Final Fantasy XIII

[Sambob]

Woot I started this shit nizzers. Only got a 15 minute play in durin lunchtime but so far so good. The manual smells like manuals should too. As previosuly stated the last proper one I played was FF10 so the combat is an omprovement over that. Everyone moves around whilst fighting so some moves are context based, eg she will do a single attack in one guy on his own but if the target is in a group then she will do a spin attack hitting all.

Like I said, so far so good and more to follow laters.

[CelShadedDreams]

I love the battle system. I was a bit unsure when I originally heard about it, not a fan of going back to turnbased, but it's so fast and smooth that it feels like something new and it keeps traditionalists happy. It is linear but I don't think it's a bad thing, it keeps the pace up.

My only gripe so far is with the camera, it's too sensitive and doesn't sit in the place I want it to. Plus everynow and then you can't control it at all.

So far I've seen lots of ideas I like, but the linear thing also makes the world a little dull and less engaging. For the next one I'd like to see some kind of happy medium between 12 and 13 in world and exploration size, I'm not sure how they'd pull that off though.

[Bob]

Sambob you big silly! They are two different types of attack.

After the opening couple of hours of pressing X over and over again I really started to enjoy this. All the fears I had going into it that it would be shit have all just gently floated away and left me and I not only love it, but I am in love with it. Bit of a shame that there is very little exploration, mostly just moving forwards and beating the shit out of stuff but it works for the game and there are plenty of other JRPGs that let me steal poor people's treasure so I can live without here.

The leveling up system works really well but after nearly 7 hours I am only just having to decide what I should upgrade and what I should leave. Up until now I've just been able to unlock all the skills and upgrades as soon as I get to them but the cost has just gone right up and like a drug addled whore I am willing to pay, no matter the price as long as I get my fix of moar powar!

Also, I liked the way nothing made sense when the game started. Having to read a bit about the character and world backgrounds before I even had a basic grasp of what was going on was a nice change. Story in general has been very good actually and the characters are shockingly likable even if they do have stupid names. Lightning or call me light for short, Hope which is clearly a girl's name on a dude, Vanille pronounced Vaneeele, Sazh who has a Chocobo living in his 'fro, Snow who obviously spends a lot of time making sure a bit of his blond hair pops through the middle of his bandanna and, craziest of all, Sarah. Those Japanese are bonkers to be sure.

[David]

I'm really liking it so far. Despite the 360 version being sub HD, the normal graphics still look really really good, but the CG on it looks TERRIBLE. It's absolutely compressed to hell, and it's really annoying to have a cool cutscene almost ruined by being a pixelly broken up mess at times. Think how the CG in Mass Effect 2 but worse. Not the end of the world, but it's a bit galling in a game that has so much CG in it.

Anyway, I'm liking the gameplay. The story has been pretty engaging so far (Although they through around unexplained confusing terms way too often, to understand the game fully you need to read the data log). So far, I haven't been that bothered about the linear gameplay like I thought I would, although if it goes on to the same extent ALL the way through the game I might be pissed. The battle system is very slick, but incredibly fast. I just got to the Paradigm Shifts, seems like where the strategical meat lies. So far, so good on that front.

And the manual does smell amazing.

[hinn888]

Anyone successfully registered their game yet?

You can get 2 free avatar items, problem is not everyone seems to be getting the confirmation e-mail to register the account.

Heres a weird link someone posted. Dnt understamd what thats about but it shows the avatar item you would get if it flippin works!

[David]

Not registered mine yet, but from reading other forums people are having trouble with the FFXIV beta codes in the PS3 version as well, so it looks like Square are just shit at this thing.

[Bob]

I didn't bother registering mine because I got the decent version on the shit console. Any idea what the PS3 code does for you?

[hinn888]

Oh it actually worked!

Got the

1 - PSICOM Huntress Uniform:

2 - PSICOM Raider Uniform:

[spatular]

does this have an easy mode or something?

i've never played an FF game, just got some gamestation credit so was thinking of giving it a go, i guess 7 would be the better bet but i think it'd be too hard

[David]

does this have an easy mode or something?

i've never played an FF game, just got some gamestation credit so was thinking of giving it a go, i guess 7 would be the better bet but i think it'd be too hard

Nah, not easy mode, but you can turn down the battle speed to give you more time to think.

[spatular]

Thanks for the info David, i suck at this sort of thing so no easy mode probably means i should give it a miss

[DANGERMAN]

You should give 7 a miss, I'll probably be lynched for dissing it, but it takes a long time to get going (it never gets going)

I will admit I'm getting more and more interested in this, not sure I'll ever bite but I think the saturation of the tv ads as ground me down

[Sambob]

Just about 19 hours into it now, just want a long period of time to play it. I can see what a lot of the criticism is based on but its down to personal tastes whether it puts you off or not. There is a lot battling, but the battle system is a lot more engaging and so I havnt really minded having to do it. At no point have i felt like im grinding or felt like I really need to to get past a certain point. As long as you set up your party well and create some good custom Paradigms and then switch between them when fighting then thats where you win or lose the fights, not on how many hours youve spent grinding and tweaking this that and the other setting just to get by a new area. I really think this is how it should be with RPGs, id class myself as an RPG fan and normally I wont finish a game on first sitting because of the difficulty curve and the need to grind.

Its here that the game feels a little bit strange, because it IS different than your normal Final Fantasy game, and a little different from a standard RPG but not that different. Some things seem toned down to bring in a fresher audience, whilst some other RPG staples are as strong as ever and in some cases even fuller. The game is very cinematic heavy, I will often just want to do one or two more battles and then save it to go and cook or drink and then beat children, but what happens is that a battle finish and then a cutscene, followed by another cutscene and sometimes a flashback. Even this isnt always the case as its possible to go through some long sections without any lengthy cutscenes, and every cutscene can be skipped with the key events being added to the 'datalog' (a lot of the time ive skipped a cutscene if I didnt think it was going anywhere, and sometime ive actually read the datalog and then gained a better understanding of what just happened than when I watched it) so again its kind of catering to both new and long standing fans.

To be clear all of the things ive mentioned arent really a problem for me at all, im loving the game and loving the slight change from the norm. My main regret is that I dont really get much time to play it, and it requires big chunks of time to play it and get anything done really. With Regards to the linearity issue that was the main gripe with a lot of English (Western) reviews, I cant particularly say its been something ive massively noticed, the story hops from team to team and you are drip fed story details throughout, another change to the general series staple of the story starting small and just getting ludicrously epic.

Not sure how long there is left on the game, but Id say at least another 20 hours as ive not even begun to get into the weapon upgrading system and am still not that far through the character levelling up system. Will update with more feedback once im a bit further into it.

[CelShadedDreams]

Anyone want one of the downloadable outfits from registering?

Q3D7F-7YRYV-4TBDW-HWTC8-J49Q6

That's the bloke one, it would only let me download the female one. I don't need it or want it.

[spatular]

i took some stuff to trade in for this, never played a FF game so wanted to give it a go, the cut scenes look pretty amazing but the first 2 hours of gameplay are press x a few times to win a fight, run forward watch cut scene, repeat, and i was starting to think it was a bad idea, but just now it's introduced loads of other stuff to do in the battles so things are looking up

[CelShadedDreams]

Huh, that first disc felt really short. I thought I would have had a few more hours. How long is this game total?

[hinn888]

Isnt it roughly said about 40 hours? Everything is on the third disc anyway, so the first 2 is pretty much the process to getting to the third disc.

[spatular]

listening to the podcast was pretty interesting, Sam explained some stuff which i've been told about in the game but didn't really understand like the combos to get a stagger - i wasn't sure what was causing it other than attacking and why my commando was barely increasing it. it sounds pretty daunting later on though, if they want new people to try it there should be an easy mode.

[hinn888]

Stagger is when you reach a percentage and fill the bar fully, the enemy becomes staggered where they recieve much more damage than usual, every enemy has a different % and you wont know the % until use either use libra or have fought the enemy before.

Ravagers rack up the stagger bar quite quick but depletes at a very quick rate to keep it going, commandos make it go up a little but it stops it depleting quickly, so a combo of 2 ravagers and a commando is quite a good way to rack it up, or even 3 ravagers.

[spatular]

Thanks for the tips hinn