[Multiplatform] Official Final Fantasy XIII Thread

Yeah the cover art is crap... oh well :/

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Andrew Evenstar

Yeah the cover art is crap... oh well :/

Maybe, if we're lucky, the box turns into a pick-up truck and we can ride it.

Because that would make it awesome, wouldn't it?

Fuck this clown game.

I also think they should re-title the series, so it is more in line with their current trend in giving things names. Final Fantasy is dead. Long live Final Cumulus Cluster. Or Flash Flood Fantasy. Maybe even, dare I dream, Slight Drizzle XIII.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

It could just be renamed as "RapeLay XIII" as well.

The cover should just be the game's name on it.

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

New scans show redhhead riding Magitek Armor Lookalike:
Final Fantasy XIII – 11 new Famitsu pages, short Q&A about Vanille’s Magitek Armor summon “Hecatonchires” | RPG Land: RPG reviews, wallpapers, news and more since 1999.

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

Originally Posted by nanstey

And no pre-order incentives that I've heard of, either...

Why would they bother? Just writing Final Fantasy on the box is enough to guarantee they'll sell every copy in the shops on day one. Hell, if I was them I'd wait a month before releasing a Limited Edition, safe in the knowledge that there'd be a ton of idiots who already bought the game who'd buy it again if it came in a metal box with a cheap, plastic chocobo lumped in with it.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Shin

Why would they bother? Just writing Final Fantasy on the box is enough to guarantee they'll sell every copy in the shops on day one. Hell, if I was them I'd wait a month before releasing a Limited Edition, safe in the knowledge that there'd be a ton of idiots who already bought the game who'd buy it again if it came in a metal box with a cheap, plastic chocobo lumped in with it.

And the sad part is only we, the consumer, are to blame

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

They just announced a special edition of the game for the European market. No word on North America. Let's hope, although i think their marketing department would have to be bat-shit insane not to release a special edition here...

FELIPE NO

Any details on this special edition? None of the sites I check have anything.

edit: Never mind, found a source.

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

Live Stream

???????URL??????? on Justin.tv

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Goooooooooooooooooood I was supposed to sleep two hours ago, but Ive been watching this.

For those that dont have the password its "livetube" I believe.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

So wait, I'm probably retarded for asking this, but that's him playing live and not recorded?

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

Yeah, he was streaming himself playing live. I joined the stream right after the "demo" part finished-ish. Then dozed off at around 3 am my time. Magical.

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

I don't write the rules concerning gloating. So don't hate the player. We picked it up this morning at the convenience store across the street.



hand modeling provided by the wife

We're playing it right now, about an hour in. Initial impressions are that it's kind of violent, incredibly pretty and the music is very high-functioning in terms of orchestration and arrangement.

We went to buy the playguide to make playing it in moonspeak slightly easier for ourselves and in the first store we went into there was a giant shipping crate full of these lightning edition ps3s that were for people to randomly buy. Well played square enix.

edit: if anybody has any questions or wants a screenshot of a menu or something let me know.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Is that PS3 japan only?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

yeah this lightning edition is for japan only

but the games are region free so no big deal once we leave

edit: + korea

they just decided

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Andrew Evenstar

Live Stream

???????URL??????? on Justin.tv

Any ideas what's the access code? Seems like it's not 'livetube' anymore. I tried yesterday and it worked but now it doesn't

DG: It'd be great if you could take some screenshots for the menu. I was watching the live stream yesterday and apparently the levelling up system is similar to FFX's Sphere grid (which was awesome)?

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

My copy is expected to arrive at noon tomorrow *anticipation*

The levelling up system is similar to FFX's grid, but it looks like it's in 3d, which is kinda blowing my mind.

The stream seems to have changed its password, but I found by searching up "Final Fantasy 13" in justin.tv, it linked me to a few other live streams.

I was considering getting the Lightning edition PS3 for the juicy Hard drive upgrade, but my 80gb has backwards compatibility... TORN.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Best impression on the game by far from duckroll at NeoGAF:

Quote:

Okay, I've clocked over 10 hours of the game now and have a good handle on most of the systems in the game. Time to write up some impressions.

THIS IS NOT A REVIEW, I'M ONLY 10 HOURS INTO THE GAME.

FFXIII is a really interesting game. No doubt it is the HD successor to the FFX/FFX-2 school of design in terms of many things, but what is surprising is that it doesn't really throw away the concepts pushed forward by FFXII. At the same time, the game itself is a whole new beast. There has never been a FF like this before, and it is a very bold new step for the series. Some fans will almost certainly like it more than others, depending on what your stake in the series is, and what is important to you in a RPG. Either way, I think it is very refreshing to have a game which breaks down barriers while erecting other new boundaries in defining what constitutes a "Final Fantasy" mainline game.

The first thing I noticed about the game was how uncompromising it was in letting the narrative dictate the entire direction of the game. Right from the start, the game starts with a bang. There has never been a FF game or a RPG as cinematic driven as FFXIII. I don't mean it uses a ton of cutscenes (lots of games do) during the game, but rather the entire experience feels like you are playing a part in a film instead of a game which uses a lot of cinematic sequences to tell the story. The best comparison would be with action games, where not only are the levels linear, but everything is designed around the narrative itself which you play through. The game doesn't consider the player's needs or wants in relation to what they want out of a RPG, but instead strives to deliver a very specific experience.

Now that could be pretty bad if the story and characters are terrible and no one cares. Thankfully, I think this is one of the strongest FF games in terms of narrative and characters. It's definitely up there with FFVI. The style of the scenario is such that the player is thrown into the world at a crucial period, and experiences several events unfold which don't quite make complete sense immediately. The game also throws the characters all out at once, without wasting time with detailed introductions or the standard form of character building.

Instead, you learn what each character is like and what they're each about as you play, and as you see them react to situations and discuss their own desires, fears, dreams and experiences. Much of what they have done in the days leading up to the game are vital to developing their characteristics and for the player to understand them, and these events are slowly unraveled through flashbacks as you play the game. This method of narrative means the game pretty much never slows down. The characters are always on the move, and with their lives all in peril there is no time to waste. Yet it also allows the game to slow down for some short moments along the way to build up on the characters and to let their various layers unfold.

All in all the narrative is very strong, the characters are extremely likable, and the plot keeps pushing players forward with the motivation to learn more about everything - the world, the characters, and the crux of what is happening in the world that allowed the events at the start of the game to occur. The sense of mystery is a high point of the storyline, and definitely a driving force for players to keep playing.

Gameplay-wise, the game is also very different from anything before. The battles are faster than ever before, but also more different than ever before. The Optima system is often mistaken for a sort of Job system, and a passive option in battles which allow you to change your Roles. It couldn't be further from the truth. The Optima system is in fact simply another way to input commands.
Because of the speed of the battles, even if the game gave the player the option of inputting commands for each character separately, and toggling using L1/R1, it would be unplayable. No human player would be able to keep up with the battles and to select AND input commands for different characters at the same time.

What the Optima and Role system does is to define 6 very specific type of roles, and limit what each role can do down to their core usage. Hence by changing the Optima of the party in battle, you are essentially specifically changing the commands each party member can make, and hence giving them near-specific orders until you change the Optima again. It is not a passive command, it is something you will have to use in almost every battle.

The game is NOT being played by "AI" so much as command input being aided by AI, and instructed by the player. Due to how battles are designed, and what the player is required to do to win battles, the emphasis is still on strategy and tactics determined by the player. Anyone who claims that the AI party members in the game are "auto play", is probably a person who has previously complained that the Gambit system is "auto play" and so we can know to safely ignore them.

Outside of the battle system, the game actually features some pretty interesting forms of character customization. Gone are character levels, just like in FFX. Instead, in it's place are various systems which break the core meaning of "leveling up" down into different bite pieces to make the player more proactive in considering how to strengthen any given character. Each character starts off with access to a limited selection of Roles. Each character's Crystarium (think simplified Sphere Grid or License Board) for each Role is different. So even between say Lightning as a Blaster and Snow as a Blaster, the abilities they can learn and the stat boosts they can gain from putting in CP is different.

Aside from stats and abilities gained from Crystarium, the game also features a pretty interesting Weapon and Accessory system. Fans of weapons will be happy to learn that unlike FFX, the weapons in FFXIII have stats again. Each weapon has a Physical Attack and Magical Attack stat, and some weapons have an ability attached. Weapons also have levels, which starts at level 1. Using materials gained from defeating enemies, you can pump them into weapons to give the weapon experience, and level it up. Each weapon has a different sort of balance for the stats, so leveling up the initial weapon is just as viable as changing to a new weapon each time you can buy or find a better one, and leveling that up for a little bit before the next one.

In some cases, specializing on a certain weapon and leveling it up over and over might be a much better option, depending on how you plan on using the character it's equipped on. Different weapons gain different amounts of exp from different materials, and using a bunch of materials which give a small bit of exp might sometimes trigger an exp bonus chain for the next set of materials you put in. There's a bit a experimentation involved, although with how limited some materials are earlier in the game, it might be wise not to waste too many on trial on error too soon.

Accessories also have levels, and each accessory has an ability tied to it. By leveling it up, you increase the effectiveness of the accessory. For example, a Silver Bangle Lvl1 would give HP+100, and putting in enough materials to get it to Lvl2 will change it to HP+116 instead. What I've also noticed is that there are synergy abilities as well. Hope had a weapon which had no abilities on its own, but when equipped with that weapon AND a certain accessory, it gave him an ability which boosted Physical damage. The ability is not listed on either accessory, and is essentially hidden. As such, it reasons that there are many more of this sort of secret combinations of weapon+accessory which when equipped grant bonuses.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

English review at RPG Land

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

I like how the reviewer has to prove that he has indeed played through the main story (he says this is half-way into the duration of the game) with a screen shot of the final obligatory dungeon. The game sounds it's basically the same as FFX in all aspects, with enhanced graphics.

The thing that worries me is his mentioning of music, since that's the only thing I'm interested in the game. I probably will play the game after many years, but I will grapplehook myself to the soundtrack the day it's released, maybe even buying it. This reviewer however doesn't really know anything about music, so I'm not certain what the soundtrack will be like. I'm worried about him saying "pop" music has taken over into the BGM as well. This sounds weird, and only done, because it's more possible to shoehorn worthless vocals into games nowadays, more than ever before, and Square of all companies WILL abuse this possibility to no end, especially with Final Fantasies. But it's Hamauzu, so it might actually be good, even still...

Yeah, ignoring the game itself, for now.

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

Originally Posted by Kishin

I like how the reviewer has to prove that he has indeed played through the main story (he says this is half-way into the duration of the game) with a screen shot of the final obligatory dungeon.

The unfortunate state of the internet. There'd likely be all kinds of "Fake!" and "Boo this man!" without it, sadly.

I was speaking idiomatically.

What I got from those reviews is that the game is the linearity of FFVII, matched with a levelling system combining FFX's grid and FFIX and Tactics' weapons skills with a side order of Dark Cloud weapon levelling with a battle system refined from Last Remnant, FFXII and FFX-2, all wrapped up in a horrific mix of FFX shitty script and FFX-2's J-Pop visuals and soundtrack.

I don't really see that departing from traditional Jrpg "norms" is in any way a bad thing though. I suspect their aim was to appeal to a broader market and that's understandable. They know that fans of the series would buy it anyway, no matter what they did to the game so trying to reel in a few people who wouldn't normally buy an rpg but like games like Metal Gear makes perfect sense from a business point of view if nothing else.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

So browsing through the FFXIII threads at NeoGaf, the overall vibe towards the game seems to be kind of negative. (Mostly due to the game's apparent level of linearity.) I haven't played the game yet, but I kind of get the sense that the importers who are complaining are kind of overreacting. It seems like they wanted MMO-esque/FFXII style exploration.

Frankly I just couldn't enjoy XII (despite trying), and loved FFX, so I'm still pretty damn hyped for XIII.

The one thing I'm concerned about is the situation with the towns or lack there of. Some reviews/impressions state that there are no towns at all, while others say that they are there just not in the traditional sense. So I have no idea as to what the deal is.

FELIPE NO

I bet you can find towns while you ride around on your Go-Botesque summons.

:sigh:

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

Originally Posted by Denicalis

I bet you can find towns while you ride around on your Go-Botesque summons.

:sigh:

Towns better have more of a presence than merely hovering over them and seeing them in the distance. And yeah, transformer-summons is still kinda tough to take seriously, but as long as they are not as useless as they were in XII I won't really complain.

Jam it back in, in the dark.