Final Fantasy Explorers

[Rowan]

So I got this game the other day and I'm having a lot of fun with it. Its pretty much an easy version of monster hunter. So for those that love monster hunter but are frustrated by its combat and sometimes sharp difficulty spikes, you would enjoy FFE.

For those that havn't experienced monster hunter, here is a summary of what FFE is about

-Create your character
-Choose a job (a total of 21 jobs I believe, which are interchangable at any point in-game)
-Navigate your your town (item shop, workshop, quest counter, monster lab, fortune teller, various NPC)
-Do quests (quests are ranked in diffuctly from 1 star being easiest to 10 being most difficult, you will unlocked higher tiers as you progress)
-Quests involve collecting things or hunting monsters/eidolons.
-Embark to the world map to free roam or start a quest
-World map consists of various linked locations with monster and gathering spawns
-Monsters can drop specific materials/their souls
-Souls are collected and then recruited at the monster lab to join your party
-Materials are collected and used to forge new weapons/armour or simply to complete quests.
-Material drops are random and certain armors will require rare drops, wether they are from mini-bosses, bosses or just regular enemies.
-difficulty of enemies increases depending on what difficulty star rating of quest you choose to do (not sure about free roam)
-You gain EL points, similar to levelling up, except levelling up doesnt increase stats.
-To get the edge, you will need to forge new armor or upgrade your current armor with materials you find in the world (upgrading yields extreme bonus, but you will need to grind for it if you dont collect everytime you embark on a quest)


Now the real meat of the game is within its custom ability making system. With crystal surges (similar to mini-limit break) it allows you to give your character a boost in battle (from a random selection you that will be available to you) and once you choose a bonus, if you use and ability while that bonus is active, your ability/spell will mutate and that mutation will become available for purchase back at base. At base where the crystal is, you can not only learn these super mutated abilities to use normally in battle, but you will be able to upgrade them again, and again, an again, a total of 16 times. For example, I have a cure spell and when I activated the crystal surge (like a limit break, remember?) bonus, I used cure and it gained a mutations that it would also cast regen on myself. So after the surge ended, that bonus was gone, but the cure-regen spell was available for purcahse at base. I purchased it, equipped it to my character, then went out to battle and now I can use a cure-regen spell. Sounds pretty neat right? You can keep stacking abilities within spells, and increase the power of a single ability upto 8 times. You can also rename mutated abilities to whatever you like.

Its hard to explain this system in its entirety, but its makes for some incredibly deep customization.
Just a few other things to know;

-Most armor can be worn by any job (you wouldnt give a white mage strength bonus armor meant for a knight though, would ya?)
-Any job can use any spell, but not any ability
-Abilties are job specific
-There is class specific armor
-You can capture eidolens are equip them to use in battle in a 'trance mode' which is more like a limit break than crystal surge, which mutates abilities and gives you bonuses.
-You will only initially have access to 5 or so jobs, the rest you will have to unlock by other means
-the game can be played and completed solo, without the help of multiplayer.

Im very happy with it so far. If anyone else has started playing, let us know what you think and better yet, post your friend codes here so we can play together!

[Martial Master]

I just got here, to this forum, today, and wonder why there's no subcategory for FFEX yet. Game's almost a year old, and no forum place for it? It's worthy if you ask me.