Sup Forums I bought this a week ago in the Steam Sale and for the hour I played of it, it was absolutely fucking garbage. The combat was monotonous, the characters were uninteresting, and the level of linearity was unacceptable.
But I like Final Fantasy X which is called a seriously linear game.
Does FFXIII open up like FFX or is it all just that garbage?
FF13 is linear up til pulse which is pretty far into the game if I remember correctly. Honestly, if you don't like it what you've seen, i'd just refund it.
It doesn't open up until you're about 3/4 of the way through, but even then the only extra thing you get to do is some monster hunt quests. No town exploration or anything.
By the time I got to that point I couldn't have cared less. I just wanted to get it over with and finish it.
>Honestly, if you don't like it what you've seen, i'd just refund it.
Yeah that's the thing, I refunded it last week.
But it's the end of the sale so just wondering if it's worth it after all.
>but even then the only extra thing you get to do is some monster hunt quests. No town exploration or anything.
FUUUUUUUUUUCK that shit
Were they really having that much difficulty with the hardware or...?
No
13 is like X but shittier in everyway (minus the minigames and loads of optional stuff)
I guess it just baffles me how they could have fucked it up that badly
They actually cut a fuckload of stuff from XIII because the development was so run on.
>judge a slow-burn genre videogame after an hour
But yea, it will be like that for half the game but it's still worth beating. Take it for what it is and stop comparing it to other games, including FF games.
>Take it for what it is and stop comparing it to other games, including FF games.
>stop disliking the game I like for valid reasons
I didn't say that at all but okay
FFXIII doesn't get better until literally the end of the game. Idiots will tell you that you should play it until then, but who the fuck really wants to play a crap game for 60-80 hours before it ever even gets decent?
>But I like Final Fantasy X which is called a seriously linear game.
And I assume that's entirely due to nostalgia goggles.
>Does FFXIII open up like FFX or is it all just that garbage?
Yes it does when you get to Pulse, but it honestly isn't worth it. And when does X open up? Last time I checked it was a straight line from beginning to end, the only "open" part of the game was the Calm Lands, and that was just one small area.
>And I assume that's entirely due to nostalgia goggles.
Eh, maybe? I like the world of it, lots of different locales and Sphere Grid is incredibly good thinking.
>And when does X open up?
...every time you hit a town, for starters.
At the end it opens up, but you are stuck with what you got in the begining. I really hated that game.
Sup Forums I kinda want to buy it still because it's Final Fantasy and the music is amazing and the visuals and
tell me it's a mistake and I'll regret it
You go about 40 hours into the game before it "opens up"
And its opening up is it drops you on its version of X's Calm Lands, except with a single sidequest chain and no minigames.
It's not Final Fantasy. It has very little in common with any of the previous Final Fantasy games, INCLUDING the ones that go very far off like VIII and XII. Don't delude yourself into thinking otherwise.
13 and 13LR are beyond shit, not worth touching. 13-2 was decent though, for a CT-lite game.
Naw it's good. Really fun battle system that becomes very strategic during endgame and some engaging characters. Very good lore too. Pay attention, it seems convoluted but if you read the datalog for more backstory you'll find there's actually a really interesting story and world.
You actually like the music? With such a huge ost there is only 2 tracks which I like, which is very unusual for all the other final fantasies I have played.
Anyway the game gets decent like 20-30 hours in when the tutorial stops, but I still wouldn't go through that shit again. The story is so horribly told that you are better off using the in game encyclopedia.
No, user! This user lies, do not listen to him!
The battle system has very limited input and control on your part, it's mostly a matter of knowing what role to have active at each given point and pressing auto-battle at every turn until you have to switch! The higher elements of the lore are mostly obcured unless you play the two subsequent games! Essential plot elements are only addressed on the datalogs, and never by the characters themselves! What you played, it stretches all the way to the last 15% of the game, no cities, no NPCs, no free-roaming, no nothing! The character development is there, but that alone does not justify the game as a whole!
Do not be tricked!
>not utilizing ATB refresh
>not utilizing synth abilities
>using alternating attacks
>not manipulating field position
>not utilizing field skills
>limited control meme
It gives you far more freedom than most turn based games once the training wheels are off and it actually forces you to use defensive moves and buffs/debuffs whereas most JRPGs is attack/magic/heal and you can beat the whole game.
To be fair FFX was the same
Buffs and debuffs being near essential are hardly an exclusive feature of this game, and they by no means make up for the loss of party control and streamlined nature of the combat, with removal of basic, essential elements such as mana.
It gives you NO freedom in character building until the last 15% of the game where the Crystareum [I believe it was the name? Either way, it is pretty much a worse version of X's sphere grids] unlocks for everyone.
>debuffs
>working on end-game bosses ever
Heh. But to add to it, most JRPG suffers from end game overpowering, where when you unlock your ultimate move, it literally comes down to just spamming it over and over.
>renzokuken spam in FF8
>quick attacks/overdrive spam in FFX
>quad Knights of the Round in FF7
Etc.
You can't beat bosses like Seymour Natus/Flux or Yunalesca without debuffs or other strategy.
I already said that it opens up fully during endgame. There is a load of strategy trying to 5 star all the missions. I had the completely change line-ups, paradigms, and strategies to get 5 stars plenty of times. Everything matters.
You are controlling other characters through paradigms. You are the manager. Also if I remember correctly you can switch members in-battle or maybe that started with XIII-2.
No, you can't beat them unless you use buffs. You can do it without using debuffs since a majority of them doesn't work on them anyway.
My strategy for Flux was just to Aeon overdrive rush him when the turn timer started.
Only recall using Haste regularly in that game.
Dispel
Reflect
That's what I mean
Well that's the bitch nigger answer to every boss.
You can't switch members in battle I don't think, I can confirm that at least.
You might very well be right about the Star system, considering I didn't pursue 5 stars on every aspect I simply couldn't comment on that. That said, there wasn't much more strategy required to simply completing the game in comparison to what other people call the heal/attack/magic model of other Final Fantasies. Most of my complaints about the battle system however can be summed up by the opinion that they tried to make it as cinematic as possible to the point of putting style over substance. The lack of MP management contributes a lot to that, there's no reason to worry about long-term management of the battle or MP conservation or any of those things.
But hey, it's OP's call.
That's what I mean. No "easy way out" in 13. Can't even depend on just over leveling.
Here's my point of view. Why have a boss with too many HP? If you've already figured out how to beat him, then him having a lot of HP is just a way to prolong the fight.
I disagree. It's non-stop action. Summons are the most cinematic thing and to me they were useless other than Vanille's Eidolon.
MP management was never an issue for me. You could use items to refill it anyway. MP is an unnecessary mechanic in my opinion. It had style but I think it's objectively wrong to say it doesn't have substance.
Your viewpoint is not without value, and it certainly holds up especially when you look up at certain bosses in recent games [hello, Yiazmat]. A good boss battle is not made 50% more enjoyable if you make the boss have 50% more HP.
Eidolons really were rather useless. For some reason ever since they hit a peak on X, every subsequent game has made them less and less rewarding to use.
I vaguely recall reading about the IZJS of XII having different summon controls to the base game, and you being able to control them directly, changes which will be incorporated in the upcoming remaster. I hope that's indeed the case.
Its a polarizing game but I actually really enjoyed most parts of it. Not my favorite FF but still better than X
>posting Torizo
my man
Half the reason XIII-2 and LR were made was because the devs wanted all the shit they made to go SOMEWHERE.
XIII is a masterclass in how not to develop a game, basically.
You might want to play the sequels instead.
Actually, it was because 14 fucked up the company and 13-2 and LR was cheap to develop in a fast amount of time.
Is XIII a good entry jRPG, guys? it was my first because I was bored and wanted to try something that wasn't a platformer or shooter
Jesus fuck no, unless you hate yourself.
If you want a good entry level jrpg play Chrono Trigger.
Yeah, that's another reason.
I'm not super into XIII but I'm kind of into LR so I guess it worked out in the end
it worked out for me, I've played plenty of more traditional jRPGs since playing through SMT: Strange Journey and Persona 1 atm, so I don't think that's bad taste
I'm going to marry Lightning!
If you really want to play XIII just skip straight to XIII-2. The sequel fixes A LOT of the problems XIII had, and it comes with a recap of the events of XIII to catch you up to the story.
I can understand folks who dislike FF13, but personally I liked it because it was comfy. I could just sit back in my recliner and press A a lot. Sure, it's not exciting or often challenging. But it's fun in its own kind of way.
The game completely undoes 13's ending, too, now that I think of it.
XIII-2's story actually makes MORE sense if you don't play the first game. That's really fucked up!
XIII-2 was terrible
I'd rather play the first one
More like 25 hours. And I finished FF4 in that time.
this. Its maximum comfy with bits of strategy and lore for those who want it
The setting of XIII is really cool. That makes the hallway bullshit all the more frustrating, because Cocoon and Pulse are places I'd really like to run around and discover towns full of people to interact with.
I know the plot justifies the hallway bullshit, but in my opinion that just means that never should have been the game's plot to begin with.
FFXIII is one of those games that get really good about 20 hours in. If you aren't interested in the story enough to carry you through the boring first 20 hours, then you won't enjoy it. I really liked the story from the start, so I had a good time with the game. That being, said, I'll never play it ever again. Ever. Because the argument "it gets good after *x amount of hours*" is a desperate attempt at defending a kinda bad game. Although, I did enjoy XIII-2 and Lightning Returns all the way through, and will play them again, eventually.
it's not bad after the requisite 8 hour hallway of narrative they force you to run down, before that though it's pretty fucking terrible
Huh, I grew up in a rural area and landscapes just never did it for me. I kinda liked the hallways though I can understand why someone would be frustrated and screaming "GAME DESIGN''
eh, It really isn't as bad as people say.
I personally picked it up for dirt cheap couple years ago, despite having heard all sorts of shit about it.
The BEGINNING really didn't even try to prove all the bad claims about it wrong, but luckily, to my own surprise as well, the more I played, the more entertaining and hooking it became. It's not GOTYAY or best JRPG ever in any sense, but it's FAR from the "worst crap ever" -category. A solid 7/10 experience IMO.
The sequels fixed, expanded and improved many things, especially pacing and gameplay. Up to you whether you like the direction they went with the plot and cast, but they're not hideous either. I found especially LR to be total blast, easily my 2014's GOTY. The 13-2 was simply fun, easily 8/10 at least.
protip: when the party and combat systems expand, start using manual combos + REPEAT function, instead of spamming Auto Battle.
I never understood why X and VIII get free passes for having bullshit people whine about in the series anyway.
Don't do it user, visuals and music don't make a game, they make a movie, just watch the cut scenes on YouTube if you want to watch it, trust me there is no difference from playing it and watching some one play it when it comes to this game.
I really don't get how people can call XIII trash and then say XIII-2 is good?
Then you must love phone games because that's all you do any ways.
>not wanting to wander through a beautiful world like Gran Pulse or even some of the hubs in Palumpolum, looking at the billboards and architectural design
also, fuck you and your phone games
I hate 13, but the world would be awesome to check out. That's the problem though, rpg is supposed to be a role playing game that allows the player to explore the surroundings.
>tell me it's a mistake and I'll regret it
I thought it WOULD be a mistake, but I ended up liking it A LOT. The sequels were far better gameplay and pacing-wise.
the game's lore, combat and cast were great too. I also love the monster design
Play Vanillaware games.
They're far prettier than XIII and feature actuallly good gameplay.
Did the same and I have to say I'm hooked. Yeah its linear but the story is cool enough even if the main characters deliver is so poorly. The class switching system is intuitive and makes combat complicated but feels more worthwhile. I just got up to opening up. It's about chapter 11 or 25 hours in.
Grand pulse was just a field with one village, and you have to wait till the end game to fucking get there and fuck thos floating rocks that gave you quests, what and npc is too much to make? There was no loot or caves or secret areas to explore.
Looking at the design like it's a museum of the creators over designed garbage isn't the same as exploring.
The lore was awful too, if you want to make a good story you don't use made up words and expect the player to do homework to understand what the fuck you are talking about in your autistic made up language.
>if you want to make a good story you don't use made up words and expect the player to do homework to understand what the fuck you are talking about
spoken like a typical Amerifat.
Unless you have a mind of 5 year old, you should pick up all the whooping 4 "foreign terms" in a matter of an hour.
>Game doesn't open up until 25 hours in
I'll never understand how people can defend this
>I played ff13 for an hour
opinion disgarded
>but I liked FFX despite it being linear also until you get to calm lands
baka senpai.
quit with the memes already and just admit you don't like not being able to control all the characters or whatever reason you actually hate on this game and not 'its linear' FFS.
I disagree, on all three counts.
Lore was irrational and made no sense unless you pause the game and use the codex encyclopedia. When you are making a story and you use made up words you have to use in story dialogue to teach the reader what is going on.
The characters were the most shallow and narsacistic characters ever in Final Fantasy.
Lightning was more of a complete birch than a badass. Blaming snow for what an omnipotent demi god did was retarded.
Hope was even worse, there were plenty of kid characters in final fantasy and in other rpgs that showed more balls than Hope. Hope could have made a good character comeback but stayed as the little bitch he was.
Then there is the design, the over designed monsters and Fal'cie that you couldn't tell their assessment from their faces. For some monsters quite literally.
And I forgot the 4th you said, combat.
The combat was something new but lacked even more control than its predecessors. You didn't control where they moved nor when they attacked, you give suggestions that they follow after they did their default choice first. Switching their class in mid battle would be better if they had more to it as the game went on. Staggering and knockdown cap was just an excuse to make the hp even longer than previous final fantasies.
Fal'cie isn't a foreign term you moron. These were made up words. You should pick up a book and learn how story building works before you start spouting nonsense like a 3rd world septic tank.
>Final Fantasy XIII thread
>not one picture of the goddess
How do you fuck this up?
>Lore was irrational and made no sense unless you pause the game and use the codex encyclopedia.
I never opened the encyclopedia thing during my playthrough, and I got most of the things just fine. Just open your ears, listen to what people say, and observe the environments.
>When you are making a story and you use made up words you have to use in story dialogue to teach the reader what is going on.
They do that. They also use repetition within specific context to underline and enforce the few foreign terms, which like said, you should be able to pick up in no time. Also, some of the slight confusion in the way the story's told can be explained with the fact that Vanille was originally supposed to be the MC of the game.
Lightning was more of a complete birch than a badass.
She was never meant to be a badass. She was just once a soldier loyal to her country, forced into very tough moral dilemma, and going through lots of stress. She opens up and calms down quite a bit once she gets to vent out some of her steam.
>Hope was even worse, there were plenty of kid characters in final fantasy and in other rpgs that showed more balls than Hope.
The difference between Hope and many other (animu-esque) kid characters is the fact that Hope was literally just a kid. A child who'd liven a sheltered, safe life up until that point. He's easily one of the most realistic characters in the game.
>Then there is the design, the over designed monsters and Fal'cie that you couldn't tell their assessment from their faces. For some monsters quite literally.
That's not a bad thing, because there's this strong over-grown / mutated / engineered themes going on. Especially the bio-mechanic versions of the classic foes were just beautiful.
>The combat was something new but lacked even more control than its predecessors.
You can time your attack combo's starting moment, and also cancel them mid-way through if needed. That's already quite a lot MORE control than in old ATB.
I did listen and all they were talking about was their focus and having no fucking idea what was going on.I don't believe you for a fucking second that you didn't read the encyclopedia, because there was information that wasn't in the main game or story line. The was no underlining context to any thing they said, they kept saying made up words and expect you to read the codex after words because they were so far up their own ass about their shitty character development. While I might add was not the most realistic, because if he was realistic he would have come to realize he let his mother down and not snow for not taking the fucking gun in the first place. The who vent out her own steam was a bulls hit excuse since their were 5 other people who had the same thing happen to them or fucking worse.
Now the overgrown mutated shit I get but when you introduce a thing floating in the air and not have it the focal point in the shot you have no idea what you are looking at, this is the Fal'cie I'm mostly talking about.
Don't give me that you have to listen bulls hit because they didn't say anything that explained anything in the dialogue.
When telling a story you have to have who what when and where and yes the why. First the where was constantly confusing because cacaoon was never disgust as being a separate planet from pulse. Every time they changed scenery you had know fucking idea where they were on cacoon.
Who was defiantly established over and over and over again, and the story suffered for it because of its narsacistic plot. When was just jumping back forth in flash backs and at least those were managable, the what was the biggest thing.
They use exposition on talking about the zombie crystal people, but said fuck it to the rest of what was going on, the tunneling Fal'cie made tunnels but apparently the world Fal'cie was being tossed around like a goddamn tennis ball. There was nothing defining the Fal'cie.
>if you want to make a good story you don't use made up words and expect the player to do homework to understand what the fuck you are talking about in your autistic made up language.
Is this your first JRPG?
Calling the lore awful because you couldn't understand it(which isn't hard to understand at all) makes no sense. You're making a comment on yourself, not the lore.
Continued
There was nothing on the in game dialogue that gave required exposition on what the fuck was going on.
The story was just bad fan fiction and to prove it is the fact that an encyclopedia in the menu exist. not beastrary or a list on how to make certain items, but an encyclopedia explaining the fucking background of the story and why the world is what it is.
>it was absolutely fucking garbage
This has been common knowledge for 9 years now.
Oh I understood it, any one could understand it, it was just terrible story telling. I get the whole fight against destiny only to end up fulfilling that destiny all along bullshit, but if you make a made up world with made up words you bet your retarded ass that you have some exposition instead of expecting the player to read up on the encyclopedia to know what the fuck that over design piece of shit I'm fighting is.
>Vanille was originally supposed to be the MC of the game
waaaat I didn't know that
You're confusing lore with plot. The datalog contains the lore. The lore is great.
I'm not a fan of JRPGs making up strange words but it's a trope that you just have to deal with.
13 had literally no freedom in its battle system or even it's leveling up system, you had less control of the characters than you did in any other final fantasy.
The lore is tied to the plot, and plot uses the lore with no explination. That's the problem, world building is a big fucking part of the plot especially when you have two fucking planets at war with eachother.
>literally no freedom
hyperbole: the post
I feel like people who make these useless observations either haven't played many FFs or many jRPGs in general.
Its nothing new for a FF to have a wildly different battle system than the previous.
Its nothing new for a jRPG to not give you full control of your other party members.
Never said they were all the same but they at least had more control freedom than 13 did, the game would literally play for you.
Sure I'm embellishing, but compared to the other final fantasy games 13 had the least.
I feel people who just eat up terrible games just have a lack of standards and no sense of game play and only play these for their graphics and visuals.
it gets good 30 hours in, no i'm not joking, the game has a 30 hour long tutorial.
>the game would literally play for you.
find the person who never made it past Gran Pulse
the fact that you've never played an SMT game shows your lack of standards
It plays for you like any other FF where you press x and they attack? How is it different? Because there is an auto-battle selection? Somehow this makes people go full retard.
Using auto-battle gives you the same level of freedom as other games, doing it manually gives you more freedom.
People say it opens up but only for about two areas then it continues being the same follow the line shi
I bought this game on release thinking it'd at least be as good as X but it was pure trash all the way through
>at least be as good as X
it surpassed X user, you're the one who's pure trash
Story-wise the game is linear for sure. People are usually referring to the missions. For me, mission hunting after I beat it was more fun than the main game and I probably put in more hours during endgame than the main game.
>Using auto-battle gives you the same level of freedom as other games, doing it manually gives you more freedom.
What the fuck am I reading? Auto battle means less freedom so you can sit back and watch while the game does it for you
Actually not playing SMT would be a perfect example of having standards and proves that people who like 13 are just weaboos to begin with, so you aren't really making your case.
>Actually not playing SMT would be a perfect example of having standards and proves that people who like 13 are just weaboos to begin with, so you aren't really making your case.
SMT =/= Persona 3+ you fucktard, there's nothing weeb about MegaTen
>I want to attack
>Press x to attack, game does it for you
It's literally no different. Switching paradigms is the same thing as deciding what action to take in another FF. Doing it manually means you have a lot more control because you can do up to 6 different things in one turn.
The setting of the first game is modern tokyo.
I think you might not know what weaboo is, you weeb.
I'm not denying that I like Japanese games since we're in a FF thread, but being set in Tokyo has next to nothing to do with the actual gameplay of fighting demons in a hellish alt dimension. Of course you're just shitposting since you've never played a single game mentioned in this thread
How bout that there is select to attack, then special ability, then there is a magic, then there is separate magic to choose from, then that magic effects how much mp you use. Then there is the fact when I press attack they actually do what I say instead of just attacking by themselves and accasionally switching classes, which also attack with out your input. There is a difference, you just don't mind watching the game play itself for you.
So if they took out auto-battle completely then you'd have no issue with the combat?
Every time I hear this complaint it completely ignores the fact that you can manually input commands.