Finished FFIV. In one word: EPIC. I was surprised by how big and long the game was for SNES (took me a little less than 40hrs); I remember most games back then being much shorter, but maybe that's because I didn't finish many RPGs. However, it really, really got epic towards the end. I don't know if this is really a spoiler, but I'll tag it anyway:
Towards the end you literally fly to the moon and spend the rest of the game there. Besides that, you also run a gauntlet of the toughest bosses you've faced--at one point you face the four elemental bosses in succession, without a chance to rest/heal--and a whole slew of new ones to unlock all of the best gear for your characters. Not only that, but the random encounters also start being a collection of the toughest random baddies you've faced. This does help you level up for the end, but it's also hard to go long before you have to escape to a save/heal spot. Because of all this, last level took me a good 2.5 days to beat, probably about 1/4 to 1/5 of my total game time.
Final boss was a real sonofabitch. Beating him required a lot of level grinding beforehand (worked to get to level 60-65 for my group) just be able to withstand a few rounds of his Big Bang attack. Even at that it took me about 4 tries to finally beat. I must admit that there seemed to be a lot of luck to that, because if he kept spamming Big Bang there would be no way to beat him, but if instead he cast more black holes (which would remove all status effects) then you'd have a chance to get in some extra shots and heal. Even with some attacks doing 9999 damage it took a good while to finally beat him, but, man, did it feel like I accomplished something afterwards!
Ending had a real Star Wars vibe to it with the coronation and everything; I half wonder if it was an inspiration. My only complaint here was my fault because by that point I really had to pee and the damn thing was taking forever, but I sure as hell wasn't going to miss it, even if it was just a bunch of sprites running and jumping around.
Once I got into the ATB system, and especially once I leveled up enough and started facing harder enemies, it was kinda fun devising the best strategies to get through rounds. Early on your options are limited and it's mostly just attack attack attack and heal after battle when necessary. Story was quite melodramatic and some of the plot twists were nutty:
Speaking of Star Wars, the whole "Cecil, I am your brother" came out of nowhere! But on the upside it was never dull. Characters for the most part had interesting personalities even if there wasn't much development beyond when you first meet them. Music may have been the highlight. I've had several tracks going through my head for days ever since I started playing it. I'm not sure if I've ever heard a more *literally* memorable game soundtrack. I'll have to see if I can find an orchestral version. Favorite track, though, may have been this really haunting number:
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CXN9P5 ... X&index=39[/youtube]
OK, so game's a solid 8/10. Still some things could be better that I complained about before, and a lot of other little things that end up being more annoying than anything else.
Raxivace wrote:Eva Yojimbo wrote:Thanks for the FF3 PSP write-up, and I have a feeling (based on playing IV) that I'm going to end up loving a lot of music in this series!
Yeah the music is usually one of the highlights of each game. Every one so far has at least a couple of tracks I end up loving.
Even a game I didn't really enjoy overall like FF13 I often find myself playing music from.
If the other games are as good as IV in the music department, I can't wait!
Raxivace wrote:Actually Jimbo we're in an Inception dream world and a PS3 is your totem. If you spin it and it falls down and breaks you know you're in reality. If not...you're in a dream.
Perhaps you could even call it a fantasy of sorts. Your FINAL fantasy.
Hmmm, then how come I keep getting broken PS3s while playing Final Fantasy?
The dream is at the end of my reality, the reality is at the end of my dream.
Raxivace wrote:In fact I'll amend what I said and go as far as saying that Square-Enix games in general seem to have some absolutely great soundtracks. The Kingdom Hearts and Nier games often have some really phenomenal sounding music in particular.
Even something like Drakengard which uses intentionally discordant music as the protagonist has a Sword of Doom-esque violent descent into insanity is a really interesting bit of experimental music usage for video games.
Hot damn I need to go back and finish Drakengard. It's flawed but does some really neat things.
Would you also recommend Kingdom Hearts and Nier in general? Those were two others I was eyeing for a while. Only thing that gives me pause with KH is that I'm not much of a Disney fan, and playing a game centered around those characters isn't immediately appealing.
Raxivace wrote:Street Fighter II is still good (A little stiffer than I remember it being but not by much) but I don't remember the single player being actually hard and uh its actually hard.
It took me a good amount of time just to beat The World Warrior once. I'm trying Champion Edition now and getting my ass handed to me even on the lowest difficulty setting.
Might go back to Smash Bros more quickly than I thought I would because holy hell, I am bad at Street Fighter II even though its fun.
Oh, man, the hours of my youth I spent on SFII! That and Mortal Kombat owned my life (and that of my friends) for years. Yeah, SFII was hard, definitely one of the hardest fighting games of that era. In fact, the only fighter I can distinctly remember being harder was Guilty Gear X, and some of that was just due to the games complexity and the sheer amount of moves/combos and controller inputs. That, and the last few bosses being pure, unadulterated, evil. Final bosses of Mortal Kombat were also quite tough, probably about the same level with SFII.
Raxivace wrote:Alright fuck Sagat and his TIGER TIGER TIGER TIGER TIGER TIGER TIGER TIGER TIGER TIGER spam. I try jumping over to him and I just get an instant UPPERCUT.
...
Sagat was a huge pain in World Warrior and Champion Edition, but the fast speed of Hyper Fighting has him given him a new level of spamming power that I have not figured out how to overcome yet. I swear, I think he's even using UPPERCUT to change direction midair sometimes.
From what I remember, you have to time/position the jumps just right to be able to counter the Tigers, or get close and counter high tigers and uppercuts with low attacks. He's a bitch, but beatable.
Raxivace wrote:On an unrelated note I finished the first Witcher book, The Last Wish. It was pretty good- mostly a collection of short stories with a framing device loosely connecting things together. I kind of wish I had read this before playing Witcher 3 because a lot of the stuff in that game I did like (Like Yennifer, Emhyr, some stuff with Dandilion etc.) get expanded upon further here (Like the thing with Geralt, Yennifer, and the weird genie is told here). A lot of the novel is pretty pulpy, but I think that plays a little better as a story in book form than in video game form since it doesn't need "filler" fights or footprint tracking or whatever in-between actually interesting bits.
Hmm, I was thinking about giving these a try, but there's so many of them that I fear I'll get started and won't finish; which I've done with multiple fantasy series before (Wheel of Time).
"As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being." -- Carl Jung