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I’m almost at the end now. Got Bahamut - forgot I had to use reflect so I did the lair of the father twice lol - all that’s left now is the final dungeon and a couple chests I didn’t get at the Sylph Cave because Malboros. Once I beat Zeromus, it’s Cave of Trials and Lunar Ruins time!
As an update to my own slow as heck crawl through the series, I slammed through to the end of FFI within the last week. Poked my head into all the optional stuff, not my cup of tea, so I called it a day on this one.
It was fine? I won't be playing it again. Nothing about it was engaging enough to make me care about doing it again.
I booted up FF2, played through the first fight and then saved it, ready to pick up whenever. Let's see how I deal with the worst one!!
You’ll do fine, just make sure you know what role you want each character to fill and then just stick to developing that way. And whoever tells you this is the worst one is a pile of poo-pop garbage :colbert:
As for me, I’ve just beaten Zeromus, but I’m not done with the FFIV part of my marathon just yet. Time to get everyone else’s best weapons on Mt. Ordeals and beat Zeromus with them. And then it’s time for the Lunar Ruins! Then comes the Interlude, and then the After Years. I’m still a long way away from V, but that’s fine :)
So I’ve got a long weekend now. Managed to beat the Lunar Trials yesterday. It was a pretty cool experience, with the only trial I didn’t get the full reward for being Rosa’s. Other than that it didn’t exactly feel very challenging, but it’s nice that each character’s trial was actually unique and kind of added to their story. Kain’s trial gets special mention. For as frustrating as it is with its final battle, it was very fun to play a murder mystery, however basic it was. Though if I were to compare all the post-game stuff that they added to the ports, I’d say the Lunar Trials were probably the weakest. Aside from the trials themselves they kind of had a similar setup to the Soul of Chaps dungeons, but Soul of Chaos was actually challenging, which made the whole experience more compelling. The Labyrinth of Time may be annoying but at least it had a very interesting gimmick, and I think the Arcane Labyrinth may be my favorite new addition to the series as it’s interesting both in terms of mechanics and story. I feel really stupid for skipping it before and now I regret not visiting it multiple times throughout the game to get everyone’s weapons. Oh well. I’m also curious to see how the Sealed Cave and Dragons’ Den compare. I’ve only beaten the latter once years ago and I’ve never actually beaten the former, so it’s definitely gonna be interesting.
I think the coolest part about the Lunar Ruins comes from hindsight, seeing how they’ve pretty much inspired the After Years. The challenge dungeons are the obvious result here, but even in terms of story you can see that some of the story ideas in the trials later got much more fleshed out in TAY (see again: Kain’s trial). Now I’m actually even more excited to go back to the After Years. Sadly, I still have the Interlude to deal with, which may just be the title I’m least looking forward to on my agenda. Thankfully, it’s also super duper short so I hope to get it out of the way tonight
Ok, so another update. I beat the Interlude and it was pointless as ever. Thankfully, Ceodore’s Tale was far more interesting. I’ve managed to beat it and will now attempt its challenge dungeon. I honestly find it pretty funny how they make it pretty obvious the Hooded Man is Kain from the getgo only for him to say he must kill Kain at the very end lol
So a little side note here but I need to complain about one Jason Schreier, Kotaku’s resident “JRPG expert”. In his review for FFIII he advised readers to play the game only to the point of reaching the Crystal Tower and then abandoning it forever. I’m not even gonna comment on that one tbh.
But the reason I bring him up is that before starting TAY, I saw his review and it was bad, of course, but the main point im interested now is how he complained about the game being unbalanced since you face flan-type enemies in a chapter where you only have physical fighters. And sure enough, you do encounter flans in Ceodore’s Tale, but you know what else you can find there? Shops that sell all the elemental attack items. And they’re dirt cheap. Idk how someone who can’t even comprehend basic tools like this can call himself a JRPG expert tbh
Don't know how he missed that. :lol:
So I only need to finish Ceodore’s challenge dungeon five more times to get all the items lol
This may sound tedious but there’s actually something incredibly relaxing about going through these dungeons and just farming strong items. I also like to use this opportunity to reach the level cap, but since the cap here is the same as in Kain’s Tale, where I’ll be importing these characters, and that cap is fifty, I’ll be doing no such thing. Ceodore is level 33 now so I expect him to be 35-ish by the time I’m done
Rydia’s Tale is done, now I need to just do the challenge dungeon and reach the level cap. I’m at 25, so I think I should reach 40 pretty easily. I also got all the nuts and bolts needed to restore Calca and Brins without much effort so I’ll have them available later. Of course I will never, ever use them again because they are incredibly bad, but a) I’m trying to do everything I can in this marathon and b) I can’t let Luca down, she worked really hard on those dolls.
Btw I really like how Luca is pretty much immune to the negative effects of moon phases. Attack and Big Throw are categorized as different things, so they will never be penalized at once. That’s pretty useful, and considering how good she is with her axe, I can actually see myself using her in my final party. I’m looking forward to Yang’s Tale a bit now, but honestly I’m looking forward to the other tales even more, especially the twins
Got all the treasure from Rydia’s challenge dungeon and reached level 40 no problem. The dungeon actually felt kinda mean, with some very strong enemies that my team was not really geared towards, but I got through somehow. I actually lucked out and got the bomb summon to accidentally drop after one encounter and it seriously made the whole ordeal go by much more smoothly. On to Yang’s Tale next!
And Yang’s Tale done. It felt very short for some reason? Also I find it absolutely hilarious that Ursula’s birth scene in Interlude completely contradicts what happens here, which only goes to show just how half-assed the Interlude was. Now it’s Challenge Dungeon time. I’m probably gonna be here a while since I’m only level 21.
Fynn this is so great, where you at? Final Fantasy (original) is underrated within the series, in my opinion. The NES Classic port is fun, pretty darn authentic, and incorporates all the annoyances of the original :) which is cool to me, to see where they went wrong at what they improved upon in later games. I couldn't put it down!
I am in the SNES era right now. Halfway through FFIV and it's already my favorite I-V. Question though: I have a pretty long marathon list, but intentionally left out the FFIV sequels because of widespread bad reviews. Should I add them in? Are you maybe influencing me to now? Hmm... I am indeed playing it on PSP complete collection... Can anyone support the sequels?
My list again:
Final Fantasy (NES Classic) (done)
FFII (Origins) (done)
FFIII (PSP) (done)
FFIV (PSP) (current)
FFV (PS1) (done)
--------------------------------------------
Secret of Mana (PS4 remaster?)
FFVI (PS1)
Chrono Trigger (PS1)
FFVII (PS1)
FF Tactics (PS1)
Xenogears (PS1)
Chrono Cross (PS1)
FFVIII (PS4 remaster)
FFIX (PS1)
Vagrant Story (PS1)
FFX (PS4 remaster)
FFX-2 (PS4 remaster)
Drakengard (PS2)
Drakengard 2 (PS2)
FFXII The Zodiac Age (PS4)
FFXIII (PS3)
Nier (or Replicant PS4?)
FFXIII-2 (PS3)
Lightning Returns (PS3)
FF Type-0 HD
WoFF
FFXV
Nier: Automata
FF7R
FFXVI
I’m playing the After Years right now actually and I personally really like it and think all the negativity is overblown. It is quite grindy though.
Might as well update my progress now! Done with Yang’s final dungeon and getting to level 40 was actually pretty damn quick compared to Rydia. Now I’m doing Palom’s Tale and am making my way down the Troia Waterway. I think this one’s my favorite so far!
Ah who am I kidding of course I'll give them a shot. Might have to take a break from IV after all the Lunar Ruins stuff though, we'll see!
So I’ve recently completed all the Palom content and the main story of Edge’s Tale. Now I’m getting ready for the challenge dungeon as I’ve been getting wiped up to this point. Edge’s chapter is always really weird to me since there’s not a lot of Edge in it really. The Eblan Four are a bit amusing to play around with, especially since Edge’s Tale is the only one where you get a full party, but it’s also kinda sad how useless they become in the final chapter. Like Edge was already the weakest link in the final party of IV imo and now you get four more guys that are basically worse clones of him. I like that they’re so diverse in terms of equipment but giving each of them one of Edge’s skill in a reduced capacity was just... a very weird point. Their bands are fun but the only one that’s really powerful is the full-party one and those are never practical.
So yeah, I’m very slowly nearing the end of The After Years. I am definitely enjoying myself, but this game really shouldn’t be as long as it is. I feel some chapters don’t really add much. Of course, I’m also making the journey longer for myself with the challenge dungeons. I wonder if the 3D version is better about this since they took out the CDs. Is the game balanced enough then that you don’t need to grind to the level cap in each chapter?