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bookofdanielvol2Crossed off the current FF1 playthrough. I ended up going through the Sky Temple twice, due to limited inventory space, to make sure I got all the chests I wanted, and then did the same with the Temple of the Fiends, going through once to get the chests and, theoretically, to clear out the bosses (the latter ended up not working as I forgot that the Fiend rematches respawn, at least in the NES version) and then a second time to take down Chaos. That got my levels up quite a bit, and all four characters ended at level 30. Chaos didn't give too many issues; I began the fight by having my black wizard (Kram) cast Fast on my knight (Jery) and ninja (Gerg), while my white wizard (Lain) cast Inv2 on the party via the White Shirt. Then just had Jery and Gerg attack continuously with Excalibur and the Masamune respectively, Kram cast Nuke and Lain heal as needed or use the Thor Hammer to fill in a Lit2 or two. Chaos went down within the first three rounds, as Kram only hit two Nukes (on which he had three charges).
As a side note, my characters' names were a bit butchered by the four-letter limit, but as you might guess they're supposed to be Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer. When I get to FF3 I plan to name the four characters in that Moe, Larry, Curly and Shemp.
So, next time I play FF1 - whenever that might be - it'll be the Pixel Remaster.
I also started FF2, which I've never played much of outside the first few minutes on the Final Fantasy Origins version. The leveling system is a bit odd to get used to, with skills leveling individually with use rather than a standard RPG system - it could probably best be described as a "Stop Hitting Yourself" system - but I'm not completely disliking it so far. I'm not too far yet; I spent the first bit just increasing some of my character's skills and HP levels, but am far enough to have picked up the first temporary fourth character (Minwu).
Separately, I've also been playing Blacksad: Under the Skin. It has some technical issues - at least the Switch version does - including a lot of texture display issues, a few crashes, etc. - and while the character models look very good and on-model from the comics, and the voice acting is good, the lip sync is particularly bad. But it generally plays like an old-school adventure game, with maybe a dash of L.A. Noire thrown in, which is always a good thing for me, and it's especially saved by the writing, which is excellent. I got into the comics last year and have read all of the Blacksad books up to They All Fall Down Pt. 1, and Under the Skin is on par - so far (and I'm probably at least halfway through, maybe more) it's just a really good Blacksad story, which is especially impressive considering the comic creators were just "consultants" and not the primary writers of it. I'm looking forward to seeing how the case resolves.
And, finally, I've played a bit (the first one and a half worlds) of the new Switch version of Mario vs. Donkey Kong. I missed out on the GBA version, which I kind of regret (I didn't even know there were already four sequels!), but I'm enjoying this - it combines gameplay elements of the original Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Junior games, Super Mario Bros. 2 (US) and even a bit of Lemmings (in the levels where you lead the minis) in a satisfying way. And it's kind of nice to see DK get to be a villain again, and to see Mario face *somebody* other than Bowser for a change. The earlier GBA and DS games in the series - at least in the minute or two of looking so far - don't seem to be going for *too* much, so I might have to pick some of them up sometime soon. And maybe they'll put out remakes of them in the future too.
As a side note, my characters' names were a bit butchered by the four-letter limit, but as you might guess they're supposed to be Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer. When I get to FF3 I plan to name the four characters in that Moe, Larry, Curly and Shemp.
So, next time I play FF1 - whenever that might be - it'll be the Pixel Remaster.
I also started FF2, which I've never played much of outside the first few minutes on the Final Fantasy Origins version. The leveling system is a bit odd to get used to, with skills leveling individually with use rather than a standard RPG system - it could probably best be described as a "Stop Hitting Yourself" system - but I'm not completely disliking it so far. I'm not too far yet; I spent the first bit just increasing some of my character's skills and HP levels, but am far enough to have picked up the first temporary fourth character (Minwu).
Separately, I've also been playing Blacksad: Under the Skin. It has some technical issues - at least the Switch version does - including a lot of texture display issues, a few crashes, etc. - and while the character models look very good and on-model from the comics, and the voice acting is good, the lip sync is particularly bad. But it generally plays like an old-school adventure game, with maybe a dash of L.A. Noire thrown in, which is always a good thing for me, and it's especially saved by the writing, which is excellent. I got into the comics last year and have read all of the Blacksad books up to They All Fall Down Pt. 1, and Under the Skin is on par - so far (and I'm probably at least halfway through, maybe more) it's just a really good Blacksad story, which is especially impressive considering the comic creators were just "consultants" and not the primary writers of it. I'm looking forward to seeing how the case resolves.
And, finally, I've played a bit (the first one and a half worlds) of the new Switch version of Mario vs. Donkey Kong. I missed out on the GBA version, which I kind of regret (I didn't even know there were already four sequels!), but I'm enjoying this - it combines gameplay elements of the original Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Junior games, Super Mario Bros. 2 (US) and even a bit of Lemmings (in the levels where you lead the minis) in a satisfying way. And it's kind of nice to see DK get to be a villain again, and to see Mario face *somebody* other than Bowser for a change. The earlier GBA and DS games in the series - at least in the minute or two of looking so far - don't seem to be going for *too* much, so I might have to pick some of them up sometime soon. And maybe they'll put out remakes of them in the future too.
