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Max Payne 3
4 hrs ago
Assenemy
commented on
Assenemy's
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Final Fantasy IX
@Tomiply thanks for the alternative insight/perspective. It definitely does sound like at least some of my combat issues were due to me "playing wrong", but I'm not a particularly patient gamer to be honest so while having a super vast arsenal is cool to some, I didn't really allow the game the opportunity to impress me with it. I did make a point of trying out everything I had on my active party, but fell into just using the same few things anyway because they proved more effective.
To clarify as well, that 4000 damage was with Zidane's standard attack, I was able to do much higher when I used abilities, but was comparing his weakest attack to the far weaker summons (which in my mind should've been doing far more damage than him, especially seen as it's Garnet's whole thing). I see your points about 7 being too easy and don't necessarily disagree, but personally I prefer being able to experiment without feeling like I'm risking losing progress. I only played FF7 for the first time a few years ago, so it's not like I'm speaking from a lifetime of bias and age-old rose tinted glasses or anything, I think I must've just not noticed some of the similar shorfalls as much because I was enjoying other things more perhaps. FF7 was also my first "older" FF title, so there was probably more leniency there too... and the benefit that I'd just played Remake, so I also had the added context of characters from that, where it may have been lacking in the original game.
To be clearer on the battle speeds as well I'm not saying they would take a lot of rounds to finish, just that the turns themselves were inherently really slow. This was made even worse when playing with the battle assistance cheat enabled, because the whole party starts with trance, which meant every encounter would begin with a delay > "trance" title > delay > P1 trancing > delay > "trance"... etc. I did find it much faster to disable this, but even then I had the same problem with delays for no apparent reason. The characters all bob in place when they're idling in combat, and if for example a boss did a sweep attack and hit all 4 while everyone had auto-potion on, there'd be a solid 3-4 bobs of animation between every action. So the attack would be fine, but then it'd go bob-bob-bob > P1 "auto-potion" > bob-bob-bob > P2 "auto-potion".. and it was taking a good 15-30 seconds just to watch everyone recover in between turns😅 Of course that's not really a long time, but when that's before the round even starts and half the actions have similar delays and/or take 5-10 seconds to play out each, even just 2-rounds of combat felt way longer than it needed to. (This was naturally enhanced by me not enjoying the combat too much and wanting it over with )
I'm glad you love it though, I never want to take away from anyone else's love for a game. I value things in my own way and that's part of why I like sharing and hearing contrasting thoughts like your own. If it ever does get a remake or remaster of any kind I'll definitely be there keeping in mind your praise and hoping to feel more similarly to the way you do🙏
To clarify as well, that 4000 damage was with Zidane's standard attack, I was able to do much higher when I used abilities, but was comparing his weakest attack to the far weaker summons (which in my mind should've been doing far more damage than him, especially seen as it's Garnet's whole thing). I see your points about 7 being too easy and don't necessarily disagree, but personally I prefer being able to experiment without feeling like I'm risking losing progress. I only played FF7 for the first time a few years ago, so it's not like I'm speaking from a lifetime of bias and age-old rose tinted glasses or anything, I think I must've just not noticed some of the similar shorfalls as much because I was enjoying other things more perhaps. FF7 was also my first "older" FF title, so there was probably more leniency there too... and the benefit that I'd just played Remake, so I also had the added context of characters from that, where it may have been lacking in the original game.
To be clearer on the battle speeds as well I'm not saying they would take a lot of rounds to finish, just that the turns themselves were inherently really slow. This was made even worse when playing with the battle assistance cheat enabled, because the whole party starts with trance, which meant every encounter would begin with a delay > "trance" title > delay > P1 trancing > delay > "trance"... etc. I did find it much faster to disable this, but even then I had the same problem with delays for no apparent reason. The characters all bob in place when they're idling in combat, and if for example a boss did a sweep attack and hit all 4 while everyone had auto-potion on, there'd be a solid 3-4 bobs of animation between every action. So the attack would be fine, but then it'd go bob-bob-bob > P1 "auto-potion" > bob-bob-bob > P2 "auto-potion".. and it was taking a good 15-30 seconds just to watch everyone recover in between turns😅 Of course that's not really a long time, but when that's before the round even starts and half the actions have similar delays and/or take 5-10 seconds to play out each, even just 2-rounds of combat felt way longer than it needed to. (This was naturally enhanced by me not enjoying the combat too much and wanting it over with )
I'm glad you love it though, I never want to take away from anyone else's love for a game. I value things in my own way and that's part of why I like sharing and hearing contrasting thoughts like your own. If it ever does get a remake or remaster of any kind I'll definitely be there keeping in mind your praise and hoping to feel more similarly to the way you do🙏
4 hrs ago
14 hrs ago
Assenemy
backloggd
Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir
14 hrs ago
1 day ago
1 day ago
Assenemy
reviewed
Final Fantasy IX
"Even a fly lives for a day"
Final Fantasy IX is a very strange game. A decades-long reputation and countless Final Fantasy ranking lists made it impossible to go into this without expectations; knowing it's so widely regarded as one of or even the best entry in the series is hard to ignore, but I tried my best to stay reasonable, and even expected not to like it as much as 7, and to compare the two as little as possible as I played.
This worked out pretty well in the end, but unfortunately my thoughts on this game in isolation ended up being even more confusing as a result..
If you sit on the title screen for a moment, you'll see images of the party members, each with a title and a thought related to their personality. Virtue: You don't need a reason to help people. Sorrow: How do you prove that you exist? May we don't... Devotion: Someday I will be queen, but I will always be myself. Solitude: I don't want to be alone anymore. -- These honestly make for a great first impression, and had me going in with even higher hopes that the characters would be fleshed out with rich and well written arcs surrounding their unique perspectives. I don't want to go on too long or trample anyone's love for the title, but I'm so disappointed that this ended up being untrue.
To be clear, a handful of characters do get some proper development and go through real growth. Zidane, Garnet, and especially Vivi, all succeed in this regard in my opinion, and make for some of the most interesting elements of the entire game. Steiner and Eiko definitely get their growth as well, but in a much more 'secondary' feeling way, with less ongoing presence, and this is even worse with Freya and Amarant, who seem to have their whole stories told in just a few specific moments with very little going on outside of those. (And then Quina honestly might as well not even be there I'm sorry. Their menu screen says "Indulgence: I do what I want" or something but what it should've said was "I like food, that's my whole character" 😅)
Anyway, due to this, the game fell a little short for me on the party front, and all the times I'd heard that the characters are so well written became a confusion as to how, when less than half of them even have a story to begin with. Freya's arc in particular is very powerful, and the concept is excellent, but as with a lot of the game's moments, it happens and then it's over, if that makes sense? There's no lasting impression, like being told an emotional story and then immediately putting a movie on. Idk this may just be me but I felt like a lot of scenes would've benefitted from being allowed to breath a bit more and giving me time with a soft song to let it sink in. Sure I could've just stopped playing and sat there, but that's not how I play :p
I've rambled a lot already so to quickfire some other thoughts I have: The combat in this game felt really bad, I'm sorry. Like all of it, I played on PS so I had the cheats to instantly trance and do 9999 damage, but even by the late game when I had good equipment and high levels the fights either felt unfair or just took way too long. The delay between every attack and whatever slows things to a crawl I never ever would've gotten through it playing normally. By the final area I still didn't have a single summon available on either summoner so idk what the deal was there, and after maxing out my levels and abilities to have a full party of Lvl 99's, Zidane's base attack was doing 4000+ damage and my summons were doing less than 1000.. why game 😅 This is probably me being stupid and not understanding something, but yeah not for me, big dislike. And phoenix down's reviving you with less than 0.5% of your hp is comically useless idk how you're supposed to do anything with that!
Narratively, the story took a hot second showing it's face but once it got going and especially in the endgame I ended up liking it. I can understand why the core principles and themes of the game resonate with people so strongly, I just think the execution of a lot of the arcs and the gameplay itself take away from it a lot more than I would expect for a game with a reputation so strong that when I started it the only common issue I knew people took with it was the battle intro being too long 😅
Ultimately, I definitely like this game, I dare even say that it's a good one, very good maybe. It's just a shame that the good is buried underneath so much that felt undercooked to me. Lots of really great ideas all thrown into a pot that's too small to fit them - some of it may be cooked to perfection, but you've gotta eat through a load of under or overcooked food to get to it, and that sucks.
People have been pretty vocal that this game should get a proper remake in the way that FF7 has been, with some even saying it should've gotten one instead of 7. I used to think this was just because they prefer 9, and the 7 v 9 rivalry will never end, but even as someone who prefers basically everything about FF7, I think I kinda get it. Neither game is perfect, of course not, but in terms of which game has the potential to be greater than it was if given proper time, care and a much improved execution? Maybe.. I believe that the best possible version of FF9 could improve upon its original more than the best possible FF7 could.
This ended up running a lot longer than planned so I'll cut myself off here -- hope you're all keeping busy with your backlogs in what's turning out to be a somewhat quiet year for the industry. I've not been reviewing/rambling as much recently because it takes me so long to type 20,000 words per game, but next on the docket is the latter 2/3rds of TWEWY and then honestly I might jump right back into Final Fantasy with my first proper playthrough of XIII, the controversy will continue :p
Thanks for reading everyone, hope you're well! 🙏
Final Fantasy IX is a very strange game. A decades-long reputation and countless Final Fantasy ranking lists made it impossible to go into this without expectations; knowing it's so widely regarded as one of or even the best entry in the series is hard to ignore, but I tried my best to stay reasonable, and even expected not to like it as much as 7, and to compare the two as little as possible as I played.
This worked out pretty well in the end, but unfortunately my thoughts on this game in isolation ended up being even more confusing as a result..
If you sit on the title screen for a moment, you'll see images of the party members, each with a title and a thought related to their personality. Virtue: You don't need a reason to help people. Sorrow: How do you prove that you exist? May we don't... Devotion: Someday I will be queen, but I will always be myself. Solitude: I don't want to be alone anymore. -- These honestly make for a great first impression, and had me going in with even higher hopes that the characters would be fleshed out with rich and well written arcs surrounding their unique perspectives. I don't want to go on too long or trample anyone's love for the title, but I'm so disappointed that this ended up being untrue.
To be clear, a handful of characters do get some proper development and go through real growth. Zidane, Garnet, and especially Vivi, all succeed in this regard in my opinion, and make for some of the most interesting elements of the entire game. Steiner and Eiko definitely get their growth as well, but in a much more 'secondary' feeling way, with less ongoing presence, and this is even worse with Freya and Amarant, who seem to have their whole stories told in just a few specific moments with very little going on outside of those. (And then Quina honestly might as well not even be there I'm sorry. Their menu screen says "Indulgence: I do what I want" or something but what it should've said was "I like food, that's my whole character" 😅)
Anyway, due to this, the game fell a little short for me on the party front, and all the times I'd heard that the characters are so well written became a confusion as to how, when less than half of them even have a story to begin with. Freya's arc in particular is very powerful, and the concept is excellent, but as with a lot of the game's moments, it happens and then it's over, if that makes sense? There's no lasting impression, like being told an emotional story and then immediately putting a movie on. Idk this may just be me but I felt like a lot of scenes would've benefitted from being allowed to breath a bit more and giving me time with a soft song to let it sink in. Sure I could've just stopped playing and sat there, but that's not how I play :p
I've rambled a lot already so to quickfire some other thoughts I have: The combat in this game felt really bad, I'm sorry. Like all of it, I played on PS so I had the cheats to instantly trance and do 9999 damage, but even by the late game when I had good equipment and high levels the fights either felt unfair or just took way too long. The delay between every attack and whatever slows things to a crawl I never ever would've gotten through it playing normally. By the final area I still didn't have a single summon available on either summoner so idk what the deal was there, and after maxing out my levels and abilities to have a full party of Lvl 99's, Zidane's base attack was doing 4000+ damage and my summons were doing less than 1000.. why game 😅 This is probably me being stupid and not understanding something, but yeah not for me, big dislike. And phoenix down's reviving you with less than 0.5% of your hp is comically useless idk how you're supposed to do anything with that!
Narratively, the story took a hot second showing it's face but once it got going and especially in the endgame I ended up liking it. I can understand why the core principles and themes of the game resonate with people so strongly, I just think the execution of a lot of the arcs and the gameplay itself take away from it a lot more than I would expect for a game with a reputation so strong that when I started it the only common issue I knew people took with it was the battle intro being too long 😅
Ultimately, I definitely like this game, I dare even say that it's a good one, very good maybe. It's just a shame that the good is buried underneath so much that felt undercooked to me. Lots of really great ideas all thrown into a pot that's too small to fit them - some of it may be cooked to perfection, but you've gotta eat through a load of under or overcooked food to get to it, and that sucks.
People have been pretty vocal that this game should get a proper remake in the way that FF7 has been, with some even saying it should've gotten one instead of 7. I used to think this was just because they prefer 9, and the 7 v 9 rivalry will never end, but even as someone who prefers basically everything about FF7, I think I kinda get it. Neither game is perfect, of course not, but in terms of which game has the potential to be greater than it was if given proper time, care and a much improved execution? Maybe.. I believe that the best possible version of FF9 could improve upon its original more than the best possible FF7 could.
This ended up running a lot longer than planned so I'll cut myself off here -- hope you're all keeping busy with your backlogs in what's turning out to be a somewhat quiet year for the industry. I've not been reviewing/rambling as much recently because it takes me so long to type 20,000 words per game, but next on the docket is the latter 2/3rds of TWEWY and then honestly I might jump right back into Final Fantasy with my first proper playthrough of XIII, the controversy will continue :p
Thanks for reading everyone, hope you're well! 🙏
1 day ago
Assenemy
finished
Final Fantasy IX
"Even a fly lives for a day"
Final Fantasy IX is a very strange game. A decades-long reputation and countless Final Fantasy ranking lists made it impossible to go into this without expectations; knowing it's so widely regarded as one of or even the best entry in the series is hard to ignore, but I tried my best to stay reasonable, and even expected not to like it as much as 7, and to compare the two as little as possible as I played.
This worked out pretty well in the end, but unfortunately my thoughts on this game in isolation ended up being even more confusing as a result..
If you sit on the title screen for a moment, you'll see images of the party members, each with a title and a thought related to their personality. Virtue: You don't need a reason to help people. Sorrow: How do you prove that you exist? May we don't... Devotion: Someday I will be queen, but I will always be myself. Solitude: I don't want to be alone anymore. -- These honestly make for a great first impression, and had me going in with even higher hopes that the characters would be fleshed out with rich and well written arcs surrounding their unique perspectives. I don't want to go on too long or trample anyone's love for the title, but I'm so disappointed that this ended up being untrue.
To be clear, a handful of characters do get some proper development and go through real growth. Zidane, Garnet, and especially Vivi, all succeed in this regard in my opinion, and make for some of the most interesting elements of the entire game. Steiner and Eiko definitely get their growth as well, but in a much more 'secondary' feeling way, with less ongoing presence, and this is even worse with Freya and Amarant, who seem to have their whole stories told in just a few specific moments with very little going on outside of those. (And then Quina honestly might as well not even be there I'm sorry. Their menu screen says "Indulgence: I do what I want" or something but what it should've said was "I like food, that's my whole character" 😅)
Anyway, due to this, the game fell a little short for me on the party front, and all the times I'd heard that the characters are so well written became a confusion as to how, when less than half of them even have a story to begin with. Freya's arc in particular is very powerful, and the concept is excellent, but as with a lot of the game's moments, it happens and then it's over, if that makes sense? There's no lasting impression, like being told an emotional story and then immediately putting a movie on. Idk this may just be me but I felt like a lot of scenes would've benefitted from being allowed to breath a bit more and giving me time with a soft song to let it sink in. Sure I could've just stopped playing and sat there, but that's not how I play :p
I've rambled a lot already so to quickfire some other thoughts I have: The combat in this game felt really bad, I'm sorry. Like all of it, I played on PS so I had the cheats to instantly trance and do 9999 damage, but even by the late game when I had good equipment and high levels the fights either felt unfair or just took way too long. The delay between every attack and whatever slows things to a crawl I never ever would've gotten through it playing normally. By the final area I still didn't have a single summon available on either summoner so idk what the deal was there, and after maxing out my levels and abilities to have a full party of Lvl 99's, Zidane's base attack was doing 4000+ damage and my summons were doing less than 1000.. why game 😅 This is probably me being stupid and not understanding something, but yeah not for me, big dislike. And phoenix down's reviving you with less than 0.5% of your hp is comically useless idk how you're supposed to do anything with that!
Narratively, the story took a hot second showing it's face but once it got going and especially in the endgame I ended up liking it. I can understand why the core principles and themes of the game resonate with people so strongly, I just think the execution of a lot of the arcs and the gameplay itself take away from it a lot more than I would expect for a game with a reputation so strong that when I started it the only common issue I knew people took with it was the battle intro being too long 😅
Ultimately, I definitely like this game, I dare even say that it's a good one, very good maybe. It's just a shame that the good is buried underneath so much that felt undercooked to me. Lots of really great ideas all thrown into a pot that's too small to fit them - some of it may be cooked to perfection, but you've gotta eat through a load of under or overcooked food to get to it, and that sucks.
People have been pretty vocal that this game should get a proper remake in the way that FF7 has been, with some even saying it should've gotten one instead of 7. I used to think this was just because they prefer 9, and the 7 v 9 rivalry will never end, but even as someone who prefers basically everything about FF7, I think I kinda get it. Neither game is perfect, of course not, but in terms of which game has the potential to be greater than it was if given proper time, care and a much improved execution? Maybe.. I believe that the best possible version of FF9 could improve upon its original more than the best possible FF7 could.
This ended up running a lot longer than planned so I'll cut myself off here -- hope you're all keeping busy with your backlogs in what's turning out to be a somewhat quiet year for the industry. I've not been reviewing/rambling as much recently because it takes me so long to type 20,000 words per game, but next on the docket is the latter 2/3rds of TWEWY and then honestly I might jump right back into Final Fantasy with my first proper playthrough of XIII, the controversy will continue :p
Thanks for reading everyone, hope you're well! 🙏
Final Fantasy IX is a very strange game. A decades-long reputation and countless Final Fantasy ranking lists made it impossible to go into this without expectations; knowing it's so widely regarded as one of or even the best entry in the series is hard to ignore, but I tried my best to stay reasonable, and even expected not to like it as much as 7, and to compare the two as little as possible as I played.
This worked out pretty well in the end, but unfortunately my thoughts on this game in isolation ended up being even more confusing as a result..
If you sit on the title screen for a moment, you'll see images of the party members, each with a title and a thought related to their personality. Virtue: You don't need a reason to help people. Sorrow: How do you prove that you exist? May we don't... Devotion: Someday I will be queen, but I will always be myself. Solitude: I don't want to be alone anymore. -- These honestly make for a great first impression, and had me going in with even higher hopes that the characters would be fleshed out with rich and well written arcs surrounding their unique perspectives. I don't want to go on too long or trample anyone's love for the title, but I'm so disappointed that this ended up being untrue.
To be clear, a handful of characters do get some proper development and go through real growth. Zidane, Garnet, and especially Vivi, all succeed in this regard in my opinion, and make for some of the most interesting elements of the entire game. Steiner and Eiko definitely get their growth as well, but in a much more 'secondary' feeling way, with less ongoing presence, and this is even worse with Freya and Amarant, who seem to have their whole stories told in just a few specific moments with very little going on outside of those. (And then Quina honestly might as well not even be there I'm sorry. Their menu screen says "Indulgence: I do what I want" or something but what it should've said was "I like food, that's my whole character" 😅)
Anyway, due to this, the game fell a little short for me on the party front, and all the times I'd heard that the characters are so well written became a confusion as to how, when less than half of them even have a story to begin with. Freya's arc in particular is very powerful, and the concept is excellent, but as with a lot of the game's moments, it happens and then it's over, if that makes sense? There's no lasting impression, like being told an emotional story and then immediately putting a movie on. Idk this may just be me but I felt like a lot of scenes would've benefitted from being allowed to breath a bit more and giving me time with a soft song to let it sink in. Sure I could've just stopped playing and sat there, but that's not how I play :p
I've rambled a lot already so to quickfire some other thoughts I have: The combat in this game felt really bad, I'm sorry. Like all of it, I played on PS so I had the cheats to instantly trance and do 9999 damage, but even by the late game when I had good equipment and high levels the fights either felt unfair or just took way too long. The delay between every attack and whatever slows things to a crawl I never ever would've gotten through it playing normally. By the final area I still didn't have a single summon available on either summoner so idk what the deal was there, and after maxing out my levels and abilities to have a full party of Lvl 99's, Zidane's base attack was doing 4000+ damage and my summons were doing less than 1000.. why game 😅 This is probably me being stupid and not understanding something, but yeah not for me, big dislike. And phoenix down's reviving you with less than 0.5% of your hp is comically useless idk how you're supposed to do anything with that!
Narratively, the story took a hot second showing it's face but once it got going and especially in the endgame I ended up liking it. I can understand why the core principles and themes of the game resonate with people so strongly, I just think the execution of a lot of the arcs and the gameplay itself take away from it a lot more than I would expect for a game with a reputation so strong that when I started it the only common issue I knew people took with it was the battle intro being too long 😅
Ultimately, I definitely like this game, I dare even say that it's a good one, very good maybe. It's just a shame that the good is buried underneath so much that felt undercooked to me. Lots of really great ideas all thrown into a pot that's too small to fit them - some of it may be cooked to perfection, but you've gotta eat through a load of under or overcooked food to get to it, and that sucks.
People have been pretty vocal that this game should get a proper remake in the way that FF7 has been, with some even saying it should've gotten one instead of 7. I used to think this was just because they prefer 9, and the 7 v 9 rivalry will never end, but even as someone who prefers basically everything about FF7, I think I kinda get it. Neither game is perfect, of course not, but in terms of which game has the potential to be greater than it was if given proper time, care and a much improved execution? Maybe.. I believe that the best possible version of FF9 could improve upon its original more than the best possible FF7 could.
This ended up running a lot longer than planned so I'll cut myself off here -- hope you're all keeping busy with your backlogs in what's turning out to be a somewhat quiet year for the industry. I've not been reviewing/rambling as much recently because it takes me so long to type 20,000 words per game, but next on the docket is the latter 2/3rds of TWEWY and then honestly I might jump right back into Final Fantasy with my first proper playthrough of XIII, the controversy will continue :p
Thanks for reading everyone, hope you're well! 🙏
1 day ago
Assenemy
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completed
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completed
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5 days ago
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5 days ago
Assenemy
finished
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7 days ago