Finished playing Final Fantasy VII

Finished playing Final Fantasy VII (1997, SquareSoft, PlayStation) for the third time on 03/11/2017.
Hours: 85

The Lifestream. Life energy in its purest form flowing from the planet's core, giving life to all kinds of lifeforms on Gaia and even crystalizing itself into colored orbs that allow the knowledge within them to be used as magical powers. Shinra Inc. A company whose technology syphons the Lifestream, turning it into Mako Energy to fuel human civilization across the globe. And Jenova, a mysterious being of extraterrestrial origins captured and experimented on by Shinra to strengthen its military force. Caught in the middle of this trio of elements is Cloud, an ex-Soldier of Shinra who finds himself spiraling deeper down into the messy maelstrom Shinra has stirred in its hunger for power.

This is SquareSoft's most lucrative title we're talking about here and one of my favorite of the series without a doubt. And look at that! Over 80 hours to complete the game with everything unlocked and all items collected! Heck, I could've easily passed the 100-hour mark just trying to finish a couple of last few things that I sort of left half done, hahahah! Ahem, anyways, I'm sure you don't need me to tell you how popular this game is or how amazing the story and characters are. What I will tell you is that I haven't played this game in a while and playing it again has made me realize how some of the scenes in the game would be a bit awkward to see Cloud in when the recently announced Remake finally makes its way to home consoles around the world. Among some of those funny scenes, I hope they at least keep the cross-dressing chapter and the one where Cloud infiltrates Junon city by jumping on a dolphin. I mean, think about it! A brooding, emo Cloud high jumping on a dolphin as the sun beautifully sets in the horizon. Magical! Hahaha! But there's also other things that don't quite fit the Cloud we're so used to seeing in HD. Like jumping in celebration of his first place victory in a Chocobo race, among other things. But anyways, I've read that the Remake will be a bit inconsistent with the FFVII Compilation so I'm hoping that means that they're polishing up some of the writing to be more consistent with the image Tetsuya has of the characters and other details that didn't quite make sense in the original. But getting back to the actual review, I think the only things that bothered me were the map and the battle controls. Sometimes it was kind of annoying trying to figure out which direction the D-Pad would take you on each different screen and as for the battles, trying to target overlapping enemies or characters got frustrating at times depending on the camera angles and even as characters moved around performing their attacks.

9/10 - Ultimately it's really a deep game in all of its aspects and I can't wait to see what the Remake is going to be like.

Finished playing Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix HD Remix

Finished playing Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix HD Remix (2014, Square Enix, PlayStation 3, 2014) on 6/26/2015.

Hours: ~100

After defeating Ansem and Marluxia, Sora, Donald and Goofy must now face off against the rest of Organization XIII as they invade countless other worlds. Along the way Sora makes new friends, reunites with old ones and meets someone who might be closer than he thinks.

9/10 – Absolutely amazing game with a colorful cast of characters and a complex, deep storyline that is just deliciously right up my Alley to Between. Sorry...

Although this is the first time I play KH2 Final Mix, it is also technically my second KH2 playthrough. So this time around I noticed something called Bonus Levels. Not sure if it's a Final Mix feature or not, but apparently every time you defeat a boss that level goes up instead of you gaining experience points. An interesting concept. And although I was only able to reach Bonus Level 59, apparently it caps at 60.

Now, having played in Critical Mode however, I found myself struggling to unlock the secret ending known as "Birth by Sleep", as defeating the Organization XIII members' data is quite the challenge. After spending a tiresome amount of time defeating Vexen and Xigbar, Zexion finally managed to deplete any motivation I had left to continue the task. And with Lingering Will breathing on my neck every step of the way, I felt even less motivated. But hey, doing the Mushroom Organization minigames was fun!

Finished playing Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance

Finished playing Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance (2012, Square Enix, Nintendo 3DS) on 07/15/2014.

Gameplay Hours: ~50hrs - Proud Mode and 54hrs Critical Mode

Anticipating the return of Master Xehanort, Master Yen Sid tests Sora and Riku through the Mark of Mastery exam to prove themselves as true Keyblade Masters. The exam throws Sora and Riku to all sorts of familiar Disney worlds. But they find these worlds in their sleeping state ridden with creatures known as Dream Eaters. And to reawaken those worlds our heroes must partner up with the benevolent kind of Dream Eaters known as Spirits to fight back the not-so-nice kind known as Nightmares.

9/10 - I had been playing this game sporadically ever since it came out in July, 2012. I played it in Proud Mode to unlock Critical Mode to then finally unlock the Secret Movie. But let's get to the point, this is my second favorite Kingdom Hearts installment, my top favorite one being Birth by Sleep, also a handheld. I just love everything about it! Specially how the Flowmotion mechanic lets you move faster through stages and easily navigate over even town rooftops! It's even integrated into the character's battle moves! And then there's the Dream Eaters. This feature is screaming Pokémon, seriously! You turn wild Dream Eaters into tamed ones which you can train and then even battle through a card-game battle-system via local wireless with other KH3D players! There's one thing that this feature has that I wish Pokémon had, the ability to customize your Dream Eater's color. Can you imagine if you could change your Metapod's color to I don't know, let's think of a random color here, uhh, let's say, a flesh-colored Metapod! Huh! Right? No? Hahahah! Alright, alright, let's move on to the soundtrack. Yoko Shimomura. 'Nuff said. Amirite? Don't even have to tell you how great it is. I love all the tracks with my favorite one being the theme for La Cité des Cloches world. But this soundtrack is unique because the Symphony of Sorcery world features some of the original classical music used in Disney's Fantasia movie. And that's pretty interesting! I could really go on about how amazing this game is, but this review is getting too long so let me just leave you with one last thing I think is very important to mention and that's the realistic character faces in The Grid world. If there's one thing Square has always done right was faces. And they really did a great job considering this is a handheld console. The texture of the skin, even Jeff Bridges' beard looked amazingly detailed. Even the likeness of the characters were awesomely accurate! The facial expressions were amazingly done as well and expertly synchronized with the voice acting!