Fun But I hate forced lose battles,

[Pan]

Absolutely having a blast so far, But FML I hate these forced loss battles.
Its one of those things I absolutely hate in any game in general.

How do you feel about this? I dislike it weither its for narrative or not. Forced losing feels stupid imo.

[Poyzo]

I'm pretty much indifferent to them. I like how it breaks up the typical routine of a boss battle aka you win, and instead offers something unique. On the other hand, I agree that you get this build up only for you to lose.

[Nepnep]

I'm okay with forced lose battles... But then they break my bonus gauge ffs.

[Xengre]

I think it is fine from a narrative perspective if done well, keyword being done well. If done poorly with no impact or proper presentation of the character or situation I don't care too much but its a let down of a potentially good scene. A great example of being done well is Beatrix fights from Final Fantasy IX.

They introduce her as being as powerful as her legends and it is very dramatic, atmospheric, and well done with story/character coherence. We see repeat opportunities against her and eventually we get to see her might as our own guest teammate we can control (and take all her gear and laugh as she is still supremely powerful without gear). She has correspondingly and increasingly impressive abilities she displays, too. It also gives a sense of she isn't even fighting us seriously until the final move and is just presented, all around, very well. Meanwhile, some games random 999 or 9999 dmg and you lose form a basic punch with no real impact...

Like the Dias fight here? I'm less of a fan because you can get him low but once he is too low he animation cancels making the attack completely undodgeable and will break even the break dmg limit values doing 350k+ dmg (yes, he goes even past the 99,999 mark). The course of the fight leading up to that point doesn't even come close to matching or being presented in the way Beatrix' is and falls flat and feels inconsistent. It also just feels extremely cheesey.

[LazyAmerican]

I absolutely hate them tbh.....the first wise men encounter I would've obliterated that dude like 100 times but the story says no so blah.

[REhorror]

Relics of old JRPG LOL.
I feel they all should be winnable with some rewards myself.

[Duck]

It's not ideal, but forced losses aren't so bad that I'd complain about them as long as we're not getting into excessive numbers of them. I think SO2 only has three or four of them throughout the whole game, that's not too bad. They sting more on repeat/NG+ playthroughs.

[BulletFaith]

I remember in Tales of Destiny 1, there's this early boss fight with a character who later becomes your friend. He beat us pretty easily and captured us. So, I grinded really hard to try and beat him. And when I finally did, the game acted like I won, my character left, and lived happy ever after. But then, i got a game over screen! It's like the game's way of telling you, "You have to lose this fight to keep moving in the story." It was a pretty clever way to do it.

[Nepnep]

I couldn't beat Dias so I tried hacking to see if there is any change. You get a "decent" amount of exp for beating Dias. A cutscene plays with him praising Claude, then you fight again and it repeats until you lose.

In hindsight, I should have just hacked the enemy to beat Dias when he is "in your party" but knowing the game it would probably just give you a standard game over.

[Nyet Diem]

There are plenty of other games where you can win the battle, but then lose in a cutscene. Wish this version incorporated that variant to change it up a bit.