How Grefter plays the game.
This fails to be compelling.
Well, my reaction to this passage was 'Congrats, you found a strategy that works for beating the game... but if you're not having fun with it, play around with different strategies.' This is generally my reaction to most of the games you complain about. If you complain that a game's options are pointless because you found a viable, but boring, strategy, it doesn't mean that there is no way to have fun with the game. In fact, I would bet that in most cases, there are a number of viable -and- interesting strategies to tackle the game with.
As for you ME2 example, sounds cool. I want to play ME2 when I get a chance.
I don't know what else was I supposed to do? Play the game without debuffing the enemy? Without buffing? Using Commandos only for my offense? Using only Ravagers? The only changes you can really make to the way you play FF13 is to hamstring yourself. Neutering myself in a game I am hating is a horrible way to get enjoyment out of it. Setting yourself challenges in games you like is fine and all well and good (to an extent), but in games you are just trying to beat? Well yeah I am going to use the basic systems the game gives me since it you know, kills things and gets me the 5 stars that the game setup as my challenge in the vast majority of fights. It is also no secret that the things I enjoy the most in games is dismantling their systems piece by piece and to find the most effective way to go about victory. The fact that this is Commando + Ravager and whatever support role you need mixed with level up weapons by throwing shit a them until they cap out (there is a better way to do it of course) kind of leaves me drawing a blank as to what exactly I should have changed to try and make this fun. Should I have played without using emergency defensive paradigms? Should I have fought with the menu to try and use items for healing when it is faster and far less lethal to just shift to something with a Medic? Manually navigating through the menus that I hate to hand pick the skills I don't care about? Hitting Repeat instead of Auto Battle over and over?
For the record I did change party members after everyone is rejoined. I actually did use everyone at some point other than Snow (who just didn't slot into group make ups as well as others), there was certainly some cornerstones like Lightning and Fang who were in most of the parties, but I did get good use out of Vanille, Sazh and Hope (for the record I used Hope at the end of the game, not even really the most optimal choice, I favoured the more defensive focussed buffs he brought). I fiddled with the system, it just was boring.
I did specifically go out of my way to find things that I enjoyed while playing the game, but they were things like listening to Comics podcasts or Wil Wheaton podcasts. I found things to have fun with the game. Critical analysis of the plot and the game design. I certainly have got my $100 worth from being able to engage in debate and discourse about the game (and just being a snarky arsehole) for like a month now. Bad games just keep on giving in ways that good ones cannot.
And yes preperation is a huge part of console RPG type games. The timing and scope of the decisions is different though, be it you are stuck with that party for longer (FF13 is fight by fight you can change it pretty much barring end of chapter/start of chapter stuff) this... is probably one of the highest frequency party member choices I have seen short of an SRPG. What you have each character do is restricted by basic requirements of the combat system, it just straight up doesn't work properly without Com/Rav being applied at some point at least. Character development, FF13 you will pretty much cap out all the characters primary job paths by the end of a chapter whether you use them or not, the Crystarium is so streamlined that it is a pretty transparent illusion of character development choices, you have short term ones of "Which one will I build up right now" that last all of 30 minutes at a time really. In combat you are pretty much faced with the choice of "Do I attack it with this element it is weak to or this OTHER element it is weak to?" or "Do I buff offensively or defensivey", each other role has even more paper thin choices than that (Saboteurs debuff and then use the next one down with basic priority which the AI honestly handles just fine. Commando has Attack or Ruin, which the AI usually handles just fine for which is appropriate (Stupid Sazh stupid fighting stupid melee resistant enemies not using Ruin) sometimes you might AoE I guess. Sentinel uh defends? Medic is which one of these ways do I want to heal and who should I heal). This is all high frequency highly limited choices that are generally prety meaningless or paper thin by the games design. The closest game I can think to it is really FF7. It doesn't matter who you pick in your party really, it matters which materia you apply, which you can chop and change each fight if you want, but you probably won't because pressing X will kill the things pretty much anyway. Yet even still, FF7 manages to be more compelling. How so? Well partly because which materia you picks matters, building them each are mutually exclusive and has a long term effect on what you can and cannot do. It is a choice with a long lasting effect. It is a compelling choice. In a game like FFT you have high frequency short term effect choices (just getting through the fight being your main goal at a given time) and yet each choice is far more compelling, how? Because in most cases what you do will have far greater effect than FF13, what your moves can do is more diverse, what it will cause the enemy to do is more diverse and some of the short term decisions you made to get you through a fight stack up to be your long term character development, each action is a small choice that rolls into a small part of a larger thing which again, makes for a far more compelling game.
So rolling back to the old argument. FF13 is low risk with constantly low reward in most points of its design. This is rare that you will hear me complain about that (normally my issues with risk vs Reward are the stakes being way to high for the reward), but that is mostly because I have been actively avoiding games that promote that kind of choice (Don't worry, you will get more soon, I have a copy of Fable 2 lying around waiting for me to play, then you will get to see me bitching about low risk high reward scenarios). You know what else is low risk:Low reward? Going to work. Well for most of us. Some of us fly to other countries and work high stress jobs for little pay, but then some of us play Demon's Soul for fun as well. So okay. Djinn you get a free pass for liking FF13 because you must just enjoy the chance for something so mundane. That doesn't excuse the rest of the people in Japan though.
Edit - Rant rant rant. I am glad I decided to end that on a joke, that went way longer than I intended it to.
