screenshot Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics (WOTL): The Nadir of Videogames

[Parrhesia]

1 minute ago, Slumber said:

Yes, Marach's a fuck, and always the first to be ditched when it comes to special characters.

Right, so we're all in something officially close enough to agreement to stop needing to continue something that has spiralled out of hand.

[Slumber]

Sounds good to me.

[Integrity]

yeah no worries i see the exchange above mine now

[Augestein]

4 minutes ago, Integrity said:

literally two pages ago, when marach yelled at her for talking ill of their father after rapha said "you know what he did to me" etc

 

if you don't think those two things are different levels of narrative shittiness, apparently we have a fundamental disconnect that won't be resolved i guess

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

She says that yes, and he simply doesn't want to hear it. Which either implies he doesn't believe her, or he's just a complete dickhead. Which isn't surprising. Dude is a douche that kidnaps people for hostages. This guy was already scum before we even saw this scene. 

No. Because it's not necessarily shitty writing for this to happen. The way FFT handles it is what makes it absolutely shitty writing. There's a key difference. 

 

Quote

Right, so we're all in something officially close enough to agreement to stop needing to continue something that has spiralled out of hand.

Ditto. I always kick him out because I hate him. 

Edited April 23, 2017 by Augestein

[Dark Holy Elf]

Hopefully this isn't seen as trying to re-open debate, I wrote this before the latest set of posts and I will delete this if requested:

 

I have no major issue with Barinten or Rafa as written (obviously Barinten is scum before someone misinterprets my comments), Malak suuucks, yes. His reaction is sadly a realistic one (MANY people disbelieve claims of rape and react badly to them, yes up to and included slapping women to "punish them for lying") but the game never really acknowledges that this reaction makes him a total shithead, and him getting a heroic resurrection leaves an awful taste in my mouth.

He's also a wretchedly bad PC. I think WotL actually buffed him and Rafa a bit but they're still total trash.

also, re the Zodiac stones: Malak took the two stones which Izlude had just tolen from (EDIT) Alma: Scorpio (from Queklain) and Taurus (from Mustadio). The one still on Izlude was Pisces, his own stone. Vormav knows which stones are linked to living demons and doesn't seem to give a shit about the rest.

Edited April 23, 2017 by Dark Holy Elf
Typo

[Parrhesia]

Yeah that's fine, and I agree.

When did Rapha have the stones? I've kind of lost track of things. Or was that a typo for Alma who had Mercurio's stones when being captured?

this game has too many proper nouns

But yeah that checks out.

Edited April 23, 2017 by Parrhesia

[Laura]

if you kill Marach, and like... let him die... do you get a crystal? that'd be a nice way to dispose of him.

[Dark Holy Elf]

50% chance of crystal or treasure chest (always a crystal if you strip him first).

I always boot him immediately after he joins. I'd decline to let him join but that'd mean missing out on his stuff!

10 minutes ago, Parrhesia said:

When did Rapha have the stones? I've kind of lost track of things. Or was that a typo for Alma who had Mercurio's stones when being captured?

Typo, should be Alma, sorry.

[eclipse]

The theme of FFT is so anti-authority it's painful.  It feels like a newfound atheist wrote it.

The second sentence will only get worse as the plot goes on.

[Punished Dayni]

.....

The actual fuck happened? Pretty much everything after the deserters map seems to have just turned into a mess to me, whether it's the illluminati or..... that.

And it's not like the game seems to have been balanced fairly a decade later. It's really good to know that I'm not missing out here.

(I don't need an explanation of the whole mess by the way, I'm just astonished that this happened. And no, I'm not speaking about that because even thinking about the topic kinda hurts after a while)

[Parrhesia]

Update 33
In Which We Accidentally Stumble Upon a Four-Stage Dungeon

Spoiler

 

Actually, Marach, you don't get speaking privileges. Everyone else is going to have their lines rendered, but not you.

It's to represent the fact that you should be fucking dead.

Even the Illuminati have politicians.

Delita. Or, as D'Angelo Barksdale would call him, the go-get-shit-done piece.

Nah, man, it ain't like that. The pawns, man? They get capped quick. They be out the game early.

Unless they some smart-ass pawns.

Welcome back to Game of Throw Stones, where the rules are made up and the points don't matter.

If nothing else - and it's Act 4, there IS nothing else - Cid's theme owns.

They do Say that. They Say it through you, our mouthpiece, and yet remember the last time Cid spoke up to Goltanna? There were three other nobles present. One was Limberry, a Satan, and the other two both shat on Cid.

Calm down, Franziska.

I can't believe it. They lifted this line from Game of fucking Thrones.

jesus christ game of thrones was written twenty-one fucking years ago

like seriously when's a whatever for spring coming out

martin's gonna fuckin die before the series ends i swear to god

So Faction Cid, consisting of Cid, Cid's son and apparently many offstage men, does at least know the church is up to something, but they reckon Zalmour's behind it. Which he is, to be fair. So they've got that part squared away.

Plus, they have a rock.

Mercurio has attained his final outfit change and thus, final Squire. He gets his ultimate ability - Shout. Why isn't the class mastered? Because he can Blue-magic Ultima if you contrive him to be hit with it. We will probably never see Ultima again all game.

We walk into Goug to buy a gun and this happens.

Mercurio walks close and it reacts.

Aaaand that's... it... ?

Even the game's kind of given up with exposition by this point.

By blind chance I find this one in Gollund. I don't know if any other rumours are unique to their inns.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
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.
.

Milk? Fucking seriously, Mercurio?

thanks for reminding me of my dead dad- oh shit I bumped my controller and missed a line, anyway the squire mercenary talked about an unbeatable monster.

Cheers.

A guy with most of Wiglaf's sprite arrives!

Breaking all cardinal rules of video games, 'do not recruit' is the default option.

If - let's be real, if you misclick, he just says this. It's not even just that you can't get to the bottom of the story without Beo - you can't even clear the mine in the first place! The level will not trigger!

You want this option.

Given-Name-Beowulf is interesting and uses my favourite kind of archetypal TBS ability - damage plus chance for status. He's pretty bad at it right now but is inexplicably an accomplished mystic.

Birds are great. In what is frankly extremely cruel, the game floods you in Boco's children and then guilt-trips you every time you dismiss one. The game's too stupid to realise we're only letting them retire to frolic in the bird farm we have presumably conquered by force at some stage.

No dialogue on entry.

I was wrong about the damage, apparently. The benefit of him over an Oracle is that he has no charge times to worry about. Also basically infinite vertical tolerance, which is surprisingly handy.

Bruce is really shit, but I just can't help myself.

Welcome to the team, Bruce!

So yeah Act 4's the bit where we've finally had time to craft our own finely-honed killing machines, and also get given a ton by the game itself. What chance does Beo stand pitted against guys who can do 200 damage with a flick of the wrist?

We're thrown into another random battle, the only important part of which is T H I S  B I T C H.

Thank you for the exhibit on why we want your gun!

Icebrands deal more damage in the snow. Mercurio is OBSCENE.

yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

You can't steal up 1.5 tiles of height, incidentally. Go figure.

You can - and often do - miss positive Speechcraft on yourself. In fact the Brave/Faith boosts both only hit about half the time, and only for 4 (1 permanent) at that.

Are we done here?

I contemplate giving Thurio 95% chance of evading all attacks to complement his invulnerability to magic, but eh, he already has Dragonheart.

pig

Dragons breathe their element. Fun fact; in the PS1 translation, inexplicably the guy thought 'Breath' translated to... 'bracelet'. These dragons would breathe Ice Bracelets upon us. Hotboyz would have a Fire Bracelet. Arguably best of all, the assassins Celia and Lettie possessed the ability to constrict the throat and steal someone's breath away, killing them instantly.

Stop Bracelet.

Annoyingly it turns out that they absorb ice. As a result, Thurio is... my only damage option against them.

are we done here

Somehow, no. Tune in tomorrow, when we... are.

 

 

[Laura]

pig is officially my favorite class

[Mage Knight 404]

Mercurio ordering milk seems rather... milquetoast of him! Eyyyy!

 

-

-

I am so fucking outta here.

yooo it's Beowulf.

[maybe]

are you fucking kidding

milk

god damn it mercurio

i guess there wasn't much bad in this update

although I still think it's really weird how there's straight up a guy named beowulf since up until now (and by now I mean up until yesterday when you said there was a guy named beowulf) i thought beoulve was supposed to sound like beowulf with there being a wiglaf and all

but I guess not since there's an actual beowulf

do beowulf and wiglaf have any relationship beyond their sprites

[Parrhesia]

33 minutes ago, unique said:

do beowulf and wiglaf have any relationship beyond their sprites

oh my god i somehow didn't draw the connection smh.

Also; not as far as I'm aware. And the actual classes are different.

[Dandragon]

I will defend ordering a milk in a bar to my dying breath. Come at me and my additional Calcium added to my bones.

[Radiant Dragon]

Beowulf is possibly my favorite unit in this game. He's basically a suped-up Oracle, which is one of my favorite generic classes.

[eclipse]

All this proves is that Ramza is under 20. ;/

(it's a Japan thing)

[SoloCross]

IIRC on the 1.3 mod you face dual gun wielding engineers instead. Ch4 is when they go kinda crazy with enemy-only classes...

[Etria]

7 hours ago, unique said:

although I still think it's really weird how there's straight up a guy named beowulf since up until now (and by now I mean up until yesterday when you said there was a guy named beowulf) i thought beoulve was supposed to sound like beowulf with there being a wiglaf and all

but I guess not since there's an actual beowulf

Beoulve looks a bit like French to me so I didn't pronounce it like more English-looking Beowulf. But since I have no idea of French pronunciation, I just say Be-ulf.

[Parrhesia]

1.3 is Weird and if people who know more about it than me want to talk about it that's fine and, hell, encouraged. I haven't played it, though.

[Augestein]

10 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

1.3 is Weird and if people who know more about it than me want to talk about it that's fine and, hell, encouraged. I haven't played it, though.

You have to fight special classes of bosses that are flagged immortal.

 

Battle 1 are white knights

Battle 2 are engineers. You can't steal from them.

Battle 3 are assassins. Same deal here.

Battle 4 the boss is ??? Flagged and has 0 faith. Mustadio is your best unit here.

If you want I can share the battles. I have all of them.

[Parrhesia]

Update 34
In Which We Compensate for a Long Update with a Short One

Spoiler

 

So - ultimate showdown. Yoda vs. Beo.

As you can see from her stats and description, Reis is not human, but is in fact an otherkin of exceptional cowardice and atheism. We've been started in an incredibly rude chasm from which basically nobody can escape.

Reis stops the shit out of this cunt's bracelet.

Aaanything she can do, Oakes can do better. She's the only person who can escape Rude Chasm, and foolishly the enemy Dooms her.

You see, the AI is set to always ignore Doomed targets and let the ticket claim them.

eyeballs are really bad

This is what I look like every Monday morning.

Monsters are really bad. Eyeballs are really bad even by monster standards.

EW
BEO, GROSS.
BEO that's FUCKING DISGUSTING

Anyway inexplicably he has one of the rocks in this optional sidequest that you bluntly won't get without sheer luck.

Anyway they join. Beo actually is, for once, the same dude recruited as he was a guest.

I feel bad letting Chartain go since he helped murder Gaffgarion, but, I mean, what else am I gonna do? Kick out a bird?

There's some really cool and nice monster designs that are just never used outside of random battles, and it's a shame.

This is it. This is the line we get for this story map.

ahahaha oh my god both dragoons had best compat

Remember geomancy? Because geomancy's back.

Thurio can unleash the healing powers of Bushido now.

The enemy are still overlevelled, but it absolutely doesn't matter anymore. We've reached critical mass.

The funny thing is that we'd actually be even stronger if it was just Thurio and Mercurio, who are immortal combat gods, compared to everyone else, who are not immortal combat gods.

Also note how all the faces in this game look fucking identical.

Get used to this animation.

Basically a random battle in Southern Sky colours, honestly.

It's only after this stage that I realise I hadn't actually equipped Thurio with a recent katana.

KILL COUNTER
i ran out of space because there were too many knights and everything

broke

help

 

 

[Mage Knight 404]

What!? The Kill void turned pink!? That wasn't part of the projected outcome!

 

(but it is welcome)

[Parrhesia]

actually that update was really short and the next update is also pretty short so;

Update 35
In Which We Conquer Serious Impoliteness

Spoiler

 

In today's update, we head into Bervenia on the road south to Goltanna's pad.

!!!the most impolite paladin is here!!!

We can't go fucking anywhere without an assassin. Anyway yeah welcome to Gold Paladin/archers/magi, the new knights/archers/magi paradigm variant sweeping the nation.

Anyway we're gonna try and rush down this fight because this is a very rude fight!

SURPRISE MOFO, deluxe crime around the corner!

WELCOME TO RUDE KNIGHT. Rude knight is our introduction to knightswords, the best swords only knights, paladins and Act 4 Mercurio Squire can use, and our introduction to perfumes, hers giving her constant Regen/Reraise status, and our introduction to Rude Swordsmanship, which breaks our shit.

I... I don't know if Equip Sword covers knightswords. That might be a problem for Agrias.

It is genuinely tortuous to have this re-explained to us every fucking map.

It turns people into demons and resurrected Marach. It's evil.

Finally it's over.

bye. Thurio then moves to one-shot the ninja, but misses.

She's only got like fifteen HP left. Then, we move to finish her of-

Wouldn't she use Isilud as her example?

What a good game.

Anyway, now we're off to Finnath Creek, where nothing at all will happen to us.

Except a cutscene.

Delita hears the dampest fart, and it's Ovelia, who has forgotten all that we have taught her.

Now, I like the grass flute subplot as much as the next guy, but there does reach a point at which shut the fuck up, nobody cares.

Guys, I really hope you got the really, really heavy-handed and obvious symbolism that Delita is trying to make up for Tietra's detah.

More pub. Also an event would trigger here if we had a truly outrageous sum of money and happened to land on a city on the 1st of Cancer. We need 500k - after selling everything nonessential we have, we find 364k. If another year passes by, I guess, we'll see.

There's a weird but cute little cutscene in Finnath Creek where you have to ford the river but it's fun because you're surrounded by friendly birds.

So let's go to Zeltennia.

So now you have the Church's entire plan, laid out to us by Delita for... ... ... some reason. Probably entirely so that Delita can convince himself that he isn't just a Church lapdog like the rest. In any case Mercurio and Delita are now finally pulling in the same direction again, more or less. Just using different methods.

Gripes: the music is lovely but it drowns out the dialogue, annoyingly. The fade to black and music cuts and then killer quote thing motif is kind of annoying and bad but whatever. I love how the cutscene ends, though, so it makes up for that. The cutscenes are great in general, anyway.

The Church's angle would be really interesting in a well-written game, which this isn't. Unfortunately... well, you'll see when we get there.

KILL COUNTER

Anticipate major growth in the Paladin sector in the fights to come. We are currently at 8.

 

 

Edited April 24, 2017 by Parrhesia