Oh, totally. I didn't mean to imply it was mandatory or anything - if you follow the story progression and don't avoid all the random encounter, the difficulty curve in FFII is fine. I was just commenting about grinding in itself; it isn't fun, but at least FFII doesn't make it required. It's just there if you want to break the game apart on your knee, not something necessary. Answering a direct question about it sort of necessitate discussing the pro and cons of it though, doesn't it?
Last time on FF2, absolute devastation. Today: maybe improve things a little?
And once inside, what do we find but…
Gordon, prince of Kashuan and brother to the deceased Scott, came to the Keep to try and retrieve Egil's Torch and the Sunfire to show himself worthy of his late brother's trust. Unfortunately, the Keep is full of monsters, so he's been stuck there the whole time.
This is funny because back in Altair, what Minwu told us is that the Keep can only open to the chime of the Goddess's Bell… Or the voice of a prince of Kashuan. So Gordon could have opened the way for us and saved us the whole Salamand journey (and Josef's life) if he hadn't headed there on his own only to find himself unable to get through the Keep. The Wild Roses ask if Gordon, as the prince, knows his way around the Keep, and amusingly Gordon is quick to pre-emptively deny that he might be any use at all:
Nonetheless, an extra hand is better than nothing, and Gordon joins the party!
Look at this twink. He looks like he's already tired before he even did anything. My man's natural posture is a slouch. If you push him he just tips over and falls.
Oh my god his stats are even worse than Josef's. He is literally useless.
No wonder he needed us to get anywhere.
With a full party once more, we push forward into the Keep!
Ogres and Ogre Mages are back, but as you might guess from my four-figure HP numbers, they're much less of a problem now.
This is the goofiest enemy sprite in both games so far. I love this dork-ass cartoon mouse. It has a striped tail!
The adamantoise is back as a random encounter; what with it being the boss from the last dungeon that seems a hilariously quick downgrade and a massive threat escalation at the same time, but when I have full MP and know its weakness to Blizzard it's no threat at all.
Incidentally, take a look at these HP numbers. When I finished FFI, my characters had an HP range from 445 (Papalymo the Black Wizard) to 764 (Yda the Master). Every leveled character in this party exceeds that maximum, and I'm far from the endgame. Numbers have gotten much bigger - at the same time, no one in the party hits as hard as Yda did yet. There's a discrepancy, likely driven by the stat system and grinding: I don't know exactly the mechanics of it, but weapon stats only seem to level up when used against enemies of a certain power level, whereas having the entire party whack each other to train HP seems to work fairly consistently.
Like every other dungeon in the game, the Kashuan Keep is full of doors to empty rooms. Now, at this point, you might be asking: Omi, why are you even bothering checking these doors? Half the time the stairs are visible on the floor map, you don't need to open any door. Well, dear reader, there's a simple answer to that, and it's this room:
Sometimes, the room has a bunch of treasure chests in it. I can't afford not to check them.
At the top of the tower, we meet this weird boss:
Unfortunately, "it's a red soul!" doesn't mean much to me, because I don't know what a red soul is. It looks to be some kind of magical spirit - it can cast offensive spells of the VIII rank, and it seems to absorb all magic. Any spell I cast on it results in it gaining HP, so magic is useless. It also has very high defense, so weapons do very little to him - Gordon is effectively dead weight in this fight, as his attacks do 0 damage.
Also, unlike FFI, I suffer from a dearth of offensive buffs. I can defend my party with Protect, Shell, Blink, and others, but I can't improve my damage potential. So in a situation where damage spells do nothing, I cannot strategically adapt to a physical damage suite. I can only click "Attack" and hope it works.
Fortunately, I have so much HP and MP that tanking these powerful spells and healing the damage is trivial, the Red Soul eventually runs out of MP and has to resort to weak physical attacks, and I wear it down with physical hits.
How Maria got her HP so low is a mystery to me. Once it was clear all I could do was buff defense and press attack, I set the battle to auto-mode until it was over, and I missed how she actually took that much damage from the Red Soul's weak blows.
And with this, we have acquired the Sunfire!
Now all we need is a way into the Dreadnought, and wouldn't you know it…
A cutscene plays in which Cid's airship appears with the Dreadnought in hot pursuit. Unfortunately, the Dreadnought might be bigger and heavier than the Airship but its engine is proportionately more powerful, and it is able to catch up to the Airship and pull it in.
I can only assume they used a tractor beam.
Therefore, it's time to infiltrate the Dreadnought and rescue our friends(?)!
Side note: I got attacked while crossing the bridge tile south of the Keep and it pleases me to report that despite how small they are, bridges have their own custom background for random encounters.
This is easily done: I grab the Chocobo from the forest south of the Keep, and then I travel the map for a bit until I come upon…
A hidden airbase!
We enter the Dreadnought, which has an appealingly industrial aesthetic:
The Dreadnought appears to be built entirely out of metal, evoking the, well, dreadnought ships of history. It's an interesting take following on FFI's space station Flying Fortress - here, this isn't a relic of an older, more advanced time; it's progress in action in its most evil form, technological advances serving imperial expansion and conquest, a weapon meant to deliver death from above without recourse. It's a European battleship showing up in the harbor of a free country's capital and bombing it to rubble without recourse, until they surrender their freedom to the colonizers.
The guard asks me what I want, which is where I show him the pass, but before that I try all the other dialogue options to see if he has anything to say, which turns out to be a stupid decision because asking him about "wild rose" immediately triggers a fight.
Gordon is just taking a nap.
I've been grinding against Captains for a couple hours at this point, so he's not really a threat, but he still represents a non-insignificant expense of resources in a place far away from any inn, so I decide to reload and show him the pass instead, which instantly makes him act deferential and open the way forward.
Notice all the NPCs hanging out in the dungeon - they're all Captains, talking to them triggers a fight, and they don't disappear and can be interacted with again. This in theory makes them a perfect grinding spot, but Fynn already exists, so mostly we just avoid them.
This dungeon is way lighter on the fakeout doors than most. No, it has another way of being annoying:
Several floors are basically just U-shapes around a central obstacle, so you just walk the long way 'round while dealing with random encounters, which is kinda boring. Those four chests in the second picture are worth it though - they contain an array of powerful items like the Giant's Helm, which increases defense but also offensive power, or the Main Gauche, a dagger that boosts Agility.
Yeah I don't think I'm taking that one off any time soon.
The deeper levels of the Dreadnoughts are also where things get spicy.
Spellcasters, giants with enormous HP pool, and a rapidly dwindling MP reserve are combining to make these fights pretty tough - that Gigas in particular did a number on my resources.
Then I reach this floor:
Looks simple enough, right? Take a right, head down, turn right, and you're home free?
Wrong! Here's what the map doesn't show you:
A dozen of Captains are spread through the room at corners, locking off a number of intersections in such a way that there is only one path to the central stairway, and it is a circuitous one that takes you on a long turn of the whole ship with several dead ends.
Very quickly into this process…
Captains don't appear in random encounters, but I foolishly challenged one thinking killing it would clear the path on the dungeon screen. It did not.
I run out of MP and Ether and start getting seriously low on HP to the point that even a single Captain can threaten me.
So I head out. I grab my party and I high-tail it, fleeing every combat encounter on the way. And, once I'm out, I use a Cottage to bring everyone back to full health and magic.
Is that… is that a portable gazebo???
I hadn't realized but I hadn't rested at an inn since back before Kashuan Keep. A fun fact about FFII is that when your maximum HP or MP levels up, your current HP and MP don't. If you're at full health at 90 HP and you get a level up that brings you up to 100 HP, your HP is now 90/100. It's extremely silly and can easily cause you to make mistakes not ensuring you're topped up.
The upside is, now that my party is actually playing like the level it's at, I melt through the Dreadnought on my way back to the deepest floors. I take advantage of this to quickly look at other levels I hadn't visited yet and…
Hilda and Cid! They're being held prisoners!
Cid and Hilda escape. I wonder if there had been special dialogue in Altair if I had stopped there on my way?
Either way, with that bit of heroics done, I finally get through the Captain Maze and reach the reactor room.
I gotta admit, I was fully expecting a first encounter with the Dark Knight to be the Dreadnaught's boss fight, but the Dreadnought doesn't have a boss fight. Our friend here shows up too late to prevent us from setting the engine to blow, and once that's done, the only thing left to do is run very fast - both for us and for him.
A cutscene plays of the party running away while the screen rumbles and shakes with explosions. To my surprise, Gordon doesn't trip on something and tell everyone to Fly You Fools before being left in the Dreadnought as it explodes, which I was fully expecting.
But no, the group manage to get into the Millenium Falcon and fly away as the Death Star is left behind to explode.
We fly across the sea, back to the relative safety of Altair, having destroyed the Empire's most powerful weapon and secured some respite for the free people of the world.
Unfortunately, the news is not all good, as we arrive only to find out in our absence, the King's health took a turn for the worse. When we see him, it's clear the King is on death's door, and he has requests for various members of his entourage.
A powerful magic being named "Ultima" is another Final Fantasy mainstay that makes its first appearance here. And speaking of firsts…
One of my favorite classes and my original main in FFXIV is here!
Gordon has been appointed by the King as the general of the rebel armies, and as such he will be leaving the party. I wish him the best and merely hope that he'll be a better military leader than he will be a party member.
Our new goal is secured: get a ship, get to Deist (which the Empire struck first in its opening moves before setting out to conquer the world, fearing the dragoons more than anyone else), find a surviving dragoon and, I assume, recruit him in our party.
No, not that kind of dragoon, although that would be pretty sick.
Before heading out, I decide to check in on Hilda, to see how she's doing after the events of the Dreadnought and the death of her father. She only has one line of dialogue and it is, hm, concerning:
Hrm.
Well, I'm sure it's fine.
We're just about done, but let's push forward just a little. In Paloom, the usual ship that does the Paloom-Poft trip is not here to help us. Instead, we have a nice new friendly face:
She seems trustworthy!
Her ship, not suspiciously at all, appears on the overworld map not in the Paloom docks but some distance away, as if in a hidden cove. We go there, and things start normally, with a cutscene of the ship sailing playing, and then…
I love this fucked up design. Look at their faces! Their helmets! They're cartoon characters.
Despite missing a party member, things go about as well for this lot as it did for Bikke's guys back in FFI. They are dispatched pretty quickly.
Leila is ready to face execution for her deeds - however, the Wild Roses respect her #girlboss spirit of entrepreneurship, willingness to play hard, and sense of initiative. She's the kind of person this party needs to succeed - and also she comes with a ship and a fully trained crew. This is really less "Leila joins the party" as it is "the Wild Roses are brought onto the board of executives of Leila's Crew."
And with this, we have a ship, and we can close this chapter! Until next time!
Unfortunately, "it's a red soul!" doesn't mean much to me, because I don't know what a red soul is. It looks to be some kind of magical spirit - it can cast offensive spells of the VIII rank, and it seems to absorb all magic. Any spell I cast on it results in it gaining HP, so magic is useless. It also has very high defense, so weapons do very little to him - Gordon is effectively dead weight in this fight, as his attacks do 0 damage.
Also, unlike FFI, I suffer from a dearth of offensive buffs. I can defend my party with Protect, Shell, Blink, and others, but I can't improve my damage potential. So in a situation where damage spells do nothing, I cannot strategically adapt to a physical damage suite. I can only click "Attack" and hope it works.
Fortunately, I have so much HP and MP that tanking these powerful spells and healing the damage is trivial, the Red Soul eventually runs out of MP and has to resort to weak physical attacks, and I wear it down with physical hits.
yeah Red Souls absorb every absorbable element, meaning your only options are to wail on their (high) defense, or use specifically non-elemental magic.
They're pretty nasty, given they're not all that far off from, say, the Adamantoise's physical defense yet have no weakness to magic to use.
Don't forget XII, with its Death Star finale and half the party consisting of Han Solo, Bunnygirl Chewbacca, and Princess Leia, topped it (also yet another Darth Vader, which XIV lacked due to lacking the familial connection to a hero).
Oh also, I meant to put that in and forgot, Captains drop the Toad tome so I've been leveling Maria's Toad spell on the side (up to Toad III now) but I'm too lazy to give it a dedicated grinding session
I also got a Berserk tome so I finally have an offensive buff spell. Interesting that in this version it doesn't have a downside yet.
Oh also, I meant to put that in and forgot, Captains drop the Toad tome so I've been leveling Maria's Toad spell on the side (up to Toad III now) but I'm too lazy to give it a dedicated grinding session
I also got a Berserk tome so I finally have an offensive buff spell. Interesting that in this version it doesn't have a downside yet.
Continue levelling Toad, unless they significantly changed how stuff like that works in the Pixel Remaster, it'll solve all of your problems going forward.
Even if they did change how it works, Berserk too is a game winner if you spam it enough. IIRC, there's no cap for how high you can stack it.
Continue levelling Toad, unless they significantly changed how stuff like that works in the Pixel Remaster, it'll solve all of your problems going forward.
Even if they did change how it works, Berserk too is a game winner if you spam it enough. IIRC, there's no cap for how high you can stack it.
Don't forget XII, with its Death Star finale and half the party consisting of Han Solo, Bunnygirl Chewbacca, and Princess Leia, topped it (also yet another Darth Vader, which XIV lacked due to lacking the familial connection to a hero).
You seem to have blanked on the existence of XII there, yeah. Which is forgivable; it's a very dull story with the best combat system Final Fantasy has managed since it tried to move towards being an ARPG series. Yes, it's better than 7 Remake in terms of combat systems, fight me in the turn based combat that Final Fantasy should have stuck with and refined further.
It's interesting to see the repeated pirate motif, though, especially with my foreknowledge of some future games.
It's also interesting - and frustrating - to see the swap-in swap-out of party members happen so quickly; it feels like it's already reached the point where you just resign yourself to having to haul a corpse around and just have a party of 3 who are actually levelled and equipped for the challenges you'll be facing. At least in some of the future games the temporary members are supposed to be roughly appropriately levelled.
You seem to have blanked on the existence of XII there, yeah. Which is forgivable; it's a very dull story with the best combat system Final Fantasy has managed since it tried to move towards being an ARPG series. Yes, it's better than 7 Remake in terms of combat systems, fight me in the turn based combat that Final Fantasy should have stuck with and refined further.
It's interesting to see the repeated pirate motif, though, especially with my foreknowledge of some future games.
It's also interesting - and frustrating - to see the swap-in swap-out of party members happen so quickly; it feels like it's already reached the point where you just resign yourself to having to haul a corpse around and just have a party of 3 who are actually levelled and equipped for the challenges you'll be facing. At least in some of the future games the temporary members are supposed to be roughly appropriately levelled.
Yeah, Josef and Gordon simply aren't around long enough for me to actually bother taking the time to level them up - I would literally spend more time grinding than actually using them for story content.
Yes, it's better than 7 Remake in terms of combat systems, fight me in the turn based combat that Final Fantasy should have stuck with and refined further.
While I agree with you on "FFXII is a better action RPG than FF7-Remake", I still hold that the way they should have gone would have been to improve on the FFX-2 combat system; I know that's one isn't fully action, since the characters only move around the battlefield as part of the attacks they perform/receive, but since I personally am old school enough that I stopped following the series once it stopped being turn-based, that would have actually worked much better for me. I feel like developing that would have been better than the direction they went with FFXII, since going in an action-RPG direction changes the nature of the game to the point it can't be considered the same series anymore.
Besides, while FFXII might be better than 7 Remake, neither of the two holds a candle to Vagrant Story, and of course, if we're talking Square Enix Cinematic Action RPG, the original Kingdom Hearts would have been a much better starting point to build off of; if they'd managed to keep the simplicity (something KH own sequels failed at) while improving on other aspects of it, that could have been something truly impressive.
In any case, in terms of story, FFII is a pioneer in the series in that it adds the other two elements (Star Wars pastiche and fighting against somebody who is out to conquer/destroy the world and has an army to do it with) to the one element provided by FFI (climate catastrophe) which will be the key building blocks of every other Final Fantasy going forward. The fact that FFXII leaned into the Star Wars aspect of that particular equation more than any other entry in the series (before or since), to the point of being a whole-plot-reference, is the only thing that keeps FFII from having the most derivative story in the series, but I think it's still worth acknowledging that the shameless amount of "inspiration" borrowed here is the basis for the originality to follow in the later installments.
While I agree with you on "FFXII is a better action RPG than FF7-Remake", I still hold that the way they should have gone would have been to improve on the FFX-2 combat system; I know that's one isn't fully action, since the characters only move around the battlefield as part of the attacks they perform/receive, but since I personally am old school enough that I stopped following the series once it stopped being turn-based, that would have actually worked much better for me. I feel like developing that would have been better than the direction they went with FFXII, since going in an action-RPG direction changes the nature of the game to the point it can't be considered the same series anymore.
Besides, while FFXII might be better than 7 Remake, neither of the two holds a candle to Vagrant Story, and of course, if we're talking Square Enix Cinematic Action RPG, the original Kingdom Hearts would have been a much better starting point to build off of; if they'd managed to keep the simplicity (something KH own sequels failed at) while improving on other aspects of it, that could have been something truly impressive.
In any case, in terms of story, FFII is a pioneer in the series in that it adds the other two elements (Star Wars pastiche and fighting against somebody who is out to conquer/destroy the world and has an army to do it with) to the one element provided by FFI (climate catastrophe) which will be the key building blocks of every other Final Fantasy going forward. The fact that FFXII leaned into the Star Wars aspect of that particular equation more than any other entry in the series (before or since), to the point of being a whole-plot-reference, is the only thing that keeps FFII from having the most derivative story in the series, but I think it's still worth acknowledging that the shameless amount of "inspiration" borrowed here is the basis for the originality to follow in the later installments.
I'm old school enough that I stopped following the series when it started having voice acting.
(I have just now realized that when I said I played "some of" every Final Fantasy game I was completely wrong, that is only true up to IX, I then skipped everything up to XIV and 7 Remake, and yes, for some reason the voice acting in X was a sticking point for me)
While I don't hate the spoken dialogue itself, I dislike it for the way it constrains the narrative and the ability of the story to be told in a more interactive manner - writing a dialogue box is easier, faster and less costly than recording dialogue, while also allowing far greater ability to tweak or modify things later in development. Spoken dialogue almost universally caused a decline in the quality of all videogames everywhere, in my opinion, and while some games (such as platforms and shooters) can get away with it due to the limited role it plays in them, for an RPG it's definitely something that rarely adds anything useful and almost always makes them noticeably worse. When the spoken lines then also happen to be bad, it's really no surprise they'd be enough to turn somebody away from a game entirely.
X was also the period where they hadn't quite mastered direction or lip flap editing. People harp on Tidus for the fake laugh scene, but what sticks in my mind is Yuna's "actress very clearly trying to time her lines to the lip flaps rather than speak naturally" diction. It was more Shatner than Hong Kong Dub, and maybe it was just bad direction (she sounded better in X-2) but it still stuck out.
While I don't hate the spoken dialogue itself, I dislike it for the way it constrains the narrative and the ability of the story to be told in a more interactive manner - writing a dialogue box is easier, faster and less costly than recording dialogue, while also allowing far greater ability to tweak or modify things later in development. Spoken dialogue almost universally caused a decline in the quality of all videogames everywhere, in my opinion, and while some games (such as platforms and shooters) can get away with it due to the limited role it plays in them, for an RPG it's definitely something that rarely adds anything useful and almost always makes them noticeably worse. When the spoken lines then also happen to be bad, it's really no surprise they'd be enough to turn somebody away from a game entirely.
I think you correctly identify an issue but overcorrects in your conclusion.
Notably (fitting of the thread) I'm thinking of Final Fantasy XIV, which takes a hybrid approach in which certain important scenes are fully voice acted, enough that the voices of the character become familiar and iconic, but the game also adds as much unvoiced dialogue as it feels it needs, allowing it greater freedom than a fully voiced game, and the post-ARR voiced segments really hit. Even if Dark Knight manages to do just fine with unvoiced dialogue, there's something different to, say, the Cosmos confrontation against Emet-Selch having full voice acting from everyone involved.
Of course, JRPGs like the Final Fantasy series are a special case - they're "RPG" but they offer none of the freedom of characterization and free-flow dialogue trees that you would have in a traditional cRPG, so they're free of the "if we have a dialogue choice here we have to record one line for every possible answer and this grows exponentially" issue you'd run into in a later Fallout or a Mass Effect, and such games would stand to benefit from learning to leverage unvoiced dialogue.
Even so, if I'm looking at, say, Disco Elysium: Final Cut Edition, it manages to blend full voice acting with highly interactive and extensive dialogue, and i t stands as one of the best games of all time.
X was also the period where they hadn't quite mastered direction or lip flap editing. People harp on Tidus for the fake laugh scene, but what sticks in my mind is Yuna's "actress very clearly trying to time her lines to the lip flaps rather than speak naturally" dictionary. It was more Shatner than Hong Kong Dub, and maybe it was just bad direction (she sounded better in X-2) but it still stuck out.
In X the dialogue had to be the same length as the Japanese version, so I'd put a lot of the blame on technical limitations (though as the first voiced production some amount of inexperience there probably hurt as well).
We've arrived in the town of Bafsk, where the Dreadnought is being constructed - it seems, largely using forced labor from the local population, who are ill motivated. General (formerly Count) Borghen, the previously-mentioned traitor to the Fynn crown, has recently come to be in charge of the town - leading to a massive drop in productivity compared to previously, when the Dark Knight was in charge.
And now we are at the point where I was supposed to go. Because, for some reason, kid-me couldn't figure out how to get to the Dreadnought. I felt so stupid replaying it because I solved how to get there instantly, but kid-me? Kid-me was so confused, I actually went past Bafsk and found the Chocobo Forest on my own.
I would ask if the remaster fixed the attack > cancel bug, where inputting the command and then canceling it without actually using the ability still grants XP, which is then endlessly repeatable, or if they left that one in. If it's still there, it's absolutely possible to grind any single ability to max level in a single fight. Tedious and time-consuming, but possible and risk-free. I would imagine that'd be the first thing to fix in any FFII remake, but weirder things have happened.
There's a discrepancy, likely driven by the stat system and grinding: I don't know exactly the mechanics of it, but weapon stats only seem to level up when used against enemies of a certain power level, whereas having the entire party whack each other to train HP seems to work fairly consistently.
I think an NPC in one of the towns told me that, yeah, that's exactly what's happening. If you fight higher leveled enemies, your stuff levels up faster. I don't remember if it's only for weapons or not though.
A fun fact about FFII is that when your maximum HP or MP levels up, your current HP and MP don't. If you're at full health at 90 HP and you get a level up that brings you up to 100 HP, your HP is now 90/100. It's extremely silly and can easily cause you to make mistakes not ensuring you're topped up.
Another funny thing. I'm actually much more used to current HP not going up in tandem with max HP, so when I see the current HP go up doing level ups in, usually, modern games (well less so surprised but still), it was such a weird feeling/sight for me.
While I don't hate the spoken dialogue itself, I dislike it for the way it constrains the narrative and the ability of the story to be told in a more interactive manner - writing a dialogue box is easier, faster and less costly than recording dialogue, while also allowing far greater ability to tweak or modify things later in development. Spoken dialogue almost universally caused a decline in the quality of all videogames everywhere, in my opinion, and while some games (such as platforms and shooters) can get away with it due to the limited role it plays in them, for an RPG it's definitely something that rarely adds anything useful and almost always makes them noticeably worse. When the spoken lines then also happen to be bad, it's really no surprise they'd be enough to turn somebody away from a game entirely.
Spoken dialogue in cutscenes? Or just making the dialogue have voicelines in everything or...?
Because, like, two of my favorite franchises of all times, Persona and Fire Emblem, has some of my favorite voice acting in it. So to hear you say spoken dialogue "universally caused a decline in games" made me try imagine them without voice acting and I just...can't. A certain fight I love in Persona 5 wouldn't have the same impact without Robbie Daymond's amazing voice acting. Some of my favorite comedy scenes from Persona 4 would lose their hilarity because half of them are delivered in a hilarious way I feel like most wouldn't "read" as. And a lot of the fights in the later Fire Emblem would lose some of its epicness without their voiced crit lines and stuff (not that i mind lack of crit lines in the older games...but playing the older games really made me realize how much I love the voiced crit lines).
so basically what im saying is how can spoken dialogue cause a decline in video game quality
But well, it's your opinion, and a very interesting one in my point of view, but it's also one that just makes me go "wha?!?!?!?!" and feel like crying over the possibility of losing voiced dialogue.
Though admittedly I think the my two favorite franchises is like a hybrid thing like Omicron says with Final Fantasy XIV in that it's usually important cutscenes that get the voice acting, but anything outside it usually has, at best, one liners that play at the beginning of a dialogue box (usually matching the subject of said dialogue box and/or things like "Hey!") or interacting with shop keeps (like "What would you like today?"). So maybe I have that opinion because the ones I've played strike a balance between the voiced dialogue and non-voiced dialogue.
now excuse me because a part of me is embarrassed over getting long winded and feeling like i ranted over someone else's opinion when the last thing i wanna do is come off as rabid or something...
Perhaps; I did say that voice acting "rarely" adds value, which is not the same as "never". I am not unaware that there are games which make good use of spoken lines, I just firmly believe that the negatives genuinely outweigh the positives. But, of course, that's just my opinion.
