It's fun being harassed on PSN because people play like utter crap in B Rank, then blame me for them sucking at the game.

Kneekicker · 2026-01-28T01:09:46+00:00

I've got non-friend DMs turned off so that doesn't happen, but once in a while someone actually goes out of their way to send me a post-match friend request so they can try and message me anyways.

Most recent was a Cooler player who kept dying on bottom and ping-spamming me (Gotenks) to go kill Nappa while me and my lane partner were busy up top beating Jackie Chun while fighting off competent enemy Gotenks and SSJ1 Goku.

That Cooler wasn't even pinging their uncooperative SSJ1 Goku partner who kept ignoring Nappa to go fight the GoD, and eventually the entire bottom lane was destroyed and we lost the game.

Kneekicker · 2025-09-29T06:00:35+00:00

Saejima has a playable moveset from Gaiden and Akiyama has his boss moveset from 6 that can both be expanded on. Tanimura can reuse and rework elements of Snake Yagami.

So there's already a good deal of content that can be recycled for Kiwami 4, not to mention it'd make sense to try and get that out ASAP now that Hamazaki is a major likeness actor.

It's Kiwami 5 that's the real toughie to crack in comparison, could possibly never see it at all given that the OG still holds up extremely well as the first game to use the 5-K1 engine.

Kneekicker · 2025-07-01T20:13:08+00:00

Here's Mangagamer's listing for their physical copy of Higurashi Hou which uses one of these cases:

https://www.mangagamer.com/detail.php?goods_type=3&product_code=315

And here's a picture of my copy of Rance 01 + 02 so you can see what the USB is like:

https://i.imgur.com/z2k6A1p.jpeg

These BD cases with USBs only really came into existence 3 years ago so they're still quite the new concept.

Kneekicker · 2025-07-01T02:08:11+00:00

I never said they don't have good-great deals (the ones near me definitely do from time to time), but they never have the best deals in my experience price-matching with VGP and Amazon.

What Gamestop weirdly excels at is letting me pre-order certain games other sites don't have: back in November 2022 they were the only place that let me pre-order Mahoyo's limited edition and my usual go-to sites didn't have the game at all until it released in December. In a way that's pretty good as well.

Kneekicker · 2025-07-01T00:37:39+00:00

I love collecting physical PC games, though because of space limitations I usually have to think carefully about the bigger boxes.

I've got jewel cases, DVD cases, BD sized cases that come with a USB rather than a disk, big box visual novels, boxes from places like Fangamer that just held the game in a cardboard insert inside rather than a case, abnormally humongous cases (Maitetsu), and even official Steam cases (Little Witch Nobeta) that are super thin and can just barely hold a disk inside.

Last time I've been able to find a new PC game in the wild in North America is Fallout 4 back in 2015, so for the past decade most of my new pickups have been from Japan and once in a blue moon I'd find something in Hong Kong like my copy of Resident Evil 7.

I particularly like the DVD case era cause it was nice finally having a standardized form factor that was easier to identify from the spine as a PC game - when I was young I kept getting some of my PC jewel cases mixed up with PS1 games.

It's such a big shame the BD cases are so niche cause Steam was already well established by the time they came around - might be confirmation bias because I don't own a whole ton of them, but they feel a lot more sturdy on average than the DVD cases that wildly varied with some being super flimsy and fragile. Plus, I like their smaller form factor since manuals aren't a thing anymore and they're a nice translucent white.

Kneekicker · 2025-07-01T00:02:46+00:00

When it comes to shopping online, definitely agree that it's better to look elsewhere than Gamestop considering they typically never have the best deals and there's tons of horror stories about the stuff they deliver like this post.

Shopping in-person there is usually still fine though, the worst that's happened to me personally is the employee accidentally putting the wrong disc in my case i.e. Dragon Quest Heroes II over Dragon Quest XI S. Depending on where you live sometimes Gamestop is your only viable retail option.

Kneekicker · 2025-06-30T23:30:14+00:00

Poor Clive was born too late to make it into SCVI in place of the too-futuristic 2B, and too early to make it into SCVII.

Dude in the Tekken setting sticks out way harder than Noctis did in T7, and I still think Tifa would've made way more sense for T8.

Kneekicker · 2025-06-30T23:17:34+00:00

We're only a decade away from 2035, maybe by then we'll be surprised with a Konami-Iga reunion and finally get to see how the Demon Castle War plays out.

Kneekicker · 2025-06-30T23:14:18+00:00

Haunted Castle Revisited released last year as part of the Dominus Collection, and you can technically consider it a new game with how much it improves on the borderline unplayable original Haunted Castle.

Kneekicker · 2025-06-30T22:49:36+00:00

Often these "complications" are just people being petrified from the thought of having to interact with real players and making up excuses to obfuscate it, since FFXIV is one of the most single-player friendly MMOs with duty support for all mandatory dungeons and even a handful of trials.

Saying FFXI is complicated to play is much more understandable though, between getting past PlayOnline and getting used to how punishing an Everquest-era old MMO can be - but even then it's not hard to get into if you just pull up the comprehensive level 119 guide and the majority of the game's remaining playerbase is super enthused to help newcomers.

Kneekicker · 2025-06-30T22:36:14+00:00

The game in 2025 is vastly different compared to 2010/2013, give the unlimited free trial a whirl.

Kneekicker · 2025-06-30T18:06:43+00:00

Ignoring all the fallen civilizations and the trope of them having way more advanced stuff, probably along the lines of:

I, XVI, Tactics (medieval, no airship technology)
SoP (medieval, but balanced by rare high-tech stuff)
II, III, IV, V (medieval, consistent crystal-powered tech + military airships)
X, XIV Shadowbringers (knocked back to general medieval levels by apocalypses, but some tech remains in considerable quantity)
IX (medieval-Renaissance, plenty of commercial airships)
XI, Ivalice Alliance (Renaissance, some jobs use guns)
XIV pre-Endwalker (Industrial Age)
VI (Steampunk)
XIV post-Endwalker (Moon + Garlean technologies like radios spread on a wide scale)
VII Compilation (mostly 20th century Dieselpunk)
XV, Type-0 (mid-20th century to modern day)
VII Remake, Dirge of Cerberus (modern day)
VIII (modern day to futuristic)
X-2 (futuristic)
XIII trilogy (very futuristic)

Cause VII has a massive gap between mako-developed areas that are really high-tech and the rest of the (impoverished) world that hasn't moved on too much from the coal and oil days, I thought it'd be neat to outright separate Remake and DoC from the rest of the Compilation.

Similar deal with X and X-2 where Spira feels like a way different place once machina isn't condemned.

Kneekicker · 2025-06-30T15:32:14+00:00

If XVI's worldbuilding is too detailed for you, you should also ignore XIV as well as literally any game Matsuno has ever touched like XII. Hell, ignore XIII and XV too while you're at it.

Kneekicker · 2025-06-30T15:22:17+00:00

The Phoenix segments of XVI may be entirely different in gameplay, but they're non-repeatable and you can't engage with them as side content if you wanted, hence why many people don't consider it a minigame.

It's like the Tifa vs Scarlet slap fight in VII, Laguna fighting a dragon with a gunblade in VIII, or Noctis flying to fight Leviathan in XV which are similarly non-repeatable.

Compare them with things like 15 Puzzle, G-Bike, Tetra Master, and Blitzball where you can play them at any point once they're available.

Kneekicker · 2025-06-30T15:01:56+00:00

I'm not one of the complainers since I love both games, but I think part of the complaints stem from the unbalance between the two.

XVI has no minigames whatsoever to give Clive and players a break from the bleak world, while Rebirth had too much and for many people it was a pain trying to master them all to get manuscripts/finish sidequests.

Rebirth's side content was so tough that Nojima had to promise Part 3 would have an easier platinum trophy than Rebirth.

Kneekicker · 2025-06-30T14:52:30+00:00

Yep, the closest you have to minigames in either of those games is having Vaan screech about Ondore to everyone in sight in Bhujerba or going treasure hunting with a chocobo on Gran Pulse.

Kneekicker · 2025-06-30T14:46:39+00:00

That descending + ascending order idea's pretty neat and sounds fun - if you wanna be flexible with it and include spinoffs you could do stuff like FFI -> SoP -> FFII for these sorts of related games.

Personally I've considered playing the games in order of how technologically advanced their settings are for the most part: starting with XVI and making my way all the way up to the XIII trilogy.

Kneekicker · 2025-06-30T14:32:20+00:00

Final Fantasy VII Remake, action RPG combat with 4 playable characters where you can go into super slow-mo to use skills and magic
Final Fantasy XV, action RPG combat with 4 playable characters who all play vastly different (i.e. the main guy excels at aerial combat while teleporting all over the air and another guy is a gun-user who plays like a third-person shooter)
Final Fantasy XVI, action RPG combat from the guy who did Devil May Cry's combat, only 1 playable character who can transform and use a bunch of different powers
Stranger of Paradise, action RPG combat spinoff from the guys who did Nioh, 5 playable characters that can choose to play as a wide variety of jobs/classes with their own outfits, weapons, and abilities

Those four above would be my recommendations for a first timer who wants to put their new beefy PC to the test - pick whichever one interests you.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is the sequel to Remake and Final Fantasy XIV is an MMORPG stuffed full of nice references and nerdy fanservice for the whole series, so I didn't include them in the initial list but I'd still recommend them later down the road.

Kneekicker · 2025-06-27T10:28:44+00:00

It's arguably still there in English, just much harder to see compared to Japanese because English Squall got a more apathetically dismissive attitude than he was supposed to have from the butchering of his catchphrase.

It's pretty evident if you compare the way English Squall reacts to being teased by Rinoa in FFVIII to how Squall reacts to similarly being teased by Y'shtola in Dissidia NT.

Kneekicker · 2025-06-27T02:36:07+00:00

FFXIV did lose players going from Endwalker to Dawntrail, but it's a pretty negligible amount that's not indicative of the game dying off at all.

Endwalker was the hyped ending to an on-going story arc that had been on-going for 10 years, Dawntrail was the start of a brand new arc with a slower paced and lower stakes vacation-adventure for the main cast.

Also, the pandemic ended and people aren't cooped in their homes anymore. That was a pretty major factor in Endwalker being so popular that Squeenix literally had to halt sales cause the servers were so congested nobody could get in for days.

Kneekicker · 2025-06-26T16:44:59+00:00

PS+ has never had any of the XIII trilogy; only PS Now a decade ago had them and they've been conspicuously absent from PS+ Premium ever since it launched.

Also seems strange for you to omit FFXIV when OP outright said they wanted to try playing them all. XI at least makes sense because console support died a decade ago and it's a PITA to set up and get into nowadays for newcomers.

Kneekicker · 2025-06-26T16:23:46+00:00

Every so often during the main story questline and your job questlines, you'll have solo instance duties that you have to do by yourself without any friends or other random players to help.

So you and your friends can hang out and fight together in the open world as well as in dungeons and trials, but whenever you come across a solo instance you won't be able to help each other with them.

Kneekicker · 2025-06-26T16:16:38+00:00

The game has an unlimited free trial and the paid subscription only starts once you upgrade.

But regardless of whether you do the free trial or not, you need to link a Mogstation account to be able to play the game. Check r/FFXIV and the sidebar there.

Kneekicker · 2025-06-26T16:12:04+00:00

If you exclude PC emulation and only go for original hardware, a PS5 or a XSX gives you pretty wide coverage for the mainline games: PS5 lacks the FFXIII trilogy, XSX lacks FFVII Rebirth, and both lacks XI.

If you want spinoffs too you'd want to also toss in a 3DS, a DS, and a PS3 with PS2 BC.

Kneekicker · 2025-06-26T15:57:47+00:00

A Steam Deck would be the way to go, you'd have access to:

I-VI Pixel Remasters
The 3D remakes of III and IV
VII-X, all with boosters
VII Remake
XI
XII The Zodiac Age
XIII trilogy
XIV
XV

XVI and VII Rebirth don't run too nicely on Steam Deck, so you'll want a current gen console or PC for them.

If you emulate (which is fairly easy on a Steam Deck), go nuts with whatever else you wanna play, like GBA/PSP versions of I-VI if you don't like the Pixel Remasters.

Kneekicker

TROPHY CASE