So after the last few months, lots of runs, content and work I have hit level 90 on almost everything. Sufficed to say everything will be fully levelled before the expansion hits. Aerian has become a powerhouse in every aspect of the game. Which is more than can realistically be said for me! I still actively avoid tanking, having levelled Warrior entirely through PvP.
Of course with arrival (at long last) of the XBOX folk to XIV, I can essentially play how I like where I like, which I quite like a lot. Course it means I’ll have to invest in a Series X and a new copy of Final Fantasy XIV, which will be the 4th time I’ve bought the game! And the 3rd generation of console! I started on the PS3!
So it’s been mostly working on the levelling of classes. I’ve levelled Gunbreaker and Warrior using PvP, honestly the Roulette XP returns are worth it! Never discount the Daily Roulette bonus’ they are worth a small fortune. Running Daily Roulettes can easily net you a single or two levels per day. I’ve also got complete relic weapons for Summoner and Bard, with Red Mage underway.
But on the upside I’m as solidly prepped for Dawn Trail as I’m going to get now. So its been a lot of playing with glamour’s and working on finishing the Blu Mage stuff,.
It’s fun to watch the melt down over the FF series, like oh the last “real” FF was X or XII depending where they sit. Um no? FF was turn based we get that and it did turn based better than most. After all in the older generations every RPG was compared against FF.
Here’s the thing FF has always evolved, always changed, no two games were ever the same AND YES THATS A GOOD THING! You can play them in any order and not worry about lore and those before/after. Unless it’s addressed as being in the same world. X-2 for example, XIII-2 and XIII-3.
But some things have and always will remain consistent. Great characters, great worlds, and ALWAYS an engaging story! This is why FF and Square have the place they have. Sure they’ve made missteps, 13 was fairly linear, the lack of “open world” since XII has kinda been and adjustment.
So what do they have in common, the thread that makes them a Final Fantasy game? Story telling. Without doubt some of the very best. Final Fantasy was a great entry and for the time 1983, reset the direction a small developer was going, lets not forget Square were all but bankrupt before Final Fantasy turn the companies fortunes around. So it’s so it’s spun upward of 40 titles with the name Final Fantasy. 16 mainline entries and various spin offs.
The fact is Final Fantasy’s story telling has always remained top notch. They always draw you in and always make you want to play. I started my journey with Final Fantasy VII, back in 1999 (I was late to the PlayStation era).
I fell in love with the way they tell stories, and it’s the first game I played I can remember wanting to play again. This hadn’t happened since Zelda Link to the Past. I was a Sega boy through and through but I did enjoy Zelda. I borrowed my Uncles SNES so I could play it. But the way the world of FF7 draws you in is amazing. So much so I replayed it on the PS4 after it was re-released, I think this may be the only game I’ve bought on every platform.
So admittedly was very nervous for the Final Fantasy VII Remake, because it was admittedly my golden game. I was never worried about them changing the game play style, or how it looks. It was only ever gonna look better but the games heart, it’s story, that’s what I wanted them to protect. And they did and then made it better. I was not prepared for the ending!
But of course as time passes, stances will often soften, for example Final Fantasy X-2 was widely hated upon release yet now its a lovable nostalgia trip. I think the game that got most hate was Final Fantasy XIII for it’s step away from the traditional norms of Final Fantasy, it was a very linear progression, a relatively straight run through the game. Sure you could hop around but progression was very linear. I personally enjoyed the story from thirteen and love Lightening as a character. It also of course spun off twice with FFXIII – 2 and FFXIII – 3. The only Final Fantasy Trilogy I remember.
Of course then came the horridly troubled development of Final Fantasy XV and that sadly it does show, it feels like a road trip with a boy band but the writing was still great. My biggest gripe was no central female character, something traditionally Final fantasy has does and does better than any other franchise.
Speaking of troubled development was Final Fantasy XIV 1.0, the disaster was so bad they literally blew up the game world to begin again, and a couple of years later rose as Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. In my opinion the very best writing of any Final Fantasy game. A gamed that has only gotten better with every update over the last decade. I only really ever intended to play until I got the Platinum trophy, yea I’m still here a decade later! If you haven’t played this why not? I’ve literally been playing for a decade and anyone reading this blog has been here every step of the way! I mean I started with the Beta of ARR. If you haven’t played it you have no excuse the first three expansions are FREE to play. It’s currently on PlayStation and PC, and will next year finally arrive on XBOX.
The latest arrival of course is Final Fantasy 16, first of all this is done by Creative Business Unit III, the same team responsible for Final Fantasy XIV. So I was never worried about this game. It’s writing is hammered, well OK maybe the side quests can be a little lack lustre the story itself is great. The game play is simple, maybe too simple if you use the rings, though switch to Final Fantasy Mode, believe me it comes a whole other game! It’s still a fantastic game, I’ve loved every second though admittedly I’ll be glad to see the back of Final Fantasy Mode, I’ve had to work to survive this. The last thing I need to do for this now will be the new DLC and the final one in January.
So I guess the point of this is the Final Fantasy purists are kinda focused on the wrong things, instead of looking what’s different on the surface look at the heart of Final Fantasy’s it’s always about the journey our heroes take. Because that has ALWAYS been consistent, their story has always been the very heart of the games they create.
So here we are October 2023, and progress since July has actually been huge. My primary goal at the moment is to start laying groundwork to be prepared for the Expansion next year. This requires me to grab the high tome gear and ensure I’m geared up correctly for the expansion, usually Tome gear will allow for at least progress through around a third of the expansion unhindered. Added of course to the Manderville Weapon whose final piece will arrive with 6.55.
But as you can see, in terms of current progress all my healers are now 90! As are all my Range DPS, and Magical Ranged DPS. So the next task is to level the Melee DPS and Tanks. It has not proved easy and Dragoon was a very painful experience. I find I’m much more comfortable if I have a decent set of AoE attacks. It takes about 2 weeks to level a class the way I’m currently playing, I suspect it would be faster if I sank more time in. But if I had to class is disliked then I’d definitely have to say Dragoon is my least favourite.
Also at 90 are every Disciple of Hand and Disciple of Land class, though the DoL have been 90 for a while now. And of course I continue to try to make progress toward the Platinum trophy on the PS5. With everything done that matters even into the new 6.5 patch we simple wait until January for the final part of Endwalker and the prequel to Dawntrail.
Farm Girl
Aerian in Wonderland
Scholars in Session
A Little Japanese Flair
It is oddly amusing how somehow this game has become a bit of a fashion game for me, as I craft outfits to amuse myself, I’m most proud of my Sailor Moon and Alice in Wonderland ones. While some can prove costly it’s all in good fun.
Of course I try to keep Aerian within her original narrative as the cocky girl with a big heart. The rebellious natured side comes out during playing healer, trust me folks never make a healer work harder than they have to! But mostly I stick with Summoner and which ever class I’m levelling. At the moment those are Samurai for general Duties and Gunbreaker for PvP.
Holy god has it really been 3 years since I last did one of these? Well um… let’s see the expansion released so added 3 new classes. I’m rather fond of Reaper, it’s fun and looks wicked! I mean a giant scythe? Come on it’s Death at her cutest! A rather fitting of Aerian.
Gatherers are maxed at 90, and with a new expansion on the horizon we’re happy enough. Paladin is now fully levelled as are Scholar, Summoner, Red Mage, Reaper, Sage, Bard and 4 of the 8 crafter classes. I expect all those will done before the expansion. I’ve been mostly focusing on certain in game achievements. And a lot of PvP. I’ve also grabbed around 45% of the in game minions and a couple of newer mounts.
So obviously I finished the expansion and all the subsequent patches to 6.4, and the current Pandemonium dungeons, and the current 24 man raids. So as is normal with me I’ve done everything except current Ex roulette. After all they’re just a pain in the ass and I don’t think I’d ever be geared right. Mostly I’m focused on levelling alternate classes now everything is above 50. Except Blu Mage but that’s not the same thing.
Not being super confident with alternate Tank and Healer classes, I’ve been using the Trust system, the AI parties and I must say that they are far more impressive than they used to be, the AI is a lot more robust that the Squadrons one was. Which is helpful and great, plus who doesn’t like teaming with Alphinaud, Alisaie and Thancred? But yea the AI is surprisingly solid and you can take the dungeons at your own pace with a Tank over pulling everything in sight!
So it’s been in development hell for believe it or not a decade! And while it wont work out to be what I intended, it is going to be something. I am currently working on a brand new version of How Long. From there I’ll work out what’s next for the game and the IP.
The biggest and most obvious change was the switch from Unity to Unreal, which ironically the very first iteration was in Unreal but we switched to Unity for ease of coding.
The History
The history of How Long is a troubled one, but originally came from an idea of how humanity would actually cope in an apocalypse. To take all the bits we love from survival horror over the years and create a game that forced you to make every decision count. To prioritise stealth over brute force, the consequences for using a gun would have been dire.
Our plan was a completely open world environment, explore every building, see how life had gone since the end of the world. Exploration driven, with a compelling narrative about a secret over funded corporation. Anorak BioTechnologies. Just one misstep had ended the world as they tried to cover up their involvement. From the modest home you started in to the power plant, to the docks, we had a huge ambition.
This wont be that, for one I don’t think it’s even possible with todays tech and secondly I’m only one man with a small knowledge. But I am putting together something fun and in the same universe. So who knows perhaps one day our vision will be come a reality.
2023 certainly seems to be the year for survival horror. Some fantastic remakes in play.
Dead Space has finally returned! Honestly this was an absolute blast to revisit this game. And the things Motive added made it feel alive than ever before, they did a hell of job and yet CRUCIALLY protected the story from the original game! Mess with graphics, mechanics, environments but leave alone what made the game great and Dead Spaces story was immense.
I still need to clean up a few things but I did my customary play it my way first! And it felt good, it felt like the old survival we all know and love, so EA if you read this as a fan and decided to redo Dead Space 2 then take it back to this, let Motive do this to Dead Space 2, keep it away from the action based and bring it back it back to just this, simple survival horror that keeps you on edge.
The just throw away Dead Space 3 make a whole new better game! I hated 3 so much so I’ve only ever played it once, I put it down and never looked back.
Callisto Protocol, yes I know it came out in December 2022, but I think it might find its footing. It is clearly based off Dead Space, after all its the original co – creator Glen Schofield who did this. It was nice to find a game that felt like an old school survival horror.
It was nice to play through and they broke the usual hold of the games side kick, I was genuinely surprised by that particular twist, it is also impressive to see a studio like Striking Distance shell out big money to bring in Josh Duhamel as the lead. Callisto almost plays like a movie at points. But keeps you wanting to see it through, though admittedly the ending is frustrating because it’s clearly set up that it isn’t finished yet, I will definitely look forward to DLC.
Dead Island 2 which of course I had an absolute blast through, and Riptide was a worthy addition. It’ll be interesting to see if they can match the hype and expectation of a decade of development.
Dead Island was one of those games that was just pure fun, hack up the undead in as creative and violent a way as possible, relied less on guns and more hand to hand. I truly do love this game. Always have and likely always will.
Resident Evil 4 truthfully still trying to wrap my head around this one, because even today RE4 still stands up as an incredible game and graphically isn’t too bad.
And you know they’re going to change certain elements and that’s OK, if they do what they did with Resident Evil 2, which for me is still the absolute standard for a remake (and I’m a Final Fantasy VII fanboy, but FF7R just isn’t a path on RE2), so long as they leave the story intact, update where it’s needed to include all the lore that’s come since. Honestly I’d love to get a look at the RE Game Bible that thing has gotta be magic by now!
Though personally they should have remade Code Veronica first!
Still probably one of the few that just wanted to shoot the presidents daughter for the sheer force of will it takes to not keep her alive!
Lollipop Chainsaw was just an absolute riot, like seriously I adored this game! It didn’t take zombie killing serious and that made it fun, Juliet Starling is among the most fun of heroes to play with.
Definitely looking forward to this one again.
Add to all of the above DLC for Callisto Protocol, Dying Light 2 and this year shapes up to be the very best in survival horror. There’s also the Silent Hill 2 Remake underway which it’d be nice to see the only real competition to Resident Evil back on the PlayStation find its footing again.
So if I could have 1 wish for a game to be remade sorry folks but its gotta be Dino Crisis, a what if the zombies were dinos and a hell of great game. So yes this is my want.
Wow it’s been just a day over a year since my last update, kinda telling how screwy my life is these days. Anyways what have I been upto? Well constant work on YouTube content. Added to Fallout 76, Final Fantasy XIV and Retro series.
Beyond that its been a little design work and beginning work on a brand new project, yes I’m sure eventually I’ll finish one but this leads back one anyways.
So as you can see I switched out to Unreal, and currently I’m working on new mechanics and systems for a new updated and simplified version of the game promised almost a decade ago.
Its been a horrific year and has indeed taken it’s toll on my mental health, so a majority of this year has been spent working on that, after all I think you folks might miss me if I did anything stupid.
So I’m through the second game in the series and thoroughly enjoyed, though the same gripes with the original, the lack of a map can be frustrating, though the mini map helped locate enemies, I chose to run through big sections of this one in order to get through some sections inside 20 minutes, when I realised I don’t have to fight everything. There are no direct spoilers in this just a few notes to pay attention to.
Again playing the anniversary edition of Halo 2, and the graphical difference is absolutely amazing. A lot of care was put into bringing this game upto a more modern standards. Again I find myself in awe of the games AI and how they don’t just fire blindly or run into danger but instead will do what’s needed to help you through
The lighting effects alone are a massive improvement and the shadowing makes the game feel ever more alive, and the world seem that little bit more real. All the textures were rebuilt, the entire game feels very different but the story remains the same, which ultimately is what I want as I play for the story. The enemies felt at least a little more of a threat, and the new sword was fun to play with, as well as playing both as Master Chief and the Arbiter. Seeing the story from two sides definitely felt different.
And a boss fight at the end of the game was welcomed, took a couple of attempts as it seems he has the ability to take you out in a single hit, alas, plasma grenades stuck to him and a few shotgun blasts finally put him down. Truth was a pain but not super difficult, a boss fight for the end of the game was definitely welcomed.
The world is definitely feeling more and more as I play through this sage. So of course onto Halo 3 we go.
So way back in November of 2001 a game released called Halo Combat Evolved, an FPS game for the Xbox. Now being young, and recently discovering my girlfriend was pregnant I could never afford and Xbox, much less Halo. Plus I was a bit of a Sony fan boy back in the day and so over the years via various means I have attempted to play Halo. Just never quite getting into the swing.
Now in the here and now, having Game Pass Ultimate is a wonderful thing and totally worth £10.99 per month I might add. I finally installed The Master Chief Collection, and a couple of days ago sat down to finally begin my Halo play through. I played through the Anniversary edition, which features updated graphics, music and sound effects but the core game is the same as it was 20 years ago. Seeing as I’m playing for the story as always there was no harm in playing an updated version so far as I’m concerned.
So I found the enemies to be a little comical, almost silly in some ways, hard to find the covenant threatening. The flood on the other hand those guys are nasty at times. Having said that, the game is largely a lot of fun, most of the game I played with the start weapon and a shotgun, which makes light work of just about everything thrown your way. I tell you this though playing a game 20 years back is confusing to say the least, wandering around it made me wonder how we ever got along without in game maps, some portions of the game are massive and it rarely gives you a directional marker. The Warthog vehicle is a nightmare and seemingly has a mind of its, physics wise a lot of this game is pre-motion capture. But the game itself is fun and the story while simple was enough to keep me engaged and entertained.
The ragdoll graphics as ever are amusing and it does lead several times to areas of frustration as I was stuck with my shield and 1 bar of health, I like to play dangerously but little by little and with a little dumb luck I was able to push through. Definitely a fun game. Of course I shall continue next up will be Halo 2, lets see how much has changed since the original and of course how the story unfolds next.
So for those of you paying attention, here’s an updated look at my wrestling stuff, this is pretty much about 80% of my heavy arsenal of moves. So of the big high impact ones I use, and yes the guy I speared is OK! I also finally made my debut with UK Wrestling at our Hallowed Ground Event, a whole night of cage matches and even picked up a title along the way. Also took a fall off the cage but thats another story.
So mostly I’ve been focused on Final Fantasy XIV, with the expansion rapidly approaching I wanted to try and wrap a few things up. So as you can see, I have pushed MCH to level 50, making just 3 below 50 now. Only taken 6 or 7 years to get to that point alas here we are. I’ve picked up a couple more achievements in game and finished up with Relic and Bozjan, trust me I am glad to see the back of that place, though may end up farming crystals for the mount at some point.
The primary focus this week will be on getting a few more episodes of this done, and ready to go. Hopefully I can wrap up Season 1 and get to the end of the 2.0 scenario quests.
The history of How Long is a troubled one, but originally came from an idea of how humanity would actually cope in an apocalypse. To take all the bits we love from survival horror over the years and create a game that forced you to make every decision count. To prioritise stealth over brute force, the consequences for using a gun would have been dire. 
Devils Inc. 2023 