Time’s up, I bought the version with the Cactuar materia
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I was going to say not really but the damage is done. Enjoy! He does a 1,000 needles attack (that does not actually do 1,000 damage) and I think that’s it.
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Twelve and Thirteen. I’d have to play them both again after now 10+ years to really describe this properly, so forgive my dense-ass post. Between detail of XII’s world/systems and momentum of XIII’s characters/story, I’ve long tried dreaming up an ideal middle ground. Not a perfect example but I found the closest mix in Xenoblade 1 (didn’t finish X, still want to try 2).
And XB was almost that long ago! Seems many here don’t care for it, maybe even scoff at the mention in a sexy FF thread (sorry!). Still once we get past any of the afore circled, "anime"or other tropish aspects, there’s a loose similarity to XII’s battle mmo-feel iirc, sharper versions of timing, cooldown, and attack direction (shape!), aoe, the importance of (then new and now borrowed???) break/topple build up, not to mention more involved warning cues for devastating attacks (and how to interrupt them).
It’s got a wealth of interconnected areas or zones, many beautifully designed lush with placement to bring a lived in or sense of nature to the gameworld. Even when it’s full of item dots. XII has an amazing sense of scale and gorgeous designs, just not as varied or interesting -especially since you can jump to explore wilder geometry in Xenoblade. Full gear shown on characters isn’t very relevant (still cool!)
XIII’s…paradigm shift reads like a slowly growing kaleidoscope from the same primarily colors, over and over. A lot of choice condensed down to simon says. I remember (and agree) the late game did push more nuance/speed though. Also props to 7R’s weapon growth materia as a decent improvement on “crystal class connect the dots”.
That said, simply not big on the XIII world/plot either. I’ve always wanted to try the sequels but don’t think I can get through the first one again. However! I did really like some of the characters and how they banded together! There’s a certain prestige of tech + fashion allure with any new FF for ages now, which they rocked, seemed well meditated, it still looks fresh and fairly striking. In all of the drab linear bulk there’s plenty of party bonding, turmoil…you get a much more focused series of events and character drives, at least more than the airs of Vaan (or Balthier or Basch, and crew), wading through Ivalice’s affairs. So arguably a much thinner simpler flavor but a great counter balance to XII.
To my original thought bubble, Xenoblade (while not having the Square luster) managed to give me a full course jrpg meal, dialed up and consistent, not very vogue but internally “fuller” after those two FFs. I won’t go into XV and it’s wild progressions from those + KH, or FF7R’s tight action ATB…but I will say I think SQEX or rather mainline battle systems have continued feeling lobsided, probably after X. Surely all the realtime experimenting. And their direction, is often way more occupied with the realism of faces smirks and tears than a baseline quality for everything else you need to spend 30-40 hrs with.
So this wasn’t exactly meant as a recommendation for XB. Skipping past its story business because that mileage will def vary (I love it). I could delve more into the space between the two games in question, you might also point out something great from the last decade that marries their sensibilities much better. Takahashi/Saga’s xeno stuff has cliches, also a whole other set of ideas and relatively niche…I guess for me, seeing that Final Fantasy has leaned so much harder on style (at least for mainline I don’t really play mmos, enjoy) for a gen or two…how they handle converting old jpg breadth once they step out of Midgar, doesn’t make or break me playing it. As much as knowing, whether they really want to try and “live up to”. They should.
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i really hope more folks will give xenoblade a chance when the remaster is out
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My main complaint for Xenoblade was that it was hard to justify using any team other than Shulk, Reyn and Sharla. About the only team with the survivability and a full set of skills to go for topples and the extra damage for doing them. Any other team felt like trying to speed run every fight so you wouldn’t die. It was a little better near the end once you could kit other party member with robot killing weapons and swap Shulk around but it’s a long time till that point.
Thanks for this. Apparently Retroarch’s fastforward doesn’t forward as fast as ZSNES’s because, uh, accuracy? It looks much better tho, so… I guess I’ll deal.
Edit: Apparently my laptop can only FFwd Retroarch at like 1.25x speed so lol ok cool.
OH! you can change that too. Settings > Frame Throttle, adjust the Maximum Run Speed, 0.0x is unlimited
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Just like X-2, SE is keen on reversing any bittersweet endings huh. The Zack stuff is way too much of a tease for them not to follow up on, especially because Remake Cloud doesn’t reveal any specifics about his past beyond the SOLDIER lie.
Really the ending is the perfect excuse for a lavish recreation of Midgar that is NOT allowed to change, and oh now we can do whatever we want for the next game.
pc/ps4 12 is good (and got an update yesterday with some qol stuff and a price cut)
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everyone curious about which to play should play lightning returns. it’s jank. it’s weird. it’s got a flawless kov
For good and ill, the squenix of today is pre-occupied with looking to the past, interrogating and trying to ‘fix’ their most painful moments. This can be brilliantly handles as in Dragon Quest XI’s tragic uplifting post game, or it can be as confused as FF7R. By confused, I mean that the game handles it’s relation to the previous game with aplomb until that final chapter, which feels like the developers are all middle aged but haven’t learned anything from their youthful indiscretions, ironic because the textual narrative is about trying to escape the burden of fate, the burden of the player’s expectations,
In that sense, I feel like the final chapter was from a much earlier version of the game, in some ways. It’s the least mature part of the game, on a technical level, narrative level, and even mechanically. This is the part of the game that feels most like it’s calling back to things that old fans remember, the part that says “you can have these things again, as if time had stopped in 1997”
Final Fantasy 7R has spent so much time desacralizing FF7 that the final chapter feels like a warning more than anything. “what if we handled the game with misguided reverence and nostalgia.” Afterwards, finally, the players are told the future is unwritten. The denouement, for me, feels like an emphatic rejection of the finale. We’re not following the same trail as before. The spectres, those whispers of destiny, are the people who loved Final Fantasy VII, and didn’t want to see it tampered with. More than any other element, these phantoms of the past interfere with this new Midgar. They circumscribe what story is allowed to be told, they mistake what the story is about, pushing for an epic confrontation between Cloud and Sephiroth. By the end, we know they’re not actively hostile, but their interference is a burden nonetheless. Their expectations weigh on us. When the narrative is broken they scream in anguish. They throw every memory of FF7 they can at us, and they dissipate.
I would be much less charitable in this reading if I didn’t ultimately like the rest of the game enough to offset the bad taste of the ending.
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Has anyone played Type-0 HD or Last Remnant?
damn, i had written this one off, couldn’t stand the sequel… but i think we have very similar taste and i have the iso right here…
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I almost forgot about this, and just a month out! Too bad I never spent much time replaying in Dolphin with hd textures and other tweaks, might still be worth having around though. Hadn’t realized there’s going to be a “remastered ost”, the original is godly and the samples I just heard might be a little too clean…glad you can choose between them.
@ArOne kind of a blur for me now but that sounds right, in that I def used them over a large course of the game too, I know I worked heavy rotations of Dunban and even Melia in the latter half. Kinda tried getting everyone up to speed even Riki’s unique buffs.
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i bought this game when it came out and put a few hours into it. it didn’t grip me very much, but now that i have a ton of time, i might go back and give it another shot. i don’t remember it being bad, just not great?
Last Remnant i’ve been meaning to play for like, ever.
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Last Remnant is closer to a SaGa game and it does not fuck around.
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i think to clarify more on how Type-0 came off to me, it just very much felt like a number of games that were Vita exclusive and got ports. there’s just something about them that gets lost in translation for me and i never really love the experience.
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I don’t know about this, there’s not much in 7R that had really been doing so before the final chapter (aside from the whispers in play themselves). Expectation for a certain impossible fidelity could lead someone there, sure, but response mostly praises how faithful or reverent they’d been expanding core aspects while compromising to modern conventions. With the occasional fumble of something beloved or exclusion altogether. You could be inferring other currents of change, but I think a notion as intense as “desacralizing”, only comes into play with the finale. Which is where, or rather what makes their device stand out so bluntly as mixture of confidence in spectacle, a lil’ bait and switch, cowardice in following through, defeat and admission at once.
I agree with you of course, generally speaking on the basic poetry in their method - obviously I’m of the minds that aren’t being as charitable. Compartmentalized, left rolling around a while, it’s still leaping out from the page screaming at us to relinquish themselves as handlers of a certain legacy. This opposed to so many other paths available but then (as if they were…fated) choosing to go ahead and just “break stuff”. Everyone even saw the game shined best following the course of original. There’s a million other FF7 Remakes that could’ve existed and takes would accordingly be all over the place, but going outside the box of expectations, stepping on it to shape a new one remains bad form wrinkling back and forward through the project.
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Is there any quick and easy way to gain all context I’ll need for that final chapter? I’ve got very faded memories of the original game and I’ve never checked out any of the side stuff. Like, I have no IDEA who Zack is.
Or for a more basic summary Zack was Aerith’s boyfriend who was also in SOLDIER. He looks a bit like Cloud but he has black hair instead of blonde. Cloud has some connection to him that he doesn’t quite remember yet but will later on after he spends time in the lifestream late in the (original) game. In FF7R when Cloud and Aerith are sitting on top of the cat slide in the sector 6 slums and Cloud ask Aerith what her boyfriend’s name was she mouths “Zack” but we the audience don’t hear it spoken but Cloud clearly does because it makes the screen tinge all green-ish which means Cloud’s lifestream/Mako-infused/past lives/memories/whatever are being triggered.
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