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Fantastic LP! I wonder what they could've done to "fix" this game so that it'd have a little more mass appeal. The thing that probably turned me off the most about the game when it first came out was the power-scaling thing with enemies. I get why they did it. Grinding is loving tedious. But I'm sure it hosed with a lot of fans [like me,] 'cause in most RPGs you basically have two options when you hit some roadblocks. You can either "git gud" or go grind out some levels and wreck poo poo. And this game basically brutally punishes you if you carelessly pursue the second option.
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Oct 20, 2017 23:46
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Slightly Absurd posted:Fantastic LP! Depends on mass or RPG appeal. Not touching mass, but for RPG the obvious thing is a talking mechanic, they already existed back then since as far as I can tell, Star Ocean was the original and its the number one RPG mechanic if you ask me. Nothing ups the quality of a game like a mechanic dedicated solely to letting you learn more about the characters. I'd also use Kiros or Ward more and have Laguna send them off looking for Squall and ends with the heart to heart we never got and connecting the two sides of the plot more cohesively rather than just randomly stumbling onto it. Develop Ellone more as a person rather than THE MCGUFFIN, also just plain no to keeping her onscreen with no dialogue at the end. NPCs change dialogue more frequently to give incentive to talk to them, god knows I lose all interest when I see the same dialogue repeated. TLDR, triple the gamescript. Honestly, it would help pretty much every pre-ps2 RPG.
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Oct 21, 2017 00:17
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NikkolasKing posted:(there was no FF villain before Sephiroth who received even half as much characterization as Sephiroth) I would disagree and argue that he got exactly as much characterization as some of the villains before him. The only thing he did differently was get a lengthy flashback dedicated to him (relayed by an unreliable narrator.) Golbez's 'I show up and you know you have yourself a villain' factor, Exdeath's ambition, Kefka's presence in the plot... Ultimecia kind of hurts from the lack of that last one I feel. Too many proxies, not enough 'I am your antagonist, here's me antagonizing you' to really let her measure up to that lot. MythosDragon posted:TLDR, triple the gamescript. Honestly, it would help pretty much every pre-ps2 RPG. You mean not hiding half of it behind optional and completely miss-able side-tracks? 
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Oct 21, 2017 00:49
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Great LP, Cool Ghost. I enjoy this game, but there's a ton of things I never knew about. Very impressed. And I'd still love to see FF8-0, being the previously untold adventures of Laguna, Kiros, and Ward.
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Oct 21, 2017 01:17
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EponymousMrYar posted:I would disagree and argue that he got exactly as much characterization as some of the villains before him. Golbez wasn't even a villain, though. He was mind controlled by the Evil Moon Man. And the Nibelheim Flashback is pretty important and it being told by an unreliable narrator is one of its most amazing aspects. It's not only one of the most memorable parts of the game, it shows how a guy who ostensibly used to be a hero went insane and became who he is now. That's more than any of the others ever got. Kefka's villainous origin is a line of dialogue saying he went crazy from some experiments. As I said, it's not perfect but for the time, it was definitely groundbreaking. Sephiroth wasn't just a force of evil, he was once a person. We never got that feeling with any of the others.
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Oct 21, 2017 01:31
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Everyone should go read Elentor's FFVII LP. It's very good and broke down my irrational hatred of the game instilled by the fan base mentioned earlier.
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Oct 21, 2017 01:35
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Madmarker posted:I mean, for how long after that game came out did we get people with screen names like "!XxDarkL0rdSephir0thxX!"? I mean, I'm sure that poo poo is still going on. Well yeah, especially when Square keeps shoving VII in your face. Only it's the modern version of VII where everyone wears leather, Cloud is mopey, Yuffie is a ditzy sidekick, and Sephiroth shows up to posture instead of doing anything meaningful. Blueberry Pancakes fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Oct 21, 2017 |
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Oct 21, 2017 01:45
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Giga Gaia posted:Everyone should go read Elentor's FFVII LP. It's very good and broke down my irrational hatred of the game instilled by the fan base mentioned earlier. Seconded. I thought FF7 was seriously overrated, but Elentor really changed my mind.
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Oct 21, 2017 02:07
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Sorry guys, this thread isnt as good as the FF7 one. There wasnt an entire page dedicated to talking about wisdom teeth removal. Only Drakengard 3 compares.
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Oct 21, 2017 02:50
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NikkolasKing posted:Golbez wasn't even a villain, though. He was mind controlled by the Evil Moon Man. And you never actually see Sephiroth after the flashback until the end of the game (aside from the scene where the game lays it that out to you,) just a crazy space monster mimicing him That's why I disagree with you. Golbez, Exdeath and Kefka all developed themselves (or the Evil Moon Man) as they got screentime with you. Sephiroth frontloads that into the flashback but after that it's only him at the 11th hour. ultrafilter posted:Seconded. I thought FF7 was seriously overrated, but Elentor really changed my mind. I thought the same of the game and while I still think that way I now know exactly how much was nostalgia and how much this game's strange decisions with how it presents itself play into that 
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Oct 21, 2017 07:17
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Heaven Spacey posted:AC Cloud is dying of anime cancer and finally just getting hit with the enormity of building his own identity and also Aeris' death, so it makes sense he'd be depressed. Unfortunately AC falls totally flat at everything it does so this just means he's a slightly less lame Vincent. I think that and how he's portrayed in Kingdom Hearts, where he's also basically Vincent, did more damage to people's perceptions of Cloud than the rabid fanbase. People who never played FF7 were introduced by KH to Cloud as a big mopey sadsack, instead of the awkward but upbeat weirdo he's supposed to be, and it's not a good first impression to make. From what I understand in an early version of Kingdom Hearts, Cloud was in Squall's position in Traverse Town while Vincent was at the Coliseum. However someone complained about there being too many FF7 characters in the game so they put Squall in Cloud's place and moved Cloud to the Coliseum and got rid of Vincent, but they didn't seem to do much of a rewrite to reflect the characters. Hence Cloud is a lot more mopey while Squall is a bit less angsty teen. You can sort of see this in Cloud's KH design if you compare it to Vincent. Anyways great LP Cool Ghost, haven't played the game in years and I missed out in a lot of content.
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Oct 21, 2017 12:04
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A big part of the problem is that everyone, the critics, the fans and seemingly the Extended Universe writers strongly remember the early stages of FFVII. It happens with a lot of media we consume, the first third makes a big impact, but in a 50 hour game that's juggling a lot of different tones and atmospheres - it happened a lot more. Basically everyone remembers Cold Loner Jerk Cloud and Midgar from the very beginning, and not "Let's mosey" Cloud or this:  Anyway: rad LP, Cool Ghost.
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Oct 21, 2017 13:33
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EvilTaytoMan posted:From what I understand in an early version of Kingdom Hearts, Cloud was in Squall's position in Traverse Town while Vincent was at the Coliseum. However someone complained about there being too many FF7 characters in the game so they put Squall in Cloud's place and moved Cloud to the Coliseum and got rid of Vincent, but they didn't seem to do much of a rewrite to reflect the characters. Hence Cloud is a lot more mopey while Squall is a bit less angsty teen. You can sort of see this in Cloud's KH design if you compare it to Vincent. Additionally, Rikku was supposed to be the Traverse Town cast, but the game already had a Riku, so Rikku was ditched and replaced her with Yuffie. It's why, when she does show up in II alongside the Gullwings, she never has her name spoken. There's also this old concept art of how she was meant to look in the original, which someone has since colored. 
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Oct 21, 2017 15:34
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Great Job on the LP Cool Ghost! Even after beating this game over a dozen times, I was constantly amazed to read how you would constantly uncover content I had no clue about.
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Oct 21, 2017 15:49
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Outstanding LP, Ghost. Your grasp on the story's themes really helped them resonate like they should have. FF8 really feels like it was made by people with really good ideas, it's good that those ideas were given proper acknowledgement. FF8 has my favorite of the PS1 final boss fights. It has a strong progression and loads in some amazing battle themes. It's not only beautiful but functional, with that great final dungeon. The ending is better than I gave it credit for originally. There's not a lot of games or stories that involve weird metaphysical concepts like FF8 does, even if it's slipshod at handling it. The GF memory loss thing is still dumb, but I guess I appreciate the commitment this game has to its plot, even the dumber parts. I think "loss of self" could have been worked into the GFs role instead, like a "where does my power come from?" angle maybe. Since there's so many remnants of the old world involving the GFs I think just relegating them to wiping memories, hinging on a huge reveal without actually being active in the plot, was strange. The characters' dead and clinical reference to "The GF" and "Matron" is still really disturbing and I don't like it. FF5 and 6 could really benefit from their most recent iterations not being disgusting mobile ports so I'm for remakes of those.
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Oct 22, 2017 03:42
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Great LP, thank you! Any plans for a next LP?
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Oct 22, 2017 18:23
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Thank you Cool Ghost for the excellent LP!VagueRant posted:A big part of the problem is that everyone, the critics, the fans and seemingly the Extended Universe writers strongly remember the early stages of FFVII. It happens with a lot of media we consume, the first third makes a big impact, but in a 50 hour game that's juggling a lot of different tones and atmospheres - it happened a lot more. More than Cloud, I think the most interesting part of people's FFVII amnesia is Tifa and Aeris. The thing that made the two characters interesting is that their personalities were the other way around from how you'd expect: Aeris--the flower merchant with an ancient legacy and a hidden secret--is feisty, brave and sarcastic, while Tifa--the martial artist ecoterrorist--is quiet, reserved and unable to express her feelings due to fear of what others might say. But the stereotypes associated with their archetypes are so strong that people's own memory (even the writers of later games) rewrite the characters back to the stereotypes they "should" be.
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Oct 22, 2017 19:09
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I can''t say anything else other than thanking you for the great experience, the patience to narrate the game wonderfully for years and coming off with this wonderful project. Now SA has amazing LPs of FF7 8, 9 and 10! Have we done any good ones for the previous games?
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Oct 22, 2017 20:26
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Thank you, everyone. I'm glad we could all learn new things about this game. As far as another LP, there's something I've been thinking about for a while, but it's in limbo at the moment.
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Oct 22, 2017 21:22
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Mans posted:I can''t say anything else other than thanking you for the great experience, the patience to narrate the game wonderfully for years and coming off with this wonderful project. You can find them all by blanket-searching "Final Fantasy" in the archives, but I thought the Solo Run of Final Fantasy III by Mega64
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Oct 22, 2017 21:24
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Mans posted:Now SA has amazing LPs of FF7 8, 9 and 10! dotchan posted:You can find them all by blanket-searching "Final Fantasy" in the archives, but I thought the Solo Run of Final Fantasy III by Mega64 These are all of the other final fantasy LPs currently ongoing on the forums that I know of: >SSLP for FF6 Advance by Leavemywife, somewhere around 50% complete. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3784915 >SSLP of the MMORPG FF14 by CrashScreen*, a little less than halfway through the main story. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3778738&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1 >SSLP of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 by Solumin, which started like a month ago. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3835256&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1 *EDIT: Sorry! I somehow mistyped your name! :'( MagusofStars fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Oct 22, 2017 |
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Oct 22, 2017 22:13
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Also running right now: 25 Years of Final Fantasy, video LP of two friends playing the whole Final Fantasy series, one game at a time.
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Oct 22, 2017 22:40
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Mikl posted:Also running right now: 25 Years of Final Fantasy, video LP of two friends playing the whole Final Fantasy series, one game at a time. which once they get through with their hiatus should be starting FFVIII.... soonish? Like, a third of the way through Tactics soonish.
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Oct 22, 2017 22:46
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MagusofStars posted:Yeah, the LP archive has at least one completed LP for basically every single game ever written with "Final Fantasy" in the title except for the MMOs (11 and 14), the brand new 15, and the mobile games. Also a video LP of FFXV by Koobes (and the XIV one is by CrashScreen, btw): https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3801923&pagenumber=1
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Oct 22, 2017 22:57
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Oh yes, and the other FFXV one by Kuvo and topiKal here but while Koobes is done with the main game and going onto the DLC, this one... let's just say isn't.
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Oct 22, 2017 23:05
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Worth noting that LP is only covering the first XIV expansion at present. But is Haukke really the halfway point of ARR? I remember feeling like it went on forever after that. Especially the scenario before the second Primal fight.
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Oct 22, 2017 23:08
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The original ending of arr is only about 1/3 the way to heavensward, so it just depends on where you define the cutoff point to be
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Oct 23, 2017 04:51
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Silegna posted:Actually, AC Cloud is supposed to be the "True Cloud" according to Nomura, I think. Nomura is a dork and all of his opinions should be disregarded. 
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Oct 23, 2017 06:08
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Congratulations on completing a wonderful LP, it's good to be able to look at FF8 in such a way. So many details I didn't pick up on playing this number, so thank you
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Oct 23, 2017 13:28
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Thanks for the great ride. I only ever saw the FMVs for this game so it was nice to see what led to them in this much-maligned game.
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Oct 23, 2017 16:01
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Thanks for your work here. I always liked this game for it's visuals, cities and characters always felt so alive. Well. Nearly always.
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Oct 23, 2017 22:25
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Thank you so, so, so much for this LP. Final Fantasy VIII is one of those touchstone games for me, and I've always resented the general antipathy people have toward it but couldn't articulate the many things that made it special. You did, and I appreciate that. Come on, Square! Make something else in the FFVIII universe! Fake edit: I had always wondered why they went with Squall as the main FF ally/protagonist for Sora in Kingdom Hearts. I had thought it was just timing and lack of options, the idea being that they front-loaded the game with FFX characters on the island since they would be recognizable, Cloud was being saved for Sephiroth's side-boss quest, Zidane and the FFIX characters were too weird, and kids wouldn't know the pre-Playstation FF characters. It was interesting to read the actual backstory to the decision here in this thread, and I'm so glad it happened. Maybe some kids were exposed to FFVIII via KH who otherwise wouldn't have been, and kept the game from being totally swept under the rug at this point.
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Oct 26, 2017 01:21
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I wouldn't call FF9's cast too weird in a game full of Disney characters. Hell, FF9 is pretty durn Disney and it's a shame all we got out of that game in KH was a woefully underutilized Vivi, especially with how many themes both stories connect with.
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Oct 26, 2017 02:59
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FFIX was not used in KH1 and barely used in 2 because Nomura really does not like working with characters he didn't make, hence why the focus in KH is on his characters. Considering how badly Setzer and Vivi are used in KH2, I'm willing to agree with him.
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Oct 26, 2017 03:19
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Setzer is a Nomura character
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Oct 26, 2017 03:52
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Blaze Dragon posted:FFIX was not used in KH1 and barely used in 2 because Nomura really does not like working with characters he didn't make, hence why the focus in KH is on his characters. He and Aya Brea must not be on good speaking terms. Which incidentally Parasite Eve was made as a tech demo for FF8 iirc. I miss when cool experiments were put to good use instead of as just teasers for things. The Ayshkerbundy posted:Setzer is a Nomura character I think FF6's cast was an Amano gig. Zeikier fucked around with this message at 04:01 on Oct 26, 2017 |
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Oct 26, 2017 03:58
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Setzer is an Amano character. You're thinking Seifer.
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Oct 26, 2017 06:57
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Final Fantasy Wiki posted:After it was decided Final Fantasy VI would feature an ensemble cast with no clear main protagonist, everyone in the development team was encouraged to provide ideas for characters and their episodes. Setzer's character and story were colored by influence from Tetsuya Nomura. Nomura's specifically credited for designing Setzer and Shadow
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Oct 26, 2017 07:23
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The Ayshkerbundy posted:Nomura's specifically credited for designing Setzer and Shadow Whoa! That's really interesting, consider this my new learned thing today! That seems like a more interesting way to split teams up, different people working on different characters, preferably playing to each team member's strengths (unless that's how story writing with ensemble casts work already in which case  ).
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Oct 26, 2017 07:28
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Zeikier posted:Whoa! That's really interesting, consider this my new learned thing today! Well, I know it's how it worked in Fire Emblem Awakening and most modern Bioware games, anyway. Characters got assigned to people, and they wrote the chunks of the game and dialog centering around those characters, and they also got a look-in when someone else was using that character to make sure nobody wrote anything that blatantly contradicted anything else. It's one way to split up work if you've got a lot of dialog to go through, and it lets characters have distinct and consistent voices, in theory but it also means that people might go in different directions, depending on how the editing process works.
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Oct 26, 2017 07:45
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