FF13

[Cloral]

Yeah, another FF13 topic. I picked it up today and spent the last two hours playing through the introductory sequence. They just now opened up several of the major game mechanics, such as the ability to tell your teammates what to do, or to level up. That's right, you have to play for two hours before you can level up at all. So it's kinda hard to give any solid impressions thus far, since I haven't really played the actual game yet. But I will say that I think I get where they were going with the new battle system. Things certainly flow a lot faster in battle than they used to. We'll just have to see how it holds up once I go up against some enemies that actually have some challenge to them.

[Orion]

I'm glad to hear that you actually get to *do* something later on. I rented it today (and so far am glad it's only rented), and after about an hour in, all I've done is watch movies and press the A button. The presentation, story and voice acting seem superb though. But I'm hoping the depth of the battle system is to my liking.

[Anthus]

I'll probably be renting this at some time or another.

I will say of course, the game looks good. What do you think they spent the past four years on? Gameplay? Yeah right.

[AtmaWeapon]

The review I read was very carefully written so as not to offend the hyper-defensive fanbase, but I read enough to know I *might* be interested.

The main problem it pointed out with the game is apparently the first 15 hours can be considered a tutorial, because it's completely linear. Apparently there's not even any dead-ends for you to go down, it's mostly just "walk to the next battle/cutscene". The explanation the reviewer guessed at is that Square has decided that the universe in which this game takes place will be reused for a decade's worth of FF games (that's what, 3 games?) and they wanted to make sure you understood the mythos. It seems to me they've been quite capable of spreading this kind of stuff out over an entire game; FF VI had enough of a mythos I see plenty of potential for sequels and prequels, yet they spread the explanation out over 30-40 hours. Chrono Trigger's storyline is most notable for the questions it *doesn't* answer. But alas, they're the artists and they get to dictate it. I'd like to complain about how linear it sounds, but when I started digging up examples of good nonlinear games I started to realize that most games are quite linear but some are a lot better at hiding it. It doesn't sound like they tried to hide it this time.

Everything else I've read is pretty positive. I see the battle system is very love/hate, but from what I've read I feel like it has potential. The characters are supposedly believable. Even though the XBox 360 version is supposedly inferior, both versions of the game seem like excellent examples of the current state of the art in gaming.

That said, I'm *still* grinding my way through the BioShock 2 MP achievements and *still* haven't touched Assassin's Creed 2 and I bought that before Christmas! Add to this that nothing in the series past VI has turned my head (though I do have VII and want to give it a chance) and I don't think I'll be buying it before it hits the bargain bin.

[Orion]

Well, I'm a little further in, but it's just been a snooze-fest so far. Of course it's pretty, but that doesn't so me any good if the game is boring. Square seems to think that people will play if because it's Final Fantasy, but I'm getting old and I'm broke, and if the game is any good, it doesn't start that way, which games should.

I will say the black guy (I forget his name, and I'm too lazy to look it up) is a hoot (yes, I said hoot), but the battle system so far has consisted of Attack Attack Attack, walk to a movie, repeat, and there's far too much going on on the screen for me. What little exploration there is is muddled by an annoying self-controled camera. There's a lot of eye candy, but no style. I loved XII, and this game seems to be it's polar opposite.

So far: ick.

I will say FFXIV excited me. I've been looking forward to a new online entry for awhile, as I really got into XI.

[Cloral]

I have to wonder what it is about Square that they can't make a half-decent field camera. It wants to point a certain direction, and if you want to point it a different direction (i.e. when backtracking on one of the small side-paths where you go to pick up an item), then woe to you.

From the previews I read, it sounds like the battles do get more difficult as you get later into the game. And if that does happen, I can see the battle system working out fairly well then - swiftly shifting paradigms, working to stagger the enemies while keeping your party alive. But, at the same time, it isn't Final Fantasy. That doesn't mean it's bad, but it really should be in a different series. Then again, when you look at Square's recent forays into new IP such as Infinite Undiscovery, you see that the level of polish just isn't there. And that might be the real key here - they probably had to call it Final Fantasy to ensure they recouped enough money at retail to fund the extended development cycle. So I think that if you stop thinking of it as a Final Fantasy game and judge it in its own right, you'll probably find it worth playing. That is assuming, again, that the reviewers are right and the game does get more challenging later.

AW, the biggest drawback to the 360 version is the quality of the video compression. To fit the game on 3 DVDs they greatly decreased the bitrate of the videos. So any of the videos that have a lot of motion or small details end up looking unclear and washed out. They do look fine as long as you don't look too closely at them, but it is a noticeable difference.

[Cloral]

After playing some more, I have to say that the battle system is starting to grow on me. It's a shame that the pacing at the start of the game is so bad, since once they open up all your abilities and give you some real enemies to fight it is a lot more interesting.

[Matteo]

My buddy let me try his copy out for a bit, played about an hour.
All I did was mash the A button and push forward. Glad I didn't pick up this preorder. What another disappointment. It seems like another FFX which I hated; either I am getting old and cranky about FF or these games are just not being developed as well anymore (thought I did like FFXII).

Going to go play some FFIV Advance now.

[Cloral]

Well last night I finished the first disc and was rather disappointed. Because to this point, nothing has really happened since the opening sequence. The characters have run through a few paths and they've split apart a bit, but they haven't really gone anywhere interesting or done anything much. If this is already 1/3 of the game, then how much story is there actually going to be?

[Brasel]

Final Fantasy XII was so much better. I'm not enjoying this one nearly as much. The battle system is fun, but the story and the world just feel a little flat.

[Orion]

I loved FFXII because it had a fun main quest, but it also had an MMO-feel with it's world set up, it's gambit system, and it's fun side-quests. I may return to 13 when it drops to the bargain barrel, but now I eagerly await 14 Online.

[Cloral]

Hey Warlock, can I ask you a question? I noticed on your gamertag that you've finished the game, so you should know the answer to this. I'm in chapter 10, about 20 hours in, and this is the magic point that everyone on the internet seems to think the game 'gets good' at. They all claimed apparently that this was the point things open up, but right now I'm in this subway-type level with much the same linearity as before. Do things open up after this level, or were they just referring to the fact that every character now has access to every paradigm?

[Brasel]

Hey Warlock, can I ask you a question? I noticed on your gamertag that you've finished the game, so you should know the answer to this. I'm in chapter 10, about 20 hours in, and this is the magic point that everyone on the internet seems to think the game 'gets good' at. They all claimed apparently that this was the point things open up, but right now I'm in this subway-type level with much the same linearity as before. Do things open up after this level, or were they just referring to the fact that every character now has access to every paradigm?

I'm at the same point. My buddy who has finished it says that it should open up soon. I'm pretty sure Gran Pulse is next or close to next.

[Masamune]

I've been trying my hardest to give the rest of this game a chance, but it really does feel like a chore to play. Like I spent about the first couple hours tapping A, and moving once in a while, while I did other shit.

[Cloral]

The beginning of the game is terrible. It needs to be about 1/4 the length it is.
And as it is, I'm on the third disc and I still feel like I haven't reached the real game yet. WTF, Square?

[Cloral]

I've been running around Pulse for the last few days now and holy crap - Pulse. Why the hell wasn't this the entire game? It's got sidequests, multiple paths, and wide open spaces. I even have to pull up the big map every few minutes to keep tabs on where I'm headed so I don't get lost. So yeah, things get better, but it's completely ridiculous that it took 20+ hours to get to this point.

[Orion]

My question for you then, is, how much gameplay is left after that 20 hour mark?

[Cloral]

I have no idea, but it takes until the third disc to reach this point. It could just be that there's a lot fewer cinematics in this portion of the game, but again, I really don't know.

[AtmaWeapon]

A recent Penny Arcade article indicates that the game's unbranching play lasts for too long to make it enjoyable. So far every game I've bought or avoided based on their opinions has been a good fit, so I'm going on that. I've got AC 2, Batman AA, and Kingdom Hearts in my queue (oh and I forgot about Deadly Premonition.) I'll wait to pick up FF XIII for $3 on whatever network Sony's running after I retire, when I have time to wait for a game to spend 20 hours to get good again.

[RedDeathX7]

I bought this game on the first day and I have to say it was quite worth the buy. Yeah the game is really slow in the beginning because you don't have Paradigm's or the Crystarium grid. As you get deeper into the game its fantastic.

[Orion]

Eh, gone are the days when I have the time or the money, or really the ambition to play a game based on it's title. Recent games that normally I would have picked up on day one, but didn't, include Spirit Tracks, FF13, and RE5. If find renting is a superior alternative (Gamefly!) for me, and so far it's worked for FF13, RE5, Prince of Persia, and Fable 2.

[Cloral]

Well, after playing Pulse some more, it seems that the paths are still pretty much linear. I keep going because I want to see something happen down here. The truth of the matter is, very little actually happens throughout the course of the game. There is way too much padding where you run through random wildernesses that don't pertain to the story in any way. Even though I keep playing it, at this point I would have to tell anybody on the fence not to get it. It is way too slow and boring. The battle system, crystarium, and paradigms actually work quite competently. But even that doesn't make up for the storyline where nothing fucking happens.

If it takes Square 5 years to make this, then I really worry about the company's future.

[Cloral]

Well God damn it. Pulse, as it turns out, was a single long corridor from one end of the map to the other. Reach the other end, and there's an airship waiting to take you back to Cocoon for the final sequence. Along the way, you run through a handful of wilderness areas. And that's it. Some Cie'th stones allow you to do some missions in the vein of the hunts in FF12, but other than that, Pulse has nothing.

If you haven't bought FF13, don't. I kept playing, expecting some sort of interesting change, some point where the storyline would start feeling a little stronger. It never happens.

[Orion]

I think Square really just wants to keep making movies. However, since the general public couldn't care less about Final Fantasy, they figure they'll just shoehorn them into games.

Maybe in FFXV they'll just cut the crap and it'll be on rails.

[Dell297]

At least this game has Cid and chocobos, but im wondering, just like the other final fantasy games, does it have MOOGLES?!?!? I only know abut cid and the chocobos from website info and friends.

[Anthus]

Well God damn it. Pulse, as it turns out, was a single long corridor from one end of the map to the other. Reach the other end, and there's an airship waiting to take you back to Cocoon for the final sequence. Along the way, you run through a handful of wilderness areas. And that's it. Some Cie'th stones allow you to do some missions in the vein of the hunts in FF12, but other than that, Pulse has nothing.

If you haven't bought FF13, don't. I kept playing, expecting some sort of interesting change, some point where the storyline would start feeling a little stronger. It never happens.

Damn. This sucks. I'm glad I didn't bother. I'm not patient with games really, at all anymore, so this would royally piss me off. It is actually very sad to see this happening to games. Final Fantasy and Zelda are two of the most iconic RPG/ Adventure games, and they are turning into shit. At least Mario, and Metroid still hold some promise. I could give a shit about anything else gaming at this point. :/


I think Square really just wants to keep making movies. However, since the general public couldn't care less about Final Fantasy, they figure they'll just shoehorn them into games.

Maybe in FFXV they'll just cut the crap and it'll be on rails.

No seriously. I dunno if I posted it here, but it's like "Goddamn, if you want to make a movie, then drop the Final Fantasy name, and make a fucking awesome CG movie with a beautiful story. Pick one: don't force it into a game where it wrecks pacing, and defeats the purpose of a "game"!"

This is especially feasible since Final Fantasy does not keep to any one storyline throughout, save for some staples. Like "Tim Burton", it is a brand name tacked on to move what is otherwise borderline shovel ware. I just hate the way games are turning all Hollywood. The industries are different for a reason-- I mean it is fine if it doesn't get in the way of the game play, or maybe if you can skip, and replay scenes at your own leisure (and have a comprehensive journal of objectives so you don't miss any information, I've given this some thought :p). I mean seriously, game's have pulled off wonderful stories before, and with a lot less time and money AND they were fun to PLAY.

I'd go as far to call this a movie, with a 3D menu. (Though I have not played it, so...)

[Cloral]

Well after a lengthy hiatus I finally decided last week to finish the damn thing. And damn, those final two chapters back in cocoon are tough. The enemy difficulty ramps up quickly, so even though the enemies at the beginning are easy, by the end the enemies can kick your ass no problem. I found myself having to avoid encounters because there were some I simply could not win. The last boss was a bastard too. The second part (out of three) gave me trouble because my preferred party wasn't good enough at removing status ailments. I eventually had to switch out Sazh for Vanille so that I could have two members who could use Esuna. As for the ending, well... the cutscene before the last boss's final form was probably about twice as long as the ending itself. It gave closure, though, so at least it was satisfying. But they pulled some of that 'hold on to hope and you can never lose' type of bullshit they seem to love in JRPGs, so I would have to refrain from calling it 'good'.

The good news is after the ending they unlock the last stage of the crystarium and plop you back down on Pulse where you can try to finish out the missions. Completing missions on Pulse was by far the best part of the game, and since I've only done about half the missions so far, I've got a lot left to do there. So I'll probably keep playing the game for a good while, or at least until Mario Galaxy 2 comes out next week. It's funny - the battle system, the thing that made me the most hesitant about buying the game in the first place, turned out to probably be the most functional part of the game as a whole. It flows well and has a surprising level of strategy once you unlock all your battle roles.

[Aliem]

In terms of linearity, it doesn't really feel any different than X did. I'm actually really enjoying it so far. I like the story, and the linearity doesn't bother me in the least. I'm clearly in the minority here, though. The only thing that really bothers me is the battles with Eidolons. Those things are frustrating as hell. As for the common complaint of too many cut scenes... that, to me, sounds an awful like every other Final Fantasy game in the last 13 years. That's the series: you fight, get to the next area, and watch a cut scene. That's how the story is told, and the story is the main reason to play one of these games.

All in all, I think it's a decent game. Not as good as some of the older ones, but certainly not the worst. I really like the characters, and how the party isn't the typical "we barely know eachother, so let's save the world!" bullshit. There's tension, doubt, and they actually have real motivations. And I love the battle system. It's so much better than the standard ATB system, and I like it a LOT better than the gambit system, wherein the game just, as Penny Arcade put it, masturbated.

[Cloral]

The trick to the eidolon battles is you have to figure out what the eidolon wants you to do. Fighting them in the usual way won't get you anywhere. Some want you to heal your teammates, some want you to defend, some want to be debuffed. Just hit it with Libra and take note of what it tells you.

[Aliem]

Yeah, I'd used Libra and figured that out, I just kept running out of time with Sazh and Vanille. Obtaining Haste allowed me to finish the test, though.

[Anthus]

You know... I have a guilty suspicion I'd actually like this game quite a bit. I've been giving it some thought, and a story driven game on rials might be perfect for me, since I tend to get distracted, and loose motivation. Zeldas, Marios, and Metroids and the occasional Sonic and Castlevania are about the only games I play anymore. I did pick up Assassin's Creed 2, and I actually like it a lot, I just can't really get into some games even though they may be good games. I'm probably only about half way through it, and probably play it about once a week.

[Cloral]

For me and many others, the biggest problem wasn't the linearity. It was the pacing. I've never seen a game paced so poorly before. For the first several hours of the game, all you can do in battle is attack - and occasionally throw a potion on your team. You can't even shift paradigms (the main battle strategy) until about 5 hours in. With this sort of slow learning curve, you'd expect that the game never gets hard. But it does by the end. Which makes me wonder who exactly it was targeted for. The sorts of players who would need the beginning to be as easy as it is could never make it all the way through.

[Aliem]

For me and many others, the biggest problem wasn't the linearity. It was the pacing. I've never seen a game paced so poorly before. For the first several hours of the game, all you can do in battle is attack - and occasionally throw a potion on your team. You can't even shift paradigms (the main battle strategy) until about 5 hours in. With this sort of slow learning curve, you'd expect that the game never gets hard. But it does by the end. Which makes me wonder who exactly it was targeted for. The sorts of players who would need the beginning to be as easy as it is could never make it all the way through.

This. No matter what, I keep dying at the last boss of chapter 9. It's really frustrating. "Hey, let's have this guy pull an attack that, even if your stats are as high as they can possibly be right now and even if the party is fully buffed, it'll most likley wipe them out!! And it'll bring the stagger meter down to 0!! AND if they manage to survive it, fuck them, he'll cast DOOM on the party's leader!" Yeah, that's assholeish.

edit - finally beat it. Jeeze, this game's bosses are either underpowered or just ridiculous. Oh well, at least now I can advance my crystarium again.

[Orion]

What gets me is that this game is being credited with giving Square one of its best earnings quarters in awhile. THey've sold millions of copies of it. Obviously some people are buying it and enjoying it, which just sends the message to them to make more like it :-/.