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Final Fantasy XV |OT2| For Jared!

Played a little Justice Monsters Five at the Crow's Nest and met Dino and the stranger at Galdin Quay.

Justice Monsters Five seems like an odd pinball game, couldn't really get the hang of it, but the fishing mini game is decent. Do you get any worthwhile bonuses for beating the stages/catching more fish, or is it just an optional down-time kinda thing?

I know FFXV is mixing modern aspects with traditional fantasy, but I really wasn't expecting Dino to have a thick Italian/American accent! Bit wary of what his intentions are though considering the first interaction with him is literal blackmail, and especially putting the party in danger near the massive gryphon creature.

Justice Monsters 5 can get you some insane accessories early on. I got the +200 Magic earring and rolled through a lot of the game with -aga spells like it was Final Fantasy 8 all over again.

If you play Justice Monsters 5, the only thing that matters is the number of boxes in the corner of the screen.
 

JayEH

Junior Member
The justice monsters 5 machine in altissia that costs 10,000 to play had insane rewards. One item you can gets you the most powerful spells (and will give you 50 casts) or you can sell it for 500k.
 

Acrylic7

Member
Wow. Easily just as bad as FF13 but for completely different reasons. 5/10

M56SYzV.jpg
 

Ryuuroden

Member
I just started playing the game. Funny story, I was having trouble warping up to the top of the barn to get that plus 60 strength bracelet and my 8 year old was begging to try. I handed the controller to him and told him what buttons did what. He did a couple test warps to get a handle on it then got up there first try from rock to lower barn to water tank to barn roof top for the emerald bracelet. Kids......or I just suck.
 

Exentryk

Member
I just beat Naglfar, and what a piece of shit :lol I mean, I love this game, 93 hours and counting but these battles of attrition where all you ever do is micromanage the potion supply are so boring. Took forever even with magic weapons, one summon and 2-3 armigers at lvl 99 for 3/4 guys.

Takes 2 mins if you optimise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj9_fBwMl1M

I honestly have no idea what people see in this game.
[...]
I guess Ardyn is using his stitches in time to build himself an army of zambies for reasons, and I'm supposed to be really sore at him for killing Luna but honestly I couldn't really care less. I'm pretty sure there are NPCs with more lines of dialogue than she had; they fridged her before they even bothered to establish her as a character. Now it seems like they're trying to backfill in some development for her with some flashbacks where she does the generic anime "I just wanted to stand by his side and show him the courage in my heart ~uguu" routine. Just such a load of tosh. Cutscenes are seemingly only there for the characters to say a bunch of obtuse shit that doesn't go anywhere, after which the actual meat of the game has to explained through flavourless tooltips and loading screen lore updates.

Like, straight up, I can't think of anything this game does well.

Lmao! Great read! Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
 

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
So I'm like 90 minutes into schlepping back and forth down the never-ending corridor that is Chapter 13. I just reunited with my dudes, so I imagine there's still more of this shit to go. Maybe I'll fight some more axe guys soon; won't that be a treat.

I honestly have no idea what people see in this game. I tried to like it. Hell, I wanted to like it; I don't buy games for myself if I don't think I'm going to enjoy them. But all I found here was an open world full of MMO quests, a few paper thin characters, and a story where everything happens off-screen and I just have to deal with the aftermath. I've just found out I've basically missed out on half the story because I didn't know it was all in newspaper articles I was supposed to find and read. I do so love it when a game hides its story away from me; nothing compares to sheer exhilaration of pressing X on a glowing blue spot and reading a dry paragraph of text. Truly a fantasy based on reality.

(And I watched both Kingsglaive and Brotherhood! I can't imagine how lost I'd be if I hadn't done the assigned reading before the lesson.)

You know what I've learnt about my band of friends in the last twenty hours? Nothing. The intro established Prompto as the funny one, Gladio as the strong and gruff one, Ignis as the prim and proper one, and the game hasn't expanded on those stereotypes at all. With no option to talk to them (like one might expect to find in a character-based RPG), I feel absolutely no connection to these dudes at all. At one point Gladio asked if I'd let him go off on his own for a while, then he came back and never explained what he was doing, and I had no ability to ask him, so that was the end of that. Now Ignis is
blind, and I can't ask him how it happened (because it happened off-screen, like everything else in the game) or even how he's managing. Luckily it's the kind of blindness that inexplicably doesn't actually have any effect on the way you live your daily life, huh?
You know how games like Mass Effect end up with casts of characters people remember for years afterwards? They let you talk to them. They write stories for them. They make them actual characters. Prompto, Ignis and Gladio might as well just be magic spells that occasionally block me when I try to walk through doorways.

So, I'm closing in on the end of the game.
I guess Ardyn is using his stitches in time to build himself an army of zambies for reasons, and I'm supposed to be really sore at him for killing Luna but honestly I couldn't really care less. I'm pretty sure there are NPCs with more lines of dialogue than she had; they fridged her before they even bothered to establish her as a character. Now it seems like they're trying to backfill in some development for her with some flashbacks where she does the generic anime "I just wanted to stand by his side and show him the courage in my heart ~uguu" routine. Just such a load of tosh. Cutscenes are seemingly only there for the characters to say a bunch of obtuse shit that doesn't go anywhere, after which the actual meat of the game has to explained through flavourless tooltips and loading screen lore updates.

Like, straight up, I can't think of anything this game does well. Most of it is barely even competent. I spend most of the combat encounters fighting the camera, healing my braindead partners, or holding Square and having Noctis not dodge, and the only other form of gameplay there is to offer is running towards waypoints to press X on things. And even then, I end up pressing X three times because the first two times Noctis just jumps. Oh, and there's a fishing minigame, too, I guess.
I don't think you really did miss much story. There really is very little of it in the game.

I've been a fan of this series for decades and your impressions sound about right, btw....
 

TheStruggler

Report me for trolling ND/TLoU2 threads
just got the game and liking it however some reason I can not get used to combat, I dont know when to phase and always get hit by enemies (I cant read their attacks for some reason, even the little bumps and nudges)

Do i hold circle down the entire time or do I tap it, also how do you circle around enemies to do a blindside attack by attacking while holding the left stick tog et behind them or simply walk behind them etc.

Some reason its not sticking with me yet
 

Adaren

Member
Chapter 14. Only level 42. I guess I have some grinding to do :/.

Any particular method that's the fastest?

If you don't want to grind, you can just
run past the enemies
in Chapter 14. There isn't much
reward for fighting anything, as far as I know
.

just got the game and liking it however some reason I can not get used to combat, I dont know when to phase and always get hit by enemies (I cant read their attacks for some reason, even the little bumps and nudges)

Do i hold circle down the entire time or do I tap it, also how do you circle around enemies to do a blindside attack by attacking while holding the left stick tog et behind them or simply walk behind them etc.

Some reason its not sticking with me yet

Pick up Blink in the Ascension tree. It has the hidden effect of letting you cancel your attack animations by dodging at the last second.

The enemy attack animations are largely bad, though, so it isn't just you who has trouble reading them...it's really hard to tell when most enemies are attacking versus when they're just moving around.

You can either hold down circle or tap it. There are some attacks that can be done by pressing the button, delaying briefly, then pressing it again. The Greatsword has a really good "delay" attack.

Circling around enemies while attacking them doesn't really work in the normal case. The easiest way to get Blindsides is to either Warp away, then Warp back in -> knock the enemy over -> Blindside, or just "sneak" around by holding down dodge and walk up behind the enemy, then hit them.
 

MistBreeze

Member
Hi guys, Im in post game about 70 hours play through I have tons of treasures, coins and rare coins,

What thd best I can do with them? When to sell them? And what best to get out of them?
 

Verano

Reads Ace as Lace. May God have mercy on their soul
anyone find "Let The Mountains Lie" quest buggy af? I was heading out to location but then Noctis disappears from the group as he gets out of the car. Then I go to a loading screen for some odd reason. When I went to to another location...loading screen then I get to the location then the screen is totally black but you see several quests progressing on your screen like WTF...then the game shuts down with an error code...fml
 
Hi guys, Im in post game about 70 hours play through I have tons of treasures, coins and rare coins,

What thd best I can do with them? When to sell them? And what best to get out of them?

You can trade ascension coins to a guy in Altissia for items. He's in the bar/restaurant where the Justice Monsters machines are.

You can use 8 rare coins to craft an EXP cast spell that gives you 5 casts at the highest skill level. That's a pretty solid way to get a ton of experience. Eat a meal that gives you the 100% experience boost, use your five EXPcast spells in one battle (when you craft it only use one energy so it's extremely weak), and win it to get of ton of experience in one fight.
 

MogCakes

Member
That dungeon is a pain in the ass. That would have worked better if Noctis knew how to grab a ledge instead of just walking off the damn ledge info the abyss. The dungeon went for too long, no save points in the dungeon was stupid and the checkpoint system was flawed. Nice idea, not the best execution imo.

And I don't believe such platforming to that extent belong in Final Fantasy games. That shit had Tomb Raider written all over it.

Not to the extent Pitioss takes it, but some platforming with adjustments to Noctis's movements would have made most of the dungeons much more fun. The checkpoints work perfectly well if you take the time to get your bearings and explore before going down a new path. I had my share of frustration but it was mostly because Noctis's movements weren't made for platforming. The level design itself is, IMO, great. I can tell the no auto-saves were intentional, they even put the big ass rock in front of the runway as the final hurdle to overcome. The dungeon isn't truly over until you've successfully taken off or towed your car. I enjoyed working through it and I'd like to see more of this kind of level design in future FF games. FFVII had a segment of Midgar where you are essentially platforming, as well as XIII-2, so it isn't like this is some alien concept to the IP.
 

MistBreeze

Member
You can trade ascension coins to a guy in Altissia for items. He's in the bar/restaurant where the Justice Monsters machines are.

You can use 8 rare coins to craft an EXP cast spell that gives you 5 casts at the highest skill level. That's a pretty solid way to get a ton of experience. Eat a meal that gives you the 100% experience boost, use your five EXPcast spells in one battle (when you craft it only use one energy so it's extremely weak), and win it to get of ton of experience in one fight.

Thank you very much n the info :)
 

Blablurn

Member
Platinum'd it. GOTY 2016 for sure.


For some reason I only had to do two fights against those red giants in costlemark instead of four before arriving to the boss.

Anyway, I was happy when i'm done. The fight against the giant turtle was also a little annoying cause boring. But made it.

Soooo good. That game. I hope DLCs can deliver.
 
Alright, I'm done. I was laughably underleveled for the last few chapters, having decided very early on that I wasn't interested in doing any more 'Go here, kill/collect thing' sidequests, but halfway through Chapter 13 I sold everything I owned to a vending machine to buy 99 of each healing item and I bullshitted my way through it all. Finished it at Lv 39 after 20 hours and change.

Yeah, that was a bad game. Like, top to bottom. Game design, gameplay, story, characterisation, pacing; you name it, this game botches it. I never read any reviews, or even followed the game beyond whatever footage showed up at E3 conferences, just ended up buying the game to check it out because of the general hype surrounding it (and to see how it panned out after all those years in development), and I'm just taken aback by what a load of rubbish it was. Congratulations to them for finally getting it done after however many years, but... boy oh boy.

So I spent a good portion of the end of Chapter 13 wondering just what on Earth that thing with Prompto being a Magitek soldier or whatever was, but luckily that was quickly overshadowed by the complete asspull of a timeskip for Chapter 14. I still have no idea what the deal was there. Did Noctis get pulled into the Crystal and then spat out on a random island 10 years later, or was he actually imprisoned on that island for ten years of real time? Because he obviously aged, and he grew some nice designer Japanese stubble, and one of those loading screen tooltips that make up the entire story of this game made it seem like he'd actually been waiting those ten years. But then... the cell didn't have a door. Who would have fed him all those years? And why was his fucking boat there just waiting for him? And how did Talcott know to meet him on the roa- oh fuck it.

Anyway, world's all full of monsters now, I guess. Grown-up Talcott tells you how awful everything is, but the fact that a teenage boy can just calmly drive through all these monsters without any fear of being attacked kind of undermines his point. You meet up with your buddies, and the game's idea of how to show you how much time has passed is to have them all look identical, right down to the SAME CLOTHES THEY WERE WEARING TEN YEARS AGO. Oh, Prompto grew an awful goatee, I guess.

So you have a big dumb fight against a big dumb fire man, throw down with Ardyn for a bit ("死ね!"), then Noctis gets stabbed by some ghosts, then the ghosts stab Ardyn, and I guess everyone died at the end. I kept waiting for that "Ardyn's name is Caelum" twist to come back around and have the slightest bearing on anything, but... nope, I suppose not. At least Noctis gets to live happily ever after in Crystal Land with that one blonde girl we saw a couple of times. What was her name again?

I do think the mid-credits scene was well done, but it's basically the only scene in the game I can actually say that about. Honestly all the emotional weight of the ending was sucked out of the room when I hit the credits and found out Ignis' full name was Ignis Scientia. Like, seriously, game? Why not just call him fuckin' Dorkus Nerdlinger?
 

SeanR1221

Member
If you don't want to grind, you can just
run past the enemies
in Chapter 14. There isn't much
reward for fighting anything, as far as I know
.

.

Ah sorry I did run past them. Im talking right after that leading into chapter 15.

I was just going to do a ton of goofy side quests and then rest at that spot that gives you 3xp.

Any downside to not sleeping for a while?
 

Ambitious

Member
I finally arrived in Altissia. So Umbra allows me to travel back to Lucis in order to do other quests and stuff? Kinda weird how it calls it travelling to the "past" of Lucis.

When I returned to Lucis, I got the Adamantoise quest. Apparently, up to 14 NPCs will help me in some way if I have completed their respective quest lines? I've got 13. Can I still get the last one or is it too late?
 

kagete

Member
May I ask if there's a website that lists what order to tackle the postgame dungeons in and where they're located?

Thanks!
 
I finally arrived in Altissia. So Umbra allows me to travel back to Lucis in order to do other quests and stuff? Kinda weird how it calls it travelling to the "past" of Lucis.

When I returned to Lucis, I got the Adamantoise quest. Apparently, up to 14 NPCs will help me in some way if I have completed their respective quest lines? I've got 13. Can I still get the last one or is it too late?

The last one requires you to beat most of the side dungeons in the game, you can still get her later.
 

MogCakes

Member
Is it just me or do lances do far more DPS while airborne? Noctis does a quad stab combo at 3 hits each stab, but on the ground he does maybe 4 pokes in the same amount of time. I'm trying to figure out how to launch him, sometimes he just stays on the ground despite holding the thumb stick up.
 
Is it just me or do lances do far more DPS while airborne? Noctis does a quad stab combo at 3 hits each stab, but on the ground he does maybe 4 pokes in the same amount of time. I'm trying to figure out how to launch him, sometimes he just stays on the ground despite holding the thumb stick up.
I feel that way, too, especially with the final drill attack finisher that almost always breaks stuff. I just straight up jump to launch him.
 

Curufinwe

Member
Chapter 13 went on a bit long, but wasn't overly difficult or annoying. Based on the amount of whining about it I had heard on podcasts I expected something terrible. Another reminder to take the games media's complaints with a silo of salt.
 

spidye

Member
Chapter 13 went on a bit long, but wasn't overly difficult or annoying. Based on the amount of whining about it I had heard on podcasts I expected something terrible. Another reminder to take the games media's complaints with a silo of salt.

I think no one said it's hard.
I can only speak for myself but I've found chapter 13 to be the most boring and tedious chapter of the game and the story and its important relevations were delivered in the most stupid way imaginable

chapter 13 spoilers:
oh right Prompto is a MT but let's not talk about this anymore, revus died off screen and some story notes were just laid beside him, the emperor is now a regular daemon...
 

Ambitious

Member
If I obtain all ingredients for a recipe I don't have yet, will it be unlocked immediately or do I have to trigger Ignis' "That's it!" dialogue somehow, e.g. by cooking something?

The last one requires you to beat most of the side dungeons in the game, you can still get her later.

Thanks!
 

Ingeniero

Member
Ok I give up. Can't beat Costlemark secret door dungeon... I'm at the last save point, got to the last boss 3 times, almost killed him once... Then I keep dying in the last floors. I have plenty of healcasts but not enough ingredients for the dps or elemental protect meals from Specs...

Also, fishing is so boring for me... only trophy left for the platinum.

Also never played Pitioss, kept dying trying to land the Regalia Type-F.

Overall it's a great game, had 106 hours of fun.

Time to put it down, I had a blast.
 

MogCakes

Member
I feel like Ayakashi and Naglfar aren't intended to be fair fights. Even with defenses nearing 1k they will 1-2 shot everyone and frequently. There's no way to battle them without generously dipping into your items, they're less about skill or stats and more about how many items you've saved up for the fight. In other words not so much challenge as it is spamming. Not very good fight design for those encounters IMO. Maybe there's a strategy that I'm missing, but beyond hiding and literally just popping in and out with warp strikes while everyone else dies, I don't see a way to fight those bosses without having to heal after literally every one of their attacks.
 
I feel like Ayakashi and Naglfar aren't intended to be fair fights. Even with defenses nearing 1k they will 1-2 shot everyone and frequently. There's no way to battle them without generously dipping into your items, they're less about skill or stats and more about how many items you've saved up for the fight. In other words not so much challenge as it is spamming. Not very good fight design for those encounters IMO. Maybe there's a strategy that I'm missing, but beyond hiding and literally just popping in and out with warp strikes while everyone else dies, I don't see a way to fight those bosses without having to heal after literally every one of their attacks.

Yeah, your other party members lacking Noct's God Dodge basically means there are some bosses that slaughter them really, really fast. Plenty of stuff in the game you're not supposed to be able to tank.
 

Sagely

Member
Yay, got all the lads up to level 99 and completed the post-game quests for
Randolph
! All that's left on my list is Gladio's remaining Tour and defeating
Adamantoise
for the plat. I'll save some dungeons for NG+.

This will be the third game that I ever platinumed /o/ I'm glad that it's straightforward but not entirely effort-free. It's been ages since I did this much post-game content in an RPG, feels good man! I'm completely hooked and accidentally played for 8 hours straight at the weekend just doing bits and bobs.
 

Permanently A

Junior Member
I finally finished the game and going back and looking up the story online reveals just how much the game didn't even bother to touch on.

You'd think a fucking plague started by motherfucking Ifrit would be prominently mentioned somewhere along the line.

The plot is honestly like straight up cliff notes of the full thing. We needed

  • a LOT more Luna characterization.
    I cared more about Ignis' eyes than her life.
    Give me kid Noctis dream levels so I can get to know her, as long as they don't suck. give me an avenue to see what noctis sees in her.
  • some way to get lore that isn't relevant to the current plot, like the ability to chat with Ignis and have him tell you stories of the past. this could help with situations like learning about
    the first plague no seriously when the hell did they mention this?
    It also really bothered me that after Ignis
    is blinded
    there's no way to ask him about it. So that could help with situations like that.
  • much clearer explanation of Ravus' motives. his story is told very poorly. I don't know if its my fault but I didn't even understand why he was
    killing the gods
    until reading online about it. kid Noctis levels could also show him not liking Noctis for taking his sister away from him and give him more characterization.
  • Ardyn
    time rifts
    ? I still don't get this. whatever
 
So I finally returned to the game after a short break starting with finishing up Altissia. Ending my play session after finishing Chapter 13 and just had to come here and post.

What the hell was that? I read that 13 was pretty bad and initially I thought "oh this doesn't seem so bad, I can kill things pretty easily."

Oh how wrong I was. This chapter drags on and on and on; and its so so slow. I get and can appreciate the tone that they were going for but it really didn't need to last that long. The rest of the game up until this point has been incredible. Many good scenes and fights. (I absolutely loved Titan and Leviathan. As well as the fight on the train when you are taking down airships by warping from each one to blow up MT's.)

I'd like to play it again when they release the updated version they're supposedly working on, but man that was rough.
 
LVL62, Chapter 8, 70 hours in

Loving this game as much as FF12. I want it to never end!

The Sewers and The Mountain are two of the best dungeons in the entire series, holy fuck. I got actually lost in the Sewers! And fuck that Naga that toads you. Final boss of the dungeon was way easier than she was.

I need to do two more dungeons in Chapter 8 (The Tower and The Caverns) + all possible Hunts (I am LVL6 Officer now) + all possible Imperial Bases (have 3rd one on my radar) and then I can go forward with the story.

Absolutely fantastic advenure. I visited Altissa for a moment (need to finish LVL6 hunts in Chapter 8 first) and wow the city looks great but the framerate crawls on my Xbox One.
 
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