ファイナルファンタジーXIII

[Moelman]

People are complaining that the American and UK versions don't have Japanese voice overs. Why are people so bad?

I'd kind of like it if the Japanese voices were on there, but 3 DVDs is enough for the 360 version so I understand why they don't have it on there.

I'm heading to a midnight launch tonight with a friend, pretty excited for the game. Kind of wish it wasn't released this week, I am home for Spring break so I will have to play on a standard def tv instead of my HDTV at school for a week.

[SoulChicken]

If anyone sees some classic rants about the lack of Japanese dialog please post them so I can read them out to myself in an indignant nerdy voice.

[Fuzzy Lobster]

My brother pre-ordered it for me for my birthday!! Hooray! I get to pick it up tomorrow.

[SoulChicken]

Thoughts on the first few hours:

The first couple of hours are dull. Pretty much the only enjoyment you will eek out of it will be getting a handle on the story. To do that at this point though you should definitely read the datalogs. I begrudgingly started doing this because I didn't have a clue what was going on. You are dropped right in the middle of a story and virtually no explanation is given. However, the datalogs are really short, it alerts you when there is a new one and they quickly fill you in on what these guys are talking about. So its kind of okay, the benefit being there aren't the hideous stretches of exposition that you know would have been the alternative.

Right at the moment, the story has the potential to be more interesting than the other modern FFs.

You kind of need that hope because they give you practically no control over the battles you encounter running down this long straight road (floating in the air of course.) I only just got to the "levelling" mechanic 3 hours in. They deign to eek out the mechanics one by one and its only now that battles are a little fun. I wish they would open it up faster, again I can see how it could become pretty fantastic, I need the other pieces!

Its fine for now though, I'm on Final Fantasy time, I can think back to each of the modern FFs and the starting portions were rubbish. We'll see how it goes, it seems from reviews that this kind of play is going to go on for quite a while.

This game looks so good! Once out of the futar dystopian city, things get really pretty. I'm kind of sitting back and enjoying the scenery, mainly because there's not much else to do. The characters look fantastic, in the cutscenes I often don't know if its the movie stuff or ingame models. The voice acting is uncharacteristically good and the lip synching works . That's been my big pet peeve of this generation, its always been a little off (Uncharted 2) to crappy (Heavy Rain).

The potentially annoying character Snow ("I'm a hero!") is voiced by the same guy who voiced Kanji in Persona 4, with the Kanji voice. Which makes him pretty awesome. He doesn't say "Get bent!" though.

So I enjoyed it but it feels like a guilty pleasure. I'm horribly disposed to being generous to Final Fantasy games (except 8) so bear in mind this where I am coming from.

If it really is 20 hours until the game gets into its stride, this will be the FarCry 2 of JRPGS!

Edited March 10, 2010 by SoulChicken

[dpp]

I started playing yesterday for 30 mins, if only to say that I played it on release date... all I have to say so far is THIS IS A FUCKING GORGEOUS GAME.

Heavy Rain, FF13 and God of War 3. My eyes are having a ball this month (no pun intended).

[SoulChicken]

I forgot to say the sound is amazing. I have a surround sound setup and aside from Drag Me To Hell, I haven't heard anything as impressive. The score is good but oh man, I could have been sitting in the middle of an orchestra. The game sounds are clear, well positioned, mixed perfectly... It just sounds like a game should sound. It's quite amazing, I'm sorry I can't explain why its so good better.

Your pals have little Dragon Age -esque chats... except you are normally running ahead of them, so you overhear them talking behind you, as you would in real life and its easy to miss stuff. I wouldn't have minded them compromising their mix for that...

[juv3nal]

I only just got to the "levelling" mechanic 3 hours in.

You're not kidding. I'm an hour in and the most tactical choice I've made is "Oh I picked up an accessory? Guess I'd better equip it."

The fact that the game looks and sounds great does something to mitigate this, but the story thus far is not that amazing and this is going to wear thin if I don't have some meaningful control (like, say, a chance of failure if I do nothing but mash x) over the fighting soon. It's like the Japanese version of David Cage's "interactive movie" (i.e. we'll have you press some buttons that don't really do anything meaningful just to keep you involved before progressing to the next scene) or something. I've no problem with the linearity of the plot/running down the railroad track, btw.

That comes off a bit more negative than I intended. It does look and sound great and I'm only an hour in.

[Moelman]

I can't get any of my jobs or whatever past level 2, is this the same for everyone or am I doing it wrong? I'm like 8 hours in probably.

[Fuzzy Lobster]

Waaah!! I haven't had time to even pick my copy up. Ugh.

I'm glad to hear that the voice acting is good, since terrible voice acting immediately renders a game unplayable for me. You can't switch to the Japanese voice acting, right? I think that was mentioned previously.

[dpp]

No Japanese voice, not even in PS3.

[Fuzzy Lobster]

No Japanese voice, not even in PS3.

Shame. I wonder why they didn't give that option?

[dpp]

The theory is that even though the Blu-ray would be capable to have both languages, the 360 version would require even more discs. And by having the Japanese voice, the PS3 would have an edge which wasn't cool with Microsoft.

But this could be COMPLETELY wrong, so think what you will.

Since we're in the PS3 vs. 360 territory, there's an article up at Eurogamer pitting both versions against each other. Not a deal breaker, but there are some differences especially concerning video compression in the 360:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-final-fantasy-xiii-face-off

edit: found the "PR answer" by Kitase

Is there a specific reason why Japanese voices were left out of the game?

For the European version, the facial expressions and lip syncronisation are all lined up with the English lines, so the Japanese voices would not match up right. That was the main worry.

[SoulChicken]

They didn't put it in so as to troll awful nerds.

[Fuzzy Lobster]

They didn't put it in so as to troll awful nerds.

Oh, well in that case, that's fair enough.

The likely-to-be-real, PR answer is also good, I suppose.

[Sombre]

Loving this combat system so far, super fun and fluid. Currently rolling with 3 main setups:

2 rav and one medic for magic +healing

1 com/one rav and one medic for damage with a bit of safety in the medic

2 ravs and 1 commando for all out attack.

Just reached chapter 4 and done an eidolon fight. Not sure how I feel about the FF6 style "Hey, you jump between people nonstop", however.

[Sombre]

Okay, so, I'll write up a real kind of thought process later, but here's some quick notes so far:

Story: Somewhat contrived and...bad. There's just nothing really going on. Some talk of "L'ciel" and "Cocoon", but at no point in the game so far (Chapter 5, disc 2, 8 hours in) has anyone said anything about what they are, beyond passing references. You're assumed to either know what it means, infer what they are, or throw yourself into the extensive datalog, to try and discern it from that.

Characters: Not really sure about it, because the game doesn't let me play as one for more than 30 minutes at a time before throwing me to another group. Think the splitup scene from FF6, except it's all the time. Nobody really stands out at the moment, apart from Snow, and that's because his VA is the guy who did Kanji Tatsumi from Persona 4. Although, I approve of the "Chocofro"

Aesthetics: Something that the game shines on so far. The music is top (However battles are over so fast that I'm sick of the stupid "Fanfare" attempt). Everywhere I go is different, and this is something that FF13 does really well, it creates a real immersion in the world, with everything looking, frankly, absolutely stunning. Every game local, character animation and enemy design is at the top of its game. Sometimes, I've literally stopped and looked around at the amazing vistas, landscapes and bizarre industrial designs. A minor problem with the sound mix aside (Flavour dialogue in the field is meaningless, not exciting, and much quieter than it needs to be), it's very good so far.

Combat: Not sure how I feel about this. Read any review or rabid FF hater, and you'll hear it's "Press autoattack, receive win". Unfortunately, this is true. Despite the fact that the game allows you to pick and choose actions, what's the point? Brad Shoemaker of Giantbomb said "As much as you can choose your actions, there's no point. The autocommand picks them much faster, more efficiently, and frankly better choices than a human ever could". As much as I like to pick my own stuff, I just make "Gamey" job alliances. I'm usually going for a pure caster setup, a pure melee setup, or a "Heavy and medic" setup, because there's no point in making a competent, debuff ready and buffable squad, the battles are over too fast. I've never had any problem with bosses so far, just because the game is too easy to get around. I'm enjoying the character job system so far, kind of. Not sure how I feel about it so far, it seems kind of seethrough, and easy to exploit so far.

Concluding thoughts: S'alright, I guess. Not that far into it so far, but it seems a bit...well, standard. It's a normal JRPG intro, that looks really good and has the Final Fantasy name on it. Not sure what to expect, the game seems far too easy so far, or far too hard, it fluctuates I suppose. Making my way through it. Seems to be a lot of (Somewhat) boring combat and just...meaningless plot points. In chapter 4, I was on a beach, and a scene happened. From there, I had to run 20 feet forward, to initiate the next plot point. There's a lot of "What's the point in that" moments so far, however, this isn't to say I don't enjoy it. Making my way through it.

[20ozMonkey]

Story: Somewhat contrived and...bad. There's just nothing really going on. Some talk of "L'ciel" and "Cocoon", but at no point in the game so far (Chapter 5, disc 2, 8 hours in) has anyone said anything about what they are, beyond passing references. You're assumed to either know what it means, infer what they are, or throw yourself into the extensive datalog, to try and discern it from that.

They explain it exhaustively in the datalog but it feels like they are trying to reach some poetic height in their writing and it winds up being a pain to read through any of it.

[Sombre]

They explain it exhaustively in the datalog but it feels like they are trying to reach some poetic height in their writing and it winds up being a pain to read through any of it.

It just feels like, in a JRPG, they should explain it more, instead of making me read it in a seperate codex. In a game which EVERYTHING is speech, it just does my head in.

[SoulChicken]

I had to read like 6 boxes of text to understand what was going on.

[DrStrangepork]

Fuzzy Lobster and I just started on this game. I'll leave it to Fuzzy to give the true FF fan perspective, but here's my 2 cents. Just finished the first fal'cie.

1) The hate about the linearity is overblown. It's just as linear as CoD or Uncharted. That's the kind of game it is. Perhaps later there will be a kind of free-roaming "airship" thing where the world opens up.

2) The combat to this point is a bit more difficult than in Fable II, and it's getting less button-mashy as it goes. It's fun if a bit simplistic at this point. I do wish they didn't have the incredibly effective auto-battle option.

3) You MUST read the datalogs to get the story. I think the world's pretty cool, a new take on the FF standby of natural world v Supertech. The characters are engaging, I'm starting to care about them, even the douchy/annoying ones. I already care about this game way more than I ever did about FF XII.

4) Haven't run into any "towns" at all yet, just little insta-shops. That seems less rich and more linear than previous FF games.

I hope there gets to be some character customization, but I have a feeling that this might be a game where the individual characters are themselves and there's not much that changes that.

Overall the game has an old school feel to it. They certainly backed off from the WoW-like experiment of FF XII.

[dpp]

Random thoughts after ~14 hours playing the game:

-What's with the Australian chicks in games recently? Miranda in ME2, now Vanille... It's cute, I'll admit to it

-Holy shit, there will be a torrent of hentai based on this game... and a lot involving underage kids

-Hope has got to be THE SINGLE WORST character in a game in the past couple of years... someone smack that kid in the face, for the love of god

-Snow has the GAYEST undershirt I have EVER seen in my life. It's something you'd buy in Victoria's Secret, no joke

[toblix]

-What's with the Australian chicks in games recently? Miranda in ME2, now Vanille... It's cute, I'll admit to it

Maybe there are "babe trends" in gaming, and hot Australian chicks are the new hot Asian chicks.

[20ozMonkey]

-Snow has the GAYEST undershirt I have EVER seen in my life. It's something you'd buy in Victoria's Secret, no joke

Nomura loves the soft feeling of a lacy camisole.

[SoulChicken]

Its been said over and over but the game you are playing after you have control over the composition of your party is so far away from where you started the game at its silly. Game went from poor to fine to pretty cool to sweet to hell yeah. It's now my favorite Final Fantasy.

[Xeneth]

Its been said over and over but the game you are playing after you have control over the composition of your party is so far away from where you started the game at its silly. Game went from poor to fine to pretty cool to sweet to hell yeah. It's now my favorite Final Fantasy.

Wow, what a comeback! ...Interesting.

I dropped out of the FF cult when VIII taught me what pain is. Before that point I had never completed a game OUT OF FRUSTRATION AND RAGE instead of fun and accomplishment... Never again.

So, I haven't enjoyed a Final Fantasy game since VII, (Or a JRPG since Persona 3, come to think of it...) but this sounds pretty DIFFERENT. I generally like things that stand out and work differently.

Unfortunately I don't have a PS3 yet, and I usually insist on playing things on the "Lead SKU" but I may give this a cautious try down the line. I'm sure it'll be a nice deal by the time I'm equipped.