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Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII announced for 2013 [Up3: Famitsu Details]
- Thread starter Kagari
- Start date
R_thanatos
Member
Music
Ok boring music is just my opinion ..can we agree that all the other areas of the game have better music ?
Cohesion
Well most of the level are L shaped platforms. it's not intuitive , and it's in drect opposition to academia 400XXAF design . am i supposed to believe this is the same place ? Even the game treats it as his own separate area !! There is no design link between the patform aside from the path you're supposed to take. i can only assume this is a design error , especially when the entire level revolve around jumping.
Complicated
The lack of cohesion in the dongeon design makes that simple actions becomes complicated and you fail because you might try to jump and miss. is it because i'm not supposed to go there ? is it because i don't have the right timing ? is it because it's not the right switch activated ?
TRIAL AND ERROR
As a result , many will try and fail as many times as you want to force their way into the dongeon.
SLOW
Yep it's slow .i know it's because you need to have the time to use them.
but the overall rythm while exploring this dongeon is terrible.
There is nothing special about this dongeon it's almost empty but they did made 1 mid boss and 2 secret monsters inside.
Every time I had to go back to Academia 400AF while fragment hunting, be it to turn in completed maps or look for the random fragments, I wanted to strangle a small kitten. If it weren't for the enemies never vanishing and the one-way walkways with no option to revert the direction, It'd probably be among my favorite areas in the game.
Fimbulvetr
Member
Then the obvious solution is to not include needless and obtusely designed platforming sequences to go along with your floaty, clunky platforming . right?Shinta said:
The people complaining find said bonus actively annoying.Shinta said:
I dont get it.Shinta said:
Does cynical mean correct now?
So you guys dont like rotten apples, but now that SE is handing you rotten oranges you dont like those either? Kinda hypocritical, dont you think?Shinta said:
That's a great question Fimbulvetr, I'm glad you asked. No, cynical doesn't mean correct now. Our little back and forth has been about our two different subjective opinions on a level in the game. Neither one of us is objectively correct 100%. But furthermore, I don't even agree with you, at all. So I wouldn't call you correct.
Referring to FFX's Temple Puzzles said:
Dictionary.com said:
See, I enjoyed that stuff in FFX and FFXIII-2. So, from my perspective, I'm trying to say that I feel you're hard to please, and have a tendency to only emphasize the negative aspects of something in discussion. I hope this clears things up. Where you see rotten fruit, I saw a creative level trying new things in the series. Opinions!Dictionary.com said:
That's fascinating. I got that a few posts back, and that's totally fine. But I'm not one of the people complaining about it.
Fimbulvetr
Member
Are you sure? I thought I was pretty correct.Shinta said:
I had no idea, that opinions other than mine could exist.Shinta said:
World View = shattered
But youre questioning the people who are. Thats been the basis of this entire conversation.Shinta said:
and didnt they specifically make it so you can only get one of the secret monsters at a time and thus have to redo the entire shitty dungeon to get the other one?
Exentryk
Member
The other day someone was calling XIII-2 a masterpiece.
Meccanical
Member
I'm sure he was joking.
I hope he was joking.
Not that it's an awful game or anything, but still.
It was Yoshichan, and he called it a masterpiece in a recommendation to a guy who was asking.
Probably lol
Hope is lost since that was Matsuno's CID.
As great as tg CID of fft
Unknown One
Member
She's so bad that I wouldn't have known that she's the main character if it wasn't for the fact that she's plastered everywhere.
Nah, I wouldn't call FFXIII-2 a masterpiece. Great game nonetheless though.
FFXIII on the other hand is up there with Graces f, Neptunia mk2 and
Xenoblade...yep I grew to like it,
Meccanical
Member
Neptunia, Graces and FFXIII, masterpieces huh?
...
Alright.
...
Alright.
StoppedInTracks
Member
What was wrong with it?
Shinta said:
Nailed it. The final level in FF13-2 was MILES ahead of Orphan's Cradle in FF13. I loved the platforming sections which involved timed moogle throws for the ultimate chests in that area.
And even if you fell down there were Cactuar checkpoints so WTF was "hard" in that level?
There are people who call FFX a masterpiece, so I'm not really surprised.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 is a very good game with some baffling flaws, but definitely not a Masterpiece. I wouldn't even call FFXII, my favorite RPG by miles, a masterpiece.
The platforming section in FFXIII-2 was definitely not good, but not really bad either. I've seen worse. It's just confusing when you have to start using these cubes to stop some platforms and move others. And it takes too long to rotate.
Onion_Relish
Member
The only good thing about the platforming section was that once you got tue gravitron jump you could game the system to save time by jumping and floating to avoid getting knocked off. Also when you double the game speed with this it made everything a lot more tolerable.
StoppedInTracks
Member
If by confusing you mean working exactly the same as dungeon switchers in 16-bit 2D Zelda games...
It was easier in FF13-2 in fact as you can see the whole level at all times.
You mean the last universally praised FF game and second in popularity to VII only in Japan? Yeah that one's a masterpiece.
Come to think about it, I think it wasn't just this switching mechanic similar to the Zelda games, but some platforms also moved in different directions. It surely took me some time to figure some of that out. Sometimes you're waiting, wondering if that platform really is moving now.
It also didn't help that there are some encounters that just like to attack you directly while you are trying to go to the next platform.
But as I said, I've seen worse. Ever played Suikoden V? In that one, you're splitting your team in three and each team has to press switches to let the other teams get through, for a good hour. It was pretty annoying.
How can such a extremely linear game with such annoying characters be a masterpiece? I don't care what others think and I personally surely think that it is an okay-ish game, but definitely not a masterpiece. And you won't convince me otherwise.
StoppedInTracks
Member
Yeah I've played worse and you played worse as well. I see many people "complaining" about the final Academia level whereas it was not so bad.
It was different, maybe that is what is off-putting them?
Looking at this FF13-3 (I will always call it that way, love me some FF13 <3 ) art which looks like rooftop jumpin':
and knowing what we already know (1 char, more action oriented etc.) I can safely say there will be more platforming levels in this game and probably done better, maybe even semi-automatic like in AC/ Uncharted series?
It's not like VII, VIII or even IV were any less linear. I really hate this 'no world map'=linear argument. Also linear does not equel bad.
The cast is great, but to each their own I guess. It's probably the last time an FF game had proper FF-like characters and not boring underdeveloped characters (FFXII) or anime inspired characters (FFXIII)
Yeah I've played worse and you played worse as well. I see many people "complaining" about the final Academia level whereas it was not so bad.
It was different, maybe that is what is off-putting them?
Looking at this FF13-3 (I will always call it that way, love me some FF13 <3 ) art which looks like rooftop jumpin':
and knowing what we already know (1 char, more action oriented etc.) I can safely say there will be more platforming levels in this game and probably done better, maybe even semi-automatic like in AC/ Uncharted series?
I think that the jumping mechanic itself was alright, even better with the upgrade, so I hope that this next game gets a few fine-tunings and additions to that mechanic to make it more fun.
And seeing that picture, I really want to see what the town will be like. Academia (4XX) looked great and I had a lot of fun just running around that open, huge area and talking to some people, but there unfortunately wasn't that much to do.
I never said that having no world map means that it is linear. FFXII has no world map in a classic sense and is still not linear. And yes, opinions. I really didn't like most of the cast and to be honest, I don't see too much differences between that cast and "anime inspired" ones.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Masterpieces for those who like cheesy anime tropes or subpar quality. Though I suppose I should let it go.
I do read BERSERK after all so it's not like we can get BERSERK quality writing.
I finished FF Tactics the other day.
The story and game itself was just simply a Masterpiece.
So yeah.
But seriously, story was great. I would like another protag like Ramza Beoulve.
As for Delita? **** him.
GILGAMESH was Epic of Gilgamesh and Benkei inspired.
So there. No anime involved.
And I have yet to see GILGAMESH'S personality elsewhere.
While it doesn't allow sequence breaking, 4 was pretty open-ended as soon as the player got the airship. I mean, yes, you MUST go to Troia, but if you'd rather go explore Eblan first, then that's okay. If you'd like to go back to Mysidia, Fabul, whereever, go for it. Rarely did the game close off areas to the player once they had been opened up.
That said, I've been thinking and I don't care how awful the story is, if this game is an ARPG, I'll likely enjoy it. I mean, yeah, I'll complain that the story by Toriyama is terrible and he should be legally barred from doing anything more literary than writing his name, and that with a rubber stamp, but, to be honest, I forgive KH and Crisis Core for their stories because they're fun. Being fun is one of the main reasons I will argue against saying that The Third Birthday was a bad game (worst story ever, though). Sometimes even Mana is goofy, and I've played Type-0 4 times now without really knowing the story. If it's fun, I'll play Lightning Returns, creepy rose conversations and all.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Yeah we need that illusion of openness. Make the illusion of a whole world possible.
Not just a line-blob-line formula.
Lady Bird
Matsuno's Goebbels
The world map gives you a positive sense of exploration, rewards you with places to go, and opens up the more you go through, especially as you get the boats and then the airships, giving it a good sense of progression. It's a tried-and-true formula for a reason. Calm Lands/ Gran Pulse are basically a world map, except they are restricted to a certain point of the game, and there's nothing to do besides that point, outside of a few endgame bosses. And let's not even talk about transforming every single map into a road: it feels unnatural, and needlessly restrictive. The idea that of taking good gameplay elements away for the sake of "better storytelling" was nothing more but a(n old) vision of a director that keeps failing at keeping most of his audience interested.
Also, FFXIII's characters have more screentime than FFXII's. They do not have more development. Let's not confuse both.
Hope has basically the same development of Vaan, but spread through two times the cutscenes for the sake of bad melodrama and filler. Technically, that makes it worse, because at least Vaan faded into the background and did not annoy the players. Also, Vaan's development, outside of being almost exactly the same as Hope, was also more believable and logical. The situation with Reks was carefully crafted, both by the writers and by the characters who caused it, so the decision to trust Basch against the last dying words of Vaan's brother was an actual dillemma. Vayne had crafted a clever plan to give the illusion to the Dalmascan people that they only fell as hard as they did, because of their own people; that everything could have been better with "negotations with the Empire". This softened up Archadia's negative image to the Dalmascans, and is what made Vaan's dillemma plausible.
Meanwhile, Hope's mother deliberately decided to fight in front of his son against a government that was purging them out and then killing them out, in from on their own eyes. Hope was there the entire time, afraid of that government's army, and when she dies by the army's hands, he spends half the game blamming Snow, whining about Snow, and the writers even unbelieveably exaggerate that up to the point where Hope wants to kill, kill, kill Snow, only to come at the sudden, extremely obvious conclusion that it was the goverment's fault all the time, concluding a very forced, a very poorly-written character arch in an anti-climax.
And then Hope becomes an internet motivational-speech bot generator, except when his character arch goes suddenly back for no reason other than so he could get his eidolon doll. The big problem with Vaan, is that Vaan disappears from the plot and becomes pointless after that.
Lightning is terribad. She only matters for an early subplot, like Vaan. She fades out of the story once the subplot is resolved, like Vaan. And she is poorly-written, like Hope. Her development is a mesh of her stereotype and Ashe's character arch, told in two-three cutscenes through monologues, which is a pretty terrible form of storytelling in this case (and FFXIII is full of this, like Cid's character development). Regardless, whatever little character development she had, was either pointless in the long run, or completely ignored and contradicted for the final act and the sequels.
Fang is nothing until her sudden arch before the final boss, Sahz actually has believable characterization until the writers start contradicting themselves of grossely exaggerating for the sake of drama, making the drama feel very cheap, and for Snow, whatever development he had (was it during Hope's arch?) was completely ignored right after.
Finally, we have Vanille, who is the single most important character in the game, and no one notices it unless they analyze the story of FFXIII, because she spends half the time acting in possibly the most exaggerated way I've ever seen her stereotype act, at the middle of holocausts, as if she was completely psychotic. But then again, so was Snow, so was Sahz, so was Hope, so was Lightning. They are all more psychotic than what the writers wanted them to be.
And let's not even talk about side-characters, shall we? Because in that department, FFXII was surprisingly good, and easily the single best main FF at developing side characters. Vossler, Cid, Gabranth, Marquis, Larsa, the Occuria. The only other time I've seen such a likeable cast of side-characters in main FFs was in VII, with the Turks, the Shinra, Hojo, Sephiroth and Jenova, and those were not as well-developed generally. FFXIII is, in contrast, a laughably mess, ranging from generic plot tools with unbelievable, sudden changes of heart (Yaag), to dry characters that suddenly reveal wasted potential through boring monlogues (Cid), to plot tools with some potential that get trashed in the most insulting way a writer could do it (Jihl).
This is true.
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
Neptunia mk2 is surprisingly good in terms of battle mechanics and ability stuff despite all of the weird stuff and cutscenes. I would not call it a masterpiece, though, because there were things I didn't like at all in that game with respect to dialogue/story, etc. You probably know which parts already.
Hrrrmm... you know what? I have zero idea what my favourite RPG overall this generation is! Hahaha! It's probably something on PSP or DS, though. Been a lot of good stuff on those platforms and those were probably the platforms I spent a lengthier time with just because I could bring them along to work/school/commute. Couldn't tell ya which one RPG overall I liked the most this gen, though. Too many to list.
I thought Academia 4XX was fine, though. It was a nice town to wander and do stuff in. Academia 400 is a nightmare, though, because of its high encounter rate and those stupid ramps you can't reverse and must therefore jump up.
Which is why I enjoyed XIII's Pulse segment. The player could go off and hunt monsters and stumble into Paddra much the same as they could Eblan. It's just a shame that the whole game didn't provide me with that. Likewise, I feel Nautilus was a wasted opportunity. You have an entire city of amusement, and not one minigame? But I think XIII is an exercise in wasted potential and opportunity, really. Which is a shame, because I really do think it could have been great.
I dunno, I always thought XII's cast was just a copy and paste of Star Wars' cast. That said, I've never really gotten the anime complaint. I will admit, though, that Hope's costume in XIII was the worst costume I've seen this side of Terada's art for FF4. Okay, and Lulu was wearing Squall's costume as a dress and Snow had on Seifer/Beat's threads, but MAN Hope's outfit was awful.
idlethreats
Member
Yeah, 4XX was great. It's a cool area, but constant monster spawns made 400 just awful. I would have loved to been able to explore the beautiful, rainy Academia w/o stopping every few seconds for a worthless battle.
That's why I didn't mention 4XX. That's probably my favorite area in the game, which is surprising given how terrible 400 and 500 are.
Wasted opportunity is probably a lot of people's feelings on both XIII and XIII-2. I like the overall systems for both, get a lot of the design decisions and don't regret buying both games on day one, but it's hard to not look at what could have been instead of what we got.
The worst part was that you had to go back and bring that neanderthal woman the maps, and so fights lasted like, less than a minute between Serah, Noel and Lightning. It was just a huge inconvenience.
That's why I didn't mention 4XX. That's probably my favorite area in the game, which is surprising given how terrible 400 and 500 are.
Wasted opportunity is probably a lot of people's feelings on both XIII and XIII-2. I like the overall systems for both, get a lot of the design decisions and don't regret buying both games on day one, but it's hard to not look at what could have been instead of what we got.I didn't even get a super cheesy game to make fun of ala Dirge of Cerberus.
I dunno, I thought that FXIII-2 was loads of cheese. Between Noel and Hope standing two inches from each other and refusing to make eye-contact while they spoke and Serah's increasingly stupid Live-Trigger responses, it wasn't that bad in terms of cheese. That said, "PARADOX" was almost the worst thing in the game. The worst thing in the game was them trying to pass off Chocolina's Reveal as something touching or anything other than absolutely horrifying.
Meccanical
Member
I still refuse to believe Chocolina's "origin".
I just...can't accept it.
I just...can't accept it.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
You could probably write her off as being a liar that makes up outrageous stories about herself while being high, in the same way Lightning is actually an alcoholic.
Meccanical
Member
Meccanical
Member
As far as you should be concerned, yes.
I wish you guys would use the community thread more often: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=447963
Fimbulvetr
Member
Maybe they didnt like it because they thought it was bad? huge shrug-StoppedInTracks said:
Going by all of the images of town they posted, and how towns in RPGs tend to generally work, something like Assassins Creed would be more likely than something like Uncharted.StoppedInTracks said:
A miserable pile of contrived secrets and PARADOXES DESU~!
AuthenticM
Member
How does one know whether to use the community thread or the gaming thread ? What's the difference between both types of threads ?
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
The other community threads like the Sonic Community Thread, the Zelda Community Thread, the SMT Community Thread, or the Pokemon Community Thread are usually used for talking about random nonsense with regards to different aspects of the series. So basically they're general threads like on other fora.
Generally for the other community threads, we just talk about random stuff about the series like TV shows, comics, movies, etc. I usually see the community threads as fan gatherings to talk about general aspects about games without riling people up or ruffling too many feathers. I suppose that's why people don't seem to like using the community threads for debates and stuff, and even then some of the debates in the community threads end on a lighthearted note. Oh, and they're shuffled into Gaming Community so a lot of people don't know they exist.
Plus people use the community threads once in a while to ask other people in there about different games in the series or different aspects of media related to the series (ex: Should I play this game? What would this game have to offer? What do you guys think about the skills I'm setting for a pokemon, discussing tournaments, etc.). The thing about the FF community thread is that it isn't used as often as the Pokemon or Sonic community threads (there are usually multiple posts in those threads per day and they kind of move a little quick, particularly the Pokemon thread).
The OTs or threads relating to a specific game are generally used for posting about that game in particular, but of course, sometimes things go off-course.
The FF Community Thread was mostly created because FF threads go off-course all the time with regards to ranking FFs, discussing other FFs, and ... uh, pretty much serving as a garbage thread. But from what I see, it's mostly to discuss portions of the series in a lighthearted manner. >.>
Generally for the other community threads, we just talk about random stuff about the series like TV shows, comics, movies, etc. I usually see the community threads as fan gatherings to talk about general aspects about games without riling people up or ruffling too many feathers. I suppose that's why people don't seem to like using the community threads for debates and stuff, and even then some of the debates in the community threads end on a lighthearted note. Oh, and they're shuffled into Gaming Community so a lot of people don't know they exist.
Plus people use the community threads once in a while to ask other people in there about different games in the series or different aspects of media related to the series (ex: Should I play this game? What would this game have to offer? What do you guys think about the skills I'm setting for a pokemon, discussing tournaments, etc.). The thing about the FF community thread is that it isn't used as often as the Pokemon or Sonic community threads (there are usually multiple posts in those threads per day and they kind of move a little quick, particularly the Pokemon thread).
The OTs or threads relating to a specific game are generally used for posting about that game in particular, but of course, sometimes things go off-course.
The FF Community Thread was mostly created because FF threads go off-course all the time with regards to ranking FFs, discussing other FFs, and ... uh, pretty much serving as a garbage thread. But from what I see, it's mostly to discuss portions of the series in a lighthearted manner. >.>
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
You wouldn't want me posting in the community thread.
That's a disaster waiting to happen.
So uh will Cieth return?
I'd like to see them in more detail.
That's a disaster waiting to happen.
So uh will Cieth return?
I'd like to see them in more detail.
People who aren't hardcore interested, but are still interested nevertheless will actually see this thread, read the discussion, read the speculation, see the little updates if you stay here as opposed to being buried in the insular graveyard of the community tabs?
I'm still waiting to see if that whole corruption thing or whatever it was you guys dug up during translation of Type-0 turns out to be C'ieth. I thought it was a nice twist on the whole Light Warrior thing. Like, the Crystals gave you power, but it comes at a steep price!