WK's FF marathon

[Wolf Kanno]

Yeah, XIII-2 was more fun than the original, bu not good enough that I'll be revisiting it anytime soon. I feel the XIII trilogy will likely remain he low point of the series for me for some time. Will be interesting to see how these games change my opinions on earlier entries or not.

[Wolf Kanno]

Here's a rundown of what I'm feeling going into the next entries.

• Lightning Returns ~ Can't say I'm excited for his one, but maybe it will surprise me.
• FFXII ~ I wish I was a little more excited for this one, but I played it not too long ago, so it's one of the games that is freshest in my mind. I may either do one of the specialty modes to make it more interesting for me.
• FFXI ~ I can't say this game has been hooking me. I need to get back onto this one.
• FFX ~ I am surprisingly looking forward to this one. It's been close to a decade since I last played it and I've had FFXIII to take its place as my leas favorite. So perhaps my opinion of the game will be different. I will also get a chance to play the International version, so perhaps that will spice things up for me.
• X-2 ~ The plan is to pick up where I left off in my other playthrough thread, so around Chapter 3. I don't feel like starting this one over.
• IX ~ The PS1 entry I'm looking forward to playing the most. It has been a hot minute since I last played it.
• VIII ~ Also looking forward to this one. I will probably give myself a bit of a handicap to make it interesting. I'm thinking of restricting myself to one se of a spell for the whole party.
• VII ~ I played his one before the Remake came out, so it's one of the more recent replays I've done before I started this marathon.
• VIIR ~ I'm no sure if I'm going to do his one yet. If I did, likely just going o do the NG+ to move it along faster.
• VI ~ Pixel Remaster baby! I have actually not done a full playthrough of this game since the GBA version.
• V ~ I also have the PR version, but I may try to finish my Let's play if I feel ambitious.
• IV ~ Also really looking forward to this one. I haven' touched his game since I was doing research for the Retrospective article and I have the PR version now.
• TAY ~ I never finished this one and I feel I just need to restart anyway. Going to have to hook my Wii back up because I am not buying it again.
• III ~ Let's see how the PR version measures up o the DS and Famicom versions.
• II ~ Also see how his measures up o the Origins version. Probably the entry that's been the longest since I've replayed.
• I ~ Haven' played this since Operation Rainfall and it will be interesting to see how the PR version measures up to the other versions.
• XIV? ~ Depends on if I finish XI.
• XVI ~ Probably not happening for a while. I don't have a PS5 and have little reason to bother with it at the moment.
• Ivalice entries? Totally going to depend on whether I'm feeling burnout by the end. Even then, I'm skipping RW and would likely just stick to the three main Tactics entries. Don't get your hopes up.
• Compilation of VII ~ I do have Crisis Core but ehh... Not going to bother with this one.

[Slade]

I would probably recommend a walkthrough on hand if it's your first runthrough with "Lightning Returns". The ticking clock dynamic can be a real pain in the tail on first playthrough and if you go at it blind you're likely going to have to play through it twice (which, if you're not enjoying it can be a little rough) so you can manage your time better. I wouldn't follow the walkthrough to the letter, as that would suck all the joy out of the playthrough, but do what I did when I replayed it recently and glance at the walkthrough every once in a while for main quests that are taking too long to work out so as you can complete them in a timely fashion.

"Lightning Returns" can be a really fun time when you know what you're doing. I liked it a lot more than XIII-2 once I knew how to stack my time properly.

[Fynn]

Lightning Returns is the only actual good game in this trilogy imo. I’d say the time is very liberal and I would actually advise against following a guide unless you’re really struggling with some sidequests. I actually really enjoyed the fact that you can fail some quests because you’re in the wrong place in the wrong time and you get an actual dedicated fail state rather than just not getting rewards. Makes it feel every playthrough more meaningful

[Slade]

That's fair. I just know that my first playthrough was pretty frustrating due to the time thing. But then, I'm one of those people that get frustrated with time in real life so perhaps it was too close to home? I only really looked at a guide when things were getting too close to crunch time and I just wasn't seeing what it was I was supposed to do (usually anxiety driven). And only for the main story tasks for each location.

Lightning Returns is probably my second fav of the trilogy after XIII. I actually failed the whole game first time through due to screwing up the very first mission in the first town with the religious fanatics. But on my second playthrough I had an absolute blast the entire game. I think it's an acquired taste, tbh.

[Loony BoB]

There was a certain point in LR that I was able to, without needing a walkthrough, have time pretty much perpetually paused and as such would get to points that I realised I had to stop doing that just to allow time to pass.

Honestly, playing other games that have a clock, I really wish they did something similar to what LR did. I'm looking at Persona, Stardew, etc. I hate games where you want to spend more time on a day and you're simply not allowed to because time seems to move at supersonic speed.

[Wolf Kanno]

So this is a thing now.

[Wolf Kanno]

Minor Update on how this is going and some clarifications about how this is going to proceed going forward.

I know I am currently playing XI and have "skipped" XII, but I will be playing XII next and I even gave myself a minor challenge for that run which I will explain when we get there. I did not start XII because I was originally planning on playing XI and XII at the same time, but both games are so involving, that plan fell to the wayside. Since I was more likely to drop XI first, I opted to stick with it instead and make it my focus the last few months as my thread has shown.

So what about XIV? Well I also skipped that because I wanted to give XI every opportunity to impress me, so I opted to ignore XIV until I finish enough of XI to have a better feel for the experience before I jump into the more modern, user-friendly, and bells and whistles edition of FFMMO. With that said, XI has been such a time sink, that XIV is probably not happening until 2026. I don't have it in me to start another MMO and I will need to do more research, because like XI, I'm probably only going to play up until the first expansion, which I can already hear some of the XIV vets among you groaning because I've heard countless times that XIV doesn't really get good until a few expansions in. But as I said, I have a year to think about it. Who knows, maybe I'll acquire a PS5 by then and have access to XVI and Rebirth by then? Probably not, but we can always dream.

So the next question here, is how am I going about sequels and spin-offs? I will tackle some of them, but my new rule for myself is that I am not going to hold myself to play, let alone finish any of them. So while I may start a few, I am very likely to drop most of them before completion like I did with Lightning Returns. I will say right now, that I will not be playing Revenant Wings. I strongly disliked that game and the devs themselves don';t really consider it canon either, so I am not going to either.

As for X-2, I am debating whether I will continue my PS2 playthrough I started a while back or if I will play the International Final Mission version. If I go for the latter, it will probably just be Any Completion run, because I don't think I have it in me to try to start a new 100% completion file. Especially since X-2 wears on my patience pretty quickly.

I have also been debating about doing the VII Remake before playing VII, but we'll see. I wasn't really planning on playing the Compilation of VII entries on account that most of them are terrible games. So this pretty much leaves The After Years as the only "sequel' I really do plan on playing and finishing if my patience holds out.

As for FFTactics, I was planning on throwing it in here, but may drop it. The only stipulation that will make me throw it in here is if a Remaster gets announced. Ball is in your court Squenix.

So that's the run down. So basically:
1. Finish XI
2. XII
3. X
4. Maybe X-2
4. IX... and so on.

[Wolf Kanno]

Final Fantasy XI is done for now. I'm going to need a bit of a palette cleanser before I head into FFXII, but I have something fun I'm going to try with XII, when I get there. Stay tune.