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Final Fantasy XIII Post-Game Impressions
- Thread starter Shouta
- Start date
Kasumi1970
my name is Ted
if you have a PS3 and have not played Uncharted 2....you sould it is a great game. ( I played at my friends house)Skilletor said:
he mentioned Uncharted 2 because is is linear he is saying that Final Fantasy XIII is linear.
Ploid 3.0
Member
fernoca said:If any thing, I'm quite happy with the linearity of the game, the more stuff they add to RPGs..the more I'm worried about not talking to some particular NPC or missing some side mission just to get a better weapon.. or item..
I don't understand these complaints. That's like saying, "the city I live in has too much optional things to do that I can't possibly take advantage of it all by next week. I wish I lived in a shotgun town with one main road". The fact that I can do, or bump into some random thing that could give me hours of extra fun is what I like about rpgs.
My first western rpg was oblivion. It blew my mind how I could case a house, wait until no one was there or everyone was sleep, then rob them blind. I spent about 20 hours having fun doing this. Did I rob every house/person? No, did I do everything to do in Oblivion/Fallout3, or Dragon Age? I didn't even try. Why then did I like it? It made the world feel bigger. I don't talk to every npc, and for events where you need to find a trigger like Yuffie it can suck, but it don't always have to be like that. That's the game designer's fault if the situation in which you have to find a agile thief wasn't made better for the gamer.
Btw I picked western rpgs but the other final fantasy games could have been used. Who spent a lot of time breeding black chocobos to reach hidden places, or to race them in gold saucer? Who played the Aries theme on the piano found in a town? Who felt like these types of extras shouldn't have been in the game because it made you do them and you didn't want to?
Also I rarely get final weapons unless they are very easy or fun to obtain (lightning dodge was a interesting challenge, I didn't care about the weapon). FFXIII shouldn't have had final weapons, trim the fat SE! ~S
Fimbulvetr
Member
Desi said:
Woulda been earlier but I needed to use the bathroom. >_>
Shouta
Member
inthezone said:
It's a hard game without grinding. Grinding is masked fairly ok though, Missions help you get the points you need without having to actively grind until a certain point.
FFX is probably my favorite FF game (aside from FFXI) and I still think 13 has its own drawbacks. So I wouldn't say that just because you liked X, you'll like XIII.
Ploid 3.0
Member
fernoca said:
I don't mind not finishing a game if it's because I'm too caught up into doing side stuff by choice. GTA:SA for example, I played through that game around 3-4 times (corrupt file, then the move to ps3). To me if the story isn't hooking me and there's a lot of good stuff to do, I'd rather the game never end and just pick it up mess around, and put it down.
After thinking about it, I'm glad this final fantasy was made, if only for RK because he felt burned on ff12. I just wish it wasn't so built up in expectation. It sucks that I had to wait so long to hear that I'm not into the gameplay style though. Thank goodness for Japan first release, I would have went into this like a dumb ox.
From now on every new FF will be seen as a game from square, not as a franchise. All past ones did fine by me, but now they show that they are willing to do off the wall crazy experiments.
nelsonroyale
Member
Kagari said:
Wha...?
FFXIV...? Really...? It doesn't even look particularly impressive to me...only for a MMO, nothing much else. But thats to be expected.
Nothing shown so far has been particularly impressive, apart from scale
Seems to me you may have overdosed on the overhype for FFXIII
onken
Member
I've finished the story and all but 1 sub-quest, so I'm pretty much there with it. I have to say, overall I really liked it and my mini-review is below:
Graphics are absolutely stunning, best I've seen in an RPG. I assume I don't need to harp on about the heavenly CG. Performance is also excellent, no installs and no load times between field/combat.
Storyline/dialog is the usual JRPG mush, don't take it too seriously and you shouldn't find it too painful. Characters aren't actually that bad, Lightning seemed fairly irritating at first but I have to admit she grew on me as the game went on. Fortunately, Hope drops his whiney emo act fairly quickly, however the textbook "gyaru" Vanille remains fairly vomit-inducing throughout.
The classes are fairly standard, there's 6 of them but each character only specialises in 3. About halfway through you unlock every class for every character but there's almost no point in exploring non-specialty classes beyond a few bare-bone skills since the cost is so disproportionately expensive.
Combat, pretty fun. It uses this new "optima" system where you make presets so you can change your character's class on the fly. Problem with this is, you have up to 3 characters in your battle party, each with 3 or more classes. Bearing in mind 2 different characters with the same class are not equivalent, that's a lot of presets required. So if you're in a battle and need to switch tactics, you bring up your optima menu and you're presented with 6 different presets, it can be a bit much. It baffles me why you can't just manually choose what class you want for each character. I admit only a handful of classes are used frequently, but if you encounter an unusual enemy and you haven't got the optimal preset, you have to quit the battle, change the preset, restart the fight then probably remove the preset again afterwards.
You only ever control one character at a time, which is good in a way because you only have to focus on one set of commands at a time. On the downside, you have to keep an eye on and swap presets constantly in order to stay on top of everything. On the double downside, the AI doesn't always do the grandest job of things. A typical example of this is enhancers that cast the most useful buffs last (HASTE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GIVE IT TO MEEEEE), healers that revive dead members only if they can heal the two surviving members to full health first (which basically never happens with a tough enemy) and of course let's not forget blasters that spam elemental attacks that the enemy has strong resistance to. Having said that, I'm sure the AI makes a hell of a better healer than me. Does make you think how awesome a multiplayer version would be, if only because you would decimate all the monsters by only using the most efficient techniques
Crafting system is a nice addition, you get lots of different material types which when applied give weapons and accessories certain amounts of experience, resulting in level ups that increase damage/effectiveness etc. The different materials have different effectiveness on different items so there's a lot to work with.
Yes the first half of the game is pretty linear, whick irks the completionist in me because I'm afraid of missing stuff and being unable to go back for it. The second half is mostly open-world with a bunch of sidequests, ranked by difficulty. Pretty mundane, almost every quest is simply "go here, kill this", though some parts are a bit more fleshed out. Though I would say the rankings can be all over the place. There's some "low level" fights you can only beat by literally fluking armour breaks, and some A class fights that are over in seconds. Grinding is mostly unnessary, though by my reckoning there's a handful of side missions that simply require a good old grind to beat, especially if you're after that elusive 5-star rating.
In summary, I enjoyed it a lot despite the flaws would give it 8.5/10.
Graphics are absolutely stunning, best I've seen in an RPG. I assume I don't need to harp on about the heavenly CG. Performance is also excellent, no installs and no load times between field/combat.
Storyline/dialog is the usual JRPG mush, don't take it too seriously and you shouldn't find it too painful. Characters aren't actually that bad, Lightning seemed fairly irritating at first but I have to admit she grew on me as the game went on. Fortunately, Hope drops his whiney emo act fairly quickly, however the textbook "gyaru" Vanille remains fairly vomit-inducing throughout.
The classes are fairly standard, there's 6 of them but each character only specialises in 3. About halfway through you unlock every class for every character but there's almost no point in exploring non-specialty classes beyond a few bare-bone skills since the cost is so disproportionately expensive.
Combat, pretty fun. It uses this new "optima" system where you make presets so you can change your character's class on the fly. Problem with this is, you have up to 3 characters in your battle party, each with 3 or more classes. Bearing in mind 2 different characters with the same class are not equivalent, that's a lot of presets required. So if you're in a battle and need to switch tactics, you bring up your optima menu and you're presented with 6 different presets, it can be a bit much. It baffles me why you can't just manually choose what class you want for each character. I admit only a handful of classes are used frequently, but if you encounter an unusual enemy and you haven't got the optimal preset, you have to quit the battle, change the preset, restart the fight then probably remove the preset again afterwards.
You only ever control one character at a time, which is good in a way because you only have to focus on one set of commands at a time. On the downside, you have to keep an eye on and swap presets constantly in order to stay on top of everything. On the double downside, the AI doesn't always do the grandest job of things. A typical example of this is enhancers that cast the most useful buffs last (HASTE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GIVE IT TO MEEEEE), healers that revive dead members only if they can heal the two surviving members to full health first (which basically never happens with a tough enemy) and of course let's not forget blasters that spam elemental attacks that the enemy has strong resistance to. Having said that, I'm sure the AI makes a hell of a better healer than me. Does make you think how awesome a multiplayer version would be, if only because you would decimate all the monsters by only using the most efficient techniques
Crafting system is a nice addition, you get lots of different material types which when applied give weapons and accessories certain amounts of experience, resulting in level ups that increase damage/effectiveness etc. The different materials have different effectiveness on different items so there's a lot to work with.
Yes the first half of the game is pretty linear, whick irks the completionist in me because I'm afraid of missing stuff and being unable to go back for it. The second half is mostly open-world with a bunch of sidequests, ranked by difficulty. Pretty mundane, almost every quest is simply "go here, kill this", though some parts are a bit more fleshed out. Though I would say the rankings can be all over the place. There's some "low level" fights you can only beat by literally fluking armour breaks, and some A class fights that are over in seconds. Grinding is mostly unnessary, though by my reckoning there's a handful of side missions that simply require a good old grind to beat, especially if you're after that elusive 5-star rating.
In summary, I enjoyed it a lot despite the flaws would give it 8.5/10.
That's what sidequests in various other FF's (and RPG's in general) have been like and no one complained...onken said:
I don't know, can't really say much as I haven't played it, but I get the impression that FFXIII is getting a lot of unjustified hate. Doesn't change the fact that S-E people are running around and saying really dumb things lately, though.
onken said:I've finished the story and all but 1 sub-quest, so I'm pretty much there with it. I have to say, overall I really liked it and my mini-review is below:
Graphics are absolutely stunning, best I've seen in an RPG. I assume I don't need to harp on about the heavenly CG. Performance is also excellent, no installs and no load times between field/combat.
Storyline/dialog is the usual JRPG mush, don't take it too seriously and you shouldn't find it too painful. Characters aren't actually that bad, Lightning seemed fairly irritating at first but I have to admit she grew on me as the game went on. Fortunately, Hope drops his whiney emo act fairly quickly, however the textbook "gyaru" Vanille remains fairly vomit-inducing throughout.
The classes are fairly standard, there's 6 of them but each character only specialises in 3. About halfway through you unlock every class for every character but there's almost no point in exploring non-specialty classes beyond a few bare-bone skills since the cost is so disproportionately expensive.
Combat, pretty fun. It uses this new "optima" system where you make presets so you can change your character's class on the fly. Problem with this is, you have up to 3 characters in your battle party, each with 3 or more classes. Bearing in mind 2 different characters with the same class are not equivalent, that's a lot of presets required. So if you're in a battle and need to switch tactics, you bring up your optima menu and you're presented with 6 different presets, it can be a bit much. It baffles me why you can't just manually choose what class you want for each character. I admit only a handful of classes are used frequently, but if you encounter an unusual enemy and you haven't got the optimal preset, you have to quit the battle, change the preset, restart the fight then probably remove the preset again afterwards.
You only ever control one character at a time, which is good in a way because you only have to focus on one set of commands at a time. On the downside, you have to keep an eye on and swap presets constantly in order to stay on top of everything. On the double downside, the AI doesn't always do the grandest job of things. A typical example of this is enhancers that cast the most useful buffs last (HASTE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GIVE IT TO MEEEEE), healers that revive dead members only if they can heal the two surviving members to full health first (which basically never happens with a tough enemy) and of course let's not forget blasters that spam elemental attacks that the enemy has strong resistance to. Having said that, I'm sure the AI makes a hell of a better healer than me. Does make you think how awesome a multiplayer version would be, if only because you would decimate all the monsters by only using the most efficient techniques
Crafting system is a nice addition, you get lots of different material types which when applied give weapons and accessories certain amounts of experience, resulting in level ups that increase damage/effectiveness etc. The different materials have different effectiveness on different items so there's a lot to work with.
Yes the first half of the game is pretty linear, whick irks the completionist in me because I'm afraid of missing stuff and being unable to go back for it. The second half is mostly open-world with a bunch of sidequests, ranked by difficulty. Pretty mundane, almost every quest is simply "go here, kill this", though some parts are a bit more fleshed out. Though I would say the rankings can be all over the place. There's some "low level" fights you can only beat by literally fluking armour breaks, and some A class fights that are over in seconds. Grinding is mostly unnessary, though by my reckoning there's a handful of side missions that simply require a good old grind to beat, especially if you're after that elusive 5-star rating.
In summary, I enjoyed it a lot despite the flaws would give it 8.5/10.
Sounds pretty good to me since I usually like to do everything the first time through.
It looks to me like a lot of people are wearing nostalgia goggles now. Great visuals, great audio, great combat system, good characters.... Let's ignore all of that because we can't explore a.k.a do stupid shit like play the piano or invest in some retarded card game.
Day 1 for me. Screw the so-called FF fans.
Day 1 for me. Screw the so-called FF fans.
eXistor
Member
Exploration doesn't mean doing stupid shit like playing piano, it means actually playing a game the way you'd like to, not the way the developers want you to. I don't want to be told where to go next, I want to roam vast lands, finding hidden caverns that hold secret treasures. That way I make my own adventure.avatar299 said:
I am buying FFXIII day 1 (CE even) and I will try my best to seperate it from the rest of the series and rate it on its own merits, but even if you manage to view it seperately from all other jrpg's the fact remains (for me at least) that the game does almost everything I am not looking for in any game.
H_Prestige
Banned
Wrath2X said:
Think of the usual FPS. You move forward always across a clearly delineated path and shoot wave after wave of pre-staged enemy encounters. Sometimes you watch cutscenes after key battles. Now for FFXIII, replace the first person shooting with a menu based battle system like X-2 and add more cutscenes throughout the game. That's all there is to it.
Rahxephon91
Banned
I'm pretty sure you can make any game sound like crap as well.H_Prestige said:
"In Mass Effect 2 you try and talk people out of killing someone by choosing the top dialogue option"
"In Tekken you fight things with punches and kicks"
Is it wrong that my interest in playing this game plummeted when I got to Chapter 11 or whatever the "open" chapter is?
On the one hand it feels more like what I had hoped a PS3 FF would be, on the other hand I'm just not that interested running around fighting the stupid sidequest mobs. I guess I should just go back to the story.
I think the game should've either been ALL linear, or ALL like chapter 11. Throwing in one chapter like that just screws up the pacing and the balance. Everything feels off.
On the one hand it feels more like what I had hoped a PS3 FF would be, on the other hand I'm just not that interested running around fighting the stupid sidequest mobs. I guess I should just go back to the story.
I think the game should've either been ALL linear, or ALL like chapter 11. Throwing in one chapter like that just screws up the pacing and the balance. Everything feels off.
Wrath2X said:
It doesn't really open up. The structure of the game is what it is. If it doesn't sound appealing to you, you might want to consider renting it instead of buying it. The only thing which opens up is that a single portion of the game offers optional content and a bit more freedom than the rest of the game. That portion is not representative of a shift in the narrative style of pacing of the game in particularly, because actual story progression remains just as linear and focused throughout.
Final Fantasy XIII 1080p Multi Launch Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz_BjexsL70
hd version (over 400mb, 1080p)
http://rapidshare.com/files/358685264/FFXIIIMULTI_QT_1080P.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/358685267/FFXIIIMULTI_QT_1080P.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/358686667/FFXIIIMULTI_QT_1080P.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/358686668/FFXIIIMULTI_QT_1080P.part4.rar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz_BjexsL70
hd version (over 400mb, 1080p)
http://rapidshare.com/files/358685264/FFXIIIMULTI_QT_1080P.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/358685267/FFXIIIMULTI_QT_1080P.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/358686667/FFXIIIMULTI_QT_1080P.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/358686668/FFXIIIMULTI_QT_1080P.part4.rar
Finally finally finished the game, I enjoyed the combat the most, music second, characters third. Did a few sidequests but I kind of got sick of the combat near the end, so many damn encounters. I liked the ending even though the villain(s) were kind of lame and confusing (The woman with the whip was used for all of 2 seconds?). Too many "inspirational" speeches is definitely a flaw.
In retrospect, I wish there was a few places for the characters to relax and reflect. I liked all of them a lot and there was a lot of great fleshing out of in the moment stuff, but their pasts and stuff were pretty much a cloud. The game was very fast paced and "in the moment", and flashbacks were pretty few and far in between. There were scenes like in FF8 where you get captured, but you got released so quickly that the characters only had time to exchange a few sentences. I've said in a few places that you should be able to infer everything, but very few hints were given (and I don't count the encyclopedia).
I think past Final Fantasies had an ebb and flow with the town/field thing. On the field you would smack down monsters and take care of business, and then your party would rest and regroup in a town, and you could walk around and explore, get items, etc. Granted town exploring and talking to NPCs is kind of boring, but it breaks up the action with something else to do, and gives characters a chance to talk/uncover story tidbits. If you play FFXIII in long stretches it's really combat combat combat with little exception. Luckily the combat is great so that's OK, but it gets tiring.
I hope Versus is a bit more balanced but I'm still happy I played and beat the game. There were some amazing moments and the battle system really shocked me a few times with how it worked (in a good way). I like being able to switch tactics on the fly.
Like others I'd give it about 8.5 out of 10 or so. 3.5 stars?
In retrospect, I wish there was a few places for the characters to relax and reflect. I liked all of them a lot and there was a lot of great fleshing out of in the moment stuff, but their pasts and stuff were pretty much a cloud. The game was very fast paced and "in the moment", and flashbacks were pretty few and far in between. There were scenes like in FF8 where you get captured, but you got released so quickly that the characters only had time to exchange a few sentences. I've said in a few places that you should be able to infer everything, but very few hints were given (and I don't count the encyclopedia).
I think past Final Fantasies had an ebb and flow with the town/field thing. On the field you would smack down monsters and take care of business, and then your party would rest and regroup in a town, and you could walk around and explore, get items, etc. Granted town exploring and talking to NPCs is kind of boring, but it breaks up the action with something else to do, and gives characters a chance to talk/uncover story tidbits. If you play FFXIII in long stretches it's really combat combat combat with little exception. Luckily the combat is great so that's OK, but it gets tiring.
I hope Versus is a bit more balanced but I'm still happy I played and beat the game. There were some amazing moments and the battle system really shocked me a few times with how it worked (in a good way). I like being able to switch tactics on the fly.
Like others I'd give it about 8.5 out of 10 or so. 3.5 stars?
IMO the problem is that the traditional FF skill system implemented here isn't the best fit for a dungeon-hackish, level-grinding gameplay design. For e.g. it's not like FFX, when you have the constant fun and excitement of discovering and using something new such as a new 'power break', 'spirit break' for Auron, or a new attack style for Tidus. Even consider Diablo, where the skill tree is designed such that players are constantly excited and looking forward to the next new skill or level. The way it's implemented in XIII - less exciting. All the focus is on the optimas - using the right one for the situation.KTallguy said:
And the drops are too stingy for a combat-centric game.
But to me these are still minor issues compared to the greatest culprit - the wasted opportunities with the linear stage maps. These maps are so beautifully designed, so the lack of exploration gameplay is disappointing and wasteful. We don't need all of them to be non-linear, just 3 more of the chapter maps to be like chapter 11, and I'll happily concede a 10/10 to FF13.
At my rate of gameplay people waiting for the English release will probably complete it before I do. So I'll just throw out my premature verdict as a 9/10 - because I can't ignore the production qualities.
Infernodash
Member
I bought this game on amazon when it was like $12 recently, and I finally beat it today. I will say this, I enjoy the game thoroughly. I know for several hours it was formulaic, but I think it allowed me a chance to bond with certain characters. The end was as convoluted as everyone else has said, but I still think the game was fun and very beautiful to look at. I think I'm burnt out though, I dunno if I have it in me to go back to Gran Pulse and do missions now. Besides, I still feel sad from the ending.
Edit: Whatever happened to the DLC?
Edit: Whatever happened to the DLC?
Infernodash
Member
I just went on the psn store to re-download the trailer with feona lewis singing in the background, which I think was the most epic trailer ever, and unfortunately it's no longer there.... I'm heart broken. I wanted to have the trailer so I can go back and watch it any time I wanted to remember some of the cool moments from the game. I'm disappointed square didnt give access to the cutscenes in a gallery. The Vanille theme doesn't quite make up for it, either...
After completely selling out of everything except PSP and DSi gaming, I am feeling the itch again and will probably be grabbing a PS3 again soon.
So wasn't there a version of FFXIII that had Japanese dialogue with english subs that is hopefully region free or is it just an odd memory?
So wasn't there a version of FFXIII that had Japanese dialogue with english subs that is hopefully region free or is it just an odd memory?
cosmicblizzard
Banned
Infernodash said:
There wasn't any planned to begin with.
Rahxephon91
Banned
I think the Hong Kong release is what your looking for.Hex said:
Giolon
Member
cosmicblizzard said:
Actually there was DLC planned, but it was canceled: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=409051
Infernodash said:
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/international-trailer-final-fantasy/60730
Download that and transfer it on a usb key?
And I am still on Gran Pule. Dammit.
Infernodash
Member
Erasus said:
Thanks a lot Erasus! I find it so weird psn store kept all the others but this one.
P.S. I knew I heard about DLC somewhere in regards to the game, hopefully we get an FF XIII-2, I wouldn't mind getting some closure from an epilogue type game.
CruxisMana
Member
Infernodash said:
Have you read the translation of Episode i?
It's an epilogue to the game, and does set the scene for a possible sequel.
Infernodash
Member
CruxisMana said:
I was unaware there even was an epilogue, thanks for linking me to it. I will start reading it now. The ending left me the same way FFX's ending did, wishing for some sort of closure. So this will serve it's purpose and hopefully there will be a sequel.
I was LTTP with this game. What a total disappointment as a game, much less FF. Very pretty. Poor battle mechanics. Really, really cruddy layout of character strengths/weaknesses-you were almost forced into playing only three specific characters from mid-game on. Likeable characters, except for one. I'm glad I bought this late and at a deep discount.
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