Mew2 said:

I have Final Fantasy VI in the DS right next to me ;]

Amazing game

Click to expand...

FF VI DS? I'm missing something here or are you from the future?

Dark Schala said:

What is she wearing?!

Click to expand...

Yeah, when I started this playthrough, I finally noticed that and was kinda like "WTF?" for a second.

But it's apparently accurate to the original 1990 art.

Aeana said:

3 (Famicom, it's too bad about the DS/PSP/iOS version) is amazing. Stop talking about it like it's not. Stop ittt.

Click to expand...

This is a good recommendation. FF3 Famicom is boss.

Ultratech said:

Click to expand...

Ming Numara from Lost Odyssey looks pretty much exactly like her.

CorvoSol said:

The Interlude is very short, but I wouldn't really recommend it. It adds next to nothing about the plot, and is overall quite meh. The After Years is a good game, despite what people will tell you. Not amazing, not great, but good. Treat it as you would FFX-2 in terms of plot: the plot is meh, but not offensive. If nothing else, some characters return and do cool things.

Click to expand...

I'm gona take my words back and take your suggestion. I'm gona skip playing Interlude and instead, find a "Lets Play" of it and watch. I can't stand not being able to change between characters in battle (triangle can't switch anymore, idkwhy) and I'm tired of Trap Doors and Bats, especially when I have no phoenix downs and ethers and keep dying from the damn 9th Dimension attack. On to The After Years!

itzknickknac said:

I'm gona take my words back and take your suggestion. I'm gona skip playing Interlude and instead, find a "Lets Play" of it and watch. I can't stand not being able to change between characters in battle (triangle can't switch anymore, idkwhy) and I'm tired of Trap Doors and Bats, especially when I have no phoenix downs and ethers and keep dying from the damn 9th Dimension attack. On to The After Years!

Click to expand...

Interlude was pretty underwhelming. Does your triangle button still work? Cuz you'll need it for After Years.

TAY I found to be good because of its challenge level, if nothing else. Also it makes Palom cool, I think, and it brings back my favorite FF character.

CorvoSol said:

Interlude was pretty underwhelming. Does your triangle button still work? Cuz you'll need it for After Years.

TAY I found to be good because of its challenge level, if nothing else. Also it makes Palom cool, I think, and it brings back my favorite FF character.

Click to expand...

Yeah, my triangle button works. I'm able to open up the menu when out of battle. But in battle, the triangle button doesn't switch (which worked fine when I played FFIV). Maybe I need to check the settings.

But I do look forward to playing TAY!

Last time in Final Fantasy IV DS, Cecil and Kain were wasting time in Baron and used a chocobo to arrive at their next destiny.



That cave must be full of vicious monsters wanting to kill my brave warriors, time to do some clean up and get delicious experience.



Into the Darkness

And the first encounter is this useless rabbit. I don't want to think what kind of attacks he would use on me: Eye gouge? BURP?



Oh, the little fella only wants to talk about his life. Did I show any interest in it before, bunny? By the way, you better remember that name well. Thanks to you I couldn't change it to Batman, you useless furball. Then he evolves into a cartographer. I hope he isn't as bad in his new job, but being in a game without a proper job system I can only imagine it going bad.



A present? I love presents! Maybe he's going to give me one of those elusive Suikoden II copies.



Well, I could certainly find a use to this...



An autocompletable map is really interesting, but the most juicy part of this is the reward system. Thanks to that I don't really need to buy tents in the first part of the game and I get some extra ethers, that are always a good thing to have while Mystery Character 2 is around.



Suikoden II - The Will

In this cave I can find the goblins I didn't encounter in the grasslands. They die in a hit, so we can say that they're at the bottom of the monster chain.



"I'm the ghost propietary of this place and I demand you to leave at once!"

Maybe The King should have given this mission to exorcists instead of my boys. I hope they can touch spirits with their weapons or they're screwed.



This is the problematic enemy group of the dungeon. It's really annoying thanks to the combination of Slow and great chances of being inflicted with blindness. With a bit of patience, each of those bugs is crushed by the hero squad.



"It's me ag.a..i..."

No, the ghost is an Eidolon and my story about spirits and ghostbusters ends before it starts. Damned game, destroying my expectations! And now is when I'd explain what Eidolon means and that it's basically spiritual image/ghost/whatever in ancient Greek, but I don't feel like telling anything, so the interested reader will have to get the recommended bibliography.



Interesting exchange of words.... ZZZZZzzzzzz



The Eidolon is really nice and gives the option to retreat and start the battle well prepared. Right now the only preparation that can be done is being at full health, so I'm ready.



Boss Battle

Boss Battle 1, Mist Dragon

The first boss and it already has a component of strategy! Well, it has the same behavior as in the original game, so this isn't really new. I suppose they wanted to teach the player aspects about the ATB like how the enemies act indepently of the player and that doing nothing is another option in battle.

This monster is weak to the Shadow element and Cecil's sword has that attribute, so it'll do extra damage. As the only means of healing right now is using potions, not losing HP is a priority and that's the reason I don't use Cecil's Darkness. About Kain, seeing that it's a boss battle, I'd like to use his special skill, Jump. That takes us to...



The brief phase of counterattacks!

Let's see what jump does and what it has to do with that: It does about the same damage as two attacks in the same time, leaves Cecil exposed to take all the damage and we don't know if Kain will land in a mass of mist and activate the powerful counterattack. Meaning: Don't use Jump in this battle.

While the dragon is resting and if the characters aren't damaged, the best thing to do is to wait thanks to the magic of the ATB until it returns to its physical form.



And then the boss dies thanks to thousands of punctures.

It's level up time! We can see that our men focus their growth on their physical stats while they neglect their intellect. Kain has an abnormally high Spirit stat for unknown reasons and has better stats overall, that means that I have a new favourite character in this game!



"I completed the map of Mist Cave and all I got were these stupid potions"



The guilt sensation never ends after our heroes have slained another innocent soul. But well, The King ordered that so it's not their fault or that's what they'd like to think.



An Hour and a half???!!! It's obvious I'm not trying to do an speedrun, isn't it?

Statistics

Let's see what items the cave of the precious treasures had! (Items found on the floor and pots doesn't count because I say so!)


I hope the quality of the items adquired increases, because these are pretty poor.

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years: The Complete Collection

I've finished almost the entire moon, now. Once I defeat Bahamut and collect my tails, I can call it a day and go home. The last ten floors of the moon are a joke. Haven't decided yet if I'm gonna take on Omega and Shinryu or not, because I don't have the patience for Superboss shenanigans. Finished the game, will post my final stats later. All in all, TAY is a good game, and I don't get the hate. But then, the people who hate on it also didn't like FF4, which is just silly. Anyway, I am definitely FF4'd out. I suppose I'll pop FFT in in its place, but I really ought to put the focus onto FF8 from here on out. FFD I'm purposefully progressing slowly through because, well, when it's done, what will I have to do play in those times where all I have is my phone?

FINAL STATS:
The first five, incidentally, were my final party, which is, by the way, the best party. DON'T LISTEN TO OTHER OPINIONS:

Kain Highwind: Lv.60,HP4258/MP174,STR82,SPD45,STM61,INT30,SPR40,ATK13x155,ACC99%,DEF8x95,EVA41%,MDEF3x37,MEV19%
Rosa Farrell-Harvey: Lv.62,HP3377/MP534,STR55,SPD42,STM63,INT14,SPR67,ATK9x138,ACC99%,DEF5x70,EVA67%,MDEF3x29,MEV37%
Cecil Harvey:Lv.57,HP4301/MP238,STR83,SPD54,STM71,INT38,SPR42,ATK14x214,ACC99%,DEF9x113,EVA50%,MDEF3x40,MEV41%
Rydia of Mist:Lv.63,HP2824/MP665,STR37,SPD33,STM35,INT76,SPR54,ATK7x124,ACC90%,DEF4x80,EVA17%,MDEF5x38,MEV46%
Theodor "Golbez" Harvey:Lv.61,HP3718/MP478,STR65,SPD43,STM71,INT61,SPR49,ATK11x171,ACC95%,DEF8x109,EVA50%,MDEF4x37,MEV46%

Edward "Edge" Geraldine:Lv47,HP2893/MP209,STR65,SPD47,STM52,INT34,SPR34,ATK11x195,ACC99%,DEF5x66,EVA72%,MDEF3x22,MEV30%
Cid Pollendina:Lv50,HP3188/MP112,STR85,SPD21,STM62,INT12,SPR10,ATK12x183,ACC87%,DEF2x73,EVA0%,MDEF0x10,MEV9%
Yang Fabul:Lv40,HP2861/MP83,STR98,SPD34,STM72,INT8,SPR25,ATK15x106,ACC99%,DEF4x68,EVA17%,MDEF2x7,MEV11%
Palom:Lv40,HP1459/MP411,STR22,SPD47,STM23,INT57,SPR16,ATK5x100,ACC99%,DEF5x43,EVA43%,MDEF3x41,MEV49%
Porom:Lv40,HP1402/MP379,STR27,SPD21,STM18,INT24,SPR60,ATK5x86,ACC99%,DEF2x39,EVA38%,MDEF2x34,MEV42%

Edward of Damcyan:Lv40,HP1669/MP160,STR49,SPD37,STM31,INT31,SPR36,ATK9x120,ACC99%,DEF4x38,EVA56%,MDEF3x14,MEV21%
Ceodore Harvey:Lv57,HP3480/MP330,STR65,SPD41,STM73,INT23,SPR44,ATK11x135,ACC99%,DEF8x91,EVA36%,MDEF3x21,MEV23%
Luca:Lv46,HP2723/MP100,STR76,SPD24,STM60,INT6,SPR6,ATK11x170,ACC91%,DEF3x68,EVA0%,MDEF0x5,MEV4%
Leonora:Lv40,HP1270/MP283,STR36,SPD18,STM21,INT42,SPR50,ATK6x104,ACC85%,DEF2x34,EVA30%,MDEF2x27,MEV37%
Ursula Fabul:Lv40,HP1964/MP95,STR66,SPD42,STM49,INT22,SPR26,ATK11x98,ACC99%,DEF5x51,EVA40%,MDEF2x13,MEV17%

Gekkou:Lv40,HP2457/MP115,STR58,SPD27,STM53,INT23,SPR20,ATK9x124,ACC70%,DEF3x51,EVA29%,MDEF1x6,MEV11%
Izayoi:Lv40,HP1808/MP188,STR46,SPD38,STM35,INT27,SPR29,ATK8x76,ACC85%,DEF4x41,EVA45%,MDEF2x10,MEV17%
Zangetsu:HP1832/MP221,STR45,SPD31,STM49,INT24,SPR16,ATK7x120,ACC90%,DEF3x46,EVA29%,MDEF1x5,MEV8%
Tsukinowa:Lv40,HP1659/MP140,STR40,SPD45,STM38,INT23,SPR10,ATK8x145,ACC97%,DEF5x41,EVA25%,MDEF2x8,MEV10%
Harley:Lv40,HP1618/MP164,STR43,SPD25,STM28,INT,49,SPR42,ATK7x70,ACC85%,DEF3x33,EVA32%,MDEF2x18,MEV27%

Calca:Lv40,HP1807,MP157,STR39,SPD33,STM38,INT41,SPR37,ATK7x54,ACC85%,DEF4x59,EVA58%,MDEF3x30,MEV39%
Brina:Lv40,HP1760/MP160,STR23,SPD49,STM23,INT22,SPR36,ATK6x43,ACC99%,DEF6x24,EVA48%,MDEF2x18,MEV25%

Final Fantasy VIII

Broke out of prison to discover that there's some missile shenanigans going on. I love that NO explanation is made as to how the entire rest of the team wound up in jail. I assume the reason Irvine wasn't busted is because he's a big fat coward and bolted the minute Squall got hit. Everyone else is dumb so they stuck around or something. Why Edea didn't kill them is beyond me.

Anyway, I sent Selphie's team to blow up the missile base because it is hilarious. I already finished, but I gameovered because the boss took entirely too much time to actually die. Like, I killed it, it was dead, and his HP was all gone. But death animation was too long, so I died.

Last time in Final Fantasy IV DS, Cecil and Kain were doing some speleology and exorcism in a nearby cave when a dragon attacked them. Their next destination is the village of Mist.



It's a nice place seen from the outside. If what I see is real, the town has two houses, seven trees and a puddle. Pretty insignificant to do a visit in the name of The King. Let's enter as the ambassadors of peace.



Ring of Bomb

Ooops! Obeying The King wasn't a good idea after all. I hope this teaches you a lesson this time, Cecil.



Kain states the obvious, but when there's someone as dense as Cecil around maybe it's intelligent to say it.

Uh, oh, Cecil is overreacting again! Oh, what's the matter? Gonna cry again? Cry, cry. That's the only thing you're good for!



My mouth (fingers) is faster than Sonic and I talk too much again. Cecil wasn't crying after all (not that it wouldn't be too much out of character. After all that lamenting after the Mysidia mission, that was the logical next step.)

By the way, Kain and Cecil have screwed up things twice by killing the poor dragon and the child's mother at the same time. Oh boy, the idiocy counter keeps increasing more and more.



Summoners must have a pretty strong bond with their eidolons if they die when their pet kicks the bucket. The designers could have limited themselves to kill the woman with the Bombs, but this kind of death has a deeper impact thanks to Cecil and Kain being more directly involved in the cause of her demise and increasing Cecil's guilt even more.



No, Kain, the King sent you to bring a ring. That's a pretty different thing.



And this is when Kain's dark side appears. Are we going to play as the bad guys again? I'd be all for it, but I don't think Cecil will like the idea.



"All those things about killing children were a test" Riiiiiiiiight. It doesn't matter, Kain, it only means that you can't be trusted anymore, but that isn't a bad thing, huh?



It's funny that now Kain acts as the leader of the anti-Baron group when a moment ago he was talking about slaining a poor girl. The mental disorder is strong in this one.



Rosa appears in the conversation from nowhere because... I don't know, but Kain had her present in his mind. He could have said Cid, who would have been more important against Baron, but no, he had to think about a simple white mage.



Ah, yeah, there was a girl near all this time but certain men had more important things to care about. It isn't surprising that she doesn't trust the people who killed her mother and have evident personality disorders.



"Let's try to make her even more wary of us, that will certainly work!"



These guys are really sick to enter in a battle scene against a poor girl...

Poor?



That's certainly a good way to keep evil people away, such a pity I won't be able to use it in a long time.



The girl has caused some serious damage in the environment, I wonder how a great asset she would be in my team. Cecil has to recruit her to have someone intelligent in the group for once.

We can see Mist and it definitely has more than a couple of houses, even two puddles!



Thankfully, Cecil and [Rydia] are alive together with a strange white thing. I hope it wasn't doing bad things to her.



I'm pretty sure Cecil doesn't mind not having Kain near. He was getting crazier and crazier each second it passed, so he won't miss him.



Yeah, whatever.



At least this sounds really sincere. Thanks to that Cecil won't obey The King again, I presume.



Time to pack it up! The party consists of Cecil thanks to the girl being in dream land. I hope she wakes up so she starts kicking ass soon.

FF8 I'm still in Fisherman's Horizon, because it's been a busy while and I haven't had time to play. Getting ready for The Date which, as I recall, is pretty lame compared to VII's date sequence. Ah, well, we'll live through this somehow.

FFD Stalking the Dark Knight in the woods. Hope Batman joins soon, so I can get his job class at the chapter's ending.

FFTWOL Started this one, against better judgment. I haven't even been to Dorter yet because I've been grinding. Mastered Knight twice already, working on finishing Black Mage, so I can have my three Dark Knights before the end of the first chapter (before the end of the second chapter seems more likely, though.)

I've been so neglectful. The quarter transition is such an awkward time, but thankfully it's the last one I'll have to do for a while, and hopefully ever. I should be getting back to FF5 soonish.

FF8
Sidequests take FOREVER in this game. Just got done grinding my GFs on Cactuar Isle, now I'm going to get Tonberry King and Odin. Then I'm just gonna go ram Balamb Garden into Galbadia Garden because HOLY COW this game moves slow when you have other stuff to do.

FFT
Speaking of slow moving, I only just finished Dorter! Why, you ask? Well because I now only need 20 kills per character to unlock Dark Knight! Woooo! Then I'll have 3 Dark Knights before I ever even fight Wiegraf! Wooooo! BROKEN BROKEN BROKEN! On the other hand, I feel that if I do all this grinding now, it means I NEVER have to grind again in this game, and can more or less just enjoy smooth sailing to the end.

FFD

AND MORE GRINDING. I tried to make my way through the daggum Dread Cave, which, for those who remember FF3 NES, is a nightmare, because killing anything causes it to regen (akin to the cave in Falgabard which had things split if you didn't hit 'em with Dark Swords) and don't die unless you kill 'em with magic. Including the boss, Hechatoncheir.

Hechatoncheir is a nightmare because it can hit you 3 times (for 600 damage, roughly), hit you with one heavy attack (dealing 400 and confuse) curse breath (100 each, but also curse) regular curse (100 and curse). And when you kill it, it regenerates, meaning you have to kill it again with magic. Then it REREGENERATES, and you get the Dark Knight to kill it, except I've never made it that far, because once you regenerate it the first time it begins to spam Quake (500 damage a piece) and oh, YOU CAN'T LEARN FLOAT YET.

So I went back to the dwarf town, figuring I needed to upgrade gear. YOU NEED 5000 TO BUY LIKE, ANYTHING. And guess how much a fight nets you? 200. So to buy even one item you need to win a hellaton of fights. At least I'll be overleveled by the time I'm equipped enough to go fight Hecatoncheir! Yay?

So it's almost finals and I have a research project and Fire Emblem so not a whole lot of progress here right now. Except in FFD.

FFD

Finished grinding and went back and stuffed a mythril axe down freaking Hecatoncheir's throat. My party was hilariously overleveled for the rest of the chapter, with Nacht, Diana and Glaive easily doing 700 damage per turn. The problem with the game now is that if you don't leave one character on white mage you're still screwed because you routinely face mobs of four-to-six enemies that get two-to-three turns each.

Anyway, after clearing the Dread Cave we finally met Graham, the Dark Knight. Graham Cracker lead us up Mt. Falgabard (shout-out to FF3's Falgabard, which was also protected by mountains) and when we reached Castle Falgabard, we found it in ruins and populated by ghosts, cursing a certain Sigurd. Graham had flashbacks to Sigurd, and we learn that Sigurd had a son. HINT HINT. Anyway, we found some thieves and chased them into the sewers, where we met some Imperial Soldiers. Turns out the Empire, dicks that they are, bombed Falgabard when the Dark Knights tried to protect Mt. Gulg for the Dwarves, to who the Dark Knights owed their arsenal.

So we took a quick detour on a black chocobo, nabbed Ifrit, and then dove down into Mt. Gulg. Turns out the Empire was using the volcano for energy for some reason or another. Then some cutscenes of Dr. Lugae and his Calcabrina Argy. Cid commandeers Argy, who goes berserk and is thrown from the airship. Then we have a showdown with the fiend of fire, who informs the Dark Warriors that their friends were still alive when last he sees them. Then a boss fight, and then Graham repels the Fire Fiend and all is right.

Except it turns out that Graham is just the sword, or rather, Graham was Sigurd's friend, and the Fiend of Fire pulled a Magus and killed Sigurd, but chose not to defeat Graham. Graham plunged his soul into darkness and became a sword, which animated Sigurd's armor, creating the Dark Knight specter. Graham mentions that Sigurd's dying wish was that he protect his son .

Meanwhile, Sol jumps off the pirate ship in Fabrica and goes into a shop to buy new gear. EVERYTHING IS EXPENSIVE and more grinding begins.

Dual wielding Final Fantasies as well!

FF3:
I have unlocked the earth crystal jobs and leveling them up a bit before taking down Dogi and Unne. Man is the difficulty uneven in the game. I was hoping to have a playthrough where I don't have to be Ninja Dragoon and Sage based to beat the final boss but I don't know at this point.

FF13:

On my fourth playthrough, prepping for LR. I have just finished Chapter 5 and am heading the Sazh-Vanille chapter. Game is still so beautiful despite being 3 years old. I love the challenge this game has. Even with maxed stats, the last boss of Chapter 5 was still kicking my butt and if I did not pay attention, it was easy to be KO'd. That's what I love best about the battle system in 13: you need to pay attention. Thankfully the weapon crafting system does give you an advantage in these chapters.

Quick question: spirit and int penalties for heavy Armor aren't applied in ff2 on ps1 right? I've tried multiple times and no matter what nothing seems to make my people lose stats. So I guess my mages will all be wearing mythril shortly?

Onion_Relish said:

Quick question: spirit and int penalties for heavy Armor aren't applied in ff2 on ps1 right? I've tried multiple times and no matter what nothing seems to make my people lose stats. So I guess my mages will all be wearing mythril shortly?

Click to expand...

Stats don't drop in that version, but heavy armor decreases the evasion, which affects the agility growth, so I only recommend using it if you can keep the evasion at 99.

Heropon said:

Stats don't drop in that version, but heavy armor decreases the evasion, which affects the agility growth, so I only recommend using it if you can keep the evasion at 99.

Click to expand...

Ah that makes sense. The beauty is that my casters are in the back row so they never get hit anyways. I'll just role play and leave them with lighter Armor for now. Feels so wierd to see people online saying stats drop from armour, but then you put the armor on and nothing happens...

Am I late to the party? I would like to do this.

Thanks!

Dragoon X Omega said:

Am I late to the party? I would like to do this.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Of course! The 25th anniversary never ends and more people doing playthroughs is always welcome.

I was going to do an update today but then I started cooking and it was late. Maybe tomorrow.

Dragoon X Omega said:

Am I late to the party? I would like to do this.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Go ahead! Even though I put my playthrough on hiatus, I still check in to read everyone else's posts whenever I have spare time.

School is almost out and then I can return to this with a vengeance/go back to not having a life.

Last time in Final Fantasy IV DS, Cecil and his friend Kain tried to kill save a little girl, but their butts were wrecked in return. Now Cecil is all alone with the girl and has to take her to a safe place, let's see how good is he at that.



Pokémon Gold/Silver - Route 29

After that horrible earthquake, I must go East to the next destination, I hope it isn't far away. Anyways, Cecil is a great warrior, so I'm sure I can beat anything that opposes me!



Bah, Imps, they're soooo weak I could kill them blind. Upon further inspection it seems Cecil is screwed thanks to the enemies doing like 15 points of damage and him having so little HP left. I'd use a potion, but I want those items in my pocket. Time to flee!



This game's second town is just a couple steps further and Cecil arrives without battling more scum. Instead of going shopping, he wants to go directly to the inn. Bravo Cecil, you're sorting your priorities properly this time.



Good excuse they've found to make the inn's price free this time. Seriously, who cares about children? No one.



It's evident the girl doesn't want to do anything with that evil bastard, so I don't blame her for not answering questions. Maybe he could try asking the wall instead to get more answers.



"Allow me to take you someplace safe" I don't know what he means with that, I think this place is safe...



Metal Gear Solid - Alert



I'm worried, Cecil was right about this place not being safe enough for the girl to stay. These soldiers remind me of when Cecil said it was correct to attack the Misidians because The King said they were evil and that kind of stuff. That girl is going to kill all of Baron with her witch powers, yeah...



Metal Gear Solid - Alert

It's pretty sad that Nammingways don't exist anymore, because I was going to call Rydia Alarm.

Hey, Cecil is pretty cool and brave. I'm becoming a fan of him, and I didn't want to.



Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty - Yell Dead Cell

The second boss fight comes really fast but it's pretty easy. I'm not complaining, what can be done this early in the game with only one character? The general likes his role as a cheerleader: "Go! Go! Go! Soldiers!" And he's a big coward too, fleeing when there aren't soldiers to protect him... Now that I think about it, what he really is is clever. He wasn't going to survive anyway, so it's best to be called coward and die another day. If the general is killed first, the soldiers get confused because they don't have their trainer shouting what they have to do. Hurray for the freethought!



Rydia

People in this game are pretty polite when they're not trying to kill each other. I can finally use her name, great!



Chrono Cross - Victory (A Cry in Summer)

"Rydia..." What do you mean with that Cecil?

Yahooo, a new party member! That means that I can already cast earthquakes :Q____

Or not...



And this white monster is Rydia's little eidolon friend created for this remake. It supposedly has a face, but it seems that all the saves share the same design and I changed it in the part of playthrough that I did with the horrible font. Well, with the surprise ruined, let's give him a name.



It's a tribute to that cat you can draw a face in Animal Crossing. I could be mean and draw something insulting, but I don't have the skills.



Fat chocobo? And where I'm suppossed to see one of them?



Thanks to Cecil's efficient murder of those soldiers, Rydia seems to be really concerned about him and doesn't want to kill him anymore. Meanwhile, he keeps having a depressing attitude.



Rydia's stats aren't impressing but we're talking about a little girl here, we should be praising her for being almost as intelligent as an adult (even if that adult is called Cecil).



Who are these Tellah and Anna and why are you talking about them? I'm not the type of person who likes to hear gossip, no, not at all.


People are concerned about the monsters in the overworld. I thought they were going to forget that plot point sooner than later, but NPC dialoque keeps mentioning it, well done. But if there's something more annoying than monsters are path-blocking geezers, they can go kill themselves.



Those bastards keeping all them treasures!

This game keeps giving more reasons to hate the royalty thanks to the King and the Damcyan royal family.



Men Without Hats - Safety Dance

Doing a trip to the armor shop reminds me that Rydia doesn't have a hat! I have to solve it immediately or she'll die if a boulder hits her in the head for example.



Of course I've heard about Anna! The people in this town must have pretty boring lives to talk about her and Tellah all the time.



Cecil takes Rydia to see the synchronized swimming in pairs of one person. It's a pity I don't have one of those modern Japanese cameras that show what she's doing under and over the water at the same time so we can see the sculls and all that technical stuff.

The information about how people don't have any problem going through caves if there aren't monsters is pretty interesting. Unfortunately for her, now there are monsters and old men.



That sounds like Rosa... I'll see her later, I have more important things to do right now.

Not only there are normal random monsters in the waterway, there are even bosses. This sounds like the typical rumor, but in games they always are true, so I'll be careful.



Final Fantasy III - Gysahl Greens

Hay un pollo gordo en este pueblo, ¡hay caramba! And it can talk! I'm surprised I've found it so soon.



Oh, tutorial time. That means one thing: Fast Forward as I don't care about things I already know. Tutorials are pretty harmless if you can skip them or they last less than 5 seconds mashing A, so I'm not really angry. An offending example was Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, I'm pretty sure that game was only played by veterans and it was filled of stupid tutorials (and lengthy chatter, but that was an entirely different beast).



The fat chicken only has one option for now, let's pick it. I can train that white freak with minigames, and I HATE minigames with a fiery passion, but I will torture myself for the reader's pleasure.

Let's see... Mathemagic Minute? Is that a pun?



Look how smart I am, I've spent 16 seconds in one set. I supposedly need to complete 10 to get max points, so I think it's impossible to do it without cheating (closing the lid and doing the calcs without wasting time). But I don't care about Blanco so I pass.



Oh, I forgot that this thing gives items (pretty bad items, but they're free). The stat increase has been really poor, this minigame can go ********* itself, argggh!



This menu has other options like giving learnt skills to the little thing, beauty salon and dresser. It'd be cool if I knew people with this game.



I present you with one of the neat additions of this game: Replacing the attack command with "Use weapon as item". Thanks to this the mages have an efficient "normal attack" without having to enter the item window everytime. Thanks Square Enix and your obsession with remaking this thing again and again, at least we win something thanks to that.



These villagers have discovered the existence of the back row, they know too much, call the marines to kill them all!



Oh, hi again, clumsy rabbit. I feel an urge to mash the A button each time I see him, I wonder why.



-ingway evolves again and now likes to read a beastiary. I want to meet Rosa as late as possible, so I'm going to take a look.



Shin Megami Tensei - Battle

We can see lots of useful information about these lovely mons, yeah! Yawwwn.



It definitely seems that the girl was Rosa. I want to run but the game won't advance if I don't make the effort of talking to her...



Rosa has gone mad because she hasn't seen Cecil in the last 30 minutes.



At least she's generous in her delirium and gives an Augment. And what's that? Someone will explain later, please be patient.



Rosa has an illness that can only be cured with a very specific item in a very specific cave that can only be accessed by members of the royal family if the villagers are to be trusted... Rosa is going to die, welp.



Oh, it's the fuckingway for the third time and he wants to explain the Augments now. I can do it too: They're special items that teach an ability to one party member. But there are things he doesn't tell, like how I need to waste them on temporary characters to get the good ones. That means that I'm not going to use this one for now (being a shitty augment doesn't help either).



Since Rydia is a bit weak, I'm going to grind a bit. We can see in the screenshot the Rod's attack. Right now it's pretty weak, but at least it's better than Rydia's normal attack.



And here ends the update, time to save!

Statistics

Hot topics chart


And the winner of this round is...



Damcyan's castle! Do you have anything to say to your fans?

Of course, the King keeps the title of most mentions during the game. Until next time!

Last time in Final Fantasy IV Best Edition, Cecil killed some soldiers and discovered that the creators of the game invented an abnormally strange illness to make him travel to a famous castle on the North.



Before going to the Waterway, I wanted to grind a bit so Rydia is more resistant when the enemies want to focus their attacks on her. Thanks to that, she learnt some almost useless magic and all that. Rydia's magic selection right now is varied, but her stats aren't anything amazing, so she'll need a couple of casts to heal all the HP. Just before starting the journey I buy another Rod, so the next party member is ready to smash some enemies with 0 MP cost.



Cave Story - Living Waterway

This place isn't really difficult but the enemies have the tendency to kill Rydia with a couple of hits, so I don't really want to take risks and I flee from the battles before the next stop.



The kings of Damcyan are horrible rulers, why they don't spend anything so the citizens don't have to cross this ugly place to go to the castle? Are they scared of them filling the suggestion box with complaints? Seriously, royal families are one of the worst things ever, and I know what I'm talking about *ahem*Urdangarin/Qatar/King*ahem*.



Uh, oh, that must be Tellah, the crazy man that doesn't let the people go to the castle. I'm scared, he's going to yell at me.



Hahaha, he needs my help. That means he isn't going to be a jerk and be tame with me. I accept, but that costs ¥1,000,000,000.



Cecil, why are you asking? You heard that from the people in Kaipo already.



He must have been thinking about other things when he was talking with the person that talked about Tellah blocking the way, because he really remembers about his daughter's story. Nice to meet you!



Tellah reminds us about the boss of the cave and how he isn't capable enough to kill it. I hope that when he's talking about his magic he means that the monster overwhelms him in a 1 on 1 battle, because his magic is certainly effective against it.



Yes, this girl is a summoner, but she isn't really impressive, so we'll need to babysit her for a while. Chocobo isn't the same as Titan, evidently.



Cave Story - Fanfare 1: Key Item

Tellah is a pretty good party member right now and I'm going to explain why later. First I'm going to tell how some enemies, specially those dirty minimages, ganged on poor Rydia again and again making Tellah's expensive Raise spells useless. How I hate those infanticidal monsters, arrrgh. Considering that it was the start of the dungeon and I didn't have Phoenix Downs...

RESET



The best thing to do before starting to fight monsters is to equip the Rod on Tellah so he can do some 200+ points of damage thanks to his high Intellect stat while his lovable partners do pitiful damage (50~ HP)
Cecil describes the situation in battles perfectly.



For now, Tellah's magic selection is pretty average, but those stats make up for it. The only problem I see is that he doesn't have Cure to heal low amounts of health but thankfully Rydia can do that.



Hey, a Maiden's Kiss in my chest and I love it. Well, not really, because that means that some Toad casting enemies are going to appear and I hate that except for how cute the characters look in this game when transformed. (^_^)

The items gained by exploring the maps keep being poor, but I don't mind that thanks to how "free" they are.



We have an interesting monster here. That white thing revives the other enemies if it isn't killed soon and fast, thankfully Tellah takes care of it everytime. I wuv u for now, old man.



In the first long dungeon of the game the party finds the first Save Point in the history of Final Fantasy and the following tutorial. I love tutorials that are only two text boxes long, have I said that yet? Because I have to say it everytime I can.

Save? What's that, Tellah? I'm very picky lately when characters talk about that ingame, it breaks the immersion. Nah! Another strange thing, what's about "my tent"? I thought we shared the same inventory... It seems he doesn't trust Cecil and I don't blame him, who would trust someone wearing a dark armor? It's evident he must be one of the bad guys, darkness equals evil, doesn't it? I wonder what hidden goodies does Tellah has that I'm unworthy to use? Diamonds, ingots, Chaos Emeralds?



I thought the only place with summoners was Mist, but if he's asking from where she is there can be other places with people with the same powers. The thing is that there aren't clues about that being true, so I think Tellah wanted to confirm again that she was a summoner, after all I haven't summoned anything yet.



Hellooooooo, Cecil, of course Anna is Tellah's daughter, you've heard it a million times...



Hearing the same thing again in the mouth of the father sure is a nice thing. As talking with the people in Kaipo isn't mandatory I understand why he was asking again (but then he recognised Tellah at the entrance). I wanted to complain because I love whining about this game. If it was FFV I would be praising it every time I can, but this game has enough fans that I don't have to defend it.



Everyone knows about that illness and people don't store those pearls in Kaipo so people don't have to cross two caves and get the permission of the Royal Family to get them? What kind of twisted world is this?



That sounds like an octopus, I thought those animals only lived in the sea. Of course, those things only apply to the real world and not this one so I won't make a fuss about it.



Cecil is tired of sleeping and wants to advance in the dungeon, time to slay some more monsters then.

One tutorial isn't enough, it seems, the game really wants me to not forget what this circle is.



Cura appears in this game pretty soon compared to other Final Fantasies, is it because Cure has four tiers? It's a mistery!

The Ice Rod makes Tellah even deadlier thanks to the improved attack and intellect together with the effectiveness against reptiles and amphibians. Thanks to this, Tellah can drink whiskey on the rocks without wasting his precious MP (Drinking alcohol can lower your MP, drink with self-moderation). I have to set the "Use weapon as item" ability again thanks to changing weapons.



At a certain point in the dungeon these pests start appearing and casting the Toad spell. It only worked once in the journey across these caves so I was lucky considering how many frogs there were. Toads also can poison with their normal attack, so they're really stubborn trying to annoy the player.

Thanks to the map completion rewards, buying Tents isn't necessary at all at the start of the game. Sometimes the game feels like being kind and all.



The first secret passage of this game appears in this cave too and it has a trick because the first exit leads to the "room" the normal route leads to. If Cecil keeps going up he will find a "secret" chest. And I use the quotation marks because having Cecil too close to the "secret room" will show it in the map and if that wasn't enough having less than a 100% map completion before advancing to the next area must be at least suspicious (sadly, there are times where this happens and that doesn't mean that there's a secret area somewhere). Secret passages are easy to discover in this game thanks to their lack of walls and the map.



I've heard lots of good things about the Toad spell in other games, but I'm not used to casting it because the battles tend to end too quickly. Maybe I'll use it against one of those evil monsters that like to toast my characters with überpowerful spells because I HATE them!!!

The zombie x5 group of enemies seems menacing at first but the only dangerous thing is surviving the initial barrage of attacks to roast them later with Tellah's magic. Back to the underworld, scums!



After killing all those monsters, the dungeon finally gives a worthy reward to Cecil: A sword that doubles his attack and even improves the accuracy. It's going to be very useful against the boss and now Cecil can do decent damage again.



After many time spent dungeon crawling the party can finally breathe fresh air (and save and use tents, as Tellah says). If it wasn't because the game gives Tents like there's no tomorrow I'd like Tellah to give me one of his secret tents.



The Sun gives inspiration to the people and the party members now have new thoughts to share. Hey Tellah, I wouldn't trust Rydia's summoning powers yet because Blanco and the chocobo aren't that powerful to make a big deal about them.



People in this game are really crazy and not even question if they can get hurt after jumping from the top of a waterfall.





Oh, of course they're alive: "Fools get lucky". There's more dark equipment scattered around for some strange reason God (the designers) only knows, but it's really convenient.



The last important kind of gimmicky monsters are the flans; they're weak to the type of magic corresponding to their color (Red <=> Fire). They're pretty easy to beat and buggy (why, emulator, why).



The last map completion reward are electric items, hmmmm... Are you trying to tell me something, game?

And finally, after thousands of mentions, it's time to destroy the monster octopus.



Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales - The Decisive Battle

Boss battle 3, Octomammoth: This monster is evidently weak to electricity but also to darkness. At first, the monster has a pretty weak attack, but that won't last long.



Exactly, the Octomammoth's attack increases each time a character cuts a tentacle. This fight will get dangerous thanks to that.



And if he wants to attack one of those squishy wizards twice in a row there are high chances of doom. Preventive curas are our friends right now to have the HP full almost all the time.



Wow, it's level up time! I'd like Raise more if it didn't cost so much, it was more effective and the phoenix downs weren't so cheap. Stop is another way to annoy those overpowered enemies later in the game, so I like it.



I'm happy because my characters are happy, love me some happy ends.



Tellah has been possessed by a football player and takes his clothes off to celebrate the victory against Octopussy and how he's going to reunite with Anna.




An unexpected turn of events cools down the celebrations. What has happened to Anna and Lustful Bard? We'll know it in the next episode, starred by the famous Spoony Bard.

Statistics


For some reason, there were lots of unopened chests, and with quality items inside, in a cave that is supposed to be pretty transited. Something reeks.

Don't you know that in JRPGs it's considered bad form for someone not on a quest to look in pots, shelves, bushes, trash cans and treasure chests?

CorvoSol said:

Don't you know that in JRPGs it's considered bad form for someone not on a quest to look in pots, shelves, bushes, trash cans and treasure chests?

Click to expand...

I don't remember which game, but there was some kind of place where the authorities refilled chests so the tourist adventurers could have fun there. Maybe Damcyan's Tourism Office does the same to encourage people to go through the Waterway?

Heropon said:

I don't remember which game, but there was some kind of place where the authorities refilled chests so the tourist adventurers could have fun there. Maybe Damcyan's Tourism Office does the same to encourage people to go through the Waterway?

Click to expand...

Zelda handwaved all of this by giving us the Minish who exist solely to hide things in pot and bushes.

CorvoSol said:

Zelda handwaved all of this by giving us the Minish who exist solely to hide things in pot and bushes.

Click to expand...

I wonder from where do they get all those rupies and replacement pots. I'd like to have one of those in my house.

Heropon said:

I wonder from where do they get all those rupies and replacement pots. I'd like to have one of those in my house.

Click to expand...

My guess is that when things go missing in the drier, they were stolen by Minish who need them to put in pots and under bushes. So in essence, having one for yourself would profit nothing, since it'd just collect your own stuff and hide it for you.

I guess if you like a permanent Easter Egg hunt, though.

Last time in Final Fantasy IV Augmented Edition, Cecil and Rydia joined a crazy sage to visit a castle full of luxuries, but just when they were about to reach it, some bombs were dropped.



Castle Damcyan

Oh noes, the castle has been destroyed and the soldiers killed. At this point the bard and Anna must be DEAAAAAAD.



It seems that Mysidia was lucky with Cecil attacking them after all, he didn't need those bombs to steal the crystal. It surprises me how they could steal that in less than the 3 seconds the animation of the airships lasted.



Mmmmmmmmmmmmm... No. Cecil only respects NPCs with names, so this soldier is going to die.

More tents? At this point I feel bad for the amount of tents I'm receiving thanks to something that happens later in the game.



A woman on the floor, let's take care of her!



NO

Oh God, let's trigger the cutscene and end this soon.



Surprise

Tellah, I don't think the bard was the one who dropped some bombs in your dear daughter... or maybe he is the new commander of the Red Wings, in that case FINISH HIM!!!



Final Fantasy VII - One Winged Angel

Tellah's powerful hits and insults damage the bard's dignity to the point that he's about to cry.



Oh, blondie, you don't have to cry as a little girl just because an old man has tickled you a bit. Anyways, Tellah is half deaf, so that bargaining isn't going to work.



!!!



Huh, the typical story about a disguised prince(ss). I wonder how this weak man and Anna went through the waterway. She must be a level 50 sage or something like that... Or as the villagers said there weren't monsters or only a few of them some days ago.



That's the very definition of bad luck. Don't touch me, Edward, or you'll jinx me.



Golbez has always sounded to me like a Spanish surname and that makes him even more awesome than the description that Edward makes about him does, and I don't say it because that name is extremely similar to my surname, no, no, no. According to me Golbez means Golbat's son and you all have to trust me.

It seems that the theft of the crystal was before the bombings. Interesting, yeah, yeah. >.>



Haha, the bombs were nothing more than "fireworks" and the Red Wings had to use arrows to kill people. I wonder how would have been Damcyan's invasion with a FFIX styled CG. I'm starting to imagine great things.

About the Jinxie Bard I can't comment much more about him than that I don't want to have him near me. I don't want to get a game over anytime soon. ;_;



Cry in Sorrow

Snake, Snake, Snaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake!

Oh no, that wasn't original at all... *shrugs*



I'm impressed by how Golbez has become captain in a couple of days. He must be behind The King's strange actions, I'm so so clever! And it isn't because I've played this game many times that I know it!



Now that Tellah doesn't have Edward as an enemy, he needs another target for his hate and Golbez is the chosen one. The fact that he was commanding the assassins of her daughter helps. Goodbye, Tellah!



I was going to put what Jecht says to his son the crybaby, but I don't feel like it. Instead, we're going to imagine Rydia with Jecht's voice, unfitting, huh? It isn't surprising with Cecil and Edward in the same group, but Rydia is the most mature person here right now. Kids grow up too fast nowadays.



Oh, Edward, you have said the forbidden password and you'll receive a fair punishment for that.



The evil spirit of a certain person possesses Cecil's body to serve justice herself. Look his inexpressive face before trying to commit a crime, it's fearsome.



*CENSORED* I wonder if showing that would have increased the CERO rating. I wanted to see Cecil doing cool things for once in my life! Why is life so unfair? WHY?



Cecil is right, he must be desperate to want help from someone that spreads bad luck, but if the people in Kaipo were right, he needs a member of the royal family to go to the Antlion's Den.



Exactly.



I don't care, la&#9835; la&#9835; la&#9835; la&#9835; la&#9835;.



And now is why we discover the reason why only people of the royal family can enter that misterious cave...



A hovercraft? The vehicle selection in RPGs is usually limited to the holy trinity of the canoe/boat/airship, so it's always welcome when something interesting like this or a flying carpet comes to add variety.

It's also welcome seeing Edward doing something useful for once in his life.



I like that pose Edward makes, I think it's the coolest thing he has done until now. Instead, leaving the corpse of the loved one in a place where the vultures can come in any moment isn't what I'd call a cool thing to do. But he knows that it's going to disappear thanks to the strange biological laws of that world, so he doesn't care.



I like this new vehicle but I have to return to the castle to attend some unfinished business.



As previously said, Anna's body has disappeared. Praise be to Yevon.



I didn't know about this place inside the Castle until not too long ago. That reminds me that I didn't go to a secret room in the Waterway when I went through it... I'll do it later because I need to add the most treasures I can to the statistics section.

We learn in this game that the fire is a thief and that the time it takes for people to disintegrate lasts longer in function of how long the cutscene where they die lasts.



I think the royal family won't need these items anymore.

These bastards had even elixirs! They're the player's best friends in final battles so I want the most of them I can.



Of course, I also want the hidden goodies. I wonder how much money will they give me in the shop for that bow, because I don't think it will be very useful.



At first glance, Edward looks like a weaaaaaaak character with lots of commands. Too bad I don't use three of them much.



For someone that supposedly hasn't fought in his life, he's only one level lower than Cecil when I started the game. I wonder what kind of work do the soldiers of Baron, eating chips all the day?

And it's time to save the game and end the update.

Statistics

Item chart

Last time in Final Fantasy IV DS, the party found that Tellah's daughter was killed by the Red Wings and then he left the group so he could start his revenge plans. After that, a squishy bard joined them to get the Sand Pearl.



Chrono Cross - Voyage (Home World)

Before going to the Antlion's Den I'm going to return to the Waterway so I can get some hidden treasures I forgot in an earlier chapter.

Let's talk a little about Edward's skills. About Hide, I'm not very fond of itl. While he doesn't receive any damage I don't want having a dead weight and I also like the enemy attacks to be spreaded between the largest number of characters as possible. Salve's use can be so situational that I never use it. Using items in all the party seems interesting but for healing the party we already have the Cure family of spells and in the case of curing status ailments is very strange to have all the party with the same status when Edward is in the party and I won't waste two/three items to cure two people. Bardsong is his best ability: some of his songs cause status ailments to all the enemy party (perfect at the start of a battle to neutralize large enemy parties) and others have beneficial effects on the party. It also helps that I actually have the chance to use this skill when Edward isn't in the party.



The secret waterfall is here, let's see what's there.



Good items! I expected no less from a secret place.



On the way out, Edward learns an useless song. It regenerates life, but it goes so sloooooooooow that I prefer spending a turn healing instead.



Etrian Odissey IV : Battlefield - Storm

Let's resume our adventures by going to the Antlion's Den. The very first thing it happens to me is a back attack that ends with Edward dead. Great...

Having dead party members doesn't bring you closer to the sand pearl, Cecil.



The first group of enemies that I actually beat is the Imp squad. I'd say they don't hit hard but Edward is so weak that everything can be dangerous if not taken seriously. Later in the cave I could revenge Edward's earlier death at the hands of the evil tortoise. As every reptile in this game, it's weak against ice so the Ice Rod keeps being a great asset in battle.



In a room of the cave Edward gets a new weapon that now allows him to actually scratch the enemies. The charm effect would be great if I used the attack command with Edward instead of defending.



This giant worm enemy seemed to be strong but a quick offensive of ice magic and a narcotic song ends the battle without receiving any damage.



The yellow version of the last cave's flans appear here to pound my characters, but I won't allow it. Remembering how the color reveals their weakness in this game, Rydia casts Thunder to kill them all in one attack.



Repeated weapons are always welcome thanks to the extra cash adquired after selling them.



I think this is the first example of having to return to a previous floor through a different entrance to get the 100% completion of the map. This hall also leads to the save point.



I don't really need to rest because Rydia's spells are quite economical (Blizzard 0 MP and Cure 3 MP), but I have so many Tents that I don't care about using them.



Edward, haven't you received the memo about the monsters being more vicious? Of course not, as I can see with phrases like "let me take one of her pearls". Sooo lewd.



Edward...

Of course, Cecil understands immediately that this monster must die.



The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages/Seasons - Boss Battle

Boss battle 4, Antlion: This monster changes what kind of attacks it counterattack from time to time. I usually don't remember in which phase does the Antlion start the fight, but I had an inconscious need to cast magic at it and worked. I hope I remember it the next time so I don't have that fear of screwing the fight with the first attack. The safest thing to do is to wait for it to change the color of the eyes, as the game will tell what does the Antlion counter.



I have some kind of problem with menu text with the emulator and some dots and lines appear if I scroll through the item menu. I hope it doesn't bother anyone...

Rydia can heal the wounds while the antlion has the eyes red.



Yes, I know I'm attacking it with magic while it has the eyes red but it was thanks to using the Ice Rod command and then the Antlion changing between phases right before casting the spell. I was so lucky in that fight I can't believe Edward was one of the party members.



If I remember right, it's never explained why the monsters are becoming more violent. It's a good plot point to explain why people could go from point A to point B unharmed before the characters go through that route, but I'd like some explanations.



Cecil is a neglectful boyfriend and has to be reminded about Rosa. I wouldn't care about Rosa either, but one has to wonder why they started a relationship in the first place.



Warp transports to the last room, but thanks to having returned to the first floor through an alternative place, it doesn't work really well. Actually, it never works when you need it. Warp is rubbish.



With some thoughts of the characters I say goodbye to this update.

Statistics

Items chart

FF8

Finished Disc 2! Disc 2's ending is kinda wonky, in that it ends much the same way as Disc 1. So there's the infamous and horrible orphanage plot point which, if removed from the game, changes very little of the plot (as in, say that only Squall and Ellone were there, and certainly not Zell.) Then there is the SUPER FREAKING AWESOME NO HOLDS BARRED BEST PART OF THE GAME Garden battle with gratuitous CGI and awesome music and Squall acting like a decent human being and good commander. Then you storm Galbadia Garden, fight Edea and Seifer, and Squall blacks out and wakes up in the infirmary again or whatever.

There's this odd point where Squall is thinking about his relationship with Rinoa, and I'm gonna choose that as canon because what actually happens isn't as endearing as what Squall claims happened.

Now I have to find the White SeeD ship, and good luck with THAT.

FFT

Finished Chapter 1 with 3 Dark Knights in my party. Ramza, Cecil and Terra are legit OP now, though. Now I am up to the assault on Lionel Castle, and have Agrias the best woman in FF Oaks. We gon tear this castle down.

Now, much as the game's plot is lauded and much as I love it, there are times where I wish the plot did not end with "demons did it." Mostly because it was a really good, gritty plot before that about different factions vying for political control and people like Delita and Ramza going against that.

Also because it sets us up for the spectacularly terrible version of the same twist in FFXII, which is the point at which XII's otherwise stellar plot also falls apart.

FF8

Feelin' sorta burned out on this game at the moment. Found the White SeeD Ship and am finally done with all this Orphanage nonsense and sadly with Laguna flashbacks and back to the quest to save Rinoa who is a much better love interest in Squall's head than in reality.

Now I have to find Esthar, which is a fairly cool part of the game, but man have I ever decided to just nab the remaining GFs in the game and finish it. TOO MUCH EFFORT otherwise for a game I've lost interest in. Hope to move on to FF9 much sooner.

CorvoSol said:

Feelin' sorta burned out on this game at the moment.

Click to expand...

I'm surprised you aren't burned out in general like the last 2.10 FF playthroughs did for me. I don't think I want to touch an FF game for a while, haha. But that's partially because I'm not in an RPG frame of mind. More in a Mega Man frame of mind.

Still gotta finish that barebones X4 Zero run for the Mega Man thread, and I think I'm going to revisit MM7, MMnB (finally procured an SFC version, hurrah!), and X5 just for the sake of it (and X3 because someone else put me in the mood for it, but I don't have a copy of the SFC/SNES version at the moment; just the PS1 version and I honestly prefer the SPC 700 music instead). I went back to MM8 and I think a little more positively of it (though, mind you, I'm terribly fond of the FC versions of 7 & 8). Same goes for MM4; I liked the game before, but going back to play the Complete Works made me like it as much as 2, 3 & 5. I was also thinking of going back to Zero 3 or ZXA, because maaaaan, we totally agreed on Zero 3 the other day, didn't we, CorvoSol?

Not playing RPGs for a while and going back to the series that got me into video games in the first place really makes me feel better about how I feel about the medium in general. I was feeling far too disappointed for my own good before starting these Mega Man playthroughs.

Also, damn, my finals ain't over by a longshot. I'm jealous.

CorvoSol said:

Now I have to find Esthar, which is a fairly cool part of the game, but man have I ever decided to just nab the remaining GFs in the game and finish it. TOO MUCH EFFORT otherwise for a game I've lost interest in. Hope to move on to FF9 much sooner.

Click to expand...

Nabbing Bahamut/Odin probably mightn't take too much trouble. You can skip over Eden and Tonberry if you wanted to.

My heart would not like you to skip over Doomtrain, though.

Heropon said:

Cecil is a neglectful boyfriend and has to be reminded about Rosa. I wouldn't care about Rosa either, but one has to wonder why they started a relationship in the first place.

Click to expand...

I'd totally forgotten they left that in the DS version.

Plot convenience, my friend. Plot convenience.

He, playing a bit of Mega Man is always a good thing to get in a better mood (I've been replaying them as they come out on the 3DS VC).

But, CorvoSol: you have to keep this thread going. I want to post my next summary, so we have to make it to the new page.

You said it. I'll respond to your last PM when I beat NNK, btw, Jucksalbe. Didn't help that I got overwhelmingly busy, because I wanted to. It's just been really busy this semester, so putting the FF6 playthrough on indefinite hiatus really helped. I say "indefinite" because I really don't feel like I'm qualified to talk about the nuances and statistics in that game since I've only played it four times, and I'm not as fond of it as GAF is. I'd rather go for something I know incredibly well, or something I'm incredibly fond of.

Ah, Corvo's mention of FF9 makes the fact that almost everyone I know is playing through FF9 at the moment! Lots of people I know, and quite a few GAF members! Professor Beef finished FF8 a bit ago, and he's in the middle of FF9. Lightning Lord is playing FF9. Kayos is playing FF9, though I don't know if he still is. Now Corvo! Shoot. I should play FF9. (Nah; I love that game to death, but I'm not ready to come back to FF just yet.)

I'm just going to stick with the Blue Bomber for now. I've been feeling more positive about games as a result of this MM series runthrough, and quick playthroughs feel much better than investing a lot of time into an RPG right now. Though I say that, I'm in the middle of the first Mega Man Star Force game... >.>

So what's GAF's consensus of the FF7 digital download from the square enix store? Is it worth it?

I tried to beat the first Mega Man once but a certain boss didn't let me pass, even with save states! (-_-

On-topic, a certain game stops me from doing FFIV updates right now. BUT, thanks to it now I understand why Cecil and Rosa stick together: She has an infinite supply of pies to lure him.

This isn't game related, but Final Fantasy fans may like it. I modeled Lightning's sword from XIII-1.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=50536845&postcount=845

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=50589789&postcount=847

That thing took a lot longer than I expected. It was harder than I thought it would be. I couldn't really find any good references.

Dark Schala said:

I'm surprised you aren't burned out in general like the last 2.10 FF playthroughs did for me. I don't think I want to touch an FF game for a while, haha. But that's partially because I'm not in an RPG frame of mind. More in a Mega Man frame of mind.

Click to expand...

To be entirely honest, I am burned out. Aside from FFT, because I legitimately want to play that game, I'm burned out. FF8 is a legitimately good game, but that it took me two semesters to get this far shows how interested I've been in it lately, and while I will sing you the praises of Dimensions till I'm blue, the fact that there is a grind for gear phase at the beginning of every chapter and the gil drop rate does not increase significantly (I am legit making less than 400 gil a fight) makes for very slow and very dull sessions.

The Zelda 3DS announcement has me wanting to play Zelda again (plus I FINALLY got my copy of Hyrule Historia), and I've been doing a TON of SRPGs lately (SRW W, Fire Emblem Awakening, and FFT to name a couple). So I sorta am burned, but I soldier on because I promised my little brother I would play FFX so he could make "Liddle Brudda Chapu" jokes this summer. Originally I'd planned to play Legends I and III this summer, too, but it'll be a miracle if I get through X, since I have Xenoblade to play, and that takes priority.

Still gotta finish that barebones X4 Zero run for the Mega Man thread, and I think I'm going to revisit MM7, MMnB (finally procured an SFC version, hurrah!), and X5 just for the sake of it (and X3 because someone else put me in the mood for it, but I don't have a copy of the SFC/SNES version at the moment; just the PS1 version and I honestly prefer the SPC 700 music instead). I went back to MM8 and I think a little more positively of it (though, mind you, I'm terribly fond of the FC versions of 7 & 8). Same goes for MM4; I liked the game before, but going back to play the Complete Works made me like it as much as 2, 3 & 5. I was also thinking of going back to Zero 3 or ZXA, because maaaaan, we totally agreed on Zero 3 the other day, didn't we, CorvoSol?

Click to expand...

It's because Zero 3 is a Universal Good, and how can you hate that game? I mean, that final battle, and the Z-Tonfa, and the bosses are all guys in weird white coats, and the set up for Vile, and ANOTHER showdown with Copy-X. And that FINAL BOSS. Zero 3 is a universal good.

Not playing RPGs for a while and going back to the series that got me into video games in the first place really makes me feel better about how I feel about the medium in general. I was feeling far too disappointed for my own good before starting these Mega Man playthroughs.

Also, damn, my finals ain't over by a longshot. I'm jealous.

Click to expand...

My semesters and tuition are also shorter, if that makes you feel any worse. For what it's worth, I had to do a 20 page research paper in half the time most folk would.

Nabbing Bahamut/Odin probably mightn't take too much trouble. You can skip over Eden and Tonberry if you wanted to.

My heart would not like you to skip over Doomtrain, though.

Click to expand...

Like I said, I'll grab all the GFs (I already have Tonberry because I got Lionheart on Disc 1 which means NOTHING is a challenge in this game now.) and that'll be the end of it. Then I'll move on to 9, which I haven't played in God only knows how many years, which means it'll be like a new thing for me.

Jucksalbe said:

He, playing a bit of Mega Man is always a good thing to get in a better mood (I've been replaying them as they come out on the 3DS VC).

But, CorvoSol: you have to keep this thread going. I want to post my next summary, so we have to make it to the new page.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the support! I still have a bonanza planned for when I finally get to FF1 (which would be after XII, assuming I somehow beat XII this summer, which I do NOT find likely), so I do my best to keep this allegedly 1-year thread going.

Dark Schala said:

Ah, Corvo's mention of FF9 makes the fact that almost everyone I know is playing through FF9 at the moment! Lots of people I know, and quite a few GAF members! Professor Beef finished FF8 a bit ago, and he's in the middle of FF9. Lightning Lord is playing FF9. Kayos is playing FF9, though I don't know if he still is. Now Corvo! Shoot. I should play FF9. (Nah; I love that game to death, but I'm not ready to come back to FF just yet.)

Click to expand...

FF9 is gonna be great. I've really come to appreciate it a lot more since I first played it. I was not fond of Zidane's design when the game came out. Then again, XIII is probably the only game not called XIII-2 where my opinion has gone down over time.

Still, IX is gonna rock.

Heropon said:

I tried to beat the first Mega Man once but a certain boss didn't let me pass, even with save states! (-_-

On-topic, a certain game stops me from doing FFIV updates right now. BUT, thanks to it now I understand why Cecil and Rosa stick together: She has an infinite supply of pies to lure him.

Click to expand...

Cecil is with Rosa because Kain wants to be with her. Haven't I laid this all out for you people? Cecil's goal in life is to cockblock the whole world around him. Think about it: Kain can't get with Rosa because she's with Cecil. Edge can't get with Rydia because she wants to get with Cecil. Rydia can't be with Cecil because he's with Rosa. Rosa gets pregnant and Cecil promptly leaves her butt for an adventure. Edward can't be with Anna because the Redwings bomb his castle. And who is Lord Captain of the Red Wings? Cecil . Golbez can't be with anyone because Cecil sticks him on a moon because he and FuSoYa are masculine threats to his dominance of all ladies. Luca can't be with Palom because Palom is with Leonora, and Leonora is with Palom because he can't learn how to be a sage from Tellah because Tellah died fighting Golbez on a damned crusade lead by Cecil after Tellah's daughter Anna died when the Red Wings attacked Damcyan. And who is Lord Commander of the Red Wings? Cecil.

It's all about Cecil. His wife gets pregnant so he galavants off with "Rydia". Wife and child get naggy? Boots them out of the castle so he can spend time with a Rydia-Clone. ALL PORN MAGAZINES IN THE WORLD ARE LABELED AS HIS FAVORITE THING. There is a pub beneath the all-woman run nation of Troia labeled "The King's Bounty" or whatever. Which King? Ain't no King in Troia. But there is one in Baron, and his name is CECIL.

Pies are the basis of Sumia's terrible relationship with Chrom. Manipulation for the sake of tormenting all his so-called friends is the basis of Cecil's relationship with Rosa.

TheUsual said:

So what's GAF's consensus of the FF7 digital download from the square enix store? Is it worth it?

Click to expand...

Not sure if that's the consensus, but I'd say if you replace the music (someone linked the files in the corresponding thread) it's great.

Speaking of FF, I guess you know you play a lot when your bird starts picking up the songs...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d81qFaoe010

even battle theme @ 3:20 lol

Haha, this is great.

Late last night I had the pleasure of beating Final Fantasy IX for the first time on PSone. After having a good night's rest and some time to dwell upon it, I would like to put all of my thoughts regarding the game into one post. The only question is, where to begin? I suppose it would be best to start from the beginning.

I should note that this is going to go into spoiler territory, so for those of you who haven't beaten the game, read at your own risk!

My Thoughts

Ah yes, the beginning. I really did adore the introduction. It sets the stage (no pun intended) for what appears to be a promising adventure. I found it clever that the first few battles were all part of a large play, so they aren't "real" battles, but you still must participate in them and emerge victorious. The scene with the sword play was a nice touch, too, attempting to woo the crowd and win their favor, and receiving encores. Of course, lets also not forget that intro takes place between three different view points--Zidane, Vivi, and Steiner--establishing their characters, their purpose, and their motivations.

The intro is lighthearted, silly, and most importantly, fun. I would honestly say it is probably one of the best introductions to an RPG I have ever seen, if not the best. During the end, the game wraps everything up by going back to the play, and by that point you finally understand all of the subtle messages it was trying to tell you at the beginning. Wonderfully done, and I enjoyed how everything basically came full-circle.

The rest of the game was no slouch, either. The first two discs were definitely the game's shining moments, slowly but surely building the world that we are to explore and expanding the colorful cast of characters. Zidane, a womanizing thief with street smarts (this is a very refreshing detail to have for a JRPG protagonist), Steiner, a knight with an overwhelming love for his kingdom, Quina, a bizarre Blue Mage whose sole motivation in the game is to eat lots and lots of delicious foods, and so on and so forth. Even the NPCs are brimming with personality so you'll be rooting for guys like Cid, Blank, and Marcus.

Oh yeah, I also like the ATE system. Being able to see what your other party members and NPCs are doing while you are exploring a town was a neat feature, and led to some amusing scenarios. A lot involving Quina. I like Quina.

I found the combat to be enjoyable enough, as to be expected of the ATB system, anyway. The real highlight was the ability system, however. It was fun to equip a piece of equipment and learn a new ability, and then finally be able to master it so you could keep it forever. Early on in the game mastering the abilities is the primary concern, where later on it becomes more of a decision on what abilities you want to have equipped. You could either make yourself totally immune to most status effects, or have fun abilities such as Auto-Regen or Auto-Haste, or make it so that your party members can deal as much damage in the back row as they would in the front row. Of course, certain abilities worked better under different situations, so it really added an extra layer of strategy to the battles, a welcome addition to say the least. That said, I was surprised at how easily broken some of the skills were. By the end of the game I had Quina's Frog Drop move maxed out at 9999 damage, and when I discovered the trick to Freya's Dragon's Crescent move, I too had that maxed out to 9999 damage. Apparently Zidane and Steiner also have similar moves to max out, but I didn't really bother with them as much (actually, I didn't use Steiner at all. My team consisted of Zidane/Eiko/Freya/Quina).

Minigames were a bit of a mixed bag. You had some that were fun, like Chocobo Hot & Cold and the frog catching game, but others like jump rope weren't very fun. It boggles my mind why anyone would want to waste their time trying to get 1,000 jumps for a pointless item. Others like Tetra Master, are neat in concept, but there was never really much of a reward for pursuing it aside from getting better cards and the one mandatory card tournament in Disc 3.

The later portions of the game got kinda weird. I never really liked Kuja much (Garland was far more interesting), although I get the feeling most people feel this way. He always came across to me as a lamer version of Golbez and Kefka. It also doesn't help that he wears a thong. I was immensely disappointed that by the end of the game his motivations went from wanting to prove his existence (a somewhat interesting premise) to "I want to destroy everything". Which really, kind of sums up the plot starting with Disc 3 as a whole. The game starts to drift away from the more midieval feel that the first two discs establish and goes for more sci-fi elements, and the game starts to lose its edge. Thankfully, Disc 4 is literally just the final dungeon and whatever side content you have left, so the game doesn't overstay its welcome for too long. And like I said earlier, the way the ending comes full-circle was a nice touch.

Lastly, the soundtrack was really amazing. Dat Black Mage Village. Speaking of which, I really liked how they made a ton of references to the older FF games. From the traditional Black Mages, to familiar plot elements, to key pieces of music, it was all orchestrated very nicely together. I got chills when I finally heard the crystal theme at the end of the game. It never even occured to me that the song had not played even once up until that point. During the credits when the song faded into the familar tune that plays at the beginning the original Final Fantasy, I wondered if they would follow it up with the crystal music, and was not disappointed. I must have let the theme play for a few good minutes before calling it a night.

Overall, the game was great. Sure, it starts to faulter near the end, like I said, by that point you are pretty close to the end, so it's not too big of a deal. I'm not entirely certain if I would claim it is my favorite FF title (I would really need to replay my other personal favorites first), but I can see myself placing it high up there on the list. A fun game that I am sure I will replay again in the future.

The Good

+ Excellent intro

+ Great humor with a solid cast of characters

+ Classic Final Fantasy with plenty of nods to the originals

+ Fun ability system

+ Great soundtrack

+ Chocobo Hot & Cold

+ Quina

The Bad

- Story starts to faulter during Disc 3

- Some of the minigames weren't all that great

- Kuja

Oh man if you thought Kuja was bad please play Crisis Core so I can see your reaction to Genesis. Because Genesis is Kuja except not anywhere near as good.

Final Fantasy VIII

So I am now up to the moon, where Rinoa has gone bonkers with moon juice. And Squall has acted like a total baby this disc. He was a lot cooler prior to this disc, when he was leading armies and stuff. Can't stand him. And did I miss the Doomtrain GF?

So I finally got the Ragnarok last night and I have some opinions.

I think FF8 is the worst of the PSX FFs. This is the equivalent of it being the least most valuable crown jewel, though. It's still one of the four best Final Fantasy mainline games. (6-9). There is a lot to do, fun sidequests, plenty of customization, etc. That said, I was thinking about a lot of the hate this game gets for its love story. To be honest, Squall and Rinoa will never be the best romance in the series, gaming, whatever. Disc 3 Squall is sort of all over the place and he makes up a lot about Rinoa and his relationship with her that isn't on screen etc.

However, I still feel that the romance works. The moon sequence and subsequent events are good for Squall's character and his romance with Rinoa, and the lead up and cool down are all memorable. Squall stealing Rinoa and making his trip to Esthar on foot with her and so on, everything about the moon and yes, even and dare I say especially the spaceship scene are memorable, enjoyable, "cinematic" moments that stick with the game. As it did 4 years ago when I first played this game, the conclusion of this arc turns my opinion of Squall around a lot. He'll never be my favorite protagonist, and people can laugh all they want, but I do think he's been somewhat underrated by this fanbase. That said, I definitely found myself asking if he was autistic when he didn't get what Rinoa wanted when she jumped in his lap on the ship. He was all "WHY YOU TOUCH ME?"

The point is, it isn't written stellar, but as the teenagers have taken to saying these days, it's still a better love story than Twilight.

Final Fantasy Tactics

Got pronounced a heretic and am storming Orbonne Monastery. Literally nothing in this game poses a challenge to me anymore. I'm freaking an unstoppable team of 3 Dark Knights, a Holy Knight, and a knight with a gun.

CAN'T TOUCH MY KNIGHTS.

Got Luso last night. Luso sucks so much. I hate you Luso. I'll still teach you Ultima, though.

Last time in Final Fantasy IV DS, Cecil and his slaves went to a cave to do nasty things to a poor abomination to get its "pearls" to save his "girlfriend" in "Kaipo".



Sonic the Hedgehog - Drowning

Cecil, your girlfriend only has 5 seconds of life left, Gotta Go Fast!

Just when Cecil's sweat drops like rain droplets an item selection menu appears to endanger Rosa's life even more. But Cecil is the mightiest man the Earth Blue Planet has ever seen and saves her with &#8734; seconds left. Exactly, he can revert time, such is his greatness. All praise Cecil.



Rosa gets up immediately as soon as she sees Cecil's new gift.

Earthbound - Battle Against a Weak Opponent

Rosa: I WANT THAT SHINY THING. CAW CAW.

Now having some random item curing "diseases" makes much more sense.

Yeah, Rosa, what were you thinking? Cecil is unkillable, so you shouldn't have been concerned.


"I knew you weren't dead, but I wanted to have some adventures and pretending to have a disease to get more content for my jewelry box."

You know what's the worst thing about Cecil? He apologizes too much (or least by now). Rosa should be the one kneeling down before him for making him cross two caves and recruit this deadweight called Edward. She's a worse person than Golbez.

After this long awaited reunion one would think the lovers would do couple's things like smooching, but no. I want to know the origins of this arranged relationship. If I follow CorvoSol's theories, the explanation is that Cecil wants all the girls for him and he couldn't let his best friend start a relationship with her. It seems he has learned well from The King in the greed department.

Of course, Cecil's more interested about this mysterious man called Golbez than his slave girlfriend.



Aha, we have our first man behind the man of the game. Maybe they have the real king hidden inside a chest, we have to investigate more.



Rosa knows that she's wasting some precious message box space and squeezes the last two crystals in the third one. From how she's wording this it's like she has guessed that the fire's crystal has already been stolen.



"Rosa: I already knew it thanks to the crystal marble I stole from my neighbors. CAW, CAW."



And by Edward, Cecil means his hovercraft. For the love of God, he got killed by a turtle in his first random battle, he should be the one thanking Cecil for saving his ass.



"And this girl saved me thanks to her white magic while you were half dead, but I won't thank her because I'm a scumbag."



Is it me or is Rydia the only person concerned about Rosa's health? Maybe my theory about Rosa being a liar is true and that's why Cecil doesn't care... At least it's more original than thinking that Cecil is a jerk.



And what makes you think they'll go to Fabul before Troia? Maybe it's wishful thinking because it's impossible to reach Troia right now thanks to this continent's landscape.

Here's our plan: We'll go to Fabul and tell them:

Yeah, that's a great master plan.



Ooooh, someone's pissing his pants. That's a pretty ridiculous excuse to not go to Fabul...



Don't tell me that it's true... Anyways, if that Ice is so impenetrable I can't imagine why a bit of fire is going to thaw it. If Rydia can't cast fire maybe there are other means to heat up the ice:



There are hovercrafts in this world after all, so there must be flamethrowers somewhere, right?



What Cecil is really thinking: "I don't care about you, but I don't want more deadweights in my party, Edward is enough!"



*gulp* "They're going to discover that this relationship is a farce, I better play along."



Cecil, you filthy liar, it only gets dark when you go to bed, so that's a poor excuse to not continue the journey right now. I thought you were sincere enough to admit that you're tired of all this crap.



Mmmmm... it's getting late here too so I'm going to end the update here. I'll have to leave the super exciting adventures of Edward the demon slayer for the next micro-update.

Edward gets up in the middle of the night, what are his evil purposes? My dirty mind thinks about certain nasty things... Blaghh!



Harp Melody

Worse, he's doing Satanic rituals to summon monsters from the underworld. He could have called some of his dark friends to help in the last cave, but nooooo. Curse you, Gilbert!!!



Edward doesn't have any kind of authority and the monster attacks him. Fortunately, Edward isn't as weak as I though and wipes the floor with the crossbreed between man and amphibian. Edward's manliness levels are rising and the sky isn't the limit!



Anna returns from the "grave" to give support to his lovely widower, but he doesn't need it as the ugly freak is manageable enough to be killed by the famous spoony bard.



Eh, you were already trying, but I suppose I didn't need to tell you, right? The evil thing bites the dust thanks to the power of Cacofonix.



Spirits can be so mean. They return only to cause even more grief.



Her important message was telling him to stop Golbez... He was going to that anyways too, guuuuurl. She shouldn't have wasted her only chance to become a ghost like this. Haunting Golbez would have been better.



And the nth melodramatic scene ends without human casualties. I wouldn't have minded Edward kicking the bucket, but the game wants me to babysit him a little more.



Cecil has the right idea and wants to leave this dirty place full of sand ASAP, but I want to chat with the people who took care of Rosa. Why? Because reasons, and that's a pretty strong excuse.



Before going to their next destination, Rosa has to be put in her place, known as the back row. One would think that having a team full of squishy characters must be horrible, but it's much better than having only physical powerhouses.
Rosa has two special skills, one is decent and the other is useless. Pray is good when Rosa doesn't have anything else to do and it's always nice to get some free MP. Aim is... Let's say that I prefer the spirit bonus of using a staff.

And with that, the update ends.

Final Fantasy Dimensions

So I got the robot and named her Calca. She's not a dancer, though, she's a MEMORIST, which is a job entirely dedicated to Tellah's Recall command. Sort of. Except that the way it works is more like Gogo, where he can equip any ability your party has. The robot can use any ability your party has equipped.

Also Aegis is FINALLY catching on that Dusk is gay for him a spy of some kind, and they spend their time away from the group gazing longingly into each other's eyes like, staring each other down or something. And the robot thinks Sol and Sarah are Daddy and Mommy, which means that Diana has officially stepped down to unlucky childhood friend tier, much to Glaive's glee.

Final Fantasy Tactics

Kinda at this point where I don't feel like building up anybody not named Terra, Ramza, Cecil or Agrias. Magic is crap anyway, and aside from Agrias' inability to recover HP, 3 Dark Knights are more or less unstoppable once I start getting better swords. Recruited Rapha again and I'm still surprised by how much of a prick Marach is. I NEVER use Marach. EVER. He's all "OH I DON'T CARE THAT OUR FATHER FIGURE "

And the love story with Delita and Ovelia is so much better in TWoL. Especially knowing how it all ends.

Final Fantasy VIII

Rescued Rinoa from Esthar, and then I went and got in my damn airship and got Doom Train and Bahamut. Bahamut is a total joke in this game because this game is the easiest Final Fantasy. Now I'm working on getting Eden, except that Eden's event isn't triggering for me. Anyway, once I have Eden, I am STEAMROLLING to the end of this game. I like FF8 and it holds a special place in my heart, but I wanna get on to FF9 already.

You know, I've finally left the Stone Age, and got an Android tablet for my birthday last week.

Convince me that Final Fantasy Dimensions is worth the entry point, Corvo, or anyone else who has played it.

Dark Schala said:

You know, I've finally left the Stone Age, and got an Android tablet for my birthday last week.

Convince me that Final Fantasy Dimensions is worth the entry point, Corvo, or anyone else who has played it.

Click to expand...

Do you like FFV? Do you want to play what is basically FFV with crummy graphics and some pretty good FFV style writing?

Then Dimensions is exactly the game you want. Think of it as FFV-2. It's very much modeled after the classic SNES FF model, you have a party of 8 (although you can only have 5 at a time) and you get new job classes as you progress (some limited to some party members, some to others). There are shout-outs to old FFs, like Dr. Lugae, Ricard the Dragoon, Falgabard and the Dark Knights, and while the Elf kingdom contains no references to Hyrule nor Erdrick, there is one to Midgar.

The game can be hard, but not so hard as The After Years was, though a fair amount of grinding for cash is involved. It has a quicksave feature so you can stop whenever (other than fights, of course.) There are two musical types you can play through with: Original (which, unlike in FF4DS is actually the arranged version) and Arranged (which is a squarewaved version of the OST.) The controls are kind of annoying on a phone but perhaps a tablet alleviates this, even so, there's no real need for precision of controls. High encounter rate.

It's a really good homage to the SNES era of FF, and the writing isn't half bad. The character of Alba, whose sprite at least looks like a human Shantotto, is perhaps one of my favorite characters introduced to the series this gen. She's witty and acerbic.