Assault of the Silver Dragons

It's the beginning of the end, we're going to settle things with the Death Angel Kuja. The final dungeon seems to be over the Iifa Tree. Oh, no, Dragons! Invincible, use twister, that should be supereffective!



Cid's troops and Beatrix's Red Rose help with the evil monsters.



Final Fantasy XI - Shinryu

Boss battle 25, Nova Dragon (aka Shinryu): The boss of the dragons comes to kick ass and take names. It likes to do attacks (haha, like everyone) and look bad at my characters.



Look how it dies! Ahahahaha!



Place of Memory

This place is built by the memories of all the things in the universe. Pretty interesting, but what is doing this place here? Look, the first save point in the game. There are lots of weapons hidden all over the place. The first one is the Kain's Lance.



This demon monster likes to stop mah characters and cast reflect. Not much dangerous...



Oh, Roulette. I hate that attack... until the 20% chances of killing the enemy activate.



Final Fantasy II - Battle Theme (Arranged)

Enemy alert: Iron Giant. High defense and attack, it likes to increase them even more. Its physical attacks are devastating, including the one that leaves a character with 1 HP.



Grandia II - Main Boss Theme

There's a The Tower on the floor.
Boss Battle 26, Marilis: She has in her possession a Masamune, the Genji's Armor and the Ultima Sword. She has killed Gilgamesh!!! You'll pay for this.



She obviously likes slicing and burning. After focusing while Zidane was stealing, Vivi can use Crackling to destroy the monster. (Hearing that music makes me remember how shitty is the turn system in this game)



Keep the HP levels high, she does a last attack before biting the dust.



Look at all those bad memories, Garnet! This place wants to screw with her mind or something. The most powerful flute is in the Alexandria room.



Pokémon Black/White - Legendary Battle

And the Rune Knuckles are in the eye room.
Boss battle 27, Tiamat: I hope someone guesses why I've chosen that song for this battle, maybe it's a strange reason, but...
We're in front of the second Chaos Guardian and it likes absorbing the characters atributes and casting hurricanes. It's pretty easy, imo.



Monster alert, Chimera: It does breathing attacks that freeze, spread virus and poison. Pretty nasty for my tastes.



Quina thinks she can dive in this place. The power of imagination seems to be pretty powerful here. Hey, it's my lovely friend from FFVII. I don't think he's going to make me learn Magic Breath and I flee.



Theatrhythm Final Fantasy - Hunter's Chance

There's a hidden boss in this room, his name is Hades. The god of the underworld appears as a supposedly very difficult battle. The only problem I had is that Steiner still had the Demon's Mail from the failed attempts against Ozma, and he was being beaten pretty hard by his physical attacks.



Defeat it and get access to his legendary synthesis shop. There are some interesting items but I only buy the Save the Queen for Beatrix.

This scene is pretty funny, now everyone knows that Gaya was entirely covered with water, liars.



Final Fantasy VI - The Decisive Battle

Boss battle 28, Kraken: So this is the monster that attacked my girls in the water temple. I'm going to fry your tentacles. It knows the hidden technique Waterga and that makes me jealous. It has another piece of the Genji kit.



Our old friend the Behemoth is here too, but seems old and it's less dangerous than before. There's a secret save point here to ease the way, and near here we can find Vivi's ultimate weapon. It teaches Doomsday, this game's spell that damages everyone in the battlefield. They're usually designed to use some elemental absorbing equipment to use it as a "draining" spell. No, Doomsday isn't fire elemental as this "meteor" isn't hot, but evil :O



The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess - Stallord (Second Form)

Boss battle 29, Lich: This guy is called the earth chaos because it does earthquake, and that's all. Actually, he specializes in death spells: Doom, Death and Lv.5 Death.



I HATE counters in this game. They start at 10 and advance while the animations are ocurring, so that means that the effect is almost immediately. Vivi dies just after killing the enemy, that's called a posthumous kill.



Time to get out of here and go to the Crystal World.

Been playing the FF4 Complete Collection on my PSP, so I'm up to where you're at currently, Dark Schala. (I'd probably be farther, but I've been busy.)

Thoughts so far:
-Looks pretty.
-Not a fan of the redone sprites
-Also don't care for the redone music. Classic OST FTW.
-I miss Gold Paladin Cecil...er Batman.

The Tower of Zot has always annoyed me since it's just in the middle of nowhere. Is it a tower in the sky?

Also, the upcoming part pisses me off.

Updated the OP with more characters, mission data, and some minor spiffing up!

After logging out of the VR Sim, Zack finds himself checking a whole lot of e-mail!


Pt.2 "The First Errand"



Our hero exits the training room feeling bummed out. Training isn't cutting it. He wants an assignment! His pal Kunsel explains to him just why that is: lotsa people are deserting SOLDIER! A 1st Class took off with a bunch of lower ranked guys for reasons unknown. Just then Angeal pops in and grants Zack's wish. He's got an assignment and is to report to the Director right away!


Turns out a 1st Class SOLDIER named Genesis disappeared a month back while on the job in Wutai, so Zack's sorta inheriting his assignment. Lazard's anxious to have this war come to a close and Angeal has recommended Zack for 1st Class! If all goes well everyone gets what they want! The operations gonna begin as soon as they land in Wutai so before they head out it's prep-time™!



Our good friend Kunsel is looking out for Zack and has sent him a mail so let's check it out..... that's alot more mail than advertised. C'mon! Zack isn't stupid! ...Just forgetful. Next he mentions that the powerful training materia he had has been swapped back for some dinky low level ones. If you want the good stuff ya gotta earn it! With that in mind he brings up "missions". How are these any different from assignments? idk but with 10 categories of 'em it seems like there may be a ton of busywork!


This first mission is another VR battle. An easy training battle against some Shinra infantry. It's so easy that Zack says he coulda done it blindfolded much to Kunsel's amusement "Ha ha ha! You're the man, Zack!" Next he quickly explains "supply pods". Hit these up before each assignment for some nice goods provided by the company. Kunsel says he'll be getting mail from all kinds of people... "But don't just read mail that you get from girls!" The company has generously provided a meager Bronze Bangle -_- not satisfied with that, Zack checks the pod over and over and over again until out pops a Cursed Ring! Oh dear. Greed is not good!



With all that outta the way its time to report back to Lazard who informs 'em he'll be going with and we find out Zack's dream isn't just becoming 1st Class, its "To become a hero!" Now almost as soon as they set foot in Wutai they're spotted by a patrol and wanting to impress the director, Zack takes them out himself! Angeal asks if he knows what Dumbapples are and is dumbfounded at how clueless his trainee is before wandering off ahead. Zack catches up and asks about 'em. "The official name is Banora White. The trees bear fruit at random times during the year." Since his family was poor little Angeal would steal some from the farms in town but never from the richest guys one since that guys son was his friend. This story has what to do with Zack? Nothing! However: "No story is not worth hearing." doh!



Upon reaching the fort there's alil chitchat about how Zack's never seen Angeal use his sword... cause he's kinda a cheapskate and doesn't want to worry about repairs! When the B Team sets off explosives its time for Zack to go wild and take on the fort himself! - Heightened emotions have affected the DMW! - I dunno if that sounds helpful or not but lets just roll with it. Although they're up against "just one guy" those Wutai guard dude don't put up much of a fight despite their numbers. The guys up top had ta be taken out with Blizzard btw! Don't get careless Zack cause its time to show Lazard what you're made of!

Crystal World

This is Final Fantasy IX final update. There are some sidequests I haven't done and Ozma still lives. Maybe I do some extra updates with this remaining things later. The Crystal World is the last zone in the game and features the Chaos gang in crystal form. They don't give experience, so I flee from all the random battles. Uhh, the last save point...



Kuja is here, but he doesn't want to fight yet and calls...



Persona 3 - Mass Destruction

Boss battle 30, Deathguise (aka Death Gaze): Ugh, a giant bug. Use the ability that increases damage to bug enemies and MP attack so Zidane does like 9999 per attack.



*GASP* A METEOR. Imagine a meteor crushing (almost) all the characters at once, well, that's the only chance to wreck me and it has succeded. All the subsequent revivals are in vain thanks to an attack that sweeps everyone in the party for medium damage. Meaning: The first turn decides if you have to reset.

RESET!



Second attempt: Meteor fails! (Not really) The enemy is down!
Get back here, you son-of-a...!

Do you think that what you threw was a meteor! THIS is a meteor!



Here's our chance for an All-Out Attack! Holy+Shock+Overpowered attack = DEATH

The song was because of the first meteor, it mass destructed my characters's asses.



Time to save and cure, guys! Hours played: 38:46:03 Zidane level 59, the others 53.



The Darkness of Eternity

Last to final battle, Trance Kuja: He's a human, so you know what abilities to activate.



Oh, he's flaring my characters! But that isn't enough to kill Zidane. In return, a 9999 HP attack comes his way and a Holy.



Let's press on, and on, and on! Kuja starts doing some Astral Flares.



That HURTS, and he flares Vivi immediately and does another Mega Flare. That's overkill for the poor kid.



Another Holy from Eiko convinces him to kill everyone.



Thanks Kuja, you've defeated my characters... AGAIN. The rage is invading me... Well, not that much.



The Final Battle

Everyone is dead this time? No, and another enemy appears from nowhere. He wants to erase everything. Obviously, Zidane doesn't like what he hears...



Amarant revives Vivi because he didn't know who Steiner is (They have zero interaction, apart from a certain reaction from Steiner in Ipsen's castle), Eiko is a brat and Zidane needs to be revived by his girlfriend.



Freya revives Steiner because they shared some clothes.



Quina revives Eiko because she wants to apologize for wanting to eat her moogle/eidolon.



And Garnet revives Zidane because only him turns her on. Vivi is a machine kid, Steiner is already taken and Amarant is green.



The Final Boss, Necron (aka Darkness of Eternity/Eternal Darkness): Equip ALL the status abilities!!! It's important because of a certain attack.



I start with the usual magics and he uses Blizzaga. Soooooo easy right now.



Grand Cross

Unknown chances of causing any status ailment. With all the abilities activated, the posible ailments are zombie, doom, death, mini and berserk. They're pretty horrible by themselves but without abilities you have to deal with stop, dark, sleep, confusion, petrification, gradual petrification, heat, freeze, poison and venom (stop+poison+MP sap).
Ohohoho, crap, crap, crap. Steiner is mute, Vivi is going to die and has shrunken, Eiko is safe and Zidane has berserk .



Eiko uses at last the Holy she was going to cast before the misfortune came to their lives. Necron does its most powerful attack, Neutron Ring, and Zidane dies horribly.



More resurrections and a shocking attack later...



...Necron is defeated!!! But not without threatening saying that he can come again. Just like Zeromus, GTFO.

Behind The Door

Melodies of Life

Well, two extra songs because I don't like posting endings.



And everyone lived happily (minus certain character) until the two planets fused and everyone died.



Prelude

FIN

...One more thing.



Blackjack time! I don't know how this game works, but I win twice. Neat.

Ultratech said:

Been playing the FF4 Complete Collection on my PSP, so I'm up to where you're at currently, Dark Schala. (I'd probably be farther, but I've been busy.)

Thoughts so far:
-Looks pretty.
-Not a fan of the redone sprites
-Also don't care for the redone music. Classic OST FTW.
-I miss Gold Paladin Cecil...er Batman.

The Tower of Zot has always annoyed me since it's just in the middle of nowhere. Is it a tower in the sky?

Also, the upcoming part pisses me off.

Spoiler

How the hell did Golbez beat us down to the Underground when we opened it up? Did they wait like a week before going through the hole? The Red Wings couldn't have flown through the Tower of Babel...so what gives?

Click to expand...

Golbez

Dark Schala said:

spindashing needs to post more in the SonicGAF thread. And I hope I'm the bestest Black Mage ever.


lol, take your time. Now that school's back in session, I have to juggle that and work so updates aren't going to be super-quick. They're just kinda long and stuff right now because school just started and I have less things to work on.


To be completely fair to Type-0, though, in both demos, you do have to get used to character animations and how quick they attack sometimes to successfully pull off decent attacks to stand against some of the oddly-balanced missions (especially in the first demo, holy crap), or to get used to finding time to kill sight things. But when you kinda get used to all of the characters to your disposal, there isn't that much depth, I guess?

Click to expand...

I have a hard time discussing difficulty because for the last two playthroughs I was so disgustingly over-leveled it didn't matter much. Plus I used Jack, who by level 30 was already hitting some enemies for 9999 damage. Bebpo's analysis is a fair one, though I do disagree with a thing or two he wrote, now that I think on it. Mainly , I loved Class 0 even with their admittedly small character development, and I had no problem with linear dungeons because I hate hate hate dungeons like in FFII where getting the player to Game Over is the main objective. Otherwise, he makes some great points and I can't say that, realistically speaking, his score of the game was unfair.

I think the reason I liked it so much more is more a matter of 1)The game appealed directly to what I wanted, which was an ARPG set in the FNC, because that was what I'd been lead to believe XIII was gonna be. The game met other wants of mine, like a world map, two-party dungeons, and catered to a lot of my nostalgia points. and 2) I have pretty low standards when it comes to video games.

EDIT: Oh and I liked the RTS missions more or less, but I can see why someone would not at all.

FF6: YEAH! GOT TERRA BACK! Scoot over Celes, because there's a new awesome on the boat! Now I dunno how I'm gonna go about the very open ended second half of the game. Just stroll along it, I guess.

I have three posts worth of pictures to upload (if I go by my usual limit of pics per post). *headdesk*

Even after cutting several redundant pictures, I still have played too much and now have to spread this update over at least 3 posts, not including if I play over the weekend. I fucking hate myself and War of the Lions right now. :lol :lol

PREVIOUSLY ON X-MEN: We got a closer look at some of my party members while we headed to our next destination: the Castled City of Zaland. But it turns out that once we get there, we have to save somebody. Oh when will it end!?




It's Mustadio, one of the best guest characters in the game! Well, excluding Cid, Beowulf, Luso, and Balthier. But Mustadio is still an ass-kicker in his own right. Guns are no joke in this game, and pretty much make Archers completely unnecessary.



No freakin' DUH Agrias.



Another choice, but this one is obvious. We don't need a Brave penalty, and out lopsided levels give us the advantage. The battle doesn't take too long since I want to try and get some JP before the next area. I forgot to bring my Thief, but the enemies here didn't have anything worth stealing anyways. After the battle, we get to hear more from Mustadio and why he's being chased...or at least what he's willing to tell us.





Mustadio is a man of machines. He's actually how you get most of the sidequests in this entire game. Later on, once you finally recruit him for real, you can choose to decline having him join. Why you would do such a thing is beyond me, but should you kick him to the curb, you can kiss most of the sidequests goodbye. No Beowulf, Reis, Worker 8, Cloud, etc. So regardless of your feelings on him, he's still an integral part of the game.




As you can see, the man is passionate about his work. But Agrias has little time for more background hobbies and cuts to the chase.




As is the case with most of the characters we meet, Mustadio likes to drag on. Unfortunately, he's not telling us what we want to know.




With all this dancing around the topic at hand, maybe I should make give him the Dancer class. Just kidding! That class is Female-only. Don't ask why, because I don't have the answer.



While I know that Mustadio isn't a bad guy (since I've played this game so many times before), Agrias is rightfully suspicious and denies his request. All seems grim for him until...



Aw, what a stand-up princess she is.



...what a knight Agrias is.

MEANWHILE, AT THE HALL OF JUSTICE...






Gaffgarion and Dycedarg talk about how they would've gotten away with their plans if it weren't for those meddling kids. Dycedarg, despite being Beef's brother, cares more about power currently, hence the wine glass.




Wow, giving your own brother a death sentence. I don't relish having to write the Christmas letter this year.




Like any good evil mastermind, Dycedarg already has a contingency plan in place due to all of our meddling.





Seems someone has been sticking their nose in Dycedarg's plot as well. Someone named Delita, I'm sure. But you didn't hear that from me. In either case, Dycedarg is confident things will go smoothly despite all the setbacks. After this scene, we get a cutscene of Ramza landing at Warjilis. And wouldn't you know it, Delita is there as well! He shows up to warn Ramza about meddling in things he shouldn't meddle with, and outright tells him that he can't rescue the princess. He also mentions that everyone is currently being swept about by a current. You know, that old thing in most pop-culture stuff about going against fate, puppet strings and all that. Powerful stuff.

NEXT TIME: we meet with the Cardinal and get introduced to Mustadio's pappy.

FF6 - Arrived in the ruined world after a bit of a break on my end. Poor pervy granpa Cid... for a moment I thought he was up to something, darting back to bed eery time I came back with the fish, but then he dead, that's that! I was actually shocked by the suicide scene, I really didn't expect that from a SNES game. And the translation - did they really justify it by saying that the old islanders would jump from the cliff to cheer themselves up? lol! Who are they kidding?? Neat scene though, and I do like Celes' theme (or dear, I'm becoming one of you people that talk about FF music as if it's culturally significant or something ).

I'm now wondering around the wasteland because Celes arrived at level 25 which I think is a bit underlevelled - the crumbling house with all the awesome loot kicked my ass first time, I need to be able to clear the battles faster.

Jedeye Sniv said:

FF6 - Arrived in the ruined world after a bit of a break on my end. Poor pervy granpa Cid... for a moment I thought he was up to something, darting back to bed eery time I came back with the fish, but then he dead, that's that! I was actually shocked by the suicide scene, I really didn't expect that from a SNES game. And the translation - did they really justify it by saying that the old islanders would jump from the cliff to cheer themselves up? lol! Who are they kidding?? Neat scene though, and I do like Celes' theme (or dear, I'm becoming one of you people that talk about FF music as if it's culturally significant or something ).

I'm now wondering around the wasteland because Celes arrived at level 25 which I think is a bit underlevelled - the crumbling house with all the awesome loot kicked my ass first time, I need to be able to clear the battles faster.

Click to expand...

just buy a bunch of smokebombs to escape the battles. once you have sabin youll be fine.

CorvoSol said:

I have a hard time discussing difficulty because for the last two playthroughs I was so disgustingly over-leveled it didn't matter much. Plus I used Jack, who by level 30 was already hitting some enemies for 9999 damage. Bebpo's analysis is a fair one, though I do disagree with a thing or two he wrote, now that I think on it. Mainly

Spoiler

I understood the ending entirely different from how he did

, I loved Class 0 even with their admittedly small character development...

I think the reason I liked it so much more is more a matter of 1)The game appealed directly to what I wanted, which was an ARPG set in the FNC, because that was what I'd been lead to believe XIII was gonna be. The game met other wants of mine, like a world map, two-party dungeons, and catered to a lot of my nostalgia points. and 2) I have pretty low standards when it comes to video games.

Click to expand...

I think one of the reasons behind why some people didn't like the
Like, Type-0 was the only game in the FNC that I was remotely even interested in because it seemed to have everything I wanted in a Final Fantasy, but if a lot of the stuff I was looking for was kind of half-assed, my enthusiasm gets knocked down a lot. The demos didn't do much to alleviate my worries, especially in terms of combat & balancing. But from what I've seen in general on both GAF and mk2, reaction to Type-0 is generally mixed, not outright positive. Seems like a game where some people really loved it, while others had lots of problems with. So divisive, like every Final Fantasy game, haha.

Anyway, sorry for discussing Type-0 spoilers in here, guys.

Professor Beef said:

I have three posts worth of pictures to upload (if I go by my usual limit of pics per post). *headdesk*

Click to expand...

And then you have to sort out which pics you wanna post, and delete some of the stuff you wrote if you want to take the pictures out and sometimes rework your post around it... :lol

That's how a Let's Play works!

GAF should have a Let's Play forum, but I don't think a lot of people would be interested in it / people wouldn't have time for it. I know there are a few games I'd love to text/screenshot LP.

I already have like 550 Final Fantasy X screenshots. How many will go to the limbo?

Heropon said:

Blackjack time! I don't know how this game works, but I win twice. Neat.

Click to expand...

Huh? I didn't even know there's a Black Jack game in FF IX. Looks nice enough, why did they hide it so well?

Dark Schala said:

GAF should have a Let's Play forum, but I don't think a lot of people would be interested in it / people wouldn't have time for it. I know there are a few games I'd love to text/screenshot LP.

Click to expand...

Just make a "Let's Play: Whatever we want (except FF or SMT) Screenshot Edition" thread. I'd even do summaries.

Edit:

Heropon said:

I already have like 550 Final Fantasy X screenshots. How many will go to the limbo?

Click to expand...

How do you find the time? It took me 3 hours just to write my final Devil Summoner post and you're posting so often and you're still playing so much.

Jucksalbe said:

How do you find the time? It took me 3 hours just to write my final Devil Summoner post and you're posting so often and you're still playing so much.

Click to expand...

I don't know how I did before the summer but right now I have muuuuuch free time.

Edit: By the way, where do you think I'm right now in the game?

Dark Schala said:

I think one of the reasons behind why some people didn't like the

Spoiler

first playthrough ending is because it was established that when people die, they're immediately forgotten by people, and various other story twists that takes away from the gravity of the narrative. Now that takes away a huge thing about the game that I was interested, and that was the social aspects of war; I was thinking of Type-0 as a Suikoden-like game. But rather, it's more of a fantasy game and I guess it doesn't strike my fancy anymore. Especially the whole part about Arecia and Lulusathian Judge performing experiments in an attempt to open Etro's Door. The second ending is so much better than the first, but the road to get there is just kinda bumpy.

Like, Type-0 was the only game in the FNC that I was remotely even interested in because it seemed to have everything I wanted in a Final Fantasy, but if a lot of the stuff I was looking for was kind of half-assed, my enthusiasm gets knocked down a lot. The demos didn't do much to alleviate my worries, especially in terms of combat & balancing. But from what I've seen in general on both GAF and mk2, reaction to Type-0 is generally mixed, not outright positive. Seems like a game where some people really loved it, while others had lots of problems with. So divisive, like every Final Fantasy game, haha.

Anyway, sorry for discussing Type-0 spoilers in here, guys.

Click to expand...

To me the
You should still give it a chance when it comes stateside, though, Dark Schala. It might not be the amazing mind-bending super awesome cool Final Fantasy we all had hoped it would be, but it's a good game, and pending Versus, is the best thing to come out of the FNC. I really liked it, though, and, even with my limited understanding of the story, found it to be endearing if flawed.

It really does make an honest effort to be like the PSX era FF games. I'm hoping the delay is because they're overhauling some things.

Jucksalbe said:

Huh? I didn't even know there's a Black Jack game in FF IX. Looks nice enough, why did they hide it so well?

Just make a "Let's Play: Whatever we want (except FF or SMT) Screenshot Edition" thread. I'd even do summaries.

Click to expand...

Think that might need mod approval first since those participating will be spoiling games anyway (and I get the feeling some companies won't like that), and then you'd need rules like how SA has rules (ex: don't play games until 3 months after their release, space your LPs three months apart, etc.).

Plus I think Aeana had mentioned that when there are GAF Plays threads that go up, barely anyone participates in them. This one seems to be different because GAF is just kinda bigger and it's easier to take screens of things now (with emus, PSP CFW, etc). Compared with last year's GAF Plays: Zelda Games, you'll definitely notice the difference between that thread and this thread.

Blackjack at the end of FF9 can be accessed by pressing R2, L1, R2, R2, Up, X, Right, Circle, Down, Triangle, L2, R1, R2, L1, Square, Square, Start when "The End" is onscreen. I... still don't know how to play Blackjack. :lol

Heropon said:

I already have like 550 Final Fantasy X screenshots. How many will go to the limbo?

Click to expand...

I'd say that... you're at Besaid.

I usually take, like, 200-300-ish screens depending on the entry. Right now I have about 400-ish for the next update, but that's including the ones I'm going to delete, or the ones where I kept pressing the screenshot button because it would be hard to capture what I wanted to on time... so I'd say I'll taper it down to 230-ish, and then while I'm writing the update I'll take a few more of the screens out and try to get down to less than that.

Then I was planning to put something into a screenshot with GIMP so that's a little work, but it only takes a few minutes.

CorvoSol said:

To me the

Spoiler

first ending was okay because it made the game a bookend. The game begins with Izana crying in justifiable fear of death in the middle of a war. The game ends with Class Zero accepting death with smiles, happiness, and peace. I thought it was a good way to end the game, but I agree that the idea of death equally forgetting was not one I would ever have chosen for a game that is otherwise very much so about war. The reason I didn't like the ending was that I didn't like losing the entire class. I mean, Arecia revives Machina and Rem, but leaves Class Zero dead? What the hell!? The second ending was much better, I thought. It made me suspect that Rem was fully aware in it, too, of everything that had lead them there.

You should still give it a chance when it comes stateside, though, Dark Schala. It might not be the amazing mind-bending super awesome cool Final Fantasy we all had hoped it would be, but it's a good game, and pending Versus, is the best thing to come out of the FNC. I really liked it, though, and, even with my limited understanding of the story, found it to be endearing if flawed.

It really does make an honest effort to be like the PSX era FF games. I'm hoping the delay is because they're overhauling some things.

Click to expand...

Oh yeah, I didn't mean to make it sound like I wouldn't play the full game at all. I definitely would. I usually try to play everything before I critique it in a critical sense. Like I said, it was the only FF game out of the three FNC games that I've been looking forward to and I should play it, flawed or no.

As for

Heropon said:

Edit: By the way, where do you think I'm right now in the game?

Click to expand...

I took ~800 screenshots for my whole playthrough of Devil Summoner, but I guess you take a lot more screenshots than I did because I always took them after I played. Now if I could remember the order in which the stuff in FFX happens.....maybe Kilika?

Dark Schala said:

Think that might need mod approval first since those participating will be spoiling games anyway (and I get the feeling some companies won't like that), and then you'd need rules like how SA has rules (ex: don't play games until 3 months after their release, space your LPs three months apart, etc.).

Click to expand...

Yeah, I forgot about the spoilers. I guess if you put something like "Enter at your own risk", nobody would read the thread.

Dark Schala said:

Plus I think Aeana had mentioned that when there are GAF Plays threads that go up, barely anyone participates in them. This one seems to be different because GAF is just kinda bigger and it's easier to take screens of things now (with emus, PSP CFW, etc).

Click to expand...

All those threads ride on a few people doing most of the updates. If you look at my summary, you see a lot of different people, but look at "who posted", the first 10 people account for ~45% of all posts (and I didn't even do that many game posts). So I guess it's sometimes luck to have dedicated people who want to play the right games right now.
Also, you shouldn't worry if a thread isn't updated for over a week. For a while Heropon was the only one playing at all here. I was the only one posting bigger updates in the SMT thread for a while (well, okay, I guess that thread is nearly dead by now).

Dark Schala said:

Compared with last year's GAF Plays: Zelda Games, you'll definitely notice the difference between that thread and this thread.

Click to expand...

Just looked over the thread (I think I never read it before, even though I still have some Zelda games I haven't finished ), it seems people are talking a bit less about their playthrough. To be fair there are also a lot less Zelda games than there are FF games. I don't know, as I said, it's probably mostly luck.
But now I feel like running through ALttP again, thank you very much.

Dark Schala said:

I... still don't know how to play Blackjack. :lol

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Don't go over 21, get closest to 21. Simple as that. Every card with a person on it (whatever you call those in English) is worth 10 points, an ace is worth 1 or 11 points depending what fits better. That's all.

Dark Schala said:

I'd say that... you're at Besaid.

I usually take, like, 200-300-ish screens depending on the entry. Right now I have about 400-ish for the next update, but that's including the ones I'm going to delete, or the ones where I kept pressing the screenshot button because it would be hard to capture what I wanted to on time... so I'd say I'll taper it down to 230-ish, and then while I'm writing the update I'll take a few more of the screens out and try to get down to less than that.
[/spoiler]

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Then I suppose I take too few screenshots, because it was before the "infamous laughing scene". I have to think about what moments need screenshots while I'm playing, because I don't want to fill the hard drive with loooots of images, and I want to save them for later. Who knows when they can be useful.

Jucksalbe said:

I took ~800 screenshots for my whole playthrough of Devil Summoner, but I guess you take a lot more screenshots than I did because I always took them after I played. Now if I could remember the order in which the stuff in FFX happens.....maybe Kilika?

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And Jucksalbe wins by approximation.



HAHAHAHA, HA!

I hope FFXII doesn't slow much my poor computer. I think Scathe is going to be forbidden when I play.

Edit: Look at all those jaggies. The master race is going to kill me!

Talking about screenshot numbers I was curious of how many I did for every Final Fantasy. There goes my count:

FFI: 308
FFII: 333
FFIII: 1
FFIV: 697
FFV: 603 (Many were lost, agggh)
FFVI: 855
FFVII: 1709
FFVIII: 1563
FFIX: 3211

Heropon said:

FFIX: 3211

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Wow. The ~800 I made for Devil Summoner were the most I ever made.

I think Heropon might take less shots for FFX this time. The game is more focused on cinematic experience/spoken dialogue so you don't have to capture every line, or sometimes it might be hard to do that.

I didn't even notice the jaggies much until you pointed them out!

Jucksalbe said:

Yeah, I forgot about the spoilers. I guess if you put something like "Enter at your own risk", nobody would read the thread.

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And if it's a catch-all LP thread, some people might get spoiled on games they wouldn't want to be spoiled on. Doing it by a thread-by-thread basis might be better. But again, GAF doesn't really have any regulations for that sorta thing. Plus there's another thing like interest too. Will the thread be frequented enough and stuff, and will it even be worth updating the thread if it isn't frequented?

Jucksalbe said:

All those threads ride on a few people doing most of the updates. If you look at my summary, you see a lot of different people, but look at "who posted", the first 10 people account for ~45% of all posts (and I didn't even do that many game posts). So I guess it's sometimes luck to have dedicated people who want to play the right games right now.
Also, you shouldn't worry if a thread isn't updated for over a week. For a while Heropon was the only one playing at all here. I was the only one posting bigger updates in the SMT thread for a while (well, okay, I guess that thread is nearly dead by now).

Just looked over the thread (I think I never read it before, even though I still have some Zelda games I haven't finished

Spoiler

MM

), it seems people are talking a bit less about their playthrough. To be fair there are also a lot less Zelda games than there are FF games. I don't know, as I said, it's probably mostly luck.
But now I feel like running through ALttP again, thank you very much.

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Your Devil Summoner playthrough was really good and detailed, though. I haven't popped into the thread to do a playthrough of anything because the stuff I'd want to play through are things that I don't have a capture card for (like, I'd love to do a DDS playthrough and talk about references to religion and languages and stuff), and I'd be juggling two playthroughs at once so I didn't think it was worth it.

Well, having the people at the right time and place is once thing, and again, people who want to put the time aside for updates and stuff. Like, a lot of people don't want to do longer writeups of things because it takes a long time. Writeups are completely optional, but I just like doing them in general. I don't mind if people don't read them or whatever, but I get a lot out of finishing the writeups off.

Also, you should finish MM one day. It's my favourite Zelda game because of a lot of reasons. I love how they retooled some of Link's animations in this one because it adds an acrobatic nature to some of his moves. Swimming in this game is super-fun, but the framerate is kinda weird looking back at it now, and the quests are so exciting sometimes. But yeah, another reason why the Zelda thread was kinda barren for updates is that people were playing the games on systems where they couldn't capture stuff, or they were like me and ended up playing them on portables where it's hard to capture screens. With FF it's easier because you can use CFW or emulators easier to capture images.

Jucksalbe said:

Don't go over 21, get closest to 21. Simple as that. Every card with a person on it (whatever you call those in English) is worth 10 points, an ace is worth 1 or 11 points depending what fits better. That's all.

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Man for some reason I always thought it was a harder game like Poker or something. And this is why I don't gamble. >.>

Yeah, Blackjack isn't very hard to play, but it can be tricky when you're actually playing against other people.

Also, I never knew FFIX had it. Pretty neat.

I'd love to do an LP one of these days when I get some more free time for it. No idea what game I would do though.

Dark Schala said:

I didn't even notice the jaggies much until you pointed them out!

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I don't care about jaggies (maybe a little), but all that people treating them like the worst enemies in gaming and the Dolphin discussion has alerted me.

Dark Schala said:

Also, you should finish MM one day. It's my favourite Zelda game because of a lot of reasons. I love how they retooled some of Link's animations in this one because it adds an acrobatic nature to some of his moves. Swimming in this game is super-fun, but the framerate is kinda weird looking back at it now, and the quests are so exciting sometimes.

Click to expand...

I had luck of playing and finishing it a month before Ocarina of Time 3D was released. A month later (July) I wanted to run through the Termina Field (fantastic music) and the framerate was certainly odd.

Dark Schala said:

And if it's a catch-all LP thread, some people might get spoiled on games they wouldn't want to be spoiled on. Doing it by a thread-by-thread basis might be better.

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"Thread-by-thread" also means you can never have games that aren't part of a bigger series. A "GAF Plays Rule of Rose" might be a bit one-sided. Or a "GAF Plays" for less popular series (like say Atelier) would never get a thread, because there are already only 10 different people in the OTs. And you certainly won't get a special forum for that here.
You'd have to make your own forum.

Dark Schala said:

But again, GAF doesn't really have any regulations for that sorta thing. Plus there's another thing like interest too. Will the thread be frequented enough and stuff, and will it even be worth updating the thread if it isn't frequented?

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Well, you said yourself it's not really important if anyone reads them. When you mostly browse GAF by subscriptions, it's not very important if a thread only gets updated once every two weeks.

Dark Schala said:

(like, I'd love to do a DDS playthrough and talk about references to religion and languages and stuff)

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Do you have the knowledge to point out all the religious themes in that game? That would be wonderful to read about. I mostly talked about the bosses and dungeons because I already have a hard time to tell Hinduism from Buddhism.

Dark Schala said:

Also, you should finish MM one day.

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I will. I played the game on the N64 when it was released and I really hated the time limit back then. I sold my N64 a long time ago, but I bought the VC version on the Wii, so I'm all set to try again.

Dark Schala said:

With FF it's easier because you can use CFW or emulators easier to capture images.

Click to expand...

All future consoles and handhelds really should have a mandatory screenshot function. I don't care if they print their copyright on the shots (like on the Vita....at least get them right...oh wait I just remembered the screenshot function's optional on the Vita) or anything like that, just let me have the option to make screens. Consoles with HDMI don't exactly make it easier to capture footage.

Dark Schala said:

Man for some reason I always thought it was a harder game like Poker or something. And this is why I don't gamble. >.>

Click to expand...

There are some additional rules, but it's not that much. It's definitely not as complex as Poker.

Dark Schala said:

Oh yeah, I didn't mean to make it sound like I wouldn't play the full game at all. I definitely would. I usually try to play everything before I critique it in a critical sense. Like I said, it was the only FF game out of the three FNC games that I've been looking forward to and I should play it, flawed or no.

As for

Spoiler

Class Zero dying, yeah, I mean, you have some characters who genuinely have some sort of sense of identity like Cater and Ace. And then they seem to have genuine identities in the final ending because they're getting along like normal students would. It's just too bad that they weren't developed adequately enough for that outside of expressing stuff for a few plot points, imo.

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Ah, well, okay then. It's a good game. Not as good as I make it sound but, well, life's no fun without a bias or two.

And it is sad that the cast isn't as developed as 6's, but on the other hand, none of them are as grating as 13's.

Dark Schala said:

And then you have to sort out which pics you wanna post, and delete some of the stuff you wrote if you want to take the pictures out and sometimes rework your post around it... :lol

That's how a Let's Play works!

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I never thought I would ever see this gif used against me. How the tables have turned. :lol

I have another update planned since I'll be heading out AGAIN to go visit a friend for his birthday. That'll be 2 out of 3 planned updates since I didn't have a chance to play Tactics at all like I thought I would while I was out today.

Double post, but fuck it let's gooooooooooo

LAST TIME: we met Mustadio and tried to get him to open up to us about why he needed to tag-along with us, but no dice. This time, we manage to get to the bottom of things.




Shazam! The guy is on our side. He's like the Wizard of Oz right now, since he's agreeing to all of our requests.




A nice big castle is better than the cold, cold ground.




Even with the Cardinal on our side granting requests, Mustadio STILL refuses to 'fess up. It's gotta be something serious, right?



The Zodiac Braves. There's a lot of story here, so once again I'll condense it for everyone. Several years ago there were a bunch of demons called the Lucavi fucking shit up. A group of 12 warriors rose up and helped to send them back to where they came from, and everyone rejoiced. They all had stones with zodiac signs on them, which is why they're referred to as the "Zodiac Braves." The stone that the Cardinal showed to Mustadio is one of those stones from the legend.



This knowledge isn't making Mustadio feel any better, though.




Now we're getting somewhere.




And there's the rest. Mustadio's father has been held captive for refusing to cooperate, and Mustadio has been trying to save him. Now Agrias looks like a jerk, hahaha.



And with that, the Cardinal decides to lend his aid. What a swell guy! If I had a lion in my party, I'm sure he'd be granted courage.





Thanks, princess! Some money or something substantial would've been nice too, but thanks anyways.





...WHY ARE YOU SPLITTING UP!? NEVER SPLIT UP. AUGH!!!

NEXT TIME: THE BATTLE FOR MUSTADIO'S PAPPY.

Random note: Dark Schala, I have been greatly amused by reading your FFIV posts. I first played the game at the age of 12 and I must have been greatly forgiving at the time because wow, that dialogue is awful.

(Still love the game, though. Maybe more for the nostalgia than the actual gameplay.)

Ugh, I keep reading Mustadio as "Mustachio". :|

The Zodiac Braves? I bet the Atlanta Braves are them in disguise! :O

Ultratech said:

I'd love to do an LP one of these days when I get some more free time for it. No idea what game I would do though.

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I'd like to do one for Arc I & II because no one really talks about those games much, Paladin's Quest, Beyond the Beyond (so you guys could suffer with me), and Romancing SaGa 3. I dunno about Suikoden because I think I'd divulge more info about the games than I really should (like, lots of stuff about stats, who could S-rank what skills, rune compatibility, character encyclopedia info), and there are multiple endings in them.

I know there are some GAF members whom I'd love to see do LPs just because I think they know a ton about a certain games based on what I see in OTs or other random threads. But, again, it's a time-consuming thing and not many people would be up to it. Especially if they're older with families or have lots of other things to do.

Jucksalbe said:

"Thread-by-thread" also means you can never have games that aren't part of a bigger series. A "GAF Plays Rule of Rose" might be a bit one-sided. Or a "GAF Plays" for less popular series (like say Atelier) would never get a thread, because there are already only 10 different people in the OTs. And you certainly won't get a special forum for that here.

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Yeah, that's true. I guess you can't really win here. Oh well. Anniversary threads like this are fine, though, because it's more of a living through other people by their playthroughs or reliving some nostalgia by playing the game yourself or reading other playthroughs.

Or you're just playing through the game for the sake of playing through the game.

Jucksalbe said:

Do you have the knowledge to point out all the religious themes in that game? That would be wonderful to read about. I mostly talked about the bosses and dungeons because I already have a hard time to tell Hinduism from Buddhism.

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Yep, religion was pretty much a big thing in terms of studying as a hobby, the possibility of minoring in it (in a broad sense because I thought all of them were interesting), and having gone to schools prior to uni with a focus on religious education (especially in later years when it was expanded to a broader sense). So when I played some SMT games on my own as a teenager, I was just floored by how many cultural and religious references were in those games and I was extremely excited to get through a lot of them. DDS is special in a way where there isn't a lot of Judeo-Christian stuff, which feels a lot different from other games already, and it has a lot of focus on pantheism, panenetheism, Heraclitus (kinda), Hinduism (which becomes more apparent in DDS2 through Moksha--and you see a lot about other metaphysical aspects about Hinduism in that game like the Dharma, Samsara, etc. and are probably allusions to the Gita in some places). As long as you know the terms and themes, you'll probably be alright with regards to getting the whole thing. DDS as a whole was therefore a very interesting product for me and I put a lot into it at the time.

But the SMT games generally try to weave a lot of direct and specific theory and philosophy throughout its narrative somehow (ex: Persona 2/4 and Jung... but I only know about that stuff on a really basic level).

Jucksalbe said:

All future consoles and handhelds really should have a mandatory screenshot function. I don't care if they print their copyright on the shots (like on the Vita....at least get them right...oh wait I just remembered the screenshot function's optional on the Vita) or anything like that, just let me have the option to make screens. Consoles with HDMI don't exactly make it easier to capture footage.

Click to expand...

I agree with that. I was so excited that Vita had a screenshot function, but then realized that you can't use it for everything. Screenshot capabilities should be mandatory, not optional. 3D Dot Game Heroes had a screenshot function and that was pretty awesome for pointing out cool dialogue. It was watermarked, but it doesn't matter.

Maybe they're just afraid that people will spoil the game or something, so that's why they leave it to the publisher. It's understandable, but it's not something I'd personally prefer. It's much like how I'd like to have custom soundtrack options for every console from now on, instead of it being limited to some games on PS3 for example (ex: Nier has a custom soundtrack option).

jb1234 said:

Random note: Dark Schala, I have been greatly amused by reading your FFIV posts. I first played the game at the age of 12 and I must have been greatly forgiving at the time because wow, that dialogue is awful.

(Still love the game, though. Maybe more for the nostalgia than the actual gameplay.)

Click to expand...

Thanks. I played through that version for the first time when I was really young, and coming back to it as an adult (because I haven't played this version since I was a teenager) is kinda weird because I don't remember the dialogue being this bad. I wasn't anticipating the dialogue in the scene in Cecil's Room post-Zot to be that bad, for example. Also, I just found this gem in the NPC dialogue for the next update.

DWARVES ARE TOUGH.

Hahaha, so this is nothing new in this series!

There's a lot of strange NPC dialogue in the next entry. The entire portion between Mt. Hobs and Mt. Ordeals was passable at best, and then the dialogue seemed to deteriorate again.

Thanks. I played through that version for the first time when I was really young, and coming back to it as an adult (because I haven't played this version since I was a teenager) is kinda weird because I don't remember the dialogue being this bad. I wasn't anticipating the dialogue in the scene in Cecil's Room post-Zot to be that bad, for example. Also, I just found this gem in the NPC dialogue for the next update.

DWARVES ARE TOUGH.

Hahaha, so this is nothing new in this series!

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HAHAHAHA! FFXIII vindicated?

(No.)

I almost wish the FFIV localization team went on to FFV. Given the... um... uniqueness of that game's story, I bet we would have gotten some real dialogue gems.

FF6 WORLD TOUR PART ONE!

So Terra's pop band has made its way around the globe, and we're now at thirteen members, but teen heartthrob Celes has been feeling kinda lonely and her skeezy agent Setzer keeps pressuring her about relationships. Meanwhile, Terra's made out with Edgar because she thought he was his identical twin Fabio, I mean Sabin. So now Mog and his Austrian bodyguard Umaro are calling in a hit on Gau because well do they need a reason? But anyway the party is off to find Locke because he's the lame-ass Cyclops of the team, with Terra being his Jean Grey and Celes his Emma Frost. This makes Setzer Gambit, Sabin Colossus and Shadow is Wolverine. I guess Strago is Prof. X and Banon is Magneto, and why am I even saying this?

Anyway, I have the whole team except Locke now.

This update every other day plan I had is just impossible for me. I can't purposely *not* do at least 1 a day provided I gots the material handy! It hurts just sitting on stuff an worse - not playing the game itself for days because of it! Its just not in my blood e_e!

btw idk if I'd agree with treating any of this stuffs as serious "real" let's plays. Not my posts anyways!

Heropon said:

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Is that a planet? Were you fighting a planet?! Hidden blackjack mini-game is pretty cool but its got nothing on planet-busting!

Dark Schala said:

Plus I think Aeana had mentioned that when there are GAF Plays threads that go up, barely anyone participates in them.

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I got at least 1 person to play .hack with my GAF Plays thread and a few more following it! While what she said rings true as long as its fun for anyone involved even in just discussion its as worthwhile as any other thread!

Jucksalbe said:

All those threads ride on a few people doing most of the updates. If you look at my summary, you see a lot of different people, but look at "who posted", the first 10 people account for ~45% of all posts (and I didn't even do that many game posts). So I guess it's sometimes luck to have dedicated people who want to play the right games right now.

Click to expand...

My meager 42 posts put me in the top 20 posters in a thread with over 3000 posts? Thats bananas!

Heropon said:

FFV: 603 (Many were lost, agggh)

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I know how ya feel! Just the other night I realized I had deleted my source FFVII captures save for those taken for the last 2 bonus posts ;_;

Lindsay said:

Is that a planet? Were you fighting a planet?! Hidden blackjack mini-game is pretty cool but its got nothing on planet-busting!

Click to expand...

It's a wibbly, wobbly swirling ball of hate. (And maybe goodness, but mostly pure hate.)
It also likes to throw Meteors, Flares, Flare Stars, and all other sorts of BS your way.

I have 300 Wiiware points that will probably go to waste and I've never played FF 6.

Should I spend $5 to buy the VC version of FF 3? Or is there a better version I could get or maybe wait for?

^I'd go for it if you can't find the GBA version. But even then, I think the SNES version is better audio-wise.

Alright, I’ve done more talking on this page than updating so let’s update. Looks like I'll have to split this into two updates again. Sorry 'bout that. I'll wait a bit until I post the next one.

Last time, we went through an update which was absolutely bursting with errors upon errors. Abe met his end, and we finally got Batman some beer. He ended up drinking a lot of it and the game’s story took a batshit insane turn because of that.

Now we’re going Sonic Underground. But first, let’s tie up some loose ends.



If Beer’s father were such a well-known knight, why don’t we know who he is? Anyway, what does a being a Wh.Wiz have to do with running away from home and chasing all those boys? It almost sounds like they give the Wh. Wiz women a crash course in Twilight.



Now, you’d be tempted to equip the Drain Spear on Tommy because… well, look at the boost he gets from it. But I wouldn’t do it. The Drain Spear has an attack power of 88, but it deals a blow to a bunch of stats including Accuracy, Strength, Agility, Spirit, Will, and Vitality. Usually if your HP is at full, I’ve noticed that it tends to miss a lot, so it’s best to use the Drain Spear when your HP is low. If you use it on Undead enemies, your HP will be drained instead, and it’ll heal the enemy.

So, uh, let’s not equip it for now.

Let’s tell Abe’s closest friends what happened to him.



I get the feeling that no one’s treating this like a noble sacrifice; again, it was supposed to teach the player a Life Lesson™ and was supposed to contrast Abe’s idea of vengefulness and Batman’s whole Paladin…thing. And Bolton damn well knows why people leave him. Because he’s useless and makes the people he loves so dearly protect him.

Well, let’s move onto that clue. It’s magma. It’s burning hot in Batman’s pouch right now and I guess some of it is seeping out and burning everything that comes in a distance of it. We should figure out where it goes before we lose it all. The problem is that the game doesn’t tell you outright or change NPC dialogue in Baron to reflect your situation. Therefore, we can either do one of two things: go back to Toroia and get thrown into jail for not returning the crystal, or we can try to deduce where we haven’t been yet.

Damcyan has nothing. It obviously isn’t in Baron. Fabul’s NPC dialogue is the same. Eblan isn’t populated anymore. We’ve been to Silvera, Mysidia, and Toroia already. So… there’s one last place we can go.



We haven’t been here yet.*




Tales of Xillia - A Merchant Town Full of Life

Agart is a very mysterious town. They even have a tourist attraction to demonstrate why it’s such an awesome town.

I did a little reading on their pluralization of <dwarf>, by the way. From what I&#8217;ve been reading in linguistics references, <dwarf> can certainly be seen as a lexical item ending in &#8211;f which can have a variable plural just based on usage alone. One of my former professors who dealt a lot with Germanic languages and language history usually had a policy of &#8220;Googling it&#8221; to see if the lexical item or sentence structure is common in everyday usage, so I&#8217;m going to do that.

When you Google <dwarves>, you&#8217;ll get more hits for the word being used in a fantasy context. When you Google <dwarfs>, you&#8217;ll get stuff that includes astronomy (&#8220;white dwarfs&#8221, the verb &#8220;dwarfs&#8221;, humans, plants, &#8220;Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs&#8221;, etc. <Dwarfs> seems to be the standard plural for real-life situations, while <dwarves> is more appropriate for fantasy worlds and seems to have been popularized by The Hobbit (however, with that said, it has been used in literature in the 1800s, before that book was published). Anyway, given the context of Final Fantasy IV, perhaps it would have been better to pluralize it as <dwarves>, then.

Anyway, moving on. The NPCs have some cool stuff to say!



I think the NPC meant to say that &#8220;everything has its opposite&#8221;, but &#8220;reverse&#8221; works too, I guess.



Kid, you would certainly not want ogre blood. I could hit you with a Stone spell if I wanted to and you could instadie. Also you wouldn&#8217;t look pretty.

And other kid, I think you&#8217;re very very very special!



Everyone&#8217;s just going off about their ancestors here in this town. And this older fellow is channeling Abe. Someone should get him some help before he goes off on someone and becomes a one-dimensional hate-filled character!

Oh, I checked the weapon/armour shop. They only have starter equipment (like, stuff we had at the very beginning of Final Fantasy IV). It isn&#8217;t worth showing off at all.



what are you doing here



who wrote this

The last book must be chronicling the stars of Batman&#8217;s Dream.



Ha&#8230; well&#8230; people in academia will do that to you&#8230; >.>



THE telescope! There&#8217;s only one in the world, and it&#8217;s on this little tiny island south of Baron and no one else can get here to bask in this new tech unless they travel forever by ship, or if they take an airship!



How interesting! Hey, this is how you build a world. NPCs have a hand in that, and they help create a social experience within the game in order to make the game feel alive. Indirectly and passively trying so hard to create a social experience where you run past people and hear them say random shit about nothing in a city but stick the real info in a textdump is not world building. Just so you know. No, I&#8217;m not calling out any other games in this series by name. I&#8217;m just saying this in a general context. Really.

Anyway, perhaps Kory&#8217;s findings provide some sort of foreshadowing for the game in the future given Batman&#8217;s fixation on the moon. First we had Moonside, then we had this &#8220;way to the Moon&#8221; nonsense, and now we have some dude who&#8217;s taking after Galileo or Lippershey talking about the Moon. Except we have two moons. And one&#8217;s getting evil and has lots of monsters. We should check it out with THE telescope.

In a way, I&#8217;m kind of glad that (series spoilers)


You liar! There&#8217;s only one moon and there&#8217;s nothing happening! I know because when I was younger I stayed there for a long time waiting for something to happen but nothing happened!



There&#8217;s no crater there!! That&#8217;s a mountain range, you schmuck!



Ding ding ding. I think we&#8217;ve found our destination. We have a ton of Magma sitting in our pockets. The only thing is that we don&#8217;t know how to use it. And we could probably cast Quake with Haddock&#8217;s Earth Wrench anyway!



Don&#8217;t you people do anything else without your ancestors&#8217; advice? God, it&#8217;s like that one town in Terranigma. You know the one. The one with the cult, and all they did was ?



Why don&#8217;t you people do what your ancestors did and scale the mountain since you listen to their advice so much?

&#8230;How did their ancestors even manage to get up to the surface without flight, anyway, if they aren&#8217;t close to the top? Did they use a huge sturdy ladder?

Well, let&#8217;s check out the town&#8217;s tourist trap. I hope we don&#8217;t have to pay for this.



Really deep, you say? Hmm&#8230;

Hey. I wonder&#8230;



Oops?



Oh shit, I just made Batman kill thousands of people with this one single action. Oops. So much for being a Paladin.

By the way, I don&#8217;t think throwing a bunch of magma (like, the stuff that would burn my hands clear off anyway) down a well would end up making the mountain miles away blow up or something, would it? I&#8217;m not a geologist.

Miraculously, as we come back to the town, everyone&#8217;s alive and not a single person is talking about the big earthquake they had, or how there&#8217;s this giant hole where a bunch of mountains were, or how a bunch of people probably died.

Of course nothing bad like that happens in Batman&#8217;s dream. Silly me.



The Airship

As you try to land your airship on the hole, the world spins under you and you go deeper into the hole. I thought this was one of the coolest things I&#8217;d ever seen when I was first playing through this section. I think the more recent versions of the game do something extremely boring with it and don&#8217;t do any cool spinny stuff like this. That is what I&#8217;d call flying your airship with style.



Holy shit. It&#8217;s pretty cool because there&#8217;s some stuff that&#8217;s kinda glowy.



Wait, what the hell? How did the Red Wings get here before us, when we&#8217;d just opened the mountain range up? We were so close to it, too!



The Red Wings don&#8217;t care about us, though. They&#8217;re fighting a bunch of yellow tanks! Haddock decided to get drunk and piloted the Enterprise straight into the action without considering that we don&#8217;t have a freaking army outside of a Karate to fight off both the tanks and the Red Wings.



Also, apparently even if missiles or whatever they&#8217;re using as weapons explode all the time so that&#8217;s why we sustained heavy damage.



Batman gets knocked into Mode 7 world again (he seems to have been the only one to get Swooned), and then this game capitalizes the second word in a statement because it&#8217;s a rebel like that. I think they wanted to write &#8220;OK&#8221; instead, but realized that it might not be completely right for text in an RPG.



Luckily we landed right next to a castle! Batman always finds a way to make things extremely convenient for himself in his dream.

Next Time: Batman proves that he&#8217;s the most braindead and most ineffective hero in RPG history.

Lindsay said:

Is that a planet? Were you fighting a planet?! Hidden blackjack mini-game is pretty cool but its got nothing on planet-busting!

Click to expand...

Yeah, what the hell IS that thing? It looks like one of those giant jawbreakers I used to love as a kid...

Oh good, I don't have to double-post, lol.

Last time, we made Batman kill thousands of people, and then we got shot down as a result.

Now we're going to enter a mysterious castle.



Giott, the Great King

Why are you so inconsistent with your spelling, game?

And you guys, this is one of the best BGMs in the game. Don’t you forget it. Everyone’s so happy in Dwarf World, and you should be too. That’s why the accompanying music needs to be super-chill.



They’re so happy and enthusiastic that they want us to meet their king. They don’t want to take us as prisoners or anything! I want to be ruled by Giott because he seems like such a swell guy.



Yeah, we’re all sparkly and Twilight and shit. Oh, and we just stand there when bad stuff goes down. That’s just how Batman rolls.



They even have an awesome password. :3

People who say it’s “rally-ho” are wrong. I don’t care what you say. You’re wrong.

And we don’t have the authorization to pass certain areas. I guess we need to find the dwarf named Adam and ask for his authorization to go places. We’ll talk to Giott first, then to Adam.



Luca doesn’t play much of a role in this game but she just happens to get her own sprite and everything. She’s more special than the kings.

Why do all of the dwarves have the black mage face with the darkness and the glowy eyes?



We only have access to this small place for now. We can get items and sleep at the inn here. But the inn’s way too expensive and we didn’t do much fighting before we got here so it’s useless. They sell a ton of awesome stuff here, though, so we should buy some stuff.



Haddock’s been drinking due to the dwarves’ encouragement, and then he decided to have some of those strange items! Then he decided to take off all of his clothes! What a party animal!

We can’t convince him to put his clothes back on to meet the king, but the king doesn’t seem to mind.



You know what, GAF? The dwarves are awwwwwwrrrrrriiiiiiight.

No apologizing for busting down our ship, but they’re even concerned for our well-being even though we just probably crashed into some of their castle’s crops or something. No wonder Haddock got so much beer that he got drunk.



I don’t like where this is going.



Wait a darn minute!

You’re telling me that somehow when we opened up the mountain range, Golbez and the Red Wings swooped in really really fast, managed to start a battle with the dwarves, then stole two crystals beneath our noses before we even got to Giott’s Castle?

Alternatively, Golbez could have just opened up the mountain range himself, closed it behind him and ended up stealing stuff anyway?

Guys, I get the feeling that I’m on the wrong team.



At least someone is getting something done around here.



I don’t think he realizes that it’s busted. But I’d love to fight on his team! He’s the best king in the game. I bet he’d even willingly let us sleep in his bed if we were given the chance.



He even wants to pay for our airship repairs! :3 He’s just treating us like we’re his buds or something. I bet he’s like that towards everyone.

As for Haddock, “mystic silver” must be code for duct tape. He leaves. We no longer have the power of Earthquakes on our side. I’m sad now.



MORE ALE! Let’s just take the crystal out and put it under the throne cushion for better safekeeping.



Karate can be cool, but sometimes Karate can lead us to only one place and it’s only gonna be bad.




waitaminute I have Karate Senses™ too, there’s something there what is that



Dolls? Oh shit, it’s the kid. She’s behind all of this.

Dancing Calcobrena



This isn’t creepy at all. These things don’t have knives or pistols.



I’m definitely on the wrong team. Golbez broke into the underground scene before we did, stole two crystals, decided to steal a little girl’s dolls, give them life, turn them evil, and make them begin fighting us.





We begin the fight against six dolls even though there were four dolls on the screen previously. We probably got ambushed from above too. Three of the dolls are male (Cal) and three of the dolls are female (Brena). It’s best to cast Slow on them first, and Berserk Donnie. You could use Kick 2-3 times to get rid of all of the Brenas and have the other two guys focus on the Cals, but whatever.

I’ve gone through this boss battle before where I’ve taken all of the dolls out before they merged, but for entertainment’s sake…



Persona 3 Portable – Danger Zone

Even if you just have one left standing, you’ll have them all merge into Calbrena. Since you don’t have the items which cast spells in this version of the game, all you can do is hit it hard (and this is why Berserk is a good thing). It can cast Charm on some party members. Whenever someone’s confused, even if you heal them, they’ll still use the last thing they have selected while they were Charmed.

Anyway, there were a few times when I was younger where I didn’t kill the Calbrena fast enough so it ended up splitting up into six dolls again. So, basically, the trick to this fight is get it done fast.



That’s because Golbez knows everything. Speaking of Golbez…



Golbez, Clad in Darkness

The Master of Blue himself!



No, Golbez. You’re committing a foul sin that almost every single supervillain commits. You don’t tell your enemies your master plan.

And this master plan is bullshit. Going to the Moon? Why is everyone in this entire game fixated on the Moon? At the beginning of Final Fantasy IV, no one gave a shit about the Moon! I blame this entirely on Batman’s Dream.



Well, at least he’s going to kill us. That’s a good thing.



This is the final battle!

Well, why isn’t Tommy on that screen? Sometimes he’ll get the first turn in battle if his agility’s high enough, so take that split second to select Jump and he’ll execute that command before Golbez does anything.

That way, when Golbez uses the Hold Gas, Tommy isn’t affected. Which means that this is going to be a Green Ranger Vs. Lord Zedd battle. Get ready…!

Wait till you see the real terror!



Oh shit.



Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 – All Hail Shadow (Crush 40 Mix)

Oh crap, Golbez has discovered something that I don’t like at all. This means death.

Shadow the Hedgehog, as you may guess, is pretty fast. He takes his stats from Sonic Battle, you see. That means he’s one of the fastest characters and he’s the strongest. He uses Shadow Run, Shadow Jump (meaning that he does the same thing that Tommy does), Shadow Teleport (where he hides for a while like Bolton), Shadow Heal (which does some shitty healing), Shadow Kick / Shadow Back Kick (where he channels Donnie and kicks everyone), Chaos Nightmare (which deals 500 damage to each person), Chaos Burst (can possibly Swoon someone), and he has a random gun attack.

Just kidding, he summons a dragon. The dragon uses this move called Demolish. Not Death or anything, but Demolish.



Demolish instantly Swoons a party member. Well, at least this is a nice way to end Batman’s Dying Dream?



Wait, I thought I killed you. Oh God, we’re getting help from ghosts.

That mist blew my Shadow Dragon away……?!



Batman’s decided to deus ex machina this shit. To prolong this game and my suffering.

But who is that?



holy shit i thought leviatan chewed you up days ago what the hell are you doing here and why do you have different clothes

Batman, I deserve an explanation.

Well, this is the final battle, so…

Persona 4 – I’ll Face Myself (Battle)



Now we’re getting deep into it. From this point on, you need to win. Golbez is slow. Cast Slow on him and he’ll be even slower. Revive everyone just so that you can let everyone get precious XP. Beer can keep healing (and in other versions, I’d have her cast Shell, but alas, we don’t have that spell in this version). Keep in mind that when you revive people, they’ll be in critical, and Batman can’t use Cover on people who are going to be hit with a spell. Golbez will hit people with Lit-3, Fire-2, and Virus.

The trick to this fight is to abuse Clair’s new spells. You all know my favourite one: Virus. You can also use her newly-acquired summons. She’s a much better black mage than Abe ever was because her stats back her spells up. It usually takes about 2-3 casts of her spells to get Golbez down.

By the way, I think this was the first time a character ever joined your party mid-battle. Beforehand, we used to have things where people would introduce themselves one-by-one in a long introductory scene.



I was rooting for Golbez, btw. Well, let’s sit back and enjoy the ending to this game.



Rydia

What, no. You can’t live in a creature’s stomach that long. You’d die. Stomach acid. Enzymes. Digestion. Absorption. No one sees a problem with this, I guess?

So he swallowed her and she was defecated out into the Land of Summons. Gross.

And Batman, this is where the King of Baron was telling you to go. Time to get some info out of Clair.



I believe that Clair’s character data in this game is the same. Where DKnight Batman and Paladin Batman are two separate characters in terms of data, Clair’s data is the same. Her command list is altered. She also learns Cure2, apparently, but since her White Magic command is no longer there, we can’t use it.

It’s never really explained why she can’t use White Magic in terms of lore anymore outside of “I put all of my focus in my Black Magic”, but she can’t just forget all of her White Magic spells, right? It doesn’t really make sense. I guess they wanted to specify her character so that she wouldn’t take up Beer’s space on the roster. But I think Beer sucks anyway.



Okay, I don’t like this. I never really liked it, to be honest with you. Real talk here, but Rydia was probably stuck in the Land of Summons for days or weeks (not sure about the chronology), and she’s aged, like, 10-12 years in that span of time because time flows differently there. I think this was just Square’s way of adding another woman to the roster in terms of what they wear and selling the character based on appearance.

But I like Child Rydia a lot better. The design is better, anyway. There have been times where you could say that the children in the party are much stronger than the adults (ex: the twins, Rydia when she’s with Tellah), and the game shows that they’re just as much capable of saving the world as the teenagers and adults are. Rydia is different from a lot of RPG children in that she isn’t annoying to a lot of people and generally gets shit done. The only problem with her is that she barely spoke a word, but maybe some people would like that? I don’t know.

Basically, I just kinda wish that they didn’t SORAS (Soap Opera Rapidly Aging Syndrome) her for the sake of appearances, dressing her in certain clothing, and possibly hooking her up with someone.



I love how Tommy’s been relegated to being the fifth wheel because clearly no one fucking wants him to be there. I want him to be there because I like him more than Batman, but this is Batman’s story.

I also love that Batman’s still guilt-tripping over Clair’s mother. She doesn’t care anymore, dude. Or she might still hate him but she’s just putting it in the back of her mind until the journey’s over… and then she could kill Batman with a Meteo or Titan.



Yay. It’s just too bad that the game’s over now. Like, we just had the final battle. And like a jackass, Batman turns around and tries to leave while Golbez’s body’s still there. What if someone like one of his lackeys tries to pick him up?



Batman’s just prolonging this game for me. He’s prolonging this game to make me suffer.

Somewhere in the World…



Oh no, Golbez is now an icky severed hand. Hey Batman, take our sword and squash him, that would be great. He’s just a hand, you see.



No, you idiot, don’t back away. What the hell kind of Paladin are you?



Hit it, dammit.



He’s going after the crystal, fucking stop him you idiot.



Tell Tommy to jump or Clair to hit it with Virus. Come on, be a leader!







And whose fucking fault is that?! Why did you just stand there and watch, and not do anything? What the hell is the matter with you? If I were Giott, I’d throw you in prison myself!

This isn’t like Zot where he got blasted across the room, and this isn’t like Fabul where he got jumped on over and over. It’s like he’s afraid of a severed hand where he needs to stand there and watch what it does even though Batman could take on gross zombies and slimes.

Even when Golbez dies, he wins.

Next Time: We get to meet Prototype Hojo.

Haven't finished reading the topic yet, but my girlfriend have been going through some jrpg's lately. (She likes doing the towns while I do the dungeons) Either together or by herself we have played and beaten chrono trigger final fantasy 6, star ocean 1 and 2, suikoden 1 and 2 and she has played but not beaten lunar 1. (she doesn't have much patience for grinding at all.) We are probably going to beat final fantasy 7 right now, and its her least favorite so far. Its been a good many years since I've played it, but I wasn't exactly blown away by the game either. (The graphics and cut scenes I were) Felt really disappointing to me compared to 6. I hated how the skill materia takes away any reason to use different characters. I loved how everyone had their unique ability in ff6.

Anyways after coming back to it after so long, I have to say. I don't remember the translation (I don't know how much was the actual writing) being this godawful. Its seriously one of the worst ones I've experienced. I had to explain many things to my girlfriend that I had read online before, but I realized the game doesn't present its story very well at all. Although I don't really care either way if it gets a remake, a new translation would certainly help. My girlfriend was particularly confused over what was with cloud and sephiroth, since the game either omits certain things, or says them in such a vague manner, its hard to get definitive answers. I've seen crisis core tries hard to fix some of this. Something else that goes along with the translation is the characters really aren't too likable to us compared to others. Their dialogue doesn't feel anything resembling organic. Even with suikoden 2's translation problems, the characters were still very entertaining and full of life.

Now she is still enjoying the game very much, but its strange that I've felt I've had to defend the game a bit and try and explain how big a deal it was when it came out, and almost felt I sounded like a fanboy of the game, with how much I was trying to help her like it, which feels so strange given my own feelings on the game. I didn't intend for this post to be a final fantasy 7 bitching post, because this thread isn't about that, and I didn't want to turn it into one. Does anyone have any insight into the botched translation and how much clarification the japanese release has? I see that crisis core explains the 5 year gap between nibelheim and cloud showing up in midgard, but I thought it was strange the game never really fully clarified what cloud actually was much to the confusion of my girlfriend. That said Red XIII is still a boss, and I named him Nanaki as I normally do with these types of characters. (i call frog glenn) I think cosmo canyon has been the soundtrack highlight for both of us, and although the character models are godawful, some of the prerendered backgrounds still look nice.

We are going to move on to valkyrie profile 1 and 2, and then probably xenogears. I think the only other final fantasy game I will play with her will be 9 though, since thats the only other one I really liked, that I think she should play. I'm not looking forward to the slow battles everyone is saying though. I really couldn't stand 8, and although I love 4, I don't think the story warrants us playing it together.

After reading through Dark Schala's commentaries, I just realized how FFIV can be a bit retarded.

But still, FFIII (NES) still tops for being the most retarded FF in my opinion. I mean what other RPG allows you to say "hey, let's sleep in the princess' bed for no reason and make a mess out of it"?

ULTROS! said:

After reading through Dark Schala's commentaries, I just realized how FFIV can be a bit retarded.

But still, FFIII (NES) still tops for being the most retarded FF in my opinion. I mean what other RPG allows you to say "hey, let's sleep in the princess' bed for no reason and make a mess out of it"?

Click to expand...

At the same time, there's a certain charm to them. Maybe because the anime tropes in those older games are kept to a minimum. I can replay FFIV and not feel like I've played a game just like this one fifty times before.

Reading the VI playthroughs here makes me really wish SQEX would bring V/VI to the 3DS the way they brought III/IV to the DS. I'd really like a way to play those games on a current handheld gen w/o terrible load times. Ofc, if III PSP does come West, I will probably be one of those people who buys it just so they can have a complete Final Fantasy I - X collection on their Vita (which, ugh, again reminds me that I+II PSP still aren't on PSN /sigh).

Dark Schala said:

I agree with that. I was so excited that Vita had a screenshot function, but then realized that you can't use it for everything. Screenshot capabilities should be mandatory, not optional.

Click to expand...

Is it not mandatory on Vita games? Or are you just talking about PSP/PS1 games?

Lindsay said:

I got at least 1 person to play .hack with my GAF Plays thread and a few more following it! While what she said rings true as long as its fun for anyone involved even in just discussion its as worthwhile as any other thread!

Click to expand...

Whoa, you have a GAF Plays .hack thread? Just got hit by a waaaave of nostalgia, even though I didn't play many of them. XD

"The Hand Scene" is my absolute favorite scene in FF4. It's stupid. It's never explained again, and FF4DS does everything in its power to pretend it didn't happen. At the same time Last Story directly references it near the climax. It's such a nonsensical scene that it cemented the game as one of my all-time favorites.

Fun fact!! As a kid, young CorvoSol once fought with his big bro and got busted by his pops. Pops said "No playing FF4 anymore!" and CorvoSol did not stop to realize how short this ban was until he was almost 13. So from like, age 9 to 13 he thought he was banned from playing the game for life!!

Anyway, I'm having a bit of a tough time juggling FF6 and KH3D, but I think when 3D is over I'll be able to start makin' my way through the series again. Also someone is sending me 4CC as a birthday present, so I'll play that at some point, too.

ULTROS! said:

After reading through Dark Schala's commentaries, I just realized how FFIV can be a bit retarded.

But still, FFIII (NES) still tops for being the most retarded FF in my opinion. I mean what other RPG allows you to say "hey, let's sleep in the princess' bed for no reason and make a mess out of it"?

Click to expand...

Final Fantasy IV



I'm gonna be honest here, though. I don't think I can play Final Fantasy IV for the next couple of years after this. I think I've had my fill after playing FF4CC last year and FF4 SNES this year, lol. I have a lot of problems with FF4 in general and I guess some of my issues with it (especially post-shipwreck/class change) are starting to become visible here...

idlethreats said:

Is it not mandatory on Vita games? Or are you just talking about PSP/PS1 games?

Click to expand...

That, and apparently you can't take screenshots in UMvC3 Vita. Seems like it's up to the developers/publishers in general.

CorvoSol said:

"The Hand Scene" is my absolute favorite scene in FF4. It's stupid. It's never explained again, and FF4DS does everything in its power to pretend it didn't happen. At the same time Last Story directly references it near the climax. It's such a nonsensical scene that it cemented the game as one of my all-time favorites.

Click to expand...

As a kid, I remember being horrified by the scene (in the way I think it was originally intended). There's something inherently scary about a disembodied hand floating around. Of course, as an adult, all I think now is "KILL IT, CECIL! KILL IT! NO, DON'T JUST STAND THERE, YOU IDIOT!"

Also as a kid, I was stuck at the Ordeal trial for a week until the nice lady at the rental shop told me how to get past it. Not one of my finer moments.

As a proud owner of the PAL version the game asks me to choose the type of sphere grid. The basic grid is the same of the American and Japan non-international versions. The advanced grid lets everyone take the path they want or take some detours sometimes to get extra skills. I choose the basic because it has more nodes.

To Zanarkand



Oh, this blondie wants us to listen to his story bacause it can be the last chance. I think I've heard your story too many times, so I don't think this will be the last one.



The Prelude

What have they done to the Prelude?! Well, at last they didn't do like in FFXIII and think that not putting the classic themes was a good idea. Tidus is very popular with the girls thanks to his sports skills and his non sports skills, if you know what I mean...



The game also introduces us to his little manager, who can only be seen by Tidus and doesn't let him do anything at night in case it affects his performance. Tidus has a severe case of envy and hates his father because he was a better player than he is.



Otherworld

We don't know yet what sport does this man plays, let's talk about it. It's called blitzball and its rules are... Actually, the only rule is to put the ball inside the goal. You can kick, punch, poison, throw the ball at the other players' faces... It's a pretty aggresive game, I wonder how no one dies.


A strange man comes with a giant blob of water that you can't see in the screenshot but I can.



The monster starts attacking the city. There are ploblems already for the poor citizens of Zanarkand.



Run!

It seems that Tidus knows this suspicious man. He's called Auron and is some kind of badass, that makes him great to me then. The giant aquatic monster seems to be called hyperbolic sine, ugh, that means that he must be worst than Chaos and Zeromus. I already hate him because the name. After already having jumped to conclusions, Auron clarifies that the name is only sin with an 'h' at the end, phew...



Another Sin trait is that it spawns monsters. They come in varieties too and this time there are a long monster and lots of small ones.



Auron gives Tidus his father's sword. Another mistery we'll have to solve... Tidus learns to use it in 5 seconds, impressive...



But he isn't match for Auron's mighty power, as he can kill all the little enemies by thrusting his sword into the ground.



At this point the big enemy only casts gravity, so it's impossible to lose.



A save point, and it heals like the Grandia ones! They're now my favourite save points in the series.



Tidus and Auron have to keep going and they encounter some enemies that are replaced by more as soon as someone kills one of them. Auron is so experienced that notices one thing that is going to save them some trouble.



The spirit of MICHAEL BAY appears and explosions start ocurring along with buildings collapsing and BOOM, BANG!



This Is Your Story

The monster shows a part of its anatomy that looks like an an... ugh. This game is sick! It starts sucking everything D:, All kind of dirty images come to my mind seeing that screenshot, stop it!



Tidus is sucked too and starts having some hallucinations. What adventures will Tidus have inside Sin's digestive apparatus? We'll know in the next update!

OP updated with another new character added to the cast!

Simple curiosity, trying to take a bite of me; Let me show you just what I'm made of now...


Pt.3 "Storming the Base"




Making a good impression while evading enemy fire seems like it would be a hard thing to do but this is SOLDIER. That kind of things expected but treasure chests being empty is not! It was a trap, a distraction! Instead of goods he got goons! Even with the drop on him those troops fell fast. While pushing onward further into the base some very recent memories of Angeal pushed Zack to his limit! He unleashed his Rush Assault for some cool hand-to-hand combat!



Overhearing some more troops behind a fake wall he sneakily used the enemies tactics again 'em and took a couple out! This forced their no longer confident sergeant to retreat! Lazard calls to inform him to be on the look out since Wutai guys are hidden all over. More hidden wall searching and glances up lookout towers later & all the troops were beaten. Zack gets mad props for exceeding quota and the assignment is successfully completed! Right?


'course not. At the central part of the base Zack gazed upon a statue of Leviathan and had alil chitchat with some top tier Wutai fighters. They're not to happy with the Shinra. Zack said they were just trying ta help people with Mako energy but the Wutai attacked first without hearing 'em out! Who're the real badguys here? Zack doesn't believe himself to be a badguy and sticks by his allegiance. Words brought no breakthrough in relations so they had to fight. Zack won but didn't finish the guys off. They said they'll get him someday. And then...


"One, avoid unnecessary training! Two, protect Wutai at all costs! Three, ugly Shinra SOLDIER dudes... must be PUNISHED!" A new enemy appears, and the first female to be seen so far! This Yuffie kid claims to be her countries greatest warrior and says Zack will have to go through her if he wants to continue! He kinda blows Yuffie off by telling her to go back to her parents but she's having none of that. She steps right up to him and uhhh attacks? It didn't look like any of her weak swings make contact yet our hero goes down. She's good!


After Yuffie scurried away and he recovered, Zack got up and entered an arena where a pair of big monsters awaited. The two worked well together and even had a team attack but they weren't nothing that couldn't be handled! He calls up Angeal to report his victory and a third monster get the drop on him! Zack takes it out or so he thought. He let his guard down and turned his back to the downed beast which got up and clobbered him! Angeal showed up and bailed out his cornered trainee once again. Sure, Angeal had to use his sword, but a friends more important than a sword... but only a by little bit!



They escape while other Shinra troops blow the fort up and meet back up with Lazard. Evaluation time! Zack gets some really high praise! Supposedly his bravery during the war will be remembered for generations. More importantly he's awarded with a Fire Armlet which is way better than a dinky old Bronze Bangle. Liking this director guy already! Now they're off to join up with Sephiroth, much to Zack's excitement but some dudes get the drop on 'em. Thoughts of the great hero push Zack to level up while also allowing him to unleash the amazing Octaslash! After the battle he notices the enemies weren't Wutai troops but there's no time to ponder who they are cause someones used a summon!



Fighting a summon is unheard of! Usually its called out and whomever the target is gets a beating. Not so this time! While Ifrit is powerful that Fire Armlet really comes in handy to help defend against his fiery attacks. Zack wins the fight but he once again underestimates a fallen opponent. Ifrit gets up and uses his trademark Hellfire attack on him! Zack's a pretty lucky guy as we know by now. Someone comes to his rescue. Angeal? Nopes. This time it's the mighty Sephiroth!!!



Zack is super impressed by Sephiroth's incredible show of badassery via that finishing blow to Ifrit, but Sephiroth doesn't have time for fanboys. He gets right down to business unmasking the mysterious attackers. All three of 'em have the same face. Copies of Genesis? That's an awfully mysterious development. Instead of deserting Shinra, maybe someone captured this Genesis guy to make copies of for nefarious reasons? Sephiroth asks where Angeal is since he's supposed to be here. Yet the guy is nowhere to be found. This leads Sephiroth to believe Angeal has now deserted them. This is something Zack is so not ready to believe.

Heropon, I am so excited to read through your playthrough of FFX. I have never played the International version before, so I'm interested in seeing some of the changes here (even if you're using the basic sphere grid).

And Lindsay, you should've linked the awesome music to go along with those lyrics.

Xero said:

My girlfriend was particularly confused over what was with cloud and sephiroth, since the game either omits certain things, or says them in such a vague manner, its hard to get definitive answers. I've seen crisis core tries hard to fix some of this. Something else that goes along with the translation is the characters really aren't too likable to us compared to others. Their dialogue doesn't feel anything resembling organic.

snip

Does anyone have any insight into the botched translation and how much clarification the japanese release has?

Click to expand...

I have to agree with that. I kinda want to say that maybe it's because I was 10 or so when I'd first played FF7 PC in full (I was 9 when it came out on PS1 but I didn't have the game) so I didn't get everything that happened between Cloud and the Sephiroth Clones so I figured that , and I didn't change my stance until I'd replayed the game a few times. The translation truly leaves much to be desired in terms of specificity, even if they cleaned it up a little bit in the PC release.

Also, perhaps someone in the Final Fantasy Community Thread might be able to answer your question better. I haven't played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VII so I couldn't tell ya. But I believe that this was the first time that SE ended up trying to do the localization in-house (because iirc, Sakaguchi said he wasn't too keen on some of the changes Woolsey made to FF6's stuff). It wasn't until after Xenogears that they completely changed their approach to localization to work with the development crew (and some titles are localized during development).

Dark Schala said:

Heropon, I am so excited to read through your playthrough of FFX. I have never played the International version before, so I'm interested in seeing some of the changes here (even if you're using the basic sphere grid).

Click to expand...

So that means I have to beat the Dark Aeons... Challenge accepted. I've never defeated Bahamut, Anima, the Magus Sisters and Penance, so this can be a good chance to kill them!

I wasn't going to play Blitzball in this playthrough, but Wakka is pretty important in those battles so I think I will spend an entire day doing Blitzball matches to get his limits and the celestial weapon.

About the grid, it's nice to have the option of taking alternative routes with the characters in the main game, but thinking about how the game is designed, it doesn't give much advantage thanks to the character switching system and the "specialist characters". It's the same reason why I always throw Kimahri to the bench. By the time roles start becoming less important your other characters can access the other's skills in either grid.

Dark Schala said:

Heropon, I am so excited to read through your playthrough of FFX. I have never played the International version before, so I'm interested in seeing some of the changes here (even if you're using the basic sphere grid).

And Lindsay, you should've linked the awesome music to go along with those lyrics.


I have to agree with that. I kinda want to say that maybe it's because I was 10 or so when I'd first played FF7 PC in full (I was 9 when it came out on PS1 but I didn't have the game) so I didn't get everything that happened between Cloud and the Sephiroth Clones so I figured that

Spoiler

Cloud was still a clone even though that's not right at all

, and I didn't change my stance until I'd replayed the game a few times. The translation truly leaves much to be desired in terms of specificity, even if they cleaned it up a little bit in the PC release.

Also, perhaps someone in the Final Fantasy Community Thread might be able to answer your question better. I haven't played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VII so I couldn't tell ya. But I believe that this was the first time that SE ended up trying to do the localization in-house (because iirc, Sakaguchi said he wasn't too keen on some of the changes Woolsey made to FF6's stuff). It wasn't until after Xenogears that they completely changed their approach to localization to work with the development crew (and some titles are localized during development).

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Yeah your spoiler is exactly the thing my girlfriend was confused on, and honestly so was I a bit since it had been so long. It didn't sound right and I told her as much, but the game was through talking on the matter.

Hey its FFX! That game I almost considered giving a try until I saw that sphere/grid skill battle system whatever thingy!

Ultratech said:

It's a wibbly, wobbly swirling ball of hate. (And maybe goodness, but mostly pure hate.)
It also likes to throw Meteors, Flares, Flare Stars, and all other sorts of BS your way.

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A ball of hate? That's crazy cool to!

jb1234 said:

It looks like one of those giant jawbreakers I used to love as a kid...

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*cue ed, edd & eddy theme*
My second guess was a really big marble cause I've seen cool super multi-colored swirly ones before. Jawbreakers not so much!

Xero said:

Haven't finished reading the topic yet, but my girlfriend have been going through some jrpg's lately. (She likes doing the towns while I do the dungeons) Either together or by herself we have played and beaten chrono trigger final fantasy 6, star ocean 1 and 2, suikoden 1 and 2 and she has played but not beaten lunar 1. (she doesn't have much patience for grinding at all.)

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Outta curiousity what version of Lunar is it? The enemies (just bosses?) levels scale in the PS version so grinding doesn't do ya to many favors. GBA & PSP versions got toned down difficulty so grinding in them isn't badly needed. Oh now I remember! All those versions have visible monsters on the field and you think "oh yeah ok I can totally evade & avoid battle with these chumps!* only to find out that's totally false more often than not. ~_~

I loved how everyone had their unique ability in ff6.

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Limit breaks!

final fantasy 7 bitching post (j/k!)

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I may be biased cause I've played the game 20+ times but I dun feel left in the dark by its translation. Who & what Cloud/Sephiroth are seem pretty clearly explained to me even without hitting up various optional story events.

idlethreats said:

Whoa, you have a GAF Plays .hack thread? Just got hit by a waaaave of nostalgia, even though I didn't play many of them. XD

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http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=468802

Its an anniversary thread much like this one, only my OP is a litttttttle bit more detailed than this threads is. I played 7 games, watched several anime, read a number of books, and dug up all kinds of neat tidbits all so no one else had to! All in just abit over 3 months! Personally I still gots some more ta give that thread but I need alil break from the content stuffs. Discussions all well an good though!

Dark Schala said:

And Lindsay, you should've linked the awesome music to go along with those lyrics.

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Unlike the rest of ya all I'm to lazy to make lil icons & dig up music links & whatnot z_z

Lindsay said:

Limit breaks!

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Well final fantasy 6 has limit breaks as well, and even though they are far more frequent in 6, the same rule applies to both. Limit breaks aren't a big reason to pick characters in either game. (with few exceptions) I would have used Yuffie in my party if her being a thief mattered in the game. As it turns out cloud can steal and every other special ability, so it doesn't matter.