Final Fantasy general

Yeah, that bullshit.

"Congrats! You just killed a Behemoth! Oh, oh but... you didn't beat him in under 5 minutes? Hmm. Well congrats, you still beat him!"

edited 22nd Jan '16 10:07:01 PM by Soble

It's a rating system. Lots of games have them.

Without using Disgaea, how many RPG's?

Oh wait, I get it.

edited 22nd Jan '16 10:09:16 PM by Soble

The World Ends With You, Odin Sphere, and the .Hack GU sub-series at the very least according to TV Tropes. I'm sure there are others.

No pun intended.

edited 22nd Jan '16 10:12:00 PM by Hashil

Ratings systems are indeed quite common, that's one thing fans actually wanted before XIII came out.

XIII experimented with it a lot but made some mistakes with the scaling, higher weapons and stats make getting 5 stars harder the stronger you go. To the point where maxed weapons and stats make 5 starring the final boss almost impossible, equipping level 1 weapons with maxed stats make it hard but doable.

Yeah I've never seen anyone get so salty over a rating system.

Like giving it your all and just barely scraping by is an epic feeling, but obviously a worse performance than beating your enemies into the ground in ten seconds.

Wait, really? I upgraded Lightning's weapon to Omega or whatever the fuck the final form was and still got it.

Maybe it's because I neglected everyone else

edited 22nd Jan '16 10:20:18 PM by Saiga

I didn't care for it, I found it very jarring considering this series hasn't ever rated your performance before. They've given you timers, but they've never given you a B for not beating Yunalesca or Sephiroth killing Eldritch Abomination's, demigods, and actual deities in a certain amount of time.

I've played Bayonetta, I think I've earned some right to be slightly frustrated with video games grading you.

edited 22nd Jan '16 10:58:53 PM by Soble

It's about being smart. Like, healing a lot, buffing a lot. Ya know, strategy? But only scrubs are prudent, apparently. Just go in, rush everything, and then die because you can't afford to waste precious seconds healing.

This has happened to me several times now.

Oh look, Hope's dead again. Should I try to revive him or keep laying on the beating? Fuck it, I can't afford to waste time and lose my five stars. Oh no, now I'm dead too. If only there was no ranking system and I could afford to be smart.

edited 22nd Jan '16 10:53:08 PM by Nikkolas

Uhh Tales games are always grading you constantly with its grade system. Doing good in battle gives you points to spend in NG+ and other stuff.

I edited my post. I misremembered there.

not very smart if you fuck up your score then is it

Hey, I wasn't being serious when I called you a scrub. Hence the :P.

It's all irrelevant unless you feel some completionist need to be the best player, and that's certainly a valid way to feel as is being fed up with the rankings and feeling unfairly inadequate due to them. But they're irrelevant unless you want to go after the trophy for 5-starring every Ci'eth Stone, which you can do after you get stronger latrr in the game.

Anyway why don't you start out with a shroud if you want to get a good grade? I mean that's what they are there for.

Also you should be able to weave in a Rav/Rav/Sab or a Med/Med/Med in there and still make it, if not use cheap level 1 weapons.

I know you were kidding, it's all good. I was just speaking in general. Just ranting about the game is all.

It's very bipolar. I was so proud of myself for kicking Cid's ass on my second attempt, getting 5 stars. But then I get no stars against some trash mobs and then I hate it.

Cid was the easiest boss all game, though. My ever faithful dream team of Vanille/Hope/Snow decimated him.

I use MED/MED/COM for healing since Snow will keep the gauge up while we heal. RAV/RAV/SAB is only of limited use in my experience. I certainly wouldn't use it in a boss fight

Rav/Rav/Sab to get Imperal and De-shell helps massively. Sab keeps the bar up almost as good as a Com.

Using Snow might be your problem, his str and mag stat does not help to 5 star things. His hp stat helps you beat things for the first time though.

edited 22nd Jan '16 11:28:05 PM by Memers

On After Years:

This is probably a very silly suggestion, but you might want to switch to other characters' stories after Ceodore and the Masked Man scale the mountain outside Mist (didn't Titan make a fissure there?), and come back to it after doing those other chapters.

See, Ceodore's story is actually a combination of two chapters which were, in the original release, the first and last of the single character chapters, respectively. As such, completing it answers a question that is left a prominent mystery in those other character chapters.

It's really all up to you, of course. Just a thought.

Does the iOS/PC version combine their chapters like that, though? I know the PSP version doesn't, I think it was only the Wii version that did that.

Oh well if that's the case, it's all good.

In which I riff a Dissidia self-insert fanfic. And makes four of the villain look like incompetent bunglers.

Actually managed to get Red's second memory crystal, which makes his my first one. It's kinda misleading that you don't instantly get Survival Instinct as the game implies.

x 6 Pretty sure it's Hope and Vanille's fault. Some fights you are just supposed to Cerberus it up and have your three COM's waste the trash. Having two RAV's and only one COM makes those fights take too long.

It's still a poorly designed system though, or one that demands you use all of your party for every little situation. I was looking up a character tier thread on another site that says that, in spite of Snow's crap Mag stat, he's one of the best Ravagers because he has a very simple animation. Meanwhile, Sazh sucks because all of his shit is ridiculously stylish. Even when I played as him and Vanille I knew his posin' was simply not compatible with this battle system. You want speed and DPS here and wasting time being cool might earn you style points in another game but it loses you stars in this one.

It's simply inevitable that some characters are better than others in most games. However being bette or worse because of animations and a useless ranking system is pretty dumb.

edited 23rd Jan '16 4:43:43 PM by Nikkolas

Animations also meant some characters were worse than others in XII. If X wasn't turn based I bet Rikku would be a way more popular melee fighter because her animations are way faster than Auron and Tidus.

That's what happens when the people behind game balance and animation aren't the same.

Which to be fair is only a problem when you get into real time - like Lore said you can be as stylish as you want when things are turn based, as most of Square's work was until XII. Not that style and function are mutually exclusive - you just need to make sure the former services the latter.

edited 23rd Jan '16 5:08:28 PM by Hashil

You remind me of an old fanfic.

I love it.