halbaradkenafin Posted June 22, 2015 Posted June 22, 2015 I've literally just started. First impressions and all that. Just got out the fire cave at the beginning and changed my uniform, that's where I've left it for tonight. Just doesn't have the instant wow factor of Midgar at the start of FF7. As for the Junction system - WTF? FF7's combat/magic system was nuanced enough for me. Am I playing a video game or editing a spreadsheet? I'll try and follow your advice (if I can make sense of it, and the game), thanks! As much as I loved the materia system of FF7, I do like the Junction system a lot (probably second favourite of the customisation systems after Materia). It takes a little getting used to, especially changing what they learn after they learn something new, but it's a pretty rewarding system that leads to some very nice benefits once you figure it out.
Garacesh Posted June 22, 2015 Posted June 22, 2015 Granted, I didn't play an absolute tonne of 7, it got boring real fast for me, truth be told.. but I got far enough to encounter the Materia system and it just felt so dummied down. "Put floaty glowing ball into gun. Gun gets better." What is this, an upgrade system for babies? "Put the square block in the square hole.. Good boy! Who's a good boy? Who'sabuggabgwiugbergkoeh" Maybe it gets better as you progress, I dunno. But it just seemed too much like "You can have 2 upgrades on this weapon. Find 'em, stick 'em in, done." and I personally prefer more complex attribute management. FF10's Sphere Grid was a fantastic idea, but poorly executed, and could have easily been my favourite if it was just.. better. (I've maintained for a while now, if you want to see the Sphere Grid done right, check out Path of Exile's upgrade grid)
ICTDirect_Dave Posted June 22, 2015 Posted June 22, 2015 Granted, I didn't play an absolute tonne of 7, it got boring real fast for me, truth be told.. but I got far enough to encounter the Materia system and it just felt so dummied down. "Put floaty glowing ball into gun. Gun gets better." What is this, an upgrade system for babies? "Put the square block in the square hole.. Good boy! Who's a good boy? Who'sabuggabgwiugbergkoeh" Maybe it gets better as you progress, I dunno. But it just seemed too much like "You can have 2 upgrades on this weapon. Find 'em, stick 'em in, done." and I personally prefer more complex attribute management. FF10's Sphere Grid was a fantastic idea, but poorly executed, and could have easily been my favourite if it was just.. better. (I've maintained for a while now, if you want to see the Sphere Grid done right, check out Path of Exile's upgrade grid) It was so much more complex than that however. Materia wouldn't make the slightest difference to your armour/weapon without a corresponding materia to enable it to do so. However, addming a magic materia to an item would lower your overall phyical strength, health and vitality, whilst boosting your magic and your store of magic points. It was a fine balancing act to spread spellcasting through the party so you didn't weaken anybody too much. You could also add to attributes with specific materia, add new commands to your battle options (steal, morph, e-skill etc), create beefed up super hitpoint characters that could take hits for weaker spellcasters before unleashing a mighty limit break sooner than they otherwise might have. By the mid-game the combinations between weapon/armour and materia become massive. Best System Ever I should note that I do like the Junction system from VIII, but not nearly as much as the Materia System.
Garacesh Posted June 22, 2015 Posted June 22, 2015 That does sound interesting, clearly the game just bored me too much that I never made it that far
tmcd35 Posted June 22, 2015 Posted June 22, 2015 What is this, an upgrade system for babies? "Put the square block in the square hole.. Good boy! Who's a good boy? Who'sabuggabgwiugbergkoeh" I'm a good boy, I'm a good boy! I can put a square block in a square hole.
halbaradkenafin Posted June 22, 2015 Posted June 22, 2015 Granted, I didn't play an absolute tonne of 7, it got boring real fast for me, truth be told.. but I got far enough to encounter the Materia system and it just felt so dummied down. "Put floaty glowing ball into gun. Gun gets better." What is this, an upgrade system for babies? "Put the square block in the square hole.. Good boy! Who's a good boy? Who'sabuggabgwiugbergkoeh" Maybe it gets better as you progress, I dunno. But it just seemed too much like "You can have 2 upgrades on this weapon. Find 'em, stick 'em in, done." and I personally prefer more complex attribute management. FF10's Sphere Grid was a fantastic idea, but poorly executed, and could have easily been my favourite if it was just.. better. (I've maintained for a while now, if you want to see the Sphere Grid done right, check out Path of Exile's upgrade grid) PoE's skill grid is pretty interesting and I enjoyed playing the game for a few months but the changes they made every few months that meant rebuilding your entire character (and perhaps making some of the skills you levelled useless) were a bit annoying but I guess it keeps the meta changing. The Sphere Grid was a lot of fun but the general lack of key spheres was the problem for me, although it did at an element of choice to what high level abilities you got towards the end of the game it was just too limiting for the rest of the game.
LosOjos Posted June 22, 2015 Posted June 22, 2015 (edited) I love the materia system! As @ICTDirect_Dave says, it really becomes a balancing act later on in the game. For added fun, you have special materia like 'added effect', which when paired with an elemental materia (such as fire), adds that element to your weapon or armour. When added to a weapon, you do normal damage + x% elemental damage - this can greatly increase the power or massively decrease it, depending on the enemy's weakness/immunity to the element. Added to armour, it increases your strength to that element and when fully levelled, makes you absorb health from that element. A neat loop hole here is if you have a very strong elemental weapon plus fully levelled armour of that element, you can attack yourself to gain HP for free It does start out very simple, "add materia gain $spell" but it soon gets more complicated. EDIT: oh yeah and one thing I really like is that it's the materia that levels up rather than the character, so you can switch it around your party when you need to. Limited slots on your weapons/armour mean you can't just make one character have every spell going, you have to plan. In contrast, FFIX's spells are linked to the armour/weapon and the character learns the spell after wearing that armour/using that weapon long enough. I didn't really like that, as it meant you could just swap stuff around until your whole party knew ALL THE SPELLS [it's not quite that simple, but close] Fair waning: I'm a bit of an FFVII fanboi... Edited June 22, 2015 by LosOjos
Garacesh Posted June 22, 2015 Posted June 22, 2015 PoE's skill grid is pretty interesting and I enjoyed playing the game for a few months but the changes they made every few months that meant rebuilding your entire character (and perhaps making some of the skills you levelled useless) were a bit annoying but I guess it keeps the meta changing. The Sphere Grid was a lot of fun but the general lack of key spheres was the problem for me, although it did at an element of choice to what high level abilities you got towards the end of the game it was just too limiting for the rest of the game. I didn't really enjoy PoE too much as a game. I liked what it was trying to be, and I can imagine Diablo/etc-style-game fans would love it.. I just didn't enjoy it. But the upgrade grid is absolutely fantastic. I love the materia system! As @ICTDirect_Dave says, it really becomes a balancing act later on in the game. For added fun, you have special materia like 'added effect', which when paired with an elemental materia (such as fire), adds that element to your weapon or armour. When added to a weapon, you do normal damage + x% elemental damage - this can greatly increase the power or massively decrease it, depending on the enemy's weakness/immunity to the element. Added to armour, it increases your strength to that element and when fully levelled, makes you absorb health from that element. A neat loop hole here is if you have a very strong elemental weapon plus fully levelled armour of that element, you can attack yourself to gain HP for free It does start out very simple, "add materia gain $spell" but it soon gets more complicated. EDIT: oh yeah and one thing I really like is that it's the materia that levels up rather than the character, so you can switch it around your party when you need to. Limited slots on your weapons/armour mean you can't just make one character have every spell going, you have to plan. In contrast, FFIX's spells are linked to the armour/weapon and the character learns the spell after wearing that armour/using that weapon long enough. I didn't really like that, as it meant you could just swap stuff around until your whole party knew ALL THE SPELLS [it's not quite that simple, but close] Fair waning: I'm a bit of an FFVII fanboi... Well that does sound like it gets interesting, I just quit before I got that far in I guess. The same hax can be done in FFVIII with ELM-ATK-J and ELM-DEF-J, or just by junctioning Drain to ST-ATK. Part of me keeps thinking "I'll revisit 7. There's got to be a good reason why it has so much fanboying around it." but then there's always the people that say 7 vs 8. You'll like one or the other Also, I don't want to drop dime on it when I didn't enjoy it first time round. Maybe I'll pick up the FF7 remake once it inevitably goes on sale. 8 could do with a remake, too
Tesla Posted June 22, 2015 Author Posted June 22, 2015 Then there's the balance between weaker weapons where the Materia levels up with twice the exp, or use stronger weapons with no growth or pairings, but 8 seperate slots for different spells. ( I never used those though...)
Tesla Posted June 22, 2015 Author Posted June 22, 2015 As a side note on ff7, did anyone else always have their players on fury just so they got there limit breaks quicker (thus leveling them up faster)? Even if it meant missing more attacks?
LosOjos Posted June 22, 2015 Posted June 22, 2015 Then there's the balance between weaker weapons where the Materia levels up with twice the exp, or use stronger weapons with no growth or pairings, but 8 seperate slots for different spells. ( I never used those though...) There are also incredibly powerful ATK weapons with NO materia slots for most characters... have never brought myself to actually use them though...
ICTDirect_Dave Posted June 22, 2015 Posted June 22, 2015 As a side note on ff7, did anyone else always have their players on fury just so they got there limit breaks quicker (thus leveling them up faster)? Even if it meant missing more attacks? Always! Well until I started using White Wind instead of Cure. WW removed all negative effects as well as doubling your hitpoints and giving the rest of your party the same amount. There are also incredibly powerful ATK weapons with NO materia slots for most characters... have never brought myself to actually use them though... They were very useful for the Wutai section though. Bloody Yuffie and her Materia-stealing antics!!
jimmyavr Posted July 9, 2015 Posted July 9, 2015 Last game bought: Fallout 4 (pre-order obv) Last game completed: The Secret of Monkey Island (amiga original)
simpsonj Posted July 9, 2015 Posted July 9, 2015 As there are a few RPG fans on here, thought it worth mentioning that Suikoden III has finally had a PAL launch as a PS2 classic on PS3, and Suikoden I and II have reduced prices...
korifugi Posted July 10, 2015 Posted July 10, 2015 Suikoden III has finally had a PAL launch Wut? I now need to check my PS3 when I get home. Although it'll take some to beat Suikoden II. I literally shouted at the game when it stole from me, and bearing in mind I'm usually quite sparing with Magic in that series - I started from the top in the ensuing battle.
simpsonj Posted July 10, 2015 Posted July 10, 2015 Wut? I now need to check my PS3 when I get home. Although it'll take some to beat Suikoden II. I literally shouted at the game when it stole from me, and bearing in mind I'm usually quite sparing with Magic in that series - I started from the top in the ensuing battle. I'm an hour or so in, and I'm not sure the transition from 2D to 3D has done it any favours, lost an awful lot of it's charm and I get the impression that they don't really know what to do with the camera half the time. It's the first game I've played where I've actively wanted them to remake it as 2D. But the intro music is brilliant, and the fights have the same rapid pace as the previous games (though I miss the cool sound effects!). Haven't really hit any major plot points, and only been one character so far, so far too early to tell whether the story is any cop. I think my major problem is that I've wanted to play this game for years so I've probably over hyped it. Oh, and thanks for the shout out about the Fire Emblem sale, properly enjoying that
Nosirra Posted July 11, 2015 Posted July 11, 2015 Enjoying Witcher 3. Having a kid has had such a negative effect on my gaming efficiency, maybe getting 30m a night done when I used to be one of those people who could game for 4-5 hour sessions on a work evening!
sted Posted July 20, 2015 Posted July 20, 2015 completed fire emblem sacred stones started playing Nintendo pot smashing simulator 92 (zelda a link to the past)
Tesla Posted September 7, 2015 Author Posted September 7, 2015 Gonna fire this back up... new stuff may have happened over the summer.... I bought a ps4, haven't completed any games for it yet though, i am currently working my way through Destiny (Reached level 20 last night..), ESO (LVL16), and COD:AW.
sparkeh Posted September 7, 2015 Posted September 7, 2015 Last bought: GTA Vice City (iPad edition) and loving it! Last completed: Year Walk (super creepy puzzler) also on iPad. And not to give anything away, I "completed" completed it, not just 'completed' it *wink*
Tesla Posted September 7, 2015 Author Posted September 7, 2015 i got stuck on a GTA VC mission on my iphone, i had one of the orange background guns and it wouldnt go into manual aim mode
LeMarchand Posted September 7, 2015 Posted September 7, 2015 Finally finished Witcher 2 on PC (loved it) and moved on to The Last of Us on PS3. Bought Alien Isolation for PS3 as I found it for £9.99 in Sainsbury's t'other day.
Domo Posted September 7, 2015 Posted September 7, 2015 (edited) Bought Mad Max over the weekend as it had really good reviews on Steam, really good game, 15 hours in and i don't even think I'm near completing it. Edited September 7, 2015 by Domo
Arreks Posted September 7, 2015 Posted September 7, 2015 Pre-ordered Fallout 4 on Steam because I couldn't remember if I'd already pre-ordered it. I may end up with 2 copies.
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