straightforwardly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
straightforwardly) wrote2025-09-29 09:48 pm
straightforwardly) wrote2025-09-29 09:48 pm
Entry tags:
317 | a trio of final fantasy games
A trio of brief gaming updates! All FF7-related, in reverse chronological order.
► Many Square Enix games were on sale on Steam recently, including Crisis Core Reunion being reduced by 60%. I admit I was tempted by it*, but when I looked at “can my pc run this”, it looked like the answer was no, and I don’t quite feel ready to pick up a Steam Deck yet (though I do want one), so I thought that was that.
But then… on a whim, I wondered if it was also on sale on the Switch's eshop, and as it turned out: yes, at a similar price. The good deal + my recent swell of FF7 feelings + my love of handheld gaming mobbed me, and I crumbled. So… there’s a decent chance I might be playing Crisis Core twice in one year, as soon as I finish my current game. Which is wild to contemplate… but I admit I am curious to do a personal compare and contrast of the two versions, which obviously works better if the PSP version is still existing in my recent memory, so that’s a positive.
* (I was also tempted by the Steam sale on the FFX remaster—FFX was my first "proper" Final Fantasy game back in the day, and I’ve been wanting to replay it for a while, but looking at the sales history, I’m feeling confident that it’ll go on sale again before I get around to finding the time to pick it up, so I decided to leave it.)
► I have officially given up on trying to play Ever Crisis. Honestly, it’s probably a good thing, in that the last thing I need in my life is another gacha game…. the only reason why I was trying to play this game in the first place was because First Soldier. I am so, so intrigued by First Soldier. But all my attempts at trying to play this game were cursed.
Attempt one featured me downloading the game on Steam, having to download an internal update once I started the game, being thrown into a tedious tutorial… and then, as I’m contemplating hitting the skip button on the tutorial entirely, being thrown out of the game due to maintenance. Okay.
A few days later, I try again. The game opens back up on the tutorial. I hit the option to skip the tutorial. I am then informed that the game needs to download yet more things, and given the choice between a partial and full download. I choose the partial download. It takes nearly two hours, by the end of which I have no more time for gaming that day. I reach the main screen of the game, the game does that mandatory “here are where things are located & quests you can do” mini-tutorial all mobile games seem to have, and then I exit.
The next time I open up the game, I see the title screen. I click to enter. The screen goes black, music playing, as it tries to load. And tries to load. And tries to load, until it crashes. I try several times, then give up for the day.
Repeat the above a few times.
I try to uninstall the game to see if reinstalling it will help. The game… doesn’t want to uninstall? I struggle with this a while. Eventually, it turns out that clearing the download cache on Steam is what does the trick; after I do that, it uninstalls.
I reinstall the game. Once again, the game needs to do that internal download of files. Once again, it takes nearly two hours. But I finally reach the game’s main menu again! Success! But I don’t have any time left for gaming that day, so I close it down.
The next time I open the game, I see the title screen, click to enter… and the screen goes black, music playing, as it tries and fails to load.
I exited. Stared into space for a bit. Left the game alone for a few days, until finally I admitted to myself that it was time to give up and just look up First Soldier on youtube or something.
I try to uninstall… and once again, it doesn’t want to uninstall, lol. Thankfully, it didn’t take me as long to figure out (aka, this time, remember) how to fix that, but truly: a cursed gaming experience.
Though—while attempting to uninstall it that final time, I happened to be on the phone with my brother, who reminded me that there were two other games in our mutual gaming history that we attempted to play, couldn’t get to run, and then also could not for the love of life get uninstalled from our computer, no matter what we tried. Those two games? Were FF11 and the original FF14. So if there is a curse, it’s specific to online-based Final Fantasy games, apparently, haha.
► As for what my actual current game is, it’s a replay of the original Final Fantasy VII! Unsurprisingly, I’m sure. Currently, I’m at the Northern Crater. This isn’t going to be an in-depth post of my thoughts—though I do hope to make one at some point; unlike the first time I played this game, I’ve been making sure to take plenty of notes of my impressions with that aim in mind. But what I will say for now is that I’m having a great time!
I think… hands-down, FFVII’s greatest weakness as a game are the many stupid minigames you’re forced through. Absolutely the worst part of that game, and the cause of pretty much all my moments of frustration while playing. (Which is not to say that all of them are terrible… but neither can I think of any on the top of my head that I genuinely loved, either.) But if you set that aside—it’s such a great game, and I understand why so many people have fallen in love with it. The battle system? Well-designed, with a good amount of depth, an interesting concept (materia) that ties into the story and worldbuilding, and fun to play. The pacing of the story and the way it builds up to things is great—this especially stood out to me in the beginning, in Midgar. It also can be a genuinely beautiful game at times, imo—like, yes, the character models look silly, but those backgrounds, the use of camera angles, the way the game uses what it has to create atmosphere—there’s been plenty of moments where I have to stop and just admire what the game is doing.
There’s also just something deeply comforting about playing it. Even though I’ve only actually played this game once before, and that when I was already an adult, it… almost feels nostalgic, somehow. Or, rather, it doesn’t feel nostalgic, precisely, but it does feel comforting in that specific way that nostalgic things tend to do.
If I had to make a guess as to why: I think it’s because it’s a very well-made jrpg coming from the era of jrpgs I love best. (Using “era” broadly here—I’m including both PSX and PS2 jrpgs here.) It doesn’t need to be nostalgic to be familiar, and I think it’s that sense of familiarity combined with how fun it is to play that makes it feel like such a comfort game to me at the moment.
► Many Square Enix games were on sale on Steam recently, including Crisis Core Reunion being reduced by 60%. I admit I was tempted by it*, but when I looked at “can my pc run this”, it looked like the answer was no, and I don’t quite feel ready to pick up a Steam Deck yet (though I do want one), so I thought that was that.
But then… on a whim, I wondered if it was also on sale on the Switch's eshop, and as it turned out: yes, at a similar price. The good deal + my recent swell of FF7 feelings + my love of handheld gaming mobbed me, and I crumbled. So… there’s a decent chance I might be playing Crisis Core twice in one year, as soon as I finish my current game. Which is wild to contemplate… but I admit I am curious to do a personal compare and contrast of the two versions, which obviously works better if the PSP version is still existing in my recent memory, so that’s a positive.
* (I was also tempted by the Steam sale on the FFX remaster—FFX was my first "proper" Final Fantasy game back in the day, and I’ve been wanting to replay it for a while, but looking at the sales history, I’m feeling confident that it’ll go on sale again before I get around to finding the time to pick it up, so I decided to leave it.)
► I have officially given up on trying to play Ever Crisis. Honestly, it’s probably a good thing, in that the last thing I need in my life is another gacha game…. the only reason why I was trying to play this game in the first place was because First Soldier. I am so, so intrigued by First Soldier. But all my attempts at trying to play this game were cursed.
Attempt one featured me downloading the game on Steam, having to download an internal update once I started the game, being thrown into a tedious tutorial… and then, as I’m contemplating hitting the skip button on the tutorial entirely, being thrown out of the game due to maintenance. Okay.
A few days later, I try again. The game opens back up on the tutorial. I hit the option to skip the tutorial. I am then informed that the game needs to download yet more things, and given the choice between a partial and full download. I choose the partial download. It takes nearly two hours, by the end of which I have no more time for gaming that day. I reach the main screen of the game, the game does that mandatory “here are where things are located & quests you can do” mini-tutorial all mobile games seem to have, and then I exit.
The next time I open up the game, I see the title screen. I click to enter. The screen goes black, music playing, as it tries to load. And tries to load. And tries to load, until it crashes. I try several times, then give up for the day.
Repeat the above a few times.
I try to uninstall the game to see if reinstalling it will help. The game… doesn’t want to uninstall? I struggle with this a while. Eventually, it turns out that clearing the download cache on Steam is what does the trick; after I do that, it uninstalls.
I reinstall the game. Once again, the game needs to do that internal download of files. Once again, it takes nearly two hours. But I finally reach the game’s main menu again! Success! But I don’t have any time left for gaming that day, so I close it down.
The next time I open the game, I see the title screen, click to enter… and the screen goes black, music playing, as it tries and fails to load.
I exited. Stared into space for a bit. Left the game alone for a few days, until finally I admitted to myself that it was time to give up and just look up First Soldier on youtube or something.
I try to uninstall… and once again, it doesn’t want to uninstall, lol. Thankfully, it didn’t take me as long to figure out (aka, this time, remember) how to fix that, but truly: a cursed gaming experience.
Though—while attempting to uninstall it that final time, I happened to be on the phone with my brother, who reminded me that there were two other games in our mutual gaming history that we attempted to play, couldn’t get to run, and then also could not for the love of life get uninstalled from our computer, no matter what we tried. Those two games? Were FF11 and the original FF14. So if there is a curse, it’s specific to online-based Final Fantasy games, apparently, haha.
► As for what my actual current game is, it’s a replay of the original Final Fantasy VII! Unsurprisingly, I’m sure. Currently, I’m at the Northern Crater. This isn’t going to be an in-depth post of my thoughts—though I do hope to make one at some point; unlike the first time I played this game, I’ve been making sure to take plenty of notes of my impressions with that aim in mind. But what I will say for now is that I’m having a great time!
I think… hands-down, FFVII’s greatest weakness as a game are the many stupid minigames you’re forced through. Absolutely the worst part of that game, and the cause of pretty much all my moments of frustration while playing. (Which is not to say that all of them are terrible… but neither can I think of any on the top of my head that I genuinely loved, either.) But if you set that aside—it’s such a great game, and I understand why so many people have fallen in love with it. The battle system? Well-designed, with a good amount of depth, an interesting concept (materia) that ties into the story and worldbuilding, and fun to play. The pacing of the story and the way it builds up to things is great—this especially stood out to me in the beginning, in Midgar. It also can be a genuinely beautiful game at times, imo—like, yes, the character models look silly, but those backgrounds, the use of camera angles, the way the game uses what it has to create atmosphere—there’s been plenty of moments where I have to stop and just admire what the game is doing.
There’s also just something deeply comforting about playing it. Even though I’ve only actually played this game once before, and that when I was already an adult, it… almost feels nostalgic, somehow. Or, rather, it doesn’t feel nostalgic, precisely, but it does feel comforting in that specific way that nostalgic things tend to do.
If I had to make a guess as to why: I think it’s because it’s a very well-made jrpg coming from the era of jrpgs I love best. (Using “era” broadly here—I’m including both PSX and PS2 jrpgs here.) It doesn’t need to be nostalgic to be familiar, and I think it’s that sense of familiarity combined with how fun it is to play that makes it feel like such a comfort game to me at the moment.