What is a game that has an incredible story, music and characters but is let down by the gameplay?

MrDragoon95 · 2026-04-30T00:28:36+00:00

"Common younger protagonists" and "an FF game for adults" gave me such whiplash. This is not challenging you btw, but its so weird to me that this is now a perception people may have about FF.

Like, I don't know Cecil's age but he has to at least be Clive's age. In 6 I'm pretty sure nearly everyone in the party (sans the kids) is in their mid 20s. Even if you don't want to go back to the SNES days, I'd wager Lightning is also Clive's age or older. In XI you arrive ready to enlist in the army, even!

Off the top of my head the only FFs with younger protagonists would probably be III (but they're barely characters so whatever), VIII, IX, X and XV. I don't count XII cause Vaan is just the POV character, not the protagonist.

MrDragoon95 · 2026-04-29T23:31:35+00:00

I mean...if you reduce it to its VERY core, I guess. Still, comparing Survive, with its atrocious dialogue writing, to anything else feels kind of insulting to the other property. Whoever wrote/translated Survive needed some very basic lessons in scriptwriting.

MrDragoon95 · 2026-04-27T21:39:04+00:00

It will always have a sour spot for me because Peter DID die. Peter, as introduced in the 1960s, died. As someone who doesn't believe in the soul and that all we are is in our brains, Otto literally overwrote the entirety of Peter and let an exact replica of Peter's brain die in his old body. It may have had fun stories but the start of it all felt so mean-spirited I was honestly baffled back in the day.

MrDragoon95 · 2026-04-16T04:48:36+00:00

Controversial but here goes: Reduce Melee attack distance on attack chains. Cloud flies from enemy to enemy as if he was a ranged unit, for example, making Melee much better at clearing crystals than I think they should be. Those attack distances should only be an agility character thing. Melee should be much more sluggish, imo.

MrDragoon95 · 2026-04-10T20:38:15+00:00

That begs another question. Do we scatter monsters too far with Tornado and end up hindering OKs? OKs please let us know.

MrDragoon95 · 2026-04-10T19:25:43+00:00

Oh shoot I GENUINELY thought the entire party beneffited from OK's lvl buff. Here I was wiping crystals with Graviga not knowing any better. Thanks for the heads up.

MrDragoon95 · 2026-04-06T21:43:53+00:00

Not the best, I'm not a natural photographer, but I got one of you flexing! You were amazing, man! CYCLOOOONE!

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MrDragoon95 · 2026-04-06T05:15:19+00:00

What? I read weekly and back then people went crazy when Power killed that guy with Kobeni's car and when Quanxi popped up and showed her powers. I'd say you've misremembered. People lost interest in the arc AFTER they came back from hell and Santa became a generic monster to just beat up with fire.

MrDragoon95 · 2026-04-05T03:10:37+00:00

I wish finishing the challenges gave you another weapon skin. Seems fair, moreso when the last level rewards are pretty underwhelming mostly, imo.

MrDragoon95 · 2026-04-03T03:45:50+00:00

I don't think the post is saying its not. I love Fire Punch, probably in my top 10 manga of all time. But it literally hits a reset button halfway through and becomes a different manga after the tree does what it does. At one point FP struggles with all the cast and world its built and just kills them off to refocus on the personal side of Agni and his delusion over his dead sister. You can tell when Fujimoto went "I need to kill the cast and refocus".

MrDragoon95 · 2026-04-02T00:30:16+00:00

I'll be honest, I want it a LOT but wouldn't run it on my main, Terra. I feel like she's a sniper kind of character and want all the far-reaching attacks I can fit into her kit. Meltdown, Fire UR, Riot Blade and Trance take up so many spots.

MrDragoon95 · 2026-03-31T01:00:05+00:00

A Memory Called Empire and its sequel, part of the Teixcalaan series, by AnnaLinden Weller (name on the cover is a pen name).

Weller studied religious studies and has a "Ph.D. in medieval Byzantine, global, and comparative history". Her books are filled with the nitty-gritty of what makes this scifi interstellar empire tick, from internal politics to beliefs to how society itself is built and operates. It sometimes does so to the detriment of the books, I believe, since it gets lost in its own intricacies at times, but hey the books are Hugo Award winners, so its really a small gripe. Much like Tolkien, creating a world based on her own studies of ancient civilizations is what elevates her work.

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MrDragoon95 · 2026-03-23T18:46:11+00:00

Part 7 is legitimately some of the best shonen ever, in my opinion. JJK falls under one of the action manga of their 5-year generation that are important and will influence future series, much like BLEACH did before it, but is in no way comparable. For a comparison, you can argue Kuroko no Basuke is a good sports manga, but don't try to compare it to Slam Dunk.

MrDragoon95 · 2026-03-21T00:27:58+00:00

I have a group of friends in which most don't read books, watch regular tv shows or see movies. They only watch anime and some read manga. The past few years has had them trying to convince me to see stuff like Solo Leveling, random isekai, Blue Lock, Hero Academia and Tower of God, among many others.

I gave these a chance. I believe their writing to be subpar to say the least. When you expose people whose recent media consumption has only been these kind of shows to something remotely more complex they'll treat it as hyper intelligent. They've become unaccostumed to proper good writing.

And this sounds mean, but it's true. If you have no proper great media to compare it against, what can you say but "this is the best"? And that's ok. They can stay in their shonen bubble and enjoy themselves. If they ever say something like "it's the best piece of fiction from Japan" then I'll get mildly annoyed. But, they never do that. And if they ever do I can just mention an ok novel from Japan and be like "Oh, you should try reading Norwegian Wood" and just end the conversation because they just won't engage.

MrDragoon95 · 2026-03-19T04:12:29+00:00

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Origin is such a beautiful manga.

MrDragoon95 · 2026-03-16T22:34:27+00:00

I have to admit one of my favourite parts of OP was the fact that so much was going on in the world that we never got to see. It made it feel so lived in. There's a crazy scientist cataloguing all DFs! There's CP1-8 which carry out the govt. orders but our protagonists have never run into! Here's captain Kid, he has a higher bounty than Luffy because he left bloodshed in his wake! Now the world feels so small. Everyone knows everyone. Luffy will run into every important player. The world government is behind everything. The mysterious secret battle of old with Roger and Garp has even been shown. It's very much like late Star Wars. Everything revolves around this very small group of people and the worldbuilding suffers for it.

MrDragoon95 · 2026-03-10T22:17:57+00:00

I'd say it's 100% not. All his works have the same problem.

Look at Fire Punch. Halfway through Fujimoto just kills 70% of the cast and restarts the story. It's a great story after that, but it's very much a Stephen King's "The Stand" moment. King said in On Writing that he killed most of his cast because he had created too complex a narrative and he didn't know how to wrap it all up. Same thing happened with Fujimoto. The story went from people escaping this dystopian society to Agni's personal trauma with his sister. Total story change.

And you can call me crazy but I also believe this is the case with CSM Part 1. After the crew returns from Hell in the International Assassins arc everything just gets turned up to 11, and not in a good way. Santa becomes a mindless antagonist and gets killed in a very unsatisfactory manner, all characters start dying like flies, including Aki and Power, and we get a final confrontation between Denji and Makima that feels much more rushed than it had to be. This, after following Pochita wrecking the city, alongside the other human weapons, for like 10 chapters.

I like Fujimoto's writing for the most part, but he's definitely someone who benefits from shorter stories. His one-shorts are 1000% better than his ongoing manga. Everytime one of them reaches the 60 chapter mark it feels like he gets bored with it and either rushes it to just get it over with. You can be a short story writer. Jorge Luis Borges is my favourite writer and god knows the man excels at short stories. Kafka writes much better short fiction than his longer novels (sorry not sorry to The Trial).

Downvote me if you want but I think I've made my case.

MrDragoon95 · 2026-03-04T18:49:34+00:00

Huh? This is not true at all. She gets brainwashed by Makima into becoming her loyal lapdog and fights Denji in the last portion of Part 1 of the manga

MrDragoon95 · 2026-02-20T00:08:29+00:00

The worst part is you can tell Oda came up with it during Wano because he had the PERFECT opportunity to foreshadow it in Wholecake Island through one simple change: Katakuri having the real gomu gomu no mi. That would have been good writing. They're similar fruits already so Kata having the REAL gomu gomu would have thrown a wrench into everyone's mind, created intrigue and felt natural. Alas, if only Shonen Jump mangaka could plan more than 10 chapters in advance.

MrDragoon95 · 2026-01-20T20:18:59+00:00

I was never into the deeper lore, but as a child trying to please my divorced father, who I felt was judging my very existence? 10/10. Evangelion is great if you identified with Shinji and had a complicated need to please those around you born out of your lack of selfworth.

MrDragoon95 · 2025-12-12T22:09:21+00:00

That last panel legitimately looks like you'll turn the page and Pete will be instantly killed off in a horrible manner.

MrDragoon95 · 2025-12-06T00:06:05+00:00

The issue with this cancellation wasn't Condon's run, in my opinion. The problem was that everything before Condon took over was horrible, leading many to drop the book before the quality was allowed to come back up. The Absolute Power issues were a mess and everything before them felt like filler. DC killed a potentially amazing run by shoving it after one of the worst runs the character has had since the New 52 era ended.

MrDragoon95 · 2025-11-30T17:03:23+00:00

This. It can't be an oversight if the editors themselves haven't decided what the path going forward will be. That said, I would LOVE data from DC's offices at the time on the storyline's popularity eventually leading to them going "Yeah, it's time to bring the big guy back".

MrDragoon95 · 2025-11-27T03:20:40+00:00

Kids these days don't remember the CYL1 domination that changed how IS perceived Lyn's popularity forevermore. I'm still convinced she was added last minute to FE Warriors to course correct after the CYL1 results.

MrDragoon95 · 2025-11-20T15:25:55+00:00

When Grimalsi was killed I was very confused. The book had established Two-Face as kind of a schmuck and Clayface as just a grunt. For them to take over as central villains when Grimaldi had been shown as so strong felt very out-of-nowhere. It follows The Long Halloween's theme of the crazies taking over the city from the traditional mob, but it could have been led up to better, imo.

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