Haha nothing changes. There's no AWESOME event that happens 15 hours in. The game is the same the whole way through.

Well, think of it as a game with a rather long tutorial.

Also, it's not like the first 20 hours are totally disastrous. The story is great and the presentation is beyond awesome. It's just very, very linear. But people know that it's not a JRPG equivalent of Gothic 3, so whatever...

Poorly designed games should be nothing new to you though, you DID play through Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy VI right?

I'm more interested in the game the further in i get. My only problem with it is the monotonous difficulty curve of the enemies, and how far you're allowed to grind before they make you stop.

Says the person who clearly hasn't made it to the point where the strategy of the battle system opens up, or when the game finally stops being linear and lets you dick around doing whatever.

And like Mush said, it's not like the first 15 hours are horrible, they're really fun. They just really *are* linear in the most blatant sense of the term. If you really just can't stand not being able to stop and grind whenever you want then you should play Disgaea or something, I personally loved the pace of the first 10 chapters, as it kept the story moving and kept your battle strategies varied as it constantly changed what classes you had available.

I mean, I'm not going to stand here and say that openness in an RPG is bad. It isn't. Fallout 3 succeeds almost entirely because of how open it is. But the idea that somehow by being linear the game is bad and not worth playing makes no sense to me. Final Fantasy games have had pacing issues for a long time. XII loses track of the story about halfway through, X is okay up until the point where the narration catches up, and then slows way down, VII spent way too fucking long exploring Cloud's backstory to prolong the climax of the story, and VIII was just shitty all around. If it takes removing your ability to dick around to keep the story moving at the right speed, I'm all for it. It's made the story really well told.

Also, Knighthawk, you are a fucking horrible person.

You're a fucking lunatic.

Excuse me, I imported the game. Got to the end and sold it.

Yeah, Gran Pulse isn't linear. It's a wide open battlefield. That's it. ZzZz. And it's toward the end of the game.

So the fact that the battles get really intense when you get there and the idea of needing to either grind or do the battles really well to 5 star the missions doesn't appeal to --

Wait a minute.

No. I'm not discussing quality of RPGs with someone who ranks Final Fantasy VIII above any other Final Fantasy.

Being right in an argument about video games... that's okay.

Realising why arguing about video games with Andrew is like arguing with BZ about anything at all?

http://knowyourmeme.com/i/11296/orig...ccess_baby.jpg

I beat the game a few nights ago. I enjoyed a lot about the game up until chapter 11. After that the game took a shit and wouldn't stop. I no longer care about how I liked the story (until it stopped making sense) or how awesome the characters were (until they stopped developing) because I got so fucking sick and tired of playing the goddamned thing I just wanted it to end. I really doubt I'll ever replay this game.

The amount of Diss you get reassures FFVI fanboys = bully. :tpg:

It's still not a good example though.

I do believe there are more Secret of Mana fanboys here, actually.

No, see, this isn't FFVI fanboys being bullies.

Fanboys being bullies would be renaming Knighthawk if he'd come in and said FFXII was a badly designed game. Calling FFVI a badly designed game is like going to Movieforce and telling them Citizen Kane was a badly shot movie. Not only does it demonstrate incredibly bad taste, but it demonstrates a complete lack of understanding (or deliberate ignorance) of the people you're talking to. I mean, let's face it, Final Fantasy VI isn't perfect. No game is. I struggle to see how objectively one could call it a bad game, though, unless you're just being difficult or have a really warped sense of what a good game is.

That was a really long way of saying "No, Knighthawk is either stupid, trolling, or both."

Meh, I've never managed to be bothered enough about FFVI to finish it on any of the occasions I started it. That's probably because I never played it as a kid though and so many games have been virtual copies of the thing since, to me it now seems really generic.

That's not to say it's badly designed of course, just that it isn't fun.

YouTube Video

You, sir, are a flaaaaaaaaaaaming faggot.

It's rather criminal that there are no audio settings to change at all. I don't know if it's only me, but while the voices are always pretty loud and clear the music seems very subdued and at a lower volume. Which is a shame, because most of the soundtrack is pretty awesome (and not the annoyingly loud footsteps and Vanille's ridiculous screeching...)

I've got no problem with the sound ratio, but I have to turn my TV louder than normal to hear anything in the game.

I guess it's my 5.1 system after all :/

Does the Sentinel job class ever get more useful? I just got the "tutorial" on it when you can finally play as Snow again, and while it sounds nice in theory, it was useless in practice. They can't attack directly, and the counterattack didn't seem to do anything most of the time. The game acts like it wants me to use the job class right there, and it says specifically to use it against large groups of enemies, but when I'm paired with only one other character that can attack, it makes battle drag on forever.

Sentinels are mostly useful in boss battles I've found. They can be a good distraction while you're prepping your characters or healing them from a crucial state.
I mostly use them in this order.

Sentinel, medic, medic
Sentinel, medic, saboteur
Sentinel, synergist, saboteur
Sentinel, synergist, medic and so on . . .

You don't necessarily need support, you could go balls out with the occasional medic, but it makes battles go more smoothly this way.

About the sound. I needed to put my tv settings to surround in order to get all the audio even. Now it's good listenings.

Hell of a difficulty curve this game has. One moment it's somewhat challenging, but managable, the next, everything can wipe you out within the first couple of turns.

WolfDemon: For that particular Eidolon, you only need to use the saboteur/sentinel and medic/sentinel combo. Doing a lot a status effect on it, is what make the progress bar go faster. Even if he already have all the status effect you can inflict to it and just pop medic when the sentinel need it.

And 3000cp is almost nothing now, because in Ch.12 when you unlock the lv5 crystarium it take 10000 to 20000 for one stats >.>

This article is why no one takes IGN seriously anymore.

Six different people giving a "second opinion" on FFXIII, and most, if not all, freely admit they haven't played to the point where the game becomes open-ended.

I understand that the name was because the company declared bankruptcy, therefore decided to launch one last game with the name "Final Fantasy" which were very successful and continued, lately I have heard rumors that the "FFXIII "Not so good ... :erm: I think everything depends on how they go with this FF :D