Jumpin said:
Scoobes said:
darkknightkryta said:
Scoobes said:
darkknightkryta said:
May I ask which "JRPGs"? Except for Star Ocean 3 and Final Fantasy XII, that I've played, all my inventory was filled with healing items, current armour, or items used to enhance weapons/armour/stats (Which doesn't make them useless FYI).
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Nearly every Final Fantasy game since the SNES days (possibly before but I never played I-III for any decent length of time), Grandia 1 & 2, Xenoblade Chronicles and StarOcean 3 (never played 4 and I only vaguely remember 1 & 2). I mean, just take FFVIII for instance. You collect a range of items in the game, but for large portions I didn't even bother having the item command in battle as I could get by based on Junctioned magic. Actually, at the end of most Final Fantasy games I had a whole host of useless items I never needed to use because I either had an equivalent spell or a more powerful/useful ability already available. The items I actually used (healing potions, elixirs, ethers, heroes etc.) were the very items I would be short of or at the very least tactically rationing. Not to mention that most weapons and armour are useless after a short period anyway.
I make the same argument for the likes of Mass Effect 1, Neverwinter Nights or Dragon Age. The problem isn't something that's exclusive to one sub-genre of RPGs. There's also the argument of how the RPGs organise items. Few manage to get an intuitive system together. They usually just boil down to edited/sorted lists or in the worst case scenario, something resembling an Excel spreadsheet.
Now, I could say the likes of the Deus Ex series or Mass Effect 2 & 3 are examples of WRPGs getting inventory systems right, but that wouldn't be very representative.
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Funny you mention FInal Fantasy 8 cause every item has some kind of purpose, like giving str+20% to your GF, teaching Quistis limit breaks. There's nothing in that game that's sole purpose is to be sold for money (Cause you can't). All the Final Fantasies bar 12 use items as some kind of enhancement to something. And I agree, Mass Effect 2& 3 get it right, but then again they removed most of it (Which I agree with).
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There were plenty of items that were effectively redundant. Half of Irvine's amunition was useless, the attack/magic stones were just an alternative to drawn spells (and were doubly redundant because spells were useless once Junctioned.... why bother with magic when your STR is at 255?!), and most of the construction items used to upgrade weapons just built up and collected virtual dust with the exception of the few you actually needed, lol.
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Not really, refining isn't just an alternative to drawing, as refining converts all things collected into other items and magic, and drawing only gains small amounts of raw magic; you can draw magic, but that is incredibly tedious since you can only draw a small amount at a time. It makes much more sense to refine items into magic, and weaker magic into more powerful magic, because you are working with much larger numbers. The only time where drawing magic is useful is in the early stages of the game if you are having trouble; but you gain your first refine skill fairly quickly.
Magic is also not useless once it is junctioned, as it is now boosting your stats, effectively becoming your weapon, armour, or other piece of equipment. Also, if you had 255 strength in any FF game, you wouldn't use magic either with the exception of enemies that are strong to physical attacks.
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