FFXIII - First Impressions *probable spoilers*

Vokes

For those who've played it - what are people's impressions thus far?

I'm about 1-2 hours in. Awesome opening. It's very reminicent of the openings of FFVII (elevated train / advanced city) and X ( tutorial along the Zanarkand highbridge).

Not much happening with the Battle System so far. Lot's of handholding ala X but it looks very promising. Glad that they've kept the Random Battles away.

The voice-actors actually do a pretty good job for the most part, although Vanille's accent seems to fluctuate a bit between Aussie and Englsh . The main problem is, as with all FF games, the actual dialogue, which can be a bit hit and miss.

I think we're onto a winner with the soundtrack - some great tracks already. The boss music is pretty epic. On a par with XII's boss music i reckon. Nice work, Hamauzu.

The Datalog is a welcome feature too. Throws up lots of interesting and welcome background information.

Xluna

Kind of what I expected so far. Great graphics,sound,presentation but a dissapointing battle system and I'm not as instantly hooked as I was with 7,8,9 and Lost Odyssey. Its early days yet though and I'm looking forward to getting out of the city and for the story to take off. And yeah the start of it does remind me of 7.

bugs

Played up to chapter 4, but the game so far hasn't really sparked much interest.
I'm not so sure about the battle system either, it seems a little dumbed down.
I don't like not being able to micro-manage team mates actions, depending how this plays out later in the game could make it really annoying.
I only started using paradigm shifts and at the moment its pretty chaotic, but at least its more technical than the few hours prior pressing X over and over.

The voice acting is (from what i've seen) pretty decent, unfortunately the dialog is probably the worst i've ever come across. I'm well aware its final fantasy and this is pretty standard but i don't think 12 was remotely this corny.

To be honest, the reviews said it takes 15 hours to really get into its stride, and i'd add that it takes a few hours at the start to get anywhere.

Will have to put more time into it to get a better impression.

Mr. K

Aaah, I've got a few hours of college before I can play...must be...responsible...I can't wait to play it!

ShaneU

Vanille's voice actress....dear god.

Dubs

First few hours didnt look to promising for the new battle system but I'm starting to get into it now.

couldnt help but cringe and laugh when he said "lets even up these odds" :rolleyes:

bugs

Dubs wrote: »

couldnt help but cringe and laugh when he said "lets even up these odds" :rolleyes:

"Moms are tough!"

I see........

johnny_ultimate

bugs wrote: »

"Moms are tough!"

I see........

The writing / voice acting is atrociously bad. My eyes rolled quite hard when they discussed

what it would feel like to be a crystal

. Seriously?

The combat system definitely improves - I'm about four or five hours in now and they do add depth to the system, but at a sometimes painfully slow pace. It looks and sounds absolutely fantastic, but I'm always rather disappointed that you have to stick through staunchly pre-defined paths rather than explore. As I said in another thread, the shroud system is really good though.

There have been moments when I've stopped and just admired the scenery (Gates of Antiquity..) but then it is back to more repetitive straight lines. I'm going to stick with it though, because the combat system shows a lot of promise, the levelling up system is interesting and the promise that it all does open up eventually. I just think there'll be a lot more nonsense dialogue between where I am now and there.

Xluna

I really wanted to like this game but I'm finding it a bit of a chore and overall I'm dissapointed. I can't help but feel that myself and a bunch of regulars here could write better dialogue,create more interesting characters and just alter basic things like proper towns,a overworld map,turn based gameplay and magic points ect-which would improve it so much.

I can't understand why Square continue to abandon the turn based gameplay,there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. So far I rate Lost Odyssey superior in everything bar graphics-even then there's not a massive gulf.

Sephiroth_dude

Are there any side quests?or have they gotten rid of them too?

super_furry

bugs wrote: »

"Moms are tough!"

I see........

I died a little inside when she came back for the 'I told you moms are tough'.

Surprised it took 40 minutes for Sazh's first 'dayuuuum!'.

Gummy Panda

super_furry wrote: »

I died a little inside when she came back for the 'I told you moms are tough'.

Surprised it took 40 minutes for Sazh's first 'dayuuuum!'.

Snow.. he loves the cougars

Retr0gamer

super_furry wrote: »

Surprised it took 40 minutes for Sazh's first 'dayuuuum!'.

If he says a Clay Davis 'Shiiiiiieeeettttt!' then I'm sold.

Mr. K

Enjoying it so far. Just got to the part where you access Paradigms, the battle system seems more interesting already! I assume that Paradigm Shifts will give us a certain amount of control how the other party members behave.

As others have said: he voice acting is pretty good, the script is hit and miss. Lightning's voice actress (Ali Hillis) also voiced Liara in Mass Effect. And Vanille...yeah...quite irritating.

Where is Lighting's

l'Cie brand

? They highlight the rest of the party's, why not her's?

johnny_ultimate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMacrDEwwsU

If we're talking about first impressions (well, post Square Enix logo), I was mightily impressed with that composition.

Xluna

Retr0gamer wrote: »

If he says a Clay Davis 'Shiiiiiieeeettttt!' then I'm sold.

What you talkin bout Retrogamer?

super_furry

Anyone else reminded of Phantasy Star Online on the Dreamcast? The music and visual design of the Cocoon levels really bring to mind PSO. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the same people worked on it.

F1ngers

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

Are there any side quests?or have they gotten rid of them too?

My son informed me that there are 50+ hours of side quests(he read it somewhere...no linky). I haven't bought the guide book yet, so I don't know.

In a week or 2, when I've finished the game I may invest in a guide book.

landsleaving

For all my skepticism I'm really enjoying it so far. Get the feeling they wanted a VII vibe from the train opening and general sudden fast pace. Battle system is good so far, every time I get fed up of having limited options it gives me something new so it's just about as slow as it can be without being ridiculous. Still a bit too much hand holding though, but I guess not everyones play a FF game before.

Mainly I just love the settings and such, story seems decentish, but the world is pretty damned impressive.

The less said about some of the characters the better. Hope needs to be throttled with a telephone cord.

Sazh (is that right) however, rocks. A stereotype yes, but a stereotype I enjoy! WIthin 5 minutes he said 'I'm too old for this' and thus I was hooked.

Professey Chin

I actually like Vanilles voice.Im not sure why though
So far im liking the setting.The battle system is taking some getting used to(being hit while youre attacking is weird) and having so little at the start is pretty simplistic.Looking forward to more options though

inFamouxee

First impression "Cutscenes WOOOOOOOOOOW! Battle System -_-" controlling one character at a time is bit of a let down... but i would say this is the best looking game ive played on PS3!

Vokes

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

If we're talking about first impressions (well, post Square Enix logo), I was mightily impressed with that composition.

Main Titles music is class, for sure.

Boss composition is great too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJU8UtGAepM

Have just started using the Paradigms which were a bit tricky at first. Got my party leader (Lightning) taken out by that psicom boss at Lake Bresha 3 times before I learnt to keep a sharp eye on her health. Oops.

The Crystarium is a bit awkward to navigate but otherwise fairly sphere grid-like.

Story is a goodie so far.

Professey Chin

Vokes wrote: »

Have just started using the Paradigms which were a bit tricky at first. Got my party leader (Lightning) taken out by that psicom boss at Lake Bresha 3 times before I learnt to keep a sharp eye on her health. Oops.

You wernt kidding.The game just went from press X a lot to insane :eek:
I love it

Raze_them_all

Dear christ.
1: am on the third disk. Still no side quests yet(though am only about an hour into the disk)
2) Feels slightly beat them up ish not rpgish to play with the constance a a a a a a a a lb up/down a a a a a a a
3) 1000 for a phoenix down......really!? (not that you need them unless yer in a tough boss battle which there really isn)
4) I think it's way to dumbed down.

Xluna

Raze_them_all wrote: »

Dear christ.
1: am on the third disk. Still no side quests yet(though am only about an hour into the disk)
2) Feels slightly beat them up ish not rpgish to play with the constance a a a a a a a a lb up/down a a a a a a a
3) 1000 for a phoenix down......really!? (not that you need them unless yer in a tough boss battle which there really isn)
4) I think it's way to dumbed down.

How...what?

Raze_them_all

Xluna wrote: »

How...what?

Got it on monday, Takes about 18-20 hours to hit the third disk

The Living Few

I just posted this in another thread but I suppose it's worth posting here too since it's a frist impression lol

Got it yesterday after work. Played it for a while. It seems to be almost exactly like ffx in regards to how linear it is. The fighting style is very boring and repetitive though which is the opposite to 10 lol. I had to endure about 7 million long boring ass cutscenese just to play 20 minutes of actual game. What the f*ck is the deal with this? I don't want to watch a movie, I want to play a game. Exact same with final fantasy 10, even though it played like a dream it was almost not worth it due to being bombarded with pointless cutscenese (unskipable I might add). Voice acting is abysmal and the characters are annoying and as usual unlikable arrogant twats, especially the males. I did notice the really cool, folkloresque music stylings though which I liked, compared to 12 which now that I think of it, might aswel have had no soundrack at all. As far as visuals go though it looks great and although this seems like a widely negative review, as long as you skip all the boring suck-scenes then you eliminate all the rubbish elements of the game. So far though it's playing like a 7/10. You could propably take this as a review of ff10 too while you're at it.

CodeMonkey

The Living Few wrote: »

I had to endure about 7 million long boring ass cutscenese just to play 20 minutes of actual game. What the f*ck is the deal with this?

errr...start -> select to skip movies. But if you are going to be doing that then just stop now and get a more actiony type game like GOW3.

Gummy Panda

From what I read on NeoGAF, this game is a really really slow start. They said about 15 hours in and you'll love the combat system.

I kinda like snow, lightening and shaz. Hope and vanille can piss off. I hated it when snow gave her a gun and she does the kiddy pretending shooting.

landsleaving

I thought the second the paradigms came in it was a good system. Really like the fast pace.

Love that there's no random battles. I didn't quite appreciate how great it is to not have them till they were gone!

1 complaint:

Shive can turn into a motorbike? Whaaa?

The Living Few

And here I was completely unaware that RPG's were all about the cut-scenes, maybe I should just play GOW because people who love cut-scenes think so, or maybe I'll just not do that and continue to say that the cut-scenes are too much. too much. too much. too much. too much. too much. see how saying the same thing over and over again is annoying? Just like cut-scenes do

joe123

Im only about and hour and half in. Just got to

Ice lake place after you fight the machine thing that turns you into the lchie or whatever its called.

So far I really dont like the combat system. Controlling only one character is annoying. As basically you just leave them to their own devices as far as I can see. I loved the gambit system in 12 and really enjoyed the fighting system in 10 and 9.

Combat just seems all over the place and WAY to easy. I havent died once yet and all im doing is tapping A over and over.

Not sure if you can do it in 13 but I miss being able to cast haste or something with one character and then fight with my other two.

The crystal system is a bit messy looking aswell and the game is so linear.

To sum up my first two hours ive ran down a straight path,tapped A alot,watched cutscenes (which look great) but dont really have a clue what they are on about half the time.

The Living Few

i totally agree with joe123, it's almost as if the game was made for one fingered babies who don't like RPG games. There is absolutely no challenge in battle and no challenge in the field. At least so far anyway. It's like it was made to target the more retarded gamers out there.

landsleaving

All the final fantasy games start off both simple and linear. I like the battle system now, but mainly knowing that there will be massive challenges later.

The crystal thing is good, allows you to focus on beefing up a character in one area like healing so they can just do that during battles. I'm guessing later there'll be the equivalent of a time mage class for haste spells.

Hope just learned how to cast protect and shell for me

I've got Sazh as a black mage, Lightning as a killing machine and Vanille as white mage/black mage and I just switch between an all attack and one healing paradigm. I'm intrigued as to how I can customize later.

I guess I'm just putting my faith in the game being more varied later, but for now I'm happy to learn about the world and characters and just get lost in the atmosphere. Challenge later, I wanna see where this is going!

It is easy though, but I guess they're looking for a new younger audience and trying to ease them in. Unlike say in X or VIII where they said here's the sphere grid/juntion system. Enjoy working out what the hell you're doing!

Vokes

landsleaving wrote: »

Unlike say in X or VIII where they said here's the sphere grid/juntion system. Enjoy working out what the hell you're doing!

Hmm, I don't think that's right. There's actually a Sphere Grid tutorial in X, and then there's the linear path on the Zanarkand highbridge and through Besaid Island which is just one long battle tutorial. And in VIII, Quistis gives a tutorial on Junctioning for the SeeD exam. So really not all that much different from XIII's approach.

Stuck in work here atm, and im eager to get back at this game this evening. Loving it so far for the most part.

The Living Few

Simply put, it's just not good enough. We have enough one button tap retard games out there. Square should know better. If they want to appeal to a new market, just make a jaysus new game and leave final fantasy to the RPG gamers. I think square need a major overhual on franchise at this stage, it's gone way too far now or just completely drop it. 7 was great, 8 was good for about 10 minutes, 9 was a pile of bilge, 10 was good but the most tedious of the lot, 10-2 I haven't bothered playing, 12 was a failed attempt at a remake of 9. And now 13 is a spaghetti junction hell of half arsed story and camp characters who no-one gives a sh1t about. I fear this post will get me a lot of strange looks, so sorry about this lol. Rant over, I will go back to my cave and you may continue on the boards.

Xluna

The Living Few wrote: »

9 was a pile of bilge, 10 was good but the most tedious of the lot, 10-2 I haven't bothered playing, 12 was a failed attempt at a remake of 9.

The Living Few

sarcasm perhaps? lol

speedboatchase

The Living Few wrote: »

Simply put, it's just not good enough. We have enough one button tap retard games out there. Square should know better. If they want to appeal to a new market, just make a jaysus new game and leave final fantasy to the RPG gamers. I think square need a major overhual on franchise at this stage, it's gone way too far now or just completely drop it. 7 was great, 8 was good for about 10 minutes, 9 was a pile of bilge, 10 was good but the most tedious of the lot, 10-2 I haven't bothered playing, 12 was a failed attempt at a remake of 9. And now 13 is a spaghetti junction hell of half arsed story and camp characters who no-one gives a sh1t about. I fear this post will get me a lot of strange looks, so sorry about this lol. Rant over, I will go back to my cave and you may continue on the boards.

It's the first proper FF installment of this gen, I think it's to be expected that the battle system will have a strong tutorial element for new players intriuged by the franchise. From what I've read in reviews, the battle system grows to become enormously deep, complicated and satisfying. So whilst you won't get exactly the battles you want in the first few hours, I think it makes sense that they will progressively come until you reach a stage where experienced gamers feel challenged and newcomers have gradually learnt the process and can compete too

Xyo

Anyone get their ass handed to em by Odin ?

Dubs

Thats not really sarcasm, its just wrong

Battle system gets much better once you get the paradigms, you begin to forget your only controlling 1 char, and with the fast pace of the battles its just better that way imo

The Living Few

Well i'm defo not going to stop playing, if this battle system works out as you guys say then maybe there is something there. Oh by the way, I was being sarcastic, it was a joke on final fantasy 12 being soo similar to 9 in it's whole disney fairytale style. maybe i'm the only one that see's this though lol. Even though I've been slating elements of the game, it has me writing all day so that's gotta be good. To be honest, it's all I've been thinking about all day. But then again, I was obsessed with 12 when i started playing it until I just stopped caring about the game and eventually abandoned it. I hope, i really hope that it gets better than this. What you're saying about it opening up to become more of a challenge kinda makes sense.

landsleaving

Vokes wrote: »

Hmm, I don't think that's right. There's actually a Sphere Grid tutorial in X, and then there's the linear path on the Zanarkand highbridge and through Besaid Island which is just one long battle tutorial. And in VIII, Quistis gives a tutorial on Junctioning for the SeeD exam. So really not all that much different from XIII's approach.

Stuck in work here atm, and im eager to get back at this game this evening. Loving it so far for the most part.

I just found the two systems way more complex. Well junctioning was just sort of awkward and once you figured it out it was fine, but the sphere grid was a maze. Tutorial didn't help because I'd want to lean say, haste, and would end up on the wrong side of the grid no matter what I did. I started playing it again recently and spent ages plotting routes and it's going better this time, but it's still way more detailed than the crystal system, which is reasonably straightforward thus far, since it gives different options for progression as a menu before the grid.


Stuck pretending to be doing college work myself. Boards is way less engrossing than FF though. If I start playing that I'm lost.

The Living Few

I found the sphere grid system in 10 to be great, if you choose the expert one it's the same only you can go wherever the hell you want lol. I also like the chess board system in 12, i think it worked for me, pity the game didn't. Junctioning in 8 was just a complete pain in the a*se as far as I was concerned. It was part of the reason why I got so frustrated with that game. Materia system in ff7 was flawless, could have been a little more customizeable but it worked for me aswel. Can't remember what the system in 9 was due to the severe rubbishness of the game lol

Retr0gamer

FF9 is awesome, the best of the PS1 generation games for me. It was like the FFVI system but instead of espers you learn skills from weapons.

The Living Few

Fair play retro, I actually don't think I've ever heard anyone say anything like this. Personally it wasn't for me, each to their own I suppose. I couldn't get into it at all at all, it just didn't feel right. I actually don't think I knew what was going on as far as the magic system worked. I think magic just started showing up in my inventory and I had no idea how it got their lol. I'd like to give it another go one day though, just to see if maybe I was being a bit hastey due to my experience with ff8, it's an interesting one alright.

Retr0gamer

It was a really easy system to use, especially compared to the absolute cluster**** of a system from FFVIII. It gets a lot of flak for being a throw back to the early FF games from before FF6 but for me that's what I liked about it and it was just pure fun.

landsleaving

Totally agree about IX, an absolutely fantastic game. Loved the environments as well as the battle system, it was grogeous to look at. Basically IV/VI with great graphics, which pretty much sold me. I mean it even had the same twist as VI.

landsleaving

Xyo wrote: »

Anyone get their ass handed to em by Odin ?

Been stuck on that for nearly an hour now. Not even close to beating him. I've fought every possible battle too. Sudden incredible ramp up in difficulty.

Any tips?

I know I've to use healing spells, but its not helping much.

Raze_them_all

landsleaving wrote: »

Been stuck on that for nearly an hour now. Not even close to beating him. I've fought every possible battle too. Sudden incredible ramp up in difficulty.

Any tips?

I know I've to use healing spells, but its not helping much.

The ramp up gets alot higher come gran pulse.


For Oiden

If you die, make yer own combinations of yer choices not the preset ones the computer gives you(can't remember if yer given the option to) be Rav/Rav and yer other one as med/med(or the protecting one) Oiden is obvious when he's attacking so when he comes over near you switch to healing team,when he's defending use rav/rav

landsleaving

Cheers, that worked great.

Didn't realise that

He was vulnerable to magic more than physical attacks, I'd just been trying to pound away with no luck