*** Final Fantasy XIII ***

One question does the score you get in battles (points and stars) have any affect in the game at all?

It affects what sort of loot you get apparently (higher score, higher likelihood of 'rare' loot). It also, after an early key event in the game, fills up an important gauge that allow for certain key moves to be used. There's a lot to the battle system and very little is shown of it until after you get the third trophy/achievement.
 
Well my verdict after about 10 hours.

Pretty damn good......but not great.

1. The "tunnel" gameplay is really starting to get on my nerves, it really is just as bad as it sounds, I've spent the entire time wandering down miles of copy/pasted pathways and occasionally jumping on something, oh the paths LOOK nice, but only the first time you see them. It's just run down path, fight monster, run down some more path, fight monster, cut scene, fight monster, jump on something, run down some path, fight monster, change characters and repeat the entire damn thing.

2. Snow, I ****ing HATE his characters, I thought he would be the cool "takes no ****" guy but no, he's the annoying "I must protect everyone!" guy who is constantly "promising" things and generally ruining everyone else's day.

3. This game has shown me that it is possible for animated characters to "over act".


However, the combat is superb, the paradigm shift mechanic is absolutely genius and with very long fights you never find yourself getting bored, the fact you only control 1 character doesn't matter much, the AI of others is pretty good, uses magic elements the enemy is weak to etc and generally does a good job, also honestly there would never be enough time to control all 3 with this style of combat.

Both the design and graphics are also pants soilingly amazing.

The music is brilliant to, apart from occasional drops into silly pop songs which I imagine would be better left in Japanese.



Oh a question, Bombs, how the Christ are you supposed to stop them from insta-gibbing you with explode when you don't have a sentinel in your group? I'm long past them now but it was kinda annoying at the time.
 
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Well my verdict after about 10 hours.

Pretty damn good......but not great.

1. The "tunnel" gameplay is really starting to get on my nerves, it really is just as bad as it sounds, I've spent the entire time wandering down miles of copy/pasted pathways and occasionally jumping on something, oh the paths LOOK nice, but only the first time you see them. It's just run down path, fight monster, run down some more path, fight monster, cut scene, fight monster, jump on something, run down some path, fight monster, change characters and repeat the entire damn thing.

2. Snow, I ****ing HATE his characters, I thought he would be the cool "takes no ****" guy but no, he's the annoying "I must protect everyone!" guy who is constantly "promising" things and generally ruining everyone else's day.

3. This game has shown me that it is possible for animated characters to "over act"..

1. Yeah this is where the Western FPS game influence comes in and ruins the game. But the linear progression does have serve it's purpose for understanding the game, characters and Cocoon.

2. Same. Typical annoying "I am the hero" type character especially his stupid grin. Hope comes second to another I hate. Little wuss, but at least he grows up a bit when the story progresses.

3. Japanese acting. :D
 
Just had my first Homer Simpson D'oh moment :o I was pressing 'L1' and trying to select a shroud from number 2 on my list.....didn't realise you had to let go of the L1 button before you could move the cursor :D Thought my controller was knackered for a minute.
 
Just played the first hour or so of this. Very impressed so far, I don't really think its boring at all, people who are saying its terrible at the start, what were you expecting? A huge open world where you can go where you like etc?

I only played FF7 (I think) when I was younger for a few hours so im basically new to the FF games, and i'm having a good time reading through the Datalog about the world and how its set up/controlled and so forth.

Anyone who is worried by its negative press should ignore it, and play the game. You'll be glad you did. (Also people who have never played FF should do this too :p)
 
Would you recommend this to someone who has played very little of the FF series? I remember playing it for a short while back on the PS1.

I don't really know the background story, but kinda like the sound of this?

So would you recommend to a FF n00bie?

I've seen previous FFs and to be honest, they haven't massively piqued my interest. But this has fallen at a good time and I feel like a bit of RPG.

So far, very accessible, nicely streamlined tutorials, story was a bit "odd" to start I thought, but I read the back of the box to get me up to speed. Graphics are top notch, PS3 FMV cutscenes are amazing, overall presentation is great. The snappy menus really are a joy, I can't stand slow ass menus.

Gripes so far, err.. the kids? Girly girl and girlier boy.. starting to get on my ****.. as soon as I can get them killed they are out of the team.. but I get the feeling I'm going to be putting up with them.

So far I'm very impressed.
 
Just played the first hour or so of this. Very impressed so far, I don't really think its boring at all, people who are saying its terrible at the start, what were you expecting? A huge open world where you can go where you like etc?

Thats what I thought, I've been at it 4 hours and its fine. I must have missed the boring bit :p
 
I always sort of liked Snow. Or at least, thought he was ok. Hope I didn't mind either.

Vanille I hated from day 1. Even the way she ran irritated me. I'd like to snap her like a twig and watch the blood gush out of her ears.
 
Oh a question, Bombs, how the Christ are you supposed to stop them from insta-gibbing you with explode when you don't have a sentinel in your group? I'm long past them now but it was kinda annoying at the time.


You can't you just have to focus on them first and hit them with water/blizzard attacks until they die, when you kill them the normal way they don't explode
 
Been to London today and had my PS3 signed by Yoshinori Kitase, director of FFVII, FFVIII and FFXIII :D

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Been to London today and had my PS3 signed by Yoshinori Kitase, director of FFVII, FFVIII and FFXIII :D

:eek: looking nice

My sister managed to get my CE edition sign, now do I sell it or keep it and hope that in a few years time it worth a lot more hmmm..........
 
I'm about 5 hours in and love it. I can see what people mean about the tunnel gameplay, but it's not too bad, and the brilliant combat system makes up for it. As long as it opens up at least a little bit later on.
 
well this is the first Final Fantasy I have played since 7 on the PC back in 1999 and have to say am loving this JRPG a lot more than some of the others that I have played.

about 4 hours in and just started chapter 4 and although it is a different style to 7 it is a spectacular looking game. Square Enix have certainly gone to town on the artwork for this.

As probably others have said the game play is a little linear but that suits me more than having a massive world with very little in it or just thrown into the mix simply because the developers were running out of ideas for puzzles etc.

The attack system is taking a little getting used too but am throughly enjoying this a lot.

The weekend can't get here fast enough so I can dedicate some serious time to the game.
 
One thing that is really starting to annoy me is that I've controlled 6 people so far yet for the last 12 hours I've controled a part of 3 for about 5 minutes, the rest of the time it's either solo or in groups of 2.

It doesn't make that much difference to game play but it's just not right, the games obsession with splitting up main characters is verging on pointless.


Oh that and 12 hours in and STILL getting ****ING TUTORIALS!!!!
 
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