Final Fantasy 13 - Impressions
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I liked FF12 what I played of it. Tight, enganging, yet large, epic in scale. I loved the combat, you could avoid, attack how you you want and control your charecter in battle. I liked controlling my character during battle moving around and stuff and the cooldown rates for abilites was very fast so i have a fast paced battle, and you could switch characters!PedroSteckecilo said:
Sadly FF13 has none of these. I though it was supposed to be all modern but people need to wake up the battle system is just a pretty version of FF7's. Also why is it from the view of 4 groups of people instead of one big group who you pick and choose from, like oh i dunno RPGs released within the past couple years. For that matter what the hell is up with only a two character party? Its not a party unless its three or more 2 would be like a Duo or something.
As far as I can tell theirs no world map and the game can be summed up as walk down a straight line,get to the end,fight a boss and switch to another set of characters lather rinse repeat.
It is for the first 10 chapters.KurnalGraham said:
11-13 basically has a world map and the game gets pretty deep from that point further.
But really, name a FF that can't be summed up as simply as that as well? Even 6 was basically, walk a straight line, it was just a much wider straight line with stores dressed up as towns. Crono Trigger, one of the best RPGs of ALL TIME, was basically, walk a straight line.
At this point I'm at chapter 9 and I'm completely addicted to this game. So far I think I can say that it is one of my favorites of the series. The combat system is great, very different from what I expected, but still excellent. Storywise, the first half of the game is kind of slow and slightly confusing (so...who's the bad guys again? also, who's turn is it to be emo today?), but starting at about chapter 7, shit starts to hit the fan and it gets really good.
Something I did find rather perplexing while I was capturing footage for our review video, why is there a bread crumb trail on the mini-map? I'm not even getting into the linear jrpgs versus non-linear western rpg debate, but did they honestly think someone was going to get lost going in one direction?
So far, my only complaints are these:
One battle theme? Really? Are you fucking serious?
The tediousness of the bosses. Some of them take over twenty minutes when you do them properly. The Eidolon fights are annoying too. None of the bosses give me that jaw-dropping sense of AWESOME to make me WANT to fight them.
Aside from that, I'm loving it. Weapon development is fun, I've maxed out the starting sword that Lightning has, I'm on chapter 9. I think I'm kinda sucking though, my friends have better equipment than me...
To all the people who hate Hope, I had the same problem with Lightning. She was just too much of a ***** for me to even comprehend, and I found Hope to be an angsty bastard, then the two of them decided to reform and become extremely likeable. Just like Vanille, she's tolerable now, but God...her voice. Ah well, she's hot.
One battle theme? Really? Are you fucking serious?
The tediousness of the bosses. Some of them take over twenty minutes when you do them properly. The Eidolon fights are annoying too. None of the bosses give me that jaw-dropping sense of AWESOME to make me WANT to fight them.
Aside from that, I'm loving it. Weapon development is fun, I've maxed out the starting sword that Lightning has, I'm on chapter 9. I think I'm kinda sucking though, my friends have better equipment than me...
While I hadn't noticed it at first, it is something I have come to see. I agree with you. From what I've heard, it doesn't even become open until around Chapter 11.Slycne said:
To all the people who hate Hope, I had the same problem with Lightning. She was just too much of a ***** for me to even comprehend, and I found Hope to be an angsty bastard, then the two of them decided to reform and become extremely likeable. Just like Vanille, she's tolerable now, but God...her voice. Ah well, she's hot.
She's like 13... O_-StarStruckStrumpets said:
And even if she was 27, there is no way that that voice EVER could become acceptable. In fact, if this game had more freedom, I'd have quietly slit her throat back in Chapter 4 when nobody was looking..
According to the vast majority, she's 18, and even if she was only 13, hell, I'm 14. Personally, I don't know what Snow sees in Serah.HyenaThePirate said:
Right there with you OP. If only with a bit more disappointment. FF13 is only slightly better than #12 and that game was a disaster on wheels. The combat flows very nicely, but is as you said too random and repetitive to seem strategic. It seems like Square wanted to take the series in a more action-oriented direction, but didnt really know what action meant.
The story is dull and uninspired, much thanks to the terrible cast. For a long time the only character I could enjoy was Szash or w/e his name is, and only because he has a chocobo in his hair. The rest I just want to run off a cliff.
And yes, the summons are the biggest disappointment I can remember in recent memory. Vehicles? What the hell man :|
The story is dull and uninspired, much thanks to the terrible cast. For a long time the only character I could enjoy was Szash or w/e his name is, and only because he has a chocobo in his hair. The rest I just want to run off a cliff.
And yes, the summons are the biggest disappointment I can remember in recent memory. Vehicles? What the hell man :|
Ok, gonna put this whole thing in spoiler quotes, but here is the quick expanation of the story from the larger view, and I won't spoil any plot points, but just the situation as it is.
I found if very helpful to read the Datalog updates on events and the history. Now that I am a little later in the game, the stuff in the beginning makes perfect sense. And read the data logs.
And I will say that I love the game, but it is flawed. And this is the flaw, it takes too long to really open up the full combat system and before you really NEED to use the paradigm system. You need to play for almost 8 hours before you start to get and interesting party. And it is nearly 20 hours before you are able to chose your party, and when you get to that point, you have all classes unlocked and can build some amazing combo parties. The battles get a lot tougher at that point as well, so you really have to build a good party and use them effectively to stay alive. You will have to use buffs/de-buffs while causing damage and healing and trying to maintain pressure on the enemies chain gauges.
There are two societies, Pulse and Cocoon. They were at war in the past. Cocoon apparently won. Both societies are maintained and "ruled" by fal'Cie, god like creatures with great power. The fal'Cie created Cocoon to protect humans from pulse and have maintained a huge proganda machine to make every human in Cocoon fear pulse so much that they would kill someone who they think as even been in contact with something from Pulse.
In the begining of the game, a Pulse fal'Cie is discovered to be in hidding in a shrine inside cocoon. So the Santum leaders decide to cleanse the area of all pulse influnce by either killing or banishing everyone from that area, they called it the purge. It is just more fuel for the propoganda that pulse = disease/corruption/shunn, eliminate pulse influence by killing your own kind, nice. Cocoon is run by the humans (or so you think) with two forces the Santum and the Guardians, The PSIcom is more like the military (directly reporting to the sanctum) while the guardain force (what lightning is) is more like local police, sort-of. The two military forces are separate and don't necessarily work together. The PSIcom are the one's carring out the purge and the guardian force isn't really happy about it.
The party find the pulse fal'Cie and are turned into L'Cie, a servant of sorts for the fal'Cie. There are pulse and cocoon l'cie, made from a pulse or cocoon fal'cie. The L'cie are given a mission to complete called a Focus, if they complete it, they are granted "imortality", sort-of. They are turned to crystal, but not dead. If they don't complete it they turn into a sort of zombie thing. The problem is that most l'cie don't know what their Focus is because the only instruction they get is in the form of a vision/dream.
Now the party is l'Cie, so weather they want it or not, they are enemies of cocoon (thanks to the propoganda), or at least will be viewed that way by everyone. Since they don't really know what their Focus is, they don't know if they are meant to destroy or protect cocoon, and nobody really knows who the "bad" guys are, pulse or cocoon. Snow gets captured by what you think is a cocoon force, but that will all make sense later. Lightning, being a Guardian, was already naturally un-trusting of the Santum so decides to take out the sanctum fal'cie and complete what she thinks is her focus, kind of a "down with the man" plan, posibly some guilt issues about her sister. Hope is just following her commanding influence and yes he hates Snow and blames him for his mother's death. Sasz and Vanille are just running away from all of it. Sasz has his reasons to not get involved and Vanille has her reasons for going with Sasz.
In the begining of the game, a Pulse fal'Cie is discovered to be in hidding in a shrine inside cocoon. So the Santum leaders decide to cleanse the area of all pulse influnce by either killing or banishing everyone from that area, they called it the purge. It is just more fuel for the propoganda that pulse = disease/corruption/shunn, eliminate pulse influence by killing your own kind, nice. Cocoon is run by the humans (or so you think) with two forces the Santum and the Guardians, The PSIcom is more like the military (directly reporting to the sanctum) while the guardain force (what lightning is) is more like local police, sort-of. The two military forces are separate and don't necessarily work together. The PSIcom are the one's carring out the purge and the guardian force isn't really happy about it.
The party find the pulse fal'Cie and are turned into L'Cie, a servant of sorts for the fal'Cie. There are pulse and cocoon l'cie, made from a pulse or cocoon fal'cie. The L'cie are given a mission to complete called a Focus, if they complete it, they are granted "imortality", sort-of. They are turned to crystal, but not dead. If they don't complete it they turn into a sort of zombie thing. The problem is that most l'cie don't know what their Focus is because the only instruction they get is in the form of a vision/dream.
Now the party is l'Cie, so weather they want it or not, they are enemies of cocoon (thanks to the propoganda), or at least will be viewed that way by everyone. Since they don't really know what their Focus is, they don't know if they are meant to destroy or protect cocoon, and nobody really knows who the "bad" guys are, pulse or cocoon. Snow gets captured by what you think is a cocoon force, but that will all make sense later. Lightning, being a Guardian, was already naturally un-trusting of the Santum so decides to take out the sanctum fal'cie and complete what she thinks is her focus, kind of a "down with the man" plan, posibly some guilt issues about her sister. Hope is just following her commanding influence and yes he hates Snow and blames him for his mother's death. Sasz and Vanille are just running away from all of it. Sasz has his reasons to not get involved and Vanille has her reasons for going with Sasz.
I found if very helpful to read the Datalog updates on events and the history. Now that I am a little later in the game, the stuff in the beginning makes perfect sense. And read the data logs.
And I will say that I love the game, but it is flawed. And this is the flaw, it takes too long to really open up the full combat system and before you really NEED to use the paradigm system. You need to play for almost 8 hours before you start to get and interesting party. And it is nearly 20 hours before you are able to chose your party, and when you get to that point, you have all classes unlocked and can build some amazing combo parties. The battles get a lot tougher at that point as well, so you really have to build a good party and use them effectively to stay alive. You will have to use buffs/de-buffs while causing damage and healing and trying to maintain pressure on the enemies chain gauges.