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Yeah. And right before you finally get to have some freedom of movement, you have to go through the dungeon that's the absolute worst in terms of linearity: it all looks the same (brown), the monsters are all annoying and/or gimmicky, and you're starved for save points in a place that just won't. loving. End. There's not even all that much exposition or characterization to liven things up. In short: It only can only go up from there. 
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Oct 21, 2013 05:37
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Geek U.S.A. posted:Well, I am now 9 1/2 hours into 13 and it feels like I've been doing the exact same things over and over again. Fighting the same type of enemies (of which there seem to be 2 of. swarm of weaker ones or fewer with lots of HP) and running down one long corridor. 9 1/2 hours puts you in... which area?
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Oct 21, 2013 05:42
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Head Hit Keyboard posted:9 1/2 hours puts you in... which area? Skipping cutscenes that puts you at uh, poo poo 2/3rds of the way to fun so I guess about when the party is in Palomploma re-grouping. If you're watching them I think probably with Vanille and Sazh as they head down a mountain to nautilus. Either way you slice it not a good place to be in FF13.
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Oct 21, 2013 05:52
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Barudak posted:Skipping cutscenes that puts you at uh, poo poo 2/3rds of the way to fun so I guess about when the party is in Palomploma re-grouping. If you're watching them I think probably with Vanille and Sazh as they head down a mountain to nautilus. Eh, at least in the former case, that means he'd be facing what I consider one of the better bosses towards the end of it.
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Oct 21, 2013 06:11
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Regalingualius posted:Eh, at least in the former case, that means he'd be facing what I consider one of the better bosses towards the end of it. The boss outside Hope's house? That fight is pretty cool because its your first 3-person battle in ages and actually wants/needs you to switch between a lot of your paradigms or you'll wipe.
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Oct 21, 2013 06:29
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...I was actually thinking of Barthandelus 1 for whatever reason, but yeah, that works too in retrospect.
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Oct 21, 2013 06:34
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Regalingualius posted:...I was actually thinking of Barthandelus 1 for whatever reason, but yeah, that works too in retrospect. Barty 1 is at the end of Chapter 9, if they're only at Palomporum they're still in Chapter 8.
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Oct 21, 2013 06:35
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Hey dudes. It looks like I am on Chapter 6: the Sun Dappled Flight - The Sunleth Waterscape. I am with Sazh and Vanille in the jungle. Am I still far from the fun? I do love the music and the visuals, so it hasn't been ALL bad thus far!
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Oct 21, 2013 07:29
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Geek U.S.A. posted:I do love the music and the visuals, so it hasn't been ALL bad thus far! This was when I gave up, I think in chapter 4? It was extremely pretty but I just didn't give a poo poo.
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Oct 21, 2013 07:52
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Sazh & Vanille's portion of the journey, early on, is actually one of the neater visual segments of the game. Unlike the Gapra Whitewood, which seemingly existed just to provide Lightning and Hope a thing to walk through, there was a clear transition between the Vile Peaks, the Sunleth Waterscape (which was crazy-awesome looking), and the port they arrived at afterwards in the rain. FFXIII also does a neat thing with the camera: It doesn't focus on your character, but places them a bit to the side, and any time you stop moving it settles to provide a very clear view of the environment. Not sure whether or not that's all the more of a shame, given how little exploration is actually possible, but if you're looking for things to enjoy during a playthrough, it's certainly something.
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Oct 21, 2013 09:22
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ImpAtom posted:Lightning was actually good in the first game. That's why they went out of their way to make sure Lightning Returns erased any chance of that sticking around because they gotta gently caress everything up I guess. We don't know anything about her actual characterisation in LR yet really. Jiggling boobs, while ridiculous, doesn't rule out being a 'strong female character', whatever that means in practice. That said, I never really thought Lightning was a particularly good character anyway, so I probably care less about her being messed about with than a lot of people.
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Oct 21, 2013 17:29
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CottonWolf posted:We don't know anything about her actual characterisation in LR yet really. Jiggling boobs, while ridiculous, doesn't rule out being a 'strong female character', whatever that means in practice. That said, I never really thought Lightning was a particularly good character anyway, so I probably care less about her being messed about with than a lot of people. Jiggling boobs, however, does reflect how the creators view the character. Absolutely no one ever says, "let's make her boobs jiggle," and then, "and let's make her a deep, conflicted, and interesting character." At least, not truthfully.
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Oct 21, 2013 18:58
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CottonWolf posted:a 'strong female character', whatever that means in practice An emotionally stunted "badass". I don't mean she was an offensive character either, but seriously, that's what still passes as a well written strong female character to anyone over twelve?
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Oct 21, 2013 19:12
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BioMe posted:An emotionally stunted "badass". I don't mean she was an offensive character either, but seriously, that's what still passes as a well written strong female character to anyone over twelve? When the standards are so low for video games, it kinda stands out when you're even at that level, considering most male protagonists are basically written for the same demographic. "Emotionally stunted" is not really accurate either and it comes across that way is more the result of a lovely dub than anything else.
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Oct 21, 2013 19:18
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Yeah, Lightning in XIII is very emotional, I mean, she hits Snow in the face like three times out of pure spite and then has her sisterly moments with Hope. The dub was not good at transmiting through her voice what the dialogue and her actions were saying, probably confusing people. XIII-2 and Dissidia don't help either, as they present her as a stoic badass outright.
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Oct 21, 2013 19:28
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Veks posted:Yeah, Lighting in XIII is very emotional, I mean, she hits Snow in the face like three times out of pure spite and then has her sisterly moments with Hope. The dub was not good at transmiting through her voice what the dialogue and her actions were saying, probably confusing people. XIII-2 and Dissidia don't help either. I only played the dub of FFXIII-2 which probably colors my opinion there because there she may as well be a stone statue made of plot exposition. Admittedly I don't think that's just the dub because off-screen she inexplicably becomes a battle valkyrie in another dimension or some bullshit so she may as well be another character. Man, FFXIII-2's plot was a mess, even by FFXIII standards.
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Oct 21, 2013 19:32
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ImpAtom posted:I only played the dub of FFXIII-2 which probably colors my opinion there because there she may as well be a stone statue made of plot exposition. Admittedly I don't think that's just the dub because off-screen she inexplicably becomes a battle valkyrie in another dimension or some bullshit so she may as well be another character. Yeah, that's my problem with FFXIII. Everything's so... disconnected. There's all of this deep lore and whatnot and you never actually feel like you're "experiencing" it, just being told. Contrast that with FFVII or FFX, where you are thrust into this foreign world and DO feel like you are an alien figure in an alien world. I liked the game, for what it's worth, but it would've benefited immensely from a more open world. Here's hoping XV has that. I refuse to believe that they can't somehow figure it out in a world where Skyrim & GTAV exist.
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Oct 21, 2013 19:47
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Oh no-no-no, we are not loving playing the "blame the localization" game.
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Oct 21, 2013 19:49
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For what it's worth, FF14 has the best localization out of any game I have ever played.
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Oct 21, 2013 19:50
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Captain Mog posted:I liked the game, for what it's worth, but it would've benefited immensely from a more open world. Here's hoping XV has that. I refuse to believe that they can't somehow figure it out in a world where Skyrim & GTAV exist. They probably could do an open world but it wouldn't be a very good one. GTAV is quite literally the most expensive game ever made and was in (actual non-interrupted, actually competent) development for like 5 solid years and even it is a large mostly-empty world designed for driving through at high speeds, mixed with a few memorable locations. S-E doesn't have much experience with open worlds and their strongest, most popular, and best-selling games have all had fairly linear narratives and structured experiences with a focus on set interesting locations. They have 'world maps" but the World Maps are basically there to give an illusion of space between the actual interesting locations, not to be locations themselves. (Technically this is true of Skyrim but it's much less focused.) They really shouldn't be trying to go "ape the popular thing" because that basically never works out and (especially through the lens of Japanese developers trying to mimic Western games they don't have a strong affinity for) tends up be crappier. FFXV is probably going to be fairly linear and guided, possibly with a world map/airship or something similar to go back to classic FF feel, but that is probably what they need to do. They need to make a good 'core' Final Fantasy before they can think about making Final Fantasy Skyrim. Considering FFXV is moving to an action-based combat system, they're probably going to have their hands full just making the basic core gameplay fun and engaging without ending up with a game that is too short or too padded out. Nomura's recent games have all depended on recycling content to pad out the game length and we'll have to see if he does that with FFXV too. BioMe posted:Oh no-no-no, we are not loving playing the "blame the localization" game. Uh, why not? FFXIII's localization is in fact really lovely. They hired good actors but the voice direction was terrible, the translation overly-literal, the script stunted and in desperate need of an editor, and in general it's just a bad product. This isn't a case of "it was better in the ~original pure nipponise~." It was an actual bad low-effort localization and you can point to countless examples of it. I mean Christ, they got Troy Baker to do Snow and Troy Baker is probably one of the best voice actors doing video games today and he still barely could squeak out a good performance. Lightning's voice actress played Liara in Mass Effect and was nowhere as stunted or awkward as I've seen in the videos of FFXIII or in her appearance in FFXIII-2. Hell, they had the actors doing joke things together at a convention which had more natural reads and better acting. FFXIII would still have had loving boatloads of problems even with a good localization. The bad localization just made it worse. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 20:07 on Oct 21, 2013 |
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Oct 21, 2013 19:56
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BioMe posted:Oh no-no-no, we are not loving playing the "blame the localization" game. But everyone who's played the original Japanese version of XIII seems to say that it really was much better... I know we had a comparison of the birthday flashback somewhere earlier in the thread and the Japanese version was definitely an improvement on the dub there.
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Oct 21, 2013 19:58
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CottonWolf posted:But everyone who's played the original Japanese version of XIII seems to say that it really was much better... I know we had a comparison of the birthday flashback somewhere earlier in the thread and the Japanese version was definitely an improvement on the dub there. Oh gosh, with this second-hand information from people who'd both hunt down the glorious Nippon version AND play FFXIII twice my opinion of the game has retroactively changed completely!
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Oct 21, 2013 20:05
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No one is saying that, why do you think people are saying that? The localization was bad and Final Fantasy XIII is a good game are two entirely different statements. I'm pretty sure ImpAtom is saying the plot of FFXIII was a mess, and the localization was just another mess built on top of the preexisting mess, making things even worse. The perfect storm of modern day Square Enix.
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Oct 21, 2013 20:06
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Mordiceius posted:For what it's worth, FF14 has the best localization out of any game I have ever played. The localization of FF14 almost reminds me of Nier in a way. It feels much more natural than normal for Square-Enix RPGs.
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Oct 21, 2013 20:07
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BioMe posted:Oh gosh, with this second-hand information from people who'd both hunt down the glorious Nippon version AND play FFXIII twice my opinion of the game has retroactively changed completely! I imported Final Fantasy XIII before the English version came out and never purchased the English version of the game so... okay? I also at no point said it was secretly a good game ruined by bad localization. It is however made worse than the original version by bad localization. I mean it takes a really bad localization to take a character whose primary thing is that she is extremely emotional and prone to rash and often foolhardy decisions based on her emotions (get it like a strike of lightning, don't worry if you don't get it they say it onscreen) and get "emotionally stunted" out of that. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Oct 21, 2013 |
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Oct 21, 2013 20:08
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Well thanks for the non-argument then? "Oh that's because you didn't play the version that wasn't available on your continent that 99% of people on an English forum wouldn't have. We are now however analyzing the game by that one out of my personal convenience." It's just not relevant to the criticism of the localized FFXIII at all here.
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Oct 21, 2013 20:15
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BioMe posted:Well thanks for the non-argument then? "Oh that's because you didn't play the version that wasn't available on your continnent that 99% of people on an English forum wouldn't have. We are now however analyzing the game by that one out of my personal convenience." Because we're discussing what a Japanese developer and Japanese writer are doing, which would be based off the Japanese version of the character? You started all this by going "well, I don't get what the big deal is, she was like (X!)" and I pointed out that, y'know, that isn't what the character was actually like to the guys who created it and that makes the Lightning Returns poo poo actually creepier and more offensive than it already is. Toriyama seems to have set out to prove that anything non-awful he did with Lightning was completely by accident. Between Parasite Eve 3, FFXIII-2 and Lighting Returns, it seems pretty likely he's proven his point. He's the same guy who decided it was VERY IMPORTANT he personally decide what color Aya Brea's panties were in The Third Birthday so it shouldn't be a shock to anyone that he managed to pull off a character people liked and who wasn't a giant pile of his fetishes entirely by accident. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Oct 21, 2013 |
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Oct 21, 2013 20:17
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BioMe posted:An emotionally stunted "badass". I don't mean she was an offensive character either, but seriously, that's what still passes as a well written strong female character to anyone over twelve? That's what it is for Japanese teenage boys, the demographic Final Fantasy games play to.
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Oct 21, 2013 20:26
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ImpAtom posted:Because we're discussing what a Japanese developer and Japanese writer are doing, which would be based off the Japanese version of the character? What? No. Even ignoring the fact writer's opinion does not excuse a lovely presentation and invalidate criticism, we were discussing how it was funny how (English-speaking) people (who likely played the English version) saw Lightning as an amazing strong female character.
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Oct 21, 2013 20:26
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BioMe posted:What? No. Even ignoring the fact writer's opinion does not excuse a lovely presentation and invalidate criticism, we were discussing how it was funny how (English-speaking) people (who likely played the English version) saw Lightning as an amazing strong female character. Well, in that case: Even if we start with the 'emotionally stunted badass" mindset, it's annoying for the same reason that Samus Aran being converted into a weepy daddy's girl is annoying. Yes, the overly-cool designed-for-a-twelve-year-old badass is not deep or meaningful writing but even with that heavy limitation there are almost no female characters who fill that niche. You don't have to play God of War 4 and worry that next game Kratos is going to be wearing cat ears and shaking his rear end at the camera or his creators talking about his new and improved jiggling dick physics. Even if they did it would be played for humor instead of titillation as opposed to being a primary gameplay mechanic. It's okay for characters to be power fantasy. It isn't great writing but power fantasy has a purpose in the world. Lighting was an acceptable power fantasy for people because she was portrayed as an effective badass who would have been effective and a badass regardless of her gender. Now she's wearing cat ears and jiggling her breasts for the camera. For people who enjoyed "hey, this character kicks a lot of rear end and gives no shits and I like playing that,' It's pretty sad that we're at the point where something that simple can be considered a step up for a lot of people but we are. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Oct 21, 2013 |
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Oct 21, 2013 20:31
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Not really praiseworthy in this decade though, not even in video games. She was the most basic possible female action hero. Granted with way less male gaze than usual... but I think that's where it gets funny instead of just silly.
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Oct 21, 2013 20:45
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BioMe posted:Not really praiseworthy in this decade though, not even in video games. She was the most basic possible female action hero. Granted with way less male gaze than usual... but I think that's where it gets funny instead of just silly. Maybe not praiseworthy but when anything is a step up, that stands out. See, again, Samus Aran who was literally a mostly-mute Ripley-in-power-armor. The fact that Samus was (until Other M) basically held up as one of the most iconic female characters out there should kind of say something about how desperate people are to find something and how frustrating it is when "is less male gaze than usual" gets converted into "holy poo poo lookit all that male gaze." It's worth mentioning that part of the reason we're probably getting Lightning Returns like it is is because there's a large gender gap when it comes to FFXIII. Polls have shown that while male and female (Japanese) respondents both like Lightning, female players are more likely to have enjoyed FFXIII while it ranks lowly with male players. So, being Japan, what we're looking at is "hey, take the popular character and give her bigger breasts and skimpier clothing so the guys come back." (As a side note, the only FF game that male and female players seem to like equally is FFVII. I'm sure everyone is shocked by FFVII's continued popularity.) ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Oct 21, 2013 |
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Oct 21, 2013 20:50
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ImpAtom posted:Maybe not praiseworthy but when anything is a step up, that stands out. See, again, Samus Aran who was literally a mostly-mute Ripley-in-power-armor. The fact that Samus was (until Other M) basically held up as one of the most iconic female characters out there should kind of say something about how desperate people are to find something and how frustrating it is when "is less male gaze than usual" gets converted into "holy poo poo lookit all that male gaze." The female characters in FFVII are written remarkably well. Both have well-defined personalities, wear reasonably modest clothing (compared to a lot of RPGs) and they have their own story arcs, sub plots and even inter-cast interactions with each other. Tifa and Aeris kind of become gal-pals for a chunk of the journey, and Aeris is arguably the most important character of the cast. Plus there's Yuffie and Yuffie is kicking rad.
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Oct 21, 2013 21:15
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BottledBodhisvata posted:The female characters in FFVII are written remarkably well. Both have well-defined personalities, wear reasonably modest clothing (compared to a lot of RPGs) and they have their own story arcs, sub plots and even inter-cast interactions with each other. Tifa and Aeris kind of become gal-pals for a chunk of the journey, and Aeris is arguably the most important character of the cast. And at least Tifa's obsession with the male protagonist can be chalked up to borderline-pathological co-dependence. That girl ain't right.
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Oct 21, 2013 22:20
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Oxxidation posted:And at least Tifa's obsession with the male protagonist can be chalked up to borderline-pathological co-dependence. That girl ain't right. That and she was literally watching him on the suspicion that he was a clearly crazy person who may snap on them at any moment. She lies to him to help further his delusion solely to try and find out what the hell was wrong with him. Tifa plays a lot of angles in the plot, clumsily presented as it may be.
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Oct 21, 2013 22:26
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I still love that Tifa and Aeris are characters built to look like archetypal characters whose personalities they don't posses but everyone from fan writers to EU acts like they are those archetypes they were subverting. FFVII is a really sublimely written but very clumsily translated game.
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Oct 21, 2013 22:32
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Oxxidation posted:And at least Tifa's obsession with the male protagonist can be chalked up to borderline-pathological co-dependence. That girl ain't right. What you mean she wasn't always his almost Freudianly maternal girlfriend? Next you are telling me Aerith wasn't a moe mystery waifu and Yuffie wasn't whatever ridiculous anime thing that is.
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Oct 21, 2013 22:34
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BottledBodhisvata posted:That and she was literally watching him on the suspicion that he was a clearly crazy person who may snap on them at any moment. She lies to him to help further his delusion solely to try and find out what the hell was wrong with him. Tifa plays a lot of angles in the plot, clumsily presented as it may be. This really made my second time playing through. I didn't like Tifa at all my first time, but there's actually quite a bit to her character that isn't immediately obvious.
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Oct 21, 2013 23:05
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ImpAtom posted:S-E doesn't have much experience with open worlds and their strongest, most popular, and best-selling games have all had fairly linear narratives and structured experiences with a focus on set interesting locations. They have 'world maps" but the World Maps are basically there to give an illusion of space between the actual interesting locations, not to be locations themselves. (Technically this is true of Skyrim but it's much less focused.) I'm not experienced with MMO's, but do XI and XIV: A Realm Reborn have good open worlds? I don't know how they would differ from a standard WRPG world like Skyrim, but I imagine it would be very different to a modern sandbox like GTAV just because it's an urban environment that's meant to be driven through. Dragon Quest VIII managed to capture the feel of the JRPG world map in 3D, with everything being to scale, so it's something they should try to do in a Final Fantasy game. ImpAtom posted:Considering FFXV is moving to an action-based combat system, they're probably going to have their hands full just making the basic core gameplay fun and engaging without ending up with a game that is too short or too padded out. Nomura's recent games have all depended on recycling content to pad out the game length and we'll have to see if he does that with FFXV too. The Kingdom Hearts games tend to be lower budget than the Final Fantasy games, although that may be because of the enormous development cycles every game since X has had. They still take a very long time to make, even though they've held back a generation. There have been trailers showing the open world in XV (back when it was Versus XIII on the PS3, however), and in an interview Nomura mentioned that they were having trouble streaming it quickly enough when you were driving at full speed. I can't say for sure how big the world would be, or how much of the story will actually take place in it rather than in one-off locations, hopefully it's not going to feature one token open-world location near the end of the game like XIII did. I wouldn't be worried about the battle system though, since the Kingdom Hearts series has allowed them to experiment with real-time combat, and have achieved some fantastic results. Birth by Sleep is very good, and so is KHII on Proud. Dream Drop Distance was actually made with a lot of the ideas they didn't use while working on Versus XIII, so the combat's not going to be designed at the last minute like with XIII. They even showed off everything Noctis did in the original trailer from 2006 at the E3 reveal, so they've always had an idea for what the combat will be like.
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Oct 21, 2013 23:16
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That loving Sned posted:I'm not experienced with MMO's, but do XI and XIV: A Realm Reborn have good open worlds? I don't know how they would differ from a standard WRPG world like Skyrim, but I imagine it would be very different to a modern sandbox like GTAV just because it's an urban environment that's meant to be driven through. FFXIV:ARR feels a hell of a lot like FFXII, right down to even interface elements (dotted-line zone boundaries, arcing lines indicating targets of enemies and other players), but the areas are both tremendously bigger, and feature a great deal more variety, even within single zones. It is not seamless, and all areas are laid out with specific character levels in mind, but it's made to be explored rather than just waltzed through to reach points of interest, making the comparison to Skyrim somewhat more apt than Dragon Quest VIII. That said, seeing where you're supposed to go, and what places are more dangerous than others is pretty clear once you find your footing. The same absolutely cannot be said for FFXI. Though the art direction was certainly good for its day (and it's well worth listening to the soundtrack if you like this kind of stuff), it would never hesitate to punish you severely for experimenting and exploring, as past a certain very early point in the game, you could do absolutely nothing solo. Later years of the game were said to have mitigated this somewhat, but that doesn't change the unfriendly, unintuitive core design. XIV:ARR, on the other hand, is nothing if not welcoming. It's not without its own issues, but they're more to do with MMO-specific elements such as the endgame, which would be the postgame of any single-player game. As it is, it can be digested as a pretty satisfying mostly-single-player experience. Something that really helps is the clear, almost fanboyish love that the development team has for the rest of the series. It never quite manages to take itself overly seriously, though it isn't quite as goofy as a Dragon Quest may get. Edit-- To elaborate better on that as well as sum it up: It's got the series-retrospective feel of FF9, placed under the template of your standard WoW-like MMO. It's a great, fun thing for anyone who loves Final Fantasy, but probably won't win too many people who didn't like MMOs, or at least open worlds, to begin with. Mazed fucked around with this message at 04:28 on Oct 22, 2013 |
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Oct 22, 2013 04:19
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