April 2024
March was almost entirely dedicated/stolen by my time with FFVII Rebirth. So, I figured I’d get back into FFXIV to finally start making some consistent progress and… ope there goes April (and half of May so far). It’s left my backlog… well on the backpedal but it is what it takes to take down a monstrosity of these proportions. Though the events don’t help the time sink… In other news I have finally scrapped together an excel sheet to track all of my games progress across platforms though still have much more to fill for pre achievement days and Nintendo products. My Game Completion List Here. So glad BLAO has made getting my Steam games on there easy. Anywaysen I hope everyone’s year is going well and see you (hopefully on time) on next month’s update.
Games in progress/played:
Stellar Blade Demo
Final Fantasy VIII
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
Neptunia Shooter
Devil’s Calculator
Lady Killer in a Bind
MK1
Tekken 8
Crystals of Time
HOG that reminded me heavily of Ghostwood. Simply put, it’s kind of a low effort put together game that has you aimlessly revisiting areas in hopes to find/refind a hidden object instance for a tool you may have already had. Puzzles are pretty barebones and the actual hidden objects feel just a tad bit too random. This could be in part that the actual art often leaves things to question not to mention questionable word choices for each object to find. Your character is given some background. You are a young woman in search of your father and investigate a mysterious mansion. This somehow doesn’t give any more room for the story, so much in fact that once you get to the final moments… it just kind of ends. No moments to relish, celebrations/mournings, or anything really just… credits. It’s entirely anti-climactic and leaves you as empty as the gameplay that got you here.
Recommend? No. A boring and sometimes frustrating mess.
Rating? 3/10
To be honest, I thought this was going to another “turn a childhood thing and make it scary” cheap ploy. A welcome surprise when it turns out this game has a lot of love in it and draws heavy inspiration from survival horror games, especially the Resident Evil series. Somehow this game captures fear, humor, deep moments, and satisfaction all in one. There’s just so much enjoyment out of this. What this game probably does best is it leads you to where you need to go without telling you to much. It gives you a reasonable thread, but lets you figure it out. You can figure something out and then go “Oh wait… maybe I can do this over in this area” or “maybe this is related to an item I have” and just revel in those aha moments.
In summary, you are a repairman sent to shut down a broadcast tower for a long since defunct children’s TV show. Unfortunately, it seems the muppet like characters are not too happy with your presence and must defend yourself with stationary like weapons. Since these are not outright zombies, they won’t stay down from trauma. So, use your limited resources wisely and learn what it is to be a friendly neighbor.
The limited resources for combat, well-constructed environments and navigation, the subtle themes addressed as you explore, the story as a whole, and the mysteries present along the way. Not to mention the absolutely well-done puzzles and secrets throughout (save maybe a couple secrets that feel a bit too arbitrary). Despite these characters being fairly normal in appearance, there were more than a few times where I did feel a semblance of fear and on edge. Yet, when they ragdoll and you can tape them where they land creates some truly great comedy. It is not without fault though. The actual reach of enemies (even including your wrench) is a bit hard to gauge and seems occasionally inconsistent. There are also a fair share of bugs and glitches you can encounter though rarely game breaking. I did also feel the final segment could have gone on a bit longer as it really delved into a darker part of itself and would’ve enjoyed having a prolonged exposure to that side of the game.
Recommend? Very much so. Survival Horror fan approved.
Rating 9.5/10
April Progression: Completed post “A Real Reborn” updates, “Heavansward” expansion, Post “Heavansward” updates. All Jobs, DoH, and DoLs to Lvl 50+.
May Tasks: Clear “Stormblood” expansion (done week 2), Post “Stormblood” updates (in progress), and All jobs to lvl 60+, Start “Shadowbringers” expansion.
If I have posted about base ARR you may know that I think it’s… okay. Story isn’t overly interesting, it has some good fights, and characters are mostly fine but leave a lot to build on. Now the post ARR updates… well it’s an incredible slog that has you do a lot of busy work with very little reward (in terms of narrative) pulling you along the way. It’s not till a severalteen hour cutscene that it starts to become interesting and… then you get to Heavansward. For ARR and post, my eyes kind of just glazed over and ended up skimming most text towards the end. It just couldn’t capture my interest.
Heavansward on the other hand is a massive step up in just about everyway. Great locales, dungeons, fights, and story. Characters felt more engaging in general though some I had to pretend like I remembered throughout it. Post Heavansward updates are more or less in line with the base expansion, but didn’t do much more than that for me. The jobs added in this expansion were neat. I particularly liked Dark Knight. Tried to get into Machinist but Ranged DPS just doesn’t seem to do anything for me so far though still far better than bard. AST… is interesting to say the least but I’m a bit too scared to commit to healing just this moment.
Favorite Jobs: Ninja, Monk, Dark Knight, and Warrior.
Least Favorite Jobs: White Mage, Bard, Paladin.
ARR: 6/10
Post ARR: 4/10
HW: 8/10
Post HW: 8/10
I keep FF14 Free Trial on my speed dial for MMORPG, but I think my character is still just level 20-something. By the time I clear ARR all expansions will be free.
That’s… not a bad plan overall and quite possibly true with the latest expansion on it’s way here haha.
I tend to hyper fixate and overcommit so I’ve been paying since I started 4 years ago (despite my lack of playing up until now…). Hope your journey through Eorzea goes well when you next heed the call. ^_^