My Final Fantasy Thesis

Friday, November 14, 2014

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Current Game(s): Final Fantasy X-2, Final Fantasy XI

Current Play Time(Final Fantasy X-2): ~138:00
Current Play Time(Final Fantasy XI): ~145:00
Total Play Time - 1,311:34 (+)

Current Game Overs(FF X-2) - 10
Current Deaths(FF XI) - 50
Total Game Overs: 72

Where I Currently Am(FF X-2): Chapter 4... in NG+! (100% Complete, Bestiary *100*% Complete)

Where I Currently Am(FF XI): Windurst Mission 6-1. Currently Levelling Up some Side Jobs (Current Levels RDM 76/THF 30... BLM 50... DNC 45)

Stuff Did Today (FF X-2): Finished up Chapter 3 today. Kind of an easy chapter... the one thing I did not do was get any PR or Marraige points... yes I do realize that may cost me a 3rd Mascot Dressphere, but honestly, I really don't think I'm going to get get Episode Completes everywhere anyway... there's really no point...

Stuff Did Today (FF XI): No server issues today... made it up to DNC 45

Status & Notes:

So, after looking into things... I DO need to do a few things in Chapter 4. Most important I have to see The Besaid scenes to see Beclem leave.... I have to see the Kilika scenes with the balloons and Dona and Barthello, etc. The Zanarkand scenes so Isaaru leves for Bevelle, and the Mi'ihen sidequest... so, you know... you can do the Mi'ihen Sidequest... everything else in Chapter 4 is purely for nothing or some story points... which again, mean nothing on a second playthrough.

The OCD in me is a little disappointed I went and skipped the PR campaign since I can't get episode complete there... but really since the only thing I NEED in this second playthrough is another shot at the Djose experiment to learn Annihilator... I can live with it. I already have an extra Mascot Dressphere from the Creature Creator minigame anyway.

Today is going to be a lighter day, as its another one of those special RL days I mentioned earlier. Can't really get into it... we should get some X-2 time tonight, and hopefully I'll be onto Chapter 5 and can actually start getting to work on what needs to get done.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Day #551 Recap

Current Game(s): Final Fantasy X-2, Final Fantasy XI

Current Play Time(Final Fantasy X-2): ~138:00
Current Play Time(Final Fantasy XI): ~145:00
Total Play Time - 1,311:34 (+)

Current Game Overs(FF X-2) - 10
Current Deaths(FF XI) - 50
Total Game Overs: 72

Where I Currently Am(FF X-2): Chapter 3... in NG+! (100% Complete, Bestiary *100*% Complete)

Where I Currently Am(FF XI): Windurst Mission 6-1. Currently Levelling Up some Side Jobs (Current Levels RDM 76/THF 30... BLM 50... DNC 38)

Stuff Did Today (FF X-2): Finished up Chapter 2 and headed into Chapter 3. Once in Chapter 3, I just had time to get a couple things done. That being the Sphere Break tournament in Luca... which happily netted me the Sphere Break trophy, as well as the Mi'ihen Highroad incident, and checking up on Leblanc in Guadosalam.

Stuff Did Today (FF XI): Finally got some play time in here today. Logged in and woohoo! 2x exp boost! This was pretty awesome... however, an emergency maintenance and some sort of error that caused my computer to not be able to communicate with the server kind of rained on my parade... so, up to Dancer 38...

Status & Notes:

So, starting in Vana'diel today, apparently there was a big patch that added in a lot of stuff, like the end of the Seekers of Adoulin storyline and a new system called Unity Concord which lets you align yourself with different factions in game... I don't really know too much about it yet, but when I do, I'll be sure to write about it here!!!

So, 2x exp is in effect for quite a while, which is really awesome... should be able to hit DNC 50 in no time, and once that is done, I'm actually going to go ahead and start going through some more missions!!! Yay... storyline.

In Spira, wow, it is so much nicer to do all these dungeons without random battles... especially Bevelle Underground.... I hate that place... also it is nice to not have to care about getting the stuff from the Gaol and what not.. just speed through. Man will I say the same thing soon about Chapter 4... I don't *think* viewing anything in particular is required for doing Episode Completes anywhere... I'll check on that though. So, yeah, if you haven't guessed, I'm just speeding through to Chapter 5... where I'll open up the Central Expanse and hit Special level 5 on the experiment really fast. Once I do that, I'll spend some time back in the Fiend Arena basically just unlocking the teams I need to learn Blue Bullet skills... Annihilator is the *only* blue bullet skill you can't learn in the Fiend Arena. Once I get that done, it'll be time to get the rest of the trophies I need... including 99,999 damage, 99 chain, and *shudder* a blitzball victory... I hate X-2 blitzball, you have no control...

So, yeah, that's what's coming up... and once all that is done, it is on to Last Mission!!! Which kind of reminds me of Digimon World 2... but that's another story...

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Day #550 Recap

Current Game(s): Final Fantasy X-2, Final Fantasy XI

Current Play Time(Final Fantasy X-2): ~135:00
Current Play Time(Final Fantasy XI): ~145:00
Total Play Time - 1,308:34 (+)

Current Game Overs(FF X-2) - 10
Current Deaths(FF XI) - 50
Total Game Overs: 72

Where I Currently Am(FF X-2): Chapter 2... in NG+! (100% Complete, Bestiary *100*% Complete)

Where I Currently Am(FF XI): Windurst Mission 6-1. Currently Levelling Up some Side Jobs (Current Levels RDM 76/THF 30... BLM 50... DNC 30)

Stuff Did Today (FF X-2): Got most of the way through Chapter 2... played shortly with alot of the sidequests and what not. Only Gagazet and Bikanel left before the Guadosalam/Bevelle missions...

Stuff Did Today (FF XI): None

Status & Notes:

Moving along through Chapter 2. Like I said before, I want to do enough that I can get Episode Completes everywhere... really doesn't take too long when there's no random battles, thankfully.

Took a small amount of time to play around with Tower Calibration in the Thunder Plains, and the Gunner's Gauntlet in Besaid... Actually got 7 of 10 towers calibrated on my first try. I wasn't going to take the time to calibrate all of them, just figured it would be fun to see how good my skills kept up. My gunner gauntlet run was... just awful. I got like 1300 points... blech.

Oh right... I was going to take some time to talk about the X2 ending. My first impression with the ending is it makes the people of Spira look like an absolute bunch of sheep... now this shouldn't be surprising, because they absolutely are... they went from the world where they completely trusted Yevon... and we all saw how well that worked... to a world where they needed a Yevon replacement, and ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE apparently went and followed one of the 3 factions... Spira needs a stupid 12 step program!!!! Authority Addicts... all of them! So, I guess the Gullwings not attending the press conference or whatever you want to call it, is the metaphor for them not being caught up in the whole addiction cycle... that's my view of it all... the story is really bad... it was based off of trying to trick us into caring about these Shuyin and Lenne characters because they happen to look like Yuna and Tidus... but let's face it... we don't.. we don't!

Alright... today, I think we're FINALLY going to get some XI play time in again... as well, as finishing up Chapter 2 and getting into Chapter 3 in X2.

Monday, November 10, 2014

Day #549 Recap

Current Game(s): Final Fantasy X-2, Final Fantasy XI

Current Play Time(Final Fantasy X-2): ~135:00
Current Play Time(Final Fantasy XI): ~145:00
Total Play Time - 1,308:34 (+)

Current Game Overs(FF X-2) - 10
Current Deaths(FF XI) - 50
Total Game Overs: 72

Where I Currently Am(FF X-2): Chapter 2... in NG+! (100% Complete, Bestiary *100*% Complete)

Where I Currently Am(FF XI): Windurst Mission 6-1. Currently Levelling Up some Side Jobs (Current Levels RDM 76/THF 30... BLM 50... DNC 30)

Stuff Did Today (FF X-2): After being completely dumb and thinking I could do things without being in NG+... I came back to my senses and went back into NG+. I went through Chapter 1, making sure to gr ab some stuff I missed in the first playthrough... most notably...

The Garment Grid in Luca... the Garment Grid at the Youth League HQ... and the Garment Grid from getting all the passwords right in Kilika.

As we started Chapter 2, I gave the "Awesome Sphere" to New Yevon... which boosted my score to 100%... and then loaded up the Ending on Creature Creator... and it is indeed a completely different ending... which doesn't show the Bonus Ending... oh well...

So... back to Chapter 2...

Stuff Did Today (FF XI): None

Status & Notes:

Oh the amount of things I had wrong yesterday... heh... so, no obviously I can't get Annihilator Blue Bullet in my first playthrough since I already destroyed the experiment on 5/5/5 mode... so it can't be repaired again. Also, the "Ending" from creature creator is indeed an ending you can create a NG+ at any point of the game, so that is kind of nice I guess... real quick way to get max Warrior Dresspheres for whatever that is worth... (nothing)

The nice thing about New Game + at least is at least you get to play with the Charm Bangle the entire time, and there's no need to really harp on details that might miss you story points, because as you can see above I've already hit 100%... and I'm not going for 107% or whatever the actual maximum is... so really I can just speed through the game... if I really wanted I could JUST do the hotspots and speed through the chapters, but I do at least want to do all the areas, in case there is something I can pick up... like I know I need Macalania Woods for one of the Garment Grids I missed, etc.

So... sigh... we're getting there... but at least I've gotten a lot done. Very much looking forward to getting to Last Mission in the very near future.

Sunday, November 9, 2014

Day #548 Recap

Current Game(s): Final Fantasy X-2, Final Fantasy XI

Current Play Time(Final Fantasy X-2): ~126:00
Current Play Time(Final Fantasy XI): ~145:00
Total Play Time - 1,299:34 (+)

Current Game Overs(FF X-2) - 10
Current Deaths(FF XI) - 50
Total Game Overs: 72

Where I Currently Am(FF X-2): Chapter 1... in NG+! (99% Complete, Bestiary *100*% Complete)

Where I Currently Am(FF XI): Windurst Mission 6-1. Currently Levelling Up some Side Jobs (Current Levels RDM 76/THF 30... BLM 50... DNC 30)

Stuff Did Today (FF X-2): Finished running through Via Infinito back down to Cloister 100 where Paragon was waiting for me... thankfully I made sure that weapons were currently oversouled... so took out oversouled Paragon and headed into the Depths of Bevelle. Made it to the towers and fought about 6 Precepts Guards until it oversouled... with that done I returned to the Celsius and spoke to Shinra who gave me the almighty THE END Garment Grid...

With that taken care of, it was time to finally head into the Farplane Abyss... as we entered we encountered some Keyboards, a brief search of the area and we discovered the right notes to play... what is this Goonies?!?!? We did this a few times and came upon some weird floating platforms where they wanted us to play the melody again... but screw figuring that out, I'll fight the boss monster instead... fought an Azi Dahaka and continued on... to Vegnagun!!!

As we approached Vegnagun we sae that Shuyin/Baralai is in the controls... Nooj was there... he came up with a plan, that of coursed involved him commiting suicide... Yuna decided she didn't like that idea... then Gippal showed up with Leblanc and gang. We decided we were going to dismantle this big Machina and everyone was going to help... and by help, of course, we mean getting their ass kicked until we show up to help them... So, we fought Vegnagun's Tail, then its leg... and then its head...

We defeated them all... which apparently made Vegnagun very excited because it made its giant cannon become erect... yep I went there. We took that down pretty fast... and then Shuyin came to talk to us. We put on our Lenne dressphere to try and persuade him to stop, but eventually he realized the illusion and attacked... apparently he thinks like Nooj, because that was quite suicidal.

So, with Shuyin defeated, we talked to him again... this time Lenne's spirit disassociated from Yuna's dressphere and the two got to have their moment and dissipated into pyreflies... and the world is saved... yay... so, the first thing to do obviously is hold a press conference in Luca. Baralai, Nooj, and Gippal apologized for pitting their factions against each other, and thanked Yuna for saving the world... again.... Yuna decided not to attend the conference and fly "home" on the Celsius.. I assume Besaid, but who can really say.

After the credits roll, its New Game + time!!! After getting our Garment Grid back from Leblanc... again, we headed back to the Celsius and immediately headed to the Creature Creator... we ran some tournaments to level up some and more importantly grab 5 SP traps. With them we caught Leblanc, Ormi, Logos, Kimahri, and Lulu... doing so then unlocked Shinra in our Bestiary... and why is that important??? Well, I didn't know this, but now I do. Selecting Shinra in the Bestiary lets you IMMEDIATELY skip to the ending of the game! Woohoo!!!!

Stuff Did Today (FF XI): None

Status & Notes:

Well, that is actualy a REALLY cool bonus for completing the Creature Creator. For a game that most likely people are going to have to play through more than once to get up to 100%, it is quite awesome to just be able to skip the rest of the game to go see the bonus ending. Yes, it requires a LOT of work catching all the monsters in the Creature Creator, but it still seems totally worth it.

Now, what's next, now that we're in NG+??? Well, I still obviously saved my previous file. This is important because I plan to use it just to obtain some leftover trophies I haven't gotten yet... because part of the playthrough is that I do plan on getting the Platinum Medal for the game. Also, I'm going to use the second playthrough as a method for learning Blue Bullet skills, which I completely ignored in my first playthrough. Now, yes, it does involve me actually going through the game a bunch to collect the Blue Bullets, but that's not really a big deal, we can still do pretty much a minimal playthrough and get everything we need. So, yeah, collect the rest of the Garment Grids we need, collect the trophies, collect all the Blue Bullet skills... and we'll move on to Last Mission...

As for the ending and my feelings about the plot... I'll talk about tomorrow...

UPDATE: yeah I am dumb. After doing some more research... I figure it will be a lot easier to do all the blue bullet stuff back in my chapter 5 file. I still have repair manuals and I can learn the rest in the fiend arena. Sure ill have to go back through the end of the game again and farm the sp traps but in the end this will be far quicker.