Final Fantasy 13

[WhoAreYou?]

Because I got the game a few days ago and I'm already halfway done with the story. That's why I wanna discuss this game in general.

Anyway, anybody wanna start?

[Black Metal]

I recently got this game too (along with XII-2)! But haven't played it much though, I'm at the part where Hope starts to become like lightning after they caught the eidolon. Still a noob at FF since thirteen is my first game xD But I find the gameplay and story line amazing! Btw who's your favorite character???

[WhoAreYou?]

My favorite character in 13 is Snow. He's stubborn, but he cares. Kinda like me xD
This isn't my first FF game, 10 was. As the first 9 FF games had the ATB system and 10 didn't, then 12 went back to ATB, I have to say I'm kinda surprised with 13's ATB system. The whole auto-battle option, fast-paced battles, it was a nice modification, out of all of the FF games I've played.
The story is another thing. I already watched the walkthrough on YouTube nearly a year before I started playing the game. Even though I knew what was going to happen, I still love watching the scenes. They were actually better to watch on TV than on a crappy computer. xD
I do find one thing weird right now. I'm past the point, where you can upgrade your weapons. I'm at the chapter where (SPOILER) you have to rescue Sazh and Vanille (END OF SPOILER) and I'm fighting a bunch of enemies that can drop components that can sell for a good amout of gil. There's a component called "Turbojet" (something like that) that makes your weapons and accessories level up like crazy and you can buy a LOT of them because of the enemies you fought. It's ridiculous.
On a side note, I found one of Lightning's weapons and it was named after something I already named my X-Saber deck... "Lifesaber". xD
All in all, I love the game so far. I can't wait to do the secrets on it.

[Black Metal]

Love the game too My fav character would probably be Sazh because me and him are like the same, we both have a sense of humor but we always stay mature in a serious situation. Do you have this game on PS3 because I do

[WhoAreYou?]

Yeah, I do have it on PS3
I also got the PS3 just a few days before getting FF13 lol

[Black Metal]

Got a PS3 too hehe! What's your PSN id?

[Dr. Cakey]

I have never played a Final Fantasy game. I probably won't until XV, XVI, or at whatever point they start getting released on Nintendo consoles [s]again[/s]. But over all of six months I have become a repository of knowledge on a significant chunk of the Final Fantasy series. It's an intriguing perspective, to say the least. And so it's abundantly obvious from where I stand that Final Fantasy XIII is awful...

...is what I'd [i]like[/i] to say. It has a lot of strengths, which I'll talk about in a moment but, in much the same way that [i]Skyward Sword[/i] suddenly made [i]Twilight Princess[/i] look a lot better to me (okay, I'm in the nonexistent minority who disliked [i]Twilight Princess[/i] and hate [i]Skyward Sword[/i], so...bad example), [i]XII-2[/i] seemed to take all the stuff people complained about and change it without making it any better, and then f*** with all the good bits. So suddenly I find myself in the strange position where I'm saying, "noooooooooooooo xii-2 sux xii was wai better...nooooo dont play xii its horible!!!!"

With that long and hopefully amusing intro out of the way, my wall of text continues. Since I didn't play the game, I can't really comment on the gameplay, of course. The paradigm system seems quite interesting (although there's a flaw in the game's design the paradigm system had to be adjusted to work around, which I'll mention). I understood the crystarium in XII and not in XII-2, but that might be because the person LPing XII understood the crystarium. It's not really any different from a normal skill-learning system, just with 500x as many graphics. The game has a soundtrack I have never more at once enjoyed and despised. Technically it's excellent quality, [i]duh[/i], and it's not the faux Hollywood sound that has become quite so popular these days, which makes me happy. But it has no direction. The song "Born Anew" (final boss' battle theme, first form) illustrates my point best. The pitch probably went something like this:

"Okay, you know that thing "One-Winged Angel" does?"

"Quote the theme from [i]Psycho[/i] in the intro?"

"No, have a choir sing the villain's name."

"Oh, yeah, that."

"Right, well, what if we did that, but instead of using a crappy PS1 sound chip, we use real instruments."

"Like, an orchestra?"

"Pfft. [i]Advent Children[/i] already did that. We're going to use all the instruments."

"But -"

"ALL. THE. INSTRUMENTS. And then at the end there will be a guy singing opera."

I love this. This is so much. I'm actually getting out my FF13 rant. [i]While listening to One-Winged Angel[/i]. Moving right along, the character designs are unique in that they aren't affronts to all that is good. I would like to know why Snow's bandanna makes it look like he's wearing a beanie, or why Vanille isn't wearing pants...or a shirt, or how seriously I'm supposed to take Sazh, but nobody is wearing their belt collection as a dress, so I really have no right to complain about anything.

The characters worked, too, when they played off each other. Each character has particular relationships to one another, some of which I downright love. Lightning deflects all of her guilt onto Snow. Vanille and Sazh actually do something absolutely amazing: "f*** this Final Fantasy s***, we're out of here!". You mean like...characters might actually have flaws? And those flaws might actually...[i]affect the story in some way[/i]? When Vanille first appeared, of course I was like, "Ah, fantastic, the annoying female character. I was worried we might not have one," but then (look at this, this is interesting) she has basically her first major line when she goes to comfort Hope after his mom dies [s]in a fall Snow survives without major injury what the hell is with this s*** I mean do you guys even pay attention? No they don't, I'll get to that.[/s]

"It's too much, isn't it? Face it later."

Huh. For some reason I was expecting something different. Not sure what exactly. Oh well.

[b]Hour: 76[/b]
[b]Game Progress: 6%[/b]

*brain rewinds*

"It's too much isn't it? Face it later."

*dramatic zoom on Vanille's mouth*

"It's too much isn't it? Face it later."

*dramatic slow motion*

"It's too much isn't it? Face it later."

OH MY GOD. VANILLE IGNORES BAD EXPERIENCES AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL BLOCK BECAUSE OF HER GUILT OVER WHAT HAPPENED A BAJILLION YEARS AGO IN THAT THING THAT HAPPENED. I DON'T KNOW, THE PLOT SAID A THING HAPPENED, RIGHT? BUT YEAH THIS IS LIKE PSYCHOLOGICAL DRAMA OR SOMETHING.

But this segues directly into the game's single largest problem - in fact maybe the game's [i]only[/i] problem. Which is that the game was written, directed, and produced by monkeys. Square Enix is run and staffed exclusively by idiots. They can start a good thing, but they can't maintain it, because they have no idea which parts are good and which are not. Everything is produced the same way George Lucas made the prequels. Everyone's first idea gets put on the page, the page is dipped in money, and then a game comes out. Which is why there's a massive string of locales and whatnot...all of which connect three, let me repeat that for dramatic emphasis, [i]three [/i]events. Three things happen in the entire plot.

1. The game starts. That is, the main characters become l'Cie.
2. The main villain explains the plot.
3. The final boss happens.

There's a bunch of random crap that happens before the game begins and a ton of backstory, some of which appears nowhere but the Datalog [s]or the wiki[/s], but that's the story. In between these three events, the villain does his level best to ensure the failure of his plan, and the heroes do everything in their power to ensure its success. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say nobody knew what the f*** they were doing.

Them's the high points. I've never put this much out before. Feels good. Oh, back at the beginning I said there was a thing about the paradigms and how they highlighted an underlying flaw in the game. Well, that thing is the ATB system. Now when Final Fantasy IV came out it was a new idea, but the ATB gauge has run its course. Its only purpose is to hinder the player so they can't come up with an optimal strategy (unless you're on Wait mode, in which case an ATB gauge does nothing except make battles slightly longer). It also prevents the game from giving characters large movesets to scroll through (which is why paradigms are helpful, in that they expand the abilities available to your party). FF13 did do one thing, which is come up with ATB bar segments, but there's another kind of battle system which never gets used but combines that idea with regular turn-based battles - free-turn battle, where either each character or each party has a pool of moves they can make. So in FF13, each character would begin with 3 moves they can make per turn. Then, instead of having a handful of preset paradigm layouts, requiring you to know what fights you're going to be in beforehand, each character could switch to any paradigm they had, rather than picking from a list of layouts. But, like I said, monkeys.

[WhoAreYou?]

K

[Black Metal]

[quote name='Dr. Cakey!!' timestamp='1342303982' post='5978244']
I have never played a Final Fantasy game. I probably won't until XV, XVI, or at whatever point they start getting released on Nintendo consoles [s]again[/s]. But over all of six months I have become a repository of knowledge on a significant chunk of the Final Fantasy series. It's an intriguing perspective, to say the least. And so it's abundantly obvious from where I stand that Final Fantasy XIII is awful...

...is what I'd [i]like[/i] to say. It has a lot of strengths, which I'll talk about in a moment but, in much the same way that [i]Skyward Sword[/i] suddenly made [i]Twilight Princess[/i] look a lot better to me (okay, I'm in the nonexistent minority who disliked [i]Twilight Princess[/i] and hate [i]Skyward Sword[/i], so...bad example), [i]XII-2[/i] seemed to take all the stuff people complained about and change it without making it any better, and then f*** with all the good bits. So suddenly I find myself in the strange position where I'm saying, "noooooooooooooo xii-2 sux xii was wai better...nooooo dont play xii its horible!!!!"

With that long and hopefully amusing intro out of the way, my wall of text continues. Since I didn't play the game, I can't really comment on the gameplay, of course. The paradigm system seems quite interesting (although there's a flaw in the game's design the paradigm system had to be adjusted to work around, which I'll mention). I understood the crystarium in XII and not in XII-2, but that might be because the person LPing XII understood the crystarium. It's not really any different from a normal skill-learning system, just with 500x as many graphics. The game has a soundtrack I have never more at once enjoyed and despised. Technically it's excellent quality, [i]duh[/i], and it's not the faux Hollywood sound that has become quite so popular these days, which makes me happy. But it has no direction. The song "Born Anew" (final boss' battle theme, first form) illustrates my point best. The pitch probably went something like this:

"Okay, you know that thing "One-Winged Angel" does?"

"Quote the theme from [i]Psycho[/i] in the intro?"

"No, have a choir sing the villain's name."

"Oh, yeah, that."

"Right, well, what if we did that, but instead of using a crappy PS1 sound chip, we use real instruments."

"Like, an orchestra?"

"Pfft. [i]Advent Children[/i] already did that. We're going to use all the instruments."

"But -"

"ALL. THE. INSTRUMENTS. And then at the end there will be a guy singing opera."

I love this. This is so much. I'm actually getting out my FF13 rant. [i]While listening to One-Winged Angel[/i]. Moving right along, the character designs are unique in that they aren't affronts to all that is good. I would like to know why Snow's bandanna makes it look like he's wearing a beanie, or why Vanille isn't wearing pants...or a shirt, or how seriously I'm supposed to take Sazh, but nobody is wearing their belt collection as a dress, so I really have no right to complain about anything.

The characters worked, too, when they played off each other. Each character has particular relationships to one another, some of which I downright love. Lightning deflects all of her guilt onto Snow. Vanille and Sazh actually do something absolutely amazing: "f*** this Final Fantasy s***, we're out of here!". You mean like...characters might actually have flaws? And those flaws might actually...[i]affect the story in some way[/i]? When Vanille first appeared, of course I was like, "Ah, fantastic, the annoying female character. I was worried we might not have one," but then (look at this, this is interesting) she has basically her first major line when she goes to comfort Hope after his mom dies [s]in a fall Snow survives without major injury what the hell is with this s*** I mean do you guys even pay attention? No they don't, I'll get to that.[/s]

"It's too much, isn't it? Face it later."

Huh. For some reason I was expecting something different. Not sure what exactly. Oh well.

[b]Hour: 76[/b]
[b]Game Progress: 6%[/b]

*brain rewinds*

"It's too much isn't it? Face it later."

*dramatic zoom on Vanille's mouth*

"It's too much isn't it? Face it later."

*dramatic slow motion*

"It's too much isn't it? Face it later."

OH MY GOD. VANILLE IGNORES BAD EXPERIENCES AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL BLOCK BECAUSE OF HER GUILT OVER WHAT HAPPENED A BAJILLION YEARS AGO IN THAT THING THAT HAPPENED. I DON'T KNOW, THE PLOT SAID A THING HAPPENED, RIGHT? BUT YEAH THIS IS LIKE PSYCHOLOGICAL DRAMA OR SOMETHING.

But this segues directly into the game's single largest problem - in fact maybe the game's [i]only[/i] problem. Which is that the game was written, directed, and produced by monkeys. Square Enix is run and staffed exclusively by idiots. They can start a good thing, but they can't maintain it, because they have no idea which parts are good and which are not. Everything is produced the same way George Lucas made the prequels. Everyone's first idea gets put on the page, the page is dipped in money, and then a game comes out. Which is why there's a massive string of locales and whatnot...all of which connect three, let me repeat that for dramatic emphasis, [i]three [/i]events. Three things happen in the entire plot.

1. The game starts. That is, the main characters become l'Cie.
2. The main villain explains the plot.
3. The final boss happens.

There's a bunch of random crap that happens before the game begins and a ton of backstory, some of which appears nowhere but the Datalog [s]or the wiki[/s], but that's the story. In between these three events, the villain does his level best to ensure the failure of his plan, and the heroes do everything in their power to ensure its success. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say nobody knew what the f*** they were doing.

Them's the high points. I've never put this much out before. Feels good. Oh, back at the beginning I said there was a thing about the paradigms and how they highlighted an underlying flaw in the game. Well, that thing is the ATB system. Now when Final Fantasy IV came out it was a new idea, but the ATB gauge has run its course. Its only purpose is to hinder the player so they can't come up with an optimal strategy (unless you're on Wait mode, in which case an ATB gauge does nothing except make battles slightly longer). It also prevents the game from giving characters large movesets to scroll through (which is why paradigms are helpful, in that they expand the abilities available to your party). FF13 did do one thing, which is come up with ATB bar segments, but there's another kind of battle system which never gets used but combines that idea with regular turn-based battles - free-turn battle, where either each character or each party has a pool of moves they can make. So in FF13, each character would begin with 3 moves they can make per turn. Then, instead of having a handful of preset paradigm layouts, requiring you to know what fights you're going to be in beforehand, each character could switch to any paradigm they had, rather than picking from a list of layouts. But, like I said, monkeys.
[/quote]
You need to play a few FF games in order to understand one bro. I'll admit, FF XII does have its cons mainly because you can't explore anymore and the whole map is basically a straight path. But I really don't see anything wrong with the battles. Sure some of the bosses are a pain, but the fights are just fun to ply because it's face-paced and it limits your game plans and thinking so you just gotta think fast. Had so much fun fighting a few bosses because I had to keep switching paradigms, but the battle took like 11 minutes. But if you would like to play a good FF game, you should try playing Final Fantasy VII. Most people think it's the best game in the series

[WhoAreYou?]

[quote name='♪miura♪' timestamp='1342363755' post='5978975']

You need to play a few FF games in order to understand one bro. I'll admit, FF XII does have its cons mainly because you can't explore anymore and the whole map is basically a straight path. But I really don't see anything wrong with the battles. Sure some of the bosses are a pain, but the fights are just fun to ply because it's face-paced and it limits your game plans and thinking so you just gotta think fast. Had so much fun fighting a few bosses because I had to keep switching paradigms, but the battle took like 11 minutes. But if you would like to play a good FF game, you should try playing Final Fantasy VII. Most people think it's the best game in the series
[/quote]
People like 7 mostly because of the story, not the game play itself.
Honestly, 5 is my favorite FF game of all time, simply because of the jobs you get to choose from. I'm still playing that game and haven't beaten it yet!
If I remember correctly, I've played...
FF1 (beat it)
FF2 (haven't beaten it)
FF5 (haven't beaten it)
FF7 (haven't beaten the original game, beat Derge of Cerberus, never played Crisis Core)
FF8 (haven't beaten it)
FF9 (beat it)
FF10 (beat it)
FF12 (beat it)
FF13 (haven't beaten it, but watched the walkthrough)

Out of all FF games I've played, FF13 is actually interesting. Sure, the map is pretty much straight, but considering the whole time it took to make the game based on the graphics, what's to expect?

[Dr. Cakey]

[quote name='♪miura♪' timestamp='1342363755' post='5978975']
You need to play a few FF games in order to understand one bro. I'll admit, FF XII does have its cons mainly because you can't explore anymore and the whole map is basically a straight path. But I really don't see anything wrong with the battles. Sure some of the bosses are a pain, but the fights are just fun to ply because it's face-paced and it limits your game plans and thinking so you just gotta think fast. Had so much fun fighting a few bosses because I had to keep switching paradigms, but the battle took like 11 minutes. But if you would like to play a good FF game, you should try playing Final Fantasy VII. Most people think it's the best game in the series
[/quote]
Fast-paced? You do what 'turn-based' means, right? The ATB gauge is a device that combines the worst aspects of a real-time battle system with the worst of a turn-based system. So to compensate for the increased speed, the game has to replace inputting commands with changing paradigms. They brought back Autobattle for a reason.
[quote name='DJVD' timestamp='1342376432' post='5979131']
People like 7 mostly because of the story, not the game play itself.
Honestly, 5 is my favorite FF game of all time, simply because of the jobs you get to choose from. I'm still playing that game and haven't beaten it yet!
If I remember correctly, I've played...
FF1 (beat it)
FF2 (haven't beaten it)
FF5 (haven't beaten it)
FF7 (haven't beaten the original game, beat Derge of Cerberus, never played Crisis Core)
FF8 (haven't beaten it)
FF9 (beat it)
FF10 (beat it)
FF12 (beat it)
FF13 (haven't beaten it, but watched the walkthrough)

Out of all FF games I've played, FF13 is actually interesting. Sure, the map is pretty much straight, but considering the whole time it took to make the game based on the graphics, what's to expect?
[/quote]

If anybody's curious:
Final Fantasy IV (PSP) (Finished watching) (Work of genius. How the same company that made this could possibly have made some of these other games, I don't know)
Final Fantasy VI (Watched like two episodes. Will have to get back to this. Probably won't.)
Final Fantasy VII (My eyes. [i]My eyes[/i]. This is the worst game ever ma - OH MY GOD, THIS IS AMAZING. *change discs* Oh, okay, we're done being awesome? Sephiroth doesn't even talk anymore? Er, okay, whatever.)
[s]Final Fantasy: Advent Children[/s]
Final Fantasy VII -Crisis Core- (About halfway through, I think. Waiting for an actual complete LP that isn't terrible. One or two lines/moments that are truly brilliant. Purely by accident, I assume. Square must have a ridiculous Luck stat.)
Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus (The Dark Id, you are a wonderful, wonderful man. To go through this without suffering even one fatal hemorhage is truly astounding.)
Final Fantasy VIII (Horrible. No redeeming qualities. I like it. Huh?)
Final Fantasy IX (Barely started. The first game that made me think that maybe it's not that Square isn't very good at making games, they just [i]intentionally[/i] make games flawed in some particular aspect. It's got all the right elements, so they made the battles slow as hell, put the art through a meat grinder, and threw in a final boss at random.)
Final Fantasy X (It could have been bad, but they added voice-acting. Now it's horrible beyond belief. "But the gameplay's good!" someone said. I dunno if it is. But this game could play like [i]Portal[/i] and it still wouldn't be very good. Also, why are there still random battles? Guys, [i]Chrono Trigger[/i] didn't have random battles. [i]Chrono Trigger[/i]. This is [i]two generations [/i]later.)
Final Fantasy X-2 (Artifact from an unknown dimension. In the wrong hands, it could possess enough power to destroy the entire world. I'm sorry, this goes past being terrible so I actually have to admire it. Like, if the Final Fantasy franchise jumped the shark, then this game is the shark. If that makes sense. No, it doesn't. Never mind.)
[s]Final Fantasy XI[/s]
Final Fantasy XII (Barely started. Funny thing about this game? So far as I can tell, it ain't a JRPG. Nope. That's pretty clearly the opening for a crappy Western RPG. And you've got a mission board. Nice um...actually I haven't seen anything good about this game yet)
Final Fantasy XIII (If you like this game, I hate it. If you like XIII-2, I like this game.)
Final Fantasy XIII-2 (Keep on trucking, KungfuJesus. You'll beat this game eventually. Anybody notice how Square only makes sequels to the games whose stories literally [i]cannot[/i] have sequels? Well, yeah, that's what happened. Again. Weirdest thing about this game? If this was Final Fantasy XIV (or XV, I guess), I'd say it was good. Virtually all of this games flaws exist [i]because[/i] it is a sequel to XIII. Does that make sense?)
[s]Final Fantasy XIV[/s] (Don't know a thing about this game, but I do know it scored poorly. So if it took more than a decade for the scores to catch up with the games, well...thank, XIV. Your sacrifice must not be in vain.)

Bonus! Final Fantasy IV: The After Years (About halfway through. What the hell, Square? You're not satisfied with slaughtering FF7, and now you're off to violate FF4 as well? Why - hey...this is pretty good. Square, do you only suck when you make 3D games? That doesn't even make sense. There's definitely something going on here, and I don't know what it is. But I'll find out...)

tl;dr Radiant Historia

[Frybread002]

Finally a thread that I can vent my official Love/Hate relationship of the game!

When I first grabbed FFXIII, I actually hated the game and I still question the exact reason why I bought that game (I keep telling myself that I bought the game after my friend -TheFinalFan- had used FF based characters in this one Kingdom Hearts role-play where he used on of the FF characters as a love interest for one of my characters). The reason I hated the game when it first came out was due to the fact that I am an amature manga artist, and when I drawing the initial sketches of the heroine of the story, I based her looks off of Haley Williams, the lead singer of Paramore. So when SE first released the images of the game, I was pretty mad because I personally felt like they stole the image of my heroine in the form of Lighting. So I already had my beef with the game.

But when I did get the game, I was quite suprised to fall in love with the game; being a newbie to the FF franchise (I played a few, but only beaten Dirge of Ceberus and 10), the gameplay was completly creative and easy for me to get into and the graphics were insanely beauitful; if it wasn't for the map that appeared, I wouldn't have known the difference between gameplay and cutscene.
However, the one thing that I truely hated about the game was the story; I'm not saying the story was terrible, If you ever think about it, the story was extremely rushed and everything was 'on the spot.' So I had a hard time trying to keep up with all of these different characters doing different things. It wasn't until I read an wikipedia article and realized that the game's overall theme was 'corruption.'
For example, take Hope, Lighting, and Snow; Hope hates Snow because he blames him for the death of his mother (which is still, like, totally his fault if you ask me :\), while Lighting dislikes Snow for reasons I forgot.
So when Hope begins traveling with Lighting to get stronger to kill Snow, Lighting obliged, unaware of his intentions.
During their travels, the two encountered a dead enemy soldier and Hope tried to help him. This was where Lighting jumped in and scolded him about the essesnce of warfare, telling him to picture it like a game of chess. You do anything it takes to win.

What makes me urk, is how her mindset; In the game she's 21 and is the rank of Sergent within her local self defense force (a respectible rank that is considered to be lower class within the military). I don't have a problem with her rank, but it's just her mindset on war.
Take the four of us for example, we can all say that in order to win a war, we must treat war like a game of chess and that causulties are to be expected. That way we can be mentally prepared.
However, do all four of us actually have the guts of to make such descisions?

How that concept applies to the game, was how irritated I was to see such shallow characters in any game. I would've like to see a flashback on the reason why Lighting has such a cold personality...and...well...you gotta admit that she is pretty b*tchy in the game, so I also would've like to see why she has such a b*tchy attitude
So if the game were to take it's time telling the story, it would've been more of a success.

[Just Crouton]

I watched a portion of this game online. Frankly, games should have less story and more game/interaction. Too much story-telling and cutscenes ruins the player's interaction with the game since the game is playing itself during cutscenes, while the player waits for the game to say "you can play again." Games are meant to be played by people, not by the game itself, and watching long, boring cutscene after long, boring cutscene is not playing unless you can move around freely and directly interact with the cutscene and affect it. Chrono Trigger revolutionized the idea of running off while somebody is talking.

Anyway, I watched up to when [s]Cloud[/s] [s]the woman with Cloud's Advent Children face mold[/s] Lightning and crew escaped [s]Midgar[/s] whatever city they're in and end up on the world map. Honestly, if you dropped all/half the cutscenes from the city level, it would probably only take 20-30 minutes. Watching all those cutscenes felt like a third of the game dragged by. The boss music is terrible. Boss themes are usually thunderous and powerful to show that the enemy is unique and stronger than the stocks you've encountered through the level. This one is slow and quiet, picks up for less than a minute, then dies.

I believed I skipped ahead 5 or so videos (the uploader had 100+ videos in this playthrough, and I was up to around #20) because it was boring watching the heroes in cutscene after cutscene running around on the world map, random cuts to [s]that lolicon[/s] [s]Mamoru[/s] Snow and [s]that girl who looks like she isn't old enough to consent[/s] [s]Usagi[/s] whatever Lightning's sister name is, and Vanille, who's character traits seem to be "I'm stupid, so I'm cute," which I hate because it isn't cute. AT ALL. The only character I liked was the [s]token[/s] black guy. He comes off like the normal guy, which is a breath of fresh air from all the angst and melodrama.

From what I've seen, it doesn't look like it's worth the money for a game (and a PS3/360 to play it) where most of the game time is spent watching uninteresting characters and a black guy talk at each other. I buy video games to play them, not to watch cutscene after cutscene about things that don't really matter to gameplay.

[Dr. Cakey]

[quote]Chrono Trigger revolutionized the idea of running off while somebody is talking.[/quote]
I think Square uses Chrono Trigger as a model for what not to do in their games.

[quote]Anyway, I watched up to when [s]Cloud[/s] [s]the woman with Cloud's Advent Children face mold[/s][/quote]
Now, everybody makes this joke, but let's be honest, folks. Cloud would not wear hot pants. He would wear a skirt. [s]It's funny because it's canon.[/s]

[quote]Lightning and crew escaped [s]Midgar[/s] whatever city they're in and end up on the world map. Honestly, if you dropped all/half the cutscenes from the city level, it would probably only take 20-30 minutes. Watching all those cutscenes felt like a third of the game dragged by.[/quote]
I am curious, though. A game so cutscene-heavy would naturally be a nuisance to play, but it seems to me like it'd be more interesting to watch. FF13 was one of the first LPs I ever watched, and I found it hard to get into other LPs because there was just gameplay. But you were bored watching it. This intrigues me...

[quote]The boss music is terrible. Boss themes are usually thunderous and powerful to show that the enemy is unique and stronger than the stocks you've encountered through the level. This one is slow and quiet, picks up for less than a minute, then dies.[/quote]
This actually is related to something I else that bothers me about the game, but that I didn't bring up because I thought it might be different playing than watching. Watching, it feels like the player is disconnected from the game while in battle. All the attacks lack punch. Which is odd, because the game is chock-full of giant explosions. The final boss's Supernova Judgment Ray Cross Doom Blaster of Making Your HP 1 is so bright it [i]whites out the entire screen[/i], but it still felt very far away. And the battle music seemed quiet.

The reason for the first would actually be...the ATB gauge again. The game can't change camera angles or do any special attack animations because that would take real-time control away from the player. As for the music, who the hell knows? After XIII-2's soundtrack, I am no longer mentally capable of disliking XIII's music.

[quote]I believed I skipped ahead 5 or so videos (the uploader had 100+ videos in this playthrough, and I was up to around #20) because it was boring watching the heroes in cutscene after cutscene running around on the world map, random cuts to [s]that lolicon[/s] [s]Mamoru[/s] Snow and [s]that girl who looks like she isn't old enough to consent[/s] [s]Usagi[/s] whatever Lightning's sister name is, and Vanille, who's character traits seem to be "I'm stupid, so I'm cute," which I hate because it isn't cute. AT ALL. The only character I liked was the [s]token[/s] black guy. He comes off like the normal guy, which is a breath of fresh air from all the angst and melodrama.[/quote]
Sazh is like the Anthony Higgs of FFXIII. Take that as you will, I suppose, although no matter how much mockery I heap upon it, XIII deserves far better than to be lumped together with Other M.

[WhoAreYou?]

Jeez, with all these complaints about the game, you guys are making me curious about 13-2.

[Frybread002]

Hahahah, don't get me started on XIII-2!

If anything, the overall agreement for the original FFXIII is that the gameplay (and graphics?) are fresh and fun to play, it's just that the story was weak and had tried to go for too many different ideas.

As for XIII-2, everyone's been saying that the sequel out-does the original in everything that everyone was complaining about; story, free-roam, and improved gameplay (the only thing that sucked was the fact that the graphics was degraded....DAMN YOU SQUARE!!!). It was because of XIII-2 that made me a fan of Final Fantasy.
If you think about it, everyone who ever played the first FFXIII before the sequel was released, was part of a legacy and we -the fans/haters- were the ones who actually created the FXIII-2 game with all of our feedback.
As much as I hated the first game, I'm very grateful that I spent $80s for the pre-order on the game, as I got some artwork and the soundtrack to the game.

[Dr. Cakey]

Basically, in every respect that I - as someone [i]watching the game[/i] rather than playing it - can see, XIII-2 is simply worse than XIII. There are clearly gameplay refinements (although I don't think "they reduced the time it takes to Paradigm Shift by half a second" makes the game 11/10), but they also added in new problems. For example, people weren't quite so much fans of XII and XIII as previous FF games. And you know what those previous game had? Random encounters. Yes, they put random encounters [i]back into[/i] the game. A game released [i]in 2012, [b]on a home console[/b][/i], has random encounters. Once again, I refer you back to [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrono_Trigger"]a game almost as old as I am made by this very same company[/url].

The story, like basically everything in the game, is in a state of temporal flux. In standard history it exists, but in alternate history it does not. It definitely has nothing to do with XIII - which some might consider a good thing, but then the game would be called Final Fantasy -2, which wouldn't make sense because there isn't a Final Fantasy -1.

The music is...
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBZvtVpynXA[/media]
Welp. You decide.

Character designs are overall bad. The story is not confusing - apparently some people thought it was. It's just nonexistent. The scattered shards of "plot" elements are retarded. And I mean that literally. They represent the product of a damaged brain. The game also has no tone. One area is a tower inhabited and controlled solely by Skynet, which killed like...everyone. In Sunleth Waterscape, meanwhile, the apocalypse is imminent because the crystal pillar supporting Cocoon is about to be destroyed by a giant regenerating tomato flan.

The weirdest thing is most of this stuff I wouldn't mind so much if this game was named Final Fantasy XIV instead of Final Fantasy XIII-2. Unfortunately, a Korean developer already made an MMO called Final Fantasy XIV.

[Black Metal]

[quote name='LowDog002' timestamp='1342538451' post='5980973']
Hahahah, don't get me started on XIII-2!

If anything, the overall agreement for the original FFXIII is that the gameplay (and graphics?) are fresh and fun to play, it's just that the story was weak and had tried to go for too many different ideas.

As for XIII-2, everyone's been saying that the sequel out-does the original in everything that everyone was complaining about; story, free-roam, and improved gameplay (the only thing that sucked was the fact that the graphics was degraded....DAMN YOU SQUARE!!!). It was because of XIII-2 that made me a fan of Final Fantasy.
If you think about it, everyone who ever played the first FFXIII before the sequel was released, was part of a legacy and we -the fans/haters- were the ones who actually created the FXIII-2 game with all of our feedback.
As much as I hated the first game, I'm very grateful that I spent $80s for the pre-order on the game, as I got some artwork and the soundtrack to the game.
[/quote]
I got my copy for $20, come at meh xD Haven't played 13-2 yet since I want to finish 13, even though it's taking quite a while.

However, I do agree with you that the fans of FF basically created the game with our feedback but the gameplay almost still remains the same.

Hopefully, 13-2 will become fun for me because I have played the demo and I gotta say, it's not that bad!

[Tormented]

FFXII-2 Is much more fun IMO, it's idea of getting different monsters to fight for you in battles is ridiculously fun to do, for example you can get like 5 different chocobos each with their different skills, I must admit, people whom generally played most of the other FFs (One of such was myself) may have found it hard to go to the simplistic turn-based BS, but after a couple of hours you soon get to realize that it is so much more involving and fun to use.

Story wise I feel that it's better than most basic and simplistic save certain princess or some s*** like that it's annoying that it lacks certain plot points, for example the jump to FFXII and FFXII-2 was ridiculous it sort of just happened as per say, there wasn't much explanation for what actually went on up until the point of starting the game.

Always will be one of the better Final Fantasies IMO.

[Frybread002]

[quote name='Dr. Cakey!!' timestamp='1342551020' post='5981147']
Basically, in every respect that I - as someone [i]watching the game[/i] rather than playing it - can see, XIII-2 is simply worse than XIII. There are clearly gameplay refinements (although I don't think "they reduced the time it takes to Paradigm Shift by half a second" makes the game 11/10), but they also added in new problems. For example, people weren't quite so much fans of XII and XIII as previous FF games. And you know what those previous game had? Random encounters. Yes, they put random encounters [i]back into[/i] the game. A game released [i]in 2012, [b]on a home console[/b][/i], has random encounters. Once again, I refer you back to [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrono_Trigger"]a game almost as old as I am made by this very same company[/url].

The story, like basically everything in the game, is in a state of temporal flux. In standard history it exists, but in alternate history it does not. It definitely has nothing to do with XIII - which some might consider a good thing, but then the game would be called Final Fantasy -2, which wouldn't make sense because there isn't a Final Fantasy -1.

The music is...
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBZvtVpynXA[/media]
Welp. You decide.

Character designs are overall bad. The story is not confusing - apparently some people thought it was. It's just nonexistent. The scattered shards of "plot" elements are retarded. And I mean that literally. They represent the product of a damaged brain. The game also has no tone. One area is a tower inhabited and controlled solely by Skynet, which killed like...everyone. In Sunleth Waterscape, meanwhile, the apocalypse is imminent because the crystal pillar supporting Cocoon is about to be destroyed by a giant regenerating tomato flan.

The weirdest thing is most of this stuff I wouldn't mind so much if this game was named Final Fantasy XIV instead of Final Fantasy XIII-2. Unfortunately, a Korean developer already made an MMO called Final Fantasy XIV.
[/quote]

Uhhh...I think there may be a difference in playing the game and watching the game......

[Dr. Cakey]

[quote name='LowDog002' timestamp='1342714118' post='5982870']
Uhhh...I think there may be a difference in playing the game and watching the game......
[/quote]
I do not deny that putting variously colored coolshades on every single enemy in the game is possibly best game evar. Sadly, I cannot experience the ecstasy of putting pink star shades on a green chocobo.

[Black Metal]

[quote name='Dr. Cakey!!' timestamp='1342721577' post='5982962']
I do not deny that putting variously colored coolshades on every single enemy in the game is possibly best game evar. Sadly, I cannot experience the ecstasy of putting pink star shades on a green chocobo.
[/quote]
Sowwy, I gotta troll :3
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFZrzg62Zj0[/media]

[Raine]

I thought all this butt hurt was over a few months after its release. Look FF XIII tried something new, a more story-based dynamic linear gameplay model that has been popular with other genres and even a few RPGs. I enjoyed the game, it wasn't like the previous FFs but it had charm, an interesting story, beautful graphics, and an immersive universe. True, SquareEnix did dumb-down mechanics such as alot of the battle system especially in the beginning when battles practicably win themselves... but as someone who's gone into the post-game bosses they saved the hard stuff for those who want it in an attempt to make the game or accessible.

And for those who question whether or not a game should be watched or played... I have two titles for you; Heavy Rain and Fahrenheit. You can do both.