Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Nakura on December 11, 2013, 04:56:58 pm
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One of the best console RPGs is now on Steam. Square even cleaned up the graphics a bit. Just a warning though, the music is a bit glitched, but apparently SE is patching that. Anyone else getting the rereleased FFVIII?
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Is there anything in there that can't be achieved with the Y2K release of FF8 and mods ?
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FFVIII
One of the best console RPGs is now on Steam.
Does not compute. Error. ERROR.
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Where everything started going wrong!
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does it come with a 'director's cut' edition that just plays spoony's LP at you so you can appreciate the bullet you dodged
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VIII seems like the most divisive title of the entire series from what I understand...some people loathe it entirely, while others consider it fantastic. It's kind of a different case than VII, which is either the Best Thing Evar or overrated as hell depending on who you ask.
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VIII seems like the most divisive title of the entire series from what I understand...some people loathe it entirely, while others consider it fantastic. It's kind of a different case than VII, which is either the Best Thing Evar or overrated as hell depending on who you ask.
I enjoyed it a lot. I wouldn't buy it now just because they put a bit of spit and polish on it though.
Anyway, anyone who likes RPGs and doesn't do consoles could do a lot worse than give FFVIII a try. Read some reviews if you want. It averages just under 90% on Gamerankings:
http://www.gamerankings.com/ps/197343-final-fantasy-viii/index.html
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The thing is it, kind of straddles the line between the point where writing beyond a freshman high school level fanfic started to be expected in games, something that Final Fantasy has struggled with.
At the same time, it's also where the series seemed to lose its grasp on basic narrative structure, a failing that would later assert itself extremely painfully with Tidus and Vaan. (Or everything about 13's narrative.)
Viewed on its own, it is perhaps forgivable, viewed in the evolution of the series and JRPGs in general, a reaction of "MONSTER, FLAY THE FLESH FROM HIS BONES! LET HIS FATE BE SO HORRIBLE THAT THE UNIVERSE ITSELF SHALL SHUDDER IN HORROR!" is sadly one very easily rationalized.
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I have a problem with any RPG that gets significantly harder the more you level up in expectation of a fight.
Tactics managed to be forgivable with this, VIII did not.
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VIII seems like the most divisive title of the entire series from what I understand...some people loathe it entirely, while others consider it fantastic. It's kind of a different case than VII, which is either the Best Thing Evar or overrated as hell depending on who you ask.
I enjoyed it a lot. I wouldn't buy it now just because they put a bit of spit and polish on it though.
Anyway, anyone who likes RPGs and doesn't do consoles could do a lot worse than give FFVIII a try. Read some reviews if you want. It averages just under 90% on Gamerankings:
http://www.gamerankings.com/ps/197343-final-fantasy-viii/index.html
come on man you should know better than to put any stock in the numerical rankings assigned by the gaming press
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I have a problem with any RPG that gets significantly harder the more you level up in expectation of a fight.
Tactics managed to be forgivable with this, VIII did not.
The bosses had a max level. They'd stop levelling after awhile.
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I have a problem with any RPG that gets significantly harder the more you level up in expectation of a fight.
Tactics managed to be forgivable with this, VIII did not.
The bosses had a max level. They'd stop levelling after awhile.
Which doesn't change the fact that the game is harder for a level twenty character than a level nineteen character.
If I have to either purposely stay at as low a level as possible or invest an obscene amount of time to do well, then something is clearly wrong with the design. The power-growth of a character should not be an inverse bell-curve.
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I have a problem with any RPG that gets significantly harder the more you level up in expectation of a fight.
Tactics managed to be forgivable with this, VIII did not.
The bosses had a max level. They'd stop levelling after awhile.
Which doesn't change the fact that the game is harder for a level twenty character than a level nineteen character.
If I have to either purposely stay at as low a level as possible or invest an obscene amount of time to do well, then something is clearly wrong with the design. The power-growth of a character should not be an inverse bell-curve.
In my experience playing through the game, some normal enemies got easier and some harder. I guess because weak enemies were getting smaller boosts on levelling than you were, while powerful enemies were getting stronger.
Anyway, once you get strong enough, you can draw a ton of magic and beef your stats, then you should have no problem. There are a lot of useful skills for your GFs to pick up as well from levelling, so levelling is generally beneficial. I found myself getting stronger overall as time went by for most of the game. I imagine only once your stocks of magic are full, and your GFs abilities have been learned, will you really start feeling the stronger normal enemies getting stronger.
I am against the principle of enemies levelling with you in games, but for me, FFVIII, it just works somehow.
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Only if there's a way to skip all the combat and dialog.
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Only if there's a way to skip all the combat and dialog.
I'll send you screenshots of the game art (from Google) if you send me the cash to buy it (which I will instead spend on something else). :D
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The thing is it, kind of straddles the line between the point where writing beyond a freshman high school level fanfic started to be expected in games, something that Final Fantasy has struggled with.
At the same time, it's also where the series seemed to lose its grasp on basic narrative structure, a failing that would later assert itself extremely painfully with Tidus and Vaan. (Or everything about 13's narrative.)
Viewed on its own, it is perhaps forgivable, viewed in the evolution of the series and JRPGs in general, a reaction of "MONSTER, FLAY THE FLESH FROM HIS BONES! LET HIS FATE BE SO HORRIBLE THAT THE UNIVERSE ITSELF SHALL SHUDDER IN HORROR!" is sadly one very easily rationalized.
FF8 was the first Final Fantasy (and pretty much the first JRPG) I ever played. As such, it holds a certain nostalgic value for me, and there are times when I still catch myself thinking about playing it again, but once I start and am confronted with the prospect of grinding battles for spells (or grinding the world map for them), I quickly lose interest in it.
It's a game that, at least for me, has not aged well at all. Its flaws were forgiveable at the time I first played it, but having been exposed to other, better games in the meantime (even from the same series!), I find myself unwilling to play it again.
Now, I would actually pay good money for an english language version of FF9 (Which is a game that I didn't much like when it came out due to its vastly different aesthetic), since that's a game that has actually aged remarkably well over time IMHO. It's certainly one I am replaying every now and then, just because it's way more fun than 7 and 8.
What I would also pay money for is an HD version of FF12; Unlike NGTM1R, I found 12's narrative to be a remarkably coherent and relatable tale, especially when compared to the likes of FF8, or the whole mess that was FF10/FF10-2.
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I got about an hour into X before shutting off the system and burning the disc in effigy, myself.
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FFVIII
One of the best console RPGs is now on Steam.
Does not compute. Error. ERROR.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (x infinity)
FF is on a downward spiral of suckiness. Plots and characters so redicolous it's physicly painfull.
But believe it or not, I want more of Final Fantasy. Because it's so amazingly horrible it's funny.
It's kinda like wathching The Room (by Tommy Weiasou) or a bloody trainwreck. There is just something fascinating about disasters of an epic scale.
(http://img6.joyreactor.com/pics/comment/games-funny-644406.jpeg)
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I got about an hour into X before shutting off the system and burning the disc in effigy, myself.
Why? I really enjoyed X. VII, VIII and IX, loved them all. X-2 was decent, for a half price game, no more. Had a few good moments, and had some utterly cringeworthy moments. The wheels came off for me at XII. Square-Enix is a joke today. I'm just wondering what could make you ditch it in an hour. XII lasted at least 8 hours with me I'd say before I dumped it.
It's interesting seeing all the different points of view. If you like memorable characters and place a priority on them in RPGs, you might want to steer away from Final Fantasy in general. For me, it's always been the Worlds and the weird and wonderful creatures and battle systems that have sold me on these.
But Square-Enix today are an absolute joke.
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Can't wait
(http://cloud-3.steampowered.com/ugc/649869708055689856/E53E115B2E1712E72F8880C487EFD0CCF92A9D30/)
(And VIII is on my wishlist, waiting for a really good sale.)
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Can't wait
(http://cloud-3.steampowered.com/ugc/649869708055689856/E53E115B2E1712E72F8880C487EFD0CCF92A9D30/)
(And VIII is on my wishlist, waiting for a really good sale.)
What is that picture from please? (not FFXXVII, the whole thing.)
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I remember beating VIII before VII. I got to the point where my Squall's ATB gauge would fill in under half a second, some funky combination of auto-haste coupled with a full tank of Haste junctioned to speed. Add a full tank of Ultima to strength plus the Lionheart along with crit health and/or aura and the 9999s just won't stop.
Also Booya-Heel Drop-Booya-Heel Drop-Booya-Heel Drop-Booya-Heel Drop...
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I remember beating VIII before VII. I got to the point where my Squall's ATB gauge would fill in under half a second, some funky combination of auto-haste coupled with a full tank of Haste junctioned to speed. Add a full tank of Ultima to strength plus the Lionheart along with crit health and/or aura and the 9999s just won't stop.
Also Booya-Heel Drop-Booya-Heel Drop-Booya-Heel Drop-Booya-Heel Drop...
Ha ha ha. Never tried that! (The Haste thing.) :lol:
And yes, Zell. I would pause the game after each move to take in the button combinations, so he performed enormous combos.
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What is that picture from please? (not FFXXVII, the whole thing.)
That is from Deus Ex: Human Revolution, by Square Enix. It's a random poster you can find in a few places, this was a bunk in some barracks somewhere.
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What is that picture from please? (not FFXXVII, the whole thing.)
That is from Deus Ex: Human Revolution, by Square Enix. It's a random poster you can find in a few places, this was a bunk in some barracks somewhere.
Heh. Thanks. Well, they're not going to make it to Final Fantasy XXVII if they don't sort themselves out.
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Why? I really enjoyed X.
Tidus tends to get to people, if not on the personal level that he's dumb and self-centered and really just kind of annoying to listen to, then on the meta level that he's presented as the game's main character.
"Listen to my story."
But it's not his story. It's Yuna's story. It was always the story of Yuna's quest to defeat Sin. For all that they try to push Tidus as the main character, the only reason he's even involved in this plot is Yuna drafted him. (And Yuna's not the sharpest knife in the drawer either with her big plan to Send Antlerhair and her getting kidnapped about a half-dozen times in the game. The Al-Bhed's big plan to viciously attack you and kill people to prevent killing people is also the product of a diseased mind.)
X-2 is honestly a better game in a lot of ways, except for the way it opens.
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Why? I really enjoyed X. VII, VIII and IX, loved them all. X-2 was decent, for a half price game, no more. Had a few good moments, and had some utterly cringeworthy moments. The wheels came off for me at XII. Square-Enix is a joke today. I'm just wondering what could make you ditch it in an hour. XII lasted at least 8 hours with me I'd say before I dumped it.
I put about 200 hours into FFX. It is many things, a good game it is not (and the reason why I put so many hours into it has more to do with a friendly rivalry a mate and I had going at the time, and my desire to beat the black Eidolons).
It's a game that is hampered by an unlikable main character who spends a lot of time in the early game being completely and utterly stupid, whose insistence that "this is my story" gets all the more irritating the more you realize that he's pretty much just a bloody plot device! You have a story that has various characters picking up idiot balls left and right, you have minigames that run the gamut from utterly disappointing (Blitzball is so ****ing cool in the intro! I can't wait to play it! Only when you do get to play it, it's utterly simplistic and easily broken) to way too ****ing random (Remember Chocobo riding?), and all of these have to be played to have a shot at the best weapons in the game.
FFX, while not the worst in the series (THAT honor is reserved for the endless tunnel of doom called FF13), is still pretty dire. It had the potential to be really really good (And I will say that at least on a technical level, it is a remarkable achievement), but it ultimately disappointed.
X-2, while also not exactly good, at least had the decency to not take itself seriously, and it had the balls to include a couple rather *****in' Jpop tracks. Again, it could have been much better on a writing level, and it could have found a better narrative structure, but at least Yuna and her crew are more fun to be around than the idiot you had to guide around in X.
FF12, on the other hand, I found magnificent. It had a consistency of style and tone that its immediate predecessors lacked, and while Vaan was a bad choice for protagonist (Basch was a much better choice, honestly), it had a cool combat system that encouraged tinkering, and it avoided at least some of the grindiness of FFX. It also had a reasonably open world to play with, lots of room for exploration and sidequests. It also had a villain who actually had a reasonable reason to act the way he did, and it managed to make it somewhat ambiguous as to who the actual villains of the piece are.
Also, it is possibly the prettiest game on the PS2.
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I miss the old art/game style from FF 1-6.
FF6 in particular was a masterpiece.
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Why? I really enjoyed X. VII, VIII and IX, loved them all. X-2 was decent, for a half price game, no more. Had a few good moments, and had some utterly cringeworthy moments. The wheels came off for me at XII. Square-Enix is a joke today. I'm just wondering what could make you ditch it in an hour. XII lasted at least 8 hours with me I'd say before I dumped it.
I put about 200 hours into FFX. It is many things, a good game it is not (and the reason why I put so many hours into it has more to do with a friendly rivalry a mate and I had going at the time, and my desire to beat the black Eidolons).
It's a game that is hampered by an unlikable main character who spends a lot of time in the early game being completely and utterly stupid, whose insistence that "this is my story" gets all the more irritating the more you realize that he's pretty much just a bloody plot device! You have a story that has various characters picking up idiot balls left and right, you have minigames that run the gamut from utterly disappointing (Blitzball is so ****ing cool in the intro! I can't wait to play it! Only when you do get to play it, it's utterly simplistic and easily broken) to way too ****ing random (Remember Chocobo riding?), and all of these have to be played to have a shot at the best weapons in the game.
FFX, while not the worst in the series (THAT honor is reserved for the endless tunnel of doom called FF13), is still pretty dire. It had the potential to be really really good (And I will say that at least on a technical level, it is a remarkable achievement), but it ultimately disappointed.
X-2, while also not exactly good, at least had the decency to not take itself seriously, and it had the balls to include a couple rather *****in' Jpop tracks. Again, it could have been much better on a writing level, and it could have found a better narrative structure, but at least Yuna and her crew are more fun to be around than the idiot you had to guide around in X.
FF12, on the other hand, I found magnificent. It had a consistency of style and tone that its immediate predecessors lacked, and while Vaan was a bad choice for protagonist (Basch was a much better choice, honestly), it had a cool combat system that encouraged tinkering, and it avoided at least some of the grindiness of FFX. It also had a reasonably open world to play with, lots of room for exploration and sidequests. It also had a villain who actually had a reasonable reason to act the way he did, and it managed to make it somewhat ambiguous as to who the actual villains of the piece are.
Also, it is possibly the prettiest game on the PS2.
Tidus is easily the most common criticism I see levelled at FFX. I'm lucky in not only can I tolerate him, I actually like him.
I decided it wasn't worth the grinding to defeat the black eidolons. I took down Valefor, and that was enough for me. I did everything else besides them.
I kind of enjoyed Blitzball. Getting a good team together and going from a mid-table team to a juggernaut. Tidus' "This is my story" I always took as him saying something akin to "this is my life". As in life-story. Not that everyone else are just extras in his story or anything. Anyway, blame Auron for that, he set Tidus off with that! :p
What's an idiot ball?
I hated what they did to Rikku, who was my favourite character in X. X-2 Yuna got damaged as well, though this was tolerable, but they took the 15yr old Rikku from X, who had the brains and maturity of someone significantly older, and made X-2's 17yr old Rikku into someone who had the brains and maturity of a 10yr old. I certainly had more fun with Tidus than Yuna and Rikku. But of course, everyone seems to hate Tidus... :lol:
EDIT: I got turned off big time by XII's combat. And the World and characters just didn't grab me at all.
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I kind of enjoyed Blitzball. Getting a good team together and going from a mid-table team to a juggernaut. Tidus' "This is my story" I always took as him saying something akin to "this is my life". As in life-story. Not that everyone else are just extras in his story or anything. Anyway, blame Auron for that, he set Tidus off with that! :p
Blitzball is so easily exploitable with even a minimal eye for its mechanics, it's not funny. The AI is literally too predictable to prevent you from doing easy wins, and has a couple of really irritating blind spots. And all that after the intro to the game set it up as this really awesome action-filled sport. Just a waste.
What's an idiot ball?
Per TVTropes, when a character suddenly starts acting completely stupid for no adequately explained reason, he or she is said to have picked up the idiot ball.
EDIT: I got turned off big time by XII's combat. And the World and characters just didn't grab me at all.
I looooooved the combat, because figuring out all the various systems and how they interacted tickled my programmer brain. It was also pretty cool to be able to leave the boring repetitive crap to the AI and move more to an oversight role, managing the combat like an RTS rather than direct intervention.
Ivalice, as a world, was one of the few FF worlds that managed to look like it worked as a world, that had a sense of history and scale that other FFs lacked. The characters within it all acted in reasonable ways, all had their own motivations and goals, and managed to be more than the cardboard cutouts that previous games gave us. A lot of this has to do with Ivalice not being an original world (it's the setting for the FF Tactics series).
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I kind of enjoyed Blitzball. Getting a good team together and going from a mid-table team to a juggernaut. Tidus' "This is my story" I always took as him saying something akin to "this is my life". As in life-story. Not that everyone else are just extras in his story or anything. Anyway, blame Auron for that, he set Tidus off with that! :p
Blitzball is so easily exploitable with even a minimal eye for its mechanics, it's not funny. The AI is literally too predictable to prevent you from doing easy wins, and has a couple of really irritating blind spots. And all that after the intro to the game set it up as this really awesome action-filled sport. Just a waste.
What's an idiot ball?
Per TVTropes, when a character suddenly starts acting completely stupid for no adequately explained reason, he or she is said to have picked up the idiot ball.
EDIT: I got turned off big time by XII's combat. And the World and characters just didn't grab me at all.
I looooooved the combat, because figuring out all the various systems and how they interacted tickled my programmer brain. It was also pretty cool to be able to leave the boring repetitive crap to the AI and move more to an oversight role, managing the combat like an RTS rather than direct intervention.
Ivalice, as a world, was one of the few FF worlds that managed to look like it worked as a world, that had a sense of history and scale that other FFs lacked. The characters within it all acted in reasonable ways, all had their own motivations and goals, and managed to be more than the cardboard cutouts that previous games gave us. A lot of this has to do with Ivalice not being an original world (it's the setting for the FF Tactics series).
I never ended up exploiting the AI, but I never needed to. I've seen videos on Youtube though of people making the puppet that is the Blitzball AI dance. Final Fantasy minigames have never been anything special though.
Idiot ball, Rikku must have gathered them all up somewhere between FFX and FFX-2...
On FFXII, I didn't like the enemies wandering around on the map, getting in the way of my exploring, or even worse, powerful enemies crushing my party while I'm trying to explore. It also took longer to kill the normal enemies, and I actually prefer micromanaging my party as opposed to just sitting and watching.
Of course, I can't comment on the World as I didn't get that far in. I did find it uninspiring. I must say though, for a PS2 game, the graphics are indeed astonishing.
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VI is honestly the only FF title I've spent any time at all with, and I still haven't finished that completely, mainly because random encounters still make my brain twitch something fierce. I do enjoy most of the characters and the general story (plus Kefka is awesome, and Ultros is hilarious), but the Esper system means that you can just about have every character Do All The Things, which kind of takes away from their uniqueness. I think my problem is really that I played Chrono Trigger before VI, and the former is just so much more streamlined and polished that it was hard going backwards to the latter. XII is about the only other title I have some interest in, because of the more hands-off battle system and the general world environment. It's nice to see more high fantasy instead of "lol Nomura pseudo-neon-cyberpunk thing."