The Top Shelf: Case Files 166-175: "Penultimate Perambulations"

Welcome to The Top Shelf, a weekly feature wherein I sort through my extensive PS2 collection for the diamonds in the rough. My goal here is to narrow down a library of 185 games to a svelte 44: the number of spaces on my bookshelf set aside for my PS2 collection. That means a whole lot of vetting and a whole lot of science that needs to be done, ten games at a time. Be sure to check out the Case File Repository for more details and a full list of games/links!

Case File 166: Sega's Yakuza

• Original Release (JP): 05/12/2005
• Not PS2 Exclusive (well, technically. It was remade as Yakuza Kiwami for PS3 and PS4)

Hard to comprehend how late Yakuza appeared in the PS2's lifespan. In part because we think of the Yakuza games as these huge, impressive open-world affairs packed with mini-games and a complex combat system that you'd think would only work in the PS3 era or later (or maybe not, given San Andreas boasts a similar level of complexity). More than that, though, Yakuza 2 is also a PS2 game, so how late a release could the first have possibly been? The first adventure of Kazuma "The Dragon of Dojima" Kiryu, which I won't elaborate on here for the sake of those starting the series with Yakuza 0 for some reason (or are watching the GBEast crew curbstomp their way through it), establishes the franchise's trademark strengths: the labyrinthine noir conspiracy plots that aim to distinguish what a "good" Yakuza is in a world of cutthroat psychos, the brutal street fighting combat system which allows the player to take enemies out of action quickly with contextual "heat actions", a bevvy of open-world side-activities and other milestone goals to pursue like eating every meal and brand of booze at every establishment, and the game's balance of open-world exploration and railroaded plot depending on the player's current position in the story.

The original Yakuza was marred slightly by its all-star Hollywood voice actor cast, who don't quite capture the level of steely restraint shown by Japanese actors who are far more familiar with the themes and tone of the Yakuza movie genre, and it falls short of its incredible sequel by any metric of game criticism you could care to utilize. I won't get too deep into that one's story either, but let's say Yakuza 2 has some moments in it that puts it high on the list of best Yakuza games (though I say that only having completed the first four of them). The last, and perhaps most significant reason why Yakuza 1's journey ends here, is that you'll almost certainly want to play Yakuza Kiwami instead when it finally sees an international release later this year - not only is it a full graphical remaster, but it's apparently packed with additional content. Eliminated.

Case File 167: Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts II

• Original Release (JP): 22/12/2005
• Not PS2 Exclusive (out on PS3 and PS4 in various "remixes")

I'm still not sure how I feel about Kingdom Hearts II. It was a bigger and bolder sequel that expanded the mythos and improved on the extant gameplay systems, which is usually what you want from a sequel, but seems purpose-built to muddy the waters for what should be, if you pardon the expression, a simple and clean Square Enix property that a young and/or casual Disney-fed audience can get their heads around. Instead, the series became the video game equivalent of Homestuck: a Byzantine narrative so far up its own ass that only the true diehards who absorb every morsel of bonus material and apocrypha surrounding it has any idea what's going on. There was a concern that when Kingdom Hearts III eventually rolled around (Square Enix's latest offering of "probably within three years" is delightfully noncommittal) you'd need to play any number of the various spin-offs and cross-media productions in order to follow where the story is presently at, and that concern was realized when Square Enix suddenly started remastering all the spin-offs in a couple of compilations for PS3 and PS4: Kingdom Hearts HD II.5 Remix (which contains KHII, Re:coded and Birth By Sleep) and Kingdom Hearts HD II.8 Final Chapter Prologue (which contains Dream Drop Distance and a few smaller "prologue" games meant to lead directly into III). Kingdom Hearts II as a standalone feels mostly like a continuation of the original, with a number of themed Disney worlds that the player enters, helps resolve its problems in a manner similar to how their movies went, and then finds themselves one step further to solving the overarching mysteries of the game's multiverse. However, it undermines this with a lot of screen time given to an ambiguously-defined villain team of "Nobodies" (hey, they said it) named Organization XIII, whose motives and origins are obscure if you didn't play the first spin-off, Chain of Memories, and remain mostly obscure even if you're up on the lore. A game where you help Winnie the Pooh find his honey pots should not be this overcomplicated, god-bother-it.

I assert that the original Kingdom Hearts is one of the best JRPGs Square's ever made. It, like Super Mario RPG before it, has a reverence for its guest universe and takes a lot of very clever steps to integrate a wholesome but simple setting into an RPG narrative with many more shades of gray and a bizarre overarching narrative that befits the often metaphysical plots of the Final Fantasy games. It's a tricky juggling act, but Square always finds a way to make these crossovers unmistakably theirs as well as feel true to the source material. With Kingdom Hearts II, however, I think the overindulgence and reliance on spin-offs began to reach breaking point for me. Eliminated.

Case File 168: Capcom's Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams

• Original Release (JP): 26/01/2006
• PS2 Exclusive!

Welcome to 2006! Unfortunately, that's about all the material I have for this game's entry, since we established long ago in the timeline of this feature that I own all four of Capcom's "resident samurai" games but didn't start playing any of them until earlier this year. Dawn of Dreams is the one I hear about the least; it's sort of the Jak and Daxter: Lost Frontier of this series, coming out very late in the PS2's lifespan and not leaving much of an impression as a result. Either that, or it's just eminently forgettable. The only other things I know about this one is that it's way longer than the others, and features a brand new set of characters to follow. Series director Keiji Inafune and Capcom decided to reboot the series, rather than continue with the overarching plot of the first three, and thus went with a whole new cast and a non-numerical subtitle. It seems like it'd be a good one to try if you'd never played an Onimusha before, but since I own all four I might as well run the series.

I'll hold out hope that it can stick the landing when I eventually get around to it, but it's probably going to have a fight on its hands getting past its three predecessors. Considered.

Case File 169: Project Siren's Forbidden Siren 2

• Original Release (JP): 09/02/2006
• PS2 Exclusive!

Something I brought up a few times when I started this feature, but ceased mentioning after it eventually stopped being a factor, is a period of time when I started buying up PS2 games of a certain lineage: that is, they were released in Japan and Europe, but not the United States. I figured if I was going to take advantage of blogging primarily on a US-based website, I should try highlighting games that those over the pond never got to see and might not know about. Either that, or I'd find some way to get these games over to the Bomb Crew of either coast to give them something new to check out. (Or, you know, they'd hire me and I could use them for a Premium feature. I did previously say I had some lofty ambitions behind that spending spree.) At any rate, the second Siren game from Project Siren - a team created from many former developers of the original Silent Hill games - never saw a US localization. Its voice actors are all British, similar to Xenoblade Chronicles (which was also a JP/EU only game for a long while), and if anything it's even more disturbing and smartly designed than the original Forbidden Siren. The Siren games posit a scenario similar to Fatal Frame where a catastrophe drags an entire traditional Japanese settlement into a nightmarish dimension of permanent twilight. Here, people change after extended exposure to the "red waters" of this ominous land, playing into an ancient Japanese legend about how eating the food of the underworld (Yomi) means you can never leave. At first these people change into what are known as "Shibito" (lit. "dead people"), essentially zombies that are intelligent enough to hunt you and retain enough of their personalities to be identifiably human, and then eventually mutate to become monstrous variants with even more abilities. The Shibito are almost completely indestructible, so in the original game you had to avoid them as best as you were able. The sequel also introduces Yamibito ("shadow people"), who are even more dangerous but can be scared off by light. The Shibito can find you easily while standing in lit areas, but those lit areas are also essential for keeping the Yamibito at bay, so the game becomes this light/dark tug of war as you endeavor to stay in the light or out of it depending on what is pursuing you - that means a lot of turning on lamppost generators or shooting out bulbs as the situation calls for it. It's not an easy game by any stretch, but it's definitely a rewarding one if you can stay two steps ahead of the horrors that surround you.

I've never actually played Siren 2 myself, but did see a video LP of it once and it was enough to convince me to find a copy. It's a game I've been wanting to introduce to others, simply because it gets so weird and horrifying to an extent only J-Horror regularly manages to reach. The series trademark of following multiple protagonists, many of whom will meet their demise once their chapters are over, can really make the game's deaths hit close to home also. I'll need to be in the right state of mind for it, but I'm looking forward to finally trying it out. Considered.

Case File 170: Nippon Ichi Software's Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories

• Original Release (JP): 23/02/2006
• Not PS2 Exclusive (ported to PSP and Steam)

This was where the Nippon Ichi Software SRPG train stopped for me. I finally burned out after too many trips to the Item World, leaving Disgaea 2's plot somewhere around two-thirds done. In most respects it's a perfectly fine NIS SRPG: it's not quite as funny as the first game, but the story might've been slightly better with its dual protagonists of Adell, the indomitable fighter who was the only human in his village not cursed to become a demon, and Rozalin, the supercilious daughter of the demon lord who cursed Adell's village whom Adell is sworn to defeat. The two have an uneasy chemistry, and neither are truly who they seem, and the game has fun poking at their reluctant partnership and those of the semi-sarcastic cast of demons that populate the rest of the cast. It is the model of an updated sequel, with the returning Dark Council and Item World features offering a multitude of upgrading and customizing potential, as well as featuring the series trend of obscenely high level caps. My decision to quit it early certainly wasn't motivated by a lack of quality; more from suddenly hitting my own completionist limits after strenuously testing its boundaries with the many NIS SRPGs before it. I'm now apprehensive about starting any game that might lead to 200-hour plus playthroughs due to my lack of self-control when it comes to 100% completing games - hence why I don't play any MMOs, and have recently cut down on the number of open-world games I consume.

So we're once again in a situation where I can't eliminate the game from this feature because I cannot be fully sure that isn't better than the original Disgaea without playing more of it. Like with Phantom Brave, Disgaea 1 and Makai Kingdom, I want to keep it around as a potential representative of the NIS SRPG brand because I've spent an inordinate amount of time with those games and at least one deserves to be enshrined on the shelf. It's going to be a four way battle between them though, which means we'll need to figure out a way to science this elimination process without actually having to play any of them for more than a few hours. Otherwise I'll get sucked in again, and we might not see a conclusion to The Top Shelf until 2019. Considered.

Case File 171: Konami's Suikoden V

• Original Release (JP): 23/02/2006
• PS2 Exclusive!

Here it is, my favorite Suikoden. Of the four PS2 games, at least. Whereas 3, 4 and Tactics dared to be different, introducing new elements like alternating protagonists or new formats like the grid-based strategy RPG genre, Suikoden V takes in many of these new developments and integrates them into the traditional Suikoden blueprint of a single hero - a deposed royal fighting to retake his kingdom and rescue his sister from an aristocratic coup and the scary drugged up assassin's guild under their thumb - using warfare and diplomacy to rally a rebel army under his banner. It has all the political intrigue, strategic genius and heroic last stands you could want from a Suikoden game, as well as a memorable cast of characters with a plethora of amusing archetypes and layered, troubled heroes and the best graphics and presentation the series has yet (or will ever, I fear is sadly the case) seen. The game's set in the Queendom of Falena, which culturally straddles the line between ancient Central American and Greek civilizations with its religious deference to the sun and moon and its gleaming marble hallways. Seeing as the Queendom is a matriarchy, the player character Prince Freyjdour (though the player can rename him) is technically a minor royal with no rights to the throne, but is doted on by the true heiress apparent - the young Princess Lymsleia - and respected by the court as an earnest and compassionate young man. When a coup sees the Queen and King murdered with doubt cast on the Prince, he gathers the Palace guards that still believe in him and retreats to a royal sanctuary to plan his next course of action. The game naturally follows the same route as previous Suikodens as the player meets and recruits various factions and eventually establishes his own headquarters in an improbably cool location, and the game splits its time between adventuring in a party, taking the lead in large-scale battles, and fighting various major antagonists in one-on-one duels. It's the complete Suikoden package, and one that focuses on the series's historical strengths rather than attempting to branch out into new venues. You can deride its timidity, but you can't dismiss its quality.

Whenever I'm prompted to point to a specific Suikoden game with which to enter the series - each one is distanced far enough apart narratively that they're more or less standalone, barring a few returning Stars and a cameo or two - I usually suggest either 2 or 5 because not only are they the best games, but they best represent what the series is about. When Suikoden's firing on all cylinders, it does the rare JRPG thing of making the hero's journey to save the world actually feel as significant as it ought to. With every new town or group or race swearing fealty to the player, you can see the results in real-time as they march alongside you in the bigger battles, taking territories and liberating the towns you visited earlier when there was still peace. There's also the fact that, with its various unique systems and multiple gameplay variants, there's no other JRPG series like it. It's just a shame Konami's characteristically dragging their heels in getting Suikoden V added to the PS4's PS2 Classics range, maybe fixing its abysmal load times in the process. Approved.

Case File 172: Square Enix's Final Fantasy XII

• Original Release (JP): 16/03/2006
• PS2 Exclusive! (...for like two more months)

Ah, this is one of those few times when this blog series actually feels current. Fans of this game, and those who missed the boat but are anticipating it coming back around, are sitting patiently for the imminent arrival of the Zodiac Age remastered version for PS4 (and, one assumes, a Steam port to eventually follow). Final Fantasy XII has something of a split personality, in part due to the very public retirement of director Yasumi Matsuno from the project mid-way through development. Matsuno is best known for his work on Final Fantasy Tactics, creating a deeply layered supernatural conspiracy plot around a typically medieval tableau of fascist aristocrats, a beleaguered and disadvantaged working class, and two nobles in a civil war for dominance. Some of that nuance exists in Final Fantasy XII, but it becomes clearer as the game progresses that Matsuno's last-minute successor didn't quite have the chops to follow through with the threads weaved early on to bring the game to a satisfying conclusion. Additionally, Final Fantasy XII directly followed the first MMO in the series, XI, and tried to implement many of those subgenre-specific mechanics and ideas in an otherwise single-player game. The end result feels like something that exists in both worlds, bringing a truly contiguous open-world feel to a Final Fantasy game for the first time while unfortunately prioritizing a lot of the farming and grinding that can make the MMOs feel like a chore. It definitely set a pattern for other JRPGs to follow, though: both Tales of Xillia and the Xenoblade series in particular seem heavily inspired by the cross-genre chimera that is Final Fantasy XII. Beyond that, the game never stops innovating, typical for a core Final Fantasy: class progression systems are replaced with the License Grid, which unlocks new abilities and types of equipment that can be used, the idea being to customize the six playable characters in however manner the player wishes. Speaking of, while the game has six main characters, it seems confused as to which one is the protagonist: archetypal teen hero Vaan gets the early spotlight, but deposed princess Ashe is the chief plot motivator, and disgraced general Basch its most central and well-developed character (you could even make a case for dashing sky pirate Balthier being the leading man; he certainly does). Finally, there's the sophisticated Gambit system, which offers an unparalleled depth of management over the party's AI-controlled characters - a particularly savvy programmer can effectively make the game play itself, which could be seen as either a plus or a minus.

There's a lot about Final Fantasy XII I like, even with the cracks endemic to its hybrid nature and wildly fluctuating narrative quality. It's the most adventurous of an already adventurous franchise, it offers some of the best music and characterization in the entire series, it fully embraces the burgeoning open-world approach with a huge amount of content to explore at the player's own pace, and in that regard it opened the way to some of my favorite non-FF modern JRPGs. There's going to be a reckoning when it comes up against Final Fantasy X in the next round. Considered.

Case File 173: Taito's Taito Legends 2

• Original Release (EU): 31/03/2006
• Not PS2 Exclusive (also out on Xbox and PC)

This is another situation like Midway Arcade Treasures 2 where I found a compilation of older titles being sold for a lot less than I was prepared to pay for its enormous library. I think the PS2 era of compilations really spoiled us for what would come later with the likes of Virtual Console, Game Room and Arcade Archives. The idea of spending two or three quid apiece for ancient games just seems bizarre when I can pick up a collection of almost 40 games for around twice that amount. Taito was a huge presence in arcades and this collection - while not necessarily "legends" in the strictest sense, given how obscure a lot of them are - is jam-packed with Japanese video game history and at least a dozen games I wouldn't mind playing at any time: QIX, Kiki KaiKai (the precursor to Pocky & Rocky), Cameltry (which inspired the bonus stages in Sonic 1), Liquid Kids, Elevator Action Returns, Puzzle Bobble 2 (a.k.a. Bust-a-Move 2), RayStorm, Puchi Carat and a bunch of Darius and Space Invader sequels. It's an eclectic bunch, and perhaps not as salivating a prospect as the original Taito Legends - which naturally had Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, The NewZealand Story and other more famous Taito games, though fewer games overall. There's also a handful of emulation issues, especially with the more contemporary games, that you might be better off waiting to see if Taito will take another whack at a larger and fully comprehensive compilation on a more powerful system that can handle it all.

As with Midway Arcade Treasures 2, I can't really send this to the shelf. One notable matter is that the Xbox and PC versions saw a slightly different selection to the PS2: they got RayForce, Bubble Symphony (a.k.a. Bubble Bobble 2), Cadash and Pop'n Pop but lost out on the PS2's Balloon Bomber, Syvalion, RayStorm and G-Darius, and I really can't make a judgment call on who got the better deal (though personally I'd prefer more Bubble Bobble). Also, none of them are actually PS2 games, which is more the point. It would feel disingenuous to hold up a multi-platform arcade game compilation as the best the PS2 had to offer. While I'm happy with the compilation (but holding out for a remaster), it's not moving ahead. Eliminated.

Case File 174: Clover's Okami

• Original Release (JP): 20/04/2006
• Not PS2 Exclusive (also out on Wii and PS3)

Okami's definitely something special. Clover's ambitious paean to Japanese mythology is equal parts The Legend of Zelda (which made the upcoming and similarly wolf-themed Twilight Princess look a little poorly-timed) and designer Hideki Kamiya's earlier works in the "character action" genre, presented in an achingly beautiful watercolor cel-shaded style that simultaneously homages the centuries-old artwork that commonly depicts the game's ancient folklore heroes and villains, but at the same time gives Okami a novel ethereal look. Playing as Amaterasu, the lupine Goddess of the Sun and effective leader of the Shinto pantheon, the player comes down to Earth to solve the problems of mortals, often via the removal of mischievous youkai and the more sinister forces of evil that imperil the land. In addition to her fighting prowess, she also uses a celestial paintbrush to divinely change the world for the better, fixing bridges and eradicating corruption with various brush strokes that the player gradually learns as the game progresses. Okami makes great use of color and shading in this regard, depicting lands still in the thrall of evil as being washed out and grim until the player can intervene. Soundtrack's fantastic too, so it's just a top-notch presentation all round. I never felt like Okami got the kudos it deserved at the time - whether that's from an diminishing audience that had already moved onto the next generation (Okami would eventually get there too, but a few years later) or Capcom itself bungling the game's promotion and letting Clover Studio go soon after its release due to failing to meet sales expectations (Clover's last game, God Hand, did even worse). It, along with Shadow of the Colossus, is definitely among the most artistically and technically impressive PS2 games.

As tempting as it is to "Approve" Okami right away, there's the small matter of its Wii and PS3 ports. Both make an already attractive game even more so, and the game's paintbrush mechanics are a natural fit for the Wii's motion controls. The PlayStation 3 port also included Move support, though whether Capcom expected anyone to use it is another matter. I've not played either of these ports, and general consensus seems to suggest they have problems of their own, but their existence means I'm not ready to move Okami ahead just yet. Instead, it'll be placed high on my list of reserves, probably but not assuredly destined for the shelf. Considered.

Case File 175: Vingt-et-un's The Adventures of Darwin

• Original Release (JP): 27/04/2006
• PS2 Exclusive!

I've still got a few weird budget games in here, often European localizations of games from the Simple 2000 series that skipped over the US for probably merciful reasons. Adventures of Darwin wasn't one of those times where I bought a deliberately obscure game for the sake of that "non-US games" project I outlined above with Siren 2, however. Rather, this game promised a cheap PS2 alternative to Nintendo's delightful Pikmin series: a top-down team-based puzzle game that has you herd a group of followers around dangerous terrain in order to collect large objects and take down even larger foes, and a series I happen to enjoy a great deal. You could argue that we already had one of those in the guise of Triumph's Overlord, but that hadn't been released yet and I was jonesing for a follow-up to Pikmin 2 around this time. The Adventures of Darwin sees the player lead an evolving gang of hominids as they try to survive prehistoric dangers while finding food and "inventions", the discovery of the latter would evolve the tribe and give them new abilities to use on successive stages. These include things like fire and axes, both of which could expand the amount of territory the player could cover and give them an edge in combat. It's about as buggy and substandard as you might expect from a budget range and developer, but I'll give them kudos for trying to riff off a popular series few else have bothered to touch. I can't help but wonder what the Pikmin-style subgenre would be like today if it saw a lot more talented imitations back in its era, like how the FPS genre blew up due to the many Doom clones.

At any rate, while I appreciate the moxie of The Adventures of Darwin (even if that moxie happens to be couched in brazenly trying to rip off another developer), there's only so much you can expect from a budget game. You know, a B-game. Whatever one of those might be in this crazy new age of video game classifications. Eliminated.

Results

Pretty typical selection this week, with half being JRPGs and the rest a mixture of universally beloved classics and some obscure "under the radar" material. We also eliminated far fewer games this week, and I'm looking at the list of entries we have for the second round and wondering how best to parse it all for the blogs to come. We could also talk about how we're now in 2006, but I feel like that was already covered last time. Let's just say the PlayStation 2 was looking forward to its retirement with a few big final capers, like an aging jewel thief.

With five new considered games, our second round has now grown to 66 out of 175 games to scrutinize, and adding Suikoden V to the shelf means that particular total is currently sitting at 17 of the possible 44 spaces available, approximately two-fifths of the way complete. Without factoring in the final ten games of next week, we're looking at almost 40 games that I intend to play for this feature, with the rest either being battle royale-style showdowns (the best Final Fantasy, the best Silent Hill, the best NIS SRPG, etc.) or reserve games I remember well enough to judge their shelf-esteem without needing to boot them up again (though let's never say never). Next time is the finale, and it's going to be a bittersweet selection to review. Oddly enough, these next ten games cover almost two years of PlayStation 2 history: releases trickled down to a crawl during this time, so we'll see a few big time skips to accommodate my remaining library. You probably know what half of them are already, following this series, but there might still be some surprises left in store. See you soon for our final edition of The Top Shelf: Round One.

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