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Mister Macys posted:Anyone know what the res is for the new Final Fantasy VII Steam release? Seems like it just runs at whatever your desktop is; the screenshot I took is 1080: http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/504698158363110476/A3FB99A95668D85766D27ED5C1C62415FE2ADAF4/
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Dec 4, 2013 09:18
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Dr Pepper posted:Uh, that doesn't describe FF7's character designs at all. Fair enough, I probably misused that descriptor - I'm not super informed about Japanese popular culture. But I'm guessing you have an idea of what I'm trying to say about Nomura's style and how generic it's become: lots of scenester hair, lots of belts and buckles that serve no discernible function, when there's color it's mostly neon stripes, etc. Color schemes that look like they belong in the Clooney Batman movie. ImpAtom posted:I think you could do Amano's artwork in a game these days, even with 3D models. The problem would be that I think you'd risk driving people away. It would be a beautiful game it would just also make a lot of people go "what the gently caress is this poo poo?" I agree with this for the most part, but I also think we're culturally at a point where one could make a new, visually beautiful RPG with Amano-designed characters that would connect with its audience. When I see movies like "Hero," (which, yes, is over a decade old) or the animation of Studio Ghibli, and how well they've been received on both sides of the Pacific, it makes me think of how awesome it would be to see Final Fantasy games with that degree of magic and imagination again. I even see a lot of Western-designed fantasy characters looking much closer to something created by Amano than Nomura - HBO's depiction of Daenerys Targaryen comes to mind. Of course, making such a game would be hugely ambitious and probably would risk appealing to a narrower audience than a Final Fantasy with more generic character designs. But I think it could also do better than other recent installments of the series, if it were marketed well (don't laugh). Either way, I know that's a game I'd happily play. Majorian fucked around with this message at 09:21 on Dec 4, 2013 |
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Dec 4, 2013 09:19
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Mister Macys posted:- Holy poo poo, why in the gently caress is panning left and right reversed in this game? And why is there no option to disable it? Hahaha, I thought my PCSX config was hosed up so I ended up reversing the x-axis settings, it turns out this game just has retarded camera controls.
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Dec 4, 2013 11:06
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FFVII's character designs were positively excellent. Colors and silhouettes that played perfectly towards their intended impressions making them instantly identifiable. The game hasn't aged well, but on an aesthetic level it remains brilliant for what they had to work with. They had a guy design distinctive characters, and then turned those designs into a bunch of chunky textureless blocks that we somehow identified with. Since those days, Nomura has kind of painted himself into a corner. The high-fashion stuff started with FFVIII (deliberately, since it was supposed to be about cool-kid highschoolers) and since then, he's kind of been the go-to guy for stylish teenagers and bizarre fashion-excess, and not seen as a source for a whole lot else. He's a perfectly capable artist, if you can get past the Gackt obsession and the belt-and-zipper jokes, who could probably top his work in FF7 if given sufficient creative space to do so. In fact, he almost managed that with the designs for Fang, Vanille, and Sazh in FF13, who are easily the most visually distinct and interesting out of the cast, with the two ladies in particular sporting a foreign, old-world look to their garb that stood out among the fashion-boutique outfits of everyone else (and I gotta be honest, if I owned Sazh's suit, I'd wear that all the drat time.  ). Of FFX's clown-show outfits, Yuna and possibly Auron looked really good as well. Of all that cast, you immediately knew what those characters were all about just at a glance.Original concept drawings for FFXIII are scarce, but found this one of Fang:  Something to be said for how she actually looks dirtier, wilder, and more muscular there than in-game, where her build is indistinguishable from Lightning's. Least they managed to make her hair look messy. Anyway, the series has come to be associated with the J-fashion look. That's alright, really, though the lack of distinctive colors and silhouettes in FFXV's cast is disappointing. Related, found some concept art for the Lightning Returns outfits:       I like being able to look at them when they're not slapped onto that ridiculous character model. 
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Dec 4, 2013 11:07
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The one piece of FFXIII concept art I'm really curious to see is what Fang looked like back when she was still a man. The mid-production gender swap was always one of the most intriguing details about the game from a developer diary perspective. Also, Pirate Red Mage Lightning looks really cool, but I imagine also looks absolutely terrible in-game. EDIT: On second though, why do I get the strange sinking feeling that Man-Fang is actually just Noel before the design got repurposed for XIII-2. 
nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 11:38 on Dec 4, 2013 |
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Dec 4, 2013 11:33
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Well, here's the Noel concept piece: Noticeably similar to Fang, but to match what I imagine would be a straight genderswap of her, he'd have about twice the muscle mass, be darker-tanned, have messier hair, and a nice shade of permastubble. In any case, the concept art of Fang as a lady still looks rougher and more dangerous than this unthreatening assembly-line JRPG kid. nine-gear crow posted:Also, Pirate Red Mage Lightning looks really cool, but I imagine also looks absolutely terrible in-game The outfits that don't try to excessively show off her "figure", or at least her weird hips and legs, seem to be the best of them, so there's some hope. I actually kinda like that ballroom gown. ed. Man, y'know...those names. Things like "Heartstealer" and such. Yeah, okayyy...obviously SE wants us to think of her as this charming fanservice gal, but it's blindingly obvious that she was never designed to be that type, and it feels incredibly forced. It would be decidedly less obnoxious if it was, like, Vanille doing this. At least that's a character who can just be ridiculous and you can actually kinda buy it. edit 2: Including this for no particular reason:  Nomura'd Fighter. 
Mazed fucked around with this message at 12:00 on Dec 4, 2013 |
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Dec 4, 2013 11:49
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Mazed posted:Well, here's the Noel concept piece: I kind of like the ball gown too. By this point I'm actually kind of hoping there is a) an ADR outtake of Ali Hillis just Lightning deadpan-style going "what the hell am I wearing?" and b) an SE sound tech clever and ballsy enough to slip it into the actual dub of LR to try and give the game a modicum of self-awareness.
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Dec 4, 2013 12:01
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Oh, god her frowny face haha! Mazed posted:
While on those lines, I really love what he did for Garland.  It's pretty much an original design for Garland - the art Amano did is only of the Cloudsea Djinn.  Which is also pretty cool, I must add But what I really like about it, is not only does it compliment the Warrior of Light's design, but it incorporates things from Garland's orignal sprite (the cape, horns), the Cloudsea Djinn (the earrings), and echoes/foreshadows his transformation into Chaos (the faces on the knees, the additional horns on the helmet, etc). nine-gear crow posted:Also, Pirate Red Mage Lightning looks really cool, but I imagine also looks absolutely terrible in-game.  The concept art looks so much better than the models...
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Dec 4, 2013 16:37
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Mazed posted:
Kinda looks like he fell out of a Fire Emblem game. Not that that's a bad thing, mind.
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Dec 4, 2013 16:39
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Pesky Splinter posted:Oh, god her frowny face haha!
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Dec 4, 2013 16:40
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Fight Club Sandwich posted:"nonlinear" just means wander around aimlessly or look up where to go on gamefaqs, i prefer linear games. you should play the new Zelda game for 3DS, it will change your mind about this.
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Dec 4, 2013 16:41
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Everyone harps on about Nomura slapping lots of needless belts and zippers, but no one ever points out Amano's extreme fondness for dangling glass beads. I don't consider either bad, but I do wonder what it is about them that attracts Amano to drawing those.
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Dec 4, 2013 16:43
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Pureauthor posted:Everyone harps on about Nomura slapping lots of needless belts and zippers, but no one ever points out Amano's extreme fondness for dangling glass beads. Nomura = Belts and Zippers. Amano = Beads and Sashes. I don't know why, really. He does it a lot in his non-FF art also. He's heavily influenced by Arabic designs also. Mazed posted:Noticeably similar to Fang, but to match what I imagine would be a straight genderswap of her, he'd have about twice the muscle mass, be darker-tanned, have messier hair, and a nice shade of permastubble. So, Jecht, then? I can dig it. Pesky Splinter fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Dec 4, 2013 |
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Dec 4, 2013 16:47
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Nihilarian posted:... I know I shouldn't expect better, but that's just sad. Her hat looks like it's made of plastic. Seriously, why are the textures so bad? The general art direction might suck in any Final Fantasy but when was the last time they had this horrible graphics on the technical ground level? I thought they were the lions led by donkeys of video games.
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Dec 4, 2013 17:11
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Pureauthor posted:Everyone harps on about Nomura slapping lots of needless belts and zippers, but no one ever points out Amano's extreme fondness for dangling glass beads. I think with Amano they're meant to highlight the super-ethereal, surreal nature of the characters he's drawing. But yeah, he definitely overuses those. I think I'm just more bothered by Nomura's belts+buckles fixation because it makes me think of the worst parts of anime fandom in America. Mazed posted:FFVII's character designs were positively excellent. Colors and silhouettes that played perfectly towards their intended impressions making them instantly identifiable. The game hasn't aged well, but on an aesthetic level it remains brilliant for what they had to work with. They had a guy design distinctive characters, and then turned those designs into a bunch of chunky textureless blocks that we somehow identified with. Some of them definitely were. I never particularly cared for Cloud, as a character design or as a protagonist, and I kind of object to how much Tifa is a textbook example of Tits McGee. But that said, Aerith is a gorgeously-designed character, Cid looks great, Vincent looked pretty cool at the time (a little passe now, but hey. Hindsight), and Rufus still makes a double-breasted white suit look freaky. So yeah, I do like a lot of Nomura's FFVII designs. I think it's his more recent stuff that strikes me as generic and uninspiring. Mazed posted:Original concept drawings for FFXIII are scarce, but found this one of Fang: See, I love this! This is awesome! Go with stuff like this, SE! Majorian fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Dec 4, 2013 |
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Dec 4, 2013 18:01
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I'm surprised this hasn't been posted yet - http://www.siliconera.com/2013/12/03/final-fantasy-vi-coming-ios-android-winter-heres-looks-vs-snes-game/ Consensus on-line is mixed, I think the backgrounds are OK but the sprites are horrible.
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Dec 4, 2013 18:03
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One of the interesting aspects of Fang's design is how she can look either quite masculine or traditionally feminine depending on which angle you're looking from. This carried over a bit into some other aspects of the character, like how the party's gruff heavy hitter rides chocobos side-saddle.
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Dec 4, 2013 18:07
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DeadBonesBrook posted:I'm surprised this hasn't been posted yet - http://www.siliconera.com/2013/12/03/final-fantasy-vi-coming-ios-android-winter-heres-looks-vs-snes-game/ Yeah I really dislike the whole look of rounded sprites like this. They just look off.
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Dec 4, 2013 18:09
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It's me, I'm the awful person who doesn't mind the iOS remake sprites. v v
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Dec 4, 2013 18:11
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Kyrosiris posted:It's me, I'm the awful person who doesn't mind the iOS remake sprites. v Yeah, I think they look totally fine and have no complaints. Now if they could make FFVI start in the world of ruin we'd be cooking.
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Dec 4, 2013 18:12
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DeadBonesBrook posted:I'm surprised this hasn't been posted yet - http://www.siliconera.com/2013/12/03/final-fantasy-vi-coming-ios-android-winter-heres-looks-vs-snes-game/ I don't particularly care for them either. They look like they're made of...acrylic? Or construction paper, maybe? I don't know, some sort of material that the rest of the game isn't made out of. I'm still going to be one of the first people to buy it, since it's literally my favorite videogame ever, but I can already tell it's going to hurt my eyes.
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Dec 4, 2013 18:13
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Somebody post the concept art for X2 with the awesome if slightly racist dresspheres that didnt make the final cut of the game
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Dec 4, 2013 18:35
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Mister Macys posted:Since my PSU on my 360 died, I threw Final Fantasy XII into the ol' PS2 while I wait for a replacement. Were there really that many tutorials in 12? I mean, granted, for a game like that 30 minutes is a pretty brisk ride--I basically remember you have a combat intro, you meet the main cast and get a really rushed intro to Vaan and co, you learn about Hunt Quests and then you're basically lumped in with the rest of the cast and sent to the floating island.
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Dec 4, 2013 18:48
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BottledBodhisvata posted:Were there really that many tutorials in 12? I mean, granted, for a game like that 30 minutes is a pretty brisk ride--I basically remember you have a combat intro, you meet the main cast and get a really rushed intro to Vaan and co, you learn about Hunt Quests and then you're basically lumped in with the rest of the cast and sent to the floating island. There was the intro to licenses when you get the Rogue Tomato hunt, as well as the intro to Gambits when you get Fran and Balthier. Other than that, not that I can remember.
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Dec 4, 2013 18:49
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BottledBodhisvata posted:Were there really that many tutorials in 12? I mean, granted, for a game like that 30 minutes is a pretty brisk ride--I basically remember you have a combat intro, you meet the main cast and get a really rushed intro to Vaan and co, you learn about Hunt Quests and then you're basically lumped in with the rest of the cast and sent to the floating island. There is a lot of annoying run to this location and do this minor activity so we can teach you all these minor details. Its literal fetch quests in the games own wording and some of them like the "touch the stones to power the sun crystal" are just boredom incarnate. In my opinion the game proper doesn't start until you get Fran and Balthier with everything else being various minor tasks you're never mandated to do again. Playing it on IZJS lets you triple time forward and makes everything a billion times better.
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Dec 4, 2013 18:51
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BottledBodhisvata posted:Were there really that many tutorials in 12? I mean, granted, for a game like that 30 minutes is a pretty brisk ride--I basically remember you have a combat intro, you meet the main cast and get a really rushed intro to Vaan and co, you learn about Hunt Quests and then you're basically lumped in with the rest of the cast and sent to the floating island. I wouldn't say the "tutorial" is over until after you get back from the floating island. Its just typical FF handholding stuff though, plus vanilla 12 does this thing where they don't let you have all the gambits for like way too long so it can feel like even more of a tutorial.
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Dec 4, 2013 18:51
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Majorian posted:I don't particularly care for them either. They look like they're made of...acrylic? Or construction paper, maybe? I don't know, some sort of material that the rest of the game isn't made out of. I'm still going to be one of the first people to buy it, since it's literally my favorite videogame ever, but I can already tell it's going to hurt my eyes. There's probably not a good way to render those sprites at a higher resolution. Look at Terra's eyes, how the three eyebrow pixels are arranged in a downward slope to give her this wide-eyed, forlorn expression. The new one has, what, four pixels for every one of the original, but it keeps the same proportions-- which now look way more exaggerated because a finer level of detail is possible, but they're not using it. Plus every surface from the hair to the metal of the armor has the same Play-Doh shading and it looks real bad.
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Dec 4, 2013 18:54
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Mazed posted:
In my ideal world, this is the default outfit for WoL instead of just Palette 3. Though I could say that about almost all of the Dissida characters that look like their official art instead of their in-game sprite Bartz why. EDIT: The concept art for in-game Cecil is pretty great too.    (final versions)I'd totally prefer the dude in solid gold armor over the weird white thing we got. BlitzBlast fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Dec 4, 2013 |
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Dec 4, 2013 18:55
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Pureauthor posted:Everyone harps on about Nomura slapping lots of needless belts and zippers, but no one ever points out Amano's extreme fondness for dangling glass beads. Well, for one thing beads and sashes are basically designed to be decorative, while zippers and belts are designed to be functional. So using the former for decoration (even if a little excessive) makes more sense than throwing zippers and belts all over poo poo where they serve no purpose. As to 12's tutorialness, I say the tutorials end when you can set up your own gambits (i.e. when you get Fran and Balthier). After that you don't get any "tutorials" on anything besides minigames or puzzles unique to an area, and no new abilities or functionality is unlocked (besides getting access to better gambits, but it's clear that in the Vanilla game they wanted to treat gambits like gear you upgraded over the course of the game, rather than "tutorial gating"). Granted that can be a few hours, but not THAT long in relation to how long that game can last. The slow start is mostly because of excessive cutscenes in the beginning, but that's hardly unique among RPGs.
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Dec 4, 2013 21:32
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I liked Nomura's designs in VII and X as well but I'll always love VIII's. As the most modern and mundane FF to date, I think it really worked in terms of visuals. There's not a single member of the party I think looks unintentionally stupid. Of the game's many, many failings, character designs was not one of them.
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Dec 4, 2013 22:25
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BlitzBlast posted:In my ideal world, this is the default outfit for WoL instead of just Palette 3. Though I could say that about almost all of the Dissida characters that look like their official art instead of their in-game sprite Bartz why. You and me both. I actually did get a free download code for that Cecil outfit but I was never able to get it due to some connection issues.
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Dec 4, 2013 22:55
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NikkolasKing posted:I liked Nomura's designs in VII and X as well but I'll always love VIII's. As the most modern and mundane FF to date, I think it really worked in terms of visuals. There's not a single member of the party I think looks unintentionally stupid.
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Dec 4, 2013 23:23
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Yes, in that way teenagers who dress themselves are.
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Dec 4, 2013 23:25
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Pesky Splinter posted:So, Jecht, then? I can dig it. Ahahaha, yes! Yes, this. Paracelsus posted:One of the interesting aspects of Fang's design is how she can look either quite masculine or traditionally feminine depending on which angle you're looking from. This carried over a bit into some other aspects of the character, like how the party's gruff heavy hitter rides chocobos side-saddle. I noticed the side-saddle thing too. With any other character it'd have seemed stereotypically girly, but in her case it's like she's just chilling out on this chocobo that's taking her wherever she needs to get to. They just had an event in FFXIV where players could do a quick chain of quests to get XIII-themed weapons as well as outfits for Lightning and Snow as they appeared in XIII. I'm disappointed that it was only those two, who don't look particularly interested. Should have been Sazh and Fang. With Sazh's fro as a hairstyle your character can use. They did a neat job with the weapons, though. Lightning's sword unfolds like a switchblade when your character draws it, and a pair of fist weapons styled after Sazh's guns cocks themselves when pulled out.
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Dec 4, 2013 23:30
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I also like the iOS V and VI sprite style, but if VI is anything like V, don't get it on your tablet or it'll look much, much worse than on the phone. I'm not sure how they messed that up, or if it's just harder to see the problems on the smaller screen.
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Dec 5, 2013 03:01
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The style of sprites for the iOS/Android games looks like such awful, cheap, amateur garbage. I have a huge soft spot for FF6 but with the way it looks in the upcoming releases, I'm just going to avoid it. Goddamnit, Square-Enix. Get your poo poo together.
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Dec 5, 2013 05:36
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The remake of FF5 is all right, the only thing I don't like is the freelancer and mime sprites for the characters.
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Dec 5, 2013 05:42
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Paracelsus posted:So is Zell intentionally stupid? The other male cast members are intentionally downplayed because the creative team didn't want the played to be "distracted" from Squall. All the other significant males are either a goofball, idiot, failure, or all of the above (Zell), because the whole cast exists to make you think Squall is a cool and admirable dude rather than being... you know, stand-alone characters.
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Dec 5, 2013 06:33
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Defiance Industries posted:All the other significant males are either a goofball, idiot, failure, or all of the above "MAH ROMANTIC DREAM!" Even though I've never played it, Seifer is one of the corniest rivals ever. Especially since the opening mission was not his first major gently caress-up that held him from graduating, if I'm remembering the LP I read of it right.
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Dec 5, 2013 07:06
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Seifer was one of like, four characters with any sort of depth or development to him. He's easily the only character I found interesting and likable. (Selphie was likable but not interesting) He's a loose cannon on the edge, following his own rules. And he succeeds where the party failed miserably. The problem is that he's in the wrong game. Most of the time "no plan? No problem!" is the motto of FF heroes. He got hosed over because they chose to penalize him for doing what everyone else did.
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Dec 5, 2013 08:05
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