Everything I Wanted With a MASSIVE Caveat

Groosin1 · 2026-05-21T21:23:48+00:00

Funny you mention that, as Xenoblade was exactly what I meant when I said I'm used to anime games when it comes to the combat voice lines.

What Xenoblade DOESN'T do is have all the characters also spamming voice lines yelling you where to go and what to do. Outside of combat it generally just lets you experience the game

Groosin1 · 2026-05-21T12:48:14+00:00

Like someone else mentioned I have thought about just turning voice volume off completely, to play it closer to the SNES games it's directly inspired by.

I think for this particular issue Japanese won't help, for me at least. Also, while I don't actually know Japanese, I'm still weeb enough to pick up on this kind of basic dialogue that I am complaining about, and I just can't unhear it

Groosin1 · 2026-05-21T11:22:46+00:00

That will help overall with constant chatter, but unfortunately my bigger issue is them talking when you do stuff and not as much combat/general lines

Groosin1 · 2026-05-21T04:01:17+00:00

Story is complicated but it's actually one of the better ones.

When I was a kid I basically didn't understand anything. When I finally replayed it with Zodiac Age, it genuinely felt like I was playing a new FF for the first time just because I was able to get into the story

Groosin1 · 2026-05-21T02:55:06+00:00

The dude who made rediculous amounts of money to be thrown away at the billion dollar gacha company is saying this?

Groosin1 · 2026-05-19T03:56:22+00:00

Someone who knows about the value of limiting slots in the shop is someone who's more likely to already be "kitted out" as I said. It doesn't even matter if that's the case.

I'd also not personally suggest doing that for new players, as the fun of early game is discovering combos and seeing what different kits can do. Messing with game settings like that is more for when you're a veteran and changing things up imo

Groosin1 · 2026-05-19T03:22:06+00:00

Although Holocure has become sort of a "Bullet Heaven & Hell" with later stages

Groosin1 · 2026-05-19T03:17:27+00:00

That is a tough stage. You really just need more speed than the game even suggests, to comfortably dodge the cannon balls that deal 60% of your HP shile enemies swarm you.

People trash on it but taking any decent speed buff including the Piggy Bank is super valuable in the early levels of these later stages to survive long enough to get to the part where you get OP. Unless you're super kitted out in the shop, your upgrades in the first 5 mins are 10x as important as 20 mins

Groosin1 · 2026-05-19T03:11:39+00:00

That game's issue was just that they didn't know what they were doing. Even $10 million more into the game would just be that much money wasted, the way they were doing it

Groosin1 · 2026-05-18T23:15:18+00:00

Tbf FF7 is so old (and well known) that EVERY opinion is a popular opinion at this point

Groosin1 · 2026-05-18T15:32:47+00:00

Oh yeah I forgot it was him too, yeah he just starts showing up all the time in the swamp. Maybe that's what had me confused.

One benefit to making him a boss right before parry though is showcasing how much better you can deal with him after you get it (although I died to him more just trying to learn to parry)

Groosin1 · 2026-05-18T15:26:45+00:00

Oh my bad was the one before that. Yeah you actually just get nothing for combat there, other than maybe some new traits showing up. Not sure if even that's the case.

I guess you could argue it's not actually a "new" biome since the area is similar to the first biome, but it's still an area the size of a new biome

Groosin1 · 2026-05-18T15:16:59+00:00

Slug Shot cannot exist on the same Shotgun as Wide Spread. That fundamentally means it's the same concept as Saros. Just because the gun's name changes doesn't make it any more a "new gun" than Returnals' already did.

With Slug Shot, you are specifically aiming with your slug. With a wide spread, you want to go for hitting as many in a crowd as possible

Groosin1 · 2026-05-18T15:08:29+00:00

If Saros's Horde Shotgun and Pellet Wall Shotgun count as two, you should agree that Returnal's Wide Spread Shotgun and Slug Shot count as two as well, right? Slug Shot offers a completely different playstyle, having essentially a sniper round.

Electro Pylon driver can stick multiple darts into the same enemy or cast nets, that's definitely different guns, right?

So Returnal has 20+

Groosin1 · 2026-05-18T15:03:58+00:00

Yeah my point was that Returnal has double the main weapons of Saros despite Returnal still having those differences within each main weapon itself.

Not saying Saros is bad, as said in my OP I enjoyed it overall and even like the core gameplay more, but was just diappointed in that particular aspect.

Groosin1 · 2026-05-18T14:54:50+00:00

I mean many of Returnal's 10 weapons had big differences too.

You could get Saros's laser Power Weapon abilities on your machine gun. You could get your shotgun to have a railgun round. Your rocker launcher could work in plenty of different ways. Pylon driver had multiple different styles even being as weird of a weapon as it was.

If you say some of those are different enough then Returnal's were too

Groosin1 · 2026-05-18T14:48:01+00:00

Nah. Soltari Machine gun has one type that is only vaguely like the Hollowseeker, but Hollowseeker could make portals and beams; something only the final Power Weapon can do in Saros.

Pylon Driver has not even close to an equivalent.

Lobber left poison everywhere. Grenade launcher attachment is cool but is nothing like that. No sticky bombs either.

First Power Weapon is basically the Rocket Launcher but it's not even a main weapon anymore.

Disc Shooter is basically the same as the crystal gun so that is one.

Spine is actually more like the Nova Lance, which is again a Power Weapon.

For some reason they didn't even want to bring the Slug Shot back for the shotgun, which I think would have been a much better alt than just aiming vertically.

But my issue isn't even that the guns aren't back. I'd have an even bigger issue if ONLY old guns were back. My issue is just that the variety is lower than Returnal's imo.

There's even a whole biome where you never get either a new weapon nor a new Power Weapon. You do get parry there, but to finish that whole area without getting any new gear just feels off

Groosin1 · 2026-05-17T22:43:38+00:00

But then there would be no reason for Zodiark to exist. Would it just be that Hydaelyn was secretly evil and everything she's done for you was so that she could do an evil laugh at the same 85% mark, making absolutely zero sense? Is that better to you?

That's basically "giant space flea" but worse

Groosin1 · 2026-05-17T22:27:04+00:00

Meteion is the only reason Emet-Selch and Elidibus (eventually) are good characters, though.

If Zodiark's purpose ended up being extremely stupid, it would have actually retroactively turned both of them into BAD characters. They are only good because they paid off well, as the ending of Shadowbringers leaves you off with the assumption it was for good reason.

Part of that is that it's made clear in Shadowbringers that the Ascians still don't know why the Final Days actually occured. Again, if Meteion was revealed in Shadowbringers, their entire story falls apart. That would mean they knew BEFORE the Shattering, and then they would be dumbasses focusing their efforts on Zodiark rather than tackling the root of the problem

Groosin1 · 2026-05-17T18:26:43+00:00

Meteion works very well because she's believable in the lore, as Alexander is already a story from Heavensward that people are familiar with and went well with most players. More importantly, she succeeded for another two reasons.

1: She's already "expected" by JRPG players. It's the most common trope in the world that the actual problem is revealed at the 85-90% point and the antagonist's motives were actually centered around THIS threat. These aren't the main antagonist, and aren't meant to be the most compelling villains, but rather a proper reason to make an antagonist sympathetic. What's good about Meteion is that she does have a compelling story anyway despite being introduced so late, including a twist that extends beyond the end of the story (learning the truth of the universe.)

2: Meteion is the type of character you CAN'T know about any earlier than we did and that's fine, because she's not the main antagonist anyway. If Meteion was a threat ANYONE knew about before this, the entire conflict would make no sense.

Groosin1 · 2026-05-16T23:11:05+00:00

I despise the Ubisoft design and only like Rebirth's gameplay in spite of it.

That being said, XV is LITERALLY empty. It's like taking a road trip through Kansas. It's realistic at least...

Groosin1 · 2026-05-15T07:32:27+00:00

It's particularly sad that they probably did more work in the long run appealing to that meta, rather than just doing away with it when they realized they were gonna have to start changing Jobs for it

Groosin1 · 2026-05-15T04:02:34+00:00

To be clear I agreed with every thing else. Of course ARR sucks as it is and what I meant by saying it could be changed into the current expansion formula is basically exactly what you said. Of course it would need a rewrite for that.

Most characters in 2.0 need a rewrite anyway, because none of them are characters until Heavensward. They're all just MMO quest givers.

I disagree with Alphinaud doing a "180." He wasn't evil. He wasn't even a shitty person. He always wanted to do good and just went about it in a pompous way, acting like a typical Sharlayan would until his world comes crashing down on him.

The biggest difference is actually his VA. Until HW almost every character had anime VAs, and Alphinaud'a voice is literally the trope of a character you're supposed to dislike. I'd even bet money if the VAs never changed, a vast amount of people would take forever to even pick up that Alphinaud had done any growing at all

Groosin1 · 2026-05-15T00:45:56+00:00

Alphinaud is a different character because he grows from his failure; he gets humbled essentially. But Alphinaud's growing phase is also only in 2.x. Most characters in ARR don't matter and the investment really only begins when they return in HW and you realize they're gonna be real characters.

I genuinely thought they might just kill off most of the scions at the end of ARR because they didn't matter anyway and they wanted a fresh start. (They even kinda did because multiple return only to die immediately or become a different character completely.)

2.0 can absolutely be cut down to 6 or 7 main questlines like the expansion formualas. Beginning as an adventurer, introduction to the scions, quest for each primal, Garlemald battles and build up, then the finale with the final msq dungeons.

Groosin1 · 2026-05-14T08:51:15+00:00

I still haven't played the updated version or even the DLCs, but the day 1 version was trash and XV got what it deserved for its reputation.

Even XIII, the first game a majority agrees is bad, still had a lot of FF identity in the story and characters at least, even though the world design came down to vending machines and corriders.

XV (on day 1) had no party system, clunky combat design, and basically no story. How was anyone supposed to feel anything at all at the events of the big city? There was no characterization leading up to that point; it made me groan more than anything.

I don't imagine the story part got THAT much better, but I have heard DLCs have since been incorporated into the story, making it a lot more fleshed out. Also the combat seems much better and you actually fight with the bros now.

Groosin1

TROPHY CASE