Yop won making cry the kid only saying no u
If that is a victory, then it is a hollow one. Yop already admitted being a bully when he was younger; I guess some things never change
Anyway, here's my report for the first chapter.
What did you think of the opening? How would you rate it against other FF openings?
IX has two opening FMVs; the one that plays before you get control of Zidane, and the one that plays before you get control of Vivi. It's only fair that both are taken into consideration, I think
I think they're great, perhaps only behind VIII in the series. More than the videos, though, I love the music that plays with them. Those pieces are amongst my favourites from the whole soundtrack.
There are a tonne of minigames in IX. Did you try skipping? Did you start Mognet or meet Stilzkin? How did you find the sparring minigame? Did you impress Queen Brahne?
Yeah, I'm a perfectionist, what do you expect?
I got 50 in the skipping minigame, which is the minimum required to make Kupo send a Mognet letter to Mosh. I met Stiltzkin - isn't that mandatory? And I impressed 100 nobles and Queen Brahne on my first attempt in the swordfight. Full disclosure: PAL framerate makes things easier
What do you think of the controls/exploration compared to other FF titles? What about the battle system?
The controls are very good; moving characters around in the field feels smooth and natural. The battle system is generally fine. It would be nice if it were a little quicker, but I understand why Square wanted to incorporate a "classic"-feeling system for this specific game. It's not really any slower than VI, though the animations are more detailed and therefore take longer in IX. Full disclosure: I only got one random battle in this chapter, and I ran away
The compulsory battles all went well, particularly Plant Brain, which went even better than it did in my "perfect" game. Zidane stole Eye Drops on his first turn, while Vivi focused and Steiner defended. Then the boss did a Left Tentacle as his first attack, bringing Zidane down to critical HP, which triggers Blank's entry and the start of the real battle (Plant Brain's HP is fully healed at that point if you've done any damage). Zidane and Blank both stole, which gave me the Iron Helm. Two fires from focused Vivi and a couple of physical attacks from Steiner ended the battle.
Are you enjoying the story? What do you think of it so far?
It's been great
I really think IX hit the nail on the head with Alexandria and the Evil Forest as its first locations. The city provides a gentle introduction to the game, and being able to control multiple characters - Zidane, Vivi and Steiner - lets you see the different sides of it, while the forest introduces a real sense of drama as you are forced to escape. The campfire scene afterwards is lovely, I think; it always makes me think "this is only the start of something big".
As no-one gave me a challenge for this chapter, I imposed my own: keep everyone at Level 1 for the duration. That was pretty easy, as there's only one battle that gives forced EXP, against the Plant Spiders. Provided you only get two of them, and keep all four characters alive, the EXP isn't enough to level anyone up.
Like I said, my theme for this playthrough is "doing things differently". Apart from the mini-challenges which I'll be taking on in each chapter, I'll be taking my time with the game, talking to everyone, visiting everywhere and just generally experimenting, even though I already know everything that needs to be done to progress the story and complete the sidequests. In this first chapter I learnt a couple of things already. Firstly, if you knock out Blank yourself in the first fight with Steiner, Steiner will
still attack him with his special move. Not only does that trigger the release of the Oglops, it also
revives Blank. How does that make any sense? Well, seeing as we are never shown any damage dealt by that attack (even when Blank's alive), I can only assume it is actually a reviving move. Why he would do that on Blank, I have no idea, but nothing else makes sense! Secondly, I visited North Gate's Melda Arch, which is the only other location that can be accessed from the Gunitas Basin besides the Ice Cavern. I can't remember if I've ever been there before; possibly not. There's some dialogue there which is presumably never available again, and there's a woman selling potions from the other side of the gate. Nothing significant, then, but interesting nonetheless
I need to think of a challenge for the second chapter, so send any ideas this way!
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I have terrible timing it seems, I'll be sure to speak out in future.