#either way. i am not good at atb

[gigginox]

oh god im dogshit at atb this was a mistake

#why have the sequel use atb if the first game doesnt ... #i guess they were trying to go back to some series staples cuz the whole dressphere thing is just like. job systems #either way. i am not good at atb

[wandringaesthetic]

Regarding the open world, the world map, and Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth

(no/minor spoilers, this is about world maps, I'm in chapter 9)

Gamers tend to call either Final Fantasies I thru IX or I thru X "classic" Final Fantasy. They mourned the turn-based or ATB based combat once it was gone after X, or they mourned the world map, gone after IX.

They also mourned pretty much every other change to the series before and after that, so they weren't necessarily right. Final Fantasy is a series defined more by crisis than identity and I personally wouldn't have it any other way. But the series *has* been even more difficult to define post about 2001, whereas before one could at least point to gameplay and structural similarities. Through the years, I've played and thought about Final Fantasy an amount that is probably actually insane, and my most honest answer to the question of "What makes a Final Fantasy a Final Fantasy?" is "checking most of the boxes on a list of about 50 things."

But anyway, the world map. The problem was, once it was gone, nothing really replaced it. Nothing made the gamer feel like they were trotting over the entire globe like that.

The world map was always a sort of placeholder, a conceit that was accepted because we don't have enough memory and budget to render an entire globe to scale. The map offers the illusion of being nonlinear, but isn't actually. You are driven in a certain direction in a certain order, dictated by what sort of transportation is available to you. Original Flavor PS1 FFVII offers a couple of detours that can be tackled whenever or not at all (Fort Condor, Wutai), but not many because it would interfere with the plot and with game balance.

Final Fantasy VII was the first Final Fantasy I played, the first JRPG I played, and also the first video game I had played in several years when I first played it. Midgar already felt huge. Stepping onto the world map was awe-inspiring. (Or... It was once I figured out what I was looking at. The polygons rendered Midgar as a huge but not to scale alien disc on a blighted landscape. It took some getting used to.) If you were already impressed, you ain't seen nothing yet. There is so much more. The world is your oyster.

I would argue that no other Final Fantasy has recreated that sense of scale. It's the time to world map (ttwm) that does it. You have trekked through several hours of city and reactor and slum before the game needs to resort to shorthand to render its world.

Final Fantasy Remake extends the Midgar section to its own full game, and Rebirth recreates that feeling of opening up onto something proportionately just as big.

But also, at this point in gaming history, in the year of our lord 2024, most of us have played an open world game. I am not an expert on these, since the only ones I've played are Horizon Zero Dawn and Forbidden West, but even I have done enough to feel Open World Fatigue. As soon as I climbed the first communication tower, I was putting my face in my hands, saying ohhhh noooo it's an open world game.

Or, well, is it? It's subdivided into regions and chapters. Some chapters aren't or mostly aren't on the world map, you spend a lot of time in towns and dungeons. You can check all of your boxes in one region and then advance the plot and move on to the next. It feels a bit more manageable and directed than a "standard" open world. But it does follow the "about eight different sets of things to find" format.

Is this good? Bad? Indifferent? Is this just what video games are now? I've enjoyed it, but I'm willing to extend this world and set of characters and even developers more time than I would most, since they probably literally redirected the course of my life and all. I cannot be an impartial judge, probably of any Final Fantasy but maybe especially of this one.

How much did the old world maps have to do, really? They were just some scenery and random encounters as you moved from point A to point B. The "sets" of things to do in the new world sometimes feel contrived, but they give the huge areas purpose and give motivation for exploration. They make the world manageable without reducing its scale. I would be intrigued to see what an original Final Fantasy did with this format.

So is this the answer to Final Fantasy's identity problem? Is the open world the new world map? I'm a little chagrined to see Final Fantasy follow the pack on this one, and to follow pretty far behind at that. But FFVII Rebirth is so often so weird and goofy and has such a bizarre number and variety of minigames that I can't say it doesn't have its own identity. And after all, FF didn't do the world map first. It was taking cues from Dragon Quest and Ultima.

I can't help comparing Rebirth to Final Fantasy XVI, a game I overall enjoyed but have some mixed feelings about. I'm just having a lot more FUN with Rebirth. I haven't read any reviews and have avoided most coverage for Rebirth, not just because I want to be free of spoilers, but because I want a pristine mind, free of strangers' opinions on it, until I've judged for myself, but one can live under only so large of a rock. I've seen the metacritic score and a thumbnail with a bunch of 10 outta 10s on it. I gather Rebirth is being reviewed a little better, as well as selling at least a little better, than XVI. (Which reviewed and sold decently. I know subtlety is hard, but do not take the wrong message from me here, quit it with your FINAL FANTASY XVI is a WRETCHED FAILURE thumbnails)

Not speaking to the quality of FFXVI for now, I'm afraid Squeenix and maybe gaming at large is going to take the wrong message from this. More remakes, play it safe, play to nostalgia. And that SUCKS, because I can't even say Remake and Rebirth are low effort, low risk cash grabs. Rebirth is constantly doing The Most. So much more than it ever had to and possibly pissing a lot of people off by the end by changing things. (I'll find out just how much after, uh, 20 to 50 more hours of gameplay)

So what is the right message? Chop your open world into manageable chunks? Maybe what people mean when they complain about linearity is that they want rewarding exploration? Is Open World just being late to the party or is that the secret ingredient that would shut up people who have been saying Final Fantasy doesn't feel like Final Fantasy anymore for years?

#Final Fantasy VII Rebirth #Final Fantasy #video games #my writing

[snaileo]

Can you talk about your tobio lives au sims more

sorry for the late reply!!

so my version of the au did not originate in the sims, its sorta its own au of an au which you know already im just stating this for anyone else. There are also two different versions. theres the atb sims pilot that was never picked up, and then the atb sims reboot. Theyre like this because the pilot was on my shitty laptop, i didnt have as many mods nor cc, as well as packs either. the reboot is more beefed, its on my better pc, more mods/cc, a lot of the packs. Tobio hasnt even been born yet in my reboot save file and ive been playing it for 2 years i think. Im too lazy to update my game rn bc of the fact i have so much shit lol anyway time to talk abt each of them Pilot: this was way back in 2019 i think and it was honestly no substance other than i just wanted to play umataro and hiroshi and have them get married have a family. i dont have all the screenshots bc theyre on my laptop which is busted and not worth trying to turn on. but when tobio was born he had hiroshi's blonde hair and i decided to keep it, so the pilot is also known as blonde tobio au lol. tobio took on hobbies such as the violin, much like how his dad plays piano. atom and uran were eventually born too but my laptop was dying before they could have their birthdays (also my laptop DEFINITELY could not run any good, crisp graphics so everything looks gross and shitty) 1. hiroshi & tobio 2. Teen tobio playing the violin 3. atom and uran

i had tobio going thru a little bit of an emo phase, but i kept the blonde hair lol. i even built them this big ass awful house tht took forever (but i was proud of in the moment) but my laptop could BARELY run it, and then not long after my laptop started dying lol.

The Reboot: ah yes. better pc, better graphics, more mods, and cc this is finally the reboot. ive been playing this save file for multiple years now. its more fleshed out, more attention to detail. Motoko did make an appearance in the original pilot, but here she has more of story, I also spent time actually building lab 7, which is where the save file started. The reason I rebooted the atb sims is because I had gotten the university dlc which I thoguht Oh this is perfect bc it also adds robots so a106 made an appearance, and as i got more packs, i added more characters for instance I made tom when I got cats & dogs.

I have more of a story planned for the reboot, but specifically for tobio, I want him to grow up on a little bit of some farm, as I intend on hoshie to be good at gardening. Now my hoshie for my sims save is the OG once upon a time hoshie, not ATB hoshie. anyway tobio will grow up with chickens and I intend to have hiroshi be his godfather (to eventual step father) and like im excited to play more sims i just hate updating the game. my next goal for the save file is to update hiroshi's side of the family since the story has advanced but his family is. stagnant/still in the past. my idea for tobio is for him to still be a loner but to have more family. I also intend on having atom and uran be his younger half siblings (pretend theyre robots)

in my last play session i had motoko take her kids and her friends on a vacation. im tryinnnnnggggggg ot get hoshie and tenma to know each other more and am hoping after the vacation that i can push even further for tobio to finally make his way into the save

oh forgot!!! to mention1!! i also want reno in this save file buit i cant bring him in until tobio is born (hiroshi is gonna foster to adopt him)

im not the best at explaining my sims stuff without going on long tangents since ive been playing it for so long but im ending it with a screenshot of hiroshi with his godchildren (motoko's twins, yuko and daichi, taken during my last play session of their vacation)

#atb sims #atb sims reboot

[todayimgonnaplay]

Today I'm gonna play: Final Fantasy 7 Ever Crisis

This is a game I've been waiting for from Square, getting to know about Sephiroth's origins more is always a welcome treat! I am wary of it still as Square hasn't exactly had much success in F2P mobile games and they're often gacha reliant, but let's see what this has to offer.

Based on the trailers and the actual game, the presentation is more faithful to the original FF7, using chibi style models with detailed 3d static backgrounds. However the battle screen is more like the remake, modern and action-filled. Ever Crisis (will call it EC now) also takes its own spin on presentation by including visual novel elements during story segments with portraits popping up. But they only use one sprite per character, which is a shame.

The game also seems to be split into 3 parts: FF7,FF7 Crisis Core (CC), and FF7 The First Soldier (will call it TFS). The first two were originally on the PS1 and PSP respectively, and then remade/remastered for modern consoles and PC, while TFS was mobile exclusive which shut down. As far as I know, it was a battle royale, so I'm not sure about the plot but young sephiroth is depicted in the key visual for that part so this is probably the highlight of the game.

There isn't much to say about the combat. I've played Nier: Reincarnation (haven't played any other Nier game apart from this) and that was completely automated that I didn't have to do anything at all, which was extremely boring. Ever Crisis on the other hand shows slight improvement with giving you the choice to select some abilities based on yout ATB gauge and switch between an offensive or defensive stance for tactical purposes. There are also elements and weaknesses in play to use to your advantage, as well as staggering which now seems to be a mainstay since 13, which is nice. Auto is now an option instead, and it does all the right attacks for you. But none of this compares to other gacha games, or other FF titles. In fact, other FF mobile games are much more active in its combat even if it's turn based.

If there's another improvement I can note, it's the UI. Compared to the other FF mobile games, EC is less cluttered and more minimal. It feels a lot more friendly to play this way. There's still a lot of buttons around, as well as some strange navigation, such as the lack of getting to change party members within the same screen. But I'll accept the minimum provided here.

There are some friendly rates when it comes to pulling, and the game offers a lot of content such as enhancing equipment and materia, grinding various dungeons for materials, EXP, and other rewards, missions, and live co-op battles that also reward you. The co-op is a great addition that relies a little more of your participation compared to the solo segments, and there's been no sense of lag so far. However at some point, the game does block you often with high requirements that require you to either excessively grind, or pay your way through. I assume the goal is to get players to do the latter. There were also early pop-ups that were frequent in wanting you to buy packages, which felt predatory but typical of gacha anyways. But even then I haven't seen something like this pulled by other games like Genshin Impact or Honkai Star Rail (even if it's the same company) and yet those games rake in millions. This is the same issue I've seen in the other FF mobile titles where they pop up so much that it takes a good minute to close all the windows before you can even begin playing.

Overall the game has potential, with some improvements showing in terms of user experience. But Square really needs to take note from more successful gachas that provide a more streamlined, friendly and slightly less predatory experience. As far as I know, Kingdom Hearts Missing Link is their next project. The lack of news is worrying but I hope that game improves their portfolio.

Terms exclusive to this game: ATB (Active Time Battle) - A gauge that fills over time when idle, that allows you to select particular abitiies to attack in turn based combat Staggering - A phase where bonus damage is dealt to the enemy if the player manages to interrupt their attack

#final fantasy #ff7 #final fantasy 7 #ff7 ever crisis #final fantasy 7 ever crisis #ff7ec #jrpg games #gacha games #mobile games #mobile gaming #square enix #game analysis

[baconpal]

pokemon rant time

this one’s about the 2 new things, and is at least slightly intended for people actually excited/interested in them, click keep reading or perish

Gonna try and keep stuff short cus there's a lot of topics this time and I've already gone off about how pokemon Isn't meant for me or meant to be a good video game anymore, but gamefreak is right back on their bullshit, so I feel I need to at least point it out.

I'd like to preface all this with, if you are a fan of pokemon still, please realize you can ask for more out of this series. Expect perfection, even if you don't think you'll get it anytime soon. Pokemon won't go anywhere, the old games won't go anywhere, and gaming is a hobby, not a necessity; don't accept low quality products from a company just because you feel like you're supposed to.

With this next wave of pokemon games, gamefreak is clearly testing how little they can put in to a $60 game while still keeping the 2 major audiences they've cultivated. By responding to the most obvious and vocal complaints from the community, gamefreak is aiming to make games that seems like what most players want, without having to put in the work on quality products.

GEN 4 REMAKES Pokemon BS (I am not calling this shit BDSP) is intended for the audience that put up with let's go and RS remakes. The most vocal and obvious complaints for these games is their failure as definitive versions of the games they are remakes of, such as missing features/content, or drastically changed story/dialogue/style. In a way, the recent remakes are inferior versions of incredibly old games, which shows a lack of improvement in pokemon as a whole.

To address these issues, BS is very, very, VERY clearly aiming for a more 1-to-1 recreation of the DS games, but with fully 3d graphics. Clearly the map layout has been transferred exactly, and gen 4 already had mostly 3d environments to begin with, and everyone knows about the future-proof pokemon models at this point, so the amount of effort required to create something like this is absolutely minimal. Assuming dialogue, trainer teams, move lists, etc. are also lifted directly from DP, then this game could be developed in basically no time at all, leaving the team time to ensure the product is of decent quality and includes ALL of the content of the originals, if not more, like the earlier pokemon remakes did to ensure they were truly definitive versions of the games. That being said, it is unlikely the team behind BS has been making use of this saved time to improve the game.

One failing already clear is that the quality is not very good, at least graphical quality. The footage we have shows environments lacking in color compared to the original, with messy, unpleasant textures that contrast poorly with the simplistic environments. The characters especially do not work. As cute and fun the fanart of tiny dawn has been, BS dawn and all other characters look awful. They have gorilla arms that reach down to the floor and lifeless faces, as well as incredibly stiff/simplistic animations. As it stands, BS is a visually inferior game to DP, though most consumers will simply see it as 3D>2D without any understanding of what an artstyle is, so this might not be a problem for many, but that doesn't mean you should accept it.

What remains to be seen is what content will be added/missing from pokemon BS. It is very possible that massive parts of the game, such as the underground, variety of online modes, postgame areas, and content from platinum could be missing entirely. We also do not know if pokemon from after gen 4 will be worked into the region, or even supported. Gen 8 still currently does not support a large number of pokemon, and the remakes may continue this limited dex trend.

Even assuming the remake includes everything from the DS games and doesn't add anything that slows down the story or harms the experience, it will still only be an exercise in forced obsolescence. The main reason people can't really play DP still is that the online isn't supported anymore. If BS turns out to be exactly the same as DP, then you're buying the same game for at a higher price, only to play it until the online service goes away again, or the next game comes out, if both don't happen at the same time.

Don't let yourself buy a 13 year old game at twice the original price.

GEN 4 NOT-REMAKE KIND OF NEW THING On to legends now, gamefreak is targeting the people who put up with sun/moon and sword/shield. The obvious problem with those games to most people was simply a lack of change from the standard pokemon formula. Even when changing the gyms to trials or stadiums, most people still understand that the format and story structures are mostly unchanged. Of course, this problem has seemingly been addressed by changing the game structure a fair bit, but almost entirely by removal.

Trainer battles, and by extension, gyms and tournaments/elite 4 have been confirmed to be absent, meaning all battles are only vs single pokemon, in spite of the player likely having a team of 6 pokemon. Even if battle difficulty is increased to compensate (doubtful), this will still drastically increase the simplicity of combat and make it even less likely for the game to include any meaningful challenge. Exploring towns and meeting NPCs is also seemingly missing, as the game is confirmed to have only a single village, which frankly looks incredibly boring and we've yet to see a single NPC inhabiting the village.

Battles now use an ATB format instead of a turn-based format (for those of you who don't know what that means, it basically means nothing, it's still turn based, it just means the speed state determines who gets more turns instead of who goes first, that's it), but beyond that there seems to be no noteworthy changes, pokemon learn 4 moves with limited PP, type advantage will still definitely be the most important aspect to battle, and the player being able to walk around during battle provides no meaningful impact. While the little dash the pokemon do to approach each other is cool, it is already a sign that gamefreak will not be addressing the issue of lacking animations for pokemon battles, as they can't even be assed to animate and program pokemon walking around the environment during combat, and lucario doing 1 kick for a move described as a series of punches isn't a great sign either.

On the topic of lacking animations, the new "pet simulator feature" for legends seems to be an advancement on the ride system from sun/moon, which presumably people missed from sword/shield. Being able to ride on your pokemon to do stuff sounds cool, but in all likelihood, this system will be limited to only a select few pokemon who will each do a select few actions, and is not a reasonable replacement for all the other pet raising features that have been removed in the past. Similar to BS, the total number of pokemon included may also be limited arbitrarily, in spite of the fact that no new pokemon need to be added, as these games are not claiming to be a new generation.

The largest issues I personally have with this new game is the horrible technical quality and gameplay quality shown in the initial trailer. Unfortunately, these types of problems seem to be difficult to explain to the average consumer, even though the issues seem incredibly obvious and inexcusable to people like me.  Most people were able to understand the problem with the berry trees in gen 8, because it was easy to explain, "this tree doesn't look like the other trees, and it sticks out, isn't that weird?", and so gamefreak has eliminated any immediately obvious issues like that, sticking with a very consistent artstyle for legends, making it almost impossible to easily explain its faults to the average pokemon fan.

People have been really quick to compare legends to BoTW; the game that invented grass, trees, and mountains. In spite of these comparisons, nobody seems to point out that legends looks dramatically worse than that almost 5 year old game from the previous generation. Plants are stiff and lacking in energy, draw distances are poor, colors are drab, and textures are messy. Many parts of legends seems to ape BoTW on just the surface, essentially just following market trends. Even the controls seem to follow after modern 3rd person shooters/stealth games, including a seemingly pointless roll and a clunky looking ball lobbing arc that feels unfun before even getting to play it myself.

The largest issue, painfully obvious to some, and impossible to explain to others, is the framerate. The trailer clearly was ran on actual switch hardware, and not prerendered, which would be a good mark for gamefreak if it didn't result in a trailer that never once hit 30fps. Even with empty fields, with only 1 or 2 characters on screen, the game was incapable of meeting the target speed, and had to resort to optimizations like reducing the frame rate of pokemon only inches away from the player to stop-motion levels of choppy. If situations with almost nothing going on result in slow-down, how will the game perform during actual gameplay? Even though slow-down is something everyone can feel, many people aren't capable of identifying it.

The major things to wait and see for legends is if the removed aspects of the series are made up for by some additional systems or content, and definitely wait to see if the performance improves. As with BS, preordering a game like this only shows that gamefreak only has to market the game by saying it's different, not improved, like they've been doing for years now.

TL;DR FUCK GAMEFREAK One major thing of note is that gamefreak is releasing 2 games based on gen 4 at the nearly the same time, meaning they have no obligation to design new pokemon or even include pokemon not from sinnoh, and also that the sales of each game can be used as an indicator for which of their 2 audiences is more loyal to them. Both BS and Legends are in a position to be pushes aside if they fail, but if either succeeds, gamefreak can continue in the direction of the more successful game and reap the benefits, without any need to innovate, improve, or adapt to criticism.

The last thing I feel I have to remind people about is that gamefreak is a company; you don't need to be "grateful" to them. I've seen that word thrown around far too much by people who seem to buy pokemon games like its a tax, and not something they want to do. You don't have to suck up to a company that made games you liked as a kid if the games aren't what you want anymore. Pokemon is so wildly successful that it can't possible die, so don't buy the games out of pity, or out of some feeling of obligation. Buy the video games you want to play and nothing more.

Basically, if you are considering getting any of these new games, please wait until the games are out before purchasing them, and decide for yourself if they are worth your money, and more importantly, your time. Preordering these games only lets gamefreak know their audience will buy and put up with anything. They have no real competition at the moment, so the only thing the audience can do to encourage improvement is show some of restraint.

#juvenile rant #pokemon #if you read all that then good job cus jesus that got long #please just respect yourself #you deserve better games #you arent weird for wanting things to be good #anyway have a good night

[divinevomit]

im tired

sept. 26′21 : 8am

-

thought id try a diary of sorts. cant garrentee how consistant thisll be or how literate itll be either. i cant sleep anymore without some type of medication. with or witohut caffine. im aalways tired an d it shows. when i fo sleep it sall day. never at night. the portals are opening up. tis almost october and it shows. this buildign is full of lost ghosts. i feel for them, honestly. i cant imagine being stuck ina place liek this forever. i feel liek maybe i will, one day again. be stuck somewhere for wahat seems liek too many years, watching the days pass, not knowing when or were i am anymore. seeing the passin gpoeple go by. i was once, it wasnt fun. i dont really remember it, but i know i long forit back from time to time. 

i guess i should introduce myself properly, for futiure referencee or for anyone who happens to stumble on this blog. i dont rwally know how. i guess i m kinda liek a ghost. i dont get to leave my apartment often, eithr becuase i have a bad feeling, or because i have no reason or the funds to. i have insomnia, also borderline personality, and probably a good amount of other problems. ihave a good amount of friends i guess, i live with one, (who ill call vamp for future referece),i have two friend groups, both of thm are majority odler than me, but not in a weird way, more liek by chance. anywyas, i also have an online friend, and a long distance lover. i talk to my onlin efriend more than any. ive knownhim for almost twoyears,but i dont know much about ihim. i dont know his actual name, what he looks liek, so basically nothing besides his age, his voice, and his zodiac sighn. all my friends think hes secretly 40, but hes a year younger thanme and proved it. ill probably end up talking atb him mostl.y. i mtoo tired to thikn of a different name than what i already callhim, ill think of one later. my lovr lives in the same state as my onlien friend, and not too far. theyboth live in a different state thanme and vamp. weve beentogether for two years, about 8 months off and on long distance. this is the longest weve been away from ech other at 4 months. i dont get to talk to them too often. thy dont have wifi, and theyve never had a phone with data. their family is odd and doesnt liek me either. what els do i add? ill be a legaladult in 6 months, but me and vamp basically liv aloen. my mom pays for rent and utilties, but is never around and lives with her boyfriend 12/14 days. whenshe does come by, its not good. vamp and i both dont have jobs, vamps family is across the country, and most of mine is comepletely out of the pitcture. neither of us had good childhoods but they r pretty similar. vamps was a lot more extreme thanmin e, and mine was,, easier,, to say te least. i dont know what else i should add. im very pale due to lack of goingoutsid eduring daylight hours and probably lack of nutrients but naturallu im very tane. im reely clairvoyant, liek scary clairvoyant. ican read someones mind to a t with ease, can feel others physicalpain even when im inadifferent room, adn emotions clearly. especially when i know thm, dcently just by looking at them too long. its reallu exhausting. (beleive me or not idont care, its not liek anyone will see this anywyas.) my mom is pagan (for 22yrs), and my dad is a satanist (for 42 yrs) and i am second born to them. i turned out a pagan who lieks red magic and my deity is venus aphrodite. (did yu knoew aphrodite was nonbianary?)  i refuse to do black magic or anything to mess with anyons freewll. i refuse to end up liek muy dad. my favorite color is baby pink andblack. 

me and vamp share a room. im not allowed to be alnoen because everyone thinks ill spirsl. vamp has lived with me for 4 months and, dnt get me wrong, i lvoe having him here, hes liek my brother and i cherish him forever, but i missbeing alone. jes asleep right now so im downstairs typig this. 

i have a bad habit of rambling. i talk too much. i wont read this over becaause i know itll be all ovr the place and ill just delete it. i dont really know what to use this blog for, i never really have. i go backand forth on wat to do with it, first it was aesthetics, then a dream journal and now this, but im bad at keeping p with anything and loose motivation quickly.  i might try more for tihs. but i cant promise anything, i did this on a whim. 

#1 #divinevomit #divinejournal

[agent-cupcake]

are you a TRUE GAMER, what's your favourite game to play?

Gameplay-wise, rn it's Xenoblade 2 because I enjoy the different strats you can use with different builds. There's something so satisfying about stacking on elemental orbs and then overkilling a boss by an obscene amount, also I love how excited the announcer is by fusion combos and button prompts. Playing Zeke is my favorite because I love dps but dodge tanks are god tier (don't @ me) so Morag is a close second. I wish the ai weren't so janky but overall I think it's a cool mix of classic turn based combat with action game combat. Actually, it's for those reasons that I really wanted to love Final Fantasy 7 remake's combat and, in a way, I do... just not actually playing it. Being able to issue commands and mixing action combat with elements of the turn-based original with materia and ATB gauge could have been so good, but neither aspect was done well enough for either to function.

Favorite gameplay of all time might be Dishonored... 1 is overall a better game but 2 has new abilities which are a blast to play around with. I love the way you can mix different powers together with rune/bone charm combos, abilities, and gear. Trying to see just how much wacky shit you can get away with his both daunting because I am a cringe normie and extremely satisfying.

#personal

[ohnotoomanyfandoms]

Sis you're delusiunal. Cassie has said a million timesthat will and jem are straight and platonic. Get over it. They were never pily and tessa never cheate din either. Reread the series maybe. And for once try to understand cintext of what happened in atb.

Hello, Anonymous. I dislike your tone and your assumptions. Why would I, minding my own business, be delusional? 

I know Jem and Will are platonic. Never said they did anything remotely sexual, you might be confusing me with someone else. 

(And I would like to add that I am a big supporter of letting everyone ship whatever they want when we’re simply talking about fictional characters that don’t exist, and leaving people alone if their beliefs are different than yours because they’re not hurting anyone, but I digress.)

As for “they were never pily” (for which I assume you meant polyamorous), I agree that they never performed sexual acts all together. It’s simply not something that happened in canon. 

I’m also not one of those people who slut-shame Tessa for “cheating” on Jem with Will because you can’t cheat on someone who’s dead, and the reason why Tessa and Will had sex in Cadar Idris was that they were desperate for Jem’s death. 

It seems we are in agreement about every point you raised, except for the way I think you should let people believe what they want about characters that don’t exist, and tolerating different opinions.

Lastly, as for “the context of atb” (After The Bridge) which you claim I don’t underatstand, I believe that story and the quote we’re referring to proves my point exactly, which is that:

(borrowing from my last reply on the other post I just wrote) Will, Jem, and Tessa all loved one another to death. and the characters themselves are not interested in what kind of love that was, because “The measure of love is to love without measure.” This quote, I believe, is the key to understanding The Infernal Devices. To me, platonic or familial love is not more or less important than romantic or sexual love is. I am not here to compare or measure because I feel there is no need to, and neither do these characters. 

Have a good day/night and please stop harassing people. 

#herongraystairs #tid #the infernal devices #tsc #the shadowhunters chronicles #the shadowhunter chronicles

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 15/05/2021 (Coldplay, J. Cole, Trippie Redd & Playboi Carti)

I’m awful at predicting this chart, I really am, but most of that is probably down to how I only make vague predictions at the end of each episode without even considering most releases that’ll actually chart. Let’s just say I didn’t expect nine new arrivals this week. At the top, however, little has changed as the absolutely huge “Body” by Russ Millions and Tion Wayne with a remix featuring whoever the hell is spending its second week at #1. The rest of the chart, however, gets a bit more interesting. Welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Rundown

The biggest story to effect the chart this week is of course 2021’s BRIT Awards happening this Tuesday, which I’m sure boosted a lot of songs during the mid-week. I also actually covered the awards show on that day if you’re curious, with some of my observations, predictions and opinions. We can very clear see – or hear, for that matter – the impact of the BRIT Awards in this week’s chart, as it did cause a lot of gains and new arrivals that shook up the chart right in the middle of the tracking week. Firstly, we do have some drop-outs from the UK Top 75, which is what I cover, only one of them, “Paradise” by MEDUZA and Dermot Kennedy, being all that important given it was a top five hit but we do have a handful that lasted five or more weeks or peaked in the top 40, like “Medicine” by James Arthur flopping embarrassingly, “Addicted” by Jorja Smith dropping out to prepare for the rebound next week given her album release and “Solid” by Young Stoner Life, Young Thug and Gunna featuring Drake.

Speaking of Drake, he also provides the singular returning entry as “Wants and Needs” featuring Lil Baby is proving to be the actual hit from that three-pack from March, coming back to #65. Scaling down the chart, we also have some notable losses, songs that dropped at least five spots on this week’s chart. Those that fell include “Your Power” by Billie Eilish dropping harshly to #15 off of the debut, as well as “Your Love (9PM)” by ATB, Topic and A7S at #18, “Confetti” by Little Mix to #21 off of the return (with Saweetie, the artist quite literally solely the reason it’s had this second wind, still bizarrely left without a credit by the UK Singles Chart), “My Head & My Heart” by Ava Max at #27, “Titanium” by Dave at #31, “Wellerman” by Nathan Evans and remixed by 220 KID and Billen Ted (yes, THEY’RE credited) at #36, “Patience” by KSI featuring YUNGBLUD and Polo G at #42, “Heartbreak Anniversary” by Giveon at #44, “We’re Good” by Dua Lipa at #47, “Way Too Long” by Nathan Dawe, Anne-Marie and MoStack at #49, “Head & Heart” by Joel Corry and MNEK at #51, “Beautiful Mistakes” by Maroon 5 and Megan Thee Stallion at #55, “Don’t Play” by Anne-Marie, KSI and Digital Farm Animals at #56, “Calling My Phone” by Lil Tjay and 6LACK at #59, “Commitment Issues” by Central Cee at #67, “You” by Regard, Troye Sivan and Tate McRae at #69, “Get Out My Head” by Shane Codd at #70, “Hold On” by Justin Bieber getting ACR’d at #71, “Streets” by Doja Cat at #73 and finally, “6 for 6” by Central Cee at #75.

Filling up the room for those losses, however, are the gains, always a tad more interesting, as the songs that rose at least five spots on this week’s chart – or make their first appearance in the top 40, 20 or 10 – are usually having the BRITs to thank to some capacity. The climbers include “Summer 91 (Looking Back)” giving Noizu his first top 40 hit at #31 (and I’ll admit, the song is growing on me), Griff also getting her first with “Black Hole” at #35 thanks to her win and performance at the BRITs, “WITHOUT YOU” by The Kid LAROI rebounding to #13 thanks to that once-again uncredited remix with Miley Cyrus and finally, entering the top 10 for the first time is “Anywhere Away from Here” by Rag’n’Bone Man and P!nk at #9, getting the boost from a perfect trifecta of gains: Rag’n’Bone Man released his album on Friday then on Tuesday had the closing performance of this song at the BRIT Awards with additional vocals from the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS choir, who are also now appearing on a new release of the song the day after, prompting a whole lot of sales, of which I assume and hope are going to charity. It’s Rag’n’Bone Man’s third top 10 hit, P!nk’s 21st(!) and interestingly enough, the NHS choir’s second top 10 hit as they had the Christmas #1 back in 2015. With all of that out of the way, I suppose it’s time to get to our varied array of new arrivals.

NEW ARRIVALS

#74 – “Dick” – Starboi3 featuring Doja Cat

Produced by Nius and SoFLY

This week is kind of a weird week if that wasn’t immediately obvious as our new arrivals are kind of all over the place, starting with... well, I think I could say less about the song than the title does. Starboi3 is this SoundCloud rapper from New Jersey who made a song with Doja back in 2019 – I assume she was more accessible for features back then –and it didn’t blow up at all, really, giving Starboi3 some additional traction but not until 2020, in which Doja Cat got her #1 hit and TikTok picked up this explicit single as a new sound. Sadly – or thankfully – the song was never released officially onto streaming until very recently, meaning, surely, the hype’s over by now? The answer to that is no, as it’s climbing up charts in both the UK and the Bubbling Under in the US... so there’s got to be something good about this song, right? Well, no. Not at all. Of course, that is subjective, but I do question your sanity if you’re honestly enjoying this unlikeable nobody shout “Dick!” over a basic, no-melody trap instrumental with heavy 808s not too dissimilar to drill, before going into a beyond basic chorus and verse about, well, you can guess, with rhymes sounding either like an awful freestyle or a kid with a rhyming dictionary. “She not with him tonight, she not with Jim tonight”? Of course, that’s in the post-chorus because if there’s one thing this song needs, it’s a freaking post-chorus. I also don’t think Starboi3 realises that making her scream for her parents is quite the opposite of sexy – or even raunchy and mindless, as it’s actually just creepy and terrifying. Speaking of terrifying, Doja Cat is here and not even she can add a less basic flow with a verse that just ends up going in one ear and out the other, even if I do like the seductive backing vocals that at least try to make this not a slow, joyless slog. However, I do NOT like the Pickle Rick reference. To be fair, this was 2019, but also to be fair, never reference that again, I am begging you. This is a disaster on all fronts and probably one of the worst tracks I’ve had to review in this series. Good start!

#64 – “Freaks” – Surf Curse

Produced by Surf Curse

This new song is actually even older, being released initially as a deep cut from this Nevada duo’s 2013 album. As you’ll probably tell, this is charting off of people streaming after hearing the song on TikTok and, I mean, at least the song’s actually good this time, careening off of a clearly surf-inspired clean riff surrounded by some basic drumming and a good bassline. It’s not great as it does feel increasingly basic as I said, almost like one of those local bands that don’t get much national attention or traction but do play some gigs and get some love at those places, to the point where it’s kind of big if they play shows outside of their region... which makes sense because that is exactly what they are. This is just some band from Reno but here it is charting on the UK Singles Chart and while it’s here, I should say whilst there’s not much here to discuss given how minimal it is, Nick Rattigan’s vocals are fittingly desperate for the theme of social alienation and particularly rejection as it’s pretty obvious he’s aiming venom at himself for a bad break-up, although given the sound and tone of the song, probably his first, with that double meaning of the mantra in the outro, “I won’t wake up this time”, potentially being a crushing line for someone in similar circumstances. That’s not me, exactly, so this doesn’t hit, but I’m glad that Machine Gun Kelly song from last week got replaced with some actually decent alternative rock on the chart. I hope this does well.

#60 – “One Day” – Lovejoy

Produced by Cameron Nesbitt

“One Day” is the biggest track from new English rock band Lovejoy’s debut EP, Are You Alright?, and whilst I was planning on not mentioning the fact that the band is fronted by Minecraft YouTuber Wilbur Soot, that is the only reason it’s charting – and he’s charted with “Your New Boyfriend” a couple months back, a song that I actually kind of liked. It’s also immediately obvious in the writing that this comes from an Internet personality, with some not-so-well-woven detail and increasingly gratuitous self-awareness that eventually cycles back and ends up as seeming like they have none at all... okay, like most indie bands but that’s beside the point. This happens to be Wilbur’s least favourite song on the release – one that I haven’t listened to because even if I’m not too old for mindless pop music, Minecraft YouTuber alt-rock may be where I draw the line – and I can completely understand the distaste for this given that it starts with the line, “Why’d you have to kill my cat?” I also have some qualms with the song sonically as it may be the most derivative rock single I’ve heard on this series, given how obviously it rips from indie rock bands of the 2000s, with an oddly clean mix that doesn’t exactly fit the obvious stream-of-consciousness lyrics and Wilbur’s erratic delivery. Also, there’s a whole lot of trumpet on this song, which I guess is a surprise, but that doesn’t make up for a drummer who can clearly play very well but has to chaotically play over a song with practically no groove. I do like that second chorus in how it builds up to a somewhat anti-climactic guitar solo but as a full song I do not really get the appeal of this that I don’t get out of other post-punk revival bands from decades back who are still pumping out music. This isn’t bad – I swear, don’t dox me – but I just want something more compelling from this. I will always be glad regardless of the quality that we have more rock on the chart, though, even if this’ll be gone by next week.

#57 – “It’s a sin” – Years & Years and Elton John

Produced by Stuart Price and the Pet Shop Boys

One of my favourite performance from the BRIT Awards this year was Olly Alexander of Years & Years sharing the stage with the iconic Elton John to cover Pet Shop Boys’ “It’s a Sin” which had renewed interest from last year as it was the namesake for a hit TV series about HIV/AIDS, for which this fittingly played a role and has kind of been recontextualised as a gay anthem, which makes complete sense if you look at its lyrics about the Church telling Neil Tennant “how to be”. It’s also one of the Pet Shop Boys’ most camp and theatrical songs, so giving it to Years & Years and Elton John to cover for the BRIT Awards make all too much sense. No, they’re not able to live up to the theatricality of the original, especially if Alexander’s vocals are going to be this clearly manipulated at points, but with Elton John’s piano laying a perfect foundation for the rising intensity of the track, we do get a sense of that original melodrama, with the synth-work and house groove coming in before Elton John’s voice, sounding smokier and wiser with age, and in my opinion, more compelling as a vocalist, especially if they’re both going to sell this song with the most convicted of deliveries. I don’t think a cover could ever live up to that original iconic track but if anyone’s going to get close, it’s Elton John. Expect this to rise next week.

#50 – “Never Left” – Lil Tecca

Produced by ThankYouWill, Taz Taylor and Cxdy

I’ll always be annoyed that Lil Tecca blew up as a rapper instead of a producer, as I don’t think this guy has any likeability or charisma about his flow, cadence or delivery, and that’s only after you get over how dry and whiny his voice can get. However, he can make some great and incredibly infectious beats for other rappers, including a song I see becoming a hit soon in SoFaygo’s “Knock Knock”, which I will bet on at least making the Billboard Hot 100 if not the UK Singles Chart. It’s unbelievably catchy. With that said, Tecca is here in the form of some SoundCloud raps over a boring synth pluck and vaguely tropical Internet Money trap beat, sounding and flowing way too much like Gunna for his own benefit, or Gunna’s benefit, if we’re honest, as this shows how easily he can be replaced. I usually don’t write off this type of rap and will absolutely defend it, but this song isn’t even catchy or unique. I mean, I don’t like “Ransom” either but at least it was kind of fun and I still know the lines in the chorus a couple years later. I’ll forget all about this by next week if it doesn’t stick around. At least he shouts out Chief Keef. God, I hope he charts sometime, that’d be funny.

#45 – “All I Know So Far” – P!nk

Produced by Greg Kurstin

So, P!nk is back but not with a studio album, rather an upcoming live album in which the two new, original songs are about or featuring her daughter. This is the second single from said album and is probably coasting off her appearance at the BRITs in terms of a relatively high chart debut. I’ve never been that big a fan of P!nk but she has her classics, none of which are in the past 15 years but that’s beside the point. This single in particular is an acoustic ballad dedicated to her daughter in which P!nk provides a rapid intensity alongside pretty great-sounding acoustic guitars, pounding drums and strings that sells the content about empowering yourself, with some nice lyrical detail about always being yourself, basically, which would come off as cliché and preachy if it weren’t for some oddly specific lyrics in those verses and the chorus that basically just tell her daughter that despite the fact the world will constantly try to crack down on her and everything she does much like life does to anyone but especially women, she should stand up for herself and what she believes in. However, none of that cuts deep when she’s being raised by a millionaire, huh? There’s little Hell to be put through when you’re born with a silver spoon, huh, Willow? Regardless, this isn’t a bad pop song and its content isn’t as misguided as it is just sang by the wrong singer, although I’d find it hard to get a singer with as much rasp and wisdom in the mainstream to sell this as convincingly as P!nk does – vocally, not lyrically. This is a couple steps above that last single, “Cover Me in Sunshine” at least, which was just insidious. Next.

#32 – “Miss the Rage” – Trippie Redd featuring Playboi Carti

Produced by Loesoe

Okay, so all of our last three new arrivals are in the top 40 and we start with... o-okay, well, it’s 2021, anything can and will chart and I should know this by now, but it’s still surprising to see a song by these two guys debut so high, especially since Whole Lotta Red produced absolutely no charting hits in the UK outside of “@ MEH”, which doesn’t really count. This is Trippie’s highest-charting song ever in the UK that isn’t fronted by KSI, so I guess streaming must have been that good – also, the charts are still weak. For what it’s worth, I do like both Trippie and Carti to their respective extents, and I am aware that this is only as big as it was because of the hype from the leak, which also featured Mario Judah, and that in itself was a big song but it took years for Carti’s feature to be cleared by the label, as is infamously true for much of Carti’s work and even his last official collaboration with Trippie that was actually deleted after release. I’m still hoping on an official release for his verse on Yung Lean’s “Yayo”, but whilst we have this instead, I might as well talk about it and... Well, let me explain to you what I see as the appeal of these two rappers. That appeal is, mostly, that they don’t rap even though they both very much can. Trippie yells, moans, growls, screams and spends most of his work singing in his typical raspy, venomous voice, whilst Playboi Cart spits and coughs his way through substance-less ad-libs to the point where any actual wordplay or lyrical detail gets you excited for that brief moment. In this song, Trippie and Carti don’t eschew the typical role of a rapper and both just... rap normally, which would not be a complaint if they weren’t so bland in that role, which is the whole point of their unique, phlegm-filled deliveries in the first place. As a result, this song just ends up feeling empty, even if this awfully-mixed, bass-boosted beat with some lovely distorted video-game synths and hardly audible trap skitters does go incredibly hard. Don’t get me wrong: this is still catchy and Trippie flows very well over a beat that sounds made for him and Carti. Hell, Carti has grown on me so much recently that my fondness for this might just be me eating anything he releases up. With that said, he’s the worst part of the song as his baby-voice style emphasises how lacking this song is in just anything. I do like the wordplay at the tail-end of the verse as, yes, that happens, perhaps not as iconic as some of his other oddly profound or clever lines on his last record but at least it’s something. At least this is some interesting American trap, unlike...

#25 – “i n t e r l u d e” – J. Cole

Produced by J. Cole, Tommy Parker and T-Minus

The pandemic has affected the music industry to the point where big-name rappers release album interludes as lead singles. Said album has songs shorter than this interlude, with most of its dull filler feeling like additional interludes, quite unbefitting for such a big and hyped-up album from Cole which frankly is just another boring addition to an already consistently dull catalogue. I’m just not interested in what Cole has to say because he’s never been likeable and I feel like there’s better rappers that bridge the gap between old and new like how Cole sees himself as doing, the “MIDDLE CHILD”, perhaps, like, you know, Drake? If we want to go for a more direct comparison from lesser-known rappers, the direct comparison I use for this new record is Aminé’s latest, also made up of a variation of trap bangers featuring massive, charting names versus introspective, conscious lyrics, yet Aminé is an interesting character with quotable lyrics that aren’t embarrassing, knows how to write an actual hook and whilst he also brings on both classic and modern features, he’s never out-done by them, creating an actual bridge rather than just some guy who thinks he can write his own role in the industry and culture without his own music backing his case. Unfortunately for me, it works – every freaking time – largely because of his continually loyal fanbase but also a general public interest in the guy that I do not understand, especially when more than a decade into his career, he’s still pushing out mediocre projects. He cuts his album’s length by a ton and still ends up with a bloated record. I barely need to talk about the track itself, right? Even if it has as much structure and effort put into it as his normal songs do, it’s labelled quite literally as an interlude. Sigh, well, in this interlude, Jermaine raps over a drowned-out soul sample and admittedly, sticks to the topic of reminiscing on where he came from, the violence in Fayetteville, a similar violence of which was what killed Nipsey Hussle, who he compares amongst Pimp C and Jesus as they all died at 33. Cole himself is 36 so I guess for once he doesn’t think he’s Jesus. It took him a while to realise.

#12 – “Higher Power” – Coldplay

Produced by Max Martin, Oscar Holter and Bill Rahko

I assumed this would debut at #3 until the BRIT Awards performance gave it a boost to debut at the top but I guess everyone else had the same opinion of that awful opening performance as I did, because here it is at #12. Well, that doesn’t matter, right? Coldplay’s last album similarly underperformed... but at least that time, they had a genuinely ambitious album for once in their careers with some genuine experimentation and themes I did not expect to come out of Coldplay. It was a better album but not an accessible one, with its only pop single being a bittersweet anti-war anthem which trivialises bombing in the Middle East to onomatopoeia. It’s a great song but it wasn’t going anywhere, so it’s no surprise that their next lead single is a soulless synth-pop track produced by Max Martin. Admittedly, the synth tone in the intro is kind of unique in all its nasal 80s nostalgia, but, man, I thought we moved past just rehashing for a hit, Coldplay. This is pretty obviously just a crap attempt at being “Blinding Lights” which trades in its machine-gun loco-motive drum pattern for one that is a lot more stiff, and its iconic, memorable lyrics for a forgettable set of love-struck laziness. Oh, yeah, and Chris Martin is far from the Weeknd both in the studio and live at the BRIT Awards – seriously, dude sounded half-alive. This isn’t offensive, just a bore that is clearly a desperate label move ready for when they can tour again, and if their last record proved anything it was that Coldplay seemed like they were finally above that.

Conclusion

Well, that’s our week – again, a questionable one at best and kind of a bad one at worst. Either way, this is a strange array of songs and I do like how the UK Singles Chart subverts everything you’d expect of it so often that chaos becomes the trend, even if not all of it is any good. I guess Best of the Week goes to “Freaks” by Surf Curse, with an Honourable Mention to Elton John’s cover of “It’s a sin” with Years & Years. Surprisingly enough, J. Cole actually doesn’t get Worst of the Week as the album gets a lot worse than that interlude, so he gets a Dishonourable Mention alongside Starboi3’s “Dick” being crowned Worst of the Week, and honestly probably Worst of the Year so far, not that I’m keeping track of that. Here’s this week’s top 10:

What’s coming next week? More J. Cole, Olivia Rodrigo’s newest single and probably – and hopefully – some album tracks from Jorja Smith and Nicki Minaj. For now, though, thanks for reading. It’s a big week next week, and I’ll see you then!

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Final Fantasy VII Legacy || Remake Review

This is the 2nd out of 3 articles. Find the first here.

Enough with the flowery language. No more ancient memories of times passed. No more wasted passages on the origin of Final Fantasy VII. I am not some little kid sitting crossed-legged in front of a 13-inch tube TV, but a man sitting in a lightly used office chair he found by the apartment dumpster several years ago. I have grown. The gaming world has grown. And Final Fantasy has grown. But is it the kind of growth you imagined? Does this game shed the dead weight of its numbered younger siblings? Does it recreate an experience from your childhood? Is it an innovative gaming experience that redefines the RPG like its genesis? Is breathing life into one of the most provocative modern gaming death’s worth the exhumation? These are the questions swimming in my head while I waited for the release of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, a deeply marked touchstone in my life. And after having completed my run through the game, I had some thoughts I needed to organize and share. I need to decide: Is this a proper run, a proper update, a proper remake? Or is it just a repurposed chair found by the dumpster?

Let me clarify a few things. First, this is going to be a straight review of the game with little-to-no spoilers. Second, this is the 2nd in a series of 3 articles I decided to write, with the final article being a no-holds-barred, spoiler frenzy discussing the outcomes of this game and many other Final Fantasy’s. In this article, we are going to be looking at what the game did well, what it was mediocre at, and lastly, what was downright disappointing. Each section will bleed into each other a bit because the games components bleed into each other a bit, which feels a little odd for a JRPG, but this isn’t ye-old JRPG. Let’s get right to it.

RE-KWARK!-ABLE! I MEAN REMARKABLE.

Before we tear this game down, let’s spend some time building it up. The standout component of this game was very clearly the battle system. The transition is seamless and the frenzy begins almost immediately. What surprised me right off the bat is how easy it was to not only switch between characters, but how simply it was to tell them what to do. I thought slowing down the battle to issue commands was going to be a nuisance, but it really helped balance out the pace of the battle. You can assign 4 hotkeys that let you keep the battle going without slowing down to strike at an enemies weakness. I did find that it felt a little useless to assign anything other than your weapon skills, because spells take a little time to cast and most of the time you are going to want to pick a specific spell based on the enemies weakness, but that is totally up to your playstyle. 

In the vein of the battle system, boss fights were engrossing and detailed. It felt like they spent a lot of time thinking about which moments in the Midgar timeline would make the best boss battles and how exactly they would design the bosses moveset and structure based not only on what the boss was, but where the boss was. In one chapter, you fight a boss that is nearby some train tracks. At a certain point in the battle, it will electrify the track, and if you are standing on it, you get major damage. Enemy types also had a pretty consistent set of weaknesses, so you didn’t have to go into the bestiary menu to determine what spell would most likely take it down. But on the other hand, the Assess ability is crucial in understanding some of the more minute methods to hitting the enemy weakness. It was actually a delight to try and fight both with and without it. Like everything else in the battle, the menu comes up with a single button press and no load time. It gives you time to read and strategize your attacks.

In some other reviews I had been reading, people had complained about a feature I loved. Using spells and abilities requires you to have your ATB gauge filled, which will fill with time, but fills much faster if you are attacking. The complaint was that the AI isn’t particularly good at attacking when you aren’t using them, and not only that, they don’t receive the ATB fill bonus from attacking, it simply takes them time. However, because transition between characters is instantaneous, I believe that the designers did this as an incentive to use each character as often as possible. This isn’t the only incentive for this either. Every weapon for each character has a single skill that can be learned from it. To learn it, you have to use a skill. Again, to use the skill the ATB gauge has to be filled. Most battles in the game go by quickly, especially once you know the enemies weakness, so you need to build ATB fast and activate the skill. Without telling you, the game basically created an environment where it's not only necessary to switch between characters and learn their playstyles, but almost necessary. What’s more, every character is somewhat unique, especially Barret and Aerith, and certain types of enemies (flying or distance based, ect) are much easier to handle with the right character. All around, the battle system is an absolute standout and easily the best part of the game.

Without giving anything away, another strong part of the game is the scenario design. I was driven to hear more, see more, and do more in this game. The characters a crisp and vibrant, even when they lack depth. They are undeniably “cool” or “cute” or whatever their main adjective should be for the given scenario. The voice acting in both the Japanese and English versions are great, though the Japanese version from time to time has a different take on some of the characters than the English, it's still a blast. Every moment that leads into a battle with a signature villain is thoroughly enjoyable. I don’t think you absolutely need to have played the original to enjoy these moments, but more on that later. What it really comes down to is this game has some pretty great pacing because even when it fumbles, it doesn’t stop you from wanting to play more. The battle system element just propels you forward and hearing what crazy thing is going to happen next is more than enough to make up for follies.

This is sad to say, but there really is only one more exceptional item to mention. The return of Nobuo Uematsu. The soundtrack of this game was already pretty well designed in the original. Coming back to it was more than just a nostalgic walk down memory lane. It was like coming home and realizing your parent’s upgraded your house to a mansion with room service, a full staff, and a kitchen that's open 24 hours a day stocked with everything you desire. And it isn’t just that the music was remastered, it flows in and out of the game with masterful timing. Multiple versions of each song were recorded so that movements in the song crescendo at the exact moment your Cloud lands a hit or Reno and Rude jump from a helicopter. It made every moment of the game feel like so much more than just an average confrontation. There are a few moments that even made me laugh. There is a hip-hop inspired Chocobo theme that made me smile both for how odd it was and how awful it should have been received, but somehow it just slaps. If you pay attention you might notice some of the music is more reminiscent of other entries in the series with two standouts in particular, one sounding like Final Fantasy XII and another like Final Fantasy XIII, two very different scores. But it felt right at home in this modernized version of Final Fantasy VII. There is also a music collection sidequest that is mostly made up of jazzy remakes of classic Final Fantasy VII songs. These are less remarkable, but still good for the most part. Part of the issue with these songs is it is played through some kind of fuzzy record player speaker overlay, which I found annoying and distorting.

MISSED THE KWARK! I MEAN MARK.

I would say that almost everything else in this game missed the mark in some way or another. Some are just shy of a home run, others are baseline grounders, and some are just straight fouls. Either way, they could have used more attention or a different direction in my opinion. And I want to start with something I almost never complain about in video games: the graphics. Talking about graphics is usually pointless. People who are after ridiculous levels of fidelity always seem to believe this either makes or breaks the game. In Remake, that might actually be true for once. I am not a graphics designer, but one thing I noticed and couldn’t stop noticing is that there were so many different levels of graphical fidelity all smashed into one place. In some scenes, there were gorgeous details, like the entirety of Aerith’s house area, but then you get to the flowers, it's like 1997 again. In other moments, like when looking down at the Midgar Slums from the upper plate, it is clearly a very flat and stretched image meant to look three-dimensional like the other things around you, but the image was just off. Doors on buildings would look like garbage compared to the floor or walls in the room. It was just very clear that a once over on all the different assets would have helped out quite a bit. The problem wasn’t that the graphics were good or bad, but that they were inconsistent. It was like looking at photo-realistic drawing with some Picasso in the middle. The character models were so well done, when the interacted with this space, it was just jarring. Again, not awful, just missed the mark.

With such a well maintained battle system, you would think the menu system would be equally flawless, but it wasn’t. The main UI where you would outfit your party was a bit of a mess. For one, there was no way to go from upgrading your weapon to equipping it or vice-versa. They had completely separate menus for both that didn’t lead to each other. Then there is the upgrade menu itself, wherein you select upgrades in a similar way to FFXIII crystal upgrade menu. When you choose the weapon, it takes you to a completely different screen and makes this loud noise and transition effect. It's annoying to read and to navigate. You can bypass this by having the computer choose your upgrades for you, but that really felt like I was missing out. It would have been a huge improvement just to list the abilities and have me choose from the same menu I chose everything else. It was unnecessarily fancy and kind of an eyesore. Equipping materia got a small upgrade from the original game, wherein you can press a button to see and switch out materia with everyone, but this should have just been THE menu, not an extra button press. They also should have categorized the materia, letting you choose which type you wanted to look at instead of having to scroll through line after line. The menu also doesn’t give you simple information in places where you could use it, like what chapter you are in. To know, you have to go to the save menu. It could have simply been listed next to the playtime in the bottom corner.

There are even certain materia that are hard to understand, specifically the Enemy Skill materia. In the old game it would list which skills you had obtained. This one didn’t give you any idea what you had obtained and what exactly was obtainable. After a while I figured out that in the bestiary, although it would tell you which monster had a skill you could get, it wouldn’t exactly say if you had it. Turns out that if the skill was highlighted green on the enemy skills screen (another button press away), you didn’t have it, if it was blue, you did. Then, to see which skills you had in total, you had to go to the party screen and it would be listed under your abilities if they were wearing the materia. Not only that, the skill would have a different name than the skill the enemy used, the naming convention wasn’t 1-to-1. Add to this, materia sometimes have very obscure instructions or descriptions. The battles can go by so fast, it's hard to even notice the effect of them if something isn’t exploding or outwardly obvious. In fact, many of the instructions are weird in the game. If you die in a series of fights where they are linked, it will ask if you want to go back to the first fight or the last fight. Choosing the first actually sends you back to before you started the series and you can adjust your equipment, which is fine, but in a normal fight, if you die, you can only go back to the fight and it doesn’t let you modify your equipment. It's a simple inconsistency but the text and cursor placement also make it hard to understand exactly what is going to happen.

Finally, all the smaller issues. There are too many places where the game has you “walk” for no particular reason. You just slow down. I thought it might be due to loading, but it happens in places where no story or anything appears to be happening next. Summon materia is already maxed and it doesn’t feel like it helps all that much, even when the enemy is weak to them. The game design is set up so that whichever character you are currently playing as the only thing enemies are interested in attacking, especially if someone isn’t using provoke. So, your summon simply attacks, and to do it's better attacks, you have to sacrifice ATB. Mostly this is fine, it creates balance, but i’d prefer they came and left like in the original. In fact, I have hated all summon mechanics since FFX. They need to come, do damage, and be gone. But I have to admit, this is the best marriage of the two versions. Next, the choices you make that alter certain outcomes in the game are so far away from the thing you are altering, and at times not clear. This could have been more fun had they given you a bit more of control or some kind of gauge to show you what was going on, but in a way, it was true to its roots, which isn’t necessarily a good thing. Lastly, having to aim the camera to interact with items that are just outside of its view is just annoying. That coupled with the random moments you have to hold “triangle” for a series of switches always rubbed me the wrong way.

DOWNRIGHT DISAPPOINTING… uh.. kwark.

Final Fantasy VII Remake obviously has a great foundation and pretty great framework. The music is great, it's a blast to play, and the characters really resonate. But there are still some aspects of this game that make it feel a little less than game of the year. These complaints might be less of an issue than I am making it. The game is what it is, and I am easily going to clock in at about 90 hours for both regular and hard modes. Still. STILL. There are just a few things that were completely disappointing, and not just from an old fan, but as a current gen gamer.

My biggest complaint is married together and baked into the design of the game, namely Midgar and Chapters. Final Fantasy has always felt like it was about exploring not just a story, but the world it exists in. In the first 9 entries to the series, this was done by giving the player a chance to get lost on its world map, looking for towns, roaming through forests. You had to use your imagination to fill the gaps, but that wasn’t a bad thing. As the entries iterated, the worlds got bigger, and so did their stories. They had lore and depth. With the release of 10, this all changed. In the 10th game, the story was suddenly on rails, the only direction you could move in was forward. It took all of the exploration away in favor of level design and pacing. I remember thinking that this was the beginning of the end for a series I loved. With the release of 12, it felt a little better, but mostly it was just an offline version of the massively popular MMORPG formula. It felt more rote and less like exploration. With the 13th entry, it was back to the rails. It began to feel like the creators sought only to make an experience where the characters and story where the vehicle, and the world was just the background. In 15, this would change somewhat, but it was also an experiment for them that ended in failure. They tried to give us an open world governed by a chapter system. But, despite their best efforts, they couldn’t breathe life into the world of 15. They tried to spread the world and its characters across too many dimensions. There was an anime series, a full length movie prequel, missing chapters introduced as DLC, and even a mobile game. A broken chimera. I think the success of 10 and their failure to create a modern, open world game is what ended up making 7 Remake what it is. A game on rails.

Before the games release, the game designers touted that Midgar was now a place that could be fully experienced. For me, this couldn’t have been further from the truth. It was just a series of narrow hallways masquerading as a city. The people in the background make noise and act like they live there, but they don’t move, goto work on a schedule, ride the trains, or even run stores. You can’t interact with them. They are just mouthpieces. Because the game runs by chapters, you have almost no ability to explore anything that doesn’t have to do with the immediate story. The characters will chide you for going the “wrong direction” and the game will outright stop you from wandering too far. “No no, you fool, the GAME is over HERE”. In the original game, Midgar is partially just an introduction to the world, characters, and battle system. But really, it was the beating heart of the entire game world and story just as much as the characters that live in it and run Shinra. The remake seems to have forsaken that in favor of story beats. Outside of a few distinct places, most of Midgar just feels like window dressing. Wall Market is obviously a delight, but the entirety of Midgar should have been like Wall Market. You should be able to get lost in the back streets or take the wrong train. Shinra headquarters gives you little glimpse into the way people on the upper plates live and work, but yet again they are just mannequins. 

Games today give you vibrant open worlds to explore. You can jump on rooftops and glide over large swaths of land. The way in which Midgar was designed leaves little to the imaginationa as compared to the original. The graphics are crisp and every pipe and air conditioner feels like they might actually do something, but you can’t follow that pipe anywhere or walk down alleyways and talk to vagrants. Old games got a pass on size and depth because their limitations were obvious, often baked into whatever the genre was. If it was a brawler, you walk down streets beating people up. In racer, you play the track. But RPG’s were one of the few where you would be expected to explore the edges of its world. With new generation games, the choice to stop exploration in a RPG feel less like a limitation of raw power and more like a  design decision. I would have preferred a game in which Midgar was a place to see and explore and interact with. Where I could haggle with one vendor over something found in another. Where I could watch the day cycle send people back and forth work. But Midgar wasn’t their focus. Telling you a story was. And as fun as that was, it was so disappointing to find that the original game gave you more by letting your mind wander past its graphical limitations than the remake did do by making the decision to limit your ability to physically explore visible areas. Instead of letting a visible wall stop you from going somewhere, an invisible force just puts a stop to your antics and tells you to get back to work. Maybe it's just psychological, but it is maddening. The physical world of 7 was just as important as its story and characters, but the story got to lead the show, and to me this feels off balance and off brand.

THE TAKEAWAY

This is a good game. A well made game for the most part. It's rough in places, but not so rough that it really hurts the end result. Final Fantasy 7 Remake is actually a showcase of talent that comes out of Square-Enix and despite the fact that I feel like they either bite off more than they can chew or completely misunderstand their core fanbase, they are still great artists. I often question whether game designers at big companies are customer service machines that should give us the product we demand or artists that deserve to create in a space that we support. Remake reminds me why I am both supportive but vocal. They may never hear me, but I want to know I said something. Still, it ends up being more than the sum of its parts. The game hums along like a well made machine. It takes time to remind fans of key moments, interjects tons of surprises that don’t entirely offend its base, and ultimately is never boring. What more could you ask from a game? Well, as it turns out, a lot. And I have so much more to say about the actual story content of this game and of Final Fantasy as a whole. If I didn’t mention some aspect here, it's probably because I want to discuss it in a way that may ruin the story, so look for the 3rd and final entry next week.

#Articles #Final Fantasy 7 #Final Fantasy VII #Final Fantasy 7 Remake #Final Fantasy #Nobuo Uematsu #FF7 #Review #JRPG #Voice Acting #Tifa #Cloud #Aerith #Barret #Jessie

[retphienix]

Alright, this is a mess of photos from all over the first stream because I want to talk about the mechanics I’ve come to see so far since those are BY FAR the most interesting things in this game so far.

This game is experimental as HECK, and to be honest, it works in a lot of ways. But it also falls flat in a few ways.

I’ll try to avoid just giving a tutorial but I might end up doing that anyway.

Let’s start with something that doesn’t really work that well in my opinion. Progression? Kinda dumb. Basically, in an attempt to simplify the RPG aspects, they removed access to information. Which is NOT simplified, it’s bad. If you can present the information indirectly, it’s good. If you can’t, and you just remove direct access without offering a way of understanding- it’s bad.

Basically, on the back of the box it literally advertises:

“Unique design eliminates random battles and experience points”

The random battle system is the same as Trigger, monsters appear on the map and you can avoid them if you don’t want to fight. That works. That’s good. That works WONDERS for promoting proper character growth without demanding grinding.

The experience points though? Bad. Terrible. Dumb. Poorly implemented.

When you complete a battle, you have no idea if it helped you or not. You get a little bit of money (good) and some raw materials (good) and these almost, ALMOST make combat worth it inherently, but they don’t do enough.

It is important that combat feels rewarding. This is most easily accomplished by combat making you stronger through experience points, proficiency points, any kind of ‘points’ that increase your strength over time.

Gold and materials are a great step towards making combat worth it without XP, but they just don’t do quite enough. It’s like 70% of the way there to being worth it.

So how do you get stronger?

INVISIBLE EXPERIENCE POINTS. MEANING THE SELLING POINT IS MEANINGLESS AND BAD.

When you complete a fight, you MIGHT get stronger, and you have little to no idea what influences that.

Now, the lack of XP usually exists to prevent grinding at a pace that makes the game too easy, but to be honest, I’m pro “The ability” to grind.

I’m not pro-grinding, mind you, but I’m pro “the ability” to grind. Allowing grind allows a player to tune things to their own skill level- or to indulge power playing if they want to (I love power playing to be honest).

I mentioned that you still “level up”, you just don’t know when or how- so that kind of defeats the purpose of not having XP. So they doubled down and did milestones as well.

You have a star level, which determines how strong you are capable of getting- and this level increases as you defeat bosses. THIS IS A GOOD IDEA.

IT’S FLAWED. BUT GOOD.

The idea being they are preventing you from power leveling before an encounter by giving you a temporary cap.

Sounds good on it’s own! Flawed (Allow the player to grind if they want or balance your encounters to properly level) but okay!

But add that to having invisible XP and WHAT THE HECK AM I DOING?!

IS THIS FIGHT WORTH IT?! DO I GET STRONGER FOR KILLING THIS ENEMY?!

WAIT, WOULD I BE GETTING STRONGER, BUT I ACCIDENTALLY HIT MY CAP AND I DON’T KNOW BECAUSE YOU DON’T TELL ME THAT EITHER?!

WHAT’S GOING ON?!

Poorly implemented- compare that to much simpler systems.

Paper Mario.

Paper Mario also has caps, but handled much better.

Instead of invisible experience where you have no idea if you’re getting credit for this fight or not- it shows you exactly how much XP you get for each fight (like a normal game).

I mentioned this is a similar and better system and here’s how:

Paper Mario utilizes soft caps and diminishing returns in order to prevent power playing while still allowing wiggle room- all while being VERY clear with the player on what is going on.

You kill a goomba- you get 10 xp.

You kill a goomba- you get 9 xp.

You kill a few more, suddenly they are giving 1 xp. You now know that you are “too strong” and have hit the soft cap.

Continue on and they will give 0 xp, meaning you’ve hit the actual cap.

YOU KNOW THAT YOU WERE BEING REWARDED FOR COMBAT. AND NOW YOU KNOW THAT YOU ARE AT THE CAP.

NEITHER OF WHICH ARE PRESENT IN THIS “No XP” SYSTEM IN CROSS, WHILE ACCOMPLISHING THE EXACT SAME PRINCIPLE OF PREVENTING OVER-GRINDING.

The leveling system is flawed. I do not know if combat is worth doing outside of the monetary gain.

Now I hadn’t expected to struggle to convey my thoughts on the leveling system- but here we are, so here’s a quicker read on the other mechanics which I much more prefer!

Grid system:

The way spells and abilities work is AWESOME. I LIKE THAT A LOT. You have a grid (that expands as you level) which can basically be explained as “Level 1 slots, level 2 slots, level 3 slots etc”.

Each spell/item/tech in the game has a level and a level range “EG: 5 +- 5″

And you can place that spell anywhere within that range (previous spell is a level 5 spell, but can be placed up to level 10 or down to level 1) and it becomes more or less powerful depending on your placement while also increasing/decreasing the COST of casting that spell.

THAT IS SO COOL AND FUN TO USE AND I AM EXCITED TO USE IT MORE. GOOD. It feels a little lightweight and like it could be further developed, but as is I really like the concept of arranging your spells as you please- deciding if you want to spend very little for a light heal, or spend a lot for a HUGE nuke. VERY GOOD.

Side note- Spells can be cast once per battle, meaning your slots are one time use per combat (other than items which are 5 time use) I like this too. It prevents spamming and allows you to build up a character based on their slots, such as having 3 level 1 cures or 1 level 3 cure and having those matter.

Affinity (type) System:

It’s pokemon typing but simplifies to 3 1v1s (Red v Blue | Green v Yellow | Black v White). It’s good for making all characters weak to an element, and I like the way it was taught to the player- by having the enemy FAIL to properly manipulate the system. That was entertaining and taught me that there are spells that change affinity as well as spells that attack using a specific affinity.

Field Effect System:

Not a fan. Basically, the last 3 spells used influence the field effect, each subsequently buffing their affinity and weakening the competing affinity. It feels a bit meaningless right now, and I can see it only mattering for debuffing say a fire boss’s spells by casting a bunch of water spells before he can use his spells- but the thing is- you’re fighting a fire boss... You’re going to be doing that anyway? It feels a little pointless? And the fact that summons apparently work ONLY if you have a full triple effect on the Field (Triple Blue to summon a water summon etc) that just sounds tedious. I don’t know. Not a fan.

Accuracy attack System:

I LIKE THAT. Simple, clean, and I love how it plays into the next system. When you go to melee attack you have 3 levels of strength to choose between, basically equating to “Weak and accurate, medium and reliable, strong and inaccurate” and each subsequent attack (strung together in a combo), so long as they all hit, increase the subsequent accuracy of your attacks. So you might see 50% accuracy on the strong attack at first, but hit the enemy with 3 weak attacks (for an easy 90% accuracy hit) and now that strong attack has 87% accuracy! I like that!

Build/Spend resources System:

VERY GOOD. MOSTLY. The way you cast spells in this game is by saving up “Element” by landing melee attacks.

Quick Attacks grant 1 Element | Medium attacks 2 | Strong attacks 3. You can interrupt combat (so long as you have stamina left) to cast a spell, or simply alternate between melee and spells each “turn” (turns work more freeform and honestly it’s a little off putting since you don’t know when the enemy will interrupt, but it’s no different than an ATB system mixed with a slower turned base system).

The positive is that it feels really good to land a melee combo, and then spend those resources on a big spell as mentioned above where you can put spells in different grids to cost different amounts of the resource.

The negative is that this means a spellcaster character is ALSO a melee character BY DESIGN- and this kind of feels strange. Forcing the less physically capable characters to swat the enemy just so they can cast a spell sounds and feels bad.

I will say- the positive does outdo the negative- but it’s a bizarre system none the less! I like it! I just think spellcasters should probably have alternative means of building resources (maybe they do later on! Maybe not though and that’s fine). Something like a “Focus” command that does no damage but gives them a free 4-5 Element bar? I’m spouting nonsense.

Basically my take away on this system is that I’ve never seen an RPG use “Build/Spend” mechanics outside of an MMO! And I really don’t like most uses of it in MMOs (I enjoy managing a hefty pool of resources, like a rage bar- I don’t enjoy managing small number resources, like Rogue combo points). It turns out if you slow such a system down to a turned base (mostly) gameplay- I REALLY ENJOY UTILIZING IT!

Also the chief beat me up.

#RetPlays #Chrono Cross

[crystalnet]

My Top 10 Video Gamesss

I'm really bored so I'm just gonna do this, fuck it. Top 10 from a guy whose genre of choice is the action-(J)RPG, of which makes up about half this list. I'm gonna try to keep it pretty short and sweet, cuz like who cares, like why am I even doing this who cares. (Digibro says text-blogging is dead, like I need to make videos but like who would want to watch the video of some rando listing things either? Idk, like I don't really get any motivation for anything anymore. But I do like games/JRPGS soooo.... without further ado...). Also I'm doing a 1-game-per-franchise rule 'cuz otherwise it'd be largely Zelda and Final Fantasy because I have good taste, am sheepish and bland, and overly-content with the same 2 franchises. But yeah, I'm digging a little deeper here. 

1. Zelda Breath of the Wild-

This may seem risky, audacious and possibly even sacrilege to put a game that is only like 5 months old on this list, but really this is the only game that I could really confidently put on my top spot. I think this game is just about perfect, and even though its not technically my genre of choice, it comes pretty close to a JRPG, and yet feels more pure than that, and somehow even deeper in a way. I'm just astounded by everything from the mechanics, to the presentation to the flow of this game and more. But especially those things probably. The "flow" of this game for example feels so fucking organic and open-ended that it essentially feels like no other game I've ever encountered. You can wander for hours semi-aimlessly and still have an amazing time and work towards progress. 

The climbing/paragliding thing is just about the coolest mechanic I've ever seen or played in a game and works as a really amazing foundation for one of the underlying aspects of this game, which is sheer unadulterated exploration. And I was saying it somehow reminds of a JRPG even tho it's Zelda and that has everything to do with the deep item-management and collecting, the deep cooking/crafting system, and the huge array of weapons which all transform the combat from being vanilla-as-fuck as it was in previous console Zeldas (barring Skyward I suppose) to really cool, challenging and pretty dang deep, for a Zelda game at least. And that, along with so much of this, including the incredible different experimental non-linearity of it, make this unlike any other than Zelda save the first, revolutionary entry. A lot of the depth also has to do with the crazy deep physics. Did I mention the physics?? And though there's only like 5 dungeons (I easily count Hyrule castle, and this is not including 120 shrines and the various fortresses/mazes), they're really ace and easily rival my favorite Zelda dungeons in the way in which the structure of the dungeons must themselves be manipulated in order to solve their puzzles (my next top 5 is gonna be Top Zelda Dungeons btw..). 

So yeah, this game is just freakin' incredible and this iteration of Hyrule is probably my favorite game world of all time. Every inch of it is beautifully lit, realized, and filled to the brim with little puzzles, shrines, formidable foes and questing galore. Also the horses. The horses are sick. And yeah, climbing to the tops of mountains and paragliding down (or later using Revali's Gale to ascend rapidly) is the most free I've felt in a game since the weirdly amazing web-slinging in Spider-Man 2 (PS2). Also the difference between how weak and basic you feel at first to how you feel toward the end when you have the Master Sword, a crazy good arsenal of weapons that you've curated, all the spells and Shiekah slate magic and all the amiibo-dropped gear attained from an illegal/frowned-upon amiibo deck is freakin awesome and even cooler than the dynamic progression of something like Dark Souls. And the whole first 10-20 hours or so of a new file are especially “special” to me. Not that it gets less fun-- in many ways it gets more fun as you get more capable and experienced-- but the Plateau segment is a master class in tutorial segment design, and the way you learn to live off the land is kind of incredible... There’s this whole Buddhist-esque anti-attachment thing the game forces you to accept regarding early weapons breaking all the time that help make you depend so heavily on scavenging and exploring and always looking for more loot just so that you can survive. You really learn to live off the land, and well that’s beautiful. And everything about all the various mechanics and the world feel so holistic and cohesive and unified in a way that I just haven’t really seen before.  Anyway, yeah I could go on but I think that mostly sums it up. This is the only game where it feels like your actually exploring an amazing natural environment, but without like sore feet and bugs and being sweaty and stuff. It's just all the good stuff involved in taking in a crazy beautiful environ. I already said that but yeah. This game feels restorative, peaceful, meditative. And I never get sick of those lonely little piano chords. It's good. Perfect even. Really a masterwork for me. And the DLC is sweet to boot and still incoming, so yeah. Me likey.  2. Final Fantasy XV-

Where I feel really good picking BotW as my #1, and can do it without hesitation, and it's not even a tough call to make as my favorite entry of its respective franchise, this one is a bit more complex. And like a lot of FF fans would probably rightfully scoff and write me off right away, whereas Zelda fans would probably be more accepting of BotW as the top pick. Because it involves a shit ton of caveats. For one thing, deep deep down, FFXI will actually always be my favorite video game experience of all time. Always. Forever. Sorry not sorry BotW. But I'm not putting that one, because I feel like there's something weird about listing an MMO that I only played for 3 years as a child and can't really revisit in a real capacity. Its sealed in time and perhaps that's what makes it special. Sure I could get on one of the couple of PC servers still going but it wouldn't be the same. Another caveat is FFVII, IX, and XII (Zodiac Age!!) are all, to me, way classier and probably on a technical level "better" than XV. And yet, I'm kind of have this disease where 64-bit games have aged worse for me than any other gen, and while XII is fucking awesome (Zodiac!! ^.^;;), I don't have quite as much fun playing that as XV (though its pretty close...). Somehow, despite all its short-comings, FFXV almost perfectly captures the charm and joy of this series, and all my memories of it, while containing them within a fucking gorgeous-- immaculately so at that-- package that is super freakin' playable compared to older turn-based titles. Like, ATB/turn-based FF will always be more "legit" in a sense, but I can't deny I am an action-JRPG addict and this game hits the sweet-spot for me.

Did I mention how beautiful it is? While some might see the new fixation on open-worlds as kind of redundant-- and BotW has now kind of revealed the flaws in the old triple-A formula for them--, I think this is just a reeeeally good rendition of the "open-world" concept, which is something I always wanted in FF. And while you can't join in with other players like in XI and carve your own path in the world (multiplayer is coming though...), there is a certain feeling of freedom felt in this game that makes so many other FF titles seem so limited (lookin at you XIII). Also, pretty. It's pretttttty. And if BotW's Hyrule is my favorite game-map, Eos is my favorite world in terms of like lore, look, and design. It's freakin cool. It looks real and there are cars and there are modern-looking people like us but there's also crazy monsters, magic, teleportation, robots and evil empires (well those are real). And the monsters seem like something out of an otherworldly Nat. Geo. the way everything is so wonderfully detailed. Its freakin cool Dinotopia shit in this bitch. So yeah, while there are flaws-- notably of which are the lack of customization in character-progression that I love in games like XII Zodiac Age and with the kind of unrealized story which is spread mercilessly across an anime mini-series and OVA-- this game feels like a perfect monument to my favorite series of all time. And like you can play all Nobuo songs while exploring this amazing world. Like seriously that tiny little feature is what puts this over-the-top. Otherwise I might have honestly chosen IX or XII Zodiac Age 'cause they're classy AF and the RPG mechanics are deeper. But fuck it, when I play this, it's basically the best visualizer for an endless Nobuo Uematsu soundtrack I could imagine. And like Shimumura's new stuff is great on top of that. This point falls apart 'cuz I could just play an FF actually composed by Nobuo, but like this way it's like an endless loop of my personal favorite Nobuo. Nobuo... 

But anyway... Yeah I like the look, combat, magic, world, characters, chocobos, and the look again. Also the potential... I think multiplayer could be really, really cool honestly. So while it bears some of the issues all post-Enix-merger FF games have (like weirdly dropping parts of the plot which is like...why???, or the fact that they're having to patch it all year, and are adding stuff (can you say DLC $$$$)), it's still a minor masterpiece for me. And while not as deep, or even as charming as old PS1 FF or 16-bit FF, its just so damn playable. I'm not a good retro-gamer like other people-- I like my games new and bright/shiny, and this game is shiny AF. So yeah. I clearly have to defend the hell out of this, but fuck it, it's great. Like seriously the design of everything? Just walk around and like look at it. LOOK AT IT. Character models!!! Lighting!!! Facial animation and movement!!! Omg. Okay, yeah I'll leave it at that. Don't hate me. 3. Super Smash Bros Wii-

I feel like I don't even have to explain this one. This is quite simply the perfect multiplayer game. And as with BotW and FFXV, I like these latest iterations a lot, which may seem sheepish and like plebian-core but fuck it. Melee was reeeeally fun back in like 2008, but I'm not trying to play that rn. Robin all day. And Cloud?? So yeah, there's just something kind of endlessly sweet about a game where the likes of Mario, Pac-Man, Sonic, Megaman, Cloud, Ryu and... Bayonetta (??) all collide in a game with amazing physics, awesome platform-y freedom-of-movement and a deep competitive scene which almost make this seem like some kind of weird master-game. Like the Master Sword of games. An Einherjar/Valhalla of all videogame character of fame and fortune. So yeah, its great. I can't speak about it to it to the length I did with FF and BotW because I feel like it speaks for itself. Its just pure, unadulterated Nintendo/pan-franchise world-colliding fun. 4. Nier Automata-

Nier/Drakengard lore is fucking crazy, deep as hell, and multi-faceted AF and Yoko Taro is freeeeakin cool and the best game director this side of Hideo Kojima. And where the first Nier is an amazing, lovably imperfect game-- clunky combat, and weird genre-hopping and all-- this one is like freakin' awesome to play front-to-back. Unless you like don't like abruptly inserted bullet-hell segments. But the main combat is irrefutably sick, which is crazy. Platinum games took a reeeeally weird game-world and made it feel super slick despite all the amazing quirks that are inherent to Yoko Taro's games. Also this is one of my like top 5 maybe 3 game soundtracks of all time. It's amazing and reminds me of my favorite Yuki Kajiura soundtrack for .Hack//Sign. Is there a term for awesome vaguely medieval-ish female-vocal heavy mystic-sounding music? 'Cause this game has it in spades and it's freakin sweeeet. Alongside some like soulful adult-contemporary R'n'B ballads? Buy yeah, amazing-feeling combat, a plethora of combos and weapons, a solid amount of depth to character progression, and really fun bullet-hell segments make this game sooooo playable and maybe my favorite action-RPG of all time (FFXV doesn't quite feel like a true action-RPG?)

But then, on top of that it has an amazingly evocative story, with wonderfully dynamic characters who are lovingly revealed over the course of multiple play-through, in a an epic struggle that revels in the philosophy of Sartre, Kierkegaard, and Marx among others. That in itself is freakin' crazy. Games/anime/movies with AI characters or like androids can be so cliche in their exploration of existentialism, and this game can seem like its gonna be like that at first, but it ends up making good on its promises, and functions as just a really cool exploration of a rich philosophical tapestry. And it's all beautifully told, in these really nice semi-muted colors and with these super lovely character models. Plus the open-world is surprisingly great to run around. I love the over-grown human city thing, and the super atmospheric music come together with the aesthetic to make this game so emotional. Like honestly, along with other aspects of the story, this game is sooooo feels-heavy for me. It can be really sad, and there's this amazing dichotomy/friction between how fun it is to play, and how like strait-up bad it can make you feel sometimes. To like even play it. Getting into that would be spoiler-y and stuff, but yeah I'll kind of leave it to there. The story is awesome. 2B and 9S are amazing. The concepts and way this game actually effect you are super unique, and all the presentation-aspects bring it together so beautifully. It's just like... wow. Like play this game. then play it 5 times to get all the endings. 5. Metal Gear Solid V-

I almost have to make the same caveats I did for FFXV for this game as well. Yes, I know, it's not perfect. It partly represents like the downfall of this whole series, and the darker side of video-games in general. There's a pachinko-level pay-wall type thing inserted right into this and there's some behind-the-scene drama involved that strait-up led to Kojima's departure from Konami? (firing??) Idk, idc, I don't have the energy for that, honestly. So maybe I'm a horrible MGS fan, but I'll be damned if I don't love this game unabashedly. I first played it during a time when I had basically spent 5 years not playing any video games besides Smash, and it was an amazing reintroduction into the world of triple-A titles. Emergent gameplay. Openness. The most handsome character model of all time (Big Boss is my daddy). And that Asia song "Only Time Will Tell". Seriously-- something about the way that song synchs up with the feel of sneaking into an Afghani military outpost in the early 1980's any damn way you please is like the story of this game for me, and part of why it's on this list. That song is everything. Like in the context of this game that is. But also outside of it too? But yeah the sheer openness is just incredible. Not open in the same way like Skyrim or BotW is, but in terms of how you complete each and every mission. It feels like your writing the script to your own big action movie every time you set out. Like the game doesn't force anything on you. Did I mention Big Boss is fucking hot. 

And yeah, great music, gameplay and overall presentation, and the cool base-management stuff adds this really cool RTS-ish depth that fleshes out the game wonderfully. Add some solid online PVP, a sweet mech and the gatdamn coolest most open-ended stealth gameplay I'm aware of, and you have yrself a winner. Sorry old, classic MGS, I gotta go with the new model. It's just so damn playable. Like yeah, I know, Konami is like really bad, and fucked up, and like if I really respected Kojima maybe I wouldn't chose this one? But like man I can't help it. I love it soooo much, contemporary triple-AAA-developer-dysfunction and all. Oh and Asia. And the Pere Ubu "Man Who Saved the World". And "Take On Me". Honestly without the tape-collecting/playing this might not be included. But yeah, its clearly great.

6. Dark Souls- Idk, I'm not even a huge Souls guy but this game is kind of breathtaking. I got it for cheap and went in a skeptic, and remained that way for a decent chunk of it, but around the time I was getting to Sen's Fortress things started to click like crazy. This game is undeniable and I'll leave it to the plethora of well-made YouTube analyzers to really get into why. But for me, as far as action-RPGs go, this feels like it has some of the most legit customization and progression of any RPG I've played. It's got an amazing world, with the vertical-nature of the map and way that inter-locking various paths slowly reveal themselves is an amazing thing to behold as the game unfolds. I also just really love the online aspects of this game. I played this game when Dark Souls III was just about to come out and it gave it this kind of spooky feeling. Like I still got invaded a good bit and had help when I wanted it from others, but I could tell it wasn't as busy as it might have been during its initial hey-day. Like playing a weird culty Dreamcast game online in like 2005 (Phantasy Star Online anyone?). This spooky feeling of people being there but not at the same time fits the lore and the world itself really well and that aspect is probably even more exaggerated now (plus the fact that I fuck co-op proves im a n00b). But the fact people were still playing it at all, and still do to this day, speak to how singular and amazing it is. For me, this is just the end-all be-all as far as  archetypal high fantasy worlds go-- at least as far as the darker side of things go. Its a bit heavy metal and dreary for me as far as fantasy goes (I like my shit kinda twee and anime-core), but if I want dark and bleak, with an underlying sense of old-world scenic beauty, this game is unbeatable. Like literally, I can't beat it. That's my one complaint: too hard! I'm a noob, maybe one day I'll git gud and stop getting wrecked-- one can hope... 7. Persona 5

This is weird to put after Dark Souls 'cuz if I'm honest I feel like this game has so much more charm and character and like personality than Dark Souls? Idk, I guess I can make that claim. Like Dark Souls has tons of personality, but like Persona 5? I guess it has to do with my slight preference for action-RPG over turn-based, but this game almost seems like one long ass 100 hour+ trek through sheer charm and personality. Hm, PERSONA-lity? Wow genius. But really, this game is just dripping with unique style and charisma. And I'll be honest, I wen't in expecting a lot and for a solid like 20 hours initially I wasn't all that into it. I'm still kinda an SMT noob so I think I'm just impatient for how long this game takes to reveal itself. It's just freakin big and deep that it literally takes that long and then some to truly get going. But once it does... oh boy does it. I think it might be the coolest turn-based game I've ever played in terms of just the sheer combat itself (sorry all pre FFXI Final Fantasy games???). Equal parts FF at its deepest and classiest and Pokemon at its um. Well idk, it's not as Pokemon as Ni No Kuni, but the Persona-collecting system is freakin great. And the level of challenge the combat/dungeons have seem almost pitch-perfect in a way RPGs rarely do. And then add in all the social links/dating sim components, and the open world, and the weird Sly Cooper-inspired stealthy dungeon-crawling and you have like one of the craziest, coolest most legit JRPGs of all time.

But yeah the saving grace for me is the actual turn-based system/combat itself. For a turn-based, its bizarre how kinetic and speedy it can feel. You have all the time you need to strategize if you so chose, but once you know what your doing it can be like lightning, right up until the point where your arguing with a demon to either fork over some loot or join your party, or else your moving fluidly back into great dungeon-crawling action. And then yeah all the crazy super-Japanese high-school student simulation stuff rounds things out delightfully. Like, I admit I like my RPGs to either be high fantasy or else cyber-punky and this is neither of those. Like I'm not even sure what aesthetic so much of this is... smooth jazz and sassy r'n'b moodiness, and like Japanese high-school-attending outcasts who moonlight as stylish treasure-hunting demon-slaying thieves and fight against the inner-world manifestations of corrupt adults-- like what is that vibe? I really don’t know, but I suppose its something all true otakus understand on some inherent level, even if it does remain mysterious and ever allusive in its charms to me. 

But the story is cool and huge (Seriously, 100+ hours! What?!!?) and plumbs psychological depths and doesn’t pull punches when it comes to getting a little dark, if maybe in a somewhat simplistic way. But yeah, this game oozes charm, like in the way Mona is so undeniable as a side-kick. I mean they’re almost annoying too but then like, no, Mona’s pretty great though. There are things I can almost imagine it doing that would make me like it even more (like the whole day-cycle thing never quite feels as open as I want it to? But like if it was it'd be like 300 hours. Just that thing where you speed through yr day and almost skip right to one scene in-class and then BAM its after-school), but yeah like this nitpick doesn't even fully make sense. It's just that this game is open-ended af and yet it can also sometimes feel kind of like your spending a lot of time clicking through text without a ton of control. But really that's just the like first 20-30 hours. And again the combat is just undeniably solid. So yeah, it's lite-novel-y and when yr not in dungeons it can seem like yr clicking through an anime almost, but I mean that's kind of also what makes it amazing.

And I'll just touch lightly on presentation stuff like the amazing soundtrack and the f a b u l o u s  style of all the menu's and just over-all visual flair of this game, 'cause literally everyone notices that instantly. The dungeons also seem kinda weirdly PS2-looking to me, but like it doesn't matter. This game has a crazy amount of depth and charm that make more immaculate looking triple-A's seem soulless. Plus, yeah like all the menu stuff and like visual segues make it seem so much more stylish than them too even though its clearly not on the same level technically. So yeah, this game’s a lot of win. I was skeptical of the hype honestly, and aspects of Persona 4's world are a little cooler to me still, but man this game is just like... yeah it's good. It's soo long and so written and chock full of a very distinct kind of charm that it seems comparable to having some kind of weird virtual pal inside my ps4 (Does that sound sad ^.^;;). Like it's just cool to know I can always pop it in and hang out with my old pals Ryuji, Ann and Morgana. And Makoto.  For like 100 more hours now. How long is this? Where am I, I've been playing it for 3 days, help!? 8. Odin Sphere Leifthrasir-

I'll have less to say to this 'cuz I'm pretty new to the hype-train and thank god 'cuz I wrote way too much about P5? But yeah, this game is the addictively-awesome side-scrolling action-RPG/Beat-'em-up I didn't know I needed in my life. At first I thought the over-all look was kind of not really my thing, but I've done a full 180, and while its not the like more traditional anime/FF-esque style I'm used to, I've come to see just how beautiful and fresh its style is. And then the combat itself is sweeeeeeet. Endlessly playable and as deep as you'd want a still kinda light-feeling action-RPG to be. Plus there's a deep cooking system which just always takes good action-RPGs or any game over-the-top for me. Most of the game is done exploring these really fun combat-filled levels but some respite is found in the mini-farming and cooking mechanics. And the crafting adds an extra dimension as well. Soooo deep. I also love that it scores you on how stylishly your playing by tracking yr combos. This is one of the more fluid and engagings JRPGs I’ve played, and the hand-drawn look is to die for. So yeah, I'll keep it short and sweet, but the action is great, the characters' various play-styles are wonderfully varied, and the overall presentation is just so unique and cool. Oh and the story ends up being like really legit? Caught me by surprise. It's mostly just good old fashioned sprite-based fun, with a really sick Norse-inspired fantasy aesthetic. A video game's video game (what does that mean?? (you get it)).

9. Dark Cloud-

The true OG "Dark" action-RPG of my dreams and heart-- sorry Dark Souls, you were a decade late. This game encapsulate the joy of PS2-era action-RPGs, a high-point for the genre. The kind of vaguely bland-but-still-unique fantasy look of it (a successful "Ocarina-killer" for my money, on a visual level at least), the procedurally-generated dungeon crawling, and the freakin’ awesome city-building and NPC-interacting make this game pure win. Like yeah, its a bit clunky with its combat, but charmingly so for me. Its mostly just got this really nice sustained vibe of like sheer pleasantness all throughout, and I just can't get enough of its over-all vibe after all these years. Harder to put this one into words... but yeah the city-building and little tiny touches with all the NPC-helping and questing is what make it special for me. Especially the city-building (you get to restore these little towns that have been ravaged and you have to make everyone happy with the way you set things up. So Japanese and so fun..) Like what a cool, weird feature that ends up being great. Idk, its great. I like the vaguely arabian-ish vibe too. It's just...  really good. It's just sheer PS2-style win. So yeah this one is mostly a lot on inarticulate nostalgia but fuck it. 10. .Hack//Infection-

Speaking of inarticulate nostalgia...Now I can't quite say this game is like truly a "good" game? All the way through at least. In some ways its part of a big cash-grab for Bandai-Namco. I'll go with the first one in the series, but its really just a piece of a whole along with 3 other games, that may have been a bit padded and intentionally designed to leach a whopping 200 US from a true dreamer back in the day, who just couldn't help themselves. BUT it's also kind of amazing. Like the combat and dungeon-crawling is a bit cut-and-dry (is it just me or are procedurally generated PS2 dungeons kind of sick?) but its enough. You have tons of party members to choose from, a plethora of magic scrolls to use if you so choose, and your 2 trusty little twin blades with which you can press X to slash with until the cows come home. A game like Kingdom Hearts as an action-RPG seems so much more fluid and kinetic and yet? Well KH is ridic, and if I'm gonna die on some hill for a goofy anime-core action-RPG it'll be this one any day. It combines my favorite aesthetics (mysterious celtic-y high fantasy AND cyber-punk) by way of being a game-within-a-game, and by being about a fictional MMO while not actually being an MMO it's kind of meta AF also. Also, the stuff with the emailing the other party members you meet and the system that has you increasing your bond through these simulated conversations with other players just reeeally gets to me, and seems cooler than Persona confidant-developing honestly. I'm a huge sucker for the original anime, and you got these really sick OVA anime discs with each entry which were set in the real world that the game existed in and even though that shouldn't factor in really, I admit it does. It all comes together as this kind of cool, weird, slightly-trashy anime wet-dream from my childhood at the end of the day. Also, some sick music, sick AF character designs, and an overall concept (that I'll actually defend to the death despite some of the superficial anime plotting/characters) round things out very nicely. Just the fact that this is a game about an MMO... like what a concept (and a decade before that SAO garbage fire shit). Plus Grunty raising. And the G.U. Last Recode remaster is right around the corner, OMG!!!!!!

also rans/runner ups: 11. SSX 3

12. Resident Evil 4

13. Katamari Damacy

14. Super Mario Galaxy

15. No More Heroes

16. Spider-Man 2

17. Catherine

18. Bomberman '93

19. Tekken 4

20. Marvel Vs. Capcom 2

#top 10 #top 20 #video games #gaming #gamer #gamr #final fantasy #ffxv #zelda #botw #mgsv #dark souls #nier automata #yoko taro #super smash bros wii u #smash #persona 5 #persona #ssx 3 #.hack//infection #dot hack #dark cloud #resident evil 4 #katamari damacy #super mario galaxy #no more heroes #lumines #spider-man 2 #bomberman '93 #tekken 4

[tearasshouse]

Attack on Backlog 2017 - No. 9 

Final Fantasy XV

Breakdown: PS4 version at 80ish hrs for the Platinum. Plenty of post-game content left undone; plenty of pre-timeskip content left untouched; figure I’ll go back to the game someday (ha ha, not likely) and be like, oh wow, this single-player MMO still has a lot of questing left for me to do, cool (but that won’t happen).

Final Fantasy 15 is a big, beautiful, incomplete, incoherent but ultimately fulfilling and worthwhile experience that won’t disappoint if you have realistic expectations. So, it’s kind of like being in a relationship! Hah. Speaking of relationships, like the ones depicted in this game, and also like my own with the FF series...

TL;DR time! So far I’ve gotten as far as: 

Sephiroth’s fight in FF7 where I parked my characters outside of the crater and went, Nah, putting a stop to that glorious (ly pathetic) summer where I spent my 13th or 14th birthday leveling up Materia or something. Whew. Somehow I just lost the nerve to continue despite grinding for hours upon hours. I didn’t even have KotR, so naturally I skipped Ruby Weapon and that just made defeating Sephiroth kind of... pointless?

disc 3 in FF9, but because I’d neglected and refused to learn Tetra Master up to that point, I pretty much hit a roadblock and could not progress. Thanks a lot! Thanks a fucking lot. I really liked this FF. The soft limits on class specialization, with the way weapons conferred different skills to different party members, but everyone could use pretty much anything, the soundtrack, the characters; a lot of it was great. Ditto about the story tho, wasn’t paying attention ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

fhe first 5 minutes of FFIV on the NDS.

almost 50 hours into Bravely Default, but put it down because the storybeats were just too inconsistently delivered, the grinding, though greatly alleviated with some QoL features, was still a huge grind, and something about the game just... never clicked.

taking a glancing look at copy of FFX/X-2 HD and putting the thing down because I have commitment issues.  

the first 15 minutes of FF Type-0 HD.

and whoa, before I forget, Steam says I have 13.2 hours in FF13. So there’s that. Great music though! Paradigm Shifting is cool in theory too, I guess. But this game is just awful. And now I want to go back and play it. Why do I do this?

All in all a very poor showing from me. FFXV was, comparatively speaking, way easier to dig in. “A Final Fantasy for fans and first-timers” they say. Well, I’m not sure if I fall into either of those camps. I guess I am a fan? Sorta? I couldn’t tell you about the lore, plot or characters of many of the games, but I do own one of these. And I used to listen non-stop to shitty low-bitrate .mp3s of Nobuo Uematsu’s soundtracks on my Walkman. And I had wallpapers of Rinoa and Yuna, and still own a really embarrassing FF8 wallscroll that was gifted to me?

So! As a casual fan then, I found this one... pretty good. I mean, there’s elements of every past Final Fantasy in its DNA. It feels like a Final Fantasy game, which is to say it feels like the ones which came after 12, which did the most to change up the ATB/turn based combat, and perhaps the composition/interaction of the characters, outside of maybe Tactics or 11. 

There’s so much to like here that I’m willing to forgive its shortcomings and missed potential, even if, by the end, the things it gets right is in equal measure to the things it misses the mark on or flat out lacks. It has so much charm and warmth that I’m willing to forgive Square’s misguided reach for critical mass market appeal what with its numerous marketing tie-ins and cross-promotions, or its divvying up of exposition to tie-in films and DLC. At least it gave us that ridiculous Cup Noodle quest line. At least it gave us that. I’m even willing to forgive Chapter 13, and I didn’t even play Verse 2.

I’ve not followed the game at all, so its understandable the ones who clamoured for something like Versus XIII would be a bit irked. All those amazing tech demos and trailers they’ve released over the years? I understand the pain, but ya’ll only have yourself to blame for buying into the pre-release footage. 

Yes, the Insomnia chapter was wholly underwhelming. Yes the pacing is weirdly rushed after you’ve hit Altissia onwards and becomes hyper linear. Yes Lestallum and Altissia are in general hilariously undercooked, non-interactive, tiny and I haven’t encountered something this disappointing since maybe hitting Markarth in Skyrim, where the magic of Skyrim’s first 50 hours really started to wear thin. We’ve truly hit a point where graphics tech has outpaced the ability and feasibility to render more organic, more reactive and believable AI simulation in towns and cities. Maybe all this increased fidelity strikes a dissonance with how we think worlds should be populated and behave? I don’t know. Witcher 3 looks incredible though, and perhaps that’s the game that shows you can have your cake and eat it too. Meaty, meaningful content that isn’t just throwaway Hunt quests, or helping some asshole with his car troubles for the umpteenth time. I’m of the opinion that all sidequests in RPGs devolve into kill or fetch quests, and the rare exception requires you to talk your way to success or solve some kind of puzzle and mechanically speaking there isn’t a whole lot you can do. So, that’s where good writing comes in. Fallout New Vegas, if I recall had fantastic writing in this regard. More recently NieR Automata had really rudimentary sidequests that were carried along with quirky written snippets that expanded upon the world. Then there’s the Witcher games and to a lesser extent the Yakuza series that construct entire stories around side content. Yes FFXV’s sidequests are... uniformly underwhelming. They’re all more or less MMO-like filler content for the sake of inflating the completion time and giving you some kind of incentive for exploring the world. And yes, Luna and Noct’s relationship is hilariously undercooked; she does her Aerith moment and it’s tits up from that point on. It’s a shame you can’t be with Iris though the game teases this; Aranea only shows up to do her thing and disappears; Cor straight up disappears; Gentiana does her thing and disappears, etc. People just disappear, for no apparent reason other than selling you DLC, or they didn’t know what to do with these characters because they are plot movers, nothing more. Sigh.

But you know what? It’s been awhile since I’ve played something like the first half of the game so yeah, sure, whatever. Throw on a podcast and go about overleveling past the main campaign. Go ahead and throw on that FF13 soundtrack and go pick up nutmeg (such a great soundtrack). 

Speaking of which, I loved the music. I might even call it majestic. I loved oddball world design of mashing what seems to be not-Southwestern & not-Pacific Northwestern USA with not-Venice, briefly not-Rivendell (Tenebrae?) & not-Tokyo. I loved playing grab ass with my boys after camping out in the mornings. I loved Ignis being the mom friend and the my headcanon where the guys store all their cooking and crafting ingredients in the same astral plane where Noctis keeps his weapons. I loved the photography feature and Prompto’s arc. I fucking loved fishing more than I thought would. I loved that there’d always be some kind of incidental dialogue when you’d go exploring or take up a quest. I loved that Bahamut had a creepy human face. I loved how dangerous and crappy the Reglia Type-F is to handle. I loved that Gladio would give Noct shit, even undeservedly at times. I loved that Regis and his crew went on a similar journey all those years ago. I loved that there’d be super high level mobs just chilling in the overworld and that level scaling isn’t a thing, but there would still be things that could one-shot you. I can appreciate a game that helps me with completing its campaign, even if it does so kind of forcibly, since open worlds tend to induce some kind of completion anxiety in me. Will you please go and fucking fight Ardyn already? 

About that fighting: I like it? I briefly tried Kingdom Hearts on 3DS and it was... It was not great. But I like the automation in this that allows for just enough player input where positioning and timing is more important than anything else. It’s not very strategic, and you don’t have much in the way of tactical forethought, but it looks cool! Props to Square’s animation team for blending all of it together into a somewhat coherent whole. It’s mostly flash, with just enough engagement to not be a entirely mindless affair. 

I think at the end of the day we all have some kind of preconception of what we wanted FFXV to be, and we were all left somewhat disappointed that it didn’t turn out to be that figment of our fancy. But it exists, its more than playable, there’s a lot to do and soak in and those post-credits scenes with Noct and the lads, and Noct and Luna with the photo you chose were enough to wash away the cynicism and disappointment. 

It feels like, with the completion of the Episode Ignis campaign and the successful rebirth of A Realm Reborn, Square might finally close the chapter on 13/Versus 13/15 and do things a bit better and more efficiently. Or maybe we’ll be subjected to a mobile hell and more games in 15′s mould, the latter of which wouldn’t be the worst thing? I keep saying it but I never follow through with going back to play the older mainline FF games. Now’s the time! Maybe.

#games of 2017 #attack on backlog #gaming #final fantasy #ffxv #final fantasy 15 #square enix #hajime tabata #yoko shimomura #final fantasy versus xiii #fabula nova crystallis

[wild-blue-sonder]

Kat Tracks: 2018

Well, it’s safe to say this was probably one of the worst years of the 2010′s. Fortunately I had a vast array of great music to choose from, so much so that I really struggled making this list. My favorites were either supportive and uplifting or moody and emotive; there was little in-between. Read on to discover what I thought was worth a listen in 2018.

1: Kuffdam & Plant- Summer Dream Okay, so this track didn’t come out this year; it was originally released in 2005 which explains why it sounded so nostalgic when I first heard it on Vonyc Sessions. It was re-released along with the Whiteroom and Stoneface & Terminal remixes, but this original is the best version in my opinion. Really takes me back to Eurodance of the new millennium, specifically the Best of World Trance Fantasia trilogy, as well as giving me Nalin & Kane vibes.

2: Galestian- Rituals This track was on my radar for a long time because it started receiving lots of exposure on the Planet Perfecto podcast late last year. When it came out in January I nabbed it without hesitation. I’ve gotten more into progressive house over the years thanks to stuff like this.

3: Paul Oakenfold- Broken (Mick Parks & Danny Stubbs Remix) Paul Oakenfold feat. Carla Werner- Southern Sun (Matt Darey Remix) Early in 2018 Paul Oakenfold became the first DJ to play a set on Mount Everest ‘cause he’s a crazy cool guy like that. These two tracks are from the Mount Everest Base Camp Mix released in February. There’s a lot of good stuff on it so I recommend you check out the whole thing.

4: John O'Callaghan- Next Stop Muddy Waters I’m pretty supportive of O’Callaghan. I’ve had his stuff in my library since his 2007 release Big Sky featuring Audrey Gallagher, but he sort of fell off my radar after 2014. I was surprised to hear this is the direction his style has gone in, but he does tech trance really damn good.

5: Seven Lions & Jason Ross feat. Jonathan Mendelsohn- Ocean If you’ve seen my other lists you know I love Seven Lions. The man is a genius, I swear. At the very least he’s a beyond skilled producer. I also love the lyrics which is something I can’t always say about trending tracks. This year marked Jeff’s bromance with Jason Ross; the two of them churned out a few quality tunes in addition to Ocean. Go check them out!

6: Markus Schulz feat. Emma Hewitt- Safe From Harm (Club Mix) Honestly I don’t love this track like the others. The lyrics are generic, Emma Hewitt’s vocals aren’t very compelling, but right around the halfway mark of 2:50 I sat up and took notice because I’ve heard that breakdown before! I scoured my library and matched it to the Voodoo & Serano remix of Forever by N-Trance. Skip to 3:30 and take a listen for yourself!

7: Solarstone- Thank You Richard Mowatt produced this track after his father passed away late last year. Its light, uplifting melody is the kind we usually hear in tribute songs to deceased loved ones, such as RAMelia (Ram Boon’s wife) and Amber (Steve Helstrip’s dog of 15 years). Whether back by lyrics or not, tunes like these are emotive and leave a lasting impact.

8: Craig Connelly feat. Roxanne Emery- This Life When one of my favorite producers and one of my favorite vocalists collaborate on a song, I’m bound to fall in love with it. After the breakdown it gets even more interesting.

9: Murtagh- 8AM Halfway through the list we arrive at this stunning chilled piece from both an artist and a label I’ve never heard of, but I’m glad it got exposure on A&B’s Group Therapy podcast because it’s really lovely. Is it a subtle nod to ATB’s 9AM? I don’t know but I enjoy the previous hour just as much.

10: Nari & Milani feat. Tava- I Am Alright (Laurent Wolf Remix) I’m not completely sure what genre this track falls into. Prog house? Electro house? EDM? General electronica? Regardless it’s catchy as heck thanks to those violins in the background.

11: Andrew Bayer- In My Last Life Snippets of this album began dropping before its August release. Tidal Wave is a personal favorite as well as the intro track; it gives you a sense of what to expect and maintains momentum through the whole album. Definitely give it a listen and if you like it, ride that wave through the rest!

12: Re:deep- Fragile (Ryan Davis Reconstruct) Wasn’t quite sure what to make of this when I first heard it because I’m not usually one for ambient music, but this is... slightly more than that. It’s not quite deep house, though. I’m also typically a sucker for piano in my tunes but this one features a cello melody that lends a rather somber vibe to the track.

13: Above & Beyond feat. Richard Bedford- Happiness Amplified Oh look, it’s one of my favorite male vocalists on a new track from A&B! Obviously I’m going to love it. This was my feel-good anthem for 2018. I just love belting out the chorus.

14: Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs- Body Move (Raito Remix) The award for most unconventional song of the year goes to this. I don’t really know why I like it. It could be because the breaks genre is slowly growing on me since I also enjoy drum & bass. Plus, that artist name.

15: PureNRG- Chrysalis Chrysalis hooked me from the moment I first heard it on Pure Trance radio. It almost sounds like it could belong to a movie soundtrack, like a superhero film or something, thanks to that uplifting breakdown. It also sounds like an aural metaphor for breaking out of the cocoons we made to survive 2018. We’ll all be majestic butterflies in 2019!

16: Spark & Shade- Solstice I like this track simply because I need more uplifting trance in my life. That’s it. It’s evocative of summer, sunshine, and beach parties.

17: Orkidea- Forward Forever So this track sort of took over at the end of the year. I heard it everywhere; all the top DJs were playing it. Honestly it annoyed me at first thanks to the repetitive robot vocal, but then the damn thing grew on me and I was like yeah, you know what? Forget this crap year. The only way to go is forward!

18: Roger Shah feat. Aisling Jarvis- Call Me Home & Hold Your Head Up High (Aly & Fila Remix) I saved these tracks for last because I think they’re the best. Call Me Home was a release late in the year, but it was worth the wait. I’m such a sucker for Shah’s acoustic guitar. Aly & Fila’s banging remix was popular over the summer, but it too fits well with the theme of brushing off all the terrible things 2018 dumped on us. Here’s hoping 2019 will be an awesome year for everybody.

Previous Lists: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013

#kat tracks #music #trance #progressive trance #uplifting trance #progressive house #chillout #electronica #trancefamily #soundcloud #beatport #best of #2018

[evilisk-played]

Labyrinthine December Part 12: A Bunch of Bastard Bosses

I’ve hit another wall

So I cleared Floor 24 with no real problems. I cannot progress past Floor 25 though, as it involves finally tackling the several bosses I’ve been ignoring up until this point. So far, we’re at:

Three Sigil Bosses (one of which is needed to progress past Floor 25) Utsuho (which is a recruitment fight. Prerequisite: find Kanako, attach 4 Rods) Yuuka (recruitment fight. Prerequisite: find 3 Flowers) Maribel V2 (recruitment fight. Prerequisite: get 5 Stars, activate switches)

I’m not sure I’m actually at a point where I can feasibly kill all of these bosses, but the point is there is a lot to be done~

Flame Tyrant (Floor 24)

This fight was free, it only took two tries to beat. We actually got stupid, stupid lucky on the opening turn: I boosted Cirno so she could get the first turn... but apparently not enough, as the boss got the first turn by a millisecond... but the boss used Fireball instead of Flowing Hellfire... but it targeted Komachi in Slot 1... and Komachi is literally the only character in the party that the boss isn’t able to kill in 1 hit... so yeah, really stupid lucky right there. 

Everyone knows the strategy is to fill up the party with paralyzers but I went full overkill here: alongside all the paralyzers, I added Yuyuko (so she can ATB drain), paralysers, Wriggle (so she can use her super effective poison), Kanako (so she can use her cold nuke) and Ran (so she can buff cold nuke). It was a Paralysis Parade~

Celestial Bright Demon (Floor 22)

This fight was a pain to research. First off, this boss is one of those “I use a specific move X amount of turns” boss like Tam’s Foe. If you’re stupid, like me, you probably won’t catch on to this without a guide. Secondly, this boss has really nasty attacks that are hard to parse in-game (i.e. it uses Ether Flare and Ultimate Light Cannon).

On the first point: yeah, I’m kinda dumb in that way. Though I like the way Labyrinth of Touhou will do these kinds of bosses, I usually have a hard time figuring out when I’ve run into these bosses (mostly because I get very distracted by all of the micromanaging involved in boss fights and don’t really pay attention to the enemy’s turn count). To show how bad I am at this, the boss fight immediately after this one pulled the same gimmick (using a powerful group attack every X amount of turns) and I also didn’t catch on to this at all. I’m really dumb like that, sometimes.

On the other point: LOT in general has a problem with conveying information to the player in-game, and trying to figure out how Ether Flare and Ultimate Light Cannon actually works (in terms of damage) is just one example of this. So when I was researching this fight, I did a bunch of research runs with Tenshi (aka my “Main” Tank). What I was seeing in this situation was Tenshi being almost destroyed by these attacks even with her ridiculous levels of DEF and MND. The natural conclusion here, then, would be that I’m underlevelled for the fight, no? I mean, if my best natural tank can’t tank these hits, there’s no way my other characters stand a chance, right?

Well, actually, the attacks have piercing properties so DEF and MND really don’t matter as much as HP and affinities. Affinities is very important, as apparently having anywhere from 300 to 400 of any of those affinities is enough to make either attack more manageable. Of course, this is not something you’d ever know just by playing the game. There’s a lot of secret information in this game since a lot of basic information (even enemy health) isn’t actually given to you.

Boy does the game love to not tell you anything. At least now I know that both attacks can be neutralized with higher WND and MYS. 

Anyway... once I figured out how this boss worked, this was a pretty simple, if annoying, battle. The boss starts with Magic Drain, and every fourth turn after that is also a Magic Drain. That’s the main gimmick (along with the fact it uses Ether Flare and Ultimate Light Cannon). It’s not really interesting, as a lot of focusing and character switching is involved. Seriously, just equip those WND and MYS affinities (and also add status resistances), make good decisions and if you’re at a good enough level, you’ll be able to barely keep your party safe and topped up in between all the mana drains.

My one tip is to use Remilia, Meiling, Youmu and Minoriko in the starting party. All four of these characters aren’t too impacted by the constant mana drains; Youmu has a high SP recovery rate, while Remilia, Meiling and Minoriko have very, very cheap spells that they can use after 1 or 2 recovers. 

Anyway, I have a bit of grinding to do to prepare for the next bosses.

#labyrinthine december #labyrinth of touhou

[goldeagleprice]

Community Voice Responses (November 20, 2018)

From the Oct. 26 Numismatic News E-Newsletter:

Can the U.S. Mint bring newcomers to coin collecting?

Here are some answers sent from our e-newsletter readers to Editor Dave Harper.

  No. Not with the current junk that Congress mandates as coins for the Treasury to mint.

Wesley Ellis Portland, Ore.

  Look at the United kingdom’s Royal Mint and their Portrait’s of Britain; Beatrix Porter; and New Paddington programs.

I recall there being a contest on the Portrait’s of Britain where collectors finding the first coin(s), released at the sites, could log into the Royal Mint’s site and track their finds for each site released.

I am sure this has brought many new collectors into their fold.

Look at the Royal Canadian Mint and their programs.

Both are more collector oriented than the U.S. Mint, and they are following collector market research and providing what the collectors want at a reasonable price.

Lorne LaVertu Herndon, Va.

  Absolutely NOT. The Mint continues to issue poorly designed, ugly coins and charges too much for them. The disgusting condition of the metals used in the coining process doesn’t help either. When young people, the target group for new collectors, see the computer-designed, ugly coins being offered, and the extremely high price charged by the Mint for those ugly coins, they rightly exhibit no interest in our hobby.

Rick Anderson Tucson, Ariz.

  It’s possible, but only if they expand their marketing. People buy what they see advertised. Unless a person is on the Mint’s mailing list or email list, most people have no knowledge of Mint products.

In Patrick Heller’s article about the Mint’s intentions, he mentioned new products, new packaging and even new characters to attract younger collectors, but there was no mention of how the Mint intends to get this information in front of potential newcomers.

Peter Glassman Schaumburg, Ill.

  No, the Mint cannot create new collectors, but they can turn off new collectors by producing large volumes of issues (crap) which have no reason to exist besides to have a product to use to separate them from their money.

Coinage used to be a vehicle to celebrate and display images of general importance to the nation. In the last couple of decades we have seen an enormous proliferation of issues that do or should not qualify such as, for example, the Capitol Visitor Center coins, the 5-ounce silver “quarters,” reverse proofs, enhanced uncirculated, etc.

The Treasury Department has discovered the joy of raising money for the government without raising taxes. Unfortunately, they have become subject to the sales department, which now invents new products solely for their potential to raise money.

Tom Miller Santa Rosa, Calif.

  Yes, but I think the U.S. Mint may br talking to the wrong people.

Of those 60-70 of invited guests that attended the meeting, how many were under 18 years old or under 12 years-old?

They need to be talking to the people they what to target.

While I think talking to older, seasoned collectors is a good start, they need to be talking to the people they want to target, kids.

Ask young collectors what excites them about coin collecting, and also ask young non-collectors what sorts of things would get them interested coin collecting.

Apparently at the meeting some market research was presented, but at least in the article, there is no breakdown of how that research was conducted or who was included.

I think the U.S. Mint could take a hint from some other past hot collectables, like POGS and non-sports cards, PEZ dispensers and others. This all had one thing in common, most were easy to get, but there were some rare ones as well that everyone chased after. The fun for kids is in the hunt. But you can’t make it too hard.

I’ve been in PR and marking for over 40 years and a coin collector for over 50. I know a little about both.

Ken Freeze Martinez, Calif.

  Yes, this has been an age old problem, how to get new collectors. A listing of coin shows has dwindled over the years. So have coin clubs for that matter. Perhaps even people are dying off, without taking into account for a someone to pick up the banner on this. A couple of coin clubs used to have 75-80 members attend. Before moving out of the area, this was down to half. Even a couple of clubs folded because of lack of interest, and funds.

Perhaps some shows can be done in some halls, instead of some hotels. Less cost, fewer dealers may be the answer (in part). With less table fees to collect, instead of one or two times a year, two to four times a year may prove worthwhile. I am sure nonprofits can use the rental income, as well as venues using potential savings. What a concept! Think about it, and let some local operators know. After all, in time it will not hurt.

Gary Kess Sherman, Texas

  My answer is no, because the prices of their coins are a little high.

Robert Odulio Address withheld

  I hope so. It would be nice to have the younger generation’s energy and fresh ideas. The Mint hit a home run with the state quarter program and got a lot of non-collectors checking their pocket change to fill boards and albums. Many people have less interest in the ATB program. Cutting- edge commemorative themes and designs might be a way to attract new collectors. Think about the buzz created by the concave design of the 2014 baseball coins!

Mark Vezzola Address withheld

  If the images on the coins hold little sway over the viewer, why should they find them adoring? When producing different effects on the coins depends on technology rather than a craftsman’s ability, why marvel? The shadow of the dichotomy looms even as another delights in the machine not the hand. When the future of money looks away from the tangible to the intangible why stick with it other than to savor its last days? What does a mint mean when it produces a product that isn’t the basis of money?

Rchard Koch Address withheld

  This article was originally printed in Numismatic News Express. >> Subscribe today

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#Precious Metals