FINAL FANTASY XIII

[Saz†]

Currently on disc 2, mixed feelings about it.

I've played and beaten every FF game except for ff3 on the NES.

Things I like about 13:
-cool characters
-battle system is decent after awhile, love switching classes on the fly
-story is interesting
-Frocobo

Things I dislike:

-The entire game is so linear. The last 20 minutes have literally been running forward in a narrow line and pressing A to trigger a cutscene now and then. Most boring dungeons ever

-Advancement system for paradigms is cool on the surface, but really just limiting. You really just go from one node to the next with no chance to pick different paths of development. Why cant I just have it set to automatically give me the level ups instead of forcing me to go into the menu and advance the linear exp bar to the next stat bonus node

-Easy. man is it easy. I find myself watching TV most of the time while playing it because 90% of the time autobattle wins for me and the 10% of the time it doesnt, I just have to paradigm shift once or twice

-Party & babysitting: I'm 20 hours in, stop forcing me to use the default party and giving me tutorials about things I knew 15 years ago

Favorite character? Thundergod Cid, master of gamebreaking power.

[HuskyDog†]

(07-09-2010 06:23 PM)Saz Wrote:  Currently on disc 2, mixed feelings about it.

I've played and beaten every FF game except for ff3 on the NES.

Things I like about 13:
-cool characters
-battle system is decent after awhile, love switching classes on the fly
-story is interesting
-Frocobo

Things I dislike:

-The entire game is so linear. The last 20 minutes have literally been running forward in a narrow line and pressing A to trigger a cutscene now and then. Most boring dungeons ever

-Advancement system for paradigms is cool on the surface, but really just limiting. You really just go from one node to the next with no chance to pick different paths of development. Why cant I just have it set to automatically give me the level ups instead of forcing me to go into the menu and advance the linear exp bar to the next stat bonus node

-Easy. man is it easy. I find myself watching TV most of the time while playing it because 90% of the time autobattle wins for me and the 10% of the time it doesnt, I just have to paradigm shift once or twice

-Party & babysitting: I'm 20 hours in, stop forcing me to use the default party and giving me tutorials about things I knew 15 years ago

Favorite character? Thundergod Cid, master of gamebreaking power.

This game takes a long time to ramp up. I am on disc 3 still (actually slowed down on playing it). The paradigms actually do let you focus on some things. Since you can focus on different classes, you can choose what to develop, and the off branches you can decide to ignore for now or develop as you go. It's not that much more linear than other character development systems I've seen. But then again, I didn't see it in Final Fantasy before, except in X, but I only got to play the first few hours of that game. Later in the game, things open up for you even more with paradigms.

Summons are awesome. If you haven't seen those yet, you will love it. (I can't remember when you get your first summon). But they aren't your magic secret attack to win, either. You need to be in a certain state to use it, and you need to include it in your strategy, because sometimes, it won't help unless you use it properly.

Since it's so story driven, it makes sense that you can't choose your party much yet. Having your team broken up adds to that.

I love the battle system. At first it really is "press a and win" but as you get further, strategy is very important, otherwise you really will be dying constantly (I've experienced this). What I like about the battles here though is that they aren't just stupid hard (as in, equip 99 potions and a crapton of magic items), but you need to set up your party's roles properly and know how to attack and when. The less stupid hard and the more strategic wins I have, the more fun it is to play. It still is hard but it's not hard like Mario was hard. It's hard like chess is hard. That, I like.

The game is very linear, though. I wish I had towns like before and a world map. It probably would add to the game. But it has the heart of Final Fantasy, and still is fun.