aisling
2020
2024
2023
Finished this to a degree that I'm satisfied with calling "done" on backloggd (all capes + trinkets), but I'll definitely keep playing this for quite a while. Really fun! Touch controls are intuitive and feel good even under pressure, however I still want a switch port because my phone is dogshit and lags hard during all of the races.
2020
I feel largely the same way about this that I did about the base game. Reinforced my belief that I would like this all more if it was a combat-free exploration thing. That's not really a "this game would be better if it wasn't the thing it was," just an explanation of why it didn't click with me personally as much as it could've.
2019
So much that I love and so much in the way of me loving it. Definitely got more out of it than my first attempt though. This setting still owns, and reading every lore entry this time was a lot of fun. But I still just don't like the combat all that much and that really took the wind out of pretty much every big setpiece. It never stopped feeling like a tedious hurdle to clear in order to get to the narrative and visual stuff that I really liked. But to be fair, there was a lot that I still liked!
2022
Felt a little unfocused and tedious to me, but there's a chance that at four entries in I'm just growing tired of the gameplay of these games, which I was never all that into in the first place. Which is a real shame because I love these characters! So I'm going to keep playing them lol. The experience was definitely smoother with a guide on hand and with emulation fast-forwarding. That text speed is GRUELING.
Also Gumshoe is sooooo babygirl in this it's awesome
Also Gumshoe is sooooo babygirl in this it's awesome
2004
Hit credits and got to Dream Den level 4 before giving up. Apologies to Louie but I simply do not want to play anymore. Game is good though! I just don't like the caves as much as exploring the above-ground areas and the ramp-up in difficulty is sort of just "annoying thing from before but there's 10 of them now" which made for a kind of bland post-game imo.
Emulated this with the Linkle mod and had a great time!
I guess this stands in as my "revisit" rating, coming back to an old favorite as an adult with a more critical eye and different tastes, but it has no effect on my 5-star on the original. The original still is a perfect video game, because it was for me at the time that I played it. Games aren't collections of Good and Bad Things, they're experiences. This shit ain't objective. You get me. Whatever.
I guess this stands in as my "revisit" rating, coming back to an old favorite as an adult with a more critical eye and different tastes, but it has no effect on my 5-star on the original. The original still is a perfect video game, because it was for me at the time that I played it. Games aren't collections of Good and Bad Things, they're experiences. This shit ain't objective. You get me. Whatever.
2016
I think I tend to be more charitable towards ARR than most and it's hard to know how much of that is based on its genuine merits and how much is just plain nostalgia. In any case I think the base game is good, but for completely different reasons than the rest of the game. Yeah, the story is pretty by-the-numbers and bland barring a few stand-out moments. Yeah, the gameplay is a hollowed shell of its former self and no job gets fun until lvl 50. BUT, those early areas are just so cozy and fun to run around and get lost in, and when I think about my time with ARR, that's what I think about.
Whereas I look upon the later expansions as great stories that took my breath away, ARR feels like a city I once lived in, full of fond memories and tucked-away, unremarkable corners that nonetheless mean something to me. Some of my fondest memories with this game are from the times when I ignored the MSQ and just walked around, filling in all the blank spaces on my map, seeing what I could see, like the aimless walks I used to take in my old neighborhood in Nashville, arriving at intersections and picking a direction at random, learning every twist and turn. I remember wandering the Shroud, not even following any questline, just wandering, looking up at the sunlight through the leaves, my aging laptop perched on my knees, purring like a jet engine and turning my blanket into a sauna.
Like I said, the bulk of these feelings are probably nostalgia. I played ARR at a formative time and it gave me the Something I desperately needed to latch onto at the time. But there are plenty of other games that I played in similar states and don't feel this fondly towards. These feelings couldn't have gained a foothold if there wasn't something in this game for them to grab hold of. The early game areas really are something special, and as the game "got better" in later expansions, the feelings I felt towards the lands of Eorzea itself started to change. As priorities shift towards paying more attention to the narrative (because it's good now), the game world itself eventually becomes a means to an end. A desire to find out what happens next leaves less and less time for the aimless wandering that characterized my ARR experience. This isn't a bad thing necessarily, just an attempt to maybe explain why those early areas have such a grip on my brain in the way no later expansion areas ever have.
I think this is also why Stormblood was such a disappointment to me--it lacked both the compelling narrative of the "good" expansions and the lively exploration of ARR. It's just so barren, and not even in a fun or interesting way most of the time.
Whereas I look upon the later expansions as great stories that took my breath away, ARR feels like a city I once lived in, full of fond memories and tucked-away, unremarkable corners that nonetheless mean something to me. Some of my fondest memories with this game are from the times when I ignored the MSQ and just walked around, filling in all the blank spaces on my map, seeing what I could see, like the aimless walks I used to take in my old neighborhood in Nashville, arriving at intersections and picking a direction at random, learning every twist and turn. I remember wandering the Shroud, not even following any questline, just wandering, looking up at the sunlight through the leaves, my aging laptop perched on my knees, purring like a jet engine and turning my blanket into a sauna.
Like I said, the bulk of these feelings are probably nostalgia. I played ARR at a formative time and it gave me the Something I desperately needed to latch onto at the time. But there are plenty of other games that I played in similar states and don't feel this fondly towards. These feelings couldn't have gained a foothold if there wasn't something in this game for them to grab hold of. The early game areas really are something special, and as the game "got better" in later expansions, the feelings I felt towards the lands of Eorzea itself started to change. As priorities shift towards paying more attention to the narrative (because it's good now), the game world itself eventually becomes a means to an end. A desire to find out what happens next leaves less and less time for the aimless wandering that characterized my ARR experience. This isn't a bad thing necessarily, just an attempt to maybe explain why those early areas have such a grip on my brain in the way no later expansion areas ever have.
I think this is also why Stormblood was such a disappointment to me--it lacked both the compelling narrative of the "good" expansions and the lively exploration of ARR. It's just so barren, and not even in a fun or interesting way most of the time.