My one issue with final fantasy 13

[Icehearted]

These threads remind me of when Dragon Quest 7 came out, and how Enix actually bragged that you wouldn't even see combat until around 7 hours in. The old ways of the JRPG are dated, padding things out doesn't make a game more fun, it just makes it longer.

 

[Wounded Melody]

He's rarely opened his mouth to do anything but shout "Why me?!" or groan patheticly. That said, if I could throw any of the characters into a raging fire it would be Snow.

But you have to understand where he is coming from. His mother was pretty much his world and when you lose someone you tend to act emotionally and even self pitying. I lost my father and almost my mother--if I was in Hope's place I'd probably spend the whole game crying on the ground or sedated.
(and I'd be there to roast marshmallows over Snow's smoldering corpse)

 

[Criquefreak]

Never had issues with most of the games' forced character situations. There's plenty of times it just makes sense in the story that the party you're using is the ones most relevant to what's going on.

With specific games in the series, it's even nice to see logical forced party decisions, such as having to take Squall in VIII, who wouldn't want the guy that crits on demand. IV's static party was a very welcome thing in my opinion, not only is the end party the most competent of them all, they're also the only ones still standing and able to fight (without captaining airships/tanks), and best of all no useless extra options sitting around.

From a more technical side, it's a heck of a lot easier on game programmers and designers to not have to prepare every single event in a game to accomodate 20+ possible party combinations. The cutscenes alone would either be tediously generic or bankrupt the company due to how many they have to stuff into the game (one for every possible event sequence for every single party combination).

But I can definitely agree with having to suffer whenever the game forces an outright hated character choice on you. Most of VII was that for me; that whiny, emo, identity thief should've died by Sephiroth's blade in rescuing Aeris. At least that way he would've finally manned up to the image he was constantly trying to convince us of.

 

[Thaius]

I get why it could be irritating, but I guess since I've played some of the older ones I'm used to it: you have to do that a lot in the older ones. I never really minded though, at least until they made you directly control a sentinel. That was annoying, but it was very close to the point where you can choose whoever, so I was fine with it in the end.

I'm loving the game so far: I'm level grinding about 50 hours in. Amazing story, fantastic characters with intense dramatic relationships, and my favorite Final Fantasy battle system yet. Good stuff. Keep going, 'cause you don't want to miss out.

 

[Radelaide]

I've maybe played 3 hours (with a friend) and fuck me, that game is batshit crazy backwards! I don't understand it!

 

[Phoenixlight]

I've played through about 9 hours so far and I don't have any complaints, I like the game.

 

[Wilbot666]

I agree that sometimes the game feels a little restrictive as to which characters you get to control, but I love the new battle system.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

That's one of my favorite things about this game. It teaches you to use the people in your party. It's one of the reasons I didn't like 8, you have 6 borderline clones (stats wise) that you just junctioned into your party of choice. This and 9 have my favorite systems so far.

 

[TheRocketeer]

I've been sharing the pain since final fantasy VIII.

Since VIII? Try 'since since always.' FFVIII certainly did this poorly, yet FFVI was the first to really piss most people off with this. Pretty much the entire second half of the game consists of carting a second-stringer around the world trying to re-recruit all the other characters.

You could even make a case that IV did this; you go through a lot of likable characters that end up being temporary.

And the fourth character slot in FFII had a revolving door on it, not that anything about that game was good.

Very few games in the series have a static lineup. The first game's lineup never changed, I don't know anything about FFIII, FFV's changed once, FFVII's did (including temporarily losing the MAIN CHARACTER), IX tinkered with the lineup, X didn't, nor did X-2, and I don't think XII did, unless you count guest characters, which changed often.

 

[Carnagath]

I'm having a dreadful time myself. I put up with walking in a straight line and mashing the X button for 8 hours because the environments and graphics were pretty cool, then I get to this junkyard where everything for some reason looks badly pixelated and colored dogshit brown and I STILL have to walk in a straight line and mash the X button and it goes on and on and on and on. Fuck me, this game is terrible. Seriously.

 

[skywalkerlion]

I agree. I'd love to stare at Lightning's ass some more *lolz*.

But seriously though, Lightning is the only character I like but I keep getting put with Vanelle and Mr. "*gasps**breaths in**sighs*Snow...I..*gasps**breaths*sighs*.

TELL HIM..WHAT..THE..HELL..YOU WOULD LIKE TO TELL HIM, HOPE.

 

[Carnagath]

Seriously, how did we get from the Great Crystal dungeon of FF12 to...this? It just blows my mind, it feels like the new game is not just aimed for a different target audience but for a different fucking species altogether. How did Squeenix go within a couple of years from thinking everyone is a genius with the cartographic talents of Marco Polo or whatever to thinking everyone is a drooling retard that needs 20 hours of repetition to learn how to switch from Commando - Ravager to Synergist - Medic, spam the X button and walk straight? I just got to the White Forest place or whatever it's called and there are lights every 5 feet and Lightning says "These lights will help us go the right way", and I was laughing for like 3 minutes because HELLO, THERE IS STILL ONLY ONE WAY TO GO, WHY THE LIGHTS??? WHY THE HAND HOLDING OVERKILL??? WTF HAPPENED TO THIS GAME??? Sighs all around.....

 

[Sonicron]

Yeah, the constant change in your team line-up is a bit annoying, but as a device to drive the story it does its job.

What annoyed me the most in the beginning were the characters, which meant that the first few hours of the game were like pulling teeth to me. Soulless female soldier, stereotypical black dude, cocky slab with can-do attitude, shrill and bubbly teenage girl, mopy speech-impaired coward - all of these guys get better later on, but in the beginning they're all one-dimensional and stuck in personalities and behavioral patterns virtually designed to make the player scream in exasperation. Fang is the only character I really liked from the moment she made her first appearance, despite her weird accent (what is that, Australian?).

 

[omega 616]

I'm glad I avoided this game, all I hear is complaints and "it picks up after 6 hours".

If anything else (including outside of gaming) took 6 hours to "get good" we would abandon it and think what the hell.

I think FF is the only series we would let them get away with it, imagine it with Morrowind/Fallout/any half life the game would have no good reviews.

Thank god the same never happened to MW2, the game would only have 1 hour of good gameplay.

 

[CmdrGoob]

And the writing is so bad. Like every second cutscene is some insipid "blahblah can't give up hope" bad motivational speech BS, or some melodramatic attempt at an emotional scene. And it just falls flat when they do it so repetitively.

The first chapter alone is such a trainwreck (pun!) it should be shown to all prospective video game writers as an example of what not to do, and the whole game continues the trend. Are we supposed to care about this conflict we had no introduction to? Are we supposed to immediately care about all these characters they throw at us so abruptly? It's so abrupt like hey, this is the bitchy one and here's the comic relief and that's the ditzy cute girl OK that's the characters introduced, you care about them now, right? (No) Are we supposed to understand all this weird vocabulary we had no introduction to? What, were we expected to sit down an start reading the encylopedia in the middle of what is tonally supposed to be an exciting war sequence? Did anyone even think about what the tone of this sequence is meant to be? Why the hell does the tone jump around from Snow & buddies joking around like it's a football match to civilians getting killed to Vanille prancing around saying "Ciao!" and giggling? Are we meant to be taking this seriously as conflict, when the characters aren't? And most importantly of all, who the hell thought "Moms are tough!" was good dialogue?

 

[Carnagath]

And the writing is so bad. Like every second cutscene is some insipid "blahblah can't give up hope" bad motivational speech BS, or some melodramatic attempt at an emotional scene. And it just falls flat when they do it so repetitively.

The first chapter alone is such a trainwreck (pun!) it should be shown to all prospective video game writers as an example of what not to do, and the whole game continues the trend. Are we supposed to care about this conflict we had no introduction to? Are we supposed to immediately care about all these characters they throw at us so abruptly? It's so abrupt like hey, this is the bitchy one and here's the comic relief and that's the ditzy cute girl OK that's the characters introduced, you care about them now, right? (No) Are we supposed to understand all this weird vocabulary we had no introduction to? What, were we expected to sit down an start reading the encylopedia in the middle of what is tonally supposed to be an exciting war sequence? Did anyone even think about what the tone of this sequence is meant to be? Why the hell does the tone jump around from Snow & buddies joking around like it's a football match to civilians getting killed to Vanille prancing around saying "Ciao!" and giggling? Are we meant to be taking this seriously as conflict, when the characters aren't? And most importantly of all, who the hell thought "Moms are tough!" was good dialogue?

I hate to burst your bubble, but every single Final Fantasy game ever made had atrocious dialogue. Some had strong characters (FF12 with the exception of Vaan), some had not so good characters but slightly better stories (FFX), but every single one of them had terrible dialogue. If you are after good dialogue, you are playing the wrong games and should try anything by Tim Schaffer.

 

[irishdude]

lightnings real name is claire? how weird

 

[Veldt Falsetto]

I'm glad I avoided this game, all I hear is complaints and "it picks up after 6 hours".

If anything else (including outside of gaming) took 6 hours to "get good" we would abandon it and think what the hell.

I think FF is the only series we would let them get away with it, imagine it with Morrowind/Fallout/any half life the game would have no good reviews.

Thank god the same never happened to MW2, the game would only have 1 hour of good gameplay.

I think you're wrong. If this game wasn't called Final Fantasy it'd be getting better reviews. If MW2 wasn't called MW2 it'd get much worse reviews.

Plus, it's all about what you like, it's been made so that all us 'idiot westerners' (mostly Americans) could enjoy and understand it but because we're all fixated on complaining we won't even recognise something good unless it's all action all the time, emotions are for women we like explosions and guns.

 

[Jaranja]

I like Vanille however i do not like Hope.(please tell me he mans up later on) Still this is ridiculous it shouldn't take 10 chapters and 2 discs to choose my own character -.-'.

He sure does.

Spoiler: In detail if you don't mind spoilers

Hope is pretty much on his deathbed and tells the party to go ahead and try and free themselves without him.