Final Fantasy XIII

[Arek the Absolute]

Well I guess the entire internet is awesome at coping, because dealing with watching your mother(to whom you're very attached to as opposed to a nearly absent father) die due to being caught up in a stupid government initiative that you had nothing to do with, and then having your entire normal life destroyed by shit you can't change at a very young age is something that I'd imagine a normal person would have a hard time taking.

My thoughts exactly.

And Malaki, I think him being a cheerleader is just his way of coping. The group is his solace, so he is attached to it. You can't blame a kid for doing that. They help him keep his mind off of anything painful, so it is completely understandable to see him go "yaay team" all the time.

[ambinate]

I see where you guys are coming from, but I don't think the game conveys or presents any of that information too well. The script just isn't strong enough, in my opinion. Hope's dialogue is pretty terrible and I never really formed enough of a connection with him to care about all the miserable stuff that happens to him. He doesn't get a whole lot of development before they just start throwing traumatizng, emotional scenes at you, which makes them fall flat. The game as a whole is really guilty of this, I think. A lot of melodrama without much foundation or development.

[The Derrit]

wow derrit you like ffxiii you must stoooopid

durrrrrr

could you please just not enjoy games that other people don't enjoy.

for everyone's sake. please.

sorry for being a spoilsport everyone

[Arcana]

I see where you guys are coming from, but I don't think the game conveys or presents any of that information too well. The script just isn't strong enough, in my opinion. Hope's dialogue is pretty terrible and I never really formed enough of a connection with him to care about all the miserable stuff that happens to him. He doesn't get a whole lot of development before they just start throwing traumatizng, emotional scenes at you, which makes them fall flat. The game as a whole is really guilty of this, I think. A lot of melodrama without much foundation or development.

The pacing at the beginning of the game in my opinion is way off, but that again is a consequence of how they structured the game world and your abilities. It takes about 2 hours of playing before you get anything more interesting than "Auto-attack" when fighting. There's also about two or three flashback scenes in which you actually get the move your character around.

Having a stronger set of "flashback town sequences" in which you can move around and chat with people might have helped with the immersion, but then you would have run into the problem of people complaining that "it takes too long before you kill anything in this game".

[Maruku]

I see where you guys are coming from, but I don't think the game conveys or presents any of that information too well. The script just isn't strong enough, in my opinion. Hope's dialogue is pretty terrible and I never really formed enough of a connection with him to care about all the miserable stuff that happens to him. He doesn't get a whole lot of development before they just start throwing traumatizng, emotional scenes at you, which makes them fall flat. The game as a whole is really guilty of this, I think. A lot of melodrama without much foundation or development.

I have to agree completely with this. I think it is the biggest fault of this game and the biggest reason so many people stop playing it. Narratives are character-driven and all of the characters just seem too bland. We have all these events going on but the character interaction/involvement just doesn't feel right. The characters' personalities and motives are always changing for weird and strange reasons. Like that part where Light randomly has a revelation about the Fal'Cie in the sewer system. It made no sense to me and it did nothing to really captivate me as an audience. She tries explaining it with some monologue but it still does very little to add to her or the story, in my opinion.

This game's major fault is just bad storytelling. Everything else in the game is pretty solid. Unfortunately, a huge part of RPG's (and games that go beyond 10 hours of gameplay) is storyline and the ability to keep the gamer interested.

[Arek the Absolute]

Definitely don't disagree with you guys at all.

If it weren't for Hope and Fang, I would have traded the game in a long time ago.

[Zombie]

I personally really enjoyed 13's story. Maybe it isn't the strongest story, but it was still one of the better and more original RPG stories out there IMO.

[relyanCe]

Yeah so I was lookin through my friend's GameInfomers and stumbled upon a FFXIII interview. I got in a discussion with Vivi22 earlier in this thread about the whole "no cities" thing and posited the idea that it was a writing decision, not a developmental decision.

sure enough:

In Final Fantasy XIII, Lightning and the other main characters are persecuted and on the run within their world as dangerous l’Cie. The concept of exploring towns and shopping did not make sense in light of the plot, so from the very start of development we had decided that towns would be incorporated in the form of a handful of large cities. Instead of adhering to the traditional style of RPG gameplay, we wanted to involve players by presenting one dramatic situation after the other. The residents of each town are fully voiced, which is something new to the series, and something we hope fans will have fun with.

So yeah I pretty much hit the nail on the head.

[OceansAndrew]

I just got to the end of chapter 11 and I am having a lot of fun. I did a bunch of missions and got some cool items, and have started to figure out how to upgrade my gear. I unlocked an area with some chocobos so I can ride them around now too in the big overworld area, which is sweet, and they can dig up presents.

Overall, things are really cool. I can see why some of you don't like the story, but for me it's pretty good.

[DJ Mighty]

I have to agree completely with this. I think it is the biggest fault of this game and the biggest reason so many people stop playing it. Narratives are character-driven and all of the characters just seem too bland. We have all these events going on but the character interaction/involvement just doesn't feel right. The characters' personalities and motives are always changing for weird and strange reasons. Like that part where Light randomly has a revelation about the Fal'Cie in the sewer system. It made no sense to me and it did nothing to really captivate me as an audience. She tries explaining it with some monologue but it still does very little to add to her or the story, in my opinion.

This game's major fault is just bad storytelling. Everything else in the game is pretty solid. Unfortunately, a huge part of RPG's (and games that go beyond 10 hours of gameplay) is storyline and the ability to keep the gamer interested.

agreed, i am up to the final part now and to be honest, i kind of dont want to do it but i figure i am almost there why not. I liked the idea where all the characters were split up, i think they should have done that for more of the game. It liked the different scenarios they were in and changed up the fighting a lot since you had to fight with what you had.

We all agree about the story so i wont get into that, but the biggest thing i noticed was the lack of a good villian. Same thing with 12, there was never a connection with a villian that made you hate or like him. Also, some of these levels are just plain boring, Gran Pulse was awesome and came at a good time because i was about to throw the game out. But the last part i am in now if just a terrible design and boring.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

Well FFXII made up for that by the fact that it's not about a major villain as much as it's about a war, and the many motives/players within a war, which makes things not so clear cut... Of course that's just the way I see it. Funny thing about FFXIII though is that when I heard that it was being done by the FFX team, I knew in the back of my head that it wasn't going to have a very strong antagonist, and what do you know? I can't really say more than that.

I'm currently replaying the game, and I find that while I still feel they could have done more in the game past chap.11, I am enjoying it a lot more, though.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

MASSIVE NECRO BUMP ATTACK!!!*

Well this just happened http://www.siliconera.com/2014/09/18/yes-final-fantasy-xiii-trilogy-coming-pc/. For anyone who's still a fan of the trilogy like myself(especially XIII-3), but that never got to finish it(especially FFXIII-3), now you'll be able to pick up the entire trilogy by Spring 2015, with FFXIII-1 releasing on Oct 9, 2014 at around 16 bucks each(?).

Ostensibly, the games will be playable at 1080p at or around 60fps, which is much better than what it got with consoles at the time. I'm pretty damn excite.

*I probably could have posted this in the latest Final Fantasy XV thread, but figured it would distract from it. Feel free to redirect this comment if it should be, mods. Sorry in advance.

[BaconProcurement]

MASSIVE NECRO BUMP ATTACK!!!*

Well this just happened http://www.siliconera.com/2014/09/18/yes-final-fantasy-xiii-trilogy-coming-pc/. For anyone who's still a fan of the trilogy like myself(especially XIII-3), but that never got to finish it(especially FFXIII-3), now you'll be able to pick up the entire trilogy by Spring 2015, with FFXIII-1 releasing on Oct 9, 2014 at around 16 bucks each(?).

Ostensibly, the games will be playable at 1080p at or around 60fps, which is much better than what it got with consoles at the time. I'm pretty damn excite.

*I probably could have posted this in the latest Final Fantasy XV thread, but figured it would distract from it. Feel free to redirect this comment if it should be, mods. Sorry in advance.

Slightly interesting news. I wonder if they are planning on releasing all of the main numbered Final Fantasy games on steam...

It also makes me wonder if the modding community will actually spend some time adding content (or anything for that matter) regarding these games. I know there are tons of mods for FF7 but it would be hard pressed to imagine anything coming out of it. (Perhaps a mod where the character models have blocky hands looking like FF7 characters in the over world screen. I think the novelty of that would wear off rather quickly.)

Seems like a bit of a reasonable price but I would only warrant a purchase based on what the modding community does with the game. I don't see too many people actually buying the game on PC based on the response of the games. I do know that when XIII-2 and Lightning Returns releases, many costume designs people will make will end up hitting the internet so there is that to look forward to seeing.

[Brandon Strader]

you realize it's hugely popular in Japan and has sold over 11 million copies worldwide... I don't know what you mean by the response to the game. I'll probably pick it up at some point

[prophetik music]

most of the noise about FFXIII these days is people reading day-one release reviews and taking them as gospel. was it the best game ever? no. was it a huge step in the series, far different than past titles? yes. was it successful? in my mind, definitely, and FFXIII-2 was just that much better.

i was desperately excited for XIII-3, but was really disappointed with it. i got about five or six hours in and realized i had NO clue what was going on, or how to do stuff. i'm hoping to go back to in after a while but it still is leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

All three of 'em are pretty much day one buys for me. FFXIII was just beautiful to look at and the battle system gets progressively better as characters unlock more ATB gauges, Crystarium tiers, and eidolons. The story is pretty hit and miss for a lot of people, but I felt it had a lot of strong points, especially in Palom Polum(whatever chapter that is. 8 I think? ) Final Fantasy XIII-2 and XIII-3 represent a gradual decrease in graphical quality, but they both have their redeeming qualities such as FFXIII-2's surrealsit pre- and post-apocalyptic setting mixed with several improvements to the battle system, and what I thought was an excellent treatment for its main character(I didn't really care about Serah at all until playing through XIII-2).

FFXIII-3 really does well by including what a lot of people thought was initially wrong with FFXIII, namely exploration and sidequests. It really feels like they took some pages from western RPGs.To your point, Prophet, I also had a hard time innitially getting into XIII-3, and I won't even be able to finish it 'til its PC release since I have no PS3 now, but once you "get it", it does a nice job of tying together the story from what I've played, and it's really freaking dark. Really feels like they took a page from not just Majora's Mask's time mechanic, but its narrative and themes as well.

The biggest thing for me though is the presentation. The 360 and PS3 CHUGGED on certain parts of FFXIII and nearly all of the other two. With the PC version, the experience should be much smoother. With this along with the FFIV DS Steam release, it also means that hopefully we'll be seeing more Final Fantasy(including FFXV) on the PC.

[prophetik music]

that's true. my ps3 seemed to render FFXIII pretty well, but admittedly XIII-2 wasn't near as nice to look at on the 360.

i know you were banging these drums when the games came out, but it's nice to hear a review of xiii-3 that wasn't "well it wasn't as bad as x other game", which most of them appear to be.

[Brandon Strader]

The 13-3 demo was enough to get me to pre-order it. Haven't played it yet but I'll enjoy it because I'm not overly picky like SOME PEOPLE

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

Well a lot of gamers roaming the internet unfortunately fall prey to irrational "hive mind" think. Of course FFXIII DID disappoint a lot of people, but couple the previous with over-hyped expectations and SE's gratuitous over-selling of the game(remember that FF series infomercial? Yeesh...), and you're heading for Disappointment Avenue. That isn't me being an apologist as much as a realist, though. I wear my love the FFXIII series on my sleeve(but then I also loved Metroid: Other M and Infinite Undiscovery), but it's mostly because all the things I think are great about the games(story, world, and character concepts, music, visuals, battle systems) vastly outweigh what I don't(hokey dialog, episodes of linearity). If people don't like 'em, that's totally fine, too. I just hope that most people would look try to weigh things similarly.

And yeah, FFXIII for the most part ran really great save for the Archyle Steppe(which wasn't too bad). FFXIII-2 and FXIII-3's worlds were much more expansive, and the engine they used had trouble rendering it often in my experience.

[Brandon Strader]

They're doing the same hive mind thing with FFXV. At first everyone was spazzing out from how amazing the trailer was, then everyone started with the "It's a zoolander road movie!" stuff. It ALREADY looks inevitable that people are going to hate on it, and they haven't even played it yet. They did the same thing with FF13 where everyone is like "wow this is amazing" then start bashing it because of goofy memes and because they were told that it is bad rather than it actually being bad. Same thing with Destiny. SAME exact thing, I've seen. Everyone is like OMG DESTINY and the alpha is amazing, people love it. The beta is amazing, people love it. Then the game comes out and it's the same game we played but now people are suddenly saying Destiny sucks. Oh well. But yeah the quality of Destiny is far from what expected, but it's still good. I think FF13 might be closer to what was expected or promised and it still got bad flack.

Edited September 22, 2014 by Brandon Strader