Organization XIII

[Nexev]

We expect bosses, situational if not logical. They're going to be there after a save point (you hope), at the end of the dungeon, or the climax of the story. You may hate the Quirky Miniboss Squad or the Goldfish Poop Gang, but it makes sense you'll fight them, and then The Dragon later. Then maybe his boss, who might go all mutatey on you.

 

But bosses don't always mesh well with the storyline, with some functioning more as checks to make sure the party is leveled up properly to this point. And sometimes they just come right out of nowhere, without foreshadowing, or are completely inappropriate to the game up until that point.

 

This is a Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: A boss with no relevance whatsoever to the actual plot, and who comes out of nowhere in a way that jerks you out of Willing Suspension Of Disbelief. They are frequently mindless creatures or beasts as opposed to actual characters, and tend to appear at the end of unimportant plot threads, such as Fetch Quests.

 

Compare the non-video game boss equivalent, the Big Lipped Alligator Moment, which applies mostly to scenes, not a big boss enemies. In fact, if, in addition to coming out of nowhere, having little or no relevance to the story, and little or no mention of afterward, the boss and/or the battle is really weird and nonsensical even in the context of the game, there may be some overlap between Giant Space Flea From Nowhere and Big Lipped Alligator Moment.

 

Note that, contrary to what the name might at first seem to indicate, Giant Space Flea From Nowhere is quite distinct from Eldritch Abomination. Though Giant Space Fleas From Nowhere can sometimes be Eldritch Abominations, the vast majority of Eldritch Abominations are not Giant Space Fleas From Nowhere. If it makes sense in the plot, it's not a Giant Space Flea From Nowhere.

 

Also, note that most games that include Random Encounters, or that have no thematic consistency to their enemies, are pretty much incapable of having a Giant Space Flea From Nowhere. In those games, even the normal enemies appear suddenly and without any connection to the story; the bosses are therefore just a plain old instance of Gameplay And Story Segregation, same as the normal battles. For those games, bosses would only fall into this trope if one of the following is true:

* Are important to the story, such as the Final Boss;

* Are thematically completely different from what you would expect, i.e. when normal encounters are thematically appropriate but this boss is not;

* Actually has some sort of dialogue with the heroes, indicating it's more than a random encounter, but has no connection to the plot whatsoever.

 

 

The bolded are the problems with Necron, Zemus, etc.

[Davok]

You know, you could have just linked to the TV Tropes article. You silly man.

[Nexev]

Could have, would have, didn't.

 

Otherwise youd be too busy reading tropes.

[Blake]

True enough, Nexev. Everytime I see a link to that site I look... and I forget what I'm doing via links XD

[Phantom Roxas]

Nonsense.

[Encalade Shinamisu]

TV Tropes are the best thing to happen to the everyday internet lurker...

[The Warden]

They're entertaining to read, even those with less admirable qualities.

[Phantom Roxas]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnpleasableFanbase

 

Yes, Square Enix has its own section.

[Amethyst Phoenix]

Yay, I can control my party setup finally.

 

 

I'm going with Lightning, Fang, and Hope.

 

 

Fang has highest possible strength, Hope has highest possible magic, and Lightning is a good versatile leader (and the best ravager).

[Zexaeon]

I use everyone. =3

 

Light/Fang/Hope is my most frequent party for traveling around and beating up random ilk. I switch Lightning out for Sazh for boss battles, because all the buffing he and Hope can do provides amazing maintenance for taking bosses down.

 

Vanille replaces Hope every now and then for traveling around, and it's worth noting how easily she and Fang can wreck enemies with their debuffing.

 

And then when I'm feeling especially whimsical I just pick a random combination and go with it.

 

I don't use Snow at all, and don't plan to until post game, when I have the patience to obtain a decent weapon for him and level it up.

[DL]

Gah, Zeo-sama stole my avatar, kinda!

 

Eiher way, I don't understand any of that. >.>

 

Except for the part with Auron.

[Zexaeon]

Also, it only just now occurred to me to mention this, but Nex, you know how you're always saying you want Spells to stay useful? Like Fire still being useful after getting Fira?

 

Well, I don't know if you realize this or not, but that is certainly the case in FFXIII.

 

Level 1 spells are definitely weaker than their stronger variants, but they consume much less time on the ATB gauge, which means more actions at once to raise the chain meter. If you're trying to stagger an enemy, using several Level 1 Spells is much more efficient than using a higher-leveled spell.

 

Level 2 Spells are more suitable for a staggered enemy, to pile on the damage, and even then, mixing in some weaker spells is useful to maintain Flinch lock.

 

Max level spells are quite powerful, but for the most part, I don't find them too useful unless there are several enemies grouped together, since their biggest selling point is wide Area of Effect. Other than that, they consume so much time on the ATB that it's not worth just casually throwing them out. There are of course, exceptions, such as with enemies that will be killed instantly by them, and if you're fighting just one powerful enemy, they're worth using after the stagger since you've only got one enemy to worry about.

 

So yeah, just thought I'd point all that out to you.

[Phantom Roxas]

I want my team to be Lightning/Snow/Hope, but I'll need to wait before I can get access to Gilgamesh Inc.

[Zexaeon]

Why Gilgamesh?

 

=o In my opinion, at least, all their best weapons are each obtained from Plautus' Workshop, which you get almost as soon as you arrive in Gran Pulse.

 

Granted, Lionheart hasn't appeared in the shop yet. But it will. Lionheart/Paladin/Vidofnir is the way to go, as far as I'm concerned at least.

 

Besides, doesn't Gilgamesh Inc. have a lot of Iron Blow weapons? Or whatever that ability was called. It's not very good, really.

[CeDeFiA]

@Zexaeon about the spells, you forgot to add that the Max level spells tend to look pretty amazing graphic wise too :P

[Nexev]

Also' date=' it only just now occurred to me to mention this, but Nex, you know how you're always saying you want Spells to stay useful? Like Fire still being useful after getting Fira?

 

Well, I don't know if you realize this or not, but that is certainly the case in FFXIII.

 

Level 1 spells are definitely weaker than their stronger variants, but they consume much less time on the ATB gauge, which means more actions at once to raise the chain meter. If you're trying to stagger an enemy, using several Level 1 Spells is much more efficient than using a higher-leveled spell.

 

Level 2 Spells are more suitable for a staggered enemy, to pile on the damage, and even then, mixing in some weaker spells is useful to maintain Flinch lock.

 

Max level spells are quite powerful, but for the most part, I don't find them too useful unless there are several enemies grouped together, since their biggest selling point is wide Area of Effect. Other than that, they consume so much time on the ATB that it's not worth just casually throwing them out. There are of course, exceptions, such as with enemies that will be killed instantly by them, and if you're fighting just one powerful enemy, they're worth using after the stagger since you've only got one enemy to worry about.

 

So yeah, just thought I'd point all that out to you.

[/quote']

 

Of course I noticed that, we were talking about what we wanted in a super FF game.

 

I wanted to have all spells be useful and decided that maybe they should be customizable and certain spells like Fira are merely default options.

 

You get a empty spell slot, you add in a couple of damage orbs, a fire element orb, and maybe a poison orb for the hell of it.

 

Now you have a poison fireball spell.

 

Spells all cost the same but each spell only can have a certain amount of orbs.

[Phantom Roxas]

I prefer balanced weapons, such as Organyx.

[Zexaeon]

Ah. Well, I can understand that with Lightning, since she can shift easily between Physical and Magical, but Hope is pretty much all magic. And Vidofnir is probably his best weapon that won't slow him down or weaken his health.

 

There's also Airwing, but it has no unique effects, and is therefore boring.

 

@Lightning: Yes, that is quite true. 8D

 

@Nex: I like XIII's approach at keeping them all useful, but that idea works too. It reminds me of the Materia System in VII - the Fire Materia stays Fire (There's no Fira or Firaga), it just levels up. And you can link it to another Materia to add an effect to it.

[Phantom Roxas]

I remember those. Hell Firage was fun in CC.

 

I gave Hope Ninurta. Maybe I'll give him Vidofnir, but I was thinking of Malphos. But yeah, you have a point, since he's best as a Ravager/Medic.

[Zexaeon]

I wouldn't recommend Malphos - if I'm not mistaken, that one has Stagger Lock, which basically means he can't Stagger enemies, no matter how high he gets their Chain Gauge. That kinda defeats the purpose of Ravaging, especially since some enemies need two Ravagers to work in concert for their Gauge to reach Stagger, as they have Bars that start decreasing fairly quickly.

[Amethyst Phoenix]

Rox, the balance to Organyx being so great is that it's slow as funk.

 

 

 

Also, new best thing ever: http://theoatmeal.com/story/octopus

 

It's called The Oatmeal, and is filled with epic pages. The one I linked you is about why octopuses are better than your mother.

 

 

 

Also, VII just used the old name scheme. It used to be like this:

 

Fire

 

Fire II

 

Fire III

 

 

Then they changed it to this:

 

Fire

 

Fira

 

Firaga

 

 

Then somewhere along the lines they made Fira an aoe.

[Zexaeon]

And now there have since been additional levels or variants, such as -sa, -ja, -gun, and the so-far-Sin-only -ton.

[The Warden]

From what I can guess in FFX, -ja are non-elemental variants tot he spell.

[Sploda]

I prefer the old way of saying the spells.

 

Fire XII is alot easier to say than Firagasagunton MK. III or something like that.

[Phantom Roxas]

@Zex: Ah, then forget about Malphos. Now, I recall the -ja spells from XII, but not -sa or -gun.

 

@Amethyst: I know, but apparently that drawback can be amended.