Here’s a trick for gaining levels in the Dragon Quest XI post-game:
When your young nephew visits and wants to try the game, and enjoys simply running around the world fighting monsters for a few hours, let him do it.
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I’m gonna hold off on addressing this in detail till I experience more of the plot, but I should clarify that when I say it’s “easily the most coherent final fantasy game” that doesn’t mean it’s very coherent when judged by any sane criteria.
And to be fair, the game has to provide you with an in-game plot guide (which I’ve had to refer to multiple times to make sense of what’s been happening) but I actually appreciate that about it and I have found it to be something enriching about the game’s world building. Even though it is completely tacked on and artificial…
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i don’t remember much about the ffxiii story but in lightning returns you fight god who looks like this:
and has a 30 second long death scream in the japanese dub
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And in between 13 and LR, there is a game about time travelling FF buddies and their pokemon.
So there really is something for everyone.
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FFXIII is what helped me formulate a general theory of baroque media, objects crafted so many generations removed from the initial real-world touchpoint that they spin into meaningless details, conversant only with those in the scene.
The world is a thrice-reflected version of abbreviated myths. The monster designs are uninterpretable outside of Final Fantasy references, a mess of line and silhouette. The battle system tries to get closer to real, away from the abstraction of ATB, but literalizes MMO meta strategy; damage is not damage! Characters are composites of fashionable catalog personalities (FFXV is even worse at this but by foregrounding it it looks back to a kind of inspired lunacy, questing with the Zoolander crew).
And some of these qualities have always been present in Final Fantasy, but as definition gets higher it requires them to fill in sketchy details and the mythic becomes the self-absorbed.
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Maybe that’s how people expressed their complaints at the time of release, but having watched a lot of FF retrospective reviews in the last week (as my plan for 2019 is to play more Square RPGs, seeing as how the only one I’ve finished is FFIV), it sounds like most people have revised their opinion to these two points:
- Not fully being able to manage your party and experiment with the battle system until halfway through the game is a major pain in the ass.
- The problem is not so much the linearity of the path (see FFX) as it is the lack of any non-combat activities at your disposal along that path.
What makes matters worse is that these two feed off each other. Because there is nothing but combat and moving forward, being limited in combat for the first half of the game feels much worse than if there was other stuff along the way to divert your attention away from it.
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The limited combat in the first part is really good though. It gives you limited toolkits where you have to suss out the right way to fight each of the monsters. Like a lot of good JRPGs, FFXIII works like a puzzle, and the puzzles are still pretty good earlier on.
Unlike a lot of FF games, though, combat itself is actually a thing to engage with outside of party composition. The real time elements are actually important, which I can’t say for most ATB based games.
I dunno, I found it pretty enjoyable at the time.
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I guess that’s fair, except I’m finding it to be plenty engaging in the meantime despite the full mechanics not being unveiled yet.
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ffxiii plays closer to a rhythm game at points, especially if you are going for five stars
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well you sold me on it now
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Just finished Dragon Quest 5 emulated on my blackberry phone (hooray keyboard) after having played during brief down times for something like 6 months.
This game is basically Conan the Barbarian in DQ World. I don’t know why I’ve never heard anyone else say that. It has so many set pieces and elements in common. You even use a rope to climb down from the top of a tower into a room with a huge snake.
DQ5 has a brilliant beginning, decent middle and just OK ending. The little touches here and there keep it fresh but it feel like there is a missing chapter or that the ending was rushed out.
can you explain how the rating system works?
no idea, i just feel like you can get through most fights in a scrappy way without much friction, but when things are running smoothly and you have a good rhythm going you end up with the five stars.
shadow hearts from the new world
theres a mariachi with a gun guitar, a giant cat that fights w drunken fist, and a ninja that “fights to preserve american freedom”
al capone is a major npc
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it’s just how fast you win innit?
i vaguely remember vanille having some weapon that increases the % chance of applying a negative status and it gets pretty high when fully upgraded and you can instakill a bunch of stuff including the final boss
toups play lightning returns
I think it is just “go fast, stay healed” and you get the points. I figured it out based on a little experimentation when I played it.
after some googling it seems to be primarily based upon battle time vs target time and some kind of esoteric points system based on how powerful your weapons are
if you want to consistently get higher ranks you should use weaker weapons but still complete battles quickly
I don’t recall the weapon thing being that much of an obstacle, though. I was getting high rankings pretty regularly.
I’m just repeating what gamefaqs told me
I think this is more like if you’re farming for rare loot and stuff
True and that is not something you should do.
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