Togglesworlh
2016
i'm gonna go ahead and call this my favorite game in the series, which i'm aware is not the popular opinion
i liked the ending of the trilogy, it felt appropriate that rufus, of all people, shouldn't have the happy ending, as someone like him can't really grow without learning to sacrifice, and that last choice he makes at the end was the biggest sacrifice someone as self-centered as him could possibly make
it ruled!
but it sucked that goal had no closure, especially since she was treated as nothing but an object (a literal "goal") throughout most of the series, the subject of jokes, the victim of rufus' bullshit, but you know, it's a comedy, so we allow for the fact that she falls in love with him anyway, because, well, i do anyway, guess i can't speak for everyone
but... then he disappears from her life, and the last thing we see of her is cletus pretending to be rufus to the elders on elysium, as she walks out the door
she gets nothing
but this game, despite starring rufus as the protagonist once again, is much more about her coming to terms with everything he did, good and bad, and i admire the developer's commitment to the original trilogy's ending, while finally giving goal the opportunity to move on
it's also remarkably less sexist in tone, although the shit with lotti sure did amp up the transphobia angle, unfortunately... a case of some steps forward and some steps back, i guess
puzzle-wise, i found a lot of the time travel loopy stuff to be too tedious in ways even clone-rufus didn't bother me, but i'm such a fan of the plot in this one that it doesn't even matter!
i liked the ending of the trilogy, it felt appropriate that rufus, of all people, shouldn't have the happy ending, as someone like him can't really grow without learning to sacrifice, and that last choice he makes at the end was the biggest sacrifice someone as self-centered as him could possibly make
it ruled!
but it sucked that goal had no closure, especially since she was treated as nothing but an object (a literal "goal") throughout most of the series, the subject of jokes, the victim of rufus' bullshit, but you know, it's a comedy, so we allow for the fact that she falls in love with him anyway, because, well, i do anyway, guess i can't speak for everyone
but... then he disappears from her life, and the last thing we see of her is cletus pretending to be rufus to the elders on elysium, as she walks out the door
she gets nothing
but this game, despite starring rufus as the protagonist once again, is much more about her coming to terms with everything he did, good and bad, and i admire the developer's commitment to the original trilogy's ending, while finally giving goal the opportunity to move on
it's also remarkably less sexist in tone, although the shit with lotti sure did amp up the transphobia angle, unfortunately... a case of some steps forward and some steps back, i guess
puzzle-wise, i found a lot of the time travel loopy stuff to be too tedious in ways even clone-rufus didn't bother me, but i'm such a fan of the plot in this one that it doesn't even matter!
2013
anyway i liked the ending it was the only good ending for a shitty character!
played the trilogy a long time ago and thought i had never finished the third one, but i definitely did, even tho it shows only like an hour's worth of achievements... i remembered a lot of that game while playing through it
god my memory sucks, i think i consume too much CONTENT
anyway these games are both great and terrible
MOST of the puzzles are very solvable without a guide but every now and then it just throws so many fuckin options at you with very little guidance that you either resign yourself to tedium or just look up a guide... i'd say about two or three puzzles (or Entire Situations) per game are like that? it sucks cause otherwise i think it's a pretty immaculately designed game, very consistent within its own cartoon logic, although you do have to kind of let yourself be an idiot
and then there's the story... most of it is not bad! most of the writing is extremely good! it's fucking funny!
but it's also often extremely sexist and occasionally extremely ableist in ways that make me go ehhahehhwwe, and that fuckin sucks! goal and donna being the main culprits (or, rather, victims), respectively, but the tone carries throughout the entire game even when they're not around
i have a great fondness for this game but it's hard to recommend to anyone i respect because i'd be subjecting them to some real horseshit
ALAS!
still 4/5 stars tho like when it's funny it's funny i dunno i'm weak all right
ps having just come off of randal's monday, a game published by daedalic, and a game whose main character i despised because he was openly a piece of shit, it's a little weird to say, but i find rufus' bullshit far more endearing? maybe cause there are so many other characters calling him out, as opposed to randal, where no one really does, i dunno, but anyway, yeah
god my memory sucks, i think i consume too much CONTENT
anyway these games are both great and terrible
MOST of the puzzles are very solvable without a guide but every now and then it just throws so many fuckin options at you with very little guidance that you either resign yourself to tedium or just look up a guide... i'd say about two or three puzzles (or Entire Situations) per game are like that? it sucks cause otherwise i think it's a pretty immaculately designed game, very consistent within its own cartoon logic, although you do have to kind of let yourself be an idiot
and then there's the story... most of it is not bad! most of the writing is extremely good! it's fucking funny!
but it's also often extremely sexist and occasionally extremely ableist in ways that make me go ehhahehhwwe, and that fuckin sucks! goal and donna being the main culprits (or, rather, victims), respectively, but the tone carries throughout the entire game even when they're not around
i have a great fondness for this game but it's hard to recommend to anyone i respect because i'd be subjecting them to some real horseshit
ALAS!
still 4/5 stars tho like when it's funny it's funny i dunno i'm weak all right
ps having just come off of randal's monday, a game published by daedalic, and a game whose main character i despised because he was openly a piece of shit, it's a little weird to say, but i find rufus' bullshit far more endearing? maybe cause there are so many other characters calling him out, as opposed to randal, where no one really does, i dunno, but anyway, yeah
2014
a shockingly good click em up starring one of the most unlikeable playable characters i've encountered
everyone knows video game protagonists are kleptomaniacal sociopaths but you're not supposed to say the quiet part out loud as a defining feature! you make jokes, you don't make it the entire personality!
i do not like randal
i did really like the setup of the time loop that slowly goes more awry because time loops fuck with reality, that's a fun twist to the conceit!
alas i really do not like randal
everyone knows video game protagonists are kleptomaniacal sociopaths but you're not supposed to say the quiet part out loud as a defining feature! you make jokes, you don't make it the entire personality!
i do not like randal
i did really like the setup of the time loop that slowly goes more awry because time loops fuck with reality, that's a fun twist to the conceit!
alas i really do not like randal
2019
an important component of the quantum discriminator: piece of accordion
was liking the game a lot at first, it lacks polish in the animations, but the environments are gorgeous, looks like they were miniature environments constructed by hand and photographed, and i'm a fan of that look! voice acting is great, setup is great!
then it kinda goes off the rails with science gibberish, and gretchen's turn felt like such a fuckin out of nowhere twist, was very cartoonish
that and the sometimes out of tone "point and click adventure gags" kinda turned me off over time
excellent first half of game, subpar second half of game, averages out to kinda good in the end i guess
would love to see more from this team tho, learning from mistakes, maybe!
was liking the game a lot at first, it lacks polish in the animations, but the environments are gorgeous, looks like they were miniature environments constructed by hand and photographed, and i'm a fan of that look! voice acting is great, setup is great!
then it kinda goes off the rails with science gibberish, and gretchen's turn felt like such a fuckin out of nowhere twist, was very cartoonish
that and the sometimes out of tone "point and click adventure gags" kinda turned me off over time
excellent first half of game, subpar second half of game, averages out to kinda good in the end i guess
would love to see more from this team tho, learning from mistakes, maybe!
1: honestly played mostly as a curiosity but it was such a short game i think i could've tried to play without a guide? so i'm gonna try as much of 2 as i can without a guide, although i SUSPECT the text-command nature of it is gonna stump me... anyway, after playing the police quests four, this was a breath of fresh air! funny, still punishing but somehow less annoying because it's funny, etc
2: i did not last long without a guide! probably for the best as i didn't find this game as much fun, for whatever reason, although it was sitll fine enough i suppose, but felt less jokey and light hearted? onward to 3!
3: yo this game has a timer? what. um anyway i... did not finish this one, because i had to dig up a treasure but i couldn't get it to dig up the treasure and i know you need the treasure to win cause the guide says so and i mean... whatever, y'know, even if sierra didn't design these games to be balls-ass hard, this one's just... bad? so much waiting around, and having to be in specific locations at specific times without any real indication what those times are suuucks. i don't feel bad not beating this one
4: wow this game has shading in its art, a wonder what more colors can do! ...there are times while playing through these that i manage to trick myself into thinking "actually i could've figured this out given enough time", but then i come across an instruction in the guide as simple as "take board" and i'm in this room and i'm like... what board?? and i stare at it for a bit and eventually see a line of brown pixels that could be considered a wooden board and sure enough that's it! my... brain does not work for whatever these games are trying to communicate, and that's fine... anyway onto 5 i go!
5: first one of the bunch i'd played before, and beaten as a kid (almost certainly with a guide then, too). i remembered enough to make some progress on my own sometimes, but i also remembered enough to know i would need help. these games are hard and i just don't have the patience to figure shit out on my own! anyway, the voice acting was bad lol, which i'd had subtitles so i could skip, but this is before that became standard. otherwise, a much more pleasant experience, if only because the art was, well, good!
6: i guess i played this once before... baaaarely remember it but hey you know, i did! probably with guide in hand the whole time like i did this time lol, anyway, vast improvement over 5 in every way except that the main character is kind of unbearably a "good guy", but lacks the charm of, say, the modern day's himbo, yeah, i'll say it, i wish he was more of a fuckin idiot, would've made him more likeable! anyway that power love ballad in the credits sure was somethin'
7: aha! here we are at last to the one i should remember best! the one with the prickly pear that i thought was unbeatable if you didn't pick it up in chapter one but it turns out you can just go... get it later if you need it... the first king's quest without an unwinnable state! how does it hold up? well... that style shift! in some ways it's the obvious step, as esp 5 and 6 seemed to get more... cutesy, but in others it's kind of a shame because the things i liked about the rest of the games up til now were the darker fairy tale aspects treated as comedy, not the disney-esque plot lines! still, i remember loving it at the time as a kid, so i expected to like it more than i did this time around. guess i'm too old now, and also it being old the flaws sure do shine through a lot more!
to anybody for whatever reason reading this wondering why i'd bother going through all these games like a psychopath, guide in hand, well, i dunno, i just am, and there's some charm to the writing that i get ot enjoy without suffering, and i just ain't a small child in the 90s with infinite free time anymore!! police quest was... mostly unbearable, but a curiosity, but at least with king's quest the jokes can be pretty fun and/or funny, and there's value in that to me
quick ranking, gut feeling, very little thought, will not reconsider, is now fact: 5 > 6 > 1 > 7 > 2 > 4 > 3
2: i did not last long without a guide! probably for the best as i didn't find this game as much fun, for whatever reason, although it was sitll fine enough i suppose, but felt less jokey and light hearted? onward to 3!
3: yo this game has a timer? what. um anyway i... did not finish this one, because i had to dig up a treasure but i couldn't get it to dig up the treasure and i know you need the treasure to win cause the guide says so and i mean... whatever, y'know, even if sierra didn't design these games to be balls-ass hard, this one's just... bad? so much waiting around, and having to be in specific locations at specific times without any real indication what those times are suuucks. i don't feel bad not beating this one
4: wow this game has shading in its art, a wonder what more colors can do! ...there are times while playing through these that i manage to trick myself into thinking "actually i could've figured this out given enough time", but then i come across an instruction in the guide as simple as "take board" and i'm in this room and i'm like... what board?? and i stare at it for a bit and eventually see a line of brown pixels that could be considered a wooden board and sure enough that's it! my... brain does not work for whatever these games are trying to communicate, and that's fine... anyway onto 5 i go!
5: first one of the bunch i'd played before, and beaten as a kid (almost certainly with a guide then, too). i remembered enough to make some progress on my own sometimes, but i also remembered enough to know i would need help. these games are hard and i just don't have the patience to figure shit out on my own! anyway, the voice acting was bad lol, which i'd had subtitles so i could skip, but this is before that became standard. otherwise, a much more pleasant experience, if only because the art was, well, good!
6: i guess i played this once before... baaaarely remember it but hey you know, i did! probably with guide in hand the whole time like i did this time lol, anyway, vast improvement over 5 in every way except that the main character is kind of unbearably a "good guy", but lacks the charm of, say, the modern day's himbo, yeah, i'll say it, i wish he was more of a fuckin idiot, would've made him more likeable! anyway that power love ballad in the credits sure was somethin'
7: aha! here we are at last to the one i should remember best! the one with the prickly pear that i thought was unbeatable if you didn't pick it up in chapter one but it turns out you can just go... get it later if you need it... the first king's quest without an unwinnable state! how does it hold up? well... that style shift! in some ways it's the obvious step, as esp 5 and 6 seemed to get more... cutesy, but in others it's kind of a shame because the things i liked about the rest of the games up til now were the darker fairy tale aspects treated as comedy, not the disney-esque plot lines! still, i remember loving it at the time as a kid, so i expected to like it more than i did this time around. guess i'm too old now, and also it being old the flaws sure do shine through a lot more!
to anybody for whatever reason reading this wondering why i'd bother going through all these games like a psychopath, guide in hand, well, i dunno, i just am, and there's some charm to the writing that i get ot enjoy without suffering, and i just ain't a small child in the 90s with infinite free time anymore!! police quest was... mostly unbearable, but a curiosity, but at least with king's quest the jokes can be pretty fun and/or funny, and there's value in that to me
quick ranking, gut feeling, very little thought, will not reconsider, is now fact: 5 > 6 > 1 > 7 > 2 > 4 > 3
these games have a lot of nostalgic love
none of them hold up
1: awful driving, but thankfully the vga version saved me from typing in commands... pretty standard drug bust cop story, nothing special, nothing TOO offensive, but definitely never would've made it through without a guide
2: thank god no driving! unfortunately, also no vga remake, so we're typing in commands and... this game is cartoonishly more racist than the first one, but only in one-off jokes (why the egyptian terrorists on the plane?) and not as much in the main plot, so that's something i guess
3: we're back to vga! and... back to driving, but somehow even worse... and now there's a satanic cult! because that definitely happened for real and wasn't a bunch of bullshit! yeah it's fiction but this is fiction that's claiming to show what real cops go through, and... well, besides the somewhat interesting beginning to pq1 and the middle of this where you actually roleplay a traffic cop, it's... just being sensational bullshit
4: and now, the infamous introduction of DARRYL GATES as the author of the story! gone are the somewhat (barely, but somewhat) light hearted days of barry bonds and the fictional city of lytton! now we're in REAL LA where REAL CRIME HAPPENS and the only defining feature of the serial killer is CROSS DRESSER
every game in this series (and, indeed, almost every game in sierra's click em up catalog) is defined by obtuse puzzle solving and punishing you for experimentation, and i would've never made it through any of these without a guide, and although i tried very briefly in pq1, i'm glad i didn't continue trying... the games just are not good enough to warrant the effort
thank god whenever i get around to king's and space quest i'll at least be living in a world of fantasy and sci-fi instead of DARRYL GATES
i do admire at least the first game's attempts at committing to Procedure, like having to walk around your car to inspect it before getting into it, or the order you do things when writing a ticket... it's just a shame all my goodwill toward that aspect faded as the games stopped caring about it and got progressively worse
none of them hold up
1: awful driving, but thankfully the vga version saved me from typing in commands... pretty standard drug bust cop story, nothing special, nothing TOO offensive, but definitely never would've made it through without a guide
2: thank god no driving! unfortunately, also no vga remake, so we're typing in commands and... this game is cartoonishly more racist than the first one, but only in one-off jokes (why the egyptian terrorists on the plane?) and not as much in the main plot, so that's something i guess
3: we're back to vga! and... back to driving, but somehow even worse... and now there's a satanic cult! because that definitely happened for real and wasn't a bunch of bullshit! yeah it's fiction but this is fiction that's claiming to show what real cops go through, and... well, besides the somewhat interesting beginning to pq1 and the middle of this where you actually roleplay a traffic cop, it's... just being sensational bullshit
4: and now, the infamous introduction of DARRYL GATES as the author of the story! gone are the somewhat (barely, but somewhat) light hearted days of barry bonds and the fictional city of lytton! now we're in REAL LA where REAL CRIME HAPPENS and the only defining feature of the serial killer is CROSS DRESSER
every game in this series (and, indeed, almost every game in sierra's click em up catalog) is defined by obtuse puzzle solving and punishing you for experimentation, and i would've never made it through any of these without a guide, and although i tried very briefly in pq1, i'm glad i didn't continue trying... the games just are not good enough to warrant the effort
thank god whenever i get around to king's and space quest i'll at least be living in a world of fantasy and sci-fi instead of DARRYL GATES
i do admire at least the first game's attempts at committing to Procedure, like having to walk around your car to inspect it before getting into it, or the order you do things when writing a ticket... it's just a shame all my goodwill toward that aspect faded as the games stopped caring about it and got progressively worse
fairly whimsical, and dark, but never exceptionally sad
has a strong sense of foreboding that once it finally hits does a nice lil twist and turn to be more hopeful than anything, i liked it quite a bit
only real criticism is that the story sorta grinds to a halt if you get stuck on a puzzle but that is the way of many of these games, and most of the puzzles in this are pretty straightforward and logical, so it works out
has a strong sense of foreboding that once it finally hits does a nice lil twist and turn to be more hopeful than anything, i liked it quite a bit
only real criticism is that the story sorta grinds to a halt if you get stuck on a puzzle but that is the way of many of these games, and most of the puzzles in this are pretty straightforward and logical, so it works out
2019
pretty boring, don't have much to say besides I think puzzle games should strive for clever solutions rather than lots of options that require experimentation, but that's somewhat of a personal preference rather than a demand, so whatever I guess
great game
wonderful voice acting, perfectly off-putting close-up art, dreadful music, perfect length
i guess i'm also kind of a sucker for victorian horror, too
great game!!!
wonderful voice acting, perfectly off-putting close-up art, dreadful music, perfect length
i guess i'm also kind of a sucker for victorian horror, too
great game!!!
fuckin rules, vibes like honestly no other game, this road trip americana fantasy mish mash of friendship and broin' out, like, it just can't be found anywhere else in games (if i'm wrong please point me to them because i am desperate for more)
i remember people hating the story and i find that fascinating because to me it's one of the most coherent and consistent and complete stories in the entire series (except what i'll talk about later), and it's just really solid from start to finish
structure is where it kinda falls apart, like the first half of the game being this big open world that turns into linear cutscene fest for the second half is... strange, and feels like two games mushed together, and i get why THAT is offputting to a lot of people, but i didn't mind it so much, but i GET it, but the story?! the story fuckin rules
gameplay mechanics, i.e. combat and such, are... fine, but also not why i'm here for final fantasy, so i just roll with it anyway
now that's my opinion of the main game, which i also played to completion at launch on ps4, and loved it then too, and basically my opinion has not changed at all... except for the additional dlc
EPISODE GLADIOLUS: fuckin baller, love me a WARRIOR'S TRIAL story and this was short and simple and exactly that, and the twist on the usual gameplay was just enough to be engaging, but also extremely exploitable, so not too tough
EPISODE PROMPTO: i played the rest of the game on gamepad, so i stuck with it for this, but i cannot stand shooters on gamepad, so that might have marred my impressions a bit here BUT... not so much a fan of this one, it felt entirely superfluous (much like gladio's) but not in a fun way, just in a "we feel obligated to fill in this space even tho we're providing nothing of real value" kind of way
EPISODE IGNIS: damn they really gettin more and more ambitious with these? it was... fine, but also felt unnecessary, expanding on ravus, a character who i guess was nothing and now is something but i never cared about him anyway, and also offering this bizarre alternate ending choice? which i kind of 1) hated and 2) do not understand the point of, until i learned that the next wave of dlc (which got cancelled) was supposed to also be an alternate ending, and ig uess this was the start of setting that up or something, well, that's my feeling anyway, it sucked
EPISODE ARDYN: now this was fun, i liked his combat style the most, although i was a bit meharhharh at the revelation that actually he was a betrayed king!! cause i felt it undermined his villainy, but then learning that he wasn't just betrayed by his brother, it was actually the gods' will that he be betrayed so that he could later help noctis banish the darkness forever, i dunno, it went full on ultra-betrayal in a way i kinda liked.........but also feel was as unnecessary as the rest of the episodes?
COMRADES: i could see this being fun actually in multiplayer but solo it was a boring fucking grind
so anyway i'm detracting a half star for all the post-game bullshit that mostly sucked
ff16 please come to pc soon so i can play that eh
i remember people hating the story and i find that fascinating because to me it's one of the most coherent and consistent and complete stories in the entire series (except what i'll talk about later), and it's just really solid from start to finish
structure is where it kinda falls apart, like the first half of the game being this big open world that turns into linear cutscene fest for the second half is... strange, and feels like two games mushed together, and i get why THAT is offputting to a lot of people, but i didn't mind it so much, but i GET it, but the story?! the story fuckin rules
gameplay mechanics, i.e. combat and such, are... fine, but also not why i'm here for final fantasy, so i just roll with it anyway
now that's my opinion of the main game, which i also played to completion at launch on ps4, and loved it then too, and basically my opinion has not changed at all... except for the additional dlc
EPISODE GLADIOLUS: fuckin baller, love me a WARRIOR'S TRIAL story and this was short and simple and exactly that, and the twist on the usual gameplay was just enough to be engaging, but also extremely exploitable, so not too tough
EPISODE PROMPTO: i played the rest of the game on gamepad, so i stuck with it for this, but i cannot stand shooters on gamepad, so that might have marred my impressions a bit here BUT... not so much a fan of this one, it felt entirely superfluous (much like gladio's) but not in a fun way, just in a "we feel obligated to fill in this space even tho we're providing nothing of real value" kind of way
EPISODE IGNIS: damn they really gettin more and more ambitious with these? it was... fine, but also felt unnecessary, expanding on ravus, a character who i guess was nothing and now is something but i never cared about him anyway, and also offering this bizarre alternate ending choice? which i kind of 1) hated and 2) do not understand the point of, until i learned that the next wave of dlc (which got cancelled) was supposed to also be an alternate ending, and ig uess this was the start of setting that up or something, well, that's my feeling anyway, it sucked
EPISODE ARDYN: now this was fun, i liked his combat style the most, although i was a bit meharhharh at the revelation that actually he was a betrayed king!! cause i felt it undermined his villainy, but then learning that he wasn't just betrayed by his brother, it was actually the gods' will that he be betrayed so that he could later help noctis banish the darkness forever, i dunno, it went full on ultra-betrayal in a way i kinda liked.........but also feel was as unnecessary as the rest of the episodes?
COMRADES: i could see this being fun actually in multiplayer but solo it was a boring fucking grind
so anyway i'm detracting a half star for all the post-game bullshit that mostly sucked
ff16 please come to pc soon so i can play that eh
ever so slightly better than 13 1, but still what a fucking mess of a game
honestly it sucks cause it has some neat ideas, but everything around the ideas is so weak or unfun or tedious that it just gets in the way
i like the time progression stuff but it feels like the first iteration during development that never got polished? if you have to restart in ng+ cause you didn't progress fast enough, redoing everything is so boooooring, they should've... i dunno... done better? ha ha ha !
i cannot believe theyf ucking ended up in regular ass real life style world with regular ass planes and trains and automobiles after everything that happened
at least the terrible ending is consistent with the rest of the 13 series
anyway whatever i'm done with the trilogy thank god
honestly it sucks cause it has some neat ideas, but everything around the ideas is so weak or unfun or tedious that it just gets in the way
i like the time progression stuff but it feels like the first iteration during development that never got polished? if you have to restart in ng+ cause you didn't progress fast enough, redoing everything is so boooooring, they should've... i dunno... done better? ha ha ha !
i cannot believe theyf ucking ended up in regular ass real life style world with regular ass planes and trains and automobiles after everything that happened
at least the terrible ending is consistent with the rest of the 13 series
anyway whatever i'm done with the trilogy thank god
2011
man it's like they fixed every Minor Annoyance i had with the game in this sequel, it's incredible how much better everything feels
one of the best, if not the best soundtracks in the series
as i sit here watching the ending, cocoon plummets into pulse, and i gotta say, if they had the tech and know how to build "a new cocoon" why didn't they just like dismantle the old one slowly and safely over centuries
it's the one big like "what were you thinking" i just couldn't let go of the whole time i was playing ha ha ha
and then
y'know aside from that one hangup i mentioned i thought it was pretty decent, the story, and usually i'm not big on the idea that a bad ending can ruin an otherwise good story but uhh... lol she died, i bet she comes back as an evil zombie antagonist in lightning returns!! guess i'll find out... soon
i think the game structure and stuff is all really good too, like if not for the attachment to dogshit ff13 i'd probably recommend it to people (provided i know they're willing to put up with some anime-ass shit)
oh also it's a terrible pc port, but that's not exactly a new thing for square, and there are good mod workarounds at least
one of the best, if not the best soundtracks in the series
as i sit here watching the ending, cocoon plummets into pulse, and i gotta say, if they had the tech and know how to build "a new cocoon" why didn't they just like dismantle the old one slowly and safely over centuries
it's the one big like "what were you thinking" i just couldn't let go of the whole time i was playing ha ha ha
and then
y'know aside from that one hangup i mentioned i thought it was pretty decent, the story, and usually i'm not big on the idea that a bad ending can ruin an otherwise good story but uhh... lol she died, i bet she comes back as an evil zombie antagonist in lightning returns!! guess i'll find out... soon
i think the game structure and stuff is all really good too, like if not for the attachment to dogshit ff13 i'd probably recommend it to people (provided i know they're willing to put up with some anime-ass shit)
oh also it's a terrible pc port, but that's not exactly a new thing for square, and there are good mod workarounds at least
2009
when i made the commitment to myself to play through all the final fantasy games (excluding the mmos and any non-mainline spinoffs... for now?!) i knew i'd have ff13 ahead of me
i also knew i'd have ff8 ahead of me but i loved that one so moving on
i try to find the good in any games i play, especially near-universally hated ones because i'm a contrarian piece of shit, but i can't
the problem with ff13 is that everything feels half-assed, and i know i'm not saying anything new here
the story's kinda good but all the details suck cause they don't explain most shit except through the datalogs
the gameplay's almost good but it's like they did a prototype and never bothered to expand it into anything interesting, and it also lacks the charm of other ff game mechanics? like they took all the fun stuff out of the job system and just made it generic tank healer dps, although they get bonus for the separate buff and debuff roles... or like they wanted to make the gambit system from 12 more accessible, but in doing so ripped out any reason to really dig deep... not that there is much depth!
the environments are (mostly) nice looking but obviously everyone knows HALLWAYS so you just end up running in a semi-straight line seeing the same shit over and over instead of being allowed to explore and find cool hidden corners like in most rpgs
but then to counter that! when the game finally does open up it's with some of the ugliest environments! i mean i'm spoiled by modern games doing big open plains better, to be fair, but still, even fi i give it leeway for being old, it's still not INTERESTING (except the giant titan, that's cool)
stagger is a nice mechanic i'll give it that (and they know it cause it's carried through to other games at this point)
the one thing i did really like was the characters, and their arcs, both individually and as a group - although the PLOT got in the way sometimes, their emotional growth throughout as they respond to the shit they're dealing with is genuinely good i think
ahhh whatever i've written enough it's a bad game
onto the sequel
i also knew i'd have ff8 ahead of me but i loved that one so moving on
i try to find the good in any games i play, especially near-universally hated ones because i'm a contrarian piece of shit, but i can't
the problem with ff13 is that everything feels half-assed, and i know i'm not saying anything new here
the story's kinda good but all the details suck cause they don't explain most shit except through the datalogs
the gameplay's almost good but it's like they did a prototype and never bothered to expand it into anything interesting, and it also lacks the charm of other ff game mechanics? like they took all the fun stuff out of the job system and just made it generic tank healer dps, although they get bonus for the separate buff and debuff roles... or like they wanted to make the gambit system from 12 more accessible, but in doing so ripped out any reason to really dig deep... not that there is much depth!
the environments are (mostly) nice looking but obviously everyone knows HALLWAYS so you just end up running in a semi-straight line seeing the same shit over and over instead of being allowed to explore and find cool hidden corners like in most rpgs
but then to counter that! when the game finally does open up it's with some of the ugliest environments! i mean i'm spoiled by modern games doing big open plains better, to be fair, but still, even fi i give it leeway for being old, it's still not INTERESTING (except the giant titan, that's cool)
stagger is a nice mechanic i'll give it that (and they know it cause it's carried through to other games at this point)
the one thing i did really like was the characters, and their arcs, both individually and as a group - although the PLOT got in the way sometimes, their emotional growth throughout as they respond to the shit they're dealing with is genuinely good i think
ahhh whatever i've written enough it's a bad game
onto the sequel
2021
it was all right, enjoyed my time with it, have no desire to continue with the end-game raid challenges, so i'm done!
there's some drama around the fact that it apparently removed a lot of mechanics from early access - notably base-building stuff, like farming and whatnot - and you can tell! there's references to it, there's little decorations you can buy and place around your base ship, but honestly none of it feels missed as someone who didn't play the early access version
i really think the devs just realized it was all superfluous and distracted from the main game, cause i can't imagine having a farm would feel... useful or impactful
that said, it also speaks to the game's biggest flaw, which is a lack of depth - it does feel shallow and kinda tedious at times, but it's short enough that i didn't mind too much i suppose
the story was the worst aspect imo, just extremely straightforward implementation of common tropes, and making eva a bug woman felt... ultimately pointless... maybe a sequel could expand on that in interesting ways, but who can really say unless it happens
there's some drama around the fact that it apparently removed a lot of mechanics from early access - notably base-building stuff, like farming and whatnot - and you can tell! there's references to it, there's little decorations you can buy and place around your base ship, but honestly none of it feels missed as someone who didn't play the early access version
i really think the devs just realized it was all superfluous and distracted from the main game, cause i can't imagine having a farm would feel... useful or impactful
that said, it also speaks to the game's biggest flaw, which is a lack of depth - it does feel shallow and kinda tedious at times, but it's short enough that i didn't mind too much i suppose
the story was the worst aspect imo, just extremely straightforward implementation of common tropes, and making eva a bug woman felt... ultimately pointless... maybe a sequel could expand on that in interesting ways, but who can really say unless it happens