|
That loving Sned posted:Was Etro foreshadowed in FFXIII in any way, or is she just a massive retcon? Of course, that's impossible, considering that everything Toriyama has written has been meticulously planned out for the next 5 entries in the FFXIII septilogy. Why oh why would they make 5 FF13 games? It's pretty awful in terms of... well everything. FF13 is a dungeon crawler with tedious character swaps for no reason. It takes you 30+ hours to make it to Pulse and when you get there you get to roam around but it still sucks. FF13 2 is fun with the idea of pets and what not but I hate Noel and his giant loaded diaper. No one other than Oogie Boogie from Nightmare Before Christmas has any business wearing trousers like that. The story is mind blowingly ridiculous, it's like a bad Chrono Cross. I really don't think I can do this awful battle system for another 3 installments. Getting back on characters none of them really strike me as I really like him/her. Lightning is a female version of Squall with even less depth, Serah doesn't really have much of a personality she just tends to go along with things. Vanille is probably the most annoying character ever thought up. The rest of them are pretty forgettable. I was kind of hopeful in FF13 when they had that amusement park. I was thinking wow we finally get another gold saucer! Turns out you can't do poo poo in that amusement park, and the one in FF13 2 has very bad chocobo racing and slots unless you get the downloadable content and then it adds poker. I honestly have little faith in SquEnix ever being able to pull off a successful game that holds a candle to FF6/7 or 9. It's not just them though I think jrpgs are dead.
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2012 20:48
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 07:10 |
|
|
That loving Sned posted:OK. I'll have to check out the final battle again. The Fal'cie are rulers in the sense that they are more akin to demigods of Pulse and Cocoon rather than their true rulers. Above them are Pulse, Lindzei (ruler of Cocoon), and Etro. These are the gods created by the Maker, who is for all intents and purposes "God", Bhunibelze. The Fal'cie are as privy to the whims of these gods (and the God above them) as mortals are, as they too have their own Focus. Barthandelus' goal in XIII is to open Etro's Gate, which is the gate to the realm of the dead/invisible world/chaotic realm. He wants to do so by crashing Cocoon. The point of this, ultimately, is to bring the fal'Cie, and the Gods, back to their Maker, Bhunibelze, who is mentioned in XIII-2 and is probably going to be a huge part of Lightning Returns. XIII was, in terms of the scope of the FNC mythology, pretty narrow, and XIII-2 opened up much more. Seemenaked: Lightning Returns is going to, more or less, use the battle system shown in the first FFXIII trailer back in 2006, a blend of action RPG and ATB.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2012 20:55
|
|
|
Seemenaked posted:I think jrpgs are dead. Do you own a handheld console? edit: or, for that matter, do you conflate "JRPG" with "game published by Square Enix"? I made that mistake for quite a while since they were the de facto kings of the business when I was a kid. If you specifically want random encounters and a 16/32-bit era battle system and you want them with current-gen graphics, then Lost Odyssey might be up your alley. Otherwise there are tons and I mean TONS of worthwhile games on the DS and to a slightly lesser extent the PSP. Dross fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Oct 16, 2012 |
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2012 21:01
|
|
|
The White Dragon posted:Yeah, unfortunately, FF1 suffers from "lovely interface" syndrome. Kinda wish they'd make an "original mode" remake with the same old damage:HP numbers but with bugfixes. Vancian wizards, 1/256 chance of instant-death spells passing Protect equipment, no Phoenix Downs, Life only works outside of battle, all that except this time Temper works and you can buy 99 Potions at once. That's pretty what the PSX Origins version is, isn't it? Though I still wish it was an option in Dawn of Souls.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2012 21:04
|
|
|
So in FF3, what's the best way to conserve MP and avoid screwing myself over by dying and what jobs to use and whatnot? Right now I have a Monk, a Red Mage, a Knight, and a Black Mage, but apparently Hein is impossible with that team or something.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2012 21:11
|
|
|
Pollyanna posted:So in FF3, what's the best way to conserve MP and avoid screwing myself over by dying and what jobs to use and whatnot? Right now I have a Monk, a Red Mage, a Knight, and a Black Mage, but apparently Hein is impossible with that team or something. Hein isn't really too bad, but the Black Mage starts fading out of usefulness at this time. He gets one useful spell in the dungeon after Hein (Blizzaga), which allows him to still deal decent damage against bosses, but you might want to consider switching him out soon. You can still use him if you want and he'll hold up till you get Magus, if suffering a bit in long dungeons. A Geomancer works well for taking out Hein - Terrain is unaffected by Barrier Shift, and you can easily do about 500-900 damage at this point of the game. The Red Mage will be fine for now, but healing will become more difficult to keep up after the next Crystal. Bards become available then, but they can get fairly redundant with a Knight. I'd say your best option if you want to limit Job switching would be to change your Black Mage to a Geomancer, then switch it to a Bard once you finish Saronia, or keep it as a Geomancer or Ranger till the Earth Crystal if you want more damage. (Garuda, incidentally, is such a pain that I'd say your best option would be to blitz it to death using 4 Dragoons or 3-4 Geomancers). Of course, all that is assuming the DS version.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2012 23:56
|
|
|
The White Dragon posted:Yeah, unfortunately, FF1 suffers from "lovely interface" syndrome. Kinda wish they'd make an "original mode" remake with the same old damage:HP numbers but with bugfixes. Vancian wizards, 1/256 chance of instant-death spells passing Protect equipment, no Phoenix Downs, Life only works outside of battle, all that except this time Temper works and you can buy 99 Potions at once. Miracon posted:That's pretty what the PSX Origins version is, isn't it? Though I still wish it was an option in Dawn of Souls. This is correct.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 00:58
|
|
|
poo poo, that's like the ONE OF TWO SQUARESOFT GAMES I don't have from that era. Ergheiz? Bushido Blade? Tobal, Chocobo's Dungeon, or Musashi? Absolutely, but I passed on both Origins and Chronicles because I knew how bad they screwed up the load time with Anthology.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 01:02
|
|
|
The White Dragon posted:poo poo, that's like the ONE OF TWO SQUARESOFT GAMES I don't have from that era. Ergheiz? Bushido Blade? Tobal, Chocobo's Dungeon, or Musashi? Absolutely, but I passed on both Origins and Chronicles because I knew how bad they screwed up the load time with Anthology. Origins isn't that bad. Chronicles is, somehow, even worse than Anthology.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 04:41
|
|
|
Seemenaked posted:I honestly have little faith in SquEnix ever being able to pull off a successful game that holds a candle to FF6/7 or 9. It's not just them though I think jrpgs are dead. Play Persona 3 and/or 4. I know, I know, I hate animu too but just trust me on this one. If you hate those games then you can officially declare jrpgs dead.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 05:42
|
|
|
I heard that Xenoblade is the best JRPG of all time and will revitalize the genre. I disagree with all of that though, and second playing Persona 3 (or 4).
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 05:47
|
|
|
Armor-Piercing posted:I heard that Xenoblade is the best JRPG of all time and will revitalize the genre. Revitalize? With mmo aspects? I loving love Xenoblade, but that's hyperbole. The Last Story is a pretty fresh jrpg, give it a shot after Persona.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 05:51
|
|
|
The Souls games aren't exactly JRPGs in the conventional sense, but they are console RPGs created by Japanese designers and Dark Souls just happens to be one of the most important games in the genre in years. In some ways it's actually antithetical to what people think of JRPGs as being (it has less dialogue than a Gears of War game), but I think it deserves a place in any conversation about how Japanese developers and the RPG genre still have interesting things to offer the industry. Persona 3 and 4 own, but I'm hesitant to say they're examples of how JRPGs are alive and well given that Persona 4 came out four years ago and there hasn't been an SMT game in that format since.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 05:58
|
|
|
Pollyanna posted:So in FF3, what's the best way to conserve MP and avoid screwing myself over by dying and what jobs to use and whatnot? Right now I have a Monk, a Red Mage, a Knight, and a Black Mage, but apparently Hein is impossible with that team or something. If I remember right, Hein has astronomic physical defense, so two physical damage classes is probably silly. If you want to do Hein's gimmick the "right way", change one of them (probably the Monk) into a Scholar so you can Peep his weakness after Barrier Change. Otherwise, like suggested, try a Geomancer.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 05:59
|
|
|
Kyrosiris posted:If you want to do Hein's gimmick the "right way", change one of them (probably the Monk) into a Scholar so you can Peep his weakness after Barrier Change. Otherwise, like suggested, try a Geomancer. I thought the prevailing strategy for Hein was to just have a squad of Scholars beat him to death with books.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 06:09
|
|
|
Chronicles is not worse than Anthology. FF4 psx is great and only save times are long. Chrono Trigger, however...
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 06:11
|
|
|
Shaezerus posted:I thought the prevailing strategy for Hein was to just have a squad of Scholars beat him to death with books. That is also an entirely valid strategy! 
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 06:20
|
|
|
Kyrosiris posted:If you want to do Hein's gimmick the "right way", change one of them (probably the Monk) into a Scholar so you can Peep his weakness after Barrier Change.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 06:29
|
|
|
Boten Anna posted:Play Persona 3 and/or 4. I know, I know, I hate animu too but just trust me on this one. If you hate those games then you can officially declare jrpgs dead. I have no idea how you can hate anime and want to play jrpgs. Just doesn't make any sense to me. But yeah, jrpgs aren't dead. Pretty much all the modern Shin Megami Tensei games are awesome, so is Xenoblade and I'm hearing very good things about Last Story. The Tales of... games have been consistently good barring their storylines for like fifteen years now, too, and we're actually starting to get those in America again. If you want to count SRPGs too then N1 Software's still dishing out the goods and there was the Tactics Ogre remake just this year. Hell, Square even released what I've been hearing is a good Final Fantasy game, even if they're being a bit slow about localizing it. We're not exactly hurting for jrpgs to play at the moment.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 06:35
|
|
|
The White Dragon posted:This doesn't actually work since in FF3DS, he gets a free Barrier Change every round and you can literally never predict when he's going to use it so you can't actually plan a strategy around Peep or even reliably knowing what his weakness is. That battle is a 100% crapshoot every time. ...How would I forget something like that? Shows how long it's been since I played 3DS.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 06:39
|
|
|
Fungah! posted:I have no idea how you can hate anime and want to play jrpgs. Just doesn't make any sense to me. SMT games are awesome but their release schedules are horrible :I No games for years then 3 games in quick succession in the same year. I've finally picked my 3DS back up to play... the new Pokemon  they're fun little RPGs with loads of things to do, even if the story is never worth paying attention to.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 07:16
|
|
|
Fungah! posted:I have no idea how you can hate anime and want to play jrpgs. Just doesn't make any sense to me. To me, there are basically three kinds of JRPGs. The first one is your standard old-school stuff where the tech was too primitive to make photorealistic anime people and the storage space was too limited to give it anime flair, so it was essentially a simple story with pantomime sprite puppets that had a very limited sheet of actions. This one is cool because while it can't really tell a great story, it can certainly tell a good one and even if they were trying to make a Super Wacky Anime, it was completely impossible and all of the annoyance is either lost in translation, lost in animation, or couldn't fit on the cart in the first place. This is stuff like FF4, FF6, and even Threads of Fate dodged the bullet by being voiceless and looking really cartoony and caricature-y because the tech just wasn't there to make creepily realistic forms. You bet your rear end it would've been pretty disconcerting if it had come out one or two years later on the PS2. I'd honestly probably consider Pokemon one of these too. The second type is the one I despise with all my heart and soul. It tries to be an interactive anime. It has all the annoying poo poo you don't like. They have whiny VAs for all of their language tracks who overact it so it's Just Like An Anime. They have characters who look like they came straight out of an actual anime, either with creepy painted eyes on polygonal bodies or through cel-shading, but they move like people and it's disconcerting. They fall into all the worst trappings of anime, including but not limited to: incest, child sex objectification, university GE philosophy, harems, pointless overstayed muscle-flexing, and random monkey dickcheese. They generally deal with pretentious concepts the writers blew out their rear end and know nothing about and ignore the Storyteller's Golden Rule of not treating its audience like imbeciles, explaining and re-explaining things most players with at least a six-year-old's intelligence figured out a long time ago. Not to mention that they generally don't know when to conclude a character's dialogue and let them prattle on about nothing for literally over a thousand words in a single scene. That's more words dedicated to people talking about one single exposition point than in an entire picture book's worth of a full story. Good examples include Star Ocean, Eternal Sonata, and Samurai Legend Musashi (and, depending on who you ask, the SMT might games fall under this category too--me, for example, because I think they're just too pretentious and the "wacky god pantheon pokemon" humor is lost in translation). The third type, I like the third type. It tries either to be an interactive book or (keeping with the Japanese culture source) Taiga Drama, if you're familiar with those. They try to look more realistic and less creepy realistic-movement mocap bodies with soulless doe-eyed faces. They try to write scripts that would fit in broadcast television for intelligent adults: they make a good attempt to try not to make their audience feel like idiots by stating the obvious or dwelling on points we've known forever, their dialogue-driven writing is largely succinct and to-the-point, they're thematically consistent (where Anime JRPGs generally don't even have a discernible theme in the first place, just an episodic anime formula with a final boss climax), and they don't fall back on violence or throwaway non-humor to keep the player engaged. They have good voice direction and it shows that they're told to be professional as poo poo and act like they're in a movie or, well, a Taiga Drama. The scripts are written like it, too, and they don't let scenes get too long, too wordy, or too high-strung. FF9's a good example, as is Lost Odyssey and the Mother games. I can't yet speak for Xenoblade or The Last Story. It's a really sweeping designation, the JRPG. It's like saying Alpha Protocol, Champions of Krynn, and Skyrim are all WRPGs. It's true, but you can classify and describe them totally separately.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 07:24
|
|
|
Man I'm getting my rear end kicked by Necron, Kuja was simple enough but this guy is really something else.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 07:56
|
|
|
TheIllestVillain posted:Man I'm getting my rear end kicked by Necron, Kuja was simple enough but this guy is really something else. Equip every status-blocking Ability you can get (you should have them all by now) and pray you don't get everyone hit by Curse or Zombie or the rest that can't be blocked. It's more of how lucky you get between Grand Crosses.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 08:04
|
|
|
If you don't have enough ability crystals to equip EVERY status-blocking ability, make sure you hit the ones that make you lose control- block stone, heat, confuse, I don't think you can block stop or death unfortunately. If you're not using Freya's dragon crest, Zidane's thievery or Quina's Frog Drop powered up to 9999, consider powering up some of those. Freya's is the easiest, plus she can cast regen on your party. Doomsday/Doomsday Sword with shadow-absorbing armor is a tactic I like to use, although some characters can only block shadow-element attacks. Then go fight Ozma!
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 08:31
|
|
|
The White Dragon posted:I can, speaking anecdotally. I loving hate anime and all that grabagey doe-eye poo poo with all its sweatdrops, gratuitous child sexualization, et cetera. I don't know, these all seem the same to me. JRPGs are pretty much all the same because they can't tell an original story to save their lives.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 08:37
|
|
|
The White Dragon posted:I can, speaking anecdotally. I loving hate anime and all that grabagey doe-eye poo poo with all its sweatdrops, gratuitous child sexualization, et cetera. EDIT: There are three types of JRPGs: the ones I don't like and the ones I like.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 08:48
|
|
|
FF9 literally has the main character you play grab a 15 year old's rear end without her consent
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 08:51
|
|
|
Fungah! posted:Hell, Square even released what I've been hearing is a good Final Fantasy game, even if they're being a bit slow about localizing it. We're not exactly hurting for jrpgs to play at the moment. You mean Type-0, right? I really enjoyed playing that, because each of the 13 characters has a different weapon, which makes each of them feel unique to play as. The main trick to combat is that when an enemy is vulnerable, perhaps after they've attacked, their targeting reticule would turn red and any attack they take in this small time frame would instantly kill them. Of course, for bosses it just takes away a significant amount of their health. Each character has to approach this differently, because a melee attacker would have to be next to the boss at the right moment to damage it, and a long-range/spellcaster would need to fire their shots early so that it lands just as the weak spot is opened. One of the characters uses a pair of guns, so although his damage output is normally very low, he can easily hit these weak spots as soon as they show up. Azure_Horizon posted:Seemenaked: Lightning Returns is going to, more or less, use the battle system shown in the first FFXIII trailer back in 2006, a blend of action RPG and ATB. It's odd that Square Enix decided to make FFXIII a menu-driven 'turn-based' game, when they are now much better at action games. Making a game turn-based should give you a greater degree of control and allow for more advanced tactics, while in FFXIII all it did was remove control over your character's positioning and delay the outcome of any decisions you make. It even took away control of your party members, leaving them with a vague command of heal, attack, defend etc. The initial screenshots of FFXIII suggested that you'd add commands to the ATB, and they'd be continuously carried out by Lightning, like in The Sims.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 08:53
|
|
|
THE AWESOME GHOST posted:FF9 literally has the main character you play grab a 15 year old's rear end without her consent
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 08:59
|
|
|
Eiko and Quina are characters that exist in FF9.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 09:02
|
|
|
There are JRPGs that use anime styles to tell their story, and JRPGs that aspire to be an anime. The ones with the better stories are the ones that understand that they are games, and that holds true regardless of what kind of overplayed plot devices and predictable jokes they use in the process. Drawing a hard line is impossible, because it has nothing to do with style and inspiration and everything to do with vision and talent.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 09:09
|
|
|
Shaezerus posted:I thought the prevailing strategy for Hein was to just have a squad of Scholars beat him to death with books. Scholars are absolutely stupid because they have the worst Vitality in the game. Even using one for one or two levels will set your HP growth back permanently unless the guy has been a Monk or Viking for a long time. Plus damage items are rare unless you abuse the Item Duplicate Glitch. They can't even Guard or use anything higher than -ra spells (which, by the way, they have terrible MP of). Screw Scholars.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 09:58
|
|
|
Azure_Horizon posted:Equip every status-blocking Ability you can get (you should have them all by now) and pray you don't get everyone hit by Curse or Zombie or the rest that can't be blocked. It's more of how lucky you get between Grand Crosses. When I first fought him he hit 2 of my characters with zombie from grand cross, zidane god ko'd from the attack with zombie. Unlike in the other games if you get KO'd with zombie status effect it remains and you can't res them. I don't know if there is a counter for that short of equiping a skill that prevents zombie.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 10:15
|
|
|
xSousuke posted:When I first fought him he hit 2 of my characters with zombie from grand cross, zidane god ko'd from the attack with zombie. Unlike in the other games if you get KO'd with zombie status effect it remains and you can't res them. I don't know if there is a counter for that short of equiping a skill that prevents zombie. There's no skill that prevents Zombie, so you have to use Magic Tags, and you can still use them on KO'd members.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 10:26
|
|
|
The White Dragon posted:the SMT might games fall under this category too--me, for example, because I think they're just too pretentious and the "wacky god pantheon pokemon" humor is lost in translation). What loving franchise are you talking about?
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 15:59
|
|
|
ZenMasterBullshit posted:What loving franchise are you talking about? Shin Megami Tensei. Basically, Pokemon, but with Gods and mythological creatures (that's not entirely accurate, but close enough). They're quite good games.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 16:01
|
|
|
It's more that SMT isn't "wacky god pokemon humor" in like the slightest. Maybe Persona, but Persona has almost nothing to do with the rest of the SMT games.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 16:19
|
|
|
I might have confused it for the other series where Balor asking me my opinion on moon rabbits pounding mochi is an integral part of the gameplay.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 16:25
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 07:10 |
|
|
Pureauthor posted:I might have confused it for the other series where Balor asking me my opinion on moon rabbits pounding mochi is an integral part of the gameplay. Isn't that a random choice anyway? And that's not anime, that's a fairy tale. Snow White did not go "uguu".
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2012 16:29
|
|