Well, it’s time to jump back on the BattleCry train folks as we feature yet another Member created Cry pertaining to this week’s topic; the impact of delays in gaming. We’ve got some great feedback on the topic thus far and with the long-awaited and often delayed Final Fantasy XIII hitting store shelves today, I’ve decided to use Axe Head Ares‘ MBC to sum up how some long-time Final Fantasy fans feel about the game. Now, this MBC is of the negative variety, but keep in mind that this is just ONE SIDE of how FF fans feel and to be honest, I would really like to hear from fans that are pleased with how Square Enix has handled the delay and overall game design if you’re out there. So, check out today’s MBC after the jump and then sound off with YOUR thoughts in the comments section below.
Ares says:
Greetings fellow Battle Sages,
I want to give my Member Battle Cry to FINAL FANTASY XIII.
Besides being delayed in order to allow for a simultaneous 360 release – which I think is OK, and great for 360 only owners – I really believe it was also delayed to let developers dumb down the game even more for the frigging ‘casual’ market. In fact, during interviews, producers and developers on the game even said that they wanted the game to be more ‘accessible’. I hate it when THAT happens! Just look at the last Prince of Persia. I was so looking forward to that title, but ultimately I was disappointed when I got my hands on it. Do they really believe such strategy is going to let them sell more units of a game like FF? Would Gears, CoD or Halo have sold more if they were more ‘casual’? If Square-Enix is so eager to sell FF games to the casual market, then why don’t they develop a frigging fitness, sports or J-pop music game for the Wii, featuring the lovely ladies of FF in overly small bikinis?
I’ve been a life-long fan of Final Fantasy, but FFXIII is the first installment in which I already lost interest before its release. I was disappointed with number X as well, but Square-Enix made things right again with FFXII. Now after reading the Edge verdict of XIII – after 22 years of gaming I found out that the Edge review is the best proxy of my own game experiences and verdicts – I’ve totally lost faith in this franchise for now. Maybe Square-Enix should just do the right thing, which is either getting Hironobu Sakaguchi back on board, or doing a game together with BioWare in order to make the ultimate ‘glocal’ RPG!
Peace,
The one and only ‘God of War’
END
So there ya go…One miffed Final Fantasy fan that seems pretty fed up. Thx for sharing your thoughts on the matter Ares, but now I wanna hear from the rest of you. Tell your fellow gamers what you think about the way FFXIII was delayed. Did it help? Did it hurt? Was it for the betterment of the franchise in general? Sound off on the matter in the comments below and if you have something else entirely that you’d like to soundoff on, then feel free to do that over on this week’s topics starter post where you can SUBMIT A NEW TOPIC:
SUBMIT YOUR MEMBER BATTLECRY IN THE COMMENTS SECTION HERE.
Oh, and BTW, be on the lookout for the official EpicBattleAxe.com uREVIEW for Final Fantasy XIII where you’ll truly get the chance to sound off on the game itself once you’ve had time to sink your teeth into it.
Alright, that’s gonna do it for me for now, but let’s keep the conversation about the impact of game delays going!
Cheers gang,
DK
“Would Gears, CoD or Halo have sold more if they were more ‘casual’?”
It’s funny you would say that, all three of those franchises are casual. The main crowd is casual. That’s what’s up when you are a shooter with online and you kill things. You’re casual.
“but Square-Enix made things right again with FFXII”
^^^This. As far as I am concerned, and many of my friends who like the series (many of them have different views and have played it longer than me), FFXII was a total shitstorm.
I will admit I never got too involved in 10 becuase I was borrowing it but I actually liked that game, FFXIII actually seems to be huge step up from FFXII, and while I dont agree with some the changes (like the straight line maps) I must say that FFXIII is better in almost every way.
As a fan who hate X, X-2 and yet loved 12 I feel like 13 is a step towards X-2 again. I enjoy exploring a large open living breathing world. FF’s that don’t deliver that aspect don’t register with me, so 13 is completely off my radar.
Delays really don’t bother me. I simply see it as a necessity. There isn’t a lot to it. I’d rather a game take longer to make then the game be incomplete or rough around the edges. There are often many good games coming out all the time that you can distract yourself.
SquareEnix had a team of 300 people working on the game for over 4 years. People that had to be paid. So I’m sure they were going as fast as they could.
I’ve played about 7 hours of the game. Only the need for sleep made me stop.
It’s really really different. It seems nothing like a Final Fantasy game. It seems like some new JRPG that kind of resembles Final Fantasy.
It’s linear, but I don’t think its linearity is a fault. It’s not too disimilar from Final Fantasy X in that respect.
My only problem is that despite a genius battle system, the game so far is really easy. The only time’s I died was due to a misunderstanding of a mechanic, not actually being outwitted.
In relation to the delay and how it may have helped Final Fantasy XIII. I can say that the version that I own (PS3) is one of the best looking games to date. I wish the camera angle gave you more freedom though so you could see everything there is to see.
It’s good. I won’t give a reccomendation though as I haven’t played nearly enough. But if it counts for anything, the strategy guide is about 300 pages, so the game is not entirely linear.
of course thats my opinion
I will agree tat XII did better at providing a world to explore though
I see the delay as a downside for 360 owners. even if we all agreed that FFXIII sucks the game presents a new gameplay which is awesome,so the next FF game would be better
(i.e FFXII verses)
That’s a reasonable statement, which I can understand.
However I would say games such as CoD and Halo are more ‘mass market’ than ‘casual’. I.e. they reach an extremely big niche (what an oxymoron…) of gamers with a particular preference of game genre. With ‘casual’ games, I think more about what some call the ‘non-games’ such as Wii Fit, Brain Training, Farmville, etc. you know.. the ‘non-hardcore’ games.
had no expectations going into it and im far enough in to say that i feel exactly how i felt when i picked up kingdom hearts II, or xenosaga 3 (or 2 as well for that matter)… you need to really be a true FF fan to enjoy it. its almost like they put the first 2 hours in the game just to weed out the unfaithful. we’ll see how it goes from here.
I feel bad for the real hardcore fans but for myself I’m kinda happy because it looks like I got a chance to get into the series.
BTW, Gears, CoD and Halo have a really heavy casual market.
Certainly an understandable cry, but one based on no firsthand experience. If Bioware had disclosed just how streamlined ME2 was going to be, I would’ve been the first to cry foul. Yet virtually all of the “casual” design choices they made were totally for the best.
I’ve been playing FF games for 15 years (FFIV was my first) and as a card carrying hardcore fan I can honestly say the 4-5 hours I’ve currently put into FFXIII have left me with an almost unanimously positive impression. The only consitent element of the FF series is change, and the changes made in FFXIII succeed at giving the game its own unique, fresh feel.
I can’t say all of the changes have been for the best. The linearity is almost oppressive, at first. If you thought FFX was linear, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Some puzzles would’ve been nice to break things up, but there are none to be found.
Other than the linearity, it’s been great. The combat system is freakin’ phenomenal. I can say, for the first time ever, I got a rush from a FF turn-based battle. The system may seem idiotically simple, but it get’s really complex and intense once you get access to the Paradigms.
@Earnest: From what I understand, the battles get much tougher later on and require multiple tries before discovering a winning strategy.
The voice acting is the best in the series yet, the original score will bore itself into your brain, the presentation/visuals will make you do a doubletake in all its HD glory, and the story already has me more entrigued than the one found in FFXII.
My advice to Ares, and all other hardcore fans who are on the fence: rent it. Even if you don’t like it, at least you gave it a fair shake. FFXIII isn’t shaping up to be my favorite FF (there’ll never be another FFVII, period) but it’s still looking to be a great game worthy of the series name.
Hey WakingEveryGod,
Thanks for your feedback, I really appreciate your opinion.
And of course, I’m gonna give it a try at least. It’s just really going to be the first time, I’ll not buy a FF game right away. I’ll probably borrow it from a friend, and if I do like it, I’ll buy it anyway.
Btw, is there an option for Japanese audio with English subtitles? Cause, to be honest, for me a lot of FF magic was lost after IX, when they uttered their first English words… it’s like watching badly dubbed Anime. The old school pre-speech FF games felt more like reading a book; the experience relied more on your own imagination. What do you think?
Teamxbox gave it a hard 5 on 10…
I’ve never been a Final Fantasy fan… I’ve never liked JRPG… Never understood how could people like it… I’m also a xbox «fanboy» as it’s been my only console.
I won’t comment any of this discution. Too scared from the comments I would get. lol
But really the game should have been release a year ago on PS3 and then ported to 360. That’s what I think, but Microsoft must have paid a shitload of money to make it come out at the same time.
FF 13 is a hamsters dream. For the love of square enix this crap took over 4 years to develop and became a pretty thing to look at. The battle system which is varies from title isn’t the best in my humble opinion is a step back, except for the summons that worked and should have been a better experience.
The game is overload with poorly acted cut scenes that attempt to drive you further down the tube, they created this new world which you had no way of exploring. It truly felt develop to causal crowd that FF 13 fanboys aren’t, but fiercely loyal to defend a title this game surely doesn’t live up to.
Hopefully FF versus 13 can bring FF to level of a full FF title
@Ares:
Unfortunately, the Japanese audio track is not included in either the North American or European versions of FFXIII. Although I can’t substantiate this claim, I think Square Enix abandoned the idea to include it once they committed to making the Xbox 360 port.
After all, they were already pushing 3 DVDs and adding the entire Japanese audio track could very well have pushed that number up. Sure, fitting it on a Blu-Ray would be no problem, but Square Enix wanted to avoid anything that would suggest they were giving preferential treatment to the PS3 version.
I partially agree with you on the issue of text versus speech. Japanese just doesn’t translate well to English. It has to do with culture more than anything. What may sound cheesy and over-the-top to a westerner sounds heroic and badass to the Japanese.
Throw in the fact localization teams have to contend with this AND come up with translations that more or less fit the original, Japanese lip movements and you can see why it’s so hard to create spoken dialogue, which westerners can take seriously, in a FF game.
Still, I don’t hate the spoken dialogue. It’s actually kind of endearing, a sign that I am indeed playing a FF title. I do come from the old school, and I do love me some text based RPGs, but I feel like their time has passed. I’ve grown to love the cinematic feel spoken dialogue imparts on any game that utilizes it. I guess you could call me a progressive old-schooler.
I’m glad to see you’re willing to give FFXIII a shot. It’s certainly not the best FF ever, but I’ve been saying that since FFVII. That doesn’t mean all of the FFs since then haven’t been fantastic games.
@Coky14:
Constructive criticism is always welcome.
I think FF13 is a perfect, but very rare, example of delayed games actually getting worse. It’s all thanks to the 360 though. If FF was developed solely as a PS3 game it would have looked even better, but they had to keep it at a level that the 360 would be able to do. The delay was due to Square-Enix having to rewrite the entire engine to essentially make the game worse, which really pisses me off.
Supposition. That is an unsubstantiated claim disseminated by fanboys who felt slighted by Square Enix when they announced FFXIII was going multiplatform. It’s a complete and utter fallacy with absolutely zero solid evidence to support it.
Would’ve looked better? My man, have you seen this game in action? I’m currently running the game, on my PS3, at 1080p on my plasma HDTV and it looks mighty impressive. It unquestionably hangs up there with some of the best looking games of this generation. What more do you want?
Rewrote the entire engine? Could you please cite a credible source to substantiate that? I’d be shocked if you could because rewriting the entire engine would’ve set the project back way more than 2 years. They would’ve had to start from scratch and essentially create a brand new game.
Take a look at the footage of FFXIII before it was announced for the 360, then look at the footage that came after. Does it really look all that different to you? The suggestion that the “inferior” product we got was whipped up, for both platforms, in 2 years is ludicrous. I’m sorry, but we would’ve gotten the same game, regardless of the 360 port (albeit, a year sooner).
I have a suggestion: Play the game and judge it based upon your own experience, and not the claims of fanboy half-wits who will make up anything to justify their petty, irrational hatreds and sad devotions.
8 hours in, loving every minute of it. Is it linear? Hell yes! Is it repetitive? Maybe. Why do I like it then?
Its all combat focused. And learning your way through the combat takes a lot of time, precision. the combat is frenetic. Different strategies, different roles, different combinations, btc bars that can be interrupted, focusing of reaching staggering mode and swithching formation to do huge amounts of damge, but having to switch to a more defensive formation when you are receiving. All that in…seconds. you are concentrated issuing orders and formations, checking up 2-3 bars at the same time.
Its awesome, really. And it can only get better, because i’m starting.
Now, the negative. The story, so far, is just ok. With that i’m not saying its not a FF story, i’m saying its too much an FF story and maybe I’m getting tired of the same nonesense. I really do like a lot more western rpgs storytelling. Its much much much more believable. here I hate Snow, Vanille, Hope. Only Lighting and Saszh save themselves beacuse they have some common sense. But only some. Whats with japanese in videogames that can’t seem to tell a mature story?
Anyhow. it feels like a Final Fantasy, but one can’t stop rolling their eyes when you hear time and time again the cheesy dialogue. it makes you wanna kill somebody.Hopefully the game enables you to do that a lot.
I am also a longt time FF Series fan but in my opinion FFXIII isn´t the Final Fantasy i used to love.
I mean a FF title without a world map without city´s with j-pop music and characters named like hope, lightning, snow, vanille, fang and summons which seems to come straight out a Transformers flick i mean come on! In my opinion this title is a major stepback for the series… seriously. I would rather have a FF7 remake with better graphics than this.
I also didn´t like FFXII, X-2, X wasn´t bad but it wasn´t too good either.
It seems that FF7 – FF9 will be my all time favorites from the series but there is still hope if square-enix won´t fuck up FFVersus but i honestly don´t think so.
To FFXIII:
The fighting is not too bad in XIII but i dont like the paradigm system and the crystal level thingy same as in ffX didn´t liked it there either.
I honestly don´t understand why sqaure-enix had to change everything i liked in the pre-X games like traditional leveling,
world exploration, interesting & funny non casual characters with their own set of abilities instead of the same roles for every character, difficult Fights, Sidequests, Special Abilities or Limits, rare summons, hidden dungeons, minigames/cardgames whatever and finally non-linear gameplay.
In one point i agree with Ender cause The cheesy dialogues are killing me.
If this is the next generation of Final Fantasy then it will be truly my last and final fantasy.
Btw i got the 360 Version and i just started dvd3 and it still sucks. Just if someone wanted to troll me for commenting my clearly negative opinion…
so long
I’ve found that western cultures have a hard time suspending their disbelief when it comes to stories told through all of the different mediums.
Why does every game have to be “realistic?” Why can’t a good story be fantastic and absurd? I don’t mean to sound accusatory, but doesn’t anyone have a freakin’ imagination anymore?
I love the fact I can defeat a building sized killbot, made of steel, with a 117 lbs woman using nothing but a wacky invention, like a gunblade. I love the fact the characters act so nonchalantly in the face of certain death; after all, they’re fantasy heroes, not soldiers in a military shooter.
I tend to like western RPGs a lot more than JRPGs, but only because the gameplay often offers more depth. As far as stories go, too often they’re just slightly different takes on Tolkienesque mythology. They play things way too safe.
The issue of dialogue came up in my last post to Ares. Japanese doesn’t translate well into English because of our cultural differences. We may think the dialogue is cheesy, but the Japanese may find it heroic and badass. The emotions the dialogue is supposed to invoke end up being lost in translation.
Regardless, I wouldn’t shed a tear if Vanille were to meet an unfortunate fate…
I agree with SIgmatic…as for me, i am passing this FF (maybe i will rent it) and i would like to leave some of the reasons why i am disapointed with the latest FF games:
- summons just seem like toys, the old summons (FF VII/VIII) were the real thing
- where are the freakin Ultima Weapons, Limit Breaks
- After a battle my HP and TP are restored??WTF
- Where are the bad ass characters like the Turks or Sephirot
- Cities to explore, side quests where a very important element
- I dont like either the sphere-grid system
And i could even mencionate more aspects, but these are the ones that came up to my mind first. The principal things that made me like FF have completely disapeared, taking with them my exciting of playing a FF game
@anarky21:
I mean no disrespect, but your post suggests you just want to play FFVII again. I understand how you feel, as FFVII is undoubtedly my favorite of the series, but you have to face the facts: no FF will ever recapture the magic which made that game special.
Even if Square Enix finally decided to release the rumored remake of FFVII on the PS3, it won’t be the same. If you keep expecting the next game to come out to be just as good as one of your favorite games of all time, you are doomed to perpetual disappointment. That attitude blinds you to the potential positive aspects of the game you’re disappointed in.
Granted, the omission of towns and the discouragement of exploration throughout most of FFXIII is a huge mistake on Square Enix’s part. It was the difference between a great game and a legendary game.
Although this effects the gameplay severely, it doesn’t change the fact this is a FF game. I was shocked, at first, by how drastically different everything was. But as time went on, I noticed just how similar it was, thematically and atmospherically.
BTW, I love that HP is restored after every fight. The challenge of a dungeon should come from combat and the tactics of your enemies. Throwing resource management on top of it artificially pads the difficulty. I don’t think anyone likes the feeling of getting through 3/4 of a dungeon only to find you don’t have enough ethers to move on…
I’m just under half way through the game.
It’s gotten a lot better. After about 10 hours, I’d of given the game like an 8.2 (assuming it kept going how it was going, which it didnt), but after another 10 hours, everything has improved.
The story has picked up, characters have revealed more about themselves, all battle mechanics are in play, party are coming together and new characters are being introduced. I’d say at the moment its an 8.8 with me.
Still not of “legend” status, but a good game. Hopefully it maintains this little 8.8 I’ve given it.
Dude at the end of the day, you have not played the game. Your assessment of what the game “may” play like is therefore innaccurate.
- The length of the summon sequences, especially in the two games you mentioned, have always been associated with complaints from fans and reviews.
- You don’t know anything about how the HP restoration system works, because you haven’t played it. It is necessarry and is seemless. Every battle takes you to the brink of death, moreso than any other game. It would be tiresome having to replenish health after every battle.
- Play the game…. and you will find that there are “bad ass characters”. I love how all your references so far are from Final Fantasy VII.
- There are side quests, estimated at 10 hours worth, towards the end of the game. The reason they’re at the end is because the Xbox 360 version needed the sidequests on the final disc, and to make the games symmetrical, Square put the side quests at the end for the PS3 version too.
As for towns, I can only say that I don’t care, and that reviewers don’t care.
- Well…people do? Announcing to everyone that you’re not going to buy a game because “you dun lyk da spheregrid” is pointless given the SphereGrid is very popular.
I think the game lacks a lot of tradition and isn’t nearly as good as some of the other titles. But so far, I see it as a worthy addition to the series. People like you who just jump on the internet and whine about every Final Fantasy game that doesn’t replicate the 7th installment, are idiots, and you give the fans of the game a bad image.
about the delay..it didn’t affect me at all, it didn’t even surprise me, i just thought “whatever, as long as it comes out sooner or later”.
about the game, i really like it,have played seven or eight hours, and yes, it’s linear and yes it’s point a to point b grinding enemies along the way..but that’s what i expect. to me that’s the charm. many of you might think ‘poor bastard’ but the first i FF i played was X. that game was linear, grinding, point a to b gameplay, but it didn’t matter. the world around you, the story, the music, the pretty colours etc. etc. is what makes it great. and XIII has it. well that’s my opinion. and why do people immediatly run away as soon as they hear the word linear. why has it become a synonym for bad these days? it’s like ever game has to be a gta..oh well. i apologize for this stupid rant. peace y’all
i also don#t care about the delay, the thing that bugs me is that i’m afraid that the game won’t be as long as i hope. i mean i played 9 hours for now, looked every way sideway there is up, and i almost made half the chapters i read. the sidequests were a great thing to get involved in the world and try to last this experience as long as possible (cause i rly don’t think i will start a new game after i finish this right away).
anybody got it through yet? how long did you take and how much were you involved in sidequesting? short answers would suffice
would rly appreciate it guys!
awesome points! you’re totally right!
@Earnest
I respect your opinion but there are some points where i have to disagree with you.
For example: “Every battle takes you to the brink of death, moreso than any other game.”
Seriously? Are we playing the same game because i didnt had much of a challenge except for three Boss fights. Now that iam near the endgame where there is actualy exploration within a wide area there are also Monsters which gives you a tough fight.
There are also Sidequests now so i must admit XIII isn´t as bad as i described it in my previous post i´ll give you that.
But:
- Most of the Roles are more or less useless within the first 20-25 hours of the Game, except for Boss fights. Meaning you don´t need them to win as you can win “most” of the fights by simply autochain all the time.
- same with eidolons (didn´t use them once and got no problem at all)
- Character developement is pretty much pre determined till the end.
- “Sphere Grid is very popular.”
To some maybe but i don´t like it because you ain´t got a choice what to skill. You just move your way to the top regardless of what the next ability or Stat is.
- The Item/Weapon upgrade System is very good in my opinion but it does take to much time gathering the needed resources.
- The majority of the game is strictly linear and that is exactly what bothers me the most.
Square-Enix stated that this was needed to tell the Story which in my opinion is too much soap opera bs with characters created to dislike and tons of cheesy dialogues. For me the characters are way too simple. There was clearly less fantasy involved in creating these than in any other FF Title and much more stereotype knowledge.
Cheesy examples:
Quote Snow: You´re Hero is here.
– Yeah right …
Quote Hope: I´ve to get stronger/tougher whatever.
- Don´t bother dude it´s pointless
Ok near the endgame you got an wide area open for exploration with tough enemies, sidequest and the choice which Role (of all avaiable) to skill which is awesome.
When the fighting eventually gets tougher so that you have to use every avaiable Role +Abilities it does make very much fun to play but the 20-25 hours before that are just way too boring.
Even the Story itself didn´t catch me that i wanted to know what will happen next, maybe because most of it is pretty obvious.
With my ingame experience so far i would give this game a 6 out of 10 simply because it has changed so much stuff which made Final Fantasy what it was, at least for me.
As always this is my personal opinion so like it or not but don´t call people idiots posting their opinion over a so called next-gen title which doesn´t come near the level of one of the best title within the FF series published 16 Years ago back in 1994.
So long
Oh i forgot one big point which i also very much dislike its to not have full control over your party. The AI isn´t that bad but sometimes they just won´t do what you want them to do which can get frustrating when you´re in a tough fight and have no other choice but to rely on them that they will do the right thing.
You had put some sense into me because you are absolutely right, and if evolution is necessary to bring a better experience of FF who am i to disagree on that.
But dont incorporate in FFXIII the elements that made this franchise famous; for me is just wrong and kind of disrespectful to some of the fans.
One last thing, tell me what is the challenge of have HP/TP restored, because i just dont get it.
@Sigmatic:
I think Earnest was just annoyed with all of the fans who have been writing off all of the recent FFs because they’re not FFVII.
There have already been a few posters, on this site alone, who haven’t played FFXIII, yet believe they are qualified to proclaim it a disappointment.
You’ve obviously played the game and your criticism is fair. Linearity, in multiple aspects, is indeed XIII’s greatest weakness, but it hasn’t stopped the game from being fun.
The one point I’d have to totally disagree with you on is the degree of challenge. Yes, it does get to a point where you can pretty much mop the floor with every mob, but how is that different from any other FF?
In the 13 years I’ve played and replayed FFVII, I can count the number of times my party has been wiped out on my hands. I’m not even finished with XIII and I’ve wiped plenty of times. Say what you will, I find the combat thoroughly engaging.
I’ve been playing the FF series since FFIV in the early 90s. I totally empathize with other longtime fans at the loss of many traditional elements in XIII. However, I’m a gamer first and a FF fan second. I don’t allow such feelings to impair my ability to judge and enjoy a game based on its own merits.
I’m not trying to change the opinions of those who’ve given XIII a fair shot and haven’t like it, such as yourself. But the hardliners, who refuse to play the game or walk into the experience with prejudice, have to take off the rose tinted glasses and stop living in the past.
I’m not saying FFXIII is going to be the best game you’ve ever played, but it’s undoubtedly a good one.
@SmartfellowFartsmeller:
Bonus points for getting me to type out your name.
By many accounts, you’re looking at 50-60 hours of gameplay. I don’t know if that includes the purported 10 hours of sidequesting. Par for the course when it comes to JRPGs. Dont worry, it should keep you busy for a while.
@Earnest
- I wasn’t talking about the lenght, but how these new summons seem like toys…we even have one that is a car if i’m not wrong.
- I refer the characters from FFVII, because i think that the following FF games had some lame charachters.
- I haven’t said that i wouldn’t buy FFXIII because of the sphere-grid system…dont put words into my mouth. I just said that i dont like it, and i dont care if it is famous between some people…who gives a sh*t about that, i have self opinion
To end, i would like to say that FFVII was the first and best FF game that i have played. No other game was able to offer me the same experience, and is mostly because of that , that i have played some of the following FF games.
If some of you are happy with FFXIII, i can only say – good for you guys…but dont come with some useless points, trying to say that FFXIII is how a FF game should be.
I’m not happy about the removal of the traditional FF elements, either. But believe me when I say this, as a gamer: XIII has many excellent qualities which make it a great game and a good FF title.
I’m glad to hear you’ll at least give XIII the ol’ college try. Let us know what you think.
As for your question about HP/TP restoration… In previous FF titles, dungeons were wars of attrition. A single random encounter wasn’t really all that tough or dangerous, but they could wittle you down over time due to stresses on your resources (potions, ethers, etc.) because HP/MP was never automaticallly restored.
FFXIII is drastically different in its structure. Single encounters consistently have the potential for a wipe out. You’ll be on the brink of death far more often than in previous titles. You’d be forced to go to the menu screen and heal up after every single battle and drain your wallet on healing items if HP/TP didn’t auto restore.
Too much downtime = not fun
I’m not happy about the removal of the traditional FF elements, either. But believe me when I say this, as a gamer: XIII has many excellent qualities which make it a great game and a good FF title.
I’m glad to hear you’ll at least give XIII the ol’ college try. Let us know what you think.
As for your question about HP/TP restoration… In previous FF titles, dungeons were wars of attrition. A single random encounter wasn’t really all that tough or dangerous, but they could wittle you down over time due to stresses on your resources (potions, ethers, etc.) because HP/MP was never automaticallly restored.
FFXIII is drastically different in its structure. Single encounters consistently have the potential for a wipe out. You’ll be on the brink of death far more often than in previous titles. You’d be forced to go to the menu screen and heal up after every single battle, and drain your wallet on healing items, if HP/TP didn’t auto restore.
Too much downtime = not fun
I would like to ask you: Why can’t i make a opinion about FFXIII?
Games aren’t cheap, and in these days the industry is surrounded by people who review and give their honest opinion about a certain game…even foruns and discussions like we are doing now are made. Long goes the time, when i needed to play a game to know of what i was talking about.
What i am trying to say is – My opinion may not be accurate, but it should be enough to leave it her
@WakingEveryGod
i agree with you that XIII isn´t a bad game but as i said, for me, it drifted a bit far away from that formular what made Final Fantasy an awesome, epic experience. This game is good but it could have been so much better but sadly Square-Enix did go the wrong way.
About how challenging the game is, i have to say i am positively surprised now that i spent some more time with the enemies within the open area. The fights now are really tough and i like it very much because the paradigm system can finally be put to good use.
Maybe i did go a bit overboard with some points just because i waited so long for this title and was dissapointed with my first impression, sorry bout that.
Finally all i can say about this game to fellow axe members out there who are unsure about getting this game is: At least try it. Dont let yourself scare away from reviews,posts/comments that show this game in a negative light and make your own decision about this game, hell i played it over 25 hours so it can´t be that bad…
I just wanted to make my point what in my opinion was a wrong approach for the FF Series from Square-Enix nothing less nothing more.
so long
A more than fair assessment. I can’t argue with that.
@anarky21
You’re more than welcome to have an opinion, but without any actual firsthand experience your assessment is inaccurate, at best. Could you be satisfied knowing your opinion is based on the thoughts of others?
If you’re basing your opinion on the reviews of journalists, you should have a positive opinion because FFXIII has been getting generally favorable reviews. It’s current aggregate score on Gamerankings.com is 83.85%. Since when has that been a bad score?
As for Internet forums, it’s a crapshoot. You have to sift through a lot of haters and fanboys before you actually find someone who is thoughful and unbiased. Not a very good way to formulate an opinion, if you ask me.
If you’re strapped for cash, why don’t you round up a few bucks and rent it? I’m sure you’ll be able to decide whether or not you like XIII within a few hours with it.
A more than fair assessment. I can’t argue with that.
@anarky21
You’re more than welcome to have an opinion, but without any actual firsthand experience your assessment is inaccurate, at best. Could you be satisfied knowing your opinion is based on the thoughts of others?
If you’re basing your opinion on the reviews of journalists, you should have a positive opinion because FFXIII has been getting generally favorable reviews. It’s current aggregate score on Gamerankings.com is 83.85%. Since when has that been a bad score?
As for Internet forums, it’s a crapshoot. You have to sift through a lot of haters and fanboys before you actually find someone who is thoughful and unbiased. Not a very good way to formulate an opinion, if you ask me.
If you’re strapped for cash, why don’t you round up a few bucks and rent it? I’m sure you’ll be able to decide whether or not you like XIII within a few hours with it.
@WakingEveryGod
You make very good arguments
Like you said, is not the best way to formulate an opinion about the game, but besides the foruns and gameplay we have also interviews from producers, directors…
Like i said my opinion obviously isn’t accurate, but the things that i refer in my previous posts aren’t about in game stuff.
I will definitly rent it, but i doubt that i will buy it…like i said before and summarizing, for me FFXIII is not like a FF game should be
I think we had a very good discussion, and you made some very good points; Sigmatic also talked about some very interesting things and i agree with both of you – Not only FFXIII, but most of the games deserve a try, and i will definitly try FFXIII
Alright, I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XIII non stop since tuesday so I’m ready to give my preliminary verdict (Played for 39 hours, not completed yet).
I know the developers came out in defence of the linearity of the game, and on one hand I can appreciate that FF games are story driven games for the most part, but this instalment feels like a “go here, do this” kind of game. Even when you get to Gran Pulse and it opens up considerably, you’re still just going to Cie’th stones and they say, “Kill this creep” so that’s what you do. There is literally nothing else to do on Pulse but missions (much like the mark hunting from FFXII) and grinding levels. Also, the games battles are terribly inconsistent in difficulty. For example, I had to fight one of those giant towering tortoise like things from pulse after a whole map of pissweak people, and this thing wipes my party out in 3 moves. Crazy
Having said all this I do still like the game, but I kind of agree with the GameTrailers.com review now that I have been playing it, this isn’t a 9+/10 game, it has been simplified in many ways to the extent that 90% of the battles consist of mashing autobattle (don’t get me started) until all enemies are dead.
I did like FFXII and I thought X was incredible (especially the sheer amount of stuff to do before completing the game, and just how powerful you could become with time and clever manipulation of the games system). This Final Fantasy is interesting enough but I really hope that the next one is made for the HARDCORE fans like me, not the jpop, fitness and boobies gawking people of the Wii generation. Square Enix have made a ton of crap for the Wii, make our games for us!
Lil late to the chopping block be here are my thoughts on XIII, when I 1st put it in and fired up that bad boy, I was impressed with how well SE pushed the graphics for the game to the limits it seems, along with a nice soundtrack and complex story plot with a lot of twist, final about time and something i’ve been waiting. But on the flip side of the coin they only gone and buggered up the game play the made a simple battle system that is too simple and ends up you spamming the x button in the vast majority of fights which becomes mindless at times, Each class feels like it lacks a lot of depth and cock blocks what you can and cant do, sure it gives you the power to customize your characters but even that goes so far, would of been far better to be able to mix and match abblities of each class as in previous installments, but as said on the axe here “when they make something that is really good, they take it away and give you something worse” so i hope this is a system that we never see again in another FF installement, the only good that came out of it (but done in so many other games years before) is seeing the mobs you want fight and choosing to run past them or fight them….
Now for me the last nail that sealed the shit filled coffin is the fact that you pretty much have a shotgun up your arse with a guy behind you saying that, if you don’t keep moving thought the one way path i’ll pull the trigger and blow more then just shit out of there. One of the things I loved about FF games is the fact it was open world exploration which allowed you to see the game in all its glory, but this no, your forced through it and there is no turning back, which pissed me off to hell, why do developers feel the need to do this?! stop taking away the things that fucking work and leave them be. To me it feels like they got lazy and could not be fucked to paint the rest of the picture.
I could go on all day about the fuck ups the made for it. Overall it has a really nice story, but for SE to fuck up the gameplay this much is just an insult to the fans, trying to make it more accesible for everyone to play?! If those people have not played in FF game by now then chances are they’re not going to pick this one up as it fails to meet the same standards as previous installments. so SE do us all a favor and 1 give us the open world exploration back and 2 never make an overly simplistic battle system again. Attack, Magic, Ability, Item was all fine and worked for the previous 12 installments why go and fuck that all up you do the series no justice with it.
One last thing as I have said to my friends my money is going on FF Versus XIII as it is being made by Tetsuya Nomura and the kingdom hearts team, it is also rumored that he wants to bring back the open world exploration to the series, so I’m hoping he will not disappoint us all with it. If you have not checked it out i urge you to do so!