When Characters Forget Their Abilities

[Koury]

It has really been bugging me recently when I'm playing a game and the characters don't do something that seems really obvious and within their capabilities.

*Final Fantasy Tactics Spoiler*
(Yeah, I know its an old PS1 game. Figure adding the warning can't hurt though.)

Example from today (which caused this post):

I'm playing FFT and at the end of Chapter 1 Teta is killed. Not in any special way either, just with an arrow. During the battle you can't cast Raise on her, despite her being on the field and having stats (admittedly they are all ?? stats, but still).

Afterward Delita holds her body and stands there while the fort explodes. Why? We have like 17 Phoenix Downs. Use one. Or let that mage right behind you fix her.

I know its all for story, but man its annoying sometimes. And this is far from the only example,just the most recent.

[Innis Cabal]

It's been more then 3 turns at the end of the battle. No one can be raised after more then three turns.

[Koury]

Makes sense. But not even valid in this case. Ramza is currently a Ninja with Move +2 and Battle Shoes (+1 Move). He killed Algus first turn (due to Double Sword). My White Mage easily had time to make it, I feel.

*Final Fantasy Tactics Advance Spoilers*

And what about, say, in FFTA (yeah, I've been playing them both recently, sue me :smallbiggrin:) after you head to the Ambervale when you finally kill Llednar. Then whole battle Babus is dead on the ground and you can't raise him. This is doubly annoying since not only does he not die there (and is in fact a character who joins your team shortly after) but he counts against your charater limit in that fight.

[Spartacus]

FF characters not using Raise/Phoenix Downs has always bugged me. Especially in Ivalice-based games, you have perfectly functional Jagds, make people die in them!

[Koury]

Or make some other reason it can't work. I mean, the fort blew up right after the fight. Have Delita running to Teta, maybe even saying something about Phoenix Downs or casting Raise (maybe) and have the fort blow up and destroy the body. Bam, story goes on just fine.

For a counter example, Lufia 2 handles this very well. From Idura blocking the Escape spell (constantly), to the sailor getting spellsick after being warped to safety, I feel like Lufia 2 avoided this problem nicely.

[Triaxx]

Yeah, but later in the story it's revealed that Teta wasn't dead. She was alive just enough to shield Delita from getting splatted.

[Tengu_temp]

As it was said numerous times before, your characters don't die in combat in Final Fantasy unless you lose the battle. When they have 0 HP, they're knocked out. Raise/Phoenix Down revives unconscious people instead of bringing the dead back to life.

FFT is similar. Characters who are on a timer are knocked out. When the timer runs out and the body disappears, then they die.

[Koury]

I know how the mechanics of it work, I'm just annoyed by, I guess, characters holding the idiot ball with regards to what they can do in a given situation.

To go back to Lufia 2, you're given a Reset spell which rewinds time to back when you entered the room. So why then, if I'm in a fight with, say, anyone and am losing, why can't I regress time and start over (or run away)? This could affect the plot in a few places, notably when Gades is defeated and stumbles over to hit the switch that sinks the continent before dying. You could, you know, stop him from doing that since you defeated him already.

And in Tactics, them being on a timer has little to do with my ability to cast Raise or use a Phoenix Down in time.

[Cespenar]

A similar trope is played in most RPGs, where the characters reach almost godlike levels of power, but still need to acquire the matching key to pass through that door over there. Hey, I'm capable of destroying the door and the building it belongs in a single attack, what gives?

[olelia]

I made the same case to a Final Fantasy Friend of mine. His excuse was phoenix downs raise KO'd guys, aka Knocked Out, not dead ones.

[Spartacus]

In that case, the spell Death is horribly misnamed.

[Koury]

I made the same case to a Final Fantasy Friend of mine. His excuse was phoenix downs raise KO'd guys, aka Knocked Out, not dead ones.

So the spell Raise should be renamed Smelling Salt? :smallbiggrin:

[Prime32]

In that case, the spell Death is horribly misnamed.In one game some characters have a conversation while under a Silence effect.

So... yeah.

[OracleofWuffing]

I'm playing FFT and at the end of Chapter 1 Teta is killed. Not in any special way either, just with an arrow. During the battle you can't cast Raise on her, despite her being on the field and having stats (admittedly they are all ?? stats, but still).
If I recall correctly, if you look into editing Final Fantasy Tactics, Teta's job-class-doodad actually has an inherent status called "Auto-Dead" that basically inflicts death if she is not dead. So, yeah, don't blame her family or god, blame poor class choices, shoulda been a Draw-Out Black Mage. Really, I'd imagine Delita would be used to that by now.

Okay, work with me on this one.

In the Pac-Man Cartoon, on the episode "Chomp Out at the OK Corral," the ghost monsters lock Pac-Man and his family up in a vault filled with bags filled with power pellets. The Pac-Family escapes this situation by emptying the bags, and using them to disguise themselves as ghosts, so that the ghost monsters let them escape.

[Geno9999]

That right there is a case of bad-guy stupidity. It's a serious mental condition, and you can probably see other examples elsewhere.

[Mewtarthio]

That right there is a case of bad-guy stupidity. It's a serious mental condition, and you can probably see other examples elsewhere.

I think the more serious issue is that the bags were full of power pellets.

[OracleofWuffing]

:smalltongue: It's at least two cases of bad-guy stupidity, and at least one case of good-guy stupidity. I just can't figure out which part to point out first.

[Acanous]

There's a couple games that subvert this trope-
Evolution for Dreamcast [before they merged 1&2, cut out most of 1, and threw it on the gamecube] had a cinematic where the big bad tries to take your girlfriend with his giant army.

now, by this point, you, the adventurer, have been massacaring large groups of monsters every 5 or 6 minutes as part of your daily activities.
So instead of just handing her over, you KICK THEIR ASSES. in the Cinematic, using abilities you'd use in combat.

Then, of course, while you're celebrating your win like you do after every battle, you get coldclocked and the plot progresses >.>

Grandia 2, while it plays to pretty much every RPG trope in the book, subverts this when Ryudo dies and Elaina uses her song to rezz him. In cinematic.

[Popertop]

There's a couple games that subvert this trope-
Evolution for Dreamcast [before they merged 1&2, cut out most of 1, and threw it on the gamecube] had a cinematic where the big bad tries to take your girlfriend with his giant army.

now, by this point, you, the adventurer, have been massacaring large groups of monsters every 5 or 6 minutes as part of your daily activities.
So instead of just handing her over, you KICK THEIR ASSES. in the Cinematic, using abilities you'd use in combat.

Then, of course, while you're celebrating your win like you do after every battle, you get coldclocked and the plot progresses >.>

Grandia 2, while it plays to pretty much every RPG trope in the book, subverts this when Ryudo dies and Elaina uses her song to rezz him. In cinematic.

This game Evolution sounds hilarious.
Should I just search ebay and stuff if I want a copy?

[OracleofWuffing]

You can grab the GameCube version between $7 to $20 on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Worlds-GameCube/dp/B00006N5SL/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302584183&sr=8-1), plus shipping, local stores might have it in the discount or used bins for less. The Dreamcast games are... Significantly more expensive new, less expensive used, and limited in stock (as said before, the GameCube version is a cut-and-merge of the two Dreamcast games). It's a simple Dungeon Crawl game, so don't expect too much out of the storyline and it'll be enjoyable. Where Acanous said you were fighting monsters every 5-6 minutes, well, it feels like 5-6 seconds when you're actually playing the game, but it works kind of like Chrono Trigger or Earthbound in that you see enemies before you fight them instead of taking a step and BAM it's a monster. The big draw is just how outlandish your spell-likes are. There's no real "Magic" system, you just get special attacks by the bucketful and they're all wacky in some way, a few even stand their ground against Skies of Arcadia. The translation and localization is shoddy at best, but it comes out helping the game be zany.

Oh, also, your butler's a companion and helps you out by cooking meals during battle and attacks monsters with a rifle.

Oops! We were supposed to talk about something!

I've been watching King Arthur and the Knights of Justice lately. On one episode, the bad guys have the good guys surrounded in a tower. Since the good guys are outnumbered, they can't fight their way past all the bad guys, but the door's barred so it will take the bad guys some time to get in to where the good guys are. SO, one of the Knights uses his Magic Armor power to produce a hammer and some nails, and uses some wood and cloth that's conveniently plot deviced there, to build a giant hang glider for all of the good guys (mind you, these are fully armored knights) to glide completely over all the bad guys. So, anyways, the bad guys end up surrounding the good guys when the hang glider lands. At this point, another Knight uses his Magic Armor power to summon a Giant Eagle, which the good guys ride all the way back to Camelot.

I swear, every time I watch this show, I can just hear the storywriters saying, "We are going to sell so many toys!"