Final Fantasy XIII Discussion

[DarkFang]

Many of the hardcore Square and Final Fantasy fans hated this installment of the Final Fantasy series. I, however, absolutely loved this game. The game is definitely one of the best RPGs for the PS3/360. From the music, to the battle system, to the weapon and accessory upgrading, all of it was stupendous. Not to mention the game looks beautiful. The battle system can be somewhat complex at times. It's an easy battle system to learn, yet hard to master the techniques because the battle is always changing. The only bad thing about the game is the story and the characters. The story makes no fucking sense whatsoever and the characters are a bit annoying at times. Lightning is a female Cloud, Snow is a pedo, Sazh is a stereotypical black man, Hope is a pussy, Vanille is crazy, and Fang seems like a lesbian.

I loved this game so much that I Plat'd the game not only once, but twice (for those of you who don't know, when you Plat a game, it means you obtained all the trophies for that game and received the platinum trophy). The first time took me roughly 110 hours. The second, took me around 60 hours. I'm thinking of doing a perfect game playthrough which would consist of obtaining all the treasure, maxing out the Gil if it's possible, having at least three of the highest tier of accessories maxed out, and having at least one of each variation of ultimate weapon for each character, which would be 48.

Now before you start bashing on my for loving this game, let me tell you that I have played the previous Final Fantasy games, including the following: I, II, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, X, X-2, XII, Mystic Quest, Tactics, and Crisis Core. But none of those have the same feeling like XIII does.

So what are your thoughts on the game?

[gjoerulv]

Yup, the game is mighty fun to play. Great battle system and all. I agree on the story and characters. The story is hard to follow unless you read the datalog 10 times after each scene. All the characters have, more or less, some generic side to 'em (what can you expect from a FF). For some reason I like Sazh and Fang the most. Vanille, Snow and Hope are annoying. Lightning... Is ok I guess.

They presented the story in a very confusing way. As the game starts nothing makes sense. You don't understand why anyone does anything, and you're not soon to find out. The only thing I completely understood was that Hope wanted revenge on Snow.

I think squeenix obviously aimed for an in medieas res start similar to FF7. But in 13 everything is a confusing mess. They should try to get the player to know the environment in order to get people to care about the plot at all. I think they may have aimed for a curiosity factor to get the player going.

FF13 does not hide it's linearity very well. It doesn't even try.

All in all, however, it's a good game. Great graphics. good music. Fun to play. Haven't completed it yet though 

[DarkFang]

The game is extremely linear for the first 10 chapters. I personally don't really have a problem with a game being linear. It got pretty non-linear by Chapter 11 anyways.

I heard Square had to make it linear and condense a lot of stuff for the Xbox because it had 3 discs.

[Tekkie.X]

I heard Square had to make it linear and condense a lot of stuff for the Xbox because it had 3 discs.

Look at the PS1 FF games, 3 or 4 CDs, freedom to stroll off the beaten path.
The level design was laziness more than anything.

[DarkFang]

The level design of VII, VIII, and IX is extremely low compared to XIII. In the PS1 Final Fantasy games, they could stick the world map and all towns, dungeons, and other areas onto one disc with space left over. They basically stuck the whole game onto three different discs.

For example, in VII, you could backtrack to any town or area (except Midgar and some exclusive areas) on all three discs. Each disc has the same stuff on it, with some little special things here or there.

In XIII, you go from area to area without being able to go back. You can't fit the whole game onto one dual-layer DVD. So if they did allow you to go back to previous areas, you would have to keep switching discs, which would be a hassle for Xbox users. That's why Chapter 11 starts on disc 3. Chapter 11 is when it starts to get very non-linear, missions are introduced, and you can basically do whatever you want, whenever you want.

It sounded better in my head, but whatever. It's kinda hard to explain lol.

[Covarr]

I heard Square had to make it linear and condense a lot of stuff for the Xbox because it had 3 discs.

I recall reading that it was a combination of because towns were too time consuming and expensive to make compared to previous generations of consoles with much less detailed graphics, and because they were really emphasizing story to the point it took away from player choice and control. I'm more likely to believe the former than the latter of these reasons.

[DarkFang]

too time consuming

This explains Versus XIII...

[ultima espio]

I loved it

I found this picture from an early PS2 build of FFXIII on the wiki:



Nice to see that Snow, Nora and the hanging Edge go all the way back to 2006/late 2005.

[Tekkie.X]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU11IMbc-C4

[Armorvil]

I finished it at release, and it's been collecting dust ever since. A stapple in the FF series, I thought, was the fact that I would want to play through the games again from time to time... ...Well, not with FFXIII. Not only is the story uninteresting, but the game mechanics are also incredibly boring. Thanks to the stagger gauge and stuff, playing through the game again means playing in the exact same way again.

As for the weapons & accessories upgrading system, allow me to laugh. Zero depth. The only difference in consumable items is the amount of Exp/Exp bonuses they award. So basically, there are only two choices : do the right thing by feeding your weapon high Exp bonuses / high Exp items, or mess up by feeding it crappy items. Brilliant. The whole thing would have been exactly the same and less confusing, if you just had to pay thousands of gils to make your weapons / accessories evolve. Total facepalm moment when I figured the thing out.

Also, the things that made FF titles have some depth, like stealing, morphing enemies, bribing (etc.), they removed. FFXIII was a bad joke. When I played my first FF in 1994 (FFVI), I never imagined Streets of Rage would be what the series would evolve into. And I'd still choose Streets of Rage over FFXIII any day, mind you.

[Raestloz]

I heard you can set the battle mode to "auto" and the game basically plays itself, is that true?

My friend said the allied AIs are very useful, they always use "super effective" attacks against enemies with vulnerabilities. If only allied AIs in FPS games can do the same...

[Armorvil]

I heard you can set the battle mode to "auto" and the game basically plays itself, is that true?

My friend said the allied AIs are very useful, they always use "super effective" attacks against enemies with vulnerabilities. If only allied AIs in FPS games can do the same...

I wouln't say Auto Battle makes the game play itself, as you still need to change Paradigms (=strategies) depending on the situation. And about the AI, I can't tell if your friend's comment is sarcastic, since there are times when the AI acts in incredibly stupid ways.

For example, the game is over when your leader is KO (even when your ally is a Medic and can use the Raise spell - which is also facepalm-worthy), but Medics won't make healing the leader a priority. They'll prioritize an ally with HP in the red over a leader in the yellow, so with such a fast battle system, it sometimes results in a game over. Also, your characters' positions on the battlefield are important because enemies use area-of-effect spells, but you can't control their movements and the AI has a tendency to regroup.

Finally, when controlling a Ravager (=Black Mage), the AI likes to alternate magical elemental and physical elemental attacks, even when the character only has a high Magic stat. Add to this the fact that your characters have up to 5 or 6 ATB gauges and the AI never uses all of them, and the fact that Synergists and Saboteurs rarely use buffs and debuffs in a clever way (Synergists casting Protect when fighting a monster that only uses magic, and sabs using debuffs you don't care about), and you have a flawed system. Clearly a step-down from FFXII's gambit system that allowed you to program your party members. Even older RPGs that use AI allow you to disable the skills you don't want the AI to use, so there's no excusing S-E.

[gjoerulv]

@Armorvil
I haven't delved too deep into the system, but my syns and sabs petty much makes the game too easy. I only use ravs for fast chain bulids, else I really don't care. The most useless are the sentinels on auto, cause they'll constantly try to provoke if only one enemy isn't provoked.

I'm at chapter 12 now, dunno if it gets worse later, but imo so far it hasn't been bad.

And, yes, the upgrade system. Way too tedious. I've managed to find the ideal way to combine components to get max experience pr. gil. So much better would simply be to pay for upgrades. And since all enemies kinda drop "weapon/acc experience" (by components), why not add that this experience automatically instead?
Well, there are pro and cons about this, but, still, I feel it's a too time consuming, tedious and boring system.

[Raestloz]

I wouln't say Auto Battle makes the game play itself, as you still need to change Paradigms (=strategies) depending on the situation. And about the AI, I can't tell if your friend's comment is sarcastic, since there are times when the AI acts in incredibly stupid ways.

Really? Well, he said the AI always use good combos he never thought of (now, this probably comes down to him being less skillful then he's supposed to be) and will always exploit elemental vulnerabilities

[Armorvil]

As much as I bash the game, in all objectivity, it really isn't a bad game. Just not what I expect from a FF after playing them all (lack of epicness, etc). A huge disappointment for the FF fanboy I am, but if you like it Joe, more power to you. And it's true Saber's Edge is the best boss battle theme I ever heard.

[gjoerulv]

I can't say I like it THAT much. Can't deny it's a good game either. I do think it's fun to play. However, It lacks the "completeness" felling.

The number of changes for each FF release grows in an exponential rate, thus it's understandable FF fans eventually grow vary of it. I must admit I'm also, more or less, disappointed with each FF after 7 (I guess my age plays a part too). I new I would be disappointed by 13 when I first saw the hype. And perhaps because of knew that I'm able to enjoy it more, I dunno. I certainly was surprised how fun it was. 

[DarkFang]

I liked the Barthandelus battle music. It was pretty epic.

I agree with the shitty AI. I was in a battle and I staggered the enemy and was expecting Hope to cast Bravery and Faith. But no he casts Haste, Protect, Shell, and Veil. By the time he got to Bravery and Faith, the enemy's stagger bar ran out.

[Armorvil]

Ah yes, the final Barthandelus battle ! "Born Anew" is indeed a great song. I also love "The Vestige" (an eeriness that reminds me of FFVII's Temple of the Ancients/City of the Ancients tracks, and very soothing too), "The Warpath Home" (this might be heresy to some, but in my FFVII PC, I replaced "Shinra Army Wages A Full-Scale Attack" with it), "Daddy's got the blues" (funny thing with this one is, you hear it only once in the game, and for what ? One minute ? Since the song gets really good after 2:00 / 2:30 in, most players won't realize it's good).

Other noteworthy tracks are "The Vile Peaks", "The Gapra Whitewood", "The Sunleth Waterscape" (some might disagree with me here... ...It's true it's not very FF-ish, but I thought it fit the mood of the area well. In a RPG without towns, this is a much needed bright & peaceful song. And man, this place has the most beautiful graphics I've ever seen), The chocobo theme (that singing O_O), "Will to Fight" (I love this one, it never gets old. I replaced "Hurry-faster!" with it), "The Archylte Steppe" (very reminiscent of the previous titles' worldmap themes), and my favorite boss battle theme : Saber's Edge.

As for Snow's Theme, it's not bad, but I question the choice of making the player listen to this in one of FFXIII's endless dungeons... ...Listen to the track for more than an hour, and you'll find it insanely annoying.

Overall, I think I'm angry that this game features stellar graphics, sounds and animations, but fails in what's most important : gripping gameplay and storyline.

[DarkFang]

The Sunleth Waterscape is my absolute favorite track in the whole game. I don't even know why, but I love it. Snow's Theme is pretty badass in my opinion.

[Armorvil]

Oh yeah, and I forgot to say that I dislike S-E's logic of : "players want their RPGs to last 100 hours ?... ...OK, let's increase the length of the dungeons then !"

What they fail to realize is : fighting the same random battles in the same backgrounds while looking at the same textures / hearing the same sounds for 2 or 3 hours is not fun. I can't count the number of times when I had to turn the PS3 off, because the game was getting tiring / tedious and I needed a break (FFXII also has this problem btw, but to enjoy FFXII, you have to take it as some kind of a Diablo game - something you can't do with FFXIII). There was a reason for FFIV-FFX to only last 20+ hours (or 30+ hours if you took your time). In FFVI or FFVII, dungeons usually last for 30 minutes / an hour max (when it's not 15 minutes - I'm looking at you, Cave in the Veldt / Mythril Mines). We get it, you guys spent so long on these graphics you need to get the most out of them.

Proof that the race for higher quality graphics inevitably leads to less varied/more restricted worlds in RPGs.

[Jaki]

.

[Armorvil]

I forgot to follow the E3 this year, so I just came across the new FFXIII-2 trailer (SPOILERS, so finish FFXIII before you watch this) :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPPuHHfUwOc

Since I like J-RPGs and my PS3 needs to be fed, chances are I'll get the game. I see potential, even though I'm kinda worried that they kept the stagger gauge and the AI-controlled party members around.

[Raestloz]

At least they don't make you a Sailor Moon in Spira again

Really, Square? stripperific girls and guns? what the hell?

[yarLson]

I just don't get how anyone could like this game. I originally got into FF because of the challenge involved in completing a game, on top of thorough (for the most part) story telling. Aspects of which XIII contains 0% of. And I did get all the trophies and everything (except treasure hunter, I refuse to kill a ton of adamantoise and hope to god that they drop a platinum ingot just so I can upgrade weapons I never use). Just my opinion but come on, this game would have done just as well if not better as a movie. Now honestly I would have liked the game a whole hell of a lot more if I was able to control all 3 of my characters or at least change characters during battle. After if the monsters were so lazily done. But even then, the story sucks, characters don't even make any sense, and the worst part in my opinions, is that cacoon could have had some of the coolest and most interesting environments of any final fantasy, or any game for that matter to date but it didn't, not even close. I like the art work, but as far as the game design just look at each map, every single one is literally a hall way with very few exceptions.

[DarkFang]

The game was hard in its own way. It wasn't the style of hard that Final Fantasy IV had, but it had a complex and strategic difficulty to it.