[Game Complete] Pushing It to the Thirteenth Hour: My Step by Step Impressions of Final Fantasy XIII.

[Makoeyes987]

Well it looks like there's one thing FFXIII did do well, that I'll respect them for. And that is its difficulty. I'll say that I was hasty in judging its battle difficulty and how it auto-heals you after every single fight. From what I'm hearing repeatedly and seeing with my own eyes, is that the combat is definitely nothing to sneeze at. You can't just hit X and expect to live or at least progress.

So hey, looks like FFXIII did do something right. Yay.

Too bad you'll probably want to kill yourself since its like one long continuous fight for your life but hey XD

 

[Lord Noctis]

Holy fuck! Did Mako just say something positive about FFXIII? Hell has frozen over.

 

[Cat Rage Room]

Yeah I'm already at the point where pretty much looking at the enemy wrong kills me. Every fight must be taken seriously.

 

[Vendel]

Holy fuck! Did Mako just say something positive about FFXIII? Hell has frozen over.

Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!

 

[Tetsujin]

And now that reminds me of another nitpick. And it again, comes back to the little things. Why don't enemies have a death animation? Why do they just fade away? Didn't we move past that with FFVIII? Why do the monsters just fade away? That annoys me, a lot. I mean, with all the detail to visuals FFXIII has, why can't they have the Cactuar fall over in a dramatic, and hilarious style? Same with the Tonberry? I mean, its just...wtf?

Oh! Oh!
This.

I mean. I can accept it for generic enemies. But when you fight a boss or some gigantic uber enemy, you kind of expect them to dramatically fall over and die in a more...exciting way.
Or when you fight some robot boss, you at least expect it to blow up or something. But nope. It just dissolves.

I mean. At first I thought you might see that in a cutscene following the battle but the boss just dissolves and that's that. Dx

 

[Russell]

You can't just hit X and expect to live or at least progress.

Are we discussing the same game?
For the first 24 hours 90% of all battles can be won by mashing the X button. The other 10% you need two buttons, L1 & X. So that you can put a medic in your party.

Now I'm on Pulse most random battles can kill you, but still you can win by mashing X until you need to heal, press L1 to put a medic in the party, then continue mashing X until you've won. Battles aren't challenging, they are just long. <_<

The mark’s you get from the Cie’th stones are a good challenge however. You have to think about switching party members constantly between saboteur, synergist & medic. Then switching to Commander & Ravenger to do some damage.

Actually thinking about it; all you need is L1 & X, you just use L1 more often. :/

Yeah I'm already at the point where pretty much looking at the enemy wrong kills me. Every fight must be taken seriously.

Sounds like the difficulty curve soars later on, (looking forward to that. ) battles are piss easy tests of endurance at the moment.

Also Pulse is gorgeous, seriously these are some of the best graphics I’ve ever seen. A few FF’s have had an area you just enjoy wandering around for the scenery, (FFXII’s Phon Coast comes to mind), but Pulse tops them all.

Anyone played Prototype? The graphics on prototype looked like it was a Playstation One game, it’s hard to believe that it’s on the same platform as FFXIII given how penis hardeningly good the graphics are on FFXIII.

 

[DLPB]

Well it looks like there's one thing FFXIII did do well, that I'll respect them for. And that is its difficulty. I'll say that I was hasty in judging its battle difficulty and how it auto-heals you after every single fight. From what I'm hearing repeatedly and seeing with my own eyes, is that the combat is definitely nothing to sneeze at. You can't just hit X and expect to live or at least progress.

So hey, looks like FFXIII did do something right. Yay.

Too bad you'll probably want to kill yourself since its like one long continuous fight for your life but hey XD

From what I am reading around the place, this "difficulty" is more artificial and comes in to the game late late on...for the first good number of hours it really is a button mash X.

 

[ForceStealer]

uh...how many JRPGs have you played that require more than two buttons? Is this new to you?

And what does artificial difficulty mean?

 

[Tetsujin]

I never died as much in any modern FF game as I did in this one. And the difficulty doesn't just come in late in the game imo.
I felt like it was fairly well balanced actually.

 

[ForceStealer]

Yeah, definitely the most Game Overs I've ever gotten in an FF. Yes, game overs are little easier to get as only the party lead needs to die, but I'd still say my party leader dies more than my main character in any other FF.

 

[Russell]

uh...how many JRPGs have you played that require more than two buttons? Is this new to you?

Yeah it is new, the only JRPGs I've ever played are the FF's.
True most of the games have some grind of only using physical attacks but you could steal, use deathblow, draw, summon or use magic etc. Or you had to do some of these things. On FFX some enemies where flans (kill with magic), had high agility (need a fast character to kill), had hard shells (Needed a strong character with a ‘piercing‘ weapon) etc etc. You had to use different attacks or adjust your character line-up mid-battle.

The auto feature of battle in FFXIII is faster than selecting attack or any magic as it chooses what to do for you. “Mash X to win” feels like a big step down compared to the other FF’s.

 

[ForceStealer]

That's because that's not the focus here. The focus is on the "higher" strategy of the combination rather than the micro strategy of each individual move. If that's not to you're liking, fine. But the game is not easy.

This game actually has status-inducing magic worth a damn (which XII did as well, I know). And FFX was a lot of fun, don't get me wrong, but you're not gonna convince me the weaknesses and stuff were deep, the game was very rock-paper-scissors.

This game, if you're stuck on a boss, grinding is not your only solution. In fact it probably ISN'T the solution and you should approach it with a different strategy rather than just breaking the system. I think that's pretty cool.

 

[Russell]

The focus is on the "higher" strategy of the combination rather than the micro strategy of each individual move.

Fair point. I didn't see it like that, but the combat has been to 'press one button to win' so far for my liking.

This game, if you're stuck on a boss, grinding is not your only solution. In fact it probably ISN'T the solution and you should approach it with a different strategy rather than just breaking the system.

I haven't reached a boss I couldn't beat yet, until I do I won't see you point.

 

[Max Payne]

Forcestealer is so defensive of this game it's funny. I leave the thread for a day and there's tons more bitching about mako bitching about having to bitch about this game.

 

[ForceStealer]

Funny, I can't seem to find where I bitched about Mako's bitching. I thought we had a fairly normal discussion. I do not find this game even close to perfect, I only defend on points that I think are unfair or ignored on other games. Or things that I think are mistaken such as Mako's point about the Hunts. But I see his points now.

I can enumerate some of my problems with this game right now if you like, though I'm sure it won't change your perception of me on this.

Spoiler

1. Comparatively weak cast. I really like both Sazh and Lighting, but that's it. Fang is passable but more or less uninteresting. Snow, Vanille and Hope are straight up annoying.
2. Organizing Paradigm decks. I REALLY wish you could save your deck for each combo of party members. It gets really annoying redoing them every time.
3. I totally agree that the constant combat for the first 25 hours without any breaks is tiring.
4. Plot. Now, I do think the plot is pretty good and the world is pretty engrossing for not having towns and crap. However, I dunno how many times now the party as said that they're not gonna follow destiny and do their own thing...and then proceed to do exactly what they're "supposed" to do. I'm not referring to being manipulated, I mean they make that statement, and then change NOTHING about what they were doing.
5. Upgrades. I don't know why they don't at least tell you what upgrading a particular item will do before you do it. Its impossible to plan ahead without a guide. Crisis Core's Materia Fusion was far from the most indepth customization system and that at least let you now what you would get.
6. Controlling one character. I do enjoy the battle system, but I've never liked this and I never will.
7. Minor, but the lack of the victory theme anywhere in the game.

Further, I can tell you this doesn't make my Top 5 FFs. But since the prevailing attitude around here has been overwhelmingly negative, I wanted to be sure it got a fairer shake then people around here seemed willing to grant it.

 

[Max Payne]

Don't make me quote posts. There's been bitching on both sides niggas. Just because you've come to an understanding now, don't change what's been.

Also lol, I told you people that Snow, Vanille and Hope were tards but no one believed me

But since the prevailing attitude around here has been overwhelmingly negative, I wanted to be sure it got a fairer shake then people around here seemed willing to grant it.

Most of the folks who were negative had already played the game, or been exposed to a heavy amount of it's content. Seems fair to me. Except for Mako, he went batshit when he heard about the tubes.

 

[ForceStealer]

Not in the one day you've been gone, I meant. And I've thought all that shit since I've played it. Played it being the key term.

And I've only disputed you on Sazh, no one else

 

[Max Payne]

What? Sahz looks stupid. He's still probably the best character in the game.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Also lol, I told you people that Snow, Vanille and Hope were tards but no one believed me

That's because you were wrong.

Most of the folks who were negative had already played the game, or been exposed to a heavy amount of it's content. Seems fair to me. Except for Mako, he went batshit when he heard about the tubes.

I love the Internet as much as the next guy, but he's still batshit over the proverbial series of tubes.

 

[Max Payne]

That's because you were wrong.

The monster cannot hide your fail giant one.

I love the Internet as much as the next guy, but he's still batshit over the proverbial series of tubes.

When did I say he went batshit then stopped being batshit?

 

[DLPB]

uh...how many JRPGs have you played that require more than two buttons? Is this new to you?

And what does artificial difficulty mean?

When we say button X masher, obviously it isn't meant to mean that literally, it was referring to the fact XIII is a 2 AI controlled "push autobattle to win" variety. What the other guy has wrote about having much more to do menuwise in others and FFX was what I was getting at.

"Mash X" was not meant literally as just that.

As for artificial, I mean a cheap dynamic like casting doom on 1 player because if 1 player is KO'd (main character) you lose. It doesn't come more cheap than that, or massive hit points, or stagger.

I could probably write a dossier on this disaster but I think it's wasted enough of my time...and I ain't ever gonna play it

 

[sheens]

What? Sahz looks stupid. He's still probably the best character in the game.

He has some of the best quotes in the game, and this is what makes me love him. And his story the most heartwarming. ;_;

Even when he summons Brynhildr it's comedic.

 

[looneymoon]

I think Sahz looks fine... safe for maybe his afro being mushroom shaped. But in terms of FF characters, he's one of the lesser ridiculous looking ones imo.

Also agreeing w/ Forcestealer when it comes to the battlesystem. Previous FFs you never really needed to pay attention to regular battles. FFXIII puts the regular
battles almost on par with regular battles. One wrong paradigm, and you're pretty much screwed. The first few chapters you can probably get away with Relentless Assault, but I just got onto chapter 5 and I'm getting a bit antsy with normal encounters. You can't just get by them passively as you could for pretty much any FF game I've played (save for FFT).

Also, probably one of the few FFs where I actually cba to be used support abilities like protect, shell etc. Like Mog said, these things are actually essential to winning a lot of the time. Variety is super important. I don't think you could get through the game with just pumped up medics and attackers. I'd venture to say that every job class has its place in almost all the battles.

as for auto-battle: it's there but you don't have to use it. in fact, some of the time I don't because it doesn't do exactly what I want it to do (eg use fira instead of fira). If you don't like it, don't use it. Of course, inputting commands one-by-one would make the game freakishly hard, considering how fast-paced and difficult it already is.

 

[ForceStealer]

If you're a medic, auto-battle is almost worthless. It never heals who I want and with what spell. I always manually command when healing.

 

[looneymoon]

If you're a medic, auto-battle is almost worthless. It never heals who I want and with what spell. I always manually command when healing.

Ugh this. Im currently going through Chapter 7 and when I want medic!Hope to heal himself he always heals Snow. It's a little annoying.