"an aggressive waste of time" (ffxv)

Maybe the cobblestone girl got promoted

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To me they look like 3D photoscans of those plastic models they use in eateries in Japan to show how the dishes look like.

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If FF12 is ā€œan MMORPG you play by yourselfā€ I guess that makes it an RPG, huh

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having played it, can confirm

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Just finished the main story last night. WOW, I did not expect a single thing that happened in the final chapter. Donā€™t really want to spoil anything, but Iā€™ll say that itā€™s clear that the history of Final Fantasy has not been forgotten, and somewhere at SE there is a person who is very interested in seeing what certain elements of older games in the series would look like (whether that be visually or conceptually) in a game made with todayā€™s modern technology and sensibilities.

The game is just encrusted with callbacks to older games, both obvious and obscure, in a way that feels more like an homage/retrospective than FF9ā€™s ā€œReferences Checklist: The Gameā€.

At the same time, they made a lot of daring choices this time around. Paring down the list of magic spells available was a very interesting move. If you count, for instance, Blizzard and Blizzara as two different spells, there are only 12 spells in the game! And none of them is Cure! Classes are gone entirely as well, none of your characters ā€œfills a roleā€ so much as ā€œhas things they doā€. For example, while Gladiolus uses giant swords and shields, Iā€™d be hard pressed to say he fills any kind of ā€œwarriorā€ or ā€œtankā€ role. He just gets out there and smashes stuff until thereā€™s no more smashing to be done. He doesnā€™t taunt to draw aggro, he doesnā€™t have oceans of HP unless you specifically give it to him, heā€™s just a guy who prefers big swords. The traditional ā€œnew town means buy new weapons->grind cash to buy new armor->solve the townā€™s thematic problems->move on to next townā€ loop is also completely out the window in favor of new towns feeling more like rest stops than anything else. Thatā€™s not particularly a bad thing. Fits with the theme, Iā€™d say.

What I really liked about this one is how much the characters felt more like real people than any other FF. Theyā€™re not a prophesied band of mythical heroes. Okay, well, except for Noctis. The other guys, though, are just his buddies. He grew up with them, and theyā€™re all pals, and they wanted to accompany him on his combination road trip/bachelor party. They have backstories of their own, a history with the main character, and they have personalities and individual interests. Whenā€™s the last time you remember a party member in a FF game talking about another party member in a way that wasnā€™t supposed to be either a dramatic plot moment or a hackneyed slapstick comedy skit?

Iā€™ve been a fan of Final Fantasy since the SNES days. I own at least one physical copy of every game in the main series, and several of the spinoffs as well. My first game in the series was playing FF1 on NESticle back in the 90s. Iā€™ve played and beaten (with the singular exception of XII, in which I got to the 11th hour ā€œtime to go to the final dungeon, guys!ā€ moment, then ground myself to burnout on Hunts) every game in the series with a Roman numeral in the title (that wasnā€™t followed by a colon, or ā€œ-2ā€), and I feel like this one is the most solid installment since the PSX days. Itā€™s very different, for better and for worse, but it still feels like FF at the end of the day, and playing it reminded me more of the old days of playing VI on my SNES in my bedroom, a borrowed, wrinkled, torn, coverless strategy guide open on the bed beside me, than any other game since then, and for that I appreciate it. If Hajime Tabata is the future of Final Fantasy, itā€™s possible the series might make a comeback yet.

Now if youā€™ll excuse me, Iā€™m going to finally get started building the Spencer Mansion in Minecraft, and then go take a final exam for a class Iā€™m going to fail anyway, regardless of test score.

tl;dr I watched Kingsglaive and Brotherhood and put over 86 hours into FF15 AMA

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you are a godamn internet hero.

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remember the blitz tutorial from VI

iā€™m glad everyone is having fun. i bought XIII on sale instead because idk if iā€™m gonna stay in the console game or not. ā€™ but! itā€™s so bad! ā€™

this is basically how i feel. iā€™ve been reading ab XIII for so long and iā€™m so obsessed with SE that i pretty much just acknowledge all the flaws any of their games have and just have fun anyway.

i came in here to post this though:

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can you elaborate on this a bit? can you do everything solo/with one or two friends? is it like destiny in how you can see most of the #content and hit the level cap solo but you need a full party to do The Good Stuff? curious as i fancy picking it up one day but donā€™t know anyone still playing

itā€™s pretty much the last one, as far as the three weeks i played it know

virtually all Main Story content is mandatory to do solo, not in a group. Canā€™t even do it with a friend, sucks.

you need groups for the dungeons/trials, which are mandatory to proceed, however the duty finder means it jut finds a bunch of random people and youā€™re good to go. plus roles are so strictly defined that you basically only get to do one thing ever regardless of party, so youā€™re basically playing a single player game even when thereā€™s other players in there.

I look forward to picking this up for $15 or $20 in a year. Everything I read has me interested. Even the terrible sounds like the right kind of terrible?

Does it still feel as shitty to move around in as it did in the demo?

I actually really like the character movement, including the weird sprint recharge mechanic (let go of sprint just before your stamina runs you and youā€™ll get a full recharge, plus a little bust of speed that has a nice little animated accent). The variety and detail of animation in noctis is pretty incredible. heā€™ll move differently depending on the incline of terrain heā€™s walking on, and just do lots of incidental neat little things which are all blended together pretty seamlessly.

yes, and most groups youā€™re matched with arenā€™t likely to say a word to you other than a ((hello!)) through the auto-translate, unless you screw up. Playing a dungeon or a trial is like a performance, enemies are neatly chunked together and you pretty much connect-the-dots and kill-by-numbers following your assigned roll. If Iā€™m making it sound dull, it kind of is, unless itā€™s higher level content where mechanics are complex enough that it actually feels a little thrilling seeing everyone play their role and making the thing work, especially in raids or the 24-person dungeons. itā€™s the kind of thrill you get from any large-group performance. itā€™s also equally frustrating where someone is underperforming, and effectively waisting your time, because in the end itā€™s a game about chasing things.

if you can get some friends to play it with itā€™s not too bad.

There is a small canyon in the Duscae region that spawn a crazy number of monsters one after the other the instant you set foot in it. I believe this to be a reference to FF1ā€™s Hall of Giants

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I never tried the demo but the final game controls like any other modern 3rd person console game with a few extra contextual states of animation (like waling around shrubbery or on certain terrain inclination, as mentioned)

i donā€™t know, i think it handles a bit more jankily than other stuff in its bracket. from the sound of the thread that might just be me though. i havenā€™t played to much!

Letā€™s tenderly embrace each other and talk about the many small callbacks to FF1 and Sakaguchi/Amano/Uemetsu era final fantasy that exist within this game, in this thread.

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Please please do that.

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Huh, what are the Uematsu callbacks

I posted this in a chatroom Iā€™m in a little while ago, but one of the things iā€™ve liked about FFXV so far is itā€™s not entirely committed to just monsters in some places and some enemies are kind of human-but-not like early FF had.

I was bobbing along and then ran into one of these

And itā€™s such an early FF monster design you can almost imagine exactly what kind of pose its sprite would have been in

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