Welcome back to the Final Fantasy Project. It’s literally been months since I finished Final Fantasy VII, and it’s not because Final Fantasy VIII is a very long game, it’s more that I so deeply disliked it, that it literally made me want to do anything else. But I persevered, because if I can’t commit to self-imposed challenges, then I don’t even deserve to have a blog!
Final Fantasy VIII was released on September 9th, 1999. 9/9/99, about two and a half years after the hugely successful Final Fantasy VII. I wasn’t aware at the time, as I grew up in the middle of nowhere, but I think it’s hard to understate just how big Final Fantasy VII was, and I often wonder what it would have been like to be on the team at Squaresoft during this time. Having a monumental hit is no doubt exciting, but the thought of following it up is terrifying. Suddenly you have millions of people watching, and comparing it to your previous works.
World and Characters
Final Fantasy VIII starts off with a montage of scenes and characters. One scene that keeps popping up is a vicious sword fight between a young man wearing black, and a young man wearing white. The scene ends with blood splattering the ground, and both boys sporting a large gash across their noses in opposite directions.
When the game starts in earnest, you’re in control of the young man in black, Squall Leonhart, who is laying in bed in the infirmary. You’re told to get to class, where the boy in white, Seifer, sits next to you. Your instructor, Quistis, chastises Seifer, reminding everyone that you shouldn’t hurt your sparring partners.
You and your classmates are all SeeD candidates in Balamb Garden. SeeD’s are mercenaries for hire, and Squall and Seifer are on the precipice of testing to become full-fledged members. First, Quistis takes Squall on a mission to claim a Guardian Force, which will augment your abilities.
Final Fantasy VIII has really abandoned the fantasy aesthetic. The world is much more modern, with touches of magical or technological flair. Unlike Final Fantasy VII grimy aesthetic, this world is brighter and cleaner, more optimistic, which lines up nicely considering the main cast of characters are all a bunch of late teenagers hanging around their school.
As Squall and Seifer prepare for their mission, he’s joined by Zell to round out the team. The mission, secure the town square in Dollet, which is currently under occupation by the Galbadian Army. They do so, also uncovering a plot about the army securing an old radio tower, but Seifer, being rash, begins to disobey orders and runs off on his own. The next party member, Selphie, arrives and gives the order to evacuate. The team is chased by a mechanical spider thing, which can be felled, but stands back up fairly quickly. Once the team manages to hit the beach where the evacuation boats are being held, Quistis breaks out a gatling gun and blows the whole thing to smithereens. Badass.
Back at the Garden, Squall, Selphie, and Zell have passed the test and are now SeeDs. Seifer, having disobeyed orders, has failed. At the graduation party, a girl asks Squall to dance, then disappears.
The next day, the party is given a new mission. Go to Timber and provide assistance to an underground resistance group, the Timber Owls. Also Quistis has quit being an instructor, so she can come along too.
My first major qualm with Final Fantasy VIII is the characters. They’re all children, and act like it. Squall is edgy and emo, and most of his dialogue happens inside his head in parentheses. Most of his spoken dialogue is dismissive and rude. Zell is brash and goofy. He’s earnest, but he often comes across like a caricature, and is often sidelined. Selphie acts like a teenage girl, she’s a cheerleader and just wants everyone to do their best! She never really develops, despite her having a ton of potential. Quistis started the game with a bit of a romantic interest in Squall, which is wildly inappropriate, but thankfully that thread was quickly dropped and never spoken of again. She seems to be the party mom, providing a level-headed comment when the children just want to run in and start punching faces.
At the point in the story, the party falls over, and the story picks up with 3 new characters, Laguna, Kiros, and Ward. These are Galbadian Army soldiers as they live out events that happened over 17 years ago. These scenes feel like random, non-sequiters, but over time they set the stage and show reoccuring characters that become important in the present.
Upon arriving in Timber, the leader of the Forest Owls is Rinoa, the girl who danced with Squall at the graduation party. Their plan is to kidnap the Galbadian President, but their plot is foiled when the person on the train they hijacked turns out to be a body double. After that failure, a TV broadcast reveals that the president is making a sorceress the new ambassador. During the TV broadcast, Seifer bursts in and takes the president hostage, but the sorceress appears and takes Seifer away, seemingly willingly.
The next mission is to try to assassinate the sorceress, where the final main party member, Irving joins the group. He’s a sharpshooter, so the plan is to get him into position, and when the sorceress is having a parade, for Irving to snipe her. Flash forward a couple of hours of gameplay, Irving chokes. He falls into a pit of shakes and can’t take the shot. Squall talks Irving into taking the shot, but the sorceress blocks it with a magical field. Squall takes the fight directly to her, and fights her head on. He fights Seifer, who is protecting the sorceress, and while he defeats Seifer, he takes an ice bolt to the shoulder, and falls unconscious. Thus ends the first disc.
What follows is a winding plot of time travel, memory loss, body possession, leadership, and love. The story swaps between teenage love, to global politics, to being fired into space, and then crashing back to earth without really taking a moment to breathe. Certain plot threads seem like they’re going to be important, but are then just largely dropped. For example, using GFs is supposed to cause memory loss, which is why the main party don’t remember being together as children. But once that revelation is revealed, it never really comes back into play again. It provides context for some of the events that happened in disc 1, but memory loss didn’t really come back up again.
One of my favourite parts of JRPGs is exploring all the characters and the struggles they face. In Final Fantasy VIII, this is squarely Squall and Rinoa’s story, everyone else feels in service to that tale. Zell, Irving, Quistis, and Selphie don’t get the spotlight. It’s not like Final Fantasy VII where you get to explore Barrett’s history, or travel to Yuffie’s village and see why she is the way she is. And the love story between Squall and Rinoa feels shallow. Squall does NOTHING to earn Rinoa’s affection, he’s callous and unkind, and yet she throws herself at him, flirting and teasing him, trying to catch his attention. Until about halfway through disc 3 when he seems to turn on a dime. With Rinoa rendered unconcious, his inner monolgue is entirely focused on how much he misses her, how much he needs to hear her voice again. To me, it feels forced.
I do wonder how much I’ve missed. Like in the scene where Squall leaps out of a space shuttle as it hurtles back to Earth to catch an adrift Rinoa, a seemingly random ship appears in the black of space, and after clearing out a small monster infestation, you’re able to pilot it back to land. I know there are plenty of scenes that give texture to the side characters of the party, but I didn’t spend much time seeking out all the side quests.
The plot of Final Fantasy VIII, summarized
Gameplay Mechanics
When you first start the game, the only option you have in battle is to “Attack”. As you collect Guardian Forces, they’ll give you the options to use Magic, to summon them in battle, to use items, and to Draw. Each party member can have 4 commands, including attack, which means if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll need to leave one of the other commands off your party. Magic, is no longer innate or learned, and the MP bar is totally gone. Instead, Magic has become itemized. To stock up on Magic, you need to Draw it out of your opponents, and hoard up to 99 of each spell. Each character needs to draw their own spells, but they can swap their spells between each other, if one character needs to leave the party for any reason.
The GFs, in addition to giving you more actions, augment your stats, mainly by allowing you to junction one of your magic spells to a stat, increasing its power. The amount the stat is increased is directly related to how strong the spell is, and how many of those spells you have drawn. Life will boost your Max HP dramatically, but as you use the life spell, the Max HP will start to diminish. Some will even allow you to junction spells to augment your attacks and defence with different effects, It’s great when your basic attack also inflicts sleep, or when your main spell caster is totally immune to silence, or absorbs a rogue fire spell.
This system, is interesting in theory. In practise, it means I spend a dozen minutes in every battle checking for new magic and drawing so every character gets 99 of that spell. Then, because the junctions may need to move around depending on what situation we’re going into, it just means that I never really used my magics until the final bosses.
Many of the skills the GFs learn also augment your stats directly. One annoying on was HP +40%, because in some story segments you need to swap your characters frequently. But every time that skill moved on and off someone, it would leave them with their base HP. While it was satisfying hitting 9999 HP with a character, it was annoying when I moved that GF over to someone and then back, only for that character to just lose all that HP. It’s a super minor complaint, I was drowning in cure spells, but still. Just another aspect that I found annoying.
So all this talk about GFs and junctions affecting your stats, let’s talk about levels. As per usual, each character gains EXP and gains levels. But the levels don’t affect your stats all that much in the end, at least nowhere near the effect that the GFs give you. The enemies do scale to your party’s average level, meaning you could do a low-level run and be viable for the end-game. By keeping your level low, enemy levels are kept low, but you have the option to bolster your stats by junctions, allowing you to beat down weak enemies easily.
Speaking of stats, Final Fantasy VIII does away with most equipment. There’s no accessories, no armor, and only a handful of weapons per character that needs to be crafted. Call me boring, but I miss seeking out treasure chests in dungeons and getting cool new armor right before a boss.
You can use the Guardian Forces in battle as a summon, usually dealing out some very impressive damage, but there are a couple drawbacks to using them. First, your active time battle bar has to fill up so you can choose which GF to summon, then the GF’s HP covers your character’s HP, and another active time battle bar has to fill up. Once it has, the summon occurs, including a 30-second animation. Every single time. If you take damage while your GF is readying, your GF loses HP, and can potentially get knocked out. Make sure you stock up on the GF specific potions, as regular healing spells and items don’t affect your GFs. I stopped using GF summons pretty early on because I just didn’t want to watch that animation over and over again. At this point, I’m desperate for a skip animation button.
Another thing I’m desperate for, is for a menu of names that I can just pick from. When you are choosing your target during battle, a little pointer lets you select which character you want to target. The battle camera is quite dynamic, and it’s not uncommon for characters to become hidden behind enemies or even just the menu, so selecting which one you’re going to target with your cure spell can be a bit of a crap-shoot. What infuriates me is when a summon animation is ongoing, it pops up a menu of names to easily pick from. DO THAT, FOR ALL THE TARGETS!
Visual Presentation
This is where Final Fantasy VIII really shines. Unlike the blocky, polygonal overworld characters and more detailed battle sprites, Final Fantasy VIII uses the more detailed battle sprites in the overworld. The characters are much more realistically proportioned. The backgrounds are detailed, and when compared to Final Fantasy VII, it’s usually pretty apparent which aspects of the background you’re able to interact with.
Final Fantasy VIII also uses the Full Motion Video liberally, and often to great effect. I suspect back in 1999, the effects of the videos under the gameplay sprites would have been breathtaking. Even today, I found myself appreciating the videos and most of the visuals. The character sprites are often well detailed, but the faces can clip in a weird and funny way. Like in the below screenshot, Rinoa’s cheek and chin jut out in an awkward way.
Triple Triad
A major part of Final Fantasy VIII is a card game called Triple Triad. By pressing square against almost any character in the world, you can challenge them to a game of triple Triad. In Triple Triad, both players have a hand of 5 cards, and take turns placing one of those cards on a 3×3 grid. Each card has a number corresponding to the 4 adjacent directions. If you place a card next to another card, you compare the number on both cards, and whoever has the higher number wins. If the losing card flips belong to the opponent, the card flips over to the other colour. Once 9 cards have been played, whoever controls the most cards is the winner.
The only good thing about Triple Triad is that it’s over quick. It’s a brain-dead simple area control game that reeks of power creep. You can’t tactically master Triple Triad, you can only get stronger cards and wait for your opponent to make a stupid play and capitalize on their folly. Maybe it’s my board game snobbery showing up, but as a game, I don’t think Triple Triad is any more compelling than Tic-tac-toe.
When you win or lose in Triple Triad, the winner gets to steal a card from the loser, Yu-Gi-Oh style. You can also turn monsters from the random encounters into cards as well. Considering you only need 5 cards, you might wonder what you can do with the extra cards? Well, some of the GF abilities allow you to turn the cards into various items, or even turn cards directly into magic spells.
It’s this system that allows you to utterly break the early game. You can obtain Squalls ultimate weapon before the end of disc one, and if you feel like spending a couple of hours in Triple Triad, have a fully kitted out party before leaving for Timber.
You Have to Play it Right
Listen, I know that a lot of my complaints about Final Fantasy VIII have counterpoints. For all my complaining about drawing magic, I know you can play Triple Triad to grind out cards, refine the cards into items, which you can then refine into magic spells, eliminating the need to draw entirely. If you just spend 6 hours at the start of the game, you can set your junctions up for the majority of the rest of the game. Put in another few hours of tedium and you can even unlock Squall’s ultimate weapon before the end of disc one.
I know that earning and refining cards is the technically more efficient way to manage the junction system, but I rebel on following a guide THAT closely for a game I’m going to play the first time. Also, I chafe at the idea of spending so much time making the battles trivial. On some level, the challenge of the battles is the point of playing the game!
I did have a guide open for most of the playthrough that I would reference now and again when I couldn’t remember where to go next. But every now and then I’d find myself skipping whole paragraphs as the author laid out incredibly specific steps to managing certain side quests, which include losing specific cards to a certain character, seeking out specific members of a club and beating them at Triple Triad, and a few optional GFs. There’s also the bonus bosses, Omega Weapon, Ultima Weapon, and Bahamut. I didn’t chase any of these side quests because really, Final Fantasy VIII made me not care.
The one thing I appreciated having the guide open for, was for hinting at who to have in my party for certain scenes. Now and then throughout the game, certain characters will offer some small comments or have a bonus scene if they’re in your party. This feels most prevalent at Fishermen’s Horizion and choosing the right instruments has Rinoa and Squall share a pretty important scene. Choose wrong, and that scene simply passes you by.
I’m obviously not against having a guide on hand, but Final Fantasy VIII feels particularily bound to it. Without the expert advice readily available, you’ll find yourslef fighting against tedious systems. While they can be exploited for massive benefits, it’s fairly obtuse and time consuming if you don’t have a guide to follow.
Final Thoughts
I started to enjoy Final Fantasy VIII about halfway through Disc 3, when Squall stopped being an edgy jerk. And, it was about that point where I encountered an enemy with some really strong spells that took my basic attack from doing 800 per hit to nearly 3000. That allowed me to fly through the last chapters of the game.
The entirety of Disc 4 is dedicated to the final dungeon, upon which entering, a bunch of your skills are sealed away. Everything but the basic attack option. As you defeat some optional bosses, you’ll unlock your abilities. I… skipped most of this, somewhat accidently. I was just wandering around the castle and then I just found the final chamber. I had only unlocked Magic, so, decided to give the final boss a go with a limitied skill set.
I did enjoy the final boss, Ultimecia. Starting the fight you’ll be given a random party. During the actual fight with her, she can make you randomly lose a whole stacks of your magic spells, which can poke holes in your character like Swiss cheese. If any characters fall, you have a small window of time to revive them, if you don’t, they’re “absorbed by time” and removed by the battle. During the final form, Squall lost Ultima, which was his attack junction, dropping his damage output from 4000 per hit back to 800. Then Ultimecia alternated between a spell that dropped everyone to 1hp, and a powerful AOE spell, keeping my characters on their toes.
Depending on which of the spells that get lost, this fight can be a cake walk, or a struggle. I enjoyed it, as it kept me on my toes and required me to pivot when certain spells got lost, but anyone who takes umbrage with its random nature is completely valid in calling this fight unfair. It took me 2 tries to beat her, as the first try I was unaware of any of her abilities and was caught a bit off guard.
I’ve often heard of Final Fantasy VII through Final Fantasy X as a “Golden Era” for Final Fantasy, but Final Fantasy VIII is the strange middle child of the PS1 era. It’s bold and confused, and often deeply irritating. It has sky-high ambition and the technical chops to back it up, yet it constantly feels at odds with itself. For every emotional high point like Squall finally thawing in Disc 3, the iconic space sequence, or the tense unpredictability of the final battle, there are at least three moments of head-scratching narrative whiplash, undercooked character arcs, or mechanical decisions designed to test the player’s patience.
The junction system turns magic into a hoarded resource rather than a tool of expression. The level-scaling and GF-centric progression make levelling feel meaningless. Plot threads like childhood amnesia via Guardian Forces appear with fanfare and then evaporate. Meanwhile, huge character beats are shoved aside to make room for the next bizarre twist involving sorceresses, time travel, or surprise field trips to space.
I can’t call the game soulless. At its heart is a coming-of-age story wrapped inside a love story wrapped inside a political thriller wrapped inside a time-compression fever dream. When it works, it really works. When it doesn’t, it leaves you wondering how such talented storytellers missed the mark so many times.
Final Fantasy VIII was ambitious, and it had gargantuan shoes to fill, following in the wake of Final Fantasy VII, so I can’t fault it for shooting for the moon. I know those who enjoy Final Fantasy VIIIreally enjoy it, but I’m not in that camp. Final Fantasy VIII didn’t just fail to win me over, but it actively pushed me away. I’m glad I’ve finished it, and I’m glad I never need to draw another spell again.
Unless that’s a mechanic in Final Fantasy IX. Gosh, I hope not.
Azul, by designer Michael Kiesling, was released to the world in 2017. A puzzly little abstract game, it was an instant hit in the board gaming world. That same year, at the exact same time from my perspective, Sagrada, a puzzly little abstract game was also released, and much like the console wars of my childhood, I picked a side (Sagrada), and heckled the other team, for no good reason other than base tribalism. But here we are 8 years later, and I’ve finally come around to sing Azul’s praises
Over the years, Azul‘s continued popularity has only grown, and I’ve really come around to seeing how great this game is. With several more games building off the core concept, including Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra, Azul: Summer Pavilion, Azul: Queens Garden, and Azul: Duel. Now, I’ve played all these spin-offs, and I can say that the original Azul is my favourite, so today I’m going to dig into what makes this game so special.
In Azul, players are trying to build a wall. The rulebook says that Portuguese king Manuel I was struck by the beauty of the Moorish decorative tiles in the Alhambra, that he ordered his own palace to be decorated with similar wall tiles, but the theme doesn’t exactly shine through the gameplay here.
The gameplay of Azul has a number of coasters set onto the table in a circle, and 4 tiles pulled from a bag and placed on each one. On your turn, you chose one of the coasters and take all the tiles of one type to place into your staging area on your player board. Any tiles you didn’t take, get pushed to the centre of the table, which is another location you can choose to take tiles from.
Once all the tiles have been taken, any rows in your staging area that have been completed flow onto your finished wall, from top to bottom. When you move a tile to the finished side, it earns you 1 point for every connected tile on the X axis, and another point for every tile on the Y axis. There are also some bonus points for finishing each row, column, and for getting a colour in all 5 rows.
A couple restrictions to be aware of, though. If you already have a colour finished in a row, you can’t add a colour to that row again. If you take a bunch of tiles and have more than the row can allow, they ‘fall to the floor’ and are worth negative points. A game of Azul comes to an end when one player has completed a single row.
Azul is deceptively simple. It starts off by looking like a no interaction abstract puzzle, but as you dig deeper into the game, you start to find the ways to manipulate situations to your advantage. It only takes one time getting saddled with nearly a dozen black tiles when all of your rows are spoken for to teach you that you need to pay attention to what the others are doing.
Your staging area dynamically shrinks and expands as tiles are left over from round to round, as the rows only empty at the end of a round in which that row was full. I’ve seen players end a round with 4 of their 5 rows one tile away from being complete, and being utterly choked for the entire next round.
Azul isn’t Calico, where you can spend most of the game with your head in your hands staring at your own board. It requires you to be aware of what your opponents want, and for you to seize your opportunities the moment they arrive. There are plenty of opportunities to hate-draft precious tiles away from your opponents, or saddle them with excess baggage. Playing Azul well is as much as getting the tiles you want as it is denying your opponents the tiles they need.
But all this meanness, all this punishment, is below the surface of Azul. For a beginner, the tiles available to them are random, and building pretty little patterns is a delightful way to pass the afternoon. It’s pretty impressive, really, that Azul manages to appeal to such a wide audience with its ease of gameplay, while also having a deep tactical pool to plumb, for those willing to do so.
I like Azul a lot. More than I ever expected to, and maybe even more than Sagrada, if I’m honest with myself. It’s elegant without being cold, interactive without being overwhelming, and welcoming to anyone who can appreciate a handful of pretty tiles. It’s the rare abstract game that grows with you; gentle for newcomers, sharp enough for veterans, and endlessly replayable in between. When you finally build that perfect wall to earn 10 points on a single placement, it feels like a masterful stroke of genius. Azul has earned a permanent place on my table, but if you haven’t encountered the meanness inherent in the tiles, be prepared to feel the sting of betrayal when you finally do.
Board Game Hot Takes is one of my favourite board game podcasts. The casual banter the guys share make it feel like you’re part of a group, just chatting about your favourite games. In their most recent episode, #277, they dig into the games they’ve ranked on Board Game Geek, and I thought it would be fun to piggy-back on their conversation and explore my own BGG ratings. But before I get into that, I want to send a sincere congratulation to the BGHT crew on reaching 1 million downloads!
Now, if you’ve spent any time on Board Game Geek, you’re well acquainted with the BGG rankings. Every registered member can rank any game from a 1 to a 10. I’ve talked before on why I don’t include numbers in my reviews, as I don’t think a single number can really capture my experience with a game. But today, I’m diving straight into that subjective mess, how I actually rate games on BGG, and why those numbers matter a bit more than I want to admit.
So to set the stage, here’s my stats. On BGG, I’ve ranked 628 games, and my average rating is a 7.06. At this point in my board game career, I’ve gotten pretty good at knowing what I’m probably going to enjoy. So most of the games that catch my attention and make their way to my table will end up being around a 6 or 7 on my enjoyment scale. It’s pretty rare that a game has me excited and interested enough to play, but to fall utterly flat on its execution. Rare, but not impossible.
While I don’t take the BGG ratings of a game as the gospel truth, I do think there is some value in crowd-sourced rankings. So in this post, I’m digging into the full 1–10 spectrum. What BGG says those ratings actually mean, how I personally use them, and which games end up in each of those categories. Grab a coffee, brace yourself for some self-reflection, and let’s talk numbers.
1 – Defies description of a game. You won’t catch me dead playing this. Clearly broken.
0 Games – 0%
At the very bottom sits the rarest of ratings: the game so broken, incomplete, or objectionable that it barely qualifies as a game at all. A 1 isn’t just bad, it’s the kind of experience you keep on your list only to remind yourself what went wrong.
Perhaps a little controversial here, but I actually haven’t rated any games as a 1. With the criteria of getting a 1 being “defies description of a game”, I would have to play something so arbitrary and pointless, that I’d rather sit on the couch and learn to knit while the rest of my group plays a 1-rated game. When that game shows up, I’ll come back and edit this entry.
2 – Extremely annoying game, won’t play this ever again.
2 games – .32%
A 2 is reserved for the experiences that waver between disappointing into downright aggravating. These are the games that spark frustration and rage rather than fun. These are the games that make me swear off gaming, and inspire me to find new friends.
The only 2 games that I’ve ranked as a 2 are Cards Against Humanity, and Munchkin (the Christmas edition, but that’s a stand-in for the entirety of the Munchkin product line). Cards Against Humanity is a garbage game about putting the most absurd and inappropriate card from your hand into a sentence to make you feel like you were being clever. You know a game is bad when you can just draw the top card from the deck, and it happens to win more often than not.
Munchkin on the other hand, has a tiny bit more respect. I find Muchkin painful to play, as inevitably, one player makes it to 8 or 9 points, then everyone spends their cards hurting everyone else. I’ve had games take over an hour to complete, with players just getting close to the goal, only to be denied. It’s the anthesis of fun.
3 – Likely won’t play this again, although I could be convinced. Bad.
2 Games – .32%
Here lie the games that simply miss the mark. They’re not rage-inducing, but they’re firmly in the “no thanks” category. A 3 signals something fundamentally unenjoyable. Like the 2’s, I only have 2 games rated as a 3. Exploding Kittens, and Monopoly.
Exploding Kittens I can kind of get it’s popularity. It’s easy to play with kids, reminicient of Old Maid, but actually playing it feels like an exercise in tedium. Monopoly, on the other hand… Well, I don’t think I need to get into why I rated it a 3.
4 – Not so good, it doesn’t get me but could be talked into it on occasion.
8 Games – 1.27%
A 4 represents that the slow transition from actively avoiding playing a game, to a tepid, reluctant acceptance. These games aren’t as unplayable as the ones that came before, but I’d need a strong, convincing argument to get me to sit down and play these games.
I’m not going to go over every game in each category, but perhaps the most controversial 4’s I have are Grand Austria Hotel, and Ticket to Ride.
Ticket to Ride I’ve already reviewed ranted about, but Grand Austria Hotel is a fairly beloved game, so what gives? I find the dice drafting to be an exercise in frustration. Add to that the downtime between turns as the game can be fairly AP prone, I find the acronym for Grand Austria Hotel sums up my thoughts nicely; GAH!
Rounding out my 4’s are games like New Bedford, Nox, Phase 10, and Pokémon Master Trainer.
5 – Average game, slightly boring, take it or leave it.
35 Games – 5.57%
A 5 game is the equivalent of a shrug. Perhaps perfectly serviceable, usually slightly boring, and often easily forgotten, these are games I will never seek out, but then again, probably wouldn’t protest too loudly if someone else is really keen to play them. A 5 is usually a dumping ground if I recognize a game has some interesting elements, but don’t jibe with me personally.
Some notable 5’s include Dorfomantik: The Duel, Isle of Trains: All Aboard, Disney Villainous, and Rajas of the Ganges. My most controversial 5’s are Terraforming Mars, Great Western Trail, Maracaibo, and Teotihuacan. I’m sure you can argue that my distaste for these games is a skill issue, and if that’s the case, then I invite you to start your own blog and call me out for my bad opinions.
6 – Ok game, some fun or challenge at least, will play sporadically if in the right mood.
100 games – 15.92%
The 6 rating marks the beginning of genuinely enjoyable territory. These games offer some entertainment or challenge, even if they don’t call to me consistently. They’re usually pleasant, albeit perhaps a bit fragile. Maybe requiring the right group, and are generally not that memorable.
A lot of euro games end up here. Some classics like The Pillars of the Earth, Amerigo, Catan, Finca, Machi Koro, and Viceroy. Some more contemporary 6’s for me include the likes of Deus, In the Hall of the Mountain King, or Ex Libris. Most of these are games that had a cool or had an interesting hook, but nothing that made me want to come back.
Speaking of games that made me not want to come back, other popular games languishing in my 6’s include Beast, Arcs, Terra Mystica (and by extension Age of Innovation, and The Quacks of Quedlingburg. These are games that others love, but I simply did not enjoy. To each their own, I suppose!
7 – Good game, usually willing to play.
220 Games – 35.03%
The 7 category is where my “average enjoyable game” lives. These games are reliably fun, worth returning to, and generally welcome on the table. Not masterpieces, but certainly good gaming.
Some games that I like more than the majority of BGG users include such titles as Bananagrams, Stalk Exchange, Roll to the Top, Dinosaur Tea Party, Bag of Chips, and even the classic Scrabble.
Some beloved games that I’ve slotted into the 7 space are heavy-hitters such as Ark Nova, Gloomhaven, Twilight Struggle, Root, Mage Knight, and Tzolkin.
Really, the majority of games in this category are just good games, but ones that didn’t really blow my socks off. Marco Polo is intresting, but I find a tiny bit tedious to play, I recognize that Ra is a great game, but I fundamentally dislike auction games, so here it sits. Architects of the West Kingdom, Raiders of the North Sea, Lorenzo il Magniflco, Trajan, Yokohama, Tapestry, Dominion, King of Tokyo, Spirit Island, and Clank! A Deck Building Game are all examples of games that I enjoyed, but I don’t feel the need or urge to play them again, let alone rush out and buy a copy to own.
8 – Very good game. I like to play. Probably I’ll suggest it and will never turn down a game.
201 Games – 32.01%
An 8 is where my enthusiasm starts to shine through. These are games I’m genuinely excited to bring to the table. They’re often polished, engaging, replayable, and memorable. I won’t t always choose them over my absolute favourites, but I’ll happily recommend them and would rarely turn down a play.
The upper crust of the 8’s are the ones that just barely squeak onto my top 100 games of all time lists. These are games I’d be happy to own, or would easily recommend to others as great games to give as a gift, or just to play.
Some of the most popular games that I’ve ranked as an 8 include the eminently popular Wingspan, Azul, andCarcassone. Some heavy games that hit my 8 rating include A Feast for Odin, SETI: Search for Exterrestrial Intelligence, Pax Pamir, The Gallerist, Voidfall, and Eclipse: New Dawn for the Galaxy.
A 9 is reserved for the games that spark joy almost every time I think about them. They’re often the ones I suggest first, that I never feel done exploring, and remind me why the board game hobby is so great in the first place. When a 9 hits this level, it’s a great day. This includes Pandemic, 7 Wonders, Scythe, Patchwork, The Castles of Burgundy, Jaipur, and Brass: Birmingham.
10 – Outstanding. Always want to play and expect this will never change.
14 Games – 2.23%
A question the BGHT crew posed was “What seperates a 9 from a 10?” For me, the 10 is the pinnacle. The games that feel complete, magical, and endlessly rewarding. These are the experiences that define me. Whether it’s emotional, elegant, epic, or simply perfect for me, a 10 is more than a favourite, it’s a masterpiece that reaffirms why I love board games at all. These are the games that make me salivate when I think about them, and my heart race while I’m playing them.
Paperback Adventures was Slay the Spire crossed the deck building in a way that just excites me. Bullet❤️ had that spark that reminded me that board games can still really excite me. Galaxy Trucker never fails to make me full-belly laugh. Isle of Skye,Istanbul, and Race for the Galaxy are endlessly replayable. And then, of course, there’s Food Chain Magnate, which was the perfect combination of mechanics and theme that burrowed its way into my psyche and never ever let go.
Conclusion
In the end, BGG ratings aren’t about winning some invisible argument about what a game should score. They’re about capturing how a game made me feel when I played it. What surprised me, what fusturated me, and which games stuck in my brain as I laid in bed after an exhillrating game night.
My 1s and 10s and everything in between aren’t objective truths. They’re breadcrumbs marking where I’ve been in this hobby and where I found joy and pain along the way. They subjective opinions that tell my story. If you’ve struggled with rating games for fear of ‘giving the wrong rating’, don’t stress about it. If there’s one thing I’ve realized during this exercise is that the numbers change. Let me know where you agree with me in the comments below, and if you disagree with some of my takes, then that’s okay too.
The late 00’s and early 2010’s were a beige time in board games. Lots of board games with shades of brown and themes about trading spices and goods for prestige in the Mediterranean. Let’s not forget all the covers with grumpy men staring either at you, or off into the distance. Rococo, designed by Matthias Cramer, Stefan Malz, and Louis Malz and published by eggertspiele in 2013 decided to buck this trend by having a beige cover with a woman staring at you instead. Oh, also instead of trading spices, you’re trading silks, threads, and laces as you craft ballroom gowns to sell for cash or rent for prestige.
Rococo is a euro game through and through, but a bit of an interesting take on deck building. Each round, you pick up your whole deck of employee cards and choose 3 to put into your hand. These employee tasks allow you to preform one of the six main actions, but not all employees can preform every action. Masters can do everything, apprentices can do most of the actions, excluding only crafting master dresses and hiring new employees. Journeymen are cut off from seeking the Queens Favour, and from making dresses entirely.
To take an action, you must play one card from your hand and then choose one of the six main actions. Taking the queen’s favour earns you 5 Lirve (the currency for Rococo) and you get to go first next round. Visiting the silk market allows you to take silks, or, discard the silk tile for thread and laces. All of which are important for building the dresses. Building dresses is another main action, where you pick one blueprint from the row along the bottom of the board, turn in the required resources, then either sell the dress for cash, or rent it out and place it in the hall in an area majority contest that will net you a small amount of prestige. Each round, there are 4 employee cards available for purchase, and this action can only be taken by a master. When you buy an employee card, they do go right into your hand, so you can use their ability on the round you purchase them. The next action is to depute a worker, which has you send them off to get a small amount of cash equal to their skill level (and removes them from your deck), and the final action is to sponsor a decoration, which just has you trading in a sum of money and placing a disc onto the board.
Most of the employee cards also have a special ability that gets activated after you preform the main action. These can be as pedestrian as earning you a single coin for their labour, while others will net you resources, or allow you to preform a specific main action with a discount. Each player takes a turn playing an employee card, doing one action, then activating the employee bonus, and their turn is over. Once all players run out of cards, the round ends. After 7 rounds, the game ends, and the player with the most prestige points, is the winner.
Rococo does have some really interesting concepts. First, its approach to deck building is novel and full of control. Instead of shuffling your discard and drawing 3 cards, you get to just pick up your whole deck and choose any 3 cards you want. Once used, those employees will sit in the discard until you go through your entire deck, but still, it’s deck building without the luck of the draw.
The other aspect of Rococo that I really enjoyed was the dynamic markets. Both the resource market and the employee market cost money, but the amount of money you need to spend goes down as players buy from those markets. It creates a fascinating tempo consideration. If there’s a juicy employee that you want, is it worth 5 Livre to buy immediately? Or can you wait until someone else buys a different card so you get the employee you want for 3 Livre, or even for free if they’re the last employee available for the round.
All of the markets refresh at the start of each round instead of during gameplay, so it’s not uncommon for a market to run out of options. This creates another timing consideration. Do you take a resource from the market now? If you wait, will there even be anything left the next time your turn comes around?
Everything I’ve talked about so far is in service of the main board, where you’re making and renting dresses to people lining the halls. Each of the 5 halls will give prestige to the player who has the most dresses in that hall, as well as prestige for the dresses themselves. This is where the bulk of your points will come from.
But at the end of the day, Rococo is still a euro game. There’s not a ton of player interaction other than taking a resource from a market first, or sneaking in one last disc into a hall to secure the majority.
I think Rococo shines best at odd player counts, as having an even number of players makes the area majority aspect of the game a bit of a tit-for-tat tug of war instead of something a bit more competitive. At the same time, I don’t think having a lot of players will do the game any favours, as the entire stack of employee cards will be used no matter the player count. With more players, you’ll be stuck reusing your same basic employees again and again, leading me to think the ideal player count is 3.
Rococo is a great mid-weight euro game. It has all the familiar trademarks of other games (resource markets, deck building, recipe fulfillment), but utilizes the mechanics in novel and dynamic ways. The theme of creating dresses in 18th century France is whimsical and unique. It’s not a hard game to play, making it a good choice to play with those who have graduated past gateway games and are on their way to a more meaty affair. It doesn’t break traditions, or reinvent the wheel, making it an easy game to enjoy.
For those of you keeping track, it’s been nearly 3 months since I reviewed Final Fantasy VII. I promise, I started Final Fantasy VIII immediately after, but I’ll be really honest. I found it to be so unfun that I struggle to play it. Every time I turn the game on to keep progressing, I get into a single battle, roll my eyes and shut it down again. So instead of progressing on the main story, today’s post is another adventure into one of the spin-off games, Theatrhythm Final Fantasy. Specifically Final Bar Line, the most entry in the series.
Theatrhythm is a rhythm game set to the music of the Final Fantasy universe. When you first launch the game, you’re given a key, and a carousel of the main line titles, along with a choice selection of some of the more popular spin-off games. Your key will unlock one game, along with a few chibi representations of party members from that specific title.
You’re tasked with building a party to take into each one of these rhythm game missions, and the characters are largely separated into different types. Attack type, defense type, support, summoner, and so on. As they go on missions, they level up and unlock new skills.
But wait, you might be asking. Why are you getting levels and skills in a rhythm game? That’s a great question, and one that is never really answered. Each game presents you with a linier path of songs, starting from the beginning of the game, and progressing through the major plot beats. Each level has various dots scrolling from left to right, and all you need to do when the dot hits the right side of the screen is press a button. Literally, any button will suffice. You can choose to use the shoulder buttons, the face buttons, d-pad, anything. If two buttons hit the right side bar at one time, you’ll need to hit two buttons. There’s also green lines, when make you hold a button for a while, and if that green line slants up or down, you’ll need to hold the joystick in that direction to satisfy the note. There’s also arrows mixed in with the buttons, asking you to press one of the joysticks in that direction.
And that’s the entirety of the gameplay. But literally behind the rhythm game aspect, your party of characters is walking in the background from right to left, letting the scenery scroll by, and occasionally encountering monsters. Your party will automatically battle the baddies they encounter, and should they defeat them, they’ll just keep on walking to the left until the song ends. After a couple songs, you’re rewarded with another key, so you can unlock another game’s music, and if you manage to complete all the songs for a game, you’ll be able to add that games antagonist to your party, just for kicks.
To encourage you to build your party out a little bit, each song has a mission for you to accomplish, and most of them have to do with the party defeating a certain number of baddies, or using certain types of skills. It can be quite difficult to nearly impossible to defeat enough enemies when you first start the game, meaning you’ll likely need to return once your party has levelled up enough to lay the smack down on the enemies. That said, some characters synergize with each other incredibly well to really ratchet up the damage they’re able to output, making previously impossible challenges an utter breeze.
I find the RPG elements of Theatrhythm to be banal and superfluous. It literally does not matter how you build out your party, or if they fail to accomplish whatever the goal of the song is. The only thing that matters is that you hit enough notes to complete the song. I will concede that some of the characters trade defense for attack, and if you stack too many of those characters together, then missing just a handful of notes is enough to make you fail the song.
The rhythm game itself is simple and generally relaxing. The music of the Final Fantasy franchise is beautiful, and it’s actually been really lovely to revisit the past 7 games I’ve played in this way. The musical themes stirring up the memories of my adventures was more nostalgic that I originally expected. Some of the songs really ratchet up the difficulty, putting this game into the “easy to play, difficult to master” territory. Thankfully, each song has several difficulty levels, letting you push yourself on the easier songs, and pull back on the more devilish ones.
I use the term ‘master’, loosely. Theatrhythm is very forgiving, with generally wide range for accepting a button input, to the directional arrows just needing to be within the correct 90 degree arc. Add this to the dual stick and any button approach, and sometimes just spamming things at the right general direction is enough to get you through a difficult spot.
I was surprised at just how many songs were packed into this game. Every main title has at least 10 songs to deliver, and Final Fantasy XI shows up with a whopping 44 songs. With the DLC added, there’s over 400 songs to play through, although some of the most popular songs end up repeated and remixed several times (looking at you, Battle on the Big Bridge).
Theatrhythm ends up being a wonderful and charming celebration of Final Fantasy music, and one that I thoroughly enjoyed. Although the RPG elements are pointless, they do provide a fun little background for my daughter to watch while I focus on the dots flying across the screen.
If you’re being picky, you’ll start to notice that not all note tracks are particularly well-matched to each song. Some dots will fly by and ask for button presses off-beat, but it’s hard to really complain too much when all of the music is just so good. As a celebration of Final Fantasy’s 35th anniversary, Theatrhythm absolutely succeeds in being a big package of fan service to long-time fans. I don’t think the gameplay is engaging enough to make you want to sink hundreds of hours into it, nor will you be organizing multiplayer Theatrhythm parties any time soon, like you used to do with your favourite rhythm games. But if you’re a Final Fantasy fan, I think you’ll find yourself surprisingly touched when the themes of your favourite games come on, and the caricatures of the heroes you’ve spent dozens of hours with bob across the screen. Just don’t show up expecting deep, satisfying RPG gameplay, you won’t find it here.
