Tag: PS4

2452: Dark Cloud, Revisited

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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.

2445: The Best Music of Final Fantasy XIV

Since I appear to be on a Final Fantasy XIV roll at the moment thanks to the excellent new patch, I thought I'd devote today to some of my favourite tunes from the game as a whole.

I respond very strongly to music that I enjoy — so much so that any time I think about hanging up my Eorzean adventurer's shoes for good, it's pretty much always the music that gets me coming back time after time. Or, if it's not the only reason, then it's certainly a leading reason as to why I keep coming back.

So let's look at some great tracks from the game.

"Patch 3.4 boss theme"

I don't know if anyone knows the actual name for this theme yet, but it's an excellent one. It seemingly became tradition with A Realm Reborn that the last couple of patches in a cycle would use different boss music from the ones we had been enjoying previously, and Heavensward is continuing — or, perhaps more accurately, confirming — this tradition.

This boss theme mixes two important themes from the game as a whole: Heroes, which we'll come to in a moment, and Penitus, which we'll also come to in a moment. To put it another way, it mashes together one of the most recognisable musical motifs from Heavensward with one of the most recognisable musical motifs from A Realm Reborn to produce a track that very much feels like a "reward" for people who have at least been playing since 2.0.

Heroes

This theme, played during vanilla Heavensward's final boss fight against King Thordan and Knights of the Round, brought the already exciting story of FFXIV's first expansion to a climactic head. While the fight was a bit easy even when it first launched, people still enjoy running it today just to enjoy this music and the spectacular graphical effects throughout the battle.

Penitus

I was already thoroughly wrapped around this game's little finger by the time I got to level 50 and was faced with the two 8-player story dungeons that wrap up vanilla A Realm Reborn's storyline, but getting into Praetorium and hearing this wonderful piece of music — snatches of which had been heard in a variety of different styles right the way through from level 1 all the way to 50 — got me absolutely hyped to see the story through to the end.

Ultima

And then the game goes and throws this incredible track on you for the Absolutely Definitely Last Boss, Yessirree (Not). I'll let this one speak for itself.

Thunderer

Ultima is followed by this little wonder featuring one of the best key changes ever. Sadly the first time you hear it, it doesn't last anywhere near long enough because everyone absolutely obliterates the Real Final Boss, Definitely Totally For Real This Time in a matter of seconds these days.

Thankfully, Square Enix clearly knew they were on to a good thing with Thunderer, as it was reused in a couple of places — most notably in the Chrysalis trial which was added in one of the content patches, and, for many people, its most iconic appearance in Turn 5 of the Binding Coil of Bahamut, in which you fought the dread dragon Twintania, and which in the game's vanilla release acted as the "true" final boss. (Of course, this later all changed with Second and Final Coil, but still.)

Footsteps in the Snow

Shiva was one of my favourite Trials to be added to the game almost entirely because of this excellent piece of music that opened the fight and ran until the phase change. This music was first heard in the trailer for patch 2.4, Dreams of Ice, and got everyone well and truly hyped.

From the Ashes

Raid dungeon The Final Coil of Bahamut was, for many players, a highlight of the game due to its fascinating story — which, unlike the narrative of A Realm Reborn itself, which span off in a different direction, followed up on how Final Fantasy XIV 1.0 ended. Turn 12, the penultimate turn, is often cited as a particular favourite by many players simply due to this unique music, which was a highly dramatic, spine-tingling take on A Realm Reborn's main theme song Answers. The whole of The Binding Coil of Bahamut had featured music based on Answers, and this track felt like it was bringing everything to a dramatic conclusion.

Answers

And, having mentioned Turn 12, it would be remiss of me not to mention the way Answers was used in Turn 13, the absolutely definitely positively totally final boss of the game, or at least of the raids. I present it here in context, including battle sound effects, to show how it is used in the fight itself. The incredible crescendo during Teraflare is made of goosebumps.

I'm yet to do the new Alexander raid — my item level isn't quite high enough yet — but I understand the grand finale is suitably spectacular. T13 is going to take some topping, though.

2444: Wondrous Tails and the Accursed Hoard

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Spent a bit more time with the non-story aspects of FFXIV's 3.4 patch Soul Surrender today, so here's a few thoughts with that in mind.

First up, I finished my first Wondrous Tails journal, albeit rather poorly, so I have a good handle of what that's all about now.

Wondrous Tails is a new weekly quest where you acquire a journal from the adorable young Miqo'te Khloe Aliapoh. Khloe wants to hear all about your adventures, so you agree to help her out by filling in her journal with tales of some of your exploits. You are then presented with 16 different challenges for the week, nine of which you need to clear to complete the journal.

On the opposite page to the challenges you are to face is a 4×4 grid of blank spaces for stickers. You acquire these stickers by completing the challenges — one per challenge, though you don't get to choose which sticker you get. Fill a line in the journal and there's a reward separate from the one for completing 9 challenges. Fill two lines and there's another reward. Fill three and there's another still. These rewards are significant, at higher tiers consisting of Allagan Tomestones of Scripture, the current "top end" endgame currency, and even item level 250 armour which, while not the best in the game at the moment, is certainly pretty good.

They are not, however, easy to accomplish, as I've discovered this week. It's not completely random chance as to whether or not you fill some lines — by helping new players complete duties for the first time, you earn "Second Chance" points, which can be used in one of two ways: firstly, to mark a completed challenge as incomplete while marking an incomplete one as complete. This effectively allows you to do something again while removing the need to do something you don't want to do. You can choose the complete challenge to make incomplete, but not the incomplete challenge to make complete. Alternatively, you can spend two Second Chance points to shuffle the entire board of seals (including the ones you've already placed) in the hope that you will get a more advantageous arrangement. In order to make three lines with nine seals, you need their placement to be absolutely perfect — a horizontal, a vertical and a diagonal. As such, it's a bit of a gamble that you can't necessarily rely on.

I gambled and failed, ending up with no lines at all by the time I had nine seals — you can only use the shuffle option when you have between three and seven seals, so you can't just shuffle a completed board around. Still, I at least got the reward for completing the journal for the week, which is meaningful in itself, and there's always next week to try again.

Next up, I jumped in to the randomly generated Palace of the Dead in an attempt to finish my Aetherpool weapon and get something to take the place of my outdated i210 Anima weapon until I can finish the upgrade process. New to Palace of the Dead in this patch is the addition of the Accursed Hoard, a series of hidden treasures that can only be located by using Pomanders of Intuition, which last until you unearth a piece of the Accursed Hoard. Your party banks the pieces of the Hoard until you complete the tier of the Palace that you're on, and like everything else, if you party wipes you lose them.

Assuming you successfully completed a tier, each piece of the Hoard the party acquired will reward you with a sealed sack which must be taken to a new NPC in Quarrymill to appraise. There then follows a gacha-style appraisal sequence, during which you can anticipate how good the item you're about to get is via the animation that plays (or not!) during the appraisal sequence. There are some decent items available through this system — in my first batch of three sacks, I got a paissa minion, the expensive Thavnairian Bustier top and a firework. In the seven other sacks I acquired throughout the evening, I got more fireworks. It seems fireworks are the default "normal" draw, at least from the common bronze sacks, but there seems to be an above-zero chance of getting rare items from this, too, making Palace of the Dead a worthwhile activity for reasons other than acquiring the weapon.

There's obviously a lot of RNG in both of these systems that I've described, and some people don't like that, preferring a predictable goal that you can take aim for and always see your progress towards. Final Fantasy XIV has always been heavily RNG-driven, however, and so these two systems, while having the potential for enormous frustration, are firmly in keeping with what we've come to expect from the game to date!

2442: Planning for Patch Day

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It's Patch 3.4 for Final Fantasy XIV tomorrow, so naturally any players of the game have been poring over the patch notes, which were released in their entirety today.

Different people have different priorities when it comes to MMO patches. Here's what I intend to get up to:

Main scenario

Whenever a new patch comes out, I always do the main scenario quests first, because these usually 1) unlock at least some of the new content and 2) mean that I can't be hit with inadvertent spoilers from loose lips.

In the case of Patch 3.4, it's an exciting time for the game, since we not only get to find out a bit more about the mysterious "Warrior of Darkness" — seemingly our dark counterparts, and possibly even something to do with the character used in all the game's CG cutscenes — but we also start the run-up to the next expansion, which is set to be revealed in the not too distant future.

The smart money is on us finally heading to Ala Mhigo in the next expansion, as it's a place that has been frequently referenced in the game lore, and which is of particular importance to Raubahn, who has been a major character in the entire storyline so far. Our visit to the Ixali region of Xelphatol in 3.4 would seem to indicate our overall "journey" heading in that direction, too, but ultimately the truth remains to be seen.

Dungeons

Since I'm probably going to romp through the main scenario stuff first, I'll probably complete Xelphatol first, with The Great Gubal Library (Hard) coming afterwards, since it's just a sidequest.

I enjoy Final Fantasy XIV's dungeons, but they're always a bit too easy for my liking. This is almost certainly deliberate, as a means to make them friendly to casual players rather than hardcore raiders, but it would be nice to have some new dungeons that the majority of the playerbase don't vastly outgear the moment they step inside.

At least if nothing else the new dungeons will provide some gear to help people "catch up" to the cutting-edge item level, and dungeon boss fights are always memorable experiences. I can't honestly say I'm hugely excited about either of the dungeons coming up in this patch, but I will reserve judgement until I see them for myself!

Sophia, the Goddess

A new Trial is always enjoyable, because although they're just single boss fights, they tend to be absolutely spectacular, with some of the best music and graphical effects in the game. The preview footage for the battle with Sophia looks to be no exception to this; hopefully it won't become another Sephirot, where people moan and complain every time it comes up in Trials roulette mere days after it being released. (I actually quite liked the Sephirot fight!)

Alexander

I've been underwhelmed by Alexander throughout the 3.x patch cycle, but then, I wasn't anticipating it to be particularly up my alley from the moment it was first announced. I'm not a big fan of steampunk and the comic relief that the Goblins generally provide in Final Fantasy XIV doesn't lend itself well to the sort of epic conflict that raids, for me, need to be truly exciting. Also the music in Alexander up until now is awful (although admittedly in keeping with the Goblin theme) and I hope to God we at least get some suitably epic music for the final battle.

All that said, I'm particularly interested to see how the Alexander cycle ends. We were promised some sort of interesting encounter involving time manipulation, so I'm very interested to see where that goes. Beyond that, I hope the team have learned some valuable lessons from Alexander's development and the lukewarm to poor reception it has had from the player base.

Squadrons

This content caught my eye when it was first announced, and it's probably going to be little more than glorified Retainer Ventures — i.e. wind up a minion, send them on their way to do something off-screen for 18 hours, then check the results when they get back — but I like the idea, nonetheless, plus there's potential for it to be expanded in the future. In fact, the developers have specifically said they'd like to make it so that players' Squadron members can be taken into dungeons, so that will immediately make this stuff worthwhile.

Wondrous Tails

I'm intrigued by this: a randomly selected series of weekly objectives with some significant rewards on offer for completing them. What I'm most interested in is exactly what content is going to be involved with this. Are we going to see something that expects us to do Extreme difficulty trials and The Binding Coil of Bahamut at its original difficulty level? (Or, at least, not unsynced with level 60 gear and stats)?

Mechanically speaking, Wondrous Tails sounds like a way to make old content relevant again, something which has historically been accomplished with the Relic weapon quests. Wondrous Tails is divorced from all other aspects of progression, however, so it can be tackled alongside whatever route you want to go with, be it raiding, Relic or a combination thereof.

Palace of the Dead

I like Palace of the Dead a lot, and it's getting some tweaks in 3.4, the exact details of which haven't been given. What I'm most looking forward to is it being extended to the full 200 floors in patch 3.45, with floor 100 being the end of its "story mode" and floors 101-200 being effectively a "hard mode". Palace of the Dead already offers some worthwhile rewards in the form of weapons; I'm interested to see what the deeper floors will offer.

Apartments

Since they're set to sell for just 500,000 gil, I'll likely finally get my own piece of personal housing in the form of an apartment. It's a pity you can't do gardening in them, since gardening is one of the key benefits of having either a personal or a Free Company house, but I'll enjoy having a space to call my own that I can fiddle around with and decorate.

The onward grind

I'm making decent progress on my Dark Knight Anima weapon, and will continue to do this throughout 3.4; hopefully the new additions to the game will make this process more varied and interesting.

Beyond that, I've been levelling White Mage and enjoying it, so I might try my hand at a bit more healing than I have been doing in the past, though naturally gearing WHM up will have to be balanced with gearing DRK, which is still my main.

Overall, I'm really interested to see where 3.4 takes the game, and especially interested to hear the first details of the new expansion when they finally arrive. Hopefully it won't be too much of a tease when it's revealed!

2434: Crewsin'

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I've been spending some time with Ubisoft's The Crew for the last few days. I actually picked it up shortly after release but didn't play it all that much. With the recent announcement that the base game would be free throughout September (you can still claim a copy here at the time of writing) I thought I'd give it another go.

What is The Crew? Allow me to elaborate in video form, because I can.

I'm left wondering why I didn't play The Crew more when it first released, because it occurs to me that it's what I wanted from a driving game for quite some time: the elusive ideal of the "caRPG", or an RPG with cars if you prefer less clumsy portmanteaus.

The Crew ticks all the boxes that I wanted. For one, it has a plot that is reasonably interesting and features some characters that, while a bit cliched, occasionally have some entertaining things to say — the protagonist offhandedly complaining to his FBI handler that he really wanted a shower because he'd been in his damn car for days was a nice bit of self-reference to the fact that The Crew doesn't have any on-foot missions. The plot itself may be Fast and Furious-level nonsense, but it works in context.

Secondly, it has a levelling system that is actually meaningful. Unlike games such as Forza Motorsport, which largely seem to have a levelling system just to show how long you've been playing, The Crew's levelling system actually works like one in a more conventional RPG — some gear is level-locked, your cars get more powerful as you level up and there's an MMO-style "endgame" once you reach the cap, further improving your abilities by getting better and better loot.

Which brings us on to the third point. The Crew is also a loot-whoring game, which is something I never thought I'd say about a racing game, but it's true. Any activity you complete rewards you with loot, with better results giving you better gear. You get immediate feedback on whether the gear is better or worse than your current setup by means of an "item level"-like system for each of your cars, and events have recommended vehicle levels so you never tackle anything that is going to be way too difficult for you.

In case you're still not quite convinced about The Crew secretly being an RPG, well, there are different classes of cars, too. Fullstock cars are exactly as they came out of the garage. Street cars are modified street-legal cars for road races. Dirt cars are suitable for offroading and stunts. Raid cars are powerhouses that can take a beating and dish one out too. Perf cars are extremely fast. And there's plenty more where that came from — even more with the Wild Run expansion, which adds several "extreme" specs to the list, too.

And then there's the multiplayer, which to be honest I haven't tried all that much yet. There's a sort of passive multiplayer a la Test Drive Unlimited as you zip around the open world, occasionally passing other players by. You can queue up for PvP-specific missions. You can recruit people to help you out with story missions, which then have to be played fully cooperatively — race missions, for example, mean that your teammates just have to make sure that you win by fair means or foul, whereas missions where you have to wreck a fleeing vehicle are likely to be much easier with company.

And on top of all that, The Crew makes driving around its vast open world interesting by 1) having some lovely scenery and 2) scattering Project Gotham-style skill challenges around the roads, tasking you with everything from slaloming around markers to simply getting as far away from your start point as possible. Each of these reward you with loot and experience, making them the equivalent of "trash" enemies in a more conventional RPG.

I'm enjoying the game a lot. Handling is enjoyably slidey and arcadey, just how I like it, and there's a ton of stuff to do, yet enough structure to ensure that you never get overwhelmed with too many options at any one time. And it feels like the best use of Ubisoft's open-world formula to date, with plenty of hidden things to find that reward you with experience, loot and even hidden cars to uncover.

The Crew is free for the rest of the month on PC. Be sure to claim your copy here.

2412: Looking Back on Three Years, Off and (Mostly) On, in Eorzea

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With it being Final Fantasy XIV's third anniversary it's only fitting that I take a look back at the reason I've been playing it since its closed beta — and why, even though on several occasions I've felt like I might be "done" with the game, I keep on coming back, time after time.

These memories are presented in no particular order, but it makes the most sense to start with this one.

Knowing FFXIV was going to be something special

I jumped into Final Fantasy XIV's closed beta after a casual discussion with a Twitter friend about Final Fantasy XI and how much I liked it despite never really getting all that far with it. Eventually I found myself with an invite to the testing period of the game, and I was immediately smitten with it. Everything about it felt Final Fantasy. The look, the feel, the music, the controls, the battles, the monsters — and yet, it had enough of its own unique identity to make it feel like far more than just series fanservice.

Specifically, Final Fantasy XIV adopts a somewhat "dark fantasy" tone throughout, clearly heavily inspired by works such as Game of Thrones and The Witcher in places. Sure, there are still moogles and chocobos, but there are also complicated political machinations, betrayal, murder and, technically, just prior to the start of 2.0's story, apocalyptic catastrophes.

I was immediately drawn into the world in a way that World of Warcraft never quite managed to enrapture me. NPC dialogue, although localised with more than a few liberties taken from the original Japanese, much to the chagrin of people who play with Japanese voiceovers, was beautifully written with an almost Shakespearean tone in places, blending old- and middle-English words and phrases with modern spellings to make it actually comprehensible.

The fact that Final Fantasy XIV placed any emphasis on its main story at all — let alone to the degree that it has ended up doing so — was a unique feeling for me. Even its predecessor Final Fantasy XI's main story had felt like a side activity you did when you had done enough level grinding to be able to take on the next mission; here, the main story was tightly tied in with your character's progression: you advanced through the levels and became more powerful both in terms of mechanics and narrative, until you eventually reached level 50 and took on your most terrifying challenges yet.

During the closed beta, I only played up to about level 20 or so, but that was enough to know that I wanted to keep playing — and to know that I wouldn't mind when the servers were wiped post-beta to prepare for the start of live service.

Making some great friends

My friend who had urged me to try out FFXIV was all set to assemble a Free Company — FFXIV's take on guilds — as soon as the facility became available, and many members of that free company, centred around the Giant Bomb video games website, became great friends. I even took a trip to PAX East to hang out with a bunch of them and had an absolute blast. And while I recently left said Free Company in favour of a smaller group who are more local to where my wife and I are, FFXIV's various ways of keeping in touch — as well as extra-game means of communication like Discord — mean that I'll never be far away from this band of loveable rogues.

Castrum and Prae keeping me up until 5am

When I reached level 50, I was proud. The only other MMO I'd ever reached the level cap in prior to that day was World of Warcraft, and I'd stopped playing shortly afterwards, as my lack of friends playing had made that game a rather lonely experience at high level — this was the days before its current Dungeon Finder system, itself inspired by FFXIV's Duty Finder.

I'd heard the final two story dungeons, intended to be done pretty much as soon as you hit 50, were quite an experience, and so I asked the Free Company very nicely to accompany me on my first run through them. This was — and still is — the best way to run these dungeons, since they're both full of cutscenes, and running with a completely preformed party means no risk of other people running ahead and starting boss fights while you're still watching dramatic scenes.

The experience of running Castrum Meridianum and Praetorium left such an impact on me that I immediately wrote about it on USgamer. It remains one of my fondest gaming memories to date, and it makes me a bit sad that people coming to it now will more than likely be partied up with a group of people who outgear it to such a degree that every boss fight is a complete steamrollering. Pro-tip, then — if you're just hitting 50 for the first time and you have 7 friends handy, queue up for Castrium then Prae and check the "minimum item level" option in Duty Finder in order to experience these two dungeons at their original difficulty level from shortly after launch.

Entering the Coil

I happened to be up and about one night when some Free Company-mates were heading into the endgame raid dungeon The Binding Coil of Bahamut. At this point, the raid had been "unlocked" because better gear than it offered was already available, and so it was there for people to run just for the experience of the unique story it offered, as well as unlocking subsequent chapters.

Coil was a whole other level of the game for me. The encounters were much more complex, they demanded much more coordination and awareness of what was going on, and the unique story, music and enemies you fought in there made it feel like a truly "special" experience.

Forming LoCoBomb and tackling Coil proper

Loose Cannons, or LoCo, were Giant Bomb's neighbours in the Limsa Lominsa housing district of Mist, and they're now my new Free Company. LoCo is a tiny little group compared to the hundreds of members of Giant Bomb (many of whom are inactive players, but still) but we struck up a mutual friendship with one another, even going so far as to put together a rather casual, slapdash static for tackling The Binding Coil of Bahamut, a little later than much of the rest of the player base, but tackling it nonetheless.

Raiding together was a great way for us to get to know one another better, and we had a lot of fun times working out way through the first four Turns until we hit our first real barrier: Turn 5.

Toppling Twintania

Turn 5 of Coil was originally the hardest fight in the entire game, facing a party of 8 players off against the rather angry dragon Twintania. Accompanied by the fantastic piece of music Thunderer, this was a genuinely terrifying confrontation in which you really felt like you were battling against insurmountable odds.

Twintania was our first real encounter with having to properly coordinate raid tactics thanks to now-notorious mechanics such as Divebombs and Twisters. Taking her down for the first time was an incredible feeling, only to be matched by the time we finally bested the final boss of the Second Coil of Bahamut.

Nailing Nael

Turn 9 of Coil — or Turn 4 of Second Coil, if you prefer — quickly took over from Turn 5 as being the hardest fight in the game, mostly due to how unforgiving it was. The fight featured a wide variety of tasty instant death mechanics and even a few sections where careless play could wipe the rest of the raid without too much difficulty.

After a long slog through Second Coil — Turn 6 gave us a lot of grief, though the subsequent two went a little smoother — LoCoBomb persevered and were eventually victorious, however, and we still weren't sick of the two incredible boss themes Tempest and Rise of the White Raven.

This encounter remains, to date, my favourite boss fight of all time in any game ever. Ten character levels, over a hundred item levels and one expansion later and it's still not particularly easy to clear.

Phoenix from the Flames

A lot of people will note that Turn 12 — Turn 3 of Final Coil — is as memorable an encounter as the grand finale Turn 13, and I'd certainly agree with that. Resolving a large number of questions surrounding what really happened at the end of Final Fantasy XIV 1.0, Turn 12 sees the party facing off against the iconic Phoenix, accompanied by this magnificent arrangement of the game's main theme Answers. I still get shivers every time I hear it. And the recent The Rising event in the game now brought it out at the perfect moment to genuinely give me goosebumps all over my body.

The Final Witness

The final battle in Final Coil is appropriately spectacular. It wasn't horrendously difficult by the time we got to it — each subsequent patch had increased the amount of bonus HP and damage you'd be blessed with when you went in, theoretically allowing more and more people of lesser skill and/or gear to enjoy all of Coil's story — but it was still an immensely worthy absolutely, positively, definitely final boss. And it made incredible use of Answers.

An in-game marriage and a real-life proposal

(if the embed doesn't work, go here to embarrass me)

January 3, 2015: Amarysse Jerhynsson married W'khebica Qimi (now Wuckle Bunny, because no-one can spell authentic Mi'qote names properly). During this process, the player behind Amarysse Jerhynsson — yours truly — made a rather lengthy virtual speech that culminated in him proposing to the player behind W'khebica Qimi, who was sitting in her study upstairs from him at the time.

We married in June 2015. And who says computer games are antisocial?

Heavensward and beyond

The first full expansion for Final Fantasy XIV was an exciting moment, as it would take us to brand new areas, see us tackling brand new dungeons and battling fierce new foes. It was everything most people hoped for, with an excellent story — to some, better even than A Realm Reborn's at times meandering narrative — and one hell of a final boss fight.

While the long lull between Heavensward's release and the first major content patch finally arrived with us was, I feel, largely responsible for the fact that my former Free Company are no longer quite as obviously "active" (at least in public channels) as they used to be, Heavensward has, on the whole, been a great evolution of A Realm Reborn's base, even introducing a number of brand new types of content to the mix, with my favourite being the new randomly generated Deep Dungeon.

Heavensward's raid scene hasn't appealed that much — I'm not really a fan of steampunk in general, and the narrative set up around Alexander was feeble and unmemorable compared to the majesty of Coil — but there's still been plenty of stuff to do, and as we saw with the Live Letter yesterday, there will continue to be more and more stuff to do as we start the buildup to the second full expansion, set to be revealed for the first time in October.

It's not many games you can play almost continually for three years and still look upon fondly, but I guess anything you spend that much time in the company of eventually becomes something you really, truly can't ever let go of.

It's hard to get this across to people who haven't been on the journey I've been on, and it probably won't be quite the same for someone who starts right now, but I stand by my nomination of Final Fantasy XIV as my Game of the Year for 2013 over on USgamer, and given the number of hours I've played, it's probably my GotY for 2014, 2015 and 2016 too.

2404: No Man's Sky and the Case for "Games for Grown-Ups"

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Back in the '90s, MicroProse, a software company that already produced a number of the most complex computer games on the market thanks to their near-exclusive focus on military simulators, launched a spin-off label called "MicroStyle". MicroStyle's "thing" was that they produced "games for adults". This did not mean "adult" as in "porn"; rather, it meant games about things that — supposedly, anyway — older gamers would be interested in. No cutesy platformers with rainbow colours here; MicroStyle was all about motorbikes, fast cars and, err, Rick Dangerous, the latter of which perhaps erred a little more towards the side of cutesy platformers than its stablemates.

The reason this largely pointless piece of gaming history trivia is at the forefront of my mind right now is due to the recently released No Man's Sky, and the bafflingly negative reaction it has received from many online commentators. I had been asking myself why there was so very much whining going on about this game, when it occurred to me, partly after a bit of reflection on my own part and partly after a discussion with my friend Chris.

No Man's Sky is a game for grown-ups. And some people don't know how to deal with that.

The reason I say this is that there's a very obvious dichotomy when it comes to this game between those who have sat down and spent time with it — and then, crucially, reflected on the experience — and those who take it at face value, judge it against the frankly unreasonable expectations they set for it in their head and consequently respond rather negatively towards it.

There are two particularly good pieces on the subject of No Man's Sky that I invite you to read right now before we go any further.

The first, from The Guardian's Keith Stuart, explores the game from the perspective of someone who grew up playing the original Elite on 8-bit computers. Stuart describes how invested he was in the virtual galaxy that Elite allowed him to explore; how he went so far as to buy a particular joystick to play it with because it looked suitably futuristic, and to make copious notes about profitable trading routes and sectors to avoid. His prose reminded me of my own youth with computer games, when I'd actually go so far as to dress up in a bomber jacket, home-made "oxygen mask" (made from a bit of cardboard and an old vacuum cleaner hose) and balaclava (the closest I could get to an actual crash helmet at the time) when playing games like F-15 Strike Eagle II and F-19 Stealth Fighter on the Atari ST. The use of imagination was key; these games were thrilling not because they presented the most impressive visual spectacles on screen, but because they truly allowed you to become someone else for a short time. The idea that you could sit down in front of your computer monitor and become a space traveller or fighter pilot was intoxicating, and even though at the time I was far too young to really understand those games properly, those experiences still stuck with me.

Stuart describes No Man's Sky as an Elite for the modern age. He also notes that we already have an Elite for the modern age in the form of Elite: Dangerous, but makes the crucial distinction that Elite: Dangerous has gone heavily down the path of complex simulation, while No Man's Sky eschews some of the more "unnecessary" aspects of realism in favour of providing an experience that stokes the fires of the imagination.

Stuart's piece is complemented nicely by this piece in Rolling Stone/Glixel from Star Wars novel author Chuck Wendig. Wendig describes No Man's Sky as "boring", but notes that this isn't actually a bad thing.

"We often play games for the destination," says Wendig, "but I don't think that's why we play No Man's Sky. We play it for the journey. There is an eerie calm to this game. A utopian serenity. A pleasant, alluring boredom that draws you along the journey – but not too fast. This is sci-fi that doesn't ask you to kill, kill, kill. It asks you only to wander. To discover. To catalog your findings and sell your wares and move onto the next moon, the next space station, the next world, the next star system. All in pursuit of whatever it is you wish to pursue."

He's absolutely right. While there is combat in No Man's Sky, it's a rare occurrence — rare enough to make every time you switch your multi-tool from mining laser to boltcaster mode feel significant. The emphasis instead is on exploration, discovery and, above all, imagination. You're given very little context or explanation for the things you are seeing in No Man's Sky, and I have a strange feeling that even if you "finish" it by reaching the end of one of the narrative paths and/or the centre of the galaxy, it still won't answer all the questions you might have.

My friend Chris also describes it as "a game for people who like books: you have to have a bit of imagination, and have your sense of wonder still intact, and understand that there are breeds of sci-fi that aren't about action." I can't help but feel that the fact the whole game looks like an Asimov cover is entirely intentional.

The trouble is that this style of play is the exact opposite of what a lot of younger gamers expect from their games these days. They don't expect their space sims to be quiet, contemplative, artistic affairs that minimise action in the name of cataloguing flora and fauna on diverse alien worlds. They expect their space sims to be more along the lines of the Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare trailer we saw at E3: all action, all explosions, all bodies floating off into space. And No Man's Sky isn't about that.

I can't help but feel that the loudest complaint of all — the fact that the game isn't the synchronous massively multiplayer title that a lot of people had come to assume it would be — also ties in with this. Fundamentally, No Man's Sky is a game about being alone in a vast galaxy, and occasionally coming across traces of evidence that other people have been there before you — whether it's long-forgotten ruins, from which you can learn snippets of the various alien languages in the game, or star systems, planets and species of flora and fauna named by other players. The fact that you can't see other players flying around is entirely intentional; the game hasn't been designed in that way at all, and "true" multiplayer would add absolutely nothing to the experience other than the opportunity to be griefed by players who fancied a career in virtual space piracy.

No Man's Sky is a game for grown-ups. Specifically, it's a game for grown-ups who grew up with games in the '80s and '90s; it realises the dream of being able to freely fly a spaceship around a vast universe, land on planets and explore them at our leisure; it gives us enough fuel to stoke the fires of our imagination, and withholds enough to allow us to let those flames flare up as much as we want; it's a game that is the exact opposite of something like Mass Effect's grand space opera, in which nothing is left to the imagination. (This isn't to put Mass Effect down, mind you; there's a place for both the quiet contemplation of No Man's Sky and the dramatic bombast of Mass Effect in this world.)

Perhaps most tellingly, all the most interesting, thoughtful and sensible commentary on No Man's Sky has been by people over the age of 30. And the negative comments very much come across as being written by much younger people. (I obviously can't say for certain how old many of the naysayers are, but their words certainly come across as being less… seasoned, shall we say.)

If all you can do is rant and rave about how Hello Games' Sean Murray "lied" to you about the game being multiplayer… well, then you're missing the point. Spectacularly. And you should probably go and play something else. Something with more guns in it.

2395: Adventures in Space

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After feeling somewhat lukewarm to the idea of it for a while — the relentless hype train hasn't helped — I've come around to the idea of No Man's Sky, so much so that I'm now actually looking forward to it releasing on PC on Friday so I can get started on some grand space adventures.

I'm very interested to see how it's turned out, though I am tempering my expectations accordingly as well as intending on paying attention to the evolution of the game over its lifespan; this is a game that, several months down the line, may be very different to what it is on launch day, and that prospect is both exciting and a bit of a reflection on the modern games biz.

The reason why I'm interested to see how No Man's Sky ends up is that the concept reminds me of some of my favourite underrated games of yesteryear, and a genre which we don't really "do" any more, and that is the Star Trek-style space sim. Star Wars-style (i.e. combat-heavy) space sims have been enjoying a bit of a resurgence in the indie space in recent years, but the more sedate pace of Star Trek-style (i.e. exploration-heavy) sims is something still largely consigned to the past, with the exception of a few 2D affairs like Starbound and Interstellaria, neither of which, I feel, particularly capture the real feeling of space travel and exploration.

The specific games I'm thinking of when I ponder Star Trek-style space sims are the two Starflight games by Electronic Arts back in the 16-bit era. These were games where you were given a starship and pretty much told to just get on with it at the outset; there was an overarching plot to follow, but the main attraction of Starflight was the ability to just pootle around known (and unknown) space exploring solar systems and planets, then bringing goodies of various types back to home base for analysis and filthy lucre.

No Man's Sky isn't quite the same thing as Starflight in that you appear to be piloting a single-seater ship rather than a big-ass starship, but the philosophy behind the game seems to be similar in that the emphasis is on discovery, and the main means through which you profit, progress and flourish is through exploring and finding exciting things rather than blasting anything that dares to pass through your crosshairs into a smooth pâté.

To continue the comparison, both Starflight and No Man's Sky had/have significant planetside components in which you explore, find useful things and perhaps uncover a few mysteries along the way. I can't speak for No Man's Sky yet, but I have some fond memories of landing on planets in Starflight, then sending my all-terrain vehicle out into the wasteland to track down valuable minerals, artifacts and, if I was lucky, some specimens of life, too. Starflight's primitive graphics were enriched by some enjoyable descriptive text whenever your ground crew ran into trouble, and naturally it would be up to the crewmember you'd assigned as your medical officer to patch people up when they got back onto your ship.

Starflight was interesting, exciting and compelling even when you weren't in mortal peril, though, and indeed a lot of the time you weren't. There was a simple joy in entering a new system for the first time only to discover that it had an abundance of planets and moons, each of which could be landed on, explored and stripped of as many valuable minerals as you could fit in your ship's cargo holds. It sounds as if this is the sort of experience No Man's Sky offers, too, and if that's the case then I'm pretty excited for it.

Like Starflight, No Man's Sky appears to have an overarching narrative pushing you towards a "conclusion" of some sort at the centre of the galaxy, but also like its distant predecessor, you're free to just do your own thing as you see fit for the most part.

I'll be particularly interested to see how things like encounters with alien NPCs and suchlike go in No Man's Sky, as some of these interactions were a real highlight of Starflight. Judging by this screenshot, though, it looks like I don't have much to worry about.

Anyway. Just a couple of days to go until I can find out for sure whether No Man's Sky is actually the space sim I've been wanting to play since I didn't have a spare floppy disk to hand to save my game in Starflight on the Atari ST, so had to start again each and every time I played. No such woes await with No Man's Sky — hopefully, anyway, though doubtless day-one server issues will be A Thing — and so I'm looking forward to jumping into my Roger Dean/Asimov-inspired space odyssey and, frankly, seeing if Hello Games have managed to make an interesting game out of 18 quintillion planets or however many are supposed to be in the damn thing.

2383: Fencing with Fairies

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Doubtless I'll be writing about this in more detail at some point in the near future over on MoeGamer, but while it's still new and fresh I thought I'd give some initial impressions on Fairy Fencer F: Advent Dark Force, Compile Heart's latest PS4 release.

FFF:ADF, as I will refer to it hereafter, is a Neptunia Re;Birth-style reimagining of the PlayStation 3 game Fairy Fencer F. It includes the whole story of the original game, updated and expanded with all-new mechanics, plus a whole bunch of brand new content as well, making for what looks to be an absolutely sprawling mammoth of a JRPG that I'm very much looking forward to sinking my teeth into.

For the uninitiated, FFF:ADF casts you in the role of Fang, a lazy asshole who we're introduced to as he's been locked in prison for stealing bread. Three days earlier, it transpires, Fang pulled a legendary sword known as a Fury out of the ground, and thus found his fate inextricably intertwined with the adorably cute but rather headstrong fairy Eryn. Fang, wanting nothing more than a good meal and a warm bed, finds himself rather hastily recruited into a quest to find all 100 other Furies scattered around the world and use the power of the Fairies within to wake up the Goddess and prevent some sort of horrible catastrophe from occurring.

FFF:ADF follows Compile Heart's usual RPG formula fairly closely. Town scenes are menu-based and allow you to visit a number of different locations to purchase and sell items or just chat with NPCs. As you progress through the game, more facilities become available in town.

When you leave town, you'll likely be entering one of the game's dungeons, which are filled with enemies you can see wandering around the map, and perhaps an event and/or a boss fight to complete.

Striking an enemy with your weapon while you're in the field — a challenge made significantly easier than in the Neptunia series by the simple addition of a visual and auditory cue when you're in range to connect a hit — allows you to get the jump on an enemy; mistiming it or letting an enemy run into your back, conversely, lets them ambush you.

Combat initially appears similar to the Neptunia series but there's a few twists on the basic formula. For starters, characters only begin with a basic attack rather than a multi-hit combo. Multi-hit combos can be unlocked later — and they include fighting game-style techniques such as launching and juggling enemies — but initially the bulk of your damage will probably come from your special skills, which are further subdivided into weapon skills and magic spells.

The thing that's looking most interesting about FFF:ADF at this early stage is its progression system. Whereas Neptunia's character progression was completely linear — though once you unlocked abilities you could customise your characters to a minor degree, and Megadimension Neptunia made more of this by making different weapons capable of different combos — in FFF:ADF you earn WP ("Weapon Points") through combat, which can then be spent on unlocking abilities, buffing stats and activating passive skills. In practice, there's probably a "right" order to unlock things in — and if previous Compile Heart RPGs are anything to go by, you'll probably unlock everything by the time you're through — but it's nice to at least feel like you have some options.

Other cool features include a battle system that allows up to six party members at a time, which will hopefully make for some interesting encounters later in the game — I only have two characters at present! Neptunia's Challenge system is back, too, providing you with useful stat boosts in exchange for completing various tasks.

It's early days yet, but FFF:ADF looks like Compile Heart's most polished title to date; there's none of the weird screen tearing from Omega Quintet and, so far, none of the frame drops of Megadimension Neptunia, and the 2D art (courtesy of Neptunia artist Tsunako) is as gorgeous as ever.

I'm looking forward to seeing what this game has to offer; everything I've heard from people who have already played it makes me feel like it's going to be a really solid JRPG, and I'm excited to see what other gameplay features I'll be fiddling around with as I progress further.