Lunaticked Wrote:I love Tactics, I hate IX. Fantasy, sci-fi, steampunk. I didn't give a rats rotting tit about the setting. I cared about the characterization and plot. IX was horrifyingly bad in that regard. The plot seemed like it was thought up with for ages 6-12, not the audience that had been growing up with the series and had grown to expect something a little more geared toward their level.
Tactics, shoddy translation aside, was great. A nice, layered plot with many important players throughout.
Square has learned from their mistake of IX and have matured their storytelling slightly, but they still have huge issues with character development. Though if I want a game where a main character is not the same person by the end of the game as he or she was at the start, I'll go to the Tales series.
::Shrugs.::
I guess I'll have to agree to disagree, then. I admit, some of the characters in IX were weak; Amarant comes to mind with his later appearance and rather quick moral turnaround, for example, and Dagger/Garnet at times seemed more hopeless than I would have liked. But watching Vivi basically grow up through the game, or Steiner question his obligations to uphold rigid, strict conduct compared to what is really the "right" thing to do were great examples of character development and storytelling to me, just to cite some examples.
And after the debacle that was VIII, it was nice to actually have a lead character that didn't make me want to go and down a bottle of Prozac just to keep my mood up. Say what you want about Zidane, but I liked his attitude, his personality, and even the explanation behind his backstory, and how he goes from mindless creation tossed into the world to destroy, to this open, care-free thief taken in and shown the open world by Tantalus and his adopted family.
And while you could say it being aimed at a younger audience is a negative, it's worth consideration that this game was all about paying homage to the earlier parts of the FF series. The very games that we were playing as children, or yes, even between the ages of 6 and 12 (I played FFIV the first time at just 9 years old). Nostalgia goggles? Sure. Maybe. I'll admit to that. Maybe IX was trying to work off of that. But I'm not ashamed of admitting it.
A friend to the end to depend on you can.
I walk through the sea, swim through the sands.
To the edges of the earth, to your rescue when you hurt,
Only thing I learnt is I'm not Superman.
~Giant Panda - Strings
I walk through the sea, swim through the sands.
To the edges of the earth, to your rescue when you hurt,
Only thing I learnt is I'm not Superman.
~Giant Panda - Strings
