Final Fantasy XIII Versus A.K.A. "Not FFXIII"

[SpaceMedarotterX]

So it's pretty much commonly accepted that FFXIII was the single biggest disappointment of the gaming year at least for the JRPG crowd bar none and this is coming from one. However the more I look at the Versus information the more I can't help get my hopes up.

1.The return of the World Map and controllable Airship
Or at least that is what I gathered from the latest information. It was either that, or the world in full is open like FFXII was. due to the later information (the controllable Airship) I assume it means the former however. This seems to be the opposite of FFXIII's "Corridors everywhere." Adding an exploration element to the game at least gives you the illusion that you're not moving in a straight line. I remember booting up the original FF2 one time and being utterly killed because I wandered intro an area I was not supposed to go for several parts of the game. But through lots of running I could buy overpowered weapons on the quick to give me an advantage.

In FFXII you could actually knock off a boss before you were ever supposed to meet him, or completely avoid another boss by taking an alternate route filled with more powerful monsters. While I'm not saying that's definitly likely (for one it's confirmed you can't walk over mountans) I do approve of the return of the open world/world map and deifnitly the flyable airship. I know it's more EFFICIENT to simply select from a menu but this puts the power back in my hands.

2.The game is apparently using Kingdom Hearts battle system
Let me just say this, outside of SRPG's and the occasional RPG where you want full control of your party. Turn Based Combat is... okay it's not dead but it's slow, I understand the great variation it gives (Anyone who tells you you're just going to press X or A or whatever over and over, give them Shin Megami Tensai and drink there delicious tears) but I do prefer a faster paced game after all .Hack//G.U. showed us that by Quick-Assigning abillities and allowing you to open a menu to use the rest if need be.

Regardless I think the Kingdom Hearts system fits better in this type of game.

3. The world setting is intresting
So the setting is that Noctis the main character is the last in the line of kings of what is essentially a modern day nation. When people originally saw this they said "This is not Final Fantasy" but I've been intrigued since I learned more. The reason "Well why don't they just shoot everyone" is two fold. First of all only that particular nation has the technology for guns, and trades them for resources with other nations. The reason there so far advanced as a society is because of there crystal. Meanwhile surrounding nations are more what we expect in Final Fantasy, swords and sorcery because they don't have the technology that the Kingdom has.

Here is a post from Wikia

The story, like Final Fantasy XIII, focuses around crystals. The main character, Noctis ? who is part of a lineage of kings, but is not yet king himself ? leads the country holding the last crystal, which is beneficial to the military and to his country's political and economic standing. Because of increasingly apparent modernization in contrast to neighboring nations (making them equivalent to a First World nation), Noctis's kingdom has isolated itself from the outside world. At one time, all the other countries also possessed a crystal, yet lost them in warfare. They pooled their resources into weapons, granting them firearms in exchange for swords and magic. A long cold war has gone on about the usage of the crystal. Recently, a peace treaty was talked about between the countries, but a group of marauders are beginning to break it.

There also exists a mythology in the kingdom of Tenebrae, an opposing country, about a goddess of death, the Goddess Etro. She is said to greet the souls of the deceased, and open the door to the afterlife. When that door opens, the released souls burst out in a streak of light that ascends to heaven. However, very few people are able to see that light, and those who can see it are given power from the Kingdom of the Dead. During their conversation, Noctis and Stella mention that they can see the light, and the former wonders if they are dying.

The focus of the game is to examine the humanity of the characters and distinguish it from the fantasy setting in other titles in the series. Nomura is "trying to propose new vision of how a Final Fantasy game can be. The game's going to be more human than the science-fiction caricature ... and will focus around current world events - in that sense it's darker".

The world Versus XIII takes place in seems very similar to the real world, with modern technology such as cars and highways being visible and also contains countries with medieval elements, such as castles and armored soldiers, marking the sense that there are nations that fit into the Seven Worlds Index. It has been said that Final Fantasy Versus XIII's cities were inspired by Venice.

This works in my opinion. it feels like a cross between Megaten (which is often Urban Fantasy) and Breath of Fire (without the animal people) It's not steam-punk like FFVII, it's not 'Modern' like FFVIII it contrasts the urban with fantasy. and if you're picking urban cities you could do worse than Venice. I know there will always be one person saying "This doesn't look like Final Fantasy" but to that person I say "There is no evolution in stagnation"

4. The main character has some depth
Depth is always going to be subjective but stop me if you've heard this. The angsty loner knows nothing about his past (or is at least murky on the details) and eventually learns to care. I just summed up 90% of fiction characters in the last two decades. Square Enix or indeed most games in general have never been one to shy away from cliched characters. Cliches aren't bad, how much development you put into said Cliche is what matters.

I'm going to post directly from Wikia again.

Noctis is said to be a very shy person, but he initially tries to hide it by "acting cool". According to director Tetsuya Nomura, Noctis will not have a "Cloud-like" personality like people are currently expecting. Instead, he will be a type of character that has not yet been seen in the series, one which Nomura has wanted to try out for a long time. Nomura says that Noctis will have a strong and distinctive personality, and will absolutely not be a "silent, gloomy little boy".

In the Tokyo Game Show footage, Noctis has a short conversation with Stella about the two of them seeing a form of "light". Stella goes on to explain the legend of Tenebrae, that when a person is able to see the "light", they will receive the powers of the dead from the Goddess Etro. The footage was shown to give people a brief idea of what the two characters' personalities are going to be like. In the footage, Noctis is also able to speak briefly with a painting of the goddess, asking who she is.

Now the selected parts are the intresting parts. While I could argue that Clouds angst came from the fans projecting and he was really more of a twat I wont because that would take forever.

Noct looks like an 'Emo' Boy, he's already being called an 'Anti-Hero' based on... 9 minutes of footage? 3 of which he actually said words, and even then he was trying to flirt. so let's take a look at him.

Spoiler

Oh yeah I can see where the assumption that he's an emo boy comes from, but the fact is the only thing we have to go on dialogue wise is how he lightly flirted with Stella. If this is pulled off well we may have the most intresting protagonist since Zidane.

but that Noct design is a little out of date, let's get his more recent costume and move onto...

5. The clothing is SANE
A long time ago an artist name Tetsuya Nomura was put in charge of translating the FF5 and FF6 art into sprites, now Amano is a good artist but the mans art works about as well in sprite form as picaso, and so Nomura loosely (VERY Loosely I might add) adapted the art. We got some very good and simple designs, my favorite being Locke but the stand out being Setzer, the badass airship pilot/gambler, it's hard to believe that's a Nomura design.

So one day this artist got tasked with directing a game and we got Final Fantasy VII and it sold like crack laced candy, the designs were... still pretty tame, but then fashion changed in japan, there was a lot of talks of belts... and zippers.

And then Nomura's designs which had gone from this

Spoiler

to this

Spoiler

Oh dear god man where did your artistic talent go.

Apparently he's realized the same thing because rather than draw all the individual costumes he's asked an actual fashion designer to do them, hence Noctus's new outfit.

Spoiler

Wow... with the exception of the one archery glove that is a really good outfit, as in I could see a real person WEARING THAT. Wait maybe it's falls hope what about the Female lead, Stella?

Spoiler

Holy crap are those normal sized boobs and a normal outfit? okay there's the belt but if I start criticising her I have to start criticising my sister too.

Okay so our protagonists check out, but what about our supporting cast?

Spoiler

Oh my god there's hardly a belt or zipper on them, finally the party are wearing normal clothes. Okay there not wearing armor but honestly I'll take what I can fracking get.

Apparently there will be the option to change outfits for your characters as well which excites the hell out of me. I know I'm harping on this but good designs can help or ruin a project.

6. Just all arond general positive stuff

The characters are intresting, the setting is unique, the characters look and dress human, idea of a full open world or at the very least the world map returning make me giddy, the possibility of the action combat of Kingdom Hearts pleases me. There's more but I lost the recent reveal of a lot of stuff and honestly I don't care much for it. Some graphics nut is probably astounded that the clouds will be rendered real time but I honestly don't give a crap. and of course the pessimist inside tells me I'm hyping myself up for a flop but honestly after XIII depressed me so bad, I wanna habeeb.

Thanks for reading.

 

[SpaceMedarotterX]

So it's pretty much commonly accepted that FFXIII was the single biggest disappointment of the gaming year at least for the JRPG crowd bar none and this is coming from one.

Bit of a sweeping statement there.. I know plenty of JRPG fans who really liked FFXIII, myself included.

As for Versus, personally I dislike the look of the game. I always like either the polished cyberpunk style or medevilish style of FF games, and Versus looks too 'gritty' and 'real' to me. I'm still interested in how it comes out though, and whether or not the KH battle system is implimented well, and if it is Versus could actually turn out pretty good.

In my defence I was going for hyperbole. I personally couldn't take it

 

[oden636]

So it's pretty much commonly accepted that FFXIII was the single biggest disappointment of the gaming year at least for the JRPG crowd bar none and this is coming from one.

Bit of a sweeping statement there.. I know plenty of JRPG fans who really liked FFXIII, myself included.

As for Versus, personally I dislike the look of the game. I always like either the polished cyberpunk style or medevilish style of FF games, and Versus looks too 'gritty' and 'real' to me. I'm still interested in how it comes out though, and whether or not the KH battle system is implimented well, and if it is Versus could actually turn out pretty good.

totally agree with you their, i loved it, the card game was second best only to blitzball as a side game!!!

 

[Dexiro]

I only skimmed through that but it actually sounds really awesome.

It's a shame it's falling under the title "ff13". I didn't hate FF13 that much, but other people are probably going to assume they're both the same without looking too much into it.

 

[Spaceman_Spiff]

I only skimmed through that but it actually sounds really awesome.

It's a shame it's falling under the title "ff13". I didn't hate FF13 that much, but other people are probably going to assume they're both the same without looking too much into it.

I'm inclined to agree with this. This seems like a very stupid marketing move from SE.

 

[Rewold]

So it's pretty much commonly accepted that FFXIII was the single biggest disappointment of the gaming year at least for the JRPG crowd bar none and this is coming from one.

In that case I guess FFX and FFXII were big disappointments too.

Although I love turn-based combat I welcome the change in Versus.

 

[The Rockerfly]

For fuck sake, everywhere I go the ps3 is getting a shit ton better. If these are all true I will sell my xbox and buy myself a ps3

I want everyone here as my witness

 

[Freshman]

I should really stop being surprised when I hear they are making another Final Fantasy. I really really should.
OT: Not sure if everybody hated it (I never played it, but some friends of mine told me it was awesome (and they are always wrong about everything ever)) but hey yea, I am aware of the incredible amount of belts zippers and terribly unrealistically sized tits from past games, it does seem they got away from that. those people do seem kinda angsty though...

 

[SpaceMedarotterX]

I should really stop being surprised when I hear they are making another Final Fantasy. I really really should.
OT: Not sure if everybody hated it (I never played it, but some friends of mine told me it was awesome (and they are always wrong about everything ever)) but hey yea, I am aware of the incredible amount of belts zippers and terribly unrealistically sized tits from past games, it does seem they got away from that. those people do seem kinda angsty though...

But in my opinion there's a difference between looking and acting. The way they act is... well

Three as-of-yet unnamed characters who accompany Noctis have been revealed; their relationship seems to resemble that of the kyodai (brothers) and shatei (little brothers) in the Yakuza hierarchy. The first, a man with light brown hair and glasses who wears suit, is frequently seen at the wheel of Noctis's car, and appears to be his driver. The second, a friendly man with dark brown hair and a scar over his left eye, seems to act as the group's senior. The third, a blond-haired man, is said to be a fugitive, and carries a shotgun despite the ban on firearms within Noctis's kingdom.

The one trailer they are in they act very happy and brotherly so hopefully despite the dark setting and the look the personalities are unique.

I know I'm asking for a lot but a man can hope.

EDIT: Oooh I just noticed. Blond, brown and black, normal hair colours!

 

[Ghostbody]

My god... I'm actually interested in a FF game again. After IX I lost interest but now it could actually be a solid FF release. Logical clothing, interesting characters, and a story that could be good. Note that the operative word being "could" as FF has a way of starting out great and then falling under there own intentions.

 

[Girl With One Eye]

In my opinion this game needs to be a success or a lot of people (including myself) are going to lose hope in the final fantasy series. I hope that versus won't be one of those games with too much hype and no substance, but I must admit it does look promising.

 

[ShadowKatt]

I still haven't played it, so if anyone that absolutely detests the game wants to give away their PS3 version, I'm all up for it.

I'm looking forward to it though. I've gone out of my way to not look up information on it, so that it will all be shiny and fresh when I play it the first time. The crowd that seems to have loved it also loved VIII, and IX, and that includes me. I think all the people that hated it, it just wasn't their game. I detested XII, but XII was less story and more gameplay with the job system(At least until the gambits played the game for you).

 

[Danallighieri]

It does indeed look very interesting, mind you I'd still love a bit of turn based combat more reminiscent of perhaps before 10, but anyways. From what I've read the battle sequences are also meant to be reminiscent of Advent Children, which would be rather interesting, to say the least, and also have some third person shooter elements like in Dirge of Cerberus, so it could go either way really, if they've done it properly, it'll all work swimmingly, probably...

oh and one more thing... Noctis is Zack and Cloud's bastard love child, think about it!

 

[SpaceMedarotterX]

So it's pretty much commonly accepted that FFXIII was the single biggest disappointment of the gaming year at least for the JRPG crowd bar none and this is coming from one.

In that case I guess FFX and FFXII were big disappointments too.

Although I love turn-based combat I welcome the change in Versus.

XII was but keep in mind (and I'm even pointing this out about my own opinion) biggest disappointment doesn't necissarily mean bad.

Dragon Quater was a big dissapointment when you compare it to the first 4 Breath of Fire games but it isn't a bad game in and of itself.

FFXII was a good game. it had plot pacing up the butt and the combat and license board wasn't as refined as the International Zodiac version (which I'm happy to say has an english patch now) But gambits were a good concept (that should have been limited to the party members not under your control so you had to control the party leader) if implemented wrong, and the world felt big. I know it felt 'MMOish' but that's not necissarily a bad thing (coming from a guy who doesn't play them)

But I still know that FFXII bas a big let down from what we were promised. for one there was no Airship combat.

 

[Catinks]

after reading this, versus looks actually pretty good, with the idea of the controlable airship making a comeback, the characters looking like normal human beings and the kh battle system coming into play, this looks like a final fantasy worth playing AND finishing.

also, ive played ffxiii at a freinds place (in too poor, i dont have a ps3) and i found it linear, boring, and my ears bleed every time... venial? whatever her name was, the red head squeeky one, spoke.

so this looks really good, maybe i might buy a ps3 so i can play this... and a couple of other games like god o war 3 and maybe CoD

 

[Raziel_Likes_Souls]

2.The game is apparently using Kingdom Hearts battle system
Thanks for reading.

You have me at that. I fucking love that battle system. Day one.

 

[Akihiko]

So it's pretty much commonly accepted that FFXIII was the single biggest disappointment of the gaming year at least for the JRPG crowd bar none and this is coming from one.

In that case I guess FFX and FFXII were big disappointments too.

Although I love turn-based combat I welcome the change in Versus.

XII was but keep in mind (and I'm even pointing this out about my own opinion) biggest disappointment doesn't necissarily mean bad.

Dragon Quater was a big dissapointment when you compare it to the first 4 Breath of Fire games but it isn't a bad game in and of itself.

FFXII was a good game. it had plot pacing up the butt and the combat and license board wasn't as refined as the International Zodiac version (which I'm happy to say has an english patch now) But gambits were a good concept (that should have been limited to the party members not under your control so you had to control the party leader) if implemented wrong, and the world felt big. I know it felt 'MMOish' but that's not necissarily a bad thing (coming from a guy who doesn't play them)

But I still know that FFXII bas a big let down from what we were promised. for one there was no Airship combat.

An MMO style word can be either good or bad, depending on how it's used. My problem with it in XII, was that because it was so big, you ended up spending hours traversing through 5 different big areas to get to the next story point. It was tedious, and boring. It often caused me to stop playing the game for a while, consequently causing me to forget what had happened in the story.

As you can gather, I did find Final Fantasy XII a disappointment. It depends what you're looking for in a game though. I really enjoyed Final Fantasy XIII, despite its insane amount of hate. People going into it looking for Final Fantasy XII, or an wrpg, however, probably won't be happy.

Eitherway, Versus XIII looks very interesting. I hope they don't end up westernising it too much, though. I play WRPG's for that...