52 Weeks of Gaming: Week 19 (5/6-5/12): Yuna’s Decision

Final Fantasy X: Like I said in last week’s entry, I really enjoyed the boss battles in this game. I like the mechanic where you move the ship close or away during the Evrae boss fight depending on what it plans to do. It also made me change my part members frequently since only some of them can attack from afar. The dead Evrae fight was funny since I was able to take it down with two Phoenix Downs because it is weak to healing due to it being a zombie. I need to take note of that when I face enemies with the zombie status.

The second Seymour battle was tough, especially with Mortibody healing itself when its HP reaches 0 and Seymour’s attacks hitting harder than last time. My strategy this time was to get Mortibody’s max HP down to 1,000 and then go for Seymour. I thought that having Kimarhi fight Biran and Yenke on his own was great, since it shows how much stronger Kimarhi has gotten since he left Mount Gagzet many years prior.

The summoner battles remind me of Pokémon battles. Finding out which Aeon’s attacks are supper effective against the enemy’s Aeon is just like finding out which Pokémon type is strong against the opponent’s Pokémon. This week, I was finally able to beat Belgemine’s Aeon battle after losing the first two tutorial battles (third time’s the charm!).

Once I reached the Calm Lands, I was captivated by the music (Yuna’s Decision). It was very relaxing and I stopped for a few minutes just to listen to the song. Although the Calm Lands are vast, open, and empty, riding Chocobo made navigating the area fun. When I first got to Mount Gagzet, I thought that I needed to grind AP since the enemies in the area were hitting my party members hard. It made me wish that this version of the game had the fast forward function to make grinding easier. Thankfully, I was able to get through the area without grinding.

As an antagonist, Seymour is definitely not one of the better ones. His plan to become Sin to wipe out the world to end people’s suffering is, while twisted logic, is something that a lot of bad guys in media typically say when they justify their want to destroy the world (I’m looking at you Thanos). It’s also very messed up how most of Yevon’s higher-ups are not following the teachings for their own sake. They didn’t send Maester Mika even though he is dead because they wanted his wisdom to lead Yevon, while Bevelle is full of Machina (both in the city and the temple).   

When Tidus found out that his Zanarkand and the people who lived in it were made up by the Fayth, I was confused. I thought that meant that Tidus is not a real person and if that was the case, how does he exist. If he isn’t supposed to exist and if Sin is defeated, then does that mean Tidus will disappear at the end of the game?

Devil May Cry 2: Since I bought Devil May Cry 5, I thought I should play the other games before I start playing it. I knew going into Devil May Cry 2 that it was one of the worst games of the series, and after playing an hour and a half of the game, I understand why.

One of my complaints from the first game was that there weren’t any tutorials and I had to experiment to understand the controls. Another complaint I had was that the CGI cutscenes looked very blurry. Both of these problems still existed in this game, although I thought controlling Dante was okay.

The story that was presented to me after the first few missions didn’t interest me at all (a lady wants Dante to stop Arius, a President of a company that uses demon power, from destroying the world?). It also didn’t help that the environments felt lifeless and boring. I ended up stopping and looked up if I needed to play the previous games to understand what goes on in 5, which I found out that the game had a quick recap of the series that did a good job catching up new players. I might end up coming back to this game later (if I enjoy 3-5), but it doesn’t look likely at the moment.

Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age: Within the first 15 minutes of the game, there was a lot of lore and plot dropped which felt a little overwhelming. From what I can remember, Archadia & Rozarria want control over the continent, with Archadia successfully invaded Nabradia and got Dalmasca to surrender.

When I played the demo a few weeks ago, I thought the combat was too complicated to understand. After playing an hour this week, the gameplay is simpler than I thought. You have auto attacks, but you can choose commands whenever you want and can stack them. Visually, the cutscenes look good enough to be a Final Fantasy movie, although the in-game visuals look like late PS2 era graphics (like Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story).

With high tech ships and Chocobos, FF 12 reminds me of an interesting sci-fi/fantasy blend similar to Star Wars. Since it is a story intensive game, I’ll play this game once I’m not playing other story intensive games.

Devil May Cry 5: I originally was worried that I wouldn’t be able to understand what is going on without playing the previous games in the series. However, the game had a short recap video that helped me understand what happened in the previous 4 entries and it was enough for me to feel comfortable to play the game. Visually, the game looks amazing (probably because of the RE Engine that Capcom uses in their recent games) and the ridiculous over-the-top action is very cool.

The game does a great job in teaching me how Nero plays and the different things you can do with his moves. When I played the demo earlier in the year, I didn’t feel comfortable playing Nero and left a bad impression on me. With all the move upgrades and the different kinds of Devil Triggers, there were a lot of options for flashy combos with Nero and experimenting with combos is what makes the gameplay fun for me. Speaking of gameplay, it reminds me a lot of Bayonetta with the ability to buy additional skills, the grading system, and having secret missions. However, Devil May Cry 5’s gameplay feels slightly slower than Bayonetta’s, but its fast enough to be flashy and satisfying.

V combat is simple, with his attacks tied to different demons and V only being able to deal the final blow to the enemy. Since V avoids combat most of the time, it is very easy to achieve A-SS ranks in fights. It is a good change of pace from Nero’s gameplay style although I was worried that playing as V would be awkward. As a character, I found it funny that V is basically the stereotypical emo guy who reads poetry (which, surprisingly enough, also plays a part in his gameplay).