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animehermit wrote:

Honestly Squeenix should just give Final Fantasy to one of there other in-house developers and let them have a go at it. Get the guys behind Deus Ex: HR to make the next final fantasy game. It can't possibly damage their reputation more than XIII and XIV did.

x_x Dear God No. The day FF becomes a WRPG is the day I stop playing the franchise. Deus Ex was horrible and just another 'fps with level up mechanics' that a lot of WRPGs seem to be these days like Mass Effect, Alpha Protocol, and the Fallout series. FFXIII was fine dude, stop being so angry over it. Plenty of people liked it, and hell, it was just like FFX with it's forced linearity and lack of world map. Seems in line with other FFs to me.

XIII was a terrible game, and you don't have to go far to find people like me who hated it. A lot of people didn't like it, and for good reason.

X wasn't quite as linear as this is. It also had a really well told story that did a lot of world building and slowly introduced the concepts behind the world. On top of that, it's combat did some really interesting things that added a lot more depth.

And if you really think Deus Ex: HR was terrible you need to have your head examined. It's not a perfect game, but it was a great deal better than XIII was.

Last edited by Rahxephon91 on Fri Feb 08, 2013 7:10 pm; edited 1 time in total

@animehermit

FF has always been pretty linear. XIII's extreme linear nature may have been much, but it's not unheard of. 4, 10, 7,8,9 all pretty linear, the appreance of a world map doesn't change the fact that these games aren't really that open. Either way, since 4 the series has been closely tied to it's story. XIII stays true to that aspect of FF. With X being the most linear before XIII. You say X wasn't as linear as XIII. I don't think so. The only real difference is that X had towns and even then the towns were small and only important because of story reasons. You really had no reason to go to them after that, nor did the game really want you to. Outside of that x and XIII pretty much have the same kind of level design.

FF has always been pretty easy and quite honestly XIII in it's later half is probably the most challenging of the post SNES FF. I honestly don't understand peoples problem with the battle system since it's very fun and cuts out the crap of past FFs. X-2 is about the only one that's anywhere as fast paced, but even then it doesn't have the tension aspect where really battles can turn on you any moment. I think XIII's battle system is great, the real complaint is that it only rewards offense and that defense isn't really a thing. You say it's just pressing X, I don't agree, but either way it's not like most FF's can't be beaten by just pressing the x to attack with a few heals here and there. 6, 7, and X ,the most popular FFs, are pretty much the easiest ones.

You say the plot is confusing. I'm not sure how. It's a pretty simple fighting against fate story with some strange foreign words thrown in. Did people not pay attention to the story? Bad and stupid? Maybe? But it's not that confusing, I mean did 7 or 8's confuse you? It was a pretty simple story with the most obvious themes ever.

But either way, game structure dosen't really change what I said. FFXIII still looks and feels like a FF game. Quality wise be damn, I doubt a western FF would. I never said it would be bad.

@Crispy45

Um, no. Deus Ex was anything but a FPS with level up stuff. You actually develop your character the way you want, sometimes to the point where guns aren't what you use and your play-style and how you use the environment changes. It can be a stealth game or you can use dialogue in many situations, or just shoot people. But it matters how you develop your character. If that doesn't sound like an actual rpg I don't know what you want. So I'm not sure how it was a terrible game.

[EDIT: Use the Edit button. Do not post consecutive posts per reply. -TK]

I don't think he's actually played it if the only knowledge he has of Deus Ex is face value (the common public perception of something at a glance), which is very naive because that is like saying FF is nothing except hours of level grinding to defeat the final boss. Then again, Crispy has a history of intolerance of anything remotely Western, so that doesn't surprise me.

@Rahxephon91

You have a point, but I'd like to clarify that those games felt more open than XIII does. I would actually prefer something like in Deus Ex, where it's linear but you are given room to explore.

The story frontloads you with terms you don't know and doesn't take time to explain a anything. What the hell is pulse? What's a l'ce? What the hell is cocoon? I was 10 hours in and still had no idea what the hell anyone was talking about. X would have had the same issue if Tidus wasn't the self-insert character. The audience knows little about the world, and so does Tidus, we learn through him.

The battle system: My complaint wasn't that it was too easy, it was that it lacked depth and was often frustrating. I didn't really feel like I was in control of the characters, more like guiding their actions to fight rather than controlling a party or a single character.

I think that it would be interesting to give a western developer a shot at it. Doesn't have to be a main series entry, a spin-off will do. People in the west grew up with Final Fantasy as well, I think there could be someone to get it right.

animehermit wrote:

XIII was a terrible game, and you don't have to go far to find people like me who hated it. A lot of people didn't like it, and for good reason.

"XIII was a great game, and you don't have to go far to find people like me who loved it. A lot of people loved it, and for good reason."

>_> Any argument that can be turned around on itself is a very flawed one.

Quote:

X wasn't quite as linear as this is. It also had a really well told story that did a lot of world building and slowly introduced the concepts behind the world. On top of that, it's combat did some really interesting things that added a lot more depth.

So it's just like XIII then. Just because you didn't pay attention and know what Pulse or other terms were when they revealed the world to you isn't the games fault. Plenty of people got it just fine

Quote:

And if you really think Deus Ex: HR was terrible you need to have your head examined. It's not a perfect game, but it was a great deal better than XIII was.

Nah. There's far more articulate people than me who've torn the game to shreds, but just to go over some basics: Broken skill/XP system, mandatory boss fights, terrible 'choice' system especially the ending that is basically 'press button to get this ending' which seems to be a common theme these days. x_x Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines did everything it did, but better and also 8 years earlier. There's no way I want those people behind a Final Fantasy game. XIII was leagues better designed and constructed.

Quote:

I don't think he's actually played it if the only knowledge he has of Deus Ex is face value (the common public perception of something at a glance), which is very naive because that is like saying FF is nothing except hours of level grinding to defeat the final boss. Then again, Crispy has a history of intolerance of anything remotely Western, so that doesn't surprise me.

"He didn't like it so that means he didn't play it"

Disliking a western game =\= intolerance to anything remotely Western. Stop being so defensive and taking someone disliking a game as a personal attack against your entire nation -_-

Crispy45 wrote:

>_> Any argument that can be turned around on itself is a very flawed one.

Guess you should probably not use that circular argument too, even if you replace "love" with "hate".

Crispy45 wrote:

Nah. There's far more articulate people than me who've torn the game to shreds, but just to go over some basics: Broken skill/XP system, mandatory boss fights, terrible 'choice' system especially the ending that is basically 'press button to get this ending'. x_x Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines did everything it did, but better 8 years earlier.

I'm sorry. I guess everyone at metacritic must universally think the exact same thing your "critics" say. Oh wait...

Crispy45 wrote:

Disliking a western game =\= intolerance to anything remotely Western. Stop being so defensive and taking someone disliking a game as a personal attack against your entire nation -_-

Looks like I'm not the only one making assumptions. What exactly make you think you know where I live? Laughing

@animehermi

FFXIII is probably the most linear FF, I won't argue that. But I will say that since I liked X it didn't bother me. Really X outside of having towns is pretty much the same. They both even have there "open area" towards the end of the game. I'm sure it would bother plenty of people, but I just didn't see it that way. I don't come to FF for big explorable worlds honestly, I come for cool strange worlds where I feel like I'm going on an adventure. XIII was kind of weak in this regard, but not a complete failure.

Would I like bigger worlds like FFXII and Xenoblade, yeah that would be cool, but I still would like them to be as linear as those games. I like having a straight forward direction to follow and not be thrown tons and tons of sidequests and other stuff. I like playing through a focused story mode and FF is usually good at that.

You're right that in X you have Tidus and that allows the story to be naturally introduced. X's story is a lot better and even better told then XIII's. I won't argue that XIII's story isn't a bit messy and things aren't explained and I guess the game expects you to just read the codex. But on the flip side I think it's pretty easy to understand the terms through context. The sad thing here is the premise is actually clever and very FF, well FF in reverse. It's the crystal's chose the warriors story, but twisted. The crystals(backed by cruel gods) are dicks who chose the warriors and make the damned if they do or don't. Through in some topical issues like religion and terrorism and stuff and you have a very cool premise. I don't think the game at all capitalizes on it, but I like the ideas the game presented and I guess that's why I enjoyed it.

As for the battle system. I guess you can argue about it's lack of depth, but I'm no expert and don't quite understand how you measure depth. I think the game really only rewards fast offensive play. But I like it. Switching from defense to quickly heal or debuff and then quickly switching back to offensives to keep the break gauge going feels tense and has an aspect of timing, in this I think the battle system feels pretty involved. I liked managing my paradigms, it felt like honest party management, since through most of the game characters can really only excel at certain jobs so party makeup matters. I also think the jobs in XIII actually matter as does buffs and debuffs. More then most other FF's. I think the combat is pretty fun myself. See I thought I was controlling the entire party since I set what they could do. I think having characters switch jobs and then being only to do those job's abilities was smart, because then the AI has no choice to either heal, use magic, or defend. I think that made the ai pretty much un-frustrating.

I mean a western FF would of course be interesting and there's no real reason it shouldn't happen. But I just like my Japanese looking and sounding rpgs and don't need a FF thats western. There's not real specific reason.

You are right about X, I've been struggling to put into words why X is a good game while XIII is not. Part of it is the plot, I shouldn't have to read a codex to find out what's going on. I think it's more than that though, I think it's the time these games were released in. X seemed interesting at the time because of it's plot, character and fun battle system, but that was more than 10 years ago now. We expect different things today, and it seems like Square Enix hasn't caught up with the times. Like they live in this bubble where they still make the best games.

Nobody in the west wants another game in the XIII universe, nobody cares at this point. I want an evolution on mechanics that made the series great, not a retread (although it appears they are doing this for XIII-3, but I fear it's too little too late). We went from big open world with no separate battle screen, with all sorts of complex abilities and enemies. To a hallway where sometimes you have hit r1 and change what class you use. It seemed like every battle felt like the exact same thing, wail on dude till he gets staggered, then switch to higher damaging paradigm, while occasionally switching to a healing one when your HP gets low. It's boring and it lacks any kind of complexity. It didn't even matter what abilities did what, all you needed to do was use auto battle and the game would automatically pick the best abilities for a given situation.

On the openness and nonlinearity: I actually agree, I think it should be open to a point but not too open. I think if were left wondering where we are supposed to be going, then it's too open. For the record I don't like open world games that much, I don't care for skyrim or the TES series all that much. I think if you go too open world, then it's hard to tell a compelling story. As a side note, I really hate the generalization that all western RPGs are open world games like skyrim.

Deus Ex: HR and the later end of the Bioware stuff (from KOTOR onward actually) strike a really nice balance of linearity while not feeling like a hallway (although Mass Effect 2 did a bit, but you could argue that was an intentional theming device). In those games, and in earlier FF's even though you could only go in one direction, it felt like you were making a choice.

animehermit wrote:

Honestly Squeenix should just give Final Fantasy to one of there other in-house developers and let them have a go at it. Get the guys behind Deus Ex: HR to make the next final fantasy game. It can't possibly damage their reputation more than XIII and XIV did.

Despite what some gamers might think, not every game needs to be a shooter to be good. Besides, Japan didn't like DE:HM so I doubt that will ever happen. There's no way they would do that to their cash cow franchise. On a personal level, I enjoyed XIII a heck of a lot more, so I hope that never happens.

ninjaclown wrote:

I'm sorry. I guess everyone at metacritic must universally think the exact same thing your "critics" say. Oh wait...

Metacritic is a terrible site and you should be ashamed of using it, but you seemed to forget most "critics" praised XIII so I'm not sure what point you were trying to make by using them. American sites might hate JRPGs/anime as a general rule, but XIII was one of the few that somehow slipped by without being bashed.

Rahxephon91 wrote:

I mean a western FF would of course be interesting and there's no real reason it shouldn't happen. But I just like my Japanese looking and sounding rpgs and don't need a FF thats western. There's not real specific reason.

XII is the closest you'll probably get to in a Western FF game, and given how poorly XII was received and sold compared to the previous X and the following XIII, I don't think they'll try that again. I thought it was okay, but I definitely enjoyed other FF games a lot more.

TitanXL wrote:

Despite what some gamers might think, not every game needs to be a shooter to be good. Besides, Japan didn't like DE:HM so I doubt that will ever happen. There's no way they would do that to their cash cow franchise. On a personal level, I enjoyed XIII a heck of a lot more, so I hope that never happens.

My favorite game! TitanXL makes an assumption about western games and gamers! Despite the fact that I never even even implied what you thought I did.

Pardon? I didn't say anything about "western games and gamers", I said "some gamers". And not just one post above you said "Nobody in the west wants another game in the XIII universe, nobody cares at this point." which sounds more like an assumption on western games to me.

Cleaned up the quotes for now. Any further violations past this point will be deleted.

Tough tits!

TitanXL wrote:

Pardon? I didn't say anything about "western games and gamers", I said "some gamers". And not just one post above you said "Nobody in the west wants another game in the XIII universe, nobody cares at this point." which sounds more like an assumption on western games to me.

It's true that no one cares at this point. Go look at any comments section of any gaming site with any news related to this game. A whole lot of people just aren't interested anymore. Hell, even the subreddit dedicated to final fantasy is lukewarm to the whole franchise.

Also, I didn't mention shooters at all, it was an assumption made by you.

TitanXL wrote:

Metacritic is a terrible site and you should be ashamed of using it, but you seemed to forget most "critics" praised XIII so I'm not sure what point you were trying to make by using them. American sites might hate JRPGs/anime as a general rule, but XIII was one of the few that somehow slipped by without being bashed.

Here we go. "Don't trust that collective group of critics, go to this other collective of critic(s) who somehow have more credibility". Whatever your critics say, eventually people will start disagreeing with them and they'll move on to some other critic(s), and so on. It happened to Rotten Tomatoes, it happened to Politifact, it'll happen to whatever site you deem superior to Metacritic.

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