Poll: What is everyone's problem with XIII?

[beniki]

I just couldn't take it seriously.

Kind of silly names. Massively improbable fights right from the start which I'm just supposed to accept. Frankly disturbing relationships. Overly complicated combat system, which actually boiled down to simple stance dance. Peculiar level up menu design, with, again, silly names.

Although I only played the first 10 hours at a friends house, so my opinion means little.

 

[tehroc]

I thought this was about XIII: The Conspiracy, some Canadian Made for TV Miniseries. It wasn't too bad for a 24 ripoff.

 

[Zenn3k]

Press UP, Mash "A" (360) will nearly get you to Grand Pulse.

The game overall was very boring. I beat the game to enjoy the story (which took awhile before I figured out what was going on), went back to GP, and proceeded to "DEATH" all the hunter quests to get the good items, maxed out my characters, got Omega weapons for each of them (even though I really only used 3 of them at that point), got to the point where I could farm those trapezohedron things (the big turtles) easily and simply ran out of things to do.

It was all decently fun while I was clearing everything out, but I had ZERO reason to replay the game (especially since you have no options for alteration...ever) and traded it in not long after I did everything I was interested in doing, I still could have gotten ALL the Omega weapons if I wanted, but I felt it was a waste of time.

It was a very lackluster release IMO.

 

[Double A]

Where's the "I wasn't disappointed but that doesn't mean I liked it" option for those of us who don't like Final Fantasy?

 

[Atmos Duality]

Squeenix's design philosophy for FF13: "This is a video game, so be sure to involve the player as little as possible. People buy our games to watch endless cutscenes and stereotypes, nothing else."

Not content with merely dragging the game to a crawl, Squeenix insisted that the player be confined to this tiny game design box, so that they wouldn't miss the umpty-million dollars spent making the game really really fucking pretty.

They lock the player in a shining hallway filled with cutscene opportunities.
Older Final Fantasy games at least gave you the freedom to explore your surroundings, and indeed, rewarded you for doing so.

But the combat is where they really pull the drag chute, especially towards the end.
Boss battles are all about building up the Guard Break bar, and then chaining combos when their defenses go down. (Xenosaga Episode 2 did this, and it SUCKED.)

While that sounds cool on paper, in practice, it means all of your attacks really amount to a hidden form of grind, because you will be using the same 2-4 Gambits Paradigms the entire fight and pressing a button whenever the bar fills up.

Yes, I just said that Final Fantasy 13 turned the combat itself into a form of grind.

And that right there is more than enough reason to not play this over bloated piece of shit.

 

[Leemaster777]

I'm actually playing XIII myself for the very first time. (I haven't read any comments on this board yet to avoid spoilers).

I've reached the part where Snow rejoins the party (where you get to control Shiva for the first time), and the game is FINALLY starting to come alive.

Those first 5 hours REALLY dragged, so much so that I nearly gave up on the game. But, I decided to give it one more chance, and things finally started improving.

It certainly isn't a great game YET, but I'm feeling optimistic. I'm finally starting to see where the game is going with the Paradigm system, and I'm intrigued so far.

The minimal control over character action was a bit of a turn-off for those first 5 hours, but I'm actually starting to appreciate it. It makes the battles that much quicker, random encounters don't feel like so much of a hassle this way.

The characters have also FINALLY stopped being annoying to me. Lightning's personality finally makes sense, Snow doesn't seem like as much of a douche anymore, Hope's whinyness seems to have toned down, and Vanille's voice has finally stopped grating. Sazh is still, and was from the beginning, awesome. He was one of the only reasons I gave the game a second chance.

So, yeah, at 15 hours in, I'm just starting to have a good time. If the rest of the game is made of win, I might just say it was worth it. Now, I'm going back to play it.

 

[Rayansaki]

It didn't have space marines or just... marines so it wasn't allowed to be linear in the eyes of the masses. I loved the game. For me, as long as it doesn't overly repeat itself, and still has a decent size, I don't mind the game being linear. How many games ship with 70+ hours of solid gameplay do we have nowadays? Apart from New Vegas, I don't see any other this year.

The story was great, everything looked great, the combat was engaging, and perfectly balanced in terms of difficulty, and the Cut-scenes were so beautiful in 1080p loss-less encoded video, that you could get lost in them, even when they would be boring otherwise. Seriously, this is Pixar grade animations.

It's also great to get a break from the Shooter infested market we have, which is infecting the RPGs as well, with games like ME2 which you can't even call an rpg anymore.

It's by no means my favorite game of the year, but it was worth my day 1 buy.

 

[Ryujisama]

Here's what I can tell you from my own personal experience and from the experience of friends who have played it at least half-way through.

Final Fantsy 13 is a very pretty game; by far, it is the most graphically impressive of the series. However, it kinda falls under the curse of Final Fantasy 10, and some other games of it's kind: Graphics over Gameplay. As pretty as the game is, it doesn't distract players that the gameplay itself is kinda meh. Combat is a button masher's dream, for the first few hours of the game, literally mashing the 'x' button (or 'a' button for 360 owners) will get you through combat. Speaking of which, combat, at this point becomes more of a chore than something to enjoy. I often fell asleep in mid-fight only to find out that after waking up, I still won, and with a maximum score of 5 stars, too (anyone ever find out what is the purpose of those stars?).

One main purpose of RPGs is to gain experience to level up, right? Then why did SE decide that leveling up should be limited? Though people who hate to grind will essentially love this decision, this totally rubs most RPG fanatics the wrong way. There's a lot of hand-holding in this game, too. A LOT of hand-holding. The paths in the game is linear, you can't form your own parties until like a good 1/3 through the game (roughly 14+ hours), and if you die in battle, you are taken just outside of the battle to rethink your strategy/re-equip your characters/buy stuff from the "store".... wait, that doesn't sound too bad, but still... HAND-HOLDING!!!

tldr: good-looking game, bad gameplay, and not an RPG.

/rant

 

[That's Funny]

Hmmm it's confusing when you put it like that .. I mean in America III was about Cloud of Darkness and Onion Knight. Is that the one you're referring to or is it the one with Kefka?

Sorry, I meant VI, it was originally released as 3, I am aware that it was restored to VI after the release of the games that orignally was exclusive to Japan. I do apologise for not realising this fact, must have been a bit of an error on my part, like my brain not working properly. I feel a bit dumb now.

 

[MrhalfAwake]

I tend not to have opinions on games I didn't play, when the game lets me play Im sure Ill be able to tell you

 

[pyrosaw]

Don't worry, I hate all the Final Fantasies I played(Only play Final Fantasy 10 and after that). I'm not biased at all.

 

[Psycho Cat Industries]

I really couldn't play it all the way through.The battle system was killed and they just overdid it.I had high hopes and love most aspects of it but the game was killed by the game

 

[Raiha]

i loved it. i found the battle system more enjoyable than any other in the series. i actually had to think about the random small battles rather then just hold x until everything dies, then heal between battles.

 

[Scars Unseen]

http://socksmakepeoplesexy.net/index.php?a=ff13

That pretty much covers it.

 

[samonix]

Seriously i see more and more "omg ff13 is shit" rants everyday. Although i dont rank it as the best ff it was far from the worst and in some cases like the battle system improved on prevoious titles.

So I ask you was XIII a dissapointment for you? And if so why?

It wasn't the best, and the junctioning was either hit or miss...

what I couldn't stand was "drawing" spells, what happened to materia/skills?!

*sigh* either way I liked it but it wasn't my fav (that's still FF4)

I think you confused the letter X with V

 

[WOPR]

Seriously i see more and more "omg ff13 is shit" rants everyday. Although i dont rank it as the best ff it was far from the worst and in some cases like the battle system improved on prevoious titles.

So I ask you was XIII a dissapointment for you? And if so why?

It wasn't the best, and the junctioning was either hit or miss...

what I couldn't stand was "drawing" spells, what happened to materia/skills?!

*sigh* either way I liked it but it wasn't my fav (that's still FF4)

I think you confused the letter X with V

Oh, whoops... umm... I was really tired when I made that post **hides embarrassment**

plus everyone here bashes VIII not XIII

 

[Altorin]

I haven't played Final Fantasy XIII

However, the game, simply called XIII was an under appreciated gem, and you lose the internet for baiting and switching.

 

[y1fella]

I never cared for FF to begin with so whatever.