Final Fantasy Quest - Time for Dress-Up!

After 80-90ish hours in total, I finally 100% completed Final Fantasy X-2 a few days ago.

Whew, what an experience.

Final Fantasy X: Charlie's Angels Edition?

I think I had heard ABOUT the game previously, such as it being silly or not that great. I didn't realize what I'd be getting myself into. I can't give an award for the story, as much as I may have liked bits and pieces of it. Coming out of the relatively serious tone of Final Fantasy X, X-2 felt a bit like going from the first Christopher Reeve Superman movie to the third one. There are familiar faces, and there seem to be high stakes, but the tone is too lighthearted to take it seriously for very long.

"I guess I have no choice" -Dark Knight Paine

Where FF X-2 succeeds very well is the "job system" in the form of the dresspheres (DSP). Different Garment Grids can equip the DSPs, and provide differing benefits, like stat boosts, passive and active abilities, and new menu commands. Clearly, the coolest DSP is the Dark Knight, and the best ability to spam is their massively effective Darkness. And I suppose the Chemist's ability to pull healing potions out of nowhere is nice too.

Still, bits were odd or off. The "blocking" or certain characters, like Brother and Rikku, features them constantly flailing about or being awkward. I did find enjoyment in the story and characters overall. I suppose I have a weakness for getting into a game and just wanting to find out the mysterious backstories of all the characters.

Mini-games were hit-or-miss, and mostly miss. The "Gunner's Gauntlet" to finish one episode was annoying, and the Cactuar ones relied on reflexes that I didn't have (thankfully, losing them doesn't count against % completion). Sphere Break was fun once I understood it a bit, and I even beat the "harder" version of the match played against Shinra.

For completing it to get the true happy ending, I'd recommend using a guide and exhausting all story options before moving to side quests. I took a painstakingly long time to complete a particular side quest (that involved losing at certain mini-games in a certain location) only to discover three new story bits on the ship that I could probably have done instead.

I don't regret playing the game. My advice is similar to what I said for Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. The best bet is to either get it cheap or get it together with FF X in an HD collection. I'm still playing at it, many hours in, 80+ floors into the 100 floor optional dungeon.

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Image source: finalfantasy.wikia.com

Final Fantasy Quest - Gauntlet of the Past

I thought Final Fantasy IV: The After Years would break free from repetition at some point?

Ha! Wrong.

Now that I'm in the final dungeon(s), I've already seen major bosses and archfiends from FF IV (slightly excusable if the dungeon was different or new - it wasn't) and the elemental fiends from the original Final Fantasy. With the exception of Tiamat, the latter inter-game refights were pushovers.

Reading a little ahead in a walkthrough, I see that there are bosses from subsequent entries in the franchise. I'm kind of looking forward to seeing Gilgamesh, but having to slog through a bunch of others before and after him won't be fun.

Gilgamesh was not a pushover, but I still managed to triumph. After each of the fights, the party muses on who or what they just faced - for Gilgamesh, there is a more sympathetic tone to their thoughts of him. Thankfully, a few of the returning (super)bosses were optional, so I decided to skip them.

I wasn't really stuck on anything until Bahamut showed up. I took grinding a bit too far, maybe, and got 6 of my characters (since Rydia was required for the fight) up to level 99. Even then, the fight was no picnic. After this major hurdle, there were a few more uneventful floors until the final boss.

Taking a page out of Final Fantasy Legend's book, the final boss is "the Creator." However, following SNES FF standards, the fourth (final) form is a Gigeresque mass reminiscent of FF IV's Zeromus and FF V's Exdeath. He too wasn't a pushover, but fell within a few attempts. One escape sequence later, and I was finally finished.

Overall, it was a mixed experience. On the one hand, there were so many repeated story elements, bosses and locations. On the other hand, there were a few interesting story points and amusing moments. The band system was pretty cool, once I got a few to use. (My theory will be that sequel games' redeeming factor is the battle system. I've just beaten Final Fantasy X-2, so corroborating data is coming soon!)

As a standalone game, it's not entirely worth spending the full asking price. However, as part of the PSP collection of Final Fantasy IV, I'd say it's worth it.

Besides, it's the only official FF IV release that lets one play as Golbez!

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Image source: finalfantasy.wikia.com

Final Fantasy Quest - New Stuff???

Yang's Tale featured almost entirely physical fighters, specifically Yang, his daughter Ursula, and several generic Fabul monks. It was a nice break after having to deal with squishy mages and weak dolls.

Palom's Tale returns us to squishy mages; however, both Palom and Leonora come to use some form of black magic, whether a strong Fira or a somewhat helpful Fire spell. Here is a bit of change from the usual repetition - there is some character growth for the brash young Palom helps the young epopt Leonora to train in black magic (in addition to her usual healing white magic).

Edge's Tale has a unique structure: the player starts as the ninja Edge, but later does four "missions" with students of his. Three of them feature his disciples in disguise in different places, giving one a slightly different perspective on some locations and characters. For instance, Palom half flirts with the "epopt" Izayoi, "dwarf" Zangetsu eventually impresses the real dwarves with a spectacular jump, and Tsukinowa spies on a meeting while turned into a toad.

Eventually, the focus shifts to Edge as he infiltrates Babil Tower again, and his followers slowly rejoin him. After nearly perishing to a Mysterious Girl controlled Ifrit, we meet another mysterious figure, this one called "the Man in Black."

It was a bit odd to enter the same room that exploded and "killed" Yang in the main game, but the presence of a trap door provides a neat explanation for both parties' survival. Despite echoing/repeating the events of the previous game, I still found Edge's Tale's ending in the Tower of Babil to be an interesting, and occasionally amusing, experience.

Edward's Tale was annoying at times, but mostly more repetition. Secretary Harley, noble as she is, (in)conveniently gets desert fever in Kaipo. Naturally, Edward volunteers to grab the cure from the Antlion Cave, way way back past where we started. (Even the people in the house note the number of important sick people they'd cared for.)

I liked how Kain's Tale was done. Play alternates between the evil "Kain," and Ceodore and the Hooded Man. It culminates in discovering that Kain too tried defeating his evil half, but failed. Here, we see his reconciliation with his dark half, and transformation into a Holy Dragoon. (Which means there's even more weak white magic users who are also strong fighters! Huzzah.)

My only regret was accidentally saving over my max-level Edward's Tale. I had to repeat the whole thing, leveling and all. Thankfully, I realized that grinding a solo party member made things faster.

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Image source: finalfantasy.wikia.com

Final Fantasy Quest - A Miniseries of Repetition

With the -Interlude- is out of  the way, I could then focus on the meatier Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. Originally released on mobile phones, then WiiWare, and finally in the PSP collection of Final Fantasy IV, it is a series of episodes/tales that follow various characters from FFIV including favorites such as Cecil and Rydia, and new characters, like Cecil's son Ceodore, and the wonderful secretary Harley.

I started my first attempt on Dolphin emulator, only to be stopped by lag and a tough boss a fair bit in to the game (having completed almost all of the tales available). Now I've finally taken the plunge on the PSP version (via OpenEmu) and restarted at the beginning.

The opening is fairly straight-forward, playing as Cecil, Rosa and Cid. Later, the party becomes centered around Ceodore and his journey to becoming a Red Wing (like his father before him). Chaos ensues, and he ends up travelling with a mysterious Hooded Man. Because the HM is a strong attacker, and Ceodore has decent white magic abilities, playing this section is not too difficult. In fact, over the course of a few hours spent grinding (while watching various Twitch streams and YT videos) I managed to get both of them to the max level available (here, lv. 50).

I just started the next tale, involving Rydia, Luca (a dwarf princess) and the two living dolls, Calca and Brina. It was decidedly more difficult, since Luca and the one doll were weak physical attackers, and Rydia and the other doll were mushy mages. Getting through (or even just getting ready to get through) the dungeons for them proved time-consuming. (There is an auto-battle feature, which made the process faster with Ceodore and co, and better with Rydia and co.)

Thankfully, the next tale features Yang, a decidedly physically strong character.

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Image source: finalfantasy.wikia.com

Final Fantasy Quest - And Then the Wall Attacked ... Again

After months (years even) of delaying, I've finally started back into my long-delayed Final Fantasy marathon. I think I've been prompted by the excellent rhythm game, Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call. And now since my PS4 is working again, I can actually get to the most recent entry too!

I had previously started playing Final Fantasy IV: The After Years via Dolphin, using the WiiWare version. However, it suffered from performance issues in certain parts (namely, whenever the "mysterious girl" showed up.) I managed to get a good bit done, but put it aside when I got stuck on a particular boss fight.

I didn't want to try the PSP version because I wanted to get as close to the original as possible. However, after seeing the PSP version of FFIV in a marathon, I decided to take the risk.

This time, I started with the later "installment" in the FFIV series, Final Fantasy IV -Interlude-. Coming off of my time with The After Years (TAY), I knew about what I was getting into - some plot rehash, revisiting old places, and maybe a few new actual developments. (Apologies for no pictures, by the time I thought to take screenshots, I was already done. However, I still have TAY to go!)

And what do you know, I was right? The story linked FFIV to TAY, but didn't really go anywhere in and of itself. Rosa "got sick" again, we explored a few familiar locations again, certain characters were useless again. It did show certain main character's children coming to be, such as Yang's daughter Ursula, and the announcement of Cecil and Rosa's kid (only at the very end.)

As it is shorter, the repeated events are not as obvious - the big example being the demon wall fought in the sealed cave (hence my title). Players are only allowed to go to certain areas, and the airships are even controlled by the AI to ensure this. Because of this, it feels chained to the events of the original game in a repetitive way, new characters and events notwithstanding.

Overall, a pretty short run, mostly satisfying for someone who's a strong fan of Final Fantasy and/or FFIV in particular. Nothing ground-breaking happens. It's definitely a just a bonus treat in the Final Fantasy IV Complete Collection.

(And it showed "Secretary-in-Training" Harley at King Edward, so it can't be all bad.)

Pixel Art - A Brief Write-Up

For my 35th official B# Major Designs piece, I finally tackled one of the large frames I had standing around in my room. This particular frame's visible canvas area was around 19.75" x 29.75". Even with only 4 pixels per inch, it's large enough for a good bit of stuff.

Rather than make a random section of a Mega Man game with a robot master standing there, I wanted to do a nice landscape. My immediate thought was Castlevania, but my chosen shot (the ending screen of Castlevania) proved too large. My friend Oberle suggested Contra. I hadn't thought of it, so I perused some of the stages of that tough NES.

I found this

Since most of my previous pieces had been oriented landscape, I opted to get a great swath of vertical space. The ground, trees, and mountain make for a fairly simple piece. I initially planned to use a patchwork of black card stock, but Mother suggested that I get a large single piece. I'm glad I took her advice, as the patchwork's seams would not have been masked enough to look very nice.

And here it is

Long story short, the ground was easy, the trees were a pain, the mountains were easy, and the stars were fun. I accidentally misaligned the trees a few times, so that area doesn't exactly match the initial pixel map. The mountains threw me off while cutting them out, because I thought that I had reversed one at one point. It turned out that I was looking at an already reversed image, used for making sure I cut out the correct pixels.

Complete in frame

The frame was the most complicated one I've worked with thus far. There were screws holding L-shaped bits of metal, bendy metal to push the canvas against the frame, and a large piece of glass in front of everything. Unfortunately, in my disassembly, I made a tiny chip in the glass. Fortunately, the frame covers most of it.

Bonus note: for the tree trunks, I did not have a matching green. I instead used the same light green I used on the tree highlights, but colored it with a metallic bronze sharpie.

Bonus note 2: in the original, you'll notice that there aren't that many stars in the sky. I used three metallic markers and three shades of light card stock to pepper in a few more pixels in the sky.

In the future, I might try another one that size. However, I prefer sticking to nice 11" x 8.5" sized pieces instead.

Life - My Very First Speed Run Marathon

After around 2 years of watching the charity speed running event, Games Done Quick, I was finally able to attend one myself! On January 11th, 2017, my family headed down the road to Herndon, Virginia. (They kept claiming we were going to Washington D.C., but I know better than that!) Although the event had started a few days earlier, I'd be able to attend most of the last three days of it.

I know the guy on the left is King Knight, don't know the other guy.

After an eventful car ride up, we finally arrived at our hotel that evening. Boring check-in details aside, I got to AGDQ 2017 in the later morning, on the next day. The first thing I noted was the venue itself. The event was spread out all over the Hilton Dulles Washington Airport Hotel. Several rooms contained TVs for runners to practice and for friends to race each other or share speedrunning strats. Other rooms were available for casual play and impromptu tournaments. In the front area, Hilton had some snacks, a souvenir table (probably an extension of their gift shop, I can't imagine they weren't trying to capitalize on the event, even a tiny bit) and video-game themed fruit-water stuff.

(And there were three different types of piano sitting around, including an electronic keyboard on the way to the casual play rooms. I met a few real-life speedrunners there!)

But that wasn't all! Food trucks cycled during the day and evening. World 9 Gaming let people rent out a variety of systems, and there were free arcade and pinball machines to play; this, all before ever getting to the stream room. I had no idea that there was so much more in addition to the primary focus of the event!

The badge was cooler than I had anticipated.

Exhaustive lists of event features aside, I had a great time at AGDQ. The highlights for me include being able to experience the Philips CD-i and several of its most infamous games, including Hotel Mario and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon. Those two and the rest were just about as terrible as everyone said, with the exception of a few titles that were just mediocre. In fact, one of them Dimo's Quest, was actually playable! (Later digging reveals that it was not specific to the CD-i.)

Another cool thing was being able to meet several people that I watched stream on Twitch. Introducing myself was frightening, at least for the people I intentionally went to meet, like Gyre, a famous Final Fantasy speedrunner (well, famous to speedrunners and people who watch speedruns.) Hanging about in the practice room, I met a few other people that I followed, but wasn't going out to meet, so those self-introductions weren't as bad.

I don't think I'll be able to attend SGDQ this summer, but I definitely want to try attending as many as I can.

Anyway, this post has been sitting as a draft for long enough! I may follow up with some other thoughts later, but this is it for now.