Opening this thread up because I don't want people to have to bow out of the other Final Fantasy thread to avoid spoilers.
I didn't think things were getting spoilery since most things in there were either side quest related or at least not major plot lines. But still, it's a bit of a line to walk I suppose.
I would still ask anything that is definitely spoiler territory to still use tags.
Yeah, I hate tower defense. I tried it once and just decided to heck with it. The original FF VII wasn't too bad because you could just bring an over leveled team in and wipe the floor with whatever made it past the defenses. Here not so much. So I just decided hug it!
I got past the first two missions for Fort Condor, not too bad so far. I haven't been using any real strategy, just winging it.
I've been using a balanced team with Barrett and Tifa as the leaders.
Move the cursor as far up the map as possible, deploy a sword guy or two. Set a shield guy, healer, and ranger further back next. Try to have at least one of each unit on the left and right. Same thing if the enemy breaches your lines and starts attacking the tower. Deploy a hero when you get close to the boss. I haven't paid any attention to strengths/weaknesses at all.
We'll see if this holds up further on, I'll let you know.
Edit: I'm also playing on Easy mode, I don't know if this affects the Fort Condor portion.
I was on Normal mode until I tried fighting Dyne last night. After a few tries I decided to swallow the pride and lower the difficulty. When I saw just how far I was from ever finishing the fight, I decided to keep it on the lower difficulty.
I'm fully exploring each areas before I move on, including the combat simulator. I'm currently working on Junon, I'll check my timestamp later.
Pls remember to use spoilers. While these aren't major plot points, I still would rather be surprised.
Ok, general info on Fort Condor:
There are 4 battles total. The 3rd one, I paid more attention to type weaknesses and won on my first try. Pressing the X button slows down time so I could refer to the chart on the upper right.
The 4th battle I ran out of time. Changed my team to Offensive, and set the heroes to Cloud and Barrett. Paid attention to the deployment timer on the right for the first time, and set units strong against the enemies. One cleric on each side, a trebuchet in the midway gaps, and set the heroes out amongst a large group of allies/enemies. Wasn't confident in my approach and panicked a bit, but won on my 2nd attempt with 3 seconds to spare.
General info on what happens after you win:
Captain/Gilgamesh leaves the game, and you get another cutscene with Gilgamesh. His personality seems similar to the version in FFXIV. Chadley unlocks a Hard mode for the battles. I tried the last battle, and yeah, probably won't bother with it much.
A minor side note on the Leapfrog minigame:
The song that plays during the game says "kero" a lot, which is the Japanese word for "ribbit".
The piano minigame was cool, can't wait to get more sheet music.
Buy video games and merchandise online at the Official Square Enix store. Shop our top franchises, including Final Fantasy, NieR, Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest & more.
na.store.square-enix-games.com
Soundtrack is up for preorder.
Also
When you get to Cosmo Canyon and start riding the blue chocobo, do yourself a favor. Switch off motion controls during flight.
I left lower Junon at the 26hr-ish mark. Completed all the region interest stuff, sidequests, and combat simulator missions. Even got all the chocobo stops. I didn't bother getting full marks for the fiend challenges. I beat the lowest level of Fort Condor on Hard mode, that wasn't too bad. I also beat all the Queen's Blood players in both regions. Though I will note that my timestamp includes stepping away or getting distracted by other stuff and leaving the game on.
The sidequest with Salmon:
Barret getting emotional over Marlene was so darn cute!
If anyone else beat all the QB players in the first 2 regions:
....of course it can't just be a silly cardgame sidequest, now there's lore and I need to see what the story is. I'm not so great at this game, hopefully I can make it.
Most of the sidequests I do are just to improve my relationship with Tifa, maybe a few others here and there for EXP. But mostly I try to just bullhead my way through the story.
Just got to Costa del Sol. Keeping up with Queen's Blood was SO worth it.
I don't know how much of this happens if you don't win the tourney, but suffice to say there's an opponent whose intro scene is just THE BEST. Video below, just in case.
I was laughing SO hard at this, and love that he gets to play. He's really tough, had to look up a better deck/strategy to win. This scene alone is worth bothering w/ QB.
I absolutely loved that bit too. Red was one of those characters I kinda liked in the original but absolutely love in Rebirth. They really did a good job with him. Just wait till you get to Cosmo Canyon!
.
