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Artix
Apr 26, 2010

He's finally back,
to kick some tail!
And this time,
he's goin' to jail!

alcharagia posted:

Mystic Quest?

You're goddamn right it was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJQK0ZvSgj0

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That Fucking Sned
Oct 28, 2010

There's no context for all the stuff that happens in VIII, it's just like a kid making up a story as they go along, or someone describing a dream. There's no reason why there's a flying university, they just wanted to have an impressive FMV. At least when you go into space in FFVII, there's a reason for it.

Azure_Horizon
Mar 27, 2010

by Reene
Character wearing a fedora in FFXV? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V1_HW7i_ho

Skip to 1:20.

Defiance Industries
Jul 22, 2010

A five-star manufacturer


Austrian mook posted:

I want to meet the people that think Vannile is a very good and fleshed out character so bad.

I do too, so that I can punch Toriyama's face for what he did to Parasite Eve.

The Fuck Juicer
Oct 16, 2012

Azure_Horizon posted:

FFVIII is also a game with absolutely poo poo gameplay that can be broken within the first hour by playing a card game and then all you have left is its poo poo-salad storyline, passable soundtrack, and inane plot twists. The gameplay structure is built so that playing the game the normal Final Fantasy way is wrong and playing the game how it's meant to be played makes it the easiest game in the franchise, thus being so boring that it threatens to swallow the entire game into a vacuum of boredom.

If they'd replaced 'sorceress' with 'fal'Cie', and 'SeeD' with 'l'Cie' then the story might've been a problem sorry everyone

The soundtrack is loving great though, I don't know how you can call it 'passable'.

Failboattootoot
Feb 6, 2011

Enough of this nonsense. You are an important mayor and this absurd contraption has wasted enough of your time.

Azure_Horizon posted:

FFVIII is also a game with absolutely poo poo gameplay that can be broken within the first hour by playing a card game and then all you have left is its poo poo-salad storyline, passable soundtrack, and inane plot twists. The gameplay structure is built so that playing the game the normal Final Fantasy way is wrong and playing the game how it's meant to be played makes it the easiest game in the franchise, thus being so boring that it threatens to swallow the entire game into a vacuum of boredom.

Game too easy is a complaint that can be levelled at nearly every final fantasy. Played right, FF8 has the best combat in the series, because running renzokuken and duel over and over is fun. Similarly, how much I enjoy FF6 is entirely dependent on the answer to the question, "is Sabin in my party?"

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

Pesky Splinter posted:

Do tell, I'm curious as to how it could be any worse than the English version - the only thing I know is that they replaced the useless dodge roll with an equally useless dash for the international versions.

Alright.

The thing to understand about DoC is that they designed it expecting people would play the lovely-rear end multiplayer mode. So the game's single player design shoved a multiplayer-designed character into a single player game and it was just a loving mess. Doubly so because the game was literally designed to be played with a mouse and keyboard. (That was one of the big features they advertised for it.) To begin with, the camera was shittier. Every single thing in the game was also slower. You drew weapons slower, you moved slower, you dodged slower. Air combat was basically nonexistant. (You couldn't double-jump or attack in the air.) Limit Breaks were ni-worthless because they used your magic bar instead of items.

The only redeeming feature of the game was that you could use the mouse and keyboard which slightly alleviated the fact that the game controlled like a pile of thrice-warmed dogshit. This is, of course, in addition to all of the many, many, many problems the US version has. Be glad you didn't have to play the completely awful multiplayer mode either because it was the biggest pile of poo poo Square-Enix has ever put out. There's a reason they dropped it from the US version.

ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Aug 4, 2013

Azure_Horizon
Mar 27, 2010

by Reene

Yohan Kebab posted:

If they'd replaced 'sorceress' with 'fal'Cie', and 'SeeD' with 'l'Cie' then the story might've been a problem sorry everyone

The soundtrack is loving great though, I don't know how you can call it 'passable'.

Most of the town themes except Timber are lazy and dull, and the game has maybe two dungeon themes max. The best tracks are all in the out-of-context, incredibly stupid cutscenes and story moments.

Austrian mook
Feb 24, 2013

by Shine

Azure_Horizon posted:

Character wearing a fedora in FFXV? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V1_HW7i_ho

Skip to 1:20.

HAHAHAAHA I was completely kidding oh goddamit gently caress me I'm buying this game so hard.

VVVVV: It's just the dumbest internet thing to have in a FF game and makes no sense in context. I really hope this character gives a PUA speech at some point and complains about the friendzone.

Austrian mook fucked around with this message at 21:03 on Aug 4, 2013

Terper
Jun 26, 2012


Why does this fedora thing matter in the least? :confused:

Also post more music thanks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32ZUO60kxlg

Pesky Splinter
Feb 16, 2011

A worried pug.

ImpAtom posted:

Alright.

DoC problems.

:psyduck:
Has there just been a mass gas leak at the SE offices for the last 10 years or something, and nobody's noticed?

BottledBodhisvata
Jul 26, 2013

by Lowtax

That loving Sned posted:

There's no context for all the stuff that happens in VIII, it's just like a kid making up a story as they go along, or someone describing a dream. There's no reason why there's a flying university, they just wanted to have an impressive FMV. At least when you go into space in FFVII, there's a reason for it.

To an extent, I don't see the problem with this. The thrust of what I was getting at was that in Final Fantasy VIII you *do* all of the things I described--you have an active role in almost all of them, and your involvement and skill matters in success. In FF13, every single important thing happens in a cutscene. Even the big boss fights with Barthandalus just sort of...end and then poo poo happens anyway. It's as if you weren't even there.

In FF8, when you are having a sweet flying university versus flying military academy fight, yeah, it was for the sake of having a cool movie, but then you get to play it.

a crisp refreshing Moxie
May 2, 2007


Pesky Splinter posted:

:psyduck:
Has there just been a mass gas leak at the SE offices for the last 10 years or something, and nobody's noticed?

Aaaaand that comment, plus the recent FF8 chat is my cue to re-post this gem from hundreds of pages ago.

"" posted:

I imagine the events leading to Final Fantasy VIII's inception went down something like this: every Monday morning, Sakaguchi would call Kitase (director), Nojima (scenario writer), Hiroyuki (battle designer), Nomura (character designer), and Uematsu (composer) into his office and sit them all down. He'd remind them that the wildly successful sequel to Final Fantasy VII wasn't just going to make itself, and the clock was ticking. "Stop pussyfooting around it," he'd tell them, "and make it happen already."

All of them were reluctant to even get started. They knew what kind of pressure they'd be dealing with. They knew the standards being demanded of them would be impossible to meet. You can't blame them for being intimidated. Most of them would just retreat to their offices and whittle the days away, sulking and procrastinating while sipping Sapporo and surfing the Internet for Final Fantasy VII Geocities fan pages and Tifa + Cloud + Sephiroth hentai.

Eventually, Sakaguchi was fed up. He had Kitase, Nojima, Hiroyuki, Nomura, and Uematsu all dragged into a conference room, supplied them with a week's worth of bottled oolong tea, Oronamin C, shrink-wrapped convenience mart sandwiches, and cigarettes, then locked them in, telling them they had three days to either come up with a plan for Final Fantasy VIII or tender their letters of resignation.

What nobody knew at the time, however, was that there was a gas leak in this particular conference room.

DAY ONE, HOUR THREE: Nomura sits in corner, surrounded by a pile of crumpled-up character sketches. No matter how much he tries, he can't come up with a hero who doesn't look like Cloud or Ramza. Nojima has just spent an hour plotting a story together, only to realize that he's just rewriting Final Fantasy V with more robots. Uematsu has been playing chopsticks on his Casio keyboard since Sakaguchi locked the doors.

DAY ONE, HOUR FIVE: Uematsu and Hiroyuki claw at the door, screaming to be let out. Kitase has already eaten half the sandwiches himself out of self-pity. Nojima is pacing and chain-smoking.

DAY ONE, HOUR TEN: Nomura has drawn a quick doodle in his notebook of Mickey Mouse dressed in a trench coat. For some reason, he can't stop staring at it. Hiroyuki asks Uematsu if he smells something funny. Uematsu says no, but then bursts into laughter and can't quite say why.

DAY ONE, HOUR FOURTEEN: Nojima announces that he's starting to feel kind of funky. Kitase can't stop staring at his own hands. Nomura has gone back to one of his discarded sketches and added a few extra straps and belts to the character's outfit. He decides he's definitely on to something now.

DAY ONE, HOUR TWENTY: Kitase, for reasons he cannot articulate, is feeling intensely nostaglic for his old college days. The only way they could have possibly been better, he muses, is if his campus floated through the sky.

DAY TWO, HOUR TWO: "I got it," Nojima tells everyone. "Final Fantasy VIII's story is going to be about a pair of fiercely-competing rivals."

DAY TWO, HOUR SIX: "It's like a sword...but it's also a gun," Nomura explains to Uematsu. "A blade that uses bullets! This is the best idea I've ever had. Don't you think?" Uematsu nods, only pretending to listen. He is secretly gawking at the enormous size of Nomura's dilated pupils.

DAY TWO, HOUR EIGHT: Kitase recalls the time his nephew showed him his collection of Magic: the Gathering cards. He now strongly believes that Final Fantasy VIII should be about collecting cards and dueling other players.

DAY TWO, HOUR TWELVE: Nojima has reconsidered. "Okay. This game should be about an evil witch. The fiercely-competing rivals will still be around, but the focus is really going to be on the witch."

DAY TWO, HOUR SIXTEEN: Hiroyuki, who has been in a near-catatonic state for the past few hours, begins speaking to Uematsu.

"I got an idea. What if your characters could, like, equip spells?"

"Huh. You mean like buying spell books in Final Fantasy III?"

"Nah. I'm saying they'd literally equip spells."

"I'm not following."

"Okay, okay, listen. Say that like, instead of having armor and accessories, your guys just used magic. For example: you know how in the past, you had your dudes putting on, for example, Mythril Armor? What if we had them, equipping - I dunno - Quake instead? They'd be wearing spells instead of armor. What do you think?"

"That doesn't make an ounce of sense, but for some reason it seems like the best idea I've ever heard in my life."

"Thanks. I am so loving high right now."

DAY TWO, HOUR TWENTY: "No, wait. Now I'm sure," Nojima tells everyone. "Now I am certain this game needs to be about a magical girl with the power to send people's minds through time itself. How trippy is that, right? But I mean, there's still gonna be those competing rivals and evil witch around, and...no, wait! That's two witches. There will be two evil witches in this game!"

DAY TWO, HOUR TWENTY-THREE: "I never wanted to be a video game character artist," Nomura confides to Hiroyuki. "I wanted to be a fashion designer." Then he sits back down to draw some extra pockets on Selphie's dress and wonder if Seifer might look better in a black mallcore beanie and belly shirt.

DAY THREE, HOUR FOUR: Okay! Right! New and even better idea!" Nojima shouts. "So you got this high-tech isolationist civilization, yeah? And the moon, see - the moon is where all the monsters in the world come from. They just get together in a big bunch and just like, fall down from the moon. Get what I'm saying? Anyway, but these guys from this futuristic city build this giant floating monolith - you know, real Space Odyssey - that they can use trigger this effect. So its evil ruler - who's one of our two witches - is gonna use this thing to...to...guys, sorry, guys. Hold on. I am blasted." Then Nojima begins ceaselessly guffawing for five solid hours.

DAY THREE, HOUR SEVEN: Uematsu steals one of Nomura's pens and scribbles gibberish in Roman characters all over the walls. He realizes that a small part of it, reading "CESONIV SOCEW CESUL SOHTFI," spells out words in Latin when he looks at it backwards. Astonished by this coincidence (and the fact that he suddenly knows Latin), Uematsu has found his inspiration for Final Fantasy VIII's signature theme.

DAY THREE, HOUR NINE: "So I got it figured out guys," Nojima says, having collected himself. "There's a girl who sends people into the past and there's these two - gently caress it - three witches out to get her. And there's also this high-tech country that builds a machine to make monsters fall from the Moon, And the main character is this guy from a flying school who has to battle his hated rival while playing card games - okay, Kitase? - and stopping the three witches and all the moon monsters and rescuing the time girl, who's also his sister. But I think what we got here - at its heart - is a love story. The greatest love story ever told."

DAY THREE, HOUR TWELVE: Nomura has been hording the remaining Oronamin C bottles for himself. Hiroyuki approaches him and demands he stop being such a miser and fork some over. Nomura tosses one over to him, which he promptly chugs down. Moments later, Hiroyuki asks for more. Nomura tosses him three bottles. Hiroyuki decides to hold on to them, thus increasing his Oronamin C stock by three. This exchange becomes the basis of Final Fantasy VIII's Draw mechanic.

DAY THREE, HOUR SIXTEEN: For the last hour, Kitase has been raving about how video games are the new cinema of the 21st Century. "Cutscenes are the new boss battles! FMVs are the new dungeons! Conversations are the new enemy encounters! Less random battles - more five-minute exchanges between party members talking about their feelings! THE OLD WAYS ARE DEAD! VIVA LA REVOLUCION!"

DAY THREE, HOUR NINETEEN: Nojima sits supine and motionless, gazing into the fluorescent lights and watching them spool and unspool in spiraling prayerbeads of pure spiritual essence. He is on the very threshold of revelation about the nature of time and space, and humanity's place in both. He vows to incorporate this epiphany into Final Fantasy VIII's story. Months later, when it comes time for him to introduce Ultimecia into the game and explain her ultimate goal of Time Compression, it will all somehow seem a whole lot less obvious.

DAY THREE, HOUR TWENTY-THREE: Circle jerk.

When it's finally been three days and Sakaguchi unlocks the doors, they all descend on him at once, babbling and screaming about all the amazing new ideas they have and how eager they are to get to work. Sakaguchi wonders how he ever became such a brilliant leader.

Azure_Horizon
Mar 27, 2010

by Reene
While I loathe Spoony for being absolutely wrong about FFIX, his review of FFVIII is completely spot-on.

NikkolasKing
Apr 3, 2010



ImpAtom posted:

I mean before we forget, Square-Enix put out this game too.

Neither SO4 or FFXIII are close to Worst Game Ever material, in spite of how embarrassing both of them are.
And God help me, I'd much rather play The Last Hope than FFXIII. At least I get to explore and listen to a Motoi Sakuraba soundtrack.

Azure_Horizon
Mar 27, 2010

by Reene

NikkolasKing posted:

Neither SO4 or FFXIII are close to Worst Game Ever material, in spite of how embarrassing both of them are.
And God help me, I'd much rather play The Last Hope than FFXIII. At least I get to explore and listen to a Motoi Sakuraba soundtrack.

Ah yes, a Sakuraba soundtrack! Here's <synth-based battle theme that sounds like the one he made for all the previous games>.

VVVV FF8 "clarifies" things about as well as a telescope covered in mud will help you spot land.

Lessail
Apr 1, 2011

:cry::cry:
tell me how vgk aren't playing like shit again
:cry::cry:
p.s. help my grapes are so sour!
VIII and XIII both allow you to access important plot info before it is brought up. The difference is that VIII actually brings it up/clarify within its own game whereas XIII does so in a sequel.

There are probably other similarities between the two games, but who really cares. :shobon:

Pesky Splinter
Feb 16, 2011

A worried pug.

Lessail posted:

There are probably other similarities between the two games, but who really cares. :shobon:

Gunblades. :mad:

And Storm-themed forenames, I guess.

[e]:

fount of knowledge posted:

Aaaaand that comment, plus the recent FF8 chat is my cue to re-post this gem from hundreds of pages ago.

Hehe. :mmmhmm:

Level Slide
Jan 4, 2011

Azure_Horizon posted:

Character wearing a fedora in FFXV? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V1_HW7i_ho

Skip to 1:20.

I love how the dude immediately busts out the umbrella after donning the fedora. That thing is for form, not function.

That Fucking Sned
Oct 28, 2010

At least II and VIII had great music. Every game might be the worst in the series, but at least it has something to redeem itself.

I wish more bad games could get the XIV treatment of "Let's do it again, but properly this time".

Lessail
Apr 1, 2011

:cry::cry:
tell me how vgk aren't playing like shit again
:cry::cry:
p.s. help my grapes are so sour!

Pesky Splinter posted:

Gunblades. :mad:

And Storm-themed forenames, I guess.

[e]:


Hehe. :mmmhmm:

Both even have the common trick of having a party member who knows more than they let on but doesn't tell everyone because reasons.

I also wouldn't put it past Vanille to really, really, really like trains.

Austrian mook
Feb 24, 2013

by Shine

That loving Sned posted:

At least II and VIII had great music. Every game might be the worst in the series, but at least it has something to redeem itself.

I wish more bad games could get the XIV treatment of "Let's do it again, but properly this time".

Honestly, I think a lot of FF games get poo poo because of their name but XIII is the only one where I go, yeah this is bad beyond recognition, FF series or not. I always wonder what peoples honest reception of games like Skyward Sword or Mario Sunshine would be if they were new IP's.

NikkolasKing
Apr 3, 2010



Azure_Horizon posted:

Ah yes, a Sakuraba soundtrack! Here's <synth-based battle theme that sounds like the one he made for all the previous games>.

...so you dismiss the entire OST because you think he has repetitive normal battle themes?

For one thing, SO4 has about three or four normal battle themes which gives you a decent bit of variety in the same game.
Blood on the Keys
For Achieve
Stab the Sword of Justice
Don't Be A Hero

And there's probably more I just cant remember right now. Sakuraba never leaves you wanting for a lot of great, distinct and memorable battle themes. I remember precisely the areas where you hear each of these battle tunes and I think it enhances the world as a whole to have unique battle themes along with area music.

There is no denying Sakuraba loves him some synth and prog rock - I know this from only hearing a handful of his soundtracks - but I think he does remarkably well with all of them and keeps them fresh and intense.

NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Aug 4, 2013

Lord of Pie
Mar 2, 2007


FF13 had to use a bunch of apostrophes because FF8 used up all the ellipses.

Azure_Horizon
Mar 27, 2010

by Reene

Lord of Pie posted:

FF13 had to use a bunch of apostrophes because FF8 used up all the ellipses.

This is perfect.

Shaezerus
Mar 24, 2008

God? Or perhaps a devil?
Show me which you'll choose!

Lord of Pie posted:

FF13 had to use a bunch of apostrophes because FF8 used up all the ellipses.

Then 14 came and used up the rest of the apostrophes, before resorting to outright randomly punching the keyboard for NPC names.

Lord of Pie
Mar 2, 2007


Shaezerus posted:

Then 14 came and used up the rest of the apostrophes, before resorting to outright randomly punching the keyboard for NPC names.

11 was pretty bad about that too now that I think about it

Shaezerus
Mar 24, 2008

God? Or perhaps a devil?
Show me which you'll choose!

Lord of Pie posted:

11 was pretty bad about that too now that I think about it

Nothing 11 ever did comes close to Roegadyn names in 14.

ZenMasterBullshit
Nov 2, 2011

Restaurant de Nouvelles "À Table" Proudly Presents:
A Climactic Encounter Ending on 1 Negate and a Dream

Shaezerus posted:

Then 14 came and used up the rest of the apostrophes, before resorting to outright randomly punching the keyboard for NPC names.

Man look SE you guys have about 3 dozen playable races that I'd love to play as in an MMO. Hell, Ivalice alone could supply all the races you need for an MMO. But you didn't do that. You did the lazy thing and picked the laziest race designs ever (Human, Big Human, Elf, Catgirls, Children. Really?) and that's fine but why, why dear lord why did you not call them things that can be said with the human tongue? It's loving ridiculous

Failboattootoot
Feb 6, 2011

Enough of this nonsense. You are an important mayor and this absurd contraption has wasted enough of your time.
You guys should be nicer to the Welsh. :saddowns:

Kinu Nishimura
Apr 24, 2008

SICK LOOT!
Next Final Fantasy MMO I want to play as a Cave Bat and waste everyone's time spamming Vampire.

Terper
Jun 26, 2012


Shaezerus posted:

Nothing 11 ever did comes close to Roegadyn names in 14.

Sorry bud but the Roegadyn names are fantastic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFHlJ2voJHY

Azure_Horizon
Mar 27, 2010

by Reene
Lightning Returns gameplay details:

http://www.novacrystallis.com/2013/07/luxerion-shops-actions-and-difficulty-details-for-lightning-returns/

http://www.novacrystallis.com/2013/07/judge-and-response-are-the-keywords-behind-the-battle-system-of-lightning-returns/

Interesting tidbits:

- Enemy info doesn't come from Librascopes or Scan anymore, but from NPC conversations that fill out a bestiary that could have some neat lore.

- "Judge and response" is the basis of the battle system. Enemies will get more difficult as the in-game days pass, and you'll only have a limited amount of time to grind and buy Schema for Lightning. Basically, difficult enemies won't just exist in certain zones but can end up all over the place.

- Enemy movement is being changed from the previous games, so monsters fought in the earlier titles will act differently in LR.

Last Emperor
Oct 30, 2009

It all sounds pretty good to me although I'm not sure whether it's worth starting on Easy or Normal considering how easy XIII-2 was.

I found this part really interesting:

quote:

You can strengthen your abilities at this shop by combining the abilities you obtain from enemies.

So Enemy Skills/Blue Magic kinda?

fronz
Apr 7, 2009



Lipstick Apathy

Shaezerus posted:

Nothing 11 ever did comes close to Roegadyn names in 14.

That sounds like an OTC cough medicine

SpazmasterX
Jul 13, 2006

Wrong about everything XIV related
~fartz~

Lord of Pie posted:

11 was pretty bad about that too now that I think about it

Really only as far as the Zilart are concerned. Everything before and after was pretty straightforward.

Three Cookies
Apr 9, 2010

I don't get how someone can hate XIII so much and love X, if only for how similar those two games are to each other.

Schwartzcough
Aug 12, 2009

Don't tease the Octopus, kids!

Last Emperor posted:

It all sounds pretty good to me although I'm not sure whether it's worth starting on Easy or Normal considering how easy XIII-2 was.

I found this part really interesting:


So Enemy Skills/Blue Magic kinda?

It just means you can strengthen your Fire spell by dumping in 35 grimy fangs, but only after using 23 sparking circuits and before using 17 mysterious oozes. The game will never tell you this.

Austrian mook
Feb 24, 2013

by Shine

Pasteurized Milk posted:

I don't get how someone can hate XIII so much and love X, if only for how similar those two games are to each other.

Can you elaborate a little on this point? Because I absolutely completely loving disagree in literally every way it is possible to disagree with a statement.

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Gologle
Apr 15, 2013

The Gologle Posting Experience.

<3
I want a game set in Ivalice where you play as the Occuria and you're creating the world along with your Occuria bros but you have to use the correct debate and iambic quadrupleseptameter word choices and speeches to make stuff and get your bros to agree on something so together you can create it.

Basically Ambition by Michael Gibson.

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