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Azure_Horizon posted:I think it's a pretty clever way of providing background detail without throwing it all in some expository cutscene. Though XIII could have used at least one or two of those that wasn't repeating the much simpler main story yet again. As a devoted fan of Xenogears, I've never really had a problem with expository cutscenes. I was actually a little bit disappointed when there was so much left unclear in XIII. Most of the other ones don't really leave loose ends, and I like that in a big ol' RPG. It's cool that squeenix is doing different things with the story, but it makes the completionist in me scrape at the walls looking for hidden stuff that isn't there. XIII-2 is full of that kinda-sorta explained stuff, btw.
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Jun 19, 2013 05:38
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Dragonatrix posted:Yeah, notice how I didn't mention those things. Because I never read them. Because you should never have to. That the game only points out Etro's involvement in them at all is precisely what I meant. It's not important though and we're limited by the character's perspectives. The characters don't know all this background information either. Ultimately the story is about them anyway, not Etro/Lindzei/etc. As a player, the game let's us understand the universe better through things like the datalogs, but spelling out small details like that in game would not improve the game's story and would only serve as a complex distraction.
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Jun 19, 2013 05:43
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Azure_Horizon posted:I think it's a pretty clever way of providing background detail without throwing it all in some expository cutscene. Though XIII could have used at least one or two of those that wasn't repeating the much simpler main story yet again. Yeah this would work if they later went into it at least at some introductory level, so that the hidden runes in poo poo that mean absolutely nothing to the majority of people playing at the time are just foreshadowing and extra bits here and there. If falls flat on its face into "Completely Busted Story Telling" when the vast majority of the setting/plot/character motivation is hidden behind the scenes in tiny details that are an ordeal to just decipher, let alone put together.
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Jun 19, 2013 05:47
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:Yeah this would work if they later went into it at least at some introductory level, so that the hidden runes in poo poo that mean absolutely nothing to the majority of people playing at the time are just foreshadowing and extra bits here and there. I'd agree, except that what we're talking about is kind of important to knowing the context of everything, not even close to the vast majority of the setting/plot/character. That's all right there in the game, but this one weird thing is hidden off in this one game, and then more thoroughly explained in the next. It's weird for a Final Fantasy to not be explicit about the details of a setting's mythology, but it does make perfect sense in the context of XIII as the first really character driven story in the main series.
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Jun 19, 2013 06:00
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After starting 12 for the first time last night, something about the overall design reminded me of something but I couldn't put my finger on it. Now I realize it looks a lot like Star Wars Phantom Menace. EDIT: I finished my first playthrough of 8 recently and I absolutely loved it, just by the way it was presented, though I have to admit if I hadn't been following a guide I probably would not have enjoyed it as much. I'm one of those people that just kinda likes everything though. Elec fucked around with this message at 06:09 on Jun 19, 2013 |
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Jun 19, 2013 06:06
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Elec posted:After starting 12 for the first time last night, something about the overall design reminded me of something but I couldn't put my finger on it. Now I realize it looks a lot like Star Wars Phantom Menace. If The Phantom Menace was half as good as FFXII I would have much more fondness for the prequels.
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Jun 19, 2013 06:09
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Elec posted:After starting 12 for the first time last night, something about the overall design reminded me of something but I couldn't put my finger on it. Now I realize it looks a lot like Star Wars Phantom Menace. The entire game draws pretty strong influences from Star Wars as a whole. You'll probably notice a lot more of it as you play more.
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Jun 19, 2013 06:09
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bobtheconqueror posted:I'd agree, except that what we're talking about is kind of important to knowing the context of everything, not even close to the vast majority of the setting/plot/character. That's all right there in the game, but this one weird thing is hidden off in this one game, and then more thoroughly explained in the next. It's weird for a Final Fantasy to not be explicit about the details of a setting's mythology, but it does make perfect sense in the context of XIII as the first really character driven story in the main series. First Really Character Driven Story in FF? Really? That wouldn't be 6 or 9?
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Jun 19, 2013 06:10
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:First Really Character Driven Story in FF? Really? That wouldn't be 6 or 9? I might be wrong there or misusing the term. Sorry. It definitely is character driven, and I never got that feeling from the others. Maybe it was XIII's presentation and the lack of exposition on setting beyond what was necessary, but I got much more of a feeling that the story revolved around the party in this one than any others. It was the first one that prompted me to use that to describe how it's story stands out compared to the others. The individual stories of the characters and the group are basically the whole story. There's all this other stuff going on in the background that the characters interact with, but it hardly matters through most of the game. Six and nine have some of the biggest stories in any of them, so there's certainly all sorts of room to flesh out the characters, but I never felt that resolving somebody's personal problems was more important to the story than saving the world or village or whatever.
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Jun 19, 2013 06:19
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The series has been character driven since IV. So confused.
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Jun 19, 2013 06:24
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Pyroxene Stigma posted:The series has been character driven since IV. So confused. I'm not explaining it very well. My bad. I'll drop it.
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Jun 19, 2013 06:28
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:If falls flat on its face into "Completely Busted Story Telling" when the vast majority of the setting/plot/character motivation is hidden behind the scenes in tiny details that are an ordeal to just decipher, let alone put together.
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Jun 19, 2013 07:20
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Paracelsus posted:Man would you ever hate Dark Souls. See, but FFXIII is heavily dependent on its story, while for Dark Souls, any story you can piece together is just icing on the cake. Understanding the world and history of Dark Souls is completely unimportant to enjoying the meat of the game.
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Jun 19, 2013 07:25
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Paracelsus posted:Man would you ever hate Dark Souls. I love Dark Souls. The Core of the Dark Souls experience, the most important part, isn't that story. It's the whole kick-your-rear end dungeon diving gameplay. FFXIII is supposed to be a huge story driven game. DS can get away with it, FF really can't.
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Jun 19, 2013 07:29
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The thing is that the story you can decipher by piecing the background together in Dark Souls is pretty interesting and it has a compelling central theme while FF13 is the usual overwrought poo poo that thinks it's super meaningful and is actually totally asinine
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Jun 19, 2013 07:38
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Paracelsus posted:Man would you ever hate Dark Souls. Dark Souls does piecing together story well. You get into a new area, you find a corpse, you pick up the items and move on. Then you read the description on the items and you can start to slowly piece things together, or a character mentions something offhandedly and it ties into something else. You can break a hidden wall out in the middle of a poison swamp that you normally wouldn't find, then break ANOTHER hidden wall behind it, then end up in a giant tree. You climb down through the tree, fatally dying 3 or 4 times on the way. You pop out and suddenly there is a huge underground lake that stretches to the horizon, seemingly with no loving explanation. Then you find a giant dragon and it lets you turn into a dragon! What the gently caress!! FF13 just throws a bunch of useless encyclopedia entries at you instead of tying it in to the actual gameplay
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Jun 19, 2013 08:12
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Yeah, Dark Souls' story and background is hidden, but in a way that's easy to figure out with a modicum of effort and two neurons to rub together. It's also very deliberate what is presented to the player and what is left for them to deduce, as opposed to fantheories trying to cover up plot holes and sloppy writing (as mentioned earlier in the FF8 discussion).Zombies' Downfall posted:The thing is that the story you can decipher by piecing the background together in Dark Souls is pretty interesting and it has a compelling central theme while FF13 is the usual overwrought poo poo that thinks it's super meaningful and is actually totally asinine Also this.
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Jun 19, 2013 14:54
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Dark Souls didn't stop the game every ten minutes so the characters could talk about their feelings though. MGS4 and FFXIII are games that manage to say much less with their nine hours of cutscenes than many games are able to with none. Even after sitting through all of that non-interactive exposition, I still have no idea what Liquid's plan was, or who any of these deities are.
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Jun 19, 2013 15:24
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On the other hand, even MGS4 wins there because MGS4 is hilarious.
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Jun 19, 2013 16:11
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FFXV has already shown more characterisation and life with the characters with that high-five than XIII ever did with its dialogues.
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Jun 19, 2013 16:16
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On a scale of one to high five, where would that put X then?
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Jun 19, 2013 16:21
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Momomo posted:On a scale of one to high five, where would that put X then? I'd give it a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H47ow4_Cmk0 out of ten
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Jun 19, 2013 16:42
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Momomo posted:On a scale of one to high five, where would that put X then?  see it's funny because it's literally "X" and they highfive
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Jun 19, 2013 16:51
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FFX tells a good, fairly straightforward story, but it still kind of has a problem with too much exposition and not enough actual substance.
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Jun 19, 2013 17:04
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Fister Roboto posted:FFX tells a good, fairly straightforward story, but it still kind of has a problem with too much exposition and not enough actual substance. And then wraps it all in awful hair and creepy.
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Jun 19, 2013 17:52
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The only quality thing about FFX is the music, mostly because of Hamauzu. The rest I can take or leave, really.
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Jun 19, 2013 19:18
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Winks posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKRZlzXTRzM&t=361s Well there ya go. Thank you for that. I concede. Lamprey Cannon posted:Hey, I was wondering if I could get some advice here, what with all the FF13 chat. I just recently bought a used Xbox 360, as it's roughly the start of the next console generation, and as a fan of other FFs, I was wondering if XIII was worth my time. By and large, I've really liked the more linear Final Fantasy games, and I don't have too much of a problem with stupid plots so long as it manages to be at least internally consistent. If it's any help, I really liked VIII, in spite of and partly because of all its nonsensical soap-opera bullshit. I like it when something stupid and crazy happens and I just go what. Is it worth getting a used copy? If not, can I skip to XIII-2 without missing out on too much? Since others are giving recommendations, might I humbly suggest Star Ocean: The Last Hope. I played both it and Final Fantasy XIII recently and I vastly preferred SO. I would actually play it again while my copy of FFXIII is long gone. I mean, give FFXIII a try if you want and make your own opinion on it, but I'd summarize both games as having pretty subpar stroeis but SO4 is helped by a more interesting variety of environments and better gameplay. There isjust a ton of crap to do in that game. Granted, FFXIII's title of "The Biggest Anime" really does belong to The Last Hope. The game is unapologetically geared towards the otaku niche so some stuff in it (mainly Welch) might send the average person running for the hills. FFXIII isn't nearly so...oriented for a specific demographic. bobtheconqueror posted:As a devoted fan of Xenogears, I've never really had a problem with expository cutscenes. I was actually a little bit disappointed when there was so much left unclear in XIII. Most of the other ones don't really leave loose ends, and I like that in a big ol' RPG. It's cool that squeenix is doing different things with the story, but it makes the completionist in me scrape at the walls looking for hidden stuff that isn't there. XIII-2 is full of that kinda-sorta explained stuff, btw. Xenogears and Xenosaga know how to use supplementary sources. You don't need to read the XG Perfect Works or the XS Database to know the story or characters. Everything in there is just gravy. Momomo posted:On a scale of one to high five, where would that put X then? Every party member feels necessary froma plot perspective. This already puts X above XII and IX and VIII and VII and IV and II and.... Almost everry FF leaves you wondering why the hell [insert party member] is even there. With X and the united goal of Yuna's Pilgrimage, that problem is cleared up nicely. In addition, each party member receives some serious character development. The story is straightforward but interesting. Spira's sunny face and dismal core work really well together and I think it's one of the best explored worlds in the series. The biggest strike against the game is Tidus. Well, he's a strike for me but I'vehad this argument more times than I can count so obviously not everyone agrees. I say Yuna was definitely the lead and Tidus was just shoehorned in. I do not believe his "alternate viewpoint" was necessary for helping Yuna grow so that she wouldn't sacrifice herself at the end. Having someone question the truths everyone else just believes doesn't work because Auron is there and he already knows it's all bullshit. All he had to do was tell Yuna to ask Yunalesca "will the Final Summoning actually work?: and the undead bikini savior would have gone into great detail about how the Final Summoning ensures that Sin always returns. So yeah, Tidus' role in the story was way too big. Other than that however, I have no real complaints about the game's characters or plot. I'd say it's one of my favorite FFs. (my favorite is XII) NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Jun 19, 2013 |
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Jun 19, 2013 20:15
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This might be the first time I see anyone recommend Star Ocean 4 for any reason.
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Jun 19, 2013 20:29
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NikkolasKing posted:Every party member feels necessary froma plot perspective. This already puts X above XII and IX and VIII and VII and IV and II and....
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Jun 19, 2013 20:43
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NikkolasKing posted:
Gravy as in convoluted as hell, with frequent and long-winded expository cutscenes and a story that ends up making less sense as it goes along. Xenosaga was even worse than Xenogears in this regard.
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Jun 19, 2013 20:51
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Azure_Horizon posted:Gravy as in convoluted as hell, with frequent and long-winded expository cutscenes and a story that ends up making less sense as it goes along. Xenosaga was even worse than Xenogears in this regard. He was referring to the Perfect Works/Database books. I don't disagree that the plots were convoluted, though.
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Jun 19, 2013 21:08
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Pyroxene Stigma posted:He was referring to the Perfect Works/Database books. I don't disagree that the plots were convoluted, though. Ah, misinterpretation. But yeah, even if Xenogears/Xenosaga doesn't require a read of the supplementary materials, their plots are just as asinine.
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Jun 19, 2013 21:15
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Pyroxene Stigma posted:This might be the first time I see anyone recommend Star Ocean 4 for any reason. Gamers come in all types and many JRPG fans want a lot of bang for their buck ie. something that will sap a 100 plus hours of their life away. SO4 has a lot of problems but there is no shortage of things to do with all the post game dungeons and superbosses and whatnot. At the very least I advocate what the other poster said about FFXIII - at least play SO4 to have an informed opinion about why it's bad. Paracelsus posted:Kimahri and Lulu are kinda marginal, especially since Kimahri is just plain bad as a combat character and Lulu's overdrive drastically drops off in usefulness as the game progresses in comparison to most, so you tend to forget about them. There's sort of a reason they're there ("Yuna has a bunch of guardians"), but the plot would progress basically the same if they weren't and they don't get much development. Well they're not vital subplots but Kimahri had the whole bit with being small Ronso. That was kind of a consistent thing all the way from Luca to Gagazet where he proves his strength. It's definitely not vital to the main story but it's there and I'll take it over not giving him any real development at all. Even my beloved FFXII is guilty of doing that.
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Jun 19, 2013 21:26
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Paracelsus posted:Kimahri and Lulu are kinda marginal, especially since Kimahri is just plain bad as a combat character and Lulu's overdrive drastically drops off in usefulness as the game progresses in comparison to most, so you tend to forget about them. There's sort of a reason they're there ("Yuna has a bunch of guardians"), but the plot would progress basically the same if they weren't and they don't get much development. I don't know. I liked Lulu's involvement quite a bit. I don't think that her personal story plot was all that much, but she added a lot to character development and personalities of the others. That made her very important in my eyes.
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Jun 19, 2013 21:28
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NikkolasKing posted:Gamers come in all types and many JRPG fans want a lot of bang for their buck ie. something that will sap a 100 plus hours of their life away. SO4 has a lot of problems but there is no shortage of things to do with all the post game dungeons and superbosses and whatnot. Or recommend a game like Xenoblade, that's both packed with content and enjoyable.
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Jun 19, 2013 21:46
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Pyroxene Stigma posted:Or recommend a game like Xenoblade, that's both packed with content and enjoyable. And, you know, isn't designed buy a guy who wanted to make a porn game but was forced to make SO4 instead.
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Jun 19, 2013 21:46
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Pyroxene Stigma posted:Or recommend a game like Xenoblade, that's both packed with content and enjoyable. The original poster was talking about how he just got a 369 so I recommended a game for the 360. I have no idea if he even owns a Wii.
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Jun 19, 2013 21:50
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Barudak posted:And, you know, isn't designed buy a guy who wanted to make a porn game but was forced to make SO4 instead. Hey now, there's no evidence of that. Remember Sharla's outfits? 
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Jun 19, 2013 21:54
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If you're recommending 360 games, why would you recommend Star Ocean 4 over Tales of Vesperia? They have similar combat systems, but one is actually a good game.
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Jun 19, 2013 21:57
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Cake Attack posted:If you're recommending 360 games, why would you recommend Star Ocean 4 over Tales of Vesperia? You have to a pay a hefty sum for Tales of vesperia on the 360, not Xenoblade money but it's up there.
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Jun 19, 2013 21:58
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