Final Fantasy XIII

[The Landslide]

All Final Fantasy games have been linear, however the ones before X did an excellent job of hiding that fact by presenting you with a world map, which gave you the illusion of having a choice as to where you were going to go. No matter what decisions the player makes, the game makes you go to the same places every time regardless of if you dicked around in a meaningless forest or headed straight for your objective.

Essentially what I am hearing is that this game is the same as FFX but without towns? Maybe there is a contextual purpose to that, I haven't played it, but I'm even more excited now because I do NOT want to keep playing the same RPGs over and over like we've been doing for years.

 

[ShinobiBrown]

The whole game is completely linear until halfway through [approximately 20 hours].

There are hardly any towns.

The party is always fixed. The whole game just repeats the movie-battle sequence over and over [In fact the progression is closer to movie-run-battle-run-movie-boss-movie-run-battle…].

There are rather a lot of movies.

Moving around is like a long marathon.

The whole game system is just a clone of FF10.

You can’t flee battles [You can’t avoid most battles either as there is no sneaking past enemies, including weak ones].

Your party is completely healed after each battle.

If the main character in your party dies it is game over [There are only ever 3 characters in battle, often less, and often fixed].

The best tactic is almost always endlessly attacking. There is next to no strategy or skill involved.

The summons’ transformation scenes are a joke [i.e. Odin turning into a horse].

The story is rubbish… [Spoilers omitted, but complaints centre on Snow’s constant and cringe inducing insistence that he is a hero and will “protect” whatever it is the antagonists are menacing this time]

Shopping is only done at “online” shops on save points, with no proper shops to be found.

However, this doesn’t matter as you hardly ever get any money [and you can never buy anything more powerful than what you already looted].

There have been next to no changes from the demo.

The status screen displays no real information.

There are only 8 items usable in combat [For that matter, there are hardly any weapons or accessories, and the “crafting” system mostly consists of spending drops to upgrade their 2 stats].

There are no levels.

Ok, how much of this is actually true? Some of it DOES sound a little far-fetched hence why I'm questioning it (no levels? you cannot be serious...).

However, if it is true, the bold comments more or less say this game won't be worth my time and the bold and italic comment will royally piss me off.

 

[Something-Unique]

Its all true. I have seen the game from start to finish through streams (I do not care about spoilers). But beware god forbid u mention anything negative to some fans about their game u will garner internet wrath hence Madnis.

The info u posted though is 100% true and if u want an even more detailed breakdown I could give it to u but I won't bother if some fans remain so defensive all faults are ignored.

Also all of the people I saw beat the game all clocked in at 40 hours. There are a grand total of 6 hours worth of movie footage.

Here goes one piece of information. Regular enemies about 20% through the game take 9+ minutes to beat for the rest of the game (and it gets longer); these are just regular enemies I must stress. So depending on ur threshold for tedium u will get bored fast especially when the battle system has so many restrictions that I wouldn't mind getting into for those with an open ear who want that info. The reason i'm upset at this game is because it took so long to come out it really did not deliver.

 

[ShinobiBrown]

Upon reading that leveling is handled akin to FFX, I honestly don't mind the "no level" comment now as FFX didn't necessarily have levels either, and I loved that leveling system. Buuut, I'm still not digging some of those comments (main character death = game over? WTF).

Well, at least the in-game modeling is gorgeous, lol.

 

[Madnis]

oh yes, because i am so seriously a final fantasy fanatic. heaven forbid anyone say anything negative and i just don't call bull shit for what it is. be for real you sloppy fuck.

idiots these days. i swear.

you're either a fanboy or a bitch and moaner. no middleground!

anyway, having said that. I still enjoyed my hands on time with the game. in the end that's all that matters. answer the question: are you not entertained?

that's why people invented stores that give you the ability to rent.

renting. marvelous concept.

EDIT: and yes, this post is rife with sarcasm. a pure tragedy that i have to actually point that out because idiots do tend not to be able to read into it. oops. let me curb my enthusiasm.

back on topic: there are some bullshit things in that list that shinobi brown posted. since it's more about what's based on your personal preference it makes them valid complaints, but still... main character dies in a game.. kind of make sense for it to be game over. I remember playing video games in which the main character dies, we get a nice little screen that says something along the lines of, "you're dead." or "game over" and below it would be "continue?" in which case, i can't see that as a valid complaint.

i just have to say "Wah-Wah" to that... a "too bad, so sad" and use my pinky finger to symbolize a tear drop with a sad face, kind of deal.

so yeah, I would say that that would be a very valid complaint if it was gameover and you had to start from the very beginning of the game. then yes. i would agree that that's some bullshit on squeenix's part. but i don't think that's how it is. i think it's continue from last save point. in which case.. main character dying = game over is fine. makes perfect sense. does that put it in the "Just bitching about anyting" category? survey says yes.