in classic wiz, which elminage is based on, old age meant you were more likely to lose vitality on level up, and age was very easily acquired via class changing, or randomly acquired from sleeping at the inn.
vitality is resurrection success rate. so that was a problem. don’t let your good chars die.
fun fact! in dimguil: age would go up every 52 times a character slept at the inn. if you were determined enough, it turns out this number would roll over if you broke past 255 years old, making your characters into literal babies.
I really love Final Fantasy Dissidia NT, so much so I’ve been playing it more than Dragon Ball FighterZ. I think they go hand in hand as two games that are portraying crazy airborne anime battle royales but there isn’t anything else out there that plays like Dissidia. It’s a wholly unique game system built around management of verticality, the risk-reward of growing damage potential vs actually dealing damage, and organically maneuvering people into 2v1 situations. The graphics are gorgeous and the effect work is complex, colorful, and eye-catching but somehow it is also visually readable in all of the chaos of multiple Final Fantasy characters blasting magic at each other. There is a lot to learn but it’s been incredibly satisfying to slowly understand how the game design emphasizes teamplay, and how to utilize team work even if you’re playing online with random people who don’t.
If you’re at all interested in it I highly recommend it.
I also think it does a great job of adapting Amano’s elaborate and colorful designs into 3D. They’ve been simplified, sure, but I think it evokes the imagery of his complex interweaving of color and shape surprisingly well.
I do really like what they did with terra and exdeath. and it’s funny that the game is almost most like the old saturn dragon ball z fighting game (legends?) in practice.
What’s wrong with Cecil? I do think his face is a bit too similar to Warrior of Light and the blue stripes don’t feel like they come together as whole but overall he didn’t look terrible to me. But I don’t think Ramza was ever made to have irises or a nose. In isolation from his original art I think he looks fine but he still looks under-dressed and under-designed compared to everyone else in Dissidia.
Dragon Quest Builders is exactly the game I wanted it to be, which is nice. Still messing around in the first level, just got a second teleporter but instead of adventuring I spent time changing all the earth walls in my village to brick walls.
The “cladding” thing where you can upgrade earth to different materials is brilliant, btw. I was not looking forward to tearing down my structures and rebuilding them, but it turns out I don’t have to! Love it.
I’m also playing Dragon Quest Builders on Switch. There’s a grumpy libertarian named Larouche who comes to live in your village and complain a lot. I made his room out of “crumbling brick” material and gave him an iron prison door and a rotting chest to keep his stuff in. This game gives you tons of amusingly shitty materials to build with, and I appreciate that!
Those new collectibles must be super well hidden, 12 collosi in and I have only found 2 so far. I scoured the entire south eastern coast area and found nothing. Apparently there are over 70 of them.
I found a watermelon on the secret beach. I don’t think that was there before.
Originally after the half way point, Wander starts looking really haggard with darker hair, pale skin, filthy clothes and kind of zombie-like eyes. In this version they seemed to have toned it down to the point that you can’t really notice any difference, which is a bit disappointing.
I still swear the original PS2 version was much easier when it came to gripping onto the collosi and stabbing them. Both this and the PS3 remaster have you flopping all over the place making it a bit more frustrating.
I finally noticed that the reason the camera is so weird is that it is constantly trying to center align Wander’s head vertically and align horizontally by one third of the screen width.
FFXV Pocket Edition is real cute. The art feels like a better translation of the 16-bit FF look to 3D. It’s a high-res successor to Four Warriors of Light’s look - I’m not sure if Akihiko Yoshida worked on it but it’s his style. It’s nice to play since I’ve realized that I just plum won’t play regular FFXV.
P5 sucking aside, I’d like that kind of game on a phone, too.
