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This game is loving terrible. That does not mean it is never fun, though. Au contraire - I think you can have a lot of fun with FFXIII. And I had, and will have (playing it intermittently at the moment). Which makes its utter failure even more apparent: it has the potential to be really loving good, but it's not. Not even close. Were it always ridiculous garbage, an unplayable mess or had a story that's not just cringe-inducing but actively causing people having to endure it become legitimately angry (all three exemplified perfectly by Metroid: Other M, by the way) - then it would be an easy hate it, play it because you somehow love to complain about poo poo nobody forced to you pick up in the first place, and that's it. But it's just not that easy. There are many legitimately great moments in FFXIII - it has just this teeny tiny problem that there is material for three hours of solid, honest-to-God great fun, but it's 60 hours long. And this is what makes it terrible. Every time you had a good time in this game is a harsh reminder of how absurdly this entire Frankenstein's monster of poo poo stitched together with mapstrings and Hope fails at entertaining you because of countless design decisions which were blatantly, obviously, unignorably just made to keep you from having the fun you could be having constantly. Before this even starts to become apparent, however, you somehow have to get through the first two chapters. Because in a hilariously inept move, there is not a single second of fun in them just to get you used to the idea of having to endure a ridiculous amount of boredom to sieve through in order to get a few, tiny but admittedly very tasty morsels. I appreciate it hugely that you undertook this insane project, and so far it seems to be going swimmingly. Reminder: if the game seems to flow reasonably well so far...there have already been four (?) fights of 30-odd seconds each been cut which were literally completely pointless padding. For the TUTORIAL.
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Apr 1, 2014 20:46
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I hate it when people repeat the same tired talking point over and over again, but it's just true here: I don't think there is anything in the way of setting up or even thinking about for closer to 12 hours, not just 2. With the story, I have little problems, I do with the presentation. It suffers just as much as the gameplay from the absolutely atrocious pacing; there is just too much poo poo happening between story bits, and too many story bits happening which are also pacing. Another huge difference from FFX, which used its linearity perfectly to avoid being boring at pretty much all times, unless you for some reason chose to think you might actually enjoy Blitzball.
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Apr 3, 2014 19:27
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I really, really like how stripped-down FFXIII's combat system is, actually. It could have ended up much worse considering how many other things went horribly wrong in downsizing it to something resembling coherent. The result of a rigorous cutting process as it may be, I can respect it for boldly breaking the Attrition Theory prevalent and rarely succeeding in older games (just...loving Cure everyone after every fight, it's ONLY annoying), and showing that it can actually work very well. But then, yes, don't repeat encounters. It's completely pointless to do so. At least in the span of two minutes. It does work with the star system - if you get 4 stars against three mooks, then after five minutes you get another three mook fight to try for the five stars. However, three mooks followed by two is an absurd and ridiculously obvious waste of time. That's the biggest issue especially in the FFX comparison most of the time, actually - even when willing to immerse yourself, stuff like the linearity and the atrocious encounter design is almost impossible to not notice.
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Apr 6, 2014 23:25
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I want everyone to quickly ask themselves the question of "where is the party at the moment" and not answer it with "the Vestige, of course", as that just raises more questions. Who else gives up? I have watched the Pork Lift & wateyad LP, I have played the game myself and I just watched this, but I still have no idea. I mean I can guess based on what happens next, but so far it's been: large thing was dropped from the ceiling; everyone *gasp*s; MOTORBIKES!; we probably arrive...in there. Yes, we can gather that Serah is IN THERE, we know the name of it, but what is it, what purpose does it serve? I can only guess, as said, even with future knowledge. It's just so incredibly confusing. I had multiple experiences like this as the game progresses, by the way. Cutscenes more or less often enough literally teleport the the characters somewhere and they're like "oh, we're on the [bullshit term] now, how surprising!" Yes, it is. It's also confusing and requires more exposition just to get an idea of where the hell it is, what the hell it is and as the game is poo poo at exposition, that doesn't work half the time. Just utterly terrible. On the other hand, I never really got the hate for Vanille. She is...squeaky, yes. But I don't see her being creepy. Actually, hugging hope and putting a cheerful face on things is pretty much the best thing to do in that situation, I think. Far better than going "oh yeah I guess that is sad let me share your pain" - at least as a watcher, I appreciate that far more. Though I also absolutely adore Selphie (and Zell!) in FF8 for not being broody unhinged fuckwits like the entire rest of the planet's population; sometimes "Let's blow the place to smithereens  !" is exactly what I want from a character. Wait, in the context of JRPGs, that's pretty much all I could hope (ha!) for.
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Apr 7, 2014 18:58
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Rith posted:The AI's pretty good, but it does like to alternate attacks if it can. That's not in itself a bad thing - if you're facing an enemy that's weak to fire and water, casting Fire-Water-Fire is more visually interesting than casting Fire-Fire-Fire, at least - but if you're facing an enemy that's weak to only fire and your Magic and Strength stats aren't too far apart, the AI will want to alternate magical fire attacks with physical fire attacks. The animations for switching from a magical to a physical attack and back again are a lot slower than those for performing several magical or physical attacks in a row. It's only really an issue if you're intensely aware of every half-second wasted in battle, though. Isn't switching attacks actively good for driving Stagger, as in "Fire-Water-Fire" is better than "Fire-Fire-Fire" against an enemy that's only weak to fire, even?
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Apr 7, 2014 19:17
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Instant Grat posted:Here's a fact: If you'd been religiousy keeping up with the Datalog, you would have read an entry about how a Guardian Corps unit was sent into the vestige to get a handle on the situation, and they haven't been heard from in quite some time. Also, the beginning scene needed to establish them going in would flesh out the transition from bridge to Vestige into more than a single cut, which as said always confused me. Yeah they go in there, I get it, but where do they end up, is it a hangar bay, why is the Vestige (which looks like a statue from outside) a techno-dungeon inside and so open, waaah?
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Apr 9, 2014 16:32
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So the Vestige is an entire building formerly found on Pulse which they then glued into Cocoon to...not accomplish much, because the hole is still there. Okay. How could I not have gotten this. About the prologue: I don't think it needs to be that shorter, it just needs to be less redundant and pointless. Everyone is gathering at the Vestige, each party for their own reasons and ultimately because the plot demands them to be together. It's a Big loving Deal and the game completely fails to point that out. With more focus on that thing as an actual goal (something the entire game needs more of), everything would feel less random and a waste of your time. The bridge at the beginning with Sazh and Lightning: they can be attacked by the scorpion as a first battle, this is good, the game actually starts pretty quickly after the first cutscene and you get to push buttons. Then we NEED for Lightning to state clearly "I need to go there because". It's fine if she doesn't tell Sazh why, because that's her character. He then needs to protest "but this is the Pulse Vestige - with the fal'cie inside which is responsible for this entire mess!". Or something along those lines. Then they can get interrupted by a battle. Lightning can still be aloof, I don't care, but Sazh can then decided that he better stick with her or he'll die alone. Let more soldiers impede their way, that's fine, let them grow in numbers and strength, so that the Bracelets you find are actually important, that you need to start using Potions more often (FAR more often), and let their dialogue while running reflect that they have an actual agenda, GET IN THERE, and Sazh protest more often about stuff like "but the fal'cie will make us into its servants - we'll be l'cie, and if it hates us enough, we'll immediately turn into Cie'th and that's it!" or "do you want to give the Guardian Corps and actual reason to purge us? If we come into contact with the fal'cie, there'll be no saving us!". There are short pre-battle cutscenes. Make him try to apologize to the soldiers, make them not listen. Fights start even though Sazh protests. Gameplay shows that they will get shot down regardless of protest, reinforcing the story. Same for the other parties. Snow's segment is actually okay, gameplay-wise - grenades show the importance of multi-target attacks. More Potion usage. Other characters TO TALK TO - let them reinforce concepts we are beginning to learn about. How the government works. What Cocoon IS. "Ever since the war with Pulse, they are an easy boogeyman. But they weren't too interested in making sure that the parts of the planet we used to repair the damage from the war were actually safe - don't you think Dysley (YES loving TALK ABOUT HIM EARLY) is making things far too easy for himself?" "Nah Snow Pulse are evil fuckers what are you on" - NORA This would also foreshadow that after Serah's l'cieification (sic!), Snow would need to rethink PULSE BAD at least a little, but the others have no reason to. They still subscribe to the obvious propaganda. "Why would there be a reason to believe the Vestige housed a fal'cie?" etc. They kind of have the right idea with world-building conversations happening while you're running down corridors, but they aren't nearly using that enough. All of the datalog stuff could be said while your are exploring, it's not impossible to think so. You can still have a datalog for recapping, if you - by the machine-Gods! - were having too much fun playing the game to pay attention to the characters yakking on. Oh, and for heaven's sake, let the fights have a tangible reward. Experience points (keeping it vague!) to save up for later, it's REALLY not an issue if you earn them before you can spend them, imho. You'll do so more often than not in the normal gameplay anyway. Chance to get Phoenix Downs instead of Potions if you 5-star fights. Shrouds already have a higher drop rate in the early chapters, so go the whole way, they should just drop more often in general, but especially here because of the way they work, just hand them out early because unless you're doing crazy challenges, you'll need them while learning how to play. As the Prologue is so piss-easy anyway though, you'll still not get many so welp. Tangible rewards for fights would go a long way to make them not so absurdly wasted. All of this still adds up to a long prologue, but again, it's okay if it SERVES A PURPOSE. As is, you get nothing from it except for questions and a hard to shake hatred for Snow and Hope.
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Apr 11, 2014 19:25
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Drachir D Nalem posted:The only thing I remember about this game in any favourable way is Sazh and a dumb pun about sea food. I fell asleep most of the time since a friend of mine played it and only talked it up without admitting it had faults. Now that I actually pay attention, I do like the design of that hugeass robot. Also really cool are the reimaginings of the classic enemies. We've seen a behemoth already, these are among my favourites, especially what they do with them later. In many games (especially the older ones), they are kinda samey purple monsters, cast a Meteor or two I guess, but the 3D and gloss and poo poo really shows how much of a lumbering monstrosity they should be.
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Apr 12, 2014 12:51
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Camel Pimp posted:It occurs to me that one of the major problems of the flashbacks and the motivations of Lightning and Snow in general is that it's hard to really care about Serah. Serah anchors a lot of the plot, and these flashbacks really want you to care about her, but I didn't. She always felt like a macguffin rather than a character to me.
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Apr 12, 2014 19:30
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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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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:I think the real tragedy of Lake Bresha is the environmental damage. That area used to be full of all kinds birds, fish and other animals.
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Apr 14, 2014 22:18
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We haven't seen the full combat system yet (a deliberate choice on Artix' part which I applaud), but I still have things to say about what has been presented so far. This makes for shorter posts! I think I've said it before in this thread, but I really, really like how stripped-down the system is. It has always annoyed me a little in many past RPGs where you have a stat screen which might as well stretch over 2 pages, with stuff like Constitution (regulates damage reduction!), Defense (surprise! It's your dodge chance), Speed (actually doesn't affect how fast you act but due to some hilarious mix-up in programming only the damage your Axes do!), Magic Resist (doesn't work at all!) and three separate resources for Techniques, Magick and ThisGame'sGimmickSkills. In almost all examples, you can safely ignore at least half of these numbers (concrete example: Final Fantasy 6, where you will only ever look at Vigor [which is not Strength but still affects physical damage!] and Speed for Locke and completely ignore everything else), or all of the numbers (Final Fantasy 5, every skill will transfer ideal stats to use it anyway, so there is zero reason to look at the stats at all). It is therefore very logical and sensible to boil it down to the three things which really actually matter: two attack types to balance and decide between, and The Defense Stat (in this case HP). For all of them, more = better. Still, the devil is in the details, and you can easily spend a lot of time fiddling around with equipment setups, as limited as your choice might seem at first glance. This is very good and removes clutter in the best of ways, in that it doesn't really cost the player anything. Even better is the removal of the MP demand for Magic. I have never been fond of the attrition idea, because there usually are just so many ways to circumvent it. The age-old adage of "stock up on potions before venturing into the dungeon" just exemplifies that - buy tons of healing, then you won't need to spend MP on Cure, then you can Fire everything in the face before the dungeon ends. It's more complicated if healing is limited or expensive, but that just means that you need to grind more - either money or levels to survive better - which doesn't add any strategy to the endurance run, just more tedious preparation time. I never felt that attrition added much except for frustration: your cool poo poo spells were ultimately to expensive to use on anything but the boss or the toughest random encounters, you had to run away from many things you couldn't afford to fight, which always kind of feels bad and cowardly, you get poisoned halfway through and realize you forgot to bring an Antidote and curse as you make your way back, et cetera. It rarely matters in a way that adds fun challenge. Still, that really only applies to the MP thing in relation to this particular game. Because without attrition, as has been mentioned before, repeat encounters are completely pointless. The star system seems to try and address that, as it offers you an incentive to try and improve in repeat fights; for example, you fight three Goblins, get three stars in 50 seconds, realize that next time you can just roll with Com/Com/Rav because you have many enemies and therefore two guys who can Blitz them are a good thing, and the next three Goblin fight next you the five stars in 30 seconds. Satisfaction! It works. Sometimes. But if you already five-starred the first fight, it immediately crumbles. It's a far safer bet to not repeat encounters at all if you don't want to frustrate your players, or maybe if you make former bosses into regular encounters later on which you then crush to show how much stronger you have gotten, also an old and cheap but effective tactic. As it is? Actually, the game could use random encounters! Especially as they have something very substantial to be gained from almost all of them, I think that's a huge improvement in the sequel. Not to say that the XIII approach of monsters on map is necessarily bad - hell, look at Chrono Trigger for how to do it. The thing is, Chrono Trigger is a Really loving Good Game, and FFXIII is just...not.
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Apr 15, 2014 17:32
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I tried  .Again, I still really don't mind Vanille. She is responsible for driving everyone forward, which is the only direction to go in anyway because lol corridorville, but I am deeply thankful for her choosing "gently caress reason let's go" over "let's mope some more and develop the deep drama blossoming between these interesting characters". Basically gently caress I'M A HERO BUT ALSO poo poo AT IT and give me more GUYS GUYS I'M BUBBLY AND OVER HERE FOLLOW ME!
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Apr 16, 2014 12:48
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anilEhilated posted:Funny, I see it in the exact opposite way: not minding Snow but getting murderous twitches whenever Vanille shows up. Maybe it's because I haven't played this so I have no idea how their characters unfold. Of course, after knowing what becomes of Snow, I can cheer like the other guys. Still - from the beginning of this disaster (aka the beginning of the game, not being facetious, it HAS been a total catastrophy for the party), Snow did nothing wrong to affect Lightning, unless I am already forgetting scenes. She knows jackshit about his failure to protect Hope's mom on the bridge and probably wouldn't even care that much. Her punching him is purely for backstory reasons, which at the moment we can only interpret as "she doesn't want her sister to be together with Snow", and after we have seen Snow and Serah be so disgustingly happy together, it is just incredibly petty. You can explain it by Lightning being in full-on grieving mode at the moment and needing someone to vent her frustration on, but that doesn't necessarily make her sympathetic. From who I haven't mentioned, Hope is whiny but thanks to Vanille not excessively so, it's fine so far; and Sazh is of course great. Future future talk, incredibly vague, and still my opinions: I actually think Vanille will get a little more annoying but also more interesting, and these developments make her even better at this early point in the game. Don't want to say more about other characters.
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Apr 16, 2014 16:35
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I guess that depends entirely on your personal view on Serah's situation. I was actually always on Snow's side - she's not dead, she's crystal. There's GOTTA be something you can do about that.
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Apr 16, 2014 21:48
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I always have a problem with the "realism" argument for Hope's character for the same reason I have a problem with realism arguments in FPS' (not that I play much of those): after a certain point, making things more realistic makes them less fun to play. In this case, it might be totally in line for the type of character Hope is to act like he does, that doesn't in the slightest make him fun to watch. I guess you could argue that he "gets better", and I guess he does, but at the moment, he's an annoying little gently caress and I can't emphasize with him because I personally don't play videogames to immerse myself in the story. Maybe it's different for other people and if you emphasize more, you like him for acting like he "should". I just can't get behind that mindset at all and just want him to go away because his whining is getting in the way of me pushing buttons. See also: I like Vanille for forcibly ending cutscenes by saying "yes that's all well and good but I'm over here now follow meee".
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Apr 17, 2014 00:04
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I tend to like individual actions of characters more than their consistency as well-crafted and relatable "persons", so I guess that's just a difference. Also why I do like Zell and Selphie a lot in FF8, and nobody else. Selphie especially is almost the same as Vanille, ridiculously over-the-top but actually the only party member to have an agenda or even a plan most of the time. That counts a lot for me. Hope is for now a complete failure to me because I can't really relate, and I'd argue that even if you can, he's still not likeable (deliberately, then, but...that doesn't really make it better, imho).
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Apr 17, 2014 00:58
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I am German and it makes no sense to me so
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Apr 22, 2014 12:47
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MartianAgitator posted:What
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Apr 22, 2014 21:35
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Black Balloon posted:...How is it an anime robot meme? It's way more prevalent than just that. That's his point.
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Apr 22, 2014 22:24
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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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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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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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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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HOOLY BOOLY posted:I don't know how much more you would want me to say about it but his is the only one that is unique to this game right? I can't think of any other appearances off the top of my head anyway. But like you said, there's plenty of time for ridiculousness so i'll just leave it at that.
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May 6, 2014 23:56
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Ashsaber posted:I think I used summons in this game all of... maybe twice? when the plot didn't demand it. They just feel underwhelming and far too overpriced. I will admit I have a soft spot for Sazh's, but then I have a soft spot for Sazh in general. Summon immediately and you have no trouble. Summons wipe hordes with only combined high health quickly. Against a single high-health enemy, they are borderline useless, though. Nice to get in the last bit of damage against a boss sometimes, but you should never really count on it. My biggest problem with them is that I could very deliberately write "surprisingly" useful. They are probably the biggest example of sparkle over functionality this game has. Team up with your shitkicker friend! Get the Gestalt gauge up! Push the button at the right time to MAD TRANSFORM! Then fighting combo the poo poo out of them! But!
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May 8, 2014 09:52
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I hated this segment in particular, because it was so grey and brown and really boring to trudge through (and, if you wanted to touch the most balls, had a mandatory backtrack through respawning enemies ugghhhh). Also, Sazh and Vanille, as much as I like them as characters, are a terrible team especially against the enemies in their segment. The Bombs are easily the worst offender, because you can do jack poo poo if they decide to explode on Sazh repeatedly, pushing your nose deeply this particularily aggravating aspect of the half-baked battle system. If you had Hope's defensive buffs for example, against three of them you would not be quite as hosed. Or, hell, a loving Sentinel would for once be perfect - otherwise I found it pretty rare that a normal enemy pulls out a huge "guard now or die" attack.
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May 14, 2014 11:14
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TiamosLoren posted:Touching All the Balls (and they're horrible): Let's Play Final Fantasy XIII. poo poo I SAW A BALL IN THE CUTSCENE SUDDENLY I, THE PLAYER, HAVE AN ACTUAL CLEAR GOAL TOUCH WHAT IS IT GOING TO BE oh it's three mystery fluid wow *I might also just like treating stuff as simulators because of my nationality.
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May 19, 2014 18:55
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I'm getting Mikrobelohnungen RIGHT NOW!
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May 19, 2014 19:26
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Except for the one watching over the two treasure chests, there is zero reason to fight even a single scalebeast. No amount of CP reward could be worth it. It's not even hard - it's just disgustingly tedious.
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Jun 21, 2014 11:19
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Quake is in such a weird place of absolute uselessness that I have to wonder why it's even in the game in the first place. Holdover from some older version of the battle system? The realization of someone on the team that if you HAD enemies weak to earth, you might also want to give the player at least an excuse for an earth spell? As it stands, it's not only useless for its cost and being tucked away in the Techniques menu to begin with, there is no way you could make it work even with the smallest of enemies. Any poo poo-imp will take at least one ATB's worth of Fire spells from two Ravagers to down. Unless Quake is literally 12 times stronger than a normal spell, it just won't do much which simply attacking couldn't. It having a cost and therefor be limited to two casts max per battle is something that can't even begin to work with the "spam everything forever because we abolished MP wooo" attitude the combat system has.
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Jun 28, 2014 14:58
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WaltherFeng posted:The main and only utility of Quake is to use it after a successful pre-emptive attack as it will reliably push every single enemy on the screen over the stagger threshold. I used it everytime when such situation occured. It is a situational technique, but useful nonetheless. Apart from that, I always believe (because there is no way of finding out just by looking at what's happening, like most nitty-gritty things in the game) that my Commando Blitzing preemptive'd enemies once or twice before they're pushed into stagger makes stagger hold longer. Dunno. I'm sure the Quake damage alone could easily mitigate that small advantage that might not even be there.
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Jun 28, 2014 18:18
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Yeah, I've defended Vanille before as actually driving the party along, but this segment is absolutely terrible for her. She is driving Sazh, but in the wrong direction (away from the plot! There's Palumpolum over there but PSYCHE we're going somewhere completely different!), and her tip-toeing around the most obvious secret in history is almost as painful as the resolution of the forced drama will be. I think she could actually work fairly well because the concept is not too bad, but the writing is absolutely abysmal for her and Sazh's time together. Probably the worst example of it we've seen so far.
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Jun 28, 2014 21:51
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One minute in and I already want to punch whoever wrote this again. It's not even that the story is bad in general, but the minutiae of the dialogue are so absofuckinglutely terrible it's hurting me to listen to it. I'm not even talking about the HOPE GIVES US HOPE nonsense, it's how every line is overwrought AND utter tripe at the same time. I think it takes some serious skill to write hours upon hours of some of the the most stilted, awkward and far too long conversations in Final Fantasy so far without saying anything. Like, the entire first minute has a single sentence that might be construed as important, which is Hope saying that his father neven listened to him. I think we haven't directly heard that before? We do know that he doesn't like his father, though? Does it really matter that he says one of the reasons out loud now? Would a "you never listened to me!" directed at his father not be far more effective, even a little dramatic (if totally cliché)? The entire thing could have therefore been excised entirely. Of course, that is true for at the very least 70% of any conversations in the game, and indeed 90% of the game in general, so I guess I'm just reiterating what everyone already knew, bringing nothing new or interesting to the table. You might call this Final Fantasy XIII, the forums post. Part of the Something Awfula Nova Crystalis Universe.
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Jul 10, 2014 21:11
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FeyerbrandX posted:I still think you need to record these tirades; the contrast of your soothing voice and the frothing at the mouth rage would be enjoyable. Also you'd probably be relegated to DLC in the Trilogy. Stuff people would want (like Ultros and Gilgamesh) but not want enough to encourage Square to make more of this garbage. Anyway, I definitely enjoy the Shiva entry, it's one of the best moments in the game because it's legitimately awesome and Snow doesn't talk. This could have been the entire game (gameplay optional, they want to make movies anyway). Nah seriously - it's great. Until you realize that the next 15 minutes will be spent fighting the same three enemy types again and again in slightly different setups. With the worst party in the game. THEN you realize that it's more than 15 minutes  .
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Jul 10, 2014 22:19
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Xoidanor posted:I actually went over to spoony's site and watched all six of his FF13 videos thanks to you. I stopped following him years ago so I had no idea he had even made them. I would recommend anyone that doesn't care about being spoiled to go watch them. This game is certainly going places. I can't even imagine what FF13-2 is like if it's seriously worse. Fortunately, it is SO bad and attached to a vehicle that really couldn't be saved with better written dialogue that I'm comfortable in just yelling at the characters for fun instead of out of frustation.
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Jul 12, 2014 11:37
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I loving love Fang. She almost makes the cutscenes she's in good, but sadly there are usually other people around, and that godawful NORA nonsense still creeps in. Also her "btw Vanille is also from Pulse" all casual is the best. By the way, it's starting to annoy me that you don't play right (aka exactly like me)!!! I switch Paradigms constantly in pretty much every single fight, for the free bars as much as for the role change. The thing is, obviously it's still working very well for you and you get 5 stars still. It's baffling that for example in the first Orion fight, you can Slow once and then keep Relentless Assault up all the time - people say the game plays itself and you just have to hit X, and in so many cases, it's simple true. As I went into the game with prior knowledge, I knew about the free ATBs, and always thought complainers about the "X only" issue just didn't get it (no fault of theirs, of course), but it's not even wrong, what the gently caress  .though you totally could have staggered and launched the guy if you had switched paradigms more, I'm sure of it EDIT: Of course, it's not Relentless Assault but Slash&Burn because we're still in loving TWO-PERSON-PARTY-ASSVILLE Simply Simon fucked around with this message at 23:22 on Jul 18, 2014 |
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Jul 18, 2014 23:19
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Yeah, just after writing the post I remember how frustrating the Fang/Lightning pair is because they have all the pieces of a great team, but like the most important one is missing, the "actually getting that chain up" issue. As you're controlling Fang, though, you can at least tell her to keep casting Slow (something the AI will never do, to my unending annoyance), so some switching to Undermine (that IS Sab/Rav, right?) gives you more Rav casts from Lightning through free ATBs than if you're just staying in Com/Rav. This should be good to stagger; of course, you lose like half the HP damage from Fang's Com, so I'm not sure if it actually matters. My internal argument for switching all the time no matter what is, however, that it's doing something, and I kinda like that in games, being able to control poo poo beyond a single button. Yeah you kinda have to force FF13 to become a game, what a great piece of video entertainment design.
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Jul 18, 2014 23:48
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Are you sure that Sazh isn't the first to get Haste? For me, that made Sazh vs. Hope an actually meaningful decision for a while during the midgame. I actually really don't like that Fang/Hope/Lightning is by and large The Best Party, because as soon as you finally gain flexibility with the advent of "holy poo poo I can choose my party", you pretty much immediately realize that there are good configurations and far worse ones, and that there is even one that is just superiour on average, certain special farming strats for postgame notwithstanding. I still like to try out different things (Vanille is SUCH a good Sab! Sazh is Sazh and his Blitz can be devastating!), but inevitably, there is a boss that takes ages or kills me all the time and in my frustration, I switch to The Best Party and suddenly it's an absolute breeze. This is kind of a tragedy, because the game might as well still choose your party for you. It actually has a very simple explanation: with most parties, you have to sacrifice something. Midgame Sazh doesn't get defensive Buffs as a Syn and is a bad Ravager. Vanille has poo poo for life and Sab is not a good substitute for Com. As you only have two mainline Sentinels, some parties might lack even that (which isn't THAT big of a problem for normal gameplay and some bosses). But The Best Party? Pretty much no downsides. This is what makes it the best, and the problem only gets magnified in the end-/postgame; they will stay the best AND gain more flexibility as their roles open, and everyone else can only try to be a poor substitute. It's annoying and a huge drag on a game that really doesn't need any more thing weighing it down.
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Jul 19, 2014 09:07
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 04:55 |
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Auto on Sentinel is terrible, yes. It works under the idea that the Provoke miiiiight miss so better put up a full bar just in case, though I don't know if Provoke can even miss or how high the chance would be, if so. As I love to change Paradigms all the time, switching to Sen in time of need - with a full bar, yay! - just to see BOTH of them (if I have two) Provoke makes me scream at the screen. It's a huge flaw in the battle system, not quite on the same level as "Game Over if party leader dies", but probably as annoying as "Sab stops attacking if he thinks his job is done".
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Jul 25, 2014 15:05
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