Final Fantasy XIII Catch-All

ClockworkHouse wrote:

If you're aiming for five stars in fights (and I would encourage you to)

I'm sure I've mentioned it before in this thread but the game really shines when you start working for the Five Stars in the combat.

steinkrug wrote:

Having just played almost all of X, I can confirm it is very linear until almost the end when it opens up and you have the option to do a bunch of side stuff.

I have a strong feeling this is the way Toriyama structures his projects. I'm really curious to see if XVI is 1) a Toriyama project and 2) if so, does it deviate from the X/XIII designs (linear "tube" and sphere grid).

Hit 18 hours over the weekend and I'm somewhere in the middle of chapter 7 now. Still liking this game and it really didn't deserve the reputation it got from the Internet at launch. Won't go into details right now (I want to play a little more before going to bed tonight), but at times it really feels like a deconstruction of the series in a weird way, and there's enough thematic similarities with past games that it still feels like Final Fantasy despite a lot of cruft being excised with laser precision.

After I'm done with this game I might just clear my original plans for the backlog and just focus on the rest of the XIII games or back tracking to the PS2 games I missed. It feels really good to play a Final Fantasy again

I'm unapologetic about being a huge XIII series fan, and I always love hearing that others have discovered how great it is.

shoptroll wrote:

...at times it really feels like a deconstruction of the series

This is one of the many things I enjoy about each of the three XIII games. Combat is evolved, but still has its roots in the classic FF turn-based style, and they're unafraid to turn it on its head each of the XIII titles.

I think you'll be happy with XIII-2 and Lightning Returns. For some reason, I fell away from XIII-2 without finishing it. I think it's because the time travel and open-ended nature of it made it hard for me to keep track of the story in between breaks that were days or weeks in length. Lightning Returns may be my favorite installment of the series.

The reputation any Final Fantasy game gets anymore is probably largely from people who don't play JRPGs anymore but play the FF games just cause.

It's definitely not a bad game, but I think something happens when you have all this shiny aesthetic tech yet are only able to go down a very specific path through most of the game. It was still enjoyable, but for me it didn't really become truly good until the world opened up and I could really explore. There were no towns to explore (they were more like sets with no real substance), no sense of there being a real world there save for the purpose of just running the player through the story. This, to me, was the biggest flaw.

Nevertheless, I managed to enjoy it. So far, XIII-2 seems to be a little better that its predecessor, but it may still suffer from being a bit thin. Still too early in the game to give it a fair assessment, though.

brokenclavicle wrote:

It's definitely not a bad game, but I think something happens when you have all this shiny aesthetic tech yet are only able to go down a very specific path through most of the game. It was still enjoyable, but for me it didn't really become truly good until the world opened up and I could really explore. There were no towns to explore (they were more like sets with no real substance), no sense of there being a real world there save for the purpose of just running the player through the story. This, to me, was the biggest flaw.

Nevertheless, I managed to enjoy it. So far, XIII-2 seems to be a little better that its predecessor, but it may still suffer from being a bit thin. Still too early in the game to give it a fair assessment, though.

You might enjoy Lightning Returns a lot given that complaint. That world feels very real and has tons of fascinating characters and small stories. The overall story structure is kind of similar to Majora's Mask with a groundhog day mechanic. Other than the boss fight at the very end, it's a fantastic game. I liked the combat better than XIII for the most part.

Now I want to play it some more. There was still stuff I could do rather than fight the final boss. Unfortunately my PS3 is packed away. Maybe I'll get the Steam version at some point.

doogiemac wrote:

I think you'll be happy with XIII-2 and Lightning Returns. For some reason, I fell away from XIII-2 without finishing it. I think it's because the time travel and open-ended nature of it made it hard for me to keep track of the story in between breaks that were days or weeks in length.

But in XIII-2 you can have a flanitor join your team as a medic, and give it an accessory to wear - the prosecution rests.

I've picked up the full XIII trilogy on Steam and hope to play through it again at some point — including finishing XIII-2

...and I've similarly gone on record stating that FFXIII-2 is my favorite of the three. Clearly this means only that Square, in its infinite wisdom, designed a trilogy in which each game is recognizably similar to each other, yet each is vastly different. Quite a remarkable feat, really.

garion333 wrote:

The reputation any Final Fantasy game gets anymore is probably largely from people who don't play JRPGs anymore but play the FF games just cause.

Maybe? I could've sworn that when I was at RPGamer a lot it got a fair amount of heat. I could be mis-remembering, but I distinctly recall being surprised at the number of people here who were positive about the game when I first de-lurked.

brokenclavicle wrote:

It's definitely not a bad game, but I think something happens when you have all this shiny aesthetic tech yet are only able to go down a very specific path through most of the game. It was still enjoyable, but for me it didn't really become truly good until the world opened up and I could really explore. There were no towns to explore (they were more like sets with no real substance), no sense of there being a real world there save for the purpose of just running the player through the story. This, to me, was the biggest flaw.

This really really isn't bothering me at all. Maybe it's because I'm just looking to play something where I'm in a guided experience right now. But seriously though, in the PS1 era and earlier games a lot of the towns really aren't that remarkable as far as places to explore.

And I think you can make a solid argument that because the "grind tube" exists it allowed them to put a lot of effort into the visuals because they didn't have to render a large open world which would've required compromises with the graphical fidelity.

merphle wrote:

Clearly this means only that Square, in its infinite wisdom, designed a trilogy in which each game is recognizably similar to each other, yet each is vastly different.

Cue Inception noise?

shoptroll wrote:
brokenclavicle wrote:

It's definitely not a bad game, but I think something happens when you have all this shiny aesthetic tech yet are only able to go down a very specific path through most of the game. It was still enjoyable, but for me it didn't really become truly good until the world opened up and I could really explore. There were no towns to explore (they were more like sets with no real substance), no sense of there being a real world there save for the purpose of just running the player through the story. This, to me, was the biggest flaw.

This really really isn't bothering me at all. Maybe it's because I'm just looking to play something where I'm in a guided experience right now. But seriously though, in the PS1 era and earlier games a lot of the towns really aren't that remarkable as far as places to explore.

And I think you can make a solid argument that because the "grind tube" exists it allowed them to put a lot of effort into the visuals because they didn't have to render a large open world which would've required compromises with the graphical fidelity.

Ah, but, you see? That's exactly the argument I've had with myself often. Back when I was trying to put my finger on the reason or reasons why XIII wasn't quite scratching the itch, as it were, for the FF experience in my life, I came upon the issue of the world being fleshed out.

Sure, the towns in older FF's don't seem to be all that fleshed out, but they were just right for their scope. You can appreciably see this throughout the series as it evolved, even with FFXII, or perhaps even more so there, because there's so much there in the world, and the towns, to make it seem like there IS a life for the NPC's outside of what the player characters' perceptions and journey are concerned. In FFXIII it is anything but.

Ultimately, given the scope of FFXIII, it fails to match the - let's call it this for now - World-to-tech ratio.

Yes, FF as a series is pretty damn linear, for the most part, even when it gives the illusion that there's player agency by providing meaningless side-quests, but the world they're set in normally match the tech/visual prowess in evidence. In XIII this feels like it was sorely ignored in favor the tech and aesthetic glitz.

Put in some time last night.

I had gotten near the end of Chapter 8 and tried to push through the end of the boss fight without healing and lost my gamble. I needed a few days away after making that mistake.

This time I made sure I didn't repeat the same mistake and was rewarded with another boss fight. I was struggling with this one and finally went to the Internet.

I don't think it's a spoiler to say that I had gotten this far into the game and never bothered to use any of the items that end in -sol and did not realize I needed to tap the L button to use them pre-combat. Well, I used one and the fight was much easier.

Pushed into Chapter 9 a bit.

Spoiler:

It's good to feel like the cast is finally coming together. I've got four of six and heading to rescue the other two. I'm also controlling Lightning again which I think is my preference. I've always liked her design and the way she moves in battle.

brokenclavicle wrote:

Yes, FF as a series is pretty damn linear, for the most part, even when it gives the illusion that there's player agency by providing meaningless side-quests, but the world they're set in normally match the tech/visual prowess in evidence. In XIII this feels like it was sorely ignored in favor the tech and aesthetic glitz.

But to me XIII, so far, seems to be saying "most of that stuff really doesn't matter". I'm 19 hours in now and not once have I really felt like I've missed towns. Sure, the down time was nice, but the cutscenes are doing a perfectly fine job of providing breathing space between lengthy combat segments. And since I don't need money to maintain a stockpile of healing items or to incremental gear upgrades (weapons are valued more for their passive abilities than their stats this time around) that eliminates the other purpose of towns: restocking. Not to mention there's a rare narrative justification for why you can't really stop and shop your way through the game.

I guess towns flesh-out the world, but so far I have a really good sense of how this world works (at least from reading the datalog entries which, thank goodness, aren't nearly as verbose, prolific, and up their own rear end as say Mass Effect's were) without needing to venture outside the tube. And a lot of the environments so far have been fairly well done.

I don't necessarily disagree with you. Getting to explore more is usually a good thing, but the lack of towns hasn't struck me as a major problem yet. That might have more to do with the fact that some of my favorite RPGs have been games which lack proper overworlds (and opt instead for menu based navigation) or a plethora of towns to explore.

I'm the opposite, an overworld of some kind helps me know more about the world. Just jumping from town to town via a menu feels arbitrary.

I'm the same way with fantasy novels and maps. Even a basic map is hugely helpful.

Actually, now that i think about it the lack of maps in sci-fi novels may play into why I prefer fantasy. Huh.

shoptroll wrote:

But to me XIII, so far, seems to be saying "most of that stuff really doesn't matter". I'm 19 hours in now and not once have I really felt like I've missed towns. Sure, the down time was nice, but the cutscenes are doing a perfectly fine job of providing breathing space between lengthy combat segments.

This is where I was at with FF13, and it's interesting that (once again) the only other game in the series that feels at all similar, and this is a positive, is FF8--where the towns were just speed bumps and places to play the card game (edit: and FFX, now that I think about it, which is usually the third game I mention along with FF8 and FF13!). I don't care about talking to thirsty randos who don't even get a voice actor, I care about going to the next place and beating up the next dude and taking his stuff. When I am not doing that, I would much rather be entertained with something that, even if it's not necessarily moving the overarching plot forward, is providing moments of character growth and expounding on the environment a little, rather than running around a fairly forgettable environment looking for the Background Exposition Fairies. "Show, don't tell," and towns are tell. They're not even very good at that, I don't think--the illusion of freedom and choice that it provides is, to me, boring when I could be playing a game with actual freedom of choice. Stick to what you're good at.

Similarly, I partied right on through the open-world section of FF13 as quickly as possible and, even though it probably meant I was a little underleveled for the next bit afterwards, it meant I wasn't disrespecting my own time with run-to-this-and-punch-this-guy quests. (This made FF13-3 super lame for me, too, and it's about 80% of why I think FF15 is going to be the hottest of garbage and hit the water with a *plunk*.)

I think you're the first person to speak positively about the Datalog stuff, though. I mean, I read all of it, but daaaaaamn.

Ed Ropple wrote:
shoptroll wrote:

But to me XIII, so far, seems to be saying "most of that stuff really doesn't matter". I'm 19 hours in now and not once have I really felt like I've missed towns. Sure, the down time was nice, but the cutscenes are doing a perfectly fine job of providing breathing space between lengthy combat segments.

This is where I was at with FF13, and it's interesting that (once again) the only other game in the series that feels at all similar, and this is a positive, is FF8--where the towns were just speed bumps and places to play the card game.

VIII also ditches towns at the very end of the game if I remember correctly. Better hope you picked up Doomtrain!

Also, VIII was the first game where they really scaled back gearing. If I'm recalling correctly, there's no armor slot and most characters only pick up a handful of weapons throughout the game, which you have to build from the drops of monsters (a first for the series!). XIII largely does the same thing (although by all accounts the crafting system is not worth dealing with ever).

So yeah, definitely picked up on the similarities with VIII so far

Ed Ropple wrote:

I think you're the first person to speak positively about the Datalog stuff, though. I mean, I read all of it, but daaaaaamn.

Compared to Mass Effect though it's perfectly enjoyable to me. It definitely does flesh out the plot a bit even though they were obviously insecure about whether or not people would understand what's going on with the number of times it repeats itself on major plot points. Mostly I'm just happy it's not just a lore dump for the sake of a lore dump, which seems to be a trap most Western games fall prey to.

(I don't have high hopes for XV either but I'm probably buying it anyways just because it'll be a very pretty trainwreck to watch)

Yeah, FF8 dropped towns on the last disc, though IIRC that was kind of a late-in-development patch due to disc space limitations or something? The entire ending of that game is bonkers, I don't even know. But even before that, towns were really little more than an elaboration on the FF13 save-point-as-shop thing. There are like three stores, two of which always sell the same items, unless you're in the super-secret high-tech city and then you get five shops. And then the game gives you Call Shop so you never have to think about how dumb that all was anyway.

When you get further along, I wonder if you'll pick up on commonalities between FF8 and FF13 in terms of story (not really a spoiler, more of a meta-commentary on things, but just to be safe):

Spoiler:

In neither game does the overall plot, the Event Story that is theoretically the A-plot, matter in the slightest. You will never think about it again when you look back on either game, except possibly as "well, that existed."

Ed Ropple wrote:

Similarly, I partied right on through the open-world section of FF13 as quickly as possible and, even though it probably meant I was a little underleveled for the next bit afterwards, it meant I wasn't disrespecting my own time with run-to-this-and-punch-this-guy quests. (This made FF13-3 super lame for me, too, and it's about 80% of why I think FF15 is going to be the hottest of garbage and hit the water with a *plunk*.)

This is EXACTLY what happened to me with XIII-1... I hit the open world area and thought it was boring and lame, with essentially no story, and quickly decided to skip all the optional crap. XIII-3 I also bounced off pretty hard, though I feel like I gave it a good 20 hour shot. I'm still hopeful for XV, but I'm not going to be a buyer on day one.

Ed Ropple wrote:

Yeah, FF8 dropped towns on the last disc, though IIRC that was kind of a late-in-development patch due to disc space limitations or something? The entire ending of that game is bonkers, I don't even know.

Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if it was them running out of space or time for that game. That was back when they were still cranking the games out at a rate of 1 every 1.5-2 years.

And then the game gives you Call Shop so you never have to think about how dumb that all was anyway.

This is largely why the "everyone buys online" thing doesn't bother me in XIII. Been there, done that already.

Oh, other common things: evil technologically advanced empire. Granted that's more like a series trope at this point but still. Also starting out in a high-technology area (shared with VII), gun blades, major emphasis on flashbacks as a storytelling device...

Don't forget that everybody hated that one too, though.

shoptroll wrote:
brokenclavicle wrote:

Yes, FF as a series is pretty damn linear, for the most part, even when it gives the illusion that there's player agency by providing meaningless side-quests, but the world they're set in normally match the tech/visual prowess in evidence. In XIII this feels like it was sorely ignored in favor the tech and aesthetic glitz.

But to me XIII, so far, seems to be saying "most of that stuff really doesn't matter". I'm 19 hours in now and not once have I really felt like I've missed towns. Sure, the down time was nice, but the cutscenes are doing a perfectly fine job of providing breathing space between lengthy combat segments. And since I don't need money to maintain a stockpile of healing items or to incremental gear upgrades (weapons are valued more for their passive abilities than their stats this time around) that eliminates the other purpose of towns: restocking. Not to mention there's a rare narrative justification for why you can't really stop and shop your way through the game.

I guess towns flesh-out the world, but so far I have a really good sense of how this world works (at least from reading the datalog entries which, thank goodness, aren't nearly as verbose, prolific, and up their own rear end as say Mass Effect's were) without needing to venture outside the tube. And a lot of the environments so far have been fairly well done.

I don't necessarily disagree with you. Getting to explore more is usually a good thing, but the lack of towns hasn't struck me as a major problem yet. That might have more to do with the fact that some of my favorite RPGs have been games which lack proper overworlds (and opt instead for menu based navigation) or a plethora of towns to explore.

I haven't read trough any of the comments after yours, so I can't say if anyone has had any insights, but I'm glad you enjoyed it the way it is, as a game. I feel I did miss the towns and general exploration. I was hardly a proxy for mot of the game just pressing the buttons when required, until it really opened up.

FF was not THAT for me, and I surmise the same for many of us. But it IS a good game even in XIII as part of the series. It just isn't a good FF game.

brokenclavicle wrote:
shoptroll wrote:
brokenclavicle wrote:

Yes, FF as a series is pretty damn linear, for the most part, even when it gives the illusion that there's player agency by providing meaningless side-quests, but the world they're set in normally match the tech/visual prowess in evidence. In XIII this feels like it was sorely ignored in favor the tech and aesthetic glitz.

But to me XIII, so far, seems to be saying "most of that stuff really doesn't matter". I'm 19 hours in now and not once have I really felt like I've missed towns. Sure, the down time was nice, but the cutscenes are doing a perfectly fine job of providing breathing space between lengthy combat segments. And since I don't need money to maintain a stockpile of healing items or to incremental gear upgrades (weapons are valued more for their passive abilities than their stats this time around) that eliminates the other purpose of towns: restocking. Not to mention there's a rare narrative justification for why you can't really stop and shop your way through the game.

I guess towns flesh-out the world, but so far I have a really good sense of how this world works (at least from reading the datalog entries which, thank goodness, aren't nearly as verbose, prolific, and up their own rear end as say Mass Effect's were) without needing to venture outside the tube. And a lot of the environments so far have been fairly well done.

I don't necessarily disagree with you. Getting to explore more is usually a good thing, but the lack of towns hasn't struck me as a major problem yet. That might have more to do with the fact that some of my favorite RPGs have been games which lack proper overworlds (and opt instead for menu based navigation) or a plethora of towns to explore.

I haven't read trough any of the comments after yours, so I can't say if anyone has had any insights, but I'm glad you enjoyed it the way it is, as a game. I feel I did miss the towns and general exploration. I was hardly a proxy for mot of the game just pressing the buttons when required, until it really opened up.

FF was not THAT for me, and I surmise the same for many of us. But it IS a good game even in XIII as part of the series. It just isn't a good FF game.

If you don't think it's a good FF game that's totally cool. I don't have a really strong opinion about what constitutes a FF game these days so that's not really a comparison I feel I'm able to make

Ed Ropple wrote:

Don't forget that everybody hated that one too, though. :|

True, and I'm guilty of that although (as I've said before) that's a game in the series I'd really like to revisit at some point just to see if I have a different appreciation for it nowadays. I remember being mostly indifferent to it at release but still managed to walkthrough my way to the end.

What is FF anymore? References to crystals, some sort of summoning and firaga?

Crystal related plots were largely absent from VI - VIII, so that's not really something I consider core to the franchise's identity, aside from being one of the more popular recurring plot elements.

VI had the espers, who were turned into crystals as a central element of the story - can't speak to VII/VIII, though.

Flans

And some combination of Cid, Biggs, and Wedge will be on an airship. Which may or may not be destroyed by Bahamut. Kupo!

Tanglebones wrote:

VI had the espers, who were turned into crystals as a central element of the story - can't speak to VII/VIII, though.

Materia are crystalized pieces of the lifestream, right? They play heavily into at least the gameplay of VII.

And the meteor in FFVII is a crystalized piece of Sin, trying to get back to the farplane *head explodes*