Author Topic: FFXIII: Cloud With Tits Comes Back When No-one Asked Her Too.  (Read 27629 times)

LeonhartGR

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I'm waiting for my copy to arrive and interested in doing a Let's Play. Anyone aware of what's on with YT copyright strikes from SE part about this game? As I know they allow FFXIV: ARR but have no clue about XIII-3

SilverSpades

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Most of this thread reads like this:
"I hate change. Unless it's changed exactly the way I wanted it to. Then it's tolerable. But still bad."
Quoting all this as my sig on Gamefaqs. They'll love it there.

LeonhartGR

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It's gamefaps :P :P

Luceid

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The battle system of the FF series isn't the problem. SE had enveloped with every new FF a better battle system (the one of FFXIII is amazing if you compare it in its tactical depth and speed). The problem lies in the way they are telling a story.
For example, in Mass Effect is it optional to read the library for understanding the story (it was simply a nice addition), in FF XIII it was a must to read it. It took hours until I was able to distinguish L'Cie from Fal'Cie.

Speaking of battle systems...
Why the fuck there is an option in XIII - meant to slow down the speed of the battles - which actually makes it impossible to get the best battle ranks? Is there no quality control within SE's studios?
Why program something like that, when all it does is punishing the player?
Stuff like that happens way to often since FFX... starting with the infamous FFX-2 for the sake of mammon...

PS: Currently playing ME again (atm: ME2) --> horrible story and plot-holes everywhere... :'(
But the reason I'm mentioning this game is: ME wasn't the first game ever with some "Ingame Encyclopedia" (and no, it wasn't Dragon Age: Origins either).
SE already used this much needed CORE-ELEMENT of every Fantasy or Sci-Fi game in f.e. Star Ocean: TtoT are Final Fantasy VIII.
There should be law, that now game is allowed to exist without something like this. I've seen way too much awkward dialogues in games, where one person asked another person stuff like "Oh, I live in this town for around ten years... but who is our king?
« Last Edit: 2014-02-12 01:32:33 by Luceid »

Rundas

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Mass Effect is amazing :(

Cloud1000

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After playing the demo I can safely say that I won't be buying this piece of shit. I was hoping they wouldn't let me down, I might even add I'm a bit of a "fanboy" when it comes to XIII. But even with that they didn't managed to get my money this time.

Things that were deal breaker for me:
New ATB system is crap, just couldn't get used to it.
You can only walk in a slow circular pattern!!! This was the biggest one, if they gonna do something halfway they could've spent more time working on battle system instead of adding something as useless as this.  I did not wanna walk around but run around freely like in the awesome JRPG, Ni No Kuni. That game may have been developed a bit childish theme, story was nice though. Gameplay was amazing..  And you could move absolutely freely in battle + even jump!

Such a shame and a waste.. Now I'll just wait for the "Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII Movie version" on youtube. So I can finish this story..


LeonhartGR

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Ni No Kuni is an excellent game. And yes I agree with running instead of walking... WTF were they thinking?

LeonhartGR

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dansg08 invests a great time into creating very good game movies! Look him up on YT for his FFXIII-3 game movie:

http://www.youtube.com/user/dansg08/videos

LeonhartGR

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Gonna Stream Tonight on twitch... Join in the insanity of Lightening Returns :D Watch my funny teasers here http://www.twitch.tv/leonhartgr/profile/pastBroadcasts Find me on skype (LeonhartGR) for the exact time :P

edit: Ok... streaming in one hour from now for anyone interested.
« Last Edit: 2014-02-12 19:09:03 by LeonhartGR »

Covarr

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Why the fuck there is an option in XIII - meant to slow down the speed of the battles - which actually makes it impossible to get the best battle ranks? Is there no quality control within SE's studios?
Why program something like that, when all it does is punishing the player?
There's actually a good reason for this. Some players suck at the game and aren't gonna be getting the best ranks anyway, and this way they can at least take their time to think so they'll be able to finish the battle at all. It's a trade-off, and for players aiming for 5 stars in all battles it's not worth it, but for players that just want to get to the end it is.

Thisguyaresick2

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There's actually a good reason for this. Some players suck at the game and aren't gonna be getting the best ranks anyway, and this way they can at least take their time to think so they'll be able to finish the battle at all. It's a trade-off, and for players aiming for 5 stars in all battles it's not worth it, but for players that just want to get to the end it is.
That's a pretty ridiculous change in my opinion. That would be like punishing players for choosing the "Wait" ATB option instead of "Active" in other FFs (especially if they're beginners).

And I just watched the ending of Lightning Returns in English. My God, that ending is awful! If XIII-2 was a slap in the face of the FF fans, LR was a roundhouse kick. Now I know why Gamespot gave it a 5 ("mediocre"), it deserves such rating. Seriously, that was the worst ending I've ever seen in the FF series. XIII should've ended in the first game.

Jenova's Witness

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« Reply #36 on: 2014-02-16 07:29:58 »
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« Last Edit: 2015-11-16 07:54:38 by Jenova's Witness »

Covarr

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That's a pretty ridiculous change in my opinion. That would be like punishing players for choosing the "Wait" ATB option instead of "Active" in other FFs (especially if they're beginners).
Since it doesn't affect actually completing the game, I don't think it's all that bad. It's saying "to get the best ratings, you have to not play in noob mode". That's reasonable. Lots of games do similar things.

Luceid

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Since it doesn't affect actually completing the game, I don't think it's all that bad. It's saying "to get the best ratings, you have to not play in noob mode". That's reasonable. Lots of games do similar things.

No one stopped them from adjusting the time needed for the slower pace.
We didn't talk about that...
We were talking about convenience.

And actually I don't like the direction games (esp. RPGs) are taking.
It seems like ages have past, since turns were used on a grand scale.
And these can still be outside of "n00b-mode" (play CiV on deity, trust me...)
I miss battle systems like Grandia had or Arc the Lad: TotS.
Today everyone is trying to make "pure" Shooters (ME, Fallout, etc.) or is copying The Elder Scrolls/Kingdom Hearts.

Chrysalis

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FF7 gave you a choice of what to do and had real effort placed into it.  FF13 was a dumbed down game for the masses.  FF7 may have had poor implementation of its battle system, but that battle system was infinitely more jrpg, and engaging than anything that came from 12 onwards.  With proper implementation, 7 could be far better than it was, with the same battle system.  7 also had a decent story and good pacing... not just a literal gauntlet play through.

dont worry I love ff7, but I hate ff13-3 and wanted to make the point ff13-3 is very different to ff13.



I'm waiting for my copy to arrive and interested in doing a Let's Play. Anyone aware of what's on with YT copyright strikes from SE part about this game? As I know they allow FFXIV: ARR but have no clue about XIII-3

I think its the publishers and media teaming up.

The media get exclusivity to videos, so ign etc. no copyright strikes, but individuals not allowed.
In return publishers get favourable reviews, lots of fake hype etc.



There's actually a good reason for this. Some players suck at the game and aren't gonna be getting the best ranks anyway, and this way they can at least take their time to think so they'll be able to finish the battle at all. It's a trade-off, and for players aiming for 5 stars in all battles it's not worth it, but for players that just want to get to the end it is.

funyn enough the slow mode allows me to get 5 stars when farming dark matter's from shalong gui's.  The reason is the target time is ridiculously high so slow wont take you over and that fight is all about timing, on normal speed I cant get everything done before the enemy starts all his heavy attacks, whilst on slow I was able to consistently farm them.  It may help on other high target time battle's as well such as long gui's and the tort's.  Plus it helps on eidolon battles.  However for normal main game battles yes 5 stars will be much harder to get on slow speed and its a more of a training mode, to help people to adapt.

Square have slowly been migrating to reaction time's battle systems for a while, look at all the quick time events in FFX.
« Last Edit: 2014-02-17 05:15:20 by Covarr »

gjoerulv

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I'm pretty convinced the whole FFXIII thing was a huge experiment.

"How good can a game get if we make it while doing drugs?"

With each instalment they tried a new drug. On 13 they were just getting high. 13-2, some speed drug while raving off. On 13-3 it must've been lsd or some acid.

LeonhartGR

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lol That's so true... especially after watching the back stage interview...

Tekkie.X

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I'd say they were on Crystal Meth the whole time, it would explain a lot.

SilverSpades

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It's safe to say Square experimented with every game. And no, I don't mean drugs. And by the way, XIII is big in Japan, they are the fanbase who asked Lightning to return.

Please read.

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/its-time-to-admit-final-fantasy-xiii-wasnt-actually-that-bad

gjoerulv

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It's safe to say Square experimented with every game. And no, I don't mean drugs. And by the way, XIII is big in Japan, they are the fanbase who asked Lightning to return.

Please read.

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/its-time-to-admit-final-fantasy-xiii-wasnt-actually-that-bad

I agree with this:

Quote
In fact, there's a lot worth praising about Final Fantasy XIII and its sequels, the main point being the same thing that the series as a whole can consistently be praised for throughout its long history: innovation and willingness to experiment -- and, importantly, the acceptance that experimentation sometimes brings failure as well as success. It's the latter part in particular that is worthy of note, especially in today's era of big-budget devleopers being somewhat risk-averse. Final Fantasy is many things, but "risk-averse" is not an accusation I'd ever level at the series, particularly in recent years.

The 13 series succeeded in some places, but failed where it actually mattered imo. Personally I found the battles fun. Somewhat flawed, maybe, but still fun. However, the story, plot and characters were such a mess that the battles themselves became meaningless. Pretty much the same as in 10-2.

I may understand why 13 is bigger in Japan though. Generally speaking, in the east, philosophical impact and symbolism in a story are favoured over internal coherency. Just look at mainstream anime targeted to a Japanese audience. The ridiculous plots are everywhere. But they are treated more as symbols to showcase some sort of philosophy.

vivinox

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no idea what are you all talking about honestly, were you seeing those retarded reviews by gamespot or ign, or are you all that much buthurt cause it's not oldschools anymore, i find ffxiii trilogy amazing, from ffxiii to xiii-2 to lightning returns, all are amazing with different battle systems, especially lightning returns battle system the world the music the battles. too bad you don't like it, if only they can make ffxiii-4 lol.

Rundas

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There are many problems with the game design, and even though you may like the XIII canon, it is generally viewed very unfavorably.

Covarr

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uh, what? IGN liked all three games, and Gamespot liked the first two. If we didn't like the games, we certainly didn't get it from the popular gaming websites.

I already explained what's wrong with the battle system in FFXIII. You can literally spam one strategy throughout the whole game, and character progression is basically on a straight line with no real choice at all except for tiny branches that you complete right away. That isn't depth. The story is full of contrivances and contradictions (and not adequately explained; you have to read all the datalogs because they forgot about a writing tool called "exposition"), and the non-battle gameplay isn't fun at all, forcing you through a series of barely-branching uninteresting corridors for approximately 90% of the game.

The second game improves on that last point, but the battle system is still essentially broken, and the story is even more contrived and self-contradictory.

The combat in the third game is completely different from the first two, and has a lot of potential, but it's destroyed by a broken targeting system. There's nothing like losing because the game decided to block the wrong guy. The story is absolutely full of things that don't make sense at all, which the writers basically wave off as "because we said so"... not that it matters, because paying attention to the story pretty much dooms you to fail against the poorly-implemented time system. Ugh, that time system is such a broken mess that the game is virtually impossible to complete without either a strategy guide or a LOT of luck.

What really irks me about the whole FFXIII series is that there's so much potential. Throughout all three games, there's a ton of good ideas, particularly where combat is concerned. Even the story has some cool ideas that are never allowed to be executed properly; Vanille would've been a great character if she'd been more fleshed out. It kind of makes me wonder if there were some lower-level employees trying their damndest to make good games, and higher-level employees fiddling with things they didn't understand.

Suffice to say we're not just "butthurt cause its not oldschools anymore". There are legitimate, measurable problems with these games. The fact that you personally found the trilogy amazing does not change this fact. We're not just hating on it for no reason, or because the games are popularly hated on. We can identify exactly what's wrong and offer ways that they could've fixed these problems. We couldn't do that if they were actually good games.
« Last Edit: 2014-02-27 16:41:20 by Covarr »

Rundas

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In other words, vivinox, is XIII any good?

gjoerulv

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I already explained what's wrong with the battle system in FFXIII. You can literally spam one strategy throughout the whole game, and character progression is basically on a straight line with no real choice at all except for tiny branches that you complete right away. That isn't depth.

Generally speaking, all FFs difficulty consists of holding down the X button. FF13 has taken that to an extreme. There is nothing wrong with that, at least from a casual gamers point of view. For those used to the more transparent difficulty other FFs offer, it's easy to see why it's a disappointment. The biggest problem, imo, is the lack of emotional investment in the battles. in other words, holding down X needs a reason. As you say, some exposition would help.

And there is nothing inherently wrong with complete linear character growth. Like many other FFs have. The problem is the crystatiounmda (or whatever it was called) "system". It tries to tell you that there are choices, when there really aren't any. It's vestigial, pointless busywork. Replace the crystasysklfd with plain leveling and it's fixed.