Meaningless Battles...

Anyone else kind of OVER Square Enix lazy writing? Namely, battles that mean nothing.

Scripted fights that force you to lose, and serious boss battles where winning means nothing.


Winning the battle, and losing in the cut scene is a favourite trope of Square Enix and I'm kind of over it?

Like, give the villian a back up plan, make something else happen. Make my win feel like it mattered.

Quit letting villian's shake off asskickings.

Most recent update, the cut scene made that whole fight mean nothing, and I felt as if the work I put into winning was for nothing.

Eh, dunknow...it wouldn't be a big deal if they didn't pull this shit at LEAST once an Xpac?

just me?

I always had the feeling that our Wol is weak, and cant do shit w/o the power of friendship..x)

they should introduce AI to the boss mechanics... would be interesting to never be able to cactbot or write any guides to anything, especially for savage and ultimates, it would be nice when we get to be it that it is the player having to do things and not by some dork with a mic video.

Boss fights you're supposed to lose have been in RPGs for the past 30+ years and SE aren't the only ones to do it. Elden Ring even begins with one. It's just a narrative tool and I don't really see a problem with it unless it's an RPG with items and I end up wasting them, not knowing I was supposed to lose.

Can't be just you because I can always find a bunch of posts on reddit or the forums or even twitter(well not anymore actually, thanks elon) about people really, really disliking the unwinnable zenos/ran'jit fights in SB/ShB.

It's a bit annoying though because the fights themselves are really easy. At the least they should knock you out with mechanics to make you actually feel the weight behind it. Or maybe not though because the redone Lahabrea fight does that and it still feels kind of bad.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

Boss fights you're supposed to lose have been in RPGs for the past 30+ years and SE aren't the only ones to do it. Elden Ring even begins with one. It's just a narrative tool and I don't really see a problem with it unless it's an RPG with items and I end up wasting them, not knowing I was supposed to lose.

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Personally I don't really mind the losing bit. It's part of the story telling. I just want more effort went into the losing part. I don't remember much because it's been a while but I remember most of the fights we "lose" have a point in the fight where we get knocked down to our knees and it's just really generic from that point.

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Originally Posted by Zeastria

I always had the feeling that our Wol is weak, and cant do shit w/o the power of friendship..x)

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We have 3 expansion ending battles that are basically that(Ultimate Weapon/Lahabrea solo duty, Hades, Endsinger). I don't hate it but it's already a cliche and it does feel a bit overused.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

Boss fights you're supposed to lose have been in RPGs for the past 30+ years and SE aren't the only ones to do it. Elden Ring even begins with one. It's just a narrative tool and I don't really see a problem with it unless it's an RPG with items and I end up wasting them, not knowing I was supposed to lose.

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Only in JRPGs. I've always thought if you can't win the fight they might as well make it a cutscene.

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Originally Posted by NekoMataMata

Can't be just you because I can always find a bunch of posts on reddit or the forums or even twitter(well not anymore actually, thanks elon) about people really, really disliking the unwinnable zenos/ran'jit fights in SB/ShB.

It's a bit annoying though because the fights themselves are really easy. At the least they should knock you out with mechanics to make you actually feel the weight behind it. Or maybe not though because the redone Lahabrea fight does that and it still feels kind of bad.



We have 3 expansion ending battles that are basically that(Ultimate Weapon/Lahabrea solo duty, Hades, Endsinger). I don't hate it but it's already a cliche and it does feel a bit overused.

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I'd settle for better writing? Like it's not a big deal for them to do this once in a while. But I feel like when I win the fight and its a CLEAR WIN, only for the Big bad to shrug it off, do what he was gonna do anyhow, or pull some "mwahha THAT WAS MY PLAN ALL ALONG" trope...yeah, thanks for making that whole battle meaningless SE....

This was a big issue I had with the latest extreme. Actually pissed me off a bit, it was so frustrating. Though I do have the stance of "if you have to force the protagonist to sit there and listen to the villain monologue/let the villain enact their master plan and the protagonist just sits there and lets it happen, your writing might not be very good". I don't appreciate forced idiocy/ineptitude for my character. It's not very hard to have SOMETHING happen that prevents the protagonist from not being fully capable of stopping you and just not doing it because we gotta let the narrative happen!

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Originally Posted by Zeastria

I always had the feeling that our Wol is weak, and cant do shit w/o the power of friendship..x)

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I just pretend like my WoL does everything by themselves unless it has trusts. Makes me feel cooler.

I actually also hate scripted loss fights unless its in the context of the enemy getting away or some intervening force. I didn't like that I lost to Zenos in Stormblood. I thought it was stupid. I would have rather it be a draw. I also thought losing to Golbez was dumb.

Tales of Destiny does it right. At one point you do a 4 v 1 fight and the kid is just decimating your group. You can kinda brute force it with a lot of healing items and what not and might get lucky if you did a ton of early story grinding. If not...he beats you into paste. HOWEVER if you beat him...game is over. You don't get thrown into prison that sets you up for the rest of your adventure. You win. You become successful lens hunters and that's it.