Being Saleh: A Space For The Undaunted Future and Things To Come and Why oh Why I don't Blog Often? (A Space For The Unbound review)

There seemed to be a lot riding on A Space For The unbound (ASFTU), a narrative driven game seven years in the making from Indonesian Studio Mojiken, the wave started about three/two years ago when they're announcing "a game with a Indonesian 90s setting" (or more precise: A game with Indonesian 90s high school scenes, which means no greatest sin of mankind a.k.a cellphone yet) they had a demo on Steam so I played it, one year later after two days of playing the full game I sat and write this post because I deemed that game is worth enough reviving this blog (and changed the font).

Dun dun dun dun

I'm not familiar with Indonesian indie games scene, as a matter of fact the announced ASFTU is the one thing intriguing me enough to search around about them (growing in 90s and stuffs) and bumped me with Coffee Talk (another slice of life retro graphic game set on a fantasy futuristic town) published by Toge Productions who has been around since some eleven years ago which means I've been under the rock enough for not noticing them... Anyway so after playing Coffee Talk enough to see the 'weird' creativity of this game I put ASTFU on my wishlist because being an Indonesian but spent so much time playing MMORPGs with people of the world make me a little... homesick, mind you I retired from the local's MMORPGs scene because of it's notorious toxicity (No I'm not talking about Genshin Impact, I'm talking way way further back when I grind those 1909145732896543 Ketra orc's heads), Coffee talk: a little game that only span 6 hours or so is weirdly powerful on writing and narrating, it's basically a compilation of short stories, a GOOD compilation of short stories.

Anyway back to ASFTU this game is a visual novel at heart but with some side scrolling adventure game type and some mild puzzle-solving, there's also elements of Quick Time Event (QTE), For me these elements can be a hindrace sometimes, I know they're trying to spice things up (and testing some engine) and most of the puzzle are easily solved but trying to get a door combination in later game with little hints and lots of numbers can be a little frustrating because sometimes it broke the immersion of the narrative, if there's a paid DLC button to skip all the puzzles I'll gladly bought it. The game design was breathtakingly nostalgic, with some of the house and generic 90s school visual design, soothing music followed by familiar environmental sound, and the NPCs are just as bizzare and quirky as I expected too, in short the whole visual and sound design is a warm welcome for my soul, almost like a sweet, smooth therapy session (uh no, I'm not talking about weeds)

The story: Atma and Raya is a childhood sweetheart couple, fall in love in high school, unsure of their future, planned to ran away together, creating a list of what to do before they finish high school and so and so but plot twist: they both have superpowers, Atma can dive into other people's heart (dubbed spacedive, later crossdive) while Raya can manipulate reality to some extent (and require some price), in their last days of high school there's a crisis looming in the horizon and they both are in the center of it. WARNING: If you could read the fine print at the game description you might realized that the story dealt with mostly negative emotion, Raya and Atma's power are tied to their psyche and the story unfolded as their powers and hearts grow, you'll mostly control Atma so the story was presented in his point of view to reserve some of the clever twist of it, not to spoil anything: This is a sad game, and some scene can make you a tad bit uncomfortable, some of the expected seriousness is one of the fine point of why I bought the game, it's brave and Mojiken presenting such a story without gerrymandering it is an achievement to itself. Psych disorder is not something to be taking lightly of, and sometimes it requires professional help. I Also  played the game with Bahasa as language and I can see some of the English statements, jokes, curses and proverb are somewhat translated as is which is a bit... weird? Indonesian don't told others to go hide on their mother's skirt, they told them to shut up and die while swinging things (HALAH BACOT), they got better at the end where the narrative is heavy and pack some great impact.

Although The pace of the game is uneven (sometimes it's like a speeding truck crashing every wall and in some chapters slowed down to a crawl) but Mojiken also did well blending it to the game design, the visual novel take make a really compelling case of secrets and hidden objects hide and seek minigame, it's fun and well placed, there's a side quests where you must collect bubble gum wrappers with the letters which ultimately form the words "YOMAN" which is a reference to a 90s local bubble gum promotion where my brothers and I hunted the word S of YOSAN bubble gum (we never found it, and we suspect it was never even made hahaha) plot twist: THEY'RE STILL EXISTED!!! anyway as promised the world of ASFTU is jam-packed with 80s and 90s nostalgia, furthermore: even some of Mojiken's previous game character is act as a secret puzzle. Pet all the cats, the dogs, the... other animals... just go wild with those interaction bubbles. The game also loaded with references to other pop culture such as the "Cobra Kai"show and "Kung-Fu Boy a.k.a Tekken Chinmi" comic book which is a huge hit here in their 90s day, and you want to know the price of one bowl of noodle in the 90s? yes, it's also (slightly) accurate, on story side: you can see the influence of other 'existential' video game, movies, and anime in ASFTU, from "Nier Automata" to "Neon Genesis Evangelion" it's not just the show, the music of ASFTU also show slight references to it, I also think this entire game's music deserved a separate recognition of their own (the penultimate song was A++). I'm not a musician but I know a good tune when I heard it, especially one of these weeks FFXIV and Tales Of Arise music's was the only thing I heard every day.

yes atma, Woah indeed

 

Also it's probably one of the free-bug game i was ever played, if there's any it was never triggered or occured, anyway technical thing aside: Mojiken Studio as developers and Toge Production as publisher is probably a big time winner in a little corner of this country's emerging (or stagnating? Or even declining? Told you I'm not familiar with this scene) game storytelling and marketing scene and deserved every praise because of it, ASFTU ticks all the right thing, brought a full course meal to a small community while still hold a bigger and finer standard, although the theme was dark and dealing with delicate social issues this game succesfully navigating those issue with care and gentle handling, (down to their New year Poster which score a high points from me). But I'm not a point guy, I'm just an old player, I had my share of suspicious glance, self-destructing, and a bunch of unanswered phone, text, and emails. I enjoyed ASFTU wholly, even with their frustrating door combination puzzle (Thank God there's no mandatory jumping puzzle or I might throw out this game immediately) I believe this game can be something more, but it was also up to their devs (and publisher), and other devs and publisher, and also other people involved in this industry, when you finished this game and tried to contemplating the relatable elements of it you'll met with the fact that this one game took seven years to make, that alone can be a consideration for anyone involved (or anyone who wants to be involved), I'm expecting great things from this scene but for some illogical... reason even great things can be a mere dust in the wind when it failed to capture hearts, but I also believe great things also come from little things. Anyway as Atma's said (as cheesy as he can be) the perfect world is the imperfect one (which is obvious) I really don't dig him but I like it.

Spoiler: This is what you got after petting all the cats in the game!!

Being Saleh: Enders Game (FFXIV Endwalker Review)

It’s so hard to write about the FFXIV’s latest expansion without spoiling the story, that’s why this post came late, called Endwalker: the season finale of the first story arc from FFXIV, it’s the culmination of the eorzea chapter that first started 10 years ago.

 

old guy!!! (wait, I sprouted?)

 

Storywise: Since Shadowbringers the Scion of seventh dawn has been taking a huge undertaking in their role, from negotiator and spies to spawning the Trust system to help players navigate the dungeons and now they can participate in a Trial (there are two in the initial release and even their name is a spoiler). After a stint in the First (a glorious one) the Warrior of Light and the scion prepares for their advance to the seat of the empire: The Garlean territory, only it’s a little different from our imagining in Heavensward or even Stormblood, this plot twist is a major spoiler, heck even their zone is a spoiler, their trek there, you guess it: spoiler but here’s something: your favorite (and maybe forgotten) characters since the ARR age will be there since it’s the ultimate Avengers team up from the first quest to the last, hilariously some characters will even berate you if you forget them

Nothing changed much from the combat and crafting system, there are two new class: The Reaper is a new melee dps that outdps every class initially (so much that they buff all dps class in the first major patch to catch up), The aerods wielding Sage is a healer that heal people by shooting at things and IMHO it’s the fun one, I leveled a total of five jobs only from the main story quest (plus a bit of fate grinding in ‘that place’) There are some experimental quest sprinkled here and there including a story stealth mission starring Thancred which spawned the “This is Thancred” meme, speaking of stealth quest there is a long mission that somehow is both frustrating and awesome at the same time, frustrating because there’s time limit albeit a long one and awesome because it contains some light puzzle element( which answers I accidentally stumbled upon) and in the end it evolved into a small resource management game.

 

oooo, guiding hooome, oh wait we're already home

But the special mention goes to the music, I’m not a musician, I played instruments abysmally but I love sounds and in Endwalker it’s clear that Masayoshi Soken is finally getting comfortable putting his rock in almost everything, Endwalker theme follows the Shadowbringer theme with distortion guitars intersped by orchestral rock sound, the dungeon boss theme is another beautiful composition, almost all theme in the expansion are some form of the main theme, and they’re all good. The new songs including a promotional version of “Fly me to the moon” by Sia, a new ending song “Flow Together” another rendition of “Answer” which is the song of the first FFXIV expansion, and it’s other iteration: “Your Answer” to complete the ensemble. The expansion theme itself is a mirror image of Shadowbringers which applied a more intense sound and visual, Endwalker brought the light back with more emotional and mellow themes

Zenos return as the main villain because psycopath is hard to kill, also respecced as the new Reaper class, the new Ascian Fandaniel is now act as the mysterious gleeful crazy person/immortal being and yes minor spoiler there are bigger villain, with their own plot twist and unusual circumstances. You see: the theme of Endwalker is everybody deserves a second chance and since it’s Final Fantasy where the last quest is usually: KILL GODS, yes even That GOD deserves a second chance and that my friends makes this the best Final Fantasy because inbetween the tear-jerker and smiley moments, the difficult fights and struggles, those past, present, and future things mashed together you still in the end get your greatest wish that is KICK ZENOS’ ASS, although as spoiler goes: it might not the way you’re thinking of. But we’ll kick his ass, I can guarantee that.

 

A test for your reflexes!!!

Being Saleh: He Who Spiritwalk behind The Maw (Shadowlands Early review)

I see dead people... everywhere, because I broke my promise and return to WOW

As the living and undead denizen pondering how many times they will be dying again in order to stop the Jailer from whatever deadly crusade he's planning in, I once again realize that undead death knights in WOW probably the most confused since they have two headstart death among them heroes.

Welcome to Shadowlands, Wow's artsy afterlife

The Story (and visual)

After acquiring heart of Azeroth and infusing millions of azerite shard in there just to down the last of the Old Gods plaguing azeroth we are forced to stow it away in our banks, because Sylvanas gone head to head with Bolvar a.k.a the Lich King, broke his helmet, shattered the veil between the world of the living and the afterlife, and unleash undead plague v 2.0 in Azeroth (fun pre patch, I killed much more people in this event compared to battlegrounds) and now we again venture into the unknown, saving souls, and killing zombie dogs

 

At least we can use that overgrown amulet for this

 

The first trip brought us to the Maw, a hellish landscape filled with killable iron skeleton knights, apparently all dead people soul are now sucked to this debuffing plane, after escaping it (by mysterious means) and dubbed the name Maw Walker we arrived in Oribos and learned that deadites soul should be divided into other four planes (Bastion, Maldraxxus, Ardenweald, and Rivendreth) apparently this engine of the dead is somewhat broken and so we ventured to the remaining planes to learn of the cause and to fix it.

The visual of the planes are somewhat awesome, the bluish elysian design of Bastion, sickly greenish skeletal wasteland  of Maldraxxus, eternal purple night of Ardenweald, and the sanguinic bloody red hue of Rivendreth are the proof that the art team of WOW is finally found their mojo again since Mists of Pandaria, the visual upgrade (I played in ultra) is the most refreshing, and now there are more cutscenes than ever, as WOW tried to dub FFXIV's 'visual storylines'. They made the initial scenario a lenghty ones, designed to introduce you to Maw, Oribos, and the four planes plus the way of life in each zone. As you venture to the planes you're introduced to denizens and their leaders, sometimes you get a little cutscenes, some plot twist, some action sequence, and some big happening. But most often you're just treated to voiced dialogue of NPCs forming a 'skippable sequence' where you can sit around and listening to them or just move on to the next exclamation mark, and oh yeah it's LONG!!

Sing it!!!

The lengthy storyline's probably a shock to most of WOW players who expected some sequential kill ten rats quest in the area then move on, but most of the campaign storyline required you to sit and listen to NPCs, watch cutscenes, fetch little things, play some mini games, or participate in a series of action culminated on fighting a single or group of enemies, the kill ten rats quests are now relegated to the 'side quests' designed to add some xp to your belt and/or give you some equipment upgrades, but it's not like the main storyline free from these quests, I was rather perplexed that Maldraxxus storyline quests including these thing although Maldraxxus is where the big lore things are dumped to you (oh sorry, minor spoiler)

 

At the end of the campaign (well, to be continued more like) you are forced eligible to join a covenant, the Kyrian of Bastion, Necrolord of Maldraxxus, Night Faes of Ardenweald, and Venthyr of Rivendreth, each gave you uniques set of armor, class abilities, global abilities, and soulbinds which is an unique way to make your usual class abilities become more useful, visually appealed or just plain weird/complex (I don't see why do I want to teleport to a group of enemies as a warlock just to fear them, although there are several soulbind options that I haven't tried before), there are three NPC you can soulbind with although in the time I was writing this there's only two available and just two or three path unlocked (each NPCs have several) so yeah maybe some day I can meet my one true useful soulmate bind

Be my soulbind, coming valentine 2021

 

Because of the lengthy-ness of the storyline campaign Blizzard made a second alt-friendly leveling system called Threads of Fate where you can just jump into the action (after you completed the Maw scenario) and complete world and side quests to level up, it's fairly straightforward and gave you more freedom, is it faster? Depends, I complete the storyline campaign (up to choosing a covenant) in seven days on my Demon hunter, just 4 days on my warlock's threads of fate but it was me being lazy and just played for like one hour a day? Falling asleep while campaigning are just one of the factor, but it's not because the story of Shadowlands is boring, It's just a tiring month, well honestly it's been like that every month since Covid-19.

The System (bah, too long)

So there are several new currency right now, let me shout it out for you, ANIMA!!! PHANTASMA!!! STYGIA!!! SOUL ASH!!! SINSTONE!! GRATEFUL OFFERING!!! SOULS!! GRATEFUL OFFERINGS!!! did I just said it twice? well it's because i love GRATEFUL OFFERINGS!!!

Give me  an offering of 245.754.888 flies and I'll let you ride me

 

 - Sanctum

Okay, here's the thing, after you pick a covenant you'll start building your Sanctum by collecting Anima, it's used to make your journey more wonderful in your selected planes, also gold rewards, and mounts and stuffs like armor set, and the continuity of the story campaign, later on you can collect GRATEFUL OFFERINGS!!! which can be used to purchase shinier stuffs, there's also mission table here and you're familiar with what mission table does, it have some variation but the basic is the same: Send troops, collect loots. But as anima is used for ALL of these activities you'll want to manage it carefully or you might ran out your primary resources (world quests). You'll also gain renown from weekly quests, renown is used to advance storyline and to open more upgrade options. and soulbinds, don't forget soulbinds.

 

-The Maw/Ve'nari

You'll met Ve'nari, a mysterious cartel member currently residing in the maw, they got some pretty stuff and you'll get rep for them by killing some Maw's rare spawn and daily quests, the maw's currency called Stygia are dropped from everything in the maw and Venari will trade their shiny stuff (and secrets) for it

The maw itself is hell, as you continue to slay it's denizen the jailer's eye will be fixed upon you, at tier 1 he'll just sent his eye to come after you to apply a debuff, at tier 5 however he'll send bullet-sponge assassins, his tower will bombard you with high-damaging projectiles which also chained you for some damage over time effects, and then the maw itself will apply dots to you until you die, and when you die you drop off some your hard-earned stygia, feel free to respawn and collect it a la dark soul style if you have the chance to, oh also ve'nari will stop giving reps to you at jailer's eye tier 5, so when you're masochist enough to get into that tier there'll be no more things to do at the maw except dancing in front of Ve'nari, just get out and come back in 24 hrs and it'll all reset

 

Pictured: The Maw

-Torghast

Ahh... Torghast, the new source of dividing community, some hate it, some love it, others like me is just like 'eh there's no timer? Let's run it' and then come out an hour later after get two shotted by the last boss and get kicked out without receiving any rewards, after that I'll proceed to continue Trails of Cold Steel 2 in easiest difficulty just to blow off some steam

Torghast is the all-new, ever-changing roguelike solo/group dungeon in WOW, it's a tower with six wings, every weeks two wings are open, each wings have 9 layers/difficulties and every layers have six floor with a final boss in the sixth floor, as you traverse the tower you'll find powerups called anima power which sometimes gave you significant stat and ability boost (but only for that particular layer journey), soul to save, followers to collect, and phantasma to collect, you can spend them in brokers at floor 3 and 6 since nothing in the tower will be brought outside (except new followers), feel free to bring friends if you can handle the mob scaling

So what's the purpose to run Torghast anyway, well... legendaries of course, when you clear each layer you'll get Soul Ash for crafting your legendaries and also for adding stats to it, but only and only if you defeat the sixth floor boss on each layer which sometimes overtuned and have annoying difficulties, like healing, and healing  and healing themselves goddamit!! But on the brighter side if you think you're already strong enough to challenge previous layer don't worry the weekly soul ash reward will be brought to the next layer, so if you think you're strong enough to defeat layer 6 of each wings the weekly soul ash rewards from layer 1-5 will be brought to you when you finished layer 6, so yeah, there's still weekly caps, Bolvar also gave 200 ash per week just to clear a layer.

I'm also grateful that storyline campaign happened in their own Torghast instance because if Thrall is locked behind layer 6 Torghast with elites that have 10x HP and deal 35x damage with an affix that creates a  damaging puddle on mob's corpse (and revive them) I'll uninstall WOW (again)

 

More time for Giant Robots!!!

 

The World Quests and Misc

The newly revamped world quests are no more like 7 seconds kill mobs and done, instead you'll get some slow and steady  kill ten rats and collect their teeth quests with some follow up requests (kill big rat) and also they mostly reward anima in droplet quantities, which is really in-lore accurate, but still a grindfest. Treasure hunt is fun, some chests appeared on map on weekly basis, some required puzzle solving so get ready to read Wowhead a lot

Early Verdict

The story is an interesting one, the title of Maw Walker is similar to Warrior of Light/Darkness from FFXIV, in earliest moment it was showed that our past old-gods-vanquishing-world-eater-legion slaying effort was nothing compared to this new threat, we're so powerless in the Maw that even to escape it we're sort of winging it, the spotlight of this story is the player, how do we escaped the maw? Why the unnatural interest to us, not just from the jailer but also from another party? The story so far put the mystery on us the player, branded us, giving it a strong early standing because I really don't want to hear everyone cried SYLVANAS again. Yes, put spotlight on us, not those NPCs

The time gating and the amount of currencies of this expansion is also interesting, for the first time after mists I don't feel like WOW is one big experiments, (yes, Legion however great it was, it's still an experiment) the time gate is intentional, it's designed to keep player engaged in limited activity to collect resources and getting stronger, and it's also to keep player subbing because each week something new opens up and we can continue there. When you keep subbing you can feel your journey continues in a way that you progressing in storyline, sanctum, torghast, dungeon, world boss, even if it feels miniscule, but when you stop subbing and came back like 10 months later you will be attacked by a bunch of lore dump and currency catch up that your progress won't be as cohesive anymore.

Here's an example, my daily life on week 1 in shadowlands on Necrolord covenant

Week 1

1. Run sanctum daily callings/world quests, this will fill up some of my anima and chest weekly quests 

2. Run daily Theater of Pain for some anima

3. Run daily random dungeon, it probably a weekly cartel reps dungeon or some satchels, also might be a weapon/equipment upgrades

4. Run Maw dailies, killing rares until tier 5 jailer eyes, if I got lucky I might get a rep boost item

5. Run torghast for the week

6. Any leftover weeklies can be grinded in day 6 or 7

Week 2

1. New renown weeklies means new story progress

2. Rinse and repeat

Sounds Repetitive? Well I can do all that in two hours, three counting Torghast, so it's enough for me (more TOCS 2 YAY!!!). Blizzard will continue to remove gating in new patches, adding new ilvl weapon on WQ and dungeons, making the Maw more accessible, they'll probably remove some of renown gating for some campaign quests plus adding some side quests to your sanctum which formerly tied to a locked upgrades, uneven lore bomb like this can be confusing up to the level where I once thinks: wait, it's that the priest legion dagger? How it ended up on Nathanos? That's what you got after 12 months of hiatus, with such a strong story headstart to whet the appetite Blizz bets itself with content time gating, will they succeeded? Well time will tell, gating is a tricky matter, too long waiting and sub will drop because of boredom, too short and too little new things subs will also dropped due to 'not enough content'

I personally enjoyed Shadowlands to this moment, my casual a.k.a lazy playstyle was just right for this expansion, the beautiful art style, the voice over, the storyline progress, but one question still linger: up to this second I'm convinced Blizz won't answer all the mysteries building up with a casual three sentence, but will the story hold up until the end? Will everything will be wrapped up nicely? Is Torghast carry really necessary? As I said before only time will tell but one thing is sure: I never once glanced to my EXP bar when I first journeyed through Shadowlands, and I would like that feelings repeated on the future expansions.

 

Oh dear god, not again!!!

Being Saleh: FFXIV Shadowbringer review

WARNING: Contains story spoiler for past expansions of Final Fantasy XIV, minor spoiler for Shadowbringers

 
So, who thinks that the light can be used to hurt? Well, I'm a fantasy gamer so I'm pretty much have wield every aspect of elements and unleash them to my enemies, light included, and as the name of the latest expansion from FFXIV suggests, yes this time the light is the enemy.

FFXIV brings our Warrior of Light to the First, a doppleganger world created in the image of the original planet (called The Source), as I mention in the past post there are several, each with an affinity to an arcane element (light, dark, fire, etc, etc), in here a flood of light almost wiped the entire world, making it unhabitable, save one continent called Norvrandt, apparently somenoe stopped the flood, and another someone wants to restore the first to it's former state and that's why they need us and oh, and the Scion of the Seventh Dawn are all here too.

Alisaie could use a haircut though

New Gameplay

 
The gameplay of Shadowbringers are much simpler now, thanks to ability prunes my Dark Knight (which is now a mainstream job) no longer have two set of combos for enmity and self healing, they got merged, my darkness (which I used between combo steps and before unleashing high powered attack) is now merged to a new attack both for single and multi target, it took me a while for cleaning up my shortcuts and macro not to mention trying new combos but it worked, and it's still fun, paladin however have mana-based new attack and defense skills which I never figured it out when or where I should use it, I'll get to it somehow, or SE can get to it, that's it, I'm gonna call it, fix paladin, it's not fun, yes it's easy to stay alive, but it's not fun

everything can be better with MORE FIRE!!

F.A.T.E (ah crap, will just call it FATE now) have two benefits now, for leveling and you can get a nice jewels in the end for stuff trading in every area, there are also FATE levels now indicating how an area is 'safer' now after you cull those kobolds, the more you level your FATE, the more stuff you can trade for those jewels, every area is different so yes more useless junk to collect, if you level them all enough, you'll get access to a vendor in the main city hub

The new classes are gunbladerbreaker and dancer, gunbreaker wield gunblades and  have a long combo depending how many ammos you can store and your third skill cooldown, so yeah, it have several combos and utilities which can be fun for tanking (yes, it's a tank) since you're shooting for shielding now :D. Dancer as the third physical ranged DPS is not that different at all from the Machinist, but now you can 'store' combos and it's awesome, because not everytime a skill triggered the next skill, so it's a bit of gambling but you can also dance to buff you and a party member (dubbed: dance partner) for a significant increase in attack, so imagine you store those finisher and unleash them when your dance buff still up, it's glorifyngly satifying, there are also a def buff, a skill buff, which you can mix and match in a boss fight or trials.

New Story

 
Well, after I kicked Zenos' butt and got kicked myself in the in-between-xpac storyline, the story hinted that we will be brought to Garlean, the seat of the empire itself, but well... things happen and now we're in a whole another planet ourself, the new character is the Crystal Exarch, the dude that brought you in, Norvrandt is besieged by a horde of pale monsters called the sin-eaters which can infect living creatures to become monsters as they are, and of course there are zombies, pale zombies, but anyway we're also introduced to an Ascian called Emet-Selch which is more... sightful than the usual Ascian like evil-laugh Lahabrea and his friends, he is as cryptic as Elidibus though and his actions are sometimes questionable, but's he's breathtakingly fresh when compared to Zenos and since the story of Shadowbringers are long and intertwining you might questioning if he is really the big bad here.

Well, this pixie hater is definitely the big bad

Even if the story is a bit convoluted at first it's slowly unravel as it's progressing forward, but what I like is that the main story never strays from The First, there're no back and forth jogs between the two worlds, the allies and enemies are all from the first (except your Scion friends), and you'll meet new friends along the main story which come and go in a satisfying way (and some who wasn't probably was saved for the in-between-xpac stories, or a side quest). Everything is from the First and for The First, The First is a different world, with different culture, but same looking races although the names are different, elezen becomes elves, Hrothgar is Ronso (sounds familiar?), Lalafell are dwarves and they put on white-bearded-yellow-eyes-and-horned helmets like a generic FF dwarves, ho ho ho. uh wait, that's not right, Lali-Ho!!

There's something like a 'main side story' (What..?) it is a continuation from a post-main Heavensward expac and a new form of job quest, mainly focused in the members of the First' Warriors of Light (Adbert and friends), even if it's a side quest it is needed to complete the main story so you can get some picture about these ex-Source' Warriors of Darkness life before and after they moved on (or by), there are four of them each focused on a member and divided by jobs: Tank, Ranged/melee Physical DPS, magical DPS, and Healer, I played Dark Knight and the Tank Job quest focused on the other tank in the band, the Roegadyn Paladin and yes the story is as sad as ever. It was so good that I decided to level one from each jobs, which included leveling my Monk that i have sweared would never touch again, see now, a good story can even make you broke your promise right? (update: I did that and surprisingly there is another side story quest opened up, just call that that a closure, or epilogue, it's good)

It always ended with a GF, always

Features

 
Ability Prune aside, the ability of Dark knight to clone myself and lots of visual upgrade is appealing, oh yeah there are trust system now in which you run dungeons with your fellow Scions as bots so yeah no more long queue if you leveled as DPS, although Roulette still exists on max level to farm the tomestones, companion has level too and achievements attached to them so I'm still trying to max them out by playing as several jobs and combining them with the role jobs it is an AWESOME way to level grinding since trust dungeons grants you a HUGE chunk of XP, combine them with FATE jewel grinding and you'll level FASTER than your main, moreso the bosses drop loots for you and you only so yeah, FREE LOOT, they are just leveling gears though no tomestones are granted in Trust dungeon.

The Crafting and gathering Jobs are also revamped, started with the so-called restoration of Ishgard the crafting jobs were given a new instanced area which grows along with player's contribution, the gathering profession also will be given a new feature in the next patch in a form of a beast tribe reputation, and to be honest this is another thing I swore off not to touch again because crafting and gathering up to Heavensward were so exhausting and unfun I stopped leveling them on Stormblood, and when Stormblood gave us the Eureka Island rather to a revamped gather-craft things instead I just flipped and never bothered with them again. But to be honest with these addition I probably will just have to broke my promise again (update: I did, and they add new beast tribe dailies for gathering)

Verdict:

 
Well the for the story itself I gave FFXIV a solid nine, it's long, clocking me at three weeks of gameplay (4-5 hours a day), but it's so great, if heavensward main story gives a 'journey to the west' vibe, and Stormblood is about 'tactical war (part 1) and tragic redemption/consolidation (part 2), Shadowbringer is mostly about limitation of self and how to deal with it since the main villain is continuously engaged with our warrior of light/darkness beyond taunt and threats. The side quests are weirdly more about you knowing more about the world rather than just simply for leveling up or gained money, some can be tiresome and there are lot of them but in the end you'll realize that you learned just a little bit more.

The gameplay is wow, I must say: I can never find myself running around town figuring out what to do next, there is always something to do, even leveling can be combined to other activities like farming jewels and hunting marks (just like the old days, but more varied, also there is a gigantic coeurl with great horns, but she rarely spawned, I tried to take her down solo only to be be quickly floored)

Eden is the new raid (featuring alternate version of past primals fight) and Yorha (collaboration with an android dating sim game called Nier: Automata...wait, what?) is the new Alliance Raid, both are complex and featuring longer fights that drains your brain cell since one encounter can have 10-20 movesets and you are compelled to memorize them all or you (like me) can just lie facedown for two- third of the fight :D

 

I just got rejected, didn't I?

It's fun that crafting and gathering jobs got some love although they mainly just upped the xp from quests and levequests below level 70 until you zoomed through them, fishing got new fishing boat instances where you and other people can engange in ocean fishing together, you can catches special fish that can buff everyone in the ship, the level 60-70 daily crafting beast tribe quests from stormblood is still relevant in term of XP and reputation grinding, new beast tribe quests featuring the Qiqirn version of The First called the Qitari is a welcomed feature.

A bunch of lore story dump, plot twists, and a lot of can be/could be situation is the meat of this expansion, it's well-written to the details, although sometimes suffered from 'too much explanation' but seeing the Scions are now more battle ready and more involved on the fighting are refreshing takes, we're still the hero and they are the companions and in the end we still win big (although not a complete one).

Yes, the traveling merchant is now on credits, we win BIG

Little post E3... posts

E3 has some interesting games on display, including Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines 2 (yeah long name) in which I hope ranged weapons will do some damage compared to it's predecessor (It's called Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines, just FYI)

The moustache itself is a reason for playing

But no, I'm not preordering anything, not even Keanu Reeves can sway me (no, he's not in a vampire game, but a game about robot hands... or legs... or half a head), even if I preordered I still have to wait a year to play it, I only prordered something if (1) my friends are preordering, and (2) .... uh no, I have no reason for number 2.

On second thought... I DO have reason number 2

Also there's a Final Fantasy VII remake, which is a grim reminder for humanity that they're twenty two years older and will finally see Aerith died again in a glorious expensive 3d animation, and when the scene ends there will be another reminder that they don't have to insert disc 2 but they have to WAIT for the disc to be released, and they're (probably) have to buy it.

I'm not going into any character controversy, please add a story DLC about this meteor, it IS IN THE LOGO!!

Options Matters

Minor Spoiler for Detroit Becomes Human demo and Dragon Age Inquisition

For the first time Epic Games is bringing Quantic Dreams Titles (Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Soul, and Detroit Becomes Human) to PC, Originally exclusives to Playstation and they skipped Steam Store, which makes me wonder will other exclusive PS4 like God of War (Sony) or Spider-Man (Insomniac) will make way to PC too. All titles are on sale on Playstation Spring Store right now and I already took out Detroit Becomes Human from my basket (I like having options), I played Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls already, for some 'next generation point and click adventure' their story was great.

Speaking of options the demos will probably come out in near time, I played the Detroit demo on PS4  two days ago and although it was Quantic Dream's fastest selling title because they boast 'CHOICES MATTER' in their card title and constantly reminding me throughout the demo that all my action would shape the story, I found myself perturbed by the appearance of 'probability success' in the demo mission.

If my choices matter why the probability success? It's a hostage situation and I have a choice to investigate the crime scene first or just to confront the perpetrator, I did the first and although my success probability spiked up to 99% I decided to off the guy (after I got close and calmed him down) and then apparently my brain start destabilizing.

If choice matters, IMO there's a good chance there are 'bad endings' and 'good endings', in Dragon Age: Inquisition I did some terrible choice for the sake of a mission and ended up losing a party member (although it happened IN THE DLC) but I can accept that, there's also credit title cards and stuffs about that decision and the aftermath consequence, that makes me feel that my choices did matter.

But probability success? for what? good endings? am I pushed towards good? most game which offered 'choices' often have half-assed situation for 'bad ending' (ex: your character died, your friend died, something blew up, everyone died) and they sometimes have cutscenes... SHORTER cutscenes  compared to the 'good ending' cutscenes, plus they often have action or bonus mission for the good ones (Spec Ops The Line: I'm talking about you), after I finished the Detroit demo there's a flow chart page, which show me my progression, and apparently yes, there are longer cutscenes attributed to the 'good ending'

My choice matters, but apparently my playtime will be shorter if I just turn violent for the sake of a mission =)) =))

Being Saleh: Optional Ending

Major spoiler for Dragon Age, Final Fantasy Tactics,  and Final Fantasy XIV

Dragon Age
Bioware's rpg megahit Dragon Age franchise has compelling storyline and combat system, it also featured ending(s) which shaped by the player's choices during the gameplay, alas it also featured something I called 'optional but essential' ending, namely: the dlc

When the third major title Dragon Age Inquisition came out I was excited that I can import my character's vital decision in Dragon Age 1 and 2 via the website (saving me the hassle to install them again) but I stumbled at the end of the dragon quest origin timeline, frowning upon a choice which I'm pretty sure I was never came upon to (I remembered my decisions) not until I read the explanation that it was supposed to be made in the last DAO's dlc: the witch hunt

I mostly turn blind eye on dlc but unfortunately it was essential in DA universe, fortunately I have DA 2 attached with all the dlc. After contemplating that 'last' DLC will be important to the last Dragon Age Inquisition I decided to wait for the GOTY version, bought it and surprised that it wasn't even optional, it was required because in that DLC i lost two party member and (also optional) dismantling my team, if this decision was going to the next dragon age (if there is one) and I didn't play the dlc I probably wondered what happened to them? Then when I was told that they did this and that and this, I will be like: what? When?  If they're alive they will probably said things that contradict my old game decision, the whole thing can be so confusing without the dlc.

Final Fantasy Tactics No, i never finished Final Fantasy Tactics, also I used gameshark and save state to cheese out many of the game's mission. I stopped playing in the early 2000 because I probably just got bored and wonder if human beings are more interesting (they're not), I left and never came back until the latest Return to Ivalice raid in Final Fantasy XIV.

Return to Ivalice, like the previous Crystal Tower raid brought major references from earlier Final Fantasy series to FFXIV, precisely FFIII for CT and FF tactics for RTI raid, not until I beat the last wing of the raid that I realized that it was not just a reference object, it's a conclusion of Final Fantasy Tactics if you connect the dots

With names like Ramza, Delita, and Alma headlining the casts you will probably think the similarities was only in the name, it's not until clearing the second raid wing (if you don't finish Final Fantasy Tactics) you'll realized that something else happened long ago but you can't put your finger to it because FFXIV doesn't offer explanation (because it was explained in FF tactics game) then you go and beat the last wing and something happened, again if you never finished FF tactics like me you'll just staring and trying to understand things as the characters mumbling about something that happened in the past, for half an hour.

Well something did happen in the past, Final Fantasy Tactics happens

Here's the major breakdown, from here on it's the MAJOR spoiler for both game, so here goes nothing

In Final Fantasy Tactics Ramza and his band of mercenary found out that their country was built on lies, that the saint they revered is a demon god called ultima, that a race of demon called Lucavi is pulling strings and manipulate the church to resurrect Ultima by initiating war between countries for sacrifices. Ramza cs stopped the demon but after that their fate remains unknown, while the church (now free from Lucavis) labeled them as heretics (which is an idiot move) because they 'desecrated' the saint's faith. Delita becomes king and because of the distrust spread in his royal court got stabbed and die, frustrated, calling Ramza's name and wonder whether he actually changed anything, Oran Durai (another key character) wrote a book claiming Ramza and companions are heroes and detailing the Lucavis plot, he got arrested, branded heretics, burned at stake, and his book locked in the church's vault for years. The cliffhanger ending shows Arazlam Durai: his descendants promised that he will clear his ancestor's name based on the book.

In Final Fantasy 14 we're introduced to the bas Lexentales (Alma and Ramza) which claimed that Oran Durai is not a heretic, based on the book he wrote years ago, they were searching for their father, Jenomis bas Lexentales which rescued after the player cleared the first raid wing (which contains text and references from Final Fantasy Tactics story) and revealed that his true name is Arazlam Durai, as the story goes they found out that Ultima is still alive and still searching for suitable vessel for his resurrection through a special crystal called auracite, the echo granted the warrior of light a vision that long ago it was Alma, Delita, and Oran Durai that planned that Ramza cs will be branded heretics as per Ramza request, apparently Ramza and his companions are also warriors of light but failed to stop Ultima completely, to avoid major roadblock on Delita's ascension to the throne so he can restore order and prepare the next generation to fight ultima after he got complete support from the church the four friends staged the branding while Oran's book will be kept safely in the church's vault, waiting as evidence for the future, unfortunately as the last scene of the final fantasy tactics told us Delita's failed, Oran burned at stake, but his descendants with Alma lives on. As the time goes by Ivalice and Rabanastre are occupied by Garlean empire.

The story continues: The warrior of light is finally beaten all Lucavis (revealed as major characters from Final Fantasy Tactics) and Ultima as well, in the last cutscene Ramza Beoulve (Ramza from FF tactics) and his companions appeared in spirit form and thanks the warrior of light for finishing the job, Delita also appeared and question him whether he's done enough for their sake (reference from both the FF tactics when he died from the strife and when he agreed to be king to clear his friend's name eventually which he failed miserably)  they both shake hand and return to the light.

So long story short: in Final Fantasy Tactics Ramza and friends failed to permanently ended Ultima, his remaining friend transpired to support Delita's ascend to the throne by making him denounce Ramza's heroism to vouch for the church's vote in hope he will restore order to the kingdom and diminishing the church's role, he was killed by his court before realizing it and the kingdom razed to the ground and assimilated by the Garlean Empire, many years later the Warrior of Light (a.k.a us) finished the job.

Special Ending: in Final Fantasy Tactics Oran Durai  publicly claimed that after fighting ultima Ramza and Alma ride to the sunset, finally free from their disowned noble names as they took up new names, this false claim was brought in the FFXIV story, realizing that proving ultima's existence wasn't going to change anything for their family names due to Garlean occupation (and beside they're already changed it and live as travelling performer)  the Bas Lexentales decided to incorporate this claim for their Zodiac Brave Story theatrical act, adding a happy ending to the story.

You see... with this optional ending I can finally brag to my friends which ONLY played Final Fantasy Tactics =))