Final Fantasy XIII

[prophetik music]

Rikku was voiced by Tara Strong in both games. Dunno whether she got any awards for it, but she damn well should.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tara_Strong

yeah, she got an award for that in 2004. she's voice a LOT of cool stuff, like lemmy and iggy koopa, seth from lost odyssey, lots of other notable roles. pretty cool.

[Sixto]

So I just got to Gran Pulse.

WHEEEE!!!

Me too! Even ran into a Behemoth King...FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU

[Meteo Xavier]

Basically, there's only been two female voice actresses ever.

Tress MacNeill and Tara Strong.

And they've never been photographed in the same room at the same time either...

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

Me too! Even ran into a Behemoth King...FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU

Pfft! Try running blindly into an Adamantoise?

NYYYYYYYYAAAAAAARRRGH

[Alexis]

finally getting around to playing it

vanille is the only good character

nuh uh, it's totally hope.

(actually he's not so bad now. his eidolon is pretty bad ass.)

This makes me wonder who people hate more...Vanille or Hope? They're both annoying.

I also just got to Gran Pulse today. I had grinded for like an hour yesterday before I got there, and I'm still getting killed. Stupid Behemoths.

[prophetik music]

hint, everyone - the reset battle function helps a lot.

i didn't fight a damn thing on the flatlands area, i just ran right by that stuff, and moved on. it's super easy to die in crappy ways there - heck, some of those enemies require your characters to have the 10th level of the crystarium (or whatever it's called), anyways...and nobody's getting that any time soon.

you might want to beat the game and then come back for all the sidequest stuff.

[eternal Zero]

you might want to beat the game and then come back for all the sidequest stuff.

This is how the game is intended and designed. Only reason to grind is if your strategies and tactics cannot surmount how much stronger the storyline enemies will be. Many of those fights are literally impossible and are harder than the final boss.

Also along this same line of thinking: If you do not want to grind before the story is done then do not, I repeat, do not level any class that a character doesn't specialize in. It is a huge CP sink for little gain. Where a little less CP per orb will give you large numbers of stats on higher levels of a character's base class.

[Bahamut]

nuh uh, it's totally hope.

(actually he's not so bad now. his eidolon is pretty bad ass.)

This makes me wonder who people hate more...Vanille or Hope? They're both annoying.

I also just got to Gran Pulse today. I had grinded for like an hour yesterday before I got there, and I'm still getting killed. Stupid Behemoths.

I'm actually ok with Vanille - didn't like Hope at first, but he got better later on.

I just got up to Gran Pulse today too - game turns really open at this point of the game, and despite being fine with the streamlined linearization beforehand, I'm absolutely loving this freeroaming and completing marks.

So far my biggest complaint with the game is that when the game switches up your party members, you lose all of your Paradigms, even if you switch back to the original party - couldn't have they figured out a way to preserve them? The fact this is my biggest complaint so far speaks volumes for the game I think - it's incredibly well done, and might be one of my favorite FFs, although I'll have to complete it to be sure.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

I honestly didn't have a problem with any of the characters, being that I see girls like Vanille around here all the time, and if you actually sit back and try to understand what's wrong with Hope as opposed to "Hurr! He cries too much!", he isn't that hard to appreciate as a character.

Also, has anyone ever had that "how the hell did I get a 5 star rating!?" after a battle that seemed total shit? Been happening to me all the time.

Also, thank you SE for the battle restart. This system is exactly what I was hoping it'd be.

[Didaji]

Love this game

Just came to Chapter 6. I didnt really like Vanille and Szah in the beginning, but they are getting kinda stronger now.

So you can go back and do side-quests and collect trophies after when you have finished the game?

[Arcana]

I just bought this and I'm about 9 hours in (just switched to Disc 2).

I don't know, this game's interesting enough for me to have played nine hours in a single night (heh heh) but there's something... missing from it.

I'm going to blank out everything below just to prevent people from being spoiled even though I know most of you are ahead of me.

-Begin maybe spoilers-

My main problem with this game so far has been pacing. The game moves like molasses even though tons has happened. You know what's wrong with the pacing? Up until just now (the scene with Snow and Cid on the airship), there's been a lack of any formidable villain character. And, all prior to that, there's been little direction other than, "Let's get out of here". The problem is, as a viewer, I have one burning question:

Once they do get out, where are they going to go?

The Lightning/Hope arc is not bad because they actually made a plan, but even though I agree that Sazh is the best character in the game thus far, the parts with him and Vanille are mind-numbing at best and downright disturbing at worst (I really, really really hope that they don't get together. They have absolutely no chemistry together and they totally deserve other people in the world who will love them).

About two hours in, it's pretty exciting because you find out that they all get together, they become L'cie, and all of that, but then you're like "Uhhhhhhhh" and the "uhhhh" goes on for about 4 hours with maybe an hour worth of flashbacks. The motivating elements aren't there and it's kind of annoying that me, as a player, am playing with a pray-hope that it picks up.

I mean, I like "desperate survival situations" and all, but it seems that there's not enough discussion of "Where should we go?", "How will we live our life now?", or even "What are we going to eat tonight?" for me to suspend disbelief. I would have been totally happy seeing them in a scene scrounging for food or something if only because it helps satisfy my longing for grounding in realism and an illustration of the desperation of their situation while they determine how they are exactly getting off of whatever area of the world they're in.

I think it would have helped actually if there was either some kind of world map, or at least an indication that the characters knew where to go and that eventually, if they walked in the same direction long enough, they would get to that one town that slips my mind at the moment.

I think it's in elements like this that make the game's lack of a central map a bit harder to digest because you can't really orient yourself around the game world. They all talk about the world Cocoon, and the outer rim and the inner rim and the characters all know what it's like, but you the player still have no idea what it is like, what the countryside is like, and what the cities are like (though you get a taste of Bodhum in cutscenes). While this doesn't matter in a game like Doom 3 or Gears of War, it matters when the game is so character-focused and when the characters talk about things like missing home and trying to find their way home and things like that.

In fact the game reminds me a LOT of Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter in terms of its layout so far (by the way, BoF V is an excellent, excellent, excellent game and is thoroughly overlooked) because of its focus on dungeons and fighting, rather than on towns and character interaction. But at the same time, I'm reminded of the importance of towns in RPGs - towns are designed to immerse you and make you if not CARE about the world's inhabitants, then at least to make you understand a little about them. FFX's implementation of a town was good in that it was not a "base of operations" more than it was a "part of the story that you got involved in". FFX III is sorely lacking in that "everyday normal human stuff" so far. The flashbacks are by far the best at immersing people into what people's everyday lives were like (which is the point of them, I do understand that).

Basically, I've played for 9 hours and I'm pretty disappointed that more hasn't happened. Remember, in FF7, 9 hours of play got you out of Midgar and into Junon. In FF10, 9 hours got you significantly into Yuna's pilgrimage. In FF13? 9 hours later and you're just starting to get out of this barren underwasteland you crashed into after trying to get out of a crystallized lake that you also crashed into. I understand the pacing in this story is very different from the other games, but... yeah, in my opinion it's slow.

Also, while I rarely wonder about things like, "what are the characters going to eat?" that's because they normally have things like Inns and similar. Even in Final Fantasy X Tidus says, "I'm hungry!" I dunno. I don't wonder in Gears of War, Doom 3, or similar games because the entire game, even if it takes 15 hours, usually happens in what is presumably the span of the evening (Gears of War for example starts during the day, and ends the next morning). I think we all expect the scope of a Final Fantasy game to cover the span of many, many, many days and that the story will end up being really long.

I do agree with statements about Vanille's voice though I didn't really notice her 'squeaking' so much just because it's such typical Japanese girl fare to squeak and do orgasm-grunts. She's kind of annoying, but she's such a stereotypical character that I've learned to look past it. I don't get urges to beat her head in with a bat or anything.

As far as Snow goes... I don't like him. I think it's because he seems to try to be such a cliche Japanese-tough guy, right down to the beanie hat and unshaven chin and shit-eating grin. He's too archetypical. I hate his girlfriend Serah way more than Vanille, by the way.

Lightning goes into the archetype totally the other way, being the total "bitch girl".

In fact, one of the more believable characters I found was Hope because he's actually responding to the situation how most people I would think would respond - with despair, depression, thoughts of suicide, and desperately trying to prove himself useful in a (pathetic) attempt to get over it. Yeah, he's a whiney kid, but you'd probably be a whiney kid too if your mom was killed violently and you were branded to death.

Story-wise, I appreciate the fact that the party doesn't like each other. I kind of lamented the teen rating because I really anticipated people calling Lightning "a real bitch". The shifting perspectives is pretty fun as well as the mandatory party changes (something I haven't really experienced since Final Fantasy IV, and it was something I really missed).

-End maybe spoilers-

The combat keeps getting better as the game goes on (though really I'm surprised it took them 9 hours to explain all of the combat elements and I bet there's still a few tutorials to go). I only realised just now that the stagger meter actually indicates the % bonus damage each hit does :0 I'm bad. Also, thanks Malaki for the tip of "organic" vs "machine" parts for weapons upgrading, I was wondering how I got XP bonuses from some items but not from others.

For a while when playing it (especially the first two hours) the combat was dreadfully boring because you don't have any options to select from. Getting the roles and paradigms in though makes the game far more interesting.

Finally, I am kind of concerned about the intricacies of the Crystal system. It doesn't look, well, significantly interesting. To me it kind of reminds of the implementation of the World of Warcraft talent point system, where a spec is a particular role and that there's pretty much One True Way to spec, with no variations whatsoever. There are no branches in the FF13 system (unlike the sphere system) and to me the system is just about "picking a tree and pressing A until you run out of points". When you max out a tree (so far, in the early game, it hasn't been hard to max out the trees at all, though I expect this to get super hard later on) you just pick the second-most useful tree and work on that until it's maxed out.

Oh and a couple more things...

Does anyone think this constant "Would you like to save your game?" is totally archaic? Of all the things that FF XIII is progressive about (fast complex battles, no HP loss between combat, streamlined exploration), WHY does the game insist on asking you if you want to save every time? Can't it just assume that you want to save, and do it? Or, even better, couldn't it just keep a set of two or three autosave files that it automatically saves to, like every other video game I've ever played? I've gotten so used to not having to keep track of saved games (or conversely having the option to save anywhere) that it's really a bummer that the game keeps asking you. Also, I hate how, by default, it asks me to save a NEW game every time. Again - I really don't need a new file whenever I save the game. Can't you just keep it on the old one? Or... yes, guess what. Autosaving is good. Please learn how to implement it for Final Fantasy XV, you'll only have about 7 years to learn how to do it in time for the XBox 720 and PS4. (Also whenever I start the game, it asks me what device I should load games to, and brings up my hard drive as the one and only option... I don't know if this is an XBox system issue or a FF XIII issue, but you'd think if it finds only one disc device on the computer it would default to that one).

"Loading... please wait" and "Please insert Disc 2" sucks, but it's a CD-based console game so I kind of expected it. It's a shame though. I have 90 GB free on the XBox 360, I wish they could allow me to install the game onto the hard drive.

Anyway, I had zero expectations of this game so although it sounds like I'm hating on it quite a bit, I'm not - I think it's interesting and I intend to play more of it. I think the basic story concept is good and I like the multiple character perspectives as well as the battle system. Even if the characters, individually, don't really strike me as being excellent, their interactions and situations are involving enough for me to want to keep playing. I'm hoping it picks up story-wise though.

Oh and before I forget...

Anyone else think that the image of Snow riding the bike is VAGUELY suggestive: http://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-09/ff13-shiva-bike.html ?

[Sixto]

Just finished the game! So awesome. Onto endgame!

[Tinus]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tara_Strong

yeah, she got an award for that in 2004. she's voice a LOT of cool stuff, like lemmy and iggy koopa, seth from lost odyssey, lots of other notable roles. pretty cool.

When I'd finished Killer7 I was surprised to see her name in the credits as the voice of Kaede Smith. She really is a very versatile actor.

To keep this post somewhat on-topic: I have just reached disc 2 and the game keeps on getting better. I was surprised that the game already let me control Hope, with Lightning as a secondary party member. I figured she'd remain the only controllable character (as long as she was in the party) during the first half of the game, like Crono.

[prophetik music]

Does anyone think this constant "Would you like to save your game?" is totally archaic? Of all the things that FF XIII is progressive about (fast complex battles, no HP loss between combat, streamlined exploration), WHY does the game insist on asking you if you want to save every time? Can't it just assume that you want to save, and do it? Or, even better, couldn't it just keep a set of two or three autosave files that it automatically saves to, like every other video game I've ever played? I've gotten so used to not having to keep track of saved games (or conversely having the option to save anywhere) that it's really a bummer that the game keeps asking you. Also, I hate how, by default, it asks me to save a NEW game every time. Again - I really don't need a new file whenever I save the game. Can't you just keep it on the old one? Or... yes, guess what. Autosaving is good. Please learn how to implement it for Final Fantasy XV, you'll only have about 7 years to learn how to do it in time for the XBox 720 and PS4. (Also whenever I start the game, it asks me what device I should load games to, and brings up my hard drive as the one and only option... I don't know if this is an XBox system issue or a FF XIII issue, but you'd think if it finds only one disc device on the computer it would default to that one).

"Loading... please wait" and "Please insert Disc 2" sucks, but it's a CD-based console game so I kind of expected it. It's a shame though. I have 90 GB free on the XBox 360, I wish they could allow me to install the game onto the hard drive.

it doesn't allow autosaving because, as with all FF games, there are often times when you want to experiment with crafting or creating some weapon or armor and you don't want to save it if it doesn't work out. in the same way, you might save before you go into a tough dungeon so that you don't have to fight your way out if it doesn't go well, etc. autosaving wouldn't be a good design decision for this game, honestly. does the three seconds that it stops and asks you about saving really annoy you that much? on the ps3 it only takes a second or two to save, dunno about the 360 version.

as for asking where it wants to look for save games, that's for jasper 360s with an internal memory unit. by always popping up with that, it's ensuring that if you DID want to load a save from an external location, you could tell it to search again and see that it's just not seeing your device, as opposed to just having no idea where your save went.

the only reason you wouldn't be able to install this game on your hard drive is that you're banned. it's an easy install, takes up 21.4gb or so (according to my friend). takes a little while, though. you still have to swap discs, of course, but it's way faster loading times, less tearing, and makes your 360 way quieter.

to be honest, if these are your biggest complaints in a 60-hour, industry-changing, internet-polarizing, FPS-inspired RPG epic that you thought was going to be horrid, shut up and get back to playing =) just because you're too fat to get off the couch and change a disc doesn't mean that you're allowed to complain about it. play from the exercise bike

[SenPi]

I have a solution to the disk switching.... get the ps3 version

Anyways, I just got to GP, and damn the game just got hard REALLY fast. Lots of those enemies are pure beasts, and even some of the weakest enemies there are pretty strong. Time to do some hardcore grinding

[Gollgagh]

FPS-inspired

... what

[Schwaltzvald]

...what

I think he meant OtSS (Over the Shoulder Shooter) ala Dead Space and Resident Evil 4/5.

That said...

What the hell, that's some stretch prophet.

[Arcana]

it doesn't allow autosaving because, as with all FF games, there are often times when you want to experiment with crafting or creating some weapon or armor and you don't want to save it if it doesn't work out. in the same way, you might save before you go into a tough dungeon so that you don't have to fight your way out if it doesn't go well, etc. autosaving wouldn't be a good design decision for this game, honestly. does the three seconds that it stops and asks you about saving really annoy you that much? on the ps3 it only takes a second or two to save, dunno about the 360 version.

Then how does Dragon Age: Origins, a game that's much less linear than FF XIII, get away with keeping an autosave file for you? There was a game that I actually saved and loaded repeatedly.

Do you know how you get into experimenting? Allow the player to keep both manual and automatic saves. I think this "experimenting" is virtually nonexistent anyway. Maybe later in the game, but in the first ten hours I've had zero desire to go back and take different decisions, whereas I have wished that I didn't have to go through 3-level deep save menus that destroy the immersiveness of the game.

It's like watching a movie in the theatre that has commercials in the middle of the damn movie.

to be honest, if these are your biggest complaints in a 60-hour, industry-changing, internet-polarizing, FPS-inspired RPG epic that you thought was going to be horrid, shut up and get back to playing =) just because you're too fat to get off the couch and change a disc doesn't mean that you're allowed to complain about it. play from the exercise bike

I'm quite able to change the discs myself, thank you - and if you read my white text you'll see that the disc thing was an extremely minor gripe. No need for insults now.

But thanks for the information about game installing. I didn't know you could install games on the XBox 360 (you'd think manuals would talk about this kind of thing).

[Sixto]

I think this "experimenting" is virtually nonexistent anyway. Maybe later in the game, but in the first ten hours I've had zero desire to go back and take different decisions, whereas I have wished that I didn't have to go through 3-level deep save menus that destroy the immersiveness of the game.

Ohohoho, you'll be doing this plenty in the last 15-20 hours or so. Upgrading weapons and armor and spending crystal points gets crazy expensive and you'll want to make things as cheap as possible by using the right ammount of organic vs. mechanical components.

[Arcana]

Ohohoho, you'll be doing this plenty in the last 15-20 hours or so. Upgrading weapons and armor and spending crystal points gets crazy expensive and you'll want to make things as cheap as possible by using the right ammount of organic vs. mechanical components.

That doesn't surprise me.

Still, I maintain the lack of need for the game asking you to save and instead maintaining an automatic save for the lazy and/or motivated.

Every time you pass by a save point for the first time, it should automatically save in a new file (or overwrite the oldest file in a set of X autosaves allocated on the memory unit). The player as well is also provided the option to manually save (as the game already does) when he wants to experiment.

[Schwaltzvald]

Oh I'd say saving manually, or the occasional blurp requesting whether I wish to save or not is better imo. The auto-saving that occurs in Fallout 3 and Demon Souls for example can easily fuck one over...

"I didn't mean to save AFTER releasing Yurt! NOOOOOOO FFFFFFFFfFfffff"

"Okay so let try this baby out... FUCK got killed by the Deathclaw, no matter I'll reload... YOU GOT TO BE SHITTING ME, THREE SECONDS BEFORE I DIED?! OKAY I'll just load up from the last manual save I did.... TWO FUCKING HOURS OF GAME TIME AGO?!?! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU"

yeah...

I'd turn off the automatic saving every chance I get and welcome the occasional game blurb requesting me if I wish to save; though I do find it funny sometimes how it asks if I wish to save before and after an event scene before I actually do anything.

[Sixto]

(Demon's Souls in a nutshell)

God, I love that game so much. Surprised my PS3 controller isn't smashed to bits by now.

[Arcana]

Oh I'd say saving manually, or the occasional blurp requesting whether I wish to save or not is better imo. The auto-saving that occurs in Fallout 3 and Demon Souls for example can easily fuck one over...

"I didn't mean to save AFTER releasing Yurt! NOOOOOOO FFFFFFFFfFfffff"

"Okay so let try this baby out... FUCK got killed by the Deathclaw, no matter I'll reload... YOU GOT TO BE SHITTING ME, THREE SECONDS BEFORE I DIED?! OKAY I'll just load up from the last manual save I did.... TWO FUCKING HOURS OF GAME TIME AGO?!?! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU"

yeah...

I'd turn off the automatic saving every chance I get and welcome the occasional game blurb requesting me if I wish to save; though I do find it funny sometimes how it asks if I wish to save before and after an event scene before I actually do anything.

That doesn't remove the opportunity for the player to walk up to the save point and select, "Save" though. I don't know if in Fallout 3 there were save points or save-anywhere features; the games I've played that featured autosave always did it on saves separate from the player's manual save slots. Final Fantasy doesn't force you to save either, you have to also go up to the save point and select "Save?" then "Want to save in a new file?"

[Schwaltzvald]

That doesn't remove the opportunity for the player to walk up to the save point and select "Save"

I take it you've never played Demon's Souls...

THERE ARE NO SAVE POINTS AS IT'S ALL DONE PERIODICALLY REGARDLESS.

nonetheless an awesome game.

[ShinnyMetal]

I actually am glad it asks me to save. I'm all like "why, thank you square-enix, I would like to save my game at this time." I know people have a certain montra of saving in very specific, organized ways in RPGs that auto-saving would absolutely screw over.