I'm 12 hours into FFXIII

Inazuma

Inazuma

Inazuma

Soldato
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9 Jun 2006
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I'm 12 hours into FFXIII; Lightning and Hope have just reached Palumpolum.

This game feels artificially stretched out. I've been going through corridor after corridor of battles. Sure, each place looks beautiful, but for an hour or two at a time you are basically looking at the same scenery repeated.

There's a distinct lack of RPG element. Yes, I'm fighting to gain levels and materials to upgrade items, but there's no real decision making when it comes to using the crysterium. Moreover, I've yet to interact with NPCs other than near the start of the game. This makes the world just seem very lifeless - "while greatly detailed, feels flat and lifeless [...] little more than wallpaper thrown over a tunnel that players walk through."
And while the story is good, I'm finding it hard to relate to the characters' OTT motivations and the threat of Pulse etc who also don't have reasonable motivation (having read all the datalogues Ive been given so far).

The battle system is nowhere near as engaging as FFX. You only use one character, and spend most of your time hitting X.


SO I ask you this - Does the game get significantly better in the next couple hours?
 
I stopped at 20 hours in not long after reaching chapter 11, it is pretty much the same over and over again.

I did quite like the story and some of the characters but just got incredibly bored playing. :o
 
worst FF ever so far, i think im around the same point as you inazuma. so far its been a full on dungeon crawl and each one seems to last wayyy too long, with no break in between, aside from cut scenes.

i plan to pick it back up and see it through, but i've not played it for a month. all over FF's ive played have been hammered non-stop, way past the main story till i get bored of the side quests :o

yea and i also find the battle system very dull... auto battle? one char? lol.
 
No NPC`s at all really, you get to decide what to do in chapter 11 but not by much just missions to do thats all no npc towns etc to do.

However i didnt care enjoyed it all story was good enough for me so 9/10 game, however if your not liking it by now i doubt you will
 
Im about 8/9 hours in and just got to chapter 6.. the first 3 times I played the game I needed a nap - never had that with a game before!

Is kinda boring in some aspects.. not much interactivity, can feel like its just running forward, tapping A for a bit then carrying on but I do like the charachters and the story is pretty good. Nice graphics too.

Not AAA but a decent game thus far.
 
it gets a lot better later in the game :) the battles start to get harder and you will have to swap jobs around mid fight to win

it also get a lot more open later in the game
 
Completed the game and done most of the mark missions, have about 3 left to go.

I don't know what to think of it really.

Some part of it look visually stunning and they've tried to take it in a new direction, so you can't fault them for that. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

This is the first FF i've played on one of the main consoles since 7, 8 and 9 on the original playstation. It didn't really have the wow and magic that those had imo.

There were allot of elements that weren't put to use as well as they could have been.


The exploration, theres nothing of significance to explore to be honest. Go from one area to another, find stones to activate mark missions, complete marks, repeat 64 times. It was VERY repetitive, like the side missions in Crisis Core. Go kill generic enemy with a little alterations. I got a bit sick of going to the most random and out of reach places to activate stones as-well.

The plot, from my perspective i didn't much care for allot of the characters by the end, they didn't really build on any relationships or backstory, it was far to much focused on, we have a mission, lets go do it. Rinse and repeat the same message over 13 chapters. There was allot that could have been improved.

- The world, i wanted to really learn about and experience Gran Pulse and Cocoon as they looked visually spectacular. But i just didn't really get that impression when i was playing the game, it was more of a 'sorry were just passing through, don't mind us' routine.

While i can say i enjoyed the game as ive sank about 70 hours into it, at least half of that has been the tedium of the mark missions after the main game was completed. I can't say it will be one of those standout gaming memories to be honest when i look back on it in years to come. the phrases Final Fantasy Light and Final Fantasy Slim sum of the game for me.

I'd still definitely reccomend getting the main game over with for anyone thats bought it, and considering its cheap at the moment you get your moneys worth.
 
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I can recommend sticking it out to 20-25 hours, this is when the game opens out and the experience totally changes.

I felt utterly cheated at the stage you were at, and daily I wanted to uninstall the game and never play it again.

Go from that mid way 20 hour mark to the 40-60 completion mark and it all slots together in a way you can't imagine in those early stages of the game.

Stick with it!
 
My PS3 owning mate mocked my decision to buy a 360, and used this game as an example of the limitations of DVD, as it has to come on multiple discs... Everything I've heard suggests that it would be a whole lot better if they'd limited it to one disc's worth.
 
Apart from the Girl Power and J-Pop atmosphere of FFX-2, it does have a lot more good points. At least you had some slight freedom to select which story mode missions you can do in any order, some choices actually made a difference when it came to the factions, and the battle system is personally for me, is one of the best in the 3D generation. It was classic ATB but faster and the Job system was good. FFXIII's system is pretty much like FFX-2, just even more faster and more simplified with the Roles. But most important of all, at least FFX-2 contain some of the stuff that makes a classic Final Fantasy RPG i.e Towns, NPCs etc.
 
tbh, it gets better after 20 or so hours once the team gets back together and you can fiddle around with who fights and what knot. Makes it much better. The first 20 hours are setting the story really.

ags
 
I pre-ordered this (for PS3), played it for about 10 hrs on launch then left it alone. Just got back into it though and am enjoying it a lot more.
Not an amazing RPG (Lost Odyssey on the 360 was better IMO) but I have got my head round all the mechanics now apart from the finer details of weapon levelling.
One thing I really hate is the lack of towns and a world map. I've enjoyed Dragon Quest IV on DS more and the original was released on the Famicon (NES) in Japan 20 yrs ago!!!
 
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