FFXIII - First Impressions *probable spoilers*

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

CodeMonkey

landsleaving wrote: »

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

Didn't you learn how to use techniques like libra and how your team and autobattle will use skills the enemy is weak to after they've been scanned?

Notorioux

Ayt i just only got Odin after 12 effin tries gah! He is absolutely pain in the arse to defeat tbh! :mad: But it's absolutely effin worth it, using Eidolons is a pure WIN! I'm starting to enjoy this game a lot MORE!

landsleaving

CodeMonkey wrote: »

Didn't you learn how to use techniques like libra and how your team and autobattle will use skills the enemy is weak to after they've been scanned?

Yeah, which didn't help in that situation at all since it was completely different to everything else. Usually to chain attacks

which was one weakness

it works best with a com and rav combo.

Unlike against Odin.

I thought the main thing was to

just keep healing and that would be it, since for shive it was just defend and nothing else.

Raze_them_all

Forgot to say it earlier, Is anyone else really annoyed by the sheer volume of save points?? it seems like every 5 mins of gameplay you cross one.


Oh and healing automatically after a battle. Where the challenge to get from one place to another?

FortuneChip

I've got about six hours under my belt now. Curious about one little thing, maybe someone with more hours can let me know. The Crystal levelling system, at present I find it a little redundant, as I seem to easily pick up CP and quickly learn all available abilities for each role, so there's no real strategy involved. When you start to unlock all roles for each character, do you need to put more thought into levelling decisions?

Xluna

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.

Yeah he's giving me a pwning too. I'm going to try that advise given in the thread,level up a bit and but the battle system on slow.

Xluna

Ah he's piss easy now. Just use double dose when he's attacking and dual casting when he's using Urha's shield.

Gummy Panda

Yep, that's basically all there is to him. Just use Libra at the start of fights to pick this up.

Xluna

Just finished disc one. It took me eleven hours. I was very surprised how short the first disc was. Time to install disc two.

johnny_ultimate

For anyone finding Odin tricky

I'd highly recommend creating the Ying and Yang paradigm for it - have Hope as a medic and Lighting as a Ravanger. First two times he destroyed me, after that I just made said paradigm and got it straight away. Don't even need to switch, have Lightning just chip away at him while Hope will keep healing as he unleashes his powerful attacks.

As for the game, I'm enjoying it more as it progresses. Lots of customisation options in terms of weapons and levelling. I'm still finding the lore and story a bit po-faced for my liking, but the characters are getting a little bit more interesting. Still, I wish they didn't keep splitting everyone up. I like that it basically forces you to get good at every different paradigm role, but it is hard to get used to not having a single main character to control.