What games are you currently playing?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

I always saw Wet as a game trying to sell sex and profanity, with little else thrown in for real substance. When I have to fly through rings in a town to achieve some goal (I believe you were actually referring to Superman 64, not Spiderman) and its NOT Starfox, I have to assume they just don't know how to make a game and move on.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Well I decided to play FFXII again. 1 day, 10 hours, level 20, and I just saved the Princess on Leviathan. God I hope that FFXIII is more of a challenge.

[Malacite]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Well I decided to play FFXII again. 1 day, 10 hours, level 20, and I just saved the Princess on Leviathan. God I hope that FFXIII is more of a challenge.

And has a better plot & cast for the love of GOD.

*looks at Vaan*

... *gouges his eyes out and plugs his ears*

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Well I decided to play FFXII again. 1 day, 10 hours, level 20, and I just saved the Princess on Leviathan. God I hope that FFXIII is more of a challenge.

It won't be. Challenge of Final Fantasy games has always been in the optional quests, been that way since FFVII and I don't see it changing. The days of RPG main quests being challenging for JRPGs is dead save for from a few smaller developers such as From Software and Atlus.

If you want a more substantial challenge, SMT Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga should do it. For FFXII, the real challenge is in the hunts, not the story. The challenge starts at Gilgamesh and works its way up.

And has a better plot & cast for the love of GOD.

It did have a better plot and cast than most FF games.

It put a human face on the token "evil empire," which no FF has really dared to do. The "villains" have somewhat understandable motives, the "gods" were taking advantage of humanity. Ashe is right to want to protect her people and her kingdom, but she doesn't want to do it for those self-appointed gods, either. The protagonist and antagonist have a common enemy, but are enemies to each other, too.

Strip away the fantasy elements and what you have is a more realistic face on a war story. Fire Emblem and Tactics Ogre did it, too. The people who made Tactics Ogre, Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story happened to also make FFXII - I'm not terribly surprised it was loaded with political intrigue.

Not to mention FFXII is part of a larger world with a larger history and story, not contained to FFXII itself, but that of all the Invalice games combined. There's stuff in FFT that traces all the way to Vagrant Story. "Thunder God" for example. Events in FFXII also led up to things we see in FFT. Parts of the story to some games are told in other games. How many Final Fantasy worlds have as extensive a mythos as Invalice? Not even FFVII Compilation can't claim that much. Only Vana'diel really can lay claim to something larger.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

It won't be. Challenge of Final Fantasy games has always been in the optional quests, been that way since FFVII and I don't see it changing. The days of RPG main quests being challenging for JRPGs is dead save for from a few smaller developers such as From Software and Atlus.

If you want a more substantial challenge, SMT Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga should do it. For FFXII, the real challenge is in the hunts, not the story. The challenge starts at Gilgamesh and works its way up.

I always hope and I'm constantly disappointed. Like I said this is my 2nd time through and I guess I just forgot how damn easy the game was. I think I just may have to hook up some of my older systems and play some oldies.

Ya I know and love the Persona/Nocturne series and have all the games. I was just looking to play a FF game and couldn't stomach playing FFX again since I beat it to death the first time (160 hours).

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

I kind of understand why they structure FF games the way they do. The main story is there for the mainstream gamer, the stuff for the hardcore lies within optional sidequests. There is an endgame, its just not mandatory like it used to be.

I mean, really, that's why Safer Sephiroth was such a wimp, even compared to Ultemecia. FFVIII was actually the last hardcore FF game. Hardcore in the sense it could really only be masted if you played all sides of the game equally. You couldn't just grind and run around draw points to power yourself up, but play Triple Triad and hunt down every last summon to fully power yourself up. Oh and item synthesis, which begets spell synthesis and also also getting all Quistis' Limit Breaks and on and on.

FFVIII was really, really involved. Its only "crime" if w6 can call it that is a weak story. No FF since has really demanded mastery from you.

And before anyone goes pointing at them - just because FFXIII will have achievements and trophies doesn't mean it will encourage mastery of the game's system. Achievements and trophies are not the same thing as mastery. Achievements and Trophies are just tools to generate consumerism, not a sense of accomplishment. Ask yourself this - are you playing a lot of the games you do because you like them and want to fully experience them or are you just trawling for more gamer cred through "achievements."

Achievements are the offline version of FFXI's title system. Only the addicts care about having every majory endgame title. I'm sure it wasn't intended to foster addiction, but it ended up being part of what does in FFXI. Its all part of the endgame social status obsession and its not any healthier in offline games as it is in FFXI.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

FFVIII was one of my favorites. I know it wasn't very popular overall compared to FFVII but I think a lot of FFVII's popularity was hype. I'm not saying it wasn't a good game.....but it wasn't THAT good.

Ya the trophy issue should be interesting for me. I like to play my FF games to death. I find every chest, do every side quest, get every ultimate weapon, etc. I've always been that way but with FFXII, I didn't do that. Two reasons, first I was tied up in FFXI and the second was that the game disappointed me. But I'm going at it now and trying to pick up on stuff I missed the first time around...it's just bumming me out again. lol

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Well, you do know that, to get the ultimate weapon of FFXII, you're actually not supposed to loot all the chests you see until after a certain point, right? Yeah, they waited six installments to pull that World of Ruin gag again. Seriously, if you touched any treasure, start over, you can't get the Zodiac spear any other way.

Then again, its the Zodiac Spear that will make the game easy.

---------

That aside, I just started the second half of Kingdom Hearts II, I was waiting for Proud Mode to get hard and apparently that's where it really begins. I need to tie up the initial episodes of the other worlds before delving into the other episodes o.o

I walked into Beast's Castle and it was like "Oh, hi, we're going to rape Donald and Goofy. Good luck surviving without them."

[Firewind]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Currently playing Dragon Age: Origins. To be honest I have no idea what to make of the game. The combat is pretty fluid though the stupidity of AI Rogues, Ranged attackers (including Mages) and Healers; thanks to it ripping off FFXII's gambit system for controlling them, does tend to ruin fights that should be so routine to your party, you shouldn't need to keep pausing the game every attack round to keep repositioning them.

My main problem with the game is that it's trying to be too shocking. The violence in the game would be enough to give Quentin Tarrantino a wet dream and the seemingly random rape scenes usually just have me slowly clicking "Quit Game". There is one scene where a Blood Mage (Read: D&D necromancer clone with the serial numbers filed off) involes magic by stabbing himself and using his own blood to kill a room full of people. Now I have no idea how that is physically possible but I'm fairly sure that that scene alone it just put inthere for the pure shock factor since the mage just runs off without even reacting to the massive blood loss or the fact that HE JUST CUT HIS OWN FECKING HAND OFF. To sum up the game if a named NPC isn't horribally murdered, raped or both about half an hour after meeting them you can bet they will either be a party member or be revealed as an antagonist later (Like GTAIV).

My second main problem is the graphics. Everything is so grey and gloomy, it's just hard to see the world as fantastical at all. it's juse one big long dull depressing greyathon and the only real colour that is added to all of the grays, browns, dull rusty yellows, more browns, more greys and more browns are the blood splatters you see every other second (like Fallout 3). It's basically Gears of War with swords instead of chainsaws. It just doesn't feel like I'm playing a fantasy RPG if the entire world looks like they hired Hieronymous Bosch to handle texture colouring.

There is also a massive lack of character customisation. Basically you have a choice out of a few preset heads and you can pretend to chance the face by changing the hair or making the nose a bit different (Like Fallout 3) and that is about it. There is very little varience in the weapon and armour choices you can have: basically you just get Cloth, Leather, Chain and Plate with one or two variants (like Aion). The weapon choices (like Aion) are pretty much limited to: Sword (called a dagger for some reason like Aion) Longsword (for some reason they are used one handed like in FFXI) and Greatsword (the sizes of which will put Cloud Strife to shame), there are bows but considering you are forced to take Melee Archery (D&D's Point Blank Shot with the serial numbers filed off) you may as well just take melee feats or roll a mage instead (like Neverwinter Nights).

[cidbahamut]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

I picked up Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled yesterday and I gotta say it sure beats sitting around LFP on my Black Mage.

Seriously though, this game feels like I'm playing an old school Super Nintendo RPG. The plot's nothing to write home about and some of the coding feels a little unpolished but the core gameplay feels pretty solid. There have been a few things that forced me to put down the game just because I couldn't stop laughing, which is good. They're definitely slipping in some references to older games and I've had fun catching them.

Spoiler

Like when one NPC started talking about the possibility of flying whales and all I could think of was FFIV.

Has anyone else picked this one up?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Currently playing Dragon Age: Origins. To be honest I have no idea what to make of the game. The combat is pretty fluid though the stupidity of AI Rogues, Ranged attackers (including Mages) and Healers; thanks to it ripping off FFXII's gambit system for controlling them, does tend to ruin fights that should be so routine to your party, you shouldn't need to keep pausing the game every attack round to keep repositioning them.

Bioware didn't rip-off the Gambit system, they inspired it. Queued actions from AI party members have almost always been the way of things in their RPGs. FFXII's gambit system just has far more extensive, programmable AI routines and they left it to players to decide what's best. Bioware's just follows a certain number of presets.

In Knights 9f the old Republic, you could decide a basic AI routine for them and jump in to later influence it, not unlike how we do it in FFXIi.

[Malacite]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

No, 12 did not.

It could have, as all the right elements were there but ultimately SE blew it royally.

Vaan was epic fail. You do not create a supposed main character (it was really Ashe, let's face it but anyway) and then simply have him fade into the background and cease to matter to the story entirely less than halfway in. That's some piss poor writing right there. Vaan himself isn't even likable.

Pinnello was OK, but didn't really stand out. Fran's voice just pissed me off nor did she contribute much beyond the Vierra village section.

Balthier, IMO, was the saving grace. He was charismatic and entertaining, but also had an air of mystery about him as was later discovered. I still say he was by far the best written character and one of the only really good ones in the game.

Ashe had potential. I really liked her at first, right up until she wussed out on her revenge. Come on SE. Just once can we get a realistic anti-hero? This woman lost everything to the empire and has dedicated her life since to bringing them down.

It would have made for a far more interesting story had she gone through with it and taken her vengeance, and then realized the hollow satisfaction of it as opposed to the cliche of "Oh, well, vengeance is bad and I shouldn't do it because I'm a good guy!" Can we not have a human protagonist just once? They went through all that trouble to set up a very gritty story and then pissed it all away. I would have loved it so much for Ashe to have been different from all the others in this regard.


Basch wasn't too bad either. His relationship with Gabranth was one of the more interesting ones and he was fairly well written & played over all.


As for the rest well... Cid was interesting as a villain but came off as Hojo-lite to me, and Larsa was far more interesting than Vayne (who ultimately was nothing more than a giant hypocrite by the end)

[Feba]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Can we not have a human protagonist just once?

Vaan was incredibly human. He had some crappy things in his life, he had some good things, they weren't the only parts of who he was. Other than the situations he found himself in, he wasn't that interesting a guy.

Pick whether you want a human protagonist or not, asshole.

Oh, but here's a hint: it's called Final FANTASY. FANTASIES tend not to worry too much about having realistic people, because they're FANTASIES, and they're traditionally FANTASTIC myths and legends.

[Mezlo]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

asshole.

[Malacite]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Vaan was incredibly human. He had some crappy things in his life, he had some good things, they weren't the only parts of who he was. Other than the situations he found himself in, he wasn't that interesting a guy.

He had absolutely no relevance to main story though. Once Ashe joins the party it's entirely about her with the others having some halfway decent sub plots.At least in FFX they did a very good job of splitting it between Tidus and Yuna. Ashe on the other hand basically shoves Vaan off-stage for the duration of the game.