What are you playing?

[Xeogred]

20 hours in? You've still got a lot to do dude. You're not even done with the tutorial.

I hope you beat it. I hope you beat it so you can join me in this endless suffering in how utterly unsatisfying and unrewarding that god awful ending was. You will cry.

On the other hand, I amusingly ended up liking XIII-2 a lot. It has two characters that are more human than the XIII cast and an actual recurring villain that wasn't bad. The combat is also open from the start, so no 30 hour tutorial in that one which is a plus I'd think. Music was a bit cooler too with a lot of good tracks, tons of battle themes.

Whenever Lightning popped up though I wanted to cry. She's not one of the worst Final Fantasy characters I've seen. She is one of the worst characters I've seen in the history of gaming. Or the history of everything.

So she made sure I hated Lightning Returns. I beat XIII and wanted to cry, I beat XIII-2 and enjoyed it despite the weird convoluted ending, but I can't even bring myself to finish Lightning Returns. Sums it up.

[Retrogamer0001]

20 hours in? You've still got a lot to do dude. You're not even done with the tutorial.

So I hear. However, there's no way in the name of god I'm going to put +50 hours into this game - when the end cutscene plays and the credits roll, that's it, I'm done.

I hope you beat it. I hope you beat it so you can join me in this endless suffering in how utterly unsatisfying and unrewarding that god awful ending was. You will cry.

Shit games tend to have shit endings, so with my rock-bottom expectations, I'm sure to not be disappointed.

Whenever Lightning popped up though I wanted to cry. She's not one of the worst Final Fantasy characters I've seen. She is one of the worst characters I've seen in the history of gaming. Or the history of everything.

I honestly don't mind her too much - she's kinda like a female Squall in my eyes. Can you really blame her for being a cold, uncaring bitch with the troop of whiners, idiots, and pussies that follow her around? I can't.

[Sload Soap]

I think you've done well to get 20 hours in. I got about 12 hours of tube walking done before I had the dreadful realisation that this was all the game was. And those 12 hours were mostly down to Sazh.

No towns. No characters. No gameplay. No mercy.

[dunpeal2064]

I thought XIII had some of the best gameplay in the series, as far as its combat situations go. Unfortunately, these scenarios take several hours to get to.

It surely beats VIII's mess of an engine (Oh hi Zell, looks like I win. Or, Or hi Quistis looks like I win. Or... fuck it, hi anyone in the game, be at low health and I am unbeatable. OR Diablo no-encounter infinite draw of the best magic max stats oh god I'm unstoppable).

Seriously though. VI may have had all sorts of issues with its engine, but how can you NOT break VIII?

At least XIII (and XII) actually killed me a few times. Felt less rape-y than playing most FF games.

[Retrogamer0001]

I thought XIII had some of the best gameplay in the series, as far as its combat situations go. Unfortunately, these scenarios take several hours to get to.

It surely beats VIII's mess of an engine (Oh hi Zell, looks like I win. Or, Or hi Quistis looks like I win. Or... fuck it, hi anyone in the game, be at low health and I am unbeatable. OR Diablo no-encounter infinite draw of the best magic max stats oh god I'm unstoppable).

Seriously though. VI may have had all sorts of issues with its engine, but how can you NOT break VIII?

At least XIII (and XII) actually killed me a few times. Felt less rape-y than playing most FF games.

No. Just no. The combat system is one of the most boring aspects of the game because every single enemy has a million hp. All you do is shift paradigms over and over and over and over and over, all the while pressing the attack button. There is no thought process beyond switching to your next paradigm, which usually means Attack*Weaken*Heal*. Repeat ad nauseum.

Summons is this game have been completely neutered and are all but useless. You can summon ONE eidolon per battle and they barely do any damage. The upgrade system is a joke and completely unnecessary for completing the game. The characters are idiots. The game is so linear you barely need to play more than three hours to see what it has to offer for the next +30. It's just a bad, bad game.

[dunpeal2064]

No. Just no. The combat system is one of the most boring aspects of the game because every single enemy has a million hp. All you do is shift paradigms over and over and over and over and over, all the while pressing the attack button. There is no thought process beyond switching to your next paradigm, which usually means Attack*Weaken*Heal*. Repeat ad nauseum.

And how would you describe the previous games in the series, that outdid this game with their combat systems?

Don't mistake me saying that XIII is better than the previous games for me saying its a flawless combat system; its not. I'm just curious what makes you feel like the other games do more in their combat than XIII?

And, there is a thought process... you admit it yourself, you are thinking of what paradigm you will switch to next. For some bosses (albeit this is further in the game than you are), you have to be able to note boss tells, because if you see his arm swing, and you aren't in Sentinal by the time it hits the ground, you are dead. You have to be able to track space in between moves to note whether you even have time to make it to heals or buffs (which are quite needed later in the game), because an incorrect paradigm switch will leave you open for an attack you cannot handle.

And no enemies in the game have a million hp, if the fights are taking that long then you are not playing the game properly. Instead of just mashing on attack, you need to switch one character to Ravager to build stagger, while either leaving a 2nd character in Commander to hold that stagger (as stagger drops quicker while the enemy is not being hit by Commander attacks), or if you need a stagger early (Can't recover in time for the next big attack), or are feeling risky, you can go multiple Ravager. The goal is to stagger asap, and then hit with multiple Commander characters with support buffs, because Commader class is able to do a lot more damage, and juggle the enemy in the air to prevent its attacks when the enemy is staggered. If you do this, no battles should take any longer than your average RPG fight, aside some bosses.

No, its not the most complex thing ever (what FF is?), but I actually feel like I am doing something in this game. Flying through the forms, needing all types of characters, worrying about death, looking for boss tells... I do none of this in older FF games. Its actually in those games that just boringly mashing attack is more likely to work.

Just being able to discuss this game to this length, to me, shows that it has infinitely more strategy than VI, VII, VIII, IX, or X. And, I love all of those games.

[dust_hound]

At the risk of derailing the FFarguments, i'm playing and thoroughly enjoying Pandora's Tower on Wii, and Phantasy Star Zero for DS. The former's emphasis on time spent puts an enjoyable pressure on the exploration, while the latter has hit that sweet spot of loot vs time spent grinding, for me anyway.

[Xeogred]

No. Just no.

Hey, you're not even that far. You're still in the tutorial.

Once the combat opens up, I can also admit that it's pretty fun. In fact, it's one of the many reasons I think Lightning Returns completely sucks, because you only control her instead of three people and just completely changes the dynamics.

If you don't know what you're doing in the second half you're going to die a lot.

I can still rip it apart too though. Not being able to set parameters for what order buffs/debuffs come out, or who gets healed first (AI automatically assumes whoever has the lowest HP, despite the fact that your main characters' death results in game over), etc. So when it comes to customization, I thought it was about 10 steps back from what FFXII did.

[Sload Soap]

The combat argument always comes up with FFXIII at some point.

Even if the combat was world class, which it isn't, it wouldn't stop FFXIII from having probably the worst cast, in the worst story, with the worst gameplay in the worst setting of any Final Fantasy. And while its graphics are by default impressive owing to its modernity, the actual aesthetic is plain overall with some overwrought elements thrown in (those ridiculous transforming Eidolons). I didn't even find the music that good either TBH.

Final Fantasy XIII is the Attack of the Clones of gaming: a badly written, badly paced story with awful characters saying and doing stupid things all set inside an ugly CGI cartoon world. It's so bad it makes people question what they ever saw in the series to begin with and it's an insult to the fanbase from a completely out of touch developer. If it didn't have Final Fantasy in the title it would have been forgotten about long ago with other dreck like Infinite Undiscovery and Enchanted Arms.

Balls to it and balls to SquareEnix.

[dunpeal2064]

And every time the combat is brought up as a strong point to the game, someone completely dismisses it as if the rest of the game makes this design decision moot entirely, even though the other games have flaws that you could easily dismiss the entire game over

You say worst gameplay, and yet AGAIN no examples are provided. What makes XIIIs gameplay worse than the others? What did the others even do that hadn't been done by other devs at the time? And, when I say gameplay, I mean the design choices that went into the combat system, not walking around and where you walk around.

Compare it to the series if you are going to compare it to the series. This is the most frustrating thing, it is almost impossible to even discuss this game because people fall to these default statements, without providing any information.

And, you just said that, if the combat system was world class, it wouldn't stop the game from having the worst gameplay... now I don't think you are even paying attention to what you are writing man World class combat would certainly equate to good gameplay, since in an RPG the combat is really the only stand-out gameplay element.