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Yah but Tifa is massively co dependent on someone who is by all means completely out of their minds. Snows just dumb, yo. That said, IMO XIII is what VII could be if they started from the EU then worked backwards. The game (story) feels like its was built from the outside in. The little flighty details get worked to a beautiful shine but the basic underpinnings of a good story/game were completely left for the last minute. Seriously all the effort on the datalog and the creation myths is nice to see and read but its effort wasted when put next to the actual content the game is expected to deliver. In comparison to something like XII which has a rock solid story with a strong sequence of events its like the writers just lost the plot. [Oh, on that note is XV turning out to be similarly convoluted?]
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Apr 14, 2014 02:52
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Am I the only person who kinda likes Snow? By comparison Serah's boring, Lightning's bitter and whiny, Vanille's good cheer sounds incredibly insincere to me, and Hope's blaming Lightning over his mom rather than, you know, the men who were shooting at her. At least Snow is trying to fix things and not depress everyone. Sazh is still the best though, for representing my lack of interest in the rest of the group.
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Apr 14, 2014 03:54
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Nah I like Snow too, he's got enthusiasm. Though I fully admit that part of me liking him is probably Troy Baker.
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Apr 14, 2014 03:58
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See the thing is with Snow: I can kind of see what's going on with him. It's most likely he's putting up false bravado and a happy face because he knows it'll motivate others. Same thing with Serah: he's putting up the hero routine to reassure her. Hell, it probably helps him reassure himself and keep moving on in the face of impossible odds. I can understand and sympathize with that, it's certainly a realistic means of coping with the situation. Having said all that, I still find his routine annoying to watch.  It's a weird line to tread, but there you go. The prologue is also just kind of a bad introduction to Snow's character in general. From what I remember, all of the party members who aren't Sazh ping-pong around in terms of likability as the story goes along.
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Apr 14, 2014 04:01
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Sydin posted:See the thing is with Snow: I can kind of see what's going on with him. It's most likely he's putting up false bravado and a happy face because he knows it'll motivate others. Same thing with Serah: he's putting up the hero routine to reassure her. Hell, it probably helps him reassure himself and keep moving on in the face of impossible odds. I can understand and sympathize with that, it's certainly a realistic means of coping with the situation. Hmmm, well, I haven't seen the rest of the game, but I think if they would slowly work this idea out over time from now on, having established Snow's bravado, that it could do a lot to humanize his character. Like, the first two hours are spent getting to know Snow as this hopeless romantic, the idealistic young man who believes that with enough guts and determination a man can move mountains, and then overtime we come to understand what you described. Without spoilers, does this actually end up happening?
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Apr 14, 2014 07:11
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Skyfinder posted:Without spoilers, does this actually end up happening? Well. There is like one scene, but beyond that not really, no.
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Apr 14, 2014 07:23
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I liked Snow far more when I just had the first LP of XIII to go on. In this game, he's fine and I really don't mind his antics - he gets his comeuppance for his bravado more than once, which separates him well from other characters in Final Fantasy I hate which never get called out on their bullshit (read: Squall). Imho vague enough talk about the next game, but spoilered just in case: In XIII-2, however, the first of the two I played, he's an absolute douchebag sans That One Scene Everyone Loves (maybe) and knowing that is what he'll end up with kind of sours my look on him in this game.
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Apr 14, 2014 08:49
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pocketwatch posted:Am I the only person who kinda likes Snow? By comparison Serah's boring, Lightning's bitter and whiny, Vanille's good cheer sounds incredibly insincere to me, and Hope's blaming Lightning over his mom rather than, you know, the men who were shooting at her. At least Snow is trying to fix things and not depress everyone. Sazh is still the best though, for representing my lack of interest in the rest of the group. Snow was the one character who I actually wound up hating even more through replaying the game. Going back and restarting the story with all the cards on the table helped me see all the characters and their actions in a new light that made all of them more or less more understandable... Except for Snow. He just comes across as an even bigger thoughtless tool the more you know about him. The only appealing thing about his character for me is that Troy Baker could make a reading of the Septic Tank Cleaning Services section of the Yellowpages sound charismatic and appealing. The only thing that sustained me through his character arc on my second playthrough was the schadenfreude factor and the perverse glee of watching everything go catastrophically wrong for a man who is the root cause of nearly all his own and others problems.
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Apr 14, 2014 12:04
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On the one hand, Snow is a dumb guy who does stupid stuff to 'be a hero'. On the other hand, FF13 is a dumb game that demands its characters do dumb things because they're 'heroes'. Snow is the perfect FF13 character: big and flashy and kind of stupid, and really wants you to know how big and flashy he is.
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Apr 14, 2014 12:15
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Sydin posted:From what I remember, all of the party members who aren't Sazh ping-pong around in terms of likability as the story goes along. Wrong, there's one character who's always awesome all the time. Fang or course 
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Apr 14, 2014 13:09
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 Update 5: Crystalline Drifts and Paradigm Shifts (Polsy) Music Lake Bresha Daddy's Got the Blues Bestiary   Datalogs  quote:Branded quote:A Vision Shared quote:Partings and Promises  quote:History and Myth: Ragnarok quote:Locales: Lake Bresha  quote:Cocoon Society: Sanctum Fal'Cie  quote:Cocoon Society: Guardian Corps  quote:Cocoon Society: Bodhum Security Regiment Artix fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Apr 14, 2015 |
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Apr 14, 2014 14:18
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The frozen lake really reminds me of that one location from Chrono Cross where time had stopped. Also, if the party members are interchangeable and it's the paradigms that matter, can we just bench Vanille forevermore?
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Apr 14, 2014 14:46
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Watching, or rewatching I suppose, has led me to realise the foreshadowing in this game is better than I gave it credit for. Chapter 7 spoilers: Vanille's brand is bigger than the others, and on the Ark she already had three ATB slots. She and Sazh also seem to speak with more confidence about what the branding entails. Sadly, by the time you get to Chapter 7, you have completely forgotten this.
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Apr 14, 2014 15:04
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anilEhilated posted:Also, if the party members are interchangeable and it's the paradigms that matter, can we just bench Vanille forevermore? That's cute, that you think that.
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Apr 14, 2014 15:14
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anilEhilated posted:Also, if the party members are interchangeable and it's the paradigms that matter, can we just bench Vanille forevermore?
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Apr 14, 2014 15:16
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While I like the Sphere grid, the Crystarium annoyed me with the multiple grids for each role. (late game Crystarium spoilers) It gets much more annoying later when you can unlock the other three roles for each character but you have to pay CP out the nose to even get started on that role
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Apr 14, 2014 15:30
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anilEhilated posted:The frozen lake really reminds me of that one location from Chrono Cross where time had stopped. Short answer: No. That's not how the game works.
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Apr 14, 2014 15:38
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Oh look it's the absolute best part of this entire video game
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Apr 14, 2014 15:54
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pocketwatch posted:Am I the only person who kinda likes Snow? By comparison Serah's boring, Lightning's bitter and whiny, Vanille's good cheer sounds incredibly insincere to me, and Hope's blaming Lightning over his mom rather than, you know, the men who were shooting at her. At least Snow is trying to fix things and not depress everyone. Sazh is still the best though, for representing my lack of interest in the rest of the group. Hope blames Snow because he recruited a bunch of civilians to fight an armed military. Which killed Hope's mom. Snow is a colossal gently caress up which will be elaborated on a bit as the game goes on.
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Apr 14, 2014 16:00
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WaltherFeng posted:Short answer: No. That's not how the game works. Uh-huh. I didn't mean gag her and remove her from the plot (appealing as that may be), just not having to see her maniacal gestures everytime we fight. Gensuki posted:Hope blames Snow because he recruited a bunch of civilians to fight an armed military. Which killed Hope's mom. Snow is a colossal gently caress up which will be elaborated on a bit as the game goes on. This is actually why I like Snow (so far, mind you, this LP is the extent of what I know about this game). Lightning is too anime to be believable, Vanille and Hope are just obnoxious but Snow - I can kinda get him (provided he's like seventeen for the whole hero fetish thing to not be too awkward, but you never know with them animes). He's a complete fuckup with a lot of ideals; funnily enough that reminds of Cloud (whom I, at the possible cost of my hypothetical goonrep, genuinely like)more than anything the supposed Cloud 2.0 did so far.
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Apr 14, 2014 16:07
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anilEhilated posted:Uh-huh. I didn't mean gag her and remove her from the plot (appealing as that may be), just not having to see her maniacal gestures everytime we fight. Yes, this is stupid.
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Apr 14, 2014 16:15
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anilEhilated posted:Uh-huh. I didn't mean gag her and remove her from the plot (appealing as that may be), just not having to see her maniacal gestures everytime we fight. Nope, we're stuck with her because Hope has yet to find his balls and start actually fighting. quote:This is actually why I like Snow (so far, mind you, this LP is the extent of what I know about this game). Lightning is too anime to be believable, Vanille and Hope are just obnoxious but Snow - I can kinda get him (provided he's like seventeen for the whole hero fetish thing to not be too awkward, but you never know with them animes). He's a complete fuckup with a lot of ideals; funnily enough that reminds of Cloud (whom I, at the possible cost of my hypothetical goonrep, genuinely like)more than anything the supposed Cloud 2.0 did so far. As previously mentioned Snow and Lightning are 21. Hope is 14, Vanille is 19, Serah is 18, and Sazh is like 40-ish? He's 42 in 13-2.
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Apr 14, 2014 16:15
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If you don't have Pork Lift and/or wateyad on as guests for chapter 6 I'm unsubscribing from this Let Us Play
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Apr 14, 2014 16:27
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anilEhilated posted:Uh-huh. I didn't mean gag her and remove her from the plot (appealing as that may be), just not having to see her maniacal gestures everytime we fight.
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Apr 14, 2014 16:32
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anilEhilated posted:Uh-huh. I didn't mean gag her and remove her from the plot (appealing as that may be), just not having to see her maniacal gestures everytime we fight. You're gonna love Chapters 4, 6 and 8.
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Apr 14, 2014 16:33
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I dunno guys, think about this: Snow is supposed to get married soon,maybe start a family, and all he has for a job is apparently punching monsters in Bodhum and recently, being an Anti-Government Terrorist. For me, that's not a "Hero". That's just being a childlike Idiot. Even if he saves Serah, he has nothing to go with in terms of being a responsible Adult, even in this Anime-World where Money drops from Monsters and Digital Shops sell everything on every street corner.
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Apr 14, 2014 16:53
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Oh boy, it's the meat and potatoes of the combat system. The Paradigm Shift is a silly name, but as Artix and Fedule stated, having to constantly switch between roles is actually quite hectic in later battles. If you just spam a single role and expect the game to "play itself," as they put it, then combat is going to be a miserable slog pretty quickly. One annoying thing you didn't mention about the Paradigm Shift though is that in every single battle, shifting for the first time will be considerably slower, since the camera focuses on each party member as they do a silly pose. Every other shift is just a quick flash, but if you need to shift for the first time, expect to be waiting for about ten seconds while enemies are still whacking away at you. Most battles, I just shifted right at the start to get the animation over with, because in a lot of later fights, your health bar is going to vanish in the blink of an eye, and you don't want to be just standing there.
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Apr 14, 2014 17:38
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It's weird. Sazh does make for a pretty funny character, but he's also realistic and well-rounded. He's, simultaneously "I'm too old for this poo poo" and the most level-headed of the group, I can see why he's a lot of people's favorite character. Also, I think something that would've really helped Snow's character is if we got a bigger look into his relationship with Serah. Not just the two weeks or whatever or this stuff at the beginning of the plot, but a look at the two of them as a normal couple. Something to help us see why he might be so devoted to her. But, them's the breaks for one-half of an RPG pre-plot romance. They only exist to get the plot going. Skyfinder fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Apr 14, 2014 |
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Apr 14, 2014 17:54
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Blastinus posted:Oh boy, it's the meat and potatoes of the combat system. The Paradigm Shift is a silly name, but as Artix and Fedule stated, having to constantly switch between roles is actually quite hectic in later battles. If you just spam a single role and expect the game to "play itself," as they put it, then combat is going to be a miserable slog pretty quickly. You can also skip the animation if one of your characters are in mid-air, but the first time you do it with all the characters on the ground will have the long animation. It's one of those things that make absolutely no sense out of the context of the game (or even in the game, for that matter). I wish there was some visual indication when enough time had passed so that your next paradigm shift will start off with a full bar. There's no reason that should be a hidden mechanic, since it encourages shifting paradigms in the first place. If you don't know about this and shift too often, then you won't get the instant full bar, and will be fighting inefficiently.
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Apr 14, 2014 17:59
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Blastinus posted:Oh boy, it's the meat and potatoes of the combat system. The Paradigm Shift is a silly name, but as Artix and Fedule stated, having to constantly switch between roles is actually quite hectic in later battles. If you just spam a single role and expect the game to "play itself," as they put it, then combat is going to be a miserable slog pretty quickly. This whole initial paradigm shift of every battle-thing is like a perfect summation of this games mountainous Style-Over-Substance. It sounds like such a small thing, but when you start having to paradigm shift in every battle, and you fight about a million billion battles because battles are all there is apart from cutscenes, it starts grinding away at you and it just doesn't stop.
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Apr 14, 2014 18:05
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That loving Sned posted:I wish there was some visual indication when enough time had passed so that your next paradigm shift will start off with a full bar. There's no reason that should be a hidden mechanic, since it encourages shifting paradigms in the first place. If you don't know about this and shift too often, then you won't get the instant full bar, and will be fighting inefficiently. Since your ATB fill rate is %-of-total-bar-per-time-unit, you can roughly time it as two full ATB command chains. Not entirely accurate, but works well enough. But yeah, it should be a visible indicator.
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Apr 14, 2014 18:16
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Hymirvetr posted:I dunno guys, think about this: To be fair, let's try and think of a FF character that begins the game in a responsible position that would allow them to have "for a job" something that would be considered by our real-world standards to be responsible. The closest is probably Squall, who's a student at Child Soldier Academy, so even then. That loving Sned posted:I wish there was some visual indication when enough time had passed so that your next paradigm shift will start off with a full bar. There's no reason that should be a hidden mechanic, since it encourages shifting paradigms in the first place. If you don't know about this and shift too often, then you won't get the instant full bar, and will be fighting inefficiently. I'm sorry to be jumping ahead to future games, but did XIII-2 change this? I thought Pro StratzTM for this game (inasmuch as there is a Pro StratTM) involved doing stuff like setting up two of the same Paradigm so you switch to the other when you deplete one and have that ready.
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Apr 14, 2014 18:21
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Wild Knight posted:To be fair, let's try and think of a FF character that begins the game in a responsible position that would allow them to have "for a job" something that would be considered by our real-world standards to be responsible. The closest is probably Squall, who's a student at Child Soldier Academy, so even then. None of them planned rescuing their fianceés and getting married afterwards despite being/becoming a literal terrorist in doing so. And both Lightning and Sazh actually had real jobs before this mess.
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Apr 14, 2014 18:28
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Wild Knight posted:To be fair, let's try and think of a FF character that begins the game in a responsible position that would allow them to have "for a job" something that would be considered by our real-world standards to be responsible. The closest is probably Squall, who's a student at Child Soldier Academy, so even then.
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Apr 14, 2014 18:46
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Well, Edgar is a king. Cayenne was a warrior for his kingdom. Celes was a general. Tifa runs a bar. Lenna and Faris are princesses. Edward & Edge are princes. Yang's a warrior monk for his kingdom. Cid's an engineer (except in FF8 where he's a Robin Williams-esque principal at Child Soldier Academy).. There are plenty of gainfully-employed blokes in this franchise, is what I'm saying.
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Apr 14, 2014 18:56
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Plus those who don't have gainful employment during the game usually have it beforehand or have some reason why they have the resources they do. Barrett was a coal miner and a laborer for the Shinra Corporation before he ended up taking up AVALANCHE business, Vincent was an operative, and Rinoa lived off of her father's income.
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Apr 14, 2014 19:01
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I think the black mage was a black mage.
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Apr 14, 2014 19:02
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Aeris sold flowers. That's a job, I guess.
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Apr 14, 2014 19:06
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Did I miss where Lightning was branded? Everyone else showed a brand, she did not. (And she did mysteriously talk a door into opening.) Suspicious. What is the most popular sitcom in Cocoon?
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Apr 14, 2014 19:26
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Yes, thank you, the point has been made. While perhaps not the majority, a substantial number of FF characters are gainfully employed in one way or another.Blastinus posted:One annoying thing you didn't mention about the Paradigm Shift... Well we do but not for another video or- quote:...though is that in every single battle, shifting for the first time will be considerably slower, since the camera focuses on each party member as they do a silly pose. Every other shift is just a quick flash, but if you need to shift for the first time, expect to be waiting for about ten seconds while enemies are still whacking away at you. Most battles, I just shifted right at the start to get the animation over with, because in a lot of later fights, your health bar is going to vanish in the blink of an eye, and you don't want to be just standing there. That loving Sned posted:I wish there was some visual indication when enough time had passed so that your next paradigm shift will start off with a full bar. There's no reason that should be a hidden mechanic, since it encourages shifting paradigms in the first place. If you don't know about this and shift too often, then you won't get the instant full bar, and will be fighting inefficiently. Believe it or not guys, we don't have to air every single mechanic of the system the second it's available. We have 5 more chapters where relatively little is added to the system, and I was planning on hitting some of the more interesting quirks like ATB resetting then. Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Did I miss where Lightning was branded? Everyone else showed a brand, she did not. (And she did mysteriously talk a door into opening.) Suspicious. Lightning's brand is on her chest, you can see where the beam...thing hit her during the cutscene at the end of Chapter 2. Artix fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Apr 14, 2014 |
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Apr 14, 2014 19:26
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