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Maybe Noel could have been some kind of barbarian/razor-edged lunatic from a future where all civilisation collapsed and he was one of the last people alive rather than the blandest dude in 700 years of history. I don't think even the devs liked him, just look at the Snow paradox ending.
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Jun 18, 2013 12:21
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Kanfy posted:Tactics Advance is probably my least favorite one. The sidequests are really boring, the law system is dumb, the protagonist is unlikeable and the game completely lacks any kind of challenge, even moreso than your average FF. I think the only time I came even close to dying was somewhere close to the beginning. At least the DS sequel had some effort put in the quests and included a harder difficulty mode. I just subscribe to the idea that Marche is a villain myself, so it works out with how unlike-able he is.
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Jun 18, 2013 12:34
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Mordaedil posted:I just subscribe to the idea that Marche is a villain myself, so it works out with how unlike-able he is. Marche definitely was the villain. He screwed over everyone to bring them back to their lovely-rear end real lives. "Sorry, Wheels, time for you to go back to being an invalid!" - Marche, History's Greatest Monster
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Jun 18, 2013 12:38
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Vanderdeath posted:Marche definitely was the villain. He screwed over everyone to bring them back to their lovely-rear end real lives. All that's missing is a dramatic line at the end about all he has wrought. I really hope he ends up on the Chaos side on the next Dissidia game, if they are even bringing him over.
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Jun 18, 2013 12:46
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Peel posted:Maybe Noel could have been some kind of barbarian/razor-edged lunatic from a future where all civilisation collapsed and he was one of the last people alive rather than the blandest dude in 700 years of history. Noel shouldn't have existed, the second party member should've been Dahj from the future.
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Jun 18, 2013 13:02
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I just started 12 IZJS and is there seriously no option to change the behavior of the right stick?
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Jun 18, 2013 13:23
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Bongo Bill posted:The economy of storytelling in FF4 is pretty impressive. Virtually every (mandatory) cutscene establishes what the player should do next, why the characters want to do that, and what they all expect to accomplish thereby; defining character traits and building the world are secondary concerns, used to make future scenes more expressive. This technique of making player and character motivation discrete but aligned means that the story and characters stick with the player even when they're very shallow. It also minimizes the number of lines that are of no relevance to gameplay without minimizing the script altogether. Great point there that I never even noticed. FF5's probably the lightest main FF game simply because all the other games are just so drat dark. FF2 literally kills off half the world, FF3 has a world drowned in ocean and has you killing off your allies to get a key or something, FF4 has the main character dealing with attacking a defenseless nation before you can even control him, and from then on you get to some crazy stuff going on. Even FF5's big death ends on an uplifting note, and the closest the game really gets to dark besides that is a character in the ending dealing with being alone. As for how FF4 handles serious moments, Cecil blows up a town and murders a little girl's mother in the first hour of the game. He ends up having to prove himself to win her trust by protecting her. We've got Tellah, who watches his daughter die and becomes so obsessed with revenge he willingly sacrifices himself, yet still never gets his revenge. While everyone else's deaths didn't take because they were being selfless, Tellah's was all about satisfying his revenge fantasy, and his selfish desires is why he stayed dead (and also because it's easy to survive explosions, giant serpent attacks, and great falls in a world with cure magic I guess). If anything, FF4 could've used a few more silly moments like the dancers and Palom/Porom since it's constantly pretty serious. Of course, FF5 not being as dark and having a lot of silliness doesn't mean its story is bad either. They do a great job constantly raising the stakes, and the story is built more around having awesome character moments to build the bonds between the party than having a huge encompassing narrative. It's a story suited for a video game, and it does a great job complementing the gameplay by making your party constantly act like badasses.
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Jun 18, 2013 13:36
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Vanderdeath posted:Marche definitely was the villain. He screwed over everyone to bring them back to their lovely-rear end real lives. The best part is Wheels is his own brother. Marche just decides to end all life on the off-chance it will return his family and acquaintances back to a home where they live lovely lives in a dead town destined for misery and mediocrity. The idea that dealing with hard reality is better than escaping to a fantasy land would be a great theme if they didn't deliver it with the grace and subtlety of an onrushing freight train.
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Jun 18, 2013 13:39
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Momomo posted:Noel shouldn't have existed, the second party member should've been Dahj from the future. I think you mean Sazh. Sazh is one of the best characters in any FF game. It's criminal how under-utilised he is. Sure, Dahj would be new, but Sazh would still be Sazh.
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Jun 18, 2013 13:41
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Mr. Maltose posted:The best part is Wheels is his own brother. Marche just decides to end all life on the off-chance it will return his family and acquaintances back to a home where they live lovely lives in a dead town destined for misery and mediocrity. It would have been an amazing deal if Marche ever questioned if the fantasy was better than reality but nope instead it's Marche, the dream crushing, world destroying, "gently caress You Got Mine" realist.
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Jun 18, 2013 13:57
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Peel posted:Maybe Noel could have been some kind of barbarian/razor-edged lunatic from a future where all civilisation collapsed and he was one of the last people alive rather than the blandest dude in 700 years of history.
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Jun 18, 2013 15:04
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Mega64 posted:FF5's probably the lightest main FF game simply because all the other games are just so drat dark. As somber as it gets with the majority of its storylines, one of 11's mini-expansions revolves entirely around you getting shaken down by the moogle mafia and another culminates in two giant Shantottos fighting each other to the death kaiju-movie style.
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Jun 18, 2013 15:06
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Mordaedil posted:All that's missing is a dramatic line at the end about all he has wrought. That'd be neat but I'd prefer Ramza vs. Delita or Gafgarion
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Jun 18, 2013 15:33
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DACK FAYDEN posted:That was easily the best ending in the game, right down to how they ran off to look for bullshit magic crystals nobody had heard of before. It was perfect! All the 'serious' things in FFXIII-2 were dull-to-excruciating but it could be startlingly funny when it tried. One of the bosses is defeated by a context-sensitive option to scream at Hope for being useless and ruining everything. That was the last method I tried in that fight because even the other comedy options looked less like comedy options, and it worked.
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Jun 18, 2013 16:59
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FFXIII-2 would have been roughly infinitely more tolerable if it was just willing to be silly as poo poo 24/7. Once it starts yapping about paradoxes my brain shuts down.
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Jun 18, 2013 17:03
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ImpAtom posted:FFXIII-2 would have been roughly infinitely more tolerable if it was just willing to be silly as poo poo 24/7. Once it starts yapping about paradoxes my brain shuts down. I wish I could say the same thing, but when they start talking about paradoxes, that sick rear end Paradox music starts up and I'm just all ears.
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Jun 18, 2013 17:19
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ImpAtom posted:FFXIII-2 would have been roughly infinitely more tolerable if it was just willing to be silly as poo poo 24/7. Once it starts yapping about paradoxes my brain shuts down. 
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Jun 18, 2013 17:21
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DACK FAYDEN posted:Changing the future changes the past This, actually, isn't all that illogical and is the least convoluted part of XIII-2's time travel business.
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Jun 18, 2013 17:34
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For me, FFX was the darkest game in the series. I used to argue it was IX but while it has a very mature and sobering main theme, as well as a crapload of death, it is a rather uplifting game overall I think. X meanwhile is all about a neverending cycle of death and suffering and it doesn't let you forget it. I know a guy who absolutely loathes the game and insists that after a thousand years people should be treating Sin and death by Sin as no big deal anymore. They'd get desensitized. I keep arguing with him that this doesn't make sense but he won't listen. He also refuses to acknowledge that being dead isn't so perfect in Spira. A select few become Unsents with cool powers while the rest just become dog and jell-o things. Speaking of opinions I don't agree with, someone was telling me about how unique and interesting the world of FFXIII was recently. NOw I don't hate the game but I saw almost zilch in the way of worlbuilding. YOu visit two towns on Cocoon and one of them is some crazy theme park place and the other is under martial law. I never once got the feeling people were livestock for the machine gods or anything of the sort. It seemed like a pretty cliched case of a tyrant keeping the masses in line via fear of "The Enemy." (l'Cie, Pulse) Of course, maybe the storytelling just kinda sucked and so I didn't get the intended vibe from the setting. To this day I don't get the fal'Cie. I don't get how we are supposed to fear the machine gods when you can use one of them as a bus. I don't even know if they're supposed to be sentient or sapient or whatever. I guess I'd say XIII was a very serious game, but not a dark one. It has a distinct lack of comedic moments compared to other games in the series but I never felt like everything was all that grim and hopeless. Again, mauybe that's just the fault of the writing. FFVIII was a pretty light-hearted game. Love and Friendship save the day is basically what worked in FFIV too. The only really tragic or sad part in the whole game is what happened to Raine.
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Jun 18, 2013 17:47
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Mega64 posted:FF5's probably the lightest main FF game simply because all the other games are just so drat dark.  I'm pretty sure it doesn't need to be compared to the others to be the most light-hearted in the series. Of course, it's also the best for completely unrelated reasons though stuff like that helps too.
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Jun 18, 2013 18:02
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NikkolasKing posted:I know a guy who absolutely loathes the game and insists that after a thousand years people should be treating Sin and death by Sin as no big deal anymore. They'd get desensitized. I keep arguing with him that this doesn't make sense but he won't listen. He also refuses to acknowledge that being dead isn't so perfect in Spira. A select few become Unsents with cool powers while the rest just become dog and jell-o things. That's a pretty surreal opinion. People in the ancient world took propitiating the divine to ward off natural disasters very seriously indeed, and Sin/Yevon is just that but multiplied immeasurably by virtue of the god really existing and the propitiation really working. quote:Speaking of opinions I don't agree with, someone was telling me about how unique and interesting the world of FFXIII was recently. NOw I don't hate the game but I saw almost zilch in the way of worlbuilding. YOu visit two towns on Cocoon and one of them is some crazy theme park place and the other is under martial law. I never once got the feeling people were livestock for the machine gods or anything of the sort. It seemed like a pretty cliched case of a tyrant keeping the masses in line via fear of "The Enemy." (l'Cie, Pulse) Of course, maybe the storytelling just kinda sucked and so I didn't get the intended vibe from the setting. To this day I don't get the fal'Cie. I don't get how we are supposed to fear the machine gods when you can use one of them as a bus. I don't even know if they're supposed to be sentient or sapient or whatever. I've acclaimed FFXIII's world but this is correct, I recall very little about it. I think what I and other people like is the concept and potential of it. This world where mankind lives as pampered pets and livestock in the shadow of creatures that are alien and unknown but also directly immanent in society is a fascinating and pretty original one. But they didn't do anything with it, because you spent almost all your time in the corridor. All we have is the shadow of something that could have been remarkable but which we never see. Then the chance to expand on it became a ludicrous time-travel adventure in what almost amounted to a whole other cosmology. Such a waste. Peel fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Jun 18, 2013 |
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Jun 18, 2013 18:32
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I played through the game and I'm still not sure what the relation between the l'cie and normal Cocoon residents is. Do the citizens hate all of the l'cie, or are they just talking about ones from Pulse? What was Anima supposed to be from, Pulse? They talk about hating the fal'cie a lot, but they apparently use them to produce food and energy? I could understand if the whole hating Pulse thing was just a way for Barthandelus to get people mad, but he seemed to also make them hate their own fal'cie.
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Jun 18, 2013 18:43
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Momomo posted:I played through the game and I'm still not sure what the relation between the l'cie and normal Cocoon residents is. Do the citizens hate all of the l'cie, or are they just talking about ones from Pulse? What was Anima supposed to be from, Pulse? They talk about hating the fal'cie a lot, but they apparently use them to produce food and energy? I could understand if the whole hating Pulse thing was just a way for Barthandelus to get people mad, but he seemed to also make them hate their own fal'cie. The citizens hate Pulse l'Cie because, 500 years prior, they were the cause of the giant fuckoff scar on the outside of Cocoon that nearly destroyed the entire thing. Anima is a Pulse fal'Cie, which is why Lightning and co. become Pulse l'Cie and are thus on the run the entire game. Fal'cie are of two sets: Pulse and Cocoon. The Pulse fal'Cie have made it their mission to destroy Cocoon, and by branding l'Cie to attack it, have made themselves enemies of Cocoon, which is why the general Cocoon populace supports the Purge. The Cocoon fal'Cie are merely authoritarian figures who created the idea of the Purge and also help support Cocoon entirely (like Phoenix, which is the Sun in the middle of the Dyson sphere, and Leviathan, who controls the water supply). The general hatred towards the fal'Cie stems from their divine powers that allow them to control practically everything.
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Jun 18, 2013 18:54
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Momomo posted:I played through the game and I'm still not sure what the relation between the l'cie and normal Cocoon residents is. Do the citizens hate all of the l'cie, or are they just talking about ones from Pulse? What was Anima supposed to be from, Pulse? They talk about hating the fal'cie a lot, but they apparently use them to produce food and energy? I could understand if the whole hating Pulse thing was just a way for Barthandelus to get people mad, but he seemed to also make them hate their own fal'cie. No, they just hate the ones from Pulse. Maybe they're afraid of the Cocoon ones, but they don't hate them.
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Jun 18, 2013 18:56
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Schwartzcough posted:FFIV also has the problem that a character "nobly sacrifices" themselves about once an hour, and most of those sacrifices are completely idiotic, transparent excuses for "we need to make room for another character now" moments. So by the time you get to Tellah's death, you're just rolling your eyes.
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Jun 18, 2013 19:03
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Dauntasa posted:No, they just hate the ones from Pulse. Maybe they're afraid of the Cocoon ones, but they don't hate them.
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Jun 18, 2013 19:18
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Paracelsus posted:I'm not sure the general populace even knew that there was such a thing as a Cocoon l'Cie. Of course they did. Hell, Sazh was taking a tour of a power plant where the power was made by a fal'cie, and the fal'cie was so open that his kid just kind of wandered over to it.
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Jun 18, 2013 19:23
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Dauntasa posted:No, they just hate the ones from Pulse. Maybe they're afraid of the Cocoon ones, but they don't hate them. Well, they don't seem to like them much, but yeah, Pulse L'Cie are the ones that terrify people while Cocoon L'Cie are just spirited away by PSICOM.
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Jun 18, 2013 19:23
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Mr. Maltose posted:The best part is Wheels is his own brother. Marche just decides to end all life on the off-chance it will return his family and acquaintances back to a home where they live lovely lives in a dead town destined for misery and mediocrity. You know, the game's story could've been more interesting if they played it from the brother Doned's perspective. Start off with him being a prince in a fantasy kingdom- typical JRPG start. Then find out some villain is going around destroying crystals that hold the world together! Still firmly in Final Fantasy territory. Then it turns out he's your brother! Yup, still good. But then you can use Marche's exposition and flashbacks to reveal that this whole world is an illusion, that you're really just a sad crippled boy, and that he thinks he must protect you from escapism. Now you have to be morally conflicted, because your motivation went from the selfless "save the world!" to the much more selfish "I don't want to be handicapped..." Or yeah, at the very least have Marche wonder if what he's doing is right or fair. But no, can't have story depth in a FFTA game.
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Jun 18, 2013 19:30
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Schwartzcough posted:You know, the game's story could've been more interesting if they played it from the brother Doned's perspective. Start off with him being a prince in a fantasy kingdom- typical JRPG start. Then find out some villain is going around destroying crystals that hold the world together! Still firmly in Final Fantasy territory. Then it turns out he's your brother! Yup, still good. I like the inversion, since you're usually the one saving Crystals and stuff being the guy breaking things was pretty cool. It's like playing from a villain's perspective, of course Marche would think that he's the hero. I've fought to keep dreams alive in every RPG, let me crush them! 
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Jun 18, 2013 19:42
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Dj Meow Mix posted:I like the inversion, since you're usually the one saving Crystals and stuff being the guy breaking things was pretty cool. It's like playing from a villain's perspective, of course Marche would think that he's the hero. I've fought to keep dreams alive in every RPG, let me crush them! Agreed completely. It feels so nice to finally see the JRPG villain turn the world to nothingness and be free of the chains of existence that bind them.
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Jun 18, 2013 19:44
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Dauntasa posted:Of course they did. Hell, Sazh was taking a tour of a power plant where the power was made by a fal'cie, and the fal'cie was so open that his kid just kind of wandered over to it.
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Jun 18, 2013 19:53
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Dj Meow Mix posted:I like the inversion, since you're usually the one saving Crystals and stuff being the guy breaking things was pretty cool. It's like playing from a villain's perspective, of course Marche would think that he's the hero. I've fought to keep dreams alive in every RPG, let me crush them! See, now I would've loved to have played the game from Newt's perspective, or have the option to play it from either his or Marche's and therefore have different endings. I love the idea of having two sides conflicting with one another, and it's very gray which one is the "good" side (although I will admit, I definitely sympathized with Newt more).
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Jun 18, 2013 20:01
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Azure_Horizon posted:The Cocoon fal'Cie are merely authoritarian figures who created the idea of the Purge and also help support Cocoon entirely (like Phoenix, which is the Sun in the middle of the Dyson sphere, and Leviathan, who controls the water supply). I had no idea whether the people of Cocoon lived on the inside or outside. One of the things I thought was interesting when I played the first Halo was seeing the land curve up into the sky, and join with the other side right at the very top. Even if it's very abstract or unexplained, they should at least give you a visual reference that you're not on any normal planet. XIII-2 doesn't even revisit the concept, since most of it takes place on Pulse. The fal'Cie and Cocoon are two things that interested me about XIII before it was released, so it's disappointing how poorly handled they were, and almost completely forgotten in the sequel. You could say that fal'Cie are still around, but no-one's being branded and given a tasks or face zombification, they just act as power stations and evil AIs. Type-0 includes fal'Cie and l'Cie, and there's a small possibility that XV will too, since that was one of the recurring themes when they were all XIII-branded games. I don't want to see this idea dropped, although a set of better names wouldn't hurt.
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Jun 18, 2013 20:15
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That loving Sned posted:I had no idea whether the people of Cocoon lived on the inside or outside. One of the things I thought was interesting when I played the first Halo was seeing the land curve up into the sky, and join with the other side right at the very top. Even if it's very abstract or unexplained, they should at least give you a visual reference that you're not on any normal planet.
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Jun 18, 2013 20:16
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DACK FAYDEN posted:Weren't there lights in the sky in half the intro cutscenes? I had a fairly distinct impression of inside-ness somehow, but I don't recall why. I could have sworn you see the buildings hanging from the cieling and the train enters via a huge cavernous tunnel right at the very beginning. Not that the game does anything with that setting which is a glaring flaw in FFXIII in general.
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Jun 18, 2013 20:18
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Speaking of the intro to FFXIII, how is it that the main characters are able to fall such massive distances without a scratch, but Hope's mother dies from falling the exact same distance Snow does seconds later? I can image now the first bit of the game taking place inside Cocoon, with the train going inside, and the fal'Cie descending from an opening at the top. When everything comes crashing down and the lake turns to crystal, then I guess that was all sloshing about at the bottom of Cocoon. However, wouldn't the big crack be visible from somewhere? And how does gravity work? Does everyone live at the bottom, or can they just continue walking up the inside surface until they reach the top? Dauntasa posted:XV looks legitimately cool and interesting without all that bullshit. I love the aesthetic with people know how to dress themselves properly and hair only operating at medium anime levels and the whole modern city getting invaded by knights with plate armour and tommy guns rolling up in APCs. It looks great and I don't think robogods are gonna help. You're right. Seeing Versus back was one of the best moments of E3 for me, especially since we hadn't seen a thing for over two years. It's like Platinum was given an unlimited budget to make a Final Fantasy game along the lines of Devil May Cry, Bayonetta and Metal Gear Rising. The new outfits look great, and according to Nomura, it's better to have distinct hairstyles than to just have everyone shaved. That Fucking Sned fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Jun 19, 2013 |
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Jun 18, 2013 20:30
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That loving Sned posted:Type-0 includes fal'Cie and l'Cie, and there's a small possibility that XV will too, since that was one of the recurring themes when they were all XIII-branded games. I don't want to see this idea dropped, although a set of better names wouldn't hurt. XV looks legitimately cool and interesting without all that bullshit. I love the aesthetic with people know how to dress themselves properly and hair only operating at medium anime levels and the whole modern city getting invaded by knights with plate armour and tommy guns rolling up in APCs. It looks great and I don't think robogods are gonna help. That loving Sned posted:Speaking of the intro to FFXIII, how is it that the main characters are able to fall such massive distances without a scratch, but Hope's mother dies from falling the exact same distance Snow does seconds later? Moms aren't tough.
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Jun 18, 2013 20:34
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That loving Sned posted:I had no idea whether the people of Cocoon lived on the inside or outside. One of the things I thought was interesting when I played the first Halo was seeing the land curve up into the sky, and join with the other side right at the very top. Even if it's very abstract or unexplained, they should at least give you a visual reference that you're not on any normal planet. They live on the inside. You can see the reflection of the other side of Cocoon from certain areas like Lake Bresha. As far as how gravity works, Cocoon follows the general formula of a Dyson Sphere, so just read about them here.
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Jun 18, 2013 20:39
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The fal'Cie are a really cool idea because they are presented as these mystical, all-powerful gods and yet, at the end of the day, they are really just slaves. They might rule humanity but that's all they can do. They will rule whether they want to or not and they will do that for eternity. It's kind of a bum rap and you can almost feel for Bart when he finally dies. He never asked for this job and he couldn't ever quit it. The only escape was death. The other fal'Cie that are just the sewer system or whatever have it even worse as they are (presumably) living and thinking creatures and yet they are stuck in that role forever. The problem is that unnecessary, never even hinted at lore that you can only find in side stuff. The main game tells you explicitly that there is a single, all powerful God who made both humans and fal'CIe. Then He took a hike and left his two creations to coexist all on their lonesome. THe final boss being called Orphan works because God esentially just made them and then abandoned them to their existence of servitude. I guess I like it because they are presented as so strong and mighty yet it turns out they are the weakest of all beings. Only this is all contradicted by the sequel and the needlessly contrived creation myths. There is no Maker/God, fal'Cie and humans were created by entirely separate beings and everything you are told in actual cutscenes is proven to be bullshit in optional crap. And this is why all the potential of FFXIII pisses me off. I finished the game with a more or less positive attitude but when I got online and learned everything I thought I knew about the storyline was absolutely wrong, I got a bit...annoyed.
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Jun 18, 2013 20:41
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