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Final Fantasy XIII Fabula Nova Crystallis Series; Talk about the FF13 mythos and games
Topic Started: Jun 6 2011, 02:54 PM (9,773 Views)
JBRam
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Don't play with fire, kids.
Ghoul
Sep 15 2011, 01:40 PM
What've they done to him... He looks like a wolf... >_>
From what I've read, it makes sense in game... more info in spoilers.

Snow Info
Edited by JBRam, Sep 15 2011, 03:52 PM.
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Ghoul
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January 31st JB. That's apparently the US release date.
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JBRam
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Don't play with fire, kids.
More info on DLC's and sidequests in FF13-2:

http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/223077/final-fantasy-xiii-2-to-feature-chocobo-racing-casino-and-dlc-weapons/
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Ghoul
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Ugh... I completely disagree with the DLC. The minigames sound okay, but this is looking like a wait and see game. I might wait for a gold edition like I did for Resident Evil 5, which had DLC that actually impacted the story. They are least seem to be trying to fix their mistakes. I just don't know if it is enough. If they add towns and a world map, that'll help imho.
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JBRam
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Don't play with fire, kids.
They do have towns... not sure about a World Map, but as I've said previously, World Maps are the bane of my existence and I hate them.

I also very much dislike the idea of having a Gold Saucer area. That was absolutely without a doubt my least favorite area in FF7 that I've been to so far. ToV's Gold Saucer-like area annoyed me so much that I literally walked in there, spent 5 minutes, and left immediately. That game already had too many sidequests and crap.

I mean, I like seeing everything a game has to offer, but I don't want to spend HOURS farming a currency that is useless everywhere else, playing a game that is utterly pointless to the story, or breeding chocobos. Let alone racing them. In my opinion, minigames in RPGs make absolutely no sense. However, some people seem to like them. I just don't get it. Oh, major horrible things are happening which is causing time and space to collapse on itself, and the world's getting destroyed. Let's race chocobos.

So yeah, if anything, all these little "fixes" are making me LESS excited for the game. I just want it out already. Let me play some FF13-2 without all this extra side crap that is going to invariably be subpar to the actual game.

Side note: Wanna know my least favorite area in FF13's disc 2? Nautilus. My favorite cutscenes are in Nautilus, but the area made me want to punch whoever came up with it. WHY do devs insist that minigames and craplike that are in any way a good idea?

A better question: Why do gamers want it? I understand if it actually DOES SOMETHING, like makes the final boss easier, or gives you an ultimate weapon (as long as it doesn't take years to do), but why would you EVER want a crappy little sidequest that has absolutely no point?! I do not get it. >.<

[/rant]
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Ghoul
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It's easily enough ignored. That's my argument. If you don't like it, you just move on with the story, no harm done. However, to me, an RPG's biggest strength has to be its story. There are exceptions, of course, but it's really hard to make a good RPG without a story (Phantasy Star Online is one of the few that come to mind). In general, the games are extremely long. Since they're so long, you need a change of pace, both mentally from whatever darkness is in the story, and from the repetitiveness of the battle system. And make no mistake, almost every battle system is repetitive. The only one I'd argue that I NEVER got slightly tired of was The World Ends With You, but that's almost cheating; it's just too different from every other game out there. You'll notice most long animes or storys have some form of comic relief? That's what the minigames are. Sometimes, they're annoying, I'll agree. But well done, they can change the game for the better, by giving you even a 5 minute reprieve from battle battle story, battle battle story, which is absolutely necessary, and one of my biggest complaints with the original.

Actually, in my opinion, the gold standard for minigames in an RPG was FF9. Something as simple as the sword fight in the play could last a good 5-10 minutes, and it was simple but fun.

I also think a World Map is completely necessary in a good RPG, with a rare exception, which FF13 did NOT meet. It provides both a sense of scale and epicness that you don't get without it. It also allows an easy mechanism for backtracking, which while annoying if relied on, allows the player to realize that once they pass through an area, it doesn't disappear. The original 13 felt like it didn't need a player to do anything other than battle. There was so little deviation from the path that forward literally meant let the story move forward. Seriously, they shouldn't have given the option to look at the map for the area. It was embarrassing. That isn't area design. That's drawing a line then distorting it ever so slightly.

Don't get me wrong, the game had its strengths. It transitioned perfectly between the classic FF battle system and the one introduced in FF12. But you're absolutely crazy if you called its area design good, or that it didn't need more. Sure, the minigames/diversions don't really seem to add much. But they're greater than the sum of their parts, just like the best RPGs. Let's face it, the individual pieces in an RPG are nothing special. It's about how they come together, and most Final Fantasy fans do not like how they came together for FF13.
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JBRam
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Don't play with fire, kids.
A world map woulda been pointless in 13 :P The only thing they needed to have was the teleport stones. Which they did. And yeah, every area you passed was gone for good until Pulse. I'm not arguing the fact that the game was extremely linear.

But let's take, for instance, a very non-linear game with no World Map. FF12. I mean, there was a map, but you didn't travel on it, which is what I can't stand. There were ways to get all the way across the World within minutes, and the whole game felt extremely large at all times. That's what I prefer, not this odd obsession of having your characters look larger than entire cities. I cannot stand traveling on World Maps. It's so easy to get lost, and it makes me feel like they lack something. The excellent area design and art is a waste once you step onto the World Map...

But still... minigames? A good story weaves humor and fun right into the storyline, even if it is extremely dark. Sure, when you're post-story grinding in FF13, things can get a little tedious, but that's the same with any game. I'm not likely to stop grinding to go race a chocobo. In FF13, they had the stupid Pulse Armament minigame in the area that I can never remember its name... the trash heap area. You know, where Hope hops on top of a Pulse Armament, and ruins that entire area for all involved. It was a waste of time, barely had any humor, and was twenty times more boring than actually fighting through it. In Nautilus, you have to waste five to ten minutes of your time looking for the chocobo chick. I mean really. WHY.

If there are minigames, they should feel like they belong in the story, even if they are sidequests. I'm sure it's possible. I think I remember that swordfight that you're talking about, and that was more or less woven into the story.

I think the best way to break up the monotony is adding in towns, shops, and that sort of thing. I like talking to NPCs (although I don't like being forced to do so). I like going into various shops and buying things. The shop system in FF13 was a little too simplified, although it worked.
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Ghoul
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That was another of my complaints that I forgot about. Not talking to NPCs. Sure they sorta spoke... But your footsteps were louder than their voices, and you really weren't given any reason to talk to them. And it wasn't post-game grinding that got me in FF13. It was the game itself, and that's a HUGE problem. If the entire game feels like a grind, that's a problem.

A good minigame is a few things: unobtrusive, fun, and short, but with depth. The swordfight is one example, even though it's a little light on the depth department. Let me bring in another, although this isn't nearly as unobtrusive. Mag feeding in PSO. It's a fairly simple concept; you feed your mag items, it gets stronger, it helps you fight. Simple, right? Not exactly. There's a ton of hidden depth that makes it fun. Do you try for a special Mag, like a Sato? Or do you just want to overload stats like power to equip better items? However, if you aren't interested, nobody's stopping you from just buying premade mags off other players, and you don't miss anything in the game. That obviously wouldn't work in FF13-2, but it's just an example. A good developer finds a way to cater to its audience, and Squeenix just didn't do that enough with 13.

I'd argue that the shop system was completely wrong in FFXIII. I'm not saying you can't get creative with how you shop, and the general idea sounds okay on paper. In a lot of other FFs, you can buy basic healing items at save points. They allow you to continue fighting without having to run back to the nearest town to replenish your items. That's not why it was done if FF13. It was done because there were NO towns where you could shop at.

I can take what happened in FF12 as being okay for a world map. A Zelda-like world map is perfectly fine. However, I have zero problems with old school world maps. They may have initially been a way around the limitations of the system, but they work. I think they give a sense of scale that's hard to get without them.
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JBRam
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Don't play with fire, kids.
I liked the shop system, but didn't at the same time. It worked. It coulda been better.
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Ghoul
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Like I said, it SOUNDS like a great idea on paper. One place to shop, available at every save point. Then I saw the flaws. The biggest was that it was, imho, to cover the flaw of having no towns to interact with people at. If you don't have towns, normally, you don't have shops. So it was a way around a self imposed limitation...

The other problem was how clunky it was. The menus were terrible, I could feel my PS3 loading each screen, there were like 9 shops, and you had no idea what sold what. They needed to either consolidate it into a master list, or split it Items, Weapons, Accessories, Components. It was just poorly organized. I hated running through the menus to shop, so much so, that I'd go hours between shopping then go on massive binges.

So while it "worked", worked just isn't good enough. Not for the game, and definitely not for a numbered Final Fantasy. Not that they improved anything in 14...
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