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Artix posted:~Step into the rainbow~ Oh come on, the tracks with lyrics are the best tracks of both this and 13-2.
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Apr 30, 2014 23:33
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I am being 100% unironic there, I love the poo poo out of that song.
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Apr 30, 2014 23:34
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Good!
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Apr 30, 2014 23:36
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Did Four Heroes of Light come out before or after XIII? I remember one of the heavy complaints about that game being that the party split up too much, so it'd be weird if they didn't learn from that and made the same mistake again here.Artix posted:I am being 100% unironic there, I love the poo poo out of that song. The XIII series does usually have some pretty great songs.
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Apr 30, 2014 23:46
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Admiral H. Curtiss posted:Oh come on, the tracks with lyrics are the best tracks of both this and 13-2. They are the best and the worst. FFXIII generally soured me the hell out on lyrical BGMs; most of them are dumb, but sometimes you'll come across one that's just dumb enough to be great. The track presently under discussion is such a track. XIII-2 was much better at this, and XIII-3 is much more restrained, with most of its original lyrical tracks being only barely recognizably lyrical (but still really great). It's also possible that certain tracks are ruined for me by being irrevocably associated with terrible parts of FFXIII.
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Apr 30, 2014 23:49
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Hobgoblin2099 posted:Did Four Heroes of Light come out before or after XIII? I remember one of the heavy complaints about that game being that the party split up too much, so it'd be weird if they didn't learn from that and made the same mistake again here. It's not made by a standard Square team, though; Fourhole is by Matrix Software, who also did Avalon Code which Didja Redo LP'd fantastically a while ago, and they are also responsible for FFIIIDS and FFIVDS. With only one of the games on that list pretty good, and that mostly because the source was, that's just generally the sign of a company who have neat ideas but no idea of how to design an actually fun game.
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May 1, 2014 00:15
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Simply Simon posted:It's not made by a standard Square team, though; Fourhole is by Matrix Software, who also did Avalon Code That explains a frightening amount.
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May 1, 2014 00:22
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I was always rather fond of Four Heroes of Light. I liked its odd system of commands that were also kinda sorta gambits (like how Attack would always attack the least defensive enemy) and I sure as hell liked its MP system. And having the party split up - from a purely mechanical perspective - never bugged me in FFXIII either, and it sure didn't bug me in Four Heroes; you learned bits at a time, and formed small units of effectiveness, and then put them all into a four-person party. It was neat. The plot was ehh but who cares it was literally Final Fantasy: The Job System. And, lest we forget, it led us to Bravely Default.
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May 1, 2014 00:22
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Simply Simon posted:I was just about to mention Fourhole too. It could be so good but it's ruined by absurd stupidity like the party split for half the game. Both of the DS FF remakes are good.
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May 1, 2014 00:31
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Admiral H. Curtiss posted:Oh come on, the tracks with lyrics are the best tracks of both this and 13-2. 13-2 also has the angry electro-trance club mix of every song when you're about to fight something that is better than the original but you can only hear it for about 5-6 seconds at a time. Why Square,why 
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May 1, 2014 00:46
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Genocyber posted:Both of the DS FF remakes are good. By what measure? I'd rather play Final Fantasy XIII than FF3DS. At least 13 knows what kind of game it's trying to be, even if that kind of game is kind of terrible. I was discussing today how 13 has some actually interesting bits at its core, and remarked upon how the Paradigm system was an interesting idea: change your entire formation and battle strategy on the fly at no resource cost. I then went on to remark on how this was just a natural evolution of the dressspheres in X-2, which was itself based upon the party switching in X, and then I realized that it was fairly emblematic of FF13 to have one of its most interesting mechanics be directly related to one in FFX.
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May 1, 2014 01:13
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IIIDS is very high on my list of "worst games I ever played", but I don't think the thread needs that derail.Fedule posted:I was always rather fond of Four Heroes of Light. I liked its odd system of commands that were also kinda sorta gambits (like how Attack would always attack the least defensive enemy) and I sure as hell liked its MP system. And having the party split up - from a purely mechanical perspective - never bugged me in FFXIII either, and it sure didn't bug me in Four Heroes; you learned bits at a time, and formed small units of effectiveness, and then put them all into a four-person party. It was neat. I also really liked the MP system, the job system is fantastic, but a lot of small and really dumb details came together to make me judge it as a game that could easily have been very good, but was ultimately just not good enough, therefor severely disappointing. A huge thing is for example the big imbalance in job effectiveness; if you immediately after you get the first...Diamond, I think, level the Black Mage to max, you get an attack which one-hits every random encounter for hours to come. Give AP to the mage with another job, and the difficulty is completely gone. On the other hand, Protect is untargetable and other crucial buffs are too, so it never hits who you want, which is just frustrating as hell and so nonsensical. This is also a thing that really drags down FFXIII, to go back on topic. As most people agree on, the combat system is fantastic and the "job system" also really works with it, but there are "minor" details that are just annoying and stupid enough to sour the entire thing, like the party leader death = game over issue. Needlessly frustrating for no reason. At least not on the level of missing save points in dungeons  ...no, no, bad Simon.
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May 1, 2014 11:11
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HOOLY BOOLY posted:13-2 also has the angry electro-trance club mix of every song when you're about to fight something that is better than the original but you can only hear it for about 5-6 seconds at a time. Why Square,why You are in luck, the official soundtrack has the full versions of these songs, some last for 6 minutes or so.
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May 1, 2014 12:34
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Simply Simon posted:I also really liked the MP system, the job system is fantastic, but a lot of small and really dumb details came together to make me judge it as a game that could easily have been very good, but was ultimately just not good enough, therefor severely disappointing. A huge thing is for example the big imbalance in job effectiveness; if you immediately after you get the first...Diamond, I think, level the Black Mage to max, you get an attack which one-hits every random encounter for hours to come. Give AP to the mage with another job, and the difficulty is completely gone. On the other hand, Protect is untargetable and other crucial buffs are too, so it never hits who you want, which is just frustrating as hell and so nonsensical. I looked it up, the MP system is basically "You always start at 0 and gain 1 mp per turn"? Because the first zeboyd penny arcade game had both that exact mp thing and a job system.
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May 1, 2014 17:06
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Rita Repulsa posted:I looked it up, the MP system is basically "You always start at 0 and gain 1 mp per turn"? Because the first zeboyd penny arcade game had both that exact mp thing and a job system.
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May 1, 2014 18:12
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Trasson posted:By what measure? I'd rather play Final Fantasy XIII than FF3DS. At least 13 knows what kind of game it's trying to be, even if that kind of game is kind of terrible. Er, what? FFXIII does not know what it's trying to be, likely on account of the prolong development time and shitton of people working on it (and Square's bad management). FFIII DS is an actually difficult JRPG with decent combat and the job change system. Not as good as V's, which is to be expected, but still pretty good. My only complaints are the limit of three enemies - makes encounters less varied and is probably the reason they made the enemies themselves much stronger - and the bullshit moves some enemies have, that can easily oneshot your entire party if you aren't prepared in advance. Oh and the final dungeon is kinda bullshit.
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May 1, 2014 18:18
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If you want to argue about FF3 DS and its merits (or lack thereof), take it to FF General.Judge Tesla posted:You are in luck, the official soundtrack has the full versions of these songs, some last for 6 minutes or so. Yep, I'll be posting the Aggressive mixes of each field song when we tackle 13-2. But I think that's getting a little bit ahead of ourselves.
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May 1, 2014 19:03
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Artix posted:Yep, I'll be posting the Aggressive mixes of each field song when we tackle 13-2. But I think that's getting a little bit ahead of ourselves.
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May 1, 2014 19:16
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 Update 9: Managerial Initiative for Incentivizing Rapid Growth of Industrial Synergy (Polsy) A minor correction to what I say in the video - Overwhelm increases your chaining bonus based on the number of Ravagers you have piling onto the same enemy, rather than the number of Ravagers you have period. Alternate video titles include "Global Crystallis Marketshare Saturation Synergy Consultant Quarterly", "Bespoke Synergy Solutions", "Market Leaders in Synergy Solutions", and "Promoting Synergy in the Workplace". Music No new music this update, but I'm going to link Daddy's Got the Blues again because it's so good (and we haven't heard Sazh's theme proper, which I actually like a little bit better). Bestiary    Datalogs  quote:Taking in the Trash quote:Fugitives in Futility  quote:History and Myth: The War of Transgression  quote:History and Myth: Lowerworld Artifacts Artix fucked around with this message at 16:24 on May 3, 2014 |
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May 3, 2014 16:18
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I'm assuming the Dreadnought is a reference to the Phantom Train from FFVI, but what's the deal with the zebra succubus?
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May 3, 2014 16:32
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They could not make Vanille more obvious if they hung a gigantic neon sign on her.
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May 3, 2014 16:53
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EDIT: On second thought, they may already know. Editing post out just in case.
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May 3, 2014 17:45
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1stGear posted:They could not make Vanille more obvious if they hung a gigantic neon sign on her. Maybe so, but that just raises a new question: why is she really with the group? What does she want? For that matter, why did Sahz volunteer to be purged?
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May 3, 2014 18:58
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I understand why you take over the Synergist to skip past Vigilance to spread around Faith or Bravery, but why not both? Ravagers and Commandos both have access to physical and magical attacks. I assume it's because you're buffing their stronger stat, and would rather proceed with the beatings than screw around with buffing the weak stat too?
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May 3, 2014 19:08
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Well, more evidence that Sazh is a good character, he's great for boss fights.
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May 3, 2014 19:30
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Sabs not simply reapplying buffs instead of doing nothing is ridiculously annoying, especially when you try to get creative later on (as soon as the game lets you), still don't have every role for everyone and quickly realize that no, Sab is NOT a suitable replacement for Commando in any paradigm. Even though it really should be. Another thing the sequel fixes rather cleverly, actually. It goes to show that they are not deaf to complaints or able to identify problems like this on their own, but simply didn't have time to test out every facet of their battle system and iron out not blindingly obvious flaws like this. I'm too lazy to check back, but I assume that if you leave paradigms as the game gives them to you after each party switch, the Sab thing and many others will be far less apparent.
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May 3, 2014 19:33
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So havign finally caught up entirely with both this and the FBK LP's, i now kinda wonder what roles Yugi and Kaiba would have in this universe  About Vanille, i had not know about the voice acting director told thee actress to "just make the same noises as the japanese actress did" which really, really explains alot about just the andom noises she makes constantly, is that really a big thing that "cute" characters over there do?
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May 3, 2014 19:39
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MechaCrash posted:I understand why you take over the Synergist to skip past Vigilance to spread around Faith or Bravery, but why not both? Ravagers and Commandos both have access to physical and magical attacks. I assume it's because you're buffing their stronger stat, and would rather proceed with the beatings than screw around with buffing the weak stat too? Little of Column A, little of Column B. In some cases, there's no reason for me to cast Faith/Bravery on someone. Vanille has literally no physical attacks, so Faith is all she needs. In others, it's a matter of playing to the AI. Since Lightning is equipped with the Gladius, her AI defaults to using Attack, and will only cast Ruin if it can take advantage of Powerchain or the enemy is resistant to physical attacks / has been hit by Deshell, but not Deprotect. In those cases, Ruin comes up infrequently enough that it's better to just cast Bravery and let the AI handle the rest. With someone like Sazh, yes, it would be beneficial to put up both, but I usually run it as a matter of which is more likely to be used. As a Ravager, Sazh only has Flamestrike compared to Fire and Aero, and his magic stat is more or less equal to his attack. In that position, it's better to throw up Faith, since we have more elemental coverage and unless an enemy is weak to fire, he'll alternate Fire-Aero. As a Commando, it could go either way but to maximize our ability to use Blitz, I usually err on the side of Bravery. Mind you, this whole thing will be totally left by the wayside once Sazh has 4 ATB segments and I can just throw up Faith/Bravery in the same combo.
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May 3, 2014 19:41
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Don't worry Fedule, I'm sure the AI debuff problem is because of laziness. They probably have the ability selection determined by whether or not an enemy is afflicted by a condition and never accounted for the fact that all enemies could have all of the debuffs on at once, so the AI just sits there.
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May 4, 2014 00:04
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I actually think it's more beneficial for a Ravager Sazh to have more Magic than Strength, as Sazh's physical attack animations are pretty sluggish compared to his spellcasting ones. This is more noticeable if he's doing something like Flamestrike-Sparkstrike-Flamestrike-Sparkstrike as opposed to Fire-Aero-Fire-Aero. With Faith up there's a better chance of the AI preferring the spells over the strikes.
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May 4, 2014 00:18
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1stGear posted:They could not make Vanille more obvious if they hung a gigantic neon sign on her. "What, did you sleep through History?" "More or less." If that sort of thing is what you're referring to, I might be mildly intrigued. Mind you, time travel and/or characters in stasis is by no means the key to a good story... Look at WKC.
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May 4, 2014 03:21
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Yapping Eevee posted:"What, did you sleep through History?" It's more like she's from Pulse, made brutally obvious by describing the purge as going back to Pulse. of course! I could be wrong! this is the farthest I've ever seen this game progress.
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May 4, 2014 04:18
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ApplesandOranges posted:I actually think it's more beneficial for a Ravager Sazh to have more Magic than Strength, as Sazh's physical attack animations are pretty sluggish compared to his spellcasting ones. This is more noticeable if he's doing something like Flamestrike-Sparkstrike-Flamestrike-Sparkstrike as opposed to Fire-Aero-Fire-Aero. With Faith up there's a better chance of the AI preferring the spells over the strikes. I think there's some kind of hidden buff to attack damage when you switch back and forth between physical/magical/physical and elements. Which is supposed to compensate for the animation lag. Unfortunately the problem is that certain characters like lightning and snow tend to leap back 20 feet to cast, which then requires them to run up close again to attack, which then requires them to leap back. And now that I've finally caught up with the videos, I have to say I do like Hope. He's handled pretty well for a teenager who saw his mother get killed right in front of him, most of the issue lies with the plot requiring a character that can be described as 'a teenager that saw his mother killed right in front of him'. He gets much better later in the game and he's one of my favorite party leads since he gets all the Ravager skills and a really nice 6ATB. Vanille on the other hand is just bad and stays bad. Kurieg fucked around with this message at 07:12 on May 4, 2014 |
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May 4, 2014 07:10
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Kurieg posted:And now that I've finally caught up with the videos, I have to say I do like Hope. He's handled pretty well for a teenager who saw his mother get killed right in front of him, most of the issue lies with the plot requiring a character that can be described as 'a teenager that saw his mother killed right in front of him'. He gets much better later in the game and he's one of my favorite party leads since he gets all the Ravager skills and a really nice 6ATB. Yes! When I posted: Bregor posted:For the record, I like all the voice acting and I thought Hope was the best character. Come at me, goons. I was getting ahead of myself but Hope develops really well IMO. I mean, in relation to everyone else in XIII, which is a low bar, but it's still something!
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May 4, 2014 11:32
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The problem, at the moment, is that Hope is not a character. He's a set of tragic circumstances. Hope right now is acting just as pretty much any 13 year old caught in this situation would, oscillating between shutting down completely because he's scared out of his gourd and lashing out angrily at everyone around him. But what exactly makes him unique? What's his character beyond that? Why, exactly, should I give a gently caress about Hope, and not the dozens of other teenagers who were getting purged? At best we know that he's a momma's boy and has daddy issues, but that's not particularly unique or interesting imo. There's also a bit of cognitive dissonance between the story and the gameplay. Hope is supposed to be this despondent kid who was thrown into a terrible situation and is just barely keeping it together, but as soon as you get into a battle he literally pulls a giant boomerang out of his rear end and starts going to town with it, and goes right back to being whiny and despondent immediately after. FFXIII wants to have it both ways, it wants to give Hope a character arc where he goes from being the load that doesn't contribute anything to the party and later grows up and becomes brave and cool and awesome and etc. etc. But it also wants him to be a Final Fantasy Player Character who gets into fights constantly and levels up. Out of all of our PC's so far, Hope stands out as the one who least belongs in fight. Lightning is a trained soldier and Snow is a paramilitary punk, so they're easy enough to see in a fight. Sazh is a civilian, but he's like Hope's mom in that he's in a bad situation so he picked up some guns to defend himself. Vanille is more iffy but she's clearly got something else going on, so her actually being comfortable in a fight with her weird-rear end staff-whip-thing is... not understandable but maybe just meant to deepen the mystery I guess? Hope on the other hand is... The Cocoon Junior Boomerang Champion? Who the gently caress knows. Granted, not knowing why I should care is not a problem unique to Hope. Most of the cast is like that. Hey Square-Enix, why should I care about : Lightning? "Because she's cool, and badass, and stoic Snow? "HeroHeroHeroHeroHeroHeroHeroHeroHero" Vanille? "She's perky and cute and mysterious and you want to Sazh? "He's funny and likable." This is why everyone says that Sazh is the best character. He's the only one who is in anyway likable and who you are actually glad to see on screen at any given time. He's not even that interesting of a character from what we've seen so far, but amongst a sea of poo poo, Sazh is the lone island.
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May 4, 2014 18:23
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It helps that Sazh is the most level-headed of the party, too.
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May 4, 2014 18:37
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Alacron posted:The problem, at the moment, Yeah, I'll agree with you based on what we've seen so far. But I hope (puns!) people are keeping an open mind moving forward. As for Sazh, yeah, he really shines in the first act. I think for all of the main characters there are moments when they demand the player's focus (oh God why can't I stop with the puns) and you could say they are the most likeable. Except Snow. gently caress Snow.
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May 4, 2014 19:32
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Artix posted:
What? God, they try so hard to make her a Mary-Sue. As this blurb points out, they're all damned if they do, damned if they don't, and damned if they sit around too long. None of those problems can be stabbed or stoiced to death, so how the gently caress is Lightning supposed to be the only means of salvation? I guess this was supposed to just mean "now Lightning has to decide if she's going to come with everyone else or strike out on her own." But it sounds like everyone else is flopping about helplessly and only Lightning can descend from the heavens and save them.
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May 4, 2014 19:49
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Schwartzcough posted:But it sounds like everyone else is flopping about helplessly and only Lightning can descend from the heavens and save them. Boy are you going to have fun with Lightning Returns.
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May 4, 2014 20:07
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Even though the datalogs seem to imply that Lightning is the most important thing ever in the world. FF XIII is still very much an ensemble cast with Lightning simply being the most visible character. I really wish the same could be said about the sequels. Kurieg fucked around with this message at 20:22 on May 4, 2014 |
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May 4, 2014 20:20
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