I just did the part in the Lhusu Mines where the party runs into the Bangaa headhunter party...
So, everyone runs down the tunnel cracks and Balthier goes "We'll never beat them all...just fight who we need to and leave the rest." The only problem is, I've been busy trying to powergame and breaking the system, as usual, and given that everyone in my party is at level 18 or higher, instead of running away as I was supposed to, I had my party turn around and whomp them into a fine paste instead.
Not that it wasn't kind of fun, but unfortunately, to me, it really shattered the illusion that I was actually part of the plot. More to the point, it illustrated how completely divorced the gameplay and plot elements in Final Fantasy games have gotten. Instead of an experience where the game elements and plot elements work in conjunction and are indivisible, Final Fantasy games have really gotten to the point where they feel like movie cutscenes, separated by a bunch of hoops to jump through.
It's kind of killing my desire to finish the game. There are those who would say I shouldn't have powergamed the opening until my characters were strong enough to slaughter everything in their path, but the fact that it's so easy to shatter the plot illusion by doing so really just throws the "on-rails" nature of the plot into sharp relief, at least to me. I want to be able to take this group of characters and strive with them, succeed in the context of the game. I feel it's natural to do so - but instead of being rewarded for skillful play, I feel like the game's kind of saying, "Why are you trying to do something different? Why can't you just be level 5 like everyone else when you get to this point in the game? You should just be sitting back and doing the expected actions like the majority of players do. Otherwise, we can't provide a compelling gameplay experience for you."
I suppose if I want that kind of interactivity, I ought to be playing Fable or something, not FFXII...but I can still dream of a day when there's a Square game with a truly non-linear plot...and wish more games were like Guardian Heroes...I think, to this day, that may have been the only game that truly made me feel like my actions really determined the path my characters were on. I still wonder why more games haven't followed in its footsteps.
So, everyone runs down the tunnel cracks and Balthier goes "We'll never beat them all...just fight who we need to and leave the rest." The only problem is, I've been busy trying to powergame and breaking the system, as usual, and given that everyone in my party is at level 18 or higher, instead of running away as I was supposed to, I had my party turn around and whomp them into a fine paste instead.
Not that it wasn't kind of fun, but unfortunately, to me, it really shattered the illusion that I was actually part of the plot. More to the point, it illustrated how completely divorced the gameplay and plot elements in Final Fantasy games have gotten. Instead of an experience where the game elements and plot elements work in conjunction and are indivisible, Final Fantasy games have really gotten to the point where they feel like movie cutscenes, separated by a bunch of hoops to jump through.
It's kind of killing my desire to finish the game. There are those who would say I shouldn't have powergamed the opening until my characters were strong enough to slaughter everything in their path, but the fact that it's so easy to shatter the plot illusion by doing so really just throws the "on-rails" nature of the plot into sharp relief, at least to me. I want to be able to take this group of characters and strive with them, succeed in the context of the game. I feel it's natural to do so - but instead of being rewarded for skillful play, I feel like the game's kind of saying, "Why are you trying to do something different? Why can't you just be level 5 like everyone else when you get to this point in the game? You should just be sitting back and doing the expected actions like the majority of players do. Otherwise, we can't provide a compelling gameplay experience for you."
I suppose if I want that kind of interactivity, I ought to be playing Fable or something, not FFXII...but I can still dream of a day when there's a Square game with a truly non-linear plot...and wish more games were like Guardian Heroes...I think, to this day, that may have been the only game that truly made me feel like my actions really determined the path my characters were on. I still wonder why more games haven't followed in its footsteps.
