This week most of my Final Fantasy playtime went to Final Fantasy XIV. I resubscribed, so I'm trying to get as much out of it as possible. That said, I did play a bit of one new entry in my quest, so that's nice. After FFXIV and FFV, I think I'm going to dive into one or both of the Final Fantasy Tactics Advance games. Those job systems are calling for me to get back to them.

In case you missed Episode 1, here a quick link back. Also, feel free to share your thoughts on the series and join in if you like on the boards.

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (PS4)

Like I said, I'm trying my best to get the most out of my subscription so I've been playing a lot of Final Fantasy XIV. There are roughly one hundred quests between the end of the main A Realm Reborn storyline and the start of the Heavensward content. When I restarted, I was on quest number nine from my time as a Warrior, but I wanted to get my Ninja job to fifty before I could get back to those. I finished the path to fifty and the lovely job quests that go along with leveling and started in. Since that time I've gotten nearly fifty quests done, so I'm over halfway there. I fear getting to Heavensward and wanting to start in on the Dark Knight job, but I need to focus and get through the story content.

That said, I'm loving Ninja, so I have no reason to leave it. My time as a tank (Warrior or Paladin) seems to be on hold for now, as the stress I found from it just wasn't worth it. I know things are likely better now, and I do miss tanking, but I still had stress over some bad fights against the hard mode of Ifrit back in the early days of A Realm Reborn. Thankfully, I now have many overleveled friends around to help me out, so over the past few days I not only got revenge on Ifrit, but have taken down Titan (HM), Garuda (HM), Good King Moggle Mog XIII, Leviathan, Ramuh, and even Odin without a single wipe. I've also been doing a few dungeons here and there with great success. I try to do a trial, a dungeon, and a single round of Palace of the Dead each day if possible. Since I don't want to waste too much time, I try to close each night with a Palace run using whatever lower level job I'd like to get Artifact Armor for. Right now that job is Dragoon. I'm only level sixteen there, so it will be a while, but I want that lovely Dragoon Myth armor. That's it for now, but expect more on this one soon.

Final Fantasy V Advance (GBA)

Thanks to FFXIV, I've also been on a big FF job system kick. I figured since FFIII wasn't sitting well with me, I might as well dive into the cult favorite of Final Fantasy V Advance. I grabbed my GBA SP and played for a little less than an hour before the "fully charged" battery died. Thankfully, it was easy to get a replacement, so that's fixed for now and I can keep going. I've always had a love-hate relationship with the mainline games with job systems. I feel like some classes are always better balanced than others, so I'm going to make an effort to try to make use of some of the lesser used jobs. That doesn't mean that I'm going to be using weird party combos, I'm just trying to get some mileage out of classes like Blue Mage that take a little more work to be functional. Right now Bartz is a Knight, Faris is a Blue Mage, Galuf is my White Mage, and Lenna is a Monk. A fairly typical setup, but using a Blue Mage is going to be a bit of a challenge for me. I always love this job, but usually get tired before it becomes worth using. Either way, this has inspired me to tackle Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and A2 again soon.

If you have any suggestions and comments, please feel free to share them with me via the boards, email, or on Twitter.