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| Final Fantasy XIII review; Read it you must. | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Apr 27 2010, 11:12 PM (366 Views) | |
| Gumdrop | Apr 27 2010, 11:12 PM Post #1 |
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Cute Snugglepuffs
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There seems to be a lot of Final Fantasy reviews here so I thought I'd add one for the latest installment, I was surprised that there wasn't one already! I've a lot to say about this game but I'll try to make this so it isn't a huge wall of text First o' all I have to say this game is like a damn yo-yo, what I mean is it goes from bad to good and back a fair bit and my views on it changed a lot as I played through and again when I played through it for a second time for my 100% trophies. The start.. (the ugly parts) The game starts off with VERY bad writing. it dumps you into the thick of it, the characters jibber on about things and there's NO way in hell you can know what the heck their on about until much later, you keep thinking that in a moment they will explain but NOES they don't bother for waaay too long. To add to the frustration you have this dope bragging on about him and his posse are heroes, that word is used faaaaar too much in this game. What were they trying to do exactly with this? Appeal to 13 year olds? I dunno.. Not to mention the Data Log..urgh..its supposed to explain all the things that their on about but when I read through the entries (which gets very boring fast) I can't say it helped :/ and what on Earth is that? Your giving us the footnotes because you couldn't be bothered to write the story properly or what? Isn't that a bit like going to see a play then being given a sheet of paper explaining it so you can read as the play goes along just so you understand it? I dunno but it seems very wrong either way. The bad thing about combat at the start is you can't change who your party leader is and you can't change who's in your party either nor can you do so for a long time and a lot of players will understandably feel frustrated by this sine if your party leader dies then its game over! (The good parts) Now it might sound like I hated the start of the game, but no. I didn't. actually I thought whilst it wasn't anything spectacular it was actually a lot more enjoyable than I expected it to be. Some folk complain it was slow and there were too many scenes but I enjoyed the pacing of the game until right at the end, but we'll get to that later. The first four, or five hours (I think it was) were SUPER easy, but in a good way becuase the combat was enjoyable and it looked good. The graphics of this game from start to finish are drop-dead gorgeous!! You think that you're prepared for them from everybody saying the same things and the screens/trailers being very pretty, but those cannot prepare you for the beauty of this game on the PS3 paired with a nice HD TV. You will break your console from all the drool I hated on the story a fair bit before even though in truth, despite the glaring flaws the scenes, they were frequently enjoyable to me after the first two hours. A few hours in - middle (the bad) Remember how I said the combat was fun? Well you might be forgetting about that by this point becuase this game just got nasty, really nasty and seemingly out of the blue. Suddenly you don't feel so relaxed on those random encounters. Suddenly your getting into trouble if you don't pay attention all the time. I think the main problem with this for me was it really did come out of the blue..I read they wanted you to ease you into this supposedly complex system but rather than feeling eased into it I felt lured into a false sense of security and cheated on Honestly, it isn't that hard at all when you figure out the best setup to play through as and realize that you must change jobs during combat on regular encounters for most fights from now on. Oh, thats another thing though isn't it? you feel pretty much forced to use the same group always since the game is way easier with them but at the end of the game their not that different from each other really power wise (a bit like X end game but not as extreme). On the other hand though they do all have their own special move which when used right makes them good for different fights so you do find yourself swapping people in and out..however this leads to one of my least problems with the game! And that's how you can't save how you set the jobs up so every time you swap a character in you have to re-do everything! Very annoying! (the good) The character development. The character development to me in this game was so good that I didn't notice the lack of plot advance at all first time though. Honestly most of the scenes are just getting to know the characters better But I love character development so it was win-win and a very enjoyable section of the game for me, i looked fowards to every chatty bit You can really see with this game that they made an effort to steer clear of the usual RPG bits and bobs and go for something brand spanking new But they didn't change it so much that it didn't feel like a FF game at the same time.SEXUAL Harassment Panda? Where are you!? I wasn't sure if I should put this in the good or the bad or if I should make a whole new section for this Anyways this game gets crazy sexual, you can practically feel the sexual energy of the devs going crazy as they made this section of the game :p I mean from the start Lightning is always making these "come get me" poses, but suddenly as soon as Fang shows up its like they couldn't stop themselves anymore Seriously. I wondered why this game was..erm..frustrating in that way first time through but second time when I had time to look more at what was going on and could afford to listen less I could see why. The end section (the bad) Oh, dear Lawrd. What was that? It was almost as bad as the end section of FFXII! [minor spoiler?] The big bad guy doesn't show up until waaaaay late into the game so you couldn't care less about him and hes REALLY boring. A bit like a fly you can't seem to swat, he'll buzz in your ear every now and then and just seem like no more than a pest. [end minor spoiler] By the end the story seems to have just crawled off somewhere and died, or at least it was hard to care about it for me, I did at least still care about the characters so that was good. The end boss was a wuss face and he looked stupid as hell (the good) Loved the ending. It was pretty predictable in one way but there was a big suprise + the symbolisum was enjoyable. Woot! End game End game was pretty suck. There were no hidden uber bosses just about 64 pretty boring missions. Yeah, some missions were medley challenging, but nothing really badass =/ Found end game to be little more than a boring grind which I ended up doing whilst on my exercise bike becuase that was the only way I could bare, or even justify doing it to myself. So end game was pretty disappointing. The game does have a fair bit of replay value, but mostly becuase it feels good to go back and understand from the start what everybody is on about. I give this game... *drum roll* Gameplay - good for the most part, but major points down for being rude and getting hard out of the blue. And more points down for the time spent (WASTED) just faffing on with changing the characters jobs. 7.9/10 Music - I love the music in this game! I very much enjoyed the background songs becuase of their cute lyrics and fun tunes. But, there were the usual stock of bland tracks too so some points down there. 8/10 Story - What story? Just kidding :p I can't say I cared about the story exactly but I did care about the characters so it wasn't a total fail. 6/10 Graphics - zomg these are amazing!?!? Best looking console game by a long shot in my view! Marked down a bit for the odd ugly flaw. 9/10 I GIVE THIS GAME SEVEN GUMDROPS OUT OF TEN!! Hardly the best game ever but defiantly still worth a playthrough for any phat Final Fantasy fan. Normal people and highly critical people may wish to avoid. If you played the game already you may enjoy this video http://www.gametrailers.com/video/gdc-10-final-fantasy/62833 Edited by Gumdrop, Apr 28 2010, 08:02 PM.
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| Fayt | Apr 28 2010, 07:36 PM Post #2 |
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Easy wins have never been my style
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Nice review, perhaps not as high as you'd expect for a Final Fantasy title, but I can't say I'm surprised, I've felt that the series has been sliding a bit as it aged. I'll probably end up getting this at some stage, although not in the short term, not enough gaming time to start anything new right now. |
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| Gumdrop | Apr 28 2010, 07:59 PM Post #3 |
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Cute Snugglepuffs
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It probably means you will like it a lot though because of the fact we seem to have such different tastes :p I don't think it's a bad game, as I think I said but defiantly not that brilliant. They obviously put a lot of time into it and tried many new things, I think it's probably the most polished game I ever played. Even the look of the menus has an awful lot of TLC compared to usual. Forgot to mention one of the other things about this game I take issue with which is the way you increase your stats. You have this thing that kinda reminds me of the Sphere Grid except it branches upwards into different towers for different jobs. It looks all shiny (again with the polish) but it sucks..:) at first it looks like you'll get plenty of choice with it later on but its the most linear thing ever so I dunno why they didn't just level you up like normal :/ Don't actually mind how linear the chapters are until ch11 but do think their new stat-up system is annoying becuase it seems like they just made it for the sake of being different but at the same time couldn't think of what to do with it/or couldn't be arsed. Despite all its flaws I did enjoy it enough to play it twice. Cheers, for reading
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| Fayt | Apr 28 2010, 08:04 PM Post #4 |
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Easy wins have never been my style
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I kind of like unique variants of the typical 'level up' procedure. I'd be quite happy with this by the sounds of it, I liked the Sphere Grid! |
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| Gumdrop | Apr 28 2010, 08:09 PM Post #5 |
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Cute Snugglepuffs
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I like the sphere grid too, but just can't see the point of this thing when it has so little choice :/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozn-6eC6T4E There is the odd branch out, but you're hardly gonna skip anything as you go up since later anybody can be anything. But at least everybody does have a unique special move of their own so do approve of that. |
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But they didn't change it so much that it didn't feel like a FF game at the same time.



7:00 PM Jul 11