Final Fantasy XIII

[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.