my final fantasy 13 review
Before I start I will try not to say the F or S words.
Final Fantasy XII...where do I start?
I mean I really REALLY wanted to like this game...I enjoyed EVERY final fantasy before this...even XI. Can anyone actually say they enjoyed XI?
I played I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, The adventure series, the legend series, the tactics series, the shitty sequels like X-2 and dirge of cerberus, Revenent wings! I even played the spin offs like Chocobo dungeon and Kingdom Hearts and all its sequels/prequels/quels. I think its safe to say I even considered playing XIV til the reviews came out. That was 50 bucks saved.
But this?
This is a slap in the face of EVERY final fantasy fan. This is worse than VIII, this is worse than the spirits within, this is...ok its not AS bad as X-2 and Dirge of Cerberus. But its close! Why do I have such contempt for a franchise that I love to the point of repairing my play arts Yuna's arm? Well I guess I should explain.
First of the story needs to be congratulated for just cutting the middle man and just having a pedophillic romance brood between The characters Hope and Lightning. You see hope is 14 and lightning is in her 20s...Now let that sink in...ok now realize THIS is the only set of characters I can recognize with! Is this sad and pathetic that the only people I connect with are a sex changed cloud and mini cloud...oh my god...let me get that out of my head!
Ok...the story, the story.
The story is not simple so heres the jist...your fucked! You and 6 of the most unluckiest bastards are tasked with saving the world from an evil author...wait a moment haven't we been here before? Come to think about it, the first thing that happened is girl cloud and her african american friend are on a train trying to stop said evil authori...oh for the love of jenova we HAVE been here before!
This is nearly the same thing that happened in the beginning of Final Fantasy VII! Dun believe me? Watch this!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBvnot7pkvg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQw9_bGj9gE
Its not the same but the intention is the same! Look Square, Fans want a remake you won't make but this is not the way we want it! Just cut the bull and remake FFVII in todays graphics! Make it episodical if you have to. We proved we'll buy any crap you throw at us, the PS3 and 360 FFXIII packages are proof! Why not give us what we want?
THATS NOT WHAT I MEANT!
Ok, back to the story...oh f...f...forget it. Just go play the game if you want to know! This story is confusing but it has a good narrative which is good since it gets confusing. Each character may be cookie cut from the FF generator but it still has unique characters like Sazh who is trying to find a way to save his son from a fate worse than death, and Vanille...who;s just fucking nuts. Sorry I just cannot not use swears this time to describe this game but its just damn hard...look at this, I spent a whole damn page and did not get to anything else T_T.
Ok I guess I can say some positives before I bash it further with a tack hammer. The graphics as always excel in a Final Fantasy game with amazing hair, clothing and facial effects. The water looks like actual water and even the NPCs have detail. One of the cooler things are these little buggers.
Sheep
These wittle bitty things are the cutest cuddliest thing to ever be introduced since the moogle! I just want to buy a plush so I can hug the widdle guy to death! Aw it said meh!
FAN SLAP!!!!
Ryder: GET THE FUCK BACK TO WORK!!!
...crazy bitch
FAN SLAP!!!
Ryder: I HEARD THAT!!!
FINE!
Dammit! Never go into work with your alternate universe self, especially if said self is more macho than you.
Anyway the graphics. The summons in this game are much more detailed as Alexander looks like Optimus Prime...no joke. I was making jokes about summons with a friend and sadly I think that someone at Square is watching too much Transformers. The Summons transform into cars and bikes and freakin walls!
...no joke Alexander turns into a damn wall with guns! Imagine if Ramuh transformed into Raiden from Mortal Kombat...That would be bad ass!. The most redundant is Bahumut turning into what I still cannot believe...the blue eyes white dragon...no joke. Before any Yu gi oh fans email me I dun care. Another thing is the cut scenes are well designed and do well conveying the story and before anyone ask I did notice a bit of a change going from PS3 to 360 but its mostly resolution differences.
The graphics do have some problems with load times in certain areas which are normal in final fantasy but these are way longer than even FFVII's world map load times and since there is no world map there is no excuse in this case for it. Another thing is frame bleeding as I see white spots in mountains, streets, and even sometimes monsters. I'm gonna basically chalk it up to the 360 but if I end up reviewing the ps3 version if I see it I will bring it up
The sound is amazing. The boss battle alone is worth the price and the new chocobo theme is upbeat and colorful. Each track is an amazing throwback to old school FF with both rock guitar and classical symphonies that sound as epic as ever.
Now the Controls...ok.
Ok to the battle system. The meat in the JRPG BLT UC. The battle systems of old have been replaced with the paradigm system which is a throwback once again to ye olde final fantasy but is also something that was brought over from FFX-2 that I thought if done well could work and this is an example of how not and how to do it right.
The Right ^-0
Being able to switch teams of paradigms is easy with a touch of a button. The basic roles are
Ravager (Black Mage)
Commando (Fighter/Black Belt)
Synergist (Support Magic)
Saboteur (Debuff magic)
Medic (White Mage)
Sentinel (Tank)
I have no way of determining how many awesome combos can be made from this system but its big. The Characters are AI controlled and they show basic survival instincts and when you scan an enemy they adapt to said enemy with there paradigm. So for Example you have an enemy with a weakness to both fire and physical attacks, the Synergist would buff you up to inflict fire damage along with your added on buffs, while the saboteur would debuff said enemy to take more fire damage and more physical damage.
This leads to situations that could make the hardest battles seemingly easy as hell. These could also turn the tides of battles as well. Leveling up has been replaced with the crystarium. A throwback to the Sphere grid of FFX. For every battle won you gain crystal points which are used to upgrade your stats, earn spells, and techs for use in battle. You also use the crystarium to level up your paradigm roles which adds more to the grid to upgrade.
Sadly, this also gas a double edge to this sword as getting points is extremely annoying and finding areas to grind the extreme amount of points needed for the final parts of the crystarium is fucking annoying. Its made worse by the fact that most enemies even the most highest are only 5000, and thats enemies I have faced so far that are not boss based.
This is also bundled with the weird difficult curve which can range from ungodly hard to insultingly easy. The last boss in particular is easy once you get a basic buff/debuff/ravaging combo down. Sometimes this gets really annoying as before the boss battle you fight monsters that should have been fighting as bosses. Some enemies can auto cast buffs right away as battles start which is the games way of basically telling me to piss off I believe.
Also why does the game explain how to upgrade weapons and items but not to tell me what crystals and stones do so I know after a item reaches * level I can upgrade it to the next part? On top of that there is only accessory slots. No armor slot, no helmet, no bracer, no nothing but accessories to rely on making the characters stronger. This is made worse as you need to upgrade the crystarium to get more than 1 slot! This is made even more monotonous as sometimes the accessories are bloody useless! Why do I need some of these useless things. I never once needed a elemental bracelet. Even fighting enemies that had said elemental status of ice, fire etc.
These seem stupid to gripe on but I'm not done at all yet. Although some areas LOOK big the game is extremely linear and has very little in the terms of exploration. Most exploration cannot be done until disc 3 and thats about 20-25 hours of gameplay and even then its only in places on disc 3. Why can't I go back to the amusement park, the junk yard, or any other places? Why can I only go back to the village, the tower, Eden and the big ass field area. Despite adding missions near the end why praytell is this game such a huge step back from Final Fantasy XIII?
FFXII featured an almost MMO style of game with missions being able to be taken right from the get go, vast areas to explore, decent character customization that rewarded thinking outside the box, an easy leveling up system with the license system which meant you could make decisions on how a characters role was defined, A great battle system with AI controlled partners that could use items and best off if the character you control got knocked out you switched over to another character.
That's the kiss of death in this game. The 2 things that KILL this game getting any chance of a buy rating. The fact that no matter what...NONE OF MY AI CONTROLLED CHARACTERS CAN USE ANY ITEMS, AND IF I DIE THE GAMES OVER!
Why?
What stupid idiot coded the game to do that? This is unforgivable. You do not do this! If you make AI controlled partners you give them item use! Sorry to steal from the Angry Video Game Nerd AKA James Rolfe but this is SHIT SAUCE! This is megaman X6 levels of doucebaggery.
These are just many of the reason why this game will not be getting any game of the year awards even if released in 2011. Yahtzee gave this his no.4 worst game of the year but it won't go that far from me. For me this game is that certain type of rushed out. Its not rushed enough to be bad but it was not tested enough to be good. It does not feel like a final fantasy game. It feels like it should have been its own game rather than an entry into this series.
MY rating for this game is broken into 2 parts. The non fans and the fans.
For fans: Try
Its worth a look but true fans already bought this and are disappointed.
For non fans:Rent or avoid
If you wanna try a different RPG then check this out otherwise avoid like its my Calling review all over again.
Spends his nights before the advent of a crisis
David Phillips
IF you hate me why bother?
gamefanstv@yahoo.com
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Originally Posted by riderpool
