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The grinding problem basically comes down to one thing: Sometime, for some reason, it became deeply engrained into people's mindset that buffs/debuffs were universally worthless in JRPGs. I don't know how. I don't know why. I don't know when. So a good chunk of people will just flat-out assume their poo poo won't work and feel they need to grind to beat a difficult boss who can be utterly trivialized with silence/stop/slow/poison/whatever. This applies even to like FFXIII where the game will automate the buffs/debuffs it choses. People just wouldn't pick the buff/debuff classes despite them being hilariously broken. (You can poison the final boss!) NES era RPGs were kinda crappy about buffs but everything past that usually can be shattered by status-altering spells.
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Nov 30, 2012 14:38
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People must have forgotten Dragon Warrior and those knights that would cast Sleep on you, then punch you in the head a dozen times until you died.
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Nov 30, 2012 14:47
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ImpAtom posted:Sometime, for some reason, it became deeply engrained into people's mindset that buffs/debuffs were universally worthless in JRPGs. I don't know how. I don't know why. I don't know when. Of course, most of the enemies in any RPG game are naturally resistant to instant Death. As you might expect. But people don't take this as a cue to use other stat spells. The thought runs "Well if the best stat spell doesn't work, I should probably just bludgeon them to 0HP instead". Cases where this differs in the Final Fantasy series are in situations where Death is visibly not the best stat spell. Take FF8, where you have Meltdown and the Vit-0 status effect. Everyone uses it. Or take FF6 and the Vanish trick. Again, people use that. But in neither case does this mean you use the other stat spells more - you just keep using the best one. Indeterminacy fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Nov 30, 2012 |
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Nov 30, 2012 14:53
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Well, the other thing is that, starting at least as early as FF5, bosses became immune to almost all status effects, outside of maybe one particular vulnerability with no way to indicate what it might be. So maybe silence will totally wreck the one boss in the entire game that it can affect, but outside of gamefaqs there's no way to figure that out without trying them all, and even then most games didn't give you an 'Immune' message, so for all you know the spell could have worked but just got resisted. Then, on top of that, non-boss enemies started dying faster. Why bother spending the MP and the turn casting sleep when the mook is just going to die in 1-2 physical attacks anyway? XIII addressed all that and did well for it. J. Alfred Prufrock fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Nov 30, 2012 |
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Nov 30, 2012 15:23
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ImpAtom posted:Sometime, for some reason, it became deeply engrained into people's mindset that buffs/debuffs were universally worthless in JRPGs. I blame FFs in particular for this, but DQ has its share of the blame with incredibly specific situational buffs. My take is that there is basically no point in using debuffs or buffs in any random encounter in early FFs when it is invariably faster to just do direct damage instead. This mentality becomes so ingrained in the player that by the time they reach a boss fight, they do what they're accustomed to doing and forget that those spells (especially debuffs) exist. You can remember buffs more easily because you take damage and go "Hey, I'm having trouble keeping up with this damage, can I lessen it with barriers/blink/etc?" as opposed to debuffs where you typically don't look at a boss and go "Hey, the boss is doing damage, can I make him stop doing that somehow/can I make it take more damage?" I never knew what anti-breath spells in Dragon Quest were for until well after I passed the SNES era, either.
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Nov 30, 2012 16:29
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My problem with buffs/debuffs is that their hit rate has always been so drat low. I can spend 5 turns trying to get slow to stick, or I can spend 2 turns kicking rear end with my weapon of choice. I really love the Persona series for making buffs/debuffs effective again.
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Nov 30, 2012 16:55
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Buffing never seems to make that big of a difference and it usually lasts a very short amount of time. In general it just feels like spending another turn attacking is the better idea.
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Nov 30, 2012 17:23
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FF8 and especially FFX finally made status spells worth while. It took me halfway through FF8 before I realized that, holy poo poo, blind actually works in this and it matters.
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Nov 30, 2012 17:33
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Hey guys, the game I'm working for - Kinetic Void - got Greenlit on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/news/9478/ I'm so happy I even feel like I'll post an update. After all I have to keep up with my 2014 schedule.
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Nov 30, 2012 19:19
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Elentor posted:Hey guys, the game I'm working for - Kinetic Void - got Greenlit on Steam: You were working on that game? I had heard of it and it looked really cool, but didn't know you were on it. Congrats.
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Nov 30, 2012 19:20
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Elentor posted:Hey guys, the game I'm working for - Kinetic Void - got Greenlit on Steam: That's awesome!
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Nov 30, 2012 19:27
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Elentor posted:Hey guys, the game I'm working for - Kinetic Void - got Greenlit on Steam: Congratulations!
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Nov 30, 2012 19:35
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You all should try SaGa frontier, a JRPG with lots of unusual and (as far as I can tell) unique features No random encounters: enemy parties are represented symbolically by enemy sprites on the map, and in almost all cases you can avoid a fight by evading them Stats are pretty low numbers and hitting the caps is pretty much impossible. Conversely, damage numbers are huge and even normal fights are so brutal that you get a HP refill after each fight, and wouldn't survive even the easiest dungeon without. Still, the damage cap is really, really high There is no levelling: humans train or acquire gifts for magic; monsters consume defeated monsters for their natural gifts; robots can steal programs from enemy robots and upgrade their bodies; "mystics" (vampires) can imprison defeated enemies in their bodies, with a delightfully creepy "phantom zone" effect. Gaining experience can be grindy, but it's always very satisfying - especially when one of your characters comes up with a new skill in the middle of a fight (with a "lightbulb over his head" effect, too) that could turn the tide of the battle Almost all of the main characters are gimmicks of some sort, of the good kind: the wizard is the best wizard in the world, the mystic is half human and gets the advantages of both races, the robot can be upgraded to the best robot body, the human boy is secretly a superhero with unique powers... The biggest flaw of the game? Don't play it for the plot: there are seven and they all suck
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Nov 30, 2012 19:38
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SaGa Frontier is very much a concept game (... like every game in that series), but what's there is quite interesting. Not just mechanically, but the plot that made it into the actual game has just enough hints of the actual plot left languishing in some book that never left japan to at least make a solid guess at. But five minutes with the game will tell you just how unfinished the entire project was; it's amazing the thing goes ten minutes without crashing.
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Nov 30, 2012 19:47
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Elentor posted:Hey guys, the game I'm working for - Kinetic Void - got Greenlit on Steam: Congratulations! Re: status effects, for me it's the low hit-rate that really kills their usefulness. If they hit 100% of the time (at least for the player) then you could try a bunch of status effects on every boss without much hassle, but when it takes 10 casts of slow to make it stick, what's the point? Either those turns could've been spent actually doing something, or you're already dead. Having a status-immune symbol like in FF9 or 10 pop up even when you miss would also help.
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Nov 30, 2012 20:04
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Hey, congrats. I won't buy ten copies like some folks say they will, but poo poo, I'll buy one for me fo' sho'.
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Nov 30, 2012 20:31
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Nice job, Elentor. I'd buy one but my computer is an abacus with a lawnmower engine stapled to it and would probably explode if I tried to play it. Eventually, when I upgrade to a Commodore 64, I'll make sure to check it out.
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Nov 30, 2012 20:34
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hackbunny posted:You all should try SaGa frontier, a JRPG with lots of unusual and (as far as I can tell) unique features I love Saga Frontier. Also,  at "no leveling". SaGa Frontier is by far the grindiest game I ever played, only instead of grinding for levels, you're grinding for "JESUS gently caress WHY WON'T YOU SPARK THAT ONE MOVE CHRIST". Nevermind the fact that certain characters have different chances of sparking each move, and often times those affinities don't relate to the character's story-based specialty (Annie sucks with swords, Emelia sucks with guns). Also, mystics are inferior to humans in virtually every way, because even though they technically don't require any grinding at all, in order to get halfway decent monsters to absorb you have to grind your battle level high enough. The same is true with monsters, except you ALSO need a FAQ to figure out the byzantine transformation rules. The only way to avoid grinding is to make a party of entirely mecs, twink them out with good equipment, avoid random battles, and wreck literally everything. This is only possible in one character's scenario, though. Oh, and this game is fun as hell. Did I mention?
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Nov 30, 2012 20:35
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CmdrKing posted:...the plot that made it into the actual game has just enough hints of the actual plot left languishing in some book that never left japan to at least make a solid guess at. Finally, an excuse to link the translated story on the forums! But seriously, this story (translated from the Essence of SaGa Frontier) is no more meaty than the story in the actual game. There is not some amazing tell-all that we're missing out on.
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Nov 30, 2012 20:56
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Elentor posted:Hey guys, the game I'm working for - Kinetic Void - got Greenlit on Steam: Congratulations! Now imagine all the playable characters in FF7 clapping for you.
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Nov 30, 2012 20:57
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Hokuto posted:Finally, an excuse to link the translated story on the forums! But seriously, this story (translated from the Essence of SaGa Frontier) is no more meaty than the story in the actual game. There is not some amazing tell-all that we're missing out on. From what I've read, it's not really that there's more meat, but it's actually a conclusion for the various plot threads. But a game like SaGa Frontier, which is the sort of game that's more about the ideas than the text, that's still quite a lot. Basically I'm saying a fully fleshed out, complete version of SaGa Frontier would be an all time great game I think, rather than a quirky little experiment it's hard not to like in spite of yourself.
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Nov 30, 2012 21:06
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SaGa Frontier had no minigames that I can think of, either. Just a lot of gimmicks, so many that the final bosses rarely made any sense in the context of the plot and were just there to showcase some unique gimmick. In fact, man, were there a lot of gimmick fights or what? the mirror match, the magic duel, the martial arts tournament, the robot arena, the combo show... The mirror match is pretty much a perfect representation of the SaGa Frontier philosophy of "anything goes": you are pitted against a party of magic duplicates of your own party, with access to the same items, weapons, skills, etc. and yes, they will do the same gruesome damage you'd do to monsters. Another game would replace the duplicates with imperfect, scripted copies with higher HP and lower damage, but not SaGa Frontier. Your characters have around 500 HP and one of them has an attack that can do around 1000 damage to all enemies? your duplicates will, too, and you'd better pray you get to move before them hackbunny fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Nov 30, 2012 |
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Nov 30, 2012 22:21
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Elentor posted:Hey guys, the game I'm working for - Kinetic Void - got Greenlit on Steam: Congrads! Best of luck with it.
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Nov 30, 2012 22:37
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Elentor posted:Hey guys, the game I'm working for - Kinetic Void - got Greenlit on Steam: It's not my kind of game but I can definitely see an appeal for it going down on Steam so best of luck to ya on the sales! 
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Dec 1, 2012 01:15
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Thanks guys.MadRhetoric posted:Congratulations! And when I'm not looking Cloud is shaking uncontrollably and the screen is flashing white.
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Dec 1, 2012 01:38
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Elentor posted:And when I'm not looking Cloud is shaking uncontrollably and the screen is flashing white.
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Dec 1, 2012 02:21
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ImpAtom posted:The grinding problem basically comes down to one thing: Praise be to SMT and the Persona games! Where Buffs/Debuffs are not only workable in regular and boss fights, but also utterly vital to survival.
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Dec 1, 2012 04:06
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berryjon posted:Praise be to SMT and the Persona games! Where Buffs/Debuffs are not only workable in regular and boss fights, but also utterly vital to survival. Nocturne even goes so far to tell you right at the beginning that buffs and debuffs are imperative. And thank goodness because that game is very hard.
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Dec 1, 2012 04:59
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ReWinter posted:Nocturne even goes so far to tell you right at the beginning that buffs and debuffs are imperative. Thank you for reminding me about Pale Rider. You bastard. Anyways, back to FF7, the only buffs I tended to use were Shell(ga), Protect(ga) and Haste(ga) as these were the ones that let me hit faster and more often before I needed to heal. Maybe Regen if I was feeling cocky. Needless to say, Mighty Guard was spammed often.
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Dec 1, 2012 05:15
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I wouldn't even waste time with Shell and Protect since they count down so quickly. Their durations are entirely time-based, so once Haste is up, you'll have like one action between the lot of them. Barring just outright de-spelling an enemy, the best is cranking the game to full Active, dropping Haste on a poor Shell/Protect monster, and jamming up his turns with long animations. I dunno if this one works, but I'd totally be up to try a Master Elemental-Poison on your armor since it only confers nullification, not immunity: you can still contract poison, but you take no damage from it. Does absorbing it heal you instead, or is it just some boring null crap? Fur20 fucked around with this message at 05:30 on Dec 1, 2012 |
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Dec 1, 2012 05:27
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I imagine if it hits the Absorb level, it would. The time based protection changes are serious bullshit, though I was happy with regen having immediate effects. I would replay 6 and 7 with an emphasis on support spells. The games go out of their way with customized buffs. I don't think you can cause regen if you absorb poison. The only thing you need to know about the Saga Frontier book is that Rouge won the magic showdown and the power of love allowed Blouge to open a portal and escape Hell. Scalding Coffee fucked around with this message at 17:01 on Dec 1, 2012 |
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Dec 1, 2012 16:53
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Scalding Coffee posted:The only thing you need to know about the Saga Frontier book is that Rouge won the magic showdown and the power of love allowed Blouge to open a portal and escape Hell. It's so cool when, a couple playthroughs in, you slowly realize they made you play as the evil twin
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Dec 1, 2012 19:37
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Chapter 69 - Sweet Ride  Welcome home Tifa.  We need to get our priorities straight. Also, Yuffie is drooling on the ground.  Well I'm glad in Gaia you can acquire Airships for free! Did you know car prices in Brazil are extraordinarily high?  Given how the average Brazilian citizen makes from two to four times less than his American counterpart and cars here cost over twice as much, if you're a car owner you can now do the math yourself!  In fact, people like to attribute the ridiculous price to taxes. But we know taxes are just half the problem.  If you're a trader, a merchant, a seller - anything lower than a 100% profit margin in Brazil is just absurd. I mean, what's the point in selling things then, right?  This whole situation makes me sick too, Yuffie.  Anyway, the thing is - it's early Christmas and we now have an amazing, gigantic airship.  I specially like how the game narrator becomes Tifa and we're just now finding out what's going on with the rest of the party.   In other words, Cait Sith finally did something useful.  And I was beginning to wonder what was the point in having a double agent.   Tifa is NOT AMUSED.  Well screw you, I'm enjoying the fact we now have a kickass airship.  But in case it wasn't subtle enough, Tifa's mourning Cloud. That's why she's got excited about "everyone being there". Everyone in this case meant Cloud.  It's really screwed up when you're significantly weaker because you don't have a lunatic mutant who's manipulated by a more powerful lunatic mutant aiding you.  I was somewhat surprised to find out Cloud was not here the first time I played.  I thought it would be nice to get to see him at the Airship again. Again, this is something I like in this game.  It has lighthearted fun, but it's also bleak.  Well, no poo poo. You guys are wanted criminals sentenced to death, and you just stole a huge airship from the World Government.  Oh for gently caress's sake Tifa.  I like whoever mentioned how this situation is mostly Tifa's fault.  She pulled an extremely unstable guy into this. It's all sorts of hosed up.  It's, again, an example of how Tifa and Aeris are different. Aeris is the motherly figure. She told Cloud everything was alright and took care of the group. She always knew something was going on and wanted to protect the gang from it.  Tifa acted based on her childhood crush. She wanted Cloud to get fixed, but as we now know, the Cloud she's been with might not be the Cloud she knew anymore.  And the reason it makes her a good character is because all these horrible personality flaws exist. She's acting like a really hosed up person, which makes sense because all these characters, in their ficticious universe, lived really hosed up lives.  In the end, it's the first time the crew can catch a break, and Tifa has no strength to cheer about it. Because while it's a really cool moment for us (YAY WE GOT AN AIRSHIP)...  She's just barely escaped alive from a psychotic woman who was hellbent on killing her. She pulled her lunatic childhood crush into what ended up being a plot to doom the world. There's a gigantic meteor en route to wipe out civilization. She's a wanted criminal in the entire planet. There are gigantic monsters blowing everything up.  Yea, we're all right.  You can also get to talk to the rest of the crew.   Just chit-chat.  I want some information Shinra.  drat Cid I was worried about your approval but now that I just heard that I'm ok.  NOT HELPING.  Yea Cid I was there stop judging meee.  "Fine, I admit it, I hated that guy."  For gently caress's sake.   That sure made her feel comfortable, Cid.   It's not the optimal path but it seems like a reasonable goal.    Well ain't that convenient.  They're called VOLCANOES.  I think Barret's onto something here. Look where that guy got us last time.  TALES OF INTEREST: What if Cloud had never joined AVALANCHE? Share your view of what would have happened. Let's Butterfly Effect this poo poo.  She went to the City of Ancients and got impaled.   I love Cid.  "Don't forget to equip your materias and buy the latest equipment."  "I shall perform the sex change operation myself."  This entire affair reminds me of FF6, though. Both have games have a female ish protagonist who disappears after the world goes to poo poo and you have to play with a secondary female protagonist.  Let's go with Team-Does-Not-Want-To-Find-Cloud.  You might be wondering what is that Chocobo room. We'll get to that later.  Man this part of the game sure has dialogues. How long has it been since our last boss fight?  Anyway, I think this bit of optional dialogue is relevant, since, well, no one told us what happened.  Ah, that reminds me of better times. Barret dressed as a marshmellow. Jenova going Horror-Movie on that boat.  Those were better times. Simpler times.  "What did I do with my life?" "Why am I walking with these bozos?" "Why didn't I marry her?"  Now we know it's personal.  These guys got scammed.  In all fairness your leaders were a scam too.  There you go guys, the complete script on how we stole an airship. Cid is a con artist who scammed a bunch of guys into joining us and Heidegger is incompetent.  We also get instructions on how to fly the ship. Yes, we'll fly it manually, and it's awesome.  In the meanwhile the pilot just got a whole new level. We're off to a good start.  Talking to Red, we have clues to our next location.   Oh now you're just screwing with us.  The Jenova Indocrination Theory.  To boldly go where no man, stuffed toy or talking cat has gone before.  And with this, we conclude this update. NEXT TIME: Screwing around with a giant airship! Awesome music! Not finding Cloud! 
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Dec 2, 2012 04:32
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Yes, it is all Tifa's fault. If she doesn't ignore Cloud acting like a lunatic *right in front of her* to keep going with her psychotic crush, none of this happens. 
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Dec 2, 2012 04:52
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Cid must have incredible acting skills if he came across as heartwarming to the Highwind's crew.
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Dec 2, 2012 04:56
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I was in computer sales for awhile, and when the Indy 500 came around I got a huge rush of Brazilians buying laptops, all saying it was wayyyy cheaper to get them up here and bring them back. It was pretty strange at the time, but now that makes a lot more sense. They'd all buy 2-3 at a time, it was a pretty nice. Sorry that your system of capitalism down there is more an an insincere farce than it is elsewhere  Blue Nation posted:Cid must have incredible acting skills if he came across as heartwarming to the Highwind's crew. Cid would be an awesome boss in a "gruff, may not be cordial but tells you the truth and respects your abilities" kind of way. After ShinRa goons that must be awesome for them.
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Dec 2, 2012 05:09
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I remember when I got the Highwind, I would literally just fly in circles, dipping down, flying back up, skimming lakes, flying around the Midgar Zolom. I loved watching the world pass underneath. Make some gif's, Elentor, if you could. 
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Dec 2, 2012 05:12
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Blue Nation posted:Cid must have incredible acting skills if he came across as heartwarming to the Highwind's crew. Considering their previous boss beat them up, even normal Cid would seem heartwarming by comparison. Just look at that conversation with Tifa, where kinda sorta says he didn't completely hate Cloud, mostly.
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Dec 2, 2012 05:20
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Okay, I'll try the No-Cloud Butterfly Effect. Tifa finds Cloud, but takes pity on him and leaves him behind when she joins Barret on his ecoterrorist bombing spree. They go to bomb their second reactor and President Shinra personally greets them with an ambush on the way out. The boss robot explodes, sending Barret and Tifa toppling down from the city plate to the slums below. Barret and Tifa crash through a church roof and run into Aerith. The Turks show up shortly afterward, and Aerith joins forces with Barret and Tifa to escape them and because really why the hell not. The team makes their way through the Sector 7 slums and Wall Market, where the three of them crossdress and Barret wins Don Corneo's heart and learns of the secret plot to drop a plate on the Sector 5 slums. They rush back, but by this point, Tseng has gone to the Seventh Heaven bar to take Marlene hostage. While there, he comes across Cloud. With someone present at Seventh Heaven to protect Marlene right from the outset, the Turks have no hostage to use to ensure Aerith's cooperation and are forced to retreat from that effort without capturing her. Meanwhile, Reno still manages to push the button in time to drop the plate before anyone can stop him. After seeing Cloud and Marlene safely off to Aerith's mom's house, the group drags their way back through Wall Market to climb up to Shinra HQ through the underbelly of Sector 7. They infiltrate Shinra HQ, passing through Hojo's lab. There is a wild tattoed red mountain cat with a tail that is literally on fire, and it uses their infiltration as an occasion to bust out. After some initial misgivings, the group decides to take the talkative and intelligent creature with them. Just when they all think they're home free to reach the top of the tower (for what again?), Rude cuts off their retreat and apprehends them. At this point, they languish in jail while President Shinra goes on a public tirade against the lives lost due to AVALANCHE's terrorist activities. Then they're put up for public execution at the suggestion of Rufus and Scarlett, and Red XIII is returned to Hojo's custody. Later on, Jenova busts out of Hojo's containment chamber on its own and Shinra Inc. spends a lot of time and energy trying to pursue it while Hojo goes on a sudden vacation. Eventually, thanks to fortuitous positioning of a Shinra employee's remote controlled puppet, Shinra Inc. discovers the location of the Keystone and opens the way to the Temple of the Ancients in an effort to beat Jenova to the punch and find the Promised Land first. It doesn't work out, and Jenova-Sephiroth uses one or more disposable Numbers to take the Black Materia for itself. Meteor happens. The Weapons get unleashed. There are no more ecological extremists to blame for the extremely ecological impending disaster, and Shinra is forced to scapegoat its own current CEO, who failed at every level to stop this from happening. This leaves nothing to save the Planet but the fully armed and operational Weapons, who join together, extend their arms, and catch Meteor, throwing it back into outer space. The Planet takes care of itself, and nature prevails. With Shinra turning in upon itself and imploding, Wutai asserts claims of rightful world supremacy and uses its massive stockpile of accumulated stolen materia to enforce these claims with prejudice. Eventually, Her Royal Highness High Shogun Yuffie Kisaragi comes across Cloud in the course of her work and travels, takes a shine to him, and takes him as her consort, making him close to being the rightful heir to the seat of ruler of the world. Hokuto fucked around with this message at 05:53 on Dec 2, 2012 |
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Dec 2, 2012 05:41
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Cid's conversation with Tifa is loving hilarious, goddamn
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Dec 2, 2012 05:53
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