Board 8 > Giving FFXII another shot.

(+) Yeah! (+)

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

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.

KamikazePotato posted...

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

Tidus and Yuna are worse than any XS characters.

XS2 sucks though yeah.

Dislike Tidus and Yuna

Neutral on Kimhari and Rikku

Wakka is fun, Auron is OK.

Lulu I struggle to even call a character.

Mac Arrowny posted...

Tidus and Yuna are worse than any XS characters.

XS2 sucks though yeah.

how does someone like this exist

Suikoden III has a lot of good parts to its cast and story but the pacing is really screwy leading to a pretty lengthy game where you backtrack over the same few areas over and over for like 50 hours or whatever before everything comes to a head and then it all leads up to a conclusion I thought was kind of abrupt, brief, and rather disappointing and that the "post-game" scenes (thanks for warning me I'd be locked out of screwing around with the theater or whatever, game!) don't really fix. I guess it's Skill system or whatever it was called was neat but the actual battle system was whatever and was a lot slower than the PS1 games. Graphics and soundtrack I don't recall being much to write home about either. I'd take Suikoden I > III.

Ar Tonelico I is definitely not better than FFX. From what I've played of it, II might be though!

Honestly, the most fun I had with Suikoden III was during the optional side chapters where it emulates the previous two games. Otherwise the game is ambitious but doesn't realize that ambition very well.

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.

Leonhart4 posted...

how does someone like this exist

I probably wouldn't if the game had Japanese voice acting! The terrible performances make the characters so much worse

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.

I actually have the whole Xenosaga trilogy but never made it much past some point in the first game where there's a thirty minute cutscene, a "do you want to save?", and then another fifteen minutes of cutscene. Need to get my PS3 fixed/replaced so I can start fresh.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

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.

yeah because nobody says a popular game has bad voice acting...!

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".

Or maybe there's a correlation between those who like the voice acting and think the game is good and those who don't like the game and think it's bad!

FFX gets a bit of a pass on its voice acting more because it's old than because of some inherent bias of people who just want to believe everything about the game is good.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Dragon Quest VIII had a western release in late 2005 and that had a good dub!

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.

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

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

MGS1 did the smart thing of not giving any of their characters mouths so there was no lip flap to match!

what nonsense are you talking about
their mouths move plenty in the codec calls

AxemRedRanger posted...

what nonsense are you talking about
their mouths move plenty in the codec calls

Eh, it's not quite the same thing as a mouth moving in a cutscene. There's a sense of timing in a cutscene that doesn't exist when it's just two faces.

Not to say that's the only reason MGS1's voice acting is good, but dealing with lip flap in a dub is an obstacle.

I can't believe anyone thinks the voice acting in MGS is good. I mean unless you think silly overacting is good like in an ironic way.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

If this wasn't a popular FFX game

the unpopular one gets flak for it too!

Really though I think this is a case of voice direction being awkward but the actors are genuinely good.

KingButz posted...

I can't believe anyone thinks the voice acting in MGS is good. I mean unless you think silly overacting is good like in an ironic way.

MGS voice acting matches the tone of the series! That's not overacting, that's acting appropriately.

pjbasis posted...

the unpopular one gets flak for it too!

Really though I think this is a case of voice direction being awkward but the actors are genuinely good.

Yeah, there are scenes where the voice actors overcome the poor direction just because they are good VAs.

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.

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.

Amazing how this has turned into a stealth world of Spira playthrough. Good battle system in FFX-2 though, one of the best in the series.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

I mean P5's battle system has a ton in common with FFX's!

I think the Persona series disqualifies itself by the last 1/3 of the games requiring a healer casting Mediaharan every single time their turn comes up during bosses. The battles get super simplistic by that point.

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

UshiromiyaEva posted...

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.

The JP system was the biggest thing holding back FFT for me. Maybe I would've enjoyed it even more if I knew about this glitch!

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 don't think I've used like half of the jobs in FFT and I've beaten the game at least 5 times.

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.

Dark Knight is an absolutely stupid job that no one should ever try to unlock unless they like grinding.

Also, if you care at all about 100% in X-2 you need to start using a guide immediately.

redrocket posted...

Dark Knight is an absolutely stupid job that no one should ever try to unlock unless they like grinding.

It also wasn't part of the original game, just something they threw into WotL to give the people who like grinding something more to do.

I care about 100% in games I LOVE playing, as soon as I feel Iike I'm not digging it I drop the plan. The only exception was Andromeda...I don't know why, even if I thought there would be a save transfer I still should have dropped that garbage lol.

So yeah I'll use a guide for as long as I feel like I'm having a good time doing so, but I doubt I'll stick. No Jegged guide for this one though, sadly.

Yeah, X-2 is almost impossible to 100% without a guide, especially if you want to do it in a single playthrough.

I always at least start to go for the 100% runs on an RPG replays. Sometimes it ends up enhancing the experience like P5R and Abyss, but sometimes it ends up damaging my opinion of the game like Vesperia.

This Eternal Calm thing feels...wierd.

I mean the VA work is better, but the dialogue feels...was this a book being converted into the game engine?

I think it was originally a DVD included with FFX International.