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The X Button - Robot Monsters


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ikillchicken



Joined: 12 Feb 2007
Posts: 7272
Location: Vancouver
PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 4:29 pm Reply with quote
sainta wrote:
Again with bullying Final Fantasy XIII? I get why some people dislike it but this is really getting annoying.


Agreed. I don't think XIII was an especially good game but the sheer unprecedented level of butt hurt you see from people is just comical.
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Beatdigga



Joined: 26 Oct 2003
Posts: 4342
Location: New York
PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 5:08 pm Reply with quote
Final Fantasy tends to be considered a sacred cow in gaming circles, but 13 was the first one in the main series to be genuinely be scored as a bad game. So that amplified the hate considerably.
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Mad_Scientist
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Joined: 08 Apr 2008
Posts: 3011
PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 5:19 pm Reply with quote
Beatdigga wrote:
Final Fantasy tends to be considered a sacred cow in gaming circles, but 13 was the first one in the main series to be genuinely be scored as a bad game. So that amplified the hate considerably.


Not sure what you mean, most Final Fantasy XIII reviews still gave it an overall positive score, and Final Fantasy VIII before it was probably just as divisive, or nearly so.
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Emerje



Joined: 10 Aug 2002
Posts: 7319
Location: Maine
PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 5:46 pm Reply with quote
So I guess no one else is going to be "that guy" and point out that "Phantasia" is spelled wrong in the entire article? Auto correct strikes again I guess.

Tokitowa is easily my most anticipated RPG for this year right now (not counting the new .hack game). I'll take a well made hand drawn 2D RPG over just about anything and this one is looking like a game changer. Can't wait to see more, just hope this doesn't get stuck in Japan like so many RPGs.

Looking forward to Soul Calibur V next week! It's funny, but it's the character creator that I'm the most excited for. I'm a sucker for those things in the WWE games and this one might actually exceed those with the way you move and manipulate parts. I'm going to spend hours playing with that, probably before I actually do any fighting. Very Happy

Emerje
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TitanXL



Joined: 08 Jun 2010
Posts: 4036
PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 5:48 pm Reply with quote
The only real black-sheep of the Final Fantasy (main numbered) series are the MMOs 11 and 14. I can accept an argument that 11 'ruined' the legacy, because it probably annoyed people who collected all of the games and wanted all the titles on their shelf, but they didn't play MMOs or want to pay a monthly fee, and argued it should have been called "Final Fantasy Online" or whatever, more than I can accept 12 or 13 'ruined' the series.

FF13 still got good reviews, and an overall positive scores. Sales-wise, it was average and sits in the middle of the giants like X and VII, and the bombs that were IX and XII (ironically, the bottom two are my favorite ones of the CD-based era) Though admittedly, a 'bomb' for Final Fantasy still sells more copies than most other franchises can claim.
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Sir Amyas Leigh



Joined: 14 Sep 2009
Posts: 91
PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 6:26 pm Reply with quote
Beatdigga wrote:
Final Fantasy tends to be considered a sacred cow in gaming circles, but 13 was the first one in the main series to be genuinely be scored as a bad game. So that amplified the hate considerably.


I thought GameInformer gave it a 9.1 or something? Is that a bad score out of ten?
In my opinion it was a fairly good game, I just hate the battle system. I played like 18 hours right up until they stop holding your hand, take a break from the game for two weeks, and suddenly I can't even get past any of the monsters because I've forgotten how the battle system works. I still have it, and plan to beat it, I just wish they had simplified the combat rather than make you frantically change... what was it paradigms then gameover 'cause the party leader ko'd.
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Gewürtztraminer



Joined: 14 Nov 2007
Posts: 1028
Location: Texas - Its like whole other country.
PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 6:42 pm Reply with quote
On Final Fantasy XIII.
It was my introduction to the franchise.
I put in 20 or so hours wondering when it was finally going to open up and get me out of the tunnel I was stuck in. I looked at walkthrough and saw I had 5 more chapters to go to get to that point!
I was not excited enough to continue, and readjusted the priority eventually picking it back up after a 10 month layoff and completing the game.
Once finished, considering everything, I thought it was ok, not great, and certainly not worth the full $59 I paid for it (I think around $30 would have been a better deal). Overall, I was pretty bored most of the time.

I would be hard pressed to blind buy anything else in the series.
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Animerican14



Joined: 19 Aug 2006
Posts: 963
Location: Saint Louis, MO
PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 6:46 pm Reply with quote
Okay, so I guess that I myself really don't have anything much new to say about Katawa Shoujo-- other than than that I completed the Emi route that I didn't mean to enter into some days ago, and I was so won over by the writing and character that I decided to pursue all the other routes, starting with what I heard was the "weakest" (that of the deaf/mute girl, Shizune's). Still, I can't help but feel that my post in last week's thread for The X Button piqued your curiosity enough to write some about the game Very Happy:

Animerican14 wrote:
Oh, and on a completely unrelated note: it'd be wonderful/cool/interesting/whatever-positive-adjective if you ended up reviewing Katawa Shoujo sometime, even if it really isn't "gamey." I understand ANN has never done a review on a Visual Novel, with a few pretty big-and-obvious reasons.... not too mention, a VN would probably matter very little to the vast majority of ANN's readership (and believe me, I'm among that supposed vast majority). That said, it's an independent VN created in English, assembled by a loose coalition of 4chan members over a number of years, and *waves the English major card* is actually much more well written and tasteful than you might expect. For someone that's never done a VN before (and probably won't again until I'm finally able to try out Fate/Stay-Night), it's been a phenomenal experience so far.... and it definitely doesn't hurt that it's free.

And hey-- if you're up for getting anymore opinions regarding Katawa Shoujo, fellow ANN user veers posted a great SPOILER-FREE blog post about the game. It seems like he held pre-conceptions about KS that aren't too-dissimilar from those you might have had while writing the article, Todd-- the only experience he seemed to expect to ever have with visual novels before KS, it seems, was Fate/Stay-Night-- so he's definitely not writing from the perspective of a VN fan or big moe fan here:

veers wrote:
But... but... isn't this just another fetish porn VN in (what I assume is) a long list of fetish porn VNs...?

...is it?

Turns out, not at all, really. I found the history of the game's development both fascinating and inspiring, and morbid curiosity got the better of me so I sat down last week to see what kind of story this would be, hoping that all the people saying "this isn't what it looks like" weren't lying. In a sense, they weren't. I mean, on one hand, Katawa Shoujo is still a VN that contains sex, but not only is it obvious that the writers went out of their way to avoid cheap and crude fetish fuel, it also feels like a real effort was made (with varying degrees of success) to have the sex serve the story, instead of the other way around. Personally, I think Katawa Shoujo has enough good ideas (especially Rin's story, oh man) that it would have been fine, probably even better, without integrating most of the erotic content it has, but at the very least, when it's there it rarely feels too out of place or gratuitous.

[...]

I guess the best way I can think of to say it is that similar to F/SN, I enjoyed KS in spite of its sexual content, not because of it. A story like Katawa Shoujo's is only fetish porn if you sit down with it and stubbornly refuse to look past one element to see the rest of what the story offers. I went into the story unsure of what to expect, but I went into the story wanting it to be better than my impressions of it were, instead of hoping that it turned out to be as trashy as it could have been, and, frankly, the amount of sincerity and tact in much of the writing was a kind of a big relief: Katawa Shoujo is a story about relationships, self-expression and self-acceptance, overcoming depression, and personal growth. It contains sex, but I never felt like it was about sex, if that makes sense.

[...]

Personally, I didn't get highly emotional over most of it, probably, I think, because I was too busy thinking about my own life and past every time the story brought up something I could kinda relate to... which is, I guess, a sort of emotional response in itself. Rin's story in particular just... to me it was such an engaging story about how people relate to each other that had a lot of things that reminded me of myself and my dad (and gave me strong A Beautiful Mind vibes)... I didn't get teary-eyed like some people have claimed, but the story was the most intellectually and emotionally evocative piece of fiction I've experienced in a while (Now and Then, Here and There was probably the last time something made such an impact on me, but that was a little different). The story made me just stop and think about things so much; when I finished it, it was like my mind was in a fog, like there was so much going through it at once. I realize not everyone wants that kind of experience from their entertainment, and even I would quickly burn out on fiction that was constantly effective at getting a strong emotional response out of me, but every now and then, I love it. Also, being able to look at a story and see the truth in it, universal or personal, is one of my favorite things about fiction, and Katawa Shoujo (again, Rin's story in particular) provided many opportunities to do that.
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Koda89



Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 278
PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 7:11 pm Reply with quote
encrypted12345 wrote:
Beatdigga wrote:
Let's see here...

2. Kawata Shoujo disturbs me on so many levels. I'm terrified of the idea that people get their jollies from it.


People aren't getting their jollies from it. One of the complaints about Katawa Shoujo is that the sex scenes are unfappable. They are just too dang tasteful, emotional, and plot relevant.

Also, a decent chunk of the sex scenes are, well I'll be honest, just uncomfortably awkward.

Like....realistically awkward even.
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encrypted12345



Joined: 25 Jan 2012
Posts: 715
PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 8:26 pm Reply with quote
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CrownKlown



Joined: 05 May 2011
Posts: 1762
PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 8:30 pm Reply with quote
TitanXL wrote:
GVman wrote:
I'll never get the amount of hatred FFXIII has got. I could definitely see why some people wouldn't like, but being enough to make some people give up on the series?


I blame the rise in popularity of mindless shooters. The more casual frat-boy gamers who just play Call of Duty/Battlefield/Halo. "Too much story, not enough killing things" and all that. This generation ushered in a lot of new faces to gaming, not only from those shooters, but also the Wii's casual crowd grabbing thing. So while a generation ago people loved JRPGs just fine, the same people still love them, there's just more people in the room now so it might be perceived as different. FFXIII still sold well (better than some other FFs even), so yeah, it's just a vocal minority complaining about them, don't worry about it.

GVman wrote:
That's completely the opposite of how I feel about the characters, the narrative, and Hope. I don't see how he's anything similar to Jar Jar. I also don't see how the narative is "jumbled". The plot seemed pretty straightforward to me.


Agreed. The only time I can see the narrative being slightly confusing is the flashbacks to the days before the present events are occurring, but that's reaching. Especially for an anime fan who's used to creative and unconventional narratives (Haruhi was a lot more unconventional) And comparing Hope to Jar Jar is laughable hyperbole.


I own a few 100 games. 80 percent of those are rpgs. I have played and beat ff 1-7,x,x-2, not to mention most of the other major titles ranging from BOF, to Suikoden to Mana to Persona, etc.

FF 13 is garbage. I am not some fps player, who plays COD or BF. I play mainly rpgs, with the occasional horror title thrown in. FF 13 is garbage. Its one redeeming feature is that at least it looks good graphically. But even then, for being the first FF on a next gen, the improvement doesnt hold a candle to the jump from 6 to 7 or 9 to 10.

If anything, Im getting tired of the people defending this abomination, while much superior games get trashed with no backers.

If you want to play an rpg on the xbox, go with Lost Odyssey or Tales of Vesperia, hell even Blue Dragon was a much better title.

Regarding Neverdead, I believe the game looked better the first time it came out, it was called Knight's Contract.

And I hope the fully anime styled character game comes out here.
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Sir Amyas Leigh



Joined: 14 Sep 2009
Posts: 91
PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 9:02 pm Reply with quote
encrypted12345 wrote:

There are way more reviews all across the internet, but this one is my favorite.


Wow that was an awesome review. Classy as F**** sweet. I just got past the first so called 'H' scene in Emi's route, ... What can i say this story arch could have been a freaking teen drama/romance movie its so tame.
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belvadeer





PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 9:09 pm Reply with quote
Eternal September wrote:
That might be a reason why it quickly spread in some gaming circles, where it was seen as a new thing, but among visual novel fans, it's not particularly exceptional. Eg.: ef has a half-blind girl with anterograde amnesia, several stories like Clannad or Kira Kira, play the "ill girl" trope almost like a disability, etc. VNDB.org lists dozens of Visual novels witht he "disabled heroine" tag as well.

It was just hyped as the first large-scale, high quality original english language VN. It's kinda like naional pride, but for weeaboos.


Ah I see. I wouldn't know. I don't play visual novels truth be told. I only know of Air, Kanon and Clannad's history.
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Beatdigga



Joined: 26 Oct 2003
Posts: 4342
Location: New York
PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 10:08 pm Reply with quote
BTW, I love how Fps fans are considered the scum of the Earth. Maybe there's more fun to be had in a game like Call Of Duty than some inanely pretenoius piece of prattle that ended up being FF 13's plot.

Obviously FF 13-2 is not for me. It's also probably the jumping off point for a lot of RPG fans. When the JRPG is a game and not a glorified OVA, then I'll come back.
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gatotsu911



Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Posts: 457
Location: US of East Coast
PostPosted: Thu Jan 26, 2012 12:32 am Reply with quote
Katawa Shoujo sounds like it could be just the sort of warped black comedy I'd enjoy. Sadly I have a feeling it's a lot more earnest than that.
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