First 2 Hours of Final Fantasy XV

Pimp My Ride: XV Edition

So I finally opened my copy of Final Fantasy XV after 10 long ass years of waiting for the game to actually come out. I popped it into the PS4…of course with a game this size it took literally 3 hours to go through 20+ GBs of patches…

Anyway, once the game finally loaded up I was greeted with the screen “A Final Fantasy for Fans and First-Timers”…K.

When you first start the game you’re offered the option to do a tutorial first to get the gameplay down. Which I found a bit odd…usually those sort of things are integrated into the game within the first hour but hey why not. I spent a good 30 minutes dueling with Gladiolus to get the game mechanics down. Did I succeed? Not really, I still fucking suck but I learned a bit.

Finally, I start the game…

It begins with an opening sequence of you as an older Noctis with your friends fighting a smug looking demon king sitting in a pit of fire. In typical Final Fantasy fashion there’s no explanation for this, you run up to the demon, get blown back and your bros protect you. Then it changes to a present time cutscene with your father…and goddamn do they love mapping out those pores! (No screenshots because I was too mezmorised) The King sends you off on your best bro road trip and finally the game begins.

…By you pushing a car for 10 minutes while Stand by Me plays in the background.

I’m not sure if this is where I’m supposed to cringe or not.

Anyway, being a dick and typical player I try to push the car into oncoming traffic. A truck stops just before hitting the Regalia (the car’s name), and tries to drive around us. I block him again and the car vanishes.

IT FUCKING DISAPPEARS IN MIDAIR.

So unimmersive, gg.

Anyway, we push the car into the mechanics garage on the side of the road and we meet a southern Tits McGee who tells us to get money or GTFO while her shriveled up dad makes fun of us for being a bunch of sissies. Fine.

We trudge through the barren wasteland while we make small talk about Noctis getting married to some girl in another kingdom. I get my first taste of combat fighting some scorpions which should have been dead easy but remember this is me playing the game so I nearly fuck that up. We do this a few more times and fight some weird ass looking dogs before rescuing a guy then fighting a big ass monster rhino which knocks us around for a bit.

It takes forever to get back so we set up camp for the night (since apparently demons spawn at night and I rather not get my ass kicked at level 1 thanks) and mom I mean Ignis cooks us up a meal of which I want to reach through the screen and eat for real. Once morning comes the group stretches a bit and we begin the long trek back to the mechanic garage. The cutie Cindy fixes up our car but we go get some missions from the local cafe first and head out to do some hunting. I take the car for a spin but to my disappointment you can only move the thing forward or backwards, and you can’t hit other cars or take it off-road. I guess that’s another limitation there.

Ignis reaching into a deer’s butthole.

We go on a few hunts fighting gazelles, and let me tell you the combat is pretty okay but it’s frustrating at times, because of the camera angles. Usually camera isn’t too much of an issue on the savanna plain but where I had to fight these gazelles there was a cliff face and a bunch of trees so I couldn’t see where I was, if I was going to be hit or not or even if I was doing anything. These fucking creatures were jumping over me like no tomorrow and here I was fighting blind and getting my ass kicked by millions of tiny hoofs. Luckily your bros help you out (AKA big Daddy Gladiolus), so it wasn’t too bad but I spent a long time hobbling around. And sure, having warp points is all great and handy but you gotta focus the camera hard and target to actually warp to where you want. Even worse when there’s no rocks or high areas to use and you end up playing chicken trying to recover yourself out of stasis or regen health while your party is doing all the work and the fucking monster has you in its sights. Goddamn.

The cool part is every time you rest up at night to level you get to review kpop star Prompto’s photos of the day and some of them are pretty hilarious. Here’s a few:

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(Promoto’s camera seems to favour Gladiolus…can you blame him??)

Anyway, I’m excited where the story will take me (event though barely anything has happened so far)! Looking forward to playing some more. 🙂

Revamp

Just a small update.

To be honest, I don’t play Skyrim much anymore. I’m waiting for SKSE to be fully compatible with Special Edition, and in the meantime I don’t want to fight with installing mods for hours on end.

Also cuz I’ve been addicted to Overwatch…

So, what this means for this blog.

I think going forward it will be a more general-game focused blog (as seen with the Fallout 4 and Dark Souls posts). I’ve recently gotten Final Fantasy XV for Christmas so I’ll definitely be sharing my thoughts on the game (hopefully good ones). Of course, they’ll still be Skyrim posts here in there, who knows, maybe in the future they’ll be an epic mod, or by then the next Elder Scrolls will make its debut (but hopefully the wait won’t be too long). I’m still open to suggestions if there’s anything gaming (or Skyrim) related you want me to cover, just let me know in a comment I’ll consider it.

Anyway, see you in the next post~

My Favourite Skyrim Videos

Over the years there’s been many great Skyrim videos, be it machinimas or poops, music videos or skits, mod showcases or glitches. Some are shit, and some are just damned amazing. Here’s my collection of favourite videos/series.

Hitting a Tree in the Balls and & other Dark Souls 3 Misadventures

So I’ve returned to the world of Dark Souls (rather…reluctantly…kind of put it off a few times…heh). My friends had recently gotten me to play it at their house (the friend in particular that got me back into it is on his third playthrough…wow). Ironically, it’s the same friend who I made get into Dark Souls, so guess everything comes full circle.

SKYRIM: SPECIAL EDITION (Part 1)

So after a few days of this:

…And not getting it to work (my dad fixed it eventually…don’t ask me how), I finally, FINALLY settled down to play.

First thing off the bat, game loaded in high settings for me…which is fine, except I got an abundance of screen tearing like no one’s business. Changed that to ultra, runs perfectly. Hooray!

Now what you’ll notice the most about this remastered edition is the lighting above all else.

God rays? Check!

Now that boring, unskippable wagon ride looks suddenly a lot more sullen in a misty morning as you’re being delivered to your death.

This game I decided to play vanilla to see what changes were in Special Edition. This time I went as a high elf who loves the Thalmor and basically hates everyone else. Hooray for racists! /s

What I’ve also noticed as I fought my way out of Alduin’s attack was the sharpness of everything. Textures were much more high-res, shadows were no longer blocky, and they’ve introduced a new depth-of-field effect (which can be toggled in the main menu if that bothers you).

Weather was a lot more…realistic feeling, at least to me. Rain came in on my way to Riverwood. However, unlike Fallout 4 the ground did not get wet from the rain, which is a bit disappointing but that’s another thing that can be easily fixed with mods.

The draw distance has also increased in game, which is nice. Now you can see things very far off fairly clearly.

Flying trees?

…Provided you don’t toggle free flying camera and go too far, of course.

…Of course I haven’t been very far since I’ve been quite ill (hence the short entry) but I think I will install some texture mods in time for the first dragon fight, and we’ll see how good it looks then. Overall I’m very pleased, and I’m glad they changed the version to 64-bit, and removed the RAM limit.

Good job, Bethesda! Now I just gotta wait for SKSE to get converted over and I will be one very happy Dovahkiin~

(Image Credits: All screenshots taken by me. Please do not repost without my permission.)