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precision posted:I have tried to go back and replay 7 and 8 like five times in the past several years and you know what? They're terrible. They are seriously just not fun games anymore. I would replay 13 over either of them any day. 8 was always a terrible game. I just finished a 7 replay and it's still playable at least. Which honestly is better than I can say for 13. I don't hate the character in 7 and I generally know who they are as people, and Cloud and Tifa's weirdness during the game makes sense knowing the plot ahead of time. It's actually pretty okay all things told. I have no idea how in the hell anyone could replay 13 though. In the time it took to get started in 13 I had beaten 7. 13's pacing in everything is so loving atrocious it's almost unplayable. Also, oddly enough there's like....6 games before 7 and some of them are still really great and generally hold up a lot better than like the last 3 FF games.
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Jul 20, 2013 16:48
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Fight Club Sandwich posted:I'm of the opinion that the FFs generally get better with each release except for 13-2 which was square's fault for listening to its terrible, terrible fans. B-b-b-but XIII-2 was an improvement on XIII's combat, wasn't it? Personally, I thought XIII-2 was a far better game than XIII and had the best combat in the series after X-2. Sure, the plot of XIII-2 was still utterly nonsensical, and I'd argue it had worse music than XIII, but it was more fun (who doesn't like a cactuar in shades?) and felt more traditional.
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Jul 20, 2013 16:56
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So if I haven't played either of the existing FFXIIIs, but I have pre-ordered Lightning Returns (...partly because of a Cloud Strife costume), is it worth going back to play FFXIII-2? I don't intend to go back and play the first FFXIII, but people seem to say the second one is a step up from the first one. Also I enjoy time-travel stories, and hadn't realized until reading this thread that time travel features heavily into FFXIII-2.
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Jul 20, 2013 16:59
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NikkolasKing posted:XII fans and XIII fans always seem so opposed to each other. This might be "every game is the worst game in the series" fandom but these two in particular just never get along. I guess it's because XIII was obviously trying to be the complete opposite of XII in both gameplay and story. I like both games.  Also i have no idea what everyone's talking about with 13 having useless accessories. I found I was changing up accessories more in that game than any other FF and that they could decide between success or failure. Or at least they'd be the difference between a ten minute boss fight and a two minute one.
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Jul 20, 2013 17:06
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HJE-Cobra posted:So if I haven't played either of the existing FFXIIIs, but I have pre-ordered Lightning Returns (...partly because of a Cloud Strife costume), is it worth going back to play FFXIII-2? I don't intend to go back and play the first FFXIII, but people seem to say the second one is a step up from the first one. I'd say it's worth it. I think you can get FXIII-2 and all the DLC together on the Sony store for a fairly decent price.
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Jul 20, 2013 17:09
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:That would mean 13 is the best game in the Final Fantasy franchise. Nothing else to add just gonna let that sentence sit there and fester. I guess it is I'll take "skip cutscene" functionality over a horrible FF story any day, and I don't find corridors to be any less fun than say looking up in a guide which random NPCs in which nondescript house I need to talk to. if you think there's pacing problems or don't like the combat system i guess agree to disagree. CottonWolf posted:B-b-b-but XIII-2 was an improvement on XIII's combat, wasn't it? Yes and no. The engine mechanics were slightly improved yes, but the combat in 13-2 was less fun than its predecessor (for me anyway) since the nonlinearity led to huge pacing problems and basically no challenging enemies or fun fights. I made it to episode 5 without leveling up my 3rd party member.
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Jul 20, 2013 17:12
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I'd much rather play VIII than XIII. And I don't consider VIII very high up in the series. Also, I recently finished a replay of FF VII, still kicks rear end.
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Jul 20, 2013 17:15
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The plot similarities between 12 and 13 aren't coincidence. Each Final Fantasy game is developed by a different SE team than the previous; it seems the higher-ups hand over the reins and say "It's about humans fighting fate. Run with that." FF12 did this in a novel way, with the antagonists being the ones working to cast of fate and divine meddling. FF13 went a bit over the top with every second of every cutscene about fighting fate and divine meddling. Hell, the name of the Barthandelus battle: "Fighting Fate". Anyway, go back sometime and look at the FF games since FFX. The teams were singly focused on this theme. I wish I could remember some of the interviews with SE devs where I read about this, so you can just take it as baseless speculation. And let me pose a question which could very well lead to an Internet Argument Singularity: Dark Souls also hid plot and important info in item descriptions and subtle things like "Wait why is the item here on this cliff?" What is it that makes FF13's approach so much worse? For the record, I think that Dark Souls had a great method of presenting itself while FF13's plot made me madder than reading through goddamn "Ansem reports" and whatever the gently caress Kingdom Hearts was trying to do.
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Jul 20, 2013 17:17
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Dark Cohomology posted:And let me pose a question which could very well lead to an Internet Argument Singularity: Dark Souls also hid plot and important info in item descriptions and subtle things like "Wait why is the item here on this cliff?" What is it that makes FF13's approach so much worse? For the record, I think that Dark Souls had a great method of presenting itself while FF13's plot made me madder than reading through goddamn "Ansem reports" and whatever the gently caress Kingdom Hearts was trying to do. No one cares about the plot in Souls, it's all about the gameplay. People actually want both gameplay and story out of their FF's.
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Jul 20, 2013 17:26
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Because the plot in Souls was *always* hidden like that. Every bit of it. There were no real cutscenes, no dialogue, just hints that you could either pick up on or ignore. FF13 spelled out half its plot, and then expected you go trawling through menus for the other half. Also, Souls hid its plot in interesting ways. It made you feel like an explorer, uncovering secrets about the world. FF13, again, made you go trawling through menus. There's no adventure in that, no mystery beyond the mystery of who the hell bloody cares.
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Jul 20, 2013 17:30
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:That would mean 13 is the best game in the Final Fantasy franchise. Nothing else to add just gonna let that sentence sit there and fester. 13-2 is the best. 13 is second. I am not being ironic. Dark Souls gets away with murder on the story front because it isn't a story game. Odds are if you are playing Dark Souls, you aren't playing it because you found some rear end in a top hat telling you to ring some bells to be a compelling story. For all the poo poo that we give JRPG's and video game plots in general on this forum, they are still ostensibly story-driven. And so the plot being "bad" (I liked it more than every other game's plot in the series but 10 and maybe 7 personally) puts a serious strain on enjoying the game.
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Jul 20, 2013 17:31
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Because FF XIII has the gall to make you sit through some of the most inane loving dialogue I've ever seen in addition to having to read through pages of loving logs. You can totally ignore the plot in DaS if you want and still enjoy yourself, too. I wish every RPG was as plot-optional as Dark Souls. I borrowed a friend's copy of XIII and could only make it around five hours in because of "Moms are tough" and the completely insufferable PCs. Seriously, who loving talks like that?
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Jul 20, 2013 17:31
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Krad posted:No one cares about the plot in Souls, it's all about the gameplay. People actually want both gameplay and story out of their FF's. Further, Dark Souls doesn't have any explicit plot, and its hidden plot more or less holds up. FF13's dialogue and cutscenes are horrible anime drivel, I don't know how bad its secret plot is but it must be putrid if even Square decided it wasn't good enough to put in the main game.
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Jul 20, 2013 17:32
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CottonWolf posted:B-b-b-but XIII-2 was an improvement on XIII's combat, wasn't it? Nope. FFXIII-2's combat could have been an improvement but they just ended up messing everything up. The balance is completely hosed.
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Jul 20, 2013 17:36
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Fight Club Sandwich posted:Further, Dark Souls doesn't have any explicit plot, and its hidden plot more or less holds up. FF13's dialogue and cutscenes are horrible anime drivel, I don't know how bad its secret plot is but it must be putrid if even Square decided it wasn't good enough to put in the main game. The secret plot is the set up to 13-2. So it was so bad they hid it away but then later was good enough to merit a sequel! Also 12 and 13-X are all poo poo. DQ8 is the best Final Fantasy game made in the past 13 years. Sorry nerds, it's the truth.
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Jul 20, 2013 17:37
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Bovineicide posted:Because FF XIII has the gall to make you sit through some of the most inane loving dialogue I've ever seen in addition to having to read through pages of loving logs. You can totally ignore the plot in DaS if you want and still enjoy yourself, too. I wish every RPG was as plot-optional as Dark Souls. I borrowed a friend's copy of XIII and could only make it around five hours in because of "Moms are tough" and the completely insufferable PCs. Seriously, who loving talks like that? The translation of XIII was horrible. Not VII bad, but still pretty bad. Even if the dialogue wasn't particularly naturalistic in the Japanese (and I've not heard most of the Japanese voice track, so I can't comment) that doesn't really excuse what they turned out. And yeah, XIII's plot is terrible because they force you to sit through it, and then it doesn't even make sense if you don't do the repetitive optional stuff to get the Analects. I quite liked that a lot of the plot in VII was optional, but XIII just executed the idea badly. CottonWolf fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Jul 20, 2013 |
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Jul 20, 2013 17:39
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:DQ8 is the best Final Fantasy game made in the past 13 years. Sorry nerds, it's the truth. Now this is the hard truth right here.
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Jul 20, 2013 17:39
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I miss the days when RPGs used to have an overabundance of information and you had to piece it all together and figure out what everything meant, instead of having one 3 minute cutscene every hour with anything plot related shown to you.
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Jul 20, 2013 17:44
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Krad posted:I miss the days when RPGs used to have an overabundance of information and you had to piece it all together and figure out what everything meant, instead of having one 3 minute cutscene every hour with anything plot related shown to you. I'm seeriously struggling to come up with a game that fits your description, unless you mean old NES games.
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Jul 20, 2013 17:54
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12 IZJS final report: On my way to fight Zodiark, got slaughtered by a random group of enemies and said screw it and finished the game without doing any of the crazy endgame stuff. Whoever up there said that there's only 2 hours of story over 70 hours of gameplay is right on the nose. I have some nitpicks about the game but on the whole I had a good time. Ending felt a bit short! (also thanks thread for your help)
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Jul 20, 2013 17:57
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FF12 would unironically be a pretty sweet movie with some editing.
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Jul 20, 2013 18:03
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Endorph posted:So you miss...??? FF7, Xenogears, Chrono Cross, to name a few.
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Jul 20, 2013 18:11
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Krad posted:FF7, Xenogears, Chrono Cross, to name a few. One of those leaves up to you because it was an unfinished mess and another left everything up to you in such a way that it took major leaps of crazy not-logic and assumptions to figure out. FF7 is an okay example, but barely. It tells you most of the important plot and character stuff up front. The only things they leave you to piece together is some of Sephiroth and Jenova's origins.
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Jul 20, 2013 18:14
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Endorph posted:So you miss...??? Shin Megami Tensei 4 just came out this week and presents a lot of its plot that way actually.
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Jul 20, 2013 18:14
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ImpAtom posted:Shin Megami Tensei 4 just came out this week and presents a lot of its plot that way actually. and FF7 tells you just about everything. Really, half the things it doesn't tell you are because of a terrible translation, and the other half are all solved by getting Vincent. It isn't exactly hidden away in the deep recesses of the world. And Chrono Cross didn't tell you anything even if you did find everything in the game.
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Jul 20, 2013 18:16
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Dark Cohomology posted:Anyway, go back sometime and look at the FF games since FFX. The teams were singly focused on this theme. I wish I could remember some of the interviews with SE devs where I read about this, so you can just take it as baseless speculation. Then from 10 onwards it's more obvious. I'm not sure why it's such a big thing with FFs, but it certainly is. (also I didn't play enough of X-2 but I assume it wasn't?)
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Jul 20, 2013 18:19
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DACK FAYDEN posted:
X-2's main theme was Forgiveness and Building Friendships. It is the best Final Fantasy Charlie's Angel crossover.
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Jul 20, 2013 18:23
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FFX-2 was kind of about fate. It was about Yuna becoming her own person instead of a sacrifice, which in a way was breaking away from her 'fate.' Not to mention some dude talked about making a heroic sacrifice and she basically told him to gently caress off and that they'd all work together and all survive.
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Jul 20, 2013 18:23
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:One of those leaves up to you because it was an unfinished mess and another left everything up to you in such a way that it took major leaps of crazy not-logic and assumptions to figure out. It's not that the games didn't tell you everything, it's that they had a heck of a lot more to tell since everything was just text and they didn't have to worry about cutscenes or voice acting, and sometimes you could miss important things that were scattered throughout the game. I mean, just think about all the events that happened in FF6, 7, 8 and 9. Now think about the "events" that happened in XIII, aside from standing around talking for 5 minutes and running away. Almost nothing happened.
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Jul 20, 2013 18:26
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Endorph posted:FFX-2 was kind of about fate. It was about Yuna becoming her own person instead of a sacrifice, which in a way was breaking away from her 'fate.' Not to mention some dude talked about making a heroic sacrifice and she basically told him to gently caress off and that they'd all work together and all survive. I'd say that describes the last ten hours of FFX more than FFX-2.
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Jul 20, 2013 18:29
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Krad posted:I mean, just think about all the events that happened in FF6, 7, 8 and 9. Now think about the "events" that happened in XIII, aside from standing around talking for 5 minutes and running away. Almost nothing happened. Seriously I see this line of thinking a lot, and it just doesn't hold up. Tons of games, especially JRPGs, have done amazing things with cutscenes and voice acting. Tons of modern JRPGs are very, very good. The problem with FF13 isn't that it's new and modern and shiny. The problem with FF13 is that it sucks, and that nobody working on it had any idea what they were doing. The translation was bad, so the VAs had awkward lines to deliver. The VAs were poorly directed and had awkward lines to deliver, so the cutscenes weren't very good. The cutscenes weren't very good, so it was hard to care about the characters or world. The plot was a jumbled mess, so it was hard to appreciate that from a purely intellectual standpoint, divorced from the actual emotional investment you're supposed to have in most stories. Endorph fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Jul 20, 2013 |
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Jul 20, 2013 18:34
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Endorph posted:That's a problem with FF13, not a problem with JRPGs in general today, or cutscenes and voice acting. X and XII weren't as eventful, either. Mainly XII. And console JRPGs are so rare today that I have almost nothing else to compare them to.
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Jul 20, 2013 18:38
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I've had more fun in the first three hours of 9 than I had through the entirety of 8. The game seems to be a really cheap "remember the good ole days" but drat if it isn't done really well. The cutscenes are also noticeably higher quality than 8 and have a really cartoonish, goofy and fun quality that was completely lacking in 8.
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Jul 20, 2013 18:40
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Krad posted:X and XII weren't as eventful, either. Mainly XII. And console JRPGs are so rare today that I have almost nothing else to compare them to. I feel like X had less events than say, 9, but it wasn't hurting for more. X was pretty well paced. I feel like you're conflating Amount Of Things Happening with actually quality of the Things that are happening. Like, Final Fantasy 4 is constantly having things happen, but it's plot is garbage. 6 has a massive amount of things to do, but most of the WoR plotlines are kind of terrible in their own right.
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Jul 20, 2013 18:41
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Krad posted:X and XII weren't as eventful, either. Mainly XII. And console JRPGs are so rare today that I have almost nothing else to compare them to. Also, this is kind of a silly discussion because that isn't how stories work. Stories aren't just a series of things that happen, even if a lot of video games fall into that trap.
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Jul 20, 2013 18:41
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Krad posted:X and XII weren't as eventful, either. Mainly XII. And console JRPGs are so rare today that I have almost nothing else to compare them to. Persona 4? And to a less extent 3 too?
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Jul 20, 2013 18:43
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:The secret plot is the set up to 13-2. So it was so bad they hid it away but then later was good enough to merit a sequel! It's not that bad of an idea, to be honest. Hide a setup for a sequel in a game, then if the sequel doesn't get greenlit, you still have your closure and if it does you can do your M Night Shyamalan "He was dead the whole time" bit at the beginning of the sequel to show how it makes sense.
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Jul 20, 2013 18:49
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Endorph posted:Also, this is kind of a silly discussion because that isn't how stories work. Stories aren't just a series of things that happen, even if a lot of video games fall into that trap. The whole point I was trying to make was that old... ish games (up to the PS2) could get away with doing more things as opposed to modern games because of budgets or whatever, and in my eyes, that does hurt a 40 hour long story-driven RPG. And I know stories aren't "just a series of things that happen." Nier had a pretty tightly contained story, yet it was tremendously better told than the last three FF's combined.
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Jul 20, 2013 18:49
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Great Lakes Log posted:I've had more fun in the first three hours of 9 than I had through the entirety of 8. The game seems to be a really cheap "remember the good ole days" but drat if it isn't done really well. The cutscenes are also noticeably higher quality than 8 and have a really cartoonish, goofy and fun quality that was completely lacking in 8. 9 is the only game I have ever played that was based entirely around pandering and simultaneously was incredibly enjoyable. Even though every ten minutes I was going "OH, I GET THAT REFERENCE" and any other game would have pissed me off by doing that... they made it work. It's lighthearted, almost summery, in a way that no other FF really has been, in my eyes.
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Jul 20, 2013 18:52
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DACK FAYDEN posted:9 is the only game I have ever played that was based entirely around pandering and simultaneously was incredibly enjoyable. Even though every ten minutes I was going "OH, I GET THAT REFERENCE" and any other game would have pissed me off by doing that... they made it work. It's lighthearted, almost summery, in a way that no other FF really has been, in my eyes. I feel that's because 9's plot and characters kind of hold up by themselves if you remove all the references and call backs. On it's own it's still a strong game, the references and jokes help set the tone, not make up the whole game.
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Jul 20, 2013 18:56
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