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FF2 is one of the hardest games playing blind and one of the easiest games if you know the game’s traps (avoid heavy armor, don’t grind on weaker enemies, don’t beat yourself up for HP, use a map to navigate the terrible dungeons) and how to break it open (Agility is king stat, use shields and focus on evade, use magic regularly, Toad is useful). What version are you playing? The later the iteration, the easier it gets, and the more QoL stuff they add to counteract the tedious design choices of the original (instead of outright fixing them but, hey, progress), and unlike FF1 where DoS and later are dramatically different games from the NES/PS1 versions, you don’t miss out on anything playing the PSP version of FF2 over the NES version.
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May 21, 2021 19:46
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Early game melee is also a trap unless level unarmed, since unarmed damage can significantly outpace weapons for the early/mid game*. Once you get haste/berserk/aura then dual wielding damage gets considerably better unless you do something like grind unarmed to max level but maxing out a skill takes some truly obscene amount of grinding and iirc it needs to be done in a single fight because of how the weapon xp stuff works after level 12 or so. * unless you are crazy enough to farm for a Toad spell drop (I think captains or something north of Phin can drop it), grind the Toad spell to level 16, and then play the hidden minigame on the sled for its best reward (and the only one worth using because heavy armor is a trap) by clearing the match-2 boards with zero mistakes. The boards repeat after something like 10 games so you can just write down the pattern(s) and cycle through matches until you get one you recorded. Mega64 posted:FF2 is one of the hardest games playing blind and one of the easiest games if you know the game’s traps (avoid heavy armor, don’t grind on weaker enemies, don’t beat yourself up for HP, use a map to navigate the terrible dungeons) and how to break it open (Agility is king stat, use shields and focus on evade, use magic regularly, Toad is useful). The only upside to the NES version is the skill farming glitch and that is absolutely not worth it unless someone really wants to have a level 16 spell or skill after 16 fights (and hours of insanely tedious grinding).
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May 21, 2021 21:08
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jokes posted:The lore is stupid consistent, too, which is a breath of fresh air in this retcon/GaaS world. One of the first things you see is a huge foreshadow that won't make any sense until late Shadowbringers. Like, that's an incredible lead-up. I like going back to Praetorium after playing Shadowbringers and listening to Lahabrea's rant.
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May 22, 2021 02:55
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Evil Fluffy posted:Early game melee is also a trap unless level unarmed, since unarmed damage can significantly outpace weapons for the early/mid game*. Once you get haste/berserk/aura then dual wielding damage gets considerably better unless you do something like grind unarmed to max level but maxing out a skill takes some truly obscene amount of grinding and iirc it needs to be done in a single fight because of how the weapon xp stuff works after level 12 or so. the NES version also lets you turn the final boss into a toad because of a hilarious loophole, probably one of the funniest ones in a JRPG.
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May 22, 2021 03:25
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man nurse posted:Following up on this, would it be fair to, say, see if there’s a sale on the complete edition sometime in the near future and then pick up Endwalker closer to release? What’s the pro strat here? If you're in Australia maybe wait for an Endwalker Pizza and Gaming Bundle? 
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May 22, 2021 03:37
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The perspective made me think those were shotglasses with ice cubes in them, lol Grab 3 pizzas and 2 shots you loving degenerate
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May 22, 2021 04:16
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man nurse posted:On a less depressing note, I’m nearing the end of the FF 14 trial and my broke brain wants to continue doing fetch quests. Does it make more sense to wait for Endwalker before I plunk down? I understand you need to buy the base game plus whatever the latest expansion is in order to be “current”. You still got like 2 whole expansions to get through and endwalker isn't out until late novermber so would you rather be maybe current in time for endwalker or save 40 bucks?
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May 22, 2021 06:23
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Are there any other characters with the differences in reception between JP and Global like with Caius? I know FF4 was much more popular in JP but it's still pretty well received in Global, so.
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May 22, 2021 07:23
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I know Vaan is significantly less hated in Japan.
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May 22, 2021 07:29
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I never found anything dislikeable about Vaan. Everything Tidus lets out of his mouth is 10 times more annoying.
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May 22, 2021 07:32
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ApplesandOranges posted:Are there any other characters with the differences in reception between JP and Global like with Caius? I know FF4 was much more popular in JP but it's still pretty well received in Global, so. I don’t get why people love to replay FF4. It’s so linear and there’s almost nothing you can do differently in each playthrough. Maybe that’s why it got so many remakes. FF4 DS and the After Years allow you to play basically the same experience but with different visuals and difficulty. The After Years is meant to be a sequel of course, but it’s really an excuse to reuse every memorable thing that happened in the original. It was written by the same person, so either they thought the original was perfect and didn’t need a sequel, or they were just putting the minimum effort in.
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May 22, 2021 08:37
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ApplesandOranges posted:Are there any other characters with the differences in reception between JP and Global like with Caius? I know FF4 was much more popular in JP but it's still pretty well received in Global, so. People in Japan don't like Caius? Shameful. It's hard to measure these things but I always got the impression Lightning is way more popular in Japan than elsewhere. But Vaan is the obvious choice. He completely outshines the actual main character of XII in Japanese popularity polls, while everyone I know here thinks Ashe was definitely the best character in XII. Because she was.
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May 22, 2021 08:47
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ApplesandOranges posted:Are there any other characters with the differences in reception between JP and Global like with Caius? I know FF4 was much more popular in JP but it's still pretty well received in Global, so. Zenos is much more liked in Japan than in America. He beat out Basch, Penelo, Fran, Fang, Nanamo, Tataru, Snow, Prishe, Rosa, Iroha, Vayne, Krile, Tseng, Terra, Hien, and Barret. Not no. 6 most popular FF character ever like Emet-Selch, but still surprising. On a related note, Tseng, Terra, and Barret are fan favorites in the Western FF fandom, but were near the bottom of the rankings. Other characters failed to chart. In the West, the most popular games are 7 and 9, and sometimes 6. In Japan, 10 is the most popular. 5 (criminally underrated in the West) is also very popular in Japan, moreso than 8 or 4 or Tactics. Tactics is treated as a golden cow in the West, but it only ranked 11th in Japan. 13 is more popular than 12 in Japan. Hades is the 3rd most popular boss/summon. Prior to FF14, Hades was just some optional summon from FF7 and he certainly wasn't many people's favorite, so make of that what you will. In contrast, bahamut is only 8, and Sephiroth is 10. Most popular tracks. Interestingly, you have to scroll down to no. 24 before the first XIV track shows up (Shadowbringers). The no. 1 most popular track is "To Zanarkand", and the second is "Battle on the Big Bridge". NikkolasKing posted:But Vaan is the obvious choice. He completely outshines the actual main character of XII in Japanese popularity polls, while everyone I know here thinks Ashe was definitely the best character in XII. Because she was. I thought that the main 6 playable characters of FFXII were quite dull and uninteresting. They have cool backstories, but they're just a bore to watch in cutscenes. 12 is the game where I wish I was playing as anyone except the main cast, which I think is indicative of a failure of the devs' part to make me care about the main cast. Then again, I've never liked any of the main characters in Matsuno's games. I think he just sucks at right compelling main characters. I wish Larsa and Reddas were permanent playables. I smiled whenever they were onscreen. They are actually expressive, not dry and dull like everyone else. Al-Cid was also great (is a playable character in FFTA2 as a secret agent with a pistol! Imagine if he was playable like that in FF12!). Dr. Cid is bloody amazing. NikkolasKing posted:It's hard to measure these things but I always got the impression Lightning is way more popular in Japan than elsewhere. She is. She's the number 8. most popular FF character in Japan. Moofia Boss Val fucked around with this message at 09:03 on May 22, 2021 |
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May 22, 2021 08:55
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Moofia Boss Val posted:I thought that the main 6 playable characters of FFXII were quite dull and uninteresting. They have cool backstories, but they're just a bore to watch in cutscenes. 12 is the game where I wish I was playing as anyone except the main cast, which I think is indicative of a failure of the devs' part to make me care about the main cast. Then again, I've never liked any of the main characters in Matsuno's games. I think he just sucks at right compelling main characters. I wish Larsa and Reddas were permanent playables. I smiled whenever they were onscreen. They are actually expressive, not dry and dull like everyone else. Al-Cid was also great (is a playable character in FFTA2 as a secret agent with a pistol! Imagine if he was playable like that in FF12!). Dr. Cid is bloody amazing. Larsa 100% deserved to be a real party member instead of somebody like Fran or Penelo. He's both more interesting and far more plot relevant. But I liked Ashe. I think she's about the only compelling main character in XII. She just needed somebody to work with, to establish a dyanmic with. Larsa being a party member would have been perfect for her character development. Moofia Boss Val posted:In the West, the most popular games are 7 and 9, and sometimes 6. In Japan, 10 is the most popular. 5 (criminally underrated in the West) is also very popular in Japan, moreso than 8 or 4 or Tactics. I would dispute this. Where do you get the idea IX is more popular than X in the West? X has been one of the most beloved games since its release. IX was that game that came out on the dead PS1 with the dumb cartoony graphics. That was IX's reputation everywhere I went for a long time. I've tried looking for English polls but there just doesn't seem to be any major official ones. All i can go on is sales and word of mouth, both of which vastly favor X in my experience. NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 09:21 on May 22, 2021 |
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May 22, 2021 09:15
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I love FFXII but my biggest complaint will always be that in a world full of different cool races, your main party is five humans and a bunny lady. e: And every Guest is a human too. Couldn't even have a cool bangaa or seeq guest.
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May 22, 2021 09:25
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NikkolasKing posted:Larsa 100% deserved to be a real party member instead of somebody like Fran or Penelo. He's both more interesting and far more plot relevant. I sorta liked Ashe too. I think one of FFXII's problems is that it is hard to care about the loss Ash, Basch, Vaan, and Balthier have suffered. We only saw Rasler for 1 minute before he died. We only get to see Rasler and Ashe's love for each other... in a prequel manga that didn't come over to the West. Basch's reputation has ostensibly stained with him being framed as a kingslayer, but during the game we never really see his bad public reputation bite him. No one on the street recognizes him as he passes by and goes "holy crap, that's him! The traitor who led my father to death and sold out our country! Come on guys let's throw mud at him!". We never really got to see Vaan and Reks together, nor Baltheir trying to reach out to his father, only to be abandoned by him. So it sorta undermines the emotional climax of FF12 at the Pharos (which is already a fantastic scene, and probably where FF12 should have ended). I think it would have helped FF12 a lot if the prologue FMV was a full act. Give us at least 10 hours of story here. Show us Ashe and Rasler falling in love and getting married, with Rasler as the apparent main character. Show us Reks taking care of Vaan. Have us fight for a defend Rabanastre while it's still free, but as the act goes on, we lose territory bit by bit and the situation becomes more dire, until at last the tutorial mission happens where everything goes to poo poo, and Basch apparently betrays you. That way, seeing Rabanastre under occupation is more crushing, and the Resistance feels more like underdogs you are sympathizing with. Twelve by Pies posted:I love FFXII but my biggest complaint will always be that in a world full of different cool races, your main party is five humans and a bunny lady. Yeah, this is another one of my complaints. I don't really care for Fran. She's a nothing character. If you're going to include a character based on their character design appeal alone, I would've gone for something really unique, like a bangaa, not a just "slightly tall sexy human". Or a Seeq. Or a Nu Mou (though I don't quite like the orangutan look of the Nu Mou in FF12. I like the cute dog wizards FFTA2 came up with that was adopted by FFXIV) Moofia Boss Val fucked around with this message at 09:29 on May 22, 2021 |
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May 22, 2021 09:26
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drat, Japan seems to have good FF opinions tbh.Twelve by Pies posted:I love FFXII but my biggest complaint will always be that in a world full of different cool races, your main party is five humans and a bunny lady. This is why FFTA2 is very good. Well, all the unique units are humans + a moogle and whatever Cid is but you can still make a party full of Nu Mou, Bangaa and Seeq and it's great.
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May 22, 2021 10:16
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SyntheticPolygon posted:drat, Japan seems to have good FF opinions tbh. Cid works like a Bangaa I believe, and technically there's two Moogles, even though you're not gonna get Montblanc until the end of the game 
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May 22, 2021 10:20
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I know Cid works like a Bangaa but I don't think he actually is one? If so he's real weird looking.
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May 22, 2021 10:22
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FFTA2 Cid is a Revgaji.
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May 22, 2021 10:31
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Oh that's what you meant, yeah, he's the same species as the auction house guy and Lezaford, too.
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May 22, 2021 10:45
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AngryRobotsInc posted:FFTA2 Cid is a Revgaji. Revgazi, revgazzi. It's a whazy. It's a woozie. It's fairy dust. It doesn't exist. It's never landed. It is no matter. It's not on the rules list. It's not loving real.
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May 22, 2021 10:53
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Ramza rules as a main character. You’ve got this dark world where everyone’s backstabbing each other for power, and then there’s this dweeb who wears buttpants with no self-awareness that orders milk at a bar and ends up ignoring all the deceit and treachery to go his own way and ends up killing God with a robot because why not. Anyway, one big factor in popularity is tastes change as people get older, or different fans filter through polls or whatever. Funnily, probably the best source for measuring FF fandom in the West is loving GameFAQs polls, and as an idiot that follows their contests, tastes have changed a lot over there in the past twenty years or so. Of course, a lot of that is getting less votes over the years, and Europe getting a larger share of votes as well. Actually, now I’m curious about popularity of FF games/characters in Europe and other continents. Any major polls from those anyone is aware of?
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May 22, 2021 12:11
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Yeah there's a combination of nostalgia and rose-tinted glasses that still has a hook over time, though 'game cool' still helps. So 7 is probably always gonna be popular, but something like 4 is going to be much less compelling for the first time to most modern gamers, especially if they start with the DS version. When you start playing a game is gonna have an impact, too. Like there's probably a slight shift in perception between 'oh wow hot new game FFXIII just came out' and 'oh, this is the... first in a trilogy? Okay then, this better sell me to play the rest'.
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May 22, 2021 15:26
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NikkolasKing posted:People in Japan don't like Caius? Shameful. He's not voiced by Liam O'Brien in Japanese, so it's understandable.
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May 22, 2021 15:30
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The thought of Liam O’Brien stumbling his way voicing Caius in Japanese is very funny to me. Like how Danny Devito voiced the Lorax in every dub of the film.
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May 22, 2021 15:38
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Mega64 posted:Actually, now I’m curious about popularity of FF games/characters in Europe and other continents. Any major polls from those anyone is aware of? I don't think there have been proper polls for Europe or Australia, but I can tell you for free that nothing pre-VII would be a blip on it. Beyond that... I imagine that the English-speaking country responses are probably largely similar to the American ones (although I could make a joke that Wakka would be more popular in Australia and have a good chance of being right). Mainland Europe would probably be rather significantly further distributed, since they'd be responding to their own translations, which likely vary in quality. Cleretic fucked around with this message at 16:03 on May 22, 2021 |
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May 22, 2021 15:59
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HD DAD posted:The thought of Liam O’Brien stumbling his way voicing Caius in Japanese is very funny to me. Like how Danny Devito voiced the Lorax in every dub of the film. I would like to know more
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May 22, 2021 16:26
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Internet na rankings and actual western rankings are most likely different. Internet loves to oversell niche characters and games when the regular population probably also loves lightning just as much as japan.
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May 22, 2021 17:42
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Snow Cone Capone posted:I would like to know more From what I’ve read, his Spanish and German dubs were surprisingly good. His Russian...not so much.
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May 22, 2021 18:21
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Polderjoch posted:Oh that's what you meant, yeah, he's the same species as the auction house guy and Lezaford, too. They also show up briefly in XII as the two cat looking dudes guarding Marquis Ondore in Bhujerba.
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May 22, 2021 20:20
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Tae posted:Internet na rankings and actual western rankings are most likely different. Internet loves to oversell niche characters and games when the regular population probably also loves lightning just as much as japan. This is an interesting point. Reminds me when I was in the RPG thread and for some reason XIII came up and I mentioned how everyone online hates Snow, Hope and Vanille. Endorph was like "Vanille is very popular. actually where I hang out." I mean...every forum I've frequented for ten years has said she sucks, including this one, but the Internet and world are a big place. There are probably a lot of Vanille and Lightning fans out there and the hate is just the loudest.
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May 23, 2021 06:33
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Lightning sorta comes off as cold and boring. She doesn't get even a little sympathetic until the flashback with Serah and Snow, but I still never really liked her. I wanted to like Hope at first, given that it's rare to get a young-ish teenage boy in JRPGs. But he was really unreasonable at first and spent the first half of the game staring at Snow with his psychotic smile, imagining different ways to kill him. He gets better as the game goes on, though. Fang was meh the whole game. Vanille, Snow, and Sazh were great from the beginning.
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May 23, 2021 06:39
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Moofia Boss Val posted:given that it's rare to get a young-ish teenage boy in JRPGs. 
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May 23, 2021 06:43
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They're almost always high schoolers at least. If you get a party member any younger than that, it's always a girl. Vivi and the Ni No Kuni protagonists are the only "younger than highschool age" playable boy party members in JRPGs off of the top of my head.
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May 23, 2021 06:57
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Moofia Boss Val posted:Lightning sorta comes off as cold and boring. She doesn't get even a little sympathetic until the flashback with Serah and Snow, but I still never really liked her. I do know that this part is the fault of the English voice direction. The Japanese voice direction was much more consistent with how you're supposed to read her; as impassioned and capable of occasional strong outbursts of emotion. That's where the name 'Lightning' is supposed to come from. It actually means that a big part of XIII-3's concept and direction just falls over dead outside Japan. There's meant to be a whole thing that Bhunivelze has taken away Lightning and Hope's emotions so that they can do their job right; in Japan that actually reads, because Lightning is absent her usual outbursts and emotions, but in English... well, Lightning's direction is exactly the same as it's always been.
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May 23, 2021 07:04
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Moofia Boss Val posted:They're almost always high schoolers at least. If you get a party member any younger than that, it's always a girl. Vivi and the Ni No Kuni protagonists are the only "younger than highschool age" playable boy party members in JRPGs off of the top of my head. Ken is like 10 in P3, Justin in Grandia is 14 I think. This sounds like a you problem, OP.
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May 23, 2021 07:17
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Moofia Boss Val posted:Lightning sorta comes off as cold and boring. She doesn't get even a little sympathetic until the flashback with Serah and Snow, but I still never really liked her. I was also unimpressed with Fang and dunno why everyone likes her. I mean, I do, she's a sexy dragoon and the obligatory "Cool Character," but she joins way too late. Also the only scene in XIII I remember with her is when she emotionally abuses Vanille into making her eidolon appear. Well I do remember they really try to sell you on her being a villain at first but after she joins the party I remember basically nothing. And I agree with the rest, too. Snow and Hope are inseparably linked in my mind. Their characters arcs are so intertwined that I've never understood how it's possible to like one and not the other. Snow's Theme rules, too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FaZQoZf4OY
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May 23, 2021 07:21
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Karol from Tales of Vesperia is similarly young.NikkolasKing posted:sexy dragoon Saying the same thing twice there
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May 23, 2021 07:23
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Dunno about FF15, but otherwise I think Fang’s the only Dragoon in the series without major love/relationship troubles. Ricard tries to move in on his dead best friend’s family, Kain pines for his best friend’s girlfriend, Cid’s abusive, Freya’s boyfriend disappears and later turns out to have permanent amnesia, and then there’s Ol’ Hornless.
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May 23, 2021 07:32
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