I don't think I have it in me to do more than one playthrough of a PS2-or-later FF game. I've thought about doing them again before but as stupid as this sounds, they're just too much of a chore. I sat through those ten-minute cutscenes and grinded those spheres/pelts/whatever once, and that was enough. I have no desire to do it again.
On the other hand, I've played through 1-8 at least twice, and if the battles weren't so slow I'd give FF9 another shot just for old time's sake.
Although I'll admit that I haven't actually played FF13 yet (and may never end up doing it, the way things are going), it seems to me that playing through a current-gen Final Fantasy game is something akin to watching two or three seasons of a TV series on DVD all at once. It's probably great fun, especially if it's new to you, but it's just not the kind of thing you can bring yourself to do very frequently.
I would say VIII because "memory loss hurr" is kind of a cop-out. I like time travel though, for some reason, so that bit doesn't bother me. It was done in too much of a roundabout nonsensical way though.
XIII is kind of feels like they just didn't put enough info in there for you to know the whole story, so it's kind of confusing (see Darksiders, Modern Warfare 2, Lost Planet 2, etc.).
Also oh my I just remembered I never got around to actually killing Ozma and I ragequit Yiazmat after I decided not to burn a megalixir 2 hours in.
What is so irritating about the "memory loss" bit is that it should have allowed for some interesting conversations into the game. It isn't like adding in lines of text should have been hard. Having Irvine or Selphie (?) fish around for details of Zell's adoption from his mom, things like that? They could have removed the freaky alien living in the basement plot for stuff like that?
I don't think I have it in me to do more than one playthrough of a PS2-or-later FF game. I've thought about doing them again before but as stupid as this sounds, they're just too much of a chore. I sat through those ten-minute cutscenes and grinded those spheres/pelts/whatever once, and that was enough. I have no desire to do it again.
On the other hand, I've played through 1-8 at least twice, and if the battles weren't so slow I'd give FF9 another shot just for old time's sake.
Although I'll admit that I haven't actually played FF13 yet (and may never end up doing it, the way things are going), it seems to me that playing through a current-gen Final Fantasy game is something akin to watching two or three seasons of a TV series on DVD all at once. It's probably great fun, especially if it's new to you, but it's just not the kind of thing you can bring yourself to do very frequently.
Nor should you.
I mean, there's probably a ton of awesome games you've never played...why keep replaying ones you have?
Both fall off the cliff, and at around the same point too.
Both have the main characters doing stuff to bring about their own destruction. One group because they feel they have no choice and the other out of friendship/love/the stupidity of the man of science they trust.
The main characters in FF XIII are generally smarter than those in VIII. Eight has Seifer, who just does dumb thing after dumb thing. Selphie might be insane, or she might just be dumber then a sack of bricks. Robin Williams plan seems alright but I'm not sure that partnering with Jabba the hut in your basement is smart at all. Squall is however brilliant in not wanting anything to do with these crazies until he falls in love with queen irrational herself.
FF XIII has generally smart people. Hope acts dumb most of the game but has grief as an excuse. A lot of people think Vanille is being dumb but I think there is a certain genius to her coping mechanism. Snow is just a lovable goofball.
So FF XIII has the lead on the cast, let's look at the villains though.
One villain has an almost incomprehensible plan. She might just be insane. It's almost as if her being evil and from the far flung future wasn't enough, they needed a reason why besides the fact that the fourth disc is filled with FMVs and storing the data from all towns wouldn't fit on a CD with the other junk they had.
The other is just a whiny emo godling brat whose sick of his job and wants to die/have mommy come back and scoop him up. I think this is where FF XIII finally separates itself from the pack.
So we're tied one all. The tie breaker goes to which game has a sub plot revolving around the best card game ever.
It's been decided.
FF XIII is the dumbest FF game. Still pretty fun though! Give it a try!
Finished up XIII over the weekend. Won't go down as my favorite, but I enjoyed the time I spent with it. Right now just because I don't feel like starting another game I'm going back through and doing the rest of the hunt missions. Mostly because I really like the combat and leveling system.
In regards to the XIII vs. VIII. I too think I'd rather play VIII again. That could be because I haven't played it since I finished it all those years ago when it was released and I just finished XIII. The weird plot drop-off in XIII did bug me a bit more than I recall it bothering me in VIII. I don't remember VIII bothering me at all when I first played through it.
Next though I should go ahead and play IX, II, III, and V all the way through just to say that I have. I've finished all the other ones at least once. IV and VI probably closer to 4 times each. I really like those two. IV was the first one I ever played, followed by Mystic Quest. Yeah. Hey, I was desperate for more Final Fantasy after completing IV. And I was like, 12 or something.
ZarathustraEckUbermenschnow with stripes!Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
My usual response when someone asks about FFXIII is "it's worth a playthrough." But that's about it. I played through the game, had fun with the combat system and the gorgeous graphics... and then put it away. Now I'm either going to give it to a friend for a single playthrough or just take it to Gamestop and get some cash back.
You'd never find me doing that with a game I really enjoy, because I might want to pick it up again and play through. I'm working on FFIX right now (downloaded through PSN) and I could easily see playing it again. FFXIII... not so much.
FFVIII has the dumber 'jumping off point' I think but it's also the game which I would play again.
FFXIII was just generally boring except for...chapters 6 to 9 I guess and while it did have stupidity none of it made me cringe but I wouldn't play it again.
Sipex on
0
ZarathustraEckUbermenschnow with stripes!Registered Userregular
All I really want to know is why after the awesomeness of Triple Triad we got the useless, confusing piece of shit that is Tetra Master.
Because people still think Triple Triad was a good idea or even remotly good.
There. I said it.
I had a lot of fun playing Triple Triad, and seem to recall at one point there was a website with a flash version I used to play with a friend. Good times were had.
All I really want to know is why after the awesomeness of Triple Triad we got the useless, confusing piece of shit that is Tetra Master.
Same reason we got the License Board - innovation for innovation's sake. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Tetra Master definitely didn't (nor did the license board).
On the one hand I kind of admire Square for refusing to make the same game over and over again, but sometimes I wish they'd realize they were on to something and run with it. I doubt we'll ever see the Job system in a main-series game again, and that's probably the most fun thing the series does, IMO.
Would anybody actually complain if they got to see a manifestion of the FFTA in a big-budget FF game? Because I sure wouldn't.
EDIT: Also, Triple Triad should have came out about 6-7 years later so they could release it as a series of standalone GBA games. They would have made a fortune.
All I really want to know is why after the awesomeness of Triple Triad we got the useless, confusing piece of shit that is Tetra Master.
Because people still think Triple Triad was a good idea or even remotly good.
There. I said it.
I had a lot of fun playing Triple Triad, and seem to recall at one point there was a website with a flash version I used to play with a friend. Good times were had.
I don't know. Maybe I'm just resenting minigames as a whole. It didn't help that I always got raped in them as a kid.
The good thing about Triple Triad was that it was very simple to learn and quick to play. Admittedly some of the weirder rules sets got kind of ridiculous (the Lunar set was pretty much "you lose, don't even try to understand why") but in its most basic form it was great.
Later games forgot that the simplicity was what made it fun. Tetra Master didn't even try to explain what you were supposed to be doing, plus it was boring. Blitzball was just dumb - if you want to put a sports game in there that's cool, but a turn-based sports game is just inane. I never played FFX-2 Sphere Break but looking at pictures of it definitely doesn't make me want to. I guess the closest thing FF12 had was the skillchaining/Mist system, and I never really understood it either.
The good thing about Triple Triad was that it was very simple to learn and quick to play. Admittedly some of the weirder rules sets got kind of ridiculous (the Lunar set was pretty much "you lose, don't even try to understand why") but in its most basic form it was great.
Later games forgot that the simplicity was what made it fun. Tetra Master didn't even try to explain what you were supposed to be doing, plus it was boring. Blitzball was just dumb - if you want to put a sports game in there that's cool, but a turn-based sports game is just inane. I never played FFX-2 Sphere Break but looking at pictures of it definitely doesn't make me want to. I guess the closest thing FF12 had was the skillchaining/Mist system, and I never really understood it either.
I dunno, I just remember having fun with it and doing pretty well. The RNG wasn't that terrible to me. Actually I played FF8 later and didn't have the mood to get into Triple Triad.
Triple Triad is hard to get into if you don't start playing it near the beginning of the game and get some pretty decent cards early on. Fortunately you can get cards even without playing the game (your Ifrit card should be enough to get you through the early stages, along with Diablos).
It also kind of sucks whenever you start accidentally spreading rules that you hate because it's ridiculously convoluted to try to fix it.
Triple Triad is hard to get into if you don't start playing it near the beginning of the game and get some pretty decent cards early on. Fortunately you can get cards even without playing the game (your Ifrit card should be enough to get you through the early stages, along with Diablos).
It also kind of sucks whenever you start accidentally spreading rules that you hate because it's ridiculously convoluted to try to fix it.
As an example of this, the Random rule, making people use most of their 4 Fastitocalon-F cards with their [insert high rank card here], purely because they don't have the fifth card needed to refine them the fuck out of their deck.
Actually, thinking about it, Random is the only one that's truly bad... unless you count Open not being present.
BlitzAce1981 on
PSN ID - BlitzAce1981 FFXIV - Raiden Solitaire (Sargatanas)
Triple Triad is hard to get into if you don't start playing it near the beginning of the game and get some pretty decent cards early on. Fortunately you can get cards even without playing the game (your Ifrit card should be enough to get you through the early stages, along with Diablos).
It also kind of sucks whenever you start accidentally spreading rules that you hate because it's ridiculously convoluted to try to fix it.
As an example of this, the Random rule, making people use most of their 4 Fastitocalon-F cards with their [insert high rank card here], purely because they don't have the fifth card needed to refine them the fuck out of their deck.
Actually, thinking about it, Random is the only one that's truly bad... unless you count Open not being present.
I didn't mind lack of Open too much. It was only bad when combined with Plus.
Random got spread the entire world over somehow when I played. Made it so I couldn't get the card that you can turn into a 100 hero items. Still managed to beat Omega Weapon, though, and I only had three hero items to do it with.
I would say VIII because "memory loss hurr" is kind of a cop-out. I like time travel though, for some reason, so that bit doesn't bother me. It was done in too much of a roundabout nonsensical way though.
XIII is kind of feels like they just didn't put enough info in there for you to know the whole story, so it's kind of confusing (see Darksiders, Modern Warfare 2, Lost Planet 2, etc.).
Also oh my I just remembered I never got around to actually killing Ozma and I ragequit Yiazmat after I decided not to burn a megalixir 2 hours in.
Nothing is more epic than the Yiazmat fight in FF XII. Nothing. Took me about fifteen hours, if I recall correctly.
Random got spread the entire world over somehow when I played. Made it so I couldn't get the card that you can turn into a 100 hero items. Still managed to beat Omega Weapon, though, and I only had three hero items to do it with.
I would say VIII because "memory loss hurr" is kind of a cop-out. I like time travel though, for some reason, so that bit doesn't bother me. It was done in too much of a roundabout nonsensical way though.
XIII is kind of feels like they just didn't put enough info in there for you to know the whole story, so it's kind of confusing (see Darksiders, Modern Warfare 2, Lost Planet 2, etc.).
Also oh my I just remembered I never got around to actually killing Ozma and I ragequit Yiazmat after I decided not to burn a megalixir 2 hours in.
Nothing is more epic than the Yiazmat fight in FF XII. Nothing. Took me about fifteen hours, if I recall correctly.
I beat Omega through 255 Speed, Auto-Haste, Very Slow ATB, and Guard.
gjaustin on
0
NocrenLt Futz, Back in ActionNorth CarolinaRegistered Userregular
Random got spread the entire world over somehow when I played. Made it so I couldn't get the card that you can turn into a 100 hero items. Still managed to beat Omega Weapon, though, and I only had three hero items to do it with.
I would say VIII because "memory loss hurr" is kind of a cop-out. I like time travel though, for some reason, so that bit doesn't bother me. It was done in too much of a roundabout nonsensical way though.
XIII is kind of feels like they just didn't put enough info in there for you to know the whole story, so it's kind of confusing (see Darksiders, Modern Warfare 2, Lost Planet 2, etc.).
Also oh my I just remembered I never got around to actually killing Ozma and I ragequit Yiazmat after I decided not to burn a megalixir 2 hours in.
Nothing is more epic than the Yiazmat fight in FF XII. Nothing. Took me about fifteen hours, if I recall correctly.
I beat Omega through 255 Speed, Auto-Haste, Very Slow ATB, and Guard.
Speaking of epic/doing it wrong, I do remember that on my first attempted playthrough of XII, I got to Raithwall's tomb and the boss monster outside of it. Long drawn-out fight ensues. Beat it, then die later.
Started another playthrough several months later and did the whole desert nomad sidequest first that gives you the berries that severely weaken said boss, turning it from a grueling challenge to a mere warm-up exercise.
Yeah, that made me feel better about myself.
Nocren on
0
KorKnown to detonate from time to timeRegistered Userregular
1) Oh hey, we COINCIDENTALLY teamed up even though we grew up together under the woman who we're now fighting against. This would totally be reasonable if we had been friends all along but we were split up, made seperate goals and forgot about each other but now our goals COINCIDENTALLY coincide and we all COINCIDENTALLY met up without even getting 1 straggler in the group.
I know I'm like a page too late, but I just wanted to say that there is actually 1 straggler in the group.
edit: also the GF theory wouldn't have been so bad had it been introduced by someone of importance in the game. Instead, we get a small analysis from Squall that maybe GFs live in our memories, and maybe they keep us from remembering.
It's not even proven, hell for all we know, Balamb actually brainwashes their students, since Selphie and Irvine had no problems remembering.
If whats-his-name that Dr. Quize? or something like that had stated that this was how it worked, it wouldn't have been so bad, but it was your party that developed this amazing theory with no proof of any sort.
1) Oh hey, we COINCIDENTALLY teamed up even though we grew up together under the woman who we're now fighting against. This would totally be reasonable if we had been friends all along but we were split up, made seperate goals and forgot about each other but now our goals COINCIDENTALLY coincide and we all COINCIDENTALLY met up without even getting 1 straggler in the group.
I know I'm like a page too late, but I just wanted to say that there is actually 1 straggler in the group.
edit: also the GF theory wouldn't have been so bad had it been introduced by someone of importance in the game. Instead, we get a small analysis from Squall that maybe GFs live in our memories, and maybe they keep us from remembering.
It's not even proven, hell for all we know, Balamb actually brainwashes their students, since Selphie and Irvine had no problems remembering.
If whats-his-name that Dr. Quize? or something like that had stated that this was how it worked, it wouldn't have been so bad, but it was your party that developed this amazing theory with no proof of any sort.
1) Oh hey, we COINCIDENTALLY teamed up even though we grew up together under the woman who we're now fighting against. This would totally be reasonable if we had been friends all along but we were split up, made seperate goals and forgot about each other but now our goals COINCIDENTALLY coincide and we all COINCIDENTALLY met up without even getting 1 straggler in the group.
I know I'm like a page too late, but I just wanted to say that there is actually 1 straggler in the group.
edit: also the GF theory wouldn't have been so bad had it been introduced by someone of importance in the game. Instead, we get a small analysis from Squall that maybe GFs live in our memories, and maybe they keep us from remembering.
It's not even proven, hell for all we know, Balamb actually brainwashes their students, since Selphie and Irvine had no problems remembering.
If whats-his-name that Dr. Quize? or something like that had stated that this was how it worked, it wouldn't have been so bad, but it was your party that developed this amazing theory with no proof of any sort.
Not true; Selphie mentions that she found a GF before she ever went to Balamb, but can't remember what it was called (although, going by the starting compatibility, it's possibly Tonberry); plus, she didn't remember about the rest of the orphans either - if she had, she would've remembered being friends with Irvine. In other words, the memory loss is not a Balamb-only thing.
Also, it was Dr. Odine. Wore some stupid clown collar, said 'zis' instead of 'this', made Junction Machine Ellone...
...Thinking about it, why didn't they just lock him away and throw away the key? Poof, no more JME, no more Time Compression, no more Ultimecia... or, at least, she'd be stuck in her own time.
BlitzAce1981 on
PSN ID - BlitzAce1981 FFXIV - Raiden Solitaire (Sargatanas)
Even easier, they could have just destroyed JME in the present time line. Odine was pretty much on their side at that stage, there should have been nothing preventing such a simple solution.
Even easier, they could have just destroyed JME in the present time line. Odine was pretty much on their side at that stage, there should have been nothing preventing such a simple solution.
It makes for a much more boring conclusion to the game. "So yeah guys, now that you finally know everything that's going on, here's the plan: We're just gonna hang around for another 20 years, wait till this machine is invented, then just toss it in the trash in several parts.
The moral of the story is that Square-Enix should stay the hell away from time travel, actual decent writers have a hard enough time getting it right. :P
The problem with FF VIII is that I have trouble believing this world. There just aren't enough actual towns or cities to justify having giant mercenary colleges,three of them at that, just there for the hell of it (or to fight future sorceresses or some garbage, whatever). I mean, look at this list:
Balamb Garden
Balamb
Dollet
Timber
Deling City
D District Prison
Missile Base
Galbadia Garden
Trabia Garden
Shumi Village
Esthar
Lunatic Pandora Laboratory
Esthar Sorceress Memorial
Tears Point
Fisherman's Horizon
Esthar Airstation
Deepsea Research Center
Edea's House
Space Station
Lunar Gate
Centra Ruins
Winhill
You've got, what, five or six towns/cities? Where does everybody live? A lot could have been done to flesh out the environments in this respect. Look at Midgar--there was no question that was a megalopolis where millions of people lived. Time was taken to flesh it out. Hell, nearly every location you can visit in FFVII is a town or city.
But Esthar? That was as sterile as things get, and I really don't recall there being many people standing around. Granted, it's been quite a few years since I played, so I could be leaving things out.
The moral of the story is that Square-Enix should stay the hell away from time travel, actual decent writers have a hard enough time getting it right. :P
The problem with FF VIII is that I have trouble believing this world. There just aren't enough actual towns or cities to justify having giant mercenary colleges,three of them at that, just there for the hell of it (or to fight future sorceresses or some garbage, whatever). I mean, look at this list:
Balamb Garden
Balamb
Dollet
Timber
Deling City
D District Prison
Missile Base
Galbadia Garden
Trabia Garden
Shumi Village
Esthar
Lunatic Pandora Laboratory
Esthar Sorceress Memorial
Tears Point
Fisherman's Horizon
Esthar Airstation
Deepsea Research Center
Edea's House
Space Station
Lunar Gate
Centra Ruins
Winhill
You've got, what, five or six towns/cities? Where does everybody live? A lot could have been done to flesh out the environments in this respect. Look at Midgar--there was no question that was a megalopolis where millions of people lived. They took time to flesh it out.
But Esthar? That was as sterile as things get, and I really don't recall there being many people standing around. Granted, it's been quite a few years since I played, so I could be leaving things out.
, FFVII was a poor choice of example. Beyond Midgar, how many places were there that could clearly hold no more than maybe 100 people? It's part of being a JRPG: it's implied that there's a lot more to the world than you get to see.
Specifically to address FFVIII, though, most (all?) of the cities involved backgrounds that showed large portions of the cities that you just couldn't visit. So the implication is that there are lots of people there, you just don't see most of them.
The moral of the story is that Square-Enix should stay the hell away from time travel, actual decent writers have a hard enough time getting it right. :P
They did well enough with CT.
Truth. And I'm sure quite a few people will jump in to talk about how paradox after paradox are created... but at no point in the storyline did those bother me.
No, CT did not handle time travel well. It did handle it better than FF8 though in that it succeeded in not having the entire final boss fight predicated on an easily preventable event, rendering the entire finale pointless.
No, CT did not handle time travel well. It did handle it better than FF8 though in that it succeeded in not having the entire final boss fight predicated on an easily preventable event, rendering the entire finale pointless.
No, CT did not handle time travel well. It did handle it better than FF8 though in that it succeeded in not having the entire final boss fight predicated on an easily preventable event, rendering the entire finale pointless.
Wasn't that the problem with XIII too?
Quite possibly, but I didn't bother with XIII soooooo
Posts
On the other hand, I've played through 1-8 at least twice, and if the battles weren't so slow I'd give FF9 another shot just for old time's sake.
Although I'll admit that I haven't actually played FF13 yet (and may never end up doing it, the way things are going), it seems to me that playing through a current-gen Final Fantasy game is something akin to watching two or three seasons of a TV series on DVD all at once. It's probably great fun, especially if it's new to you, but it's just not the kind of thing you can bring yourself to do very frequently.
What is so irritating about the "memory loss" bit is that it should have allowed for some interesting conversations into the game. It isn't like adding in lines of text should have been hard. Having Irvine or Selphie (?) fish around for details of Zell's adoption from his mom, things like that? They could have removed the freaky alien living in the basement plot for stuff like that?
Nor should you.
I mean, there's probably a ton of awesome games you've never played...why keep replaying ones you have?
Platinum FC: 2880 3245 5111
spoilers for both FF VIII and XIII lie in here:
Both fall off the cliff, and at around the same point too.
Both have the main characters doing stuff to bring about their own destruction. One group because they feel they have no choice and the other out of friendship/love/the stupidity of the man of science they trust.
The main characters in FF XIII are generally smarter than those in VIII. Eight has Seifer, who just does dumb thing after dumb thing. Selphie might be insane, or she might just be dumber then a sack of bricks. Robin Williams plan seems alright but I'm not sure that partnering with Jabba the hut in your basement is smart at all. Squall is however brilliant in not wanting anything to do with these crazies until he falls in love with queen irrational herself.
FF XIII has generally smart people. Hope acts dumb most of the game but has grief as an excuse. A lot of people think Vanille is being dumb but I think there is a certain genius to her coping mechanism. Snow is just a lovable goofball.
So FF XIII has the lead on the cast, let's look at the villains though.
One villain has an almost incomprehensible plan. She might just be insane. It's almost as if her being evil and from the far flung future wasn't enough, they needed a reason why besides the fact that the fourth disc is filled with FMVs and storing the data from all towns wouldn't fit on a CD with the other junk they had.
The other is just a whiny emo godling brat whose sick of his job and wants to die/have mommy come back and scoop him up. I think this is where FF XIII finally separates itself from the pack.
So we're tied one all. The tie breaker goes to which game has a sub plot revolving around the best card game ever.
It's been decided.
FF XIII is the dumbest FF game. Still pretty fun though! Give it a try!
In regards to the XIII vs. VIII. I too think I'd rather play VIII again. That could be because I haven't played it since I finished it all those years ago when it was released and I just finished XIII. The weird plot drop-off in XIII did bug me a bit more than I recall it bothering me in VIII. I don't remember VIII bothering me at all when I first played through it.
Next though I should go ahead and play IX, II, III, and V all the way through just to say that I have. I've finished all the other ones at least once. IV and VI probably closer to 4 times each. I really like those two. IV was the first one I ever played, followed by Mystic Quest. Yeah. Hey, I was desperate for more Final Fantasy after completing IV. And I was like, 12 or something.
PSN : Bolthorn
You'd never find me doing that with a game I really enjoy, because I might want to pick it up again and play through. I'm working on FFIX right now (downloaded through PSN) and I could easily see playing it again. FFXIII... not so much.
-Z
Because people still think Triple Triad was a good idea or even remotly good.
There. I said it.
FFXIII was just generally boring except for...chapters 6 to 9 I guess and while it did have stupidity none of it made me cringe but I wouldn't play it again.
I had a lot of fun playing Triple Triad, and seem to recall at one point there was a website with a flash version I used to play with a friend. Good times were had.
-Z
On the one hand I kind of admire Square for refusing to make the same game over and over again, but sometimes I wish they'd realize they were on to something and run with it. I doubt we'll ever see the Job system in a main-series game again, and that's probably the most fun thing the series does, IMO.
Would anybody actually complain if they got to see a manifestion of the FFTA in a big-budget FF game? Because I sure wouldn't.
EDIT: Also, Triple Triad should have came out about 6-7 years later so they could release it as a series of standalone GBA games. They would have made a fortune.
I don't know. Maybe I'm just resenting minigames as a whole. It didn't help that I always got raped in them as a kid.
Later games forgot that the simplicity was what made it fun. Tetra Master didn't even try to explain what you were supposed to be doing, plus it was boring. Blitzball was just dumb - if you want to put a sports game in there that's cool, but a turn-based sports game is just inane. I never played FFX-2 Sphere Break but looking at pictures of it definitely doesn't make me want to. I guess the closest thing FF12 had was the skillchaining/Mist system, and I never really understood it either.
I mean, it was in HEX to start, which is awesome if you're in the know about computers and it has 4 different numbers which are vaguely explained.
Then you play and the system just kind of throws out the rules and rolls dice really.
The only problem with Tetra Master was that they intentionally withheld the rules from you and taunted you about it.
Can you guess what's happening? Can you, huh?
When you look up the rules online it is quite easy to play and pretty fun, despite its second worst problem which is having no benefit to playing it.
Sphere Break is awesome.
It's basically a math puzzle.
I tried that and it didn't seem to help.
It was like:
Number 1 is your attack
Number 2 is your magic
Number 3 is your defense
Number 4 is your magic defense
These are good scores: <examples>
Then the game would go "Yeah, I know that's a really strong card by the RNG says you lose, sorry."
It also kind of sucks whenever you start accidentally spreading rules that you hate because it's ridiculously convoluted to try to fix it.
As an example of this, the Random rule, making people use most of their 4 Fastitocalon-F cards with their [insert high rank card here], purely because they don't have the fifth card needed to refine them the fuck out of their deck.
Actually, thinking about it, Random is the only one that's truly bad... unless you count Open not being present.
I didn't mind lack of Open too much. It was only bad when combined with Plus.
Random was the worst ever though.
Nothing is more epic than the Yiazmat fight in FF XII. Nothing. Took me about fifteen hours, if I recall correctly.
I beat Omega through 255 Speed, Auto-Haste, Very Slow ATB, and Guard.
Speaking of epic/doing it wrong, I do remember that on my first attempted playthrough of XII, I got to Raithwall's tomb and the boss monster outside of it. Long drawn-out fight ensues. Beat it, then die later.
Started another playthrough several months later and did the whole desert nomad sidequest first that gives you the berries that severely weaken said boss, turning it from a grueling challenge to a mere warm-up exercise.
Yeah, that made me feel better about myself.
I know I'm like a page too late, but I just wanted to say that there is actually 1 straggler in the group.
edit: also the GF theory wouldn't have been so bad had it been introduced by someone of importance in the game. Instead, we get a small analysis from Squall that maybe GFs live in our memories, and maybe they keep us from remembering.
It's not even proven, hell for all we know, Balamb actually brainwashes their students, since Selphie and Irvine had no problems remembering.
If whats-his-name that Dr. Quize? or something like that had stated that this was how it worked, it wouldn't have been so bad, but it was your party that developed this amazing theory with no proof of any sort.
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
Rinoa. Rinoa was not raised by Edea.
White FC: 0819 3350 1787
Maybe you've been using Guardian Forces, too. :P
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
Not true; Selphie mentions that she found a GF before she ever went to Balamb, but can't remember what it was called (although, going by the starting compatibility, it's possibly Tonberry); plus, she didn't remember about the rest of the orphans either - if she had, she would've remembered being friends with Irvine. In other words, the memory loss is not a Balamb-only thing.
Also, it was Dr. Odine. Wore some stupid clown collar, said 'zis' instead of 'this', made Junction Machine Ellone...
...Thinking about it, why didn't they just lock him away and throw away the key? Poof, no more JME, no more Time Compression, no more Ultimecia... or, at least, she'd be stuck in her own time.
White FC: 0819 3350 1787
.... So uhh.. wanna play cards while we wait?"
3DS Friend Code: 3110-5393-4113
Steam profile
White FC: 0819 3350 1787
Balamb
Dollet
Timber
Deling City
D District Prison
Missile Base
Galbadia Garden
Trabia Garden
Shumi Village
Esthar
Lunatic Pandora Laboratory
Esthar Sorceress Memorial
Tears Point
Fisherman's Horizon
Esthar Airstation
Deepsea Research Center
Edea's House
Space Station
Lunar Gate
Centra Ruins
Winhill
You've got, what, five or six towns/cities? Where does everybody live? A lot could have been done to flesh out the environments in this respect. Look at Midgar--there was no question that was a megalopolis where millions of people lived. Time was taken to flesh it out. Hell, nearly every location you can visit in FFVII is a town or city.
But Esthar? That was as sterile as things get, and I really don't recall there being many people standing around. Granted, it's been quite a few years since I played, so I could be leaving things out.
They did well enough with CT.
The Pipe Vault|Twitter|Steam|Backloggery|3DS:1332-7703-1083
Specifically to address FFVIII, though, most (all?) of the cities involved backgrounds that showed large portions of the cities that you just couldn't visit. So the implication is that there are lots of people there, you just don't see most of them.
3DS Friend Code: 3110-5393-4113
Steam profile
Truth. And I'm sure quite a few people will jump in to talk about how paradox after paradox are created... but at no point in the storyline did those bother me.
-Z
White FC: 0819 3350 1787
Wasn't that the problem with XIII too?
Quite possibly, but I didn't bother with XIII soooooo
You tell me buddy!
White FC: 0819 3350 1787