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Serbia, Finland, Israel and of course Croatia my faves from that selection. 

Sweden sounds and looks like a winner, surely top 3 at least.

Nailed on that I've probably just listed the 5 acts eliminated tonight then... 

Semi final one kicks off in a few minutes. 

Final Fantasy 2 done. There are some decent story beats which far surpass the first game, although the story is so influenced by star wars you're constantly thinking 'ohhh yeah, it's that bit'. Although it is as formative a game as the first, chocobo's show up, series enduring mobs debut, and then there's the start of the trend for deaths of party members. That's lots of deaths of party members... 

Tips for anyone playing it or chasing trophies and achievements - as mentioned previously, each action will gain xp for it, so weather it's using a sword, or a staff, or a certain spell, you'll increase from level one upto a maximum of 16.

What I do love about the game is levelling a spell like Ultima and seeing it's progressively more impressive animation. 

Anyway, you might think if that's the case, you just keep attacking the early mobs to grind to sword level 16, or constantly use cure and replenish mp from Inn's used via the gil you earn in battle, right? 

Not so. Each enemy has a hidden battle level, meaning you can only level up to that level against them. So early mobs might be level 3, end game mobs might be level 12, bosses might be 16...

Two easy ways around this though. White magics like cure will level up when used outside of battle, but the trophy won't ping when you hit 16. It will if you level a different magic in battle for the same character once cure has hit 16, though.

As for a weapon up to level 16, the Blood Sword can be used to attack yourself and level that way. Your chars have the highest battle level, so it's a simple but time consuming cheese. The same weapon also makes any difficulty in the game a joke, as it will deal max damage if your chars strength is high enough (and the enemy has more than 9999 HP). 

My time outside the Jade Passage (penultimate dungeon) was 9:50. My final clear time was 13:14 which was all weapon level 16 grinding and trying to get the damn Iron Giant to spawn. All in, not a terrible game after all, and certainly better with the QoL features compared to the PS1 FF Origins version I first played. 

Total play time : 21:55

On to 3, the FF game I have by far the least familiarity with. 

Tickets sorted this morning, very easy process, although limited choice at this stage of course. I'll be up in the gods. 

Once someone decides where and when a meet up is happening, I'll try and work it in to my travel plans. I intend to avoid the train at all costs, probably drive to Watford and tube it. 

About 100 of them are physical editions for PS4 and Switch. 

27 minutes ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

...bedded over 1000 women apparantly.

Impressive. Yet only 10% of Onita's alleged top shaggers record. 

His HP is way beyond anything else in the game, so it can be a bit of a battle of attrition. Dependent on your party and magic set up of course, but generally speaking you'll want to buff (temper and haste for your warriors/thief), keep healed with your red/white mage, and use your black mage as your nuke, as you should have flare by the end game. Black mage can use haste too which is handy to get buffed quickly.

I wouldn't suggest using buffs to protect from elements as it's too random to waste turns on. In older versions of the game his attack pattern was set, so protecting yourself against various elements at various points was a viable strat. Part of the pixel remaster work on the game engine included randomising mob and boss attacks, though. Just heal as and when, and of course top magic uses via items. 

If you're aiming for Plat you'd have to grind for Warmech before the Tiamet boss fight anyway (unless you were obscenely lucky!) in which case your levels would be pretty decent. If your 80+ it's not too tough, 90+ it's verging on easy, 99 and it's kind of a cake walk. 

Final Fantasy I platinum done. 

Final cleared save play time was 8 hours 41 minutes. 

If you know what you're doing you can whizz through the game, and the Plat becomes a test of patience whilst filling the bestiary of the rarer spawning enemies. The most significant of which being the infamous Warmech super boss. 

My four WoLs were a Warrior, Thief, Red Mage and Black Mage. 

It's a really, really good game. The last time I played it was the rather different GBA version. The newly arranged soundtrack here is excellent too. 

Onwards to the black sheep of the series... 

£30 and £40 ticket bands for AEW @ Wembley? Cool, I'll probably make the effort to attend as a result.

Looks cool, but relatively similar to the most recent Armoured Core games which I just wasn't a fan of, gameplay wise.

The lore is fascinating, though.

4 hours ago, Designer1 said:

FF1 is kinda great isn't it? I can definitely see why it was considered pretty ground breaking on release.

Question for those who have played 1 and 2. Does 2 continue in pretty much the same vein? If so, I'll definitely be picking it up once 1 is finished.

Big fat no to this question. 

They kinda went off the deep end with their choices in II for the battle system. Progression of stats is based off usage, so the more you use physical attacks, the better progress for your attack stat - that sort of thing. 

They did develop more of a story tho, although it's firmly the worst FF for most fans. 

III is a much more interesting game. It's also double hard with knobs on, or at least the original and 3D remake versions were. Could be made much easier now with the boosts. 

I have begun my FF marathon! Lot's of QoL features in FF I nowadays of course, but man, that encounter rate is relentless at times - particularly at sea. It's clear why the first game is so enduring, it has such a feeling of freedom from the very start.

FF Pixel Remasters out tomorrow on PS4/5 and Switch, with the trophy lists available earlier today confirming that they are based off of the Steam achievement lists, with each including a platinum for completion.

My favourite from fiction would be Rama, I guess. I was trying to find a picture which may best convey it's scale, but there weren't many that I thought did a sufficient job. Perhaps this was one of the best.

From Arthur C Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama (1973), in which a mysterious, enormous, cylindrical object enters the solar system with no sign of life on board. Denis Villeneuve is supposedly working on the latest attempt to get a movie made, but I have my doubts about that. 

I also really like The Lexx, from, uh, Lexx

Lexx is basically a big engineered insect, with the ability to destroy planets. 

18 minutes ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

If these idiots actually had a clue and gave a toss as much as they make out, then they need to all get on a plane and get themselves over to Australia immediately.

During their spring season over there, their stats are something close to 1 horse dying every second day.

Santa Anita racecourse in California was shut down a couple of years ago for being so dangerous.

Where were these so-called 'caring clowns' and their protests while this is all happening???

Yes Aintree has it's reputation, and to be fair to the Jockey Club, BHA and Aintree Racecourse have listened and taken huge measures in the last 10 years to modernise the course/fences and reduce the risk of fatalities by introducing more safety measures etc.

Since the various new safety measures have been introduced at Aintree, approx 5 horses have died in the Grand National Since, (or 1 horse every 2 years).

Aintree is no longer the dangerous course it once was in the past and they will only work on making it safer for the future.

However, the actions of these attention seeking airheads on Saturday actually caused these animals more harm than it did good!

You seem way more informed than me, and I heard similar comments made by the various owners and experts during the coverage on ITV. 

Which made me think, if I was one of those protesters, and had been given some air time to respond to those responses, what might I say?

Perhaps I'd ask why the horses are whipped to the finishing line.

Why are they? Do they really need to be? How often are fines issued or riders disqualified for excessive whipping? Did that happen during this years Grand National?

I've done some googling to try and answer the questions in advance, but there's not a wealth of answers I have confidence in. I can only find one example of a disqualification this year due to excessive whipping, for example. How did that go done amongst riders, owners, and betters?

11 hours ago, tomav84 said:

why don't they protest this hard at fishing competitions? for me that's way more cruel.

Ah, that's because fish don't have a soul, it's a common misconception. Horses 100% defo do. 

Is it gonna happen then?

I think the impact of everything shown would depend on how closely you've been following the development, as you can imagine I've been following it very closely, so there wasn't much in terms of gameplay and story that I wasn't already aware of. The option of a 4K stream was cool though, nice to see everything in good quality. 

Probably the thing that stands out the most is that it is very much wearing it's influences on it's sleeve, there is no attempt to hide anything, and depending on what games you've played since the 90s there are upwards of a dozen different games you can say with confidence that this is taking from in spades - including but not limited to, FF XII,  XIV (and probably Type 0 in fairness), Devil May Cry, God of War, Panzer Dragoon, Witcher 3, Dragon's Dogma, Asura's Wrath, Nier Automata...the list goes on. 

There's a lot of stuff in there that appears to be simply for the 'cool' factor. It isn't going to be a unique or challenging gameplay experience, but it'll be...'cool'. That's not a new issue with FF games, it's kind of endemic to Japanese developers, and gamers will either love it or hate it.

At one time I thought this would be the equivalent of FF7 on the PS1, I hoped it would have the critical acclaim, the sales, the scope of marketing...I'm not very confident it will be that big a deal anymore, but hopefully the demo will be out in the next 3-4 weeks which will provide everyone with a good idea of how much they like what they've decided to go with. 

It certainly looks like a very accessible game, the idea of doing away with difficulty settings (kind of) and instead provided all players with different accessories to tailor their play style to the game sounds like a great idea in theory, so I'm keen to see how it'll work in practice. 

Looks like Persona 3 is getting a proper remake. Hopefully not including 'The Answer'. 

13 hours ago, El Zen said:

Silver Patrón (Tequila.) 

My stepdad’s idea. I don’t really fancy Tequila, but it’s growing on me. 

Good tequila and mezcal is fantastic. Stick with it. 

A golden lovers match at Wembley would be great, or at the very least a match involving Kota. This is a man with a history of doing mad things in the UK, and a man who has a history of 'desecrating' iconic stadiums with crazy moves - he was banned for two years from appearing at the Budokan for moonsaulting off a balcony

19 hours ago, DCJonah said:

Do we think they've got something big up their sleeve? 

Wouldn't surprise me if Punk returned in the next few weeks. 

I think a lot of fans round Europe will head to this as well.

Be great if they can fill it. 

Personally hoping for New Japan involvement, and I'd particularly love to see a Shibata match in person. 

EA's post FIFA football sim, out this July. 

You won't be able to escape the newly revealed logo this weekend.