Mar 2018: Chocobo Forest

Area of the Month for March 2018 is Chocobo Forest!

A template format for your review is below; click 'edit' at the top of the page, copy-pasta from the ---- to the next ----, and fill in the gaps!

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Player: You!(Class/Level)

Review Date(s):

Descriptions: X/10

How does the area's room descriptions(descs) work for you? Do they give you a good idea of the area? Do things that stand out in the desc and NEED explanation GET that, either from flavor text(extra-descs) or NPCs in the room or anything?

What about mobiles(mobs) and their descriptions? Can you get a decent mental image of who or what this NPC/monster is? Do they respond when you talk or interact with them?

Some areas have interact-able objects like fountains. Do they stack up well also?

Balance: X/10 (OR N/A)

(NOTE: combat will be most accurately gauged when your character is in the area's suggested level range.)

If this area has combat, how does it feel? Does anything jump as horribly overpowered and impossible to deal with? What about the flipside, anything far too easy to beat?

Are purchased or rewarded items at the appropriate strength levels? Is the effort required to obtain rewarded items reflected in their usefulness (or uniqueness and fancifulness)

Attractions: X/10

Why would you suggest someone come to this area? Is it just a good place to grind experience(lots of mobs)? Does the area provide a chunk of good gold and loot?

What about the quests? Does this area's quests feel properly done, or is there some part of it that you feel needs work?

For towns, are the shops good? Any other non-combative attraction for the area?

Connections: X/10

How easily and well does this area connect to its nearby areas? Does it make sense thematically to be connected to the areas it is?

Personal

Any comments you'd like to make that you don't feel apply to the other sections can go here!

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Player: Kaze (Ninja L50)

Review Date(s): 3/2/2018

Descriptions: 7/10

The general navigation worked to a point. The descriptions were were generally serviceable. The description when you pop the box is one of the better ones, but I don't like that it's a weird special room that teleports you around. (More on that later)

One thing that isn't clear from the descriptions is any sort of progression from place to place. Forest becomes rocky. Go up and you're on a hill or in the sky. It's rather abrupt, really. The layout is probably part of that issue.

The descriptions of the chocobo are pretty good. I can tell which each is, readily. I'm not convinced someone who hadn't played as much FF as I would, but such tend not to stick around that long, so... eh?

Chocobo should either spook and run/fight or react with curiosity when you talk to them. They tend to be portrayed as quite friendly, which doesn't come through. Maybe that's intentional. Dunno.

The nooks are suggested in the descriptions, so that seems fair. The cave is rather vague.

The biggest thing that seemed off, though was the inability to ride Boco or one of the others. What a gyp!

Balance: 7/10 (OR N/A)

The chocobo are pretty straightforward foes. (Some teamwork would ramp up the difficulty tremendously, as would inserting a white one should you do so.)

Attractions: 4/10

Honestly, mostly this zone is accessible exp. While they are giving good experience and you can drop them, the zone is a goldmine. Otherwise, it's not all that great. The gold chocobo feather was less than exciting. Note that part of that is the difficulty in obtaining Float status. If you could snag such things while there was exp to be had, it wouldn't seem so lackluster but you'd have less reason to return. The Sky Armor pet I now have is... interesting, but not very useful.

Now, I say all this knowing that I haven't gotten into the cave, yet. (I was going to experiment with trying to get the red chocobo to cast comet on the boulder, but I haven't come up with a good way to do so.)

Okay: The fact that completing a leg of the quest leads to a special smoky room and then forces you to exit back to the clearing is irritating because that sleep thing. When you wake you can easily abandon a vehicle in the void. It's not too hard to avoid, if you're thinking about it, but I don't like it.

I'd like there to be more quests, honestly. A quest to set up safer spots for nesting might be interesting. If there's going to be a free pet available, why not a chocobo buddy that's one of those fancy ones that levels and, thus, scales? Apparently, there is code in place to do that, so even if not a mount, (which, obviously, would be cool) at least a battle buddy could be a nice touch. A quest one-shot flag would make this something to be very careful of. (opening up the possibility of one or more resurrection quests) I'm seeing this as a difficult quest, though possibly more on the mind than the body. Don't know; kinda spit-balling. Some spirit of the forest could need something done to fix stuff for Big Bird's cousins.

Connections: 4/10

It's not hard to find but it's certainly out of the way. I have no idea what the thematic reason for its placement was. It actually seems like something that might fit better between Viorar and Truce, whether north of the Veldt or more southerly.