what makes a good video game plot to you?

I think you're right about the angels (like, afaik the game never really explains where the whole exphere thing came from), and I don't know what specific thing about Lloyd's father you're referring to, but the Eternal Sword thing is kinda explainable.

Basically it doesn't matter that it's a sword. That's just the form it takes, for the intents of the story it could literally be anything else, a broom, a cactus, a bag of marbles, whatever (it just happens to be a sword because swords are cool and so Lloyd can use it in his Mystic Arte*). Like, first and foremost it's the power of the summon spirit king distilled into a material form that can be used by mortals. Basically, your run of the mill artifact of divine power, like the Triforce, the Dragon Balls, the Chaos Emeralds, whatever.

That's why it can split the worlds. It being a sword really has nothing to do with it.

*Or rather because it was a sword in Tales of Phantasia, to ensure Cless could equip it, but same thing really.
 
Dr. Alphys said:
I think you're right about the angels (like, afaik the game never really explains where the whole exphere thing came from), and I don't know what specific thing about Lloyd's father you're referring to, but the Eternal Sword thing is kinda explainable.

Basically it doesn't matter that it's a sword. That's just the form it takes, for the intents of the story it could literally be anything else, a broom, a cactus, a bag of marbles, whatever (it just happens to be a sword because swords are cool and so Lloyd can use it in his Mystic Arte*). Like, first and foremost it's the power of the summon spirit king distilled into a material form that can be used by mortals. Basically, your run of the mill artifact of divine power, like the Triforce, the Dragon Balls, the Chaos Emeralds, whatever.

That's why it can split the worlds. It being a sword really has nothing to do with it.

*Or rather because it was a sword in Tales of Phantasia, to ensure Cless could equip it, but same thing really.
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well in regards to lloyds father, kratos, it just didnt make a lot of sense, since the only hint was the beginning of the game when kratos was talking to naosh(sp?), but thats it. No similarities, no other hints, no form of build up. It's like it comes out of nowhere just for shits and giggles, like most of the damn story, but the father and son relationship of kratos and lloyd just seems so random really like they pulled it out of their ass at the last minute.

As for the eternial sword i guess i can see it, but its still so stupid and absurd it makes my brain hurt.
 
Oh, nah, can't say I can entirely agree with that. When I played the game with my ex-girlfriend, we predicted the reveal that Kratos was Lloyd's father before the game even got to Tethe'alla.

Like, the first hint you get is that, when the whole party hangs out at Lloyd's place, Kratos is standing in front of Anna's grave and asks questions about her (which is a weird thing for a supposed mercenary to care about). Then, when you run around in the Renegade base by yourself and run into Yuan, upon hearing Lloyd's name he says "I see the resemblance". These are things that fly over your head at first, but become pieces of the puzzle once you've grown suspicious enough.

Later, when the group storms the fortress of... whatshisface... the guy who's responsible for Anna's death (Kvar?), usually stoic Kratos acts VERY out of character throughout the whole thing, having numerous emotional outbursts atypical for him. During that raid there's a point where you split the team in two, and Kratos is very vocal about wanting to be on the team that goes after the leader. If you try to put him on the other team, he will protest and tell you to reconsider. And then there's what Kratos does after the boss battle. Basically, the entire raid of that guy's base is full of hints that Kratos has some connection to Lloyd's mother and that he despises the Desian guy for dooming her.

Then there's the scene you mentioned, where he asks Noishe to watch over Lloyd while he's gone. That's there to fully drive the point home.
 
Dr. Alphys said:
Oh, nah, can't say I can entirely agree with that. When I played the game with my ex-girlfriend, we predicted the reveal that Kratos was Lloyd's father before the game even got to Tethe'alla.

Like, the first hint you get is that, when the whole party hangs out at Lloyd's place, Kratos is standing in front of Anna's grave and asks questions about her (which is a weird thing for a supposed mercenary to care about). Then, when you run around in the Renegade base by yourself and run into Yuan, upon hearing Lloyd's name he says "I see the resemblance". These are things that fly over your head at first, but become pieces of the puzzle once you've grown suspicious enough.

Later, when the group storms the fortress of... whatshisface... the guy who's responsible for Anna's death (Kvar?), usually stoic Kratos acts VERY out of character throughout the whole thing, having numerous emotional outbursts atypical for him. During that raid there's a point where you split the team in two, and Kratos is very vocal about wanting to be on the team that goes after the leader. If you try to put him on the other team, he will protest and tell you to reconsider. And then there's what Kratos does after the boss battle. Basically, the entire raid of that guy's base is full of hints that Kratos has some connection to Lloyd's mother and that he despises the Desian guy for dooming her.

Then there's the scene you mentioned, where he asks Noishe to watch over Lloyd while he's gone. That's there to fully drive the point home.
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hmm yeah i forgot about kvar actually, actually the ranches in general woops, but idk, its just it seems unlikely, you think there would be some similarities in the game, but whatever. Theres more bullshit to the game, like how the shit does dharis kharlan, live right beside the planet, its not a moon or even the size of a moon its much bigger if i remember right, and there was also the fact that they never saw it, aside from seeing the moon? maybe because cruxis was making illusions i dont know, seems kinda out there in general. Infact now that i think about it, the worlds were split, yet the tower of salvation/cruxis, was viewable in both worlds. Was that ever explained? its been a long time since i played symphonia since i dont have the means to play it, so this is a bit of a refresher course for me.
 
The game does have some fun with the whole father-son thing. Like, for example, one thing Lloyd and Kratos have in common is their least favorite food (tomatoes).

I think the reason why you can see the tower from both worlds is that the holy grounds of whateverthefuckwherethetoweris is a point where both worlds overlap, so it's the same place existing in both worlds. Kinda like

6186189_stock-photo-blue-green-venn-diagram-two-circles-overlapping.jpg


They never really do anything with that, like, they don't explain what would happen if two people in two different worlds approach the tower from the same angle. Like, would they phase into each other? Come to think of it: Maybe that's what the force field around the tower is for, to prevent shit like that from happening.

As for Derris-Kharlan, the game can't really make up its mind about whether it's a comet or a planet. Like, I think what the game intends it to be is a comet that passes the world every (arbitrary large amount of time), and Mithos used his stolen reality-warping sword macguffin to trap it in its current position. Once Lloyd obtains control of the sword, the comet starts moving away again. I don't know how a celestial body that close to the planet doesn't horribly fuck with gravity and the tides, but then again ToS runs on pseudo-physics, so for all we know those things are governed by Gnome and Undine instead of actual physics.

While I'm filling in plot-holes, let me actually point one out myself: Summon spirits. The spirits governing the eight elements are divided evenly between both worlds, that's what the game tells us. But according to a bunch of things Raine says, schools in Sylvarant teach about all eight of them. That has never made sense to me. How in the hell do Sylvaranti people know about the four summon spirits that only exist in Tethe'alla? It's been like 4000 years since the worlds were split. Did they really somehow preserve their knowledge from that time when the main villain pretty much forces a technological collapse every couple centuries to prevent any world from advancing too much? Like, they remember everything about summon spirits, but completely forget about steam technology, to the point that it has to be re-invented? That's kind of a stretch!
 
Dr. Alphys said:
The game does have some fun with the whole father-son thing. Like, for example, one thing Lloyd and Kratos have in common is their least favorite food (tomatoes).

I think the reason why you can see the tower from both worlds is that the holy grounds of whateverthefuckwherethetoweris is a point where both worlds overlap, so it's the same place existing in both worlds. Kinda like

6186189_stock-photo-blue-green-venn-diagram-two-circles-overlapping.jpg


They never really do anything with that, like, they don't explain what would happen if two people in two different worlds approach the tower from the same angle. Like, would they phase into each other? Come to think of it: Maybe that's what the force field around the tower is for, to prevent shit like that from happening.

As for Derris-Kharlan, the game can't really make up its mind about whether it's a comet or a planet. Like, I think what the game intends it to be is a comet that passes the world every (arbitrary large amount of time), and Mithos used his stolen reality-warping sword macguffin to trap it in its current position. Once Lloyd obtains control of the sword, the comet starts moving away again. I don't know how a celestial body that close to the planet doesn't horribly fuck with gravity and the tides, but then again ToS runs on pseudo-physics, so for all we know those things are governed by Gnome and Undine instead of actual physics.

While I'm filling in plot-holes, let me actually point one out myself: Summon spirits. The spirits governing the eight elements are divided evenly between both worlds, that's what the game tells us. But according to a bunch of things Raine says, schools in Sylvarant teach about all eight of them. That has never made sense to me. How in the hell do Sylvaranti people know about the four summon spirits that only exist in Tethe'alla? It's been like 4000 years since the worlds were split. Did they really somehow preserve their knowledge from that time when the main villain pretty much forces a technological collapse every couple centuries to prevent any world from advancing too much? Like, they remember everything about summon spirits, but completely forget about steam technology, to the point that it has to be re-invented? That's kind of a stretch!
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ya know that is a good point, and summon spirits in general are a major wtf in this game, like making pacts with all of them somehow dooms the shit out of both worlds at the same time, and regarding technology, like how did.. ah.. i dont remember the side that opposed cruixs and wanted the chosen dead, like how did they make their magical bikes suddenly bend time and space and go into a different world to begin with, because that was really only done with super uber magic sword of superness, so where did they get that technology in the first place. Ugh this game, its fun as shit and i love the characters, but theres a lot of questions to be answered really, that the shitty sequel didnt answer and only raised more questions.
 
Edo, unfortunately, no. It's some generic black blob that you're supposed to take seriously, but my sister says that its dialogue reminds her of a kid who took your phone and taunts you for it.

Explorers of Time also had that same nonsense plot about stopping time and whatever. Disliked the Wigglytuff Guild and didn't care for Dusknour or Grovyle or the Celebis or whatever.
 
which reminds me, actually, i always see the whole time travel plot as a big fault when it comes down to plot points. I think the only realy acceptable example is, chrono trigger. I cant think of another one that rolled too well.
 
I don't know if it's even time travel. All I remember is that you're in some period that time stops, and it's all grayscale (what does color have to do with time?) and everything is frozen... Except when it's convenient (like you and your friends and enemies). Didn't make sense to me, laughed at it, was relieved when the main plot is over. Seriously, the post-story part of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon always is the most enjoyable to me. There isn't any hand-holding and patronization (which the Wigglytuff Guild does to you a lot, from the Apple incident to the gold you're supposed to receive to Chatot's attitude to you, and others).
 
Striker Mario said:
I don't know if it's even time travel. All I remember is that you're in some period that time stops, and it's all grayscale (what does color have to do with time?) and everything is frozen... Except when it's convenient (like you and your friends and enemies). Didn't make sense to me, laughed at it, was relieved when the main plot is over. Seriously, the post-story part of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon always is the most enjoyable to me. There isn't any hand-holding and patronization (which the Wigglytuff Guild does to you a lot, from the Apple incident to the gold you're supposed to receive to Chatot's attitude to you, and others).
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oh okay, well i just saw time and travel and made some assumptions, although to be fair a lot of games focused around time often have some sort of destroyed time or time just stopping, but i get what you're saying.

Theres lot of games that often have bad storylines but excellent post games though, but the problem is you have to go through the story to have that, and i dont really enjoy post games too often anyway due to lack of character and dialogue, but some games pull it off pretty well though.
 
I wish prophecies and predictions and rumors turn out to be wrong and spectacularly wrong and frequently wrong in real life. It annoys me that characters who think that stuff is full of baloney are depicted as smug and cynical when in real life, they're critical thinkers who have a valid reason to believe in reality. I know it's fantasy, but I don't want attitudes carrying over to real life.

I also hate those storylines because of cliche and reasons above. I often ignore it and focus on the characters and game play (but I hardly play games for the plot; I don't remember Tales of Symphonia's plot at all other than the... "Designers" and Slyvarant is dying and TeTeAlla is thriving and it doesn't have to be that way).
 
Striker Mario said:
I don't know if it's even time travel. All I remember is that you're in some period that time stops, and it's all grayscale (what does color have to do with time?) and everything is frozen... Except when it's convenient (like you and your friends and enemies).
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Roughly, if I recall..
About halfway through the main story, Dusknoir returns to the future through a...I think they called it time tunnel? I forget what exactly was the term the game used, but basically it's a time portal. He also drags you and your partner to the future. You get back to the present through a time passage or whatever they call it(also basically a time portal) made by Celebi, the time travel Pokemon.
I'm pretty sure it's time travel.
 
Striker Mario said:
I wish prophecies and predictions and rumors turn out to be wrong and spectacularly wrong and frequently wrong in real life. It annoys me that characters who think that stuff is full of baloney are depicted as smug and cynical when in real life, they're critical thinkers who have a valid reason to believe in reality. I know it's fantasy, but I don't want attitudes carrying over to real life.

I also hate those storylines because of cliche and reasons above. I often ignore it and focus on the characters and game play (but I hardly play games for the plot; I don't remember Tales of Symphonia's plot at all other than the... "Designers" and Slyvarant is dying and TeTeAlla is thriving and it doesn't have to be that way).
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well to be honest, a lot of people dont play tales of symphonia for plot, since its quite a mess. Now there are tales of games that do have good storylines like destiny or abyss, but symphonia not so much.
 
it was such a long time ago that i don't even remember what happened in that game lol

all i remember is that i killed all the enemies i encountered in the overworld, that battle never gets old
 
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