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[Beth Cyra]

I don't know. Lightning felt like Squall with breasts; same broody attitude refusing to let people come close because of a past event, putting down people with any hope and optimism, and then making an unbelievable 180 degree attitude transition sometime during the game.

I don't agree Squall's was unblievable given you seem him start to crack as early as disk 2 up until he finally has to admit even to himself he cares about the others and wants them to be there.

Lightning wasn't as smooth as Squall's but I could totally see being pissed off when my little sister was dating a goon like Snow but be moved by how far Snow goes to save her.

 

[Green Mamba]

Sazh was by far the most likeable character in the game.

Yeah, his whole deal with his son was far and away the only relateable storyline.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

At this point, is there any chance FFXV is being developped by another team?

Is anyone familiar with S-E's developement teams structure? Do we know if everyone is busy?

-Nomura's team (KH, KH2, Advent Children) is on Versus XIII
-Toriyama's team (X-2, XIII) is on FFXIII-2 and MAYBE XIII-3 after.
-I believe there's an Osaka team (KH: BBS?) working on KH3D? What did they work on before?
-FFXI's team is still working on XIV, Minagawa being part of it too.
-Tabata's team (Crisis Core) is working on Type-0

Where's the remnants of the XII team? Where's Kawazu? Where's Ito? Do these two still have their own teams? Which team worked for the Tactics Ogre remake?

Who were responsible for Dissidia?

Yeah, where is Ito? Hasn't he been rarely heard from since XII?

And about TO:LUCT team...well, Wada.

When devs are talking about re-using assets to speed up development, I always figured they would be talking about taking bits and pieces from one game to use in the creation of a second game from a different series.

These dudes on the other hand, are using the "same assets" to prolong the same fucking series, one which they must know does not receive that much demand, not even in Japan.

Fucking Wada

Why this would be XIII-3 instead of assets and practice reused smartly for a XV is beyond me.

 

[Rahxephon91]

what previous FF games had less developed (main) characters? it seems like you're arguing in favor of the cast by just bringing up the fact that they all get enough screen time to make themselves known to the player. i personally saw that as a flaw, the characters are too flat and predictable (and voiced too poorly) to justify being seen so much. you could pretty much pick up on any of these characters by watching a couple youtube videos and yet the game feels it necessary to drum their shallow personalities on you for ~35 hours.

What your saying here is in every FF. Characters that have no subtlty to them and stay to a specific role? That's every FF since IV.

Pretty much every scene in FF when it comes to characters is just blurting out their feelings. FFVI has Terra blurting out her character development and it's un subtle. Her conversation with Leo on the boat is the exact quality you will see in XIII. She sits there and basicly tells you everything about how she feels she's not a human and dosent know love. That's really all that's to her character until she has her change. Her change is also kind of silly. I don't see XIIIs characters as terrible when VI is the supposed high point and the last game had the most underdeveloped cast out there. VI just tells it's melodrama much better then XIII.

 

[jackdoe]

Yeah, his whole deal with his son was far and away the only relateable storyline.

Yep. Because with Snow and Serah, all I could see was child rapist. S-E dropped the fucking ball on Serah's character design and with Fang and Vanille, well I couldn't stand Vanille so 'nuff said. Hope is probably the second best character actually, but as you said, they ruined him by making him change TOO much.

I don't agree Squall's was unblievable given you seem him start to crack as early as disk 2 up until he finally has to admit even to himself he cares about the others and wants them to be there.

I agree that Squall's change was better than Lightning's, but it felt abrupt. I overlooked that when I play the game though cause his Lionheart limit break made up for it.

 

[Rahxephon91]

So Rahxephon, how'd you get your tag anyways?

For claiming Vann from XII's design was ok as he's supposed to be a young thief. I think that's why or something to do with XIII.

I don't even think XIII is the best FF. It's an 8 at best. I take the game for what it is.

 

[MechaX]

I don't agree Squall's was unblievable given you seem him start to crack as early as disk 2 up until he finally has to admit even to himself he cares about the others and wants them to be there.

Yeah, I felt Squall's attitude and change were definitely more believable than Lightnings. His attitude is justified because outside of a couple odd outbursts here and there, Squall was acting more as the stoic voice of reason in comparison to most of the immature teenagers in his group. Squall grasped that he was actually killing humans and that the group would actually be fighting in real conflicts a lot faster than the rest of the group did.

And his change, while still kinda sudden, was definitely in the making even throughout the second half of disc 1 and most of disc 2.

Compare that with Lightning, when literally one throw-away line said by Hope suddenly makes Lightning do a complete 180 with her personality in the most unbelievable way possible.

 

[0 HP]

What your saying here is in every FF. Characters that have no subtlty to them and stay to a specific role? That's every FF since IV.

Pretty much every scene in FF when it comes to characters is saying their feelings. FFVI has Terra blurting out her character development and it's un subtle. Her conversation with Leo on the boat is the exat quality you will see in XIII. She sits there and basicly tells you everything about how she feels she's not a human and dosent know love. That's really all that's to her character until she has her change. I don't see XIIIs characters are terrible when VI is the supposed high point and the last game had the most underdeveloped cast out there. VI just tells it's melodrama much better then XIII.

true, i see where you're coming from. i love the old sakaguchi FF's, but ill admit the writing was pretty stupid a lot of the time. it was a fun type of stupid though. what hurts FF now (for me) is how much it tries to be cool and how fleshed out it has to try and be as a game coming out this gen. i think i would have enjoyed this game a lot more if there was an option to turn english voices off/make the cutscenes more succinct because the system underneath it all is pretty enjoyable.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

No use getting worked up over this since there's a good chance this will end up being absolutely nothing.

If a potential XIII-3 ended up having a completely different cast and focused on new events then I wouldn't mind too much since I doubt S-E could get FFXV out the door within the same time frame.

With rising development costs and development times, I think sequels to numbered FF's is the new route S-E will be taking with each title from now on.

 

[Verendus]

The thing about your little argument is that your post here has nothing to with anything. When anyone gave an actual reason or explanation that the it wasn't unsuccessful you simply ignored it. No I gave you reasons as to why even if it sold less then x it wasn't a failure and that saying it was poor in relation to others wasn't correct. You simply ignored it. You were wrong then.

Straight up, you can't read. We had an exchange of around 3 posts. And I didn't ignore anything. My argument was simple. It did poorly relative to FFX as the first big FF this generation. Your argument was that SE felt it did fine by their metric and the decline of JRPG's could be attributed to it not having as spectacular sales (which I don't believe means anything considering FF is an exemption to it as it is one of the biggest franchises in gaming). You do a poor job of representing my argument and I'm not one to dig up old posts but since it looks like you are, try not to do such a crappy job of representing opinions. If English is your second language, I understand. If not, you better be twelve.

This hardly matters now though if I'm honest. I don't remember when we had our little discussion, nor do I honestly care. Crazy thing about arguments on the internet, they don't seem to matter.

Fine I don't care if you don't like the game, but that was your soul reason to say it was unsuccessful. When faced with an actual argument you ran and hide.

I ran and hid on the internet. How I accomplished this magical feat, I will not tell.

Unfortunately, the reality is that I don't have a room filled with cartoon posters (not that I mean to offend those who do, just that if you had a poster of barbie, I'd be afraid), and have better things to do.

My taste aren't bad and it's annoying to be judged because I happen to have a diffrent opinion on one subject. I don't do that to other posters here so it annoys me.

No, you just act like an ass towards them. I'd buy this line of argument from some posters here but not from you. You're a self-admitted asshole and hardly display tact with a lot of people. Heck, the whole calling something shit and being blunt thing is not unnatural to you. Why so surprised if there are others who do the same with things you like?

And yes, your taste "are" bad.

But even here instead of actually trying to have an argument you just attempt to be an asshole and push your opinion.

Paradigm Shift? We've switched roles.

The characters are fine.What respectable messasure? How about video games the thing XIII is. So compared to it's peers it is. The characters are all developed and each of their possibly one note presonas seen and explored. They all have development and u learn everything about each character. That is pretty much not true for most games where characters no matter how shallow aren't even developed enough to be one note. Fine you don't like them, dosent change what I said. Nor do you say anything to disprove it.

Yeah, how about no?

When we want something to get better, we don't compare it other crap and try to say it does crap a little better. Crap is crap in other words.

There is one good arc in FFXIII. That's the black man. Surprisingly, the whole father/son thing is handled rather well. Solid execution, nice build up, and not too melodramatic. Of course, the black guy ends up becoming a walking stereotype (more than before) after the arc is resolved quite early in the game so that's a shame.

But learning everying about characters and having one speech development doesn't mean "well-developed". And there wasn't much to learn considering they're basically walking cliches. Everything we learnt took a few lines. That's how fleshed out they were. In other words, they weren't.

Well rounded? Fine a poor choice of words on my part. But even if is(probably is) this post of yours dosent engage or say anything other then stating your opinion. That's the annoying part. You tag quote without attempting explanation. It's annoying and pissess me off. I wouldn't be driven to be an asshole myself if you simply responded "yo I disagree so and so and maybe here's why". Contempt only breeds more contempt. I sound angry? Sure. What do you come off as then? A pompous asshole. Fine, I come off as a mad dog, I at least I admit it and when push comes to shove I wil back up my opinion. So obviously I have no shame in it.

I didn't tag quote you. I posted a humorous gif in jest (though I still find the post ridiculous). You are the one who raged out of control. Don't take your misdirected anger for people tag quoting you on me.

If you compare the characters to XII a game where half the cast is bland an undeveloped and even the likable ones are one note with little development. Blathier, he's cool sure, but outside of that he is stagnet for the most part and more one note then anyone in XIII. Hope the most annoying character is typical anime scared guy. We find out why he is way and get his motives. Then the character has his arc and changes and it makes sense. He has actual development. All the characters do. To say they are stereotypical is beyond the point. All FF characters have one dimension to them, most lack development though.

Crappy characters compared to crappy characters. Not sure why there would be any point here.

Also, see the bold, I don't think you quite understand what one dimensional means. Because not all FF characters are one dimensional. I haven't even played all the FF games (I haven't played VI which many claim to be the best) and I can tell you're making things up to support your bad argument of the FFXIII cast being good.

Whatever I have nothing more to say to you.

Fantastic.

Right on. Absolutely love it. I don't want to waste time with you either. I'm not really a fan of the whole "arguments on the internet" thing. Especially not with people who have trouble reading (this is me being an asshole now, I admit).

And in part, I can appreciate why you'd get angry if people tag quote you often. I can imagine it being quite frustrating. Doesn't mean it's not true. I think you have bad taste. I mean, you like FFXIII. Just that I can understand. So, for your sanity, I won't do my little jibes of piss take on occassion. My focus shall go elsewhere. Maybe I'll take up fishing. Just need to find a river, or lake.

 

[Boney]

For claiming Vann from XII's design was ok as he's supposed to be a young thief. I think that's why or something to do with XIII.

I don't even think XIII is the best FF. It's an 8 at best. I take the game for what it is.

but the nipple man!

 

[Jarmel]

Yep. Because with Snow and Serah, all I could see was child rapist. S-E dropped the fucking ball on Serah's character design and with Fang and Vanille, well I couldn't stand Vanille so 'nuff said. Hope is probably the second best character actually, but as you said, they ruined him by making him change TOO much.

Holy Shit, someone else agrees with me that Hope was the second best. Jesus I always see him being brought up as one of the worst in the group when it definitely isn't the case.

 

[Rebel Leader]

Please put 80% of FF resources to vs 13.. :/

 

[Mooreberg]

Make it stop.

 

[Kyoufu]

Holy Shit, someone else agrees with me that Hope was the second best. Jesus I always see him being brought up as one of the worst in the group when it definitely isn't the case.

Hope and Vanille...

worst characters ever

 

[Rahxephon91]

Straight up, you can't read. We had an exchange of around 3 posts. And I didn't ignore anything. My argument was simple. It did poorly relative to FFX as the first big FF this generation

I can't read and yet according to you the argument I made was directly responding to your point that it did poorly to X? Does that make any sense? Your entire argument was "it's a big name it should sell more then 5 million, it didn't so it's a failure". Of course you used the word poorly as if that means something completely different. When faced with the actual context around these sales you simply ignored it.

But whatever you won't admit that. Why bring it up though? Because it perfectly illustrates that every argument you make is never backed up?

Sure now play the " I don't care it's the Internet card" but how can that be true? Your still here trying to act high and mighty and point out how wrong I am. If you didn't really care you would have left it at your stupid picture.

Your argument was that SE felt it did fine by their metric and the decline of JRPG's could be attributed to it not having as spectacular sales (which I don't believe means anything considering FF is an exemption to it as it is one of the biggest franchises in gaming).

It did have spectacular sales and what other metric here is important? The entire argument was that your metric made no sense. And so now according to you mega franchisees live on quality and can't expect to have any problem with change in climate? So how does one explain Street Fighter 3? But your point is stupid and doesn't take in considerations of whats going on. How can you call it doing poorly if you don't actually look at the big picture? You can't and that was the problem with your post.

You do a poor job of representing my argument and I'm not one to dig up old posts but since it looks like you are, try not to do such a crappy job of representing opinions.

But this is exactly what you said. Your argument at first was FFXIII did poorly because it sold 4.9 million and then it turned in it did poorly because it didn't do as good as X. It's just dumb and when faced with an actual look at the situation all you could do is keep citing the same shit without trying to explain it, like you are doing now. Here's an actual quote

I would've thought, with such an advantage and big name, that it would do FFX numbers. I don't think that's a crazy expecation to have. Seems reasonable when looking at it from the surface.

That sums up your entire argument there. So how am I doing a crappy job of representing your opinion. The opinion that is it didn't do as well as X so it did poorly. Lets ignore aspects like HD consoles aren't big in Japan yet the game is the highest selling HD game or the fact that JRPGS themselves have lost some favor with the western gamer. Are you going to feign ignorance on that subject as well or should FF be immune to this because it's a big franchise? Yeah that worked with Street Fighter 3.

But learning everying about characters and having one speech development doesn't mean "well-developed". And there wasn't much to learn considering they're basically walking cliches. Everything we learnt took a few lines. That's how fleshed out they were. In other words, they weren't.

This is essentially how characters are developed in FF games. But the characters are developed. They all have reasonable arcs that show change in character persona. Not good character develop maybe, but they have them. This is character development regardless if you like them are not. Compared to other FF games where you have characters stagnate and do not change one iota, this is better. I can't help that they say their feelings out load ,but so does everyone in these games. So whats the problem. If you want to attack XIII, attack the other games then. We learn everything about Cloud's personality in his first few lines and then we have his arc where we learn why this is so and then he changes. It is exactly the same with everyone in XIII. Except with XIII everyone has this.

I didn't tag quote you. I posted a humorous gif in jest (though I still find the post ridiculous). You are the one who raged out of control. Don't take your misdirected anger for people tag quoting you on me.

It is the same thing and you know it. It has the same purpose. This is far from raging. I don't see raging as calling out a persons post you have a problem with.

Crappy characters compared to crappy characters. Not sure why there would be any point here.

Because they are characters in the FF series.

Also, see the bold, I don't think you quite understand what one dimensional means. Because not all FF characters are one dimensional. I haven't even played all the FF games (I haven't played VI which many claim to be the best) and I can tell you're making things up to support your bad argument of the FFXIII cast being good.

It means having one facet to their character . My statement is hyperbole, the point is past FF games have not really had characters beyond XIII. A point btw that you have yet to actually argue with examples are anything. That's the entire root of this argument. No, what you've done this entire time is just attack me and ignore the entire thing. The thing is the characters have their arc, if they were really one dimensional they would be unable to have an actual arc. Have FF games had better handled characters? More likeable? Sure you could say that, but they aren't really full of depth.

But for someone claiming I have a bad argument when I claim that XIII's characters are hardly bad compared to the series you haven't actually tried and proven this. No examples have been given. It's like you're operating on some understood logic that everyone should follow, but when actually questioned nothing comes up.

I don't even know if you've played XIII honestly. You have yet to go into detail with and of the characters and you claim the "black guys" arc happens early when it's not really early at all. I think you only mentioned that because a previous post mentioned it.

Maybe we should take you back to school and teach you how to comprehend the written word. Shall we define the difference between poorly (relative to its previous entries if I remember the argument you're referring to) and failure? Maybe also teach you context so you actually understand what you read.

It's funny, you keep making posts like this, but it's increasingly evident that you don't know these things either. Whats the big difference between Poorly and failure? Answer not a whole bunch.

"He did poorly on the test". "He failed the test". Yeah those two sentences feel so different.

Why don't you stop the bullshit? Don't speak to me about context, all that previous argument proved is you no nothing about context. By the way my entire response to you was following the context of relating to X. Why else would I mention the how jrpgs are currently and the HD consoles compared to the PS2 in Japan?



You simply have no argument here. All you do is throw your opinion around while seemingly trying to be witty here. At this point I can't say anything. Your posts have about the same depth as FFXIII characters. All your posts are style over substance. You're just a low rent Amriox. I have great taste and I don't care what you think. I hope I find out what seemingly bad game you like so I can further dismiss you.

 

[hteng]

Please put 80% of FF resources to vs 13.. :/

more like SE does not know what the fuck to do with their resources.

 

[Jarmel]

Hope and Vanille...

worst characters ever

Hahaha no. Vanille definitely. Snow is second worst but I guess you like being a hero.

 

[Chiave]

Snow would have been so much better if his character was like the IGN dub.

 

[Anth0ny]

XIII-3 before Versus XIII. Jesus.

 

[Jarmel]

Is Versus supposed to appear at TGS?

 

[Nirolak]

Is Versus supposed to appear at TGS?

Nope.

Versus, Rising, and The Last Guardian will all be missing.

 

[Jarmel]

Nope.

Versus, Rising, and The Last Guardian will all be missing.

...........................

Fucking Christ. What is this shit? Are they all busy buying hookers with the development money?

Versus and Rising have absolutely no excuse. None.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Isn't there a lot of overreaction? I'm more surprised they didn't grab it along XIII-2, just so someone else couldn't.

 

[-Pyromaniac-]

...........................

Fucking Christ. What is this shit? Are they all busy buying hookers with the development money?

rising is stuck in limbo, versus is being developed at a snails pace, last guardian is too mysterious for us.

 

[hteng]

rising is stuck in limbo, versus is being developed at a snails pace, last guardian is too mysterious for us.

also, Last Remnant for the PS3.

 

[PairOfFilthySocks]

I can't read? Lol ok buddy, just because your arguments lack any backing dosent mean I can't read. Your point about selling not as good as X only came later and even never took anything into context. You looked at the numbers and went bam it was unsuccessful. So because FF is a big francheise it's immune to a change in gaming climate? Thats pretty incorrect. Why did fighters fall out of popularity? Because gaming moved towards consoles and more single player games. Why have they come back? Well online in general is more popular. Why would FF be immune to any changes? So it's going to be immune in the tastes of the general population. Who's taste don't go with FF? That's dumb. But see you just ignored this and kept up with it's unsuccessful because I hate it even though everyone told you that was wrong.

But whatever you won't admit that. Why bring it up though? Because it perfectly illustrates that every argument you make is never backed up.?

Oh I'm wrong that FF characters are one dimisnal? How and which ones aren't? I wouldn't know because you won't tell me. I have a weak argument? At least I backed my points with actual things.

Sure now play the " I don't care it's the Internet card" but how can that be true? Your still here trying to act high and mighty and point out how wrong I am. If you didn't really care you would have left it at your stupid picture.

The fact is I do care, not to the point that I become angry, but to the point I will defend my posts when possible. You must care to, why stay here if you didn't? What better things do you have to do that allow you to continue to post?

I'm only an ass to people who are assess to me first. Case in point you. Those that respond fairly I will respond fairly to. Your entire point here is the pot calling the kettle black. At least though I admit I'm an ass. I haven't seen that from you.

Of corse I'm going to compare supposed crap characters to other crap characters. Video games aren't movies or books and those standards don't apply to them. They can't and I won't look at games with those eyes.

You simply have no argument here. All you do is throw your opinion around while seemingly trying to be witty here. At this point I can't say anything. Your posts have about the same depth of FFXIII characters.

The bolded part...what the what? Videogame stories shouldn't have standards?

Also, I think one of the main reasons people bag on FF13's story and characters so much is because of the enormous production values. In something like FF6, there is very little visible emoting done by the characters' sprites and the dialogue is not voiced.

In FF13, considerably less is left to the player's imagination. Thus, elements of the story, be it the voice acting, the dialogue, animation, whatever-if one part fails, it can drag the rest down with it. In FF13's case, the main failure is most certainly the writing. I pity the VAs having to trudge through that horrid sludge of a script, because they were mostly pretty damn decent.

Unfortunately, the writers couldn't write for shit. They constantly had characters blab on about their motivations and still manage to keep the story a jumbled, confused mess for those of us who didn't bother reading the codex(and no, advising players to read the codex is not a suitable defence of the story, it is merely an admittance of it's failures).

TL;DR, FF13 saw the series' largest production values yet, and thus demanded the very best work from all involved. Too bad the writers floundered horribly.

 

[survivor]

Nope.

Versus, Rising, and The Last Guardian will all be missing.

You know if it wasn't for the GAF threads that pop up about TLG and Rising I would have forgotten that these games exist.

Very disappointed that we won't see them at TGS

 

[Jarmel]

In FF13, considerably less is left to the player's imagination. Thus, elements of the story, be it the voice acting, the dialogue, animation, whatever-if one part fails, it can drag the rest down with it. In FF13's case, the main failure is most certainly the writing. I pity the VAs having to trudge through that horrid sludge of a script, because they were mostly pretty damn decent.

Vanille's VA deserves to be shot and dropped in a gutter somewhere.

 

[AniHawk]

i just want final fantasy xv so we can get out of this universe and into something like ix or xii again. please.

 

[PairOfFilthySocks]

Vanille's VA deserves to be shot and dropped in a gutter somewhere.

Which is why I wrote...

In FF13, considerably less is left to the player's imagination. Thus, elements of the story, be it the voice acting, the dialogue, animation, whatever-if one part fails, it can drag the rest down with it. In FF13's case, the main failure is most certainly the writing. I pity the VAs having to trudge through that horrid sludge of a script, because they were mostly pretty damn decent.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

also, Last Remnant for the PS3.

http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2009/06/24/last_remnant_ps3/

 

[Green Mamba]

i just want final fantasy xv so we can get out of this universe and into something like ix or xii again. please.

This is something I can get behind. What the hell is Itō doing these days? Get him the hell back on Final Fantasy.

 

[Riposte]

People are throwing around the term "one dimensional character" too freely. They should stop merely using it as a slur against character concepts they didn't like. Most Final Fantasy protagonists starting with PS1 era are not one dimensional characters, despite perhaps being overall "shallow". In XIII in particular they went out of their way to give every playable character a major arc(yes, even Snow). Most of the time less important party members are given short, optional vignettes.


I really want The Last Remnant guys to either: 1) Make a prequel called The First Remnant about the dude in the desert from 1000 years ago or w/e or 2) Make a full Final Fantasy game out of FFXI. Now give that a sequel! A sequel to a "remake" of a sequel. (FFXI-2-2?)

 

[jackdoe]

Holy Shit, someone else agrees with me that Hope was the second best. Jesus I always see him being brought up as one of the worst in the group when it definitely isn't the case.

Haha. He's the "second best", but he's nowhere near Sazh. Maybe if I was 12 again, I'd think all the characters in this game were boss (except Vanille, her shittiness transcends age barriers).

also, Last Remnant for the PS3.

Haha, that one is more of a nudge, nudge, wink, wink "It's cancelled" kind of thing that Square-Enix pretty much confirmed to be cancelled without actually flat out saying it.

 

[DR2K]

Vanille is easily the best character in FFXIII. Hope XIII-3 is a prequel to 13, explaining her and Fang's story.

 

[SykoTech]

Versus and Rising have absolutely no excuse. None.

Well, Versus would steal a lot of hype from XIII-2. And Rising is suppose to have something going on this winter.

The Last Guardian is the only one I can't think of an excuse for. Hopefully there is something really good about it in the ICO/SotC Collection.

 

[Pyrrhus]

As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.

 

[Riposte]

This place is as good as any: Why do people get so bothered with the mechanic that makes you gameover when your main character dies? It is not like these games are not too easy as it is and I gameover'ed more than handful of times(not including Eidolon battles). Do you really want Final Fantasy (XIII or w/e) to be even easier by removing a weakness like that?

 

[Rahxephon91]

The bolded part...what the what? Videogame stories shouldn't have standards?

They should and I think they should have different standards. When I play a game I don't and sit there and try to find faults. I'm not expecting great works of art. I expect entertaining stories on the level of your average X-men comic book or something.

 

[jackdoe]

This place is as good as any: Why do people get so bothered with the mechanic that makes you gameover when your main character dies? It is not like these games are not too easy as it is and I gameover'ed more than handful of times(not including Eidolon battles). Do you really want Final Fantasy (XIII or w/e) to be even easier by removing a weakness like that?

The problem is a result of that and the fact that the team AI is shit. So for tougher encounters, you're pretty much forced to control a character that has access to the Medic paradigm (at least IMO) and if it's a boss, you definitely need to be in control of the Saboteur/Medic. So if the team AI was smarter, it probably wouldn't be a problem.

 

[Zing]

The best part about this was all the great gifs that showed up in the thread.

 

[Green Mamba]

This place is as good as any: Why do people get so bothered with the mechanic that makes you gameover when your main character dies? It is not like these games are not too easy as it is and I gameover'ed more than handful of times(not including Eidolon battles). Do you really want Final Fantasy (XIII or w/e) to be even easier by removing a weakness like that?

For one reason and one reason only:

The penultimate boss battle (

Spoiler

Orphan

) He has an instant kill maneuver (Progenitorial Wrath) that he can target anyone with. There is no way to stop him from doing this, and, unless you're fighting him with the tenth level of the Crystarium unlocked and you're just destroying him with uber stats (which isn't possible the first time through), he will use it more than once a fight. It doesn't always kill its target, but it's not a small chance either. Also, the absolute worst part--there is no way to make yourself completely immune to instant death. The Cherub's Crown (and upgraded version) will afford you a percentage of protection, but even with three max leveled Cherub's Crowns your protection is not 100%.

Basically, the penultimate boss has a move that randomly dictates Game Overs. You can stack odds against it, but there is absolutely no way to protect against it completely.

That is just absolutely shitty, amateurish game design and really signifies to me that the party leader death = Game Over was a quick and dirty change they made to the game to give it an illusion of more difficulty.

EDIT: Also what JackDoe says. The AI, while decent at some roles, is just absolutely terrible at some others (they're awful, awful, awful Saboteurs).

Also, what the hell is the point of a AI controlled Medic who has Raise? Literally the only thing they can do with it is bring back the other AI controlled party member. The party leader death = Game Over just really doesn't look like something they thought all the way through.

 

[Combichristoffersen]

Hope and Vanille...

worst characters ever

I actually sort of liked Vanille's perky attitude, but Hope and Snow were awful.

Sazh was boss though.

 

[Rahxephon91]

The problem is a result of that and the fact that the team AI is shit. So for tougher encounters, you're pretty much forced to control a character that has access to the Medic paradigm (at least IMO) and if it's a boss, you definitely need to be in control of the Saboteur/Medic. So if the team AI was smarter, it probably wouldn't be a problem.

This was never a problem for me. I never played as a medic and the AI always worked fine. Perhaps having to play to the AI and not my own could be seen as a negative, but I don't share that opinion. For boss encounters I was always Light and the Ai always healed. Perhaps I would like them to cast haste before something else, but thats such a moot point since the pace is so fast. The Ai will quickly get to it matter so the order the buffs are cast matters little. Same thing goes for healing. As long as the AI is a medic I cant really see any problems with the healing. They do a better job then I ever would.

People will complain about the final Boss, but I never died during that boss battle.

 

[Riposte]

The problem is a result of that and the fact that the team AI is shit. So for tougher encounters, you're pretty much forced to control a character that has access to the Medic paradigm (at least IMO) and if it's a boss, you definitely need to be in control of the Saboteur/Medic. So if the team AI was smarter, it probably wouldn't be a problem.

So it wouldn't bother people if the AI was better or if you had full control? It is weird people seem to highlight that part if it is a fine mechanic mixed in with unreliable AI or lack of control.

Anyway, I really didn't have that problem for any fight and I think for the fights it might be a problem(the hardest ones), I was utilizing layouts which consisted of multiple duplicates(for example x2 or x3 Medic). Party members are definitely not as efficient as a human controlled character, but I found that very easy to overcome. (Like I said, the game is easy. People disagree with this?)

EDIT: The penultimate boss was easy enough to manage with accessories(and I think a non-leader Sentinel, but I can't recall if that worked offhand), even if you can't hit 100% immunity.

"The illusion of difficulty" is a very dumb thing to say since you can see the very real results of the mechanic in play. It is like an enemy aiming for your head, if nothing else.

 

[ReaperXL7]

Not sure if this is worthy of a new thread, it's not a mega news site or anything. According to Yoshinori Kitase "Type-0 and Versus XIII have of course advanced to 100% development power." This was a quote taken from a recent fan event.

You can read about it here

http://igogaming.net/2011/09/10/final-fantasy-versus-xiii-is-now-in-100-development/

Another interesting tidbit is this piece.

Due to the knowledge gained from developing Final Fantasy XIII, the team was able to develop XIII-2 in shorter time, thus why it is releasing before Versus, which is been in development since 2006. Unfortunately, Versus will not appear at Tokyo Game Show this year, but Tetsuya Nomura says that the next reveal has been set.

So Square has their own event they do around January if i'm not mistaken correct? It would either be that or E3 next year. even if this is not major news it's still interesting that someone confirmed that they are in full development now.

If this was already posted I apologize I tried to look for it but nothing came up.

 

[Green Mamba]

People will complain about the final Boss, but I never died during that boss battle.

Being lucky doesn't prevent it from being shitty game design.

 

[Riposte]

Being lucky doesn't prevent it from being shitty game design.

There is a lot of dice rolling in JRPGs. In this case the dice can hit a natural 20 you can't easily recover from(as you could in most games). Killing the boss faster and a few accessories brings down your chances of "instant death" to a miniscule amount. Someone remind me if Sentinel can tank it too or not.


EDIT: So far the problem with leader death = gameover is the Death spell(appears twice I can recall correctly. Penultimate boss and one of the last hunts) and it being only a part of the problem mainly created with lack of reliable party member aid(unreliable AI or lack of control). If so then people really overstate their complaints about it.

Did anyone really find FFXIII that hard to begin with? I found a few of the hunts quite tough(didn't read any FAQs), but it was hardly because of the weakness of leader death.

 

[Zing]

I actually sort of liked Vanille's perky attitude.

You just wanted to do her doggy style while pulling her pigtails.

It's okay. We all do.