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I always thought the party in FFXIII justified killing Orphan with this line of reasoning - "We can walk away, but we will kill you, not because of our Focus, but because it's OUR choice (and you're a dick anyway)". That's how I remember Lightning's pre-battle monologue, at least. Then they luck out with Vanille/Fang being VERY quick thinkers and saving the day anyway.
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Jul 12, 2012 06:01
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If someone knows, I'd appreciate an explanation behind the final events with Cid Raines in FF13. He's leading the cavalry in the hunt against Lightning and her crew for most of the game, eventually you encounter him and he reveals that he's also an L'Cie and that he was planning to overthrow the Fal'cie, but cannot due to his focus binding him. Then he goes all Super-Saiyan Ci'Eth on you, and you have a Boss Fight where you beat him and he Dies/Turns into Crystal. The spoilered part above is fine. The problem comes afterwards, where there is a long period of time that goes by where you literally never hear about this guy ever again. Then eventually your party gets in a space-shuttle and flies through a portal and winds up back at Eden in the middle of an F-Zero race, and you witness a cinematic directors wet dream of a cutscene, which starts with... Cid Raines addressing the people on a Jumbotron? The same Cid Raines who was killed/crystallized by you earlier, seems to be alive and totally okay. Then after that, he's once again never heard of or mentioned again.  Was this ever explained or did I just totally miss something? If so when/where/by whom? I always thought that the explanation was the cinematic team completed that jumbotron cinematic before the story was solidified by the writing staff... But that can't be right 
Happy Blue Cow fucked around with this message at 06:08 on Jul 12, 2012 |
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Jul 12, 2012 06:01
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Happy Blue Cow posted:He's leading the cavalry in the hunt against Lightning and her crew for most of the game, eventually you encounter him and he reveals that he's also an L'Cie and that he was planning to overthrow the Fal'cie, but cannot due to his focus binding him. Then he goes all Super-Saiyan Ci'Eth on you, and you have a Boss Fight where you beat him and he Dies/Turns into Crystal. Got crystalled, taken back, uncrystalled, forced to be leader (Primarch, instead of Barty), then boom, headshot. He wants to die though, to be free. Winks fucked around with this message at 06:12 on Jul 12, 2012 |
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Jul 12, 2012 06:09
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Winks posted:Got crystalled, taken back, uncrystalled, forced to be leader (Primarch, instead of Barty), then boom, headshot I seriously had no idea when "taken back, uncrystalled, forced to be leader (Primarch, instead of Barty)" was ever explained or showcased  But that does answer my question, thanks.
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Jul 12, 2012 06:13
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Happy Blue Cow posted:If someone knows, I'd appreciate an explanation behind the final events with Cid Raines in FF13. I think the Space Pope revived him (I guess the machine god dudes can undue death/crystal freezing whenever it is plot convenient) to act as the new figurehead for the human government because...
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Jul 12, 2012 06:13
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fal'Cie have the ability to uncrystallize people as seen by Serah being uncrystallized by Etro, as well as the party themselves at the end of the game.
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Jul 12, 2012 06:14
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Happy Blue Cow posted:I seriously had no idea when "taken back, uncrystalled, forced to be leader (Primarch, instead of Barty)" was ever explained or showcased It wasn't, just kind of implied. We know that people can be uncrystallized, so that part is easy. He says 'My dream is but a fal'cie's fancy now' implying that he gave up fighting it and is just going for the ride at that point. He wants to be free though and wants the 'guy with long hair and a weird name that starts with R' to kill him.
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Jul 12, 2012 06:18
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Happy Blue Cow posted:I seriously had no idea when "taken back, uncrystalled, forced to be leader (Primarch, instead of Barty)" was ever explained or showcased Well see if you read around a little and seek out some of the subtler clues it all makes perfect sense! A masterpiece of its time.
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Jul 12, 2012 06:20
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Fister Roboto posted:Well see if you read around a little and seek out some of the subtler clues it all makes perfect sense! A masterpiece of its time. Hey dude, if you don't get it, you're just a loving plebe who should be chemically sterilized to keep your poo poo retard genes out of the swimming pool. Not my problem if you can't appreciate this.
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Jul 12, 2012 06:32
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There's actually a reason for the Cid thing but it's pretty dumb. The CGI cutscenes were finished before everything else, and they were required to find a way to fit them into the plot. That is why Lightning has a gravity device (because she was supposed to have a gravity device in the early story design), it breaks as soon as they stop using it in CGI cutscenes, and then it fixes itself again for the big scene in Chapter 10 where Lightning is using it again. The entire reason for Cid being in that scene is that he was in the CGI cutscene and so they had to use him even though it no longer made sense. Not a GOOD excuse, but that's why it happened. They had expensive CGI cutscenes they were required to implement and did a poo poo job of doing so.
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Jul 12, 2012 06:36
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Fister Roboto posted:Well see if you read around a little and seek out some of the subtler clues it all makes perfect sense! A masterpiece of its time. I never said it was good, I just said that it's not particularly deep or complicated. Toriyama still deserves to be fired.
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Jul 12, 2012 07:41
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ImpAtom posted:There's actually a reason for the Cid thing but it's pretty dumb. Wow. And here I thought that FFXIII's development could not be even more of a trainwreck. And I liked the game.
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Jul 12, 2012 08:18
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This is what happens when you develop 20 different things independently then decide to mash them into the same game
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Jul 12, 2012 08:34
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Why couldn't they have moved the Cid confrontation to after the F-Zero race? He would make more sense as a boss of Chapter 12 than Rosch, who nobody cared about before or after his death. The whole revival/death thing is ridiculously clunky and sums up the game's problems in a nutshell. I also found the whole ending Ragnarok thing ridiculous. The explanation of Lindzei and Etro, who seem to be MAJOR players in the story of the game aren't mentioned anywhere outside of Datalogs that require you to beat tough post-game monsters to get. Sure, they're mentioned at the end of Pulse but we're not told what they are, we just hear random names and nonsense. The whole changing focus thing is just terrible. It has literally never even happened or been referenced to before the end of the game, which means it comes completely out of left field and looks incredibly random. It would've been less stupid if they mentioned or even showed us someone changing their focus prior to the end, but instead Vanille/Fang can suddenly change their focus. Them turning back from Ci'eth literally cannot be explained in the game itself. Also, since when are they both Ragnarok? When does that come up?
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Jul 12, 2012 09:24
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Not an Owl posted:Why couldn't they have moved the Cid confrontation to after the F-Zero race? He would make more sense as a boss of Chapter 12 than Rosch, who nobody cared about before or after his death. The whole revival/death thing is ridiculously clunky and sums up the game's problems in a nutshell. I think the primary reason Lindzei and Etro aren't explained outside of the Datalogs is because their importance is larger in the sequel and their only real interaction with XIII's story is right at its end. As for the changing Focus, that's entirely its point. It has never happened at any point prior to the very end of XIII in the FNC mythology. You are correct that the Cie'th transformation isn't directly explained by the game, since it was Etro's doing. They are both Ragnarok because that's how it happened during the War of Transgression. Both Vanille and Fang were selected to do it, but Vanille fled, forcing Fang to take on the role by herself. Fang alone created a flawed form of Ragnarok (as we saw again at the end of XIII), leaving a huge scar on Cocoon (this is the reason Cocoon has a huge chunk open and exposed instead of being an enclosed Dyson sphere). Etro puts them into crystal stasis after taking pity on Cocoon and draining the two of them of their power. After awakening from crystal sleep at around the time XIII takes place, only Vanille remembers their previous, still-incomplete Focus. They're summoned again, only this time they complete the Focus they wanted to complete, the one they created from their desire to save Cocoon. Azure_Horizon fucked around with this message at 10:10 on Jul 12, 2012 |
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Jul 12, 2012 10:04
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I'm going through my first run of FFV and I have a question. I noticed that I can use dash and see invisible walls without having them equipped in normal form once I learn them. I was wondering if this also means the "learning" ability is active without having it equipped, I'm paranoid and don't wanna take it off but that's wasting a slot I could be using something else with if I'm correct. Thanks in advance.
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Jul 12, 2012 10:34
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OmegaZultan posted:I'm going through my first run of FFV and I have a question. I noticed that I can use dash and see invisible walls without having them equipped in normal form once I learn them. I was wondering if this also means the "learning" ability is active without having it equipped, I'm paranoid and don't wanna take it off but that's wasting a slot I could be using something else with if I'm correct. Almost all passive abilities are natively inherited by the Freelancer/Bare/Suppin (based on translation) job, including stat boosts. The only ones that aren't, IIRC, are Berserk (from Berserker) and Undead (from Necromancer).
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Jul 12, 2012 10:36
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Kyrosiris posted:Almost all passive abilities are natively inherited by the Freelancer/Bare/Suppin (based on translation) job, including stat boosts. The only ones that aren't, IIRC, are Berserk (from Berserker) and Undead (from Necromancer). I think all of the passive abilities from the GBA jobs won't be inherited, which is a shame, because Long Reach would be handy. Couch Life posted:If I've learned one thing from doing the Four Job Fiesta it's that Red Mages are loving useless. Doubly so when they're the last job you get. They're also useful if you don't have any magic users at all, like I did. Just equip a rod and do some decent damage. The -ra spells are still semi-useful in the second world, and by the third world you'll hopefully have Doublecast. Having Protect is also very useful for some bosses. Of course, I had a Bard to make better use of Doublecast than a Red Mage could, so that helped me a bit. But it's still better than having absolutely no magic, especially if you want to do the Fork Tower. Azure_Horizon posted:13 and 13-2's plots are actually not that complicated if you read around a little and seek out some of the subtler clues. I'd go so far as to say they're simpler than most FF games, it's just that their presentation is a bit wonky. Which games would you say they're simpler than? Only one I can really think of that would be more complicated is 7, and that has a bad translation and a wonky EU behind it. Even reading the Datalog while I played, I had no idea about there was even a goddess named Etro, let alone she pulled a literal deus ex machine for your party until you mentioned it in the 13-2 LP. I know you're clarifying the story and not so much defending it, but man would things have been much simpler if at the end the party simply ended up not turning into C'ieth or crystal, thus actually going with the "defy fate" thing and not dealing with the whole Etro bullshit. But then they wouldn't have their hook for a sequel, and SquareEnix invested too much money into this game not to reuse assets for at least two more games. Any idea whether the final scene was intentionally written that weirdly to open the doors for a sequel? Mega64 fucked around with this message at 11:02 on Jul 12, 2012 |
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Jul 12, 2012 10:52
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Barthandelus tells you he's revived Cid and made him Primarch just before you fight him, which happens immediately before the race cutscene. I don't know how seeing Cid there could possibly come as a surprise. (fake edit: okay I went and watched the scene again and Barty calls him "Raines", so I guess if you'd forgotten his surname during the past however many hours since you fought him then it'd be understandable) I also thought it was pretty clear that Lightning and co didn't have much choice in what they were doing towards the end. The Cavalry, having been "betrayed" by Cid, were taking matters into their own hands and going after Orphan themselves, so the party had to go to Eden to stop them. Then once they were there they tried to take out Barthandelus once and for all, but then he merged with Orphan at which point it basically became "welp, either we give up and die here and then some other bunch of saps get put through this poo poo again, or we take this guy out and hope we can think of a plan real quick" Suaimhneas fucked around with this message at 11:06 on Jul 12, 2012 |
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Jul 12, 2012 11:03
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Kyrosiris posted:Almost all passive abilities are natively inherited by the Freelancer/Bare/Suppin (based on translation) job, including stat boosts. The only ones that aren't, IIRC, are Berserk (from Berserker) and Undead (from Necromancer). There are a few that don't carry over actually. Two-handed from Knight doesn't, while the Dual Wield ability does from Ninja. MP/HP +X% doesn't carry over, etc. The ones I know of are as follows: Knight: Cover Monk: Barehanded, Counter Thief: Artful dodger, Vigilance, find passages, Sprint Ninja: Duel-wield Samurai: Shirahadori Sorcerer: Magic shell Blue mage: Learning Chemist: Pharmacology Geomancer: Light step, find pits
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Jul 12, 2012 15:22
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ImpAtom posted:FFXIII doesn't have good writing to begin with but everything I've seen from FFXIII's translation appears overly-literal and stilted. It's 'translated' but with no effort made beyond that, so things that really should have been altered or clarified or cleaned up are not. It's like it was translated by a robot. It also appears to have been voiced directed by a robot whose job was "mimic the Japanese direction exactly" which is the stupidest possible voice direction in the history of mankind. This is what happens when a vocal minority (who want the translations to "mimic the Japanese direction exactly") become the only audience who will buy your games. They think that translating Japanese to English is just simply switching the words around and despise any form of localization. These are also the same people who prefer Japanese voice acting over English voice acting, despite not understanding the language at all.
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Jul 12, 2012 15:32
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Ugato posted:There are a few that don't carry over actually. Two-handed from Knight doesn't, while the Dual Wield ability does from Ninja. MP/HP +X% doesn't carry over, etc. The ones that carry over are the ones that come with the class with 0 AP. That's why Two Handed doesn't carry over, because a brand new knight doesn't get it. Dual Wield does because a brand new ninja has it.
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Jul 12, 2012 15:36
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Mill Village posted:These are also the same people who prefer Japanese voice acting over English voice acting, on account of not understanding the language at all. Made a slight amendment. Often, the reason they prefer the Japanese dub is that if they understood the language, they would realize how bad the voice acting is.
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Jul 12, 2012 16:35
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Rasamune posted:Made a slight amendment. Often, the reason they prefer the Japanese dub is that if they understood the language, they would realize how bad the voice acting is. When I play voice acted games that feature Japanese and English dubs, I usually go for the Japanese so I don't have to be as embarrassed by what I'm playing. Like I understand that the Japanese is probably just as bad if not worse, but pretty much any time a jrpg has voice acting, I'm ashamed to play it near anyone that can hear it.
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Jul 12, 2012 17:10
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FFXII did the whole fal'cie thing so much better. "Occuria give you nukes and that means they own you and control the destiny of mankind" is a bit more of an interesting narrative than "Nonsensical Focus! L'cie! Bitches turning into crystals! Fal'cie! Don't ask why! Look at the shiny! Focus! Anime gasp! L'cie! Cutscene where we stop to say we have to keep moving! Focus!"
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Jul 12, 2012 18:07
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VagueRant posted:FFXII did the whole fal'cie thing so much better. "Occuria give you nukes and that means they own you and control the destiny of mankind" is a bit more of an interesting narrative than "Nonsensical Focus! L'cie! Bitches turning into crystals! Fal'cie! Don't ask why! Look at the shiny! Focus! Anime gasp! L'cie! Cutscene where we stop to say we have to keep moving! Focus!" XII and XIII both have hard-to-follow plots. In XII's case, it's because it's subtle and doesn't beat you over the head with plot details. In XIII's case, it's because the story is a mess.
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Jul 12, 2012 18:18
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Eh, the Fal'cie thing should have been interesting. Even in FFXII, it was political drama w/hint of God. The idea of a setting where Gods exist and are cruel, capricious and self-centered and are perfectly willing to gently caress over people is one with a lot of potential weight to it. Likewise, the idea of a Focus isn't a bad one at all and could have lead to some really interesting drama. The primary problem it has, beyond just the general awkward writing, is that they failed to make it come across as horrible enough. If anything, FFXIII should have been structured like FFIV. You can and should have lost characters to underscore "holy poo poo, this is horrible." It should have been a grim story that leads up to eventual catharsis, not a bizarrely inconsistent story that leads up to a dull ending and an even more incoherent sequel. There's nothing in FFXIII which is conceptually bad or even conceptually difficult to pull off. It's an error of execution or an extreme lack of talent on Toriyama's part (or both!) rather than a problem with the setting itself. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Jul 12, 2012 |
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Jul 12, 2012 18:25
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Kyrosiris posted:Almost all passive abilities are natively inherited by the Freelancer/Bare/Suppin (based on translation) job, including stat boosts. The only ones that aren't, IIRC, are Berserk (from Berserker) and Undead (from Necromancer). Doesn't this only happen after you master a job, though? OmegaZultan said they worked after he learned the sprint/see passages abilities, not after he mastered Thief.
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Jul 12, 2012 18:26
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ImpAtom posted:Eh, the Fal'cie thing should have been interesting. Even in FFXII, it was political drama w/hint of God. The idea of a setting where Gods exist and are cruel, capricious and self-centered and are perfectly willing to gently caress over people is one with a lot of potential weight to it. Likewise, the idea of a Focus isn't a bad one at all and could have lead to some really interesting drama. I mostly agree. I thought the plot elements and general story could have been rather interesting, but it was so poorly executed and put together that it failed.
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Jul 12, 2012 18:29
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Schwartzcough posted:Doesn't this only happen after you master a job, though? OmegaZultan said they worked after he learned the sprint/see passages abilities, not after he mastered Thief. Given the context - you usually don't use Freelancer again until you've mastered all the jobs you care to master, on account of the wasted potential AP - I figured this was an endgame question, and a completely mastered thief wouldn't be at all unreasonable in that situation.
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Jul 12, 2012 18:43
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Replaying FFX-2. For a "reused asset blatant cash in sequel", after the debacle about XIII I wonder if this is gonna be the "FF9 was overlooked and pretty cool" FF game in like half a decade. Also didn't some supersprinkles version of this game do the monster-party gimmick 13-2 does?
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Jul 13, 2012 03:18
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X-2 is... a long time ago, someone described a movie to me as "pleasant." That's a good descriptor for X-2. It's kind of fun, but relied too much on time-consuming gimmicks for being pretty much the first Final Fantasy title where time was really important. Its fanservice can make players feel really uncomfortable around it, like an anime where they have lots of sexualized pantyshots of eight-year-old girls or whatever. The story is cute, if way too small for a game of its size, and honestly it should've been like a "disc 2" epilogue for X itself if that wouldn't be, y'know, financially ruinous for the work::payout ratio. There's definitely something good there, but it's a very "skinny person inside of every fat one" deal, unfortunately.
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Jul 13, 2012 03:35
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People are always going to find excuses to hate on X-2. It's like they don't like the game for some personal subjective reason, but then they have to justify the hate to others by making up poorly thought out, nonsensical faults. And a lot of the time the things that people complain about in X-2 are also present in every other FF game.
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Jul 13, 2012 03:51
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X-2 proved that Job Systems are the best systems and Square needs to do more of that. I'd love to see some kind of cross between 5's Job system (Main class ability, sub class ability) and X-2's smooth as hell ATB engine. Mixing and matching jobs was the best idea they ever had. Probably will never happen, sadly.
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Jul 13, 2012 04:21
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gigglefeimer posted:People are always going to find excuses to hate on X-2. It's like they don't like the game for some personal subjective reason, but then they have to justify the hate to others by making up poorly thought out, nonsensical faults. And a lot of the time the things that people complain about in X-2 are also present in every other FF game. Usually I hear people say they hate X-2 because it's "too girly", mostly because of the opening music video and the beginning of the game. X-2 is pretty much one of the top FF games I love, so I defend it just about every chance i get. VVV Well that paragraph really proved what I said. Rueish fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Jul 13, 2012 |
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Jul 13, 2012 04:25
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gigglefeimer posted:People are always going to find excuses to hate on X-2. It's like they don't like the game for some personal subjective reason, but then they have to justify the hate to others by making up poorly thought out, nonsensical faults. And a lot of the time the things that people complain about in X-2 are also present in every other FF game. Just because you don't agree with people's "poorly though out, nonsensical faults" doesn't mean they aren't a problem. The game is positively bloated with tedious, pointless, and/or irritating sidequests. People praise the battle system, but it often feels like you never actually get in fights because you're always doing stupid bullshit instead. Everything is presented with a thick veneer of Sailor Moon magical girl power, including slow-motions costume changes and sparkle explosions when you select anything from the menu. Most of the game is supposed to be a campy ridiculous romp (which is SO over-the-top that it understandably immediately alienates at least half the people that attempt to play it), except where it's not and suddenly expects the player to take it seriously, resulting in serious mood whiplash. It has horrible pacing and boringly meanders for the first three or so chapters, including the horrible chapter that includes just watching boring commspheres occasionally interspersed with bland NPCs you don't give a poo poo about. I have problems with the battle system too, but those are much more subjective concerns. Point is, X-2 is deeply, deeply flawed, and just because it's not widely accepted does not make it a magical shining diamond in the rough without problems.
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Jul 13, 2012 04:26
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Schwartzcough posted:Just because you don't agree with people's "poorly though out, nonsensical faults" doesn't mean they aren't a problem. The game is positively bloated with tedious, pointless, and/or irritating sidequests. People praise the battle system, but it often feels like you never actually get in fights because you're always doing stupid bullshit instead. Everything is presented with a thick veneer of Sailor Moon magical girl power, including slow-motions costume changes and sparkle explosions when you select anything from the menu. Most of the game is supposed to be a campy ridiculous romp (which is SO over-the-top that it understandably immediately alienates at least half the people that attempt to play it), except where it's not and suddenly expects the player to take it seriously, resulting in serious mood whiplash. It has horrible pacing and boringly meanders for the first three or so chapters, including the horrible chapter that includes just watching boring commspheres occasionally interspersed with bland NPCs you don't give a poo poo about. What a lot of words to say very little. It's not a flaw that sidequests/NPCs/Sailor Moon are in the game, you just don't like that kind of stuff. Instead of saying the game is deeply flawed just accept that it's okay to simply not like those parts. And holy poo poo, complaining about the sparkles in the menu? What a stupidly insignificant thing to complain about.
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Jul 13, 2012 04:59
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gigglefeimer posted:What a lot of words to say very little. It's not a flaw that sidequests/NPCs/Sailor Moon are in the game, you just don't like that kind of stuff. Instead of saying the game is deeply flawed just accept that it's okay to simply not like those parts. And holy poo poo, complaining about the sparkles in the menu? What a stupidly insignificant thing to complain about. It all adds to the overall impression. I've never complained that it's a "dress-up simulator" or a "video game for girls" or other dumb poo poo, but everything is so zany or bubbly or "cute" or magical-sparkly that it really starts to grate. Really, all X-2 has going for it is the battle system. Pretty much everything else is crap. People say how it addresses the important issues of how people handle suddenly being freed of the constant fear of death from Sin, with political strife and infighting. And then they resolve all these problems with... a J-Pop concert. Well, clearly they gave this a lot of thought and handled it maturely.
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Jul 13, 2012 05:09
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drat dude you gettin' more vitrolic about nintendos than I do. X-2 unfortunately has its flaws, and a lot of it comes from having britches too big; it could've been really good, if only it had been treated, development-wise, as a sort of an expansion pack to X-1 rather than a standalone game.
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Jul 13, 2012 05:11
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Schwartzcough posted:Really, all X-2 has going for it is the battle system. Pretty much everything else is crap. People say how it addresses the important issues of how people handle suddenly being freed of the constant fear of death from Sin, with political strife and infighting. And then they resolve all these problems with... a J-Pop concert. Well, clearly they gave this a lot of thought and handled it maturely. It's funny how, with minor game-specific changes, this paragraph could apply to every FF.
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Jul 13, 2012 05:14
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