Friday! Video games! Let’s talk!
My time in WoW has been steadily decreasing as I’ve reached most of my pre-Battle for Azeroth goals. My Horde Warlock, Rogue, and Druid have reached max level and most of their gathering professions are high enough for the upcoming expansion. I’m mainly logging in each day to take care of the Warlock’s fishing quests and raise their Anglers rep from the old Mists of Pandaria expansion. I need to hit exalted with them in order to unlock the water-walking mount and I refuse to go another expansion without it!
I finally finished up the PS4 port of Final Fantasy VII last night, which was a two-year project. Whenever I didn’t know what else to play, that’s what I jumped into for an hour or two. I didn’t have a reason to log into WoW, so I resumed my playthrough at the beginning of disc 2.
It’s not my favorite Final Fantasy, but it holds up incredibly well and still remains a special video game to me. The music is fantastic and I love the steampunk fantasy atmosphere presented in the pre-rendered backdrops. Cosmo Canyon is still my favorite piece of music ever written for a game and I get misty-eyed as soon as the first note hits. The scene at the end of the 2nd disc where Shinra opts to drain all of the mako energy from Midgar to fire the Sister Ray at Diamond Weapon is so damn dramatic — especially once you realize that it wasn’t Diamond Weapon they were after, but rather Sephiroth’s barrier over Northern Crater. Man, what a game.
It wasn’t my first Final Fantasy, but it was the first that I stuck with and completed, so it’s fully responsible for my current adoration of the series. Some say it’s been in decline for a while now, but I wholly disagree.
After completing Final Fantasy VII, I jumped into the PS4 remaster of the original Kingdom Hearts. I don’t remember being this bad at it (or recall it being this difficult), but the boss at the end of the Tarzan level decimated me. I’ve since completed that and Wonderland and made my way to the Colosseum, but that’s where I stopped for the time being.
I’m currently juggling that and the PS4 remaster of Final Fantasy X in an attempt to clean out some of my RPG backlog before Octopath Traveler releases in July. I was going to jump into WWE 2K18 (which I picked up for $20 on sale), but that game is an awful mess that I ended up selling on eBay this morning. I also received Gal*Gun 2 to review on PS4, which I’ll probably start up tomorrow afternoon.
PlayStation is celebrating Japan’s Golden Week, so there’s a pretty good sale going on online. I picked up Tokyo Xanadu Ex+, .hack//G.U. Last Recode, and the NieR Automata DLC, but I’m also eyeballing the PS4 remaster of Gravity Rush while it’s $9. I sold off some stuff and have a little extra “fun money” sitting around.
Aside from today’s WWE Greatest Royal Rumble event (which starts at noon EST), that about does it for me. What about you, folks? Any big plans this weekend?
Cheap Boss Attack 
Man, when will they announce the release date for the FF7 remaster?
This weekend will be a bit of Ratchet and Clank (from PS Plus) and a lot of God of War!
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Someone posted an interview saying they were unhappy with the remake’s direction and are going all in themselves, or something. So maybe a 2020 game.
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A revisit of Resident Evil 3 for me… It’s been a long time!
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Good choice!
STAAAAAAAAARS
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I can’t wait for the FFVII remaster. I’m excited to see what they do with it. VII isn’t my favourite either, but it’s still a really fun game :)
I took the day off work and just beat the first Mass Effect game. I’m hoping to spend a lot of time with Mass Effect 2 this weekend, haha.
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Ayy, congrats! 2 is better in ever regard, so I’m sure you’ll dig it. Thane rules!
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Thanks! I’m really excited!! Unfortunately, I know a big spoiler about Thane :(
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It’s hard to avoid spoilers for these older games, isn’t it?
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I got Friday free due to going to the GI doctor to set up for a procedure. So I spent some of it already playing Splatoon 2. The V 3.0 update is pretty great, and they’ve rolled out another free map, and redeco weapons. Honestly a really substantial update in terms of balance, and performance.
I’m also replaying some Castlevania, and Castlevania III as I’ve found some near mint Game Paks recently, and I haven’t played either in a while. So that should be frustratingly fun. :) But I’m off to screen cap, so I can get this week’s review up of something else I spent some time playing.
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Castlevania is always a good time, unless it’s the first iteration of the N64 game. Even the 3D PS2 stuff was pretty rad at the time.
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Yeah, these were the NES editions. I honestly liked Castlevania 64. By no means my favorite game, as it had some severe camera issues, and a few unforgiving puzzles. But I felt like it had more in common with the original trilogy than many probably thought. The multiple endings gave it a speed run possibility as well. I felt the later 3D games were better on a technical aspect, but lost the feel of the series at the same time. Conversely after Symphony, the 2D entries all decided to do the Metroid thing. While was still leagues better than the 3D stuff, still kind of lost me as to me the series was mainly about action platforming with a mild horror vibe. I think the later Metroidvanias are made exceptionally well, but I’ll always prefer the formula that Castlevania, Dracula’s Curse, Super IV, Bloodlines, and Rondo Of Blood/X all followed. I guess you could throw Simon’s Quest in there for the combat, but the RPG elements really deviate a lot. A lot of people think of it as the black sheep of the series, but I kind of like it. You have to find Dracula’s body parts, and destroy them. But then it goes “Oh no! All you did was resurrect him!” and you have to kill him again.
Anyway TL:DR I like the original games more than the newer ones, and Castlevania 64 isn’t great, but there are far worse games of its ilk.
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For the King…since I’m bound for Mexico and will only have my Surface to play on. But hey it’s a fun little strategy/roguelike so looking forward to more of it.
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I really like the look of For the King, although roguelikes aren’t really my thing. Enjoy your trip!
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Since I finished XCOM: Enemy Unknown I started XCOM: Enemy Within. This was probably a mistake in terms of timing since I’ve been playing God of War and bought Battletech. The former is good but I seem to be in a slow stretch. The later is causing my GPU to overheat but I’ve got some plans to try to remedy that. God of War will probably be my focus though.
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I look forward to eventually getting into God of War. Looks fantastic.
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I am playing the Monster Hunter mode from the new Hearthstone expansion. Cleared two of the bosses thus far. I tried playing FFX a while back but ended up competing in Blitz Ball and neglected the story. Square should make a Blitz Ball game.
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I’m still playing a lot of God of War. I finished the story but there is a surprising amount of cool side content here. I am hoping to get a little more of A Way Out in with my brother before the weekend ends. It seems interesting so far, but it has been a lot tougher to get co-op time together as adults than when we were young!
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I hear ya! I miss the days of couch co-op growing up, but none of us have similar schedules so I’ve gotten far more single-player focused over the years. Even when I log into an MMO I still find myself doing things alone unless my GF and I have quests to do.
Glad you’re digging GoW! I want to check it out at some point, but really want to get my RPG backlog knocked down a bit before picking up Octopath in July.
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