darksnowman

FF IX/2 Days.

Forgot all about this track. The Pixel Remaster version is well done and all. Unfortunately I'm far enough now that it's been replaced with something more upbeat on the overworld but at least its still used in a town.

UFO fiddy. Agreed. Glad the Switch isn't just being immediately dropped. Hoping for another good showing from third parties or something totally new from Nintendo themselves.

Getting airship access right at the end was a bit of a kick in the teeth. Very much a Wii take on an airship! I don't remember Zhonecage but when you get the airship and it tells you to check around for new locations I duly obliged and turned up a few. Drawing a blank on the unknown desert and don't remember having the option for Pascal to assist with puzzles. So unless it was part of the main story I must have missed that. Yeah, I had to engage the old grey matter to sort out those moving platforms in the shaft. The puzzle in the final area was no joke either—had me going back and forward quite a bit to see what was doing what. I didn't mind the coloured floor panels though. What's the verdict versus your previous playthroughs? I wouldn't mind NG+ing it sometime either with more grade shop buys and it'd be time to look up some pointers for dualising, inn requests and the dreaded missables. I followed up on the timed quests the handful of times the egg timer came up onscreen but being a Tales of game I wouldn't be surprised in the least if there's a heap of other hidden stuff.

Yeah, not that it's a big location but I had bother figuring out where to go with it all being so samey. The underground void area leading up to it looked like it was going to be a maze to get through but either I fluked it or it was a fairly straight shot from entrance to exit. Yeah, Pascal was on the less annoying side. Could have done with an extra character or two to offset Cheria and Hubert, imo. Given an alternative, I'd have dropped Sophie too. Nothing wrong with a small group... but when they're annoying... I'd have welcomed another Malik-style character. Unfortunate that Emeraude just joined as an unplayable character. I just dualised willy-nilly and turned in inn requests if I completed them. Unless I missed it, a way to see the ingredients needed for specific items would have spurred me on to dualise with purpose. The lack of an overworld + decent mapping held it back for me. At one point, I chained Turtlez together to get back to Lhant just to see if it could be done. It could, then I had to do it again in reverse to get back where I'd left off. Would be handy if any Turtlez could just directly take you anywhere you've been. Always seemed to be a lane or boat trip away from Lhant until I did that. Have you seen it out? It was nice to get to Fodra but the battle music there doesn't fit at all.

The demo wasted no time reconfirming it.

For sure. There's daylight between me and every wall/barrier/blade of grass it thinks I'm hitting. Sometimes you can clatter around a corner and not lose too much speed but it isn't dependable. Going off and on the accelerator to initiate a drift is working better for me than trying to force it by breaking, though that could depend on the car as I just tried one I unlocked and could hardly get a drift out of it with that method. Going to need more time to get a feel for how to bully other cars and not come off the worse. Currently not too hopeful this is doable. There's a nice sense of speed in certain sections. I reckon time trial'd be good to zone out and swing around some bends.

Places like Wallbridge are to be savoured. I like the way titles are sort of like jobs in other RPGs. But you get so many thrown at you I just put it on auto and let the game cycle through them for me. Being presented straight away with the grade shop took me by surprise. If I totted it up right, it looked like it gives you enough grade to unlock everything from the off. Yeah, inventory space is tight. I had to keep dualising to free up room so pickups weren't going to waste. Indeed. "Tactical." Well, come clean then. What's so good about Graces anyway?? Can't only be the ice block sliding minigame. I think you just like Richard going Ratatosk mode and the bit at the end under friendship tree when he claps Asbel on the back and tells him courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality.

Are you a natural at RR64? It feels good when you glide around a corner but the collision detection is incredibly unforgiving. At least Horizon Chase Turbo has the nitro to give you a chance to recover from bonking another car. Decent reason to (not figuratively) dust off the N64 controller.

Everything already been discussed on this over a decade ago, then? Always been under the impression I'd missed out on something fairly special with this, but having now played through it, I'd say it is just okay. When I went to buy ToGfR the other weekend, I was pleasantly surprised it was on the cheaper side like Ys Memoire: TOiF the week before. More of this, please. Then when I started into it I immediately felt like I'd made a mistake—it was so naff that if the opening 3-4 hours were a demo I reckon I'd have been happy enough to take a pass on it. Thankfully, it picks up a little after that and I can look back on the beginning as a sort of charming stage setter. I'm still going to go back for the bonus scenario but it'd have to reinvent the game a fair bit to elevate my opinion of it after playing the main game itself. Deplete CC, wait for it to replenish, deplete CC, wait for it to replenish, deplete CC... oh, +2 CC from a dodge, wait for the rest to replenish...

Levelled. Progressed. Thought I was within an hour of finishing it. Got over the next roadblock at a mere three retries but that's me stuck again. Need to level more. Warrior learned all her abilities so I've conformed and changed vocation to monster wrangler. Will do the same with martial artist once the last ability comes through.

Any response from the clouds you're yelling at, old man? I ask because you sound like me when I go on Pokémon Unite. As for F-Zero 99, you're stuck with whatever's in rotation and the unlocks take care of themselves based on how you race/what mode you race/both. The current three lap, 9-race world tour is fun when it comes up. I'm hoping to make it through all nine races before long...

I put her in the cat ears and tail and it still didn't take the edge off the irritation I was getting from her. I played the whole game as Adol except when the game forced me to be Karja.

The demo sold me on the gameplay and atmosphere so I was looking forward to the full-game. A tweak here and there wouldn't go a miss but overall I had a very good time with it. Fantasian's been good stuff. I imagine the controls haven't been adapted properly because it's iffy if you keep running when you go between screens—learned that the hard way when I overshot a save point on the screen beside the first boss. Otherwise it's lovely. The day it came out the Switch news page wrongly said there was a demo, but there is one now if you want to give it a go.

It'll be evergreen. Had to get Reynatis that weekend.