Forum - View topicGAME: Final Fantasy XIII
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John Casey
 Posts: 1853 Location: In My Angry Center |
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A fair, and solid review indeed. Couldn't have stated those points better myself.
Albeit, for some reason, I never actually hated Snow all that much from the start. Could be Troy Baker. Or maybe it's because I can somehow understand what he's going for, and why. Dunno. |
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R315r4z0r
 Posts: 717 |
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I'm going to have to disagree with the negative comment on how it took the game so long to get "interesting."
IMO, the game was more fun during the first half than the second half. Granted, this is the first Final Fantasy game I've ever played, I liked how the game just totally expanded and changed its mechanics every couple hours into the game. However, (going to try to avoid spoilers) once the game completely opened up by letting you chose your party and letting you roam around that open field wherever you wanted to go, I felt a bit let down. It felt cheap and tacked on. The first part of the game was sound, polished, attractive, and overall, interesting. But once it opened up, it just lost a lot of the interest it had. Sure, the open field is amazing in itself, but once you spend a couple hours on it... it's gets a bit old and repetitive. I liked it better when it was a linear path getting from the beginning to the end. |
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Takeyo
 Posts: 736 |
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My BD drive crapped out on me close to what I assume was the end of the game. After forty or fifty hours of struggling to care about the characters and their world, I was almost grateful.
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Fronzel
Posts: 1906 |
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15 hours? Intolerable.
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Megiddo
 Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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I did not like this game. I played it a considerable amount of time. (More than any other FF game since the SNES days), and I just don't think I got much out of it.
My final straw with the game was when I was in Sanctum and spoiler[The old leader dude went crazy and killed his subordinate and then turned into a mech thing with a ton of heads that spit magic. I got all the heads down and then it was on to the next transformation. After around 40 minutes or so into the battle, he was at like 5% health. I saw that he was going to use that same "[Whatever Smile" attack where he pops out and shoots like 8-10 bullets at each member. Now this attack, the 20 times previously that he used it would take each member's health down to like 40-50% health. To which I would just potion back to full health and continue the battle. This time though, it killed Lightning, the "leader". 100% damage. And so I got game over. And I quit. No game should just all of a sudden have a super awesome attack that kills you in one hit after the same attack didn't do nearly as much damage in prior occasions.] The story was awful. My favorite character was Hope's mom, and you know how much screentime she got, and I didn't care for anyone else. It's a terrible game. |
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bahamut623
 Posts: 1463 |
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I think 15 hours is an exaggeration. I didn't find the beginning boring. Some people have complained about the lack of towns...but honestly, the first and only time I was even remotely bored was when there was a town (Nautilus). I'm still not on Pulse, but I'm having SO much fun with the game. It's streamlined in such a way that it never loses momentum. The more I play it, the more I see just how well put together the battle system is. You have to use everything available to you. In most JRPGs, abilities like the ones that belong to the Sentinel and Saboteur (provoke, debuffs) are either not that effective or just not worth it, but in this game there are some battles where you simply won't win unless you use everything available to you. The biggest complaint I've heard is about the linearity in the first half of the game, but it's a quibble compared to everything else the game gets right. It hasn't bothered me a bit.
Lightning cold? They show her soft side fairly early on in the game when it's just her and Hope. As for the song change, I wasn't so into My Hands at first, but it's since grown on me (it makes the commercials so epic!). Anyway, the original song is horrible, so I'm glad they changed it. I really appreciate how much Final Fantasy changes from game to game. Most series only make minor additions or changes, but just compare the last four (11 included) Final Fantasies and each is so different from the other. |
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John Casey
Posts: 1853 Location: In My Angry Center |
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Tacked on? I don't see how a Final Fantasy staple for twelve games straight, and 20 years is a tack-on... If anything feels tacked on, it'd be the first 25 hours... That's not to say it's truly, truly bad or anything. But a running through, essentially, a tunnel for 25 hours isn't exactly something that works for a Final Fantasy. |
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Shadowrun20XX
 Posts: 1936 Location: Vegas |
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It's all there, but it's missing a soul. A Nostalgic soul.
I don't like the "oh they won't like this", "throw this in instead" kind of bullshit America has. It would be a different story if she were to show us she has even played any of the Final Fantasy's. Good Job Todd. I want to see more singled out game reviews here on ANN. Not a cluster, but just the big name games. spoiler[ Otaku are supposed to be well rounded, not just one trick ponies like what the name has become around here. Games are just as important.] |
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Fronzel
Posts: 1906 |
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That....what? |
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Seif
 Posts: 458 |
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I don't know what you're smoking. With the exception of Sazh, Snow is pretty much the only likable character for the first fifteen hours of the game. He's nothing but supportive to the everyone he meets and catches constant shit for it. In a game this deep in angst it was a godsend to have someone who wasn't moping around constantly.
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Henry Jones
 Posts: 97 Location: Nebraska |
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That's about as fair a layout of the wonders and stumbles of Final Fantasy XIII as I've seen. Obviously, its faults are a lot more painful to others. I like it, but like someone earlier said, it really was the first Final Fantasy I couldn't play for extended periods. Even though I consider Final Fantasy VIII an abomination, I could at least get a good chunk of it done day-to-day. I can only get an hour or two at best with every time I take a seat on XIII. But I'm enjoying myself at least, which was more than I can say for good chunks of X and XII.
I know XII gets highly praised due to its pedigree and it was trying to be a "smarter" Final Fantasy, but it felt like such a faker. I kept waiting for the story to get amazing, and it never did. It just sat there firmly in the middle of the road. Aside from Balthier and an uncharacteristically whacked-out Cid, the characters weren't much to speak of, the MMO emulation battle was irritating for me (But that's really because I have an immense dislike for MMOs), and when Hitoshi Sakamoto doesn't have a decent selection of live instruments or melodies, his scores can be absolutely grating (Then again, I also have an immense dislike for synth orchestra trying to be a real orchestra). If I had to trudge through that thing to be a sophisticated Final Fantasy fan, no thanks, I'll go back to Tactics if I want to do that. At least with XIII, I'm enjoying parts of it, I'm occasionally being absorbed by moments in the story, and I love the music (Though if you're more of a fan of "game" music over film music, I can completely understand not digging it). EDIT: Some typos fixed. Last edited by Henry Jones on Thu Apr 01, 2010 3:46 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Raven Shinobi
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The FF series right now is just like the Suikoden series without Yoshitaka Murayama or like Dragon Ball GT without Toriyama's involvement in the story and the characterization. It's not impossible to continue the series, since every entry is a stand-alone work and the people at Nintendo were able to produce great games like Super Mario 2 and Zelda: Majora's Mask without Miyamoto's direct involvement. But those who remained at Square have failed as of yet to emulate the magic and charm present in the pre-PS2 era. I dropped FFXIII after the ninth hour into it. I found out that it's just not worth my time, especially with games that were released recently, like SMT: Strange Journey and Infinite Space that are providing me with hours of fun, something that I found FFXIII seriously lacking in. The story and the setting failed to draw me in and I found the Snow/Serah relationship quite appalling; surprisingly, the only characters that I found mildly interesting were Lightning and Hope. The battle system is just an inferior version of the one found in Xenosaga II, all I found myself doing was cast scan, keep my eyes on the characters' HP before I hurriedlly change their assigned roles. The weapon customization is also unnecessarily complicated and a step down from the junk shop in FFVIII and the weapon synthesis in FFIX. And before anyone says that I have no right to criticize the game unless I play it from star to finish or that it gets better at chapter 11, well, I believe 9 hours is quite plenty to judge whether I should continue with the game or move on to better things, and a few hours of side quests later on doesn't justify 20 hours of linear tedium. |
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AiddonValentine
 Posts: 2352 |
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it shouldn't take a game 15 hours or even really an hour to get interesting. I know all narrative-based games are linear in a metaphorical sense, but this is just too much. What really irks me is how members of the design team try desperately to deflect any sort of criticism aimed towards the series no matter how valid it is. It's times like this where I wish Matsuno hadn't nearly lost his mind left Square because he's probably the only person at the company who could have kept the series' soul intact.
Oh well, at least I have plenty of other titles like Resonance of Fate, SMT, and the upcoming The Last Story to fill the void left when I had to say good-bye to once great franchise. |
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bamwabam
Posts: 11 |
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i think this final fantasy is pretty underrated. imo this is a big step up from 12 at least in story wise i enjoyed this one almost as much as X and a bit better then 7.
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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I don't know how you can possibly say the story is boring for the first 15 hours. This has to be one of the most immediately exciting stories of any FF game. As for the characters, I would agree that Light, Snow, Hope and Vanille aren't all immediately the most likable people but that's part off what makes them so interesting. They're all deeply flawed characters and these flaws stem from their various JRPG cliches taken to the extreme. It's a really neat, almost subversive take on RPG characters.
Vanille, the endlessly upbeat and cheerful girl, is positive to such an extent that she actually seems in denial and really, she is. She doesn't know how to deal with her problems and so she just pretends everything is okay but that only makes things worse for her and those around her. Snow, the brash self declared hero is also in borderline denial. He can't deal with his own past failures to save people so he just ignores it and plows forward blindly. Hope, the whiny emo boy with no self confidence, is so unable to speak up that he ends up bottling up all his anger and finally exploding. Lightning, the stoic soldier, is so stubborn that she refuses to listen to anyone and can only deal with her grief by charging off into a hopeless battle. She is frustrated by Snow but is in many ways just the same except her response is to charge ahead hopelessly rather than with blind optimism. It's neat to see the two slowly come to understand each other and realize this. That's where the whole first part of the game works so well. They do an absolutely fantastic job of fleshing out these character, exploring their flaws and developing them as they eventually work through them. It's some really well done stuff and it's a shame that more people don't seem to appreciate it. Of course then there's Sazh. I'd declare him the greatest black FF character ever but that wouldn't be saying much so instead I'll declare him one of the most real, down to earth characters of the series. I found having a more grounded, world weary character like him paired with Vanille was really effective as well. I'm actually indifferent to Fang. I don't dislike her but she doesn't feel as developed as the rest. As for the gameplay, I'd certainly agree that it would be nice if they opened more up to you earlier. I'd hardly say it takes 15 hours to get good though. Assuming you want to get good ratings you really need to have a variety of paradigms and switch them pretty often. That's sort of the point of the game too. It's not really about selecting individual attacks. The AI and the auto-select do that just fine. It's actually quite similar to XII in that way. Instead of a focus on fewer moves but with more significance, you attack/cast repeatedly but with very little individual effect from any one given move. Because this is potentially quite tedious, the game is more or less set up to do it for you. You basically just let the lower order stuff run itself while focusing on switching paradigms to control the higher order flow of battle.
Yeah. It's honestly not that complicated. It's like...three similar terms. Memorize em. It'll take literally 10 seconds if even. EDIT: Just noticed this
When you see him start to charge up that attack you have to go on the offensive. If you hit him a bunch he will flinch and it will do way less damage. If you don't though then it's really powerful and will possibly kill you. It's not random. Last edited by ikillchicken on Thu Apr 01, 2010 5:38 am; edited 1 time in total |
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