So What Are YOU Playing?

[Sol-Blackguy]

On to 8!

Spoiler: show

I didn't use a guide for 9, wasn't really trying to do everything and ended up beating the game in about 35hours. But from what I remember about FF8, it's that there is a shitload of stuff that can be easily missed if you don't know where to go/explore everything. And unlike 9, i've only played through 8 once and barely remember anything about it lol

Actually a lot of Squaresoft games were sold with strategy guides (even having a coupon in the manual) back then. Almost like they had a deal with Bradygames. Without them, you had to figure out cryptic clues or hear about it from friends.

[Kuishen]

The only real character I found memorable in 8 was Squall just because of how anti-social he acted at the start. IMO the FF8 cast suffered from the same problem FF7 had: Characters felt so bland and had very little personality. That's why 9 was my favorite on PS1. Zidance, Vivi, Steiner, etc. were a breath of fresh air.

Also thanks for the warning on FF13. I was actually considering picking up a copy now that I have a PS3.

Selphie is arguably the greatest FF character ever so you shut your whore mouth. DO YOU EVEN TRAINS BRO?
Irvine was a sniper with a heart of gold and had qualms about actually killing people.
Zell the spazzy douche with a chip on his shoulder and something to prove.
Quistis was a barely legal school teacher who wears a leather dress and uses a whip.
Squall the only born leader in the group but severely self-conscious because of all the crap he's had to endure over the years.
Rinoa was pretty terrible though.

[Souj]

FF7 characters had little personality? Sit your ass down in that chair and drink your goddamn tea.

Barret was a black guy who cursed a lot. Tifa had big boobs. Aerith was nice to everyone. Red XIII was a dog. Vincent was broody.
I'm having a hard time myself coming up with any personality other than that lol Cait Sith I don't really remember at all. And Yuffie I think I've just merged together with Rikku over the years. That and her younger counterpart in Crisis Core
Granted it's been about 10 years since I last played the game.

[Elcura]

Yeah, FFVII's cast didn't have a personality really since the drive was for the characters to achieve their goal (and you to finish the story). It's not about how the characters feel or react, just what happened to them and what's happening to them.

Personally, I never really felt that FF character's have personalities until 9, then it became more obvious but those were due to plain tropes.

[Kalmado]

I get peoples opinion on VII, but I thought VIII had a lot of character personality. Besides the main cast you had Seifer, Laguna, others, and even just conversation with random npc's.

[Sol-Blackguy]

ITT: Nostalgia Goggles. I think a lot of us would be disappointed with any of our favorite characters if we replayed their respective games. The thing is without voice acting back then, it left a lot of room for interpretation. Take Barret for example. Who didn't imagine him sounding like Mr. T?

[Souj]

ITT: Nostalgia Goggles. I think a lot of us would be disappointed with any of our favorite characters if we replayed their respective games. The thing is without voice acting back then, it left a lot of room for interpretation. Take Barret for example. Who didn't imagine him sounding like Mr. T?

literally just finished FF9 and character was one good things I remember from 9 keeping.

[Kuishen]

ITT: Nostalgia Goggles. I think a lot of us would be disappointed with any of our favorite characters if we replayed their respective games. The thing is without voice acting back then, it left a lot of room for interpretation. Take Barret for example. Who didn't imagine him sounding like Mr. T?

Nope, literally just replayed through VIII like a year ago, everything I said holds.

VII's characters were pretty shite, but VIII's characters all have realistic motivations and reactions to the situations they're put in. Especially Squall.

[Corrderio]

Eh, maybe they just didn't leave an impression on me then. None of the FF8 cast really felt that memorable. Then again I only used Squall, Zell, and Quintis. Screw the others.

Anyway, picked up Tales of Xilla since my PC is going to take about a day to finish defragging if this scan is correct. So far pretty interesting game.

[Sol-Blackguy]

Nope, literally just replayed through VIII like a year ago, everything I said holds.

VII's characters were pretty shite, but VIII's characters all have realistic motivations and reactions to the situations they're put in. Especially Squall.

I'm not here to argue that one cast was better than the other. If you really want to have that argument, just about every JRPG cast of characters are just a handful of tropes picked out of a hat. My point was that pre-voice acting, our imaginations filled in the gap in a character's personality. Just like the silent protagonists that dominated the 8-16 bit era.

But if you look back on those games compared to now, you realize that there wasn't much there to go on. Nobody knew what Cloud, Squall, or Zidane sounded like until Disidia, but our imaginations filled the gaps. We all imagined the tone of their dialogue when they were excited, the urgency of their voices when all hell broke loose. If you try to get someone from a younger generation spoiled by voice acting and 20+ hours of cutscenes, they'll probably be like "what the hell is this?" These classics are timeless to us, but the current/next generation will just shrug while they go back to the fully voice acted, totally linear, HD remake.

[Kuishen]

I'm not here to argue that one cast was better than the other. If you really want to have that argument, just about every JRPG cast of characters are just a handful of tropes picked out of a hat. My point was that pre-voice acting, our imaginations filled in the gap in a character's personality. Just like the silent protagonists that dominated the 8-16 bit era.

But if you look back on those games compared to now, you realize that there wasn't much there to go on. Nobody knew what Cloud, Squall, or Zidane sounded like until Disidia, but our imaginations filled the gaps. We all imagined the tone of their dialogue when they were excited, the urgency of their voices when all hell broke loose. If you try to get someone from a younger generation spoiled by voice acting and 20+ hours of cutscenes, they'll probably be like "what the hell is this?" These classics are timeless to us, but the current/next generation will just shrug while they go back to the fully voice acted, totally linear, HD remake.

I don't understand. You can infer tone by the language used and the situations that the characters were in. Unless the developers intended something incredibly weird like all the lines a character gave to be in monotone without any visual cues at all then there isn't actually all that much left to interpretation. There's plenty to go off of if you look for it.

The original claim was that the characters had no personality and that can be conveyed perfectly fine through text because... you know, books exist and do it just fine.

[Sol-Blackguy]

I'm saying they had more personality when we had nothing but text, pixels and polygons than they do with more expressive models and voice actors. There's no blanks to fill in because everything the character is and will be is spelled out for you.

[Insanecyclone]

I get the feeling if this continues further then there needs to be a thread in the SE sub forum, anyways.

Picked up EDF 2025 and Catherine today while also playing SFxT on vita.

[Corrderio]

Anyway... is Tales of XIlla supposed to be confusing at first? The game is fun, but trying to figure out how to set up my character's AI. So far I don't see a difference between manual and semi-auto. Both settings just seem to have them sit back and do nothing.

[Sol-Blackguy]

I get the feeling if this continues further then there needs to be a thread in the SE sub forum, anyways.

Picked up EDF 2025 and Catherine today while also playing SFxT on vita.

There really should be an all out "My final fantasy is better than yours" thread. I still remember blood feuds in school when it came to people discussing what game was better/worse. Might be good for 300+ pages of nerd rage and butthurt.

Anyway, I'm taking a break from Shadowrun, Borderlands 2, and Torchlight 2 for the new Strider game. I swear it could pass for a Wayforward title.

[Corrderio]

Didn't we already have one of those?

[Charismatic]

Anyway... is Tales of XIlla supposed to be confusing at first? The game is fun, but trying to figure out how to set up my character's AI. So far I don't see a difference between manual and semi-auto. Both settings just seem to have them sit back and do nothing.

Manual and Semi-Auto are control types for players, not for AI. (Yes, the game does have multiplayer)
Manual, as the name states has you manually control everything. Semi-Auto is mostly like manual but your button scheme for jumping changes slightly and your character will automatically move into place for attacks and artes and will face the enemy automatically when using them.

Switch to manual and git gud.

[Corrderio]

Thanks. Was hoping Semi-Auto meant if I take control of that character I'd have full control and if I switched to someone else then the CPU would take over.

[Kuishen]

In other news, I don't know where to post this but Destiny is taking his 5k viewers to TwitchPlaysPokemon and is trying to release Bird Jesus through Democracy and he's like getting death threats in his Twitch inbox. This is goddamn amazing.

Link: http://www.destiny.gg/bigscreen

EDIT: I'm retarded, didn't mention that this is in TwitchPlaysPokemon.

EDIT: And now he's reading the hate mail on stream. THIS IS GLORIOUS.

EDIT: NOW HE'S GETTING ON SOME RADIO SHOW THAT DOES LIVE COVERAGE OF THE STREAM THIS IS GODDAMN AMAZING.

[Charismatic]

Thanks. Was hoping Semi-Auto meant if I take control of that character I'd have full control and if I switched to someone else then the CPU would take over.

Yeah, the game doesn't really explain it well. They probably forget they even need to since its been a part of the series since the PS1 games... anyway if you have any other general questions let me know.