On Tue, 20 Nov 2007 09:06:37 -0800, sephigirl wrote:
[snip]
> ^__^ so's I can rant, in a fashion . . .
>
> Actually, I cannot play a game *without* a guide. Even so I have
> problems.
>the ONLY game I can play is FF VII - I have FF VIII, IX, X,
> and XII, plus Kingdom Hearts, one random Castlevania, and one other
> game . . . I was very fortunate to get the unofficial FFVII guide
> which is one thousand times better than the official Brady Guide. The
> Brady Guide NEVER mentions the Enemy Skills you can collect. Now, as
> to the basics of VII and why I can play it -- No. 1 - I put "fire" in
> a weapon slot - lo! & behold! - it adds that element. No. 2 - I drop
> in a "guardian force" - like, "Hades" in a slot - any slot - I can use
> Hades. If on my weapon, some cool things can happen, but it's not
> necessary. I don't have to befriend Hades; any character can use him;
> I don't have to level up all his many, many skills. There he is, he
> does normal step leveling and that's it. No. 3 - No FREAKIN' Card
> Game! - in fact - no Mandatory side game/quest. I can, in fact, play
> it without getting Yuffie, Vincent, or raising Chocobos and I can
> still win the game! No. 4 - Plenty of heals, potions, saves early in
> the game vs what I've seen in other games. No. 5 - I either have to
> buy, steal or find my weapons and armor -- not collecting nuts and
> bolts and layers of fire, etc. No. 6 - I level up as I go along - no
> filling in of blanks to get my skills, no bloody graph or map - like
> in FFX & XII. No. 7 - I never get punished for talking w/ people!
> I'm not sure if I could play FFVII without a guide, even still...
The card game isn't mandatory, you know--not even in FFVIII,
not even if you want to get everyone's best weapon (you can get everything
from drops/thefts). On the other hand, VII *does* have a mandatory
minigame--the chocobo race at the Golden Saucer--which I actually
find more annoying than Triple Triad or Blitzball or whatever that
game in X-2 is called. Admittedly, that's because Triple Triad, etc.
are simple games of numbers (which I'm good at), so I can understand
how one's mileage might vary.
(This is not to say that I don't think FFVIII sucks in comparison to
most of the other FF games--I just think it sucks for plot/character
reasons rather than gameplay ones.)
However, overall I think what you're saying is that you find the more
complex mechanics of the recent Final Fantasy games too boring
(bewildering?) for you to be willing to spend enough time on them to
master them. If that's the case, you might enjoy Lunar: Silver Star
Story, which has fairly straightforward, old-fashioned advancement
mechanics. I'm hesitant to recommend any of the Suikodens, even though
Suiko III is one of my favourite games of all time, because I'm afraid
the three-types-of-combat mechanic might annoy you. (Truth be told,
almost all RPGs made for the Playstation have simpler mechanics than
the recent Final Fantasies, though.)
E. Liddell, a large flightless bird, and *way* too many RPGs.
