Brontoforumus

malikial wrote:I believe I said that it was bad as fuck.

Japan knows games. West ahead briefly. Bethesda released early. Japan learned. Cutting edge. Creates writer jobs, modder jobs. Great!

I think you're supposed to watch the prequel movie first, not really pause the game and then watch the movie and then unpause the game, but ... still, yeah. It's nice to have affiliated media in a larger universe but it's not great for the plot of the main product to rely on that media to make sense.

People are tired of games. They want brands. Japan provides experiences. No more paying box price. Now movies, mobile game x-promotions.

the worst part is that even though you realize after altissia that the rest of the game's just going to be a complete mess, they get your hopes up with a brilliantly excruciating chapter 10

Story will get patched. FFXV had only been in development for 10 years. Games take time to mature. Can't all be successful like Starbound.

As long as you keep the "FF15 has been in development for 10 years" fact firmly in mind the whole exercise is interesting from a how-do-you-make-something-mostly-complete-out-of-this aspect.

Did you notice the one part of the game where there was supposed to be a rad as fuck boss but they only got as far as modeling and not rigging the rad as fuck boss so they had you go and take a look at how rad as fuck the boss's model is and everybody comments on how rad as fuck the model looks and then you get a cutscene explaining why you don't need to actually fight the rad as fuck boss and then you just fuck off?

Not gonna lie, I love stuff like that. It's like the best kind of soup, the "if you've got it, just toss it in the pot" kind.

Brentai wrote:Did you notice the one part of the game where there was supposed to be a rad as fuck boss but they only got as far as modeling and not rigging the rad as fuck boss so they had you go and take a look at how rad as fuck the boss's model is and everybody comments on how rad as fuck the model looks and then you get a cutscene explaining why you don't need to actually fight the rad as fuck boss and then you just fuck off?

Chekov's bird was a disappointment.

TA wrote:I think you're supposed to watch the prequel movie first, not really pause the game and then watch the movie and then unpause the game, but ... still, yeah. It's nice to have affiliated media in a larger universe but it's not great for the plot of the main product to rely on that media to make sense.

The movie isn't really a prequel, it's what happens at the end of chapter one while Noctis and Dem Boys are away. The movie is the 'problem' happening to the city. I'm sorry I don't want to give spoilers so I'm being vague but it's not really a prequel so much as a 90 minute cutscene between chapter 1 and 2 in FFXV.

Kingsglaive is best watched before the game. There's even a post credits segueway that clearly happens only a few minutes before where the game literally starts.

sei wrote:Chekov's bird was a disappointment.

You know you totally kill that gryphon, right? It's just an endgame boss.

TA wrote:I think you're supposed to watch the prequel movie first, not really pause the game and then watch the movie and then unpause the game, but ... still, yeah. It's nice to have affiliated media in a larger universe but it's not great for the plot of the main product to rely on that media to make sense.

Isn't that exactly what happened to Matrix 3?

Drawing magic and a main character you want VR waifu technology for just so you can recreate and slap them right in the fucking face. Interesting take-aways from FF8.

Finished the game. Spoiler free thoughts:

Ultimately, Kingsglaive was not really necessary, but if you're going to watch it watch it before playing the game like I did. There's even a post-credits sequence that flows into the game itself perfectly. Kingsglaive *did* flesh out and give more context to what was going on in the game's climax, and frankly its a pretty good watch even if you don't really fully understand what's going on without getting context from the game later. However, the free Brotherhood anime on Youtube is certainly not needed for anything in terms of context other than additional character background, but I recommend it higher than Kingsglaive if your time is limited (And if your time is limited why are you getting a JRPG...?) You will love the main cast dearly, and it's worth it. Trust me.

FFXV had a very interesting problem, one that I didn't think was possible to be a problem before playing this. The four main characters are *too* well written, depicted, voice acted, and fleshed out. The banter between the four is top notch and consistently amazing, and the insights you get into their characters the longer you play is fantastic. But, that leaves the problem of anyone else in the game looking like a cardboard standee.

Even the next most important protagonist to the four, Lunafreya, seems flat by no fault of the voice actress or writing. Well, maybe the writing. The plot is structured almost against her in this respect, as she is always at a distance on a pedestal as an eventual goal. Cutscenes depict her as kind, patient, and strong willed and really, that's all you get. Does she wear anything other than white? How does she feel about vegetables? Did she struggle with her role as the Oracle as a child like Noctis did with his place in destiny, or did she take to it naturally? Minor characters like Cindy and Iris are even worse. It might seem like nitpicking, but with how lovable and deep the four chocobros are, it really is a huge contrast to me.

How they were saying they were going to patch in adjusted and additional story content and plot into the last chapters makes me feel bad for not waiting on this game a bit more; I was able to follow it, but some things are rather abrupt.

The setpieces in this game are eyecandy of visual design and framing the likes I've never seen in games; the fights with Leviathan and Ardyn specifically. Like, they could have easily made either one of those just a cutscene and most people would have been fine with it, but no. They went all the fucking way out. In nearly any scripted boss battle the attention given to the background is obscene. I know it's par for the course with Square in general and FF games in particular, but the graphical fidelity they cranked out of this game with standard PS4 hardware is *obscene.*

There were a lot of moments where Square used mechanical tricks to reinforce storytelling in flat out innovative ways that I would have never expected from this company, much less this game with it's legendarily tortured development cycle.

Unsuprisingly for anything headed by Shimomura, the soundtrack is *fantastic.* The boss battle theme is grandiose and tense, the atmospheric tracks are great, and putting "Stand By Me" as the game theme was surprising for Final Fantasy and still completely appropriate.

It's a good ride. For everything I knew about its development, I never for a moment expected the game to be good, much less floor me like it did. I am not entirely sure that DOOM is my game of the year anymore, and DOOM was really, really fucking good.

beatbandito wrote:Drawing magic and a main character you want VR waifu technology for just so you can recreate and slap them right in the fucking face. Interesting take-aways from FF8.

I don't think this is really fair on the magic count. First I think the semi-rarity is well worth it, as magic is far, far more powerful here than in most FF titles, 8 included. It's the nuclear option in a fight as you have to take friendly fire into account but more often than not will completely annihilate any targets if used correctly. Second, the secondary effects are *stupidly* powerful. Like, did you try using Expericast spells? It's insane! INSANE! Don't bother wasting the AP on "Get XP from Fishing/Driving/chocobo riding/etc." You'll be swimming in XP if you Expericast alot.

Also, you didn't like Noctis? :( I mean, he's prone to ennui but I think comparisons with Squall are completely unfair. He's certainly not cold or taciturn.

Ostentatious fantasy opening followed immediately by the party pushing a car while Stand By Me plays is instantly one of my favorite video game intros of all time.

Unfortunately that's immediately followed by the introduction of Cindy, who comes from the "if another human being walked into the room right now, I would be embarrassed to be seen playing this game" school of character design, and who sends me on the requisite quest to go kill low-level monsters so I can learn how combat works.

Tits and Tutorials.

Continuing my years-behind catchup with all of this:

Defenestration wrote:Kingsglaive is best watched before the game. There's even a post credits segueway that clearly happens only a few minutes before where the game literally starts.

Yesbut it doesn't make any sense there. It's a post-credits scene that takes place before the last ninety minutes of film that precede it.

Having Crisis Core end with the intro to FF7 made sense, because the intro to FF7 occurs after Crisis Core. Having KingsGLAIVE! end with the beginning of FF15 just muddies the chronology for no damn reason. It feels like it's there because it's expected, not because it belongs there.

In fact the whole movie is just kind of spectacularly poorly thought-out, and the weirder it gets the more I love it.

This is a movie where they felt that it was appropriate to cut back and forth between the climax of the film, the fall of Lucis, and a fight with motherfucking Ultros. It is the most tonally inappropriate Easter egg I have ever seen, and it is absolutely my favorite part of the movie.

I have more thoughts about this; I think I can probably make a blog post out of it. The movie is not a good movie, but while there are good big swaths of it that are bad in a bland (but very pretty!) way, a lot of it fails in a really fascinating and/or entertaining way.

This car's fuel economy is terrible.

Brentai wrote:I have the opposite problem: My OCD kicked in and made me do all the available quests before moving on from Chapter 6, which as it turns out is... almost all the quests. So now I've kinda broken the experience for myself wrt the story.

I've settled into a comfortable pattern of just doing the lowest-level quest available to me at any given time, whether that's plot-based or sidequest. (I mean, within parameters. If there's a Level 12 right next to a Level 10, obviously I'm going to do them both rather than moving on to the next Level 10 first.) Is that likely to work as far as not clearing the board too fast?

A little bit. After a while you'll find the board is a little too stacked with low-level missions starting a quest chain that doesn't yield particularly fantastic rewards, so it makes more sense to just do the ones closest to your level unless you really WANT to do every quest in the game. In which case just do the closest one, or you'll spend your life either in the car or the loading screen.

But really, all the good, game-changing rewards come from doing plot missions, so prioritize those and don't worry too much about being railroaded (which you absolutely will be but it's fine). The only missable quest is sightseeing at the Disk of Caucus or whatever, and the only optional quests you'll be really glad you did later are the Cup Noodles one (which, really, you should just do anyway, because it's amazing) and eventually the forts.

It can't be overstated how good the Cup Noodle quests are. Much like Cup Noodle itself; what a treat.

I'll never forget my first time, all that's left is to make our cup noodle dream a reality.