The Very Big Final Fantasy XIII Thread

[Mirai Gen]

Originally Posted by Krylo

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

Twilight has a great story compared to Zelda: Wand of Gamelon.

[Krylo]

So I decided to go ahead and beat it, on the end re: Nonsie

I don't think they had much choice other than to fight Orphan at that point. He was kind of attacking them and torturing them. So they pulled the general FF ending bit about doing the impossible, because fuck reality. I can see where you're coming from with them deciding to fight Orphan anyway, but it was pretty clear at that point that if they didn't a) they'd be killed or turned to C'ieth (again) and b) someone else would get saddled with the task. I don't see it as quite as large an issue as you do, but I do see where it would be seen that way.

Originally Posted by NonCon

Okay, Krylo, let me ask you something. In the beginning of the game, what sort of personality does Hope have, other than Whiny Brat?

A self-conscious shy kid who just watched his mother die, and had everything he's ever known taken from him, all by the same person--at least in his eyes. Snow talked his mother into fighting (not really, but that's how Hope saw it), Snow was the reason he went to the Fal'Cie, and it's Snow's fault he ended up being there when they all became L'Cie. It's a little unfair to call him a whiny brat.

As for his personality outside that--he was just a shy kid who didn't really know how to talk to anyone.

When he's driven by revenge, what's his personality outside that?

Same as before, but with some hero worship toward Lightning mixed in, which is completely understandable.

She represented everything he wished he could be. Strong, decisive, unafraid even in the face of insurmountable odds. Plus she is really good at punching Snow in the face.

But he was still the same unsure kid with a self-confidence issue underneath all that, which is why he molded himself to be like her so quickly.

Note: This hero worship lasts straight to the end. He's still quoting her well after getting over his "SNOW MUST DIE" phase. "It's not a question of can or can't, some things you just do."

When he's happy and driven and a Power Ranger, what's his personality outside that?

At this point he's the same kid as before but he's started to come to terms with both himself and his father and has begun gaining some self-confidence for himself, as well as realizing that not EVERYTHING is lost and that he does still have something to fight for. Something he didn't believe he had when he had the mistaken idea that his father didn't care about him (because he was never around), and his mother was dead. But upon his father being, well, as you said, just about the best father in any FF game ever, and risking everything about himself just to help Hope out of a jam--he comes to the realization that he DOES have a home and his life isn't over. He has a reason to try and survive.

EDIT: No, Krylo, you weren't the only one creeped out by it, but I ran out of Snow is a pedophile jokes before the game came out. :/

It creeps me out less now that I know she's eighteen. It was still a LITTLE weird watching them hug at the end and stuff, but the "UGGGGH PEEEEDO" thing wasn't screaming quite as loud in my head.

ALSO: FUCK ORPHAN FUCK HIM ARGH! I died to that prick like five fucking times to his fucking instant death bullshit move and I didn't have any of those fucking cherub what the fuck evers to increase my death resistance. FUCKER CAN GO RIGHT TO FUCKING HELL FUCKING FUCKITY FUCK FUCK FUCK!

Second form was pathetically easy, though. Was kind of a waste to even make me fight him. I had like 2800 or some shit left on my death counter when he went down.

In lighter news, what's everyone's favorite group?

I kept Lightning as leader pretty much the whole game 'cause it just felt right somehow, and kept Vanille around most of the time with Sazh. Up until Hope learned haste, at which time Hope's ridiculously high magic score won him a place over Sazh.

[Kim]

@Krylo: I guess I meant they were lacking wholly pointless personality traits. Those are generally the kinds of things that endear a character to me. Hobbies and that sort of thing. I know the Dragon Age characters had those, as do the Persona 4 characters. You have a point in that I wasn't giving the characters as much credit as they deserved, but as dynamic as they were, they weren't that interesting to me, and I think it's a combination of how hard the game works to make me dislike them in the beginning, and the lack of these utterly pointless personality traits. Maybe I'm being unfair to them, and I'd like to sit down and look at stuff from various jRPGs side by side to see if that gives me any added perspective on the matter, but I really don't have the time.

Agree with you about Orphan. The bullshit death spell killed me far too many times, because of the MC Dead = Game Over thing, and it's even earned itself a special section in my review.

My party for most of the near end game was usually Lightning, Vanille, Sazh or Lightning, Fang, Hope. I prefered the former to the latter, because I didn't enjoy running Lightning as a Ravager as much as I did a Commando, but the latter was my party for the final boss fight.

Originally Posted by Krylo

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.

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.

Returning to this, my main question is why didn't Barth get some other character to tell them directly or have someone "leak" the information that Orphan is responsible for it all, and if they become Ragnarok and destroy it, they'll have saved Cocoon and completed their focus.

They don't need to become overcome by despair or whatever to become Ragnarok, as the whole thing with Serah and Fang at the end shows when they become Ragnarok at will to save Cocoon. Convincing them that this is the right thing to do, and will free them from their focus would have been the more intelligent thing to do. Even if he didn't think they could win against their focus, this still seems like what a smart villain would do. What he actually did feels more akin to a cheesy comic book villain.

[MFD]

So far, and this might change, but I use Lightning, Fang, and Sazh. With Sazh in the lead because I hate how the Auto-Support does Haste, Faith/Vigilance, Bravery. I usually tack Bravery (or En-Weakness) to the turn I use Haste.

[Kim]

Yahtzee didn't like it, which is no surprise, but I'm still annoyed that he constantly uses his incredibly limited experience with the genre as a basis for judging it as a whole.

Yahtzee: "Why can't I just go up to the enemy and press X?"
Me: "You mean like in Kingdom Hearts?"

Yahtzee: "I don't like the battle transition!"
Me: "FFXII and Kingdom Hearts lack those, and they aren't the only ones."

I dunno. Just bothers me.

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by NonCon

Yahtzee didn't like it, which is no surprise, but I'm still annoyed that he constantly uses his incredibly limited experience with the genre as a basis for judging it as a whole.

Yahtzee: "Why can't I just go up to the enemy and press X?"
Me: "You mean like in Kingdom Hearts?"

Yahtzee: "I don't like the battle transition!"
Me: "FFXII and Kingdom Hearts lack those, and they aren't the only ones."

I dunno. Just bothers me.

It irks me most that he only gave it five hours. I watched it just to see what he'd have to say about it, but half the video was literal empty space and the other half was totally vacuous and devoid of real information.

The only thing you can take from the thing is that he doesn't like JRPGs and didn't have enough material to even rag on it decently, which is a disappointment.

[Kim]

Only giving it five hours is actually pretty fair from a game reviewing perspective, since any other genre could have justified itself in that time. Doesn't make sense from a jRPG perspective, but I can't really hold it against him.

[Ravashak]

In chapter 7 now, enjoying it a great deal, busy bringing the band back together, it seems. Became a Lightning fan as soon as she started smashing Snow in the face, repeatedly. So far, I like the character interaction, especially with the log to give some more of an inside look, as well as a possibility to look back on it as reference.

I found Odin to be pretty nasty

[Mirai Gen]

Yahtzee's review is actually pretty fair - Noobtoob for example said that they were tired of Final Fantasy 13 and people defended it saying it got better a good 15 hours in. That's not much of a justification when most games usually take about 8-10 hours to utterly complete themselves.

They also brought up an excellent point in saying that a game being criticized for being 'too short' is a useless criticism. Saying it's too short means that they knew how much content they had to spread over the course of an entire game and didn't overexert themselves. This is why Portal is sheer awesome - it may be short but any longer and it'd officially be overwhelming.

I do find it kind of funny that his criticisms are largely the same as Noncon's, minus absolutely everything about the combat anyway.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

All I have to say is if you have to wait 15 hours for a game to be good, that game is shit.