Gaming Final Fantasy Saga (FF7 Rebirth Spoilers TAGGED)

I remember that, though largely from reading the magazines at the time. EGM and Gamepro.

 

Just beat Final Fantasy Type-0. Talk about a depressing ending. Jeez.

 

I finally watched Kingsglaive last weekend (having had the Blu Ray since its release) and was pleasantly surprised. The plot is overly complicated, but it looks stunning, the characters are interesting and the voice acting is great. I dunno if I'll be started XV for a while, but the movie has me excited for it!

 

I'd suggest buying and starting FF15, at least the first 2 chapters, while its fresh in your head. After that, you can take your foot off the gas.

 

I actually played through the first two chapters through a Redbox rental of the game. Like SensationalSean, I didn't plan on buying the game anytime soon. As I mentioned before, I was playing through Type-0 for the first time. I'll probably get XV towards the third or fourth quarter of the year, when the cost is cut in half.

 

And a few upgrades have hit, like the Chapter 13 changes that are in-bound.

 

I'm on chapter 5 at the moment and whilst I like the game (not love like 7 & 9) there is much that needs fixing (camera for one)


I'm on hold now for a bit and have returned to Witcher (which is a better game anyway) until the patches are in place.

 

Oh woe is me.

I've barely got anywhere in FFXV and now I've a copy FFXII: The Zodiac Age on the way.

This is simply terrible.

 

You think XII is terrible?

 

No, of course not, why would I have bought it if I thought that?

No, this is a comedy riff on 'too many games, not enough time'.

Besides, I would have probably got further on FFXV by now, if a certain game by the name of Horizon Zero Dawn wasn't hogging my gaming time, which was previously hogged by Zelda....

 

Well that's why I take my time in between buying games; especially the single player ones. I've been a huge FF fan since the late 90's; but I have yet to buy XV. I played through the first chapter via a three-day weekend rental from Redbox. I downloaded and played through Last of Us Remastered (including the Left Behind DLC), and now am playing HZD.

I'll eventually get FFXV. I'm also thinking about World of Final Fantasy, which at least by the demo looks like a fun game.

 

The quite great reality is it's been an excellent year for games so far.

 

I thought about preordering the Zodiac Age, as I regrettably never got very far in FFXII. But seeing as how a) I just spent a good 90+ hours on XV at the end of last year, b) I bought X/X2 remastered for $8, and c) the **** load of games that have been releasing of late, I'll just wait for a price drop and nab it on the cheap(er). I really like what I remember of it, which is admittedly not too much.

 

Even though I know of the many additions to Zodiac Age from the original game, I'd still be reluctant to buy it. XII was among my favorite FF games; but the thing is I still have a perfectly working PS2 and clean version of the original game itself. As a matter of fact, I have the Collector's Edition available only from Gamestop.

 

I was always part of the smelly, weird minority that thought XII was the best FF game of the PS2 era.

The gambit system had a huge level of depth to it, the open world approach to its level design felt massive in its day and the art direction...

 

It's certainly not a minority to think that XXII was the best FF game for the PS2. Ok it's probably a forgone conclusion that X had/has a bigger fanbase, but SE wouldn't have even bothered remastering XII if they didn't think fans would get excited about it.

 

Years back I booted up FF12 on a BC-enabled PS3, it ran fine but it didn't look so good on a HDTV.

Why would it? It was never designed for that, so that tends to be the appeal of remasters like this for me, where a good amount of work and time have gone into it.

 

Precisely why I slapped down the money for the Metal Gear Saga collection on PS3. MGS3 in HD resolution and with a stable frame rate is absolutely glorious.

If I had any spare cash to hand I would be picking up FFXII for a similar blast from the past. Unfortunately, unless there's £30 in spare change down the back of my couch, it's going to have to sit on the back burner for now.

 

I'm the target audience for Zodiac Age as I never played 12, want some modern QoL tweaks like the 4x speed stuff, and happened to have $40 to spare.

So, uh, yeah, picked that up once the reviews came in all clear.

 

Yeah that 4x speed is certainly a great addition to the game.

 

It was a lovely game. I won't be rebuying it though. The opening cgi was outstanding at the time and I remember dancing around in glee at it.

I also have that metal case and love it.

 

Some super early Zodiac Age impressions:

• Oh wow I can actually use Japanese language with English subtitles as if it were 2017 and that should be a bog-standard feature in every game coming out of Japan or something. FFX Remaster didn't let you do that for... some reason.
• It's already really clear to me that this combat system is something I would have killed for back in the day. Unlike... apparently everyone else, I bought Dragon Quest VIII specifically to play some goddamn DQ and didn't touch the infamous FFXII demo, so I really only had second hand opinions which, in hindsight, boiled down to "ugh, change bad." But I've always found rote menu routines a bit of a chore - once I know a strategy for an enemy, I just want that on repeat and I'll interrupt if necessary. Admittedly, I think a lot of that preference grew out of repeat play-throughs of Persona 3 - when one hundred hour game doesn't let you control anything, having the correct amount of control while losing some of the tedious re-selecting feels really good. See also: auto-battle in modern DQ titles.
• As always the presentation here is super slick. I'm also stoked for the plot given the writing team.
• They're never going to explain how a bunch of different races and noses spontaneously appeared in Ivalice, are they? First FFTA and now this.

Unfortunately because I'm an idiot and had spending money to burn I also picked up FFXV, Persona 5, and Horizon so I don't know how consistently I'll be getting time in, but at some point I'm going to beat this sucker. I'm that impressed.

Edit: Speaking of FFXV, I know Sony had good intentions in mind with the whole partial install thing, but given the way it's turned out if we could just have the whole game install before it could boot so I don't have to sit at a menu or fight pointless battles for a half hour that'd be swell, actually, thanks.

 

Er, yeah - it's going to game deathmatch for your time for quite a while. Or you just go Pokemon: I choose you!

 

If everybody could just stop making 70+ hour four and five star classics for a while that'd be really helpful.

 

The combat system itself didn't change from the original FF XII to Zodiac Age; except for more options with the Gambit system and the option to speed up the battles, right?