Final Fantasy Omnibus

[Chaos]

I caved and snagged FFXVI yesterday because we all know I'm good at actually sticking to and finishing single player first party purchases. Anyways, the demo/opening two hours is solid. The combat was a bit wonky for me probably tied to one of the rings I had equipped and the auto evade basically makes you fly around like a maniac. The Eikon battle that closes that section is a bit clunky. I'll give more thoughts if I log a few hours in over the weekend. 

[Casey]

I’ll be getting this once they patch the Performance Mode most likely. I would buy it and just use Quality Mode until they did, but the extreme blur every time you moved around is really jarring and I can’t handle that for the price they’re asking. Hopefully by next week it’ll be patched since that’s the big talking point right now, and one of the only negatives I can find in reviews and whatnot.

[Super Ape]

Not XVI, but I’ve been playing Final Fantasy V because it’s Four Job Fiesta season (in short; you are assigned four Jobs as you progress through the game and can use only those Jobs, and there are several variations). I cheated because I rolled for my Jobs early, and got White Mage, Time Mage, Ranger and Chemist.

White Mage: standard healer, you know the routine. However as you can imagine battling anyone not undead is a pain. So I invoked a rule from one of the first years where you can use a Freelancer (no Job equipped) to give some physical umph until you get your second Job.

Time Mage: mainly deals in status magic (Slow, Haste, Regen, and so on), but their most useful ability early on is their ability to break elemental Rods (think the classic Throw ability except instead of just throwing it you break it and it casts a level 3/-aga spell), which makes elemental bosses a snap.

Ranger: Physical class that specializes in bows and can deal damage from the back row. They also have an ability called Animals that summons various woodland creatures based on an RNG that rolls based on the user’s level, and can either attack enemies or heal you for free. Of note is the ability Rapid Fire which lets you attack four times in one turn, similar to the X-Fight/4x-cut ability. Why’s that important? Well, there is a weapon called the Chicken Knife later in the game that is powered based on how many times you flee from battle (more fleeing = stronger weapon), but it also has a chance of attempting to flee instead. Rapid Fire, as well as several other action abilities, override that and guarantee an attack each time. So… carnage.

Chemist: I haven’t gotten this yet, but it’s probably the most powerful Job in the game solely on account of the Mix ability, which lets you combine two items into one. If you know what to use, you can do ridiculous things like full heals, debuff enemies, and even increase your party’s levels for the entire battle. Imagine building up a Level 99 party in just a few turns. Yeah.

Anyway, I’m about to go into the dungeon where you get the fourth Job, and once I do it will be time to grind for Rod money and Mixing items.

[JLSigman]

38 minutes ago, Super Ape said:

Not XVI, but I’ve been playing Final Fantasy V because it’s Four Job Fiesta season (in short; you are assigned four Jobs as you progress through the game and can use only those Jobs, and there are several variations). I cheated because I rolled for my Jobs early, and got White Mage, Time Mage, Ranger and Chemist

I'm working on this as well, got Thief for my first job which is both good (great damage and avoids a lot of attacks) and bad (you can't buy weapons they can use until the second town). I'm debating turning the two who don't have weapons back into Freelancers until I get to that town, it'll depend on how things go in the ship graveyard.

[Super Ape]

7 hours ago, JLSigman said:

I'm working on this as well, got Thief for my first job which is both good (great damage and avoids a lot of attacks) and bad (you can't buy weapons they can use until the second town). I'm debating turning the two who don't have weapons back into Freelancers until I get to that town, it'll depend on how things go in the ship graveyard.

If you have thieves I imagine just flee all the time? Once you get the Chicken Knife and Mug, the one thief you have left is likely to be a bazooka.

[JLSigman]

6 hours ago, Super Ape said:

If you have thieves I imagine just flee all the time? Once you get the Chicken Knife and Mug, the one thief you have left is likely to be a bazooka.

I'd completely forgotten about that! Yes, thank you, I'll definitely use Steal and Scram a lot.

[Craig H]

What is this about blur while playing XVI? I did wind up buying it because I figured I'll play it at some point when I want a change of pace from Diablo 4 and Tears of the Kingdom. I haven't seen anyone else talk about motion blur in the game though.

[Casey]

21 hours ago, Craig H said:

What is this about blur while playing XVI? I did wind up buying it because I figured I'll play it at some point when I want a change of pace from Diablo 4 and Tears of the Kingdom. I haven't seen anyone else talk about motion blur in the game though.

It’s why I haven’t bought it yet, since the most stable way to play it is under Quality Mode and that’s where the motion blur is. Plenty of articles out there about it, it’s pretty extreme. I tried Quality Mode for the demo and that’s where I saw it.

Not willing to deal with that for a $70 game, so I’m waiting for them to patch the game up a bit on Performance Mode before I take the plunge.

[Chaos]

I'm hoping to get 2-3 hours deeper into it with the off day tomorrow, but I'm slowly plodding through this and am getting close to what I think is the end of the first act.

There are moments in this game that really make you just go "wow," and I sense it's only going to get more spectacular until it doesn't. Clive may be one of the more interesting protagonists in this series.

[Craig H]

I’d love to get a chance to play this, but D4 and TotK are a larger time suck than I thought they would be.

[Chaos]

11 minutes ago, Craig H said:

I’d love to get a chance to play this, but D4 and TotK are a larger time suck than I thought they would be.

Yeah, I'm for once trying to just power through. The second I veer to something else is when I don't finish it, which is always the case when I pay full price for major first party games. I want to clear some backlog before Spider-Man 2 hits in 3 months. 

[Craig H]

Shoot, I just realized I never finished Spider-Man or the Miles Morales version.

[Craig H]

@Caseyyou're in luck. They patched out the motion blur, or rather, they added a slider for it so you could dial it back or turn it off entirely and they added new camera controls that sort of remind me of the camera adjustments you can make in Elden Ring.

[Casey]

I heard the performance option was somewhat fixed too. Not near as many dips in frames as before, but not a consistent 60 still either.

Maybe by the time I get around to this game it’ll all be fixed. But I just started Diablo 2, and Starfield is in two months, then Cyberpunk, then Spider-Man…

[Craig H]

I tried staring 16 and the seemingly unending opening cinematic put me to sleep. That’s a first. I’ll try it again some other time. It was also in the middle of the day that it put me to sleep. Like it was only 3 pm.

[assfax]

16 is kinda what I wanted it to be but didn't know how to ask.  It's like the newer Y's games* combat and cinematography with Witcher 2 graphics and Naughty Dog presentation.  Also reminds me of Bayonetta.  Exploration has been lame thus far.  I've only beat the wind lady am I still in the boring opening?  I feel this game resonates with Y's 8, particular with that lame part with the Jack the Ripper shit.  I had heard the Game of Thrones comparisons and while I think it's still hewing closer to Witcher 2 & 3 it is definitely undeniable.  What is really surprising me is how much it feels like Final Fantasy 6.  Like the way the music will come in while people are talking.  My take on the graphics is that it runs like Witcher 2 on a shitty card.  Small area one on one fights have great framerate on performance mode but if it's just you walking around and rotating the camera simultaneously chugs.  Y'also get that shit where you can see distant enemies running at a lower framerate.  I'll tell you it looks great but I won't tell you I don't think it wouldn't look better if it wasn't also not on PC right now.  Maybe that did make sense.  I bought my PS5 at swillmart 'bout a week ago.  This was the game I bought.  I didn't have any major hype and to be quite honest only saw that e3 trailer a couple years ago.  Now I really got my ps5 for Spidey 2 but it also crossed the threshold of 5 games that make me want to buy the console.**

 

* a series I consider "must play" in this day and age.

** new god of war, horizon and Tsushima (kinda same situation as FFXVI where I just don't want to wait for the eventual STEAM release)  I've already played Tsushima up to the second area on ps4 and assume I can transfer my progress.  I bought the first one digital and want to get a disc for the ps5 version. It's a 30 dollar upgrade for me digital so I'm peeping out used copies.  Hell, now the only reason I'd get Ratchet and Clank is if it was a 15 dollar disc version.

  

[Firebreaker Chip]

I'm enjoying how 16 is such a straightforward experience, I'm further in and it doesn't really change much from the formula of running along a corridor-shaped area/exploring a small field, doing some fights then getting dripfed some more melodramatic/intriguing story beats. It's very superficial for a Final Fantasy game but it works well in terms of what it is. The voice acting is extremely polished as well.

You do travel through some really nice/cool looking areas as the first act progresses

I'm actually stuck away from my PS5 for a while so doing a third and final lifetime attempt to get all the way through VI (pixel remaster on steam deck). Getting through the floating continent was like being at work on a bad day. Every remaster of a 90s JRPG needs an optional, no judgement "halved encounter rate, doubled XP" mode

 

 

[Craig H]

I started playing 16 again after the intro cinematics put me to sleep. This is a really, really good game that also isn't a game. I mean, it's barely a game. The gameplay is basically mashing square, except throwing in a few combos here and there so you don't feel like you're just mashing square the whole time. But there are sooooo many cinematics and any time you do get to "play" a section, it's ultra linear. You're just going in a straight line, fight a pack of enemies, go in a straight line, listen to dialogue from characters, fight another pack of enemies, go in a straight line, then fight a boss.

The weird thing is that I can't say any of this is "bad." I'm sure others are deeper in the game than me, but there is some legit shocking stuff that happens, the game world and the different kingdoms are interesting, blight being this creeping menace is also interesting, Cid rules and every version of Cid should be voiced by Ralph Ineson from here on out, and I feel for Clive. It's just, damn, could this game be any more linear? This is NOT what I want all Final Fantasies to be from here on out and I'm not talking about just controlling one character. I'm talking about it being very cinematic heavy and having so little emphasis on gameplay. If this is a once off for them then that's fine. If they want to stick with you only ever controlling just one character, then that's fine too. I would just like to play this more and watch it less.

[Chaos]

3 hours ago, Craig H said:

The gameplay is basically mashing square, except throwing in a few combos here and there so you don't feel like you're just mashing square the whole time.

I think there's supposed to be more to the gameplay from a battle system standpoint; however, you start with those assists. If you remove them for other attachments, I believe it's supposed to make the gameplay a little more based on how you control it. I've been lazy and haven't done that in spite of having some nice attachments right now. I'm guessing that I'm somewhere around the mid-way point as I'm a couple chapters into the second time jump. 

[Craig H]

I don't have any of the assist charms equipped. The ones I have right now are two that came with preordering the game and another one I just picked up off of a boss that gives me +10 defense. It's still just very vanilla in terms of combat. I sorta appreciate that the combos aren't balls out insane like they are in DMC or Bayonetta, but at the same time, yeah, it's pretty much just mashing square while mixing in a charge or a jumping attack that I honestly don't need to do, but I do it anyway just to add some variety to the combat and look cooler. I think I could honestly just get away with just hitting square and the dodge button the entire time. 

Now, someone is welcome to tell me that the game gets a fuckload harder than it current is, but I'm about 15 hours in and most of the enemies just stand around waiting to get washed. Or if not that, then Cid is fucking them up with lightning attacks. It's getting to the point where I might just take another break from it and go back to Tears of the Kingdom, which is about the polar opposite of this game where it's open world and nothing but exploring and combat with very little in the way of cinematics. 

[Chaos]

Yeah, I'm more or less powering through it just so I don't have it on my endless pile of shame. I'm mad at myself for preordering Madden because I kind of need to play a ton of stuff. Not to mention my Series S I barely touch and its gamepass content. 

[JLSigman]

XIV FanFest bringing the good (and not so good)

 

(Stormblood is better than you think, it's just caught in between Heavensward and Shadowbringer)

(SIGH) Someone wanna buy me a new computer by next year?

[JLSigman]

And, finally, 7.0 comes out in about a year

 

 

[J.T.]

3 hours ago, JLSigman said:

XIV FanFest bringing the good (and not so good)

 

(Stormblood is better than you think, it's just caught in between Heavensward and Shadowbringer)

(SIGH) Someone wanna buy me a new computer by next year?

Damn.   I have a S/X.  I am going to be addicted to this shit, aren't I?

[JLSigman]

1 hour ago, J.T. said:

Damn.   I have a S/X.  I am going to be addicted to this shit, aren't I?

hehehehehe... Once the free trial goes up to level 70, it'll sure be worth it.