f13.net

Looks like we didn't have a general thread for this. Anyway, European release date announced, from PR:


Much faster than expected given we've seen no 360 footage yet. So uhhhhhhh, YEA. I bet the languages besides English are going to get a top quality product.

Random: Italians and French have good dubbed anime, I hear.  :grin: So maybe in this case too.


Anyways, I can't wait. I admit though, XII didn't appeal to me. Glad they're going back to a more traditional combat mode..

I'm sad they are going back to the traditional combat model. I would have hoped they would refine what they did in 11.

Umm, 11 was an MMO? A very social (ie solo punishing) one at that.

If you mean 12, no I wouldn't mind them perfecting that take on things.. But I also like the old school mechanics too.

 :uhrr:

We should probably use the remainder of this thread to discuss the wonders of all things FFXI, and how this game should be like that game.  I'm pretty sure we don't have a thread like that, so I say we go for it.

I don't really have much to say (despite posting 3 times already!). I'm really not asking for much. Same ole gameplay, but with new story and graphics is quite fine by me.

Besides, I'll emphasize graphics here because this will probably be appealing just on a visual/color level. So many drab looking titles these days.. Not all bad titles either, don't get me wrong. I just feel like something needs to come out already with up-to-date stylized visuals (as opposed to realism) AND color.

All that matters is Afro-Bird.  We needn't have any more nostalgia threads.

FFIX was the best post-SNES Final Fantasy.
There, I said it.

Overal I find most FF combat systems to be extrememly boring, which isn't to say they weren't great games. Therefore I could care less about the combat system in XIII as long as it has an interesting storyline.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEwKj6W14Jo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEwKj6W14Jo)

 :ye_gods:

Do you have severe head trauma?

FF VIII was much better than IX.

I'm not counting on it at all.  VIII was mildly interesting until I got control of the school/airship then I found I didn't care at all.  IX was only O.K. because of some of the side characters, the main story was awful and I put it down in favor of something else. I only finished X because I was unemployed for a while and had nothing else to do. XII stopped soon after I figured out I could just bot the whole damn game; the story never grabbed me.  /sadf.

I love that game, but by up-to-date I mean this "gen". I will do a jig though if Atlus announces a PS3 Persona title. It isn't official yet. :\

This is also the NA release date.  Pretty much going to be the biggest Q1 ever as far as games go.

FFVIII was the worst Final Fantasy game in the history of all things, and if you like it you are a bad person and should be ashamed.

Final Fantasy, or rather, anything square-enix has put out hasn't been good for a long damn time. I doubt this game will be the one breaking their shit streak...

Though I'm probably the minority here, my interests aren't held by Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy teaming up with generic anime cast to fight a band of equally generic anime antagonists.

^ Those are pretty good games, but they have nothing to do with FF so not sure why you mention them. That's more about Disney, not Squeenix. Nobody thinks of Square and says "Mickey Mouse".

As for things not being good in a long time, fair enough. The last thing I liked was 10, but I'm sure you mean something even further back.

Nobody likes to say they liked 10 for some reason, but I did. Nonentity has me beat for liking 11 though :grin:

Someone take away Grunks meds and summon him to this thread stat.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/963220/02g.jpg)

It actually took 2 hours to get this reply.  I'm shocked :oh_i_see:.

I enjoyed X, never got the hate. VIII had a nice plot and characters, but was saddled with a truly dire set of game mechanics.

I'm merely hoping Simond is talking about XI not IX.

This.

The Tokyo Game Show trailer is available on PSN. The storyline/dialog looks/sounds hokey even by JRPG standards. It doesn't help that there's a cheesy Asian soap opera-sounding song playing the background as well.

FF12 gets my vote barely over 9, despite 99% of FF12 being you plundering musty tombs and dicking off while everything awesome happens elsewhere.

I would say the bar was set so low post VI that it doesn't even matter which one is the best.

It does but the visuals are fucking amazing and the combat looks like it will be so much fun unless they make it so every attack takes a long time to complete and you can't speed/skip them so every fight is long even the trash mobs.  Totally a first day purchase for me whenever it comes out.

Nine was fucking awesome and the only reasons it's not hyped up as the true successor to VI & IV were:
1) Released on the PS1 after the PS2 launched.
2) A large and retarded part of the fanbase wanted it to be more like The Abomination Known As FFVIII and less like, you know, an actual Final Fantasy game.
3) Insanely stupid guidebook/website deal.

And, well, here we are. Squeenix decides that graphics > plot, and also "Hey, people liked all the flashy cutscenes in VIII so let's make a movie!  :uhrr:" which directly resulted in their bankruptcy.

tl;dr - If you don't like FFIX you are the reason why Square are shit nowadays.

That's absolutely silly.

Sorry but FFIX was the beginning of the end of Square for me.  It was the blandest, most forgettable FF game ever made, with ViVi as the only bright spot.  For the life of me, I couldn't tell you one thing about any of the other characters, or the plot.  Also, while I realize that the character's in FF games have never really looked much like Amano's concept art, whoever came up with the in-game character designs for IX needs to be shot.

VIII and IX are just completely different games.  Not sure why people get so bent out of shape about it. 

Isn't it because IX was supposed to be a return to "tradition" for square?

My only problem with IX is I got bored with it.  I made it to where I got an airship and just couldn't be bothered anymore.  Freya was the only character that grabbed me, and I think that was because I love Dragoons.  Eight was only marginally better for the same reasons, though I would have finished it were it not for a bug halting my progress.

The way I've always seen the FF series is a steady decline since VI. VII was still pretty good, and even VIII wasn't bad; it had flaws, such as the silly Draw magic system, but the story was still pretty good and the character customization options were still solid.

IX was just...meh. I didn't hate it, it was just the first FF that I didn't have the desire to replay as soon as I beat it. X was much too linear and suffered from cut-scene-hell; the sphere grid was it's only saving grace. XI was an MMO, so it doesn't even count as a true FF. XII's biggest problem was that the Gambit system was TOO powerful; with the right triggers set up, all battles became automated. As a result, the only time you're actually PLAYING is the walking from battle to cut scene. I've never been good at action RPGs anyway, so whenever I tried to control Vaan myself I performed much worse than just letting the game bot him around. Even the bosses could mostly be one-shotted with the limit breaks (or whatever they were called in XII). I got so bored with XII that it was the first FF I've never finished.

IX was pure fan service, and bad fan service at that. It was like someone completely foreign to the series sat down and just picked random elements from previous FFs with the sole intent of producing an "old school" feeling FF.  The resulting Frankenstein's monster was a jumbled, bland, and ultimately forgettable mess.  The end cinematic was touching and that's about the only thing it had going for it.  I guess they felt something had to be done after 8, but regressing your design intentionally with the random hope that you some how stumble across your super secret formula is just ridiculous.  Vanguard level of design stupidity.   Until schild mentioned it, I had forgotten about how bad in ingame character design was.  That cooking lady, Steiner... blah.   

The "OHH NO, I AM THE FINAL BOSS, MUAHAHAA" was just icing on the shit sandwich.

9 was awesome. I loved seeing the old class styling, at least in appearance.

I liked IX as well, though not enough to finish it.  FF III was the last FF I ever finished.  I came close on FF VII, but after grinding out characters and shit in III, I just lost the will to go on in VIII, and subsequent Final Fantasy games just went further down that road, with the MMO Final Fantasy being the culmination of that design idea for me.  I think I made it all the way to level 7 in the MMO before uninstalling, and never looking back on the franchise.

We need one thread where everyone has a post where they give their opinion on every part of the series so we don't have to do this every couple of years.

9 was dreck, because the characters were total crap, 8 had a story/cast that were decent at least.  I hated most of the cast of 9, the dumb knight, the main catkid the girl who I can't remember at all.  That shit sucked.

FF10 was a good game with a pretty cool story imo.  If people hate 8 I can get it but if you played all of them AND hate 10 I just don't get it.  FF10 had a great cast of characters and the story wasn't great but the setting systems and fights were good.  It was also back to being well paced and balanced difficulty wise if you knew to get quickening or whatever it was called.

I guess it's all about what you're coming to a FF game for.  I like the systems, which explains why I hated 8 and 12 and thought 9 was tolerable at best.  Meanwhile I played the shit out of 7 and 10.  Good god I loved that sphere grid.  Auron was pretty badass, too, so I had a character I liked playing.   The stories in all of them were "meh," imo.

Every character was pretty cool in 10 except for Titus.

Yeah, probably true.  I really, really couldn't stand FFX, but I loved FF12.  The old combat system is what kills it for me, and why I'm not that psyched about FF13.  It drives me nuts that they keep coming up with these characters and stories that I think I could probably enjoy if they weren't trapped behind hours and hours of a type of gameplay I absolutely cannot stand.

I do wish they'd do an action RPG like Kingdom Hearts that I could play without feeling like a nine-year-old, sometime.

Well, it's not Square, but try Rogue Galaxy. The way encounters work is a bit old school though.


Action aside, traditional combat systems can be improved upon.. I don't think real time is always the answer. There's a lot of shitty stuff in that category too. A LOT. Hell, if you ask me, the best jrpgs in recent years are still kind of old school. Some have innovative enough features to keep it fresh too (like the Persona series).

what

Final Fantasy is interesting because you can always find someone that enjoyed each particular game.  And you can find someone that hated each game.  Personally, I think talking about them is more enjoyable than actually playing.

Not to start a silly console war or anything, but I'm curious how this will do on the Xbox. It would be the clearest indicator of just how good or bad a big japanese title can sell on it. So far, you can make up all kinds of excuses on why this or that does poorly on the 360. They're not really noteworthy games even if good, or if they are, they're only in Japan and just too weird for most people here (Idol Master).

Nobody hates IV.

The only decent character in 10 was Wakka, everyone else made me want to run towards the nearest living thing and kill it. The terrible voice acting for the rest of the cast didn't help matters either.

And anyone who hated VI is a liar that must be done away with in a gruesome fashion.

I don't think this will be any real indicator just based on the fact that by and large this game was developed for the PS3.  Unless Square pulls out a miracle, I don't expect the 360 version to look or perform anywhere near how the PS3 version will.  People with both systems will likely pick it up on the PS3 as a result.  That's not to say it will tank on 360, but I expect the numbers to be heavily skewed towards the PS3.

People with a PS3 will get it for the PS3. People with both systems will probably get it for the PS3 just because of past Final Fantasy titles. People with just a 360 will get it on that and probably don't and won't know any better.

Also, just to mention one other thing in response to this, Lost Odyssey was actually a pretty good seller in the U.S. as far as JRPG's go.  It was no Final Fantasy (which unfortunately was where some expectations were due to the people involved), but compared to other JRPG's that get released in the States, it probably surpassed the majority of them in sales.

That it was developed for the PS3 is kind of a non-issue, I think? I mean, I haven't played it of course... But I'm sure the quality will be roughly equal at this point. Besides, the name is recognized, the series is marketed well, etc, etc..

I'd be very surprised if the quality is equal enough to make it a non-issue.

I want to punch Yuna in the dick.  In the dick, I said.

Save that line for the inevitable Wii version.

Every FF game released in the US I have enjoyed with exceptions.
I couldn't stand FF11 due to the soul-crushing grind.
I couldn't stand the older FF games which didn't originally make it to the US (I forget the numbering).  This is probably due to some psychological aversion to old shit.  Nostalgia carries the other titles past this hang up but I can't get into the games I hadn't played before.

IMO. It was ass. Due to one thing mostly.

Well, this is the first time I have heard of someone hating Wakka.

Scrap this thread, schild, it's hit a tree or two on the way to the bottom of a ravine.

We could always do the "have it out here thread" with all future discussion along the same vein being denned/deleted ala Trammel/PC v Mac.

<full nerd>

There is one irrefutable argument as to why FFVI is the best FF and it can be summed up in one word.

Kefka.

</full nerd>

He must be from a land of cold weather, no soccer, and lack of smiles.

I feel way out of my comfort zone in a FF thread, but I have to ask - is XIII the one with Afro-Bird, and Surfer Dude fake-voiceover? If so, I may be interested  considering it will be on 360, despite the fact I know the combat mechanics will make my brain bleed.

Yes to Afro-Bird.

<nerd high five>

Afro-Bird appreciates your vote of confidence, and provides this photograph of himself as proof of his providence.

 :awesome_for_real:

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/963220/sazh-katzroy-lightning-ff13-cosplay.jpg)

I suppose the black FF fans now are rejoicing at not being stuck with Barrett.

The male ones at least.  Latin Americans are still left out of the Justice League though.

Yes to Surfer Dude too.

To be more specific, I think the correct reason is "Dancing Mad" but I still approve of your post.

Was watching Advent Children the other day... It's crazy how close the new game (and games in general) are getting close to the graphics of the movies. At least in the characters. Parts of FFXIII are still trashy (ground textures it seems).

Can't believe I gave Advent Children another watch though. It's barely watchable, aside from the visuals.

:oh_i_see:

They are just so badly written. I dunno. Can't blame the dubbing necessarily.. there are plenty of good dubbed anime - it's just that it's written like a badly dubbed anime. If that makes sense.

There are always cool premises though to Final Fantasy stories - but they are best left being executed within a game, I think.

I thought the whole point to AC was the visuals/fighting. FF VII story was confusing, and it's somehow gotten worse as they've expanded it.

Lol.... Oh.  :grin:

edit: I don't think the story is confusing.. It's just executed in a half assed way.

I didn't play any of the other "expanded" games. They didn't seem all that important/said anything new. More like side stories with Vincent, I think?

Almost made a new thread for this. Lulz ensue.

http://www.allgamesbeta.info/2010/01/chinese-game-magazine-gives-final.html

Wow.

From what I've read, it seems like there are going to be a lot of people who don't like this game based largely on what it isn't, rather than what it is.

Gamasutra has a pretty good write-up about it. (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/26643/Analysis_The_Conundrum_of_Final_Fantasy_XIII.php)

I tried reading that but when he said summoned monsters had been in every FF since VII, I had to assume it was a typo since they were present in VI as well.

One of my friends told me there were no towns though, that upset me.

He said summoned monsters in regards to beautiful visuals.  FF has had summons since III (although obviously IV is the first time we saw them in the U.S.), but it sounds like he's just referring to the visual spectacle of summons in the later games.

I never expect much non-linearity from JRPG's anyways, but it sounds like it's being pushed more into a more.. adventure direction? Not exactly, but umm.. I guess I won't mind if the story is good. I'll keep it in mind that on the other end of the extreme, very open ended games suck (imho).

The more I read, the less interested I am in this game (http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/12/final-fantasy-xiii-preview-2/).  Of course I'll probably end up buying it out of habit anyway.

I didn't want to read all of that. It sounds worse than the other article.

Like I said, I can drop my expectations of it being an RPG, but they are making it sound like it's not even great as an adventure game too. I mean, adventure/action/platformer titles tend to not have towns and much exploring either, but they do at least have some exploration within the levels. If it is literally a straight line to action, that's fucked up.

Eh...

I guess I'm waiting to see the F13 impression on this, but so far it seems like even these reviews are pretty level headed about the shortcomings of the game.

I didn't like the linearity of the most recent titles.  The comment about playing a movie, not a game felt pretty spot-on with both 10 and 12.  Oddly, 9 was one of my favorites.  Can't say why.  Granted, they're all pretty linear with the story, but at least in older titles I could take a break and random battle for a bit.

On that note, one of the things I greatly miss is the random battles.  Nothing more stressful in a game than having the healer dead and trying to trudge across the wilderness to get to that inn, all the while you're ticking because someone is poisoned and likely won't make it before you get there.  Then, two steps before the inn, ZAM!   You're in combat with a random battle.  Your only heals come from potions; you can only attack when you're not healing.  Fun, fun.

Summoned Monsters in VI may not have had the majesty of 7 but they were sure as hell more beautiful.

http://www.videogamesprites.net/FinalFantasy6/NPCs/Nonhuman/Espers-Summon.html

Seriously?

It was mine too, been searching for the ps2 memory card -> ps3 so I can resume it.

After those reviews, I think it's time to cancel my preorder and wait to hear it doesn't suck from someone here.

If anyone is interested, you can pre-order Final Fantasy XIII from Amazon (click the Amazon link in the News Box up there in the top right of your screen and search 'final fantasy xiii') and get $10 off a future Video Game purchase.

Order Final Fantasy XIII and get $10 off a future video game purchase. The promotion code will be applied directly to your Amazon.com account up to two (2) business days after your product ships. To redeem your reward, add a Video Games item sold and shipped by Amazon.com to your shopping cart and proceed to checkout. The discount will be visible after you have begun the checkout process. Offer valid when shipped and sold by Amazon.com. This offer will be extended to all existing pre-orders. Amazon reserves the right to change or terminate this promotion at any time. Offer valid for one purchase per customer.

Hmmm....I think I'm going to give this one a pass as well. It sounds extremely boring.

Fug it.. I'll keep my preorder. I really need some more Blu-Ray movies anyways.  :why_so_serious:

This guy's (http://www.siliconera.com/2009/12/22/final-fantasy-xiii-impressions-crystarium-boosting-battles/) writeup makes me a little more hopeful. Some things are still strange though. Leveling "classes" as opposed to characters? Why. I can't think of anything more symbolic that this isn't an "RPG" than that.

ANYHOW.. That last writeup Velorath linked to above made it sound like it was Dragon's Lair bad. This seems better.

[edit] I have to say though that I haven't liked the direction SE's been going in general since... well, since they were Square. Not that things are always bad, but they're different.

FF6 summons also had the benefit of not taking 2 minutes per attack.

This game sounds like shit on rye (http://www.rpgfan.com/reviews/Final_Fantasy_XIII/index.html).  Dude gives it an 85% but it's clear if you read the entire review that his distaste for it is evident.  And I've seen nothing else to refute his opinions either.  It's a linear dungeon crawl with less than 20 named NPC's.  The graphics are EXTREME.  If you're an art nerd or you just have a lot of time on your hands it might be worth a play through.  But I'm personally bored even thinking about this game. 

And just to weigh in on the FF nerd slapfight of which is the best EVAR, the answer is simple.  FF6.  I'm also partial to 4, 9, and 7.  Mainly because they're the closest thing in the FF series to the ideal of JRPG's that FF6 reached.

Part of what I liked about 9 so much was the traditional FF feel, where white mages wear white robes with red trim and black mages wear blue robes and you can't see their faces.  It took me back to playing FF as a kid and had a pretty fun story as well. 

I think if 9 ends up on PSN I'll buy it day of.

But yeah, I'm not on board with machine summons and it looks simply too much.

Lots of mixed reviews. Generally positive, but stressing how scripted it is and frowning upon a certain lack of freedom. Praises for the combat system. 2 days to go. Who is NOT getting it and why?

I'll wait for it to be a 'classic' and buy it for cheap.  Mainly because I have plenty to play right now and I barely scratched FFXII.  FFXIV will probably grab me before then, too.

I'm not right now.  Going to see how it all shakes out on the forums here. 

I never finished 12 because it simply bored the hell out of me.  Dunno.  I like my scifi and my fantasy but don't exactly like them together.  The visual style just isn't up my alley, I suppose.  Not a bid fan of Transformers, either, which summons look to me this goround.

I'll rent it, i liked 12 but i hate hate hate linear rpg's.  No that's a lie, linear games can be fun but one thing I loved about FF was the exploring. They've veered away from that more and more each game and it's disappointing.

Still undecided.  If God of War 3 and the Dragon Age expansion weren't coming out the following week, I'd be buying it for sure just to see how it turned out.  The scores for FFXIII aren't bad exactly, with a Meta score of 83, but I can't help but feel that the numbers would be a bit worse had this not been a main series Final Fantasy game.  For people looking for a somewhat more traditional JRPG, it sounds like Resonance of Fate (which comes out on the 16th) might end up being a better purchase.

It comes and goes.  The exploring hasn't really been the same since 6 though.  The change to 3D environments seemed to hamper that somewhat.  7,9 and 12 had a lot of side material available, even though I consider most of the side content some of the weakest aspect of the games (chocobo hot & cold anyone?  :uhrr:).  I liked 12's side content since it was mostly going out and killing crap, rather than doing some dumb mini game over and over again or chocobo related stupidity.

Fake edit: nearly responded to a 3 week old post.  Fucking FF9.


I'm unsure also.  I've not really followed this game much.  I don't know much about it other than it's linear.  Linear is fine as long as it's good.  Good would be a nice change from the JRPGs we've gotten on next gen consoles.  If anything I'd expect the reviews to be more critical given the high expectations for this game and the fact that it's the first foray into the 360/PS3 for the series.  Some of the early reviews were downright savage. 

It's looking like no one here is going to take a bullet for the team and this is competing with GS's deal for GoW3.  That's a tall order. 

I'll get it, but I see no reason for changing the jrpg formula so much (this applies to most new gen jrpgs, not just this). I just want typical jrpgs with better graphics and new stories. That's all. Seems like a simple thing to ask for, but apparently, it's not.

Well, I preordered. I hated FF12 and from what I read, even in the negative reviews, this game will almost certainly satisfy me.

Canceled my preorder on this; unless I hear some positive word of mouth feedback this may be the first numbered FF I skip completely.

Just picked this bitch up at midnight. Interesting experience. Beards, brown pants +hello kitty handbags. And proof that I'm the only pathetic otaku in a 30 mile radius (or more!) who could still effectively cosplay.

Christ, I need to get a life.


Oh wait. The Game. Probably will just play it a couple hours tonight. More to come.

My initial/brief/uninformed impression is that these are the coolest FF characters in awhile. Lightning is a bit like Cloud though... but a chick, so I'm sure she's different in ways unknown as of yet.

The story is cool from the getgo... and yes, the cutscenes are heavy, but more in an interwoven sort of way. Like, cutscenes between/leading up to battles. They come and go --- but so far, it's a good thing. It enriches the battle experience by giving it a narrative flow (opposed to battling for long periods of time.. and then watching cutscenes for long periods afterwards). It gives off a feel that you're playing in a story better than other FF games have.

As for the battles themselves, they feel like an odd cross between old school FF and FF12. Or, rather, how FF turn based would play out if you had to play it faster. There's a bit of strategy involved, but I haven't played enough to see how deep it gets. So far, I just know you want to quickly focus fire on opponents to "stagger" them. Perhaps there's more shit to do with different enemies (effective dmg types etc) that could cause things to get hairy if you don't think quickly enough. That's all spectulation though.

It doesn't exactly feel like an "RPG", but the story could be cool and it looks fucking fantastic. If it keeps it up, I'm not going to complain.

Wait. What?

lololol


...

Still so far so good. Don't hate one character.

Did you dress up as Cloud, stray? Or Biggs, from Final Fantasy VI? If you don't say Biggs then you did it wrong.

And if you dressed up like Vincent, I hope you got attacked by a person in a fursuit... named Twilight.

Hah I didnt cosplay, don't worry. But Biggs would work now that you mention it. I am saying however there were strange looking dudes there.....and I'm kind of sad that I'm actually as big of a dork as they are (at least, taste wise). :why_so_serious:


Anyways, the game's pretty easy, but I finally died on a boss. About time. If anyone was playing FF mostly for the stories though, then they wouldn't be missing too much here. It's very engaging on that level --- while only somewhat engaging on the gameplay so far.

I'm sold.

He's a pirate wearing sandals and skintight leather pants.

(http://vally8.free.fr/jeux/finalfantasy12/fanart/ff12-balthier.jpg)

Yah, but that was too easy. He was a British Han Solo with an 8' tall bunny chick as his Chewie. 

Lightning is like Cloud. Colour me surprised.

They're apparently packing a raffle code to get into FFXIV's beta inside FFXIII.  If anyone has 13 and doesn't care about MMORPGing it up in 14, I'd appreciate your raffle code.

Keep in mind, if you apply for the PS3 beta (which is what the code is for) it supposedly overwrites you PC beta application.

She isn't like Cloud in every way... Just kind of starts off like Cloud does.... ummm... I think Cloud was a soldier or something, who was helping the other side for personal/unknown reasons (at first). Also, she's kind of quiet and determined and only gives vague, moody answers to everything.

Vanille looks like her, so some people might get them confused. They both have pink hair, but Vanille is the rambunctious, cute girl.

[edit] umm i'll just reiterate that the characters are great... typical archetypes though they may be. the hottest chick in the game is not on my team yet though (mean looking brunette.. reminds me of lulu or vincent)

You can only use the promotional code once (from FFXIII for FFXIV). Not that it matters since, well:

The promotional code entered is either incorrect or has already been registered.

OH HAS IT?

Copy/paste doesn't work.  It'll copy the first 4 parts of the code with spaces.  Remove the spaces then input the last 4 digits.

Yah, I bought this.  With Mario Kart and SMG going back to Gamestop it cost me $8. 

Yea, just figured it out. How stupid.

Beta for a PS3 MMO? Hmm, I might do that. I didnt know what the code was for. It just says a "gift" or something.

You get some in-game items for FFXIV and a chance at the PS3 beta.  No word on when the PS3 beta starts or how long it will run for (the PC version is supposed to start on the 11th, but is currently limited to selected FFXI players).

Hmm i'd be down with a PS3 mmo, but not sure about PC. I'll give a heads up if I want to give it away (PS3=gaming with controller on bed ... PC= gaming on awkward laptop meh).

You could have just said 'a soldier and emo about it'.  :)

So far.. I like it.

This game is so lovingly crafted it's not even funny.

Everything from the sound to the menus to the fucking status screens, it's all goddamn impressive.

I feel like we should just move on to cloning Demon's Souls and retire the JRPG.

I should clarify before people get wack about this:

This is the perfect JRPG, whether that is good or bad is up for debate. But it's pretty much everything the genre has been working towards since gaming immemorial.

I haven't gotten into what her deal is yet. She's more of "the badass who can't even admit to emotions" than an emo though. Umm if that's archetype. I think she's already bitchslapped Snow about 5 times (Snow being the self-proclaimed "hero").

I think it's probably for the better too Schild. While I wanted to bemoan the lack of certain RPG staples (like towns... which may still yet to appear... I don't know), I'm not missing them actually. Not missing side quests.. nothing. This game just moves you along a story, and that's a good thing. And like I said, I love these characters.

So in becoming the greatest JRPG FFXIII has become a glorified movie. Likewise in becoming the greatest Western RPG Mass Effect 2 has become a glorified movie.

I don't think this is a bad thing, just interesting. Movies are far better and well refined devices for telling stories than games. These modern games are just doing what works best.

Not that there is anything wrong with games that just want to be games: Diablo, Civilization, Street Fighter, etc. I just expect games like Dragon Age to be a dying breed (as if that wasn't obvious).

Other than Deus Ex and Planescape are still better.

It's not really up for debate, sorry.  :awesome_for_real:

Some thoughts after an hour and change of play:

- Very pretty.  I agree with Schild's "lovingly crafted" remarks.  Looks stunning on the 46" LCD TV.
- I can live without towns, but I'd kinda like a bit more loot then "weapon" and "accessory".  I don't need individual equip slots for a ring on every finger, but 4-6 equipable items would be more fun for me.
- The hopping around between sets of characters is a little jarring -- nobody's even leveled up yet and I'm still all very basic attacks.
- The voice acting is variable.  Lightning and Sazh are solid.  The other characters a bit less so.  Vanille is a bit grating -- and the actress doesn't seem to know what her accent or speech style is supposed to be...

Not hating it, but not entirely sold on it yet.

Still remains to be seen if this will be a better game than Shadow Hearts: Covenant.  Probably not, but this definitely isn't the death of the Final Fantasy franchise and through, what is the essentially the tutorial, a gripping and well crafted experience.

It's just so well done.  Nothing left to chance or half assed.

/off_topic Heh, sitting in a stack next to my PS3: FFXIII, Heavy Rain, and Valkyria Chronciles.  That's a lot of beauty.

edit: Vanille's voice acting is a bit odd.  Sounds like someone that's used to voicing puppets.. if that makes any sense.

Also, playing on a 23" HD widescreen monitor.  It looks really good.

There are towns. They're just computer terminals. Much like the hermit does not go to a mall, the FFXIII character shops on Amazon.com.

All they took out was pointless yammering.

I miss the idea of towns, I don't miss the implementation. I'll take this "maybe-almost-a-third-of-the-way-there" approach.

Edit: This is far more the impressive JRPG than Shadowhearts 2. Is it a better EXPERIENCE? Nah, not a chance. Square doesn't have the balls to construct the world in a way that would even be allowed to knock on Shadowhearts 2's door let alone step on it's front lawn. But is it the better JRPG? Yea, probably. I expect to put down FFXIII either halfway through or when I finish it and never, ever play it again. The characters are all passable to me, but not much more. It's a Final Fantasy game, for sure. Music is better than great, graphics are the best in class, and the design is impeccable. It has absolutely zero soul.

Is it a better JRPG than Persona 3/4?

Not sure about that. Equals perhaps? Hard to judge. The sim stuff makes PErsona almost a completely different type of series.

Umm on a sidenote, I believe whoever designed Vanille is a Leah Dizon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr9oL1CARg8) fan (who conveniently even has a song called Vanilla).


[edit] RE: "Movies"

It's not any different than typical action games.... God of War for example is just a mix of combat and cinematics too. You don't go to shops there or dilly dally around with things that have no tie to the overall plot. So I guess, just look at it that way, if you can. They didn't take away too much out of this to the point where it's not an "RPG" though. It's very streamlined, but I'd hardly call it an action game either. It still essentially feels like an RPG to me..... just one where the narrative is absolute king.

Yes. Considering the core of a JRPG is combat -> story -> upgrade -> combat -> story -> upgrade, Persona 3/4's weakest points were its combat. They were worse than Digital Devil Saga and Nocturne and far worse than Shadowhearts. At least FFXIII doesn't screw with a proven formula. Admittedly, Persona 4 had vastly superior combat than Persona 3 - also the PSP version will further improve. Still won't be as good as FFXIII. That said, Persona 3 and 4 are both better games.

Look, in the annals of history, FFXIII will not be remembered as one of the best games ever except by the bland and whorish. It will be considered a technical feat (that rivals Gran Turismo and Heavy Rain) for years to come. As a game though, it's no masterpiece. If I threw all the technical stuff out the window right now, I'd give it a 6 or 7 out of 10. With it, it's basically a 10, that's how polished it is. Razor sharp shine.

-

It's a JRPG Stray, no one ever claimed there was much role-playing in the genre, it's just a moniker.

This is true...

...

Persona 4's combat is only better to me because it's a little harder and required you to remember more enemy types. I like how this one feels... I'm not just not encountering enough shit that makes me recall specific tactics.

Spoiler thread from here on out for the folks with the game: http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=18904.0

Ooookay. Maybe I should take the above back. I've died like 3 times in an hour now.


The good thing about it is that they're all tactical mistakes. Not lack of gear or grinding "mistakes".

What?  Mass Effect 2 is no more a glorified movie than the first game.  If anything, a greater emphasis was put on the 3rd person shooter aspects.

Anyway, I caved and picked up FFXIII before work.  Just played it for an hour and a half after I got home and I'm liking it so far.  The bizarre debate going on in this thread as to whether or not this game is one of the greatest JRPG's ever seems to be a lot of meaningless crap since JRPG is a pretty nebulous term, but whatever. 

The streamlining doesn't bother me at all, but then I haven't been a huge fan of JRPG's in the last several years anyway so it wasn't really hard to win me over in that respect.  Doubt there's any way I'm going to finish this before God of War 3 comes out though, and at that point GoW3 takes priority.

I'm not debating anything. I think Rendakor digs Persona 3/4 a lot and just wants to know how this stacks up. "Good enough", I'd say. But different.

And besides that, well worth playing anyways considering they aren't many JRPGs out these days. Or games with color, for that matter!  :grin:

If by this statement you are referring to the fact that they've used more than 27 shades of green, gray and brown, then hell yeah.  This game is gorgeous to look at.  I'm still trying to figure out if I'm having fun (only a couple hours in).

One of the strange gaps in my gaming resume is that I've never played any FF. Judging from the reviews, this isn't the one to start with, though.

An 82 combined at metacritic isn't bad (Gamespot gave Deus Ex an 82).  A game shouldn't need a 90+ to get the go ahead.  What I'd consider the best the JRPG genre has to offer has an 85 at metacritic.  

The game is very linear.  It's trimmed away a lot of the illusion of exploration that other JRPGs offer.  It has abstracted towns into a remote vendor and removed the need to run up to some random NPC and push X.  A decent amount of the JRPG trappings have been sacrificed in order to maintain the focus on moving the plot forward.

There's nothing really preventing anyone from starting the FF series at any point.  What may be considered a staple of the series is easily cast off or turned on its head in others.  They all generally have chocobos (first one didn't); a strong, moody central character (6 kind of focused on Terra, but not really); summoning spells (some don't); fight/magic/item/run; and some overarching plot to save the world from a diabolical madman that eventually turns into some sort of gigantic screen scrolling baddie.   You fight, you get stronger, you advance the plot.  

But if  JRPGs and/or FF doesn't interest you, this one shouldn't change that.  It's no reinvention of the genre or an attempt to make it more accessible.  

It looks incredible, it plays smoothly and characters are awesome if you are into anime stuff. The plot starts out prety cool if you ask me and I wasn't really expecting something that heartbreaking in the first 20 minutes or so. Promising.

I don't see how a PS3 owner can possibly skip this.

I wish I had a PS3 for this.  Maybe I'll turn in my 360 and all it's games to get a ps3 and this (and demon souls and heavy rain, and mag and....)

That's kind of what I did when I got a PS2.  Traded in the XBrick and everything I had for it.  Did rather well.

Hmm yeah it's got me thinking.  I have a ton of older games too for Xbox (old one) and PS2.  I might be able to get a dollar or so for them heh.  Maybe I can sell my Wii that I've never even had in my house and is still sitting in my parent's house.

Is it inferior on the 360 or something?

Yeah, I can't quite figure out why you would go through all that trouble when you could just buy it for the console you own.

Maybe Draegan doesn't know it's out for 360. Let's not tell him.

Gamespot review mentioned that the PS3 version looks much better.

Lower rez, and 3 discs apparently as well... but I'm not sure I'd ditch a 360 for the PS3 solely because of it. ALTHOUGH the PS3 IS a better console for other games.....  :why_so_serious:

[edit] Oh, but anyways, I think this would actually be the perfect game to start off FF with. For all of it's lack of JRPG staples, it plays to the genre's (and the series' specifically) core strengths. I'd rather recommend this to a new player than something laden with features that may very well turn them off. It also lacks some of the clear negative features of FF that would definitely turn them off... like random encounters.

Also it's a better cast and story since... Actually, I don't know. Best characters since 8 or 9 at least.

I would probably second the recommendation that this would be one to start with, because it seems...simpler...on many levels, and does cut out some of the unnecessary shit.  Of course the problem will be that it's such a technical marvel that the others will suffer pretty hard in comparison.

I'm far enough along now that I'm being forced to put Paradigm shifts to use, and it's about time.  The early combat is just too easy boring.

It starts to get legitimately challenging. I'm just getting a taste of it now, but I've finally read reviews, and they all seem to say ithe difficulty keeps escalatating. IGN review says it may even turn off some people. I'll gladly welcome it.. but it's kind of a weird transition...and you'd never guess just starting out. The game holds your hand for a good 5 or 6 hrs, I think. Maybe longer.

So just out of curiosity, how many of you are actively filling your ATB queue vs how many are using the auto battle option?

I have been shooting for auto battle the yard trash, then manually input the boss fights.  That said I am thinking about slowing down the ATB gauge so i have a reasonable amount of time to pull off some kind of strategy during a boss fight.  As it is right now its jut WAY too fast for me.

I'm not using manual commands.  The auto commands seem to generally be the best choices anyway.  Switching paradigms at certain times seems to be where the real tactical combat is in this game....in more than one case it has saved my ass (or conversely, a switch at the wrong time has even killed me).  It's an interesting departure for this series.

Mostly just auto queue for minions. I've at least had to rely on paradigm shifting (but still auto queuing) with some newer minions... so it's not all straight up auto-atack.

Not sure if I'll use the slower feature anytime soon for bosses.

Jesus, Edge gave this game a 50.

... This is not how you sell someone on picking this up.  Of those two games only Vivi and Seifer piqued my interest.  10 had a superior cast in every way, even the guys I hated.

I really like most of X and X-2's characters as well.

Perhaps I should just say that Lightning is the best protagonist in awhile. Maybe ever.

Then again, I like bitches.

360 version?

OTOH, an 82 for a core Final Fantasy game is, well...
FFVII: 92
FFVIII: 90
FFIX: 94
FFX: 92
FFXII: 92


Hell, Squeenix couldn't even buy get a perfect Famitsu score for it, and they're given away in cereal boxes nowadays (Bayonetta is a 40/40 game? Really?).

http://www.edge-online.com/magazine/review-final-fantasy-xiii

Those scores are bullshit, or actually the present 80-something score is bullshit. The "gaming press" is definitely not coherent nor consistant in rating games and claiming this is the worse FF since basically forever is just pathetic. Without delving too much into anything, FF12 was a joke ON ALL ACCOUNTS compared to this one, so don't get me started on 92 vs 82. Sheesh.

FFXII is basically "Here's the world, there's a storyline somewhere in there, go explore"
FFXIII is the exact opposite, and quite possibly deliberately so.

Why would anyone compare FFXII and FXIII :( The former wasn't even a jRPG >_>


No.

I caved and bought it last night.  Haven't played it yet, because my 4yr old daughter is fucking wrapped around it so tightly I'm afraid to move her.  It's almost bedtime so I gotta do something, but damn.  It's gonna suck when it starts getting harder for her.  Right now she's having a ton of fun with it.

 :headscratch:

edit: I mean, sure there was some exploration (typically with side quests retreading areas you've already been to) but it's not like it was some sort of open world master piece.  12 was just another iteration with new combat.  :|  (I like 12)

I would prefer something more like the gambit system than the paradigm shift thing.  The gambit system gave me a lot more flexibility and control over the actions of my characters.  Now if you gave me a set of "roles" that I could define in terms of gambit system style rules and then I could swap roles in combat like paradigm shifting... now *that* would be fun.

The Edge review doesn't even make sense. It wants to criticize it for not being "JRPG" enough, then turns around and tries to conclude that newcomers won't like it.... that only fans of the series would.  :uhrr:

Anyways... as for the first 25 hrs being a waste of time... I haven't played that far, but there's nothing about this that's so excruciatingly awful to deserve a 50. I mean fuck, that's like... bargain bin beach babes 50 cent Ronald McDonald territory or something.

Edge tends to use the entire 1 - 10 scale like you're supposed to.
(Someone really need to make a new "Amiga Power"-type mag or website. IIRC they once gave one game 2....percent. Why 2%? Because they felt it was more insulting that a 'gimmick' 1% score would be).

It's still doesn't make sense to me for the content though. He's basically complaining about what it isn't, then concludes that newcomers won't like it, and that only fans of the series would. When it's HIM that's a big fan of the series himself apparently - else he wouldnt make so many complaints about what it isn't. Yet he trying to pass off his expectations as if they were those of the mainstream.

My head hurts trying to figure that shit out.

ANYWHO... I have no qualms with anyone not liking it for what it isn't. Which is what most of the bad reviews boil down to. I would think a newcomer though (or an open minded person.. like myself  :awesome_for_real:) would judge it for what it is, not what it isn't.

Is it bad that I have zero interest in this game?

It's another FF.  I'd expect some people to have stopped caring by now.  They haven't been great games since the SNES.


Yes, but in the current state of game reviewing, it's just attention whoring.  Ones and twos can't really exist in a commercially released product.  It'd have to be someone crapping into a box containing a disk with a virus infested version of "Hello, world" (some games get close).  This really isn't even using the scale like you're supposed to, it's reinventing it in order to garner attention.  Are they going to give out an 11 for something they really love or go into the negatives for a game that dares to not be robot-fucking-jesus?

No. It's prettier than everything though. Combat system is cool. It's different than many things out. You might be missing something.

Oh sweet so Demon Souls and other games are coming out for the 360 too?

About 6 hours in and the combat system is just wearing me down.  I'd like finer control over what's going on than I get by switching gambits so the other characters in my party change what abilities they use.  Without either direct control (like older FF titles), or more input into the AI (like the gambit system in FF12), I feel like I'm just not doing much here.  It looks pretty but it's just not very engaging.

The story is not exactly grabbing me either.

I'll probably keep slogging through it a bit more to see if things improve, but it's feeling pretty meh.

Well, to be fair...you could slow it down and input all the commands yourself.

You can't input all the commands -- only the commands for your party leader.   Unless I'm wrong and you *can* control the entire party, in which case I'd be interested in knowing how to do that.

Just wait.

You'll won't be getting the micro-management you're looking for, but you'll apply more tactical thinking all the same as time moves on. 6 hours in? You're just about there.

I rather like the story though. It kept me going.

I agree that this hand holding goes on a bit too long though.... OTOH, I know someone and his gf who haven't played FF in a long while, and it seems to be the kind of a long ass tutorial suited for people like them. They're not complaining.

Good point, you cannot seem to control the others.  One of the things that bugs me is that you can't seem to even switch who the party leader is at this point in the game (or can you?).

Later on, you apparently can. As I've been saying though... the story is king. Not YOU. Or your choices.  :grin: So, whatever happens to be driving the narrative will dictate your party leader. I don't expect anyone used to RPG's liking that though, since the basic expectation of RPGs is that you get to make choices. This however is not an RPG, and if you get past that, all is well.  :oh_i_see:

As for micro-management.... seriously... you'd get your ass killed later on trying to manage multiple party members with the kind of bosses presented to you. Too much.

Not trying to be an apologist or anything.. hope it doesn't come off that way.

Well, I'm not giving up yet, but I hope the story steps it up a notch.  So far it is not terribly impressive or coherent.  At least only two members of the main cast are compulsive whiners, so that's a plus.  At some point are the "bad guys" more than a government, random soldiers, or random monsters?  Do they have any actual motivation or are they just cardboard cutout evil and/or puppets of evil?

No, not cardboard generic evil..err.. or whatever. Without spoiling anything, you've probably already gathered that the story is basically about racial/cultural fear. I've only run across one character now from the other side (i.e. a villain), and it's kind of unsettling how calm and good he is. He's just driven by fear.

I think I'm in total agreement with the 1 Up (http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3178230) review. It's honest about the differences and chopping off of features, but takes this game on it's own merits.

"The series stripped down to little more than story and combat. As such, the quality of the game is entirely contingent on the quality of those two elements. To its credit, they're among the best the series has ever seen."

It could be said though that this makes it more of an action-adventure than an RPG. Err...except the combat itself is not action adventure. Feels like FFX on steroids.

I'm not sold on the plot yet, but it's still early.  Most of the characters are pretty solid.  Sazh is great and his baby chocobo is one of the most adorable things I've ever seen in a game.  Snow is lame, however, and I'm not sure they can salvage him.

The venom being being spouted, especially by butt-hurt fanbois still pining for a FF7 remake (boy, there are a lot of them.  Am I the only person that really didn't care for FF7?), is actually staring to get kind of funny. 

I've noticed the venom even extends to Leona Lewis being on a soundtrack. Like it's a fucking death knell for the series. Must be coming from the same weeaboos I saw opening night.

It's not a bad song. I can hardly care if her "fan base" doesn't tie into Final Fantasy's fanbase. How fucking weird, man.. They're out of hand. Maybe Square should alienate it's playerbase.


I generally like everything from 7 through X-2 equally.. just not 12 (so far don't like it at least... still haven't put enough time into it).

I actually like snow, he's kind of a naruto character which can be good or bad depending on your tastes. It's hope that makes me stabby though, little emo douche epitomizes everything bad with jrpg's.  Also about 10 hours in the difficulty 'really' ramps up.

Hope has gotten a little better.

He's emo === but he's a self-aware emo  :awesome_for_real:. ...and knows he's needs to get his shit together.

I like most of the characters.  Hope annoys the crap out of me.  I got enough Shinji Ikari style sniveling when I watched Evangelion back in the day.  The character interactions, even just the little bits of background chatter while you hike around, are generally very well done.

Snow and Hope annoy me. Snow less so now that he has stopped the "I'm a HERO!" bullshit. We'll see if Hope stops being a whiny little bitch, its still early.

I thought Vanille was going to annoy me, but yeah, it's more been Hope up to this point.

Oh, and I just had the Odin fight.  My experience was like yours, Stray.  He kicked the living snot out of me the first time, and I was like "oh hell, this is going to take a while".  And then I proceeded to kick the shit out of him in the next bout.  Odd.  I was then a little disappointed upon summoning him to find that he didn't really help me all that much, but for now I'll chalk that up to not understanding how to use that gestalt system yet.

He's most effective running his course almost to the point of death... then press square.. go through the moves where Light is on the horse.. not sure how many moves are available in that mode.. but you'll end gestalt mode with the triangle button.

I kinda figured that hitting triangle would end it, but then I expected more than 470 points of damage.  I have Lightning doing far more than that on a turn.

I would kind of prematurely press triangle sometimes, but you have to build up the stagger gauge for it to be an effective ending move.

I'm starting to like the game quite a bit as of chapter 7.  More systems and abilities available.  Hell, even Snow is growing on me a little bit, and maybe Hope will sort out his angst before halfway through the game... that'd be a nice surprise.

So far, I am loving everything BUT the combat. It doesn't really make me feel in control. Nothing worse than watching the ATB bar filling before anything happens, nothing worse than fighting the UI to get the skills/optimums I want before my band gets whacked, nothing worse than actually have to look at bars filling and unfilling (ATB, party HP) instead of the action on screen. I even tried slowing down the ATB, and that made things slightly clearer but even more sluggish and goofy since the ATB fills slower and there's more time watching without doing nothing. I know it's mere seconds, but it's horribly MMO-ish to have to wait for "cooldowns" of sorts instead of having your chars unleashing whatever you want them to unleash when you hit a button. I find myself hitting triangle all the time so I can at least act as soon as the first segment is filled. Finally, the whole "delayed" chaos on screen doesn't give me time to appreciate animations, weapons, enemies, spells, nothing.

Oddly enough, turn based combat felt more satisfying to me as opposed to this fake action mode. This isn't "neither meat nor fish" as they say in Italy.

Everything else I am absolutely in love with so far, but the combat is disappointing to me.

It wasn't until chapter 6 or 7 or so that I really got used to the combat.  Having enough roles available to each character so that you can have a reasonable collection of role combinations for paradigm shifts helps a lot.  Now I tend to use that bar-filling-time to assess the situation and decide if I'm going to paradigm shift or not for the "next round" as it were.

I'm still getting a feel for if using triangle to execute early is worth it (sometimes it obviously is, but I don't know if it isn't a drawback some other times), and I need to verify that going into the paradigm shift menu (L1) doesn't cancel the current queued actions (I need to experiment a bit more) until you actually make a selection.

A lot of it was that combat didn't feel right, and then at some point it kinda clicked and now it doesn't bother me much.

EDIT: If you think of the ATB bar as your MP bar and that there are no non-special attacks (but there are  *extra* special attacks using your TP that build up from battle to battle), maybe it makes a bit more sense?

Vanille's VA (talks about her FF13 experience starting around the 1m44 mark): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0YaQnUOu4k

"and it's all... basically I spend my hours in the booth going <various high pitched laughs etc>"

Edit:
I moved this to the spoiler thread.  Oops

I disagree.

Good:
Looks great.
I get the "you're on the run" feel thanks to streamlining/tunnels.
Paradigm system is a good combat system.
Party members are acceptably intelligent during combat.
Eidolon tests are interesting versus traditional "beat the shit out of it" tasks.

Bad:
Camera rotation sucks.
Crystarium difficult to navigate.
I want more information on the Upgrade system.
Gradual introduction of gameplay mechanics is gradual.  Very.
Don't tease me with airships.  Just don't.

Meh:
Grinding for loot seems not worth it, then again it serves to propel me forward instead of spending three weeks on the Veldt.
Someone got FFVII in my FFX!
I miss towns but I don't.  Weird.  Towns would feel out of place in the narrative.

I do not miss towns and having to run around and talk to people and visit shops and be worried I missed something and spend an hour poking around.

I love not having to manage my health between combats, I love NPC talking to me as I approach them instead of having to menutalk them and see if they have anything new to say. Cristallium is not so cool, and I miss more classical levelups mechanics. Story and character and setting are among my favourites ever. Bliss.

It's me, I hated Final Fantasi XII. That MMORPG feeling was disgusting to me.

I love that if I get completely hosed in a crazy boss battle, I can just SELECT and retry it rather than having to slog through an hour of random encounters or cutscenes after restarting from the last save point.

I think the whole "no death penalty" thing is great because it encourages me to push my limits in combat and not be needlessly conservative.  Combined with the fast pacing, the ability to choose your encounters (no random battles), and no need to burn MP/items/etc to heal up after combat, it allows every battle to be a self-contained world of crushing your foes (or winning by the skin of your teeth).

If I could keep one feature from FF12, it'd be the gambit system -- I'd like to be able to tune the AI for the non-controlled party members a bit.  It's pretty good as-is (certainly good enough that the game is enjoyable), but I'd love to be able to tinker.  I admit it, I am a software engineer, and the FF Programming Language amused me.

I never got the "FFXII feels like MMORPG" thing that I kept reading.  I don't know that it is worth a huge discussion at this point but I really don't see it.  I assume it was due to the lack of random encounters and separate battle screen.

If "feels like an MMO" means lack of random encounters and no separate battle screen, I want more MMO feeling in my RPGs!

I think the "it feels like a MMO" was mostly aimed at the feel of the combat.

For upgrading, here's a helpful hint:

Every component with a "tooth/claw" icon (mostly organics) will add to the bonus exp for an item. 

Every component with a "bolt" icon will subtract from the bonus exp an item gets.  These have the most overall exp and are mostly mechanical/electrical components.

So, a good strategy is to use a lot of bonus exp components until you get a 2x exp bonus, then unload a huge stack of "bolt" icon components.  You can get several levels this way.

Now if I could only pick what items to level up.  :| I'm starting to get some weapons with bonus abilities but I've already got weapons with 10 levels on them.  Bleh.

The upgrade components are what I mean when I complain about the grind.  CP are easy to get, materials far less so.  I tried to grind for a bit but the effort required to PERHAPS get a component was a bit much.

You get stores with components.  Now, you just have to get money.  :awesome_for_real:  Selling weapons/fighting soldiers seems to be the only way to get any gil.

Pre chapter 10-11 items seem very precious, they aren't.  Feel free to sell half your accessories for cash to just buy components.

Yes, combat with autoattack shit was very MMO-ish to me. Same for the first city, lots of running around for quests, and then first open area with respawning mobs with aggro range and shit, felt absolutely like FF11 with new graphics to me. It gets better later on, but I could never shake that feeling again.

Just got a weapon to star level. How do I go about transforming it to a new item? Is it just a case of getting lots of random ores until I find the right combination; or am I missing something terribly obvious?  :oh_i_see: (This is me assuming the ores that talk about being transformation catalysts are for weapon upgrading.)

This isnt really a spoiler per say as a good tip.

Any weapon you get can turn into your omega weapon for that char. Basically you evolve a weapon 3-4 times and it becomes an omega weapon but with the same stat allocation as whatever you evolved it from.  So pick the weapon style you want str/mag/debuff and just stick with it.

Good to know, thanks. Anything similar for accessories?

BTw, I've upgraded Light's starter gunblade to lvl 10.... haven't seen anything about Omega yet.

You have to level up the weapons to around 25 and get star level then 'evolve' them by using rare ores. eventually after 3-4 evolutions they become the omega weapon.  Accessories im not too sure about though but be careful when you evolve them because at least a couple times itll turn into something completely different you may not have wanted.

It appears that I have to grind.. you can't be that far ahead of me, and yet you're weapons are over lvl 25? Either I spread too thin on upgrades or you're catassing. Or both.  :drill:

I'm at chapter 11 now and really ive only evolved lightnings weapon once, I've slacked a bit on the rest and I dont give a damn about sazh/hope/snow since i never use them.

Little help for those trying to figure out upgrading/dismantling.

Weapons can upgraded two times. The second upgrade turns the weapon into the "ultimate" form. Each upgrade requires the weapon to be * (star) level then upgraded with the appropriate catalyst item (these are ores/crystals).

Exp reqs to achieve a *  (star) level (generally not strictly) are - 50k exp for initial form, 450k exp for intermediate form, and 1.5 million exp for the ultimate form.

The best way to upgrade is to use organic components (claw icon) to achieve a x3 exp bonus, then use mechanical parts for exp in one go.

Detailed example of how to efficiently level an item -
Some accessories upgrade to better versions, and some change into an entirely different item when upgraded.

Dismantling
- The higher level the item is (lvl 1 - lvl star) the more materials/items you will get when dismantling it.
- The only reason to ever dismantle something is to get an extremely rare component, or items/accessories that can only be acquired through dismantling certain high level items.

Detailed example of using Upgrading/Dismantling to acquire the Sprint Shoes Accessory (auto haste) -

 

Eep, I didn't know it went higher than 2.   :facepalm:   Ohh well, only at chapter 10.  Not a whole lot of waste in the grand scheme of things.

That stuff at the end.  Ugg, that's prime strategy guide fodder.  I've hated that every FF since 7 has some sort of incredibly hard to find or obscure way to obtain really powerful weapons/armor.  Makes you feel compelled to buy the strategy guide or wait until someone de-japs a Gamefaq guide (lot of textual changes to items which can make the current faqs somewhat hard to read).

Ohh well, at least it's not dependent on chocobo-breeding or blitzball.

edit:

Helpful weapon guide. http://ff-13.info/category/weapons/  Warning: don't go to the main page unless you want to see overal plot spoilers.  It is a walkthrough.

Interesting how Gran Pulse opens up a few little additions this late in the game. The wild areas and Cieth side quests feels a little FF12 like at first glance.

Anyhow, seems like an longer RPG than usual when you think about it. Considering that when you subtract time sinks like towns and side games, and just have those playing hours devoted to the main story...

Oh great, I didn't know about 3x bonus.  Booooooooooo.  Wasted a ton of stuff then.  Heh only in chapter 7 though no worries.  I have a ton of "organic" stuff to use for upgrades, but I'm very short on mechanical pieces.

Being somewhat of a FF newb here, and only being in Chapter 3 so far, I am getting a little frightened by all of this.

Is it ok that I think the way Vanille runs with her arms outstretched is awesome?

Pretty soon you'll be downloading magic girl anime.  :why_so_serious:


Seriously though, she's probably got the better animations of the bunch. Her weapon type is kind of different too.

Vanille is pretty awesome throughout, although I'm finding debuffing to be less useful than I hoped.  It's great for difficult trash in parts (especially early on), just there's a lot of bosses where they're immune or nothing lands. I'm starting to feel like I need to work one of the buffers (Sazh or Hope) into my party, but that would mean benching Lightning or Vanille, which would make me sad.

There's an awesome scene in chapter 9 with Vanille's weapon.
 

I started training her as a synergist, although I imagine it'll be awhile before I climb up the tree enough to be really useful. As it is, I tend to keep Hope in my teams. I don't dislike him, but Vanille would be cooler. Not sure what chapter I'm in, but Fang, Light, and Hope are a cool team imo. Getting Vanille trained though would pretty much cover anything.

Who do you have for your battle team? I beat the game using Lightning/Sazh/Vanille. I'm surprised you aren't using Sazh yet but maybe Haste isn't available yet on his Synergist Crystarium?

Sazh sucks.  I'm not there yet, but you can get haste boots.

Didn't know about the Haste boots. I'll agree that he isn't the strongest character, I'd dun him for lowish stats and that his Commando role I never used and would've preferred that he had Fang's Sab abilities. I just got used to him as "haste-bitch"/general buffs and his Ravager was more than competent with the benefit of the guns that gave Stagger bonus. Hope would've been a better choice but he didn't get Haste til much later and by then I was well into "not broken-don't fix" mode regarding combat.

Sentinel not play a large role towards the end?  I admit I only use a Sent when I need to recover HP.

I never used one unless forced to by the game for a special fight. It might have made some of the combat even smoother here and there but aside from an infrequent lapse in timing Paradigm shifts I only ever used "Retry" against insta-KO capable mobs and Sentinel really wouldn't change that effect anyways

Edit: I suppose on the Death fights Sentinel would've taken the fall on account of their aggro tools and I would've avoided game over but meh... If I ever do another playthrough my team would be Light/Sazh/Vanille until Hope gets Haste then Light/Fang/Hope for the rest

Apologies for the necro, but I'm playing through this for the first time and I cannot for the life of me wrap my head around this equipment upgrade system.  I've read through the early posts, and I still don't understand how to go about upgrading equipemnt, salvaging at the right times, while still finding the right stuff to sell to make some money to buy shit.  Or should I even bother with the whole thing?  Can someone just tl;dr this for me?

I don't remember entirely but I think you can completely ignore that system until you arrive at Gran Pulse, and then you can look up a guide for the most efficient means of upgrading your equipment. The process goes something like; use organic ingredients until the item has a times three multiplier, then use mechanical ingredients which will knock the multiplier down. Put more organic materials until it's back to times three, and so on. There are only a handful of items worth dismantling and it can only be done when it's fully upgraded. You shouldn't sell anything unless the description says it's only used for selling.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/xbox360/950899-final-fantasy-xiii/faqs

 :grin:

My upgrade technique involved not playing anymore when You realized you realized rather than utilizing different tactics for certain fights, it simply revolved around slotting accessories to mitigate the chance of a game ender moves.

Holy fucking weirdness. I just got a 360 vga cable for my old 20" monitor (since I own no TVs) and have had this game for years and never finished it. Just so happen to pop it in Monday with the goal of playing through it at least to say I did. Odd coincidence, that.

Seeing a guide by Split Infinity reminded me that Gamefaqs letting people put whatever silly bullshit they like as a version number for their guides can get really fucking stupid (http://www.gamefaqs.com/features/recognition/6434.html?type=1).

Rise, from the dead!

Squeenix released a 16-bit retro SNES-type rendering of the FF13 and 13-2 stories if you're going to play 13-3 and want a refresher on the plot.  There be spoilers so don't watch if you're one of the 3 people currently playing through 13 and 13-2 and don't want anything spoiled (spoiler alert: it's a jumbled mess).  Otherwise, it's a good watch even if you have no interest in these games; it definitely hits the nostalgia bone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQrBSO74DzA

I just started playing XIII-2. As far as I can tell this is the plot:

Lighting Lightning paradox Lightning Lightning Snow Lightning future Lightning Lightning.

Holy shit, I'd give me left nut if they redid FFXIII like that.  Because it'd be 10x better than the  :uhrr: they put out.

This pixel art looks like C-tier dog shit. Will Square-enix ever stop embarrassing themselves?

It's about ten million times better looking than FF6 by which I mean the mobile port they just released.

There was a story in FF13 that needs catching up on?  Because all I remember is wandering through one endless tunnel and wondering when I was ever going to make it to the first town.

Changing the graphics wouldn't fix the shit characters and story.

The story is not what did it for me.  Every FF game has some kind of far-fetched convoluted story in which they have a short amount of time to establish the world/story/lore.  It was just easier in the 8/16-bit days because they only has so much room on a single cartridge.  For XIII, perhaps they did go a bit nuts in trying to come up with something truly more creative than the last twelve times they've done this, but they did put in a bunch of readable, quickly accessible lore articles to read at your discretion.

The bad voice acting/theatrics, the retarded combat system that also went back to separating the live world from battles, and ridiculous item/equipment/economy is what made me give up about halfway through. 

Funny how the jrpg is alive everywhere else but consoles.

It's well alive on consoles, just not as the Final Fantasy series.

The Tales of <foo> series is about as straight up JRPG as you can get minus the more action-oriented battle system. Random encounters, shitloads of items, pretty traditional map traversal into towns with progressively better items in the shops, nonsense adventure that turns into somehow fighting god or whatever, anime as hell, etc.

And we're up to like a bakers dozen of them.

Also Persona, Disgaea.

I could pick nits, but the cupboard is so bare, you might as well include them.  Disgaea is a sRPG and Persona is Persona.  :awesome_for_real:

That video made me glad I stopped playing FFXIII about 15 hours in. What a shit thing I can't even call a game.

Rise from your grave, reincarnated on the PC.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/292120/

The whole trilogy is getting ported, with Lightning Returns coming in the Spring.

Looking up, I can see that my earlier commentary is what keeps me from clicking the Buy button. If anything, this is good news in that FFXV, should it ever see the light of day, will make it to PC as well.

Guess I don't have to worry about consoles again  :awesome_for_real:

I think I just threw up a little.

Stop giving these people money.

Final Fantasy games shouldn't have made you worry about consoles for at least 3 console generations at this point.

True, but I think with the turn-around seen in XIV and the lessons learned from XIII, XV might be a redeemer for them.

Or the final nail in the coffin. It's a 50/50 thing really  :grin:

Your innocence tastes like a child's tears.

Terrible game.  Utterly shattered my square-enix inner fanboy.

The only thing that really pissed me off with the Final Fantasy franchise was the way they (at least to me) totally fucked up the "Fantasy VS Technology" thematic progression vibe they had going on.   I played pretty much every Final Fantasy game up untill 9, and I always though it was kind of neat how each game put a bit more focus on Technology and less on Fantasy as the numbers increased.   In early games, "Science / Technology" stuff was crazy rare, and "Fantasy / Magic" was the norm.  Then you got to the middle games, with the blending of the two "Magitech" and stuff like that.  Then by 7 the world had turned into almost SteamPunk light, and heavy Technology was everywhere while magic, like the Materia, was really rare.  I was totally hopeing that they would continue the theme with 9, and have the entire thing be something like a quest to actually find "Magic" again, as it had been almost completely lost, and maybe make the setting completely Sci-Fi, but instead they did an almost full 180 and tossed us back into a setting that might as well have been from FF3.  Sure.  I know the appearent Thematic progression of the FF games was not intentional, but I was still sad when 9 crushed my hopes :/

If anything, 9 is #2 on my list of all time FF favs. It was a fan-love letter to those who enjoyed the fantasy theme of 1-6, while incorporating all of the new tech and shiny of the hardware at the time. Besides that, 8 wasn't as highly regarded as 7 was, and they were probably looking to change the beat. The "forward-progression" you describe seemed to backfire a little bit on the broad-scale, so they went with what they knew they could do best.

13 was just bananas with going overboard on the fantasy/sci-fi hybridization.

But I see where you're coming from. The new trailer for 15 looks like something you and I both might enjoy.

Except with a bland plot, only one interesting character, and horrible art direction (especially in regards to the characters). As many faults as 8 had, 9 marks the point where I stopped liking the series.

My thoughts on 9 are known.  It's the reason I didn't run out and buy a PS2 for 10.

The first 40 hours of XIII are pretty awful.  Gran Pulse was neat-ish.  XV likely won't influence my purchase of a next gen system.

I thought 9 was a good game until the end. 8 was a hunk of shit that made me almost give up on the series, then 10 pretty much did make me give up on the series until I played 12 which was actually pretty good.

I watched someone pay 13 and it looked horrendous.

VII made me give up on the series (VIII was an unadulterated abortion). XII almost brought me back, but it was really just a screensaver for my brain.

Agreed on the ending of IX. The game was decent, but instead of letting Zidane die a heroic sacrifice they brought him back because reasons after a nonsensical "I'M THE REAL END BOSS" reveal. :uhrr:

X is the one that killed the series for me; they made the jump to PS2 and decided that FF should be about pretty graphics and cutscenes instead of interesting stories and challenging gameplay. Anyone who played and liked X is to blame for why XIII is as bad as it is. XII is kind of an outlier in that they tried to go back oldschool a bit, except the combat was shitty nonexistent.

Here's my top 5 FFs: VI, Tactics, VII, VIII, IV

We are the co-presidents of the "What the hell does everyone see in VII" club?  Yah, it has a great moment or two, but the game is just dreadfully boring to play. 

I never played VIII.  I played the demo and hated it instantly.

XII is one of my favorites, oddly enough.  Too bad the difficulty curve was completely shattered if you completed even a fair amount of the side content.

XII played with combat, had no random encounters, combat on the main map, party ai, lots of good stuff.  XIII super-linear structure and meh combat system was a big step back.

I liked VII but it was my intro to the series (yeah, I know I know) and just was this weird-ass combination of RPG slog and little minigames and whatnot and I had a lot of fun with it.

Same.

But I also liked X, and think I'd like XII but got interrupted in my play through and never went back.  I wanted to love Tactics, but always ended up at a point where I just couldn't win battles.

I actually enjoyed ff-12 probably the most of all ff games so far though ff7 will always be somewhat special for me mostly due to the time it was published (ai. all the nostalgic stuff associated with it that has actually relatively little to do with the game itself).
ff-12 was quite fun and the whole gambit system meant you could automate alot of the combat so it didn't get as ponderous as some of the other ff games towards the end (and the story wasn't that terrible).

And that's why 12 is my #1 as well  :awesome_for_real:

FF12 looked/sounded great, combat was kinda plodding but an interesting change from the usual. Good characters too.

Shame that you literally spend half the game plundering old tombs while the entire plot happens elsewhere.

VII was literally a playable shounen anime. That's pretty much it.

That's the worst part of Tactics; specifically the multi-stage battles where the game would encourage you to save between fights except some of those 2nd fights were much harder than the first. The fight with Wiegraf where you have to solo him with Ramza cockblocked a lot of people because if your Ramza wasn't a) sufficiently high level and b) a good melee character the fight was literally unwinnable. If you saved right before it and didn't have a backup, you had to restart the game entirely because you were fucked. It didn't happen to me on the first playthrough, but when I went back a few years ago I'd forgotten about it and decided to spec my Ramza as a caster. Ended poorly, and no amount of class-swapping could get the job done because I just didn't have the levels for it.

FF XII is funny because it just falls completely to shit abruptly and completely.

FFVII holds up incredibly poorly and probably should have taken place entirely in Midgar.

Ha, that almost happened to me because I'd leveled Ramza as a thief or something stupid. I managed to cheese it, barely, because my other party members had granted him just enough Summoner JP to learn a spell that would outrange Wiegraf's movement by 1 tile.

I alternated between three save slots after that.

If it weren't for IV and VI, I would consider FF to be the most overrated series in gaming.

I've....never played IV.  :oops:

Well it's on Steam for $15 now!  :awesome_for_real:

Also I like Final Fantasy. VII's alright, but I got tired of it years ago. I adore FFIX, even though I only played it for the first time in 2012.

FFXV will probably not be good. It's been in development hell since what... 2006? When it was originally called FF Versus XIII? It's even lost major dev staff over the past month, and its release keeps getting pushed back.

V was pretty good as well.  I go back to play that almost as much as IV.

I'm in the pro-9, anti-7 camp as well.


VII was the exact same thing for PSX.  The Midgar cutscenes were pretty mindblowing for 1997.

FFVI and FFIV are my favourite games in the series.. so I actually looked when you said they were on Steam. Oh my god. I will stick with my emulator version; it doesn't look nearly so god-awful.

Add me to the list that liked FFIX and thought FFVII was 'meh' at best. I liked Tifa.. and a few moments here and there, but by and large never understood the love for the game.

This is true, but it didn't seem to come at the expense of gameplay. VII was a shonen anime but still also a good game, requiring a decent amount of exploration. X took all of that out, giving us linear hallway zones and no overworld map to speak of. Maybe it's where they always wanted to take the series, but it seemed like VII, VIII and IX still had plenty of off-the-beaten-path content that was really lacking in X. I realize that modern games are all about making things really easy, but I still prefer having to figure out where to go next, what to do, etc. by talking to NPCs instead of walking in the only path that's available or following a glowing trail.

The Materia system for one.  I think that's a lot of why I liked X as well.  It allowed a lot of customization once you got a little ways into the game.

I liked the characters, too.  I liked most all of them from those two games.  Everyone except Freya put me to sleep in IX.  Disliked (or forgot) everyone but Quistus in XII.

Quistis is from VIII, not XII.

The new re-write is actually pretty good, go play the DS or Steam version.

I'd suggest emulating the original instead; the original sprites look so much better to me than the shitty 3d of the remake.

Roman Numerals are hard.  I was thinking 8.  I translated very wrong.

True, but the NA original version was extremely watered down in its gameplay and script. The new ones aren't.

In that case, emulate the PSP version because it's the best of both worlds.

If the re-write doesn't contain the phrase "you spoony bard" then I want nothing to do with it.

It does. I think the first PSX re-release of the game changed the line to something closer to the original Japanese, but subsequent releases have kept the spoony bard line.

Final Fantasy XV stuff moved here:

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=24410.0