Lurker > andylt

I would be down for a full Triple Triad RPG.

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FF8 is full of super interesting setups and well thought out connections like that Timber message, it just does a bad job most times of actually conveying them to the player or following through in a way that would be satisfying. It frustrates me because the game is so damn imaginative, it really needed another script rewrite. I mean considering it came out only two years after 1997 they did a good job but there's so many areas where some more time would've cleaned things up.

My hot take has always been that the narrative would be more successful if Adel and Ultimecia were merged into a single character. You have all this setup of Adel layered into the background of the first couple of discs, then Ultimecia pops up out of nowhere and Adel is dispatched in a single boss battle. Adel could've used her evidently potent powers to reach into Edea's mind from space etc.

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I've finished my FFV playthrough Martin! It's not purged yet though. I'm doing VI next (probs not til Jan) then IX.

Legendary Beast is super underrated and so is Premonition imo. The Extreme is still top.

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What if Rinoa wasn't trapped behind SFF in her only contest appearance :(

What if HG/SS didn't launch the day of Bowser v Charizard?

What if the 2010 contest was all 24 hour matches?

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Leonhart4 posted...

Time for character and series rankings

Yes! Or any other kind of rankings! I'd also like to know if you came around on the music, I remember earlier on you said you didn't see what was so great about the OST.

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The music is great for all 4 phases, and the final one (The Extreme) is 10/10.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/4/44/FF8_Ultimecia_Final.png

Love the final design having the body hanging upside down off the middle, and the light where the face should be. So cool! I also like her dropping her accent in her final form. My fav FF final boss of the games I've played.

Ending is cheesy but I love it still. Congrats on beating the game!

And yeah you name Griever, so more childish people have been caught off guard when Ultimecia summons it lol.


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I have zero connection to Persona, but Joker's was hype just because of the manner of the reveal. He wasn't really on anyone's Smash radar, and the twist reveal that it was for Smash was just too good. And he opened people's possibilities further than they had initially thought.

Snake's is like the objective best (won't be topped unless they broaden the medium out to a non-games character), but personally Cloud's was such a mind****. I really thought he was a never-ever guy, and that the Link v Cloud hype was limited to gfax and the like, no idea he had such broad appeal. Banjo was a great feel-good pick too, I hadn't even played his game then but that was such a happy reveal. Simon's and K Rool's might be the best individual trailers in isolation imo.

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*sigh* is there a single poll here that someone won't stuff...

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Synthesis is the only ending that actually works for me, I'm always surprised it's not the most popular. ME3's whole theme is 'Can organics and synthetics work together and live in peace?' or 'Is synthetic life as valuable as organic life?' and Destroy's answer to both is just 'no'. Yes it's a very hamfisted theme and it's not consistent with the rest of the trilogy and none of the endings make sense and Joker's hat appears to gain sentience etc, but like it's the only one that even remotely fits in with what they were attempting to do. Except Refuse I guess, but they don't count that as a true ending.

Also I couldn't do EDI and the Geth like that.

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Yeah I was gonna make this 'which was the biggest announcement' but figured Snake would roll that, I agree he opened all the doors. Considering that though Cloud and Joker were still pretty impressive surprises.

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People talking about this on the discord, curious what the board thinks. I'm guessing Snake/Cloud win. It was very hard to narrow this to 9, it feels wrong leaving some on the 'other' but idk who I'd switch out, Ryu/Simon were leaked and the others just feel a bit less shocking.

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MoogleKupo141 posted...

Making choices based off the crunch situation seems difficult. Just because we dont hear about Ghost of Tsushima or Doom being crunched hard doesnt mean they werent... theres a real risk of rewarding a studio that was bad too, but managed to avoid being exposes.

Yeah I was specifically referring to Hades, Supergiant has been very open about being an anti-crunch studio, forcing time off and banning working weekends etc, so it would have been a real statement to give those guys that award. Of course you're right there's plenty of others with crunch, and Japan has a different situation where it just doesn't blow up because it's so normalised and ingrained into their day to day culture. I still think rewarding Naughty Dog (and CDPR/Rockstar etc) when their practices are so blatantly awful and widely known says a whole lot more than if they chose one of the ones where we don't know what went on behind the scenes. It's like an explicit endorsement of those practices.

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Leonhart4 posted...

The exciting news is that we'll finally learn which ME3 ending is canon

Destroy is the only one they could realistically continue from, imo.

IMO they should expand the universe if they're gonna continue with it at all, but I honestly have zero faith in Bioware and fully expect them to fold long before this (or Dragon Age) release, so it's not worth the effort to think about.

On a different topic, I agree with this Kotaku article:
https://twitter.com/Kotaku/status/1337489214234009601

The industry really had a chance to make a statement and recognise a game whose workers were treated with respect and basic human dignity during its development. Instead they chose TLOU2, a game made with the same old AAA nightmarish conditions that materially hurt its workers. They chose to reward the executives for engaging in crunch culture and proving that despite the occasional article bemoaning crunch, many journalists/devs have no intention of trying to shift the industry in a better direction. Pretty depressing, imo. See you again next year for the same thing with Cyberpunk.

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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Hades freaking revolutionized the entire rogue-lite genre and is far and away the most creative installment of it ever created and it probably should have gotten some kind of recognition for it. Like it's dumb to get upset over the VGA's, but I feel it should be more of a celebration of games where they could recognize multiple ones instead of one game.

Edit: Wait, you guys made it seem like Hades didn't win anything. lol Nvm

The worst thing for me was how poorly they arranged which awards get speeches. Hades won two awards but they didn't get to make a speech, FF7 and GoT didn't get to speak either. Among Us on the other hand got to make two speeches and TLOU made several. Just poor management on that front imo.

Biggest Snubs: Doom Eternal went 0 for 5, Fortnite, Ori, Miles Morales and Valorant went 0 for 3.

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So who are the strong characters still not to be in Smash in any form?

Crono, Tifa (though she's probably getting a spirit), Auron, Dante, Squall, Vivi, I guess most FF characters >_>

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A full* summation for those who missed bits (*not bothering with the esports sorry lol)

The Last of Us Part II won Game of the Year, Game Direction, Narrative, Audio Design, Performance (Laura Bailey), Innovation in Accessibility, and Action/Adventure
Among Us won Mobile and Multiplayer
FF7 Remake won Score and RPG
Ghost of Tsushima won Art Direction and Players' Voice
Hades won Indie and Action
Tell Me Why won Games for Impact
No Man's Sky won Ongoing Game
Fall Guys won Community Support
Half-Life: Alyx won VR/AR
MK11 won Fighting Game
Animal Crossing won Family Game
Flight Simulator won Sim/Strategy
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 won Sports/Racing
Phasmophobia won Debut


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It was a really weird choice to have the most hype announcements at the start. The back half was absolutely filled with ads and the ME announcement doesn't mean much to me. I adore Mass Effect but that vid gave me zero faith that that game is going to happen, they did the same thing with Dragon Age years ago and we've still seen zero gameplay for that.

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_stingers_ posted...

what else did ff7r win? i missed that. i just saw they won the music award

Score and RPG


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The Last of Us Part II wins the big prize and takes a massive 7 awards home.
Among Us, FF7R, Ghost of Tsushima and Hades each take home 2.

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Bioware is not gonna exist long enough for this game to happen lol

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Mass Effect!

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The Last of Us has only lost two categories (not counting Player's Choice), Art Direction to Tsushima and Score to FF7R.

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

Did they already do 13 Sentinels' category?

Yes, TLOU won.

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It's sad for Hades if they don't get to make a speech all night.

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I never recognise any of the Content Creators each year and I do follow occasional ones here and there.

Did not expect a Red vs Blue skit here

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MZero posted...

Should have been Tidus imo

We could get a Mii outfit still >_>

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I don't like Seph but it's a cool choice and I'm here for them hopefully properly repping FF this time. Hopefully some new remixes and stuff.

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There you go Martin, another FF7R win. TLOU continues its sweep!

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MartinFF7 posted...

Forget NN rankings it's more like SMFFFC XXIII championship run time let's fucking goooooo

HE WILL... NEVER BE A MEMORY

Just wait til a Midgar Zolom spirit battle takes away his thunder.

Lightning Strikes posted...

And when the person who won an award for their game that explicitly handles trans issues dares to say the word trans. Chat is vile.

Yeah this is why I'm not watching on the TGA official channel stream. I know the Gamers will be furious at every TLOU win, Brie Larson, black people, the words 'trans' and 'queer', and god knows what else!


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TLOU absolutely cementing itself as the frontrunner.

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TLOU on 2 wins including Bailey, Doom on 0, all the other GOTY noms on 1. May have forgotten something.

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Super Smash Bros Ultimate: Lightning Returns

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Perfect Dark!

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Seph bout to jump back up the NN rankings here?

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holy ****

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I doubt they tell the pre-show host who wins GotY in advance. Geoff will know though.

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Oh did it start already? Should we just use this topic

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I expect a guy named 'The Fear' to actually invoke fear, not be bouncing around a jungle in broad daylight repeating his name like a damn pokemon.

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Half the Cobra unit is great (Joy, Sorrow, End), Fury is ok I guess, the other two... not so much.

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I thought I'd be the first to think of the Baker family! I'm having a hard time thinking of good non-MGS ones that qualify... Elemental Archfiends, Lucavi and Judges from FF aren't that great. Maybe the Castle Bleck crew from Super Paper Mario?

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SSBM_Guy posted...

I really loved reading this topic and all your thoughts on FFV. They mirror mine a lot. Anyways, I highly recommend doing the Four Job Fiesta one day. It's always interesting to explore how each job was made for the whole game. You also really get a sense of how to get past each boss, especially around World 3.

I really appreciate Dissidia/Duodecim's respect for FFV. They did so well with all 3 playable characters (Bartz, Exdeath, and Gilgamesh), especially since it's pretty much the first real depiction of FFV. And yes, Bartz's super is basically perfect. They also have Bartz's dancer outfit as an alt costume.

Thanks! After I've gone through the FF series ringer this will probably be the first one I'll consider doing a replay of (this or VIII most likely), the Four Job Fiesta sounds good but hopefully I won't get one of the ones I already put a bunch of time into.

I actually used Dancer Bartz for a while, Dancers tend to be female-only in these things so I was trying to mix up the typical gender roles a bit (didn't work when Galuf was replaced with Krile lol). Cool that they picked that for the alt, he looks good too! I feel kinda bad for Bartz, he seems completely overshadowed by Gilgamesh in terms of series legacy. He must be one of if not the most underused protag in the series, nice to know that he's handled well in Dissidia at least.

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I read this as voting for GameFAQs Character Battles first and now I'm wondering which characters would benefit from a larger >65 vote.

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I don't understand so many people feeling the need to buy a glitchy mess day 1 instead of waiting a few months for it to be cleaned up. It's a single player game and I don't think the plot is the draw, but I guess it could still be a zeitgeist thing? IDK, I haven't bought a AAA game at launch in years.

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Just a couple quick notes while I remember: does anyone know what the building/structure thing that fell from the sky was? It happened after I went from the Sealed Temple world back to the regular world after beating Enuo for the first time. Also I was going to ask what the dragon in the V logo is supposed to signify but I looked it up and apparently it's just a Wind Drake. Whoops >_> From head on they look nothing like that!

Seems like V and VI share a lot of fans! VI was way out in front of the poll I ran before the stuffing started, and I know of its reputation obviously, but there were a handful of detractors too so I'll try not to keep my expectations too high. One of the best things about Tactics and V is that I knew like nothing about either game beforehand, I do know one or two things about VI but hopefully nothing that'll impact me too much.

As I said I might give myself a bit of a JRPG break before I start VI, not sure yet (I won an auction on eBay for what is almost certainly a bootleg VI Advance but I don't actually have it yet). But thanks to everyone who has been following and helping me through V and to anyone who left a comment at all! I very much appreciate it.

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Oh yeah Nausicaa is Ghibli in all but name, definitely put that on your list if it's not already.

SeabassDebeste posted...

should do a b8 ranks miyazaki/studio ghibli proj, tbqh

I would be here for this! Team Takahata for life.

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Some of my fav tracks:
Lenna's Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WATPOPngiTc
Cursed Lands: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePGHrO6WMlI
Sorrows of Parting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CSexDiQ-NQ
Beyond the Deep Blue Sea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaizBK7jLxU
Slumber of Ancient Earth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQLYEpDeYm0
A New World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDyqQp6tBE8

Big Bridge is of course the GOAT but I knew that going in. The OST really is so good, there's a bunch of others I wanted to single out but it'd be half the whole thing.

Overall the only reason I can see for FFV not being as beloved/famous as the others of its time is that it wasn't released out of Japan for ages. It deserves much more recognition and absolutely holds up alongside the great SNES games, imo. It's a shame Square has done like... nothing with it. No sequels, prequels, spinoffs, remakes, they have a great property here that a lot of people have no idea about, and are just... leaving it there. Ugh Square. Thank you to whichever mysterious person stuffed the poll, I'm very glad I played this.

I - II - III - IV - (TAY) - Final Fantasy V - VI - VII - (VIIR - DoC - CC) - VIII - IX - X - (X-2) - XII - (RW) - XIII - (XIII-2 - LR) - XV - Tactics - (TCB)

Next FF: The bootleg held up pretty well considering, only a handful of crashes and only one was during proper gameplay. So I see no reason not to move right ahead chronologically with Final Fantasy VI Advance! Will probably give myself a slight JRPG break but who knows.

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Last bump before tomorrow's awards. Looks like the official Board 8 predix for GOTY is TLOU II.

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I like Bartz quite a lot. I guess it's not a rarity to have a simple everyman as a hero, but in this series he does kinda feel different to the others, even with Dorgann being plot relevant he never really feels like he's being forced into a hero mold. It helps that the party feels like they're generally on equal terms- Bartz isn't a reluctant leader in the way Cecil/Cloud/Squall are, they're all equally important. He has great dialogue with Galuf and the Lix stuff gives him a more personal side, still he's not super complex but I enjoyed him a great deal. His best pal being a Chocobo is great.

Lenna is easily the weak link of the main 5, imo. In any other game she would obviously be a White Mage, a Pure Good Hearted Girl trope that I guess they didn't start giving nuance to til Aeris, or even Yuna arguably (I like Aeris a lot but she does fill a lot of those tropes). She doesn't really have as good a dynamic with the others imo, Faris is her natural scene partner but they don't really do much with the sister thing and beyond that she doesn't have too interesting a personality. Yeah her dad died, but so did everyone else's! The most interesting thing about her is her constantly poisoning herself to help out Wind Drakes, they could've leaned into that more to make her more fun, imo.

Faris is a cliche for the first couple hours, thankfully they sort out the gender stuff early on so the classic anime tropes can disappear. I like that she keeps her personality and her piratey ideology without losing sight of what's going on, and doesn't just disappear into Stock Princess once that's revealed (cough Tetra). The game kills mounts and parents/grandparents all over the place but Faris's mourning for Syldra feels more organic than most of the others. If I never hear her say 'Papa' again though it'll be too soon.

Galuf... is probably the best character here. He was the biggest surprise for me, at first being a bit of a creepy lecherous old man to Faris I was prepared to hate him, or at the least be bored by the 'I'm old!' shtick. But that's a deliberate mislead to make the later reveals seem bigger, and unlike the other party reveals his actually has a massive impact. In World 2 he just hits godmode- his banter improves tremendously, he's pretty much the lead protagonist for that world and of course his sacrifice is amazing. Easily the most shocking moment of the game given we only had 4 characters, and a very badass exit. Somewhat undercut by his constant returns, but I love the one in the true ending where Krile just thinks she hears him or maybe senses a sign, that's all they needed to do really. Still he's great.

I started off pretty neutral on Krile, she has a great entrance with BTFOing Exdeath for a second but it was hard to see her as much more than Galuf's personal investment. Of course that changes when she joins our party, in her brief time with us she has a more natural connection to Bartz than Lenna ever does with anyone, and I don't know how old she's supposed to be but she's pretty mature for her age. I really like the little nuances she's given, like how you can see her longing/mourning for her now lost childhood when talking to Mid, and just the general sense that you get of her constantly holding back from breaking down completely. Her being the main character of the ending was a great choice, she'd be the worst equipped to be alone so the four of them journeying on together feels especially optimistic with her centred.

I'm not usually particularly drawn to FF villains, particularly those of the 'evil for evil's sake' variety. Exdeath does it much better than some others, thanks to the game not constantly telling you how cool he is, not having him be super godlike all the time, him having a cool creepy eldritch origin story, and just generally getting the sense that he's actively working to stop us. He's not sat there winning because the plot dictates he's winning, he's making moves towards his goal all the time. He recognises the party as the threat they are, and you know he can be defeated because he already was before. His entrance at the end of Act 1 is a nice badass intro. Him being a tree actually works for me, really helps make him more unique than if he were just regular bad knight dude. Definitely an upper tier villain for the series, though that's not a high bar for me. I like that he's not above getting involved in the quirky side of the narrative, the splinter reveal then fight with the turtle was so good.

As far as the minor characters go, the only one of note for me coming to mind is Ghido. Dude is great. His absolute antipathy towards Bartz, constantly making snide comments during vitally important exposition, him being a straight up turtle and having an epic fight with Exdeath, just a great little character. Again seems like the GBA translation did him a great service here. Would support getting this guy into SMFFFC.

Feel like I should mention Boko, but there's not much to say. It's a nice novelty having a chocobo be a real character, and as said earlier him being Bartz's best friend helps colour Bartz's character well. At least he has a better fate than most of the game's mounts.

Last but not least is obviously Gilgamesh. It's a bit unlucky for him that he's become such a series comical mainstay, because my expectations were very high. I'm trying to imagine coming to this game with no knowledge of him at all and gradually realising what a wacky wonderful guy he is. Starting off as Exdeath's number 2 and becoming a lovable weirdo by the end of the game, it's a wild but well done journey. He actually has more of an arc than most characters, and gets a legit great sendoff into the unknown at the end. I didn't expect the game's tone to be so wacky overall, so that's not why he stands out here (unlike his other appearances), he's just a legitimately well drawn character.

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Thanks for the comments everyone!

Grand Kirby posted...

Bartz's super move in Dissidia is literally just him using Rapid-Fire Dual Wielding with Spellblade. They completely recognized how crazy powerful it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhqQQq744rM

Lol that's great, I should've used Mystic Knight more.

I won't be doing a full character ranking like with Tactics and I've said most of my thoughts throughout really. I really enjoyed this game! It was a way bigger step-up from IV gameplaywise than I expected- the job system is surprisingly robust and lends itself to replays more than any other entry in the series that I've played (even Tactics and X-2 with similar systems), the dungeons were a massive step up from the previous entry and in general there were just a bunch of really neat additions. It kind of feels like VIII to IV's VII for me, a super imaginative entry that throws a bunch of stuff at the wall and isn't afraid to innovate, quirky cast and all. Having one set party worked very well and the three 'worlds' each had distinct feels. The towns are still a bit bland but better than IV's, and it felt like there was notably more side stuff to do and freedom on the maps. The world map itself was great, I'm still super impressed at how the two maps slide onto each other so well.

The story was fine, nothing special but it was a fun ride. World 2 is probably my fav, being on the villain's home turf and all the great plot stuff that happens there. The game also takes a massive step into ridiculousness here (much like VIII!) which does it a world of good, really separating it from most other entries. There's a stretch from around Moore in World 2 to like the Pyramid in World 3 that is just phenomenal. The music is again surprisingly great, it feels really cohesive and centred around a particular theme, much like the aesthetic overall. There's a cold machine style present and even the usually calm nature tracks usually have a melancholic element to them. The battle tracks go off, doing their own thing entirely and not being beholden to any norms!

Characterwise, people are pretty broadly drawn. The dialogue is a huge benefit, which I gather is largely down to the GBA translation. The banter helps the party feel more like real friends, and overall the party seems less a destined group of heroes and more a ragtag band of misfits just stumbling forward however they can (again like VIII!), which I liked a lot. The Dawn Warriors are more typical 'heroes', and I wasn't very interested in them (aside from Galuf) or King Tycoon, but then I don't think I was supposed to be. I was disappointed that the game has wolfmen in it but does nothing cool with them. In general there's a simplicity to the characters here, I guess they didn't add so much complexity til the later entries, but they generally felt less like archetypes than IV (not saying this as a negative for IV). Again, the dialogue is great.

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Shine you should never have created this topic!

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