FINAL FANTASY XIII

[Sagacious-T]

Picked this up again and holy shit. The entire game is a giant dungeon crawl with some pretty cutscenes mixed in. All they had to do was throw in some nice exploration bits and some towns and variety.. ugh

[Eusis]

Or a dungeon crawl that was interesting to explore. Think about how, say, Vagrant Story is entirely a dungeon with a few safe rooms to save and mess with your equipment, yet the entire city really was a labyrinth. In contrast, FFXIII covers more areas but is... well, a tube.

[Uru]

Lost Odyssey had those touching little short stories in the form of Dreams. So that gives it a little edge over FFXIII for me.

Otherwise they both are on the same level for me.

I dont count those stories. Wanna know why they were so well written, cause Sakaguchi didnt write them.

[Kevadu]

Or a dungeon crawl that was interesting to explore. Think about how, say, Vagrant Story is entirely a dungeon with a few safe rooms to save and mess with your equipment, yet the entire city really was a labyrinth. In contrast, FFXIII covers more areas but is... well, a tube.

Exactly!  I don't mind a good dungeon crawl at all (in fact I really like them), but good dungeon crawls involve exploration, puzzles, mazes, traps, etc.  FFXIII had none of that.  It may well be the boringest 'dungeon crawl' I've ever seen in an RPG.

[Sagacious-T]

Or a dungeon crawl that was interesting to explore. Think about how, say, Vagrant Story is entirely a dungeon with a few safe rooms to save and mess with your equipment, yet the entire city really was a labyrinth. In contrast, FFXIII covers more areas but is... well, a tube.

Exactly, it's so linear. I don't hate linear games, but when the very path you walk is a straight line..

The game is so poorly connected.It feels like they made the beautiful levels before thinking of how one leads to another. You don't really get a sense of a "connected" world. It's so frustrating playing this, because on one hand you see the gorgeous FMVs and aesthetically pleasing world, then you realize that it's all eye candy.

All the game needs is a bit of fun to break up the repetition of story presentation and combat and it would have easily been an 9.0+ average game. They could have thrown in a part where you come across a survivor's camp. Maybe the player could explore a town under disguise and deal with NPCs. Why not have some revisitable areas, but dungeon and town, where you can unlock deeper side stories. Hell put in a train system in Coccoon where you could go from area to area and perhaps have that feeling of being on the trains in Final Fantasy 7 again. Remember that shit? That was good shit.

The game could have been so much better. This is both the most dazzling and soul crushing game I've ever played.

[Sagacious-T]

Or that resort with Sazh and Vanille. Why not throw in some more fun things to do besides digging through piles of Chocobo droppings? When I first got there, I thought "There ARE cities in this game. Those jerks on RPGfan lied to me".

:(

[Eusis]

Admittedly the story justifies it for the most part, but 1. They probably could've tweaked it in SOME areas to allow it like on Pulse, and 2. this is a video game with substantial gameplay, not a movie. There need to be considerations of what makes for a fun game first, an engaging story second. Only in games like Heavy Rain and Phoenix Wright can you ignore that, and even in the case of at least PHoenix Wright concessions were made for gameplay (or "gameplay" if you want to be snarky).

[Sagacious-T]

Absolutely. RPGs are unique cases where you have to intertwine three parts:

1) The Combat
2) The Story
3) The glue that holds the rest of that shit together

And FF13 my friend, is missing the glue. The little charming things you discover on your own. The feeling of interaction with the world. The exploration, the wonder. Finding out if Lightning, Fang, Vanille, or Sazh gets to go with you on the Golden Saucer. Playing some Blitzball or solving some puzzles on cave walls before going on. Having a fun game of cards and building up your deck. Stopping a purple octopus from ruining an opera performance. Exploring a town and finding things in all the nooks and crannies. Discovering how damn big your college campus is. Dodging lightning 100 times.. okay, we can skip that one.

Does anyone remember all that stuff? The little things. Who remembers turning Cloud into a transvestite? Or reuniting the party in Final Fantasy 6 and finding out how the overworld changed. How about when you fire off the rocket in FF7, or become a paladin in FF4?!

I could rant on forever here.. but damn, the wasted potential is getting me.

[Yggdrasil]

Personally, I'm tired of Final Fantasy. I'm not saying this because I hate Final Fantasy XIII, Nomura, or the way that Square Enix makes his games nowadays (sometimes they make some good stuff, but just *sometimes*).

It's just the fact that, as a series, as a franchise. Final Fantasy can no longer catch my imagination or attention. Hell, the games aren't even fun or interesting to play since Final Fantasy X-2. And I one of those people who enjoyed that game... since then, almost every Final Fantasy game is just boring.

If I want too play some good RPGs nowadays I will pick up some Atlus, Falcom or Bioware games. But Square Enix? Forget it. The last great game to have the Square Enix logo on the box that I've love to death was Dragon Quest VIII, but that game was develop by Level-5 and just published by Square Enix.

Now, maybe The World Ends with You and Nier are the most decent new games that are actually good. But I just give up on playing more shit from them. I guess I'm not alone, right? :(

[Uru]

Now now. Lets not tie Nomura to 13 more than he should be, he designed how the characters look based on what square told him. I remember awhile ago him saying something like, "they wanted me to make a female Cloud, so i did". The reason I say this is cause for me, the last straw is going to be versus. If things go south with that game, i might end up sticking to the games square publishes and not makes.

[Sagacious-T]

Jesus christ the AI is stupid sometimes

hmm I have 300 hp and a lowered attack debuff. And hope fucking casts esuna before healing me.

[Yggdrasil]

Now now. Lets not tie Nomura to 13 more than he should be...

I know how Nomura was involved in Final Fantasy XIII. I don't like Nomura for others reasons that I rather ignore.

Over and out.

[Sagacious-T]

Is there a map for chapter 12 because I am kind of lost

[CDFN]

Is there a map for chapter 12 because I am kind of lost

You probably mean 11. There are lots on the net, I don't have any links though. If you want to progress the plot just follow the arrow on the map, it's always pointing in the direction you're supposed to go.

[Sagacious-T]

I'm trying out these side quests hunts for now, im surprised how open this area is.

Another question: How do you use yellow circles on the floor to jump?