Let's get physical, physical. I wanna get physical.

Olivia knows what's goin' on!

Olivia Newton-John sure is an extraordinary woman. Successful singer, actress, and as we've recently discovered, a pioneer and forward thinker of the video game industry. When she Xanadid her way to the top of the charts back in the 80s, she foresaw the evolution of the gaming industry and the advent of digital media, and she cried out on our behalf "I wanna get physical!"

And of course, she was right. Nowadays, more and more games are being released as "digital only", even more so if you're looking at the Sony Vita. Yes, the Vita is still a "thing" and if I may say so myself, saw/will be seeing several high profile releases this couple of months. Unfortunately, many Japanese localisations have been hit with the "Digital Stick". Oh Olivia, if you only knew.

I do understand the business decision with "digital only" localisation releases. The Vita isn't exactly selling particularly well, and Vita games with it. And I would rather a game be "digital only" than "Japanese only", so I'm not complaining, just wishing things were different.

Keep your Digital Stick away
from my games please!

See my mind set is still living in the 80s. I like having pretty game boxes (most of which still in their original factory sealed packaging) lined up on my display case. I like to be able to look at my collection and go "wow". Also having the physical cartridge means the game won't take up valuable space on the Vita memory card (while I do have a 64G card, I am thinking about the future). And then there's warm fuzzy feeling knowing that I own this game forever. And in the event of a cyber apocalypse where internet and cloud storage gets destroyed, I will be happily enjoying Tales of Hearts R (pre-ordered!) and Danganronpa, while everyone else is back to playing Tic-Tac-Toe.

I am not against digital media. They certainly are very convenient and sometimes affordable (hello Steam!) Not on the PSN however, and especially not in Austra-ripoff-lia, where physicals are generally cheaper than digital. Hang on a minute. You're not giving me anything tangible and you want to charge me more?

Fran's got the right idea
when it comes to shopping.

So when i comes to digital, I have one policy, and that is the Fran Fine policy. "If it ain't half price it ain't on sale!" And of course, I'll only buy when its on sale. It just doesn't feel right to pay full price for something that I can't see nor touch. But when that Flash Sale hit you can bet your bottom dollar that I'll be filling up my virtual shopping cart with everything I can get my hands on, especially with a PSN Plus additional discount.

So over the last 2 weeks I've been playing Toukiden, which is like Monster Hunter set in period Japan. And of course, Toukiden Kiwami, the more-is-more rerelease, has just been announced for localisation today. But I wanted to play this game and just didn't want to wait, and thankfully the game was on sale on PSN at the time. The game is a little repetitive, but much better than the actual Monster Hunter. (Played MH Freedom Unite on PSP. Couldn't cark it as the weapons we either slow or slower).

Bows are the only reliable way to hit
certain parts of bosses.

So with the sales over the last few weeks I've picked up: Atelier Roroa/Totori/Meruru Plus, Sorcery Saga, Toukiden, Soul Sacrifice Delta and Mind Zero. And in physicals I've picked up Danganronpa 1 and 2, Ys, Demon Gaze, Disgaea 4, and have Tales of Hearts R and Freedom Wars. To hell with the nay sayers, viva la Vita!

Gamer's lethargy. It strikes us all!

So I've been struck down by the gamer's lethargy. You know that feeling where you've been playing a particular game, and you're not not enjoying it, and then when you put it down but can't be arsed in picking it up.

It's not like it's not good. So why don't I feel like playing?

Well the game was Tales of Graces F. I found the courage to break the seal on my EU Day One Edition one weekend and started playing it. The battle system is quite deep and the game is quite fun too. The graphics are Wii bit on the average side (see what I did thar?) The story and characters are ok, and the skits are actually quite funny. I managed to get past the childhood arc and got towards the end of chapter 1. Just I just can't seem to want to pick it up and play.

Of course this is not the first time. Many games I've been enthusiastically playing and one day just can't be bothered. Of course, most of them time it's because the game is average or meh, but Tales of Graces F is a good game.

So in the mean time I've been playing a bit of "blast from the past" Front Mission 3, grabbed from a PSN sale. I've previously beaten this game back when it first came out on the PS1. Great game. So I am slowly making progress through Emma's story, currently about 1/3 of the way through. Slowly...... because the game allows you to save in battle! Uh oh, you know what that means. The OCD in me has decided to abuse it to the hills and back. I would save and reload so battle skills proc favourably (they're random you see!) It would sometimes take me 2 hours to beat a battle.

Few things are as scary as an enemy melee unit.
One hit and you'll be picking up scraps for the
rest of the fight. Yikes!

The challenge in this game seems so random. Sometimes I've looked at certain maps and went "how
the f am I supposed to beat this?" You can do large amount of damage to the enemy, the enemy can do large amount of damage to you, except you're always out numbers and healing is inefficient/wasteful in this game. Combined with random skill AND combo activation for you and the enemy, one turn can go very right, or very wrong. For example, your machine gun could trigger a combo of RoFI x4, and destroy both of the enemy's arms and leave it powerless, or your rifleman trigger 3 PilotDmgI and kill the pilot in one turn. But on the other hand, the enemy melee unit can destroy your weapon arm in one hit, and then it's all over Red Rover. You're a sitting duck!

It's because I want to guard against these unfortunate mishaps that I am religiously saving after each turn. Enemy melee units scare the crap out of me, because they can consistently take out at least half of the HP of any of your parts in one go. My strategy is to get in the first hit with my own melee unit, praying that EjectPunch triggers, or a combo takes out their weapon arm. Thankfully EjectPunch has high activation rate, so it's worked well fairly well. For other units, I've just been using my gunners so they would hit the body/weapon arm with skill activation, and disarm them before it's their turn. All the reloading and resetting is killing my enjoyment of the game as there's no pride in taking the cheap shots, but I am messed up in the head and need professional help.

Until next time, where I might be typing from a psychiatric ward through my straight jacket.

Tales of Legendia impressions. 27 hours in. Beat the game.

And yes. A Streetcar Named Desire parody
is included in the game.

So I've finally "beat" the game. Well the main game at least. For those of you who don't know,
Legendia is divided into 2 halves. The main story is the first half, and the second half is called "character quests", which further develops the party members unfinished back stories.

So how does the "black sheep" of the series stack up. Well, its reputation is somewhat correct. The game does kinda suck.... but it's also kinda really really good. The characters are all developed really well, have a distinct personality and (all bar 1) are very likeable. I would even compare the character interaction and their relationships to (I'll get shot for this) Persona 4. WHAT?! The legendary Persona 4? Yes. The characters are that good. Well maybe Persona 4 Lite. But the creators certainly did something right. The characters are unique and memorable. They feel like friends and they feel more than "dial a personality" pixels on the screen, and go beyond troupes like "the girl who is bad at cooking". Norma in particular is very enjoyable. She is all about comedy relief, except she doesn't annoying. I've had many laugh-out-loud moments with this game. Not to mention she is voiced by my favourite voice actress Tara Strong.

For the 200th time, just GTFO already!

So what about the other half of the game? It's a chore to play. It's how I feel about Persona 4. Love the story/characters/cut scenes, while the actual "gameplay" is just mediocre. The problems I hate with it:
1) World map travelling is so sloooooooooow and painful. Often you are given very vague clues on where to go so you are wondering around for a long time trying to get there. While the random encounter rate isn't horrible, because how long it takes to get from point A to B on the world map, it feels like the encounter rate is so high. It can sometimes take half an hour just to travel to the next point on the world map.
2) Dull and repetitive dungeon designs. 95% of the dungeons consists of forks, leading to more forks, leading to more forks. The forks will lead to A) treasure B) dead end C) more forks, which leads back to ABC ad nauseum. There are rarely any landmarks or anything interesting in most dungeons. This essentially pads the game to make it seem longer, again, the random encounters feel extremely frequent due to the dull and repetitive dungeons. I beat the game in 27 hours. Could have easily been 20 hours if the world map and dungeons are more streamlined. I think it would actually improve the overall experience by making battles seem less like a chore, cutting out the boring and tedious bits and get to the interest bits (cut scenes) sooner.
3) The magic system. Magic is called crystal eres in this game. When a mage get to a certain level, the obtain the eres (spell) but to actually be able to use it, they have to obtain a certain number of Eres Stones of various types, which are randomly dropped by certain types of enemies. This facilitates even more grinding, because to actually use the spell you have to grind on enemies, which may or may not drop the stones, which facilitates even more boring grinding. Even worse, some types of enemies you need to stones from may not appear in your immediate vicinity, and maybe 2-3 dungeons ahead of behind you, so there's no guarantee you'll actually be able to get them in a timely manner either. For example, I never got to use Norma's Resurrect, which as you maybe able to guess, is a very important spell, because I didn't get enough stones from the spider type enemies. I spent about half an hour trying to grind them in one dungeon about 2/3 of the way into the game, didn't find a single one (they were rare) so I gave up and thought "I'll get it eventually". Those spider enemies never appeared again.

Backstabbing wench! She's even
worse than Heidi Range of the Sugababes!

4) Shirley. Almost everyone hates her on the forums. She is the protagonists' wimpy little sister, with a grating voice actress, she spends half of the game being kidnapped by everybody and having to be rescued. Then she turns into a backstabbing wench in the second half. The game tries to make you feel sorry for her, but I just wanted her dead

As for battles, yes this game is a little light on features but I didn't actually mind it. The fights were reasonably fun, although having to repeatedly fight the same fights over and over due to longer dungeons is a bit of a pain. And when I don't feel like fighting? Running away takes about 10-12 seconds of actual time, so by the time the timer counts down I would have won the fight anyway, so that was useless. I feel like people wouldn't complain as much about the battle system is there were less fights overall, with shorter dungeons and smaller over world, one wouldn't have to fight as much and everyone would be just a little bit more patient.

Where do I stand with the game now? I would like to continue with the story as the characters are so much fun (minus Shirley) but I just don't think I have the fortitude of trudging through another 30 hours worth of "game" for 20 hours worth of content. That's at least another 2 weeks for me. Well.... we'll see.

It's getting to the tail end of the year. I can see telltale signs, I tell ya...

As we've arrived at the second half of the year, it's getting close to the golden season of game releases. This year there are no less than 10 games on "must have" list getting releases between September and November, as gaming publishers are no doubt pointing guns at peoples heads to reach those deadlines. Since I've been a good boy this year Santa, I've been leaving accidental notes around the house containing games that I might like, hint hint.... What? Budget cuts? Paper machè ornaments again? (Who needs Santa anyway. The street corner is all I need....)

A "skit" is supposed to be funny.
These ones are just lame.

This time next month Tales of Xillia 2 will be released. I guess some fan boys will be happy.

I've always found Tales to be really middle of the road, not terrible yet not great either. It screams "me too". A typical Tales conversation goes something like

Male char: ...

Female char: Something wrong, Male char?

Male char: It's... it's nothing..... C'mon, let's go.

Female char: Male char........

*gif of me hurling into a bucket*

Of course, despite owning several of the games in the series, I actually have only played a few of

The infamous scene.

them, so all of this could just be some made up crap in my mind. So without further ado, I will tell the tale of me and the Tales series.

Picture it. Sicily. 1929. Picture it. Late 90s. At home. During the era where I, like many others, discovered the power of emulator and the rom. Tales of Destiny for the PS1 was released (I've never owned) but everybody was talking about the Japan-only first game of the series, Tales of Phantasia for the Super Famicom. I fan translated patch for Tales of Phantasia was released which took the rom-playing community by storm and everyone and their kid brother jumped on the ToP bandwagon. I did too. The battle system was still considered "fresh". While the translation team took some liberties (the infamous Arche's dream orgasm scene comes to mind) it was serviceable. At the time I liked the game, but I didn't get too far into it before moving onto bigger releases on the PS1.

My next exposure to Tales was Tales of Symphonia for the Nintendo Gamecube, which was the first Tales game I've purchased, around its release mid 2000s. I wasn't wowed. As a matter of fact I couldn't figure out how to change the character to control in battle so when Lloyd died I'd have to rely on the AI to finish the fight (or more often than not, rage quit). I had even consulted the game manual and didn't find how to change charters in battle. I thought maybe it was a game design decision to not allow character switching. Because I couldn't get over this, I had only played about 5 hours of ToS. I later found out how to switch characters from the forum, which just felt really unintuitive and backward, especially considering its rival Star Ocean 3 on the PS2 (released around the same time) was easy and obvious. But never the less, I've not made any further progress on ToS.

Its lines like this that made the
fan patch popular.

Since then I had purchased just about every Tales game, even though I did not exactly have the best experience with the series. Why? As I've said before I am a shopaholic and I need professional help.

My next venture into the series was circa 2007-ish. I had purchased Tales of Phantasy Complete Voice Edition for the PSP on same for cheap, so I decided to go back to its roots and play the games in order. I didn't dislike ToP so I thought this is gonna be good. Game was in Japanese but there was enough translation guides online I was able to get through it ok.

It started ok.... but they more I played the more annoyed I was. While the graphics look like a fresh coat of new paint, the battle system still feels antiquated and prototype-ish. There was no manual mode, and that whole "running forward to strike and running back" thing got on my nerves. WTF. It was inefficient and productive, not to mention it gives bosses time to recover and kick your arse! I skipped most of the end game optional content and went straight to the last boss, trying to get this over and done with. The last boss was where the crappy arse battle system rears its ugly head. The boss would cast nasty spells that would kill most of my team (possibly partially my fault, since I didn't do any optional content to level up) and the only way for me to stop him from doing that was using Cless to disrupt his casting, but because he kept insisting on running back to his starting position it was hard to keep on the pressure. You can sorta interrupt Cless' run but it still costs precious seconds. I also used the default mages team (Mint, Klaus, Arche) and their spells wouldn't interrupt the bosses' casting. Maybe I should have used Chester and Suzu. I never did manage to beat the last boss but I was so over this game. I've never gone back to it. Funny thing is, so many people moan about how this game was never released in English. I think they would change their mind if they did play it. Or maybe not, since I can't seem to tolerate as much crap as I used to.

A couple of years later I played Tales of Eternia on the PSP. It was ok... not particularly interesting

Meh. Indifference is worse than hate.

but still felt like it dragged on a lot. This one I did beat but I don't remember much of it. I wouldn't play it again.

So why am I posting about this? Well, a couple of days ago I just started playing Tale of Legendia on the PS2. I was um-ing and ah-ing about it for a while. I've checked out Youtube videos on Graces and Xillia and hey both look fun, but I didn't want to break my "play them in order" schedule, ESPECIALLY since the next one in line was Legendia. I had heard that Legendia was "bare bones" and the black sheep, and really should be played before any of the newer Tales games (hence I am slotting it before Symphonia even though Symphonia technically came out before). So far, it's actually a lot better than I expected. I am actually enjoying the game. Fighting can be a little repetitive at times but the character interactions are a lot of fun and I am finding myself laughing out loud at times. Only at chapter 3.

Will I be able to complete this game or will it send me into a murderous rampage? We will see.

I'm not dead...

I'm not dead just gloating.

...just infringing... again. And stuck in the analogue age. Since the last time I graced the blog with my presence I had bought a house. And took about a month to get internet set up. And non activity caused by chronic sloth. I've literally been sitting on my lard arse playing lots of games, which is what I prefer to do when I'm not writing and/or talking about games.

So what's happened since I've been away. Lots. First of all I've taken a leap and stepped into the current generation with my very own Playstation 4 and it's awesome! Apart from handheld devices (I got both Vita and 3DS on launch week), this is the quickest I've bought a new console since launch. So here's the story. About a month ago I was getting sick of RPGs (again) and losing the will to play any of my games as they were just getting stale, so I started looking around for alternative games to try out.

Glad we got this....

I had heard of the Dynasty Warriors series before but never actually seen it in action, so I decided to investigate. After discovering there's been 8 main instalments, plus Xtreme Legends and Empires expansions, I was even more confused on where to start. So after even more research (and more confusion) I thought might as well start with the latest instalment. So I was checking out the PS3 version of Dynasty Warriors and then finding out you also need Xtreme Legends for the full experience, I was wondering if the whole ordeal was worth it. Then I discovered it was also released on the PS4 as a "complete edition", not to mention better graphics and performance, and I was sold! So I ordered the PS4 and the game... but before checking out Dynasty Warriors 7 first, as I was told 7's story was better, and it certainly was. But anyway, thoroughly enjoying DW8. I've been playing it for 3 weeks straight and still haven't finished all the story mode. So far favourite character is Yue Jin... even though in pinyin (Mandarin phonetic pronunciation) his name could mean "women's monthly", and I ain't talkin' about the magazine, if you get my gist. So sometimes I see his name and it grosses me out, but still like him.

....and not this!

So what else have I played in the game were months. Played "that giant boobies game". Yes I know those are a dime a dozen these days, but I'm talking about Dragon's Crown. It's pretty fun, but I can see it'll get seriously repetitive, but still fun in short bursts.

Bought a THIRD PSP. Yes I need to call the shopaholics hotline desperately, but I saw a 1000 series phat in its original box at the used game store over the weekend for $80, and the price was right and my wallet did the talking. Turns out some girl named Shelley owned it previously, and had save data from like Disney's Cars and Buzz. Yeah, obviously no taste in games. But heard the phats were very moddable so better snatch it up before they go extinct.

If it's not big boobs it's open legs. Don't get TOO
excited little Johnny, can't you see she's wearing a
chastity belt!

Got myself a second Vita, OLED of course, not the el cheapo LCD screen. Again, before they go extinct as well.

And... uh. Been thinking about starting some Let's Plays, hence my desperate attempt at salvaging this blog... uh.. I mean... this blog could come in handy... yes.......

And with that I bid you farewell. Until next time, take care of feminine hygiene. *Lucille Ball "UUUUUUUGH......."*

Slowga update. Busy IRL.

So I have bought a house recently and will be moving in a couple of weeks, so all my free time has been taken up with arranging things and working overtime for some extra moolah. That means very little time for games. Thank god for Easter (literally) that I'll finally have a break to catch up on some much needed workout for my fingers.

Bravely Default: Made absolutely no progress on this whatsoever. I have the attention span of a 5 year old so games tat pique my interest out of nowhere also find themselves dropped after 5 minutes too. This explains why I have such an unashamingly large backlog. Look for yourself. 

Final Fantasy X-2 HD: So I have finally made it to chapter 5. I've missed a few scenes, but I may have just enough extras (as I did New Yevon before) to get to 100%. I am going for all Episode Completes. So far I've gotten most of the Episode Completes from areas that consists mostly of cutscenes, have about half of them left.

Right now I am working on Via Infinito trying to Oversoul all the fiends. Currently at floor 15. It's going to take a little while. YRP are still at their default starting levels. I have completed about 85% of the fiends, so not many left. I also missed 1 fiend where it's no longer available, so I won't be able to get 100% this play through. I have been using 2 fiends abusing Flare to get through most fights. Now I have a Chocobo and Tonberry, with Lulu supporting them with magic.

I am not sure if I'll Oversoul all the fiends, I'll try to get as much as I can. Once I've completed this play through the next game I'll use mostly YRP. I also want to get 100% completion so I can start Last Mission. Really looking forward to it.

Saint Seiya Brave Soldier: So I bought this game. I am a big Saint Seiya fan as I've grown up with this manga/anime series. It's mostly unheard of in English speaking countries (due to the terrible censored dub called Knights of the Zodiac), yet it's hugely popular in Europe and Latin America. It's created in the late 80s. I heard a good analogy of the series that describes it as "Sailor Moon for boys", which is kinda accurate.

The story is set in modern day with a heavy dose of influence from Greek mythology (with tactful creative liberties like all great literature of course). Basically the goddess Athena has been reincarnated and there are "Saints" (basically warriors) based off of the 88 constellations that fights on her behalf. The storyline is fantastic (don't forget this is from the 80s) and is dear to my heart.

So this is the latest fighting game based on the Saint Seiya story and characters. The "story" mode chronicles the 3 major storylines of the manga/anime. Sanctuary (the 12 Zodiac temples), Poseidon and Hades.... except the Hades chapter seems to be VERY abridged. I'm only halfway through the Poseidon chapter, but judging from the playable characters, several villains from the Hades arc aren't available, so I wouldn't be surprised if much of that chapter has been chopped out.

Anyway, the story is bare bones, which is ok, because I know the story anyway. As for gameplay... it's ok, not bad, but not great. But so far it pretty much consists of dashing in with a melee combo and chain it into a special, rinse and repeat. The supers, as per the last 3 Saint Seiya games, useless. Every single one of them seems to be like "Final Atomic Buster" (using a Street Fighter term here), that is, all are "all or nothing" moves with throw-like range, but it also has long start up and very predictable. It's not even good at punishing whiffed attacks, as 1, it takes so long the foe generally can recover in time and move away or hit you out of it, and 2, has literally no range, so if you get behind them while they're doing their melee combo, their combo will move them out of the way and you'll miss.

The game boasts as having 50+ playable characters. What they really meant was variations of of same character. There are 4 Seiyas, 3 each of Shiryu, Hyoga, Shun and Ikki, NOT even counting DLC. The gold and surplice versions of the Gold Saints count as separate characters, not to mention the game has no less than 5 versions of Gemini (empty cloth, Saga gold, Kanon gold, Saga surplice, Kanon scale). When that's considered, the total amount of characters includes is much much less, but still quite impressive and is the largest roster yet. I love how all Marinas are included (except Mermaid but she was a wuss anyway). I would have loved for them to include just a couple of Spectres, like Papillon and Pharaoh. Instead we only have the 3 judges, and the 3 gods, and the surplice Gold Saints. Orphee being included is awesome though. He's my favourite silver as a child.

I would have loved for them to include Lizard Misty (like the PS2 game) and some of the other silvers, like Algol. I long for the day a Saint Seiya game is made that starts from Galaxian Wars and includes every single saint from the manga (without the blah filler bits from the anime).

Grinding on the go. The Zodiac Brave-ly Default Story.

Work that apron like the rent is due!
Agnes' kitchen couture sends the feminist
movement back 50 years.
"This is what we burned our bras for?"
- Some Old Bag

Isn't Engrish fun? Throw two random words together and you have something new and cool. Try our new fantabulous game Fierce Menopause. How about Critically Herpes? Well I guess Bravely Default isn't that spicy. Funny, cuz here in Australia "default" is to be in arrears on your loan repayments, and a "default" is a black mark against your credit report for having a delinquent loan. Since I work in credit in my day job, every time I see the title Bravely Default I imagine some teenager taking out credit cards and never paying them back. Damn those teenagers, bring back Lay-Buy!

Well I guess it's a good thing the localisers haven't decided to include the subtitle from the Japanese version, "Flying Fairy". Not only is it advertising for the competition (hello Flying/Fairy type Pokemon and its sexy quad Fighting resist!) but I am sure I am not the only one imagining a game with flaming homosexuals prancing around. Oh wait. We've already had one of those. Shadow Hearts Covenant. Which also happens to be one of my favourite RPGs ever. I guess we should have more RPGs with flaming homosexuals! Bring on the Flying Fairy!

So I've been checking out Bravely Default, a Final Fantasy game in disguise. It was originally made

Known for Tizzy Fits. Uh oh, the diva is here!

to be a squeal-of-sorts to the DS 4 Heroes of Light, meh! But it's turned out to be more like FF3 DS mixed with FF5.

So impressions. Meh voice acting and even meh-er dialogue. I guess story is not where it's at. But gameplay is pretty cool. Love the return of the job system and love the FF5 type system except with even more customisation. Always a win. Who needs a boobjob when you can play with the FF5 job system.

So far making very slow progress. Just made it to chapter 1 believe it or not. I've kept everyone as Freelancers. Want to grind up to tat LV10 JP Up. Ahhhh old habits never die (good ol' FFT) even though I've been told it's not hard to gain JP in this game at all. So far grinding in front of the first dungeon in chapter 1. Tiz is about to reach job level 6. Yeah, how sad. But I've been playing this game during my trip to and from work, as well as lunch times and breaks, so I don't mind grinding on the go.

The other Edea.

Something I've noticed though, the difficulty ramps up every time a new dungeon opens up. I transition from mopping the enemies in one round to getting mopped whenever I move into a new dungeon. I realise part of the reason is my sub optimal job configuration and my cheap-arsedness in insisting all equipment needs to be provided by god.

So far the game is going good. But I am only early early early on. It hasn't bored me as of yet, but I wouldn't mind giving that Fierce Menopause a go.

Spank the monkey. Final Fantasy X-2 continues.

Luck be a lady. Question is,
was she born a lady?

So I have finally beaten Final Fantasy X-2. The first play through was deliberately minimal as I wanted to unlock new game plus ASAP. I ended up getting 55% on story percentage. Clocked about 30 hours, with Yuna at LV20, Paine at LV30 and Rikku somewhere in between. Surprisingly long considering how much of the contents I've skipped. I also completed about 30% of creatures.

The hardest fights were Dark Yojimbo and the final fights. Dark Yojimbo was nasty as it was in the middle of chapter 3 and I haven't yet discovered using Wring with creatures for Flare abuse. So I ended up doing the fight with very under levelled YRP. Tried a few strategies while getting my arse kicked. When I eventually beat him Yuna was a Festivalist (whom spent most of the time using items), Rikku as Alchemist (with no abilities learned) and Paine as Berserker. I had Paine Berserked for as much of the fight as possible, and Yuna/Rikku doing the healing. Occasionally, Yuna would fire off a clog (worthless) and Rikku mixed a 3-hit elemental concoction for some additional damage, but sometimes I'd have them just chain with Paine with their regular attacks.

The biggest problem with Dark Yojimbo was its Zanmato which reduced HP and MP to 1, so MP

Lulu. Working the maternity leave
campaign for the next election.

based skills were useless. Also its dagger attack would inflict poison, which would kill a girl after Zanmato. So I gave 2 of them accessories to prevent Poison, and had Rikku use Antidote on Paine. After about 30 minutes I managed to whittle down its 22,000 HP.

The other bosses were easily dispatched with some Flare abuse with creatures. I made sure to obtain the Meggido Garment Grid, which gives Flare and Ultima as gate abilities. I've used this in the past to quickly get past the final bosses so it was my go to strategy.

I had some trouble with the last series of bosses. Had Yuna (LV20) as Black Mage (after a gate change on Megiddo to get Flare) with Wring and Minerva Plate. Rikku was Alchemist (with Item LV2 and Chemist) with the accessory for Auto-Haste, and Paine as Thief for some free items and Key to Success for high HP. She's my tank, whom would survive hard hits. Yuna had insanely low HP, about 350, as both of her accessories lowers HP.

So for the tail it was no problem. Paine would survive its initial attack and bring Rikku back to life, whom then revives Yuna and the Flare nuking would begin. Wring is freakin' ridiculous! Super fast Flare charge time with no recharge, so she was able to nuke super fast.

When I got to the next fight, the leg, was when my troubles began. My strategy was sucky. I was going to get Yuna to change jobs 4 times to get Ultima to nuke all 4 targets, but took way too long. After 2 changes I had Yuna and Rikku dead and Paine petrified.

I want that one.
Yuna shopping for new bras at Spira-mart.

So the next time I tried, I decided to stick to Flare with 1 gate change, and Rikku threw a quick Star Curtain for reflect. It reflected Break and Flare back to the orbs while Yuna took care of business. The rest of the bosses were a breezy after that.

So after beating the game the first time, I did a super short run to get an Enterprise in chapter 2 and then after to start another game. This game to get 100% getting all side quests. Now I didn't end up getting the Garment Grid from Argent the first time, so I will have to do another game after this to get the Open Air Grid.

So far I have cleaned out almost all chapter 1 and 2 creatures. I am at about 55% creature completion. I left YRP at their starting levels, using exclusively creatures to do all fights, as its easier to level them with low levels. So far I am at the end of chapter 2, just done the monkey match maker quest. About to proceed with the story quests. Still enjoying the game.

Slow progress on Final Fantasy X-2 HD

So I am making progress, albeit slowly. I have just moved into chapter 5 and maxed out Argent. Now I require 2 million Gil to buy its exclusive Garment Grid, and I have less than 100,000!!! Now I have to make the choice whether I want to grind for another 2m Gil through, which means first I'll have to grind up to Random Reels, then use CONGRATS! about a thousand times just to get it, which sorta defies the purpose of  doing a quick first game. I might leave it, which means I won't be able to get everything on my second game.

Fights have been tough as my girls levels are still low. I have discovered that Bloodlust and Wring (which I've never used in an actual game before) are FANTASTIC accessories for creatures. Bloodlust makes physical attacks super strong and Wring gives mages Haste, super fast casting and Flare. I've been able to rely on these to take out a few of the bosses.

I'm not getting a lot of time to play as I would have liked as I am purchasing a house and doing some overtime at work for extra moolah, hence my progress is slow. Hopefully I'll be able to complete this game by the weekend.

Also been playing a little bit of Bravely Default. Graphics are great. Reminds me of a mix between FF3 and FF5.

My Final Fantasy X-2 story. AKA gotta kill the postie.

So many people were eagerly awaiting the release of Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster last week. Most of them wanting to play FFX again. I too were anticipating the release with glee, except FFX-2 was the main selling point for me. Well, I liked FFX enough but I've already played both the PAL and International versions of the game, so there's not a lot of new content for me, and I beat X again about 2 years ago so there's little X could do for me. (Not to mention I was not looking forward having to play the crappy arse mini games like lightning dodging and chocobo racing again. My blood pressure is rising just thinking about it.)

I will post why I love FFX-2 in a separate post later on. So as it was due to release last week I wanted to snag my copy, especially the Limited Edition (I live in Australia so European version for me). I spent months looking at Australian sites to pre-order the LE but not a single one of them had it, only the standard edition. So I pre-ordered with ozgamestore.com, which is a UK based store. They're pretty good (although I just discovered today they're starting to charge for shipping. Not sexy!) so I've  pre-ordered a copy with them. Unfortunately they take over a week to get here. So 2 days before the release date (Thursday over here), I saw the LE up for offer on EBgames for pre-order, even though everyone of their stores insisted the LE was sold out company wide and none of them had any extras. So anyway I pre-ordered with them as well, hoping the item would be shipped earlier so I would get it for an entire weekend of non-stop FFX-2 goodness.

So both dispatched the game on Wednesday. Nothing received on Thursday. On Friday, I checked the tracking and it said the EBgames one was in my post office box ready for pick up. Perfect! I got there after work, they left me a bloody pick up card and the post office don't open weekends, so I had to wait tip Monday morning. Obviously not impressed. Never would have ordered that second copy if I knew I wasn't going to get it before the weekend, I was taking a risk I know, but posting locally is usually pretty fast, except EBgames required signatures to confirm receivership. How inconvenient.

Anyway. On Saturday I decided I really want to play FFX-2 over the weekend so I ended up going into the EBgames store and picking up a regular edition of the game (along with Bravely Default. And traded in my faulty 3DS, where any moderate amount of impact, such as shutting the lid, would shut it off, so I was not out of pocket.) So there is my dilemma. What am I going to do with 3 copies of this game?

So I've been playing FFX-2 non stop. Brings back so many good memories. I don't remember a lot of the details of the game. I am trying to get through the first game quickly, doing only few side quests, to get a few accessories (Key to Success, Minerva Plate) that you can't get on a complete game, and side with New Yevon, not to mention maxing out Argent. Point being, I should be able to do a 100% completion for my second game. I've also been trying to keep my levels low and tried to get a few of the Creature Creator stories done easily. Probably not a great idea. Fights that I previously found trivial are very difficult. The Logos/Ormi/Leblanc fights in chapter 2 were taking upward of 30 minutes. The game is a lot harder than I remembered, but probably my fault for trying to half arse my setups and throwing some fiends in there trying to leech some EXP. Yeah... not a great idea. Although I have a new found appreciation for the special spheres, which I never saw the point of.

I am at the end of chapter 2, heading to Bevelle. Yeah. Not sure how this game is going to do lol.

Better late than never. Final Fantasy 4 PSP completed.

Well I was going to talk about how great it is being a RPGamer down under (yeah right!) but I am not sure if I can tell a decent story, so cop-out time! Luckily I beat FF4 so at least it gives me something to talk about.

I think Rosa secretly fancies Kain. She's always standing
up for him. Those kinda people don't exist in real life.

And it's about time too. I've finally beat the beast that is Final Fantasy 4. It has been a bit.. underwhelming. All these years I've been thinking the game was epic because it was so long and tough, with a great story. Yeah, exactly. Now for my rant, spoilers ahoy.

It certainly was a tough game. Good thing I had the foresight to solo grind to level 51 on Mount Ordeals, so most of my party would join at a high level. My party levels were in the mid to high 50s when I beat the game (Rydia hasn't learned Meteor yet), though Edge, whom did not join at a boosted level, was only level 46. He gets regularly 1-2 shotted in even random encounters. I would not know how I would have fared if I didn't power level and would have gotten very frustrated with the game and would have had to grind with much harder enemies as a team.

My game time was 19:30 when I beat the game. So yeah, the game is much much shorter than I had imaged. And that is with 5 hours of grinding, although if I didn't grind, I would have had to grind later on to survive some of the brutal dungeons, so I guess it was a case of picking your poison. If I was to play through this game again, I would have ground to 60.

I didn't do any of the "new" content, anything that involved the 5 other team members that weren't in the original game, and none of the post game content, so it was a very much "classic mode" game.

I was running away from all fights towards the end.

The last boss was fairly tough I guess, but I did beat him on the first go. I got lucky a few times where  
I've lost 2 party members and the others are in critical, waiting for Rydia/Rosa's turn to come up. I didn't do the "safe" thing of using Rosa to cast Curaja every turn. I tried to sneak in a Holy whenever I can as it did about 9000 damage, where as Rydia's Flare only did half as much, so I tried to get Rydia to be my main healer with Asura, but it wasn't so reliable. So yeah, took a few risks, I guess the fight might have been "easier" by being more conservative.

Let's talk about the villains. Golbez I sorta already know his story by playing Dissidia. The fact he was mind controlled, while mind controlling Kain, was a bit contrived, especially considering Kain switched sides no less than 5 times. Well I guess this was made in 1991, and I guess plot twists like this was gasp-worthy back in the day.

Zeromus looks fishy. Like Anima from FFX.

As for Zemus. Lame lame lame. He had no development. Why did he want to kill everything? He was a typical one dimensional 8-bit-or-less-era villain that's just evil for the sake of evil. I mean if you think about it, what does anyone get out of destroying everything? Imagine sitting on your throne after destroying the world, ready to rule it and realise that the only thing left to rule are the cockroaches? Imagine him saying "you two fetch me a drink, while the rest of you grovel at my feet". And when he dies, he's even worse. He mysteriously turns into Zeromus out of all the hatred in his heart. Hatred of what? How does anyone hate anything so much that when they die, their hatred takes on a life on its own. It makes less sense than Necron from FF9, even he was ridiculous.

Anyway. Glad that's over and done with. FF4 ranks towards the bottom of the FF games that I like. It's always been a chore to play. At least now I can say I've beaten that one. The only main FF games I have not beaten now are 2 and 3. As for the Interlude and the After Years, I will leave them for later, perhaps after years.

Looking forward to Final Fantasy X / X-2 HD Remaster getting released this week. Of course I am getting the Limited Edition, so hopefully my pre-orders (can you believe I've pre-ordered this from 2 places just in case?) gets to me. Unlike most people though, I am getting it mostly to play X-2, which is my favourite FF main series game. X I've replayed a couple of years ago and I'm not about to torture myself with the lame arse mini games anytime soon. So waiting with bated breath I am.

How not to build your team 2. Final Fantasy 4 invades Ivalice.

If you look very closely you can almost make
out Cecil's gang in the background somewhere.

While Cecil's gang's misadventures in Vana'diel could have gone better, how would they fare in Ivalice, during the time of Final Fantasy Tactics?

I've actually got an anecdote as the inspiration for this blog entry. Back in 1998, not long after Final Fantasy Tactics was released on PS1 in the US, I was living in New Zealand at the time and had learned about this game in US gaming magazines at the time. This was after FF7. Obviously no body in New Zealand had heard of this game at the time. I utilised the then cutting edge technology, the internet, to find out more about this game, and I was hooked. FF7 who? FFT is where it's at.

Of course, FFT never did receive a PAL release. Luckily for me, I decided to beg my mother to let me borrow her credit card and purchased an NTSC PS1 over the internet and started importing. Best choice of my life. I would have otherwise missed many many quality RPGs that never saw the light of day in PAL. (Just to name some, FFT, SaGa Frontier, Parasite Eve, Xenogears, Wild Arms 2, Chrono Cross, etc, oh the good old days, how I miss thee!)

Anyway, I had found several guides and FAQs on FFT. Back then Gamefaqs had a white background and red logo, updated twice a week and had no boards. I also found this. A small guide for FFT where the author recommended making a party of 5 based on FF4 and get rid of everyone else. Of course, the author took some liberties (eg, Samurai instead of Knight for Cecil) but it didn't seem like the best advice at the time as I thought his team was not very flexible. That got me thinking. How would the game play using the FF4 team, recreated faithfully in FFT? (With Ramza being Cecil).

Note, I may use some terms from the PS1 version of the game instead of the PSP, not that I believe the PS1 translation is more accurate, I don't, I am just more familiar with the PS1 names. I'll also give them appropriate reaction, support and move skills that's not too overpowered. If they all had Blade Grasp it would be no challenge. (WTF is Blade Grasp called in PSP version again? Sh-something?)

Cecil. Actually not that bad.

Cecil
While FFT doesn't have the Paladin job, Knight comes close, and adding White Magic to secondary re-creates it.

Battle Skills
White Magic
Speed Save
Defense Up
Move +3

Battle Skills aren't exactly that useful in a real fight, and their accuracy cannot be relied upon. Cecil's White Magic is really limited to some very light healing, just like FF4.

I gave him Speed Save because he is the only team member without some type of range attack, hence he'll need as many turns as he can get, and Move +3 also helps. As for Defense Up, there's no direct FFT skill for his ability to take a hit for a team member, so I'll just up his own defence instead.

The Knight's biggest advantage is his equipment selection, able to equip knight swords and good armour selection. I'll give him the Excalibur, as he canonically received it in FF4, so he'll have Haste, with Speed Save it'll help him move closer to the enemies. Don't forget Knights also have access to robes, which increase MP as well if you wish to use more magic.

Overall, Cecil needs to rely on his melee attack. He gets high HP, good evade due to shield and Defense Up, so he can take a beating. On the turns where he can't reach the enemy, he can heal himself mildly. He should gain more and more turns as he gets hit, and should be able to hold his own.

Rosa.... interesting.

Rosa
Rosa's canon job is White Mage, with Archer type skills. I will give 2 variations for Rosa.

White Magic
Charge
Regenerator
Equip Crossbow
Move +2

Charge
White Magic
Regenerator
Concentrate
Move +2

The first option is more magey, equipped with a crossbow so she can attack (somewhat) from a range. White Mages have good stats so the damage wouldn't be terrible. Regenerator as it seems healer-y, and Move +2 so she can get around doing the healing.

The second option lets us re-create her Aim skill from FF4. And she is able to use a real bow, which has better range, can take advantage of height better and bows tend to be stronger than crossbows. White Magic secondary gives her some healing skills. This set gives her better damage capabilities, also an option as 3 other members can heal, so healing may not be as important sometimes. 100% accuracy is also pretty cool, but the Charge skill set is marginally useful on either set.

Overall, the first set creates an ok healer with some attack abilities and is safer, however White Magic isn't really that useful in harder fights, as the stronger spells take a long time to charge. The second set lets you create a decent archer (though archer's usefulness is debatable in FFT) with some healing abilities, but may not be enough for some maps.

Kain. Strong.

Kain
Kain is a Dragoon. As he doesn't really have an obvious secondary skill set in FF4, I'll give him Item, which he is also able to use in FF4.

Jump
Item
Dragon Spirit
Attack Up
Ignore Height

The Jump set only does one thing, but man is it powerful.  Dragoons are pretty strong as is, spears have good power (especially Zodiac Spear), 2 space reach, amplified with Jump AND he gets Attack Up and to be able to attack from 8 spaces away with a height difference of 8 is insane. Dragon Spirit sets him up when he gets hit, and can then Phoenix Down any other dead allies. Ignore Height just because it's a very Dragoon-y skill. The Item skill set also makes him good support, but he should be very busy with attacking. He can restore MP for Rydia, cure status conditions, revive and Elixirs for those super emergencies.

This is actually a pretty strong set up without going into power gamer territory. The main thing is able to master the Jump timing, otherwise you're wasting the skill. You can get bad luck sometimes where you can't Jump anyone due to CT order, but usually you should be able to use it regularly. Can traverse terrible terrain due to Ignore Height, have insane horizontal and vertical reach and potentially immortal. The rest of your team just needs to stay alive for his timer to run out.

Rydia. Good.

Rydia
Rydia is a Summoner with the Black Magic skill set, just like FF4.

Summoning Magic
Black Magic
MP Restore
Short Charge/Half of MP
Move +2/Move MP-Up

The Summoning skill set is pretty good, apart from smart targeting, they tend to have large range and even some of the lower ones have decent power. They have 2 problems though, slow and use a lot of MP. You can remedy one or the other but not both. I would use Short Charge so you can get more spells off and able to hit more units before they move out of the way. MP Restore just in case you're under attack, have a good chance to fill up your MP. Can choose between Move +2 or Move MP-Up, since she is so MP dependent, however without Move +2 she may not be able to get many spells off anyway, and Move MP-Up gives you so little MP it might not be worth it anyway. Black Magic is a little redundant with Summoning, but it's another option, and Flare gives you a high damaging spell for bosses. She also gets 2 healing spells with Summoning, so could be useful in a pinch. Also Golem is a life saver.

Overally Rydia can be good in FFT, but very reliant on MP. Without it they she is dead weight. Just try to hit as many units with her spells before they can move out of the way, so there maybe few chances to use her more powerful spells. She is also very weak and are at risk of being one-shotted (those pesky Red Chocobos!) She can hit most elemental weaknesses for some good damage, can cast Frog if you wish to disable an enemy (good for stealing!) and has access to Lich if you need an alternate strategy for bosses.

Edge. Strong.

Edge
Edge is a Ninja, with the Steal set, just like FF4.

Throw
Steal
Sunken State
Concentrate
Move +3

Throw duplicates his ability in FF4 and is a good long range attack, and Move +3 serves to increase its range. Steal is a good combo with Ninja due to its high speed and you can use it to get some good equipment if you wish. Sunken State is mainly there for flavour, but make it so he can sneak up on unsuspecting enemies and deliver 2 strong hits. Concentrate makes his attacks unblockable, and increase his Steal rate.

Ninjas are very strong no matter how you look at it, having 2 weapons is a great advantage. He will also have good mobility, speed, accuracy and able to hit from up to 8 spaces away. Sunken State can be used to sneak up one some pesky units (eg, Mages) without them noticing you. Overall, another very solid character.

How they fare as a team
Actually, nowhere near as bad as the title to this post would have you think. Dragoons and Ninjas are naturally very strong units, and they have been set up decently too, so Kain and Edge would be your main attackers. Also both are able to attack from 8 spaces away, so they can wither the enemies down before they get to you.

Summoner can be strong, especially with Quick Charge, and some lucky positioning can catch multiple enemies in a summon and totally party friendly. Rydia can also heal in a pinch too. Need to ration her MP. Hopefully by the time it runs low you should have almost won the fight.

Gotta break his sword if Cecil is to stand a chance
against him! Hope you like reloading.

Cecil is built as a tank and very sturdy, but Knights don't have a very good skill set, have no range and his secondary White Magic is piss weak. However hopefully when he gets Excalibur he should be in a position to get more turns to reach the enemies, so he can keep up with your other 4 characters, as they all have range attacks.

Rosa is either going to be mediocre or surprisingly effective, as I don't think many people would have mixed White Mage with Archer before. Even as an Archer (option 2), I've found bow attack damage to be quite mild, so she would be more used to snipe enemies weakened by the others.

Despite 4 team members can heal, only Rydia is able to provide any reliable healing, especially to multiple targets. Items heal up to 150 with X-Potions (unless you want to dip into your Elixirs) and Cecil can only apply band-aids. Rosa, even as a White Mage, isn't a reliable healer due to the high charge time for Curaga and Curaja, and the lower tiers don't heal very much. This team is very much an offence team, with Cecil set up as the decoy to draw enemy fire. Edge and Kain are both very strong, mobile and able to hit from far away, expect them to get most of your kills. Rydia can be versatile, and Rosa mop up the few that survive. Actually this might be a pretty decent team.

Next up. It's hard being an RPG gamer in Australia. Stay tuned.

How not to build your team. Final Fantasy 4 invades Vana'diel.

How does Cecil's team fare? Find out!

I have heard people say the canon Final Fantasy 4 team (Cecil, Rosa, Kain, Rydia, Edge) make a balanced party. Well lets have a look at how they would fare in a FF with emphasis on team building, that one that has lasted the test of time, Final Fantasy XI.

Now I have been a FFXI player for about 4-5 years. While I'm not one of the old school players, during the days of hyper inflation and Scorpion Harness considered elite. I also stopped played about 2 year ago, before the release of Adoulin, so my facts aren't exactly 100% up to date either. But seeing as when the Abyssea expansions came out the game started becoming a free for all, and classic teams have more of less gone out the window, I'll base most of this blog entry on the classic style team gameplay. I'm talking' "Kazham @ 24" and "4k/hr" stuff.

This is written mostly for non FFXI players, so if you're a FFXI vet just go with the flow. It's just a candid tongue-in-cheek look at if Cecil's gang walked into FFXI how would hey survive.

Cecil. Pretty good.

Cecil
Cecil is a Paladin (PLD) obviously. As for his sub job, FF4 doesn't mix his job at all, so I'll just use discretion for this. While Dark Knight (DRK) as sub would be hilarious (and fits him in Dissidia), I would go with the vanilla Warrior (WAR).

PLD are traditionally tanks in FFXI. That is, they hold the hate from enemies, so they don't go killing the rest of your team. While their damage is ok, they usually specialise in defence and shield blocking, the idea is to minimise damage sustained. They also have some white magic, mostly to heal themselves. As healing magic generates a large amount of hate for the caster, it also helps them hold onto the hate easier. Their other abilities are there to mitigate damage.

With a WAR sub, the PLD has access to Provoke, a fundamental tool for tanks as it generates a large amount of hate every 30 seconds. Also have access to a still that ups defence at the expense of offence (and an ability that does the reverse, but PLD don't generally use that). Also gives a chance to attack twice which is always useful.

PLD are best with one handed sword and shield, which is also Cecil's set up. PLD/WAR is pretty much a staple in classic FFXI parties and useful in many situations. Probably the best team member.

Rosa. Meh.

Rosa
Rosa is a White Mage (WHM). And due to being able to use bows and have the Aim ability, this would translate over as the Ranger (RNG) job. Unfortunately for her, weapon selection in FFXI is limited to your main job only, so not only would Rosa not being able to equip bows (or other variations such as crossbows and guns), she is also not able to use most of RNG's skills.

WHMs are the "best" healers in FFXI. However Red Mages (RDM) are generally preferred in classic EXP parties (with 75 cap, with higher cap it's a whole different ball game) due to them having ways of recovering their MP. When played well RDMs never need to rest, WHMs on the other hand needs to rest, which increases your party's down time, which decreases your EXP/hour. So you can see why RDMs are preferred. Their main job is to keep the team healed while balancing the amount of hate her spells generate. Also have access to status curing spells, Bar spells (status and elemental resistance) and other support like Protect, Shell and Haste.

RNG adds no practical advantages to Rosa. She can Scavenge for some crafting materials every 5 minutes, scout the surrounding map and gets an accuracy bonus, not that she fights. Yeah, she's very sub optimal, yet you need her as she is the main healer. In classic FFXI 75 cap, WHM sub /SCH (Scholar) for better MP economy, the old school players sub /BLM, while /RDM and /SMN are ok choices. LV80+ though /RDM beats all hands down.

Kain. Serviceable.

Kain
Kain is a Dragoon (DRG). Like Cecil, FF4 kept his job pure so therefore I'll use discretion. While /SAM (Samurai) adds some cool stuff, I'm going with /WAR again, which DRGs in parties tend to do, and also Kain is able to equip 2 handed axes in FF4, which is a WAR specialty (Cecil too).

DRG have had, probably more than any other job, the most arduous journey since its introduction. It was the poor little step child that no one wanted for a long time, it was overshadowed by just about every melee job and for a long time it was next to impossible to get a party invite as a DRG. They have come a long way. They can summon a pet wyvern, whom will accompany your Weaponskill with a elemental breath (when DRG subs a melee job) or healing breath (when subbing a mage job). This makes them capable soloers to an extent too. They have several Jump skills, and is a blast to play, but still isn't considered one of the stronger jobs.

/WAR is a decent choice for parties, with chance of double attack and some skills that increase damage. Though towards the end of the partying days, /NIN was popular for most melee jobs. In this team Kain should be able to deal some respectable damage with staple DRG spear Weaponskill Penta Thrust and its Jump skills.

Rydia.
Dead weight.

Rydia
As Rydia's official job title in FF4 is Summoner (SMN), this will be her main job, and Black Mage (BLM) will be her sub. In the traditional sense, Black and Summoning Magic sorta do the same thing, and that is elemental and non elemental damage, so adding Black Magic to a Summoner doesn't add much to one's versatility, as without the Black Magic set, she is still able to nuke. There's a reason why later Summoners in the series are bundled with White Magic instead of Black. Yuna, Garnet and Eiko need to thank Rydia for doing the hard yard back then and finding out White Magic complements a Summoner much better.

Summons in FFXI (also called Avatars) act more like FFX or FFXII, where the Avatar acts as a pet and you have some control over its actions. It can attack enemies, and its skills are called Blood Rages (both offence and defensive varieties), where every 30 seconds you can command it to use a skill, for example Heavenly Strike for Shiva. While your Avatar is out, the Summoner has to pay a "perpetuation cost", which is a maintenance in MP required to have your Avatar out. When your MP reaches 0, the Avatar is unsummoned. Blood Rages also cost a large amount of your MP, so playing a Summoner you need to know when to let your summons stay and when to let them go.

Summoners struggled to fit in for a long time and usually, its spot is better used by another job. At higher levels with some good gear, they can be quite impressive and they've got a few cool unique things going for them, eg, using your Avatar to pull (the term used to aggro 1 enemy and bring them to the team) is very safe, and their Avatars detects when you draw aggro and automatically attack the enemy, leaving you to run for your life. It's hard to really say what SMN contributes to a fight, outside of very specific fights with specific strategies. They can do a little big of damage, but the 30 second timer on Blood Rage means few and far between. The Avatar's attacks so less damager-over-time than a proper damage dealer job, and their defensive Blood Rages can hardly be depended on, not to mention being hugely MP dependent, in a team without any reliable sources of Refresh (think Regen for MP instead of HP).

Does BLM contribute anything worthwhile? Nope. /BLM is one of the worst subs for SMN due to the way skill levels work in FFXI. Your sub job is half the level of your main job, and sub job skill levels are capped at that. Eg, SMN 70/BLM 35 will have Elemental Magic skills capped as a level 35 BLM, the skill is shared with your main job. As SMN and BLM share no skills, its Black Magic is piss arse weak. That means Rydia has to rely on its Avatar's undependable skills. In this team, she might as well pull as she's hardly got anything better to do.

Traditionally SMNs in FFXI sub /WHM and are invited to parties as a second rate healer, that is, when a team can't find a RDM or WHM. Its large MP pool does decently when using the WHM's healing spells. Although /SCH is a much better option, though some old schoolers won't hear of it, as the /SCH has some nifty tricks that buffs its skill levels, so the SMN can even crank out some semi-decent nukes if required. Post 80 content made the RDM also a popular choice.

Edge.
On the wrong team!

Edge
Edge is a Ninja (NIN) there's no doubt about it. And with the steal set, his sub job is Thief (THF). While it's not a terrible combination. /THF is more of a farming job, not really ideal when it comes to fighting anything worth fighting.  Though the worse problem is having both a PLD and a NIN on the same team.

Ninja in traditional FF series is a good damage dealer. In FFXI they are actually a tank. While the PLD tanks by damage mitigation, NIN is called a blink tank, whom mitigates damage by evasion and shadows. Similar to Edge in game, NIN gets access to Utsusemi, which is a Ninjutsu spell that generates several shadows, each capable of absorbing a hit before vanishing. Ninjutsu don't cost MP, but uses up a "tool" which you need to have in your inventory, and due to their popularity, can be quite expensive. While they do have elemental nuke Ninjutsu, they're generally worthless. They generally dual wield 1 handed katana, which is fast but pretty weak, and in a traditional party, NIN's damage output is quite mediocre. They are popular as a good NIN can tank anything, what they tend to have a problem with though, it being able to hold hate, due to them not having many hate generation skills (though it has improved recently) and low damage output. /WAR is pretty much mandatory for Provoke. A bad NIN is when they can't hold hate, and your healer keeps dying.

So /THF huh? THF is a popular sub job for farming, as they get Treasure Hunter skills which generally means loot is more likely to drop. THF also have some damage skills, namely Sneak Attack and Trick Attack (or SATA). The former guarantees a critical hit and the latter shifts the hate onto the party member you're standing behind, and they work with Weaponskills. This way Edge can do some semblance of damage. Edge would have benefitted much more had his jobs been reversed, THF/NIN gets stronger skills (SATA is more effective when your main job is THF), higher ranked Treasure Hunter, Triple Attack, etc, and still have access to shadows.

How they would play as a team
Obviously, as FFXI use party of 6 they are 1 member short, but lets leave that out for a second. How well would they fare compared to say a standard 5 EXP man party? Hmmmm...

-Cecil is the tank. A decent one, should be able to hold hate, but may run out of MP.
-Kain and Edge are DD (damage dealers), the former decent, the latter.. meh.
-Rydia pulls with Carbuncle, while contributes slightly to the damage, and resting intermittently while the party fights, to regain MP.
-Rosa as main healer. Due to lack of Refresh, will have to rest a lot. Due to this, it'll be far to get experience chain 4 or 5, or even 3.

Other content

Shiva. Less naked than usual.

Ok so far I've been going on about traditional EXP party stuff. What about the other content? Well. The "free for all" stuff like Campaign or Besieged are just that, so you can bring a LV1 if you wanted.  Most content that requires an 18-man alliance would just laugh at Cecil's team. Abyssea makes you so overpowered that Edge can pretty much solo everything, although there's enough variety in the team skills to most hit red, yellow and blue weaknesses (but usually the one you want if the one you don't have). Most of the other contents are doable at LV99 because they were designed for much lower level caps. So you can overpower most weak content, but the popular high level stuff will give you troubles.

Cool combos
Well, maybe not so much "cool", but here's a combo that might work.

-Rydia pull with Titan, use Rock Throw
-Edge use SATA, stand behind the enemy and behind Cecil, use Blade: Jin
-Skillchain: Detonation
-Kain use buffs (eg, Berserk) Penta Thrust
-Skillchain: Gravitation
-Rydia use Elemental Seal, cast most powerful earth spell, or Drain/Aspir for Magic Burst

The above gives you a LV1 skillchain with SATA with Blade: Jin and a LV2 skillchain with Penta Thrust, which should be quite damaging. Unfortunately, you can't really squeeze Cecil in there without giving up on either or both, and they are some of the highest damage potential skills. Cecil could just use Spirits Within and not disturb the chain.

You call him weak?

You can also do Cecil Vorpal Blade -> Edge Blade: Jin (Detonation) -> Edge Penta Thrust (Gravitation) -> Rydia/Titan Stone IV (Magic Burst). But this way Edge's TA does nothing.

The 6th member
So if we could add a 6th member, whom would add the most value to this party? Well, the FFXI answer is generally "when in doubt, add Bard". Bard (BRD) is a mostly support job that buffs your team members with songs and would be a great help. So I guess Edward it is then, hehe.

Edward would be able to give Rosa, Rydia (and Cecil if he desires) double Ballad for much needed Refresh. Minuet and/or Madrigal (attack and accuracy) for Edge and Kain wouldn't go unnoticed, and Cecil also have the option of double Minne for defence. On top of that, slow/debuff the enemies. He can sub NIN for shadows and pull as well. It's a hard life playing BRD. Don't you complain about Edward being weak again! This would make the party almost usable.

Up next. Cecil's team of upstarts invade Ivalice. Are they going to give Ramza a run for his money? Stay tuned.