Fabulous Final Fantasy Franchise Discussion Catch-all

Yeah, I read more of it today and am really liking it even more. Kohler delved into a moment in his interview with Sakaguchi where he interjected and wanted to emphasize that, yes, the development team works a lot on the narratives of the games. However, what is always over-looked is the nature of piecing together the world to tell that story while making the gameplay enjoyable. The development team is trying to plot out how the world is built through obstacles and what mode of transportation is needed to get from one area to the next, creating a natural sense of progression that also has some great narrative appeal.

This is also following discussion of him and Kitase going back and forth with chunks of story, where Kitase was focused on spectacle and trying to push the programmers out of their comfort zone while Sakaguchi would try and go for heavy drama. It is noted that one of the scenarios Sakaguchi designed is the climb up the mountain filled with poisonous thorns, communicating mechanically what these tiles did so that a cut-scene with Leena crossing through thorns to obtain healing herbs for her dragon would carry more dramatic impact. The dragon, of course, being a necessity to access a new area.

The book doesn't really connect those two stories together (though it makes sure to highlight the use of those thorn tiles), but its little things like that which have me really loving it. Moreover, it's really wonderful because I've always found RPG's to be one of the harder genres to deeply analyze. It's harder to figure out what makes some of them tick, and while through the years I've begun to better understand, it's just not as obvious when something stops working or when you just settle into the grind or something. Getting such insights, I think, helps in that regard.

ccesarano wrote:

Also: Shoptroll I feel like you'd dig this one.

Surprise, I was a backer on the project (and some of the earlier sets)! I just haven't had the time to read it so I didn't think it was justifiable to signal boost it yet. However, it was getting some nice buzz after launch so I figured eventually someone else would hear about it and spread the word here.

I like Kohler when he shows up on various podcasts, and enjoyed the book as well (despite having never finished V).

He did an episode of Axe of the Blood God in support of the book which does a little bit of retread of information, but also goes into a little bit more of the side stuff which i found interesting.

Also never finished V. It was just a bit too trifling, and at some point I just decided "Okay, I get it," and stopped.

shoptroll wrote:

EDIT: Just to clarify, I don't think the plot of the game (at least up to Ch. 7 which is as far as I got I think before getting distracted) is that hard to follow. There's definitely some stuff that's not fully fleshed out or explained outright in-game, but if you pay attention and think about what's going on a bit and just roll with it you'll be fine.

Rolling back just a little, I wanted to respond a little. Definitely agree that the issue with the story isn't that it's hard to follow, and I certainly don't want more explanation--I'm actually really irritated by the current view that holds anything we don't have outlined for us in the most obvious, mechanical means possible is a "flaw"--but what is there is so indifferently presented, it just feels weird and off-putting. I got to the introduction of an antagonist which prompted me to say "Well, it's great that you all know who that is." But, well, she was a bad guy. did I need to know more? No, but the game keeps leaving the sense that there should be more to things. Noct has is bros, but since they're also his bodyguards, how'd they become is bros? Like, were they all raised from childhood together, are they all sons of nobility? So I think the risk is less that the story is confusing, and more that there's so little of it, grasp keeps slipping.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

No, but the game keeps leaving the sense that there should be more to things. Noct has is bros, but since they're also his bodyguards, how'd they become is bros? Like, were they all raised from childhood together, are they all sons of nobility?

You have to go watch Brotherhood for that!

...which is only half joke. Based on some interviews I've read, things like the Kingsglaive film were a sort of late addition to the whole process which meant development was impacted. The whole multimedia approach wasn't planned, but I think Square Enix figured if they just outsourced some of the narrative materials then it would ease up on the development and allow the team to complete things more easily. Instead I think it just threw a few more wrenches into things.

ccesarano wrote:
SpacePPoliceman wrote:

No, but the game keeps leaving the sense that there should be more to things. Noct has is bros, but since they're also his bodyguards, how'd they become is bros? Like, were they all raised from childhood together, are they all sons of nobility?

You have to go watch Brotherhood for that!

...which is only half joke. Based on some interviews I've read, things like the Kingsglaive film were a sort of late addition to the whole process which meant development was impacted. The whole multimedia approach wasn't planned, but I think Square Enix figured if they just outsourced some of the narrative materials then it would ease up on the development and allow the team to complete things more easily. Instead I think it just threw a few more wrenches into things.

Right, and I don't want to offer ways to "fix" things, because it's purely theoretical if they'd "work" or not, but I feel pretty confident saying extended offerings are best left to embellishments. My soul screams whenever I contemplate suggesting anything as hacky as a lengthy sequence in an obviously doomed Edenic utopia or bucolic village, but, f*ck, it wouldn't have killed them.

ccesarano wrote:
SpacePPoliceman wrote:

No, but the game keeps leaving the sense that there should be more to things. Noct has is bros, but since they're also his bodyguards, how'd they become is bros? Like, were they all raised from childhood together, are they all sons of nobility?

You have to go watch Brotherhood for that!

You really don't. I think the core game does a decent job at explaining what you need to know about each of the bros, and the supplementary material I expect exists to color in the margins for people who want it. I'm not done with the main game yet, but here's what I've picked up from the main plot and side events:

1. Prompto is some kid that worked hard from early on in his life to impress Noctis and join his posse and has some sort of inferiority complex going on. This was explained in an early side-quest or optional event pretty early on. So far I haven't seen anything suggesting that he was noble birth or any such thing.

2. Gladius comes from a family who's basically been tasked with safeguarding the royal family. I'd expect they're probably nobles at this point.

3. Ingis as best I can tell was raised alongside Noctis and basically functions as mentor-butler. He's pretty much the senpai of the team, but the game up to where I am hasn't gone into a whole lot of detail on him specifically.

XII is out on PC on 2/1: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/201...

Hurrah! Day One Perch!

Just in time for more people to play along with the JRPG Club

I downloaded the Dissidia NT Beta. I have almost no idea what I'm doing, I'm just mashing buttons and praying for success, which given my W/L ratio seems a really solid strat. Yet, I'm kinda really into this level of fan service. I'm not so proud I can't enjoy being Golbez in a fighting(?) game.

I've played a lot of Dissidia, so if you want a tutorial I'm happy to lend a hand. NT is notably more difficult than the past games too, since there's 3x as many things to keep track of.

As much as I enjoy FF games they clearly aren't written for me. Just got to a point in X where I can (or need to) capture enemy's. So I spent all my money buying capture weapons. Then discover I'm still a bit under leveled for some of them so decide to carry on with the main quest. In the very next scene I get the chance to buy a new summons but it costs an amazing amount of gil. Do I need to capture enemy's? Do I need this extra summons? How would i know, the game doesn't tell me. FF final bosses (excluding XV) are all stupidly difficult to defeat so I assume I need all the advantages I can get to even stand a chance. Its like the time I spent hours trying to recruit Yuffle in VIII only to discover that the solution was so unintuative I would never have worked it out.

In short the majority of FF games seem to have been made for people who want to spend there time pouring over old FAQ's and walkthroughs rather than... Y'know actually playing a game.

Thinking about it this may be why I enjoyed XV so much. It had its faults sure but at least the game mechanics made sense.

ahrezmendi wrote:

I've played a lot of Dissidia, so if you want a tutorial I'm happy to lend a hand. NT is notably more difficult than the past games too, since there's 3x as many things to keep track of.

Tut on, at the moment I'm at the level of "Hit X until it's time to hit Square."

strangederby wrote:

In short the majority of FF games seem to have been made for people who want to spend there time pouring over old FAQ's and walkthroughs rather than... Y'know actually playing a game.

Thinking about it this may be why I enjoyed XV so much. It had its faults sure but at least the game mechanics made sense.

I'm not the best person to defend the Final Fantasy series, as I'm not overly fond of them, but a few things came to mind while reading this.

First and foremost, the games you're talking about (VII and X) are over twenty and fifteen years old, respectively, and gaming conventions have changed a lot in the last couple decades. This is especially true as regards optional content and barriers in the main questline.

These days, optional content is fairly clearly delineated from non-optional content. Now-ubiquitous player aids like quest logs destination markers will almost always make sure you know which things are required and which are not. Not only that, but how to accomplish tasks is almost always clearly spelled out. (In fact, we've gone so far in that direction, that recent games like Dishonored that don't have fixed solutions actually feel the need to have a full screen pop-up to tell you to figure things out on your own.)

So something like recruiting Yuffie would be clearly labeled as optional, and even so, you'd be told how to recruit her if you so desired. Likewise, recruiting Vincent, which is also optional and very easy to miss, would be carefully sign-posted and explained.

Similarly, if you need that summons for the main quest, you'll be told as much and if you're not meant to use the trapping system to get the funds for it, you'll be told that as well.

When you don't have that information but feel like you should, you read a FAQ or watch a walkthrough. If you're like me, your time between hitting a roadblock and hitting a FAQ can be as short as a minute or two. "Wait, what am I supposed to do? (Google Google Google)".

Modern games are carefully designed so that you're never lost, never confused, and never challenged with something you can't overcome within a couple attempts. That's been the dominant mainstream design concept for at least ten years now, although we're starting to see that turn.

I remember that when you first started playing this franchise, you asked which was a good first game. I told you then that XV would be the best fit (even though it wasn't out yet) because Final Fantasy games always adhere to the design conventions of their eras, and you'd have a much easier time getting into a game that was more like you expect new games to be. You ended up playing and enjoying VII, but I'm not surprised that you've ended up preferring XV and that it really sounds like a lot of that is because of its use of modern conventions to "make sense".

ClockworkHouse. Yep. Very well put.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:
ahrezmendi wrote:

I've played a lot of Dissidia, so if you want a tutorial I'm happy to lend a hand. NT is notably more difficult than the past games too, since there's 3x as many things to keep track of.

Tut on, at the moment I'm at the level of "Hit X until it's time to hit Square."

Tut on?

The sober, non-word-playing translation would be "Feel free to deliver said tutorial." Especially if you can tell me how to target a summon crystal beyond awkwardly positioning it between myself and the target I'm locked to.

Speaking of Final Fantasy VII, while I have plenty to play already – Children of Zodiarcs, FFXII, a replay of Titanfall 2 – Friday night I was feeling frisky and decided to warm up my weeks-long neglected PS4 with Final Fantasy VII, purchased after Christmas on sale.

It is always so interesting to go back to this game. I think I'm gonna save a lot of what I want to say for a front-page post, but I just... I've been trying to better comprehend my own nostalgia, and I honestly owe a lot of it to ClockworkHouse. Because of her own journey through Final Fantasy and many of my old beloved games, I've felt the need to look at these things I love and acknowledge that they're a lot more flawed than I'd care to admit. Blind_Evil also comes to mind, as he had a lot of issue returning to A Link to the Past. If I recall, it was reading a rant of his about The Dark Palace that had me scratching my head, trying to remember what it was like to have played the game the first time as opposed to the twenty-first.

Right now, it's been helping me in my analysis of Super Metroid and has kick-started a brand new thesis for the Prime Echoes video I've been banging my head against for... two-and-a-half months now. By trying to approach the game as a first-timer might, to test the game's boundaries and see where it sets up barriers and where a first-timer might get stuck, I've been reminded of places that I did, in fact, get stuck. Places that are now so second-nature to me that I'd forgotten what it was like.

Returning to Final Fantasy VII is interesting, because I'm trying to force myself to stop and consider all the things that were once amazing to me that now get shrugged off. The sudden electric spark of a power line overhead is almost unnoticed by 32 year-old me. It takes a whole ten or fifteen seconds of rote speaking-with-NPCs-despite-remembering-their-lines before I even realize that must have been startling and wondrous to me when I was 12.

In fact, I'm tempted to go back and delete that to add to what I'm thinking regarding a column piece.

A lot of people joke about Clock hating fun, and I've always found it unfair and have grown to feel bad for her whenever someone pulls out that joke. After all, her love for various Nintendo games speaks to the precise opposite: fun is what Clock loves most, and she is extremely critical of those things that would interfere with fun or manipulate someone into believing they're having fun when something else entirely is going on. However, despite developing a modern taste common with a traditionally console gamer, she did not grow up with a lot of these influential console titles, and thus her modern perspective tends to crush the rose-tinted glasses we wear with a stiletto heel.

But it doesn't have to be all negative. On one hand, this sort of tough love can give us a better method of seeing the flaws of old and learning where we can improve upon it. But it also allows me the opportunity to remember what games were like before I was jaded, before I was cynical, before Something Awful and Zero Punctuation tainted my concept of "criticism" with the myth of snark and insults equating a superior intellect. I get to remember when these games were wholly unique to me, and all the properties that embedded them into my memory that is captured in some essence beyond "you had to be there".

I wish I could point to Final Fantasy VII the same way I can point to a film like Jaws, a classic that has aged surprisingly well and continues to be a piece of cinema that enthusiasts and aspiring film-makers can learn from. Its a name that embodies a an equivalent place in gaming pop-culture, but it is inhibited by so much that Jaws simply is not held back by. Nonetheless, I still feel like there's so much that can be drawn from it, but I also feel like there's nothing of value in trying to remake it. More than ever do I dread the upcoming remake, and not because they'll "tarnish my memories", but because the effort to recapture it misunderstands so much of what made it such a powerful force of gaming.

Anywho, I suppose this really was half-a-column as much as it was a big "thank you" letter to Clock. She may not love Final Fantasy VII, but her criticisms have helped me to understand my own love for it despite the many flaws.

That was a really sweet post, Chris. Thank you.

And for what it's worth, the fun hater jokes don't bother me. They're not accurate, but they are amusing.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

The sober, non-word-playing translation would be "Feel free to deliver said tutorial." Especially if you can tell me how to target a summon crystal beyond awkwardly positioning it between myself and the target I'm locked to.

Ah ok, today I learned a new phrase.

First, there's a very good tutorial in the beta. At the main menu hit the far right... crystal? Whatever, far right menu option. It shows you pretty much everything I'm about to say, but it also might be information overload at the beginning.

You have 2 types of attacks in Dissidia - Brave and HP. Brave is the X button, HP is the Square button. Your Brave attacks are fixed to your character, and each character has 6 of them - X, Up + X, and Down + X (Up and Down on your movement analog stick) then the same in the air. Your HP attack is customizable, and you'll unlock new ones as you level up the character. For example, Terra starts with Meltdown but at level 2 she unlocks Meteor. Most HP attacks can be charged, both to enhance the move (e.g. moves faster, homes better) but also to throw off your opponent. Some Brave attacks can be charged but this is character dependent.

Targeting is done by L2 and R2. You can press either to cycle through opponents, press both to target the closest enemy to you, or hold one down to target a summon crystal (the answer you were looking for). Your current target has a little blue circle centered on them. When YOU are being targeted, a blue line appears from the enemy to you (this confuses the heck out of me because blue normally means safe but in this case it means danger). That blue line turns red when the enemy is initiating an attack, but if you aren't facing them then you're probably going to get hit.

Lastly, L1 is your Guard button and R1 is your Dash button. Guard works just like in Smash Bros, a shield will appear around you and if it takes too many hits it'll shatter and you get stunned. You can also tap L1 and a direction to dodge in that direction. You are vulnerable after dodging though, so time it well. Dashing makes you move fast (duh) in any direction. If you just hold down R1 you'll dash towards your target, otherwise you'll dash in the direction of your analog stick. Dashing has a meter which appears when you use it, and it recharges rather quickly but you can't dash forever.

Now that's out of the way, the key thing to understand about Dissidia is you cannot KO with Brave attacks. You can ONLY get KOs with HP attacks, and the amount of damage you do is equal to your current Brave value. Your brave is the big number above the blue bar on the bottom of your screen. This confuses a lot of people, that number is NOT your HP (the bar is your HP). As you land Brave attacks your number will grow, and your victims number will decrease. If you have enough Brave to get a KO the number will turn purple and glow. It's also worth noting that if you miss an HP attack you do not lose your Brave, but your Brave will reset after you hit with an HP attack, so don't worry about whiffing your attacks (this was the gigantic mistake that Playstation All Stars made).

Lastly, if you reduce an enemy brave to 0 they'll Break. All you need to know about this is it gives you a big boost to your Brave, and stops them from gaining Brave for a few seconds. It's useful and powerful but you do not have to break your enemies to KO them.

Give it another crack with that info and I think you'll find it more engaging. For Terra in particular, my advice is make use of her Down + X to protect yourself, then set up traps with aerial X and keep your opponent on their toes with ground X. Terra also gets enhanced versions of all her Brave attacks when she hasn't used that attack for a few seconds, so be sure to cycle through all her spells and don't just spam the same one. If someone gets in close to you, aerial Up + X is incredibly fast with knockback so use that to get them off you.

strangederby wrote:

As much as I enjoy FF games they clearly aren't written for me. Just got to a point in X where I can (or need to) capture enemy's. So I spent all my money buying capture weapons. Then discover I'm still a bit under leveled for some of them so decide to carry on with the main quest. In the very next scene I get the chance to buy a new summons but it costs an amazing amount of gil. Do I need to capture enemy's? Do I need this extra summons? How would i know, the game doesn't tell me.

If an older JRPG is making something available that's not within reason (ie. whatever you currently have on hand + some grinding in the nearby area) that's usually a strong indication that you're not expected to buy it immediately. But if you want to grind for it the game will say "sure, knock yourself out kid". So make a note of it and come back later.

Also, I've found lately for JRPGs that if I have the option to "leapfrog" save files it's a good practice to use. Especially when I'm experimenting with builds/crafting, or when I'm spending large amounts of cash.

FF final bosses (excluding XV) are all stupidly difficult to defeat so I assume I need all the advantages I can get to even stand a chance.

Final bosses in my experience with the series (ie. the SNES and PS1 era) typically require you to
1) Be properly leveled. If you're underleveled you're in for a bad time.
2) Have spent ample time understanding the character growth system so that you have a good party setup
3) Have good ways to deal with status effects either via magic, curative items, or preventative armor (ie. ribbons for as many characters as possible)
4) A good stash of Elixers and Megalixers (you haven't been using up to this point right?)

Generally speaking if you do as much of the optional content as possible these four things should naturally fall into place. I think franchise neophytes tend to fall victim to #3 and #4 because status effects typically are underutilized and the final bosses typically hit you with a lot of them at once, and none of the games do a great job coaching players to hoard Elixer class items.

@SpacePPoliceman - Here's a highlight reel I threw together of some Terra matches I played today. Hopefully it helps you understand her a bit better. (Sorry for the bad audio quality, had a loose cable I didn't discover until it was too late).

Awesome and thanks. I'd somehow gotten it in my head that I needed to break someone before I could get their HP, and I also need to work on my long game.

Ranges are the toughest part, I still play in way too close with Terra.

Touch Arcade review for Dissidia Final Fantasy OO, a mobile free-to-play with above-average gameplay.

http://toucharcade.com/2018/01/31/di...

Huh. For some reason I thought that wasn't releasing for a few more months. Will have to take a peek.

It's not bad. Very similar to record keeper in how you advance and spend money, but with different and more interesting combat and a FFIX aesthetic instead of the FFVI sprite work.

Oddly it also runs much smoother than record keeper on my phone, despite being polygons instead of sprites.

I've seen Dissidia Cup Noodles out in the wild. At least Cecil and Cloud, anyway.

Just picked up FFXII on the PC, I've never really played it but, have heard good things. Are there any tips before I start playing that I will need to know?