[Multiplatform] Official Final Fantasy XIII Thread

Knowing Square Enix (think Barret), they'll probably make this character all black. You know, black black.

"dem chocobos make good eatin' when fried"

How ya doing, buddy?

Haha they should name it Final Fantasy: San Andreas

I am also worried about stuff, hope they won't fuck it up completely.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Colonel COOM

Ultima getting a starring part in anything is kinda frightening.

I fucking told you he likes yaoi.

Ultima x Gackt OTP

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The dude is Louis "Sweet Lou" Dunbar/Gizmo from the Super Globe Trotters. Look at him. Coolest thing this game has thus far.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I'm actually far more excited for this game after seeing this dandy motherfucker.

Seriously. I can only see two three four belts.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Meh, there's too much complaining and whining in this topic. Why don't you guys save your whining til' I dunno. Perhaps when the game finally gets up to the surface and that it's been released in either nation (Japan or the U.S).

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Zeta26

Meh, there's too much complaining and whining in this topic. Why don't you guys save your whining til' I dunno. Perhaps when the game finally gets up to the surface and that it's been released in either nation (Japan or the U.S).

You mean in 2012?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

His afro doubles as a Chocobo nest. I'm not joking.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Abominable K

His afro doubles as a Chocobo nest. I'm not joking.

Please, please be joking.

Please.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Amazing how in one series, such a simple concept can go from being so good to so horribly wrong.

--->

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I'm not going to defend a character that hasn't had an official word in english written about him, but after all the emo doom-and-gloom characters I'm happy to see a dude that looks fun.

Don't get me wrong. I like Shadow, but if I want to play him, I'll load FF6 up. He's rad in it.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

What does Shadow even have to do with anything? This guy is clearly the Square's Idea Of Comic Relief character. He will do and say intentionally ridiculous things and generally distract us from whatever maundering SAVE THE WORLD plot it is that we're supposed to give a shit about. This type is exemplified in previous titles by Yuffie, Selphie, and Quina among others. Uptight internet jerks hated all of them, too.

Booyaka!

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Pangalin

What does Shadow even have to do with anything? This guy is clearly the Square's Idea Of Comic Relief character. He will do and say intentionally ridiculous things and generally distract us from whatever maundering SAVE THE WORLD plot it is that we're supposed to give a shit about. This type is exemplified in previous titles by Yuffie, Selphie, and Quina among others. Uptight internet jerks hated all of them, too.

Booyaka!

Selphie?

Wait, you mean there was a character in VIII that wasn't supposed to be a joke we laughed at every time they spoke?

Man, did I miss the point of that game.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Pangalin

What does Shadow even have to do with anything? This guy is clearly the Square's Idea Of Comic Relief character. He will do and say intentionally ridiculous things and generally distract us from whatever maundering SAVE THE WORLD plot it is that we're supposed to give a shit about. This type is exemplified in previous titles by Yuffie, Selphie, and Quina among others. Uptight internet jerks hated all of them, too.

Booyaka!

I think he's going to be more of a Zell or Wakka than a Selphie or Rikku, i.e. fucking annoying and useless in combat. I'll laugh if they make him sound like Willie Green in Dolemite though.

I don't know why anyone thinks the combat looks complicated though (Although this is a Final Fantasy thread so I shouldn't be surprised). From what's been posted here, it looks like you have a maximum of five commands available in combat which you pre-select although some commands will take up a couple or more slots. So "Attack" will be one, "Item" will be one, "Defend" will be one but "Magic" might be two and "Summon" three, meaning to use more powerful stuff you sacrifice flexibilty. Then you can perform a certain number of actions in your turn based on those action's time cost and the speed of your character. It's probably a bit like XII's, simple on the outside for idiot fanspawn with a bit of depth once you get into it.

I almost gave up on the series after the FFX trainwreck but actually, I thought FFXII was an incredible game. RPG's are all about the game system rather than the characters for me though so the generic Square party doesn't really bother me too much, as long as the voice acting isn't too annoying.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Zell wasn't useless, just really annoying. His limit break has a comparably high damage output potential to Irvine without the need of Ammo. Which pretty much allows him to out ass kick the rest of the cast if you just dedicate yourself to doing Circle, X and then Down Up over and over again, turning 4 seconds into a dead boss or difficult monster thanks to his broken ass limit break.

This is available right from the start of the game, so Zell is pretty much a great character out of the gate, provided you're exploiting limit breaks and staying at low HP/slamming Circle over and over to get the limit break activation.

How ya doing, buddy?

But there's no need to bother with that if you're junctioning properly. If you can be arsed to keep his hp low and endlessly enter the same move combinations then you can probably be arsed to use your GF's abilities and drawing from monsters to have everyone junctioning Firaga and Blizzaga right after the fire cave at the beginning. Once you've got 100 Firaga's junctioned to your strength stat, the entire first two discs struggle to throw a fight at you you can't win in a round or two of plain attacking.

Plus, Zell looks and sounds like a fucking retard.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Shin

But there's no need to bother with that if you're junctioning properly. If you can be arsed to keep his hp low and endlessly enter the same move combinations then you can probably be arsed to use your GF's abilities and drawing from monsters to have everyone junctioning Firaga and Blizzaga right after the fire cave at the beginning. Once you've got 100 Firaga's junctioned to your strength stat, the entire first two discs struggle to throw a fight at you you can't win in a round or two of plain attacking.

Note that I said "a boss or difficult monster." Traditional battles, there are far better characters to use. For bigger threats, there's usually less risk with Zell because his limit break is a giant vacuum for time where the opposition cannot attack, meanwhile he's just slapping the shit out of them. It's far more time efficient than having to draw the fuck out of magic if you just want to progress, and it's an option you have if you're fighting things like a boss where you haven't been sucking 9 spells out of monsters for 12 turns to get 100 of a spell. For things like, say, Red Dragons... you do have Quistis and Degenerator, but if for god knows what reason that whiffs, Zell is guaranteed damage and probably death. He's clean up and/or the safe route. Selphie has The End, but you need set ups like Aura and whatever makes the party invincible, in order to prevent getting wiped and you also need to hope it comes up. Zell is safe and easy.

He's not the most likable character, but who the fuck in Final Fantasy VIII really is save for like maybe 1 or 2 characters? He's not useless.

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Heh, they are all pretty shitty, yes. I don't remember any bosses in FFVIII that were so hard as to require a different setup though, even Omega Weapon was just an exercise in using Aura and Lionheart over and over until it died.

That's actually something that'd be nice to see in FFXIII, fights that are hard for reasons other than being under-levelled. I'm not optimistic though, having beaten that ridiculous 6,000,000 hp dragon thing in FFXII mainly by setting up the gambits, getting into the fight then playing on my PSP, checking in every 10 minutes or so to see how they were getting along.

I know FF games are designed for mass-market appeal but does that neccessarily preclude any complexity in the battle system? I can't think of any FF fights off the top of my head that require any cunning rather than just more levelling-up to beat with the possible exception of throwing a phoenix down at the undead Indian thing in FFVII and even he ain't exactly tough to kill doing it properly.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Things like Marlboros and Red Dragons didn't care what you had junctioned, so high damage output and those handy instant kill techniques that Selphie and Quistis had were a must. Lionheart is okay, but one use of Zell's Limit Break does more damage if you perform it properly. He only gets a few seconds, but you can easily deal out more damage than Lionheart if you're repeating the same 2 moves over and over again.

That's quite a quandary, Shin. The mass market appeal really makes it seem to me that the games are as involving or as hard as you want to make it. Nothing is forcing you to 100% an RPG, though as folks who play games regularly, it's our OCD impulse that makes us use that as an arbitrary standard of judgment for this stuff.

Personally, I found, say, Final Fantasy VI, to be far more fun when I was trying to progress at the lowest level possible and manage optimal stat growth, rather than forcing myself to level up and/or junction until I was god at the earliest moment possible. I realize that that's not much of an exciting option either, but we're really not dealing with incredibly flexible play systems in some of these games. No, it's really not an exciting game when you are smashing the confirm button and killing things in one hit, but the truth of the matter is that not many RPGs avoid that without becoming tedious in many instances. Atlus' stuff comes to mind, their earlier R&D1 games. To me, Final Fantasy is far more involving when approached from that respect.

You can just level up and remove all the strategy from certain boss fights, but nothing stops you from going in at a low level to try and wreck shit as well. I don't know what the optimal experience is for most folks, but I can only stomach so much of the grind, so I try to play these games without having to worry about that power leveling nonsense. They hold up much better with some sense of flow and progression, rather than stagnation and basically sneezing on everything you run into until it dies.

Those are valid points you make, but the kicker is that whole "play how you want" stuff. Try playing an older Final Fantasy without power leveling. I realize that you know what's more efficient, but it really is a different experience.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I see your point but to be honest, going in at a lower level is more a matter of luck rather than neccessarily coming up with a great tactic to win the fight at that level. There's never enough depth to the options to do much else than bludgeon your way through, especially since most FF bosses are immune to status effects which is pretty much the limit of most FF's departure from attack or blast with a spell.

I used to play through a FF game once just straight through then go back and monster it the second time, did that with 7, 8 and 9 anyway. It's not so much powering up the levels that matters as it is accessing higher rank spells or skills. Once you realise that it's even possible to get Firaga's at the start of FFVIII, you then realise how quickly you can elevate your party to demi-god status and just kick the shit out of everything you meet. You also start wondering what the point is, given that there's so little that's actually tough to beat in the game anyway. FFIX at least limits your powers to the weapons and stuff you pick up so forcibly slows your advancement that way, although it is possible to hang around killing pointless monsters until you learn the attached skill every time you find a new one.

I forget which it was but one FF game had a fruit machine style attack where once you learned the timing, you could hit lucky seven every time and win every fight without trying. That might have been X-2, I can't really remember.

I liked the combat in FFXII because although people complained the game was playing itself, I found that far preferable to just selecting the same old menu commands over and over and over. At least with FFXII, you had the option to build some pretty complex gambits to cover every eventuality. For me the fun was seeing the genuine extent to which I could make the game play itself, having every imaginable situation covered by my gambit setup.

I'm actually never too bothered about collecting everything in an rpg, until I get near the end and realise that I've collected most stuff without realising it. I killed all the big dragons in FFXII but I wasn't upset that I missed the Zodiac Spear. For me the fun of rpgs is understanding the system and maximising the numbers. Suikoden is a great series for this, not much beats the joy of working out you can get Antonio the chef to dish out more damage than Pesmerga if you set his runes up properly and even though they're pretty much game-breakers, the first time you fire off the Master-pupil attack or stick the permanent berzerk rune on Oulan and realise the extraordinarily powerful move you've found is what playing rpgs is all about for me. Certainly far more so than talking to every character in the game and searching every nook and cranny of every level for secret treasure.

As such, FF games probably aren't for me and in fact, I hated FFX which is an entirely superficial game. FFXII was great though so I'm hoping there's some depth to the combat in FFXIII, both in the range of enemies arrayed against you, the options available to you to kill them and the customisation and tinkering you can do behind the scenes.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Shin

I see your point but to be honest, going in at a lower level is more a matter of luck rather than neccessarily coming up with a great tactic to win the fight at that level. There's never enough depth to the options to do much else than bludgeon your way through, especially since most FF bosses are immune to status effects which is pretty much the limit of most FF's departure from attack or blast with a spell.

I want to touch on a few points, though I realize that you said that it's probably not your cup of tea.

I disagree that it's a matter of luck, mostly on the grounds that the games aren't that hard. Final Fantasy XII appeals to you probably because it's one of the least conventional games in the series, and that's cool stuff. Many Final Fantasies are very basic, they stick to the fundamentals of Japanese RPGs. I think a game like Final Fantasy IV is something most folks played for the story rather than atrocious bullshit drop rates, but it is heralded in Japan as one of the greatest RPGs they've had to offer. It's certainly more popular there than, say, Final Fantasy VI. Which some would argue was a better game (and then we'd all laugh because "Vanish/Doom/X-Zone").

It really depends on the Final Fantasy, as far as low level (I'd say "organic" or "natural" or "not power leveled", whatever you prefer and is less annoying, go with that) play is concerned. The options you have in Final Fantasy VIII in comparison to Final Fantasy VI, for instance, are very different. It's much easier properly break Final Fantasy VIII, and there was a bit of fun in that, to be honest. Until, like you point out, you realize how superficial that can be. If you don't like the game enough for what it has, I guess there's really no reconciling that. It is what it is.

Example:

To truly be a powerhouse in Final Fantasy VI, you not only have to level up (though that can be a significant power boost), you also have to use the right Magicite in order to get certain stat boosts during those level ups. Speed was impossible to raise until you got Odin in Final Fantasy VI. In Final Fantasy VIII, your stats are determined by junctions, so there's no reason to level up as you say. You just need to get the right spells, know the right areas to be in. As you reach that higher level of power, more of the options you used to have become obsolete, but the road to getting there is vastly different because of something as simple as how the game awards you stat boosts and how enemies function.

It's funny that you mention FF bosses being immune to status effects. I believe, depending on the game, many of them can be poisoned, blinded, or silenced in some cases. Final Fantasy XII is actually the game where status effects were very cumbersome to utilize. I know that Meltdown in Final Fantasy VIII was a must on certain foes.

Playing through without power leveling, there's certain elements to take into consideration with what characters bring to the table, what items you can afford without wasting too much money, and what kind of magic system is in place. Final Fantasy gives you the tools you need to win, and there is a structure and depth there if you want to look for it. These games, as much shit as they can catch, wouldn't be popular if they didn't have some kind of structure to them to hook folks.

Admittedly, my knowledge about Final Fantasy VII is limited as far as not Maxing out Materia is concerned, but I was well aware of stuff like machines taking double damage from Lightning spells and such. You take those kind of factors and you look at the other games in the series with a similar eye and you'll see that playing through normally isn't a matter of luck, it's just a matter of understanding your options. Luck can be a factor in RPGs, but I find that's more the realm of the guys who made the SaGa games rather than Final Fantasy.

Based on the ones I know a bit more thoroughly, Final Fantasy VI being the easiest example, you have a pretty well rounded cast with various abilities and damage potential. You walk into an area, get the lay of the land, and you start gauging what enemies are there, what they're capable of doing and how you can prepare for those things. Someone has a weakness to fire? Terra's gotta be in your party now. Worried about MP but still need to hit all opponent's in the area? Who's available? Edgar at that point in the game? Great, Auto-Crossbow is free "target all" damage. I could go on, but basically it's offering as much "strategy" and "structure" as many other Japanese RPGs.

There's always the chance of getting wiped or making a bad decision, but that risk is always there if you're making the risk of not being overpowered in favor of trying to progress as quickly as possible. That's the whole point, to have some sense of danger and challenge while you play the game. Some folks do this because they do play for the story. I made note that in your "Last Remnant Review" you ask "Who plays RPGs for story anyway?" or some such. This kind of play style caters to folks who factor in that presentation into their enjoyment. Sometimes they suffer for it, other times they excel.

Not many of them are different from each other in this respect, it's when you start adding billions of subsystems that players either flock or flee to different offerings from different companies.

That's a verbose but, sadly, very basic grasp of the genre. If I really loved it the way I love, say, fighting games, I could probably elaborate better. But there's certainly more there than what I think you're willing to play for. I would definitely say "luck" isn't as much of a factor as you say it is. I'd say it's more the decision of what you find fun and what you find tedious.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I absolutely agree that using the right spells on the right bad guys is a big part of it but again, I find FF games a little limited in that respect too. I mean like you say, if it's a machine you use lightning, if it's an ice monster you use fire and especially with the more recent iteraions, most of your party have access to the powers you need, plus, and FFX was the worst example of this, you can switch in different members on the fly to deal with things. Fighting a bird, switch in Wakka, fighting a slime, use Lulu etc.

Compare this to Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer's Call (Nocturne over there I believe) where it's not just a case of using the right power to maximise your efficiency in killing things but often a case of using the right powers to simply survive. You often have to carefully tailor your party simply to get through certain sections, even down to the specific skills you breed onto your demons since they get so few each and because the game throws quite varied and equally deadly enemies at you in each section. Added to that there's probably a boss at the end of the section who needs a completely different set of skills and with no Cathedral available to tweak you party's skills and it can be a nice challenge to build a team that'll get you through. This is true right up until the end until you're using the Trumpeter, Metatron and Beelzebub, all with Pierce and Megido spells but that point of gamebreaking comes literally when you're done and even then, beating Lucifer can take some doing. The plot in SMT is fucking ridiculous and badly explained but I absolutely love that game, for the depth of the thing far more than anything else. To be fair, I never really got into FFVI. To the point I got, it was so far, so generic and I lost interest each time I tried to play it.

I think there are signs that Square are trying to innovate a bit these days, what with FFXII being quite a departure from the series in terms of both system and to a lesser extent story and characters (Yes you played a young, annoying guy with too many belts on but he wasn't some epic "Chosen one" and wasn't generally perceived by the NPCS as the main character in the game) and with the amount of resources they've pumped into Last Remnant. Japanese companies seem more and more to be appreciating the Western audience (Kojima announcing he was going to sack everyone and start from stretch with a more west looking team and design philosophy for example) and whilst there's a danger of this just meaning some less Japanese looking faces in the games, one hopes that it'll actually manifest as some deeper or at least different plots and a bit more complexity and depth over sheer volume of collectibles. It's a bit early to say how FFXIII fits into this though.

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I'd say your taste compares to folks who like Guilty Gear in comparison to Super Street Fighter II Turbo. Both are valid experiences, but they're completely different from each other as far as the core game is concerned. Street Fighter is much more about fundamentals and Guilty Gear touches on rushdown and insane combos. Shin Megami Tensei 3 is my favorite RPG on the PS2, and it offers a completely different experience as well. While Final Fantasy wins on production values, Shin Megami Tensei is just a better game. But I think trying to wager it down based on the likelihood of death doesn't quite work, as success or failure don't exactly touch on shades of enjoyment for some folks.

Again, that sense of progression forward in RPGs is what you don't place a lot of value on, you enjoy the combat systems. Success to people who play Final Fantasy means how quickly they can experience the next part of the story, how awesome their party is while trying to do so. Efficiency as you call it. They don't need to die, they just need to be hindered. Survival is arbitrary in that type of game. You acknowledged that yourself, but it's important to note that a direct comparison means looking at games trying to accomplish different objectives.

There's no point trying to skew variety that way. We have two types of games, we have different audiences pleased, we want that variety to exist. I don't know when you played VI, but I was a youth when I first played through it, then I played through it again when it was re-released on the GBA. For its time, it was far from generic or typical, in the medium it was in, anyway. I mean, if you want to judge it by the standards of music or literature or movies, just bear in mind that it isn't any of those things before it is a video game. I don't think there's any sense trying to revise history to judge it by today's standards, for a video game anyway. Not that I'd disagree that it isn't the divine work or some shit.

These folks don't enjoy Shin Megami Tensei's tight gameplay since they find the narrative to not be to their liking. I could go on, but we'd end up agreeing with each other on Shin Megami Tensei among other things, and I don't really disagree with your assessment as far as what I feel is a better game experience.

Final Fantasy is about the fundamentals of what Final Fantasy IV established. It's valued for that, I know I said this earlier but it bears repeating. I think that audience is always going to be around, but Square-Enix has always been making efforts to train up the series if you look at it. There's some sense of progression, I'm really not sure what's going to represent the basic JRPG if Final Fantasy continues the way Final Fantasy XII went. I don't think XII was perfect, but I don't attack it the way I imagine some folks will when they see the title.

I realize you'd call their stories rubbish and their music laughable, but the fact of the matter is that those elements of presentation do matter, they are part of the game and their appeal. I don't really like it either, we have a million jokes in response for it, but there we go. For the medium they are in, which is what they are, the stories and music are more than fine. The folks who hate Final Fantasy VIII or X want to run in and go NUH UH!, but the sales don't lie there. Yes, these aren't refined tastes, but at the same time I could argue that shit isn't as bad as its made out to be. Except VIII, fuck that game.

XIII is done by the Kingdom Hearts team. Like them or not, it's not exactly going to be 100 percent conventional.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

That said, I really liked the first Kingdon Hearts game, mainly I think because it's just such fun. It's a platformer really though, not an rpg (Which is why I didn't like the sequel so much, they took out most of the platforming). I played FFVI after I played IX, in fact I got it on the PS1, mainly because it cost like £10 and came with a demo of FFX (FFVI never came out over here on SNES or if it did, I was too busy playing Killer Instinct to care).

Don't get me wrong here, I do like the FF games (Except X, X can go suck a dick, I rather enjoyed X-2 oddly enough though) and I'm a sucker for big budget production values in games and I'll probably end up buying this one after the price drops a bit and I've finished my rpg backlog (Fallout 3 to start after Last Remnant for starters). I'll be interested to hear a bit more about the combat system between now and it's release though, rather than just bitching about the silly characters.

FELIPE NO

For now they're just trying to whet their core audience's appetite with character previews and such. This is prime time for folks to start being storyline scrubs, but it's a Japanese RPG so it's not like they aren't in the right place for it. If some kind of all gameplay trailer gets released, like there was with Last Remnant, I'd definitely take a look at it. Part of The Last Remnant's appeal for me was the fact that I had absolutely no clue what was going on visually as well as not knowing Japanese for the onscreen text. I thought it was gonna be like Dynasty Warriors or some shit.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?