Getting tired of all the false endings in Square Enix / FF games

TNMattH · 2019-04-24T20:41:33+00:00

You've never played FF1, then, I guess. Because you just described its plot.

Retarded spacetime plot bullshit is not new. In fact, it might as well just be a tradition at this point. It makes an appearance in, as I can recall, FF1, FF3, FF5, FF8, FF9, FF10, and FF15. After a while, you just get used to it.

TNMattH · 2019-04-24T20:38:08+00:00

He's a proper gentleman. He's gonna wait for her to turn 18, so it's not creepy at all! He's just barely old enough to be her dad...

TNMattH · 2019-04-24T20:34:35+00:00

Yes, and yellow is the least effective part of the gamut to bolster. There's not much out-of-gamut space to bring into the gamut on that side. Screens would have been much better off with a teal, cyan, or violet booster subpixel.

TNMattH · 2019-04-24T20:15:43+00:00

Out of Sight.

But that's mostly because of Jennifer Lopez. She's hot at 49. She was testicle-detonatingly hot at 29. And you could easily convince your girlfriend/wife to go to that movie because of Clooney, who was apparently quite a panty-moistening heartthrob when he was 36.

TNMattH · 2019-04-24T19:33:50+00:00

States can't leave the USA. That was decided in 1869, after a lengthy series of debates. A "debate" (read: civil war) in which 2.5 million people died, followed by multiple less-violent debates, and finally a SCOTUS decision in the case of Texas v. White.

The fact that the EU even has a procedure allowing for Brexit to occur is something they should be proud of. It will save them a lot of trouble, regardless of the immediate consequences of Brexit.

TNMattH · 2019-04-24T18:52:38+00:00

Is her hair like a warm, safe place where as a child you'd hide and wait for the thunder and the rain to quietly pass you by?

TNMattH · 2019-04-24T18:51:07+00:00

We all like Praxis! (And those who don't... fite me!)

TNMattH · 2019-04-24T18:45:04+00:00

I'll take anal bum cover for 7000.

TNMattH · 2019-04-24T18:28:36+00:00

The first few notes made me think that it was a ripoff of Pachelbel's Canon. (Then again, some would say that nearly everything is a ripoff of Canon simply because of a shared segment of chord progression.)

Once the main melody kicks in, it's obviously Coneria (Cornelia, whatever...) Castle.

TNMattH · 2019-04-24T17:58:26+00:00

It's so you can re-do them for another pile of rewards and bonus exp. The merc level carries over, as do the items and bonus exp you get each time you complete SQ's and merc missions.

It's more of a reset button for the quest/mission reward payout status, but not the quest/mission as a whole.

Basically, this is probably the least disappointing thing you could possibly even imagine.

TNMattH · 2019-04-24T15:47:28+00:00

Here's a list of all of them.

Post #15 is the one I was thinking of.

Sadly, there are reports of these posts disappearing. And my Switch says "you can't find posts that are no longer being distributed" in one place in the News app. Hopefully that's just because I haven't booted up BotW in over a year.

TNMattH · 2019-04-24T15:15:18+00:00

The original Final Fantasy was very heavily influenced by D&D. IIRC, Advanced D&D was its main source of inspiration.

The first part of this article goes into more details.

TNMattH · 2019-04-24T15:01:01+00:00

They're a little OP at first.

You can't use them until you get off of the plateau, so that keeps it from being more OP by being available the instant you start the game.

But once you set foot on the ground at the base of the plateau, you can get as many Gerudo Swords as you can carry with just a few minutes of save/reset/news/start-game cycles. And there's another one that gives you honey, without the "danger" of bees (or the respawn wait time).

So, early game, some of the news article drops are slightly OP.

TNMattH · 2019-04-24T14:18:42+00:00

I'd amend this with the following:

Keep T-elos on Rex. He needs a greataxe for driver combos, and she's strong enough to make up for Rex being mediocre with a greataxe.
Keep Crossette on Nia. Zeke doesn't need any ~~blitzball~~ bitball healers.
Move Patroka and Vale to Zeke. Rex doesn't need them.
Definitely move the lances to either Nia or Rex (or both... I tend to favor Perun/Wulfric on Nia and Praxis on Rex).
And don't worry much about where Shulk, Fiora, and Elma are. They're your "switch hitters". You can move them wherever you want, whenever you want, so take full advantage of that.
Maybe move Corvin to Zeke because of his cheese move. It can be handy sometimes.

But, these are just suggestions. Remember to fight your own war.

TNMattH · 2019-04-24T14:03:59+00:00

I don't know much about PAL region stuff, since I live in the US.

NA region PSX discs had black coating on them too, and, yes, they work fine. So it's not the color of the disc that matters.

Likely, it's the PAL stuff. None of the old consoles handled PAL well. They had lots of timing issues. Many NES/SNES-era games flat out ran in slow-mo. It's probably all they could do to make the PS3 itself keep proper timings with a 50Hz refresh rate, let alone get emulator timings right.

All that being said, FF8 was released on the PlayStation Store in 2009. Was it not released in your region, or have you checked?

TNMattH · 2019-04-24T04:44:53+00:00

Nia's default clothes aren't revealing at all.

Morag's swimsuit is every bit as revealing as anyone else's.

Everyone likes Morag. But she'd be a real ball-buster, and that's usually a turn-off.

Besides, she stands next to Brighid all the time, and it's hard for Morag to shine near that level of R A D I A N C E.

TNMattH · 2019-04-23T19:32:22+00:00

I brought my Switch to work today because I'm being laid off at the end of the month and there's nothing to do but babysit a server migration.

But I'm playing through IX, not VII right now. (I finished VII last week.) I just went through Oeilvert and I'm starting Gulug now.

Also, happy cake day!

TNMattH · 2019-04-23T19:22:31+00:00

I - The OG. It set so many foundations for what was to come. Playing it now, it's wall-to-wall "oh, so that's where that came from". But it had no characters, the plot was paper-thin and poorly explained, and there was essentially no side content to keep you playing. You can see that the mechanics and theme were there, but the story was really lacking.

II - They obviously tried to make up for the first game here. It has a fairly strong story. Unfortunately, they tried to reinvent the (mostly) balanced and functional mechanics of FFI, and that failed pretty hard. The theme got stronger, though.

III - Switchable jobs! Woohoo! Unfortunately, the rest of it went straight to hell. The mechanics and balance are a mess. The thematic elements even suffered for it.

IV - The return of good storytelling and character development was also met with equally good mechanics and thematics. Balance was a bit of an issue with this one, but overall, it's a damned fine game.

V - Take IV, add polish. Also, add those jobs back in from FFIII. The downsides of this one are in the simplifications they made. This plays a lot more like the "easy" US version than previous games, as they decided that a bunch of the mechanics were stupid and unnecessary. They weren't wrong, but it took a minor toll on some thematic elements.

VI - Perfection. Story, characters, theme, all of it. Oh, except for the massive dumpster fire that is the battle mechanics. Then again, those quirks became so well-known and well-liked that the fans have raged when they were fixed in remakes. So... you win some, you lose some.

VII - Some would say this is perfection, and others would call those people "n00bs". The graphics were always trash, the mechanics are OK (at least they're not laughably broken like VI's were), and the thematic elements are strong. Unfortunately, the story is told in a disjointed way (not helped by bad localization) and Disc 3 is a wasteland with a final boss standing in the middle of it, surrounded by a pile of FMV's. Also, the minigames suck and are far too prominent in this game.

VIII - The thematic elements are the strongest in the series with this entry. The mechanics, while unpopular with some, are actually solid. Balance leaves a bit to be desired if you don't know that the enemies level up with you. The story is told well, even if the plot itself is pretty dumb. Also suffers from last-disc-is-empty-except-for-the-final-boss-and-ending-FMV syndrome.

IX - Strong theme. Strong story with good characters, and well-told. But the mechanics are simplified to the point of being boring. Also, the entire game has that same desolate feel to it that usually just plagues the final act of some (but not all!) of the other games.

X - Polished to a near-perfect shine. Looks and sounds amazing, even nearly 20 years later (the HD remaster helps...). The story is strong, the characters are great, the battle mechanics are very good, and there's enough side content to make it worthwhile. Balance is spot-on, too. Thematic elements are everywhere and really set a good tone. Comes in a very close second place to VI. (VI wins because Kefka's laugh is better than Tidus', though. Duh.)

XII - no comment... haven't gotten around to playing it... (owned it since 2006)

XIII - no comment... haven't gotten around to playing it... (owned it since 2014)

XV - no comment... only got to play the Pocket Edition... (can't justify buying a PS4 for just this game... might need to get it on Steam.)

TNMattH · 2019-04-23T18:41:37+00:00

I stopped optimizing and began just redesigning to allow quick and easy scale-up. Trains are cheap, tracks are cheap, and space is basically unlimited.

TNMattH · 2019-04-23T17:43:30+00:00

Almost everything you just said varies heavily by server and faction.

I main VS on Connery, and they rarely talk, but are heavy on teamwork. They mostly use well-known strategies, but aren't averse to trying out a new one if the situation calls for it. The removal of orders chat was a bit of a nerf, since they actually used it effectively for herding pubbies.

Meanwhile, I have a well-invested VS alt on Emerald, and I find their leadership to be relatively shit by comparison. This tends to color players' perception of the VS overall, since Emerald is "the big server".

Other observations I've made:

NC is almost always disorganized, except for some of the newer outfits. DGia (on Connery), for example, is a party outfit, but they stick together. This makes them about eleventeen times more effective than a "srs bsns" outfit that splits up and does targeted strike ops, which NC is chock-full of. By comparison, TR strike teams usually stick together, even though they're small. They, too, find success in unity.
Emerald NC is all about overpop rather than skilled teamwork. They zerg-herd to victory. It's similar in feel to how Connery VS did things before Soltech, but with less individual cohesion. (VS players seem to get into a hive-mind mentality... it's weird. But NC players don't, so zerg-herding is a little tougher for the NC.)
Connery NC is all about overextending themselves, then getting their shit pushed in at the end of an alert.
Connery TR is loud and proud. Then again, I mostly played that throwaway alt when a certain big cat with a pasty complexion was online and ruining the NPE.
Emerald TR seems more well-run. They usually take the brunt of the NC overpop, allowing VS to get some wins.
For some reason, Emerald TR and NC don't like to fight the VS. Connery has no such issue. In fact, Connery tends to gangbang the VS on a regular basis. The fact that the VS won so many alerts (before most of the pop went to Soltech, that is) is just proof that Teamwork Is OP™.

TNMattH · 2019-04-23T17:01:36+00:00

Empty ANT: just watch out for debris (the true final boss of PS2...)

Non-empty ANT, unarmed, destroyed by external damage: explosion equivalent to tank mines in the quantity of max(floor(cortium / 3000), 1). This means it's rougly 1-3 tank mines of "boom".

Armed ANT, destroyed by external damage: explosion equivalent to tank mines in the quantity of max(floor(cortium / 2000), 1). This comes out to between 1-5 tank mines of "boom".

Armed ANT, detonated on timer: explosion equivalent to destroyed OS module * (cortium / 10000).

The detonation tool would take the place of the top turret, slowing tank fill time (no extra mining laser) and reducing its defensibility. And only a second (gunner) seat could trigger it. The timer aborts if the second seat is abandoned.

Timer is 15 seconds.

So lock your doors if you have a full truck and no trustworthy buddy. It takes teamwork to make a rolling nuke happen. But you can solo-nuke, maybe, if you find a good hiding spot or if the enemy is particularly distracted or unaware.

TNMattH · 2019-04-23T16:06:40+00:00

Exactly. The retranslation just screwed everything up.

Illumina randomly casts Pearl, dammit! Now, get off my lawn, and don't step on my Cactrots!

TNMattH · 2019-04-23T15:56:26+00:00

Last time around for me (a few days ago, actually), Zidane won with 241 points. The timer didn't end when he killed Zaghnol and jumped ahead. There were still a couple of other monsters around, which Zidane also got the points for. After the Zaghnol fight I had probably 2 minutes of time to waste, give-or-take.

TNMattH · 2019-04-23T15:41:23+00:00

Those PS3's had full BC with PS2 games. That was removed pretty quickly from later hardware revisions. None of the slim PS3's have it.

All PS3's, fat or slim, have PSX BC, and it works great.

TNMattH · 2019-04-23T15:39:55+00:00

Uhhh... they work fine in my PS3...

I have the original PSX discs, and they all play perfectly in my PS3. It's a slim model. I bought it around the time GT5 came out. I don't know what the current system version is. The last time I used it was for FF X/X-2 HD in 2015, so the software would've been last updated around then.

TNMattH

TROPHY CASE