Glad the game seems great, I might check it out!

That being said, I do need to vent about the roguelike approach. It feels like a total inversion of what gaming AND sports are about: learn the rules, master the game, get better. Roguelikes invert this by giving you worse abilities and stats and forcing you to grind - that’s like Mario not being able to jump as high until after 10 hours of grinding or only being allowed to play tennis with a ping pong racquet until you’ve lost 20 tournaments.

Just let a racer be a racer. And let skill decide, not the hours spent leveling up.

To each their own, but my favorite FF games were always the ones where each character had a defined “class” that matched their story. FFIV, VI, VII, IX, X, etc. Then you can customize abilities, gear, and magic on top of that.

Keeping my fingers crossed this doesn’t have the feel of FFIII, V, X-2, Tactics, etc. The second i need to mix and match different jobs to optimize stats my brain disconnects from the plot. “Oh, Yuna - you’re a level 5 samurai level 9 blue mage level 12 red mage level 3 ninja? Cool! Good luck with your pilgrimage! “

Thank you for speaking up about this!

The pure digital move is such a massive, anti-consumer power grab. Even now they’re blatantly charging higher prices digital than physical. 007 First Light is 619 SEK at my local stores in Sweden (disc), and 769 (!) on the playstation store.
But what makes it even worse than the lack of competition is this idea that you will own no movie or game, you will just own a license to a product that can instantly be changed, altered or revoked.

I agree about the sidequests. I do think the game drops the ball in the last part, where it shifts from brilliant political power games to cosmic stakes.
Final Fantasy has always been about light standing against darkness. I would have loved if they kept the realpolitik but somehow injected those themes. Let Clive lead a war to put something better in place.

I loved the music, art direction, and gameplay. But the narrative switch halfway through (a la Dallas final season) didn’t work for me. It felt like it invalidated all the sacrifices of the expeditions.

Still. I’m looking forward to their next game!

@polyjitter @PerpetualBoredom Thank you for the answer and the positive community. I’ll buy this too!

Hi Liam!
I love story games but I’m done with the GRRM / Netflix themes, the “kindness is stupid” and “morality is relative” stuff that’s been churned out the past decade.
I don’t mind darkness, but I want light at the end of the tunnel.
How is this game? Is it “all humans are evil and dumb and deserved to die” or is it “things went wrong, but we’re going to rebuild. Together.”?

I love all the trails games, but I have a special place in my heart for Trails in the Sky FC and SC.
It’s has a wonderful love story, a great cast of characters, good plot twists, and a refreshing setting filled with genuine decency and honor. Love it.

Guys, give her a break. Returnal is an awesome choice. Good on her!

The complaints she doesn’t know the exact jargon sounds like “you can’t be a rock fan if you can’t tell apart sludge metal vs doom metal.”

Just be happy she’s a gamer!

GoW 2018 was mythic, raw, and focused; Ragnarök feels like Marvel DLC with therapy dialogue. They swapped epic tension for emotional hand-holding. Good game, but the magic’s gone.

I think history will look back on the 2010s and 2020s as an era of deconstruction in the West. By both political sides. By media. By artists. By society.
Deconstructing of heroes, of myths, of role models. Deconstructing of norms, values, traditions. Deconstructing of universities, institutions, truths. Perhaps some of that was needed, but a lot of it has just left us hollow, angry, divided. We ourselves are deconstructed.
The Last of Us 2 is a brilliant game, but a perfect example of this era. It didn’t challenge the values of this deconstruction as much as brilliantly executed them. As such, it’ll likely be seen in the future as a picture perfect example of all that was wrong during this time in our history.
Hopefully things will change. I’ve been watching Frieren on Crunchy Roll, which is the most quietly radical, subversive show I’ve seen in decades. It completely ignores the whole deconstruction agenda and says that loyalty, love, and time all matter. Much more than we think.
So thanks Last of Us 2. But I hope we never meet again.

Yawn. I already know the plot and theme: “religion bad, extreme religion really bad.”