Final Fantasy Experience a.k.a. FFE (25 May 2005 - 25 May 2009),

HAPPY 4TH BIRTHDAY!

Thank you for everyone who contributed in molding what FFE is today... In a period where most unions in Gamespot have already died or gone inactive, our beloved community has kept its status as Gamespot's "officially endorsed" Final Fantasy union, an active community with a direction, and a good source of essential Final Fantasy information with the help of our dedicated and untiring contributors.

Please pay our community a visit and join us in our celebration. We are holding some events to commemorate this special day, among others:

-FFE Team Battle Arena (we're still open for participants!)

-New Inductee in the FFE Hall of Fame

-Our c1assic Chocobo Hating, er, Hunting Game

-New Officers

-Banner contest (maybe?)

Regardless of what will happen in the events, what is more important is your presence.

In behalf of the FFE Administrative Team, we shall continue to do our best to serve the FFE Community the best way we can--always open to constructive criticisms, recommendations... or even, violent reactions.

FFVII PS3 CONFIRMED! (Updated May 31, 2009)

So, have you heard the latest? Final Fantasy VII is finally going to the Playstation 3 in North America!ESRB rated it "Teen" for both Playstation 3 and the Playstation Portable, so we can already conclude that it is NOT the much-anticipated "Remake" for the Playstation 3 as has been much-wished since the 2005 E3 FFVII PS3 Tech Demo. Anyway, it is still FFVII, and I've met a lot of gamers complaining the "rarity" of FFVII and/or expensiveness of even just a second-hand copy of the game, so this is still a great news.

Check out the Playstation Network ones it is finally released and download the game while it is hot!

Have a nice day!

Fantasy Gamer
Leader, Final fantasy Experience(Officially endorsed)
Founder, Square Enix Experience
Founder, Kingdom Hearts Experience

Once in a while, I come accross some really annoyingly hard games that forces me to suspend playing it for 2-4 years before I get back to my sanity (or should I say, insanity?) and play it again so I can finally finish it. Some games are so hard just because it forces you to do a lot of grinding in order for you to progress through the story... some are just plain hard to death.

During the SNES days, Enix released this RPG with an interesting concept: The 7th Saga. The game allows you to choose 1 character from a group of 6 or 7 guys (I cannot remember) of different jobs (Warrior, Cleric, Mage, Demon, Alien, Dwarf, etc.) to be your main hero and you can talk to one of the remaining characters to be your partner and that will be your duo-party until the end of the game... until you decide to replace your partner... Throughout your journey, the you will meet the remaining characters you did not pick at the different towns in the game and they may either be your enemy now and attack you (owww... they are always very powerful) or they may offer to join your party. What makes the gmae so hard is story progression. YOU CANNOT PROGRESS TO THE NEXT TOWN OR DUNGEON WITHOUT GRINDING!!! That's not the only problem, grinding from one level to another requires so much experience, and regular enemies are also powerful and does not give so much experience. Oh my. anyway, you'll be very proud if you're one of those who have finished this hard game 'coz there are not so many.

I remember playing a game... one I claim to have one of the best stories of all JRPGs I've played: Saga Frontier 2 (Playstation). There are 3 types of battles: party, duel and a strategy-based army-to-army battle... The last army-to-army battle of this game caused me to delete my file because I got so pissed. I've used the best strategy I can think of yet, I still lost so many times, thus, I cannot go to the final dungeon. Well, the story really sucked me in and after 2 years I found myself playing it again... and I reached that part again where I have to do that uber hard army-to-army battle... With some new knowledge, the battle became a little less harder... and I surved it with only 3 squads left in my army. After that... the final dungeon... the final boss: The Egg. Oh my! He's hard! After some good preparation, I was finally able to beat him. Well, I think some of the hardest boss are found in the Saga series: 10 Fatestone Saruin (Romancing Saga), The Destroyer (Romancing Saga 3), and Knights of the Roundtable and Chaos (Unlimited Saga... another really hard game). I urge every RPG fans to give Saga Frontier II a chance. It may take some time to get used to it, but once the story starts to unfold, it'll grow into you and you can no longer stop and have sleepless nights with it.

Today, I finished Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (Playstation 2). Hardcore fans of the series claim that it is the best MegaTen game in terms of story... very deep... very dark, and all your decisions will affect your "Reason", which will ultimately decide the ending you will get. Okay, in 2004 I got this game and really got excited 'coz the last MegaTen game i've palyed is Persona 2: Eternal Punishment way back 2000. There two modes... I did not think twice to choose the hard mode. Oh my! I got stuck with fighting one of the Fiends, Matador. He is so fast, very hard to hit, and has a very powerful "force" element attack. I almost gave up on it. After 4 years, here I am, I finished the game this Halloween season. ^__^ I'm quite proud when I went to the GameFAQs message board of the game and saw people saying "... as if the normal mode is not hard enough." Wow. The game is really hard. Even at high levels, you can get a Game Over in one wrong step in battle. Miss a hit or hit an enemy with an attack they are immune or they absorb and you'll subject yourelf to immediate turn of the enemies who can always potentially kill you. If you are not protected from death and expel attacks, Game Overs will be a usual scene. Uber-powerful physical hits are also common like that annoying "Iron Claw" which can kill even my level 95 hero. What makes it harder is the fact that when your hero dies, it's Game Over even if you still have the rest of your party. Oh, and i'm not gonna talk about the Amala Layrinth... the 4th Kalpa and the damaging floors thatwill reduce your party's HP to 0 in about 5 steps and high encounter rate even with Estome (spell that lowers encounter rate). Oh, and finishing that Amala Labyrinth will give you a final-final boss (after the regular final boss), which is so much powerful than the regular one, has 3x more HP and can only be effectively damaged by one kind of attack, Pierce, which can only be learned by the hero and one rare monster that you need to level up a lot before you can learn it. Now it's finished. Took me 90 hours to finish it.

Well, those are the hardest RPGs I've played that I can think of right now. Maybe I'm missing some, but I think this will suffice. If we talk about hard RPG bosses, there are quite a lot. On top my list is Indalecio of Star OCean: The Second Story. Maybe that will be the topic of my next blog. Who knows?

Anyway, HAPPY HALLOWEEN everyone 'coz mine's a happy one! Trick or Treat!