Too Fast Too Fantasy XV: Chocobros Vs. volcano

Stop Regalia, I want to go out. In mine search to cOMPLETION Final Fantasy XV Before this Friday, when it disappears from both the Xbox Game Pass and my S series, I got to the point in the game I was afraid of. It is the moment when the story takes a 180-degree turn from an easy journey full of life in a barely recognized grimdark treatise about war and sacrifices. Oh, Shiva, I hate.

A lot happened over the weekend to get me to this point – the boys made some easy wars, we climbed a volcano twice, we ate our way across the continent, we hit our bottoms beautiful dragon and took almost 90,000 gil taking pictures.

Doing everything I accumulated 19 hours of play, reaching 26 hours in total. Of the 19 hours, I would estimate that only five of them were spent doing story events. I just couldn’t hurry with this game and now – as I look at the prospect of being directly avoided in the depressing final game – I’m so glad I didn’t. I’m pretty sure my reluctance to just tell the story came from finding, doing, and seeing. a lot of things I lost during my first game.

For example: I had no idea that you could have small unique side searches unique to boys. After finishing a hunt in the Galdin Quay area, I rested at a nearby campsite. In the morning, Gladio pulled me aside and asked me if I was going to run with him in the morning. Of course, I said yes, and the next day, he and I had a race on the beach. Noctis climbed and moaned all the time because he’s not a morning man, but at the end of the race he said something like, “You know, it’s kind of nice at this hour,” and the camera went to get it (and I can’t stress this enough) beautiful wide photo of the whole beach soaked in the sunrise, while Gladio said, “If that’s all you get out of it, that’s enough for me.” Show my heart melting. It was as if the game was telling me, “Yeah, Ash, you just lost another five minutes doing something that has nothing to do with your ultimate goal, but hey, you made see an otherwise invisible photo of your favorite location. So, if that’s all you get out of it, then it’s worth it. “

I spent all Saturday finding the camps that allowed me to see those little vignettes and I learned something interesting. Final Fantasy lore for my troubles. In one of the Prompto adventures, he asked me to help him get a picture of a catoblepas. Now catoblepas it’s a bull-like monster of Greek origin which appears in many games, not just in Final Fantasy in series and, for the longest time, I thought it was pronounced “kah-toe-BLEE-pis”. I seem to be wrong – pronounced “kah-TOE-ble-pas” (which rhymes with the way Strongbad says “fhqwhgads. ”) [Hums] “Come on catoblepas, I said come catoblepas.”

Shouts especially to the reader who, in response to my money problems, he suggested I look for Vyv in Lestallum. I completed every search he had, and the resulting money goes to my healing globes. I also ended up climbing a volcano twice – once to take a picture of it and twice because once I got off the volcano I received a notification for another search. Since I was already there, I decided to go back to the mountain, burning the rubber on my shoes (and HP from the chocobros health bars) to find one of the royal hidden weapons. I didn’t do much with Royal Arms in my first game, disappointed with their HP leaking properties, but finding one hidden by chance obsessed me with finding the rest. I’ve already got another optional royal arm which, when combined with the ones I got through the main mission, put me at eight out of 13. However, don’t use them that much, since the Ragnarok mine still makes shit pretty easy.

My quest to finish FF15 before time ran out it meant that I would finally have to go back to the story, bringing my good moments to a bitter end. I hit the part I won’t spoil that I’ll call the Sad Moment. There were a lot of Final Fantasy Sad moments that really didn’t seem sad to me and moments that shouldn’t be sad, but that are completely destructive. I didn’t feel anything about it FF7the big surprise (if you know, you know). But I was confused as a newborn baby when, in Final Fantasy XIII, Dahj son of Sazh Katzroy was restored and Sazh – funny man who happens to be one of the best characters of all miserable Final Fantasy canon – falls to his knees, hugs his son and complains. I wanted to feel something for FF15The sad moment and I think I did, but more from the vocal and visual actors of the scene than from any attachment I had to the characters involved.

What made me feel sadder was that after that Moment, the game changed fundamentally. No more fun rides in the car (except one deus ex canine-ica which will allow me to travel back in time to the point of no return). The game is now in a sad hour, what the hell.

However, I must say, I like the road FF15 emphasize how different things are now by changing the way you are used to playing. The food that increases the stats you are used to eating? This is gone – replaced with Cup Noodles or, if you haven’t bought one like me, a cold box of questionable food. When you camp, instead of everyone sitting nicely around a campfire, the game has a point of showing Gladio getting up and walking away in disgust to sit alone. Even the images have changed. Instead of being fun selfies or candid photos of smiling boys, all Prompto captures with his camera are photos of the back of everyone’s head and Noctis hanging in pain.

Now I’m in chapter 11 of 15. Before I agonize if I finish on time, I feel pretty good about my chances. So good that I’ll sabotage myself with a few new targets. I intend to find the whole Kingdom Weapons, including the one hidden in the optional Costlemark Tower mega-dungeon. (I also have a search for Dino Jewelry in New Jersey there that I want to complete.) Most importantly, I will complete all character episodes.

I’m pretty sure that giving me all these main distracting tasks is a way for me to avoid the inevitable. I don’t want this game to end, especially because I’m cursed to know that its end is so different and supremely unsatisfactory from the beginning. If Final Fantasy XV it was just a collection of disparate adventures, glued together by a story about the bonds of friendship that would fall like a sea of ​​all time. But it is not, and if it were not for the blessed ability to go back in time and continue to get lost, I would consider giving up right now. Since I didn’t finish the game when it came out, and my memory of the end of the game is so weak, I hope there will be something missing to redeem the story. Maybe the character episodes – which I haven’t experienced yet – help there as well. Anyway, I’m home, I have five days left. See you all tomorrow.