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Intent to troll the artists or not, I will never buy the concept of a pale goth chick dressed in black leather and fur while exposing excessive and easily-sunburnt skin up top who lives on a tropical island. I mean, Yuna, Rikku, and Auron look fine. Tidus and Wakka look goofy. Lulu is just silly. 
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May 17, 2012 16:33
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In a technical as well as aesthetic sense, the costume and character designs in FF7 were really, really good. Everyone was smartly, simply designed with a unique color palette, silhouette, and cut of garment, resulting in looks that became indelible and iconic. Black, silver and sleek is Sephiroth, navy-blue, yellow and spikey is Cloud. Outside the game, you could glance at a character's artwork and instantly know what the idea behind them was. Big man with gun arm and torn vest, sporty chick with tank top and stompin'-boots. Of course...not sure that Yuffie and Cait Sith qualify as any good, by those standards, but I suppose they can't all be gems. 
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May 17, 2012 18:10
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Perhaps she is, at that. Compared to the rest, though, it feels like Yuffie was kind of thrown in as an afterthought (even her fellow optional-PC, Vincent, had a much better look going). Cait Sith...I confess, the first time I saw him, I didn't even know what the gently caress I was looking at.
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May 17, 2012 18:21
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NikkolasKing posted:Can people with eyesight better than mine tell me if Sephiroth's design has changed much thanks to better graphics? From what I can tell he has a much thinner figure but that could just be due to the fact they couldn't render that sort of thing in FFVII. I'm more interested if they made his clothes weirder somehow. About the most they did was make it so that he (and Aeris) didn't have the crazy antenna-bangs going. In his appearances in various spinoffs, the only real change that ever seems to show up (and only in non-"canon" games) is a single wing on his back, referencing his ever-popular final boss form. Otherwise, he's virtually the same, in costume, dimensions, and proportion. Though the aesthetic has since become a terrible cliche, his is a very good design, and one could say that no embellishment is necessary. Not sure, now, why they did change up Cloud and Tifa, since they looked just fine and could have been easily adapted to higher-def. Nohman posted:Kuja becomes an amazing character if you assume he's supposed to be an '80s glam rocker and read all his lines as Freddie Mercury. David Bowie, he struck me as. And honestly, if you didn't interpret it as something like this, you were doing it wrong. v 
Mazed fucked around with this message at 19:01 on May 17, 2012 |
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May 17, 2012 18:47
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JoeyJoJoJr Shabadoo posted:I remember that I used to gave a Geocities site called geocities.com/ihatetifa. I was completely insane about how VII is the best game ever, and Tifa ruined it, and I don't even know but for some reason, I really hated her. I remember seeing a lot of goatse. However, despite my passion for the game, I managed to completely forget about the game/avoid all the fandom that came out after 1998, and never even heard about the other games/movies/whatever. Jenova's music is odd, in that it actually is not improved by orchestral/rock renditions. The synth-heavy original fits the concept of the monster perfectly. Even though she's a complete ripoff of Lavos. (Also, the only thing wrong with Tifa is that she gets a genuinely unsettling amount of perverted fanart)
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May 18, 2012 08:13
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The White Dragon posted:Campy 60s superhero showtunes version disagrees with you They did that with "Man with the Machine Gun" as well. And it's amazing. I cannot listen to this without picturing a cheesy voice-over introducing Laguna, Kiros, and Ward as they ham it up for the camera, followed by a bunch of action sequences with ludicrous over-acting and super-cheap special effects.
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May 18, 2012 10:30
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Honestly, the character designs in XIII were all pretty decent. Fang and Sazh were the best, no doubt, but I did like Vanille's sort of faux-African tribal thing. Though the pigtails did diminish the effect a bit.
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May 18, 2012 18:57
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Mak0rz posted:Does anyone have any tips for the Famicom Final Fantasy II before I dive into it? Last I remember that game was a grindfest that could give Korean MMORPGs a run for their money. I was thinking of using Gabriel Pope's LP as a guide for the sake of my own sanity because he mercilessly breaks the game in half. Breaking the game is basically your only option if you want to make it through with any shred of sanity. I seem to recall the same being said in the last thread: Final Fantasy II is a bad game. But, if you want to enjoy a bad game, it's a good bad game to enjoy.
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May 18, 2012 19:54
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Dr Pepper posted:Actualy Tifa and Aerith's designs are kind of interesting because in many ways they give you expectations that they're different archetypes then they really are. It actually fits pretty well with how Cloud presents himself as a tough soldier type when he's really kind of an insecure dork. That seems like it was deliberate. You're supposed to go in thinking Tifa is the rowdy fightwench and Aeris is the demure damsel. They weren't. (also, gently caress the compilation) Honestly, the only bothersome thing I found about Tifa was why she didn't just roundhouse Scarlet off the top of that cannon rather than get into a slapfight. You could write it off, though, by saying she was either high on gas from narrowly escaping the chamber, or was giddily transfixed by the sheer novelty of simply slapping an annoying person repeatedly, rather than employ her normal tactic (highly effective against giant monsters and robots and such) of just punching it apart.
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May 18, 2012 20:05
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Ashe "kill loving everything  " and Balthier "the hero  " pretty much made FFXII for me. Dumb costumes be damned. From what I understand, Akihiko Yoshida is just incapable of dressing someone normally when given the slightest bit of control.Fran, by virtue of hanging out with Balthier (and that bizarrely fascinating accent) was also okay. They were like a couple of rockstars just not giving a gently caress and having a good time.  NikkolasKing posted:Well I don't really like overly-aggressive characters in general when their aggression is misplaced. It's just that FF is pretty lacking in the "cold-hearted but secretly suffering" males. I see that more in females in RPGs anyway. It's called Ice Queen for a reason i guess. Well, there's Cloud, of whom Lightning was written as an in-series homage to. I think the point being there, though, was that the criticism of the character need not be gendered. Mazed fucked around with this message at 23:33 on May 18, 2012 |
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May 18, 2012 23:30
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And then you get to Fang, who isn't really complicated, which is kind of nice. Her main deals are "Lets kill things until we win" and "Do not gently caress with my Vanille". The whole narrative seemed like it wanted to show that group getting over their issues and eventually becoming almost this family, but never quite makes it seem convincing.
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May 19, 2012 00:30
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Pesky Splinter posted:That's right, Ghis is the one in red, and with the weird perm. And Bergan's the one in the frog helmet who murders the Pope. I'll remember that now, thanks. This, see, this is how Final Fantasy's usual theatrics need to be handled. So much of the dialogue in XII was cheesy and hamfisted, but that's what made it good. It was disappointing that the Judges got so little screen time, and so little opportunity to chew on the scenery like they were drat well supposed to.
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May 19, 2012 01:57
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Pesky Splinter posted:These guys (and the one gal) rock some pretty sweet helmets. Though one has to wonder, what happens if Zargabaath has to look to the side? The armor is really cool, though, in that it looks like something that you could actually wear, and it'd actually serve as good protection. Now see, the super-thin waist can work in illustrations that're sty-- TurnipFritter posted:Looks like someone's never heard of Ioana Spangenberg.  Thanks for the nightmares.
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May 19, 2012 02:50
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"Fortress" was being developed by GRIN Studios in Sweden. Sadly, the studio folded in 2009. There hasn't been any official word from Square-Enix, not that I've heard anyway, on whether the game was cancelled outright, or put on hold indefinitely. It would be nice if it did get picked up again, as Ivalice is a setting worth repeat-visits to, and since evidently Ashe is involved in this one, we could cetainly do with a continuation of her story, even if she's just a side-character.
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May 26, 2012 23:55
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Final Fantasy XI had great art in all respects, some pretty good music, a well-done setting with genuinely likeable NPCs (Shantotto, Prishe, and Zeid, you will always be my bros), and a surprisingly decent story (or set of stories). It also featured the most infuriatingly broken gameplay in the entire series (counting II), balance and game design made by people who actively hate players and want them to suffer as much as possible, and a player community that actively hates fun and wants you to have as little of it as possible. Now find a group and grind for hundreds of hours or get absolutely jack and poo poo from the whole affair. I've heard it's gotten better, to the point at least where you can play it and not want to punch yourself in the face repeatedly, but speaking as someone who tried to enjoy it for a while in its earlier years, the damage has been done. Mazed fucked around with this message at 01:05 on Jun 10, 2012 |
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Jun 10, 2012 01:00
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Safari Disco Lion posted:1) The Tarutaru and Mithra are the most ridiculous, stupid loving fan service bullshit races they possibly could have done and were COMPLETELY out of place in a Final Fantasy game. There was so much other cool poo poo they could have done, like all the different races you see in IX; the ticket booth guy, the Qu, the Burmecian, whatever Amarant is. But no, they went with a stupidly cute tiny infant thing and a cat girl. I disagree with this. The Mithra were actually kind of cool (played for sex appeal, sorta, but not to a particularly obnoxious degree) and had backstory and character animations that sold them fairly well as an asskicking warrior race. And Tarutaru are fine because gently caress off, they're super-wizards and cute. The White Dragon posted:"What do you mean, you think a Red Mage/Thief is 'cool'? What kind of loving retard are you, do not even play this game or grow the gently caress up and do some professional and mathematically-reviewed builds." gently caress FF11. Of course, gently caress MMOs in general, but still. Fun? No, NO FUN EVER. If you don't have at least as much DPS as me then go gently caress yourself you useless sack of poo poo and I don't even want to see you on my SERVER.  : "What the hell do you mean, you want to be a Ninja because you like being a damage-dealer/debuffer with a cool dual-wield style? gently caress you, you're a tank, and you tank by spamming spells that costs you incredibly expensive reagents every time you use them. Oh, wanna be another kind of tank? No, gently caress you, we're only taking Ninja tanks because we don't want to actually cast healing spells." Developers: "Not what we intended, but whatever, not gonna change it." v Proto_Fan posted:Although, I do like Tarutaru. They're so adorable and tiny. I know they're kind of uninspired but I can't help it. /panic 
Mazed fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Jun 10, 2012 |
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Jun 10, 2012 01:17
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Minrad posted:The grind is better, but there's not much reason to play FF11 since even FF14 in its "lovely" state blows it out of the water, and the 2.0 revision coming up soon looks really good and will be worth playing if you like Final Fantasies and MMOs at the same time. If--and this is a really big if--you have a regular group of friends you can always play with, pretty much any MMO is at least tolerable. FF14, for the very little of it I played, seemed like it would have been good if there'd actually been a game there. If 2.0 actually has readily-accessible content that's more than basically killing stuff for XP, you can significantly advance and see at least a good chunk of stuff playing solo, doesn't have the arbitrary limitations (like the quests-per-day thing), and they've revamped the godawful interface, it might be worth another look. The one thing I felt truly floored by in that game were the character animations. They put a lot of love and attention into something that in the grand scheme is probably rather minor, but it was still really, really neat.
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Jun 10, 2012 01:39
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Minrad posted:Yeah, it looks like they're taking a much more WoW approach in friendlier UI, questing to level, etc while retaining the core job system and grouping oriented gameplay from 11. Plus it really does look gorgeous to boot; even the UI is one of the best default one I've seen in an MMO with the minimalist style that still presents all the useful information without just being a rip of the WoW one. Well now.  That UI shows some promise. I may actually have to bother reading over the full breadth of changes, as I honestly would like to enjoy an FF in MMO-form if they can actually get their poo poo together. If they did allow for solo-style gameplay, that'd also be great, but group-play would be acceptable if, and only if, the classes were all balanced enough to where you weren't obligated to be min/maxed in every possible way (loving FFXI classes...)I see they're getting the Miqo'te men in; are they planning on letting you play female Roegadyn and Highlanders, as well? The latter in particular, if they're ripped and badass-looking as the males are, I'd roll in an instant. Though if they still kept the Highlanders only to males, I suppose there'd be a certain amusing irony in having an FF MMO with a MANLY MAN ONLY race.
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Jun 10, 2012 04:28
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Barudak posted:Like FFXI, plot is fairly important to the game and with 2.0 the main questline, grand companies, and likely job questlines will be totally rewritten to reflect the coming cataclysm. Is this an indication that there are story bits that any who play after 2.0 will never get to see, or are they at least leaving the 'important' bits in/giving it a polish?
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Jun 10, 2012 17:19
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Gammatron 64 posted:Basically, Hiromino Tanaka is like videogame cancer. Is there somewhere we can go to read about all that this guy specifically did to ruin the FF MMOs as thoroughly as possible? There's a certain appreciation one can find in video game trainwrecks. 
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Jun 11, 2012 07:37
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Tanaka's game design bullshit aside, there is a lot about FFXI I will genuinely appreciate always, and Vana'diel itself pretty much tops them out. I mean, as settings go, it wasn't too unique, but it had very real charm and personality. Missions were always worth it, because there'd usually be some kind of nice story payoff, and the NPCs were just unpretentious fun. And, of course, the music was incredibly good, a few tracks (namely, Sanctuary of Zi'tah, Aht Urhgan Whitegate, Lufaise Meadows, Ronfaure, Gustaberg, and the Chains of Promathia solo/group battle themes) among the best in the whole series. That, at least, can be enjoyed any time. So yeah, if Final Fantasy XIV 2.0 ends up not being a fuckup, and it captures the essence of the good parts of XI, I'm way into that.  Gammatron 64 posted:Especially if they're a Mithra. 
Mazed fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Jun 11, 2012 |
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Jun 11, 2012 19:20
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jivjov posted:Is there any good way to experience the story of FFXI without actually playing? Has anyone done a story-based Let's Play or something? This would be neat as hell, but it's doubtful that anyone has the patience, as most of the story-based stuff requires a group--and often a really good one, to my recollection, particularly for the level-capped Chains of Promathia stuff. (Omega.  )Chances are, though, you can find the Mission cutscenes (that is, where the stories play out) on YouTube or the like.
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Jun 11, 2012 19:48
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The White Dragon posted:Well, I'll put it this way: I know folks in real life who happen to also play MMOs on the side, and they're a mixed bag, some of them are great, most of them are awful. On the other hand, I've never met anyone in an MMO that I didn't know in real life who wasn't an obsessed rear end in a top hat who refused to let anyone else enjoy themselves. Oh, I don't want to powerlevel? I don't read guides and poo poo and min-max everything? I don't want to play this for more than an hour or two before going doing something else? Well then you're not loving dedicated enough and no you can't just look around the game world or hang out or whatever you filthy plebeian, and they don't even WANT my kind in any party. It's like, dude, relax. I ain't hardcore about this poo poo but I've never met an MMO player in-game who didn't expect me to dedicate my life to it, and iced me out completely once they found out I had no interest in that playstyle or lifestyle. There's a lot of this in the MMO world, it's true. The open communities have a tendency to attract the least pleasant of the lot--go onto the official forums for pretty much any of them, and it's unanimously terrible. Sadly, there are some people who carry the rhetoric thrown around in those circles into real life, and these are not the most pleasant people to be around. But, by no means is it everyone, and what you get out of an MMO has a lot to do with the people you surround yourself with. The people I know who still enjoy FFXI do it because they mostly just play with a particular group of folks. I would have stopped playing WoW many years ago if I hadn't fortuitously stumbled into a similarly pleasant crowd (not a single one of whom has ever come close to telling any of us we ought to dedicate our lives to it, for the record). If I take up FFXIV 2.0, the first priority will be to sniff out people like these. But, MMOs are absolutely not for everyone...and I still stand by the belief that XI and XIV should never have been considered part of the 'main' Final Fantasy series. v v
Mazed fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Jun 12, 2012 |
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Jun 12, 2012 19:41
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By what criteria is he planning on judging "better"? Considering that you have people all loving different games in the series for completely different reasons, and that what you get out of a video game is completely subjective, based on the individual playing it, that's not a very good milestone to set. It's even worse when you consider that this is probably the most contentious game franchise in existence (Every game is the worst game in the series. )Maybe he just means copies+related merchandise sold? I have no citation for this, but I would presume that FF7 and all that bears its name has earned the company the most out of everything FF-related.
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Jun 26, 2012 08:29
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Novum posted:Don't get mad. I need someone to give me some motivation to give 13 another try. I've had a fair bit of fun with literally every FF game I've played but I ran out of steam on 13 like 6 months ago and haven't gone back since. I'm sure there is something interesting or fun right around the corner? Anything? You want encouragement to play XIII? Well, I didn't hate it. You've heard the criticisms already, but here's the good: It has a fantastic battle system, the music is chill, and the creature and environment designs are crazy-excellent. While Snow, Hope, and Vanille have their flaws rubbed in your face a lot, they were at least deliberately written to be like that, and you have Sazh, Lightning, and Fang, who loving rock and are some of the coolest characters now in the franchise. The earlier parts of the game restrict you mechanically, but the story is at its best. It loses coherence later, but by then the game mechanics have opened up, and the battle system is great. While I myself look back upon FFXIII as a game that did not, at all, add up to the sum of its parts, I ended up putting around 100 hours into it, and they all just flew by.
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Jul 29, 2012 17:08
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penguinmambo posted:Are there "positive"-associated fan theories? I've noticed that every popular FF theory seems less about some neat idea that is fun to think about and more a need to explain away something not adequately explained that ended up specifically *annoying* the audience or to do some kind of damage control in making the character more interesting. Can't forget, Gogo = [Gestahl/Daryl/Leo/Baram/whoeverthefuck] A character that exists purely for the sake of screwing around with combat mechanics, zero actual characterization. There's also the one about Gilgamesh being the exact same character in each game he shows up in, but I wouldn't be surprised if this has been confirmed as fact.
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Aug 1, 2012 08:40
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Leovinus posted:IX is definitely the best post-2D FF, if not the best game in the series. It tends towards being a little more restrictive than the other PSX games early on, but it's well-written, has an excellent cast, a good story, and a well-balanced battle system. What, by you, makes Kuja so good? Not that I would disagree offhand, as I thought he was alright. Mind, the entire time I played I imagined his character as being delivered by David Bowie, which really just brings it all together beautifully.
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Aug 7, 2012 08:46
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Absolute Virtue is the best superboss, because if every tactic used with any success is declared by the devs to be cheating, it's gotta be great. 
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Aug 7, 2012 17:00
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The only characters with chemistry in FF12 were Balthier and Fran, and that's mainly because they simply showed, rather than told, them being what they are. If every Final Fantasy game henceforth is just going to be a spinoff, they just need to make one where those two pick up Gilgamesh and Ultros and they just go trolling every FF world.
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Sep 3, 2012 09:11
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Final Fantasy Megathread: Gilgamesh is the only good character.Pyroxene Stigma posted:drat right. Except for the man! Of the sea! bits. Really, there was a ton of goofy nonsense in Xenogears, from the Thames inhabitants to giant pink rabbit things to Big Joe to pretty much everything that happened as a result of Bart's decision-making. For a perfect example of why the more serious parts no longer seems to work, though, is when you see them taking the bits from Xenogears that were meant to be all deep and profound, and see them try to do it again in Xenosaga. Before, you had cartoony sprites and unvoiced dialogue. But in PS2-gen, well...compare the voice actors trying to play it straight (the majority of the cast, all of the player characters) with those who apparently saw it for the absurdity it was and hammed it up accordingly (the villains, particularly Margulis and Albedo). If anything, it shows that crazy over-the-top JRPG plots can theoretically work, but only when those involved aren't taking themselves too seriously. Alternative conclusion: They should only write these games consisting entirely of villains.
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Sep 3, 2012 14:59
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Didn't Lost Odyssey also have Uematsu on music, along with Sakaguchi doing the directing? If so...poo poo, that's as Final Fantasy as it needs to be.
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Sep 3, 2012 17:12
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Everything always comes back to FF music. The soundtrack to XIII works in its in-game context, but doesn't have quite the charisma of Uematsu's stuff in earlier titles. But, the score itself is actually pretty nice to just put on play and chill out listening to while you do other stuff. Dr Pepper posted:It'd be kind of funny if they did remake it and leave Cloud's personality unchanged... and watch people complain that the remake made him into a dork. And pure, sweet Aeris into a tramp. Seriously, she was one of the best heroines in the series. They do a remake, they oughtta drop whoever does her voice in spinoffs and get Olivia Olson, who does the vampire chick in Adventure Time. And DiMaggio as Cait Sith. Mazed fucked around with this message at 08:52 on Sep 10, 2012 |
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Sep 10, 2012 08:49
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Just listen to the single best track that the series has ever brought to us and let the whole music debate be rendered blissfully moot.
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Sep 10, 2012 10:27
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One thing that was cool about IX is that each area had its own distinctive theme. No generic dungeon/cave/village/whatever music. XII did that as well, but didn't have quite as much variation in styles and instruments.
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Sep 10, 2012 15:44
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Pesky Splinter posted:I was going through some of FFXIV's soundtrack on youtube...and...well...I found this: "Gentlemen, in order to make Final Fantasy XIV 2.0 a success, we need to lose our loving minds." I am sincerely hoping that the reboot for this game is actually a success.
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Sep 16, 2012 08:46
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9 isn't so much 'grindy' as designed to be played at a fairly relaxed pace. It's a good game to sit back and take it easy with. No, really, it's even got the chillest overworld theme in the series. 10, on the other hand, doesn't really have any truly 'slow' parts, and flows along pretty quick if you're just after the main story. 6 moves along pretty fast early-on, but the second half/final third of it is essentially open-world; you can clear it up quick if you know what's where, but otherwise you could spend many hours just poking around, eventually finding everything, but by no means at a fast pace.
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Sep 16, 2012 16:30
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I choose to believe that this means chocobos are being planned as a playable race.
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Sep 16, 2012 17:50
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Cecil becoming a Paladin in FF4 was revelatory. It's like, "Oh my god, he's actually a PERSON and has crazy blue hair!" Also, Attacking When Its Tail Is Up is a video game rite of passage. Never mind that those who played FF4 and 6 had first bosses with the exact same kind of gimmick and you really should have seen that coming.
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Sep 17, 2012 08:29
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Vanille was bad because the voice actress was given explicit instructions to imitate weird Japanese noises and mannerisms that sound painfully unnatural in English. Seriously, the voice director for that game is a loving idiot.
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Oct 3, 2012 19:14
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Pulse natives were intended to sound Australian (and in fact, the voice actress herself is Australian, so that part could have sounded natural). Not being Australian, I couldn't judge one way or the other, but most Australian people I know said that Fang, on the other hand, sounded way too much like an American trying to do an Australian accent.
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Oct 3, 2012 19:27
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