hogso

Chrono Trigger the other biggy I guess Was impressed by the time given to his death on the news this evening. Why didn't they do the same for Miura? Oh, wait...

Short answer, yes there is an open world map to explore. Longer answer is there are 8 maps in total spread across the world, covering the regions of Grasslands, Junon, Corel, Gongaga, Cosmo Canyon, Nibel, Meridian Ocean and Northwood. On top of that you have places which are independent to those regions, for example Golden Saucer. That's where I am at the moment, so anything after the Corel region I can't comment on, but they are big. Doing everything in the Grasslands region for example, the first area you have access to, took me about 10 hours. In terms of the original game, that's the period of time from where you leave Midgar until you enter the Mythril Mines. Rebirth still follows that general route - Kalm, flashback, Chocobo Ranch, acquire a Chocobo, cross the marsh, enter the mine, but of course there are collectibles, optional mid boss encounters, side quests and so on. Saying much more than that would be venturing in to spoiler territory I feel, as there are umpteen little bits dotted around to find and be surprised by. The game does feel massive, and really fleshed out, with things having meaning behind them rather than being a mere tick box exercise towards completing a region. Dared I say it feels too big, daunting almost, especially as a gamer whose gaming time is now limited. At the same time though, I'm loving it, and don't want it to end. Considering the vertical slice of the game as a whole, there are few other games I've played which come close to troubling the content available, the amount of systems, side activities, mini games...it's almost unbelievable. The obvious comparison would the Yakuza/LaD, I guess.

Hope you're enjoying it my dude. I've just left Junon. The game is everything I had hoped for, and more. And how's about this for a nifty little QoL feature (well I think it is) - the clock on your playtime pauses if you idle on the menu. Amazing. Oh, and Queen's Blood is really growing on me! A big advantage it has over Gwent being that with that game, once you got to a certain point, you just couldn't lose if you knew what you were doing. This game really requires a lot of strategy and deck building skill, depending on who you're playing. The story to the game, as much as I've seen so fa anyway, is curious too.

Nope - BT don't carry exclusivity anymore, Amazon have some stuff, as do Disney, but there's currently no official carrier of the series for the UK. Ratings wise it's done really well (relatively speaking) so hopefully it'll pop up somewhere soon officially. It would be the high seas unofficially, I'm personally loving Stremio and Torrentio plus Real Debrid for my streaming needs at the moment.

So, The Ones Who Live is the first worthwhile viewing in the Walking Dead universe for years. Genuinely good TV, although I do wonder if some of the context will be lost on those who haven't watched the post Rick stuff, specifically World Beyond.

It was only a matter of time before someone made a decent, high budget, Earth Defence Force clone I guess. EDF! EDF! EDF!

I'm not sure. Even if the committee (or sometimes the public via vote) responsible for choosing the act chose a massively popular one, would they do it? I don't think so. They'd have nothing to gain and everything to lose. Why expose yourself to potential humiliation when you already have adoring fans across the globe?

10 hours in, not gone through the mythril mines yet They've done a good job with the side content, there's a lot of world building done in stuff that is completely optional, clearly taking a lot of inspiration from Witcher 3 in that regard.

NO RULES

@Chindie hasn't been online for a week. Don't suppose anyone has a route to contacting him outside of VT?

I managed to put about 3 hours into Rebirth last night, having been able to finally sit down with it at 9pm. I skipped the flashback bit you can. The opening 5 mins had me grinning like a baffoon, whilst also being kind of shocked that they went there so early. Fascinated to see where that goes. The opening Grasslands area just feels huge, and alive, and lived in. Oh, and Queens Blood is not better than Gwent. Should also mention I'm finding the game unplayable on performance mode. It just looks way too rough. Graphics mode is fine though.

Right, how did I do these.... Hogso's 'Sequential Numbered Final Fantasy Series Playthrough Retrospective Reviews' (HSNFFSPRR) PART VII It is impossible for me to talk about Final Fantasy VII to XII without indulging in a heavy dose of nostalgia. I'm sure the same is true for a lot of you as well. For me, those games represent anchors to points in my life which few other things do. I suppose when it comes down to it, that's why I like the series so much. With that in mind, I'm going to break down this one in to segments, and probably will for VIII - XII too (and VII Remake for different reasons) because to me, the context of my life at the time I first played these games feels as important as the game itself...which some people may have no interest in! That'll be in spoilers. I'll follow that up with something more in line with the previous format for the I-VI Remaster release on PS4. Part I - Nostalgia - The Year 1998 Part 2 - Emulation of Past - Replaying FFVII HD on PS5 I'll kick this off in reverse, as the thing that struck me about playing the game again now, following I-VI is just how close a call it is to say which FF I think is better. Not my favourite - better. Objectively, not subjectively. That's not at all an easy thing to do, but my god I tried. I do rank VII above VI - just. And I mean just. I believe VI beats VII in a number of really key areas, soundtrack, late game, and some of it's key scenes out do VII. However...I think the Materia system is great, the pacing of VII is just awesome, and few gaming moments from a gameplay perspective live longer in the mind for me than leaving Midgar. That whole world out there, not just the city you've been in - wow. Storywise, they're pretty evenly matched, as are Kefka and Sephiroth in the Villain stakes. But when you consider the role of Hojo in FFVII, the true Villain of the game, VII starts to take the edge, and the reveal of Cloud's true role in the Nibelheim incident (especially when you see the photo for the first time) plus that bit with Aerith...yeah I think it's barely, barely a better game. Now, as you wouldn't be surprised to hear if you've read the whole of this post, this is a game I know inside out. The quickest I've ever played it through is about 15 hours, nothing to trouble speed runners obviously, but I can fly through it if the feeling takes me. This run was 24:12 which is a little shorter that VI was, and for reference I did not do the Materia caves, Chocobo Breeding, Ultima, Emerald or Ruby Weapons...this was very much a 'story playthrough'. If you're curious my save file at the end of the Northern Crater when I did platinum FFVII HD and did everything was 48:55. As I spoke about it in my other reviews, I will mention the trophies here even if I had no others to get - it's a really decent list which pushes you to do a few bits and bobs which some playthroughs might skip, specifically doing things like getting all the level 4 limit breaks (it's so easy not to ever see Aerith's for obvious reasons), some mini game related stuff, getting the master Materia...and dating Barret! You love to see it. The worse one is grinding not for levels, but for gil, 99999999 is an insane amount. Total playtime for this series so far is 122:45. I think my last FFXII playtime was about that one it's own. And as for X, well...let's not go there just yet. Rolling ranking 7 just 6 5 4 3 1 2 Next up at some point in the future will be VIII, and perhaps an even sterner test for me to play through and consider it's place in my own personal ranking objectively rather than subjectively than VII was. And in case you are reading this the day I post it, no, Rebirth still hasn't arrived. Cry.

Praying he does Rendezvous with Rama next.

Course not!

Yeah the fact it's called cum on irene

My Sharona.

Remake got a patch yesterday to change the final line from Aerith which was I miss it. The Steel Sky , referring to finally seeing the real sky and not the underside of the plate in the Midgar slums, to This Sky...I don't like it Weird. This new line was in a Rebirth trailer, so it seems for consistency they've gone back and changed the four year old line to match. It's worse though, right? 48 hours-ish from Rebirth, unless my parcel turns up early (it won't!). I'll have my FF7 retrospective posted tomorrow, I think. I managed to finish that playthrough, but didn't even get started on a FF7 Remake one.

You get an accessory, and can skip the flashback sequence in the main game if you've already done it in the demo. Other than that, no carry over.

I imagine it'll be broadly equivalent to Remake, as @Dante_Lockhart says. If I had to guess, it'll involve something turning up that begins with the letter 'Z'...

I thought the same thing! I really can't see it myself, we'll only know once we get hands on with it though I guess. Although Gwent did have some proper story side content in the DLC, it didn't really have a story as such attached to it, right? Queen's Blood seemingly does, with 'boss' characters to be beat and stuff. Even if that's simply a modern emulation of the CC Quest in FF8, I'll be happy. And for anyone playing the Junon demo, make sure you don't sleep on Red XIII. His abilities are great, and once you get the Materia level up thing from Chadley you can slap that on his Comet Materia to enable the Cometeor spell, which is wild - looks like something out of Dragon's Dogma

Reviews are now out there. Appears to be 9s across the board, potentially the best ever FF game, blows Remake out of the water, and Queen's Blood is as good as Gwent?! Negative comments appear to be limited to some of the mini games not hitting the mark, and it could be too long for some. I would hope for most FF fans the latter won't be an issue at all!

The Rebirth demo has been updated and now includes the special Junon area, ie. not the full game version, but a diverse little area to run about in for the demo. You can then progress in to Lower Junon to do the 'Bottomswell' boss battle. Takes maybe 2 hours all in, less if you're rushing it, more if you do all of the combat sim stuff with Chadley, which isn't all that interesting. I really like the item transmutation stuff, synergy abilities are fun, and there's a decent sense of challenge. Good luck to anyone trying to button mash through the game, it is not going to get you far. What I can say gameplay wise is that Barret is left in the lurch a bit. Cloud is your DPS, Aerith your magic and healing obviously, Red is buff/debuff and has a pretty sick tanky special ability, Tifa is your pressure/stagger gage builder...Barret is just, long range? I dunno, didn't feel the need to use him at all. Aerith is clearly the most potent damage dealer used properly as using elemental weaknesses is key, but she's really squishy and gets messed up easily by stronger enemies - there's also the issue of materia management, meaning you can't just load her with all the magic and healing stuff. Basically, the balancing feels really good. On a side note I've been reading Nojima's Traces of Two Pasts novel, which puts the spotlight on Tifa and Aerith, whilst they give some back story to themselves. Tifa does this as the group leaves Kalm, and Aerith on the boat trip from Junon. Tifa talks about her childhood in Nibelheim, and then how she ended up in Midgar, joining Avalanche, and owing the bar - and Aerith's bit is about growing up in Shinra HQ with her mom and then escaping. It's never going to win any awards for writing, but it's all canon to the Remake, and I'm finding it a worthwhile read for some juicy lore and world building. Also, as she's mentioned in it, it got me to go back and revisit Before Crisis, and the story of Elfe, former leader of Avalanche. That's some decent lore and I'd love for at least some of it to crop up in the Remake trilogy, in the form of Jade Weapon, Elfe and her dad (who was a Turk), or even that ultimate summon materia she had, with some mad FF name I can't remember (not KOTR). Reviews for Rebirth tomorrow, and then it's a week until release. Phew.

Throw in Koudelka too which is perhaps my pick for most underrated PS1 era RPG, really unique survival horror, turn based JRPG vibe. I can't quite recall how it links with Shadow Hearts...I think Koudelka herself turns up in the first game, or her kid is in the game or something...? And yeah @villa4europe Octopath had a great rep, I've never played it though. Perhaps one of the best looking examples of that style.

SE very recently disbanded their Tokyo RPG Factory, which was originally set up to produce RPGs in a classic style - they did that to moderate degrees of success (I Am Setsuna and Lost Sphear are probably 6 or 7 out of 10 games for me), but even they changed tact and went more action based with their final game (Oninaki). There are some really good examples of modern turn based RPGs, the likes of Chained Echoes, Cosmic Star Heroine, Sea of Stars, Astlibra...but the king in the modern era is almost certainly Persona, BUT RGG's move to make Yazuka / Like a Dragon 7 turn based was a fascinating move, as it doesn't really seem to have done their sales any harm. I do find it makes the older games a bit more difficult to go back to though. I can't shake the feeling though that all of them are simply emulating what has come before and there isn't anything particularly interesting going on that has been able to keep my interest. At least with the stuff I've tried. I do like the move to giving some of the older games in the genre a fresh coat of paint though, Live a Live and Radical Dreamers / Chrono Cross are good examples, and the upcoming release for Suikoden I+II. Long time readers of this thread will know how much I pine for Xenogears to get the HD treatment. There's almost certainly a reluctance from the top JRPG producers at various developers to 'go back' to turn based, as it feels like they are innovating anymore. It's the same reason that FF7 wasn't a remake that matched the story beats exactly, the devs just had no interest in doing it (I think Kitase said if they did do that it would be the last game they ever made, as it would only happen if they had run out of ideas). As for summons in FFXIII @HKP90, yeah there is a lore reason, your mileage will vary on what that reason is. I can't remember the in's and out's of why the characters in XIII have been given a Focus which means they are L'Cie, but once they have that brand, the goddess Etro sends 'messengers' to aid them in accomplishing their Focus, in the form of Eidolons which they can summon.