(no subject)
If I had posted Friday night, it would have been an entry about my heart being warm and full of gladness. My headache decided otherwise and I went to bed...not early, but soon after the heartwarming moment. Because I am posting ...Sunday morning, it is a spoilerfest of REASONS XIII IS TICKING ME OFF.
And, for the most part, said spoilering was my choice, except for what happens to two characters at the very end (that got spoiled by someone in d_m). It gave me stuff to anticipate when I was lagging a bit in the game! "Oh, there's going to be a mindscrew later on :DDD" "HEY THIS GUY'S COMING BACK" "WAR IN THE STREETS, HEEEEELL YEAH".
...The Cie'th stones still kept me distracted for a good while, but in the end I abandoned them at 20-so because they are really just "trek across pretty landscape for stone. touch stone. take quest. trek across pretty landscape for monster. fight monster. trek across pretty landscape for another stone..." Maybe the rewards for the later ones would have been really good, I dunno, but it just ended up feeling like a time drain. It's my bad, and yet I'm still kind of annoyed at the game because they keep putting them in your path, over and over. It's like "btw there is a sidequest. Just in case you forgot. See, we have sidequests!" There is a logical reason why they're all over the place but it's still a little fff, especially because you might end up thinking they could come in useful because some of them will act as teleporters once you've done the quest. Of course, you have to do other quests to get those active first, and...yeah the teleporters are not actually useful one bit except for backtracking for the quests. So. Don't mess with the Cie'th stones unless you're really itching to fight more.
THE TOWER. ...WHICH WAS NOT REALLY A TOWER. It's only seven levels, counting the apex/broken level. Actually that's a point in its favor because I recall XII's tower being torture. The only thing torturous about this tower is the sequence for the elevators, which leaves me thinking "well no wonder it'd take 40 years to remake VII with XIII graphics if you are going to put such gd detail in the elevators." Also I got confused about what to do at one point so I was taking elevators a lot. And it seems like it's fifteen seconds long, though I didn't count so I could be wrong, maybe just over ten. Basically a length that the first time I saw it, I was like "oh, interesting detail" and the second time my reaction was "...again?" and the third time it became "oh boy".
SO I GOT PAST THE TOWER, FUCK YEAH got into Oerba. Make sure you fix up the robot, he gives some awesome stuff. Now Oerba's notable because this is where an illusion tries to mindscrew the party! And I knew about this beforehand so I was anticipating this because hey. I like FFVII. Obviously I like my mindscrews.
...It's so brief. And it's not really a mindscrew effect. The party's off-guard, but there's no attempt to actually follow up on that because again, it's so brief. And I just kept thinking "what was the point of that? :/"
And then I left Pulse. Bye sidequests. I'll miss you, maybe.
So then we get back to Cocoon and what the heck Squeenix? What's with the new Primarch giving a crucial speech for the people at a race?
EVEN MORE CONFUSED WHEN MY L'CIE PARTY CRASHES THEIR PARTY no now, really. After a second viewing it made more sense to me, but the first time I saw it I was like "what the hell heroes you came here to stop civil violence and you're wrecking a race?" Except Snow actually was trying to keep one guy from crashing and the crowd cheeeeeers and then he does a fist pump...showing off his l'Cie brand to the cameras all over the racetrack.
Smart, Snow.
This isn't actually the part I found annoying, because hey, it is Snow and they've spent days/weeks/whatever on Pulse, where they are the only people around so there's no need to hide the brands! What got me was his reaction, where he's just "Guess I should have covered that" like HURR HURR OH WELL TOO LATE NOW. IDK. Sometimes I feel like the lessons learned get more talked about than actually taken to heart, or maybe the game just likes its comedy-in-the-middle-of-serious-action too much for my tastes, because Snow still comes off as the slightly-goofy wannabe hero to me more than someone who puts a little thought into what he's doing.
Also, Dysley is apparently ineffectual in the mindscrew department. Manipulating the masses through political factions and cultural divides? Oh, sure. Personal touches? ...Eh. Bunch of humans turn into Cie'th in an instant. Party is surprised. Sazh points out it's a "friendly reminder" that they're on borrowed time. WELL...THANK YOU SAZH. Couldn't there have been more of a sense of horror from my team about "oh jesus that could be us"? Seriously, it could be as simple as either Snow or Hope (probably Hope) do a doublecheck on their easy-to-self-check brand to make sure it's not doing anything weird. But no, Sazh just points out what Dysley was trying to do and it's like "well okay you guys don't seem to be reacting much beyond the surprise anyone would have, let's keep moving".
My biggest irritation: Cid was seriously resurrected just to die again almost as soon as we see him. ...............FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. I actually thought I'd see more development for him, a reason to why people are rping him, since he seems more common than other non-party members (bar Serah, of course) and I just...honestly wanted to see more of him, and seeing any chance getting thrown away like that was just frustrating. It threw me off because I'd been looking forward to getting back into the story after leaving Pulse, and when I saw that I just stopped playing for a while and seriously considered leaving it unbeaten.
Yet I am still, probably, going to beat it.
And, for the most part, said spoilering was my choice, except for what happens to two characters at the very end (that got spoiled by someone in d_m). It gave me stuff to anticipate when I was lagging a bit in the game! "Oh, there's going to be a mindscrew later on :DDD" "HEY THIS GUY'S COMING BACK" "WAR IN THE STREETS, HEEEEELL YEAH".
...The Cie'th stones still kept me distracted for a good while, but in the end I abandoned them at 20-so because they are really just "trek across pretty landscape for stone. touch stone. take quest. trek across pretty landscape for monster. fight monster. trek across pretty landscape for another stone..." Maybe the rewards for the later ones would have been really good, I dunno, but it just ended up feeling like a time drain. It's my bad, and yet I'm still kind of annoyed at the game because they keep putting them in your path, over and over. It's like "btw there is a sidequest. Just in case you forgot. See, we have sidequests!" There is a logical reason why they're all over the place but it's still a little fff, especially because you might end up thinking they could come in useful because some of them will act as teleporters once you've done the quest. Of course, you have to do other quests to get those active first, and...yeah the teleporters are not actually useful one bit except for backtracking for the quests. So. Don't mess with the Cie'th stones unless you're really itching to fight more.
THE TOWER. ...WHICH WAS NOT REALLY A TOWER. It's only seven levels, counting the apex/broken level. Actually that's a point in its favor because I recall XII's tower being torture. The only thing torturous about this tower is the sequence for the elevators, which leaves me thinking "well no wonder it'd take 40 years to remake VII with XIII graphics if you are going to put such gd detail in the elevators." Also I got confused about what to do at one point so I was taking elevators a lot. And it seems like it's fifteen seconds long, though I didn't count so I could be wrong, maybe just over ten. Basically a length that the first time I saw it, I was like "oh, interesting detail" and the second time my reaction was "...again?" and the third time it became "oh boy".
SO I GOT PAST THE TOWER, FUCK YEAH got into Oerba. Make sure you fix up the robot, he gives some awesome stuff. Now Oerba's notable because this is where an illusion tries to mindscrew the party! And I knew about this beforehand so I was anticipating this because hey. I like FFVII. Obviously I like my mindscrews.
...It's so brief. And it's not really a mindscrew effect. The party's off-guard, but there's no attempt to actually follow up on that because again, it's so brief. And I just kept thinking "what was the point of that? :/"
And then I left Pulse. Bye sidequests. I'll miss you, maybe.
So then we get back to Cocoon and what the heck Squeenix? What's with the new Primarch giving a crucial speech for the people at a race?
EVEN MORE CONFUSED WHEN MY L'CIE PARTY CRASHES THEIR PARTY no now, really. After a second viewing it made more sense to me, but the first time I saw it I was like "what the hell heroes you came here to stop civil violence and you're wrecking a race?" Except Snow actually was trying to keep one guy from crashing and the crowd cheeeeeers and then he does a fist pump...showing off his l'Cie brand to the cameras all over the racetrack.
Smart, Snow.
This isn't actually the part I found annoying, because hey, it is Snow and they've spent days/weeks/whatever on Pulse, where they are the only people around so there's no need to hide the brands! What got me was his reaction, where he's just "Guess I should have covered that" like HURR HURR OH WELL TOO LATE NOW. IDK. Sometimes I feel like the lessons learned get more talked about than actually taken to heart, or maybe the game just likes its comedy-in-the-middle-of-serious-action too much for my tastes, because Snow still comes off as the slightly-goofy wannabe hero to me more than someone who puts a little thought into what he's doing.
Also, Dysley is apparently ineffectual in the mindscrew department. Manipulating the masses through political factions and cultural divides? Oh, sure. Personal touches? ...Eh. Bunch of humans turn into Cie'th in an instant. Party is surprised. Sazh points out it's a "friendly reminder" that they're on borrowed time. WELL...THANK YOU SAZH. Couldn't there have been more of a sense of horror from my team about "oh jesus that could be us"? Seriously, it could be as simple as either Snow or Hope (probably Hope) do a doublecheck on their easy-to-self-check brand to make sure it's not doing anything weird. But no, Sazh just points out what Dysley was trying to do and it's like "well okay you guys don't seem to be reacting much beyond the surprise anyone would have, let's keep moving".
My biggest irritation: Cid was seriously resurrected just to die again almost as soon as we see him. ...............FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. I actually thought I'd see more development for him, a reason to why people are rping him, since he seems more common than other non-party members (bar Serah, of course) and I just...honestly wanted to see more of him, and seeing any chance getting thrown away like that was just frustrating. It threw me off because I'd been looking forward to getting back into the story after leaving Pulse, and when I saw that I just stopped playing for a while and seriously considered leaving it unbeaten.
Yet I am still, probably, going to beat it.