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Ultratech · Oct 14, 2012

Well, I got FF3 on the PSP, so I may take a swing at that and record my progress once I get the screenshot function set up.

Here's my initial impressions:
-Can switch between Remixed and Original music. Famicom OST for the win!
-The graphics are definitely cleaned up a bit from the DS version. Everything looks a lot crisper, and the battlefield seems bigger. (Due to screen size, perhaps?)
-Auto Battle! Makes battles go considerably faster as well. Works like FFIV:TCC's Auto Mode I believe.
-There's also a neat gallery with illustrations, music, and stuff that get unlocked as you progress. Just started, so I got nothing unlocked other than the Opening tune.

Professor Beef · Oct 14, 2012

Lindsay said:
Is that as hard as it sounds?

The first screenshot I posted shows two city/town spaces right next to each other, so you can go back and forth between those two until you get to the correct date. If someone playing were unaware of that...then I suppose it can be fairly hard. :lol

I'm an expert · Oct 14, 2012

So after years of owning it I figured I'd run through X-2 all the way finally. I was gonna make an lttp thread but then I remembered this thread. And then I entered this thread. What. the. fugg. I did not realize this thread was some kind of..screenshot..roleplaying..thing?

CorvoSol · Oct 15, 2012

worldrevolution said:
So after years of owning it I figured I'd run through X-2 all the way finally. I was gonna make an lttp thread but then I remembered this thread. And then I entered this thread. What. the. fugg. I did not realize this thread was some kind of..screenshot..roleplaying..thing?

It's . . . not? The thread is a thread where we post about our play through of the series. Some people realize that we've ALL played say, FF4 a million times, so they make it more interesting by doing silly things like naming characters "Beer" and "Beef" and the many hilarious puns which follow.

You probably misunderstood somebody's playthrough where they named all their characters after GAFfers to be a roleplay. It's not like Lindsay and Dark Schala are RPing hot Ultros on Chupon action or anything.

Professor Beef · Oct 15, 2012

worldrevolution said:
So after years of owning it I figured I'd run through X-2 all the way finally. I was gonna make an lttp thread but then I remembered this thread. And then I entered this thread. What. the. fugg. I did not realize this thread was some kind of..screenshot..roleplaying..thing?

Video games can be fun, ya know.

I'm an expert · Oct 15, 2012

I mean..I just didn't come in expecting what I saw. The last page took forever to load and I was like hmm..that's a lot of screenshots. And then I saw captions for each one. Then I went back a few pages and saw the same thing so I was just surprised. Felt like I crashed a private party.

CorvoSol · Oct 15, 2012

worldrevolution said:
I mean..I just didn't come in expecting what I saw. The last page took forever to load and I was like hmm..that's a lot of screenshots. And then I saw captions for each one. Then I went back a few pages and saw the same thing so I was just surprised. Felt like I crashed a private party.

Screenshots aren't required. I think I have posted negative two the entire topic.

On said note: I'm following Dark Schala's advice and cheating to get the bonus summons. I turned on a 100% drop rate cheat for the whole Complete Collection, but without a hard reset it doesn't turn off, so I now actually have 3x Goblin summons. That's 1 more than I got in TAY on the Wii. Presently I'm outside Kaipo building up Rydia just a bit because she comes at a whopping level 1. When she hits like, 7, then I'll be off to grab Tellah and see this version of the Spoony Bard scene. I'm still not sure how I feel about the visuals in the Complete Collection. Battles look pretty sleek, somewhere between HQ and RPGmaker, but the world map stuff seems really awkward compared to the DS and GBA/SNES versions. I'm currently listening to the "Arranged" tracks, but I think I'll swap for the "Original"s because the Arranged worked well on DS where the scenes were you know, scenes and the long intros could build as the models moved around the screen, but in this little sprite version it takes too long for people's themes to start, meaning they begin as scenes end.

In FF7 I've made it to Wal-Market, but I'm stopping for a minute to do my homework on the section, because acquiring the right pair of panties is of the UTMOST IMPORTANCE. I also need to research how to get secret characters because this isn't FF5 or 6 where I know every damn inch of it better than I do my own body. What most impresses me, while playing the beginning of FF7, is how important Zack actually is to the narrative. For all the crap I give Nomura for Genesis and his Communist-Bondage army, he really did nail Zack's place in the narrative pretty well so far. Cloud has weird flashbacks to Nibelheim and to his time with Zack, and keeps hearing his voice in his head, and Aerith and her mother have both made mention of Zack--not by name, mind you and his effect on Aerith. (And I renamed her Aerith, because it isn't "I, Ears".)

What surprises me most, though, is how all it would have taken was Tifa speaking up even once to Cloud about what happened in Nibelheim to undo everything. Also, and I know Nibelheim has been retconned six-ways to Tuesday, but Cloud had this weird flashback to his mom telling him he needed an older girlfriend and he was in his SOLDIER get-up, so I gotta ask if that actually happened or if Cloud is just kinda wigging out there. He sent Zack a text inviting him to dinner at his house when they were in Nibelheim, but I don't know if he visited her or not.

Jucksalbe · Oct 15, 2012

worldrevolution said:
Felt like I crashed a private party.

Haha, just write about your playthrough however you like. There are lots of people that didn't post screenshots and noone really has to. But look at the summary I posted a few posts up, a lot of different people participated, not really a private party.

Dark Schala · Oct 15, 2012

worldrevolution said:
I mean..I just didn't come in expecting what I saw. The last page took forever to load and I was like hmm..that's a lot of screenshots. And then I saw captions for each one. Then I went back a few pages and saw the same thing so I was just surprised. Felt like I crashed a private party.

Nah. Lotsa people participated in the thread, and they are posting text too, and I like reading through their posts for stuff I might have passed over in my own playthroughs of the games. So don't be afraid to participate at all.

CorvoSol said:
Oh, and I started FF4 TCC. I want to see if I can finish FF4 again before Dark Schala ever finishes telling us Batman's dying dream. Probably not, but lapping would be so cool.

It's midterm time so I'm not playing much for the next fortnight (plus I spent the entire weekend replaying Xillia, studying, and doing other stuff). If you're planning on lapping me, the best time to do it is over the course of the next two weeks.

And I'm totally gonna finish Batman's Dying Dream. I have to see that his dream to own the Baron Brewery and have copious amounts of Beer is fulfilled. Or something.

CorvoSol · Oct 15, 2012

Dark Schala said:
Nah. Lotsa people participated in the thread, and they are posting text too, and I like reading through their posts for stuff I might have passed over in my own playthroughs of the games. So don't be afraid to participate at all.

It's midterm time so I'm not playing much for the next fortnight (plus I spent the entire weekend replaying Xillia, studying, and doing other stuff). If you're planning on lapping me, the best time to do it is over the course of the next two weeks.

And I'm totally gonna finish Batman's Dying Dream. I have to see that his dream to own the Baron Brewery and have copious amounts of Beer is fulfilled. Or something.

The only problem I have is that the only time I really have to play is Sunday night, because I'm taking 8 classes this semester, so I'm swamped Monday through Saturday. And I have a lot of ground to cover, what with my having just barely gotten Edward and you're being what, inside Babel the second time?

I'd have to get all the way to the Sealed Cave in record time, and I doubt the workload permits it.

Heropon · Oct 15, 2012

I choose to go to Kilika Port to see some optinal scenes. This place has been rebuilt by the Youth League after it was destroyed by Sin two years ago. And what's that organization? It's one of the two major opposing factions in Spira. They have different opinions about what should be done when new spheres are discovered. This one thinks that everyone should know their content as soon as they are adquired. The other faction is called New Yevon *shudders*, and they think that new information present in the discovered spheres should be released more slowly so people don't get too overwhelmed by the changes they could induce: "One thing at a time" as their motto says. This place is the perfect example of this situation: The Youth League is currently in the town and New Yevon in the temple and they have put a wall between them.

That thing in the first screenshot is going to be the Youth League's base when it's completed. This woman wants you to find the thirteen monkeys in the forest. I can't go right now, so it'll have to wait.

The Gullwings go to visit some friends of them, but they witness a horrible scene: Dona kicks Barthello out of her house. She explains that it has happened because he's of New Yevon. Hmmm... Political differences, I don't know if that's enough to do that. Scenes like this are the ones that help building the world in a game.

Talk with this cameraman and accept to see the future base with his camera. Do it again in the third chapter and you'll get the damage expansion accesory (I hate this type of hidden missables!!!).

Time to return to the sphere and go the next destination!

YRP go to the Moonflow to see how people are doing and find a producer that wants to make a succesfull show. He talks faaaaast and he'd like to use Yuna to attract clients, yup yup!

The girls end accepting a mission to save an hypello from some thieves that are assaulting the passing vehicles. The reward? A new dressphere!

They go down the road to find the hypello and can see some suspicious people.

The real mission starts: From time to time a bandit or two will come and each one will take one of the suitcases. The objetive is defeating them before they escape with them.

I'm going to talk a little about the white mage dressphere. Apart from the typical white magic, this one has two interesting commands: pray and vigor. Pray functions pretty much like in FFX: Heal a bit of HP to everyone for free without charge time. In other games it's nearly useless, but this time it's good to farm AP and it keeps the HP high enough if used every turn. Vigor heals a higher amount of HP, but only to the user. Pretty great when the white mage is about to die. Meaning: The white mage builds AP pretty fast while doing useful things.

I manage to execute all the thieves before they flee with the items and Tobli gives the Hunter dressphere. It has two types of skills: Blue bullet (blue magic) and Silver bullet (Does 4x damage to certain species). She has double the amount of skills than every dressphere (well, we could say that Mascot has the triple). As the classic blue mage job, it's fairly balanced (it even has more attack than the gunner!).

He also gives a garment grid that gives SOS Protect, the ability to cast Protect and one of its gates gives Auto-Protect in battle.

The designers have cut some corners between X and this game. For example, you can't go the screen that was on the left. And that ends this update!

Jedeye Sniv · Oct 15, 2012

Thanks to a guide (I know I know) I found this awesome area just south of Miranda in FF6 where you can get insane amounts of magic points which is just what I needed before going off to fight Kefka. When I heard that I need to have three teams to face the ending I was worried since I've used the same four characters fairly consistently the whole game, so it's nice have a little cheat to give all my guys some decent heal spells and Ultima

between here and Dinosaur Woods I should be able to have a fairly robust team to finish this badboy off.

CorvoSol · Oct 16, 2012

Jedeye Sniv said:
Thanks to a guide (I know I know) I found this awesome area just south of Miranda in FF6 where you can get insane amounts of magic points which is just what I needed before going off to fight Kefka. When I heard that I need to have three teams to face the ending I was worried since I've used the same four characters fairly consistently the whole game, so it's nice have a little cheat to give all my guys some decent heal spells and Ultima between here and Dinosaur Woods I should be able to have a fairly robust team to finish this badboy off.

I love that area, but I also hate it because of the obscene amount of time I spent there.

With 12 characters 10 AP a fight is just too little.

Professor Beef · Oct 16, 2012

LAST TIME: we got to celebrate Agrias' birthday, and learned to never trust Mustadio with the spending. Today, I finally get back to finishing that update with the story mode battle.

What in the world is he talking about? Why is the wind important? No matter, the time for talk is over...oh I can't type that with a straight face.

Ah, it's nice to finally meet villains who are willing to share their evil plans with you without having to beat it out of them for once...

...SON OF A BITCH. He's poisoned us, and he also lets us know that he's aimed to poison the Northern Sky's armies, if it hasn't reached them already. There's not a whole lot left that we can do...except beat him up, of course.

It's becoming all too obvious that my team simply lucks upon these battles and wins (most of) them with no real strategy, while all these other guys are making these well-thought plans that make us look like chumps no matter what the outcome. You get used to it, but still...

See? All of the stuff he's said makes perfect sense. Cause a shit-ton of chaos on the battlefield thanks to the poison, get the general to send more troops out to help them, and assassinate your targets due to the weakened stronghold. BRILLIANCE.

And as usual, he goes with the "it's what the people want" shtick. If I hadn't heard it so many times already, it'd be annoying! The battle starts at this point, and the only objective is to kill him. He's got some ok stuff to steal, so I decide to take my time (as I always do) and KO his troops if/when they get in the way of the treasure.

Because the battle takes so long, he starts talking about how Ivalice is corrupt, and he's doing everyone a solid by putting the church into power, while we're the ones who are making the land worse. You know, typical sociopathic reasoning. We don't buy it, and once his lootables are ours, we strike the finishing blow.

Unlike the other villains we face, this one actually dies. Beef mutters to himself about hurrying, but I think we all know at this point what's going to happen, given our previous luck.

MEANWHILE...

It seems that Cid is being accused of plotting to overthrow the Duke! And after that nice speech to Orran about loyalty, as well. Naturally, they have no real--

...proof.

...Didn't we KILL the High Confessor? It's so easy to lose track of the body count since everyone seems to want Beef dead. Nevertheless, someone has been feeding Goltana lies, and he's been lapping them up.

Oh ho-HO! He's yet to provide any real evidence against Cid, and now HE is asking for evidence? The nerve of some people. Even decades of loyalty mean squat to the Duke.

Sorry Cid, looks like you're on your own for now. Personally, I would've gone HAM on everyone in the room. But Cid is also much more honorable than I'll ever be.

Oh look, it's Delita!

Wow, that's some promotion for Delita. He's certainly come a long way since the ol' Knight Academy.

Delita is now the most trusted knight in the Duke's army. This can either go really well for him...or really poorly.

NEXT TIME: JAILBREAK!!!

Jedeye Sniv · Oct 16, 2012

CorvoSol said:
I love that area, but I also hate it because of the obscene amount of time I spent there.

With 12 characters 10 AP a fight is just too little.

Ha yeah, I spent about three hours last night levelling some skills on my b and C teams. That Yeti character is a total monster when fighting the little cactus dudes. He dodged all my other attacks and the Yeti will randomly pop out and ruin him, it's great. Now almost all my guys have decent heal spells, all the 3 level elemental spells and Ultima, should make the endrun less arduous. It begins tonight!

ULTROS! · Oct 16, 2012

FFX-2's Tower 7 Calibration (the one where you press two random buttons simultaneously as quick as you can using Rikku) is the fucking worst minigame.

CorvoSol · Oct 16, 2012

Jedeye Sniv said:
Ha yeah, I spent about three hours last night levelling some skills on my b and C teams. That Yeti character is a total monster when fighting the little cactus dudes. He dodged all my other attacks and the Yeti will randomly pop out and ruin him, it's great. Now almost all my guys have decent heal spells, all the 3 level elemental spells and Ultima, should make the endrun less arduous. It begins tonight!

Do you have the Ultima Weapon, Master's Scroll or Scimitar? They all hit the Cactuars guaranteed. As does Edgar's chainsaw.

Finished Wall-Market. It was okay, I guess. No, honestly, it was kind of a stupid fetch quest only made bearable by Cloud's not being able to figure out what Aerith had said to get him a dress. The cross-dressing is whatevs for me, though. The plate's fallen and I gotta say: Tseng is a major jerk in his debut. Him laughing and slapping Aerith does not mesh well with the Tseng from Crisis Core. So 1 of 3: 1) Tseng has changed in the last 5 years and become a much meaner guy, which would really be Tseng has changed in the last YEAR since at CC's ending he has all of Aerith's letters still. 2)Tseng is putting on a show for AVALANCHE, including the slap to Aerith, in order to goad them. 3) This is a LMD of Tseng.

Heropon · Oct 16, 2012

Luca

The Gullwings return to Luca and lots of people congratulate Yuna for the concert she didn't do. What really happened? Yuna disguised herself with the Gullwings's "special garment" to not be confused with Leblanc.

It isn't the most comfortable thing in the world, but she lures kids with it. Someone mistakes her for another person and ends with ten ballons to promote her "own" concert.

Search for some suckers and give them all the balloons to get a garment grid that gives Cure and has gates for Cura/Curaga.

The stadium guards were Leblanc's goons in disguise and Rikku uses Yuna to heal herself after the concert is ruined.

After watching a couple more cutscenes the Mission Complete screen appears. There isn't a reward apart from completion points and the garment grid. You can stay in Luca to do some marketing and get another garment grid that contains: Absorb thunder, Thunder, [Y]Thunder attack, [RG]Thundara, [YRG]Thundaga.

Mi'ihen Highroad

The girls exit the city to keep talking about Open Air to the most people they can and kill some monsters. There aren't chocobos in the Mi'ihen highroad anymore and because of that, there are some people trying to bring them back. The use of machines has made them obsolete, but they're more charming so I like what they try to do.

Sonic Generations - Mushroom Hill Zone Classic

The pilgrimage continues and the girls end up in the Mushroom Rock Road, which is where the current Youth League's base is. Ormi and Logos seems to be here and the group wants to follow them so they can get even more spheres! Unfortunately, a "Remember Me?" NPC appears thinking I know him from FFX. I suppose he was an unnamed NPC in that game because I don't remember him, I swear. He's called Yaibal and I think he's the fourth most important person in the Youth League.

Clasko's here too, but it doesn't seem to be enjoying his job and dreams about breeding chocobos to get the Round Knights materia by doing crossbreeding and using Dittos. Maybe later.

The real mission here begins when all those stupid NPCs stop talking and let you pass. The Gullwings have to chase Ormi and Logos while a thick "fog" appears and disappears. As we know from older games, the darker one place is, the more monsters and terrors appear. One of them is the evil Tonberry: It isn't powerful but it has 9000HP so maybe it isn't worth killing it.

I did it! YRP finally catch them in front of a suspicious gate.

As soon as they see the girls, Ormi and Logos flee with all their spheres except the one that is really needed to open the gate (There are 10 special spheres to use them as keys). Another familiar face appears, Maroda. He has joined the Youth League and doesn't want to talk about his brother Isaaru. Instead, he talks about his brother Pacce and the Kinder Guardians, Pacce's own group of sphere hunters.

The group continues their way to the Youth League base and meet with Elma, the third in charge. They win a garment grid with: Fire absorb, Fire, [Y]Fire attack, [RG]Fira, [YRG]Firaga.

Near the zone where they completed their mission, the group finds an accesory that protects from the status ailment Itchy (Forces to do a Dressphere change so the affected character can use commands again). Look, is this elevator again. We have lots of memories together.

The Youth League

The party finally reaches the base and Yuna explains a little more about the Youth League and their leader Nooj, a former crusader. They also find another garment grid with: Sleep, Bio, [G]Sleep proof, [RG]Sleep attack, [Y]Poison proof and [YB]Poison attack.

Lucil is commanding the place right now because Noojie-Woojie is planning something somewhere else. Lucil tells the party that her organization recruits many people but they can't filter all the scum and some spheres end up stolen.

After talking with Lucil, Maechen appears to talk about the political panorama after Yuna defeated Sin. Hear all he says or ELSE YOU WILL DIE. Well, not die, but don't get a dressphere later. There are so many things you can do wrong in this game to not get it... Then you have to shake hands with him.

After that, go to talk with Clasko again and let him board the airship.

End of the update!

Professor Beef · Oct 17, 2012

LAST TIME: We found a Knight Templar who actually died in the same fight we encountered him in! In this update (boy, how many times have I said that already?), we storm Fort Bessalat and rescue Cid!

This is another multi-tiered fight, but it's not nearly as long as the others. You also only have to pick one of the locations; either one leads you to the final area of the story battle (North or South leads to X, and not North leads to South, etc.) The decision you make here isn't at all important to your stats. All it does is change the battlefield and the types of enemies you fight. Despite what the picture shows, I decide to go through the Northern Wall.

The arrogance! He's lucky that none of the cronies there have anything good to steal, otherwise I'd drag this fight out like I'm known for. All you have to do is KO everyone, and the mission is donezo. There's nobody really tough in this fight, or the next one actually.

...Yeah...about that, Beef...

Looks like we weren't quick enough. The poison that the guy spread already made its way to the troops, and it has quickly taken its toll. Zalbaag doesn't seem to have gotten a snootful of it, thank goodness.

Dycedarg, on the other hand, isn't so lucky. He has a strong enough constitution to be able to withstand it for now, however.

It's the Duke! He's sickly, but he's alive! Where's the Chemists!?

Yeah, it's pretty unfortunate that he's in such--

...bad shape. Oh dear.

...Wait, HE KILLED DAD!? What in the fuck is going on here!?

Zalbaag is complately dumbfounded, and rightly so. Dycedarg's plot has been uncovered in front of Zalbaag's eyes, and he has no clue what in the world is happening anymore. All he knows is that his brother is slipping somewhere that he himself doesn't want to go.

"Hey bro? I'm gonna frame another army for killing the Duke despite the fact that you saw me stab him in cold blood right in front of you, and that I had a hand in killing dad. Mind keeping this a secret? Thanks, now I'm just gonna pass out from the poison."

WHAT A BRO, THAT DYCEDARG.

Back to Beef, we see that he's found a non-violent solution to end the current fighting! All it involves is slaying everyone in the area so that he can open up the floodgates...oh shush, it makes sense!

The objective here has changed from the PSX version. Originally, all you needed to do was reach the levers that the enemy soldiers were standing on, and land on that space (similar to the final fight with Gafgarion where you could stand on a specific space to open up the main gate). In the PSP version, the mission has been changed to just KO everyone, which is a bit simpler since people tended to do that in the first place. Once everyone is done, Beef gets to work, and THE HATCHES ARE OPEN.

FWOOOOOOOSH! With the battlefield flooded, everyone is too distracted to keep us from heading into the fort to rescue Cid.

I see that Cid has a sense of humor, or at least he can detect sarcasm.

...THANKS FOR THE STORY, GRAMPS. My coolness just went down about 40 points.

...You could've said that earlier, you know. :|

Oh yeah, I love me some ego-boosting. Just doing my job, after all. Nothing big for a man of action such as myself. It's also nice to hear nice things about at least ONE of my parents.

But I wanted more compliments! *sigh* Stupid Cid and his preference for living...

Both Cid AND Orran join the party!? CUE THE MUSIC!

....

...Well, I guess that makes sense. Still, we've got Cid, who's an asskicker in his own right. Not only can he learn all the Knight Sword skills (and a couple of the Dark Knight ones), but he comes equipped with Excalibur (which is a sword all Final Fantasy fans are familiar with). It boosts Holy-element attacks (which a lot of his Sword skills are), and grants Auto-Haste. He also comes with a Zodiac Stone, but that goes in the Key Items area, and has no relevance to battles. It's just something I wanted to mention.

MEANWHILE, the game shifts to Duke Goltanna's quarters as he summons Delita to his side.

...well Goltanna is ambitious, I'll give him that. He's not very wise when it comes to combat, and Delita refuses his orders.

TWO stabs in one update! It must be X-Mas!

And with that, Goltanna is no more.

THREE STABBINGS! Truly we are blessed! Delita is putting all the pieces into place. From the looks of it, Goltanna and Cid were killed trying to fight each other. And since Delita got that fancy new promotion, I wonder who is going to take Goltanna's place? Hmmm...

NEXT TIME: There are MORE Chacranabots!?

Heropon · Oct 17, 2012

The Machina Faction

After the last adventures, our girls continue their way to the Djose Temple. They find a "wild" chocobo with its saddle and reins but it flees before they can "befriend" it. When the party reachs the temple, Yuna explains that when Sin was defeated, people started abandoning the temples. This one was occupied later by the Machine Faction, a third neutral faction formed by Al Bhed who dig in the desert trying to find ancient machines. They call them "machines" instead of "machina" so people are less hostile to them. I must say that in the Spanish version it wasn't used an exotic word to talk about machines in FFX (máquina = machine, and it sounds the same as machina), so the Machine faction calls them aparatos (appliances). It seems the original version uses マキナ (makina), so I suppose the machine faction uses the japanese word. Upon further inspection, machine in Japanese is マシン (mashin), so I suppose they really use their "own" word in this version then.

As soon as Yuna comes to this place all the people starts looking at her. She isn't really used to being famous, even when she had two years to do so. This man is the leader of the faction and he's called Gippal. He's very friendly.

To get the job as digger in the desert, our heroines have to wait in a queue. THE HELL!

They enter the temple to do the interview with Gippal and he's surprised that a high summoner wants to "play in the desert". After that, he takes them outside.

Gippal knows very well Rikku and her family, but he also seems to know Paine when he says: "YOU!"

She responds with: "Nice to meet you". That sounds really suspicious... At the end of all the chatter, they're hired and allowed to participate in the excavations.

Bikanel becomes a Hotspot, but that doesn't mean that it's mandatory to end the chapter. I continue exploring more places and the next one is Guadosalam.

Guadosalam

The Guado have abandoned the city and now it's occupied by all kind of sphere hunters. And Seymour's mansion has become the Leblanc Syndicate headquarters. Pretty interesting, but I don't want to stay here anymore.

Thunder Plains

The Thunder Plains are a bit more safe nowadays thanks to the Al Bhed fixing the towers. But now there are confusion induching Ochus. Confusion in this game isn't as lethal as in FFX, but it's certainly much more annoying as the confused girl can use items. One of them wasted an Elixir here, ARGGGH!

Macalania Woods

Following their journey through all Spira, the party ends in the Macalania Woods. There, they discover the Guado hiding because it seems that the Ronso are trying to kill them. I'd like them to do it, but I need the Guado to survive so I get more goodies. Traitor Tromell apologizes to Yuna for being a f***** b*****, but I only want a certain thing he has.

He gives us Full Throttle, Paine's special dressphere. And with out first special dressphere comes the Unerring Path garment grid. Let's explain a little these special dresspheres: There are three of them, one for each girl and when they switch into it, the other two girls leave, but the remaining character "summons" two support "units". It can only be accessed in battle when the character has passed though all nodes in the garment grid, but it becomes more powerful the more nodes there are. The newly adquired grid only has two nodes so one can use the special dressphere more easily in random battles. I only advise using this grid to grind AP, as it's pretty easy to go through all nodes in the grid at the beginning of a boss battle.

The next place in our journey is the lake, but it isn't here anymore since the Fayth disappeared. A group of Al Bhed is in the travel agency searching for O'aka because he hasn't paid them.

Look how he flees to the forest! A new mission starts: You have to catch him and then decide what to do with him.

There are some fearful encounters in the forest. I don't have the guts needed to kill the sphere monster and I flee. There are even more depressed people in the forest: The musicians are pretty down because the woods are going to disappear. Poor guys.

The girls finally catch O'aka and decide to hide him in the airship so he can contribute in their scheme to get an infinite amount of monies. Everyone wins here! I even get the garment grid that has: Ice absorption, Blizzard, [Y] Ice attack, [RG] Blizzara, [YRG] Blizzaga.

And that ends this update!

CorvoSol · Oct 17, 2012

So I know I shouldn't be, but I'm trying to piece 7's timeline with Crisis Core together here and having a hard time of it.

Elmyra says that she met Aerith 15 years before the game. Crisis Core is roughly 5-7 years before FF7. In FF7 Aerith is what, 21? So she'd have been about 6 when she was adopted by Elmyra, and somewhere between 16 and 17 when she met Zack. So, that's all well and good and as believable as it's bound to be, but when she first met Tseng, she was a little girl, so probably 8-10, since they used a different model from the one when she met Elmyra. But Tseng is already "an adult". I had always figured him to be Zack's age in Crisis Core, but I think it makes more sense that Tseng, like most Shin-Ra employees, was a teenager when he first started. Especially since Cissnei tells Zack she's been a Turk since she was a child, as in, raised by Shin-Ra. So in that scene I GUESS Tseng was likely in his mid-to-late teens when he first contacted Elmyra about Aerith.

It's funny, because Crisis Core does not really explain Tseng's relationship to Aerith. Zack is almost completely oblivious to the fact that she is an Ancient, and never meets her mother, either. The whole game, Tseng is just keeping tabs on her, and even protects her once or twice, and Zack entrusts her to his care. Tseng collects all her letters, and then the next year he and Reno and everyone drop a plate and slap Aerith?

I mean, yes, Tseng is painted as a cold, dedicated man in Crisis Core, but the evil laugh and slap seem really out of character for him.

Heropon · Oct 17, 2012

^^^Yeah, the slap was really out of character even with Crisis Core out of the picture.

New Yevon

The party decides to go to Bevelle to increase the completion percentage. Yuna tells one of her secrets: There were some negociations to marry her with New Yevon's director's son. Luckily for her, she doesn't have to see any of them because they were kicked off of the organization because they weren't nice enough. This man is the new leader and is called Baralai.

For some reason, Paine looks elsewhere while Yuna and Rikku talk with him. You can enter the place where Yuna was judged in FFX and get an accesory.

Bikanel Desert

After dealing with politicians, the girls fill dirty and want to go to an isolated place so they go to the desert. Rikku thinks she can be a good guide and wants the other members to follow her.

But she doesn't know where is the digging base and they end up collapsing. Luckily for their lives, a strange robot appears and saves them.

It warns some Al Bhed and they take the party to the base. They have to talk to a person named Nhadala, but they have to wait because there's a sandstorm incoming, so they can't board the airship and Nhadala isn't here. Yuna finds a locked chest.

After talking to some NPCs, Nhadala appears. After talking to her, the group is allowed to dig a bit. Explanation of the minigame: There are some crosses on the map designating places with things to dig. The objective is getting the item under the yellow cross and return to the hover under 60 seconds. Not returning in time makes you lose the items. The "mission" items are needed later in the game, while items under the white crosses include Al Bhed primers, badges, normal items, etc..

There are some monsters underground and the second screenshot is the result of failing the minigame.

After adquiring the "mission item", the party gets a Mission Complete message and a garment grid with: Silence, Blind, [G]Silence proof, [RG]Silence attack, [Y]Blind proof, [YB]Blind attack.

We can visit O'aka and Clasko while they're in the airship. You can buy things from O'aka so he can pay his debts. 100000 gil is a huge amount, but it's worth paying.

Final Fantasy X - People of the North Pole

There's one alive party member from the last game we haven't visited yet: Kimahri. He's pretty busy as the new Ronso elder stopping the younger ronso from slaughtering all the Guado.

This one, Garik, is the leader of those who want to get their revenge. He tells that two ronso kids have left the mountain searching a way to restore Kimahri's horn and doubts of his leadership skills. After that you have to choose between three answers to increase the trust the Ronso have on you. Usually, the correct response is the most pleasing one, but it's better to use a guide, just in case.

You have to answer some more Ronsos to increase a hidden counter. Kimahri also asks something but this response is even more important, as getting a dressphere depends on it. The correct answer is the one that says he has to learn to resolve his own problems.

The last ronso is in the cave section of the mountain. There are EVIL wolves there that have a tech with the animation of a normal attack that causes instant death. That's the very definition of cheap and there can be even two wolves at once!

And that ends this update!

jaxword · Oct 17, 2012

CorvoSol said:
So I know I shouldn't be, but I'm trying to piece 7's timeline with Crisis Core together here and having a hard time of it.

It's funny, because Crisis Core does not really explain Tseng's relationship to Aerith. Zack is almost completely oblivious to the fact that she is an Ancient, and never meets her mother, either. The whole game, Tseng is just keeping tabs on her, and even protects her once or twice, and Zack entrusts her to his care. Tseng collects all her letters, and then the next year he and Reno and everyone drop a plate and slap Aerith?

I mean, yes, Tseng is painted as a cold, dedicated man in Crisis Core, but the evil laugh and slap seem really out of character for him.

Probably because different parts of FF7 were directed by different people and the internal inconsistencies are a result.

It should be noted that the Nojima short stories address Tseng's out of character moments in FF7 too.

Heropon · Oct 18, 2012

Zanarkand Ruins

The Gullwings go to the last Hotspot they need to take care of. We can see how was Zanarkand before and how it's right now, crowded with tourists.

Isaaru works there as a guide and the old airship is around too. Something's off.

There are some kids talking about "key" as a clue (?). This place even has Leblanc goons. I'm in such a good company!

Yuna talks with the kids, which result to be the Kinder Guardians, with Pacce as the leader. After saying goodbye to them, the girls discover a goon talking about another clue, this one is "mon".

Rikku is so clever that she discovers that the real clue is "monkey". There are some Behemoths wandering around the place, but they're really weak compared to how they were two years ago.

It seems someone's going to dinner steak tonight! In our way to getting the sphere we learn that there are sphere hunter groups formed by old women.

There are some interesting things in this place like the "surprise chests". You pay and then you can open one, the content is always a pleasant surprise, hahaha! I don't like these "gasha" chests. Uncle Cid is here; he was the person behind all this after all.

Scold him por maximum points.

A strange voice asks the girls about the clue in the place where Yunalesca was. When they answer monkey, the voice gets nervous and asks about the meaning of life. Ask if that's Isaaru's voice to get a reward.

He gives a garment grid with the abilities: Life, Cure, Cura and [RB]Curaga. After he leaves, the girls can continue their search in a hidden dungeon after that room. How is that I couldn't go to this place before?

As every precious sphere in the world, it's guarded by a big and nasty monster.

The Trammps - Disco Inferno

Boss battle 7, Guardian Beast: I don't remember a strategy but Yuna learns Firaga at the most convinient time.

Burn baby burn! After inducing some first grade burns, it dies miserably.

Unfortunately, the treasure is only half a sphere. The very definition of a dud.

Right back at the airship, Buddy informs about an "awesome sphere" in Kilika. Without letting me choose, the Gullwings go there immeadiately.

Yuna and Rikku act like crazy women thinking about that sphere while Paine feels vergüenza ajena, shame on behalf of her wonderful friends. The guards let Yuna pass this time so she can listen to Nooj's speech.

Nooj is the typical war veteran with lots of "iron parts". He wants his comrades of the Youth League to get the sphere New Yevon possesses in the temple, but he doesn't know my Gullwings are here to ruin the party.

In the forest, New Yevon soldiers don't doubt aiming their shotguns at their rivals. This place has more known enemy models like the Chimera.

And the enemy know as the last "capturable" monster in FFX. If they are using all the "original" models so soon, that means I'm going to see some palette swaps later. There are thirteen monkeys hidden in the forest. Discover them all right now and you'll get a reward in chapter 3.

Right now, our girls are enemies of both factions and they try to kill them mercilessly.

Eavesdrop a little and you'll discover the passwords needed to go to the temple.

YRP are so hungry they could eat a chocobo, so they kill one. They're more evil than I thought. When you reach the outpost, you must say the correct password once to continue with the game.

And answer correctly all the times you encounter soldiers to get the water version of a garment grid I've win three times already. The church keeps being full of assholes and use a big golem to kill some more people.

Sonic the Hedgehog - Boss

Boss battle 8, YSLS-Zero: This thing has a pretty strong physical attack that can be weaken by Paine doing Weapon Break. Steal an accesory that increases the defense and then attack with all your might.

This thing seems to be stronger against my Firaga, but that isn't enough to not bite the dust.

The Gullwings March

After doing some poses, Paine takes the sphere in front of Dona and they leave the place with their new treasure.

End of Chapter 1

CorvoSol · Oct 18, 2012

jaxword said:
Probably because different parts of FF7 were directed by different people and the internal inconsistencies are a result.

It should be noted that the Nojima short stories address Tseng's out of character moments in FF7 too.

It strikes me that Nojima is a pretty creative writer and has some of the better ideas in Square these days. I doubt I can find a translation of his short stories though. What light do they shed on Tseng's change of attitude?

Meccanical · Oct 18, 2012

I read his Case of Barret short story.

Or rather, heard it read, the audio book over at The Lifestream is pretty good.

I actually really enjoyed it.

jaxword · Oct 18, 2012

QUOTE=CorvoSol;43319815]It strikes me that Nojima is a pretty creative writer and has some of the better ideas in Square these days. I doubt I can find a translation of his short stories though. What light do they shed on Tseng's change of attitude?[/QUOTE]

Ya gotta google up, amigo:

http://thelifestream.net/

These guys are a little weird on their forums, but they do have some pretty exhaustive translations.

Nojima's written at least 4 FF7 related short stories. They vary in quality, and basically show how each character's thought processes work. Since they're fan translated, some stuff is lost, but you get the general gist.

CorvoSol · Oct 18, 2012

jaxword said:
Ya gotta google up, amigo:

http://thelifestream.net/

These guys are a little weird on their forums, but they do have some pretty exhaustive translations.

Nojima's written at least 4 FF7 related short stories. They vary in quality, and basically show how each character's thought processes work. Since they're fan translated, some stuff is lost, but you get the general gist.

Which one is the one about Tseng?

jaxword · Oct 18, 2012

CorvoSol said:
Which one is the one about Tseng?

http://thelifestream.net/tag/on-the-way-to-a-smile/

or read the ongoing translation project:

http://thelifestream.net/forums/showthread.php?p=412454#post412454

CorvoSol · Oct 18, 2012

jaxword said:
http://thelifestream.net/tag/on-the-way-to-a-smile/

or read the ongoing translation project:

http://thelifestream.net/forums/showthread.php?p=412454#post412454

I know translation projects are really usually cool and chill, but the recent whirlwind of stupid that is the Type-0 fan-translation over at GameFAQs has turned me off to them, haha. That said, I'll still check this out. No idea why I suddenly like Tseng so much, but his shift in character is pretty interesting.

Professor Beef · Oct 18, 2012

LAST TIME: We rescued the THUNDER GOD himself, and witnessed the fall of two different Dukes. Delita also set his plans into motion, and we found out some disturbing news about pappy's death. In this update we do some treasure hunting, complete another sidequest, and set another one into motion.

We once again are required to go back to Goug in order to start up a new quest. Mustadio's dad must've found something for us.

So you built it yourself from other pieces, like some kind of prehistoric Lego set? That seems dangerous, if not incredibly dumb.

YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU PUT TOGETHER. WHY DO WE KEEP YOU AROUND!?

Looks like this thing reacts to the Zodiac Stones as well. Which one do we have to hunt down this time?

I'm bad with signs, but I think that's Sagittarius? I don't know. Either way, it's next on our list. On the way to hunt it down, we have to take care of a couple of things. Our objective is Nelveska Temple, shown here:

In order to unlock the pathway there, you have to read the rumors in the tavern that Beef is currently standing on. You'll find one called "Cursed Island of Nelveska," and as soon as you read it and go back to the World Map, the path will open. You can't go in quite yet, because you need to talk to a certain someone in another city called "Sal Ghidos" (shown on the map as the blue dot to Beef's east on the above pic). Go there, and a short scene will trigger.

Well now, where have we seen this before?

Sarcastic, ain't she? I like her already!

The choice here is of vital importance. If you refuse, then she leaves, and you lose your chance at obtaining a new character. It's only a gil, so there's literally no reason to NOT buy the daffydil.

See how happy we made her? Feels good to do a good deed.

Ok, ok, we get it. I bought a flower, not your autobiography. :|
Once that scene is done, it's time to head back to Nelveska Temple and procure ourselves three of the best items in the game!

Oh look, it's another Chacranabot! Hi there buddy, how ya--

...What in the world??

WAAAAAIIIIIT A MINUTE. No need for the countdown, we'll just turn right around and--

WHAT WHAT WHAT!? LEARN TO COUNT, YOU BAG OF BOLTS.

"Annihilation Mode?" Oh, that never sounds good.

Welp, we're in for it now. Nelveska Temple, as we can obviously tell, is not a very welcoming place. While the objective may SEEM simple, it is anything but. The robot here is just like the one in our party, but many levels higher. There are also several monsters in the area that can attack multiple party members at once, as well as Petrify them one by one. It's not an easy fight even if you're fully prepared for it. There are two ways to look at this fight as well: Very Hard, and "I want to tear my hair out." Because we want the treasure here, we're going with the second option.

The treasures here are some of the very best in the game, and can only be obtained here in this single battle. If we don't get them here, they're gone forever with no chance of obtaining them again. There are four treasures to get here, but only two are of utmost importance: Javelin II, and Escutcheon II. These are upgrades of similar items, but with AMAZING statistical upgrades that make it worth the time and effort in getting them. They're found on top of the two pillars that the Hydras are sitting on, which means that you've got to kill them first. Also, your party member with the Treasure Hunter ability has to have a Jump stat of at least 4 so they can jump on top of our own robot in order to reach. Then you have to pray for a bit of luck that you found the upgraded version of the Javelin and Escutcheon. It took me a few resets before I managed to get up there without wiping out completely, and I thankfully got them without having to reset further.

The enemies themselves are tough, but not as hard as anything we've already faced. Once the items have been collected, we focus our strength on the robot.

Reserve circuits? What a cheater! OUR robot doesn't even have those! When you KO him the first time, he revives with 1 HP left. He doesn't get a turn immediately afterwards though, so all it takes is another solid hit to take him out for good.

Self-destruct mode? Countdowns? And we're standing right next to him!? RUN YOU FOOLS.

WHY IS THERE ANOTHER SYSTEM ERROR? DOES THIS THING RUN ON LINUX?

...That's it? Where's the kaboom? In either case, it drops what appears to be another Zodiac Stone! Is it the one we need? We'll find out in a bit. Right now, Beowulf is bugging us about something.

What in the world are you talking about? And why do you need this stone? And where did your dragon come from?

I don't really know what Beowulf is going on about, but I guess we'll trust him.

AUGH, WHY DIDN'T I TAKE A BETTER SCREENSHOT!?

...Well now.

Awwww~

I'M KIDDING! I didn't actually refuse to let her join. HIT THE MUSIC!

Reis the human is a complete upgrade from Reis the dragon. She has an extremely high growth rate in HP and Magic Attack, and her default class "Dragonkin" comes with the following abilities naturally: Beast Tongue, Beastmaster, Dual Wield, and Tame. But with every upside comes a downside. She can only equip female-exclusive armor, and very few weapons. You can switch classes to get around this, but then you don't get all the neat bonuses that come with Dragonkin.

Besides that, Dragonkin is a boon if you have any dragons or hydras on your roster. Not only does she have all three dragonbreath attacks (plus a 4th Holy-element one), but she has a bunch of status moves that work only on dragons with a 100% success rate and no charge times. These range from healing dragons' HP and status effects, raising their stats, and giving them the Quick status (which you should be familiar with if you've played FF5). Put in work with Reis, and you won't be disappointed in the slightest.

And for those wondering what the Javelin II and Escutcheon II look like:

I decided to put the shield on Dark Schala, since Dark Knights need all the HP protection...

...and I gave the spear to Nocturnowl, since he's the only one who can use it. Also for his years of service.

NEXT TIME: We finish that other sidequest I mentioned...once I finish uploading the rest of the pics.

Heropon · Oct 18, 2012

The Gullwings March

After the last successful operation, Rikku and Brother are really happy. Paine and Shinra get a little nervous seeing them agree for once. But first, we have to see what has recorded that awesome sphere.

The guy that looks like Tidus appears next to a big machina. He says something about using it to save someone called Lenne. Yeah, it could blast Yakra without many problems.

Brother gets pretty worried after seeing that and everyone agrees that the best thing to improve the mood is to make Yuna dance. Brother let some musicians board the airship and Yuna has to meet with them.

They are in the cabin, and now that I'm there I let Yuna rest to see a certain scene later.

Yuna has to push the musicians to the elevator so they can play some music in the party.

Yuna's Theme

La la laaaa, la la la la laa, la la la la la laaaa. La la laa, la laaa, laa laa la la la la laa laaaa.
La la laaaa, la la la la laa, la la la la la laaaa. La la laa, la laaa, laa laa la la la la laa laaaa.

After her show, Yuna starts to think and we can see that she's getting a little jealous of Lenne and shouts: WHO THE HECK IS LENNE?!

Party ruined, thanks Yuna. Everyone looks at her as she was crazy. It's time to rest, Yuna.

*Dream sequence incoming*

Let's see, Yuna and Tidus flee from some Bevelle soldiers until they are trapped right next to the big machine. Then they are shot and die. Yuna sure has strange dreams...

While Yuna was having nightmares with her new pajamas, the rest of the group has decided to return the sphere to the Youth League or New Yevon.

Brother wants Yuna to decide what will be the lucky organization to get it. Yuna then says she'll do whatever the leader decides and then he orders her to decide. Haha, good one, "leader".

Time to choose then. This decision influences lots of scenes in this chapter and it's said that the only way to get a 100% without doing a New Game+ is choosing the Youth League. I'm not looking for a 100% completion, but I hate Yevon, so I choose the Youth League even if it's full of scumbags.

Nooj and the rest of the League receive the Gullwings like if they were stars and the men in the group start doing stupid poses. *sigh*

Nooj asks the girls if they've seen the content of the sphere. Rikku doesn't want to answer him but Yuna responds afirmatively, and we can see how Rikku reacts. He explains that that machine is pretty destructive and musn't be touched.

Leblanc's Got It All

Red alert! Someone has stolen the sphere they found in Zanarkand and the party has to return to the airship. The thieves left a sphere there.

"Who's winning, dullwings?" "Hahahahahaha!" They're making fun of the Gullwings, they'll pay for this.

That recording angers Yuna, who wants that sphere back. That starts a mission where they have to get three female goon uniforms to infiltrate Leblanc's mansion. There are three places around Spira where the Leblanc troops are doing naughty things, but the girls have to discover them by going to lots of places. This ends this update, until the next one!

Heropon · Oct 19, 2012

Final Fantasy VIII - SeeD

The Gullwings start going to places to find Leblanc She-goons and the first one they visit is Besaid. There they find that the Aurochs have assembled again as a team after I kicked out all its members and replaced all of them with actually good players. They are now members of the Youth League too and a trainer called Beclem has come to the island so they stop slacking off.

Just when Yuna is about to leave, one of the Aurochs does the prayer to Yevon and Beclem scolds him for not abandoning false traditions yet and starts talking shit about summoners, aeons and all those things.

Doom - At Doom's Gate

Of course, that angers Yuna and orders him to take that back. He then defies her to a shooting minigame. In this minigame Yuna has a limited number of bullets and she has to defeat some fiends and build a chain to get even more points. The target is 500.

There are four types of enemies: Dingos (5 HP), wolves (7 HP), garudas (10 HP) and the Golem boss (17 HP). Each time you kill one it drops a chest containing more bullets and they're divided into three types: Normal (1 HP to one enemy), double (1 HP to two enemies) and lethal (The enemy dies).

After going in circles to build points I defeat the Golem with a lethal bullet and reach the beach, then it compares my score with Beclem's and I win! He still doesn't like Yuna and talks about how she isn't tough enough to defeat something like Sin. She is confident to admit it and talks about how friendship could make the defeat of Sin happen.

The reward for ridiculizing him is a garment grid that gives +10 MDEF and +10 more for each gate crossed (+50 MDEF in a battle). After that I do a short visit to Kilika where they're pretty happy to see that Yuna has given the sphere to the Youth League, but they can't allow her to enter the village because they have problems with New Yevon.

Final Fantasy IV - Palom and Porom's Theme

I want to see how the marketing campaign is going so I go to the Calm Lands. There the girls find two Ronso kids called Lyan and Ayde. Just when the girls realize they are the kids that disappeared from Gagazet and are going to take them there, the two boys escape.

Next stop, Luca. Shelinda has become a journalist and she's doing a coverage in the town square. You can switch between cameras to make her face the one that is recording. You can run around while she's talking.

When she realizes High summoner Yuna is there an interview starts where she asks about her concert and the rumors about her leaving Besaid because she was looking for her lost boyfriend. At the end, she mentions how Yuna became the leader of the Gullwings. Brother doesn't like what he hears and has to appear to correct Shelinda about the leadership of the Gullwings. Maybe Yuna isn't the oficial leader, but she makes all the decisions.

Shelinda thanks Yuna for the interview by giving her a garment grid (Drain, [R]Osmose). After Shelinda leaves, Rikku and Paine continue talking about Yuna and Dr. P has an interesting thought: "The hardest person to know is yourself". That's because Yuna doesn't know what image have other people of her.

A little observation: These kids share models with Zanarkand kids. Retro fashion!

Heropon · Oct 20, 2012

Chocobo

The party has heard that there's an old acquaintance of Yuna in the Mi'ihen Highroad and that's the Gullwings's next destination. That person is Cali, a girl who wanted Yuna to bring the calm and now wants to mount chocobos. She has grown up and looks nothing like two years ago.

Luckily for her, a wild chocobo appears and that means that the girls have to catch it for her! In the first part of the catch mission, Yuna and Paine have to follow Rikku while Yuna gets some feathers to adquire nice prizes at the end of it. Sometimes, Rikku will point at somewhere and if you accept to go there, you get an item but this last part has to be repeated.

In the second part of the quest, Yuna has to guess what part of the road is the chocobo going to take (left, right, middle). Thanks to ~~using save states~~ Yuna's telepathic powers I do it correctly every time.

Just when Yuna tames the chocobo, a man goes running to tell the party that Cali has got in trouble.

Cali is going to be eaten by the Chocobo Eater and Yuna tries to do a suicidal jump to save her, but Paine is less stupid and stops her. I'm so lucky having you in my team, Paine. What would I do without you?

Thankfully, Clasko appears with a chocobo army to slow down the monster and give more time to the girls to reach it.

Final Fantasy X - Boss Theme

Boss battle 9, Chocobo Eater: As in FFX, fire is your friend so abuse it. Battles in this game are pretty dinamic but there aren't battle specific commands so it's just another boss battle.

Thanks to the defeat of the monster, Cali can ride a chocobo and the party gets another garment grid (SOS Shell, Shell, [R]Auto-shell).

After that scene the girls return to the airship but they have to go to the Mi'ihen Highroad again to retrieve Cali, Clasko and the chocobo.

Completing that mission makes Clasko realize that his destiny is in the Calm Lands and wants to go there. He goes running to the former monster arena but discovers that for some reason there are monsters there! Time to bust them then!

Dragon Quest V - Dungeon

There are 15 monsters and the party has to guess which one is the real one. There are two battles against Queen Coeurl, which is pretty dangerous because the pattern she has: -aga spell, Death Blaster, repeat. As the name of Death Blaster says, it kills instantly the target so have a few phoenix downs at hand. By the way, it can be learned by the hunter.

After five fights, more monsters appear to terrify Clasko.

Dragon Quest VIII - War Cry

Boss battle 10, Blue elemental x3: This battle is as easy as it sounds as the elementals are only fiends with above average strength. The battle becomes more difficult when one of them enters in Oversoul, so good luck!

After killing all the monsters the party adquires another dressphere, the chemist, which has lots of interesting abilities. It can use items for free at the cost of a loooong charge bar (worth it for things like omnipotion), it can use normal items almost instantly, doubles the effects of healing and attacking items and can mix items from the start. It's sooo good. They also win a garment grid (First Attack, [G]Slowproof, [R]Stop proof, [Y]Haste and [YRGB]SOS Haste). Clasko can now use this place as a chocobo farm and gives Yuna some gysahl greens to capture chocobos.

CorvoSol · Oct 20, 2012

FFIVCC Made it as far as Mysidia, and I AM NOT HAPPY WITH WHOEVER RETRANSLATED THIS GAME. What kind of flaming moron removes Golbez' incredibly classy "Allow me to give you something. A gift, to remember our meeting by." and replaces it with the most idiotic "Never hesitate to kill, Kain!" ever? I mean, Golbez taking Rosa to "hold in trust until next we meet" loses so much when you remove the Gift line. The gift thing is so well-known Golbez says it in DISSIDIA. And you go and remove it?

I WOULD SHOOT YOUR FEET SQUARE, I WOULD.

FFVII I'm in Kalm, doing the Nibelheim stuff, trying to figure out how to make Cloud bring a pair of panties out of a delusional memory of the incident into reality. On that same note, it is interesting to see which things Cloud remembers that are actually Zack, which things he remembers which are actually him, and which things are Sephiroth making him crazy crazy crazy all the time.

jaxword · Oct 20, 2012

CorvoSol said:
FFIVCC Made it as far as Mysidia, and I AM NOT HAPPY WITH WHOEVER RETRANSLATED THIS GAME. What kind of flaming moron removes Golbez' incredibly classy "Allow me to give you something. A gift, to remember our meeting by." and replaces it with the most idiotic "Never hesitate to kill, Kain!" ever? I mean, Golbez taking Rosa to "hold in trust until next we meet" loses so much when you remove the Gift line. The gift thing is so well-known Golbez says it in DISSIDIA. And you go and remove it?

I WOULD SHOOT YOUR FEET SQUARE, I WOULD.

You want to talk Square completely missing the point in their own translations and dropping the ball?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09u_s5MYnDA

CorvoSol · Oct 20, 2012

jaxword said:
You want to talk Square completely missing the point in their own translations and dropping the ball?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09u_s5MYnDA

Yeah, that one was pretty heart-breaking, but on the other hand, "I'LL CRUSH YOU!!!" is such an awesome line for Garland.

I really liked that in Dissidia the four weakest characters in the series got serious expansions. WoL, Garland, Firion and Mateus were really very awesome after those two games. It was the apology for making Cloud talk like Shatner and forcing Terra to cry nonstop and making Cecil more obsessed over his brother than Liquid Snake.

Heropon · Oct 20, 2012

Final Fantasy VI - Returners

The Gullwings go to visit their friends in the Youth League and they find that someone has spread rumours about them joining the organization. Obviously, that's false. The party also visits the gate and they find Nooj there trying to open it and gives them another crimson sphere.

And he gives it personally to Paine. That's so suspicious that Rikku and Yuna start acting strangely and asking her for her past.

Sonic the Hedgehog - Drowning

Thanks to her acts, Rikku loses 4 respect points and has only 47 left. Actually, I'm impressed she had so many in the first place. After visiting Elma and Lucil near the base the Gullwings go to another place.

Final Fantasy II Origins - Main Theme

YRP find in Djose some goons and they decide to follow them. There's an Hypello trying to sell tickets for Tobli's next show, but he isn't very successful.

The goons are looking for a sphere they've lost. Well, that means I have to find it first to add another sphere to my collection.

But Ormi and Logos appear to feel a little of pain. Ormi calls the girls meanies for not giving him back the sphere (harpies in the Spanish version

).

I'll Give You Something Hot!

Boss battle 11, Ormi, Logos and She-goon: They've learned a few tricks since the last time. Logos now shoots a barrage of bullets and Ormi does a lethal hug. But I have chemist Rikku in my party and she can throw some powerful explosives.

After being humiliated, they have to escape cowardly and the woman with less clothes. I've got my first uniform! By the way, the sphere I've just got is Floral Fallal, Yuna's special dressphere. She can cast powerful elemental spells causing lots of damage.

Persona 3 - Paulownia Mall

After hearing of the problems Tobli had selling tickets, Yuna decides to help him. She has to sell 10 of them and depending of the prize she asks the client can buy or not, so don't be too greedy. Tobli gives them at a base prize of 500 gil for succeding at attacking the bandits in the last chapter and the profit depends on how much more than that you can sell them for.

The party finds in their way their first chocobo thanks to not hurting it. Chocobos can be pretty nasty and start attacking you with evil things like choco-meteor. Thanks to the guide (haha), I gain the max profit I can: 12500 gil.

After selling the tickets, Tobli gives another garment grid (+10 MAG and +15 for each gate, there are four). The girls next stop is Guadosalam, where they can buy a piece of information for 10000 gil and depending of the interested person, selling it for much more.

The interested person gives 80000 gil, but it could be less so reset until the information is needed by a person who gives 50000+. Thanks to that money, I can pay O'aka's debts!

In return, O'aka starts selling his items for a "little" discount. They cost less than what Barkeep gives you for selling them so you can recoup the costs after doing some "short" trips. After a while it becomes boring so I only try to get 100000 gil.

Thanks to my first captured chocobo, I go to see Clasko again. There's a "chocobo" shortcut next to the travel agency to go to the ranch immediately. Chocobos in this game can be sent around the world to get items. You'll want to send a weak chocobo to Bikanel.

Before ending the update, I go to see how the marketing campaign goes: 298 points, that means I only need 102 more points!

Jedeye Sniv · Oct 20, 2012

I just finished FF3/6! After having power levelled all my folks in the deserts under Miranda and the Dino woods I laid waste to Kefka's tower in fairly short order. Perhaps giving everyone the Ultima spell was a bad idea in terms of game balance... the end sequence was nice if perhaps a touch overlong but overall it was a fantastic ride and one of the best 16 bit RPGs I've ever played, joining DQ5, Chrono Trigger and Earthbound in the pantheon of my favourite games.

By the end I had quite a few favourite characters. I guess Sabin was straight up the most fun to play as with his Blitz attacks, using the dpad to execute them was a nice touch. But I also had a couple of party members equiped as total badasses. I had Attack X on Edgar along with dual weilding, meaning that he would hit something 8 times in a single turn, it was madness, sometimes doing 10000 damage at once. And Celes was my magic powerhouse with half-price spells and Magic X to do two attacks. Two 9999 damage Ultimas in a row took down Kefka pretty fast. I also had a soft spot for Umaru. He attacked fast, sometimes twice before another character would even get a shot off, and with the right relics he was super powerful. He also helped me to kills loads of the little cactus dudes with his unblockable attacks.

I never really used Gau, his powerset was too much work for how random it would be. And Setzer, while fun to use was underwhelming. And a dick. Fuck Setzer.

Heropon · Oct 20, 2012

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn - Mountain Roc Rising

You can visit Cid in the Thunder Plains to increase the completion percentage. He's pretty sad after Yuna scolded him. After that, the girls can go to Macalania woods and see a Tobli's assistant who is looking for musicians so they can work in the concert. In the end, the party has to search them for him.

The girls find the leader in the area where Tromell was. He tells them that the other musicians have become butterflies to rest. There are five groups of butterflies and three of them have minimusicians. Find all of them and you'll get a garment grid in the next chapter. Two of them are in the same area.

The last mini is in the woods. The two normal musicians are in the elevated road...

...and the WooHoo spring. After that, the three musicians decide to help Tobli and Mission Complete!

The girls decide to visit Bevelle now that they're near it but the soldiers aren't very friendly.

Monkey Island

Their next stop is Zanarkand, where there's some New Yevon scum who isn't very friendly either. In the Yevon temple, Isaaru says that he has problems with the monkeys, as they scare the tourists.

Mission: Yuna and Rikku want to empty this place of tourists, so they want to increase the number of monkeys, so they are going to pair them so they have little monkeys, the perfect plan! There are 24 monkeys (12 couples) to pair, so this takes a little of time running through all the place many times.

The price for pairing the monkeys is the Thamasa's Soul accesory. It increases the power of spells but they cost double the MP. Meanwhile, the chocobo I sent to Bikanel has got lost in the desert and won't come back. Talking about deserts...

I go to Bikanel, where Nhadala tells the Gullwings that some strange things have been happening in the oasis and they have to explore it. There they find Machina Maw, Rikku's special dressphere.

I'll Give You Something Hot!

Just after that, Logos appears with two female goons to attack my characters.
Boss battle 12, Logos and She-goon x2: I don't know what strategy is the best, but it's a good idea to steal some items.

After defeating them I win a lure bracer, another uniform and a garment grid (DEF/MDEF +10, [YB]DEF +10 each and [RG]MDEF +10 each).

Bonus, Floral Fallal:

Hehehehehehehehehe.

Yuna becomes a floral weapon of mass destruction and kills whatever she finds.

CorvoSol · Oct 20, 2012

Jedeye Sniv said:
I just finished FF3/6! After having power levelled all my folks in the deserts under Miranda and the Dino woods I laid waste to Kefka's tower in fairly short order. Perhaps giving everyone the Ultima spell was a bad idea in terms of game balance... the end sequence was nice if perhaps a touch overlong but overall it was a fantastic ride and one of the best 16 bit RPGs I've ever played, joining DQ5, Chrono Trigger and Earthbound in the pantheon of my favourite games.

By the end I had quite a few favourite characters. I guess Sabin was straight up the most fun to play as with his Blitz attacks, using the dpad to execute them was a nice touch. But I also had a couple of party members equiped as total badasses. I had Attack X on Edgar along with dual weilding, meaning that he would hit something 8 times in a single turn, it was madness, sometimes doing 10000 damage at once. And Celes was my magic powerhouse with half-price spells and Magic X to do two attacks. Two 9999 damage Ultimas in a row took down Kefka pretty fast. I also had a soft spot for Umaru. He attacked fast, sometimes twice before another character would even get a shot off, and with the right relics he was super powerful. He also helped me to kills loads of the little cactus dudes with his unblockable attacks.

I never really used Gau, his powerset was too much work for how random it would be. And Setzer, while fun to use was underwhelming. And a dick. Fuck Setzer.

You're the first person I've ever met who chose Umaro as one of their favorites.

FFIVCC The madness continues as Cecil's father fails to say "Bid farewell to your bloodstained past!" Which was a TAGLINE for the DS version. This translation is SO inconsistent, man! That said, I will give it the credit it's due: Where the SNES/GBA version's Mysidian legend made no sense to me because I was a kid, the DS version was obtuse "Dreamtide Oaths resworn? What?" but the PSP version makes sense: Born of the dragon is Kluya's progeny, light and dark are the crystals, the silent land is the moon and so on.

That said, I'm again confused as to whether or not Mysidia is a cult to Kluya or not. The Elder speaks of the legend existing for generations, which means Mysidia's probably been around several centuries, but at the same time, FF4TAY and FF4DS assert that Kluya brought both science and magic with him to the Earth. I suppose he could have made more than one trip?

FFVII
I finished the Nibelheim flashback, and it's interesting to see how it meshes with CC's version of the event. It was also, again, sad to see that Sephiroth had been a nice guy who, because of Hojo and Genesis' interference and Gast's death, fell to a terrible state. It makes me wonder what a reunion between Sephiroth and Gast would yield, since Sephiroth kinda sorta murdered Gast's daughter.

Also: as of this moment I have no idea where I'm going in FFVII. I got the Chocobo Lure, so I guess I'm going through the marshes? Thank goodness I played FF7NES this year or I would be utterly lost.

Anybody know when the earliest I can get Yuffie is?

Heropon · Oct 20, 2012

CorvoSol said:
Anybody know when the earliest I can get Yuffie is?

You cross the marsh with a chocobo and then there's a cave. After crossing it there are some forests where she appears as a random encounter. She appears in every forest in the game and those are the first you'll find.

Lindsay · Oct 20, 2012

1 stressful week later I finally could comfortably sit down & check out the next 20 minutes! Now to cull 200-some images down to 30 or less and write stuffs. But first! Thread catchup!

jaxword said:
Kadaj - Dual bladed Souba Katana
Yazoo - Long haired, most resembles Sephiroth. Uses the Velvet Nightmare gunblade.
Loz - Childish muscleman, uses the Dual Hound gauntlet. Also has his own gunblade.

Thanks! That'll come in handy!

Heropon said:
I was talking from a developer standpoint. Many of the new dungeons look that can be made by a simple "dungeon editor".

There's nothing.

This is weak on both accounts! They're already reusing tons of assets the least they could do is make the new stuff not cheapo. No file carry over stuff stinks to. Also I'm disappointed the outfit changes don't carry over your outside of battle appearance -.-!

CorvoSol said:
Did I mention that I literally killed the final boss of the game in one blow? Seriously, the missions leading up to Minerva have these hella hard monsters with hundreds of thousands of HP, Minerva herself has 10 MILLION HP, and Genesis?

So its like fighting Ruby/Emerald WEAPONs. Long, repetitive, and need ta grind for some real specific setups! aka BORING.

And in spite of the absolutely terrible graphics, I am falling for this game again.

Yay!

Professor Beef said:
The first screenshot I posted shows two city/town spaces right next to each other, so you can go back and forth between those two until you get to the correct date. If someone playing were unaware of that...then I suppose it can be fairly hard. :lol

Unaware of something obvious? That'd be me! I did have to gameshark my way through the game ya know, don't put anything past me!

CorvoSol said:
It's funny, because Crisis Core does not really explain Tseng's relationship to Aerith. Zack is almost completely oblivious to the fact that she is an Ancient, and never meets her mother, either. The whole game, Tseng is just keeping tabs on her, and even protects her once or twice, and Zack entrusts her to his care. Tseng collects all her letters, and then the next year he and Reno and everyone drop a plate and slap Aerith?

Tseng's the spy that falls for the one he's spying on. Always felt he was older then he looked and totally not Zack's age. He had to be with the company for awhile to have become the head of the Turks and stuff. The way he acted at the plate is odd as ya point out. Maybe losing Zack did something to him. On a brighter side I like how CC fills in the blank of how Aeris avoided capture by Shinra for years.

Cloud: "It's amazing how she's avoided the Shinra for all these years"
Elmyra: "The Shinra needed her, so I guess they wouldn't harm her."

You could say she had an Ange

a

l watching over her...

Professor Beef said:
The choice here is of vital importance. If you refuse, then she leaves, and you lose your chance at obtaining a new character. It's only a gil, so there's literally no reason to NOT buy the daffydil.

At long last one of the few parts of FFT I remember!

Heropon said:
Yuna becomes a floral weapon of mass destruction and kills whatever she finds.

Thats a great outfit! Also dressing up in a Moogle suit for stealth self-promotion is pretty great.

CorvoSol · Oct 20, 2012

Heropon said:
You cross the marsh with a chocobo and then there's a cave. After crossing it there are some forests where she appears as a random encounter. She appears in every forest in the game and those are the first you'll find.

Sweet. I'm kinda sad I'll be losing Aerith, mostly because she's a useful party member and I hate putting work into people who croak. Like Tellah.

Lindsay said:
So its like fighting Ruby/Emerald WEAPONs. Long, repetitive, and need ta grind for some real specific setups! aka BORING.

Minerva exists solely for the purpose of a challenge. The problem is, without cheating, and I must stress that I did not cheat, I somehow eliminated THE ENTIRE CHALLENGE from the fight. Like, the last three missions before the fight are tough, with four or five guys ripping you into bits per fight. Then Minerva literally did no damage to me the entire fight. I think, but I can't be sure, but I think the Materia I had eliminated damage by redirecting it to SP. I lost almost half in that fight.

Lindsay said:
Tseng's the spy that falls for the one he's spying on. Always felt he was older then he looked and totally not Zack's age. He had to be with the company for awhile to have become the head of the Turks and stuff. The way he acted at the plate is odd as ya point out. Maybe losing Zack did something to him. On a brighter side I like how CC fills in the blank of how Aeris avoided capture by Shinra for years.

Cloud: "It's amazing how she's avoided the Shinra for all these years"
Elmyra: "The Shinra needed her, so I guess they wouldn't harm her."

You could say she had an Ange

a

l watching over her...

I never really thought of Tseng having the hots for Aerith. I never really saw him as having the hots for anyone, as he's pretty stoic. I figured he didn't bring her in because even Tseng had a heart in there somewhere, and considering when he DID bring her in, Hojo tried to breed her with Red XIII, I'm guessing he figured putting it off was best for Aerith.

Heropon · Oct 20, 2012

Kirby Air Ride - Frozen Hillside

The last place I go in the non-linear part of the chapter is Mount Gagazet. Kimahri wants Yuna to forgive him for not finding spheres and he says that he didn't search in the Fayth Scar because it's forbidden going there for the Ronso (He went there in the pilgrimage, but whatever). He also tells that some sphere hunters were seen there. That's a clue or a clue? You must talk with the Ronso again in this chapter to increase their trust in Yuna.

And the sphere hunters are from the Leblanc Syndicate! That means extra uniforms.

If Yuna and the others go the wrong way, they'll reach a place where strong winds blow. I think it opens later so they can go to the summit, the place were they went in the first chapter.

At some point, the group can go to a path with a saving sphere and other one that leads to more climbing. You want to go to the later to see an extra scene.

Taking that path leads to a rock over the hot springs where some goons are slacking off. Ormi has to go there to scold them.

Their free time ends when the rock where the girls stand falls. They run like little girls scared by the crash!

The party finds another uniform forgotten by the goons and Yuna has an idea...

Is it me or Rikku's bath suit is less revealing than her normal clothes? By the way, in the scene Rikku tries to compare her attributes with those of Yuna and Paine. It's evident what Paine thinks about that... About the last screenshot, why are hypellos there?

Just when they're about to leave a female goon discovers them and a fight begins. The enemies are really weak, as always.

Kirby's Dream Land 3 - King Dedede

Boss battle 13, Ormi: Hmmm.... I don't want to talk about this battle. It's the same as always!!!

I win a garment grid (+10 DEF and 10 more for each gate) and the girls are ready to storm Leblanc's mansion!

Lindsay · Oct 21, 2012

[Part 1 / 5] [Part 2 / 5] [Part 3 / 5] [Part 4 / 5] [Part 5 / 5]

In the spirit of re-using assets I'm gonna get in on some of that myself! I've re-used commentary before, but this is a first for pics! btw Cloud, Tifa, and Loz are gonna catch holy hell for their actions in this episode!

021 - 040: Ludicolo to Kadabra

We resume with Cloud returning to the outskirts of Midgar. Spying the fallen Buster Sword, he picks it up and plants it right back in the ground where he'd left it.

While staring at the symbol of his honor and dreams, Cloud's DMW acts up and reviews memories of Zack in foggy Cloud-o-vision. Luckily for you viewers at home I got some nice clear images to better portray what Cloud saw! "I said I'd live out both our lives. Easy to make that promise." He kinda spazzes out clutching his bad arm. Also in his visions was a wolf for some reason.

Tifa & Marlene are still at the church playing with the flowers when Loz bursts in. "Wanna play?" He seems to be allergic to the flowers cause he takes a whiff of 'em an start feeling ill. He's also sick in the head cause he just keeps asking where his mom is.

Looks like it's gonna be Tifa vs Loz! It figures the hand to hand baddie would be paired with the hand to hand goodie. They wreck up the church and flowers even more. Guess they're not normal people...

Tifa gets in a ton of attacks and generally kicks the guys butt. When the battle seems won the victory theme plays! Again. And again. Oh! It's actually Loz's ringtone lol. That beating did squat to him how?! And then all it takes is a couple hits for him to defeat her? That's crap! Marlene draws his ire by chucking a materia at him and then...

Oh hey its that Denzel kid. The new member of Team Hero that was introduced with less than a minute of screentime and forgotten about until now. He's just moping about on the street when some girl comes up and drags him away. "You got the stigma to? Come on, they're gonna fix us." He, without hesitation, boards Yazoo's truck along with lotsa other kids.

Cloud returns to the church wondering why his home away from homes all messed up. Upon spotting Tifa he to tramples the flowers... leaving Aeris spinning in her grave even more! Marlene and his materia stash are nowhere to be found! His stigma acts up again, this time dripping icky goop on the flowers!! He passes out alongside Tifa and a wolf for some reason.

"You know, you're pretty heavy." Ack! It seems Reno and Rude carried the two of 'em back home to bed! They inform the speechless Cloud that the kids are missing then go on their way. Up at the Forgotten Capital the badguys are pretty pleased to have access to their brothers stash of materia!

Tifa wakes up ~~7 days later~~ in the evening and gets right on Cloud's case! "You have geostigma, don't you? You're gonna give up and die, aren't you?" There's no cure for it so ffs give the guy a break! "Tifa, I'm not fit to help anybody. Not my family, not my friends, nobody." That's not emo speaking that's just being realistic! "Dilly dally silly sally" Wut? If thats a real saying someone needs ta be hurt for it. Reno & Rude are back for more, telling Cloud the whereabout of Kadaj's base and the kids!

"Mother has given me a very special gift! The power to fight a planet that torments humanity." Kadaj is going all crazy cult guy saying all them people with the stigma are his brothers and sisters and that the man er, planet is trying to keep them down! "Do as I do." *Kadaj drinks a handful of clearly tainted water* And like any good cult the kids follow suit without question, including Denzel. Side effects may include really creepy looking eyes and declaring that you are the lizard queen!

Whilst zooming through the forest, Cloud finds his DMW acting up again and giving him a hallucination about Aeris. "You came. Even though you're about to break." (editors note: CorvoSol found a strange connection between sex & flower carts so he oughta have a field day with this line). Cloud returned cause he wants to be forgiven by somebody... but who? I'm placing my bet on Zack. Getting shot at snaps him back to reality and his bike produces an unlimited amount of blades! But Kadaj & his buddies got an unlimited amount of ninja kids on their side, believe it!

Cloud crashes off his bike to prevent running any kids over, giving the baddies an upper hand from the getgo. Apparently big brother Cloud's the black sheep in their family so they've gotta kick his ass for his defiance! Or at least try. Despite one of his arms being messed up he can wield 2 swords! And use his Blade Beam limit break! Still, 3 on 1 leaves Cloud kinda flailing about just to defend himself and sadly his PHS is knocked into the water. R.I.P.

Things aren't looking to good for Cloud... but suddenly a red cloak swoops in to grab and spirit him away! Vincent to the rescue! He's added to his pile of sins by watching Kadaj's gang, but doing jack all about 'em! "The stigma. It's a sympton of alien matter infesting the body." And it took... this long to manifest? And in people totally unrelated to the Jenova incidents? On the bright side Tseng & Elena aren't dead yet. Vincent found and tried his best to heal 'em. They had recovered Jenova's head which is crazy considering all the crap that things been through! So now we know what the baddies are after. Rustling grass grabs the two guys attention and out pops a wild ~~Emolga~~ Marlene who wants to speak with Tifa!

Heropon · Oct 21, 2012

Anything goes for Leblanc!

Thanks to the new uniforms, the Gullwings can enter easily Leblanc's chateau. They have to find out their sphere then.

Leblanc appears with her... lover???? The plot thickens thanks to the revelation that Leblanc is in love with Noojie-Woojie. Smoooch <3<3<3
Leblanc is so nice that she keeps the portraits of her house's former owners.

Meanwhile, Logos and Ormi are gossiping about Leblanc:"Suppressing her natural charm and acting like some housewife... She must be tense". That means that a goon has to help her unwind and Yuna is the chosen one to do it.

Rikku's Theme

Yuna goes to Leblanc's bedroom and sees her admiring a statue of Nook. She really is infatuated.

Minigame time, massaging Leblanc: There's a 3x3 grid indicating the parts of her back you can massage.

Press in a good place and she'll say something like: "AHH, you're GOOOD" or "Ah, there!!!", "That's nice." in an interesting tone

read: orgaaasmic

.

Crack her back and she won't be that nice: "Where are you groping?", "Ouch". Try to get 32 points in the first try to get a nice reward later.

When you succeed, Leblanc will keep talking about how her Nooj is so manly and then she finally falls sleep. Yuna is really good at this...

Immediately after that, Ormi and Logos appear to order Yuna to go to the secret place. Its entrance is supposedly opened by a hidden button in the dining room. Rikku has some problems making the passage to appear.

Paine starts talking about how the complaints should told to the boss. The boss? Paine immediately blames the uniforms and suggests to change clothes.

Unlike Leblanc, Brother is a really bad boss and interrupts the mission by talking through the speaker. This angers Rikku, he gets angrier, then she shouts and Ormi appears. Good job, everyone!

Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver - Team Rocket Theme

Boss battle 14, Ormi and two goons: The strategy is to hit him until he's defeated. Good, huh? I love my intrincate strategies so much!

After that battle, the girls can visit his room to get the reward for the massage minigame. For succeeding in the first try you'll get the precious gold hairpin (1/2 MP cost).

In Logos's room there'a a sphere. The party can see a recording where two people talk about how there aren't survivors in the entry exam for the Crimson Brigade. After inspecting the corpses a bit more, they realize that three candidates and their supervisor (supervisor has gender in Spanish, so you know immediately that it's a woman) have survived.

The party gets another crimson sphere and then Ormi and Logos appear again.

Boss battle 15, Ormi and Logos: Logos is much more dangerous this time thanks to an attack that induces random status ailments including death, so I've got to be cautious.

After they are defeated, they raise the alarm. Three buttons must be pressed to advance in the dungeon.

Following an apparently dead end, our heroines encounter some lethal needles! And what they have to do?

Letting the wall almost kill our girls will activate a sequence where they'll reach the third button.

Beyond that door, the girls find the two halves of the Zanarkand sphere.

Let Me Blow You a Kiss

Aaaaaand the mighty Leblanc appears again! I'm so happy to hurt you again!

Boss battle 16, Leblanc, Ormi and Logos: They're pretty naughty together thanks to their single techs.

Leblanc can use a weak version of Mighty Guard and they can do the Twister triple tech...

...with bullets and an evil jump on my girls.

With Leblanc and his minions beaten I can say that this mission has been completed!!! Leblanc lets the group see the sphere...

The XXL machina appears in it. I'm starting to see what's going to be the real danger in this game.

Leblanc explains that its name is Vegnagun and how dangerous it is. The two groups accord to go to underneath Bevelle, where it's hidden, to destroy it. Yuna is pretty worried because the "eternal calm" she brought could not last forever.

I'm going to Bevelle with my new friends. Full speed ahead!

CorvoSol · Oct 23, 2012

FFIVCC
So I dunno where I left off but I've finished Baron and am touring the world in search of good equipment before doing Troia. Even though I know that the stupid cave won't let me use it. I went to Eblan and got the Blood Lance and Sleep Sword, but I can't fight those Mad Ogres yet. I'll come back for them after the Lodestone Cavern.

I really hate the translation in this version of the game. The DS version was weird and purple at times, but the actual translation felt very spot on with the GBA and SNES versions. This version is all weird and different. I don't like that Golbez suddenly thinks Kain's idea is "primitive" when it's a pretty good idea. I dunno where that even comes from. I wish that, like the sound track, there was the option to choose which version of the game's translation I wanted to use. It isn't BAD, but it's WEIRD.

I love that Cecil is now full-blown Goku/Superman/Jesus, though. Outside of battle his long, priestly locks flow in the wind as they did in the DS version and in Dissidia. In battle his power level increases, he goes super Saiyan, and they stick up in a point. I love it, so cool.

FFVII
So I did Fort Condor, and it was surprisingly fun, but those guys are dirty thieves. I also recruited Yuffie and stole a Boomerang for her. I've been building up, trying to get as many of Aerith's Limit Breaks as I can. I've been doing poorly at getting the whole Blue Magic thing, though. I only have one of those so far.

Went to Junon and fought the weird fish thing. It was less terrible than the NES version of that fight, but still annoying because it traps you in drain bubbles. Then I did the parade where I failed spectacularly. I also purchased new arms for my whole party, save Yuffie, who already has a Boomerang.

So now it's time to get on a boat for Costa Del Sol. It's funny, because while in Junon, Cloud has to put on his Shinra trooper armor, and he says "This brings back memories" but he doesn't remember what those are. He also tries to ask Tifa about what happened in Nibelheim 5 years ago, and she flat out dodges the question.

Like, I get that Tifa loves Cloud, and that she's the victorious childhood friend, but she isn't doing much to help the poor guy while he's suffering a mental collapse, as she refuses to tell him the truth of what happened. Granted it's probably for the best, since if she did he'd break down here and now and then what would they do?

jaxword · Oct 23, 2012

CorvoSol said:
Like, I get that Tifa loves Cloud, and that she's the victorious childhood friend, but she isn't doing much to help the poor guy while he's suffering a mental collapse, as she refuses to tell him the truth of what happened. Granted it's probably for the best, since if she did he'd break down here and now and then what would they do?

Tifa's probably one of the more messed up characters in the entire FF canon, because on a second playthrough you can see she's trying really really hard to be the team mother and to keep the lie alive for Cloud's sake...but she knows it's wrong and that bubbles out at times (BARRET STOP BEING A RETARD, CLOUD STOP BEING AN ASSHOLE IN THIS PLAY OR I'LL KICK YOUR ASS).

If they do remake FF7, I hope they put a lot of effort into humanizing her expressions and subsequent breakdown to make her more than just eyecandy.

CorvoSol · Oct 24, 2012

jaxword said:
Tifa's probably one of the more messed up characters in the entire FF canon, because on a second playthrough you can see she's trying really really hard to be the team mother and to keep the lie alive for Cloud's sake...but she knows it's wrong and that bubbles out at times (BARRET STOP BEING A RETARD, CLOUD STOP BEING AN ASSHOLE IN THIS PLAY OR I'LL KICK YOUR ASS).

If they do remake FF7, I hope they put a lot of effort into humanizing her expressions and subsequent breakdown to make her more than just eyecandy.

I don't know that I'd consider her eyecandy, but she's definitely a friend who doesn't quite know what Cloud needs at all. Poor guy is in some major mental stuff after seeing his hero slaughtered before his eyes, and Tifa isn't helping him confront it. Maybe she does eventually, but by then Cloud's already handed over the Black Materia.

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Dot Hacked

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