Addictive Fantasies

My Tomb Raider collectors edition came with a game case! I REAL game case! I’m so happy I could cry. Except not really. But it’s just one more game that doesn’t have to sit in a statue or art book. =D

I know it’s been a while since I have updated, but I was super sick this past week to the point that I wasn’t even playing. That doesn’t mean I haven’t gotten further in the game, so here’s an update.

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So I’m roughly 15 hours in now, and the story still hasn’t really started. But that’s not even my largest complaint about the game. My largest complaint is the fact that I’m 15 hours into the game and still haven’t found a wonderful grinding spot. I did stop and grind for a bit on the werewolves in the Giza Plains after I got a couple of quickenings, but that’s because they were giving me 400 exp for 5 minutes of work. Even then farming for an hour only got me from level 11 to level 15 on all of my characters. Grrrrr.

Either way, starting from where I left off… After the 4 flans in the Garamsythe Waterway I farmed for a while, I got my characters up, because there was another boss fight up ahead. The fire horse of doom (Firemane) was a little bitch. I was about 10 at the time, and damn did it hit hard. The boss was level 7, and hitting me like a truck. I somehow got through with all of my party members, but I was worried for a while for sure.. Then  I got tossed into a dungeon.

Because I was overleveled the 3 on 2 fight in the Nalbina Fortress really wasn’t that hard. Bathier and Vaan took them out like they were lowly peasants. Being overleveled was nice, even if it only lasted for a few minutes. After you KO these three buffoons Fran tells you there is a way out, but it’s full of mist. (*Is it just me at this point that doesn’t know what the fuck mist is yet?) Well, yeehaw. Let’s get going. Oh wait, we can’t the judge has to open the door. Of course.

This is where we get introduced to judges in the game by the way. As someone who played Tactics I like the inclusion in this game. Granted, we are in the same universe of Ivalice in Tactics though. And I did like Bathiers line about how he sees them “more as executioners than judges”. Off topic. You end up going through this room of bad guys that you can either clear out, or run away from. I chose to clear them out, because well, I could use the exp and LP. And you end up going through the door that the judge opens, and tada! A few cutscenes later you’re in the Barheim Passage with the traitor that killed the King.

Finally! Some monsters that are giving me some decent exp. Something about these stupid dungeons make it hard to even remotely level up, and I’m not the kind to continually grind. I like spending a few hours doing it, then being done. Either way, the objective of the area was to kill all of the Battery Mimics that were sucking the energy out of the passage way. I tend to clear out dungeons so this wasn’t hard for me at all. I came, I saw, I killed. The area was long though. It took forever to get about halfway through to the save point, where Basch gets his equipment back and can finally do some damage. There are also some story revelations at that point, that I won’t really get into aside from “Twin brother, really?”. Although, I did appreciate that Basch was trying to explain himself to Vaan, because of Vaan’s brother. That was a nice touch. (Oh, and in regards to the dungeon, seeing bombs always makes me happy.)

The boss for this area, the Mimic Queen, went down far quicker than I expected her to. I didn’t have any quickenings at this stage, so I literally just had everyone spam blizzard on her. Neither her nor her minions were doing enough damage to me to pose any threat. She was a big bitch though. Holy hell. I’m not a fan of anything that remotely looks like a spider (I made someone else kill the spider queen in LoZ: Ocarina of Time for me.) and she was the entirety of my screen. Blarg.

After we finished her off, the tunnel collapsed and on our way to Rabanastre we are again. (Because apparently no one noticed a couple of Sky Pirates, a traitor, and Vaan escaped the dungeons.)

I figured this would be a good place to update my progress on FFXII, because I killed my first boss.

Let me say this. The licensing system is not nearly as bad as I remember it.. The combat on the other hand. Oye. I understand that it was the stepping stone between traditional turn based and the paradigm system that Square has now, but it’s annoying. It’s an awkward mix of styles and I’m happy Square revised it in XIII.

I’m understanding the story far better this time around. (The last time I played it was years ago.) The first time I played XII I probably skipped through the telling of the history because I didn’t understand it and it was long and boring, but now I’m realizing how interesting it is, and how critical it is to the gameplay. That being said, it still took forever to get through everything at the start. I’m finally just getting into the story without tutorials, and with an actual party that isn’t just Vaan.

In the Giza Plains I had fun killing some enemies with both Vaan and Penelo. Having that extra person made combat go quicker. I really need to pay attention to what I’m hitting though. The werewolves knocked me on my ass before I could even understand what was happening. I even had Libra equipped, but my sorry ass didn’t realize they were level 20. Everything else was super easy to kill though, maybe because I farmed for a while just as Vaan, I don’t know. And I feel like this is going to be an ongoing issue. I remember when I was playing it previously and there was one of those god-like creatures that is 10 times of a higher level than anything else in the area. I ran but it kept chasing me and I had to do an hour and a half of gameplay all over again. Thank you Square for adding the retry function in XIII for idiots like me that bite off more than they can chew. Especially when there’s no overworld map to save on.

The palace was easy enough to get out of, despite the game telling me otherwise. (This area will be hard to get out of, you may want to save on a different file - my ass.) And I’m now in the Garamsythe Waterway. Let me just say, I love the person who voices Fran, I love the voice and I want to hear more dammit. Then we come across this poor woman that is being cornered by the empire. She says her name is Amalia, but guess what, you aren’t fooling anyone *spoiler* Princess Ashe. And it’s seriously not helping the situation that you stole from the Princess and you’re parading it around Vaan. >.< More tutorials and a couple fights later… dun dun dun, my first real boss fight.

The four flans weren’t difficult for me at all, and I’m the type of person that likes to get a steal from every boss, yeah, that didn’t happen. Dammit Vaan. 3 minutes later and I got my first “victory dance”. Which is nice, I mean, I don’t like the combat system, and I kind of miss getting it after every fight.

And that’s where I stopped for now. I’m happy that 6 hours in I’m finally getting into the real story.

That is my gaming goal for the year. Which means 14 games in 12 months. It’s a huge goal. But that’s okay. I’m starting with FFXII because I haven’t played through it before. I also need to find another copy of IV because apparently my DS cartridge went missing. Here’s a list of the games I’ll be playing. (* means I’m working on it now.)

• Final Fantasy
• Final Fantasy II
• Final Fantasy III
• Final Fantasy IV
• Final Fantasy V
• Final Fantasy VI
• Final Fantasy VII
• Final Fantasy VIII
• Final Fantasy IX (I’m probably going to attempt the 12 hour speed run thanks to my disc copy and my PS2.)
• Final Fantasy X
• Final Fantasy X-2
• Final Fantasy XII *
• Final Fantasy XIII
• Final Fantasy XIII-2

I’m going to start out with the games I haven’t played before, so II, III, V, VIII and XII, because it will be easier to bust through the ones I’ve already played. I’m excited and nervous. And progress can be tracked through the “ashley plays FF” tag.

What are your gaming goals for the year?

I did some windows updates and now my hard drive is fried. My computer won’t recognize it. There goes everything. Which sucks, because well, I was planning on doing some graphic arts work.
The one time I want to use it… Oh well.
This means Addictive Fantasies won’t have any real updates and generally post just pretty pictures for now… Because well, I don’t want to type out long messages on my phone. I guess my gaming budget is going towards a new internal hard drive for my laptop.

I loved it. It’ll take me a while to get used to the combat, but the game itself is gorgeous. I cannot wait to pick it up later this month. I need to go preorder a bunch of games from GameStop though.
This year is going to be a great year for games.

I’ve wanted this game since I saw it come out and the great feedback I’ve been getting about it. It was on sale so I finally picked it up (I was broke during Christmas).

I’m excited to play it. I’ve also started watching Full Metal Alchemist and I’m about halfway through and loving it. It’s tugging on my heart strings. The entire series is depressing.. But it’s so good.

What is new that you guys have been watching/playing? Did you get a game you’re absolutely obsessed with for the holidays?

Lately I’ve been burned out. Between working insane hours and shows being back for the fall and being with my boyfriend I haven’t really had the will to play video games. I have been checking out the forums, but everything I’m interested in hasn’t had any updates. The one game I’d love to look more into is Dishonored, but I’m too damn broke for that. 

Lately I’ve been reading tons. I just finished Game of Thrones and I’m working on City of Fallen Angels, by Cassandra Clare (it finally came out in soft cover), before working on A Clash of Kings (second book in the GoT series.). I have also noticed that my tablet makes an incredible e-reader and in the last few weeks I’ve read through Hellsing, Cardcaptor Sakura and I’m about 1/3 the way through Fairy Tail. 

Also, I forgot how many TV shows I watch, plus I’ve started watching new ones this year. (I’m going to have a rant about The Walking Dead, kind of like I did with AT.)

I’m going to try my hardest to start reviewing and announcing more too. But an obstacle is I also don’t work in the video games section at my work anymore. Look at me making excuses. Either way, I’m going to try instead of just keeping this a “pretty pictures blog”. I want to bring it back to what I originally planned this blog would be.

Look at me gaining followers while I’m not posting anything. I’m a terrible person. =(
But hey, welcome!