Final Fantasy 13

[smackababy]

i guess, TBH i never thought of it that way, hell when it came out i had no idea WTF chibi even was

Guess it just depended on how old you were. I thought it was styled more towards children. But then again, I thought the same thing about Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, and that game was amazing.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Why do they have to make all the characters over the top annoying? One guy has the mentality of a bulldog chasing a steak, the one chick is super happy, the other boy is a pussy, and so on.

Because this is all Square Enix has ever done.

Ditto linear + press X to win gameplay.

 

[magomago]

Meh you can rationalize many games into 'linear + press a button to win'. you play RPGs for an interactive story, and to fight different enemies with a variety of options to choose from (items, cast magic, summons, etc etc). If you are going to complain about the style, then you clearly shouldn't be playing console style RPGs.

Never played FF13 but it does sound like a huge dissapointment. I'd love to get to a game that isn't focused on teenie boppers trying to save the world in an over the top way. Then again, I'm not 15 anymore - and when I was 15 it was definitely entertaining.

I'd love to see something deal with slightly older characters (even very old characters wouldn't bother me anymore....The whole '10 years old and i'll save the world' just doesn't appeal anymore) that cope with very mature issues that are actually reflections of real life dilemmas wrapped in a story that doesn't necessarily involve in saving the universe from total destruction.
This type of story doesn't mean the story is as lame as making a run to 7-11 in order to get chips before the 6PM soccer match, but you can have a focused story that revolves on character development and a few personal issues without having to always have it lead to saving the world (think of Parasite Eve, Vagrant Story, both of which are Square games that did very very well) from some impending doom that is bound to tear apart the fabric of society.

 

[Ross Ridge]

Meh you can rationalize many games into 'linear + press a button to win'. you play RPGs for an interactive story, and to fight different enemies with a variety of options to choose from (items, cast magic, summons, etc etc). If you are going to complain about the style, then you clearly shouldn't be playing console style RPGs.

I play RPGs, both Japanese console style and Western PC style for a wide variety of reasons. But in the Final Fantasy games I don't really get an *interactive* story, I get dragged by the nose through the most of story. As far as the story is concerned I might as well be watching a movie. Indeed, with all the long FMVs sequences, that's in fact exactly how much of the story is conveyed. Sure I have options during combat, but when I win faster and quicker by just pushing X, who cares? I use each summon once to see the pretty effect and never use it again.

I wouldn't have played every Final Fantasy game from VII to XII (excluding XI), if I didn't think I was getting something out of them. I often get an interesting, if not very interactive, story. Often I get characters I hate, but some times I like them. I get go and explore wonderous places. I get to mindlessly bash tons of monsters. I don't always want to have to think when playing a game. The music is consistantly good. The graphics are pretty, the production values solid.

I think the biggest failing, tragedy really, with the mainline Final Fantasy games I've played is that pretty much every game they come with some new and interesting leveling system. While Final Fantasy VIII's system was a failure, and Final Fantasy IX's was a rehash, the Materia system in Final Fantasy VII was cool and original. So were the systems in Final Fantasy X and XII. But in the end it didn't matter. Choose badly and you'll still breeze through most of the combat. There's really no point in debating what the best way to develop a character is, anything works.

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

I'll rank them like this
1. FF9
2. FF6
3. FF7
4. FF4
5. FF10
6. FF3

the rest aren't worthy of being ranked.

 

[exar333]

I'll rank them like this
1. FF9
2. FF6
3. FF7
4. FF4
5. FF10
6. FF3

the rest aren't worthy of being ranked.

I might not place those in the same exact order, but you nailed it with this selection. Keep in mind none of these have been released in almost the past 10 years...:/

In regards to FF XIII, it was a good game (not great). I liked the leveling system and combat. It was mostly stolen from the XS series, but as I loved those games it's OK by me. The story really was "meh" and it was VERY slow to get going. Once you were about 25 hours in, and had the option to explore, it got a lot better. If the 25-hour "intro" could have been cut to 5-10 hours, and some better plot added to the middle of the game, it would have been a lot better. I missed tough optional bosses too...Did like the crafting/item leveling system though, very well thought out.

My biggest gripe about recent FF games is the poor character development. Recent Square hero characters are so cliched and villians are really lame. You really need strong protagonists and convinving villians to make the story shine. Think back to FF4, FF6, and FF7, they had these in spades.

 

[magomago]

I play RPGs, both Japanese console style and Western PC style for a wide variety of reasons. But in the Final Fantasy games I don't really get an *interactive* story, I get dragged by the nose through the most of story. As far as the story is concerned I might as well be watching a movie. Indeed, with all the long FMVs sequences, that's in fact exactly how much of the story is conveyed. Sure I have options during combat, but when I win faster and quicker by just pushing X, who cares? I use each summon once to see the pretty effect and never use it again.

I wouldn't have played every Final Fantasy game from VII to XII (excluding XI), if I didn't think I was getting something out of them. I often get an interesting, if not very interactive, story. Often I get characters I hate, but some times I like them. I get go and explore wonderous places. I get to mindlessly bash tons of monsters. I don't always want to have to think when playing a game. The music is consistantly good. The graphics are pretty, the production values solid.

I think the biggest failing, tragedy really, with the mainline Final Fantasy games I've played is that pretty much every game they come with some new and interesting leveling system. While Final Fantasy VIII's system was a failure, and Final Fantasy IX's was a rehash, the Materia system in Final Fantasy VII was cool and original. So were the systems in Final Fantasy X and XII. But in the end it didn't matter. Choose badly and you'll still breeze through most of the combat. There's really no point in debating what the best way to develop a character is, anything works.

Shouldn't this gripe exist with most RPGs that come out of Japan then? I don't see Dragon Quest being radically different. Grandia, Namco 'Tales of' series, Legend of Dragoon, Wild Arms, Eternal sonata, Phantasy Star, Skies of Arcada, Breath of Fire, Legend of Legia, .hack// series, Xenogears (geez talk about a dungeon crawler....go through 3 hours of dungeons to get a 15 minute story sequence. I loved it, you probably hated it then), etc. etc.
All of the games listed above should have royally annoyed you, and that is just a partial list when I played a lot of RPGs. I could have easily simply attacked most of the time and ended the battle that way, except for certain boss battles.
Of course it sounds like you have a different style of play - I was always using magic, or summons paired with my attacks, often letting my chars get low in life to bust out their special attacks, etc. etc. The game will be what you make of it. And being console RPGs that intend to sell to the mass market, they can't make the game TOO hard (ie: side quests that are hard), but this is an issue with many games --> see Mass Effect and what happened between ME1 and ME2 (loved both btw). There aren't very many games where you build your character poorly and you simply suck - hell, you can still do well in something like WOW even if you build is crap. If build order was that important, it could be construed as a negative because there would only be a finite number of ways to truly level a character....and anyone looking to complete the game would have to follow those rather than be creative and do what they want. Of course, you can min/max your characters and junction/equip the right magic when you level and you can become very powerful and have a blast breaking through damage caps, etc. But again, you can take whatever route and still have fun knowing that you don't need to take a specific build order in order to actually finish the game.

I agree with your second paragraph very much, although I find that if you are, in general, willing to pay attention to the details and nuances of the game, you can find a lot of interesting connections and side quests that may not be obvious. I loved playing Chrono Cross (another to add to the list) and realizing that I could bring characters from different worlds to meet each other to gain unique abilities, or playing with the FF9 mail system to unlock interesting things, or pick up something about a character's history that is hinted at and getting a treat to a side quest that isn't readily obvious forms the basis of "You don't HAVE to think...but if you want to, enjoy these treats!"...all that still exists in the FF system (hell, even FF8, which you don't like, revolves around this for the entire card game system. Of course they'll eventually make it obvious, but if you pick up on the relationships fast, you can snag really nice cards really quickly).

I think the reason every FF has a different leveling system is because its part of keeping the game fresh - if its truly the same system, people will complain that they just kept the same engine and mechanics and threw on a different skin. And I enjoy the different styles (I actually liked FF8's. It was complex because I think most simply did not understand it, and focused on 'I hate drawing' as the reason to avoid saying, "it didn't make sense". It made sense, but you actually had to pay attention to how it worked, and why you couldn't junction a status magic to an attack slot, and vice versa) only because it shows they are thinking.
To me FF9 was actually the most bland system. FF7's materia was fun (although, it really simply derives from FF3's system, and that in turn was similar to the other FF). FF8 actually staked a different direction. FF9 ran back to the original style. FF10 was fun with the sphere grid and definitely awesome and i think did a really good job of being an engaging system that was still simple because of the excellent visual display, and FF12 also tried to stake out a different direction that i think worked by and large (although i don't like the battle system as much because i prefer to control each character's actions rather than have them on an auto battle style).

So again I don't see it as a failing - I just see it as that is how the games always were. MAbe FF7 was the first, so it felt fresh to you...but if you went back and played any of the older ones, you'll realize that FF7 really wans't all that fresh or new once you played the previous six...and games like FF8 :thumbsup:, FF10 that really staked out a new direction and new style.

IMO square's biggest failing is to realize that the generation that got hooked on their games want more mature content. They can still produce "kiddie save the fantasy world" RPGs, but they shouldn't lose the demographic that now makes their own money and doesn't have to beg their parents for money. Give us more mature and developed content - character realtionships that aren't boring or stale, or nuanced for a 14 year old (sometimes i see the 'love scenes' when i go back and play the older RPGs and think "Geez so lame, so stale and one dimensional" when i see relationship development. That s part of why i liked FF8, it wasn't that straight foreward as the relationship developed)

Of course, to give us a mature game, follow a new mode of battle, and give a great mechanics system would be absolutely awesome. FF15 maybe?

 

[magomago]

I might not place those in the same exact order, but you nailed it with this selection. Keep in mind none of these have been released in almost the past 10 years...:/

In regards to FF XIII, it was a good game (not great). I liked the leveling system and combat. It was mostly stolen from the XS series, but as I loved those games it's OK by me. The story really was "meh" and it was VERY slow to get going. Once you were about 25 hours in, and had the option to explore, it got a lot better. If the 25-hour "intro" could have been cut to 5-10 hours, and some better plot added to the middle of the game, it would have been a lot better. I missed tough optional bosses too...Did like the crafting/item leveling system though, very well thought out.

My biggest gripe about recent FF games is the poor character development. Recent Square hero characters are so cliched and villians are really lame. You really need strong protagonists and convinving villians to make the story shine. Think back to FF4, FF6, and FF7, they had these in spades.

You don't need super crazy enemies capable of breaking all GT5 records using their demonic magic . That is truly overplayed to always have the true evil villian ready to smash the world. You can always blame it on them!

 

[PieIsAwesome]

No, its still shit after 20 hours.

Shitty characters.
Shitty story.
Shitty bosses.
Shitty enemies.
Shitty levels.
Shitty gameplay.
Shitty overworld.

There was one point in the game that was almost good. Instead of going down a a linear tunnel, you had to reach a certain area in a tower, and in order to do that you had to find and open the right paths, use an elevator, and stuff. Still too simple, and this area was over quickly, and was towards the end of the game.

 

[IGemini]

I did enjoy FF13. I wasn't disappointed about it, I traded L4D for my friend's copy. I thought the music was pretty good overall for it not being Uematsu's work (aside from some of the newer lyric songs based on common themes).

True that there was a lot of X/A mashing but I did change it up for some more difficult bosses. The main problem with the battle system is they made it too fast (on normal speed anyway), saying this one is turn-based is just false. Unless you knew exactly what you wanted to do, there was no point wasting time figuring out something else since autobattle did a lot of the work if you knew the enemy weaknesses.

There was one thing I really liked about the leveling: character balance. In this one you didn't have to juggle more characters than you could have in a party at once just to keep them on the same level. Once you got the crystogen points, EVERYONE had the same amount to work with.

I thought the story was one of the better ones in the series. A lot of the arguments against FF13 really weeded out the "I want to do something NOW!" crowd in gaming. People crow about the linear gameplay, but having played every major SP Final Fantasy since the 1st to some degree (except X-2), they mostly gave the illusion of open gameplay. Free roam does not mean open gameplay. Even FF7 wasn't that much more "open" than 13 and until you got the Highwind the game was just as linear. If you want "interactive", don't go with Final Fantasy. It's been Square (Enix's) formula to focus on story since the beginning, just that in 13 they did away with the pretense in favor of a more contiguous one. Every Final Fantasy will be different because it's also their practice to completely rebuild the design team with each one.

 

[zinfamous]

I was just reading IGN and noticed that FF13 was one of their biggest disappointments of the year.

One thing that jumped out was this:


I bought this game the night it came out, played it for 8 hours straight, and haven't played it since because I literally felt like I was walking in a straight line and pressing X the whole time.

Does the game get better after roughly 20 hours? How long is the game in total? I've been considering playing again, but I wanna know if it gets any better. As of right now, it's simply one of the worst games I've ever played...

that's what I felt about the 2nd disc of Xenogears...except you didn't even get to walk.

you sat there, hour upon hour, watching little sprites run around some black screen, wall of text, boring ass ridiculous blahblahblha

what a horrible game.

 

[tk149]

I just bought FF 13 and am about 2 hours into it. I was just wondering if the gameplay was going to get any better than walking in a line and hitting the X button. Then I logged into ATCG to see what people say, and I found this thread.

FF 7 is one of my top 3 games of all time too.

I'm really enjoying the artwork in 13, but the gameplay is pretty boring so far. The little boy is a seriously annoying pvssy too. And what kind of schmuck goes around screaming "Your hero is here!"

 

[Spydermag68]

@magomago

I really think you you hit the nail on the head. As being one of the older RPG gamers on this board I have learned to appreciate the differences and quarks in each RPG.

This that being said my first FF was FFVII. I bought my PS1 just for it and loved it and then then went on to 8 and 9. I then went back to play 1 ,2 and then 5 and 6. To me these earlier games were a little bland. This is after growing up on Ultima, Bard's tail, and Wizardy.

For me 7, 10, 8, 6, 9, 13, 12, 10-2, the rest.

 

[Tek_Ed]

@magomago

I really think you you hit the nail on the head. As being one of the older RPG gamers on this board I have learned to appreciate the differences and quarks in each RPG.

This that being said my first FF was FFVII. I bought my PS1 just for it and loved it and then then went on to 8 and 9. I then went back to play 1 ,2 and then 5 and 6. To me these earlier games were a little bland. This is after growing up on Ultima, Bard's tail, and Wizardy.

For me 7, 10, 8, 6, 9, 13, 12, 10-2, the rest.

10-2 on your list!? You taking the piss? That game was TOTAL WANK. Should never be mentioned ever again.

FF VIII was my favourite and also the 1st I played. I loved 7, 8, 9, 10 and 12. Never played 11. 13 IMO was poor. Piss poor compared to 12, which I thought was fantastic. 10-2 and 13 are the only two I haven't completed. Disappointment is the word I would use for 13.

 

[zinfamous]

I've been playing them since FF1 was released, and FF2 remains my all time favorite. Then comes 7 and 9. I liked a lot of things about FF3, and played it a shit ton, but I still don't see why everybody cums all over it as god's gift to japanese rpgs.

the last PS2 one, was that 12? utter shite. 8 was pretty bad, too. it was fun, but I could barely bring myself to finish it. the story becmae a jumbly, hole-ridden mess. It's like the staff got desperate at the end, dropped what they had in the shitter, and just said throw a bunch of flashy shit at them, they'll never know!

10 was fun, Auron was a great character, but the never-ending emo pussy shit with these current FF characters hit 5th gear with that one and I simply didn't want any more of it.

 

[Dumac]

10-2 on your list!? You taking the piss? That game was TOTAL WANK. Should never be mentioned ever again.

The combat system and leveling of X-2 was amongst the best of the FF series.

The rest of the game wasn't that great, however...

Why dont' they bring back and actual world map? I think that would be fun.

 

[zinfamous]

Why dont' they bring back and actual world map? I think that would be fun.

yep. the series really hit the shitter at FFX b/c of this. totally stopped being FF at that point.

 

[Dacalo]

I wish Square would go back to the basics like FFIV and FFVI, and even FFVII (although I didn't like technology and stuff as much but loved the story and characters) instead of trying to be all dramatic and big budget like.

 

[KeypoX]

thought it got a 8.9 on ign? A great rating.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

thought it got a 8.9 on ign? A great rating.

ign is the worst place in the world for accurate game ratings.

 

[zokudu]

Just got my copy. Once I get my new TV setup I'll let you know my thoughts

 

[zinfamous]

I wish Square would go back to the basics like FFIV and FFVI, and even FFVII (although I didn't like technology and stuff as much but loved the story and characters) instead of trying to be all dramatic and big budget like.

what i liked so much about 9 was that it had the old school FF feel. black wizard, classic folk/medieval settings. it was a gem that far too many people shit on.

of course, these are the same people that think 8 and 10 were tits. :hmm:

 

[zokudu]

what i liked so much about 9 was that it had the old school FF feel. black wizard, classic folk/medieval settings. it was a gem that far too many people shit on.

of course, these are the same people that think 8 and 10 were tits. :hmm:

9 Rocked and 7 was overrated. 8 was meh to the extreme. 10 wasn't terrible the sphere grid was a neat idea I thought but easy to exploit. I really need to go back and play some of the older ones. I haven't touched them since I was really young so I don't remember the stories very well.

 

[zinfamous]

9 Rocked and 7 was overrated. 8 was meh to the extreme. 10 wasn't terrible the sphere grid was a neat idea I thought but easy to exploit. I really need to go back and play some of the older ones. I haven't touched them since I was really young so I don't remember the stories very well.

if you played through long enough, the sphere grid in 10 made every character way overpowered and essentially non-independent. of course...not nearly as overpowered as you could go with 7.

what i liked so much about 9 is that it retained the role of each character throughout the game, making them very unique, individual characters that FF hadn't really done since 2 and 3.

I only briefly played the non-import job-based games, but those would go into some overlap late in the game as well, iirc.

I don't think 7 is overrated. It totally changed the franchise--for good or ill. I suppose for me, it was the reason that i bought a PS1, so it was the introduction of the next level console platform at the time, so everything about it was "WOW WOW WOW WOW!" when I was playing, heh. I think that is the similar experience for many. at least those 3 PS1 games retianed the world map. I thought the map in 7 and 9 were the best.

 

[zokudu]

if you played through long enough, the sphere grid in 10 made every character way overpowered and essentially non-independent. of course...not nearly as overpowered as you could go with 7.

what i liked so much about 9 is that it retained the role of each character throughout the game, making them very unique, individual characters that FF hadn't really done since 2 and 3.

I only briefly played the non-import job-based games, but those would go into some overlap late in the game as well, iirc.

I don't think 7 is overrated. It totally changed the franchise--for good or ill. I suppose for me, it was the reason that i bought a PS1, so it was the introduction of the next level console platform at the time, so everything about it was "WOW WOW WOW WOW!" when I was playing, heh. I think that is the similar experience for many. at least those 3 PS1 games retianed the world map. I thought the map in 7 and 9 were the best.

Well to be fair I think there is a lot of nostalgia with 7 as you said it really ushered in the modern console era and was the first really epic RPG and if you were an RPG fan it was mindblowing at the time. I think thats where all the love stems from.

The story is good and the Aeris scene even now upsets me but I think 9 really was phenomenal. When I say overrated I don't dislike the game. I just don't trumpet it as the best game ever made as many FF7 fans do.

By the way thanks for reminding me I need to buy 7-9 on my PS3 from the PS Store.