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morallyobjected posted:This certainly comes down to how much credit you're willing to give the story, but all of the corridor-ness people complain about happens in the first half-ish of the game when you're literally just running away from people trying to kill you until you escape to the world where no one else is--then it opens up when you get to Gran Pulse. I think that's part of the problem, and one of the reasons that X's narrative linearity works better than XIII's. In X, there's a definite end-goal in sight; it's Zanarkand. Everyone is working towards the shared goal of getting there, even if they have alterior motivations to do so. It's a consistant driving force in the narrative. XIII doesn't really have a definite end-goal, other than the really vague "Fufil your focus" and you're not really given a proper reason until about 30 hours in. The narrative about them spending the game escaping from the government is fine in principle, but with no set end-goal, it's kind of "We've got to keep moving for thirty hours!" "Okay, where?" "Dunno, but keep going!" - it's difficult to keep up that momentum for so long. As for Gran Pulse, sure it's expansive and pretty to look at, but there's gently caress all there to do other than hunts, ride chocobos, and read text descriptions in a ghost town, for a few hours and then you're funnelled right back into corridor again. Suaimhneas posted:Can we have more news about 15 now? From wikipedia:
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Jan 26, 2014 20:39
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Finished FF7 just the other day. I had played it up to the third disc on PS before and just never got around to finishing it until the Steam remake went on sale. Made an effort not to use guides, I looked some up after the fact and most seem to revolve around using materia and tactics that you probably would never have if you won't following a guide or going from memory to get all the secret and obscure stuff. Have to admit, I forgot and didn't realise you had to change the level of Limits you were using in the menu. Went through the whole game with just the first two and thinking that there was some weird stuff I had to do to unlock them. Managed to get Yuffie and complete the game. Playing this way I found it to be pretty easy for the most part. I lost a handful of the boss battles when I had some bad luck. It's out of my system now, I'd sooner play through Chrono Trigger again than any other Final Fantasy.
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Jan 26, 2014 20:52
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You know what I suddenly realized when FFXIII got to Gran Pulse? There really is nothing to do in the game but combat. I mean, technically, there's a crafting system, but it's so badly designed and requires so much investment for a tiny reward that I never bothered until the end of the game. Even when the game opens up (for a brief period), exploration is pointless because they're nothing worth finding most of the time. And the combat simply is not interesting enough to carry the game. There are only a small number of boss fights where the combat gets even remotely involving. If you don't like FFXIII's story, what else is there in the game? Visuals?
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Jan 26, 2014 21:26
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The White Dragon posted:Not for another three years, no. That's being awfully optimistic.
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Jan 26, 2014 21:29
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Camel Pimp posted:You know what I suddenly realized when FFXIII got to Gran Pulse? There really is nothing to do in the game but combat. I mean, technically, there's a crafting system, but it's so badly designed and requires so much investment for a tiny reward that I never bothered until the end of the game. Even when the game opens up (for a brief period), exploration is pointless because they're nothing worth finding most of the time. And the combat simply is not interesting enough to carry the game. There are only a small number of boss fights where the combat gets even remotely involving. After FFXIII's release, there was a theory that proposed the creators behind the game had based their design off the Digital Devil Saga series. There's an interesting argument to be made whether its design is a natural evolution of FFX or if it's based more on DDS1&2 streamlined gameplay. Nonetheless, I was shocked to how they botched FFXIII's execution after successfully implementing many of its ideas in FFX. Going back to Gran Pulse, it was very underwhelming compared to what FF12 pulled off on much weaker technology. Come to think of it, FF13 is kind of a disappointment compared to the technical tour-de-force that was FF12. It's kind of shocking to think this was once a developer known for its technical aptitude.
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Jan 26, 2014 21:50
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Sunning posted:After FFXIII's release, there was a theory that proposed the creators behind the game had based their design off the Digital Devil Saga series. There's an interesting argument to be made whether its design is a natural evolution of FFX or if it's based more on DDS1&2 streamlined gameplay. FFXIII plays nothing like DDS and that argument is hilariously shallow and flawed. It's very easy to trace where FFX->FFX-2->FFXII->FFXIIII came from when you look at their designs and combat structure, and the similarities they're citing in plot are not even remotely close. I mean honestly that analysis gets absolutely nothing right at all. I can't think of a single argument it makes that itsn't flawed aside from "at some point the protagonists get tattoos" and "one character has pink hair!" Not to mention flat-out misinformation or misunderstandings of mechanics in both game.s FFXIII's flaws are really easy to trace. It's very easy to understand exactly why they went the directions they did when it came to design. Production issues are a big part of it but it's an understandable (and very Square-Enix) response to criticism and complaints about the previous games mixed with the usual attempts to mix old mechanics with new. It isn't about them ripping off other games. It's even easy to see why they went in certain directions. Square-Enix's biggest problem is not just that they don't listen to criticism. They do. Their problem is that whatever criticism they listen to is shallow and limited. They don't understand what people want and instead try to shove patchwork fixes onto the complaints people have with their products. They fix things but they fix things in the video game equivalent of shoving a band-aid on a gushing wound. The FFXIII trilogy in particular is basically a giant neon glowing example of "wait, you wanted what? Okay, here it is" without getting that people are bad about explaining what they actually want and what they claim to want is not actually it. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Jan 26, 2014 |
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Jan 26, 2014 22:25
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ImpAtom posted:FFXIII plays nothing like DDS and that argument is hilariously shallow and flawed. It's very easy to trace where FFX->FFX-2->FFXII->FFXIIII came from when you look at their designs and combat structure, and the similarities they're citing in plot are not even remotely close. I doubt the DDS connection as well but the speculation around FFXIII's design is interesting on its own. I always thought of FFXIII as more of a turbo-charged FFX-2. It's makes the most sense between the people behind it, the prototype build, and the end result. Back in 2007, I read that they planned on basically making FF7: AC in videogame form but the battle system is the closest that comes to that after their engine problems.
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Jan 26, 2014 22:38
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Suaimhneas posted:I just tried the Lightning Returns demo, and I have little idea what's going on with this combat. I feel like I'm switching roles just because I have to switch to something that has ATB to spend, rather than because that role would be useful against that enemy or in that situation. I'm not sure how there could be any reason to use one role over another when you can't use any role's abilities for more than a few seconds at a time anyway. Same here. Your comments about the battle system are spot on, and there is nothing else there that I like at all. The music is meh, the plot is a goddamn mess, the character design is unappealing, the dialog is embarrasing. Ugh. Pass.
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Jan 26, 2014 22:39
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Camel Pimp posted:You know what I suddenly realized when FFXIII got to Gran Pulse? There really is nothing to do in the game but combat. I mean, technically, there's a crafting system, but it's so badly designed and requires so much investment for a tiny reward that I never bothered until the end of the game. Even when the game opens up (for a brief period), exploration is pointless because they're nothing worth finding most of the time. And the combat simply is not interesting enough to carry the game. There are only a small number of boss fights where the combat gets even remotely involving. That's kind of a silly question isn't it, if you take all the story and gameplay out of any game what the heck are you even doing.
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Jan 26, 2014 22:49
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Sunning posted:I doubt the DDS connection as well but the speculation around FFXIII's design is interesting on its own. I always thought of FFXIII as more of a turbo-charged FFX-2. It's makes the most sense between the people behind it, the prototype build, and the end result. Back in 2007, I read that they planned on basically making FF7: AC in videogame form but the battle system is the closest that comes to that after their engine problems. FFXIII's evolution is fairly easy to trace, honestly. It is, as you said, an evolution of FFX-2's combat system but it is meshing with something else. An increasing popular thing in games at the time it was developed was a de-emphasis on party control, in place of various customization. FFXII was actually their first attempt at this with the Gambit system but the early complaints about the Gambit system stuck around for a long time and the system itself had a mixed reception at best. One of the big complaints about FFXII was that it was too slow. (Which is why the International edition shoves a fast forward button in.) So they approached FFXIII with a few simple ideas. They wanted to use a system like FFX-2, but without individual control and without Gambits since those got blowback, and most importantly, it had to be fast. "It had to be fast" obviously became the defining feature of the system with the emphasis being on making combat as absolutely quick as possible. They were trying to respond to the complaints about previous game FFXIII is a whole bunch of corridors because of design problems but even if it hadn't run into problems it would probably still be a whole bunch of corridors, because FFXII's open world was received a lot more poorly by the general audience than FFX's linear world. It got a lot of praise from critics but complaints (especially in Japan) discussed a lack of focus, a general dearth of plot, an unclear leveling system (which they tried to fix, again, in International), and a lot of other objections which made it really clear why S-E assumed that a nonstop action ride plot would be better received. It's easy to blame production problems for a lot of what FFXIII had wrong but even if it didn't have production problems I don't think the final product would be much different. More polished maybe and some of the egregious errors fixed, but FFXIII is a completely sensible design move when you look at how Final Fantasy designs have gone. Each game is in some way a response to the games before them. Even the FFXIII Trilogy follows that path pretty hard and you can see how desperately they tried to 'fix' FFXIII-2 (and probably FFXIII-3) with the design decisions they made, grasping both on things people liked from previous Final Fantasy games and the increasing popularity of western games in general. (Thus why you have Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect costumes available.) The real problem is basically that they don't understand what people want. Part of that may simply be that the fanbase is so insanely large and varied and part of it is simply that S-E doesn't actually understand. The biggest complaints people have about FFXIII aren't the things they yell about and fixing those things doesn't fix the problems people have, but S-E's team is not actually good enough to figure that out and instead focus on trying to fix the obvious things instead of the things that would actually make the game better. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Jan 26, 2014 |
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Jan 26, 2014 22:52
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After Hironobu Sakaguchi and Yasumi Matsuno left, it was as though they forgot what they knew about effective storytelling in games.
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Jan 26, 2014 23:04
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Tempo 119 posted:That's kind of a silly question isn't it, if you take all the story and gameplay out of any game what the heck are you even doing. There are other types of gameplay other than combat, though?
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Jan 26, 2014 23:05
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Defiance Industries posted:There are other types of gameplay other than combat, though?
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Jan 26, 2014 23:08
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Endorph posted:I don't remember older FF games having any sort of crafting system at all, and somehow I don't think people would be kinder to FF13 if it had a stupid card game. Exploration elements have been big parts of past games in the series, which is pretty much nonexistent. The training wheels are on this game so long that there's basically no way to make different builds for characters to try out. There's no other activity you can do when you want to change gears like cards or blitzball or even something like wandering around a town talking to people. All things that used to be pretty common.
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Jan 26, 2014 23:29
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To be honest I dislike the exploration in most FF games, though that probably comes down to that time I was playing FF2, wandering around, then inexplicably got pasted by some monsters twenty levels higher than me just because i took one step into a desert. Fair enough on the other two things, though.
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Jan 26, 2014 23:32
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Endorph posted:I don't remember older FF games having any sort of crafting system at all, and somehow I don't think people would be kinder to FF13 if it had a stupid card game. Chronobind. 
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Jan 26, 2014 23:33
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Suaimhneas posted:I just tried the Lightning Returns demo, and I have little idea what's going on with this combat. I feel like I'm switching roles just because I have to switch to something that has ATB to spend, rather than because that role would be useful against that enemy or in that situation. I'm not sure how there could be any reason to use one role over another when you can't use any role's abilities for more than a few seconds at a time anyway. Did you get to the boss? Non-boss encounters are just there to whittle down your resources but the boss is obviously the showpiece. As an example of using schemas together: the boss is weak to ice and headshots, so ideally you would be spamming froststrike on his head, only he's too tall to reach so you'd need to knock him over first. Start with a physical role that's got a strong/launch attack to knock him down, then swap to a role with froststrike and hit him until the ATB runs out. Swap back to your physical role to keep beating on the head while you have the chance, and finally bring out the mage role to lob some ice magic at him while the other two recharge. The demo starts you off with a good set of schemas to use this combo, by the way. There's other stuff that comes with each schema too, like different defensive abilities and passive buffs from equipment. Maybe an enemy has unblockable attacks and only one of your schemas has "evade" instead of "block", so you'd want to keep that in mind and make sure there's always a bit of ATB left in it for when the time comes. Tempo 119 fucked around with this message at 23:40 on Jan 26, 2014 |
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Jan 26, 2014 23:34
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Tempo 119 posted:Did you get to the boss? Non-boss encounters are just there to whittle down your resources but the boss is obviously the showpiece. I feel like you're talking about a different game than the one I played. The only boss I fought was weak to lightning, and I never saw anything get launched or knocked down from any of the attacks I used.
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Jan 26, 2014 23:46
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Suaimhneas posted:I feel like you're talking about a different game than the one I played. The only boss I fought was weak to lightning, and I never saw anything get launched or knocked down from any of the attacks I used. The boss being defeated and the boss being defeated with a high ranking are different things. You can win the fight by spamming your healing potions and lightning until the boss falls over but you're going to take a lot more damage than you need to, get a lovely ranking, and if FFXIII-3 is anything like the previous games, get shittier drops.
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Jan 26, 2014 23:47
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Endorph posted:I don't remember older FF games having any sort of crafting system at all FFVIII had item/magic refining, FFIX had the synthesis shops, and FFX had weapon and armor customization.
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Jan 26, 2014 23:53
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ImpAtom posted:get a lovely ranking, and if FFXIII-3 is anything like the previous games, get shittier drops. I don't know how 13-2 handled it, because it never really comes up, but getting poo poo rankings in 13-1 got you better drops if anything. That gives you the -sol items pretty consistently and lets you get a ton way earlier than you would otherwise. Not like it's hard enough to warrant it, but I distinctly remember that being a thing.
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Jan 26, 2014 23:56
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W.T. Fits posted:FFVIII had item/magic refining, FFIX had the synthesis shops, and FFX had weapon and armor customization. Aside from FFX none of those are really crafting systems. They're straight trades with no player interaction. FFX did have a crafting system tho', yes. Dragonatrix posted:I don't know how 13-2 handled it, because it never really comes up, but getting poo poo rankings in 13-1 got you better drops if anything. That gives you the -sol items pretty consistently and lets you get a ton way earlier than you would otherwise. Not like it's hard enough to warrant it, but I distinctly remember that being a thing. It decreases your rare item drop rate but increases your Sol drop rate. Sols are not actually that powerful in FFXIII-2 though since it's so trivial to get good buffs up and the scoring system is all hosed up.
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Jan 26, 2014 23:56
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Artix posted:Chronobind. Unironically this. SE is like a bizzaro Bioware. Their games have been iffy as of late, but the DLCs are usually pretty good and worth the cash. A lot of Japanese games have cool DLCs now that I think about it. Koei has some neat Dynasty Warriors missions. GUST also has some cool DLCs which show that the company puts in effort into everything they do. Even those "personality modulator" ones, they are fully voiced and well-localized. Yeah, I said it.
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Jan 26, 2014 23:56
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Suaimhneas posted:I feel like you're talking about a different game than the one I played. The only boss I fought was weak to lightning, and I never saw anything get launched or knocked down from any of the attacks I used. The default 3 schema don't have a reliable knockdown attack. Blizzaga on the black mage can do it occasionally, but it's not almost guaranteed like the heartstealer's punt or dragoon's charge attack. Also note that the game keeps 13's and 13-2's system where fighting monsters fills out the details about them, and in the case of elemental resistances or vulnerabilities, it will give them after hitting with just one skill of that type. Special weaknesses are filled out as you hit them, so the game wants you to experiment. Status effects like deprotect also look like they will always hit with one cast unless the monster is immune. If you have no interest in trying to push yourself for good times and ratings in every fight then yeah you're probably going to find the combat system unfun. If you do try to maximize it then doing so feels good. If you just spam everything and rotate through schema mindlessly you're going to have a poo poo rating and like 4-5 minute time on the boss and you'll be chugging potions. If you understand the game's systems then you can get through fights taking no damage and in a little over a minute, and that's probably not even the best possible time in the demo.
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Jan 27, 2014 00:00
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Apparently there still exists people who play video games and don't know that Aeris dies. Me and a friend of mine have been getting a little interested in Final Fantasy after playing the Bravely Default demo a few weeks back. I made a comment about Aeris dying in VII, and told me not to spoil him. I mean, it's cool that he manages to avoid stuff like that, but I'm a bit baffled has to how he's never heard of Aeris' death. Granted, he had no idea what a Chocobo was either, so I guess he just somehow managed to avoid Final Fantasy all together, one way or another.
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Jan 27, 2014 00:07
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Endorph posted:I don't remember older FF games having any sort of crafting system at all, and somehow I don't think people would be kinder to FF13 if it had a stupid card game. In the very first game, they asked a lot more of you than to just press forward until the next battle. At the start of the game, you could either go into the town to buy some resources and spells, beat up some monsters until you gained a level, or just go straight to Garland's castle. On the way, you can choose a path through the different terrain to influence what kinds of monsters you will encounter. Once you reach the entrance to the castle, you can either use a tent and save the game, or just go in and hope you don't die. You can then either explore the left corridor in the castle to find some useful items or equipment, explore to the right to find some chests that can't be opened yet without a key, or go straight ahead and fight the boss, Garland. There is none of this decision-making in FFXIII. Whenever the corridor has an offshoot, it always contains a chest and maybe an enemy encounter. There is no risk to exploring since fighting additional battles will not reduce your supplies, and there won't be any encounters on the way back. The minimap always makes it clear which pathways are optional and which are mandatory, so there's no experimentation needed to find either the optional treasures or the way you need to go to progress. At the bottom of the marsh caves in FFI, there are several treasure chests guarded by powerful enemies. The tiles next to them guarantee an encounter with several Mindflayers, and you may not survive the encounter. It's frustrating to lose all your progress in the dungeon, but you could leave the place, heal up and save the game, then come back in to fight them, or just return later in the game when you have the key that will let you get everything there.
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Jan 27, 2014 00:08
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In FF13, you can save the game, turn the game off, run around in circles because it makes Lightning's hair jerk around weirdly, or start a battle and then just listen to Blinded by Light for five hours. Choices!
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Jan 27, 2014 00:11
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chumbler posted:The default 3 schema don't have a reliable knockdown attack. Oops you're right, Savior's usless, put Dragoon on there instead. The charged attack launches almost every time and the jump attack does a ton of damage + stagger (which unfortunately short circuits my big combo a bit, but whatever).
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Jan 27, 2014 00:13
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ImpAtom posted:Aside from FFX none of those are really crafting systems. They're straight trades with no player interaction. This seems like a silly argument of semantics and synthesis in FFIX felt a lot more like crafting to me than "put a bunch of junk items on your weapon to level it up".
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Jan 27, 2014 00:37
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I didn't like how restrictive the leveling system was in FF13. Sure each character begins with 3 roles available to them but there's only one drat path for every role. And when the other 3 roles open up it's the same thing. And you're even capped on how far you can go based on what chapter you're on. Compare that to FF6's esper mix-and-match, FF7's materia mix-and-match, FF8's GF mix-and-match, FF9's equipment and support ability mix-and-match, FF10's actual branching sphere grid, and FF12's open license board. It's like you couldn't actually do anything you wanted with the characters.
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Jan 27, 2014 01:00
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Jibo posted:This seems like a silly argument of semantics and synthesis in FFIX felt a lot more like crafting to me than "put a bunch of junk items on your weapon to level it up". It really isn't when we're discussing player choice. There's no meaningful player choice to synthesis in FFIX. You can't substitute items, you can't alter the outcome of items, you can't really do anything. It's a shop with a different form of 'money' and the only meaningful player interaction is "don't sell your items." It is not a meaningful crafting system unless you're defined crafting system as something so limited as to be effectively meaningless. FFX's weapon and armor customization is a true crafting system. You have items that you can customize in a wide variety of ways. You can create armor to nullify certain enemy strengths or weapons that can instant-kill poweful enemies, improve your overall damage, amplify your character stats and various other things with the crafting and customization completely under the player's control. That is unarguably more choice and gives the player more options in what they do and how they do it. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 01:45 on Jan 27, 2014 |
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Jan 27, 2014 01:00
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Eddain posted:I didn't like how restrictive the leveling system was in FF13. Sure each character begins with 3 roles available to them but there's only one drat path for every role. And when the other 3 roles open up it's the same thing. And you're even capped on how far you can go based on what chapter you're on. An argument that crops up every so often when things like this are brought up is that many people dislike the largely interchangeable characters from other games. You're right that the characters in 13 aren't interchangeable, and that's a good thing if a bit poorly balanced. Also I don't have it on hand, but a chart showing that FFX's sphere grid was pretty much a straight line in all but I think one case also exists. On a side note, I'm still convinced that if FF13 just didn't have a map or minimap you'd see a lot of linearity complaints disappear. JRPGs are linear, it's just a matter of how well they hide it. chumbler fucked around with this message at 01:09 on Jan 27, 2014 |
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Jan 27, 2014 01:06
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so in Bravely Default are you # of attacks tied to both class level and actual level? Going through the demo and at level 12 a new ninja character hits 3x (per hand) at most.ImpAtom posted:FFXIII's evolution is fairly easy to trace, honestly. FF13's battle system evolved out from Last Remnant's.
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Jan 27, 2014 01:08
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Evil Fluffy posted:FF13's battle system evolved out from Last Remnant's. They have almost nothing in common beyond 'there are AI allies" and very little common staff so that seems unlikely. Do you have a source? Last Remnant has a lot more in common with the SaGa games (and they share staff with the SaGa games) so it's hard for me to buy that FFXIII evolved from it. (Especially since IIRC the footage for the earliest versions of the game even flat-out using Rikku and Yuna's characters because they were structuring it off FFX-2's combat system.) Edit: Everything I can find has them citing previous Final Fantasy games as their inspiration with Advent Children being the idea behind their visuals. The combat system wasn't nailed down until they made the demo that was released with AC:C but it was based off FFX-2 even then. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Jan 27, 2014 |
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Jan 27, 2014 01:19
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Evil Fluffy posted:FF13's battle system evolved out from Last Remnant's. I don't see a single similarity
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Jan 27, 2014 01:19
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Are we ever going to get FF13 Type-0? Or is the PSP just absolutely dead in the US now?
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Jan 27, 2014 01:52
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Eddain posted:Are we ever going to get FF13 Type-0? Or is the PSP just absolutely dead in the US now? The PSP is dead as dirt. There are ongoing rumors that it may get a Vita upgraded port but nothing has materialized. That or a Type-0 HD would probably be the only ways we get it at this point.
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Jan 27, 2014 01:53
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Eddain posted:Are we ever going to get FF13 Type-0? Or is the PSP just absolutely dead in the US now? It is possible that you could see a digital release on PSN of Type-0 at some point in the future; I know XSEED is going to be localizing PSP versions of Trails in the Sky and releasing them on PSN exactly like that this year so there is a way it could happen. That said SE has shown absolutely no interest whatsoever in localizing Type-0 at this point. I think North America just missed the the timing for this game.
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Jan 27, 2014 02:01
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An English fan translation of Type-0 should be finished relatively soon. http://www.skybladecloud.net/skys-romhacking-nest-revamped-and-type-0-update/
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Jan 27, 2014 02:10
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Systematic System posted:An English fan translation of Type-0 should be finished relatively soon. http://www.skybladecloud.net/skys-romhacking-nest-revamped-and-type-0-update/ Out of nowhere 95% of the main game translated. Goddamn. I hope its out by summer.
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Jan 27, 2014 03:02
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