Mission: Seeking Priceless Items > Precious Things > Search and Destroy II (2/6)
-Genesis’s forces built a new cloning center and we’re raiding it.
-Pet peeve: I wish that the encounter layout were more like that first Wutai raid, where enemies were only in set locations and when you killed them they didn’t respawn. Instead, if I go into a room here with two chests, I fight an enemy when I enter, when I go from chest #1 to #2, and when I go from chest #2 to leave. Bad job, game.
(Just figured out this session that I can skirt the edges of a room to avoid combat, but still.)
-Phenomenal reward for this mission: a Keychain, that allows me to increase the number of accessories I can wear at once from two to three.
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Mission: Seeking Priceless Items > Precious Things > Operation Mako Reactor I (3/6)
-A mako reactor construction site was overrun with insect monsters and I have to salvage stuff from there.
-Just lots of bugs and scarabs in this cave.
-Now that I’ve discovered this session how to avoid combat (by skirting around rooms), I’m debating how to use it.
A lucky roll.
I mean, it just feels wrong to avoid combat too much, and I know I’d be hurting myself in the long run by losing out on SP and experience. But it’s super frustrating to have to constantly be slowed down in exploration by it.
So here’s my personal compromise I’ll settle on: I’ll go through combat the first time around through these various mission rooms, but when I backtrack and return to rooms I’ll avoid combat. RP-wise, it’ll be like I already cleared those rooms out.
Let’s try that and see how it feels.
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Mission: Seeking Priceless Items > Precious Things > Operation Mako Reactor II (4/6)
-Same premise as last mission. Ok. But this one is listed as “Hard.”
-Gargoyles! And these guys pack punch by casting x-aga spells as well as having high defense. Death Claws also show up.
This’ll be tough.
-Just thought of something else about the compromise from before: this game isn’t like prior FF games. In prior FF games, the only things I could get out of combat were loot and experience. Here, I get something else:
Practice.
These enemies are not always easy. There’s often a gimmick or trick to fighting them, and often it’s as subtle as a particular timing. I’m not a natural or well-practiced at this genre, so the more I fight the more practice I’ll get.
-Awesome reward! “Dragon Armlet,” which halves the damage received from all elemental attacks. Non-rhetorical question for y’all: Can these stack? Like, if I get two Dragon Armlets will that make me take 1/4 elemental damage?
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Mission: Seeking Priceless Items > Precious Things > Operation Mako Reactor III (5/6)
-Continuing to bring the reactor back under Shinra control.
-A bunch of gargoyles, scarabs, and floating eyeballs. “Ahrimans.”
They use Curse on me, so I equip the Gris-Gris Bag I got in the last mission which prevents that.
OH! That’s what the Cursed Ring does. It gives me an actual negative status effect called “Curse” in exchange for better stats. No thanks.
-Reward is a Backpack. Which is AWESOME. It gives me a fourth accessory slot.
-After completing the mission, just sat and listened to the music in the church for a minute. It’s really quite beautiful.
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Mission: Seeking Priceless Items > Precious Things > Accessories Recall (6/6)
-Some Shinra troops were attacked. They survived, but I have to go recover their accessories.
-The mission premise isn’t awful. It relates to Shinra, and sort of relates to the story, but feels.. I dunno. It feels like filler. And I say this as someone who enjoys the mechanics of the game, and am enjoying the main story.
And side stories can be awesome! I hear some people describe anything aside from the main story as “filler,” and I don’t agree with that. There’s plenty of fictional side stories that are total one-offs, totally unrelated to the main story, and still manage great dialogue, character development, humor, style, horror, whatever.
But these feel like actual filler. There’s no reason many of these campaigns have to take six missions when they could’ve accomplished the same story and mechanic feats in 2-3 missions.
(I’m aware even as I write this that nobody’s forcing me to do these side missions. I could just stick to the story ones. But… well, they’re THERE! I want to do them! My inner completionist wants to do them. And mechanically, they’re satisfying. I just wish they felt less like busy work.)
-New monster at the end here!
Griffon.
Not too tough though – just stood there and occasionally shot its feathers at me.
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Next time: maybe some more missions, but I'll have to see what campaigns are available now below the "Very Hard" difficulty level.
