Board 8 > Giving FFXII another shot.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Unless you meant gunblades in general, Squall's starting weapon is called the Revolver.

It's even in FFXIV to be used as a glam.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/playguide/db/item/06dabd956b9

Man this first Blitzball game is rough.

Also there's only one Gunblade for me.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/4/4/AAeolZAAC32U.jpg

I have never understood why people like Blitzball

I love it.

That first game is bad though.

LordoftheMorons posted...

I have never understood why people like Blitzball

Oh I'm never doing it again, I just want the cutscene with the team getting the trophy.

Everyone excited for the secret major addition to the Golden Saucer they've teased in Endwalker and I just KNOW it's gonna be Blitzball and I'm dreading it.

if they were smart it would be sphere break

I thought the XIV team had downplayed the possibility of Blitzball whenever asked about it?

The Mana Sword posted...

if they were smart it would be sphere break

that's what people said about Tetra Master instead of Triple Triad too

and they were wrong

I have played a lot of Triple Triad in XIV

Gotta recomplete my collection now... not looking forward to grinding EW leveling dungeons for those card drops!

Coincidentally, the most obnoxious card for me to obtain was Tidus...!

Blitzball is fun if you set it to Manual. Which is not the default for some reason.

Yeah, blitzball on manual can be fun. Don't ever play it on auto mode. It's also fun developing your team into an unstoppable force that beats everyone by 10 goals.

LordoftheMorons posted...

I thought the XIV team had downplayed the possibility of Blitzball whenever asked about it?

If it's too hide something cool, YoshiP will straight up lie with a straight face.

They lied about what quite a few things in Endwalker were!

LordoftheMorons posted...

I thought the XIV team had downplayed the possibility of Blitzball whenever asked about it?

Not exactly - they've talked about wanting to do it repeatedly for years, but have issues with implementation. So the downplaying is more like "do not get your hopes up for FFX-style Blitzball" but they were trying to come up with other options. I think they floated something like "Blitzball Manager" instead but then there's the other issue of will people even want it if they change too much, so who knows.

Giving up after 8 attempts.

I really don't know what they were thinking here. I know they wanted to establish how much better the other team was, but the amount of frustration from this first match is such that it's damaging to average players opinion not the minigame period. It either ended to be less lopsided or straight up unwinnable, offering the actual ability to win and earn a reward but making it this bullahit just makes the entire system look like crap. It wouldn't be so bad other than the unskippable 8 minutes of cutscene before and during the process.

I don't remember having difficulty there. The AI is so easy to exploit and the Jecht Shot whatever tends to decimate them.

All you gotta do is get lucky with a Jecht Shot or two, then when you have the ball and you're ahead swim behind your own goal and just sit there. 99% of the time they won't come after you and instead just swim in circles while you run down the clock.

the first time i played i completely failed the easy minigame to acquire the jecht shot, making that first game practically impossible

it said to click the buttons when the blue text boxes appeared, so when the text appeared without boxes, i thought i wasn't supposed to click...

in retrospect, that was the one thing i should have reloaded my save for, just for making the process of getting wakka's blitzball stuff easier

Yeah, winning the game isn't that hard.

Yeah, you just gotta Jecht Shot then run away. Requires some luck but it's very doable within a few attempts.

Also secretly the Goers kinda suck

Even without jecht shot, you can get lucky with a sphere shot.

I won't argue the fact the blitzball sucks, though.

That first match can be tricky but the league stuff after gets really easy once you level Letty up a bit. The guy can throw a pass from your goal to the other and Tidus gets a one on one with the keeper every time.

Sand Blasted Grease Monkeys

Grand Wizard Wakka in full effect.

So, like...

I PERSONALLY know Seymour is a creepazoid....

But I don't know why the party is all on his case already at this point?

Nothing in the game ITSELF has given them reason to.

Also I'm just gonna say it. I don't like the FFX aesthetic in the slightest but it's really coherent and all the designs at least make sense withing the world...

Except for Lulu who's outfit doesn't make sense from any perspective whatsoever inside universe or out, and clearly was just Nomura drawing his personal fetish or something.

I PERSONALLY know Seymour is a creepazoid....

But I don't know why the party is all on his case already at this point?

What, his ridiculous hair isn't adequate justification?

It's been a while, but as I recall, Tidus takes an immediate dislike to Seymour and narrates as much. I don't recall anyone else being less respectful toward Seymour than you'd expect them to be toward a generic Maester until Seymour gives them reason to think less of him. Which doesn't take long, really. "That's not something a Maester should say!" "Pretend I didn't say it."

MalcolmMasher posted...

I PERSONALLY know Seymour is a creepazoid....

But I don't know why the party is all on his case already at this point?

What, his ridiculous hair isn't adequate justification?

It's been a while, but as I recall, Tidus takes an immediate dislike to Seymour and narrates as much. I don't recall anyone else being less respectful toward Seymour than you'd expect them to be toward a generic Maester until Seymour gives them reason to think less of him. Which doesn't take long, really. "That's not something a Maester should say!" "Pretend I didn't say it."

I guess it's me subconsciously reading that moment as a POSITIVE Seymour moment, like Tidus mulls about internally after he says it.

If Seymour actually meant what he was saying there, it would be a positive Seymour moment for sure!

A Macarena reference.

Timeless!

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Except for Lulu who's outfit doesn't make sense from any perspective whatsoever inside universe or out, and clearly was just Nomura drawing his personal fetish or something.

And Lulu has the most iconic character design in the game, second maybe to Auron, so it worked!

Nomura has outright admitted that around this time he was putting even more belts and zippers on characters out of spite to people making fun of him for it, too.

I mainly talking about her wearing a heavy, fur lined coat in a sunny island environment than anything

The belt shit is just a bonus

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Giving up after 8 attempts.

I really don't know what they were thinking here. I know they wanted to establish how much better the other team was, but the amount of frustration from this first match is such that it's damaging to average players opinion not the minigame period. It either ended to be less lopsided or straight up unwinnable, offering the actual ability to win and earn a reward but making it this bullahit just makes the entire system look like crap. It wouldn't be so bad other than the unskippable 8 minutes of cutscene before and during the process.

It is actually quite easy to exploit Blitzball in your favor, even the first game against the Luca Goers. Absolutely have controls on Manual because your teammates will straight up swim towards opposition on Auto, which results in either them getting blocked by 2-3 players and guaranteeing you lose the ball or someone straight up tackles you and grabs the ball.

Have someone with decent passing stats maneuver in a way where there is no opposition close by to block them and pass the ball to Tidus. Have Tidus go as close to the goalie as possible (doesn't matter if you get blocked by a player or two because Jecht Shot bypasses two of them) and use the Jecht Shot. That pretty much guarantees a goal. After that just waste time by passing the ball to a defense player at the back of your own court and have them just stand next to your goalkeeper. This pretty much guarantees you a win as long as you are ahead on goals. Also remember that Tidus can use the Jecht Shot twice in a game (once every half).

When you play Blitzball later for Wakka's Sigil, you'll see that the Luca Goers are actually a really weak team and that the biggest problem is ironically the Al Bhed Psyches (the chumps you beat off-screen without the star player of the Zanarkand Abes), mainly because their goalkeeper has absurd catching stats when your players are likely very very underleveled early on. This makes it very hard to score against them if you meet them in your first or second match.

After that though Blitzball pretty much becomes braindead easy when you have a proper team and you start levelling up. That is when you start scoring 8 goals on average against your opponents and you just play it for Wakka's overdrive and the Sigil for his ultimate weapon.

KamikazePotato posted...

Ha Ha Ha is a good scene, well-acted scene and I'll die on this hill.

the most important and true FF take

A take I've had for 20 years and I'm glad at least one person has finally joined me...!

Hey now I have agreed with you multiple times Leon.

I'm pretty sure other FFX fans have also voiced support for it.

I'm not an FFX fan and even I think that scene is totally fine seeing it again just reinforced that it was on purpose. It's like people forget that Yuna does the same awkward laugh right after then they both bust into normal laughter.

Honestly I think the worst voice in this game is Lulu! Not in terms of performance or being traditionally the "worst" voice acting, but I think based on the dialogue that it's just not the type of voice she's supposed to have.

Nah worst voice is fucking Shelinda

Lulu's voice is great. I think most of the voices fit the character.

most_games_r_ok posted...

Nah worst voice is fucking Shelinda

Well I mean like...main people of course.

ALL the background characters sound awful.

I will not tolerate this Maechen slander

Stay away from the summoner

Wanna ride ze shoopuff

all aboards?

I don't dislike the laughing scene because it's earnest, or because it's poorly acted or anything. You can understand and even agree with the point it's making and still think it's bad! People don't act like this! Being awkward on purpose is still awkward!

I'm not gonna sit here and claim I can think of a better way they could have portrayed the specific emotion of "hollow laughter to cope with overwhelming existential dread" but man do I not like this one.

I would certainly not mind a full on redub even if I think a lot of the guff this dub gets is overstated.

It's certainly a localization that shows it's age with the quality of the dub acting, even in the writing itself.

Like, as I stated before, a blatant reference to the Macarena complete with Tidus reacting with a line from the song makes since in a Disgaea game or something, here it's just awkward. And I'm certainly not opposed to having plenty of fun with a localization, I still consider Woolsey a king and Working Designs a pillar, but when it doesn't work it doesn't work!

But there are certainly far worse out there. This one is just obscenely flat because it's clear that none of these VAs were given much if any actual direction. All you have to do is compare John Dimaggio to ANY of his other roles to see that.

James Arnold Taylor has an awesome YouTube channel where he shows you a day in the life of a voice actor. Really interesting stuff

The man has talent! Even just Ratchet proves that, not to mention his other roles.

I put no blame on the actors themselves honestly. Most of them don't have the most extensive careers after this game, though.

Most of the major VAs do! The only ones who really haven't are Auron's and Yuna's, which is ironic since Auron is considered one of the best voice jobs (and Hedy Burress isn't a voice actor in the first place).

I think the only notable role from Lulu's VA is Sheryl from NMH, which is also not...a GREAT performance, but it does what it needs.