Final Fantasy one thousand

Well…that’s exaggerated but they do come out with a lot of these games when in all honesty, they should have ended at six. After that, the games were hit and miss for entertainment.

Final Fantasy 7 was mediocre and severely over-hyped just because it was the first 3D FF game, FF8…that just flat out sucked. 9 Had a decent story, good pacing in the action, and was the first actual fantasy of the final fantasy series since it became 3D (Sorry but a sci-fi world with magic is still a sci fi world).

10 was…well, basically it was the emo version of final fantasies. It claimed to have realistic expressions and actual emotion to the story…well, it came off as whiny and there was no way to tell if a character was smiling or frowning, period. The battle system was alright, and the introduction of the Arena, and weapons/armor that broke the 9999 limit for damage and HP also helped the game but that still doesn’t change the fact that the overall story was kind of retarded. I don’t mean that as an insult, it literally feels like a mentally handicapped person came up with this.

10-2, no. Just no.

11, haven’t tried it. Seems like it’d be the final fantasy game for people who don’t want the story and just want the action, which can be good and bad. The monthly subscription though is what keeps me from trying this.

12, amazing story. One of the best stories told, great cinematics and CGI’s, great character depth, and the voice acting was flat out top knotch. Hell, the main villain wasn’t even over the top or insane or genetically engineered, he’s just a military man who was on a slightly more evil side of politics and that seriously worked for the game.

But…the combat, that’s a different story. I like that it was free roaming and we didn’t cut away to a battle scene like every other FF game, but it was so slow paced and the mechanics were so out of whack that it just didn’t work. For instance, spells in this game can be interrupted, that’s fine. However, once the spell has started, it should not be able to be stopped. Certain spells will automatically do damage the instant it goes off but then others, like Scathe and Ardor, take forever to do any real damage leaving your character vulnerable in a stuck position of just standing there holding his arm out. What’s worse, Scathe and Ardor are two of the most powerful spells in the game and due to the above reasons, are two of the three (the other being Holy) most useless.

And because the spells right below those two are the highest level wind, fire, ice, and lightning spells, and most creatures at a certain point are either resistant or immune to wind, fire, ice and lighting spells, this makes spellcasters ultimately useless late in the game. In fact, in many cases the only combination of spellcasting that works is casting berserk, bravery and haste on your party and yourself, then letting the system do the autobattling for you. Seriously, Berserk is absolutely retarded powerful.

Now comes a new game. Looks flashy but it already has its share of problems.

The first being an entire planet named Cocoon. I just find that idiotic.

But the main one being they are going completely away from the formula of final fantasy games that has kept the series going for so long. It’s a single character, real time battle system kind of like Star Ocean 3: Till the End of Time, but with you only controlling, and only ever controlling one female character, Lightning.

That just doesn’t seem all that appealing. It could be good, and it certainly looks fancy but it really does look like they’ve cut out a LOT of gameplay elements and just meshed together CGI after CGI, much more so than any FF game out there (and yes I know that it’s a trailer of the game and that in and of itself is CGI but near the end there are gameplay scenes that look awful).

Re: Final Fantasy one thousand

Actually, the battle system isn’t real time. It’s very fast, though there’s an option to slow it down, but it’s still turn-based. And while you can only control one character, it isn’t always Lightning. I’ve controlled all of the characters at one time or another… Right now, the game chooses who and when, but eventually I think you’ll get to choose. And while you can’t directly control the other party members, it has a job system that you switch around during battle where you tell them what to do - attack with magic, heal, attack physically, buff, de-buff - and they do it. They can also learn enemy weaknesses and exploit them, and in general, they’re much less useless than pretty much any other A.I. party members in RPGs that I’ve encountered.

Personally, I’m loving the game so far, but then, I’ve enjoyed all of the Final Fantasy games I’ve played, so I’m not too picky.

Re: Final Fantasy one thousand

One quick question, are their any non-humans?

Every FF game I’ve played has at least one of those types, even if humanoid (like Fran from FF12 or something), but FF13 doesn’t seem to have any, which kind of disappoints me.

And as for the combat, it’s basically like The Last Remnant, where they generalize the commands and take away more and more playability in combat? If so, I’m definitely -not- getting this game.

Re: Final Fantasy one thousand

Suit yourself, but I found the guardian forces and junction system really just annoying.

Not to mention…The Gunblade. That was seriously pretty idiotic.

Re: Final Fantasy one thousand

Nope, there’s no non-humans, at least not so far. I’m doubting one will show up at this point. It doesn’t really bother me, personally, but it kinda is a FF tradition to have at least one.

I haven’t played Last Remnant, so I don’t have any idea if the combat is similar.

Technically, Lightning’s weapon is a gunblade, too, but it doesn’t work as both at once - it can just change forms.

Re: Final Fantasy one thousand

So, I got FF13.

Personally I thought her weapon looked more like an oversized dual-action butterfly knife, but meh.

I’ve just begun the game, still in the crystal river area right after the Fal’Cie event thing. So far the pros and cons I see are-

Pros-
~Very involved battle system. It’s not like Last Remnant at all, in last remnant, you basically hit two buttons to fight an entire war.
~Compelling story, as always with FF games.
~Simple and easy to use Crystarium system, basically follow along a few potential paths to gain abilities, like a fancy looking skill tree from other RPG-like games.
~Paradigm system is awesome, since you can’t control all characters it makes up for it by allowing you to switch their strategies (Aka Paradigms, where you can attack relentlessly against something, or concentrate on healing).
~Save for Vanille (thus far), characters all have deep stories and backgrounds. Most aren’t too cliche (except for lightnings). But still….

Cons-
~Similarly named terms can be confusing. I still can’t figure out Fal’cie, L’cie, Ceth, Pulse, Cocoon, and the Sanctum. The way they make it sound is like their’s two opposing factions, but with the amount of labels, it sounds as if there are three or four.
~Ultra-pragmatism with character skills (lightning gains lightning abilities, snow gains ice abilities, etc).
~Random encounters are absent for the most part (there are only a certain amount of enemies and they only show up once from what I can tell).
~No towns, instead for saving and shopping, little holographic floating computers are all around just floating in random areas through the game, places where it makes no sense for them to be.
~Auto-healing at the end of each battle, if I’m reduced to 1 hit point out of 3,000 and win the fight, I automatically go back to 3000 right afterward at no cost to me.
~Too many save points with saving being unnecessary except to shut the game off. You can save in so many different areas in the game, and I really kind of hate that. Not to mention, if you lose a fight against a boss or creature, while it’s game over you can hit retry and reappear just a few yards away from said enemy. Basically that means you’re immortal, and I can’t stand that.
~EDIT: Oh, and all characters gain the same experience to gain abilities through crystarium, regardless of whether or not they actually fought.

It’s a fun game thus far, and like I said I’ve only scratched the surface, but it’s still not the best final fantasy.

Re: Final Fantasy one thousand

Well I just beat the game (well, not really, not if you count completest’s goal like beating a Shaolongui). Anyways, some spoilers below, so don’t read it if you plan on buying the game anytime soon.

[spoiler]

Barthandelus and Orphan were both bosses I’ve been really wanting to have in a final fantasy game for a LONG time. The kind of boss that, no matter how much you power level, is always a challenge. Orphan’s second form on the other hand, not so much. A couple of “Army of ones” from Light, then paradigm over to aggression and the battle is done. The doom counter didn’t even make it to below 1,000.

On the plus side, the ending was spectacular for the most part. I was kind of hoping that the song in the trailer above was just some gay ass song they decided to give the trailer. Fuck me it’s an actual theme song for the end of the game. Annoying, but the crystallization of Cocoon made up for it.

Overall, the game was fairly lackluster. It’s only once you get to chapter 11, on a new planet that the game actually gets fun. The rest of it is just mind numbing linearity and repetitive fight after fight. It would have been alright if I had access to all crystarium trees and all stages of crystarium right as I became a L’cie. It wouldn’t have made too much of a difference but it would have allowed me to power level. I guess square enix tried to keep things balanced, and instead of making enemies super powerful or characters super weak, they did both (because some of the boss fights were fucking nuts and I had maxed out crystarium trees at the time).[/spoiler]

Lastly, a quick question to anyone who’s played the game. Shaolongui is considered to be the toughest opponent (rivaled with mission 64), but I’m curious if you ever get the chance to fight Titan?

That’d be a battle of ridiculously epic proportions and I would -love- to take him on. Surely I’d lose, but dammit it’d be awesome still.