Samias Posted January 13, 2017 Share Posted January 13, 2017 There's a lot of little things that Brave/Faith cover, complete with exact numerical values (hidden item pickup rate, Chicken, units leaving, the difference in damage between low Faith and high Faith, etc.). IMO the Brave/Faith system was needlessly complicated for far too little reward. It's part of the reason why I'm not a huge fan of WotL. --- I'm strange when it comes to video game stories. A1 is my favorite by far. A2 has some very nice moments, though it gets a bit complicated at points. TBH A2 feels more like "a bunch of things that happen along an open-ended journey" compared to the other FFT games. At times it doesn't really feel like the story is that important and it's more of a lighthearted adventure. It gets a bit dark in the end but it's the most upbeat of all the games. I don't think that's a bad thing, but I can see why people would call it a weak entry. Still, the gameplay is really solid for that style of SRPG. I really like it, but it sidegrades some of the stuff from A1 so I go back and forth between games depending on what I want out of the game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Augestein Posted January 13, 2017 Share Posted January 13, 2017 There's a lot of little things that Brave/Faith cover, complete with exact numerical values (hidden item pickup rate, Chicken, units leaving, the difference in damage between low Faith and high Faith, etc.). IMO the Brave/Faith system was needlessly complicated for far too little reward. It's part of the reason why I'm not a huge fan of WotL. --- I'm strange when it comes to video game stories. A1 is my favorite by far. A2 has some very nice moments, though it gets a bit complicated at points. Hidden items are just a mess in FFT anyways on the account that in addition to it working in REVERSE for Brave (like seriously, WTF is that garbage), it doesn't tell you that there are rare and common items on a hidden item tile, so it's not just enough to have Move-Find-Item, but then you have a percentage to grab it, and then a percentage to grab the one you want. Without a guide, this is horrible. In general it doesn't bother me for most items, but then you have stuff like Javelin 2 being in 1 battle where a chemist specifically needs either to be able to jump from the top of a big monster or have boots to jump that high. THAT'S some cryptic nonsense. Brave being a hidden modifier for knight weapons, katanas and fist was pretty messed up too. Units leaving from Brave and Faith I was honestly fine with as this was a far better system than Chaos Frame from Tactics Ogre which gave you cryptic hints on how a character felt about you, changed based on storyline decisions (uh... Cool, but at least let me know that this is happening!), how the character performed in battle, and didn't have the same message for different alignments (meaning that you could have say 6 units each with different alignments and loyalties and you wouldn't know what the messages meant or even to check for them because of how the game worked). Faith is in the same boat too on the account that no one will ever leave for Brave loss or Faith gain naturally without player intervention, and there's never a way to buff lower Brave enough or raise Faith enough in one battle for them to leave without a warning or two. While Tactics Ogre warned you, it does it in a way where there's nothing you can really do about it. But honestly, it's less cryptic than being able to get mythril items in FFTA1-- combos are pretty much impossible to get without a guide for each class. FFTA2 is much better in that regard. It has the least amount of cryptic nonsense. Dare I say it, FFTA2 is actually highly ignored and underrated. For stories, I actually understand why you'd prefer the first one the most. It's without a doubt the most straightforward of the bunch. It's also the least wordy. It talks when it needs to and doesn't say much else (which is astoundingly shocking coming from Square Enix). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrhesia Posted January 13, 2017 Share Posted January 13, 2017 TBH A2 feels more like "a bunch of things that happen along an open-ended journey" compared to the other FFT games. At times it doesn't really feel like the story is that important and it's more of a lighthearted adventure. It gets a bit dark in the end but it's the most upbeat of all the games. I don't think that's a bad thing, but I can see why people would call it a weak entry. Still, the gameplay is really solid for that style of SRPG. I really like it, but it sidegrades some of the stuff from A1 so I go back and forth between games depending on what I want out of the game. Oh, yeah, without a doubt - from the perspective of, well, LPing it now, there really isn't a single plotline to bind the game together. The endgame faction is mostly only expanded upon in sidequests, the secondary antagonists are entirely skippable, both secondary characters only get their backstory in sidequests... meanwhile a lot of main story missions are just introducing areas and concepts, and not many of them are that memorable. I find A2 cathartic in a way because it's just kind of... I dunno, there's this sense that the world you're on fucking sucks but, bit by bit, you're making it a better place. But if a coherent single structure is preferred, then FFT definitely has that - there aren't even any sidequests until the endgame as far as I'm aware. Out of curiosity, what do you prefer about A1? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samias Posted January 13, 2017 Share Posted January 13, 2017 Out of curiosity, what do you prefer about A1? Some class builds are easier and/or more effective in A1. I felt status effects had a lot more impact in A1 due to their accuracy, whereas status effects have a flat accuracy in A2, depending on resistances of the enemy and it really decreases the value of early archer status effects, and instead puts pressure to use soldier stat debuffs instead because they don't suffer through the same accuracy woes. And while this isn't universally great, I liked the idea of using law manipulation to hinder the opposition to prevent them from doing certain things. Also, MP reliant classes are very rough to use early game until you get the MP recovery perk, and for the advanced magic classes, Half MP. That said the gameplay in A1 takes an age and a half to execute compared to A2, so I'd rather play A2. But A1 has some concepts that I like exploring and different class meta. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magical CC Posted January 15, 2017 Share Posted January 15, 2017 Some class builds are easier and/or more effective in A1. I felt status effects had a lot more impact in A1 due to their accuracy, whereas status effects have a flat accuracy in A2, depending on resistances of the enemy and it really decreases the value of early archer status effects, and instead puts pressure to use soldier stat debuffs instead because they don't suffer through the same accuracy woes. And while this isn't universally great, I liked the idea of using law manipulation to hinder the opposition to prevent them from doing certain things. Also, MP reliant classes are very rough to use early game until you get the MP recovery perk, and for the advanced magic classes, Half MP. That said the gameplay in A1 takes an age and a half to execute compared to A2, so I'd rather play A2. But A1 has some concepts that I like exploring and different class meta. Classes in A1 are less unbalance than in A2. There are only some truly OP classes in A2 while there are many useless class in A2. And many classes in A2 use the same skills with merely cosmestic change. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MissShake Posted January 15, 2017 Author Share Posted January 15, 2017 gah, why have we not had a new fft? :/ Isn't it because the head guy left and said he doesn't want to do any Ivalice games anymore? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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