So your only defense of FFVIII's story is...it's bad except for Laguna.
Well...I can't argue with that.
As by far the most non-linear game in the series, of course you had to do extra work to unlock the storyline. You might almost say X-2 gave you more of a role in playing the game compared to all the other FFs with their fixed endings after a very fixed journey.X-2
What plot? Okay seriously now, X-2 is a story mission game and well... SE can't do them well. The main plot is lost in the riff-raff of mini-games and silly concerts. Most of Paine's plot is told in a very loose way and you hardly ever get to know any of the new characters except Shuyin and Lenne without collecting asinine McGuffins from every corner.
This seems to be a popular mistake.What main story their is here, basically is built around retconning the only decent thing about FFX which was its tragic (though pretty sappy) ending.
X-2 didn't retcon anything.
YouTube - Final Fantasy X - 087 - Final Cut Scene & Credits
Skip to 10:10 after the credits.
See that? That's Tidus being alive. X-2 was already planned.
Logic states Tidus was always supposed to come back.
This, of course, is discounting the fact you can choose to keep Tidus dead and gone. Which I do.
lolBasically the nuances of the plot are wasted on first time players or people who didn't like FFX. The overall "girly feel" of the game (which is over-exaggerated) turns off many of the FFX fans as well, but then again its hard to be justifying this game to a girlfriend if she walks into you playing as a bunch of scantily clad chicks whose every action leads to some cheesecake fan service. You know what its like to have your parents walk in to the room when Paine is transforming into the Lady Luck dressphere? At least my dad bought me some decent porn videos afterwards...
What else can I say.....
I guess you're just lucky they didn't walk in on you doing the Massage Minigame.
Those are all great moments from FF8 to be sure. Though of course many would say Squall and Rinoa are cringeworthy too. Eyes on Me is about bad as real Emotion to a lot of FF fans.Overall: Porn is good but train-wrecks tend to stay with you longer. Seriously, VIII has a bad plot but its better than a game whose plot only makes up 10% of the content (Assuming you picked up all the Crimson Spheres) with the rest being bubbly filler that will make you throw up. On a more serious note though, VIII has a ton of memorable moments in it like the opening the Assassination attempt on Edea, the battle between the Gardens, and Rinoa and Squall drifting in space. VIII has a lot of memorable moments, whereas I can't really think of anything from X-2 except the cringe worth song scenes and the BS retcon Super Happy ending. VIII wins.
Anyway, the plot of X-2 is standard FF formula. Mundane every day life or small conflict turned world crisis. The game gives you a good look into how Spira has changed after a thousand years of theocracy. You have to go around and deal with the repercussions of things that took place in X and so-on.
The main plot is decidedly small I'll grant you but there is a whole world of plot which was obviously the intent.
Your defense of FFVIII is quite...strange. Again you freemly admit all the characters suck except Squall and Laguna but that's okay?Characters:
FFVIII
Like the story, VIII starts pretty strong and then decides to drop the entire cast except three people after you get halfway through disc 2. Which is a shame cause Zell, Seifer, Quistis, Kiros, Ward, and most of the "villains" could have been really interesting and instead feel like cardboard cutouts. The same can't be said for Squall and Laguna; Squall especially has great character growth and you really get to see the game through his eyes. Yes, he goes all sappy once he decides he loves Rinoa but I have yet to meet a guy who says he's met the love of his life and not do a 180 in personality for it. Even then he still sticks to his calm and snarky self throughout the rest of the game. Even if the cast never does get the growth they deserve, its not like they are bad characters, shirt tempered jock Zell, Bossy but unsure Quistis, Womanizing Irvine, and obnoxious Selphie are still entertaining to watch and their relationship with Squall is what brings out the humor of the game as you watch the party constantly trying to cheer him up while he's only thinking about drowning them in the nearest body of water.
I have yet to meet a more unlikable cast than FFVIII's. They're simply static characters with stock personalities. Given their total irrelevance to the plot and lack of development, you might as well cut them out of the story and glue in a character with the same archetype from another RPG.
Arguably she was always the main character. The entire game of FFX revolves around her quest after all much like all of FFXII revolves around Ashe's quest.X-2
Let's take Yuna, who already has the personality of cardboard and make her the main character.
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Chronic Hero SyndromeShe constantly talks about finally "growing up" and "living for herself" and no longer letting "other people dictate her life" and then proceeds to spend the rest of the game helping ever human, Ronso, Guado, and rock in Spira that happens to have a sad sob story, so basically her character growth is mostly hypocrisy .
Yuna saves people because she chooses to. In FFX she was the tool of the Yevon church, of Seymour and in the end, of Tidus even. Her decisions were inconsequential as she was led by the nose everywhere.
In X-2 she helps people because it's the right thing to do.
Living your own life doesn't mean apathy to the horrible things going on around you.
In short "You don't need a reason to help people."
Yeah I definitely preferred X Rikku.Let's throw in Rikku who is horribly obnoxious and let's fill her up with even more sugar, make her legal, and by being legal, make her dress like a smurfing whore..
She's also snarkier and less bitchy. Lulu was a typical defrosting ice queen.Then there is Lulu... I mean Paine, who is basically Lulu in all ways except technically being younger and being a warrior instead of a mage.
Except that "has little reason to be there except he's connected to a character" is usually the reason a character is part of the hero group in the first place.and never really justifies her presence in the story beyond just happening to be connected to the three new guys.
Fixed.BikkalGippal is pretty awesome but gets less screen time than O'aka, the Yevon guy, and Maechen two of which are npcs and have nothing to do with the main plot.
And you see Maecehn more than a lot of people. It's kind of his thing.
True.Lebalnc and her gang, are just plain pathetic and only help to drive the terrible fan service of the game even more.
Fixed again.Shuyin's back-story only allows him to be sympathetic to people who have a heart the rest find him pretty pathetic and mostly at fault for his own problems.
War-torn lovers is a very old and endearing plot line. Two people who want only to be together are forced apart by unfeeling murderers.
Lenne was going to die. That was beyond doubt.
So, naturally, the man who loved her did everything within his power to try and prevent it.
Some people are weak-willed and would let the loves of their lives die I guess but not everyone.
Irvine is a moron who wants to piss on anything with a vagina. And then lick it off.Overall: VIII's cast fails to live up to its potential, but at least they are interesting and entertaining as opposed to X-2's cast which is void of any major character that is likable. When the NPC's of your game are more interesting and likable than the main cast, I feel that's a major problem. VIII wins.
If you find that "likable"... Ugh.
It's Counter abilities are very useful and can be exploited to make it possibly the best Dressphere.Berserker
For what it's worth, I never used Gun Mages because Blue Magic has always been stupid and a chore to get.
"Derr. I want this ability. Better just hope I get hit with it".
Everyone knows how overpowered the Dark Knights are though. I've seen people finish off the superbosses with Three DKs just spamming Darkness.
It doesn't take that long if you know what you're doing. A slong as you remember which sphere is where, you can press R1 and switch to it within a second or so. I've seen it done a lot.In fact, the Garment Grid system pretty much destroys the entire point of the new ATB system which was trying to put the Action back into the Battle system by making them go faster, which is a pretty moot point when you are constantly going into menus so you can waste three or four turns transforming into different classes so you can get the two abilites you need to end this fight quickly when you could have spent those turns just mashing X or using the Holy Trinity'sDark Knight, Gun Mage, and Alchemist abilities to wipe them all out. Considering fan favorite spells like Holy, Flare and Ultima can only be obtained by using this ridiculous system is just more salt in the wounds.
Because almost every RPG in history has an Equip function where you compensate for stats by equipping things...? This is hardly something new to X-2.The relics are obnoxious cause most of them grant one ability like the wonderfully useful Fire Ring that gives a character the Fire spell and only the Fire Spell. This is the kinda crap you will be getting for half the game, the sad thing is, due to the game's funky stat system (I swear the creators were listening to all the complaints about X's poor stat system and algorithms) you will mostly be using ther Relic system as a makeshift armor system to compensate for your parties poor stats, attaching items that raise Vigor and Defense by 50 points or occasionally using one to gain more XP, why bother using the system beyond a glorified armory?
Overall:
You think FFVIII sucks but has a charm to its suckiness.
I don't get it.