On one hand, sure, you can dodge in real-time, but on the other hand it still feels like if the game wants to hit you with an attack, it'll hit you.
Agreed. But at the same time, we can't expect to end every fight untouched. Our characters also have unblockable/undodgeable attacks too.
Did I mention that you're vulnerable during this wind-up animation? I've had enemies come from off-camera and start wailing on Cloud during the animation, shaving off hundreds of health points during an unskippable animation that locks him firmly in place.
Here's a good tip for yah bud. I thought the animations were unskippable too, but, if you do it a certain way, its fully skippable. I made a video for you to check it out.
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Whoever has the limit ready, control a DIFFERENT character, then L2 or R2 to the character with the limit, hit the limit, then continue to fight with the other character!
On top of that, (I didn't do it because it wasn't needed in the vid), but, you can easily also pop a quick heal spell during his animation. Problem solved! <3
Healing spells follow three distinct steps: playing the animation, removing MP, and restoring HP. The problem is that there's a surprisingly long gap between when the game removes MP and restores HP (feels like around half a second). If you die between those two events, the game will take your MP without restoring your health. Really nice given how much smaller the MP pools are now.
Again, use the previous trick I mentioned to get smooth healing towards you without having to lose control of your current character. Or, if they dont have their ATB filled, do a quick switch, couple of quick attacks, then pop a heal.
The player that is being controlled is typically prioritized. If you want to take direct control over Aerith to reposition her and take a few specific actions, odds are within a few seconds every enemy you're fighting will immediately come running at her, completely ignoring the ex-SOLDIER and his giant fuck-off sword and the big burly dude with the gun arm that have been wailing on them for the past three minutes. As a result, you're largely dependent on remote-controlling characters. The problem with that is that the ATB gauge fills up much slower when you aren't actively playing as a certain character, so have fun trying to make the most out of that bizarre combination of mechanics.
That's actually something I like quite a bit about this game. It has that challenge to where enemies are always on your ass so you gotta think quickly. Again, the quick L2/R2 commands is awesome. Try a mixture of both, after a while you'll be like "ohhhhh, alright, this is fuckin' awesome!" (It took me a while to realize it myself, but again, the Bahamut fight is where you'll get used to it and become much better with it)
The game gets really stun-happy around the 12-16 hour mark. Stuns are pretty much what you'd expect: temporary debuffs that completely prevent you from moving. The problem with them is two-fold. First of all, the stun debuff is never shown on your character panel ("am I stunned for a quarter of a second or five seconds?"). Second, too many enemies can do it, and too often.
Agreed, a HUGE pain in the ass. I fuckin' hate it too. But, easy way around that; Just switch to a different character for the duration. Once I get a stun on a character, immediately switch, then the stunned character will be ignored to an extent by monsters, because as we already know, enemies prioritize the character we're currently controlling.
The stun situation gets worse when you consider the baked wind-up and attack animations that your character performs. If you select a move and then suddenly the game drops a stun AoE on your head, you get instantly stunned. My favorite situation is when you get stunned, then they immediately follow it up with sleep and poison. Good times.
Again, the L2/R2 commands help out a lot with this.
takes a bit of time to get used to controlling a secondary character, then popping commands with someone who you're not controlling, but it's worth it. And yeah, I feel the same to where it's like "Well I wanna do this with this character, so I want to be CONTROLLING THIS CHARACTER AT THIS TIME!", but, sometimes it's better in certain situations to just pop secondary commands with the L2/R2.
The game is also like Monster Hunter in that if you're attacking an enemy and the person you're attacking takes a swing at you in mid-combo, your combo breaks.
Yeah, hate it when shit like that happens. But, they've made it all about timing. I'm highly used to using cloud now, to where I can pull off good sword combo hits, then counter the enemies attack and continue my swinging, pressure then stagger them.
With Clouds 100% counter stance (Punisher mode, then R1 to block) it's absolutely incredible. It's just all the matter on timing it properly.
To add to the above, enemy combos are completely unbreakable. You can't even hold block in mid-combo to shave off some damage. If they connect once, you're getting hit by everything that follows. Considering enemies can break your combo whenever they want by starting a combo of their own, this becomes especially problematic.
Noooooo, not true bud! You can easily break enemies combos. Lets say you're stuck in an enemy combo with Cloud; Once I get stuck in one, I immediately switch to a different character (Barret for instance) and unload on the monster preforming the combo. There's been many times where they caught me in a combo, I switched, unloaded and got them into "pressured" state, interrupting their combo. From there, pop high pressure build commands, get them in staggered, GG.
On top of that, there's no rhyme or reason regarding which attacks can be blocked or dodged, and the only way of knowing is to get hit. I've seen plenty of cases where Cloud was able to block a massive attack from a giant monster, yet a normal-looking attack from a human-sized enemy would break his block (and lock him into a combo, naturally). Similarly, there are more cases than I can count of Cloud getting hit despite being noticeably outside of the range of an AoE attack. Again, if the game wants you to take damage, you're going to take damage. Period.
Again, cloud has his 100% counter blocking. Once the enemy lands a hit, he blocks, counter hits and opens the enemy up to more punishment. At first I never used it, but after getting used to it, it's absolutely ESSENTIAL to use that counter-stance whenever you're fighting. It makes things SO much easier.
Not trying to be an ass and go against all the stuff you were saying, but I think it's because you haven't fully gotten used to the combat system (Just like me for the longest time, until after the Bahamut fight). Bahamut is incredibly difficult, where you'll start to learn to have to constantly switch up characters, fill and burn those ATB bars immediately before getting targeted and using the proper attacks/spells against him. It's basically like playing "keep away" (You know, that stupid game with throwing the ball back and forth, keeping it away from the kid trying to get it), but with your characters. Since monsters prioritize the ones we're controlling, do a quick attack, an ATB command, then immediately switch, during the ATB command animation. Lather, rinse, repeat.
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