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[Zzoram]

I think I'm in Chapter 9, with some Gigantic Boss that looks like a XBOX 1, and goddammit...To fight for what feels like half an hour, and die with like 10% left. I said Goddamn.

Also, I totally forgot that I could sell some of those items I recieved as spoils. I just use them up upgrading weapons....even the lowly 1 EXP stuff. I have lived off of about 5000 gil in the bank :lol

The 1 XP stuff is specifically what sells for a lot of money. Those are Credit Chips, Incentive Chips, etc. They are basically the PSICOM Soldier's wages that you take off their corpse.

 

[Fun Factor]

The pacing is probably my biggest complaint about the game so far. I'm on chapter 9 as well and I'm not sure if I want the game to turn into a grindfest all of a sudden.

Yeah, I'm at Chapter 7 & I didn't think any Final Fantasy game would have worse pacing than FFXII, but this somehow topped it. :lol

 

[dreamer3kx]

So slowing down the ATB in the options make the game easier, do the enemy attacks slow down also?

 

[Zoe]

The pacing is probably my biggest complaint about the game so far. I'm on chapter 9 as well and I'm not sure if I want the game to turn into a grindfest all of a sudden.

You don't have to grind. People are just jumping on the opportunity because that's what OCD RPG players do.

 

[7Th]

The problem people have with Vanille isn't her voice (although that contributes), unlike some homojapuals would like to think it is.

Nope, it really is her voice. Vanille's actions and attitude are completely justified by her story and background and she has plenty of reason to be in the game as she is pretty much the

Spoiler

one thing that drives forward the narrative.

 

[Volcynika]

You don't have to grind. People are just jumping on the opportunity because that's what OCD RPG players do.

And proud of it! (Listen to podcasts while grinding and such.)

 

[Kagari]

Any differences between the US and PAL PS3 versions? I will be going to NYC in a few weeks, so I'll pick up the PS3 version while I'm there.

It's exactly the same.

 

[Drahcir]

Question: There is a skill (forgot the name) that says it "Boosts Blitz and Ruinaga at the head of the attack queue..." So as long as you use either Boost or Ruinaga as your first attack on your queue, their strength is increased? Just making sure because auto-battle doesn't seem to like to select attacks greater than 1 bar, or at least from what I've noticed.

 

[V_Arnold]

I love Vanille's voice -.-

 

[firehawk12]

Question: There is a skill (forgot the name) that says it "Boosts Blitz and Ruinaga at the head of the attack queue..." So as long as you use either Boost or Ruinaga as your first attack on your queue, their strength is increased? Just making sure because auto-battle doesn't seem to like to select attacks greater than 1 bar, or at least from what I've noticed.

It does if it detects a mob in front of you, but that seems to happen less often than I'd like. I think the AI prefers to do damage to one enemy faster.

 

[Dead]

Vanille is still better than any single character in 8 and 10, so no, not the worst

 

[WrenchNinja]

Really, guys. I need help. I'm stuck in Chapter 11 against Dahaka at the top of the tower. He has this one hit kill move "Firery somethingorother" that wipes out my party. I've been using Light, Hope and Sazh, just to get the status effects going.

Then I tried Light Hope and Vanille do inflict some status effects on him. I'm still dying!

 

[Lonestar]

The problem people have with Vanille isn't her voice (although that contributes), unlike some homojapuals would like to think it is.

I've actually liked her voice, but that could be I have a thing for the accent.

She's the stereotypical "happy girl" role, but there have been FAR FAR FAR Worse versions of this type in other games. Some of the mannerisms she does, like when she says "Lets run the other way" are funny, and I like the little Ciao moments.

Only character I'm "meh" on is Hope. Mostly just from his look (oh look, a person with strange hair color). While his storyline is interesting in reguards to him and Snow are kind of deep, just wish it wasn't drug out as long.

Far as I think, the VA of the main characters are all pretty strong. Weakest being Snow (mainly the constant "Hero->Fist Pump" moments).

Some of the side characters though...Glasses Lady...ugh.

 

[Fenderputty]

Am I the only one who doesn't really mind Vanille? Probably not, but I feel like I'm in the minority here.

She's annoying to be sure, but I've come to expect that from at least one character in these games. For some reason I don't really mind her either.

 

[7Th]

What are you talking about? She witnesses a government attempt to commit genocide. Surely that justifies her bubbly, ignorant, holier than thou attitude early on in the game?

Spoiler

Vanille saw her family and friends be killed before her eyes when she was a little girl, lived in a village where innocent people were brutally murdered arbitrarily by flying demons on a daily basis and had to witness her best friend almost destroy the world for her sake. She isn't ignorant at all, she knows very well what she is doing.

Vanille witnesses genocide and acts like nothing happened.

That's because

Spoiler

she has been witnessing genocide for her entire life.

 

[Chamber]

Vanille is still better than any single character in 8 and 10, so no, not the worst

<-----

 

[Scythesurge]

The reason it has such bad pacing is that there's nothing to do in the game. It is battle, battle, battle, cutscene, corridor dungeon, battle, battle, battle, cutscene. In other Final Fantasy games, you could deviate and do something else if you wanted to. But in this, if you get bored the only thing to do is to turn the game off.

The horrible level design doesn't help matters.

There's nothing wrong with linearity, but to make up for linearity, you have to make a game have as much variety as possible. If the dungeons were varied and were different in terms of gameplay, the pacing wouldn't be so bad. Remember in chapter 4 where you take control of the mech? That was the right idea; anything to deviate from the plain formula would do the game a lot of good.

I actually disagree that it's because there's nothing to do in the game, though I won't disagree that it would be a good method of providing better pacing. I think the general direction of the game is just flawed, causing the various segments to feel disconnected and isolated without any sense of importance. Having to stop, see a cut scene, and then switch characters at the end of each room isn't the product of lack of things to do.

 

[Dead]

<-----

Thats my reaction to Summer Glaw as well ;P

 

[Zoe]

Spoiler

Vanille saw her family and friends be killed before her eyes when she was a little girl, lived in a village where innocent people were brutally murdered arbitrarily by flying demons on a daily basis and had to witness her best friend almost destroy the world for her sake. She isn't ignorant at all, she knows very well what she is doing.

This isn't the first time you've said that last part... I could have sworn

Spoiler

Fang failed at being Ragnarok, so Vanille had to do it instead.

 

[Lonestar]

I've found "happy girl" characters to be fine in other games. They tend to know when to shut up and when to be serious.

Vanille witnesses genocide and acts like nothing happened.

So no, there aren't "worse" happy girl characters.

Ah, you mean stuff that hasn't happened for me yet, gotcha.

 

[levious]

Am I the only one who doesn't really mind Vanille? Probably not, but I feel like I'm in the minority here.

She's annoying to be sure, but I've come to expect that from at least one character in these games. For some reason I don't really mind her either.

I like her, but I like most of the characters, and they all have things you can pick out as annoying so far. I think I'm on chapter 8 right now.

 

[Bauer91]

20 hours in, on Chapter 9 now.

The framerate at the beginning of Chapter 8 was indeed bad (on 360), but it's fine now. Really enjoying this, hopefully these last few chapters are long... I guess this'll be the first FF game I'll finish (I'm not counting CC).

 

[Giolon]

The reason it has such bad pacing is that there's nothing to do in the game. It is battle, battle, battle, cutscene, corridor dungeon, battle, battle, battle, cutscene. In other Final Fantasy games, you could deviate and do something else if you wanted to. But in this, if you get bored the only thing to do is to turn the game off.

The horrible level design doesn't help matters.

There's nothing wrong with linearity, but to make up for linearity, you have to make a game have as much variety as possible. If the dungeons were varied and were different in terms of gameplay, the pacing wouldn't be so bad. Remember in chapter 4 where you take control of the mech? That was the right idea; anything to deviate from the plain formula would do the game a lot of good.

I don't find the pacing to be bad. I never cared much for "exploring" towns that had 1 or 2 shops and a series of NPCs with nothing of use to say to me. I often found that those things just brought the momentum and flow of the story to a standstill - knowing that I'd have to spend at at least. The variety in FFXIII is the combinations of enemy encounters. There's a definite pattern going on: one of enemy type A, two of enemy type A, one of enemy type B, two of enemy type A & one of B, etc. I quite like it.

 

[Lonestar]

It happens at the beginning of the game.

Then I see nothing wrong with how she acts. Guess everyone who lived with that should just be depressed and bid their time until they get a good chance to blow their brains out!

She tries to live out a delusion that everything is alright, even when they aren't. People do this all the time.

 

[pix]

20 hours in, on Chapter 9 now.

The framerate at the beginning of Chapter 8 was indeed bad (on 360), but it's fine now. Really enjoying this, hopefully these last few chapters are long... I guess this'll be the first FF game I'll finish (I'm not counting CC).

best avatar ever!

 

[Cep]

I can't think of any FF character nearly written as bad as Vanille.

I see your Vanille and raise you...

Shit.

Umm...

Fuck.

 

[LowParry]

I can't think of any FF character nearly written as bad as Vanille.

Hrm. Cloud. Squall. YRP. The list goes on.

 

[dollartaco]

See, I think she's written really well. She's also just impossible to have around and that's ok. You don't have to like her and, in fact, I think you're supposed to see both sides of her attitude.

 

[Crash Station]

I can't think of any FF character nearly written as bad as Vanille.

If we're counting spinoffs, I can think of about 20. Of course I still like her so maybe I'm biased.

 

[Wizpig]

 

[Dead]

Hrm. Cloud. Squall. YRP. The list goes on.

Everyone in FF8, most everyone in 10, Vaan, Penelo, etc :lol

Vanille's getting way too much hate, aside from her VA.

Shes an artificially happy character, the fact that her attitude is so forced for the first half of the game fits pretty perfectly welll with her character.

Shes not exactly the best FF character ever, but worst? :lol

 

[KuwabaraTheMan]

Because the shop keepers are the only thing in towns.

I think the lack of towns takes away from not only the gameplay, but also the story. It's hard to really care what's going on in FF13 because there's no sense of immersion. Cocoon has no culture, no history, and there's very little sense of place. It's just a bunch of high tech gadgets and soldiers and monsters so far. That makes me care about the world I'm fighting to "save" or whatever to be very little.

The variety of the enemy encounters is pretty poor as well especially given the fact that at least in the first half of the game, the difficulty is pretty low, bordering on mindless.

Wat? Cocoon has probably the most interesting history and culture of any non-Ivalice Final Fantasy world. Have you not touched the datalog at all or anything? That's probably one of my favorite things about the world in Final Fantasy XIII is how rich the world is with history and culture.

Besides, Chapters 7 and 8 give great opportunities to see what the normal people are like and how they feel about the world. The only difference in XIII is that instead of pressing X to talk to random NPCs you just walk up and overhear them talking.

 

[Wizpig]

My "Vanille scene face" is probably something like :Q___

 

[Fun Factor]

The reason it has such bad pacing is that there's nothing to do in the game. It is battle, battle, battle, cutscene, corridor dungeon, battle, battle, battle, cutscene. In other Final Fantasy games, you could deviate and do something else if you wanted to. But in this, if you get bored the only thing to do is to turn the game off.

The horrible level design doesn't help matters.

There's nothing wrong with linearity, but to make up for linearity, you have to make a game have as much variety as possible. If the dungeons were varied and were different in terms of gameplay, the pacing wouldn't be so bad. Remember in chapter 4 where you take control of the mech? That was the right idea; anything to deviate from the plain formula would do the game a lot of good.

Yeah, I'm at Chapter 7 & asking myself, why the hell did it take nearly 17 hours to finally get to a town. Why couldn't they just condense a shit load of the filler.
My biggest problem still is the fact your stuck with just 2 people through half the damn game & still getting tutorials on basic game functions. Makes the entire thing feel like just a prologue even though I'm nearing the 20 hour mark.


Still the story is pretty damn frequent, which goes a long way to help the pacing. FFXII had tons of explorations, but the complete lack of any story or character progression of any sort for long stretch's of the game made it just a boring, if not more so, than this game.

 

[Majmun]

Has anyone ever survived their first gating gun assault? Holy shit, that was cheap.
I already know what to do next to survive. But wtf..

 

[depths20XX]

Oh I agree, but it'd still break up the game a bit so it doesn't boil down to Reach the Cutscene: The "Game".

welcome to JRPG's?

 

[WanderingWind]

Wat? Cocoon has probably the most interesting history and culture of any non-Ivalice Final Fantasy world. Have you not touched the datalog at all or anything? That's probably one of my favorite things about the world in Final Fantasy XIII is how rich the world is with history and culture.

Besides, Chapters 7 and 8 give great opportunities to see what the normal people are like and how they feel about the world. The only difference in XIII is that instead of pressing X to talk to random NPCs you just walk up and overhear them talking.

What the hell are you talking about? FFXIII world is non-existent. It has very pretty stages, but not anything that even closely resembles a rich world with history and culture. When I read posts like this, I truly wonder if people are inserting their own stories and personalities on the characters, because the actual game presents none of either.

Paper-thin characters with one emotion each, and a "story" that the developers couldn't be arsed to present within the confines of their game. Relying on vague RSS feed style information about the world makes it quite clear that the story was the very last thing they worried about in this game.

Then again, I'm only at Chapter 10. Maybe a Xenogears style info dump is heading my way.

 

[LowParry]

Everyone in FF8, most everyone in 10, Vaan, Penelo, etc :lol

It's a shame they didn't do a spin off with Laguna, Kiros and Ward. They were the only good characters of FF8. As for 10, Rikku was awesome. Then X-2 happened. Then turned to shit. 12's cast I really don't remember. I just liked the game because it reminded me of XI. It played like an MMO.

 

[depths20XX]

I can't think of any FF character nearly written as bad as Vanille.

Tidus, Rikku, Entire cast of VIII

 

[Dead]

What the hell are you talking about? FFXIII world is non-existent. It has very pretty stages, but not anything that even closely resembles a rich world with history and culture. When I read posts like this, I truly wonder if people are inserting their own stories and personalities on the characters, because the actual game presents none of either.

Paper-thin characters with one emotion each, and a "story" that the developers couldn't be arsed to present within the confines of their game. Relying on vague RSS feed style information about the world makes it quite clear that the story was the very last thing they worried about in this game.

Then again, I'm only at Chapter 10. Maybe a Xenogears style info dump is heading my way.

Hey, at least thats one more emotion than the characters in XII!

 

[_Xenon_]

After all the glorious time in Ch9 the story and level design turned 180 again in Ch10. What's the meaning of this boring as fuck level? And the boss battle is bullshit as hell. Kicked his ass on the first try but spent way longer than expected (almost 20 mins) because of Fang's dumb as fuck AI (I let her dispell the boss' buff. Instead, she kept casting slow and kept failing).

 

[Castor Krieg]

What the hell are you talking about? FFXIII world is non-existent. It has very pretty stages, but not anything that even closely resembles a rich world with history and culture. When I read posts like this, I truly wonder if people are inserting their own stories and personalities on the characters, because the actual game presents none of either.

Paper-thin characters with one emotion each, and a "story" that the developers couldn't be arsed to present within the confines of their game. Relying on vague RSS feed style information about the world makes it quite clear that the story was the very last thing they worried about in this game.

Then again, I'm only at Chapter 10. Maybe a Xenogears style info dump is heading my way.

I really don't think you are playing FFXIII at all. Read the Datalog, the world is one of the best ones crafted in a Final Fantasy game. And don't complain about RSS feed, it's a legitimate way to present the story.

After all the glorious time in Ch9 the story and level design turned 180 again in Ch10. What's the meaning of this boring as fuck level? And the boss battle is bullshit as hell. Kicked his ass on the first try but spent way longer than expected (almost 20 mins) because of Fang's dumb as fuck AI (I let her dispell

Spoiler

Cid's

buff. Instead, she kept casting slow and kept failing).

FFS, you really need to act like a Junior? USE SPOILER TAGS!!!

EDIT: Wow, you did it. Congrats.

 

[Dead]

I really don't think you are playing FFXIII at all. Read the Datalog, the world is one of the best ones crafted in a Final Fantasy game. And don't complain about RSS feed, it's a legitimate way to present the story.

The datalog doesnt even present the story at all. Everything you need to know about the story is told in-game.

Datalog is nice for fleshing out locations and some cultural things, stuff that have no reason to presented in the actual story. But saying the entire story is told through the log is nothing short of :lol

 

[Feep]

What the hell are you talking about? FFXIII world is non-existent. It has very pretty stages, but not anything that even closely resembles a rich world with history and culture. When I read posts like this, I truly wonder if people are inserting their own stories and personalities on the characters, because the actual game presents none of either.

Paper-thin characters with one emotion each, and a "story" that the developers couldn't be arsed to present within the confines of their game. Relying on vague RSS feed style information about the world makes it quite clear that the story was the very last thing they worried about in this game.

Then again, I'm only at Chapter 10. Maybe a Xenogears style info dump is heading my way.

The more I play this game, the more I realize how utterly horrible the story is. Not just the story, because I think a competent writer could really do something with the concept, but the actual pacing, dialogue, and character development as well. It's trope after trope; FF writing has taken a serious step backwards from FFIX and even FFXII. As willing as Square-Enix is to take risks and leaps in their battle system, they absolutely refuse to do try anything beyond tired Japanese cliches in their writing.

(At end of Ch. 11, disclaimer)

 

[Paznos]

Man..... I've really haven't had that much trouble til Chapter 10.

Spoiler

Cid is tearing me up everytime and I can't get past him I get him to half health but then he does him move where he jumps in the air and takes a lot of my party's hp and debuffs them I've tried to stagger him but still trying to play catchup and heal my party, any help????

 

[_Xenon_]

I really don't think you are playing FFXIII at all. Read the Datalog, the world is one of the best ones crafted in a Final Fantasy game. And don't complain about RSS feed, it's a legitimate way to present the story.



FFS, you really need to act like a Junior? USE SPOILER TAGS!!!

If the only way to present the world in game is through datalog then it's epic fail IMO.

 

[Jet Grind Radio!]

I do like the story so far, only at chapter 7, but the fact that the game "hides" away pertinent info in the Datalog is kinda stupid. Very, very dated. ESPECIALLY since the early chapters are so very linear. The least they could have done is had various party members offer some insight into the game's story.

 

[Lonestar]

Wat? Cocoon has probably the most interesting history and culture of any non-Ivalice Final Fantasy world. Have you not touched the datalog at all or anything? That's probably one of my favorite things about the world in Final Fantasy XIII is how rich the world is with history and culture.

Besides, Chapters 7 and 8 give great opportunities to see what the normal people are like and how they feel about the world. The only difference in XIII is that instead of pressing X to talk to random NPCs you just walk up and overhear them talking.

I liked those areas, for this reason, as well as all that went on in them.

Everyone in FF8, most everyone in 10, Vaan, Penelo, etc

I can agree with this. Only person I kind of liked in 8, was Laguna. FF10 was all about Auron to me, though for some reason, I liked Rikku.

Never Finished 12. While Balthier and Basch were cool characters, nothing really stood out in the game. I find the total praise for the VA in the game to be odd. I think the quality of performance to be ok and well written, but the whole thing sounds "tinny" to me, like they recorded it on bad mics or something. Which brings the whole thing down for me.

 

[KuwabaraTheMan]

What the hell are you talking about? FFXIII world is non-existent. It has very pretty stages, but not anything that even closely resembles a rich world with history and culture. When I read posts like this, I truly wonder if people are inserting their own stories and personalities on the characters, because the actual game presents none of either.

Paper-thin characters with one emotion each, and a "story" that the developers couldn't be arsed to present within the confines of their game. Relying on vague RSS feed style information about the world makes it quite clear that the story was the very last thing they worried about in this game.

Then again, I'm only at Chapter 10. Maybe a Xenogears style info dump is heading my way.

Have you really never read the datalog or anything, not to mention listening to any of the dialogue in the game. There's a huge amount of interesting history and culture to the world. I'm not saying it's one of the greatest fictional worlds of all time, but there's definitely a lot of care that went into crafting the society and history.

The characters also are hardly paper-thin, and definitely have more than one emotion. Some characters like Lightning and Hope are initially rather single-minded, but they all wind up having more depth that shows up over time. Every character has their flaws, but they also have their good points as well. These characters are pretty much the exact opposite of "paper-thin".

 

[LowParry]

The overall story is sort of meh. I think the character stories are more interesting and fleshed out. Maybe there will be the big pay off in the end but until that time comes, it's Gran Pulse farming mania!