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Chocobo GP (Greedy, Predatory)

Vaeran

Vaeran

(GRUNTING)
(he/him)
Good news, everyone! Square-Enix's cute and nostalgic Mario Kart-alike is finally here!

Bad news: Pretty much everything else about it!

One hardly knows where to begin. You start by selecting one of your favorite classic Final Fantasy characters (like Shirma, Irma, Camilla, and Camilla's Pa) and race around one of eight tracks. In the first cup? Sorry, no, eight total in the base game.

"...Did you just say 'base game'?" SURE DID

The game itself will set you back fifty bucks, but don't put your wallet away yet. If you want to play as Final Fantasy characters you've actually heard of, like Cloud and Squall, you're going to want to get one of the Prize Passes, and for that you'll need Mythril. Lots and lots of Mythril. These Prize Passes reset with every season (the first season ends in mid-May), and enable you to unlock the featured characters for that season. Sort of. The basic Prize Pass costs 800 Mythril ($8) and enables you to begin the long, long, long grind towards unlocking Cloud at "level 60." From what people are saying, completing a GP (i.e. a Mario Kart cup) gives you enough experience to get you about a quarter of the way to the next early level, with the gaps between levels getting wider as you go. Better hope you love those eight tracks, because you're going to be seeing a lot of them.

Don't have a hundred hours to sink into the game this season? No worries, Squeenix has you covered! What you want is the Premium Prize Pass, which boosts you right up to level 60 instantly and unlocks Cloud for you... So you can get a head start on more grinding to unlock the various vehicles and customization options available up to prize level 200. Yours for just 2400 Mythril. S-E has some ambitious ideas about how much Mythril you're going to want at once; their best value (!) is 11,400 Mythril for the low low price of $81.99.

It's like a gacha game, but without the gacha. It's a gotcha game! Oh, and Mythril expires after five months.

EWz44XOXsAM3Jhp
 
Vaeran

Vaeran

(GRUNTING)
(he/him)
To lift the mood a bit, maybe we can brainstorm some ideas for racers to be included in future seasons. I'll just post mine from the Discord earlier today because I'm laaaaaaaaaaaaaaazy

Vaeran 3 Confirmed — Today at 1:40 PM
Also they have Squall driving a random car instead of like, a go-kart modeled after the Ragnarok
Or riding a giant icicle
Car with a giant gun handle and trigger sticking out of the back
This is just off the top of my head
Hire me, Square-Enix
Click to expand...

Vaeran 3 Confirmed — Today at 1:43 PM
Thinking about other racers they could have included but for lack of imagination
All four Warriors of Light crammed uncomfortably into a teeny airship
Banon driving a wooden raft on wheels
Click to expand...

Vaeran 3 Confirmed — Today at 1:45 PM
Basch hoofing it while reluctantly giving Vaan a piggy-back ride, the latter of which shouts I'M CAPTAIN BASCH FON RONSENBERG every time you pass someone
Click to expand...

Vaeran 3 Confirmed — Today at 1:51 PM
Didn't Sephiroth say in Advent Children that he wanted to sail the darkness of the cosmos with the planet as his vessel
There's a racer right there
Canon
Click to expand...

Vaeran 3 Confirmed — Today at 1:55 PM
Vincent Valentine riding an internet cafe desk on wheels, tears streaming down his face as he updates his deadjournal
Click to expand...
 
Torzelbaum

Torzelbaum

????? LV 13 HP 292/ 292
(he, him, his)
You could have a Cecil that changes vehicles every lap. Also the previous vehicle sacrifices itself (or does it?).
 
MetManMas

MetManMas

Me and My Bestie
(He, him)
I was so disappointed when I saw just how deep this predatory well went upon booting up the Lite version and all the more disappointed when I learned that the base game that this GAS service stuff is attached to is so light on content for $50. It's like Square Enix took one look at the very troubled and messy first few years of Street Fighter V and said "I want me some of that!"

Way to completely kill my enthusiasm for a cute Mario Kart-like that should've been a home run, SE.
 
Kirin

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
Wow. Just wow.

Like, you can have a mode where you get nickeled and dimed for every bit of content you want to speed up the grind of unlocking, sure, or you can have a pass that costs most of the price of a whole retail game to unlock a bunch of content quickly with more grind still available, sure. I’m not a huge fan of either but they’re valid. But to think you can charge both those ways at once to the same player of the same game is just sheer insanity.
 
LBD_Nytetrayn

LBD_Nytetrayn

..and his little cat, too
(He/him)
Hey, maybe they'll tweak it a bit and add it to Game Pass, so that would be like a $50 discount right th-- oh, it's only for Switch.

Man, now that feels weird.
 
SpoonyBard

SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
Yeah I tried the Lite version last night and woof, never has my interest in a game plummeted so fast after trying it for reasons not related to the actual gameplay.

I'll give it a second look someday if Square comes to their senses and pulls all that gatcha crap out, or just offers the base game for free. Because seriously, the base game should be the Lite version and the one you pay money for should have all the stupid gatcha unlocks included.
 
MetManMas

MetManMas

Me and My Bestie
(He, him)
The $50 version basically gets you more characters (not everybody is gacha fodder), stuff like the time trials and the rest of story mode, the full local and online multiplayer suite of options, and the privileges of being able to spend money on Mythril and buy otherwise unbuyable stuff like alternate skins, FOMO characters, karts, and season passes.
 
Vaeran

Vaeran

(GRUNTING)
(he/him)
The game does give out some amount of free Mythril (50 as a weekly login bonus, for example) but apparently there is no way to spend it in the Lite version. You can let it accumulate, you can look at it as much as you like, but it's useless to you unless you upgrade.
 
MetManMas

MetManMas

Me and My Bestie
(He, him)
Vaeran said:
The game does give out some amount of free Mythril (50 as a weekly login bonus, for example) but apparently there is no way to spend it in the Lite version. You can let it accumulate, you can look at it as much as you like, but it's useless to you unless you upgrade.
Click to expand...
You can buy some music and stickers for playing the Grand Prix mode.

But yeah, they won't let you buy any of the fun stuff like skins or karts or color palettes.
 
Kirin

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
So I looked at this a little more and... man, they coulda saved themselves a lot of grief by just calling the "Lite" version a "Free Demo" instead. As a demo, it's fairly expansive; positioned as what looks like a FTP variant of the game, it's justifiably ridiculed as something asking you to pay to be able to pay more.

Granted, the full version would still be an almost-full-price game stuffed with awful mobile-style microtransactions and that still sucks, but it's far from the only game guilty of doing that these days.

Honestly if I were releasing this game and ongoing micro-transactions were mandated from on high, what I'd do is actually scale the free version back a bit and label it as a demo, cut the main game starting price by like half, and work on balancing the ongoing pass sales so at least people feel like they're getting decent new content from them. Of course I'd personally still rather just have a non-microtransaction game, or maybe at most occasional update packs for nominal fees, but doing things the above way might at least placate management without releasing something that's just gonna generate widespread derision.
 
MetManMas

MetManMas

Me and My Bestie
(He, him)
If nothing else Square Enix has listened to complaints and is looking into making the microtransactions a little less stingy.
 
Torzelbaum

Torzelbaum

????? LV 13 HP 292/ 292
(he, him, his)
But what if the Giant Moogle was riding on a Shopuff?

...

Wait... Isn't that just World of Final Fantasy?
 
MetManMas

MetManMas

Me and My Bestie
(He, him)
Haven't played any more GP Lite but I did boot up the ol' PS4 to get back into Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon: Every Buddy! again. It's no Shiren but hey, it's fun to play around with the jobs and the side dungeons do some cool stuff.

Also the DLC can be safely ignored 'cuz it's all just one-note Buddy versions of Chocobo's jobs. You get lots of options for monsters and a good number of NPCs you can use as buddies just by playing the game.
 
Vaeran

Vaeran

(GRUNTING)
(he/him)
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a Chocobo foot stamping on a human face -- forever.
 
Mogri

Mogri

Round and round I go
(he)
Staff member
Moderator
It still sounds super grindy. That's not the experience anyone wants out of a cute mascot racer, as far as I know.
 
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