no despresect but I simply cannot comprehend how anyone could have that opinion
I know, but sometimes it's easier to understand that the universe holds people with many different points of view.
no despresect but I simply cannot comprehend how anyone could have that opinion
If you say a game is more coherent, you're essentially arguing that it's more understandable. That's not necessarily a marker of overall quality, it's just one quality of a story. Just because you know how the story gets from Point A to Point B and how Plot Device θ influences it doesn't mean it's a good story.
Having a story where so much happens offscreen pretty clearly disqualifies it from any "coherence in storytelling" recognition.
If you say a game is more coherent, you're essentially arguing that it's more understandable. That's not necessarily a marker of overall quality, it's just one quality of a story. Just because you know how the story gets from Point A to Point B and how Plot Device θ influences it doesn't mean it's a good story.
Having a story where so much happens offscreen pretty clearly disqualifies it from any "coherence in storytelling" recognition.
Anyone arguing that XIII or XV is objectively better than the other is mad. Both games have significant weaknesses that can single-handedly sour your entire experience. Neither game is in a position to be claiming complete superiority over the other.
That said, I like XIII more than XV.
If you say a game is more coherent, you're essentially arguing that it's more understandable. That's not necessarily a marker of overall quality, it's just one quality of a story. Just because you know how the story gets from Point A to Point B and how Plot Device θ influences it doesn't mean it's a good story.
Having a story where so much happens offscreen pretty clearly disqualifies it from any "coherence in storytelling" recognition.
The sour experience trigger is entirely true, no argument. There are people who will say FFXV is a 2/10 experience solely for being open world, or XIII was garbage because it was a linear game.
But when it comes to gameplay elements, there's just no situation where I can take Final Fantasy XIII, set it next to any other mainline title since PS1, and not come to the conclusion that XIII was a downgrade in just about every shared aspect that wasn't visual fidelity or music.
I don't think XIII was a bad game, on its own merits it was a fun enough ride. It was just...shallow. Too shallow, uncharacteristically shallow. I can't even really challenge run the game because of how barren it was. There was literally nothing to do in XIII but run down hallways and fight enemies. And then at 30 hours the game "opens up" and you do the same thing, except now with 2 extra directions!
XIII tells a crappy story better than XV, it's better paced and stronger at getting information across. Even if the information is nonsense that it's hard to care for and easy to forget.
XV has some really interesting stuff that's never developed, or requires external media to get the full context, to the point where nothing happens in the first eight chapters and the only characters who get more than one or two beats are the hero and villain.
XIII is competent execution of bad material. XV is poor execution of material with potential. I've always been fonder of the latter, and it's easier to read into XV and find flashes of fun in there.
no despresect but I simply cannot comprehend how anyone could have that opinion
I watched Kingslaive but I shouldn't have toClearly is so much easier to understand if you watch the movie and the anime. Without them is also understandable.
Did you watch them before playing?
I don't see how anyone could make that claim about XIII and not say the same about XV.I don't want to make this a semantics argument...
When I played XIII, I couldn't understand what was happening, why it was happening, and why people were doing what they were doing.
When playing XV, I understand what is happening, why it is happening, and why people were doing what they were doing.
If your game requires a movie or anime to have basic coherence, context and understandability, you've crafted a pretty garbage story.Clearly is so much easier to understand if you watch the movie and the anime. Without them is also understandable.
Did you watch them before playing?
This is a great description actually.XIII tells a crappy story better than XV, it's better paced and stronger at getting information across. Even if the information is nonsense that it's hard to care for and easy to forget.
XV has some really interesting stuff that's never developed, or requires external media to get the full context, to the point where nothing happens in the first eight chapters and the only characters who get more than one or two beats are the hero and villain.
XIII is competent execution of bad material. XV is poor execution of material with potential. I've always been fonder of the latter, and it's easier to read into XV and find flashes of fun in there.
However as a whole it somehow manages to be more fun and satisfying than XIII. In many ways it's the antithesis of the XIII. It'll have an interesting legacy, especially outside of the honeymoon period.
I watched Kingslaive but I shouldn't have to
Why not? It's a transmedia release?
That's like saying you watched part 2 of a movie and got confused, and that you shouldn't have to watch part 1 to understand it.
Why would that ever be an acceptable thing? The game isn't listed as "Final Fantasy XV: Part Four," it's just Final Fantasy XV. There's a painfully obvious difference between picking up a game that does not denote any clear reliance on outside media in its packaging and going into see The Mockingjay Part 2 and expecting to understand what happened without seeing the other three films. That's a dumb as dirt comparison.Why not? It's a transmedia release?
That's like saying you watched part 2 of a movie and got confused, and that you shouldn't have to watch part 1 to understand it.
Just because it's in two formats doesn't mean it's not supposed to be a part of the larger narrative.
I think people forget that even though it "opens up" there is still only one way in and one way out. It "opens up" and then bottlenecks you back down the path when you decide that you had enough. And we're talking about being there for a pretty short time in all honestly. I was there for all of 30-45 minutes.
no despresect but I simply cannot comprehend how anyone could have that opinion
XIII is competent execution of bad material. XV is poor execution of material with potential. I've always been fonder of the latter, and it's easier to read into XV and find flashes of fun in there.
What "open world" content is there? It's the same thing you've been doing for the last few hours, but on a large green map. There's no variety to what you're doing, it's just a vast and empty monster arena. It only works for people who are already invested on XIII's combat at that point. If you aren't, there's nothing to see or do there. I explored and genuinely gave it a shot to see if it could turn my opinion of the game around, but two or three hunts later I was bored out of my mind and just rushed out of the place.So you choose to downplay the open world section because you skipped all of the open world style content that's there? There's a metric ton of mobster hunts, and all the toughest enemies in the game. You can't ignore that just because you chose to ignore it and rush right through. That's on you, not the game.
You could literally make this comment about XV's open world content.What "open world" content is there? It's the same thing you've been doing for the last few hours, but on a large green map. There's no variety to what you're doing, it's just a vast and empty monster arena. It only works for people who are already invested on XIII's combat at that point. If you aren't, there's nothing to see or do there. I explored and genuinely gave it a shot to see if it could turn my opinion of the game around, but two or three hunts later I was bored out of my mind and just rushed out of the place.
There are actually well designed optional dungeons peppered around the world, geographical variety, side content that does in fact not rely on the game's combat system (fishing, chocobo races), some amount of npc interaction and context for your actions (admiteddly not nearly enough to be called good most of the time, but better than shining stones giving you a "yes" "no" option). XV also at least had the Dead Eye hunt which had more of an efort put into it than the side content of XIII.You could literally make this comment about XV's open world content.
What "open world" content is there? There's no variety to what you're doing, it's just a vast and empty monster arena peppered with MMO fetch-kill quests. It only works for people who are already invested on XV's combat. If you aren't, there's nothing to see or do there. I explored and genuinely gave it a shot to see if it could turn my opinion of the game around, but two or three hunts later I was bored out of my mind and just rushed out of the place.
That's not good storytelling, and it's hardly something you could call better than XIII's. It's crappy, in its own unique way.
I understood XV a lot more than XIII. It was still convoluted and could have been clearer, but I never felt lost. XIII just starts shooting ridiculous jargon at you with no rhyme or reason and the story continued in an even more confusing manner.
XV's biggest sins are that it needed more scenes and to clarify a few things better. The general narrative was much easier to follow IMO.
13 was in no way, shape or form superior to XV but lemme leave it to the meta-score and critics to shit on this one while they praised XIII to high heavens when it first was release just to shit on it later on once a 'general consensus' came about.
XV does have a good story and good lore, execution? there's the problem.
A year or two down the line I expect to see, "revisiting XV: now seeing the positives" or some bullshit like that when XVI is teased and people clamor to hate that as well.
SE did trip over themselves releasing Kingsglaive instead of putting it in the game.
Especially when it really didn't do shit for the complete story and left people still confused.
So you choose to downplay the open world section because you skipped all of the open world style content that's there? There's a metric ton of monster hunts, and all the toughest enemies in the game. You can't ignore that just because you chose to ignore it and rush right through. That's on you, not the game.
Coherence and understandability are an aspect of the quality of storytelling.Wasn't commenting on the quality of storytelling. I was commenting on how understandable and coherent the story is. Which by all accounts, XV is vastly more understandable and coherent than XIII.
And as other have said...
Coherence and understandability are an aspect of the quality of storytelling.
Quoting other people's posts about the understandability as your refutation is incredibly and absurdly weak. I'm not sure what else I expected, so I'll just drop it since that's the best you have to offer.
I'll take XIII's latter section over setting my controller down and browsing the internet on my phone for 5-10 minutes at a time
XV's open world is fucking godawful
not until you get there the first timeIf it annoys you that much there's fast travel?
Every FNC title (including the former FNC title) is cursed, someway of another.
I've said this on the OT, but warts and all, I still found myself engrossed by XV's narrative. It's disappointing how many of its most interesting elements are only hastily touched upon and never fully expanded, but it does some interesting things, has memorable moments and a few sequences do a pretty good job of setting the mood, be it grand or somber. I'm forgiving of XV's faults, perhaps more than I should be, because I like a lot of its concepts, the visual spectacle and the history surrounding Eos.I think the biggest issue with the story is that because of thebrotherhood aspect which I did actually enjoy all four characters quite a bit, it took away from developing any characters outside of those four. I still think the game would have benefited from gaining a larger party in the last half while the first could be left to focus on the four. They leave characters like Cor, Luna and Aranea who all have potential to be incredibly interesting but get dropped so fast that you don't feel much for them. The games goes through major storylines too fast and that makes the whole thing suffer. I love this game and the potential for the story is so good that I can't hate it. It's just made some mistakes with narrative and I wish they could have fixed that before releasing the game.
I won't bother with the XIII comparison because XV does a lot more right than XIII and I say this as someone who doesn't mind XIII.
Why would that ever be an acceptable thing? The game isn't listed as "Final Fantasy XV: Part Four," it's just Final Fantasy XV. There's a painfully obvious difference between picking up a game that does not denote any clear reliance on outside media in its packaging and going into see The Mockingjay Part 2 and expecting to understand what happened without seeing the other three films. That's a dumb as dirt comparison.
If I go into a Star Wars movie, I have an expectation (whether actually fulfilled or not) that it'll be coherent without reading any books or comics. Sure, maybe those outside sources will provide more context and more enjoyment, but they shouldn't be functional cornerstones to understanding the goings on of a film.
This is especially true in light of XV claiming to be a "Final Fantasy for newcomers and veterans." You don't get to claim to be a game for everyone and then stuff important information into three different pieces of non-gaming media that most people will never consume.
15 is a game that has some brave, brilliant and revolutionary ideas (for a JRPG, anyway) but executes on them in a muddled, often confused and heavily caveated way.
.
FFXIII's execution is incoherent. It might have had good scene direction and good pacing (until chapter 8), but the datalog's recaps consistently reveal information that was poorly explained by cutscenes, many interesting story concepts were wasted by poor plotting, and anything after chapter 7/8 climaxes was really bad.XIII tells a crappy story better than XV, it's better paced and stronger at getting information across. Even if the information is nonsense that it's hard to care for and easy to forget.
XV has some really interesting stuff that's never developed, or requires external media to get the full context, to the point where nothing happens in the first eight chapters and the only characters who get more than one or two beats are the hero and villain.
XIII is competent execution of bad material. XV is poor execution of material with potential. I've always been fonder of the latter, and it's easier to read into XV and find flashes of fun in there.
I understood XV a lot more than XIII. It was still convoluted and could have been clearer, but I never felt lost. XIII just starts shooting ridiculous jargon at you with no rhyme or reason and the story continued in an even more confusing manner.
XV's biggest sins are that it needed more scenes and to clarify a few things better. The general narrative was much easier to follow IMO.
I agree with this. I can't think of any seeds it really planted to try and push the genre forward, or anything it did that hasn't been done extremely better by other open-world games.I've said this again & again,but this largely so untrue.
The game is constructed on safely established,hackneyed ideas & story telling devices.It doesnt attempt to brink any new grounds & even falls behind series standard when it comes to treatment of female characters for example.
Look to Kingsglaive to see what kind of ideas this story was founded upon.
There are no hints of anything conceptually ground breaking or revolutionary in this project.
'Nothing happens in the first eight chapters' is just a plain hyperbolic untruth. I'm only on chapter eight myself, with over forty hours on the clock, and plenty has happened so far.
'Nothing happens in the first eight chapters' is just a plain hyperbolic untruth. I'm only on chapter eight myself, with over forty hours on the clock, and plenty has happened so far.
FFXV's plot exposition trounces that of XIII, which was essentially running through linear paths and triggering cutscenes. I know which I prefer.
So are you talking about plot exposition, or the gameplay needed to get to the plot exposition? You say XV's plot exposition is good, but then compare that to the gameplay loop of XIII.
Both, of what I've played of XV so far, the exposition largely comes through the gameplay, you're hearing it on the radio etc as you're exploring, your party are discussing events and motivations of enemies, their relationship develops slowly like this. There's far from nothing happening in the plot, it's all there if you go looking for it.
FFXIII on the other hand, has paper thin gameplay, it's essentially designed like a conveyor belt to send you from one cutscene to the next (and often preventing you from backtracking), so it might appear to tell a story better, but at the cost of everything else.