On Sun, 25 Nov 2007 08:34:00 -0800, spam wrote:
> On Nov 20, 12:06 pm, sephigirl
yahoo.com> wrote:>> On Nov 19, 4:31 pm, s...@
deathquaker.org wrote:> On Nov 19, 1:09 pm, sephigirl
yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>>> On Nov 18, 10:02 am, "E. Liddell"
>>>> wrote:
[snipping to address a few odd individual points]
>> 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.
>
> I am assuming this refers to some other FF game where you have to
> level up your summons? That *is* ridiculous.
I think that was FFVIII (also X, to some extent, although you could
safely ignore it there). XII I'm not sure about--I beat the game
without using the summons more times than I could count on my hands.
>> No. 4 - Plenty of heals, potions, saves early in the game vs what I've seen in other games.
>
> Huh. Never had that problem. Only game I played with a relative dearth
> of healing potions was a PC game I played recently, and it was meant
> to be a challenging game, and you are playing an extremely powerful
> hero to start with (so you don't need to heal as often anyway). (That
> is the game with the Crispin Freeman voiced silver-haired broody
> spirit shaman I was talking about earlier. I failed to romance him...
> it wasn't in my character's personality to admit tender feelings, I
> decided... but I did earn enough loyalty from him at the end of the
> game that he stayed by my side for the rest of my days as a faithful
> companion... just simply the two of us having (or perhaps refusing to
> admit) attraction to the other...
>
> Touga: Does that sound familiar to you, by any chance?
> DQ: I have no idea what you're talking about.
> Touga: Of course not.
>
> The other options are that he marries someone else, or runs away to
> become an actor, IIRC.
Not a seiyuu?
BTW, Katherine, I think I finally figured out what Koyasu Takehito's
doing this season: voicing the title character in "Majin Tantei
Nougami Neuro", a demon who eats mysteries (and uses a high school
girl as a blind to deflect people's attention from him). I'm 90%% sure
it's got to be Koyasu--no other seiyuu I can think of can switch
between silly and serious that way.
(No, it isn't a very good series.)
>Or if you played as an evil bastard, he betrays
> you and you devour his soul. So I figured I did good by him)). *end of
> ridiculously long parenthetical statement*
That sounds cool, actually. (Or have I just been writing villainocentric
fanfic too long?)
> Also, as to save points, I'm completely spoiled by PC games, where you
> usually can save the game any time, anywhere... even in the middle of
> combat. I'd play console RPGs more frequently if they had that feature.
> I hate turning on a game thinking "I only have 20 minutes to play, I
> hope I can find a save point within that time."
That's my only serious problem with them as well.
>> No. 5 - I either have to buy, steal or find my weapons and armor -- not collecting nuts and
>> bolts and layers of fire, etc.
>
> If the typical Final Fantasy game requires these, you really need to
> branch out. This is not necessary for most games I've played. And
> those that have them are usually amusing sidequests, not necessary to
> be successful. (Most games that have special item creation options I
> largely ignore.)
It's mostly a mechanic in VIII (you can't improve your weapons there
without collecting bits and bobs, some of which are very hard to get--
Malboro Tentacles, anyone?--and taking those and your old weapon to
a forge), and it's present to some extent in X as well in that you'll
do *better* there if you take the time to customize your weapons and
armour, but it's probably possible to bull through the main story
without them. (I say "probably" because I've never actually tried--it's
too much fun making a certain repeatedly reviving villain look like a
yutz in your last encounter with him by sending out three medium-level
characters wearing everythingproof (or -absorbing) armour.)
> One or two of the Suikoden games (IV maybe?) allows you to collect
> materials to make special armor (your weapon you never find, you just
> pay to upgrade the one you have as you go along), but the best armors
> are usually found anyway.
It was IV only (the others had simple buy-or-find mechanics, IIRC), and
mostly stuff you acquired through trading, if you could be bothered.
>> 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!
>
> You... get punished for talking to people? What the hell? In what
> game? Most RPGs encourage you to talk to everyone you meet.... What
> are you playing? Who is bringing these ridiculous games to you? Did
> they tell you the world is square?
That's the password in the airship tomb in FFVI, actually:
"THE WORLD IS SQUARE".
>Did they deprive you of chocolate?
> I demand this unjustice be undone! /silly
I must admit, this gave me a "WTF?!" reaction as well--doesn't fit
anything in any of the FF games I remember, so it must be either a
Kingdom Hearts or a Castlevania thing (probably the latter, but I
may be prejudiced by the fact that the only game in that series that
I ever played was one of the ones for the original NES, and that was
a platform-side-scroller a la Super Mario Bros., not an RPG).
> As for complex leveling, it depends on how well the leveling system is
> designed, and how well explained it is. I like to customize my
> characters as I level up, but it shouldn't be a chore.
FFXII's system is a chore, I have to admit, mostly because you can
only see the nodes adjacent to the ones you've already activated,
and different levels of the same skill may not be anywhere near one
another. The main problem with the system in FFX is that it's
*too* flexible--the characters can be made essentially interchangeable
by the endgame.
> *huggles back* Hope those of you in the states had a good
> Thanksgiving! And those of you not in the States, a lovely weekend
> that didn't involve stuffing yourself silly. ^^
It was . . . adequate.
E. Liddell, trying not to look longingly at the bag of chocolate-
coated ginger
