It hasn't even been officially announced for North America yet.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
FINAL FANTASY (Agito XIII) Type-0 |OT| Occupy Suzaku
- Thread starter Kagari
- Start date
It hasn't even been officially announced for North America yet.
Man, I really don't think this is a good game
I've been putting off ch.7/last chapter for a week or two because the thought of playing this game feels "ugh" and so I've just been sleep training while playing other fun games instead. Gained about 6 levels so my top3 are lvl.36-40.
Picked up the game today and did the first half of Ch.7, another laaaaame RTS battle. Takes forever, is a chore and no fun. Ends with a raid on the city with dragons and even though I thought I'd be fine since I'm lvl.36-40 and the enemies are lvl.34/35, I get to the end with some big dragon boss and he wipes my 3 guys in like 2 hits. So then I gotta bring in my lvl.28-30 next group against him and I'm thinking "I better not die on this and have to redo that entire rts battle" and luckly my lvl.28 guy finishes him off. That's the worst thing about the game, because of the screwed up character leveling system if you have 2-3 characters who are GOOD level for fighting the enemies and then 25 mins into a level they get wiped in 1 or 2 hits, suddenly you might be totally screwed because now your remaining characters are severely underleveled and you just lost a mission 25 mins in, in the span of 5 seconds. And then sometimes you get stuck with characters who are totally useless in the situation, like ground melee characters against a flying boss. The game balance is simply terrible and it makes the game not very fun to play.
Anyhow, at the 2nd half of Ch.7 now. Will power through the airship quest just to get the damn airship (gotta do another RTS battle ughhh) then power through the next main mission and the final chapter just to get it over with.
Game was initially fun, but then became repetitive and by the end now just feels like a chore and I'm questioning if it's still worth playing it just for completion when I could spend the time on so many better and more fun games. Like with FFXIII, SE really messed this game up. Total shame. I hope XIII-2 is much better than these 2. I just want an FF that's fun to play and not a boring tedium.
Type-0 ends in the Chapter 6, now enjoy another glorious SQE trainwreck ;(
Yeah, I liked ch.4-6 the best. 1-3 were fun because it was fresh and exciting, 4-6 were the most interesting, 7 is just kind of ehhhhh why am I still playing this.
If the characters just leveled evenly though, man that would make the game MUCH more enjoyable for me. When Type 1 comes out that is going to make or break whether I pick it up.
If the characters just leveled evenly though, man that would make the game MUCH more enjoyable for me. When Type 1 comes out that is going to make or break whether I pick it up.
Ok, I got the airship. No one told me you had to beat lvl.44 steel giants with protect & regen :| My cast was like mid 30s because I thought you just had to beat that lvl.37 combat exercise. Luckily I was able to abuse Eight's invincible run (best move in the game or tied with Rem's re-raise) and so my lvl.36 Eight was able to beat them all though it took a while because of the regen and low damage I did. Also shows why I hate the leveling in this game, I beat 4 lvl.44 boss-type guys with my lvl.36 underpowered guy and I didn't even gain one level. The leveling in this game is sloooooow and balance all screwy.
Anyhow, now that I got the airship is there anything to actually do in the game besides fly around and shoot ships considering my party is < lvl.40? There are the usual town and suzaku quests and a few suzaku but anything new and interesting that I can do at my levels?
I went back to Paz where I had taken on a quest to kill one of the steel giants and the person who gave it to me has disappeared @_@ fffuuuu
Also I never knew that the combat training missions were normal combat. I thought they were optional RTS battles and so skipped them all (plus they're always 10 levels above you or something) until I had to do the one to open up Silent Yard to get the airship.
Finally, what's up with the summons in this game? Not only are they kind of useless because you need to level them separately from your cast and need to use Rem's re-raise to even make them useful, but out of the 22 summons in the game, I've gotten...4 from the main story. If you're going to design that many different summons for your game, it would help if you actually gave them to the player instead of hiding them all for secrets and 2nd playthrough :X Game is way too multiplayer, monster hunter, new game+ orientated for me. I just want a good single player rpg
Anyhow, now that I got the airship is there anything to actually do in the game besides fly around and shoot ships considering my party is < lvl.40? There are the usual town and suzaku quests and a few suzaku but anything new and interesting that I can do at my levels?
I went back to Paz where I had taken on a quest to kill one of the steel giants and the person who gave it to me has disappeared @_@ fffuuuu
Also I never knew that the combat training missions were normal combat. I thought they were optional RTS battles and so skipped them all (plus they're always 10 levels above you or something) until I had to do the one to open up Silent Yard to get the airship.
Finally, what's up with the summons in this game? Not only are they kind of useless because you need to level them separately from your cast and need to use Rem's re-raise to even make them useful, but out of the 22 summons in the game, I've gotten...4 from the main story. If you're going to design that many different summons for your game, it would help if you actually gave them to the player instead of hiding them all for secrets and 2nd playthrough :X Game is way too multiplayer, monster hunter, new game+ orientated for me. I just want a good single player rpg
She disappeared?!!! she should be there and give you a growth egg
Oh boy, so that was actually one of the "good" quest rewards and now I can't get it because my game glitched on me
Will try to turn it off and reload and see if she appears.
jimmypython
Member
yes....that happened to me too, thank god i had a save file before so i went back to re-do the whole thing...
you have to kill the giant, go back to talk to her and finish the mission then get the airship....
jimmypython
Member
Perfo
Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
22? I always thought there were six or so. Oh Square, what did you do?
Fixed.
jimmypython
Member
jimmypython
Member
cannot wait! looks so cool!
jimmypython
Member
just got my copy of the Ultimania guide. oh man, the book is so thick...looking forward to digging more into the meaning of the story and FNC mytho ^_^
Starts final Ch.7 mission
49 seconds later mission clear S-rank.
Then TWENTY MINUTES OF WALKING BACK ACROSS THE ENTIRE WORLD MAP FIGHTING RANDOM BATTLES EVERY 20 STEPS. Good thing I got that airship right before this mission since it won't even let me use it and I can't warp back to Suzaku and so the fact that I only had 1 chocobo and there are no chocobos in the snow area really screwed me over.
Like, what was the point of that? It's not even like when you get back Suzaku is on fire or something that would have prevented you from warping back LIKE EVERY OTHER TIME IN THE GAME or using your recently acquired by hard work airship. No, they just figured "fuck, we didn't have time to put any actual effort into this last mission, so we need another way to waste the player's time. How about we make them walk across the entire world map by foot if they didn't stock up on chocobos!". Game has so many anti-player design choices it's baffling. If the game wants to hate me as a player so much, I'll hate it back.
[Disc Swap]
Time for last chapter of lolz!
49 seconds later mission clear S-rank.
Then TWENTY MINUTES OF WALKING BACK ACROSS THE ENTIRE WORLD MAP FIGHTING RANDOM BATTLES EVERY 20 STEPS. Good thing I got that airship right before this mission since it won't even let me use it and I can't warp back to Suzaku and so the fact that I only had 1 chocobo and there are no chocobos in the snow area really screwed me over.
Like, what was the point of that? It's not even like when you get back Suzaku is on fire or something that would have prevented you from warping back LIKE EVERY OTHER TIME IN THE GAME or using your recently acquired by hard work airship. No, they just figured "fuck, we didn't have time to put any actual effort into this last mission, so we need another way to waste the player's time. How about we make them walk across the entire world map by foot if they didn't stock up on chocobos!". Game has so many anti-player design choices it's baffling. If the game wants to hate me as a player so much, I'll hate it back.
[Disc Swap]
Time for last chapter of lolz!
The Mana Legend
Banned
I gotta say, I really hope they upgrade this game for the 3DS or Vita, because, for the first time in my life, I have been turned off by a game solely because of the graphics.
What?
The graphics are good. Textures & Music are top-notch. Environments are pretty weak but acceptable. Fairly good models everywhere.
Cutscenes basically look like AAA PS2/Wii visuals.
Uh, I'm at the very very end of the final chapter and something weird is going on:
it says it's the last judgment sos and I need to "RUN UP THE SPIRAL STAIRS WITH MY PLAYABLE CHARACTER AND NOT GET SUCKED INTO THE ABYSS" but when I reach the top and try to enter the glowing light elevator/teleporter it says I failed and kills my character. Wtfff the wiki doesn't seem to say anything special in particular about this part, so I dunno what I'm missing.
IIRC that is supposed to happen, it should continue with some cutscene after that.
Yeah, it continued on but I thought I was getting the bad ending or something so I kept reloading and trying to do it correctly. -__-
Anyhow, finished the game. Need to gather my thoughts on it. Final chapter was definitely ...interesting.
I think the game was a fucking disaster the likes of which the FF series has never known, and that the game has no idea at all what it wants to be. But I have a soft spot for games that have an interesting story buried beneath all the mess and I like that I actually got the plot I would have written myself with the worldview they gave, so I don't hate the game.
But I do kind of think it's a good thing this isn't coming out in the west anytime soon. The combination of FFXIII, FFXIV, and Type 0 may have been enough to kill the FF franchise in the west.
Anyhow, finished the game. Need to gather my thoughts on it. Final chapter was definitely ...interesting.
I think the game was a fucking disaster the likes of which the FF series has never known, and that the game has no idea at all what it wants to be. But I have a soft spot for games that have an interesting story buried beneath all the mess and I like that I actually got the plot I would have written myself with the worldview they gave, so I don't hate the game.
But I do kind of think it's a good thing this isn't coming out in the west anytime soon. The combination of FFXIII, FFXIV, and Type 0 may have been enough to kill the FF franchise in the west.
Also one thing I really didn't like about the ending was
Machina becoming the WISE AND THOUGHTFUL WORLD LEADER THAT REBUILDS THE WORLD AND LEADS ITS PEOPLE.
Machina was a spoiled emo brat the entire game, who is an idiot and a jerk and never EVER grows any character in the story and then in the end after he's brought back to life we're supposed to believe that now he is a GREAT WISE AND CARING PERSON from his life experiences? Yeaaaaah, don't buy that at all. Honestly, Rem would have fit that role much better than Machina and even she is underdeveloped and hardly changes throughout the story. Hell almost no one changes at all during the story.
Machina was a spoiled emo brat the entire game, who is an idiot and a jerk and never EVER grows any character in the story and then in the end after he's brought back to life we're supposed to believe that now he is a GREAT WISE AND CARING PERSON from his life experiences? Yeaaaaah, don't buy that at all. Honestly, Rem would have fit that role much better than Machina and even she is underdeveloped and hardly changes throughout the story. Hell almost no one changes at all during the story.
I agree, this game very likely wont work well with western gamers' taste. This is not your regular single player FF, the game is made to be played for a long time IMO and that's a good thing for a portable game but the way they are doing it here is very strange. it feels lazy and forced to me. They somewhat butchered the game to make it longer.
I'm hoping they are using this time to change it quite a bit for English release. As it is now I don't think it will be very well received. it shouldn't take much effort really to fix this game's very odd design choices, there is potential to have something really great out of this game if they remove/change some things.
I'm hoping they are using this time to change it quite a bit for English release. As it is now I don't think it will be very well received. it shouldn't take much effort really to fix this game's very odd design choices, there is potential to have something really great out of this game if they remove/change some things.
Ok, I spent 6 hours reading all the story/database stuff at FF Wiki, downloaded a 100% save and scoured through the history database, the character/enemy database, watched some of the key new game+ cutscenes, and started a new game+
The narrative is a lot more enjoyable on the 2nd run just because you actually understand what is going on behind what's presented. You understand the character motivations, you know who everyone is, you get all the jargon. Might actually enjoy the story this time around. Plus running around killing everyone in 1 hit instead of me being killed by everyone in 1 hit is a nice change. Should be able to speedrun the story fairly quickly.
The story is interesting. The worldview is really fleshed out thanks to the database (like XIII basically), however if you take a story that is kind of not that good? And then you layer it with layer upon layer of details and convolutions to make it deeper and create a satisfyingly large worldview, does that in itself make the story become good? I don't really know. The story seems interesting and good from a perspective of "look how complex it is" but then when you finally grasp all the details and you summarize the core tale into 3 sentences, it sounds kind of dumb. Still, I would have rather XIII had Type 0's story with XIII's production values and narrative presentation than the way we got it.
My pros and cons overall:
Pros:
-Music is incredible. Wish there were more unique tracks (about 3/4ths of the soundtrack is just different mixes/arranges of about 5-10 tunes total), but every track is really stellar.
-Excellent visuals. Great texture work, character models, CG movies.
-Battle system is fast and fun.
-Story is fairly complex and has enough depth for a full rpg tale
-It has a some nice nods to past FFs with things like Magitek Armor riding, Tonberrys, etc..
Cons:
-RTS battles. They need to seriously just be REMOVED from the western version entirely. They are absolute shit. Any college kid at a game design school could make something better than this. Obviously this is not a genre the Japanese are used to making and it shows. This isn't even "my first rts", it's just a shovelware bad RTS and there's too many RTS sections in the game both required and optional.
-The battle system simply lacks any real depth. While it's fast and fun. It never advances beyond how it is in the first 3 hours until 100 hours in. All you do is dodge and attack with either a physical attack or magic. Your AI partners are useless, and you run around the battlefield from enemy to enemy doing the same thing. You have HUNDREDS of moves between the 14 characters, however leveling up and getting new ones was not any fun because they would always be useless. So many useless moves, which might just be a fault of the battle system not requiring depth or skill.
-Enemy variety is terrible. While parts of the game feel like a full sized 30 hour rpg, the fact that you just fight the same 8-10 or so enemies over and over the entire game makes it feel small size. Especially because the battle system is just about learning each enemies attack pattern so you know when to counter hit. If anything, they should have spent another 6 months just making more enemies for the game.
-The gameplay sucks. This is just imo, but the game structure is very bad. You do 1 or 2 scripted corridor missions per chapter that are just corridor after corridor of fighting a handful of enemies (much like FFXIII) and then between them you can run around on the world map which is big and empty and has almost nothing to do. The game feels so streamlined and scripted with tons of bosses you're supposed to lose or parts where you can't die that it's like they just wanted to make a movie but had to throw some gameplay in between cutscenes. I never felt like the team had any idea what game they were trying to make. Was it an interactive corridor movie like FFXIII? Was it a walking on a world map simulator? Was it an RTS game? Was it a school simulator like Persona 3/4? Was it an airplane shooter? Every aspect of the game feels completely isolated like they were made by different teams and then stitched together in the end. Nothing feels cohesive and it just makes for a game that feels like a mess and you never quite know what kind of game it is.
-The narrative presentation is a mess. Just like the gameplay, the way the narrative is told is confused, convoluted, and jumps from event to event without ever making the player care or fully aware of what is going on. It reminds me A LOT of the presentation of The Third Birthday's story. Part of this is because they hide a lot of cutscenes in new game+, so the first time you play through the story in 25-40 hours you get an unsatisfying mess of a story and then the NEXT time you play it again you get a decent to good story. This is pretty bad design imo. BoFV and Nier do stuff like this, but they're also short games and their stories are still satisfying and able to be understood the first time and the future runs just flesh the tales and the characters and the worlds out. That's how you do it. You don't just cut out essential parts of the explanations and plot and fuck up how the story comes across to a player the first time they play it just because you want to entice them to play it again. I'm guessing most players only finish games once so they're left with a half-assed convoluted mess of a story here.
-There is no character development. Even with the extended new game+ scenes, Type 0 is all about PLOT and has lots of PLOT, what it doesn't have are any actual human-like characters. Every character is an archetype and they don't change one bit from the beginning of the tale to the end. This includes the villains and the support characters. NOBODY EVER CHANGES or grows or anything, except maybe 1 or 2 minor side characters. Which makes the ending seem a bit bs as well. The story is about the large scale plot and the individual characters don't seem to matter at all. At least XIII had a ton of character development, even if the plot was kind of lame.
-The world map is a waste and not fun. The person|map size ratio is really off and coupled with the movement speed, getting around the world map feels like a chore and is no fun. Chocobos help but having to keep Chocobos in stock and keep catching them on the map is tedious. The fact that chocobos disappear while you are riding them, so you need to use several to get across the map is lame. The fact that some of the areas in the game are only accessible by going through connecting caves so you lose your chocobo and have to use another one when you get out is lame. That you don't get the airship, which is optional, until right before the final dungeon, and then there's nothing much to do with it and once you continue the story you lose it again is lame. Having a world map should be fun and enjoyable to traverse. Here it's all pretty lame and I'd rather have just had a point and click map.
-The cities are pointless. They are tiny 1 room places, they all look like one of 3 different types, and there's nothing to do in them besides find the person selling things and find the 1 person in them who has a single quest and then you never re-visit that town again.
-The game balance sucks. You're either overleveled or underleveled and your characters are dying in 1 or 2 hits or you're killing everyone in 1 hit, there's just no balance where it ever feels just right like a normal rpg. Summons are generally useless because you have to level them separately and because you can't use them outside of story missions (who thought this was a good idea??). Magic is powerful, but most of the magic is generally the same and some are useless (the ones where you have to stand still and aim and charge are not really viable when things are attacking you), and while the idea of leveling magic is cool, when you start doing that and the MP cost jumps up dramatically, it's just makes magic-based characters not very good because with spells costing over 100MP a use, you're getting like 8-9 shots of it in a stage between restore points and there's probably 30-40 enemies in between.
-And my biggest gripe is the leveling system is the worst. By giving you 14 characters and not having shared experience, and being a game where you level incredibly slow like an MMO, your characters are never anywhere near each other in levels, you always feel underleveled in your first playthrough, and it makes you pick a couple of characters you will main with and stick with them the whole game because everyone else is too far back in levels to be worth using. I'm guessing this was all because of the focus on local multiplayer because that's the cool thing to do in Japan with your buddies. However for the western release where people don't huddle around in groups with psps to play rpgs for hours, FIX THE LEVELING FOR THE WESTERN VERSION if you want to make western gamers like your game.
I'd give the game something like a 6/10 first playthrough and then 7.5 or 8/10 on future playthroughs when you're overpowered and can speed run and have the story background going in.
Also general endgame spoiler stuff:
The narrative is a lot more enjoyable on the 2nd run just because you actually understand what is going on behind what's presented. You understand the character motivations, you know who everyone is, you get all the jargon. Might actually enjoy the story this time around. Plus running around killing everyone in 1 hit instead of me being killed by everyone in 1 hit is a nice change. Should be able to speedrun the story fairly quickly.
The story is interesting. The worldview is really fleshed out thanks to the database (like XIII basically), however if you take a story that is kind of not that good? And then you layer it with layer upon layer of details and convolutions to make it deeper and create a satisfyingly large worldview, does that in itself make the story become good? I don't really know. The story seems interesting and good from a perspective of "look how complex it is" but then when you finally grasp all the details and you summarize the core tale into 3 sentences, it sounds kind of dumb. Still, I would have rather XIII had Type 0's story with XIII's production values and narrative presentation than the way we got it.
My pros and cons overall:
Pros:
-Music is incredible. Wish there were more unique tracks (about 3/4ths of the soundtrack is just different mixes/arranges of about 5-10 tunes total), but every track is really stellar.
-Excellent visuals. Great texture work, character models, CG movies.
-Battle system is fast and fun.
-Story is fairly complex and has enough depth for a full rpg tale
-It has a some nice nods to past FFs with things like Magitek Armor riding, Tonberrys, etc..
Cons:
-RTS battles. They need to seriously just be REMOVED from the western version entirely. They are absolute shit. Any college kid at a game design school could make something better than this. Obviously this is not a genre the Japanese are used to making and it shows. This isn't even "my first rts", it's just a shovelware bad RTS and there's too many RTS sections in the game both required and optional.
-The battle system simply lacks any real depth. While it's fast and fun. It never advances beyond how it is in the first 3 hours until 100 hours in. All you do is dodge and attack with either a physical attack or magic. Your AI partners are useless, and you run around the battlefield from enemy to enemy doing the same thing. You have HUNDREDS of moves between the 14 characters, however leveling up and getting new ones was not any fun because they would always be useless. So many useless moves, which might just be a fault of the battle system not requiring depth or skill.
-Enemy variety is terrible. While parts of the game feel like a full sized 30 hour rpg, the fact that you just fight the same 8-10 or so enemies over and over the entire game makes it feel small size. Especially because the battle system is just about learning each enemies attack pattern so you know when to counter hit. If anything, they should have spent another 6 months just making more enemies for the game.
-The gameplay sucks. This is just imo, but the game structure is very bad. You do 1 or 2 scripted corridor missions per chapter that are just corridor after corridor of fighting a handful of enemies (much like FFXIII) and then between them you can run around on the world map which is big and empty and has almost nothing to do. The game feels so streamlined and scripted with tons of bosses you're supposed to lose or parts where you can't die that it's like they just wanted to make a movie but had to throw some gameplay in between cutscenes. I never felt like the team had any idea what game they were trying to make. Was it an interactive corridor movie like FFXIII? Was it a walking on a world map simulator? Was it an RTS game? Was it a school simulator like Persona 3/4? Was it an airplane shooter? Every aspect of the game feels completely isolated like they were made by different teams and then stitched together in the end. Nothing feels cohesive and it just makes for a game that feels like a mess and you never quite know what kind of game it is.
-The narrative presentation is a mess. Just like the gameplay, the way the narrative is told is confused, convoluted, and jumps from event to event without ever making the player care or fully aware of what is going on. It reminds me A LOT of the presentation of The Third Birthday's story. Part of this is because they hide a lot of cutscenes in new game+, so the first time you play through the story in 25-40 hours you get an unsatisfying mess of a story and then the NEXT time you play it again you get a decent to good story. This is pretty bad design imo. BoFV and Nier do stuff like this, but they're also short games and their stories are still satisfying and able to be understood the first time and the future runs just flesh the tales and the characters and the worlds out. That's how you do it. You don't just cut out essential parts of the explanations and plot and fuck up how the story comes across to a player the first time they play it just because you want to entice them to play it again. I'm guessing most players only finish games once so they're left with a half-assed convoluted mess of a story here.
-There is no character development. Even with the extended new game+ scenes, Type 0 is all about PLOT and has lots of PLOT, what it doesn't have are any actual human-like characters. Every character is an archetype and they don't change one bit from the beginning of the tale to the end. This includes the villains and the support characters. NOBODY EVER CHANGES or grows or anything, except maybe 1 or 2 minor side characters. Which makes the ending seem a bit bs as well. The story is about the large scale plot and the individual characters don't seem to matter at all. At least XIII had a ton of character development, even if the plot was kind of lame.
-The world map is a waste and not fun. The person|map size ratio is really off and coupled with the movement speed, getting around the world map feels like a chore and is no fun. Chocobos help but having to keep Chocobos in stock and keep catching them on the map is tedious. The fact that chocobos disappear while you are riding them, so you need to use several to get across the map is lame. The fact that some of the areas in the game are only accessible by going through connecting caves so you lose your chocobo and have to use another one when you get out is lame. That you don't get the airship, which is optional, until right before the final dungeon, and then there's nothing much to do with it and once you continue the story you lose it again is lame. Having a world map should be fun and enjoyable to traverse. Here it's all pretty lame and I'd rather have just had a point and click map.
-The cities are pointless. They are tiny 1 room places, they all look like one of 3 different types, and there's nothing to do in them besides find the person selling things and find the 1 person in them who has a single quest and then you never re-visit that town again.
-The game balance sucks. You're either overleveled or underleveled and your characters are dying in 1 or 2 hits or you're killing everyone in 1 hit, there's just no balance where it ever feels just right like a normal rpg. Summons are generally useless because you have to level them separately and because you can't use them outside of story missions (who thought this was a good idea??). Magic is powerful, but most of the magic is generally the same and some are useless (the ones where you have to stand still and aim and charge are not really viable when things are attacking you), and while the idea of leveling magic is cool, when you start doing that and the MP cost jumps up dramatically, it's just makes magic-based characters not very good because with spells costing over 100MP a use, you're getting like 8-9 shots of it in a stage between restore points and there's probably 30-40 enemies in between.
-And my biggest gripe is the leveling system is the worst. By giving you 14 characters and not having shared experience, and being a game where you level incredibly slow like an MMO, your characters are never anywhere near each other in levels, you always feel underleveled in your first playthrough, and it makes you pick a couple of characters you will main with and stick with them the whole game because everyone else is too far back in levels to be worth using. I'm guessing this was all because of the focus on local multiplayer because that's the cool thing to do in Japan with your buddies. However for the western release where people don't huddle around in groups with psps to play rpgs for hours, FIX THE LEVELING FOR THE WESTERN VERSION if you want to make western gamers like your game.
I'd give the game something like a 6/10 first playthrough and then 7.5 or 8/10 on future playthroughs when you're overpowered and can speed run and have the story background going in.
Also general endgame spoiler stuff:
The last dungeon was interesting but making it so you CAN'T DIE was so stupid. And the final boss, wtf? What was even the point of that. It's a mini-game while you're invincible. Why not make an actual real boss you had to fight? That just wasn't very satisfying and it sort of represents the feel of the entire game being scripted and you not really having any influence on playing the game; it plays itself etc...
Story-wise, I think with the new game+ stuff and the database they generally explained or fleshed out everything in the game, EXCEPT the Lulusanth Judge and Arecia. I get that the two of them are basically the gods of the world and to keep the balance they set up the four crystals and a failsafe that if any one crystal takes over all the rest that the Lulusanth will be released and destroy the world and reset it back to zero to do over again.
However, what I don't get and feel is left unexplained is why Lulusanth Judge let Arecia make Class Zero each time to give people a chance to (?????). What's the point of making a failsafe if you're making a chance against it.
And I get the change this cycle was that everyone, whether it's Cid, or the Concordia Queen, or Concordia L'Cie, or Class Zero, all chose self-sacrifice rather than self-preservation. They all died fearlessly for the promise of a better future. And when Arecia is touched by this history of everyone including Class Zero, she is moved and decides to not reset the world and to let it stay without the crystals and let humans create their own world on their own.
However if this control method of endless resets in order to preserve balance was originally set up by Arecia and Lulusanth Judge, why does he just let Arecia change all this and possibly destroy the balance of the world.
Not too mention that the whole idea of creating a FINIS to happen when 1 crystal took over the others makes no sense. Arecia and Lulusanth judge set up the world with the crystals because they wanted the world to keep a balance in order to not overflow the visible world/realm of the living or the invisible world/realm of the dead like Etro's job in the mythology. But if one country rules the rest...how would that change anything? People would still live and die and in the balance of souls, nothing would change with a single power ruling vs 4 powers ruling. They just what? Don't like uneven power distributions in societies so they destroy the whole world every time the balance gets upset? Honestly that seems kind of a stupid plot.
Anyhow, I just think that stuff should have gotten more development because it feels pretttty underdeveloped compared to the bulk of the story, yet it's really the most important.
Also I think the final chapter should have been the 2nd half of the game. The first half of the game should have been a military story about Suzaku trying to fight off Byakko and eventually turning the tables and conquering the entire world map, then as the halfway twist, that triggers FINIS and the second half of the game is about the bigger story of humankind's attempt to survive in the endless game of reset worlds. The final chapter feels pretty rushed as is and the bulk of the game is about the military story which in the scheme of things isn't even that important.
Story-wise, I think with the new game+ stuff and the database they generally explained or fleshed out everything in the game, EXCEPT the Lulusanth Judge and Arecia. I get that the two of them are basically the gods of the world and to keep the balance they set up the four crystals and a failsafe that if any one crystal takes over all the rest that the Lulusanth will be released and destroy the world and reset it back to zero to do over again.
However, what I don't get and feel is left unexplained is why Lulusanth Judge let Arecia make Class Zero each time to give people a chance to (?????). What's the point of making a failsafe if you're making a chance against it.
And I get the change this cycle was that everyone, whether it's Cid, or the Concordia Queen, or Concordia L'Cie, or Class Zero, all chose self-sacrifice rather than self-preservation. They all died fearlessly for the promise of a better future. And when Arecia is touched by this history of everyone including Class Zero, she is moved and decides to not reset the world and to let it stay without the crystals and let humans create their own world on their own.
However if this control method of endless resets in order to preserve balance was originally set up by Arecia and Lulusanth Judge, why does he just let Arecia change all this and possibly destroy the balance of the world.
Not too mention that the whole idea of creating a FINIS to happen when 1 crystal took over the others makes no sense. Arecia and Lulusanth judge set up the world with the crystals because they wanted the world to keep a balance in order to not overflow the visible world/realm of the living or the invisible world/realm of the dead like Etro's job in the mythology. But if one country rules the rest...how would that change anything? People would still live and die and in the balance of souls, nothing would change with a single power ruling vs 4 powers ruling. They just what? Don't like uneven power distributions in societies so they destroy the whole world every time the balance gets upset? Honestly that seems kind of a stupid plot.
Anyhow, I just think that stuff should have gotten more development because it feels pretttty underdeveloped compared to the bulk of the story, yet it's really the most important.
Also I think the final chapter should have been the 2nd half of the game. The first half of the game should have been a military story about Suzaku trying to fight off Byakko and eventually turning the tables and conquering the entire world map, then as the halfway twist, that triggers FINIS and the second half of the game is about the bigger story of humankind's attempt to survive in the endless game of reset worlds. The final chapter feels pretty rushed as is and the bulk of the game is about the military story which in the scheme of things isn't even that important.
jimmypython
Member
great review Bebpo!
the story is very hard to understand without linking back to the overall FNC mytho. The story Q&A section in the Ultimania Guide is extremely helpful to understand the meaning.
basically the setting is (if i understand correctly):
the story is very interesting and deep. i may try to translate the whole thing if i have time...
the story is very hard to understand without linking back to the overall FNC mytho. The story Q&A section in the Ultimania Guide is extremely helpful to understand the meaning.
basically the setting is (if i understand correctly):
Arecia and the armored guy (not the Lulusanth Judge) appeared at the end of the game are two fal'cies - Arecia is a fal'cie of Pulse and the armored guy is a fal'cie of Lindzei. Luluanth Judge is actually armored guy's l'Cie. According to the FNC mytho, Pulse and Lindzei were assigned the task of finding the entrance to invisible world (aka world of death) where Etro resides. For that they created many fal'cies, Arecia and the Armored guy are two of them, they created the world of Orience and use their own ways to try to find the entrance. Arecia uses cycles of spirits (all the life of Orence and 16 specially created spirits aka members of class zero) and the armored guy tries to kill as many people as he can because he believes that the gate will open and open widely once enough spirits of the dead people are trying to pass through the gate. Coincidentally, the act of Arecia makes a huge amount of spirits and people. Then if she cannot manage to find and open the entrance in one round (coil), the armored guy comes in and destroys the world using armies of Lulusanth and the judge (this event is Finis). After this, Arecia is free to start another round (coil), which is why the world of Orience is described as "a coiled world" in the opening narrative.
the story is very interesting and deep. i may try to translate the whole thing if i have time...
Yeah, I didn't think the armored guy was the Lulusanth Judge, but the FF Wiki was calling him that. The judge being his L'Cie makes sense. I like the explaination you just posted for the whole thing. I agree it's an interesting story.
It's interesting because before I played Type 0, it had been so long since FFXIII and I had never really read up on the FNC mythos. But reading up and really getting into the FNC has been a great read and it makes not only Type 0's plot MUCH more interesting and better, but now I'm even gaining a new appreciation of FFXIII's plot which is good because I'm planning on playing XIII-2 next, so it's building up interest for that and it'll be nice going into XIII-2 being aware of all the mythos and worldview.
Actually I'm still confused about the ending though.
If the experiment/cycle is Arecia attempts to open the gate with life and the armored guy attempts to open it with death. Why would the armored guy like Arecia end the cycle and allow people to survive? It doesn't make any sense...
jimmypython
Member
It has something to do with the book that Tiz and Joker presented to Arecia. Q&A said that after seeing the book which contains the feeling of class zero members about their mother (Arecia), her nature of being a mother awakened and she decided to stop the experiment and leave Orience. However, the armored guy is still wandering around Orience. The guide says he will start the task again once the time is right...
Playing XIII-2 directly after Type 0 really showcases how shallow the combat is in Type 0. XIII-2 requires 100x more strategy and as many more options during combat. I know it's hard to compare an arpg with a turn-based rpg, but even compared to KH, type 0's combat feels empty.
I hope that Type 1 makes it a lot deeper. Would like something more akin to FFXII/Xenoblade MMO style.
Also thinking about it, if you remove the entire killsight system from Agito and toned down the HPs so enemies weren't a total grind making killsights the only viable option for combating them, it'd probably be closer to those games and a lot better combat system where you need to use the right elements (fire/water/wind/earth/etc...) and attacks to hit enemy weaknesses and buff/debuff, etc... The problem is the killsights system makes all of that irrelevant and makes every single enemy fight, whether standard enemy or final boss THE EXACT SAME FIGHT. The strategy is...dodge -> counter when killsights comes up with anything you have magic or attack that will simply hit the enemy quickly. Repeat on every enemy the entire game. I think killsight system is actually a very bad game system in retrospect that killed the combat gameplay.
I hope that Type 1 makes it a lot deeper. Would like something more akin to FFXII/Xenoblade MMO style.
Also thinking about it, if you remove the entire killsight system from Agito and toned down the HPs so enemies weren't a total grind making killsights the only viable option for combating them, it'd probably be closer to those games and a lot better combat system where you need to use the right elements (fire/water/wind/earth/etc...) and attacks to hit enemy weaknesses and buff/debuff, etc... The problem is the killsights system makes all of that irrelevant and makes every single enemy fight, whether standard enemy or final boss THE EXACT SAME FIGHT. The strategy is...dodge -> counter when killsights comes up with anything you have magic or attack that will simply hit the enemy quickly. Repeat on every enemy the entire game. I think killsight system is actually a very bad game system in retrospect that killed the combat gameplay.
I should be doing hw
Member
How different is XIII-2's combat to XIII's, just so I can better gauge your statement.
It's similar to XIII but with the added depth of SMT/Pokemon's demon/monster usage systems.
So not only do you have the strategy of setting up 6 paradigms to create a in-battle combat strategy where you change between them, but you also assign different monsters/demons to each paradigms to mix it up even further. Each monster has unique job/abilities/and passive abilities for the party.
I'm not super far in XIII, but I'd say the combat depth is basically doubled from XIII because of that.
So not only do you have the strategy of setting up 6 paradigms to create a in-battle combat strategy where you change between them, but you also assign different monsters/demons to each paradigms to mix it up even further. Each monster has unique job/abilities/and passive abilities for the party.
I'm not super far in XIII, but I'd say the combat depth is basically doubled from XIII because of that.
jimmypython
Member
yeah, I had the same feeling. Only 2 active skills makes the system lacking in depth. Just using Birth By Sleep's battle system would make Type-0 way more fun.
Perfo
Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
I couldn't resist... I just ordered it now close to its release date. I'd like Square Enix to do this more often, I mean publishing big (300+ pages) artbooks for every new important release.
Btw, I've read the topic here and there, but now that XIII-2 is out and we know it has alot more to do with the FNC, how type-0 compares to that? Does it have a better story and more focus on the FNC than Toriyama's games for example?
Also, this is just curiosity, but I think I've read somewhere that H.Tabata would dream to make a direct sequel to this. Does that mean the ending is open here too?
edit. oh btw thanks to bebpo for his detailed impressions on the game so far!
There's not even an official announcement yet except a confirmation given by Y.Kitase in an interview. But, if I have to guess, chances are we'll see this around August/September of this year (and I bet on PS3 as HD Remaster, big marketing push at E3).
Castor Krieg
Banned
I would bet on PS3/Vita remaster announced at E3. Sony should send a bag of money to SE to get it as Vita exclusive during holiday period.
jimmypython
Member
The story was way better than 13-2 IMO. And the ending was far from TBC. It wrapped up everything. But they can still expand it if they are to do a sequel/prepuel, just like titles from completion of FF7...
Instead of DLC, the game uses different mainline story missions (alternative route) in NG+ to tell more of what happened at the same time. So if you want to know more about settings and the meanings of the story, it is necessary to do more than one playthrough. Plus, the game has a huge "history" section similar to FF13-1/2's datalog, it contains so much background information; but different from 13-1/2, it is totally fine to skip all those stuff to understand the story itself (not the meanings behind it).
Also, Ultimania guide is recommended for the FNC stuff. Hope they can translate some...
I am completely in love with Type-0. It has its own flaws, but it also has tons of potentials..The game is good enough as the first title starting a new series IMO .
Perfo
Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
In a cheap way like NieR's 2nd playthrough (Wall of Text!) or with full voiced cutscenes, even pre-rendered's ones added?
Sounds promising then
jimmypython
Member
full voice cutscenes, they are new story missions. They have couple of new pre-rendered ones as well like a lengthy alternative ending.
Perfo
Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
I had the time to try only now the second DEMO and I'm quite pleased by what I played. Surely I'm not expecting a good battle system (it seems rather crappy, especially after the greatly polished ATB from XIII and XIII-2) but the great art direction will make up for it. If the story is indeed good, this can really aim to be a great experience for a Final Fantasy fan like me. Can't wait!
edit. It's obvious what I'm gonna say, but this is really one of those games limited by their being on portables. Loadings every room, no smooth transitions... whatever. Let's hope as an HD Remaster at least everything's smoother.
edit. It's obvious what I'm gonna say, but this is really one of those games limited by their being on portables. Loadings every room, no smooth transitions... whatever. Let's hope as an HD Remaster at least everything's smoother.
jimmypython
Member
yeah, my biggest complaint is the battle system. if only they could use kingdom hearts (2 or BBS) battle system.....
Other things they could improve include towns (they were all very simple, except for one), quantity of soundtracks (the soundtracks were fantastic, but just 2~3 tracks looping for all the towns?), enemies (lots of recycling from other FF titles).
Perfo
Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
So there's only the Academia as real city? Or one more? The others I've seen in videos are just rooms called towns. More or less. One thing I don't really like is... recycling summons and calling them with different names, that's so lame.
cultureculture
Member
Out of curiosity, how well does this game fit into commutes (say, ~40 minutes)?
I'm thinking of picking this up when I get my Vita, but I don't want to start a big RPG I can only play at home with Mass Effect 3 on the imminent horizon.
I'm thinking of picking this up when I get my Vita, but I don't want to start a big RPG I can only play at home with Mass Effect 3 on the imminent horizon.
jimmypython
Member
The art book just came out today. According to oba's twitter (https://twitter.com/#!/gil_gold), there will be new comics and novel out on 4.21.2012. The new comic is not the one currently on the magazine; and the novel is supposed to fill in the blanks of the game.