The RPG Duelling League
Social Forums => Discussion => Topic started by: metroid composite on February 05, 2010, 05:19:33 AM
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I keep hearing stuff that just sounds like I wouldn't like it much. For instance....
AI party members. You can't switch who you're controlling in-battle. For the first half of the game you can't even choose which character you control (later in the game they let you pick party leader).
Some good stuff (they heal you after every fight, so you don't have to waste time) some weird stuff (no MP, apparently) and...
Speed it sounds like they're using the Hoshigami system, where each turn you get 2 bars (4 bars by the end of the game) and you choose a bunch of actions until you run out of bars (some actions costing more time) and that's your turn. It's a speed system that...well...has potential to be done right, but I've seen it done wrong so many times. I'm told walking does not use up your bar, at least, which is the usual huge flaw of this system (makes it such a bad idea to charge an enemy as they'll then get to attack back three times in a row).
I mean, I dunno: when people talk to me in vague terms, they say it's a game with a tactical battle system that's all combat and plot, no minigames or sidequests, and the combat makes you think a lot. This sounds great in the abstract. But whenever I hear more technical details it all leaves me very worried. Then again, if someone had described Fire Emblem as a game with only attack commands and with breakable weapons, before I played it I'd be like "okay, sounds like a 4/10" whereas FE7's 10/10 for me. So...I guess I shouldn't completely write it off. Still....
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The FF main series hasn't had a game I'd call really objectively good since FFX, so I wouldn't be floored if 13 was not great either. *Sets fire to FF11*
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Eh, I struck it from the list of games I might possibly rent when I realized it was just another attempt by Square to make an MMO without the overhead or their crippling inability to make a tolerable MMO.
Also, don't make your placenames fucking PUNS.
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Yeah, FE parallel may end up holding. I do agree with those concerns, but remain very excited nonetheless. Ryan is playing it and has nothing but good things to say about it, and I usually trust his opinion on RPGs.
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I'm holding off judgement until the US release at a minimum since... well, Square usually packs some new stuff into US releases, and it's the sort of content than Niu ranted about being missing (ie sidequests, etc)
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Yeah, FE parallel may end up holding. I do agree with those concerns, but remain very excited nonetheless. Ryan is playing it and has nothing but good things to say about it, and I usually trust his opinion on RPGs.
Not to knock his taste in games but Ryan suffers from abject optimism like the rest of you weird Canadians. I am glad to see the world is setting Metroid straight and getting her all paranoid about it.
Just personally, don't care and it sounds shit really, but I will buy it anyway since fuck I bought Infinite Undiscovery and the Last Remnant fucking TWICE so I may as well get FF13. Some day they will do the FF9 thing again and try to appease to their old fans and will maybe make a decent fucking game by trying to reproduce FFX.
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Ryan is playing it and has nothing but good things to say about it, and I usually trust his opinion on RPGs.
To be fair, I have also heard it said that Crisis Core is one of the games with closest gameplay, and Ryan went out of his way to say "I love the game, but Elfboy I don't think it'll fit your tastes."
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I've heard nothing but good things about the game too, for all that some of the ideas sound questionable.
My friend said that FF13's plot style is akin to FF6's, in that its totally linear at first, but 2nd half sand-boxes out and becomes totally side quest centric (when I equated it to FF6's scenario, he said its more or less exactly like that), but honestly dunno beyond that. Personally, I like that idea cause...well...it worked in FF6, and more games need to do it damn it!
The only complaint I heard my friend say was that FF13's Music is a bit...generic. He didn't say bad, he said more like all the music sort of is stale, in that they don't really capture the scenes much, and everything feels interchangeable to a degree. Its like the music is all just kind of in the background, instead of actually adding to the scenes; you can't really deny that some songs really do add to a scene, so its disappointing that, should this be true, FF13 didn't really capture this as FF games are generally good about it.
I don't think comparing FF13 to FF11 and FF12 is realistically fair at all. FF11 is an MMO (which was a dumb move to put in the main stream series if you ask me), so by nature, its appealing to a totally different fan-base.
FF12...was getting mixed reviews. FF13 I keep hearing generally good things about, but FF12 was either objective comparisons like "Its very MMOish" or luke warm to flat out bad reception. You watch the game and it doesn't really look appealing either; FF13 doesn't sound like it has this problem.
Also, personally, I remember how I felt about hearing about the two games:
FF12, for a number of reasons I won't get into, didn't sound appealing to me. I eventually bought it cause, you know, fan of the series, I might as well give it a chance (I don't regret doing this either, as I ended up liking the game.)
FF13, I am actually excited for, despite the "keep information at a minimum, watch 0 trailers, etc." factor to avoid me going all DISSIDIA MEEPLE all over again.
Of course, I am taking the CYNICAL approach and going to assume the game is crap before even playing it. Why? So if it IS crap, I'm not disappointed. If the game proves me wrong and is good...well, I end up pleasantly surprised. Yeah, going with such an approach makes life easier for gaming <.< >.>
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I... yeah. The little I have seen of it, and been able to understand, as well as what I have heard from Ryan, I'm actually kind of excited over it, which is something that I haven't really been able to say since FFX. And unlike Crisis Core, he did not bring up anything along the lines of it not being to our tastes.
Granted, he was still getting battle tutorials when we saw him playing, but the fact that it seems the system has tactical depth and the challenge to make you have to use it looks promising.
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The game really never struck me as something I REALLY wanted to play. That and...well I don't have a 360 or a PS3 to play the game makes it a non issue anyways.
But, if/when I get a new age system I wouldn't buy FF13 until it it drops to the greatest hits shelf and pick it up 20 bucks new.
If it turns out to be a good game, I would be super shocked.
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I'm still somewhat leery.
I remember an early Nomura quote on the game in which he described Lightning as something like "a female Cloud," and, well, I didn't much like Cloud and don't much like that type of character cast as a female.
AI party members, and not being able to switch from a character I don't have reason to think I'll like, sounds bad, too.
But then I think, this is an FF game: beautiful graphics, fascinating worldbuilding, tight gameplay, lots of content, and a story I am very likely to think highly of. And it's an FF game PACED LIKE UNCHARTED. No going off the rails. No inane townie dialogue. Just one awesome scene after another, be it story or gameplay, only 30-60 hours of it instead of 10-15.
As long as either Lightning surprises me by being likable, or the supporting cast is at least solid, or the world is especially interesting, I'll probably like this one a lot. And I think at least one of the three should fall within the realm of possibility.
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I remember an early Nomura quote on the game in which he described Lightning as something like "a female Cloud," and, well, I didn't much like Cloud and don't much like that type of character cast as a female.
I'm pretty sure Nomura meant that visually. Since, y'know, he's an artist not a writer, and their faces are practically identical:
(http://static.desktopnexus.com/wallpapers/235167-bigthumbnail.jpg)
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But then I think, this is an FF game: beautiful graphics, fascinating worldbuilding, tight gameplay, lots of content, and a story I am very likely to think highly of. And it's an FF game PACED LIKE UNCHARTED. No going off the rails. No inane townie dialogue. Just one awesome scene after another, be it story or gameplay, only 30-60 hours of it instead of 10-15.
Argh, while the possibilities there are interesting can you imagine playing 30-60 hours of uncharted? They are great games for what they are, but keeping that up for that long? I would just be worn out, you would chew through so much plot that the start of the game would have to look nothing like the start of it. There is a great deal to be said of pacing, something as long as your standard FF RPG definitely needs its filler points just to give you a breather (Which should not be taken as an excuse for 20 minutes of cutscene).
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I'm still somewhat leery.
I remember an early Nomura quote on the game in which he described Lightning as something like "a female Cloud," and, well, I didn't much like Cloud and don't much like that type of character cast as a female.
You could come up with a fairly specific 1-sentence description that would apply equally well to Terra or Cloud, you know. Amnesia, special quasi-genetic characteristic shared with the bad guy, dead almost-love-interest, etc. Even if they produce another character with nominally similar characteristics, it won't mean much until you see how they fit in the world and with other cast members.
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I'm still somewhat leery.
I remember an early Nomura quote on the game in which he described Lightning as something like "a female Cloud," and, well, I didn't much like Cloud and don't much like that type of character cast as a female.
You could come up with a fairly specific 1-sentence description that would apply equally well to Terra or Cloud, you know. Amnesia, special quasi-genetic characteristic shared with the bad guy, dead almost-love-interest, etc. Even if they produce another character with nominally similar characteristics, it won't mean much until you see how they fit in the world and with other cast members.
But when your director describes someone as "a female _____" then it's usually a pretty safe bet that they're not going to be trying to differentiate that character much from the one they're cribbing off.
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I'm still somewhat leery.
I remember an early Nomura quote on the game in which he described Lightning as something like "a female Cloud," and, well, I didn't much like Cloud and don't much like that type of character cast as a female.
You could come up with a fairly specific 1-sentence description that would apply equally well to Terra or Cloud, you know. Amnesia, special quasi-genetic characteristic shared with the bad guy, dead almost-love-interest, etc. Even if they produce another character with nominally similar characteristics, it won't mean much until you see how they fit in the world and with other cast members.
But when your director describes someone as "a female _____" then it's usually a pretty safe bet that they're not going to be trying to differentiate that character much from the one they're cribbing off.
You know, Harry Potter managed to engage me through 7 books, with the only stipulation being "this is a slightly older version of Harry Potter".
I mean, next you'll be telling me that sometime in the next few years there'll be a new RPG character that's a tomboy princess, a new large male not good at expressing his feelings, a new perkly slightly annoying but generally adorable little girl, and a new villain only motivated by pure evil.
Stereotypes don't often turn me off. For that matter, stereotypes used properly are actually an excellent character tool. Jane Austen is often considered one of the best character authors ever, and what she does is captures personalities we might know in real life, extracts them into a stereotype, and then exaggerates the stereotype until it's ridiculous and funny. The problem with most RPG stereotypes isn't that they're stereotypes, but rather they're overused stereotypes. Even then, if a game is meant to be fast to get into, having a supporting cast of recognizable one-dimensional stereotypes gives most people an immediate groundwork where the player can be comfortable, and a groundwork in which you can throw in a couple of more complex characters while keeping the overall feel of the game lighthearted and easy to follow.
Of course, if you're NOT aiming for lighthearted and easy to digest, then this becomes a terrible idea; you'll want to cut out the riff-raff (like they do in, say, Koudelka). And I love Koudelka. But *shrug* comedy vs tragedy and all that. I'd like to play a few more games that trend towards the tragedy side, but...main-series-FF? Not the first place I'd go looking.
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The other party members are AI controled? And people are complaining about this why? Persona 3 had AI controled party members and its a great game.
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I really don't see the problem with AI controlled party members, I mean you're hardly going to be able to control 4 characters anyway so why not. Throw in some gambits and I'll be right chuffed.
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Argh, while the possibilities there are interesting can you imagine playing 30-60 hours of uncharted?
I'm pretty sure the thought of this retroactively appeared to early man, inspiring the concept of a Heaven comprised of eternal bliss. :)
Seriously, though, I sort of understand what you're saying... but I'm fairly sure it wouldn't apply to me. Uncharted 2 (1 had occasional pacing hiccups) was perfectly paced and had to end where it did because of its story, but if that had been "episode 2" out of 5 and we'd jumped right in to "episode 3" after the credits rolled, I'd have been delighted. I don't see any particular reason you couldn't tell a novel-length rather than movie-length story in such a cinematic fashion, provided you do use plot-induced pacing breaks as deftly as Uncharted 2 did.
Now, there's now reason to suspect Square-Enix will nail the pacing to THAT extent, but I'm fairly confident in their ability to deliver what amounts to a decent SF/F adventure novel in visual form interspersed with gameplay I find interesting, since they've basically done that again and again but with breakups in the action.
You could come up with a fairly specific 1-sentence description that would apply equally well to Terra or Cloud, you know. Amnesia, special quasi-genetic characteristic shared with the bad guy, dead almost-love-interest, etc. Even if they produce another character with nominally similar characteristics, it won't mean much until you see how they fit in the world and with other cast members.
Who is Terra's dead quasi-love interest? General Leo? They have basically one scene together and even that's not explicitly romantic. I don't think that's comparable to Aerith x Cloud, which the game actually sells as a romance (or tries to, in its clumsy, awfully-translated fashion). Locke's the one with the quasi-dead love interest in FF6. And Setzer. And it's Celes who shares an origin story with the villain; in FF6 it's Terra who is MORE special by dint of being a true hybrid rather than an augment, whereas in FF7 Sephiroth is.
Besides, I took the quote, perhaps wrongly, to be about personality, not backstory (as you're saying) or appearance (as mc is saying).
Meh, hopefully I'll be proven wrong, anyway.
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Hmm, oddly enough, FF7 always felt more like it pushed Tifa/Cloud rather than Aeris to me. Probably because of the scenes on Disc two where Tifa helps Cloud figure out who he is, and the talk they have on the Highwind about motivations.
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I dunno man, I think it would work if you split it into different episodes because it would be quite clearly designed to be easilly partitioned off into individual pieces. That story telling style does not lend itself to multiple climaxes, it is all very cinematic and all that, but with that comes your three act story structure (or short stories if you want to parallel it with a more literary analogue). The reason the 60 hour games work is because like you say they follow a more novel story telling format which trend towards multiple climaxes. This lends itself to multiple stages of build up which inherently brings us that sweet sweet filler that we are trying to avoid (Classic ham fisted example here would be Tales of Destiny with the middle of the game where the break after the first climax is amazingly sharp and harshly jumped into).
I dunno, it just lends itself to much to either emotional whiplash with the constant flurry of peaks and troughs, or you end up with something which is just a chain of climaxes (Tantric RPG OH YEAH) which is not a great way of actually conveying a coherent story. Sure it works great in say Devil May Cry, because it is silly, but a serious story? I dunno man I just won't be sold on it until I really see it.
I think the best example would be to say trying to read all of a large series in one hit, sure you might really love the series, but doing it all at once is just draining. I am yet to actually get all the way through the Star Wars OT without being a little bored. I am just plain worn out by Empire that I don't really feel like doing Jedi. And I mean like Empire is one of my favourite movies of all time, but you get to the betrayal at Bespin and I just start to zone out. That is only like 4 and a half hours in. That is the kind of thing you are looking at doing there really.
I think my point is repeating itself and you already said you got it. I will say this though, that exact structure does actually work really well in the Episodic gaming space (I would love to quote Halflife 2 here but bah, stupid Episode 3). I dunno, Sam and Max it worked really well, but you aren't dealing with a serious narrative there, but it definitely went through the peaks and troughs consistently and it was all good fun as a whole and in individual pieces, but they all really needed each other to be a full game.
As for FF7. Cloud x Barret is canon. This is a Nomura game. (And it pushes both the serious love interests Aeris is pimped hard on Disc 1 and Tifa on Disc 2 and Disc 3 has no plot).
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Disc 3 was Cloud x Sephiroth.
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I'm still somewhat leery.
I remember an early Nomura quote on the game in which he described Lightning as something like "a female Cloud," and, well, I didn't much like Cloud and don't much like that type of character cast as a female.
You could come up with a fairly specific 1-sentence description that would apply equally well to Terra or Cloud, you know. Amnesia, special quasi-genetic characteristic shared with the bad guy, dead almost-love-interest, etc. Even if they produce another character with nominally similar characteristics, it won't mean much until you see how they fit in the world and with other cast members.
But when your director describes someone as "a female _____" then it's usually a pretty safe bet that they're not going to be trying to differentiate that character much from the one they're cribbing off.
You know, Harry Potter managed to engage me through 7 books, with the only stipulation being "this is a slightly older version of Harry Potter".
I mean, next you'll be telling me that sometime in the next few years there'll be a new RPG character that's a tomboy princess, a new large male not good at expressing his feelings, a new perkly slightly annoying but generally adorable little girl, and a new villain only motivated by pure evil.
Stereotypes don't often turn me off. For that matter, stereotypes used properly are actually an excellent character tool. Jane Austen is often considered one of the best character authors ever, and what she does is captures personalities we might know in real life, extracts them into a stereotype, and then exaggerates the stereotype until it's ridiculous and funny. The problem with most RPG stereotypes isn't that they're stereotypes, but rather they're overused stereotypes. Even then, if a game is meant to be fast to get into, having a supporting cast of recognizable one-dimensional stereotypes gives most people an immediate groundwork where the player can be comfortable, and a groundwork in which you can throw in a couple of more complex characters while keeping the overall feel of the game lighthearted and easy to follow.
Of course, if you're NOT aiming for lighthearted and easy to digest, then this becomes a terrible idea; you'll want to cut out the riff-raff (like they do in, say, Koudelka). And I love Koudelka. But *shrug* comedy vs tragedy and all that. I'd like to play a few more games that trend towards the tragedy side, but...main-series-FF? Not the first place I'd go looking.
It's not that they're reusing an archetype so much as they seem to be setting their sights pretty low. Miyamoto isn't going to tell you "Super Mario Galaxy 2 is Super Mario Galaxy but with different levels. $49.99." Attaching tits to Cloud isn't going to make the story inherently different any more than it does when I play Lady Gunslinger in Arcanum instead of Gentleman Gunslinger. Maybe the character enjoys a different style of genital, and maybe this time you can bang Metzger and he'll release Vic, but it doesn't really change the character.
I suppose if you enjoy Cloud and FF7, then you might be psyched to just get more of the same. Sure, I'd be psyched if Square said "We are making a new Front Mission game. It is basically Crescent Hawks' Inception but with better graphics because it's not on a 3.5" floppy." But if your goal is just to serve up more of the same, then you're not really trying to tell a story, you're just fanwanking. And that's kind of what it seems like he's trying to do, since most of the comparisons I've seen Nomura make just describe the game in terms of another game.
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From what I understand with FF7...
CloudxAerith was the original intended pairing. But mid development, they decided to pull the Disc 1 stunt, cause they wanted to try something different for once, and do a gutsy move like "kill off the stereotype deus ex machina driven female lead!" for a number of reasons. With that done, they thus elevated Tifa's role to be somewhat greater than originally intended, naturally, to fill the gaps that were probably originally intended for Aerith (and naturally, rewrote factors to fit Tifa's character personally, like actual past connections with Cloud, so Tifa played the part effectively, rather than feeling completely forced and an utter replacement.)
The end result is that FF7 pushes both pairings, kind of. Disc 1 is definitely CloudxAerith-centric, the game even goes as far as to have Cait Sith say "You two are a perfect couple! Poor Tifa..." but then they kill off Aerith, and she doesn't get revived, so whoops, can't push that pairing! ANd since CloudxTifa could easily be built upon, they basically decided to go from there.
Its worth noting that Aerith is clearly intended to be the canon date. Not only does she have the highest initial "Love" score, she also wins all tie breaks (and Barret loses all tie breaks :( ), IIRC.
Basically, CloudxAerith felt like it was originally intended, but due to changes in developmental stages, they decided to hook Cloud with Tifa at the end by killing off Aerith so they don't have to explain why Cloud randomly dumps her for the girl with a bigger rack.
You know, talking about these changes in FF7's plot mid development made me realize just how much more insulting FF12's changes were. FF7 changed stuff and managed to make it work, cause they didn't do a half assed job, like make Tifa work WITH the scenes, not be forcefully shoved in there so she can get boned by Cloud by the end of the game.
FF12? "Hey, Vaan's the real main now in BASCH's story! No, beyond the early narrative, we haven't adjusted the plot at all to compensate for Vaan being the true lead...so we accidentally kind of main Ashe the game's protagonist...but then Balthier is the self proclaimed 'leading man' so all the fans are going to claim him of course, since he's just THAT DAMN SEXY!"
FF12, I like you, but dear god did you fuck up badly on plot in so many ways.
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Well, outside of the very end of the game, nothing you do matters at all, so who the protagonist of the narrative is doesn't have much of a bearing on anything. If could be anybody and it wouldn't make a difference, since everything important is crammed in to the last dungeon and on.
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The other party members are AI controled? And people are complaining about this why? Persona 3 had AI controled party members and its a great game.
A game can be good/great in spite of really, really shitty design decisions. Like AI controlled PCs.
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I mean, keep in mind that one of the first things they announced for Persona 4 (and the PSP port of P3) was having player controlled PCs. While having the option of AI isn't a bad thing, ultimately one of the core facets of RPG gameplay is making tactical decisions (the other big one is character customization). Consequently, limiting the players ability to make decisions in battle beyond party members and the actions of one PC is inherently diminishing the gameplay value.
Of course, some games have such obvious decisions that they may as well be played on AI. These games are often not praised for their gameplay...
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Wait... what? Adding the option to ignore AI control in P3P? But how fun will the game really be without the handicap of Mitsuru using almost nothing but Ice Break and Charm?
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You know that just might get me to try P3 again actually. It should greatly improve the dungeon crawl part of the game anyway even if I still have to put up with the shitty dating game. Still doing a shitty dating game for a dungeon crawler is better than doing it for shitty porn I guess like you normally would for that genre.
That and you know I can hack the fuck out of a PSP game easilly. When does Disgaea 2 port come out again?
Derailed in 2 pages, nice going.
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I probably would have kept playing if not for the main character and the fact I don't own a GameShark to cheat my part to level 200 or whatever. It was kind of cool, but I automatically did not identify myself with the main at all when they designed him to be an emo kid who a 14-year-old girl would date if she wanted to have a boyfriend she could beat up.
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So Niu hasn't played this game yet? I'd like to see a perspective from someone with hands on experience.
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Niu has played it. From what I recall in WGAYP topic, is as 90% bitching, 50% of which was related to Snow. But then, that tends to be the case with any game Niu plays that is not something he is totally drooling over <_<
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He also went on and on about content cut from the final release. That and Snow-hate were the main things I got out of his posts.
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Snow's pretty goddamn dumb, but for my money Sazh at his worst is far more damning.
(Sazh in his serious-character-is-serious moments is fine, it's the comic relief pseudo-blaxsploitation that's painful)
I'm pretty much done the game now, save some grinding and the last optional superboss. I really enjoyed it, though it wasn't without its flaws.
The comparison to FF6 for linearity is fairly apt, though FF13 takes it farther in the 1st half, and there're a few other similarities, such as how it manages its characters (like FF6 there's no clear "main character", and like FF6 the focus shifts around the cast as the game progresses).
Gameplay-wise, I think the comparison to Crisis Core is poor (it's not an action RPG); the game I think its battle system most resembles is FFX-2, which is fine in my book, with a dash of a very streamlined FF12 gambit system. I found it consistently challenging and tactically interesting; very strong, IMO.
There are some weird constraints to it (you only get an arbitrary-seeming 6 slots for party-role configurations, and you often want considerably more) and a couple of stupid flaws (all 6 of those slots get reset whenever you change party members, and it's annoying and time consuming to put them back together). You could also make the case that the first ~half of the game, basically until the end of the Cocoon sequence, is more like a very extended tutorial, as it goes out of its way to give you different job combinations and lead characters before setting you loose on your own.
Plot-wise, it's a little bit on the obscure and unfulfilling side, with a novel but somewhat underdeveloped setting but consistently pretty good characters. I'll be interested to play it in English, though, since my Japanese isn't as good as it used to be and some of my issues there might be linguistically inspired.
I don't think calling Lightning a Cloud-clone is fair, for all that her role in the introduction is exceedingly similar. In fact, I'm not sure any of the characters have clear parallels in other FFs, and the game often develops them in unexpected ways. Other than Snow, I guess, he's pretty typical of his archetype.
I dunno. I don't have a great sense of what you like in games, m.c., but I definitely think it'll appeal to NEB, and I thought it was pretty excellent. Not the strongest title in the series (X or VI, I think), but no slouch.
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Hm. Key question for me, are the gambits merely available if you want them, or do you have the same "can only control one character at a time" restriction as FFXII as well?
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Everything I've heard indicates you can only control the lead PC at the time.
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That's correct; pretty integral to how the system works. More often then not your lead PC is just effectively auto-battling anyhow. It is another one of those weird oversights, I think, that you can't switch mid-battle; the AI is pretty good and relatively flexible but there are definitely moments when you're wanting to micro-manage what positive status effects, say, your enhancers/synergists are casting.
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Bah. Pity.
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I dunno. I don't have a great sense of what you like in games, m.c., but I definitely think it'll appeal to NEB, and I thought it was pretty excellent. Not the strongest title in the series (X or VI, I think), but no slouch.
"Would appeal to NEB" is usually a pretty good example of a game that'd appeal to me. Well...except games that are "this sequel is just like the last game"--I usually get bored with those, but NEB tends to like them.
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Well, there are distinct similarities, but I don't think that's really the case here.
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The game.... ultimately speaking... is... boring.
The battle system is... interesting for the first 5 hours, and then it become terribly sleep inducing.
The grunt enemy really lacks variety, because for 90% of them, the knock them into air and combo them to death tactic always work.
Rest of the skill set? Well, the buff and debuff is even more abusive than that of SMT, which is a bad sign. Especially even how some high class enemy still eats fatal status like Tire. Eventually, you'll find yourself spamming the same attack over and over again. The battle system lacks variety, simply put.
The only high light in the battle system are the boss fights, where they actually put up some interesting attack patter and individual quirk that you really have to work around it.
Then comes the end game grunts.... which is also awfully unbalanced. It is basically having you die in two minutes if you don't ambush, don't use smoke, or didn't fight the way they want you to, or didn't cheese with the Vanilla tactics. And even if you do, that battle takes too damn long. Orphan's Cradle now rivals the Light Tower as the dungeon of being horrifyingly boring.
I'll refrain from going into the battle set ups and the AI here... just to say how they universally favors spreading out damage instead of focusing is really really REALLY pissing me off.
As for the plot.... it is fairly tolerable second rated drama about people growing up, albeit rushed, it is still bearable. Then everything gets fucked up once Dysley shows up. The final part of the story also makes completly no sense.... and you actually hope that it'll stay as "making no sense" once you find out what really had happened after playing the after game. We seriously needs less nonsense about gods in RPGs in general. And knowing that other FF13 games are using the same base mythos now frightens me. If Etro is going to divinely intervene in everyone of them... I'll go mad sooner or later.
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Wait, the plot of FF13 is rushed? Absolutely nothing has happened at all. There were some explosions and then like ten hours of walking through jungles and canyons and shit.
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It really sounds kinda bad. FF13 may be good in some aspects such as graphics but, its flaws overrun it out.
The story is kinda good at a point. However, the final battle and ending is kinda wretched.
In all RPGs I have played, Orphan (true form) is the only final boss that lasted for less than a minute, i.e. about 30 seconds.
Also, some themes don't fit the event/moment being portrayed. Most notably, the final battle themes, Born Anew and Nascent Requiem, are placed in incorrect battles.
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In all RPGs I have played, Orphan (true form) is the only final boss that lasted for less than a minute, i.e. about 30 seconds.
Lots of final bosses die that fast. It's even more if you exclude the time you spend watching attack animations in some games. I think Sephiroth dies in five seconds of actual gameplay (and god knows how long of watching lensflare effects). Kefka can go down literally in the first turn your first character gets. Yadda yadda, long story short boss longevity has not been a hallmark of FF games, it just seems that way because their attacks take fucking FOREVER.
If Orphan goes down in less than a minute, it is at least less than a minute of actual gameplay, and not less than a minute of watching your attack make visual effects. For all its faults, FF13 had this going on: it kept the visual effects to a minimum.
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FF13, making up for its wank in other even less interesting ways. It actually des have a lot of very graphically intense visuals (Ruinga is a fine example), but they don't delay anything and they are in the modern ultra fine detail kind of intense visual instead of LOOK AT ME I AM GIANT ANIMATED TITS style.
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Gref, I don't care how much work you put in to your visuals as long as they don't stop me from having Sazh riddle you with bulletholes while Snow throws like twenty elbows (yes, as I said, I like his attack animations, because he doesn't have any style to them at all, so fuck you). One second is about the ideal window for an animation. More than that and I am done with you.
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Absolutely, just noting that even though they are short the game does still look amazing. It is the one thing the game does right so I have to give it that.
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As for the plot.... it is fairly tolerable second rated drama about people growing up, albeit rushed, it is still bearable. Then everything gets fucked up once Dysley shows up. The final part of the story also makes completly no sense.... and you actually hope that it'll stay as "making no sense" once you find out what really had happened after playing the after game. We seriously needs less nonsense about gods in RPGs in general. And knowing that other FF13 games are using the same base mythos now frightens me. If Etro is going to divinely intervene in everyone of them... I'll go mad sooner or later.
EPICALLY MASSIVE SPOILERS HERE. IF YOU HAVEN'T ACTUALLY BEATEN THE GAME, YOU WILL BE SPOILED.
That said I've been wondering about that too. Didn't they spend the entire game basically saying they won't play into the Pope's hands? Then at the end... they kill the pope and they kill Orphan, just like the Pope wanted them to do. I was wondering if maybe I missed some key detail (6am playtimes and all that) or if they literally just decided to say "fuck it, we killed the Pope, let's kill Orphan too rawr." I know it worked out and all because Fang/Vanille decided to kick some major ass at the end, but I still don't fully understand the logic of doing exactly what the Pope wanted. Thoughts/obvious things I missed?
END OF SPOILER!!!!!!
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I guess it all boils down to Reynolds' Law. "If someone tries to kill you, then you try to kill them right back."
Then it's like "DEUS EX MACHINA! We can turn in to the monster and instead of throwing the Dyson Sphere in to the planet, we turn it in to crystal which kills like 99% of the populace but saves Gran Pulse, which is totally uninhabited."
So, dumbness.
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That said I've been wondering about that too. Didn't they spend the entire game basically saying they won't play into the Pope's hands? Then at the end... they kill the pope and they kill Orphan, just like the Pope wanted them to do.
Its a case of just what Rob said. Though it was allround the best course of action even without the dues ex machina. Everyone was going to die anyway if they left it because the Cocoon army was finished anyway due to their cmmander being dead, half becoming zombies and the other half getting curb stomped by the pulse army. To me it was a case of "If everyone is going to die then at least the Fal'Cie die too".
This is my view on the matter so don't go accepting it as fact but thats how it looked to me.
Anyway Pulse isn't so bad. As long as they don't piss off Titan that is.
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Pulse is pretty bad. Or did you miss how Vanille and Fang are the only two people from Pulse who aren't dead? That's global extinction.
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Pulse is pretty bad. Or did you miss how Vanille and Fang are the only two people from Pulse who aren't dead? That's global extinction.
Lightning and Serah got their work cut out for them...
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Yeah, I don't think Cocoon citizens can last very long in Pulse. Survival of fittest is high there. Human who got babysitted by the Fa'lcies from Cocoon is not likely to survive.
And it is impossible to not get Fa'lcie=Titan involved. It is his job to maintain the survival of fittest in a high standard. Guess what he is going to do after the humans fell down.
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In all RPGs I have played, Orphan (true form) is the only final boss that lasted for less than a minute, i.e. about 30 seconds.
Lots of final bosses die that fast. It's even more if you exclude the time you spend watching attack animations in some games. I think Sephiroth dies in five seconds of actual gameplay (and god knows how long of watching lensflare effects). Kefka can go down literally in the first turn your first character gets. Yadda yadda, long story short boss longevity has not been a hallmark of FF games, it just seems that way because their attacks take fucking FOREVER.
If Orphan goes down in less than a minute, it is at least less than a minute of actual gameplay, and not less than a minute of watching your attack make visual effects. For all its faults, FF13 had this going on: it kept the visual effects to a minimum.
(Sorry for the late reply... haha) :)
Whether we like it or not, the animation time of attacks are not excluded on the total amount of time elapsed in the final battle.
Also, the case of Orphan was pretty different than those of Safer Sephiroth and God Kefka. Being a Final Boss with more than 3 million hp, it
was still disappointing that I only took less than a minute to destroy him. Besides, of all the FF Final Bosses, he was the only one I've seen so far to have no immunity on the Death spell.
Note: Safer Sephiroth has 400000 as his max hp, God Kefka has 62000, True Ultimecia has 278900, and Orphan (true form) has 3390000. Well, compare what the others have to Orphan... His hp was just too high to be easily finished and it's a bit disappointing. :(
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Different damage scales are different.
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Different damage scales are different.
When you hit for 99,999 five times in five seconds, three million HP gets bent over a table, yes.
Either way, holding up Kefka and Sephiroth as any model of a decent boss fight is Psyduck. For fuck's sake, you can both of them before they get a single turn.
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He did say "Max HP Sephiroth" which...isn't realistically fair; no one really ever fights Sephiroth with full HP potential, partially cause I believe it requires having level 99 PCs so right there any sort of potential worth he could have just sort of explodes.
The standard Sephiroth most will fight has more like 80k HP, which can vary based on a number of factors, but I highly doubt people boost it TOO much.
Doesn't change your point though, yeah. Ultimecia really isn't much better, actually; she seems more durable than she actually is cause the game won't let her DIE until she goes through every single one of her quotes.
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Guess what he is going to do after the humans fell down.
Eat them and poop out lizardmen? Anyway I don't see that happening as Cocoon has the tech to make giant enemy crabs, Spider tanks and the like.
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It was requested by someone that I Copy and Paste the rant I had in WGAYP topic here, so it'd be easier to find, so yeah, I'm doing that. Nothing significant has been changed!
Well, since its a BITCH trying to figure out what's a spoiler and trying to avoid them, etc., assume the rest of this post has a BIG SPOILER WARNING attached throughout it! At least until the last line where I just do the usual "Game is this good" generic nonsense that says nothing specific <.<
Anyway, overall, the game was pretty darn good. Not the best in the series, but its about time we had a decent follow up after FF10 in the series. Let me note that while I liked FF12, the game was niche, and really, was a very weird way to follow up; the game felt way too distant as an FF game to be mainstream, unlike FF13 which while retaining its own unique style, had very FF-like aspects to it, and felt like an FF game in ways more than just "FF game cause its called that!"
The battle system was like the second time I've seen such team oriented combat exemplified so much; the first was Xenosaga 2. What I mean is, some games version of "Teamwork" is mostly just "people do a bunch of generic things and enemies are too good to solo!" like Grandia 3; yes, differences existed, but in the end, its style of Teamwork felt like "Ulf's getting a turn, he can cancel that guy attacking Yuki!" which wasn't unique to Ulf. FF13, you had to take advantage of character's specific uses and exploit them, and find genuine synergy, similar to Xenosaga 2 where everyone had their own defined use and just using the same generic tactics regardless of team would get you killed. And some games don't even do Teamwork at all; Shadow Hearts 1 comes to mind, where its idea of a Party is "Yuri SMASH, everyone else just does stuff to make sure Yuri can continue to SMASH!"
FF13? Suppose Fang is your primary offensive PC. Ok, cool...but just relying on her, and going Sentinel + Medic or some such means the fight will take forever, and has lots of room for error. Now, suppose you threw in someone in Ravager to compliment her? Suddenly, not only are you adding the Ravager's damage to Fang's, you're adding the big fat Chain Boost as well, thereby increasing Fang's own damage as well, so its really a dual factor. The 3rd PC can even add to this by diverting all hits such that the two can play offensively, or what not.
Furthermore, when a PCs, unless the fight was near the end already, you REALLY felt the hit on your team, and want to revive them ASAP. Yes, there's no penalty to winning a fight with dead PCs, but then that's cause the penalty for someone dying is that its a huge blow to the way your team works and what strategies you have. In many games, losing a PC = They don't get EXP, or something, and its really not that big a deal unless the game is a whore about revival; you can often just muscle things out unless its a boss fight, and you only feel like you lose the contribution that PC had, so unless it was an especially important role, you could do fine. FF13, one PC's contribution can really make or break the overall net worth of the team, and you want to hurl that Phoenix Down before things get out of hand.
The battle system was cool for that reason, though would have been nice if you could micromanage the AI some; mostly only mattered for Buffs and Debuffs, but it wasn't TOO bad there, just they'd make questionable decisions ("wait, you're favoring Veil over Bravery when the enemy's only status is Poison because...?".) Alternatively, some form of FF12 Gambits, not necessarily as in depth, to give some sort of priority to abilities like that would have been nice. Still, the game felt like the AI was appropriate at least. Additionally, wasn't fond of "Main PC dies = game over." To FF13's credit, its NOT SMT, so this wasn't as much of a pain as it could have been. Reasons?
-FF13 lacks SMT's bullshit hax factor is the big one. Enemies don't ambush you (but you can do it to them), so you always have time to prepare, and there's little randomness in the way of Crits and such.
-FF13 lacks Instant Death for almost the entire game; what Instant Death there is has a sad hit rate, and you get ID Blockers before its even around. To branch from that, one of the enemies who uses Instant Death does so only after so many turns, which gives you plenty of time to either kill them first, or have your Sentinel bait them out (unless your Sentinel is the Leader.)
-Furthermore, FF13 lacks Auto-loss status like Petrify and what not; while it makes the choices of status enemies can hurl at you less varied, it was probably the wiser decision cause dying to an enemy just petrifying you before you could get your Sentinel to bait them out = argh.
-Also, FF13 lets you change your leader after a point, so you don't have to worry about, say, Lightning's "low" HP being a factor, as you can put Sazh or whoever in that place instead, and put their better HP as your limiter.
-Game also has a nice "Retry" option setting you right outside the fight you lost, and if its a plot scene between it scene skip exists (even nice enough to give you access to the game's Menu that you didn't have before...why they didn't do this to begin wtih I don't know), so dying doesn't really have any penalties, so you can just keep trying until something works; contrast this to many other tough RPGs where its die -> START BACK AT SAVE POINT! Naturally, a SMART game (which most FFs are) have a save point right near the boss, so that's not a big deal, or games like Wild ARMs have their own limited continue methods...SMTs do not have this and are such "UGH" whenever you die as a result.
Its still an annoying Gameplay mechanic outside of SRPGs or games like VP that gave you Grace Periods, but FF13 did handle it much better than things like Persona 4, or branching from away from SMT, Okage, games where you could lose the Main Character and there's NOTHING you could do about it, and you had like a bajillion ways to revive him too.
The Dungeon Crawling did get a little tedious but the linearity actually helped I felt. People tend to forget that many jRPGs have this scenario, which FF13 universally avoids pretty much the entire time (sans that one tower):
Come to a fork in the road, which way do you take? One way leads to a locked down, often that being the more obvious route, the other leads to nothing but a switch, down an insignificant part of the dungeon, just to open that one door.
Basically, a useless thing to inflate the length of the dungeon. FF13 said "bollocks to aspects that deserve to be kept in Survival Horrors!" and just gives us straightforward, linear dungeons. It still gives you some exploration merit as checking that little protrusion off the path can yield a chest, no matter how slight it might seem; just this kind of exploration takes all of an extra 20 seconds instead of a good 5 minute derailing. The lack of Random Encounters (in favor of the "You can see enemies on the screen" thing) certainly helped the flow of things.
And personally, I LIKED Gran Pulse's first section; while the navigating was annoying, just the scope and atmosphere really put FF13's graphics to work (I played the 360 version mind, so I can only imagine what's it like on the PS3.) It was a lot like FF10's Calm Lands, only bigger, prettier and felt like there was more to do.
The Crystagrim (SP?) system was a interesting extension of SPhere Grid, and even handled in a way to make "Grind = Win!" not work by actually limiting your levels based on story. The game actually forced you to figure out the battle system and learn how to do strategy to at least some degree, which I support. The game was even appropriately difficult the entire way through I felt; pretty easy early on, but gets gradually harder, and by the end, you go in expecting at least competent fights from everything, but nothing was frustratingly annoying (though, there were enemies that I really hated fighting if only cause setting up to kill them could take a while, and then the actual killing of them took a while too. Sanctum Templars stand out to me for example.)
Paradigm was also cool system...actually, the whole gameplay can be summed up as a branch of FF10's Development with a better handled version of FFX-2 and XS2 spliced together, in a way that meshes well together. Basically, FF13 succeeded pretty darn well in gameplay, and unlike FF12 where it mostly kind of clicked and I can't fathom why, FF13's actually feels objectively well made.
Also, I must say this; whoever says FF13 is a grind fest needs to be punched. I didn't grind at all, barring one moment where it was to get enough CP for Vanille to learn Death, but that amounted to all of ONE EXTRA NODE. On the flipside, I did very few optional missions (all of like 3?), and didn't really run into any trouble that couldn't be fixed either by approaching the fight differently, or just re-adjusting my team cause the one I was using was unsuited (or alternatively, they were freaks like Behemoth Kings on Gran Pulse which are basically "DON'T FIGHT THEM UNLESS YOU HAVE THE AMBUSH OR ARE IN A 3 WAY!") I never had to resort to "GRIND MOAR!!!"
Outside of being stubborn on some fights like Behemoth Kings early, the only boss fights that really were hard for me were the first Proud Clad and first Orphan fight, and that's cause both of them took on a style meant to counter "Stagger -> WIN!", at least if you go immediately for it. I might have had under-developed weapons relative to others, but I could only take off about half health in both fights with a stagger. Staggering them means they start whipping out nasty things; I know this is definitely the case. Why?
-Proud Clad, when I stagged it, once it broke free, it's ALWAYS use this big healing move that buffed it and spammed high powered moves that'd overwhelm me even in Sentinel. When I fought it by just chipping at it with Commando (and some Ravager hits early on to boost Chain Gauge), and just going with Medic/Sentinel (rebuffing with Synergist) defensive strategies, staggering it at the end to take off the last bit of HP, it never did that.
-Orphan Fight #1 I kept having problems with (one time wasn't my fault though; batteries ran out of controller, FF13 unlike MOST games doesn't auto pause when that happens, and it happened at a delicate time and I couldn't grba the other controller fast enough and shift to my defensive Paradigm...yeah...), figured it was an HP Trigger...so I decided to try and blast past most of his HP just before the trigger is hit...after failing a few times cause of his BIG MT GRAVITY + CHAIN GAUGE TO 0% move being timed at worst possible moments, I started to notice...he wasn't changing his strategy much beyond a few new moves. Like, yeah the annoying but not-costly status move was used, but he never did his BIG MT DAMAGE MOVE OF "USE SENTINEL OR DIE", nor did he do the Instant Death move. I figured out eventually that he was a stagger related boss. Sure enough, he started using a few new tricks at really low health after being staggered...never the MT damage move; I'm thinking that he uses that after a Summon?
The boss fights did get a little overboard on HP, but...honestly, 6.8 Million HP sounds more intimidating than it really is. You rip through HP really damned fast once your offense gets going, so the bosses actually kind of needed HP That high to not get curbstomped entirely; they may have gone a little overboard, but yeah, it didn't feel too horrible. Contrast this to SO4's Final Boss who has 8 Million HP, stacked onto an idiotic defensive gimmick, right after a boss and a potential boss rush, and he's constantly attacking you thus making your offense lower...ugh. FF13, yes, your offense is limited cause you have to heal, use Sentinel, etc., but generally you can often keep someone on Commando or Ravager a majority of the time, and at least get SOME damage in, so the fight never feels like you're not going anywhere (though the psychological BoF1 Late Game Boss effects do start kicking in!)
Again, I have to mention this; I did very little that was optional on Gran Pulse. Only about 3 missions, and the extra encounters done for fixing that Robot Dog...well, and a few minor extra fights in the Tower cause I kind of lost track of what I was doing, but honestly, I rarely found a moment where I'd hit my Crystarium limit and have all this excess CP, or when I did, it was often right before the Crystarium boost was up. I also stayed pretty much entirely to the main 3 Roles the characters have, thinking about some minor expanding early on (gained like one or two levels in a few characters on one role, then realized it really wasn't worth it cause sticking to the main roles led to better Abilities and MUCH better stat boosts.)
Summons were also nice; its what FF12's SHOULD have been, but weren't. Its nice how summons are starting to act different than spells and actually exist alongside you now, only FF13 makes them actually cool Limit Break style things instead of total novelties that suck like FF12, or Overpowered Freaks of Nature like FF10. I didn't use them much, mind, cause I was conservative on TP, but just using one every now and then to nukify things was fun.
The forced PC sections for the first like 70% of the game? Well, it was annoying not being able to use some characters, and how you only had 2 characters for a while in a game that really promotes team work can get grating, but...the game was balanced well enough around this...at least for Lightning/Hope. Those two worked well together, such that Hope does things that keeps Lightning alive, Lightning just bitch slaps things til they die.
Sazh and Vanille, meanwhile? DId not really work well. Sazh's offense is much worse than Lightning's, you basically had to stack their Synergist and Saboteur abilities, then rely on a worse PC synergy (didn't help that Lightning gets her 4th ATB gauge early, while neither Sazh nor Vanille get theirs until much later.) The enemies really felt more durable with Sazh and Vanille, contrast to Lightning/Hope where it was mostly just "SMASH."
To FF13's credit? It avoided being retarded and forcing SOLO PC SECTIONS in a game like this. Solo PC sections would be the single most assholish thing in a game like this. Yes, there were a few moments early on with Snow where it was solo, but they were really short lived (or in the case of Chapter 2, before the game really had much of a battle system beyond "Hit things, they die"), and don't really count.
Having 2 PCs is at least enough to make SOME use of the battle system, for all that the game only really shows its colors with 3, which it takes a while to get back to.
I think I've talked enough about Gameplay, but yeah, that's definitely FF13's best trait, ignoring the whole "Game is pretty!" aspect. It was fun pretty much the entire way through, and well handled and balanced. Now, onto other things!
Music...my friend said the game was disappointing here. For the most part...I agree. I liked the Battle Theme, the game's main theme had a nice melody and the versions on Gran Pulse and that forest where Hope/Lightning were I liked, and Cocoon De Chocobo...Cocoon De Chocobo <.<. Otherwise? Songs all kind of meshed together.
Plot...well...
The story itself at its core really isn't so bad. Kind of liked it, and what was going on. I also liked how FF13 avoids the usual jRPG problem of "WE MUST KEEP EVERYTHING MAIN CHARACTER-CENTRIC!", remembering that FF6 and FF9 actually benefited by showing the game from multiple perspectives, diverting attention away from the main...heck, even FF8 had some benefit from this, just they sort of did NOTHING with the parts that diverted from Squall other than be filler. You know, something that pretty much ALL OTHER FORMS OF MEDIA do at some point? I'll let FF10 get away with it cause the whole "Tidus is telling the entire story" sort of makes it hard to divert attention from him. Ok, so Vanille tells FF13's story, but she's more just speaking for the cast as a whole. Basically, the difference between the two is Tidus was saying more "I", where as Vanille was more "We", so diverting attention away from Vanille was somewhat easier.
ANYWAY, what hurts FF13's story, however, is its pacing. At first, not much happens after a point...but once Snow rejoins after quite a while, the plot suddenly starts to feel rushed. Note that the GAME isn't rushed, as the gameplay feels reasonably paced and the length isn't too bad, but in terms of things going on, yeah, definitely poorly paced. It tried to cram most of the important plot elements of the story into the last 15 hours or so. The character work suffered as well; I don't mind the direction the characters took for development, or really the characters in and of themselves, but their development I found a little unbelievable and rushed. One moment that stands out to me was with Lightning and Hope's relationship; Lightning went too quickly from "Hope, you're useless and just slowing me down" to "HOPE!? ARE YOU ALRIGHT!? I was so worried!", Suddenly-Is-Like-an-Older-Sister-to-Hope scenario. Snow's development COULD have worked well, but after his HEROIC!!!! re-entrance, they rush the whole "Forced to admit weakness, then decide how to deal with it!" thing in a manner of like 3 scenes.
Honestly, felt like FF13's story may have been better if it was split across like 3 long movies or an entire drama series, where they could apply the pacing somewhat better, rather than be forced to find a perfect balance between gameplay, writing, plot, etc. Again, FF13's story in and of itself, I have no problems with, but the execution could have been much better.
Its a lot better than FF12 in this regard, mind, cause at least FF13 is consistent about having a plot. While the pacing jumps from "not much happens" to "A LOT HAPPENS QUICKLY!", at least the game continues to have plot scenes throughout, so you know there's a story going on. FF12, after Raithwall, you kind of reach a point of doing a lot of side stuff and dungeons and then go "Wait, right, there's a plot isn't there? What am I suppose to be doing again? Did I ever get that sword? Oh, right, its in my inventory...wait, what was I suppose to do with that again?" and you'd get lost if FF12 wasn't nice enough to have an indicator of where to go next every time you checked your map. FF13, outside of getting REALLY into doing stuff in Gran Pulse, you constantly knew there was plot going on. Now, if you could KEEP TRACK OF FF13's plot, that's a different story, cause once it gets going, it really moves fast and you kind of forget stuff. To FF13's credit, it has the Datalog, and a quick summary of things that just happened when you load the game, so just referencing quick terms and characters to remind yourself in case you forgot helped keep things coherent.
(Oh, right, FF13 deserves props for a compass that always points you in the direction of your destination to finish the dungeon as well, for that matter; that way, for the rare instance of a genuine fork, you KNEW you were going the wrong way, or alternatively, in case you turned around (like to fight a random from behind or something), it made it easier to know which was the right way to go and which was you backtracking like a moron.)
But regardless, there is one part of the plot that got to me: The ending. Look, ok, I can take a rushed plot, and then having arbitrary scenes just for random explosions and fun shit like the beginning of Chapter 12, which while completely pointless, it had fun eye candy and thus was entertaining...there was no excuse for an ending like that. They basically just said "um...shit...where do we go from here?" The game suddenly contradicts itself with the team's actions on Orphan, where they're all like "WE MUST PROTECT ORPHAN CAUSE THAT WILL FUCK WITH THE FAL'CIE PLANS!" and then Orphan appears...and they attack it instantly? Did I miss something here? Aren't they doing the EXACT OPPOSITE of what they've been saying they'll do since the beginning of Chapter 12? Following that, felt like they had no clue what they wanted to do, cause just having a simple "And there was much rejoicing!" ending wasn't good, NO! WE MUST BE EPIC! How can we be EPIC!??!?!
...TRAINWRECK THE DAMN THING! Lets give Vanille and Fang arbitrary absurd plot powers that we only loosely hinted at, force Fang to suddenly do something she KNOWS is horribly wrong, falling for "Idiot Good Guy Syndrome" of "Clearly saving one person is worth sacrificing the entire fucking world and ALL YOUR OTHER FRIENDS over" and sort of handwaving everything bad that was going on as "Oh, just Fal'Cie fucking with our minds; its an illusion, lets ignore and KICK ORPHAN'S ASS!" After that? MOAR EXPLOSIONS!!!! PLOT BULLSHIT! DEUS EX MACHINA!!! ...and they all lived happily ever after, except Vanille and Fang...oh, wait, no, they're not dead, just asleep, apparently completely nude, in crystal form, but that's cool, cause Fang is totally a lesbian, and there's nothing hinting that Vanille is not either. Just give them about 500 years and they'll wake up nice and happy!!!!
...seriously, fuck you ending. No, its not XS3 level horrible offensiveness, but it left a sour taste in my mouth, and was a poor way to end the game on after it had a pretty strong going thus far (if mostly for gameplay.) If the game just had a generic ending, I'd go "meh, anticlimactic, but whatever." The Shit the ending pulled was basically just...ugh. I don't think its enough for me to dock a point from the game, but it was just bad. SO3 had a similar case, only it had better writing before hand (I LIKED SO3's big spoiler, thank you very much), and it was more just "*Facepalm* *Headdesk* *facepalm again*"philosphical bullshit rather than "TOTAL TRAINWRECK! But it has EXPLOSIONS! Everyone likes that!?!"
FF13's little "Characters speak while running through dungeons" thing was a nice touch to help give them a little more personality, and some extra character interaction at least; did make me wish they'd take more advantage of it, and add a little bit more "useless" conversations for flavoring. I was expecting more after the fun early game stuff, but eh, I suppose some interaction is better than none.
Now for characters...first off, some NPC stuff.
FF13 had a bunch of worthless NPCs I felt. Yeah, Snow has his Fujin and Raijin equivalents with the "2 other guys" but...they exist for such a short period of time. Rosch for example was very obvious what they were aiming at, and could have been interesting, as we're just having a guy whose fighting for what he believes is best, and even knowing its corrupt and flawed, is willing to accept the "Ends justify the means" thing, but then he...disappears for a while, finally reappearing and you go "Oh, right, there was that General of PSICOM guy."
Cid Raines I thought wasn't half bad for what he was though, and actually felt that he really was stuck in a Catch 22 scenario, cause no matter WHAT he did, he was screwed, and the end result was something he wasn't going to be satisfied with. Though, did they really need to make his battle form a combination of Seymour and Sephiroth in design? I mean...seriously?
Barthandelus/Dysley is a pretty laughable villain. EVIL POPE!!! ...we certainly haven't seen THAT before. Basically just a "Ha, I've been manipulating you guys from the start!" except all he's really been doing is twiddling his thumbs, and hoping things fall into place, then mocking the team at inopportune times. Come on, I know you can make a more intriguing villain than that. Or were they that desperate to take an FF6 Esper-type character and say "IF Espers were FF6's villains, they'd be kind of like this guy!" ...except I highly doubt they'd be THIS lame. I guess the game did explain why he couldn't just go through with his plans on his own well enough by basically saying "Fal'Cie lack total free-will; they can only act according to their purpose" hence the creation of l'Cie. I guess its a cheap explanation, but eh, I'll go with it, mostly cause a more elaborate one often leads to confusion and hate.
As far PCs go...
Lightning: Female Protagonist, yay! Anyway, kind of liked her overall. She was human, so while rational, she actually showed emotion and did things that would say "No, she's not perfect." And unlike many "Female Soldier" types, while she was strong and "tough as nails", she definitely didn't mind showing vulnerability, just she herself wasn't very thin skinned to begin with. She could have been really good if not for, well, you know, FF13 writing. To her credit, she's stylish, and looked bad ass in battle, and has a Gunblade that's actually semi-logical unlike Squall's. I will give her credit for actually coming off as a leader, despite never being officially declared one like Cloud or Squall were; heck, there were times Cloud didn't really feel like a Leader, more just "Guy who was there." Lightning felt like the one actually calling the shots and keeping things in line, even was the one talking down the final boss despite how Fang and Vanille had the whole BIG PLOT NONSENSE SHENANIGANS before hand and had more plot relation to it.
IN BATTLE!? Best overall offensive PC; while not best at Magic or Physicals, she was rather good at both, allowing her to never really be walled. In addition, she made a decent Ravager, and Army of ONe was really quite excellent at building the Chain Gauge later on. Her HP could use a little work, but beyond early game, never felt quite low enough to make her a hinderance, even as Party Leader. She was often my Commando mostly cause she could take advantage of all forms of damage buffing (where as Fang loses a lot of damage if forced to go Magical, for example.) Having Medic as well allowed for some flexibility, letting someone like Hope or Vanille go to a support class while Lightning kept the team alive. Also, she had some pretty good weapons; Blazfire Sabre was a good balanced damage weapon, a weapon that boosts Ressurection, and she had a weapon that boosts Staggering potential as well as one with ATB Gauge helping. Nice flexibility and what not.
...really, Lightning reminded me of Terra, in terms of gameplay, only more balanced relative to her cast. She was good at just about everything that wasn't being support, but never quite STAND OUT at it beyond a few minor segments. Well, that and she's missing Terra's absurd equipment selection, for all that Lightning has a good draw on weapons (FF13 has no armors, just universal accessories, though accessories can have unique effects on PCs to be fair.)
Sazh: TOKEN STEREOTYPE BLACK GUY. Comic Relief, with some decent serious stuff. Actually, while I slam FF13 for rushing stuff, Sazh was probably pulled off about as well as you could get, as things felt appropriately timed, and there wasn't much more you could do with someone like him. Also, he has a Frocobo. I do want to note that no, Sazh is NOT in running for a Protagonist. He has his reasons for being there, yeah, but the son thing stops mattering pretty damn fast, and that's really just his motivation. This is contrast to Lightning/Snow's motivation based off Serah and how it keeps constantly getting brought up even when its not important, and we still see more of Serah in flashbacks, or Fang and Vanille's plot which...well, yeah. Mind you, Sazh is still more important than Hope, cause at least Dajh was a significant character unlike Hope's Mom, who was really just a catalyst at best.
IN BATTLE!? Felt like Lightning, having some buffs in favor of...worse everything else barring HP (which without Sentinel, didn't feel to handy), and no healing. Really losing Trade. offensive Buffs are cool, but honestly, they sometimes take a little too long to get going, and defensive ones are far handier considering enemies are dangerous. Also, his offensive stats were sad; I don't mean "Lightning's were better." What I mean is, specialists like Fang and Hope were actually beaten by Lightning at some points in their main stat, though eventually got a firm lead that Lightning never caught up too, but after that, Lightning was still able to keep up with them, and fill in those holes in offense well enough. Sazh? Not so much; really, the only reason to use him was for Haste, and Bravery/Faith...I suppose Vigilance is good, but never found it too necessary, and when Hope learns Haste, Bravery and Faith, Vigilance is quite literally the only thing Sazh has going for him, outside of the HP. And I don't mean Sazh's damage wasn't a little low; he was clearly game worst in offensive stats. Sazh was just breaking 800 in Attack (with like 700~ in Magic), when Lightning was already well into 4 digits in both stats, while Fang, Vanille, Snow and Hope were well into the 4 digits with their main stat (often higher than what Lightning had...well, I think Snow may have had lower Attack.)
So...in the end, Sazh felt like LVP. Even for the brief stint when he's finally available and is the only one with Haste, it wasn't enough to justify him. Pretty sad too, as he's a pretty awesome character.
Snow: Starts the game off annoying and a whiner and...to be frank? That was perfect for him. Why? Cause I really felt like the whole point of Snow was meant to piss you off cause he's so obnoxious and full of himself early on, and he's suppose to earn your respect as the game goes on by slowly diverging away from this and basically rationalizing it up. And honestly? He did exactly that. Snow I view in two ways; one is "A different take on Locke", the other is "Seifer that you're suppose to eventually warm up to cause he stops being a fucking moron." Both fit in their different ways; Snow's definitely got the FAILURE KNIGHT syndrome over his lost loved one that drives him that Locke has, ultimately learning to move on (though never forgetting about Serah), while the Seifer things comes from this obsession of his dreams and goals that he has and being a stuck up asstard, ultimately learning to lighten up, and try to do things for the team rather than obsess over himself. By the end, he worked well as the kind of guy whose just keeping the team on track; Lightning's calling the shots, but Snow's there to remind everyone what they're fighting for, and to keep spirits up, and to have that kind of weird optimism a team needs (his intro into Chapter 12 was just fun, for example, with the whole "And the hero saves the day!" followed by the whole people seeing his brand then going "...oh, whoops, probably should cover that up.") So yeah, I ended up liking Snow in the end, but I won't deny there was a lot more that could have been done with him. Again, FF13's character's and the direction of their development, etc. is fine, its just the execution that isn't.
IN BATTLE!? Snow is bar none the best Sentinel; a kick ass HP Score, and...really, that's all you need to be a good Sentinel. He makes a good Commando, and could fill the role of Ravager. Also, he got nice defensive weapons to help make the whole Sentinel thing work well. I really can't stress how useful Sentinel is for survival, so having this was nice, as he was one of two PCs that had it. He had more HP than Sazh too, by a significant amount I wanna say, and cause of Sentinel, he actually felt like he was making use of it. Basically, he was Lightning, shoving the Magic Stat into the HP (though keeping Magic JUST high enough that he doesn't totally fail at Ravager), and had Sentinel instead of Medic. Overall losing trade, but he's someone I often ended up using.
Hope: Little whiny brat who becomes TEAM CHEER LEADER end game. Seriously, his emo phase got annoying; I can understand WHY he was in it, but he took the "I HATE YOU SNOW!" thing too far. The whole Father relationship thing was stupid too (though I will admit his father was a pretty decent fellow, just...wow, he needed more screen time. Or at least appear in the god damn ending.) Also, no, he is NOT the main. Hope was a total plot device, and became completely useless after Palumpolum. It felt like there was more focus on him than the others cause Hope is the single most dynamic character in the game, so the changes were more obvious, but he really didn't contribute much. Just helped Snow and Lightning develop a little, and was basically just a 6th PC.
IN BATTLE? Best Ravager *AND* Synergist in the game, and has Medic to boot so he can run the role of healing if need be, though gets Raise a little later than I'd like. Still, he was pretty much exactly what I needed in a support PC, ESPECIALLY after he gets offensive boosting spells; Protect/Shell are more important than Bravery/Faith, so him getting those early contrast to Sazh stands out, and he was good at Crowd Control due to that awesome magic stat combined with Ravager spells nailing weaknesses. He did have one really notable flaw though; the HP. Its really bad. Using Hope without a Sentinel at some point is really suicidal. At the same time, however, Hope + Sentinel makes your team nigh unkillable, so yeah, not only does a Sentinel cover Hope's flaws, it compounds and actually compliments the buffs beautifally making Hope even better. Ended up being in my team constantly as a result.
Vanille: Starts the game being nothing more than a Genki...like, one who is OVERLY happy. I really can't stress this; she's smiling the entire damn time, even when she should get upset. Then we learn about her past, and suddenly she goes from "token Genki" to "DEUS EX MACHINA CHARACTER OF MASSIVE IMPORTANCE!" Pity its not really focused on much until Chapter 11 where you end up on Gran Pulse, where they blow this stuff out of proportion. This is why I can't really respect her as a main, just merely a "necessary supporting character" like, say, Aerith in FF7 (Aerith wasn't even the female lead of FF7 (Tifa was), but its hard to deny that she's important and the plot wouldn't work without her; clear example of an Important Supporting Character, but still one nonetheless.) Well, she IS the narrator, but she really feels like an odd choice of one until very late where finally she starts gaining some importance. Also, after you get off Gran Pulse she...takes backseat again until they pull off Operation: TRAIN WRECK to force Vanille to be important again. In any event, I can't say I was very fond of her cause once her plot is revealed, she becomes totally bipolar, and the whole PLOT BACKSTORY thing felt a bit redundant with Fang around. I know, the use of two characters was there for some better character interaction, but FF13 really didn't emphasize that enough, and it more just came off as "The two are lesbian lovers!" Oh yeah, her accent is also unnatural and inconsistent, so it made it hard for me to take her seriously even later on.
IN BATTLE? Deprotect, Deshell, and Poison were all things I found useful (yes, I found FF13 Poison useful; it actually does significant damage, you just don't notice it cause its gradual.) Also made a decent Ravager, and unlike Hope, had an actual HP score (it was Lightning-esque), so she could get away without using Sentinel a little better. Deprotect/Deshell, despite not being perfect and not working on everything (but it works on A LOT) I found more useful than Bravery of Faith. A few reasons would be because they do damage, which while the damage sucks, its useful for Chain Gauge purposes (either adding too it, or just keeping the gauge built up), and the usual "A debuff on the enemy is like a buff for the entire team!" factor. Lastly, had Medic too, so yeah, good healer. Didn't use her a lot, but she was fine when I did.
Fang: The "badass" female who kicks things asses and is MYSTERIOUS!!! Also has Deus Ex Machina related nonsense, and is very blatantly a lesbian (I'm sorry, but with lines like "I'd do anything, so long as she's safe!" said with such passion, its hard to take Fang as anything BUT that. And unlike Lightning's relationship with Hope which felt more like a "I'll protect you, don't worry!" and nothing more, hence the Big Sister vibes, it felt like she genuinely wanted to just make out with Vanille at any given moment.) Now, what's the problem with her being the main? I dunno, I have a problem with introducing the main character when over 50% of the game is done, and its suddenly all "SHE'S UBER IMPORTANT!" Basically, you know Xenosaga Jr.? Yeah, XS2 he's the lead, but XS1, its more like he's just super important, but Shion's still the main. Fang is very much that; I actually felt she was more significant than Vanille (despite Vanille having he Serah thing), cause Fang was doing shit, and didn't require the Narrator thing to say "Oh, yeah, she's important." Though, Fang is completely responsible for the ending nonsense; seriously, what the fuck? You given into the villain's demands that easily? When you KNOW that nothing good is going to come of it and that Vanille is likely GOING TO DIE AS A RESULT OF YOUR SHIT ANYWAY? ARGH!!!! FUCK YOU FF13'S ENDING! On the plus side, she gets Bahamut as an Eidolon, which is cool points in my book.
(Sorry about the Main Character Tangents, but I feel people are too easily to label characters as mains when there's problems like "uh, Fang doesn't exist for a large part of the story" and people forgetting you CAN be important without being the main. Again, XS1 Jr. is a very good example of this.)
IN BATTLE!? Fang was some sort of hybrid of Snow, Lightning and Vanille. She has Saboteur though it was different than Vanille's at first (Slow is very useful, mind), she felt like she could replace Lightning as a Commando (while Snow's attack wasn't as good, he felt...I dunno...clunkier than Lightning?), and had Sentinel. Thing is, she didn't obsolete any of them; all 3 had Ravager, Snow had oodles more HP than her, and both Vanille and Lightning had Medic. So what is she in the end? Just a plain vanilla good PC! Ended up using her as my 3rd with Hope and Lightning; was using Snow for a while, but wanted to take advantage of Saboteur, so it was either "Drop Hope, use Vanille" which means I lose Synergist, so it was between Lightning and Snow...felt a second Medic > second Sentinel (for all that a second Sentinel doesn't hurt for flexibility), and Lightning's ability to adapt to whatever damage type available with minimal losses, in addition to Army of One's absurd chain building, felt more useful than Snow's HP. Fang made a good enough Sentinel, if inferior to Snow, but could cover other niches and...yeah. Also, she was obviously suppose to be the game's Dragoon; I mean...dresses in Blue (though she looked almost like a skanky "bad-girl" Rinoa in design...NOMURA!!!!!!!!!), wields a lance, rides a dragon, unique attack is called "Highwind"...ok, I'll shut up.
So...uh...guess that's the end of the rant <_<? Uh, yeah. Anyway, despite the general lackluster aspects of writing and what not, I still enjoyed the game a lot. 8/10 to me; there were definite places for improvements even in the gameplay, and it has its flaws, but the flaws aren't too major to stop it from being a genuinely good game. It was certainly nice to play something that I actually had fun doing (despite how Real Life kept saying "No, stop playing it!" for all the various reasons...god damned reality, I hate you sometimes!), unlike Wizard of Oz where it didn't really do anything innately wrong, just sort of failed to go above the raw basics and ended up being boring; no, FF13 kept the gameplay engaging and kept making new enemies with gimmicks etc. So yeah, 8/10, even though I JUST SAID THAT! MWAHAHA!
(Yes, I purposely avoided talking about the DL, cause frankly, when I play a game, the first thing that comes to mind isn't "How good is this character in the DL!?" I learned long ago that playing games for the DL is a bad thing, and you should just completely FORGET about the DL while playing the game, instead enjoy the game for its actual merits, not factoring in "OOOH! THIS CHARACTER WILL BE AWESOME IN THE DL!")
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Meeplelard: Re: character balance, I concur with most of your thoughts, especially Sazh as LVP and Lightning as game MVP. Fang strikes me as winning out in the aftergame, though, for Highwind, Bahamut, best Saboteur, and highest attack power. I do appreciate that none of the characters are flat-out bad; I suspect that exploring Sazh as a ravager reveals him as the best combo/breakage character, which despite his pathetic attack stats gives offensive potential.
Snow is the best sentinel, indubitably, but offense issues otherwise, lack of support is kinda balls too. Good synergist and good medic in the aftergame bring him back into the game, I feel, particularly as sentinel gets more and more valuable.
Statistically I favour the offense characters (Fang Lightning Hope), but there's definitely something to be said for high HP characters in the lead position, which gives advantage to Snow, Sazh and Fang in that order.
Jobs:
Hard to judge commandos and ravagers; I'd say Hope's the best ravager (but Lightning's close), Vanille's decent, as is Sazh (although Formalhaut probably helps a lot), Snow is actively bad at the role.
Fang's pretty clearly the best commando, with Snow on her heels. Lightning's good, Sazh is pretty bad at it.
Hope as best Synergist, definitely. Fang and Vanille definitely have their place (more grist for Fang as endgame MVP). Haste on Sazh early is nice.
Hope and Vanille are the only good medics; Lightning gets points for having access to it in earlier chapters, but Snow and Fang are better towards the end (the lack of raise stops mattering, and Curea, or however it was translated, is just plain necessary).
Fang is the best saboteur, but Lightning Vanille and Sazh all deserve mention for bio, which is incredibly important in the aftergame (!!!). Death is pretty cool on Vanille, mostly, IMO, for Neochu.
Rambly, but anyhow.
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Rambly, but anyhow.
Tee hee.
I'm sorry, but this made me laugh. You just posted right after the ramble master who just posted a dissertation on FF13 and you call yourself rambly~?
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Well, JAD, I can't really talk about the aftergame, having not played it, so that's more an assessment for what I've seen through most of the game. But its nice to see that I'm not totally crazy with my assessments <_<
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Personally, I always played as Snow. I figured, if my main character dying equals game over, I might as well play as the one who has ridiculous amounts of health. Kind of disappointed I never figured out how to make more than one character use their full bar attacks, though. Getting to use Cold Blood and THEN Sovereign Fist would be pretty hax.
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Guess what he is going to do after the humans fell down.
Eat them and poop out lizardmen? Anyway I don't see that happening as Cocoon has the tech to make giant enemy crabs, Spider tanks and the like.
Giant mech apparently is not good enough to save you from extinction. Pulse's human civilization back then has those Ark with them, which are filled with high tech weapons, but they still lost in the natural selection and become extinct.
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Sazh may be LVP in the main game but set it up right and he can very well be the best fighter in the postgame. His gun that boosts chain bonuses plus cold blood make him the best at capping the chain metre, to top that off his blitz does damage off the scale if the target is large enough.
Of course the above isn't strictly an aftergame thing but it doesn't quite rock like it does in the postgame.
Giant mech apparently is not good enough to save you from extinction. Pulse's human civilization back then has those Ark with them, which are filled with high tech weapons, but they still lost in the natural selection and become extinct.
Well yes true but... na I can't argue this as nothing is ever said of what exactly happened to the pulse humans beyond "They died".
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Guess what he is going to do after the humans fell down.
Eat them and poop out lizardmen? Anyway I don't see that happening as Cocoon has the tech to make giant enemy crabs, Spider tanks and the like.
Giant mech apparently is not good enough to save you from extinction. Pulse's human civilization back then has those Ark with them, which are filled with high tech weapons, but they still lost in the natural selection and become extinct.
I kind of figured that most of their advanced equipment was destroyed in the war with Cocoon and then they were wiped out some time after. Oerba is in a glass desert, like you'd get after sustained bombardment with high-energy weapons.
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Sazh may be LVP in the main game but set it up right and he can very well be the best fighter in the postgame. His gun that boosts chain bonuses plus cold blood make him the best at capping the chain metre, to top that off his blitz does damage off the scale if the target is large enough.
Of course the above isn't strictly an aftergame thing but it doesn't quite rock like it does in the postgame.
Giant mech apparently is not good enough to save you from extinction. Pulse's human civilization back then has those Ark with them, which are filled with high tech weapons, but they still lost in the natural selection and become extinct.
Well yes true but... na I can't argue this as nothing is ever said of what exactly happened to the pulse humans beyond "They died".
The Broken Segments mentioned slightly on how Pulse human went extinct. After the war with Cocoon, Pulse humans lost a common enemy, and eventually the human countries turn against each other. So, human at war with themselves+creepy monsters on the plains+Fal'cies making human into L'cies disregarding their circumstances=extinction.
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Sounds like that, yeah, all their advanced equipmnt got trashed in the war and then the Fal'cie came after them since they were defenseless.
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Soooooo. Done now and I can finally say.
It is not jus you. It does sound bad because it manages to be worse than it sounds.
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Sounds like that, yeah, all their advanced equipmnt got trashed in the war and then the Fal'cie came after them since they were defenseless.
I am not sure about losing the high tech part. It seems the Arks are still around in that period.
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Well apparently they planned to use that high tech weaponry to teleport Pulse animals around, so go them. Great attack plan.
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Sounds like that, yeah, all their advanced equipmnt got trashed in the war and then the Fal'cie came after them since they were defenseless.
I am not sure about losing the high tech part. It seems the Arks are still around in that period.
The Arks are sealed away. If you have a riot gun but you put it in a safe and then bury that safe under a bunch of cement, you no longer have a riot gun.
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The way I see it, it is they actively used Arks against one another which killed themselves way faster.
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Yeah, breaking out Lostech to use in combat generally does tend to do that.
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The party doesn't start with PKNintendo.
Oh my Meeple, that description of FFXIII made me laugh. And your raging about the ending was pretty funny (i've never seen you rage)
You guys, I'm inclined to agree/disagree with what you say. Sazh isn't LVP or pretty terrible. Surprisingly his best weapons gives him the highest attacking bonuses in the game. (I think it's like 1000/1000) What this means is that he will beat out Hope/Vanille on offensive and Fang/Snow on Magic.
Still he is rather weak without them so I can see your point. He's a far better synergist than hope due to 2 things.
1. The Maintenance ability (which boosts the duration of buffs) what this means is that he can cast haste or whatnot at the beginning of the battle and have it last until the end of the fight.
2. He can take hits better than hope.
As a Commando/Ravager he doesn't impress (His casting speed is ass but I guess it's mitigated by him attacking twice as a commando) under NORMAL circumstances. Quite frankly, Sazh has the BEST Blitz in the game, bar none. It's a multi attacking move that hits many times and RAPE big enemies. (I'm looking at you Adamantoise) His *cold blood* is arguably on par than Lightning due to simple fact that if builds up chain faster. (Although I'll argue that Lightning's ability to literally *distract* and draw enemy fire is to awesome to pass up.
Don't underestimate Sazh you guys.
Also Lightning is the best Sentinel simply because she has Elude. Elude + Nimbletwo boots + Axis Blade + Speed Scarf (Or CHOICE SCARF) equals=utter rape. Sure she has piss poor HP but she can evade like 90% of the time with that setup so it's moot point.
Here are my impressions for each of the characters in DL. (entirely opinion based)
In general the FFXIII characters are really powerful imo. They are capable of summoning/changing roles and that can really mean the advantage in a pinch.
Lightning (Godlike): With powerful offensive stats, reliable healing and massive speed Lightning will dominate DL for sure. Her only flaw is her slight frailty but that is easily work around able. Army of one builds up her chain and givers her a one bar of her ATB if she's using the Axis blade.
Sazh (Heavy/Godlike): Can buff himself to give himself an early lead. Cold Blood builds chain like crazy will Blitz is really damaging. Maintenance means that his buffs aren't going away either.
Snow (Mid/Heavy): Mostly defensive. He's the best tank in FFXIII and can dish out decent hits, but his offensive abilities aren't too impressive.
Hope (Godlike): Can also buff himself akin to Sazh for an early lead. He doubles as a fantastic medic and triples as an amazing Ravager. He's a juggernaut, but needs to keep himself well protected due to his fraility.
Vanille (Heavy): Debuffs gives her a small chance of OHKOing the opponent with deaths. This won't happen often because debuffs will allow her to deal heavy damage with her ravager spells. She can also heal like Hope.
Fang (Godlike) : Physical monster. She can tank hits (like Snow) but can dish them out (unlike him) with the combination of Saboteur and commando . Surprisingly, she's even decent at being a ravager. (well better than Snow that is)
So yeah when are the FFXIII characters going to be implemented?!?
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Hmm... this -does- make me wonder how you could interpret 'Chains' in the DL. Since Chain is dependent upon an enemy's chain limit value.
I suppose you could take the average chain limit value of all the endgame randoms and use that as the baseline value needed to activate chain mode.
Alternately, since it's a defensive weakness of FF13 enemies more than an offensive property of FF13 PCs... you could just throw it out. I'm not sure how Tallychu is doing it.
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Chaining is a big part of the game I disagree with the notion of throwing it out. EVERYONE can be chained, be it fellow L'cie (Cid) final boss etc.
I say we opt with the average chain limit.
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Average chain resistance (80%) and stagger point (240%) is what I was using.
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Is chaining even relevant 1 on 1? I'm not at endgame yet, but there's absolutely no way that a single character can stagger any enemy by him or herself since Ravagers need another class to maintain chain durations.
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Chaining is because it increases damage. Stagger, not so much. And a few people get both Commando and Ravager in their main roleset (Lightning, Sazh, and Snow).
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Is chaining even relevant 1 on 1? I'm not at endgame yet, but there's absolutely no way that a single character can stagger any enemy by him or herself since Ravagers need another class to maintain chain durations.
Lightning can but I'm not sure on the rest but Sazh and Snow should also be able to also. If you allow summons (Which I do) then it stops being an issue full stop of course.
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Your kidding right?
Sazh is the BEST chain builder in the entire GAME.
His other unique weapon is Antares Deluxe. Antares Deluxe increases Sazh's
chain bonus. Using his unique ability, Cold Blood, Sazh can rapidly stagger as
the leader or in a support role.
Lightning is also pretty decent with Army of one but aside from those 2 I don't think the cast can build up chaining that well.
PS: It was on the last page but will this site ever feature FFXIII characters?
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Lightning is also pretty decent with Army of one but aside from those 2 I don't think the cast can build up chaining that well.
Snow has both Commando and Ravager so I don't see why he can't. He'd just most likely be dead before he can pull it off.
PS: It was on the last page but will this site ever feature FFXIII characters?
Has any PS3/360 game been ranked yet? That needs to change I think and FFXIII sold shedloads so sales won't be an issue. What might be a problem is the shift system as after the shift you start with a full bar half the time.
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major problem with ranking is writers, which FFXIII definitely does not have enough of yet
I'm not as stringent on no. of writers as super is (mainly depends on -which- writers have played it) but yeah FFXIII is definitely not in the running just yet. There might be a XBox 360/PS3 game up in the future, but right now most of them are too low on staff members here to support. Would be nice to have otherwise, but that's not the case!
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I don't suppose I can WRITE for FFXIII.
(probably not) but I'm always here to provide opinion, facts and stats. (I also have the strategy guide)
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It definately has rankable and unique duellers though which is a plus. It will be interesting to see how they translate.
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I figure that FF13 will get at least be considered as a ranking idea. There's not many interp problems and Tal's already making a stat topic, so it certianly translates well enough. We're really just waiting on playership. More internally than externally.
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Army of One and Cold Blood have a chain rating of 0 unless the target is staggered, so they are worthless for getting an enemy to the stagger point. Once the enemy is staggered, they increase chain by quite a bit, but at that point Commando spam is probably more efficient in a duel anyway.
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What do you mean? Can't you just build up stagger with ravager moves, stabilize it with a commando attack and use Army of one/Cold blood to really finish it. I mean it built up the stagger bar really fast...
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Ravager spam raises the chain by about 10-15% to "average" chain resistance, and stagger point is 240%. That's 10-14 turns, not including the times you have to slow down the gauge with Commando. Fights generally won't last that long.
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Late on this, but a lot of your analysis of character stuff is completely and totally aftergame analysis, which is all well and good, but most discussion in this thread regarding character worth is going to be regarding the regular portion of the game (You know, that part that everyone has to play, not just the people that really like it?) which is going to skew character use in different directions. While Sazh is indeed really good during the regular game, the main benefits of Cold Blood and his Blitz do not really apply until you get to those extremes in statistics and the fact that huge enemies are not super common during the regular game.
Remember there is a whole ton of game before Chapter 10 and there is a non-negligible bit after it as well.
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Sazh is still very good throughout the game because he gets haste over hope. He starts to deep slightly during chapter 13 when Hope gets Haste and what not but is makes a comeback post-game.
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Exactly, Sazh is far from bad during the main game, but the big fights that are much of an issue during the main game Haste isn't really an advantage. You go into those fights prebuffed with both offensive and defensive shrouds. So you are more looking at a good healer/Ravager with options of good defensive buffs (so if it is a long fight you are back to being vulnerable after shrouds are gone) compared to Sazh who brings Com/Rav to the table which you have preeeetty solidly covered with Lightning with the ability to rebuff your key offensive buffs after your shrouds run out. Suffice to say if a fight took the 5 minutes or so it takes Shrouds to run out you are looking at a boss that you are turtling against or something where blitzing is just straight up not your best option (That or you are ... really bad at blitzing the enemy?) and if you are looking at one of the enemies with Dispel I would be questioning the net benefit of extra turns spent rebuffing Haste with ones gained over just continuing to deal without the Haste.
He really shines in Randoms where you are likely to get good use out of Haste, he definitely isn't Snow who you either have to leverage into the party or just pretty much never use. Compared to the raw effectiveness of Lightning's setup for most of the game or the things that Vanille, Hope and/or Fang bring to the table from their toolboxes there is no real shock that people are going to be a bit underwhelmed by "Brings Haste and redundant party building skillset".
He is a functional choice and there is definitely situations that he is optimal to apply to, but they aren't situations that you honestly can't get by without him. The person's slot he best fills is Lightning really and using him instead there is akin to using Snow in a party. You have to either forgo a strong defensive option or leverage him into the party because you want to use him. That is absolutely fine, but not everyone is super peachy keen on dropping the raw powerhouse that is Lightning or rejigging their slightly less optimal unhasted party in the situations where you don't need the defensive options that come with having a Sentinel and/or Saboteur or Hope's Synergist skills available (Because you know, reshuffling Paradigm Shifts is not exactly the most fun thing you can be doing.)
Sazh would likely shine far more in a game without Shrouds, but the game has them and they are broken, so boohoo.
Edit - For reference, I used Sazh for a few reasons, one being I like having haste for randoms sometimes and he was the only character in the game I gave 2 shits about, so hey may as well give him a spin right? Well for a game that is all about constantly shifting battle field roles and all characters multi tasking, all but one of Sazh's Paradigms were with him as Ravager with one option of him as Synergist, usually in a Com/Rav/Syn setup that was used to flip between that and Com/Rav/Rav for trash enemy face rolling.
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Ah an avid FFXIII player. I like you.
You also know Sazh well enough so that's good.
(Ironically I didn't like him personally, EVERYBODY seems to like him but eh... I just don't see it)
Meh, Shrouds are very difficult to come by until the end where you can buy them. They are limited in quantity and I ran out REALLY quickly. Maybe you are conservative but once I used them up, I found myself relying on Sazh for the good buffs for a while. Hope was the ******** frail and I figured I need a commando too. Chapter 13 was where I tossed him for hope. Suddenly this BAMF could actually TAKE A HIT, and he learned haste so why use Sazh? He was very weak and he just didn't do it offensively.
(I think we can all say that Light/Fang/Hope just dominates this game)
It wasn't POST game where Sazh picked up use. His Ultimate weapons give him MASSIVE power boosts, and their abilities are too good to pass up. Augment maintenance greatly boosts the duration of buffs and can be useful in many fights. (cough final boss cough) and Stagger maintenance is really haxy.
Don't forgot about Sazh Blitzing adamantoise kill at 1:44 secs. (search it up on youtube)
A character that I found that was LVP was Snow. He was the best sentinal for a while, but why would I use him over Fang who is a lot stronger offensively? One might argue that Snow has the ravagar class but fang as access to the saboteur class. Everyone knows that RAV/RAV/SAB>>>RAV/RAV/RAV
She was also a lot stronger than him and could take a hit. I much preferred Lightning (elude ftw) over him too.
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Ah an avid FFXIII player. I like you.
You also know Sazh well enough so that's good.
(Ironically I didn't like him personally, EVERYBODY seems to like him but eh... I just don't see it)
Snrk. Man, I wish I could troll Grefter so obliviously. <3
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That IS a pretty mean thing to say.
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Eh I have been called worse.
Shrouds are rare enough that I finished the game with like 5 of each without ever purchasing some, so eh. That is with half the side quests done and a good portion of the way made through one run into Orphan's Cradle before I plateaued on Chapter 10 Crystarium and my ability to care. You shouldn't really need to use them for anything other than bosses or maybe some encounters if you really feel like overextending yourself (Deceptisol of course not really mattering). So meh.
I am confused as to what you mean by Sazh doesn't pick up just in the post game because his ultimates are good. Getting your hands on a Trapzahedron to upgrade to a tier 3 weapon takes a retardedly huge amount of time spent cash grinding to be able to afford, well past the point where you have maxed out your Crystarium for the chapter. The final 2 chapters are balanced pretty cleanly around having capped out Tier 2 weapons. I mean you can pretty easilly get that 5 star the final boss trophy with them. Ultimate weapons are pure aftergame grind fuel.
For the record and to get the jokes, I hated this game with a burning passion. But that doesn't mean I can't engage discussion about optimal gameplay and try to give some kind of justification for the views expressed by others in the thread.
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I finished the game with half the side quests done and a good portion of the way made through one run into Orphan's Cradle before I plateaued on Chapter 10 Crystarium and my ability to care.
For the record and to get the jokes, I hated this game with a burning passion.
It amuses how much Grefter hates this game and yet he's certainly played it for much longer than I did.
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I hated ;_; like pretty much the entire way through, and I still played that to more or less completion.
And that's a good 30 hours more than I spent on FF13, and I LIKE FF13!
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I hated ;_; like pretty much the entire way through, and I still played that to more or less completion.
And that's a good 30 hours more than I spent on FF13, and I LIKE FF13!
You hated what now?
Anywho Grefter I wasn't being sarcastic.
I am confused as to what you mean by Sazh doesn't pick up just in the post game because his ultimates are good. Getting your hands on a Trapzahedron to upgrade to a tier 3 weapon takes a retardedly huge amount of time spent cash grinding to be able to afford, well past the point where you have maxed out your Crystarium for the chapter. The final 2 chapters are balanced pretty cleanly around having capped out Tier 2 weapons. I mean you can pretty easilly get that 5 star the final boss trophy with them. Ultimate weapons are pure aftergame grind fuel.
Fair enough sir. The worst of it is that Sazh ultimate weapon takes a Dark Matter. (-_-)
I guess I'll have to do with the Proceons/Sirus Side arms.
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I hated ;_; like pretty much the entire way through, and I still played that to more or less completion.
And that's a good 30 hours more than I spent on FF13, and I LIKE FF13!
You hated what now?
This. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta:_Tears_of_Blood)
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I wish video games cost less, so I wouldn't feel as pressured to finish them (even if I did buy FF13 with games that I hadn't played in years and had no interest in revisiting, like SO4).
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I know you weren't being sarcastic, just wanted to have my opinion of the game on the level. My distaste for the game is uh not really a secret or anything around here, so just putting it out there. Some of what I say may just be me snidely sniping at the game. That doesn't stop me from having a discussion about the finer points of the gameplay.
I can't remember if Dark Matter costs more or less than Trapzehedron, but know enough of them do take it.
Also for why I played so much of it, what Rob said. Coupled with the fact that this was getting a lot of love when it came out as well. Tons of "It really gets good at the end!" stuff being bandied around. You know, one of the things I always back pedal to when I argue about things Djinn is that other than making everything a joke, the other thing I do is to always be a critic. This was a huge release that was getting a lot of big fanfare and love and not much critical analysis. I had spent the money and not only felt like I needed to finish it to justify my money spent (which I got almost entirely through said critical analysis, that was WAY more fun than playing the game was) or playing it just because it was a new Final Fantasy (which is a pretty big draw card anyway, but I never did ever get far in FF12), but I really felt like people that weren't going to play it straight up front for whatever reason (not having a PS3/X-Box being a good case for half the DL?) at least have at least something out there talking more about it than "This is horrible!" or "This is awesome! You can totally use Com/Rav/Rav but I wish Com/Com/Rav didn't change targets." I hated it and said exactly why I did. Whether or not anyone cared or if they just revelled in the drama I don't mind, but I felt compelled to do it and it gave me my money's worth.
After all you were the one that was saying during it that it bothers you when I stomp a game for being boring is that I don't find ways to play it to make it interesting for myself. Well I do, it just happens to not be actually in the game and that is entirely the game's fault.
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Well, Grefter, at very least, I hope you expected me to do one of my mega Meeple Rants when I finished the game, cause its the exact kind of game that deserves it, for good or bad reasons (I've done rants for games I really like and games I've abhored, so my opinion about a game does not determine whether I should rant about it. Heck, I think my first major game rant to that proportion was on Wild ARMs 3, a game I truly respect a lot. This was followed by Arc the Lad 4, a game I have a rather middling opinion of. And then there's the 90 slodge fest that I mentioned earlier...)
Not that this doesn't change the fact that you should be critical, of course, just saying you'd be silly to think I wouldn't do that!
(Ok, I didn't do a full rant on XF, but that was cause I decided to be a total dick and surprise everyone. SO4 as well, but SO4 was cause I did the abridged series of which I felt was probably more amusing.)
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Did I expect Meeple to play an FF game and talk about it incessantly? Sure I did >_> I just got it at release and had a week off just as it did, so yeah.
Edit - And we of course both look for different things in a game, but more importantly, we look at different things in a game.