Final Fantasy XIII: who am I, where am I, what am I doing here and why?

Adagio wrote:

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

And if you're going to have a real time fighting system, make it like Star Ocean: 'Till the End of Time

This. SO3's battle system is consistently engaging, to me, even though I'm about forty hours into the game. Which is a good thing, because the game itself is grind-tastic. (SO: The Last Hope's battle system, OTOH, I am not fond of—except for blindsiding, which is pretty cool.)

That said, I actually quite liked the battle system in FFXII. *shrug*

I tried to play SO3, but couldn't be arsed. I hated the battle system, and gave up sometime after I got Abel. One of the few games I never finished.

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*remembers the race to get Balthier and Asche to cast Libra instead of attacking so Vaan could pickpocket enemies*

I never had any issues like that with FFXII. The only problem I had was with the casting heirarchy, which would have hordes of enemies spamming me with attacks at the same time, yet my curagas would never fire, and that was pretty much only in the...Pharos, I think it was called? The big optional tower dungeon with the super-rare marks in it.

1. Albel, actually.

2. Eh, different strokes and all, I guess. I liked the diversity—long-range versus short-range attacks, X versus O, etc. etc. That and the fact that the difference between characters' moves means you have to play fight ways with each one. (That's one of the reasons I like Dissidia, in fact.)

(And Albel has this zig-zaggy dashing attack that basically makes him invincible. My strategy with him is: a) rush in with a long-range O attack, b) run away, c) lather, rinse, repeat until enemy is sliced and diced. =D)

I liked SO3 a lot, too. My only problem with it was with map completion, and my compulsive need to complete every map leading me to spend long hours running flush against every wall in every dungeon.

Miss Prince wrote:

I liked SO3 a lot, too. My only problem with it was with map completion, and my compulsive need to complete every map leading me to spend long hours running flush against every wall in every dungeon.

Oh god, that. I could never, ever get 100% completion on the dungeon maps, either. Field maps? Sure. But dungeon maps? HAHA, 92.73% AND YOU'VE BEEN TO EVERY ROOM, SUCKER.

(... A small part of me is geekishly glad I'm not the only one that does the running-against-the-walls thing.)

Miss Prince wrote:

I liked SO3 a lot, too. My only problem with it was with map completion, and my compulsive need to complete every map leading me to spend long hours running flush against every wall in every dungeon.

You and I have something in common. That means we can be friends. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

That last dungeon before Luther was fucking insane though. Massively powerful enemies whose attacks can't be interrupted (but they interrupt all of your attacks) and Nel, your best healer, decided to sit in that castle and have hot, lesbian sex with Claire, or whoever.

myeerah wrote:

The only problem I had was with the casting heirarchy, which would have hordes of enemies spamming me with attacks at the same time, yet my curagas would never fire

The developers decided to spend their computational budget on sparklies, so you'll only ever have one spell (or spell-like) animation running at a time. You could have an emergency Gambit for potion-chugging, I guess, but the Pharos is a big place.

Adagio wrote:

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

And if you're going to have a real time fighting system, make it like Star Ocean: 'Till the End of Time

This. SO3's battle system is consistently engaging, to me, even though I'm about forty hours into the game. Which is a good thing, because the game itself is grind-tastic. (SO: The Last Hope's battle system, OTOH, I am not fond of—except for blindsiding, which is pretty cool.)

I played SO: TtEoT, then decided screw this and just bombed through Tales Of Symphonia for the 4th time. Now there is a Real Time battle system done right, any game where you're actively hunting down all the bonus bosses just because you want to fight them is doing something right with the battle system.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Miss Prince wrote:

I liked SO3 a lot, too. My only problem with it was with map completion, and my compulsive need to complete every map leading me to spend long hours running flush against every wall in every dungeon.

You and I have something in common. That means we can be friends. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

That last dungeon before Luther was fucking insane though. Massively powerful enemies whose attacks can't be interrupted (but they interrupt all of your attacks) and Nel, your best healer, decided to sit in that castle and have hot, lesbian sex with Claire, or whoever.

Of Albel, Nel, Peppita, and Roger, only two of them will stay with your party into the endgame. I forget exactly what triggers who. All I know is I got to keep my healer [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Also I completely missed Roger. In the credits he appeared, still sitting in his little cage, waiting for a rescue that would never come.

I never bothered with Gambits in FF12, because the FF series has become enough of a movie that requires you to press X now and again already. I don't want to just sit there watching the game play itself.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Massively powerful enemies whose attacks can't be interrupted (but they interrupt all of your attacks) and Nel, your best healer, decided to sit in that castle and have hot, lesbian sex with Claire, or whoever.

Lemme guess, you let Peppita join you?

Here's how it works. There's four possible people you can actively choose to join your party: Nel, Albel, Peppita and Roger. Before you get off Elicoor, you can flag either Albel or Roger (but why would you do that) to join your party later. Nel joins automatically if you do nothing. Even further after that, you can tell Peppita to sod off when she asks to join you, and then go pick up Nel and have fun times. =D

(Yes, I did in fact go to all the trouble of figuring out how to put together your party just to make sure Albel would be there. He is a killing machine and I love him dearly.)

Miss Prince wrote:

Also I completely missed Roger. In the credits he appeared, still sitting in his little cage, waiting for a rescue that would never come.

I lol'd just a bit. I hate Roger. So. Much. (I'm the type that will compulsively keep all the characters at exactly the same level, and even so I never used him. SO ANNOYING.)

It's a good thing that I bought the official guide when I bought FFXIII or else I would never have understood what the hell was going on!

I had never played a FF game before this, so I was completely blindsided by some of the manufactured complexity. And Vanille...dear God, where is this child's head? It seems that she has shoved it so far up her own ass that she has achieved some sort of singularity of insipid.

At least the character design isn't as batshit insane like I have seen in other games like this.

I got the fucking chocobo!! Yes! And how what a MARVELOUS treasure-digging gimmick this is for hunting for sparklies by chocobo!!!

Ok, so I've been able to finish about 5 quests in considerably less time than it would've taken me on foot...and now I've lost all interest. I think I'll try to kill that huge horizon-blocking thing, then finish the game and go play Heavy Rain.

PS I can't even remember the battle system of FF XII. I liked bouncing my limit breaks from one to the other. I think my maximum number of bounces was 24. That was fun. Can't remember if it was complicated, I think it worked ok for me.

^ Seen that before.

Still cute as all get-out.

Also, re: character designs: have you noticed that all the MANLY MEN in FFXIII go around in long coats or similar, whereas pretty much all the women—even Lightning, who is by all accounts really really tough—prance around in tiny miniskirts and stuff?

... Not that I'm complaining about the miniskirts in and of themselves, mind.

That's because long coats make you look bigger.

I found it terribly difficult to care about any of the characters or what they were going through in this game, much less finish it. I got to the last boss and was running around in whatever that weird place was until I said "fuck this" and watched the rest on YouTube. Even that was painful.

The only thing I liked was Lightning, in the beginning. When she was punching Snow and being a total prick, I could relate. Then she got all 'let's save the world' and my reason for loving the game sort of burned out. I liked Sazh, too and Vanille (at very few points), but it all got really cheesy, really pointless, really fast. Half the time I was totally confused about who was who, what a l'cie was, what a fal'cie was, what Cocoon had anything to do with this and who everyone was. I get it now, but I just don't give a damn.

Maybe, with any luck, Versus will be better (if it's ever released).

Guh...There was this very odd scene where me and my trusty chocobo entered some passageway and found this huge whopping sheep-like thingy. Vanille walked up to it and tore out a big clump of wool! Weird...

Then an Ochu appeared...and it was a mommy! With loads of adorably squeaking babies!~
Look at that sweetheart here!

and I killed them all for no other reason than to get to the treasure globe they were blocking. Poor Ochu! I never expected to feel sorry for a FF monster, but I was, then...

Okay, my brother and I are FINALLY playing FFXIII, and all I have to say is:

1. Every criticism in this thread is completely valid.

2. Lightning Farron completely eclipses any problem I could possibly have with this game. I'm finding it difficult not to squee every single time she does anything.

The heads-up on needing to read the datalog has helped, though. We've been reading as we go and I'm pretty clear on what's happening.

Miss Prince wrote:

Okay, my brother and I are FINALLY playing FFXIII, and all I have to say is:

2. Lightning Farron completely eclipses any problem I could possibly have with this game. I'm finding it difficult not to squee every single time she does anything.

I feel that way about Fang.

myeerah wrote:

Miss Prince wrote:

Okay, my brother and I are FINALLY playing FFXIII, and all I have to say is:

2. Lightning Farron completely eclipses any problem I could possibly have with this game. I'm finding it difficult not to squee every single time she does anything.

I feel that way about Fang.

We've only barely started to fight with Fang, but I'm pretty sure she's going to get added to the squee-list.

So I have a question for you guys. Any of you suffering from Red Mage Syndrome in regards to the Crystallium (or whatever the phrack it's called) system?

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Red Mage Syndrome - Tendancy to not want to move on in a video game RPG until your characters gain every available skill at that moment. Named for the Red Mage from 8-Bit Theater. Common ailment in relation to Squaresoft/Square-Enix RPGs

I know I am. Takes me a while to move on in the story because I'm too busy trying to max out all my characters' paradigms.

I often suffer from that. Fortunately, maxing out the three main roles per character doesn't require much grinding.

The sub roles, on the other hand...fuck them.

Finally finished it.

I love this game.

And everyone is still 100% right in their criticisms of it. Butbutbut the world was saved with the power of lesbians! And I loved every single party member and genuinely cared about them and now am desperately scouring the net for good fic. And it was finally a Final Fantasy that treated the female characters awesomely.

It pretty much just made me stupidly happy.