Spoony takes on FFXIII

[Ite]

I devoured the in-game bestiary in FFXII, every time I encountered a new creature I got so stoked to read some extra into. But FFXIII hides extremely plot-necessary info amongst encyclopedias of useless details, and they're all in fifteen word paragraphs. It's like dumping two jigsaw puzzles together and expecting us to fathom at least one clear picture out of the pile. Meanwhile, the story is vague dialogue, gorgeous visuals and the X button.

*edit: Oops, was responding to the bottom on page 3. Apparently there's a page 4!

 

[ForceStealer]

I freaking loved XII's bestiary. It's really rare that a game would go to such lengths to explain what EVERY monster is,how they live, eat, reproduce. That was an awesome touch.

 

[AvecAloes]

And this is even later than my thoughts on MarzGurl's review of XIII, but I just watched both of them today, so nyah And again, especially this time, I'm sure that things I say have already been addressed, but again, I'm just throwing my two cents out there.

I watched both parts of this review, though I have to say, I nearly didn't even make it through the first half without giving up, as what used to be his shtick (nitpicking) for laughs has now become a great annoyance (and I've seen the VIII review - hilarious!). The first half of the review was nothing but ridiculous complaints, and even the things that are significant things that are perhaps worthy of being pointed out were so completely ground into the dirt that it was just painful to listen to after a while.

Concerning the leveling system: I understand what he's saying about them (the crystarium and the sphere grid) giving you the illusion of choice, to a point - but even in the crystarium, you could choose which roles you wanted to focus on first (com/rav/whathaveyou), and I thought that pacing at which you could manually level your characters was kind of fun. I liked watching my progress from ability to ability rather than just watching a bar fill with points, and seeing what was coming next. With the sphere grid, you also had some choice in the matter, at least eventually. Yuna could learn black magic, Tidus could learn white, Kimahri could be taken in a number of directions right off the bat, etc. That of course depended on how long you played, how much grinding you did for spheres and all that, but it could still be done, and with some of the special spheres (like the black/white magic spheres), you could have multiple people in your party casting things like Holy every round if you wanted But enough about X, sorry!

I found some of his complaints to be just, well, dumb, or baseless, pointless, etc. etc. etc. His long winded complaint about the design of the first boss you run into - so it has razor wheels on its arms instead of guns...problem? His complaint about Lightning standing in the way of fire - in what FF games have you ever been able to manually move your player out of the line of fire in the middle of battle (I'm only talking numbered series, here)? I guess you could choose whether someone was standing in the front row or the back row in the older games, but I think that function has been written in to the different roles - you don't often see Ravagers standing up right next to the monster, unless they're performing one of their [magic]strikes. His rant about the save points and what their possible in world function would have to be - it's a save point, dude. You don't have to make it out to be anything more than it is. Sure, it would have been nice if there were actual towns with stores instead of just doing everything through the save point, but his complaints didn't even really seem to point to that, instead, he was just going on about their existence at all. And holy cow the treasure spheres - I don't understand why he dragged that on so long, or why it really mattered. Again, if he were being explicitly clear that he would have rather seen something that was a little more immersed in the world itself, ok, but even then - just state that, and move on. You don't have to beat everything into the dust to try to be funny or make a point. It doesn't really work out that well in this review.

I definitely agree with his frustration that absolutely nothing is explained in game. I hate the fact that everything is hidden within the datalog. It would be one thing to have the datalog there to remind you of what is going on, how things are connected, but having it be the sole source of information and explanation for the game, its world and story, is just poor planning. I also wish, like he expressed, that there had actually been something in game having to do with Lightning's Grav-Con. I had pretty much the exact same thoughts that he shared about watching the opening sequence. Why didn't they incorporate that into the actual game play? That would have been so rad.

Part 2 was much better than the first, but like I said, those 30 minutes of Part 1 were extremely difficult to get through.

I liked XIII. I liked it a lot. I'm replaying it right now. But I see its flaws. I do. I could have been better. I wish it had been! But I still liked it, in spite of its flaws, and even though some of Spoony's points about the game are valid, I just can't agree with his methods here. He's either trying too hard, or he's completely forgotten what it was he was trying to accomplish. The only time I actually laughed was when he dressed up as Gandalf to portray his fall from the bridge. Everything else had me cringing and wishing I could just skip ahead in the review (which I made myself not do so that I could actually hear everything he had to say before I formed opinions).

/very late thoughts

 

[JBedford]

You're more likely to hate the review if you like the game.

His complaint about Lightning standing in the way of fire - in what FF games have you ever been able to manually move your player out of the line of fire in the middle of battle (I'm only talking numbered series, here)?

Unfortunately XIII is different to the other games in that the position your player stands in actually matters. But you have no control over where they stand, and it is painful to watch your characters walk towards each other or stand in the way of an obvious attack and have no control of it. Happened all the time that when using a Sentinel to draw away attacks, my character would stand in the most stupid places.

Games that include hit radiuses (radii?) and lines of fire often include ways to avoid it. XIII and XIII-2 must be the only games that don't, bar choice of ability.

 

[AvecAloes]

It's not even that I don't like his review because he doesn't like the game - it's just that the review is not funny whatsoever, and just comes across as grating for no good reason, when I'm pretty sure he means to be funny. At least, he used to be funny.

And I understand what you're getting at with the positions, I suppose, but even if it seems like the AI is just being completely incompetent, there's still the RPG element of chance behind attacks, so even if a character is standing where the enemy could clearly get a clear shot in, it might not, or it might not target the Sentinel alone, or what have you. It's not an action game where you control where the person stands and can take cover and such, it still has the traditional RPG set up as far as that goes, right? Does that make sense? And as for the other "games that include hit radii" with ways to avoid the attacks, are you talking other FFs? I'm not sure that I can think of examples of other FFs where you can avoid attacks like that on the cuff.

 

[ForceStealer]

There are lots of people who really like 8 and found his review for 8 to be hilarious. I would wager the number of equivalent people for his 10 snd 13 reviews decreased significantly. If I hated 13, I could see myself agreeing with him, but still not laughing. He's lost something.

 

[Fangu]

Guys, we need to do the math again

"You probably hate Spoony's review because you like XIII"

Go

 

[JBedford]

And I understand what you're getting at with the positions, I suppose, but even if it seems like the AI is just being completely incompetent, there's still the RPG element of chance behind attacks, so even if a character is standing where the enemy could clearly get a clear shot in, it might not, or it might not target the Sentinel alone, or what have you. It's not an action game where you control where the person stands and can take cover and such, it still has the traditional RPG set up as far as that goes, right? Does that make sense?

I never really thought if it like that much. I usually thing back to XII where I could actually get out of there. And XII annoyed me enough with everyone running into traps.

In any case, when my characters walk towards each other or into the line of fire, my mind doesn't think "this is like critical hits", instead intense frustration that a battle just turned to shit because a character made the decision no one would ever make.

And as for the other "games that include hit radii" with ways to avoid the attacks, are you talking other FFs? I'm not sure that I can think of examples of other FFs where you can avoid attacks like that on the cuff.

Any game. Admittedly I don't play many RPGs. But because it's something that matters, something you can't control, something as the player character you would expect to control, and something that if you could control you would definitely not do what is being done... it is far more annoying than a boss lucking out and landing a critical hit to kill my character.

There are lots of people who really like 8 and found his review for 8 to be hilarious. I would wager the number of equivalent people for his 10 snd 13 reviews decreased significantly. If I hated 13, I could see myself agreeing with him, but still not laughing. He's lost something.

I liked his VIII review too, and I liked VIII. But I personally don't see that much distinction between his legitimacy of nitpicks in his reviews for either game and his humour in his reviews for either game.

But I retract my earlier statement. Not that my statement is false, but it seems accusatory.

 

[Zee]

His rant about the save points and what their possible in world function would have to be - it's a save point, dude.

thank

i mean little things like this keep me from taking the review seriously because come on, that is just nostalgic fueled butthurt. what the shit were the question marks in seven? who flipping cares, man.

Unfortunately XIII is different to the other games in that the position your player stands in actually matters. But you have no control over where they stand, and it is painful to watch your characters walk towards each other or stand in the way of an obvious attack and have no control of it.

it's weird because i felt this was more of an issue in XII than in XIII -- at least in XIII, you're still in a battle screen where the characters are trying to move within a certain space. and for the most part, the AI wasn't too bad with this unless the enemy was pushing you around a lot. and even then i remember my casters, like vanille, stepping back a few paces whenever they got the chance. and you got certain passive abilities for characters that would help their evasion or defense.

basically formations weren't as necessary to strategy as role choices so it's not that big of a deal during battles.

I liked his VIII review too, and I liked VIII. But I personally don't see that much distinction between his legitimacy of nitpicks in his reviews for either game and his humour in his reviews for either game.

well, in his VIII review he complained at length about things like the junction system and the card game before he got to the story -- but those were core game mechanics that were frustrating to a lot of people. sure he made fun of the gunblade, but huge chunks of the review still focused on story and mechanics with enough reason behind why he found them frustrating.

i don't really like X all that much, but i couldn't get through that review because he wastes so much time complaining about dumb shit like the costume designs. look, i think seymour looks like a turd too, but that's a personal complaint -- that has nothing to do with how the game functions or the story it's telling.