Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates Revisited

So, Monday night I beat Ring of Fates. The first playthrough ended with me having played 23 hours and 31 minutes, with the main character (Yuri) at level 42. Am now working on my second playthrough with New Game+, which includes a new level that apparently was on Crystal Chronicles for Game Cube (River Belle). With this level included, I’m now halfway through the game (the first visit to Rela Cyel) with a time of 29:50 and my characters at 57/56/50. I have done a bit of leveling up; Gnash was at level 46 or so when I first got him.

With the higher levels comes new, more useful weapons and abilities that can be built into them – namely HP/SP Regen, HP/SP absorb (absorbs with each hit), and the ability to have your non-active party members use healing magic automatically.

As far as gameplay goes, it’s virtually the same as the previous playthrough. The monsters have leveled up with you, so they’re just as hard (or easy) to beat as they were the first time through. The bosses are just as hard (not really), and they’re made easier by already knowing how to beat them.

One of my main problems though, is that the monsters all drop new items. The scrolls for making weapons/materials/armor are better, but I’m constantly having to go back and get rid of older ones just so I don’t keep dropping the new ones (you can only hold 99 scrolls). And since I’m a packrat and like to think to myself “Man, I might need this in the future!”, it’s difficult XD Though I suppose I could use some of the excess scrolls and materials to make new weapons and such; then at least I can sell them for a bit of cash.

The battle system, while still obnoxious, is getting a little bit easier to deal with and work around. Your party members still get in the way of friggin everything, and half the time end up just dying so I don’t even bother with them. >_>

This game has disgustingly low HP. Only Yuri has managed to get over 800 HP, with the help of a lot of HP boosts and HP boosting weapons/armor/accessories. But since I took half of them off for other things, he’s somewhere in the 650 range with HP/SP absorb on his equipment so having his HP lower (he has the highest ATK/DEF stats) isn’t too bad, since he makes back pretty much all the HP he loses when I buttonmash enemies.

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It’s, uh. Been a day since I started this post so I’m now a bit further along – out of Rela Cyel again and since I had Meeth and wanted to level her up, I went to River Belle, which is the shortest, but most obnoxious area to work in because the entire area is covered in poison, including the boss battle area (good thing I brought Meeth along!). There are a few not-so-strategically placed Lilty pads that’ll give you a protective barrier for a short time. But even those are a pain in the ass because even though you can pick up the pot and run off with it and keep yourself protected, half of your douchebag party members don’t follow you properly and end up getting poisoned anyway. >_> Losers.

But. Yes. Main points of my ranting are:

1) This game is disgustingly easy.
2) It’s also obnoxious.
3) It does, however, provide mindless entertainment.

I think that about sums everything up >_>

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates

Crystal reminded me that I had a blog that wasn’t LJ, and that perhaps maybe I should use it. And as a completely unrelated sidenote, I finally converted most of my categories to tags. It certainly keeps things nice and clean :D But here, have a mini-review/rant.

S gave me a DS for Christmas, along with FFCC:RoF. I haven’t finished it yet, but upon internet inspection, I have discovered that I’m only 5 areas away from the end of the game. When I discovered this, I wasn’t even 15 hours into the game. I’m now a bit over 17, and I haven’t even bothered going on to the next part. I’ve just been going around all the areas I went to before getting more money and stuff. The next boss is easycakes (I had gone on and beaten him and gotten nearly to the next guy, but there was no save point and at some point while my DS was in my pocket I accidentally pushed the game cartridge out >>).

Continue reading “Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates”

Lazy is as lazy does

As possibly determined by the fact I haven’t touched this place in a month, aside from changing the theme (again), adding an “about” page and moving some of the other pages over there.

Since my last post, R has officially gone to a group home, but J’s supervisor has another 12 year old boy she’d like to place with them, which means my babysitting-ness isn’t completely over. I don’t know if J’s decided on whether or not they’ll do it yet, but as far as I know this new boy won’t be nearly as bad as R was. We shall see.

Holidays went more-or-less as normal; we didn’t do much other than mum making dinner and eating at S&J’s place. Christmas swag was limited to $15 from grandma, a DS Lite from S&J, a pound of See’s chocolates from mum and a pair of awesome flannel pajamas (they have dog-heads and milkbones all over them :o) from dad. K was back home for a bit and was around for Christmas, but he’s since gone back to South Carolina to finish out his AIT.

S picked up a copy of FFCC:RoF and gave it to me to play until he’s finished with Final Fantasy 3. I have my issues with it, but I haven’t played it enough yet to fully decide whether I like it or not. I’ll probably be posting a mini-review at some point in the near future.

It’s four in the morning and I have to leave for work in 3 hours, why am I awake? Will be in Sonoma for a few days for work, and should be home Tuesday night or Wednesday night. Which leaves me Thursday and Friday to be a lazy bum and try to get other things done.

I should probably get things packed up and ready to go soon, and maybe even get something to eat.

And so it ends.

NaBloPoMo, that is. And somehow I managed to post every day! Not that they were necessarily Long or Deep posts, but it’s the putting the effort in and actually going through with it that’s good enough for me.

Went back to Potter Valley (late) today and got some of the horse stuff taken care of, including a particularly brilliant execution of moving 4 horses (with 3 people) out of a pasture containing several cows and about 15 other horses. Pasture in question is HUGE (~30 acres), most of the horses were all in the back of it. The four we wanted were near the front, and all four just came ambling up as we went to get them. Managed to get everyone out the gate into the next field before the others even noticed, and was *just* locking up the gate when the rest of them came thundering along x3

Had a massive headache complete with being unable to see straight for several house; a combination of low blood sugar and sinuses. Took some sudafed before we left the place, and when it wasn’t getting better we stopped at the little market in Blue Lake so I could get some string cheese and mixed nuts. God a little better, but damn my body and it liking to just fucking freeze all the time. Stopped off at Grocery Outlet and got some more awesome tiny Pomegranates and some awesome striped gloves (two pairs), then stopped off at K-Mart since we always forget to go over there when we’re in Lakeport and they have stuff that Wal-mart just never has.

So for $16, I got myself another two pairs of gloves that are really four – they’re two separate pairs of gloves – one with fingers, and one with them cut off at the knuckle that you can wear either over the others or on their own – the part with the fingers cut off are solid black, and the part with fingers are red and black striped (or white and black striped, depending on pair); a new plaid scarf that is almost perfect for Rikkai’s winter uniform (which I will one day do, damnit), and a really comfy pair of flannel pj pants *_* Horrah, 40% off sales~ Mum got me another (larger) black fleece-lined sweatshirt, too. Sowarm *_* I really wish I could find these in a pullover, because I hate zip-up sweatshirts. But. It is warm ;_;

Still so very frozen and need to get things together @_@ Thank all that is high and mighty that I don’t have to do any *real* things tomorrow and can just dick around finishing other shit up. Woohoo!

Crazytimes

Horses are moved, and life is good! It took a bit to get Shamar in the trailer, but after that he was pretty relaxed even up until we put him in with all of the geldings. Khis spent about an hour and a half BAWWWWing at the fence trying to get to him, but stopped once we fed for the night. Goofy horses.

Heading back out tomorrow morning for most of the day to help get some cleaning done and such.

Yargh @_@ have been on my feet all day, and I am exhausted.