[Krylo]

Was hoping you guys would post so I didn't have to edit this in:

Originally Posted by NonCon

I vaguely recall the cutscene your referring to. I'm trying to find it on Youtube currently, and will get back to you once I do.

I tried too.

I found it in JAPANESE, with japanese subtitles, but I don't think any of us speak/read japanese, do we?

I know it'd make your job of just plain ignoring my opinion that much easier to simply attribute all my complaints to "Well he decided to hate it", but I'm pretty sure the nice things I've said should get in the way of that. As in how I've pretty consistently said the gameplay is great in spite of its flaws, or that Sazh is a great character, etc.

Not really.

You decided to hate it, and big surprise you hated it when you played it.

It's hard for anything, whether it be people, games, or movies to overcome first impressions. When you go into something thinking it's going to suck, you're going to notice every single flaw. It is how the human mind works.

It's great that a few of the better parts of the game managed to break past that for you, but it doesn't change that, no, it totally doesn't get in the way of saying you probably just hate it because you decided you were going to hate it a year ago and spent the last twelve months thinking about how much fun you're going to have hating on it.

I feel they skipped an important step. I liked Wakka as a character in FFX because they went out of their way to make you like him before introducing the character flaws that would make you dislike him, and then worked on him overcoming them. FFXIII, with the exception of Sazh, cuts out that first bit, and as such I'm not fond of the characters, and the events surrounding them don't have the impact they otherwise would.

I never liked Wakka, but I think what you're describing here is a problem I have with a lot of game players.

If a character isn't immediately lovable they hate them. Forever.

Alistair in DA:O is an emo because everyone he's ever known was killed in front of his eyes. Would this preconception still exist if it had happened 8 hours into the game instead of one or two? Hard to say. I do know that the fact he only bitches about it three times ever is pushed aside for the fact that our first few interactions with him after the joining are about it.

Tidus in FFX is an emo because he was stolen from his posh life and thrown to the dogs. No one cares that he mans up and sacrifices his life to break the cycle of death on the planet. Nope, he's a weak emo because that's what he was at first.

COULD the writers of FFXIII have been more cognizant of the way gamer minds work? Probably.

Does the fact that they weren't make the story weak/shitty?

No. No it does not.

There's more character growth in this game, and realistic character growth at that, than you'd get playing DA:O ten times over.

Sorry Azi, but 'hardening Alistair' doesn't count as realistic character growth.

Serah's "death" was poorly executed in my opinion, because it was shoved in the very beginning without getting you attached to her or the party first. In contrast, Dahj's "death" was done better because it got you attached to Sazh before showing it.

Eh, I don't know. I was too busy going "Ew ew ew, pedo" at Snow during that entire scene to make a good call.

Sazh's was definitely more emotionally viable.

However, putting off Serah's death wouldn't have worked from the perspective of the over all story and plot arc, so I don't think this is really a good complaint. They did as well as they could without moving it back ten hours and fucking up the driving motivations of most of the characters.

Certain plot points don't make sense without reading the datalog,

I disagree. I've understood every plot point and have never looked in any of the story sections of the datalog. Looked in a few of the gameplay sections to see if I was doing Gestalt mode wrong or something, because it seemed to pretty much suck balls and I figured they couldn't have ACTUALLY made it suck balls. But they did.

and I still think both the actions of the villain ( for revealing his plot) and the party ( for fighting what the villain wants them to do by doing what the villains wants them to do) don't hold together too well under scrutiny.

I'm right at Orphan's Cradle currently, so I don't know if things change, but up to now the main villain telling them what's up was part of his plan. He's breaking down their hope. This is also why he sends them to Pulse. They're looking for a way out of their focus, so he sends them there so that they can discover there IS no way out of their focus.

They then go to Orphan NOT to kill it and do what he said, but to stop the cavalry from doing the same--as he said they'd do it if the L'Cie didn't. When they get there they're locked in.

Like the load game screen says--all Bart has to do now is break down their hope so one of them succumbs to their focus. He manipulated them into going where they need to be and as slowly stripped away all their hope. If he had lied to them about their focus, or what he wanted them to do, they might think they have a chance at overcoming it.

By doing the opposite and telling them exactly what he wanted out of them he set the idea that there WAS no escape from their fates in their minds. He's playing a very subtle mind game with them, and I'll probably see how that turns out tonight.

Unless I do more C'ieth stone missions.

I think all of these are fairly valid complaints,

They are, but none of them make the story shit like Azi just said or like you seem to be implying.

They certainly don't make it worse than say... Final Fantasy VII.

and that it's at least pretty easy to see why I'd be of this opinion even if you disagree.

Yeah, but it's also pretty easy to attribute it of 12 months straight of wanting to hate on the game.

Saying it's all "because it's trendy to hate Final Fantasy" is a bullshit argument and you know it.

Maybe.