Summary: Hunts around Hammerhead. Taking the car out for a spin. Arrival at Longwythe’s Rest.
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The Mutant Marauder (continued)
-I’m on my way towards a hunt mark when a giant bird swoops down, a “hurricane.” It’s the giant vulture thing from the bestiary screen.
NOCTIS: “Awesome in every sense.”
Agreed. And I’m glad it’s not immediately presented as a threat to kill! (That’ll likely change.) It’s titanic, beautiful, and just goes on its merry way.
-I opened up my first hunt, to kill 7 Sabertusks, and was initially annoyed. I killed like a million of these! I had to have the hunt HIGHLIGHTED to get credit?
But no. It’s that the hunt was for a pack of 7 specific Sabertusks in a specific area. That makes sense.
-A bit later, I killed a rhino-like Dualhorn.
NOCTIS: “Maybe it’s just me, but I felt kinda bad taking it down.”
It’s a nice character trait to build for someone early on. Noctis holds at least some level of respect and appreciation for nature.
-Back to Hammerhead. The car’s in great shape. Cindy and Cid have some game. (Though each character doing a specific pose for the camera makes me roll my eyes a bit.)
[Later edit: I’m leaving that initial reaction in, but it strikes me as strange and embarrassing. I can’t help but think in hindsight that it was driven by toxic masculinity. That posing for pictures is for GIRLS and so I must SHUN these dudes.
There will likely be things that annoy me about the party, but this shouldn’t be one of them. Let them be goofy and show-offy together.]
-Before we go, Cindy has an errand for us, something in our trunk to drop off elsewhere.
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The Errand Prince
-Neat! I can customize the car. I’ll leave it on default for now.
Favorite decal: “16-Bit Buddies,” showing little SNES-style sprites of the party members.
Least Favorite: the Cindymobile, spray-painting “Lucian men’s favorite pinup girl” across the car. How flipping WEIRD of a request would that be?
“Hey, Cindy, can you and your grandpa decorate our car with you doing sexy poses? Thx”
[Non-rhetorical question: Can I safely sell the items in the “Treasures” slot? It sure looks that way, and I’m selling them now, but lmk if that’s a mistake.]
[Non-rhetorical question: “Report Card: Offense: Receive additional xp based on the ratio of enemies defeated.” What kind of ratio is this? Just a way to say the more enemies I kill, the more xp I get?]
-I wander northeast and find a level 38 bandersnatch. Noooope.
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The Mutant Marauder (continued)
-I’m on my way towards a hunt mark when a giant bird swoops down, a “hurricane.” It’s the giant vulture thing from the bestiary screen.
NOCTIS: “Awesome in every sense.”
Agreed. And I’m glad it’s not immediately presented as a threat to kill! (That’ll likely change.) It’s titanic, beautiful, and just goes on its merry way.
-I opened up my first hunt, to kill 7 Sabertusks, and was initially annoyed. I killed like a million of these! I had to have the hunt HIGHLIGHTED to get credit?
But no. It’s that the hunt was for a pack of 7 specific Sabertusks in a specific area. That makes sense.
-A bit later, I killed a rhino-like Dualhorn.
NOCTIS: “Maybe it’s just me, but I felt kinda bad taking it down.”
It’s a nice character trait to build for someone early on. Noctis holds at least some level of respect and appreciation for nature.
-Back to Hammerhead. The car’s in great shape. Cindy and Cid have some game. (Though each character doing a specific pose for the camera makes me roll my eyes a bit.)
[Later edit: I’m leaving that initial reaction in, but it strikes me as strange and embarrassing. I can’t help but think in hindsight that it was driven by toxic masculinity. That posing for pictures is for GIRLS and so I must SHUN these dudes.
There will likely be things that annoy me about the party, but this shouldn’t be one of them. Let them be goofy and show-offy together.]
-Before we go, Cindy has an errand for us, something in our trunk to drop off elsewhere.
---
The Errand Prince
-Neat! I can customize the car. I’ll leave it on default for now.
Favorite decal: “16-Bit Buddies,” showing little SNES-style sprites of the party members.
Least Favorite: the Cindymobile, spray-painting “Lucian men’s favorite pinup girl” across the car. How flipping WEIRD of a request would that be?
“Hey, Cindy, can you and your grandpa decorate our car with you doing sexy poses? Thx”
[Non-rhetorical question: Can I safely sell the items in the “Treasures” slot? It sure looks that way, and I’m selling them now, but lmk if that’s a mistake.]
[Non-rhetorical question: “Report Card: Offense: Receive additional xp based on the ratio of enemies defeated.” What kind of ratio is this? Just a way to say the more enemies I kill, the more xp I get?]
-I wander northeast and find a level 38 bandersnatch. Noooope.
-ANOTHER NOPE WHEN AN IRON GIANT CLAWS ITS WAY OUT OF THE GROUND BENEATH ME. Level 30.
These must be the night Daemons I heard about. Let’s camp out til morning.
-Cooking a party member’s favorite food gives them increased damage and skill learning rate! Another incentive to use that system.
-I roam around for my other two hunts. Really enjoying the combat now that I have some priorities.
-OH RIGHT, THE BESTIARY! Let’s see what kind of info we get from that.
-There’s art, lore, there’s stats, attack values and levels and weaknesses and resistances… It’s perfect.
-Some enemies have different varieties, like alpha, beta, and gamma sabertusks.
-…I totally forgot about Ascension. I have 136 AP banked. Spending it first to reduce MP for phasing, increase AP for making camp, and… let’s get “No Mercy,” boosting damage inflicted by a scanned enemy’s weakness.
-I turn in my hunts… and wait, I can repeat them? If it helps me rank up, I’ll do it, but I hope this isn’t a core gameplay loop.
-When I camp, I notice that the crispy cheese pizza (HOW DOES ALL THIS FOOD LOOK SO GOOD??) also gives poisonproof! That sort of status protection must be super useful in some fights.
-Whew. Redid two hunts, and they don’t progress my rank. GOOD. Don’t want that incentive.
-Back to the main quest. Let’s hop in the car and try that out.
-First impression: I like it far more than I expected. The drive is smooth. I thought I’d have to be super precise to avoid veering all over the road, but the steering is heavily automated.
[Non-rhetorical general request for suggestions: Is this the sort of game where you recommend really investigating every nook and cranny of an area before moving on to the next progress point?
I’m NOT currently planning on this. I’ll explore where the hunts and tipster points take me. There’s also a lot of empty space and it’s a huge zone, so I expect I’ll naturally return down the line.]
-Stopped along the road and found an “Almanac” entry for Longwythe Peak. Almost like a tourist destination. A crag with mysterious origins, not likely due to seismic activity.
Very cool. I hope to find more of these.
-I arrive at the next “town,” the Longwythe Rest Area.
-When I logged back in, a tip screen says: “Topple an enemy to create an opening, then perform a warp-strike to initiate a ‘cross-chain.’” Maybe that’s what the “vulnerable” or “break” or w/e signals.
-For only 100 gil, I buy the FF2 soundtrack for the car. Not a great one, but it has some gems:
I’m a sucker for a harpsichord. See also: my unabashed love for Freya.
-A guy in the Crow’s Nest restaurant: “Saw a magitek trooper the other day. Those things are really unsettling.” So magitek is gonna be a thing. From FFVI to FFXIV to here.
The Crow’s Nest mascot is… unsettling.
-There’s a pinball game!
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Justice Monsters Five
-…wait. I can actually play the pinball game. Justice Monsters Five.
“The evil Grim Gargoyle and his Bahamut Grand Fleet have launched an invasion of the peaceful Nova Galaxy, threatening the freedom of its monster denizens… the Justice Monsters zoom in to save the day! Are you ready? High Five for Justice!” Lolololol
-The characters are FF monsters as early 90s sci-fi cartoon heroes. Space Commander Bomb, Captain Lamia… this is amazing.
-HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, THIS IS A FULL-FLEDGED MINI GAME!
-I spent about 45 minutes on two runs. Even as a basic geometry simulator it’s fun, charging up the ball to aim at different enemies and avoid different bumper configurations.
The rules give it a bit more depths with elemental weaknesses, different hero powers and skills, some randomness in the heroes, and no doubt more.
I just wish you got game overs more easily. I’d prefer a game like pinball to end because I lost rather than because I got bored after 20-30 minutes.
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Next time: Exploring the Longwythe rest stop.
