Mera'din

Last DLC for FFXV came out Monday. Episode Ardyn, setting up the back story and answering some big questions about the games main villain. They had planned for like 2 or 3 more of these, but they got canceled when the games director left the company. Unfortunate as one of them was supposed to be about Lunafreya who desperately needed some fleshing out. Was also a 15 minute anime "prologue" they released about a month before hand.

Got the plat finished up a little bit ago and got the last Ch. 14 scene as well. Only thing I'm missing now is 1 manuscript page from Ch. 9 because I have to do all of Chocobo Sam's side quests for it but needed to skip the side quests for my last dress. May finish it up tomorrow just for completions sake.

Finished the combat simulator. Will have to do a partial 2nd run though because the 4th round was hectic enough that I forgot to scan Ifrit. XD Just need to finish last 2 chapters of hard, do 1 more set of dresses and get the ability on 1 more weapon for plat. You'll probably get it before me though because I'm going into a 3 day stretch at work and won't have much time to play until Tues.

Yep. Started it with Tifa and just learned that the hard way. Definitely doing that now. Those things can go fuck right off when on a melee character as it is. XD

Yeah, I know what it does which is why I considered it but I've gotten through fine without so wasn't too worried. Never got stuck anywhere so decided to wait. JUST hit the part in Ch. 17 with the simulator so gonna start that up after I make something to eat (pro tip: putting a star pendant on everyone for the Ch. 16 boss makes it a joke). Any recommendations on the solo character rounds that have to be done on hard? Not even sure what you fight on them yet but I know the precious ones were a bit annoying with certain characters.

I just hit Ch. 16 on hard. Been tempted to jump ahead to do the Combat Simulator stuff first at various points, but nothing has held me up too much so far so might as well just do it when it comes up naturally at this point. Then once I'm all the way through I'll just have to do a quick cleanup of the dresses and get the last Ch. 14 scene (not that it's needed but might as well) and I should have the Platinum.

Yeah, the attempt I did where I killed it it managed to do most of the damage to them for me since they were in between me and it. XD That fight (or the last phase at least) seems to be heavily luck based. Never had any trouble until the last 10% or so of its health (outside of a random Tonberry shanking me once). Shit would just go crazy and I'd lose Cloud to a massive barrage of burst damage and would be screwed after that since I had my Raise materia on him. Last time though I had almost no trouble.

Yep. Have to do both Madam M and Chocobo Sam's side quests to get all of them. I have to do it a 3rd time anyway though since I still have one more set of dresses to get.

Yeah, I don't know in what world anyone thought they could get by with that shit.

That's because it's probably true at the time. For like 5 min. And by the time they reveal the actual specs (let alone launch it), they've fallen back behind like a year prior. XD

They're both pretty good for this game I think. It was a big enough budget thing that they put some quality into it. Playing in Japanese though, you can tell they took some liberties with the translation at times. XD Some stuff they didn't bother to subtitle too (mostly end-of-battle lines and such).

I'm doing a full playthrough again too, but switched to the Japanese voice overs to see how those are (I think they kept their original VAs from previous stuff if I'm not mistaken though so should be fine).

Honestly, it's probably the most straight forward part of the fight. Just have to be ready for it.

You're definitely taking a different approach than me. I've been going through hard first, and then will do the dress/scene/simulator mop up I think.

I really wish I would have known about the exp and ap boosts after beating the game because I did a 3-hour arena grind to get Chadley's stupid max magic materia thing done before I went to Shinra HQ. XD I too actually had a lot of fun with the motorcycle minigame. I like that after you beat the game it gives you the option to skip it when you play again too. I'm not going to, but it was nice that they thought of it. I've actually done the first motorocycle part 3 times now since it was the first thing I did with chapter select so I could get the trophy for impressing Jessie since I missed it the first time around, and then did it again when I got to that part on Hard.

New trailer from the Next Gen Xbox showcase thing: I've been keeping up on Dev diary stuff as well but figured most people aren't that invested so haven't really posted anything but here's the general gist of where they're at since I'm posting the trailer anyway: They're closing in on the 'content complete' stage of the game and are mostly working on side quests and stuff like that now. They did some new mocap in Feb. to clean up some of the clunky animations we saw in the gameplay demos shown off last year, and have reworked some game systems. Namely, the 3 traversal options you got when picking a Thinblood discipline at the start have all been unlocked for use regardless of the Discipline you go with to open up to give more player agency about how they move through the game. Overall things sound like they're still progressing steadily even with the work at home set up they have going.

Microsoft should have learned YEARS ago to just run with their code names. Those were always 10x cooler sounding. 'Scorpio' and 'Scarlet' being the two that immediately come to mind at least. Still make no fucking sense but at least it stands out. XD And yes, I was very excited about the Bloodlines 2 trailer. Even if it didn't really look like it belonged in a big 'look at all the pretty next gen stuff' type of showcase. >_>

I don't remember if it was here or somewhere else I've talked about the game where someone was talking about Leslie (Corneo's door guard guy that seemed to get an excessive amount of screentime) but just FYI he is an established character from some side stuff around the time the whole 'Compilation of FFVII' stuff was going. I had remembered that Kyrie was but had completely forgot about him. https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VII_The_Kids_Are_Alright:_A_Turks_Side_Story

I still watch his regularly, and yeah this is probably the nicest he's ever been to a JRPG. And it sounds like he actually made it through the whole thing. Something that doesn't seem to happen often with him and JRPG games. As such, there are some spoilers from the end so be warned for those who haven't finished it. The main point I agree about is their insistence on calling the game FFVII "Remake". Like, a ridiculous number of games have been remade at this point that just call themselves what they were and are actual 1 for 1 remakes (more or less) and this is more of a re-imagining or adaptation and felt the need to put 'Remake' in the title. Feels a bit confusing.

Yeah I saw a LOT of complaining about how hard that was online when I was looking for some tips for it. Took me a solid hour before I managed. X_x I'd be cool with that style of semi-open world too. After this game, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt whatever route they chose though as long as they can keep up the quality we got with this one.

Yeah the visuals in this game are wonderful. It's one of only 2 games so far that have made me reconsider not getting a PS4 Pro (and the other I can get on PC anyway so it almost doesn't count). It's one of the very few times I've actually stopped to take a screenshot in a game just because of the view.

I tried classic on the demo. It forces it into Easy difficulty, and the characters (including the one you control) all auto attack/defend so you focus solely on what to do with your ATB gauges (effectively mirroring the original game). I also think going into spell and item menus fully pauses the game instead of just making everything move super slow. And the linearity doesn't feel like a hindrance like it did in FFXIII (feels more like FFX now that you mention it). Whereas XIII literally felt like you were running in a straight line the whole game, Remake makes it feel organic (which honestly, Midgar in the original wasn't terribly different anyway) much like how it was in X. I think if they don't have some sort of overworld type of thing going into future titles though, you may see some people get upset. As much as I enjoyed this though, I'm honestly not sure if it would bother me a whole lot as much as I would miss it. What Ma mentioned about the game forcing you to go where it wants does get a bit annoying though. I'm very much a "explore all the side paths ASAP" type of person and that got on my nerves a few times, but it's a small gripe next to everything they did right. Mostly I hated it because it was literally the game forcing your character to turn around and popping up a sign over cloud. When they want to redirect you I prefer it being more natural. There were a few places where you can't take a side path because guards are posted there or a gate is closed and you can't open it yet. That feels a lot more natural.

Quite the opposite imo. They use some similar exploratory techniques that 13 employed, but they actually did it right this time, as well as one of the few things that people seemed to like from 13's battle system (staggering). More elaborate explanation: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/final-fantasy-xiii-staggered-so-ffvii-remake-could/1100-6476215/

Last bit of that should not actually be in the spoiler tag and I honestly have no idea why it pushed it into the spoiler and it won't let me edit anything after the 2nd spoiler tag so fuck me I guess? Repost of non-spoiler comment: As for boss mechanics: Losing the stagger was annoying, but manageable. However, there is nothing worse than blowing a limit break because of that. Watching it do almost no damage because you popped it just before a phase change and the boss goes immune for a bit is almost rage inducing. >_<