Voice of Cards: My New Hype Game

For the first time in awhile I am very interested in a new release. Last week Nintendo did their Direct showcase and one of the games shown was a new RPG from Square Enix. And it wasn’t in the style of their traditional JRPGs, not at all. 

It was a card based tabletop RPG. 

It also has involvement from Yoko Taro, Drakengard and Nier director, but the card-based tabletop elements stuck out first.

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Spiritfarer – Happy, Happy, Sad, Joy

Ever since I got hooked onto Final Fantasy XIV last year, it has been VERY difficult to find time for other games. I kinda reached a burnout point with the MMO though, mostly playing during the weekends so now I’ve had time to play other games. 

I started slowly chipping away at Persona 5 Royal and I think I’ve reached the halfway point. I need to restart Nier Replicant because I have no idea what’s going on. I needed to play something else though that wasn’t an RPG. I needed something relaxing. 

It originally began with me wanting to purchase House Flipper for the Switch (I secretly love real estate but it’s too much of a time commitment and I respect those who do that type of work) because it was $10 at the time. But Spiritfarer was on sale as well, and I remember hearing amazing things about the game when it first came out last year. People describe it as Harvest Moon/Stardew Valley meets Animal Crossing. It’s a sim type game but you can take your time without fear of the game hating you. 

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Roeg One: A Final Fantasy XIV Story

It’s crazy to think that I’m reaching my one year mark on Final Fantasy XIV in a few days. So much has happened this past year, what with Covid and everything. This game served as a great escape from the pandemic world. 

At this time, I feel like I’ve only touched about 30-40 percent of the game. I still only have a few classes at Level 80 (Machinist, Bard, Dancer, Samurai and Astrologian). I’m still maining Machinist but I’m also trying out other classes. I’m wanting to broaden the playstyle to tanking and healing. As I mentioned in my previous posts, my first character (Dutch the Lalafell) was a tank but I did not know the tank mechanics, so he was quickly swept under the rug and I created Carmen (my permanent character).

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A Story About Chocobos

Chocobos have always been a fixture of the Final Fantasy series. They first appeared in Final Fantasy II and they’re adorable birds that help you out on your journey. I remember in Final Fantasy VI where they joined your party briefly and then in Final Fantasy VII you could actually keep them and raise it (you can also race them, breed them and get better chocobos out of it). 

It was around Final Fantasy XII where things got a little extreme. With the plot being centered around war, we saw them in a different, more aggressive light. Gone was the cute little bird mascot that ‘kweh’d into our hearts. 

As you all know, I recently started playing Final Fantasy XIV and the first real grind was getting the chocobo. I remember it took 30 in game hours to do so (I remember because that was the same amount of time it took to complete the Final Fantasy VII remake). WIth the chocobo, you could ride to your destination without getting attacked, and if you were attacked you could easily get away. Your chocobo also gets faster as you complete more quests. 

Eventually it could join you in your fights as well. 

Your chocobo can also die in battle, but it will automatically revive (kinda like how Pokemon faint). FFXIV isn’t that cruel to kill off your winged friend. 

Or is it? 

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Final Fantasy XIV: Social distancing with MMOs and keeping sane during the quarantine

 

I guess you can say it began with a 30 day trial, but I was hooked by Day 14. I’ve always wanted to get into a game where I was overwhelmed, but I could still go at my own pace and I’ve always wanted to play an MMORPG. 

You can say the fascination began with the .hack video games series. It’s a game about an MMORPG called The World. One day people who died in the game started falling into comas, but that’s besides the point. It was an MMORPG simulation game where your party members were other players. Super cool idea! 

It was also around that time that Final Fantasy XI was coming out on the PS2, and I knew that I was not going to play it, at least for awhile (spoiler alert, I still haven’t played it to this day) but I wanted to get on the MMO train as soon as I could. We had a Compaq computer at the time that could barely run The Sims. I was also in Jr High at the time, with no income and I was only allowed to play video games on the weekends. It sucked. 

I finally did get my first computer at the age of 18, and even then it was a base BASE model Dell laptop. It could play games at the lowest graphics setting. But I was able to play my first MMO a year later. It was called Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine. It was super fun, I played with a really good friend of mine for a little bit. My character had a shotgun as a weapon and I dabbled a little with micro transactions. 

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Dauntless and my journey for a ‘Forever-Game’

2019 was a slow year of video games for me. I didn’t play a whole lot of them. What did happen though was sort of an allegiance shift. For the longest time I’ve been a Sony fanboy (since 1998) but last year they got rid of PS Vita and PS3 games on the Playstation Plus platform and then most of their free selections of PS4 games were already on PS Now. Xbox had their Game Pass, which was cheaper than the expensive PS Now (back then)

So I jumped ship and joined the Xbox family in the fall. I love Game Pass and love that they have brand new games added pretty regularly (I see you The Outer Worlds). Sadly, the Switch has been played a little less, unless it is Diablo 3 season.

Last year, I was dead determined to find an MMO game that I was going to stick with and play for a long time. My fiancé is one of the biggest Destiny fans out there and I’ve dabbled a little with that game, and Destiny often comes to mind whenever I think of ‘forever games.’ I love the constant updates the game receives and the new missions and activities with each new season released. I wanted to discover (keyword discover) a game like that.

It wasn’t easy though. The whole process was trial and error.

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Not Rage-quit, but Bored-quit? A Devil May Cry 2 story.

Remember last time when I talked about Devil May Cry 2, I stated that “Maybe I’ll enjoy the rest of the game.” Well that feeling has come and gone and we are quickly moving on to Devil May Cry 3. I don’t normally skip games but I’ve reached a certain point in my life where I should experience things that are fun and move on past things that are not.

Whenever I first started the series, I did some research and all of the lists had this game as the weak point in the series. Some fans also consider this game no longer canon, they just skip straight to Devil May Cry 4. I don’t judge a book by its’ cover, I often try to find beauty in the less liked video games. Hell, I really enjoyed Final Fantasy 2 and it’s one of the least favorite entries in the Final Fantasy games. But this wasn’t it.

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Devil May Cry 1: Go to DMC

Last year (that’s weird to say) Capcom graced us with 2 video games, Resident Evil 2 (the remake) and Devil May Cry 5. I’ve always wanted to get into the Devil May Cry series because I loved the 2013 remake, but anytime I would start the 1st game, life would happen and I would lose interest.

I discovered that the Xbox Game Pass has Devil May Cry 5 and that kinda pushed me to playing the series in its entirety. Plus I bought the games a couple of months ago on PS4 from a big summer sale. So I’m prepared for this hack ’n’ slash binge.

We start this journey with Devil May Cry 1. The plot of the game is pretty simple, we have Dante (the son of Sparda and his human mother Eva) and Trish, who visits his office because she knows that he hunts demons, etc. She tells him of the demon Mundus (who killed Dante’s family) and he’s coming back. So they make their trip to this castle, where the majority of the game takes place.

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Fairy Fencer F Advent Dark Force: JRPGeez

Earlier this month Sony announced a price change to PS Now. What was originally a highly expensive program with too many games to play, now it’s reasonably priced. But similar to Netflix there’s too much content and, for me, it’s very difficult to narrow down the large selection to just one game.

I was successful though. My selection was a JRPG called Fairy Fencer F Advent Dark Force (quite a mouthful). It’s a remake of the PS3 game called Fairy Fencer F. I chose this game because Yoshitaka Amano (of Final Fantasy and Vampire Hunter D fame) did some promo artwork and it looked cool. Plus, it’s included with PS Now.

Btw, spoilers, proceed with caution.

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Final Fantasy VIII: Fresh Coat of Paint

With long running video game series, the first one you play is always the best. Such is the case with many games I have played through the years. There’s Street Fighter 2, Dragon Quest VII, Elder Scrolls 3, NHL 2001, etc.

But today I’m blogging about my first Final Fantasy game, which is Final Fantasy VIII. FFVIII will always be my favorite Final Fantasy game, it’s better than VII in my opinion. When Square Enix was re-releasing all the other FF games, it made me a little sad that VIII was excluded, even if they alleged to losing the source code. I never thought we would be getting a remaster of the game, until E3 this year.

There was shock, surprise and finally the early September release date. I didn’t expect the game to release so soon (I was expecting a Christmas release because Square Enix likes to drag those release dates out with occasional delays).

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