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As for me continuing into New Game + for Persona 4 Golden, I ended up breezing through the Yukiko's Castle just before the fight against her shadow's counterpart. I'm having a feeling that my Trumpeter and other endgame Personas are going to break the game in half. I'll issue an update later.

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25 minutes ago, henrymidfields said:

As for me continuing into New Game + for Persona 4 Golden, I ended up breezing through the Yukiko's Castle just before the fight against her shadow's counterpart. I'm having a feeling that my Trumpeter and other endgame Personas are going to break the game in half. I'll issue an update later.

This is why I always stop through NG+ in a lot of games, Persona 4 being one of them.

Part of the fun of games to me is the challenge. It's why when I got the hankering to play Persona 5 again a few months ago, I opted to start a new game completely rather than use my old save file and start NG+.

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So... I'm replaying FFX at the moment and I feel like I am really freaking overlevelled. I am in Bikanel Desert and Tidus already has Hastega while Rikku is almost at the end of her "path" on the Sphere Grid.

But replaying it made me notice quite a few things I hadn't really paid attention to in my previous playthrough. To list off:
- Train Yuna well and the Aeons (i.e. their Overdrives) will trivialize the game for you. 9,999 on one of the harder early-game bosses? No problem.
- Wakka is an irredeemable prick.
- I can't seem to take Seymour seriously since Playstation Access made the Seymour is an evil Winnie the Pooh joke.
- The ultimate weapons are a pain in the ass to get and upgrade. To this day, I can only get Rikku's, Auron's and Yuna's fully upgraded. No dice on anyone else's.
- Blitzball has to be the worst minigame ever invented.

7 hours ago, Slumber said:

This is why I always stop through NG+ in a lot of games, Persona 4 being one of them.

Part of the fun of games to me is the challenge. It's why when I got the hankering to play Persona 5 again a few months ago, I opted to start a new game completely rather than use my old save file and start NG+.

I think I'll do the same when I replay Persona 5. I beat the secret boss you can only fight on NG+ (not saying who because of spoilers) and I got an accessory that nulls every attack that hits you if you wear it, meaning you can't die when you have that thing on.

As for my Strange Journey Redux playthrough: It ended unceremoniously because I got stuck on the new final boss. Bullshit boss design is bullshit.

Edited by DragonFlames
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On 6/24/2018 at 5:16 PM, Slumber said:

This is why I always stop through NG+ in a lot of games, Persona 4 being one of them.

Part of the fun of games to me is the challenge. It's why when I got the hankering to play Persona 5 again a few months ago, I opted to start a new game completely rather than use my old save file and start NG+.

Meh, I don't really care about the reduced challenge. If anything, I like how I can easily blitz through and focus on the Social Links I didn't went through the first time. I don't have the time to fuck around with grinding for whatever.

Edited by henrymidfields
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@Interdimensional Observer

I remember that in order to clear Symphonia's coliseum with Genis and Raine it required them to have a specific ex sphere ability that I think allowed them to cast faster so they could cast high level magic in the time it took for the enemy to close in on them. It was really annoying since I didn't really want to mess around with the current setups I had on them and eventually just gave up.

The dungeon design in the Tales series from Xillia onward is almost non existent. Zestiria is the only game that tries and is kind of okay when it comes to the trial areas, but I struggle to understand what they were trying to do with the Earth trial given how stupidly easy it is.

Spoiler

The Jude and Milla romance was mostly awkward for me since he's 15 and she's 20, but it does tie into Jude's character and the decisions he makes down the line. Also if Milla was instead Millo I think it play out just the same (since a good portion of the Tales fanbase are fujoshi and I think the developers would tease them with some shipping fodder).

I don't think Ivar is made to be effeminate and it will probably become more apparent later on.

The game itself treats Leia as a side character and asks why she is here. The revelations about her past actually has some relevance to the overall plot of the game. Actually all of the part members pasts are kind of interesting as a part of this worlds history and I think makes this cast pretty interesting on the whole.

I got nothing to say about Rowan other than that he's a pretty likable older character.

Like Leia Elize's background leads to some interesting revelations, but she is more or less the token little girl character in the JRPG party.

Alvin once again marks the checkbox for traitor character in the Tales series. It's easier to list the games without this trope than those with it.

There a lot I want to say about these characters, but since your not finished yet I'll hold myself back.

 

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Another thing, has anyone wondered where would Inaba be in the P4-verse of Japan? Initially, I thought it was near Minami-Alps City (Southern Alps City - It's not a joke.) in southern Yamanashi Prefecture from the following (possible spoilers, plus assumed knowledge of Tokyo geography):

Spoiler

 

  1. Yaso-Inaba Station looks being similar to the former Ishiwa-Onsen Station, and Okina Station was supposedly being modelled from real-life Kofu (Main) Station in Kofu City.
  2. Yu's/Souji's/the PC's scooter allows him to travel between Inaba and Okina without a forced passage of time from "After School" to "Evening", assuming that the two are reasonably close by. Similarly, Minami-Alps to Kofu is 30 mins by driving, according to Google Maps.
  3. The above hypothetical location would be roughly 2-3 hrs via the slower train from Tokyo where Yu is from (from the opening cutscene), which is probably not an unreasonable duration to ride. Maybe 4 hours depending on where Yu's house is, as even the city proper (the 23-wards district) is very big. Also, we never see a Shinkansen in the cutscene, which means that Yu probably rode the express via the Chuo Main Line. (The other direction lacking a Shinkansen route is the Joban Line, that goes to Sendai via northern Chiba and coastal Ibaragi/Fukushima.) Assuming the city (as the characters refer to) is Tokyo in Dancing All Night, that would also make sense in Yosuke and Co departing Inaba in the morning (which is during Chapter 1 of the story) and arrive at Takura studios (where Yu and others are waiting) just before midday.
  4. The majority of Yamanashi Prefecture (and the majority of Kanto and Greater Tokyo in general) surprisingly does not get much snow in winter, but a couple of areas including Minami-Alps are exceptions.

The problem is with Shichiri Beach, which can be ridden to and back with Yu's/Souji's/the PC's scooter without automatically triggering passage of time from "after school" to "evening". Even from Lake Kawaguchi, which is on the southern end, it would take an hour and a half to get to the beaches in Shizuoka Prefecture, and would no doubt take longer from other places. I may have to check the area around Mito/Kashima Cities in Ibaragi Prefecture.

 

The above makes me think that maybe Inaba is located not in Yamanashi Prefecture, but elsewhere. I may need to check the area along the Joban Line, which I previously mentioned in bullet point #3.

Edited by henrymidfields
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On 6/24/2018 at 12:00 PM, Modamy said:

I remember that in order to clear Symphonia's coliseum with Genis and Raine it required them to have a specific ex sphere ability that I think allowed them to cast faster so they could cast high level magic in the time it took for the enemy to close in on them. It was really annoying since I didn't really want to mess around with the current setups I had on them and eventually just gave up.

Concentrate- the no flinch while casting ability- also exists, although that comes with the issue of living long enough. 

 

On 6/24/2018 at 12:00 PM, Modamy said:

The dungeon design in the Tales series from Xillia onward is almost non existent. Zestiria is the only game that tries and is kind of okay when it comes to the trial areas, but I struggle to understand what they were trying to do with the Earth trial given how stupidly easy it is.

And ToS was so good here... Well it was obnoxious at some points, Ymir Forest was just a giant puzzle with nothing else to it, and Lantheon Gorge, well let's not get started on that. And maybe the Temple of Darkness was much. And maybe I shouldn't be judging this too much since I always had my game guide for the answers if need be. Still I liked Balacruf Mausoleum's Poetry of Penta Pinwheels. And I think the Tethe'alla Base was fairly complicated, but not tedious or brutally hard, which is the limit of how things should go.

 

Well the music changed over as soon as I picked things up in the desert area in Xillia. So I guess I'm through the first arc, Fort Gandala being its climax and Lorande being the pivot point to the second, makes sense.

I noticed a Bacura as soon I started walking, I pursued it, it got away (a few ran away from me in the field- didn't toy with Dark Bottles at the time and learn that makes them cake- I did figure that out myself though), but it wasn't long before I found another. Thought it would be harmless like in ToS, nope, its flipping mad and something of challenge, but it does offer 2000 EXP a pop- a Metal Slime with teeth. After I developed a fondness for Metal hunting in DQVIII, mmm! Spend an hour or so trying to find and kill some Bronze Bacuras, while loading up on loot materials whilst doing so. Quit doing so after successfully killing another two, with food applied to boost the EXP to 2600 or 3200. By luck I hunted another one after the rather tough boss. I see there are at least two Lilium Orbs now, I would assume there is also a third and probably a fourth and perhaps even a fifth at the rate I'm unlocking things (if the level cap is the old and totally unneeded 255 it could be ten Orbs for all I know)- but how much in Skills could the third and beyond have, or is it just stats? I already have Revive, which is pretty much an endpoint of healing artes, so I'm expecting unlocking artes ends with the second Orb.

Then I explored the next city, explored the Wetlands out of curiosity, and killed myself against another Devil's Beast to confirm it was one (I quicksaved right beforehand though- I'm feeling for the 50s-60s now before I fight them). Those Water Djinn drop Libavius Ores so easily and yet they give 1500 points a pop! I've been going there from time to time to kill them, and I'm still waiting for a shop to go 3x on the metal stuff when I'll get rid of it all or as much as I want to. The other monsters in the area, namely the Gentleman (trying to make it clear all golems = deadly?) and the boars are very painful though, still, it is really easy to avoid enemies you don't want to fight in this game. Makes me wonder- is the shop level capped at 100 or does it go higher? Already I have a 40 Armor Shop, but if it does exceed 100, oh dear that is going to be a lot of materials. At this point in the game, it just doesn't seem hard to grind beyond where you're supposed to be, not that I mind being somewhat overleveled. Sure it defeats the point of playing on Moderate, or Hard if I tried that, but I just happen to like leveling when its easy.

 

As for the plot:

Spoiler

Things do pick up in Xian Du. Nice to see Milla has familiarity with Exodus and was able to explain the gist of it so it wasn't just a shadowy organization the heroes were totally in the dark about. 

More importantly, Alvin's spy activities have been recognized, Milla didn't do the questionable thing of keeping it to themselves, and actually confronted Alvin and then informed the crew. This makes things so much more interesting than the usual traitor and nobody notices it, or nobody speaks up about noticing the suspicious activity. That Alvin stays around, despite potentially still being a threat to the group and very much untrustworthy still, is a twist that keeps some tension, though the thing is, the group can handle Alvin's disloyalty. Milla and Rowen are both strong and cold enough that they can manage having him around, something that wouldn't really be possible were it not for these two, Milla, the leader of the group and its mission, in particular. Alvin still has the Ivor card up his sleeve though.

The Elize backstory is okay, nothing particularly amazing, but not bad. The Teepo stuff makes for a fair explanation for the puppet. I'm surprised that the Hunting Grounds-Hollows had no boss fight at all, not even a Chief Jiao rematch.

Then in Kanbalar Alvin betrayed again! I kinda take back a bit what I said before, but then I don't. His flakiness- is it bad writing or is it good? I can't quite tell right now. How much longer can they play this out though? Up to the Lance of Kresnik at least I imagine. His mother's severe mental health decline is rather serious for a Tales game, and is being played a bit differently than Raine's mother was. Gaius looks menacing by the way, neither the wyvern boss nor the two Chimeroids were a real challenge for me, again owing to being like 37 when fighting them. Nice to see not all boosters are children's toys though, that'd be a bit ridiculous.

 

And at this point, there is just one thing that I'm hoping doesn't happen in plot- that is Milla losing forever their Lord of Spirits nature. Please oh please oh please please please please don't reduce Maxwell to a human girl forever! I don't want to loose my genuinely unique in gaming incarnated god. That is all I beg of you ToX! I'm actually dreading advancing the story somewhat because I fear this will happen. If this does happen, then Jude and Milla can live happily ever after as a normal couple, and that would be okay, I just love the idea of Maxwell too much.

 

I was going to wait until the Fenmont stuff was done with before posting about everything again, but I'm feeling like I have too many games open at once and can't quite figure out what I want to do. I have a Valkyria Chronicles playthrough open, I have the ToX file, which, in my one and only check of GFAQs for this game puts me at roughly the halfway mark and which I've been playing almost exclusively for several days in a row and I don't want to loose my immediate attachment to it. But I also have EOV I want to start, but part of me wants to finish EOU2 Classic or Story first- it seems strange to have an unfinished EO game whilst starting a new one. And I also want to start XC2 and get back to FFT after putting it down so long ago (the game wasn't too fun, but it's supposed to be a masterpiece so I just want to get through it once to see it for myself). Errrgg!

I'm not sure how many games I can juggle at once. Maybe I'll compromise and just drop the difficulty to Normal for EOU2 Classic, saving in a separate spot from my Expert Classic file so I can come back to that if I want. I'll at last kill Juggs and the 5th Stratum boss right afterwards and finally be able to bury the annoyance of the game- I'll admit to my Classic team being a failure this way, but fine by me- I really messed up with it. Once that is done, I can start EOV without the albatross of another EO over my head and play the rest of the Story (up to the infamous 3rd Strata boss) and the 6th Strata whenever I feel like it.

 

On 6/24/2018 at 10:57 AM, DragonFlames said:

- Train Yuna well and the Aeons (i.e. their Overdrives) will trivialize the game for you. 9,999 on one of the harder early-game bosses? No problem.
- Wakka is an irredeemable prick.

Yeah, Golden Sun isn't the only game with Summon Rush. Valefor! Ifrit! Ixion! Shiva! Bahamut! And if you're lucky enough to have gotten them (I missed the requirements), Anima for the endgame. Then you have Yojimbo to cheese the tedious unfun postgame.

For some unexplained reason, maybe me trying to emphasize in some way with more religiously inclined worldviews IRL, but Wakka for some reason endures in my memory with perhaps more liking than I should give him.

On 6/24/2018 at 10:57 AM, DragonFlames said:

So... I'm replaying FFX at the moment and I feel like I am really freaking overlevelled. I am in Bikanel Desert and Tidus already has Hastega while Rikku is almost at the end of her "path" on the Sphere Grid.

Didn't Rikku join just after the Moonflow (that big lazy river)? You had the forest and the way to the Shiva temple and that was it before Bikanel right? Wow that is grind.

But it does remind me how you know that one forced battle upon starting with just Tidus in Bikanel? The one where Lulu and someone else are supposed to enter the scene once Tidus's HP drops low enough? That never actually happened to me, Haste + caution meant Tidus won by himself. When characters just showed up after the battle, and I was like where did they come from? Only then did I realize I was supposed to semi-lose that fight.

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2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

For some unexplained reason, maybe me trying to emphasize in some way with more religiously inclined worldviews IRL, but Wakka for some reason endures in my memory with perhaps more liking than I should give him.

Wakka is like a caricature of religious extremism, though. He's racist, holds an "us-vs-them" mentality, is so unstable that the party is afraid to tell him that Yuna is half Al Bhed, and that Rikku is full Al Bhed, because they have no idea what he'd do, but he's also too stupid to notice the racial traits that both of them have.

And at the end of his "character development" in FFX is him going from "They deserved it"(When a bunch of people are slaughtered during Operation Mi'hen for co-operating with the Al Bhed and using machina) to "Sucks for them"(When Home is destroyed and the Al Bhed are effectively left without a place to go).

If there was something beyond this, maybe I'd be inclined to empathize. But no. Wakka sucks. He's the worst member of a relatively bad party. No I don't give a shit that he names his kid an Al Bhed name, FFX-2 is basically glorified fanfiction.

Edited by Slumber
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2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Yeah, Golden Sun isn't the only game with Summon Rush. Valefor! Ifrit! Ixion! Shiva! Bahamut! And if you're lucky enough to have gotten them (I missed the requirements), Anima for the endgame. Then you have Yojimbo to cheese the tedious unfun postgame.

For some unexplained reason, maybe me trying to emphasize in some way with more religiously inclined worldviews IRL, but Wakka for some reason endures in my memory with perhaps more liking than I should give him.

Didn't Rikku join just after the Moonflow (that big lazy river)? You had the forest and the way to the Shiva temple and that was it before Bikanel right? Wow that is grind.

But it does remind me how you know that one forced battle upon starting with just Tidus in Bikanel? The one where Lulu and someone else are supposed to enter the scene once Tidus's HP drops low enough? That never actually happened to me, Haste + caution meant Tidus won by himself. When characters just showed up after the battle, and I was like where did they come from? Only then did I realize I was supposed to semi-lose that fight.

I have to give FFX credit where it's due, though. It's probably the last Final Fantasy game where summons are actually worth anything. The ones in FFXII suck for how hard they are to get (especially the optional ones) and FFXIII's are just plain weird to control. I haven't played XV, though, so I can't say anything about that. Bravely Default and Second have some decent ones, at least.
Speaking of OP summons: You know that super hard Seymour boss fight in Bevelle, right? I one-shot him with Mega Flare yesterday.

On Wakka: I have nothing against anyone who likes him. He has some decent moments, his friendship with Tidus is endearing due to him looking like his brother Chappu (even though in-game, they look nothing alike, but whatevs), for example. It's just that his negatives far outweigh the positives for me. At least he's decent in combat once you train him up a bit (doing over 4k damage with a fantasy soccer ball is a thing to behold, for sure).

Rikku's "path" is kind of short, compared to some of the other's. But yeah, for this playthrough, I have decided to grind the living crap out of my characters, just to see how powerful you can be before you get the airship for real.
At the moment, I am able to reach Mt. Gagazet: Tidus, Auron, Yuna and Rikku are finished with their respective paths, Rikku and Auron have started on Lulu's and Tidus' respectively, Lulu has just learned Doublecast and Wakka is also almost done with his side. I have sent Khimari down Tidus' route as well after finishing off his portion so I can have a second Haste user early and he's about to learn Slowga, I think it was.

Interesting, I never got to beat that giant bird thing before Lulu and Auron showed up. I thought it was impossible to win before they do.

Did you know that once you reach the Calm Lands, you can freely go all the way back to the Thunder Plains? Due to that, I have Yuna's Celestial Weapon with its first upgrade, so Valefor can break the damage limit, too. I pity Seymour Flux already...

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8 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

The ones in FFXII suck for how hard they are to get (especially the optional ones)

I actually really like how the Lucavi/Espers are handled in FFXII. I think a few too many of them were hidden, but they were the most fun things in the game to hunt down, in a game where the best part was hunting stuff down.

I also like how they're handled in the Zodiac Edition. They unlock parts of the license grid, so actually unlocking the Espers can be a big part of building a character.

Edited by Slumber
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1 minute ago, Slumber said:

I actually really like how the Lucavi/Espers are handled in FFXII. I think a few too many of them were hidden, but they were the most fun things in the game to hunt down, in a game where the best part was hunting stuff down.

Hunt down, maybe. Fight, not so much.
And the reward isn't worth the effort you have to put in, especially for some of the harder ones like Zeromus, Chaos, Zodiark and Ultima. But hey, that's - as always - just my take on things.

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7 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

Hunt down, maybe. Fight, not so much.
And the reward isn't worth the effort you have to put in, especially for some of the harder ones like Zeromus, Chaos, Zodiark and Ultima. But hey, that's - as always - just my take on things.

I guess it depends on how into the Gambit system you are. Because most of them can be built around when you fight them.

Also the Zodiac Edition buffed the Espers considerably, so they're more worth it there.

Edited by Slumber
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3 hours ago, Slumber said:

Wakka is like a caricature of religious extremism, though. He's racist, holds an "us-vs-them" mentality, is so unstable that the party is afraid to tell him that Yuna is half Al Bhed, and that Rikku is full Al Bhed, because they have no idea what he'd do, but he's also too stupid to notice the racial traits that both of them have.

And at the end of his "character development" in FFX is him going from "They deserved it"(When a bunch of people are slaughtered during Operation Mi'hen for co-operating with the Al Bhed and using machina) to "Sucks for them"(When Home is destroyed and the Al Bhed are effectively left without a place to go).

Easy to judge, huh?

Yet there's a lot of RL people who hold a similar attitude to Wakka - not just the racism, but the absolute faith in religion, to the point where they're shocked/offended by things that go contrary to it.  Yet Wakka isn't solely about being a shitty person.  Remember how he interacted with his blitzball team?  Or the hang-ups he had about his brother?  Or how he and Lulu interacted at the beginning of the game?  All these tell Wakka's story, too. . .and those that are an echo to him IRL.

In the end, I think Wakka is one of the better-written characters, even if I don't like him.

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This kind of reminds me of how people tend to remember negative things easier than positive ones, which is why they might forget the positive things altogether. If the bad stuff is bad enough, anyway. I think I've seen similar sentiments towards Kirumi from Danganronpa V3, though that's not (really) a JRPG.

 

What is one is Eredia: the Diary of Heroes. It's got one of those jerk protags, but he grew on me as I kept going along. Though, other than a certain character, I've felt that the playable cast could've gotten more development. I do like the writing, though, especially in the screenshot here. 

monogamousFascists.jpg

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7 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

Bravely Default and Second have some decent ones, at least.

Decent would be describing what you get if you averaged BD and BS. Default by itself has Summoner as underpowered, since Summons are just -ara level Black Magic targeting all, save Susano-o which is stronger and element-free, which potentially hurts its damage output actually since Salve Maker can always invent a weakness if you run one and the Amp skills can also add to damage.

Bravely Second by itself has Summoner being quite overpowered if you pick it over Swordmaster in Chapter 1, that kind of power, although pricey, that early on, is incredible. Unlike Black Magic, you can also Dart/Needle it to make it 1.5 times stronger, and the new additions of Charybdis and Amaterasu give it a measure of debuffing and a full party HP heal for some nice diversity. You're probably looking at some of the best magic damage here outside of Meteor Meteor Rain (which belongs in a class all its own), and it can come much much sooner.

8 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

I have sent Khimari down Tidus' route as well after finishing off his portion so I can have a second Haste user early and he's about to learn Slowga, I think it was.

On my one playthrough of X I sent Khimari down Lulu's line (I was playing using the HD remaster's Expert Sphere Gird for what it is worth) thinking that having a second spellcaster would help conserve her MP. Didn't realize that was actually a bad move in the long run due to magic damage falling off. Although for the attack on Home, some of the Guado enemies are weak to magic and specifically focus on Lulu if possible IIRC, having Khimari use magic actually worked in my favor here, since he is not Lulu so they don't expect him to be packing spells.

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My current Kimahri is Wakka and Lulu's child.  He dabbled in the Strikes and knows Drain and Flare FSR.

 

Spoiler

Needless to say, his solo fight was pretty easy.  Lancet + Drain was all the healing I needed, and a few Flares equalized everything in a hurry.

 

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10 hours ago, eclipse said:

Easy to judge, huh?

Yet there's a lot of RL people who hold a similar attitude to Wakka - not just the racism, but the absolute faith in religion, to the point where they're shocked/offended by things that go contrary to it.  Yet Wakka isn't solely about being a shitty person.  Remember how he interacted with his blitzball team?  Or the hang-ups he had about his brother?  Or how he and Lulu interacted at the beginning of the game?  All these tell Wakka's story, too. . .and those that are an echo to him IRL.

In the end, I think Wakka is one of the better-written characters, even if I don't like him.

That's why I said he has an "us-vs-them" mentality. If you're not a filthy heathen or somebody with spiral eyes or on a different Blitzball team, he's fine with you and is just a lovable oaf.

If you ARE one of the things he doesn't like, then, well, apparently you deserve to die by Sin's hands... flippers.

I'd say he'd be well written if his religious extremism/racism was more of a focus on his character and people just stopped and said "Hey dude, you're not being cool right now" more often. When he gets REALLY extreme, they don't really treat him any different than they treat him when he's just being an idiot, which is a really bad way to treat a character flaw. His worse attributes get glossed over pretty quickly, and even the line where Lulu says that Wakka absolutely cannot know that Yuna is part Al Bhed just comes and goes, despite the implications of that claim being REALLY bad for Wakka's character. I don't even remember if anything ever even comes from his "They deserve to die" mentality he has towards people who use Machina. I think it's strongly hinted that he has that mentality over Chappu, but I don't remember anybody ever going "Wakka, that's really fucked up, there are dead bodies on the beach right there, and you knew some of them".

I'll agree that he's better written than most FFX characters, and they're attempting to actually say something with his character, which is more than you can say about most FF characters in geneal, but I still don't think they handle it particularly well. I think that of people not even putting together that he's supposed to be a religious fundamentalist nut should say a lot about how they handled this. Most people remember him just being Tidus' bro, and a "lovable idiot" in a cast with 3 "lovable idiots". The post that started this was about @DragonFlames having a recent realization about it.

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5 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Decent would be describing what you get if you averaged BD and BS. Default by itself has Summoner as underpowered, since Summons are just -ara level Black Magic targeting all, save Susano-o which is stronger and element-free, which potentially hurts its damage output actually since Salve Maker can always invent a weakness if you run one and the Amp skills can also add to damage.

Bravely Second by itself has Summoner being quite overpowered if you pick it over Swordmaster in Chapter 1, that kind of power, although pricey, that early on, is incredible. Unlike Black Magic, you can also Dart/Needle it to make it 1.5 times stronger, and the new additions of Charybdis and Amaterasu give it a measure of debuffing and a full party HP heal for some nice diversity. You're probably looking at some of the best magic damage here outside of Meteor Meteor Rain (which belongs in a class all its own), and it can come much much sooner.

On my one playthrough of X I sent Khimari down Lulu's line (I was playing using the HD remaster's Expert Sphere Gird for what it is worth) thinking that having a second spellcaster would help conserve her MP. Didn't realize that was actually a bad move in the long run due to magic damage falling off. Although for the attack on Home, some of the Guado enemies are weak to magic and specifically focus on Lulu if possible IIRC, having Khimari use magic actually worked in my favor here, since he is not Lulu so they don't expect him to be packing spells.

Yeah, summons with Spellcraft is ridiculous in Second. You can actually kill the final boss' first phase by Hresvelgr Raining him (since it's weak to wind, for whatever reason). And then you Susano-o Rain the second phase, because the weakness switches to darkness.
Though, if I do remember correctly, you can use Spellcraft with Black Magic, too. It's just not worth it when compared to summoning with Spellcraft (Amaterasu Mist is pretty cool when you need healing every turn) or the absolutely broken Meteor Rain.

Yeah, magic isn't all that in X, especially when it comes to postgame stuff. Holy and Ultima are the only two spells that kind of hold up, since you are guaranteed to hit something with them and they will almost always do the maximum amount of damage. Holy and / or Doublecasting Ultima can trivialize some endgame bosses when you don't grind too much, though.

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8 minutes ago, Slumber said:

That's why I said he has an "us-vs-them" mentality. If you're not a filthy heathen or somebody with spiral eyes or on a different Blitzball team, he's fine with you and is just a lovable oaf.

If you ARE one of the things he doesn't like, then, well, apparently you deserve to die by Sin's hands... flippers.

I'd say he'd be well written if his religious extremism/racism was more of a focus on his character and people just stopped and said "Hey dude, you're not being cool right now" more often. When he gets REALLY extreme, they don't really treat him any different than they treat him when he's just being an idiot, which is a really bad way to treat a character flaw. His worse attributes get glossed over pretty quickly, and even the line where Lulu says that Wakka absolutely cannot know that Yuna is part Al Bhed just comes and goes, despite the implications of that claim being REALLY bad for Wakka's character. I don't even remember if anything ever even comes from his "They deserve to die" mentality he has towards people who use Machina. I think it's strongly hinted that he has that mentality over Chappu, but I don't remember anybody ever going "Wakka, that's really fucked up, there are dead bodies on the beach right there, and you knew some of them".

I'll agree that he's better written than most FFX characters, and they're attempting to actually say something with his character, which is more than you can say about most FF characters in geneal, but I still don't think they handle it particularly well. I think that of people not even putting together that he's supposed to be a religious fundamentalist nut should say a lot about how they handled this. Most people remember him just being Tidus' bro, and a "lovable idiot" in a cast with 3 "lovable idiots". The post that started this was about @DragonFlames having a recent realization about it.

If you start and stop at racism/religion, you've completely missed the point.  It's like saying "you have a cough, so I don't want anything to do with you".  In this case, the "point" is the fear and uncertainty of existence on Spira.  Death is much more present in their world than ours - at any given time, a giant monster can show up and level your hometown.  If your soul isn't properly taken care of once you've died, you become a monster.  Yet there's summoners, who can stave off this inevitability, at least for a bit.  People who are scared will cling to hope - that's what's driving Wakka.  It partially explains why he's so submissive to Lulu in the beginning of the game.

Now, replace "giant monster which can level towns" with "rapid change in society", take out the soul-transformation thing, and that's our world right now.  Even if FFX has some really wonky story elements, there's a deeper message underneath it all.  It isn't going to be my all-time favorite FF, but it's definitely one of the better ones.

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10 minutes ago, eclipse said:

Now, replace "giant monster which can level towns" with "rapid change in society", take out the soul-transformation thing, and that's our world right now.

Truer words have never been spoken.

31 minutes ago, Slumber said:

The post that started this was about @DragonFlames having a recent realization about it.

I'm sorry... I didn't really mean to start anything.

13 hours ago, Slumber said:

I guess it depends on how into the Gambit system you are. Because most of them can be built around when you fight them.

Also the Zodiac Edition buffed the Espers considerably, so they're more worth it there.

I have the Zodiac Edition, but I don't really use the Espers that often. I used Belias in the fight against the Ring Wyrm and it did seem like it went better than on PS2, but other than that I haven't really bothered with them as of yet, since I still remember them being very crappy for what kind of hoops you have to jump through to get them.
I will say, however, that they are probably part of one of the coolest subplots of FF12 (even if it is mainly a retelling of Lucifer's rebellion against the Judeo-Christian God from Milton's Paradise Lost - at least I THINK that was the book's name. I may be confusing it with something else, though) and I absolutely LOVE their designs. Just seeing them makes you think "wait, I probably should NOT have set this thing free right now..."

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2 hours ago, eclipse said:

If you start and stop at racism/religion, you've completely missed the point.  It's like saying "you have a cough, so I don't want anything to do with you".  In this case, the "point" is the fear and uncertainty of existence on Spira.  Death is much more present in their world than ours - at any given time, a giant monster can show up and level your hometown.  If your soul isn't properly taken care of once you've died, you become a monster.  Yet there's summoners, who can stave off this inevitability, at least for a bit.  People who are scared will cling to hope - that's what's driving Wakka.  It partially explains why he's so submissive to Lulu in the beginning of the game.

Now, replace "giant monster which can level towns" with "rapid change in society", take out the soul-transformation thing, and that's our world right now.  Even if FFX has some really wonky story elements, there's a deeper message underneath it all.  It isn't going to be my all-time favorite FF, but it's definitely one of the better ones.

Again, I'd argue that this isn't wholly true. The parallels are true, but how Wakka's handled doesn't come off as a guy clinging to hope in a hopeless world. 

And it's almost all due to Yevon is revealed to be a lie that exists to keep Sin going, and Wakka has... One or two scenes where he reflects on this? All things considered, he sure takes the revelation that not only is his religion a lie, it's a lie that has explicitly been keeping the thing tearing his world apart going, purely because some zombies love cheating death, pretty damn well. His devotion was so integral to his character that it was actively making him a shitty human being, but after a few scenes, he's back to being regular old Wakka, just with slightly less reason to hold racial prejudice, which was already happening just by him spending time with Al Bhed. 

I feel like there are a million better ways to develop a character like that outside of making them loathsome, and they only ever get over it when they realize zombies are controlling their views. 

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1 hour ago, Slumber said:

Again, I'd argue that this isn't wholly true. The parallels are true, but how Wakka's handled doesn't come off as a guy clinging to hope in a hopeless world. 

And it's almost all due to Yevon is revealed to be a lie that exists to keep Sin going, and Wakka has... One or two scenes where he reflects on this? All things considered, he sure takes the revelation that not only is his religion a lie, it's a lie that has explicitly been keeping the thing tearing his world apart going, purely because some zombies love cheating death, pretty damn well. His devotion was so integral to his character that it was actively making him a shitty human being, but after a few scenes, he's back to being regular old Wakka, just with slightly less reason to hold racial prejudice, which was already happening just by him spending time with Al Bhed. 

I feel like there are a million better ways to develop a character like that outside of making them loathsome, and they only ever get over it when they realize zombies are controlling their views. 

Were you expecting Wakka to turn into a broody mess when the big reveal hit?  Or perhaps he'd throw a temper tantrum and go full-on atheist?  Neither of these fit his character - we've already seen that his world has been turned upside-down once.  I don't know if he was racist before his brother died, but he sure as hell was afterwards.  Yet despite all of that, he lived out his life, instead of locking himself away.  My guess is that his relatively muted reaction is partially to show that he's grown past laying the blame on others when things go wrong, while living out his life anyway (the other part is most likely bad writing. . .but I'm not done with the game yet).  I have a couple of other theories regarding this, but that'll wait until the end.

In real life, people don't just do a full 180 when things don't go as expected.  Change takes time.

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1 hour ago, eclipse said:

Were you expecting Wakka to turn into a broody mess when the big reveal hit?  Or perhaps he'd throw a temper tantrum and go full-on atheist?  Neither of these fit his character - we've already seen that his world has been turned upside-down once.  I don't know if he was racist before his brother died, but he sure as hell was afterwards.  Yet despite all of that, he lived out his life, instead of locking himself away.  My guess is that his relatively muted reaction is partially to show that he's grown past laying the blame on others when things go wrong, while living out his life anyway (the other part is most likely bad writing. . .but I'm not done with the game yet).  I have a couple of other theories regarding this, but that'll wait until the end.

In real life, people don't just do a full 180 when things don't go as expected.  Change takes time.

If your entire worldview is shattered, you generally show some sort of confliction over it. 

ESPECIALLY when it's tied directly to the problems plaguing the world, and the fact that it's also the driving force of the mission that you're embarking on that's assumed to lead to the death of a person who has been like a little sister to you. More than a small handful of scenes with Wakka going "Man, I can't believe it" would have been nice for him to show actual character development. He got this with the Al Bhed, why could t he get it with Yevon?

Him being a devout Yevonite to him just accepting that Yevon is a zombie religion is more of a 180 than him actually time to think about and contemplate what just happened. 

And what I was getting at with the earlier post was that this should have been a much more gradual thing. Rather than having the cop out "Your religion is actually the reason for all of this! And they're all evil zombies!" forcing him to immediately reject the religion he once committed damn near his whole life to, an actually more realistic depiction that probably would have resonated a lot better and have made for much better parallels with the real world would have been something like: Wakka hates Al Bhed and machina, loves Yevon. He sees Yevonites using machina in an attempt to stop Sin, betraying the whole idea that Yevon is adamantly anti-machina like he believed, and he has to confront the idea that not only is this view counter to his, he also considers that his religion forced his brother to use machina in the fight that led to his death. He later gets to Home, and the scenario plays out as usual, except that certain Yevonite Maesters are now ordering the execution of the Al Bhed as "heathens". After helping the Al Bhed escape and spending time with them, he learns that they're just people, too, and he has been taught to target them for the wrong reasons. And finally, when he gets to Bevelle, he learns that only a FEW Maesters are evil(Rather than all but one, with the one who isn't bad being killed by the rest. Also preferably that they're not zombies, it's just Seymour with convictions strong enough to continue on as an Unsent), and Yevon isn't a complete lie forced to feed Sin and empower Yu Yevon. 

This would have been gradual growth for him, he'd have to consider what he's been taught, he'd have to reevaluate everything he's spent his life believing. We already infer that he does think about some of these things, as Chappu's death clearly paints his views on at least the use of machina. And it ends without him being explicitly shown that his religion is a big bundle of bullshit. 

But I guess it's a JRPG, so I shouldn't expect anymore than "Nah jk, religion is just evil", which means I shouldn't expect much out of Wakka. 

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4 minutes ago, Slumber said:

(snip)

First off, the story would have to allow that. . .which it didn't.  It would also mean that the religion itself would need to have some nuance. . .which it sort-of does, but it's pretty stark (bad guys on top, normal ones on the bottom, with That One Slimeball being the most interesting guy before he's killed off-screen).  I felt that the story was good until Bevelle, then it took a nose dive alongside Yuna.

Thus, Wakka has to work with a really wonky premise.  It feels like he put his faith in Yuna instead of Yevon, but I'm not entirely sure of it.  Regardless, the party's on the run from the Yevonites, so contemplating, brooding, and all those other things would have to wait.

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7 minutes ago, Slumber said:

But I guess it's a JRPG, so I shouldn't expect anymore than "Nah jk, religion is just evil", which means I shouldn't expect much out of Wakka. 

 

2 minutes ago, eclipse said:

It would also mean that the religion itself would need to have some nuance. . .which it sort-of does, but it's pretty stark (bad guys on top, normal ones on the bottom, with That One Slimeball being the most interesting guy before he's killed off-screen).

JRPGs do generally try to maintain an element of religion isn't totally evil, the problem is they typically don't balance the good with the corrupt and bad well enough. FFX is no exception to this. They tried, particularly with the Fayth chambers I think for some reason (I don't remember too well though) to show the good, but when you have the origin of the Yevon religion being so terribly off kilter, it just collapses.

That the lead Maester guy when he hears Yunalesca has been killed just gives up on life and poof goes he the Unsent, it leaves religious faith seeming like it is a house of cards, pull out one little piece, and the whole structure of one's life collapses. I guess you could make an argument that scriptural literalists do act like that, but I don't seriously think religious faith is quite ever so shoddily built.

The problem perhaps is that showing how religious faith can be good without preachiness, or without being a boring time waster to anyone who doesn't already hold religious belief or a degree in religious studies. 

 

Also, I don't really like how X-2 had New Yevon vs. Youth League. The conservative vs. liberal clash was a decent idea, but the problem is the Youth League disparages religion a bit too much- Yevon had for thousands of years dominated Spira and suddenly people are so willing to do with out it? I guess depending on what part of the real world you analyze, you may be able to find cases where society flipped from traditional conservative to modern liberal overnight, but I don't think this was the trajectory Spira should have taken. IRL, where the instantaneous flip happened, it was owing to outside modernist pressures, but Spira outside of the Al Bhed (who aren't a colonial/neocolonial power) lacks any such pressures. Spira to me seems like it would have gone more along the lines of the Protestant Reformation. Religion is corrupt, don't overthrow it entirely, purify it to make a truly religious society. In other words, Spira should have gotten into a greater religious fervor, at least in the short term whilst conflicting beliefs clash for supremacy and secularism if extant creeps its way to a potential long-term victory.

 

6 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

I will say, however, that they are probably part of one of the coolest subplots of FF12 (even if it is mainly a retelling of Lucifer's rebellion against the Judeo-Christian God from Milton's Paradise Lost - at least I THINK that was the book's name. I may be confusing it with something else, though)

Yep, Paradise Lost would be the book's name. I've read it, in an effort at pleasure and to read the great works. Although insofar as I interpreted it (with bias from what the preface writer of that particular edition said), Milton actually favors God over Lucifer in the book. Lucifer's fall given his greatness is tragic, but his loss to God is not, God is in the right. The actual war in Heaven in the book lasts three days, and Milton, a Christian for certain (and also a misogynist from his treatment of Eve- the guy lived in the 1600s, not exactly a time for women's liberation), clearly wrote it in God's favor. Of the three days:

  1. Lucifer starts strong, his forces appear to be winning for about half the battle, but then Michael appears and shreds Lucifer apart with his sword, ending the day in utter ridicule for the Morning Star.
  2. Lucifer orders the construction of siege weapons of war which give another edge, for only ten minutes or so this time, I think a Seraph is to partly to blame for Luci's defeat here.
  3. After day two, Lucifer's forces are just in tatters and can't really fight back. The Holy Father tells the Son its time for him to bring the garbage out to the street and Jesus triumphantly kicks Lucifer and his legions to the infernal curb where they shall forever reside in suffering.

Now in fiction, because it is cooler, Lucifer tends to get emphasized heroically when Paradise Lost and his fall come up. (I might have heard that SMTII Lucifer stays true to PL by losing to Michael in certain circumstances though.) I believe the Victorian era (mid-late 1800s) also tended to sympathize with Lucifer when reading the book. But chances are, Milton really didn't, once Lucifer fell, only a sinner would think him in the right.

Paradise Found, a short sequel to Paradise Lost about Jesus being tempted in the wilderness by Lucifer, displays zilch in favor of Luci. He is just an ugly figure, all the sympathy clearly lay with Jesus here.

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