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If having a thing in the background of a boss fight that nobody ever calls any attention to is your idea of spelling it out, you have astonishingly low standards for narrative construction, even if you're adjusting your expectations for "it's a Final Fantasy game." At no point in the script does any character suggest she exists. The only higher power that they talk about is that one they're trying to get to show up.
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Jul 19, 2013 06:09
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Fister Roboto posted:Also Shadow has the crippling weakness of having his dog stolen by any mob that can cast Rippler. You can use that to give it to another character though when the mob uses Rippler again. Edgar or Sabin can have Interceptor. 
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Jul 19, 2013 06:12
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Azure_Horizon posted:Etro's Gate is seen in the ending. Her presence in the final battle is basically right in front of you when you fight Orphan. A big thing is behind the boss! Totally a safe leap of logic to think God (That literally no one has expanded on at all during the entire 40 hours of poo poo previously) is gonna pop out of it and save everyone with absolutely no fanfare! No, Orphan's crazy dumb plan to summon God doesn't loving count. We're not even led to believe that was going to work or what that God would be or do. As far as the main characters of the narrative are concerned the only higher power is the thing standing in front of that big set piece. And even if it was obvious that the thing was a gate and WAS foreshadowing something that is is no way 'spelling out' Some Goddess Stepped in, reverted everyone from monsters to people, changed Ragnorok to save everyone, and then stopped doing things, nor is it 'spelled out' that this literal divine intervention was a bad thing that God shouldn't have done. Edit: VVV I spent the whole first form thinking it was part of him because it looked so much like an eye. ZenMasterBullshit fucked around with this message at 07:14 on Jul 19, 2013 |
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Jul 19, 2013 06:52
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This is the picture of the final boss. Spoilers, obviously: http://i.imgur.com/5yiQiO5.jpg The problem is that blue diamond. That's Etro's gate. It's honestly just bad design. The boss looks round and the sideways diamond makes it look like an eye, which could be interpreted symbolically. You'd never guess they were to different and opposing things. Not helping matters is the form he takes when staggered, which covers up the gate completely. An yes, thanks for foreshadowing divine intervention SE.
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Jul 19, 2013 07:07
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precision posted:Every time I've played FF6 (lots) I end up maining Locke and Setzer in the WoR. 420 throw Loaded Dice erryday I always loved Setzer and I have no idea why. I usually ran with Setzer, Terra or Celes, Cyan, and Locke. Recently, however, I've traded in the last two for Relm and usually Edgar because tools kick rear end. Terra or Celes as my physical powerhouse, Setzer because he's pimp as gently caress, and Relm is a surprisingly capable magic-user when you actually give her spells (and Control breaks things.)
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Jul 19, 2013 07:21
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I like both Setzer and Locke, and for several of the same reasons. 1- Both of them make entrances by dropping from the top of the screen like Batman. 2- Theme songs that exist to get the listener pumped (there's actually very few uptempo character themes in FFVI. I think they have the only two?). 3- They both get some cool lines. 4- Unique weapons that exploit the game's code or are otherwise broken in really useful ways.
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Jul 19, 2013 08:01
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Welp, since I didn't get any of the other XIII games, I'm kinda tempted to get the collection box thing for Lightning Returns. I'm just really unsure if I even should bother as from what I can tell, they are awful.
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Jul 19, 2013 08:06
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13 is... maybe worth playing if you enjoy going through something that is astonishingly awful and then reading some stuff and seeing exactly how the combination of incompetent direction, poor organization and bad company structure farted out such a thing. If that's not your bag then skip it.
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Jul 19, 2013 08:10
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Mordaedil posted:Welp, since I didn't get any of the other XIII games, I'm kinda tempted to get the collection box thing for Lightning Returns. I'm just really unsure if I even should bother as from what I can tell, they are awful. 13 is an enjoyable experience if a plot so badly directed it's hilarious is enough for you to put up with the game for a while until it actually lets you play. While the forty hour complaints aren't quite true, the game does restrict your choice pretty severely even while you are playing for quite a bit, and the early-to-mid game can be rather a slog. When it really gets going, though, the combat's really cool. You'll just need to sit for a bit to get the whole experience. 13-2 is an enjoyable experience in one of two ways: either you entirely ignore all sidequests and have a well-scaled difficulty through the game, or you do sidequests and you bust the game's difficulty over your knee until it begs for mercy. The Pokemon/SMT-esque monster system is interesting, and their modifications to the Crystarium are kinda neat I guess, but the game doesn't scale well to your power curve and just sort of dies horribly if you get too powerful. The main characters are also a lot less entertaining because neither of them are HEROES and/or black men with chocobos in their hair, but on the bright side you do get to do silly stuff like defeat the HAL-1000 by voicing your complaints with the creator so there's that.
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Jul 19, 2013 08:22
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Classtoise posted:I always loved Setzer and I have no idea why. My favorite party is probably Locke, Celes, Edgar, and Mog. I don't care about mechanics, I just like them best. Close seconds are Cyan and Strago and they're automatically in if the first four can't make it. strago's in 'cause he's obviously a huge stoner and his theme is clearly supposed to be uematsu's early attempt at reggae Fur20 fucked around with this message at 08:45 on Jul 19, 2013 |
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Jul 19, 2013 08:42
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I always tried to run Sabin/Relm/Edgar/Gogo when I could because they're awesome. Substitute whoever for before Relm and Gogo join.
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Jul 19, 2013 08:44
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Defiance Industries posted:If having a thing in the background of a boss fight that nobody ever calls any attention to is your idea of spelling it out, you have astonishingly low standards for narrative construction, even if you're adjusting your expectations for "it's a Final Fantasy game." At no point in the script does any character suggest she exists. The only higher power that they talk about is that one they're trying to get to show up. It also explains what happened in the data log in the post game. The data log is the worst thing about ff13.
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Jul 19, 2013 09:01
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:A big thing is behind the boss! Totally a safe leap of logic to think God (That literally no one has expanded on at all during the entire 40 hours of poo poo previously) is gonna pop out of it and save everyone with absolutely no fanfare! Barthandelus and Cid had been talking about Etro and Etro's Gate the entire time. Their entire point of murdering a ton of people to open her Gate is the entire point of XIII. It's just at the cost of doing so, Etro intervened instead and hosed up more poo poo, resulting in XIII-2. They assumed it would help them awaken Bhunivelze (and, according to Lightning Returns, it actually did... just not for another 500 years). In-game, and in the datalogs, Etro is spelled out that she intervenes and sometimes fucks poo poo up when she does so, even with good intentions. She did it twice in the past -- once in the mythology, once in recent history in XIII with the War of Transgression. Again, none of these things make XIII-2's beginning a retcon.
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Jul 19, 2013 09:36
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This reminds me of Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, where he says "It's all there, black and white, clear as crystal!" Coincidentally, his office is full of meaningless symbolism.
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Jul 19, 2013 09:52
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I think it's kind of cool that Square-Enix told a story that only made sense to people with the special kind of autism that Azure Horizon has. Bold move.
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Jul 19, 2013 10:36
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Defiance Industries posted:I like both Setzer and Locke, and for several of the same reasons. My 14 year old self thought they were the coolest motherfuckers in a game that was nothing but cool motherfuckers. I always loved Celes too, it was mindblowing at the time that the ice cold badass army general was  a girl and I liked her whole cape outfit thing.And I always thought of Setzer's card weapons as Tarot cards, plus it didn't take me long to learn how to exploit Slot. Never really cared for Shadow past the first half of the game, oddly enough. And Cyan just looked kind of doofy to me.
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Jul 19, 2013 10:46
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As all kids do, I made stuff up and told my friends it was a secret I found in the game. I convinced one of them that, if you fought this one really rare enemy (that didn't actually exist, but I had previously convinced him was also real, just rare) enough times you could open a time portal "exactly like it looks in Chrono Trigger" and travel back to discover the Secret Origin of Setzer: namely, that he came here from an alternate universe and that he used to be Gambit from the X-Men, but when he got old (we all assumed he was older than Cyan because Setzer's hair was white) he lost his powers and now had to fight with regular cards. At no point in FF13 does the word "Etro" leave any character's lips. It's all Maker and Orphan and whatever. Whatever it is, it's lovely storytelling and literal Deus ex Machina. Defiance Industries fucked around with this message at 11:30 on Jul 19, 2013 |
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Jul 19, 2013 11:22
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I guess in some meta way the game being driven by content that lays deep within some arcane submenu is the essence of Final Fantasy?
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Jul 19, 2013 13:06
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I really like the idea of the data files - optional stuff that expands the setting - but critical plot information shouldn't be in there. Data logs should be reserved for poo poo like the breeding cycles of chocobos or fictional holidays, not explaining what the hell the ending was actually about.
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Jul 19, 2013 13:30
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SSNeoman posted:Post retcon? It goes something like this: When you put it like that, it makes perfect sense. No, it doesn't.
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Jul 19, 2013 13:44
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Azure_Horizon posted:Barthandelus and Cid had been talking about Etro and Etro's Gate the entire time. Their entire point of murdering a ton of people to open her Gate is the entire point of XIII. It's just at the cost of doing so, Etro intervened instead and hosed up more poo poo, resulting in XIII-2. They assumed it would help them awaken Bhunivelze (and, according to Lightning Returns, it actually did... just not for another 500 years). If it's so spelled out and obvious, why do so many players find the plot so confusing? What's more likely: You're one of the few smart people who gets it while almost everyone else is lazy and/or stupid, or that plot is horrible and/or horribly presented? And even if what you say is true, and the plot is right there for anyone interested to read and understand (nevermind that the important bits are hidden away in a datalog), that doesn't make it a good story. It just means the writers couldn't think of a good way to end their meandering mess, and so inserted some "foreshadowing" earlier in the game to make their sharp left turn seem more legitimate. The fact that FFXIII-2 goes completely off the rails should hint that perhaps the second option is indeed the correct one.
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Jul 19, 2013 13:56
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alcharagia posted:The main characters are also a lot less entertaining because neither of them are HEROES and/or black men with chocobos in their hair, but on the bright side you do get to do silly stuff like defeat the HAL-1000 by voicing your complaints with the creator so there's that. I thought the yelling thing was one of the comedy options you sometimes got when story qte's showed up, so of course I picked it first, thinking it would fail and then I'd move on with the real option. Imagine my surprise when I realized it was the correct choice. From that moment on, my enjoyment for the game increased like a giant flan does when trying to take down a crystal pillar made out of two naked girls.
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Jul 19, 2013 15:20
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I think my favorite party in FF6 was Terra, Locke, Edgar, Sabin, and Celes. But as somebody said before, most of the characters were all cool motherfuckers. My problem with this great game is that it had points where you HAD to play as the other characters, and since I only really concentrated on my favorites...yeah. Rough times were had.
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Jul 19, 2013 15:25
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Gologle posted:I think my favorite party in FF6 was Terra, Locke, Edgar, Sabin, and Celes. But as somebody said before, most of the characters were all cool motherfuckers. My problem with this great game is that it had points where you HAD to play as the other characters, and since I only really concentrated on my favorites...yeah. Rough times were had. It's one of those problems that every FF I've played has seemed to have at one point. It's less of a problem in 7 and 8 due to materia swapping in 7 and the fact that every character in 8 played same with the junction change. No matter the impact on actual ability, it's just kind of annoying when you are forced to abandon your usual choices.
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Jul 19, 2013 15:31
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Great Lakes Log posted:It's one of those problems that every FF I've played has seemed to have at one point. It's less of a problem in 7 and 8 due to materia swapping in 7 and the fact that every character in 8 played same with the junction change. No matter the impact on actual ability, it's just kind of annoying when you are forced to abandon your usual choices. But they did play differently due to limit breaks, with a pretty clear divide between the dudes and the chicks. Team Hot Dog Party gets insane physical offense, while Team Clam Bake gets a lot of utility and free magic.
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Jul 19, 2013 15:40
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Gologle posted:I think my favorite party in FF6 was Terra, Locke, Edgar, Sabin, and Celes. But as somebody said before, most of the characters were all cool motherfuckers. My problem with this great game is that it had points where you HAD to play as the other characters, and since I only really concentrated on my favorites...yeah. Rough times were had. Fister Roboto posted:But they did play differently due to limit breaks [snip] On a tangential note connecting these posts, I'm still amazed that in close to a dozen 100% playthroughs of FF6, I've seen just one "desperation/limit break" attack in all that time. Also, I'm still waiting on the PSP style remake of FF6.
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Jul 19, 2013 15:48
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PhilippAchtel posted:And even if what you say is true, and the plot is right there for anyone interested to read and understand (nevermind that the important bits are hidden away in a datalog), that doesn't make it a good story. It just means the writers couldn't think of a good way to end their meandering mess, and so inserted some "foreshadowing" earlier in the game to make their sharp left turn seem more legitimate. I'd actually say it's kinda the opposite - it seems like they had the whole thing mapped out in their heads in advance, but when it came time to actually tell their big story no one had the nerve to pipe up "hey maybe we should rethink this, half of our main characters are abstract metaphysical concepts and it's a pain to render on a TV screen".
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Jul 19, 2013 16:43
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Attitude Indicator posted:I think it's kind of cool that Square-Enix told a story that only made sense to people with the special kind of autism that Azure Horizon has. Bold move. You've never actually met anyone with autism, so good job looking like an rear end in a top hat! Defiance: Etro is directly mentioned by both Fang and Vanille in the cutscene either before/after the fight with Barthandelus 2.0. The "Maker" they refer to is Bhunivelze, but the idea is that they need to open Etro's Gate to make him awaken. However, forcefully opening Etro's Gate is what brings her influence to the known world. And for clarification not once is explaining this any defense of the game's presentation of its own plot. But they do leave hints and imagery to clarify things that happen in the sequel. Azure_Horizon fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Jul 19, 2013 |
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Jul 19, 2013 17:27
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There's a romhack for FF6 called Brave New World that appears to be fairly well done (it's on my to-play list). Does things like drop the level cap to 50, limit espers so not everyone can learn every spell, and modify each character's special ability to be more distinctive.
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Jul 19, 2013 17:37
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Azure_Horizon posted:In-game, and in the datalogs, Etro is spelled out that she intervenes and sometimes fucks poo poo up when she does so, even with good intentions. She did it twice in the past -- once in the mythology, once in recent history in XIII with the War of Transgression. Again, none of these things make XIII-2's beginning a retcon. Okay see this? No one but sad depressing people cared enough to scour through FF13's stupid codex trying to find anything that explained anything. It's a massive failure on the designers behalf to hide information that's literally the only thing explaining what happens at the end and it's a failure on the writing side to not have that take part in the main game. As far as 90% of the people playing FF13 care, that info basically doesn't exist because no one read it or cared enough to keep reading it after one or two things got added. I know I stopped because I read two entries and thought "Oh neat, ME codex with minor backstory/world building explained in detail. Neat." You'll notice anything that's actually important to ME's plot (at least 1's plot) gets explained when you encounter it in the story, and it's not all hidden away in some block of text. So no, it's not spelled out for anyone. It's a small block of text hidden away in something that honestly shouldn't exist and as it stands, makes absolutely no sense in the games plot since they hid that poo poo.
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Jul 19, 2013 17:45
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:Okay see this? No one but sad depressing people cared enough to scour through FF13's stupid codex trying to find anything that explained anything. It's a massive failure on the designers behalf to hide information that's literally the only thing explaining what happens at the end and it's a failure on the writing side to not have that take part in the main game. As far as 90% of the people playing FF13 care, that info basically doesn't exist because no one read it or cared enough to keep reading it after one or two things got added. I know I stopped because I read two entries and thought "Oh neat, ME codex with minor backstory/world building explained in detail. Neat." You'll notice anything that's actually important to ME's plot (at least 1's plot) gets explained when you encounter it in the story, and it's not all hidden away in some block of text. I read the codex quite a lot and I sure as hell didn't catch anything about Etro or whatever. Reminds me of FFXII which hid most of Gabranth's motive in that game's version of the codex. It's stupid as hell.
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Jul 19, 2013 17:52
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Renoistic posted:I read the codex quite a lot and I sure as hell didn't catch anything about Etro or whatever. Reminds me of FFXII which hid most of Gabranth's motive in that game's version of the codex. It's stupid as hell. However, she is there: The goddess Etro is mentioned in the game's Datalog entries, where she "sings a lament for the dead". She is but one of the deities in the Fabula Nova Crystallis mythology, and according to the Gran Pulse legends, it was Etro who stopped Ragnarok from destroying Cocoon during the War of Transgression 500 years before the game's start. This was done by turning the l'Cie bestowed with the "burden of the beast" into crystal before they could finish carrying out their Focus.
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Jul 19, 2013 17:54
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I feel like we need to continuously keep reminding ourselves whenever we begin to post in this thread that every game is the worst in the series. Come on guys. You don't have to argue about the semantics of the worst game when this is a thread dedicated to the worst game. I've gotten to chapter 3 of FFD, and I'm beginning to feel that if the story wasn't so bland, and the characters didn't keep falling under the umbrella of "nobody ever helps anybody until they fight" this actually could have been a strong rival of FF6. The basics are there, but the staff just couldn't pull it together.
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Jul 19, 2013 18:02
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Gologle posted:I feel like we need to continuously keep reminding ourselves whenever we begin to post in this thread that every game is the worst in the series. Come on guys. You don't have to argue about the semantics of the worst game when this is a thread dedicated to the worst game. It's Matrix Software, creators of FF4: The After Years. Expecting them to pull off anything noteworthy for a plot is expecting too much.
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Jul 19, 2013 18:04
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Corvinus posted:There's a romhack for FF6 called Brave New World that appears to be fairly well done (it's on my to-play list). Does things like drop the level cap to 50, limit espers so not everyone can learn every spell, and modify each character's special ability to be more distinctive. There's a big writeup/pseudoreview here: http://levantiner1.blogspot.com/2013/06/final-fantasy-vi-brave-new-world.html I like the idea of a rebalance but script editing makes me wary. Kefka yelling "gently caress" all the time isn't going to improve the game.
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Jul 19, 2013 18:14
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I don't mind script editing, but yeah, Kefka shouldn't be swearing. Relm swearing I get, it fits her, but Kefka swearing just doesn't fit. He's a guy with a flair for the dramatic and a huge sense of self-importance - cursing just seems too 'pedestrian' for him.
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Jul 19, 2013 18:16
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^^^ I agree. The goofy SNES translation really fit Kefka well. He's the one character who can and should be saying things like 'Son of a Submarine"!Azure_Horizon posted:However, she is there: Wow, all that would have sure been great to see that in anything that actually matters, or foreshadow her doing that or even actually existing at any point in the main game. Still not seeing where they 'Spelled Out' FF13-2's plot in 13 though cause even the thing you quoted just says "She's done this before" which doesn't exactly say "and she's not supposed to".
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Jul 19, 2013 18:23
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Come on guys let's be civil here. Azure makes good points. I may not agree with them, but I they are there.Gologle posted:The basics are there, but the staff just couldn't pull it together. Welcome to Matrix Software games. They're like Idea Factory Jr. Endorph posted:I don't mind script editing, but yeah, Kefka shouldn't be swearing. Relm swearing I get, it fits her, but Kefka swearing just doesn't fit. He's a guy with a flair for the dramatic and a huge sense of self-importance - cursing just seems too 'pedestrian' for him. How much swearing? I know that there was one patch that had a textbox with literally nothing but "bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch" which seemed to fit Kefka. As for Relm, I dunno. What was she like in the Japanese version?
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Jul 19, 2013 18:25
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Relm swearing doesn't make sense to me at all. Because she's 10. I can't really imagine anyone in Final Fantasy VI swearing, because it just wouldn't fit.ZenMasterBullshit posted:Wow, all that would have sure been great to see that in anything that actually matters, or foreshadow her doing that or even actually existing at any point in the main game. But like Azure_Horizon pointed out roughly a month ago, it is. It's on the eidolons for all of maybe ten frames in the entire game in that cryptic language that's impossible to read! That makes it totally okay, justified and perfectly foreshadowed... right? 
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Jul 19, 2013 18:25
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I think we can all agree that the FFXIII games so far are collectively a goddamn (literal) trainwreck (literal). still gonna get lightning returns 
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Jul 19, 2013 18:27
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