It would have been nice if the faux-complexity ended there but I made it through as much of the game as I did (which was most sadly) using two paradigms and an occasional third the odd time it was absolutely necessary and it was always obvious when I needed to use each. There was literally no actual decision making involved. I was on auto pilot as much as the damn game was. It was a fine recipe for a terrible battle system.Originally Posted by Fynn
Push X to win auto-pilot is a staple of modern Final Fantasy games. It would be wrong of it not to be here.
But it didn't actually start until XIII. In X, you usually had to pick something the enemy was vulnerable against, and it was pretty important to plan what you're doing with gambits in XII, unless you decided to forgo them, but then you had to do everything manually, so it hardly qualifies. Is XIV also like this? Will FFXV be like this?
I successfully played through the entirety of FF7 without doing much more than pressing X in battles. It's not something that just appeared when FFXIII hit the shelves. Basically, I will never understand this complaint.
Oh yeah, VII was pretty simple with that. But you had to think more about your commands in VIII, at least.
The deal with XIII is that you get no freedom at all. Yeah, you play X to win again, but you don't even get anything like materia in FFVII where you could at least have full control over the strength and weaknesses of your characters. FFXIII is just a straight line in every area of gameplay.
Eh. I felt like I had more engagement with FFXIII's battles than I ever did in FFVII. Materia hardly matters when all you do is attack - I equipped everyone with all the best stuff and then proceeded to never use it. I found it significantly easier to breeze through FFVII mashing X than FFXIII (I died once during my 100% playthrough of FFVII vs the endless retries of many battles in FFXIII).
And again I say it's only a straight line if you make it a straight line for yourself. You can prioritize and strategize in this game. You don't HAVE to, at least not to a large degree, but it's certainly not like you have no freedom to do so if you want to.
The point is that you really do have no choice in the big picture, and this is all caused by one thing - the crystarium being locked. Seriously, the fact that I could not grind if I wanted to or that I did not have access to the other roles for other characters from the beginning seriously prevents any freedom. For 95% of the game, you are allowed to play the game only in the very specific way it allows you to, with Sazh being restricted to being a Ravager, Commando, and Synergist, and still only being able to reach like level 2 in each class on that chapter. Oh, you can still grind, but there's still an arbitrary cap for you that really had no point being there aside from preventing people from becoming too strong and exposing the game for the mind-numbingly easy, poorly designed abomination that it is.
Yeah, because that's the only forms in which freedom comes.Seriously, the fact that I could not grind if I wanted to or that I did not have access to the other roles for other characters from the beginning seriously prevents any freedom.
Okay, crystarium is locked. Fine. First I just want to mention that you still have a whole array of weapons and accessories to build up, and those do make a tangible difference. Especially building up good accessories from the start makes you quite a bit stronger than you'd be otherwise.
And secondly, even with just the roles you are given, there's a surprising amount of ways you can play. Sazh and Vanille cover all the bases except for Sentinel, giving you plenty of ways to engage enemies. Hell sometimes staggering enemies is a waste of time if you push your damage in other ways.
You don't need to have access to all roles without restriction to be able to strategize and optimize.
Of course you don't. Which is why I think an alternative to fixing this would be to just have everyone have access to only their starting roles, because gaining access to the other roles at the point of the game that they do really defies all purpose, since if I decided to make Vanille a Commando at that point, she would really suck as one anyway. So either of the two other solutions would be better than what we got.
Oh yeah, I forgot equipment upgrading exists. I never used it and I don't think I died more than once in the gameOh no, wait, I did use it, once, by the end of the game, when I injected everything I had into Lightning's new weapon and accidentally got an Ultima Weapon. Seriously, the whole thing is super unintuitive and I really don't understand why we couldn't just have either a traditional weapon system where we just found weapons along the way and could buy them, or an upgrade-only system like in FFVIII.
I know the system could be improved in many ways. But as it stands, it is what it is. And there's still lots of good to be found in it. As is my point this whole time.
I don't see how the weapon system in this game is problematic at all. If anything it's pretty interesting. You find many different weapons with many different unique effects and you can pick and choose which ones you like best and upgrade those. If you don't want to decide it's always a viable alternative to just upgrade accessories instead which are useful in basically any situation and can be swapped between party members at will so there's not much room to screw yourself over. And since gold and materials become more plentiful as you go it's no biggie if you invest a bunch of stuff into one piece of equipment only to abandon it later. The progression is pretty solid, the concept is neat and the execution is up to match.
I can imagine it's frustrating when you spend time upgrading your weapon, throw out the new ones you find because you've already invested so much time and materials in the last one, but then suddenly, for no forseeable reason, the weapon just stops gaining exp.
Yeah, no, I don't find it enjoyable or well-executed at all, sorry
... but then suddenly, for no forseeable reason, the weapon just stops gaining exp.
Yeah, no, I don't find it enjoyable or well-executed at all, sorry
I agree with this point.
I also agree in that I don't like how the Crystarium was locked not allowing you to progress.
Good. I don't have to listen to you whine about X anymore.You're dead to me
Daammmmmn
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
