WHAT PLAY YOU!? Version 3.0

[Dr. Alan Grant]

I’d like a brief snippet of the Elden Ring DLC, as well as something about Spider-Man 2 and the Wolverine game. With Spider-Man, I’m curious to see how they keep it fresh if they’re presumably using New York as the map again.

[TheScarlettChad]

7 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

NBA 2k23 career mode. Christ, it’s like an RPG. I have to try and win over the fans but instead of just playing ace like I’m doing, I’ve just had to get a music influencer to be my mate. This involved taking part in rap battles where you have to choose the correct next line. Obviously for an OG MC like ya boi Kool Keith this was easy but after having to stick up flyers for a vegan hot dog stand before I could play the next game, it’s a bit much if you don’t choose the correct line in a ten line multiple choice sequence. 
 

Basically it’s just a long winded way of having to say the same thing over and over and over, it can’t be much fun for those watching. 
 

 

That sounds bonkers, and right up my alley. I'm not even into basketball

[Keith Houchen]

3 minutes ago, TheScarlettChad said:

That sounds bonkers, and right up my alley. I'm not even into basketball

Don’t think basketball is featured too much!  Looks like after a dropped a track with this producer fellow(which hopefully won’t get damaged) I have to go and see someone in the fashion district, and also meet some influencers who can help me get on the cover of a skateboard magazine. 

[TheScarlettChad]

1 minute ago, Keith Houchen said:

Don’t think basketball is featured too much!  Looks like after a dropped a track with this producer fellow(which hopefully won’t get damaged) I have to go and see someone in the fashion district, and also meet some influencers who can help me get on the cover of a skateboard magazine. 

Bet you'll become a model too

[Keith Houchen]

Just now, TheScarlettChad said:

Bet you'll become a model too

Art imitating life indeed. 

[SuperBacon]

18 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

it’s a bit much if you don’t choose the correct line in a ten line multiple choice sequence. 
 

 

 

Sounds absolutely shit by the way.

Edited May 17, 2023 by SuperBacon

[Keith Houchen]

2 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

Sounds absolutely shit by the way.

They were on a par with some of the first round entries in the UKFF rap battle. Skip to 2:37 or there shouts for the first instalment 

 

[Cousin Jim Bob]

1 hour ago, Keith Houchen said:

NBA 2k23 career mode. Christ, it’s like an RPG. I have to try and win over the fans but instead of just playing ace like I’m doing, I’ve just had to get a music influencer to be my mate. This involved taking part in rap battles where you have to choose the correct next line. Obviously for an OG MC like ya boi Kool Keith this was easy but after having to stick up flyers for a vegan hot dog stand before I could play the next game, it’s a bit much if you don’t choose the correct line in a ten line multiple choice sequence. 
 

Basically it’s just a long winded way of having to say the same thing over and over and over, it can’t be much fun for those watching. 
 

 

 

It sound like one of those f2p mobile phone games that messes you about with loads of time wasting nonsense to stall you from playing the actual game. 

[Jazzy G]

The teaser trailer of the forthcoming paid Powerwash Simulator DLC was released the other day, and it's a Spongebob Squarepants crossover.

 

[RedRooster]

I started replaying Final Fantasy VII, and I don't think there's a game, movie, TV show or song anywhere that makes me feel the same way that the opening to that game does. For me, it's one of the best videogame intros ever. It does such an effective job of creating a sense of place, and instantly helping you understand the city of Midgar, its slums and its people. I get goosebumps every time, and feel weirdly emotional as you catch glimpses of certain characters, knowing what is to come. And the soundtrack - the PS1/N64 generation really was a golden era for videogame music. 

I accept that nostalgia plays a part in my opinion of this game, but I really do think it holds up remarkably well, with the blocky graphics feeling charming rather than dated. I'd almost forgotten how much I love FFVII, but fuck me, it's wonderful. 

[FLips]

11 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

I started replaying Final Fantasy VII, and I don't think there's a game, movie, TV show or song anywhere that makes me feel the same way that the opening to that game does. For me, it's one of the best videogame intros ever. It does such an effective job of creating a sense of place, and instantly helping you understand the city of Midgar, its slums and its people. I get goosebumps every time, and feel weirdly emotional as you catch glimpses of certain characters, knowing what is to come. And the soundtrack - the PS1/N64 generation really was a golden era for videogame music. 

I accept that nostalgia plays a part in my opinion of this game, but I really do think it holds up remarkably well, with the blocky graphics feeling charming rather than dated. I'd almost forgotten how much I love FFVII, but fuck me, it's wonderful. 

Through a mix of nostalgia and pure stubbornness I always claim my favourite Final Fantasy is IX but as time goes on and I play others I feel like I need to start letting go of it. I do love it, and Steiner is still probably my favourite FF character of any game, but it’s a slog at times compared to others. 
VII has everything going for it, and I agree about the entire opening from the second you press New Game right through the Bombing Mission and onwards. VII moves at a pace that’s just perfect and nearly everything about it from characters to music to gameplay is note perfect. 

[RedRooster]

13 minutes ago, FelatioLips said:

Through a mix of nostalgia and pure stubbornness I always claim my favourite Final Fantasy is IX but as time goes on and I play others I feel like I need to start letting go of it. I do love it, and Steiner is still probably my favourite FF character of any game, but it’s a slog at times compared to others. 

I thought IX was my second favourite game in the series for the longest time, until I replayed it recently and realised the main character, Zidane, is a sex pest, who (literally) gropes his way through the game as he tries to wear down his love interest so that she dates him. Seriously, at one point, shortly after meeting her, he deliberately grabs her bum while climbing a ladder, which understandably bothers her. 

The soundtrack is great, the gameplay is good and I like the card game side quest; but Zidane is pretty awful. I hadn't been prepared to play a harassment simulator from the perspective of the perpetrator. It's...not aged well in that respect. 

[BomberPat]

I'm reading a (not great) book on the history of JRPGs at the moment, and it really glosses over a few, but it does get into the "which is the best Final Fantasy game", and lands pretty much where I do - everyone thinks the best one is the one they played first. Though I was surprised that the author doesn't really include IX in the conversation, because it's one I've found a lot of people have named as their favourite. 

I've always felt that IX is a bit of a lovesong and a send-off to the entire series that came before it; by going back to the kind of pseudo-medieval-meets-steampunk fantasy setting, bringing back black and white mages, and just filling the game with references to previous iterations in the series, it's clear that it was kind of preparing the player to say goodbye to all of that stuff, because everything that comes next is going to be different. I never got on with X, and have never got invested in a mainline Final Fantasy game since.

IX is similar to VI for me (and I think if VI had come along during the PS1 generation, looking and playing like VII, it would be pretty universally agreed as the best in the series), in that the story is decent enough, but it's the characters and the general feel of it all that elevates it beyond that. The only time I've ever cried at a Final Fantasy game wasn't at the bit everyone says in VII, but at a throwaway line of dialogue in The Black Mage Village. I agree about Zidane - it's an unfortunate part of a few JRPGs that character's intended as "ladies man" are always much closer to "unrepentant sex pest" in execution - but every other character is full of charm. There's a phrase the book I'm reading keeps using, about how the best JRPGs create a world that you want to save, and I think IX does that better than any other.

All that aside, I can't separate VII from the nostalgia, and it's hard not to think of it as one of my favourite ever games, because of how obsessed I was by it at the time - it was my first JRPG, the first game I joined message boards and chat rooms to discuss online, I obsessed over the characters and the stories, and just loved it to death. I played it back recently, and it's flaws are obviously a lot more apparent now than they once were, but it's still an incredible game. Midgar is a superb setting, the whole Shinra HQ section and the discovery of Sephiroth/Jenova is a fantastic setpiece, and the way the game just opens up once you leave Midgar and find yourself in this huge world was just brilliant at the time.

 

In terms of the games I've played and remember (I played the NES ones on emulation, but don't really remember anything about them, and played 12 but don't think I ever finished it), I'd put my Final Fantasy order something like this:

VII > IX > VI > IV > VIII > X > V

I know that will be controversial, because some people inexplicably think VIII is the best in the series. These people are wrong. You could probably swap IV, VIII and X into almost any order in that list and I'd be willing to argue it, though. And V isn't bad, I just didn't particularly get on with it. 

[Merzbow]

VIII is great until about 3/4's the way through and then you can tell there was some kind of development hell or something, the writing takes a dramatic fall off a cliff and resorts to the worst time fuckery bollocks.

[FLips]

The one thing I’ll always stand by IX on is outside all the typical clone bollocks it has the most relatable story of any of the games with Vivi. A child who when suddenly faced with the death of someone becomes aware of his own mortality and tries desperately to come to terms with it. When my Grandad died when I was 17 I went from confident and care free to just being riddled with anxiety and fear of death which to this day has never passed. It completely obliterated my late teens and early twenties. For as gripping as the FF stories can be I don’t think they’ve ever really touched on anything as raw or as human since.

If I was to try and rate the FF games there is a lot of nostalgia and recency bias, but my Top 5 would include VI, IX, XII, X and XII Zodiac Age. I did really enjoy IV and VII Remake as well. Never got to grips with XV despite trying it a few times. From 13 onwards the series shifted in a direction I’m really not bothered about, in terms of both gameplay and character design.