Final Fantasy XIII Non-Spoiler Thread

[Tennyo]

I BEG YOU! A COOL FRIEND STORY! D:


also I'm not touching spoilers now that I'm eating fresh Eclairs.

Yeah thank you for not spoiler tagging. I think I've figured something out now.

LEAVING THREAD FOREVER! (see you all next week)

 

[Alex]

Has Final Fantasy XIII been RUINED FOREVER for you?

 

[ForceStealer]

Yeah thank you for not spoiler tagging. I think I've figured something out now.

LEAVING THREAD FOREVER! (see you all next week)

There is an FF13 spoiler thread now, so you can stick around Tenny.

Everyone, put your spoilers over there. I moved the obvious ones out of this thread to that one, sorry if I missed any.

 

[Username]

This thread will now quietly become dormant and peaceful

 

[Tennyo]

Has Final Fantasy XIII been RUINED FOREVER for you?

YES OMG BECAUSE I THINK I KNOW LIGHTNING'S NAME NOW!!!! D:

Spoiler

Cute, though, if that's what it really is lol

 

[Super Mario]

Don't be ridiculous, it's a french cake I happen to like from Dunkin donuts man. Feels good.

 

[Tennyo]

lol Oh okay...

 

[Ghost X]

I would only have been shocked if the name was significant in some way, but it doesn't spoil anything else about the game, sort of like Garnet's real name in FFIX.

 

[Cat Rage Room]

I'm really happy to see that I'm not the only one who prefers linearity over an open-world story. Games like Fallout do the open-world thing, and they do it well. I want a FF game to tell me a good story with strategic combat, and I'll have to wait to play it to see if I like the combat, so...

To repeat;

He may be saying its extremely linear even relative to a Final Fantasy, though. Like Grandia linear. Have you ever played Grandia? There is literally NOTHING to do EVER except advance the story until the last 2 hours of the game. Stuff like Fort Condor, Chocobo Hot and Cold, Gold Saucer, Esper gathering, going back into towns you've been to before, Card Games, etc etc are completely out of the question in super linear Grandia like games because all you're doing ever is advancing the story on rails.

 

[ForceStealer]

But even a lot of that stuff isn't really available till the second half of the game. Things like Fort Condor and Gold Saucer yo can do as you pass by them, but unless you started the game with that in mind, you can't REALLY do it until you have the airship and the money to do it. Especially Fort Condor. I usually skip it and go right to Junon in the beginning.

 

[Cannon_Fodder]

He may be saying its extremely linear even relative to a Final Fantasy, though. Like Grandia linear. Have you ever played Grandia? There is literally NOTHING to do EVER except advance the story until the last 2 hours of the game. Stuff like Fort Condor, Chocobo Hot and Cold, Gold Saucer, Esper gathering, going back into towns you've been to before, Card Games, etc etc are completely out of the question in super linear Grandia like games because all you're doing ever is advancing the story on rails.

That's what I do anyway, wait until right before the final boss fight to do any 'side' quests and such. So even in that sense, it's not a big deal for me personally.

 

[Cthulhu]

I would've liked Lighting's real name to be something like Mxyzptlk or WxrtHltl-jwlpklz, or "a name which sounds approximately like a trolley of squawking chickens being chased downhill by a bagpipe player on horseback, but played backwards at twice the speed", or Kruphnehdahpheweundikaniswalyniaphorganopop... I mean, Carl, Hammaglystwythkbrngxxaxolotl, Trff Bmzklfrpz (where "Bmzklfrpz" is actually pronounced "Ptklm"). Or maybe something Slavic, like Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz of Chrząszczyrzewoszyce, county Łękołody. Bzhentzhyshcheekyevitch. Gzheghozh. Or Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthil, Melbrinionsadsazzersteldregandishfeltselior, Ph'Ahrpuu'xxtpllsprngg, or maybe something simpler like G'd(w)^n, or Mr. Tarquin fim-tim-lim-bim-win-bim-lim-bus-stop-f'tang-f'tang-olé-biscuitbarrel.

imho, anyways.

 

[Strangelove]

http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/1230711_1124.html

Including the PS3 bundles, it sold 1,516,532 units in the first four days (from its release to the 20th).

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I would've liked Lighting's real name to be something like Mxyzptlk or WxrtHltl-jwlpklz, or "a name which sounds approximately like a trolley of squawking chickens being chased downhill by a bagpipe player on horseback, but played backwards at twice the speed", or Kruphnehdahpheweundikaniswalyniaphorganopop... I mean, Carl, Hammaglystwythkbrngxxaxolotl, Trff Bmzklfrpz (where "Bmzklfrpz" is actually pronounced "Ptklm"). Or maybe something Slavic, like Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz of Chrząszczyrzewoszyce, county Łękołody. Bzhentzhyshcheekyevitch. Gzheghozh. Or Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthil, Melbrinionsadsazzersteldregandishfeltselior, Ph'Ahrpuu'xxtpllsprngg, or maybe something simpler like G'd(w)^n, or Mr. Tarquin fim-tim-lim-bim-win-bim-lim-bus-stop-f'tang-f'tang-olé-biscuitbarrel.

imho, anyways.

Imho, you should lay off the drugs.

 

[Cannon_Fodder]

That's a lot of units... damn.

 

[Cthulhu]

Imho, you should lay off the drugs.

Bka' brgyud take thee! (pronounced "Kagyu")

 

[Glaurung]

That's what I do anyway, wait until right before the final boss fight to do any 'side' quests and such. So even in that sense, it's not a big deal for me personally.

So, in the end most of us were breeding Chocobos, winning races and hunting for special Materias instead of being worried about the inminent end of the World

 

[ForceStealer]

If there's one thing RPGs don't do, it's a sense of urgency

 

[Tennyo]

So, in the end most of us were breeding Chocobos, winning races and hunting for special Materias instead of being worried about the inminent end of the World

Pretty much, yes.

 

[Glaurung]

If there's one thing RPGs don't do, it's a sense of urgency

And that's why I'll always love RPGs above any other genre

 

[Dark and Divine]

I found a very interesting impression of FFXIII made by a Gamefaqs member:

A relaxing weekend and a holiday gave me enough time to blitz through FF XIII all the way to the final dungeon on my first (experimental) run. Now knowing what to expect and having experimented with all the gameplay elements, I’m in my second (real) play-through and thought that I would give a personal impression and review.

One of the first things I should mention is that FF XIII is a game that has two very distinctive halves, and that people who only play the first few hours into the game will not be able to get an accurate impression of all the things (or perhaps the lack thereof to some people, like towns, lol) that the game has to offer.

The first half of FF XIII is extremely story-driven, and is where the linearity discussions abroad are coming from. This first half covers roughly three-quarters of the plot (first 10 out of a total of 13 chapters), and gameplay-wise, can be thought of as a long tutorial on how to battle, customize, etc. and actually “play” the game in full (in preparation for the gameplay-intensive second half).

In terms of difficulty for this half, the game is smooth and balanced. Due to the one-way nature of dungeons for this first half, grinding is impractical and inefficient. With this in mind, the game was designed such that characters should be statistically powerful enough to take on boss battles at the end of each chapter as long as 1) players don’t purposely avoid enemies like the plague, and 2) players are using strategy and actually thinking instead of button-mashing.

In my opinion, the fun of FF XIII in this first half comes from learning about the characters, plot, and world; with the superb presentation that this game gives, it’s quite a shame to be worrying/complaining about the lack of optional areas or grinding at this point.

As a side note, in defense of the growth caps that some people complain about: the caps were probably made so that battles don’t lose their strategic and planning elements/requirements in face of sheer superior statistics, AND to serve as good indicators for players to see whether they are strategizing and/or if they need to come up with new tactics.

Once the player hits Chapter 11, the game shift gears and now will allow the players to use all that they’ve learned in the long gameplay tutorial into good use. Whereas before players are forced to go from one story-dungeon to the next, if a player takes the same approach in this second half and decide to go straight to the next story-area without any optional exploration, the player will be slaughtered by regular enemies there… or might not even make it there.

Suffice it to say, the last three chapters of the game will have enemies and challenges that will require players to do optional grinding/questing/exploring for statistical growth in addition to retaining the strategic experiences and tactics that the first half of the game has trained the players in. With the plot in the backseat, this is where the fun of FF XIII develops into gameplay-fun… and it is fantastically so.

Having said that, there are a two things about XIII that is driving me a little nuts.

First, money. Money in this game is… incredibly difficult to obtain… and extremely easy to burn through. Equipment upgrade is straight-forward in that you use loot/items to level the equipment’s statistics up; therefore, to be fair, you can go through the game without having to spend a single gil and utilize nothing except drops. The reality is, however, it is a lot more efficient to use gil (a lot of gil) to buy these materials in bulk and apply them at the same time than to use them as they come. Only problem is, there is no way to efficiently make money before you reach the final dungeon.

Second, enemy database. In XIII, what was one of the most useless ability/technique in past FFs becomes extremely important: Libra. Given that you only control one character during battle, the other two characters are AI controlled. The action of these AI characters will change to exploit enemy weaknesses once you find them out through casting Libra or fight the same enemy enough times. The information unravels slowly, so first you learn the enemy’s HP, then elemental weakness, status abnormality resistances, drop items, etc. gameplay-wise, this is not a problem. However, when you open up the enemy database in your menu, the game put checkmarks next to the name of enemies whose information have been completely discovered. Thus, if you’re a perfectionist and wants a checkmark next to every enemy entry, you need to be extremely wary of the fact that most enemies in the first half whose data you forget to obtain will be lost forever due to the one-way progression of the game (this is one of the reasons that prompted me to start my current run-through).

Same thing with treasure chests and certain monster-specific drops, but surprisingly they’re not that big of a deal because, 1) all regular equipments are, to the best of my knowledge, purchasable, and all non-purchasable exclusives are in places that you can revisit in the second half of the game, 2) exclusive miss-able monster loot used for equipment upgrade don’t give any exclusive bonuses, so you can always use different loot for upgrading, and 3) there’s no item/equipment database, whew.

All in all, I think FF XIII is an incredible experience. As a part of a series that have been reinventing itself, trying to compare XIII to other titles is like comparing apples to oranges. Some people like to focus on plot, some on graphics, and some on gameplay; I personally take the game as a packaged whole with an open-mind. Looking at XIII in this way, it succeeds in maintaining the one single consistent element that has been passed down from each title in the series: fun.

The thread itself is full of a nice insight into FFXIII. Completely spoiler-free, of course.

You may check it here.

 

[Cat Rage Room]

That's what I do anyway, wait until right before the final boss fight to do any 'side' quests and such. So even in that sense, it's not a big deal for me personally.

That's not what I mean, though. Imagine not being able to do any wandering or returning to towns or anything whatsoever. The gameplay being entirely on rails, like a visual novel you get to explore every once in a while.

More news about the game, I heard

Dude, you don't even get EXP afters battles that level you up. You level up automatically as the story progresses. Reports from JP gamers say that the gameplay is minimal and the best strategy is almost always just using regular attack over and over again until you win. If you die, you don't have to reload a save. You get the option to try the battle again. If you suck it battles, the game gives you items to make it easier.

Please don't suck, FFXIII.

 

[Alex]

I still haven't heard anything that would put me off the game. This is good.

 

[Cat Rage Room]

Minimal gameplay, using the same attack over and over again, linking level progression to plot progression, etc is good? I'm not trying to turn off anyone to the game, but none of those things sound good to me, assuming they're accurate.

 

[Bex]

We're relying on our own interps of criticism just as much as you are MOG.
Chillax.