You'd be wrong about that. There is a fan of the game. In fact there are many.
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New Lightning Returns "13 Days" SAN DIEGO trailer
- Thread starter Perfo
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You'd be wrong about that. There is a fan of the game. In fact there are many.
I wasn't jumping on you. I just have to wonder what Nomura was doing when FF13 was released and the team had time to put a solid year of development into the game before the entire XIV fiasco. Heck, what about before FF13 was released? It just reinforces that the game was so poorly managed that it was all concept for way too long.
Well I think she claimed Lightning had chicken legs, so I'd agree she isn't a fan of the gams.
On its release, Final Fantasy XIII had the worst review scores of any Final Fantasy game in the modern era, according to Metacritic.
Final Fantasy IX: 94
Final Fantasy X: 92
Final Fantasy XII: 92
Final Fantasy VII: 92
Final Fantasy VIII: 90
Final Fantasy XI: 85
Final Fantasy X-2: 85
Final Fantasy XIII: 83
Final Fantasy XIII-2 came out and did even worse, ranking a 79 average. It'd be the lowest if not for the complete failure of Final Fantasy XIV.
Final Fantasy XIII and XIV turned a series that had been a critical juggernaut into a critical also-ran. The review scores for XIII aren't a total disaster, but they're well below what one would expect from a series with such a strong legacy.
Ah but the thing I see about the game is that the critic breakdown on meta is:
73 positive
9 mixed
1 negative
This is what I mean when people over exaggerate the games. The critical response was very positive. User response is more 50/50, or far more positive and mixed combined than negative.
edit: also there are a ton more mags and online publications now than there were years ago. Doesn't help that the genre has radically shifted toward the WRPG style.
CrimsonCrescendo
Banned
I'm not gonna debate the characters since you obviously liked them and I didn't. Unless we want to share our philosophies on what makes a good character, that's an issue not worth debating.
As per gameplay: depends on how you look at it. In exchange for more freedom:
-The difficulty was nerfed all to hell. Enemies had 1/4 to 1/3 of their original health; they had a fraction of their original strength stat; and a fraction of their original magic stat. There were times I purposefully mashed X while not looking at the screen to see if I could win... and yes, I always did. XIII discouraged use of the auto battle after Chapter 6 as it became less and less efficient and honestly started choosing the wrong attacks. XIII-2 didn't have that.
-The is little to no balancing between monsters. I maybe used 5% of the monsters I obtained since some were just blatantly better than the others. And no, I shouldn't have to handicap myself. XIII did a much better job making sure all characters had their strengths and weaknesses so that each set up couldn't be said to be handicapping yourself (unless you were an idiot about your paradigms).
-The increased emphasis on speed decreased the emphasis on strategy. Back in XIII, I was constantly changing paradigms just to survive. XIII-2? Commandos and Ravagers all day, every day. The Synergist and Saboteur roles were nerfed all to hell, so I rarely ever used them. The Medic and Sentinel roles were much less useful as all the enemies did a fraction of the damage and the battles were usually over before I even had to think about using one.
-The leveling system was bunk. If its a choice between being prevented from leveling due to caps but having a balanced game or not having caps and having a broken game, I'll take level caps. I actively avoided grinding and sidequests during the main story and I was still over leveled. Seriously, it's impossible to not be over leveled.
-They apparently took the complaints about not being able to backtrack to heart since they now integrated backtracking into several sections of the main story. Or it was blatant padding to an already short story mode. Or both.
-The Feral Link mechanic is a glorified QTE system. One which I made very little use of (maybe I was using it wrong, but I never once had to rely on it to win anything).
-It's fine to add in a bunch of QTE moments throughout, but actually punish the player if they fail. Seriously: Game Design 101. The only thing that happens if you fail is that Serah and Noel look like a bunch of bumbling idiots and you don't get an a good item. Big Deal. You can purposefully fail the entire time and nothing bad will happen.
-The dialogue tree implementation was half-assed. The story, except in a few rare cases with the paradox endings, is never affected by the choice of dialogue. Hell, most of the choices are blatantly joke choices and make Serah look like she has a mental defect.
-SCREW ACADEMIA AF 400! Yeah, here's some great game design: Make it impossible to escape from battles and have the player encounter an enemy ever 5 steps! And then make it so that the entire level is a maze so that, more often than not, the player gets lost first time through! Thus turning what should be a straight forward affair into an inescapable 2 to 3 hour grind fest that will leave you severely overpowered and frustrated all the same.
-FUCK ACADEMIA AF 500! Yes Square, it's great you finally let us jump freely. But again, in their infinite wisdom, they designed an entire set piece around platforming. Just... why?
-Fuck some of the fragment requirements, especially the Slot Machines.
-The length. Seriously, without all the backtracking, shoddy level design forcing you to waste time, and the return of a constant barrage of cutscenes (I wouldn't mind it if the dialogue was even semi-competent) this game would be 7 to 10 hours long.
Just some of the issues I had with XIII-2's gameplay. And while it wasn't a hallway anymore, it was a glorified maze with disjointed set pieces and reused assets. To me, XIII was the better game. You don't have to agree, but you did ask for elaboration.
PshycoNinja
Member
Spin that record DJ. Spin it real good.
Fake edit: XIII-2 question/spoiler: I just finished Requiem of the Goddess.
At the end of Requiem of the Goddess the game makes it seem like Lightning doomed Serah and because she felt bad about Serah's death she doomed everyone again. Splendid. Is this correct?
If this is indeed correct why should I feel bad about Lightnings situation again? I see at the end of the DLC they try to explain her big character change.... badly.
Real Edit:
I love how you guys blame this
fake
Well, FFXIII-2 is very similar to FFX-2 to be coincidental. Easier difficulty, overpowered abilities, length (both are short without doing any side quests but with them included, the game is nearly double the length), lacks of backtracking etc. Oh and every FFXIII minigame over Sphere Break....
Meta critic is meh. Game rankings is a little better, and I think the game has an 85% there (PS3 at least). I mean it's lower than the others, but lets not pretend that other franchises havent had lower scoring titles. Like RE6 for example, a game which was destroyed in reviews.
( ಠ ಠ ) What FF13 minigames?
Sphere Break was bad only if you suck at math. Considering your previous posts on numbers, it's pretty obvious why you don't like Sphere Break.
maybe he means 13-2 and he would still be wrong imo
CrimsonCrescendo
Banned
The Dreadnaught section with Hope and hide and go seek with Choco chic were considered mingames. And the Chocobo digging on Pulse was considered a minigame.
PshycoNinja
Member
CrimsonCrescendo
Banned
If you read the Fragments After, Lightning pulled another XIII ending and went "Despite being told that Serah will die... I BELIEVE IN HER! SHE'LL MAKE IT DESPITE IT BEING FATE! All the odds are stacked against her, I have no idea what I'm doing... but I believe that Serah will succeed like the perfect little angel I believe her to be!" She is then shocked when Serah dies. Or something like that.
Yeah...
Personally, I chalk it up to "Lightning thought she could see everything from Valhalla, but obviously she was wrong and didn't see that. And the only reason why she went to Serah was because she was desperate after countless 900 year loops (which is what happened, and she was aware of all of them)" Seriously, what the hell is it with Toriyama and having the character act likes idiots while they wait for "miracles"? And what the hell is it with the writers and glorifying Serah every chance they get?
Whoops, I mean all the FF13 series minigames (chocobo digging in 13, Serendipity in XIII-2).
FFX-2 is much better than 13-2 strictly from a gameplay perspective. The world in X-2 was a true open world and the were lots of little details sprinkled over the world that you could discover over many play throughs. FF13-2 suffers from repetition of areas and a very intrusive "world map" known as the historia crux. It leads to very long load times and breaks up the immersion.
A better , more seamless world could come down to the fact that X-2 had better assets ready for it from X though.
serah's is coming back..I don't think there is any doubt about that (unfortunately)..FFX,X-2 ENDING SPOILER
They brought back Tidus in X-2..Something I despise and I don't even consider canon at all...Trivializing FFX's ending just like that.
Covers a lot of my issues with the game. My main being SAB and SYN being useless. Coming from XIII I ventured through the game on the idea that they would be extremely important and so I invested all my points into those respective roles and left Medic untouched because my pokemon covered that. So I ended up at the final boss with a useless medic and not enough MED/other roles to beat the final boss. The problem with this is the points needed to level roles grows exponentially on a single value, rather than separate vales like FFXIII, so you're pretty much fucked and I spent more time finding a place with monsters than would be worthwhile to kill, just to get a few basic role skills I would need to beat the boss.
Also didn't the game have a higher difficulty option when you beat it? I never got around to playing again so I've no idea if that made things more fun. Or maybe there wasn't.
I vastly prefer XIII, but I can understand why people prefer XIII-2 if they're adamant about the whole 'feeling of freedom' thing stuff.
So it's a JRPG, gotcha.
Not to mention the battle system was one of the best of any FF in X-2 and XIII-2's was a heavy downgrade from XIII as Crimson pointed out. Gimped on number of characters and useful paradigms.
CrimsonCrescendo
Banned
Either she comes back at the end of LR "in the new world" or some weird shit is gonna happen in a classic Toriyama/Wantanabe wombo combo against the concept of logic (I seriously doubt they'll have Serah's death stick, so I'm assuming one of those two things is gonna happen). Personally, the story ended with XIII. I'm keeping up with LR out of a sense of morbid curiosity.
D
Deleted member 20920
Unconfirmed Member
Yeah...They should have kept it as liberator. Sounds less crazy for Lightning. As far as I know, the Chinese translation just keeps the term liberator also. Basically the same set of kanji characters but in Chinese.
...
SOLD!
Not really, I already had my pre-order [I'm ashamed to admit, the Cloud/Buster Sword DLC pushed me to make the purchase -_-] but even still, the above screenshot definitely helps the case.
Edit - Never mind. Is this only available to those with a PS3 save for Realm Reborn on their PS3? I'm buying the PC version.
Perfo
Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
The developers call them continents. That's why I spoke of continents. You can call them whatever you like, there are four of them + the ending area behind the clouds. That's the point.
Btw, the japanese trailer features some small differences:
Yes it's legit, just Kagari is failing to admit it for some reason.
As for it being scrapped or not we can't say, but even today if you look at the most recent artwork you clearly see a land behind the borders of the clouds. They're just there to hide something, maybe a castle, maybe the same mountain, maybe the collapsed Eden or even Midargd from FF7 (!!!!) connecting the plot to Cloud & co. But there's something there and I'm 100% sure. You can see that for yourself.
Finally she did.
Perfo
Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
I'm pretty sure instead that Versus was coming along like XIV, that means they couldn't make the game run decently on that hardware and on that engine and that their ideas for it was not coming out well. Thus the fear to release another crappy product like XIV. They decided to move the project to a new engine and new console while forcing the current teams (mostly XIII heads) to use whatever they had ready (assets ect.) and farm out games to buy time. That's what probably happened.
An hint about Serah being alive is in XIII-2 itself, it's obvious she didn't really die, just her soul leaving the world for Valhalla (then probably reincarnated as Lumina while the real Serah is stuck somewhere else). Lightning going to save her is the main point of the plot together with the "save the world" stuff. I just hope Lightning dies at the end in some heroic way. Considering Toriyama loves killing his protagonists and does that always in a very cool way, I hope this is the case again. Especially because I can't stand TOTAL happy-endings. My favorite endings in the series? Crisis Core, FFX, FFXIII-2. You can guess why... lol.
BlazingDarkness
Member
Good trailer, and it looks like the framerate isn't ass anymore either.
It's well edited. They don't show you any shots of her running through the environment which have always been the spots where the frame dropping is obvious. I'm guessing it's for that specific reason; The frame rate is terrible, has been in every trailer, and will be at launch.
Razgriz-Specter
Member
Is it just me or are they pushing this game really hard a little too early.
I was amazed when I saw that it wasn't coming out till Feb.
Since before E3 its had this marketing push like its coming out in only a few weeks to a month at the latest.
I was amazed when I saw that it wasn't coming out till Feb.
Since before E3 its had this marketing push like its coming out in only a few weeks to a month at the latest.
Perfo
Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
The framerate is 30fps rock solid in the only gameplay footage we got:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjC1WB4tOxo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWz1zNnJqvg
Then if you want to keep saying to yourself that it runs shit, do it. But those videos suggest something else.
And we're still 3 months away, this stuff (polishing ect.) are usually handled at the final stretches of devevelopment.
It's out in November in Japan, not that far.
grandjedi6
Master of the Google Search
The premise of the story is intriguing: everyone ends up living in perpetuity for 500 years before learning the world is going to end in 13 days. I just have no faith in Toriyama telling that story even half-way decently.
Perfo
Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
Everytime I see the desert area I'm in love with its graphics, then you see Luxerion and it's really terrible, lol. I wonder what happened with that, maybe just a combination of bad style x plain textures. The desert sections and Luxerion seems coming out from two different games, ahah.
Can't wait to see the Wild Lands and possibly the Mountain region...
Can't wait to see the Wild Lands and possibly the Mountain region...
I guess I should have ignored those numbers and just focused on the amount of positive reviews. Because when they say things like, "The game is still worth buying, but it doesn't quite feel as complete as its well-loved predecessors," "Thank goodness for the battle system, then, because it saves the game while you're wincing through the saccharine banter and waiting for the training wheels to spin off," and "Final Fantasy XIII may not live up to the hype, but any fan of Japanese-style RPGs will find a lot to like here," who needs a mixed review?
After all, when positive reviewers say, "Final Fantasy seems to have fallen in a rut," you know you're on the right track.
Razgriz-Specter
Member
No I just mean in the US. even seen a few commercials on tv already.
CosmicGroinPull
Member
...
SOLD!
Not really, I already had my pre-order [I'm ashamed to admit, the Cloud/Buster Sword DLC pushed me to make the purchase -_-] but even still, the above screenshot definitely helps the case.
Edit - Never mind. Is this only available to those with a PS3 save for Realm Reborn on their PS3? I'm buying the PC version.
??? *#$%^&@@#$!!!!
Well played, Square. Well played. Guess I'm getting FFXIV....
Perfo
Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
Yeah it's a bit early but wouldn't make much sense releasing footage only for Japan. I mean it'll mean going back in time when Japan marketing was something and Western another. S-E now acts as one in regards to its big titles so it only makes sense to market the two releases at the same time. Sadly we get the game only later than japs though.
I'm definitely going to stop watching trailers with TGS, usually there S-E pulls out 6-7mins trailers that sums up all the story of their imminent games, so better to not look at those if you don't want the story spoilered from start to end. Maybe I'll just listen to the theme song announced with that final trailer and that's it. The game seems to have a really interesting story and setting so I don't want to know too much of it before playing.
Perfo
Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
In my opinion FFXIII's feedback has more to do with wRPGs taking over than not with its merits and limits. If FFXIII came out in 2004/2006, the reception could've been largely different. Oblivion and Mass Effect on consoles changed the way the console players looked at RPGs, including jRPGs.
They're being much more aggressive and present than what's typical, yes. Probably because XIII-2 bordered on disastrous, sales-wise.
It's interesting though, watching them sort of struggle to give the game appeal. FF is a series that has always sort of sold itself and I don't think the franchise has lost that. FFXV's trailer kind of looks like a generic character action game, but people still went nuts.
LR doesn't have that. XIII-2 didn't either and the numbers reflected it. SE seems to be trying to shift that with the constant media, the very pop culture, very Anerican-feeling trailers, the delay for the western release, and the events they're bringing the game to. They've still got GamesCom and TGS and they'll probably bring the game to PAX as well, since they did Comic-Con.
Frostinferno
Member
I don't think they would just alienate the 360 fanbase like that (or those getting the PC version). At least, I certainly hope not.
I'm liking it. I hope this happens with all their big releases from now on.
I dont think it had anything to do with WRPGs, I dont care about WRPGs at all and have played almost every FF and 13 is the only one I could not even be bothered to finish. FFXIII pretty much destroyed everything FF. Straight corridors with cutscene > battle > cutscene with a 15 hours tutorial. And a story that didn't even make enough sense to grip you.
I'm inclined to agree to a certain extent.
Razgriz-Specter
Member
As long as they can keep it up till then.
Makes little sense to me as well. Not that I believe Perfo would be more indicated. Personally I find him to be a bit too hyperbolically positive toward the game (though it's sorta understandable given the level of hyperbolic hate the game gets on here).
But Kagari doing it feels weird, since at this point she simply soured on everything surrounding the game/trilogy.
Perfo
Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
There's only one thing wrong with their intentions. While they're trying to market the game as a western-appealing game, it's everything except appealing to us in the way they crafted it. What they don't get is that we're not japanese players and certain stuff, the waifu stuff and all, appeals ONLY to japanese players or the very otaku's ones here. They want to be an international company but they're doing it in the wrong way as is now. It was acceptable in the past because all there was in regards to RPGs on consoles was mostly jRPGs, so players were used to see ugly rabbits as team members (xenogears) and all those sort of ridicolous stuff you used to see in every single RPG, but today with wRPGs being everywhere and playing serious (marines, orcs, grunts, sex and blood) we can't take too seriously Lightning dressed as a Miqote or an elegant dress. Players here simply don't get it and don't find it horny, but embarassing. Japanese players though love it, but S-E must choose to stand inbetween the two cultures like they did with 7-8-9-12 and 13. I've seen they went back on being serious with XV so maybe it all has to do with spinoffs and all where probably devs are more free to do what they like... but they can't hope to reach again the mass market with titles like this (maybe they don't even want?).
Lightning Returns seems very NiER in its soul. A game the developers wanted to do but most of players didn't even understand. Of this I'm glad because I'll play a beautiful experimental game made by S-E again, but the mass will not get it sadly. Because of stupid choices like dresses.
I don't want to make any OT anyway, the topic will be full of haters and stressing on my part. Everytime I'd like to talk about the game in one of these topics, we end up talking of S-E, FF and Toriyama in general. It goes so far that even if I say there's an original art featuring a mountain certain users say it's not true. It's very tiring.
I guess it's plausible that games like Mass Effect raised the standards for writing in the game industry such that titles like FFXIII wouldn't fly anymore. But I don't think that's necessarily the case. I mean, Persona 4 was a post-Oblivion/ME game, and that had a Metacritic of 90.
But there are plenty of common criticisms in these reviews that are pretty unique to FFXIII, particularly those related to its hours upon hours of linear training. Many reviews explicitly contrast the game's faults not with WRPGs, but with the standards of earlier Final Fantasy titles, bemoaning the paucity of sidequests and the game's suffocating linearity.
The writing is a downgrade compared to the previous game in the series, FF XII.
The gameplay is a downgrade compared to nearly every game in the series.
Those destroy FF XIII. Meanwhile western RPGs got a bit dumber in the dialogue department, yet it still couldn't match those anyway. It looked good and had nice music, and that was about all there was to it.
GreenMakoEyes
Member
maybe I am one of those who doesn't understand that fact. For me, the game feels like a less-than-ideal solution since the majority of the development team(s) responsible for high end FFs is/are workling on FFXIV:RRB and FFXV. Just to have a stopgap.. but maybe thats just me.
So basically, you're blaming other, better games for the negative view of your favorite game? The fact is, FF13 came out in 2010, and clearly its ideas and concepts were not ambitious or revolutionary by the time it released. Other games have taken the lead in both story and gameplay design, however arguable the quality of both are.
Re: Continents
So you will just blindly accept whatever the director and producer tell you, without questioning it? When Kitase and Toriyama have had a history of exaggerating the features and aspects of their games? I'm sorry, but those aren't continents. Those are 2 regions and 2 cities. You can pretend this game is going to be huge all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that something of that size is not a continent even if you combine all the areas together.
I'm of the opposite opinion, that the successive games 13-2 and LR are projects the director doesn't want to do, but has no choice but to do them. The key point being how quickly he dropped his original cast and world concepts in 13-2, subbing in another genki girl to replace Vanille (who is the main character of 13's actual plot), and just as easily how he tossed everything in 13 and 13-2 aside to make the world of Lightning Returns. Moreover, he doesn't seem to particularly treasure his characters, but rather he is stuck using Lightning because she has unfortunately become the face of his series, and still he manages to sneak in another new girl of the same type as Vanille and Serah. If he genuinely wants to work on these games, why does he continuously abandon his setting and characters?
It's also very presumptuous of you to always speak for the FF fanbase, because it consists of more than you, and to say that we "didn't even understand" the game before it even came out is quite stupid, because you stand in the same place we do.
The problem here is not that Kagari doesn't acknowledge the mountain on the map, but that the mountain is clearly removed, but you insist on believing that it still exists in the game. Until the game comes out, it is not a subject of who is right and wrong, but a difference in belief. You can wait until you get the game and find the mountain to crow your victory.
Moreover, the art has been replaced, so the current version of the original art features no mountain. The posters saying that the art doesn't have the mountain have legitimate reason to say so. Stop playing victim.