Simple question, anyone played it and is it any good? I usually like the Final Fantasy games but went off them recently. FFX was OK but felt it was too much of a chore to get your characters good enough to beat the extra bosses such as Dark Aeons and Monster Arena. FFXII was good too but the fact that most monsters in the game were the same and just used a different colour pallette I felt was really lazy. What is FFXIII like? I have seen it advertised at £25 at a few places for the 360 and thought it was a good price. Worth it?
Its fun, good storyline impressive visuals (recommend PS3 over Xbox 360 though). Very straight linear story. Didn't really feel like playing on after the last boss to do extra stuff. Battle system is quite different more fluid, but you only control 1 character. If you enjoy the stories go for it otherwise maybe not so
The gameplay in XIII takes a huge step back from past titles. There are no towns to explore, almost no sidequests other than a XII style monster hunt thing, and for the majority of the game you are literally getting rail-roaded through levels which are basically nothing more than pretty, straight paths. The combat system is alright but it practically plays itself for you. Character building is also extremely linear. It almost looks like the sphere grid from X, only you have absolutely none of the freedom provided for you by the sphere grid. If you're ok with playing it for just the story and cinematics you'll be ok.
I'm about 25 hours in (Chapter 9). The story is very good so far but it's a bit of a grind. Everything I've read says it opens up around the 30 hour point which I'm looking forward to.
Well summarized. Personally I was a bit put off by the return to turn-based combat, because I loved XII's realtime combat system. I thought it worked excellently. On-the-side messing around is quite a contentious point, some people think it's what made (for example) FFVII so great while others didn't have the time for it.
Combat isn't turn based though? Actually scrap that I guess it is but it's bloody fast for turn based.
I wouldn’t go for the 360 version if you have a choice, also I saw at Sainsburys it was selling for ~£19
As rpgs go its an ok game I guess. Decent story. But it does not deserve to carry the Final Fantasy name. Nor did 12. Seriously below par for Square. No world map, no exploration, almost completely liner. Most old school FF players should avoid.
i have to admit i like the old FF way like FVII and FVIII hell even FFVI with turn based combat. however just because the game doesnt have those things does not make it "ok" and below par they tried something new it works well for action and suspense. square enix always like to try new systems out and granted some are better than others - im thinking materia which was fecking awesome but 12s continous system was iffy for me, they keep things fresh though. i doubt we would be onto FF14 nearly if they had kept one way of doing things. overall im enjoying FF13 yes it linear but intense and focus'd because of this which adds to the exceitment. thngs have opened up slightly now for me as im on chapter 11 so hunting mobs is fun and attempting to max the class grid which requires so serious time to get through.
That's just it, they're not fighting in turn - Turn based suggests that one party moves (attack/heal/defend) then the 2nd party does their moves before returning to the first party. In this FF it's real time, if you don't select anything in the combat menu the enemy will keep hitting you. The action gauge just builds up until you've collected enough time to use whatever attack/tech you've chosen.
Makes sense and that was my thinking but I've seen a few posts referring to the combat as turn based in FFX13 thus the confusion.
Just out of interest, why wouldn't you go for the 360 version? Going from the couple of reviews I've read, I thought both the 360 and PS3 versions were pretty much identical?
its not real time as you have a ATB that builds up. but it is very similar and was based on the continous turn-based system of FFX. so although it is turn based still if you perform no action your enemy dioes not have to wait for you
From what I've heard, the 360 version runs at a much lower resolution and is hampered with terrible video compression on the FMVs (that make up a laaaarge portion of the game). It looks demonstrably worse than the PS3 version. At first glance it may not seem like a very big deal, but upon switching, the differences are glaring. This is mostly coming from Giantbomb.com where the reviewer (brad) played about 12 hours into the 360 version before switching over and being blow away by how much better the PS3 version was. If you've got access to either version, the PS3 is by far the superior choice. In regards to it being turn based; it is. Sorta. It's not turn based in an Advance Wars kind of way, but you do take "turns" in the sense that you queue up actions along with your allies and your enemies and you take turns beating on each other.
Arguments concerning FFXIII being turnbased or not are missing the point, for me it was the fact that you bring up a menu, select 'attack' and watch the character run and hit something, rather than moving an analog stick to run towards it and pressing X to hit it. Nothing has felt like more of a step backwards to me, after all the good work XII did to get past the shitty combat Final Fantasy has always touted.
Meh, FFX was the last FF I played purely because it was the last proper turn based game, for this kind of RPG I just prefer it. I was looking at XIII now I have a PS3 instead of a PC, but I reckon i'll have more fun downloading and revistiting FFVII and FFIX (FFIIX was pants).
