Final Fantasy XIII

[frogbeastegg]

:summons discussion ... has to sit through a 40 second cutscene: Go!

Several here are already playing. I'll be starting my copy this weekend too, once I've tied up the last bits and bobs in Toy Soldiers. I went with the PS3 version.

Despite playing quite a few entries in this series, this is the first time I've had the chance to play an original 'next gen' FF at release. I didn't have a PS1 so couldn't play FFVII at release (I played the PC port), and didn't get a PS2 until some time after FFX came out. FFX-2 and FFXII are the only home console entries I've been able to pick up near release, and they're refinements of existing tech rather than the first big splashdown.

I hear the game takes 20 hours to really get going. Before that it's a lot more limiting, a lot easier, and features hours of tutorials.

[Secura]

Several here are already playing. I'll be starting my copy this weekend too, once I've tied up the last bits and bobs in Toy Soldiers. I went with the PS3 version.

I heard the PS3 version is only one disc compared to the 360's three? I hate disc-swapping.

I hear the game takes 20 hours to really get going. Before that it's a lot more limiting, a lot easier, and features hours of tutorials.

I have heard the exact same, although Beskie assures me that it's very story-driven through these early stages, getting to know the characters and such, so as long as you concentrate on the story aspects and ignore the rest early on, you'll be fine.

Besides, those twenty hours shouldn't be a problem if you are able to power through them, right? Get the 'rubbish' out of the way, get to the meatier part? :3

[frogbeastegg]

I heard the PS3 version is only one disc compared to the 360's three? I hate disc-swapping.

3 discs. Because the game is so linear you only need to swap each one once; you can't go back to older areas. I don't mind this much, I've played many games which need multiple discs shuffling around constantly.

My decision was made on the fact that the 360 version is something of a sloppy port. In some areas it does fractionally better, in others it's equal, and in some it's a lot worse. Visual quality is particularly reduced. CGI cutscenes have been sloppily reduced in file size and have become blurry with much fine detail lost. On the PS3 you can see detail like the weave of fabric, on the 360 it's a featureless mass. In-game visuals are also affected but if I'm honest I can't see much of a difference on the comparison pics unless I try. Squeenix could have produced a far better port if they'd tried harder - it's the same old garbage that they used to pull on the European versions of their older games. "It's not our main market so we don't care much, just do cheap and dirty and the masses will still lap it up!"

There's a detailed comparison on Eurogamer for anyone who's interested.

[Kekvit Irae]

So far, my thoughts on the game:

No exp = no fun.
Vanille is HOT. And she's 19, so there's no guilt involved.
If it wasn't for 4chan, I couldn't tell if Lightning was a boy or a girl. Squenix has a habit of confusing us.
Control only the party leader? If he/she goes down (despite everyone else still alive), the game's over?
Vanille is HOT.
I want my own baby chocobo!
Sazh is Lightning's /b/lackup.
Did I mention Vanille is HOT?
An hour into the game and I'm still not having fun.

In summary, this game so far blows. Not as badly as FFVIII, thankfully, but it's pretty close. But at least it's not an MMORPG like FFXIV.

EDIT:
If you want a real RPG with a plot that isn't confusing, characters that we give a crap about, and actual RPG elements, play Persona 4 and avoid this game like the plague. Squenix really jumped the shark with this one.

And one loltastic moment: I got a code with the game that I can use for a chance to get into the beta of FFXIV. Abandon all hope ye who enter.

[frogbeastegg]

Around 3 1/3 to 4 hours in. My thoughts, presented in the style of Mordan from Mass Effect 2.

Pretty. Visually stimulating. Hard to tell where CGI ends and game engine starts.

Music, indifferent. Surprised. Usually series has outstanding music. Too much of the drum and electric guitar stuff. No fantasy or magic in it, just modern blah. Much like setting. Nice bit of violin in the battle theme.

No victory fanfare? Unforgivable. Battle results screen should also be faster. Hammer X does not speed it up.

Audio mix levels, bad. Music drowns out voices. Much too loud. No volume control at all. Terrible. Had to turn TV down and enable subtitles. No subtitles for comments made while travelling. Consequentially miss quite a few lines.

Vanilla annoying. Squeaky voice, stupid dialogue, daft weapon. Drop her in an active volcano? Good plan, must try.

Hope. Has none. Boring. Swap for mother instead. Tough mums are good. Less moping and whining.

Lightning tolerable. Punching Snow is good. Don't like Snow. Idiot with bad hat. Lightning does not talk much: bonus.

Sazh. Eddie Murphy. Not an Eddie fan. Too much loud and shouty in bid to be what humans term 'wacky'.

Speculation: chocobo chick has more charisma than entire party? Evidence so far suggests true. Cute, perky, doesn't waste time with bad dialogue. Good. Must find way to make it the hero.

At least no androgynous characters in game. Everyone clearly boy or girl. Also no tiny children or animal-people. Relieved. Still have trauma from Star Ocean.

World map camera too close. Hard to see where going. Not good at going around corners. Manual control too twitchy, needs lowered sensitivity. No option. Hohum.

Why so hard to get to the map? Why not assign it to select? Why no way to instantly exit a menu? Mashing circle wastes time.

First 2 hours, boring. Very. Nearly fell asleep, found self describing game in Mordan style fragments instead. Nothing to do but run down corridors and hit X sometimes. Not as many cutscenes as expected.

Battles are fast. No loading or intro. Nice. Paradigm shift introduced at 2 hours 20 minutes, at last something to do other than autobattle. False hope, barely used it so far. Expected prognosis: battles will improve when abilities are unlocked and enemies stop being pushovers. Linked fear: difficulty will not increase. Reports say it does so cautiously hopeful.

Doom when controlled idiot dies? Puzzling. Why can't other idiots revive dead idiot? Or let dead idiot auto-revive after battle. Clumsy attempt to add stress. No choice of party leader? Also problematic. Low hit point feeble characters die sooner.

Stop shuffling party members arbitrarily! Changes many times in an area. Feels like meddling.

Save points everywhere. Pleasant surprise. No more hour long dungeon between points. Enemies visible on map, no random encounters, ability to avoid fights altogether is desired. Also good. Reportedly game auto-saves before each battle. Death means losing nothing. Good and bad. No frustration, no tension.

No gil after battle? Not sure about this. Good that I don't have more money than I can spend. Must see how this pans out across game before rendering judgement. Loot is boring. After battle and treasure chests, all junk. Customisation of weapons had better make these items exciting. Loot is important. Bad loot, why explore or battle?

No need to grind, pleasing. No chance to grind if wanting to, problematic. Restricted character growth per area, good and bad. Lack of customisation and freedom more restrictive than anticipated. Like being in a straightjacket.

Don't understand quest, don't care about it.

Evil AIs? Need hacking ability, should spread virus to disable all at once. Hitting with sword ineffective and crude.

Crystal level up system, rehash of sphere grid and licence grid. Not enthused with either of those, not enthused with new version either.

Not wandering lost in maze dungeon, theoretically good. Pleasant. Knowing where to go all the time, mostly good. Knowing where treasure is, also theoretically good. Somehow not enjoying it. Is like trip down water slide with enemy battles.

1 piece of equipment? Stingy. Very hard to customise anyone.

Need to read in-game encyclopaedia to understand what anyone's saying. Not great. Needs better exposition in dialogue.

Nice to have plot summary to remind you where you are up to when loading game.

Observation: amphibian tradition to buy Piggyback guide for all Final Fantasy games. Been so since FFVIII. Not for game help. Companion peace. Nice artwork, lots of bonus material. Pleasant reading. Useful lists. Enhanced experience of play. Fun to read about many secrets and tricks. FFXIII guide boring. Few secrets. No tricks. No best way to powerhouse. Walkthrough seems to struggle – what can it say? No off the track things to point out. Even plot summary section feels like it is shuffling feet; many pictures, few words. Not read yet of course. Also lacking character profiles like they do not know how to describe these people.

Summary: beginning awful! Wonder what Squeenix was thinking if goal was not to put players off. Game showing minor signs of improvement. Must keep going. Worst should be over. Not sure if 20 hours of this before freedom can be survived. Did want brainless pretty game to take mind of stress. Did not want this brainless.

Query: why does Mordan style suit game so well? Theorised that do not care enough to use more words. Want to get points made with minimum effort. Plus find it funny.

[Kekvit Irae]

Query: why does Mordan style suit game so well? Theorised that do not care enough to use more words. Want to get points made with minimum effort. Plus find it funny.

I was thinking about Mordan halfway down the postas well!

EDIT: Also, one more thought... every single main protagonist in the FF series seems to share the same Meg Ryan hair style. FFXIII is no exception.

[Xiahou]

Based on the early impressions here, it sounds like this review may have nailed it. Ah well, one less game to worry about buying....

[Beskar]

No exp = no fun.

There is EXP.... or are those CP points pretty imaginary?

If it wasn't for 4chan, I couldn't tell if Lightning was a boy or a girl. Squenix has a habit of confusing us.

If the pink long hair and size C+ breasts and baring femine legs wasn't enough of a hint. If you said Hope as it is a femine male character or even Fang, who is a masculine female, at least I would understand where you came from (even though it is obvious which sex they are).

In summary, this game so far blows. Not as badly as FFVIII, thankfully, but it's pretty close. But at least it's not an MMORPG like FFXIV.

FF8 was pretty good.

If you want a real RPG with a plot that isn't confusing,

The plot is unclear for reasons, but it isn't confusing.

Why so hard to get to the map? Why not assign it to select? Why no way to instantly exit a menu? Mashing circle wastes time.

On Xbox, you just press "X" and the map goes full instantly. 'back' for the mini-map.

No choice of party leader?

Comes later. The beginning bit is going through the whole entire story, getting you to experience all the different characters, etc. Paradigm shift needs to be used frequently for bosses. If you don't, you simply die, or take forever in killing them. Oh, the game doesn't tell you this, but something I noticed, you need one commando for Chain-bonus, and then ravanger to increase it. If you have no commando, it just drops almost instantly after every hit, something the game enver said when I was going ravanger+ravenger against patchwerk soldiers... damn, they took a while to kill like that.

No gil after battle? Not sure about this. Good that I don't have more money than I can spend. Must see how this pans out across game before rendering judgement. Loot is boring. After battle and treasure chests, all junk. Customisation of weapons had better make these items exciting. Loot is important. Bad loot, why explore or battle?

You sell a vast majority of it for your money. Soldiers also drop credit chips and incentive chips, which are worth 500 2,500 a pop. Customisation isn't anything exciting other than working out which items give you the easiest/cheaping leveling ratio. So if you are expecting anything more than then that, you will be disappointed.

1 piece of equipment? Stingy. Very hard to customise anyone.

Expands later with a lot of different options. Being honest, I am just using Gold Bangle + Warrior/Shaman's Mark on everyone. Majority of the items are too fancy for their own good other than giving me cash.

[Kekvit Irae]

FF8 was pretty good.

No, it isn't.

[Beskar]

No, it isn't.

Sure, if you butcher the game, you can make anything look bad. Though, he over-read into the game like "every spell ahs to be configured to every mob! blah blah" wait.. I never did that once? What is he on about.

[frogbeastegg]

On Xbox, you just press "X" and the map goes full instantly. 'back' for the mini-map.

Hmm. I pressed every button on the controller; all I've found is a button which makes the mini map disappear. Maybe the function was disabled at the time? I was in the very first gameplay area when I tried. FFXIII does love to make you do things at its pace. Have to try again ...

Comes later. The beginning bit is going through the whole entire story, getting you to experience all the different characters, etc.

I was expecting to be able to choose at that magical 20 hour 'here comes freedom' mark so many people talk about. I have to complete the entire story first? :weeps:

You sell a vast majority of it for your money. Soldiers also drop credit chips and incentive chips, which are worth 500 2,500 a pop. Customisation isn't anything exciting other than working out which items give you the easiest/cheaping leveling ratio. So if you are expecting anything more than then that, you will be disappointed.

Kind of disappointing I guess. Most RPGs have you awash with cash for the entire game, and it's nice to see the odd one which makes you think about what you buy. Some of the other FF games have had decent weapon customisation systems and I was wishing for a more advanced version of that.

Expands later with a lot of different options.

Good to hear. Right now the lack of control, options and meaningful results gained from battle/exploration is killing me.

FFVIII

Ah, the most divisive of the entire series! It's a love it or hate it game. I both love and hate it. Never once completed it; I always lose interest when I get the Ragnorak and level my team up to 99 with uber stat boosts. I've started the game and reached that point ... oh, three times now? Maybe four. Once on the PC, the others on my PS2. Hour for hour it's my most played FF game. Hate the draw and junction system, find the battles strangely addictive. Loathe half of the cast (Selphie! Irvine! Rhinoa!) and find the entire plot insane in a bad way - yet somehow I love watching it all play out each time. I adore the music and soak up the cheesy atmosphere, play triple triad, and take Zell to talk to his hotdog girl every time.

Actually, it would be four or five times. First time I played the game I levelled up as normal and ended up with weak characters because of the way the system works. I abandoned the playthrough in frustration, stumbled on a guide to the ultimate way to level, and have played that way ever since. It’s more fun – there’s more limits on the battles and that adds some challenge in a less artificial way than pumping the enemies stats. I always get Diablos and the card ability ASAP and then card everything in every battle so I don’t level up until I have the GFs with the stat growth boosting abilities. I guess this is why I lose interest each time: I no longer need to restrict myself in battle and have uber characters.

While it wasn't the first FF that I played FFVIII is the one which set in my mind what the series means to me. One part wow-pretty with excellent music, one part insanity of various good and bad sorts, one part exploration of a massive world and sinking tens upon tens of hours into it, and one part addiction to a battle and levelling system which isn't that special.

I noticed that FFVIII is now up for download on the European PSN. I'm trying not to buy it; my PS1 version's CDs don't work so well. Hope they put IX up, never played past the start of disc 2 of that one. I had to buy second hand copies of all 3 PS1 games and the discs are in poor condition. IX had so many disc read errors and lock ups I could not continue. I loved what I played though, possibly best out of the series.

[Beskar]

I was expecting to be able to choose at that magical 20 hour 'here comes freedom' mark so many people talk about. I have to complete the entire story first? :weeps: .

It is about 20 hours for the "We can choose which characters!" but then you got around 5 hours more till the "Freedom moment", I believe I am either at it right now, or just before it. I am currently at 26 hours.

Ok, I am there, Chapter 11, 26:34 playtime. Now I am tired and going to read a book.

[Kekvit Irae]

And since the 10 year grace period on a game's spoilers are up, I should mention that in FFVIII for the majority of the game, you play a dead guy. So, really, only the first disk matters to the plot. The rest is just fluff. That's right, they pulled a Dallas.

[Kekvit Irae]

Ok, I've made it to the end of chapter 7, and the game's picking up... slightly.
I must say, I haven't yet seen a better combination of party members than Lightning, Fang, and Hope. Com/Sen/Med when I need healing, Com/Sen/Rav when I want damage, Med/Sab/Syn when I want buffs/debuffs, and Com/Com/Rav when the enemy is staggered. The chapter 7 boss battle was too easy with this combination.

Unfortunately, I'm now stuck with /b/lackup and Rikku at the start of chapter 8.

[Meneldil]

There, as I feared earlier, I stopped playing it. Game is not funny, not exciting, not interesting. Characters are annoying, clichés and all have a similar look (except for the "witness the return of the black dude"-Sazh). It's a dumbed-down version of the already dumbed-down FF10.

Square Enix lost it for good :( Instead of buying already boring licences to make them even more boring (I'm looking at you SupCom2), they should focus on making another good Final Fantasy. Go back to the basics for god's sake. I beg you.

Edit: Just to make sure I don't look like a FF-hater of some sort, my favorite game of all times is Final Fantasy 7, closely followed by Final Fantasy 6. FF9 ain't far in the ranking either.

[frogbeastegg]

I'm on chapter 4, must be right near the end of it. The game's improving, slowly, steadily, incrementally. Each time they unlock another class or level of abilities for a character it becomes that little bit more bearable. Can't say that I find the game good at the moment; can say that the journey on to the point where the training wheels come off is looking less painful than before.

I do like the XIII day flashbacks. The beginning had me thinking that they would do a FFX style loop back around to the beginning; I'm pleased to see that they did not recycle that. It would have felt like a cheap shadow.

This game's like an endurance race. How much hand-holding limitation can you tolerate before you're allowed to play for real? Will the developers kill you with kindness, or will you win on through?



Meneldil, how far did you manage to get?

[CrossLOPER]

It's pretty good. I had studying to do over the weekend, but I managed to get to the middle of chapter 3. I only played FFVIII prior to this game so maybe I don't have much to compare it to, which is probably a good thing. I really like the characters, especially Vanille since she's clearly the only one with any sense.

[Kekvit Irae]

I do like the XIII day flashbacks. The beginning had me thinking that they would do a FFX style loop back around to the beginning; I'm pleased to see that they did not recycle that. It would have felt like a cheap shadow.

It's good that you like them. You will be seeing them A LOT. And when I mean a lot, I mean nearly every cutscene in every single chapter. It was nice at first to see how all the characters are entwined in the Thirteen Days, but now I facepalm at the self-endulgent fanwankery every single time someone mentions the past. They have long lost their charm to me and are now just bastard children of Family Guy and that one flashback from FFVII.
Maybe if they had included SOME way of making it so that what you do in the flashbacks (at least the ones where you control a character) had some change in the real game. Even if it's just something minor, like Mass Effect 1 > Mass Effect 2, it still would have been more than fluff to me.

[Fragony]

I almost long for the days where there were only a few titles to look out for, sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many good games and I am not even done with last year's total awesomnes.

[Kekvit Irae]

Ok, I've made it to chapter 10, and HALLELUJAH I can have any party member learn any class! No more being stuck on who to pick for combat roles, I can spend CP buying new classes.

[Beskar]

Lightning needs more love. Everyone seems to prefer Vanille or even Serah.

Am I the only person who likes Lightning?

[CrossLOPER]

Lightning needs more love. Everyone seems to prefer Vanille or even Serah.

Am I the only person who likes Lightning?

She reminds me too much of Squall, though she's clearly the better of the two.

[frogbeastegg]

Lightning needs more love. Everyone seems to prefer Vanille or even Serah.

Am I the only person who likes Lightning?

I like her ... relatively speaking. I don't care a jot for any of the cast so far. Lightning is one of the better ones. She punches Snow, who annoys me. Her angst is nice and quiet, and isn't full of sentences that drift off into nothing and/or feature lots of reapating the same ... the same words just ... just like this, like Hope(less). She isn't an idiot, and doesn't make cheap p0rn movie sound effects like Vanille.



I'm coming to the conclusion that FFXIII is another po-faced entry in a series which used to be great at whimsy. FFX-2 had whimsy - too much of it, perhaps, but that made it jolly good fun if a little eyepopping. FFX and what I've seen of FFXII were whimsy-free. Where's the chance to take part in an opera? And mess up your lines? Or compete in a bunch of weird sub-games in order to assemble a cross-dressing outfit? Or to burst in on your boss and demand he put aside saving the world to play triple triad? Or to face evil jesters with catchy theme music? I miss that stuff.

[Kekvit Irae]

Where's the chance to take part in an opera? And mess up your lines? Or compete in a bunch of weird sub-games in order to assemble a cross-dressing outfit? Or to burst in on your boss and demand he put aside saving the world to play triple triad? Or to face evil jesters with catchy theme music? I miss that stuff.

Those are all gone, replaced with big cutscenes (every single game), big explosions (same), big boobs (Lulu, Fran, and more recently Colonel Nabaat), and Meg Ryan hair (every single protagonist). It's like a bad Hollywood summer blockbuster.

[Madoushi]

I haven't played an FF since X, and it looks like I'm probably not missing much.

I liked VIII, for what it's worth. The only real downside to me was the Draw system, which is what prevents me from replaying it. Draw-grinding is the worst grinding.

I wish PSN would carry Star Ocean 2 and Suikoden 2. I'd snap those up right quick. Oh well. There's always Suikoden 1...

[frogbeastegg]

I wish PSN would carry Star Ocean 2 and Suikoden 2. I'd snap those up right quick. Oh well. There's always Suikoden 1...

If you have a PSP there are remakes of Star Ocean 1 and 2 available.

I too wish that PSN would get Suikoden II ... and that they'd bring Suikoden I to the European store, along with Wild ARMS and other games which you have and we don't, and then follow that up by bringing us all of the other classics which they never bothered to release in Europe in the first place.

PSN classics. Otherwise known as the goldmine Sony Europe can't be bothered to tap.

[Xiahou]

FFX-2 had whimsy - too much of it, perhaps, but that made it jolly good fun if a little eyepopping. FFX and what I've seen of FFXII were whimsy-free. Where's the chance to take part in an opera? And mess up your lines? Or compete in a bunch of weird sub-games in order to assemble a cross-dressing outfit? Or to burst in on your boss and demand he put aside saving the world to play triple triad? Or to face evil jesters with catchy theme music? I miss that stuff.

You may want to check out Crystal Bearers. It has whimsy. I thought it was flawed in many ways, but from the sounds of it, it may have been better than XIII....

[frogbeastegg]

You may want to check out Crystal Bearers. It has whimsy. I thought it was flawed in many ways, but from the sounds of it, it may have been better than XIII....

Everything I've heard about that offshoot of the series says that if you play it in singleplayer mode you will hurl your console out of the nearest window in short order, thanks to the ascine AI. Your party members are totally incapable of the very simplest things. They will suicide repeatedly on the same obstacle, they'll get in your way, they'll get stuck or lost when pathfinding, they're useless in combat - total liability. No thanks.

Whatever else can be said, the party AI in FFXIII is good. It's always managed to pick the options I myself would have chosen under the circumstances. It's good enough that I leave the only character I could control to the AI via the auto battle command. The game does have a fair bit going for it ... it's just unfortunate that the things it does not get right overshadow the rest. The slow beginning, the limitations, the painstaking rate at which they unlock features, the seriously serious characters and bland plot. I've played for around 8 hours now yet when someone at work asked me if the battle system is good I had to answer that I don't know because most of it is still locked off.

[Kekvit Irae]

Through the majority of the game, you will have an extremely hard time trying to raise money. Thankfully, whatever you need to buy in shops can be found out in the field. Until I needed to upgrade my weapons, I never once bought something in a shop. Still, if you're hard up for gil, you can get 522,500 gil from a very easy side quest involving fixing Vanille's little robot in chapter 11 once you reach the village. If you've taken 10,000 steps once arriving on Gran Pulse (easy if you've done a few l'Cie stone quests and some grinding), you will get the rank of Pulsian Pioneer along with the trophy/achievement once you fix Bhakti. With the rank comes ten Deceptisol, two Ultracompact Reactors, a Gold Nugget, five Perfume, and three Platinum ignots. The latter three are worth crap exp when upgrading weapons, but together they net you 552,500 gil if you sell them. Even then you will be hard pressed for gil, considering fully upgrading ONE weapon costs more than you can fanthom.

If you already have a Trapezohedron, there's a trick to getting more without paying 2 million gil. Simply upgrade a spear (Fang) to Kain's Lance or a staff (Vanille) to Nirvana, both of them to max level. This will cost roughly 1.5m gil. Now dismantle it. You will receive THREE Trapezohedrons and 36 Moonblossom Seeds (216,000g sell price). Pretty nice, considering the Trapezohedrons will cost you 2m if you buy them in the shops.

EDIT: I also didn't realize how complicated upgrading was until I needed to make my own XML spreadsheet with formulas just so I don't waste gil.

[Xiahou]

Everything I've heard about that offshoot of the series says that if you play it in singleplayer mode you will hurl your console out of the nearest window in short order, thanks to the ascine AI. Your party members are totally incapable of the very simplest things. They will suicide repeatedly on the same obstacle, they'll get in your way, they'll get stuck or lost when pathfinding, they're useless in combat - total liability. No thanks.

There is no multiplayer in Crystal Bearers- it sounds like you're thinking FFCC: Ring of Fates. There's many entries in the FFCC series- covering a wide variety of gameplay.

trailer

It's a fairly short game, with many flaws- but it was different enough to be interesting. I'd recommend renting, not buying.