final fantasy

… aa-aa-and nearly exactly two months after finishing A Realm Reborn, there’s Heavensward done!

The writing is definitely getting better, though still suffers from the problem games with unvoiced protagonists often have wherein you kind of end up feeling like a side-character in everyone else’s drama (despite doing all the “work” to fix it!).

On the plus side: flying is still awesome, and the gating requirements feel natural and manageable.1 Also I… really, really like Dancer? Like I wanted to unlock it because of (ahem) the aesthetics but I actually really enjoy how it plays, to the point where I’ve switched to it as my main (from Summoner).

And now… to slog through the 3.x content filler before the next expansion (ugh). Hopefully it won’t be as tedious as the 2.x stuff, though looking at the wiki there are still way too many Duties and way too much run-here-watch-a-cutscene-run-there-watch-a-cutscene-run-back-watch-a-cutscene.

Also: I have discovered Triple Triad. Don’t ask me why it took me this long to actually start playing it.2 I was the, like, one person who really enjoyed Triple Triad in FFVIII, and… I still really enjoy it. I’m not actually good at it, but luckily you don’t really have to be.3 So… on my way to grinding out that 100,000 MSP for those sweet sweet arch-demon horns…

1. Basically, once you’re done with the MSQ in a zone, you should have done at least 90% of the work to unlock flying “naturally”, so it never really feels like a grind to get the last few pieces. [↩]
2. I think the first time I went to the Saucer I got the impression it was a PvP mini game only? [↩]
3. Winning is like 60% what cards you have, 30% what rules are in effect, 10% skill. [↩]

First flying zone in FFXIV: Unlocked!

Also unlocked: all DPS Jobs for the base Classes, plus all expansion Jobs minus Gunbreaker and Dancer. Only five more levels to go for those two.

Grinding thirty levels for all the other starter DPS classes has reaffirmed my initial decision that Summoner is the Obvious Best Job Choice.™ I’ve also enjoyed Monk and Ninja, but was surprised how much I… did not enjoy Black Mage, which just feels like it has overly fussy mechanics for not-particularly-great damage output. I think I might like Red Mage, but I’ll need to play it more to tell, and I’m waiting for Dancer mostly because it is A Look and I’m shallow.

Also: Drama, for which a cut:

(more…)

… I did it. I finished the Realm Reborn MSQ in FFXIV and holy crap there was a lot of dungeons with a lot of unskippable cutscenes.

I could have a regular chocobo or I could dress one up as Behemoth and ride that instead!

(Still needs a few more shades of feather dying to get blackerer but I need to, like. Save up the gil for it again, oy…)

So I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XIV recently and finally unlocked mounts on my Arcanist and, well. There really is only one mount I could possibly choose…

This is my second go at FFXIV; I played it a little bit wa-aa-aa-ay back when, and remembered enjoying it but not enough to justify a long-term subscription. I jumped back into it recently thanks to the cross-promotional mission in Boyband Car Adventures (a.k.a. Final Fantasy XV) and yes, okay, Square, your promo worked you win. I guess.

FFXIV has the problem all long-running MMOs have in that Everything Is Just So Much, exacerbated by the fact that you can literally be All The Things on one single character. Because I am extremely predictable, I chose an Au Ra and choose the healing pet class as my “main”. Combat in FFXIV is… old-fashioned, and very slow, but… eh. It’s fine. I’ve spent the last two days leveling all my crafting classes to 20ish, and am now cleaning up the lowbie start quests from the combat classes. Then I guess it’s getting those last three levels I need to unlock Summoner…