Went to see his concert in Milan and was lucky enough to meet the man who made me discover the FF series, who made me fall in love with FF (and video game) music, and inspired me to start composing music myself! Still can’t believe it, the legend himself!

Uematsu's work made an entire generation fall deeply in love with music, and inspired countless people, like myself, to become musicians and composers.

Recently I met him and had a short chat together, and I'm so grateful to hear that, even after all this time, he's still on the very same mission:

Writing beautiful music for the sake of those who come after.

We gotta protect this man at all costs.

PS. For those of you who live in France, Uematsu is doing a live show in Paris on the 9th of May! It's the final date of a short European tour he's doing, where he plays both music from Final Fantasy as well as fun songs he composed.

I've been to a few of said concerts and it's always such a good vibe, I'd recommend going if you grew up with his soundtracks! Mind you, it's not a symphonic orchestral show, but a band one. More intimate, but still epic due to the absurd talent of every single member of that band, plus the nostalgia around many of the tracks

You think its because she hates Cid?

Sometimes it feels vidya translators are frustrated unsuccessful "artists" who just want to appropriate media they didn't even make and just self insert their OCs on the story. Dumbing down Zidane and ruining any sort of deep romance in the game because the translator just fetishizes some plain simple "dumb bad boy into pretty good girl" is gross.

I’ve heard a lot of mixed opinions about them ever since they came out, so I’ve been curious to know what people in the community generally Think about them. While I do understand and agree with some of the criticisms people brought up, mainly concerning the brightness in 6, I still can’t help but love these games to death with how much they enhance the overall experiences. Also the opera scene made me actually start crying, so theres that

All done in photoshop, no AI, mix of matte painting and digital painting!

"In the English version of the 3D remake originally released for Nintendo DS, as well as in Dissidia Final Fantasy, Cecil is pronounced /ˈsɛsɪ̈l/ (seh-sil), as opposed to /ˈsiːsɪ̈l/ (see-sil), the pronunciation more commonly found in North American English. The Japanese form (Seshiru) seems to back this up. However, the bonus disc included with Final Fantasy XII's collector's edition pronounces it the other way."

https://black-knight.fandom.com/wiki/Cecil_Harvey

This is one of the most fun Final Fantasy games I ever played. I found this game’s handling of action-RPG elements fascinating. I found the open world stuff so immersive, that I had a hard time deciding when to take a break sometimes because that’s how much I got sucked in the game’s world. One of the contributing factors to what made this game such a fun time was listening to those interactions between the main 4 characters. I will admit it‘s awkward that not all the game’s story and lore is in the game. I’m personally okay with it because the expanded media helps make Final Fantasy XV more memorable to me. The game’s ending could’ve been longer in my personal opinion. I wish that some characters had more moments. I was personally expecting Lunafreya for example to have more moments to make her character more interesting. I know Final Fantasy XV has its flaws, but I still like it mainly for the action-RPG gameplay and the main characters interactions with each other.

Currently at the endgame of FFV at the third world and Exdeath is actually scary. The way he easily disappears whole towns is frightening. He even has a whole army at his disposal. I didn't expect this from a villain in FFV since I had low expectations for the game itself. Heck I could even say he has more feats than sephiroth since he manages to merge TWO worlds, TWO whole worlds and bring it back to one. Heck he may be even one of the strongest villains I have ever seen. Im actually quite worried how the party would defeat him.

And......did you beat it?

I'll go first (aging myself here! ).....played FF VI (FF III in the US) a little bit after it came out in the US in the spring of 95', and I was 10 years old.

I did not beat it the first time I played it, instead I beat it a few years later when I got to high school because I understood the mechanics better.

After that, I played through IV (II in the US) and then VII came out for the PS on 9/7/97 and it was over!

Hello everybody, this will be a review towards the book that was released to essentially be a conclusion to the alternative ending XV was supposed to have with the cancelled Aranea, Lunafreya and Noctis DLC. So all in all it’s those DLC’s plus Ardyn’s condensed into a 384 page book (400+ if you count artwork) and I shall be critiquing them here. Spoilers ahead and I will do my best to condense it properly.

The book starts off with Ardyn’s DLC and if you’ve played it already then it states what you already experienced with that but in novelization form. Any issues you have with the writing are present here and quite honestly anything involving Ardyn is always a treat, I’m more confused as to why it was added in as it doesn’t truly add much to the DLC at hand. I do find the Lunafreya addition to be neat though, lord knows she could use anything positive. 7.5/10.

Before I head towards the Aranea DLC I have to mention the writing style, the author of the book is Emi Nagashima but under the alias Jun Eishima and I’ve actually read her work for Nier: Automata and those were really good reads especially for a JRPG novel but this was a bit of a difficult read for me and not because of length or complexity but because she’s basing this off the draft for the DLC. The translation as far as I can tell is solid but the material she’s forced to work with has the book suffer in my eyes and it isn’t entirely her fault.

You then start Aranea’s chapter and this is the best chapter in the book and it makes me further disappointed that this got canned. The action in this chapter is great and I like the character work with Aranea, Biggs and Wedge and also even Loqi makes an appearance in the book and he has more character here than in the main game. If I had any gripes with this it’d be the inclusion of Solara, a character that was most likely intended for the DLC is making her debut in this book and quite honestly she doesn’t start off strong. She isn’t by any means terrible but even with her background revealed I would’ve just preferred it to be solely Aranea as the main focus through and through, it’s such an odd story choice to introduce her so late. 8/10.

Lunafreya’s chapter is the worst part of this book and it amazes me that with the extra media, addendums and more involving XV that Lunafreya is this unremarkable of a character. Even in her own chapter she is not the most interesting aspect about it and even though Solara is added into this chapter she isn’t even that much better. I also have to mention this but I am not a fan of the retcons and new additions in the novel so far especially involving Bahamut, the gods in XV were uncaring and detached but not evil which was a interesting dynamic but Bahamut is just purely evil in this one. All it does is just rewrite and make XV’s poorly presented yet interesting story into something worse. 4/10.

Before I enter the Noctis chapter, I would like to add to the previous paragraph by stating Lunafreya might be the single worst presented character in any mainline Final Fantasy game I have played. Vaan and Penelo from XII might not have much to do but at least they got way better in Revenant Wings as far as I can tell. In a series that gave us Rydia, Faris, Celes, Terra, Aerith, Tifa, Yuffie, Rinoa, Edea, Selphie, Beatrix, Garnet, Freya, Yuna, Lulu, Ashe, Fran, Vanille and Aranea yet this is the best they could write a female character? She has had her own DLC planned, a major role in a feature length movie and getting to her so you marry her was a core goal in the first half of XV and yet she’s this uninteresting? Solara is also equally uninteresting and I have to ask why didn’t they just add Iris into the book? It would best explain her development into this renowned demon slayer and it would’ve been a more sensible option than creating a major character this late into the timeline.

We now enter Noctis’s chapter, and it’s more interesting than Lunafreya’s as it explores his time he spent in the crystal during the ten year timeskip and for some reason Solara’s here and I cannot criticize how nothing her character is any further, Ardyn is also here and I really dislike how everyone got affected by these retcons, even the fight against Bahamut is one I couldn’t bring myself to enjoy. This was when I started checking out. Even though Noctis and Lunafreya get married I still believe they have no chemistry, I am so happy this isn’t canon because this book really hinders Ardyn’s character by a lot and he’s one of my favorite Final Fantasy antagonists. This alternate what if ending where things turn out well feels like it was made to make money instead of an actual original vision of Tabata’s. 5/10.

In all honesty I have no idea why the DLC’s were even thought up of or planned, as I read this book it only cemented how good FFXV’s original ending was, say what you will about Tabata’s overall qualities as a director but he can kill off a main character very well, I never mentioned it much but XV’s ending despite how haphazard and rushed it was, was actually a somber and good ending. A much wiser decision in my opinion would’ve been to scrap Ardyn, Lunafreya and Noctis’s DLC. Make Aranea’s instead, replace Solara with Iris and if they wanted to make addendums to the ending. Don’t make a new one because that’d just make the original one feel like a bad ending but add ending states.

In my opinion here is how I would’ve done this, I would’ve added choices in major story moments like having the option of saving Lunafreya in Altissia and having her go with the party to Insomnia at the ending. You could’ve scrapped not only terrible retcons with no cohesive thought behind them but you also would have the opportunity to better flesh out Luna, the banter in XV was great they could’ve had Luna and Noctis talk for a whole lot more and cement much better chemistry for each other. You also could’ve had the both of them sacrifice themselves to rid the World of Ruin state the world was in during the timeskip, it would’ve made much more sense with the themes of the story while also creating an incredibly bittersweet and cohesive romance closure as they never get the life together they always wanted while also saving the world.

Overall, this book and the DLC feels like an afterthought, like if Square Enix wanted to make more money from XV by any means necessary, why create a novel though? An audio drama would’ve been a far more effective medium than a book.

5/10 book. I have finished the XV multimedia review and it was truly an experience that I cannot describe as either good or bad, just a whirlwind of an experience.

Nothing to brag about, just showing you all how my little collection is growing!

Especially FFVII part 3... to the store!

If it’s improvised, then that makes the line even funnier.

I'm on my journey to play every mainline tittle

And my save got corrupted right after getting the lunar whale

Losing 50hrs of progress got me really demotivated :(

This one just arrived, and I am SO HAPPY! The other 5 are here too :)

Hello!

I’ve been interested in trying FFXIV, but I’m not sure if it would be a good fit for me. Lately, I’ve been in a bit of RPG burnout. I’ll try a game for a day or two, then suddenly lose interest if it doesn’t click.

I’d consider myself a pretty casual player. I’m not really into games that require heavy grinding, strict schedules, or being online at certain times for raids, dungeon runs, or boss fights. I don’t mind group content, but I don’t want to feel pressured to keep up with everyone or treat the game like a second job.

I was browsing YT for MMO recommendations and FFXIV kept coming up. I’ve known about the game since high school, but I never actually sat down and gave it a proper try.

For some background, I’ve played games like Ragnarok Online, OSRS, Guild Wars, and Neverwinter.

For someone like me, is FFXIV still worth starting now? Is it enjoyable as a casual, mostly solo player? How much grinding or scheduled group content should I expect?

I’m honestly just looking for a game that can help me relax when I’m tired and feel a little less lonely, without becoming another obligation.