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bloodychill posted:It was a story that came together towards the end, which might explain why some people view it more favorably now that they've replayed it. I distinctly remember the lack of interesting villains in the first act affected my motivation to finish up on my playthrough. My views of XIII definitely improved upon a second playthrough. I actually like Lightning - no, I like Clair - now. Still don't like Fang at all but that's because she comes into the game way too late and her persona as "the cool one" irks m Plus, everything is her fault. Who'd have thought threatening the machine god right in front of it would have consequences? When you actually understand what's going on from the onset and who these people are, it helps tremendously. Like, you can hear Barthandelus making a recorded "thank you" to the people being Purged, for their sacrifice and willing capitulation. Now I know who he is and what he's up to from the get go, I love that little bit of dialogue because it's unbelievably smarmy and condescending and dickish. The game still could have improved a lot of things, like more explanation of what's up with the fal'Cie. I still have only a tenuous grasp on whether they are all sapient or not. It also really needed side NPC's besides those already mentioned plus NORA. I get it, they wanted our heroes to feel isolated and stuff, but that doesn't mean we couldn't have scenes of the villains interacting or something. XII did that a lot and it was better for it. Just a scene of Dysley commanding Jihl, or maybe Jihl and Yaag interacting. They're both the leaders of PSICOM and the Datalog even pairs them up together as having a dynamic with him being more calm and ethical and her more fierce and ruthless. But we never see so much as a single scene of them together. Their dynamic literally is all just there in the datalog and nowhere else. NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 08:35 on Mar 21, 2016 |
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Mar 21, 2016 08:32
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8-Bit Scholar posted:It goes to show especially that even in a very gameplay-focused RPG, it's important to have a crop of NPCs and some place you can explore and interact with in a variety of ways. I think of Digital Devil Saga 2, which kind of has very rapidly moving action and the game is 80 percent gameplay to 20 percent story, but it still manages to have a bunch of NPCs who hang around in front of the game's various dungeons. They all have changing dialogue over the course of the game, and somehow I feel like, if they weren't there and if I didn't occassionally glimpse normal people milling about town square while the world is in peril, then all of the dramatic cutscenes would ring just a little more hollow. It's a valuable detail for any game, to immerse you. I agree with this point if it came to other RPGs where they did this more often and made NPCs more interesting. Like, if you gave me an Earthbound that had no NPCs or towns, I'd be skeptical since almost every NPC has something interesting or novel to say. But, in most Final Fantasy's? Like 90% of the NPCs and towns really just aren't noteworthy at all aside from plot related elements (which would still get covered in a FF13 style world) and the shops themselves. The series does use them for a interesting setups in a bunch of cases, like the FF7 example of all the men in black cloaks that you see in Disc 1, but I can't see a reason to care about anyone in say Costa Del Sol or Wutai or Junon or etc. Not every JRPG should really go for the "No towns/NPCs" approach, but honestly when I played through FF13, I didn't feel like I was missing anything given it was just a Final Fantasy game where I didn't usually care about those things. And considering all the structure differences FF13 already was doing to make everything more straightline and gameplay focused, I felt like it was all fine and worked decently enough. NikkolasKing posted:Still don't like Fang at all but that's because she comes into the game way too late and her persona as "the cool one" irks m Plus, everything is her fault. Who'd have thought threatening the machine god right in front of it would have consequences? I'd say everything is more Vanille's fault, rather than Fangs. At least that's how I felt the story was positioning Vanille as.
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Mar 21, 2016 14:19
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Oxxidation posted:The lack of a cohesive goal was another point against FFXIII. FFX's linearity was a little easier to swallow because the party's goal for over half the game tied into it - they're on a pilgrimage, they're focused on getting from point A to point B and onward to point Z, so the whole world map is essentially one long road between those points. FFXIII gives you the very vague objective of "run the hell away" until you get to Pulse, at which point it changes from "go to Oerba, I guess maybe?" and then "do exactly what the villain wants for because," interspersed with a handful of shallow character moments that suffer more from the party being so divided. And even though FFX's gang was on pilgrimage, their hike still took the player through a detailed and occasionally interesting cross-section of Spira, its society, and how that all tied into the game's themes. FFXIII's setting is a nonsensical carnival ride of disparate locales because the game was nothing but a bunch of art assets hastily spliced together at the last minute, which further kills any sense of progress or momentum besides making numbers get bigger. I agree, the closest thing to a goal the gang has throughout the story is "try to solve this whole L'cie thing", which they kinda do even tho the next 2 games are basically all about how that was bad, really bad
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Mar 21, 2016 14:34
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Ventana posted:I'd say everything is more Vanille's fault, rather than Fangs. At least that's how I felt the story was positioning Vanille as. A lot of people get that impression and it's primarily due to the fact we spend so much more time with Vanille than we do with Fang and Vanille feels really guilty about all the poo poo that happened because they woke up. But Vanille's plan after they awoke was basically to hide out somewhere and try to get back to Pulse as soon as possible, it was Fang who suggested they just start killing everyone on Cocoon. This in turn prompted the Cocoon fal'Cie to make Dahj a l'Cie and everything snowballed from there. If Vanille had her way, they would have gone back to Gran Pulse and nothing like what led up to XIII would have happened. NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 15:09 on Mar 21, 2016 |
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Mar 21, 2016 15:03
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A big part of why Vanille feels so guilty (and why by extension the audience is lead to see her as the one responsible) is because she feigned ignorance of their Focus. Fang couldn't remember what they were meant to be doing or even what had happened the last time they were l'Cie and Vanille lied and said she didn't remember either because she didn't want to tell Fang "oh yeah by the way you became a destruction god". That's also why Dajh got dragged into the whole affair, they were at the energy plant and Fang declared "let's just gently caress up a fal'Cie then" out of frustration of not knowing what they should be doing and figuring "we're enemies of Cocoon why not destroy stuff". Dajh ended up branded because the fal'Cie was trying to defend itself.
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Mar 21, 2016 15:11
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I want to know that Fal'Cie's thought process. "Save me, four-year-old! Save me from the time-traveling lesbians!"
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Mar 21, 2016 18:43
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Mega64 posted:I want to know that Fal'Cie's thought process. "gently caress it, brand 'em all and let Bhunivelze sort them out later." I like that it's canon how the fal'Cie are just as stupid and careless as all of their patron gods, especially when they're panicked. One of the only memorable bits of text in FFXIII was a Pulse hunt log where the l'Cie in question is furious at being branded just to hunt a monster. "I hunt monsters every day, rear end in a top hat! It's what I do to feed my family, the one I won't see anymore because I'm going to be crystallized! What the hell!?"
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Mar 21, 2016 18:48
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Mega64 posted:I want to know that Fal'Cie's thought process. "In order to accomplish this task, I will give you the mighty power to.... be vaguely aware that the time-traveling lesbians are around. Now GO!... into a comatose state for a while."
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Mar 21, 2016 18:49
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Oxxidation posted:"gently caress it, brand 'em all and let Bhunivelze sort them out later." I like how everyone and everything in the FF13 series is a massive idiot besides Lightning and maybe that chocobo that lives in an afro that turns into a human/chocobo hybrid because of course she does.
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Mar 21, 2016 18:52
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Oxxidation posted:"gently caress it, brand 'em all and let Bhunivelze sort them out later." I never did the Cie'th Stones my first run and my second run just made me very confused. Like, I don't recall the game ever explaining where everyone on Pulse went ever since Vanille's and Fang's day. Someone told me the literal explanation is that the Pulse fal'Cie kept making l'Cie for stupid things like that and that is actually the explanation of why humans are extinct on Gran Pulse now. Amazing. On my original post wondering about the intelligence level of fal'Cie, I am reasonably certain that the Pulse fal'Cie at least are not sapient like humans. They're just ...automatons or something. They can't think things through,they just do stuff.
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Mar 21, 2016 18:52
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NikkolasKing posted:I never did the Cie'th Stones my first run and my second run just made me very confused. Like, I don't recall the game ever explaining where everyone on Pulse went ever since Vanille's and Fang's day. Someone told me the literal explanation is that the Pulse fal'Cie kept making l'Cie for stupid things like that and that is actually the explanation of why humans are extinct on Gran Pulse now. Nope, the Pulse fal'Cie were sapient and the mass brandings were a conscious decision - when the schism happened between the Cocoon and Pulse fal'Cie, the latter group just kept creating and throwing waves of l'Cie at their enemies in a bid to outlast them and eventually became so unhinged that they started branding people for totally insignificant reasons like the above. The only remaining Pulse fal'Cie are the ones who either had enough of their wits about them to stay out of the whole mess, like Atomos and Titan, or went completely mad, like the one you fight at the peak of Teijin's Tower.
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Mar 21, 2016 19:01
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Oxxidation posted:Nope, the Pulse fal'Cie were sapient and the mass brandings were a conscious decision - when the schism happened between the Cocoon and Pulse fal'Cie, the latter group just kept creating and throwing waves of l'Cie at their enemies in a bid to outlast them and eventually became so unhinged that they started branding people for totally insignificant reasons like the above. The only remaining Pulse fal'Cie are the ones who either had enough of their wits about them to stay out of the whole mess, like Atomos and Titan, or went completely mad, like the one you fight at the peak of Teijin's Tower. Are you sure about that? I mean, I was going mostly off Atomos. I mean...it just spins around, digging holes until you stop it and then it does whatever you want. I didn't think it had much of a mind. I mean, you could definitely be right. I just don't recall the game specifyingone way or another, hence my puzzlement.
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Mar 21, 2016 19:09
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NikkolasKing posted:Are you sure about that? I mean, I was going mostly off Atomos. I mean...it just spins around, digging holes until you stop it and then it does whatever you want. I didn't think it had much of a mind. All of the fal'Cie have a will and a mind, yeah, even the innocuous-looking ones. They just don't bother communicating with humans much, possibly because they're incapable of speaking in anything other than interminable flowery monologues if Spacepope and Orphan were anything to go by. I wish Titan had gotten more of a follow-up, he seemed like the only reasonable one of the bunch. "Oh, hey, l'Cie. Wanna get into some fights? I can set those up. I know a guy. The guy is me."
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Mar 21, 2016 19:13
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Actually here's the thing: if you feel everyone in ff13 sucks then there's nobody else to talk to or have cool moments with. Most of the time you can't even pick your favorite characters. There it's loving simple now please everyone shut up
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Mar 21, 2016 20:18
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Actually here's the thing: if you feel everyone in ff13 sucks then there's nobody else to talk to or have cool moments with. Most of the time you can't even pick your favorite characters. There it's loving simple now please everyone shut up
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Mar 21, 2016 20:18
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how about no lets continue talking about ff13 for example do you think lightning is the best character just because everybody else is the worst, or does she stand out because in an era of video games dominated by hard men forced to make hard choices in a hard world she eats steak while taking a guy out on a date
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Mar 21, 2016 20:30
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I really disliked Lightning in vanilla XIII because her characterization was all over the place, but I kind of came to love her come LR. She is just...so done with all of this bullshit. Every line of her voice acting just drips disdain for all of the poo poo she has to do. It's kind of amazing.
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Mar 21, 2016 20:33
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If given the choice, wouldn't we all wipe out the Fabula Nova Crystallis universe and move to France or Tokyo or wherever she ended up?
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Mar 21, 2016 20:36
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Panic! at Nabisco posted:I really disliked Lightning in vanilla XIII because her characterization was all over the place, but I kind of came to love her come LR. She is just...so done with all of this bullshit. Every line of her voice acting just drips disdain for all of the poo poo she has to do. It's kind of amazing. I guess i cant kill Caius Ballad so I'm gonna go eat steak
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Mar 21, 2016 20:38
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I would sacrifice the rest of my life to attend her wedding to Toriyama.
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Mar 21, 2016 20:38
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But the same thing is true of LR yeah. If you don't like Lightning well she's there the whole time and you can't ditch her. I think the variety of stories and the open world stuff makes up for that but if you liked Sazh a lot then you will be hella disappointed. And who doesn't like Sazh?
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Mar 21, 2016 20:40
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corn in the bible posted:And who doesn't like Sazh? If his role in the trilogy is anything to go by, Square doesn't.
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Mar 21, 2016 20:49
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corn in the bible posted:Actually here's the thing: if you feel everyone in ff13 sucks then there's nobody else to talk to or have cool moments with. Most of the time you can't even pick your favorite characters. There it's loving simple now please everyone shut up corn in the bible posted:But the same thing is true of LR yeah. If you don't like Lightning well she's there the whole time and you can't ditch her. I think the variety of stories and the open world stuff makes up for that but if you liked Sazh a lot then you will be hella disappointed. And who doesn't like Sazh? These are good posts and sum up my feelings more or less. I don't like Lightning so a game all about Lightning does nothing for me. I was worried about XIII-2 for much the same reason. Even if the playable characters were the only characters who mattered in XIII, I still had a full party to choose from. More characters = better odds you'll find someone you like. So learning it was just Serah and this Noel guy in XIII-2 made me very wary. Turns out, I not only liked Noel, but XIII-2 is about a lot of people besides Serah and Noel. Well, maybe a lot is stretching it but there are several important NPC's who show up very frequently. Even if I hadn't liked either of the heroes, I would have had other characters to fall back on.
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Mar 21, 2016 21:02
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corn in the bible posted:I guess i cant kill Caius Ballad so I'm gonna go eat steak Has anyone done the inevitable with Chie/Lightning yet?
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Mar 21, 2016 21:53
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MarquiseMindfang posted:Has anyone done the inevitable with Chie/Lightning yet? Toriyama's doing it right now.
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Mar 21, 2016 22:19
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I actually like Lightning, I think people only hate her so much because Square has been so heavy-handed in trying to push her as New Cloud. Fang and Sazh are cool too. Fang especially, Fang is a really chill character. Sazh gets thrown into a wormhole in the sequel and has to play high-stakes gambling matches in order to win back his soul or something, and that's amazing. Snow is pretty okay half the time, the other half...uh he's voiced by Troy Baker though so he's cool.
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Mar 22, 2016 00:31
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I feel like Snow's good when he's used sparingly. Time Cop Snow, Casts Diamond Dust in Palompolum Snow, Get Punched by Lightning Snow, those are all good. Monologuing/Crying about Serah Snow? Ehh.
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Mar 22, 2016 01:20
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Augus posted:I actually like Lightning, I think people only hate her so much because Square has been so heavy-handed in trying to push her as New Cloud. Fang and Sazh are cool too. Fang especially, Fang is a really chill character. Sazh gets thrown into a wormhole in the sequel and has to play high-stakes gambling matches in order to win back his soul or something, and that's amazing. Snow is pretty okay half the time, the other half...uh he's voiced by Troy Baker though so he's cool. I can't really think of a character trait for Lightning, besides "cranky". She doesn't seem to have any interests or hobbies or a life outside of being a soldier(?) and Serah. In fact, basically Lightning and Snow's entire characters revolve around Serah, who herself is about as deep and interesting a character as a teenage girl who is impossibly well-adjusted about the apocalypse of her time can be. Seriously, the beginning of 13-2 is like, three years after 13, and is about the somewhat chaotic mass exodus from Cocoon that has totally reshaped the lives of the people who lived there, and Serah is...fine. Apparently unconcerned with being unemployed in some nice beach town that they built. Good thing the people who lived their whole lives as PETS still know how to use primitive construction techniques to build workable shelters or Serah would have witnesses a personality-changing amount of death and misery in those years of turmoil.
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Mar 22, 2016 01:24
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I looked up Snow on the wiki and I was amazed that he has a whole time traveling adventure that you don't get to see in the games with an amnesiac fal'cie looking like a cactuar and he's apparently a l'cie twice over because whateverthefuck.
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Mar 22, 2016 01:25
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Gologle posted:I looked up Snow on the wiki and I was amazed that he has a whole time traveling adventure that you don't get to see in the games with an amnesiac fal'cie looking like a cactuar and he's apparently a l'cie twice over because whateverthefuck. As the family finished their act, the stage director stood there stunned. Finally, he asked the father, "What do you call that act?" The father wiped the fluids off his face, and with a cocky grin, said "Final Fantasy XIII."
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Mar 22, 2016 01:34
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Lightning's defining traits are being so self conscious about her name being Eclaire that she threw herself into her career so hard she got really self conscious about not having a life and overcompensated by loving Serah this |---------------------------------------------------------------| much.
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Mar 22, 2016 01:38
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8-Bit Scholar posted:I can't really think of a character trait for Lightning, besides "cranky". She doesn't seem to have any interests or hobbies or a life outside of being a soldier(?) and Serah. In fact, basically Lightning and Snow's entire characters revolve around Serah, who herself is about as deep and interesting a character as a teenage girl who is impossibly well-adjusted about the apocalypse of her time can be. Lightning is...she's sort of like Squall now I think on it. She's a young person trying to act adult. Only, she has a very immature understanding of what being an adult is which is why her facade cracks a lot and she resorts to hitting things and having fits. I still am confused by the flashback of her birthday. Did she just not believe Serah when Serah said she was a l'Cie? That just strikes me as such a weird thing to think you're sister is joking about. What would even be the point? quote:Seriously, the beginning of 13-2 is like, three years after 13, and is about the somewhat chaotic mass exodus from Cocoon that has totally reshaped the lives of the people who lived there, and Serah is...fine. Apparently unconcerned with being unemployed in some nice beach town that they built. Good thing the people who lived their whole lives as PETS still know how to use primitive construction techniques to build workable shelters or Serah would have witnesses a personality-changing amount of death and misery in those years of turmoil. Serah has a job, she's a school teacher for little kids. As for the rampant disease and rioting and confusion that should have logically wiped out a good portion of humanity after all the Cocoon fal'Cie died...I guess they just didn't want to focus on that. It's a bit too dark for the series, I think. All the people starving to death because the being that mass produced food for them is now gone is just not what I expect in my silly video games. NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Mar 22, 2016 |
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Mar 22, 2016 01:52
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NikkolasKing posted:I still am confused by the flashback of her birthday. Did she just not believe Serah when Serah said she was a l'Cie? That just strikes me as such a weird thing to think you're sister is joking about. Whatwould even be the point? you know denial is a thing right
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Mar 22, 2016 01:56
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Brother Entropy posted:you know denial is a thing right No it isn't
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Mar 22, 2016 01:59
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It's in egypt
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Mar 22, 2016 02:05
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Keys from the Easter box thing came in. Actually looks well worth the ten preorder.. Anyways, the games are as follows: Deus Ex: HR: Director's Cut, Sleeping Dogs Definitive, Quantum Conundrum... ... and Final Fantasies VIII and XIII-2.
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Mar 22, 2016 02:08
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NikkolasKing posted:I still am confused by the flashback of her birthday. Did she just not believe Serah when Serah said she was a l'Cie? That just strikes me as such a weird thing to think you're sister is joking about. What would even be the point? She found out about it at the same time she found out she was marrying Snow and thought it was stupid teenage bullshit because there was no good reason for it to be believable. It's like if your sister came to you with a horrifying dumbass who she insists she is going to marry because he is Lord Darkblood, the Vampire Lord.
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Mar 22, 2016 02:08
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That scene was great, cause Lightning actually said "Worst birthday ever." You really gotta feel for the woman, everyone around her is so drat stupid.
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Mar 22, 2016 02:16
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widespread posted:Keys from the Easter box thing came in. Actually looks well worth the ten preorder.. Lumping XIII-2 with FFVIII in the "...and" category is not fair. But I have no idea what this is referring to. It's a bundle of games? Digital downloads or something? What system?Then again, the only game from that bundle I care about, I already have so.... ImpAtom posted:She found out about it at the same time she found out she was marrying Snow and thought it was stupid teenage bullshit because there was no good reason for it to be believable. It's like if your sister came to you with a horrifying dumbass who she insists she is going to marry because he is Lord Darkblood, the Vampire Lord. I guess but that still seems like a weird thing to think your sibling is lying about. The Vampire Lord doesn't exist but l'Cie do.
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Mar 22, 2016 02:20
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NikkolasKing posted:But I have no idea what this is referring to. It's a bundle of games? Digital downloads or something? What system?Then again, the only game from that bundle I care about, I already have so.... Square-Enix does a "mystery box" sale a couple times a year where for $10 (or equivalent) you get Steam codes for 4 or 5 games with the catch being you don't know what's in it beforehand. The last one had (among other things) FFXIII and FFXIV in it. They're usually a good deal unless you already own DX:HR (which has been in multiple boxes) and most of the Thief/Hitman/Tomb Raider/Final Fantasy titles on Steam.
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