Crystal Chronicles: Have I Been Playing All Wrong?

It feels like the GameCube era of games falls into an odd middle ground where they’re just old enough that getting your hands on them is hard, but they’re also too new to be included on Virtual Console or the Switch’s online service.  So when I saw that the Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles HD remake was on sale on the PS4, I jumped at the chance to buy it.  (My other reason is for recording the game for YouTube.  GameCube games also tend to be difficult to record, considering they aren’t HDMI-compatible.)  Having not played the game for 15 years, this recent playthrough opened my eyes to the fact that…I know surprisingly little about this game, despite having beaten it multiple times.

World of Final Fantasy: Demo Review

World of Final Fantasy is a game I’ve had a passing interest in for the last couple of years, even though I knew nothing about it, except for the vague notion that it featured Final Fantasy characters from across the franchise.  It wasn’t until quite recently, however, that I decided to check out the “Dungeon Demo”, which enlightened me to the fact that this game seems to be a mix of Final Fantasy and Pokemon.

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles (PS4) Playthrough on Virtual Bastion

Today we begin our playthrough of the PS4 remaster of Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, an action RPG where one must collect myrrh in order to protect our village from the deadly miasma.

Video from YouTube User: Virtual Bastion

100 Theme Blog Challenge No. 26: Tears

Today’s theme is tears, and I’ve been thinking a lot on this one, as I didn’t know how to write about tears without being depressing.  We’ve all had sad experiences in our lives, so who wants to rehash them?  But sometimes, ironically enough, being sad is sometimes a pleasant experience, a good way to release emotions and end up feeling happier as a result.  To quote Sally Sparrow from my favorite Dr. Who episode Blink, sad is “happy for deep people”.  So in today’s post, I thought I’d list a few of my favorite sad things.

Knights of the Round is Overpowered (and I’m Glad)

In the near past, I had been working through my second playthrough of the amazing Final Fantasy VII, a PS1 classic that surely needs no introduction.  While I adore this game and am happy to say it is one of the few games I went into with high expectations, and was not disappointed, I gotta say I hate the final boss.  The first part, Jenova-Synthesis, is fine.  Bizarro Sephiroth is really…bizarre, but not that bad once I started fighting this monstrosity properly.  But the weirdly-named Safer Sephiroth (what makes him so safe?) is pure agony because of the super boring, super long, Supernova attack.

Fun with FF7’s Chocobo Breeding

When I play video games, I usually enjoy focusing on the main game first and foremost.  Anything outside that, more often than not, feels like a waste of my time.  And yet, when I give said diversions a chance, they often turn out to be much more fun than I would have expected.  A recent example was Final Fantasy VIII’s Triple Triad, a deceptively simple card game that ended up being way more addicting than I ever could have imagined.  The newest story I have to tell pertains to the Chocobo breeding in Final Fantasy VII.

Hopefully Conquering Final Fantasy 8: Part 4 – The Moment of Truth

My most recent playthrough of Final Fantasy VIII has been going swimmingly.  Or, to be more accurate, it was.  Because it has now come to an end.  I pretty much completed every extra task, with the exception of winning Doomtrain back from the Queen of Cards’ son.  He just wouldn’t use it.  Except for this one time, but we were playing with the Direct rule, and he shoved Doomtrain in a corner where I couldn’t possibly flip it, and I wasn’t able to get it.  Curses!

Hopefully Conquering Final Fantasy 8: Part 3

I’m still working diligently on Final Fantasy VIII, using guides as I go so as not to miss anything.  (I was using a guide on a website called Jegged, but then I kept getting lots of weird popups, so I switched to IGN.)  I have recently reached disc 3 and am currently all caught up on side quests and Triple Triad and the like.  And I have noticed one very surprising difference between this playthrough and my last.  When junctioning correctly, this game is…incredibly easy.

Hopefully Conquering Final Fantasy 8: Part 2

I’ve been slowly and steadily making progress in Final Fantasy 8, and I must say, I feel like I’m finally starting to get the hang of things.  As of writing this, I have just reached disc 2, and I have grown far fonder of the game and its characters than I did on my first playthrough.  Without further ado, an update on my progress…

Hopefully Conquering Final Fantasy 8: Part 1

I’m sure you’ve all heard me complain about it, many times before, but I was never able to beat Final Fantasy 8.  I think it was due to a complete lack of understanding as to how Junctioning works, along with the fact that enemies become more powerful the more you level up, that accounted for my struggles with the game.  Rarely do I fail to complete a game I have started, but after many hours of struggling against the final boss, barely able to leave a dent in their lofty HP, I had to accept that victory was miles beyond my reach.

Several years have since passed, and I have returned.  And this time, I mean business.  By business, I mean that I am taking advantage of every piece of advice anyone has ever given me, and consulting an online walkthrough, because darn it, I am not going to work my way through four discs just to fail again!  I am drawing magic like crazy, trying extra hard to learn how to properly Junction magic, and…playing cards?