…. Damn. She is my favorite.
Anyways, Immediate first thoughts. I want to assure everyone that these thoughts aren’t on the game as, for I have only reached the end of chapter three. I do believe, however, I have seen enough to give a general impression.
First thought? Thank God this isn’t XII all over again. They brought back turn based encounters while remaining with visible enemies before encounters. So fear not those who thought the fighting in XII was trash, for the quick paced, exciting and super neato fighting system Square Enix attempted to create in XII has been thoroughly thought through this time around (Awesome alliteration for the win!).
This fighting system includes simple, yet necessary roles and strategies which require quick thinking on the part of the player, or in my case, pure awesome. Leveling up is similar to X though it gets rid of those items used to assist your leveling and focuses more on a variation of Exp rather than movement points. The grid system is basically still in place, though this time you are not able to grind your way to fill it seeing as how Square Enix has put a level cap on each chapter. Whether or not that was a good idea is debatable, but honestly I have had no problems with enemies yet… Then again, I’m awesome.
Some other noted, the voice acting is not bad, it’s actually kind of good. Dialogue is cleverly written, especially with Sazh Katzroy being a hilarious comic relief who, as a matter of fact, has a Chocobo living in his Afro.
The only problem that I can see right away is the lack of background story, they all talk as if you know whats going on.
Luckily for me, that’s not a problem seeing as how they put in the datalog this time around. Not only does the datalog inform you al about the past, present and future, it is also able to recap you on all the events which you have taken a part of. That is nice for me when I pick this game up two years from now and forgot what the hell I was doing. I assume I won’t have to restart my save AGAIN like I do with every other Final Fantasy.
Anyways, I am enjoying it greatly. It is a change from the precedent, but it is a good change and remains tied to its roots….
Except the bastards got rid of the traditional victory song.
Bastards,
-Travis
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Wait, the traditional victory song isn’t in the game!? I really hope they put it in there somewhere at the very least, since I feel that tune has become a trademark in the series like the name Cid and Chocobos.
The theme was only in 12 at the end of boss fights. That pissed me off, but for them to remove it completely is ridiculous. Like Gatts said, its a staple of the series. Other than that, its good to see that the dialogue and story are well written. Not the weird, sometimes hard to follow, crap that we’ve gotten with the past few FFs.
I liked how they implemented the victory song into 12, it would have sucked to have it everytime you swatted a fly. I do miss it in 13 though. I often forget to push “X” for the second time in 13 just cause I’m so thrown off by the after battle ritual. I only played about 30 minutes last night after getting it so I’m not as far as you but I agree with everything so far. ‘Cept the black dude is kinda annoying me and I usually like the token black guy. Tunnel linearity is worse than I thought too. I stood up against all the complaints before. I thought I wouldn’t mind it but it does feel cheap. I’m sure I’ll get over it and love the game.
Enjoying it so far. I thought I would hate Sasz but he’s grown on me, same for Snow!
Haha. Glad you’re enjoying it, Travis. The battle system really opens up at Chapter 3, so you’ll learn to juggle more and more as the game progresses.
Vanille’s pretty cute. Lightning is still my favorite, though.
lightning xcloud!
so far the funniest part of the whole game is how vanille has to moan for almost everything lmfao
Expected a lot more people on my list to be playing it but only 5 Live and PSN combined so far, sadly Yakuza 3 isn’t doing any better with a whopping zero.
Started playing this today; a few psn buddies have it. Not sure on live…
though FF on anything other than a ps is just wrong.
My first FF since 7. Combat is cool, fast paced, easy to learn. Skill
trees look pretty interesting.
Story feels bland so far. Fast load times, but I still wish I could install
the game.
Snow = pedobear?
I am also enjoying it, buuuut my favourite thing to do in FF games is to power level, so the level cap isnt so good, but i can still collect the CP. Proabloy open up more in afew hours, then i’ll fall in love with it.
I almost need subtitles turned on when Vanille speaks. I have a hard time understanding wtf she is saying sometimes. I didn’t like Sazh at first, but as Lightning became more and more of a bitch, I started to like him more.
Lightning is nothing like Cloud. She is a down right cold-ass bitch. Her name should be Snow, not Lightning.
I’m near the end of chapter 4 and my thoughts so far..
I don’t see Lightning as a female Cloud. I’d list some reasons why but I can’t think of 100% reasons, I feel I’ll either be wrong about Lightning, or wrong about Cloud. Maybe later on in the game I’ll get a better idea of how she’s different, I just know that she’s not a female version of Cloud. Big differences, little similarities.
The voice acting is great, although I’m not so keen with Vinalle’s voice acting. At times it sounds like she doesn’t have the right tone for the situation, and is she slipping in a British accent sometimes?
The story at the beginning Was and right now still is kind of confusing. I’m still having problems figuring out exactly what Cocoon is. Is it still a floating city in the sky? Is it the world in general? I want a damn geographic mapping of the game. The whole place is just confusing. The areas all look so different so they leave me thinking that they’re completely different cities or areas.
From the places you’re at and what they show in cutscenes, imagine this. What if they started off FFX in Bevelle? They show cutscenes there and you’re fighting your way through the place on the bridges and such. Then later on there’s a cutscene of Luca Stadium, and after that you’re playing the game and adventuring through Macalania Woods. That’s what it feels like to me right now. The areas hardly look similar in a way that makes you think “Oh I must still be in Cocoon city”. It makes you think “Okay what city is this? Wait I’m still in Cocoon? But isn’t this a completely different town?”.
The datalog is very useful, but I wish it’d be even more useful and include all the ‘Cie words and towns with better explanations. Is the entire area called Cocoon City and the town-like areas are just districts of the city that have names? Like Midgar and Sectors 1-8?
So far I have learned a bit more about the whole l’Cie thing and the 20 million other ‘Cie adverbs, but I’m still lacking knowledge on what ‘Cies are good and what ones are bad based on the story. Fal’Cies? I don’t remember anymore.
Maybe I’m nit-picking a little, but so far I am enjoying the game, the battle system, and the story. Hopefully I’ll get a better understanding of the towns and such. Just so damn confusing..
Disliking the game so far. Not sure what chapter I’m on.. about 8 hours in I think. Section with the black guy and Vanille..
The FFX-esque look of stuff and character (mainly female characters) designs piss me off.. This whole sci-fi futuristic world isn’t really to my taste. Don’t really like the characters.. Don’t like character names like Lightning, Snow, or Hope (what ever happened to using actual names?) No traditional FF fanfare music at end of fights.. So far not really liking how summons are now Transformers.. Don’t like the FFX-esque, but visually fancier, character build grid.. Pretty much just hit the X button and it builds itself. I’m unsure of the story so far.. It starts out with all this nonsense and its like Huh? wtf is anyone talking about.. And then a little ways in they show what was going on to begin with.. Which they coulda just started out with in the first place. Save points every 2 feet (I feel compelled to use them cause I’m afraid of a boss fight around the next corner). The gear upgrade system doesn’t really make sense to me yet.. You just dump piles of random junk you find into weapons as XP? Oh and the massive linearity that makes me feel claustrophobic. Previous FF games are linear but visually fooled you into thinking its not so they weren’t as bad. It might as well not even have a rotatable camera and just strap the characters into a chair system on a straight rail. And probably some more stuff I can’t think of.
The good? Cutscenes are unbelievable as usual. The graphics in general. The chocobo living in the black dudes hair (Svah or something?). The menu system is nice. The Paradigm system is somewhat fun at this point. The combat system in general is decent.. So far its really just mashing auto-battle through everything and changing paradigm but I read it gets much more complex. Umm.. The packaging is pretty nice. And probably some more stuff I can’t think of.
Meh so far but its still early. Problem is I can barely get myself to play it now its kinda dull. I find myself just running past every monster I can at this point cause I don’t care for the characters I’m always stuck with and thus have no interest in fighting with them or building them up. The vibe I get from the game is too FFX for me so far.. Which I didn’t like very much.. FF5, 6. 7, 9, 11. and 12 I much prefer.. (9 being favorite). Psyched for 14 as thats where I think all the old school FF themes and feel are going to be.
/endrant
NekTM, I’d gladly explain the fal’Cie mythology to you. Think of Gran Pulse as a planet, and Cocoon as an artificial moon of that planet. That moon is far bigger than one large city, and is governed more like a nation. Then think of the fal’Cie kind of like Greek gods. There’s a fal’Cie to stand as a sun for Cocoon (Phoenix), and one to make food (Carbuncle), and one to manage those and thousands of lesser fal’Cie (Eden), and so on. They have some limited influence in the nation’s government, but seem to mostly stay in the background to protect and nurture Cocoon’s citizenry until they need to enthrall a human for their bidding. This flippant disregard for the human’s free will suggests that the fal’Cie perceive humans as tools to be upkept or pets to be tempered. I think the rest will be made quite clear to you as you play.
Honestly, I see all these issues with the game and have no problem with them at all. My only complaint is actually very mundane but very annoying to me, concerning the Datalog.
My issue with the Datalog is that I’d prefer that the Enemy Intel images were in full 3-D, rotatable with the R-stick. I tried the first time I checked the Datalog and was sorely disappointed. I also wish I could move through multiple entries and multiple modes of a single entry with the trigger buttons. I love data farming and building encyclopedias of info, but I want to navigate that data easily.
Well I’m done typing all this on PS3; onto some real action!
Oh and at least for the first 1/3 of the game, I utterly despised Hope, but I can see how others might sympathise. I know it was important to the story so it’s not really a complaint…but for me he was at least a notable obstacle to taking in the story.
was of the best games of all time l even got this game from best buy