(Chapters 11 & 12 threads) Yep, Still Linear. I swear

[VeloZer0]

I don't need details, I just want to know that what (SPOILER) says is a trap and their is unknown circumstantial evidence that makes it so the party has to be involved. Just a simple conformation is all I need cause I just about decided to stop playing this game last night cause of this revelation. I'm beginning to feel XIII would have been better off if it ended in Chapter 9.

That is one of the few thing in the game that actually makes sense. And trust me, if you don't beat an FF title you will regret it forever. I quit on FF8 right when I found out you couldn't get into any of the cities on disk 4, and I really regret it. Because now when I am slamming the game I can't in good faith claim to have played the entire thing.

(SPOILER)The wasteland part doesn't surprise me but how high tech it was does. Makes me seriously question Vanille and Fang's clothing choices.

I was totally thinking the same thing. Looks to me like they started with character models they liked, then went and designed the world independently. But then again characters first and fill in plot later to suit them seems to be the name of the game for this title.

The tower proceeding that place was tedious but at least I got a few decent items, the boss was a joke as well. I had a harder time dealing with the Centaur monster in the tower than the boss.

You spent dozens of hours leveling and the boss after becomes a cakewalk? Of all the legitimate gripes about the game, I don't feel this is one of them. It is true of any titles. Pacing of sidequests that encouraged you to do this... well that is another story. Though we can re-open the sidequests during/after game discussion after you are done.

I also question why the tower was really there, the game doesn't bother explaining its purpose and it has no past history anyone can remember... Kinda felt like a waste of time to me.

That totally pissed me off. I still had a small sliver of hope that the plot would somehow get interesting and involved. It's like battered wife syndrome.

[Wolf Kanno]

That is one of the few thing in the game that actually makes sense. And trust me, if you don't beat an FF title you will regret it forever. I quit on FF8 right when I found out you couldn't get into any of the cities on disk 4, and I really regret it. Because now when I am slamming the game I can't in good faith claim to have played the entire thing.

I plan on finishing it, I'm just probably going to rush through the rest at this point and get the ending. I'm just still blindly holding out for some miracle revelation that will make the game redeemable again. God I hope the ending is bittersweet.

I was totally thinking the same thing. Looks to me like they started with character models they liked, then went and designed the world independently. But then again characters first and fill in plot later to suit them seems to be the name of the game for this title.

It just really through me off. I was expecting something out of the Mesa Indians with a village built on the side of a cliff or something and down to nature. There designs definetly feel really out of place in the title.

You spent dozens of hours leveling and the boss after becomes a cakewalk? Of all the legitimate gripes about the game, I don't feel this is one of them. It is true of any titles. Pacing of sidequests that encouraged you to do this... well that is another story. Though we can re-open the sidequests during/after game discussion after you are done.

I wasn't actually complaining, just making an observation but I guess the tone of most of my post does feel like whining.

I really haven't been power-leveling that much and with the level cap I felt it would keep me from beating the crap out of everything so badly. I still don't even have a tier 2 weapon yet cause I can't be bothered to grind for the gil needed to purchase the transformation items. Even then, I've only maxed out maybe three tier 1 weapons and two of them belong to the same character.

I feel my problem with the boss and tower has more to do with my second observation below.

That totally pissed me off. I still had a small sliver of hope that the plot would somehow get interesting and involved. It's like battered wife syndrome.

I just question why its there. I kinda felt like it was simply a dungeon created to make going to Oerba take longer. I wouldn't have minded if it had a bit of a back-story, especially considering the whole deal with the statues and puzzles in the place. I'm guessing the Statues will probably come back during another Mark Hunt since they seemed pretty tied to them. I just kinda felt we could have skipped over it. I sorta felt the same way when Bismark got introduced in the Springs, I thought I was going to battle him, especially considering the dialogue from Snow and Lightning. Yet, nothing actually happens.

[Flying Arrow]

Just finished chapter 11 - probably the only legitimately decent portion of the game so far. Some thoughts:

- I agree with the above two posters in that Taejin's Tower is flat-out pointless. What gets me really hard about this game is how certain elements clearly don't jive with others. Like, why can't Lightning jump over the bonfire blocking the objective when you're jumping all over the place anyway and doing flips? And why does activating the statues put out the fire? What? And what's with the statues cutting off Dahaka's tail? Is that their purpose? How come the mark hunts given by the statues require no effort whatsoever, with some spawning directly next to the statue itself? Did SE even try with this? It's so obviously slapped together that I think less of myself for being compelled to play through it. I've traded Star Ocean games back to stores for less than this. Star Ocean.

- The scene during the cavern interlude really got me. Team arrives out at a beautiful vista at about noon. Sazh suggests they just sleep here. Unnecessary FMV starts, showing Lightning and Snow at sunset and they talk about we already know. Gameplay resumes - it's noon again. Did the team stay over night or what? Four years in development. What the smurf, SE. What the smurf.

- Oerba might be my favourite locale in the game so far. Really nice, although I totally assumed, like everyone here, that Vanille and Fang were real earthy types from a primitive culture. Still, really nice areas with great music and a great view. This is clearly supposed to be the Zanarkand arrival of XIII, but unfortunately unlike X, this game doesn't really earn the moment (X itself didn't earn very much, but the Zanarkand aspect of the story I always thought was very well done at least). Still a great area though.

- The story has lost me at this point. The datalog idea really hasn't panned out, and sometimes it seems as if the datalog is telling a different story than the cutscenes. The cutscenes make you think one thing, but the datalog suggests something else. The Ragnarok reveal that Wolf mentioned is the doozy, and the Eidolon battle with Fang just confuses the 'twist' more. Unforgivable. (I'm glad someone else has mentioned this, by the way, because for a while I was under the impression that I'd just zoned out and missed an important revelation)

- Barthandelus is the dullest villain ever. Is Cid's resurrection supposed to be shocking to the player? Why do I care about Cid? He had like three lines. He wins this spot in the plot by default because there are almost literally no other characters in this story. The 'twist' would have had the same impact had Hope's dad become president. Completely pointless and contrived.

-Mark hunts are fun. I loved them in XII too. Just a big fan repetition and busywork, I guess. Before moving on to ch. 12, I've completed 53% of the marks.

- Chapter 12's intro is the stupidest thing I've ever seen. I've never experienced a game with such an imbalance between style and substance as this one.

Anyway. Hope I get to return to Pulse before the end of the game because Cocoon smurfing sucks. Can't wait to finish the thing entirely, actually. It should be illegal for SE to place a number after the words Final Fantasy.

[Croyles]

Whatever hater.

[Wolf Kanno]

Finished Chapter 11 finally after backtracking and unlocking some Chocobos for fun. Didn't bother fighting the Ochu that pops up in that one area... Restored Vanille's pet and finally got around to really using the upgrade system now that the game finally started giving me stuff like Platinum and Gold Ingots that can be sold for massive amounts of gil.

My main party of Snow, Lightning , and Hope all have level 2 tier weapons and I must say the largest drawback I've seen with leveling the starting weapons is the huge downgrade they get when transformed to level 2. I also got my main party a couple of Sprint Shoes on account of the crap load of Teatric Crowns (sp?) I got when I was farming Mark #7 and finally having enough gil to really play with the dismantle system.

I was going to backtrack and finish a few more Mark Hunts and maybe max out the three starting Roles for all my characters but decided that if I didn't move onto Chapter 12 now, I never would. So I'm starting Chapter 12 later tonight or tomorrow.

[Raistlin]

Wolf Kanno: it really is that straight-forward, more or less. Yes, the story is terribly written, and that is by far my biggest criticism of the game.

[Wolf Kanno]

I'm a sad Panda...

[Elpizo]

Wolf Kanno: it really is that straight-forward, more or less. Yes, the story is terribly written, and that is by far my biggest criticism of the game.

Nothing new for the series, then.

[Wolf Kanno]

^ I would disagree with that statement.

Anyway, just finished Chapter 12, the opening scene was definetly weird and didn't seem to really fit in story wise except to show off. I actually enjoyed Eden cause they brought back elements from the first Chapter where the background and dungeon are actually exploding and having fallen debris. Despite the utter chaos going on, I have to laugh at how terribly calm and lifeless the NPCs are in the dungeon. A little running would have been nice.

The big fun for this Chapter was having Vanille tossed into my party and me deciding to run with it. My new fave Paradigm shift is RAV/RAV/SAB with my party of Lightning, Snow, and Vanille. Regretfully, I had to drop her for Hope again when I fought ProdCloud since SAB doesn't work on him. That boss has seriously won my top choice for most challenging battle in the story. I'm also happy to finally get items I can sell for quick cash and have finally begun maxing out everyone's weapons and starting work on accessories. I really wish Auto-Haste wasn't a temporary effect though...

Storywise, it was pretty uneventful with the exception(SPOILER) of Cid getting killed. Rosch goes out like so many other "I'm not evil, I just work for them" so it wasn't really that big of a shocker, Seeing Team NORA was not really exciting either and Dysely's "trap" is pretty damn simple with no real twists or turns. I'm trying to think of why the Calvary units get turned to Cieth when they could have easily done the job for Dysely to begin with. I think its official that the writers were cut from the budget halfway through writing the plot.

Anyway, I'll start Chapter 13 tomorrow and hopefully finish the game.

[Croyles]

I liked the story overall, which is usually the case for a Final Fantasy, but SE have always had a problem with the scenario writers ever since voice acting was introduced. The FF game that did scenario writing the best was IMO actually XII.

So its like, some of the individual scenarios are pretty cringe-worthy but I really liked the plot overall.

[Elpizo]

^ I would disagree with that statement.

I would not. You're not going to tell me that XIII is the first FF where the story wasn't written well (though I personally liked it enough to keep me playing).

- 1 barely had any story
- 2 was for most part a big fetch quest
- 3 was excellent ( )
- 4 was terrible in its plot relying on characters dying but surviving
- 5 was good for world 1 and 2, after that the story vanished until the final dungeon
- 6 dumped the story halfway through
- 7 ruined itself with the compilation
- 8 had the drag of disc 2 and 3
- 9 dragged along to seemingly nowhere in disc 2 (and it's one of my favourites)
- 10 was pretty consistent in its plot I suppose. Though I don't like 10 very much, it didn't have such long story drags as 8 and 9.
- 11 I haven't played, so no judgement
- 12 was very well written, but suffered from poor pacing

So, yeah... Unless I'm misunderstanding the meaning of "badly written". Which is possible, I guess.

[Croyles]

^ I would disagree with that statement.

I would not. You're not going to tell me that XIII is the first FF where the story wasn't written well (though I personally liked it enough to keep me playing).

- 1 barely had any story
- 2 was for most part a big fetch quest
- 3 was excellent ( )
- 4 was terrible in its plot relying on characters dying but surviving
- 5 was good for world 1 and 2, after that the story vanished until the final dungeon
- 6 dumped the story halfway through
- 7 ruined itself with the compilation
- 8 had the drag of disc 2 and 3
- 9 dragged along to seemingly nowhere in disc 2 (and it's one of my favourites)
- 10 was pretty consistent in its plot I suppose. Though I don't like 10 very much, it didn't have such long story drags as 8 and 9.
- 11 I haven't played, so no judgement
- 12 was very well written, but suffered from poor pacing

So, yeah... Unless I'm misunderstanding the meaning of "badly written". Which is possible, I guess.

Thats what ive always thought about FFs, that the actual scenarios themselves were pretty corny and bad, but once you think back about just the plot itself its starts becoming very good. At least thats how ive always felt about it.

Like a good Anime basically.

[seiferalmasy2]

VII didnt ruin itself with the compilation, you just ignore the spin offs. FF7 is 1 game and is as is.

[Croyles]

Selective memory at its best

[Wolf Kanno]

^ I would disagree with that statement.

I would not. You're not going to tell me that XIII is the first FF where the story wasn't written well (though I personally liked it enough to keep me playing).

- 1 barely had any story
- 2 was for most part a big fetch quest
- 3 was excellent ( )
- 4 was terrible in its plot relying on characters dying but surviving
- 5 was good for world 1 and 2, after that the story vanished until the final dungeon
- 6 dumped the story halfway through
- 7 ruined itself with the compilation
- 8 had the drag of disc 2 and 3
- 9 dragged along to seemingly nowhere in disc 2 (and it's one of my favourites)
- 10 was pretty consistent in its plot I suppose. Though I don't like 10 very much, it didn't have such long story drags as 8 and 9.
- 11 I haven't played, so no judgement
- 12 was very well written, but suffered from poor pacing

So, yeah... Unless I'm misunderstanding the meaning of "badly written". Which is possible, I guess.

I definetly disagree with half of your observations but story is subjective I guess.

While I would never say any of the FFs are perfect in their writing, some are definetly better than others in terms of the series. It would take too long for me to post about what my major problems with this plot and I definetly do not wish to derail this thread into a classic FFA is better than FFZ cause this is mostly about how you feel about this specific FF at this point. We can make new threads if we want to discuss where XIII falls in line with the rest of the series.

I still have one chapter to go and a friend of mine says I should expect a bit of a twist. Whether it will save the game for me or not will depend when we get there. Then again, X pulled a surprisingly good ending (if a bit melodramatic for my taste) after I pretty much hated and was bored with the rest of it.