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Stranger in Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, my final review, part three

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I have more to say about Stranger in Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin (Team NINJA), soulslikes in general, and my thoughts about From games in general. We’ll see how much of that I actually get to. I’m guessing probably the first. Then me winding down several other paths before abruptly ending the post. because that’s how I roll! Here is my prior post on this subject and on my review of the game.

Part of my problem is that I keep thinking I should like Team NINJA games. It’s well-known that the Niohs are considered two of the best soulslikes–at least until Lies of P (Round8 Studio/NEOWIZ), and I have tried and tried and tried to like them. As I have mentioned, I’ve played several Team NINJA games and have not been able to finish a single one. The Niohs are too hard for me, and I just lost all interence in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty after a particularly shitty level.

When I’m playing a From game, there are times when I’m frustrated. I have many bad moments against bosses. I curse constantly, and sometimes, I put the controller down and walk away. I’m really bad at the games and sometimes, I wish I did not like them. It’s not fun to be into games that are not into me (which is pretty much the story of my life, really), and I’m not always happy that I played Dark Souls all those many years ago.

Ian and I have argued about this back and forth for many years. He thinks From games are aimed at people like me. The mere peonz who struggle with every boss, but eventually overcome. I argue that it’s for the superfans who can parry every enemy to death without breaking a sweat.

It’s similar to the argument we have over what is Miyazaki’s aim with the games. Or rather, the argument people in community have over Miyazaki’s intent with the games (Ian and I agree on this). Some fans believe that Miyazaki loves the players and want to break them in order to make them better. Others believe that Miyazaki hates the players and just want to thoroughly crush their spirits. I don’t think either of these are right. I believe that Miyazaki does not care about the players. He’s interested in creating these horrific and heartbreaking worlds, as intricate and elaborate as possible. Whether the players fit into those worlds are not off any interest to him. We are incidental, which is an interesting feeling in these kinds of games. Usually, action adventure games are very heavy on you being the protag and eventually ruling the  world/being the hero/saving the world.


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Stranger in Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin my (maybe) final review, part two

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I have to say that I am still struggling with this game. This game being Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin (Team NINJA). I had said in my previous post  that I had unlocked Red Mage and wanted to try it out–along with going to the smithy to dismantle the items I didn’t want. I did the former first and got rid of several of my weapons. An important thing to know is that if you want to do a certain job, you need to have a weapon that can be used for that job. This makes sense, obviously.

I mention this because while I had unlocked Red Mage, I could not click on it as my job. I was very confused and took a closer look at the description. I did not realize that for hybrid jobs, you have to work your way down TWO job trees–not just one.

*SPOILERS*

In this case, it was the swordfighter. I think? There’s a swordfighter and a swordsman. I just Googled it. Yep, there are the two. I didn’t bother to level up swordfighter beacuse that’s what Neon is. She’s the first main boss who becomes a member of your party. The swordsfighter is sword and board wherceas the swordsman two-hands a greatsword.

I decided to do side missions and level up swordfighter as quickly as possible. Except, see, I had sold off all the broadswords except the one Neon uses. Therefore, I could not do the job. I quickly looked at the old missions and found out that one of the side missions gives you a broadsword as a reward. So I ran that side mission and got the broadsword in order to level up that job class until I reached Red Mage. That took a few hours of doing one side mission over and over again, and I was finally able to unlock Red Mage. Much to my dismay, the spells for Red Mage were Fire, Blizzard, and Thunder from Black Mage and Regen, Shell, Protect, and Haste from White Mage. The three from BLack Mage were ifne, though I would have preferred Flare to Fire., but the ones for White Mage…I would much prefer Cure to Regen and Raise to Haste. Or even Dia instead of either Shell or Protect. Though, come to think of it, both Shell and Protect (increase defense for magic and physical, respectively) are fine.

I was pretty disappointed to find out those were the spells. And I have yet to be able to actually cast them because I don’t have enough mana. No idea why. I have unlocked Monk, which means I can unlock Dragoon. Wait. No. Is that the right path? Not sure, but I can unlock Dragoon if I want.


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Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin–my (maybe) final review

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I’ve reached the third real area of Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin (Team NINJA). I am suddenly fed up with it after doing the first chunk of it, and I think I’m done. I have talked in previous posts as to my frustrations with Team NINJA games, and this has the same issues writ large. Here’s my last post about my issues with soulslikes in general, of which this game is one.

A few positives. The bosses and NPCs are campy as fuck. I love that nothing is taken seriously (or taken too seriously), which makes the story ludicrous. It’s a juicy telenovella, which is right up my alley. I mean, it’s one of the reasons I like musicals. Lavish extravaganzas with flashy showtunes. The latter is not found in this game, but the former most definitely is.

I also like that there are plenty of jobs (basically classes) that you can switch fairly easily at the bonfires. Look . That’s what they are. No, they aren’t called them in this game, but that’s what they are. Orb something or the other? No. They are called cubes, apparently.

By the way, the demo video I have included below from GameSpot informs me that the Jobs thing has been in past Final Fantasy games, too, so it’s not something that Team NINJA came up with. Oh, and something that irritated me…let me put it this way. There is a White Mage, a Black Mage, and a Red Mage (three different mage jobs). I have unlocked White Mage and Black Mage, but not the Red Mage yet. White Mage is a healing mage and Black Mage is a damage mage. I like being a healer, but it’s not necessary when I’m playing by myself. So I’ve been mostly playing Black Mage, but I’ve been wishing that I could have some of the White Mage healing abilities.

Can I reiterate how frustrating it is that they don’t explain what spells each mage can cast. Plus, some of the spells are made up words/in a different language. I could discern what some of them were by their proximity to English words, but not all of them. I found out from the video below that Red Mage combines different spells from the White Mage and the Red Mage, so I have to try to unlock that–which means doing regular mage I think until I get the points needed to unlock Red Mage.

Or maybe not.

As I said, I’m pretty done with the game.


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Shadow of the Erdtree, a review, part ten

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Ok, this is the last post in my series of posts of reviewing Shadow of the Erdtree, the DLC for Elden Ring (FromSoft). For now, anyway. I have to say that I get so frustrated with reviews in general beacuse they tend to be THIS GAME IS THE BEST THING EVER NO NOTES or THIS GAME IS THE WORST THING EVER AND HOW DID IT GET MADE???? There is very little in-between, and I get why. Nuance doesn’t sell. You need all the clickbait you can get as a content creator. There has to be an audience for it, too (hyperbole), otherwise content creators wouldn’t do it so much.

And the discourse is frustratingly shallow much of the time. I know that’s because many people don’t think in layers the way I do, but still. I have to really seek out thoughtful dissections that aren’t just superficial. I’m tired of the difficulty debate because it’s so narrow and not fruitful. Also, From is going to do what From is going to do. From an accessibility standpoint, they will never have a coventional easy mode. I’m not sure I would want one, to be honest, or what that would actually entail. I’ve had this discussion with rational people before, and it’s hard to say what that would actually mean.

I mean, they could give the bosses simplified moves. Have a Nice Death (Magic Design Studios) did that with their easy mode, along with fewer enemies and everyone having less health/doing less damage. I had to knock it down to easy fairly early on and that’s how I played the whole game. I still couldn’t do the true end boss, in part because of the horrible platforming in the last area (having to jump through spiky crevices and then falling back if you can’t do it. Which I couldn’t). Also in part because you have to do the whole area and the boss without filling up on health. Oh, and it’s not just one boss, it’s two plus a mini-boss. And an increase in difficulty (because that’s part of how you reach the secret end boss).

Am I sad that I can’t do the true last boss? Yes. Will I go back and try it again? I don’t know. I put so much into that game, only to fall short time and time again. I can’t even beat the fake last boss that often–or get there. I think I’ve beaten him…three times? Maybe?

I don’t know if that would be possible in a From game. I mean, it would be, but I highly doubt they would ever do it. In the last post, I rambled about many things, really. I was tired, upset,  and didn’t have myself gathered.


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Shadow of the Erdtree, a review, part nine

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Yes, I’m back with another post about Shadow of the Erdtree, the DLC for Elden Ring (FromSoft). At the end of the last post, I was talking about summoning in the DLC the second time through (human summons) because I did it a few times in the second half of the DLC the second time I played through it.

*SPOILER WARNING*

I have to say, I took very vicious satisfaction in killing the Blackgaol Knight on my second try in NG+. This is the first field boss I fought in the DLC, and with 38 Vigor, he was really fucking hard for me to fight. He has poise for days and his weapon skill is a slice of light that never ends up where I think it will.

Side note: this is one of my issues with the bosses in general in the DLC. It happened in the base game as well, but moreso in the DLC. The bosses had combos for days and were really hard to stagger. I was able to mitigate that with my second character, but my first character was not poise-forward, shall we say.

The Blackgaol Knight made me question whether I was ready for the DLC or not. One thing that constantly frustrates me about the DLCs for the From games is how they turn it up to a hundo every time. I know I’m in the minority when I say that thde DLCs are not my favorite part of any From game because everyone else loves them so much.

I died to the BGK over and over again. I went at him for an hour and was getting increasingly frustrated. I had to do all sorts of shenanigans in order to beat him, including dumping 20 points into Vigor. In cantrast, I one-shot him in my second playthrough and two-shot him in NG+. I wonder if FromSoft nerfed him because he was so fucknig hard the first time around. Then again, I waited a bit before tackling him in my second playthrough, and I’m full scadded up for my NG+ playthrough. That means that I was buffed as much as I was going to be to take on this dude. And it went so much better.

This, of course, is to be expected. I am better than I was before, and I knew what I was doing (kind of). On the other hand, he was harder, stronger, and buffed up himself. I expected it to be a dozen or so tries–maybe more. But, I got him in two, and it wasn’t even that close. Blasphemous Blade Ash of War for the win! Which is what I did the first time around as well. That particular Ash of War got nerfed, but it’s still pretty OP.


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Shadow of the Erdtree, a review, part eight

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I’m back with more to say about the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC (FromSoft) for Elden Ring. I started on my first character’s NG+ playthrough of the DLC, and I noticed something that bothered me. It’s the same thing that bothered me with the main game and with most of the From games in general. the second Dark Souls is the exception.

One of the issues with NG+ and beyond is that the important items you gather in NG don’t have the same meaning in another playthrough if you retain them from NG to NG+.

*SPOILER WARNING*

One example in the base game are the rises. They are towers that often have puzzles to unlock them (finding and killing three ghost turtles; using a gesture to get a ladder to drop; jumping up a spirit spring to land on a balcony. These are all real examples of how to solve different rises), and the reward was often a Memory Stone. Each of these gives you a new spell slot, so it’s easy to see why I wanted every one I could get. You start with 2 slots, and you get 8 more throughout the game. There’s also a talisman that can give you an extra two. Ten is usually plenty, though, and I rock with ten the vast majority of the time.

On NG+, however, you get nothing. You lose! Good day, sir! Which, I gotta say, is quite the letdown. In the DLC, it’s the same with key items such as various cookbooks. You keep them from NG to NG+, which is a good thing, but it’s a bit disappointing to not get anything in its place. In the video I included below, Noah talks about one thing that was a letdown in the DLC was how there was so many shit items to be found. He put it more eloquently, but that’s essentially what he meant.

I agree. I understand why there were so many smithing stones. It’s for the people who have not played the game for two years and don’t have all the bell bearings turned in. I can buy any smithing stone I need, regular and somber, up to the final one (there is no bell bearing for those). It really is a disappointment to get a bunch of smithing stones whenever I went exploring. Yesterday, I talked at the end of the post about what I loved in the DLC. Today, I guess I’m starting with what frustrates me.

I will say I’m happy that the Scadooooo level and Revered Spirit Ash level carries over. I only needed one ScadFrag and two Revered Spirit Ashes to get to the top. Now, however, I have no use for the rest that I find. That means that I don’t really have much need to explore. I still will as that is my wvay, but my joy in doing so is admittedly a little bit muted.


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Shadow of the Erdtree, a review, part seven

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Welcome to my week-long review of Shadow of the Erdtree, the DLC for Elden Ring (FromSoft). This might be the last post in the series, but then again, it might not be. In the last post, I ended by talking about how I have accessed the DLC yet again. I could have done it sooner, but I am a tad bit compulsive and had to do certain things in the main storyline, despite them not being necessary to access the DLC.

*SPOILER WARNING*

I never did Nepheli Loux’s storyline on this character, so I wanted to set that up. And I was curious as to why Hyetta didn’t show up where she was supposed to (outside Godrick’s castle once you defeat him, I thought). Since I was doing things in a weird way, I had skipped Godrick and did Rennala first. I thought maybe you had to kill Godrick to get her, so I did that. For funsies. And to see if that got Hyetta where she needed to be.

Nope. It did not. So, of course, I Googled it.

Before I tell you what you need to do, I have to tell you about another NPC, Irina. You meet her outside Castle Morne, and then she is brutally slaughtered. Presumably, by the Misbegotten who are rioting in Castle Morne (of which Irina’s father is the castellan). One of their cleavers is found by Irina’s dead body. There are a few other steps, but that’s the main bit.

I went back to where Hyetta was supposed to be, and, lo and behold, she was there! It seems the theory that the two of them are the same person is real! They have the same character model and the same voice actor. And both can’t see. The theory is that Hyetta is a reincarnation of Irina. But, and hear me out, what if Hyetta killed Irina and took over her body? It’s as good a theory as the other one in the bleak world of Elden Ring. Anyway, Hyetta is back and where she needs to be.

In the DLC, the NPC questlines are both the highlight and the lowlight. I think that it’s too tightly knit and it’s too easy to miss things. Again, that might just be me, but it was really frustrating to feel like I fucked things up completely and could not do all the NPC quests on my first playthrough. My first character is always my favorite, regardless of how trash the character is. Yes, I do everything wrong in building the character, but they are MY trash character, damn it.

I have several characters in Elden Ring, of course. And, like my mythical children, I love them all for–no, you know what? No. I don’t. I love my first character the best. I love my strength character second best. The others are all fair-to-middling. That’s just the way it goes. This is one reason I didn’t have children.


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Shadow of the Erdtree, a review, part six

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Back at it again to talk more about the lore of the DLC.

*SPOILER WARNING*

I should say, lore AND story of the DLC. I don’t care about Miquella. To me, he is an uninteresting character because he’s a manipulative charmer. I have had enough of those in my real life, and they do not interest me at all. Why? Because there is no true empathy. And, yes, this is partly because I have my own issues with empathy. As a child, I was made my mother’s comfort/support human into which she could dump all her emotional angst. People marvel at how empathetic I am, but it’s only because I was forced to be so. Would I be this empathetic if my mother hadn’t made me? I don’t know. There’s no way of knowing, and I don’t think it’s a fruitful thing to think about. It is, as the kids say, what it is.

As a result, I am chary of people who are charming and manipulative. The latter doesn’t necessarily follow the former, but too often it does. Why? Because when you can sway people to do what you want, it’s way too easy to do it. And it’s easy to justify doing it for their benefit if you feel you need to do that. Charm is easy mode, and it’s too tempting to use it for things that you shouldn’t. I know because I have that same charm. I can sway people fairly easily, too, and I try to keep it under control.

So, yeah. I was not happy that Miquella was going to be the main character of the DLC. That was what I was talking about at the end of my last post. There are so many more interesting characters–such as Godwyn, Ranni, Rykard, and even Radahn himself. The latter held back the fucking stars! How cool is that? Or we could have talked about the Radagon/Marika split and were they two distinct personalities, or was Radagon just a part of Marika? Even learning more about Marika herself would have been great. I mean, we did learn more about her and her tragic past, but it was just the background for a small part of the story.

I heard someone say that they’re convinced that From came up with the story first and then retconned it to fit the existing lore. Unfortunately, it feels that way. And it makes Mohg a more sympathetic character than he was. And it means we need to throw out everything we knew about him. Which is fine. I’m ok with not knowing anything. Or with what I thought I know not being what I actually knew. But…I kind of feel like they didn’t like that he was being considered a child molester (because Miquella is eternally young when Mohg stole him and put him in an egg), and so they retconned it to Miquella charming Mohg rather than Mohg just taking him. Then again, there were a few hints in the main game that Miquella was more in control than we thought. Mostly that he could make people do whatever he wanted.


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Shadow of the Erdtree, a review, part five

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Today, I was talking with Ian about how great it is when games have choices that you can make which will influence things later on. He’s playing Horizon Forbidden West right now and mentioned something in the first game that happened in that way.

*SPOILER WARNING*

Consider this a blanket spoiler warning because I’m going to spoil something in HZD, even though I never played it. You can do side quests in which you bring settlements to your cause. Then, the leaders will help you with the final battle later on. Obviously, I could not tell him that there was something similar in the Elden Ring DLC (he has not played it yet). Depending on what you do with the NPC questlines, you will have a different next-to-last boss fight. I mentioned in a past post that Needle Knight Leda’s fight can be drastically different depending on which NPC questlines you do. First time, I fucked everything up and had me and the rando Sanguine Noble against Leda and Dryleaf Dane. It was pretty pathetic for what was supposed to be an epic fight.

On my second playthrough, I did almost everything right. So in that fight, I got Thiollier and Ansbach on my side, and we had to fight Dryleaf Dane, Redmane Freyja, Sir Moore, and Leda. I didn’t invite Hornsent to the party, but I may do so in the future–just to have everyone in the mix. It wasn’t hard, but it was so much more fun and chaotic with the whole gang there.

I go back and forth about how esoteric the NPC questlines are. Because of how twisty and turny Shadow Keep is, I fucked up all the questlines. Also, because I inexplicably ignored one of the three ways to go at the three-way site of grace. It’s called something pretty close to that. My memory sucks, though, and I should have put a marker the way I didn’t go. Because of that, I did not find Thiollier until it was too late to actually move his questline forward.

The latter was completely on me. The former, though, was not. I have seen other people get hopelessly lost in Shadow Keep as well. There are two ways to get into Shadow Keep, and then it’s just so fucking twisty and turny. I’m sure I missed a bunch even when I went back to look it over. Plus, I hate when they do the ‘traverse the rafters’ bullshit and put enemies on said rafters. And in this case,

I was talking about the incantations of the DLC in the last post. There are a few that are clearly S-Tier (Knight’s Lightning Spear. It’s the best incantation in the whole game, overall.), but there are more that are either meh or out-and-out terrible. And with my first character who I play as almost a pure caster, it was a letdown that I did not get much cool stuff to play with. I understand why so many of the finds were smithing stones, but that’s not as interesting as a cool new incanation or weapon.


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Shadow of the Erdtree, a review, part four

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I’m back to talk more about Shadow of Erdtree, the DLC for Elden Ring (FromSoft). Here’s the obligatory:

*SPOILER WARNING*

I ended the last post with some judicious bitching about Igon, the favored NPC of this DLC. I want to repeat that I don’t hate or dislike him; I just don’t love him the way other people do. I’m pretty meh to him. In part because he reminds me too much of my inner voice and of a certain type of white guy that gets on my last nerve (but not other people’s).

I don’t like delusional people. And, yes, he is delusional. He thinks he can take on Bayle, who has literally battered and broken his (Igon’s) body. You find him lying in the road moaning about the pain. Viewing it through my dark lens, this is a person who let his obsession destroy his life. If you talk to his family members, they would probably all tell you how Igon has disappointed them on a day-to-day basis. His kids will say they love him, but he’s missed all their soccer games because he just had to have a go at Bayle yet again.

I get impatient with people like that, especially if they have no insight about their own behavior and how destructive it is to people around them. I will say that the actor did a magnificent job with the voice acting. I thought it was a bit over-the-top, but he was asked by FromSoft to keep going bigger with it. He had no idea that Bayle was a dragon or what the hell was happening (I’ve seen him being interviewed), which is fantastic.

He was emoting his heart out. I heard it took him six hours to do a dozen or so lines. And it shows. I have nothing but love for his outsized performance. When he says, “CURSE YOU, BAYLE!”, you can feel that shit deep in your bones.

I think, though, the fact that people are so passionate about different NPCs is a plus overall. Of course you are going to bring in your own shit because that’s human. I grew up with two narcissists who only cared about themsleves. Even when they showed care for other people, it was in the vein of ‘how does this affect me?’.  There are so many distinct NPCS, and that’s true for Shadow of the Erdtree as well. Whether I like them or not, they stood out in my mind. Simple, sweet Moore; narrow-minded Needle Knight Leda; hearty and warrior-like Redmane Freyja; angry and desperate Igon;  poor, gentle Thiollier; studious and questioning Sir Ansbach; angry and vengeful Hornsent; silent and decisive Dryleaf Dane, to name several. At some point, I may do a post about the NPCs themselves, but suffice to say that every one of them left a lasting impression.

In general, I was comfortable with the more linear storytelling of the DLC. I like finding lore by reading the item descriptions, but I did not mind the story being more explicit. We were following Miquella and uniting to help him. Until we weren’t. Then it was are you fighting him or fighting against him? I never helped Leda in her invasions so I don’t know if anything changes for her fight if you help her. I’m assuming not because she’s all about protecting Miquella.


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