Final Fantasy XIII [SPOILER THREAD]

[Quinton]

You can select which paradigm is the default from the configure/edit menu, if you want to always start with something conservative.

I found having com/rav com/med sen/med was useful -- drop to com/med or sen/med for a round or two if you're taking a lot of damage.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I have to spoiler this IN the spoiler thread.

[stray]

I agree, it gets even better once Fang is in.. not solely because of her. Just the team dynamic in general.

Does it look like they're toning down the gfx just a bit for the gameplay bits, and then suping it all up for cutscenes? The faces definitely seem more detailed.

[Quinton]

Some of the cutscenes are definitely pre-rendered, and they pull out all the stops there.  Wouldn't surprise me if they had higher quality models for in-engine cutscenes too.

Hope just confronted Snow about the death of his mom and I'm not even halfway through.  Maybe the angst-o-meter will click down a couple notches now ^^

[stray]

But none of this is "video" right? Some of it almost looks as good as the FF movies. I wonder if the PS4/whatever Xbox is next will be able to render gameplay like that. There's a scene for example with the blonde Psicom chick, as she waiting by a ship that looks very movie like to me. I thought some of MGS' faces were cool, but this game is a trip.

Also, in the equipment screens, both Light and Fang look cooler than usual. Those are obviously clips.. but I wonder if it's the same engine..

I have to spoiler this IN the spoiler thread.

[Quinton]

But none of this is "video" right? Some of it almost looks as good as the FF movies. I wonder if the PS4/whatever Xbox is next will be able to render gameplay like that. There's a scene for example with the blonde Psicom chick, as she waiting by a ship that looks very movie like to me. I thought some of MGS' faces were cool, but this game is a trip.

Some of it is video (pre-rendered, compressed with some modern video codec).  Apparently the xbox360 version uses lossier codec settings to make it fit on three DVDs instead of one BDROM, and the artifacts are much more noticable there. 

[stray]

I do notice however that there's accurate/localized lip syncing, even in gameplay mode. Even with random npc's. Is that not hard to do nowadays or something?

[Lakov_Sanite]

Blonde psicom girl is hereto known as Cleavage McBooberson.


On the third disc now and they've opened up all classes to all characters but if you wanna start in a non-regular class its gonna cost you a LOT of cp.

[schild]

I do notice however that there's accurate/localized lip syncing, even in gameplay mode. Even with random npc's. Is that not hard to do nowadays or something?

Easy, but not cheap afaik.

[Lakov_Sanite]

There's a scene where snow has to take his shirt off and I noticed(shut up) that not only is he ripped, the level of detail was pretty astounding. Also, gotta love anime where badages =  healed, no matter how severe the injury, just slap bandages on it.

[stray]

Heh yeah that scene convinced me that I needed to skyrocket his strength stats.   He's over 300 now.

No, seriously.. Id been playing Light as Commando heavy for too long... no reason why she had almost as much STR as him....also, she was already mage like in the beginning of the game,right? What was up with the lightning powers? Haven't seen them since.

[Lakov_Sanite]

By the time you get a third party member having a sentinel becomes mandatory even on trash fights.  Right now my party makeup is light/fang/vanille though i should prolly sub hope for vanille but i still dont like him. also, sazh gets haste which is probably THE best buff in game

[Quinton]

[Lightning] was already mage like in the beginning of the game,right? What was up with the lightning powers? Haven't seen them since.

This had me confused at first too -- a friend pointed out that she was part of the military, which uses various magic-as-technology devices (AMP/manadrive/etc), and that Sazh broke her anti-gravity whatsit early on while trying not to be left behind.

I saw some speculation elsewhere that the boost-enemies-up-into-the-air stuff was an artifact of the anti-gravity magic device thing being a part of gameplay that they ended up not using.

[Lakov_Sanite]

So, at a scant 25 hours in the world opens up and you go to pulse. I have no airship yet but I did catch a glimpse of a world map in a recent tutorial(they just added special monster missions) So I'm thinking you do get in the air soon enough.

[schild]

Thinking about it, FFIV and VI didn't open up for real until about 20-30 hours in also. That is if you took your time in towns and such. I think having towns and the like and walking from one location to another on the overworld map SEEMS more open than FFXIII but it really, really isn't. FFIV is Town -> Land -> Cave -> Destroy a Town -> Desert -> Town -> Cave -> Desert - Town before you even have an idea you'll be able to talk to Cid. FFVI is even MORE on rails.

It's all about illusion here folks, but the more things change the more they stay the same.

[Phildo]

Town -> Land -> Cave -> Destroy a Town -> Desert -> Town -> Cave -> Desert - Town before you even have an idea you'll be able to talk to Cid. FFVI is even MORE on rails.

Which, in some instances, you need to do some wandering around before finding it.  Whereas in XIII, it goes Tube -> Tube -> Tube -> Tube seemingly ad infinitum.

[schild]

Town -> Land -> Cave -> Destroy a Town -> Desert -> Town -> Cave -> Desert - Town before you even have an idea you'll be able to talk to Cid. FFVI is even MORE on rails.

Which, in some instances, you need to do some wandering around before finding it.  Whereas in XIII, it goes Tube -> Tube -> Tube -> Tube seemingly ad infinitum.

We only wandered around because it was amazing and magical when we were young. I could draw you a map with arrows for those two games and tear through it in no time flat. It is essentially tubes, just not tiny tubes. I'm not defending FFXIII, I'm just throwing the rails complaint/30 hours til open world as a reasonable one out the window.

[Phildo]

It's a perfectly reasonable complaint, there is no room for deviation whatsoever.  It's like playing a side-scrolling action game.  Most NES games had better level design than this.

[schild]

There's no room for deviation in the other games except a chocobo forest, going backwards, and wandering around getting into random fights. The complaint about level design is fair, but the complaint about the linearity is sort of a wack one.

[Velorath]

There's no room for deviation in the other games except a chocobo forest, going backwards, and wandering around getting into random fights. The complaint about level design is fair, but the complaint about the linearity is sort of a wack one.

FFVI, once you hit the World of Ruin, allowed for the most deviation in the series I think in that when regathering your party you have some freedom in the order in which you go in.  I seem to recall a little bit in FFV also but I've only played through it once and it was a long time ago.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Your deviation comes with pulse, it really is final fantasy by the numbers.

"Oh look giant dinosaur thingies wandering around the vast expanse, let's try and attack one of them!"

Dead in one hit

"I missed you final fantasy"

[schild]

FFVI, once you hit the World of Ruin

You had some deviation before that in the World of Balance, but yea, you're just making my point for me: That's 40+ hours into the game.

Outside of the job system, FF5 was pretty bad, not to mention the world isn't even worth talking about. So linearity or not, it's sort of irrelevant. (The beginning of that one was very linear as well, just like all the others).

[Velorath]

FFVI, once you hit the World of Ruin

You had some deviation before that in the World of Balance, but yea, you're just making my point for me: That's 40+ hours into the game.

Well yeah, I'm agreeing with you.  Honestly don't have any issue with FFXIII's linearity.  My only real issue with the game so far is with the character development (from a story aspect).  You get at least some background on Lightning and Snow fairly early which is good.  Hope's sole defining characteristic for much of the early game however is "I want to bitch out Snow, and should have done so within the first chapter or two of the game but this is inexplicably being drawn out as a long subplot".  Vanille alternates between annoying and tolerable for me, but again, there's no real background for her, presumably because every time she opens her mouth to do anything other than laugh, she hints that she has some connection to Pulse.  Sazh at least doesn't have a tendency towards annoyingness that Hope and Vanille do, but like Vanille, there are only really vague hints as to his background.

I don't expect every detail about a character to be revealed early, but five chapters and about 8 or 9 hours in, and half the cast still feel a bit like blank slates to me which is making it hard for me to form a connection to them.  Still enjoying the game a lot though (will still be putting it down for a bit once God of War 3 comes out though).

[Quinton]

Thinking about it, FFIV and VI didn't open up for real until about 20-30 hours in also. That is if you took your time in towns and such. I think having towns and the like and walking from one location to another on the overworld map SEEMS more open than FFXIII but it really, really isn't. FFIV is Town -> Land -> Cave -> Destroy a Town -> Desert -> Town -> Cave -> Desert - Town before you even have an idea you'll be able to talk to Cid. FFVI is even MORE on rails.

It's all about illusion here folks, but the more things change the more they stay the same.

One thing I realized is that most levels in earlier FF's are tubes too -- but due to how level design was done, they're tubes wrapped back and forth on each other to fit in a rectangle.  The levels in FFXIII are actually much more scenic and interesting if you don't spend all your time looking at the mini-map in the upper right of the screen.

I'm glad we're finally done with random encounters.  Always hated random encounters.

[schild]

Thinking about it, FFIV and VI didn't open up for real until about 20-30 hours in also. That is if you took your time in towns and such. I think having towns and the like and walking from one location to another on the overworld map SEEMS more open than FFXIII but it really, really isn't. FFIV is Town -> Land -> Cave -> Destroy a Town -> Desert -> Town -> Cave -> Desert - Town before you even have an idea you'll be able to talk to Cid. FFVI is even MORE on rails.

It's all about illusion here folks, but the more things change the more they stay the same.

One thing I realized is that most levels in earlier FF's are tubes too -- but due to how level design was done, they're tubes wrapped back and forth on each other to fit in a rectangle.  The levels in FFXIII are actually much more scenic and interesting if you don't spend all your time looking at the mini-map in the upper right of the screen.

I'm glad we're finally done with random encounters.  Always hated random encounters.

We were done with them in the last iteration.

[Quinton]

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/gdc-10-final-fantasy/62834?type=flv
"Did you see the Steelguard?  The Steelguard was pretty cool!"

[Quinton]

Given that I'm 20 hours in, in chapter 9, and I believe there are still some game systems not available to me yet, I fully expect to hit the final boss at the end of the game only to see a tutorial dialog "About Final Boss Battles."

Chapter 7 was pretty great.  Chapter 8 was filled with guilt, depression, and despair, all in a cheery themepark.  I think we're finally past the whole Snow/Hope angstfest, though I do wonder wtf Hope's deal with his dad was... I mean his dad seemed like a pretty reasonable and supportive guy when we finally met him.

A friend comments: "also how huge a dudebro snow is. he is broseidon, ruler of the broceans."

[Rasix]

Are the weapons with ability modifiers (belladonna wand, paladin, procyons, etc) worth leveling up after you've already been leveling a main weapon?  Or should I just sell/disassemble them?

Weapon upgrading seems like the only thing I'm afraid of fucking up.

[schild]

Given that I'm 20 hours in, in chapter 9, and I believe there are still some game systems not available to me yet, I fully expect to hit the final boss at the end of the game only to see a tutorial dialog "About Final Boss Battles."

Chapter 7 was pretty great.  Chapter 8 was filled with guilt, depression, and despair, all in a cheery themepark.  I think we're finally past the whole Snow/Hope angstfest, though I do wonder wtf Hope's deal with his dad was... I mean his dad seemed like a pretty reasonable and supportive guy when we finally met him.

A friend comments: "also how huge a dudebro snow is. he is broseidon, ruler of the broceans."

The fake trailer 1-up or whoever put up had the best scenes of Snow yelling stuff like "BRODUUUUUUUUSKIIIIIEEEEEEE." It was pretty fantastic.

[stray]

Many JRPGs aren't very deep, or made for exploring.. but Final Fantasy never was especially. They were always focused on story and linearity.. so in a way, I'm not missing much here. This is the same thing - they just finally are aware of it, and got rid of anything that wasn't conducive to that. It'd be nice if a few things weren't thrown out, but I'm still getting what has always defined a FF game either way. I'm sure there's a way of implementing more side quests and towns and such side by side with the goal of keeping the pacing of a story working well, and they'll probably revisit that stuff again in some future game. As it is though, I can't say I'm bored with how they did things.

---

I've let the game linger on at times while I walked away, so I have no clue how many hours into the game I'm really in. I'll say that I encountered the Sanctum leader though.. not sure what hour mark that is.

[edit] Some weapons are worth upgrading if you really want the character to focus on few things. I have Snow using the str heavy weapon, for example. As for the other effect based weapons I don't know. I've lvled Belladonna up, but it just modifies Str and Mag. It doesn't debuff better or anything,

[Lakov_Sanite]

when you have weapons and items equipped and you press one of the four buttons in the equipment screen it goes into greater detail on what they do. belladonna essentially makes debuffs more likely to land on the target.  I'm still a bit confused as to what "stagger lock" does, it sounds bad though but I could be wrong.

[Rasix]

Well, I just wondered if they really had that great of an effect or if it's worth the bother at all.  Only time I've had trouble with debuffs is on a shelled creature and the debuffs would land when you staggered it.

[Yegolev]

I'm getting stomped by Odin repeatedly.

Not sure I like this game a lot.  Yeah, I have played far worse, and it does have a lot of great elements... just not sure I like them a lot.  Weapon upgrades don't make sense to me yet.  The 3D sphere grid is annoying to navigate.  The camera is bothersome.  Storywise, it's like VIII and X.  I'm tempted to call this one X-3 instead of XIII.  Also tempted to replay XII.

Mechanical bombs are cool, though.  Looking for mechanical cactaurs now.

[Draegan]

This is a general rant on the first few hours.

[Quinton]

Until around chapter 7 you can keep your crystal grids maxed out (until they open up to more levels at the next boss battle) pretty much by just fighting every encounter in each zone.

In chapter 9, I'm actually "grinding" a little partway through because I want some cash for upgrades (lots of drops of incentive chips that sell for 2500) and because I'm feeling a little underpowered for the first time -- this lets me unlock some more skills and practice a bit more.

My understanding (based on the SA thread) is that when the game opens up when you get to Gran Pulse, all characters get the remaining 3 roles unlocked, but the cost to level the other roles is pretty crazy high.

I like that it's not trivial to level every role for every character (but you *can* do it if you really really want to and don't mind some crazy grinding), and that the exact set of abilities, etc, unlocked is a little different for each character.