I think they’re doing pretty OK nowadays. It’s Western Europe that’s currently rediscovering fascism and the far right currently I know that the Balkans have a reputation of being cheap and pretty, so it’s quite a popular tourist destination, though I’ve never been there.
In related news to Tactics Ogre, I've been watching a BBC documentary series about the Yugoslav Wars. Been really interesting. I sort of feel like Slovenia and Macedonia were the only two sane republics in the former country. Which is probably;y why they didn't have counterparts in TO since it sounds like they stayed out of the heaviest fighting. Are the Balkans always this messed up?
Soon as I finish 4 Heroes of Light.
Speakling of job systems, when do you plan to dive into Bravely Default?
That's my feeling about it as well. I mean when I read about the mechanics, it sounds awesome, but playing gives me another feeling. I think part of the issue in X-2's combat system is that classes just don't feel as well rounded as they should be. Some classes feel pretty strong out of the box with most of their skills being kind of useless like Warrior and Gunner while other classes feel like they need to be nearly mastered to actually be worth a damn like Berserker and Black Mage. The Accessories and Garment Grid are suppose to offer a sense of sub-jobs but I feel they make the mechanics more convoluted than necessary. Also, White Mages just kind of suck in this game, which shouldn't really be a surprise since Yuna is kind of the worst White Mage in the series mechanically speaking. As I said, it's a game that took a system I felt Square perfected and just kind of tried to find new ways to make it worse in practice. I also feel the "speedy combat" is a misnomer and really only applies to players who choose the most basic of abilities. If you try to play tactically, the combat slows down to a crawl due to the reintroduction of the original ATB mechanics with casting times. With Warriors, you're almost better off just making them attack than using any of their abilities since the DPS over time will be higher than exploiting elemental weaknesses and trying to time it with a combo. The combo mechanic in general would work better in a more traditional turn base system, which we would both know since we've both played BoFIV.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, the context is extremely silly, but I think the 1000 Words scene is just very well directed, showcasing a level of visual storytelling that was so far beyond anything SE could do with X cutscenes that it was also kinda hilarious. But yeah, to each his own I guess. I’ll definitely admit the gameplay doesn’t hold up. Somehow it’s much more interesting on paper than it is in execution
I feel my biggest issues with X-2 is that the campiness is too much for me, especially since I didn't care for Yuna or Rikku to begin with, so they go from being annoying to just insufferable for me in this game. I also feel the plot ruins whatever little good I saw in FFX's story. In fact I really never understood the appeal of the 1000 Words section, the whole context of the situation is too ridiculous to take seriously. Next to Tactics Ogre remake and 4 Heroes of Light, FFX-2's job system is one of my least favorites. I just feel like the classes are unbalanced, skills take forever to learn of which many are not useful to begin with, and the Garmet Grid mechanic slows the game down too much. Everything about the gameplay is overly tedious to me, which is why I gave up 100% it before getting to Chapter 3. They took a game mechanic I loved and made it unfun to play for me.
I appreciate the fact that it’s not serious at all, and I just love how it unintentionally just ruins everything about X. Then there’s stuff like the 1000 words scene which I think is genuinely moving - far more than anything X did to try and move me. I also like this job system - it’s not my favorite of the series, but it’s fun to play around in. Other than that though? Yeah, it’s just not a very good game overall. I don’t find it offensively bad, I just think that it has a tendency to favor tedium over clever and interesting game design. What good it does by giving you open access to the world from the beginning it takes away by you having to do everything specifically like the game wants you to (without telling you what it is) if you want to see the golden ending. And then there’s the grind in some of those sidequest. It’s just frustrating, you know? I love it for its campiness and sheer audacity of its existence what with X trying to make itself out as this piece of high literature, but overall this game just demands too much of my patience.
I tend dislike stories that start off conventional before a turn. Largely because it's too easy to get turned off from it before you reach the turn. Apparently this is the issue with the Tales of series for me since most of them start off like a cliche storm. I just can't really get into X-2 for the life of me. Like I don't enjoy any part of it. So my hats off to anyone who can at least try to do a 100% completions run cause everything about this game irritates me and while I felt SE had problems before this game was released, it really did outline what SE would be for the foreseeable future for me. Fan service, wonky game design, and awful writing with schizophrenic tonal shifts.
So I'm near the end of my 100% FFX-2 playthrough and I've decided this was a weird period in SE's history where they've decided that all side activities have to be as tedious and un-fun as possible. In X, you had what is most likely the absolute worst set of minigames in the series, while X-2 expects you to spend hours grinding for innocuous trout at the very last leg of the game. I want to be done with this quickly just so I never have to look at that game ever again.
