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Momomo posted:I'm pretty sure that's because Sony of America doesn't allow rereleases with such a low amount of new content. This is only a policy for PSP ports actually. Which is still dumb. Special editions of games with a little new content have been released before.
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Sep 28, 2012 06:48
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Oh, man. I finally got my copy of the Final Fantasy XI Chips album and it is pretty drat awesome. Now I can stop being distressed about not having it.  Thinking about getting the FF8 one too, if only for the Don't Be Afraid+Force Your Way and Man with the Machine Gun+Maybe I'm a Lion tracks, because they are that good.
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Sep 28, 2012 07:18
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Dr Pepper posted:One thing that makes me think they don't really care is the constant updated releases of their major games. FF12 International, KH2 Final Mix, etc. These are massively improved experiences and yet they stay Japan only. It's half and half. i.e. With Kingdom Hearts 1, they added a fair chunk of content into the English translation, so much so that they added a little more and released KH1FM in Japan. So while FM has more than the English version, the English version has a fair chunk more than the original Jap release.
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Sep 28, 2012 07:22
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Azran posted:First of all, should I care about stat growths? They seem to be a huge pain in the rear end. Sometimes I'm afraid of leveling in a "subpar" job. Not really, no. The stats that FFT uses in calculations are pretty small.* Because of that, high growth classes typically mean you just get the next stat milestone a few levels sooner. For instance, a character who gained all of his levels as a Ninja might gain Speed at level 16 instead of 18. Even with dedicated training for specific stats, you might have 2 or 3 extra points at level 99. * The displayed stats anyways. On the technical side, it actually tracks substats down to a very tiny fraction. The stat growth formula is kind of complicated.
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Sep 28, 2012 07:40
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Defiance Industries posted:They want it (because Japan alone can't support AAA current gen games with its market alone) but they don't understand it. If they were smart they'd ask Cavia. Nier was one of the few Japanese games lately that understood localization has to be more than a new language. One heavily abused thing I notice (and apparently this is endemic of their anime scene as well) is a lot of game designers sometimes bank way too heavily on a character's "Star Power"/moe/appealability/whatever, regardless of whatever context we get in the actual game. Even if the story is a clusterfuck, the expectation is fans will still eat it up. Tailoring making that means when it falls short, it falls hard, because tastes can be really different. I can't really recall the last time Square came out with a solid memorable lead where it really felt like they had done it on purpose or even seem understand how they did it after the fact (Cloud with his bizzare retreatment, Squall's overselling in his original game, Lightning's weird cameo-life in her own franchise) Do any of the old FFs have this "writer is way too in love with the character" thing going on? I see Cecil's name being thrown a lot. keet fucked around with this message at 08:57 on Sep 28, 2012 |
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Sep 28, 2012 08:54
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penguinmambo posted:One heavily abused thing I notice (and apparently this is endemic of their anime scene as well) is a lot of game designers sometimes bank way too heavily on a character's "Star Power"/moe/appealability/whatever, regardless of whatever context we get in the actual game. Even if the story is a clusterfuck, the expectation is fans will still eat it up. Tailoring making that means when it falls short, it falls hard, because tastes can be really different. Kind of FF4, but that's not nearly to the extent of, say, FF8, where they intentionally de-emphasized most of the PCs rather than risk "distracting" the player from Squall and Rinoa. There's still significant character moments for, most notably, Rydia, Kain and Edge in there. The guy who wrote FF4:TAY was clearly gaybones for Cecil, though, since so many of the characters spend time telling you how great he is with nary a mention of anyone else. Seems to me the Japanese audience almost requires a main character to fixate upon.
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Sep 28, 2012 09:09
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penguinmambo posted:Do any of the old FFs have this "writer is way too in love with the character" thing going on? I see Cecil's name being thrown a lot. Terra inexplicably becomes the ONLY PERSON who can save the party at the end of FF6 with her newfound powers of unlimited flight, Star Wars precognition, and apparently a magical innate compass. It was really shoehorned in, but then every FF hero gets moments shoehorned in that show how the party really really needs them for their uniqueness. Should be noted that Squall's party-depends-on-you is one of the few that isn't based upon his unique magical powers but just upon his ability to lead and inexplicable popularity. Almost all other FF heroes also have a genetic reason to be needed by the party, be they part alien, monster, dream, etc. Vaan is the odd man out as he has zero reason whatsoever to be important to the party, and it shows.
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Sep 28, 2012 09:38
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Beat Neo Shinryu for the first time last night in FFVA, took me about forty five minutes and spamming the poo poo out of Dualcast Quick, but he finally went down. I did think it was kind of lame that none of new job classes were very useful. I guess Gladiator was pretty useful for the Interdimensional Rift, but I quickly went back to using Rapid Fire instead of Finisher in the Sealed Temple. Overall, the Sealed Temple was alright, but I thought the Dragon's Den and even the Soul of Chaos dungeons were more well done bonus content. I loved the fight with Omega Weapon at the end of the Dragon's Den, which I only survived by having Mog the miracle worker in the air when he died.
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Sep 28, 2012 10:01
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Mister Roboto posted:Terra inexplicably becomes the ONLY PERSON who can save the party at the end of FF6 with her newfound powers of unlimited flight, Star Wars precognition, and apparently a magical innate compass. Even then, it wasn't only her. It's not like she picked up everyone and poo poo, she was like a pilot boat in a harbor. Setzer still had to be able to fly them out. Defiance Industries fucked around with this message at 10:21 on Sep 28, 2012 |
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Sep 28, 2012 10:16
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Defiance Industries posted:Even then, it wasn't only her. It's not like she picked up everyone and poo poo, she was like a pilot boat in a harbor. Setzer still had to be able to fly them out. Yeah, and just before that, she inexplicably was the only one who remembered how to walk back to the airship. Which was also suddenly in some sort of deep valley.
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Sep 28, 2012 10:19
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"Be the plot MacGuffin" was usually Terra's section of main character activities anyway. She got "mysterious plot powers" stuff, Locke got the "protect people" bit, Celes got the "strong ties to the evil enemy army." That, and the three of them pass back and forth the "who knows the least about a place, so that it might best be explained to them?" ball.
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Sep 28, 2012 10:25
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I think more what penguinmambo was talking about was characters designed from a marketing standpoint to appeal a certain type of gamer/anime demographic rather than as characters first. It seems to be a pretty clear break between Nomera's and Amano's designs. Zidane falls well into the post VII years but his design isn't particularly appealing, but at least he's an interesting character (...or at least an interesting lead. His arc is kinda dumb). And then there's Vaan, who wasn't designed by Nomera, but was Nomeraed up and shoehorned into the lead to appeal to that demo drat the appropriateness of it or how it would play in international markets.
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Sep 28, 2012 15:08
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Did Vaan actually work in Japan? Like did people actually like him?
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Sep 28, 2012 15:09
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Mister Roboto posted:Vaan is the odd man out as he has zero reason whatsoever to be important to the party, and it shows. Tidus is also similar in that he isn't even the leader.
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Sep 28, 2012 15:23
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Momomo posted:Tidus is also similar in that he isn't even the leader. Right, but he's important to the story whereas Vaan has nothing to do with anything really.
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Sep 28, 2012 15:24
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I'd say that by the end, he is the leader.
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Sep 28, 2012 15:27
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Mister Roboto posted:Yeah, and just before that, she inexplicably was the only one who remembered how to walk back to the airship. Which was also suddenly in some sort of deep valley. Err. Did you miss that the entire tower was collapsing? Like, all of the cutscenes of people walking back show that they can't get back the way they used to get in, and all of them have characters using their unique talents to escape. (Except Shadow, of course)
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Sep 28, 2012 15:30
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Pasteurized Milk posted:I'd say that by the end, he is the leader. Pretty much as soon as the party goes off their "intended" path, he's the one leading the way.
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Sep 28, 2012 15:42
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ImpAtom posted:Err. Did you miss that the entire tower was collapsing? Like, all of the cutscenes of people walking back show that they can't get back the way they used to get in, and all of them have characters using their unique talents to escape. No, I didn't miss that. Also, half the cutscenes were jokes. And that still doesn't explain away the original point, which was that Terra suddenly has a required magical radar, right down to the Jedi "My friends are in danger and only I can guide them out!" moment.
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Sep 28, 2012 17:37
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Mister Roboto posted:No, I didn't miss that. Also, half the cutscenes were jokes. And that still doesn't explain away the original point, which was that Terra suddenly has a required magical radar, right down to the Jedi "My friends are in danger and only I can guide them out!" moment. You certainly did miss it if you're saying things like "she's the only one who remember the way out" or "the airship is in a cave for some reason". As well as missing that Terra's empathy psychic poo poo is established before you even get to name her.
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Sep 28, 2012 17:51
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ImpAtom posted:You certainly did miss it if you're saying things like "she's the only one who remember the way out" or "the airship is in a cave for some reason". As well as missing that Terra's empathy psychic poo poo is established before you even get to name her. There comes a point when you're just excusing away lame plot contrivances because of personal taste. If this were FF8 or FFX or whichever, don't deny you'd be ripping into how weak and forced the writing is. The story flat out forces Terra's magical compass into necessity, especially when she magically teleports in specifically to tell everyone that.
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Sep 28, 2012 17:59
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Mister Roboto posted:There comes a point when you're just excusing away plot contrivances because of personal taste. The game flat out forces Terra's magical compass into necessity, especially when she magically teleports in specifically to tell everyone that. No, you're just frankly either speaking from bad memory or remembering the SNES translations which did a good job omitting minor details that built up stuff like that. As well as ignoring things that are blatantly in the game. (such as "Terra's sudden infinite flying power" when the first thing she does as an Esper is go flying off to Zozo. It doesn't come up as a gameplay mechanic but it is firmly established.) FF6 has overly contrived elements but that certainly isn't one of them. Considering so few characters in the game get overt development, Terra gets a tremendous amount of time dedicated to her poo poo. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Sep 28, 2012 |
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Sep 28, 2012 18:01
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Are you just going to dismiss any criticism as "you're misremembering, you're just misremembering?" Come on. Mister Roboto fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Oct 23, 2014 |
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Sep 28, 2012 18:13
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Mister Roboto posted:Are you just going to dismiss any criticism as "you're misremembering, you're just misremembering?" Come on. You want to make the argument that every Final Fantasy is equal and the only reason that people treat one differently than another is nostalgia, which is a flawed argument from the start. I'll gladly point out FF6's writing flaws, which are many, but it still remains one of the more tightly plotted FF games. (Probably helped by being a late SNES-era game which had enough space to have depth but not enough space to bury itself.) That's not really an award worth bragging about but still. You're eager to jump into the "well, you're just a FANBOY" argument because it pre-proves your thesis and you'll ignore any and all comments otherwise. (As you already have!) Someone can enjoy a game and still, gasp, be objective about it. You want some complaints about FF6's story? It's got a fair amount of wasted characters and the focus on nonlinearity in the second half hurts that even more. A number of characters end up severely sidelined in a way that leaves the cast feeling bloated. The villains are all fairly weak and Kefka is the only memorable one helped largely due to A) An unexpected game-changing success and B) A pretty spirited translation in a time when translations otherwise were stilted at best. It does a poor job of combining mechanics and gameplay. There's a very poor separation between magic and notmagic. Sabin can do crazy laser poo poo and summon fire and Gau can use literal magic but those don't count as magic for "plot purposes" despite the ability to use magic being a major important plot point. I can go on. There are a bunch. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Sep 28, 2012 |
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Sep 28, 2012 18:21
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Mister Roboto posted:Vaan is the odd man out as he has zero reason whatsoever to be important to the party, and it shows. Vaan is FFXII's hero from a marketing standpoint only. It's been said before but the true hero of FFXII is Ashe and Vaan only served as a marketing tool, which I don't mind because the game starting with Vaan's perspective gave a very saddened yet ambitious tone for the story that worked very well. Honestly, I like Vaan as a character. Now as the plot moves along Vaan doesn't do much but he and Penelo talk and their characters grow a bit so it's not like they completely vanish from the story- they still have presence.
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Sep 28, 2012 18:28
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fount of knowledge posted:Pretty much as soon as the party goes off their "intended" path, he's the one leading the way. It's pretty telling that main character and leader aren't really the same thing anyway.  I do think Yuna was the leader X-2 from a demographic standpoint (I'm cool with the idea of continuity the story from her perspective, but if the game was made now they'd prolly go with their original idea and do small DLC-type games) but because she was already established as a character it didn't hurt her. It's one reason the Advent Children poo poo annoyed me so much, since they already proved you can do a pretty drastic character change and have it feel natural even if it's hand is dipped in the "make character xtreme" pot. Designers just have different expectations of characters and in the hands of some its not safe to put characters. Lightning felt like one of those characters I don't think they were prepared to expect people to like so much (ie, marketed as a normal protagonist and not her ~girl stuff~ or sexuality really emphasized on its own) even by people who found the game weak. I'm still prepared to hear about her not be the lead character in game which is pretty much being sold as her 'return'.
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Sep 28, 2012 18:40
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ImpAtom posted:It does a poor job of combining mechanics and gameplay. There's a very poor separation between magic and notmagic. Sabin can do crazy laser poo poo and summon fire and Gau can use literal magic but those don't count as magic for "plot purposes" despite the ability to use magic being a major important plot point. It always bothered me as a kid that Celes only could Runic standard-named spells and not stuff like Magitek Laser and so on. And you're right. For a story that puts so much emphasis on Terra being able to use M- M- M- MAGIC!?, it handwaves a lot of magic-like things that everyone else does.
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Sep 28, 2012 18:54
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ImpAtom posted:You want to make the argument that every Final Fantasy is equal and the only reason that people treat one differently than another is nostalgia[...] It's like, sometimes ImpAtom comes around and defends SMT games and I'm like "dogg what," but sometimes he comes around and argues against the nostalgia fallacy and I remember that yeah    he a bro.Seriously, I've gone back to a number of games recently and some of them really don't hold up (like Secret of Mana, which is fun but incredibly stupid), but others--FF6 included, and I played that like just two months ago--sure, you see their flaws more readily now that you're older and familiarized with the study of literature and poo poo, but that's all the more qualification to confirm that they're just really good games and damned if some of them don't stand on their own merits even today. Fur20 fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Sep 28, 2012 |
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Sep 28, 2012 19:50
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The White Dragon posted:It's like, sometimes ImpAtom comes around and defends SMT games and I'm like "dogg what," but sometimes he comes around and argues against the nostalgia fallacy and I remember that yeah Hey, we don't always agree, but I respect your opinion. You voice your ideas in such a way that I can understand where they're coming from even if I don't agree with 'em, and that makes it a lot more of an interesting discussion to have. v  vThe White Dragon posted:Seriously, I've gone back to a number of games recently and some of them really don't hold up (like Secret of Mana, which is fun but incredibly stupid), but others--FF6 included, and I played that like just two months ago--sure, you see their flaws more readily now that you're older and familiarized with the study of literature and poo poo, but that's all the more qualification to confirm that they're just really good games and damned if some of them don't stand on their own merits even today. One thing I've really enjoyed is going back to older games and really seeing where they succeed and fail. Even games I enjoyed as a kid often have severe flaws. What I really enjoy is when I find something that stands up to my memories, or in rare cases even surpasses them. As an adult I can recognize a lot of what FF6 does wrong. More importantly, I can also recognize a lot of what it does right which flew over my head when I was mostly focused on how kickin' rad Sabin suplexing a train was. It's an interesting game to discuss that way because it is inarguably flawed, but not in such a way that conversation boils down to "Man, what a pile of poo poo that was."
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Sep 28, 2012 20:05
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For the whole magic thing, I always just assumed Sabin's blitzes used ki/aura/whatever the FF universe calls it to do them. I mean, it makes the fire one stick out a bit as not making much sense, but all the others do. Hell, aurabolt even uses the hadoken inputs. It does kinda stick out how magic is a big deal and there's characters that can clearly use it all over the place though. Mog's dances are particularly close to Geomancer terrain skills from FF5, for another example.
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Sep 28, 2012 20:15
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Eggie posted:Vaan is FFXII's hero from a marketing standpoint only. It's been said before but the true hero of FFXII is Ashe and Vaan only served as a marketing tool, which I don't mind because the game starting with Vaan's perspective gave a very saddened yet ambitious tone for the story that worked very well. Honestly, I like Vaan as a character. Now as the plot moves along Vaan doesn't do much but he and Penelo talk and their characters grow a bit so it's not like they completely vanish from the story- they still have presence. Tyty posted:Mog's dances are particularly close to Geomancer terrain skills from FF5, for another example.
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Sep 28, 2012 20:19
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The White Dragon posted:Seriously, I've gone back to a number of games recently and some of them really don't hold up (like Secret of Mana, which is fun but incredibly stupid), but others--FF6 included, and I played that like just two months ago--sure, you see their flaws more readily now that you're older and familiarized with the study of literature and poo poo, but that's all the more qualification to confirm that they're just really good games and damned if some of them don't stand on their own merits even today. I wonder if my opinion will decline to a point where I go from liking a game to not liking it after replaying it once every year. There are some games I can go back to easily and they're still as good as I remember(VI, VII, IX). However, some games get harder and harder to play with each iteration(VII, X, XII). I remember really liking those other games as a kid, but now that I get older and replay them with a different outlook, they just don't hold up as well. One of the reasons I can't replay VIII anymore is because I've built a level of negativity with each playthrough. It's almost like more and more negatives from the game start flying at me today than they ever did. What's interesting is that it never happens with IX and VII. I remember really liking VIII as a kid, but now I consider it to be the worst of the series. I have to wonder if this may ever happen with IX. Like, one day I decide to replay it and I notice a severe flaw that I hadn't noticed. I guess my point is: opinions change as we grow older?
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Sep 28, 2012 20:22
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Cardboard Fox posted:I guess my point is: opinions change as we grow older? It's not just opinions; we get exposed to more media as we get older and we develop an objective perspective. Someone who doesn't read much, or hasn't read as much as another person, might read Twilight and go, "Oh man, that was brilliant!" They're objectively wrong, but they just haven't had the experience to build the frame of reference to judge it correctly is all, it's not 'cause they're dumb or anything.
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Sep 28, 2012 20:31
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The White Dragon posted:They're objectively wrong, but they just haven't had the experience to build the frame of reference
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Sep 28, 2012 20:39
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To sidestep this meta argument a bit, I want to go back to the question I asked earlier. For as much as the general consensus is that Vaan sucked and ruined FF12, did he actually work as intended with regards to the Japanese audience? Like is Vaan popular in Japan, or did he boost sales there?
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Sep 28, 2012 20:41
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Cardboard Fox posted:I have to wonder if this may ever happen with IX. Like, one day I decide to replay it and I notice a severe flaw that I hadn't noticed. No worries, FFIX is flawless
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Sep 28, 2012 21:13
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Francois Kofko posted:No worries, FFIX is flawless
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Sep 28, 2012 21:14
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Endorph posted:FF9's severe flaw: Beatrix doesn't join the party. Get a gameshark, it makes that possible.
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Sep 28, 2012 21:20
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Francois Kofko posted:No worries, FFIX is flawless This is 100% correct.
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Sep 28, 2012 21:23
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The White Dragon posted:It's not just opinions; we get exposed to more media as we get older and we develop an objective perspective. Someone who doesn't read much, or hasn't read as much as another person, might read Twilight and go, "Oh man, that was brilliant!" They're objectively wrong, but they just haven't had the experience to build the frame of reference to judge it correctly is all, it's not 'cause they're dumb or anything. Yea, that's true. I also think it may have to do with the variety of games I play, compared to when I was a kid. It kind of lets you compare the game through a different lens. Francois Kofko posted:No worries, FFIX is flawless I can't disagree with this argument. 
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Sep 28, 2012 21:26
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