| rapsuperstar31 said: For small battles it was fine, but I felt like I had to constantly switch between Cloud and Barret in the boss battle which annoyed me more than I enjoyed it. |
I actually found myself doing that anyway and was one aspect I was thankful for. FF13 and 15's single control character thing was completely the wrong direction for the series. Party based RPG games like FF12 or Dragon Age need you to manage all party members even if they have AI commands to cover them, as they are stupid and position badly. This has none of that and they will just attack mindlessly until you do tell them what to do.
If Clouds ATB was up, I'd have him cast an ability and instantly switch to Barrett to check on him, make sure he's not sitting there waiting to do a command with full ATB.
The games like FF12 or DA is that your characters can do more than just attack. You can make sure they are doing what they are supposed to while you are wailing on the big enemy as doing that is a distraction, especially if you can't see all your controllable characters on the field as they are out of view.
In FF7 you can see everything in the battle, so lets take the Guard Scorpion, in the original you see both Barret and Cloud, you can plainly see both their HP, MP, ATB and limit gauges, you can see the enemy and it's attacks. Because of all this you know what's going on and can act accordingly when the ATB is full for each character. In this you have to be reminded to practically. You see the controlling character and have to remind yourself to do switch because in other games with party leaders and AI controlled characters, they at least do a little for themselves beside just attacking. HP and MP bars are small and non-obvious, ATB gauge is even smaller, so it also can be hard to know what you should be doing when.
Which is why I presume Cloud was constantly telling me "I should heal up." when he has 50% HP which was fine and he'd was no where near danger levels. In the original I wouldn't need those kind of voice over instructions, as I would be able to see his HP, know I needed to heal and easily managed my party members.
The reason I'm not fussed on this combat and why I haven't even played FF15 and didn't enjoy FF13 is simply I want an expereince from FF that is like older FFs as in my view the system has in no way dated but SquEnix is for some reason just not making games like it anymore. FF5-9 are easily the best in the series still.
I'm playing FF8 at the moment. I just did the assassination mission and had to fight Seifer and the Sorceress. In the first fight with just Seifer, I knew his attacks were mainly physical, so I cast Protect on myself first, then Haste. In that time he'd already hit me a couple of times, I then checked his Draw, summoned then finished him off. Pretty simple but then against Edea, I knew it was magic damage. I spent the first few ATBs just casting Shell to protect me from her high level spells. Getting ready to cast summons (early game in FF8 is all about the summons) to win the battle.
In this I don't feel I'd have time for any of that. I'd have to go in the fight and start wailing on people before I can even do anything special. How will Big Guard work in on Enemy Skill materia? I honestly doubt it will even exist.
That was a longer post than I had planned for, sorry.
BTW, reading this thread over is fascinating. They could have easily sorted if it they just made the original, improved it by removing actual old redundant things like random battles but kept the combat pretty much the same.
Hmm, pie.
