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[MagiusNecros]

As good as Type 0 is, I don't know if I would compare it to the PS1 Final Fantasies. It's more of a disjointed, yet expansive experience that features a lot of copy pasting and not so much of a continuous linear journey.

It's still my favorite though. I'm kinda obligated.

 

[leadbelly]

FF XIII is probably the most painfully linear experience I have ever had. A lot of games are quite linear of course, but the design of the game might be such that you at least feel like you're in a vast world, with things beyond, only there is something hindering you from getting to those places. There is an illusion of freedom.

For 2/3 of the game I never got that sense at all. I felt like I was in the land of OZ, following the yellow brick road to the Emerald City. I really did feel like I was just following one path, going from A to B, from cutscene to cutscene.

What made it even worse was the way the game limits your control over the battle system. It's a good battle system, but your ability to utilise it is seriously limited for half the game.

 

[jaxword]

FF XIII is probably the most painfully linear experience I have ever had. A lot of games are quite linear of course, but the design of the game might be such that you at least feel like you're in a vast world, with things beyond, only there is something hindering you from getting to those places. There is an illusion of freedom.

The earlier FFs used the illusion as well. Example: FF4. You are on a track from town A to town B to dungeon C. Sure, you can wander the world map in between, but there are barriers like water or mountains that prevent any sequence breaking.

Sure, 2/3 of the way in, you get world map freedom, but every FF has that, including FF13.

 

[leadbelly]

The earlier FFs used the illusion as well. Example: FF4. You are on a track from town A to town B to dungeon C. Sure, you can wander the world map in between, but there are barriers like water or mountains that prevent any sequence breaking.

Sure, 2/3 of the way in, you get world map freedom, but every FF has that, including FF13.

Yeah I agree to a point. The thing about a lot of FF games though is you have towns and cities to explore, with people you can speak to and little side missions. You can also visit those places any time you want.

 

[jaxword]

Yeah I agree to a point. The thing about a lot of FF games though is you have towns and cities to explore, with people you can speak to and little side missions. You can also visit those places any time you want.

Funny thing about that, though, who REALLY decided "Hmm, yeah, I want to go back and visit the second town of the game 16 hours later, I'll just trek back just to see the same NPCs say the same things."

That's how most of the earlier FFs were.

And yet when that was taken away, all of a sudden the game's ruined.

Strange, that.

 

[MagiusNecros]

Funny thing about that, though, who REALLY decided "Hmm, yeah, I want to go back and visit the second town of the game 16 hours later, I'll just trek back just to see the same NPCs say the same things."

That's how most of the earlier FFs were.

And yet when that was taken away, all of a sudden the game's ruined.

Strange, that.

We need that illusion. Without it the game lacks the world view we require to believe in it and it becomes a DOOMTRAIN and it only travels in one direction only to make one stop.

 

[leadbelly]

Funny thing about that, though, who REALLY decided "Hmm, yeah, I want to go back and visit the second town of the game 16 hours later, I'll just trek back just to see the same NPCs say the same things."

That's how most of the earlier FFs were.

And yet when that was taken away, all of a sudden the game's ruined.

Strange, that.

Well, certain side missions may require you to go back. Or advancements in the story may require you to do so.

My issue with the game anyway wasn't so much about it being linear, it was more along the lines of it feeling brutally linear. I just felt like was following a single path.

 

[MagiusNecros]

Well, certain side missions may require you to go back. Or advancements in the story may require you to do so.

My issue with the game anyway wasn't so much about it being linear, it was more along the lines of it feeling brutally linear. I just felt like was following a single path.

Like the game was holding your hand the whole way on rails right?

 

[leadbelly]

Like the game was holding your hand the whole way on rails right?

Yeah. Exactly that. The same with the battle system as well. For a large part of the game it doesn't really allow you to customise the battle system.

 

[MagiusNecros]

Hence why Tactics, Type 0, V, IX will always be my favorites.

I like customization.

And Bravely Default will make me happy. If it gets localized. It's going Namco on me.

 

[leadbelly]

Hence why Tactics, Type 0, V, IX will always be my favorites.

I like customization.

And Bravely Default will make me happy. If it gets localized. It's going Namco on me.

Yeah. The game felt to me like Square-Enix was trying to appeal to a larger audience. Those that typically shied away from that type of game.

 

[CorvoSol]

I can definitely see the features of the old FFs it has, and of course I haven't played it so I can't judge yet but the fighting seems to be more similar to CC, and at best FFXII, and battles is a big appeal from the PS1 FFs for me

Battle is more similar to CC than XII. It is, in many ways, CC2 (or 3 if you count Third Birthday as CC2). The same guy in both cases.

Yeah, the main combat is basically Crisis Core with a party and an instant killshot/critical blow if you time it correctly.


That sounds kinda gross. A lot of the criticism I've seen for the game both on here and mk2 have surrounded the RTS sections for various reasons. But I haven't really seen it in action until I took a good look at that trailer and it doesn't strike me as being very fun at all.

And to be fair, I think duckroll made the gif but I had it saved in my gif folder for just the right time and place. I assumed you could just breed chocobos and take them wherever you want. :lol

You can breed the chocobos and take 'em where ever. They're just kinda useless after you get the airship. Game needed some Chocobo racing. The RTS section is kinda lame, but it's only like 4 in the first playthrough so I tolerated.

The RTS parts are really gross. They are definitely worse than Suikoden V's parts. My spotty memory says that the 'strategy' part of the RTS was nonexistent; the way a battle proceeds (what places to capture, what route to take) are pretty much linear. I might be wrong, but I remember you couldn't use skills for the RTS combat parts (only basic attacks and magic).

It was absolutely hideous.

The RTS battles are pretty linear, yeah. You have to do it more or less one way or not at all. It doesn't matter if you're level 99, either, because your army is so weak it can only do it one way.

As good as Type 0 is, I don't know if I would compare it to the PS1 Final Fantasies. It's more of a disjointed, yet expansive experience that features a lot of copy pasting and not so much of a continuous linear journey.

I agree that it isn't the usual run around a continent, get airship, fly around world, fight final boss deal that the older games were, but it most definitely seems to me that one of the driving ideas behind Type-0 was to make it as much like those games as they could.

 

[ULTROS!]

Maybe we should make a thread dedicated to rerating the older FF games, like the reviewer can only review them if he hasn't played the game until 10 years after its original release.

 

[Fimbulvetr]

Final Fantasy 12 will however remain the FF with the most promise in a story and the worst follow through. In my opinion of course. Heck, it's one of the games, period, where I wish it could be remade with by the original vision. The story in the 1/3 was so good, so much promise. And it all goes extremely downhill from there. How disappointing to think about.

I hope by "worst follow through" you mean relative to its potential.

 

[leadbelly]

Maybe we should make a thread dedicated to rerating the older FF games, like the reviewer can only review them if he hasn't played the game until 10 years after its original release.

Well, I'm not sure you can judge them fairly if comparing them to modern games. You'd have to take the age of the game into account.

Games have evolved quite a lot over the years. There has been many years of improvement and refining of game mechanics.

 

[CorvoSol]

Maybe we should make a thread dedicated to rerating the older FF games, like the reviewer can only review them if he hasn't played the game until 10 years after its original release.

No one could possibly be trusted with that kind of power. And even if that were the case, it'd just be another example of the insanity with MGS here. MGS4 was voted as GOTY twice and people still rag on and on about it.

 

[jaxword]

Maybe we should make a thread dedicated to rerating the older FF games, like the reviewer can only review them if he hasn't played the game until 10 years after its original release.

There's no way anyone would be completely objective about their childhood favorites.

 

[Lady Bird]

Let's say Toriyama is being shunted to his Lightning saga.

Nomura is busy with KH and FFversus.

Who does that leave for FF15? What teams are there that are free? The ff14 team is still working at repairing it, yeah?

Hiroyuki Ito?

He has been working on small games once he was done with FFXII, but if we look at other developers, all big FF devs have also worked on smaller games inbetween big productions. Besides, Ito is too big to be stuck on social games. I mean, he co-directed FFVI, directed FFIX and FFXII, and created mechanics such as the classic ATB combat, the concepts for triple triad card game, junction system, ffv's/ fft's job system, etc. He is one of the main designers of the FF franchise.

In an era where Kitase's big team has received troubling reviews and is stuck on FFXIII's spin-offs, where Nomura is stuck on KH and Versus, where Tabata was busy with type-0 and is probably too late to put him in charge of the next FF (which I'm sure is already on (pre-)production), and the big FFXI/ FFXIV team either scrapped or busy on the MMOs, and with such an important developer free out of all this, I would really expect for FFXV to be the next Ito's game, with the evolved version of FFXII's battle system/ gambits he said he wanted to do.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

Just imagine if FF13 was actually, say, Chrono Break. I wonder how the response would've gone?

Pretty sure the response would have been the same, if not worse. Communities like the Chrono Compendium would try their best to make sense of the story though even if they might dislike it.

 

[adixon]

Maybe we should make a thread dedicated to rerating the older FF games, like the reviewer can only review them if he hasn't played the game until 10 years after its original release.

An intriguing idea. But consider; anyone who met that criteria would probably have played X, XII, or XIII first, and we all know the warping effect which playing the recent games first has on young minds.

 

[jaxword]

Pretty sure the response would have been the same, if not worse. Communities like the Chrono Compendium would try their best to make sense of the story though even if they might dislike it.

Yeah, and then when the infighting gets too much, the debate will get a phantom Cease And Desist letter from SE.

 

[Chev]

The earlier FFs used the illusion as well. Example: FF4. You are on a track from town A to town B to dungeon C. Sure, you can wander the world map in between, but there are barriers like water or mountains that prevent any sequence breaking.

Sure, 2/3 of the way in, you get world map freedom, but every FF has that, including FF13.

The core storyline was linear but they always offered a number of optional diversions and approaches. People tend to forget that. For example compare the approach to summons in FF13 (only six, each bolted to a specific character) to FF8 (about twenty, only two forced into your inventory and you don't even have to equip them), or FF6 and 7's optional characters. Optional characters, some that you may encounter purely by chance! Today the closet equivalent would be forced in your face and playable only through DLC.

 

[Shinta]

The core storyline was linear but they always offered a number of optional diversions and approaches. People tend to forget that. For example compare the approach to summons in FF13 (only six, each bolted to a specific character) to FF8 (about twenty, only two forced into your inventory and you don't even have to equip them), or FF6 and 7's optional characters. Optional characters, some that you may encounter purely by chance! Today the closet equivalent would be forced in your face and playable only through DLC.

I don't think we'll see totally hidden characters in the new console games with how much work goes into them now. It was quite a bit easier to make an Umaro or Gogo sprite and not have anything else to do. There's still room for compromise, and lots of other places they can put in hidden, optional stuff. And just look at Type-0. Probably the hugest FF cast since FFVI.

And if you want to get technical, XIII-2 had tons and tons of monsters to obtain, and lots were secret and hard to get.

 

[MagiusNecros]

I don't think we'll see totally hidden characters in the new console games with how much work goes into them now. It was quite a bit easier to make an Umaro or Gogo sprite and not have anything else to do. There's still room for compromise, and lots of other places they can put in hidden, optional stuff. And just look at Type-0. Probably the hugest FF cast since FFVI.

And if you want to get technical, XIII-2 had tons and tons of monsters to obtain, and lots were secret and hard to get.

Type 0 has the biggest cast period.

 

[Parakeetman]

I still hate the whole harry potter looking design of Type 0 though. I would have enjoyed it a lot more if the horrid character / clothing design wasnt present.

 

[Fine Ham Abounds]

Models and designs will hit home for sure.

Hate to jump in on this late, but I can't unsee Cloud on the right's jutting hip as a really awkward erection.

 

[MagiusNecros]

I still hate the whole harry potter looking design of Type 0 though. I would have enjoyed it a lot more if the horrid character / clothing design wasnt present.

Seems like you only focused on Suzaku. The other 3 nations are completely different.

Spoiler

Well 2 other nations. Shame on Genbu's shaft outside of GILGAMESH

I wish character design would take after Genbu and give us characters that wear armor for once.

I majority of Characters seem to like going to battle in sweatpants and a tanktop. A turtleneck sweater might be pushing it in the armor department for them.

I'd also like a full on robotic character mech thing. Like sentient Magitek armor or something.

 

[Jarnet87]

The core storyline was linear but they always offered a number of optional diversions and approaches. People tend to forget that. For example compare the approach to summons in FF13 (only six, each bolted to a specific character) to FF8 (about twenty, only two forced into your inventory and you don't even have to equip them), or FF6 and 7's optional characters. Optional characters, some that you may encounter purely by chance! Today the closet equivalent would be forced in your face and playable only through DLC.

If only I could have avoided some of the characters in FF10 onwards lol. Not only have they done away with optional characters but now they try to make every character important and have a big role or story, they especially did this in 13 I felt.

I doubt they will do it for 15, but it would be great to see them pull an FF9 and return to a traditional style Final Fantasy on a current gen console.

 

[CorvoSol]

I don't think we'll see totally hidden characters in the new console games with how much work goes into them now. It was quite a bit easier to make an Umaro or Gogo sprite and not have anything else to do. There's still room for compromise, and lots of other places they can put in hidden, optional stuff. And just look at Type-0. Probably the hugest FF cast since FFVI.

And if you want to get technical, XIII-2 had tons and tons of monsters to obtain, and lots were secret and hard to get.

The record for party size is actually The After Years, with 22 playable characters in the final chapter. But otherwise, yeah, secret characters are a lot harder to do.

 

[MagiusNecros]

The record for party size is actually The After Years, with 22 playable characters in the final chapter. But otherwise, yeah, secret characters are a lot harder to do.

You're right. Forgot about TAY.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

If only I could have avoided some of the characters in FF10 onwards lol. Not only have they done away with optional characters but now they try to make every character important and have a big role or story, they especially did this in 13 I felt.

I doubt they will do it for 15, but it would be great to see them pull an FF9 and return to a traditional style Final Fantasy on a current gen console.

I guess they did that after fans bitched and moaned about Vaan's and Penelo's roles in XII.

 

[Meccanical]

I guess they did that after fans bitched and moaned about Vaan's and Penelo's roles in XII.

Rule #1. Fans don't know what they want.

Or more precisely, they don't know EXACTLY what they want.

 

[MagiusNecros]

Rule #1. Fans don't know what they want.

Or more precisely, they don't know EXACTLY what they want.

Rule #2. Companies will interpret what the fans want in a way it suits them.

 

[Meccanical]

Rule #2. Companies will interpret what the fans want in a way it suits them.

That too.

 

[Lumpy Onion]

So, you want a realistic, down-to-earth show... that's completely off-the-wall and swarming with magic robots?

You kids don't know what you want!

Spoiler

Simpsons quote

 

[MagiusNecros]

Magius as a fan wants Motomu Toriyama demoted to cleaning crew staff and occasional coffee maker guy. Magius know exactly what Magius want.

 

[Meccanical]

Magius as a fan wants Motomu Toriyama demoted to cleaning crew staff and occasional coffee maker guy. Magius know exactly what Magius want.

I think we ALL want less Toriyama, his run has went on long enough.

 

[MagiusNecros]

I think we ALL want less Toriyama, his run has went on long enough.

All except Grumpy. Tory is Grumpy's idol. True Story.

 

[Meccanical]

All except Grumpy. Tory is Grumpy's idol. True Story.

To the dungeon with them both.

But seriously, we just need more games not directed by Toriyama.

He can be on staff sure, just nowhere near the scenario/story department.

 

[MagiusNecros]

To the dungeon with them both.

But seriously, we just need more games not directed by Toriyama.

He can be on staff sure, just nowhere near the scenario/story department.

Type 0 for 3DS. Believe.

Uh I look forward to Bravely Default.

Revo has done a fantastic job with the music.

Recent classes that have been revealed are Devout, Magus, Dark Knight, Holy Knight.

 

[Meccanical]

Bravely Default does look really good.


But I hear whispers of them not releasing it outside of Japan.

It's like they want me to hate them, which is fine because I have 4 cases of haterade ready to go. Seriously though, they better localize it.

 

[Lumpy Onion]

All except Grumpy. Tory is Grumpy's idol. True Story.

Please stop.

 

[MagiusNecros]

Please stop.

You said please so I guess I have to comply.

On another note Square tends to not want to localize good games, but immediately announces localization plans for all the bad ones.

At least recently.

 

[Dark Schala]

You're right. Forgot about TAY.

Everyone should... >.>

So, you want a realistic, down-to-earth show... that's completely off-the-wall and swarming with magic robots?

You kids don't know what you want!

But I hear whispers of them not releasing it outside of Japan.

If they don't, then they're seriously treading Namco territory. I never thought I'd see the day when Namco localizes Tales games, but SE doesn't want to localize some of their games.

It's like we're back in the freaking 1990s only the Super Nintendo isn't new, the PC Engine isn't a marvel with respect to giving me an awesome version of Akumajo Dracula X, and FMVs aren't this new and crazy thing anymore. Also Sonic isn't as relevant as he was back then. :x

SE just did a weird time warp.

 

[Kagari]

Type 0 for 3DS. Believe.

Uh I look forward to Bravely Default.

Revo has done a fantastic job with the music.

Recent classes that have been revealed are Devout, Magus, Dark Knight, Holy Knight.

Eh, no thanks.

Type-0 really needs to benefit from 2 analog sticks. Serious hand-claw going on with just one as it is.

 

[AlphaDragoon]

Eh, no thanks.

Type-0 really needs to benefit from 2 analog sticks. Serious hand-claw going on with just one as it is.

Is the second stick needed for a camera? If so, touch screen camera controls like MH3G would be fine I'd think.

 

[APZonerunner]

Eh, no thanks.

Type-0 really needs to benefit from 2 analog sticks. Serious hand-claw going on with just one as it is.

Well, to play devil's advocate -- it survived just fine on PSP; Japanese gamers liked it.

 

[Shinta]

Well, to play devil's advocate -- it survived just fine on PSP; Japanese gamers liked it.

3DS also does have the 2nd stick add-on, and I thought Kingdom Hearts even used it. Not sure though, as I don't have a 3DS.

 

[Kagari]

Well, to play devil's advocate -- it survived just fine on PSP; Japanese gamers liked it.

One of the chief complaints is still the camera - which has been pretty much solved in Type-0's PSP version on Vita.

 

[MagiusNecros]

Eh, no thanks.

Type-0 really needs to benefit from 2 analog sticks. Serious hand-claw going on with just one as it is.

Well until SE says otherwise, I will remain adamantly selfish.

I was fine with one Analog stick.

And I'm all about me.

I hope they make a Int. Version for the extra stuff.

But Square hates me so meh.