Podcasts about active time battle

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Lords: * John * JohnB Topics: * The word "juxtapose" seemed hyperspecific and esoteric when I first learned it in school, but has proven incredibly common and useful * Farewell to Cheap Bots Done Quick and the tens of thousands benevolent Twitter bots it powered: * https://twitter.com/v21/status/1643932890105884673 * Temple of Apshai's manual * https://fogknife.com/2023-05-31-the-book-of-apshai-a-personal-exegesis-.html * "Seen and Not Seen" by Talking Heads * https://genius.com/Talking-heads-seen-and-not-seen-lyrics * The new Zelda game several weeks in feels like the phase of a Civilization game where much, but not all, of the world has been revealed Microtopics: * John and John as well. * A John of Many Names. * The Frog Fractions Soundtrack of the Decade Edition Vinyl. * Being sued for copying a song's vibes. * Aldi Barcodes. * Noise-cancelling the sound of eating crackers. * Just scan it. It's food. * A word full of high-scoring Scrabble tiles. * Juxtaposing a police station. * A history of "juxtapose" waiting in the wings like a Batman origin story. * Pre-35 words. * Biff going back in time to 17th century Prague to be thrown out a window but surviving because he landed in a pile of manure. * An upbeat song about tolerating people that you hate. * The invention of defenestration. * Farewell to Cheap Bots Done Quick. * Sharing a fun tweet. * Being technical enough to look at nested braces and know what that means. * Bots in Space. * Capcom vs. Everyone. * Temple of Apshai. * A text adventure except they couldn't fit any of the text on the floppy. * Action RPGs that demand you manage your stats and inventory on paper. * Solo D&D adventure books. * Dragon's on a Chip. * Video games that come with books that you need to read to play the game. * A thick boy, full of lore. * The philosophy of city planning. * What is an Earth for? * Tunic. * What StarTropics did with the letter. * Sentinel Worlds One: Future Magic. * [See paragraph 3.] * 1980s computer game copy protection. * Bringing the Shenzhen I/O manual to work to study it on the job. * Why the main campaign in Shenzhen I/O is so much better than the bonus campaign. * Keeping an ideal facial structure fixed in your mind for years. * Musical mumbling. * Songs that are just a Shower Thoughts post. * The long-term discipline of adjusting your facial features over time. * Thinking about wider, thinner lips during the instrumental breakdown. * Trying to save SACD albums. * The Depths. * Sharing your location precisely. * There are four places: go to them. * The Ghost King Rauru. * The Calamity Ganon Calamity. * A dragon with really weird exaggerated eyelashes that you can run around on. * Giving up on horses. * Unique items of dubious usefulness. * Okay boomer, it's called a Purah Pad now. * Finding a tiny rock to jump off of to go into bullet time. * The two-fan hoverbike. * Skating around atop frozen gourmet meat.

Final Fantasy est l'une des plus grandes sagas de l'histoire du jeu vidéo, c'est un fait. Mais saviez-vous que bien avant Kingdom Hearts, Disney et Square se sont croisés pour un projet d'adaptation comme seule la bande dessinée américaine sait en proposer ? Aujourd'hui, on parle du comic book inachevé tiré de Final Fantasy ! Si le nom de Final Fantasy parle aujourd'hui à pratiquement tout le monde, ça n'a pas toujours été le cas. Lancée en 1987 au Japon, la licence va mettre un peu de temps pour se faire une place au-delà des frontières du pays du Soleil-Levant. Il faudra en effet attendre 1990 pour que le premier opus, sorti sur Nintendo NES, atteigne le marché américain, tandis qu'en France et en Europe, FFVII, sorti en 1997 sur Playstation, sera le premier épisode officiellement disponible, exception faite du spin-off Mystic Quest, sorti sur Game Boy en 1994. Bien que le premier épisode de la saga ai connu un succès non négligeable au pays de l'Oncle Sam, Final Fantasy II et III ne bénéficieront pas de localisation aux USA, et c'est ainsi que Final Fantasy IV, sorti en 1991 sur Super Famicom au Japon, est renommé Final Fantasy II pour l'arrivée de la cartouche Super Nintendo sur le sol américain la même année. Si vous avez suivi, c'est que vous êtes prêts pour la suite. Il n'est pas rare qu'une licence en vogue aux États-Unis, qu'il s'agisse d'un jeu vidéo, d'une ligne de jouets, d'un film, ou d'une série télé, ait droit à son adaptation sur le papier chez un éditeur de comics. Cette tendance est d'autant plus vraie à partir des années 1980, avec l'arrivée dans les rayons des comic shops de titres allant des Maîtres de l'Univers aux Transformers, en passant par Atari Force, G.I. Joe ou Cosmocats. Et il en va de même pour Indiana Jones, Alien, Predator, Robocop, et bien évidemment Star Wars, qui ont tous été convertis en comic book pour une durée plus ou moins longue, aux côtés d'autres franchises plus ou moins plébiscitées par les lecteurs, telles que Biker Mice from Mars, L'Agence Tous Risques, Double Dragon, The Real Ghostbusters, et même Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos… Si la qualité n'est pas toujours au rendez-vous, en démontre l'horrible Street Fighter chez Malibu Comics, c'est parce que, sans grande surprise, la motivation initiale est avant tout mercantile. En 1990, dans une démarche expansionniste, le groupe Disney Publishing Worldwide lance sa filiale Disney Comics, ayant pour objectif de continuer la publication de titres comme Uncle Scrooge ou Walt Disney's Comics and Stories ; déjà en cours depuis plusieurs années chez Gladstone Publishing, et avant ça chez Gold Key et Dell Comics ; et de lancer de nouvelles séries. Adepte d'une politique agressive, Disney Comics vise un développement un peu trop optimiste face à la réalité du marché en démultipliant les annonces de nouveaux labels, comme Hollywood Comics, qui aurait dû publier les adaptations en comic book des films produits par Hollywood Pictures, autre filiale de Disney. Mais Len Wein, co-créateur de Swamp Thing et de Wolverine, ne fait pas l'unanimité auprès des fans dans son rôle d'éditeur en chef de Disney Comics, et les ventes décevantes viennent rapidement saper les ambitions du groupe qui espérait pouvoir concurrencer Marvel et DC Comics dans la cour des grands. Ainsi, dès l'année 1991, une bonne partie des titres s'arrête et les projets de développement et autres labels, dont Hollywood Comics, sont abandonnés. Disney Comics disparaît pour de bon en 1993 et les séries survivantes sont de nouveau confiées à Gladstone Publishing. Un seul et unique titre aura été publié par Hollywood Comics : l'adaptation de Arachnophobia, film produit par Steven Spielberg. Mais il aurait pu en être autrement… En effet, voilà quelques années, le scénariste Kurt Busiek, célèbre pour son travail sur Marvels avec Alex Ross ou sur le crossover Justice League of America / Avengers avec le regretté George Perez, a révélé qu'il avait œuvré sur un projet pour le moins intriguant pour Hollywood Comics au début des années 1990 : l'adaptation en comic book de Final Fantasy. Pour remettre les choses dans leur contexte : Squaresoft avait pour idée de promouvoir la franchise auprès du public américain en s'appuyant sur une série de comics, et Kurt Busiek, déjà auteur depuis le début des années 1980, fut chargé de son écriture par Disney Comics qui, sans doute à la suite d'un jeu de rachats quelconque, avait obtenu les droits pour publier ladite série. À l'époque, le jeu vidéo est encore loin d'être une activité aussi démocratisée qu'aujourd'hui, de plus, seul le tout premier Final Fantasy est sorti aux États-Unis, et malgré un accueil favorable, il est évident que la popularité de la saga à travers le monde et la sacralisation de son lore ne sont en rien comparables à ce que nous pouvons connaître. Busiek commença donc à écrire une histoire prenant place dans l'univers du premier jeu, avant que Square ne demande finalement à l'auteur de totalement revoir sa copie pour placer l'intrigue dans l'univers de FFIV, dont la sortie est prévue au Japon et aux États-Unis pour l'année 1991. Un bon moyen de promouvoir la sortie de ce qui serait Final Fantasy II en Amérique du Nord. Après avoir reçu le maximum d'informations possible de la part de Square sur ce nouvel opus, Busiek se lance, et le scénario qu'il propose semble plaire au développeur nippon. Ce dernier, sûrement peu confiant quant à l'attrait des Américains pour le JRPG, considère que Busiek a les compétences pour rendre leur univers plus accessible aux USA et l'autorise même à “américaniser” le tout en renommant les personnages. La décision paraît douteuse, et presque suicidaire, à l'heure d'une Pop Culture mondialisée, mais elle est plutôt cohérente avec l'état d'esprit de l'époque. C'est l'artiste Dell Barras ; d'origine philippine, comme Alfredo Alcala ; fort d'un parcours de dessinateur, d'encreur et d'animateur, qui est choisi pour illustrer la série, tandis que Mike Mignola, qui deviendra mondialement célèbre en créant Hellboy, se chargera des couvertures de ce qui est initialement prévu comme une mini-série de quatre numéros. Mais lorsque Disney Comics frôle la banqueroute et abandonne le label Hollywood Comics, le projet Final Fantasy est mis au placard. Busiek estime qu'il avait sûrement terminé l'écriture de deux ou trois des quatre épisodes prévus, et que Barras avait dessiné au moins un numéro complet. Malheureusement, à l'exception d'un dessin promotionnel et de deux couvertures par Mignola, il ne subsiste aucun autre visuel connu de ce projet à ma connaissance. Est-ce une mauvaise chose ? Les adaptations de films ou de jeu vidéo en comics sont, il faut l'avouer, souvent médiocres, et les quelques exceptions qui vous viennent en tête ne font que confirmer cette règle immuable. Busiek n'avait de toute évidence pas pu jouer à Final Fantasy IV pendant qu'il écrivait son histoire, et si Square lui avait confié une bible de références pour lui permettre de travailler dans des conditions optimales, les libertés qu'on avait pu lui laisser pour adapter l'univers aux attentes du public occidental d'alors seraient sans doute très mal interprétées par les puristes d'aujourd'hui. Quand bien même on pourrait découvrir le premier épisode quasi-finalisé de cette mini-série, on ferait face à un pur objet de son époque, qui n'aurait aucun intérêt de nos jours, si ce n'est de provoquer quelques malaises dans l'assistance. Kurt Busiek, qui aurait pu rejoindre Squaresoft afin de participer à l'adaptation des prochains jeux Final Fantasy en occident, va finalement continuer sa carrière de scénariste de comics chez Marvel, avec le succès qu'on lui connaît. Comme quoi, un peu comme dans les RPG, l'avenir ne tient parfois qu'à une décision prise au bon moment… Final Fantasy IV arrive en novembre 1991 aux USA ; sous le titre de Final Fantasy II, donc ; dans une version légèrement modifiée. Les références religieuses sont gommées, tandis que l'ensemble est édulcoré pour éviter de choquer un jeune public, et la difficulté des combats est même revue à la baisse. Le soft restera une référence du jeu de rôles sur console, notamment pour son introduction du système Active Time Battle, qui pousse le joueur à rester impliqué pour avoir le meilleur timing durant les séquences de combat. Malgré le succès durable de la saga, il est assez étonnant de voir que là où des licences de fantasy comme Magic The Gathering, The Witcher ou Donjons & Dragons ont eu droit à de multiples versions plus ou moins pertinentes et réussies sur le papier, plus jamais aucun éditeur américain n'a tenté d'adapter Final Fantasy en comics. Il est probable que cela découle de la volonté de Square Enix de garder le contrôle sur la marque et de limiter les produits dérivés douteux pouvant dégrader l'image de sa poule aux œufs d'or auprès d'une communauté de fans aussi fidèles qu'exigeants. Enfin, à l'heure où l'hégémonie de Disney sur la culture populaire est plus affirmée que jamais, il est bon de se rappeler que cet empire du divertissement a aussi connu de véritables revers au cours de son existence. Si, à la même période, Valiant Comics, Dark Horse, ou Image Comics ont su profiter d'un contexte né de l'arrivée d'une nouvelle génération d'auteurs et d'une bulle spéculative à son paroxysme, Disney a littéralement raté le coche, son échec devançant de plusieurs années l'effondrement du marché de la bande dessinée américaine. Quand on sait que la multinationale a actuellement la main sur une partie des plus grandes licences de la planète, y compris celles de Marvel Comics, il y a de quoi trouver ça plutôt amusant… N'hésitez pas à partager cet article sur les réseaux sociaux s'il vous a plu ! Recevez mes articles, podcasts et vidéos directement dans votre boîte mail, sans intermédiaire ni publicité, en vous abonnant gratuitement ! Get full access to CHRIS - POP CULTURE & COMICS at chrisstup.substack.com/subscribe

Final Fantasy IV, known as Final Fantasy II for its initial North American release, is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square (now Square Enix) for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Released in 1991, it is the fourth main installment of the Final Fantasy series. The game's story follows Cecil, a dark knight, as he tries to prevent the sorcerer Golbez from seizing powerful crystals and destroying the world. He is joined on this quest by a frequently changing group of allies. Final Fantasy IV introduced innovations that became staples of the Final Fantasy series and role-playing games in general. Its "Active Time Battle" system was used in five subsequent Final Fantasy games, and unlike prior games in the series, IV gave each character their own unchangeable character class.

This week we take a deeper look into the battle system commonly used in many Role Playing Games...The Active Time Battle. There are some that do not like this system and there are many variations of the battle system and we go into all of that.  -------- Follow the link bellow to go to our various socials and be sure to join the Discord to talk with us and the community directly. https://linktr.ee/glitchcube -------- Thank You all for listening! Welcome to the CubeVerse! Intro/outro music provided by: Ikaika Hudgens

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series playing Chrono Trigger. We talk exploration vs following the story threads, delve deeper into the combat, chat about the game's difficulty and accessibility, along with story recaps and other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Up to the Magus's Castle Podcast breakdown: 0:52 Chrono Trigger 1:30:48 Break 1:31:22 Feedback Issues covered: why Tim hates JRPGs, why Tim took a little longer this time, irascible exploratory Tim, getting to the top of the mountain and finding nothing, feeling discouraged from leaving the main path, what the rewards of the game are, having the prototype of what additional interactions would look like, exploring party make-up, when Ayla met Bobo, the blandness of Crono, being able to put yourself in the character, characters who start at the beginning of their story vs somewhere in the middle, party members standing out more, where you decide to spend your development time, swapping out party members and when you can, the pressure relief valve for difficulty, what is the real set of defaults for this game, having a more dynamic combat with Active Time Battle, developing your menu-diving skill, being forced into repetition and limiting ability exploration, wait mode as being more accessible, having higher highs in active mode, feeling like active mode is an experiment, having menu difficulties with Kingdom Hearts, the burden of memorizing key sequences, the timer as animation tell, having too many characters to manage to memorize things, escaping combat, using run as a means of skipping combat, dealing with status effects (Heal/Panacea), cutting out the searching for specific status healers, using specific attacks for elemental weaknesses, generally not needing to worry about weaknesses, using lightning to remove defense, fighting Spekkio, needing to restore the timeline, returning to a changed Medina, not knowing what we changed in the past, having weird interactions with monsters, localizing using stuff based on your real life, turning assumptions on their head, translation barriers, looking for Masamune, starting to subvert tropes, a kid who's no hero, a good boss battle, going to Melchior with both halves of the sword, meeting Ayla and having a big party, making Crono dance, echoes through time, losing the dreamstone via Kino, fighting Azala and the Megasaur, learning the history of Cyrus and... Glenn?, echoes of Tolkien, making a significant commitment to characters, having calls to action, integrating Glenn into the main quest, getting to equip the badge to Glenn, an update on Tim's hike, the responsible thing, stay safe and healthy, cultural references, beating up robots, variations in the courtroom and jail scenes, localization and emotional intent, the business case for localization, the high costs of localization, making choices about what content to keep in Yakuza and a design which accommodates players ignoring it, friction between an original market and a new market, growing to appreciate the underlying value of the business end, looking to journalism to fill in the gaps. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: irreverentQ, Chrono Cross, The Outer Worlds, Fallout (series), Prey, Earthbound, Final Fantasy (series), Kingdom Hearts, Batman: Arkham (series), Pokemon (series), Ray Bradbury (obliquely), Narnia, The Clan of the Cave Bear, Ultima Underworld, Minecraft, The Two Towers/Return of the King, Mass Effect (series), Sam Thomas, Short Circuit 2, Westworld, The Terminator, James Roberts, Patrick Holleman, Gothic Chocobo, Persona 5, Andrew Dice Clay, Yakuza (series), Kotaku, Robert Downey Jr, Iron Man, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Wasteland 2, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers. Links: Short Circuit 2 Hitchhiking Robot Beheaded Robot falls into fountain Reverse Design: Chrono Trigger Yakuza: Judgement replacing actor Next time: Up to "What Lies Beyond?" Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub DevGameClub@gmail.com

**The sound may be a little off on this week's podcast. I suggest using headphones if you can. Sorry about that!** I know, I know. It's Final Fantasy IV. The box says II, and the people that know, know. But the people that don't will be like "what the hell is this?". So we're goin' with Final Fantasy II.  If you're not sure why people call it the fourth FF instead of the second, listen to the episode! I love this game. As I type this, I noticed an Instagram comment from @burgerfinger that pointed out how often I say games are one of my "absolute favourites", but in this case it's true! This was the first RPG I ever played, and I became absolutely obsessed with it. I've probably finished it 10 times, and I plug it into my top three Final Fantasy titles, along with VI and IX. (The order changes all the time, depending on my mood).  If you haven't played the game, I'll give you a quick lowdown right now, but this episode is chalk full of meaty spoilers, so you've been warned. The game stars Cecil, a Dark Knight who commands the Kingdom of Baron's Red Wings (airships). He is being ordered to do terrible things, and when he questions his King's motives, he gets in trouble and all hell breaks loose and you end up helping him and his friends save the world. It's fantastic.  This game gets overlooked because it's always in it's SNES brother's shadow, but Final Fantasy II deserves a ton of credit. It introduced a more complex story than we'd ever seen, ushered in the Active Time Battle system we all know and love, and on a personal note, it showed me how great RPGs are. Anyone that has played this game knows how special it is. Aside from Super Mario World, there isn't a video game from my childhood I have more nostalgia and appreciation for. It legitimately shaped me as a gamer.  And it has Edge the ninja in it, and Edge is the fucking coolest.  My guests this week are two of my oldest childhood friends, Dan and Rob. Rob actually introduced me to Final Fantasy II 25+ years ago, so this was a really special episode for me. Getting to talk about one of my most beloved retro games with the guys I grew up playing it with was a real treat for me. I hope you guys enjoy this episode!

Brent & Nick talk about a wide variety of topics on this week's episode. They talk anticipated titles for the show, Active Time Battle, and MORE!

Join us for an even bigger, girthier part two! As we know, Final Fantasy XIII is the start of the Fabula Nova Crystallis collection of Final Fantasy games, and was the first game Square used their internally developed Crystal Tools game engine with. This tool was created to further unify the game’s development, and bring the originally PlayStation 3 exclusive to the Xbox 360 and Wii consoles. This system was conceived by the success of the Final Fantasy VII Tech Demo, which also spurred Square Enix to release Final Fantasy XIII on the PlayStation 3, instead of the originally planned release on Playstation 2.   The game received received mostly positive reviews from video game publications, praising the graphics, presentation, and battle system. The story received mixed reviews, but the linearity would be the centerpiece of most criticisms for Final Fantasy XIII, especially when compared to the rest of the series.   Development for Final Fantasy XIII began in 2004, just after the Release of Final Fantasy X-2 International + Last Mission in Japan. Director Motomu Toriyama and Kazushige Nojima conceived ideas for the stories plotline over the first year. It was Nojima that thought up the crystal mythology that is the basis of the series, and the roles of the fal’Cie and l’Cie. Toriyama then created the story around the mythology. His goal was to show the characters at the mercy of a predetermined, unjust fate. He also wanted to create a group who belonged together, but clashed heavily. To go about this, they designed each of the sory’s thirteen chapters to focus on different members of the party. The structure of the narrative started to come together in 2006, when Daisuke Watanabe joined the team. Watanabe, as you may recall, filled in for Matsuno left the Final Fantasy XII development team due to sickness. Watanabe was given a rough outline of the first eight chapters, including necessary scenes that had to stay, and was told to strengthen Toriyama’s script. An example of what this entailed, is he would get a document that simply said “Snow and Hope reconcile”, and would decide how the scene would play out, and write his scenario accordingly. Watanabe also did some adjusting for characters. He felt that Lightning shouldn’t be a reliable and calm leader, and went with the more irritable, enraged Lightning we know. This was done to capture the confusion and unease that the characters no doubt would feel in light of their situations. Toriyama felt that the Sazh suicide scene was too dark, so elements such as the Chocobo chick helped maintain a good balance within the games overall scope.   The developers of Final Fantasy XIII were divided into multiple teams, where each team would be assigned with a specific area of the game. XIII’s staff included many members who worked on previous entries in the series. The games Director, Motomu Toriyama worked on X and X-2, Kitase, as we know, worked on V through VIII, and Nomura was back as the main character designer. Since XIII was the first Final Fantasy game for the PlayStation 3, the crew wanted the game to have the same impact that VII and X had upon their release. Their sales goal was to hit 5 million copies sold, and Toriyami wanted the game to be the “ultimate single player RPG.”   Although I can’t say that XIII is the Ultimate………..single palyer RPG, It did meet, and exceed, their sales goal. As of now, Final Fantasy XIII has sold 6.71 million copies between the Ps3 and Xbox 360, making it the fourth biggest game in the series. It sold 1.7 Million copies in Japan, making it the fastest selling game in the franchise. The games budget would top out at Number 22 on the most expensive games to make list at 65+ million.   Final Fantasy XIII was released in December 2009 in Japan, and March of 2010 for the rest of the world. The game includes a very quick paced battle system, and an upgrading system similar to the Sphere Grid called Crystalarium. Players also customize paradigms, a sort of class assignment for your three person party, and the outcome of the battles heavily rely on the player “staggering” their opponents. This is essentially finding out what weakens them, and getting them into a critical state where more damage is dealt.   The character is controlled via a third person perspective. The character is also given a 360 degree camera movement. The entirety of the game is scaled relative to the characters, rather than a massive version of the character roaming a miniature terrain. Square brought back the Bestiary from Final Fatnasy XII, and also provided a way to level up ones weapons through components obtained, or bought at a save kiosk. Interestingly enough, the Final Fantasy XIII Ultimate Hits International version of the game, released in Japan, has an easy mode. This is interesting, because the company has talked about being concerned that their games are too difficult for us North Americans.   The battle system is similar to Final Fantasy XII in some ways. Most noticeably in that the character can approach or avoid enemies in the field. When the player touches an enemy, the screen transitions from the map to a battle screen similar to ones from previous entries in the series. XIII also only allows the use of three characters in battle, and uses a variant of Active Time Battle that we’ve all become accustomed to. The part where this game differs the most, is with the secondary characters. The player only controls the party leader, and the other two characters are controlled by AI. There is an extremely useful Autobattle function, where the game will automatically select actions to perform. The game also fully heals characters after a battle is complete. This makes the game sound super easy, right? No. You’re wrong. SO FUCKING WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Every enemy has a chain counter. This counter starts at 100, and each enemy has different effects on creatures. Generally, black magic spells will make the chain counter jump very quickly, but the bar will quickly reset if not supplemented with a physical attack, or debuff. Once the meter is filled, the enemy will enter a Stagger state. This form is generally quite susceptible to physical damage, and the player can even launch most enemies into the air, rendering them attackless. These stagger states can be manipulated by assigning Paradigms to your party.   Paradigms are used to assign different roles to different characters. The six paradigms are Commando, Ravager, Medic, Saboteur, Sentinel, and Synergist. The Commando deals physical damage, Ravager is designated for black magic, Medics perform healing spells, Saboteurs attack enemies with various debuff spells, such as slow or deprotect, Sentinels raise a parties defence, and Synergists are used to assign buffs to your characters such as protect and haste. These classes can, and in many cases, must be quickly changed throughout battles to quickly defeat enemies. This gives Final Fantasy XIII a refreshingly fast battle system, and also leads to many game overs on non boss enemies.   Each character has a specific Eidolon that they can summon in battle. Only the party leader can select this skill, however, so the summoned creature depends on the leader. You can trigger a Gestalt mode for the Eidelons, and they will transform into a vehicle that the player then rides on during battle…..   REMIXES:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUtJJLcQigw Born Anew Throwaway #2 Remix - TWE SHELLSHOCKR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDOv_Ko3_IY Final Fantasy XIII Lightnings Theme Hip Hop Remix - L Rello Beats https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWa5yr_xI6g "M" FFXIII Yaschas Massif FF 13  ヤシャス山   lonlonjp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwzw0cTBb34 Final Fantasy XIII "Ragnarok" Organ version - Jakah016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYtT1ilGlJs The Promise (Final Fantasy XIII) -Violen & Piano - Patti Rudisill https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-MPoWrMHN0 Final Fantasy XIII Eden Under Siege 8-Bit - 8BITTS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmyIcz7vLTw FFXIII Battle Theme Remix (Trance) - Beto Ceba

This week, Kaleb and Joe begin their review of Final Fantasy XIII. Enjoy! As we know, Final Fantasy XIII is the start of the Fabula Nova Crystallis collection of Final Fantasy games, and was the first game Square used their internally developed Crystal Tools game engine with. This tool was created to further unify the game’s development, and bring the originally PlayStation 3 exclusive to the Xbox 360 and Wii consoles. This system was conceived by the success of the Final Fantasy VII Tech Demo, which also spurred Square Enix to release Final Fantasy XIII on the PlayStation 3, instead of the originally planned release on Playstation 2.   The game received received mostly positive reviews from video game publications, praising the graphics, presentation, and battle system. The story received mixed reviews, but the linearity would be the centerpiece of most criticisms for Final Fantasy XIII, especially when compared to the rest of the series.   Development for Final Fantasy XIII began in 2004, just after the Release of Final Fantasy X-2 International + Last Mission in Japan. Director Motomu Toriyama and Kazushige Nojima conceived ideas for the stories plotline over the first year. It was Nojima that thought up the crystal mythology that is the basis of the series, and the roles of the fal’Cie and l’Cie. Toriyama then created the story around the mythology. His goal was to show the characters at the mercy of a predetermined, unjust fate. He also wanted to create a group who belonged together, but clashed heavily. To go about this, they designed each of the sory’s thirteen chapters to focus on different members of the party. The structure of the narrative started to come together in 2006, when Daisuke Watanabe joined the team. Watanabe, as you may recall, filled in for Matsuno left the Final Fantasy XII development team due to sickness. Watanabe was given a rough outline of the first eight chapters, including necessary scenes that had to stay, and was told to strengthen Toriyama’s script. An example of what this entailed, is he would get a document that simply said “Snow and Hope reconcile”, and would decide how the scene would play out, and write his scenario accordingly. Watanabe also did some adjusting for characters. He felt that Lightning shouldn’t be a reliable and calm leader, and went with the more irritable, enraged Lightning we know. This was done to capture the confusion and unease that the characters no doubt would feel in light of their situations. Toriyama felt that the Sazh suicide scene was too dark, so elements such as the Chocobo chick helped maintain a good balance within the games overall scope.   The developers of Final Fantasy XIII were divided into multiple teams, where each team would be assigned with a specific area of the game. XIII’s staff included many members who worked on previous entries in the series. The games Director, Motomu Toriyama worked on X and X-2, Kitase, as we know, worked on V through VIII, and Nomura was back as the main character designer. Since XIII was the first Final Fantasy game for the PlayStation 3, the crew wanted the game to have the same impact that VII and X had upon their release. Their sales goal was to hit 5 million copies sold, and Toriyami wanted the game to be the “ultimate single player RPG.”   Although I can’t say that XIII is the Ultimate………..single palyer RPG, It did meet, and exceed, their sales goal. As of now, Final Fantasy XIII has sold 6.71 million copies between the Ps3 and Xbox 360, making it the fourth biggest game in the series. It sold 1.7 Million copies in Japan, making it the fastest selling game in the franchise. The games budget would top out at Number 22 on the most expensive games to make list at 65+ million.   Final Fantasy XIII was released in December 2009 in Japan, and March of 2010 for the rest of the world. The game includes a very quick paced battle system, and an upgrading system similar to the Sphere Grid called Crystalarium. Players also customize paradigms, a sort of class assignment for your three person party, and the outcome of the battles heavily rely on the player “staggering” their opponents. This is essentially finding out what weakens them, and getting them into a critical state where more damage is dealt.   The character is controlled via a third person perspective. The character is also given a 360 degree camera movement. The entirety of the game is scaled relative to the characters, rather than a massive version of the character roaming a miniature terrain. Square brought back the Bestiary from Final Fatnasy XII, and also provided a way to level up ones weapons through components obtained, or bought at a save kiosk. Interestingly enough, the Final Fantasy XIII Ultimate Hits International version of the game, released in Japan, has an easy mode. This is interesting, because the company has talked about being concerned that their games are too difficult for us North Americans.   The battle system is similar to Final Fantasy XII in some ways. Most noticeably in that the character can approach or avoid enemies in the field. When the player touches an enemy, the screen transitions from the map to a battle screen similar to ones from previous entries in the series. XIII also only allows the use of three characters in battle, and uses a variant of Active Time Battle that we’ve all become accustomed to. The part where this game differs the most, is with the secondary characters. The player only controls the party leader, and the other two characters are controlled by AI. There is an extremely useful Autobattle function, where the game will automatically select actions to perform. The game also fully heals characters after a battle is complete. This makes the game sound super easy, right? No. You’re wrong. SO FUCKING WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Every enemy has a chain counter. This counter starts at 100, and each enemy has different effects on creatures. Generally, black magic spells will make the chain counter jump very quickly, but the bar will quickly reset if not supplemented with a physical attack, or debuff. Once the meter is filled, the enemy will enter a Stagger state. This form is generally quite susceptible to physical damage, and the player can even launch most enemies into the air, rendering them attackless. These stagger states can be manipulated by assigning Paradigms to your party.   Paradigms are used to assign different roles to different characters. The six paradigms are Commando, Ravager, Medic, Saboteur, Sentinel, and Synergist. The Commando deals physical damage, Ravager is designated for black magic, Medics perform healing spells, Saboteurs attack enemies with various debuff spells, such as slow or deprotect, Sentinels raise a parties defence, and Synergists are used to assign buffs to your characters such as protect and haste. These classes can, and in many cases, must be quickly changed throughout battles to quickly defeat enemies. This gives Final Fantasy XIII a refreshingly fast battle system, and also leads to many game overs on non boss enemies.   Each character has a specific Eidolon that they can summon in battle. Only the party leader can select this skill, however, so the summoned creature depends on the leader. You can trigger a Gestalt mode for the Eidelons, and they will transform into a vehicle that the player then rides on during battle…..   REMIXES:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUtJJLcQigw Born Anew Throwaway #2 Remix - TWE SHELLSHOCKR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDOv_Ko3_IY Final Fantasy XIII Lightnings Theme Hip Hop Remix - L Rello Beats https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWa5yr_xI6g "M" FFXIII Yaschas Massif FF 13  ヤシャス山   lonlonjp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwzw0cTBb34 Final Fantasy XIII "Ragnarok" Organ version - Jakah016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYtT1ilGlJs The Promise (Final Fantasy XIII) -Violen & Piano - Patti Rudisill https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-MPoWrMHN0 Final Fantasy XIII Eden Under Siege 8-Bit - 8BITTS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmyIcz7vLTw FFXIII Battle Theme Remix (Trance) - Beto Ceba  

This episode, we discuss long time employee of Square Enix Hiroyuki Ito. We give a retrospective of his important additions to the series, such as the Active Time Battle system popular in the Final Fantasy series. We contrast Ito's style with other popular RPG's at the time, and go in depth on his inspirations for his systems. This episode also announces the first annual Ultima Final Fantasy Podcast awards! This poll will be up for a week, and includes numerous best of awards for our podcast, for best Final Fantasy podcast, and for best impersonation on our show. We also have a category for best Final Fantasy release of the year! Check out our poll, and support your favorite Final Fantasy podcast!     Remix:FINAL FANTASY 12 : The salikawood remix https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHTwCpkNE_Q

Kat, Bob, Jeremy, and Christian Nutt embark on Active Time Babble's final quest. Join them as they talk about Etrian Odyssey IV, the unexpected 3DS RPG renaissance, and the future of the genre.

Kat, Marty, and Bob sit down to talk about Mass Effect 3, Final Fantasy XIII-2, Xenoblade Chronicles, Diablo III, and many of the other notable RPGs of 2012. Which ones were the best, and which ones fell short? Find out!

Kat, Marty, and Bob sit down to talk about Mass Effect 3, Final Fantasy XIII-2, Xenoblade Chronicles, Diablo III, and many of the other notable RPGs of 2012. Which ones were the best, and which ones fell short? Find out!