Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops arrived in the mail a few days ago. Sadly I don’t have a wireless setup right now (in the process of doing so), so I have been focusing on the single player aspect of the game, which I would like to complete before venturing online anyways. The only other Metal Gear game I’ve “played” on the PSP was the Digital Graphic Novel, and it feels strange playing a full-fledged MGS game that is canonical on a handheld like this. It’s just so….different. And while the basic gameplay has generally remained the same from Snake Eater, there is so much more added to the experience that at the beginning I felt disoriented. Gradually I am getting the grasp of things and am slowly learning the more complicated mechanics of Portable Ops.

I have found the transition into the game’s story to be a smooth one, since the past events of Snake Eater are discussed in the very beginning. The music is familiar, and I am impressed by the game’s graphics, namely the character models like Big Boss (I have a cat named after him!) and Roy Campbell. Since the same artist for the Digital Graphic Novel does the cinematics for this (Ashley Wood), I am not caught off guard by the change in style from 3D models. I am glad to have voice acting this time around, although I’m still thrown off a little when there aren’t any voice overs, just like I was when I played the MGS game on the Gameboy Color or the original Metal Gear games. Thankfully I’ve replayed the series so much that their voices have become embedded into my brain, and I can conjure them up at will.

I’m still getting used to the recruitment aspect of the game, and organizing my squad and equipment. I generally skip the reading of instruction booklets nowadays, and failed to include rations or medical kits in my limited inventory, and instead carried around ammo for a weapon I had yet to obtain. This mistake cost me my life, or should I say, Big Boss’s life while in the midst of capturing a female doctor. Lucky for me, I had my buddy (and only recruit) Jonathan to take care of the rest for me.

As I said, there are several differences between Portable Ops and your traditional Metal Gear Solid games, differences I am still adjusting to. I am enjoying myself though, and will even more once I get the hang of it all.

While working on my Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations post, I started playing the first game I’ve received from GameFly in a long time, Final Fantasy for the PSP. Instead of waiting until I beat it and then writing a large post on it, I am going to write shorter, more frequent posts as I actually play through the game and my memory is still fresh. Then, I will write my final thoughts on the game and include links to my previous posts for those wanting more details. These LTTP posts are sort of reviews in a way, and if it works out then I’ll continue to do my reviews in this format. I won’t know until I try!

I only started it a few days ago, and have played about 20 minutes of it so far, but I have been caught off guard by the differences in certain gameplay elements that I have become used to in modern RPGs. For one, when I walked into the first ‘dungeon’ (castle called Chaos Shrine) without leveling up my party (I was just exploring), and three of my party members were K.O.’d, I was surprised when I returned to the world map to discover that they still all had zero HP! At this point in the game Phoenix Downs are 500 gil, and I don’t exactly have enough money for those yet, so I returned to Cornelia (the starting location of the game) to stay at the Inn. Well, that was 30 gil wasted, because for some reason I expected the rest to revive my characters. I was wrong. So then I found the priest, and for 40 gil each, he was able to revive the members of my party. I was also surprised to find out MP isn’t restored after battle. I didn’t learn this until I frivolously used Fire spells with Gungho, my black mage. I certainly will have to level up more before wandering into unfamiliar locations, and be more frugal with my choice of magic spells for now.

As to be expected with a Final Fantasy game, I am really digging the music. So far, my favorite tunes include the soothing melody of Cornelia, which sets the tone perfectly as the clouds above gently pass over the town, and the more violinistic (new word!) tune of Castle Cornelia, letting you know you’re in the home of the King.

My party consists of:

Charls – Warrior. I always name my characters in RPGs Charles, but this is before they introduced the seven character limit I guess.

Biggs – Thief. Any FF fan can guess why I named him that. I should have added someone named Wedge too probably…

Luca – White Mage. Nothing interesting to say on her.

Gungho – Black Mage. Gungho is a pretty bad-ass name huh? I could have named him Vivi but that would screw up Final Fantasy IX.
 
 
That’s all I have to say on the game for now. I plan to get heavily involved with it this weekend, so I’ll have more to post on it soon.

Oh, and while this is common in many RPGs, I hate it when NPCs get in your way of a path and won’t move! It’s like, “Get out of the way buddy, I have a world to save!” you know?