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Post by countlieberkuhn on Dec 27, 2012 10:39:38 GMT -8
Gotta say, Bob, I'm quite surprised at how much you praised the characters on the whole, considering many of them could get pretty annoying from time to time (Bacchus and Myuria excluded). I'm glad you like Faize as much as I did though, and you were equally disappointed with the 'twist' at the end of the game that unfortunately ruined his character, who had until that point had the most interesting and believable arc of them all. I loved how when you save Sarah, that the whole party cheers that they saved her, but only Faize stops and remembers that the gypsy girl who helped them out died, but chooses not to bring it up and ruin the mood. I'm pretty sure he didn't say anything there, but the thoughts were conveyed well. If Faize had become like Arumat, essentially a good guy who had lost his innocence and had nothing left to live for (especially as his race get fucked over big time), I'd have been fine with that. But being this big bad villain who wants to destroy everything? RETARDED!
Bacchus was a fucking beast in battle, I believe I controlled him for most of the game once I realised this.
As for the annoying characters, at least most were good in their own ways most of the time, generally the comic relief ones. Meracle was funny because she pissed of Reimi, and I also have to give some mad love to this game's incarnation of Welch. I constantly found myself going back to the holodeck to see if there'd be any more hilarious cutscenes with her.
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Post by Bob on Dec 31, 2012 17:45:00 GMT -8
There was a lot of character development in the game, whether the characters were good or bad characters or not. What was funny was that I started to like most of them by the end. I wanted Lymle to die the whole way through as she was not only annoying, but talked so slowly. I'd read what she said in the captions, then wail on the X button in the hopes that I could skip dialogue like in FFX. But alas, I could not. Sarah was the same thing. Talked SO SLOW. UGH. What's funny is that Lymle, Meracle, and Sarah serve little purpose, but I still liked them around as almost a civilian crew or something. They helped, but not often with the plot; that was more the main four (and sometimes Myuria). But yeah, Faize was awesome. I really enjoyed him and he's really not the type I normally enjoy, so I give mad props for his character. Edge and Reimi were stereotypes, but Faize was interesting. It's a game with well developed characters, so yay for that, game! But wait till you see me trash this game in my review! (It won't be all bad, but this game has some major cons...though a couple major pros, too). I never got great with Bacchus, but I did play him whenever I needed to keep my bonus board. He can shoot and dodge, stick and move, all that stuff. Does he ever get any super awesome moves? My main team was generally Edge, Meracle, Myuria, and Sarah. Edge and Meracle were badasses and the combination of Myuria and Sarah basically made me invincible. The final fight was so damn easy. Even if I died, Sarah revived me and Myuria kept the rest of us healed. I disabled most of their attack spells, so they really just healed us constantly. Good times. And Meracle steals, so she was in my group constantly. Nuff said? Nuff said. I will totally differ with you on Welch though. She bugged the crap out of me. I kinda thought the game did a terrible job with comedy because the animation, background silly music, and voices never really matched for me. Too stiff or something, I dunno, but I rarely found the game to be very funny, so a silly character like Welch often left me tapping my foot, waiting to just make some damn items I think the only one I liked with Welch was when she made her hologram fly around, making Sarah believe she could fly and teach Sarah to fly. That one amused me. The rest...not really.
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Post by countlieberkuhn on Jan 1, 2013 15:03:23 GMT -8
The comedy in the game was generally pretty naff, but it felt like the sort of comedy you'd see in a lot of slice of life comedy animes. Which is often pretty naff Welch was the only character I found consistently funny, but each to their own I guess! And yeah, near the end Bacchus gets some ridiculously powerful moves. But then again I never developed Myuria much, so I don't know how she compares. I can see why you might trash this game in the review though, the story goes from mediocre to outright terrible towards the end, and half the cast are goddamn annoying, even if they are well-developed. But I just enjoyed the gameplay so much that I'm happy to overlook these flaws. The battles were fun, I liked the item development system, and I liked the sidequests. I've just posted a review for Tales of Graces f, a game I recently finished after many, many hours of gameplay (over 100). It's got a lot of the aspects I like about Star Ocean 4 in it, such as the fun battle system and plenty of sidequests to busy yourself with if you decide to do them, but it's not let down by its story, nor are any of the characters annoying. It's not a masterpiece, but it's really solid JRPG, which is unfortunately rare these days.
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Post by Bob on Jan 1, 2013 15:37:38 GMT -8
Yeah, that's pretty much my SO4 review. Great battle system, terrible plot, developed but often annoying characters... It was a nice try, but SO3 wins. And yeah, the ToG review sounds like Eternal Sonata + Star Ocean.
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