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[hector13]

...crapload of fertilizer...

haaaaaaaaaaaaa /drunken funnies

Final Fantasy does the party limiting stuff a lot though. Heck, in FFIX you get a party member on the 3rd or 4th disc (of four!) at which point you're kinda like "nah, I have no emotional connection with you so you can fuck off to the reserves for the rest of the game you pointless child you". Pfft.

[itisnotlogical]

FFVI was pretty bad about that. Sorry Umaro, Gogo, Mog, Relm and Strago, I checked out about twenty hours ago so you can hang out on the airship for the rest of the game.

FFTA was strange, because I cared about the generic mooks in my clan more than Marche and co.

Except for Ritz' Viera friend. I liked her a lot for some reason, even though I think she had like two lines in the entire game.

[Neonivek]

FFTA was strange, because I cared about the generic mooks in my clan more than Marche and co.

It helps that none of the characters in FFTA were particularly interesting.

[Rose]

Then theres disgaea where you can put ten characters onto the battlefield, out of the craploads you can have.

[Rolan7]

FFTA characterization:
http://i.imgur.com/dVZoU.gif
(I actually think the characters are interesting enough, mostly silly though except for the kids)

@ititnotlogical
I feel like FFVI did it well though, by giving the characters wildly different abilities.  Plus you need to use some characters in some places, and the final area uses all your characters at once by splitting into teams (and reinforcing during the final boss).  So you need to have them all moderately well leveled.

Though I barely used Relm's sketch ability, or Cyan's bushido.  Too buggy/slow.  Umaro's "ability" was awful but kinda convenient (constant berserk).  What even was Strago's ability, was he a blue mage??  Okay screw *that*, Gau has that covered.  I probably had him travel the Veldt with Gau and pick up whatever.

I'm replaying FFTA on my GBA when I'm out and bored, and wowie it's even slower than I remembered.  And there's no auto-equip!  And the *missing*, it's a lot like XCOM where you really need to flank (even with magic).  Still fun though, great time waster.

But yeah, the generic clan members are great because you really determine who they are.  Mine tend to be better optimized, too, because my starting characters took some bad levels as I figured things out.

Oh wow speaking of, I've been working my Viera through sniping to get to assassin class, because it has the best stats (particularly speed)...  But red mages are my favorite class in Final Fantasy.  Well I completely forgot that red mages get *doublecast*!  Definitely going to have some mage-style instead of all physical snipers.

To keep this at all on topic, I hate games that force you to optimize your characters and are full of trap choices that make it hard to even complete the game.  Might And Magic VI was really bad about this, full of skills that are either wastes, or wastes past a certain point.  And I'm pretty sure you can render the game unwinnable on character *selection*.  Didn't take anyone who can cast dark magic?  Enjoy the bad ending!

(FFTA is really innocent of this.  Optimizing stats is basically just for funsies, you can skip all the work.  Just level haphazardly, then recruit ninjas/assassins/whatever scaled to your level.  It's not like I'm reloading when I fail to roll well for the bonus points.)

Then theres disgaea where you can put ten characters onto the battlefield, out of the craploads you can have.

I still remember one of my mook characters, a monk, because I actually bothered to level her unlike most of the unique ones.  Grinding the fricken Cave of Ordeals, like with Laharl.  The two of them left the rest of my party in the dust, and cleared several of the optional bosses pretty much by themselves.

(I named her Tifa but she was a lot cooler than Tifa)

[Neonivek]

To keep this at all on topic, I hate games that force you to optimize your characters and are full of trap choices that make it hard to even complete the game.  Might And Magic VI was really bad about this, full of skills that are either wastes, or wastes past a certain point.  And I'm pretty sure you can render the game unwinnable on character *selection*.  Didn't take anyone who can cast dark magic?  Enjoy the bad ending!

Dear goodness yes. There was ONE game I played where they were nice enough to tell you how useful a skill was right in the manual.

And if it said it was useless, it was usually useless. (Mind you it was because you could use its character generator to create characters for the official game)

I think it was Megatraveler or traveler.

[Parsely]

I fucking hate turn-based RPGs that don't have an adequate excuse as to why the whole party isn't in the fight. Where the hell is Wakka and Lulu while three of us are fighting a bunch of monsters? And I'm not talking about fan explanations. I haven't even run into a game that had ANY in-universe explanation, let alone a bad one. That alone would probably satisfy me.

Clarification please? Example? Context? I THINK I know what you mean, as in you're in a party of five, you're attacked and only three of you fight. Or you're running around with six, run into something obviously more than you can handle, and send out a single member of your party *cough cough pokemon*

I already gave one.

Where the hell is Wakka and Lulu while three of us are fighting a bunch of monsters?

^^That's a reference to Final Fantasy X. The older Final Fantasy games would replace your party members but it wasn't until later when you started to have a pool of characters, not all of whom were in the fight.

[E. Albright]

- Limited lives in Wolfenstein 3D

This wasn't unnecessary complexity so much as respecting gaming norms of the day. Wolf3D was essentially the first incarnation of what we modernly consider an FPS, which is why it had some features which seem odd now, but when it came out seemed pretty normal for what were considered its peers (shoot-em-ups, platformers): extra lives, an arbitrary point system for treasure, ...

[Gunner-Chan]

Personally I liked the point system.

Me and my sister used to compete with each other with those in wolfenstein and blake stone.

[itisnotlogical]

-FFTA-

FFTA's story was kinda simple, but it was ripping off The Never-Ending Story which is one of my favorite novels ever. So there's that.

It was my first tactical RPG so I just didn't notice a lot of its flaws. I'd say it's a good choice if you're just starting with the genre. It kept me engaged for a long time, and I would probably have 100%'d it if one of the quest chains hadn't bugged out, rendering a required item inaccessible forever.

My Marche was a dual-wielding ninja-paladin that could solo most missions.


Ancient weapons are awesome, or even usable at all

A bow that you found in a musty crypt, lying around for centuries? Even better than the brand new one you just bought! A piece of plate armor that's been lying outside, exposed to the elements for God knows how long? Still in tip-top shape!

[USEC_OFFICER]

I would probably have 100%'d it if one of the quest chains hadn't bugged out, rendering a required item inaccessible forever.

Let me guess. You got rid of a Black Thread? A quest item that you get three of them early on and spend most of the game in your inventory until the very end? If so, then you are definitely not alone. I did the exact same thing. _{And then I completely wrecked everything in my second go. Which isn't too impressive given that it's FFT:A.}

[Rolan7]

-FFTA-

FFTA's story was kinda simple, but it was ripping off The Never-Ending Story which is one of my favorite novels ever. So there's that.

... I kinda forgot that there was a novel.  Which is crazy, because my mom read the second novel to me.

But yeah it's definitely a trite story.  What amazes me is that Marche wants to go back.  Mewt and Ritz seem to have the right idea.  I haven't fully finished it, though, so maybe I'll see it through this time.
(I did finish FFTA2, which wasn't ambiguous at all)

My Marche was a dual-wielding ninja-paladin that could solo most missions.

So was mine!  Mostly paladin, because the theme and diplomacy abilities seemed cool.  With levels in ninja once I read minmax guides...  silly guides.
My marche largely started as a white mage, actually!  so unoptimal lol
with a half-assed amount of blue magic because it's a cool concept.

Ancient weapons are awesome, or even usable at all

A bow that you found in a musty crypt, lying around for centuries? Even better than the brand new one you just bought! A piece of plate armor that's been lying outside, exposed to the elements for God knows how long? Still in tip-top shape!

"The ancients" are basically Rome.  Which was literally better than everything that came after, up until the exponential Renaissance.
Though mostly they just left architecture, tactics, and medicine/science stolen from the Greeks.  Not particularly good swords.

[Culise]

-FFTA-

FFTA's story was kinda simple, but it was ripping off The Never-Ending Story which is one of my favorite novels ever. So there's that.

... I kinda forgot that there was a novel.  Which is crazy, because my mom read the second novel to me.

But yeah it's definitely a trite story.  What amazes me is that Marche wants to go back.  Mewt and Ritz seem to have the right idea.  I haven't fully finished it, though, so maybe I'll see it through this time.
(I did finish FFTA2, which wasn't ambiguous at all)

In principle, the idea is that Ivalice is basically supposed to be construed as an escapist fantasy for the four of them (Marche, Mewt, Ritz, and Doned); Marche's idée fixe is that everyone needs to face up to reality, no matter how harsh it may be, and that drives him to shatter the underpinnings of the world.  Mind you, when his "harsh" is "my parents are divorced" and the others' "harsh" range from "I'm teased for being phenotypically different," "my mum is dead and my dad a deadbeat drowning his sorrows in alcohol," and "not only are my parents divorced, but I also suffer from a chronic indeterminate illness and am bound to a wheelchair," it does start to feel a bit...disproportionate, shall we say?  When Ivalice is also, as far as the audience can tell, demonstrably "real" beyond the confines of the quartet's experiences (witness the rest of the games of the Ivalice Project), the idea of it purely being a fantastical construct of the Grimoire must suddenly also vie with the possibility that they were genuinely teleported to another world, the world of Ivalice that we've seen in Tactics, Vagrant Story, and later XII and FFTA2 as well.

Basically, my favorite thing about FFTA's story is how hilariously easy it is to reconstrue it as the tale of an evil omnicidal maniac who goes on a rampage after falling into a solipsistic delusion.

[itisnotlogical]

... I kinda forgot that there was a novel.  Which is crazy, because my mom read the second novel to me.

But yeah it's definitely a trite story.  What amazes me is that Marche wants to go back.  Mewt and Ritz seem to have the right idea.  I haven't fully finished it, though, so maybe I'll see it through this time.
(I did finish FFTA2, which wasn't ambiguous at all)

Did you just say Never-Ending Story is trite

m80 I'll stab ye

I don't even remember who the villain is in FFTA2. As a matter of fact, I don't remember the resolution to any of the side character's stories, either. What was the purple-haired girl's deal? What was up with all of the sepia scenes that didn't have any dialogue?

IIRC there weren't even any jagds in FFTA2. Those were awesome in the first game, even if my hilariously broken Marche meant there was never really any danger.

[Sergarr]

To keep this at all on topic, I hate games that force you to optimize your characters and are full of trap choices that make it hard to even complete the game.  Might And Magic VI was really bad about this, full of skills that are either wastes, or wastes past a certain point.  And I'm pretty sure you can render the game unwinnable on character *selection*.  Didn't take anyone who can cast dark magic?  Enjoy the bad ending!

...You can win a game (with good ending) with a 4 Knights party, which has zero magic casters. There are no challenges in that game that requires your characters to be able to cast spells, it just makes it easier. Ritual of the Void scroll can be used by any character in the game (just like any other scroll), and that's the only requirement for getting the good ending.

Also, as far as I know there was one skill that was a waste (Diplomacy), and every other one was either very useful (all magic skills, sword, dagger, plate, disarm traps), or moderately useful (perception, spear/axe, leather, mail, shield) to level up.

So, uh. You're wrong.