Final Fantasy general

Wasn't Basch with them at the time, anyway? Why did Vaan have to go around telling people that he was Basch (when he's clearly too young for the part) when they had the real deal with them?

edited 15th May '12 1:18:39 AM by TheHeroHartmut

I believe it had to do with the authorities thinking he was an idiot, the secret group wanting to know what this moron wanted from them, and exposing the real Basch would have lost them their trump. Of course, I haven't played XII for a while, so I don't know if I'm spot on or a mile off.

I think that's right, but I haven't played XII in a while myself. Besides, wouldn't it be less suspect that a teenage boy would be going around screaming "I'M BASCH!" as opposed to a middle-aged man who actually fit that description?

I've heard Vaan sucks. I've watches a lot of cutscenes from XII, and I'm... not really liking him much as a protagonist. Does he get better, too?

He doesn't suck. He's just...there. Not much of a personality and not very important to the story.

I dunno about further in XII, but he's better in Tactics A2.

But yeah, nobody really took Vaan's plan all that seriously. It only worked becasue he caught the ear of a secret organization who definitely wanted to know why this kid thought Basch was alive.

...Eh.

Okay.

I thought Vaan worked as a foil to Ashe. I seem to have opinions on the games averse to the general consensus it seems. Besides, Penelo and Fran were much, much worse.

Its a shame the subtleties they tried to employ with Vaan were thrown away for the spin-offs.

edited 15th May '12 7:31:23 AM by absolclaw

I like XII. The Gambit system makes me really feel like I'm strategizing well.

Huh. The Gambit system always made me feel like an idiot who couldn't prioritize.

Or maybe that was only during the final battle. Can't remember since I haven't played for a long time, but having that level of control was definitely cool.

Vaan stops Ashe from becoming a counter-antagonist. The Gambit system is brilliant, but I can't help but be disappointed at the choice of abilities; a lot of them were redundant.

Final batch of XIII-2 dlc is out today.

Also, here is the Valdofr: The Arbiter of Time battle.

And Snow's episode starts off with him and Gilgamesh engaged in Ham-to-Ham Combat.

edited 15th May '12 12:22:01 PM by dmysta3000

The video isn't working. I wanted to see that Ham-to-Ham Combat...

@ absolclaw: I didn't really mind Vaan either. I can obviously see how he's just... there, but I don't hate him. He's just a normal kid caught up in a plot that doesn't really concern him as he plays second fiddle to vastly cooler characters (one or two of which were supposed to the protagonist in the first place). I guess you could say I'm a bit against the norm as well, seeing as I never hated Tidus and I don't get the Broken Base behind XIII and its characters either. (shrugs)

The Gambit System was alright, but I never took that much advantage of it. I'm biased towards X's CTB system, so that might be part of it.

My favourite battle system is X-2's. Fast, fluid and almost every ability had some use.

X-2 does indeed have a great battle system. I'm a sucker for good job systems, though (see also FFV and Tactics).

Once I got the hang of it on my second playthrough years later, I'll agree that working with X-2's mechanics was pretty fun.

I find that X-2 has really grown on me over the past year and a half since I first played it. It's beyond silly, but it's just a lot of fun. (Also New Game+ lets me have all the good stuff right off the bat~)

Love X-2's iteration of ATB; making actions truly simultaneous instead of putting wait-mode on whenever anyone did anything.

Too bad the game balance was so broken, especially once you get Alchemist.

edited 16th May '12 2:30:33 PM by JotunofBoredom

Same here. Then again, the same can be said for a lot of games I've revisted lately. Not being a preteen and actually knowing how to play the game will do that for you.

edited 16th May '12 2:31:49 PM by X2X

But the stash takes much longer to use than normal items.

Equip the Speed Bracer for Auto-Haste.

Using normal items will still be faster.

But you also have infinite mega potions. For no cost.

But can you get one out before you're flattened by a powerful attack? It's happened to me before.

Sorry to interrupt but Final Fantasy XIII perplexes me in retrospect.

I absolutely hated the formula for the first...eh, 60-70% of the game. The arbitrary limits on your party and the fact you were forced to go through boring linear level after boring linear level pissed me off to no end. In an RPG, you need a "cool down" time in which to appreciate the world and think over the story. Just having the plot constantly rammed in your face did not do it for me.

But...that was still somehow better than the last 1/3 of the game. Gran Pulse was even more tedious and boring and the game became even less interesting.

i blame the shift in tone. For the first bit, all the characters are going through their development and the game is firmly centered on their growth. I really liked the cast save for Light and Feng so focusing on the characters was nice. Sadly, all their growth is mostly done by Chapter 7 or 8 or 9 or whatever and so the focus shifts primarily to the actual plot of the game. Only...the plot is not well-explained. I was constantly questioning the nature of the fal'Cie. Are they even sentient? If they're so godlike and powerfulw hy can we overpower one of them in a joke cutscene and use it as a bus? None of this is explained.

But then, after Pulse made me want to throw the game away, I adored Eden Under Siege. That area looked amazing, it hd wonderful atmosphere and it was probably the best environment in the game for me.

Then we get to Orphan's Cradle which seriously sucked so hard that I was ready to quit the game.

I just don't understand this game. When it does one thing right and one thing wrong, it proceeds to fuck up what I had enjoyed while doing something else better. The result is that I can't say I really liked any part of the game because there's always something I hate.

edited 20th May '12 4:19:30 PM by Nikkolas