Ffxiii Wasnt Good

Not unless we get more protestors, lol.

This is the main reason I had no problem with the lack of towns because it made sense with the story. The scene where Hope tries to give the stuffed animal back to the little girl and she freaks the *** out just shows how scared these people are of the main cast, even the innocent one of the group. If I can walk up to someone and say "x30 Hi Potions plz" after that, then I would've turned my system off.

I don't care what anyone says, XIII-2 is one of my most anticipated 2012 titles, along with Tales of Graces F.

Yeah, there's no rage in this thread at all. Normally when arguing with people you see ad hominem attacks and such but there are precious few of those.

I enjoy having these kinds of debates.

Paradigm shifting was basicly the real command system in the game. If you wern't doing it every 2 or 3 rounds atleast you were missing out on alot of potential. A commando only had to hit an enemy every 3 or 4 rounds for example to keep their effect on the stagger gauge from droping so untill they are staggered, or atleast a high %, keeping them there is a waste and you benefit more from switching them to ravager inbetween commando hits (minus fang who doesn't have ravager so she goes to sabatour). For another example after staggering Lightnings All for One(?) attack gets a huge boost to the % boost and if you shift her during the slow motion bit to a commando she not only gets a huge boost to damage but will finish with a full ATB. The auto <action> was also extreamly inefficent when it came to buffing, debuffs, sentinal abilities, healing and attacking if you had a character balanced attack and magic (would alternate between the 2 slowing down the animation) so there were plenty of chances for input unless you just wanted to cruse control with a com,rav,med group which might work most of the time, but the idea is to have fun challanging yourself for a 5 star rating on fights not just win them.

Getting enemies to 999.99% Stagger then landing Highwind was just oh-so sexy.

It had it's faults but ff13 story was great.

What about the alternate argument that going into a game expecting it to be god's 13th manifestation on Earth will yield a subjectively high opinion of it even if it would otherwise be viewed as the company shitting on your face?

I think the problem is there is just as much frustration caused by fanboys as there is by the so-called "haters", the unfortunate part is that anyone who goes in with a truly objective viewpoint will always be labeled as a hater if they don't like it whereas someone who enjoyed the game, it's really impossible to tell if they really liked it or if they're just a mindless follower.

Heres the translation of the pre-story if anyone cares

Your text to link here...

I actually just noticed I never read the second and third parts so I should get on that >.>

I'm around 1/3rd into the game, and I am split about it. On one hand yeah, it's cool, look, a Sphere Grid, whoa, cool, nice cinematics (FFX is my favourite FF, so the sphere grid is kinda good for me). The thing is, apart from boss battles, the rest of the time is running straight, fighting thrash mobs who many times take a ***ton to stagger and kill and pose no real threat at all.

Come to think about it, FFX was pretty similar, only you could explore a bit more, interact with NPCs, etc. The thing I liked the most of X was playing it with handicaps: no sphere grid, or Tidus only, or no sphere grid - no summmons - no whatever. Those things did pose a challenge. I can't do stuff like that on XIII, maybe the NSG challenge, but still, everything is forced.

As for the characters... I'll have to wait until the story develops a bit more, but they seem pretty plain. Lighting is "hey, I don't give a *** about all of your stuff, I gotta push on and do this", Snow is "SERAH CAN COME BACK HERP DERP NO WORRIES BRO", Hope is "Operation Nora, I wanna kill Snow but don't even have the guts to tell him", etc.

My favourite character? Sazh's Chocobo. Classy.

Because purchasing your consumables from a randomly stationed computer with your gil credit card makes much more sense, right?

Just sayin'

One thing worth pointing out is since they redo everthing from one FF to the next, aside from summons jobs chocobos and moogles, you really shouldn't compare two FF games very heavily. It's like compairing Dragon Age to KOTOR. There were similar aspects both being rpgs and involve you making choices but the gameplay functions very differently. DA is fantasy KOTOR is Sci-fi, DA is bloody KOTOR is pritty clean, DA is it's own game mechanics KOTOR is super simplified D&D v3.0(or maybe 3.5?). Same concept applys with FF, though they share a name each game needs to be treated as it's own and not strictly tied to any of the others.

Seeing how futuristic the rest of the environment was, yes, yes it does. I've stormed enough ancient castles in past FFs, it's time to move on to a more futuristic approach.

{That's too bad}

About as much sense as all the shop keepers littered across all the FFs that are supposedly poor but have enough gil to buy whatever you throw at them. The concept of buying and selling has always been held compleatly seprate from realism in game. Elder scolls gets close by limiting shopkeeper gold but even then them restocking there money every day or 2 doesn't make sense.

The ones in tav safehold comes to mind that always says he barely has enough to feed his family but there was a time were people would be farming bugard skin/tusks and unloading them to him nearly 24/7. (this server atleast)

That's fair, every game has to have some shortcoming of logic to fulfill the need of streamlined gameplay, otherwise people would get fustrated and stop playing far too quickly.

The point is, the computerized credit card system for obtaining your items seems to take away the aspect of progression and just feels like a lazy way out of a more compelling aspect that could have been implemented. Hell, even that creeper from Resident Evil 4 acting all black market-esque was more interesting than a computerized amazon.com on FFXIII

Ironic that the game which defined the series and insured it a spot in the industry for decades to come: Final Fantasy IV, was almost as linear as Final Fantasy XIII. Characters would come and go to advance the story, etc. Ironic also that while the first half of Final Fantasy VI was like that, people usually complained about "too much freedom, not linear enough" in the second half. All the best games in the series are interesting because of their linearity. What changed the series is Final Fantasy VII. It had a bunch of mini-games. Since then, millions of new fans complain that new titles are not enough like FF VII. You can't please everyone and SE knows that by experience.

SE still tries.
They've been milking the FF7 franchise dry with spin off after spin off and even a full length movie.
Yet they bring the games themselves in a different direction as they deem fit. Alas, it's not one I appreciate.

Good god that actually works as an explanation >.>

It's actually entirely true too - I'm not just adding x and y together and trying to make z. The game does explicitly state it (check the bottom of your screen when accessing the final shops).

From a business standpoint, it makes sense for SE to cater towards the majority of their audiences (which relies on instant gratification in order to remain interested), rather than the few loyal fans who want depth.

Totally gunna check for this tomorrow... total mind blown moment from that XD

FF13 if anything isn't instant gratification since it takes so long to get into non-tutorial parts of the game (ch7+) - and this is a flaw I agree with. I found Vile Peaks in particular really dull.

In the case of 13, the instant gratification is in the battles and the ability to do big numbers early on.

Just going from hearsay though, I haven't played it. :<

My beef with FF13 is that it continues the trend of FF storylines focusing on a ragtag bunch of teenagers and kids, and all their angst and emotional immaturity, with an influx of one character's (Sazh) awkward broken adult influence (Setzer, Auron, Basch).

I realize S-E probably wants to continue to try to capture a younger audience, but seriously I'd be shocked if the average age of someone buying FF13 was/is under 26. Final Fantasy's original fanbase (which I'm *sure* still comprises a large chunk of people who buy FF games) that was aged 0-15 when FF1 was released, and aged 10-25 when FF7 was released ... is now 25-40 years old. Isn't it time that FF games took on some more adult themes and storylines?

Inb4 "you just want porn in your game". Hell no. When I say adult themes ... it would just be awesome if the main characters in a FF game went beyond archetypical teenager roles (brooder, carefree spirit, joker, romantic, repressed royalty, etc.)

The way I see it is SE is going down their own path of what they believe would be the best selling and marketed approach to their existing franchise. It just sucks that what was once the status quo and accepted norm of their JRPGs are starting to become more of a fan service than what they inspire to improve upon.

I'm trying to find you a picture but I have no clue what to google <_<

It sucks. :|

But as long as they make money, they don't really care what the diehard oldies enjoy.

XII doesn't really have a main star. Vaan is the narrator/tag-along kid.