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Well, now that E3 is officially done, now is as good a time as any to start gushing over established franchise news. I hope you enjoy lukewarm endorsements of Final Fantasy XIII, because that's what you're getting!
Okay, summation of how I felt about FFXIII: The story was hilariously juvenile, but tried to hide it by wearing ill-fitting adult clothing (DESTINY DESTINY DESTINY TRAGEDY!), the presentation - music, graphics, character design, etc. - was gorgeous, and I LIKED the battle system. I liked the strategy required in creating and balancing paradigms correctly and switching between them at the proper time; it managed to take a fairly cerebral turn-based (nominally) system that could be very slow and deliberate fast-paced and engaging. My only complaint was the complete lack of an AI-tweek feature like FFXII's gambits, so unless the player controlled certain classes you'd be stuck with, like, synergists casting worthless elemental-change spells. One character at a time. So annoying.
I have mixed feelings about the linearity. I don't think the lack of traditional exploration hurt FFXIII, per se - there are lots of RPGs that are incredibly linear, and made it work. FFX, Phantasy Star Online, Parasite Eve, Xenosaga...they're all hellishly linear. The problem with FFXIII's world is that it's presented in a way that doesn't give the player a sense of how the world works. There are massively populated areas in Cocoon that you travel through, but you only talk to like, five people who spout stupid canned whines at you. Pulse has no NPC interaction at all. One of the major themes of the game is saving the poor innocent 'sheep' of Cocoon, but there's never a concrete sense of people actually suffering or even existing beyond a vague concept. Linearity can work in RPGs and it could have worked in FFXIII but it wasn't implemented properly.
ANYWAY. I mention this because a lot of people who like FFXIII seem to love the story, and were irritated by the battle system and linearity. (...) The FFXIII-2 demo (I cannot believe this is going to be the actual title :| ) showed a tweaked battle system and a world map, towns and NPCs. Oh, and an adorable moogle. ♥ It came off as a half-hearted attempt at addressing the widely accepted problems of FFXIII - half-hearted because while the explorable world appears much larger, the Paradigm battle system is still firmly in place, and there wasn't, you know, a whole lot of NPC interaction. There was just more available than in the first game. :p
At the end of the demo there was some ~player choice~ involved, but it was pretty simple: fight an area boss ASAP, or wander around finding stuff to lower its strength and defenses. ~Thrill~ at the interactivity on display!!!1!!1
I like the battle changes shown so far, with the ability to use monsters in the party and stuff. One thing about the Paradigm system was the lack of strategy in the endgame stuff - once you unlocked the Crystarium fully, most battles went like this:
Saboteur/Syngerist/Commando for buffing & debuffing
Ravager x 3 to stagger quickly
Commando/Ravager until enemy dies
With only two characters + 1 monster character with wildly varying stats, hopefully there will be a need to use lots of different setups instead of the few obvious stand-outs.
Not sure how I feel about quick-time event-esque timed button presses thing. Sometimes, it looks like a decent way to add unique strategy to the battle system, like the timed counters/attacks in Phantasy Star Universe, but it also looks a lot like the Resident Evil 4/5 quick time events which are THE WORST THINGS IN THE WORLD. So...yeah. Let's hope that doesn't suck balls.
Also if this game doesn't have Sazh as a playable character I am going to punch everyone at Square Enix in the face. If Snow and/or Hope are playable but Sazh is not, I am going to stab everyone at Square Enix in the face. I'd like to see Vanille and Fang too, but for obvious reasons that probably won't happen.
Okay, summation of how I felt about FFXIII: The story was hilariously juvenile, but tried to hide it by wearing ill-fitting adult clothing (DESTINY DESTINY DESTINY TRAGEDY!), the presentation - music, graphics, character design, etc. - was gorgeous, and I LIKED the battle system. I liked the strategy required in creating and balancing paradigms correctly and switching between them at the proper time; it managed to take a fairly cerebral turn-based (nominally) system that could be very slow and deliberate fast-paced and engaging. My only complaint was the complete lack of an AI-tweek feature like FFXII's gambits, so unless the player controlled certain classes you'd be stuck with, like, synergists casting worthless elemental-change spells. One character at a time. So annoying.
I have mixed feelings about the linearity. I don't think the lack of traditional exploration hurt FFXIII, per se - there are lots of RPGs that are incredibly linear, and made it work. FFX, Phantasy Star Online, Parasite Eve, Xenosaga...they're all hellishly linear. The problem with FFXIII's world is that it's presented in a way that doesn't give the player a sense of how the world works. There are massively populated areas in Cocoon that you travel through, but you only talk to like, five people who spout stupid canned whines at you. Pulse has no NPC interaction at all. One of the major themes of the game is saving the poor innocent 'sheep' of Cocoon, but there's never a concrete sense of people actually suffering or even existing beyond a vague concept. Linearity can work in RPGs and it could have worked in FFXIII but it wasn't implemented properly.
ANYWAY. I mention this because a lot of people who like FFXIII seem to love the story, and were irritated by the battle system and linearity. (...) The FFXIII-2 demo (I cannot believe this is going to be the actual title :| ) showed a tweaked battle system and a world map, towns and NPCs. Oh, and an adorable moogle. ♥ It came off as a half-hearted attempt at addressing the widely accepted problems of FFXIII - half-hearted because while the explorable world appears much larger, the Paradigm battle system is still firmly in place, and there wasn't, you know, a whole lot of NPC interaction. There was just more available than in the first game. :p
At the end of the demo there was some ~player choice~ involved, but it was pretty simple: fight an area boss ASAP, or wander around finding stuff to lower its strength and defenses. ~Thrill~ at the interactivity on display!!!1!!1
I like the battle changes shown so far, with the ability to use monsters in the party and stuff. One thing about the Paradigm system was the lack of strategy in the endgame stuff - once you unlocked the Crystarium fully, most battles went like this:
Saboteur/Syngerist/Commando for buffing & debuffing
Ravager x 3 to stagger quickly
Commando/Ravager until enemy dies
With only two characters + 1 monster character with wildly varying stats, hopefully there will be a need to use lots of different setups instead of the few obvious stand-outs.
Not sure how I feel about quick-time event-esque timed button presses thing. Sometimes, it looks like a decent way to add unique strategy to the battle system, like the timed counters/attacks in Phantasy Star Universe, but it also looks a lot like the Resident Evil 4/5 quick time events which are THE WORST THINGS IN THE WORLD. So...yeah. Let's hope that doesn't suck balls.
Also if this game doesn't have Sazh as a playable character I am going to punch everyone at Square Enix in the face. If Snow and/or Hope are playable but Sazh is not, I am going to stab everyone at Square Enix in the face. I'd like to see Vanille and Fang too, but for obvious reasons that probably won't happen.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-10 02:56 pm (UTC)From:My biggest problem is that I only nab the tv for a few hours per week so whatever I do during that time had better be epic (i.e.: Portal2 atm).
no subject
Date: 2011-06-13 07:01 am (UTC)From:As for the gameplay itself, it does take a long time for it to take off the training wheels, but the system itself is complex enough to make the enforced restriction not feel too frustrating, at least in my case. What's really unfortunate is that all those hours slowly learning the battle system don't really help you once you're given full control. It's like being forced to slowly walk into a brick wall.
It's an okay game, but hardly a 'must-play.'
no subject
Date: 2011-06-13 04:20 pm (UTC)From:- Thanks! That's good to know. I've got a lot of other games I want to finish atm (such as Mass Effect2) so I guess I'll stick with those and only worry about FFXIII if I have a lot of extra time. I'm intrigued by how beautiful it is!
no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 10:24 am (UTC)From:Haha yeah. JRPGs, though, man. Take a specific style, modify it. Take a familiar story arc, modify it slightly. Smother it all with the same limited vocabulary of spirit and hearts and souls, done. If the Western rabble takes to expanding on that in much the same way others defend the cultural significance of Saved by the Bell, ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED.
Which is why the linearity is so extra-goddamn-irritating to me. There's little enough world-building in FFXIII, as you said, but a good portion of what looks like world-building in other games comes from a few clever fan dances on top of the travel/grind to haven model. And the illusion of world-building lends the illusion of substance which leads you to being too distracted to notice how similar your game is in tone and spirit to Pocket Monsters.
Whatever, though, that shit was shiny.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-13 07:54 am (UTC)From:Of course, FFX was also helped by a plot revolved around pilgrimage and the idea of an entire world that lived and died around the inexplicable actions of an indestructible monster. Linearity and confusion are useful in that kind of story. x)
Excuse me, I'm going to make a bunch of FFXIII gifs and icons to celebrate its incredibly shininess. c: