FFX-2 Review aka Was This $7 Well Spent?

[Dapper Ninja]

That's the key phrase. You might find yourself just tapping X until everything in front of you falls down and you hear a few notes of victory music during the first few fights in another FF game while you're still being introduced to new concepts and basically playing a tutorial, but it quickly develops into something more than that.

Within half an hour or so, you'll probably have a few party members gathered, a few spells learned, maybe a couple of new weapons or items and possibly your first summon. You end up having to balance your party's roles and adapt to new situations and the game becomes pretty complicated.

The problem with Final Fantasy XIII is that it never seems to grow out of that beginning stage. You have a party, but you don't get to choose who's in your party or even what they do in battle. You can change your paradigm, but that only changes one or two abilities that you probably won't need anyway. You get a few new weapons, but they only do minor stat upgrades that give you no reason not to use them. You barely even need to worry about healing, because you're automatically brought back to full health after every battle.

That and the fact that the entire game is set entirely in a series of linear corridors with no towns or NPCs in-between makes it feel like the game is just babying you from start to finish.

It is annoying at times that the party is split up for a lot of the game, but its all part of the plot and they all get together eventually.

When exactly is "eventually"? If it takes more than eight hours to get a changeable party, then the game is doing something wrong.

Paradigms and healing is very important during battles! Without it you would be fucked, you gotta change up your strategy and make sure the teams doing the right things.

They're only ever needed during the harder boss fights, and even then you only need to make sure that someone is set to medic and maybe use a potion or two.

And so what if its linear? It's all part of the plot and its not like its the only FF game that does it other than FFX.

I don't have a problem with linearity in games, especially RPGs. I do, however, have a problem with games not allowing any degree of exploration or drifting from the main path because they're impossible to do because there's only one, straight path that you follow for the entire game. No amount of plot excuses that and no other Final Fantasy tried that. It just doesn't work.

You obviously haven't played the entire game then. There is a free roam area later on and there are MANY non boss fights which you need to have medics for, i'm very curious as to whether you've even played the whole game.

You say you don't mind linearity and then ***** about how straight forward the game is. Thats what linearity IS! There are a few branching paths however so i don't understand the problem. Why is it something wrong if you don't have a changeable party from the start? Because all the other FF games did? Well Square Enix has tried to make something different and not stick to the same thing all the time, like i said its part of the plot.

No, I have not played the entire game. I played the game for roughly eight hours in order to give the game awhile to actually start before I decided it was a bad game, which was a fairly lenient amount of time, considering the fact that most games would be almost or completely finished after eight hours. From what I played of it, Final Fantasy XIII felt like the JRPG equivalent of purgatory. I think that if a game remains un-enjoyable for eight straight hours, the player is perfectly entitled to form an opinion based on those eight hours and stop playing.

Linearity in games is not, by definition, what Final Fantasy XIII is. A linear game is a game in which levels are designed in a way that clearly points to the end objective and requires the player to traverse the level and its obstacles in order to reach that objective.

What Final Fantasy XIII is is walking down a straight hallway with no branching paths except for an occasional detour that will take you about five to ten feet until you reach a dead end with an item that is almost certainly useless to you, requiring you to turn around and continue along the straight hallway. Once you reach the end of the hallway, you are treated to one of three things:
1. A battle which you will win by spamming auto-attack.
2. A cutscene which you have little to no interest in.
3. Another hallway.

I fail to see how any of this is justified by the plot.

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

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Are you sure you remember correctly?

Pretty much everything pre-FFX2 was turn based.

12 had an amazingly bad combat system...

I never played as far as you obviously did in FF8 but the good first half of the game at least was turn-based and I doubt they changed it for the second...

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

Snip

Maybe I flipped a switch or something I remember those bars but I also remember it being turn based cause I used to just walk off and leave the console not doing anything while I went to get toast or something...

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

Snip

Maybe I flipped a switch or something I remember those bars but I also remember it being turn based cause I used to just walk off and leave the console not doing anything while I went to get toast or something...

If you were fighting something weak, then your opponent may not have attacked enough, or done enough to you to threaten you.

But the only game in the series since the PS1 to not use ATB is FFX.

ALL I'VE KNOWN IS A LIE D:

And I remember some random ATB options... some stuff I messed with which maybe made it turn based.

Because I know for a fact that I used to play turn based on FF7 >.> I remember it so clearly.