Final Fantasy XIII Lightning Saga

[KHCast]

While I find KH battle system "ok", I didn't find it enjoyable as much as the XIII battle system.

Now how is that? Seriously, the battle system is basically you control one character and select the same move over and over. There's no freedom unlike the KH gameplay.

[Autosaver]

Now how is that? Seriously, the battle system is basically you control one character and select the same move over and over. There's no freedom unlike the KH gameplay.

Apples & Oranges?

[KHCast]

Apples & Oranges?

well I mean yeah, there radically different. but KH gameplay seems more rewarding and beneficial compared to what we have now.

[turbojet]

Apples & Oranges?

Actually playing the game & And not?

[Autosaver]

Oh god. This song. THIS MAKES ME TAKE BACK WHAT I SAID! Wait what's that? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj5rLHxmGfEhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e15deeNEpo?

Music is always good in FF games.

[T-Min]

That is not true, Sonic 4 (especially Episode 2) had mediocre reviews not "good/great" reviews compared to XIII/XIII-2. The critics didn't get what they want on Sonic 4.

I was talking about Episode 1's reviews, mostly, and believe it or not, the review averages for all three console versions of of E1 on Metacritic are, at the very least, above 70. S4:E1 came at a time when the critics kept whining about how "THREE DEE IS KILLING THE FRANCHISE MAKE A TOO DEE GAME SEGA". After the hype had died down, at least some sites that gave Episode 1 good reviews acknowledged some of its flaws in their reviews of Episode 2, the scores of which were generally much lower. Personally, I didn't hate either episode, but the fact remains that Episode 1, at least, is a rather soulless cash-in, just like XIII-2 is when compared to...basically every other game in the series aside from XIV. And yes, that is including the original XIII.

And what's wrong with Alyssa?

She's freaking annoying.

While I find KH battle system "ok", I didn't find it enjoyable as much as the XIII battle system.

Fair enough, I suppose.

While myself found most parts of the story confusing, I still had fun. So did many others.

But why? How?!

[SIXTH-RATE SOMA]

Was XIII honestly this popular? Was everyone clamoring for a second and now third grand adventure with Female Squall and Her Formulaic Friends while I wasn't looking or something?

But why? How?!

uhhhhhhhhh pretty pictures?

Edited September 2, 2012 by Soma

[Sami]

Final Fantasy XIII apologists are almost as amusing to me as Shadow the Hedgehog fans. No matter how not terrible this game may be, there's no way it'll be as entertaining as the internet explosions.

[T-Min]

Was XIII honestly this popular? Was everyone clamoring for a second and now third grand adventure with Female Squall and Her Formulaic Friends while I wasn't looking or something?

It was the fastest-selling title in the history of the series, according to Wikipedia. Sure, it's not the most reliable source, but it would make sense. Companies like Square turn to sales figures rather than acclaim. If they still had any sort of artistic integrity at this point, XIII-2 wouldn't even have been conceived.

uhhhhhhhhh pretty pictures?

Except Final Fantasy XIII-2 didn't even have that. It might have had it if the framerate hadn't been PS2 Shadow the Hedgehog levels of inconsistent.

I really hate that game, you know.

[Soniman]

Haven't played either XIII and yet XIII-2 still looks like the more enjoyable of the two to play

[Conando]

Was XIII honestly this popular? Was everyone clamoring for a second and now third grand adventure with Female Squall and Her Formulaic Friends while I wasn't looking or something?

uhhhhhhhhh pretty pictures?

Apparently XIII sold incredibly well, while XIII-2 sold decently, Square-Enix is going by sales numbers rather than verbal demand.

[SIXTH-RATE SOMA]

Apparently XIII sold incredibly well, while XIII-2 sold decently, Square-Enix is going by sales numbers rather than verbal demand.

That just raises more questions. What was the appeal of this one? I'm a pretty big Final Fantasy fan, and everything I heard about this one just tuned me out. Another VII styled game, no freedom of movement, characters that were literally just gender swaps of earlier characters, a twentysomething hour period of walking in a straight line, no subtlety in character, Hope, Vanille, Snow, Lightning, and a battle system that doesn't seem to have any immediate upsides.

I understand that all Final Fantasies have their flaws, but I'm uncertain as to why this similarly flawed one warranted so many sales and the others did not.

If the answer ends up being "because it was multiplatform" then I'm afraid I'm going to need to kick something.

[buba]

That just raises more questions. What was the appeal of this one? I'm a pretty big Final Fantasy fan, and everything I heard about this one just tuned me out. Another VII styled game, no freedom of movement, characters that were literally just gender swaps of earlier characters, a twentysomething hour period of walking in a straight line, no subtlety in character, Hope, Vanille, Snow, Lightning, and a battle system that doesn't seem to have any immediate upsides.

I understand that all Final Fantasies have their flaws, but I'm uncertain as to why this similarly flawed one warranted so many sales and the others did not.

If the answer ends up being "because it was multiplatform" then I'm afraid I'm going to need to kick something.

Because it was multiplatform.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Why Final Fantasy 13-2 is shit part 2.

So today I meet some guy named Caius and he more or less destroyed my entire party... looking around it turns out I need to find a pokemon monster that can cast poison on him and have my characters at least be a certain level with both Synergist and Saboteur in order to actually l stand a chance quickly get his health down to 50% within the first few min of the battle and... oh fuck off.

Heres the problem. Unless the gamer knows specifically whats coming up, buys a stratergy guide, there is no way at all anyone can do this fight unless they have by accident taken the specific upgrade paths and have selected very specific monsters to join them... However... NOTHING in the entire game so far suggests that one needs to do this! Every other battle and even the fights in this same area can be done by any other set up (well so long as you have been levelling up).

The different sections of time you travel too also impact the player and force him to actually grind up. At the start of this game I grinded quite a bit so I could get the 100 pre-emptive fights trophy out of the way. Had I not done that, I would still make the same complaint.

Unlike every other final fantasy before it. The different sections of time you go to do not offer you enough enemies/random encounters/exp to let you level up until you are at the minimum ability required to beat this boss and I assume future boss fights. Even if you go out of your way to explore each area, there is not enough. You are forced to grind... but you are given no indication you need to do this.

This is shit game design. You are not even one quarter of the way through the game, yet you have to go and grind for long periods of time? No game, you don't do that, especially when it comes to an RPG, there should be some way for a player to beat a boss at this point within reason if they've been following the story, certainly if they've been doing all side quests which you've had on offer so far as well as exploring certain areas. The jump in difficulty at this point is so large that you are forced to stop progressing and grind.

Like I said, had we been dealing with FF7-9, or heck even FFX for that matter, the distance between each point A to point B would be so large that by the time you reach the boss or the next difficulty area, you would be in a position where you could beat the boss but it would still provide a challenge. FF13 doesn't do this at all.

Example. You go to the timeline where you meet Hope. The game practically tells you to avoid all battles by staying in the light. 9 times out of 10, any encounter is with a behomoth which is far more powerful than you are at this point. So thats an entire area where you are told not to fight in battles. The next section you are in Fangs/Annoying orgasm sound making girl from FF13's town which has gone all wibbly wobbly timy whimy. You can still beat the enemies as they're similar in level to the zone where you beat Atlus, if not easier... but there are so few encounters and the area is so short, you cannot be levelled up enough when you reach the boss of this area. Meaning you have no choice but to grind, this is shit design, even people who defend this garbage of a game must admit that there is a fundemental problem if in the previous section the game tells you to avoid fights only to then offer you a boss fight in the normal story which means what you've just done has hindered your progress?

====

Tutorials... Dear god... why am I still getting tutorials! Enter Hopes stage... Tutorial on how to stay in a light... What... A tutorial about staying in a light. You know how you can acomplish the same thing without pulling the player out of the game by making him read a wall of text in a tutorial? Here's my solution.

NPC: Oh, there are dangerous monsters here, stay in the light to avoid encounters

THATS IT! Thats all you need to do! Which ironically the game does do this! That's all you need to do, not break the gameplay with a tutorial as to how you stay in the lights to avoid encounters.

Then even in the next section theres a tutorial which doesn't even explain what you have to do very well either so what was the point?

[Nast]

.

[Autosaver]

Final Fantasy XIII apologists are almost as amusing to me as Shadow the Hedgehog fans. No matter how not terrible this game may be, there's no way it'll be as entertaining as the internet explosions.

I'm incredibly sorry that people had fun with a game that has generally favorable reviews from critics and fans alike. They must be as funny as people defending one of the worst rated games in history.

[Dobkeratops]

I understand that all Final Fantasies have their flaws, but I'm uncertain as to why this similarly flawed one warranted so many sales and the others did not.

If the answer ends up being "because it was multiplatform" then I'm afraid I'm going to need to kick something.

13's platform split is something like 5:1. It wouldn't have made much of a difference if it remained exclusive, as many of those 360 sales would've translated into PS3 SKU pruchases. So no, it wasn't being multiplatform but rather being the first mainline FF entry of the generation.

13-2 had a huge, huge drop compared to that, probably due to the aftershock of the first (similar to the MGS2->3 situation).

The good news about this is that if the trend continues they cannot ever make a FF13-4 without having it bomb so hard they'd ban it in Nagasaki. If they dared, Toriyama would get fired for pulling a Spirits Within. This also counts as good news.

[redhellc]

Well not really defending the game, I kinda used my experience on xiii to help me in xiii-2. I knew certain bosses you would need some specific skills so I normally evolve in order to have all areas covered up. But since I did have to grind a lot to pass some bosses in xiii, before going in to bosses in xiii-2 I always grinded a little and also tried to do the side quests to be more prepared.

Of course a good game wouldn't force you to grind much, so you are right.

Still since I kinda knew what was coming I did enjoyed the game a little more because I only got stuck in a boss once.

Edited September 2, 2012 by redhellc

[Balding Spider]

Try to think of the most stupid moment in FF13 that they wanted you to take seriously... and I raise you this...

Skip to 4:40 and just watch... that is how they travel through time in FF13-2.

Also... I'm at 5 hours into the game.. and I'm still getting tutorial after tutorial after tutorial. How anyone can defend this garbage is beyond me, it's not Sonic 06 bad in terms of technical specs, but in terms of fun and enjoyment, it's probably at the same level, if not worse.

Yes slowly floating your way towards your time destination, that's dumb. But I still think the whole Hope taking for fucking ever to inform Snow that he's essentially the reason his mother was killed still beats it out.

[Sami]

I'm incredibly sorry that people had fun with a game that has generally favorable reviews from critics and fans alike.

*Looks at the internet's general reaction to XIII*

Evidently not, it seems.

They must be as funny as people defending one of the worst rated games in history.

They are. It's not the fact that they like it or anything; that's perfectly fine, it's just that

like this and the reactions they entail always put me in stitches.

[Badnik Mechanic]

So I beat Giaus... and what was my reward for doing such a hard boss fight?

Nothing.

Thats right, I seem to remember a similar issue with FF13, some boss fights your reward is... nothing! No gil, no experience, no items. Nothing... You dare expect something when you get nothing! Not from Sqaure Enix... you get... NOTHING!

Why does Square think this is a good idea? They did this in FF13 with that bartabalous guy and now it seems they're going to do it with this Caius dude too. Each encounter it's going to be a hard fight and the reward is what? A big fuck you very much? Where is the incentive to continue exactly? Surely the idea of a boss fight in an RPG is to beat the boss, get a huge XP gain as well as some rare items and a ton of gil. To give you a sense that you have acomplished something and to fit in with the world the RPG creates.

XP = Experience, experience gained from the fight is given to your characters which in turn make them stronger. The experience of defeating a powerful enemy helps bridge the gap between the game and the players real world, there is a sense that the player has become better at the game an in turn the characters have also become better at the game because they're now stronger than they were at the start of the fight.

Offering no reward to the player in any respect makes the fight feel like a complete waste of time. Why was the fight there? Why was it needed? The same effect could have been done in a cut scene as the outcome was absolutely pointless in relation to the gameplay itself.

Hands up all those who think this glorious idea will continue when *LIGHTNING RETURNS!* Dah Nah nah! "I Lightning shall defeat these enemies in the ways of Final Fantasy 13! I shall gain experience from defeating these lesser enemies! But when it comes to defeating a boss I shall learn and gain nothing because that would make too much sense for the universe I live in!"

[Emmett L. Brown]

Final Fantasy has been bouncing back and forth between giving XP for boss battles. I think FFV and FFVI both gave zero XP for bosses, but at least you generally got a hefty amount of whatever-points-give-you-more-abilities-or-magic.

[Soniman]

I think I recall XII doing the same thing with boss battles.

[MykonosFan]

So I beat Giaus... and what was my reward for doing such a hard boss fight?

Nothing.

Thats right, I seem to remember a similar issue with FF13, some boss fights your reward is... nothing! No gil, no experience, no items. Nothing... You dare expect something when you get nothing! Not from Sqaure Enix... you get... NOTHING!

Why does Square think this is a good idea? They did this in FF13 with that bartabalous guy and now it seems they're going to do it with this Caius dude too. Each encounter it's going to be a hard fight and the reward is what? A big fuck you very much? Where is the incentive to continue exactly? Surely the idea of a boss fight in an RPG is to beat the boss, get a huge XP gain as well as some rare items and a ton of gil. To give you a sense that you have acomplished something and to fit in with the world the RPG creates.

XP = Experience, experience gained from the fight is given to your characters which in turn make them stronger. The experience of defeating a powerful enemy helps bridge the gap between the game and the players real world, there is a sense that the player has become better at the game an in turn the characters have also become better at the game because they're now stronger than they were at the start of the fight.

Offering no reward to the player in any respect makes the fight feel like a complete waste of time. Why was the fight there? Why was it needed? The same effect could have been done in a cut scene as the outcome was absolutely pointless in relation to the gameplay itself.

Edited September 3, 2012 by Mykonos

[turbojet]

3 XIII games

0 Versus

How in the fuck?