Final Fantasy X - The Intermission

 

It's unusual for me to post about a game that I didn't finish. With my Playstation Plus subscription, I get access to all kinds of games that I tryout and otherwise would never have the opportunity to play. Subsequently, it is rather common for me to start a game to see if I like it, only to quit after an hour or so. Typically, if I try a game and I like the game, I'll make a point to play it till the end. At that point, I will typically write a post about the game. Currently, I'm a little over 30 hours into Final Fantasy X. I've definitely done more than a trial of this game. The problem is that I am stuck on a boss fight that I haven't been able to get past. In my defense, I am new to the Final Fantasy (FF) series and turn-based gameplay in general. My first Final Fantasy game was Remake in 2024, which wasn't a classic FF game in the sense that its gameplay wasn't turn based. I really enjoyed Remake, as well as Rebirth. This got me interested in playing other FF games, and X was highly recommended. Thus far I've enjoyed most aspects of X. I hope to finish the game one day, and have a follow-up post where I talk about the positives. In this post I am going to do a little bit of complaining about the game, however.

I think most of my issue with this game has more to do with early 2000s game design than the specific game itself. In the era of the autosave, you get so used to a game autosaving that you completely take the feature for granted. This game does not have an autosave feature, and more specifically for this game, the manual save points can be quite spread apart. Some of the boss battles can be quite lengthy, like 30+ minutes, and on a handful of occasions I found myself in a boss battle where I was defeated, and had to start over after battling the boss for 30+ minutes. And forget about starting over at a certain phase of the boss battle, or even at the beginning of the boss battle. Sometimes the save sphere was 30+ minutes of gameplay prior to the boss battle. I've had entire evenings of gaming progress wiped out because of this game design, and you can imagine how frustrating this scenario becomes. I don't know if any games were using autosave in the early 2000s, but if nothing else a save sphere could be placed closer to a battle where the likelihood of dying was high.

The other frustration that I have with this game is the situation that I'm stuck in now where I cannot advance past the enemy. Being stuck on a boss battle simply because the boss is difficult is one thing, but I can't get past the boss that I'm on currently because of lack of acquired skills for my characters. I fully accept that I'm a novice when it comes to turn-based RPGs which could contribute to the predicament that I'm currently in. However, this game is fairly linear. There doesn't appear to be a lot of areas to roam around to get extra skills for your characters. Apparently "grinding" in this game doesn't involve side quests as much as it involves doing battles over and over again. This is fine, I suppose, if you knew it was necessary. The problem is, I wasn't aware that I was going to need certain skills moving forward, and thus didn't just randomly do the same battles over and over again to get more skills. Now I'm stuck on a plane for this boss battle, with little options in terms of advancing my skillset by grinding out battles. And don't get me started on what a convoluted mess the skill tree is in this game. But hey, at least there's a save sphere right before the boss battle.

As it stands now, I can get through about 75% of the boss battle that I'm stuck on. At that point in the fight, he unleashes a move that I cannot survive. There are a couple of skills that I've read about online that can help with this fatal move, but I have no way to acquire the skills since I'm stuck on this plane. My only hope at this point is to hang my head and ask my brother-in-law to help me. He has significantly more experience with this game than I do. I'm concerned that he won't be able to help me advance based on the situation that I am in, but I don't think there is much else I can do. If we're able to advance and finish the game, there will be a second part of this post released in the future. If you never hear about this game again, assume I was never able to advance. It really is a shame, because I think the story and characters are really intriguing, with a quirkiness similar to FF VII. 

The Paper (Season 1)

 

I was always a fan of the show The Office, so of course I was interested in The Paper spinoff show. The Michael Scott era of The Office was fantastic, and continues to give through its internet memes. The Paper is a similar show in that it is about the office dynamics of some odd individuals. This time the office is for a newspaper instead of a paper distribution company. They did a good job of not trying to match the characters 1:1 with the characters on The Office. From ChatGTP:

The Paper follows the struggling Toledo Truth-Teller, a once-proud local Midwestern newspaper now reduced to clickbait, wire copy, and near-irrelevance. A documentary crew — the same one that filmed The Office’s Dunder Mifflin — shifts focus to this beleaguered newsroom as it tries to reinvent itself in the digital age.

Overall I thought the first season was good, and has promise to be great. It was humorous at times, but never really laugh out loud funny. It had Office vibes without trying to hard to be just like the Office, which I appreciated. I'll likely watch season 2. I'd give it a soft recommendation for someone who enjoyed The Office.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Books)

 

For a gaming series that spans such a wide timeline, and features some of the best games ever made, it is very difficult to point to a single game in the series as being my favorite. And yet, I continue to come back to Twilight Princess (TP). It initially came out on the GameCube, a system that I never owned. It subsequently came out on the Wii, which is the system I played the game on, with its weird motion controls. Not having the GameCube is important in this story because it means I never played Wind Waker (until now, that is). This means that the Zelda game that I played prior to TP on the Wii was 1998's Ocarina of Time (OoT), nearly a full decade prior to TP's release. Ocarina of Time is a great game, and is rightfully praised by almost everybody. TP blew my mind when I played, because it was set in a similar-appearing version of Hyrule as OoT, but everything about it was bigger and better. The story was also much darker and complex, and I found that to be appealing as well. It has the best plot of any game in the series, in my opinion. 

I mention this background for two reasons. One is to explain how much I like the game and why I like it. The second is to point out that the game isn't exactly easy to play these days. While I still have a Wii, using the motion controls is cumbersome and the game doesn't exactly translate great to modern TVs with the Wii's outdated connections. An HD version of TP came out on the Wii U, and when I bought the Switch I thought about buying a Wii U instead so that I could play BOTW and TP HD, but decided against it because the Wii U was going for $350+ at the time. Probably made the right decision going with the Switch. Doing a quick Ebay search shows that the Wii U is currently selling between $50-$250. This is where the Twilight Princess book series comes into the conversation, because it was a great way to relive the game without being able to easily play it.

The Twilight Princess is a series of 11 books, written in Japanese Manga style. I never read comics as a kid, let alone manga. For the uninitiated, manga is written right-to-left, and you start at what would be the back of the book and progress to the beginning. It took a bit to get used to, but after a while it became easy enough to read. The animation is spectacular and really brought the TP version of Hyrule to life. My only small criticism is that some of the scenes were a bit dark and/or small and difficult to see. Overall, though, the visuals were great and really brought the game and story to life. The books mostly follow the events of the game, with small variations. Link is famously mute, and puzzle solving in temples is a major part of any Zelda game. Neither of these features of the game necessarily translate well to a book, so some improvising had to occur. For the most part, I think the author(s) did a good job with this. There were a couple of parts of the story where it strayed far enough off the main plot that I found it annoying, but this was infrequent. 

Overall, the books did a great job of retelling the story of one of my all time favorite games. The animation was great, and really made me feel like I was back in Hyrule at the time of the events of Twilight Princess. There are several other books by the same authors for other games in the Legend of Zelda series which I plan to read in the future.

Andor (Season 2)

 

One of the challenges of watching TV in the streaming era is that the seasons are short and oftentimes separated by a large quantity of time, typically a few years. This makes it difficult to not only remember what happened in the previous season, it's also hard to maintain a sense of caring about the show. I remember Andor season 1 being very good, and thus was interested in season 2. Once the reviews came out, I knew for sure I wanted to watch it and it did not disappoint. Andor season 2 is probably the best season of a Star Wars show ever made. The Empire has a heavy presence in season 2, but there are no Jedi, no lightsabers, no Force. Just really good writing, acting, and dramatic plot set in a galaxy far, far away. Even thinking about the season as I write this post is giving me goose bumps.

Season 2 takes place in 3 episode blocks, with one year passing after each block. Starting in the year BBY 5 and ending right before the events of the movie Rogue One in BBY 1. By the time of the events of A New Hope, the rebellion was well established and clearly able to take on the mighty Empire, blowing up the Death Star at the end of the movie. In the year BBY 5, however, the rebellion is just forming, and they are a complete mess. They're unorganized and lacking leadership and power. The Jedi are long gone, in hiding from Order 66, and the Empire is an already established power house in the galaxy. The rebellion's lack of leadership is displayed in the first 3 episodes, when Andor is captured by a group of rebels who proceed to fight over what to do next. He's on their side! People know that change is needed, and that the Empire is evil, but they do not know the best way to proceed. 

I thought the first 3 episode block was just OK, but what happens starting in the second block of episodes (episode 4) until the end of the second season is fantastic. Orson Krennic is the director of an Imperial "power program" that is a cover for the materials needed to build the Death Star. From ChatGTP:

Andor Season 2 continues Cassian Andor’s transformation from reluctant rebel into a committed revolutionary, directly bridging the story to Rogue One. The season is structured around time jumps that show how the Rebel Alliance rapidly evolves as the Empire tightens its grip on the galaxy.

Cassian becomes deeply embedded in organized rebellion, carrying out increasingly dangerous missions for Luthen Rael and other rebel leaders. He struggles with the moral cost of resistance—assassinations, sacrifices, and civilian casualties—while learning that victory against the Empire requires compromise and secrecy. Cassian’s identity as a symbol is deliberately erased so the rebellion itself can survive.

Meanwhile, Mon Mothma takes major steps toward open rebellion. Her financial manipulations and political maneuvering finally collapse her cover, forcing her to flee Coruscant and fully commit to leading the Rebel Alliance. Her storyline shows how rebellion isn’t just fought with weapons, but with reputation, family, and personal ruin.

The season also shows the birth of unified rebellion: scattered cells begin coordinating, sharing intelligence, and accepting that martyrdom may be necessary. Several supporting characters pay the ultimate price, reinforcing the show’s central theme that rebellion is built on sacrifice, not glory.

By the finale, Cassian is fully committed, emotionally hardened, and strategically vital—but still largely unknown. The season ends immediately before the events of Rogue One, positioning Cassian as a key operative ready to accept a mission he knows he may not survive.

Andor mostly takes missions from Luthen Rael, a guy pulling the strings behind several undercover missions for the rebellion and is using his antiques store as a front. His missions rely on intelligence and espionage, and feel like a cold-war era spy story, a la James Bond. As the rebellion grows, Mon Mothma had been pulling strings with her power in the senate, but eventually loses her cover and flees to the main rebel base in Yavin. Luthen ends up dying - his cover is blown and he kills himself to avoid Imperial torture and giving away the rebels secrets. He is a mostly unsung hero of the rebellion, as the shift in focus goes to Yavin and the soon to happen battle of Yavin where the Death Star is exploded in A New Hope. The spying, espionage, sacrifice, everything that was required to get the rebellion up and running to be successful provided fantastic drama. Andor seasons 1 & 2 will be remembered as some of the best Star Wars television ever made.

F1: The Movie

 

Initially, I was on the fence about watching this movie. It got great reviews, however, so when it was released on Apple TV I decided to give it a watch. Overall I thought it was really good, with only some minor plot points that held it back. From Chat GTP:

The film follows Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt), a former Formula One driver whose promising career ended decades earlier after a devastating crash. Now a veteran racer competing in other motorsport series, Sonny is unexpectedly recruited by his old friend Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), the owner of a struggling F1 team on the brink of collapse.

Sonny returns to Formula One not as a championship favorite, but as a last-chance gamble to help save the team. He’s paired with Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), a young, highly talented rookie whose raw speed is matched by inexperience and ego. Much of the film centers on the tense mentor-student dynamic between Sonny and Joshua, as they clash over racing philosophy, pressure, and what it takes to survive at the highest level of the sport.

My biggest takeaway from the movie is that the on-screen racing action is fantastic. The racing scenes were filmed during actual F1 race weekends, and the way the action is portrayed feels very realistic. It has the best racing scenes and action that I've ever seen in a racing movie. It feels very authentic.

The plot is good enough. It's a bit of a stretch to think that an older, retired F1 driver can return to a struggling team to save the season by winning a race, but it provides for an interesting story. It reminds me a bit of Philip Rivers returning to the Colts this season. Too bad it didn't work out as well for them. The biggest thing that I didn't like was the one night stand that Brad Pitt's character had with the race engineer. It felt a bit forced and unnecessary, honestly. Additionally, the crashes were over the top, especially Pearce's crash at Monza. I also didn't like how everyone turned on Sonny after Pearce's crash at Monza. Pearce did the opposite of what Sonny recommended, crashed, and everyone blamed Sonny. Seems incorrect.

Criticisms aside, overall the movie was really well done. It has the best, most realistic racing action I've ever seen in a movie. The plot is intriguing enough, and I really like how they didn't dumb down the racing dialog. It's probably the best racing movie ever made, or at least the best one made in my lifetime. I'd definitely recommend it, especially if you're a racing fan.