Combat Experience

[Depression Moon]

I've been thinking about some of these characters in these games and how've they come about to learning how to fight. In just about all of the games I've played it's never directly told in backstory but for most characters it can easily be assumed. Squall was taken to Balamb Garden at an early age and of course gained combat skills there. Cloud is a little more in depth. He wanted to become a famous hero like Sephiroth and went to join Shinra as a teen? Zidane was taken under care by Baku who ran a gang so it should be self-explanatory, but what about characters like Quina? How did a frog eating chef learn to fight and gain the abilities of monsters? How did Relm get the ability to bring her portraits to life? How did Edwar....nevermind. He can't fight.

Looking back do you think that could just be a little more detailed about this part of characters? With characters strong enough to save the world from an evil demi-god I would like to know how they became that strong.

[TrollHunter]

Whenever I think of that nothing makes sense anymore... After all common sense gets the shaft I stop questioning video game logic so that balance can come back to the world.

[Mo-Nercy]

I think Tidus' combat skills are the most questionable out of all the main characters. He's the flagship player of the Blitzball league in his Zanarkand, but that doesn't mean he should be able to fight monsters, maesters and Sin. Funnily enough, he learns in about 5 seconds.

I suppose Vaan and Penelo have a bit to answer for as well. How they're able to keep up with the likes of a war veteran in Basch and an ex-Archadian Judge in Balthier is kind of glossed over in the plot.

[Shaibana]

Lol now that u mention in.. ya
But i think alot of characters can be questioned..
I was thinking about Earith.. In crisis core she really is 'the helples princes in destress' and i dont really see for her any situations in where she should fight (between crisis core and ff7).

and @ the beginning of ff7 Cloud fight for her, like @ the church roof and the nxt thing she fights along with u.

And what about Sera (XIII), in XIII-2 shes a fighter? :o but i guess we'll get an explenation when the game comes out :P i hope

[champagne supernova]

I suppose Vaan and Penelo have a bit to answer for as well. How they're able to keep up with the likes of a war veteran in Basch and an ex-Archadian Judge in Balthier is kind of glossed over in the plot.

Vaan killed rats, so slightly better than Penelo. But yes, if rats allow him to keep up with the likes of war veterans and ex-Judges, those are either some dangerous rats or they just don't make soldiers like they used to.

[Depression Moon]

I forgot about Tidus. Good mention on him. From VI I also question Terra's skills. She was under the empire mind control device for a while so she didn't actually get any experience from that if she wasn't of her own will. She also has magic, but how did she learn how to use it well. She was never in Strago's town before that part of the game came up so she was the only magic user she came in contact with while conscience.

[Mirage]

Even if you're under mind control, muscles will grow from physical exercise. Neural pathways (what many call "muscle memory") will too. Trained martial artists don't need to consciously think about performing a certain move in a certain situation. Their central nervous systems are actually physically hardwired to do them automatically.

[Roogle]

I believe that there is a lot of potential to flesh out a world by giving out details like this. For example, I believe that Relm is able to act as a Pictomancer as a descendent of Thamasa, and her magical power manifested through the arts. This is a detail that has to be speculated rather than fully confirmed since it is not mentioned in the game directly.

[VeloZer0]

People with no combat experience or training keeping up with and exceeding warriors who have fought their entire life drives me nuts. I have spent all my life in a sports environment and I know exactly what type of physiological and technical training is needed to perform at a high level. Seeing these protagonists grab a sword and get right in there is anathema to everything I know about how the human body works, and is such a big destroyer of immersion.

One of the big numbers tossed around in sports is 10 years experience and 10,000 hours of training to be truly good at something.

[Mirage]

Well Velozero, don't forget that the first enemies these people usually perform their "awesome skills" on are small woodland critters. It's not like they're killing the final boss after 5 minutes of practice.

[VeloZer0]

No, but they are killing trained soldiers after 10 minutes

And realistically they are probably killing the last boss after a couple months of practice. Obviously everyone has different life experiences, but for me it is just always so glaring.

[Mirage]

Also, you gotta remember that we're only hearing the stories about the special dudes. Johnny Normal doesn't exactly get a game about where he tried to kill a monster after a week's practice and then died from the wounds 3 days later.

[champagne supernova]

One of the big numbers tossed around in sports is...10,000 hours of training to be truly good at something.

That's tossed around for everything. Malcolm Gladwell mentions it in his book Outliers (although it may have been mentioned before) where he shows that all people who are awesome at their profession spend about this much time before they get success.

[Mercen-X]

I suppose Vaan and Penelo have a bit to answer for as well. How they're able to keep up with the likes of a war veteran in Basch and an ex-Archadian Judge in Balthier is kind of glossed over in the plot.

Vaan killed rats, so slightly better than Penelo. But yes, if rats allow him to keep up with the likes of war veterans and ex-Judges, those are either some dangerous rats or they just don't make soldiers like they used to.

You probably have to speculate more on the tutorial sequence with Balthier. Rather than the few concepts he throws around to get the player familiar with the game, you should think of it as Balthier becoming Vaan's mentor. Therefore, Balthier's ex-Judge background would lend a hell of a lot of help to training the young street urchin. Remember, that from that point on, Balthier never leaves Vaan alone for long in situations that require some more physical expertise. And as for Penelo, well, I guess she just pays attention.

Also, try not to forget that any myth is greatly exaggerated... but even Tidus had his mentoring from Auron the master samurai. Just don't take the training at face value. Imagine the two have spent a considerable amount of time training. How f-ing boring would the game be if you were playing as a character described as a novice seriously. You'd spend the first forty-eight hours of the game training him to even reach his mentor's level. Then the rest the game wouldn't even seem appealing anymore because you'd wasted so much time doing nothing already.

Heroes are built to be adaptable. That's why real training is meaningless and you only really learn to fight when you're tossed into the thick of it. Even people who have taken martial arts classes for years don't know how to react in an actual fight situation if they've never been in a fight before.

[Depression Moon]

When did this mentoring with Balthier and Auron happen?