Lurker > UshiromiyaEva

I grinded for maybe a total of maybe 4 hours just punching myself in a corner. Got to the last chapter. Was still only about half way to getting Ramza to unlock Dark Knight. Decided to drop it.

JP glitch in original FFT is still the greatest glitch in gaming history as far as I'm concerned. Totally effortless, just go to an ability you could afford, hold select, page down to an ability you can't afford, and select. Voila, either infinite or near infinite JP for that. Job. If the lotto failed and you just went to 0 JP instead, just load a save and try again!

Didn't work on jobs with only one page of abilities, though. Poor Knight.

I remember that in P3 and 4, but didn't have that problem in 5.

KamikazePotato posted...

Yeah FFX has one of the best JRPG battle systems out there. Definitely the best turn based one.

I feel like there's pushback recently for this due to the game being too new, but I don't think it's possible to do turn based better that P5.

Unless that's a little too obscured from traditional turn based.

Leonhart4 posted...

As someone who got the 100% necessary to view the secret ending, X-2's battle system is fine, but I'm not enamored with the job system. I'd much rather play FFX's CTB.

I'm not expecting a lot simply on the basis that when games with job systems come up this one is basically never mentioned, even though that's, like, it's entire thing. Still, I don't think I ever played this more than 3 hours or something at a friend's house, so all's fair.

I think I was embarrassed to let my parents see me want to rent a game with a "skimpy lady" on the cover from Blockbuster, lol.

Unfortunate thing about the actual origin of this topic; FFXIV raid content was certainly a factor, but what actually got me going is I decided to give War of the Lions a shot on mobile, which I've been more than notorious for shitting on having barely played it.

What I ACTUALLY discovered was, tragically....I may not like FFT as much as I thought I did....without access to the JP glitch. Actually experiencing the scenario people talked about of having your party punch each other in a corner for half an hour for JP was pretty eye opening.

Well I finished XII and there wasn't much to say because that game is just a big empty nothing if you aren't going hard on the hunting and mechanics, lol

I love sidequests when they add tons to the games story and characters (as mentioned previously, Abyss is an all time fav and the side quests are critical to that), but sidequests that exist exclusively for the sake of gameolay bonuses do nothing for me at all. As suck there's really nothing to talk about regarding XII because that's all it has.

I guess I could have made another topic for FFX but...too late now!

This is the last one though, everything other FF I need to actually beat that I never gave a real chance (well I got to the 4th cloister in X originally, which I think was fair enough at the time) has already been done prior. Except 4, waiting on the remasters to hit consoles.

Also I haven't booted up yet, but that intro pop song is an earworm, I can remember it like it was yesterday even though I haven't heard it in over 15 years.

Gonna start X-2 tonight.

If I don't jump right to it I doubt I ever will, lol.

I remember liking the gameolay a lot more, but I'm a slut for a job system.

That's still pretty close to Abyss, but then we also get into the weird stuff like how DQ8 was dubbed in the UK, though.

Mac Arrowny posted...

Yeah I had no problem with the laughing scene. The VAs are more of a problem in the serious scenes.

I mentioned it before but the Tidus breakdown scene when he finds out about Yuna's fate is just wildly awful.

Mac Arrowny posted...

Also MGS came out 3 years before FFX, so I dunno if it's got an excuse to be bad.

Well I was specifically talking RPGs, to be fair. But yeah.

Mac Arrowny posted...

KH1's voice acting was good though! KH voice acting ironically gets worse as the games go along.

It's been a long time since I played KH1, but I remember it still had the forced lip synching issue. Thinking back more though maybe it's better than I remember? Better than FFX's at least.

redrocket posted...

Also, people who unironically use the laughing scene as an example of bad voice acting have given the VA haters a bad rep.

Ironically might legit be some of the best voice acting in the game.

There's definitely a time gap that isn't immediately obvious since they're all PS2 games, and that console lived forever. Before that was Orphen the year prior, which even as a total Stan for that crap game I'm not going to pretend the VA direction was any good (but the actors were!). The next prominent RPG was a year later with Kingdom Hearts, which also had bad VA. After that, for specific VA intensive RPGs...its a 4 YEAR JUMP to Abyss and FFXII, with Persona 3 a year after that even. There's 5 years where FFX had no actual competition on the PS2 regarding voice acting.

You could argue across the consoles that Symphonia came out on GameCube just 2 years after X and had a great dub, but Nintendo themselves also famously dumped oodles of its own money SPECIFICALLY for it. I doubt Sony ponied up their own cash for FFX.

Man there are people who say FFX has GREAT voice acting and you can bet those people also consider FFX one of the greatest games of all time. There's a bias there, you gotta see it!

There isn't a soul on this earth saying "Yeah FFX isn't great, but at least the performances were good".

Yeah the VA work honestly got worse as the game went on. If this wasn't a popular FFX game and some NISA RPG, nobody would be defending it.

Suikoden III has it's issues, but I like the world and general feel of the game WAY more than FFX. Honestly the simplicity of FFX's progression and character building system (I know it's technically got a lot of paths and options on the sphere grid, but in a casual playthrough you're going to almost exclusively be doing your characters main path, and in an extreme playthrough you're unlocking the whole board, so....!). The limited gear stuff (and awful gear menu) wasn't pleasant either.

Do wish Sui III did more with Chris, though.

Dislike Tidus and Yuna

Neutral on Kimhari and Rikku

Wakka is fun, Auron is OK.

Lulu I struggle to even call a character.

Fingers crossed for FE.

swordz9 posted...

Possibly quick montage of stuff like Rune Factory 5, P4 Arena Ultimax, .hack, etc

Wait was there a Dot Hack announcement I missed out on?

Edit oh wait the GU ports, I forgot.

KamikazePotato posted...

Disliking FFX's story while pining for Xenosaga is certainly a take.

I didn't play X3! I'm pining because people say it's the good one!

I remember liking X1 but I don't actually remember, thus it not being on the list.

And X2 is very much NOT on the list. There's a reason I didn't give X3 a shot on release lol.

As for FFX I honestly kind of actively dislike the story? At least the presentation failed it. It's not so much the story but more that I actively dislike or do not care about any character in this game.

Pros are the gorgeous backgrounds, decent music, and the battle system is not my style nowadays but it's good for turn based, at least at the time. Unskiippable summons are unforgivable though.

Cons are...well I didn't really like anything else all that much. It's definitely a more than the sum of its part situation since I still came out thinking it was OK.

pjbasis posted...

I like Abyss but I'll never take Tales writing over FF, at least in that era.

I consider Abyss to have straight up the best JRPG story, so era is kind of irrelevant on that one.

pjbasis posted...

Also I am envious of your ability to finish a game you'd just call mid that fast. I can't even get through games I'm really enjoying as quickly.

Outside work from home I've got nothing going on right now, lol.

Also I didn't start burning out that much until I got near the end, Calm Lands is when I stooped really feeling it at all.

But I did finish XIV through Shadowbringers in somewhere around 350 hours I think, and that was like...5 to 6 weeks?

KamikazePotato posted...

Xenosaga re-releases were straight up deconfirmed not too long ago.

UGHHHHHHHHH

I need to play Dragon Quarter. I remember it got a lot of bad press in gaming magazines back in the day, which as a middle school youth who was almost exclusively supplied by my parents trips to Blockbuster was enough to stop me from ever trying.

And Xenosaga 3 I'm desperate to play, I hope Monolithsoft can get off that Xenoblade crap long enough to at least put out an HD release. Hell I'll settle for a straight up port.

Oh, KH2, thanks for reminding me.

I've become so disenfranchised with the KH brand that since then that it slipped my mind.

Tales of the Abyss
Suikoden III
Persona 3/4
. Hack//GU series
Shadow Hearts: Covenant

And there are a few that I am too far removed from to be sure and would need to play again since I'm less confident, like Xenosaga (not 2, never played 3) and Wild Arms 3.

But all of those listed, especially TotA more than anything, I would take very easily over FFX without question.

Well....alright.

I can't say it was a bad game but it was pretty mid. I get why it was such a big deal when it came out, but there are quite a lot of much better jRPGs on the PS2. This has the distinction of being super early I guess so it was pretty mind blowing for the time.

At least it was way better than XII!

Mac Arrowny posted...

Hilda
She-ra
Devilman Crybaby

Also Bojack

...The very next line of the article says that they will be going in a different direction than those types of games. So yes, exactly what the blurb said.

And considering their next game is a long term service game focused on multiplayer that just looks embrassingly awful...!.

I guess we can hope that Babylon's Fall tanks horrifically and Platinum is forced to pivot.

https://twitter.com/Toadsanime/status/1490670782988566535

RIP

Maaaan Seymour was one lame fucking villain.

They didn't have the decency to show him doing even one of the things they throw at you to make you hate him.

You hate EVERY character in anything who isn't an animal though, Zigs!

How is it if all you care about is Arcane?

I know it doesn't have those characters, but as far as tone and aesthetic go.

I blame Key

It's not Ciconia Part 2, but I'll take it.

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2022-02-05/key-ryukishi07-loopers-kinetic-novel-gets-switch-release-with-english-text-this-year/.182257

Anyone heard anything about this one?

I've always said I blame Nintendo, not Gamefreak, for failing to give them what they need to work with.

...Though I didn't say that in this topic I suppose.

But yes they don't have access to the same resources and are being forced to churn, and that's the source of the problem.

I also don't want to give the impression that the issue is solely visuals. Like, maybe give them an extra couple weeks and this quest tracker wouldn't be so bafflingly terrible??

KamikazePotato posted...

The Arceus models look okay. It's really the environments that don't.

It's not actually the models specifically, but the actual lighting engine that's causing the main problem with the Pokmon themselves. Trying to find the comparison thread now, but it does side by sides to show very clearly that even when BDSP and Arceus are using the same models, they look a lot worse in Arceus because the shading is a lot worse.

SwiftyDC posted...

Well get a PLA HD Edition in 5 years.

They have plenty of legendary pokemon to work with to spit out this game with an identical engine and new maps. Pokmon Legends Rayquaza for early 2024 at the absolute latest and the only thing different is maybe they'll have worked out multiplayer by then.

Mac Arrowny posted...

The point is that Arceus would've looked better if they targeted 480 when developing it.

Man I don't actually believe that for a second.

Gamefreak's issue here is the 3D, not the resolution. They were gonna use these models and environments even if it was being planned for composite.

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Do you think Nintendo is unhappy that GF releases a top 10 Switch bestseller just about once per year? There's gotta be zero chance that GameFreak isn't meeting Nintendo's arbitrary standards of quality. What would stop them from helping out?

Most of the biggest first party Nintendo releases of the last several years required major aid from 3rd party companies. If it weren't for Mario Odyssey I wouldn't have much confidence that they had the ability to go all out on AAA title by themselves anymore.

Unless Odyssey had some major outside help as well that I'm unaware of.

JackMan posted...

Uh, thanks for proving my point?

I wasn't disagreeing I just love that picture.

StealThisSheen posted...

I mean, my argument stands. If the PS2 doesn't spit it out at that resolution, then you're not actually comparing it as a PS2 game. If you're going to specifically use the hardware in your argument, then you have to go by the standards of the hardware. That seems incredibly logical to me, because what you're describing is not what you actually see on a PS2.

But the actual contents of the game CAN spit out at a higher resolution.

I don't think we're going to come to an agreement on this!

JackMan posted...

Seemed to work out alright for Halo Infinite.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/5/1/AAeolZAAC47L.jpg

I still love this thread.

https://twitter.com/thatanimeweirdo/status/1428371497131839490?s=20&t=_1c65dr3tzsRoN3WbSCwcw

StealThisSheen posted...

We're ultimately going to have to agree to disagree on the whole graphics comparison debate, because to me, if you have to take the game out of the hardware to make it look better, and the hardware wouldn't run the improved version the same, visually, then... You're no longer comparing a Gamecube/PS2/whatever game. You're just comparing... A game. What the hardware is capable of is very important to the argument of "This looks like a *System here* game."

It's still the same assets and programming though. It's just spitting out at a higher resolution. Nothing about the PS4 version of Psychonauts can't RUN on a PS2, there's nothing new in the game, it's just spitting out a better signal.

...This is of course ignoring how the PS4 version of Psychonauts is actually butt and full of visual glitches.

Huh, I didn't know they actually turned off PS3 support. I thought you just couldn't play past HW.

Mac Arrowny posted...

Like delaying Endwalker a year to make it look as good as FFXV or something would've been an awful decision, for another example.

They COULDN'T have done because they still need the actual guts to work on a PS3....

Resolution is not programmed into a game....at least not by a competent developer, and that's something that can typically be unlocked. It's one thing if a game gets and actual graphical pass, but if it's a straight upres then you have to compare games by the best they could have looked under their original programming regardless of the limitations of their era's televisions. The developers didn't make the televisions....uh, again, usually.

I just can't understand the mindset of "yeah I know the games look like crap because they know it doesn't matter, and I'm fine with that".

People have to hold developers to some kind of fucking standard. One day they're going to slack on something you actually care about and suddenly you're going to care.

Of course resolution needs to be equalized when comparing graphical quality of a game.

I can't imagine thinking that's some kind of ridiculous statement, it's common sense.

That's ridiculous. Shovel Knight looks like that because they WANT it to. Yacht Club's next game is even more low tech, you think they did that because they couldn't afford not to?

Pokemon doesn't look like it does because they WANT it to look like that, it's just all they're capable of.

And if we're talking style, this may be Gamefreak's worst offender yet. Take out the Pokmon themselves and the world looks like college unity proof of concept to show their professor's they have basic programming knowledge to start off the course. NOTHING in this game visually has anything resembling an aesthetic.