Patch 1.21 - Chasing the Dragon

Duuuuuuuude!

As is obligatory for every single Final Fantasy XIV related post on the Internet, it should be pointed out that, yes, the game is still alive! More surprisingly, people still play it! Isn't that the darnest thing? It's been just over one and a half years since Square-Enix's second crack at the MMORPG genre was released to... well, let's not mince words, disastrous reviews. The nicest things said about it was "keep an eye on it. It just might turn good." So here we are with this entry!

The Focus of Final Fantasy XIII

Less saving the world, more awesome posing!

Early last week, while I was feeling a little down in the dumps, a friend gave me a physical translated copy of Final Fantasy XIII -Episode Zero-. Sadly, no official English version of the novella compilation was ever released, so my copy is basically the Japanese cover with the pages inside replaced with a fan-translation. There's also a very nice online translation over here for people who, for some crazy reason, can't find someone willing to import a novel they can't read, replace the pages with ones they can, then throw it at you and go, "Stop being so sad, jackass!"

Episode Zero is a series of web novellas that were released before Final Fantasy XIII in Japan. Most of them can be found on Square-Enix's site, but new chapters were added when they published a physical copy. The novellas revolve around most of the cast and act as a prequel to XIII, with Fang and Vanille being the main focus. As a huge fan of XIII's backstory, I just couldn't put the book down, and now feel the urge to go on an very long rant/borderline analysis of it all. Or, specifically, of Fang and Vanille's importance to the story.

Final Fantasy XII - Part Five

The first person to say they're Captain Basch fon Rosenburg of Dalmasca gets it in the teeth.

Final Fantasy XII - Part Four

Well, y'know, it's only been.... What? Eight/Nine months since the last entry? It's still relevant!

Since that pesky thing known as the non-Internet has finally calmed down a bit, and I've stopped being incredibly lazy, now's as good a time as any to wrap up some of the Let's Play series I abandoned all those months ago. However, this one comes with a twist! Which actually isn't all that shocking, since the image above kinda-sorta spoils it.

I've ditched the regular Final Fantasy XII that the filthy peasant class likes to parade around like so many diseases and have picked up the gloriously resplendent International Zodiac Job System edition. Which, despite the 'International' in its name, was only ever released in Japan. The IZJS comes with many new gameplay quirks and fixes a lot of the issues the original game had, but more on that later!

I'm playing a fan-translated version of the game, since while the audio is in English, the subtitles and menus were all in Japanese. The text, at least for the menus and cutscenes, is directly taken from the English version of XII, except with a different font in the cutscenes. Incredible, I know!

Anyway, with explanations out of the way, let's jump back in, shall we?

The Game to Make All Others Boring

I've been sitting here for a good while trying to figure out if it's possible to write something about Saints Row: The Third without massively spoiling the good moments (which is all of them) while also avoiding coming off as being obscenely boring. It's like I've reverted back to my six year-old self, who's just seen Jurassic Park for the first time. I want to tell everyone everything about it because ohmygodohmygodohmygodsocoooool, but at the same time I know if I do that I'll be ruining the best moments for them in some way.

However, like my six year-old self, I'm just going to say nuts to it and spoil away. At least here you get a warning.

Aren't I just the nicest?

Before The Third, Saints Row was a very weird series for me. I started at the second game and worked backwards, so imagine my surprise when the first game was honestly pretty dang bland. It was this bizarre parody/not-parody/maybe-parody-again take on urban gang warfare, and the gameplay could be summed up as Grand Theft Auto Except With.... No, Wait, I Got Nothin'. Though with Grand Theft Auto IV still being constantly delayed to the horizon and back, Saints Row filled the gap very nicely, and that's all I have to say about that because I can't remember anything else about the game except that Gat was awesome.

I bought Saints Row 2 shortly after release at the recommendation of a friend, who had the same general opinion as I on Grand Theft Auto IV, which'd come out earlier that year. GTAIV was a very atmospheric game, but it had basically sacrificed fun over the metaphorical pyre to try and gain the favour of the pretentious-gods. It had an Important Message (which was kind of at ends with the gameplay) and most of the game was spent doing not very fun things in the name of either realism or Rockstar trying to show how DEEP and MATURE they've become since the, in my opinion, vastly superior San Andreas.

While I enjoyed Niko Bellic's Angsty Adventures With His Fat Cousin more than my friend (even if did take some time to warm up to it), we both agreed that we thought Saints Row 2 was the vastly superior game. SR2 let you create basically any character you wanted and set you loose in a massive city full of wonderful toys to either break or break other things with. The fact that the story was surprisingly engaging and enjoyable too was just a nice bonus on the maniacal fun. In the three years since Saints Row 2 was released I think I've played it through somewhere around nine times now. Eight of those being co-op.

So, yeah, big fan. While everyone else was anticipating their Skyrims or Modern Warfares or Zeldas, I was almost beside myself in anticipation for Saints Row: The Third. "Oh, what fun we shall have", I thought as I scrolled through the images of jetbikes and explosions and explosions inside other explosions which in themselves were exploding.

So, is Saints Row: The Third any good?

Well, go re-read the first paragraph, silly.

Or have a picture of a VTOL jet fighter shooting a flamethrowerlaser to make something explode.

1.19 Shenanigans

The first ever Hooray! The Game's No Longer Terrible! celebration gets off to a festive start.

It's been a.... well, honestly, it's been an abysmal year and a touch for poor ol' Final Fantasy XIV, but she's at last starting to show the potential of what would've been, if the original developers hadn't been a bunch of workshite bumblefucks. Or, to put it less insultingly, XIV is shedding its negative aspects very quickly and showing much promise.

In July, FFXIV celebrated Patch 1.18, which began to lay the framework for a lot of massive changes. Grand Companies were introduced. The battle system mechanics got completely replaced with something halfway workable. The Guildleve system got a kick up the arse, and many other things. 1.19 follows in this, opting instead to focus more on fixing the current broken content than introduce anything new and experimental. XIV's newest inclusions aren't terribly unique amongst the genre, but god have they been sorely needed.

Like the last Final Fantasy XIV blurb I did, I just thought I'd ramble on about what's been added since last time and my own thoughts about it. Except since this entry only encapsulates one patch, it won't be horrifically long. Hooray! Although, I did get messages from people asking me if I could write a longer one next time...

I think my hands slowly and involuntarily creeping towards the nearest sharp object is answer enough on that one.

So, what did 1.19 add in that was so gosh-darn nice, anyway? Well...

Final Fantasy X-2 - Part Fourteen

At last! The finale of X-2 has arrived!

It only took me.... seven months to wrap up, but nobody can say that I'm not incredibly lazy dedicated! Huzzah and stuff, I guess! Actually, it was going to fly by me completely, but a few friends pointed it out and went, "Hey! You should do something special for it!" and then I was all, "No." and they were all, "DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT" and then I was totally like, "OKAY FINE GEEZ". Or so the legend says.

Unfortunately, I was all very prepared to waste many an hour writing up a colossal entry (about 980+ images), until Vista decided that working properly is vastly overrated in comparison to acting like a massive asshole, and it deleted about 80% of the images. I got a fair chunk of 'em back, but most are now lost forever to the virtual ether. Bugger.

This left me with two choices:

1) Use what images I did have to piece together the final chapter of X-2.
2) Just not do the entry at all, reducing every single individual on the planet to tears at the sheer loss of it all.

After the antics in Besaid, which is all fine and dandy, I'll have to basically just describe what happens, using images every so often to paint the picture. Not ideal, but ya gotta make the best of a bad situation!

Of course I could have just restarted the game and gotten back up to Chapter 5 again, but considering the requirements for 100% Completion, I would rather go skinny dipping in a Gagazet hot spring full of razor blades and lemon juice before I went through all that stuff again.

And on that charming image, let's dive into the final entry for Final Fantasy X-2!

Final Fantasy X-2 - Part Thirteen

Well, if I want to finally complete Final Fantasy X-2, I have to do this, don't I?

I have to complete... the concert.

If you didn't hear an ominous crack of lightning, you live far away enough that you won't hear my screams either.

Let's just skip this pre-drunk babble and get it over and done with, shall we?

If the level of snide in the comments is higher than usual, which is a scary thought, now you know!