a lot of people are giving up on this game at the onset because of its microtransaction gacha mobile game modile, and honestly, fair enough. that shit stinks, and when shit stinks, its time to hit the bricks. the microtransaction nature of this game SUCKS BAD and is not redeemable at ALL. you want cloud? you can either buy him with real money or you can grind with the stress of FOMO if he comes back or not. and thats the entire game :^)
now when i mark this as completed it's because i've played (at this time) enough of the online to get to level 20, so a decent amount, and i beat the storymode. the storymode is silly and goofy. its characters constantly break the fourth wall and they tell an extremely simplified final fantasy-ish plot that is rife with parody. its alright. made me laugh in a few places but its not what youd call a GOOD story. its always nice to see gilgamesh getting more good content. the other old FF characters (terra, vivi, steiner) are there just to be there, which is also just fine. theyre very slapdash immediate parodies of themselves, especially terra, who speaks almost exclusively in quotes from FF6 that make no sense at all in the context of the game (this was a little frustrating bc she looks super cool in the game and is fun to play as but her voicelines suck) but at least the other characters are like "whaat the hell are you talking about" lmao. all in all, storymode fine. :)
the only other kart racing game i have played extensively is mario kart, which i will compare chocobo GP to. first of all this game does have a pretty good amount of characters in its roster at launch which is nice. i guess the problem is that too many of them are from the "chocobo" series like shirma, irma, cid, and so on. theyre not bad necessarily but like, who cares about them when you can play as steiner or terra? there should be more, easily accessible characters from mainline final fantasy. like one from each game up to 15 could have worked and then if you like a game from the series you have someone to play as! still, there are good characters here. the chocobo is good, i'm glad there's a moogle (there's 2 in fact), the cactuar is hilarious to watch, and this is probably shiva's best depiction. the characters, barring microtransactions, are fine.
the tracks on the otherhand are a mess. it is cool to see that there are different variations of each track, so you can play them differently each time, but the problem is you play online and you get interdimensional rift 5 times in a row because of its variations and that just sucks. especially when some tracks don't have variations at all, so your odds of getting interdimensional rift over zozo are astronomical. there needed to be like, at least double the courses (not including variations!) also why does the gold saucer track not have the gold saucer music? also what is with the death bit in the hyperspeed one where if you drift to far the track kills you?
finally, gameplay and items. clearly inspired by mario kart, which is fine, it includes drifting boosts and jump tricks of ramps for speed boosts. great! that makes it more accessible coming from mario kart. my limited mario kart skill helped me at chocobo GP lmao. however the items and special abilities are crazy. in mario kart, the red shell is a homing item that hits the person in front. that person however, might have a shell of their own, or a banana, to protect them. they can hold these items indefinitely unless theyre hit by lighting. in short, they have decent protection against one attack usually. in chocobo GP, half the cast are passively charging a special ability that is unblockable, almost at the same rate. furthermore, the protection items are magicite barriers, which ware off after a few seconds. even the strongest version of barrier magic lasts like, 10 seconds? it is borderline impossible to protect yourself from anything in this game, you are constantly getting smashed and bashed and bonked up. sometimes its not too bad, like shiva's special ability just kind of slowing you down for a while, but ifrit's fucking firewave is horrendous. when you get hit by a strong attack you are knocked on your ass for a solid 5 seconds, much longer than in mario kart. and the tracks are smaller. think of it this way: you cant protect yourself, and are getting hit and hurt more stopping your momentum more on a smaller track. one item can put you from 1st to 8th just like that. and it sucks man. it is a much more frustrating experience than mario kart because of this... and also, the doom magicite just sucks. redesign that shit lmao
in short, chocobo GP is fine. its microtransactions are predatory and evil. it needs more tracks and it needs its items balanced a bit better. thanks
now when i mark this as completed it's because i've played (at this time) enough of the online to get to level 20, so a decent amount, and i beat the storymode. the storymode is silly and goofy. its characters constantly break the fourth wall and they tell an extremely simplified final fantasy-ish plot that is rife with parody. its alright. made me laugh in a few places but its not what youd call a GOOD story. its always nice to see gilgamesh getting more good content. the other old FF characters (terra, vivi, steiner) are there just to be there, which is also just fine. theyre very slapdash immediate parodies of themselves, especially terra, who speaks almost exclusively in quotes from FF6 that make no sense at all in the context of the game (this was a little frustrating bc she looks super cool in the game and is fun to play as but her voicelines suck) but at least the other characters are like "whaat the hell are you talking about" lmao. all in all, storymode fine. :)
the only other kart racing game i have played extensively is mario kart, which i will compare chocobo GP to. first of all this game does have a pretty good amount of characters in its roster at launch which is nice. i guess the problem is that too many of them are from the "chocobo" series like shirma, irma, cid, and so on. theyre not bad necessarily but like, who cares about them when you can play as steiner or terra? there should be more, easily accessible characters from mainline final fantasy. like one from each game up to 15 could have worked and then if you like a game from the series you have someone to play as! still, there are good characters here. the chocobo is good, i'm glad there's a moogle (there's 2 in fact), the cactuar is hilarious to watch, and this is probably shiva's best depiction. the characters, barring microtransactions, are fine.
the tracks on the otherhand are a mess. it is cool to see that there are different variations of each track, so you can play them differently each time, but the problem is you play online and you get interdimensional rift 5 times in a row because of its variations and that just sucks. especially when some tracks don't have variations at all, so your odds of getting interdimensional rift over zozo are astronomical. there needed to be like, at least double the courses (not including variations!) also why does the gold saucer track not have the gold saucer music? also what is with the death bit in the hyperspeed one where if you drift to far the track kills you?
finally, gameplay and items. clearly inspired by mario kart, which is fine, it includes drifting boosts and jump tricks of ramps for speed boosts. great! that makes it more accessible coming from mario kart. my limited mario kart skill helped me at chocobo GP lmao. however the items and special abilities are crazy. in mario kart, the red shell is a homing item that hits the person in front. that person however, might have a shell of their own, or a banana, to protect them. they can hold these items indefinitely unless theyre hit by lighting. in short, they have decent protection against one attack usually. in chocobo GP, half the cast are passively charging a special ability that is unblockable, almost at the same rate. furthermore, the protection items are magicite barriers, which ware off after a few seconds. even the strongest version of barrier magic lasts like, 10 seconds? it is borderline impossible to protect yourself from anything in this game, you are constantly getting smashed and bashed and bonked up. sometimes its not too bad, like shiva's special ability just kind of slowing you down for a while, but ifrit's fucking firewave is horrendous. when you get hit by a strong attack you are knocked on your ass for a solid 5 seconds, much longer than in mario kart. and the tracks are smaller. think of it this way: you cant protect yourself, and are getting hit and hurt more stopping your momentum more on a smaller track. one item can put you from 1st to 8th just like that. and it sucks man. it is a much more frustrating experience than mario kart because of this... and also, the doom magicite just sucks. redesign that shit lmao
in short, chocobo GP is fine. its microtransactions are predatory and evil. it needs more tracks and it needs its items balanced a bit better. thanks