Arecia Al-Rashia and the Big Book of War Crimes [Final Fantasy Type-0 HD]

Final Fantasy Type-0 is the estranged little brother of the FNC trilogy. Beginning life as the spinoff Final Fantasy Agito XIII, the project was moved from mobile to PSP and rebranded to avoid some of the backlash resulting from the entire XIII and Versus XIII debaucle. But make no mistake, it is an FNC game - it even tells you as much the second you boot it up. The name might not be the same, but the world, terminology, style, and storytelling are still very much in FNC tradition, no matter how much it wants to distance itself from the proper XIII trilogy. Or as Crow so artfully put it: “Type-0 is the kid who tells you he’s an orphan right before Final Fantasy XIII pulls up in a minivan and yells that he’s going to be late for soccer practice.”

Therefore, :siren: it is highly recommended that you are familiar with Final Fantasy XIII and its world before watching this. :siren: It’s not an exact 1:1 match by any means (the game doesn’t take place on Cocoon or Pulse, there’s some differences in how l’Cie and eidolons operate, etc), but by and large the game expects you to be coming to the table with that knowledge. You should definitely know what a l’Cie is and generally how they work, and it probably wouldn’t hurt to brush up on the cosmology related to Lindzei, Pulse, and the fal’Cie (at least as of XIII, you don’t need to know all that garbage about Bhunivelze and Etro and so on). :siren: This is your first and only warning. :siren:

So, with the big disclaimer out of the way, let’s the talk about the game itself. At its core, Type-0 is a rudimentary action RPG that takes a healthy amount of influence from Kingdom Hearts and Persona, with a hint of some RTS-ish gameplay sprinkled in later on. The game is roughly split into two halves, alternating between missions (which are your typical action RPG fare) and the downtime between them where you can get to know your classmates and do sidequests and all that good shit. If you’ve ever played Valkyria Chronicles 2 (or better yet, Trails of Cold Steel), then you know pretty much what we’re in for here. If not, it’ll be obvious pretty soon so don’t worry about it.

As mentioned, the game was originally released on PSP back in 2010. That version was never localized, so we’re playing the 2015 HD remaster for PS4/Xbone/PC. The differences between the two versions are minor, although the HD version is slightly less grindy to account for the removal of the multiplayer mode that was present in the original. As usual, the LP will be all commentary over cutscenes, featuring my usual partners in crime, Fedule and nine-gear crow, as well as newcomer instant grat. Updates should be once a week, probably on Mondays unless something drastically changes. And for the love of god, keep spoilers tagged and to a minimum. This is an FNC game, and that means we’re going down an incredibly stupid and fucked up road - don’t ruin it for anyone else, yeah?

Part 1: This Sucks
Part 2: That’s My Fursona
Part 3: This is a Star Wars Character
Part 4: Left Breast and Right Breast
Part 5: Altocrystarium
Part 6: A Casual Disregard for Life
Part 7: This Setting is So Fucked Up
Part 8: My Boyfriend Turned Into a Frog??!?
Part 9: The Robotic Voices of Mario

:siren: Part 0: The Intro :siren:

It’s not very often you’re going to hear me say that the intro is mandatory viewing, but for once it’s worth it to sit through 8 minutes of FNC bullshit.

:siren: Part 1: This Sucks :siren:

Well, I would say this is an LP I wasn’t expecting, but you uploaded the intro a while back. I wonder though, did your opinion of this game change over time? Because I swear to remember that at the end of Lightning Returns you mentioned that you don’t really like this game and wouldn’t consider LPing it.

Either way, I’ll be sure to keep an eye on this thread. It’s good stuff as always.

This is actually my first post here on this board (even though I’ve actually registered some time ago). I really wanted to weigh in on this thread because I’ve enjoyed your FF13 series so much.

I have to say I really don’t like the direction this first video is going in. You all try WAY, and I mean WAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY too hard to hate on this game (especially Fedule, but I guess going on verbose and overly elaborate rants about the most minor stuff is kinda what he does).

To be honest it makes watching this kind of uncomfortable.

I’m not trying to tell you how to do your LPs but I’d really appreciate it if you toned it down a bit. The game is ridiculous enough on its own, with plenty of things to riff on/complain about…it doesn’t need the forced hate on top of that.

Oh man, I’m a bit surprised by the large amount of negativity towards the game. I remember having a lot of fun with it, especially the combat considering how every single character felt unique to play as.

I also have to agree with the majority on the opening, it’s pretty good and sets the theme for the mission well. It’s rare to see a character genuinely be afraid of death and the fact that the protagonists know they can’t help him further sets the mood for the mission.

So I’m gonna apologize in advance if this comes off as super snippy and defensive, but we had to go through this exact same argument when we first started XIII-2 and I’m really not in the mood to rehash it. With that said, I’m going to try and briefly explain where we’re at and why some of us are so harsh on the game.

First of all, it should be said that Fedule and Grat are going in to this completely blind, I’ve played most of the game, and Crow is playing more or less along with the LP. And it’s definitely true that none of us are particularly high on the game - Crow enjoys it from the trainwreck perspective and as someone who is way too into Killzone, and for me personally it’s a death by a thousand cuts kind of dislike. This little thing bothers me, and this little thing is dumb, and they really could have had this particular plot point pay off more, etc. I’m kind of ambivalent towards it overall because it does have some really good ideas (there’s a plot point in the next videos that is begging for a better writer to come and do something with it), they’re just buried under a lot of crap and poor design decisions that could have been easily fixed.

Second, even as someone who thinks the intro works and is affecting, it’s a really bad intro. Like, in the span of 45 minutes we go from 10 minutes of a dying boy and his chocobo who slowly bleeds out and cries for help, to a brief mission where you get to be the special kids who take down Qun’mi and save the day, to a solemn “we will not forget those who have fallen and will have revenge against the Militesi Empire for this act of cowardice”, to “Oh by the way the empire just nuked an entire nation off the face of the earth offscreen, no big deal.” Even with the most generous possible reading, that’s still a hell of a lot of tonal whiplash, and I don’t think it’s inappropriate at all for someone who went through the 2008-2013 era of Square-Enix titles to say that there is no way they are going to properly hit the payoff for any of this.

And frankly, there’s a lot more that could be said about the gameplay balance, the way it handles plot and characterization, and countless other complaints I have with the game, but we’ll get there in due time. Much like how the game does eventually settle down into a more consistent tone, the LP will get better once we get past the first couple videos, but if you’re looking for a take that isn’t disappointed in the game, you might just have to look elsewhere.

also like, youve been thru writing of this caliber 3 times now, if you say it’s not gonna get better i trust you on that. as long as youre at least having fun tearing the game apart im 100% here for this.

Fair enough, I see your point.
I just really like the direction this game is going in (or, you know, at least trying to), it being a gritty war story instead of the usual anime let’s-save-the-world-with-love-and-friendship-bullcrap (admittedly there is some of that, but that comes with the territory I guess).

Still the best ending of any Final Fantasy game ever. Fight me!

I have to disagree on the intro and it’s tonal whiplash. The intro is fairly consistent with it’s tone and really all the intro wants to do is establish the setting, which it does well. I don’t want to go into details since I don’t want to break any thread rules, but it sets the groundwork for some plot points and sets the tone the game will try to go for. Is there any pay off for all that? If you played through the game you know the answer. This is not to say that my opinion of the game’s overall story is high or anything, but the intro serves it’s purpose.

The other issues you hinted at, such as gameplay balance and characterization are definitely true. That being said, gameplay is still fun if imbalanced.

I also wanted to make clear that I don’t believe the LP is bad, I was just surprised at the negative attitude because usually when Type-0 is brought up it’s considered an average FF game overall.

I am definitely looking forward to further episodes.

:siren: Part 2: That’s My Fursona :siren:

Wherein we explore Akademia, meet our classmates, and nearly get murdered by our teacher.

Okay, so watching this HD remaster made me realize that I can’t overlook the fact that these capes remind me too much of this.

:siren: Part 3: This is a Star Wars Character :siren:

A world map! Random encounters! In Final Fantasy! In the year of our lord 2010! Is nothing sacred anymore?

:siren: Part 4: Left Breast and Right Breast :siren:

It’s time to introduce an exciting new gameplay mechanic! Everyone loves uh…MOBAs? RTS? I dunno, you’ll see what I mean.

I’m curious, since Type-0 was first on the Vita and has a more mission based structure, was it meant to be played with friends or people on the train like Monster Hunter? Whenever I see the map segments where you fight dudes, it seems like if a buddy was controlling another character instead of the AI, you could have some fun with that, set up attacks or special ability chains on specific enemies.

The RTS element looks like they had an idea for a sort of mode like this, where you controlled your troops more directly, but couldn’t execute most of it and just threw this together with what they had.

:siren: Part 5: Altocrystarium :siren:

So hey, it’s been a little while, sorry about the delay there. A little bit of work, a little bit of Tokyo Xanadu, and then I had to go turn in all the souls I collected along the way to the mechanical necronomicon I have in my apartment. You know, normal, everyday stuff.

:siren: Part 6: A Casual Disregard for Life :siren:

I’m willing to cop to probably making this harder than it needed to be, but I still stand by this mission being an unnecessary difficulty spike.

even before you all said it i was expecting a “would you like to know more” after the casualty list

:siren: Part 7: This Setting is So Fucked Up :siren:

In honor of Memorial Day, this episode is dedicated to all the brave soldiers who gave their lives to protect this proud nation of Rubrum.

Just kidding, we don’t know any soldiers who have died in battle.

:siren: Part 8: My Boyfriend Turned Into a Frog??!? :siren:

In which we tackle an actual sidequest, and set people on fire for mother. Like all good children.

:siren: Part 9: The Robotic Voices of Mario :siren:

In which we tackle everyone’s favorite level archetype - the sewers! But the fun doesn’t stop there, oh no. If you call now, we’ll throw in everyone’s other favorite stage hazard, N64 era fog!

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