After reading basically all of the comments here, I’m gonna dissent and say that the first 300eps of one piece are great and I disagree with people saying they aren’t. The show is not a speedrun. I loved the openings and endings. Skip the recap when it grates on you because over time it gets longer and longer; I remember some episodes having like 6 minutes of recap, which is absolutely unacceptable, regardless of how complex the war-like battles with multiple factions are.
I was greatly saddened by the decision to get rid of outros, and the double length into drags. The show can admittedly be slow in a lot of places, but nowhere near as egregious as a lot of people make it out to be. I LIKE shows that take it easy and have world building and vibe building.
If One Pace does it for you, though, all the power to you. That’s a great project.
Yeah, Heavensward and Shadowbringers are undoubtedly the best bits. Endwalker isn’t far behind.
But then MMOs aren’t typically played for the story anyway.
And then turns to garbage at the 400 hour mark. Dawntrail actually made me quit due to some of the worst writing I have ever had the misfortune of experiencing in a game. Serious whiplash coming off the fourth expansion.
It was a pretty rough start for the new arc admittedly. The actual expac MSQ itself was decent, I beyond love all the FF9 stuff (apparently I have no idea how spoiler tags work on lemmy so spoiler below) but the patches have left me so disinterested I haven’t been on to do them for the last two or three at least
Especially since it’s essentially FF9 2, being set in the same world just many years in the future
I didn’t actually finish the 7.0 MSQ (I quit shortly after the awful “western” storyline), but the actual writing was painfully bad at every point leading up to that. For example, the way we know Wuk Lamat has grown as a person is because they say “Wuk Lamat has really grown through this adventure”. Most characters appear to have the motivation of dong things because the plot needs it to happen.
Finally, the prior expansions had strong themes, from Heavensword’s take on cyclical violence, SB talking about oppression and so on. Dawntrail doesn’t seem to have anything to say (or maybe it’s all at the end, idk). It was just really disappointing and I just couldn’t deal with it. It’s like it was written for children except it deals with dark themes. Like the worst of the YA section.
By contrast, I was a blubbering mess at points in ShB and EW. Especially the 5.3 stuff, holy shit.
Yeah it’s definitely the weakest point of the story, I agree with you there. It wasn’t IRREDEEMABLE though. I’d say it’s worth going back to finish. I mean I didn’t expect it to be EW quality since that was the climax of EVERYTHING and this is just the introduction to a new thing. But it very definitely could have been done better. For what it’s worth, if it wasn’t immediately obvious, it’s based off of the Americas, so the southern half is Brazil and such, and then they had the wild cowboy shit as soon as you cross the border into the north. Made me laugh, not gonna lie. Keep playing, it does get a lot better, I promise you that. ESPECIALLY if you have played FF9
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When I was new to anime I watched Naruto. Made it about 150 eps before everything felt like it was repeating itself, and that was the last “endless” anime I ever watched.
Still maintain that an anime over about 100 eps can’t be good–maybe ok, maybe amusing enough that you’ll watch it, but not good good. There’s simply no way to sustain a decent story for that long.
Didn’t Naruto have a literal entire year of filler?
I think I got to the low hundred mark on naruto. Then someone told me everything after the
spoiler
death of the old dude and kidnapping of super serious emo kid
wasn’t worth watching, because the naruto shipuden basically picked up there anyway. I suppose I’ll get around to shipuden someday and find out.
Depends on the individual. I found the game to be deeply moving even in the earliest stages. Though the Limsa and Ul’dah night themes could make passing a tapeworm into a bucket feel moving.
One Piece has a 25-episode fight at one point. Here’s a short list of anime shorter or the same length as this one fight:
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The first season of FLCL (6 Episodes)
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Hellsing (13 Episodes or 10 double-feature Ultimate episodes)
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No Game No Life (12 Episodes)
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Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo (24 Episodes)
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The first season of Re:Zero (14-22 Episodes depending on cut)
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Devilman: Crybaby (10 Episodes)
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Puella Magi Madoka Magica (12 Episodes)
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Bokurano (24 Episodes)
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Berserk (25 Episodes for the OLM show, 13 Episodes for Studio 4°C, 24 Episodes for 2016)
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Kill la Kill (24 Episodes)
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Ergo Proxy (23 Episodes)
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The first season of Psycho-Pass (22 Episodes)
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The first season of Assassination Classroom (22 Episodes)
One Piece is best enjoyed as a manga. Reading it goes much faster and loses a bit of the anime character tropes.
This is my biggest issue with One Piece, or any form of extended media like this. It’s not that I won’t like it, but how much unique media am I giving up to watch it? It’s the same vibe I got when I was really into an MMO. Love the game, one of my favorites of all time even. But I’m much happier broadening my horizons and playing a unique experience every month or so opposed to the same game for a year straight.
I never watched one Piece but there’s no way you need over a thousand episodes for whatever story they are trying to tell. I can’t wrap my head around that.
It’s cause they’re turning 16 page chapters of manga into full episodes. If you made a succinct version, you could probably tell the whole story so far in 200 episodes. Much smaller than that and you’d really start cutting into the story being told.
Wasn’t there a project aiming to recreate the anime but without any filler?
One Pace, yes. It’s the only way I’ve consumed the anime. It’s good but occasionally the site goes down. Also it is not up to date with the current stuff because it can’t be, it’s all volunteer.
One Piece but it’s made by 5secondfilms
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I play FFXIV, it’s unironicslly true.
However: The game is decently fun before the story kicks in
and the devs for sure need to trim the story a lot more specially the earlier levels.
in addition to that the early content is becoming very stale and needs a rework
I’m not kidding when I say the 4th expansion is some of the best story telling in video game history, the music and production is beyond anything I’ve ever experienced and I look back very fondly to that expansion
So for someone who has never played, and doesn’t have a clue about the game, is it worth diving into? Do I need to do anything special to avoid spoilers, or will the game take me through the story from the original game through the expansions without deviation?
I only pitch it to people who already play MMOs. It’s a massive time sink, and very heavy with cutscenes. Sometimes the story gets really slow (like basically doing chores for people to convince them to help you save the world) but at other times it’s absolutely incredible. I agree that the 4th xpac is some of the best writing ever.
As for spoilers in the game, you should be pretty safe. The game itself will take you through the story linearly and the community is generally very respectful.
You can play the base game and I think the first expansion up to level 60 for free. Be aware that it is an MMO, and they’ve kept most of the content that they’ve added in the game, so it’s pretty daunting starting out.
Only if you don’t have a family or plans to do much else for a year
The main story alone will take you literal months
I’d say it is, because while it’s a slow burn the buildup leads to some pretty epic payoffs.
And the game will not only take you through each story in sequence so you don’t have to worry about spoilers, it will lock you out of progressing class quests (if they have spoilers, and the later ones often have at least a few) until you’ve played the relevant story parts. So it’s extra-anti-spoiler.
Very definitely worth it. And it’s free so if you don’t like it, not like you’re wasting anything. Have something like 10k hours in it. I don’t play it much anymore other than to check in and/or dick around with friends since I’ve done most of what I wanted. There’s no FOMO or anything like that. It’s very much built as an RPG, just online (though with the recent updates you can play the entire thing single player if you so wish). So you can just take your leave of it once you’ve done the content you want and come back later without missing anything. Very worth it.
Unironiconally one of my favorite FF stories, third to 9 and 10. And that probably has to do with them taking the time to build up a backstory and lore. So it’s not off to the racetracks minute one, big deal. Do you expect that when you read a book? Makes you care more about the people later on since they’ve been established as actual people and not just Spiky Hair Video Game Guy #1 and Woman Who Should Be Cold In Those Clothes #8
the free trial has infinite time and some minor restrictions so imo you should try it
i didn’t know what to expect and only played guikdwars 1 and some 2 and very little WOW and ff14 won me over
it’s a very charming game with lots of character and you can tell it was made with love
I love the franchise. I really do. But I couldn’t get over 14 feeling like an MMO during my free trial. It didn’t feel like the ambitious mainline FF games. Is it really worth picking it up for the story?
Depends, try it and see. There’s some really good content and great fights. But yeah being an mmo it takes time and is hit or miss.
yes, ff14 is literally a single player game with some multiplayer element
it’s the one thing I don’t like about it I wish it was far more social and MMO like
Ff14 is as social and mmo like as you want it to be. Just need to engage with it
Didn’t they already trim down ARR? I thought that was during Endwalker or Dawntrail
But yeah, very few video games have made me cry and Endwalker was one of them
yeah they have, imo it’s too long due to the “onboarding” for new players to play current content with friends
It peaked at Shadowbringers. Endwalker was very good. Dawntrail is crap.
<Insert Anime here> is really good. You just need to cut away <roughly 75% of it>.
Bad TV apologia is a sure sign I won’t vibe with someone
Ain’t that the truth. There used to be a shortened version of Naruto on utube that was like a third the length of the full versions, with out lose of any content.
sometimes i watch with 4x speed. most times 1.25 or 1.5. they really like to stretch some things out. “go parn. save deedlit. i’ll deal with it.” “are you sure?” “go parn.” “are you sure?” “go parn.” “are you really, really sure?” get in the fucking robot. shinji
You just need to cut away <roughly 75% of it>.
Hey now, there’s no need to bring Farscape into this. (I’m joking. But Farscape was famously adapted into a very watchable re-cut that throws out a great deal of the original film.)
You take that back!
I never knew about the recut, but presumably it gets rid of a lot of the monster-of-the-week content?
I don’t think any of that was actually bad. It didn’t move the overarching plot along all the time, but that wasn’t the point.
You take that back!
I know, right? Sacrilege! Haha.
I never knew about the recut, but presumably it gets rid of a lot of the monster-of-the-week content?
When I watched it, I couldn’t really tell what was missing.
It did flow more smoothly than the original cut, but that’s probably mostly just thanks to not having to hit an exact target length in minutes.
I suspect that much of the cut content was the puppet character establishing side story bits and short side story vignettes. (Which I adore. But I didn’t notice them missing. Of course, that might be only because I’ve already seen them.)
I don’t think any of that was actually bad. It didn’t move the overarching plot along all the time, but that wasn’t the point.
I agree. The cut version is genuinely surprisingly great, but I think that’s mostly due to how great Farscape is, in general.
I actually prefer the fulll version.
The Farscape re-cut wasn’t so much necessary, as an impressive feat of thoughtful editing.
Do you know about how much it cut out?
This has genuinely happened to me
Warframe players fr (I have over 3,000 hours)
I think the main reason The Second Dream hit so hard was because the game was so flat and plotless up until that point. Like, it’s a great story and all, but the “twist” would have been guessed within moments of starting it if players expected there to be any plot beyond the scraps of lore they’d been given thus far.
Though kudos to the devs for making that flatness part of the plot, as you’re basically just a machine going through the motions until you “awaken”. Still sucks from a gameplay perspective, of course.
Not to mention every quest after the second dream is also absolute cinema
Definitely felt like the new war was a bit of a letdown after the first few, and the whole time loop thing in the other quest was a neat premise but the execution felt a bit all over the place. Actually my biggest issue with more recent Warframe stuff is that it feels like nobody says no to any ideas. I do still drop in to see where it’s at though.
I still count The Second Dream among the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had. I agree with you that the only reason it worked is because the game was so plotless until that point, but it’s not like the game wasn’t fun until then - it was just fun for reasons other than story. If the moment to moment gameplay hadn’t been engaging, having the big reveal be tens or hundreds of hours into the experience wouldn’t have worked at all.
The game Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is another example of this sort of thing… There’s a moment near the end that hits really hard, and I feel like the whole design discussion for the game focused on that moment and the rest of the game was just a vessel to get the player to the point where it would hit hardest, and it does a great job of that. It’s only a 4 hour experience, though, not a 40+ hour one.
Oh, definitely. Warframe’s movement mechanics are second to none and the combat is sublime, albeit unbalanced as hell (though in the player’s favor at least). It went from a good game to one of the all-time greats once they added the narrative alongside handcrafted missions.
I think another cause of early Warframe burnout is needing to unlock the starchart. Its mostly linear design forces you to play several of each mission type to progress, including ones the majority of the playerbase hates. And before we got open world hubs like Cetus and Orb Vallis with activities like spear fishing, hunting and racing, there wasn’t much you could do to unwind within the game when you got bored of missions.
Came here for this. I bounced before I could reach that “mission thar changes everything”.
To be fair about One Piece, there’s so little unique content in each episode, sandwiched between a lengthy theme song and recap, and next episode preview, that 37 episodes is more like 15 episodes.
And I love all of it.
Honestly pacing is the anime’s biggest weakness. The show simply has dogwater pacing to help it maintain a consistent run since 1999. One Pace, which cuts roughly half of the total run time is a godsend if you ever want to watch the show
I mean, I’m currently already 650 episodes into the main anime already, so I may as well keep going. 😅 One Pace sounds great though, so I’ll probably try that for a rewatch someday. Maybe after reading the manga for comparison.
I’m personally getting caught up, just finished Wano, which One Pace has only covered MOST of and the viewing experience noticeably declined when I went to the official content. Would recommend, even for first view
“It gets good at season 2”
“Then let’s start there.”
“But then you won’t know what’s going on”
“If it’s good then I won’t have to”
🐒 The One Piece is REAL! ⚓
All episodes up to Episode 37 showcases well of what the entire series is all about.
If you are not into it by 37 episodes in, I don’t think One Piece is for you.
I’ve also seen one too many haters turn their tune by then.
I no longer watch the series at release, instead I watch with other reactors that I feel like calling my Nakama.
🥹 Beware: prepare to cry & bring a towel to catch those tears. This series can & will draw raw emotion out of you.
#onepieceIn my opinion, base FFXIV A Realm Reborn is already a good game. The first expansion, Heavensward, takes it to great. Stormblood goes back to good. Shadowbringers and Endwalker together are the best Final Fantasy I’ve played, though other people don’t like Endwalker as much as me. I haven’t played Dawntrail since Endwalker is a clear endpoint for the story.
I cried throughout the entire game, but a sequence in the last region of Endwalker made me ugly cry like no other media has
Dawntrail has its issues but it’s definitely hard to get something off the ground after a conclusion like EW. I think it was alright, not too strong on the story department and they wasted some characters imo but the content was really good.
I got super burnt out on the content in Dawntrail just because it felt like they got very comfortable in their formula and kept funneling everything into it more and more
Endwalker I already began having issues. A lot of the dungeon content felt dumbed down. I disliked how they mandated the pull-pull-boss formula in all dungeons. Especially combined with the crazy self healing they doled out to all tanks, it felt like the pack management got oversimplified, which was a double edged sword because in addition to being boring it made those sections take longer.
It was especially disappointing to me after Shadowbringers had some of the best and most comically massive boss to boss pack pulls in the entire game (Mt Gulg) and in many cases allowed you to pull directly into mini bosses, or had special tech that let you spawn enemies early (Qitana Ravel). I had a ton of fun learning these strategies from other tanks while doing roulettes on my dps and healers, and then teaching the optimal strategies to others when I leveled my tanks.
I was mixed at the time because I felt the actual dungeon boss fights in Endwalker were a lot of fun, and then I really enjoyed the extremes and savage content (Although I was also beginning to feel weary of an over reliance on floating bosses and arena sized bosses. I play tank in high end content and I love the gameplay loop of anticipating the boss moves and pre-positioning myself to bait their attacks, or lining them up well for my melee dps players). It also helped a lot that I loved the music and the story of Endwalker.
I should note I’m also very sensitive to the state of the casual content because I like to level and ~gear every job in the game. So I spend a lot of time in dungeons and such, running through content with FC members, and so on. I had a goal at one point to orange parse the extremes with every job in the game (extremely doable with the uncapped tome equipment and memeing on food and potions lol, it’s really just a test of if you can execute your rotation the whole fight without dying) and I did get at least one orange with each job. So having the ability to have fun while leveling all my jobs (a very time intensive task) is very important to me.
But yeah when Dawntrail dropped the dungeons felt even more restrictive than ever before, the boss fights hadn’t really improved much, and it felt like all of the jobs themselves got even simpler in their rotation. To the point where I felt like it didn’t even matter what tank I picked, it was basically the same rotation. Like the 6.3 Paladin rework to finish turning all the tanks into Warrior clones was just so gut wrenching to me. I looked at my hot bars one day and realized I had all the “same” buttons in all the same places. 1-2-3/4 combo, then press your big burst button 3 times, reach over here for your oGCDs. All of the defensive cooldowns were totally homogenized as well. I guess I’m a final fantasy boomer now but I used to like stressing the healers out by memeing them with Dark Knight’s old invuln and stuff like that lol.
It used to feel like I could get a lot of variety just from switching jobs but for Dawntrail I only bothered leveling one of each type (tank healer melee range magic) because at some point, after being able to make my own fun with the process for years and years over multiple expansions, it just felt like I couldn’t anymore. Eventually I stopped keeping up with the game entirely and for the first time ever I’m considering skipping the next expansion launch, which has always been a huge event for me that I take time off work for.
Anyway wow sorry for the rant, I started out just having a couple things to say but I guess I just hadn’t really processed all of that until now lol. TL;DR kids these days don’t realize the game was sooo much better back in myyy day
