how can anybody likes this game?

[Sylvie]

Or once you get Quick Hit, Auto-Haste, and Break Damage limit, spells are so smurfing inferior.

[dylamug]

ok that's it.
i tried to press on, but this has got to be the most boring game in the world.
the interesting battle system doesn't make up for the flaws in the game (i.e. everything else).
the dialogue is as cheesy as is humanly possible.
the gameplay is boring.
also, notice how elements such as puzzles, riddles, exploration or even having to think about what to do next are non-existant in this game?

ff-xiii serves as a proof of the superficiality of the modern gamer.
if it wasn't for the beautful visuals, nobody would have a given such a mindless gaming experience a second glance.

[Sylvie]

Welcome to post FFIX (depending on the person you ask, could range from FFVII) Final Fantasy.

[Jiro]

While the plotline of Final Fantasy XIII makes abso-smurfing-lutely no sense to me at all, I thought the characters themselves were very well constructed. The main ones, at least. Watching their behaviour and interactions change as they encountered challenge after challenge was nice, and I found a little bit of kinship with them as they too seem to have no smurfing idea what the plot was doing.

While a far departure from the established tropes of the series, I don't think that Final Fantasy XIII was - by any stretch - a bad game. It was enjoyable and provided me with 120 hours of entertainment before the last achievement dinged and I was glad to be rid of those smurfing turtles forever.

[Roogle]

The main problem that I have with the game is that it begins in media res, or in the middle of things, with the goal of getting the player interested in the world and playing to find out more.

Unfortunately, I feel like a lot of people, including myself, tend to lose interest in it rather than want to figure out more simply because the game continues on without explaining the most basic of concepts, leaving supplementary reading to the player. Not many people delve that far into the menu and miss out on a lot of the content in the game because of that.

[Del Murder]

Yeah, the datalogs were pretty freaking lazy.

[Shiny]

i likes it just fine.

[Rodney]

Me, too. All who don't like it are, AFAIC, FF traitors. And morons.

[dandy da oak]

I really like it too! It's a good game and it has really good graphics! I liked the story too, y'know!

[Sylvie]

Me, too. All who don't like it are, AFAIC, FF traitors. And morons.

Don't call me those names.

[ReloadPsi]

Yeah, the datalogs were pretty freaking lazy.

I have a feeling Square-Enix got the idea from the more recent Star Ocean games, given that they published them. The problem is that I think Square-Enix saw that Star Ocean had a datalog explaining half the stuff that hadn't been put into the regular narrative in any detail, but they didn't know why it was there.

Star Ocean: Till the End of Time's glossary or whatever it was called was there to provide information on the three games that came before it in case you hadn't played them (and odds are Second Story was the only one you had played back when you first played TTEOT, if any, due to SO1 and Blue Sphere not being released outside Japan at that point) so while it was never essential that you read it to understand the story, it was nice to have to keep you informed if you cared to put in the time. It enriched the game.

FFXIII's datalog is an excuse to not put as much exposition into the cutscenes. The first thing I noticed is that there didn't seem to be a character to project yourself onto. At first I thought it might be Sazh, but he was just as savvy about what was going on in the game world as everyone else, and within fifteen minutes he too was saying things that made me feel excluded from the events of the game. Every so often the game would then say "right, now you can stop playing and find out what any of this is about, because these characters aren't going to show you; this is a tell-don't-show game." What this also meant was that the cutscenes were practically a complete waste of time. Sure they presented the characters' personalities somewhat, but every single game before that one has manage to give us insight into personality and enlighten the audience to the plot. Heck, there were even times where the datalog contradicted what I'd just seen. Hope follows Vanille somewhat reluctantly to chase after Snow, umming and ahhing all the way, and the datalog calls this a "blind rage." I laughed pretty hard at that one.

The only defence I ever see people provide for this is "...well I like it." Well that's just it. I freakin' don't.

And as for the notion that it gets better so many hours in: that argument's only any good when you're working with something that allows you to skip the bad parts, such as a TV series, or films. Other than downloading someone else's save, or cheating, there isn't a way to skip the bad parts in a video game; you have to play all of it and I'm not going to slog through however many hours of the bad parts (I hear it being anything between fifteen and thirty hours from different people... hell with that!) when I could play an entirely different game that's fun at the very beginning.

Because fun is what games are about. Not work. I've already been working so I can get the money to buy my games and have fun with them.


Having said that, I wish there had been a datalog for Beauty and Warrior, because I barely had a clue what was going on in that film.

[Roto13]

And as for the notion that it gets better so many hours in: that argument's only any good when you're working with something that allows you to skip the bad parts, such as a TV series, or films.

Don't play many video games, I guess? Especially RPGs? Because the vast majority of RPGs start slow. Final Fantasy XIII's slow part is longer than most, but very few JRPGs are fun for the first few hours.

If you can't play a game with a slow start, you can't play many RPGs. (Also, the intro is nowhere near 30 hours unless you spend a ridiculous amount of time pointlessly grinding.)

[Mirage]

Me, too. All who don't like it are, AFAIC, FF traitors. And morons.

All who like FF13 are crap drinking goat smurfers. How does it feel to be a goat smurfer, rodney?!

[ReloadPsi]

And as for the notion that it gets better so many hours in: that argument's only any good when you're working with something that allows you to skip the bad parts, such as a TV series, or films.

Don't play many video games, I guess? Especially RPGs? Because the vast majority of RPGs start slow. Final Fantasy XIII's slow part is longer than most, but very few JRPGs are fun for the first few hours.

If you can't play a game with a slow start, you can't play many RPGs. (Also, the intro is nowhere near 30 hours unless you spend a ridiculous amount of time pointlessly grinding.)

Oh I do play a lot of games. (Good to see your conclusion-jumping smart-assery got unbanned, welcome back.) I've never known one to start as slowly as this gameplay-wise though. Most RPGs have a way of snagging my interest a couple of hours in, but granted they're not the main genre of games that I play. I think I'm allowed to expect a faster start roughly than one entire Earth day, though. None of the Star Ocean games took that long, heck, by the time you've played that many hours in a Star Ocean game you've likely abused most of the ability system to hell and back. And FFXII, the game right before this, let you begin to ignore the main plot and go do your own thing almost immediately.

Since you're suggesting it's right that JRPGs should get slower and slower then maybe I should leave the genre behind.

All who like FF13 are crap drinking goat smurfers. How does it feel to be a goat smurfer, rodney?!

GHOTHTBUTHERTH!

[Jiro]

Name calling's a bit beyond us, isn't it folks? We're judging a game here, not each other. Anyway, people are obviously going to have different standards or thresholds on how "slow" the game can be before it's just not worth it. While yeah, the datalogs were lazy and the plot made no sense whatsoever, the actual gameplay was entertaining enough and I liked that I had to constantly reevaluate my tactics as I got new skills or party members. Once you hit end game and everybody can be anything, there were still characters better suited to different things. They weren't carbon copies, which I thought was rather impressive. Not many previous FFs have managed to have characters so diverse at end game, I feel.