DisturbedSwan

Not really. It’s one of Jim Sterling’s misnomers about the game that’s become popular. Yes, if you only want to mainline the story and aren’t interested in literally doing anything else or exploring this big huge 130km3 playground that Ubi have given you to explore then you’ll need to buy an XP booster or something so you can ignore everything else. It’s not like the game will intrusively pop up ‘WANT TO BUY AN XP BOOSTER TO MAKE THAT EASIER?!’ though, it’s hidden away on the far right of the menu and doesn’t intrude on the rest of the game whatsoever. But AC games aren’t made to be mainlined. The stories are never good enough to be worth it for one thing and they give you literally a million things to do, everything gives you XP, literally everything, that it’s impossible not to level up quickly if you even do just a modest amount of side quests, activities and exploration. All you’ve gotta do is stick your Eagle up in the air and synchronise a few viewpoints and you’ll be literally inundated with little icons all over your map that do different things. You wouldn’t just mainline the story of Skyrim or Witcher 3 would you? It’s the same deal here. Exploring about the world, seeing something catch your eye in the distance, going over to discover what it was, then something else catching your eye and so on until you have no idea where you’ve ended up, that’s the whole idea.

I might do @OCH, if I was starting another FF today I’d go for IX, it’s the one that interests me the most right now. All depends how long I’m furloughed for and how long it takes for me to finish TLOUP2. Even then I’d only have enough time to play it until July 17th as that’s when GoT comes out. So we’ll see how it goes, right now I don’t wanna start something long then have to shelve it when TLOUP2 comes on the scene. I did actually like Seymour as a villain up until Bevelle, I didn’t see the twist coming at all at Macalania so I was like ‘whoa, this guy is an evil mastermind setting us up like that’. But after you defeat him at Bevelle it’s a bit like, why is this guy still here? It made no real sense.

That’s fair enough, I have to say though that it’s because I adore the first game so much (easily in my top 5 of all time) that I’m looking forward to this so much. If it was a cash grab made by a completely different developer or if the OG Director wasn’t on board then I wouldn’t be as excited as I am now. It’s because Neil Druckmann and Naughty Dog wanted to return to these characters that I’m so excited to play this and see what the story has in store.

Like a lot of WRPGs you’re expected to explore and do some side quests @mfnick. Doing side quests isn’t grinding, it’s playing the game, get out there and explore ? I would say though don’t do any Contract or Bounty missions as they constantly regenerate no matter how many you do and are absolute shite. I found most of the others aside from that pretty good to great though. Also try clearing out the regions you’ve previously explored and that should bump your levels up super fast. You need to do side quests, explore and clear out regions and then you’ll be way over-levelled for the story quests in no time. Read back through some of my posts to get an idea if you want, by 20 hours in or so I’d cleared 3 regions, done a ton of side quests and more or less completely ignored the main quest line. If you had this on PS4 I’d offer to Share Play it with you and do some of the side quests, clearing areas and exploration as for me that’s the main attraction of an AC game (the stories are, unfortunately, rarely fantastic), just getting utterly lost in the world.

I don’t believe 120hz is supported by any current gen system @Nag, will be next gen I believe though (not that any games will use it). Yeah same as always @shinymcshine they’ll be £50-£60 for the first year then drop to the usual £40-£45.

Because you wanna play it? ? Tons of fantastic games on the system man, my PS4 collection is pretty meagre too as I sell almost all my games once I’m done with them but still tons of great games waiting for you, you’ve just gotta open them into your heart. If you’ve not played Yakuza 0 or Persona 5 I’d start there.

Finished this today. Another 5 hours have passed since my last post, 67 total. I played a bit more Blitzball, firstly competing in the League - believing false information I’d read that you only needed to win 5 games to get the World Champion - before realising my mistake and taking part and then winning a tournament so I was finally able to get the last Celestial Weapon I needed. I actually quite enjoyed Blitzball once I put a decent team together, after the first story match I’ve found it incredibly easy I must say. I won most matches 5-0 aside from the Guado team which I only managed to scrape a 1-0 win. This was the last side activity I had left to do so I pushed on with the story after that, travelling to the Airship and then initiating the final battle against Quite an interesting fight this was, with an instant death assured once his gauge was maxed out. I didn’t manage it first time, I mismanaged my turns and dillydallied a bit too much at the start of the fight once which let his gauge build up and then it was bye bye for me. I managed it the next time around though, I used Anima’s Overdrive once he got close enough and then Magus Sisters’ Overdrive and that was that. I entered itself after this and had an explore. Tons of high level enemies here, many with deadly attacks like Meteor that will wipe your team in a second so I ended up fleeing from most fights. At this point in the game I was levelled up enough and knew I was close to the end so was fleeing from most battles to reach to finish line to be honest, I saw the huge pools of health these enemies had and just couldn’t be bothered to fight them. After navigating the maze-like dungeon and the aforementioned fiends I reached the first boss fight here against (yet again). This boss was, quite frankly, a joke. I saw the strange spinning wheels behind him and guessed that they were related to the different elements. The first element the wheels aligned on was fire so right away I cast nulblaze with Yuna and then summoned Shiva, used her Overdrive and it did 75,000 damage to him, attacked once or twice more after this and was shocked to see him go down and the trophy pop. Definitely the easiest boss fight in the game. More dungeon crawling to follow, this time through an industrial looking area. More strong fiends were here so I ended up fleeing again, racing through it until I eventually reached another save sphere. I continued on and encountered this really weird tower, touching it sent me to another place covered in crystals, I didn’t really know what to do here but just guessed that picking up the crystals was what the game wanted me to do. Once I’d picked up a few it transported me to another arena, this one looking like the old Zanarkand at the beginning of the game. An emotional Had a little bit of trouble here and failed on my first attempt during his second phase, I just couldn’t seem to get enough turns in with him having 3-4 consecutively. On my next attempt I caste Hastega straight away and that did the trick, I summoned Shiva with Overdrive, then Bahamut with Overdrive which defeated his first phase. On his second phase I cast Anima’s Overdrive and then the Magus Sisters’ Overdrive, once this attack was finished I kept the Magus Sisters around and regularly dealt 12000-20000 until he was put down. Another very easy fight. It all went very weird after this. I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the game throughout. The story - for the most part - was amazing with some twists and turns I didn’t really see coming and some emotional moments along the way. I loved all the characters by the end of it even if Kimahri was quite one note for most of the game, I will say also that I think Yuna is one of the best characters I’ve experienced in a game, especially a Japanese one. The combat stuck close to the standard JRPG template but added to it in some cool ways with the Overdrives and Aeons, I loved almost every encounter I had right up until the final dungeon. The only negatives I’d have were the lack of proper dungeons through the main story quest-line - just the one at Mushroom Rock - and the last Third of the story really. I liked what dungeons there were but could’ve done with them being a bit more elaborate really, with the story I feel it just kind of petered out after Bevelle, a lot of stuff happened after that but it just all played out exactly how I expected it to. I think the only surprises were the fate of Tidus and the last few boss battles inside sin - which I didn’t expect. So yeah, overall a very good game. Only the third FF game I’ve completed and I loved every second of it, can’t recommend it enough.

19/01/2020 - Pokémon Shield (Switch) - 8/10 31/01/2020 - Luigi’s Mansion 3 (Switch) - 8/10 13/02/2020 - Gylt (Stadia) - 8/10 04/03/2020 - Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore (Switch) - 9/10 10/03/2020 - Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition (XB1) - 9/10 15/03/2020 - Disney Classic Games: Aladdin and The Lion King - Aladdin (Switch) - 6/10 06/04/2020 - DOOM Eternal (PS4 Pro) - 9/10 11/04/2020 - Resident Evil 3 (PS4 Pro) - 7/10 18/04/2020 - Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Switch) - 9/10 05/05/2020 - Final Fantasy VII Remake (PS4 Pro) - 9/10 02/06/2020 - Final Fantasy X HD (PS4 Pro) - 8/10

Perhaps best talked about in the Sony thread but I’m not best thrilled with it being huge either, just a rumour hopefully. As long as it’s the same size as a Pro or maybe a little bigger I’ll be happy enough. More TLOUP2 previews: Trusted Reviews Metro Pocket Lint Evening Standard The Verge Eurogamer Game Reactor Press Start PowerUp Gaming Push Square

That was my raw honest reaction @DANGERMAN @Rikzilla games mean a lot to me. I’ve been looking forward to this conference since it was rumoured in February so sorry for being a bit disappointed. I won’t bother posting next time and keep my thoughts to myself. ?

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Eurogamer: Codemasters has secured the official WRC licence

51 Worldwide Classics Review Roundup Metacritic OpenCritic

Ah right yeah, same with me but I guess my natural curiosity was peaked when I picked up my first destruction sphere, checked to see what it was then saw a note on a Wiki saying ‘don’t miss any!’ And I was like, whoa, ok I won’t ? which then led me to discover the other hidden aeons, I did stumble onto Yojimbo though. Similar with the Celestial Weapons really, once I picked up the Cloudy Mirror naturally through the course of the game I just thought ‘what the fuck is this?‘ which led me to looking it up on the net. The Al Bhed Primers and Jecht Spheres I just looked up as I wanted to find them all. I haven’t read any of your old posts on X though as I was worried about spoilers, I don’t think it’s gonna take me anywhere near 100+ hours either, I should finish it tomorrow in about 67. I think the sequel will have to wait for me unfortunately. I don’t wanna start anything I can’t finish before the 19th. Yeah, definitely agree with that! I’ve been battering every team today apart from the Guado one which I only won 1-0. I played probably around 10 games today - winning a tournament in the process - to get the World Champion and I think that’s enough Blitzball for me. I don’t think the Jupiter Sigil would be that difficult to get as I can roll most teams over now but it’s just too much of a time sink I can’t be bothered with really.

UK Chart, week ending May 29th 2020

You didn’t do any of the side stuff at all then @bellow? Just the 4 hours I’ve put into this over the weekend, 62 total. Carried on with the story at first, going to Highbridge to speak to Mika briefly and then ended up facing the first two phases of the boss battle on the Airship. I have to say I think I was a bit overconfident in this fight, I assumed I’d beat these bosses quite easily so didn’t use Aeons or anything and didn’t prepare the best I could, meaning I got my arse thoroughly handed to me in the second phase on my first try. I went off, did some grinding to level up my overdrives, came back and managed it very easily on my next try using my Aeons. After this I ditched the story again to get the last two Aeons I needed - Magus Sisters and Anima - along with the World Champion for Wakka and Onion Knight for Lulu. My first stop was back to Macalania Woods though as I realised I hadn’t fully powered up the Caladbolg, Spirit Lance and Godhand in my last session quickly corrected this and then set a course for Zanarkand Temple. Here I did the short puzzle needed to get my last Destruction Sphere. Was tempted to look it up but I managed to solve the puzzle very quickly using the same trial and error methods I’d used in the previous ones. Once I’d picked up the last Destruction Sphere item here I immediately went to Baaj Temple. I have to say before I arrived I didn’t realise this was the same locale Tidus ends up in when he first arrived in Spira, was very cool going back and seeing this same location again from the beginning of the game after all this time. Fought a boss here but it was more of a mini-boss really, I had stone wards equipped but he still packed quite a punch at times, but ultimately was pretty easy to put down. Once he was defeated I just had to find the Onion Knight chest on the Lake bed and then go power up the temple to get Anima, then it was straight back to the Calm Lands for the Magus Sisters. I’d previously defeated all Belgemine’s Aeons up to Yojimbo so it was merely a case of making my way to Remiem Temple again, defeating Yojimbo, Anima and then getting the Magus Sisters using the Spectre and Blossom Crown on the sealed door. I stuck around after this to fight the Magus Sisters - who were no trouble at all with Anima’s deadly overdrive - to get the Moon Sigil. Another brief stop to Macalania Woods to power up Yuna’s Nirvana and then I flung myself right into the world of Blitzball. Firstly I recruited Brother from the Airship and then a couple more players that I read were good online and contracted them to my team. I then watched a few videos for formation and general Blitzball tips, then set about playing a few games. During the story match I got beat 3-0 so wasn’t too confident but ended up playing 3 games and won every won! I read the World Champion takes 5 wins to get so I should only need another couple wins tomorrow to achieve my goal.

Not announced yet, just rumoured. An Australian cockpit manufacturer shared a GT7 logo on Instagram then took it down claiming it was just a mock-up but no one can find the logo elsewhere on the net. Then PlayStation Brazil did a poll that included ‘Gran Turismo 7’ but that was most probably a mistake, getting it mixed up with GT Sport. At this point I’d highly doubt it’ll be a PS4 game but who knows. Thread about it here for more context:

Remake, but yeah it will be if it’s real.

Yeah that’s fair enough. You fucked yourself picking Alexios though, the voice actor for him is godawful and he’s got the charisma of a sponge ?

For me, getting utterly lost into a game so you lose track of all time and space is one of the signs of a truly great game. Don’t fight it if you’re getting immersed and engrossed in the world, it’s a good thing ? You start off on some little islands so obviously there won’t be an awful lot of civilisation there, you will encounter more towns and then the first city (Athens) in a little while which is huge. There’s many, many cities and built up areas in the game. The map is Humungous there’s no getting round that but with the ship it doesn’t take too long to navigate around places, a lot of the places you visit will have quite varied environments too from lush greenery to deserts and inbetween. Now that’s something I didn’t expect to hear. The graphics for me on PC were never less than astounding, the character models and VO was all fantastic too for me. Please tell me you chose Kassandra to play as by the way and not Alexios ? ?