A first impression for the ages

So I have this problem with compulsive spending. I'll be browsing the used game rack at the local Gamestop, and I'll see a game with anime art on the cover and something looking vaguely like an RPG in the screenshots on the back. If it's twenty bucks or less, guaranteed I'm walking out of the store with it. This is the story of how I've acquired many games, some of them unpopular gems like Unlimited SaGa. On the other end of the spectrum, though, we have Forever Kingdom.

Now, in my last post here I ragged on some choice music, namely Dancing Mad and the KoF01 OST. Much to my own surprise, I'm going to have to say those compositions sound like masterpieces in comparison to the music for the opening FMV for Forever Kingdom. I mean, the song has several lines of music going on at once, but none of them are in time with each other. My ears have never been so confused where it's felt like it was being yanked by three different chains going in three completely separate directions. It was like the world's laziest mash-up, or something like that. And of course, the in-game music is no better. This is seriously the only game (other than, of course, the dreaded KoF01) where the music has been so bad, it's distracted me from playing the game.

But hey, the bad first impression doesn't end there. Start the game, and we get a boring narration from a voice actor stiff as a statue. Cut to the actual game, and you're greeted by three characters with some of the worst designs I've ever seen. The two males are as generic as can be, with the only remarkable differences being hair color and a scarf. The female isn't much different, only she's wearing a god damn net over her clothes. Like the designers made her and said, "Oh crap, we need to make her more unique. Uh, throw a net over her and we'll call it a day." I know people will rag on designs like FFX's Tidus, calling him outlandish, asymmetrical, and clowny, but at least there's some sense of direction there. In Forever Kingdom, we just have a net thrown on top of the normal clothes. And no, it's not the sexy fishnet that Naruto author Kishimoto seems to like so much, it's just sitting there on top of the clothes.

But hey, it's just not an RPG of the current generation if I can't play until I've been bored out of my mind first, right? The opening cut-scene (which looks absolutely atrocious, might I add) takes another good two or three minutes, rife with voice acting ranging from bored to flat. To give credit where it's due, it's not quite as bad as Magna Carta, but I definitely wish I could turn it off. When I finally get the play the game, I realize that the developers couldn't even make walking a non-painful experience. For those of you who ever played Jedi Outcast or Jedi Academy online and remembered what it was like to watch yourself lag while running, it's just like that. The characters don't take steps, they teleport two inches in front of them while kind of moving their legs.

And combat? I never thought I'd run into a system inherently worse than the .hack system (seriously, I have to go into a menu to do anything other than a basic attack?), but here we go. Mash X until you build meter to do your special move. Switch characters, repeat. Once all three character have their moves, you can chain them together, except for the fact that the two characters you aren't controlling are guaranteed to get stuck behind fences, doghouses, or you. Almost a novel idea, but Valkyrie Profile beat them to the punch, and they actually made it good.

Forever Kingdom is seriously the first game I've ever played where I shut off my system after just ten minutes of playing it. I tried again for another half hour, but I realized I was just banging my head against a brick wall. I'm really bad with years, so I'm not sure what other RPGs came out in the same time, but a quick run to GameFAQs tells me this game was the same year as Final Fantasy X. I'm not saying FFX is a masterpiece or anything, but using it as a bar to be measured against, it's like Forever Kingdom intentionally dug a pit for itself and jumped right in.

But this is a weblog about video game music right? I tried to see if there was a soundtrack for this game, and unsurprisingly enough, there isn't one that either Chudah's Corner or GMR has listed. Unfortunately, this probably means I'll never figure out who the composer is, so I can never personally fly to his place of residence and slap him into next week.

Not every cloud has a silver lining, it seems.