|
Cardboard Fox posted:Tactics is incredible so that's a must have. You can pick up the classics like Vagrant Story, Xenogears, Grandia, Chrono Cross, and of course IX. All of the games have problems(except for IX), but they're all worth playing at least once. Yeah, I'd definitely suggest Grandia 2, having never played 1 myself. Maybe the WD Lunar games, those are pretty solid titles. Some folks don't care for their casual, gabby, tongue-in-cheek localizations, though. Maybe Okage if you're looking for another charming game with tons of weird hidden mechanics (if its battle system is unpolished and unfair). Great music in all those titles, too. Fur20 fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Dec 28, 2012 |
#
?
Dec 28, 2012 20:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 09:56 |
|
|
The White Dragon posted:Maybe Okage if you're looking for another charming game with tons of weird hidden mechanics (if its battle system is unpolished and unfair). Great music in all those titles, too. Okage is seriously like the worst game that I wholeheartedly enjoy. It has so so so many problems but it's still somehow incredibly charming. 
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2012 20:41
|
|
|
Cardboard Fox posted:You can also try the Suikoden series. I haven't personally played them, but most goons seem to like them quite a bit. I like suikoden but its a very different thing than most FF. Your character is a silent protagonist (at least with 1,2 & 5), you aren't saving the world, it drives the point that wars arent a game and that they are horrible, that there really isnt anything (or maybe very little) that could be considered actually evil. That everything really is a conflict of opinions, of whether the ends justify the means.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2012 20:53
|
|
|
Cao Ni Ma posted:I like suikoden but its a very different thing than most FF. Your character is a silent protagonist (at least with 1,2 & 5), you aren't saving the world, it drives the point that wars arent a game and that they are horrible, that there really isnt anything (or maybe very little) that could be considered actually evil. That everything really is a conflict of opinions, of whether the ends justify the means. Everything you just mentioned is exactly what makes the series so great. It's like a Japanese Game of Thrones! 
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2012 21:00
|
|
|
Mill Village posted:You don't consider the long, awkward pauses for certain enemy attacks to be a problem? It really drags some of the random encounters in that game. You know, I've honestly never heard this complaint about the game until I read it in this thread a few times. I always thought the battle speed was fine, maybe a bit slower than other FF games, but never so slow that I would consider it a negative feature.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2012 21:08
|
|
|
Cao Ni Ma posted:that there really isnt anything (or maybe very little) that could be considered actually evil.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2012 21:10
|
|
|
Cao Ni Ma posted:I like suikoden but its a very different thing than most FF. Your character is a silent protagonist (at least with 1,2 & 5), you aren't saving the world, it drives the point that wars arent a game and that they are horrible, that there really isnt anything (or maybe very little) that could be considered actually evil. That everything really is a conflict of opinions, of whether the ends justify the means. I think that's something Suikoden has traditionally tried to achieve, and you usually get several villains saying stuff about how they were just fighting for what they believe in, but rarely do games earn it. Suikoden 5 was particularly egregious about it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2012 21:28
|
|
|
SpazmasterX posted:This man is a liar. No, not really. 8 is a pretty bad game, with moments of being fun.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2012 21:35
|
|
|
Azure_Horizon posted:No, not really. 8 is a pretty bad game, with moments of being fun. I'd recommend trying it last, among those listed. It has a pretty steep learning curve and the storyline is no 7.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2012 21:45
|
|
|
Regarding FF8:dans posted:I've never paced back and forth from boredom in a video game before.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2012 21:49
|
|
|
I think the idea is that 8 is an acquired taste. I for one love all the settings and music, and the fact that its mechanics are so easily breakable is really fun. Try it for yourself!
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2012 21:58
|
|
|
If you do give Vagrant Story a go, do yourself a huge favor and play with a crafting guide open. The game has a lot going for it but the crafting system, which is absolutely essential to gameplay, is incredibly awkward and fiddly and you really need to know what you're doing to avoid lots of dumb grinding. The atmosphere, writing, environments are all awesome, but that crafting is just a huge, unintuitive millstone around the game's neck and you'll enjoy Vagrant Story about 1000% more if you don't have to struggle with it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2012 21:59
|
|
|
Last Emperor posted:I missed out on Xenogears and finally tried to play it again recently but I just could not get into it. I just found myself really uninterested with the whole game, maybe I didn't get far enough? I got to the first 'dungeon' after you exit the city with the mech fighting I tried damned hard to play through Xenogears because the story and tone interested me, but between the combat, the customization, and the dungeons the actual gameplay is offputting. I'll settle for a Let's Play.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2012 22:03
|
|
|
thoraxfetish.com posted:I think the idea is that 8 is an acquired taste. I for one love all the settings and music, and the fact that its mechanics are so easily breakable is really fun. Try it for yourself! The attack on the beach, Edea's parade, the battle of the Gardens, the Lunar Cry, the final dungeon, Seifer. Even if people find the battle system dull, it still has lots of great moments.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2012 22:04
|
|
|
Eggie posted:I tried damned hard to play through Xenogears because the story and tone interested me, but between the combat, the customization, and the dungeons the actual gameplay is offputting. I'll settle for a Let's Play. xenogears has no logical story and makes zero loving sense. Its more convoluted and muddled then a metal gear solid game. Krad posted:The attack on the beach, Edea's parade, the battle of the Gardens, the Lunar Cry, the final dungeon, Seifer. Even if people find the battle system dull, it still has lots of great moments. FF8 was retarded and you find a random working spaceship and... Actually, all of it is pretty dumb.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2012 22:05
|
|
|
Instead of playing Vagrant Story you should just watch an LP of it. And after playing Xenogears again for the first time since my childhood I have a hard time not seeing how terrible the game actually is. I think when I was younger it seemed more awesome because I didn't really keep track of the ridiculous story.Krad posted:The attack on the beach, Edea's parade, the battle of the Gardens, the Lunar Cry, the final dungeon, Seifer. Even if people find the battle system dull, it still has lots of great moments. Absolutely. I have way more memorable sequences where I deliberately set aside saves just to replay them over and over in Final Fantasy 8 than anything else. Would've done it in FF6, too, but only 3 slots and one of those slots was always my "Level 99" slot. The story, as a whole, tried really hard to reach the peak ridiculous that Xenogears, too but never quite got there. Both games came around during the time when Square's storytelling hubris was at all time highs. Captain Candiru fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Dec 28, 2012 |
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2012 22:05
|
|
|
Yeah the first time I played 8 I really didn't like it since it was just coming off of the back of 7. Playing it now I think it's aged okay. It's by no means a perfect game but it's still worth playing through once at least. The plot goes pretty out there towards the end but I think it's not too bad through the majority of the game barring the Orphanage stuff. And yeah, some really great moments/scenes in the game along with some of the most memorable music in the series. It's a very divisive game, you either really enjoy it or you can't stand it I think.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2012 22:12
|
|
|
One of the 'selling points' of FF8 is that you can break the game incredibly hard so you never need to fight battles and can unlock the ability to never fight enemies aside from bosses very early on, thus rendering the game nothing but trivial boss battles, card games, and story. If that is appealing to you then hey, there you go. I can't imagine why you'd play FF8 just for the story but people do it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2012 22:15
|
|
|
The selling point is that it's a pretty flashy game and some people really liked the protagonist and storyline. It's fine that you don't like it, but I'm not really sure why the dislike for it has to turn into animosity or being smug or making poo poo up for many people. Captain Candiru fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Dec 28, 2012 |
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2012 22:17
|
|
|
ImpAtom posted:One of the 'selling points' of FF8 is that you can break the game incredibly hard so you never need to fight battles and can unlock the ability to never fight enemies aside from bosses very early on, thus rendering the game nothing but trivial boss battles, card games, and story. If that is appealing to you then hey, there you go. I can't imagine why you'd play FF8 just for the story but people do it. No one in their right mind would throw on Enc-None at the earliest possible moment unless they're doing some sort of gimmick run.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2012 22:48
|
|
|
Eggie posted:I tried damned hard to play through Xenogears because the story and tone interested me, but between the combat, the customization, and the dungeons the actual gameplay is offputting. I'll settle for a Let's Play. You're in luck then. You can find one in the LP Archive by The Dark Id. Very enjoyable.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2012 22:53
|
|
|
Captain Backslap posted:The selling point is that it's a pretty flashy game and some people really liked the protagonist and storyline. People liked the protagonist and storyline? There's absolutely nothing to like about any of it. Disc 1 is tolerable, but after that point you might as well tune every single bit of it out. It's flashy set piece after flashy set piece with no substance; it's basically Michael Bay the jRPG.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2012 23:50
|
|
|
Final Fantasy 8 is a good bad game; it is a failure, but it fails in interesting ways. The story is ambitious but inconsistent, with promising characters who never get a chance to shine, in a setting that goes out of its way to obscure its most creative parts. The gameplay defaults to generic JRPG combat, but there's a far more unique game that's about exploiting the highly abstract systems in order to find ways to avoid and trivialize it. It's worth playing if you're capable of approaching it with a certain critical distance, enabling the mindset that you are sifting through the ruins of something weird and broken to find the accidental and incomplete gems, all the rarer for their malformed nature. If you take it at face value you will probably not have a positive experience.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2012 23:58
|
|
|
Azure_Horizon posted:People liked the protagonist and storyline? There's absolutely nothing to like about any of it. Disc 1 is tolerable, but after that point you might as well tune every single bit of it out. I know man, I thought same. 13 was really terrible like that.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2012 00:25
|
|
|
SpazmasterX posted:No one in their right mind would throw on Enc-None at the earliest possible moment unless they're doing some sort of gimmick run. Really? I hear it recommended all the time. There's no reason to fight regular enemies at all in the game and gaining levels is actually detrimental in some cases.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2012 00:38
|
|
|
ImpAtom posted:Really? I hear it recommended all the time. There's no reason to fight regular enemies at all in the game and gaining levels is actually detrimental in some cases. If you're a gibbering moron that can't figure out the simplest aspect of the junction system, sure. Even half-assed junctions work fine for the entire game. The "scaled leveling" in the game is nothing but a few milestones that make enemies marginally stronger (access to higher tier spells, slightly better stats, better or rarer drops). The only time to use Enc-None is during timed segments, especially the Odin sidequest, or if you're doing a lot of running on the world map for some reason.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2012 00:50
|
|
|
SpazmasterX posted:If you're a gibbering moron that can't figure out the simplest aspect of the junction system, sure. Even half-assed junctions work fine for the entire game. The "scaled leveling" in the game is nothing but a few milestones that make enemies marginally stronger (access to higher tier spells, slightly better stats, better or rarer drops). Yes, but you can gain access to all of those things without combat. In fact it is often easier and involves less time invested than random battles would take up, even with the random battles trivialized by semi-competent junctioning. In fact once you get access to Tonberry you can manipulate levels even without gaining a single level should you need/want a certain drop. AP is the only thing to really be concerned about and Cactaurs trivialize that without any significant level gain, especially due to Squall's innate hit percentage being basically "can't miss." ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Dec 29, 2012 |
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2012 00:58
|
|
|
I love Enc-None and used it pretty frequently both times I played FF8. In a game with random encounters, it is fantastic being able to just turn them off entirely once you've gotten all the drops/cards/magic you want from monsters in a location, or if you just want to get through an area, finish a quest, or solve a puzzle and you're sick of being interrupted every 30 seconds. I also like the characters and enjoyed the story.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2012 01:17
|
|
|
ImpAtom posted:Yes, but you can gain access to all of those things without combat. In fact it is often easier and involves less time invested than random battles would take up, even with the random battles trivialized by semi-competent junctioning. In fact once you get access to Tonberry you can manipulate levels even without gaining a single level should you need/want a certain drop. I can't imagine myself having any fun playing like this my first time through, not to mention I'd have no idea how to do half of this stuff.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2012 01:33
|
|
|
The scaling also makes most of the bosses easier because as you level, enemies get better spells to Draw and Junction and for some reason bosses cap out while normal enemies don't until 100. The worst part about playing the game by grinding to 60 on disc 1 and 100 on disc 2, difficulty-wise, is dealing with enemies that cast Level 5 Death. They were real dicks to make the cap 100 instead of 99! EDIT: And yeah, "good bad game" is the most appropriate description I've ever seen of FF8. It's busted as gently caress and idoitic in a lot of ways but it's also sort of a fascinating trainwreck and legitimately fun to screw around with, and Triple Triad is the best FF minigame as long as you keep the worst rules from spreading.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2012 01:37
|
|
|
Krad posted:I can't imagine myself having any fun playing like this my first time through, not to mention I'd have no idea how to do half of this stuff. Most of it is pretty self-explanatory actually, it isn't like Lionheart on Disc 1 stuff. Diablos is easily obtained because Cid gives you the lamp. He is vulnerable to gravity attacks so beating him is trivial since you can draw them from him, and also he is vulnerable to Blind which you can draw earlier on. In fact if he's blinded I'm pretty sure it is almost impossible to die to him thanks to him using Gravity attacks. Junctioning is as easy as "equip good spell into good slot." Getting a good spell is easy as pie. You play the card game or refine some easily obtained items and you shatter the game without thinking. Cactaurs are by this point a FF tradition and so going to them to get lots of AP but no experience is pretty easy to puzzle out. There we go. Everything explained in like two to three sentences each and none of which requires anything more obscure than "find where Cactaurs are" which I believe a NPC hints at anyway. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Dec 29, 2012 |
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2012 01:44
|
|
|
Krad posted:I can't imagine myself having any fun playing like this my first time through, not to mention I'd have no idea how to do half of this stuff. Alternatively, you know what isn't fun? Playing through the game most of us probably did as kids thinking, "You know what would've made this game a lot easier? Equipment" not realizing--because of the hamfisted way it's presented--that Juctioning is equipment. That's seriously all they had to frame it as, but noooooo. Instead of giving it to you straight, they present Junctioning as this mystical paramagic pseudoscience involving things living in your brain. In the tutorial. That's not good game design, at least from what's comparable to a pedagogical point of view. Fur20 fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Dec 29, 2012 |
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2012 02:43
|
|
|
The GIG posted:I know man, I thought same. 13 was really terrible like that. There is quite a bit of difference between 8 and 13.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2012 02:54
|
|
|
Azure_Horizon posted:There is quite a bit of difference between 8 and 13. As much as there can be between a great card game and a great action film, roughly.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2012 02:55
|
|
|
The White Dragon posted:Alternatively, you know what isn't fun? Playing through the game most of us probably did as kids thinking, "You know what would've made this game a lot easier? Equipment" not realizing--because of the hamfisted way it's presented--that Juctioning is equipment. I can't find a video of the magic-junctioning tutorial, but the GF-junctioning tutorial doesn't go mystical at all. It's extremely straightforward. Between these and five minutes of playing around, it's a pretty simple system to grasp, even for a kid. Edit: The magic-junctioning tutorial. Same deal. Armor-Piercing fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Dec 29, 2012 |
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2012 03:06
|
|
|
Endorph posted:Counterpoint: Luca Blight Well the info given in the game you can see him as a pretty evil dude. But in reality he's just as much of a victim of the many conflicts in the continent. He went trough some seriously hosed up things in his early childhood, its easy to see why he went insane. Really, the only really evil characters we see are Yuber and Neclord. One of them gave us dapper clothing and the other gave us this.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2012 03:16
|
|
|
Armor-Piercing posted:Did you really play a chunk of the game without figuring out how to junction? I figured when most of us played it as kids we just screwed around in the menus (pretty easy when anything you can't use is greyed out) until we had a rough idea of how to do that sort of thing. I didn't bother dicking around in menus. I just forged my equipment up best I could, slapped on Enc-None to avoid attrition, and hoped for the best.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2012 03:28
|
|
|
Aureon posted:As much as there can be between a great card game and a great action film, roughly. So... worlds apart. Seriously, though; while 13 has its own bombastic action-packed setpieces that are all crazy and frenetic and hard to keep track of, 8 just does it because its own plot is riddled with logic holes and stupid bullshit that makes no sense. While 13 has its own share of problematic leaps in logic and motivations, its internal logic is pretty sound and the mythology supports it. 8's mythology actively works to counteract the entire point of the game.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2012 04:08
|
|
|
Sound logic and 13 being mentioned in the same post is the most hilarious thing I read all day.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2012 04:31
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 09:56 |
|
|
The GIG posted:Sound logic and 13 being mentioned in the same post is the most hilarious thing I read all day. It's like hating 13 is a new religion or something, i swear.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2012 06:00
|
|