Ok.. Final Fantasy XIII

The Core Video Games Forum
#21

No, never heard of it…

FFX explodes with extra content to make up for the overly linear structure of the main game.
That’s the point that’s being made here; It’s even more linear than FFX, FFX-2, FFXII, or any other “hand holding” RPG to have emerged recently, and it lacks any sort of extra content to boot.

I’m not necessarily complaining, though it would sound like it. Apparently the music and Story are among the best in the franchise. I’d always played FF for the storylines, doing enough side quests to allow me to go over the final boss with relative ease. That’s how I’ve played them since FFVII. If I can get through the game without having to worry about extra stuff to do, I’m okay with it, especially since my game queue continues to grow. However, FF has become known for sidequests as much as it has story and aesthetics. It’s been one of the main things that draw fans to the series, and I can see how they would decry the decision to considerably cut back, while limiting exploration.

But then again, I haven’t played it yet, so I can’t say.

Like you said, JRPGs are pretty linear compared western RPGs, and more and more games have omitted the world map, thus making them more linear, but they’ve for the most part had something extra to keep the player occupied. FFXIII seems to be lacking even that.

#22

I dunno, I think some people just plain have a bad taste in their mouth. Joystiq’s review is essentially par for the course (in terms of Joystiq reviews) and totally harps on how his, the author’s, experience took roughly 15 hours to get to a point of excitement and fun. He described as everything prior to that as prelimenary, fodder to train on and get used to stuff. He totally panned it, but I would take it more seriously if he hadn’t harped so heavily on those 15 hours it took for him to get to the meat of the game. On this note, what Sinistral pointed out is crucial - this is totally normal for JRPGs, is it not? I mean Final Fantasy VII was really only a lot of fun once you left Midgar, a solid 10 hours of gameplay. It’ll have to be pretty linear to ruin the whole experience. Final Fantasy was never about exploring places for me, I always felt as though I was constantly travelling anyway. If it’s any more linear than FFX then I may be a little irritated

#23

Sidequests are fluff that don’t add to the content other than grind time. I’m not going to miss it. I rarely ever did any of it. I have better things to do.

#24

If a game takes 15 hours to pick up, it seems like some shitty design choices have been made. I don’t exactly feel like wasting 15 hours.

#25

I like side quests if they are fun to do and offer rewards that are actually helpful. In FFVI you could go straight to the final dungeon as soon as you acquired the Falcon but chances are that doing so would result in the utter reaming of your party. Furthermore the side quest dungeons used some of the game’s more interesting dungeon design gimmicks, and the rewards weren’t just slightly more powerful swords but actual characters that could greatly assist you in the trek through the final dungeon.

Of course doing all the side quests overpowered the hell out of you, but then no game is perfect.

#26

I wouldn’t consider the WoR character recruitment a “side quest”. There is a difference between something is optional, but relevant, and meaningless minigames.

#27

I assert that we’ve already wasted those 15 hours, and the beginning of this game will be no different than any of the others. Since we’ve been talking about it, the very beginning of every Final Fantasy game is pretty cool, I liked 9 and 10 the best. Which of the games beginnings did everyone else enjoy the most?

#28

FFVII and FVIII had the best beginnings I think, with FFIV in close third. They just captured you and dragged you in instantly. I guess most of them had pretty good beginnings anyways, even FFI had a cool start into the game. But FFVII is tops for me… Midgard was like the best part of the game for me. For me. For me. For me.

#29

FFX’s opening had Otherworld in it. It wins for me.

#30

I dunno, IX, with the play and the little infiltration thing you do… that was the best for me.

#31

I would like 9’s, but I can’t not go for 100% in that performance so I always get really frustrated and angry.

#32

IV, VI, VII, & T’s were the ones for me. Mostly for the awesome opening themes each used at the start.

All the others took too long to get going and the music just wasn’t as good.

Also: :enguard:

#33

I have no opinion on FF13, but I don’t know if I entirely agree with this argument. I think Midgar is actually one of the funnest parts of FF7, and I also am pretty sure it doesn’t take 10 hours. I know RPGs are slow, but I can’t think of any RPG that takes 15 hours before it gets fun. And, let’s be honest: if a game takes more than half-a-day’s worth of time invested to become fun, isn’t that a design failure?

Again, I have no opinion on FF13 yet, and I don’t even know if that’s true. But, if that is true, that’s pretty ridiculous. I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

Also, concerning the linearity everyone’s talking about: …Finally. I’m tired of drowning in sidequests. FF7 had cool sidequests, so for some reason, Square thought “well jeez, we should make sure there’s tons of sidequests in every game! And that you HAVE to do some of them!” If there’s a lack of this in FF13, I sense what could be the best FF game in years, provided the combat is more interesting than FF12’s.

#34

Hm, the beginnings of FFs that I liked most were in VI and VIII. VI’s because after an intro that explained there was no magic had you play three walking juggernauts without letting you know what’s the aim of that escort mission and VIII’s out of curiosity for the training grounds. That dance-ball FMV certainly didn’t hurt either.

As for sidequests, I feel they should show you more of either the world or the characters. Knights of they Round may obliterate everything, but for me it’s a boring sidequest I do to obviate grinding down the road. OTOH I would have done Romancing Saga III sidequests or see Rachel’s end even if I got a GP for my efforts.

#35

That’s entirely contingent on how long the game is. And what you qualify is as becoming fun. Personally, I fully expect those 15 hours to be story driven like all the others. Squaresoft has always looked a smidge beyond just playing video games. I’m totally on that “i’d rather play a game than watch it” boat, but for me Final Fantasy has been a story, first and foremost. That’s the real complexity of JRPGs, the story, not so much the gameplay. But I hear you: “Is that fun, though?” My response? I dunno dude, we’ll find out together.

I hear ya! Man, do I ever totally agree with you. I love those open world “I have too much to do” games, but I always crave direction. Which is Square’s catch 22: they spend so much time on an intricate story that they can’t afford the player the opportunity to alter their story. Which is fine. Books, Movies and Tv Shows don’t have people just standing around with a ton of things to choose from, the outcome of which could difinitively alter the direction of their character arc and the overall plot line. Hell, I bought Stranglehold, that movie-video game-movie thing, specifically for it’s linearity. But maybe that’s just me.

#36

I’m horrified that there are several people here who actually thought Midgar was fun.

#37

On the other hand, games are an interactive medium. It’s cool if you prefer linear games and I’ll take a good linear game over a not-so-good open-ended game, but games cannot always be compared to books/movies/tv shows. Tetris, which is a great game, would not work as a book,a movie or a tv show. Hm, David Lynch’s Tetris.

edit: I’m not offering Tetris as an example of a non-linear game of course, just as an example of a game that wouldn’t work in other media.

#38

I always thought FFVIIs beginning was structured the best. The pacing was pretty tight and it jumped into the meat of the story pretty quick. My favorite part was getting the shit to dress cloud up like a girl. My least favorite part was climbing up all those goddamn stairs in the Shinra building. The banter b/t the characters made it somewhat bearable.

The worst goes to 8 and 12’s. Especially 12, since it started very strong when you were Vaan’s brother. Once you took control of Vaan the pacing sunk and more or less stayed that way through the rest of the game. The combat (I thought) was fun, and I got addicted to the Mark hunts, even if they ended up not really benefiting me all that much.

So far the worst paced games that I’ve ever played were Persona 4 (it took about 8 fucking hours before you even fucking fought), SMT:Nocturne (I’m about 12 hours in and it’s just too quiet and low-key. Maybe it matches the loneliness of a post-apocalyptic world, but it’s just too boring), and Suikoden V. I haven’t played a game where I started wide awake, gung-ho ready to play, and then in literally minutes I’d be dozing off.

Oh, Lost Odyssey is paced like shit too. I ended up doing most of the sidequests just for the achievements. It caused me to break the game and kill the last boss with one hand on the controller while falling asleep. Sad.

#39

I don’t see how you didn’t offer Tetris as an example of a non linear game, but thats a horrible fucking example. And I argue that you could totally make a story out of tetris (maybe it’s my fault as a writer, but I immediately envisioned all the other pieces fearing the long one since they constantly make room for it, leading to tetris and the mysterious disappearance of fellow blocks, only to return brainwashed, which pushes the other pieces down to be brainwashed as well). But, I digress, it was an off the cuff comment in the first place.

#40

Midgar was shit after the first reactor mission, but I wasn’t counting that part. Just the actual opening where Cloud is flipping out of a train and is kicking ass all over the place with the badass BGM playing you through most of the mission. Then you get back and realize just what Avalanche is while you sit through unskipable tutorial after unskipable tutorial. Fortunately you’re saved by a second mission but things go horribly wrong for Cloud as he goes off a cliff and so does the rest of the opening with exception of Sector VII’s pizza slice from the sky bit. In this case up to the Scorpion Tank is what I consider the opening of the game.

FFIV outside of getting lost in Baron Castle was solid up until the desert. From Cecil starting off as a badass Dark Knight and captain of the kickass Red Wing squadron and rockin’ an awesome BGM to the leaving of Baron to him getting set up the bombs in the summoner’s village. But again, I’m only counting the stuff up to the Mist Dragon as the opening.

FFVI is excellent all the way up to Sabin’s fight with Vargas from the opening march to the steamrolling of everything in fucking mecha to the mini strategy game with the Moogles to stepping outside to some of the best overworld music in the series to meeting the people who live in a castle submarine. For this game I’m only counting the battle up to the Whelk as the opening.

FFT has that cutscene of the knights riding Chocoboback all across the countryside, and the introductory battle which includes a demonstration of some of the better unique jobs of the game set to an epic BGM are my reasons for picking this one.

Outside of those I think III is the next one I’d pick since the dungeon and boss battle themes are pretty good in that game and that’s what the opening consists entirely of.

To be fair, last I checked there was an Asteroids movie in the works. If they could do Asteroids then they can do Tetris.