It's not a "Job" System; it's a "Class" System.

Wow, after a long dry spell, a bunch of new FFXIV videos and pics came up all at once, and speaking of "WoW," I've got to get a few things off my meaty chest:

1. To everyone already screaming "WoW-clone" at FFXIV with excessive use of exclamation points, shut up. WoW did not invent quest experience. So stop toting yourself as some hardcore gamer who won't play FFXIV because it's too casual. It only proves how few games you've actually played. You may as well say FFXIV copied DnD.

2. To everyone already saying FFXIV's casual gameplay is a step backwards compared to FFXI, shut up. FFXI did not advance the MMORPG genre in any way. The only thing unique about it is that it was the first online Final Fantasy game, and maybe the job/subjob system was pretty different from other MMO games. It wasn't genre-defining.

3. To everyone making bold assumptions, rash conclusions, and stating facts otherwise based on logical fallacy about FFXIV, definitely shut up. You have seen a few minutes of Alpha gameplay. ALPHA. You cannot make any accurate predictions, positive or negative, about this game yet. Speculate all you want, but stop being a dick about it.

Okay, that aside, this is the first PS3 game I've seen that has blown my mind, visually. Clearly, out of the PS3, 360, and Wii, the PS3 has always been the graphical powerhouse, but this is the first game where I actually think it's a selling point. The fluidness(definitely not a word) of the gameplay is pretty amazing, and this is only alpha.

Still can't comment much on the actual combat. Obviously, there are some similarities to FFXI and some differences. The HP, MP, and TP bars are still around, though TP seems to function differently. Seems the lock-on and auto-attack are still part of combat, but it looks like there's home kind of hotkey spread at the bottom of the screen in the video. I'm thinking this, along with the very high amount of TP shown in the video, may imply that weapon skill type abilities will play a much larger role in combat than they did in FFXI.

The best news for me has been this:






























I mentioned some concerns in my last post that this whole lack of a defining job system might mean everyone was basically going to be a Warrior with a different weapon, as far as melee go. Mostly, I was actually worried that there would be no Monks. Monk is one of my favorite jobs in FFXI(though my main is actually Dragoon), and I was hoping they'd make a return. It seems they will in some form, at least. SE is still hush-hush on the details of how this "class system" will work. In a way, it kind of is like everyone is a Warrior with a different weapon. They keep saying there are no "jobs," par se; it's all in how one trains his skills and equips himself.

The most sense I can make out of all it is that if you use hand-to-hand weapons, learn hand-to-hand skills, wear armour that augments and aids said style of combat, you are, essentially, a Monk, but you won't be called that. We're all just "people," apparently. It's like SE is trying really hard to not be racist so they're just generalizing all the jobs. I'm all for seeing how this turns out, though, no matter how convoluted it seems right now.

P.S. - If you've not checked the FFXIV official site recently, do so. It's been updated.

It all began with a stone...

... and several nations previously at war but who are now in an unspoken truce due to the invention of "airbourne battleships." Okay, I threw the "stone" part in myself, but according to the latest news at 1UP, the basic plot of FFXIV is sounding a lot like FFXI.

This news hit the internet highway a couple days ago, but I've not been able to formulate an opinion. I try to not have an opinion and base reactions only on facts, but it's difficult to do that when one is so underwhelmed.

Paraphrasing from the 1UP article, there are four "job skills" in FFXI: Fighter, Sorcerer, Gatherer, and Crafter, all of which will grow depending on one's equipment. I guess if you have weapons equipped, you'll be training your Fighter skills, if you have some kind of tool equipped, you'll be training your crafting skill, etc., etc.. I'm hoping it only sounds dull now because of how little information is available. I also hope that equipping different weapons will, essentially, change your class. If you equip knuckles, you're a Monk, a Polearm, a Dragoon, and so on. I'll be seriously pissed if the intent is for everyone to be a Warrior with the only difference being the weapon one has currently in use. Hopefully, I'm way off the mark. Still, I'm apprehensive to learn how this will work out, but this isn't much to go on at the moment. So let's focus on something more concrete.

Eorzea will be the starter continent with several islands surrounding it. Cool, sounds like a big world. The five races have pretty much been confirmed: Hyuran(Hyrulian), Miqo'te(Misquito), Lalafell(Lala, fell), Elezen(Eleven), Roegadyn(Rose Garden). All, respectively, correspond to Hume, Mithra, Tarutaru, Elvan, and Galka from FFXI. You can see scans of them in this thread on ZAM.

Better still, all the races will be fully customizable. Hyuran will also be split into "midlanders" and "highlanders," while Miqo'te will be split into "diurnal sunseekers" and "nocturnal moonkeepers," whatever that means. In any case, I'm glad there won't be as many dopplegangers around.

What has me most intrigued, though, is how the quest system will work. It reminds me much of the Tactics Advance games and how mark hunting worked in FFXII. Adventurers will receive work passes from Eorzea's guildmaster to go on quests either solo or with others. Paraphrasing Komoto, he says a certain amount of players will not be needed for specific quests. It'll be up to the players how many people they want to bring. I'm not sure what that means, exactly. Maybe he means that the quest difficulty will scale up or down depending on how many people are present.

All in all, these are interesting ideas with a lot of perplexing vagueness. SE has my attention, but we'll see how long they keep it:



... Okay, I'm all ears.

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.

Geek Stink Breath

Hey, do you like RPGs? No? What are you, popular and good-looking?

Well, if you do like RPGs, first of all, you should get a PSP. Once you have a PSP, you should definitely get Crimson Gem Saga. It's been out for a month now, but I only just got to playing it a few days ago. If you're thinking about buying it, don't wait too long. Atlus games disappear fast.

If you're a fan of Chrono Trigger at all, look into this game. It shares the humor and lightheartedness of Chrono Trigger's characters as well as the uniqueness of its battle system, namely, the ability to perform double and triple techs. The artwork and cutscenes are pretty mind blowing, too.

Another interesting part of the battle system is the Critical Combo System, allowing you to use timed button presses after to critical hits to perform combos. I've not been able to experiment much with this yet. Seems like something that could become extremely useful once mastered but infinitely annoying to learn to do well. More on that another time. I just got Devil Survivor a couple days ago, and I've got to check that out.

Rapture

In case you didn't know, SquareEnix's new super, secret, totally un-Final-Fantasy-related MMORPG is "Final Fantasy XIV." I think they should have chosen a different name for it...

I can tell you two definite things regarding the game from that trailer. 1. That the game is Final Fantasy related. 2. That I will have to buy a PS3 sometime in the near future if I want to play it. SE is hinting at some fairly high-end specs. If that and the trailer are any indication, my typewriter-attached-to-an-etch-a-sketch of a computer will not run the game. I play, mostly, older PC games. The newest PC game I own that I can actually play is Gothic 3. I attempted to play Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine; it wasn't pretty, and I mean that quite literally. Besides, SE has also said the game will only run on the most current OS. That means upgrading to Vista, for me. Pass.

Despite all that, I'm pretty excited about the game. I was an FFXI player for some time(on Titan. Name was "Enrich," if you were at all interested.). Though SquareEnix is only dropping vague information about their upcoming game, I'm very interested in what I'm hearing. Mostly, that FFXIV will be "COMPLETELY DIFFERENT" from FFXI. I guess that means Mithra will be a male dominated race, Galka will be hemaphrodites, Taru-tarus will be gargantuan, Hume males will actually look masculine(if only).

Apparently, leveling up will be a thing of the past. Weapons will be the significant means of improving one's character. When I first heard this, my brain screamed in horror because they tried this once before, and it didn't work out:

When I came to, I considered the possibility of that statement instead meaning we'd learn skills from weapons as in the Tactics games. Then again, they could have just meant outfitting one's character with uber equipment is the way to get stronger. Hm, perplexing. Hey, SE said the FFXIV logo was designed with the "weapons" theme in mind. Let's take a look:

... Well, anyway, color me intrigued.

The final cryptic detail SE has made public is that the game will be far less of a timesink than FFXI. Since FFXI is not going to be discontinued(though you wouldn't know it by observing the overdramatics of most FFXI boards), SE is taking into account that many players may want to play both. Hopefully, in addition to realizing we have only so much time, SE will also realize we have only so much money and will cut the subscription cost of at least one of the games. Something tells me that won't happen. SE has likely created the image of a company concerned about their fanbase because they are in the position to do so, and their generousity doesn't extend as far as they'd like you to think. Sigh, a man can dream.