The handheld future (imagine it's a Sunday).

Lately i seem to be playing handhelds alot - obviously by that i mean the Nintendo DS and the PSP, not a GameGear or a Lynx. That would be madness.

I think the main reason for this is that RPG's seem to have found their home on the handhelds and, not being one to worry about graphics, i've actually found that alot of the RPG's released on the smaller format are far more satisfying than anything currently released on the next gen consoles.
The last few RPG offerings on the next-gens have seriously left me wanting with the possible exception of Lost Odyssey but even that fell short of my expectations slightly - certainly titles like The Last Remnant and Infinite Undiscovery have left a bad taste in my mouth after a deliberate effort on my part to possibly see past their short comings and hope that they blossom somewhere in the middle. Unfotunately they did not.

I wait with baited breath for FFXIII because it's going to be a Square Enix release; the aforementioned titles were also by them and weren't of the high standard i would normally expect. Maybe i'm naive and want every game to rise to the heady heights of FFX but there really was little to endear me to the likes of Infinite Undiscovery which played similarly to Star Ocean but with a tacked on Final Fantasy cast and storyline - it just didn't work and ultimately was a bore to play through.


Infinite Undiscovery means well but it's just dull. I think in all the RPG's i've ever played i'v never been so dis-interested in a group of characters. Oh and the voice acting is abysmal, i thought with the latest resurrgance of original Japanese voice overs we'd be spared the squeaky American offerings but alas no.

The instant appeal of the less flashy but infintely (see what i did there) more playable handheld titles like FF: Crisis Core, Chronotrigger, Valkyrie Profile and even (sorry, especially) titles like Golden Sun on the GBA just prove that the appeal of the game is in the dynamic - the instant playability factor, the likeable characters and the effortless and addictive pull to keep playing to see what's around the next corner.


It's hard to type this through the tears that are welling up in my eyes just by thinking about how much i love Golden Sun.

It's a sad day when i get substantially more enjoyment from miniature gaming when next gen consoles have so much potential to deliver an RPG experience that would set the precedent for those to come. This is the spot that FFXIII could potentially fill and if Square Enix screw it up again this time i'm going to punch every one of them in the mouth.