FFXIII Ambivalence

The visuals are top notch; but I don’t expect (or worry) much script/character/game play-wise.

The brunette at 6:30 – Lebreau (?), I presume – looks like one hot, tough mamacita.
And Quistis is a “bad guy” now? Well, Quistis’ clone, Jihl Nabaat definitely goes on my favorite FF dudettes list.

There I go assuming everyone shares my biases against IX. I thought it had an awful story, controls, and completely boring and stupid characters. But that’s me. I hate that one and XII a lot.

I’ve never played XI, so I can’t really comment.

I guess you could say those things about IX… but haven’t you played T? That’s WORLDS worse in those areas :stuck_out_tongue:

I don’t count T as part of the series. It’s just a pile of shit.

Man. What’s with the FFIX & T hate? VII & VIII were leagues worse compared to those two (IMO).

VII starred a bunch of miserable little piles of Materia leaping from one backstory to the next while trying to stop a guy who was already dead (or a crystal or whatever). VIII was an agonizingly slow grind until you utterly and completely broke the hell out of it through Limit Break spam and Card Modding with at least the former of which you had to do anyway just to beat the damn game.

And while I can’t say that IX and T weren’t broken or badly written they at least tried to make it so that you had more than one way to break the game and they definitely put some effort into making their worlds into something other than a liner journey of self-discovery (Again IMO).

Your opinion sucks! And ours are cool!

VII and VIII were only minimally about self-discovery. They were mostly about stabbing evil. I don’t see how you couldn’t like that :confused:

I share your opinion on IX. Rat girls, Qu things, 4 year old summoners…it was the Final Fantasy muppet show. Horrible.

I think XIII will just be XII on a more powerful console, more story focused and a more interactive battle system. It’ll look good, play well, keep you somewhat interested, and when you’re done you’ll screw around with the end game / optional stuff for awhile, and then just put it on the shelf and forget about it.

You won’t replay, you won’t be obsessed, you won’t join communities to discuss it, you won’t shrine it, you won’t dream about it…

I think the NES/SNES RPG vets would like this to happen, but those days are long gone. Seriously - what was the last console game to captivate you? The last title to hold you hostage?

Metal Gear Solid IV did while I was playing. I thought I would replay for sure, but never really got around to it. And the odds of me picking it up again aren’t very high.

There isn’t going to be another VI or VII for us (or whatever your FF preference). Too much “been there done that”. We’ve seen it all before.

every game has its merits IMO. we’ll see what niche ff13 fits in time

Wow there’s actual hate for IX? That one is probably my favourite PSX Final Fantasy, just because it brings back all the things that made the Nintendo games so good. VII and VIII had a great modern feel though. Can’t really say I dislike any of them too much up to IX, or X. XII I haven’t played much of despite owning for three or four years. I’ll get to it before XIII comes out, which is looking like I’ll actually get to play.

Play and then tell me the merits of these games:

E.T. (Atari 2600)
Bebe’s Kids (SNES)
Superman 64 (N64)
The Demon Rush (PC)

GOGOGOGO! DO IT NOW!

Wait. Are you saying that the Muppet Show was horrible?

You sir are naught but a hollow shell of a human being.

Besides FFIX has so much more detail and effort put into it than VII or VIII. Just take a look at the pre-rendered art. And should you find yourself playing it again, take heed of the number of times they switch set pieces in scenes that could’ve been just as effective using but one static shot.

Also, it was nice having characters amount to more than just walking Materia Slots or Magic & GF Storehouses (even if the only other games so far to use the same system as IX are the terribad FFTA lames).

Ninja (Playstation)

yeah. Unless the merit is that they’re fun to laugh at how awful they are.

I’d rather have walking materia slots than an ATB that takes 30 seconds to fill… when hasted.

FFIX’s system was no better than VII or VIII’s. Sure, each character had their own set of unique skills, but that didn’t amount to each character being useful in their own way. You still only got 4 main characters, and 4 slightly less powerful equivalents that weren’t really ever worth using, unless you wanted to double up on fighters or something:

Zidane -> Freya
Steiner -> Amarant
Dagger -> Eiko
Vivi -> Quina

Generally, if you had anyone on the left in your party, you wouldn’t have their counterpart on the right. On top of that, Square still didn’t really deal with the fact that 95% of each character’s skills are useless and the most strategically effective thing to do in IX is STILL just spamming “Fight.” Is that what you call character differentiation?

And yes, the muppet show is horrible. I didn’t even like it as a child. I was a Sesame Street kid. Suffleupagus4lyfe, yo.

I had both Dagger and Eiko on at all times, which I found extremely effective. Dagger’s main purpose was offensive magic, using Bahamut enhanced by additional garnet stones. Eiko couldn’t get over 6k in damage, but her purpose was healing, something she did much better thanks to her Trance skill and available spells, not to mention the random chance of a phoenix revival.

Comparing Quina and Vivi is laughable. Quina’s repertoire of offensive magic is ignorable, his/her greatest assets are Mighty Guard and White Wind, making him/her a support caster with actually decent melee offensive/defensive power. In general, making Quina the first Blue Mage in the series to be worth shit since Strago, and certainly the last (What is even the point of that class in FFTA?). Vivi by comparison is a purely offensive caster with no melee.

Amarant and Steiner have absolutely nothing in common either. They are both based on the templates for Monks and Holy Knights from FFT respectively, and act as such. Amarant has lesser healing abilities and status ailment attacks, countered by a comparatively shitty repertoire of heavy-damage skills, making him better for regular dungeon crawling than heavy boss fights, unless you can procure stuff he could throw. Steiner was a purely offensive fighter who had the easiest time achieving maximum damage thanks to Shock, at the cost of high-MP usage.

Zidane’s role is during standard play, where Steal and that ability that allows you to shift to pincer formation make regular battles and gaining new skills much easier. Soul Blade’s usefulness depends entirely on what weapon you have, but it could have a number of useful effects at times. Thievery is the only offensive skill he has that makes him viable against the big bosses. Freya on the other hand is more similar to Steiner, except she can cast Regen on everyone and regenerate MP. Her usefulness against big targets depends entirely on Dragon’s Crest.

Basically, the only characters I’d even consider comparing would be Steiner and Freya since they are both heavy-hitters with relative easiness (You’ll probably train killing dragons anyhow), and in every case I preferred Freya thanks to her lower MP consumption and availability of white magic. The rest have nothing in common, save for Zidane’s occasional ability to cause status ailments like Amarant, via Soul Edge, which wasn’t the point anyhow since Amarant’s big thing was Chakra.

As opposed to FFVIII, where you literally have nothing to do but “Aura->Limit Break”, every character in FFIX had at least several very useful skills, using just “Fight” in any even remotely big fight would get you creamed. And I hope you’re not claiming that any other game in the series save Tactics made any bigger attempt at making regular gameplay tactical instead of stat-reliant, because that would be absolutely hilarious. Every single Final Fantasy game has either a couple infallible IWIN buttons coded in, or just has you throwing generic indistinguishable offensive stuff at an enemy and occasionally heal. Final Fantasy as a series has been notoriously abysmal at making combat anything but a monotonous chore.

I’m sure someone enjoyed them…and when they came out they were probably snapped up by them.

Also not to be awkward but can we get back to the point of this thread - insulting/applauding ff13’s efforts for good/bad music

point - we’ve only heard a few pieces from the trailers so don’t “compare the sea to a bucket of sea water”.
also i think the battle musics decent…

No, no one enjoyed that game. At all. Did you?

I’d rather have ATB gauges that take 30 seconds to fill hasted than characters who can only attack in two different ways both of which involve sitting through attack animations that take more than a minute at the very least. Nevermind all the time it takes for them to do stuff like stand up and run towards the enemy and so on.

But then again these excesses are a part of every main FF game of the PSX era. Trying to differentiate between them using gameplay as a basis is ridiculous considering how they all have shitty combat in one way or another.

The argument that there are only 4 characters ever worth using in FF IX is hilarious considering that the only characters to really matter in VII and VIII were the ones with the most damaging limit breaks. Who here didn’t fill their FF VIII party with either Squall, Zell, Rinoa or Squall, Rinoa, and somebody other than Zell (because you couldn’t use his Duel very well) at every available opportunity?

And yes, the muppet show is horrible. I didn’t even like it as a child. I was a Sesame Street kid. Suffleupagus4lyfe, yo.

You didn’t even like the Muppet Babies?

I never said FFVIII was strategic. I play it for story and atmosphere.

The differences you pointed out between characters are pretty ignorable. Zidane, Steiner, Freya, and Amarant are all going to be using “Fight” 90% of the time, and hitting once for about 5k damage by endgame. Eiko and Dagger are both going to be using their strongest curative spells and maybe Haste. Vivi and Quina will both just throw whatever they have at the enemy in a maelstrom of random elemental energy and useless status buffs.

Certain groups of characters differ from each other, but the amount of strategy and variation in the game overall is minimal. With casters you cast. With fighters you fight. With healers you heal. Maybe it’s slightly better than spamming aura and limits, but don’t go calling it a gold standard or anything.

Edit: Kay guys, you need to chill. I didn’t say FFVIII was a bastion of strategic ingenuity. I said IX was no better. Clarity, bitches.

Of course I’m not calling IX brilliant in any way. No FF game ever encourages you to do anything but spamming one, maybe two abilities during combat. The super bosses are the only instances ever when you have to wake up and sorta pay attention to the screen, and what I’m saying is that of those instances, I found myself doing a greater range of things in IX than spamming KotR or Aura->Limit Break. It’s by no means good gameplay, but there was a greater range of things to do, even if the whole thing amounted to “How fast can you do repeats of 9999 while Eiko keeps you alive?”.

I thought that IX had the better environment than VIII did (and certainly more-so than VII), but also I still consider Zidane to be (by far) the best main character of the PSX era FF games (and the PS2 era).

But that’s just my opinion.

But in all seriousness, you don’t even like the Muppet Babies? Why?