DavidH I stopped doing side quests finally to put focus on the main story line for the sake of the upcoming review, in the time between the last post and now a lot has happened to the party of Noctis and friends.
The first step in the quest line , well the first big step would be to follow in the steps of Lunafreya to receive the marks of godlike beings , which coincidentally are your summons . Titan, Ramuh, Leviathan, Bahamut etc….
Now the first one you encounter was easily the most interesting to me mainly because he is holding a meteor on his back and has been for millennia and the crater where he resides is where the meeting with him transpires. View image above for an idea of this badassery. When the encounter commenced I thought it was a cut scene due o the complete and ridiculous size of Titan, turns out it was not a cut scene and he squished me with his giant hand . When I gathered myself from being blown away by the size of Titan a battle commenced that involved quick time events and regular combat. The sequence looked gorgeous and played out nicely as well. Bottom line of it is that I received my first summon( woo) the issue with that though is that I have no idea how to use it . Summons seem very finnicky , coming in at times of need or story related events and they are no longer at your disposal like they were in previous entries. This is a departure from the formula of old and frankly I think it was a good choice. In a game where the combat is very reactive and fluid, summoning a gigantic being to glub up the enemy and the area seems a bit overpowered and takes away from the strategic combat maneuvers you enjoy using .
The second step in this quest was to track down and receive the Mark of Ramuh which is a name known by most fans and usually described as ” old guy with beard, lightning staff, boom” and that description has not been truer . Cutting through the story of how I got to receive his mark just because it is a long quest filled with chocobo riding and other nonsensical encounters. Bottom line of this paragraph being , I used a summon and it was balls to the wall crazy. They added a new mission lay out to this FF ,where you can almost stealth through an enemy strong hold using warp striking to instakill enemies and avoid detection , there aren’t many of these so take your time to enjoy them while you can . At the end of the strong hold you meet resistance in the form of a mech suit and a bunch of Magitek soldiers which usually doesn’t give much concern but this time it seemed they were amped up to reduce my health as fast as they could. The difficulty spike in this part seemed to be intentional as when my health dropped to dangerous, the prompt to use a summon finally appeared. See the video below for a visual aid on how awesome this was .
From this point on the story of the game itself speeds along , leaving the open world for a more linear approach for the sake of story telling , which isn’t bad. after a couple of loose end side quests popped up , I had repaired a boat and was ready to set sail to the next continent in the game and to the city of Altissia.
From here on out the game fully transitioned to a more linear take but gave you the option to return to the open world on a whim , which is a good touch.
I am rounding down to the final hours of the game as we speak, my last journal entry will be combined with my review before Christmas.
Stay tuned for more!
