Final Fantasy XIII

[Bleck]

It's funny. People complained to hell about how Final Fantasy is filled with too many girly boys and stupid plots about angsty heroes with swords that save the world and get the girl (who is invariably a white mage of some kind) and then when Final Fantasy XIII comes out and actually changes a few of the conventions, the same group is all eyeroll about how bad it is and how it's not as memorable as ___.

I think what you don't understand is that the people who complained about previous Final Fantasies were people who didn't like Final Fantasy

as such when a game comes out that is basically a Final Fantasy except without all the things that made the last bunch good it is not really funny or ironic at all that these same people are going to dislike the game

also if FFXIII was their attempt at not having a JRPG then wow just wow

[relyanCe]

hey bleck go eat your hat already

[Arcana]

Yeah, bleck is right, FF XIII removed a lot of the things that hardcore JRPG fans thought they'd find in a Final Fantasy game (or even generic JRPGs), like overworld maps, a boy with a sword, a sexy bishi bad guy, boring turn-based combat, and stupid cutscenes of the main male lead being teased by all of the females in one room. And other dumb anime tropes like that. So all of the people who wanted turn-based grinding, huge maps, towns with item shops, and a chocobo farm were invariably disappointed.

There are a few problems with what they built now (mostly due to the story pacing being really slow for the first 10 hours, and the crawl at Chapter 11, and some key missing interactions explained only in the catalog, not to mention the cheesy ending) but I enjoyed it precisely because it wasn't another typical JRPG where we first went into a big city to win big at the casino, then we had to go take a ship and invariably that ship will be either a ghost pirate ship or it will be wrecked in a deep sea disaster of some sort.

I feel that in many ways, FF XIII was designed to appeal more to an adventure game/action game crowd, while still trying to maintain a character-driven story. I think it succeeded in this respect (as much as you might all hate on it, it's been the fastest-selling Final Fantasy game to date) though it possibly went too far into the "action-game" direction where you'd fight in part of a map, get a cutscene, continue on, get another cutscene, and then fight a boss.

[EC2151]

My biggest gripe with XIII is not the battle system. Neither is it the story. It's HOW the story is presented. You know something is wrong when you have to READ about what happened in that cutscene you just SAW in the codex/journal.

The japanese are master story-tellers guys!

[PriZm]

I was wondering when this fashionable racism against japanese would pop up.

SPOILERS follow

Also prophet: the reason why the grinding was exasperating was the lack of progress. The pacing was horrible. In other games, you might grind to get a cool X weapon and then you would know you are ready to fight Y monster. In this game, you basically grind to get trophies because there are no monsters that are hard or that require a special strategy to beat (unlike, say, emerald weapon, elizabeth, culex, etc.). The hardest monster in the game is the Long Gui, and there are tons of them so you don't feel like you have really accomplished anything by beating it. All the weapons are good, but you have no idea which one to upgrade unless you use a guide and they can all be found very easily in the main quest. The only 'secret' weapons (in gilgamesh inc.) are arguably the worst in the game. All enemies can be beat fairly easily once you are maxed out if you decide to turtle like crazy but the fight will take 1-2 hours. The Crystarium is WAY too easy to max meaning once it is, the only reason to continue fighting is to upgrade weapons, which means if you farm Adamantoises for example, if they decide not to drop loot, you have fought for absolutely nothing (unless of course you actually enjoy farming adamantoises). 5-starring the missions, while not very long, can be very tedious because in Titan's trials, you have to restart like 12 times to do all the paths if you didn't 5-star the mark the first time around, which you won't.

Seriously, the game was interesting. Cool characters, superb graphics and soundtracks, interesting and refreshing story, innovative battle system. But the post-game was horrendous.

[EC2151]

Racism? What racism?

The Japanese made Evangelion and Final Fantasy XII! They are master story-tellers!

[Kenogu Labz]

As a general rule, they do seem to put stories much further up in the priority chain in their games, movies, and even animations. American producers tend to think their game-players want to be spoon-fed, or at least that's how they seem to feel about it, sadly.

On one hand, I've always enjoyed playing Final Fantasy for the stories and their world-building (hence FF XII love). On the other hand, though, there's always the thrill of working out a strategy for a particularly tough boss, or having to juggle staying healed and dealing damage (again, hence FF XII love). XIII still seems to have a good measure of both, which is why I'm still curious about it, despite many people's frustrations with it. This game seems to have at least a reasonable level of both, plus pretty visuals.

And be honest: it may have gotten slow around that chapter, but did that stop y'all from playing? Begrudgingly or not, you kept going. Therefore, to whatever degree, the game succeeded.

[EC2151]

I am kinda pointing out how a lot of these games/shows have some seriously faulty problems with the plot.

Not saying Western games don't (Bioshock: the only game to attribute 90% of its GLARING plotholes to gameplay decisions), but who makes more games? (actually, I can't answer that, lol)

Also, I'd laugh pretty hard at your spoon-feeding comment if you said it to my face. I mean, and Japanese producers don't? You can have your choice between uninspired space marine plot or uninspired anime plot with quasi-metaphysical ramblings vaguely realated to Buddhism, you know. Not citing any specific exampls, btw.

And to your second comment: I wouldn't necessarily call that a success, in any sense of the word.

Anyone catch The Spoony One's 'review' of FFXIII? I mean, I don't ever think "Well, it's kinda crap/slow for the first 10 or so hours, but then it gets really good!" should ever be your fallback. That just means 10 lackluster hours in what should be an all-around amazing game. And while that does not mean the game sucks, that sure is not necessarily succeeding at anything.

[Arek the Absolute]

Anyone catch The Spoony One's 'review' of FFXIII? I mean, I don't ever think "Well, it's kinda crap/slow for the first 10 or so hours, but then it gets really good!" should ever be your fallback. That just means 10 lackluster hours in what should be an all-around amazing game. And while that does not mean the game sucks, that sure is not necessarily succeeding at anything.

Yahtzee got to that point first.

Even after the first 20 hours, the game still does not pick up for me.

I am honestly trying to enjoy this game, really. It appears that I unfortunately never will.

[Thin Crust]

I don't think SpoonyOne ever reviewed FF13.... unless I'm missing something.

[Necrotic]

As a general rule, they do seem to put stories much further up in the priority chain in their games, movies, and even animations. American producers tend to think their game-players want to be spoon-fed, or at least that's how they seem to feel about it, sadly.

Eh, not exactly. Even if Japanese games developers emphasize telling a story, it doesn't necessarily make their stories good. It also doesn't mean their stories are more intricate or complex, meaningful, and lacking in pretension. All it means is that you spend more time watching cutscenes and reading dialogue. I find half the time Japanese stories are confusing and incomprehensible because of a combination of quirkiness and this inane Japanese preconception that the more abstract or philosophical ideas you fill your games/anime/media with, the more thoughtful they are. The point isn't to fill your media with those things, it's to present those ideas well. I guess that's what bugs me when you say Western producers spoon-feed their games: basically, just because Japanese devs spend so much more time on their stories, I don't particularly find those stories more meaningful, inspiring, or thought-provoking all the time. I'm not willing to let Japanese writers off the hook, especially not in FF13's case.

Best example I can give on the Japanese side of things is Shadow of the Colossus. It doesn't take playing through 60-70 hours of overly complex ideas to make its plot good and that's what I love about it, yet it has some pretty striking commentary on death and sacrifice. Cool right? Yeah, and then on the other hand you have FF13.

One of the main themes presented in FF13's plot was prejudice, but I didn't feel at all that the story showed that aspect in a realistic manner.

It was like "Oh? You were from Gran Pulse all this time? Oh, okay. Man, guess we were fed some real bullshit."

I've met some racist people in real life and trying to convince them to let go of their pretensions can actually be a real struggle. I don't understand how it can suddenly go from being this major plot point to being completely unimportant. Plus the fal/Cie and l'Cie stuff is really jarring, not that I can't make sense of it, but the whole concept was something that took well over 20 hours to fully reveal and explain. Then half-way through the game you're told the most critical parts of the story, all at once. It was kind of a mess.

On the other hand, I will give a big kudos to other certain aspects of the plot: Any scene involving Sazh and Dajh, and Hope struggling to reconcile with his father were some of the most heart-warming and relatable moments in the game up to the point I played. Lightning defending her sister's honour in that big sisterly sort of way of way was really cool to see too. Other aspects of the plot and characterization can sometimes be disorienting or just plain stupid. Just look at Vanille for the first half of the game. Plus the lack of explanation of cutscenes and how you're either expected to infer things that aren't really the type of thing that should be left open to interpretation, or read them in the Data Log is kind of silly.

There's only a handful of Japanese story-tellers that are classically known to tell a good story. Same as in the West. We're blessed to have Bioware's writing staff, Blizzard's writing staff, Marc Laidlaw, Michel Ancel, and Ken Levine on our side of the planet to be honest.

And be honest: it may have gotten slow around that chapter, but did that stop y'all from playing?

Actually, it did. I got to Chapter 11 and haven't touched the game since. The game was grating enough as it is, with annoying and inconsistent characterization. Even when I let myself get past that and there was a good 10-15 hours where I was enjoying myself, the game took a 180. I was back to square one and I'd already put up with too much facepalming, groaning, and wincing on my part.

I'll probably pick it back up again one day, but I'm gonna laugh at anyone that tries to argue that the story in this game is good.

[relyanCe]

plot holes.

people keep saying this word. I do not think it means what they think it means.

[Necrotic]

people keep saying this word. I do not think it means what they think it means.

Actually, you're right. A better word would be inconsistencies, especially when it comes to characterization.

[Arcana]

Actually, you're right. A better word would be inconsistencies, especially when it comes to characterization.

Out of all the things to complain about, I don't think inconsistent characterization would be the thing to highlight. To me the characters seem quite consistent in the way they act and in their motivations.

Your issues with plot pacing, to me, are much more tangible. There's a particular event about halfway through the game that probably should have been foreshadowed to the player much earlier. They tried it with a few techniques, but it wasn't nearly obvious enough.

[Bleck]

Yeah, bleck is right, FF XIII removed a lot of the things

and replaced them with

overworld maps

replaced with really straightforward dungeons

a boy with a sword,

a girl with a swordgun

a sexy bishi bad guy

an old man instead yeah they've never done that before

boring turn-based combat

boring real-time combat

stupid cutscenes of the main male lead being teased by all of the females in one room.

stupid fucking cutscenes in general (I actually found them similar to Tales cutscenes in that 40% or more of them were just tedious explanations of all the extraneous concepts that the game invented to make the plot work)

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

So remember that part in the thread where I said that once SE sees how much FFXIII sold thanks to going multiplatform, they'd bring Versus to the 360?

Take it, bitches.

[Necrotic]

So remember that part in the thread where I said that once SE sees how much FFXIII sold thanks to going multiplatform, they'd bring Versus to the 360?

Take it, bitches.

A lot of people said that.

This isn't a case of prophets.

It's a case of profits.

As long as the cost of porting (in both time and money) is outweighed by the amount they'll make off of it, you can count on it.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

Well that's basically the point I was making earlier. "Console Loyalty" has no place in a generation in which companies have to essentially take out a second mortgage to finish a bloody game.

It's all about the benjamins.

[Gollgagh]

oh ok

[prophetik music]

This isn't a case of prophets.

you didn't ring?

[Schwaltzvald]

So remember that part in the thread where I said that once SE sees how much FFXIII sold thanks to going multiplatform, they'd bring Versus to the 360?

Take it, bitches.

As of now though it's still a PS3 exclusive.

Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada has provided some clarification on his statement from yesterday that seemed to suggest Final Fantasy Versus XIII was a possibility for Xbox 360. The clarification came, expectedly, through Wada's frequently updated Twitter.

Tweeted Wada early Wednesday (around 6:00AM): "It looks like the 'net is heating up. Versus on Xbox? What I said at the earnings press conference was just that until a formal announcement is made at the announcement time, all points about all titles are not finalized."

Stranger things have happened though.

[Tinus]

So any news yet on Versus and Agito's stories?

Now that FF13 is out, I'm curious how these games will fit into the FF13 setting. Are they prequels or sequels? Do they take place in Gran Pulse?

A 360 version of Versus would be nice, since it would mean I don't need to buy a PS3 to play it, but it's hard to get excited about the game without any more info.

[Thin Crust]

People don't seem to get that it's entirely Nomura's call. And Nomura is a Sony fanboy. It doesn't seem likely that it will go multiplatform.

[Tinus]

People don't seem to get that it's entirely Nomura's call. And Nomura is a Sony fanboy. It doesn't seem likely that it will go multiplatform.

Apparently Nomura was also against FF13 itself going multiplatform, and it still happened. He's not the only one calling the shots at Square-Enix. If there's enough money in a 360 port it could very well happen.

Also, calling a game designer a "fanboy"? Seriously?

[prophetik music]

i lolled, too.