Final Fantasy 13 Discussion Thread.

[Dave-O_Boy]

So this game comes out tomorrow (actually here on the east coast, I think game stops are doing midnight releases, so it's more like an hour) and I figured we'll need a thread since I'm sure more than a few of us are going to get it.
Now I have a love/hate the Final Fantasy series, but 13 looks like it'll be pretty fun. I suppose we'll find out tomorrow!

So who's planning on picking it up?

[Arius]

I was until I read some reviews. But I hope there will be some discussion as to the game itself so I can see if it's worth it.

The main reason for my doubt is I'm tired of linear JRPGs.

[Dave-O_Boy]

Y'know every now and again I have a strong desire to play a JRPG. I have yet to beat Persona 3 and Digital Devil Saga 2 (both of which are pretty much better then any FF game I've ever played), but for some reason 13 has caught my eye.
There already are a lot of reveiws out there and they seem to have painted the game are pretty interesting, if not as linear as 10. Which isn't a bad thing considering the characters seem to be pretty customizable.

[Myrph]

Y'know every now and again I have a strong desire to play a JRPG. I have yet to beat Persona 3 and Digital Devil Saga 2 (both of which are pretty much better then any FF game I've ever played), but for some reason 13 has caught my eye.
There already are a lot of reveiws out there and they seem to have painted the game are pretty interesting, if not as linear as 10. Which isn't a bad thing considering the characters seem to be pretty customizable.

I'm in exactly the same position as you pretty much, except I haven't actually start DDS2 or P3 yet and I still need to finish the first DDS and complete my second (and probably third) playthrough of Persona 4.

As for the game being linear, I don't really mind that too much. When I actually get round to playing it (and buying a PS3 to play it on...), I won't have an awful lot of time to actually do huge amounts of non-linear stuff, so if its not there, I won't feel as cheated about not doing it. Sure it will detract from the replay value, but I figure its gonna take me so long to complete it, that won't be too much of an issue!

[operagirl95]

I actually do want to play this, but won't for a while, got a lot of backlog to work through.

[Darkobra]

I have the Collector's Edition in my hands. I'll be back in this thread in a few weeks once I complete it. Until then!

[wartjr2373]

I plan to pick up this game on my way home from work, so I can post something more meaningful at that time.

For now, I can say that I'm optimistic about the game. I've never been too big into Final Fantasy, as the only games I've played are 10 and Tactics Advance, but I've heard good things. A lot of reviews complain about the linearity, but it strikes me that people nowadays are spoiled by sandbox-style RPGs anyhow. When a game is story-driven, I think a linear style helps to drive forward the story, as the developers have full control over the pacing and momentum.

Those are my initial thoughts, anyway. I'll be playing the game tonight. Can't wait!

[Matt]

I'm picking it up tonight. I'm cautiously optimistic. the trailers I've seen don't cast the game's plot in the greatest light, and the voice acting sounds like they forgot everything they did right in 12, and somoehow managed to pump out a voice track that makes FF10's look like a masterpiece of the art form.

That said, it has a black dude with a chocobo chick in his afro. It can't be all bad.

-m

[Myrph]

That said, it has a black dude with a chocobo chick in his afro. It can't be all bad.

-m

Wiser words have never been spoken!

[Rikadyn]

I'm picking it up tonight. I'm cautiously optimistic. the trailers I've seen don't cast the game's plot in the greatest light, and the voice acting sounds like they forgot everything they did right in 12, and somoehow managed to pump out a voice track that makes FF10's look like a masterpiece of the art form.

That said, it has a black dude with a chocobo chick in his afro. It can't be all bad.

-m

So far he's my favorite character, not just for the chocobo, but his "what did I do to deserve being in this f*)**)* situation with this asshats" attitude...

(can't comment on it against 12, never played 12)

[Dave-O_Boy]

So I played it for about 2 hours so far. It's pretty bad so far. Still can pretty much ONLY spam attack in battles, making the potential interesting system very very very bland. SMT has spoiled me though by letting me think that the characters are suppose to start off with some variety with their starting moves.
At least the dungeon crawling is somewhat Persona-like as you can sneak up on enemies to get a preemptive attack. But I do with that X triggered the encounter instead of just walking into the enemies.
So far Lightning is the only character I kind of like, but that's only because she's basically Cloud so far. Vill-whatever (the one that looks like Rise) is alright and Afro has his moments. Hope, Snow (aka "Pit stain"), and the others can all go huff a dong.
The whole "We're Heroes!" thing is complete nonsense.

I do like the enemy design and there is a lot of potential in the rest of systems, but for the intro I'd give it a D-. I don't understand these characters, what their world is, why they're doing anything. The only real exposition so far has been about some new monsters that seem like SOLDIER experiments.
I don't mind a long openning, but this one is poorly paced. The darama is forced and oblique, and they just kind of throw the player into the middle of a story instead of the beginning. Had they started a bit earlier on and better established the characters and the world, the narrative would make much more sense. At the point I'm at, everything is just a mess.

[Smeghead]

Ok my impressions so far (I'm a few hours into the game but it's still probebly very early).

The Combat is... different, and while it's an interesting idea to throw MP out the window and use the ATB system in a new way, it does sort of have a flaw: The Leader system. In 13 you only directly controll the party leader; the other characters are AI controlled (the AI is smart enough to handle it just as long as you've told it what role to play, so no worries there) and you can (after a while) change roles of all the characters (at any time) to fit the current situvation. But the flaw in it self is the leader; the leader gets killed; Game Over (although it's a game over that alowes you to start from just befor the fight if you want). I would have prefered the FF12 system where if the leader bites it; then you start controlling another party member.

As for the leveling system; well i liked the FFX system, so this is nice (It's closely related to the X system, but with some unique features) only doesn't seem as big as X's system.

As for the story, well I'm not really that far in yet so I can't say much. Other then the characters seem to have a rather good reason to do what they do. A lot of story is also told in the Datalog (it works like a journal) and lot of what's sid in the log isn't told by the story and dialogue, so you might have to spend some time reading it to know what's going on (It's not a Bioware game where the journal contains several novels though).
Also I want there to be a "Kill Hope in a horriable way" option, he is so damn annoying.
Also, snow got the emotional attentionspan of about 5 seconds, it's like all the horrors he sees affect him for 5 seconds then he goes around start joking with his friends. That was just bad.
The voice of Vanille is a bit wierd, the actress is apparently australian who is trying to speak with an american accent, only her australian accent tends to break through every now and then.

It also has teh loot system of 12, where in enemies don't dropp money but loot you can sell... but you shouldn't sell it because you need it all to level up gear (not a bad idea, it just leavs your vaulet a bit... empty).

So far I wouldn't say that it's the best FF game, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's bad, just not as good as one had hoped it to be (but if you compare it to FF8 and X-2; this is a fricking masterpiece, so it's still a lot better then them )

[Dave-O_Boy]

But the flaw in it self is the leader; theleader gets killed; Game Over (although it's a game over that alowes you to start from just befor the fight if you want). I would have prefered the FF12 system where if the leader bites it; then you start controlling another party member.

This is what I've come to expect from leader based games. And prefer it. It adds actual challenge to the game. Then the instant retry addition is nice, though you can't seem to run from battles and I've only died when I wasn't pay attention to the red flashing boarder. (See other designers you can have both a health bar and red boarder of death. Why does Square-enix only seem to do this. heh it's like that in Just Cause 2.)

[Smeghead]

Yes, but the leader can anyone. Had it been a story that centered around one character as being teh obvious leader; then I would have understood it better. One would think it's Lightning, but so far she's been teh leader less then half the time.

I got killed a few times when my party consisted of 2-3 casters and all the enemies were magic resistant as hell. Also a boss killed me.

[Dave-O_Boy]

If only when characters died in battle they would be dead for the rest of the game. Hope needs to be introduced to a car press, Heavy Rain style.

[Smeghead]

Yeah, he is really not gonna win any "Likable" awards anytime soon.

Edit: Odin! Stop killing me!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9JTEuNAmLw

I almost agrees with all points in this review: It looks good, the music is ok but not something you get an award for. Almost all characters are likable (I wanna shot Hope into the sun), the Leader system feels odd, but the combat grows on you. It's not the best FF game, but it's still more then OK

[Rikadyn]

The Odin fight sucked...

[Rikadyn]

Thinking about it, No Final Fantasy is without its major flaws, I mean 8 was the first one I played, and Even I admit now that the system is flawed. 7 I abandoned halfway through cause I found it just boring, I despised Cecil in 4, loathed 10s sphere grid...haven't played 1,2,3,5,6,9 or 12 so can't judge those but I'm willing to bet someplace out there, there is someone who hates them...

[Arius]

Huh, I never would have pegged Rikadyn as the suicidal type.

[Rikadyn]

Huh, I never would have pegged Rikadyn as the suicidal type.

What?

[Arius]

You just called 7 boring on the internet.

That's like telling a drug dealer in south LA that you had sex with his dead mother.

And 4 and 10...

[Rikadyn]

You just called 7 boring on the internet.

That's like telling a drug dealer in south LA that you had sex with his dead mother.

And 4 and 10...

I liked 4, Just hated Cecil. Kain was the shit.

[GiantSeaPanda]

i love this game to BITS

[Matt]

I am thoroughly enjoying this game so far.

Lightning and sazh are are awesome.

Snow is pretty cool.

Vanille I want to like, but she's my most hated character archetype.

Hope is fucking hopeless.

-m

[Dave-O_Boy]

Played some more of it. After the horribly paced intro, it gets better. I'm just passed the part where Snow leaves.
The battle system pretty fun but I still don't have the hang of it.