Final Fantasy XIII

Sprudling said:
Never heard of this. Are you sure it's an Adamantoise? :) Can you attack Right Leg and Left Leg? Btw, you might not strong enough yet, but the fastest way to grind is to not use summon (because it costs 3 TP). Tri-disaster staggers a leg in 1 turn (or almost) and Highwind kills a leg in 1 hit after stagger. Use earth resist accessories to make it alot easier.

Here is a video: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1278130/Sprudling_vs_Adamantoise.mp4

It can be done even faster without the buffing, but I felt it was a lot safer that way.
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I'm probably mistaken, but I look like he falls BECAUSE of the summon... But I will try your method too seems nifty.
 
So when the reviews for this game started coming out, I was hearing things along the lines of "it plays too much like a japanese rpg". Sure, they weren't saying exactly that, but thats what it sounded like. So I brushed off the negative reviews as people complaining that a japanese rpg was too "japanese rpg-ey" for them. But now its half a year after the game came out and I finally got my hands on it. And now what do I think? WTF. This is by far the worst "core" Final Fantasy game I've ever played. Which is really a shame, as Square is coming off of FF12, which is one of the best games in the series. I used to make a joke that if a game by Square isn't made by Tetsuya Nomura, its probably crap. This game has turned that joke into reality.

Let me put this out there, right now I am only up to Taejin's Tower, and I feel like the story has barely moved, and yet I have another feeling that the game is close to an end. Don't get me wrong, the story is by no means bad; its actually one of the more logical stories that a Final Fantasy game has ever had. The main character Hope (yes, don't kid yourself, he is clearly the main character) is the most well rounded and developed character in any game I've ever played. His actions, his feelings, and even his melancholy melodrama is all founded in the basis of reality. I see his actions and think "yeah, I could see a sane person in real life acting this way". The problem is that you spend the entirety of the game running, and it only changes from that late in the game.

But really, the major problem with this game is the pacing and difficulty. I was talking with KDZ about the differences between Prototype and InFamous the other day. In InFamous, you start out weak, but as the story progresses you get stronger and eventually become a bad ass. In Prototype, you're a bad ass out of the gate and start kicking ass and ignoring names. But I prefer InFamous, I like the sense of achievement, that I'm making progress and thats firmly displayed by my growth from weak to strong. The problem with FF13 is none of this. Instead of fighting to get strong, it feels more like you are fighting only so that you don't get outpaced by the enemies. You don't feel like you are getting comparatively stronger compared to the rest of the game.

Now I love a hard game; Demon's Souls is my 2009 Game of the Year. But in Demon's Souls, when you die you knew exactly why and you knew it was your fault; there was no semblance of luck. In FF13 the majority of the time you die, its complete luck and happenstance. Games today have a sense of freedom; I'm not talking about linearity, I'm talking about the choice to play the game how you want to play it. In FF13, you must play exactly as it's designed, you can rarely deviate from a single choice of tactic to win some of the harder battles in the game. You must conform, or die. Not to mention battles seem to be balanced expecting you to get preemptive strike, otherwise even some of the random battles in the game are excruciatingly difficult.

I probably wouldn't mind the difficulty if the game was a bit more fun. However this game is not an traditional japanese RPG at all; this game is what you call a "Rouge-Like". There are no towns, and no semblance of life or society except in cut scenes. This is dungeon after dungeon after dungeon. Except for the Central Expanse in Gran Pulse, every single zone in the game is a dungeon. Rouge-likes are not a popular genre because in general, dungeons are very boring and repetitive. The fatiguing nature of a dungeon is usually offset with downtime in wide open areas, and towns; something this game doesn't have. So in general the game just feels exhausting.

Positives:
  • Linear Story - I like it when a story is linear, especially in RPGs. When an RPG has too many different outcomes I end up wondering "why bother telling a story?", "why bother creating this characters when we can change their personalities and attributes at will?".
  • Characters - Characters are well rounded and generally grounded in reality. Voice acting is also excellent, with the exception of Vanille, who's personality doesn't translate well from Japanese.
  • Job System - I HATED the sphere grid. It inherently violated the linear story model I stated above. You could freely change every characters core attributes and I didn't like that. This new job system keeps every character in line with their core design.
  • Paradigms - Many will see paradigms as a new thing, but I see it as nothing more than an advancement of the combat mode system from the 2D Tales Games (the 2D Tales Games were the GOOD Tales Games, the 3D games suck).

Negatives:
  • Paradigms - The only issue with the Paradigm system is that it arbitrarily creates boundaries that a character cant even do simple things like "Cure" without completely changing their class. A character not not attack and heal at the same time.
  • Music - Since Nobuo Uematsu left Square, they have been searching for a new lead composer. I thought they had found it in FF12 with Hitoshi Sakimoto. Yet for some reason, FF13 is composed by Masashi Hamauzu. The result is completely bizarre, random and out of place music throughout the entire game. We don't even have any classic Final Fantasy Fanfare or Prologue.
  • Difficulty - I read an interesting article in Game Informer the other day. It talks about the sense of accomplishment of beating a game on the hardest difficulty, versus the fun factor of playing it on the easiest difficulty. The problem with this game is even when I win a battle, I don't have that sense of accomplishment. All I can think is "that should have been easier". Battles like Vanille's Eidolon are just a big "fuck you" to gamers.
  • Grind - This game is a GRIND. Every battle takes 5 minutes, and the game is nothing more than unavoidable battle after another. I don't mind grinding, but when the game FORCES you to do it, you can get fatigued very easily. Hell, I got platinum in White Knight Chronicles (people say it takes 500-1000 hours) and I enjoyed almost every minute of it. But this game is just a mess. At 30 hours in, if it wasn't for me being a completionist and the game not being mine, I would probably quit right now.

Now I don't think I'm nitpicking here. These are core fundamental problems with the game's design. Just like how I say anyone who likes Tales of Symphonia or Tales of the Abyss is someone who hasn't played any other (re: better) Tales Games; I feel like anyone who likes this game must be pretty inexperienced in the rouge-like department. This is NOT a traditional Japanese RPG; this is a rouge-like and there are many better rouge-likes out there... The .hack//GU series for example. A major problem here is that unless you are playing Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon, you don't walk into Final Fantasy expecting a rouge-like experience.
 
Honestly, you aren't far enough through the story of the game yet. The monsters become much easier, the sense of accomplishment goes way up, especially if you can kill the giant turtle iguanas. There are 65 different monster missions you can do, thats a ton of side quests, this doesn't count gate missions, the main story, etc etc.

As far as the linear way the game moves. You are correct about that, to a point. The story aspect will push you right down the tunnel with no way out. However, that's most of the beginning of the game. I see the first 30 hours as a tutorial, a way to prepare you for everything Gran Pulse has to offer, as well as everything near the end of the game and in game+. You need experience in how to swap paradigms. You need to strengthen each one even to beat the final boss. Every final boss is hard and this one is no exception the first time through.

You need to get ultima and omega weapon upgrades, something that is difficult yet not impossible to do. You need to balance out someone like Lightning between being both a healer and a ravager, because face it, she sucks as a commando. You have to do this with your whole party, which in turn helps makes killing pesky large things like the behemoth lords, a 28 second fight. The game has a ton of things in it that you really haven't seen to much of if you're focusing on following the primary story arc.

Oh and they didn't create towns in this game because creating whole towns in HD was going to push them months past their deadline. Did they take the quick way out? Yea, but eh I can handle it if they took out a bunch of people that say the same line every time you talk to them and only have 1 shop in the whole place with a limited selection of items.
 
Holy crap Jaxel. I don't even know where to begin with that crap response, but if battles are taking you five minutes then you are doing it wrong.Very rarely should any battle exceed a minute. And lol at your FFXII comment. FFXII had an awful story, a weak soundtrack with the exception of a few songs, and, outside one or two, some of the most forgetable characters in the series.
 
MammothMan said:
Honestly, you aren't far enough through the story of the game yet. The monsters become much easier, the sense of accomplishment goes way up, especially if you can kill the giant turtle iguanas. There are 65 different monster missions you can do, thats a ton of side quests, this doesn't count gate missions, the main story, etc etc.

As far as the linear way the game moves. You are correct about that, to a point. The story aspect will push you right down the tunnel with no way out. However, that's most of the beginning of the game. I see the first 30 hours as a tutorial, a way to prepare you for everything Gran Pulse has to offer, as well as everything near the end of the game and in game+. You need experience in how to swap paradigms. You need to strengthen each one even to beat the final boss. Every final boss is hard and this one is no exception the first time through.

You need to get ultima and omega weapon upgrades, something that is difficult yet not impossible to do. You need to balance out someone like Lightning between being both a healer and a ravager, because face it, she sucks as a commando. You have to do this with your whole party, which in turn helps makes killing pesky large things like the behemoth lords, a 28 second fight. The game has a ton of things in it that you really haven't seen to much of if you're focusing on following the primary story arc.

Oh and they didn't create towns in this game because creating whole towns in HD was going to push them months past their deadline. Did they take the quick way out? Yea, but eh I can handle it if they took out a bunch of people that say the same line every time you talk to them and only have 1 shop in the whole place with a limited selection of items.
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I'm on chapter 12 of a 13 chapter game. You can't tell me I'm not far enough into the game yet. At 35 hours the game should be rolling credits, not now picking up. If a game is only good at Game+, then whats the point of Game? To me this is nothing more than justifying a lackluster game by people who refuse to admit that Final Fantasy can suck major ass. I feel like nothing happens in this game and Square simply threw in dungeon after dungeon to ARTIFICIALLY extend the life of the game.

Not creating towns in this game because of HD is the biggest crock of shit I have seen. They have made a lot of towns in this game; the problem is that they don't function as towns but as more dungeons with enemies you have to fight through. All they had to do was take out the random battles and put in some random NPCs. Easy. Just ONE central cool down area that you could go back to later on would have been nice. Instead this isn't a world with a single place you can get attached to.

Actually though, I'm enjoying the game a lot more today than I did yesterday. Why? Because of Taejin's Tower. The game is excruciatingly hard, until you get the Taejin's Tower. Suddenly the game has become laughably easy. I didn't change anything with the way I play, the random battle enemies just dropped in difficulty for no reason at all. So because the battles got easier, I'm not enjoying them a lot more.

Impending_Doom66 said:
Holy crap Jaxel. I don't even know where to begin with that crap response, but if battles are taking you five minutes then you are doing it wrong.Very rarely should any battle exceed a minute. And lol at your FFXII comment. FFXII had an awful story, a weak soundtrack with the exception of a few songs, and, outside one or two, some of the most forgetable characters in the series.
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Apparently hyperbole is lost on you... Anyways, the soundtrack for this game is not atmospheric at all, except towards end game. Background music should set the tone; for the majority of the game you are on the run and the music should exemplify the tense situations. Instead you end up running through a town, fighting battles while some chick is singing about rainbows and springtime. This is not good music.
 
I agree with almost everything Jaxel said. The fact that there were no towns was such a downer for me. I wanted a place to relax or lay low, take a break from all the action and just romp around talking to NPCs and doing other things without worrying about battles. Complaining that towns are too difficult to do in HD sounds like such a cop out - Bioware does this in spades, with NPCs and chatter bustling around to add to the immersion. Instead, what we got was a never ending string of dungeons, with save points where you can equip your characters. There needs to be some downtime, and cutscenes don't count. Not only are towns good for the above, but they also serve as points for further character development and interaction. When done right, towns can really flesh out characters. Instead, in FF13, the cut scenes do all this for us and the result is half-baked.

I did enjoy the battle system and the boss fights, but after Gran Pulse, the battles really felt like I had to put in too much effort, and they began to feel cumbersome and tiring, and long. I remember running around a lot of monsters in the end chapters just because it felt too much of a hassle to battle.

Can't say I had an attachment to the story or the characters, because I didn't.

I did enjoy the music however, a lot of times for melodic reasons instead of mood-setting reasons. Battle music was phenomenal IMO, especially the regular boss fights and the Bartantulus fights.
 
I stopped supporting Square a while back. Pretty much, I was in the denial stage when 10 came out...and then when X-2 came out I just lost all hope for them.

I know EXACTLY what you mean about the characters in ten, though. Every character basically becomes a mirror image of the others, with your party pretty much coming down to who you want to look at. Summons in that game became beyond useless, even, when you could just Haste ---> Quick Strike everything to death before it got a chance to attack. Half of the fun in winning a battle in an RPG comes from the difficulty, as much as some don't like to admit it, but that game just became so tedious after the Calm Lands that it was stupid.

Other than that, I, for the most part, have sworn off JRPGs (though I still buy quite a few NIS and Atlus games...though I never play them). Not really for the gameplay aspect, ESPECIALLY AS A FUCKIN' BLACK MAN, I'm TIRED of playing video games as blonde-haired, blue-eyed angsty white guys in worlds where black people either A) don't fuckin' exist or B) have about one to two black people in the entire world (good luck with them being a main character, too) and their skin color is of no consequence at all - it's basically like they threw them in there as some type of affirmative action thing.

Enough angry black man, though. Honestly, though, BioWare RPGs have been the only ones where I enjoyed and actually had a desire to beat yet hoped they didn't end in a while - it seems like everyone one else is too busy being afraid to be innovative to make anything that isn't Rehashed Save the World Plot with Forgettable Characters X (Where X is How Many of these Shitty Titles You Can Tolerate).
 
I also have to agree with Jaxel. What I hate most about the game is the fact that it forces me to fight a lot of battles and the battles itself are too long and annoying and the worst thing is that you can't escape from them.

FFXII was so much more fun imo.
 
I was in denial about this game as well, I really wanted it to be good.

Right now though I have very little good to say about it. I guess the battle system is good but even that got tedious. The story is good, but presented pretty badly. No real memorable parts. Lots of cool characters, but no good villain to speak of, which is frustrating because I have practically no one to dislike in-game. Really this game is simply a tremendous time sink.
 
The true villain of this game is Vanille. I'm at about 20hours and I think this is one of the most retarded characters in video games, not only FF series. And the worst part: the noises she makes. I get embarrased when she's on the screen and turn down the TV volume because some members of my family think I watch porn.
 
FF XIII was definitely not as good as FF VII or FF X, but I would still go ahead and say that it was an enjoyable game. I had my hopes set pretty low for this game, maybe that's why I'm probably not as disappointed after beating it as those who were expecting this game to outdo all the other FF's.
 
Ring said:
The true villain of this game is Vanille. I'm at about 20hours and I think this is one of the most retarded characters in video games, not only FF series. And the worst part: the noises she makes. I get embarrased when she's on the screen and turn down the TV volume because some members of my family think I watch porn.
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rofl

Vanille is the Jar-Jar of FF

I actually didn't mind her though, strangely enough.
 
I don't understand how everyone keeps saying the battles are so long. If battles are taking as long as some of you are making them out to be then you are clearly doing it wrong. Paradigm shifts aren't supposed to be exclusive to boss fights you know.

As for the music, I thought most of the soundtrack fight pretty well. The battle music is some of the best in the series, and most of the dungeon music fit pretty well imo. Dust to dust (the song played in Oerba) is easily one of my favorite FF tunes.

I do agree about Vanille. I don't see how anyone can keep a straight face when she talks.
 
Impending_Doom66 said:
Dust to dust (the song played in Oerba) is easily one of my favorite FF tunes.
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If you liked "Dust to Dust", you should listen to "People of the North"... whenever I hear "Dust to Dust", all I can think is that this is a poor man's version of the superior FFX tune. Not to mention, both songs are played in icy snow filled areas tells me that even the soundtrack to this game was an afterthought and completely uninspired.

[youtube=People of the North]e6YMf4x16eY[/youtube]
[youtube=Dust to Dust]ad3vezqwGms[/youtube]

Oh, and I actually don't have that big of an issue with Vanille. She's just a hick with a horrible accent. Plus, I use Hope because he's a far superior character... I just wish he had Death.
 
Jaxel said:
If you liked "Dust to Dust", you should listen to "People of the North"... whenever I hear "Dust to Dust", all I can think is that this is a poor man's version of the superior FFX tune. Not to mention, both songs are played in icy snow filled areas tells me that even the soundtrack to this game was an afterthought and completely uninspired.
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I never really grouped those songs together. If anything I would compare Oerba/Dust to dust with Zanarkand/A fleeting dream. Both of those areas+music created some pretty powerful moments for me. People of the north was just ok for me. Another song I would compare it to is Seeking Power. Easily the best song on FFXII's soundtrack, and, ironically, it also plays in a snowfield.



Jaxel said:
Oh, and I actually don't have that big of an issue with Vanille. She's just a hick with a horrible accent. Plus, I use Hope because he's a far superior character... I just wish he had Death.
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I actually couldn't decide between Hope and Vanille, because I liked them both. Gameplaywise there is no comparison though. Hope is a slightly better ravager, and that's where it stops with him. These two are meant to be support characters, and Vanille destroys him at this. As a syn Hope has one thing that even gives him a chance against Vanille, Haste. Vanille has all the level 2 buffs which I think easily outweigh not having haste. Vanille is also the best sab in the game. Couple her Malboro Wand with her extensive ability list, and she can debilitate almost every enemy in the game. Plus death is just completely overpowered. Hope is not even on par with Vanille much less a superior character.
 
Jaxel said:
I probably wouldn't mind the difficulty if the game was a bit more fun. However this game is not an traditional japanese RPG at all; this game is what you call a "Rouge-Like". There are no towns, and no semblance of life or society except in cut scenes. This is dungeon after dungeon after dungeon. Except for the Central Expanse in Gran Pulse, every single zone in the game is a dungeon. Rouge-likes are not a popular genre because in general, dungeons are very boring and repetitive. The fatiguing nature of a dungeon is usually offset with downtime in wide open areas, and towns; something this game doesn't have. So in general the game just feels exhausting.
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Rougelikes are not defined by a lack of towns. Many have towns full of NPCs, shops, and quest. They are actually about surviving randomized situations in turn based combat. And they are not unpopular because people hate dungeons; That can be blamed on the steep learning curves and perma-death.
 
FFXII had a much more worse combat system(IMO) and the characters and story were both totally uninteresting. So far I prefer XIII by a lot but I'm only partway through disc two(I just got free party swapping.) I just generally dislike FFXII though.
 
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