WHOOPS THERE GOES THE EQUPIMENT YOU JUST BOUGHT!

[DMKA]

So I'm playing through this game seriously for the first time and I just got to Kashuon and sweet mother of pearl, first the White Wizard of Fynn takes off and keeps everything I put on him, then Josef (SPOILER)gets killed by a big rock, taking all his equipment with him as well.

Did anyone else have this problem? I seriously didn't see either coming and I'm kind of annoyed I wasted all the gil buying them fresh equipment only to turn around and lose it.

[Mirage]

This is the worst trout in every game where it happens.

[Gamblet]

I found it not so irritating the first time I played, probably because I gave guest characters not so good equipment. Never trust the guests!

[the_best_noob]

I never really did this in that game, but in FF7 I gave Aerith some damn fine equipment, then (SPOILER) she has to get the trout stabbed out of her. That pissed me off

[Pike]

I got in the habit of carrying extras of everything in FF2 for this reason, it worked out pretty well

[VeloZer0]

Yes, this really pisses me off in games where it happens. I find it really breaks the feeling of immersion and natural game flow. Instead of just playing the game as it comes it makes me try and think of what the developers were planning, or consult a FAQ.

[Yerushalmi]

I disagree. Death is part of life. In FFV, when the death of one unnamed-due-to-spoilers character is immaterial to gameplay because their equipment and abilities get mystically transferred to another character, I found that a serious breaking of immersion. If one of my characters is going to die, have the guts to force me to contend with the situation!

[Jinx]

I disagree. Death is part of life. In FFV, when the death of one unnamed-due-to-spoilers character is immaterial to gameplay because their equipment and abilities get mystically transferred to another character, I found that a serious breaking of immersion. If one of my characters is going to die, have the guts to force me to contend with the situation!

Unless they are swallowed, or blow to smithereens, there's no reason you should lose their armor! Why can't you pull armor off a dead guy? It's gonna help you more than it's helping them.

[VeloZer0]

For me stuff like this or miss-able items draws me away from the game and into a more meta-game type mindset. But then again I find branching story-lines also ruins my immersion.

Abilities don't bother me as they aren't something that could be transferred to another character. What bothers me is that every single inventory choice I make I now have to add multiple layers of though on top of the in game experience. How is the story progressing? Are the developers likely to eliminate this character any time soon? How is the game balancing in the end game, is this item important or will I get an upgrade eventually?

[Yerushalmi]

Well, that's part of the problem. Don't do that. If the character's going to die and take your equipment with them - that's part of the unexpected nature of the story. When I finally get around to playing FFVII, I'm not going to even think about when a character might die. If they die and take all sorts of awesome stuff, I'll have to struggle through, just as the characters themselves would if they didn't have the benefit of metagaming.

[the_best_noob]

Aerith sucked anyway

[VeloZer0]

Problem is I try to meta-game real life too. It's just my approach to problem solving. The only way I can get around it is to not play an interactive media.

[Mirage]

I disagree. Death is part of life. In FFV, when the death of one unnamed-due-to-spoilers character is immaterial to gameplay because their equipment and abilities get mystically transferred to another character, I found that a serious breaking of immersion. If one of my characters is going to die, have the guts to force me to contend with the situation!

But games are supposed to be fun to play as well. Losing 25% of the stuff you gained from grinding with no way to avoid it is terrible from a gameplay perspective. Maybe it is good from a story perspective, but a lot of people (me included) value gameplay far more important than stories in games.

If the gameplay is bad, I won't even experience the perhaps awesome story because I get tired of playing the game before I'm done with it.

[Yerushalmi]

I disagree. Death is part of life. In FFV, when the death of one unnamed-due-to-spoilers character is immaterial to gameplay because their equipment and abilities get mystically transferred to another character, I found that a serious breaking of immersion. If one of my characters is going to die, have the guts to force me to contend with the situation!

But games are supposed to be fun to play as well. Losing 25% of the stuff you gained from grinding with no way to avoid it is terrible from a gameplay perspective. Maybe it is good from a story perspective, but a lot of people (me included) value gameplay far more important than stories in games.

If the gameplay is bad, I won't even experience the perhaps awesome story because I get tired of playing the game before I'm done with it.

Gameplay is very important, sure, but I don't personally see losing 25% of my equipment any more damaging to gameplay than losing 25% of my characters! After all, until you get a new fourth character, the game shouldn't (if it's made correctly) throw anything at you you can't handle with only three, and when you DO get a new fourth character it should come with equipment on an appropriate level for your needs from then on.

If the game doesn't do that, that's a failure of the gameplay designers, not of the story writers. The job of the former is to provide the gameplay for the latter, not the other way around.

[VeloZer0]

I think it really depends on if the equipment lost was generic or specific. If you loose gear that you can just roll into town an buy replacements for it doesn't really make me blink. But if it is an unique item that is found in a dungeon, or similar idea, then it is a little different.