Final Fantasy Omnibus

[Raziel]

Also, while Yuffie and Tifa are damn near broken if you set them up right, don't sleep on Red, he can be a fucking Damage machine if set up right.

[JLSigman]

20 hours ago, Craig H said:

They did an entire trilogy for X, which I think is maybe one of the worst FF games, but I’m pretty sure I’m close to being alone in thinking that.

I think you meant XIII. X had two games and a weird "radio drama" that went nowhere.

[Raziel]

X was also very good in retrospect (X-2 is suspect though).  XIII on the other hand... Woof.

[odessasteps]

1 hour ago, Raziel said:

X was also very good in retrospect (X-2 is suspect though).  XIII on the other hand... Woof.

All I know I still hate blitz ball with a fiery passion.

[Craig H]

Yeah, as mentioned above, I had them mixed up to some degree, but I absolutely HATE Blitzball. 4, 6, 7, 9, 12, 7 Remake, and 7 Rebirth are the ones I like. X is kinda just...there for me. It's fine. I don't remember much of the first few, I really didn't like 8 even though it was gorgeous at the time, 13, 15, and 16 I don't care for.

[dogwelder]

Why did they have to bring back the stupid gym mini-game in FF7 Rebirth?  And I had been doing pretty well in all the other mini-games up to that point...

(And as much as I like having a Portal for convenience sake, it does not work well for these mini-games IMO)

[Matt D]

Tossing this here because it's by Square Enix, has some similar names ("Soul of Thasma" anyone), and has a FFV/X-2 job system, but I'm playing Bravely Default for the first time. I'm right at the end of Chapter 4 and enjoyed it a lot so far. You spend the first half of the game with a fairly conventional battle system but I can already see that the back half is going to be all about turn manipulation and counters. I imagine only a handful of people here played it but I made it to Vampire Castle and had to take a bit of a break because the mobs there are ridiculous in their countering. But you can turn encounters to none and I'm overleveled anyway so I'll just have to face that boss and then move on sometime in the next few days.

[Raziel]

So about my last spoiler

Spoiler

I got further, yeah ok, I have no clue what's going on, it might be multiverse, or folding timelines, but whatever's going on in Zack's story is lining up with the main story but also isn't.  Gotta get further.

I think I'm hitting the end of Chapter 10, but I want to do more rolling back and possibly backtrack a bit to missed stuff.  But I do dig the one story modification they made, that I'm sure will get talked about when others catch up to where I'm at.

 

But The Show comes out today so I might be taking a bit of a break on and off.

Edited March 19 by Raziel

[Raziel]

Oh, and in figuring out how to get past a particular boss, it taught (forced) me how to properly use Barrett as a Tank, and as a result inadvertently got me to figure out Aerith.  She definitely got nerfed from Remake, as she's MUCH slower.  But, if you set Barrett up with stuff that speeds up his ATB gauge, you can get him up to 2 quickly, then hit Steelskin and Lifesaver.  Steelskin ramps up his Defense, and Life Saver give him a max HP boost AND DRAWS ALL THE AGRO.  So it gives you time to get Aerith's wards up and she can start double casting shit and all her other stuff.  Then let Barret do his thing, eventually ordering him to reup Steelskin and Lifesaver, and have Aerith hit him with heals when needed, and use the Bodyguard synergy skill when needed with Barret.  

 

That's the best I got, but I've gotten more out of Aerith with this setup.  Don't miss the Barrage Blaster as that's the weapon that you learn Lifesaver off of.

I still need to figure out how to effectively use Cait Sith, but that's what the traveling back to Kalm and cleaning up regions is going to be for.

[Craig H]

10 hours ago, dogwelder said:

Why did they have to bring back the stupid gym mini-game in FF7 Rebirth?  And I had been doing pretty well in all the other mini-games up to that point...

(And as much as I like having a Portal for convenience sake, it does not work well for these mini-games IMO)

Beating the last person, I forget their name is impossible. I did see one suggestion to switch from graphics mode to performance mode and that didn’t help either. Even doing the situps perfectly they’re at 40+ and I’m at 30. I basically gave up.

Boy, do I really not like the Gold Saucer. There is something about the design of it with stairwells everywhere and everything looking the same that I don’t dig. Even with the ability to fast travel around I still hate the look of it and everyone there is the most anime bullshit ever. It’s sort of like the similar area in Remake except worse. I don’t mind a tonal change, but this is so drastic because everyone starts acting like a dumb cunt. And I really don’t like most of the mini games. It’s just kind of a pain in the ass area. I was happy to take a brief detour from there to go to the next area.

My only other gripe is the constant forcing of a relationship between two characters.

Spoiler

Aerith comes off as the neediest and most incompetent character and Cloud is just a cold dick. All I keep thinking of is Scott Pilgrim and Knives Chao. Just tell her you’re not into her and you have your eyes set on Tifa.

Once again a game really tries to force romance when all I can think of is the Witcher 3 and how that did it best. #teamtriss

[dogwelder]

45 minutes ago, Craig H said:

Beating the last person, I forget their name is impossible. I did see one suggestion to switch from graphics mode to performance mode and that didn’t help either. Even doing the situps perfectly they’re at 40+ and I’m at 30. I basically gave up.

It's Jules.  And at least for Rebirth (a) they didn't tie the gym mini-game into a trophy and (b) the Champion Belt isn't as useful this time around.

[Craig H]

Jesus CHRIST. Someone please give me some tips on beating the landworms and duneworms in the simulator. Fucking A.

[Craig H]

Nevermind. Finally beat them. Ugh.

[odessasteps]

I’ve been waiting 3 days for Chugs to finally fight King Tonberry since I saw that pop up on the map in Corel. 

[Raziel]

Rolled back, cleared out Grasslands, working on Junon and FUCK I hate Fort Condor.  

I'm still undecided if Cait Sith is actually worth spending time learning.  He's got some positives but I'm suspect since they're mostly RNG based.

I haven't cleared out much of the simulator except for the materia I really needed(like First Strike) and the summons.

[Craig H]

60 hours in and I only just got to the jungle in chapter 9. I’m taking the very long route.

I still haven’t fight a hard boss yet. I’m not sure which one Raziel was talking about. I was able to beat the Tonberry King in one shot thanks to an item I got awhile back.

So far I’ve hit nearly 100% in every area, but I don’t see myself playing more of the mini games in the Gold Saucer except for Queens Blood. I finished out all of the level 3 Chocobo Races and that’s incredibly tedious. I also have a couple of the fights Chadley had me do where I only completed 2 out of 3 objectives. I might go back for those of it means unlocking something good, otherwise I doubt I’ll care much.

[Raziel]

Yeah, Chapter 9 is when I started hitting Game Over screens, so, there's a couple you have to gameplan for.

[odessasteps]

My favorite mini game so far might be the animal soccer game in costa del sol that reminded me of Switch Sports. 

[Craig H]

My GOD. This Teach Me Great Warrior job for Yuffie is fucking impossible. The enemies die so fast and any one attack takes away half their health. There’s no way to both pressure and stagger these weak as fuck enemies. They just fall over and die.

[Raziel]

Use Lvl 1 spells or the elemental abilties, they don't hit that hard damage wise but do enough pressure wise.  Roll back weapons to your weakest attack ones and swap out lower level materia.  I ended up having to do that to get the pressure and stagger with the special fiend fights in Grasslands/Junon because I way overleveled before cleaning them out.

[Craig H]

I just now got lucky. I basically kept doing the fights until 2 party members died that way they’d die on the first hit. Then figured out using Focused Thrust is a good way to pressure and stagger them on the second fight. The third one was more or less just getting lucky to stagger them before killing them all.

I swear…It’s not the bosses or anything like that that’s most challenging, it’s these stupid jobs and mini games.

My next step was doing what you suggested. I’m now taking a break after failing the 4th fight. On the plus side, I just piled up a ton of Gil and mats for crafting. So I got that going for me, which is nice.

And I think I am way over leveled at this point. I’ll have to see if I can switch to hard mode midway through. That or I’ll have to intentionally gimp my builds. Right now with Cloud it’s nearly impossible to die. I stacked Enemy Skill with HP Absorption and took Cait’s Magnify skill to stack that with Fire and Ice and I’m just crushing everything super fast. On the other end of the spectrum, Yuffie sure comes down to earth pretty quickly damage wise. I’m still able to do decent damage with her, but it’s not like it was when I first got her. I still haven’t used Cait, which is basically how I remember using them in the original. 

[odessasteps]

Man what a scene this was 

Spoiler

The whole Tifa inside the Weapon stuff 

 

[odessasteps]

Watching the Chugs playthrough, we finally got Cid and Cosmo Canyon the other day, about 70:hours into the game. But he might be too young in this version for how I remember him from memory. I always see him as Duke Philips.

[Craig H]

Got to chapter 11 with...95 hours of playtime. Surprisingly, or really sadly, I don't think any of it was me falling asleep while playing it. I think Cosmo Canyon might be the part I dislike the most, but it also delivered some really interesting an completely unexpected story elements. It's just such a huge area and it spans chapters 9 and 10. It's just really, really long. Chocobo flying is...unpleasant. I got the top score on two of the courses and just gave up and settled for the bare minimum score on the third. But the thing with Cosmo Canyon is that so much of that area looks the same and it all blends together so you don't know where shit is. I think there was a, let's just call it a shrine because that's what all of these areas have, shrines and towers, that I spent forever trying to find until I basically stumbled upon what was a part of the rock wall the stuck up and ramped upward. There are also a ton of points of interest or fast travel points in that area and again it makes it hard to know which one to fast travel to. Thankfully I'm kinda sorta done there now although I guess I could return but for what, I don't know since I cleared everything out.

[odessasteps]

It seemed like, watching, there was a similar problem with the jungles too, where it all began to look the same. But the cosmo canyon might just be what happens with deserts. You could have that happen in RDR 1 and 2 sometimes.