the digital world. So far, the biggest problem of the game is the tutorial in the beginning. The game takes too long to set things up, and barely lets any freedom till the tutorial is done. The story surprisingly has enough mystery to keep you coming back. Then the nostalgia of teaming with your favorite Digimon (so far I have Greymon, Garurumon, Kabuterimon, Angemon, and I’m working may way up to) to do battle feels and looks cool. The battle system is fast and fluid, it has very similar features to the way Pokémon battles are done. You get to pick whether you’re a girl or a boy and then go on an adventure. It sounds a lot like a Pokémon game, but it quickly diverts once the story really starts. I’m going to go and continue playing the game, trust me, if you, in any way or form, like Digimon, this is the game for you. Once I’m done, I’ll try to do some sort of review. It is available for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita. I will say this, right now, I would rather play Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth than Final Fantasy XV.