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Hope is the main character of FF13 because his personal arc is the most long and complex of everyone, and it's the only thing in the whole game that would make a lick of sense if you took it out of that unique world/vocabulary.
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Dec 20, 2012 21:24
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NikkolasKing posted:Except in the end, they all were turned to crystal. So...they fought fate and lost completely. The only tricky part is that Lightning and co. were turned to crystal and then changed back by Etro, after first being changed into Cie'th and changed back. That is a part I agree is muddled and not explained very well, since technically Lightning and co. failed their Focus by saving Cocoon. Fang and Vanille have had a separate Focus for 500 years, one that they only partially completed back then and were crystallized for. The "fighting fate" is Vanille and Fang's choice to change their Focus. It has pretty much nothing to do with the rest of the party. Cid and Bart are not wrong. The Maker does exist, but has been sleeping for a long time, having long given up on the world he created. The fal'Cie were created by the Maker, much like Pulse, Etro, and Lindzei were. Etro, in turn, created humans, giving each of them a piece of chaos (their hearts). However, the fal'Cie believe that bringing back the Maker requires wholesale slaughter (the Purge), to open up the gate to the Unseen World through Etro. Azure_Horizon fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Dec 20, 2012 |
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Dec 20, 2012 21:46
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"The heroes fail at nearly every single one of their objectives until the very end" "The final objective changes over and over during the plot" Both are hallmarks of final fantasy, actually. I don't see how that's valid criticism of OH GOD YOU'RE MAKING ME DEFEND THIS?
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Dec 20, 2012 22:17
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I'll have you know the FF2 Party succeeded in their goals of getting the Mythril and Sunfire and the last Wyvern and the Ultima spell and probably a lot of other things too. Sure, 99% of it didn't matter but it's still better than failing at everything. Isn't it? The FFX Party didn't fail at much. I attribute this to having a set objective from the onset of the game.
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Dec 20, 2012 22:23
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NikkolasKing posted:The FFX Party didn't fail at much. I attribute this to having a set objective from the onset of the game. I don't know, they did pretty badly. Even their successes were failures considered they ended up as wanted criminals, murdered a politician and worked towards a suicidal goal. Still better than Zidane and friends tho'. Also better than the Returners who had to recover from letting the entire world get blown up.
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Dec 20, 2012 22:31
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Main characters don't need to be defined by how much they did overall, but a main character should at least do SOMETHING over the course of the game. Lightning doesn't. She just stands around, occasionally hits things, and walks down a straight path. And I never got why people consider snow dumb. Most of the times the party made progress, it was because of something he did.
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Dec 20, 2012 22:39
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Lance Streetman posted:Main characters don't need to be defined by how much they did overall, but a main character should at least do SOMETHING over the course of the game. Lightning doesn't. She just stands around, occasionally hits things, and walks down a straight path. Most of the complaints I've seen about him are because he's an idiot who doesn't stop to think about the consequences of his actions before running off to be a hero. Plus the fact that he actually refers to himself as being a hero without any hint of irony or self-awareness seems to piss them off, too. They kind of tend to ignore that his character arc (what little of it there is) is about him finally having to stop and acknowledge that, yes, his running off half-cocked and being an idiot led to people getting killed and he needs to realize that his actions have consequences.
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Dec 20, 2012 22:45
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W.T. Fits posted:Most of the complaints I've seen about him are because he's an idiot who doesn't stop to think about the consequences of his actions before running off to be a hero. Plus the fact that he actually refers to himself as being a hero without any hint of irony or self-awareness seems to piss them off, too. They kind of tend to ignore that his character arc (what little of it there is) is about him finally having to stop and acknowledge that, yes, his running off half-cocked and being an idiot led to people getting killed and he needs to realize that his actions have consequences. The problem with this is that none of the other characters think their actions through, either. Hell, snow manages to whip up an entire rescue operation in a short amount of time and save some people who would have been killed by the sanctum, anyways. The hero thing is dumb, yeah, but he at least does poo poo.
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Dec 20, 2012 22:51
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Lance Streetman posted:And I never got why people consider snow dumb. Most of the times the party made progress, it was because of something he did. I actually have this theory that the vitriol for Snow comes from some deep-seated nerd mental thing toward buff kinda dopey guys whose big "emotional problem" is that they're in a mutually loving relationship and want to save the person they love I never bought the hero complex thing for a second; Hope's mom wants to help save her son and the others and it's actually amazingly immature for Hope to hold Snow accountable for what happens to her. Hope acts like an actual thirteen year old kid or whatever and watching grown-rear end dudes agree with him kinda owns.
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Dec 20, 2012 22:51
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Zombies' Downfall posted:I actually have this theory that the vitriol for Snow comes from some deep-seated nerd mental thing toward buff kinda dopey guys whose big "emotional problem" is that they're in a mutually loving relationship and want to save the person they love The hate for Snow comes from the same place as the hate for Hope, which is that they drive the plot by being irrational and running off. The only difference between them is that Snow being a gung-ho meathead is sometimes useful, whereas Hope being a sadsack can only ever be pitiful. I don't think I've ever known anyone side with one over the other.
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Dec 20, 2012 23:21
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Snow was my favorite character in XIII and I certainly always sided with him against Lightning. my philosophy is better a nice idiot than a jerk genius. Light wasn't even the second part so it comes down to a guy who is friendly vs. a woman who was a total bitch for a quarter of the game at least. At the end of the day, Snow made mistakes and he owned up to them. Of course I don't agree with Nora being one of his mistakes. Her death is entirely her own fault. I attribute Snow feeling bad about it to the guilt any leader would feel at the death of one of his followers, even if there is absolutely nothing he could have done. I also liked Hope because his story went hand-in-hand with Snow's. I think it be kinda hard to like one while hating the other because their characters are so dependent on the other.
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Dec 20, 2012 23:34
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Hope ended up better than Snow in 13-2; instead of being stuck fighting giant flans, Hope turns out to be the supreme science leader for all time or whatever it was (I always thought it was real dumb for them to just let Hope run everything after he came out of the time thing, surely science has progressed far enough in 300 years that he wouldn't know everything).
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Dec 20, 2012 23:51
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It's also a pretty important part of Snow's character that he's pretty dumb and made a lot of bad decisions which actively made the situation worse for everyone. He's a massive (but good hearted) idiot at least until the scene in Hope's house. I guess I really should play the English version sometime because it seems like they made every character completely different if anyone sees Snow and thinks anything besides "Wow, this guy is a bombastic idiot." (Admittedly he's voiced by Troy Baker in the English version who can make anyone likable.  ) Daisuke Ono is pretty good at doing arrogant bombastic idiots with good hearts though so I didn't think Snow was bad. I certainly never got the hate for him.
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Dec 20, 2012 23:58
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Well I acknowledge Snow was a bombastic idiot. It's just that he was a bombastic idiot who was doing the best he could for the woman he loved. Maybe he made mistakes but as we've addressed on this page and many previous ones, what FF hero hasn't. In fact, everyone from Cecil onward has hosed up more royally than Snow ever did and unlike Snow, they were usually not held accountable for their mistakes. The fact the world nearly ended in FFIX is all Zidane's fault. Kuja only got back to Terra because they broke the seal just like he wanted. But not once did anyone stop to say "well, we hosed up." And I thought XIII had some pretty good dubbing. Not quite up to XII's level but still decent.
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Dec 21, 2012 00:03
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NikkolasKing posted:Well I acknowledge Snow was a bombastic idiot. It's just that he was a bombastic idiot who was doing the best he could for the woman he loved. He kind of wasn't though. It's for a pretty understandable reason ("Holy gently caress I am an idiot and have no idea what to do") but he basically just started panicking and doing anything he could think of. Which, again, is one of the few pretty realistic reactions anyone in FFXIII has, but it doesn't change the fact that he just basically ping-ponged around from idea to idea like a ferret on speed. NikkolasKing posted:And I thought XIII had some pretty good dubbing. Not quite up to XII's level but still decent. Everything I've heard and seen of the voice acting is that the actors are good but the localization is utter poo poo. From the awkward-as-hell voice direction (mimicing the Japanese voices for some reason when that makes no sense for English voice actors) to the dialogue and word choice ("Worst birthday ever" and "Moms are tough" are two of the most repeated here) it either is literal where it shouldn't be or just flat-out bizarre in certain places. Not to mention goofy as hell joking things like making everyone from Pulse Australian in order to have a "down under" joke which doesn't even make sense. That doesn't make Troy Baker any less awesome. 
ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Dec 21, 2012 |
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Dec 21, 2012 00:10
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ImpAtom posted:It's also a pretty important part of Snow's character that he's pretty dumb and made a lot of bad decisions which actively made the situation worse for everyone. See, that's the part that I don't understand. He mounts a rescue operation and saves a fair amount of people with the help of NORA (a fair number of people died, but they all would have died had he not stepped in), got the party onto the giant Fal'cie container thingy, was the first to get his Eidolon and the first to make contact with the Calvary, actively vilified himself and put his life in danger to draw the heat away from innocent civilians, and had the good thought to use his coat as a dummy to draw enemy fire. I can't remember a single point where snow's actions "made the situation worse for everyone."
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Dec 21, 2012 00:17
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I think it's only Vanille who copies the Japanese stuff and then it's only the "moe noises" or something. I was never bothered by it but apparently it irritates some people to a large degree. As for stuff like "worst birthday ever", I would guess that it's intended to show what kind of woman Lightning is. She's just had some terrible news delivered to her (was it Serah being a l'Cie or Snow and Serah getting married? Or both? I forget) and while the healthy reaction would be to deal with her emotions, she is trying to appear strong. I remember that line and it's very much the flippant and snarky tone of one who is really upset but doesn't want to express it. Did you hear about Nora(the group) being changed to an acronym in English? Lightning: "It's a stupid acronym. Their little code. Stands for "No Obligations, Rules, or Authority"."
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Dec 21, 2012 00:19
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Lance Streetman posted:See, that's the part that I don't understand. He mounts a rescue operation and saves a fair amount of people with the help of NORA (a fair number of people died, but they all would have died had he not stepped in), got the party onto the giant Fal'cie container thingy, was the first to get his Eidolon and the first to make contact with the Calvary, actively vilified himself and put his life in danger to draw the heat away from innocent civilians, and had the good thought to use his coat as a dummy to draw enemy fire. I can't remember a single point where snow's actions "made the situation worse for everyone." Everything he did with Serah in the thirteen days prior to the game starting was generally a bad decision. The smartest thing he did was go to Lightning, but then he stupidly went "FYI, ENGAGED!" which was a really goofy thing to do in that situation. (Serah was also pretty stupid but she gets shoved into a crystal so quickly her personality doesn't matter until FFXIII-2.) NikkolasKing posted:Did you hear about Nora(the group) being changed to an acronym in English? To be honest that's actually not the worst thing they could have done. "Nora" in Japanese is a weird pun name and carrying over the (stupid) Nora/NORA/Operation Nora thing is basically impossible without changing the name. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 00:27 on Dec 21, 2012 |
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Dec 21, 2012 00:19
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ImpAtom posted:Everything he did with Serah in the thirteen days prior to the game starting was generally a bad decision. The smartest thing he did was go to Lightning, but then he stupidly went "FYI, ENGAGED!" which was a really stupid thing to do. (Serah was also pretty stupid but she gets shoved into a crystal so quickly her personality doesn't matter until FFXIII-2.) What he did was stupid, yeah, but they didn't have a whole lot of choices. And I'm willing to blame lightning for shutting them out without really listening.
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Dec 21, 2012 00:26
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Lance Streetman posted:What he did was stupid, yeah, but they didn't have a whole lot of choices. And I'm willing to blame lightning for shutting them out without really listening. She did listen though. The entire point is that she thought it was a bullshit story made up to get he to accept the engagement. Her entire point is "Wait, you became a L'cie... and now you're engaged to Snow? How the hell do those two things make sense? If she became a L'cie what does that have to do with you marrying her?" And the truth is that Snow doesn't really have a response for that because "gently caress, uh... want to get engaged?" was basically another bit of him flailing for something he could do. It also took him like ten days to even go and see Lightning. (Now, you can correctly point out that there is a *really loving easy* solution to this problem, and that is having Serah cast magic. The reason this doesn't happen is because FFXIII's writer is a blithering idiot.)
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Dec 21, 2012 00:34
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Lance Streetman posted:Main characters don't need to be defined by how much they did overall, but a main character should at least do SOMETHING over the course of the game. Lightning doesn't. She just stands around, occasionally hits things, and walks down a straight path. This is how I view her as well. All the other FF main characters have a trait that makes them relatively unique, and even though the characters may be bad(like Squall) you can still describe them without mentioning their names. Lightning on the other hand is just the most monotone, flat, and emotionless character I think I've ever seen in a Final Fantasy. Someone previously mentioned that she has a popular voice actress in Japan which makes her more appealing to the eastern audience. Is she a better character in the Japanese version of the game?
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Dec 21, 2012 00:44
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ImpAtom posted:She did listen though. The entire point is that she thought it was a bullshit story made up to get he to accept the engagement. Her entire point is "Wait, you became a L'cie... and now you're engaged to Snow? How the hell do those two things make sense? If she became a L'cie what does that have to do with you marrying her?" And the truth is that Snow doesn't really have a response for that because "gently caress, uh... want to get engaged?" was basically another bit of him flailing for something he could do. It also took him like ten days to even go and see Lightning. That was a bit of a dumb move of his, but it's a far cry from "every decision he makes worsens the situation for everyone." quote:(Now, you can correctly point out that there is a *really loving easy* solution to this problem, and that is having Serah cast magic. The reason this doesn't happen is because FFXIII's writer is a blithering idiot.) No argument there.
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Dec 21, 2012 00:45
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Cardboard Fox posted:This is how I view her as well. All the other FF main characters have a trait that makes them relatively unique, and even though the characters may be bad(like Squall) you can still describe them without mentioning their names. Lightning on the other hand is just the most monotone, flat, and emotionless character I think I've ever seen in a Final Fantasy. This is exactly what I mean about about the English translation sounding awful. Lightning is many things but none of these apply. Her entire thing is that she is crazy-hotblooded and (at least by the time the game starts) constantly pissed off. When she does things like punches Snow or basically goes "gently caress it, I'm going to kill something," it is because she's seething with emotion. I mean nothing she does in the game makes even a small lick of sense as a cold-blooded ice queen type. Her thing in the game is that she is too emotional and it makes her do some incredibly rash things until her time spent with Hope tempers her a bit and makes her act more reasonable. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Dec 21, 2012 |
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Dec 21, 2012 00:52
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ImpAtom posted:This is exactly what I mean about about the English translation sounding awful. Lightning is many things but none of these apply. I decided to look this up, and you weren't kidding. They really did a number on the characters. English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0pLoi1Tpfo Japanese: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QF3d0nubuU
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Dec 21, 2012 00:58
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See, I like that the proceedings in FFXIII made sense, at least until they got through Oerba. Characters started somewhere, got somewhere else. They all ended up as better people than they started as, and it was very satisfying. After that it was, "Okay, well, even though we hate being pawns for this guy who wants us to kill Orphan, let's go kill Orphan, I guess?" XII had kind of the same problem. It felt like the story was pretty much resolved by the time they got through the Pharos, and the only thing left to do was sidequest and kill the one bad guy. Despite him not even feeling all that villainous.
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Dec 21, 2012 01:03
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Final Fantasy XIII actually had some semblance of a story and characters, although development hell didn't do it much favours. XIII-2 is basically two anime stereotypes and their marketable mascot chasing a brooding anime man through
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Dec 21, 2012 01:06
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Final Fantasy Megathread: The latest game is the worst game in the series (until the next one comes out).
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Dec 21, 2012 01:22
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NikkolasKing posted:"moe noises" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvbAseCN8F8 ???
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Dec 21, 2012 01:22
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT2GRpwwS8M Some people genuinely think this is an attractive character trait.
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Dec 21, 2012 01:26
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Lance Streetman posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT2GRpwwS8M Man, I made it ten seconds into that video. What the gently caress.
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Dec 21, 2012 01:28
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Moe is some Japanese term that means cute or whatever. Vanille has a tendency to make little cutesy noises for no reason other than they are cute. I mainly remember them in battle but apparently they infuriate a ton of people. For my money, I mostly remember Feng makes the most ludicrously bad "ehhhhhhhhh!!!" grunt in battle for one of her regular attacks so you would hear it all the time. It's one reason I didn't use her.
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Dec 21, 2012 01:29
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Lance Streetman posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT2GRpwwS8M Urgh... I've never understood the like for those sorts of noises. It makes my ears bleed. Even worse with Vanille's voice in general. Pesky Splinter fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Dec 21, 2012 |
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Dec 21, 2012 01:31
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quote:For my money, I mostly remember Feng makes the most ludicrously bad "ehhhhhhhhh!!!" grunt in battle for one of her regular attacks so you would hear it all the time. It's one reason I didn't use her.
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Dec 21, 2012 01:33
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Pointless cute noises make a girl sound really super kawaii and vulnerable and makes you want to protect them which apparently is a feeling that gives Japanese nerds a gigantic boner. If Vanille's English VA had just based her performance on her normal speaking voice, she would have been fine. Though really, Final Fantasy just needs to scrap voices altogether. They've always had really melodramatic plots, and sometimes got cheesy as gently caress, but they were fine because they didn't have directors taking it dead-seriously and ordering the actors to do the same. Pre-PS2 FFs are better because I can still imagine Edgar deliberately trying too hard to sound suave, Cid Highwind sounding like a pissed redneck, and the entire cast of FFIX sporting silly Monty Python accents. 
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Dec 21, 2012 01:43
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ImpAtom posted:Man, I made it ten seconds into that video. What the gently caress.  You just don't understand.
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Dec 21, 2012 01:48
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Mazed posted:Pointless cute noises make a girl sound really super kawaii and vulnerable and makes you want to protect them which apparently is a feeling that gives Japanese nerds a gigantic boner. They obviously just need to steal the entire voice-cast of Xenosaga. I swear those guys and gals could make some dumb scenes work well.
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Dec 21, 2012 01:53
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NikkolasKing posted:They obviously just need to steal the entire voice-cast of Xenosaga. I swear those guys and gals could make some dumb scenes work well. I think you're either only remembering Albedo, Margulis, and Ziggy, or you're thinking of Xenoblade. While was great, because even though it was full of anime melodrama, they had the VAs approach like a stage production.
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Dec 21, 2012 02:02
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Now that's not fair at all. Albedo has risen tO Sephiroth levels of undeserved popularity in my mind. Margulis and Ziggy I'll grant you but what about Jin? Everyone rants and raves Episode III was the only good one and the most memorable part for me in the whole game was Jin's death. Then you also had Keith Szarabajka as Yuriev. And I could list tons more like Virgil but I don't see the point. I really just can't understand how you could single only those three out when Xenosaga has such a wonderful cast.
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Dec 21, 2012 02:15
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I dunno. None of them were grating, for sure, but they weren't super-memorable. I highlight those three, because Albedo and Margulis' actors actually took things to an over-the-top level to match what was going on (kind of the same way Kratos works so well in God of War), and Ziggy's sounded cool but without trying to sound cool. KOS-MOS had the same thing going, but her greatness was mainly through actions rather than dialogue (but either way I'd still point to her as the single best character in the series). It's been a long time, though. I may replay those games someday, so maybe impressions will change. I'll say also in favor of them that at least the plotline followed a more discernable direction than that of FFXIII-2.
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Dec 21, 2012 02:30
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NikkolasKing posted:Now that's not fair at all. Albedo has risen tO Sephiroth levels of undeserved popularity in my mind. Margulis and Ziggy I'll grant you but what about Jin? Everyone rants and raves Episode III was the only good one and the most memorable part for me in the whole game was Jin's death. All I remember about Jin is that he was no Citan.
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Dec 21, 2012 02:43
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