Finished Final Fantasy XIV !
Well, at least A Realm Reborn, there are still some post game quests that lead to the first expansion Heavesward, but going to move the game to secondary for now and focus on other games for a little while.
As for the story, it wasn’t bad, but it didn’t had the twists and turns I have come to expect from Final Fantasy games. It is the weakest content in FF14 though, and Heavensward is considered one of the strongest, so looking forward to eventually starting it.
They did introduce quite a bit of combat elements just before the final dungeon, which also helped me understand why I am doing level 50 quests and yet still have a “newbie” icon with my name…
Finished Tiny Lands !
Not much to add here, but got stuck on couple of puzzles, so had to look them up online, they weren’t that difficult just couldn’t find them for some reason.
Started Dimension Drive. I got it on last sale but hadn’t started it. It’s a vertical shoot 'em up which isn’t a bullet hell. The main gimmick here is that screen is divided in two, and you can teleport from one to other side. Both sides are bit different with enemies coming in different orders etc.
Overall, the game isn’t too difficult, but I am only on second world (each world has 4 levels) and only getting C rating. It would probably take good level of skill to get to S rating.
Also started Moonlighter. I played it long time ago and dropped it. As I have mentioned many times, I am not a big fan of roguelikes, but wanted some dungeon crawling, also cozy games, so it seemed like a nice mixture of two.
I am still in first dungeon, but have reached the 3rd level (out of 4), but I have scratched the itch I had, so not sure if I’ll continue or not. May play a bit more, but I doubt I’ll actually finish it.
That’s it for now. Will be focusing on Judgment over the weekend, and will also look for some “big” Switch game to start, but not sure which one yet.
What about all of you? What have you been playing and/or plan to play?
This week, Pokemon ZA released, which meant I had ample time to finish Baten Kaitos Origins! My partner is a big fan of Pokemon and basically locked themselves into a room the minute the game released. Which meant no Monster Hunter this week to distract me, or pretty much anything else.
Overall, I remain with the opinion, that the battle system just doesn’t work for normal encounters. Once I started to use the convenience settings added in the remaster, I never got back to fighting trash mobs myself. Each fight can be approached in the same way, and I basically never changed my deck. I still fought bosses properly, as those are still fun, although these also can be fought with the same strategy throughout the entire game. Well, there’s one exception. I didn’t actually defeat the final boss. I almost defeated him properly, but the game decided to crash three times in a row towards the end of the fight - a 20+ minutes fight, I might add. At that point, I just wanted to be done with the game and toggled the option back on.
In short, while trying to remove the kinks from the first game, they threw out everything that made that battle system interesting. It’s sad to say, but now I get why the series ended there.
On the bright side, I found the story to be interesting - hence why I finished the game. It doesn’t quite align with the first game, despite being a prequel, but the twists and turns had me entertained and changed the context for pretty much everything happening in the first game. That being said, I don’t think the game works as well without having played the other one first.
I haven’t decided on the next game, but I’ll start with the demo for Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree.
Hehe, glad your partner is having fun!
That’s a bit sad to hear about the Baten Kaitos, but I guess there’s always risk involved when you try to change things up (or you don’t change enough).
I just looked up who the devs are, and if it would make any sense for the series to come back, and was surprised to see that it’s co-developed by Monolith Soft, devs of Xenoblade games! I am not a big fan of deck based games, but I did enjoy it in Marvel’s Midnight Suns, so it could be interesting if done well.
As a major fan of Xenoblade, Baten Kaitos being developed by Monolith was one of the reasons I wanted to play through the series. I think I’m only missing Xenosaga now, and a return of those game is rumoured.
I’d still recommend the first game, and the second one is just really divisive. A lot of people think the battle system was massively improved over the first game.
The battle system doesn’t sound like something I’ll enjoy, but now knowing that it’s by Monolith, I am going to give it a try some day. Will go with low expectations, may end up liking it.