My first Final Fantasy V Four Job Fiesta has finally come to a close and what an occasionally nightmarish ride it was. I still wholeheartedly recommend playing through FF5 and definitely recommend playing through as part of the Fiesta, but my team this year was a challenge to say the least.
This post is full of endgame spoilers, so hit the jump to read about my many defeats and how this series almost didn’t get finished.
First, I want to thank everyone who listened to the first episode of PUP RPG Love! It’s been a huge success and we’ve received so many tweets, forum posts, and emails about the show and wanted to let you all know that we really appreciate them. Musim and I hoped that an RPG show would do well and I’m happy to see that it has. I’m already getting exited for the one next month, so stay tuned as the show gets better and better!
The hot topic around the first episode, not only with the emails/tweets before the show, but the discussion afterwards has been around “starter RPGs.” It sounds like many are understandably a bit confused and/or worried that they may pick the wrong RPG to start with. Musim and I came up with a few suggestions in the show itself (check the end of the second segment), but the surprise standout appears to be Chrono Trigger.
The community came up with the idea of everyone playing it together (which I’m always a fan of), so I put up a forum thread for RPG Lovers Play: Chrono Trigger. Whether it’s your first time playing or you’re starting to get the itch to play it again, you should join us! Musim and I may not always be able to play each month, but there will still be plenty of people playing whatever game is going on that month.
I’m related news, I finally finished Final Fantasy V! There was much gnashing of teeth and wailing, but I managed to barely scrape out a win. A post wrapping up that series will be coming in the next few days. And I promise I’m still playing Deadly Premonition! Now that I’ve kicked my obsession with side missions, I’ll burn through the rest of the game. Another post about that should be coming next week.
Oh man, my team’s falling apart over here. I missed the official deadline (it was August 1st), but I won’t be discouraged! I’m going to finish out this playthrough with what could possibly be the most unbalanced party even if it kills me.
This post is really an update on where I’m at, though I’m saving my pictures until my final post.
After the last post, I’ve been struggling my way through the endgame sections. I’ve had problems with some of the side missions near the end, especially trying to decide whether or not I should do half of them. Some of the most obvious side quests revolve around getting extremely powerful summons, which I unfortunately can’t use in this playthrough. I did start through the Phoenix Tower to get some of the series-recurring Magic Pots, which helped me finish leveling up some jobs.
The one nice side effect of not having any true magic classes available to me is the option to completely skip the dreaded Fork Tower. For those that haven’t played FF5, Fork Tower is one of the hardest semi-required dungeons in most JRPGs. The tower is split into two mirrored halves, where you’re asked to split your party between the two sides. The reward for beating the two spires and defeating the two bosses at the same time? The strongest white and black magic.
The real problem shows up quickly with each tower’s enemies and bosses. While each tower has tough enemies, one tower has a boss that can only be damaged by physical attacks and the other boss who actually restarts the battle if you hit him with a physical attack.
Frustrating to say the least and I did a little dance once I realized I didn’t need to do it.
I’m two bosses into my journey to Exdeath. In a cutscene near the beginning of the world, Exdeath summons a ton of bosses (seriously, there’s about 12 of them) and tells them to stop our tenacious (if not a little slow) heroes from interrupting him while he’s destroying the world. I made it through one boss, but the second one, a cousin to the guy in the book at the beginning of the last post, stopped me cold.
I guess that leaves me with the best plan for portable JRPGs: throw a season of a TV show on NetFlix (maybe I’ll rewatch Arrested Development…) and grind, grind, grind away.
As an unrelated side note, now that my A/C is fixed, I’ve finished almost 1.5 chapters in Deadly Premonition. Once I finish with Chapter 3 I’ll continue on my posts chronicling that crazy, crazy town.
While Catherine is installing on my 360 and before I disappear for a few weeks (see: Catherine), I should write what is probably my second-to-last (penultimate, if you will) post about the Final Fantasy Five Four Job Fiesta.
There are a few points that could be considered mild spoilers for those that aren’t up to this point, so hit the jump to read more!
As Ohio’s heat wave continues, so does my march down the beginning of FF5. With two crystals down, I made my way towards the Fire Crystal and my eventual third job.
While I was pleasantly surprised by the effectiveness of the Blue Mage after some time with that job, I wasn’t very impressed with the Time Mage. It certainly seems like the job has some solid magic that can be tacked onto another job, but by itself the job lacks a little something in the early game. Like any caster, their armor is low and their MP usage is high. I have Vampire with the Blue Mages, but the Time Mages don’t have anything that can keep the healing up. Regen is the only healing spell and it doesn’t seem terribly effective.
That’s not to say that I’m not having fun. It’s nice to experience a great game in a totally different way and overcome some initial difficulties. I’m still only a few hours in (around five, the game says), so the entirety of the game hasn’t really opened up, but I can’t wait to get my final job and see what I’m challenged with for the rest of the game.
Speaking of jobs, here’s my Fire Crystal job:
Hell yeah, that’s more like it! Ninja can be pretty expensive, but the Twitter bot is totally right, everyone can get two weapons now. That should make things much, much easier.
Before I run off to play more FF5 before recording this week’s episode of TVGP, here’s a few highlights:
Cid always matters!
Maybe I shouldn't save, eh?
Yeah, Ifrit, I think I did.
Additionally, if you don’t know much about FF5, I’ll definitely be talking about it on the first RPG episode of PUP, coming early next month!
It’s 91 degrees here in my fair state of Ohio and my AC is completely broken. Instead of playing consoles that will pump out tons of hot air (seriously, I’m melting in here), My DS will melt with me on my couch.
Last entry, I had barely started the game and got the questionable pick of Blue Mage for my first class. (Apologies for the terrible pictures, I’m taking them with my phone since you can’t really capture a DS)
The Blue Mage Crew prepares for the journey ahead.
I clearly wasn’t happy with my random pick in my last post, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised with how well the first few hours up to the second crystal have gone. I learned a few enemy skills and walked right through the majority of the first few dungeons with few issues.
A few highlights from the first few hours:
Yeah, what good is a clawing, scratching chocobo anyway? Not like you learn to summon one later or anything...
I forgot how goofy both Bartz and Galuf are in the beginning with the Faris reveal.
That typically doesn't end with, "...he was up there just hanging out, totally not dead or anything."
Had some problems with Garula until I discovered you can use a Blue Mage spell to frog him.
I haven’t played FF5 in a few years and I’m having a blast getting back into it. FF5 ranks so highly in the series for me mostly because of its amazing job system. The story is light and pleasantly goofy, the graphics are bright and very well done, and the characters feel like a solid party rather than a motley crew. I do have some concern about not being able to pick the best stuff across a few jobs, but that’s what makes this challenge so fun.
That and the anticipation of what job I’ll get next. Let’s see what the bot chose for me for the water crystal:
Son of a bitch!
At least it’s not Berserker, right? This will get interesting quickly since Time Mage isn’t a class I typically use, either (other than in Final Fantasy Tactics). But there are two more crystals to go, which means there are two more rolls of the dice. My party is now Bartz and Galuf as Blue Mages and Faris and Lenna (the two with significantly higher Magic stats) as Time Mages.
The in-game clock says I’ve played 3:13 so far.
Since I clearly don’t have enough on my plate as it is*, I finally decided to join NeoGAF’s Final Fantasy Five Four Job Fiesta this year. I’ve been intrigued by it in its previous two years and finally decided to jump on in.
If you’re not familiar with the challenge, you take any version of FF5 and when you enter the contest you get four jobs that you can use, one from each crystal. The catch is that you can only use those classes, which is particularly nasty if you get a bad pick from the first crystal.
What’s always intrigued me about this challenge in the past is how it encourages gamers to play a game in a different way. You’re not trying to find the best combination of party members or the best pieces from each class to smoosh together. You have a set party and need to fight your way through the constraints as best you can.
And, hell, get I get to play my second favorite (first favorite depending on the day) Final Fantasy game.
Excitedly, I sent my registration in via Twitter to the Gilgamesh bot (kudos to the organizers) and rushed off to grab my personal favorite version of FF5:
Friends don't let friends play the PSX version.
Upon returning from digging through my GBA collection and giving serious thought to digging out my GBA SP (one of the best handhelds ever), I grabbed my DS and hopped back on Twitter to see what my first class was. I looked on with horror as I saw my result:
Son of a bitch…
Welp, that’s not going to make for a stellar start. I very, very rarely play as a Blue Mage, so the beginning will definitely be a challenge.
C’mon Boko, let’s go!
*The Deadly Premonition Pile of Shame is still going on, I swear.
The two faces of evil
I tried to figure my way through Dwarf Fortress (DF) a few months ago, an experiment that ended before it began, really. But I am not to be discouraged, so I set out again on this most daunting of tasks.
See? I’m already getting into it.
Let’s start out with what tools/sites I have used this time and why they’ve gotten me past my first failure (spoilers!) and beyond.
You Shall Have My axe.zip
These are the three main things you’ll need to start out with and where to put them. Please note the tools are currently Windows-only.
If I use any other mods in the future, I’ll mention them in any additional posts I do about DF. I’ll mention where/how I use those tools in the description of my first, short-lived fortress.
Can’t See the Forest Because It’s Not There
With tools and guide in hand, I was ready to tackle my first fortress (and ultimately fail)!
Upon starting DF, you create a world (and have it write its history) then pick where you want your expedition to land. Where you want to land is especially important, as I learned a little later on.
Once you pick your starting point, if you want to use Stonesense, now’s the time to fire it up. You’ll run it alongside the main DF window (it’s not a skin, which is why they call it a visualizer) to see what your dwarfs are doing, in a fantastic 16-bit SNES style.
Oblivious to any issues, I started my dig into the earth, digging out a small but well-designed underground fortress. Whatever the guide suggested I do, I figured out the interface and set up stockpile rooms, set up an area outside for the rotting corpses of my many, many defeated enemies, and set a place for my dwarfs to dump all the wood that they gather.
And that’s where I ran into a huge, huge issue.
Gaze your eyes on the screenshot below (click to make it fortress-sized):
I didn’t realize until I told my dwarfs to gather wood outside except that I told my dwarfs to set up shop in a giant, grassy plain. Where I set up is pretty much the exact opposite of where you want to start when you’re learning how to play.
Damnit.
But now that I have Stonesense, I feel a little better about jumping into the game again. The DF wiki mentions multiple times that losing is part of the fun and now I get it. Sure, it’s my fault that I failed this time, but I’m sure as hell not going to make that same mistake again. Now I have a better idea of what I need to do my next time. And I think my new fortress is off to a pretty great start:
I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t had a chance to write about any recent games. With so much going on lately, I think now’s the time.
Between writing about and playing Deadly Premonition and starting Vanquish (I promised I wouldn’t forget about it) I forgot to mention that Musim and I recorded another edition of RPG Love, this time covering 2007-2008. I can’t even express how much fun I’ve had reliving our respective histories in our favorite genre. There’s still at least one more episode (or more since we’re such Chatty Cathies), but we’re talking about continuing something with the two of us. We have fun doing those episodes, listeners seem to love them, and there’s always RPG topics to chat about. Whenever we do something I’ll be announcing it anywhere that I can get my hands on, so keep an eye/ear out for further details.
E3 2011
E3 was, of course, the big news of last week and I’m a bit torn on how I feel about the show overall. I look forward to the show each year, especially with it being one of the times where gaming can shine in the popular media. Typically we see gaming in a negative light, with Portal 2′s fat jokes being taken out of context, Sony being hacked, or another person dying, sitting in front of some MMO. But E3, that’s our time.
This year’s E3 was odd, though. A show of known quantities, really. Whether it’s a downside of no company being able to keep a secret with the internet around or pre-E3 PR craziness, there didn’t seem to be too many surprise announcements. That’d be alright if there were some huge game announcements to balance that out, but known quantities kept popping up. The majority of the show was concentrated on showing games that are either coming out at the end of this year or have been teased to death before.
I wish I knew where to lay the blame. Was it a weak year, one where we’re building to new home console announcements? Does the PR cycle start to early now? Has the internet killed all excitement for games? It may be a combination of all those things.
The silver lining, though, is that all of those games we already know about still look great. Uncharted 3 looks amazing, SSX finally looks like it’s on the right track, Catherine still looks amazing (yay, Atlus!), and there was a near avalanche of great looking HD remasters. In the end, it’s still a great time for games. And I’m still excited about games.
Well…except for the few new ones I’m playing now.
Three New Games, Three New Attitudes
At the top of the list is inFAMOUS 2. I loved the first one and I really, really enjoy the second one so far (I’m about 3/4 of the way through). The first game dropped on the PS3 with a very clear agenda of clearing up some of the wonky issues that gamers deal with when we play open world games. I don’t think it was always successful (especially with enemies that felt overly powerful), but it was fun as hell to play. With inFAMOUS 2, Sucker Punch took the solid core of their first game and iterated in small ways. Sure, there’s the user generated content, but that’s not core gameplay stuff.
My internal struggle so far has been about sequels that doesn’t have major improvements. I may be spoiled by the Assassin’s Creed series, with huge changes in each entry, but there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with a solid game getting a sequel that continues to do things right. More of a good thing is never a bad thing.
The second new game, however, is Red Faction: Armageddon (which I always keep misspelling). RF:A has the unfortunate fate of following Red Faction: Guerrilla (spelled that one wrong, too), a game that I fell in love with quickly, warts and all. I was initially very concerned that RF:A’s change in locale, from the wide, sprawling surface of Mars to the tunnels below. It felt like that decision could work, possibly returning to the original games that fans loved so much.
A few, small things save RF:A from being a complete disaster, but barely so. The magnet gun is the clear front-runner, with the ability of linking one item (no matter how large) to another, bringing the two together. The possibilities are nearly endless, with the option of bringing down an entire building on an enemy being just one. But the magnet gun feels like it’s in the wrong game. RF:A is corridor-based, a march from point A to point B, with a baffling cutscene between. Had it been in a game that encourages exploration and playing around with the environment, RF:A could have been an entirely different matter. But without that, it all feels like wasted potential.
The last struggle I’ve been facing is Child of Eden. I love Rez with an undying passion and since last year’s E3 I’ve been counting the days until what appeared to be Rez 2 would release. Child of Eden is an impressive game, most notably its graphics; if you have a new, gigantic TV that you want to show off, pop in Child of Eden and fire up it’s second level. The space whale will blow you away.
My initial reaction to the amount of content in the game (what appears to be five levels) was semi-negative. I was worried that five levels wouldn’t be enough content for a new game. One I started to replay the earlier levels, however, I remembered how much I love replaying Rez and experiencing the music, the visuals, the whole package. Rez and Child of Eden are opposed in their styles, which I find incredibly interesting. I love Rez because it’s harsh and borderline aggressive, with its style of music and straight lines while Child of Eden is organic, both musically and graphically. They’re great companion pieces to each other, two sides of the same coin. And there’s still tons of stuff for me to unlock, so I should enjoy this game for a good, long time.
Before work gets crazy these next two weeks, I should go enjoy some more games. Until next time!
The true face of war.
Episode five of my recurring guest spots on The Carousel is out now! We manage, this time, to get through more than two years in over two hours, which is pretty great considering our chatty track record.
Most importantly, it generated both the best ad ever (partially seen above, seen in full at The Carousel page) and me purchasing Metal Saga, which sounds like the most brilliantly insane RPG. And it’s only $10!
My hope is that it continues Boston’s RPG Dog Theory (theory name under consideration, now taking suggestions). I have a theory that I’m sure I’ve written about here before, that if a JRPG has a dog in it then the game has to be good. I’m sure it’s not bulletproof, but so far it’s held up. I expect Metal Saga, with its heavy focus of dogs carrying around flamethrowers and rocket launchers, to back my theory up.