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FF12's bestiary also unlocked as you completed objectives or just hunted lots of creatures over time. And sometimes you'd just get fun worldbuilding flavor, like how they're developing a dessert called "flan" named after the monster (har har) or other stuff. I don't remember any fun worldbuilding in 13's datalog.
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Apr 10, 2014 06:38
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FFXII's bestiary was great. But heck, even FFVIII, with its huge font and low res, gave you a sentence of flavour to go with Scan, if I remember correctly. Before that, Scan just gave HP and weaknesses mostly because it scrolled in the top of the window and there was no room for anything else. Seeing most of the monsters marked as "Unremarkable" when you have so much space is just saddening. And the one monster that wasn't Unremarkable had something like "Particularly low HP", which you could actually see for yourself in the same screen. At least the policy of repeating things like every player is amnesiac is not limited to plot. You could even call it consistency. 
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Apr 10, 2014 08:01
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I can one-up that: FF ATB had better descriptions than FFXIII.
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Apr 10, 2014 08:07
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Bregor posted:I thought Hope was the best character. Come at me, goons. Let's hear it for middle-schoolers coping with the death of a parent! But seriously, as much as I like Hope, Sazh is a better character.
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Apr 10, 2014 19:00
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 Update 4: A Brilliant Plan (Polsy) Music Ragnarok quote:Ragnarok. Thanks to idonotlikepeas for the translation! In the Sky That Night Promised Eternity Serah's Theme quote:English Lyrics Eternal Love Eternal Love only plays in the JP version, where Serah's Theme plays in the US one. Sets the mood a hell of a lot better, if nothing else. Bestiary    Datalogs  quote:The Gift of Eternity quote:Pulsian Menace quote:Bound in Darkness  quote:People: "Lightning" Farron  quote:People: Snow Villiers  quote:People: Sazh Katzroy  quote:People: Hope Estheim  quote:People: Vanille  quote:People: Serah Farron  quote:The Thirteen Days: Day 10 - Gifts  quote:The Thirteen Days: Day 11 - Discovery  quote:The Thirteen Days: Day 11 - Proposal  quote:History and Myth: Cie'th  quote:History and Myth: Crystal Stasis quote:Locales: Pulse Vestiges  quote:Locales: Bodhum  quote:The Fal'Cie: Anima Artix fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Apr 14, 2015 |
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Apr 11, 2014 01:10
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Artix posted:Eternal Love Right on the money with that. Plays during the fireworks scene.
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Apr 11, 2014 01:15
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I figured it had to be that, since that's where it appears on the soundtrack listing, but good to know for confirmation's sake.
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Apr 11, 2014 01:20
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Oh Sazh, your'e the best character in this game in my mind. Well, you will be seeing more of that later.
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Apr 11, 2014 02:00
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Artix posted:
People may be forgiven for kinda glazing over the datalog recaps (they are, after all, pretty dull), but if they'd actually read them they might have noticed that the game has generously recapped the same event twice here, in case anyone missed it the first time they read the datalog. Also, the recap ostensibly from Lightning's perspective is the one that goes into detail on Snow's flashback. 
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Apr 11, 2014 02:19
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It's always Corridor Time. EDIT: I think I must have accidently skipped these cutscenes, because I remember nothing of them. Then again, I don't remember much about the game at all. Nihilarian fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Apr 11, 2014 |
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Apr 11, 2014 02:51
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Artix posted:
I like how all the residents of Cocoon live in constant fear of everything Pulse, about which they seem to know almost nothing. And yet apparently there are giant structures from Pulse laying around Cocoon, like the enormous and intricate Vestige here, which could contain vast amounts of information about Pulse, and nobody ever thought to investigate it? Really? That's like having a Pyramid of Giza in your backyard, or an aircraft carrier from a warring nation washed up on your shore, and nobody ever thought to check it out. That is incredibly stupid. Schwartzcough fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Apr 11, 2014 |
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Apr 11, 2014 03:00
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Schwartzcough posted:I like how all the residents of Cocoon live in constant fear of everything Pulse, about which they seem to know almost nothing. And yet apparently there are giant structures from Pulse laying around Cocoon, like the enormous and intricate Vestige here, which could contain vast amounts of information about Pulse, and nobody ever thought to investigate it? Really? That's like having a Pyramid of Giza in your backyard, or an aircraft carrier from a warring nation washed up on your shore, and nobody ever thought to check it out. That is incredibly stupid. To be fair, the Vestige is full of demon stone monsters that were the result of the pissed of (demi?) god inside cursing the last people who entered.
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Apr 11, 2014 03:28
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They could at least have given Hope's mother a name to at least pretend like she wasn't going to die in thirty seconds. Any name would do, like "Aeris", for example. I fell behind a bit. Update 3 I have no idea what Vanille's accent is supposed to be, other than inconsistent. The shifting stairs thing Snow activated was cool-looking... until I realized that it didn't actually change the level design and let you walk on those new areas. It was just a cutscene. Can't have interesting puzzles in a game, nope. Hope is just such a spineless sack of wet burlap that it's impossible to feel sorry for him. Holy crap, Lightning is showing actual emotions. Update 4 Um, now I don't know what the Cocoon military's plan was, but maybe it should have been more along the lines of "throw lines around this thing and chuck it out the side" than "make it explode inside Cocoon, killing everyone".
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Apr 11, 2014 03:55
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:They could at least have given Hope's mother a name to at least pretend like she wasn't going to die in thirty seconds. Any name would do, like "Aeris", for example. Edit: name spoilers. Sorry, didn't remember that it actually came up during the game. Nihilarian fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Apr 11, 2014 |
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Apr 11, 2014 04:01
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Update 4 Cocoon is a big place, and it's better to destroy the threat then put it "outside".
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Apr 11, 2014 04:06
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Pretty sure that's a plot point and thus a spoiler, dude. Hope's mother doesn't have a name yet, as far as I remember. Pretty excited for actual gameplay, though! Or something resembling actual gameplay, at least. While we're on the subject of "how would you have handled the first two hours," I am not a fan of non-linear storytelling in video games unless it's done exceedingly well. The David Cage comparison was brought up and it is in FF13's favor, I will admit. But I wonder what the game would be like if it hadn't bothered with the "13 Days" gimmick and just started from the beginning of those thirteen days. The answer is probably that it would have been the exact opposite of what we got -- too slow a start, and even less reason to put in actual gameplay, as opposed to being dropped in the middle of all the explosions with no reason to care about anything. But going through the thirteen days would have at least provided us reasons to care about the cast, right? They don't have to show everything, particularly the stuff that's character-motivating that won't come up for a while, but just...give us a reason to care. Like, they keep talking about how bad it is to be a Pulse l'Cie, and they just got hit with the l'Cie curse, and we just don't care. Show us how bad it is, don't tell us.
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Apr 11, 2014 04:07
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Edit: original post was apparently a spoiler at this point, so I'll talk about this.Wild Knight posted:While we're on the subject of "how would you have handled the first two hours," I am not a fan of non-linear storytelling in video games unless it's done exceedingly well. The David Cage comparison was brought up and it is in FF13's favor, I will admit. But I wonder what the game would be like if it hadn't bothered with the "13 Days" gimmick and just started from the beginning of those thirteen days. Now that you mention it, a start like FFT might have worked a lot better. Purge to grab attention, then back to the beginning of the 13 Days, then the rest. With the way it's presented, it's a while until I care about any of the characters, if at all. Bregor fucked around with this message at 04:14 on Apr 11, 2014 |
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Apr 11, 2014 04:09
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So, would a gunblade work irl?
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Apr 11, 2014 04:10
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BgRdMchne posted:So, would a gunblade work irl? From what I can tell, Lightning's version of a "gunblade" is just an actual gun with a giant Swiss-Army fold-out blade. So, yes.
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Apr 11, 2014 04:15
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Oy, that's Chapter 5 poo poo. Tag it or remove it.
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Apr 11, 2014 04:19
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Wild Knight posted:Pretty sure that's a plot point and thus a spoiler, dude. Hope's mother doesn't have a name yet, as far as I remember. This might also help a lot with Hope: at this juncture, all Hope has is our feeling bad for his circumstances, and not feeling anything for him as a person (at best). Because we don't know him as a person, just 'a kid whose mom is dead that's pretty depressing.' Later, his problem is that Hope is allowed two feelings, angry and sad, and spends most of the time fusing them into one feeling, sangry, and that's boring. This would, without changing his circumstances, buy him time to get some sympathy for him as a person going and establish character traits and feelings he might have beyond omnipresent and impotent feelings of sanger.
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Apr 11, 2014 04:34
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May I say I actually like what they did with Anima here, as a FFX fan? The weird look, and having its "true" body below the ground hidden, just like the original...it's a pretty nice reference! Just...I have no idea why you'd go with Anima of all summons for the first boss. Use Ifrit or another low-level guy, not goddamn Anima, what the hell FFXIII? Granted, what the hell might as well be the reaction to everything here, especially the length. I'm pretty sure they could've done all of this and more in far less time, but everyone has pointed this out already so whatever, just going to say I agree. Also I kind of like how Snow and Lightning acted here. They just saw a loved one get crystalized, so they aren't going to act very rationally. Lightning is very clearly full of anger since the get-go, so she decides to just blow the drat God-like entity up, not thinking about this being, you know, a God-like entity. Snow, meanwhile, just loses his usual confidence and decides to beg for Serah's salvation, though it doesn't work at all, and once it doesn't work he joins Lightning's plan without question. And I can't blame Hope for trying to run away, logical choice there. I'd want to run away too if I saw Anima, holy poo poo.
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Apr 11, 2014 04:46
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About the soundtrack, if you ever encounter the term again, an insert song is basically a song that's played during an important scene. It differs from a score piece in that it's usually a vocal song by an artist that isn't the composer.
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Apr 11, 2014 04:53
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Blaze Dragon posted:Use Ifrit or another low-level guy, not goddamn Anima, what the hell FFXIII? Anima is high level in the game she's in, but as far as canon goes, she's not much special, only in 1 game after all. It lets them leave the actual series summons to have bigger parts in the story, which they squander in the name of style... most of the time.
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Apr 11, 2014 04:56
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BgRdMchne posted:So, would a gunblade work irl? Gunblades are a real thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistol_sword
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Apr 11, 2014 07:05
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Blaze Dragon posted:And I can't blame Hope for trying to run away, logical choice there. I'd want to run away too if I saw Anima, holy poo poo. Yeah. Kinda funny that he's the only one who acts like a human being as opposed to JRPG character there. That being said, I don't have high hopes for his further development. Gotta say I love Sazh's gunslinging, in particular the fact he's apparently unable to fire off a second shot unless he's standing on one leg. Kinda makes me wonder whether it's an explained gun-kata thing or just the devs going "look at this wacky black man, wheeee". I wouldn't put it past them.
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Apr 11, 2014 07:38
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Blaze Dragon posted:And I can't blame Hope for trying to run away, logical choice there. I'd want to run away too if I saw Anima, holy poo poo. Doesn't really excuse his cowering-and-clinging-to-Vanille bit in the previous scene. I didn't remember Hope being that much of a wuss. "Mommy issues" indeed. I'm pretty confident that the writers had no idea how to write a teenager, because Hope constantly oscillates between 5, 13, and 20 years old, depending on the scene. Sometimes he's angry teen, sometimes he's Prof. Exposition, and sometimes he just cowers and whines like a little lost lamb. And he's still one of the best characters in the game, mostly by sheer process of elimination. Bregor posted:Now that you mention it, a start like FFT might have worked a lot better. Purge to grab attention, then back to the beginning of the 13 Days, then the rest. With the way it's presented, it's a while until I care about any of the characters, if at all. I don't think the FFT route would work. FFT's Prologue was full of action and battles and things the player character had to actively do. Ramza had to FIGHT the Death Corps at Sand Rat Cellar, and not only did his victory advance the plot, but he (and by extension, the player) was actually fighting for life and death. You, both protagonist and player, marched on Ft. Zeakden, you fought scripted battles to get there, and -importantly- you could lose those battles, and if you did it was Game Over. The 13 Days is much more like FF7's flashback in Kalm. You're pretty much there to hear/read the script, there's not a real sense of danger, you as the player don't have to do much of anything, the game will just tread on, and you already "know" how the story ends. If I were somehow writing FF13 and had to do the flashbacks? I think FF7 did it well enough. Show the whole thing one way, the "official" way, the version that everyone believes. Do it early in the game, establish the Sanctum's narrative surrounding the arrival of the Fal'Cie as the version that most people believe. Poke holes in that story over the next 20 hours, until we eventually hear a more truthful version from a reputable source. This is super basic writing, like serious amateur hour in here, but I'd rather my story be a walking cliche than whatever the hell FFXIII is. J. Alfred Prufrock fucked around with this message at 11:43 on Apr 11, 2014 |
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Apr 11, 2014 11:11
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To be honest, of the characters so far, my favorite so far would have to be Sazh. Mainly because he's pretty chill. I do like Lightning a bit, though. Not as much as other Final Fantasy main protagonists, but just a little.
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Apr 11, 2014 11:26
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It's been a long, long time since Latin classes, but here's my best effort.Latin posted:Ragnarok. Ragnarok. Of the Days of Wrath, l'Cie of Pulse: Follow your fate. Your homes will burn. Ragnarok. The Lord of Vengeance approaches. Ragnarok. Of the Days of Misery, l'Cie of Pulse: Follow your fate. Your world will be broken. Ragnarok. The Merciless King comes. Eternal light shines forth from the souls of the dead. In eternal sleep, divine word is divine will. Most lamentable wanderer, Ragnarok. Taking some liberties on that last piece - I think the first line is actually more like "Always light shines, they have been fashioned from the souls of the dead". And it should be "quite lamentable", but come on, that sounds like crap in English. Note that Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) is a real Latin hymn. idonotlikepeas fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Apr 11, 2014 |
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Apr 11, 2014 14:46
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Lightning has already secured her best character status by punching Snow. This may change later but for now she is indisputably in the lead.anilEhilated posted:Gotta say I love Sazh's gunslinging, in particular the fact he's apparently unable to fire off a second shot unless he's standing on one leg. Kinda makes me wonder whether it's an explained gun-kata thing or just the devs going "look at this wacky black man, wheeee". I wouldn't put it past them. 
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Apr 11, 2014 15:01
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That big thingamajiggy after the Anima fight isn't Anima's true form  it's Pulse
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Apr 11, 2014 16:07
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So the Vestige is an entire building formerly found on Pulse which they then glued into Cocoon to...not accomplish much, because the hole is still there. Okay. How could I not have gotten this. About the prologue: I don't think it needs to be that shorter, it just needs to be less redundant and pointless. Everyone is gathering at the Vestige, each party for their own reasons and ultimately because the plot demands them to be together. It's a Big loving Deal and the game completely fails to point that out. With more focus on that thing as an actual goal (something the entire game needs more of), everything would feel less random and a waste of your time. The bridge at the beginning with Sazh and Lightning: they can be attacked by the scorpion as a first battle, this is good, the game actually starts pretty quickly after the first cutscene and you get to push buttons. Then we NEED for Lightning to state clearly "I need to go there because". It's fine if she doesn't tell Sazh why, because that's her character. He then needs to protest "but this is the Pulse Vestige - with the fal'cie inside which is responsible for this entire mess!". Or something along those lines. Then they can get interrupted by a battle. Lightning can still be aloof, I don't care, but Sazh can then decided that he better stick with her or he'll die alone. Let more soldiers impede their way, that's fine, let them grow in numbers and strength, so that the Bracelets you find are actually important, that you need to start using Potions more often (FAR more often), and let their dialogue while running reflect that they have an actual agenda, GET IN THERE, and Sazh protest more often about stuff like "but the fal'cie will make us into its servants - we'll be l'cie, and if it hates us enough, we'll immediately turn into Cie'th and that's it!" or "do you want to give the Guardian Corps and actual reason to purge us? If we come into contact with the fal'cie, there'll be no saving us!". There are short pre-battle cutscenes. Make him try to apologize to the soldiers, make them not listen. Fights start even though Sazh protests. Gameplay shows that they will get shot down regardless of protest, reinforcing the story. Same for the other parties. Snow's segment is actually okay, gameplay-wise - grenades show the importance of multi-target attacks. More Potion usage. Other characters TO TALK TO - let them reinforce concepts we are beginning to learn about. How the government works. What Cocoon IS. "Ever since the war with Pulse, they are an easy boogeyman. But they weren't too interested in making sure that the parts of the planet we used to repair the damage from the war were actually safe - don't you think Dysley (YES loving TALK ABOUT HIM EARLY) is making things far too easy for himself?" "Nah Snow Pulse are evil fuckers what are you on" - NORA This would also foreshadow that after Serah's l'cieification (sic!), Snow would need to rethink PULSE BAD at least a little, but the others have no reason to. They still subscribe to the obvious propaganda. "Why would there be a reason to believe the Vestige housed a fal'cie?" etc. They kind of have the right idea with world-building conversations happening while you're running down corridors, but they aren't nearly using that enough. All of the datalog stuff could be said while your are exploring, it's not impossible to think so. You can still have a datalog for recapping, if you - by the machine-Gods! - were having too much fun playing the game to pay attention to the characters yakking on. Oh, and for heaven's sake, let the fights have a tangible reward. Experience points (keeping it vague!) to save up for later, it's REALLY not an issue if you earn them before you can spend them, imho. You'll do so more often than not in the normal gameplay anyway. Chance to get Phoenix Downs instead of Potions if you 5-star fights. Shrouds already have a higher drop rate in the early chapters, so go the whole way, they should just drop more often in general, but especially here because of the way they work, just hand them out early because unless you're doing crazy challenges, you'll need them while learning how to play. As the Prologue is so piss-easy anyway though, you'll still not get many so welp. Tangible rewards for fights would go a long way to make them not so absurdly wasted. All of this still adds up to a long prologue, but again, it's okay if it SERVES A PURPOSE. As is, you get nothing from it except for questions and a hard to shake hatred for Snow and Hope.
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Apr 11, 2014 19:25
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Simply Simon posted:Chance to get Phoenix Downs instead of Potions if you 5-star fights. Just to point one small thing out, this already happens. Almost all of your basic soldiers have Phoenix Downs as their rare drop, and 5-starring a fight makes it more likely that you'll grab the rare drop in addition to the common one. Instant Grat posted:That big thingamajiggy after the Anima fight isn't Anima's true form Is it? Admittedly it's hard to say since I don't think the game ever explicitly says how the whole L'Cie branding thing works, but I'm pretty sure it's done by the Fal'Cie, not by one of the three actual gods. Or at least that was the impression I got, given what happens at the power plant. But if you say so, I'll trust you. I certainly don't have all the drat datalogs memorized. theshim posted:Lightning has already secured her best character status by punching Snow. This may change later but for now she is indisputably in the lead. You are going to love Chapter 3.
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Apr 11, 2014 21:32
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Artix posted:Just to point one small thing out, this already happens. Almost all of your basic soldiers have Phoenix Downs as their rare drop, and 5-starring a fight makes it more likely that you'll grab the rare drop in addition to the common one. From what I remember the way it works is that the L'Cie basically plane shifts the soon to be branded to the gods who give them the special powers, and then as they come back that is when they imprint the vague mission orders for the branded to follow. Finally with the boss battle that required a slight bit of thought the true combat system is going to start revealing itself .
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Apr 11, 2014 21:59
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I really like the little vision thing that tells the L'cie what to do. Gods speaking to mortals in absurdly abstract ways is my favorite way to show that they cannot be comprehended. Sadly, most of the gods in this game are not incomprehensible beings of untold power...
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Apr 11, 2014 22:50
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Gensuki posted:Gods speaking to mortals in absurdly abstract ways is my favorite way to show that they cannot be comprehended. Gods = FFXIII writers?
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Apr 11, 2014 22:55
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anilEhilated posted:Gods = FFXIII writers? Not...exactly, the "gods" thing is being pretty literal. We'll cover in it in a Chapter 4 video (Chapter 3 is already completely recorded), but the Final Fantasy XIII mythos has a capital-G God, gods, then the Fal'Cie (who are basically demigods), and their L'Cie servants at the bottom of the food chain. Artix fucked around with this message at 23:22 on Apr 11, 2014 |
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Apr 11, 2014 23:16
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Artix posted:datalog datalog datalog Final Fantasy 13 is the prettiest novel I've ever read.
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Apr 12, 2014 00:43
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It's me, I'm the guy that really enjoyed this game. It's super flawed, though, and if I were to ever decide to play it again, I have a save at a certain point in the game where the battle system and character progression starts to be legitimately interesting (and we're unfortunately quite a ways away from that here).
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Apr 12, 2014 01:45
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I've got to say, the pretty-ness just doesn't really do it for me. Mostly because its all irrelevant. I can think of maybe one or two times, in Chapter 11, where something neat looking in the background may actually be an actual point of interest. Most of the long tube you follow is also pointless, rarely having anything of note to actually catch your attention. I like to compare this game with Xenoblade Chronicles for whatever reason, and while that game is limited by the Wii's graphical capabilities it still manages to be more visually interesting than 95% of FFXIII to me, just because there are things for you to do in the neat environments. For instance, the third location you come to there, after tutorial ville and a small cave, is a huge plain that has a bunch of hills and valleys, a massive lake in a crevace with a highway bridge over it, giant mushrooms connected by bridges, a few shrines in various locations which have some surprises (SPIDER!), a massive interesting cave network and a few other things. Meanwhile I can't remember any of the midgame areas in FFXIII at all, they were just really boring, bland and plain despite all the visual frills. Hell FFXIII may have too many visual frills. When the party was becoming l'cie I couldn't really tell what was going on when I played (playing at 360p) because it was just too visually busy. Anima and whatever the hell that was just had so many bits that it was hard to tell what was what, and at 360p that thing just looked like a bunch of mining belts or snakes, with details impossible to make out.
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Apr 12, 2014 01:58
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