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ShadeofDante
Feb 17, 2007

speaking of minds! know what's on mine? murders.

fount of knowledge posted:

I'm gonna go out and say what a lot of people are thinking: I liked the ultimate weapon challenges in Final Fantasy X. Yes, chocobo racing. Yes, butterflies too. gently caress YES, Blitzball.

I earned each and every one of those sigils, and in return I was given holy-poo poo-awesome weapons of destructive power. As it should be. :colbert:

Lightning dodging.

Everything else I can see the appeal or challenge. There is nothing rewarding about dodging 100 lightning bolts in a row. And I know there's going to be an achievement for that in the inevitable HD port of the game. :sigh:

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Spiritus Nox
Sep 2, 2011

ShadeofDante posted:

Lightning dodging.

Everything else I can see the appeal or challenge. There is nothing rewarding about dodging 100 lightning bolts in a row. And I know there's going to be an achievement for that in the inevitable HD port of the game. :sigh:

People care about achievements? :v:

That Fucking Sned
Oct 28, 2010

Spiritus Nox posted:

People care about achievements? :v:

To quite a terrifying degree.

All Square Enix needs to do is put an achievement for one of those ridiculous challenge runs from GameFAQs, and people will do it.

Jupiter Jazz
Jan 13, 2007

by sebmojo
I have to admit, I miss when the games had ultimate weapons. I wish each game had ultimate weapons unique to each character, and you had to go through a long, hard quest in order to get it, to make it feel rewarding. Maybe even entangle that with a character arc somehow. The only games I can think of that's even remotely in that area are 6, 7, 10-2, and 12. For example, I am a big fan of choice. I love the Ragnarok sword quest in 6 where you are given the choice between the sword and the spell. Or in FF12 where I go through a long quest to unlock a dungeon so I can dungeon crawl where the mobs are 10-30 levels higher than me to retrieve a rare weapon drop.

I really miss that element of Final Fantasy and I haven't played 13-2 yet so I don't know if it revived it. But I think the worst solution is putting the best weapon out in the middle of nowhere, with no reward at all, like it's a freebie. I remember being angry that they pulled this with Barret's ultimate weapon in VII - making it a boring treasure chest drop right before fighting Hojo.

Mrs. Badcrumble
Sep 21, 2002

ImpAtom posted:

I really don't think any of them handled it well actually. I found it incredibly boring that there was a "best" weapon and I just got it, equipped it, and was done. FFVII at least theoretically asked you to equip other poo poo to level materia up.

I don't understand why you'd want lesscustomization from weapons? What benefit does having one ultimate weapon have over having a variety of weapons with their own uses? I guess that's what I don't get. Why would you want one choice over multiple choices when it comes to character builds?

FF9 was excellent about it because the stat boosts (and elemental boosts/elemental defense) in that game mattered a great deal.

It's not that I want less customization, it's that I want less of what FFXIII and FFXIII-2 had where every supposedly top-tier weapon feels terribly hobbled in some way compared to each of the others. And, frankly, I really prefer the essential core of game design we've had in FFX, X-2, XII, XIII, and XIII-2 where it's less about character customization and more about actually making the battles themselves engaging (which, frankly, they usually were not in the old ATB days). Both sorts is excellent, but to me customization is much more about abilities and less about stats. Bring back the job system for gently caress's sake.

Azure_Horizon
Mar 27, 2010

by Reene

Schwartzcough posted:

At the very least, the missile base is meaningless because, despite setting the "Error ratio" on the missiles to max (why is that even an option?), they STILL would've nuked the Garden if it hadn't moved. As a matter of fact, if you hadn't messed with the error ratio at all, Garden would've been safer because all the missiles would've hit where Garden WAS instead of exploding all around it as it flew off. Maybe it was such a close call because the missiles had evil Sauron eyes for some stupid reason.

FF8 really is a mess. Watching the latest LP really lets you pick out how almost every scene introduces several plot holes, or things that can theoretically be explained but only if the explanation is that everyone is monumentally retarded. It's pretty clear that no one on the writing staff really took a hard, critical look at the script after it was written and asked, "does this make sense?"

Edit:


On the other hand, FFX. gently caress all the ultimate weapon nonsense in that game.

When I was playing the game, I had totally forgotten how absolutely stupid the Missile Base sequence was. I mean, wow. Just... wow. There was zero point to ever going there. The funny part was that even though we hosed with the error ratio, Trabia still got bombed and that part always makes me giggle.

The GIG
Jun 28, 2011

Yeah, I say "Shit" a shit-ton of times. What of it, shithead?

fount of knowledge posted:

gently caress YES, Blitzball

This person knows whats up. :hfive:

I still say Square should have released the various marquee minigames from the different FF's onto PSN/Live. I would buy the poo poo out of two player Blitzball or Triple Triad.

Tempo 119
Apr 17, 2006

Schwartzcough posted:

FF8 really is a mess. Watching the latest LP really lets you pick out how almost every scene introduces several plot holes, or things that can theoretically be explained but only if the explanation is that everyone is monumentally retarded. It's pretty clear that no one on the writing staff really took a hard, critical look at the script after it was written and asked, "does this make sense?"

The guy writing it though, no offense, but I'm pretty sure FF8 killed his dog or something. What other impression could you possibly get through that kind of lens?

Fight Club Sandwich
Apr 29, 2006

you want a piece of me???

Mrs. Badcrumble posted:

It's not that I want less customization, it's that I want less of what FFXIII and FFXIII-2 had where every supposedly top-tier weapon feels terribly hobbled in some way compared to each of the others.

That's good game balance though. Tradeoffs and exploiting strengths/covering weaknesses is what keeps things interesting.

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

Tempo 119 posted:

The guy writing it though, no offense, but I'm pretty sure FF8 killed his dog or something. What other impression could you possibly get through that kind of lens?

I really dislike FF8 but this is honestly a problem with LPs in general. If a LP dislikes a game, for whatever reason, they can make it look a lot worse than it is. They tend to focus on the negatives, exacerbate problems that exist or just in general can change the tone of something. On the reverse, someone who likes a weird or bad game can make it look a lot better than it is.

That isn't to say FF8 isn't a total mess plotwise because it is. I doubt I could write about its plot without being snarky or sarcastic about it because loving seriously that plot.

RagnarokAngel
Oct 5, 2006

Black Magic Extraordinaire

This Jacket Is Me posted:

I agree with you about Mog, but Cyan? The train sequence was really touching.

The problem is after that his existence sorta ceases to be meaningful. His purpose is fulfilled so he moves to the background.

I had a similar problem with the Shadow-Relm-Strago triad. The three of them together have a rather interesting thing going but in the context of the larger plot they sort of don't exist.

Calaveron
Aug 7, 2006
:negative:

Himuro posted:

I really miss that element of Final Fantasy and I haven't played 13-2 yet so I don't know if it revived it. But I think the worst solution is putting the best weapon out in the middle of nowhere, with no reward at all, like it's a freebie. I remember being angry that they pulled this with Barret's ultimate weapon in VII - making it a boring treasure chest drop right before fighting Hojo.

Unless Barret wasn't in your party when you walk into that screen, because then the chest would not spawn and the weapon would be lost forever.
That kind of obtusery is also a tremendous pain in the rear end. Give us personalized quests for each character to get their best weapon, but don't make it so that they're so hard that once you get said weapon there are no challenges left in the game.

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

RagnarokAngel posted:

The problem is after that his existence sorta ceases to be meaningful. His purpose is fulfilled so he moves to the background.

I had a similar problem with the Shadow-Relm-Strago triad. The three of them together have a rather interesting thing going but in the context of the larger plot they sort of don't exist.

Cyan is an important character thematically if not directly to the story. Same for the trio. They're not directly connected to the Espers stuff, but nobody but Celes and Terra really is.

Mog is... well, he's a slam-dancing Moogle and has a really bitchin' unique item. That's something.

Epi Lepi
Oct 29, 2009

You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

The White Dragon posted:

But it's not coherent, it's a string of utterly disconnected events that reeks of RPGMaker Syndrome: it sends you to these irrelevant places and shovels lore down your throat like you're supposed to care. The Missile Base is pointless and serves only to make the player say "oh no my bros were blown up!!!" and fake them out later, as if they didn't see that coming. The garden battle sequence is completely disconnected from the plot. In fact, it's so shoehorned in that your entire motivation for everything you do in that section is, and I quote, "It's your destiny." "It has to be you." If FF8 didn't take itself so goddamn seriously, I'd swear that the whole section was a parody of the Chosen One of Legend cliche.

The entire second disc could be edited out, save for the intro with Laguna, the escape from the prison, and final showdown with Edea, and not only would you lose nothing of relevance to the plot, but you wouldn't even lose characterization or continuity.

I'm going to have to continue to disagree with you. Just because you don't like a sequence doesn't make it incoherent. When you watch procedurals do you just watch the first and last 5 minutes of the show? I mean the rest would be pointless by your definition so why bother right?

And your point about them shoving lore down your throat like you're supposed to care? You're playing the game aren't you? Of course you're supposed to care.

Schwartzcough
Aug 12, 2009

Don't tease the Octopus, kids!

ImpAtom posted:

I really dislike FF8 but this is honestly a problem with LPs in general. If a LP dislikes a game, for whatever reason, they can make it look a lot worse than it is. They tend to focus on the negatives, exacerbate problems that exist or just in general can change the tone of something. On the reverse, someone who likes a weird or bad game can make it look a lot better than it is.

That isn't to say FF8 isn't a total mess plotwise because it is. I doubt I could write about its plot without being snarky or sarcastic about it because loving seriously that plot.

This is true to some extent, but not really in this case. While it's clear Azure isn't a fan of FF8, I don't think he intentionally cut out content that "wraps it all together and makes sense." I mean, he included the one screen of vague text from the computer terminal in the first 15 minutes of the game that everyone uses to say, "see, the game told you all about GF amnesia!" and the 3 words of text people use to say NORG didn't come out of nowhere.

Most of the problems I had with the story were things he did not point out at all; they're just stuff you notice when you get the story presented to you quickly without hours of random battles and menu fuckery to distract you.

PhilippAchtel
May 31, 2011

RagnarokAngel posted:

The problem is after that his existence sorta ceases to be meaningful. His purpose is fulfilled so he moves to the background.

I had a similar problem with the Shadow-Relm-Strago triad. The three of them together have a rather interesting thing going but in the context of the larger plot they sort of don't exist.

I think FFVI definitely has major (Terra, Celes, Locke, Edgar, Sabin, Setzer) and minor (Gau, Cyan, Shadow, Relm, Strago, etc.) characters, but I don't think that's a strike against the game. On the contrary, if the game tried to give every character an equal share of the main story, it would feel unfocused.

None the less, each character's arc does flow into the WoB story of struggle against the Empire and the WoR story of humanity and interpersonal bonds.

Do people move to the background after you recruit them in the WoR? Yes, but that's because once you've recruited them, their portion of the WoR story is done until everyone confronts Kefka at the end. When you're descending into the Phoenix Cave to find Locke, it isn't about Edgar or Setzer or even Celes. It's about Locke. Each character, with the exception of the very minor characters (Mog, Umaro, Gogo) has their own thing like that. Personally, I think it works really well.

Mrs. Badcrumble
Sep 21, 2002

Fight Club Sandwich posted:

That's good game balance though. Tradeoffs and exploiting strengths/covering weaknesses is what keeps things interesting.

If you like good game balance then get the gently caress out of the final fantasy thread because the entire point of the series is to find ways utterly break the gameplay.

ACES CURE PLANES
Oct 21, 2010



Tempo 119 posted:

The guy writing it though, no offense, but I'm pretty sure FF8 killed his dog or something. What other impression could you possibly get through that kind of lens?

That is the impression that I get. I mean, he did start the thread for the express purpose of making GBS threads on the game, so there's that. Not to mention he feels like coming in and derailing every thread that mentions it for no good reason.

Edit:

Mrs. Badcrumble posted:

If you like good game balance then get the gently caress out of the final fantasy thread because the entire point of the series is to find ways utterly break the gameplay.

Seriously, that's some of the most fun the series has to offer. Taking it out and replacing it with 'balance' just makes the experience as a whole so much less fun.

ACES CURE PLANES fucked around with this message at 20:06 on May 25, 2012

Fight Club Sandwich
Apr 29, 2006

you want a piece of me???

Mrs. Badcrumble posted:

If you like good game balance then get the gently caress out of the final fantasy thread because the entire point of the series is to find ways utterly break the gameplay.

I think I finally understand all the hate for FF13.

RagnarokAngel
Oct 5, 2006

Black Magic Extraordinaire

PhilippAchtel posted:

I think FFVI definitely has major (Terra, Celes, Locke, Edgar, Sabin, Setzer) and minor (Gau, Cyan, Shadow, Relm, Strago, etc.) characters, but I don't think that's a strike against the game. On the contrary, if the game tried to give every character an equal share of the main story, it would feel unfocused.

None the less, each character's arc does flow into the WoB story of struggle against the Empire and the WoR story of humanity and interpersonal bonds.

Do people move to the background after you recruit them in the WoR? Yes, but that's because once you've recruited them, their portion of the WoR story is done until everyone confronts Kefka at the end. When you're descending into the Phoenix Cave to find Locke, it isn't about Edgar or Setzer or even Celes. It's about Locke. Each character, with the exception of the very minor characters (Mog, Umaro, Gogo) has their own thing like that. Personally, I think it works really well.

The problem is that's not real. Real people grow and develop even if they come to terms with a personal crisis that they have. They don't suddenly become irrelevant because of it.

The problem I have with WoR's design is not that a character becomes the "center stage" in each of the side quests, it's that the other characters cease to matter. During the early parts of WoR, Celes, Sabin and Setzer all have unique dialouge because they're the only ones available, so it was easier to program that stuff in. That all comes to a halt after that and it's jarring. Everything feels compartmentalized, like...well a video game.

I already felt like FF6 becomes unfocused in WoR because Kefka ceases to do anything. I realize this is a problem in pretty much any video game, especially rpgs that have an end game before a point of no return, but for all the talk that players love Kefka because he's a more active villain who actually "succeeds" at least at first, he becomes pretty complacent in the second half. Occasionally having him interfere might have helped.

I'm not really criticizing Square for what they did at the time. It was a unique experiment at the time for the genre and it mostly succeeds at that. Just looking at it through a modern context I find it very unenjoyable to play and kind of hollow.

That Fucking Sned
Oct 28, 2010

Fight Club Sandwich posted:

I think I finally understand all the hate for FF13.

The good thing about FFXIII was that, by having strict control over your progression and characters' strength, it had a really satisfying difficulty curve.

It can't be broken or cheesed, but it also doesn't ever put you up against enemies that cannot be defeated without grinding. The exception being Gran Pulse, but you have the freedom to avoid difficult encounters there.

It kind of sucked in XIII-2 how I stumbled into an area early on which was too difficult for my current characters, only to overlevel there and steamroll the rest of the game. However, designing an RPG doesn't require you to choose between customisation and a good difficulty curve, so hopefully we get the option to make the next game more challenging.

Azure_Horizon
Mar 27, 2010

by Reene

Tempo 119 posted:

The guy writing it though, no offense, but I'm pretty sure FF8 killed his dog or something. What other impression could you possibly get through that kind of lens?

I stated upfront that I think FF8 is a good game, with a fuckton of flaws and the worst story in the series.

If you think that somehow altered the quality of the LP, then you're wrong. I went in-depth in pretty much everything the game has to offer, regardless of my stance.

And many, many others agreed with me on my overall view of the game.

Mrs. Badcrumble
Sep 21, 2002

Fight Club Sandwich posted:

I think I finally understand all the hate for FF13.

FF13 has a delicious super-smooth difficulty curve, though the learning curve is too shallow for too much of the game. But the difficulty curve completely breaks down with the postgame content; there's a certain set of stuff (3rd tier weapons, double-CP accessory, assorted other top-tier accessories) that you basically need to abuse the game and/or grind for hours and hours to obtain, which is why you see so many strategies featuring abuse of Vanille's 'Death' spell in order to beat a bunch of the game's toughest bosses. FFXIII's balance completely breaks down and it actually *makes* you break it if you want to finish a lot of the game's toughest content.

Attitude Indicator
Apr 3, 2009

Welp, finally finished XIII-2, and the ending is just as retarded as everyone said it was.

PhilippAchtel
May 31, 2011

RagnarokAngel posted:

I already felt like FF6 becomes unfocused in WoR because Kefka ceases to do anything. I realize this is a problem in pretty much any video game, especially rpgs that have an end game before a point of no return, but for all the talk that players love Kefka because he's a more active villain who actually "succeeds" at least at first, he becomes pretty complacent in the second half. Occasionally having him interfere might have helped.

Just to pick out this one part, I felt that Kefka's absentee villainy in the second half (his "light of judgement" or whatever, excepted) really paid off during the final scenes where he more or less admits that ultimate power is boring. Once he wipes out the party, he will have achieved his final triumph, and then what is there left for him? At that point, the only thing left is to erase the world.

If you look at it this way, it would be out of character for Kefka to interfere in the way ExDeath or Golbez took a direct hand in affairs. After all, he thinks he's already won.

As for your point about unique dialogue, I do understand where you're coming from. There is maybe some room for that, but I wouldn't want it to come on so strongly that it overpowers that each quest is really about the person you are finding.

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

Mrs. Badcrumble posted:

FF13 has a delicious super-smooth difficulty curve, though the learning curve is too shallow for too much of the game. But the difficulty curve completely breaks down with the postgame content; there's a certain set of stuff (3rd tier weapons, double-CP accessory, assorted other top-tier accessories) that you basically need to abuse the game and/or grind for hours and hours to obtain, which is why you see so many strategies featuring abuse of Vanille's 'Death' spell in order to beat a bunch of the game's toughest bosses. FFXIII's balance completely breaks down and it actually *makes* you break it if you want to finish a lot of the game's toughest content.

This isn't really true though. The reason people grind for hours and hours isn't to finish the content, or even to finish the content with 5 stars. It's to get the Achievements. People recommended Vanille's "death" spell because it is the most mindless way to grind drops so you can earn the trophies/achievements. You can 5 star pretty much everything without grinding, it just depends on how you approach the battle. The people who freaked the gently caress out about turtles were doing so because you needed to do ridiculous things to Platinum the game, not to do the actual content.

Guilty
May 3, 2003
Ask me about how people having a bad reaction to MSG makes them racist, because I've never heard of gluten sensitivity

RagnarokAngel posted:

The problem is that's not real. Real people grow and develop even if they come to terms with a personal crisis that they have. They don't suddenly become irrelevant because of it.

The problem I have with WoR's design is not that a character becomes the "center stage" in each of the side quests, it's that the other characters cease to matter. During the early parts of WoR, Celes, Sabin and Setzer all have unique dialouge because they're the only ones available, so it was easier to program that stuff in. That all comes to a halt after that and it's jarring. Everything feels compartmentalized, like...well a video game.

I already felt like FF6 becomes unfocused in WoR because Kefka ceases to do anything. I realize this is a problem in pretty much any video game, especially rpgs that have an end game before a point of no return, but for all the talk that players love Kefka because he's a more active villain who actually "succeeds" at least at first, he becomes pretty complacent in the second half. Occasionally having him interfere might have helped.

I'm not really criticizing Square for what they did at the time. It was a unique experiment at the time for the genre and it mostly succeeds at that. Just looking at it through a modern context I find it very unenjoyable to play and kind of hollow.

The problem is, you're majorly attached to enriching elements of the story which is a sign of an extremely well written story. Strago, Shadow, Cyan, Mog, etc. aren't part of the main story. They are elements used in order to create a rich and textured world. Everything in the WoR is designed to close story lines, not continue or open them.

The collapse of the floating island is the climax of the story, everything after that is the denouement. Whatever and however long you can stand the denouement, the player can decide. It's one of the best written video game scripts I've played (never played 9, 12, 13)

Happy Blue Cow
Oct 23, 2008

I have moooore respect for
Mr. Carpainter then others. Even if I become someone's steak dinner, I'll still respect him.

Just taking a short moment to let you guys know I've updated the OP with some new descriptions for other FF titles (Type-0, Versus13, Kingdom Hearts, 4HoL, and even the entire FF7 Compilation). Special thanks shout-out goes to Pesky Splinter and Turnip Fritter for actually writing these out!

:glomp:

Also a bonus reminder that anyone can write up their own description or added information, please feel free to do so! As most of you are already aware there is a veritable poo poo-load of games/spin-offs/etc.. in FF series, so any help I can get writing some of these descriptions is much appreciated.





Back on topic though;

I disagree in that, FF13's difficulty curve wasn't exactly that super-smooth. It had a overly long "tutorial" segment, where it was basically impossible for the player to fail, or for the player to deviate off track. This eventually led to the segments where you finally had access to all the Paradigm roles, but even then SAB/SYN/SEN roles were really never needed for any of the content/bosses until many hours later when you reach Gran Pulse. The critical story encounters for the game were really "under-tuned" compared to the abilities an average player had access to when he encounters them. Like ImpAtom says as well, once you reach the end-game, it simply becomes a grind fest for trophies, since the actual content had been easily beaten.

FF13-2 had a much more smooth difficulty curve in comparison, especially with the introduction of monster types containing paradigm roles you may have not unlocked yet on Noel and Serah. Not to mention the 6 paradigm roles were given to the player MUCH earlier as well. It was just a tighter paced, and IMHO, more enjoyable game play experience compared to FF13.

Happy Blue Cow fucked around with this message at 23:32 on May 25, 2012

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

My problem with FFXIII-2 is what happened above. I went to an area slightly too high a level for me and worked my way through it. The end result is that I was so overpowered that I sleepwalked over pretty much the entire rest of the game. I honestly disliked FFXIII-2 for this more than any other thing. It was so easy to overlevel that any interesting part of the combat system became nullified by how overleveled I was.

Fungah!
Apr 30, 2011

Unrelated to anything anyone's talking about, but does anyone know when the FFV Four Job Challenge starts up again? I've been thinking about loading up V again and that'd be about as good an excuse as any.

Happy Blue Cow
Oct 23, 2008

I have moooore respect for
Mr. Carpainter then others. Even if I become someone's steak dinner, I'll still respect him.

Fungah! posted:

Unrelated to anything anyone's talking about, but does anyone know when the FFV Four Job Challenge starts up again? I've been thinking about loading up V again and that'd be about as good an excuse as any.

Supposed to be sometime in June! I've been keeping an eye on it and will probably do a big post in this thread about it once it gets started.



vvvv
I suppose not. The patch is fine, its just the actual game ISO which falls under files. I'll update accordingly!

Happy Blue Cow fucked around with this message at 23:52 on May 25, 2012

Schwartzcough
Aug 12, 2009

Don't tease the Octopus, kids!

Happy Blue Cow posted:

The International Zodiac Job System version of the game made tremendous improvements to the game and is by far the recommended version of the title. The problem is it's been released in Japan Only. A Complete English Fan-Translation Patch exists but that falls under :filez:, if you can get your hand on that, it's well worth it.

Would the patch itself really be considered :filez:? It isn't a version of the game itself, it's just a program that takes data from the English version and replaces the Japanese text from the International version. The site that distributed it doesn't condone downloading copies of the game, and suggests obtaining valid copies of both the US and International versions in order to do the patch.

swamp waste
Nov 4, 2009

There is some very sensual touching going on in the cutscene there. i don't actually think it means anything sexual but it's cool how it contrasts with modern ideas of what bad ass stuff should be like. It even seems authentic to some kind of chivalric masculine touching from a tyme longe gone

RagnarokAngel posted:

The problem is after that his existence sorta ceases to be meaningful. His purpose is fulfilled so he moves to the background.

The letters subplot with Cyan in the second half is great though.

zedprime
Jun 9, 2007

yospos

Happy Blue Cow posted:

I disagree in that, FF13's difficulty curve wasn't exactly that super-smooth. It had a overly long "tutorial" segment, where it was basically impossible for the player to fail, or for the player to deviate off track. This eventually led to the segments where you finally had access to all the Paradigm roles, but even then SAB/SYN/SEN roles were really never needed for any of the content/bosses until many hours later when you reach Gran Pulse. The critical story encounters for the game were really "under-tuned" compared to the abilities an average player had access to when he encounters them. Like ImpAtom says as well, once you reach the end-game, it simply becomes a grind fest for trophies, since the actual content had been easily beaten.

FF13-2 had a much more smooth difficulty curve in comparison, especially with the introduction of monster types containing paradigm roles you may have not unlocked yet on Noel and Serah. Not to mention the 6 paradigm roles were given to the player MUCH earlier as well. It was just a tighter paced, and IMHO, more enjoyable game play experience compared to FF13.
People ignoring Sab, Syn, and Sen roles in the duo parts of the game led to the ridiculous catch 22 that you can win the game by spamming X, yet it requires complaining about fights taking 20 minutes in the Sazh/Vanille sections and spending the same amount of time hoping to luck out in the Snow/Hope sections. The game is ridiculously tight about difficulty, and the post game content death spam was a shortcut bootstrap to get some experience and ultimate weapons made for people having trouble pulling off the elephants.

13-2 had a pretty similar tuning, except its incredibly likely that someone will either get lost or go chasing side content, overleveling and throwing it out the window. It really shows how hacky the balancing was in 13 since the only way it managed to keep each chapter a challenge is arbitrarily limiting your crystarium growth.

homeless snail
Mar 14, 2007

Fight Club Sandwich posted:

That's good game balance though. Tradeoffs and exploiting strengths/covering weaknesses is what keeps things interesting.
Leave balance to the normal weapons. The whole point to the ultimate weapons is that you've dedicated some absurdly large chunk of your life to obtain what's literally The Ultimate Weapon of the game. It is a totally superfluous easter egg for people to sperg out over.

Evil Fluffy
Jul 13, 2009

Scholars are some of the most pompous and pedantic people I've ever had the joy of meeting.
^^^ Exactly, it's an "ultimate" weapon, not a "best for this one thing but not those other things" weapon. When you equip it things should just die; like the cursed weapons in Tales games where, once uncursed, they can become beyond game-breakingly powerful since they have atk = number of enemies defeated by the character (and IIRC, it's a 5 or 6 digit counter depending on the game).

Himuro posted:

Haha. In short, I agree with WTFits. FF8 is a game that repeatedly uses a specific storytelling technique where they don't explain basic poo poo because they expect the player to be on the ball. It's painfully obvious that is how Squall is alive. He was needed for interrogation, what does Edea gain from his death? Nothing. Maybe they could have added a "Maybe they healed me? But for what?" after the "no wound?" line, maybe not. But the logic is already there and merits zero questioning beyond petty fan discussion.

What could they care to gain from interrogating Squall, excluding any fun they may find in the activity?

Edea knows who sent him and the others.
She knows why.
She has Siefer, who can tell her everything about the organization if he hasn't already.
She can beat the best that her enemy could throw at her.
...etc.

I mean, the things that people usually want to ask an assassin, she already knows and killing the assassin with her own hands in front of all those people would reinforce the "nobody better gently caress with me, ever" presence she had.

The answer, of course, is that FF8's story was written by someone who was incompetent or doing a line every time they wrote a line.

Epi Lepi posted:

Again, I call bullshit, the game makes fine sense up until Ultimecia comes out of nowhere and you're like "Wait what? Edea's not the main villain??" I think that's on the third disc, but maybe its on the second. Yeah the story falls apart like every Final Fantasy game, but you gotta be pretty thick to not be able to follow the game immediately after Disc 1.

When did FF6's story fall apart? The Goddess Statues are the closest thing to a "what the hell, game?" thing and even those are setup and explained in some way, tying in to the game's ending and Terra's character development.

Anyone who hates Mog hates fun. Having Mog (and Gogo) in your party means you can kill enemies by having a dance-off between the two. Also Moogles are awesome. If they made a Happy Feet movie starring Mog it'd be 90 minutes of him break-dancing while enemies explode.

The only reason I'd be interested in a (sprite based, gently caress 3D eyesores like FF4DS) FF6 remake would be if they added dialogue that simply couldn't be fit on the SNES game due to size limitations. I wouldnt object to some :fuckoff: hard superbosses either. When you're using Atma Weapons, a genji glove, and offering on one character with dual Illuminas and marvel shoes on another, the challenge really isn't there.

Firaga posted:

Best FF8 theory I've ever heard is there was a gas leak in the office that they didn't discover until after the game shipped.

And over a decade later, it's still leaking. :v:

MechaX
Nov 19, 2011

"Let's be positive! Let's start a fire!"

Happy Blue Cow posted:

FF13-2 had a much more smooth difficulty curve in comparison, especially with the introduction of monster types containing paradigm roles you may have not unlocked yet on Noel and Serah. Not to mention the 6 paradigm roles were given to the player MUCH earlier as well. It was just a tighter paced, and IMHO, more enjoyable game play experience compared to FF13.


I wouldn't even say that XIII-2 had a "curve" at all. The odd thing that the game does is encourage a non-linear approach to tackling levels. Okay, that's definitely a far-cry from XIII. However, instead of implementing a system where the monsters can at least keep up with you in the level runnings (which I admit, can have problems when not tackled right, but I felt that VIII had the right idea even though monster leveling can be abused just as much as every other mechanic in that game), the developers decided to keep all of the monsters around the same level across multiple different time periods with the exception of the Archytle Steppe.

So you have the instance of a player doing one or two side-areas and becoming quite overpowered in the grand scheme of things. However, for the most part, the monsters remain at their basic range while Serah and Noel just continue to grow even more powerful. And then you have baffling examples where time-periods that you can only unlock near the end of the main quest have monsters from three chapters ago, allowing your party to just steamroll through everything. At that point, no combination of paradigms will even amount to much; literally COM/RAV permutations can be enough to wipe the floor with almost every major encounter.

That was my initial experience with XIII-2; I somehow got obscenely overleveled somehow and I wasn't even really setting out to be overleveled. The monsters continued to stay weak while my party just got piles and piles of experience to level up. By the time I really got a grasp on what had happened, my party was already far beyond the point of no return.

This Jacket Is Me
Jan 29, 2009
The difficulty curve stuff can be avoided by simply avoiding encounters. If you already "get" the paradigm system, you can avoid almost every fight except bosses in the first part of FF13 and not even break a sweat until the second Barthandelous encounter, and I imagine that you could do the same for FF13-2. In the case of FF13, it makes the 20+ hour first part better because you just spend less time on it and get story bits faster.

homeless snail
Mar 14, 2007

Then you come to the realization that you're skipping gameplay to get to increasingly long and nonsensical cutscenes. Or at least, I did.

You're right though, FF13 is made substantially better when you only fight something once every 10 minutes or so.

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homeless snail
Mar 14, 2007

I know we don't talk about it in these parts, but Final Fantasy 14 is on sale for $8 again.

I got it last week just out of morbid curiosity, and I gotta say, I was pleasantly surprised. The art style and cutscenes and character design all feel very FF, which I guess makes sense considering its running on the FF13 engine. Not to mention the story which is some ridiculous hodgepodge of Final Fantasy references. Right now the evil Magitek Empire is casting Meteor to, I don't loving know, kill Ifrit or something.

It seems like its much improved since its lovely launch, but its not quite there yet, there's a lot of UI weirdness and world design issues they're waiting until the 2.0 relaunch to fix. I feel like I've definitely got my $8 worth, though, for something that substantially feels like a Final Fantasy 12 MMO.

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