Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.

[AAA]

*cough*threadderailment*cough*

No talking about videogames in the what videogames are you playing topic. That's final.

[DjinnAndTonic]

MAJOR SPOILERS THROUGHOUT!

It is inconsistent when they don't even -note- anything about it. This could've been dealt with a lot less idiotically with paying more attention to details, fleshing out what they say and what they think a little bit more.


 They tried to paint her as sympathetic, but they simply gave absolutely no plausible reason to have the audience give that sympathy under any sort of logical scrutiny. It's not the trope. It's the writing. The point lies entirely elsewhere.

I think we've argued to a point where we mostly agree?

The threat placed on Anise is inconsistant with her ability to cope with it. I completely see this, it's as if two writing teams were in charge of these scenarios and forgot to talk to each other.

The point of contention that I have is that one writing team saw the basic outline of the scenario and decided that the party would be sympathetic to Anise's betrayal, as if she was forced into the situation and had no real recourse. The party was able to get past the betrayal quickly because the situation was supposed to be dire and understandable, not to mention that all of the party members had good reason to be understanding of betrayal.

The other writing team failed at making a credible threat for Anise.

Like Cmdr said, it does seem like 'He's threatening my parents' is a reasonable threat in a vacuum, but it was handled poorly. If the threat had been credible, the rest of the writing works rather synergistically.

When I played the game, I didn't pay too much attention to the actual specifics of how Mohs was controlling Anise, but based on all the other parts of the story, the threat was treated as pretty dire, so thanks to suspension of disbelief, I was able to ignore the gaping plot hole that Mohs wasn't really a big problem to deal with. I just accepted 'Mohs must've got Anise good if she did all that', and the logical conclusion to that was 'Well, he got her pretty good, it makes sense that the party would forgive her'.

There is bad writing here, but it's just one piece of bad writing while the rest of the story is holding the correct framework. Sure, it needs to be fixed, but you're going out of your way to infer too many unfortunate implications (Anise is horribly disloyal, she's braindead, the party is reacting inconsistantly, etc.) while I've taken up the stance of 'well, it wasn't a very detailed scenario, but I'll assume the details fell into place off-screen'.

This discrepancy is where the understandable difference of opinion occurs.

-Djinn

[Yakumo]

So what you're basically saying, Djinn, is that you're forgiving shitty writing because if it had been handled right it could have been good writing?  Uh, that seems like more of a reason to hate it than a reason to cut it slack. 

[SentinelSix]

Haven't touched an JRPG since Star Ocean came out for the PS2 around 4+ years ago but decided to get back into the genre today after getting sick of spending all my free time on one game (WoW of course). I remember coming to this site way way back in the day and being upset about not being able to vote for my favorite characters when they went up against someone from a game I never played. Now that list of games is way larger and I have a lot of catching up to do.

Decided to start off light by playing Final Fantasy I on the PSP since my PS2 doesn't seem to work after not using it for a few years. Got through the main story pretty quickly with a Knight/Ninja/W. Wizard/B. Wizard easily without having to reset. The story was just plain bad (although I wasn't expecting anything) and it was a chore to get through the dungeons with all the random encounters combined with outdated battle mechanics. Cleared the Soul of Chaos dungeons as well while filling the bestiary with all the monsters inside. Stacking multiple tempers with a haste just makes all the bosses trivial. Only trouble I had was with Omega in the Water dungeon as I went in with 1/3 MP on my W. Wizard and was being stingy with my Dry Ethers.

Currently making my way through multiple Labyrinth of Time runs to get the last 7 question marks of my bestiary out of the way. The puzzles in the exclusive dungeon are probably the best part of the game but I encountered a weird bug(?) where the red seals wouldn't activate no matter what I did so I gave up there. Will plan on replaying this game eventually to get 100% on the artwork but it will def be in the far far future.  Would switch out Ninja and Black Wizard for Monk and Red Wizard next time.

I don't have a wide variety of games to play after this. I ordered Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth online which should be coming soon and have Golden Sun and Breath of Fire that I haven't played for the GBA but I really want to get my hands on a console game after FFI. I'm very tempted to get a 60 GB PS3 from ebay right now but they are so expensive. =(

[DjinnAndTonic]

So what you're basically saying, Djinn, is that you're forgiving shitty writing because if it had been handled right it could have been good writing?  Uh, that seems like more of a reason to hate it than a reason to cut it slack. 

It was one mistake, I can forgive it. It's a long game. There were several moments when the writers dropped the ball on the details, but the overall story was quite enjoyable to me and the biggest mistakes seem to stem from a lack of detail rather than a lot of contradiction. Considering the game is too long anyway, I can forgive them for cutting some things short and moving on.

Really, what Cmdr said is incredibly applicable. If the threat had been a little more detailed and beyond the scope of Anise's ability to handle, then all the pieces falls into place. I honestly don't think it's unreasonable to assume that Mohs has enough minions to ensure that Anise's parents could be offed at a moment's notice and that this threat could grab Anise by the figurative balls. But again, it's not a detailed scenario, and I made that assumption based on how the rest of the story played out. I don't think you always necessarily have to be told ALL the details of the 'diabolical blackmail plot' to come to the conclusion that the blackmailee's hands were tied. It would seem a little heavy-handed and 'supervillain'-y. Not to mention that it would drag out a scenario when you're already 3/4 through the game.

[Monkeyfinger]

VC- In spite of my fairly longish post complaining about hte game, I'm still playing it and having a ton of fun. Just cleared mission 11 (Marberry shore) in three turns. I did not expect *that* type of plot twist, I'll say that much.

That plot twist raged the fuck out of me. I thought JRPGs had gotten over that kind of shit.

Since it could literally be years before I ever get a chance to play VC, would you mind including what the twist is? Spoiler-tagged for those who are playing of course. I'm really curious about this.

An important but not playable NPC who travels with the party (think Ion here) gets shot in the torso by a sniper and dies from it. Note that VC, like other games which pissed me off by doing this (like FF7 and OB64), has a godlike form of revival in the gameplay.

If there's one RPG plot trope, both western and japanese, that never fails to piss me off, it's glaring inconsistencies between mechanics and story. Character deaths like VC's are among the worsrt of the worst, here.

Oh, and when I say "I thought JRPGs had gotten over that kind of shit." I don't mean inconsistencies between story and gameplay in general, but rather the particularly stomach turning incarnation of it where someone, say, dies from being shot in the chest while surrounded by party members in a game where people live through being headshot with an anti-tank rocket in a chaotic shootout where everyone is separated.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Hiya, SentinelSix. Welcome, hope you enjoy your stay.

[Yakumo]

So what you're basically saying, Djinn, is that you're forgiving shitty writing because if it had been handled right it could have been good writing?  Uh, that seems like more of a reason to hate it than a reason to cut it slack. 

It was one mistake, I can forgive it. It's a long game. There were several moments when the writers dropped the ball on the details, but the overall story was quite enjoyable to me and the biggest mistakes seem to stem from a lack of detail rather than a lot of contradiction. Considering the game is too long anyway, I can forgive them for cutting some things short and moving on.

Really, what Cmdr said is incredibly applicable. If the threat had been a little more detailed and beyond the scope of Anise's ability to handle, then all the pieces falls into place. I honestly don't think it's unreasonable to assume that Mohs has enough minions to ensure that Anise's parents could be offed at a moment's notice and that this threat could grab Anise by the figurative balls. But again, it's not a detailed scenario, and I made that assumption based on how the rest of the story played out. I don't think you always necessarily have to be told ALL the details of the 'diabolical blackmail plot' to come to the conclusion that the blackmailee's hands were tied. It would seem a little heavy-handed and 'supervillain'-y. Not to mention that it would drag out a scenario when you're already 3/4 through the game.

Well, you're free to disagree of course, but to me if they were that close to getting it right and still managed to fuck it up that much, that's worse than having the whole thing be a trainwreck through and through.  That it could have made sense if they had made a bigger threat shows that they should have made that bigger threat, not that we should just ignore the fact that they didn't have a credible threat and screwed that up.

[Dark Holy Elf]

MORE SPOILERS


Interesting discussion going on.

The idea that the reactions at Akzeriuth (and hence, the ones lategame with Anise as well) stem from the party's own feelings of betrayal is an interesting one, but I have trouble swallowing it. Jade has pronouncedly different reactions each time, when he has no reason to. Tear never seemed at all bothered by "betraying" her brother. Guy there's some semblance of decent point with. Anise herself of course works wonderfully. Ultimately, though, I can't swallow it; I think you're giving the writers too much credit. I can buy giving them that much credit at least, but I don't have a high enough opinion of the game's writing to do it.

[DjinnAndTonic]

POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR VALKYRIA CHRONICLES!!!?

Monkey: Doesn't VC have perma-death? And a stage between 0HP 'recoverable' and 0HP 'permanently gone'? It seems reasonable to assume that the person in question is 'perma-dead'.

It actually sounds like a decent aversion of the 'gameplay vs. story' discrepancy... If PCs can perma-die, why shouldn't NPCs?

END POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR VALKYRIA CHRONICLES!!!

@SentinelSix: Golden Sun has fun puzzles. A lot of them. And a cool mix-and-match system for your puzzle-solving skills. If you like that sort of thing, I highly recommend it. Otherwise, GS doesn't really stand out. Welcome to the DL and all! Enjoy the frenzy!

-Djinn

EDIT:

Well, you're free to disagree of course,

Okay.

To me it felt like a minor mistake that was easy to gloss over from the way it was presented in the game. The game didn't feel the need to focus on it too much and I didn't care about Anise enough to focus all that much on it either. The game felt like it was picking up speed and getting to the conclusion and I was ready to see more important things than the details of Mohs' 'Mwahaha, this is how I've controlled your life, little girl!' scheme.

[Monkeyfinger]

Use size=2pt, in brackets, to discuss VC spoilers, Djinn.

Like in FFT, there's only permadeath in VC if you really mess up. When a character reaches 0 HP, he's knocked out. If a living ally touches this character, he is evacuated, and out of commission for the rest of the battle, but back at full capacity in the next one - he doesn't even miss out on experience. The character dies if touched by an enemy, or if left on the ground for 3 turns.

The character who dies in VC is with all the major characters in the party. There's no excuse for her to die, if the mechanics mean anything.

[DjinnAndTonic]

MORE SPOILERS


Interesting discussion going on.

The idea that the reactions at Akzeriuth (and hence, the ones lategame with Anise as well) stem from the party's own feelings of betrayal is an interesting one, but I have trouble swallowing it. Jade has pronouncedly different reactions each time, when he has no reason to. Tear never seemed at all bothered by "betraying" her brother. Guy there's some semblance of decent point with. Anise herself of course works wonderfully. Ultimately, though, I can't swallow it; I think you're giving the writers too much credit. I can buy giving them that much credit at least, but I don't have a high enough opinion of the game's writing to do it.

Debating authorial intent will get us nowhere quickly. I've always believed that a good piece of writing can go beyond what the author intends anyway. A viewer has to bring their own experience to any work that they enjoy.

Just on Tear, I think she has enough scenes with Legretta to show that she had some closeness to her life before she started her quest to kill her brother, and she seems to remember that time fondly, even though she is more embittered now.
She's also constantly being told by Luke that she -should- feel ashamed of 'betraying' her brother in the beginning. Of course, being told this makes her argumentative and outwardly more resolved in her choice. Even though towards the end of the game, she expresses some feelings of distaste for needing to kill her only living kin. It really doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that she's a bit embittered by Luke's betrayal because she feels guilty about betraying Legretta et al. Though, I'd say the primary reason for the difference between her reaction to Luke and to Anise stems from the fact that Anise was manipulated by MOHS, the same person who played Tear for the first half of the game or so.



END SPOILERS TALES OF THE ABYSS

[Shale]

The only thing I have to add to the "Anise sucks" commentary is that she not only could have broken someone out of Daath while Mohs was imprisoning them there, she did, with Ion early in the game. From a heavily fortified military installation, while her parents were being held in...their bedroom. And had the freedom to roam the citadel. On the party's forgiveness, I think the primary factor motivating that was the fact that the plot was nearing the home stretch and there wasn't time to wedge in a redemption subplot for Anise, nor did they want to yank her out of the party for long that close to the ending (endgame boss fights are not the time for forced party configurations), so writing was subordinated to gameplay. Understandable, but it still makes for bad writing.

Anyway! Stuff I'm playing.

SRWZ: Stage 22 finished. Ouch. Had to start the stage over from scratch when I forgot Timp would send out the Government after his landship exploded, and then I kept losing heavy-hitter robots on turn 2 or 3, requiring massive in-battle save spamming. But I pulled it off! I've never been so relieved to see Shadow Angels. Also, the Getter introduction is still funny, even in moon language.

Portal: Yes, I finally gave in. It's pretty much all it's cracked up to be. Great engine, nice gameplay, meticulous design, GLaDOS is a hoot. Saved in the middle of the thirteenth test.

[Hunter Sopko]

Wasn't that before Mohs had gone insane though? I mean, Mohs was a dick in the beginning, but he didn't really turn genocidal until halfway through. You get the sense from the NPCs at Daath that despite his hawkishness, Mohs is pretty well-respected. The whole family owed Mohs, and it seemed to me that at first it was more just Mohs asking Anise to keep tabs on the party and Anise agreeing, since she had no real attachment to the party. Even with Ion, I don't really think anyone (except the player) expected Mohs to become a murderous madman, so it probably seemed harmless to her. By the time Mohs HAD turned crazy, didn't Anise's parents sort of disappear from their normal NPC spots?

EDIT: I'm not saying this all absolves Anise of her stupidity. She still made the wrong choice. I would argue though that it makes her a less likable character, not a worse character overall.

[Niu]

Majin Tensei 3-

...I lack words, they degree how "nice" YHWH and his angelic goons have gotten... is impressive. Remiel actually ISN'T against the idea of human controlling the demons through the server. This would be totally unthinkable back in SMT2 time. Hell, Remiel even suggests making the main the lord of devils as a way to make him the new Messiah. I seriously lack words, what went wrong in YHWH's mind?

[Hunter Sopko]

::Kicks:: Get on AIM, Niu. We need to talk about the winter anime lineup.

[Grefter]

*cough*threadderailment*cough*

My step-brother-in-5-days just got 4000 Wii points and we went on a classic platformer spree. Got Sonic 3., Super Mario Bros. 1 and 3, Super Mario World, and Donkey Kong Country. Kickass, and hard to decide what to work on first. I forgot how much fun Donkey Kong Country was.

There is no Toe Jam and Earl here.  This is a sad thing.

Regarding Anise, if Jade was cool with just killing her later if she betrayed them again then he is sucking as an emotionless sociopath.  He should have either tried to convince her that her parents don't matter, killed her next time he saw her (what use is she to the party at that point exactly?) after finding out.  The thing that really shits me about the whole thing is that you have burned, killed and maimed your way through Daath like TWICE in the plot before that, just go grab Guy or some other soft easy sucker to go grab your parents and run like a bitch.  The forces in the city were nothing before the party the entire time they were hostile.  Anise plot is epic stupid.  Everyone else has pretty much covered why she is hands down the worst written character in the game.

[Hunter Sopko]

The difference in that being that they knew Mohs needed to keep Ion alive, whereas Anise's parents were pretty expendable and were being held on the threat of death. It's a lot easier to just charge in when the enemy has to keep the prisoner alive.

[Grefter]

Except there is no difference because they were already in there ripping out dudes spines.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Regarding Anise, if Jade was cool with just killing her later if she betrayed them again then he is sucking as an emotionless sociopath.  He should have either tried to convince her that her parents don't matter, killed her next time he saw her (what use is she to the party at that point exactly?) after finding out. 

I'm pretty sure Anise's use to the party is about on-par with Guy's at that point - she's just a good fighter/mage and the party isn't exactly swimming in resources.

[Fudozukushi]

Let' not forget she could have easily ran them out when Mohs was in jail!  Or told the party when Mohs was in jail!

[superaielman]

VC spoilers:

Don't agree with Monkey here, the death wasn't badly.  Not only is the NPC a noncombatant, you can get one shotted in the game especially early on. More to the point it was after a long, brutal map and the entire subplot of the area is that you were going to take casualties in the best possible setup to get through the area. The game has a permadeath mechanic- you die if an enemy touches you after going to HP-0- have to have the medic take you off the battlefield in order to survive.

Just liberated Bruhl (Map 12) in VC. God do snipers and engineers blow as enemies and PC's.

[Grefter]

You are thinking about it wrong Djinn, it has nothing to do with her gameplay worth.  At that point Anise was someone who had consistently and rather subversively betrayed the party, she was under coercion by the enemy to keep doing it "if she does it again" is treating Jade like an abused housewife, not a sociopath.  She wasn't in the party, she was against the party and was an incredibly effective double agent who had shown no innitiative to triple cross her owner.

[DjinnAndTonic]

You are thinking about it wrong Djinn, it has nothing to do with her gameplay worth.  At that point Anise was someone who had consistently and rather subversively betrayed the party, she was under coercion by the enemy to keep doing it "if she does it again" is treating Jade like an abused housewife, not a sociopath.  She wasn't in the party, she was against the party and was an incredibly effective double agent who had shown no innitiative to triple cross her owner.

To be honest, I'm not trying to analyze Jade very much at all. I do not presume to being able to predict his motives or reactions. But yes, your description of sociopath rings true. Ultimately, Jade will kill them all anyway. It's just a question of when.

-Djinn

[Excal]

So, let's start talking about better games, shall we?

Anyways, not sure where I was when last talking about P3, but...  I'm in mid-September, and moving towards October.  Currently trying to decide if I want to go for the rare enemy jobs since those are freaking annoying to do and the rewards don't seem that great.  Levels are low 40's for everyone but Shinji who is in the low 50's by now (not that his level really translates well to in battle skill).  Also maxed Magician and Emperor, getting close on Hermit, and at least have everything started but Empress, Tower, and World (Game calls it Aeon for some odd reason).  But, Persona 3 is sad, for it is currently losing out to...


Mana Khemia

Yeah, borrowed games get priority over games I own.  Anyways, mowing through this fairly quickly, and am currently done with classes for Chapter 5.  General impressions are that in most ways it's, well...  sub P3.  And oddly similar enough for my mind to be making connections, despite being completely different in tone.  That said, despite being close victories, Flay > Junpei, Vayne > Shinji, and the battle systems are about equal.  P3 gets points for being quick, fluid, and just challenging enough.  MK, when it actually lets you use the system, gets points for letting you actually spam your SP moves while still giving you reasonable limitations.  I think it'll take over when the card system actually gets going, or I, y'know, get more SP.  As it is, I need to gear my equips to SP gains in order to let Flay use one of his skills at all.  Also, Chapter 4 is mildly insulting in that they give you the main game mechanic, and then they take it away from you for the final dungeon and fights of the chapter.  What the hell?  It's bad enough that you need to fight just to get to that point, just to lose out on the best place to ruddy well showcase it?!  And in a really old and contrived scene to boot?!

At least Flay was freaking awesome in it.


And...  random SRWs.

Nearing the end of OG1, which is my portable game of choice at the moment.  SRX cheese is go, though now I have a L. Generator on it and White Star backing, so decombining is taking a back seat to TK Burst Slash cheese.  Irm is still the best character in my army for the long haul, even without SP Regen.  Mostly because his Darkness Slash can hold up to TK Burst Slash and he can spam three of them a round and still get his EN cost back through White Star regen.  Nothing else really to say there.

And I've been playing a bit of AG.  Currently just got to the point where I path split the first time.  Going with the GX in order to get the G-Bits and the other thing you can unlock on that route.  Looks better than the Turn-A bonus of just getting yet another pilot.  Though, I am missing me my YFs.  Those things were fun, and I was so excited about what a souped up YF-19 would look like.