Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

Imagine for a second that the next SMT game features Raido Kuzunoha dressed like Simon Belmont. You're gonna think they jumped the shark.

Actually, no.

SMT is a multiverse. Anything can happen.

Raidou's been to an alternate real and met Raido. He wasn't all Belmonted out, but he did have a facial scar and talked a lot.

You don't have to do a thorough psychoanalysis of it. It's a jarring presentation shift. Some people were very wary of the graphical shift between Majora's Mask and Wind Waker. This is something like that, except FFX appears to have turned into Charlie's Angels.

You're really reaching now.

People were disappointed with Wind Waker because they wanted "Adult Link" based off a Project Dolphin tech demo Nintendo showed off at E3. They assumed that was what they were going to get and we all know what happens when people make assumptions and have expectations. they assumed it because the Luigi's Mansion tech demo did become a game.

That's why.

They just used the graphical shift to fan the flames of their disappointment. Most of them ended up eating their words about Wind Waker, too. The real criticism of Wind Waker is now its lack of difficulty. Something that carried over to Twilight Princess when people got that Adult Link they wanted so badly.

Spirit Tracks has brought back the difficulty of older games, but kept the toon-shaded look.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - no one talks about FFX-2 on the basis of gameplay, they just judge the book by its cover and move on. Yeah, they strike a Charlie's Angels pose, so fucking what? There's a ton of other pop culture stuff in there.

FFX-2 was a departure just for being a sequel at the time. The story was all about departures and letting the past go. Yuna believed she'd never have a long life, the world is trying to come to grips with the Yevon faith being revealed as false, people are trying to look for a new future now that they no longer live under tyranny.

But its clear some people just don't know that. They just judge the book by its cover and move on.

That's why so many good games fail these days, its not something to be proud of.

Valkyria Chronicles, for example. People looked at it, saw a japanese strategy RPGs and let it fail, even though it was an extremely good game and didn't have tons of anime cliches to go on.

[Malacite]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

When did the Joystiq writers become oblivious to what the hell they're talking about?

Ages ago?

But see, people say that about every new Final Fantasy that's come out since FFVII.

I think X was the only exception to this?

And X-2 did suck. The combat was surprisingly some of the best ever in the series, but the plot (or lack thereof) & cast made me want to gag. And yes I beat the damn game. I might have tolerated it had they not neutered blitzball so badly. And I'm ashamed to admit that I still absolutely fucking love that game's intro, but the rest of the music was like a Brittney Spears + FF Nightmare.

Also;

[

Not saying it's a bad game but really, that presentation doesn't help it at all. It's not a matter of "oh, I don't want a strong female lead," it's a matter of "what the fuck, why's Yuna wearing miniskirts, dual wielding guns and hanging out with a dyke?"

Dear Lord this. What the hell was up with the total 180 of Yuna's personality? And that game really did feel like a CA knock off, especially with the way the missions were laid out. The game had stellar production values but lacked real substance.

[Armando]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

SMT stuff

My bad I suppose. As you can see I'm not familiar with SMT. It's the principle that matters. Use Mime Snake if it helps

They just judge the book by its cover and move on.

...some stuff about Valkyria Chronicles

Again, VC is a stand alone game. X-2 had precedence. You were expecting something, SE showed you something else entirely.

We've seen it before. It's called Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. It doesn't matter if it was a good game in its own right. The Tactics part of the name created expectations about the content. People were hoping for something like the original even if it wasn't a sequel, and it turned out so unlike the original that some fans were very hesitant.

When I heard they were making a sequel to X I was expecting something like X. When you first see the presentation for X-2 you think "what the fuck have they done?" It's as simple as that. It has nothing to do with whether the game is good, and has even less to do with sexism. It boils down to "Uh, this isn't what I was expecting; in fact, this is so unlike the previous product I really don't know if I want it."

The case of FFT->FFTA is exactly the same as X->X-2 and FFTA's criticism had nothing to do with sexism. If you need more examples it's more or less also the same thing that happened when Sega revealed Shadow the Hedgehog (the video game) would have Shadow shooting everything with various types of guns and vehicles, and when they revealed that Sonic Unleashed would have you turning into a Werehog. It's a very "what the fuck" kind of reveal. Difference being that those Sonic games are bad while it can be argued that FFTA and X-2 are good, but that's irrelevant.

Your initial argument went out the window on account of me being a huge FFVI and Metroid fan precisely because of their strong female leads. It simply wasn't a factor in my aversion of X-2.

[Feba]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

the human mind can easily interpret what's going on,

This presupposes quite a lot.



On FFX-2, played it up to the final dungeon, found the boss fights as you went deeper to be too much of a pain to continue with a plot that seemed fluffy and pointless. Battle system was ok, but once I got the special dressspheres it was pretty much just a race to change into one before the enemy killed my party, and then buff/enfeeble until it was crippled, then use the shiny damage attacks to finish. Worked almost %100 of the time. Almost as sad as FFX's "Oh hey, I don't need to actually fight Seymour, I can just charge up everyone's Overdrive gauges and then walk over and push him down." moment. Leveling abilities wasn't bad, but the menu UI was bad enough that it got annoying. Ultimately I look at it the same way I do FF8-- SE putting in a lot of ideas and some good production values, but not taking themselves seriously and not focusing on creating a good cohesive game. I can understand why people would like it, and I'm glad I gave it a shot, but ultimately not a good game in my eyes.

[Rostum]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

Oh look everyone, jenova_9 has layed down the final word. Looks like none of us will be getting FFXIII.

[Malacite]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

We've seen it before. It's called Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. It doesn't matter if it was a good game in its own right. The Tactics part of the name created expectations about the content. People were hoping for something like the original even if it wasn't a sequel, and it turned out so unlike the original that some fans were very hesitant.

As a side note, this is more or less what happened to me with the last few Silent Hill & Resident Evil games but anyway...

Difference being that those Sonic games are bad while it can be argued that FFTA and X-2 are good, but that's irrelevant.

I stopped caring about Sonic after SA2. Sonic Team is dead to me.

Your initial argument went out the window on account of me being a huge FFVI and Metroid fan precisely because of their strong female leads. It simply wasn't a factor in my aversion of X-2.

FF6 was kind of awkward in that regard. There really was no main character since almost everyone was vital to the plot... though I suppose Terra and especially Celes got some pretty major screen time.

On FFX-2, played it up to the final dungeon, found the boss fights as you went deeper to be too much of a pain to continue with a plot that seemed fluffy and pointless.

You're fucking kidding right? Hell, the regular enemies were tougher than the bosses... Once you unlock DRK in that game it's essentially like playing on Easy Mode. 3x DRK or 2 DRK and 1 WHM and it's nigh-impossible to lose.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

And X-2 did suck. The combat was surprisingly some of the best ever in the series, but the plot (or lack thereof) & cast made me want to gag. And yes I beat the damn game. I might have tolerated it had they not neutered blitzball so badly. And I'm ashamed to admit that I still absolutely fucking love that game's intro, but the rest of the music was like a Brittney Spears + FF Nightmare.

Blitzball was never good. There are fantasy football sims that are better. Sphere Break and Gunner's Gauntlet were good mini-games.

If "suck" is applied to story and not the game, then the game did not suck. Make up your mind please. They're two separate elements. I separate the story from the game unless the story is integral to the gameplay. That's not Final Fantasy, though, Final Fantasy doesn't have dialog branches (just the fake kind), alignments or relationship sim elements.

As such, I can disassociate story from game in Final Fantasy, I'm always more interested in game than story. I like SMT better because the two elements cannot be separated and what I say/do can affect things, even the endgame. Western RPGs I also tend to not separate the story because they make it an integral part of the character's development.

That's how I look at my RPGs. I will likely judge FFXIII on its gameplay and not even worry about the story. If I like the story, great. If not, its not the first time that's happened. The impressions of the gameplay are generally something where I've liked what I've heard. Similar to SMT, they favor efficient combat over mashing X to move on to the next encounter. You must learn how to drive an enemy to Break status so you can take them down quickly and that requires use of the job system they have in place there. If you don't learn how to do this as well to learn to protect yourself, enemies can do you what you can do to them.

I don't like that there's no Game Over screen, though. Failure should be punished to some degree.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

FFX's Blitzball was the bomb! I think the side stuff is the only thing that kept me playing it.

FFX-2...ya not so much. I did my usual play 90% and then let it sit but the thing is I'm OCD about stuff but not so much with this one. It sucked so hard I just wanted to get it over with and stop so I didn't get too compulsive about stuff.

As far as gameplay and story, I feel they go hand in hand. If the gameplay is good but the story sucks, it still ruins my experience and vice versa. This is especially true with an RPG where story is what the game is about. You are role playing a character and if the story sucks thats the whole point of the damn game....to be carried away by the story and perceive yourself as one of the characters (usually the main). The story is what carries you to do the next thing and the next after that...to see whats coming.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

This is especially true with an RPG where story is what the game is about.

A story driven RPG is style of RPG, but as with Final Fantasy, the "Role Playing" part is not true except for character customization. You do not decide who Lightning or Squall are or where their stories end - that's predetermined. You just watch the story unfold and play the sections in between. I give FF a pass because most of the time, those customization systems are very, very robust. That's not something I can say about most other japanese RPG.

Pen and Paper is a style of RPG where a Dungeon Master decides the scenario and the other players roleplay, roll dice and find the solution to the scenarios by whatever means and skills they have available to them. Nothing pre-determined here except the scenario and the dungeon layout.

Western RPGs tend to favor alignments, factions and total freedom in defining what your character can be. Sometimes they're so open-ended and other times they're more story driven - but alignment, faction and moral choice seldom go away.

A Rougelike is an RPG that is very much about navigating the perils of a dungeon that could be 100 or 1000 levels long. You die once and its back to square one. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is as friendly as the genre gets, step into Shiren the Wanderer and its much more hardcore. Die once and its back to square one - you lose it all, EXP, levels and whatever items you didn't bank before leaving town. That's what the old text dungeon game Rouge did and that's why we call them rougelikes.

Then you have hack-n-slash RPGs and MMOs. These games are less about story and more about getting loot. They're collection and cooperative games. Story might have a place in it, but its never the main attraction. They are not about story, not even if they have it.

There are many kinds of RPGs. I'm reluctant to even say JRPGs are about story, because its not a strong point of Etrian Odyssey, that's more like old-school vector dungeon games like Wizardry. The story is a thin premise at best, the real story is whatever you made up in your head as you went along.

[Malacite]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

A story driven RPG is style of RPG, but as with Final Fantasy, the "Role Playing" part is not true except for character customization. You do not decide who Lightning or Squall are or where their stories end - that's predetermined. You just watch the story unfold and play the sections in between. I give FF a pass because most of the time, those customization systems are very, very robust. That's not something I can say about most other japanese RPG.

Just because the story is predetermined doesn't mean it's not story-driven. I mean do you honestly play FF for the random battles? >_>

That said what TGM said is so true; Gameplay & Story very much go hand-in-hand, and that's where X-2 dropped the ball. I actually had quite a good deal of fun with the random encounters in X-2 (at least until shortly after I got DRK...), but the plot was... *pukes*
Generally, I view the combat in FF to be the means by which you progress the story, not the focus.


Diablo is a very strange breed of RPG. It's very much action-oriented and focused on said action, yet the bulk of the story and lore is in the manuals O.o;

The manual for the Original Diablo was absolutely huge and had pages & pages dedicated to the back story etc etc... but Blizzard does that with all their games and I f'ing love them for it (they also have some of the sweetest concept art ever)

[cidbahamut]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

Who takes Jenova seriously? Clearly Jenova9 is the best disguised troll we've ever seen, noone is this bad.

You know I figure it's that or someone hijacked the account because this is a complete reversal from the last time they were going on about FFXIII.

[Ziero]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

In regards to X-2, I didn't like the game at all. For starters, I hated the world of FFX, so playing around in it some more didn't really do anything for me. I also had no interest in the story, which if the story is crap in an RPG it kinda defeats the purpose of playing. And while I didn't get all that far, I did end up using the same strategy over and over again so it kinda got real boring real fast. To be honest, the only reason that I actually did play it was because of the all female lead characters. But after not being pulled into the world, not being pulled into the story and not being excited by the gameplay, I just said screw it and just googled FFX-2 pron.

Valkyria Chronicles, for example. People looked at it, saw a japanese strategy RPGs and let it fail, even though it was an extremely good game and didn't have tons of anime cliches to go on.

While I loved VC to death, I have to admit it was filled with Anime cliches. In fact the story was more or less one big cliche, but the world, the characters and the gameplay more then made up for it.

If "suck" is applied to story and not the game, then the game did not suck. Make up your mind please. They're two separate elements. I separate the story from the game unless the story is integral to the gameplay. That's not Final Fantasy, though, Final Fantasy doesn't have dialog branches (just the fake kind), alignments or relationship sim elements.

Final Fantasy, as a series, is known for having strong gameplay and an engaging, powerful story. In JRPGs, a good story is a massively important part of whether the game is good or not. Far moreso then it is in WRPGs, where more interactive game play and customization allow you to decide how the actual story plays out. With JRPGs, we're pretty much watching an interactive anime movie, and if the story isn't worth watching then the game is most often not worth playing. You can't really separate the two because JRPGs aren't sold on their gameplay, they're sold on their powerful and moving stories.

[Mezlo]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

Eh. That's such a contrived explanation compared to "it looks like a bad Charlie's Angels knock-off game, which FFX wasn't."

Not saying it's a bad game but really, that presentation doesn't help it at all. It's not a matter of "oh, I don't want a strong female lead," it's a matter of "what the fuck, why's Yuna wearing miniskirts, dual wielding guns and hanging out with a dyke?"

THIS!

I wish I could double thank you...

[Nazo]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

Wow, lot's of negativity towards FFXIII. Especially from people who haven't even played it yet, it seems.

For what it's worth, I'm about 10 hours in and so far I absolutely love it. Yes, it's incredibly linear but it's so much fun to play that for me it isn't an issue. It's worth mentioning that the story jumps about as well, so it breaks it up a bit this way.
The battle system is probably the best I've played in a FF game so far; it works beautifully, combining some of the tactical elements of turn-based gameplay with more pacey elements, where timing becomes important. It also brings a sense of the spectacular back to battles which I thought was sorely missing from FFXII's on-field fighting. This is the kind of battle system I wish XI and XII had.

The characters and storyline are interesting and well-developed, the interaction between characters is well-handled and for the most part convincing.

I think how people react to FFXIII is going to be influenced a lot by what you thought of FFXII. If you are the type that thought the greater openness was a brilliant step forward for the series then XIII is likely to be a disappointment. If like me you thought watching your guys hack away endlessly at mobs then running around in circles for ages to get your mp back (without the benefit of being able to chat to pt or ls members while doing it) was incredibly tedious then FFXIII may well delight.

[Durahansolo]

Re: Square Enix cut a game's worth of content from Final Fantasy XIII

The tags on this topic are serious business XD.

Since Nazo says the game is extremely epic, we should not buy it. XD j/k
I seriously can't wait til the game comes out so I can have my copy in hand.

In a similar somewhat related story, a friend of mine brought me back a Gurren Lagann Revoltech figurine from Japan while he was there last month. I started looking around for other revoltech figurines and saw one for the Shiva Bike. If only I had $200 to spend.