regemond

That XIII-2 looks awesome @Nag. I've got the regular edition, so I'm more than a little jealous of that! Not that I'm planning on playing any JRPGs in the near future. Finishing my first one since... One of the Kingdom Hearts titles... Means I won't feel the urge again for a while. Not gonna lie, between the Pokémon, Switches, sly wanting to get buggered and everything else in this thread I'm living vicariously through you lot the last few weeks. Need to keep resisting on spending unnecessary money for a while now!

I assume they're two separate statements, @Sly Reflex?

I wouldn't have minded @Blakey, but they were all cheap and OP. Burned through tons of my supplies trying not to die!

They slotted three more unavoidable bosses in between Ifrit and Ardyn (Ardwyn?) - I think that's the Royal Pack DLC stuff. Basically you fight a boss, switch to one of the other characters to finish it off, then do it twice more. THEN you get the final boss. It just sucked so much out of what could have been a fairly enjoyable endgame sequence.

Jesus Christ they stretch that last chapter out, don't they? Anyway, finished now. First time I've managed to get to the end of a FF game. If the end hadn't so elongated I'd have enjoyed it a hell of a lot more. 47 hours, level 56. Good fun all round really.

45 hours in, on the final chapter and at last I have some impressions on this thing. You know what - I've really enjoyed this. It feels like an endless series of fetch quest after fetch quest for the most part, but it's a lot of fun. The combat is mostly brainless but frenetic, the graphics aren't bad, and the music as you're driving round is great (I've stuck with the FFIX soundtrack from the minute I discovered it). It really manages to capture the feeling of a road trip for the lads, which is great. Whether you're driving from town to city, or you're hopping on a chocobo and taking a detour to a fishing spot, it's all underlined by this sense of comraderie that's easy to grow fond of. It really makes a difference when... I like the fact that a lot of characters have repeated missions, too - like the Hurley-from-Lost looking dude who sends you on a series of photo quests, or the weird frog lady. Honestly, considering I wasn't sure whether I was going to enjoy this or not, I'm genuinely surprised by what's been churned out here. God knows what the story is about though. I've only been paying passing attention to that shit. Something about unlocking the powers of former royalty to kill the daemons? And there's an immortal dude (because of course there is).

Good shout on FFIX. Given my limited experience with the series, it definitely has a sense of character that resonated with me in a way that other installments don't/didn't. I think that's why I avoid the series most of the time - it just doesn't grab me all that much. Except the ones that everyone seems to hate...

I've been wanting to play XIII-2 again to be fair.

Yeah definitely looking forward to it. Need to hurry up and get to the HD updates of 1, 2 and 2.8...

That's not bad for that price! Slightly tempted to get that when I move!

Really like that cabinet @Nag - where might one procure such a thing?

If you want me to take part in a top 10 pod or you're running low on volunteers I'm up for it but not until home life settles down a bit.

Started this Friday - it didn't hook me at all. I don't know what it was but it was a real slog to put myself through the first 3-4 hours. I dunno. It was fine, just nothing really grabbed me. Anyway, I pushed through that and decided to just go on a little jaunt today, see what I could find. That's opened it up a hell of a lot. Between bounty hunts, random side missions and making my car pretty, I've had tons of fun just fucking about in the world and killing anything that looked at me funny. I'm not brave enough to go out at night though. That's for the stupid people right now. Story-wise, I've just met up with who I've paused a side-mission where I'm being taken on a tour to type this out. Level 21 and just having a lot of fun at the minute. Looking forward to seeing what else it brings. Oh and Cindy. She's got an interesting choice of clothes, hasn't she?

Yeah, I watched that in hospital a while ago. Didn't realise it was as bad as it is. First film I've felt genuinely uncomfortable watching.

Dragons! I knew I'd forgotten something from the level with all the royalty! You mentioned the way the tone slowly changes throughout the levels, and it's not just true in the sound direction; you feel that as you work through the game. The odds get stacked against you more and more. You get battered by dubbing everything. You have to fight Not-Godzilla in a giant mech FFS. It constantly buries you in shit then expects you to overcome the odds. And, not that I'd noticed at the time but there are some missions where the win state is simply 'dont die' rather than actually winning. That adds to the overall atmosphere. It's a lot of fun. There's a lot more than I gave it credit for initially, not gonna lie.