Short Pre-Christmas Update

Was considering just changing the game status. But as I sometimes use these posts to re-check something, I will give some words.

• The Unfinished Swan
  

  5 hours playtime

  10 of 10 achievements

• Viviette
  

  6 hours playtime

  6 of 6 achievements

• FINAL FANTASY XII THE ZODIAC AGE
  

  114 hours playtime

  41 of 41 achievements

The Unfinished Swan: I did expect a bit more of this game. I think. It was okay but even with the short time it sometimes dragged around. The story was cute enough. Gameplay-wise you shoot ink in order to colour the world. Hereby, you have different mechanics in different worlds. In the first you need it to find your way around as everything is white. In the second-world you need you it to activate some water-based machines. In the third world to make plants grow and so forth. Overall, enough difference. What had been an issue for me has been the contrast though, especially in the first world. Because either everything was white and you couldnt see anything or if you’ve overdone it, everything was black and you didn’t see anything. A simple mechanism so that corners and edges not appear as massive samey surfaces.
Achievement-wise, the game was fairly easy though with some collectibles and with a level-select system. Overall okay game.

Viviette: A 2d-Resident Evil does fit as description quite well. You have a large mansion, a re-occuring enemy (Nemesis-System), keys and doors and weird puzzles. All-in-all I really liked the game, although the puzzles are with issues as you sometimes you don’t get the connection. Pretty early in the game for example I brute forced a clock puzzle because I was in a locked room and thought I had to solve it to leave it (but apparently I missed clicking the person sitting on the table). I also brute forced the bookshelves puzzle, although that one is very easy if you just understand it.
Suspense is most of the time there and your nemesis can be avoided regularly. However, she is often close-by. Bright side is that there are areas she can’t access. Story is also interesting enough to follow. The one thing you have to watch out for though, is the good ending which can be missed very easily (would still recommand to make a blind playthrough first) by doing something to early and by accidently spilling blood (didn’t even understand what happened until reading what happened much later). Achievement-wise you need some playthroughs as there is an achievement for collecting all notes, speedrunning and without dying (reloading your save does not help, it is tainted). But since you can complete the game in less than a hour it doable quite easily. An interesting aspect is that the puzzles are randomized, so you can’t look up the solutions only (though you can look up the logic behind it). As said, if you don’t get the clue some puzzles might appear very difficult, but they all follow an easy logic. The hardest puzzle which was based on music has also been nerfed. So nothing to fear here. Other than that knife-swinging woman following you.

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age: Japanese RPG with lots of hours to play, large world to explore and some interesting fighting. Don’t think I have to explain much about Final Fantasy. So, I will just go about random tidbits. First thing first, I played FFXII on the PS2 and one thing I was annoyed back then was that everyone had the same license board which meant, I could make them all the same. As I like playing in roles better, I limited myself by only giving them weapons which I considered fitting. But as said, in the end I limited myself. My girlfriend at the time, did the other way and stacked up skills and magic and same weapons ultimately wiping the floor. So as I heard of the international Zodiac system, it sounded more interesting to me and then with the Zodiac Age (a bit different again), I used the chance to re-play the game. And I liked it a lot more as it fitted more with how I play naturally. You can still stack and powergame but I didn’t limit myself so much in comparison. Even when chosing each available job, you could still get a functional and strong team. This way also needed some thinking on which classes to combine and who to get which summon.
Overall, a huge improvement on gameplay-fun for me. Story-wise the game is more political and while some players say that it drags on to much, I liked this kind of different setting. Also, while re-playing I did not finish the game back then, so the finale was new to me. Other stuff I remembered positively from back then were the hunts, which is a bounty hunter system for stronger monsters which add more challenge but also reward with better equipment. In contrast to back then, I tried to get as far as possible without using guides and it makes the experience a lot better instead of looking everything up directly. But a lot of stuff is so hidden within the game (systems) that I needed them for the bonus stuff in the last third. The world is huge and there are several large areas you don’t even need to go to to find stronger Espers or better equipment. You can easily spend 50-60 hours with the game. Music is FF-typical also very good. Gambit-System is also strong, although I remembered it even better. Basically, it allows to automize your characters, so you don’t have to micro-manage them all the time. Achievement-wise it is obviously grind heavy (Asian game), however not in the worst way possible. You need to get all Espers and need to complete all hunts, also find every map. But overall, the game didn’t ask for finding/trading each weapon/item/equipment. It was basically at a point which I would consider myself completion myself without going to much extra-miles. Only exception was finishing the monster catalogue as some enemies can be missed. Still not to bad, and getting all magic and techniques is something you should do anyway. So, I feel mostly positive with the achievements. Oh wait, getting all Myth fusions was a bullshit achievement and I used an autokey program script from the forum. Bullshit.
All-in-all, I enjoyed my return to Ivalice in a grown-up story and a fantastic world-setting with game mechanics more in line with my gameplay preferences. Can’t remember correctly anymore but I think the Zodiac Age is a good chunk easier than the original game for the PS2. Also, the speed-up function is very appreciated. Normal speed feels extremely slow after a while, especially when grinding.

So that’s it. And since I won’t make another post before the end of the year I can already tell you: Happy Christmas and a good end for this year and a good start in the next one! And now back to consider which game to play next. Maybe return shortly to NMRIH, they updated a while ago (again), or making another map for CC HD (you should play all my maps and vote for them!), or something on my unfinished/unplayed pile (+ shadow backlog). But only for a week, and then it goes to Norway for vacation!