2489: Kingsglaive

0489_001

I watched the Final Fantasy XV movie Kingsglaive this evening. It was pretty spectacular, and as something to get one in the mood for Final Fantasy XV it does its job admirably. Taken by itself, it’s perhaps a little heavy on the action sequences and light on the justifications that link them together, but for a Final Fantasy fan such as myself, it was fanservice heaven.

Unlike the previous Final Fantasy movie The Spirits Within, which wasn’t based on an existing game and only had the loosest of thematic similarities to the venerable series, Kingsglaive very much knew who its primary audience was. As such, the whole thing was riddled with little nods and references to other games in the series.

A wide shot of the Lucian city of Insomnia had a billboard for the “Bank of Spira”, a reference to Final Fantasy X’s world. Water-based summon Leviathan just happened to be in a giant fishtank present at a highbrow reception. One of the enemy airships inexplicably had everyone’s favourite pervy octopus Ultros inside it, though sadly without a speaking role. The “demons” that the antagonists of the piece, the Empire, bring to bear on the Lucians are a dead ringer for Final Fantasy VII’s Diamond Weapon. And let’s not, of course, forget the presence of Knights of the Round who, after Heavensward, have now played a starring role in two consecutive Final Fantasy works as opposed to being a “secret” summon for the truly dedicated player to uncover.

The movie did a great job of setting the scene and introducing some of the lore that is clearly going to be central to Final Fantasy XV as a whole. It’s nice to see that the game is incorporating elements of both classic Final Fantasy — crystals being of paramount importance to the world’s magic being the main one — and the more recent titles with modern-to-futuristic technology being in evidence.

I’m a big fan of settings that combine technology and magic, and I think it’s traditionally been a rather underexplored variant on fantasy. Sure, the idea of magic combined with the modern world has been popularised by the Harry Potter series in recent years, but it’s something that is always interesting to explore, I think. There’s a quote from horror game Outlast that stuck with me and that I will now probably butcher for you now: “show a man from the past technology and he will think it is magic; show a man from the present magic and he will think it is technology.” This is the core of what’s interesting about it, I think: if you have magic, why do you need technology, and vice versa?

This is something I also found interesting about Shadowrun Hong Kong, which I finished earlier today. Shadowrun actually almost plays down its fantastic elements outside of some occasional references to “The Awakening”, mages occasionally being among the foes that stand in your way and the fact that orks, elves and dwarves are happily wandering around in a traditionally human-only world. By de-emphasising the fantastic elements, they simply felt natural and “normal” even though they’re far from reality.

Final Fantasy has always played up its more fantastic elements, by contrast, and Kingsglaive was no exception to this rule, with a spectacular and lengthy final battle raging between the protagonist and the antagonist, set to a backdrop of gigantic summoned titans and demons smacking the shit out of each other, the foreground and background conflicts taking turns to mirror one another.

I absolutely love this particular breed of overblown insanity and always have done. It’s so fantastic and unbelievable that it becomes perfect escapism: something that literally cannot be done in reality, so becomes all the more appealing to be a part of, even if it’s only as a passive observer.

If the main game of Final Fantasy XV is half as spectacular as Kingsglaive was, I’ll be very happy indeed. But since it’s the centrepoint of an incredibly ambitious transmedia campaign encompassing a computer-generated move, an anime series, mobile games and then finally the damn game itself when it comes out at the end of this month, I’m anticipating something even more joyfully exuberant.

I don’t doubt the game will have its haters, as its predecessors also have. (I’ve given up arguing with people who can’t see the good in the FFXIII series, it’s just not worth the stress.) But I for one cannot wait to step into Noctis’ lovingly-rendered boots and start exploring this fantastic new world, and watching Kingsglaive this evening has made the wait just a smidge more agonising.

2482: Palace of the Dead: Solo Guide

Been soloing a bunch of Palace of the Dead in Final Fantasy XIV over the last few days, so I thought I’d assemble some tips for those who are looking to challenge it.

General tips

Take your time on the early floors. You want to equal or exceed the boss’ level when you reach it, so clear each floor thoroughly rather than rushing through. You can safely avoid enemies once you hit level 60.
Stay aware of your surroundings at all times. Most floors have patrolling monsters; keep an eye out for these and engage them in the corridors between rooms before pulling the monsters in the rooms themselves.
When fighting on the normal floors, DPS as hard as you can. Summoners, use Garuda-Egi. Tanks, use your DPS stance. The quicker things die, the easier a time you’ll have. In most cases you’ll probably want to concentrate on one enemy at a time — pull from a distance whenever possible.
When fighting bosses, the priority is on doing mechanics rather than DPSing as hard as possible. Summoners, get Titan-Egi to tank for you. Tanks, use your tank stance.
Drink potions whenever you can if you’re not at full health. The last thing you want is to die to a landmine or exploding chest.
Save Pomanders of Serenity for floors where Auto-Heal is disabled. Most of the other floor effects aren’t really anything to worry about, but Auto-Heal not working can really fuck you up.
Don’t use Pomanders of Safety and Pomanders of Sight on the same floor because they’re redundant. Safety removes all traps on the floor, and Sight allows you to see traps and thus avoid them. There’s no need to use both.
Pomanders of Alteration are a gamble best used before you hit 60. If they spawn Mandragora-type enemies on the next floor, that’s free EXP. If they spawn Mimics, however, you’re in for a miserable time.
When using one of the transformation Pomanders, remember that you’re not invincible. The Manticore may be able to kill everything in a single hit (assuming Knockback isn’t disabled by a floor effect) but its HP and defense are the same as yours in your regular form.
Transformations are immune to Toad traps, and Pacification/Silence doesn’t affect the transformation’s ability. Landmines are still very dangerous, however, particularly as you can’t drink a potion to heal yourself while transformed.
Save Pomanders of Resolution for the floor 100 boss. You’ll need all three during the fight.

Enemies to watch out for

Hornets, found in the 1-10 block, have Final Sting, which will do a shitload of damage if you let it go off. You can actually run away from it and avoid the damage if you get far enough away, but it’s best to try and kill the hornet before this happens.
Slimes, found in the 11-20 block, cast Rapture if you take too long killing them. This will almost certainly kill you, so kill them as quickly as you can.
Gaze attacks — marked by a very obvious glowing purple eye over the enemy model while they’re casting it — can be avoided completely by simply turning your back to the enemy. It’s particularly important to do this when dealing with Palace Cobras (petrification), Palace Deepeyes (powerful paralysis) and Palace Pots (Mysterious Light, which causes heavy damage and Blind).
Morbols will show up in the 11-20 block towards the end, complete with Bad Breath attack. Run towards them for the easiest path to avoid the large cone AoE.
Wraiths have a huge AoE attack that causes Terror. If you can stun it, do so. Otherwise, run for dear life as soon as you see the marker appear.
Palace Skatenes will cause Sleep on you shortly after they cast Chirp. This isn’t a huge issue, however, since you’ll wake up immediately upon taking a hit.

Boss tips

Floor 10: Palace Deathgaze

Pretty easy, and if you’ve fought basic Deathgaze-type enemies in the game you’ll know what to expect. It has a heavy attack called Whipcrack that will do a chunk of damage, so pop a potion after it does this. Stormwind (a large cone AoE) and Bombination (circular AoE) can both be avoided. Aerial Blast covers the whole arena and causes Windburn (damage over time for a few seconds). It will cycle through these abilities until one or the other of you are dead.

Floor 20: Spurge

The Easy Way: Level to 35 or 36, pop a Pomander of Strength and a Pomander of Lust and then just go ham on Spurge and you’ll probably kill it before it summons its first set of Hornets if your gear is up to snuff.

The Proper Way: There are two main phases to this fight, and they simply cycle around and around. In the first, Spurge will twat you for a chunk of damage with Bloody Caress, then fling two circle AoE attacks at you — one around itself and one aimed at you. During this time, keep your HP topped up and wail on Spurge as much as you can. The second phase starts when Spurge moves to the side of the arena. At this point, two Hornets will spawn, and Spurge will stay in place, occasionally shooting a large linear AoE attack called Rotten Stench. Avoid Rotten Stench while knocking the Hornets down as quickly as possible — otherwise they will use Final Sting on you — before returning to the punishment on Spurge.

Floor 30: Definitely-Not-Hydra

Pretty easy. When it hits you with Ball of Fire or Ball of Ice, immediately move to avoid the effect of the circular area the attack causes — damage over time for Ball of Fire and slowed movement for Ball of Ice. Keep hitting it while this is going on, and try not to bait any Balls of Fire or Ice into the very middle of the arena. When Definitely-Not-Hydra moves to the centre of the arena and starts casting Fear Itself, stand inside its hitbox to avoid the attack completely. Then repeat the process.

Floor 40: Ixtab

Ixtab will spew void crap over the ground every so often — move out of this to avoid damage. He will then summon two Bhoots which you should kill as quickly as possible to avoid being caught in their attacks. He also has an arena-wide attack that causes Terror, often causing you to stumble into the Bhoots’ area of effect if they’re still up. Aside from this, not a lot else to say.

Floor 50: Edda Blackbosom

Pay close attention to what Edda is doing. If she uses Cold Feet, turn away to avoid its Terror effect. If she uses In Health, you’ll either need to get well away from her or stand right on top of her — react quickly to the AoE marker, but you have plenty of time to get from one extreme to the other if the cast goes off. If you get hit by In Health, one of the letters on the floor will light up. The more of these lit up when she casts Black Honeymoon, the more damage you’ll take. Aside from this, she’s pretty straightforward. Watch out for In Sickness, which causes Disease and slowed movement; cleanse this off yourself if you can.

Floor 60: The Black Rider

A few things to watch out for here. Firstly, keep out of the large purple circles he drops on the ground at all cost — they cause Bleed, which deals heavy damage while you’re in them. Secondly, watch out for the aether sprites he summons around the outside of the arena and don’t get caught in their blasts, as these deal extreme damage. Their appearance will often coincide with his charge attack, a linear AoE marker that follows you around. While this is casting, make sure your back is to a “safe spot” away from the aether sprites to avoid being knocked into their blast radius.

Floor 70: Big Snake Thing

I can’t remember Big Snake Thing’s name, but it’s a big snake thing. The most important thing to do in this fight is move Big Snake Thing out of the watery patches it drops on the ground when it casts Douse. While it is in these areas, it gains Haste, which makes it nigh-impossible to avoid Electrogenesis when it casts. Aside from this, Big Snake Thing should cause you no real difficulty.

Floor 80: Definitely-Not-King-Behemoth

This is a daunting fight, but fairly straightforward if you know how to handle all the mechanics. Firstly, when DNKB casts Charybdis, move well away from the AoE marker because it will drop a tornado. Said tornadoes inflict a heavy damage over time debuff if you get sucked into one, and periodically they will suck in everything around them — there’ll be a very brief AoE marker to show the effective range of this when it happens, so to be safe don’t be anywhere near the tornadoes. Next, when DNKB walks away from you, follow him, because he’s about to use Trounce, a massive conal AoE attack that is much easier to avoid if you’re right next to him. Thirdly, at around 10% HP remaining, he will begin channelling Ecliptic Meteor, and unlike the other times in the game where this happens, there’s nothing to hide behind. Try and kill him before it hits, but don’t worry too much if it does — it hits for about 80% of your HP, so if you’re topped up before it happens, you’ll be safe and free to finish him off after the attack.

Floor 90: The Godmother

This is a bit like the final boss of Pharos Sirius (Hard). Attack The Godmother until a red bomb spawns, at which point you should stun its Blast ability if you can and kill it as quickly as possible while avoiding the AoE markers from the untargetable smaller bombs that spawn around it. When it’s down, return to wailing on The Godmother. When a blue-grey bomb spawns, hit it with an instant ability while facing The Godmother to knock it towards her. You want the blue-grey bomb’s Hydrothermal Combustion ability to hit The Godmother and interrupt her ultimate attack. From here, simply repeat these two processes until The Godmother is down.

Floor 100: Nybeth Obdilord

Try to make sure you have three Pomanders of Resolution by the time you reach floor 100 — block 91-100 seems to throw them at you, but save them up from earlier blocks to be safe if necessary. Nybeth himself isn’t too much of a threat if you take care to avoid his AoEs, particularly the large cone-shaped Doom attack. The important mechanic in this fight is the adds that he spawns at roughly 90%, 70% and 30% of his HP remaining. As soon as they appear, pop a Pomander of Resolution and use Kuribu’s attack to firstly kill the enemies, and then use the ability again on their corpses to remove them permanently from the fight. Click off the transformation before you turn your attention back to Nybeth. Repeat two more times and you’re home free.

2479: Palace of the Dead, Solo

0479_001

One of the things that had me most interested in patch 3.45 for Final Fantasy XIV was the ranking system for the Palace of the Dead dungeon I talked about yesterday. This tallies a score for you whenever you play with a fixed party (be it solo or up to four players) and thus allows you to compare your progress against other players from around the world.

Alongside the introduction of this ranking system came a few rebalancing changes to make soloing Palace of the Dead a lot more practical than it was when it was first introduced; previously, anything above about floor 20 at a push was very difficult if you were by yourself, but now, you can theoretically go up to floor 100 and beyond if you’ve upgraded your gear enough and your skills are up to snuff.

One of the things I’ve appreciated about Palace of the Dead since its launch was the fact that since it’s largely impossible to “outgear” it — your regular gear has no meaning inside, only your Aetherpool upgrade levels, and even those are capped and synced if they’re too high for the floor you’re on and the level you are — you had to actually play properly. That means no cheesing mechanics, no standing in AoEs because you have enough HP to just soak them up, and swift punishment if you don’t know how to play your job properly and effectively, sometimes in an unconventional party lineup.

Today, I made it to floor 60 solo, initially using Arcanist to go as far as floor 50 (my Arcanist hadn’t yet reached level 30 and thus couldn’t be upgraded into Scholar or Summoner, but the experience point rewards from completing these floors were enough to get me from 23 to 30 without too much difficulty) and subsequently as Summoner.

Arcanist/Scholar/Summoner aren’t classes I’ve played much in the past, though I found Palace of the Dead’s accelerated levelling to be quite a good way to learn how they work. In particular, levelling Arcanist to 60 without Summoner’s extra Job abilities was a solid way to learn the basics of how the class worked, then upgrading to Summoner built on that foundation. I am now regretting the fact that I haven’t levelled Summoner prior to today, because goddamn, that class is fun.

The reason I picked Arcanist and Summoner to run solo is that they seemed the most naturally geared towards soloing in that they have the option of summoning a tank pet that can maintain the enemies’ attention while you cover them in festering boils and fling magic at them. The tank pet doesn’t get a lot of use in party play — largely because you normally have an actual human-controlled tank there that can perform the role better than an AI routine — but in Palace of the Dead, Topaz Carbuncle (Arcanist) and Titan-Egi (Summoner) have both proven invaluable, particularly when it comes to the bosses.

And speaking of the bosses, soloing floors 1-60 today has given me a new appreciation of these fights. When tackled in a party of four, they’re mostly rather easy (with the possible exception of floor 80’s boss, which has been the source of many a party wipe so far), though from floor 60 onwards they do start to have some more interesting mechanics. Solo, however, they all present a pretty formidable challenge as you have to dodge their mechanics, chug potions to keep your health topped up (assuming you’re not a healer) and somehow in the middle of all that find time to fling a few damaging abilities in their direction. I’m sure you can already see how helpful a tanking pet would be in this situation!

Thus far the secret to successful soloing seems to be having decently levelled gear — currently mine is around the +64 mark, which has seen me safely to floor 60 so far, and from this point onwards the upgrades from the silver chests are less likely to fail, too, so repeated runs will eventually push it up towards +99, which I suspect will be strongly recommended to tackle floor 80 and onwards.

According to the leaderboards on The Lodestone, no-one on Primal data centre has made it to floor 100 solo yet. I have little doubt that will probably change by tomorrow — I think someone on Reddit from another data centre had done it already — but for now it’s fun taking aim for the top spot. And if I don’t attain that top spot, well, at least I’ll be able to say I’ve done it.

2477: Outlast

0477_001

It’s Halloween, the perfect time to play a scary game! As such, I played through Outlast today, a game which I’ve been meaning to try for ages, and which my wife was kind enough to gift me a copy of. (It was 75% off for Halloween, too, so she didn’t really need any convincing.)

Outlast is a first-person horror adventure game in which you have no combat capabilities. The only thing you’re armed with is a camcorder, which can be used to film events (which triggers the protagonist taking notes on them) and, more importantly, see in the dark. Your camcorder has infinite battery unless you’re using the night-vision, in which case it drains at an alarming rate, meaning you need to ration its use as much as possible. There are, however, batteries scattered around the game world to replenish your charge.

In Outlast, you play the role of a journalist who received a tip-off as to mysterious, strange and downright horrible goings on at a mental asylum, once closed down but subsequently reopened by a private corporation. As these things tend to go, said private corporation puts up a charitable facade when really they’re into some horrible shit, and it’s your job to investigate exactly what they’ve been up to. I shan’t spoil any more of the story specifics here, as the game is well worth playing.

In terms of gameplay, Outlast is largely exploration-based. You don’t have a map of any description, so you have to rely on your own sense of direction and the subtle environmental clues the game places around — doors left open a crack, realistic signs on walls, that sort of thing. Most of the game consists of you trying to figure out how to get through your current environment, though occasionally you are beset by sometimes naked psychopaths (seriously, there were many more cocks in this game than I was expecting) who want nothing more than to see what you look like inside-out. When the game shifts tempo in this way, it turns into something of a stealth game where you have to outwit your foes. You can’t kill or even incapacitate your foes in any way, so the closest Outlast comes to “combat” is running away until you manage to get out of sight of your pursuers long enough for them to give up the chase.

A lot of Outlast is spent crawling around in the dark, as you might expect, but the game does mix things up a bit with its environments. One particularly memorable sequence towards the end of the game sees you fumbling around outside in the dark and rain, meaning even your camera’s night vision isn’t a lot of help — you have to firstly figure out where you’re supposed to go, and then how to get there.

As a horror game, Outlast is pretty effective, with a menacing atmosphere throughout and jump scares used sparingly for maximum impact when they do happen. I didn’t find it as outright disturbing as something like Silent Hill because it doesn’t have as much of the psychological metaphor stuff going on as Konami’s classics, but it’s pretty creepy, and the feeling of panic when you’re running away from enemies reminded me of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, which likewise eschewed combat in favour of making you run away dramatically.

The plot is a bit weird and it kind of felt a bit like they weren’t sure whether to do a supernatural-themed story or a Resident Evil-style “big evil corporation” story, so ultimately it ended up as a bit of a mishmash of both. It worked, however, and had a suitably satisfying conclusions — and, although I’m yet to play it, most people seem to think that the DLC Whistleblower, which unfolds from the perspective of the character who sends an email to the main game’s protagonist, is a superior experience with a better sense of closure. I’ll have to check that out soon.

Overall, then, I enjoyed Outlast. At only about 5 hours from start to finish, it’s a game you can easily beat in a single sitting, and doing so feels like the way the game was intended to be experienced. It’s a relatively unusual take on the horror genre by lacking in combat –though this style has grown in popularity in the last few years thanks to titles like Amnesia, Until Dawn and the aforementioned Silent Hill: Shattered Memories — but the lack of an attack button doesn’t mean it lacks any sort of gameplay depth. Rather, it does what it does extremely well, and was a fine way to spend Halloween, so far as I’m concerned.

2467: Encylopaedia Eorzea

0467_001

I’m going to do a more detailed write-up on this over on MoeGamer when I’ve read and thoroughly digested everything in this massive tome, but I thought I’d give some initial thoughts here.

Encylopaedia Eorzea is here! Yes, for a long time the Final Fantasy XIV team had been suggesting that a lore book might be on the cards, and at FanFest last week, it was finally revealed. It was put up for sale at the start of this week and seemed to develop a waiting list very quickly; fortunately, I managed to get in early and snag a copy.

£34.99 gets you a formidable hard-backed book over 300 pages in length, printed on gorgeous thick, parchmenty paper and presented in full colour. The book is heavy enough that it would probably do some damage if you smacked someone with it — and you all laughed at Arcanist, Summoner and Scholar’s auto-attack!

The tome as a whole is split into eight different “books”, each dealing with a different aspect of Eorzean lore.

The first, and shortest, concerns “the basics” of the planet Hydaelyn and what makes Her tick, including geography, the relationship between Hydaelyn’s light and Zodiark’s darkness, the Twelve gods in the Eorzean pantheon, and the basics of “aetherology” — the underlying (fictional) science of how the elements interact with one another to create life, magic and other effects.

The second, and one of the longest, concerns Hydaelyn’s history, reflecting on the world’s cycle of Astral and Umbral eras, with the latter’s arrival being heralded by a Calamity of some description — each elementally themed in the case of the first six, and the seventh (used as the initial story catalyst for A Realm Reborn) covering all elements in the sheer magnitude of its disaster. This book is particularly interesting because it gives some background reading on the mysterious ancient civilisations of the Amdapori, the Mhachi and the Allagans, all of whom are explored to a certain degree in the game itself. It also provides a good primer of the storyline for Final Fantasy XIV 1.0, which is no longer playable, but which is concluded through A Realm Reborn’s cycle of raid dungeons, The Binding Coil of Bahamut, The Second Coil of Bahamut and The Final Coil of Bahamut.

The third book provides a primer on the different people of Eorzea and where they came from. It only explores the playable races of Hyur, Elezen, Lalafell, Miqo’te, Roegadyn and Au Ra — those hoping for some information about the Padjali or a hint as to whether or not we’ll ever see Viera in the game will have to keep theorycrafting.

The fourth book is the longest and concerns the geography of Eorzea, including all the zones from A Realm Reborn and Heavensward as well as short look at Ala Mhigo (subject of the upcoming expansion Stormblood) and the Garlean Empire (recurring villains).

The fifth book concerns Hydaelyn’s “servants”, and explores the various characters that you come into contact with throughout the game, right from the main “protagonists” the Scions of the Seventh Dawn to the recently introduced Warriors of Darkness. This section also includes information about groups involved in sidequests in the game, too, such as Hildibrand’s Agents of Inquiry, the organisation NOAH who spearheaded the investigation into the Crystal Tower and a section entirely devoted to more minor NPCs such as those who served as the face of the Relic quests, and poor old Edda, who has had a rough ol’ time of it both during life and in death.

The sixth book looks at Hydaelyn’s “disciplines” — in other words, the playable classes in the game. Interestingly, the book makes no mention of the base classes on which the more familiar “Jobs” are based; the focus is entirely on the higher-level incarnations of the Jobs.

The seventh book concerns Hydaelyn’s “burdens” — the various beast tribes of the realm, and the Primals associated with each of them. This section also looks a little at as-yet underexplored groups such as the gigants, as well as the eikons of the Warring Triad, which we’re halfway through the story for in the game at the time of writing.

The eighth and final book is a bestiary of monsters from around the realm, divided into the various “-kin” categories. It also incluides a look at voidsent, elementals and chimeras.

There is a lot of information in this book, and it’s presented in a clear, enjoyable to read manner. The thing I’ve found most beneficial about it is that it provides a good summary of the various storylines that have unfolded during the game since its launch; this is several years ago now, so it’s not surprising that some details may have slipped many players’ memories! The lore book acts as a good reference guide for those who may have forgotten some of the finer details.

Above all, though, Encyclopaedia Eorzea is clear evidence that the team behind Final Fantasy XIV have built more than just a game. They’ve truly built a world for people to inhabit, which has its own history leading up to today, as well as many more stories yet to tell. And if you flip through it’s pages, you’ll understand just why so many people still like to call Eorzea home.

2464: The Palace of the Dead (Savage)

0464_001

Final Fantasy XIV’s patch 3.45 is coming in early November, and bringing with it an additional 150 floors to the game’s current Deep Dungeon, The Palace of the Dead. I am excited.

Palace of the Dead is a great piece of content that I’m pleased has remained popular since its launch. It flips most of the conventions of MMOs on their head and provides something different for people to do, with meaningful rewards and a decent shot of experience points for those levelling alt classes.

Palace of the Dead, in case you’re unfamiliar, is a 50-floor dungeon that you tackle in blocks of 10 floors at a time, with a boss on each 10th floor. Each floor consists of a number of rooms arranged in a randomised layout, with an exit portal in one room and a resurrection gizmo in another for if things happen to go south and you don’t have a healer. Both of these things are inactive at the start of a floor, so you have to kill enough enemies to turn them on before they can be used.

Some rooms have treasure chests and occasionally monsters drop them too. These come in three different varieties: bronze chests hold consumable items such as Phoenix Downs to resurrect fallen comrades and potions to heal HP; silver chests have a chance to upgrade either your weapon or armour (with the chance getting smaller as they get more powerful) up to a maximum of +30; gold chests reward you with “Pomanders”, which are items that have immediate beneficial effects such as increasing your damage, turning all enemies in the nearby vicinity into chickens or frogs, temporarily transforming you into a manticore or removing all the hidden traps on the current floor.

In the last major patch, the Accursed Hoard was also added to Palace of the Dead; these are hidden treasures that have a chance of spawning on each floor. Standing on a spot where a Hoard is hidden reveals it, and if you successfully clear the block of 10 floors, you get one sack per Hoard you found, each of which contains a randomly drawn item from what seems like quite a large selection, ranging from the useless (fireworks) to the very useful (grade V materia) via formerly expensive glamour items.

The thing I like about Palace of the Dead is it takes almost everything the rest of Final Fantasy XIV established in terms of gameplay and throws it out of the window. Item level doesn’t matter, stats don’t matter and even conventional party composition (one tank, one healer, two damage-dealers) doesn’t matter. There’s some variation in individual performance according to the upgrade level of your aetherpool gear (which you can only use in Palace of the Dead until it reaches its fully upgraded level of +30, at which point it can be exchanged for a level 60, item level 235 weapon that you can use in the rest of the game) and your character level in Palace of the Dead (which is different to your character level in the rest of the game; you level up at a considerably accelerated rate in the dungeon, but have to reset to 1 every time you restart from floor 1) but otherwise, how well you do in there is entirely down to how well you know how to play your class.

It’s interesting to see people realising this for the first time. You can’t just ignore mechanics in Palace of the Dead because it’s literally impossible to outgear it. You can’t stand in area-effect attacks and soak the damage because, again, you can’t outgear it. And you can’t pull 30 enemies at once and hope to survive because, you guessed it, you can’t outgear them. It’s all about careful use of your abilities, consumable items and the Pomanders; you have to be constantly aware of the situation of both yourself and your party members, as an unfortunate mistake could lead to a wipe — and if you wipe in Palace of the Dead, you fail that set of floors immediately and have to start again from the last “checkpoint” you reached. (This is particularly heartbreaking if you reach the final boss on floor 50 with 5 Accursed Hoards in your pocket and then wipe because you forgot to pay attention to mechanics.)

The reason I’m looking forward to Patch 3.45 is that it promises not just more of Palace of the Dead, but that its last 100 floors in particular will be very difficult. And not “very difficult” in the sense that the current Savage raids are very difficult — i.e. they get quite a bit easier if you take the time to buff up your gear level — straight up difficult in that you’ll have to pay attention, dodge shit and play your class effectively, perhaps in an unconventional party formation.

I’m interested to see quite how they’re going to make it difficult. People have been clamouring for difficult (“Savage”) four-player content for quite some time now, and Yoshi-P and the team specifically said during the last Live Letter that the lower 100 floors of Palace of the Dead were designed to be just that. What I find particularly interesting is that this is (hopefully) super-difficult content that you don’t need to have spent ages preparing to be ready for, because your gear level when you go in doesn’t matter; everyone in the entire game, assuming they have Palace of the Dead unlocked (which they can do as early as level 17 rather than having to reach the current cap of 60), has the potential to be a “world first” clear, which is something that has never happened before. Previous “world firsts” in the game were by raiders who were at the absolute top of their game with the best possible gear available, so in most cases it was fairly predictable who the acclaim would go to. With this, however, the title is anyone’s.

I’m also intrigued by the proposed ranking system and how it works, since that hasn’t been explained in much detail before. We know that there will be rankings for both individuals and parties, and that rankings are stratified by class/job, but we don’t know exactly what causes you to score the “points” that determine your place on the rankings. Progress through the floors is a given — the mockup leaderboards we saw during the Live Letter displayed both the floor the characters had got to and their score — but what else will contribute to it? Clear time? Damage done? Kills? Accursed Hoard finds? Treasure chests looted? All of the above?

If they handle this properly, Palace of the Dead has the potential to become an enormously compelling metagame in its own right within the wider context of Final Fantasy XIV, not to mention a great way to learn and level alt classes that you perhaps haven’t used much before. I’m very much looking forward to challenging the lower floors of this Deep Dungeon, and hope that it provides a suitable alternative to raiding for those who seek a challenge but perhaps don’t have a group, have difficulty getting everyone together at the same time, or simply aren’t geared enough.

I guess we’ll see soon enough! (Also, I really want to see what happens when you sit on that bench…)

2459: Double Wang

0459_001

Having finished Shadow Warrior yesterday, I was considering picking up its sequel, which released today. Then someone said some magic words that stopped all consideration and caused me to hit the “buy” button immediately.

But let’s rewind a moment to yesterday evening, while I was playing through the rest of the first game.

Shadow Warrior has a skill system whereby double-tapping a direction and using either the left or right mouse button will perform different special moves. There’s a powerful thrust attack, a “sword beam” type affair, a spin attack, a crowd-controlling stun, a healing spell and a protection spell. Because they’re mapped to controls you’re already using for movement and attacking, weaving them in while you’re avoiding and attacking enemies is pretty straightforward.

Hmm, I thought to myself while I was playing, contemplating the fact that Shadow Warrior had a rudimentary levelling system in place, whereby you could upgrade passive and active skills as well as your weapons by expending various currencies that you acquire through play. I wonder if a first-person Diablo would work?

Some of you may, at this point, wish to raise Borderlands as evidence that yes, a first-person Diablo would indeed work, but I was thinking more focused on the melee angle, since that was a key part of Shadow Warrior’s appeal.

Oh well, I thought. I doubt it’ll ever happen, even if it would probably be really good.

This morning, I Googled Shadow Warrior 2 to see what press and public alike thought of it. One of the first things I saw was “Shadow Warrior 2 is first-person Diablo.”

Magic words. Bought. (And with a nice discount for owning some of developer Flying Wild Hog’s other work!)

It’s not an exaggeration to call Shadow Warrior 2 first-person Diablo, either. It has loot, colour-coded by rarity. It has a variety of different weapons. It has clear ways to “build” your character. It has skill trees that you can beef up as you gain levels. It has quests. It has four-player co-op. It even has a small amount of procedural generation, but it wisely limits this to just parts of levels, so there’s still very much a hand-crafted feel to the whole experience.

So far, I actually think I like it better than Borderlands, for one very simple reason: all your level does is provide you with skill points that you can pump into your various active and passive skills. Enemies don’t level up, and your stats don’t scale with your level, either. This helps prevent the ridiculous situation you sometimes find yourself in in Borderlands where you fire a rocket into someone’s face and it does a miniscule amount of damage. It also prevents “overlevelling”, where you find yourself in a situation where enemies are providing you with so little XP that it’s barely worth killing them.

I’m undecided as to whether I like it more than the first new Shadow Warrior as yet. I’m pretty sure I do. I certainly like it very much indeed — to the degree that if I don’t see it on some Game of the Year lists at year’s end I’ll be very disappointed — but it has quite a different structure that takes a little adjusting to coming from the previous game’s tightly designed “explore, monster arena, repeat” loop, and I can see this being a bit jarring to staunch fans of the original. The levels are sprawling, open affairs more akin to something like a Deus Ex zone, with plenty to explore — and plenty of incentive to wander around even once you’ve completed your mission objective. This means that the pacing is a bit more variable and less controlled by design than in the previous game, though with all that said, there’s still a feeling that you’re moving from encounter to encounter with pressure-free time to explore in between, so that’s good.

There’s also a new hub area with a couple of shops and some questgivers around, giving you a feeling of “coming home” back to base after a successful mission. There are also plenty of sidequests as well as the main story missions, so I get the impression there’s a whole lot to do here.

The game promises 70 weapons, which is more than enough, but each can be further customised by inserting up to three upgrades into them. These have many and varied effects ranging from simply increasing damage to providing elemental affinities to your shots. This is fortunate, as in true Diablo tradition, you’ll often come across Superior and Elite versions of enemies throughout the levels, many of whom have specific strengths and weaknesses with regard to elemental affinities. You can equip up to eight weapons at a time, and there’s nothing stopping you having eight different swords for different purposes if you want to play that way.

Besides the weapons, you can “build” your character through attaching upgrades to your armour and powers, too. These might provide specific buffs to particular types of damage, or increased effectiveness of skills. Pleasingly for the co-op enthusiasts, there’s even a multiplayer-specific equipment slot whose occupants generally buff you and your teammates with an “aura” emanating from your position. These auras can be damage increases, healing over time or defensive in nature, meaning if you really want to get into it, you can build yourself a well-balanced team that minimises its weaknesses — or simply pump as much damage as possible into each other to obliterate enemies in a matter of seconds.

Like the first game, the weapons are solid and satisfying to use, and most of them can be used in dual-wield “akimbo” fashion with the use of an upgrade. They make good noises and they rip through enemies in satisfying fashion; of particular note here are the chainsaws and chainswords, clearly inspired by Warhammer 40,000 — they cut into enemies with such precision it feels like you could carve your name into their guts.

Lo Wang’s wit is present and correct, too, and in the same way as the previous game his jokes occasionally fall flat, and the character he has “riding along with him”, much like in the first game, has some good chemistry with him, making for some amusing bickering. Plus all the usual “wang” jokes are present and correct.

Shadow Warrior 2 is very good indeed. If you’ve been considering picking it up, stop. Buy it. Play it. Love it. Who wanta some Wang?

2456: Miku in the Clouds

I’ve been playing some of Hatsune Miku Project Diva X recently. I opted for the Vita version because I enjoyed the previous installments in this series the most in handheld form, and when I tried the PS4 demo version, the timing calibration was so far off that it was borderline impossible to play.

So far I’ve been enjoying it a great deal. It’s an interesting new structure compared to previous installments in the series in that it… well, has a structure. Previous games in the Project Diva series were all business, presenting you with a list of songs and a selection of difficulty levels to try them on, gradually unlocking new songs as you completed previous ones but never really having a sense of overall “coherence” — they were pure arcade rhythm action experiences, in other words.

Project Diva X, meanwhile, takes a much more formal structure from the outset, in effect acting as an interactive tutorial to concepts important to the game as a whole and locking off things that the player isn’t “ready” for yet. Series veterans may find this a bit frustrating — though the Free Play option unlocks quite early — but newcomers to the series in particular will doubtless find it a lot more accessible, plus there’s a rather charming story to tie it all together, giving the whole experience a significant injection of personality between the songs. (During the songs, one can never say that Project Diva lacked personality; in between them, however, was another matter.)

The basic structure for Project Diva X’s early game sees you (as “you”) collaborating with Miku in an attempt to restore power to the various “clouds” and consequently enable Miku and her friends to remember how to perform. It’s lightweight fluff, of course, but it does a good job of tying things together, and also has the added benefit of grouping songs into categories according to their overall character.

New to Project Diva X is a gear system, where you can equip Miku or one of the other Vocaloids in various costumes and accessories, with a suitably coordinated outfit gracing you with an “aura bonus” and consequent increase to the “voltage” (score) you generate during a song. New gear is unlocked in several ways: accessories can be gained after a song if you filled the voltage bar at least once, while “modules” (full-on costumes) are acquired by successfully completing the “Chance Time” section of a song — this is accompanied by a satisfying magical girl-style transformation sequence.

This gear system is, I imagine, what will give Project Diva X a lot of its longevity along with the addictive high-score chasing of previous installments. There’s something very satisfying about unlocking new items and producing new ensembles for Miku and the gang, and there’s an element of loot-whoring gameplay about the whole thing thanks to varying degrees of rarity on the items.

On top of all this, there’s a relationship-building metagame with Miku and the other Vocaloids where you can provide them with gifts and build up your affinity with each of them. This is a bit pared back from previous Project Diva games, in which you effectively hung out with the characters in their rooms and triggered various events according to what you put where, but there are still numerous special events to discover by providing the right gifts to the right Vocaloids.

Overall, I’ve been enjoying Project Diva X a lot. It remains to be seen if it has the same “legs” as its enormously addictive predecessors — whether it has a decent “endgame”, in other words — but so far it’s been a blast, and I can confidently recommend it to any fans of rhythm action games.

2455: Not-So-Super Max

0455_001

I finally got around to finishing the last episode of Life is Strange yesterday. My final feelings about the whole thing were… overall positive, but a little mixed in a number of areas. Personally speaking, I didn’t feel it was the utter masterpiece most critics made it out to be; in fact, there were a number of aspects in the final episode that I found fundamentally unsatisfying and downright awkward. More on those in a moment; let’s talk more generally.

SIGNIFICANT SPOILERS FOR LIFE IS STRANGE AHEAD. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Continue reading “2455: Not-So-Super Max” →

2452: Dark Cloud, Revisited

0452_001

I first played Level-5’s Dark Cloud midway through the PlayStation 2’s lifecycle. I recall enjoying it enough to finish it, but finding it lacking in a few areas compared to some other role-playing games that were around at the time. Most of the criticisms I had of Dark Cloud were addressed by its sequel (known as Dark Chronicle here in Europe for some reason) but, regardless, I still have fond memories of the original.

Looking for something to fill the gap between now and Final Fantasy XV at the end of next month, I remembered that I’d bought several PS4 revamps of Level-5 games when they were part of a sale ages ago, but never booted them up. (Specifically, I got Dark Cloud, Dark Chronicle and Rogue Galaxy, the latter of which I’ve never played at all.) Since I played the demo of Dragon Quest Builders earlier in the week and heard it compared favourably to Dark Cloud and its sequel, I decided to fire up Dark Cloud and take another look, a good (probably) ten years or more after I played the original.

Interestingly, having played it for a couple of hours this evening, I’m finding myself liking it a lot more than when I played it the first time around. I’m not sure if it’s a matter of my tastes changing (which, although I know they have a bit, haven’t drifted that far away from what I enjoyed 10+ years ago) or if Dark Cloud has just aged very gracefully, but either way, I like it a lot.

For those who weren’t around for Dark Cloud first time around for one reason or another, here’s the gist. You play a teenage boy who looks a bit like a non-elfin Link in a poncho, who is a silent protagonist for the course of the adventure. In the opening moments of the game, your village is destroyed by a Dark Genie which, moments before, we saw had been unleashed on the world by an obviously evil gentleman in an M.Bison uniform and sporting a spectacular moustache. Somehow, you manage to survive through a windmill falling on top of you as you rescue your childhood friend and obvious love interest Paige from certain death.

Awakening to find your village nothing more than a bare patch of land, you start hearing voices. Specifically, the Fairy King decides you are his chosen one, and blesses you with the magical gem Atlamillia, which apparently will enable you to rebuild the world. Conveniently, the Fairy King explains, he managed to seal away all the people and buildings of the world in magical spheres called Atla to prevent them from certain annihilation at the hands of the Dark Genie, but unfortunately this wasn’t enough to stop them from being scattered all over the place, with most of them rather inconveniently rolling in to local dungeons.

What then unfolds is a rather unusual adventure that alternates between action-RPG dungeon crawling in randomly generated maps, and a top-down building arrangement game called the Georama. The latter is sometimes described as a “sim”, but it’s not anything like as deep as something like ActRaiser or Dragon Quest Builders — all you have to do is find the component parts of each building, plop them down on the map, talk to the residents to figure out the right part of the map to put their building in (and which direction to face, in some cases) and then your job is done. In other words, there’s no actual “management” required beyond making sure everything is in the right place, making it more of a puzzle than a simulation.

The Georama does give the dungeon crawling a unique twist, however — as well as finding treasures that your own character can use, you’re also finding people and places, and in turn these can unlock new facilities for you to make use of when you return to the surface. Once you rebuild the Odd Gaffer’s Buggy, for example, he’ll start selling you items. Rebuild Paige’s house and her father will teach you to fish. Even seemingly incidental houses will reward you with special events and items when you complete and place them correctly.

The Georama gameplay gives Dark Cloud an interesting sense of personality. Because you’re quite literally rebuilding these people’s lives from nothing, you get to know them quite well; far from being the random, anonymous NPCs you get wandering around towns in more conventional role-playing games, Dark Cloud’s characters all have names and personalities. Some of them get along with one another; some of them don’t (in which case you’ll need to make sure their houses are far apart!).

Meanwhile, the dungeon crawling, although action-based, has plenty of aspects to get your teeth into. Your main concern, at least early in the game, is the game of “press your luck” you play with your supplies, because not only do you have to make sure your HP don’t run out, you also have to keep yourself watered and ensure that your weapon doesn’t break. This latter aspect is of particularly key importance, because weapons can be customised and level up through use, meaning if you break one it can potentially be absolutely heartbreaking.

The weapon growth and customisation system takes the place of a traditional experience and levels system. Instead, each weapon has its own level, with most capping at 5. Once they’ve capped, however, you can turn them into a gem that can be attached to another weapon in order to transfer some of the capped weapon’s statistics and attributes. When the new weapon is upgraded, it absorbs the gem and becomes far more powerful than it would have been through just upgrading alone. Ultimately it becomes possible to construct some formidable weapons, making it all the more important that you don’t inadvertently snap the blade on a passing rock monster.

Dark Cloud is charming and enjoyable, and there are still relatively few games quite like it; even Dragon Quest Builders itself is a distinct experience, focusing more on the town-building and crafting side of things than dungeon crawling. I think I made a good choice in revisiting it, and I’m looking forward to playing some more soon.