^How people can manage speedruns when my Analog stick 'ghosts' me in to pitfalls at every turn, I just do not know. I had to grope the Goddess' boobs twice because the fall exit wouldn't open for some reason.
Though I am curious if anyone has a full list of Pitioss items to grab. Important missables? I found a Genji Glove down there. Do some items respawn? I need Oracle Ascension coins for Ribbons to say the least.
I have Five Moogle Charms, Thieves' Way II, and the Black Hood if that tells you anything.
Mostly AP Charger items based on your combat grades, but I found the Armiger Charger and Ally Charger items to be useful. Stamina item might be useful if you hang around in battles a lot.
Lastly, an item that prevents Spells from hitting allies. Nice if you're experimenting, but I don't have any reliable Elemancy Spell Recipes yet. Also it doesn't protect your Party against collateral damage (flame status, freeze status, stun status).
Battle system is fun
Justice Monsters V is the best mini-game ever
Noctis is a kind of amusing protagonist
The bachelor party road trip members all have great chemistry
I need more customization options for my car
I am obsessed with screenshots
Needs a camera mode like Uncharted 4 has
Needs a faster way to turn the HUD on and off
needz moar cat quests (or just cats in general)
How does this kind of society exist with such huge and powerful monsters roaming everywhere?
This will speed things along for you. I swear that quest is only a minor EXP grab, since you might as well turn in Oracle Ascension coins for the Ribbon you get at the end of it.
My question was, how is one supposed to do it without a guide? Do they really just expect people to search every body of water throughout the entire game?
It's just such a ridiculous and boring task.
I quit playing for the past week and I honestly think it was the side quests that did me in. Problem is I can't just leave them there and proceed with the story...it's bothersome somehow.
Because Chapter 15 what draws people back is the side objectives and if those are overly tedious or a change of form too much then it can be seen as artificially prolonging of a game.
Case in point - the EX Dungeons. I did the first two and I saw a pattern - hard fights floor after floor, but once I found that Haven I knew I was just a few floors from the bottom.
Then the third and fourth added a second haven. I attempted to tackle Steyliff's earlier today and there were four god damned Havens. I got sick of it. I know the rewards are supposed to be good, I know
There's an Ultima Weapon of something in the Last One I think
, but I just lot my patience with it. I know deep dungeons are by their very nature meant to be endurance rounds but these things remove all sense of accomplishment.
When I enter the Cave of Trials in Star Ocean 2 - I know the thing is 13 floors deep and that no matter how hard the challenges each floor I clear has weight. Even obscene stuff like Sphere in Star Ocean 3 - boom I know there's a little more than 100 floors. Spooky's House of Horrors - 1000 rooms. That's insane but again I feel myself progressing.
When you take away the sense of progression from an objective, yes it can make the challenge seem all the more challenging and oppressive and can heighten the feeliing of accomplishment at the end, but I just don't get that- especially when I know that all of these are just warmups for Costlemark where you can't use any items.
Stuff like Navyth's fishing challenges and the Liege of the Lake while ridiculously hard do feel like actual progressions of difficulty. The magical "go find these frogs - I don't know where they are - clues what are you a pussy?" is one that I have in my quest log and won't tackle without a guide because you have changed the rules too much. Even if they had little markers showcasing each body of water on the continent map it could still work. It would be "okay this will take a while but I have an idea of where to check.
Now I am a fairly casual gamer, usually only taking on the "expected" challenges (i.e. Omega Ruins in FFX, Omega Weapon in FFVIII, stuff like that). And I will probably gird my loins at some point and clear the EX Dungeons (especially now that all my characters are Level 99, thank you Nixperience Band and one good night in Atlissia). But it will only be for the bragging rights of saying I've done it and nothing else. And yes, I gather that's where a lot of the fun of these super challenging dungeons come from, but doing something just for bragging rights has led to the scourge of "Achievements" and "Trophies" and has boiled down fun gameplay into a chore.
Anyway rant over, that went on far longer than I planned.
My question was, how is one supposed to do it without a guide? Do they really just expect people to search every body of water throughout the entire game?
It's just such a ridiculous and boring task.
The frog quests annoyed the shit out of me too, even though I quite liked the professor and her "storyline", if you can call it that. The actual collecting of the frogs bugged me because even though they showed you a search radius it was pretty big and they were still really hard to find.
Shit I almost used this exact same pic. I ended up going with the very beginning one of them in front of the Regalia (partly because it struck me as hugely sentimental as the start of their journey, before Insomnia was attacked, they were the most cheerful, etc, and otherwise because of completely unrelated game stuff but IRL stuff that affected my decision XD).
But the Altissia was my second pic, because it's a beautiful shot, I absolutely loved Altissia, it was also before the story took on a more depressing turn again, and again for completely unrelated game stuff and instead IRL stuff.
If I'm being honest I was going to pick the Altissia one but on my second round of looking I forgot about it and went with the sentimental first pic of them and the car >.>
Anyways I beat the game and whoa. I think I'm quoting Joe a bit when I say this is the best flawed game I ever played. I mean I had a blast with this game. And for all it's flaws it was quite awesome, IMO. I even liked the story, even though it feels like so many spots need more info (need might be a strong word, more accurate to say at the very least I just wanted a shitload more info and world building and just...just....INFO.)
Might write up more later, I'm being lazy at the moment and just want to read some threads here now that I've been avoiding.
I did cry at the end.
Edit:
I cried at the fucking camping scene with the group. I've not ever seen a game portray character emotions so realistically. Noctis is choking up and I'm like getting teary eyed and then you see everyone start crying, some quietly, and just... I was like right there with them, feeling the same emotion purely because of the visuals and words being spoken and the inflections in them.
Along that note, after Chapter 9, any time I saw Luna or Noctis cry (whether flashbacks or present time), it really touched me in a personal space, I guess you could say. Just touched my heart. I know you don't see much of Luna, but what I did see was that she reaaaally loved Noctis, and he loved her as well (the kind of love it is can be open to interpretation in some spots I think, but regardless). Just, I really felt them crying for each other, and it was really heartfelt.
I liked that Noct and Luna only communicated for 12 years through a notebook.
I've had a pen pal for about 17 years now and I've never met her; we're FB friends now but we still don't chat much on there. Point is, we communicated for at least 12 years through only letters and cards maybe once a month, and only like 1-2 photos in that entire time, and you get this very unique relationship built up. Sometimes you expose parts of yourself that you never would to another, and other times you realize you don't know this person in many other ways as intimately as those around them do. And yet, this is a special connection between just you two, and it might not be in-person, but it's very real.
Noct and Luna have that relationship, with the added years as children too. So they know each other from that childhood, and they've been able to (presumably) write back and forth on a possibly monthly basis. From personal experience, you do get to know someone through this way, especially after that many years. But you still get this "We've spent 12 years apart, how much have we changed in person?" feeling, which think is reflected in many ways in Noct's usually vague answers about marrying Luna. I mean come on, he obviously cherishes her and loves her, but how has she changed through the years? He's got letters and notes from her, but marrying her.... so much time spent apart...He has to have reservations. I personally think he does have some romantic feelings for her (something his VA said makes me feel it's a kind of confirmed thing, "Noct views love as a romantic relationship between two people").
She obviously has romantic feelings for him, seen mostly in the flashbacks of her desiring to just see him and be by his side again.
Tl;dr, I actually think their relationship is realistic given their circumstances and I'll be totally honest and admit it's touched me on a deep level and gave me a lot of emotion .__. I don't think there 'needs' to be more content that explores their relationship. I would love to see more, but even with what you do see, I thought it was an emotional relationship and I loved it and the tragic aspects to it. Damn did it make me cry.
The emotions shown on the faces of the characters are just phenomenal, and I appreciate the effort the VA's put in (at least Noct's) with making the sound affects to blend with the words (sniffles and the cracking voice or when he's really enraged).
Also I Will Be is a gorgeous song that gives me feels. <3 Damn. But where did it play in the actual game? And, Too Much Is Never Enough, for that matter.
