Tried FFXIII on PC and...

[Grampy_Bone]

Why did this game receive so much hate

Lots of reasons.

Combat--It's a streamlined version of the class-changing system in FFX-2 but at least that game had actual abilities and skills you could use. In FF13 your only major input in the battles is which class configuration you use and when to change them. I'm not saying it doesn't work* or that it takes no thought but simply choosing when to change roles isn't very fun. It makes it feel like you are some kind of synchronized swimming coach on the sidelines and not actually participating.

*On top of that the system is clearly designed to only work when the player has access to all 6 characters with the full suite of classes but something like chapters 1-10 are spent without a full party and without all the classes. The game has to put you up against clearly gimped enemies to make up for the fact you really can't do much to affect the battles at that point anyway. That's why people say the game doesn't really "begin" until you get to Pulse.

World/Levels--it's not just linear it's railroaded with almost all locations being one-time only with no backtracking or exploring allowed. Even in FFX you could turn around and walk all the way back to Luca if you wanted.

Character Development--See FFX and FFX-2, you had choices, you could develop characters differently, and it was fun to grind out levels and curb stomp bosses if you wanted. FF13 prevents this by putting story caps on leveling so you can't grind and making all characters more or less fixed, so you can't really customize anyone. The endgame is all about grinding out ingredients for weapon upgrades which is just tedious as hell.

Story--First off someone who spoke English should have had some review over terms like "fal'cie" and "l'cie" to point out how dumb they sound. Second, the entire story is an incoherent mess that makes no sense from start to finish, never really goes anywhere, has no clear arc or climax for any character, and a toothless moronic villain from nowhere who has no apparent reason for doing anything. Most of the story is spent on over indulgent infodumps about the setting or mopey characters sorting through their issues. If someone tried to make a parody of 'stereotypical JRPG stories' the end result would probably resemble FF13. At almost no point in the story does it ever feel like any of the characters are actually trying to do anything productive, make any kind of plan, or even just advance the plot. They spend the whole story running away until suddenly they turn around and fight one guy, and that's it game over. Pathetic.

Just compare the non-existent story arc of FF13 to the massive unmatched epic scale of Xenogears and tell me "All JRPGs are the same."

 

[Alkarl]

What's with all the ffxiii apologists?

You can say, "I like ffxiii." That's fine, you have shit taste, but everyone has their guilty pleasures, I guess.

You cannot say, "I like ffxiii, because it is teh good!" That is a logical fallacy.

90% of the story is in menus
Word-salad naming conventions
The character development is pointless because neither the characters, nor the world they inhabit, are believable at any depth
Combat difficulty is equated to HP bloat and making timely wardrobe changes
The cut-scenes interrupt gameplay constantly, while the aeons and paradigms interrupt actual combat
Despite having beautifully detailed environs, the locales you travel to offer nothing in interaction or things to do and or find.
Most of the games content doesn't pop-up until your most of the way through the game. You'll spend 90% of your time doing nothing in places that feel important and 10% doing things that feel important in a place that doesn't matter

 

[aweigh]

FF series now part of the Dodge-Roll Genre has almost completely done away with party mechanics and stuff like attributes or actual itemization each entry is easier and more casual than the past one...

meanwhile

DQ series still turn-based and still focused on party mechanics actually increases scope of its class system and class changing mechanics features ever growing itemization design has crafting system for gear and when porting most recent game to the West it adds a new Hard Mode difficulty setting.

yet both are from the same company.

:mystery:

Id love to see some global sales data of DQ 11 versus FF 15 in about 2 years or so once the western release of PS4 and PC version of DQ 11 has had time to sell.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

What's with all the ffxiii apologists?

You can say, "I like ffxiii." That's fine, you have shit taste, but everyone has their guilty pleasures, I guess.

You cannot say, "I like ffxiii, because it is teh good!" That is a logical fallacy.

90% of the story is in menus
Word-salad naming conventions
The character development is pointless because neither the characters, nor the world they inhabit, are believable at any depth
Combat difficulty is equated to HP bloat and making timely wardrobe changes
The cut-scenes interrupt gameplay constantly, while the aeons and paradigms interrupt actual combat
Despite having beautifully detailed environs, the locales you travel to offer nothing in interaction or things to do and or find.
Most of the games content doesn't pop-up until your most of the way through the game. You'll spend 90% of your time doing nothing in places that feel important and 10% doing things that feel important in a place that doesn't matter

So, so bad it's good?

 

[Okagron]

FF13 prevents this by putting story caps on leveling so you can't grind and making all characters more or less fixed, so you can't really customize anyone.

Completely forgot to mention this in my post. Locking Crystarium progress behind story progression is one of the stupidest things i have ever seen in a RPG. It feels artificial as hell.

The previous games technically had something similar but it's not stupid. You just start leveling very slowly or not at all because the enemies in your current area either don't give xp anymore or your party starts asking for amounts of exp that are not easily gained in a reasonable time frame in the current area.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

The previous games technically had something similar but it's not stupid.

Ever since Final Fantasy 6, the series has been known for "Disc 1 Nukes," although you usually had to do something cheesy to get them. Like the Lete river trick, or using Triple Triad to make the Lionheart sword on Disc 1 of FF8, or using Damage->AP grinding tricks to power level in FF10, to finding the Zodiac spear in FF12, etc.

FF13 was quite disappointing in this regard.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

What's with all the ffxiii apologists?

Ultimately there's no accounting for taste. I'm baffled at the love for FF9 and FF12.

 

[Ash]

You joyless old bastard. :D

I would like to hear an argument against FF9. The game oozes quality in all that it does...except some aspects of gameplay here and there, but it's nothing too major, far from Chrono Trigger/FF13 torturous-tier gameplay.

 

[aweigh]

I didnt find FF9 all that memorable though I did play it to completion... though only once and I never touched it again. I played it when it came out so memories of repeated playthroughs of FF4 and FF6 on SNES (and FF7 and FF8 of course on PS1) were still quite fresh in my mind so I did not feel any **nostalgia** from FF9 and overall I found the chibi-design unappealing and I found the story forgettable overall.

It felt like a ho-hum rehash of previous FF storylines and tropes and archetypes and I had already played better versions of those things in the previous titles so even though I was at peak-JRPG fandom I still found FF9 to be... meh. I really did not enjoy the more cartoonish world and character design and I found it to be solid in game play but forgettable in story and characterization and world.

FF10 on the other hand I really enjoyed playing on its release and I found the classic Turn-Based combat fantastic. I also found the storyline more compelling than FF9s light-hearted faery-tale approach; FF10s suicide mission was much more appealing to me at the time and I found its characters to be more fleshed out than 9s were... though playing FF10 years later my god dat voice-acting is cringe as fuck DO NOT PLAY IN PUBLIC.

FF11 was an MMORPG and I did play it for many months but it doesnt merit discussion.

FF12 I also played on its release-day and by god did I fucking love it. I loved the headier story-telling and I really enjoyed the realistic graphics (realistic for a JRPG... you guys know what I mean) and more political bent on the going-ons. I also really really enjoyed FF12s take on RTwP combat as at that time memories of NWN2 combat were still red-hot fresh on my mind and I enjoyed this japanese take on the system.

I had also become a Team Ivalice neophyte having professed undying love for FF Tactics and VAGRANT STORY... basically anything Team Ivalice released at that moment in time I was already pre-disposed to loving; time has proved that FF12 merited that love though with its re-release proving it once again.

FF13... uh no thanks. Torrented it years later just to see for myself the utter horror and the horror was legit. Uninstalled after about 6 hours. Truly horrendous.

My three favorite FFs are:
- FF4 (for dat sweet love story)
- FF6 (inarguably the best entry in the series)
- FF12 (doesnt reach the heights of the SNES era nor the ambition of the first two PS1 entries but it features fantastic design)

If I do it 100% objectively I would eliminate FF4 and just take 6 and 12 but dat emotional attachment to FF4 is real strong.

 

[Ash]

It felt like a ho-hum rehash of previous FF storylines and tropes and archetypes and I had already played better versions of those things in the previous titles so even though I was at peak-JRPG fandom I still found FF9 to be... meh.

Can you give examples? Every FF has huge differences, among common similarities. And what of the gameplay, you made zero mention of it.

Consider me thoroughly confused. But then again I'll never understand someone that dotes on FF4, one of the worst of the old school main entries (dat dead simple and highly repetitive gameplay my god. Devs specifically wanted to dumb it down too according to my sources).

If I do it 100% objectively I would eliminate FF4 and just take 6 and 12 but dat emotional attachment to FF4 is real strong.

Hmm, was this your edit? In any case, that's what I like to see. 6 and 12 have gameplay merit in addition to story merit...well, I didn't particularly like FF12's story but objectively-speaking I understand it has qualities that many would enjoy.

 

[aweigh]

yes FF4s place is because I played it as a child and it blew my fragile little mind. There was nothing like it at the time on consoles and my god that story and shit hooked line and sinker:

- cecil and rosa love story
- MC changing from dark knight to a paladin
- the many fun characters
- going into an underground world of dwarves
- visiting the world of mist where summons live
- the many heroic sacrifices that happen throughout the course of the game
- speaking of which: when palom and porom turn themselves to stone using petrify in order to stop a death trap from killing the others!
- a character who is a wizard so old he has forgotten his own spells!
- the Darth Vader-like antagonist Golbez
- the motherfucking fact that the end-game takes place on the moon bitch!!!!!!!!!!!

Fuck the entire game was like manufactured to entrance young minds. It had everything a young Weeb-to-be would find exciting including a cool Ninja because of course it has a ninja...

...not to mention the ultra-dramatic Kain character your childhood bestfriend and comrade in arms but also wants to bone your girl BUT THEN GETS BRAINWASHED MINDCONTROLLED OMG OMG

Story-wise I think FF4 is a fucking home-run!

I can understand not thinking that highly of it though if you didnt play it when it originally came out because game-play wise it is quite outdated.

 

[Ash]

Yup story I can see people enjoying FF4. But gameplay-wise all you do is walk-fight-walk-fight with very little strategy or alternation similar to FF13 and Chrono Trigger.

I remember getting to the moon and flying all around it repeatedly in search for content and reacting like what the fuck!
There was three locations if I recall, none of them optional.

FF1 at least had the brutal difficulty and headfuck dungeons. Not really any better though because it's still shit gameplay and was just devoid of charm and personality altogether. 4 had better art, music and story to distract from the boring gameplay. So it's shit gameplay and that's it (FF1), or slightly shitter gameplay, but a number of more entertaining things in other respects (FF4). I'd probably pick FF4 tbh despite being a gameplayfag.

 

[Okagron]

walk-fight-walk-fight with very little strategy

If we're talking about the DS version, completely disagree. The DS version of FF 4 can have some of the more brutal boss fights in the series. And honestly, this applies to a lot of Final Fantasy games. I didn't felt much challenge with iterations like 5, 6, 7 or 9. 6 in particular is so easy to break, not to mention just easy overall. With 9 i only got game overs with Ozma and that's because it took me a bit to understand how he works. Outside of that, it was a cake walk.

Also didn't found much challenge in FF 1. A reason for it being just somewhat more challenging than others is because of that game's numerous bugs. Rendering some stuff worthless that otherwise would have been helpful. FF 2's difficulty has two modes: utterly hard or utterly easy. I played the DS version of FF 3 (the one that is considered by many much harder than the NES version) and only an handful of bosses gave me any sense of trouble (like Garuda).

If you're looking for optional content in the original version, there's not much. There's the Bahamut Den, the land of the summons and the Sylph Cave. But this was in the time in the series where optional content wasn't abundant. The GBA, PSP and DS version do have more optional content like whole dungeons with superbosses and ultimate weapons.

 

[aweigh]

FF4 remake (DS version) is indeed quite hard. Its based off the original release of FF4j but even harder.

- Original FF4j release was hard.
- Western release as FF2 was made much easier in every aspect because Jap gamers complained so Square figured US gamers heads would blow up; (enc rate HP of enemies drop rates etc).
- FF4 re-releases in ensuing years (Wonder Swan and PS1 and GBA and PSP remasters) always used the difficulty multipliers taken from the Western FF2 version i.e. Easy-mode version

There is a ROM of FF4j original release patched with the english script from the FF2 western cartridge called FF4j Hard-Type.

The NDS polygonal remake of FF4 utilized the original FF4j hard-mode multipliers and dialed them up further for bosses.

Of course I aint saying FF4 NDS (or FF4j Hard-Type) are some sort of super challenging thing after all its still a JRPG you can just grind levels and rolfstomp whatever... just saying compared to all other main-line FF series games FF4 japanese release and FF4 NDS remake are actually somewhat difficult and require actual management of resources and some grinding.

Strictly speaking the FF4j Hard-Type ROM (or the FF4 polygonal remake on DS) is arguably the most objectively difficult entry in the series.

 

[Ash]

Not played the DS version. But 4 doesn't have a lot of variables involved anyways. Characters learn new abilities in linear automated fashion (only player input on this is therefore how much they grind), characters in your party are predetermined by the story in nearly all instances, There's very little side content. From what I recall, there's the following core factors to battle strategy: the decisions the player makes in battles themselves, how much they explored off the beaten path to find loot (in the very rare instances they're allowed), how much they grinded or not, what armor/weapons they have equipped, and what they did or did not buy from shops (+health item/healing management). Additionally, each of these elements are very basic. And we're only talking about challenge/strategy here, not FF gameplay as a whole which is typically better and far less repetitive in 5 up 'till 12 (gameplay-centric level design, mini-games, puzzles, side quests etc).
Take the fire ship in FF5. That thing is just one big fun puzzle. There's nothing like that in FF4 that I recall.

Spoiler

Edit: also, I remember 5 being harder than 4 overall. Even if there was some OP setups you could make eventually. First half of the game can be testing that's for sure.

anyhow, back to variables: my point is it's not particularly good difficulty/strategy when the best/only player strategy to overcome battles is to grind, as opposed to tweaking character setups or trying new combat patterns (all of which there is very little of in FF4).

 

[Okagron]

If we're talking about character progression, then yes, FF 4 is definitely one of the most basic in the series. Every character learns their own attacks at determined levels with no variation. The DS version did had augments, which are unique abilities that you can teach to characters. Some of them are even skills unique to one character. You can have Edge with like Cry from Porom.

 

[aweigh]

Yeah I aint saying FF4 DS is like all around hard just that by using the increased enc rates and decreased drop rates and higher HP values and better enemy AI (in that enemies will utilizes their best attacks more frequently; for western release of FF2 they went as far as removing abilities from most enemies); in THAT sense it is objectively much more difficult than most other FF entries.

But like I mentioned its only harder in the sense that you need to grind more thats all. No FF is hard and that applies really to all JRPGs.

Hell ALL RPGs both western and eastern are easy. RPG field isnt something that quite fits into category of hard or easy since it doesnt rely on things like twitch skill or pattern memorization which are the usual hallmarks for difficulty in video gaming.

Only very rare cases like Wizardry 4 truly qualify as HARD for an RPG.

 

[Ash]

Yup RPGs often boil down to either grinding more, or there's just so many variables involved that balance is out of whack with some setup or other. Still, challenge and strategy is of course important, any truly mindless game is not worth playing, and in FF it usually took some time, perhaps a little grinding, and actually paying attention to systems to be able to break the difficulty at least. And even then there'd be the occassional boss to give you a run for your money.

 

[Okagron]

anyhow, back to variables: my point is it's not particularly good difficulty/strategy when the best/only player strategy to overcome battles is to grind, as opposed to tweaking character setups or trying new combat patterns (all of which there is very little of in FF4).

Final Fantasy 4 is definitely one of the weakest in this regard, possibly the weakest, and i can see why one wouldn't like that. But honestly, most of the game's balance seems to take your current party members into account. There was rarely a case i said "I wish this character was here, so that i could deal with this better". Maybe like three or four times in the whole game.

 

[aweigh]

One reason dungeon crawlers are considered hard by everyone (whether warranted or not) is because a ((hard core dungeon maze)) provides a challenge of navigation and attrition and management of resources without an overt reliance on mindless grinding because usually the way to continue to the following dungeon area is accomplished via navigation or puzzle-solving not by beating a boss monster (though this obviously does happen as well).

The decline in dungeon design is a big contributing factor to the mindless banality of modern RPG (both CRPGs and JRPGs) in terms of what we lump together under the banner of ((difficulty)).

Hell NES era JRPGs like Dragon Quest 1-3 had dungeons that limited your field of vision unless you had torches or light spells and utilized navigational puzzles such as chutes and slides!

Nowadays the modern JRPG dungeon is literally one long hallway with a few encounters that have been tuned to be able to beat by holding down 1 button because of ((focus tests said this area made little Jimmy confused)).

Ni no Kuni 2 is the most recent offender... they downgraded the combat from turn-based in the 1st game to mindless hack-and-slash LMB-clickfest on the sequel in hopes of appealling to more people and selling more. Needless to say there are obviously no good dungeon-type areas to challenge the brain either.

 

[Ash]

So yeah, between the simplicity of the combat, and the lack of non-combat gameplay: exploration and testing navigation, puzzles, blah blah [insert gameplayfaggotry], ultimately I do not enjoy FF4...or any FF before 5 or after 12. Same reason I don't like CT.
I just get triggered when storyfags dote and place the storyfag games over the ones with decent gameplay and story both :D

 

[Okagron]

I'm with aweigh though, i love Final Fantasy 4. For most of the same reasons too.

 

[Ash]

- cecil and rosa love story
- MC changing from dark knight to a paladin
- the many fun characters
- going into an underground world of dwarves
- visiting the world of mist where summons live
- the many heroic sacrifices that happen throughout the course of the game
- speaking of which: when palom and porom turn themselves to stone using petrify in order to stop a death trap from killing the others!
- a character who is a wizard so old he has forgotten his own spells!
- the Darth Vader-like antagonist Golbez
- the motherfucking fact that the end-game takes place on the moon bitch!!!!!!!!!!!

All storyfag reasons.

So what do you enablers think of 5? The story is...idk you guys probably will prefer 4's slightly more involved story, but it's still a fun campy tale and has fun gameplay to boot. Such a weird game, but definitely delivers to an acceptable standard in all aspects of design.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

The game oozes quality in all that it does

This is a baffling quote right here. FF9 was made by a team of novices in Hawaii who hadn't worked on a final fantasy title before. The battle engine is built on a filthy house of lies. It straight up doesn't work, chugs along like shit, and they implemented a bunch of ugly hacks to trick the player into thinking it works like the previous games. Unlike the previous entries where turns would execute fairly in the order they are queued, in FF9 the enemies just blatantly cheat and get free turns according to a script. The result is the ATB system is mostly window dressing. It's really noticeable with long spell animations, since your ATB bars all fill up during the effect, you're likely to queue up a bunch of actions in a row only to watch the enemy get a free turn and decimate you after each of your moves. It's awful. It's a system that discourages speed and taking turns (which is unintuitive as hell) and the best strategy is to just have one character attack while the others wait on standby to heal.

Can you give examples?

FF9 was specifically the "nostalgia" game, with tons of references to prior games. Things like the four fiends from FF1, the classic Black Mages, the FF6-style cave dungeon, the auction house, the gay bishounen villain, Necron from nowhere (inspired by FF3); even the bass beat from the beginning of the battle theme is a reference.

Besides that I agree with Aweigh, the story is okay but pretty forgettable. It drags along so slow in the beginning and takes forever for anything meaningful to happen, but simultaneously feels rushed at the end (misspent development priorities right there). Art direction is questionable with goofy animal people everywhere with no explanation, Queen Brahne with her dumb blue face, nightmare inducing obese clown chef people, etc. No wonder Zidane and the princess end up together, they're the only people in the world who don't look like weirdo tumblr freaks.


As for FF12, I hated the combat. It's an example of implementing MMO-style combat in a single player game. Since MMO combat is designed specifically for the technical issues of having multiple remote clients connected to a server, I don't see the point of implementing it in a single-player game. On top of that the Gambit system means just setting up the game to play itself; it might not be so bad if the game wasn't so grindy. So much killing random trash mobs; and to get the chain bonuses you have to kill the same mob over and over again, you can't go anywhere else or look for a variety of opponents, just kill the same wolf or skeleton over and over and over again. Ugh.

So much of the game feels like drudgery and busywork. You can't just get money for killing things, no, you have to collect trophies and then sell them, and then you can buy stuff only if you get the right trophies. More grinding. The one main sidequest is to kill like 100 optional boss monsters all over the map, and some of their spawn criteria are beyond cruel. Random item drops from non-respawning chests, obscure criteria to spawn chests with non-random items, chests that punish you by deleting items if you've opened other chests, the list of baffling choices just goes on and on.

it's understandable when you realize the game was half made by the FF Tactics guy and half by the SaGa guy.

I also hate the leveling system. The license board is pure idiocy, it does not equate to any meaningful customization and there's no real difference what characters you use. (Yes, I know the re-release changed this).

Finally the story and lore; as a big FF Tactics fan I feel the game shits all over the Ivalice world and story. Not that it matters, the game bears no real resemblance to FFT or Vagrant Story at all so calling the world Ivalice means exactly dick. It would have been cool to feature Lea Monde, or any of the locations from FF Tactics, but there's nothing. Zilch. So what difference does it make?

The main plot reeks of executive meddling. The developer wanted to tell a story about political intrigue and scheming, while the suits wanted a big bombastic villain with explosions. Vaan isn't even supposed to be the protagonist, he's just a random side character. The main plot of the game barely involves him; it's all this politics stuff but with no connection to the main character it's hard to feel any investment in it. Plus the weird plots about magic sky ghosts controlling everything. You spend a huge amount of the game getting these nethecite shards and a magic sword that looks super dumb... for what exactly? To blow up the villains big death star. Then he hulks out and dies effortlessly.

I found this all really disappointing coming from the person who wrote the superb FF Tactics and Ogre Battle stories.

*edit*

So what do you enablers think of 5?

The best opinion on FF5 comes from this article:

https://socksmakepeoplesexy.net/index.php?a=ff05

A week or so I was talking about this with Polly, who belongs to the "Final Fantasy V sucks" camp. "So what if the plot is silly," I told her. "It's still a pretty fun game."

"Pat," she answered. "A little kid running around with a cereal bowl on his head is silly. FFV's story is just retarded."

"WHAT?" I asked. "WHAT WAS THAT? I'M SORRY, I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER ALL THIS JOB SYSTEM."

 

[aweigh]

FF5 was fun to play but ill be damned if i can remembe a single thing that happens in the game.