Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Battle of New Hefei Castle (Wei Forces) | Free Mode Only Xaldin007 2024-05-25 | If only they ever put a no hit box ballista on wheels, they'd be unstoppable.
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Battle of Shiting (Wei Forces) | Free Mode Only Xaldin007 2024-05-25 | WAIT YOUTUBE EXPLICIT CONTENT DETECTOR, IT'S NOT WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE, I PROMISE!
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Battle of Guangling (Wei Forces) | Free Mode Only Xaldin007 2024-05-25 | I love how the Wu forces ambush the Wei camp atop the cliff and then don't actually jump down it to attack, they just move towards the player. Impeccable stage design!
Warriors All-Stars | Part 1 Xaldin007 2024-05-24 | Boy it was a hassle to start this over with a fresh save. The game only has ONE save slot and doesn't even have an option to delete it, so I had to delete it manually off my console.Discord Server Link: discord.gg/GgkccaTK5g
Samurai Warriors 4 DX - Secret History | Men of Charm and Courage Xaldin007 2024-05-23 | For the DLC outfits, it's mostly all females that get new ones and the characters that were in SW1. No SW2/3 outfits are in the game. Mitsunari and Toyohisa get some "helmetless" outfits. Yukimura and Mitsunari get some actual DLC outfits that are different, but I don't think any other guy that wasn't in SW1 gets new outfits.Oh right, the DLC also includes more Create-a-Warrior customization options. Chronicle mode is too grindy for me to 100% a second time, so I probably won't be showing any of that.
Samurai Warriors 4 DX - Secret History | Sinister Beauties Xaldin007 2024-05-23 | Some gameplay of SW4 DX, to see how it runs compared to the PS4 version. About the same, I think it can handle larger number of enemies on screen but I'm not positive on that and it pretty much feels the same. The graphics look about the same, though I think my recording software doesn't like it as much as the quality looks worse now that it's on youtube.The DX version of SW4 basically just means it comes with all the DLC, which is just a few outfits for select characters (mostly girls, unlike DW games not EVERYONE gets DLC outfits so most characters still only have 1), the 8 DLC stages, the 5 DLC songs (yes, there's only 5, but at least they're unique remixes of SW1 songs), 4 DLC horses, some reusable items, and new weapons for all the characters.You don't get the weapons at the start. If you look online, some people say you get them by clearing the DLC stages, this is a lie. I cleared them all and they didn't unlock. Some people say they unlocked without even touching the DLC stages. So all I can assume is that they unlock automatically after you fulfill some arbitrary requirement such like "play for 20 hours" or something. The DLC weapons are even stronger than the unlockable Rare Weapons in game, so they'd ruin the balance if available from the start, but the game's not really hard anyways. I played the DLCs on Easy with LV1 characters, since they were high difficulty stages and that was a breeze. Harder difficulties are still easy just so long as you're leveled up.I see a lot of people being like "oh boy, this is finally on PC!" but if you played it on PS4 before, then you really have no reason to buy this, the DLC doesn't justify the $50 price tag on a 10 year old game. And Spirit of Sanada is the better game for the same price, so just get that if you really want SW4 on PC. SW4-II isn't bad compared to regular SW4 either, and that was already on PC, so I don't see what the big deal is about this specific game being on PC now. Just weird the first of the SW4 games was the last to get ported.Edit: Some people have told me the ports for SW4-II and SoS run badly, so do your research into them if you opt to buy one of them instead. I didn't play those on PC so I can only vouch for how they run on console. I didn't even buy this game myself, it was given to me, so that's the only reason I've got some videos of it.
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Battle of Ruxukou (Wei Forces) | Free Mode Only Xaldin007 2024-05-22 | This sure is a battle alright.With these Free Mode stages being so short and nothing really happening in them, I just have nothing to say for majority of them. There's a reason it took me so long to get around to finally recording these. They're almost all boring.
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Battle of Jing Province (Liu Beis Forces) | Free Mode Only Xaldin007 2024-05-22 | There's so much red on the map here, your allies just struggle and die no matter what the morale looks like.
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Battle of Nanjun (Cao Caos Forces) | Free Mode Only Xaldin007 2024-05-22 | This is my favorite Free Mode only stage. It utilizes most of the map, has proper objectives, and unique lines all throughout instead of just beginning and end. I almost want to say that this was going to be a story mode stage until they decided they didn't have room for it for Wei's story.
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - The Little Conqueror in Peril (Cao Caos Forces) | Free Mode Only Xaldin007 2024-05-21 | Zuo Ci showed up to help his bro Gan Ji, but didn't realize he wasn't included in the Free Mode version of this stage so is just awkwardly helping Cao Cao now.
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Conquest of Wujun (Liu Yaos Forces) | Free Mode Only Xaldin007 2024-05-21 | A lot of people won't know/remember, but in original DW8 if you played as a character in Free Mode that was already on the map, they wouldn't get replaced with a generic. There'd just be two of you running around. Goes to show how much of an after thought Free Mode was.
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Battle of Liang Province (Rebel Forces) | Free Mode Only Xaldin007 2024-05-21 | Sun Jian doesn't have the commander icon for this stage, but is treated like one. Both he and Dong Zhuo need to be defeated to win.
Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 (Master Collection) | Final Xaldin007 2024-05-20 | Planning to finish up the game with this stream.Discord Server Link: discord.gg/GgkccaTK5g
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Battle of Xiangyang (Liu Biaos Forces) | Free Mode Only Xaldin007 2024-05-19 | Wei Yan: "SPIN...TO...WIIIIIIIIIN!!!"
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Battle of Zitong (Shu Forces) | Free Mode Only Xaldin007 2024-05-19 | Detective Sherlock Huang is here to fine out who among the enemy are younger than him (it's all of them).
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Defense of Xinye (Shu Forces) | Free Mode Only Xaldin007 2024-05-19 | A lot of running around to find the right way into the 7+1 Gates formation. And running back out when reinforcements spawn in.
Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 (Master Collection) | Part 2 Xaldin007 2024-05-18 | Last time we took down Volf, so now I expect to get up close to the end of the game. Maybe up to Ayane's stage or so.Discord Server Link: discord.gg/GgkccaTK5g
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Pacification of Jing Province (Shu Forces) | Free Mode Only Xaldin007 2024-05-17 | Yinping proceeds to pacify Wei.
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Defense of Fan Castle (Coalition Forces) | Free Mode Only Xaldin007 2024-05-17 | This is apparently what would have happened in this what-if battle if Yu Jin stopped by Wen Chou's McKFC first instead of heading straight to Fan Castle.
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Defense of Changan (Coalition Forces) | Free Mode Only Xaldin007 2024-05-17 | No pyrocannons were harmed in the making of this battle.They were, however, all harmed by the time it was over.
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Invasion of Luoyang (Wei Forces) | Free Mode Only Xaldin007 2024-05-17 | Isn't it great when your commander dies less than 2 minutes into the stage?
Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 (Master Collection) | Part 1 Xaldin007 2024-05-16 | This is my favorite Ninja Gaiden game. I bet I forgot how to be good at it!Discord Server Link: discord.gg/GgkccaTK5g
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Final Conflict at Guandu (Yuan Shaos Forces) | Free Mode Only Xaldin007 2024-05-15 | All hail Jian Chu, the ultimate warrior.
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Campaign for Jianye (Wu Forces) | Free Mode Only Xaldin007 2024-05-15 | During most stages in Free Mode, your allies die super easy and there's not a whole lot you can do about it. I tested the stages on different difficulties too and even on Normal they die just as fast, so it's something to do with how the game handles morale and Free Mode not having any restraint on spawning in massive amounts of peons to surround officers. If you kill everything super fast, like say if you're on Normal, you can make up for it by racking up a ton of kills quickly but even then sometimes allies are dead in less than a minute at the start of the stage.
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Battle of Tong Gate (Coalition Forces) | Free Mode Only Xaldin007 2024-05-15 | Okay this is the one battle that's better in Free Mode. I like that Ma Chao's line at the end about marching on Chang'an next actually happens in the XL stages.
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Battle of Mt. Bailong (Coalition Forces) | Free Mode Only Xaldin007 2024-05-14 | A few of these Free Mode only stages have nothing but generics on their side, so I just play whoever for those. Generally I try to play characters that feel at least somewhat appropriate to the stage they're in though.
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Battle of Puyang (Lu Bus Forces) | Free Mode Only Xaldin007 2024-05-14 | This one is an oddity among Free Mode stages. In original DW8 it was Free Mode only, but with XL it got its own version of this on Lu Bu's side in Lu Bu's story, called Capture of Puyang. But this version still has unique lines from Chen Gong since he was upgraded to playable character. So that's neat.
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Battle of Yan Province (Xu Zhus Forces) | Free Mode Only Xaldin007 2024-05-14 | Back when I first recorded all the stages in DW8:XL, I didn't record the Free Mode only stages. Because the vast majority of them are bad, poorly set up, and super short. Most fights will end in about 3-12 minutes. So yeah, don't expect a lot of content from these videos. There are at least some unique lines, but most of them are just lines at the beginning and end and the rest are reused from the proper story mode version of the stages.Not every stage has a "Free Mode only" version either. For example, since Chibi is played on all sides in Story Mode already, it doesn't get an "enemy" version. And some unique ones like Seek the Secret Ingredients don't get an enemy version just because...they didn't feel like it, I guess.I'm not gonna have a lot to say about a lot of these and I don't want to swamp everyone's feed with a ton of short videos, so I'll just be releasing these videos 3 per day. It will likely take a while.
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Shu/Jin Xtreme Story Modes Xaldin007 2024-05-13 | Zhao Yun is part of Shu so that's a good enough excuse for me to use the cover of the original DW8 for this!Discord Server Link: discord.gg/GgkccaTK5g
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth - Finale | Sephiroth Xaldin007 2024-05-12 | So this is about an hour long final boss fight, with a bunch of different phases. Despite Cloud coming here alone, it does have the whole party engage so you want everyone equipped. And guess who forgot to equip Cait Sith! Yeah, he leaves the party for so long I just kept forgetting to reequip him with anything so he was just dead weight the whole fight. I also though I would have some selection for team composition for these fights, but nope. The game decides it all and it decided that Cait Sith needed to be apart of two fights. Dammit.We fight Jenova Lifeclinger first, who has some attacks I never quite got the hang of dodging. For the fight against her, your party appears to be comprised of whoever has the highest affection with Cloud, so I got Yuffie and Red XIII. There's a bit of extra dialogue for whoever gets chosen too, so that was nice.Sephiroth joins the fight once Jenova's dealt with, but Zack joins our party out of nowhere, so we have him to help against some of Sephiroth's phases. The first fight against Sephiroth is pretty easy, which might be so the player can get a grip on how to use Zack. Honestly, we reaaaaally should have had a chance to properly play Zack earlier in the game, like during all those times the game cut away to show things happening in his timeline. I've always been bad with timing mechanics and his whole gimmick is charging his attacks with Triangle, but the bosses he fights don't give him a chance to just stand around and hold triangle, so you want to do the quick charge by pressing it just after finishing an attack. It's just awkward having to get to use to something brand new in the FINAL fight. Especially later on when we have to use Zack alone.The hardest and most awkward part of this for me was having to fight Sephiroth Reborn as the rest of the party, because I didn't know one phase of him would cycle through elements to where he was immune to all damage that wasn't with the opposing element, and also didn't know which party would be fighting that phase, so I didn't have access to all the elemental attack types for that particular party. Sure would have been nice if Yuffie was part of that team, being able to use any element anytime she wants...The final fight against Sephiroth is with Cloud and Aerith. Honestly I'd kind of preferred it if the final boss fight was just Jenova and then this version of Sephiroth. Most of the fights in between were just annoying more than anything and really took me out of it when it just felt like I was screwed over in a lot of those fights by having no idea what to expect next and not be set up properly as a result.After all that is some more story scenes and the credits sequence, which is like 25 minutes long on its own. Cloud doesn't really seem to have gotten over his hallucinations, seeing Aerith when no one else does and seeing the sky torn open when no one else does. And hiding the Black Materia from everyone, it all makes you feel weary of him which I honestly don't think I'll be into when the 3rd game comes around. But we'll see. I was expecting Aerith to survive as the big change for the Remake games, but I guess they figured it'd be too obvious so we still get a dead Aerith. Well, a kind of dead Aerith.I think the ending sort of fell flat, but overall, I had a blast with this game. The journey itself was a ton of fun, running around exploring with the party was great, the characters were fun and bounced off of each other well, and I really like the way the combat feels, especially when playing as Cloud. The good outweighs the bad, to the point I'm probably going to still consider this my game of the year no matter what comes out later.
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth - Part 56 | The Black Materia Xaldin007 2024-05-12 | First, we finish up the final dungeon with a fight against Demon Gate, which is basically a Demon Wall. Demon Gate will spawn a second one behind you and start shrinking the area you can fight in, which makes it harder to dodge its attack. The Assess says that if you hit it with an opposite element from the one it's using, that will pressure it, but I couldn't get it to work. More or less just brute forced it.After that, we have a lengthy story section. Cloud has quickly been losing himself since stepping foot in the temple and now he's gone into full crazy mode after getting his hands on the Black Materia. It's a weird feeling having a character you've controlled for so long start acting like this. I did appreciate the line delivery Cloud's VA has for these scenes, especially when trying to get the Black Materia back from Aerith.Once all that's resolved, we have a brief fight against some Whipsers, which are just as tanky as they were in the last game. More of a time consuming fight than anything. Then Cloud goes ahead on his own and prepares for the final boss fight.
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth - Part 55 | Temple of the Ancients Xaldin007 2024-05-11 | 18:57 - Reno & Rude58:50 - Eleana & TsengAs we progress the dungeon, we encounter some unique enemies. Cloud's party faces an Ironclad, which we actually already fought in the UPA arena battle. So it's super easy to deal with now without 4 more fights in front of it.After that, we run into Reno & Rude for a boss fight against them. Reno more or less has his same gimmicks from Remake, putting out mines and stunning you. You can attack them to get rid of those. They'll do combo attacks which is a good time to hit them with your own Synergy attack before they even start theirs. Not too difficult.Aerith's party will encounter some Hecteyes, which like to make themselves invulnerable to damage, so it's one of the few enemies you want to use the subversion materia on to remove their buffs. The game even has a subversion materia lying around for you to pick up just in case you didn't have one yet.Then Aerith's party will face Eleana & Tseng. Tseng can overpower Aerith quickly so it's best to switch off of her as soon as possible so he focuses on either Red or Yuffie, characters that can dodge his attacks better. Dodging his final combo hit will leave him pressured for a bit. Eleana is pretty much the same. As usually with the Turks, they'll try to do combo attacks so save a Synergy for when that happens.The party joins up after that fight. Then we end up in this "trial" area where everyone has to individually confront the part of their past that haunts them the most. It's neat to see some of it, but a lot of it we already knew about.
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth - Part 54 | Temple of the Ancients Xaldin007 2024-05-11 | 58:15 - Red DragonNow we enter the final dungeon of the game. It's a neat area with a mechanic around flipping gravity around and walking on the ceiling and walls to progress and find stuff. Some of the best accessories in the game can be found here, as well as everyone's final weapons. The first fight when entering the temple can be a bit of a doozy since there's just so many Shinra soldiers coming in and some new ones that have attacks you won't be sure how to dodge yet. There's some Ancient Wyverns with high HP, but are really weak to wind and fold quickly when Staggered.The Red Dragon is the first boss. Not the most exciting name, but it is apt. Red's main gimmick comes in phase 2, where she begins flying and will start prepping Crimson Breath. You really want to destroy her chest at any opportunity because this will reduce Crimson Breath's range. At full power, Crimson Breath III will hit the entire arena and deal enough damage to kill everyone without defensive measures in place. On hard mode, the boss ALWAYS uses its strongest Crimson Breath regardless of if you destroyed the chest or not. Certain enemies on hard seem to just ignore their mechanics and no one is sure if this is a bug or intentional, but it makes an otherwise easy boss fight into a really annoying one you need a highly specific setup to beat on hard. The strats for hard mode are either casting defensive spells on the whole party and having Barret tank with Lifesaver to survive Crimson Breath, or dealing such ridiculous amounts of ice damage in a short time to kill the boss before it ever uses it at all. I actually stopped my hard mode playthrough against this boss because I just wasn't having fun having to change my entire materia loadout to deal with a mechanic I SHOULD have been able to get around if it worked right and hard mode didn't turn it's Assess hint into an outright lie.Anyways, a bit after that the party gets separated with Cloud leading one group and Aerith leading the other.
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Wei/Wu Xtreme Story Modes Xaldin007 2024-05-10 | This will be covering the new XL stages added to the Wei and Wu stories.Discord Server Link: discord.gg/GgkccaTK5g
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth - Part 53 | Ultimate Party Animal Xaldin007 2024-05-09 | After doing everything else before going to the final dungeon, I uninstalled the game and reinstalled from the disc offline to avoid having it patched. All so I could complete this glitched quest lol. Now, the quest has been patched with the latest one so no one has to do this anymore. But that's why I ended up saving this for last since I was hoping the patch fix would come out before I was ready to move on, no such luck.This is just beating the Shinra employee in a few minigame challenges and then being reward with a cutscene of Cloud breakdancing at the end. I do like that the big quests end with a cutscene, makes it feel more worth the effort.After this, all that will be left is to progress the main story and finish the game.
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth - Part 52 | Vs. Gilgamesh Xaldin007 2024-05-09 | Gilgamesh is a lot of fun to fight, and honestly an easier fight than the duo summon battles leading up to him. He mixes up his attacks a lot as the fight goes on. He's weak to fire, so fire buffing materia does good here. He's also one of the few enemies that almost necessitates the use of the subversion materia to clear all the buffs he applies to himself. Towards the end of the fight he'll do a countdown so it quickly becomes a DPS check to defeat him before he finishes and wipes you. After seeing what all he could do on the first attempt, the second attempt with a better set up handled him just fine. The music when fighting him is really good too.Also we see a scene with Chadley at the end for completing all of the World Intel gathering.
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth - Part 51 | Vs. Odin & Alexander Xaldin007 2024-05-09 | I expected this one to give me the most trouble, but I actually beat it first try. Odin has his "keep me entertained or I Zantetsuken" gimmick and Alexander has a bunch of big attacks he likes to do, applying debuffs that'll make his limit break hit harder. But I had everyone equipped with a debuff at some kind and that was enough to keep Odin entertained until he takes a back seat for the 2nd part of the fight.When Odin leaves, then it becomes a DPS check against Alexander because if you don't deal a significant amount of damage to him in time, then he shows up and Zantetsukens. But having a moment to just focus on one makes the fight a lot easier than having to deal with both at the same time.
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth - Part 50 | Vs. Kujata & Phoenix Xaldin007 2024-05-09 | This fight gets a lot easier when you equip materia to gain fire resist/immunity/absorb. Almost all of Phoenix's attacks are fire based and Kujata will use fire when in his fire mode. This fight just kind of drags on because you have to defeat Kujata first, then Phoenix will revive him but lose his 99% damage reduction effect, so then you kill Phoenix and take down Kujata for a second time. I expected this to be the easiest, and it kind of was, but I took a bit too long on Kujata's 2nd kill and almost wiped against Tri-Disaster.
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Others Story Mode Xaldin007 2024-05-09 | It's not a very cohesive story mode, but it is a story mode nonetheless.Discord Server Link: discord.gg/GgkccaTK5g
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth - Part 49 | Vs. Bahamut Arisen & Titan Xaldin007 2024-05-07 | The first in the summon duo fights, although you can do them in any order. Titan is more an annoyance than anything. You have to decide for yourself if you want to take him out now or ignore him while you strive to take down Bahamut Arisen before he uses Gigaflare and wipes the party. I found it easier to take down Titan first so you can then focus all your attention on Bahamut. This fight demands you be quick or have some defensive/revive options ready for when Gigaflare goes off.If you look up online I'm sure you can find tons of fast clears on this, because there's definitely ways to abuse the game's mechanic for high damage output with magic. But you generally won't have access to that by reaching this point naturally, so this is a more genuine first time through here.
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth - Part 48 | Pirate Kings Treasure Xaldin007 2024-05-07 | WE'VE GOT TO FIND THE ONE PIECE, GUYS!There's one pretty minor sidequest left before going to Gilgamesh, and that's travelling the ocean to locate the 4 pirate lords or whatever they were called that were part of the monster pirate king's crew. Defeating them gets parts we can use to create the Corsair's Compass, which allows us to find Flotsam, a crafting material to make endgame items. The Corsair's Compass also has a nifty effect where it'll split the ATB gauge into 3 for a character after they perform 5 different actions, so it's a way to get 3 ATB gauges without using Synergy. Although, end game hard gameplay can't really make use of it because that's pretty much all about fast burn so it's just too slow to really be useful. And can be difficult to even use naturally.The 4 bosses aren't much to write home about, just some upgraded versions of enemies we've fought before. Weirdly, they don't appear anywhere else in the game. This game reuses bosses all the time for post game stuff so I'm not sure why they didn't reuse any of them just for more variety. Maybe because they're easier and lack fight dictating mechanics lol.After all that's done, then we head to Gilgamesh's place, the Enkidojo. But before we can fight him, he tasks us with completing his trials to buff his gear. This involves fighting all the summons we've acquired up to this point...in pairs of 2. These are probably going to be the hardest fights of your normal playthrough. I attempt the Bahamut/Titan duo fight and it doesn't go so well. I'll be uploading my fights against them in individual videos.
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth - Part 47 | Cactuar Protorelic Xaldin007 2024-05-07 | This protorelic was an odd one that let you do half of it, then made you wait allll the way until the end of the game to let you do the remaining half. So we finish up tracking down the Cactuar stones, play some mini-games, and have a fight against Kid G. Kid G isn't really a problem on his own, but I do some simulator fights that have you fight him alongside two enemies that can drop you down to 1% HP if their attacks land and then he sure as hell becomes more of an issue in a fight. Simulator fights get pretty annoying from here on out.With this done, we'll have completed all the protorelics and can now go to Gilgameshi's domain.
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Lu Bu Story Mode Xaldin007 2024-05-05 | Don't have to worry about pursuing Lu Bu if you ARE Lu Bu!Discord Server Link: discord.gg/GgkccaTK5g
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth - Part 46 | End Game Quests Xaldin007 2024-05-04 | We finish up the quests we have left, or at least attempt to. At the time of recording this, the final quest you get after beating all the others, Ultimate Party Animal, was bugged and wouldn't count me clearing the bike mini-game with a higher score. So I had to resort to fully deleting the game and reinstalling it from the disc without updating to finish it properly later. See, the game's first patch broke it, so it needed ANOTHER patch to fix it. Mildly annoying.We start by finishing off a quest to participate in one-man party fights in Gus's arena. Yuffie's is harder than it looks if you aren't actively being aggressive because her two enemies will use Graviga and just obliterate her HP, and then it just takes 1 hit to kill her. But if you just keep using Windstorm or something you can knock them out of it. The other fights didn't give me much trouble, aside from Cloud's Joker fight. Joker has some hard to dodge attacks and has a chance to use a move that just drops Cloud to 1 HP, so that was a pain to deal with. I do like Gus's battle theme for these fights though.Speaking of themes, I love that they brought back a remix of the heavy metal chocobo theme for the UPA quest chocobo race. That was one of my favorite things from FFXIII-2, where it played when you rode a red chocobo. The colosseum fight the UPA guy sets up is pretty annoying ,but all the difficulty arises from the first two fights. The two Gigantuars can just rinse you if they decide to use Needle Rain back to back, particularly your allies who will TRY TO BLOCK the move instead of just move out of the damn way. Dodging their 1000/5000/10000/ needle attack isn't too hard, but if they catch you against a wall or something it can end you quick if it's powered up. After that is a fight against like 10 Tonberries, which is a lot of instant death to deal with. You can either equip anti-instant death stuff or just equip Petrify materia and spam that, petrifying them all with AoE attacks. The next fight is against a single Ember Zu which is...so not an issue. Then you fight a Gigantoad and two Jokers, but they're a lot easier to handle in a group than when Cloud was solo. Then you just fight one Ironclad, whose whole gimmick is just "it hits hard". So yeah, not hard to deal with once you learn it's moveset. I think it did come close to wiping me here on my first attempt though, but refighting it on Hard on my own more recently, it was the second easiest thing here after the Zu. The late game and especially post-game hard content in Rebirth feels pretty unbalanced if I'm honest, where some fights are just absurdly hard and some are piss easy ,with no real rhyme or reason. Sometimes it's the first fights that are hard, sometimes it's the last one.
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth - Part 45 | End Game Quests Xaldin007 2024-05-04 | Here we do a bunch of sidequests I'd put off since they risked raising affection with someone that isn't Yuffie. But now that we're past the gold saucer date, it doesn't really matter. There's one point later it comes up again during the final boss fight however, which nothing online warned me about, but it's not as big as the date and Loveless play.We have some standard quests to go through, and a quest at Shinra Manor to go through some of Hojo's trials and fight a boss at the end. Then we finally wrap up the Queen's Blood questline. My deck for Queen's Blood at this point had mostly been a deck revolving around placing bombs down and having Yuffie replace them to deal a ton of damage to the enemy, which I affectionally called "Yuffie Bomb". I was just trying it for fun at first, then it ended up actually winning most of my matches somehow. Also, Vincent helping in the QB questline at the end is basically the closest we get to him actually helping the party in any way lol.
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth - Part 44 | Chocobo Racing & Colosseum Bouts Xaldin007 2024-05-03 | I did most of the chocobo races off screen but saved the Gold Cup for this video. It has cutscenes and a quest tied to it. Chocobo races in this game are basically just Mario Kart under a different skin. So they're actually kind of fun.After that is a whole bunch of Musclehead Colosseum bouts to clear all the ones currently available. More unlock after you've cleared the main game but they're all pretty boring. It's just the same group of like 5 bosses fought together in different combinations. (i.e. you fight Mindflayer and Great Malboro together in one, then could fight Mindflayer and King Zu in another, and Great Malboro and King Zu in another. It's very repetitive and feels more like bullshit difficulty than anything.)
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth - Part 43 | Corneo & Shinra Xaldin007 2024-05-03 | Now we head to the Musclehead Colosseum to fight as Dio's champions against Don Corneo. First we have to go through his lackies and his special brand of Cactuars, but they aren't too hard.Corneo fights us atop Abzu, his pet monster from Remake. Abzu is weak to fire and becomes vulnerable after whiffing attacks that have it charge, but the tracking is annoyingly good so you either need to be dodging well in advance, use something like Brumal Form, or be Tifa and have the best dodge in the game.Then we fight Rude and Eleana again, who haven't changed much from their last fight. I think they've got a few new attacks but mostly it's just exploiting their weaknesses and saving a Synergy attack for when they try to start theirs.Then we end with fighting Rufus Shinra, who is more of a gimmick fight than anything. Rufus hard counters most forms of attacks by just outright blocking and counterattacking. In the first game, you'd have had Counterstance by the time you reach him, which makes it MUCH easier to fight him head on since Cloud can just punish him the same way Rufus punishes him. But we don't have that, so most of this fight was me just trying to figure out what methods work against him. Like in Remake, you can stagger him immediately if you land Braver, but the timing on it feels much more strict this time around as he feels much more aggressive and prone to use special moves.He later summons Darkstar, and honestly it's best just to nuke the dog as soon as it appears with a Limit Break. Ideally Rufus will get caught up in it as well. A summon can help too. Once you do manage to stagger Rufus, he doesn't actually have that much health, so you can deal a ton of damage to him and probably bring him down in 2 staggers.Then we have a whacky chase scene where we go after Cait Sith for stealing a plot device from us and giving it to Shinra. He's removed from the party from here out all the way until the final boss fight. Not that the player would care lol.
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Jin Story Mode | Hypothetical Xaldin007 2024-05-03 | At least we won't have to worry about the hypothetical triggers not working this time!Discord Server Link: discord.gg/GgkccaTK5g
Dynasty Warriors 8: XL - Jin Story Mode | Historical Xaldin007 2024-04-30 | Imbeciles!Discord Server Link: discord.gg/GgkccaTK5g
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth - Part 42 | Loveless Xaldin007 2024-04-28 | This part was a lot of fun. It's basically Rebirth's equivalent of the Honeybee Inn in Remake. We get to see and participate in a play of Loveless, which is a book series that has been referenced in various FF7 games and spin-offs, most notably by the primary antagonist in Crisis Core who quotes it like he's quoting Shakespeare. It's nice to finally experience Loveless after all this time.So after a brief prologue of a dance number, the party takes the role of characters within Loveless, with Cloud being the protagonist, Barret and Red being villains, Cait the narrator, and whichever female has the highest affection towards him as the Goddess. It's basically a big QTE section but it's pretty forgiving and a lot of fun to see Barret and Red ham it up while Cloud just goes along with it all so seemlessly.After that Aerith finishes the event with a song she'd been working on. It's pretty well done, though a bit obvious that the singer isn't her proper VA.Then we finally get the Skywheel date scene, which has Cloud ride it with whichever party member he has the highest affection with, or with Cait, Cid, and Vincent all at once if you somehow got to this point without raising anyone's affection high enough. The scene is slightly extended if their affection is past I think 80%. Yuffie was for me so we get to see her full scene here.I like her date scene quite a bit, she brings the fun-loving energy she's had throughout the game into it right at the start and it's adorable when you see her start to realize how nervous she is when she tries to get herself to make a move on Cloud. It's done in a very "real" way, where she starts by asking about him and Tifa, and since he didn't say he definitely had feelings for her, her tactic is to try to outright sabotage their relationship by saying Tifa had forgotten all about him (she obviously hadn't). It might seem kind of callous, but it's a very real thing people do when they want to get together with someone and worry they might be interested in someone else.That's how I interpreted it anyways. I doubt the relationship scenes here will be referenced in the 3rd game, and I do hope they have it again in the next one, but I kind of hope it's implemented differently so I'm not having to avoid doing certain quests or saying dickish things to characters out of fear of raising other character's affinity too high. Just let the player choose.
