For one, you've played FFVII several times, so of course you'd beat it in 29. And other FFs in terms of plot and side quests, go well above the 40 hour mark. If you just zip right through the main plot without doing anything else (which isn't what you're supposed to do in the first place) of course it'd be around 40. What I want to know is, how many hours of play time the game is including its side quests. And all of what I've seen and heard makes it pretty damn quick. It parallels FFX in that regard.
The guy in the stream who I just saw beat the game took over 50 hours to do it, and he didn't bother with the side quests. Actually, he didn't even level whore that much.
As for FFX, I played through that game twice, and though I did more stuff on one playthrough than the other, combined, the two files have more than 300 hours of play time. There's
a lot of shit to occupy you in FFX.
Mako said:
It's the systemic loss of quality and effort in Square Enix that's just been slowly making them look bad. Their own comments on FFXIII's development, its choices, and then how haaard an FFVII remake would be, shows there's truly something wrong in their heads.
I'd agree that they're definitely making themselves look like they're half-assing some things -- which is a shame, because they most obviously didn't half-ass the story/characters, audio and graphics (at least as far as the PS3 version goes).
Really, it's like I've been saying all along: It's misplaced priorities. They put too much attention on the graphics, so exploration/the setting and the gameplay suffered in the long run.
Still, the story/characters and the presentation thereof came out
very well.
Mako said:
Them having hunts that do kinda the same thing as FFXII's Clan Primer does not make FFXIII's lack of content somehow miraculously better. Good job missing that point there. It's still lacking compared to the previous one. If anything it looks more half assed.
In my opinion, FFXIII's version of the Hunts doesn't come off as creatively or as awesome. Though their presence is given a basis in the setting as XII's Hunts were, it's disappointing that they repeat so many of the same enemy types and that you never get to fight Titan.
Actually, if you got to fight Titan, I'd probably just go ahead and call it the greatest side quest ever.
Seriously, that would be fucking great, and I see no reason why it couldn't have been done.
Yes, he's huge, but fuck -- Shadow of the Colossus pulled it off on the PS2.
Anyway, outside of
a Tonberry knifing another monster in hilarious fashion,
a samurai Cie'th kicking ass, and
the presence of a Jumbo Cactaur, there's really nothing cool about the Missions. The last mission certainly isn't on par with Yiazmat in intimidation -- this is just a palette-swapped monster that you've killed duplicates of elsewhere.
Yeah, in terms of stats there's more to him than that, but you're still thinking "I've already seen this thing die. I know what its blood looks like."
All the Missions can be seen here, by the way:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=44825C1078C14477&page=1
Given that this constitutes the game's side quests, I think it's reasonable to find it disappointing.
