Dissidia Duodecim Final Fantasy continues Squeenix's tradition of stupid titles

[Kim]

Originally Posted by Kyanbu The Legend

Considering that I got FFXII and FFX-2 for free from my uncle who had re bought them by accident (and Mana Khamia for PS2 but never mind that). I'm sure I won't be disappointed.

FFXII is excellent. Well, about as good as a person can really expect a Final Fantasy game to be. There are some definite flaws, but the good more than makes up for it. Only other FF games I'd say really compete with it are VI and X.

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

Do you want to end up like NonCon!?

Everyone wants to end up like me.

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by NonCon

FFXII is excellent. Well, about as good as a person can really expect a Final Fantasy game to be. There are some definite flaws, but the good more than makes up for it. Only other FF games I'd say really compete with it are VI and X.

Pretty much this, though I'm not sure I'd put X on the same level, but that's probably just because I prefer war drama to romance.

I'd say XII is the best FF since VI.

[Kim]

Originally Posted by Krylo

Pretty much this, though I'm not sure I'd put X on the same level, but that's probably just because I prefer war drama to romance.

I'd say XII is the best FF since VI.

I don't like X as much, but in spite of its problems I can see what it did well and enjoy it. The romance, to me, wasn't nearly as important as Tidus' stuff with his dad, which was infinitely more interesting and well done. Also, X has a vastly superior soundtrack to pretty much any other FF so I gotta give it props for that.

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by NonCon

I don't like X as much, but in spite of its problems I can see what it did well and enjoy it. The romance, to me, wasn't nearly as important as Tidus' stuff with his dad, which was infinitely more interesting and well done. Also, X has a vastly superior soundtrack to pretty much any other FF so I gotta give it props for that.

Plus Spira is flat-out gorgeous. I'd have to say it has the prettiest landscapes of the entire series, including FF13. The series hasn't seen that much color in its world before or since, although Pulse and especially the Sunleth Waterscape come very close in 13.


Edit: I know FF12 had its share of biodiversity, too, but I wasn't quite as impressed with it. Ivalice was a more "realistic" fantasy world from what I saw, where things were fantastic, but toned down from what they were in X.

[Kim]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

Ivalice was a more "realistic" fantasy world from what I saw, where things were fantastic, but toned down from what they were in X.

Of course they were. It was a more realistic fantasy story that didn't revolve around giant whales and dream people. More western fantasy to X's J-Pop fantasy.

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by NonCon

Of course they were. It was a more realistic fantasy story that didn't revolve around giant whales and dream people. More western fantasy to X's J-Pop fantasy.

A good chunk of the reason I didn't like it was for that. It just seemed to be trying to milk the Western MMO market in several ways, including slow combat and less fantastic landscapes. It seemed like a step backwards in too many areas and ended up falling off a cliff and into a sewage treatment plant. Like, my conditions for liking it would have been:

1. Do the original story about Basch.
2. Leave the street rats out of it.
3. If they must stay, at least get them to the "diamond in the rough" stage, rather than leaving them at "only your fleas will mourn you."
4. Really, fuck Vaan. Write him out, replace with Reks, reap rewards of confusion at almost having been killed by a look-alike.
5. Make the story go faster.
6. Make combat go faster.
7. Give me a reason to give a damn about the characters.
8. Just make better characters.
9. Don't make me sell shit to get Gil. Many a completionist and pack rat suffers from that kind of system.
10. Fuck shop items opening up by selling shit and the horse it rode in on. I've only ever seen it done well once, in Persona 4, where it's only for weaponry, and the results are damn well worth it.
11. Ditch the License Board. It's like the Sphere Grid with even less freedom.
12. Ditch the whole MMO setup. Taking the worst parts of bad games and making them single-player was not a good idea.

[Ryong]

Blues, I'mma adress some of your points:
1: The story is unchanged, except you get Vaan and Penelo as viewpoints.
4: You know, this'd just mean Reks would be Vaan, but with a decent look.
5: Given the reason that the story takes so long is because you're exploring a vast, cool-looking world is not all that bad.
9 and 10: Oh come on, you sell stuff, they make items, they sell to you. It's like having a NPC that makes items for you if you pay him some money and give him the components to make it - except you get some money, since you're actually selling him the stuff.
11: ...The Sphere Grid allows you to take a linear path and every once in a while you can go out of your job - unless you're using teleport spheres and even then. The License Board has much more freedom than that, come on.
12: Man, I liked gambits. You could control your party normally, just like in any other FF if you wanted. And I'm not sure about the MMO thing, I don't keep pressing hotkeys to tell characters to do stuff and chug potions in FFXII.

And on the gorgeous thing? Phon Coast.

[Kim]

Blues, if we get rid of Vaan, whose ass am I supposed to stare at? This is a serious concern, and needs addressing.

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by Ryong

Blues, I'mma adress some of your points:
1: The story is unchanged, except you get Vaan and Penelo as viewpoints.
4: You know, this'd just mean Reks would be Vaan, but with a decent look.
5: Given the reason that the story takes so long is because you're exploring a vast, cool-looking world is not all that bad.
9 and 10: Oh come on, you sell stuff, they make items, they sell to you. It's like having a NPC that makes items for you if you pay him some money and give him the components to make it - except you get some money, since you're actually selling him the stuff.
11: ...The Sphere Grid allows you to take a linear path and every once in a while you can go out of your job - unless you're using teleport spheres and even then. The License Board has much more freedom than that, come on.
12: Man, I liked gambits. You could control your party normally, just like in any other FF if you wanted. And I'm not sure about the MMO thing, I don't keep pressing hotkeys to tell characters to do stuff and chug potions in FFXII.

And on the gorgeous thing? Phon Coast.

Well:

1: I don't want Vaan and Penelo as viewpoints. They annoy me. I want them gone. Or at least not as annoying and pointless.
4: For some reason, Reks got me to like him more in his ~5 minutes of air time than Vaan did in the entire game as far as I played or watched my brother play before he finally gave up on it. He's a soldier, fresh, but capable. Vaan's just not. You start him training on Goddamn rats and thinking he's awesome for it. No, thanks.
5: This gets back to the speed of the game. Having a big world to explore is great if you have a reliable means of getting around it. If they'd had a "run for real" button, then maybe. And, as noted, I didn't think it was even all that cool-looking. Spending forever in travel time is not my idea of fun, especially if I've seen prettier scenery.
9, 10: Okay, fair enough, but then make the rewards reliable at all stages. If I need to collect 20 bear asses to get the right to buy an Elixir, fine, but then make it 20 bear asses instead of 20 bear asses, 17 skink toes, 84 wings from High Seraphim (1% drop rate), and Jimmy's Left Testicle. Persona 4 did it well because for every 10 of each item you sold, you got a new related weapon. It was reliable, the drops were painless, you got money out of the deal, and could buy a new weapon. In FF12, fuck if I could figure out what selling shit gave me, if anything.
11: The Sphere Grid didn't control whether or not you could upgrade to a better weapon. Magic, sure, fine, that was actually better, but seriously, fuck having to waste points so I can upgrade from a Wet Noodle to a Dry Noodle, much less an Actual Weapon or even the Ultimate Weapon. Speaking of which, fuck how they handled that, too.
12: It was the whole setup that bugged me. You have a big, sprawling world filled with random, respawning enemies, casting times, cool-down times, aggros, passive foes, running from combat being determined by range, and the license board standing in for level requirements on all your spells and equipment. Just because it doesn't have one-click combat and you can control your otherwise NPC allies does not make it not MMO-based.


And from the pictures I'm finding, Phon Coast STILL doesn't compare to Spira.




Edit: @Non: Reks' ass, obviously. He's more decorative than Vaan anyway.




Edit again: Like I said, I recognize the game has good points, and what it does well it does fantastically. I hold the weapons system as the best I've seen in any game ever. And once the plot gets going, it's a good political drama, which is an accolade from me, because I hate political dramas. I rate Vayne as one of the best villains of the series, if not the #1. The ability to switch out party members at any time and fall back on the remaining members when wiped out is a great improvement on FFX's system. It just does too much that I dislike for me to break down and like it.

[POS Industries]

Official North American website is go.

Not that there's anything actually on it, but it's there. And a lot sooner than usual.