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You're the director of an 'International' version of FFXIII, what do you do?

Linkark07

Banned
Look for another project.

I mean, gameplay isn't the only thing that is flawed with this game. The plot, characters, the lack of towns, and many other aspects of this game are flawed.

I doubt SE would even try to fix them.
 

Ochibi

Member
XIII-2 or LR Gameplay, with switching leaders option and get rid of the leader die = game over.

Also, more quests about the lore of the mythology, reorganize chapters before Gran Pulse, create bosses like Jihl, Yaag (they did it on KH2FM with Roxas), make the grind enjoyable ...
 

Oregano

Member
For the sake of my sanity I'm going to pretend I am Motomu Toriyama in this scenario in which case I'll do as little as possible on this project and instead devote my time to writing a third My Life as a... game.
 
Yeah, a lot of XIII's issues would take massive overhauls to the game, but if I had unlimited resources:

- Add scenes at the beginning of the game fully explaining not just L'Cie and Fal'Cie, but also what the fuck the deal is with Pulse v. Cocoon from the onset. It just blows my mind that the series had three fucking games and yet the war with Pulse is still mostly an enigma.
- Probably just rewrite the last third of the game entirely. The party being "Let's just do everything the evil God tells us to do and pray for an Aaron Rodgers Hail Mary at the end for everything to work out" just does not cut it. After Chapter 11, the party is just jumping from place to place literally leveling up.
If you need additional story, just make Jihl and Rosch enemy L'Cie so the party actually has more of an antagonist than an old pope that tries to ape Emperor Palpatine every few hours.
- Actually, just insert the Jihl boss fight from XIII whole sale. There is no reason that she should have went out like she did.
- Import XIII-2's QOL battle system changes into XIII (red health, better camera angles, no more slow Paradigm Shifts).
- Completely revamp the paradigm system to something at least like the Sphere Grid where character paths are not only unique, but you have some incentive for venturing off into alternate level paths. Or even the License Board in Zodiac Age (but if you're going to do that, make sure you can swap between party members mid-battle). In the latter's case, you have an incentive to use all of the party members.
- Give us actual optional dungeons (likely on Gran Pulse).
- Give us more optional bosses as opposed to palette swap enemies found in the Cieth missions. Actually make Titan a boss.
- Just scrap the weapon leveling system entirely. Too many people were just holding onto default weapons until the "optimal" weapon came up 30 hours into the game and just poured all resources into that. Just go back to the basics for this one.
- For the love of fucking God, don't make Adamantoise farming the the only way to get real endgame equipment.

This is pretty much what I'd want, though I imagine the first two points are out of the question as it would require too much work for a release like this.

I wonder if they'd release each installment separately or in one collection if they ever remastered the trilogy. It's quite a lot of content.
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
I cancel it and put the money towards a faithful recreation of FFVI in 3D.

Honestly though, I never even played 13 so I don't know how it could be improved per say.
 
Cancel it.

Correct first post, although for the sake of discussion it should be elaborated on.

Starting off, look at how sales plummeted for each subsequent entry into the XIII trilogy. Usually sales should be climbing for sequels, not falling by 50%, and then even harder for the 3rd entry in the trilogy. It shows how little most people cared for XIII as a whole. The money would be better spent elsewhere. The amount of changes needed to make it a viable RPG today would be akin to just making a new game entirely. Every gameplay decision made at the time was in response to the rise in popularity of Western RPG's. Square wanted to make a faster, flashier game that would shrug off the constraints holding so many JRPG's back at the time. JRPG's were dying out, and even now I do commend Square for trying so many different things with it's mainline series.

But if you look at JRPG's today, XIII looks so limited in comparison. The hallways taking up the grand majority of the game. The lack of towns, (and were there any side quests until Grand Pulse?). The handholding in regards to the party and leveling system until some 20-25 hours into the game, (maybe more, it's been a while since I've played it.) They tried streamlining the JRPG and it backfired. I know some people enjoyed the battle system, and I didn't hate it, but it wasn't enough to carry me through everything else. Also they can't change the story, and while enjoyment of stuff like that is subjective; I will say that any story that updates you on encyclopedia entries for words you didn't understand in the last cutscene and won't be explained to you in the future, is objectively doing something wrong.

TLDR; There are too many changes needed to be made to make enough people interested in rebuying one of the most disliked entries in the series.
 
Take the blockers off the levelling system, design an explorable zone for any areas it could fit into well and make them revisitable with side quests etc to come back for.

Add in many of the spells not in the game and rebalance the entire game around it. Add the Fal'cie that can't be fought in the game. Expand Gran Pulse significantly.

Basically you'd need to put in way more work than the XII remaster.
 

Kinsei

Banned
- Have all roles available to all characters once you unlock the Crystraium.

- Give you the option to edit your party from the start of the game. Having characters in your party but not actually allowing you to put them in combat is dumb.

- Add a new dungeon or two to Gran Pulse.

- Add a full map of Cocoon that you can look at. The way the world is connected in FFXIII isn't shown very well.
 

120v

Member
man... i really don't want to see FFXIII again. and i don't even think it's a godawful game or anything. i just hope they move on

i guess a 4k remaster for ps5 or whatever would be benign
 
stock-photo-young-man-pointing-a-gun-at-his-head-53205802.jpg


There's no salvaging the first one...
As for the second one I didn't appreciate the monster thingie, it was too impersonal...
As for the third.. decent, but not what I'd want from a ff game

I'd ask the BOA if they really want to gamble that badly...
 
Replace lighting with Vaan , and that's it.
Oh, and remove the chocobos from that dude's hair.. it doesn't seems like a good place to live.
 
I would like to make the chapter before the ending chapter make sense [with the random cut scene of the espers flying all over the town].
 

jiggle

Member
Removing leveling cap would be nice i guess
More screen time for Fang
And more on Fanille

Playable Mummy Hope
Snow stays topless aftee certain point
 
- Use the XIII-2 battle system
- Insert the Nabat boss battle from XIII-2
- Insert more exposition cutscenes where characters spell things out for players with small attention spans. "So Lightning, what you're saying is that l'Cie are people that have been branded and that a focus is the mission they must completely or else they'll turn into a monster?" Stuff like that
- More cutscenes about the mythos of the game

Huh wasn't this basically in the dialogue anyway? Several times throughout the game, actually? Are there actually people who didn't understand this? That's like the one thing in that mess of a story that's actually crystal clear and simple to follow.
 

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
FF13 already had an international edition, but it was 360 only and had english with japanese subs
 

Ezalc

Member
Easy.

I use the money to fund an IX remake and keep bullshiting SE for 10 years saying that I'll release XIII in various "episodes".
 

sonny4p

Member
Should start with Lightning and Snow hooking up instead. Sarah is too "kiddie" for real adult romance. Heck throw in a sex scene like how Bioware games do it for starters.
 

Ydelnae

Member
Trying to keep as much of the original game intact without completely redoing the whole game

I'd add a 10-15 hour opening where you play through the 13 days before where the game actually begins. During it I'd have Lightning go on missions that enabled her to see a large chunk of the world of cocoon, letting the player get a feel for the origin of the world, the mythos behind it, and the brewing conflict between the government and the resistance movement. These new areas would be open like 13-2 and would further introduce new characters along with slowly introducing the player to who the core 6 will be. I'd introduce characters to the 6 classes during the first 2-3 hours so that Lightning and her squad of 2-3 new characters would be able to do the full combat class shifting stuff much quicker. Then after the actual game's opening once everyone became l'cie the players would still have full access to all classes with all characters, but like xii zodiac job system you'd be able to diversify the 6 classes to help make the characters feel even more different.

During the party split "20 hours of linear corridors" I'd break up all those sections with returns to the above mentioned new open areas, where plot lines introduced would either resolve or continue. During these scenes the characters Lightning helped would either help the fleeing convicts or attempt to turn them in, additionally Lightning's old team would hunt down the party as loyalist.

The above would also expand the role of characters like Nabaat and Cid, the former would also not die to Dysley so unceremoniously. Finally when the party escapes to gran pulse, a bunch of the resistance or people you helped along the way would end up their as well. This would give theme to the dozens of hunt quest you can do there and would serve to tie up their story lines.

This could actually work. My main gripe is that the game is already too long, so I would tone down the amount of enemy encounters during corridor areas to make them easier to get through until you revisit these new open areas.

I think XIII could actually benefit from a Vaan type character that is new to the conflict and how the world actually works. Make that character accompany Lightning during this new open prologue so the player knows what Fal'Cie an all of that terminology means, and foreshadow things that went inexplained in the original game, like the entire last hour, the Lightning wiped out retcon and stuff.
 

jiggle

Member
I think XIII could actually benefit from a Vaan type character that is new to the conflict and how the world actually works. Make that character accompany Lightning during this new open prologue so the player knows what Fal'Cie an all of that terminology means, and foreshadow things that went inexplained in the original game, like the entire last hour, the Lightning wiped out retcon and stuff.
Isnt that Nope?
 
I dont know if its possible to salvage an 84 metacritic game that sold 7 million copies but ill give it a shot anyways.

-Give player access to the full paradigm roles much sooner
-Make a mini game to help break the battle/cutscene/battle/cutscene nature of the game
-Allow back tracking and implement side quests
-Boosters like 2x speed
 

Shredderi

Member
I would take a few million out of the dev budget and funnel them into a bad CGI tie-in movie. Then I'd put together a huge event for the release date reveal and then fail to even hit that date.
 

brian!

Member
They should make little microtransaction doors that let you make the map less linear and obtain sidequest with writing.

There should be more plot development with the hair chocobo, like show a flashback where sazh gives birth to it
 

Ydelnae

Member
Isnt that Nope?

I mean, if Hope was supposed to be that kind of character it failed since the general opinion on the game is that it throws you into a world you are not exposed enough to and it does not fully develop itself until it ends in a complete nonsensical way.
 

Zeel

Member
simple, just make it ff4, or 6, or 9, or 7...or any other ff that isnt 13.
hell, even 15 was far better, if alone for the fact it did't have snow, sera or vanille.
 

Ennosuke

Member
Combat system waa great. I had more fun in combats than in FF15. Yes it is true that in the beginning it was too easy, but later on it became fun and challenging. This last boss fight was tough!

While writing this, I realise that if I were responsible for this. I would use this as a foundation but try to bring in to shine also in the early parts of the game.

The story and the lore were great! So this universe had a lot of potential. The design amd artstyle were amazing. So what went wrong? I liked Lightning, but she needed a better defined personality. I would write off characters such as Snow, I hated that guy.

In general there is too much hyperbole around tgis game. I don't like how people make it wirse than it was.
 
- Allow saving of paradigms like FF13-2

- Make chapter 1 shorter or have fewer encounters (since this is the part of the game where you only have attack and Blitz/Grenade so fights aren't as enjoyable)

- Tie each character's secondary roleset to the progression of main roles kind of like FF13-2, which would allow unlocking secondary roles early: they would still be harder to level into but still allow new options or additional power leveling past the game's level caps

- Find a way to make it more clear what is going on towards the end of the game and what's going on behind the scenes.

- Typical upgrades like updated graphics, new optional content, etc

And not much else really unless I somehow had unlimited budget to essentially do a full remake and implement better level design and stuff like that.
 

ViciousDS

Banned
The battle system needs a complete overhaul.....I also don't like the Crystarium......everything about that game leveling and progression wise was so bad.

FFXIII's battle system was the worst in all final fantasy games


Basically


1. Change the Crystarium
2. Do something about auto combat.........It made most fights boring and you felt at a disadvantage if you didn't use auto.
3. Maybe remove Paradigms? Cross more abilities into the roles and lock characters to specific ones?
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
I don't think this is really "impossible" and the "cancel it" post is annoying.

1. New sphere grid system so there is a bit more player choice in character development
2. Unlock all roles from the beginning

This alone would make some very big changes to the game...
 

FinalAres

Member
A blitzball equivalent mini game to help break up the monotony would be a start.
FFXIII was such a terrible game for showing you cool stuff that in any other FF game would be playable. Like Titan, or the racing bit on Coccoon.

A racing mini game would have been ace.
 

TheXbox

Member
  • Open the battle system within three hours
  • Expand crystallarium, assign roles at will
  • Overhaul crafting and inventory from the ground-up
  • Higher difficulty option, removes Auto-battle
  • JP voice option
  • Full 360 degree camera control (this bugged the hell out of me in 2010)
  • 2x and 4x speed
  • Maybe add in additional roles, new paradigms
 
I don't think this is really "impossible" and the "cancel it" post is annoying.

1. New sphere grid system so there is a bit more player choice in character development
2. Unlock all roles from the beginning

This alone would make some very big changes to the game...
Yes to everything here

FFXIII was such a terrible game for showing you cool stuff that in any other FF game would be playable. Like Titan, or the racing bit on Coccoon.

A racing mini game would have been ace.
And this
 
In terms of combat, is add real-time party member switching (maybe costing TP) but lock down each party member to only a couple of roles. In the original game, for example, Snow being the best sentinel means nothing when everyone can just sentinel up. Maybe add some unique skills for each character and role to add balance.

Summons could use some work, too. Maybe have your other party members stay around when they're out.

I'd also add more bosses, including Titan and some other fal'Cie.

I agree with the other poster that the weapons system should be streamlined, as well. Maybe make it like XV's, where you have a few upgradeable ones but keep the rest as treasures, drops, and shop purchased.
 
- Add more roles in battle that tailor the abilities more narrowly and allow for more efficient fighting
- Give the player more active abilities akin to stuff like the ultimate attacks or whatever they were with trade-off effects like increasing party attack by 30% but decreasing defense by 50% for 30 seconds
- Completely rework the weapon upgrade system to have it more like searching for specific items then just mindlessly buying and selling things
- Automate the crystarium upgrading more
- Make chapters more like levels having branching paths and open areas... but this may be unrealistic
- Add cutscenes fleshing out the villain dude
- Delete the Mom's are tuff
- Add more interesting environments to the Steppe instead of being an open field with bad grass textures
 

Lynx_7

Member
I don't think an international version would be enough to fix my issues with XIII. It'd probably need a full-blown remake to address everything, and at that point I'm not sure if the investment is worth it.

That said, I suppose better character customization and mini-games are a start. Some more explorable areas too, with things to do other than kill monsters. Side-quests with stories, not just marks.
 

Eusis

Member
Run away with the money.

Seriously though...
I don't think an international version would be enough to fix my issues with XIII. It'd probably need a full-blown remake to address everything, and at that point I'm not sure if the investment is worth it.

That said, I suppose better character customization and mini-games are a start. Some more explorable areas too, with things to do other than kill monsters. Side-quests with stories, not just marks.
This. I'd try to flesh it out some and make the systems a bit more flexible, but in the end I just don't think there's enough to work with.
 
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