Star Ocean 3 fic
Jul. 22nd, 2006 05:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I have one non-LJ friend who apparently likes Albel/Sophia. However, she avoids fanfiction like the black plague. I think I know why.
I should have known what to expect, because everytime an author has a 'couples I hate/characters I hate' on their FF.net profile tend not to write well (Not to mention coming off as immature). And I had a sort of bad dealing with this author. I decided to read her fic anyways, since it seems so popular and has a fair number of reviews.
Lots of review =! good story. Especially when a good half or more are written by the same 3 people who review every chapter.
Series: Star Ocean 3
Title: A Light in the Darkness
Author: Keeki
Genre: Romance/Drama
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Some sexual content, some violence, Other Characters (OCs)
Couple (if applicable): Albel/Sophia
Plot: 3/10 - To make a long story short, Albel and Sophia somehow land up on a different world due to her *spoilers*, they run into some problems with a demon ironically called 'Romero', they find out Romero cursed Sophia, they go to put a stop to said demon, emo moments, trials, boring action fights, love pookie moments, more emo, OC deaths, Romero gets Sophia, Albel defeats Romero, everyone thinks Sophia is dead, but lo and behold, love revives her. There's tears, kissy poos, and the end.
Simple, to the point, and still manages steal content from OTHER games/stories. Yeah, you heard me.
First, we have Axel, the red haired guy from Kingdom Hearts 2. Sadly, that's all I know of him since I haven't played Kingdom Hearts 2 (But I have friends who have and the author admits her taking this from KH2), so I can't rant that. Then we have the 'Al Bhed'. I seriously wanted to scream when I saw this. Should I be thankful there was no Al Bhed spoken in this fic?
And of course, there's a village called Kalm.
NEVER take stuff from other games, it's crude and you'll get people mixed up/angry unless you mention it in your notes, which this author mentioned near the END of the chapter where it first appeared. You could've named your 'race' something other than stealing one from FFX. You could've called the village something else. AND you could've named Axel something else.
I don't mind the mythology references and the like, but stealing stuff from other games... no.
Oh, and the 'legend' in the village? I felt like slapping Sophia upside her head because the foreshadowing in this entire story runs like it was written by a fourth grader. You could guess what happens fairly easily before it even happens.
And when you write game fanfic, it's best to avoid it running like a video game. Like simply telling that a character shouted out using a skill, talking about 'levels', and the like. Big no-no.
The romance runs like a teen romance novel. Okay, for some bizarre reason, Albel finds Sophia attractive and wants to bonk her 3 chapters in. Whatever happened to emotional build up? And Sophia, for some reason, wants to cure him of his emo angst. Oh, and there's crying, lots of crying. This is including a guy who pretty much GRINS during a fight and a girl who lost her parents at the age of 12, faced a near death situation, and had to come to terms that she was experimented on. Oh, and another girl who didn't cry a single time in the game either.
Overall, the story was predictable, pointless characters, pointless character deaths and the power of tru luv... the entire thing runs like a teeny romance. And Albel is in his 20's. ~_~
Writing: 3/10 - This is where the pure joy of having either having some sort of spelling/grammar processor or better, a beta reader, comes in. Many errors in the story could've easily been found by running this thing through MS word. There is no excuse for not running your fic through a simple spelling/grammar editor. If you don't have MS word, here and here. There is really no excuse for this, and both these sites were off of google, I got over a million sites for spelling and grammar checkers, it takes a total of 5 seconds, tops.
But even with that, there are still many errors that only a beta reader would be able to catch.
The author also has a thing against of putting periods and commas after someone speaks:
Example: Peppita walked up to Fayt, “I hope you find then soon” she said and smiled at him.
Correct sentence: Peppita walked up to Fayt. “I hope you['ll] find the[m] soon,” she said and smiled at him.
And the writing is as boring as that. Tons of Noun-Verb sentences, lots of telling instead of showing, and really akward sentences like, 'Albel quickly scrambled off of her and glared at her evilly, like he was going to slice her up like a thanksgiving turkey.' You don't even need to put the 'like' part in, not to mention the lack of capitalization.
Another example: 'She opened the closet and found some simple stitched sleeping shirts. She took out a medium sized one and put it on, it was a little too big , and one side kept falling off her shoulder.' The 'too big' could be eliminated all together in place of a description of how it's too big.
The entire story runs like this that I found myself skimming parts and had to stop and go back and reread it, only to have the same thing happening again.
The author tries to foreshadow some stuff, like hinting on who the dragon is, but it's seriously so obvious that anyone would pick up on it. And the locket idea, a reviewer apparently guessed what would happen several chapters before it happened. That's usually not a good sign either.
And the weeping. Oh, the weeping!
This is a story that really needs a heavy beta-read through. Or an entire re-write. I'd vote the second.
The reason why it doesn't get a 0 is that at least it looks like it was written with some form of coherency. And the trials were well thought of, although considering how the story runs and how she took stuff from other games, I wonder...
Characterization: 2/10 - URGH!
You know, with a pairing like Albel/Sophia, you need buildup, it's not possible for this pairing to work without some sort of buildup, because there is nothing to go by in the game.
We get to Chapter 3 and already Albel shows signs that he wants to bang Sophia. There's a bad sign there. Chapter 5, we got them kissing. Then chapter 8 comes and Albel is pretty much ready to jump down Sophia's pants. I'm seriously starting to wonder why I torture myself so...
Let's get into Sophia's character. Or let's not, since she's been reduced to a crybaby love starved twit that would make Sophia from the game twitch.
I'm sorry, while Sophia isn't a physical fighter and she may be scared at first, she could hold things together on her own. She would NOT break into boo hoo tears because she got lost or Albel suddenly disappeared. And she definitely wouldn't break into tears because Albel, a TOTAL STRANGER to her, broke her widdle heart. And she CAN hold a fight on her own, there's a reason why she knows symbology. Trust me, if some bandits tried to touch her, she would not sit there waiting for her 'truluv' to come to her rescue.
Oh, and the whole 'everyone thinks Sophia is pretty and everyone is drawn to her' really boarderlines Mary Sue sydrome.
While Sophia shows her mental strength later, her character is pretty much destroyed by the 'truluv' sydrome and her boarderline Mary Sue-ish way she was handled in the story.
Now let's go into Albel. Or not again, as he's been reduce to the stereotypical Albel, spewing out 'fool' and 'maggot' every other sentence, except to Sophia, his 'truluv'. I'm sorry, but Albel has problems enough expressing how he feels, jiggling boobs is not going to suddenly change his anti-social behaviors.
And he's certainly not going to go pick flowers with Sophia. If Sophia was insistant on that, FAYT would be the one to go with her, and I'm sure Cliff would be pushing him to go too.
Example of Albel rape: 'Albel grinned but kept his eyes closed. “Awake yet angel” he said in a low, seductive voice.'
Another example: 'He froze, it was as if time slowed down. All process of thought left him, he could do nothing but stare, dumbfounded by her beauty. It was as if he were seeing a goddess descend from the heavens.'
Excuse me while I vomit up BLOOD! Not only does that sentence akward, but that is so totally not Albel. I'll add love-starved twit Albel to the list too.
And I'm sorry, but Albel respects Fayt and the others to some degree. He would not have joined them if he hated Fayt and the others if that was the case. Do the PAs, or you know, play the actual game.
There are many other stupid stunts like the 'Let's do a remake of the famous Peterny scene, we replace Fayt with Sophia!' and 'I shouldn't have done this and this, emo emo emo!' shit, and 'I don't trust anyone, but I'll suddenly trust this strange little girl!' sydrome, but if I got into every nitpick I had about Albel and Sophia here, I'd be typing a long time with the capslock of rage.
Oh, and Fatima? Yawn feast, and her oh tragic past made me play a tiny violin because it just appears out of no where. And her death? Boo-fucking-hoo. Not to mention I kept thinking of 'Xenogears' the entire time.
I won't mention the other characters since they're a snooze too.
I was hoping for the other characters to stay out of the fic, but I guess my wish wasn't granted. Sorry, but Maria is not a jealous bitch who wants to split up Fayt and Sophia. Maria is not that type of person to do something that nasty and she certainly wouldn't go boo hoo sob story every five seconds if she did, even to Mirage. Let's add Maria to the 'love-starved twit' category we have here!
Luckily, after that one chapter, besides the Mirage boo-hoo feast (What is with all the characters and crying!?) at the end of the story, the other characters are totally absent from the story.
And the characters crying constantly? Nerve-wrecking. Mirage crying is insane as itself. Yes, Mirage would be worried, but break down into tears? The same goes for Albel, a guy who rarely shows emotion, but shows emotion to Sophia in only a few chapters.
I could go on with how badly these characters are mauled, but this review would get too long.
Negativities: Teeny bop romance, OOC!just about everyone, poor writing, missing commas/periods, stealing from other games, OCs with 'oh so tragic' pasts, boo-fucking-hoo weeping
Summary: Albel and Sophia get 'teleported' to another planet, along the way, they have to deal with a demon and realize their 'truluv' for each other, even though they have never really spoken too deeply before this story!
Overall: 2.6/10 - I tried so not to be snarky here, but after I finally finished this story and starting writing this review, I gave up and embraced part of my snarky side. Unless you want to torture yourself, stay away from this fic.
I should have known what to expect, because everytime an author has a 'couples I hate/characters I hate' on their FF.net profile tend not to write well (Not to mention coming off as immature). And I had a sort of bad dealing with this author. I decided to read her fic anyways, since it seems so popular and has a fair number of reviews.
Lots of review =! good story. Especially when a good half or more are written by the same 3 people who review every chapter.
Series: Star Ocean 3
Title: A Light in the Darkness
Author: Keeki
Genre: Romance/Drama
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Some sexual content, some violence, Other Characters (OCs)
Couple (if applicable): Albel/Sophia
Plot: 3/10 - To make a long story short, Albel and Sophia somehow land up on a different world due to her *spoilers*, they run into some problems with a demon ironically called 'Romero', they find out Romero cursed Sophia, they go to put a stop to said demon, emo moments, trials, boring action fights, love pookie moments, more emo, OC deaths, Romero gets Sophia, Albel defeats Romero, everyone thinks Sophia is dead, but lo and behold, love revives her. There's tears, kissy poos, and the end.
Simple, to the point, and still manages steal content from OTHER games/stories. Yeah, you heard me.
First, we have Axel, the red haired guy from Kingdom Hearts 2. Sadly, that's all I know of him since I haven't played Kingdom Hearts 2 (But I have friends who have and the author admits her taking this from KH2), so I can't rant that. Then we have the 'Al Bhed'. I seriously wanted to scream when I saw this. Should I be thankful there was no Al Bhed spoken in this fic?
And of course, there's a village called Kalm.
NEVER take stuff from other games, it's crude and you'll get people mixed up/angry unless you mention it in your notes, which this author mentioned near the END of the chapter where it first appeared. You could've named your 'race' something other than stealing one from FFX. You could've called the village something else. AND you could've named Axel something else.
I don't mind the mythology references and the like, but stealing stuff from other games... no.
Oh, and the 'legend' in the village? I felt like slapping Sophia upside her head because the foreshadowing in this entire story runs like it was written by a fourth grader. You could guess what happens fairly easily before it even happens.
And when you write game fanfic, it's best to avoid it running like a video game. Like simply telling that a character shouted out using a skill, talking about 'levels', and the like. Big no-no.
The romance runs like a teen romance novel. Okay, for some bizarre reason, Albel finds Sophia attractive and wants to bonk her 3 chapters in. Whatever happened to emotional build up? And Sophia, for some reason, wants to cure him of his emo angst. Oh, and there's crying, lots of crying. This is including a guy who pretty much GRINS during a fight and a girl who lost her parents at the age of 12, faced a near death situation, and had to come to terms that she was experimented on. Oh, and another girl who didn't cry a single time in the game either.
Overall, the story was predictable, pointless characters, pointless character deaths and the power of tru luv... the entire thing runs like a teeny romance. And Albel is in his 20's. ~_~
Writing: 3/10 - This is where the pure joy of having either having some sort of spelling/grammar processor or better, a beta reader, comes in. Many errors in the story could've easily been found by running this thing through MS word. There is no excuse for not running your fic through a simple spelling/grammar editor. If you don't have MS word, here and here. There is really no excuse for this, and both these sites were off of google, I got over a million sites for spelling and grammar checkers, it takes a total of 5 seconds, tops.
But even with that, there are still many errors that only a beta reader would be able to catch.
The author also has a thing against of putting periods and commas after someone speaks:
Example: Peppita walked up to Fayt, “I hope you find then soon” she said and smiled at him.
Correct sentence: Peppita walked up to Fayt. “I hope you['ll] find the[m] soon,” she said and smiled at him.
And the writing is as boring as that. Tons of Noun-Verb sentences, lots of telling instead of showing, and really akward sentences like, 'Albel quickly scrambled off of her and glared at her evilly, like he was going to slice her up like a thanksgiving turkey.' You don't even need to put the 'like' part in, not to mention the lack of capitalization.
Another example: 'She opened the closet and found some simple stitched sleeping shirts. She took out a medium sized one and put it on, it was a little too big , and one side kept falling off her shoulder.' The 'too big' could be eliminated all together in place of a description of how it's too big.
The entire story runs like this that I found myself skimming parts and had to stop and go back and reread it, only to have the same thing happening again.
The author tries to foreshadow some stuff, like hinting on who the dragon is, but it's seriously so obvious that anyone would pick up on it. And the locket idea, a reviewer apparently guessed what would happen several chapters before it happened. That's usually not a good sign either.
And the weeping. Oh, the weeping!
This is a story that really needs a heavy beta-read through. Or an entire re-write. I'd vote the second.
The reason why it doesn't get a 0 is that at least it looks like it was written with some form of coherency. And the trials were well thought of, although considering how the story runs and how she took stuff from other games, I wonder...
Characterization: 2/10 - URGH!
You know, with a pairing like Albel/Sophia, you need buildup, it's not possible for this pairing to work without some sort of buildup, because there is nothing to go by in the game.
We get to Chapter 3 and already Albel shows signs that he wants to bang Sophia. There's a bad sign there. Chapter 5, we got them kissing. Then chapter 8 comes and Albel is pretty much ready to jump down Sophia's pants. I'm seriously starting to wonder why I torture myself so...
Let's get into Sophia's character. Or let's not, since she's been reduced to a crybaby love starved twit that would make Sophia from the game twitch.
I'm sorry, while Sophia isn't a physical fighter and she may be scared at first, she could hold things together on her own. She would NOT break into boo hoo tears because she got lost or Albel suddenly disappeared. And she definitely wouldn't break into tears because Albel, a TOTAL STRANGER to her, broke her widdle heart. And she CAN hold a fight on her own, there's a reason why she knows symbology. Trust me, if some bandits tried to touch her, she would not sit there waiting for her 'truluv' to come to her rescue.
Oh, and the whole 'everyone thinks Sophia is pretty and everyone is drawn to her' really boarderlines Mary Sue sydrome.
While Sophia shows her mental strength later, her character is pretty much destroyed by the 'truluv' sydrome and her boarderline Mary Sue-ish way she was handled in the story.
Now let's go into Albel. Or not again, as he's been reduce to the stereotypical Albel, spewing out 'fool' and 'maggot' every other sentence, except to Sophia, his 'truluv'. I'm sorry, but Albel has problems enough expressing how he feels, jiggling boobs is not going to suddenly change his anti-social behaviors.
And he's certainly not going to go pick flowers with Sophia. If Sophia was insistant on that, FAYT would be the one to go with her, and I'm sure Cliff would be pushing him to go too.
Example of Albel rape: 'Albel grinned but kept his eyes closed. “Awake yet angel” he said in a low, seductive voice.'
Another example: 'He froze, it was as if time slowed down. All process of thought left him, he could do nothing but stare, dumbfounded by her beauty. It was as if he were seeing a goddess descend from the heavens.'
Excuse me while I vomit up BLOOD! Not only does that sentence akward, but that is so totally not Albel. I'll add love-starved twit Albel to the list too.
And I'm sorry, but Albel respects Fayt and the others to some degree. He would not have joined them if he hated Fayt and the others if that was the case. Do the PAs, or you know, play the actual game.
There are many other stupid stunts like the 'Let's do a remake of the famous Peterny scene, we replace Fayt with Sophia!' and 'I shouldn't have done this and this, emo emo emo!' shit, and 'I don't trust anyone, but I'll suddenly trust this strange little girl!' sydrome, but if I got into every nitpick I had about Albel and Sophia here, I'd be typing a long time with the capslock of rage.
Oh, and Fatima? Yawn feast, and her oh tragic past made me play a tiny violin because it just appears out of no where. And her death? Boo-fucking-hoo. Not to mention I kept thinking of 'Xenogears' the entire time.
I won't mention the other characters since they're a snooze too.
I was hoping for the other characters to stay out of the fic, but I guess my wish wasn't granted. Sorry, but Maria is not a jealous bitch who wants to split up Fayt and Sophia. Maria is not that type of person to do something that nasty and she certainly wouldn't go boo hoo sob story every five seconds if she did, even to Mirage. Let's add Maria to the 'love-starved twit' category we have here!
Luckily, after that one chapter, besides the Mirage boo-hoo feast (What is with all the characters and crying!?) at the end of the story, the other characters are totally absent from the story.
And the characters crying constantly? Nerve-wrecking. Mirage crying is insane as itself. Yes, Mirage would be worried, but break down into tears? The same goes for Albel, a guy who rarely shows emotion, but shows emotion to Sophia in only a few chapters.
I could go on with how badly these characters are mauled, but this review would get too long.
Negativities: Teeny bop romance, OOC!just about everyone, poor writing, missing commas/periods, stealing from other games, OCs with 'oh so tragic' pasts, boo-fucking-hoo weeping
Summary: Albel and Sophia get 'teleported' to another planet, along the way, they have to deal with a demon and realize their 'truluv' for each other, even though they have never really spoken too deeply before this story!
Overall: 2.6/10 - I tried so not to be snarky here, but after I finally finished this story and starting writing this review, I gave up and embraced part of my snarky side. Unless you want to torture yourself, stay away from this fic.