|
Hellioning posted:Bravely Default and Octopath Traveler are not Final Fantasy by name alone, tbh. I like it when characters actually interact with each other though, which Octopath doesn't have. And stories that aren't just ramming straight into every standard fantasy trope, which the SNES and PSX era FFs were pretty good about for their time.
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 08:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 11, 2024 03:40 |
|
|
The other thing that distinguishes FF, I think, is its dedication to continually reinventing itself. The sheer variety of settings and conceits across the series is tough to find elsewhere.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 08:52
|
|
|
bewilderment posted:I like it when characters actually interact with each other though, which Octopath doesn't have. Didn’t you loving love it when the game revealed that all the villains knew each other and were working together because…uh…we haven’t written that far, yet.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 08:54
|
|
|
bewilderment posted:What are the best Final Fantasy-like games that are not actually Final Fantasy? Mostly I'm thinking about the way FF settings (at least from, say, 4 to 12) tend to be original, have a cast of different characters that feel like more than stereotypes, have gameplay that's decent but not particularly difficult, and stories that are not rear end. As mentioned, the Bravely Default series is Final Fantasy in all but name. Bravely Second in particular is less interested in evoking the tone of Final Fantasy 1 through 5, and you won't be too lost if you want to skip right to it. Your criteria seem to emphasize writing rather than gameplay, so I'll skip the recommendation for Crystal Project. The Xenoblade series has detailed settings and layered characters who interact with each other, and have a lot of former Square and Square Enix staff in lead creative roles. Each stands alone. I don't know particularly which games in the Legend of Heroes meta-series will satisfy you, but I'm confident that one of them will be what you're looking for. Just to calibrate the suggestions, how do you feel about Dragon Quest?
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 09:09
|
|
|
Bongo Bill posted:Just to calibrate the suggestions, how do you feel about Dragon Quest? Dragon Quest 8 and 11 were both good in their own way but also felt like I was watching the video game adaptation of an anime for 10 year olds. Which isn't an outright criticism but FF at least tends to be 'anime for 13 year olds'. FF seems to have a particular quality to its writing (at least when it's good) that's rare to find elsewhere. I don't even like FF8 much but the bit where Irvine freezes up and Squall facepalms as it immediately cuts away is good poo poo. Other jrpgs I've tried real life they'd make a weird "oh you" scene out of it. It almost seems weird to say it but unlike many other games... FF has good comedic timing.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 09:37
|
|
|
Xenoblade is good (3 most so) but if what you’re looking for is like, real characters having real human emotions and being even somewhat clever steer loving clear of that series, everyone in it is some flavor of moron. I would say also your best bet overall is the legend of heroes series, most notably trails of cold steel. Unlike the legions of YouTube explainers or vaguely smug super fans variously claiming that OHH NOOO YOU HAVE TO START WITH TRAILS IN THE SKY AND ALSO READ FAN TRANSLATIONS OF ALL THE UNRELEASED GAMES IN ORDER TO START HOW DARE YOU just start with trails of cold steel and go back to the other games if you really like it, you will be genuinely lost at points because the series makes fuckin’ zero attempts to even somewhat contextualize character introductions or moments and just expects that you’ve played 500+ hours of video games before starting this one, and some of its tie-ins to previous games are genuinely huge moments and not just cameos or asides, but honestly in my opinion that’s a failure of the game and series that it doesn’t do even the bare minimum of hand-holding when it introduces a past element. Cold Steel is the most modern, and the most modern feeling, and actually feels like a game that’s designed to be fun out of the gate unlike TitS which feels like twenty hours of studying and the slowest paced and most turgid plotting before it finally takes the limiter off. Again though these aren’t really final fantasy games, in tone or in execution. It’s more of like this crazy huge narrative saga that dovetails all around the world and again, kind of expects you to play not only every game in order and completely understand exactly what’s going on, but also keep the hundreds of hours of lore at the front of your mind every time they release a new game. Like, the games are good. The games are really really good. But go into it with the expectation that if you like cold steel 1 you should immediately back to back it with cold steel 2 or you will have no idea what in the gently caress is going on in 2 if you let the plot of 1 settle for even a minute. And, to be honest, you should fairly soon after beating 2 play 3 and then 4, you kind of get lucky because 3 starts off with a time skip and as a matter of course you can sort of drop it for a little while if all that loving jrpg is wearing you out. NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 09:59 on Dec 22, 2022 |
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 09:52
|
|
|
bewilderment posted:Dragon Quest 8 and 11 were both good in their own way but also felt like I was watching the video game adaptation of an anime for 10 year olds. I think the general thing I would say sets Final Fantasy apart from other JRPGs--well, when it wants to be one--is its ambition and earnestness. With the prominent exception of Atlus (who's doing their own crazy thing), a lot of JRPGs tend to both play it safe with their general production values and gameplay, and seem afraid of taking the whole venture too seriously. A lot of those JRPGs are still very good, sure, but a lot of the genre is plagued by a desire to play it way too safe and to not tell a story that's too heavy or weird. It's actually why I put forward Xenoblade instantly over the Bravely and Octopath games; while I like that they exist, they're undeniably very conservative and drat near afraid of being ambitious, wanting to instead be basically a time capsule of SNES-era Final Fantasy (and aren't as good at that as they think they are, either). Xenoblade, for all its faults, is ALWAYS swinging for the fences.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 10:44
|
|
|
Actually the more I think about it the more you might prefer Ys, to be honest, the ostensibly “inferior” Falcom series. It’s a lot easier to get into and although the narratives are never really anything to write home about they have fun characters and are basically always trying for different things at least in mechanics and setting, and the writing is fun although cliched. Again, it’s not really trying to be FF but I feel like I need to make this crystal clear: don’t play FF ripoffs, they loving suck and have no depth and are often some of the most irritatingly written garbage in the genre. Lookin’ at you, Bravely Default, with your 60 hours of horseshit wasting my time on the dumbest group of brain dead protagonists you have ever seen.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 10:52
|
|
|
NieR Occomata posted:The only exceptions to this rule are basically just rip-offs, where it’s a game just trying to ape final fantasy and has nothing particularly interesting or insightful to say, and just wants to be “more of that”. Lost Odyssey is a good example of that, where if it didn’t have the thousand years of dreams it’d be a 3d clone of FF4 and has basically nothing going for it. Most notably of those are the Bravely and Octopath series, and to a lesser extent triangle strategy, which feel like completely soulless carbon copies of FF games with no original ideas and barely any story to them, all awfully written with paper thin characterization. This is really what I've found to the point that it kind of weirds me out. There's these games that are just aping tropes instead of writing characters. I played Scarlet Nexus on gamepass for a bit and enjoyed the gameplay but it eventually becomes clear that the party members are written from a point of view of mashing together Anime Personality Trope + Unique Weapon + Power and then giving them a role in the plot after that and it all does feel very artificially constructed in that sense. FF Type-0 also has this problem. Of all the throwback indie RPGs in recent years it seems weird to have a real lack of throwback to "what if we emulated FF4 to 10, including characters that don't suck and are more than a bundle of tired tropes stuck together". Cecil in FF4 was original for his time! He started the game as a commander of armed forces, and he had a pre-established romantic relationship! He didn't start the game as a teenage boy starting their first day at War Academy or whatnot. Weirdly this is rarely duplicated since! (As a Suikodenlike, Exit Fate was decent) bewilderment fucked around with this message at 11:07 on Dec 22, 2022 |
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 11:04
|
|
|
I don't think "military commander with a girlfriend" is any better writing than "teenage recruit at magical military academy." Honestly that's a weird thing to say. What matters is... how they write them. That's what writing means. Like, that's not to say that there aren't a bunch of derivative stories that don't really have anything to say other than mashing together stuff they've liked before, but also if that's the beginning and end of your analysis then it's even shallower than the tropes you hate.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 11:11
|
|
|
Too many YA JRPG stories Where's the Pokemon game about the divorced alcoholic dad that no longer believes in Santa Claus? Or the retired police officer that gets a Digimon?
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 11:14
|
|
|
I actually think the triptych of those games from that company - Code Vein, God Eater Burst, and Scarlet Nexus - where it’s them aping another game (Dark Souls, Monster Hunter, and DMC) and injecting like 500% more anime is at least trying to be more than it is with their weird rear end stories and narratives, with unique and at least somewhat interesting settings, they all just suffer by being unbearably horny as all hell and not having the gameplay chops to pull off the games they are aping. They are inventive and actually trying for something, I’ll give them that, which is more than I can say for the boring, tired deathmarch of whatever Silicon Studio and/or Acquire has tossed out.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 11:14
|
|
|
RareAcumen posted:Too many YA JRPG stories I mean, that's just the new Yakuza games, right?
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 11:17
|
|
|
Clarste posted:I don't think "military commander with a girlfriend" is any better writing than "teenage recruit at magical military academy." Honestly that's a weird thing to say. What matters is... how they write them. That's what writing means. Stocke from Radiant Historia was also nice. Writing matters but the point with Cecil - and Stocke - is that they both feel like they actually existed in the world they live in before the game started. They have feelings about the characters around them already and other characters have feelings about them already, even before the game starts. Meanwhile - I've played Persona 3 4 5 and enjoyed them but it's explicit in most that nobody knows the main character and you're a blank slate to them. Even in something like Trails in the Sky (I feel like I should go back to it - I barely started it) our heroes start as newbies in the guild. edit: NieR Occomata posted:I actually think the triptych of those games from that company - Code Vein, God Eater Burst, and Scarlet Nexus - where it’s them aping another game (Dark Souls, Monster Hunter, and DMC) and injecting like 500% more anime is at least trying to be more than it is with their weird rear end stories and narratives, with unique and at least somewhat interesting settings, they all just suffer by being unbearably horny as all hell and not having the gameplay chops to pull off the games they are aping. They are inventive and actually trying for something, I’ll give them that, which is more than I can say for the boring, tired deathmarch of whatever Silicon Studio and/or Acquire has tossed out. I've played through at least a third of Scarlet Nexus and in its favour I can say that it's not just purely aping DMC, it's really doing its own thing. The basic combat loop is simplistic but it's actually closer to Control + KingdomHearts than it is to DMC. I just got to the part where the story gets very dumb and if I was playing through as the male character Yuito it would probably seem even dumber and while I don't like the plot, at least it is a little different than standard. double edit: I really need to finish Y:LAD. I don't really know why I haven't. bewilderment fucked around with this message at 11:22 on Dec 22, 2022 |
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 11:18
|
|
|
Cleretic posted:I mean, that's just the new Yakuza games, right? Like a Dragon is literally the best Dragon Quest game ever made yes. It’s also maybe the best title of anything ever - it’s a triple entendre!
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 11:20
|
|
|
Trails in the Sky definitely has the leads with preexisting relationships to the world around them. Even the people at the guild are already super familiar with them. As for Persona, well, I also loathe blank slate self-insert protagonists but honestly that doesn't seem too popular outside of Atlus these days.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 11:21
|
|
|
Again though TitS feels less like a game and more like homework. You might be into that but it’s not just a game but multiple games that are essentially just prologues, and it’s something Falcom does over and over and over throughout the series. Cold Steel 1, ostensibly a somewhat fresh reboot for the series, really just ends up being one long prologue to 2, and it’s honestly kind of infuriating how the game series makes literally no effort to actually introduce players to its world and how every game is sort of this formless sludge that usually just sort of oozes into and out of the next and previous games. It’s like a badly written Netflix show where none of the episodes are stand-alone or have any real structure, it’s just sort of this morass of story that fully expects you to be 100% on top of every single one of the dozens of concurrent storylines and characters going around at any given time. Except instead of episodes, these are 80 hour rpgs.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 11:36
|
|
|
They're good actually
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 11:47
|
|
|
NieR Occomata posted:Again though TitS feels less like a game and more like homework. Okay back to bed grandpa
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 11:55
|
|
|
I'm not going to say the Trails series is good, because to be perfectly honest I hate talking to NPCs in towns and that's 70% of the game, but when we're specifically talking about what makes FF writing different and someone mentions "characters having preexisting relationships instead of being blank slates"...
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 12:09
|
|
|
kirbysuperstar posted:Okay back to bed grandpa idk playing a series of 80 hour prologues that make Dickens seem snappy kinda seems like the grandpa position here
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 12:14
|
|
|
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCHEFTsaPYE
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 12:16
|
|
|
RareAcumen posted:Or the retired police officer that gets a Digimon? I think this happens in Cyber Sleuth
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 12:22
|
|
|
Anyway Trails is good. And the games which are entirely world building and character interactions that largely serve as prologues to later games are probably the best of them.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 12:24
|
|
|
I think the part of Trails that truly loving lost me and made me realize this series really needs a loving editor was at the end of cold steel 2 when you eke out this massive, hard-fought victory then have this emotional, tearful goodbye to all these characters you’ve spent like 150 hours getting to know and it kind of just definitively closes the book on the ongoing narrative up until that point in a powerful and impactful way…only to then have you play a five hour epilogue starring two characters you’ve never loving heard of, doing an event you have no personal connection to, who originate and exist from a game that has not only not been released in the us but has never even been translated out of Japanese. Like, who the gently caress thought that was a good idea? Who the gently caress even cares besides having to service every single disparate plot at all times and the lore weirdos who demand you somehow stay abreast of like 50+characters and their discrete motivations covering like six different countries simultaneously?
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 12:37
|
|
|
CS2 is bad, but the epilogue is arguably one of the few good parts
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 12:39
|
|
|
wonder if the emperor appearing in SOP (with his Dissidia VA as well) is an indication we might get a new Dissidia (or a remaster of Duodecim)
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 12:42
|
|
|
NieR Occomata posted:I think the part of Trails that truly loving lost me and made me realize this series really needs a loving editor was at the end of cold steel 2 when you eke out this massive, hard-fought victory then have this emotional, tearful goodbye to all these characters you’ve spent like 150 hours getting to know and it kind of just definitively closes the book on the ongoing narrative up until that point in a powerful and impactful way…only to then have you play a five hour epilogue starring two characters you’ve never loving heard of, doing an event you have no personal connection to, who originate and exist from a game that has not only not been released in the us but has never even been translated out of Japanese. Like, who the gently caress thought that was a good idea? Who the gently caress even cares besides having to service every single disparate plot at all times and the lore weirdos who demand you somehow stay abreast of like 50+characters and their discrete motivations covering like six different countries simultaneously? That's not an issue with the game, that's an issue with the localization of the series being a goddamn mess. The west is only just officially getting the last of the games starring the character you're referring to next year.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 13:40
|
|
|
I like video games.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 13:58
|
|
|
Idk, poo poo seems like a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” thing wrt localization since the Crossbell games end with Osborne annexing Crossbell after the first part of the CS2 finale happened, and gonna be honest, knowing that seems like it would make the events of CS2 less impactful cause then we know he didn’t actually die the whole time. I guess it’s subjective but I kinda prefer that playing out of order meant I wasn’t waiting for Osborne to step out of the shadows and reveal that he was waiting for the right moment since it’s more tragic that way.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 14:00
|
|
|
FrostyPox posted:I like video games. Them’s fighting words, pal
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 15:16
|
|
|
NieR Occomata posted:I think the part of Trails that truly loving lost me and made me realize this series really needs a loving editor was at the end of cold steel 2 when you eke out this massive, hard-fought victory then have this emotional, tearful goodbye to all these characters you’ve spent like 150 hours getting to know and it kind of just definitively closes the book on the ongoing narrative up until that point in a powerful and impactful way…only to then have you play a five hour epilogue starring two characters you’ve never loving heard of, doing an event you have no personal connection to, who originate and exist from a game that has not only not been released in the us but has never even been translated out of Japanese. Like, who the gently caress thought that was a good idea? Who the gently caress even cares besides having to service every single disparate plot at all times and the lore weirdos who demand you somehow stay abreast of like 50+characters and their discrete motivations covering like six different countries simultaneously? They had the current main protag fight the previous one because his country invaded theirs and the game was developed when english localization of Trails was seemingly dead in the water OP
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 15:28
|
|
|
I don't know who posted it first but think of FF vs DQ as two different restaurants. FF is hip trendy restaurant always trying new things but usually good. You go there when you want to experience new things. DQ is your favorite comfort food joint: you go there because you know what you're getting.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 15:39
|
|
|
Dragon Quest, the Denny’s of video games
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 15:40
|
|
|
It’s the IHOP. 
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 15:48
|
|
|
FF is the artsy post-punk band that will sometimes hire a 40 piece orchestra to back them, with varying results.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 15:58
|
|
|
NieR Occomata posted:I actually think the triptych of those games from that company - Code Vein, God Eater Burst, and Scarlet Nexus - where it’s them aping another game (Dark Souls, Monster Hunter, and DMC) and injecting like 500% more anime is at least trying to be more than it is with their weird rear end stories and narratives, with unique and at least somewhat interesting settings, they all just suffer by being unbearably horny as all hell and not having the gameplay chops to pull off the games they are aping. They are inventive and actually trying for something, I’ll give them that, which is more than I can say for the boring, tired deathmarch of whatever Silicon Studio and/or Acquire has tossed out. I've only played Scarlet Nexus, combat is too slow and deliberate to be aping DMC imo. And I've got the platinum in it but I can't recall a single horny moment. I don't think it even had swimsuit dlc (it just seems like that's common these days) but I could be wrong. Game is definitely a weird rear end anime game though.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 16:24
|
|
|
Cold Steel 4 basically killed Trails forever for me and the insanely terrible localization plans where they don’t get a shot at redeeming themselves with a new game for years just slams nails in the coffin
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 16:50
|
|
|
NieR Occomata posted:I think the part of Trails that truly loving lost me and made me realize this series really needs a loving editor was at the end of cold steel 2 when you eke out this massive, hard-fought victory then have this emotional, tearful goodbye to all these characters you’ve spent like 150 hours getting to know and it kind of just definitively closes the book on the ongoing narrative up until that point in a powerful and impactful way…only to then have you play a five hour epilogue starring two characters you’ve never loving heard of, doing an event you have no personal connection to, who originate and exist from a game that has not only not been released in the us but has never even been translated out of Japanese. Like, who the gently caress thought that was a good idea? Who the gently caress even cares besides having to service every single disparate plot at all times and the lore weirdos who demand you somehow stay abreast of like 50+characters and their discrete motivations covering like six different countries simultaneously? That dungeon was annoying but mostly for the gameplay reason of starting from scratch for a contained space, but the rest of this is you just being unable to infer context at all which is just pure skill difference. Also this dungeon happens before the goodbye part too. CS2 definitely had a slight issue of basically having 3 endings back to back but once again this is separate from what you are actually complaining about
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 17:06
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 11, 2024 03:40 |
|
|
RME posted:That dungeon was annoying but mostly for the gameplay reason of starting from scratch for a contained space, but the rest of this is you just being unable to infer context at all which is just pure skill difference. Again I have to say the account named after nier a that can't seem to understand a story not just directly saying every plot point is a very strong gimmick and I commend them for brilliance of it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2022 17:11
|
|
