final fantasy 13

[Guest hydrozone]

nobody plays FF games for the story (except for teh lulz), they play it for the awesome combat and spell effects.

I dunno, for me 7 was quite the opposite. I thought the graphics etc. weren't anything special and by the time you've seen knights of the round for the billionth time you end up feeling quite nauseous, the story on the other hand had all sorts of lovely twists and turns in it that kept me gripped. Anything beyond 7 seems to have the plot of cosplayers fan scripts that you'd see on some terrifying site using Comic Sans.

 

 

I totally agree. I was a fan of FF7, it was on PS1 so graphic wise it was not great (I did enjoy summoning the behemoth, etc though) but the story was ace.

Then a few years after, I decided to buy another one and see how it evolved, and had the shitty idea to pick the 10. Bloody hell that was crap (if I remember well you need to have dance routines to fight?).

Got the 12 also, I was not impressed...

 

I actually work in the same building than Square-Enix London...maybe I should go there and have a tantrum?

[Macca]

I'll just wait a few months and get it cheap.

[TwiddleBot]

have always enjoyed this series and i think the early snes games are partially responsible for getting me interested in electronic music. (magitek factory anyone?) probably krautrock as well now that i think about it..

 

i pull out the old games occasionally for nostalgia.. but honestly i much prefer the ps2 games.. just more varied, much faster paced.. especially xii--huge, much more open than previous games, no repetitive battle backgrounds, your party can be split up all over the place, lots of challenging enemies, much more fun to play

 

been a while since i had time to play games though! will probably try xiii sometime when i'm stuck in bed with a cold and can't do anything for a few days.

[Retape]

who the fuck needs this gay final fantasy shit when you have mass effect 2.

 

edit: really tho, don't expect your usual final fantasy with this one. it seems to be a bit more god of war-like almost?

[Guest Lube Saibot]

nobody plays FF games for the story

 

I've played most FF's for the story (as well). 6, 7, 8, 9 all sport involving enveloping stories. 7 and 9 especially pulled my heartstrings quite a few times. Those preceding and including 5 are more on the generic side story- and setting-wise (light vs dark, elemental crap, etc), but the world of fantasy storytelling was much younger back then. 10 almost had a great story but... Tidus . And Wakka . And everything along that line. 11 i haven't played and probably never will, same goes for 12, same goes for X-2.

 

So yeah, hope 13 doesn't disappoint story-wise.

[mcbpete]

10 almost had a great story but... Tidus . And Wakka .

Yeah Jesus man, absolutely hateful characters. I got as far as the underwater speedball type game and just though fuck this I'm out.

[Guest Enter a new display name]

I think nostalgia is mostly responsible for people's love for Final Fantasy VII. Now we grow older, Square(soft/Enix) has developed thousands of games in the Final Fantasy series, and that company becomes less and less careful in the production as time goes on.

[Solo Strike]

nobody plays FF games for the story (except for teh lulz), they play it for the awesome combat and spell effects.

I dunno, for me 7 was quite the opposite. I thought the graphics etc. weren't anything special and by the time you've seen knights of the round for the billionth time you end up feeling quite nauseous, the story on the other hand had all sorts of lovely twists and turns in it that kept me gripped. Anything beyond 7 seems to have the plot of cosplayers fan scripts that you'd see on some terrifying site using Comic Sans.

 

 

I totally agree. I was a fan of FF7, it was on PS1 so graphic wise it was not great (I did enjoy summoning the behemoth, etc though) but the story was ace.

Then a few years after, I decided to buy another one and see how it evolved, and had the shitty idea to pick the 10. Bloody hell that was crap (if I remember well you need to have dance routines to fight?).

Got the 12 also, I was not impressed...

 

I actually work in the same building than Square-Enix London...maybe I should go there and have a tantrum?

 

You're talking about FF10-2, the sequel, which was lamentable by anyone's standard. 10 was actually pretty solid in my opinion

[TwiddleBot]

agreed.. first game in the series i played that i enjoyed enough to ridiculously max out the characters.. fun gameplay+stats system.. weird off the wall premise and ending (although i suppose in typical squeenix fashion they take it a bit too over the top)

[Guest Grizz]

I haven't played a FF game since 9 (Went off consoles for a bit) and bought this. Only a couple of hours in which drag and explain the game really but it looks stunning. Not too bothered about the lack of open world since every adventure & RPG game under the sun goes for that these days. As long as its fun as you go along I'm not too fussed. Think my Sunday afternoon is gonna be occupied on it.

[Joyrex]

Tidus aside (I didn't mind Wakka so much, as he was a loveable dumb lump), I really liked X; I wished I had finished it (I stopped near the very end, and that's when I got out of video games for a while as I didn't have any free time to play them).

 

I'm going to plow through God of War III and some other games before I consider tackling XIII.

[Guest Lube Saibot]

I'm going to plow through God of War III and some other games before I consider tackling XIII.

 

Did you finish GoW Collection? I was having fun with it until the GODAMN FUCKING SPIKE PILLARS! FUCK FUCK FUCK. :facepalm: Some people complained about Dante's Inferno or Bayonetta being too difficult. Having just plowed though both of those, i can safely say that it's true what that say: games are getting easier and easier. I'd forgotten, but both GoW and GoW2 have incredibly fucking cheap moments that spike difficulty up tenfold. Not as much can be said about newer games.

 

I just started playing GoW2, i can't be arsed to do that shit. Hope GoW3 follows the current trend of coddling players, i'm getting far less competitive these days.

[Joyrex]

I'm going to plow through God of War III and some other games before I consider tackling XIII.

 

Did you finish GoW Collection? I was having fun with it until the GODAMN FUCKING SPIKE PILLARS! FUCK FUCK FUCK. :facepalm: Some people complained about Dante's Inferno or Bayonetta being too difficult. Having just plowed though both of those, i can safely say that it's true what that say: games are getting easier and easier. I'd forgotten, but both GoW and GoW2 have incredibly fucking cheap moments that spike difficulty up tenfold. Not as much can be said about newer games.

 

I just started playing GoW2, i can't be arsed to do that shit. Hope GoW3 follows the current trend of coddling players, i'm getting far less competitive these days.

 

No, I'm stuck on Hades' chamber in GoW 1 (the part where you have to walk across the balance beams with the spinning blades) [insert FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU--- guy here]... thought it was gonna be an easy Platinum trophy, and I already missed one (rescuing the Oracle with 10 seconds to spare), so I'm gonna have to play through again to get that one.

 

From what I've heard, GoW III is the right balance between the first two games. Should be fun. I'm waiting for Bayonetta to drop down to 30USD and then I'll pick it up - it looks great, just not 60USD great.

[YEK]

bayonetta is wicked. it's like one boss after another with crazy character designs

[plstik]

I'm going to plow through God of War III and some other games before I consider tackling XIII.

 

Did you finish GoW Collection? I was having fun with it until the GODAMN FUCKING SPIKE PILLARS! FUCK FUCK FUCK. :facepalm: Some people complained about Dante's Inferno or Bayonetta being too difficult. Having just plowed though both of those, i can safely say that it's true what that say: games are getting easier and easier. I'd forgotten, but both GoW and GoW2 have incredibly fucking cheap moments that spike difficulty up tenfold. Not as much can be said about newer games.

 

I just started playing GoW2, i can't be arsed to do that shit. Hope GoW3 follows the current trend of coddling players, i'm getting far less competitive these days.

 

No, I'm stuck on Hades' chamber in GoW 1 (the part where you have to walk across the balance beams with the spinning blades) [insert FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU--- guy here]... thought it was gonna be an easy Platinum trophy, and I already missed one (rescuing the Oracle with 10 seconds to spare), so I'm gonna have to play through again to get that one.

I've finished gow ~1 year ago with everything except god mode. hard wasnt that frustrating thanks the additional costumes, but god was just

 

edit: erm with Final Fantasy, I've played all the ps1 titles and X. Now 13 got my attention again. FF8 was my favourite, mostly because I loved Ragnarok

[Joyrex]

I'm going to plow through God of War III and some other games before I consider tackling XIII.

 

Did you finish GoW Collection? I was having fun with it until the GODAMN FUCKING SPIKE PILLARS! FUCK FUCK FUCK. :facepalm: Some people complained about Dante's Inferno or Bayonetta being too difficult. Having just plowed though both of those, i can safely say that it's true what that say: games are getting easier and easier. I'd forgotten, but both GoW and GoW2 have incredibly fucking cheap moments that spike difficulty up tenfold. Not as much can be said about newer games.

 

I just started playing GoW2, i can't be arsed to do that shit. Hope GoW3 follows the current trend of coddling players, i'm getting far less competitive these days.

 

No, I'm stuck on Hades' chamber in GoW 1 (the part where you have to walk across the balance beams with the spinning blades) [insert FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU--- guy here]... thought it was gonna be an easy Platinum trophy, and I already missed one (rescuing the Oracle with 10 seconds to spare), so I'm gonna have to play through again to get that one.

I've finished gow ~1 year ago with everything except god mode. hard wasnt that frustrating thanks the additional costumes, but god was just

 

Yeah, it's not really hard, per se, but you do have to have patience in some spots. Don't expect to breeze through.

[747Music]

I'm going to plow through God of War III and some other games before I consider tackling XIII.

 

Did you finish GoW Collection? I was having fun with it until the GODAMN FUCKING SPIKE PILLARS! FUCK FUCK FUCK. :facepalm: Some people complained about Dante's Inferno or Bayonetta being too difficult. Having just plowed though both of those, i can safely say that it's true what that say: games are getting easier and easier. I'd forgotten, but both GoW and GoW2 have incredibly fucking cheap moments that spike difficulty up tenfold. Not as much can be said about newer games.

 

I just started playing GoW2, i can't be arsed to do that shit. Hope GoW3 follows the current trend of coddling players, i'm getting far less competitive these days.

 

No, I'm stuck on Hades' chamber in GoW 1 (the part where you have to walk across the balance beams with the spinning blades) [insert FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU--- guy here]... thought it was gonna be an easy Platinum trophy, and I already missed one (rescuing the Oracle with 10 seconds to spare), so I'm gonna have to play through again to get that one.

 

No worries Joyrex, you have to play the game through a second time anyways to get the Speed of Jason McDonald (Beat the game in under 5 hours on any Difficulty) trophy.

[Guest Grizz]

I'm going to plow through God of War III and some other games before I consider tackling XIII.

 

Did you finish GoW Collection? I was having fun with it until the GODAMN FUCKING SPIKE PILLARS! FUCK FUCK FUCK. :facepalm: Some people complained about Dante's Inferno or Bayonetta being too difficult. Having just plowed though both of those, i can safely say that it's true what that say: games are getting easier and easier. I'd forgotten, but both GoW and GoW2 have incredibly fucking cheap moments that spike difficulty up tenfold. Not as much can be said about newer games.

 

I just started playing GoW2, i can't be arsed to do that shit. Hope GoW3 follows the current trend of coddling players, i'm getting far less competitive these days.

 

No, I'm stuck on Hades' chamber in GoW 1 (the part where you have to walk across the balance beams with the spinning blades) [insert FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU--- guy here]... thought it was gonna be an easy Platinum trophy, and I already missed one (rescuing the Oracle with 10 seconds to spare), so I'm gonna have to play through again to get that one.

I've finished gow ~1 year ago with everything except god mode. hard wasnt that frustrating thanks the additional costumes, but god was just

 

Yeah, it's not really hard, per se, but you do have to have patience in some spots. Don't expect to breeze through.

That Platinum isn't easy because theres the challenges to do at the end. I got to the second one and fucked it off as it was bloody hard. I missed a few things on the first run through anyway. Actually lent the collection to my mate even though I'm only about 20% through number 2 as I've got FF13 and new GOW to spend time on. GOWC is still good for trophies though, some insanely easy golds on them.

[playbynumbers]

I dunno, for me 7 was quite the opposite. I thought the graphics etc. weren't anything special and by the time you've seen knights of the round for the billionth time you end up feeling quite nauseous, the story on the other hand had all sorts of lovely twists and turns in it that kept me gripped. Anything beyond 7 seems to have the plot of cosplayers fan scripts that you'd see on some terrifying site using Comic Sans.

 

 

maybe it's different if you played it age 14 (like i did), when the graphics/cutscenes were brand new to the FF series. i really feel nothing will ever top that game, in a certain sense; but this is probably at least 50% nostalgia.

 

 

 

 

So yeah, hope 13 doesn't disappoint story-wise.

 

IT DISAPPOINTS STORY-WISE.

[Joyrex]

I dunno, for me 7 was quite the opposite. I thought the graphics etc. weren't anything special and by the time you've seen knights of the round for the billionth time you end up feeling quite nauseous, the story on the other hand had all sorts of lovely twists and turns in it that kept me gripped. Anything beyond 7 seems to have the plot of cosplayers fan scripts that you'd see on some terrifying site using Comic Sans.

 

 

maybe it's different if you played it age 14 (like i did), when the graphics/cutscenes were brand new to the FF series. i really feel nothing will ever top that game, in a certain sense; but this is probably at least 50% nostalgia.

 

 

 

 

So yeah, hope 13 doesn't disappoint story-wise.

 

IT DISAPPOINTS STORY-WISE.

 

You've already finished the game?

[encey]

The New York Times reviewed it!

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/arts/television/15fantasy.html?hpw

 

text:

A Stunning Landscape, Seen Mostly From Afar

Square Enix Inc.

 

Final Fantasy XIII: In this game, from Square Enix, the characters are tossed together by fate to save the world and reveal some subtlety over time.

 

By SETH SCHIESEL

Published: March 14, 2010

 

Interminably gorgeous and tediously impressive.

 

That is Final Fantasy XIII: a milestone of artistic conception and technical execution that has been egregiously undermined by obstinately prosaic overall design.

 

This game, the latest entry in the king of Japanese role-playing game franchises, does exactly two things at a world-class level. Most important, it sets a new standard in digital animation that Hollywood must pay attention to. In addition, the game’s second-to-second battle system is tight and intelligently crafted.

 

The problem is that Final Fantasy XIII consists of little more than a predefined, linear sequence of perhaps 1,000 of those battles stitched together with extremely pretty pictures over the course of anywhere from 50 to 70 hours.

 

A great game cannot be both this linear and this long. Making Final Fantasy XIII really sing would have required either cutting the game in half or, preferably, letting players jump off the rails in a much more meaningful way to direct their own experience. Forget about a gilded cage. This game feels like a gilded cocoon.

 

And wouldn’t you know, Cocoon is the name of the planetoid where you will spend much of this game trudging along virtual corridors in some of the most attractive and least interactive virtual environments around. (The other part of the game is spent on a planet called Pulse that appears at times to be more open but that is actually dominated by yet more corridors.)

 

Square Enix, which released the game in North America last week for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, knew the risk it was taking. At E3, the big annual video game trade convention, I once asked a Square Enix designer how he thought of the difference between the North American and Japanese approaches to role-playing games. His answer was illustrative.

 

North American role-playing gamers, he said, want to feel that they are in control. They want to design their own characters, and then they want to be set loose in an environment in which they can shape the world and its story according to their own choices.

 

He was absolutely correct. The top Western role-playing games of recent years — Dragon Age: Origins, Fable II, Fallout 3 and the Mass Effect games (not to mention online games like Eve and World of Warcraft) — have been built around the concept of player agency. Japanese players, he went on, have a different taste in role-playing games: They want to be presented with characters and a story that have been meticulously created and shaped for their consumption.

 

He was clearly onto something. The idea of creating your own characters and determining major events in a game narrative through your own choices is alien to Japanese design philosophy. But the key point that Square Enix seems to have missed with Final Fantasy XIII is that pre-scripting characters and a definite story line are not antithetical to allowing you to explore and progress through that story in your own way and at your own pace.

 

Previous Final Fantasy games did just that. They were full of optional side quests and mini-games, and interesting environments to explore and characters to encounter, even while control of the main story line was never in the player’s grasp. All that is gone now. In Final Fantasy XIII there are no towns, no interactive conversations and basically nothing in terms of character-driven, narratively meaningful side quests. What Final Fantasy XIII does have is the next battle (and the next and the next), some truly gobsmacking digital animation and a story that is surprisingly rich.

 

As in most Final Fantasy games, the playable characters here are an odd lot tossed together by fate to save the world. While at first they appear to slot into the expected Japanese pop clichés (the meathead with a heart of gold, the dour soldier, the flighty girl with a dark side and so on) they do reveal some subtlety in characterization as the game unfolds.

 

In particular, Square Enix deserves some credit for making a middle-aged black man the most affecting and sympathetic character in the game. Put gently, Japan is not known for embracing racial diversity, so the emergence of a black character as humane as Sazh Katzroy in a franchise that helps define the mainstream of Japanese digital entertainment is a pleasant surprise. Square Enix almost seems to be atoning for populating arguably the best game in the series, 1997’s Final Fantasy VII, with the offensively stereotypical Mr. T knockoff known as Barret Wallace.

 

But the real star of Final Fantasy XIII is its visual design and animation team, which has created some of the most impressive, compelling digital animation on the planet.

 

I’ll just put it this way: I recently invited several friends to compare the visual spectacle of the opening sequence of Final Fantasy XIII with the opening sequence of “Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith,” a frantic spaceship battle and chase that has been one of my personal animation benchmarks. Sorry, George Lucas, but it was a unanimous wipeout among my jury. For the moment the only animation that compares with Final Fantasy XIII is in “Avatar.” (And Final Fantasy XIII has better writing and voice acting than that film, though that’s not saying much.)

 

This game’s rendering is so advanced and eye popping that it exposes the limitations of the Xbox 360. The PlayStation 3 version, which comes on one Blu-Ray disc, appears noticeably superior to the 360 version, which must be spread across three discs because the 360 is based on the increasingly antiquated DVD format. (Microsoft, are you listening?)

 

Yet all of the game’s visual splendor served only to fuel my frustration and gnawing angst that such brilliant work had been tied to such a soul crushingly linear design. My retinas and irises were enjoying themselves, but by the end of the game the rest of me was just trying to get it over with. No matter what country they come from, players deserve more.

 

[Joyrex]

The New York Times reviewed it!

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/arts/television/15fantasy.html?hpw

 

text:

A Stunning Landscape, Seen Mostly From Afar

Square Enix Inc.

 

Final Fantasy XIII: In this game, from Square Enix, the characters are tossed together by fate to save the world and reveal some subtlety over time.

 

By SETH SCHIESEL

Published: March 14, 2010

 

Interminably gorgeous and tediously impressive.

 

That is Final Fantasy XIII: a milestone of artistic conception and technical execution that has been egregiously undermined by obstinately prosaic overall design.

 

This game, the latest entry in the king of Japanese role-playing game franchises, does exactly two things at a world-class level. Most important, it sets a new standard in digital animation that Hollywood must pay attention to. In addition, the game’s second-to-second battle system is tight and intelligently crafted.

 

The problem is that Final Fantasy XIII consists of little more than a predefined, linear sequence of perhaps 1,000 of those battles stitched together with extremely pretty pictures over the course of anywhere from 50 to 70 hours.

 

A great game cannot be both this linear and this long. Making Final Fantasy XIII really sing would have required either cutting the game in half or, preferably, letting players jump off the rails in a much more meaningful way to direct their own experience. Forget about a gilded cage. This game feels like a gilded cocoon.

 

And wouldn’t you know, Cocoon is the name of the planetoid where you will spend much of this game trudging along virtual corridors in some of the most attractive and least interactive virtual environments around. (The other part of the game is spent on a planet called Pulse that appears at times to be more open but that is actually dominated by yet more corridors.)

 

Square Enix, which released the game in North America last week for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, knew the risk it was taking. At E3, the big annual video game trade convention, I once asked a Square Enix designer how he thought of the difference between the North American and Japanese approaches to role-playing games. His answer was illustrative.

 

North American role-playing gamers, he said, want to feel that they are in control. They want to design their own characters, and then they want to be set loose in an environment in which they can shape the world and its story according to their own choices.

 

He was absolutely correct. The top Western role-playing games of recent years — Dragon Age: Origins, Fable II, Fallout 3 and the Mass Effect games (not to mention online games like Eve and World of Warcraft) — have been built around the concept of player agency. Japanese players, he went on, have a different taste in role-playing games: They want to be presented with characters and a story that have been meticulously created and shaped for their consumption.

 

He was clearly onto something. The idea of creating your own characters and determining major events in a game narrative through your own choices is alien to Japanese design philosophy. But the key point that Square Enix seems to have missed with Final Fantasy XIII is that pre-scripting characters and a definite story line are not antithetical to allowing you to explore and progress through that story in your own way and at your own pace.

 

Previous Final Fantasy games did just that. They were full of optional side quests and mini-games, and interesting environments to explore and characters to encounter, even while control of the main story line was never in the player’s grasp. All that is gone now. In Final Fantasy XIII there are no towns, no interactive conversations and basically nothing in terms of character-driven, narratively meaningful side quests. What Final Fantasy XIII does have is the next battle (and the next and the next), some truly gobsmacking digital animation and a story that is surprisingly rich.

 

As in most Final Fantasy games, the playable characters here are an odd lot tossed together by fate to save the world. While at first they appear to slot into the expected Japanese pop clichés (the meathead with a heart of gold, the dour soldier, the flighty girl with a dark side and so on) they do reveal some subtlety in characterization as the game unfolds.

 

In particular, Square Enix deserves some credit for making a middle-aged black man the most affecting and sympathetic character in the game. Put gently, Japan is not known for embracing racial diversity, so the emergence of a black character as humane as Sazh Katzroy in a franchise that helps define the mainstream of Japanese digital entertainment is a pleasant surprise. Square Enix almost seems to be atoning for populating arguably the best game in the series, 1997’s Final Fantasy VII, with the offensively stereotypical Mr. T knockoff known as Barret Wallace.

 

But the real star of Final Fantasy XIII is its visual design and animation team, which has created some of the most impressive, compelling digital animation on the planet.

 

I’ll just put it this way: I recently invited several friends to compare the visual spectacle of the opening sequence of Final Fantasy XIII with the opening sequence of “Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith,” a frantic spaceship battle and chase that has been one of my personal animation benchmarks. Sorry, George Lucas, but it was a unanimous wipeout among my jury. For the moment the only animation that compares with Final Fantasy XIII is in “Avatar.” (And Final Fantasy XIII has better writing and voice acting than that film, though that’s not saying much.)

 

This game’s rendering is so advanced and eye popping that it exposes the limitations of the Xbox 360. The PlayStation 3 version, which comes on one Blu-Ray disc, appears noticeably superior to the 360 version, which must be spread across three discs because the 360 is based on the increasingly antiquated DVD format. (Microsoft, are you listening?)

 

Yet all of the game’s visual splendor served only to fuel my frustration and gnawing angst that such brilliant work had been tied to such a soul crushingly linear design. My retinas and irises were enjoying themselves, but by the end of the game the rest of me was just trying to get it over with. No matter what country they come from, players deserve more.

 

 

That was a very well written, accurate review. Especially the bits about the differences between Western and Japanese RPGs.

[SR4]

wait, have you played it joyrex?

[Joyrex]

wait, have you played it joyrex?

 

No, not yet, but what I have read, coupled with others who have played the game (so far), that review succinctly covers the bases regarding the game.

[SR4]

you just seem awfully quick to shoot down other's opinions, when they are more or less in the same boat as you regarding actual first-hand experience.

 

 

just sayin.

 

 

but i really hope this isn't true.

 

FFX was somewhat linear, but even then they gave you a TON of sidequests towards the end.