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#127 Jun 13 2013 at 4:23 PM Rating: Good
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Raolan wrote:
I guess all of that stuff comes into play after the 20 hour barrier to entry. I guess if the first 20 hours weren't pure crap I would have enjoyed it, but despite forcing myself to sit down and play it, I wasn't even willing to endure that much.

And yes, I like most of the world maps in FF. The first thing I do when I get a boat/airship is go and see what I can find.


A. If you're going to be speaking about a world map with an airship, it's incredibly disingenuous to be comparing that to FFXIII before its world-opening mechanic comes into play. Because Gran Pulse is massive, it's varied, and the story only demands you experience one small piece of it.

B. It takes about 20 hours to reach Gran Pulse. That's the mechanics equivalent of time-spent to get an airship. It'll take far longer than that to get your airship in FFX. I can't remember how long it takes in other games. Only FFIV stands out as giving it fairly early, and that's because FFIV is a short game, and it sends you to a new area where you can't even use it pretty much right away afterwards.

C. The Crystarium system has 10 levels, the first 9 of which can be unlocked without beating the game. That final level is essentially the one that gives you access to the sorts of advancements you'll only need for fighting the hardest enemies in the game. Completing Chapter 4 will unlock all the "base" roles for your party (one additional role for 4 of your characters, and around that time is when you'll be getting permanent access to the other two characters. It's around (or probably shortly before - I think it's when Sazh and Vanille are in the Sunleth Waterscape, iirc) this time that you'll stop capping your character's Crystarium without farming.

When you get to Gran Pulse, they unlock all the secondary roles for each characters. You're free to expand into them if you want (I usually pick up one or two key abilities at the start, to give them more functionality in a pinch), but they're expensive point wise. They're realistically meant to make you choose which you want access to, particularity when in combination with advancing the main roles. Because stuff on Gran Pulse can seriously mess you up.
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#128 Jun 13 2013 at 4:24 PM Rating: Excellent
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The battle theme I liked most is not in the compilation you linked, iddigory. :(



While there are side quests in FFXIII they are not as numerous as in other FFs. And I liked XIII. But the amount of time I spent in VII and X (my two favourite entries from VI all the way to XIII-2, sans XI) purely doing things like Blitz or Chocobo racing rival the total amount of time I spent playing XIII. So I absolutely understand this part of the criticism about XIII. And little secrets like Vincent Valentine would not have hurt this game.
#129 Jun 13 2013 at 4:33 PM Rating: Good
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It was just the standard battle music. They have another video of all the boss battle themes, all final boss themes, and another of all the other miscellaneous battle scores, if you're interested.

Also, the thing about "secret" party members is that they're ridiculously expensive to make, with minimal reward. You need to pay all the artists, pay the writers, pay the voice actors, and more. And all that to ensure that a significant chunk of players will never experience them. It really doesn't enhance the game as a whole, because the population of people that care is so small. It definitely doesn't match the investment.

Yuffie and Vincent didn't really require all that much investment, because there was no voice acting, art direction wasn't nearly as expensive, animations were just standard fare, and they didn't really require much additional writing.

They're realistically a thing of the past. When you think about other "optional" or "miss-able" companions you see in modern games, they're really expected to be available to a big population. In DAO, many people were going to choose to make Loghain a Warden, ensuring people would see him. And he was so prominent in the game, they were spending all the money on acting/design anyway. Sten and Leliana are the only really "miss-able" companions, but you're not likely to do so unless you're ignoring the villagers.

Everyone else you have to actively choose not to bring with you.

It's just not worth the money to create a major money sink in the form of something "hidden." You WANT people to be experiencing every dollar you spent.

They might still make appearances in cheaper games, like Indie titles, Handheld titles, mobile games, etc. But it's just not really going to happen in most big-budget games. Just not worth it.
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#130 Jun 13 2013 at 6:42 PM Rating: Decent
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FFs prior to XIII were far more open than the first part of XIII. You can dance around and defend it all you want, but it was a tunnel that I could have navigated blindfolded. If you can't see the difference between that and every other FF out there you either never played any of the other FFs, or you're lying to yourself.

It may have taken 20 hours to get a ship in prior FFs, but those other FFs didn't suck for those first 20 hours. I don't care if Grand Pulse is the greatest thing to ever happen to FF, it does not excuse the first half of that game.

One of the things that made me give the game another shot is that I read how a lot of people talked about the game opening up and the first part was basically just a tutorial. I'm just as much of a FF fan as the next guy, but I don't understand how anyone can justify putting up with 20 hours of crap in hopes that it'll get better. And the fact that SE thinks that type of thing is acceptable just goes to show how far out of touch they are with gamers.
#131 Jun 13 2013 at 7:07 PM Rating: Excellent
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Here's what I can't figure out...
You've played the same 5 hours of FFXIII several times, only to find out it's the worst game ever created by SE because there are no dead ends on the maps... yet you own FFXIII-2?

Edited, Jun 13th 2013 9:04pm by xypin
#132 Jun 13 2013 at 7:28 PM Rating: Good
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Raolan wrote:
FFs prior to XIII were far more open than the first part of XIII. You can dance around and defend it all you want, but it was a tunnel that I could have navigated blindfolded. If you can't see the difference between that and every other FF out there you either never played any of the other FFs, or you're lying to yourself.

It may have taken 20 hours to get a ship in prior FFs, but those other FFs didn't suck for those first 20 hours. I don't care if Grand Pulse is the greatest thing to ever happen to FF, it does not excuse the first half of that game.

One of the things that made me give the game another shot is that I read how a lot of people talked about the game opening up and the first part was basically just a tutorial. I'm just as much of a FF fan as the next guy, but I don't understand how anyone can justify putting up with 20 hours of crap in hopes that it'll get better. And the fact that SE thinks that type of thing is acceptable just goes to show how far out of touch they are with gamers.


No, you're fooling yourself into thinking they were anything other than a hallway. You've said it yourself - they gave you the illusion of something else. I'm telling you that I never once had an illusion of them being anything other than what they were. Every RPG I have ever played has been a matter of going from one point to the next clearly denoted point.

I'm sorry you fooled yourself into imaging you were some grand explorer in a new world, but you weren't. You were following the rails. You may have been doing it in a zig-zag fashion, but that's all you were doing.

Yeah, there might have been a few times where you could preview a location that would be important later. But that's the thing - it was never important then. There weren't mysteries for you to solve, or side quests for you to explore and get lost in. It was just an empty town with empty people.

FFXIII decided to develop the concept of a grandiose world by choosing to have its heroes follow different paths through the world. Instead of one single hallway, like FFX, it's actually 3 distinct hallways that eventually fuse.

I DID explore the world. I just saw it with the same eyes I've used to see every FF game.

We have the hanging edge, located geographically above Lake Bresha, and the ancient ruins on Bresha's shore. I saw the Vile Peaks that held most of the old wreckage from the Pulse war. I explored two completely different paths away from that yard, one of which running along a major body of water - Sunleth Waterscape - and leading to a train that could take me to their amusement park chocobo land (Nautilus). The other took me through a thick woods - the Gapra Whitewood - that led out to Palumpolum.

I can tell you this from memory (though I did look up three of those names). Trying to remember anything about the geography about FF7, I can tell you that Tifa's hometown was at the base of a mountain, and Red XIII was from a desert area near a deep crag. That's it. Nothing else sticks out in my mind about the geography at all. Oh, that's not true, I remember the land around Midgard being dead (for obvious reasons). I remember Yuffie having a town that was very Japanese country. No clue where that was. And there was some kind of chocobo raceway. Don't know where that was.

Because it literally never mattered. It was never anything other than the next point on a world map. And engaging with a world map is an empty experience, because you don't get any value from that.

When I study history, I learn the geography of the area. But that doesn't just mean looking at a map and calling it a day. It means finding out what the weather patterns are like, how the geography causes unique difficulties for the people, what the travel is like to the nearest villages/cities, what food they grow, what animals they can graze, etc.

FFXIII gave me a LOT of this contextual information, and it helped me understand the world of Coccoon far, far better than I've ever understood earlier FF environments. FFX did a solid job of this, too. I honestly can't remember how FFXII was, and I have yet to finish FFIX.
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#133 Jun 13 2013 at 8:03 PM Rating: Default
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Every non-sandbox game out there is on rails to some extent, the difference is in how they present those rails. Typical FFs offer exploration from the very beginning, XIII didn't.

Lets look at IV, VI, and IX, since those are the ones I've played most recently. IV sends you to the mist village within 20 minutes of starting. It's not much, but you have the option to wander around and find the thing you're looking for. VI sends you to find Edgar within 30 minutes, again not much, but you still have to find where you're going. IX has Zidane walking around trying to find where to go within 30 minutes as well. XIII has you walk straight down a corridor for 20 freaking hours. No exploration aside from the occasional ladder to a chest, but that's it. The split-off isn't even remotely hidden.

Quote:
I'm sorry you fooled yourself into imaging you were some grand explorer in a new world, but you weren't. You were following the rails. You may have been doing it in a zig-zag fashion, but that's all you were doing.


You do understand that RPG stands for Role Playing Game, yes?

Quote:
No, you're fooling yourself into thinking they were anything other than a hallway. You've said it yourself - they gave you the illusion of something else. I'm telling you that I never once had an illusion of them being anything other than what they were. Every RPG I have ever played has been a matter of going from one point to the next clearly denoted point.


Then I'm sorry for you, as you've missed the entire point of the genre. If I want to read a story I'll pick up a book. If I want to interact with the story, I'll play an RPG. This is the point of these games after all.
As far as the illusion, yes, it's an illusion. So is magic, but I still enjoy the show.


xypin wrote:
Here's what I can't figure out...
You've played the same 5 hours of FFXIV several times, only to find out it's the worst game ever created by SE because there are no dead ends on the maps... yet you own FFXIII-2?


XIII, not XIV. XIV's a whole other story. And I've probably put in about 10-15 hours, which is 10-15 hours more than I typically put into a game I don't like.
I got it on sale, just like half my Steam collection. I also bought it because I've been a loyal FF fan since the original. And, I bought it before I completely gave up on XIII.
#134 Jun 14 2013 at 6:27 AM Rating: Good
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You do understand that RPG stands for Role Playing Game, yes?


Yes, I do. I also understand that RPG does NOT mean that you have to give the player control over the fate of a character, where the character goes, etc. It just means that the player has the experience of that character.

Some RPGs, like Skyrim, are going to give near-total control to the player regarding what the character experiences. The main quest isn't even mandatory - the only noteworthy thing it unlocks is dragon spawns (and that just means you need to progress 2-3 quests in).

Others, like FFX, FFXIII, FFVII, etc. are going to give the player nearly no control over what the character experiences (or who the player is).

Most RPGs are likely to fall somewhere between those two extremes. DAO, Star Ocean (III, at least), Kingdom Hearts. Your path isn't perfectly linear. You'll ultimately probably visit most of the locations in the game, in roughly the same order, but you do have some choice regarding that order (and in the case of DA, a lot of choice with regards to the experience of your character).

You've NEVER been in control of your characters' experience in FF games. They've always had predetermined personalities, with predetermined fates, and predetermined reactions to those fates. They were always going to be going to the same locations at roughly the exact same time (excepting, of course, grinding periods versus people who just charge through).

Honestly, I might just have a far more grandiose idea of what "exploration" means than you do. When I'm exploring in an MMO, I'm looking for the cool little things like abandoned ruins, the secret path that leads up to the cave with the demon worshiper, the hidden codex entries/books/whatever, etc.

Charting the mountain range with muddled textures isn't interesting to me at all.

You're definition of "RPG" is one of the oddest, most exclusive definitions I've ever seen. And it effectively bars just about every JRPG I've ever seen from even being considered.

I like RPGs that give me a lot of control and I like RPGs that give me little control, as long as they communicate to me the experience of the character. I don't need to be speaking for that character, I just need to be connecting to them. At the end of the day, I'm still controlling the character.

The problem is that you're conflating "control of" with "making choices for".

No Final Fantasy game, with the exception of the two MMOs, ever offered the sort of experience you are describing.
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#135 Jun 14 2013 at 9:50 AM Rating: Excellent
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Maybe it's just me, but I've hated the first part of nearly every Final Fantasy game I've ever played. Just give me all my characters and let me wander the world. I want to go where I want to already and do what I want to do. Some of them weren't so bad, others it seemed like an eternity before you got free.
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#136 Jun 14 2013 at 9:58 AM Rating: Good
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So I woke up and had a beta invite to FF14 PS3 Beta in my email, and I no longer have a PS3. FML. (Not like this thread was on topic anyway)

Edited, Jun 14th 2013 10:59am by BeanX
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#137 Jun 14 2013 at 10:00 AM Rating: Good
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BeanX the Irrelevant wrote:
So I woke up and had a beta invite to FF14 PS3 Beta in my email, and I no longer have a PS3. FML. (Not like this thread was on topic anyway)

Edited, Jun 14th 2013 10:59am by BeanX


Is it something they enable on your account, or do they give you a key? Cause I still got my PS3, and my Square Enix account...
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#138 Jun 14 2013 at 10:03 AM Rating: Excellent
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idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
You're definition of "RPG" is one of the oddest, most exclusive definitions I've ever seen. And it effectively bars just about every JRPG I've ever seen from even being considered.

It's not unique though. I've had a few go-arounds with Gbaji on this topic. Some people, perhaps because they were raised on pencil & paper games, see the RPG label as misapplied to most games. Most supposed Computer RPG games do not even attempt to give a "role playing" experience as you'd define it by pencil & paper terms.

The term CRPG has been around since the genre started. I have old Dragon magazines from the mid 1980's using the term in their reviews. And I don't doubt that it was intentionally applied as a marketing angle; saying "Buy the latest CRPG by TSR" got you thinking you were going to get a true AD&D experience out of the game despite the fact that Pool of Radiance was not giving you the same experience as playing an actual module with a live DM (thought it was as close as you were getting via computer).

I understand and "get" the argument but think it's a moot one. After 30 years, the term isn't going to change now and folks just have to accept that CRPG's are using a different definition than PnP RPGs.

Edited, Jun 14th 2013 11:03am by Jophiel
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#139 Jun 14 2013 at 10:07 AM Rating: Good
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TirithRR wrote:
BeanX the Irrelevant wrote:
So I woke up and had a beta invite to FF14 PS3 Beta in my email, and I no longer have a PS3. FML. (Not like this thread was on topic anyway)

Edited, Jun 14th 2013 10:59am by BeanX


Is it something they enable on your account, or do they give you a key? Cause I still got my PS3, and my Square Enix account...


Well I didnt realize it was for the PS3 beta til after I registered one key it to my SE account. Then I double checked the email and saw a PS3 download code. So without my SE account/token it would be sort of useless to ya.

Hopefully my damn loan gets approved in the next week and I was already planning on grabbing a PS3 again. To many games out or coming that I need to play anyway, and Jrpgs get a free pass into the next 5 games I have to play(Eg Tales Of Xillia)
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#140 Jun 14 2013 at 10:26 AM Rating: Good
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I'm totally in the mood to play some FF games now, but I'm cat-sitting at my sister's and won't be home until Sunday. Smiley: bah
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#141 Jun 14 2013 at 11:52 AM Rating: Good
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idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
I'm totally in the mood to play some FF games now, but I'm cat-sitting at my sister's and won't be home until Sunday. Smiley: bah


Come back to XI.
#142 Jun 14 2013 at 12:02 PM Rating: Good
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Olorinus the Ludicrous wrote:
idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
I'm totally in the mood to play some FF games now, but I'm cat-sitting at my sister's and won't be home until Sunday. Smiley: bah


Come back to XI.


/s YOU STOP THAT.

/em hums the Windurst music.

/wait 30

/em starts playing this:



[EDIT]

6 minutes later and I realize I'm just sitting at my desk and listening to this. That's it. That's all I've been doing.

Edited, Jun 14th 2013 2:08pm by idiggory
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#143 Jun 14 2013 at 12:40 PM Rating: Good
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You know you wanna
#144 Jun 14 2013 at 1:14 PM Rating: Decent
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idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
I'm totally in the mood to play some FF games now, but I'm cat-sitting at my sister's and won't be home until Sunday. Smiley: bah


1/2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9 can all be downloaded to the Vita, and 5 can be side-loaded from the PS3.

As far as XIII, I really don't see the point in carrying out the argument. It sucked for a myriad of reasons, and it'll take a miracle to make me touch XIII-3 or XV.


On a side note, I got the XIV:ARR invite as well, and it had instructions for both PC and PS3 registration. Although I did originally sign up for the PC beta. Can't hurt to double check though.
#145 Jun 14 2013 at 1:20 PM Rating: Good
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I have a bunch of them at home, I just don't have access to my PS3. Well, I COULD drive the hour and a half home to get it, then another hour and a half back to my sister's. But that just doesn't seem worth it...

And I don't care that you hated FFXIII. I just find the reason for why you hated it, but liked other titles, absurd.
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#146 Jun 14 2013 at 1:24 PM Rating: Good
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Raolan wrote:
idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
I'm totally in the mood to play some FF games now, but I'm cat-sitting at my sister's and won't be home until Sunday. Smiley: bah


1/2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9 can all be downloaded to the Vita, and 5 can be side-loaded from the PS3.


Also, PSP.
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#147 Jun 14 2013 at 1:31 PM Rating: Good
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I have the discs for 7/8/9/10/12/13, and FF4 for the DS.

Though, to be completely fair, I don't have the slightest clue where the Disc case holding the PS1/2 games even is...
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#148 Jun 15 2013 at 10:45 AM Rating: Good
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I'm sorry, but I could not be LESS excited. I want an RPG, not Just Cause with RPG elements.

Edit:

Let me clarify. I watched that "epic" video, and just saw some twitchy guy bouncing all the **** over the place. I miss actual RPGs. You know, where there's a party system, with actual tactics, not just MASH X TO WIN.

Edited, Jun 15th 2013 12:47pm by Pawkeshup
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#149 Jun 15 2013 at 1:25 PM Rating: Good
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BeanX the Irrelevant wrote:
TirithRR wrote:
BeanX the Irrelevant wrote:
So I woke up and had a beta invite to FF14 PS3 Beta in my email, and I no longer have a PS3. FML. (Not like this thread was on topic anyway)

Edited, Jun 14th 2013 10:59am by BeanX


Is it something they enable on your account, or do they give you a key? Cause I still got my PS3, and my Square Enix account...


Well I didnt realize it was for the PS3 beta til after I registered one key it to my SE account. Then I double checked the email and saw a PS3 download code. So without my SE account/token it would be sort of useless to ya.

Hopefully my damn loan gets approved in the next week and I was already planning on grabbing a PS3 again. To many games out or coming that I need to play anyway, and Jrpgs get a free pass into the next 5 games I have to play(Eg Tales Of Xillia)


Checked my email... and I see:
Welcome to the FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn Beta Test!
Please find your Beta registration and PlayStation®3 Promotion codes below:
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#150 Jun 15 2013 at 1:29 PM Rating: Good
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Congrats Ill be in soon as I own a PS3 and have internet again :)
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#151 Jun 15 2013 at 1:48 PM Rating: Good
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I figured I'd get in. I had an active FFXI account for about 5 or 6 years, and that pretty much guaranteed me original FFXIV beta testing. And while I never had purchased FFXIV, everything seemed to hint pretty heavily at preference to previous FFXI/XIV players.
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