In the end, I don't think anyone is pissed about Lightning the character.
She's just being handled in a really shitty way.
What character? Lightning isn't a character, she's a cardboard cutout with a gunblade.
She had her moments in the first game. I attribute Lightning to Sarah Conner, a battle-hardened no-nonsense soldier who is more committed to keeping people alive than becoming their friend. It gels nicely with the first game's premise of "characters on the run", where survival is the number one priority.
But the biggest mistake they made was having the group split off mere moments after meeting each other, and doing nothing interesting with the different pairs. I've made a case before that most characters in RPGs are defined by their interactions with one another. We got to see the softer side of Lightning with her interactions with Hope, but it's mostly exclusive to Hope since there's no one else around. Strangely enough, one of my favorite bits in the first game was this simple exchange between Lightning and Vanille.
Vanille: "Lightning!" (waves and skips over to Lightning's side) "Did you miss us?"
Lightning: "Pfft." (arms crossed)
It's a small moment, but it also showed the difference between the two characters. It could have served as planting the seeds for further development, where Vanille's cheery personality continues to rub off against Lightning's cold exterior until it eventually sticks.
Contrast Lightning with an actual character, like Terra. Seriously, FFVI had wonderful female protagonists. Seems like female heroes nowadays are either horrible woman stereotypes or the Vasquez. Terra and Celes both manage to be both strong and feminine. Being both soldiers and women were a huge part of their characters.
The truth is that Terra is a bland character by herself. It was through her interactions with other characters, be they party members or otherwise, that she got to grow as a person and her personality became defined. Party members like Locke, Edgar and Celes show a desire to protect the fragile girl, but it is through her interactions with NPCs/temporary party members like Banon, General Leo and the orphans where she starts to really come on her own.
Imagine if they took the FFXIII approach and had Terra by her lonesome for half the game, barely interacting with anyone. That would have been disastrous, not to mention boring.
Oh, question: FFD's controls are actually starting to grow on me (I still think clicking on the screen and having your party pathfind to that location would be better but whatever) -- but the help files mention something called Job Points and how that determines your max Job level. Does that mean I can't, in the endgame, max everything with everyone?
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Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
Been listening to the London Philharmonic Orchestra playing videogame music. Their One Winged Angel is note for note the original, so nothing to get excited about I guess.
But their rendition of Liberi Fatali is wonderful. Maybe it's just down to me not listening to it so much since I was a kid and getting that nostalgia factor that I don't get from OWA's 400 different variations.
I missed the talk about 4 heroes of light. Yes....and no. It depends on WHEN in the game you're talking about. The first half, where you don't have a full party can get pretty brutal, when you're suddenly playing someone woefully outdated in equipment, and just don't have the money to give them stuff.
The exact moment you get the full party, the game becomes trivial. I still enjoyed it for the most part.
Oh, question: FFD's controls are actually starting to grow on me (I still think clicking on the screen and having your party pathfind to that location would be better but whatever) -- but the help files mention something called Job Points and how that determines your max Job level. Does that mean I can't, in the endgame, max everything with everyone?
I, as well, am actually really fond about Dimensions' controls. My one complaint is that interacting with things feels a bit awkward (like pots, shopkeepers, talking with people, etc).
You are limited in the number of Job Points that you get as part of the main game, yes. I's quite a lot, and when I started to get to the end of the game (ish, not sure exactly still how close I am) I've got 20+ JP on most characters still, so I have not felt restricted at all.
In the endgame...
you can find Moogle Coins which you can then trade for JP. I've only found one so far, but again, I'm nowhere near running out, and I've basically maxed what I wanted to on my characters...
I missed the talk about 4 heroes of light. Yes....and no. It depends on WHEN in the game you're talking about. The first half, where you don't have a full party can get pretty brutal, when you're suddenly playing someone woefully outdated in equipment, and just don't have the money to give them stuff.
The exact moment you get the full party, the game becomes trivial. I still enjoyed it for the most part.
Yeah, until you have to fight through the last dungeon and beat some of the former bosses without any Crowns.
And even before that, some of those demons are ridiculous.
I missed the talk about 4 heroes of light. Yes....and no. It depends on WHEN in the game you're talking about. The first half, where you don't have a full party can get pretty brutal, when you're suddenly playing someone woefully outdated in equipment, and just don't have the money to give them stuff.
The exact moment you get the full party, the game becomes trivial. I still enjoyed it for the most part.
Yeah, until you have to fight through the last dungeon and beat some of the former bosses without any Crowns.
And even before that, some of those demons are ridiculous.
Okay, maybe that one part, but my point still stands, really.
And eeeh. Maybe the bonus dungeons, which I didn't do, but for the most part, I steamrolled everything after getting the whole party together.
Including Asmodeus? Because good lord, I hated the fight with Asmodeus.
For the record, my usul tem is Brandt as a Black Mage (also packing Devastator), Yunita as a Fighter or Hero or Dark Fencer, Aire as a Salve-Maker (also packing Lux), and Jusqua as a Bard.
Ah. That might have been your problem, because the white mage spell you get from the fairies is the most broken goddamn thing.
Edit: Oh. It's there on your salve-maker. Asmodeus is the one that spammed status ailments, right? If so, it completely came down to luck with him, so he could be hard, could be easy, depending on how lucky you got. But it mostly came down to just keeping status nulification equipment on the people that it would be a REALLY bad thing for them to be taken out.
So near the end (I think) of Dimensions, I get the option of "spending the night" at the save points, and during the night there will be a few minutes of interactions between some of the characters.
Where was this the rest of the game? Character development should happen before 40 hours in the game...
So near the end (I think) of Dimensions, I get the option of "spending the night" at the save points, and during the night there will be a few minutes of interactions between some of the characters.
Where was this the rest of the game? Character development should happen before 40 hours in the game...
That happened in The After Years, too. It was annoying there, too.
Well, Dimensions doesn't have the whole party together until the last chapter, too.
I have a few. I usually like to use Palom/Rydia, Edge, Ursula/Luca, Ceodore/Kain/"man in black" (to avoid spoielrs in case anyone wants to play it?), and Edward for healing. Almost always Edge and Edward though. Edge is just a damage beast and has Blink (Mirage), and Edward is easily the best healer/buffer in the game. Only Porom with Doublecast Curaja comes close and Edward can do what she can for only five X-Potions, plus he has the chance for full party Haste.
Is 3rd Birthday that bad? Never played it. I heard it described as an "official" doujinshi game by some people. xD
Incoming cynical response that is still a spoiler.
Aya Brea Returns
Oh wait, no she doesn't. Ha ha ha ha ha, seriously fuck you and play my Lightning games instead
Or, imagine if the twist in Metroid: Other M was that the reason Samus was a terrified puss who constantly obeyed commands by her male counterparts was because
she was an imposter and the real Samus died before the game started
That is a level of outrage Nintendo fans will never feel.
Why is Lightning a female Cloud? I never quite understood that beyond the fact that there's like that one picture of each that looks similar, but I assume it goes deeper...
Is 3rd Birthday that bad? Never played it. I heard it described as an "official" doujinshi game by some people. xD
Incoming cynical response that is still a spoiler.
Aya Brea Returns
Oh wait, no she doesn't. Ha ha ha ha ha, seriously fuck you and play my Lightning games instead
Or, imagine if the twist in Metroid: Other M was that the reason Samus was a terrified puss who constantly obeyed commands by her male counterparts was because
she was an imposter and the real Samus died before the game started
That is a level of outrage Nintendo fans will never feel.
this is a page back admittedly
but that would have been a massive improvement.
Yeah, but she'd also have to be massively sexualized, like, her clothes fly off after every hit, there'd have to be a fucking creepy shower scene and all of this would have to take place to someone who is (Third Birthday)
Why is Lightning a female Cloud? I never quite understood that beyond the fact that there's like that one picture of each that looks similar, but I assume it goes deeper...
I know little about XIII, but I guess they may be equating L'cie with SOLDIER?
Is 3rd Birthday that bad? Never played it. I heard it described as an "official" doujinshi game by some people. xD
Incoming cynical response that is still a spoiler.
Aya Brea Returns
Oh wait, no she doesn't. Ha ha ha ha ha, seriously fuck you and play my Lightning games instead
Or, imagine if the twist in Metroid: Other M was that the reason Samus was a terrified puss who constantly obeyed commands by her male counterparts was because
she was an imposter and the real Samus died before the game started
That is a level of outrage Nintendo fans will never feel.
this is a page back admittedly
but that would have been a massive improvement.
Yeah, but she'd also have to be massively sexualized, like, her clothes fly off after every hit, there'd have to be a fucking creepy shower scene and all of this would have to take place to someone who is (Third Birthday)
essentially a fourteen year old girl
First of the three already happens in Other M, from what I hear. Her Power Suit came down in cutscenes far too often (at one pint it comes down afetr she gets shot in the back. great design!), apparently solely to show off Samus in the Zero Suit, and the rather flimsy explanation for it (the suit's tied to Samus's will) just serves to make her look weaker.
Why is Lightning a female Cloud? I never quite understood that beyond the fact that there's like that one picture of each that looks similar, but I assume it goes deeper...
Man, I'm going to have to look it up, but IIRC the creator even cited Cloud as an inspiration for Lightning. He wanted to create Lightning as a more dark and serious character like Cloud.
edit- Though personally I think she has more in common with Squall and not just weapon tastes.
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
I'm guessing you keep Ceodore and Kain in the front row, Palom and Porom in the back, and Luca's position changes depending on the moon phase (fron if it favors Attack and she doesn' have a throwing axe, and back if she has throwing axe or the phase favors Big Throw)?
Nice Band potential, too. I recall wincast and Cross Slash Prime... any others?
I'm guessing you keep Ceodore and Kain in the front row, Palom and Porom in the back, and Luca's position changes depending on the moon phase (fron if it favors Attack and she doesn' have a throwing axe, and back if she has throwing axe or the phase favors Big Throw)?
Nice Band potential, too. I recall wincast and Cross Slash Prime... any others?
Off the top of my head, Double Jump was nice. Breaks the damage limit. I don't really use to many bands. Ceodore was there because with all the awesome stuff that him and Cecil can use, either one of them deserve a spot easy, but Ceodore won in the end because his better spell list and higher spirit for some spot healing was handy. Palom would feel wrong without Porom, and Luca because ax murder is fun. Just berserk'd her and stopped worrying.
A question: I own FFIV Advance and DS, as well as The After Years in full on Wii. I also own a PSP.
Is there enough reason for me to get the Complete Collection on PSP? as far as I can tell, the only hings I'd get would be tha extra joining chapter, a few more Bands, and the Lost Babil fight.
Not really. TAY has a slightly different translation in Complete, and goes the original Mobile version route of splitting up Ceodore and Kain's Tales (which means you can do Ceodore's challenge dungeon) but those aren't really huge things. Interlude is pretty much crap, too, so that isn't worth it.
edit: Plus, I think Complete fixed the Psych Edward glitch that was in 4 Advance so you can't even do that anymore!
I think they get better results if you stack multiple castings.
0
MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
so I had some money in my Google Play account, and I decided to pick up FFD.
Honestly, it's pretty neat so far, even the art style is sort of almost growing on me.
If I had to levy one complaint about it, it's that the virtual d pad is aggressively awful. It feels like the directions are spaced exactly far enough away from each other to prevent me from using it like an actual d pad.
I need to see how awful it is. Because the Virtual D-Pad for the Iphone version of FF1 seemed fine enough for what it had to do.
And yeah, Shell ain't useless. A few minutes ago, the Iron Giant wiped my whole party with Meteor. I reloaded, and am doin ghe battle again, this time with Ceodore spamming Shell at every opportuniy . So far, the back-row crew has managed to sake off the Meteor from full health twice.
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She had her moments in the first game. I attribute Lightning to Sarah Conner, a battle-hardened no-nonsense soldier who is more committed to keeping people alive than becoming their friend. It gels nicely with the first game's premise of "characters on the run", where survival is the number one priority.
But the biggest mistake they made was having the group split off mere moments after meeting each other, and doing nothing interesting with the different pairs. I've made a case before that most characters in RPGs are defined by their interactions with one another. We got to see the softer side of Lightning with her interactions with Hope, but it's mostly exclusive to Hope since there's no one else around. Strangely enough, one of my favorite bits in the first game was this simple exchange between Lightning and Vanille.
Vanille: "Lightning!" (waves and skips over to Lightning's side) "Did you miss us?"
Lightning: "Pfft." (arms crossed)
It's a small moment, but it also showed the difference between the two characters. It could have served as planting the seeds for further development, where Vanille's cheery personality continues to rub off against Lightning's cold exterior until it eventually sticks.
To further prove my point...
The truth is that Terra is a bland character by herself. It was through her interactions with other characters, be they party members or otherwise, that she got to grow as a person and her personality became defined. Party members like Locke, Edgar and Celes show a desire to protect the fragile girl, but it is through her interactions with NPCs/temporary party members like Banon, General Leo and the orphans where she starts to really come on her own.
Imagine if they took the FFXIII approach and had Terra by her lonesome for half the game, barely interacting with anyone. That would have been disastrous, not to mention boring.
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I need to go back and 100% FF13-2, that was almost enough to make up for 13-1.
But their rendition of Liberi Fatali is wonderful. Maybe it's just down to me not listening to it so much since I was a kid and getting that nostalgia factor that I don't get from OWA's 400 different variations.
The exact moment you get the full party, the game becomes trivial. I still enjoyed it for the most part.
Really? That's encouraging. I'm nearing the end I think, and the story has been ridiculously trite so far.
I, as well, am actually really fond about Dimensions' controls. My one complaint is that interacting with things feels a bit awkward (like pots, shopkeepers, talking with people, etc).
You are limited in the number of Job Points that you get as part of the main game, yes. I's quite a lot, and when I started to get to the end of the game (ish, not sure exactly still how close I am) I've got 20+ JP on most characters still, so I have not felt restricted at all.
In the endgame...
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Yeah, until you have to fight through the last dungeon and beat some of the former bosses without any Crowns.
And even before that, some of those demons are ridiculous.
And eeeh. Maybe the bonus dungeons, which I didn't do, but for the most part, I steamrolled everything after getting the whole party together.
For the record, my usul tem is Brandt as a Black Mage (also packing Devastator), Yunita as a Fighter or Hero or Dark Fencer, Aire as a Salve-Maker (also packing Lux), and Jusqua as a Bard.
Edit: Oh. It's there on your salve-maker. Asmodeus is the one that spammed status ailments, right? If so, it completely came down to luck with him, so he could be hard, could be easy, depending on how lucky you got. But it mostly came down to just keeping status nulification equipment on the people that it would be a REALLY bad thing for them to be taken out.
Where was this the rest of the game? Character development should happen before 40 hours in the game...
3DS Friend Code: 3110-5393-4113
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That happened in The After Years, too. It was annoying there, too.
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
To be more fair, though, The After Years still could have had more conversaions before getting to the Depths.
Okay, random question: Favorite After Years party?
I have a few. I usually like to use Palom/Rydia, Edge, Ursula/Luca, Ceodore/Kain/"man in black" (to avoid spoielrs in case anyone wants to play it?), and Edward for healing. Almost always Edge and Edward though. Edge is just a damage beast and has Blink (Mirage), and Edward is easily the best healer/buffer in the game. Only Porom with Doublecast Curaja comes close and Edward can do what she can for only five X-Potions, plus he has the chance for full party Haste.
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
3DS Friend Code: 3110-5393-4113
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3DS: 1607-3034-6970
3DS Friend Code: 3110-5393-4113
Steam profile
this is a page back admittedly
but that would have been a massive improvement.
Re: Main characters.
You know, not only was Celes a female main character before Lightning, she was a female Cloud long before Lightning decided to try out that template.
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Yeah, but she'd also have to be massively sexualized, like, her clothes fly off after every hit, there'd have to be a fucking creepy shower scene and all of this would have to take place to someone who is (Third Birthday)
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
I know little about XIII, but I guess they may be equating L'cie with SOLDIER?
First of the three already happens in Other M, from what I hear. Her Power Suit came down in cutscenes far too often (at one pint it comes down afetr she gets shot in the back. great design!), apparently solely to show off Samus in the Zero Suit, and the rather flimsy explanation for it (the suit's tied to Samus's will) just serves to make her look weaker.
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
Man, I'm going to have to look it up, but IIRC the creator even cited Cloud as an inspiration for Lightning. He wanted to create Lightning as a more dark and serious character like Cloud.
edit- Though personally I think she has more in common with Squall and not just weapon tastes.
I feel this should be fun:
Ceodore, Kain, Palom, Porom, Luca.
PSN: BrightWing13 FFX|V:ARR Bright Asuna
I'm guessing you keep Ceodore and Kain in the front row, Palom and Porom in the back, and Luca's position changes depending on the moon phase (fron if it favors Attack and she doesn' have a throwing axe, and back if she has throwing axe or the phase favors Big Throw)?
Nice Band potential, too. I recall wincast and Cross Slash Prime... any others?
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
Off the top of my head, Double Jump was nice. Breaks the damage limit. I don't really use to many bands. Ceodore was there because with all the awesome stuff that him and Cecil can use, either one of them deserve a spot easy, but Ceodore won in the end because his better spell list and higher spirit for some spot healing was handy. Palom would feel wrong without Porom, and Luca because ax murder is fun. Just berserk'd her and stopped worrying.
PSN: BrightWing13 FFX|V:ARR Bright Asuna
Is there enough reason for me to get the Complete Collection on PSP? as far as I can tell, the only hings I'd get would be tha extra joining chapter, a few more Bands, and the Lost Babil fight.
edit: Plus, I think Complete fixed the Psych Edward glitch that was in 4 Advance so you can't even do that anymore!
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
Merging them really killed the suspense, didn't it? Since you know already in every character's story who Kain really is.
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Casting Shell gives characters a yellow glow, and casting Protect gives them a green glow. It was the exact opposite in VI.
Shell and Protect are useless.
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
Honestly, it's pretty neat so far, even the art style is sort of almost growing on me.
If I had to levy one complaint about it, it's that the virtual d pad is aggressively awful. It feels like the directions are spaced exactly far enough away from each other to prevent me from using it like an actual d pad.
And yeah, Shell ain't useless. A few minutes ago, the Iron Giant wiped my whole party with Meteor. I reloaded, and am doin ghe battle again, this time with Ceodore spamming Shell at every opportuniy . So far, the back-row crew has managed to sake off the Meteor from full health twice.
In Japanese media, a 14 year old girl IS an older female protagonist. 25 year olds are ancient mentor types ready to retire. 30 year olds don't exist.