Pffft, completion maaaaan!

Still playing SotN, and all I have to say is this: FUCK the inverted castle, right in the ear! Difficulty spike defined.

Disc 2 done, lovely! Although it did make me realise after all these years that I never understood why Hojo went mental at the end. Why did he want to fire the Mako Cannon again? Did he think he was going to give Sephiroth a lovely energy boost, even though the cannon just fires in a straight line and wouldn't actually go into the Northern Cave? Idiot.

Anyway, I'm particularly proud of myself because I think this is possibly the first (or second) time I've played through the game and actually got the Alexander summon. Wonderful. It's one of me faves.

It's funny how when you fly along the Sister Ray's line of fire, it completely misses the Great Glacier by a huge distance. Well done Square, you idiots.

God, bloody Chocobo Racing. What a terrible tedious nightmare. I don't remember the class A races being this difficult, at least with the first 'great' and 'good' chocobos (I haven't got any blue/green/black ones yet). Christ on a bloody stick. I can't wait to relive the wonderful joy of using Knights of the Round and Mime. Wonderful. If only Quadra Magic worked with Knights of the Round though, then life would truly be a wonderful joy.

Dave-o, did you play FFX? I imagine you probably did. I've been listening to bits of the soundtrack (Wandering Flame and Someday The Dream Will End are particularly amazing) and it has reminded me of how amazing that game actually was. My second favourite after FF7... then it goes 12, 9 and 8 (I never played 10-2, as it looked rubbish, almost as rubbish as 13 was). I'm only a n00b so I haven't played 1-6, although I did start playing 6 recently, and got stuck in the king's castle. It's ridiculous, we all just had a chat and the men said to me 'see you in a bit' and I literally don't know what to do or where to go now. Rubbish.

Anyway I started playing FF8 again too, and although it's a bit shitter than I remember, it's also bringing back fond nostalgic feelings indeed so it's quite nice. It really is a it crap though. Squall is such a rubbish main character. Just moaning and complaining all the time. What a wanker.

FF3 (or 6 if you are Japanese) is my favorite.

FFX was pretty cool, just too fucking linear. Curious to see how the HD version will look. VIII is a class game, but the junction system is just so easy to abuse that it kinda saps the fun out of it sometimes FFVI (not FF3 Tom, you're not American you silly boy) is probably my favourite next to VII - the only one I genuinely dislike is FF2 because it was shit. And XIII, but we don't talk about that.

I ran out of games to keep me entertained so yesterday I picked up Onimusha Warlords for a quid, original pressing in sweet condition. I never got around to playing Onimusha to any extensive degree (I played 2 for a bit and just... stopped playing) yet always loved the whole idea of it so we'll see what this is like.

I got 007 for Gameboy the other day, fantastic little game. Skyrim is also bringing me much joy.

Yes Skyrim is nice, but for some reason I still hold Oblivion closer to my heart.

I agree, but with Morrowind.

I agree, but Strider 2.

thrasherdave wrote:FFX was pretty cool, just too fucking linear. Curious to see how the HD version will look. VIII is a class game, but the junction system is just so easy to abuse that it kinda saps the fun out of it sometimes FFVI (not FF3 Tom, you're not American you silly boy) is probably my favourite next to VII - the only one I genuinely dislike is FF2 because it was shit. And XIII, but we don't talk about that.

I ran out of games to keep me entertained so yesterday I picked up Onimusha Warlords for a quid, original pressing in sweet condition. I never got around to playing Onimusha to any extensive degree (I played 2 for a bit and just... stopped playing) yet always loved the whole idea of it so we'll see what this is like.

Well it was as linear as any other FF I've played really (apart from FFXIII... but you're right, let's not talk about that). I remember having lots to do once you get to that big field. And I never cared about the linearity, because the areas were still nice and large, and the story was actually amazing (I remember the first time I found out 'Sin is Jecht' was madness all over my face, an amazing twist after a rather slow start), almost back up to the standards of VII (VIII had a rubbish story, and IX was nice enough from what I remember, but quite forgettable). In fact I think the only thing I thought that let X down was Tidus' voice. Horribly annoying. But luckily compensation came in the form of Wakka's hilarity ("Well, seeya boys" being my favourite bit of the whole game), and Auron's powerful amazingness. Really very good indeed.

I actually thought FFXII was amazing too. It was amazingly fun to play, the new battle system was very fun indeed (running around everywhere without annoying random battles was absolutely lovely), the soundtrack was amazing, and Basch was almost as good as Auron. Vaan was a very boring main character though, he literally had no story at all. The main story itself was quite nice, rather conventional but quite nostalgic in a way - it was like a cross between Star Wars, Gladiator and Lord of the Rings. It almost was refreshing after the usual overly-complex FF plots. Very nice indeed I thought.

I downloaded a demo of FFXIII-2 the other day. Uuuuurrrggh. Horrible horrible horrible.

I remember playing Onimusha 3, which was great, though I was so very disappointed that they used Jean Reno's face, but not his voice! Unbelievable! How can you put 'starring Jean Reno' on the front cover and not use his voice! AAAAAAAAAARRGH!

FFXII Had Gabranth, who I still think is the most badass character in the entire series. The stories tend to rock back and forth on the meter (from 'Pretty fucking great' to 'what the shit is this balls') but I think S-E kept it quite steady until FFVIII. Disc 4 made no sense.

Was Gabranth Basch's twin brother? If so, indeed, he was also very cool indeed, like Basch was. And even Balthier was quite cool in a humorous Han Solo style way (which was obviously the intention, with him and the princess, and the "we're fine... how are you?" Star Wars quote near the end of the game, which I thought was quite amazing for a FF game).

Yeah, the FFVIII story was bonkers, and not in a very good way. I think it was alright up until the orphanage revelation, then it all got very crap and silly. Then time compression came along and made it even more mental. Then the real villain appeared out of nowhere on disc 4, and you had no idea who she was so you didn't really care about killing her. Rubbish. Compare that to the amazing madness of Cloud and Sephiroth, or even Tidus and Jecht/Sin. What on earth happened?

When I'm done on the toilet with FFVIII, I'm going to move on to IX and see how that goes!

Cue 'Giant Space Flea from nowhere'. I hate that shit, it's a lazy plot advancement device.

IX I remember loving, but it's an oddity

Yeah, that's exactly it! Lazy rubbish. I'm actually remembering how much I dislike FF8 now, the more I play. Currently on that bit near the beginning of disc 2 where I've just rescued Squall and have to escape from the big prison, and it's actually really bloody boring and tedious. I'm going to keep playing because I remember there being some amazing bits on disc 3 where you go into space and loads of madness happens, but it is a bit of a shame.

I know what you mean about IX, it's a real odd one. I also remember loving it, but I can't remember why. I don't remember anything about the story at all, apart from the fact that you have a tail, and there's a nice little princess and a little blue wizard bloke and that humorous fat man, and that the villain is a man called Kuja, but nothing else. So that should be much fun to play through again. Hopefully it'll take me a year and a half to finish all these (plus Resident Evil 2), by which time my contract will be up for a renewal, and hopefully I will be able to get a new phone with a 200-core processor and a PS2 and PS3 emulator. Technology is moving at a very fast rate these days, so you never know. Now that my dream of Judas Priest and Saxon playing a gig together has come true, my next dream is to be able to play FFX, FFXII, MGS2 and MGS3 on the toilet.