Popular Post Briste Posted April 24, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 24, 2023 (edited) On 4/23/2023 at 5:28 PM, Rally-Vincent--- said: I started with VII, loved VIII and Tactics, had a good time with IX and X and was okay with X-2. Unfortunately, beginning with XII (I am not counting the online games XI and XIV as main FF games, sorry), I felt the series went downhill, with XIII as the low point. I didn't even bother to play that game a second time. It was funny to live through the progression of the series. In my mind as a kid, Final Fantasy was the pinnacle of gaming. I couldn't imagine anything better. When I got into my first random encounter with Final Fantasy 2 SNES, my mind was blown. I loved the first one and the second one was such an amazing step up. The storytelling, the graphics, the music...everything was improved. Final Fantasy 3 SNES was my favorite game of all-time because I felt they had mastered what they were doing. When you party gets separated early and you had to pick which part of the story you wanted to follow first...I was once again amazed. It all seems so basic now, but at the time it was all mind-blowing stuff. When I played VII on the PS One, the rendered backgrounds and polygon graphics were once again a mind blowing improvement. I remember casting Knights of the Round and just loving how awesome that summon was visually. Never mind it took a minute for the spell to finish casting, it was awesome each time. I loved VIII and enjoyed IX, but I didn't remember a ton from IX. If I remember right, it came out around Thanksgiving and I beat it in the four days off I had from college. That was the only time I played it (before the PS4 version) and since I only spent four days with it, I didn't remember it a ton. I played the shit out of VII. I had the three master materia's of each type for my group. I had a dedicated save as well for the Aerith scene. That is still the most shocking thing I've ever experienced in a video game the first time through a game. I beat VIII two or three times, but VII I spent a ton of time on. I played X quite a bit in college and really enjoyed that one. I didn't realize how cringe some of the voice acting in it was until I went back and replayed it on PS4. That laughing scene really stood out. I ended up with fonder memories of playing it in college than when I replayed it. I never really liked X-2 a ton. I didn't like the dress sphere setup. Continuity wise, it never made sense to me how the leveling and job system could be one way in X and then in X-2, which basically starts right after X finishes, would have an entirely new way of combat and jobs. How could it never be mentioned in X and all of a sudden be the thing in X-2? Oddly, I enjoyed that game more on the PS4 replay than I did the first time through. I actually liked XIII. I thought the Paradigm system was pretty fun once you got the hang of it. I never thought that XIII was any more linear that X was so never really understood why that was a knock against it. I enjoyed XIII-2 quite a bit with Lightning Returns being a bit 'meh' for me. I didn't like feeling rushed throughout the whole game due to the timer. I think the concept was kind of cool, but it just wasn't a ton of fun in practice since you had to do things at very specific times or you'd miss out. XI took almost a decade of my life, so obviously I liked that one...which would lead one to believe I would have liked XII more than I did since the combat and moving around mirrored XI...but I felt like the story was the weakest of all of them and while the Gambit system had the potential to be cool. It ended up never working exactly as I wanted it to and proved to be more time consuming to change around than it was worth in the game. I only played through that one once and outside of the Gambit system and that 100 floor trek, I didn't find anything memorable at all. XIV was a lot of fun when I played it, but once I got the Plat for that one, it was time to move on. I didn't want to get sucked into it like I did XI. XV was disappointing at first, but I ended up having fun with it when I went back to it after the Royal Edition and the DLC's came out. They should have just waited and released it as the Royal Edition....I think the game would have been much better received and reviewed. The release day version had huge gaps in it that made the story feel disjointed. You also kind of needed to watch the movie Kingsglaive to understand what was going on. My favorite part of XV was the car and being able to listen to the previous game's soundtracks. I've pre-bought XVI, but my expectations aren't the same as they used to be. I agree that the last several installments have been a bit of a disappointment. On 4/23/2023 at 5:28 PM, Rally-Vincent--- said: At this point, I only want one thing from Final Fantasy: A Tactics remaster. That is the one game that I absolutely want as a milestone on my profile. I didn't mention this one above since it wasn't a 'numbered' entry into the series...but after VI, this one is probably my favorite. I had never played a game like it and it was the beginning of my love for the isometric view TBS style games. This was another game I played the shit out of I think I had a save that had all the characters with all jobs maxed. Thanks to that Squire 'Focus' ability, you could usually trap one enemy at the end of a level and just spam that ability over and over for points. That was another game with a great story and soundtrack and I also would love to see a Tactics remaster! Platinum #184 Final Fantasy II In the thousands and thousands of hours that I've played Final Fantasy, only about five or so were in Final Fantasy II. As a kid, I never even knew this game existed. For me, Final Fantasy II is Final Fantasy 2 (SNES). I didn't learn until my last couple of years of high school, when emulators were becoming more of a thing, that there were Japanese Final Fantasy games that were never released in the states. I was a little annoyed at first. It never even occurred to me at the time that games weren't released everywhere when a game came out. The internet was still new for most people and your best source of information was still word-of-mouth or Nintendo Power/printed magazines and stuff. My best friend was the one to break the news to me and he set me up with NESticle and an English translation of Final Fantasy II and I loaded it up for the first time. I was a little disappointed off the bat that I wasn't going to get to choose my lineup like in the first one and the music was changed and didn't strike me quite the same way. When I went out for my first few fights and saw that I didn't gain XP but my individual stats seemed to randomly level up made me super confused. Up until then, I had never played a game that did that before. I mean, it makes sense in the real world that the more you do/use something, the more proficient you become at it...but in this game it just made leveling up feel like a nuisance. I also remember getting lost really early in this game. I think more of the game was accessible early than I was expecting and there really wasn't a ton of direction on what to do. It also had some 'hidden' things to find. Between not knowing where to go and the leveling system being somewhat fucked, I gave it up pretty early. I don't even remember getting the snow glider thing. I mostly remember walking up and down the middle land section that wrapped around the world and never figuring out what to do. With games like Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy Tactics to play, my patience for this game wasn't long and I never ended up going back to it. Flashforward to now. I remember the sour taste I had after playing this one and is the game I was least looking forward to playing. Normally, I'd pass on the XP and Gil boosts for these games since it removes the challenge...but I didn't want to deal with the leveling system in this game so I went X4 on both. My goal for this game was to just get through it and see if it could stand up to the other games in the series. One of the things I like about the Final Fantasy series is that they are willing to take risks and try new things out to see what works. No two Final Fantasy games are the same. They always make changes and adjustments. The only real staples of the games are the great storytelling and the music. Combat always has some sort of wrinkle. Gaining levels or learning skills or unlocking abilities is virtually always tweaked as well. Sometimes it is for the better and sometimes it's a swing and a miss. For me the Paradigm system in XIII was a hit while the Gambit system in XII felt like a miss. I liked leveling in VI where there was natural progression, yet you could supplement your stats with Espers as you leveled. I found the Sphere Grid in X to be cumbersome and grindy,(but not altogether bad)....but there were definite systems that I liked better. I give them a lot of credit for being willing to break something that was working and being willing to see if they could make something different and better. They show that they are constantly trying to improve on things. As I mentioned above, I get what they were thinking with the leveling system here, and I think it works in a game like Skyrim...but it's really annoying in this game. I thought the 'Password' system idea is a cool idea where you learn new things and come back to old NPC's to see if your new knowledge unlocks new information...but again the execution of that in this game was a little clunky. For me, Final Fantasy II was a game where they tried out a bunch of things to see what would work. I think the deeper story (marginally deeper mind you) over the first one was a good step and I think the idea of having characters join and leave your party at different times of the story was a novel idea and was a key component in future games, but most everything else was a misstep. Ironically, my biggest issues with this game involve the story. Spoiler It is never explained and makes no sense why Leon would become bad/evil. They all grow up friends, and his sister is in your party the whole game. He disappears (presumably kidnapped after the first battle) and he just becomes the evil Dark Knight over night? He's not brainwashed or have amnesia or under a spell, but just the bad guy? It's the big twist/reveal of the story, but it makes no sense at all. Having a deeper story isn't a bad thing (I liked the 'lack' of story in FF1 just fine) but if you're going to make a story...at least have it make sense. Most of the deaths in the story aren't very tragic since you've only known the character for like a half hour most of the time. It's like crying over the red shirts that die in Star Trek...who was that guy anyway? I don't have a ton more to say about this one, other than it felt like a beta version of a Final Fantasy game and while this one itself didn't have all the components of a good game, it set the stage for some good stuff to come, so I guess for those reasons, it's worth playing through. Of all the Final Fantasy's I've played though, this is the weakest one by far. I've started Final Fantasy III and it'll be my first time ever with that one. I'm curious to see what is introduced in this one that carries on throughout. Edited April 24, 2023 by Briste 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally-Vincent--- Posted April 24, 2023 Share Posted April 24, 2023 42 minutes ago, Briste said: It was funny to live through the progression of the series. In my mind as a kid, Final Fantasy was the pinnacle of gaming. I believe it is a great thing to have gone through a (console) gaming journey where, up to the PS4, there were always improvements of some sort, be it in new gaming concepts (often spurred by better technical specs) and/or the deveplopment of graphics. If you start gaming nowadays, it has to be different experience then from what we had. Smaller jumps. 46 minutes ago, Briste said: I played X quite a bit in college and really enjoyed that one. I didn't realize how cringe some of the voice acting in it was until I went back and replayed it on PS4. That laughing scene really stood out. I ended up with fonder memories of playing it in college than when I replayed it. What I remember most of FF X is Yuna and Tidus in the lake scene. Such a magical setting back then. 52 minutes ago, Briste said: Thanks to that Squire 'Focus' ability, you could usually trap one enemy at the end of a level and just spam that ability over and over for points. That was another game with a great story and soundtrack and I also would love to see a Tactics remaster! Also, making Rafa a chicken to use her with move-find ability. Oh, Escutcheon II. Fun times. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted April 26, 2023 Author Share Posted April 26, 2023 On 4/24/2023 at 6:39 PM, Rally-Vincent--- said: I believe it is a great thing to have gone through a (console) gaming journey where, up to the PS4, there were always improvements of some sort, be it in new gaming concepts (often spurred by better technical specs) and/or the deveplopment of graphics. If you start gaming nowadays, it has to be different experience then from what we had. Smaller jumps. Yeah, I don't really get that same 'Wow!' anymore, which is wild since the graphics are unreal compared to how I started...but yeah, I can't tell the difference between PS4 and PS5 all that much to be honest lol The leaps back then were huge and extremely noticeable. Between the sheer number of games and the availability of games, it is a very different experience than what you and I enjoyed I'm sure. On 4/24/2023 at 6:39 PM, Rally-Vincent--- said: What I remember most of FF X is Yuna and Tidus in the lake scene. Such a magical setting back then. That scene did still give me chills the second time through. I still really enjoyed the game on my second go-round, but it wasn't as amazing as I had originally remembered. Platinum #185 Final Fantasy III This was my first time experiencing this game. I never played the PS ports way back when and I never played the emulated version either. I didn't do any research into it so it was genuinely a new Final Fantasy game for me. As such, I played this one without any of boosts, however I did use a bestiary guide so that I didn't miss anything. Not that a second playthrough would have been a bad thing, but I would have been annoyed to have to replay an entire game because I missed an enemy or two along the way. After playing through it once though, I can say that this felt like a Final Fantasy game and I really enjoyed it. I'll start by saying that I have been playing through the games with the original font and original music. I've checked out the 'Arrangement' versions of the soundtracks sporadically to see the difference and much prefer the original soundtracks. Final Fantasy III didn't disappoint in that area and had a stellar soundtrack as well. I had a feeling I'd like this game when the opening of the game started off with naming the four characters. I was a little confused that they all had the same sprite which was labeled 'Onion Knight'...but was curious how it would unfold. I was under the impression that the 'job system' of Final Fantasy was introduced in Final Fantasy V based on what I had heard so was not expecting it in this game. After the opening couple of scenes though, you get a handful of jobs that you get to pick from and you can either stay as an Onion Knight or choose from the Final Fantasy I jobs. I, of course, went with Fighter, Monk, White Mage and Black Mage with the appropriately named York, Dee, Thor, and Zeus The leveling system was closer to the original, but was different as well. In Final Fantasy III, you have an overall character level and then a job level, so you're leveling two things at the same time each battle. Job levels go up much faster than generic levels and from what I understand, overall character level ups affect your core stats like HP, STR, etc and your job levels improve your proficiency within that specific job. For example, the higher the level your Black Mage job is, the more spells you can cast (no MP in this one) and the more powerful those spells are. You could have two level twenty characters, but if one is a level 50 Black Mage and the other is a level 1 Black Mage, the level 50 one will have more casts per level and more damage capability. It really felt like you got a job level every second or third fight almost, but it did take a while to get to 99. BLM got there the fastest and I was probably 2/3 of the way through the game when I hit 99. WHM got there shortly after and I switched the BLM job to Magus (which was a more powerful BLM) and WHM job to Devout (more powerful WHM). As you progress through the game, more jobs become available to you and they added a lot of jobs that would become staples in future games. The Summoner makes its first appearance in FFIII as well as several others. The upside, is that there is actually a ton of replayability with this game because there are so many jobs to choose from and you could mix and match a ton. You could also try to level as many of them on one save as possible, but this seems like it would take forever. The downside I found, was that it was hard to change from a job that I had spent 50 levels investing in. I got my Fighter and Monk to level 50ish before I unlocked the Knight and Black Belt. In the first game, that was a progression you made after being promoted and your Knight started at the level you were as a Fighter. In this game it was an entirely new job and nothing that you did in the 50 job levels for Fighter or Monk would matter. I ended up switching those two while leaving my White Mage and Black Mage alone, but I ended up not playing around with the different jobs too much since it felt like lost progression when you moved away from the ones I'd been working on. But, this is a game I'd probably play again at some point and I'd probably try out the Viking, Dark Knight or Dragoon jobs and probably the Geomancer or Ranger as well. The graphics felt closer to Final Fantasy IV than the first two games (however these are remastered so that probably had a lot to do with it). When I first started progressing through the story, the map felt very tiny and I thought I was going to be through this game pretty quickly. I was getting the impression that this one may be a poor/rushed story and that the battle system was going to be the best part of the game. You get an airship in the first like fifteen minutes of the game and the dungeons seemed kind of truncated and unimaginative compared to what the FFI dungeons were like. My initial thought was that I wasn't going to like this one. Fortunately, I was wrong. While none of the dungeons were particularly memorable, the map ended up being much bigger than I thought and I think this game is where the series found its stride with storytelling. Where FFII was lacking in creating some depth for the characters, I felt like this one was much better. There were still some odd choices for characters and a few rushed relationships...but overall this game's story was much more fleshed out and creative and felt like the start of the modern day Final Fantasy story. Honestly, I think some of the Kingdom Hearts story may have come from this game as well...not that that's a good thing necessarily lol. Story spoiler enclosed: Spoiler Having said that, there was one spot in the story that felt kind of stupid to me at the end. Your guys are paralyzed with five dragons that are 'going to feast on your bodies' and you're guardian angel comes and says 'hang on a second while I get five pure hearts to counter the five evil dragons.' You then, presumably, stay paralyzed in front of five hungry dragons, who do nothing at all, while the dude transports around the world gathering his pure hearts? It made no sense. He said he knew that the only thing that could counter this paralysis was five pure hearts and it would have made more sense if he had gotten these hearts ready before you were paralyzed so that the dragons weren't just hanging out, waiting for the paralysis to be broken. It was the only real story issue I had throughout this game...that and one of the five hearts was a Three Stooges type knucklehead that was in the story for like five minutes prior. There must've been a better character they could have picked....Fortunately, the dragons just hang out while your buddy grabs the five pure hearts so you can be freed and stop the bad guy. Other than that though, this was a pretty good story. I really liked that there were Dark Warriors as well that were your counterparts in the Dark World that were equally as responsible for keeping the balance. It was a cool twist and it showed a lot more depth than FFII. It was very interesting to me playing this game due to all of the things that worked in this game that ended up sticking around forever in this series. Final Fantasy I introduced the Crystals as a plot device as well as airships and the general battle system and enemy types/lore and such. Final Fantasy II introduced Chocobos and Cid, but this was the first time a character (completely unrelated of course) in the series carried over as both were present in three as well (actually there's also a Princess named Sara like in the first one too). Moogles were introduced in this game, however I don't think they were named that yet, but the sprite made its first appearance. Bahamut and Leviathan (and by proxy summons) were introduced in this game. Multiple worlds/maps, sealed weapons, hidden pathways, hidden items in things other than treasure chests, the spells such as Mini and Toad being needed to progress...so many different things appeared here for the first time that I saw in later games that I loved. It was crazy how heavily influenced Final Fantasy IV was by this game. Well, not crazy since IV came after III obviously, but crazy to me since my initial jump was from I to IV, so all the amazing improvements I saw in IV I didn't realize that many of them actually showed up in III first. The only really annoying thing I can think of was that they got rid of Ethers/Tents/Cabins so you couldn't really heal magic outside of towns without an elixir, which are limited in supply. Losing those items meant you either had to ration out your spells or not travel too far from inns. Fortunately, your mages aren't the same weaklings they are in the other games, but outside of that, I can't think of anything else that really bothered me with this one. As a Final Fantasy fan, I really appreciated this entry into the series. I still think that IV and VI were better since the ideas they had were fleshed out that much better for those games, but this game is very worthy to be in the conversation among the best games in the series. I didn't find it to be terribly hard however. I can't tell how much of that is the remaster making things easier or if it's just the game isn't as hard. As I mentioned, I didn't use any of the boosts (however I did end up doing a lot of farming due to bad luck getting certain bestiary enemies to pop) and I felt appropriately leveled throughout. I didn't slaughter everything, but I didn't die a ton either. My final set of jobs for the last fight was Ninja, Ninja, Devout, and Magus. I was able to cast 18 Curagas and 12 Curajas (I think) and pretty much just had my Devout heal all each turn while my damage dealers whittled down the boss and I was never in any real danger. I was level 52 by the time I got to the end. If you liked IV and VI, then you'll most definitely like this one as well. If you want to see where the modern Final Fantasy started, I think this game marks that point. Now I get to play IV I'm really excited about this one! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted May 1, 2023 Author Share Posted May 1, 2023 Platinum #186 Final Fantasy IV Before Final Fantasy VI was my favorite game of all time, it was Final Fantasy IV. As I had mentioned during one of my prior reviews, I got an SNES in order to play Final Fantasy 2 (SNES). I was too young to get one on my own, but I remember getting my SNES for Christmas and with it was Final Fantasy 2 (SNES). To say I was excited was an understatement. I was ten years old and had not played an SNES game yet and I don't remember video game commercials being a thing, so I had never seen the new, upgraded graphics over the NES. Still in my Christmas jammies, I shuffled up to my room, hooked up my new SNES and promptly put the Final Fantasy 2 cartridge in and powered it on. I soaked in that intro music and started my new adventure, quivering with anticipation. The game started very different than the first one. In the first one, you pick your party and are dumped outside of Coneria and you learn what's going on by talking to townspeople and the King. In FF2, there's an introductory cutscene that takes place that's about ten minutes long. It sets the stage for who the main players are and what the motivation is going to be. The opening scene shows the Dark Knight commander, Cecil, leading the Kingdom of Baron's fleet of Airships to attack a town and steal their Crystal. Your troops slaughter some of the townsfolk, who are not resisting, and Cecil takes the Crystal and leaves. On the trip back to Baron, the soldiers are voicing their displeasure with their new role and don't understand why they are doing this. Cecil, the loyal commander, stands by the King, but you can tell that he too is feeling bad about what they've just done. When Cecil gets back with the Crystal, he asks the King why they are collecting the Crystals. Upset at Cecil for his lack of loyalty, the King dismisses him as the Captain of the Red Wings and commands him to deliver a package (Bomb Ring in IV) to the Village of Mist. Cecil's childhood friend and Dragoon, Kain, tries to defend Cecil and is commanded to go along to make the delivery. It is here that you take control of the characters for the first time. This is clearly a pretty involved prologue, and it had me invested before I'd even taken my first step. I had NEVER seen a game do this before, spending so much time to set up a story. Every game I'd played to this point had been a game first and a story as a kind of byproduct of the game. This was a story first and the game was the vehicle to tell the story. With this being my first SNES experience, I spent the entire morning with my jaw dropped wide open, just soaking in the amazingness of what I was experiencing. The graphics and music were incredible, the shift from turns to Active Time Battles (ATB) was new and kept you on your toes. There was just so much cool stuff to see and do. It was truly amazing how much they could do with 16 bit music. The battle music was intense, with it even more intense during boss battles. The 'sad' music could bring you to tears. It could build drama and it was just so well done to set the mood of the game. There were times in the game where if something profound happened and a new song was playing, I might sit for a few minutes and just listen. For me this game was truly revolutionary and set the new standard for how I would compare games going forward. It did so many things well and I really can't tell you anything that I didn't like about it. I played through this game several times and every time I enjoyed it. But this review isn't about my first experience with this game over 30 years ago, but about the pixel remastered version. There is a lot that is similar and quite a lot that is different. I'll talk mostly about the differences. The biggest difference for me was that this was a new translation of the game. Most of the dialogue was different from the version I played (which I'll refer to as the original going forward even if that's not true). It seems like they modernized the lingo and added a bit more attitude to the text. I know a big knock against the original was how bad the translation was, however being ten, I never noticed or cared. I thought it was great. Due to the change in the dialogue, it was almost like playing a new game. The gist of everything was the same, but it had a different feel to it. It wasn't better or worse, just different. Another big change was the names of all the enemies and the majority of weapons were different. My biggest disappointment surrounded them changing the name of my favorite weapon across all the games from 'Spoon Dagger' to 'Knife'...none of the name changes were a big deal, but it was different. The sprites for the monsters were all the same, but nothing was named what I remembered it to be. Again, minor and nothing that impacted the quality of this version. What this version contained that the original didn't was the extra abilities. In the original, Dark Knight Cecil could just fight or use items. He didn't have any other ability to use. Kain had 'Jump' in addition to his normal attack, but Cecil had nothing. The original Japanese version did have these abilities and I'm not sure why they weren't included on the NA SNES version, but they weren't. I feel like I remember reading that Final Fantasy IV had an 'easy version' and a 'hard version' that was released, and NA received the 'easy version' where these weren't included. I'm not sure why these abilities wouldn't have been a part of the 'easy version' and I'm sure there were other things different as well, but if I remember right, that's what happened. Anyway, in this version, Cecil has an ability called 'Darkness' that drains a small amount of his HP to deal AOE damage to the enemies. I didn't find it strong enough to be worth it, especially when there's no healer present in the party, but I used it a couple times to see what it did, but that was it. Rosa had 'Aim' in the original, but in this version she has another ability called 'Pray', which can heal your party if the prayer is answered. I found it had about a 40% success rate. Speaking of Rosa...she uses a Bow and Arrow as her main weapon. In the original, arrows were a consumable item. Each arrow you fired in battle, depleted your stock by one. If you didn't keep your eye on it, you could run out of arrows during a battle. You could change your equipment midbattle in the original, which you can't in this version. But in this game it didn't matter since you only need one arrow and you'll never run out. I did not realize this at first and spent 2k Gil on Iron arrows for her and then shortly after realized my error. It wasn't a huge deal and actually made the game far easier overall, but was a big waste of Gil early for me. In the later game, there are some arrows you can find that you only got ten of when you found them in a chest during the original, but here you could equip them and Rosa ended up being a pretty powerful DD from the back row. As far as other changes, there were some changes to the character sprites...I remember Yang, Rydia and Edge looking a little different in the original as well as Palom and Porom. They also included the ability to buy 'Sirens' as a consumable item, which help tremendously with getting rare items/drops for trophies. What a Siren does, is initiate a battle against the rarest enemy of the dungeon, which was incredibly useful when farming for the Mage Summon (Mindflayer in this version) and mostly, the Pink Puffs (Flan Princess in this version) for the Pink Tail for the Adamant Armor. In addition to adding the 'Siren' as a purchase-able item, I'm fairly certain they significantly increased the drop rates on these items. I got the Imp, Cockatrice and Bomb summons without even trying to farm as they dropped naturally during game play. I decided to farm the Flan Princesses after beating the game to get my characters to level 70 and got five Pink Tails to drop using only 50 or so Sirens. I'm pretty sure this had a 1-3/64 chance to drop in the original and I had a 10% drop rate using Sirens. It did take about 30 battles to get the Mindflayer summon, but it was still extremely painless compared to the original. I think in all the times I played the original, I only ever had one encounter against the Pink Puffs and obviously never got the Pink Tail. I didn't use any of the boosts while playing until after I had beaten the game. I turned on the XP boost to speed up getting to 70 while farming those Flan Princesses. Even without using the boosts, I didn't have too much trouble throughout the game with my hardest fight being against the Dark Elf. It took me a few tries to beat him. I appreciated the 'auto battle' option while farming Gil/XP throughout the game as it made a relatively mindless task even easier to do. I didn't use the Encounter On/Off either until after I had beaten the game since I wanted to mirror my original playthrough as much as possible. This remaster is a very good representation of the original and while there are some differences, I was able to jump back to being ten years old again and I soaked in this nostalgia. I am the exact market that this series was looking to cater too and they have succeeded to this point. I've played and beaten four of the six releases in just over a week since they were released, and I couldn't be happier playing these games. I can acknowledge, that when you compare these games to the stuff that's out now, graphically, they pale in comparison...however take it from me, these games were, and are still, amazing and should be played by everyone. If you like story telling in a game, then you really can't go wrong here. This story is masterfully woven and they do a great job making you invest and care in the characters. I'm looking forward to V as that is another one that I have never played. Considering how awesome IV and VI were, I have high hopes for this one. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Briste Posted June 16, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted June 16, 2023 It's been a little while since I did my last update. I was feeling a bit rushed (only by myself) to finish up a few things. I wanted the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster games to be done consecutively on my page...but I also wanted Final Fantasy VI to somehow be a milestone since it is my favorite game of all time. I couldn't make it a platinum milestone since that would have put the Pixel Remasters out of order. My closest milestone was trophy 9000 so that had to be my target. When I finished playing Final Fantasy V, I had about 150 trophies to go to get there. Normally, no problem and there's no rush, I'd just delay popping the FFVI platinum until needed, however I also took part in the Trophies For Mental Health event which required me to finish a game in the month of May. To succeed in my mission, I'd have to get the 150 trophies, without finishing a game, in less than a month. I average around two trophies per day. To get 150 trophies would normally take me 75 days. I sped up the process by playing some of my shorter, easier games from my backlog to close that gap so that I could try to do everything I wanted. I could have written this review several weeks ago, however I felt like my free time would be better served getting trophies than writing reviews so this was pushed back a bit. Now that I've hit my milestone, finished the event, and popped several games that were ready to go....I feel fine taking a night or two off from gaming to catch up here. In the next week or so, I'll be doing my reviews for Final Fantasy V, Final Fantasy VI, FAR: Lone Sails, FAR: Changing Tides, Life is Strange 2, Life is Strange: True Colors and Actual Sunlight. It should be fun to do since I enjoyed each on of those games. I had originally planned on spending some time in the next month or so cleaning up my outstanding trophies from some unfinished games....however Final Fantasy XVI comes out next week and I realized I'll be playing that. I'll see what I can do in the next week or so, but between reviews and a long-weekend family trip, I'm sure it'll prove to be futile. Without further ado.... Platinum #187 Final Fantasy V Final Fantasy V was the last numbered game in the series that I had never played. I had bought the PS Classic version of the game years and years ago, but never got around to playing it. I had heard that it utilized the 'Job System', where you play the same character but can change up the job (Ninja, Knight, White Mage, etc) on the fly and mix and match as needed. I didn't know much else beside that however, and I was going into this one with an open mind and no spoilers. I assumed it'd be pretty good considering how awesome IV and VI were. Those are lofty expectations and I wasn't expecting that level of enjoyment since this game didn't have the nostalgia box checked, so I did temper my expectations a bit so that I wouldn't be disappointed. Overall, I did end up enjoying this one, although slightly less than the two I already mentioned. Graphically, this game was virtually identical to FFIV. The world map used the same pixels and the characters were also similarly done. The overall tone of the game was more cheerful than IV or VI as well. That's not to say there wasn't some sadness and drama sprinkled in, but there was more silliness in this game compared to the others, which lightened the mood. I also didn't love the names of some of the main characters. They were a bit goofy so it was hard to take them seriously. The main protagonist is a dude named Bartz who has a bit of wanderlust. He just travels around with his best friend Boko, who happens to be a Chocobo. This all changes when a meteorite hits the ground and he meets the Princess Lenna and old, amnesiac Galuf, followed shortly by the pirate Faris and then finally, young Krile. They band together as a team to defeat the evil Exdeath and stop the world from returning to the void. This is where I'll pause to say that I liked the names of Lenna, Faris and Krile...however Bartz, Galuf and Exdeath were very meh for me. Bartz wouldn't be terrible if I didn't automatically think of Bart Simpson every time I read it. Galuf sounded like a mixture of goof and aloof and Exdeath is just a lame name for a character. Having 'death' in the name takes some of the mystery out of who's the bad guy. Also, did he name himself Exdeath or did he have evil parents that thought it'd be badass? Either way, I just thought it was not a real name so was distracting. Golbez was a great bad guy name and so is Kefka. This is a truly nitpicky thing I'm pointing out, but I do think those names made it harder for me to take the game as serious as IV and VI and so did play a small role in my ability to get immersed in the story. The story follows that same familiar formula of crystals and light warriors fighting to prevent the darkness from taking over. There are variations obviously, but it is very familiar to me at this point. I like it, but there's nothing I need to write here that isn't present in the other games. The beginning and the end are the same and the journey is similar with a few twists and turns along the way. The biggest change in this game from the other two is the relative lack of playable characters as well as the job system. There are only five different characters that you can play as, but there are 22 jobs you can assign them. Outside of personality, there's nothing unique about playing as any of them since they all have the ability to be all of the jobs. Since there is a trophy for mastering all 22 of them, I tended to just switch jobs as I mastered them, not sticking to any one job type. I did always have a Blue Mage (or someone that could use their 'learn' ability) in my party since there is a trophy for learning all the Blue Magic, but outside of that, it was just a mix and match. The job system works pretty similarly to how it did in FFIII except in this version you are able to equip an ability that you had previously learned on another job to your current main. For example, if you have leveled White Mage on your character and you decide to change their job class to Ninja, you have the option of selecting White Magic as their 'bonus' ability. If none of my party members were leveling WHM at the time, at least one always had that skill set as a secondary ability. Most of the time I'd have my melee characters have other melee abilities and my mage/support characters would have a mage/support extra ability. The ability could be something innate, such as the Blue Mage ability 'learn'. By having that as the secondary ability, any job class main would be able to learn blue spells (spells/abilities learned from enemies). Or you could have an active ability such as being able to cast white magic. They all shared what was learned as well. For example, you only needed to learn a blue spell one time and they could all use it. You didn't need to learn it on each character for it to be used. Same with the other spells. You only had to buy it once and then they all could use it so long as they had the correct job or ability equipped. The 22 different jobs and dozens of abilities really do make this game have a cool combat dynamic. You could mix and match so many different things that you could play this game however you want and does up the re-playability of it to make each playthrough a bit unique. I didn't find any one job to be that much more overpowered than the rest. I generally just made sure I had at least one tank-y character and one healer ability equipped and you could pretty much run anything else out there. Each job had an element of fun to it. I don't normally use boosts in these games, but I did run with the AP boost for learning jobs faster. I did this to cut down on the unnecessary farming for AP after completing the game. There is so much AP you need to master all 22 jobs, and since each job has its own strengths, I didn't feel like that boost would 'break' the game by making me too overpowered. I still ran with the normal XP and gold accrual to keep the game somewhat challenging. Since each of the jobs are fairly strong though, I didn't find the game to be too difficult. There are some pretty cheese combos you can make with jobs to make things super easy, but since I was farming all the jobs for all my characters, I just went down the list of jobs with each of them until everything was learned by everyone. While I did enjoy this game, it didn't have the same effect on me as the other two. I didn't find the story or characters quite as compelling as in IV and VI. I thought that Faris was the most interesting one of the group and while they did do a decent job of fleshing out each of the backstories, I just didn't get attached to them the same way I did with Cecil and Rosa or Locke and Celes. I am very happy that I ended up playing through it, but it's not one that I'll necessarily rush to play again. Now that I've completed every numbered game in the series, I'll list my ranking of them in order of my favorite to least favorite (all were at least decent). 1. Final Fantasy VI 2. Final Fantasy XI 3. Final Fantasy IV 4. Final Fantasy VII 5. Final Fantasy I 6. Final Fantasy X 7. Final Fantasy XIV 8. Final Fantasy VIII 9. Final Fantasy IX 10. Final Fantasy XIII-2 11. Final Fantasy XIII 12. Final Fantasy V 13. Final Fantasy III 14. Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII 15. Final Fantasy X-2 16. Final Fantasy XV 17. Final Fantasy XII 18. Final Fantasy II The top 5 and bottom 5 are pretty firm for me, but the middle are roughly equal to me and I could argue up or down a few spots each of them. I should have probably left off the -2 games and Lightning Returns...but I didn't. I did leave off the FF7 Remake, however I do plan on playing Crisis Core and Stranger's of Paradise pretty soon and then I'll rank every one of the ones I've played that are in the 'series' tab. I know I said I'd do the rest of my reviews in short order, however I'll be traveling tomorrow and probably won't be able to realistically do them until I'm back from my trip next Thursday...but then! I'll do one per day until I'm caught up Hope everyone is doing well! 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted June 28, 2023 Author Share Posted June 28, 2023 (edited) So I lied lol I had hoped to spend a week or so doing a review each night, however I went away for a week and didn't feel like using my work laptop to type and then Final Fantasy XVI came out the day I got back and I've been sidetracked. My first impression of the game is that it's awesome. The MA rating is throwing me for a bit of a loop since I wasn't expecting the word 'cock' in my Final Fantasy...but now that I'm expecting it, it's not bad. It has a very 'Game of Thrones' feel to it for me. I won't go into it much more now until I finish it, but I'm enjoying it quite a bit so far after about five hours of playing. I've also been trying to keep up with my dailies in Genshin Impact...the game that will never end. I still enjoy it, but I can't help but wonder how many other games I could have finished in the 800+ hours I've put into this one. I kind of hope they stop adding trophies so I don't feel as bad skipping days now and then...but I can usually get everything I need to do done in 20 minutes...but when you only have an hour and a half or so to play, it's almost a third of my gaming time a day. Well, now that I'm back home and stuff, I'll try to write a review per night until I've caught up. Next up is my favorite game of all time... Platinum #188 Final Fantasy VI Here it is folks, my favorite game of all time. If I had the power to relive a gaming experience again, I would choose this game without there really being a close second. I cannot understate how amazing this game was for me when I first played it when I was 13 years old. I got it for Christmas, loaded it up and began the best gaming ride of my life. This game came at the perfect time for me. As a 13 year old kid, this was a tough time during my life. Prior to this time of my life, gaming had always been more of a hobby...something I enjoyed to do, but I had lots of things I enjoyed doing. By the time this game came out, gaming had transformed from a hobby into an escape for me. I won't go into it much here since I already spilled my guts in the Trophies for Mental Health Event, but I was having a tough time at home and at school. My self esteem was really low and I just didn't feel like I had a lot to look forward to and not much hope of things getting better. Final Fantasy VI gave me an escape into a world where there was hope to make a difference. It gave me a place where I could live vicariously through the many characters that had surprising depth. This game had many mature themes, as well as some comedy, and most of all, a compelling story with an amazing soundtrack. I needed this game at that time of my life and it delivered what I was looking for. What I love the best in this game is the story. It was the first game that moved away from the Crystals as a plot element and replaced them with magical beings called Espers. Espers were the source of magic and were supposedly wiped out a thousand years earlier during the 'War of the Magi...'. The game starts with one of these Espers being discovered in the mountains and you play as Biggs, Wedge and an unknown girl who mysteriously wields the power of magic. They show up riding on Magitek Armor that resembles the ED-209 from Robocop . Anyways, it was a pretty cool intro. I spent that first morning playing until your party splits up and then you have to choose which storyline you wish to complete first. I fell in love with the character Locke and I choose him first. When I had to do the next two sections, I couldn't wait to get back to Locke and see how his story continued. I'm not going to go through the game step by step, but I could lol. I'll just say I've played through this game probably twenty times. I have one save on my SNES cartridge where I have all of the Rage's you can get with my characters all maxed out, one save that stays at the Opera house and my third save is for replays. If I dust off my old SNES (which I do from time to time), this is the only game I play before packing it up again. So how did I feel about this Pixel Remastered version? I give it B+. They did this with all of the games, but I found it annoying that the names were changed from the NES/SNES versions. It's a small thing, but so many weapons, armor, items, and enemies were called something different. I know the games well enough where I still knew what they were...but it missed that nostalgia piece. I used to stay on the Veldt the first time through until I was able to learn the 'Marshal' Rage since his 'Wind Slash' ability was super strong for that time in the game. In this version, he's the 'Guard Leader'. The 'Telstar' was the 'Satellite'. The graphic was the same, but it was just different. My biggest disappointment, and it was a major disappointment...was that they changed the lyrics of the Opera scene. They did a rehaul of the graphics and made it looks a lot cooler and they also added the lyrics of people actually singing which was cool...but they changed the goddamn lyrics!! Imagine your favorite song comes on the radio and you go to sing along, but the words are completely different....(Guns N' Roses actually did this with their song Don't Cry on the Use Your Illusion CDs...anyone that liked the 'Alternate Lyrics' better is crazy). It was the thing I was looking forward to doing the most, and they changed the lyrics. What made it so disappointing was that nobody sang the song in the original game, it was just the soundtrack and then the words to match so I used to sing it in my head while doing it. I was looking forward to hearing it again and it was different. It wasn't bad...but it was different and not what I wanted during my nostalgia tour. The scene is still amazing and if you didn't play the original, you wouldn't know any better, but for me that was a huge bummer. I don't even know why they felt the need to change the lyrics since I thought they were amazing as is. There wasn't some bad translation or anything....I'll stop here with my complaining about it since I could ramble on for pages. Outside of those couple of things, this version was a very good representation of the game. For those that have never played the game before, those two gripes I had do not exist and the game would be an amazing experience. I really appreciated that they allow you to play with the original score in addition to the newer mix. The newer mix is great, however the original soundtrack is still my favorite. The Celes theme song is what the alarm on my phone plays when I use it. That song is my favorite song from all of the games...in fact several of the theme songs are great. I do like that each of them has their own and it is very distinguishable. Several of my favorite characters in all of gaming come from this game as well. Locke is my favorite and the character I related to the most as a kid, with Celes and Shadow close behind. I did use the XP boost in this game...but I used it in reverse and chose to receive 0 XP for most of the beginning of the game. In this game, you learn spells by equipping Espers. Certain Espers also give bonus's when you level up. For example, if you have Bismark equipped when you level up, you'll get a +2 to your STR stat. There are also Espers that give boosts to Magic Power, Stamina, HP, MP and Speed. The problem is, you do not get Espers till you're several hours into the game and you don't get Espers with +2 boosts on some stats until very late in the game. Since there is a level cap of 99, you can only get the boost as long as you can level your characters. There's also the problem that as you get new members to your group, they join your party with the average level of your party. So if you level a lot early in the game, when you get new characters later in the game, they start at a higher level leaving less room for stat boosts. Having the option to turn off XP was nice because I could keep my party as low as possible while filling out the bestiary until I got the Espers I wanted to boost my stats. In the later part of the game, there is a Coliseum, where you have the opportunity to send one of your characters into battle to win some rare items. The problem is you have to risk an item to get an item and oddly, you lose what you wager whether you win or lose the fight. If you win, you only get the new item and if you lose, you get nothing and lose your item. One would think that if you win, you get to keep your item and win the new one...but that's not how it works here. Anyways, the second issue is that you cannot control the character you pick. The computer will control him and he/she is not always smart. Nothing is more frustrating than seeing your dude cast Esuna on yourself during a turn when you do not have a status ailment. The trick is, to keep one of your characters from learning magic at all (mostly). That way, the only option he/she has is to attack. I always use Shadow in the Coliseum. I would wait until I get the Esper Raiden, which gives +2 to speed, and then level Shadow up to the point his speed stat is around 90-100. He then is basically hasted naturally and attacks really quickly. The only spell he'd know is Quick, which gives him an extra turn so it's not really a bad thing if he uses it during battle. If you have him learn any other spells, you risk having him use stupid things and wasting turns. The object is to kill the opponent as quick as possible since you can't count on your dude to cure him/herself. There's a boost in this game that puts the AP earned (thing you need to learn spells) at 0 so you could level up your Coliseum dude with no spells and still get the leveling bonus if you want. It was fun to play the game this way since it's not something I could ever do in the original. I used to get to the second half of the game around level 25-30, but this time around I was able to get there at level 18, which gave me some extra levels for stat boosting. The game is not terribly hard at all and if you pay attention to your character's XP levels and equip the proper Espers at the proper times when you level, you can become OP pretty quickly. By and large, leveling Magic Power is the most useful one to do, followed probably by Speed and then Strength. There is no need to ever use the HP+ or MP+ boosts since you pretty much cap HP and MP naturally if you get to level 99. Magic power caps around 125 I believe, so for most of my characters, I get the Magic power to right around there and then boost speed so they can attack faster. With Magic Power that high, level one spells can do 9,999 damage to some enemies. The only annoying trophy in the game is for getting 'Joker's Death' on Setzer's Slot ability. That requires you to get 7-7-7 on the slots and it kills all enemies. If you get 7-7-BAR, you get the 'Joker's Death' that kills everyone and gives you a game over screen. If you use 'auto-battle' you can supposedly get it, but I must've gotten the 7-7-BAR one thirty times and never got the 7-7-7. I was saving after every fight in case of the party wipe one happened and it got annoying fast. It's not terribly hard to time manually, however I think the game cheats at times and makes you miss on purpose. That trophy is largely RNG based and was annoying. I was happy when I finally got it and could stop worrying about it. I do recommend to start trying for that one early since it can take a while if RNG is bad. Beyond that, I don't have too much else to offer without major spoilers or writing 45 pages. I know the game is thirty years old, but a lot of people may have never played it due to no trophies and I do not wish to deprive anyone of the joy of a blind playthrough. I cannot recommend this game enough and this version of the game is great for first timers and is adequate for those that are SNES version vets. I hope that everyone takes the time to play this masterpiece and I'd be curious to hear if anyone else loved this game as much as I have. If I could choose one game to be redone/remastered, it'd be this one...but ONLY if they didn't change the story and turn based format. I would just want a fresh coat of paint on it. I really enjoyed FF7R, but I would want this game to be truer to the source material than that one was. Speaking of which....I can't wait for FF7R part 2 next year Edited June 28, 2023 by Briste 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pelagia14 Posted June 28, 2023 Share Posted June 28, 2023 11 hours ago, Briste said: So how did I feel about this Pixel Remastered version? I give it B+. They did this with all of the games, but I found it annoying that the names were changed from the NES/SNES versions. It's a small thing, but so many weapons, armor, items, and enemies were called something different. I know the games well enough where I still knew what they were...but it missed that nostalgia piece. I used to stay on the Veldt the first time through until I was able to learn the 'Marshal' Rage since his 'Wind Slash' ability was super strong for that time in the game. In this version, he's the 'Guard Leader'. The 'Telstar' was the 'Satellite'. The graphic was the same, but it was just different. My biggest disappointment, and it was a major disappointment...was that they changed the lyrics of the Opera scene. They did a rehaul of the graphics and made it looks a lot cooler and they also added the lyrics of people actually singing which was cool...but they changed the goddamn lyrics!! I'm super excited for when I reach FFVI in my Pixel Remastered playthroughs! It's odd that they made some localization changes to items and enemies - especially since I assume the localization done thirty years ago wasn't riddled with errors in these areas. I'm super surprised to hear that they changed something as big as the Opera scene lyrics - I've kept myself mostly blind to the story, but my understanding is that a pretty big moment in the story. While that is really annoying, I'm glad that you brought it up so that when I get to this game, I know to watch the original scene online afterwards. 11 hours ago, Briste said: I did use the XP boost in this game...but I used it in reverse and chose to receive 0 XP for most of the beginning of the game. In this game, you learn spells by equipping Espers. Certain Espers also give bonus's when you level up. For example, if you have Bismark equipped when you level up, you'll get a +2 to your STR stat. There are also Espers that give boosts to Magic Power, Stamina, HP, MP and Speed. The problem is, you do not get Espers till you're several hours into the game and you don't get Espers with +2 boosts on some stats until very late in the game. Since there is a level cap of 99, you can only get the boost as long as you can level your characters. There's also the problem that as you get new members to your group, they join your party with the average level of your party. So if you level a lot early in the game, when you get new characters later in the game, they start at a higher level leaving less room for stat boosts. Having the option to turn off XP was nice because I could keep my party as low as possible while filling out the bestiary until I got the Espers I wanted to boost my stats. Thank you for mentioning this! I've been using the XP Boosts in the earlier games because I've already put in my thousand of hours of RPG grinding - let alone Final Fantasy grinding, lol. I took a quick glance at the PSNP trophy and collectible guides and they don't mention this at all. I probably won't go as far as turning XP to 0, especially being unfamiliar with the game, but even leaving it at x1 for a while sounds like it will be really helpful. 11 hours ago, Briste said: It was fun to play the game this way since it's not something I could ever do in the original. I used to get to the second half of the game around level 25-30, but this time around I was able to get there at level 18, which gave me some extra levels for stat boosting. The game is not terribly hard at all and if you pay attention to your character's XP levels and equip the proper Espers at the proper times when you level, you can become OP pretty quickly. By and large, leveling Magic Power is the most useful one to do, followed probably by Speed and then Strength. There is no need to ever use the HP+ or MP+ boosts since you pretty much cap HP and MP naturally if you get to level 99. Magic power caps around 125 I believe, so for most of my characters, I get the Magic power to right around there and then boost speed so they can attack faster. With Magic Power that high, level one spells can do 9,999 damage to some enemies. Noted! ? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted June 29, 2023 Author Share Posted June 29, 2023 9 hours ago, pelagia14 said: I'm super excited for when I reach FFVI in my Pixel Remastered playthroughs! It's odd that they made some localization changes to items and enemies - especially since I assume the localization done thirty years ago wasn't riddled with errors in these areas. I'm super surprised to hear that they changed something as big as the Opera scene lyrics - I've kept myself mostly blind to the story, but my understanding is that a pretty big moment in the story. While that is really annoying, I'm glad that you brought it up so that when I get to this game, I know to watch the original scene online afterwards. From what I understand, the translation wasn't great, however I never really noticed. I think it was a bigger problem in FFIV and that's why we have phrases like 'Spoony Bard!'. I wouldn't have noticed the dialogue as much, but I agree that it is odd that they did make those localization changes. I didn't even realize there were alternate lyrics until I played this...then I Googled it to see if I had lost my mind and had misremembered the lyrics. Turns out there's like three or four versions I believe. I'm sure if you do watch the original SNES lyrics, you won't understand the need for a change either. It's still really good and I hope you end up enjoying it. 9 hours ago, pelagia14 said: Thank you for mentioning this! I've been using the XP Boosts in the earlier games because I've already put in my thousand of hours of RPG grinding - let alone Final Fantasy grinding, lol. I took a quick glance at the PSNP trophy and collectible guides and they don't mention this at all. I probably won't go as far as turning XP to 0, especially being unfamiliar with the game, but even leaving it at x1 for a while sounds like it will be really helpful. No problem! They probably don't mention it because it really isn't needed, since you can still be pretty OP without it...but if you get to level 60 or something early because you did 4x XP, you'll miss out on some really fun customization possibilities with your team. You'll definitely be fine if you keep the XP at x1 and it'll probably make some of the parts a bit easier along the way. I just found your thread on here and I look forward to reading your thoughts when you get there! FAR: Lone Sails The next game on my list was a happy accident that I have to give tangential credit to @Cassylvania for me discovering. Cass has probably one of the most viewed trophy checklists on the site and I am one to read it regularly. As most of you probably know, Cass is doing a solo event trying to justify a PS+ subscription by playing PS+ games and utilizing a wheel of death to do the picking. As luck would have it (lucky for me but maybe not Cass ?), Cass's first game up was Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot. I have never watched the show and I know nothing about the games. I've heard of Goku and I think that's about as far as my knowledge goes. It was mentioned in the thread that there is a meme from the show that has something to do with 'It's Over 9000!', which I know nothing about. As luck would have it though...I was about 150 trophies away from getting my 9000th trophy and thought it might be fun to have my 9001 trophy have something to do with that meme. I Googled 'It's Over 9000! trophy' and a game called FAR: Lone Sails popped up as a game with that trophy name. When I saw the trophy image (see above), I thought it was a perfect trophy for 9001. I checked out the game here and saw it did not have a platinum and had a relatively low player count. I looked it up on the PS Store and saw it was like $10 and figured what the hell...why not? I did a bit of research on the trophy to see if it was RNG based or if I could time it for when I wanted it to pop and was happy to see that not only could I time it, it would probably be my last trophy and I wouldn't have to quit playing the game halfway through until I got to 9000 trophies. I had a lot of moving parts with this trophy setup since, for reasons, I wanted to have the entire Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster series completed consecutively and in a row on my trophy list, which they will be once I finish the games stuck in the middle there now. I also wanted the Final Fantasy VI plat to be a milestone since it is my favorite game ever. In order to do that, it'd have to be my 9000th trophy since saving it for plat 200 would put them out of order. I needed to get FFVI ready to platinum, get another 150ish trophies without finishing another game to keep the FF series in order and get the 9001 trophy ready to pop right after. A lot of moving parts, but nothing terribly hard to do...just needed patience and to pay attention. You'll notice though, that I popped several games on June 14th since that was the day the magic happened. All that I've written so far was the lead up to how I found the game and why I chose to play it...but what the hell was it? For starters, it's probably my favorite non-Final Fantasy game I've played this year. It was short, fun and surprisingly good! The game seems like it should be a survival game since the setting looks like a post apocalyptic world where you are trying to find another person, however outside of collecting fuel for your landship, there's no 'survival' aspects to the game. You can't die from hunger or anything (you can burn to death but it'll just reload your game from when you died). This game has not a single word of dialogue and there are absolutely no directions on what you need to do. It's a 2D setup and you can only run right or left, or climb up or down in some areas when solving puzzles. The game honestly felt a bit like Overcooked! to me. There is some light puzzle solving and it is mostly a timing game with traps. The game starts with you, at what appears to be, a gravesite. Perhaps of the only other person alive in the world. There's no credits or title screen really...the game just starts. Your only option is to run right. The controls are very basic. You can move, jump, and pick things up or drop them...that's about it. After running a short distance, you come upon a landship (see below) and your job is to get the thing moving and drive to the right. There's not really any directions, there's just some boxes and some buttons and a few labels near stuff. In essence, everything you can pick up can be used as fuel. There are hooks scattered about you can hang stuff from and rooms where you can also drop stuff to store. You need to put the fuel into the engine and keep your ship moving. I'm not sure what happens if you run out of things to use as fuel since that never happened to me. I'm assuming you may need to reload a previous checkpoint and do a better job of salvaging things or maybe you just pull your ship until you find more fuel. I've included a screenshot below to describe the different aspects of the landship. This is a trophy image of mine of a picture of the ship later in the game. You don't start with all of the numbered items and collect a lot of them as you go. This is a vacuum that sucks up items that you drive over that can be used as fuel. It really helps speed things up as you do not have to stop to manually collect the fuel. Unlockable item via the story. This is a winch that you can grab to pull your ship back if needed or you can hook to things behind you. Starting item. This is the fuel loader. You put items on here you wish to put in the incinerator to add fuel. Starting item. This is the button you push to load the incinerator. Starting item. This is a repair kit that lets you fix parts of your ship that get damaged. Unlockable item via the story. This is a fire hose that you use to put out any fires that may appear. Fires often occur if you crash into things. The hose can go very far. Starting item. This is the elevator that you can use to get to the top of the landship to reach the sails or puzzle areas. Starting item. This is the steam gauge that tells you how much steam has built up in the engine. If you press the button connected to it, it will release the steam pressure. If the pressure gets too high, your engine will shut off and could be damaged. Starting item. These are your sails. Push that giant button to raise them. If the sails are raised and you push it, they will go down. They do not go down automatically unless they hit something. Unlockable item via the story. This is the brake. Push that button to stop your landship and keep it from rolling. It is very easy to release the break and your ship could roll away from you if you're parked on a hill. Starting item. This is the gas pedal. Push that button to engage the engine (as the little red dude in the picture is doing right here). It automatically turns off like everything 15 seconds or so if you do not press it again to keep it pressed in. The speed gauge is right next to that button. Starting item. This is your fuel tank. How it looks in this image is a full tank. If you run out of fuel, you'll stop moving (unless your sails are up and there's wind). Your other systems won't work if you're out of fuel. Starting item. This flag will show you if there is wind and which direction it is facing. The way it is pointed in the picture means your sails will work. If it's hanging down or pointing in the other direction, you want your sails down. Starting item. These gauges show you how much damage your systems have sustained. If the meter falls below those lines, your system will not work optimally and should be repaired. The broken system will spark as well if it falls below one of those lines making it obvious what needs repairs. Starting item, but gauges only appear as you get the corresponding upgrade. This is your odometer. It doesn't really serve any purpose, but when this shows 9001, you'll get that trophy It takes 3+ playthroughs to reach that distance. Starting item. This is the front winch. It works similarly to the back one where you can pull your boat if needed or hook it to something. Pressing that button will wind the winch. Starting item. So the game is basically finding a rhythm of monitoring all your systems, while maintaining enough fuel to keep moving, while watching the wind direction, while paying attention to obstacles that could be coming in front of you (if you crash, you'll probably damage your systems), while stopping to solve mini-puzzles that either open your way, add an upgrade, or both, until you reach your destination. It takes a little bit to figure out something that works, but once you get going...it's a lot of fun. The game is pretty short as there's a speed run that must be completed in less than 99 minutes. I think I did the speed run in about 90 minutes so there is room to spare. You can also reload a prior checkpoint if you think you took too long doing a puzzle or something and your timer will go back to what it was when you hit the checkpoint so it's very forgiving. As I mentioned, you'll need to do 3+ playthroughs to 100% the game as each run is just under 3000 meters. I thought it was more than that, and maybe the odometer is glitched because I swear I hit 9000 meters and the when the odometer rolled over from 8999, it went to 8000...but I may have just not been looking at it right. I'd be curious if anyone else notices that. This was a happy discovery and I'm very glad to have played it. The artwork was really nice and I very much enjoyed the soundtrack. The games not terribly hard, but was busy to play. I liked it so much that I bought the sequel, FAR: Changing Tides as soon as I finished this one. That will be the next game I review. Lone Sails is kind of short, so I'm not sure it's worth paying much more than $10 for...but it really is a fun and entertaining game that I would highly recommend if you're looking for a nice little palate cleanser in between longer titles. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted July 4, 2023 Author Share Posted July 4, 2023 Still playing some catch up. I'm finding I want to spend my free time playing Final Fantasy XVI. It's not your typical Final Fantasy, but I think it's an amazing game regardless. It's hard to choose to spend an hour writing a review when I could be playing a game. I'm almost caught up, but this will be slower sailing than I had thought initially. Speaking of sailing... Platinum #189 FAR: Changing Tides After very much enjoying the happy discovery of FAR: Lone Sails, I decided to pick up the sequel that was on sale (I think). This game has a platinum and looked like it was going to be a slightly longer experience compared to the first game as there is a speed run trophy in this one as well, but it's to be done in under 210 minutes as opposed to the 99 from the first entry. This was the game that I had to pay close attention to with regards to popping trophies since this was the game that was going to get me to 8998 trophies in order to pop my FFVI milestone plat. Thankfully, I had enough of a gap of trophies that I needed that I could do my first playthrough without worrying about popping too many and blowing my milestone. This game was probably going to require a second playthrough anyway for the speed run trophy, so I could take my time and enjoy the first time through. This game starts off the same way as the first one...with no words, text or direction on what to do. Once again, the only real option is to go right and that is the way you go. Very early, you get to see how they changed up this one. The first game takes place almost exclusively on land as you are trying to captain a landship to find civilization. With this game, you come upon water almost immediately and can swim underwater to explore. Instead of starting in an arid wasteland, you are in a flooded city. Your guy is apparently an Atlantean or something since he can hold his breath indefinitely or breath underwater. There is no air timer or anything that leads you to believe you will drown if you are underwater too long. Anyway, this game is pretty much the same as the first game, just instead of a landship, you have an actual ship ship. It has the same basic premise of having sails and an engine that needs fueling. There's still a hose to put out fires and instead of having a permanent structure to use for repairs, you have repair boxes that have about six uses before disappearing. There's a new 'Turbo' speed that is added as you progress as well. The game has that same Overcooked! feel for busywork and timing and is still a lot of fun. There is an added wrinkle in this game, however...not only can your ship sail on the surface, but later in the game you gain the ability to turn it into a submersible and drive underwater. You get a machine you can hook the hose up to either flood with water to go under or expel the water to surface. You can choose to have the hose suck or blow and it is how you control your depth. It adds a really cool dimension to the game and also adds something else to pay attention to. I found that I was never really in danger of running out of resources in this one and I believe the speed run time is very lenient. I did quite a bit of exploring and I think I just missed the time my first attempt. I believe I beat it with like twenty minutes to spare when I actually tried the speed run. There's not a ton to add about the gameplay for this one since it very closely mirrors the first one. The puzzles are slightly more complex (still not terribly hard) and there are some slight changes with making things more realistic, but the spirit of the game is the same. The sailing mechanic was more complex as there were more than two directions the wind could be blowing. You could adjust the position of the sails to catch the wind and move faster. It probably mirrors actual sailing pretty closely with the way you have to shift the sails. It pretty easy to get the hang of as the flag the shows the wind direction goes higher up the sail the more you catch the wind and starts to lower as your sails are losing steam. But requires a lot more attention to be paid in order to maximize speed. The engine is also fleshed out a bit more as you can control the speed and even reverse. There is not steam release button for this one and instead you have to use the hose to cool off the engine to prevent overheating. The annoying thing here is that to cool the engine, you have to spray the hose over the incinerator and it's very easy to accidentally cool the incinerator, slowing down your momentum. You also heat the incinerator a bit different in this game. Instead of just pushing a button, you have to jump on a 'bellows' like a blacksmith would, to add air to the fire and keep the incinerator going. They've added more storage and a loading system for the fuel and the ship is a lot bigger here than in the first one. In addition to the hose/cooling element being a bit stupid for how it is laid out, I found some of the buttons (especially the engine fuel feeder) to be in a little bit of an annoying place. I accidentally hit the loader button into the incinerator several times, wasting fuel. But, as I said, it wasn't a huge deal since I found fuel to be frequent enough that I never ran out. I enjoyed this game every bit as much as the first. It expanded on what the first one built and had the same great music and artwork. It is very well done and is another game that has been criminally underplayed. The only semi spoiler-y thing I'll say is pay attention to the very end sequence. I missed it the first time I ran through the game and beat it, and only noticed it after my second, speed run playthrough...but the game ends in a very cool way. Not that there's a huge story here, but if there was, the spoiler below is a major spoiler so open at your own risk. Spoiler It is unclear throughout the game if you're playing the same character from the first game or not, however once you get to the lighthouse at the end, and the screen flips, and you are all of a sudden going right to left instead of left to right...the game ends with you meeting up with the person from the first game at the pyre that you lit to end the first one. I thought that was a very cool way to tie the two games together and end the story. I really hope that more people check this game/series out. It is a lot of fun, very well done and I would highly recommend. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Briste Posted July 22, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted July 22, 2023 I know I owe a couple of reviews, and I'll try to get them done this weekend, but there's a topic I wanted to write about...something that I see argued over and over...and it's about how people play games. More and more you see people judging others on here and half the time I think people are talking about different things...but most of the conflict generally starts with something along the lines of "I don't understand how/why...." I've done some thinking and I feel like there's this triangle of gaming where each extreme just can't seem to be civil to each other. It's kind of a rock, paper, scissors kind of scenario. I call it... Gamers Vs Trophy Hunters Vs Trophy Collectors Let me give you a quick, basic definition of how I view each. For Gamers, it's all about the games. Trophies are simply a byproduct of gaming and if a game sucks, they will stop playing, trophies be damned. If it's good they will keep playing. These are the types of players that become 'lifers' of certain games they fall in love with and don't really care about things like completion percentage and trophy rarity. These players will mock Trophy Hunters and Trophy Collectors for placing any value on a trophy. A common line said by people in this corner when they see someone complain about a trophy is "no one's forcing you to get all the trophies, just stop playing if you don't like it." They find Trophy Hunters insufferable for their obsession with certain trophies being in certain games and they find Trophy Collectors to be jokes since they don't really play real games, they just spend their days tapping X. I find that most Gamer types tend to defend Trophy Collectors over Trophy Hunters since people should be able to play whatever they want. For Trophy Hunters, it's a combination of the games and the trophies and this is the most varied of the groups. They may target games with specifically hard trophies or avoid certain games because the trophies may be too hard. These players will take a trophy list into consideration before attempting a game, especially if they're the completist type. If there's an unobtainable trophy, that might mean a game is unplayable, no matter how good the game itself may be. Trophy Hunters will generally have their own set of guidelines that they follow for their profile, which can cause infighting with this group. There may be some overlap, but a lot of people in this corner disagree about how to properly hunt or what constitutes a 'good profile'. Some will pay attention to milestones, utilize boosting sessions, and generally care about the peripheral stats that are on their profile, whether it is average trophy rarity or completion percentage. This is the corner where those that want a difficulty trophy would preside, that get mad at autopops that ruin a trophies rarity. This is the corner that will complain that a trophy list is too easy or too hard. This is the corner that is most divided since Trophy Hunters are passionate about their hobby and have strong opinions on what is the 'right way' to hunt. It's common in this group for one side to call the other side 'gate keepers'. For Trophy Collectors, it's all about the trophies and very little (if anything) to do with the games. They play for the dopamine hit of hearing the *ding* and urge to climb the leaderboard. They really don't care too much about the game itself. So long as it gives them trophies as fast as possible, that is the most important thing. If they play a real game, they'll usually play the PS4 version so that they can autopop the PS5 version for double the trophies. They will play five stacks of the same game at two minutes a clip. It's about leaderboard climbing and the *ding*. They make no apologies for how they play and anyone that looks down on what they do can go fuck themselves. The other groups may look on these Collectors as viruses who are ruining gaming. Gamers think they are the reason for all the shitty shovelware out there and the reason quality has gone down. Trophy Hunters view them as the group that ruined the hobby by making leaderboards meaningless. This group is why Trophy Hunter's want to see new, different types of leaderboards to filter out all the shitty plats. Those are generalizations that represent the extremes I think. Obviously, there are people that have overlap into the other groups, but I think that about sums up what exists in gaming out there. What I don't understand, is how so many people can't understand why things are important to people. The reason I'm making this post has to do with a thread I saw in the Celeste game forum and the Stranded Deep forum. In the Celeste thread, there were people that were lamenting the fact that there was an assist mode that basically allowed people to bypass the game entirely. On one side, there were Gamers that would 'look down on' anyone that would use assist mode to beat the game. If you aren't good enough to beat it without assist mode, then you don't deserve the platinum. If getting the platinum is important to you and you don't have the skill, you shouldn't play it. There were those that felt the assist mode was fine to include, but that that there should have been a trophy for beating the game without assist mode. That way people that had the skill had a way to showcase their skill. There were some that praised the game for its inclusivity, allowing everyone the opportunity to finish the game and earn the platinum. Honestly, all three are valid opinions depending on your perspective. Where it devolved was when there became some virtue signaling and an absolute refusal to try and understand the other point of view. The individuals that wanted a trophy for completing the game without assist mode were called 'gate keepers' and were basically accused of being bigots for trying to prevent disabled people from playing the game (which wasn't at all the case if you actually read what they were saying). No matter how much they argued, not one bit of understanding occurred. At no point could anyone acknowledge that they understood where individuals that wanted the difficulty trophy were coming from. At no point did those that wanted a difficulty trophy say that there shouldn't be an assist mode where everyone could enjoy the game/story....they just were wishing there was a trophy for beating it without so that those with skill in those games could showcase that they had the skill to beat it. While I'm happy there wasn't one since I don't like platforming games a ton and I wanted to see the story for the Mental Awareness Event, I completely understand what they were talking about. When you do something hard, that you're proud of, it's nice to have something to show for it. In the world of video games, that can be a trophy. It's not a requirement always since you have the option to make the games more difficult, but some people enjoy targeting hard games to challenge themselves and to showcase their ability. That's why they give out medals in the Olympics or merit badges in scouts. It's a way to show others that you've accomplished something and it can bring a sense of pride. I understand that because I have done that in games myself. I was very proud of myself when I was able to finally platinum Catherine. It was one of the harder games I have played and I struggled mightily on the Menhir Level of Babel. I was proud to earn that trophy and I would be a little disappointed if all of a sudden there was a glitch that made that trophy super easy. I wouldn't blame anyone for exploiting it, but I would be disappointed at the same time that a trophy I worked hard to achieve no longer had that same feeling. It wouldn't take away my sense of accomplishment at the time, or my sense of pride of doing it pre-exploit, but it would be a bit disappointing nevertheless. It's not whining and it's not gatekeeping...people are allowed to feel two opposite emotions at the same time. They are also allowed to be upset that something they worked hard for no longer represents the same thing it did when they earned it...the same as those who get to exploit the glitch are allowed to be happy they can bypass the challenge to get the trophy. These two things can exist at the same time and I understand both of them. That exact scenario unfolded with Stranded Deep and I completely understand both sides. I understand being upset that something you spent many hours on, that most people were not willing to do, to get the platinum was made inconsequential due to a glitch that allowed people to earn the platinum in minutes. That game went from about 2,000 achievers through the first three years of existence to over 5,000 achievers in a week. While I would never do what at least 3,000 people did for that game, since for me I'd actually want to play it, I understand the draw to a quick and easy platinum. What am I? I'm pretty firmly entrenched in the Trophy Hunter area, however it is interesting to reflect on my own journey and see how my tastes have changed over the years. Since I'm older and used to play games long before trophies, at one point I was a Gamer. If the game was good, I would play it, if not I had no trouble moving on. I had a little bit of that Trophy Hunter in me back then since I used to play games to 100% before 100% was a thing, but it was still about the games. Once I got a PS3 back in 2011 and learned about trophies, I got hooked on the idea that I'd have something to show for the work I put into the games. A profile that would act as a diary for my gaming journey and show actual evidence that I completed something. It was a cool concept. I had pretty strong opinions when I started....no boosting...if I couldn't do it by myself then I wasn't going to get it. 100% only...if I started a game...I was going to finish it. Play games that had some element of difficulty so that I could test myself and improve my skill. Only play one game at a time. This was my mantra for quite some time and honestly, the thing that broke me away from that was joining different events. Most events require finishing multiple games in a few months. If I wanted to finish an event, I'd need to start being less picky on what I played. I'd have to branch out and play things that were less challenging or shorter. What I learned was, I kind of liked some of those games. I relaxed a bit on what I thought a 'true' Trophy Hunter meant. I started playing more than one or two games at a time and I wasn't against playing some shorter, easier games to fill in a space in an event. I didn't boost for the longest time. I made it easy for myself by generally not playing MP games, so it never came up and it wasn't until I started playing MLB The Show 19 that I started to be ok with boosting a bit. That Welcome to the Chip trophy was insane to do unless you're trying to do it with a group. After trying boosting with that group, I actually enjoyed the experience and I became ok with the idea of boosting certain trophies. I've done it with some FPS games since then and I think it made the experience of those games better since I wasn't bashing my head against a wall for some of the requirements. I still like to do as much as I can alone, but I'm not against boosting like I used to be either. Where I lost myself as a gamer was with my consecutive day trophy streak. I earned at least one trophy every day for two years. I really got away from what used to make me happy as a gamer trying to keep that streak alive. It was important to me at the time, but the best thing I've done in gaming was let that expire and stop caring about it. I started to resent gaming a bit and lost the fun. I'm trying to get back to my roots a bit and will in short order be cleaning up my unfinished games on my profile. I want to get back to what I was happy doing, just on a broader scope. It's still mostly about the games for me...I won't ever autopop a game or play shovelware just for the trophies...but I'm not going to judge those that do. I'm not above using a glitch for a trophy, not a whole list, but a trophy here or there...but I will stand by the idea that the most satisfying games I've played, are the ones that presented a challenge that I've overcome and I felt good about it afterward. What I'm trying to say in this post, is that I think these forums would be a lot more palatable if people could be more civil with their interpretations of what this hobby means. At the end of the day, the trophies are what they are just like the leaderboard is what it is. I think it is ok for people to have healthy debate and ok to disagree with one another on how to tackle this hobby. I don't expect a kumbaya drum circle or anything, but it's exhausting to see people who are just trying to voice an opinion become pariahs because their wish list from this hobby is different. In all honesty, I think adding more varied leaderboards to the site could help with the toxicity since people could pick the one that matters most to them and leave the others alone...but if they haven't happened here by now, they probably never will. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PotrikBerger Posted July 22, 2023 Share Posted July 22, 2023 Nice piece dude. In a nut shell this is a very small representation of what’s going on in societies all over the planet right now. People entrenched in the sensation that being offended immediately makes you ‘right’ and the offender ‘wrong’. There is no appetite or Available avenue to engage in meaningful debate between two ideologies or points of view. In the main it seems If what’s being said offends an individual it’s just bring down the shutters and fingers in the ears time. No interest in any attempted empathy or understanding of a different perspective. No one can respectfully agree to disagree as much these days 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted July 22, 2023 Author Share Posted July 22, 2023 16 hours ago, PotrikBerger said: Nice piece dude. In a nut shell this is a very small representation of what’s going on in societies all over the planet right now. People entrenched in the sensation that being offended immediately makes you ‘right’ and the offender ‘wrong’. There is no appetite or Available avenue to engage in meaningful debate between two ideologies or points of view. In the main it seems If what’s being said offends an individual it’s just bring down the shutters and fingers in the ears time. No interest in any attempted empathy or understanding of a different perspective. No one can respectfully agree to disagree as much these days Thanks dude. I agree. We're supposed to be a more tolerant society, however it seems we're so quick to label these days. If you wear this, it means you're that. If you listen to this, it means you're that. If you laugh at this, it means you're that. People are so quick to tell other people what they are instead of having a conversation and letting them explain for themselves. I'm so out of the loop on pop culture things, that I have no idea what things mean anymore and could easily do/say something that could be deemed offensive without even knowing it. I feel intent is less relevant than it used to be. I enjoy talking with people and hearing what they have to say, it's the best way I learn. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eagle Posted July 23, 2023 Share Posted July 23, 2023 20 hours ago, PotrikBerger said: In a nutshell, this is a very small representation of what’s going on in societies all over the planet right now. People entrenched in the sensation that being offended immediately makes you ‘right’ and the offender ‘wrong’. There is no appetite or available avenue to engage in meaningful debate between two ideologies or points of view. In the main, it seems that if what’s being said offends an individual it’s just bring down the shutters and fingers in the ears time. No interest in any attempted empathy or understanding of a different perspective. No one can respectfully agree to disagree as much these days. The thing is, people seem so much more offended by things nowadays because now they are finally allowed to voice their opinions with the help of social media platforms, whereas before they would have no avenue to express their disapproval due to their complete ostracization by society – but in fact, they were always offended by these things. And, a lot of the time, the opinions and ideologies they are asked to respectfully disagree with are a threat to their very existence, which is why they might seem intolerant of differing opinions and etc. on a surface level yet their true objective is just to prevent more attention from being given to such kinds of discourse lest it seem justified. Of course, there are a lot of Twitter users or whatever that are just looking for some quick clout, but they are merely a vocal minority. Obviously, what I just said is not the case when it specifically comes to something as minor as trophy-hunting, but alas. My opinion on the topic, personally, is that some folks take the hobby far too seriously and such things happening every once in a while are nice to hopefully help ground a bit such people. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted July 23, 2023 Author Share Posted July 23, 2023 1 hour ago, Eagle said: The thing is, people seem so much more offended by things nowadays because now they are finally allowed to voice their opinions with the help of social media platforms, whereas before they would have no avenue to express their disapproval due to their complete ostracization by society – but in fact, they were always offended by these things. And, a lot of the time, the opinions and ideologies they are asked to respectfully disagree with are a threat to their very existence, which is why they might seem intolerant of differing opinions and etc. on a surface level yet their true objective is just to prevent more attention from being given to such kinds of discourse lest it seem justified. Of course, there are a lot of Twitter users or whatever that are just looking for some quick clout, but they are merely a vocal minority. I agree with you here 100%. I understand that no one likes to be offended, however I think if people could tolerate being offended for a long enough time to have some productive conversations, a lot more could be accomplished than the current atmosphere allows for. Devil's advocate though...this line right here: 1 hour ago, Eagle said: the opinions and ideologies they are asked to respectfully disagree with are a threat to their very existence, which is why they might seem intolerant of differing opinions I believe holds true for all sides of a lot of these 'discussions'. The problem is that no side seems interested in finding a middle ground or even trying to have a civil discourse. The only way people seem to be able to communicate to one another is through threats and insults, which makes people defensive and less likely to listen to each other. An example I have from my personal life is from my days in college. I was in college when 9/11 happened and my school was very involved with civil disobedience and social activism. I was primarily there to take classes and play baseball. I remember walking through the mail room one day to check my box, and there was a group there looking to organize a march in protest of something. I can't recall if it was in protest of the war or something else (there was a lot of things to protest at the time....still is I suppose....) They were taking donations and looking for people to march. I remember being called over to their table they had setup and I walked over to listen to what they had to say. I agreed with what they were doing and gave a $10 donation for the cause. The person I was talking to was enthused that I donated and asked if I'd be willing to march with them. I politely declined and told them I would be there with them in spirit and turned to get my mail and go back to my dorm room. Instead of letting me walk away, the person decided to insult me for not being truly committed and only paying lip service to the cause. If I wouldn't march with them, I was just a pretender... I was someone who was supporting them, but because I didn't go as far as this person wanted, instead of thanking me for the support and donation or just letting me walk away, they tried to embarrass and shame me. I was trying to be an ally and this one individual made me almost opposed to the cause out of spite. I wasn't since I still agreed with what they were marching for, but I was no longer supporting this person. Whenever I saw this particular person looking for donations, signatures, or volunteers an other times outside the mailroom, I would turn around and get my mail later since I didn't appreciate the way that person made me feel during our first interaction. I'm an anxious person and feel very uncomfortable in a crowd. I would have probably supported more of the work that person was involved with via donations, but marching was never going to be something I was comfortable doing. This one persons belligerent actions ended up hurting the cause. I doubt I was the only person this happened to. Obviously, not everyone is like this...but all it takes are a few and all of a sudden instead of allies and support you're left with indifference or more opposition. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eagle Posted July 23, 2023 Share Posted July 23, 2023 Oh, I do definitely get you on the "turning away possible allies to the cause" front, and I'm sorry you had to go through that. What I was mostly referring to is something along the lines of X bigoted action or quote happening, and the people who are affected by that being asked to ignore/respectfully disagree/etc. even though if they did that, it would serve to legitimize such occurrence. Sure, sometimes it happens out of a place of ignorance rather than malice and if there was enough conversation there most likely would be a turning-over of heads, but the thing is that there's so much malice and plausible deniability is so used by these types that it's difficult to tell at times, and thus people naturally tend to get more defensive. It's a tough situation, especially with the main social media platforms going in the direction that they are. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally-Vincent--- Posted July 25, 2023 Share Posted July 25, 2023 On 22.7.2023 at 5:04 AM, Briste said: When you do something hard, that you're proud of, it's nice to have something to show for it. If it were just that, things on the site would be all right. Unfortunately, some people here only draw a feeling of achievement when others didn't do the throphy. It's not enough to do it, but someone else must not have done it. It's the comparitive element that fuels much of the heat around the trophy discussions. On 22.7.2023 at 5:04 AM, Briste said: In all honesty, I think adding more varied leaderboards to the site could help with the toxicity since people could pick the one that matters most to them and leave the others alone... It'd would just shift the unhealthy stuff toward which leaderboard is the "real" one. I don't think it would dampen any of it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grotz99 Posted July 25, 2023 Share Posted July 25, 2023 I'm not sure what camp I sit in, I think I'm halfway between gamer and trophy hunter. I will put in the effort to get as many of the trophies as I can or I feel is worth my time, but I won't let it dictate what I play. Also, if it becomes a point where I start to dislike the game because of a few terrible remaining trophies, i'll take a break and maybe revisit later. Lately, I've been aiming to bring up my completion percent and have a silly goal to get all (if possible) trophies in trophy advisor above 50%. Actually started at 37% completion with over 5000 unearned trophies when I joined this site in 2018/2019, now its at 68% and sitting just below 5k unearned. As for people being offended more, I they might have been before usually before having free space to express their feelings, but also think "influencers" have something to do with it to. They get more views by sharing negative thoughts and people that watch them glom onto it. News channels have been using this practice for views forever. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted July 26, 2023 Author Share Posted July 26, 2023 On 7/23/2023 at 8:42 AM, Eagle said: Sure, sometimes it happens out of a place of ignorance rather than malice and if there was enough conversation there most likely would be a turning-over of heads, but the thing is that there's so much malice and plausible deniability is so used by these types that it's difficult to tell at times, and thus people naturally tend to get more defensive. It's a tough situation, especially with the main social media platforms going in the direction that they are. I agree with the social media platforms issue. It's just way too easy for misinformation to be spread and fan the flames. People tend to read and believe the things they see that they already agree with, whether it is true or not. It is taken as fact and it gets to be an even larger uphill battle. It's a weird dichotomy, because I generally think that things are getting better in the middle with more level headed people willing to listen, but the extremes are getting worse. With them being the loudest and social media giving everyone a platform, it looks worse than ever....however what do I know? 17 hours ago, Rally-Vincent--- said: If it were just that, things on the site would be all right. Unfortunately, some people here only draw a feeling of achievement when others didn't do the throphy. It's not enough to do it, but someone else must not have done it. It's the comparitive element that fuels much of the heat around the trophy discussions. I agree, but I also think this goes back to how you achieved it. For example, you and I both got the There is only war! trophy by banging our heads against a wall for 40,000+ kills. Between the EU and Vita stacks of the game, only 39 people have had the patience to achieve that trophy from 4478 Game Owners. That took hours and hours to accomplish and I'd be lying if I didn't say I'd be pretty bummed if there was an exploit that was discovered that let you get that trophy with little to no effort. Granted, the game is not good and it was more a battle of attrition than anything else, but I do get a sense of satisfaction that I did something that other people were not willing to do. Call it stamina or insanity or whatever you want, but you and I sat there and did it. I did it for two reasons...first, because I want to finish every game that I start (if possible), and two, I wanted to do something that other people weren't willing to do. That was my incentive and my test with that game. It wasn't hard, it was just a massive grind...but I'd be lying further if I said the rarity of that trophy wasn't part of the draw of doing it. Of course I'd never rub that in anyone's face or begrudge anyone that would take advantage of that glitch should it arrive....but I'd certainly feel frustration at it. A lot of the games I've chosen to play I've chosen for the pure reason that no one else really has and I was curious why. Strategic Mind: The Pacific, NeverEnd, Ash of Gods: Redemption, and Space Hulk are examples of games that I chose to play largely because there were so few owners. Call it the draw of the unknown I guess. I get what you're saying though that when you weaponize that and hold it against someone else, it is toxic...but a lot of times I think those people are just toxic anyway. They could get everything they wanted and still find a way to be a dick. 7 hours ago, Grotz99 said: I'm not sure what camp I sit in, I think I'm halfway between gamer and trophy hunter. I will put in the effort to get as many of the trophies as I can or I feel is worth my time, but I won't let it dictate what I play. Also, if it becomes a point where I start to dislike the game because of a few terrible remaining trophies, i'll take a break and maybe revisit later. I was trending more towards the trophy hunter side of things myself, and during my streak, it was as close as I'd get to a collector...but I'd like to start trending back toward the gamer side of it. I don't think I could ever get back to a full gamer though since I genuinely do like the idea of trophies. I do let the trophies dictate games I'll play more than I'd like to admit. I won't play a game with unobtainables and if I see a platforming game with no death runs, I'll probably steer clear of them since they tend to frustrate me. I do think that as I get even older, I'll probably gear back towards the gamer side of things though. Not that I'm a terribly skillful gamer or anything, but what skill I do possess will eventually wane, and I'll probably care less about 100% and more about enjoying things again. For now though, I'm still striving for 100% and I do plan on going back to my incompletes during the coming months to finish them up. 7 hours ago, Grotz99 said: Lately, I've been aiming to bring up my completion percent and have a silly goal to get all (if possible) trophies in trophy advisor above 50%. Actually started at 37% completion with over 5000 unearned trophies when I joined this site in 2018/2019, now its at 68% and sitting just below 5k unearned. I don't think that's silly! I have a personal goal of getting the average rarity of my games lower. It was at like 40.5%ish about a year ago and I had it down to 38.5% before the Pixel Remasters came out, now up back up over 39%. But my goal is to stay under 40% for no other reason than I want to lol That's awesome progress you've made and something to be proud of. It's good to set goals I think...it makes it more interesting 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted August 1, 2023 Share Posted August 1, 2023 On 7/21/2023 at 11:04 PM, Briste said: Gamers Vs Trophy Hunters Vs Trophy Collectors Awesome post Briste! Pretty fun to read somebody else write about something relating to video games rather than a game itself. I think your 3 categories are quite sound. Gamers are your most typical player. They play what they wanna play and are there for the game above all else. Trophy Hunters as you mentioned, have a mix of both. The trophies are undeniably a factor at play. I'll admit, I go into every game I play collecting to get every trophy. I purposefully avoid games I think I couldn't complete (which is why NBA2k went from an every year entry fro me to not having been touched in 5 years). But... it's not the WHOLE thing. OR else I'd kill myself getting that one dumb glitched trophy in Forager. Finally, yea... trophy collectors. Not tryna sound judgy but if I ever reach that point take me behind the barn. The leaderboard stuff is funny for me. I have NEVER cared about the leaderboard, and a large reason because of that is probably because by the time I got into the hobby, it was so watered down and diluted it never mattered to me. If I had been around say, well before all the trophy collector games came out, I'd perhaps feel differently. I think a bunch of varied leaderboards would be fun. In my opinion, one simple filter fixes everything. Filter trophies & games with stats of over 80% rarity. Anything above that mark is SO "common" that it's not "hunting" worthy and so frequently popped by even the casual player, no point in even counting it into the leaderboard stats. I think that one simple solution fixes a lot of the beef people have. I don't really get involved in those fights since I stick to my own thread. I'd be lying if I said there wasn't some sinister part of me that loves it. Oh a thread with 100+ replies in the last 3 hours? This is gonna be JUICY. Without it, game's gone. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted August 11, 2023 Author Share Posted August 11, 2023 On 7/31/2023 at 9:41 PM, realm722 said: Awesome post Briste! Pretty fun to read somebody else write about something relating to video games rather than a game itself. I think your 3 categories are quite sound. Gamers are your most typical player. They play what they wanna play and are there for the game above all else. Trophy Hunters as you mentioned, have a mix of both. The trophies are undeniably a factor at play. I'll admit, I go into every game I play collecting to get every trophy. I purposefully avoid games I think I couldn't complete (which is why NBA2k went from an every year entry fro me to not having been touched in 5 years). But... it's not the WHOLE thing. OR else I'd kill myself getting that one dumb glitched trophy in Forager. Finally, yea... trophy collectors. Not tryna sound judgy but if I ever reach that point take me behind the barn. Thanks! I enjoy reading yours and I finally felt like I had something to say on a topic separate from my gaming lol 100% is still technically possible for me (although SMB may be beyond my skill set), and I'll continue to look at games as such. I won't play a game right now where the 100% is unobtainable, no matter how good it could be. That may change down the road if I ever do run into a situation like @Cassylvania where a broken DLC is released on a game I've already started and then they never fix said DLC. For now though, all my incomplete games are games I plan on completing sooner rather than later. Now that my streak is gone and my side project seems like it won't happen, I'm going to finish up and get back to 100% if I can. So I'd still consider myself a 'gamer' at heart, but I've definitely made trophies play a bigger role. On 7/31/2023 at 9:41 PM, realm722 said: The leaderboard stuff is funny for me. I have NEVER cared about the leaderboard, and a large reason because of that is probably because by the time I got into the hobby, it was so watered down and diluted it never mattered to me. If I had been around say, well before all the trophy collector games came out, I'd perhaps feel differently. I think a bunch of varied leaderboards would be fun. In my opinion, one simple filter fixes everything. Filter trophies & games with stats of over 80% rarity. Anything above that mark is SO "common" that it's not "hunting" worthy and so frequently popped by even the casual player, no point in even counting it into the leaderboard stats. I think that one simple solution fixes a lot of the beef people have. I don't personally care much about the leaderboard either, for pretty much the same reasons you wrote. I do like seeing my 'Rank' in green letters as opposed to red, but I have no delusions of grandeur when it comes to it. I would like to see some varied boards solely so that I can check out how like-minded players are playing. I like the idea of a completest board, where only 100% games count towards totals, I like the idea of a rarity board, the standard board, whatever really. I think the more metrics available, the cooler it is. Of course, people would argue over which board is the 'real' board, but I'd look at those pretty similarly to the current one as far as a ranking. It's kind of like in baseball where some people would swear by the old metrics of batting average, home runs and RBI as opposed to the newer metrics of OPS and WAR and stuff. I like all of them since I think they all add context. On 7/31/2023 at 9:41 PM, realm722 said: I don't really get involved in those fights since I stick to my own thread. I'd be lying if I said there wasn't some sinister part of me that loves it. Oh a thread with 100+ replies in the last 3 hours? This is gonna be JUICY. Without it, game's gone. lol you and me both dude. Even though I'm a Red Sox fan, I will sometimes watch the Yankees more if they are losing lol Sometimes I like to see my rival doing bad as much as I like to see my team doing well....not sure what that says about me as a human being....but it's true. I have been meaning to write my last three reviews for like a month now....they won't be long since they are heavily story driven and I'm not about to post spoilers...but on a personal level, my boss was let go a couple weeks back and, as anyone that works in the US can tell you, that means I get to do his duties now (without compensation...) until they find a replacement. There's a decent chance that replacement is me...but it's really extended out my work days quite a bit and I've definitely chosen to unwind in the hour I have each night by playing instead of posting. I am going on vacation for two weeks starting tonight though, so I'll hopefully find the inspiration to catch up on my reviews. We're taking our kids to Disney for the first week and then I'll be home for the second week....week two is when I have no excuses not to catch up lol 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassylvania Posted August 11, 2023 Share Posted August 11, 2023 Don't forget Game Collectors. These are a breed I'll never understand. They'll buy full-priced and overpriced games just to...display them? Like, they won't even take them out of the shrink wrap. They'll just stick them on a shelf and say, "Yup, that's mine." (Clearly, these people have no right mocking Trophy Collectors.) I'm actually one of them. I like physical media and I'm a sucker for good box art. But if I'm going to spend money on a game, you better believe I'm going to play it. To me, I guess trophies are one part validation (as in, I'm validating the money I spent on this purchase by getting some play value out of it) and one part challenge (as in, if I felt this game was worth my money, it should also be worth my time and effort). The actual number behind the trophies, whether the game has a lot of trophies or a few or if it has a platinum or a bunch of golds, doesn't matter to me. I've said before that I'd like this hobby just as much if every game only had one trophy and it would be awarded for doing whatever the developers consider "beating" the game. (That said, obviously I prefer the system the way it is now.) To me, this has always been an individual hobby, so the leaderboards don't mean anything. In some way, I guess I see it as a way for me to compete against myself, to challenge me to do things that I otherwise wouldn't attempt. I mean, as a kid, I'd come up with my own "trophies" by giving myself in-game challenges, like beating all of Pokemon with a team of three or speedrunning every star in Super Mario Galaxy in a single weekend (still my proudest achievement to date, I think). My favorite trophies are the ones that are creative and fun but don't come across as tedious or unfairly difficult. I don't know what I'd consider myself on your list. I guess a Trophy Hunter. My first instinct when I come across a new game is to look at the trophy list. I'll admit that the longer or harder a game looks, the less appealing it (generally) feels to me. Part of me used to feel bad about that, but then I realized the same thing applies to books, movies, and TV shows. My time is valuable to me and I should be concerned with how I spend it. If a game is going to ask a lot out of me, it better give a lot in return. That's why I'll continue to shower praise on games like Dark Souls, XCOM, and now Rain World until the end of time. Yes, they put me through the wringer, but they delivered on their promise. I can respect any game that can put out that much content and not make me regret my purchase or how I'm spending my time. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted August 23, 2023 Author Share Posted August 23, 2023 (edited) On 8/11/2023 at 4:45 PM, Cassylvania said: To me, this has always been an individual hobby, so the leaderboards don't mean anything. In some way, I guess I see it as a way for me to compete against myself, to challenge me to do things that I otherwise wouldn't attempt. I mean, as a kid, I'd come up with my own "trophies" by giving myself in-game challenges, like beating all of Pokemon with a team of three or speedrunning every star in Super Mario Galaxy in a single weekend (still my proudest achievement to date, I think). My favorite trophies are the ones that are creative and fun but don't come across as tedious or unfairly difficult. I agree with this. Other than in passing, looking at a profile and thinking 'oh, that's a [fill in the blank] profile', no one should really care. I could understand if there was like a professional league or something and an equal playing field, where there was something legitimate at risk, where people would care more....but as it stands, this is truly an individual hobby. I was the same as a kid as far as giving myself in-game challenges. I've mentioned in previous reviews of Final Fantasy games about how I'd do low level runs or max stat runs or whatever to add replay value. It was needed much more back then since I feel like it was a lot harder to come by new games, and they were all more expensive, so we had to be creative to get our money's worth. There are literally thousands of games these days, so once we get the plat/100%, there's more incentive now to move onto something different than there used to be. I tend to dislike trophies that rely on RNG and enjoy trophies that are rewarded for doing everything. They can be tedious, but I don't generally like trophies that are something like 'Get 20 of X collectible' and that's it when there might be 50 of that collectible. It makes more sense for me if the trophy is for doing it all then for doing it just a bit....but I don't really care that much. I do like when the platinum is rewarded for doing everything though. I think the strangest game I've played with regards to that is Final Fantasy Type-0. I remember getting the platinum before I even finished the main story of the game and felt that was super weird. Well I'm back from my vacation and it's time to do my last few reviews...so with that: Platinum #190 Life is Strange 2 I know that these 'choose your own adventure' story-based games are not everyone's cup of tea, but I've always enjoyed them. I don't usually like games that rely on QTE's for gameplay, but I do appreciate a good story quite a bit. I enjoyed Life is Strange and I also liked Life is Strange: Before the Storm so I had no reason to believe I wouldn't enjoy this game as well. It was nothing that I was in a rush to play, but I tend to get antsy when I get close to a milestone. I'll often play some 'shorter' games once I'm within striking distance of a milestone, and with 9000 fast approaching, it seemed like as good a time as any to add this game to my profile. I think I had gotten it for 'free' as part of PS+ or the PS catalog, so the price was right as well. Since the game is virtually all story driven, I'm going to keep my review pretty short and straightforward. Gameplay and controls mirror exactly like the previous versions of the game and you do not need to have played the prior games in the series to understand this one. There are some 'Easter Eggs' and some peripheral characters that are mentioned that make more sense if you played the previous entries....but it has absolutely no bearing on the story of this one. This entry follows the story of two brothers, Sean and Daniel. Sean is a pretty typical 16 year old high school student and is the person that you control throughout the game. He loves to draw (which you'll have the opportunity to do throughout the game and there are trophies tied to this) and he is just trying to fit in. His younger brother Daniel is your typical 11 year old little brother. He really looks up to his older brother and just wants to be included. The story starts in Seattle, and after a disaster strikes, you help guide Sean and Daniel on a trek to Mexico to reconnect with their family. I'm not going to say much more about the story, other than like in the others, one person (Daniel) has a special power and it plays a major role in how the story gets played. You (Sean) have to decide whether to help encourage Daniel using his abilities or to suppress them. You also are the moral compass for Daniel, and your decisions will play a major role on whether Daniel stays grounded or if his power gets to his head. It is a pretty compelling story and tackles issues of racism, death, abandonment, moral ambiguity, family and many other things. I found the story to be good enough that I enjoyed what it had to say. I'll mention that I played the role of supportive and loving brother throughout. This story suffered from the same thing a lot of these stories suffer from...most of your decisions do not seem to have that big of an impact on the outcome of the game. There are certain major events that happen no matter what you decide to do. While the decisions don't alter the story that much, it does alter how your characters respond to what is happening. I mean there are repercussions to the decisions, but you'll almost always end up in the same place, it just may have more or less people and they may act differently depending on what you chose to do...but you'll always end up in the same spot. I find that to be a shortcoming of a lot of these kinds of games as it really takes the urgency/apprehension of making decisions less meaningful and feel less important. That was actually why I enjoyed Detroit: Become Human so much. That story changed completely depending on your choices. You could literally play that game a half-dozen times at least and not see the same thing twice. Your decisions were very impactful and played a major role in the direction the story took. In this game, that is not so...no matter what you decide to do, you'll always end up at the same impasses. For a free game, I can't really complain at all and it was a good enough story. I got attached to the characters and was invested in what happened to them and at the end of the day, that's all you can really ask for from a story driven game. While nothing I did felt truly impactful, it was interesting enough to see what direction to take. While this game was not a directly related to the previous games, I do wish I had played them consecutively so that I could have understand the Easter Eggs more. As it stood, I forgot about certain connections and characters. Overall, it is worth playing if you enjoy this style of game. If you do not, it wasn't so outstanding that I feel it's worth playing even if you do not generally enjoy these kinds of games. For me though, it was a good experience. Edited August 23, 2023 by Briste 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Briste Posted August 25, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted August 25, 2023 (edited) Platinum #191 Life is Strange: True Colors This will be a double review since the next two games are both relatively short reviews. In the rush to get to 9000, and in the interest of playing series titles either really close or back to back, the last remaining Life is Strange title comes next. This one felt like it was the shortest of the series, and similar to Life is Strange 2, you didn't have to play any of the others for this game to make sense. Steph, from Life is Strange: Before the Storm, is one of the main characters of this story, so while you'd have more background into who she is if you played that game, it's not vital to this story other than it showing that this is all happening in the same universe. This game mirrors the others in that some sort of disaster/tragedy happens that is the crux of the story, and that one of the characters has a special power. In this instance, it is the main protagonist Alex Chen. She is an empath, which means she has the ability to read/feel other peoples emotions. She does this by reading their aura and if she gets close enough to the person, she can actually feel what they are feeling and see the memory or thought that is triggering the emotion. It's a pretty cool concept, but I felt like her mastery of it was very rushed. This is all prologue kind of information, so I don't mind writing about it here, but it could be considered spoiler-ish. She has grown up in foster care and in orphanages for several years where she often got in trouble for not being able to control her power and letting the emotions of others overwhelm her and get her into trouble. The game begins with her aging out of the system, and moving to a mountain town in Colorado (not South Park 😉) to reconnect with her brother. The town is absolutely stunning, however very small. I love mountains and if I were a single dude, this is the type of place I'd want to live. I'm probably not hipster enough to fit in in this particular town, but I'd love it anyway. There's a main street area, and that's about it, but there's some cool stores and the townspeople all know each other. One would wonder how these places stay in business, but it's a game so we'll just move along. Back to my issues with Alex....very quickly after she arrives, she seems to almost figure out her powers all of a sudden and also figures out how to use them effectively to help those around her. It gives off a 'Rey is a Jedi Master before she really even knows what the Force is' kind of vibe and seemed kind of rushed to me. Beyond her sudden mastery of her ability though, I did enjoy this story too. It was probably my least favorite of the series, but it was still pretty good. I think that this game was the most predictable out of all of them, however it also had the most potential variation of them too I think. How you help/ignore the people you meet has a large impact on the outcome of the game. It still suffers from the same issue of funneling choices to the same events, but I think your choices are more impactful in this one. This was another 'free' one I had, so the price was right again, and I can't really complain too much since I did enjoy this one for the most part. The setting is the best of them all and the characters are all pretty likeable/relatable. You could generally understand where each person was coming from, even if you didn't agree with them. There's a lot of context that you can gather by the game's version of Facebook and texting and there's a lot of freedom to make some choices to play Alex however you want. The trophy list was easy and if you played the other games in the series, it's definitely worth a play. If you have to pay for it, or you've never played one of these titles, I'd say there's no rush to get to it, but it's a nice game. Actual Sunlight This is a really short Vita game that I had thought about playing for the Mental Health Awareness event, but wasn't going to be able to finish it in time due to my waiting to pop Final Fantasy VI as trophy 9000. The game literally only takes about an hour to do and is another story based game. It is also 90% text based, so if you do not like to read your games, you should skip this one. The game follows a middle-aged white dude, who is in a dead end job, with no companion and no prospects. He is deeply depressed and the game is basically a day in his life. You wake up and he'll give you his thoughts on waking up. You go to the bathroom and look at the sink and he'll give you his impression of that. Sitting on the bus is more of his impression. The game is either extremely dark humor, based on the text, or extremely sad depending on your outlook on life I suppose. I could relate with quite a bit of what he was saying, however I look at it as more funny than our main character did. It is truly cynical shit and the way that his thoughts are written, juxtaposed with his therapy sessions, you're really not sure if he is in fact joking for much of the game. Actually, it'll just be easier to show you a snippet from the game. I believe this is what pops up when you either talk to a stranger outside his building or on the commuter bus: I believe the game is somewhat autobiographical, and it has some of that Tyler Durden from Fight Club vibe to it. Some of you may see that there is humor to it, except he's being honest, so it's not really funny....but I couldn't help but find myself chuckle throughout the game at the way he made his observations. Virtually everything that you can click on has some sort of story or remark like what is written above. The graphics are very basic and as I said, the game is extremely short....but I thought it was a pretty well done text game. The contents can be very triggering, so if you don't do well with depression or suicide, you should definitely skip this one. I think most of the trophies are potentially missable, but the game is so short, that a second playthrough is nothing. I did actually miss one of the trophies on my first playthrough, but it was quick to finish up. Other than that, there's not much to say about this one. If you've got a Vita and a few bucks, it's worth a playthrough in my mind, but you aren't missing anything major if you pass on this one. So that brings me up to speed with my completed games. I'm going to have several more shortly as a plan on popping the ones that are only a trophy away soon. This post is long enough so I won't go into detail here, but in my next post, I'll explain what I was doing and why I'll be popping them now. Only a couple of days left on my vacation, and I'm hoping to get Genshin Impact back to 100% before it's over. Then I'll be doing some cleanup on my incomplete games in preparation for my 200th platinum. Edited August 25, 2023 by Briste 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted September 2, 2023 Author Share Posted September 2, 2023 So I got Genshin Impact back up to 100% this week. It's the game I just can't stop playing...partially because they keep releasing more trophies, but mostly because I still enjoy it. I'm at almost 900 hours played and while I find it annoying that there's time gates on stuff...it does make it so that I can comfortably play for 15-20 minutes in a day and feel good about it. I've also played it enough now that I don't really mind if I don't log in for a day to do the daily commissions and use my resin. But now that that's back to 100%, it's time to start cleaning up this messy room I've been living in for a long while now. Some of the mess was the project I was working on, some was keeping my streak alive and some was I just lost interest for a bit in a game or it was too hard an I needed a break. I'm now going to try and finish up at least three of my unfinished games before starting anything new so that I can get my house in order... My last post I mentioned I would explain the project I was working on. I hadn't spelled it out previously because I didn't want there to be any unintended pressure for an event to occur if the people that had previously ran it decided not to this year. I feel safe to say that it does not appear like it will happen this year, which is totally ok, but now I'm going to pop the games I was saving. The event that I was prepping for was the annual Gaming By Numbers event. It usually last for 2.5-3 months and involves beating 10 games to successfully finish...which is something that can be very challenging for me to do. For those of you that haven't participated in the event before, the premise is that each game page on PSNP has a number attached to it...for example, the PS5 version of Genshin Impact is 'https://psnprofiles.com/trophies/12817-genshin-impact'. The object is to beat a game that ends with each number 0-9. In this case, Genshin would have qualified as my '7' game. Each number represents a different color that would fill in the badge artwork you'd earn at the completion of the event. Each number you finished, was colored in. Any number you didn't finish was left unfilled. A clever play on the paint by numbers art projects. After my mediocre performance in it last year, I thought I'd do something fun over the course of a year to put myself in a position to be able to finish the event on time and do something unique. My plan was to beat the lowest possible game that had an obtainable platinum for each number. These were the games that qualified: Far Cry 2 was the lowest '0' when I had decided to do this project with a game page of 10. I bought the game and literally, the day I installed it to start playing, was the day the servers stopped working, January 16th. If I had decided to start the game a day earlier, I would have had my first unobtainable game on my trophy list. Technically, the game hasn't been announced for a shutdown yet, but the servers have been broken for more than 8 months, so I'm not that hopeful it'll come back up....but for a guy that could technically still achieve a 100% profile, I dodged a bullet. But that's where Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection comes in....it was the new, lowest game number with an achievable platinum ending in '0'. So many of those old PS3 games are either now unobtainable or have no platinum trophy. The actual page numbers for each game are: Far Cry 2 - 10 Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection - 60 Ferrari Challenge - 11 Battlefield: Bad Company - 2 Bioshock - 3 Uncharted: Drake's Fortune - 34 Call of Duty: World at War - 5 Prince of Persia - 26 The Godfather II - 67 Mirror's Edge - 18 Dead Space - 9 I bought every game on that list for my PS3, with the plan of playing them until one trophy from the platinum, until the event started. Normally the event starts sometime between July and September and I don't think that the people who ran that particular event are active on the forums any more. One would think that I might be bummed a bit, but I'm truly not because you know what? Those games up there are almost all really awesome lol I had missed out on them all when they first came out and it was a lot of fun to play the ones I have so far. I'll write about each on more when I do the review for each game, but I have no regrets on doing this, even if it won't work out like I had planned. Now that the event won't happen, I have the opportunity to do my idiosyncratic thing of trying to beat games so that they appear consecutively on my profile (when possible). I will now be able to beat Bioshock 2 and Bioshock Infinite in order, as well as the Battlefield series (that one will be more of a chore...). Call of Duty: World at War I feel fine popping whenever since I already have those games out of order since I never anticipated liking them in the first place. The only game from that list I may not do is Ferrari Challenge, mostly because I really do not enjoy racing games. I was willing to do it for the event and my project....but it was the game I least wanted to do. I had stalled a bit on my progress for this project when the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster series came out since I wanted to play those right away, and then Final Fantasy XVI came out and I had another game that I wanted to play immediately. Worked out in the end though. I popped Sonic's plat tonight and I'll do the review below, but I'll pop COD and Godfather II in the next couple of days and write my thoughts on those. I need to play Battlefield: Bad Company 2 sooner rather than later since the server closes in December. That game isn't nearly the grind the first one was though, but I'll probably start that one this month to give myself some time. I am almost done with Final Fantasy XVI, however I'm going to wait on finishing that one as a possible 200th plat milestone. I had made a promise that I would make Super Meat Boy my 200th, however I have to be honest with myself that I just might not be good enough to beat that one. I also get very bored, very quickly when I've tried picking it back up the last few years. I'll give it the old college try when I get to 199....but if I decide to punt that game, I'll want FFXVI there as backup. The only bummer in all of this is that I decided to do this project while I was playing the Demon's Souls remaster on PS5. My original plan last winter was to do all the Soulsbourne games in order. If I had thought of this project idea earlier, I would have held off on playing that game until I was done with this project. Once I finish Battlefield: Bad Company 2, I'll probably shift to the Soulsbourne games. I've wanted to do that one for a while now. Well, now that I've shared what I was working on, here's the first review: Platinum #192 Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection As I mentioned above, this game was not originally on my list. I was honestly a little bummed at the time that this was going to be the replacement for Far Cry 2. I've never played a Far Cry game, but I've heard the series is actually quite fun and I was looking forward to playing that one, even though I was warned that the online grind sucked ass. When that game became unobtainable, I had at least hoped to get a full game as a replacement. Instead, this collection of games was next up. It would have been a better game, if the trophy list wasn't so piss poor. From a gaming perspective, I was a pretty lucky kid. I had an SNES at my mom's house and my dad, not to be outdone by my mom, had bought me and my brother a Genesis for when we were at his house. I had grown up playing both consoles and getting to experience a lot of great games on both. Shining Force and Warsong were two of my favorite games as a kid, and I was happy to see that Shining Force was a part of this collection. If you are a gamer and a lover of retro games, this is an amazing purchase. It has the Golden Axe games, most of the Sonic games, Phantasy Star games and several other arcade hits (and some stinkers too). If you are a trophy hunter...it's severely lacking...if you are a trophy collector, it's not too bad. Basically the trophy list requires you to play a sampling of the games for a bare minimum amount of time. I think the longest I had to play any one game for the trophy was 30 minutes. Several could be done in just a couple and most somewhere in between. I get that you can't really have the trophies be for completely beating each game in the collection. I mean Shining Force probably take 30 hours or so on it's own, and getting a bronze trophy for 30 hours of work is a bitter pill to swallow for some. I personally wouldn't have minded it though...but this platinum would be obscenely scarce if that were the case. Even with how easy it is now, it only sits at an 18% platinum completion rate. Having said that though, I would have rather seen the trophies require you to at least play 10% of the game or something. As it stands, each trophy only requires an amuse-bouche of the game before granting you the ding. Since it's a collection of games, it's hard to give it a real review. Some of the games included are amazing classics, and some of them belong out in the desert with ET...but the game doesn't make you eat your vegetables, you get to give them to Ms. Manners and move on to dessert. I got a little extra use out of the collection since I got to play some of the games a bit with my son. He likes to see the games I played as a kid, plus they are a lot easier for him to control since they are mostly 2D and he has fun with them. He always ends up back playing Minecraft or Don't Starve on the iPad after a while, but I busted out my SNES and we've been playing Link to the Past a bit lately. Oddly enough, my youngest likes playing The 7th Saga, which I loved as a kid, but is waaaaay too hard for him. He's just been putzing around the beginning area fighting birds and demons and seems to enjoy it enough. To put a bow on this post, there's nothing here with this collection that you can't get with an emulator or Raspberry Pi or something. I guess technically there is since there are some interviews and stuff as a bonus....but if you don't have a PS3 and a copy of the game already, there is absolutely no reason to buy and play this game...unless you're doing something weird like I was, then go nuts lol Of the five games I played for this project, this one was the worst. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Briste Posted September 8, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted September 8, 2023 Platinum #193 The Godfather II This was a game that I did not know existed until I was looking up the first games to have trophies. At it's core, it's a GTA clone. It's a GTA clone in the backdrop of the movie The Godfather II, minus the flashbacks with De Niro. If you've seen the movie, you pretty much know the gist of how it goes in this game. I ended up having Covid when I started this game. I had gone through most of the pandemic with no issues and we took our kids to NYC to go to the Museum of Natural History and to check out some of the other sights and I brought home Covid as a souvenir. I didn't have it as bad as some, but it wasn't a walk in the park either. It started with me being freezing (which I never am) and I was literally shaking from how cold I was. Nothing I did warmed me up. I then had a bad sore throat and was just exhausted for like four or five days. I quarantined myself in my basement with my video games and it was a lot of PS3 and naps during that week. I did continue to work half days, so I guess it wasn't all naps and video games. Anyway, you take on the role Domenic, Michael Corleone's protégé. You get to choose what your dude looks like when you start and my dude didn't look much like the quintessential mob guy. My Domenic probably would have been thought of as a punk with his wavy bangs...I wouldn't have taken me serious anyway. The graphics are kind of meh and the controls are pretty stiff, however I didn't find the game terribly hard either. There were only a couple of spots that took me more than one try, and it was mostly when I was trying to figure out how to play. It's been a while since I played GTA, but from what I remember, the controls are pretty similar. You have a weapon wheel that includes about six different weapons that can be upgraded two times each. My preferred weapon was the Magnum since I found it easy to aim and if you go for head shots, it would put most guys down with one shot. You steal cars and collect money and a lot of the same stuff as it would be in GTA. What's different about this game is that you can travel with a crew of up to three other people, making it a total group of four. Your crew can also have different skills, such as lockpicking or arson, that will help you take over other family business's as you grow your family. You are the boss of your family, and you can start by hiring a few Soldiers for your crew. You can hire up to four as you progress through the game. You'll have the option later to promote two to Capo and finally one more to underboss. Soldiers are only able to have one specialty, Capos two and then the underboss three. As you get further in the game, it doesn't make sense to use your soldiers anymore since the promoted crew members can have enough skills to let you have at least one of everything in your crew at all times. It also is important to be somewhat selective with who you choose to be in your crew since different people are rated differently. Some guys you can hire are only able to have their weapons leveled once while some can have them leveled two times. You want to promote your strongest guys and you always want to make sure you have a healer with you at all times. They can revive you or other members of your crew should you go down. You can also leverage your unused crew to do things while you're out. You can send them to bomb a rival, or protect one of your own assets. I think the concept was kind of cool, but I don't know if the execution was all that great. I found it detrimental to bomb places since if you wanted to take them over, you had to wait for them to be repaired before doing so. I mostly used my guys for defense if one of my assets was being attacked by another family. The game is basically you growing your family, building assets and knocking off other mob bosses to the tune of The Godfather II. So in that sense, it was fine, but with very few surprises since I knew what happened in the movie. The game has three maps, Cuba, Florida and New York and the game gets pretty repetitive. Attack another bosses asset, take it on for your own, buy troops to defend, earn money, move on to the next asset. You don't always have to attack an asset, sometimes you can just intimidate someone into joining you. Once you have enough assets, you can attack the other family Don and knock them off. You pretty much do this five times before getting to the penultimate scene from the movie. As far as trophies go, there isn't anything too crazy outside of doing every 'execution' in the game. There are a lot of them and some require specific setups to be able to do and most of them have multiple setups. Thankfully, there's a section in the menu that tells you what you have done so far. It doesn't tell you exactly what's left, but it will tell you what you've done, so with the use of a guide, you can see what you need to do specifically. It is definitely worth paying attention to as you progress throughout. It would not be fun to try and fit this all in at the end. You can actually miss this trophy if you kill all the other Dons before you achieve it. The game is like 15 years old so if you haven't played it yet, I don't see any reason to go back and do it now. There are similar games that do it better. If you're a Godfather junkie, or are doing something like I was, then you can feel comfortable that it's at least good enough not to be a complete waste of time. It was definitely better than Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection, but was the next worse game that I had played from this project. Football is back baby! That means that I get banished to my basement to watch on Thursday, Sunday and Monday nights, so it should be much easier for me to find the time to update this thread 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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