Final Fantasy XIII..... 2?

[thephoenix]

"just because a game is successful DOESNT MEAN THE GAME IS SUCCESSFUL"

wa-hoooow guys.

All depends on how you measure success. If success is making a classic game that will be talked about and still played 15+ years from now, they failed. Horribly. If success is measured by the money they put in their pocket? Then yes, they succeeded in paying the bills. The game is forgettable at best. They need to just work on FFXV and stop going "wait, this horse just moved when I beat it, maybe it's still alive! LETS BEAT IT MORE!"

likeable characters: the only thing that made the older characters more likeable was their lack of personality. it allowed people to fill in what was missing (aka everything but the text they spoke) to make an idealized version of whatever character it was that was talking

For what was given, numerous characters DID have that personality that existed. Yes, it's hard to read pixelated emotion but that's like saying "I don't read books because it doesn't give me a visualization of what the character feels". That's the sign of good storytelling. They can take a pixelated figure and make you see them as something much deeper, and something actually enjoyable. You empathize with them, you understand them, and while your imagination builds them up, it does so within the guidelines presented by the game...something much harder to find nowadays.

amazing stories: they're good. no one's really arguing with that all that much. but they're not drop dead spectacular either

Consider, once again, the time period they came out in. It was the birth of storytelling in video games in the SNES era. They took what they had and made gold out of it. They story HAD to be the biggest part of the game because what else could you sell it on? The graphics, like games nowadays? Of course not. Even still, the story flowed very well, it made you connect to it, and presented itself in a way that it is memorable. I can remember FFVs storyline extremely well, and I haven't played it in YEARS. That's the sign of amazing storytelling.

deep backgrounds: what does this even mean. if it means that there's substance behind the ingame worlds they're completely blown away by the modern ones. hell 13 practically had an in game encyclopedia, it was huge

Backgrounds for the characters, the reasons you're doing what you're doing and what drives the story forward, and so on. I'm not talking about the random whatever that just exists, I'm talking the fact that the games present backgrounds to so much very well. Not saying FFXIII didn't but FFIV-VI certainly did (as well as Tactics) so that's another point to them doing well on their own.

difficult challenges: no one who hates the new ones hates them for lack of challenge i've never heard anyone here say that ever

Two words: auto-battle. Plus, it heals you at the end of every battle? What the hell is that? The game didn't feel challenging at all the entire time I played it. I can't tell you how many times I saw the game over screen in the SNES-era games, but when you beat someone it was much more challenging, much more intense, and much more satisfying.

so pretty much what it comes down to is every new character isn't cecil or cloud and every ff villain isn't kefka

You said that the games would be hated if they came out now instead of when they originally released. Those games DID have Cecil and Kefka, and Kain, and Rydia, and Shadow, and Edge, and Locke, and Sabin, and Shadow, and Edgar, and Delita, and on and on and on...and they're memorable because of how well crafted they were. If anything, it shows even more how bad the FF games have gotten because they DO have the tools to better craft characters but appear to be taking a step backwards. Again, go get Resonance of Fate and see exactly what I mean. RoF is what FFXIII should have been, hands down. A few of us have even started to just call RoF "FFXIII" because it seems much more appropriate to the series.

[relyanCe]

All depends on how you measure success. If success is making a classic game that will be talked about and still played 15+ years from now, they failed. Horribly. If success is measured by the money they put in their pocket? Then yes, they succeeded in paying the bills. The game is forgettable at best. They need to just work on FFXV and stop going "wait, this horse just moved when I beat it, maybe it's still alive! LETS BEAT IT MORE!"

I'm glad we have you around to tell us the future

enlighten us more oh ancient one

actually just dont bother, i'd rather see you reply to derrits post

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

...Every old school RPG fan...

This is where you have to stop. I'm an old-school RPG fan. I loved Final Fantasy XIII just as much as any other entry in the series. Your use of this phrase is incorrect.

Fun fact: Final Fantasy was never old-school(except maybe FFIX, which tricked you into thinking it was with the setting). If it was, it'd be using the same turn-based system that Dragon Quest is still using(not a statement about the quality of Dragon Quest games). The series has always thrived on the evolution of its mechanics. Problem is that you never noticed that until the last few entries when they really changed things up(I'd say from FFX up). If you liked those more, that's totally cool. Final Fantasy IV or VI will probably maintain an honorary first place in my book simply because of my nostalgia for them.

Another fun fact: There is no RPG aside from pen & paper, tabletops, and Hack/Net Hack that are non-linear. As long as there is a goal that you are being directed towards with a set beginning and ending, then that game is functionally linear. This applies to western as well as eastern RPGs. As Jeremy Parish of 1up puts it(and I'm paraphrasing) "Final Fantasy XIII puts aside all pretense of lying about being an open world to you and just asks you to walk in a straight line for awhile". It's efficient, and within the context of the story(which may or may not have been the result of constrained development issues), it works.

Do you really enjoy walking into the same NPC house and listen to him or her spout out the same "Man, things were pretty peaceful around here until all these monsters started popping up!" over and over again? Is that freeing to you? Does it "set up the world's lore"? Give me a fucking break.

"Resonance of Fate is what FFXIII should have been"? Resonance of Fate is a great game, but the way it does things isn't the end all be all of the genre. What about Mass Effect 2(which incidentally makes some of the same design choices of FFXIII)? Beyond being critically acclaimed, it had millions sold, and had plenty of satisfied customers.

"Who cares about that, though. It isn't what I want the genre to be, so it's shit."

That's the message you and a lot of others in this thread are giving off here. If anyone is guilty of "tunnel vision", it isn't the devs working at Square-Enix. Not by a long shot.

Thankfully the rest of the game development community doesn't think like this, or the medium would have died off years ago.

[thephoenix]

I'm glad we have you around to tell us the future

enlighten us more oh ancient one

actually just dont bother, i'd rather see you reply to derrits post

It's pretty simple to note. The game simply wasn't the classic, epic RPG that older FF games were. They're the kind of games that stick with you, that you remember. The story was broken, bland, and not the kind of thing that really grips you. Doesn't take much intelligence to look at something and go "this is an instant classic" because when something is, it tends to be pretty obvious. Then again, if they're turning XIII into the new VII I doubt Square will let it die for the next 20 years anyway...

[The Derrit]

then its pretty simple to note none of us will be listening to you anymore because your opinions are shit 'when you see it you know it' isn't going to convince anyone

moving on

[thephoenix]

then its pretty simple to note none of us will be listening to you anymore because your opinions are shit 'when you see it you know it' isn't going to convince anyone

moving on

It's about emotional impact, replay value, and "fun factor". Something FFXIII, and most other recent rpgs, don't have. Pretty simple concept there.

This is where you have to stop. I'm an old-school RPG fan. I loved Final Fantasy XIII just as much as any other entry in the series. Your use of this phrase is incorrect.

Fine, let me rephrase, "every old-school rpg fan I've ever seen comment, with apparently some exception to that now"...fill in the rest. It's semantics arguing now.

Fun fact: Final Fantasy was never old-school. If it was, it'd be using the same turn-based system that Dragon Quest is still using(not a statement about the quality of Dragon Quest games). The series has always thrived on the evolution of its mechanics. Problem is that you never noticed that until the last few entries when they really changed things up. If you liked those more that's totally cool Final Fantasy IV will probably maintain an honorary first place in my book simply because of my nostalgia for it.

Old school is a pretty relative term detailing games of an older time frame than the current one. Doesn't matter what changed with it or from it. The "old school era" of rpgs for this current time frame started around the beginning of the SNES and ended approximately with the PS1, and that's still arguable. You really can't go back further because the NES had little to offer for most RPG fans, with some exceptions. The SNES was the birth of the RPG console game that's grown into what we know and love today.

Another fun fact: There is no RPG aside from pen & paper, tabletops, and Hack/Net Hack that are non-linear. As long as there is a goal that you are being directed towards with a set beginning and ending, then that game is functionally linear. This applies to western as well as eastern RPGs. As Jeremy Parish of 1up puts it(and I'm paraphrasing) "Final Fantasy XIII puts aside all pretense of lying to you and just asks you to walk in a straight line for awhile". It's efficient, and within the context of the story(which may or may not have been the result of constrained development issues), it works.

Again, linear depends on your context. Hell, we could argue whether games like Knights of the Old Republic or Elder Scrolls are linear, but in the end it boils down to one simple mindset...does it feel like me getting to the end of the game is by my own choosing and decision, or does it feel like I'm just following exactly where the game wants me to go, and doesn't allow much room for deviation? The beginning and end may always be the same (with some exceptions to that rule, of course), with many things in between being necessary checkpoints, but the game isn't anywhere near as locked down. FFXIII didn't give anywhere near the same freedoms you have in most other FF games.

Do you really enjoy walking into the same NPC house and listen to him or her spout out the same "Man, things were pretty peaceful around here until all these monsters started popping up!" over and over again? Is that freeing to you? Does it "set up the world's lore"? Give me a fucking break.

...and that has what to do with storyline? Yes, please, explain to me how a random NPC there for nothing but aesthetic reasons has any flow on the story, the characters, the gameplay, pretty much anything in an RPG...

"Resonance of Fate is what FFXIII should have been"? Resonance of Fate is a great game, but the way it does things isn't the end all be all of the genre. What about Mass Effect 2(which incidentally makes some of the same design choices of FFXIII)? Beyond critically claimed, millions sold, and plenty of satisfied customers.

ME2 also took far too many steps back from ME1. The freedoms allowed in the first game were removed, and it was extremely simplified. I, for one, was not a fan at all, and that's disappointing considering how much I loved the first game. Plus, again, we're in a time that games like that are few and far between, so it's easier for them to get that acclaim because there really isn't much to compare them to. I know many people that like ME2 but have went on and on about how they wish it was more like ME1 (which was much more freeing than 2) and didn't remove many of their favorite things. Sadly, like many gaming companies, people said "this is kind of broken" and instead of the company fixing it, they just took it out completely.

"Who cares about that, though. It isn't what I want the genre to be, so it's shit."

Name an RPG and I can guarantee you'll have a hard time finding one I haven't played. It's not about the genre. I could care less if it falls under the proper genre. I'm looking at the game itself. The story, the gameplay, the characters, everything. Hell, I could care less if FFXV turns into a God of War clone, if they do it right, good on them. However, as most of the original FF team is gone (and went on to make Lost Odyssey, another game I highly recommend that does things right) I doubt we have much to look forward to. Especially if they've decided to make a sequel.

That's the message you and a lot of others in this thread are giving off here. If anyone is guilty of "tunnel vision", it isn't the devs working at Square-Enix. Not by a long shot.

Thankfully the rest of the game development community doesn't think like this, or the medium would have died off years ago.

*points above*

It's not about what you do, it's if you do it right. While many games have that capability of going far outside the realm, there are still right ways and wrong ways of going about it. I have always praised S-E for going outside the mold...hell, I was THRILLED when I saw FFXIII was going to be something a little more "modern" or "futuristic" because it did bring those new elements to the game, which is one of the few things I liked about VII and VIII. I even liked IX's character design because, again, it was different. Different isn't bad. Bad is bad. S-E, sadly, has been releasing a lot of bad recently.

[Fishy]

I like comparing this game to FFX. Obviously this comparison will have mega spoilers:

FFX: Average first play of up to 30 hours before you get the airship freedom.

FFXIII: Up to about 25 hours before you get to pulse, the nearest thing to freedom.

Why less complaints about X: Because each new town has a bunch of people to meet and areas to explore. Optional little missions and secrets. There is a world to discover and be part of, not just pretty landscapes to look at. The overall linearity is similar, but X has a more believable sense of scale in its world.

FFX: Omg yuna will totally die.

FFXIII: omg everyone will totally die.

Why less comlaints: In X, you find out most of the way through the game, when its more of a shock, and it gives the second play through a whole new meaning. In XIII it's used as a cheap sympathy generator way too early on, and every cutscene thereafter deals with another character arbitrarily loosing hope and being coaxed back on track by whoever's there over and over for the first half of the game.

FFX: Tidus dissapears when the fayth stop dreaming, which we all knew would happen but even the main characters couldn't accept it until then. Thoughts: Sadness.

FFXIII: Vanille and Fang sacrifice themselves to save everyone with no warning whatsoever, and it's unlikely people take these characters seriously before or after this moment. Thoughts: Wtf/lesbian overtones.

FFX: Awful voices.

FFXIII: Awful voices.

Ok fair enough, but I think Vanille wins this award.

FFX: Has a god awful sequel which ruined everything about it, albiet with a passable if tremendously gay fashion based battle system.

FFXIII: One can only speculate...

(This is obviously mostly tongue in cheek, but... yeah.)

[DarkeSword]

Actually there are quite a number of "classic" works of art that aren't appreciated until long after they've made their debut. "Instant classics" are extremely rare in any form of media.

Also it's fine if you don't like Final Fantasy XIII, and it's fine for you to express that, but please stop pretending that your opinion is everyone's opinion. Your "pretty simple concept" is all based on subjective criteria.

And yes, I realize that I'm basically saying "BUT LIKE, THAT'S JUST YOUR OPINION, MAN." It's still true.

__

Anyway I'm looking forward to FFXIII-2. I liked the first one. Hopefully Hamauzu does the music again, because there simply isn't enough Hamauzu music in the world.

[Coyote-Trickster]

i still hold to the statement that if the old final fantasy games came out now for the first time, none of you people who are like 'leik omg squaresux now lolol' would like them AT ALL

I can't speak for others but I for one still play the ROMs of FF6, Crono Trigger, Secret of Mana and Secret of evermore.

Hell I spent 80$ when I was a kid for the FF6 soundtrack alone.

Those games were great

I don't know if it was the limited formats that made you fill out the blanks on how the characters sounded like, how they were personality wise. Now it's all done for you in a "Like it or else" type of way.

I remember reading a heated debate on how Japan lost it's storytelling skills, maybe it's true. I feel more attached to the stories of current action adventure games compared to the new RPGs

just feels like something is missing...

Oh and who didn't feel like they fucked up bad when the whole world collapsed in FF6. I seriously thought I had failed, that i did something wrong and ruined everything.

Or in Crono Trigger when you fight Lavos in that doomed battle where Crono gets eradicated from existance. Losing your main character, I had never seen that back then and did feel like "Shit... what do I do now..?"

good stuff like that

Edit: Wow is it just me or is this topic starting to get some major aggro?

[EC2151]

Also, from watching the game's cutscenes and hearing what other people have said of the game, the whole idea of using an in-game encyclopedia to clue you in on the intricacies of the game world is pretty damn sloppy story-telling, and should NOT be used as a way to show how "deep" the game-world is, in my opinion. I mean, I may be a nut that loves to read that type of shit, but it does not a good narrative make.

Heck, I wasn't exactly sure what the hell was going on in FFXII halfway through, but at the least the world was fully realized.

I mean, one of my pals explained the opening of FFXIII this way:

"It's like SE tried to make the opening of FFXIII like the bombing mission in FFVII, but forgot to include that part in the bombing mission where everyone introduced themselves and actually explained why the fuck they were doing anything. I got about 20 hours into the game and I STILL didn't know who the fuck any of the characters were or what their motivations were except for maybe that kid who wanted to avenge his father or something, but on the whole it's pretty damn sloppy."

Just watching the game I kinda get that impression too, and while people have told me "it gets better later" that's still kinda "meh" on my book.

Now, the sequel may mitigate some of these problems, but considering the sales, I feel we'll get more of the same, and if this game ALSO has an in-game encyclopedia, I feel like this whole damned game world will have jumped the shark entirely.

Also, FFX-2 had one of the best battle systems in the series. Just sayin'.

And in response to derrit's post:

I didn't play most of these classics till recently. I didn't play Secret of Mana till last year. Didn't play Chrono Trigger till 2 years ago. Didn't BEAT FF6 until around that time too. Hell, I've beaten Final Fantasy I a shitton of times, more than any other FF. Because it's fun. They're all fun, well-crafted games. It's like saying "If Ocarina of Time was released now you'd all hate it"

no, we wouldn't.

[Bahamut]

Ahh, Final Fantasy, the game series that stirs controversy. In a sense this is free marketing for them.

[The Derrit]

tl;dr

I can't speak for others but I for one still play the ROMs of FF6, Crono Trigger, Secret of Mana and Secret of evermore.

Hell I spent 80$ when I was a kid for the FF6 soundtrack alone.

Those games were great

Edit: Wow is it just me or is this topic starting to get some major aggro?

i agree those games were great. don't misunderstand i love the olds with the news but its folly to say that the older games were better in every way and the old ones 'just don't have it'

and yeah don't take the aggro personally unless you're dumb or your name has a ever-resurrecting firebird in it, neither or which i trust are the case for you

[Coyote-Trickster]

We should all go play some awesome E.T. on the Atari 2600

[EC2151]

get out touhou fan were talkin bout real games

[Coyote-Trickster]

get out touhou fan were talkin bout real games

lol

totaly called for

[thephoenix]

Ah, I love that style of debate...someone makes a point, gets proven wrong, writes it off with some half-hearted attempt at sounding uncaring ("I'm not listening to your opinion any more"), more people come on, repeat the same things or offer different viewpoints against what they say, prove them even more wrong, "LOLS TL;DR I AGREE NOW WITH EVERYONE ELSE EVEN THOUGH I SAID THE EXACT OPPOSITE!" ...hell, I'll say it.

umad?

Come up with something a little more convincing than OMG NO AGGRO EXCEPT FOR THIS ONE GUY (by the way, was that a really poor attempt to make a crack at my username? Really) BECAUSE NOW THERE'S MORE THAN ONE SAYING IM WRONG AND I STILL WANT TO BE AN INTERNET TOUGH GUY.

Whatever. Back on topic, FFXIII-2 is unnecessary. They haven't even released Versus yet, and if that bombs, they're going to have a hell of a time with XIII-2. This is why the FF system has always worked for the most part. New games, new situations, still the same great story telling (for the most part, up until recently at least) and it leaves you wanting more. They need to stop milking it dry and just get on with things.

[DarkeSword]

Stay on topic or I'm rolling this into the main FF thread.

[Schwaltzvald]

I'll be looking forward to the continuation. Can't say I've ever played FFX & FFX-2 that some seem to like to bring up as a comparison point but hey I enjoyed FFXIII for what it had.

[relyanCe]

Ah, I love that style of debate...someone makes a point, gets proven wrong, writes it off with some half-hearted attempt at sounding uncaring ("I'm not listening to your opinion any more"), more people come on, repeat the same things or offer different viewpoints against what they say, prove them even more wrong, "LOLS TL;DR I AGREE NOW WITH EVERYONE ELSE EVEN THOUGH I SAID THE EXACT OPPOSITE!" ...hell, I'll say it.

umad?

Come up with something a little more convincing than OMG NO AGGRO EXCEPT FOR THIS ONE GUY (by the way, was that a really poor attempt to make a crack at my username? Really) BECAUSE NOW THERE'S MORE THAN ONE SAYING IM WRONG AND I STILL WANT TO BE AN INTERNET TOUGH GUY.

go vent your frustration somewhere else, dude. people aren't going to read your textwall posts when they already know from your previous posts that you're not going to say anything worth reading, and they're going to reply accordingly.

of course, you're still free to superimpose whatever self-serving bs motive you want over that to make yourself feel vindicated. no one's gonna stop you.

[TehDonut]

trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XB67f61W9k

[Scufo]

I liked her old costume better.

[zircon]

Critics are a bad view on exactly how good or bad a game is. You could look at fan reviews but so many people give instant 10s or 1s that it's hard to measure. You could go off critic reviews but most don't get to play the full load of a game, only a partial of it, before reviewing, so they really don't get a full feel for it (and those that do tended to score much lower). You could go off sales, but sales are an iffy metric because most people don't base their own thoughts and opinions off of a game BEFORE they purchase it. As far as reception, you have to factor in for a lot of things for a game like Final Fantasy. The game has many factors that, when removed, would damage the base of the game itself. You have the known IP, the nostalgia factor, the longing for a decent RPG in this time of nothing but FPS games (by the way, play Resonance of Fate if you want a good, recent RPG...it's what FFXIII should have been), the fact that back when many other FF games were released it was in a time of heavy RPG releases, and continued that way all through the PS2 era. The next gen consoles haven't seen many decent RPG games in a long time, so it's going to get a much better reception. Still, you have to look at the game for what, and how, it is. The game was RPG light. Every old school RPG fan hated the over-simplified mechanics, the extremely linear gameplay, the aggrivating characters, poor and broken story, and so on. These are the things that make an RPG, and in this day and age those things are low on the list of what people look for to rate a game. Gone are the days of Earthbound and Super Mario RPG, eh?

So, in other words, your answer to my question "I guess your opinion is the only one that matters?" was "Yes, I'm the only one who decides whether a game is good or bad."

Sorry, but by every objective measure, FF13 was a good game. It's unreasonable to say that critics don't matter (ALL critics, as MC aggregates and weights them), the general public doesn't matter, and sales don't matter. Your argument that "well, nobody knows what a good RPG is anymore" is inane.

[Necrotic]

I think FF13 just caters to a specific kind of audience that I'm not. Or something. The characters, the story, a lot of it just felt like a mess. It got to the point where I got to Gran Pulse and after so many hours of clenching my teeth I threw my hands up in the air and said "I'm done with this." Glad I did because I went through Mass Effect 2 instead.

I'm kind of surprised to hear they're making a sequel heh. A lot of people I've talked to really did not dig that game.

[EC2151]

I think FF13 just caters to a specific kind of audience that I'm not. Or something. The characters, the story, a lot of it just felt like a mess.

See my post on the badness of an "in-game encyclopedia" and you'll see that I pretty much agree with the narrative being a mess.

Like I said, i only watched the cutscenes and had no real clue of what was really going on. Maybe when I find it somewhere for $5 I'll pick it up, but meh.

I don't know why they're putting so much into this world like they were with Ivalice a few years back.

[Arek the Absolute]

trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XB67f61W9k

Why in the hell did they change her outfit to that?

I actually liked how the character designs WEREN'T super over-the-top.

Well, guess Square figured its better to play it safe and go back to the norm of japanese bullshittery to make up for what happened with the original, I suppose.