Forum - View topicGAME: Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning Returns
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everydaygamer
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Apparently this game is pretty challenging. Some sites have recommended playing on easy for a first play through since it allows more flexibility.
I'm renting it and even though I'm playing bravely default i plan to take some time to play through this game. |
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Barbobot
 Posts: 460 |
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The thing about X-2 though is the dress sphere and combat system were by far the best thing about the game and was the only thing that made me like that game cause the story was complete crap. |
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Juno016
 Posts: 2386 |
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I'm not sure about comparisons to FFX/X-2, but one of the noted problems with XII that you hated come from the fact that it had been planned as an online RPG, just like XI. As such, XIV plays more like it, though slightly better in pacing and with a more fitting setting and such, considering they actually made it an online RPG. Near the end of its stages, XII was quickly re-organized into a single-player game, but the issues you mentioned were left over from its online RPG foundation, and now it's known for how much it drags. XIII and its sequels aren't known for the best plot (I personally found the character building to be the best part of the first game, though after each character is "built," they sorta never get built again--that, and the setting was a lot of fun to get involved in, even if the story sorta tosses it every sequel installment). But in terms of gameplay, while I've yet to get really involved with XIII-2 yet, the first game at least has no side quests. You will not be waiting forever for the story to progress, and unlike many FF's of the past, you will not get lost, considering the map is... like this review said, a straight line. All side routes lead to the same place or go just a little further up to collect an item before turning around and going back along the same path forward. You don't have to worry about it dragging in that manner (personally, I suck at open-world stuff, so the linear map was more of a godsend than a game-breaker for me). The world most definitely looks absolutely beautiful on the PS3, if you care about it (I'd stop and just look around at each new area after clearing out a bunch of enemies). And the Japanese voice acting was pretty superb (unfortunately, you're likely playing the English version, and I've seen the entire stream of cutscenes--most character voices are fine, but a select few characters I loved the most in Japanese suddenly sound like they're trying too hard and end up pretty annoying... Vanille, especially, considering she can't even voice her accent properly...). In the end, it may or may not be worth it, but at the very least, XIII is NOTHING like XII AT ALL. I don't think we'll see another mess up like that again. XIV certainly has those same elements, but since they actually went through with turning the game into an actual online RPG, the elements make sense (I wish I could afford to play the game monthly, but it would take me forever to progress through it, so I can't justify the money spent...). And the upcoming FFXV is going to be more like Kingdom Hearts in gameplay, despite being a FF story, so I HIGHLY doubt it will share any negative elements with XII. In the end, I'll leave you to judge. |
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EverEndingStory
Posts: 4 |
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I just had to reply to this - Final Fantasy XII was not started as an online RPG. Even though it wasn't released until 2006, FF XII started development in 2000, not even a year after they started developing Final Fantasy XI, and two years before that game even came out - Square Enix would not put two online RPGs in development at the same time, especially considering this was pre-World of Warcraft days, and online RPGs were more of a risk and experiment. Final Fantasy XII's battle system actually came from a concept for Final Fantasy X's battle system. If you read the production notes on FFX, the designers talk about the initial plans for the battle system, and what they describe is very similar to what we got in FFXII. They wanted a battle system that allowed for seamless transition from exploration to battle, with enemies appearing on the world map, and for a less hands-on approach to part management. They weren't able to implement it because they didn't have time, so that battle system was used for Final Fantasy XII. Also, all the things you hate about FFXII's battle system - the red lines, the gambit system, even the fact that everything moves in real-time - those can all be turned off, and it can be played exactly like a traditional FF fantasy.
If you dislike FFXII for making them game play itself, you'll hate FFXIII even more. It has an autobattle function - and for most of the game you won't need to use anything else (except the Paradigm shifting - if you don't know what that is, it is very similar to the changing of dressspheres in FFX-2 - honestly, the simplest way to describe FFXIII's battle system is: take FFX-2 battle system, but now you only have six dresspheres/classes to choose from, and make the actual command selection automatic so that the only input you have to do is to change the parties dresspheres, and there you have it). |
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Juno016
Posts: 2386 |
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What you say after this, about FFX's battle system and the change seems to be true, but I'll back up my assertion about FXII being started as an online game with a source:
I remember when the game was being developed and it was announced as a potential online game and the fans FREAKED. In Japan, at least. And then it was officially announced as a single-player game. Of course, the game is highly polarized in terms of reception (it's a great game, but it has some pretty game-breaking annoyances that hurt it), but I disliked the online-RPG pacing for much of the beginning (it gets better, but it took me about a year of on and off gaming to finally pass that point before I finally noticed better progress and decided to marathon the rest of the game). XIII still took me about 2 years to beat, though that one was mostly because I had issues trying to find time to play it... |
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CrownKlown
 Posts: 1762 |
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I honestly don't know what you people are getting upset about. You can go to wiki which has links to meta-critic score for this game. Metacritic compiles the reviews of multiple sources, generally the most well known ones, so they are not cherry picking, and gives you a fairly reasonable assessment of where the game really stands.
For this game, combined between the 360 and ps3, there is an average score of about 68 from over 50 plus critics, and the users scores are not much better. Additionally, you can do the same thing with FF 13-1 and 13-2. Objectively speaking, this game has fared far worse than the first two and has one of the lowest scores of any FF title. Therefore, a score of A- seems to be noticeably above the average score for this game, so I am merely telling folks to not rely on this as a sole indicator of how good this game is. In a statistical scenario this would be called an outlier, and would either be thrown out at minimum viewed in a different manner. Also to those complaining how I am quantifying a game based on a number, that is what the reviewer does by assigning it a letter grade. The difference between number and letters is semantics, and apparently this ultimate judgement holds value to the reviewer otherwise he would not even bother. The text of the review is merely evidence/support the reviewer gives for his conclusion, in this case a letter grade. And at the gentleman who questioned my reading comprehension, its just fine. Also regarding Famitisu, I pointed that out because that was one of the other review sites that gave the game a very high score, and in all likelihood one that would be used in defense of this review. So I merely pointed out that Famitisu is slanted towards a JRPG bias, in a similar manner I will not dispute that western sites are biased towards FPS games. Just a couple of examples Last Rebellion - holds a 44 percent rating on metacritic Famitisu - 7/6/6/5 - avg 60 percent Time and Eternity - holds a 42 on metacritic and a 44 on gameranking; Famitisu - 9/8/8/7 - avg 80 percent Unlimited Saga - 52 on game rankings Famitisu 31/40 ~ 78 avg These are just a few examples that I picked out, but most jrpgs fans would probably have heard of these and probably heard or experienced how bad they are, and the Famitisu score even for these tends to be a lot higher than the avg. Look at the end of the day, this review will sway you go for it, the reviewer has his opinion, other people have theirs. I simply think multiple opinion, like aggregation sites give you a better understanding. |
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Niello
Posts: 302 |
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...And how exactly did you managed to come to a conclusion that the letter grade is more important than that wall of text? |
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daveriley
 Posts: 117 Location: Philadelphia |
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Ranma824
 Posts: 456 |
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Between currently playing Bravely Default, still haven't finished ToX, putting in an order for the Drakengard 3 CE, and Dark Souls 2 coming in a month; it looks like it would be a good idea to wait for the price drop on LR.
I am looking forward to it once I do buy it. I'm one of those that loved XIII, but didn't care that much for XIII-2. |
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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EverEnding Story did a good job explaining the combat system of FF13 in relation to 12 so I won't go over it anymore (but yes the game play itself, combats are no more than cutscene). The story of FF13 is fairly weird, it's plot is completely linear and there are no side quest or anything distracting you from the main storyline, which it seems like you'd like. But, and this is a massive but, you could literally cut the middle 20 hour out of the game and the story would be unaffected, most of the story is the character wandering aimlessly and nothing is achieved during that time, the character have many conversation with each others, but there all essentially the same conversation repeated, so seeing it one time or 10 time doesn't change anything. I'd love to recommend a console JRPG for this generation if you're looking to get back into it, but this generation was particularly poor for JRPG, so I got nothing. FF15 should be good if you like KH so there's that. FF14 is an mmorpg, it has the standard wow-like mmorpg combat. |
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Chrno2
 Posts: 6171 Location: USA |
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Well, don't be surprised if some of the mythos from XIII shows up in XV since notes state they are connected in some way. I wonder if this is the way the new FF games are going to go now. Several games covering a larger story. FFX and X-2, can't say X-2 was successful. But XIII is a "better" example of that and does a somewhat better job. Theyv'e done this before with XII and the FFTA universe, but is this something we are going to see now? |
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Beltane70
 Posts: 3885 |
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I got the game yesterday and I'm actually finding it to be the hardest Final Fantasy game that I've played. After about 12 hours of play, I can definitely see why it was recommended to play it on easy first. As an avid RPG player, I went right to normal. Even with the difficulty of normal, I don't plan on quitting it anytime soon.
This will be the first FF game that I won't be able to overkill by grinding since the time limit makes it pretty much impossible to do so. |
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Rahxephon91
 Posts: 1859 Location: Park Forest IL. |
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I like the arguing about reviews. Of course reviews are fine when they help you're point. The moment they don't I'm sure it will be back to "the western media has it out/bias against Japanese games".
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Nettacki
Posts: 2 |
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Funny thing about Vanille: her English voice actress is an actual Aussie, so she's really talking in her natural accent. Therefore, maybe it's not her accent that's the problem, but rather people's expectations of what an Aussie accent is supposed to sound like. This is, of course, assuming that both her and Fang were supposed to sound like Aussies. |
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kazume
Posts: 129 |
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KH went "over the console cliff" after part II, their last great relevant game in the series with all them unnecessary spin-offs... (okay, BBS wasn't too bad, glad we're getting a 2.5 version to perfect a good game, but that's Another Story") |
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