Bought/Thought 12/17

[Spade]

Eh. I love the Legacy of Kain series, but Blood Omen 2 opened up its fair share of plotholes. It wasn't written by the same lady, but as a canon installment in the series it throws a wrench in the gears.

 

[fifthfiend]

Yeah, they took away the way Frog spoke. Maybe it was meaningless, the way he spoke, maybe it was out of place, but it was awesome and fun, darnit. And it fit his musical theme.

As for the "bonus ending" and the "extra end boss," yes, it's made to connect the game to Chrono Cross better, which is not beneficial, and it's horrid, lazy, sloppy writing to boot.

I'd agree with Souless that CT is overrated, though. And I don't mean that as a negative about the game. As far as Squaresoft games go, it's top-notch. But there's plenty of better games out there. Although, there aren't a lot of games that do much with time travel, or necessarily do it less problematically or in a better way. I'm probably mind-blanking, but I can only think of the Legacy of Kain series.

Legacy of Kain kind of goes the opposite direction of Chrono Trigger in that Chrono Trigger does time travel by making it fun and clever and not ******edly, obnoxiously convoluted, while the Soul Reaver games make the time travel so obnoxiously, ******edly convoluted that they loop back around to being totally awesome.

 

[El Bastardo]

Eh. I love the Legacy of Kain series, but Blood Omen 2 opened up its fair share of plotholes. It wasn't written by the same lady, but as a canon installment in the series it throws a wrench in the gears.

Blood Omen 2? What? Oh, oh no. You just introduced a fatal paradox, and all kinds of new memories are flooding my vision. The horror.

The horror...

Legacy of Kain kind of goes the opposite direction of Chrono Trigger in that Chrono Trigger does time travel by making it fun and clever and not ******edly, obnoxiously convoluted, while the Soul Reaver games make the time travel so obnoxiously, ******edly convoluted that they loop back around to being totally awesome.

Speaking of paradoxes...

Even as obnoxious and/or convoluted as the twists and turns are, the storytelling in Soul Reaver 2 and Defiance, in particular, is some of the finest.

 

[BrianWilly]

And by "briefly explained" he means they said "So how did we all forget about the orphanage we grew up in? I know, using summon monsters must cause amnesia! So we all have that then. Oh well!"

They way that they arrived at that conclusion was pretty darn thin and out of the blue, but the conversation about it was really pretty intensive.

Squall: ...Why is it that we forgot? We grew up together as kids... How's that possible...?

Irvine: How about this? ...The price we pay for using the GF. The GF provides us its power. But the GF makes its own place inside our brain...

Quistis: So you're saying that the area is where our memories are stored? No...! That's just a rumor the GF critics are spreading.

Zell: So if we keep relying on the GF, we won't be able to remember a lot of things?

Quistis: There's no way headmaster Cid would allow such a dangerous thing!

Irvine: Then how is it that I remember, while everyone else has forgotten? Well...? In any case, I hadn't junctioned a GF until recently. That's why I remember a lot more than you guys.

Quistis: How about you, Selphie? Your first experience with the GF was when you came to Balamb Garden, right?

Selphie: ...Yeah.

Selphie: I have a confession to make!

Selphie: When I was 12, I went on an outdoor training session. I found a GF inside one of the monsters I defeated... I junctioned that GF for a while. So I have experienced with GF, too. But...but, it's really weird! I can't remember the name of that GF!

Quistis: It must be the GF's fault. ...What should we do?

Squall: What should we do? ...Nothing.

Zell: What do you mean nothing!?

Squall: So what do you want to do? You wanna stop using GF now? As long as we continue fighting, we're indebted to the powers of the GF If there's a price I have to pay for that, I'll gladly pay for it.

However, I will again freely concede that I got far more interesting details about the game's nuances from reading faqs about it, instead of playing it. For anyone that cares:

FINAL FANTASY VIII ANALYSIS ON ULTIMECIA AND TIME. The most revealing part, I thought, is under "An Ultimecian Analysis - The Unjust Persecution."
Spirit Energy and Memories: The Magic of Final Fantasy.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Regarding Chrono Cross: I liked it. It's certainly different from Chrono Trigger, and I probably shouldn't like it, since it indulges in just about everything I hate about most other JRPGs, but it had a nice new spin on the basic concept of the Chrono franchise--that is, moving between different states, with the contrast between those states being a key part of gameplay and plot movement--and it wasn't as unnecessarily convoluted with its magic system as the later Final Fantasies tend to be. The main character had that silent, imprint-whatever-personality-on-him-you-want charm of Crono himself, too.

 

[fifthfiend]

Regarding Chrono Cross: I liked it. It's certainly different from Chrono Trigger, and I probably shouldn't like it, since it indulges in just about everything I hate about most other JRPGs, but it had a nice new spin on the basic concept of the Chrono franchise--that is, moving between different states, with the contrast between those states being a key part of gameplay and plot movement--and it wasn't as unnecessarily convoluted with its magic system as the later Final Fantasies tend to be. The main character had that silent, imprint-whatever-personality-on-him-you-want charm of Crono himself, too.

Chrono Chross mostly just enraged me for having the kind of plot nonsense that drove me bat**** in FFVIII except times a hundred thousand, and then they slip in at the end how oh hey [blackout]everyone from the original game got murdered offscreen, lol![/blackout] and ****ing just... you know what I could seriously get on this for hours if I really get going so instead I'm just going to post this:

cause ****, you know that's all right.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Haha, I never thought I'd see Paint-based Lavos fan art.

 

[fifthfiend]

Annihilation from the skies is just his way of saying "let's be friends!"

 

[El Bastardo]

That, ahem, rendition - you know, it's not so bad.