[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Ape Boy

I didn't say anything about XII vs XIII, I said I loved both.

Know what XIII's score is higher than, though? Tales of Vesperia.

Going by the straight MetaScore, I agree. I suggested reading a ton of reviews though, which are easily collected for link clicking at Meta and GameRankings. I always use a large sampling of reviews to aid my game selection.

As for Hope and his dad, I had no problem simply chalking that up to petulant teenage angst and senseless "YOU NEVER UNDERSTOOD ME" hate. Hope seeming pathetic because of it made perfect sense to me, because Hope WAS fucking pathetic. I actively keep him out of my party permanently, and I hope he grows up to get testicular torsion.

Hope got better after meeting his dad. At least by my estimation.

Also, he's one of the strongest characters in the game. He replaced Sazh as my synergist once he manned up and learned haste. Less upgraded weapon and less offensive accessories and he still beats out Sazh's magic by leaps and bounds.

You know who stays out of my party forever, though? Snow.

I didn't bother looking up ages or whatever, but Snow looks like he's in his mid twenties, and Serah looks like she's like 15 or some shit. Every time they were together in the flash backs all I could think was "Please lord, make the pedo stop. Please.

Also, I, unlike some people who have been hating the game since a year before it came out, wasn't completely certain Sazh wasn't dead. Aeris was a main character too, guys. And her death was a lot less dramatically interesting than Sazh's would have been had they let him pull the trigger.

Also, I've spent a lot of time with games/series that aren't afraid of certain tropes. So I'm a little less "Oh, s/he's a main character, s/he CAN'T die." (DRAGON AGE AWAKENINGS SPOILER) Hell, Awakenings killed off a character billed as one of the main characters within the first hour of the game in an entirely non-dramatic fashion.

Further, I get that it's like, trendy to hate on Final Fantasy, but really: Name two JRPGs that don't have all the story telling problems you guys are bitching about.

Sequels/Spin-offs don't count, so no being like "Persona 1, 2, 3, blah blah blah"

It's not like Final Fantasy, or Dragon Quest, or Star Ocean, or Atelier Iris, or the Tales series or... well you get the idea--it's not as if games are created to the same literary standard as classical literature. This SHOULD be obvious, as that you're getting works written by 9-5 folks who wouldn't be writing for video games if they could make a living writing novels. And then they're translated.

And it's not even just jRPGs. Fallout 3? Oblivion? Hell, even Dragon Age is full of literary pitfalls and writing issues. Even KotoR and the first two Fallouts (that were actually made by Black Isle). Even Bloodlines. And every GTA game that tried to have a serious story?

Yeah, they all fail if you're holding them up to the literary standards of classic literature, or even television.

And FFXIII still does a better job of story telling than Moby Dick. Hell FFVIII does a better job of story telling than Moby Dick.

Games tell stories in an entirely different way than movies, TV series, and works of literature.

That's not to say the game is perfect by any means.

Weapon Upgrading, for instance, is a huge pointless mess of a chore, and I've yet to find a weapon whose special abilities (quick stagger, stagger lock, etc.) are worth the flat magic/strength trade off you have to accept to use them. Especially considering that by the time you get them you've already put a lot of time and money into upgrading your old weapons so they're going to be universally a downgrade until you can rake in about 200000 bucks to buy upgrade materials.

And money is far too rare.

I also didn't like the massive dick move of "Oh yeah, you can now level everyone in everything, and that artificial ceiling on stat bonuses we've given you the entire time that made grinding completely pointless/useless is now more or less gone. HAVE SOME ADAMANCHILDES AND SHIT THAT BLOWS UP AND DOES MORE DAMAGE THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY HAVE HPS AT THIS POINT! ENJOY YOUR GRINDING!"

And the 'random encounter' difficulty wavers between being fun--because they're all difficult--and just being kind of a chore because sometimes the 'random encounters' (adamanchilde/juggernaut) are more difficult than the bosses (any boss in the game).

I also liked that you get rated at the end of battle, but didn't like that it's basically useless unless you're summoning eidolans left and right, which are, themselves, basically useless except as a way to heal your party, as that my party members, universally, do better damage than their eidolans do.

However, none of these issues make it a terrible horrible game like a couple people seem to want to make it out to be.

Originally Posted by Mirai Gen

Hope is still making an enormous fucking deal out of it.

He's 14. It's what 14 year olds DO, man. They hate their parents for stupid reasons.

P.S. Guys--Thirteen days. Flashbacks. 11th day.

Hope: Whaddya wish fer, mum?
Nora: Somethin' about your dad being here or some shit.
Hope: HE'S NEVER BEEN AROUND WE DON'T NEED HIM

His reasons are explained in the game. It's right about when Sazh and Vanille find him pouting because Lightning left him behind in the giant junk pile if I remember correctly.