The Principlesss by Which we are Driven...

If you play FFXI or have played FFXI, you probably know this guy. He's an object of hatred and awe in Vana'diel. This tortuously difficult side-boss is regarded as unkillable. Speculation still runs wild as people try to find some "trick" to beating him. Recently, SE let an interesting comment slip regarding Absolute Virtue.

It seems SE created Absolute Virtue(hereafter, AV) as a screw-you-over-mob. It makes sense since AV was, originally, not a 100% pop after the Jailer of Love's death. He was actually fairly difficult to spawn. SE's description of him as a "bad luck" mob implies that if you were unlucky enough to have him spawn, you should quickly lot on the Jailer drops and get the hell out.

I don't want to read too much into it since there isn't a whole lot of elaboration on the term "bad luck mob," but the pieces seem to fit together. When AV was first defeated, it was through the exploitation of the terrain. At that point, SE said "Good job, but that's not how we want him to be beaten." AV was fixed so the trick could not be used again. Then, little by little, SE cryptically leaked hints(ha) and videos of the DEV team fighting AV and winning, saying he could be beaten in a certain way. Now AV's HP is reduced, he's 100% pop, and he despawns two hours after Jailer of Love spawns. I've also heard Jailer of Love was nerfed.

I'm not sure if those changes are supposed to make AV more beatable, more escapable, or what, but it seems what many players suspected was correct. AV is not legitimately killable and the DEV videos were red herrings. The thing that somewhat derails this theory is the matter that AV has a death speech and that the title of "Virtuous Saint" is given to those who beat him. This at least shows that SE considered the possibility of him being beaten. Personally, I think it was an "in case shit happens" plan. SE probably anticipated players using some form of exploitation to beat AV, and they gave him a legit death so that if he were ever beaten, the game wouldn't crash. Hell, in WoW, the first time the king of Tinker Town was killed by the Horde, the server went down. That's what happens when you don't consider all the possibilities.

Anyway, many players are calling "foul" on SE's part. If "bad luck mob" really means "unbeatable," it was a little dickish of SE to kind of lead the playerbase on. I enjoy the mystery of AV; all the unsolved things about Vana'diel are what make FFXI so immersive. However, the way SE patches AV everytime the players find a way to beat him just makes it seem like they're toying with us.

I and I Survived

I finally beat Devil Survivor. I could have beaten it much sooner, but I got really engrossed in Need for Speed: Carbon for awhile.

As far as SMT games go, I maintain that Devil Survivor is top tier, but it suffers from a few unique problems.

First, the music is awful. Rather, the music is boring, and the sound quality is awful. Even the old (Super)Famicon SMT's managed to crank out some creepy, atmospheric tunes. Devil Survivor's music tries to do that, but it lacks a certain emotion that other MegaTen games have. I know I shouldn't expect much from a DS, but still, I've heard better music from other DS games than this.

Second is the undeniable fact that for a Strategy RPG, there really isn't a whole lot of strategy involved. Most MegaTen games are brutally difficult and require strategy, specific abilities, and an intimate knowledge of demons to succeed. Devil Survivor isn't too tough to begin with, excepting a few select battles, and unlike other MegaTen games, all enemies' weaknesses and strengths are visible. You can simply adjust your characters' skills before the fight to suit your needs. It's more a matter of preparation than tactics, and even "preparation" is stretching it. Much of the time, even if an enemy is strong against your attacks you can overcome it with a grind session.

I'm not saying Devil Survivor's illusion of strategy takes away from the fun of the combat. I'm just saying Devil Survivor totes itself as a strategy game and is actually more closely related to a standard RPG.

Last, the plus game is pretty boring. Typically, the purpose of a plus game run in a MegaTen game is two-fold: one, to treat yourself to the luxury of an easier game using the demons that carried over from your last playthrough, and two, to fight an absurdly hard optional boss battle. Devil Survivor is no exception. It's just that in a text-heavy game like this, it's hard to hide the tedium of scrolling through all the dialogue you just saw on your last playthrough, and since your dialogue choices effect what endings become available, you can't just zone out and keep pressing "A."

On that note, there are six different endings. You can get around having to play through six times if you manage to unlock every path in one playthrough, save your game before you make your final decision, and beat your way through the last boss without saving your game again(or dying and having to start from the day before). Then you can just keep resetting until you've beaten the game six times from that point. Keep in mind, you won't unlock specific demons for completing certain endings if you do it that way, and you will have to beat the game at least once to fight the optional boss. Decisions, decisions.

Nonetheless, Devil Survivor has done so much to make the game more fun that you can excuse the tedium in other areas. The Demon Fusion system has been simplified. Now recipes for creating demons can be viewed, and there's no more noise control as you can simply choose what skills you want to be carried over from one demon to the next. The Skill Crack system, allowing you to learn skills directly from demons, makes getting specific abilities less of a hassle, and the Devil Auction, where you can buy demons, makes acquiring demons much easier, albeit a little less exciting.

It may sound dumbed down, but it isn't. Devil Survivor took a complicated system, broke it up into more easily mentally digestible concepts, and made each unique to the game. As long as you're not expecting hardcore strategy from the game, you won't be disappointed.

I thought it was June 31st..,

but that doesn't exist. So it's July 1st.

Here's some more news on FFXIV. http://ffxiv.zam.com/story.html?story=18628

Well, it's more like elaboration on old news... Actually, it's more like reiteration of old news but said more eloquently.

A couple things about it disturbed me, though:

According to Koumoto, battles in FFXIV will involve more thinking and strategy than FFXI. While FFXI was about timing and quick action

I'm all for strategy. I just could have sworn they said the same thing about FFXI, initially. I'm wondering what changed and also if SE is just filling my head with false promises. That concern has more to do with my paranoia than anything. What really bothers me is this:

The keyword is "growth" and FFXIV will be sold as a game that allows improvement without unnecessary hardship. Koumoto references FFXI, saying it is a game that relies too exclusively on defeating enemies over and over to advance, and that FFXIV will bring new avenues of facilitating character growth, such as quests.

It's great that SE is borrowing concepts from other games, but that raised a red WoW flag. I know I shouldn't jump to the WoW-clone conclusion. It's not like that was the first MMORPG to employ quest experience, but SE has cited WoW specifically as a source of inspiration in their last interview.

I'm just worried the atmosphere will no longer feel Final Fantasy. SE has already said that the world FFXIV takes place in will have a very different feel from Vana'diel and they're still throwing around phrases like 'solo play.' I'm glad they're making FFXIV less of a time sink, but the more I hear, the more it sounds like WoW.

Hopefully, it's just my paranoia talking again. That's enough splitting hairs and over analyzing though. The "new" information released hasn't shed enough light on anything to start drawing any real conclusions. So let's move onto another game: Devil Survivor.

I'm not too far into it, and I hate to say this so off the cuff, but it's shaping up to be one of the best MegaTen games thus far. At the very least, it more than lives up to the MegaTen name.

For a handheld game, Devil Survivor throws a lot of things at you. What's amazing is how seamlessly the game eases you into each of them. Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2 were supposed to be the more jRPG traditional games of the MegaTen franchise, making them easier to get into while still maintaining the unique MegaTen difficulty. They succeed, but Devil Survivor improves on the formula even further, combining new concepts with all the familiar elements of the MegaTen series: the press turn system, demon fusion, and skill learning/copying and simplifying them enough so that they aren't overwhelming. Add that to the challenging tactical gameplay and the minimalist yet strangely immersive environment, and it makes for a unique experience. Add a DS to your wishlist along with that PSP I told you to buy.