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HenLP In reply to eddiehimselfstolemyu [2014-11-25 21:58:00 +0000 UTC]

Okay, you didn't get the jokes I was going for. Fine.
My critique, and in turn these jokes, on Lightning and Hope are as follows:
Lightning is way too stoic all the fuckin' time, with perhaps the only bit of actual emotion she expresses during XIII is when she punches Snow, therefore, and combining the fact that people who criticize the games, and in this case Lightning, it's easy for someone to just not care about the situation at hand, when the character herself doesn't care.
As for Hope, the joke here is the fact that right from the start, he's presented as a weak, whiny, innept mamma's boy. But out comes combat, and he pulls a boomerang out of his ass, and joins the frey? Consistency would be nice (and as a little personal opinion, I'd say that Hope should be the last character you should get to play as, that way he could still be the player's surrogate avatar, and still have a proper character progression).

And even if this wasn't the case, why shouldn't I want one character to be "more" emotional and another to be "less"? If I found one character a walking brick in terms of emotional presence, and another constantly getting on my nerves, why wouldn't I want to see that happen, especially if it is not given to me withing the game, within the story?

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eddiehimselfstolemyu In reply to HenLP [2014-11-26 11:53:19 +0000 UTC]

I get the jokes you were going for perfectly fine, it's just that the jokes seem to stem from a genuine hatred of the game, judging from your tirades towards anyone who dares to disagree with your view of the plot, or the characters. Lightning certainly was not completely stoic throughout the entire game. There are several moments where she becomes very emotional, and I think Ali did a fantastic job of portraying a woman who was trying her hardest to keep herself together in an extreme situation and not allow her own emotions to show through, which is exactly what Lightning's character was supposed to be. She's supposed to be a disciplined ex-soldier who doesn't want to allow herself to show any emotion. Hope was just trying to survive. He might have been through some very tough shit, but it's not as if he's suddenly just going to lay down and die just because a couple of monsters are trying to get him.

Personally, I don't even think it's got anything to do with one being not emotional enough (which is patently not the case) and the other being too emotional. I think even if they'd managed to strike the perfect emotional balance for all of them, you'd have found something to complain about, like being "over-designed" or "not human enough." The fact is that you just seem to hate this game because it's not hipsterish enough for you, and therefore just want something to complain about.

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HenLP In reply to eddiehimselfstolemyu [2014-11-26 13:00:25 +0000 UTC]

With Lightning, I suppose it's the same issue as Samus in Other M: difference in culture, and how the misinterpretation from Japan to the West kind of fucks that up regularly, especially when it's voice acting and not acting (and I don't think the voice actress did a bad job, she was doing what was asked of her). I do like the "emotionless" character archetype, but it's a fine line for my personal taste, and depends on a multitude of factors.

I find myself in the strange position of not liking the game, but not hating it either. While I was playing, I wasn't necessarily enthraled, but I wasn't in agony. Yet when the story was done, the game itself had nothing to it, and therefore when I stopped playing, I had no love for the game, because it didn't feel like a game, due to the combat system, the extremely linear story and world, etc.

I can assure you, I'm not hating on the game (and if you were refering to the laundry list-type comment exchange with the jerk beneath, the guy was just not accepting my points, and that's why I might've come off as angry, because I was getting frustrated at the fact that he was pretty much claiming my argument as not valid because he didn't like it). And if you do think I'm just picking on Final Fantasy XIII... that's kind of dumb, considering that I've made three panels for all other Final Fantasy games I've played, all joking at different points in those games.

You are the one jumping at conclusions at the end there, saying that I'd just complain any way, or that it's not "hipsterish" for me (you don't even know what my tastes in JRPGs are). And you know what it's said about assuming.

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HenLP In reply to ToxicSnakeSkull [2014-11-02 15:02:57 +0000 UTC]

Glad to know someone can take a joke. x)

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HenLP In reply to DebuLover [2014-10-26 19:34:16 +0000 UTC]

1-They DO show Lightning's brand, just not directly. There are plenty of allusions and visual effects throughout the game that show that her brand is on her chest. Also, the official artwork proves this;

2-Of COURSE they are stereotypes, because stereotype characters aren't a bad thing to do, more correctly spoken, character archetypes. And a character can be a multitude of stereotypes, not just one;

3-Talking down to me, like I've not played the game.

Finally: it's a joke, they're all freakin' jokes. Your *three cents on it seem way too damage-controlling. Almost like you're trying to tell me that I didn't play the game, or I didn't play the game you did.
Your comparisons with FF7, you assume that its my favorite, just because many do, and use that as an attempts to diminish what I'm saying for fun, like nobody but you knows those things.

Critically, to ME, Final Fantasy XIII is the weakest FF game I've played, because I've played more than half, in the main series. But unlike a lot of people, I don't hate it; I don't like it, but doesn't mean that I hate it, yet I can agree with every objective (and sometimes subjective) critique the game is presented with, while most comments attempting to defend it fall flat.
I don't know how many FF games you've played, and that's irrelevant to me. What is relevant is the fact that instead of commenting on the product I've made here, be it the writing or the illustration, be it good or bad critique, you decide to damage-control the game I'm poking fun at, because (jumping into assumptions) you must think that if you don't defend it, you'll somehow lose your Western Otaku licence. Well, here's a newsflash: Final Fantasy XIII and its two sequels were made with the Mainstream Japanese Otaku community in mind, and that very community in its majority hate the games for doing that.

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DebuLover In reply to HenLP [2014-10-26 20:28:45 +0000 UTC]

1. Again, that is not showing. Showing means that you have to visually see it directly. Official artwork does not work since that artwork is from an outside source. That's the Cinema Sins argument of "The Books/source material of the movie DO NOT MATTER".

2. By that logic, every character from FF7 onwards is a stereotype as well. When one focuses on a good or bad character, they have to focus on their actions/reactions to situations, interactions with other characters, backstory and growth. Not just focus on the stereotype and just assume that's all they are.

For example, Tidus is a bad character while Hope is a good character despite both having the archetype of emotionally distraught teenage boy. 

Tidus doesn't do the main character's job but rather is an outlet of exposition and moves the story along (Yuna does the MC job for him). His reason for hating Jecht is revealed that it isn't about abusiveness but is just jealousy of all of the attention from Tidus's mother and the Blitzball fans (Farplane scene). This winds up getting the majority focus of his character for the 35 hours that FF10 plays. People argue that Tidus is also like this because he's in a new unknown world, but a lot of times people are actually very accepting and helpful towards him (Wakka helps him out and allows Tidus to play Blitzball, Rikku saves him from the broken castle and gives him food, Yuna allows him to join up their group as a guardian, etc). It's not about 60% of the way through the game that people start chasing Tidus and Co. because they found out that the big Spira Government is bad and are on the run. Even then, the Al Bhed help him out save Yuna, defeat the government and stop Sin for good. For every 1 bad situation Tidus is put in, 3 good things happen to the character.

Tidus's interactions with the characters are poor, his actions and reactions to situations are basically leaps of logic, his backstory is a basic lie to both the friends/audience and his growth is stagnated due to the focus on his jealousy of Jecht rather than growing on the journey (LIKE YUNA DID).

Now let's look at Hope and his situation. From the very beginning, Hope is thrown in the Final Fantasy equivalent of the Holocaust. He winds up seeing his mother die in front of his eyes and he feels like all hope is lost. Afterwords, he gets dragged over by Vanille to go to Anima and it brands him. Now all of the government is on the hunt for Hope because he's a "threat" to their safety. Hope logically leaves with Lightning and Co. to escape and not get captured. Afterwords, Hope explains his backstory to Sazh about how he and his mother were just there on vacation when they were unrightfully abducted by said government. Hope even goes so far to explain that he was disappointed by his father not coming with them to the vacation in said flashback due to his "workaholic" like nature (not angry, but disappointed). Afterwords, Hope goes with Lightning thinking that she can protect him. However, Lighting points out that she can't protect the both of them and Hope has to carry his own weight if he wants to survive. Hope then agrees to the situation, learns how to fight and tries to understand Lightning's situation with Snow too. When he confronts Snow, Hope is able to logically destroy his thought process (Hope "What if your actions cause grave consequences? What if the people around you get hurt from your actions? What if somebody DIES because of your actions?"). Ultimately, Hope learns how revenge isn't going to get back what he lost and learns to let go of his anger. Afterwords, he and his father reunite and give closure towards their relationship. For the rest of  the journey, Hope is able to be a working member of the team rather than a liability.

See? Same Archtype, different quality to said character due to everything that I have stated above. How's that for a "western Otaku" argument?

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HenLP In reply to DebuLover [2014-10-26 20:51:02 +0000 UTC]

Yes, that IS how it works. That's exactly how character design and character writing work. Call it random or chance, but that's just how it is. And as you bring "every character starting in FF7 is a stereotype", that is EXACTLY the argument that people call BS on. Because starting with FF7, the games began being more about spectacle and "style", instead of the actual story.
Now, I have a bias towards FF10, and I admit that. If people were to bring up the flaws of the game, I wouldn't be defending the game just because I like it, I would stop, think on what was said, and then acess the argument from there. If it's factual, then I accept it as a flaw in the game, and move on.

You keep trying to damage-control the game, just for the sake of attempting to defend it. Okay then, chief, since you want to talk how Hope-on-a-Rope is such a glorious character, here's how he would work, with aesthetic persona, archetypes/stereotypes aside:
Hope should be the last playable character you have access to. He's a week, crybaby, mooling little momma's boy, right from the start, even before the woman dies, yet he pulls a boomerang out of his ass and starts fighting five minutes later. By making him the last character in your party, even if he's walking around, he can still be the stupid avatar that's meant for the player to project onto without breaking the immersion.

Final Fantasy XIII is bad in JRPG and FF terms because all you do gameplay-wise is push a button. There is no need for anything else. Every character can eventually do anything, even if they're invisibly not built for that, so that makes them the same character with different skins. There is no freedom of choice, both in movement due to the corridor-like maps and linear story, and no world connection, as you are constantly jumping from one story to the other, and unlike in FF6, it doesn't affect your gameplay at all. Even the Crystarium is a straight line.
Now, you can still enjoy the story, and not be bothered that the combat system and the linearity of the game makes it lacking, but the moment you defend the product without taking into account the fact that it's a VIDEOGAME and not a movie or a series, that's when you begin to lose ground when making your argument in defense of it. If you can't accept that, then you're either in denial or don't have any appreciation whatsoever towards the genre, because you're grabbing hold of it for no logical reason.

So yeah, your Western Otaku argument is still flawed. Either that, or you're one of those people who always goes against the mainstream opinion, just to feel special.

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DebuLover In reply to HenLP [2014-10-26 21:37:15 +0000 UTC]

>Hope should be the last playable character you have access to.

Uh, what about Fang? She's the last playable character you have access to.

>He's a week, crybaby, mooling little momma's boy, right from the start, even before the woman dies,

Yes, let's ignore the fact that he's been thrown into the Final Fantasy equivalent of the Holocaust. I'm sure that doesn't have anything to do with his behavior. And let's see the fact that he is also never like that in the backstory flashback as well.

>yet he pulls a boomerang out of his ass and starts fighting five minutes later

Oh wow, it's so bad that a JRPG used a weapon system for fighting. I'm sure that you would argue the same thing with Tidus and how he was scared of his surroundings in the broken castle and yet pulled a sword out and fought monsters too, or have you forgotten that? Oh wait, you didn't.

>By making him the last character in your party, even if he's walking around, he can still be the stupid avatar that's meant for the player to project onto without breaking the immersion.

Again, Fang was the last party member. Plus they already tried that with FF12 and it failed miserably. Hell, they even made Vaan the MC of FF12 despite being Basch and it was a confusing mess.

>There is no need for anything else. Every character can eventually do anything, even if they're invisibly not built for that, so that makes them the same character with different skins

That is literally not an argument. Every character can do anything, but that doesn't mean they should be able to do everything. Every person is an individual with different forms of thoughts, opinions, actions, reactions, history and interactions. How these are played off in each situation makes for what is known as the "individual". No two people have the same exact character in real life. So that's why in fiction it can break the immersion if one character from one game acts, reacts, thinks and is developed the same way as another. 

Take how Squall Leonhart is a emo version of Cloud Strife while Lightning is inspired by Cloud's character. Cloud is a stoic soldier character, a smart aleck, has amnesia that reveals major plot points about his character, his connections to the villains and what the backstory of the plot, an identity crisis over who he is and a love relationship with the prayer girl archtype that means the world to him. 

Squall pretty much follows the same thing. He's a stoic soldier character, much more depressing, has amnesia that reveals major plot points about his character, his connections with the villains, and the backstory of the plot, an identity crisis over who he is and a love relationship with the prayer girl archetype that means the world to him.

Lightning is a stoic soldier character that is major anger issues when someone does something stupid, an overbearing mother like relationship with Hope and Serah where she learns to stop being overbearing and trust them, has to learn to warm up to other around her and work with them, and has under-confidence towards leading people in a group which she learns how to be a proper leader.

See how all three of them share the Stoic solider archtype but Squall follows way too much of Cloud's character while Lightning gets away from the Cloud Strife cliches afterwords? That's analyzing a character, not just assuming their archetypes make them who they are.

>Now, you can still enjoy the story, and not be bothered that the combat system and the linearity of the game makes it lacking, but the moment you defend the product without taking into account the fact that it's a VIDEOGAME and not a movie or a series, that's when you begin to lose ground when making your argument in defense of it. 

Are you kidding me? Combat and story are way too separate from each other. Unless the combat is brought in story both are treated differently. Look at all FF games from FF1-FF10. Much of that combat is turn based strategy. If we were to make that argument that you are making, then we would have to question "how come the characters just stand there and fight? Why do they take turns fighting? Couldn't the characters just walk up to each other and beat the shit out of each other?" You don't question it because gameplay 95% does not effect story. That 5% that does effect the story is usually something that is like summons for example. Aeons are seen in cutscene and talked about in story, so they are part of the story. Eidoleons are seen in cutscene, talked about in cutscene and are used in cutscene so they are part of the story.

Many combat mechanics are usually all over the place and would not make sense with the story. Same thing with game design. You don't walk up to a pre rendered house and say "why can't I get into this one particular house? I want to go into that house! Why can't I break into it?" Breaking into a house will not only be morally questionable but cause loads of problems in story too like "Wouldn't this be breaking in? Shouldn't I be arrested for doing this? What need to I actually have to go into that house other than smashing stuff and stealing items?" Again, game design is it's own separate thing. It make sense to go into shops and hotels since they are businesses that welcome anybody into them to buy products, but not into other people's houses.

So your argument is flawed greatly.

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HenLP In reply to DebuLover [2014-10-26 21:42:45 +0000 UTC]

Fine, I am clearly wrong. Final Fantasy XIII is the best game of all time. It has no flaws, it's perfection incarnate.

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DebuLover In reply to HenLP [2014-10-26 21:57:51 +0000 UTC]

I never argued that. I have problems too (Snow and Vanille are poorly developed, the lack of a proper over-world to break up the linearity, the story line is slowly paced sometimes, etc). But the thing is, there is no such product that is perfect and in order to know what is "good" and "bad", you have to analyze everything as different parts.

Mario's world makes no logical sense with anything it does, but you analyze it for what parts of the things it's doing and what it can approve on. You don't look at Sonic running through courses thinking "There is a blue fucking hedgehog running at the speed of sound through obstacle courses to chase after a mad scientist" but rather "I wonder how Sonic is going to stop Robotinik this time and what does the good doctor have up his sleeve?"

Video games don't alway work with logic when it comes to these things. Gameplay, game design, story and character development are essentially all separate things. They can bleed into each other sometimes, but they are treated differently as such.

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HenLP In reply to ErinPrimette [2014-10-19 21:24:08 +0000 UTC]

I dunno aboot that. But since I want to eventually get a Vita, I'll definitely play all of them (with the exception of 12, I guess) on it. It'll happen eventually, don't worry. As much as I think XIII was a lot of steps backwards, even if I don't say it, I think that Final Fantasy is still my favorite game series, even if I currently like other game franchises more.

I had 3 and 5 on the PSP, but since my battery died, I just couldn't bear to use it always attached to the charger. Plus, I got them at the same time I got 4 and 6, and since I played those with a lil' break between them... it was too much RPG. Learned my lesson after binging on Disgaea followed by Disgaea 2. xD

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HenLP In reply to LoonyBoB [2014-10-18 09:43:56 +0000 UTC]

Cooky Spice in FFXIII takes it a little too far. xD

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LoonyBoB In reply to HenLP [2014-10-18 09:45:06 +0000 UTC]

xD But she makes me laugh!  Sazh was my fave when I first played, but these days Snow and Vanille are definitely my favourites, they make me laugh.  Although Sazh & Vanille as a combo are still easily the best, they just have a dynamic that works so well.

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HenLP In reply to LoonyBoB [2014-10-18 10:28:52 +0000 UTC]

Mieh.

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