lordb0rb4 wrote:
WOW, JUST WOW
This is a SEGA game alright, amazing atmosphere, music and addicting gameplay loop, i manage do defeat Dragon and the second boss after an epic 1 hour battle.
Nice work. That's one of the hardest battles in the game.
Are you doing the quests?
You'll have to fight that boss again..........as part of an escort mission.
lordb0rb4 wrote:
WOW, JUST WOW
This is a SEGA game alright, amazing atmosphere, music and addicting gameplay loop, i manage do defeat Dragon and the second boss after an epic 1 hour battle.
Nice work. That's one of the hardest battles in the game.
Are you doing the quests?
You'll have to fight that boss again..........as part of an escort mission.
My oh my, i had no idea about side-quest, all i do is defeat a boss and talk to the mayor of the ship so next time i boot the game there's a gateway back to the dungeon i unlocked, can you tell me how to do those quests?
Persona 3 - I'm about six hours in and killed the first story boss. Next time I play I should be able to climb more of the tower.
CV: Circle of the Moon - this is the most boring Castlevania I've played. It isn't that much fun. About 95% of the enemies don't pose a threat and there are hordes of them to wade through to get to the next screen. The card system is weird. For one thing the card drops are incredibly rare; I'm halfway through and only have six cards. The attack abilities the cards unlock are only marginally doing more damage so why bother?
I cannot stress enough how little fun Circle of the Moon is providing. I hate to give up on a Summer Challenge game but when Jekyll and Hyde is more engaging I'm not too sure if I'd feel bad quitting.
opa wrote:Persona 3 - I'm about six hours in and killed the first story boss. Next time I play I should be able to climb more of the tower.
CV: Circle of the Moon - this is the most boring Castlevania I've played. It isn't that much fun. About 95% of the enemies don't pose a threat and there are hordes of them to wade through to get to the next screen. The card system is weird. For one thing the card drops are incredibly rare; I'm halfway through and only have six cards. The attack abilities the cards unlock are only marginally doing more damage so why bother?
I cannot stress enough how little fun Circle of the Moon is providing. I hate to give up on a Summer Challenge game but when Jekyll and Hyde is more engaging I'm not too sure if I'd feel bad quitting.
Yeah, COTM is the only castlevania on GBA i haven't finished but the game gets THOUGH mid-game and i'd recommend looking up some guide for cards drops, they're essencial.
lordb0rb4 wrote:
My oh my, i had no idea about side-quest, all i do is defeat a boss and talk to the mayor of the ship so next time i boot the game there's a gateway back to the dungeon i unlocked, can you tell me how to do those quests?
Hold up. You mean you haven't been the Hunter's Guild? This is right next to the "portal" that takes you to the dungeons.
The quests send you to the same dungeons, but with specific objectives. Find this item, kill these enemies, etc. Successfully complete a quest and you get a large amount of money. Fail and you still get to keep the experience and loot accrued so it's a win-win. Some quests have you team up with an AI buddy. In the beginning they'll be stronger than you but towards the end these quests become escort missions. To complete the game you still need to go through the dungeons "normally" as you're doing, but you really want to be reaping the rewards from the quests. Eventually the shops will be selling some really expensive stuff you don't want to miss. Always buy scape dolls and monogrinders.
Back to what I was saying originally, there's a notorious quest (Unsealed Door) where you have to defeat that "worm" boss again, while keeping alive a dude that dies in two hits.
Thank you, gonna try this tonight
I H-A-T-E any kind of escorting mission in any game but some sweet loot is welcome.
When i did say one hour i really meant it, i only managed though heavy use of mono and dimate and Resta 1 , i'm not sure i'm able to do again while protecting a NPC but the hint was appreciated, thank you once again
1. Castlevania III (NES)
2. Probotector (NES)
3. Gate of Thunder (TGCD)
4. Final Fantasy VI (SNES) 5. Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War (SFC) 6. Pilotwings (SNES) 7. Super Tennis (SNES)
8. Command & Conquer: Red Alert (PS1)
9. Turok (N64)
10. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3)
So, I played quite a lot of summer games this weekend. Mostly, I played Fire Emblem. This game is looooong. I spent a solid 6 hours or more on one map this weekend, and there's still 8 more to go yet. I'm hoping things speed up as we progress as units get stronger (so arena grinding is easier/less necessary) and as my units approach max level.
I picked up my file from last year, and managed to figured out who I planned to pair up with who (for the handful of people who know the game: Ayra/Dew, Lex/Tailtiu, Sylvia/Claude, Erin/Lewyn, Raquesis/Azel, Aidean/Finn, Brigid/Holyn). Chapter 3 had a lot going on, but honestly it's still the arena that takes up a lot of the time in reality. I reckon almost half the time for the chapter was spent on the arena.
Anyway, this one is one I'm in for for the long haul, so I might try and play other stuff in between on occasion or else it'll stall progress a lot.
Speaking of progress, I also spent time working through the expert mode of Pilotwings. Expert mode is a real bugger, and to be honest I find it frustrating that almost all the points available for each challenge are based on the landing and not the actual flying part. It's really frustrating narrowly missing a 70 point target area when skydiving and having to start the whole set of challenges for light plane, hang glider and jet pack again because of the very tight point requirements. I eventually pushed through though, and after a few attempts at the helicopter mission (which was easier than excpected), I finished the game. I'll get to a review eventually, but the basic summary is that I really didn't love the game. The sequels are better.
Final Fantasy III (Famicom)
Final Fantasy V (GBA)
Final Fantasy XII (this will be the Zodiac Age rerelease on PS4)
Star Ocean (SNES)
Rudra no Hihou (SNES)
Chrono Trigger (SNES)
It took a few retries and quite a bit of grinding in the room preceding the final boss but I managed to defeat Cloud of Darkness and roll the credits on FFIII. Overall I'm very positive on the game. It naturally has its jank because of its age and I think it lives up to its reputation as one of the hardest Final Fantasy's but on the whole it's a very slick 8-bit RPG which stands as a natural stepping stone to the more ambitious SNES titles.
As far as the jank goes my main issues were with the limited inventory and the over-reliance on gimmick bosses both of which kind of bleed into another. In theory I don't have an issue with having boss battles or even entire dungeons pivot towards being set up to have weaknesses to certain jobs. In this game the most obvious examples are Hyne and Garuda which are basically unbeatable (without massive amounts of grinding) without the Scholar and Dragoon classes respectively. And the game does give you a good amount of heads up when these battles are about to come.
In practice however issues arise from the limited inventory space curtailing how freely you can change between jobs on the fly. Basically, you can't expect to hold enough of the different types of weapons and armour specific to each job so you also can't expect to change jobs on a whim. And even if you did bring a spare mage outfit you won't have any MP charges when you switch over unless you're willing to use an elixir which are pretty rare (there are no ethers or save points in dungeons). I'm playing FFV now and it's always a much smoother transition with a lot of basic gear being shared between jobs. I kind of wish FFIII was like that even if it did make the game easier.
This issue is pretty much alleviated once you get the Invincible airship where fat chocobo takes up residence and you can just dump stuff with him but it does still mean a lot of menu dipping. Then it's further negated once you gain the almighty Ninja and Sage jobs who can equip basically anything between them but by this point you only have the last dungeon and possibly some side areas to do, the main bulk of the game is behind you.
The game is tough and not always necessarily for the right reasons but I did enjoy the harsher nature of proceedings in the main. I used to think it was tough because of the areas where it forces you to cast mini or toad on your party while pelting you with enemies but those areas are actually easily traversed either with a mostly magic based party, a thief or in the case of the Tower of Owen, just, you know, turning back into human. It's probably 18 years since I first emulated FFIII on FCEUX and it never occurred to me until now to just cast toad on myself after entering the hole. What a dope.
Conversely to FFV because of the inability to switch jobs as freely as you'd like, dungeons require prep time and forethought. It's not even a case of over-levelling as I found in the Cave of Darkness with its infamous duplicating enemies. Being the right job or combination of jobs is key here and I can appreciate that, it reminds me of the kind of dungeon prep I'd do in Morrowind which is its own kind of fun.
On the job system, for a first attempt it's not too far off being great but not all jobs seem to be created equal with some having really limited use. Aside from Hyne what need is there for a Scholar? Is there ever a need for a Bard? FFV is much better at giving these roles more personality but for a first pass, FFIII does well.
I also appreciate that while there is more emphasis on story than in the previous two FFs, the game does not become bloated and even with its two worlds, three airships, underwater caves and massive continent sprawling cities. This is more likely down to technical restraints of course but FFIII remains quite a tight 20 hour experience even with grinding. It probably goes without saying that it's the best looking NES FF with some really cool enemy designs. The soundtrack is great as well, there's a good range of catchy tunes for town and dungeons and there's a greater variety of tone to the songs; from the oddball bleeps when your first enter Kazus denoting that something weird is up to the surprising grandeur of the world map theme or final boss battle. Possibly the first truly great Uemetsu soundtrack.
The final dungeon is an absolute mare though. I rocked up all smug with my team in the low level 50's having fairly breezed the Forbidden land Eureka dungeon, only to have the floor wiped by a succession of nasty bosses. Ahriman is just the worse and Cloud herself is pretty obnoxious constantly firing FlareWave turn after turn after turn. I had to basically grind in the room preceding her to about level 60 and if I didn't have the ability to pop a save state (playing on retron5) I might have just abandoned the whole dungeon/game.
Overall though I really highly recommend Final Fantasy III. There are issues but they are ones that can be mitigated with preparation and the greater difficulty just makes it that more satisfying when you do finally send that dark cloudy lady back into the void.
A lot of people seem to dislike Final Fantasy III, but personally I quite like it. I think it does a lot that's interesting and I prefer it to better regarded entries in the series that play it a bit safe, like Final Fantasy IV.
Final Fantasy V does everything III wanted to do but better, but judged on it's own merits I still think it holds up well. V is one of my favourites, so being beaten by one of the best isn't really a sleight on the game!
