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Do you think FFXIII will reach a size where it will be too large for the majority of gamers to fully enjoy it? FFXII can easily eat up 200 hours of playtime without even coming close to completing some of the major sidequests like the marks. Will FFXIII continue on the "More sidequests are better" approach and try to put so much in that it will take 300 or even 400 hours to reach a point to where you've completed the majority of the major sidequests?
I really don't think that a game can be too big, as long as the sidequests don't become distracting to the game. I found XII was really bad with that, because the Hunts were easily accessible and could be lengthy.
Also, XII's sidequests, of which there were many, were focused on to such an extent that they neglected the main areas of play, such as the storyline and characters.
I think that XIII should focus on the aspects that make Final Fantasy unique. Many RPGs have hours of in-depth sidequests that focus on battle ability, and allow you to tweak a character's battle abilities to the Nth degree. What Final Fantasy should have is a strong storyline, with strong characters that develop along the game (I think that XII had a mediocre story with generally weak characters and no development).
Perhaps they should focus on fun mini-games, such as Blitzball in X or snowboarding in VII (I also enjoyed chocobo racing, but I'm probably in the minority), or cards in VIII. That was quite enjoyable. Spending hours looking for rare monsters is hardly fun.
Anyway, I've got quite off the point there, but I think that as long as they create a strong main game, then they can make as many sidequests as they want, as long as the sidequests are enjoyable. If the main story & game is as good as it was in VII (& in my personal opinion, which not everyone will agree with, VIII), then people won't be distracted by the sidequests, because they'll be too busy playing the game.
I think the main question we should be worrying about is if it's too small.
If they go the FFXII road (which i think is very likely),i hope they include something like a logbook or something to keep track of the story.
I think i would have enjoyed XII much more if they had included something like that...
I wouldn't think that the length of a game would be that much of a problem, I can easily play a game for a long time as long as there is an engaging story. I kind of had a problem with FFXII because it wasn't always engaging there was just a whole lot of nothingness with walking around and fighting and story in there sparingly.
I'm more worried about the game being such a technical marvel that it will be short and have few worthwhile side quests rather than it being huge. Its SE working on a new hardware so I wouldn't be expecting something on scale with XII more like X. Kojima and his team is the only 3rd party group I know that can make a system stand up and beg on the get go... SE usually takes a few tries but then again if you look at it statistically, XIII might be big...
To be fair, I think its too early to tell. It would be more favorable if we could actually see gameplay instead of the same damn trailer with 15 seconds of extra footage :rolleyes2 Then we might actually be able to gauge whether or not its plausible. I'm going with it being a technical marvel with a few side quests but most focus being on the graphics and main story just like FFIV and X but that's just my opinion...
Kanno hit on the head what I briefly brought up. This "next-gen" era is the first time since the cartridge era that we're starting to see real limitations on games. MGS4 is a 20-30 hour experience and they filled up the Blu-Ray. FF is traditionally a 35-50 hour experience, so it makes you wonder how huge they can make it. They'll probably take a cue from XII with sidequests like Mark Hunting, which is basically the same thing repeated over and over again with pre-existing monster models, the only real addition is text.
I don't really care if FFXIII is short, just as long as you get to walk in more then one direction every so often. The FFX/Xenosaga approach to gameplay doesn't really fly with me anymore.
As for FFXIII having too many sidequests, I doubt the majority of people actually view that as a significant issue.
I fully agree with you, but I think since the game is being made again by the usual staff, we might not have this issue this time.Quote:
Originally Posted by champagne supernova
I hope it's got my preference for the proper amount of side quests. I'm playing Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core right now. There are 300 missions. I've completed the first third and they take an average of 5 minutes to beat. As I beat the rest, the average time for them will increase. The main quest itself may take 13 hours. In this sense, this game reminds me of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, a great game, but it's basically all a sidequest. Since the main quest is under 20 hours I think and finishing the entire sidequest stuff takes over 300 hours.
I finished Final Fantasy XII with maybe a 90% completion rate, and I think I skipped only about 25 hours of sidequests. I had to finish the side quests slightly prematurely since Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings was right about to come out. I'll give you my information for a Final Fantasy XII 100% completion rate attempt. If I continued on to that, I'll give you the lengths I think it would be. Keep in mind that this includes roughly 125 hours of using the Negalmuur auto-leveling method. Also keep in mind that some people will go through the game faster. Also, maybe I underestimated the length of some other sidequests like the Bestiary completion.
300 hours for 100% completion rate. 75-100 hours for the main quest. 75-100 hours for the sidequests. 125 hours for the Negalmuur auto levelling method. So it appears that 50% of Final Fantasy XII was sidequests. I think I enjoyed this amount of sidequests for Final Fantasy XII. This is because it's a main Final Fantasy numbered title and I'm okay with it having a ton of sidequests. For a less critical but still great Final Fantasy game like for example Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers, I wouldn't want it to have so many sidequests, if I played it. For Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core, the main quest may be 15 hours long and the sidequests(95% of this is missions) are about 55 hours long. For Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core, I think they went way way way overboard on the sidequests. Even if it had a longer main quest that was 55 hours long, 55 hours would still be too many sidequests for my preference I think, since it's not as important to me as some other game. Anyways, it's up to me to decide whether or not to do the sidequests. I'll do them since I have time for them, not in a hurry to beat the game right now. Hopefully some posters read this long post. I am hoping that Final Fantasy XIII has the proper amount of sidequests. Since it's a main numbered title, I wouldn't mind it having 75-100 hours of sidequests like Final Fantasy XII, as long as the story is atleast 75-100 hours long by itself. :)
Well, these are my thoughts.
SE said that the technicall jump from XII to XIII would be equivalent to the VI to VII jump, correct? I must say, the VI-VII was pretty spectacular.
Some are worried that XIII will be short, because they are focusing on the techs more. But, we could have said that for VII, but we would have been wrong! VII was mind-blowing, but still delivered what could be 100's of hours of gameplay. I think XIII could very well be the longest!
Thats why I mentioned SE is due... So its not impossible for XIII to be big but then again it depends what they mean about "technological jump". I though SE said the same about X when it was getting ready to come out but personally I felt it was a step back from previous installments (just like FFIV was a technical marvel but most would say its a step back from FFIII). I've read that the game may be closer to FFX than previous installments. Only thing staying from XII was the removal of random encounters.
Besides, Its going to have to try real hard to beat XII in overall gameplay length as I'm 160+ hours in and still haven't reached full completion... XII offers more in sidequest and optional dungeons than most games in the series.
I wonder if there will be a place to create your own foes by endgame... like no drops or anything, but like editing statistics and handing them skills~! wooh~
I can't see them doing that. Well, maybe for the "let's throw in a million superfluous features for the sake of it" international edition.
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Originally Posted by Karellen