Heroes of Mana

THE QUEST FOR A JRPG! PART 1

First an addendum to the last review. It turns out you CAN jump up and down on skyscrapers until they no longer exist in Rampage, making it perhaps the best game in the history of the world.

However it was about the time that I was stuffing Twinkies into my face, using a giant chicken to jump on Dallas because they've had it coming for far too long that I began to think, "What am I doing with my time?"

"Look at you," said my Subconscious the pompous ass that he is "You're the kid who spent FIVE HOURS arguing with his mother about weather or not BioShock is true art, which it is, and now you're playing a game that requires less intelligence than watching PUNK'D."

He had a point. I'm one of the biggest Games are Art snobs you will find. Yet the games I'm GOOD at are things like Rampage and Just Cause, and the biggest artistic message THOSE games are trying to get across is "DIE, DIE IN FIRE!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"

So I tried to think of a game genre more intelligent and that I'm actually proficient at.

"A turn based Japanese Role Playing Game!" I said with a note of triumph.

"Really?" said Lord Superego peering over his monocle "More intelligent?"

Again he had a point. If games are art then JRPGs are those weird abstract sculptures with names like "Hatred" or "Destiny." The exhibit that makes everyone argue over what it represents and why. Completely blind to the fact that it's probably just a heap of scrap metal in a funny shape.

Though they are entertaining, and they make the raving lunatic hobo living outside the Game Art Museum East ranting about the "Gub'ment Cheese" that is my imagination FEEL intelligent so what the hell.

So I went to see if I could get my hands on a copy of Final Fantasy IV and the answer was..... Not until next week. So I went through the house looking for decent candidates for a review while I waited. The search brought up three possibilities. Mario and Luigi: Bowsers Inside Story, Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood and today's virgin sacrifice to Monotonous, Greek God of Boredom, Square Enix's Heroes of Mana.

The game started of with an opening crawl explaining the plot. Apparently the Humans of the Land of mana are engaged with the Beastmen, because they were arguing over who was better, Chuck Norris, or Bruce Lee. Councils were called, committees were formed, DVD copies of Day of the Dragon were thrown at people's heads! The rest was simply bloodshed....

At least that's what I WANT to be happening because I lost interest around the FOURTH PARAGRAPH OF NOTHING BEING SAID.

I started tapping the skip button like I had Parkinson's.

"Skipping the exposition!" complained His Lordship from the Chaise Longue "How uncouth!"

"Bite me Your Grace, I'm wasting life!"

So I finally made it to the dialogue and they began to talk about *thud* ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

"Rabble Rabble, Most unorthodox, Rabble"

So again, frantic skipping.

Once I actually GOT to the game play it turned out it WASN'T a turn-based game at all. It was Real Time Strategy.

Real Time Strategy (or RTS) is a form of RPG where you sit atop an ivory tower and order an army, that you create, and send it to kill every thing that isn't wearing your uniform.

Well I was very good at StarCraft in my younger days. StarCraft was also VERY fun.

So I kept playing with hope in my heart that was crushed around the third tutorial!

There is a tutorial for selection. A tutorial for moving. A tutorial for building. A tutorial for making units. A tutorial for gathering resources. A tutorial for gathering a DIFFERENT KIND of resources while doing the SAME THING. A tutorial telling you how to hang yourself from the highest tree because it's been two hours of playtime with no combat.

Finally a Beastman DID arrive on the Battle field and I sent my units across to attack. This is when I realized that all the units move at a pace one normally associates with the DEAD. It took ten minutes, TEN MINUTES, for my soldiers to shamble over to the enemy. That is inexcusable.

Once I GOT over to the enemy, he immediately dispatched of my entire army and I lost the mission.

I took out the Game Card and threw it across the room.

"You haven't even gotten past the first ENEMY. What kind of unwashed savage are you?" Lord Superego scoffed.

So I whipped around and shot His Grace in the shin.

This is the worst game I have ever had the pain to play. It's boring, repetitive, tedious, annoying, and it obviously thinks that the player is either incredibly thick, or has only heard of video games from the hermit crab who shares the space under the boulder with him.

This game is so bad I spent half this review talking to myself.

I want all of my readers, (that's right both of you) to find a copy, shoplift it so no one makes money of this garbage, take it out of the store, and BURN it so it can't hurt anyone anymore.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to play sonic and nurse my shin.