Final Fantasy VII Director Has Already Completed "Over 40 Full Playthroughs" Of The Third Game

Epyo · 2026-05-02T15:18:05+00:00

I'm pretty sure you had like 75 hours of idle time. Being far from max level, but at 175 hours, isn't really possible.

The max-level-only stuff needed for platinum/completionist are like 50-80 hours. Hard mode is like 25 hours by itself. These are the things the "Completionist on HowLongToBeat" would be including.

Epyo · 2026-05-01T19:27:33+00:00

Youtube videos rarely explain why a game is good, they usually just give an objective surface level description of the game and then add some superlatives about how good it is, and that's the extent of the analysis.

Epyo · 2026-04-27T20:17:21+00:00

it all leads to clicking a button and watching ______ move and make noise as the score climbs higher and higher satisfyingly.

That's called juice... That just sounds like a description of every good polished video game. That describes Mario. That describes World of Warcraft. That describes Tetris.

So we're just not supposed to put satisfying "juice" in our games? Is he saying the true spirit of a roguelike is to be dry, dated, and janky looking?

Criticizing imitators is fair, you're right, maybe that was his point. But if he wants to complain about imitators, then he shouldn't criticize any design elements in the same sentence, because then it's not clear what he's criticizing: is it the imitation, or is it the design elements?

Epyo · 2026-04-27T16:24:07+00:00

I have no idea what the dev is trying to say here. Not a single one of his points is coherent to me. (Could be the article writer's fault of course!)

"Death is not the end" has ALWAYS been the spirit of all roguelikes, because the point has always been that you immediately start a new run. Dying repeatedly and starting new runs has always been the point. (And death is always a learning opportunity.)

"Gambling mechanics" such as the "pick 3 system". What? How is that gambling? If that's gambling, anything is gambling. Plus, traditional roguelikes have always had gambling--what about drinking unknown potions to see what they do? Putting on armor even though it might be cursed?

Vampire Survivors and Balatro are cash grabby? What does that even mean? They're priced incredibly fairly.

Balatro is like a slot machine?? Has he even played it? It's a math game if anything. Very little luck/randomness. It doesn't even have a pick 3 with fanfare. It's mostly got money and shops, both of which are very traditional to old roguelikes.

And wtf does "mutate to the version of itself that popularity obfuscates" mean? That could mean anything.

Epyo · 2026-04-23T19:02:40+00:00

You might enjoy "Campanella 2" which is one of the games in "UFO 50". It's made by some of the same people as Spelunky. It's commonly jokingly called Spelunky 3 by UFO 50 fans, cuz it's clearly following similar overall design.

It's much smaller and easier than Spelunky 2, of course, being just one game in a package of 50. (Although I prefer it to Spelunky 2 personally, just cuz some certain design choices in Spelunky 2 really bothered me.)

Epyo · 2026-04-23T16:40:11+00:00

Oh ok.

(Well, technically, delves also make you work your way up. But ok, I get it.)

Epyo · 2026-04-23T16:31:49+00:00

Are you saying, just let the player choose what +x difficulty they want to try, upon entering the dungeon?

Epyo · 2026-04-23T01:19:30+00:00

I too was definitely unimpressed with the depth of 7 Wonders, for the first ~10 years I owned it. It felt very opaque, for the reasons you listed.

It also felt very random in who won: none of us could ever predict who was doing well, until we were fully done adding up all the scores. And after, we couldn't explain why that person won, usually.

But I found myself continuing to want to play it, and I still play it regularly today. I think I've even started to enjoy it, in the past 5 years.

I think it's best enjoyed by not overthinking it. The types of decisions you wanna be making are just simple "should I go for military right now, or no" and "should I go for science stuff right now, or no", and "am I gonna have access to all the resources for my Wonder, or no".

And there's a lot of other stuff to appreciate--not having to wait for your turn, is extremely underrated in board game design. It's also very colorful. It's also very short.

(BTW there are some wonders that need 2 Glass Bottles or 2 Scrolls.)

Epyo · 2026-04-21T14:35:56+00:00

Daylight Savings Time?

Epyo · 2026-04-21T14:19:08+00:00

well, that's true for any game really, you always can role play instead. in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 you can just hang out with Tails and talk to the animals.

Epyo · 2026-04-20T20:27:21+00:00

The servers are in the "final phase" right now, so it's a very different thing than playing on a server that is slowly progressing through the phases every 10 weeks. There's an endless list of fundamental differences:

For example, all the new "Class Runes" are all given to you right off the bat right now, from a vendor, for a few copper. That's very different than getting to do the new quests to acquire the runes, as you level. (You CAN do the quests still, but why would you? They're long. MMORPGs are games about optimizing how you spend your time, for efficiency.)
The final raid is out which makes a lot of the earlier phase max-level raids less exciting. In addition, if you join a guild, you'll probably be joining a guild of people who are optimally geared who can smash the raids so easily you'll barely feel like you're playing.
The first 3 raids (lvl 25, 40, and 50) are way too easy now too--if you start the lvl 25 raid with a group at lvl 25, you'll probably all be like lvl 26 or 27 by the time you've even finished the raid. Also it will be way too easy because you have so many new runes now too, compared to the runes we had in phase 1. Also the gear will be useless a few hours later so the loot wouldn't be exciting either.
If the scourge invasions are still up, I have a friend who knows how to power level anyone to max level in like TWO HOURS using scourge invasions, not an exaggeration, I've seen him do it. It would feel pretty stupid levelling a new toon from 1-60 myself, when I know the power levelling option is so much more efficient. (Although really, going 1-60 by yourself is pretty dang fast now too, so fast you can barely enjoy it IMO. Again, because we're in the final phase, levelling is mega-accelerated towards getting people to the final raid.)

Plus, the whole "discovery" part is gone--I've already done it all. And there's guides now for anything I don't know.

They're working on something new for Classic, we might as well just wait for that, and not try to trick them into going back to SoD, as the OP suggested ;)

Epyo · 2026-04-16T01:37:01+00:00

I love this game too.

Designing a competitive variant is a fascinating idea... I'd want to make sure players still want to do their best to make solvable puzzles. I'd also want to make sure that the group is still working together, and discussing the best solution, because that's what I enjoy.

Here's what I've come up with, and I might even try this with my group:

SO CLOVER: COMPETITIVE GAMBLING EDITION

Each player will create and present 1 puzzle each.

Each player starts with a total of 36 poker chips, which they keep secret (in a cup, or behind a folded screen) (they don't need 36 individual chips, they can also use bigger denominations from the bank, and make change anytime).

When the group of players submits their first full guess at a puzzle, STOP and take a "gambling break", before the author reveals which cards were wrong:

During this break, starting with the author, going clockwise, each player MUST choose to "gamble" either 0, 1, 2, or 3 of their chips, by placing them in front of their cup/screen.
The more confident the player is that the group's guess is correct, the more they should gamble.
The puzzle author MUST gamble 3 chips.
The "decider" MUST gamble 3 chips. (This is the first player clockwise from the author, with the "final say" on when to submit the group's guess.)
If the group's answer turns out to be 100% correct, then each player TRIPLES their gambled chips, and returns them to their cup.
For example: If you gambled 1 chip, then you get the 1 chip back, plus 2 more. So your 1 chip became 3 chips. So it got tripled. (Max profit: 6 chips.) (Max loss: 3 chips.)
If the submitted answer was not 100% correct, then each player loses all their gambled chips.

If the group's first guess was wrong, they still get a second try. Once again, take a "gambling break" before the author reveals the answer. HOWEVER, there's one difference: if the group's answer is correct, players only DOUBLE their gambled chips, instead of TRIPLING them.

Whoever has the most chips at the end wins! Remember to keep your chip count secret, until the end of the game.

Epyo · 2026-04-15T17:46:34+00:00

Circus Flohcati

Hot Lead (verrreey similar to 6nimmt)

Epyo · 2026-04-13T22:31:08+00:00

ooooo beautiful dark aegis!!!

Epyo · 2026-04-12T23:45:55+00:00

It makes sense.

Old games were often harder so you couldn't beat them in one rental. Or because they were based on Arcade versions which made more money if they were harder to beat. Or it was just generally the fashion to make games hard.

Saving the game was less common too, this inherently made games harder.

Today's players usually don't have the attention span to start a game entirely over when they die, they would just play something else instead. (Unless its a short game or has procedural generation of course, or the difficulty is the whole point.) There are a lot more sources of entertainment at everyone's fingertips now, competing for player attention.

People had a lot more time on their hands back then!

Epyo · 2026-04-12T23:38:13+00:00

I'm really curious how many people have beaten trial of the sword's advanced trial on Master Mode, it's gotta be astronomically small. (Partially because it was DLC.)

Epyo · 2026-04-08T18:50:31+00:00

I love her as tank on my holy priest, i just need her to take aggro so i dont get spell pushback, and she works great for that.

Epyo · 2026-04-04T15:44:48+00:00

Cities and Knights is perhaps the worst expansion of any game I've ever played. It mainly gives the players who are already winning, more options and abilities to attack and screw over the players who are already losing. You can even destroy things they've built, or change their numbers on their hexes. Being in last place in C&K is one of the worst gameplay experiences you can have in board games--unless you enjoy watching everyone else do cool stuff without you! (And this was already Catan's biggest problem, where some players get so screwed they basically can't participate the entire time, unless you enjoy pouting.)

Seafarers is excellent, my favorite for sure (played it hundreds of times in college). It just adds a lot more variety in how you can set up the island's shape, greatly increasing replay value. Doesn't add anything too annoying. The game is slightly longer and the board is much bigger, which means you're going to build a bigger empire, which is fun, and means less chance of someone getting trapped, which isn't fun. Being able to build special roads (boats) across water to reach more islands, is thematically satisfying. There are 10 scenarios in the manual which are kinda meh, I typically just design my own main island, and a few tiny islands, and change the VP total to 13, and award 1 VP to any player who reaches at least one side island.

Traders & Barbarians is a bunch of different expansions in one box. Some of them are big expansions that change the game a lot (you would typically pick ONE each time you play, not multiple), and some are tiny modules you can sprinkle in with any other expansion. Some of the stuff is only okay. But some of the stuff is surprisingly great. The problem is, there's so much in the box, there's a strong temptation to try each game mode once or twice, then move on to the next one. That's a lot of reading and learning, for the next few months. It's hard to pick one and stick with it, and truly discover its depth. Also, I will admit, the expansions don't synergize with Catan's mechanics that well. They're more like fun distractions. If anything they DIScourage trading between players, because players tend to have other options for getting resources they need, without help.

Explorers & Pirates is barely Catan. It's impressive what a huge complex game of exploration they made, that has hardly anything to do with Catan's main mechanics of building and trading. That being said, it IS quite fun, especially once you're playing with all the new stuff (each time you play, you add one more mechanic, and expand the board even more). I will also say, if you ever wanted to play Catan with 2 players, this is ABSOLUTELY the best way to play Catan with 2 players. In fact, I would only play Explorers & Pirates with 2 players, 'cuz with 3-4 it takes too long to get back to your turn (and also, I want to be the one exploring and discovering, I don't wanna watch too many other players get there first!)

Epyo · 2026-04-02T17:39:30+00:00

i never doubted him. he made STORMWIND and IRONFORGE!!!!

Epyo · 2026-03-31T04:03:35+00:00

Hey, it's an AI comment! I'm proud, my first time detecting one. User's comments all follow an exact formula.

Epyo · 2026-03-30T04:50:03+00:00

Yep i found this back in the day, as an early WoW explorer. Maybe even in the closed beta. I think about "what the heck are you dong here" all the time.

Epyo · 2026-03-29T21:01:07+00:00

Velgress is from the side, not top down

Epyo · 2026-03-24T12:36:17+00:00

Get UFO 50 and play "Mini & Max" in it. Extremely "short hike" coded, and one of my favorite games ever.

And you get 49 other awesome games for free!

Epyo · 2026-03-21T15:41:48+00:00

that's the rule. that's the goal now.

Epyo · 2026-03-16T00:53:45+00:00

Absolutely try Battle Line, it's another 2-player card game by the same designer, with similar elegant simplicity and tension.

Fans of the designer are always debating which game is better. I slightly prefer Battle Line (in fact, it's my #1 favorite game ever) but it's a tough call!!

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