Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2011 9:24:03 GMT -5
I was originally going to do Giygas but then I figured since I was already an EarthBound villain it wasn't really much of a change. So I decided upon High Chief Badass of the Badass tribe.
I stuck with a more traditional party for FFIII - Knight, Summoner, Ninja, Devout, with the Summoner and Devout equipped with staffs that cast Break. Which reminds me that I still have to finish this playthrough.
Zidane is definitely more lively than Cloud and Squall. I would have rather followed Vivi around because of how awesome he is.
The marks in XII were one of the issues I had with it, especially Yiazmat. I know it's optional but damn that is a lot of HP and it's just boring to cut through all of it. That optional Hell Wyrm fight was like that as well, but a little more bearable because it only had 8.9 milllion HP as opposed to 50 million. I get what they were trying to do but the fights were tedious.
|
|
|
Post by Chronos on Oct 31, 2011 15:08:29 GMT -5
Like I said, it's really only the final quarter of the Yiazmat fight which is really thrilling, where he's ten-hit-comboing you and instakilling you and spamming Cyclone down your throat. I'll fully agree the first eight to ten hours of the fight are a bit dull. The two Gilgamesh fights, the Trickster fight where he bounces in and out of your attack range picking you off, and the Shadowseer fight where he plays tag team heel tactics most of the time are all awesome and tension-filled affairs. The Orthros fight is also great and funny with his charming of your characters; Ultros honed his ladies' man craft. I'd say really it's just Yiazmat, the Hell Wyrm, and the Behemoth King (because of his damn barriers) that are really tedious due to the length of their battles, and in Behemoth King's case, the annoying method to get him to show.
The Arena Bosses in FFX are a worse example of tedium, I'd think, because of the overpoweredness of Quick Hit and the ability to essentially completely deny the enemy turns once you have a Quick Hit/Hastega setup intact, with high enough agility. Then it basically becomes a game of "how fast can I kill him?," which actually is the story of the ultimate Arena Boss as he'll automatically kill you if you let him get ten turns. You can't really have a good Gambit setup you can tune yourself out on for the higher-end marks in FFXII save for an very specialized setup for the second Gilgamesh fight (the Decoy/Reverse strategy combined with a Nihopalaoa/Remedy for dealing with Enkidu).
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2011 17:06:42 GMT -5
Like I said, it's really only the final quarter of the Yiazmat fight which is really thrilling, where he's ten-hit-comboing you and instakilling you and spamming Cyclone down your throat. I'll fully agree the first eight to ten hours of the fight are a bit dull. The two Gilgamesh fights, the Trickster fight where he bounces in and out of your attack range picking you off, and the Shadowseer fight where he plays tag team heel tactics most of the time are all awesome and tension-filled affairs. The Orthros fight is also great and funny with his charming of your characters; Ultros honed his ladies' man craft. I'd say really it's just Yiazmat, the Hell Wyrm, and the Behemoth King (because of his damn barriers) that are really tedious due to the length of their battles, and in Behemoth King's case, the annoying method to get him to show. The Arena Bosses in FFX are a worse example of tedium, I'd think, because of the overpoweredness of Quick Hit and the ability to essentially completely deny the enemy turns once you have a Quick Hit/Hastega setup intact, with high enough agility. Then it basically becomes a game of "how fast can I kill him?," which actually is the story of the ultimate Arena Boss as he'll automatically kill you if you let him get ten turns. You can't really have a good Gambit setup you can tune yourself out on for the higher-end marks in FFXII save for an very specialized setup for the second Gilgamesh fight (the Decoy/Reverse strategy combined with a Nihopalaoa/Remedy for dealing with Enkidu). That Yiazmat fight just really brought everything to a screeching halt when it came to fun though. I did enjoy the gambit system a lot, I just wish that there was a way to switch to a standard turn-based system, at least for a fight like Yiazmat where a lot of things can happen at once. Plus my party members were always so damned stupid, I would be trying to range hit with Balthier and the other two would run right into his face and die. If there were a few things changed in XII I would like the game a lot more, because I really enjoyed a lot of the game - the characters were great, the settings were very cool and highly detailed, the music was good. Sometimes the story seemed really dumb though, and parts of the game were just awful, to me - the giant crystal thing mostly. Also, as much as I appreciate fanservice, the Viera were a bit much.
|
|
|
Post by Chronos on Oct 31, 2011 18:00:23 GMT -5
It's true that some of the fights can get very chaotic and messy, and an option to slow them down and take things in stride would be appreciated. The battle system also makes the higher-end spells like Flare a bit useless as well, due to them eating up an ungodly amount of spell queue time.
The first two or three times I fought Yiazmat I had the same problem, with Basch and Ashe not keeping their distance enough and getting nuked in the process; I found a way through it, though I'll have to fight him again to truly confirm its effectiveness (not a thrilling prospect, heh).
I had Vaan up front with the Masamune and Genji Gloves, and I had Basch and Ashe in the back with bows, forming a triangle. I moved them all manually to make sure they were in the right place. I set up the Decoy/Reverse deal for most of the fight, while also keeping Haste, Bravery, Berserk, and Bubble on Vaan, and it worked wonders. Basch and Ashe were just the right distance away from Yiazmat to keep their ground and shoot at him when they didn't need to buff Vaan while staying away from his attacks, even when Vaan wasn't in Decoy status, and Vaan himself did his job perfectly of hacking away at Yiazmat. I had to throw the buffs out toward the end of the fight when things started to get serious and he killed my characters faster than I could buff them, but it worked fantastically at keeping my characters alive a lot longer than they had been before.
The Viera didn't bother me so much, as they were already rather skimpily clad in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance; I just thought of it as a cultural thing, as the forests they live in seem to be very temperate and almost subtropical climates. I'll definitely agree on the Giruvegan/Crystal/Occuria deal though; that part definitely is at odds with the rest of the game, and the Crystal itself is a bitch to explore at that, with the lack of a concrete map. Perhaps it's due to corporate interference, as I've read rumors that Matsuno and SE president Yoichi Wada were at odds over the game's story at times during development. I'm inclined to believe it as well, as I believe Basch was originally supposed to be the main character but SE put the nix on it due to him not having a marketable enough look for the series' perceived "target audience."
(By the way, happy 5th to FFXII, as it was released in NA on Halloween of 2006.)
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2011 20:06:34 GMT -5
Pretty much the only high level spell I used much was Scathe (that was the one that shot across the map, right?). Unless the monster had a specific weakness, then my main magic user, usually Penelo, would blast them with their weakness.
I don't think I ever beat Yiazmat.
I can easily see creative differences/corporate meddling happening during the course of FFXII's development. Some parts of the game feel off compared to the rest of the game, like that damn crystal. And then the game mocks you by giving you a picture of a crystal as a map.
Man, all of this talk is going to force me to play through it again. And the good thing is that FFXIII makes me look at each other Final Fantasy less harshly.
|
|
|
Post by Chronos on Nov 6, 2011 11:48:40 GMT -5
So next year Suikoden III turns 10, and I can still remember playing the demo for it back in 2002 like it was yesterday. I can still remember playing Chrono Cross while I put on my new copy of Let It Bleed back when Abkco rereleased it. I remember playing and loving Beyond Good & Evil when it was new. Persona 3's over five years old. And I've played all of these recently. It just strikes me as how stuck in the past I am when it comes to my game preferences, in general.
The games I've been thinking about playing after I finish P4 are Zelda: The Wind Waker or Twilight Princess (or both), Super Mario Galaxy, Dragon Quest VIII, and Final Fantasy XII. Only Super Mario Galaxy is less than five years old, and it turns five next year. It seems like there's been precious little released in the last couple of years that has really grabbed my attention, and what has is usually either a port/remake of an older game or a game that's taken several years to finally make it over here (like Sakura Taisen V). Hell, I don't even have a PS3 or a 360, nor really much of a desire for one. The only games I'm looking forward to (or even really keeping an eye on at all) are the new Zelda, Devil Survivor 2, and also Xenoblade and Final Fantasy Type-0 in hopes that they'll make it here. I think my fanhood's really stuck in a rut, as far as moving forward as a gamer.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2011 15:02:07 GMT -5
I know what you mean, my favorite games are mostly PS1 and earlier, and if you throw in PS2 as an old system which I guess it is now, pretty much all of my favorite RPGs are from that time period. There have been a few really good RPGs from the current generation of systems - Radiant Historia and Valkyria Chronicles are just awesome, two of my favorite games ever. There's also 3D Dot Game Heroes, but that's really closer to being the Legend of Zelda than it is an RPG, but it is a lot of fun.
I still think EarthBound is the closest any game has come to being perfect. Perhaps the other Mother games are just as good, but I wouldn't know...DAMN YOU NINTENDO *shakes fist violently* And my top-three favorite games of all-time are pretty much the only ones that don't change whenever I try to list my favorites: EarthBound, Lunar: SSSC, Lunar 2: EBC.
I am looking forward to Devil Survivor 2, but that's really about it right now. The last two PS3 RPGs I played were ar tonelico Qoga and FFXIII and neither one was very good though I would take atQ in a heartbeat over FFXIII. Because FFXIII is the single worst game I have ever played.
|
|
Fundertaker
Vegeta
Hideo Kojima should direct every ending ever!
Posts: 9,155
|
Post by Fundertaker on Nov 6, 2011 17:27:10 GMT -5
Well, If one sees it well, almost the whole of the JRPG gaming this gen has been on portable consoles, and most of them are quality ones. I guess that's one way for companies to see it, as I believe this way they can save a few bucks (correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the portable games are cheaper to make than the home console ones) and make most of the money they did with the home console versions. Well, at least those consoles get a HUGE upgrade in their library, otherwise filled with monster hunting/action platforming/puzzle adventure/"kiddier stuff" games.
|
|
|
Post by Chronos on Nov 8, 2011 14:50:58 GMT -5
I...abandoned my Persona 4 playthrough. I feel like s*** for doing it, but there are three reasons for it.
A. I started P3 and P4 not long after my grandma passed away. Probably not the best thing to do, playing through a game whose main theme is death soon after a close family member's passing, and I stopped on it around November (in-game). The awkwardness from it sort of hung like a shadow over the P4 playthrough as well, which probably contributed to the long delay between play sessions.
B. Innocent Sin and Tactics Ogre temporarily claiming my soul didn't really help either.
C. With the upcoming release of Skyward Sword, I've been bitten by the Nintendo bug hard, and Mario and Zelda have been about all I've really wanted to play for the last few days. (After watching the E3 trailers for Skyward Sword the other day my anticipation level is through the roof now.)
So yeah...I'll definitely give them VERY involved playthroughs later, though. I really hate to give up on games halfway through, but when you're really not feeling it what can you do?
Also, Fundertaker brings a good point up, and a seemingly accurate one. JRPG budgets likely got horrendously inflated while focusing on console development (I read that FFVII's budget was $45 million and FFXII's was reportedly $125-150 million, though the latter was compounded by its famous development troubles), so the rise of the DS and PSP probably constituted a great way to generally provide the same level of quality while scaling the monstrous costs back a bit, as you could now have a console-quality RPG experience on a handheld without sacrificing much, if anything.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 8, 2011 15:49:31 GMT -5
I'm still doing Symphony of the Night. I'm trying to collect every item in the game, and so far my biggest hurdles are getting things to drop from Malachi - those big abomination looking things that shoot those weird ass fireballs - and saving up enough to get the Duplicator. I've killed a lot of Malachi and the only thing that ever drops is $50 instead of the Dark Armor/Shield they're supposed to have. I do have most of the items collected, just missing a few weapons, two pieces of armor, a shield, a hat, and dynamite. And a lot of food, but I'm planning on spamming meal tickets with the Duplicator for those.
|
|
Bo Rida
Fry's dog Seymour
Pulled one over on everyone. Got away with it, this time.
Posts: 24,169
|
Post by Bo Rida on Nov 11, 2011 13:59:04 GMT -5
|
|
Fundertaker
Vegeta
Hideo Kojima should direct every ending ever!
Posts: 9,155
|
Post by Fundertaker on Nov 11, 2011 17:06:43 GMT -5
Already voted for both. Strangely enough, I picked both no. 3 options. This time it was way harder to chose then when it was with Xenoblade Chronicles's.
SPEAKING OF [/RD] XC, I still haven't finished it. Kinda put it on hold to finish up some older Wii games that I still haven't finished (like Super Mario Galaxy, just finished today. Next on the list is Muramasa The Demon Blade. The 2nd playthrough I mean).
|
|
|
Post by Chronos on Nov 11, 2011 18:22:58 GMT -5
Funny that, I'm playing through Muramasa again right now too. Such an impossibly beautiful game, it's really amazing how high-quality nearly everything is. I don't even mind the too-condensed translation that much. I just got my ass whipped by the Nue/Chimera, hahaha. But I beat him the second time.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2011 21:08:22 GMT -5
I've been playing Professor Layton and the Last Specter. The bonus RPG, London Life, is basically Animal Crossing, except it's EarthBound/Mother style graphics, there's no gopher coming up and yelling at you, and bugs don't get in your apartment if you don't go there for a while. It's a lot of fun though, with cameos from other Professor Layton games, and the movie. Now I'm just trying to get friend codes so I can access some of the extra stuff that you need friend codes to do. As an aside, I HATE it when games require you to do interactive online things to unlock extra content.
Haven't gotten through the main game yet, but I'm reaching the end. This is probably my favorite game in the series, and it's making me want a 3DS more and more for when the crossover with Phoenix Wright is released.
|
|
|
Post by Chronos on Nov 16, 2011 21:09:59 GMT -5
Has the crossover been officially announced for US release? The loss of Gyakuten Kenji 2 has increased my pessimism 450% for anything Ace Attorney-related making it over here.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2011 21:14:15 GMT -5
Has the crossover been officially announced for US release? The loss of Gyakuten Kenji 2 has increased my pessimism 450% for anything Ace Attorney-related making it over here. I think it has been. And now I'm bitter about AAI2 not coming to the US again. CURSE YOU CAPCOM
|
|
|
Post by Chronos on Nov 16, 2011 21:38:08 GMT -5
Good news. It's not really set that the Ace Attorney series still has a lifeline over here, but at least ALL hope's not lost. Ah, frak Capcom; I wouldn't even be worrying about this if not for them!
|
|
|
Post by Rumble McSkirmish on Nov 16, 2011 21:47:32 GMT -5
Good news. It's not really set that the Ace Attorney series still has a lifeline over here, but at least ALL hope's not lost. Ah, frak Capcom; I wouldn't even be worrying about this if not for them! Wright being a Character in Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3, is a slightly positive sign.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2011 21:54:36 GMT -5
Good news. It's not really set that the Ace Attorney series still has a lifeline over here, but at least ALL hope's not lost. Ah, frak Capcom; I wouldn't even be worrying about this if not for them! Wright being a Character in Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3, is a slightly positive sign. In regards to AAI2, the only positive sign will be the game sitting on store shelves in the US.
|
|
|
Post by Rumble McSkirmish on Nov 16, 2011 22:24:05 GMT -5
Wright being a Character in Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3, is a slightly positive sign. In regards to AAI2, the only positive sign will be the game sitting on store shelves in the US. Really Capcom. In fact it doesn't even have to be a full DS retail release... It can be 3DS, DSi Ware, Wii Ware, PSN, XBox Live, Cell Phone, IOS, PC...anything!
|
|