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Pollyanna posted:Literally everything there is more interesting than what we actually got, and I don’t really understand why we got the story we did. The series has had at the very least more creative writing up until this point, so clearly Square-Enix is capable of- oh. Right. Square-Enix. Not gonna lie, I nearly laughed my rear end off at the end when it looked for a minute like the crystals sending Seth "back home" meant "back to the bottom of the ocean"
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Mar 31, 2021 07:27
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Clarste posted:Honestly I thought that we'd eventually go back in time and fix everything just because a lot of stuff in this game is so over-the-top pointlessly tragic that I thought they couldn't just leave it at that. And then they did. Yeah, it really is like that, isn't it? I was actually kind of shocked how many (frequently innocent) people are just outright slaughtered for no good reason. Pity the characters don't seem particularly concerned about it in the long run. It really does feel like each chapter was written independently.
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Mar 31, 2021 08:45
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:Yeah, it really is like that, isn't it? I was actually kind of shocked how many (frequently innocent) people are just outright slaughtered for no good reason. Pity the characters don't seem particularly concerned about it in the long run. It really does feel like each chapter was written independently. They almost certainly were. Their structure suggests it: each chapter being focused on exactly one party member and making sure not to take elements from or affect any others implies that they tried to parallelize the writing (or at least chapters 1-3). Unfortunately, while that might get each chapter done faster, that makes it hard for any of the chapters to contribute meaningfully to the overall story because they don't have a common ground. It also means that you can't develop or refute an argument or core theme because there's nothing concrete to work off of! Chapters in a story are necessarily dependent on each other because they're all components of a whole, and because they are in fact ordered - imagine reading chapter 5 before reading the prologue. That means you can't parallelize them as if you were just processing data. Man, I'm actually learning a lot by dissecting this thing. Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 14:19 on Mar 31, 2021 |
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Mar 31, 2021 14:16
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It strikes me that there are more differences between the chapters that point to different authorship: * Dragons show up in chapter 3, but have never been mentioned before. Fairies also show up and while I can't actually remember if they're mentioned beforehand, they've certainly not been emphasized. * In chapter 1, the water crystal being the water crystal is directly relevant to character motivations - Castor wanted it in order to provide water for the people of his desert city. But in chapters 2 and 3, the crystals are kind of an afterthought. Folie uses the crystal as... a trap for that little girl whose blood she wanted? It never actually matters that Wiswald is overgrown with crazy vegetation, the chapter is really all about Folie's crazy paint-making scheme and mind controlling people. And in chapter 3 the only mention at all I can recall is that people say it's a little warmer than it should be or something. And the plot of that chapter has nothing to do with the crystal at all, it's all about Helio wanting to soften up the place for invasion! * Chapter 4 has nothing to do with the events of 1-3 either. None of the new villain underlings have any relation to what happened in those chapters, at best they've got vague connections to the backstory. The only real connection is to the prologue, in that Adam ostensibly stole the wind crystal to power his airship. * In chapter 5-6, fairies are suddenly a big deal despite, as mentioned, barely being mentioned before. On the other hand, the ostensible conflict between fairies and humans is only paid minimal lip service when the party reaches Mag Mell, but is almost instantly discarded. It's as if every author had a completely different idea about what the story was, and they didn't sync much up besides basic worldbuilding elements.
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Mar 31, 2021 15:33
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Hell, you even see it in BnD. The minigame is almost completely segregated from the main game. Notice how you have to actually challenge someone to BnD and load it up in order to edit your decks, as if the main game can't know anything about the BnD "module". It makes sense for it to be developed independently cause it's side-content, but as above, so below - I'm willing to bet that a lot more parts of BD2 were split up and not well integrated at all. Almost certainly a matter of lackluster project management. Microservice-Driven Game Design. 
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Mar 31, 2021 17:22
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:It strikes me that there are more differences between the chapters that point to different authorship: The yellow paint was derived from the bark of the trees, Folie was using the Earth crystal specifically to get a constant supply. Lots of folks in Rimedhal mention how the snow used to be much worse and impactful to daily living. Domenic was using the Fire crystal to make life easier/better for Rimedhal and Helio had him convinced that the gift of the crystal itself was proof of Gwydion’s support and that he was doing the dragon’s will. The situation in each city really has nothing to do with the plans of the individual chapter villains. All of it is part of Adam’s greater plan to soften each place up for conquest. The story isn’t great, but it’s definitely more present than you’re making it out to be.
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Mar 31, 2021 18:16
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The Fire Crystal is also relevant because the Archbishop's motivation is ultimately jealousy that the Fire Crystal chose the Fairy Queen for its blessing and not him.
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Mar 31, 2021 18:56
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I don't really think any of those things change what I said significantly. Domenic's thing about being passed over for the blessing only comes out as a single line in the dialogue immediately before you fight him and never matters outside of that. Rimedhal having been colder in the past doesn't really do anything for the story when the place is still completely frozen over - it's not like Savalon where the place is literally flooded. Most importantly, though, none of the things you actually do have anything to do with the fire crystal, or Domenic's theoretical desire to help his people get warmer - the chapter is all about Helio and his fairy conspiracy theory/mass murder operation, on which the climate has no bearing. Likewise, the things that actually happen, that you do in the Wiswald chapter barely involve the earth crystal; it's about Folie and her mind control/mass murder operation (lots of those in this game for some reason). Sure, she got the yellow paint from the tree bark, but that's about where it ends. Much more significant is murdering Mona and mind controlling Roddy, Lily and Galahad to get the remaining paints, and that's what you spend most of your time concerned with. Compare both of these to Savalon, where from the start to the end it's all about investigating the water crystal itself, trying to figure out how it's connected to the flood, and where it's located. Imagine what would happen to either chapter if we took the crystals out of the story entirely. Rimedhal's story works almost entirely unchanged if you invent literally any reason for Helio to be able to convince Domenic; the characters have every reason to help Martha and the dragon save the city. In Wiswald's story, Folie has to get the yellow paint from somewhere else, but that's about it. Everything else about that chapter works unmodified, and the heroes again have every reason to want to snap Roddy and Lily out of whatever is happening to them, given their relationship to Elvis. But Savalon doesn't work at all without the water crystal - Castor's desire to possess it even through theft drives his entire arc. Without it, the king doesn't get killed, Bernard doesn't get rich (probably - it's a bit unclear whether that was more the asterisks or the crystal), the town isn't flooded, the party has no reason to get into a conflict with Anihal or investigate Bernard's mansion.
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Mar 31, 2021 22:33
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:It strikes me that there are more differences between the chapters that point to different authorship: The entire point of Chapter 4 is That all of it was just to destabilize the regions to begin the invasions in each reason. Both to make it easier to get supplies/travel and to also gently caress up the established orders of the realms so their response would be weak. You learn the Fairies made the asterisks around the same time you learn you're traveling with a fairy who's looking for her fairy sister who stole the fairy asterisks and gave them to all these people it's all fairy(ly) well connected and follows through pretty logically. Like pre-game events there was a huge frozen mountain of ice and snow in front of what is now the main entrance to the city. Your party comments on this when you get there. The influence of the fire crystal heated the place up to beign mildly cold instead of Forever Frozen which means Adam and his army can really easily just march right up to the front gates, which is exactly what they do and explicitly what he says in the end of Chapter 3 cutscenes and the scene at the start of Chapter 4 where he sends his generals out to invade the world. ZenMasterBullshit fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Mar 31, 2021 |
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Mar 31, 2021 23:10
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That’s just what happens in the story. Don’t confuse the events of a story with what the story is actually about. The fact remains that the chapters have no overarching thesis or argument and nothing concrete to connect them thematically other than “is a story with a crystal in it”, and even that barely matters. You could cut out chapters 1~3 and have the party lose all four crystals at once, and it wouldn’t change chapter 4 or even chapters 5~7 a drat bit. Remove Bombing Mission, and Cosmo Canyon makes no sense. Remove Nibelheim, and Temple of the Ancients and the Lifestream Dive make no sense. Remove Savalon, Wiswald, and Rimedahl, and somebody who hasn’t played the intact game will go “wow, that was kinda short, wasn’t it?”. A story that is internally consistent is not the same thing as a story worth reading.
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Apr 1, 2021 00:45
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There are nods towards the idea that the events of each chapter are what allow the main characters to individually demonstrate that they are worthy of being chosen by the crystals, but it's definitely half-baked at best.
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Apr 1, 2021 01:52
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It bugs me how lame Adam's motivation was. It is literally the same as Gaius's from FF14, except without the excuse of "because they keep letting primals be summoned" and all the explanation of why Garlemald exists and is the way it is. It's just this guy who thinks "if I take over all the other countries there will be no war  ."
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Apr 1, 2021 18:47
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Hello. I beat the game (including the superboss) and I'm feeling ready to dive right into NG+, though I think I will wait so as to give other games a chance. I think Bravely Default II is really remarkable. I will definitely have to refrain from using the Ultima Blade + HP/MP Convertor combo, though, as it's so strong it makes whatever the enemy's trying to do irrelevant.
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Apr 5, 2021 00:25
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Bongo Bill posted:Hello. I beat the game (including the superboss) and I'm feeling ready to dive right into NG+, though I think I will wait so as to give other games a chance. I think Bravely Default II is really remarkable. I will definitely have to refrain from using the Ultima Blade + HP/MP Convertor combo, though, as it's so strong it makes whatever the enemy's trying to do irrelevant. I haven't done that yet because I managed to pick up a sword of light, which lead to me thinking "death's door is good but how about AOE godspeed strike on a thief with stats from Freelancer?" It went about as one would expect.  Also went from lvl 59 to 74 while picking up one (or more) of maybe half of the class weapons and picked up a few dozen huge JP orbs along the way. Each one translates to a bit over 11k JP when fully stacking bonuses on someone, so those will definitely take care of any jobs you want to master while trying to pick up the common drops. Those fights also all seem to have the same set of headworn rare steals too? At least the half dozen or so I stole from so far all had one of 2 headworn items which is weird.
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Apr 5, 2021 01:26
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Is there a way to game the exploration or am I doing something wrong? Is it all RNG? getting a little sick of just 4-5 small jp orbs and 200 pg each every 12 hours, especially since people are apparently getting large orbs left and right Oh and I'm enjoying the card game more than the actual game 😬
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Apr 5, 2021 22:22
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The exploration stuff isn't meant to rain tons of big prizes on you. People getting multiple large-whatever are just getting lucky but even then that's the equivalent of a few minutes of fights later on.
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Apr 5, 2021 22:44
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I an immediately going back too hard into leveling jobs even though I’m only in chapter 2 but god *drat* does Beastmaster have some boss passives that I must have on basically everyone. I also love any form of blue magic so that helps.
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Apr 5, 2021 23:08
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tenderjerk posted:Is there a way to game the exploration or am I doing something wrong? Is it all RNG? getting a little sick of just 4-5 small jp orbs and 200 pg each every 12 hours, especially since people are apparently getting large orbs left and right Go into options and make sure that your online options are set to On, which improves the prizes. Do you see the names of other players when you travel? If not, that’s likely why you are getting crappy prizes.
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Apr 6, 2021 00:57
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Got around to finishing the game last night and got the extra ending. I think all I have left to do is a rare fight or two that I might've missed and then the optional superboss fight but with the gear and classes leveled I have I imagine those should go smoothly enough.
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Apr 6, 2021 03:05
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Blackbelt Bobman posted:Go into options and make sure that your online options are set to On, which improves the prizes. Do you see the names of other players when you travel? If not, that’s likely why you are getting crappy prizes.  thanks
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Apr 6, 2021 20:25
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Seth must really want on that Soggy isle for some reason.
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Apr 6, 2021 21:42
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I gave up after beating Chapter 4, and felt the plot was growing a little listless and the constant enemy battles weren't interesting me enough to grind through. One small question so I don't have to watch a guide: Does the game ever revisit the weird timed minigame Seth has to do to win the Wind Crystal's favor at the beginning of the game as some sort of twist? None of the other party members have to do it (Since we're lead to believe that Seth would have been dead without the Wind Crystals intervention) so it really stuck out as a big "This is going to be addressed later" thing. ALSO: Is there any significance that all the islands you visit start with the letter "S"? Or is that just a silly little flourish.
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Apr 6, 2021 21:50
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Fancy Hat! posted:One small question so I don't have to watch a guide: Does the game ever revisit the weird timed minigame Seth has to do to win the Wind Crystal's favor at the beginning of the game as some sort of twist? It's not a timed minigame, it's literally "walk forward and accept the blessing or wait for the sweet embrace of death." 
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Apr 7, 2021 03:50
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Fancy Hat! posted:I gave up after beating Chapter 4, and felt the plot was growing a little listless and the constant enemy battles weren't interesting me enough to grind through. Nope. Letting the timer expire just gives you a game over and its never addressed again. It doesn't even bring it up when you talk to talk to the crystals again before the first ending.
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Apr 7, 2021 04:01
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Fancy Hat! posted:I gave up after beating Chapter 4, and felt the plot was growing a little listless and the constant enemy battles weren't interesting me enough to grind through. ——-No——- to both.
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Apr 7, 2021 13:02
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nullEntityRNG posted:Nope. Letting the timer expire just gives you a game over and its never addressed again. It doesn't even bring it up when you talk to talk to the crystals again before the first ending. Huh. That definitely feels like it was an idea early in development... and then they just forgot to take it out. Considering how certain mechanics are turned on their heads in previous BD games, I really expected something to come from it. Oh well.
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Apr 7, 2021 15:47
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Fancy Hat! posted:I gave up after beating Chapter 4, and felt the plot was growing a little listless and the constant enemy battles weren't interesting me enough to grind through. The only real twist in this game is that there are no twists, everything is pretty much as it looks at face value and half the poo poo you might have questions about are barely explained if at all.
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Apr 7, 2021 17:56
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So if they make a Bravely Second 2, it's pretty much guaranteed the plot will be Edna attacking a different world via Adam's defeat in the valley of sighs in the fight you're supposed to lose right? I was fine with the game's plot being what it was. Not every RPG story needs the complexity of Tactics Ogre and I picked up the game to mess with good job combos and have some dumb fun, which the game was decent enough at providing.
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Apr 7, 2021 18:33
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Evil Fluffy posted:So if they make a Bravely Second 2, it's pretty much guaranteed the plot will be Edna attacking a different world via Adam's defeat in the valley of sighs in the fight you're supposed to lose right? I was fine with the game's plot being what it was. Not every RPG story needs the complexity of Tactics Ogre and I picked up the game to mess with good job combos and have some dumb fun, which the game was decent enough at providing. Given the past sequel hooks in this series, it's actually pretty much guaranteed that the plot will have nothing whatsoever to do with that.
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Apr 7, 2021 18:36
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I would really love it if at any point a single one of these classic Final Fantasy revival games actually had a good script
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Apr 7, 2021 19:39
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multijoe posted:I would really love it if at any point a single one of these classic Final Fantasy revival games actually had a good script Having a bad script is staying faithful to the classic Final Fantasy games though.
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Apr 7, 2021 23:01
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Wasn't the version of BD1 we got in the US actually the second revision, where they added some extra features and plot hooks? Maybe they'll do that again this time before making a direct sequel, and maybe the plot will make sense after that. Probably not, but maybe
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Apr 8, 2021 05:45
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Goddamn, I've been looking for this thread for weeks and somehow I never found it for now. I'm in chapter 4, anyone got any good killer combos I can do after beating Lonsdale, while also having all the optional Asterisks so far?
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Apr 11, 2021 06:18
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ZZT the Fifth posted:Goddamn, I've been looking for this thread for weeks and somehow I never found it for now. Phantom/Salvemaker with rewarding results and enough MP regeneration to generate 40 mp a turn give you the ability to inflict drat near every status effect that the boss is weak to (except for daub, sadly). Also a stupidly good healer with cheap and easy access to the elixir and half-elixir mixes. Cash intensive. Swordmaster/Beastmaster (with enough captures), swordmaster/freelancer (with enough mastered jobs) or swordmaster/Berserker with dual wield, multitask, BP limit up, indescriminate rage + Full Force (for trash) or who dares wins + critical flow (for bosses). Auto attacking machine with Solid Stance + 3 attacks. Phantom/Pictomancer- Daub applier, no other real reason for existance, but it's basically a 50% damage boost to your characters. Shieldmaster/Vanguard- Dual shields, heavy armor, high targetting chance, and with decent equipment you can get basically invulnerable to all magical elements. Get the rest of your party to critical and just have the character tank literally every hit and donate the bp they generate with BP saver.
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Apr 11, 2021 09:18
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berenzen posted:Phantom/Salvemaker with rewarding results and enough MP regeneration to generate 40 mp a turn give you the ability to inflict drat near every status effect that the boss is weak to (except for daub, sadly). Also a stupidly good healer with cheap and easy access to the elixir and half-elixir mixes. Cash intensive. If you want Daub, there's an axe that sets it as a secondary effect you can equip mid-battle, attack with once, and then unequip again to set it.
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Apr 11, 2021 10:59
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Wow that Galahad fight was not too fun. It’d be great if you could see immunities after using magnifying glasses so you didn’t have to find out as you go that the answer is “basically everything they’re not weak to and also Gloria’s fists of fury”. What an annoying-rear end fight.
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Apr 11, 2021 13:54
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I just beat the superboss! I had to steal some hellplate armor, but boy did that help out a ton. Party was Phantom/Salvemaker, Red Mage/Arcanist, Spiritmaster/Arcanist, and Phantom/Pictomancer. The spirits went away in the latter half of the fight though, since everyone had full BP at all times due to Counter-Savvy and Turn Tables. Now there’s nothing really left to do except farm item drops from portal fights. I kinda wish there were more bosses to fight. Bussamove posted:Wow that Galahad fight was not too fun. It’d be great if you could see immunities after using magnifying glasses so you didn’t have to find out as you go that the answer is “basically everything they’re not weak to and also Gloria’s fists of fury”. What an annoying-rear end fight. Oh yeah, that fight is brutal. It took me several tries to get through him. It would be great to see enemy resistances and immunities so I don’t waste my time accidentally healing someone with an element they absorb.
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Apr 17, 2021 15:46
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Kind of sad to see that this game has basically fallen off the radar. Not that I’m surprised, but for BD’s triumphant return, I’m sure this wasn’t what Square-Enix was expecting.
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Apr 19, 2021 04:08
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Pollyanna posted:Kind of sad to see that this game has basically fallen off the radar. Not that I’m surprised, but for BD’s triumphant return, I’m sure this wasn’t what Square-Enix was expecting. I think it really desperately needed 6 more months in the oven. Rushing it to release, for a game like this, just meant that all the little things they did wrong stood out extra much.
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Apr 19, 2021 04:15
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Pollyanna posted:Kind of sad to see that this game has basically fallen off the radar. Not that I’m surprised, but for BD’s triumphant return, I’m sure this wasn’t what Square-Enix was expecting. I had fun with it while I was playing it but I kind of immediately forgot about it once I had finished. I don't regret getting it at all but I'd have trouble recommending it at full price to anyone who wasn't a die-hard FF5/BD fan (and even they would find issues with it) I've started playing Octopath since that's on gamepass and I know people had a lot of issues with it on release but that is a MUCH better classic JRPG throwback from what I'm seeing so far
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Apr 19, 2021 10:02
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