What's everyone currently playing?

Finished the game with clear time of 112:33:46. Completed the post-game with the best ending as well as defeating the superbosses. About 20 of the 110+ hours were for party prepping seemingly required for post-game. I used the Wizardly DLC which immensely helped in experimenting with party member combinations and getting them up to speed during post-game activities. A really good ending for what may be considered the very last true EO title. Oh, and the FM synthesis BGM has been godly and proved to be so worth the purchase!

Starting party was Masurao Pugilist Harbinger / Necromancer Shaman. I stuck to this party until the master classing became available, which is when I switched out my Pugilist for a Fencer, switched out my Necromancer for a Warlock, and switched out my Shaman for an Herbalist. And so my party which I kept until the final boss was Blade Master - Chain Duelist - Deathbringer / Elemancer - Merciful Healer. This team held up quite well obviously, but it wasn't until losing to the final boss where I felt I seriously needed to do analysis and find the best party make-up in order to have a chance against it.

I liked the gameplay dynamics involving the crystals in the fourth stratum. It was a fun experience in how FOEs react to the sound of the crystal barriers being hammered, and together with the warp crystals helped contribute to a nice flow and an engaging atmosphere uniquely.

Got the best (cannon) ending at 78:52:02 on the save file and Adell at Lv 92. I expected some sort of continuation from Disgaea 1 and was not disappointed in that regard. The level grinding is just as addictive. But the story I felt wasn't as good as Disgaea 1. I never needed to consult a guide or go online for an FAQ or walkthough for this game (and also for 1), and this is a huge plus for me for the Disgaea series in general.

It's obvious from the start that this game is about Adell and Rozalin. But it was really neat to see some old characters back, such as Laharl and Etna, to work alongside Axel the Dark Hero, Tink, and Yukimaru (zam!!!). Laharl really stole the show for me once his cameo cut-scene took place. Really great voice acting, including from Tink and Etna.

I just can never get tired of hearing prinnies in their prinny voices say “dood!!”, I love it! Plus, it's always funny attacking chests to obtain their contents, especially during a 3-4 character group attack. Objectively, it makes absolutely no sense, but it's just so funny!

After the final boss fight scenario opened up, I found out about the “Nekomata trick”. This is where, due to the rules of how enemy capture works, it's possible to easily obtain a level 9999 Nekomata for your party. I indeed had one level 9999 Nekomata in my party availability roster, but used here very sparingly. (No, I don't consider this cheating!!!!)

Finished the game at ~54 hours. I managed to reach the final save point in the game at around the 39 hour mark with my party level at the low-to-mid 40s. From that point on and for the next 15 hours, it was all about level and ABP grinding. I ended up maxing out all jobs and bringing my party members' levels up to the low 60s. X-Death is one of if not the most ruthless villain in all of Final Fantasy. The enemy called Tonberry makes its debut appearace (as “Dinglberry”) here.

My initial party was Knight Bartz, Blue Mage Faris, White Mage Galuf, and Black Mage Reina. I quickly picked up on the fact that the character length of each party member's name is five, which is what this Final Fantasy title is numbered as! Pretty neat!

Overall, I felt cozy and right at home playing this game, despite the fact it's not a good port of the original. I loved the theme of trees here, and the usage of green and brown/tan color is amazing and done really good I think. It may be very well due to the fact that I was playing this in front of a CRT through component cables. Also worth mentioning is that this is an old-school RPG where once you finish a fight with one or two ailments inflicted by your once-alive enemies, they don't automatically go away. Better use that Eye Drop outside of battle!

The most difficult part of my playthrough was at the final area. This was due to enemies having some really nasty attacks. BehemoKing can totally own me if my attacks just don't happen to defeat him in one go, since then he'll cast Meteo (sometimes multiple times in a row) which can easily kill off one or two party members. There's the Roulette attack which randomly chooses one person to insta-kill and even considers the spellcaster. But the most nastiest is the Zombie status. If one of your party members gets afflicted with Zombie, not only is that party member rendered dead, but also is “possessed” and uncontrollably attacks other party members! But once the battle is over or during battle, the ONLY way to cure the Zombie status is to use Holy Water, which is only available as an item. This effectively works as a Phoenix Down, in that it brings the cured party member back to 1 HP. Then you need to get the party member's HP back to full with Potions or a Cure3 cast. All that work from a single ailment affliction!

I can wholeheartedly agree on the consensus of this game being a not-so-good port. Wyvern is translated to 'Y Burn' (why), and there is a red-colored bunny rabbit enemy called 'A Rage' (it does cast Arise before it dies, so maybe that 'question mark'?). Faris' dialogue as a pirate is completely unnecessary doesn't match up to the source material, but it helped to keep in mind that the translation is not good from the get-go. There are obvious in-the-way input timing issues and sound compromises too. Seems that when there's either some visual or background AI activity going on, cursor and menu movement gets a bit jerky and ruins the gameplay flow. And that's not including the five-second load time between battles! After completing the game and checking out a video of a live run of FFV on the SNES, I can confirm that it's not just most of the sound effects sounding muffled as the only sound problem, but also there may be something like an additional sound channel not in use on the PS1 port. The music from the SFC version has a much richer sound, and in knowing this right now, I really owe it to myself to pick up a copy of the original sometime soon and do a more thorough playthrough with it. On my new playthrough, I will also go for the superbosses, which in the PS1 playthrough I did not, including going for a set of the best weapons recommended for the superbosses. Still, I'm thankful that there is -A- version legitimately available to play and that I had the chance to play it.

I really wish I could have played this game before playing and finishing World of Final Fantasy, as there are so many references I would have caught on to and enjoyed WoFF more if I'd have done so. Main example is Gilgamesh! Now I get why and how he is what he is. And also the Iron Giant, who was a very important late-game experience grind enemy who I got to see for a long time. Happens to be that the Iron Giant in my WoFF run was one of my most used L size monster for my stack.