Standing There Syndrome

[Cenobia]

For the most part I don't mind this, because it's just a narrative pacing thing. It's like when a character in anime does a paragraph of monologue in the middle of an attack, but the attack's not supposed to actually take nearly that long. If they wanted, the scenes could be just as easily constructed without characters having a chance to react, but then they wouldn't be able to cover the narration/motivations/etc as they want to in the story, so I let it slide.

Narrative pacing doesn't excuse bad writing, not to mention that, like you mentioned in your example, people can talk while fighting. Also, as the Warrior of Light, we still have the exposition Get Out of Jail Free Card that is the Echo. Since the Zoraal Ja scene has been brought up several times in this thread, here's how you can get the same plot point across (attacks the city, duels his father, loses, revives and powers up, kills father and leaves) while not insulting every player's intelligence:

>WoL and Co. arrive in the city, it's under attack.
>Jump in to help the Landsguard in the defensive efforts
>Civvies are being evacuated to the throne room as it is the most defensible location in the city
>Other scions peel off to help other areas while WoL and Wuk approach the bottom of the stairs
>You both fight off waves of drones to keep the evacuation corridor open
>Zoraal Ja lands at the top of the stairs, rushes in
>Bakool Ja Ja arrives, joins the WoL in defending the civvies while Wuk runs after her brother
>Drones eventually peter off and WoL sees Zoraal Ja leaving the throne room
>Runs in with scions, sees all civvies in shock, Gulool Ja Ja and landsguard dead and Wuk downed
>Alphinaud(and healer WoL) get Wuk back up
>Echo Time
>We get to see the whole duel thing with Zoraal Ja, but this time the reason Wuk doesn't jump in is because he threathens to kill the civvies near them if she does
>Things happen as canon
>Wuk loses her shit after Gulool Ja Ja goes down, tries to attack Zoraal Ja, gets knocked out easily. Echo ends.

There we go. The plot still happened, but in a way that's justified. As a writer, a big part of your job isn't to just come up with a plot, but to justify it happening. This one wasn't even particularly hard, Hiroi is just a hack.

[CuteBucket]

As a writer, a big part of your job isn't to just come up with a plot, but to justify it happening. This one wasn't even particularly hard, Hiroi is just a hack.

Now now, let's be fair to Hiroi. He was only one of three writers. Kawasaki, who brought us Shadows of Werlyt and [checks notes] was a co writer for Nurse Love Obsession, is also a hack!