[Multiplatform] Official Final Fantasy XIII Thread

Originally Posted by Musharraf

It appears to me that the first ten (out of a total of 13!) chapters are going to be the RPG equivalent of a corridor shooter.

And that comes to anywhere about 30-50 hours with one dungeon towards the end where there's about 1 puzzle. Everything else is corridors and paths. No towns, no NPCs. You go to two HUGE towns but don't ever explore, you just pass through it.

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

Originally Posted by Cadillacs

Also totally looking forward to not having fun for the first 15 to 20 hours, if all the reviews are to be believed.

Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose? I can understand an hour of tedium to learn the controls and whatnot, but when you're nearing a day's worth of played time there should be some kind of entertainment derived. Theoretically.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Cadillacs

PS

Ha ha, you get most of those just playing through though and I didn't bother hunting any of the non-achievement rare monsters. I'd never got 1,000/1,000 out of a game before and when I realised I was on track to get it out of TLR I couldn't resist.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Hmm. Yes. Every single side quest for the secret boss and several multiple rare monster fights for small 30 point achievements, grinding monster dismantling and equipment recycling all come completely naturally on a regular playthrough. >=(

DON'T BS SHIN, EMBRACE THE FAGGOTRY LIKE I HAVE. TOGETHER WE CAN RULE THIS GALAXY LIKE MODERATOR AND ADMIN

FELIPE NO

So, because my wife's amazing, she spent hours making a ton of GIFs. Use 'em for avatars, memes, or whatever you will. Enjoy~

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

Ok I started playing the game and first I have to say, that I had no big expectations for the game and now that I am four hours in, my expectations aren't rising.
So far it feels rushed and aside from the fantastic visuals it's boring. Not having the fun I had with the other games released recently.
By rushed I mean "Oh hey here are the characters, He loves this girl. Now read the fucking Menu information to know more." Let me at least know the characters before you put me in the middle of a huge story with terms I don't even understand.
I have heard that the game gets better after a few hours but I have to say that so far, I had more of a blast playing through FFX the first time than I am with this.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Shenlon

Ok I started playing the game and first I have to say, that I had no big expectations for the game and now that I am four hours in, my expectations aren't rising.
So far it feels rushed and aside from the fantastic visuals it's boring. Not having the fun I had with the other games released recently.
By rushed I mean "Oh hey here are the characters, He loves this girl. Now read the fucking Menu information to know more." Let me at least know the characters before you put me in the middle of a huge story with terms I don't even understand.
I have heard that the game gets better after a few hours but I have to say that so far, I had more of a blast playing through FFX the first time than I am with this.

Fair assessment and I have to agree with you.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Played it for a couple of hours, a little ways into Chapter 3. Enjoying it overall so far, but not really far enough yet to have a strong opinion one way or the other. Vanille's VA and character mannerisms (why the fuck do you run like that!?) are ungodly annoying, but I am mildly curious to find out what the deal is with her. I prefer more open games, but linerity doesn't inherently bother me so long as the battle system is good and the story/characters are at least decent, and I can't really judge that yet. I can see where people were complaining about the Crystanium (?) actually being pretty linear and offering only the illusion of options, but the actual battle system and PARADIGM SHIFT (lol) is actually pretty neat.

I'm at least interested enough to keep going full steam ahead. Fuck, it's even already better than FFX.

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I'm liking the game so far. Just hit Chapter 5 (which is the start of Disc 2, incidentally) and I'm impressed with the battle system. The fact that the game regularly encourages you to switch paradigms to beat particular fights keeps you from just mindlessly "pressing A to win", as does the little rating you get at the end of the fights.

The linearity doesn't inherently bother me either, although I do admit given the choice I'd want it to be slightly less obvious about its linearity. The characters (with the exception of Vanille, who I want to punch in her god damn face) are all interesting enough to watch, and the switching between groups of characters, while frustrating to the "I want to make a party and stick with it" person in me, at least encourages you to try new combos on a regular basis AND allows the story (at least, so far it seems to be allowing it) to branch out a lot faster than your typical Final Fantasy game that spends a good 15 hours just setting up the main conflict.

The battle theme is fucking fantastic.

Additional Spam:

Originally Posted by Shenlon

Ok I started playing the game and first I have to say, that I had no big expectations for the game and now that I am four hours in, my expectations aren't rising.
So far it feels rushed and aside from the fantastic visuals it's boring. Not having the fun I had with the other games released recently.
By rushed I mean "Oh hey here are the characters, He loves this girl. Now read the fucking Menu information to know more." Let me at least know the characters before you put me in the middle of a huge story with terms I don't even understand.
I have heard that the game gets better after a few hours but I have to say that so far, I had more of a blast playing through FFX the first time than I am with this.

The game seems to be going more for the "start with the story moving and fill out the characters' backstory later" approach rather than, say, FFIX or XII, which spend AGES introducing you to the characters before anything gets moving with the overall plot.

I like it better that way, actually. It does make for some confusing "What the hell is this guy's motivation" shit at the beginning but when you start finding out about their motivations later it's actually more of a cool reveal that way. I like it so far.

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

I do have to agree with Shenlon about the menu exposition. Maybe if some of the NPC survivors at the beginning said more than two words it wouldn't be necessary to go read the datalog every time it pops up to find out why the city is crumbling around you.

That being said, I'm at the start of chapter 3 now and I'm enjoying the game so far. I don't know why you people hate Vanille so much. She's quirky, weird, and quickly became my favorite character. It's hilarious watching her skip along and be all "Hey, do you know how to fly that motorbike? Let's steal it, whee!" She's clearly not as ditzy as she's acting, so it's all perfectly bearable. The only character I dislike so far is Lightning. I didn't expect much from her since she looks like Cloud with boobs and Squall's weapon, and she seems to have predictably taken the worst traits from both.

The battle system is pretty fun so far. I just got job classes, so it should be even better now. The extreme linearity hasn't bothered me at all yet, which is very surprising. I'm all for a linear game, but all the talk of straight line dungeons had me worried.

At any rate, it's already a lot more interesting and fun than FF XII was at the beginning. That's progress!

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The first few fights you do where you end up required to do rapidfire Paradigm Shifting are the fights that sold me on the battle system. Makes even a lot of non boss fights more than just "mash A" affairs.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

After chapter 4 the story is about to unfold a bit more the battle system has definitely gotten more complex rather than the 5 star mashing battles. Sahz and Vanille I've found to be a horrible pair for getting five star ratings, Don't know why I care about rating, they don't do much, but it does show that they suck without a good offensive player on the team.
Finally reached the first hard boss battle. I've died before but that's because it was during the learning of the new battle features or getting used to switching classes but this time I died legitimately.

Chapter four boss.

Spoiler:

It's fucking Odin. He killed me so fast, I don't have enough time to attack once i'm healed. Good thing I can still win as long as I keep Healing Hope. (haha what a stupid name)

FELIPE NO

Really didn't set my expectations high going into this game, just came off of finishing Star Ocean IV International so really even if this game had been bad, it would of felt good. So far I am pleasantly surprised. While it is fairly linear...it works well for what the game is. I also don't find myself being annoyed by any of the characters...regardless of how bad their VA might be.

My only gripe is how good the battle theme is. And by good I mean catchy...I went to bed with it stuck in my head and now I am awake with it 12 hours removed from when I last played.

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

I guess my one question about this is: Is there a licenese system for weapons and upgrades like in XII? Because that entire license system was a huge turn off for me.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

The character upgrade system is as linear as the game is.

You pick a role, and in each role is a line of upgrades that you spend Crystarium Points (XP) on, which gives Magic/Strength/HP increases and abilities. Weapons are character-specific, so there's no "licenses" for using other ones.

This game gets an OK from me for having the first ATB battle system that isn't a boring piece of shit. I'm having a lot of fun with it.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Encephalon

I guess my one question about this is: Is there a licenese system for weapons and upgrades like in XII? Because that entire license system was a huge turn off for me.

Thankfully they seemed to realize how god awful the license system was and it is nowhere in sight. The leveling system in FFXIII is kind of like a hybrid of the grid system from FFX and the class system from FFV albeit with alot less classes. There is basically a grid for each character (they don't connect with other characters like FFX's), there is also different grids for each class type role (Commando role...ie attacking with weapons and physical attacks...Medic...healer...Sentinel...tank type and so on). Instead of experience points you get CP..which points allow you to move on the Crysterium grid to the next skill. Kind of difficult to explain it without you seeing it yourself. I like it, my only complaint is that it is easy to max it out as you go along and there doesn't seem to be much freedom in terms of going different directions on the grid. Might change later, since my grid is only level 3 out of 10 levels.

The battle system is alot of fun, I like that they designed some of the boss fights so that you actually have to put forth a decent strategy effort to win.

Spoiler:

For the most part, almost everyone will die on Odin the first time you fight him if you don't know what to do. Its fairly early in the game, I love this challenge...however that will diminish should I choose to replay the game again.

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

Originally Posted by Encephalon

I guess my one question about this is: Is there a licenese system for weapons and upgrades like in XII? Because that entire license system was a huge turn off for me.

It gives you the *illusion* of choice, and you get a few different branches to work with, but in all honesty it's pretty linear. I don't really mind it, you get a tiny bit of control over what happens to a character's stats when, it's basically an old-school completely out of your hands FF levelling system except you get to push the button that makes the progression go.

In all honesty, if I had to worry about that shit AND picking out 6 decent combinations of classes I'd go nuts. A lot of things in this game are like that. Out of context a lot of these things that they trimmed or streamlined sound like bad ideas, but in the game as a whole it feels like they cut out things that they've done badly to make room for things that they do well

License board sucks? Leave a semi-functioning one in so the onus moves to you picking the right Paradigms instead of levelling the characters properly.

Last couple of games devolved into listless wanderfests because there's too much to do? Why not cut out even the illusion of non-linearity so instead the game can focus on telling a tightly-wound story?

Hell, even that Vanille chick I wanted to punch for the longest time has sort of grown on me. I still want to punch her voice actor for taking too much helium, but the character isn't as annoying.

I'm not done with the game yet. Not by a long shot, just started Disc 3. Based on how much I liked the first 2 discs, and how I've heard the third disc is really where the game "gets good", I have high hopes for it.

Just a shame they couldn't have done... something to make it less blatant that it's linear. I mean, let's face it, even if a dungeon has, say, 5 floors and a puzzle section and 3 different ways to make it to the top, in the end it's not like you're able to NOT do the dungeon. That'd be "non-linear". It just lets you feel a little more in control of your destiny than the game lets you feel most of the time. I mean, I personally didn't mind it, and as Taco said at one point, I can respect a game just saying "You know what, fuck it, let's do it this way" and sticking with it, but I feel like it will turn people off from the game who'd otherwise like it.

Because, seriously, the battles are really fun. Once you get the Paradigm stuff the game ratchets up the difficulty, making it more fun by a mile.

God dammit this is a lot of text from someone who hasn't beaten the game. This isn't a review, Skills, okay

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

Originally Posted by Internet Terrorist

It gives you the *illusion* of choice, and you get a few different branches to work with, but in all honesty it's pretty linear.

I was thinking the exact same thing. Which makes the GT review laughable because they say that they give the most freedom in character development.
It gives you a choice in which class you want to level up first but I withhold my CP until I have 1000-2000 and pretty much level everyone up almost to the max. I'm sure later in the game it will grow in cost but the only reason I level up is because I have the points, not really because I need to. At least not yet.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Shenlon

I was thinking the exact same thing. Which makes the GT review laughable because they say that they give the most freedom in character development.
It gives you a choice in which class you want to level up first but I withhold my CP until I have 1000-2000 and pretty much level everyone up almost to the max. I'm sure later in the game it will grow in cost but the only reason I level up is because I have the points, not really because I need to. At least not yet.

How far in are you? In Chapter 5, I maxed out my characters and ended up with a surplus of like 5-6k CP...felt this pattern would continue for a while but eventually it starts to open up to the point where unless you grind CP for hous and hours and hours...you won't max anything out.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I just got to chapter 7 and each "sphere" takes up to 400cp now. So I'm up to the point where I save up to 3,000 before I decide to use them. I basically concentrate on commando for whoever is able to use it. Things like blitz and launching are necessities.
By "Max Level" I mean leveling up to the most possible at the point, then I still have enough CP for the next stages.
Every time I used Snow I had around 16,000 cp waiting for him so it was pretty overwhelming leveling him up.

FELIPE NO

Didn't get to play much today, still in Chapter 5 also known as

Spoiler:

Lightning and Hopes Excellent Adventure of Bonding

. I maxed out my spheres pretty early in the chapter so when I got to the point of upgrading my sphere in the chapter I was able to max it out again and still have 3k left over. I don't figure this is a bad thing, but considering how OCD I am about things...I wonder if this will make me want to grind on later chapters. I guess that isn't bad, as it is making me take a slow and steady pace with this game. I just passed 15 hours and I am still in Chapter 5. It was pointed out to me, that I should of been done with this at the 10 hour mark. Oh well.

Also I love all the negativity this game gets from the hardcore Final Fantasy games. It's like Final Fantasy should be its own genre...seperate from RPG. Apprently its not a FF game if there are no moogles. Who knew.

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

What a fucking turn this game has made. You assume the entire thing is going to be linear and suddenly you're thrown into an open world where the monsters turn out to be 5 times or 10 times stronger depending on how you were playing the game and each power up is 4000-8000 points. Seriously? All I've been playing before this was just the fucking tutorial? And I thought the Kingdom hearts 2's two hour tutorial was long.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Dang, the boss at the end of Ch. 9 made my friend very

I managed to get him on my first try, but it took 18 minutes. The target time is like...10 minutes. Is that even possible? I had everyone leveled up as far as I could (which was Role Level 3) but maybe my group was not the preferred party. I had Lightning, Fang, and Hope.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

You know, I keep hearing this game gets good 15 hours in. But if I'm having trouble stomaching the first 15 hours of gameplay, I really don't care how good the rest of the game is. It's poorly designed.

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

Originally Posted by Denicalis

You know, I keep hearing this game gets good 15 hours in. But if I'm having trouble stomaching the first 15 hours of gameplay, I really don't care how good the rest of the game is. It's poorly designed.

Haha nothing changes. There's no AWESOME event that happens 15 hours in. The game is the same the whole way through.

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