A Green Mushroom

I finished Final Fantasy XV already.  I've been home sick so I had a lot of time to blast through this game.  It was really fun and I liked it a lot! But in a lot of ways Final Fantasy XV is an ambitious mess.  You can see that this game was caught in development hell for a long time.  There are a ton of different ideas thrown together and while some work... some just don't.  Some are super deep and others are barely fleshed out.  There are a lot of questionable decisions in the game design and just little inconsistencies too.  Overall, this game is ambitious and even though it doesn't always succeed at what it sets out to do... at least it tries. But despite that, I liked this game a lot and I love seeing another mainline Final Fantasy come out!  It feels like this was a game Square Enix needed to get out of their development pipeline so they could finally move on and start on the next one. Before I go further I should say that even tho...

Mobius Final Fantasy did a few things right away that let me know what I was in for.  The first hour or so is back to back tutorials.  After that it quickly becomes apparent that this is set up in the same fashion as most modern F2P games that are trying to get the most money out of you. There are energy timers, multiple types of currency, various tickets, cards to combine together, and ever elusive rare drops.  Trust me, you've seen all this before. But Square Enix was really pushing that this game was different and it had high production values so I stuck with it for about four or five hours.  The graphics do look nice on the phone and there's actually somewhat of a unique story in here, but besides that I found everything else lackluster.  The battle system is much more about what you have equipped than it is about any particular intelligence in battle.  They actually have an auto-battle option that will always do the optimal thing for you, basic...

Final Fantasy Brave Exvius is another Final Fantasy mobile title that I really wanted to like.  I love the series and I keep waiting for them to release a good mobile game in the spirit of Final Fantasy. Instead, they keep releasing these BS F2P games that are designed to prey on our nostalgia and get us to pay money for random heroes or items or whatever it is this time. I hate it.  I hate that they keep doing this. I want to pay them for a Final Fantasy mobile game and play that game on my phone.  I don't ever want it to ask me or prod me into paying again.  I want it to be a complete game that I can buy once with interesting mechanics not designed to extract as much money as possible from me. *sigh* This game was super disappointing.

When they announced the Final Fantasy XV release date (September 30th by the way) they also released a brand new demo. The first Final Fantasy XV demo took multiple hours to play through, had a huge portion of the gameplay systems, and had a large part of the open world to explore.  It was a great taste of the game. Since this is the "Platinum" demo I expected even more! Instead I got a 19 minute walk while a mythical creature sent me text messages on the smartphone it handed to me.  It was weird.  And unsatisfying. Why is this the Platinum demo?  Why even put this out in the wild?  My total playtime was only 19 minutes and 5+ of those minutes were loading screens. I'm super disappointed in this demo.  I expected more from you Final Fantasy XV.

FFX-2 is one of the Final Fantasy spin-off games that I've been the most excited to get back to.  I remember the basics of the story but the main thing that stood out in my mind from the game is the battle system. Firing up the remastered HD version on my Vita I quickly found that I still love the battle system.  It's the fastest and most active version of the Active Time Battle (ATB) system that is found in the majority of Final Fantasy games.  I love how dynamic is it too, it allows characters to swap out their class via dress spheres in the middle of the battle. The progression system ties directly into it.  Each character can use any dress spheres, but each dress sphere levels up it's abilities separately for each character.  You'll naturally start relying on certain characters with certain dress spheres but the system is flexible enough that you could change out all three character's classes at any time, even in the middle of battle. After playing...

Over the past couple days I've gotten to start digging into Final Fantasy Explorers.  It's a Final Fantasy spin-off game for the 3DS. It's basically Monster Hunter by way of Final Fantasy. After somewhere in the 6 to 8 hour range with the game I'm feeling very "meh" towards it.  I love the premise, getting to use Final Fantasy classes against monsters in the world.  But the game itself feels slow and directionless. It has really bad messaging to player.  It's hard to know what to focus on or what to do to improve your character.  There's also almost no story, which is typically something that keeps me invested in Final Fantasy games. I've finding Explorers less fun than I hoped it would be.  But it's not a straight up bad game.  There can be moments of fun against enemies or fighting giant eidolons out of the Final Fantasy lexicon like Ifrit and Shiva. I think I'm going to put this one on the backburner.  It might be better su...

Lightning Returns opens with some beautiful cutscenes.  Square still knows how to make some gorgeous pre-rendered stuff. After that the game almost immediately becomes incomprehensible.  Throwing around a bunch of terms that don't have any relevance to a new player.  Final Fantasy XIII had this problem too, but in different ways.  Lightning Returns uses words that we know but in ways that are obvious different in the game.  God, Chaos, Ark, Savior.  They're used in a specific way in-game that doesn't actually map to the real-world terms. I actually hate that they're using these characters from FFXIII but they aren't actually the same characters at all.  They've changed so much that they might as well have been wiped clean and replaced with all new characters.  Snow is a king or something.  Lightning calls herself a savior un-ironically.  Hope is here too but he's some kind of coordinator for Lightning's adventures and he's young ...

Ok, I finally finished the main story of Heavensward.  Let's talk. This is Final Fantasy XIV's first expansion and for me it's a mixed bag.  There's both good and bad. First, The Bad.  I hated leveling through this expansion.  Heavensward increased the level cap from 50 to 60.  The first 5 levels weren't too bad, but the xp curve after level 55 drove me crazy.  The story no longer gave enough experience to keep leveling up and I had to do a ton of grinding.  I nearly gave up on this expansion at level 57, 58, and 59.  I would finish literally every quest available to me and still have half a level of experience points left that I needed.  It was infuriating. But the reason it was so infuriating was because the story was level gated... and the story was fantastic. So, let's talk The Good.  The story is amazing.  It is easily the best story in an MMO expansion that I've ever experienced.  It builds on the story ...

After my disappointing stint with Final Fantasy Tactics I thought I would go back to some of my early Final Fantasy roots and dig out my copy of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.  This is my all time favorite Game Boy Advance game and it's one of the Final Fantasy games that I've put the most time into. When I booted up the game for the first time I already had two separate save games on the cartridge, each with over 50 hours played in them. I started up a new game and after the intro missions it all came flooding back to me.  I have such strong memories of playing this game.  It's really good!  The general battle structure is similar to Final Fantasy Tactics but it gets rid of the deal-breaking annoying features of that game. I love Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and I've beaten it multiple times.  And you know what?  After a couple hours with it I realized that I don't feel the need to beat it again right now.  It's a great game but I've alread...

I don't like the difficulty curve in this game.  That's my initial impression.  I loved the first few missions of Final Fantasy Tactics, but then I ran into a brick wall as far as difficulty was concerned. I should mention, I'm playing the remastered PSP version of this game on my PS Vita called Final Fantasy Tactics War of the Lions.  Just another reason to love my PS Vita.  It plays so many classic Playstation games. Despite the difficulty curve that I ran into, Final Fantasy Tactics is a good game.  All the underlying systems are solid.  I can see how it's been a huge influence on all the tactical RPGs that have followed it.  And the story is great.  It's a conflict on a grand scale, but the main character is right in the thick of it.  It seems like Tactics delivers on the grand scale conflict in a way that Final Fantasy XII failed to do. In some ways the game is starting to show it's age.  It has unskippable story sequences...

I got my second class to the level cap in Final Fantasy XIV!  I now have my Bard and also  my White Mage at level 50! Healing has been really interesting because I've never played a healer in a MMO before.  I suppose I've probably fooled around with some at very low levels but I've definitely never taken one to the level cap in any MMO. It's amazing how I'm basically playing a different game when I'm a healer.  My job is to keep my party alive during crazy boss battles.  That's often easier said than done.  There's more pressure to perform than when I'm playing a DPS class, but less pressure than when Tanking.  It's actually hitting a sweet spot for me.  I can do tanking and DPS just fine but tanking is a bit too stressful to be fun. Now, when I'm running level 50 content I have options!  I can change up my playstyle for whatever mood I'm in!  It's also really nice to be able to help out members of my Free Company easier sin...

My first thoughts on started Final Fantasy XIII-2 were: I have no idea what's going on. Lightning is in Valhalla fighting a new enemy.   There's an epic battle that feels like it belongs at the end of a game, not the beginning.  It is given no context.  Then a random new character is transported there through time and/or space and told to go on a mission to bring Serah to Lightning. Then we cut to Serah who has memories of the events of at the end of Final Fantasy XIII.  Unfortunately for her, most people don't remember it the same way.  They all say that Lightning was never there at the end of Final Fantasy XIII. After playing for the first few hours of the game it becomes apparent that timelines are mixed up and there are paradoxes everywhere.  The game is structured around unlocking new timelines, traveling through time, and solving paradoxes. It's not a bad premise, even though it's explained very poorly, but the gameplay doesn't do enough t...

I leveled all the classes in Final Fantasy XIV to 15 or higher!  My Bard is still my main class at level 50 and pretty well geared, but I wanted to branch out.  The run from 1-15 gets a little grindy in the 10-15 range so I buckled down and just got it done for all the classes.  The best part about hitting 15 is getting access to the dungeon finder. As soon as a class hit level 15 I started taking it through low level dungeon finder and getting a feel for it.  I've found I'm really enjoying tanking and healing.  A big part of this might be the super fast queue times.  They're amazing! When I was leveling my main Bard class it would take 30-45 minutes to queue for a dungeon since I was DPS.  When playing a healer or tank it has never taken more than 5 minutes in the dungeon queue.  It's great!  As soon as I want to run a dungeon... I just do. Out of all the remaining classes I latched onto Gladiator and Conjurer.  These are the ...

Final Fantasy Record Keeper launched last week on iOS and Android.  I dug into it for a few days to see what it had to offer.  I was trying to see if there was much long term appeal in the game or if it was something I could let go of relatively quickly. Like I said, it only lasted for a few days.  Then I had experienced enough to delete the game and move on with my life. It's a free-to-play Final Fantasy nostalgia game.  The hook is that you get to relive many of the famous Final Fantasy scenes from across the whole Final Fantasy series.  You get to collect your favorite characters and make your dream party to fight battles with.  Find characters, collect gear, acquire new abilities, and level up.  It sounds great on paper. Unfortunately, Final Fantasy Record Keeper is there to prey on your nostalgia... not to celebrate it.  It's much more forgiving than most free-to-play games.  I never felt like I had  to buy anything. ...

This is an interesting situation.  I can continue my mainline Final Fantasy project... in demo form.  With the release of Final Fantasy Type-0 I was able to pick up the Final Fantasy XV demo.  It has it's very own title, Final Fantasy XV: Episode Duscae.  I have no idea what that title is supposed to mean, but that's ok.  It's about three or four hours of content and gives a taste for the systems and characters in the game. The developers have said it's only part of the middle of the game and it's not taken directly from the story, it's been modified to become a demo.  It's also obvious that a bunch of things are missing since the game isn't done yet. But, there's enough game here to get a feel for it. I've played enough that I'm excited to see what the final game is like.  It's a reinvention of the series, just like every mainline game before it.  I've seen plenty of complaints online about the setting, characters, mechanic...

I finished up Final Fantasy Type-0 last night!  As always with Final Fantasy spin-off titles it was really interesting to see what they did with the game and where they differed from normal. I think the best thing they did with Type-0 is making it a mature game in a way that no other Final Fantasy game has been before.  Within the first few minutes you see an actual tragedy of war.  Death and being mortal are huge themes throughout the whole game.  And death often happens brutally, with blood.  Blood may not seem like a big deal in a game with war, but there is rarely any blood in a Final Fantasy game.  I'm surprised by how much weight it gives to the injuries and death in this game. The themes and the story in Final Fantasy Type-0 are the strongest parts.  I loved watching the members of Class 0 develop together as the story progressed.  By the end of the game I felt a connection with each member, even though there are 14 playable charact...

I played to level 15 with all three magic classes.  Later, these classes evolve and split off into more than three jobs once they reach the job stage at level 30, but all Discipline of Magic jobs stem from these three classes. Level 15 is a key point in Final Fantasy XIV because it's the point at which you can use the Duty Finder to automatically find groups and run dungeons.  It's when the game really picks up and becomes much more fun. Dungeons are one of my favorite parts of the game and they also give great loot and experience.  I would much rather level via dungeons than via grinding out Leve Quests.  And that's what I've had to do while getting these classes up to 15.  Lots of Leve Quests. Actually, under level 10 isn't too bad if you do your class quests and your class hunting log.  It'll generally get you to level 10 without too much grinding.  But leveling from 10 to 15 is a slog.  That's where Leve Quests come in.  Unfortu...

I did my first raids in Final Fantasy XIV!  After finishing my run through of all the level 50 dungeons I figured it was the next piece of content to experience. There are two main sets of raids in the game at the moment, The Crystal Tower and the Binding Coil of Bahamut.  The Crystal Tower is much more approachable and newbie friendly, so that's what I did. I had a set of guildmates walk me through the entire thing.  This is definitely the best way to learn the fights.  I'm sure you could find youtube videos too, but learning from real people is awesome.  Especially people who will answer your questions and not get frustrated that it's your first time. They were all running it anyway because of the weekly incentive Final Fantasy XIV provides.  The game developers are so good at social engineering.  Once per week you can run through the entire Crystal Tower set of raids and if you complete all three raids you get an item that can increase the...

Type-0 just released on PS4!  As I'm writing this, I've played the first four hours or so of the game.  Just enough to get an impression. I have a bunch of minor issues to nitpick, so let's get that out of the way, because I actually like the game.  Here we go.  It's obviously an upscaled port from a lesser game system.  The graphics could easily have come from a PS2, though they came from a PSP in this case.  There's a lot of loading between areas of the map.  I'm sure that made sense on a less powerful system, but it's annoying here.  At least it's really fast loading.  The voice acting is a little forced and I doubt the actors got to record their dialog together.  Tone and responses to statements don't always mesh well.  Just like in Final Fantasy XIII there are a lot of proper nouns early in the game which aren't clearly defined.  But, it's not as bad or unclear as Final Fantasy XIII, so it has that going for it. Tha...

I "finished" Final Fantasy XIV, but I've actually still been playing it.  My twitter friend and free-company mate (guildmate) in the game, Belghast , encouraged me to jump back on and try some of the content that unlocks at level 50. Wow, there is a ton of content that unlocks at level 50.  When I wrote my wrap-up post I was at 84 hours of play time after leveling to 50 and completing the main story.  I'm now over 160 hours and I have yet to repeat content after hitting the level cap.  I haven't even had to run the same endgame dungeon twice. Let's talk about content.  Final Fantasy XIV releases huge amounts of content on a regular basis.  In one of their recent "small" updates they patched in an entire mini-game center and new location in the game called the Gold Saucer... on top of adding new story quests and dungeons. At this point, after 5 major patches, there is almost as much story after level 50 as there is leading up to level 50.  ...