Gren
02-24-2014, 12:56 PM
Well done with the story, was very engrossing.
Only complaint is the story arbitrarily killing characters for impossible to predict reasons; for example, the game wants to do everything in it's power to rob you of Gil by killing him with flavor text. Because it was my first time through, and because I refused to read walkthroughs, I ended up beefing him up to be my most powerful character, only to have him die just before the end of the game in some wall of text because despite me pouring experience into him, the story still considered him some clueless brat who has no idea what's going on. The result? I lost him that one time. And now I know, and will never ever let Onef in my party again. See how that limits the replay value? Because now I know, and every time I play the game from now on, I'll know I have to say X, Y or Z, not because it makes the most sense or because it's what my character would really do in the situation, but because I have meta-knowledge of the future. These betrayals and things like that are good, but you have GOT to have some element of randomness or player influence over them.
And I realize that's a lot of extra work, but imagine what a huge difference it would make if you didn't always know whether Ekkil or Onef would betray? Or neither? Or both? Furthermore, maybe if someone is rank 5, they should be able to actually be useful in those scenes, rather than just standing there derping out and dying to flavor text. Couldn't Gil maybe kill Onef since he's the strongest character in the party, or at least parry the blow and not just disappear from the game right before the final boss fight? Even if your intention is to be needlessly cruel, like I said before, that trick only works the first time.
For the record, I played on Normal, and never saved/loaded except when I would stop playing for the day. And no, "if you don't like the result, just load and try something else" is not a valid workaround. That's how pansies play.
Anyway, all of that aside, it was a great game, and I can't wait for the sequels.
Only complaint is the story arbitrarily killing characters for impossible to predict reasons; for example, the game wants to do everything in it's power to rob you of Gil by killing him with flavor text. Because it was my first time through, and because I refused to read walkthroughs, I ended up beefing him up to be my most powerful character, only to have him die just before the end of the game in some wall of text because despite me pouring experience into him, the story still considered him some clueless brat who has no idea what's going on. The result? I lost him that one time. And now I know, and will never ever let Onef in my party again. See how that limits the replay value? Because now I know, and every time I play the game from now on, I'll know I have to say X, Y or Z, not because it makes the most sense or because it's what my character would really do in the situation, but because I have meta-knowledge of the future. These betrayals and things like that are good, but you have GOT to have some element of randomness or player influence over them.
And I realize that's a lot of extra work, but imagine what a huge difference it would make if you didn't always know whether Ekkil or Onef would betray? Or neither? Or both? Furthermore, maybe if someone is rank 5, they should be able to actually be useful in those scenes, rather than just standing there derping out and dying to flavor text. Couldn't Gil maybe kill Onef since he's the strongest character in the party, or at least parry the blow and not just disappear from the game right before the final boss fight? Even if your intention is to be needlessly cruel, like I said before, that trick only works the first time.
For the record, I played on Normal, and never saved/loaded except when I would stop playing for the day. And no, "if you don't like the result, just load and try something else" is not a valid workaround. That's how pansies play.
Anyway, all of that aside, it was a great game, and I can't wait for the sequels.