Bloodborne: First Impressions

Whetting your appetite! (with blood)

     I haven’t been this excited about a game in awhile. Since, well, Dark Souls II. I’d say my excitement level for Bloodborne has matched what it was for DSII. My excitement was quenched, then quelled, then a bit tempered, then flared about again, all in one night. I played from roughly 9:45pm to 2:15am (a nice chunk of change there) last night, and I, like many who dove in for the first time yesterday, have some first impressions. I wanna keep this short, because I still want to post a “Week 1 diary entry” for probably Friday, March 27. In fact, I just decided right now, in real time, to just make this a bullet point list. I love bullet point lists. They give you all the neat and tidiness of a normal list, plus the aggression of bullets (Bloodborne features bullets heavily, so that’s a third whammy right there!)

(SPOILERS MAY ABOUND! READ WITH CAUTION!)

• The game looks gorgeous. I’m still in the first main city (Central Yharnam. Yikes, what an awful word to spell!), and it has that very Gothic look (and feel) that they’ve shown in all the press releases and screenshots, but I like it. Pretty different from most Souls games
• Enemy variety is decent. It’s mostly villagers of various types. There are some wolf/beast kind of guys, plus some weird birds. There’s also a gigantic pig that looks so good I’d say he’s my favorite enemy of the game so far
• I love all the blood. Copious amounts of the stuff. Your character gets coated with it too, which looks really badass
• I’ve discovered two bosses so far. The first, The Cleric Beast, was fairly easy. Beat him my first try, matter of fact. The second boss, Father Gascoigne, is HARD AS HELL and has killed me at least a dozen times so far.
• Cleric Beast was a gigantic monster. I have missed monster boss designs. I loved Dark Souls II (more than most it seems), but it had way too many human/knight-type bosses
• Some negatives now: Yes, the loading times suck. After death, it takes anywhere from 30-40 seconds to reload. I am stunned that load times are a problem in the year 2015. Isn’t this PS1-era garbage? I hear it is going to be addressed in an upcoming patch. Let's all cross our fingers
• I have read of people complaining about bad frame rates. I haven't encountered anything like that. Game runs smoothly.
• So far, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot in terms of weapon or armor variety. You can pick one of three weapons to start with (an axe, a cane, or that saw-blade thing everyone has seen by now). I played for close to five hours last night, and I only found one weapon (albeit a killer sword/hammer combo), and I found no armor (you can buy a set from the merchant in the Hunter’s Dream)
• I’m loving the gun. Seems so weird to have a gun in a Souls-type game, but it fits perfectly. It makes parrying a thing I can actually do!
• Also, even though there isn’t a huge weapon variety early on, you can still attack with your normal heavy/light attacks. Instead of two-handing weapons (which I miss), you can transform your weapon to something different. My small axe transforms to a larger axe that I actually do two-hand, ironically enough. Plus, this new formation has unique light/heavy attacks. Plus, you can do “charge attacks”, which are powerful, long-winded, stamina draining attacks where you hold down the heavy attack button (R2) and then attack. So that’s six unique attacks with one weapon. Not too shabby
• Speaking of combat, when you are locked on to an enemy, when you hit circle to roll, you instead strafe. This is effective, but it isn’t as effective as just being able to roll. Gonna take some time adjusting to it
• I don’t miss shields at all
• You seem to receive a pitiful amount of Blood Echoes early in the game. Tough to really bank them so far
• I found very few of the red spectres (similar to the bloodstains in previous games) actually worked. I would click on one, and it would just disappear. Disappointing, but I guess understandable, given it was the first day the servers were up.
• At first I thought that the enemies dropped a very generous amount of Blood Vials and Quicksilver Bullets. But after being stuck on this boss for awhile, I’ve basically exhausted my supply.
• Which brings me to this: farming (so far) sucks in this game. That’s due to one thing: those dag-nabbid load times. Very tedious. I kind of miss the days of killing enemies then running back to a nearby Bonfire to revive them all.
• Being able to recover health with attacks to enemies after YOU’VE received damage is a nice addition, but I don’t find myself fully utilizing it. I need to stop being so passive and just be as aggressive as the game wants me to be!
• Not that it's too surprising, but I have no real idea what's going on with the story
• Lots of dream references. I'm hardly breaking new ground, but I like this. I LOVE dream-stuff

    My biggest takeaway from my time spent playing on my first night is this: This is undeniably a Souls game, yet it’s also not really a Souls game. So much is almost identical to the previous three titles (walking/rolling animations, health/stamina bars, the very look of the game, the way items glow on downed enemies and bodies throughout the world, being able to leave notes/messages and being able to see the final seconds of someone’s life before they were killed, etc), yet there is a LOT of new/different stuff (guns, Blood Vials, scaling back of the number of stats, the emphasis on faster, more aggressive combat, etc) . This is gonna be a game that I play for awhile, and I see myself playing through it a few times (also to hopefully nab the Platinum trophy. I have it in the previous three, might as well get it for this one too). For my first hour or so, I was ready to call this easily the best game in the series. I'll have to really reserve that judgement until I've put more than 5 hours into it. Some of the quirks/inconveniences/unlikable things in the game started to show through after my first hour of playing. I know I'm going to (most likely, anyway) love this game, and I am already obsessing about it the way I've done with the past three games. It's just great to be playing a brand new adventure from the Dark Souls director. Happy hunting, everyone! See you all soon!

A professional-looking screenshot! I love it

Introduction to Bloodborne-mania

No need to wait 40 seconds here

    As you all probably know, the game Bloodborne was just released today. It's essentially the spiritual successor to either the Souls series as a whole, or specifically Demon's Souls. At any rate, it's basically the next Souls game. And that's a cause for great celebration. So here's how the celebrating is going down on this blog:

    I'm going to be writing about this game. A. Lot. I'm going to do with this what I wanted to do with Dark Souls II when it came out last year (and inspired me to resurrect my years-dead blog), which is a weekly (perhaps more frequent?) diary entry, much like I did with Final Fantasy IV Advance. That worked out quite well, I'd say. I've decided to do two separate weekly posts: one being a general, "what has happened during my play sessions during the week", and one that, of course, focuses on bosses. I don't think there are as many bosses in this one as were in DSII, but I still expect 20+, which is a damn good number. So I think I'm going to have a notebook right next to my bed, and take my general/boss notes on it, then probably bring it to work the next day and convert it to a blog post during my lunch. There's some great news about this too! Since the Playstaion 4 has screenshot capture capability built right in, I can actually get GOOD pictures to go along with the words I write. That's pretty damn exciting. For Dark Souls II, I posted about each boss, but the first several didn't have pictures. Even when I started implementing pictures, many were of very sub par quality. Not this time around!

    I want to keep this post pretty short, but that's the general idea of what you'll be seeing on this blog for the next roughly 8+ weeks. I mean, that's not ALL I'll be posting, but it'll be a 90/10 split between Bloodborne and EVERYTHING ELSE. What is that everything else? Well, if all else fails, I should have a B-LOG SLAYING write up of Castlevania: Circle of the Moon in the coming weeks. I'm at the end of the game (it's pretty damn hard, and decently long), so it should be beat soon. Otherwise, I'll really start up Alone in the Dark, and I'll have a write up of that as well. I haven't abandoned Child of Light, and I'd like to try to keep playing through that as well, but I wouldn't expect that write up any time soon. I will say right here, that game kicks major ass.

    I think that about sums it all up. I expect some people to lose interest in what I'm going to be writing here, but I also expect to pick up some new (or, new-ish) readers. There's lots of feverish Bloodborne fans out there I know between Facebook (ugh, I'm back on that), Twitter, and Instagram. For one final extra bit of goodness, I'm going to list everything I know about the game (it isn't much) before heading into it. It'll be interesting to look back in a few months and realize just how blind I went into it. As a final final note, I REALLY AM TRYING TO DO THIS BLIND. I said that with DSII, but ending up being too obsessed, and I just accidentally read too much.  If it all possible, I'm going to make my way, solo, blind through this game. Wish me luck. And to everyone else who is going to be playing, good luck to you! If anyone wants to add me on PSN, my name is nosferat3.

• First, the bad. I hear the loading times after dying can reach up to 40 seconds. Ugh. I didn't want to believe that when I first read it over the weekend. I'm assuming they can patch it at least
• I also hear there are some frame rate problems. This doesn't bother me at all. I actually had no problem with Blighttown. 
• That's all the bad! I've heard that it is a beautiful looking game with a great world
• I know it's laid out very cleverly and hearkens back to Dark Souls with the way shortcuts become accessible
• Much faster-paced combat. No shields!
• I read in that Edge magazine review that was leaked a few days ago that there was some mechanic that they were forbade to speak about at that time. I wonder that that could be?
• Chalice Dungeons!
• Finally, you can sort of find friends to play with using some sort of password system. Interesting

HAPPY HUNTING EVERYONE!

B-LOG SLAYING: Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins

Portable Mario! And he wears cute bunny ears!

 

    What is there to say about Mario as a character, and the Super Mario Bros franchise as a whole, that hasn't been said a million times over during the past 30-odd years? Me, being the barely-coherent clown that I am, certainly couldn't provide anything wholly unique as far as praising Mario for him basically resurrecting the video game market, but I can at least talk about a lesser-known handheld game that he starred in! That game is, of course, Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins. I have had a very vague knowledge of the game for a while, but recently I decided I wanted to play it. Truthfully I've been dying to play a Mario game for some time now, and this one has satiated that need for the most part. I ordered it from Amazon with a Christmas (remember that holiday?) gift card. I'm pretty sure I started playing it the day it arrived in the mail. On the whole, over four-or-five sittings, it took a little over three hours.

Probably the best enemy in Mario history

    With Mario, you basically know what you're getting. Especially on a handheld console, and one so "primitive" (I mean no disrespect) as the original Gameboy. What we have here is a short, concise, fun, Mario game that spans six worlds with dozens of levels. You can essentially tackle the worlds in any order you want, so you get a certain amount of freedom from the beginning. Each world holds a certain number of typical Mario-style platform levels. Each world has a boss at the end, and each boss surrenders a coin upon defeat. These would be the eponymous six golden coins. Once you acquire all six, a door to Wario's Castle opens up, and you can go through his bullshit area and fight him.
    There are some secret areas/levels as well, but I didn't try to hard to find them. But at some point down the road I'll try for a more complete playthrough. With ALL that being said, what are the cons and pros of this game? Let's find it!

CONS:

• It's most likely from the limitations of the hardware, but the game world is sparse and empty-feeling. There also doesn't seem to be enough levels
• The game, on the whole, is pretty damn easy. The exception? Wario's Castle. Unless I just suck that damn bad. I didn't enjoy that difficulty spike at the very end.  
• The penalty for a game over (having to beat all six bosses to gain the six golden coins again) seems pretty harsh

PROS:

• Despite the more-simplified gameplay, this game is still great fun. Classic Mario with a few new wrinkles thrown in
• I appreciate the few new ideas they throw in (the bunny power-up; 100 coins NOT giving you a 1-up; even 1-ups themselves aren't mushrooms, but hearts!)
• Short and sweet

    Probably my biggest complaint with the game is that it's just so empty. I know, I know, it came out for the original Gameboy in the early 90's. I don't consider this a game-breaking complaint by any means, but it makes the game feel hollow. Let me elaborate a bit. There are six worlds, as I've said, and each world has anywhere from 2-5 (or 6) levels. How the hell could a Mario game have a world with only TWO LEVELS? That's the Space Zone (in truth, I believe it has a secret level as well). This makes the Space Zone seem incredibly rushed and afterthought-y. It's disappointing, because the Space Zone is probably the most interesting, considering you jump around in a low gravity area. Pretty cool really. Most of the worlds don't feel fleshed out, or BIG enough though.

And you get deprived of Mario in his space suit!

    On the whole, this game is pretty easy. Over a few sittings, or took me a little over three hours to beat. I'm fairly confident that I could sit down now and play through it in 90 minutes, or so. This is mostly because the game is pretty easy. However, once you open up the door to Wario's Castle, shit gets real, real fast. Firstly, the Castle is decently long, with several different, distinct sections. Again, I could probably get through it easily enough now, now that I have a good knowledge of it. For my first playthrough, it was rough. There's tough, timed jumps, difficult-to-dodge obstacles, a few semi-annoying "mini bosses" (hardly. More like just tougher normal enemies), but mostly it's just long and nerve-wracking. Now, this may all just be coming from me. Maybe I just suck at this game so much that the final level seemed tough. At any rate, Wario's Castle is where I encountered my first (and thankfully only) game over. Hey, what a great segue! 

    Game overs are generally pretty harsh mistresses. And why should they not be? The game over is a gamer's ultimate nightmare. Usually. To get a game over in this game means having to beat ALL SIX BOSSES again. Yup, when you run out of lives, you see Wario's door to his Castle, and you watch helplessly as all six of those golden coins fly up in the air, and back to their respective bosses. I had figured that a game over would mean I started back at the beginning of the Castle, with three lives and no (normal) coins. Nope. I had to go through six levels and beat six bosses again. Suffice to say, I made damn sure I wasn't so reckless with my lives. The whole process seems pretty harsh for such an easy, light game. Oh well, that's what I get for playing like an asshole. Oh, and the game autosaves, so don't even think about just shutting the Gameboy off if you lose all your lives. 

    Cons? Done! Now onto pros! 

    It's hard to fuck up a Mario game. Even with this limited hard/software, this is still pretty classic Mario fun. It's no Super Mario Bros 3 or Super Mario World (or Yoshi's Island. My personal favorite Mario). The levels are constructed with lots of platforming, lots of enemies/obstacles to kill/destroy, and just generally lots of that classic action. The controls are pretty standard and they feel pretty good. I played this on my Gameboy Advance SP because I can't stand playing anything on my Gameboy Color. It looks like shit and it hurts my neck/head to play. Playing it on the GBA SP gives you some extra color as well, which is nice. The point is it felt good to play on the SP. I wish I could say more of the game play, but there really isn't much else to say.

The map is certainly reminiscent of Super Mario World

    This game throws in a few new things which I'm honestly not sure they've done since. Firstly, besides the normal power up mushroom, you get both the classic Fire Flower power up and one of the best Mario powers ever: the Bunny Ears. They allow you to float after you jump. They are immensely satisfying to use. They are also fun, and they make parts in the game easier because you can just float. 

Cute as a goddamn button

    Not a big deal, but instead of the green 1-up mushrooms, 1-ups are represented by hearts. I assume they did this because the Gameboy had so few colors to use that it would have been hard to differentiate the 1-up mushroom and the normal mushroom. Or maybe they wanted something different. What the hell do I know? Also, coins work pretty differently. Instead of collecting 100 coins and getting a 1-up, you can collect up to 999 coins and use them in a gambling game that you can find on the overworld map. You can potentially win (I think) 30 1-ups (plus other things). I actually like this. I just like different things in the Mario formula. 

    Finally, as I've blabbed about already, this game is short. I think this is a good thing because it perfectly fits in with it being a handheld game. You can pick up and play for just a few minutes if that's all you have. It's a game I could see myself playing again soon, in part because it is so short. As AMAZING as Final Fantasy IV Advance was, I probably won't play  it again for awhile because it represents another 25+ hours I gotta give up.
    Okay, let's talk about bosses (I got all these boss names from a 6 Golden Coins wiki (which I of course didn't write down). I have no idea why they are so bizarre)!

BOSSES:

Tatanga

Pooping dodgeballs?

   

    He flies from one side of the screen to the other. He shoots balls from below his spaceship that come towards you, but they fly up into space at the last second. He also shoots crescents straight ahead as he hovers. Just jump (no gravity, so be careful!) on his head as he flies from one side to the other.

Kurosu

 

 

Oh those beautiful scan lines

    He flies around from one side of the screen to the other. Three hops on his head will put him down. Very easy

Rikki

 

Ouch

    There are three pipes: one on the left side of the wall, two on the right. The rat just goes in one and randomly (maybe) comes out a different one. Again, just gotta jump on him three times. It’s kinda tough because he’s very fast, but it’s hardly unmanageable.

Sabasa

 

Was this the inspiration for that dumb witch from Yoshi's Island?

    There’s three cauldrons on the ground. The witch just disappears and reappears and shoots fireballs. They will either come at you, or go to the bottom of the cauldrons, causing the lids to erupt up. Pretty easy to avoid all her attacks though.

Three Little Pigheads

 

Three Little Assholes (um, that sounds disgusting)

    Besides Wario, this boss gave me the toughest time. There are three pigs, and you have to beat all three. The first comes down and rolls around. You need to jump on him three times. Every time you jump on him, he gets faster. After three jumps, the next pig comes out. He will hop around the room. Again, with each hit, he gets quicker. After he is dispatched, the final pig comes out. He also jumps, but jumps much higher and is tough to jump on his head. Get him three times, and these fuckers are dead and gone.

Pako

 

Very suspicious

    This boss swims around an underwater area. He expels smaller octopi. All you really have to do is swim near the top and jump out of the water, and land on his head. Very easy.

Wario

 

Look at this goofy piece of crap

    The battle with Wario is a long and multi-layered one. It starts in his throne room. He runs around the room and stomps around. There are these light bulb-looking things that constantly move at the top of the screen. When Wario jumps and lands, one of these lights will fall. This first part of the battle is easy. Dodge Wario and his falling lights, and jump on his head three times.
    He runs into the next room after you jump on him three times. You can grab a carrot to get the bunny power-up before entering the room. Wario himself gets a carrot to get the bunny power-up. Otherwise, the lights still move along the top of the screen. Wario jumps and floats around and eventually he'll stomp down. Again, this causes a light to fall. Just jump (and float) to avoid Wario, and give him three knocks on the head.
    The next part of the battle has Wario getting a fire flower (grab the mushroom in the previous room if you need it). There's no more lights that fall, but Wario can shoot large fireballs (as you would imagine). He also runs around the room and jumps. His fireballs are slow and pretty easy to dodge. Just jump on his head, you guessed it, three times, and Wario turns into a small child-like evil troll (???) that cries. You take Wario's Castle, and that's that. The game is beaten!


    And that'll do it, ladies and germs (are people still saying that? "ladies and germs"? I'll have to look into it). It's a pretty simple game, and this is a pretty simple blog post. Don't mind that it took me about six weeks to write it. I would certainly suggest this game to anyone looking for a lighthearted, short, yet quite fun Mario adventure. Don't mind those Gameboy graphics! Thanks for reading, and check back soon (?) for more B-LOG SLAYING posts!

Da end

VG Resolutions: February Edition (updates)

Now: More Timely!

    I know it's only been about two-or-so weeks since my last "monthly" update, but luckily I actually have the time do it sooner. So, February. It's the shortest month. Not a lot of time to game with only those lowly 28 days. And actually, my February was pretty shitty. In fact, one of the shittiest on record for me. Aside from us moving (and all the stress and work that comes with that); my company also moving (and all the stress, work, and sad feelings about leaving some good people behind); me re-aggravating an earlier back injury TWO DAYS BEFORE moving (it's better now!); my daughter getting pneumonia (and subsequently having a scary allergic reaction to her prescription); and in general just royal garbage, I didn't get much time to write or game. Which is why I haven't updated this since Feb. 12.
    But that's okay! We're in March, and everything in general is much better. But, hey, you don't want to read about my personal life. You're here for one thing, and one thing only: hardcore nudity good writing insert funny joke here video games! Unfortunately, I got even less done in February that I did in January, and my resolutions are starting to look ridiculously foolhardy. Still, we must press on!

I'd like to beat a majority of the handheld games I currently own (as of 1/1/2015)

    I haven't beaten anything since my January post. I am however playing through two handheld games. And those of you who follow me on Instagram (@kalameet, get to it!) know what two games those are: Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (awesome game so far) for the GBA, and Alone in the Dark: New Nightmare (eh, not as amazing) for the GBC. Will I beat a majority of the handheld games I own? This one seems to be the most attainable of all my resolutions, mainly because my handheld library isn't huge, and I can play them on lunch and in general, away from home.




I'd like to play games on every console I own

    I've played on all the same consoles as last month, with one huge addition: PS4 baby! Yup, finally got myself one, and I've been playing through The Last of Us: Remastered. I still plan on getting through some 360 and Wii games. Also, I have a working, legitimate NES, so I expect to set them up sooner rather than later to play it.




I need to stop stressing over this damn blog

    Well, yes, I stopped stressing over this blog in February. Mainly because I had like 500 other things to stress over. Now that things have settled down, I'd like to write a lot more on it. And with Bloodborne coming out in a few short weeks, expect all sorts of unapologetic posts about it.



I want to BEAT these games:

1. Dragon Quest VIII (PS2)
2. Any one of the PS1/PS2 era Final Fantasy games (barring XI)
3. Ni No Kuni (PS3)
4. (finish) Alan Wake (360)
5. Child of Light (PS3)
6. Clock Tower 3 (PS2)
7. Duck Tales (NES)
8. Faxanadu (NES)
9. Star Tropics (NES)
10. Galerians (PS1)
11. (finish) Golden Sun: Lost Age (GBA)
12. Granstream Saga (PS1)
13. Magic Sword (SNES)
14. Condemned: Criminal Origins (360)
15. Pier Solar and the Great Architects (Mega Drive, via PS3)
16. Tales of the Abyss (3DS)
17. (finish) Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii)
18. Undead Nightmare (Red Dead Redemption DLC) (PS3)
19. Resident Evil 4 (PS2)
20. Secret of Evermore (SNES)
21. At least one (but preferably all three) original Splatterhouse games (Arcade/Mega Drive, via PS3)
1. Original arcade Splatterhouse (Jan)
22. At least one of the following two RPGs from the Sonic Ultimate Genesis Collection (Shining Force or Phantasy Star) (PS3)
23. Ico (PS3)
24. (finish) The Legend of Zelda (NES)
25. Ys III (SNES)
26. Ocarina of Time (3DS)
27. One of the following two handheld Castlevanias (Circle of the Moon or Rondo of Blood-from Dracula X Chronicles) (GBA or PSP)
28. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (GB) (Jan)
29. Final Fantasy Legend III (GB)
30. Suikoden (PS1, via PS3)

    Well, this list looks identical to last month's. Oi vey. I will say, if I can get my ass in gear, I could have at least Circle of the Moon and Child of Light done by my self-imposed deadline of March 23. We all know what drops the following day. No need to mention bloodborneit again. So, hopefully this list has a few more through-lines in it next month. Because I have a feeling it's going to stall after March.


    Okay, a few more "state of the blog" items here:

• I don't remember if I mentioned this before, but I've been playing (on and off again) Ultimate NES Remix for the 3DS. I'm not writing about it on this blog. I'm also playing through Last of Us: Remastered. I'm not covering that on this blog either. I need SOME games where I don't have to take studious notes, take pictures, remember boss strategies, and in general just kill myself by filling up all the empty space in my brain with this crap. I am playing Child of Light (PS3), Circle of the Moon (GBA), and Alone in the Dark: New Nightmare (GBC). All three of those WILL be covered in this blog.
• Some of you may have noticed that I took all my Simpsons writing off of here. Fear not, I'm creating (well, it's created, and published, but I haven't had a chance to really work on it yet) another blog, dedicated strictly to The Simpsons. I moved all of my Simpsons stuff there for now. I'm still planning on adding lots of content to that, but when can I find the damn time?
• Finally, yes, Bloodborne comes out on March 24. I have my PS4. I have reserved and paid the game off already. I will be getting it, and playing it, on the 24th. I haven't fully decided what I want to do with it yet. The two schools of thought are these:
• Play it through the week, and post weekly diary posts, much like I did with my playthrough of Final Fantasy IV Advance
• Instead of that, take the Dark Souls II route, and write a separate post for each boss I fight. This would make my Bloodborne posts number in, at least, the low-twenties. 

    So that's all, everybody! Thanks for being patient, and stayed tuned for Nosferat2's Emporium of Bloodborne. 

VG Resolutions: January Edition (updates)

Flying out of the gates of 2015

    I wanted to do a monthly "how am I doing with my video game resolutions?" post, because I wanna be serious with them and keep up as best as I can. Unfortunately, I realize now, after a month and a half, that I set the bar WAAAAAY too high for games to beat in 2015. I think I had it set at 25. [author's note: Just looked. Nope. 30 games. I'm not even gonna come CLOSE to beating them all] Yikes. Considering Bloodborne comes out in about five weeks, and also considering that that game is going to take up just about all my non-handheld gaming time from March 24 until at least sometime in May, yeah, I'm screwed. And this post itself is two weeks late. Damn. Oh well, please enjoy!



I'd like to beat a majority of the handheld games I currently own (as of 1/1/2015)

    Well, I beat one handheld game in January. That being, of course, Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins for the original Gameboy. Of course, this wasn't a huge one in the backlog list, considering I just added it at the beginning of January. Oh well, that's one beaten anyway!



I'd like to play games on every console I own

    It's still too early to say much about this one. So far, I've played games on my PS3, my Gameboy Advance, my Gameboy (through my GBA, because it just looks way better), and my 3DS. That's not too bad. I plan on playing more in the upcoming months (with special emphasis on my 360 and the Wii, two very neglected consoles).



I need to stop stressing over this damn blog 

    I would say I have not been stressing as much, but I still worry about it more than I need to. However, based on the fact that I haven't updated this blog as much as I want to so far this year, maybe that means I'm not even worrying about it too much. That, or I'm just a lazy S.O.B. You decided! 



I want to BEAT these games:

1. Dragon Quest VIII (PS2)
2. Any one of the PS1/PS2 era Final Fantasy games (barring XI)
3. Ni No Kuni (PS3)
4. (finish) Alan Wake (360)
5. Child of Light (PS3)
6. Clock Tower 3 (PS2)
7. Duck Tales (NES)
8. Faxanadu (NES)
9. Star Tropics (NES)
10. Galerians (PS1)
11. (finish) Golden Sun: Lost Age (GBA)
12. Granstream Saga (PS1)
13. Magic Sword (SNES)
14. Condemned: Criminal Origins (360)
15. Pier Solar and the Great Architects (Mega Drive, via PS3)
16. Tales of the Abyss (3DS)
17. (finish) Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii)
18. Undead Nightmare (Red Dead Redemption DLC) (PS3)
19. Resident Evil 4 (PS2)
20. Secret of Evermore (SNES)
21. At least one (but preferably all three) original Splatterhouse games (Arcade/Mega Drive, via PS3)
1. Original arcade Splatterhouse (Jan)
22. At least one of the following two RPGs from the Sonic Ultimate Genesis Collection (Shining Force or Phantasy Star) (PS3)
23. Ico (PS3)
24. (finish) The Legend of Zelda (NES)
25. Ys III (SNES)
26. Ocarina of Time (3DS)
27. One of the following two handheld Castlevanias (Circle of the Moon or Rondo of Blood-from Dracula X Chronicles) (GBA or PSP)
28. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (GB) (Jan)
29. Final Fantasy Legend III (GB)
30. Suikoden (PS1, via PS3) 

    Okay, two games down. Technically, I only need to beat two-and-a-half games a month to complete all these games. That's of course assuming I play NO OTHER GAMES but these. I'm close to that pace. But, as I've said, I will have Bloodborne coming, along with Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin for PS4, along with a swathe of other "current-gen" games I'd love to play. So...yeah, my proverbial eyes were WAY bigger than my proverbial stomach when I made this list (my eyes were bigger than my thumbs?).  At any rate, for the rest of February and most of March I'd like to try to get through some of these. I'm currently playing Child of Light, and I fully expect that to be beaten by Bloodborne's release (March 24, FYI). Even though it's not on here, Alone in the Dark: New Nightmare for Gameboy Color is another I plan on getting through soon. After that, I'm going to tackle one of those Castlevania games up there. Who knows, maybe I'll hook up the NES and fly through a few short ones.


    At any rate, that's my January overview. Not looking great so far, but I'll persevere! Thanks for reading and tune in soon to some more great fun

B-LOG SLAYING: Final Fantasy IV Advance (abridged)

Abridged too far!

    Hey, you may have heard, but I have been playing Final Fantasy IV Advance since the beginning of December. You may have also heard I just last night completed it. And you also also may have heard that I've been writing weekly diary updates about my virgin playthrough of it. Well, if you've heard all those things, you'd have good ears!  Normally, I do a write up of completed games, and I give these write ups the garrish name of B-LOG SLAYING. I generally go pretty in depth into the games I've played, and I discuss what I liked and didn't like about them. I also include lots of pictures. Bloated, you could call them. Well, this particular B-LOG SLAYING isn't going to be that. I've talked at length about this game, in eight seperate posts. I'm not going to rehash it all right here. What I AM going to do here is link back to those eight articles, plus list a traditional "cons/pros" list, and VERY BRIEFLY discuss them. So, as I've been wont to say, without further adieu, let's jump into this fun-ness!

FIRSTLY, HERE ARE THE LINKS TO THE PREVIOUS EIGHT POSTS:

WEEK 1

WEEK 2

WEEK 3

WEEK 4

WEEK 5

WEEK 6

WEEK 7

WEEK 8

SECONDLY, HERE ARE MY "CONS/PROS" FOR THIS GAME:

    CONS:

• Not a huge variety in both enemy sprites and dungeon designs
• LOTS of random encounters. 
• The story starts pretty strong (I'd say), but it loses steam a bit in the middle and towards the end. 
• Finally, NO ONE DIES in this game. It's not a big complaint, but you SEE several characters die, but they don't stay dead. Except poor Tellah, of course

PROS:

• Great graphics for the GBA
• ADDICTING gameplay. It's simple, and it's turn-based, but I NEVER wanted to shut off my GBA. Not for one second. I don't rememeber the last game I played that I did not want to stop playing
• While I'm sure this is true of a large majority of RPGs, this game has a lot of boss battles. They are almost all fun and varied

    Allow me to discuss these individual points very quickly! You don't notice until you are several dungeons in, but there is not a lot in the variety of the enemy sprites. The same ones are recycled time and time again, with only a name change and a palette swap. I think the dungeon bland-ness is worse. How many underground cave dungeons does one game need? There must be five or six at least off the top of my head.
    I haven't played a traditional turn-based RPG in a long while. I want to get that out in the open. Holy shit there are TONS of random encounters. Sometimes, in a dungeon, you'll start one battle, finish it, take three steps, and another one starts. It gets very annoying. I remember this being a problem in Breath of Fire III as well (awesome game, by the by).
    I was genuinely intriguted at the start of the story. The king had turned evil and was having his personal guard steal and murder people to find these powerful Crystals. Hell, Cecil and Kain MURDER AN ENTIRE VILLAGE (not that they knew they were doing it, though) within the first like 30 minutes of the game. Once Golbez is revealed as the villain (or is he?), it gets a little cliched. He didn't have much depth at all. I did enjoy the fact that all the Crystals open up a path straight to the Moon. But then, more than three-quarters of the way into the game, the REAL villain of the game is revealed to be someone (or something) named Zemus. BUT! He's not ACTUALLY the villain. His true form, Zeromus, is the REAL TOTALLY TRUE EVIL villian. The ending was silly as hell too.
    A minor complaint, but throughout this game, you see (or the game implies) the following characters die: Yang, Tellah, Palom and Porom, Cid, and even Rydia. Only Tellah (and his unforuntate daughter Anna) truly seems to have died. Why couldn't they have killed Edward? He's the shittiest character in the game!


    I really enjoy the look of the game. Again, this was my first playthrough ever, so I don't have the SNES version to compare against. Well, I can look at screenshots. And screenshots between the GBA version and SNES version reveal that the GBA version looks way the hell better. All the sprites in this one are vibrant and interesting looking. The only graphical drawback is the look of many of the dungeons are awfully bland and boring, mainly because they are all the same.
    Obviously, I loved this game. I wrote a shit load of words about it. I've dedicated 25+ hours of my life to play it. The gameplay, as stated, is pretty simplistic, but it's so much damn fun I don't even care. I'm hardly a prude who won't play an old turn-based RPG because some of the mechanics haven't aged well. That stuff doesn't bother me. Simply put: if you are any kind of RPG enthusiast, play this game!
    Bosses! This game has 'em in spades! They are all fun to fight (with a few exceptions), and they usually look great. I will say, none of them are very big. Even Zeromus isn't huge. And bosses like Bahamut and Leviathan you would think would be gigantic, but really they are kind of small. Oops, this is supposed to be positive! Look, the bosses are fun!

THIRDLY, AND FINALLY, HERE ARE THOSE BOSSES!

    Because I love you all so much, here is a nice (linked) list to all the boss battles in the game. Follow the links to read the specifics on each one.


MIST DRAGON

OCTOMAMMOTH

ANTLION

MOM BOMB

SCARMIGLIONE (and Skullnant Zombies)

SCARMIGLIONE (true form)

DARK KNIGHT

BAIGAN (plus Left and Right arms)

CAGNAZZO

DARK ELF/DARK DRAGON

MAGUS SISTERS

BARBERICCIA

CALCABRINA

GOLBEZ

DOCTOR AND BARNABAS

DOCTOR LUGAE

KING and QUEEN (of Eblan)

RUBICANTE

DEMON WALL

ELEMENTAL LORD (all four in a row)

CPU and ATTACK & DEFENSE NODES

ASURA

LEVIATHAN

BAHAMUT

WHITE DRAGON

PLAGUE

LUNASAUR (x2)

DARK BAHAMUT

OGOPOGO

ZEROMUS


    And that's all folks! I'd like to sincerely thank everyone that has kept up with this diary, and in general anyone that has enjoyed my writing over the last almost-year. I'll see you all soon, with more video game/Simpsons (maybe some silly music lists too) nonsense  

Final Fantasy IV Advance Diary, Week 8: THE ENDGAME

The end is nigh!

How would he even know?

 

    Here's the final weekly post of my Final Fantasy IV Advance exploits. I'm gonna switch it up and list the boss info first, then my write up of the rest of the game. Please enjoy!

DAY 28 (2/10/15. PLAYTIME: 23:11 TO 25:17)

Zeromus:

 

Zeromus, not true form

    If you read my Week 7 post, you know I tried, and failed, to beat Zeromus. Here's my second attempt, which I successfully did last night: 

    Okay, this second battle against Zeromus went MUCH better than the one a few days ago. To start out, instead of immediately using the Crystal and jumping into the meat of the battle, I had Rosa cast Haste on herself and Rydia, and Shell on the whole party, in hopes that it would take some damage off of Big Bang. I honestly have no idea if any of that worked, though.
    When I used the Crystal and the battle really started, I began with cast of Bahamut and I had Kain Jump. I was able to get a Bahamut off, and Kain jumped, before he used Big Bang. It only killed Rydia [author's note: it may have killed someone else. I don't entirely remember. I was too focused and nervous about surviving to take great (or, any) notes. So sue me!] ! Rosa used a group Curaja, and everyone was basically back to normal. 

Zeromus, true form, after using the Crystal

  

    For the remainder of the battle, I had Kain Jump, Cecil and Edge attack, and Rosa either use Curaja, Full-Life on the dead people, and even a single cast of Holy (which did AWESOME damage).
    At some point, Rosa ran low on MP, so I had Edge throw her an Elixir. I was eventually able to Full-Life Rydia, and I had all five party members attacking. Towards the end, Edge, Rosa, and Rydia were all killed. I was able to Phoenix Down and Elixir Rosa (who subsequently Full-Life'd Rydia). With Cecil's attacks, Kain's Jumps, and Rydia's Bahamut (I kept Edge dead because he's clearly the weakest and least necessary), I was finally able to bring down Zeromus. It was a tense battle through and through. However, though tense it may have been, it wasn't that difficult. He has a lot of HP and his Big Bang attack can be deadly, but otherwise all you have to do is stay on top of your Curajas and otherwise unleash hell on him.
    I beat him on my second try. Between the first and second try, I leveled everyone up three-or-four levels. They were all mid-to-high-50s. I wouldn't call this the toughest boss in the game. He's close, but for me, going by pure amount of deaths, both Dark Bahamut and the two Lunasaurs killed me each 3-5 times. 

    Story wise, I mentioned it in my last post, but I'll go a bit more in depth. You find Golbez and Fusoya fighting Zemus. They beat him handily, but then he comes back as the monstrous Zeromus. Golbez and Fusoya try again, but they get annihilated.
   Zeromus knocks everyone else out. Just when everything looks most dire, we cut to the Tower of Prayer and see everyone there. Somehow, they know how poorly it's going against Zeromus, so they all pray very hard to the Moon. Cut back to said Moon and a battle scene. All the previous characters (yes, even Tellah. It may be his spirit or something, which is why I thought he was still alive) show up and restore your party to full HP/MP. After this, the battle starts.
    Once you dispatch this (awesome-looking) motherfucker, you watch the S L O W E S T boss death animation ever (it's very satisfying at least). Then, you get a nice, silly little epilogue where it seems everyone lives happily ever after. Full disclosure here: I missed some of this because my daughter woke up from her sleep (she's sick!) and I had to go sit with her. Just know everyone has a happy ending (and Golbez!). Even Tellah, who it's hinted at that he and his daughter Anna have reunited in the afterlife. 

Or is it?

    Well, folks, I think that's about it. I've written eight posts about this game. That's a lot (it doesn't reach my 40+ Dark Souls II posts, but it's a clear second place). I have one more upcoming as well. Think of it as an abridged B-LOG SLAYING (which is what I'm going to name it, actually). It'll have a lot of links to the various posts I wrote. So, look for that very soon. Thank you very much for your patience over this 8+ week period. It's been a helluva a lot of fun, and I like this weekly diary format. In all likelihood, the next game I'll be doing a diary on will be Bloodborne. Sorry right now for the spam I'm going to be posting from that.

    One final note: after beating the game, a new dungeon on the Moon, called the Lunar Ruins, opens it. There are several more bosses and challenges that await within. I thought about playing through it, but what is the point? The game is beaten. What can I possibly gain, besides just an extended amount of time playing this game. One day, maybe I'll play through it. Not now. 

    And now finally, here are my end-game stats, right after the credits rolled:

Final Fantasy IV Advance Diary, Week 7

Not quite the endgame. More like the grindy-game (???)

This pic sums up pretty well all the death I went through this week

DAY 23 (2/3/15. PLAYTIME: 19:37 TO 19:53)

    I had played over the weekend (on Saturday, 1/31) for about a half an hour, and I got a little ways into the Lunar Subterrane. At some point, you find lots of treasure chests. Some have items, and some have super powerful monsters. The combo of a Blue and Red Dragon that popped out of a chest killed me.
    So fast forward to Tuesday, on my lunch break. TWO MORE TIMES I was killed. Once by more monsters from treasure chests (two Red Dragons this time), and then once by one of the optional boss battles throughout the cave (two Lunasuars, this time). So, I gotta start again at the beginning. Ugh, this place is very tough. I did kill one easy boss for one of Edge's ultimate weapons, at least.

BOSS:

WHITE DRAGON (to obtain Murasame)

Petrified coiled poo? (sorry, that's gross)

    Not too tough of a battle, but it's annoying. The White Dragon LOVES casting Slow, and I'm pretty sure everyone was Slowed by the end of the battle. Otherwise, he'll attack normally and use Maelstrom, which we leave everyone with only 4-6 HP left. A very dangerous attack, but a group Curaja will do (especially since the Dragon doesn't attack that often. He's too busy using Slow). I had Cecil and Edge Attack, Kain use Jump, and Rydia summon Bahamut (Rosa heals, obvi!). After at least three Bahamuts and lots of other attacks, the White Dragon went down.

---------------------------------------------------------

DAY 24 (2/5/15. PLAYTIME: 19:54 TO 20:41)

    Made my way through the Lunar Subterrane again. I avoided opening most chests, as they can be chock-full of tough monsters, and I got to a save point close to the bottom. This save point is right near the two boss battles listed below. I tried the Lunasaurs three times, then stopped to beat Plague. I went back and tried the Lunasuars again, and on my fifth total try, I bested them. Let me tell you, it is TORTURE just running past so many treasure chests. And there really are, SO MANY TREASURE CHESTS. Probably more than in any other dungeon in the game. Oh well, it's not worth dying over. Otherwise, I used an online walkthrough to find the other save point on the fifth level, and I saved it there. I believe there's another boss fight to obtain a great weapon in this area. I will do that next time I play.

BOSS:

PLAGUE (to obtain Holy Lance):

What is there to even say anymore?

    A large floating eyeball that really doesn't care to attack you. He takes a much more passive approach: casting Doom on the whole party. After this, it's basically just an all-out attack-fest to try to kill him before the timers run out. Luckily, some Jumps, some Bahamuts, and some general attacking took him down easily enough. Otherwise, he will caste Haste on people, to, I assume, speed up the timers. He's pretty easy though. Not like the fucking Lunasaurs.




LUNASAUR (x2) (to obtain two Ribbons)

THESE GUYS!

    Well, these fuckers killed me. They didn't seem too bad for most of the battle, until one of them used an attack called Bad Breath. It caused frog, silence, confuse, and maybe other things, to the entire party. After that, forget it, the party was decimated a few turns later. Otherwise, they cast Reflect, Bio (which RAVAGES), and use a fire attack (Flame I think it's called?). I shut it off right after being killed.
    Attempt number two went just as badly. As soon as Bad Breath was cast, that was the fucking end. At least I realized there's a save point right next to them. So I didn't lose all my damn progress. Time for attempt number three!
    Bad Breath'd again. Fuck.
    Four attempts. Still cannot beat these fuckers. ALL THEY DO IS CAST BIO! It causes anywhere between 1,600-2,800 points of damage. Fuck me with a Reflected Bio.
    On attempt number five, I finally took these shitheads down. Besides my normal attacking patterns, I had Edge Throw some weapons I wasn't using. These did huge damage. Otherwise, I just walloped them, because they didn't case Bad Breath. And the reward? Two head-pieces that prevent various status ailments. This would have been MUCH MORE HELPFUL before this battle. Oi vey

---------------------------------------------------------

DAY 25 (2/6/15. PLAYTIME: 20:42 TO 22:00)

   

    Tried to fight Dark Bahamut (who's right outside the save point I last used) SEVERAL times with disastrous results. So I spent most of the rest of the time playing just leveling up. After a while of this, I went back (with everyone up at least three levels) and beat, BARELY, Dark Bahamut. That was pretty much it, despite the fact that I played for a good chunk of time. Saved it shortly thereafter 

BOSS:

DARK BAHAMUT (to obtain Ragnarok):

Hey! It's Bahamut, but darker!

    Yikes. I thought the Lunasaurs were tough. At least I could get 75% through those battles before dying. Dark Bahamut would kill me in 4-6 turns. He starts off immediately casting Mega Flare, which at first killed everyone but Rosa (and sometimes Kain). Afterward, all he does is cast Reflect on himself, then casts Flare on himself, which Reflects back for 1,000-2,000 points of damage. Occasionally he will cast Restore on himself, which will restore 6,000 HP. I had to grind everyone two-or-three levels to finally beat this guy. It took me five-or-six tries.
    On my successful attempt, his Mega Flare killed everyone but Rosa and Cecil. I had Cecil attack and Rosa heal every turn. At some point, I was able to Full-Life Kain, who I Jumped with. I attacked with Cecil, Jumped with Kain, and healed furiously with Rosa. At the very end, I Full-Life'd Edge as well. Only Rydia was dead. I was on my toes this whole battle. VERY HARD 

 ---------------------------------------------------------

DAY 27 (2/7/15. PLAYTIME: 22:01 TO 23:10)

    Went down to the end of the dungeon. After level 7, the monster battles are accompanied by boss battle music. And they can be pretty tough. Got to the bottom and fought Ogopogo to acquire the final ultimate weapon.
    Went and found Golbez and Fusoya at the very end, and they are kicking Zemus's ass. They kill him, but he resurrects himself as a monster named Zeromus. He annihilates Golbez and Fusoya, then proceeds to kill the party. Everyone on earth, standing in that Tower of Prayer, know that the party has been killed (do they have a telescope that can see clearly to the Moon?). They all pray really hard, and this brings back the party. [note: apparently goddamn Tellah IS STILL ALIVE? Oi vey] Before he is killed (??), Golbez gives Cecil a Crystal, to show Zeromus's true form.
    When the final battle starts, Cecil can use the recently acquired Crystal to force Zeromus into his true form. After this, the real battle begins (he doesn't attack prior to this).
    He started off with an attack called Big Bang that hit everyone for 2,500-3,000 damage each. This killed all but Kain and Cecil. He used this attack several more times as well, which means I need to grind some more to get my levels up. My party just needs more health to withstand this attack. Otherwise this first attempt at the final boss didn't last very long. 

BOSS:

OGOPOGO (to obtain Masamune) 

Hey! It's like Leviathan, but it's Ogopogo-ier

    This is quite an easy battle. He starts by casting Tidal Wave twice in a row. This hurts everyone a bit, doing roughly 1,300-1,600 damage. Luckily a group Curaja fixes this. He doesn't have anything else NEARLY this powerful. Just had Cecil and Edge attack, Rydia Bahamut, Kain Jump, and of course Rosa heals. This battle is certainly no Dark Bahamut or Lunasaurs

    Okay, I'll have one more weekly-post for this game, and it'll be just a rundown of final battle. I gave a brief description of the beginning of it up there, but I'll go more in depth for the final post. Thanks for sticking around with me for 7+ weeks so far. I'm going to put up an abridged B-LOG post as well in the coming weeks. Keep on grinding on!

Final Fantasy IV Advance Diary, Week 6

Kicking ass across three worlds!

No pic? No problem! (sorry for laziness/forgetfulness)

DAY 19 (1/26/15. PLAYTIME: 14:55 TO 15:44) pt. 1

    Another day spent mostly grinding the Lunar Path on the Moon. Got everyone to either level 40 or 39. After doing this for almost 40 minutes, I finally decided to press on. I went through a few more Lunar Paths and emerged at the Crystal Palace. It's here that I met a strange old man, with an even stranger name (Fusoya). He explains that Cecil is a descendant of a Lunarian (people who live on the Moon). The voice Cecil heard at Mt. Ordeals, so long ago, was that of his father. Fusoya tells him he has the power to defeat Golbez. He says we now must rush back to the Tower of Babel. Finally, the old man joins the party!
    Other than this, I didn't do a whole lot more. I've been doing a lot more grinding lately (it seems), so I apologize if these posts aren't quite as meaty as they usually are. It's all part of the master plan, of course!

• I have so far narrowed down my three favorite songs in this game: the boss battle music, the normal airship music, and the overworld Moon music. All are amazing and very catchy. Otherwise, the music overall is good, but not wholly memorable

 
    I played today for quite a bit. I played for close to an hour on my lunch break, like normal, but I then played for about 90 minutes more after when I was home. I'm gonna separate this day 19 post into two smaller, more digestible parts!

DAY 19 (1/26/15. PLAYTIME: 15:45 TO 17:22) pt. 2

    Went back to Earth (to go to the Tower of Babel), and got a nice "cutscene" of the Giant of Babel waking up. The Dwarf King comes with his tanks, and Cid comes with his airships, all to fight this giant beast. We are also treated to nice shots of several characters from the game's past. Hey, guess who isn't dead? Yang! So, what exactly happened to him in that cannon room is anyone's guess, I feel that the writer's weren't too clear with that. At any rate, at least he's alive!
    Oh yeah,  Porom and Palom are alive. Yaay. Also Edward makes an appearance. So, instead of this game CONSTANTLY killing main characters, like I had thought, they actually don't kill ANYONE! I think the only REALLY dead character is Tellah, yet I can't even be 100% confident about that (even though I watched him die. I watched P & P turn themselves to stone, but hey, what the hell!). Anyway, after this you enter the Giant. You make your way down to his core, and here you fight the toughest boss(es) of the game, by far. After this, you fight a MUCH easier boss. After THIS Golbez shows up. Fusoya makes him remember who he is. Turns out, he's Cecil's brother! Woah! And he was being controlled, this whole time, by something (or someone) called Zemus. Golbez and Fusoya go to the Moon to confront Zemus. So, Golbez is really a great guy, but since he has Lunarian blood, he's more easily controllable? Sure, Final Fantasy IV, whatever you say.
    Speaking of people who are easily controllable, Kain shows up and joins again! He says if he betrays the party again, you can kill him. Fair enough. So now the party is Cecil, Kain, Edge, Rosa, and Rydia. Not too shabby. I shut it off shortly after these boss battles. Let's get down to brass taxes!

• While I still feel like it's pretty interesting, the story of this game is definitely not as strong as I felt it was at the beginning. There was a lot of intrigue about why the king was acting such a fool, and why did Golbez want all the Crystals? But, now Golbez is good (I guess?), and a new, even more evil person/entity is mentioned, like 85% through the game? And characters come back even though they clearly should be dead? Plus, you go to the Moon (which I think is cool actually). It's just getting a little silly. 
• Despite that, I still find this game IMMENSELY ENTERTAINING and I am just absolutely loving it. 
• I kind of hope Golbez joins the party to be a playable character. That would be awesome!

BOSS:

ELEMENTAL LORD:

Which one doesn't belong?

    Holy shit. BY FAR the toughest fight in the game. It's essentially a gauntlet where you have to fight all four newly resurrected Elemental lords, back to back to back to back. [note: I took pictures of three of the Lords, but I neglected to take a picture of Cagnazzo. Instead of posting four individual pics of the Lords, I just put them in this neat collage up there. Finally, I just recycled the picture of Cagnazzo from the first fight. Deal with it] The order goes: Scarmiglione, Rubicante, Cagnazzo, and Barbericcia. Basic strategy throughout: Cecil and Edge attack, Fusoya uses Quake (or heals, or uses items when mp is low), Rosa obviously provides INCEDIBLY VALUABLE healing support, with group Curajas thrown around like play money. Rydia spams Titan. That's basically what I did the whole time. Two notes, Edge's Blitz heals (at least Scarmiglione. I was too scared to try them after that) a little bit. I tried Holy (Fusoya) on Scarmiglione. DON'T! It healed him in excess of 8,000 HP!


CPU & ATTACK AND DEFENSE NODE:

Eh, I have nothing to say for this boring boss

    After the very tough Elemental Lord fight, you fight this very easy battle. You go into the heart of the Giant, and fight this CPU, and it's Attack and Defense Nodes. This big thing controls the Giant. It looks pretty boring, and well, it is pretty boring. Firstly, the Attack Node, if you couldn't guess, attacks. The Defense Node heals the CPU (as seen in the picture above) with 3,000 HP. The first order of business was to destroy it. It doesn't have much health, so it's pretty easy. After this, I attacked the Attack Node. Once both the Nodes were destroyed, I unleashed everything I had at the CPU. After a while, the CPU restores the two Nodes, so they had to be destroyed again. There's not much strategy here, it's all about just crushing those Nodes and unleashing hell on that CPU.

---------------------------------------------------------

DAY 20 (1/28/15. PLAYTIME: 17:23 TO 18:05)

    Well, picked up where I last left off (oddly enough), just chilling on the moon. I went to the small cave that has weird Moon people (are THESE the Lunarians?) to stock up on Hi-potions, Phoenix Downs, and a few Ethers. Then, as I was flying to find that Crystal Palace again, I found a very conspicuous-looking cave. I entered.
    It's the Cave of Bahamut. I don't know much about it, besides (and this can be deducted from the very name of the cave) the fact that I would assume Rydia can get the Bahamut summon here. I spent the remainder of my lunch break just working my way through this area. It's not TOO bad, except there are three instances of mandatory battle against a very tough enemy in the Behemoth. Firstly, magic does NOTHING against him, so Rydia is BEYOND useless. But he's not officially a boss, so I don't feel like getting into the battles. It boils down to a very neglected (by me) spell, Blink, which works wonders.
    After every battle with the Behemoths, I ran all the way out of the cave (not a super big cave, luckily) to use a Tent and to save. It wasn't until after I beat the third one that I realized I could use the damn Teleport spell to get out of the dungeon. I saved and shut it off right before what I assume is the battle with Bahamut. I'm not expecting it to be easy or short, so I'll need some time. That will hopefully be my next day's post!

• I find the idea that Bahamut lives deep underground in a cave in the Moon incredibly awesome. It adds such depth to the mythos of the creature. Fucking sweet (*thumbs up*)
• I know there are a few more optional areas, and I was debating if I should use a guide to find them. I really wanna keep this as blind a first playthrough as I can, so I think I'm going to search for them myself. If I really can't find them, I'm going to go ahead and finish the game first, create another save, and THEN use a guide to complete the side quests.

BOSS:

    NONE!

---------------------------------------------------------

 

DAY 21 (1/29/15. PLAYTIME: 18:06 TO 18:56)

    Got to what I had correctly guessed as being the end of the Bahamut Cave, and there's some asshole there (Summoner God maybe?) that says essentially I haven't been blessed by the King Summoner, so, that's that. I can't do anything more here until I talk to this King Summoner. Damn. Well, I think my next task is to find the Land of the Summoners. I know they've mentioned it in-game a few times, and I think I remember my friend Max saying it was in the Underworld.
    So, I went to the Underworld and found a cave entrance I'd never used before. It's something called the Sylvan Cave. It's full of HP-draining pools of something (poison or ooze). That's where my brief morning session ended.
    Luckily, on my lunch break, I picked up where I had last saved, at the Sylvan Cave. After talking with Max again (who is a veritable Final Fantasy IV encyclopedia), I decided it wasn't worth getting through this cave. I really wanted to find this damn Land of the Summoners. I NEEDED BAHAMUT!
    After flying for a few minutes in the Underworld, I found a small island with a cave on it. Sure enough, this was the Cave of Summons. I made my way through this Cave, and got to a small town at the bottom. Here was the King and Queen of the Summoners. I talked to them, and fought one easy boss battle, before I saved. I should be fighting a second boss battle immediately upon starting the game back up.

• As I've said a few times, I've tried VERY hard not to look at any online walkthroughs. With maybe two small exceptions, I've been very good at just figuring everything out on my own (although it's not a tough game to figure). However, in talking with my friend Max (who I've referenced several times already), I've learned quite a lot about the game. He's helped me (inadvertently really. I've never just asked him for help) with lots of stuff. Just wanted to get that out there. 

BOSS:

ASURA:

U mad bro?

    Very easy. Casted Reflect on her, and that made her Curaga she always uses worthless (she also casts Protect, and bizarrely, Life on herself. By the end of the battle, I think my entire party had Protect on due to her own Protects being Reflected. I love it) Otherwise, Rydia spammed Titan, Kain Jumped, and everyone else just attacked. Very easy battle. You receive the Asura summon as a reward.

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DAY 22 (1/30/15. PLAYTIME: 18:57 TO 19:36)

    After I defeated Asura yesterday, I saved it. Immediately today I fought the King of the Summoners, Leviathan. After I handily whooped his candy ass, I went and delivered a Rat Tail (that I found in the Cave of Summons) to a small, weird guy at a small, weird place called Adamant Grotto. I got Adamantite in return. This, I brought to a small smithy in the Underworld, and I got Excalibur! Pretty dope (note: I used a walkthrough for the very last part. So sue me).
    After this little excursion, there's only one thing left to do before starting the endgame: go get that Bahamut. To the Moon!
    Went through the Cave and got to Bahamut. After a fairly easy (although tricky) battle against the God of the Summons, I now own his ass. After this short fight, I left the cave, Cottage'd up, and made my way to the front of the Crystal Palace. Is this where the end starts? We shall see, we shall see...

• As the end draws near, I can't help but feel a deep sadness. This game has been fairly amazing, and I'm pretty sad to see it come to an end.
• Not sure what else to say. I've said almost everything there is to say about the game in the last six weeks. All I do know, though, is I should be in for lots of boss battles to end the game. I'm chomping at the bit

    

BOSS:

LEVIATHAN:

Derp-level: EXTREME

    Unbelievably, much easier than Asura. Leviathan is slow and barely attacks. I think his only attack is Tidal Wave, which hits everyone, but for minimal damage. Otherwise, he might attack with a physical attack, but it doesn't do much. I had Kain Jump, Cecil attack, Edge use his Blitz ninjitsu (until he ran out of MP, then he attacked normally), Rydia spam Ramuh, and Rosa either group-heal or even cast Haste on people! Using this configuration, I took down Leviathan with ease. Now I can use him as a summon, and now I can go back to the Moon and (presumably) fight Bahamut now!


BAHAMUT:

I was expecting him to be a little bigger, honestly

    I feel a little dirty about this one. It has one trick to it, and if you don't learn it (or know it before hand), this battle would basically be impossible unless you were level 80+. Max (who has supplied me with a wealth of information about the game) had mentioned something about using Reflect in this battle. Which is very odd, considering Bahamut has one attack, and he counts down to it. That attack, of course, is Mega Flare. It does 5,000+ damage to all party members. And that's where Reflect comes in. Unfortunately, I only used Reflect on Rosa first, so he wiped out the other four members of my party with his first Mega Flare. But, besides just shielding Rosa from the damage, the spell was actually reflected back at Bahamas (go figure, huh?), which did 5,000+ damage per time. After the first Mega Flare, he curls up again and starts another countdown (starting at 5). I revived Kain, but couldn't put a Reflect on him. Luckily, he Jumped during the second Mega Flare, so he didn't take damage. After that, I DID put Reflect on Kain, and I also revived Rydia and Reflected her. Edge and Cecil stayed dead for the remainder of the battle. That's okay, because with Kain's Jump, Rydia's Leviathan summon, and the Reflected Mega Flare, Bahamut went down easily. Now I have his services. Time to start this endgame!


    Thanks for reading everyone! Next week's installment might be the final one (get it? Final one? Final Fantasy?). Stay tuned!