memes

I still count The Second Dream among the best gaming experiences I've ever had. I agree with you that the only reason it worked is because the game was so plotless until that point, but it's not like the game wasn't fun until then - it was just fun for reasons other than story. If the moment to moment gameplay hadn't been engaging, having the big reveal be tens or hundreds of hours into the experience wouldn't have worked at all.

The game Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is another example of this sort of thing... There's a moment near the end that hits really hard, and I feel like the whole design discussion for the game focused on that moment and the rest of the game was just a vessel to get the player to the point where it would hit hardest, and it does a great job of that. It's only a 4 hour experience, though, not a 40+ hour one.

I’d say it is, because while it’s a slow burn the buildup leads to some pretty epic payoffs.

And the game will not only take you through each story in sequence so you don’t have to worry about spoilers, it will lock you out of progressing class quests (if they have spoilers, and the later ones often have at least a few) until you’ve played the relevant story parts. So it’s extra-anti-spoiler.

the free trial has infinite time and some minor restrictions so imo you should try it

i didn't know what to expect and only played guikdwars 1 and some 2 and very little WOW and ff14 won me over

it's a very charming game with lots of character and you can tell it was made with love

Very definitely worth it. And it's free so if you don't like it, not like you're wasting anything. Have something like 10k hours in it. I don't play it much anymore other than to check in and/or dick around with friends since I've done most of what I wanted. There's no FOMO or anything like that. It's very much built as an RPG, just online (though with the recent updates you can play the entire thing single player if you so wish). So you can just take your leave of it once you've done the content you want and come back later without missing anything. Very worth it.

Unironiconally one of my favorite FF stories, third to 9 and 10. And that probably has to do with them taking the time to build up a backstory and lore. So it's not off to the racetracks minute one, big deal. Do you expect that when you read a book? Makes you care more about the people later on since they've been established as actual people and not just Spiky Hair Video Game Guy #1 and Woman Who Should Be Cold In Those Clothes #8

It's cause they're turning 16 page chapters of manga into full episodes. If you made a succinct version, you could probably tell the whole story so far in 200 episodes. Much smaller than that and you'd really start cutting into the story being told.

I got super burnt out on the content in Dawntrail just because it felt like they got very comfortable in their formula and kept funneling everything into it more and more

Endwalker I already began having issues. A lot of the dungeon content felt dumbed down. I disliked how they mandated the pull-pull-boss formula in all dungeons. Especially combined with the crazy self healing they doled out to all tanks, it felt like the pack management got oversimplified, which was a double edged sword because in addition to being boring it made those sections take longer.

It was especially disappointing to me after Shadowbringers had some of the best and most comically massive boss to boss pack pulls in the entire game (Mt Gulg) and in many cases allowed you to pull directly into mini bosses, or had special tech that let you spawn enemies early (Qitana Ravel). I had a ton of fun learning these strategies from other tanks while doing roulettes on my dps and healers, and then teaching the optimal strategies to others when I leveled my tanks.

I was mixed at the time because I felt the actual dungeon boss fights in Endwalker were a lot of fun, and then I really enjoyed the extremes and savage content (Although I was also beginning to feel weary of an over reliance on floating bosses and arena sized bosses. I play tank in high end content and I love the gameplay loop of anticipating the boss moves and pre-positioning myself to bait their attacks, or lining them up well for my melee dps players). It also helped a lot that I loved the music and the story of Endwalker.

I should note I’m also very sensitive to the state of the casual content because I like to level and ~gear every job in the game. So I spend a lot of time in dungeons and such, running through content with FC members, and so on. I had a goal at one point to orange parse the extremes with every job in the game (extremely doable with the uncapped tome equipment and memeing on food and potions lol, it’s really just a test of if you can execute your rotation the whole fight without dying) and I did get at least one orange with each job. So having the ability to have fun while leveling all my jobs (a very time intensive task) is very important to me.

But yeah when Dawntrail dropped the dungeons felt even more restrictive than ever before, the boss fights hadn’t really improved much, and it felt like all of the jobs themselves got even simpler in their rotation. To the point where I felt like it didn’t even matter what tank I picked, it was basically the same rotation. Like the 6.3 Paladin rework to finish turning all the tanks into Warrior clones was just so gut wrenching to me. I looked at my hot bars one day and realized I had all the “same” buttons in all the same places. 1-2-3/4 combo, then press your big burst button 3 times, reach over here for your oGCDs. All of the defensive cooldowns were totally homogenized as well. I guess I’m a final fantasy boomer now but I used to like stressing the healers out by memeing them with Dark Knight’s old invuln and stuff like that lol.

It used to feel like I could get a lot of variety just from switching jobs but for Dawntrail I only bothered leveling one of each type (tank healer melee range magic) because at some point, after being able to make my own fun with the process for years and years over multiple expansions, it just felt like I couldn’t anymore. Eventually I stopped keeping up with the game entirely and for the first time ever I’m considering skipping the next expansion launch, which has always been a huge event for me that I take time off work for.

Anyway wow sorry for the rant, I started out just having a couple things to say but I guess I just hadn’t really processed all of that until now lol. TL;DR kids these days don’t realize the game was sooo much better back in myyy day