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Hynad on 13 January 2011
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Scoobes said:
A203D said:
Scoobes said:
Rob-Ot said:

God your so annoying. I was mistaken and whatever I said was in the context of that. Get over yourself and don't bother replying to me because I won't reply back.

What I took from your argument was that the datalog idea really was one of the most stupid storytelling techniques used in modern video games. Even FPS' use better storytelling techniques than "read this FFXIII wiki!".

I dont think the datalog was a bad idea, i thought it was a good way of filling in some blanks and explaining some of the mythology not necessarily in the game.

however what was an absolute waste, was spending 6 hours watching teen melodrama, then adding insult to injury putting a significant amount of detail into the anelects and datalog, and not using any of that in the game. just forcing 6 hours of pure teenage trash down your throat.

about how abysmal developers think people talk to each other, which consisted mostly of teenage tantrums.

Yeah, I wasn't a fan of the teen melodrama either, but other people like that sort of stuff... probably. I mean The OC and Dawson's Creek were popular right? :P

But the datalog would have worked better if it wasn't the only thing to tell you about the world. As it was, it was the only way to fill in the blanks and tell you about this massive world the devs had created that was full of potentially great stories. Instead of finding information and discovering lore through observation, exploration and interaction, they shoved everything into an encyclopedia.

Its like reading a novel, but most of the description is left in the Appendix. You keep having to refer to the appendix to get the proper amount of information, but everytime you do the story loses pace and interest wanes. Except it's kinda worse because FFXIII is a video game and interaction is very important.

There's a reason why I think the writers of upcoming FFs should take a cue from FF VI's storytelling. Everything was mentioned via character interactions, or via flashbacks sequences (Shadow's dreams, Ramuh explaining the past of Terra and the Esper World, Setzer's past with Daryl, etc...).  There was no need to have a sub menu to have these things explained.  The story was also more epic than the later games, and didn't rely on teen melodrama.