Final Fantasy 13 - Impressions

[Julianking93]

I love it so far.

Its definetely my favorite of the series.

The combat, the music, and the characters (except Vanille) are all amazing.

 

[Kelthurin]

One word; Odin. Yeah.

Alright, more than one word; I love this game. Beats the hell out of FF12 on so many levels. Though I would like to see more Gil, so I can actually upgrade my stuff AND buy the necessary bollocks like potions and antidotes.

 

[Xsjadoful]

i've really disliked this game, not nearly what i was expecting from it.
they seem to have taken a leaf out of the metal gear series's book and essentially forgotten they where making a game and just made a film instead. Every area just seems to be copy/pasted and having zero exploration to do seems to further the fact that they really begrudged actually allowing people to play rather than sit watching pretty cut-scenes

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

*sigh* I don't think I'll ever understand the baseless hatred of FFXII...

But back on topic,

While I find FF13 to be aggressively linear (run in a straight line forever! No more exploration), I'm enjoying the story so far and I'm looking forward to when I break out of this loooong section of dedicated character building (Lightning/Hope and Sazh/Vanille wandering in the wilderness) and into some real world shaking conflict. I mean, I understand WHY these sections are in the game, I just can't wait to get past them.

I LIKE the combat system, but feel it could be a bit better, though this is influenced by the fact that the fights are not as fun when you only have 2 characters in your party.

 

[Julianking93]

I love it so far.

Its definetely my favorite of the series.

The combat, the music, and the characters (except Vanille) are all amazing.

I read that on gamespot. Just how bad is Vanille anyway?
I'm having doubts if I should purchase this game or not. Gamesradar is putting a strong case for it. Have to admit the game is beyond gorgeous though...

Did you notice everything else I said?

My favorite of the series

I'd say its a must buy, but I never really liked Final Fantasy yet this is one of my all time favorite games now.

The combat is fast paced and engaging, the characters are great and the story (while incomprehensible right now) is immersive and riveting.

As for how bad Vanille is, its pretty bad.

Her voice is probably the most annoying thing I've ever heard. I couldn't make out what accent she was supposed to have until a user here told me. But it seemed to switch from Irish, British and French within the same sentence. Its weird.

Here just watch this:

Spoiler

Her accent is supposed to be Australian but I couldn't hear it. Other than her annoying voice, the game is excellent.

I'd say buy it.

 

[Julianking93]

Fine, I'll just have to murder my wallet some more now. That is when I manage to save enough to buy it. I'm thinking about buying this instead of Demon's Souls...

Whoa, whoa whoa...Stop right there.

Final Fantasy 13 may be amazing but if you're thinking of either getting this or Demon's Souls, get Demon's Souls.

Do it! Do it now!!

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

I love this Final Fantasy the combat system the best one yet, your complaining about it being repetitive well ofcourse its going to be repetitive if you just keep using Commando, Ravager and Medic, mix it up a little! if you keep just relying on those 3 your going to get butt raped on almost every fight in a few chapters. The boss iv just not long done (Barthandelus in Chapter 9) had pretty decent music and it was a pretty fun fight also but some of the music is annoying like the bit in the forrest with Vanille and Sazh...that god awful song playing through the whole area.

It's true the CP system does throw points at you but it may seem like alot at the stage your at but the Crystanium eventually develops so far that it costs 10k CP just to move from one ability to the next.

I have never had a problem with not being able to hear the characters over the music and i don't find the story confusing, i love the story in Final Fantasy XIII i think its very powerful it draws you in and you dont want to stop playing because you want to know what happens next

I think its a great title and a must have for any Final Fantasy fan

 

[Pink_Pirate]

*sigh* I don't think I'll ever understand the baseless hatred of FFXII...

explain to me vaan's relevance to the story and then i might consider giving FFXII another chance... but for now im content to hate on it because it has a shitty story, boring combat, and horribly music direction... aka all thing that make a final fantasy a final fantasy. With a series where each sequel has nothing to do with each other the thing that ties them together is common game design philosophies and just overall atmosphere... FFXII missed that completely...

anyway I just finished FFXIII this morning... took me about 46 hours... i liked it, not the best FF ever, but very good combat, and very pretty.

 

[Xsjadoful]

Fine, I'll just have to murder my wallet some more now. That is when I manage to save enough to buy it. I'm thinking about buying this instead of Demon's Souls...

Whoa, whoa whoa...Stop right there.

Final Fantasy 13 may be amazing but if you're thinking of either getting this or Demon's Souls, get Demon's Souls.

Do it! Do it now!!

...
Dammit...
OK please answer this question if you will:would I have made more progress from the start of the game in Demons' Souls or FFXIII in, say, 15 hours of gameplay?

i was around 16 hours into the game at chapter 10 of 13, so quite far at 15 hours i'd say

 

[Julianking93]

Fine, I'll just have to murder my wallet some more now. That is when I manage to save enough to buy it. I'm thinking about buying this instead of Demon's Souls...

Whoa, whoa whoa...Stop right there.

Final Fantasy 13 may be amazing but if you're thinking of either getting this or Demon's Souls, get Demon's Souls.

Do it! Do it now!!

...
Dammit...
OK please answer this question if you will:would I have made more progress from the start of the game in Demons' Souls or FFXIII in, say, 15 hours of gameplay?

Okay, I see what you're doing.

To answer your question, Demon's Souls.

Demon's Souls took me about...29 hours to beat on my first playthrough, but you're not gonna just want to play once. You can go back through with all the same stats you ended with on the first game, but its about 5 times harder.

I'd say get Demon's Souls because its rather hard to find (at least it was for me) and you can get FF13 anywhere.

Get Demon's Souls, then FF13.

They're both great games.

 

[rees263]

Am I the only one who finds the camera really bad? It was great in 12 but now it's a real pain for me.

I'm only at chapter 4 but I'm really starting to like the way the battle system is opening up and can't wait for more. Considering a lot of it is automatic I find it works pretty well. I imagine it might not be so effective as the battles become more complicated but we'll see.

To me it feels like an odd mix of FFX and FFXII and I've poured a ridiculous number of hours into both of those games so that is only a good thing in my eyes.

 

[Zenn3k]

I love this Final Fantasy the combat system the best one yet, your complaining about it being repetitive well ofcourse its going to be repetitive if you just keep using Commando, Ravager and Medic, mix it up a little! if you keep just relying on those 3 your going to get butt raped on almost every fight in a few chapters. The boss iv just not long done (Barthandelus in Chapter 9) had pretty decent music and it was a pretty fun fight also but some of the music is annoying like the bit in the forrest with Vanille and Sazh...that god awful song playing through the whole area.

It's true the CP system does throw points at you but it may seem like alot at the stage your at but the Crystanium eventually develops so far that it costs 10k CP just to move from one ability to the next.

I have never had a problem with not being able to hear the characters over the music and i don't find the story confusing, i love the story in Final Fantasy XIII i think its very powerful it draws you in and you dont want to stop playing because you want to know what happens next

I think its a great title and a must have for any Final Fantasy fan

Heh, well I primarily use those roles due to:
A: Lack of options
B: Time wasted on Saboteur and the other one...purple, I forgot the name right this second tend to make me 2 star fights if I use them
C: Its the most effective method available.

Every fight is about staggering your opponent quickly, then blasting them to all hell once you have done so. Yeah, buffing and debuffing can help and is required in some instances, but doing it wastes time, and if you wanna refill your TP you gotta be FAST FAST FAST!!

 

[Veldt Falsetto]

The music is amazing, if you think it's only 1 song you haven't been listening like at all.

The battle system is odd but again dunno what game you've been playing my allied ai is great, they might mistime things but thats because of their own atb meter.
At the moment you will be over flowing with CP but later on you'll be begging for it.
And, if you had loads of gil, it wouldn't be a challenge, you'd buy loads of phoenix downs

It's hard, a little too hard at times, the battles are fun, the story is interesting, especially backstories of Sazh, Lightning, Hope. Graphics and music are amazing. Levelling is fine.

Problems are, the camera is weird but I'm used to it now, Vanille is too squeaky and upgrading weapons is kinda bland.

I have no problems with lack of towns or exploration it's just like X

 

[Plinglebob]

I'm 40 hours in (had the holiday from work I needed to use before April) and my thoughts so far are:

Story - Compared to FFXII's story of nations at war, the scaling back of the story to the usual "Save the World" and the personal stories and interplay between the characters is a welcome change. Sadly it does mean the main polt is very slow going and only really kicks into gear in chapter 9 (then drops out of gear again in 11). At the moment the only character I want to drop off a cliff is Hope as everyone else has decent character growth (especially Sazh), but Hope is still annoying!

Gameplay - I'm not a massive fan of the combat as I prefer the slower pace of previous games, but the system is solid and it works well. I don't like the Eidolons (never used one unlss forced too) and I like the Eidolon battles even less. The fact that each battle is timed and rated also gets annoying after a while (my record so far is a 22 minute boss battle) Also, I'd warn against over-levelling too early in the game (or at all) as it really makes things boring. Re: items & Gil, I don't mind the system, I just wish more baddies would drop stuff.

Presentation - Ooooooooooh, pretty!

Am I the only one who finds the camera really bad? It was great in 12 but now it's a real pain for me.

For some reason it feels very floaty so I nudge the stick and the camera goes haywire.

Edit:

. The boss iv just not long done (Barthandelus in Chapter 9) had pretty decent music and it was a pretty fun fight

He was a pain in the arse!

 

[Archemetis]

Just wait until you hit the Palamecia, I won't ruin that part for anyone, but basically there's a point just before the boss there where you can basically run around killing re-spawning enemies that are both rich enough in CP to help you max out all your Crystarium ranks in a matter of... OK, admittedly I spent about 4-5 hours on this part... But it really helped.

And not only that, but they also drop an abundance of Credit and Incentive Chips, Credits can be sold for 500 GIL, Incentive for 1500 (I think) and in my experience incentive drops more often, they're useless for upgrades and make a tidy sum of GIL to spend on other things for uprades.

Also, Pulse l'Cie is considered bad in game while Cocoon l'Cie are good.
The only annoying thin about the story for me was the fact that unless I wanted to search through the datalogs or the game manual then it's never explained what a l'Cie is and why it's so bad to be one.

I made a comic to illustrate my feelings towards it.

Spoiler: On l'Cie

After about 25 hours I was finally certain what a l'Cie was, so by that point I was just frustrated by how hard some of the boss fights actually end up being.
(Hence the 4-5 hour's of grinding I did)

 

[Tiny116]

Well I'm happy to hear the combat gets better (i'm only on chapter 3)
I agree the point A to B running is slightly annoying but i'm liking the story so far.
Music....I barely notice it half the time...though i'm feeling kinda pissed the original battle finale tune is gone grr