Observations After a Long Time Away
Posted on: September 28, 2013, at 11:55:52pm

I've been playing a little FFR the past few days after having been essentially gone for a few years, and noticed a few things about the game and my playing. While the game stuff probably isn't new, I haven't seen it before. So here are some remarks, in no particular order.

About the game: Difficulty levels are 1-99 now, which means I have to adjust from the old 1-12 scale. There are lots of news songs, as well as a bunch of new tokens, and both were to be expected. I see a few different game engines available now -- any particular pros/cons to each? I think the new menu music is an old change, because I kind of remember talk about it in the past. It was still a little odd not hearing what I was used to though. Purchasing songs doesn't seem to work. I tried getting the one 1-credit song I saw, just to see if I could buy songs, but it just seems to hang. Oh, I've run into a few triples already, which was a bit of a surprise. I don't think this is new, but it seems a little more common now.

About my playing: put simply, I'm worse now than before when I was regularly active, which isn't the least bit surprising. So far, I've been trying to improve my average rank by playing songs I haven't yet. Even an absolutely horrible score is better than none, and it will at least take me out of dead last, which boosts my average rank a bit. I've been sticking to easier songs first, of course, and having some trouble even with them. I'm generally passing them and getting to the end, but sometimes I'm not getting FCs where I think I should have (or maybe would have in the past), making my AAA chances almost nothing. So my skill's dropped. My stamina has dropped, too. After playing a handful of songs around the 15-20 difficulty area, I was getting tired. I'm pretty sure I used to be able to go for longer than that before it bothered me. I'm not sure how my arrow-reading skills have fared, but I suspect it's similar to before. If they're spread out enough for me to tell them apart in the stream, the real issue is making my fingers react to what my eyes see. It always has been, actually, but some songs are easier to read than others. If I have the time and desire to play enough, I can probably get back at least some of the skill that has been lost with inactivity. I'm not sure I will, but it's at least nice to know my skill's not all gone, and I can at least sort of keep up with the easier songs even after being away so long.

Thoughts?