Queen's Blood (Final Fantasy Thread)

[Benji]

[apsham]

So what are the general thought on the Final Fantasy 13 trilogy of games? I recently hauled out my PS3 and because games are so cheap I'm going back to ones that I never finished, never gave a fair shake or never played. I am quite sure at some point I played 13 all the way until you get down to the planet and the game opens up a bit more (I think that's what happens if my memory serves me right) but I remember absolutely NOTHING of the story other than some locations here and there.

I'm in the frozen crystal lake and we've just left Snow behind. I'm enjoying myself but I can probably only play for an hour or two at a time.

[Benji]

Better than I initially gave credit for, but still not great games. They've just pretty average JRPGs as a whole really.

[Ruki]

13: The characters are cool, the story is decent (if a bit confusing)...but very linear. Hated the last boss fight....and the whole stagger system. That shit was stupid.

13-2: Less linear, but more confusing story. I really hated the last boss fight (took me 30 minutes to beat)....and the whole stagger system. That shit was stupid.

13-3: Less linear, with an even more confusing storyline. But! I got to play as Lightning the whole time, and the job/costume thing was pretty neat.  The time-limit was a double ended sword. At times I felt like I was just killing time and at others I felt like I didn't have enough time to do everything. Eventually I got bored and skipped the last 3-4 days because I finished the main missions and didn't want to do stupid little fetch quests. Which was a mistake, because I REALLY hated the last boss fight...specifically the 4th form which I could do nothing against. 

[Benji]

Something I feel goes under appreciated about XII - how big the world feels. You feel like your story is just a small part of a huge world and despite it feeling like a small part, you have a shit load of locations that also never feel empty. As far as world building goes, I genuinely think FFXII is right up there as the best in FF history.

It's a shame the gameplay was such a departure, because I feel like if it had been more familiar, and they had removed Vaan and Penelo and made Basch the main character like they originally intended, then it would be genuinely looked at as among the pinnacle of the series.

[Skummy]

Yeah, the main thing I remember about XII is that it was the first game where I enjoyed exploring and grinding far more than I enjoyed the story. I can barely remember the story, or the names of characters, at all, but have fond memories of running around killing stuff. I loved how some of the monsters would interact with one another, not just attack you, it made it feel like they were part of an ecosystem, not just baddies waiting to be killed.

[Ruki]

Still no FF IX.

 

And rumor is that the XV demo comes out tomorrow.

[Ruki]

And the demo is out.

Edit: that's a pretty short demo for 4.5 gigs. But, you get to hang out with Carbuncle (who speaks in text and emoji). The the fight at the end was neat...aiming magic and using it as a skill shot is gonna take some time. Also...what's up with warp points? What purpose do they serve?

And seeing Leviathan come out? He was massive! I think summons in this game are gonna be rad.

Apparently playing through the demo (shouldnt take more than 30 minutes) unlocks Carbuncle in the full game. Neat!

Too lazy to play through to unlock the gold plates. Anyone know what they do?

[Benji]

Is it downloadable to all on PS Store?

[Sam]

Christ almighty does FFX punish you if you forget to do something, forget to use the destruction sphere in Besaid, oh here's Dark Valefor. Didn't pick up the sun sphere did you? Here's Dark Bahamut to teach you why you should always pick up things you don't necessarily know are there until you look at a guide, enjoy :).

[stokeriño]

No lie, I discarded a 140+ hour FFX save and started the game again just so that I would be able to get the Sun Crest before Dark Bahamut got dropped on me.

The joke's on me though: in my prior save I had managed the sodding 'win the Chocobo Race in less than zero seconds' and the Lightning Dodge challenges. Never yet managed to achieve either for a second time...

[Benji]

I mean, Tidus is useful and all, but you don't need him to beat Dark Bahamut >_> None of the dark aeons are tactically hard, it's just stats and a little bit of luck factor that matter.

[stokeriño]

Well the stats are the bitch, yes.

[Benji]

For real, I know how easy those fights are, but I cannot be fucked doing the grinding needed. Some day I will have to, but today is not that day.

[stokeriño]

Just the knowledge that there is a trophy in the FFX Remastered version which requires you to completely fill in the Sphere Grid for every single character kills me a little inside.

[Benji]

For real. I don't even think it would be so bad if you didn't have a 99 item limit and instead had 999, because then at least you could grind one thing and then another. It's the switching between different grinds for different spheres that kills me.

[Schlitzbrille]

1 hour ago, Sam said:

Christ almighty does FFX punish you if you forget to do something, forget to use the destruction sphere in Besaid, oh here's Dark Valefor. Didn't pick up the sun sphere did you? Here's Dark Bahamut to teach you why you should always pick up things you don't necessarily know are there until you look at a guide, enjoy :).

I assume Remastered version? .....yeah, heads up, make it a priority to get the Sun Crest as early as possible...

[Benji]

Real FF veterans start playing once without a guide, get hopelessly lost/overwhelmed/bored about 10-20 hours in, bring out the strategy guide and follow it meticulously until bored, then skip a load of stuff to see the ending and come back to get 100% five years or more later.

[Ruki]

6 hours ago, Benji said:

Is it downloadable to all on PS Store?

It should be!

[TKz]

2 hours ago, Benji said:

Real FF veterans start playing once without a guide, get hopelessly lost/overwhelmed/bored about 10-20 hours in, bring out the strategy guide and follow it meticulously until bored, then skip a load of stuff to see the ending and come back to get 100% five years or more later.

You merely adopted the grind, I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't see Penance until I was already a man. And by then it was nothing to me but tedious!