Date played: December 29th and 30th
Platform: PS4
I played so much FFXV during the holidays...
Most of my time was spent with side quests and hunts, though I made some progress in the story too. While most of the side quests were pretty standard fetch quests, the hunts are what I enjoy the most. I fought a large variety of monsters through the hunts, each more dangerous than the last. The most memorable of these battles was against a trio of Cockatrices. These humongous chickens are nothing to laugh at, they were really quite difficult to beat.
I also spent a good amount of time hunting down weapons and weapon upgrades, but wasn't that successful. I managed to find the Bioblaster, a weapon I heard about from my brother, then upgraded it to become one of my most powerful. I gave it to Prompto, who blasts out it's dangerous poison in the middle of battle.
My upgrade tree is filling out quite well too, I upgraded most of the lower cost skills. I also found a couple of new outposts, which means new music for the Regalia and MP3 player. It also meant a few new weapons, but I am a bit disappointed in them. There was a sword and a lance, which were more powerful than what I had, but the problem is that they dealt holy damage. This is great against demons, but it sucks against everything else.
Once I had my fill of hunts and exploration, I progressed the story by riding with Iris to a little house outside of Cape Caem. We stopped a few times along the way for some pretty big missions though. The first was an Empire military base. I had to infiltrate it and capture a high ranking officer to interrogate him and gather information on the Empire. I trailed the guy by warping from catwalk to catwalk, then we captured him. That's when we were faced with two little boss battles in a row!
The first put me against a large bipedal mech, but it was much lower level than me and was easy to defeat. The second was against a new character, Aranea Highwind. She is a powerful fighter that uses lances, high jumps and even flies around a little bit. When we beat her (after a grueling battle), she quickly retreated, though it's clear that she'll be back. I don't quite know how she fits into the Empire, but I'm sure I'll find out. During these battles, the officer we kidnapped was rescued...
Then, as we continued towards Cape Caem, we stopped at a dungeon called Malmalam Thicket. This is a forest that is infested with insects and mandrakes. These mandrakes aren't very hard to kill, but it's lots of fun fighting against a humanoid plant creature. At the end of the dungeon, I fought a huge Bandersnatch, a very spiky, scary looking monster. Once again, this was a pretty tough battle, but magic worked well against it, and Ignis' Regroup skill was useful to keep us healed up without using items.
One thing that was really cool during the car trip with Iris is that she follows the party everywhere, even in battle or on chocobos. She rides a sexy red chocobo and even has a special technique in battle where she trips enemies. She also sits in a tight spot in the car between Noctis and her brother Gladio. I loved my time with Iris on our team. Unfortunately, it came to an end when we reached our destination, a small house outside of Cape Caem.
We met Cindy and Cid there, who are trying to fix up a boat of some kind for us. The thing needs a lot of work though, according to the mechanics anyway. I'm guessing a lot of the next story segments will have me find ways to fix it. I can't wait to get back in there and see what happens next!
Platform: PS4
I played so much FFXV during the holidays...
Most of my time was spent with side quests and hunts, though I made some progress in the story too. While most of the side quests were pretty standard fetch quests, the hunts are what I enjoy the most. I fought a large variety of monsters through the hunts, each more dangerous than the last. The most memorable of these battles was against a trio of Cockatrices. These humongous chickens are nothing to laugh at, they were really quite difficult to beat.
I also spent a good amount of time hunting down weapons and weapon upgrades, but wasn't that successful. I managed to find the Bioblaster, a weapon I heard about from my brother, then upgraded it to become one of my most powerful. I gave it to Prompto, who blasts out it's dangerous poison in the middle of battle.
My upgrade tree is filling out quite well too, I upgraded most of the lower cost skills. I also found a couple of new outposts, which means new music for the Regalia and MP3 player. It also meant a few new weapons, but I am a bit disappointed in them. There was a sword and a lance, which were more powerful than what I had, but the problem is that they dealt holy damage. This is great against demons, but it sucks against everything else.
Once I had my fill of hunts and exploration, I progressed the story by riding with Iris to a little house outside of Cape Caem. We stopped a few times along the way for some pretty big missions though. The first was an Empire military base. I had to infiltrate it and capture a high ranking officer to interrogate him and gather information on the Empire. I trailed the guy by warping from catwalk to catwalk, then we captured him. That's when we were faced with two little boss battles in a row!
 |
| We battle against a powerful mech out in the wild |
Then, as we continued towards Cape Caem, we stopped at a dungeon called Malmalam Thicket. This is a forest that is infested with insects and mandrakes. These mandrakes aren't very hard to kill, but it's lots of fun fighting against a humanoid plant creature. At the end of the dungeon, I fought a huge Bandersnatch, a very spiky, scary looking monster. Once again, this was a pretty tough battle, but magic worked well against it, and Ignis' Regroup skill was useful to keep us healed up without using items.
One thing that was really cool during the car trip with Iris is that she follows the party everywhere, even in battle or on chocobos. She rides a sexy red chocobo and even has a special technique in battle where she trips enemies. She also sits in a tight spot in the car between Noctis and her brother Gladio. I loved my time with Iris on our team. Unfortunately, it came to an end when we reached our destination, a small house outside of Cape Caem.
We met Cindy and Cid there, who are trying to fix up a boat of some kind for us. The thing needs a lot of work though, according to the mechanics anyway. I'm guessing a lot of the next story segments will have me find ways to fix it. I can't wait to get back in there and see what happens next!
