Final Fantasy XIII gameplay footage - 40 minutes

[ahoythematey]

Whoa, did I stumble into the RE5 thread or something?  I could've sworn I just read a whine about gamepad-controls...

Certain things are obvious from your complaint: you missed the boat on the SNES FF's, because they had the same control scheme for the most part, right down to the shoulder-buttons used to run away in battle.  Clearly, you didn't get that they try to center the entire game controls around the idea that one button is for, "use/open," and another for, "back out."  Either that, or you just want something to nitpick.  I'm sure a part of what makes the games accessible to so many is the simplistic approach to the control scheme.  Wild Arms did exactly what you described, and wasn't anymore intriguing to play than FF just because I always had to press triangle or whatever to access the magic menu.

To address your spoiler nonsense: the whole "we take turns hitting each other until somebody goes boom" thing is a remnant of old D&D combat mechanics centered around initiative, and as the series progressed they added the active-time-battle system, which was supposed to give an abstraction of the faster units able to get in more attacks, giving a slight nod to realtime combat while still having the characters remain stationary.  Certain JRPGs, notably the Tales and Star Ocean series, actually had realtime movement from back in the day and it didn't add any real layer of strategy since your characters are still limited to the "battlefield" and when your character is attacked it doesn't matter from where on the battlefield the attack is coming.  Plenty of games nowadays actually take those elements into account, so I would suggest trying them instead.

And...seriously, you're going to complain about rock/paper/scissors?  What is this, do you want a game where the infantry wielding pikes always win?  I'll give you two examples of absolutely awesome games that are built up from a simple r/p/s formula: Advance Wars, and Starcraft.

[schild]

Less weird talk of controls and more clicking my link, broduskies.

[Typhon]

funny link schild.

funny thread.  I never would have pegged FF# as being a topic worthy of so much nerdrage.

[Ingmar]

funny link schild.

funny thread.  I never would have pegged FF# as being a topic worthy of so much nerdrage.

It is one of the top producers of internet nerdrage of all time. I have come around to having a strict 'never talk about JRPGs' policy in part due to the high levels of drama expressing my opinion of the ones I've played tends to produce. 

Who knows, maybe I'll like this one.

[Typhon]

funny link schild.

funny thread.  I never would have pegged FF# as being a topic worthy of so much nerdrage.

It is one of the top producers of internet nerdrage of all time. I have come around to having a strict 'never talk about JRPGs' policy in part due to the high levels of drama expressing my opinion of the ones I've played tends to produce. 

Who knows, maybe I'll like this one.

Who knew?!  I've played a couple of them (FF4,7), they are decently amusing, but I wouldn't think worthy of nerdrage (like, say for instance, the Zelda series).  I feel like I've been living under some gaming rock.

[Velorath]

Whoa, did I stumble into the RE5 thread or something? 

Yeah, it's like there's some crazy group of people here who like to see franchises evolve from generation to generation rather than get chained down by tradition.

[MisterNoisy]

funny link schild.

funny thread.  I never would have pegged FF# as being a topic worthy of so much nerdrage.

It is one of the top producers of internet nerdrage of all time. I have come around to having a strict 'never talk about JRPGs' policy in part due to the high levels of drama expressing my opinion of the ones I've played tends to produce. 

Who knows, maybe I'll like this one.

Not likely.  I know I'll be giving FFXIII a miss, even if they give the localization to IGN.

[stray]

Whoa, did I stumble into the RE5 thread or something? 

Yeah, it's like there's some crazy group of people here who like to see franchises evolve from generation to generation rather than get chained down by tradition.

Square has a pretty diverse set of combat mechanics across their rpg's. FF or otherwise. Even the last two FF games weren't traditional.

That said, enough people still dig the traditional gameplay that it wouldn't make any difference what this "crazy group of people here" prefers to play anyways.

[Murgos]

Yeah, it's like there's some crazy group of people here who like to see franchises evolve from generation to generation rather than get chained down by tradition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-COM:_Interceptor

Evolution is good.  But, uh, just remember who bought you to the dance.

[Sheepherder]

Certain things are obvious from your complaint: you missed the boat on the SNES FF's, because they had the same control scheme for the most part, right down to the shoulder-buttons used to run away in battle.  Clearly, you didn't get that they try to center the entire game controls around the idea that one button is for, "use/open," and another for, "back out."  Either that, or you just want something to nitpick.  I'm sure a part of what makes the games accessible to so many is the simplistic approach to the control scheme.  Wild Arms did exactly what you described, and wasn't anymore intriguing to play than FF just because I always had to press triangle or whatever to access the magic menu.

To address your spoiler nonsense: the whole "we take turns hitting each other until somebody goes boom" thing is a remnant of old D&D combat mechanics centered around initiative, and as the series progressed they added the active-time-battle system, which was supposed to give an abstraction of the faster units able to get in more attacks, giving a slight nod to realtime combat while still having the characters remain stationary.  Certain JRPGs, notably the Tales and Star Ocean series, actually had realtime movement from back in the day and it didn't add any real layer of strategy since your characters are still limited to the "battlefield" and when your character is attacked it doesn't matter from where on the battlefield the attack is coming.  Plenty of games nowadays actually take those elements into account, so I would suggest trying them instead.

And...seriously, you're going to complain about rock/paper/scissors?  What is this, do you want a game where the infantry wielding pikes always win?  I'll give you two examples of absolutely awesome games that are built up from a simple r/p/s formula: Advance Wars, and Starcraft.

1. Context-sensitive buttons and macros are hard.  I bet this guy has a hard time remembering more than five or six commands.  In the meantime, the point of contention has nothing to do with "intriguing", everything to do with "why does casting [something] take five (EDIT: five is pretty generous, "Fight" takes three) button presses when I use it every turn, are you trying to piss me off?"

2. The ATB system was not about a new way of handling turns, it was literally real-time combat.  The "wait" system that was added as an alternative was far superior, because it didn't cockstab you for being slow at navigating menus.  Do you have a selective memory of games you've played or, like me, did you just turn that shit off because it was terrible and subsequently forgot it was terrible?

3. Yeah, alone rock/paper/scissors is a shallow mechanic.  Is this hard to comprehend, or does your D&D group finish their night with a riveting game of rock, paper, scissors?  Your Starcraft analogy would be great, if Starcraft was fought by two armies of four people each lined up in front of each other.


EDIT: Schild, that was indeed awesome.  I give it a 10/10, probably the most defining game of our time.

[stray]

Why do you care so much? Is there something you want to like about this game (i.e. setting), but can't get past because of the gameplay you don't like? Because if not, it'd be like the equilvalent of me offering my input on the next Charlie's Angels sequel or some shit.

[Sheepherder]

IV kept me interested until it got weird at the end and I decided to grind levels until Bahamut didn't one-shot my party (which finally sealed the deal, and I lost interest even though Bahamut was probably optional).  VII's setting was really well done, and from my recollection didn't get that badly weird (unless it came after I quit, I don't even remember where that was though).  Tactics I liked thoroughly even though it got weird and was translated horribly, and I've played through it multiple times.  Even VIII had it's moments.

EDIT: Should I find or pirate a copy of VII and see if I can make it all the way through?  It might be worth a radicalthon thread.

[Rendakor]

Nerdrage incoming.

I'm one of those die hard traditionalists that LIKES that menu style combat. So GET OFF MY LAWN. Seriously. There are doubtless plenty of games out there for you, stop trying to fuck up mine.

FFXII I felt like a computer programmer, not a fucking gamer. You had control over the boring parts (wandering around from Point A to Point B) with even the combat reduced to watching a fucking movie. SO.MUCH.FAIL.

Tales? Star Ocean? Not for me. I mostly play RPGs on the DS now since (aside from the Persona series) there hasn't been a decent old-school JRPG released on any other system recently.

I also like FFT and similar games, but don't see how you have a beef with FFVII taking 3 clicks to Fight. It takes 3 clicks to Fight in FFT too. Besides, the focus of the numerical FF games is not on the combat, it's on the story.

(Fake Edit: FFVIII had a great feature, Mad Rush, that berserked and hasted your whole party. It was a buffed up 'auto fight til the trash is dead' button and made random encounters much less painful.)

[Sheepherder]

I also like FFT and similar games, but don't see how you have a beef with FFVII taking 3 clicks to Fight. It takes 3 clicks to Fight in FFT too. Besides, the focus of the numerical FF games is not on the combat, it's on the story.

(Fake Edit: FFVIII had a great feature, Mad Rush, that berserked and hasted your whole party. It was a buffed up 'auto fight til the trash is dead' button and made random encounters much less painful.)

1. Menus are fine.  Menus while your opponents are still taking actions is not so fine.  Pauses are nice.  Pauses only for the extended menus is not so nice.
2. Button presses is related to #1.  FF10 did this right, don't beat my ass while I'm giving commands assholes.
3. Repetitive button spam also gets irritating when you're expected to grind through armies of deformed clowns, leading to #4.
4. Auto combat is a good idea as you get to the last disk and just want the pain to end.
5. VII is one of those games best left fondly remembered, at least now I can say I cheated through it so I can grok about ~75% of the main story.
6. Materia system.  Can anyone seriously tell me why people fondly recall juggling 30+ experience bars?  I'm sure parallels can be drawn to a modern MMO if you need an analogy, they seem like a haven for bad design.

[Lantyssa]

6. Materia system.  Can anyone seriously tell me why people fondly recall juggling 30+ experience bars?  I'm sure parallels can be drawn to a modern MMO if you need an analogy, they seem like a haven for bad design.

I liked breeding my materia.  Full power Mime and KotR for everybody! (PC version as I know the PS2 didn't allow it.)

[Quinton]

6. Materia system.  Can anyone seriously tell me why people fondly recall juggling 30+ experience bars?  I'm sure parallels can be drawn to a modern MMO if you need an analogy, they seem like a haven for bad design.

I liked breeding my materia.  Full power Mime and KotR for everybody! (PC version as I know the PS2 didn't allow it.)

I liked the materia system too.  Fun to shuffle stuff around and reconfigure abilities based on materia in weapons, etc, etc.

[Sheepherder]

I liked tinkering with it, not leveling it.  But then again Square always seems to throw "Master" items / weapons / materia / whatever "feature" in at the end of the game that utterly wrecks any existing balance seen up until that point that makes all customization moot... and I think I found what delivers the death stroke to these games for me.  The system was also a tad annoying to sort through and some of the stuff that you would want multiples of was pretty rare.

Also:

VII's setting was really well done, and from my recollection didn't get that badly weird (unless it came after I quit, I don't even remember where that was though).

It got weird.  I forgive them though.  The setting is pure fucking awesome, one of the best plays on steampunk I've seen.

EDIT: and does anyone know a good PS1 emulator?  I just got wicked nostalgic for FFT all of a sudden, and I discovered my disc but not all the cables for my first-gen PS1.

[ahoythematey]

Your post barely makes sense.  The system was not hard to sort through, unless you are annoyed at sorting through catalogued lists.  The idea of "master features" as the ultimate sin to you is odd, since you then you proceed to talk about playing FFT, a game that is notorious for having horribly imbalanced characters/classes.

I can understand if you didn't like the materia system: lots of people didn't.  I don't buy your other reasons as anything but personal preference and a general dislike of Square games.

[Sheepherder]

Your post barely makes sense.  The system was not hard to sort through, unless you are annoyed at sorting through catalogued lists.  The idea of "master features" as the ultimate sin to you is odd, since you then you proceed to talk about playing FFT, a game that is notorious for having horribly imbalanced characters/classes.

I can understand if you didn't like the materia system: lots of people didn't.  I don't buy your other reasons as anything but personal preference and a general dislike of Square games.

There are 80 unique types of materia, the list has room for 10 at a time, you scroll through with the controller, therefore it can get pretty cumbersome.  Not a great leap of imagination there, is it?  The freakish balance is the one outstandingly feature of FFT that I simply put up with, and I was well aware how absolutely game-breaking monks with the dual wield ability is the first time I finished the game.

[Hindenburg]

Monks aren't game breaking, at least not compared to calculators.

[ahoythematey]

Ramza w/ calculator + Orlandu are easily the most notable gamebreakers, along with being able to very easily dupe the excalibur in the original.  One of my favorite abuses involved beowolf's chicken ability.  Good times.

[Ard]

See, that was the thing I liked about FFT though.  Despite the utterly broken character combos, there were a couple random encounters that were strictly designed to make you cry if you ran into them.  10 monks, 8 ninjas, or 9 dragons are insanely difficult if you run into them at the beginning of the acts their encounters show up without having massively overleveled, and even then, the odds are stacked against you. 

The monk one is especially mean since it shows up in Act 3, potentially in one of the first spots you move through, and the monks all heal off of earth damage, and earth slash through each other.   And if you had to cheese your way through the last boss fight of Act 2 using the speed up ability, your Ramza is potentially 10 levels higher than the rest of your group at this point, completely skewing the random encounter top level.  No calculator is going to save you if you run into that mess.

[Hindenburg]

So you're saying that the broken design is good because the game also has even more broken encounters?

[Ard]

So you're saying that the broken design is good because the game also has even more broken encounters?

In this very specific case, it sort of was, since all the stupidly hard encounters were hidden as random encounters, instead of random uber bosses on the map that were one trick ponies.  It's not like the game has to be balanced for multiplayer.  It's not really any different than some of the stuff people would do with FF7, although in that case, it was done to take down the known uber bosses.  In FFT though, it was more the random surprise of thinking you're an unstoppable force, only to find the immovable object standing in your path.

[Ingmar]

Personally the most bullshit piece of broken design in the FF games I've played is the only-people-who-actually-do-something-in-the-combat-get-xp thing, which leads you to having to retardedly shuffle all your people in and out of the fight in order to keep the group progressing at the same rate.

Wait I said I wasn't going to get into this ever again. Carry on.

[Big Gulp]

Har. Seriously though, you've never liked a Final Fantasy or what?

I don't understand how anyone can enjoy JRPG's period.

A) Ultra-swishy male lead with teased hair and a ludicrously bulky sword?  Check.

B) A constant stream of banal whining from that lead character?  Check.

C) Incomprehensible plotline?  Check.

D) Hour long cinematics that make as much sense as the fever dreams of Downe's Syndrome child?  Check.

E) No real choice or role playing of any kind?  Check.

F) Random encounters where your fighting involves selecting an attack from a list and then seeing the same attack animation for the 8000th time?  Check.

JRPG's are a bonanza of suck, and I blame all of you anime douchebags for encouraging their development.

[Hindenburg]

What a completely original topic! I suggest we discuss it at length.

Also, gulp plays a female blood elf.
He also can't spell down's syndrome. Oh the irony.

[Big Gulp]

Also, gulp plays a female blood elf.
He also can't spell down's syndrome. Oh the irony.

I play multiple characters, and yep, my belf hunter is one of them.  The reason for that?  I hate the male blood elf models, and no other horde races look right shooting a bow.  And I won't make a hunter who specializes in guns.  The constant gunfire gets really annoying.

On the second one, touche.  I honestly thought it had a silent "e" in there.  Live and learn.

ETA:  At any rate, I still stipulate that by playing JRPG's your criticisms of games are no longer valid.  It's much the same with how people who watch/listen to American Idol no longer get to have a valid opinion on music.

[Hindenburg]

no other horde races look right shooting a bow.

Female orc.

[Big Gulp]

Female orc.

Hate the models.  The only horde races I like in female form are undead, tauren, and belfs.

[Bunk]

NSFW language. Funniest thing IGN has ever done? Yea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG_Z0rd7eK0

Ok, dude, I'm like... a little late to the party here, but um. Yea. That was pretty fuckin awesome dude.

Yea.

I'm just gonna like, leave now. Ok?

[ashrik]

Not before you suck on this, Mandingo

[ahoythematey]

Personally the most bullshit piece of broken design in the FF games I've played is the only-people-who-actually-do-something-in-the-combat-get-xp thing, which leads you to having to retardedly shuffle all your people in and out of the fight in order to keep the group progressing at the same rate.

Wait I said I wasn't going to get into this ever again. Carry on.

It could be particularly frustrating in FFT, especially for completionists(sp?).  You could spend hours upon hours of random encounter time building up some redshirts xp and jp, only to find out later you need to remove them from the party to make room for one of the various unique-classed characters.  This is just one of many reasons why Valkyria Chronicles is fuck-awesome and every person that has a ps3 and doesn't own that game is part-of-the-problem, because everybody levels up with each other regardless of being in battle or not.

[stray]

Also, gulp plays a female blood elf.
He also can't spell down's syndrome. Oh the irony.

I play multiple characters, and yep, my belf hunter is one of them.  The reason for that?  I hate the male blood elf models, and no other horde races look right shooting a bow.

No other races look right shooting a bow except the Troll you mean?

No other races look right except the Troll, period.. if you ask me. I can't last long in that game, but I've rolled many low lvl Trolls

[Sheepherder]

JRPG: Linear, soap-opera-ish, etc.

These arguments would be good if your average NA/EU RPG didn't play out like a "Choose your own adventure!" novel.

Also, I'm loving the cinematic style of FFT, even the occasional engrish doesn't ruin it.