Final Fantasy 13 - Your thoughts

[StarBound]

So this morning at 8am I got my sms from BTGames telling me to go pick the sucker up. To bad the store only opened at 9am.

Got home, finished my wow daily and weekly, then popped in the disc into my ps3.

At first when I saw the movie I was like "WOAH!" But then came the game part and suddenly my "woah" was replaced with "oh..". Graphicly the game isnt the best I have seen. The movies looks good, dare I say nearly as good looking as Blizzards stuff.

Combat is more streamlined. You now control the party leader only and leave the rest of the parties actions in the hands of the tactics assigned to them depending on the situation. You can change this anytime during battle. After a round your restored to full hp which speeds up the game drasticly. Fights arent random. The enemies are on your map and you run into them to initialize combat. Depending on how you enter combat you either start with a pre-emptive or normal attack.
Combat still uses the active time battle mode meaning you charge your attack guage before attacking or performing some actions. Actions from your items doesnt effect your combat time. It's now instantly useable.

Sound, characters, music... it is a problem. The combat music is very "soft" compared to previous final fantasies. The boss fight music is nothing to get excited over and you feel like its a normal mob your downing. The character voices are ok EXCEPT for 1. Vanille, a red head chick which has the voice of a 10 year old upper class brittish family is driving me insane. I've never been against voice acting as much as with this game because of her

So far the game hasnt really wowed me apart from the movies. For ps3 the game doesnt install but loading time is not an issue. In and out of fights is fast. The final fantasy theme at the end of the battle is gone. The controlls are very responsive. Time will tell if the game is good or not. So far 4/5 for me. And the 4 is a grace call as I looked forward to this game for some time else it would have hit a 3/5.

[D3PART3D]

One of the reasons I resurrected the PS3 thread is because I'm not sure how the mods feel about us spamming a PC forum with console game threads...

Anyhow, I didn't get much play time today, will report back tomorrow.

[StarBound]

Except the game is on both platforms (360 and ps3) so I decided to make a new thread. A huge plus point of the game is that it has ample supplie of save points. 3min-11min between saves making the game highly playable in short sessions. Will see how it goes further on.

[Rayne]

I thought the PS3 version packed both original and dub? Personally I survived Star Ocean 4's Sarah so I'm pretty confident I'll make it through Final Fantasy XIII without feelling the need to start digging my wrists out with a spoon.

Though, I knew this game was going to be a fu for a while now as I read what the Japanese had to say. Even they didn't like it.

Square Enix actually had to call an interview and defend their decision to make the game this linear. The first 25-30 hours play like an interactive movie in which you can't even backtrack btw so good luck writng up early impressions on it now. It becomes open-world late in the game only in which you can do side-quests after beating the game if you wish to.

Got it on 360 so my expectations are even lower than yours.

[GreyWolf]

I am not a big FF fan, but I have played 7, 8 and I think 10. Making the battle music soft is a big plus in my opinion, as there was nothing more mind numbing than having that crap constantly play during long battles. Also, you only control the group leader now? Why? I liked the feature in the older games where you could swap out charcters to take advantage of certain powers...

[Rayne]

Yes only one toon in battle and if he/she dies it's game over for the party.

And if you take too long killing a boss expect a 1-hit-KO.

[ADT]

I personally think the FF franchised has gone on for too long now, and it's getting a bit far stretched now, but hey if it makes them money who's gonna stop then

[Ashley_Pops]

When I first started the game I was a bit uncertain about it. The game seemed a bit empty when compared to other entries in the series. After playing for most of yesterday though I've realised that this is mainly due to the pacing of the game. There is quite a bit to do, you just don't have access to it until you reach a point where the game decides that you may now have whichever ability. While mildly annoying at first it does pay off though, the game becomes amazingly fun when you have access to the crystarium system (basic, but still interesting), paradigm shifts, summons and weapon upgrading.

Story wise I doubt that this will have what it takes to topple the likes of VI, VII or X, but it does have very interesting interactions between characters. This is something I'm going to have to see more of before I can make my judgement though.

All in all I must say the more I play this game the more I love it. It has what is possibly the best battle system of any final fantasy to date and those CG cutscenes

Vanille, a red head chick which has the voice of a 10 year old upper class brittish family

I think the accent may be Australian It is annoying either way though

[StarBound]

Dont shoot me but so far the game feels pretty average to me.

[Ashley_Pops]

Differing opinions makes for better debate

Just a question, are you struggling to get money at the moment? I think I'm in chapter 6 and I'm stuck on about 1200 Gil. The only way I've seen to get more money is if you beat someone who drops a credit chip which will get about 500 Gil if you sell it. I know that you can sell your components as well but I tend to use all of mine. Is there something I'm missing here?

[FrostiE]

I'm a bit peeved with the art direction. One of the things I loved about FF7 and 8 (only ones I played) was whole modern, dystropian world with mythical tie-ins. This one's all techy, and over the top with it. I mean, Shiva turns into a goddamn harley.

[StarBound]

LOL I think people wanted to take her for a ride for a long time now

On the item note I also dont sell items. I rather upgrade so I can overpower enemies. The paragime system is ok but some fights get overwhelming are rediculously dependant on some skills. For instance I am now on chapter 3/4 where you fight the robots. You need sabatours and was it engineers to boost your stats and degrade the enemy else you do too little damage.

This part is because I either dont pay attention or its not spelt out properly. I dont know who we are fighting and I dont know why. The only part I got was Sara is now crystal and Light wants to go on a vengful rampage again one of the factions.

[Ashley_Pops]

I think the problem is that the paradigm system is really optimised for having three people in your team. What I find works best for me is to have a ravager to build up the stagger bar quickly, a commando to stop it depleting as fast and then a third character in a support role (saboteur/synergist/medic). Obviously the problem with that is that in the first part of the game you are limited to certain characters at a time and having to sacrifice the ravager and commando for a support role makes the battles a lot harder. The Sazh/Vanille pairing is interesting from a story perspective but fighting together I have a bit of a problem with them, their styles just don't gel very well together. Once you get full control of the party I think the paradigm system will really come into its own.

Story wise at first you aren't really sure of what exactly is going on but as you go along more and more of what happened is revealed. The bulk of the story is actually what happened in the thirteen days leading up to the start of the game. It is all revealed throughout the game but if you are interested in reading up on it Square did release a book entitled episode zero which is basically the prequel to the game. The translation can be found here: http://dilly-shilly.blogspot.com/

In chapter 7 at the moment and the money situation has picked up a bit. I'm actually still using the original weapons from the start of the game. I'd rather have a strong set that I can rely on and then upgrade the others after.

I'm a bit peeved with the art direction. One of the things I loved about FF7 and 8 (only ones I played) was whole modern, dystropian world with mythical tie-ins. This one's all techy, and over the top with it. I mean, Shiva turns into a goddamn harley.

To my understanding once you get to the second part of the game you will go to Pulse, which is a primitive wilderness. The 2 different worlds are meant to contrast one another.

[StarBound]

I am becoming a bit more impressed with the game as it progresses. The nature scenes in the game just looks so damn good compared the the electronic/tech scenes.

[Rayne]

I think the problem is that the paradigm system is really optimised for having three people in your team. What I find works best for me is to have a ravager to build up the stagger bar quickly, a commando to stop it depleting as fast and then a third character in a support role (saboteur/synergist/medic). Obviously the problem with that is that in the first part of the game you are limited to certain characters at a time and having to sacrifice the ravager and commando for a support role makes the battles a lot harder. The Sazh/Vanille pairing is interesting from a story perspective but fighting together I have a bit of a problem with them, their styles just don't gel very well together. Once you get full control of the party I think the paradigm system will really come into its own.

Fully agree. That's why the Sazh/Vanille duo faced weaker mobs for the most part. I am used to the system now and even though I must say I found nothing special about it for many, many hours, right now I'm at a point where I'm able to use it well and what do you know, it's at this point where I can now choose my team.

Did I really need you holding my hand all this time SE? Test my intellegence, don't insult it.

That said my opinions changing after every session played. For the better. I'm actually looking forward to a bit of grinding soon. Just, atm I feel so damn weak. Saw plenty of screens so I know that HP and attack boosts are coming but man, it's really starting to feel like I'm missing something. This game goes from easy to average to rediculous when you least expect it. Quite challenging compared to the other recent JRPG's I played. Some mobs and bosses attack relentlessly and that's really pushing the limits of a turn-based system. I more often than not just auto-chain because there's no time to manually stack. Thank God for Libra.

Anyway, I'll probably be on this for a while. If ultimate gear exist then I must have it you know. It's a weakness of mine.

I'm about to leave my linear path so not sure how much longer until my team's maxed but I'll post my thought thereafter. At my age this will likely be the last FF I play.

[StarBound]

The best grind spot is either chapter 5 or 6 where you head down an elevator, get a save point and 6 snail things. They give 150cp. The fight is only 20 seconds long and taking the elevator up and down takes another 20 seconds. I say grind them till your jobs are maxxed out. It takes about 30minutes and from there you will gain another 5k just by completing the chapter.

[Rayne]

You do know that lvl 10 Crystarium skills require around 54 000 CP just to move the slider right? ... Once you enter chapter 11 the mobs you run into does 11 000 damage while you have nowhere near that amount HP.

Thus, like every other JRPG I played, grinding is unfortunately, still required.

Some spots in chapter 11 nets you over 6 000 CP per minute. Hence, I'm waiting to get there before I worry about stats too much. Once I do I'll farm chapter 11 mission 7 for Gill and CP (boss in question drops 2 items worth almost 50k each and gives 6 000 CP).

The transformation crystals required iot evolve 2 star upgraded weapons to ultimate weapons (ultimate weapons require around 1 500 000 EXP/100 levels to max for ultimate form) cost 2 000 000 Gill each. You need 12. If you dismantle an ultimate weapon, you get 3. Of course, however, you lose components and patience investing in it in the first place.

By then your toons will have around 30 000 HP base as well.

And, you need not worry about this stuff even then. After beatin chapter 3 you can free-roam and do whatever you want as many times as you want so you cannot miss a single achievement or trophy (make sure you find all treasures though for should you miss a weapon it wont show up in shop at all).

[justinufo]

I'm on chapter 11 now.Did a bit of CP farming just too handle stronger enemies.Doing all the Cieth stone missions to get my growth egg and also busy farming CP for the roles I unlocked earlier as my main roles I had are maxed out now.A bit annoying though as the monsters you encounter on the way on side mssions just waste your time.Atleast Square did something right with the retry feature.The linear path for the first ten chapters are tiring even though I enjoyed some of the battles and the boss battles were just Meh.I played in short bursts but once it becomes open world it get a whole lot better.I'm around 33 hours in now and enjoying it.It's not the best game in the series but still enjoyable.Personally I like FF 12 more.13's battle system is meant to be fast paced though and works quite well though and your partners AI is not that bad.

EDIT:The framerate on Gran Pulse is a bit choppy for me sometimes and drops alot when exploring.From some videos I saw the PS3 version looks so much smoother...

[StarBound]

I am 16 hours into the game and just fought on the Palamecium against the fel'ci. The problem with the game is that it takes FAR TOO LONG to get into the game. Its on of the better FF games but the time to get into it is a killer for all games. This is what developers in the future should avoid at all costs. You should have your freedom around 40min to 2 hours into the game.

[RuadRauFlessa]

my thoughts......Mhhhhh...... 13......bad number.........

[Rayne]

justinufo : Beware, I maxed my 3x main roles in chapter 11 and entered chapter 13 with 999999 CP. I was overpowered for chapter 12 and 13. You are warned. Do not waste your time grinding CP. You'll max out your toons LONG before you have have enough Gil to upgrade your gear (trophy/achievement). You need to farm Adamantoises and Shaolong Gui to do that. To do that you need to beat the game. Thus if your not earning 1 mil Gil an hour which the above marks provide, your waisting your time, like I did mine. Also learned of this the hard way.

And you need to beat chapter 11 so that Vanille unlocks Death iot to even think of going for the mission 55 mark (Growth Egg). You'll either (a) overpower it with maxed toons (level 5 all 6s roles) or (b) spam death and pray for an KO. You'll need 6k HP minimum on Snow for (b).

This was by no means a bad game and overall it's general verdict's still positive. There exist no sandbox FF and if your judging from reviews your an idiot as, the vast majorty, never finished it. This game was inteded to be diffirent. Go look it up.

No it's not for everybody though even so it's still the best visuals I've seen in the genre (and chapter 12's intro's truly epic) and I personally think more of it than Star Ocean and MagnaCarta I played just before it.

Not at all as bad as people make it out to be imo. Spent 120 something hours on it for 100% completion and that little something more until I decided to call it a day.

Anyway, will try Resonance of Fate next. My console RROD'd the very next boot-up after taking this out the tray. Ja...