I love the new event!

[SigmaOZ]

I think the maze instance could have used more fluff on the visual side!...

As for gameplay ... welll ... it is rather annoying for me, it's too long and the chances of failing are pretty solid when the partner fails to understand what they're doing in there, some of them simply run as fast as possible depleting the compatibility bar until the game ends and others fail in the card part!...

Explaining others what to do is not fun and it takes too long to get a decent amount of chocolate!... -_-

[Sakuraluna]

It was fun! Easy to catch on to, and adorable. I really enjoyed the instance.

[Anarnee]

When I go in, I have a bit of a routine.

"Hello, happy Valentione's day! Let's do our best!"

Then I ask, "Is this your first time?"

If no, we do it. If yes, I say "We have to watch each others backs, stay close and get each others gates." So I can't imagine it's that much trouble to explain to someone. Just takes communication.

It's all done and said before the gates open and we're off. I've literally not gotten under 75% with randoms. The lowest I've had was 7% with a good friend of mine the first time we ran it. lol

I've never seen anyone fail the cards. Is that really possible?

[duvvvv]

loved it. I didn't get to party with a friend, and my first try was a bust, my party didn't even say hello . 2nd try was fun even if we were "not a match" at the end, because there was communication, and we worked together.
like when I used the sign marks for the last part, that was cool.

[Ilenya]

... and others fail in the card part!...

You can fail the card part?

[Canopia]

You can fail the card part?

sure... if you dont communicate and just randomly select cards and are unlucky with matches. though if the two talk and watch each other, Ive gotten the soulmates connection with 3 chocolates twice in a row. you can also mark the cards 1-5 and to talk about which one you are selecting beforehand.

[Krotoan]

I finally got a chance to do this event yesterday (been on vacation), it was really fun! Every person I ran it with was very enthusiastic and I never got below a 80, and that low was only hit once, every other time I got 90+ and the 3 chocolate reward.

I'll second the experience where I said "Hi" in the beginning and then asked if they'd done it before. I took a few extra minutes to explain it to the people who hadn't and it always went well.

All in all I'd say good effort from SE and a cute little way to make people actually talk to each other and interact. The free commendations were nice too.

[Iscah]

This was a lot of fun. Might be good enough for a Gold Saucer event itself.

I agree! I liked the maze but didn't really like it being framed as a "romantic" thing - but that may just be me, with zero real-world romantic inclination and not wanting my character to be paired up with randoms in that particular context. (Ended up doing the quest on an alt character instead of my main just for that reason.) But simply getting paired with people as 'game partners' for a challenge would be fine.

[kikix12]

It's...err it's weird that the initial problem with the compatibilty test was that it was too rational and not romantic, and the revised test we go through...is a maze and a match two game, both really not romantic and quite rational. Though the area they made is just beautiful.

Actually, I think it's your sensibility. Romanticism is not something universal. For one a room with the glow of candles, a full-course dinner that's steaming hot on the table and a few hundredths of flowers around is romantic, for others it's just a pain (cause candles give little light), a threat (cause some have sensitive tongues) and allergic calamity (cause some wouldn't stop sneezing with so many flowers around).

The romantic part within the maze is supposed to come from that tether which is supposed to represent the desire of "soulmates" to be together forever, as close as they can. The bar deteriorating is supposed to represent the persons loneliness at not being close together.

The cards on the other hand are supposed to represent the partners are "of like mind". Clearly you are more prone to fall in love with someone whom you don't have to tutor in every single thing, someone that by his own nature does things similar to you. And that, along with the communication, is what the card matching is for. "One mind in two bodies" so to say. Cause memory game have a very simple way to always get a high score (provided you can, you know, memorize stuff), but if there are two people and each can choose only one card, then different play styles will turn a high score into a bottom-eating tragedy.

As for my opinion of the event...it was irksome due to the time it took. The concept of cooperation wasn't bad, but there was just too much time standing around doing nothing than anything. I would be far happier with it if the maze depended on the people matching each other instead of having to go to point X and wait for the other person to go the long way around cause...ya know...cause someone decided that waiting is fun. And the moogles talking was long too.

[Iscah]

I said a similar thing about the last seasonal event, but I think it would be better if they didn’t try for the “inspirational plot” running around and just go straight into the “our special event is now underway, come and sign up to join the games” part of it.

(Am I supposed to care about these event characters more than I did? Have you guys been seeing their story unfold over multiple years’ events?)