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The Official Final Fantasy XIII TRIAL VERSION Thread

K

Kagari

Crystal Bearer
Shadow780 said:
Supplements to ACC came in, postcard book is pretty nice.

no Elena, fuck :(

2z3ypo1.jpg
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Holy crap. I need this. ALL OF THEM. Link me because I'm too lazy to search!
 
R

rataven

Member
Muffdraul said:
That's the primary reason I think they really did completely get rid of Items, at least within the battle system. They designed the system to move constantly and move fast, so they don't want players scrolling up and down a huge Item menu that's 40-80 items long. Most seem to think "There are no items because it's a demo... they'll be there in the finished game." I don't think so. They've clearly designed the system to no longer need them (i.e. Cure spells now work on 0 HP KO'd characters).
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I agree with this. It'll seem weird to not have potions/phoenix downs/elixers, etc in a Final Fantasy, but I think those days are over. The battle system seems designed for quick decisions and results, and items are too "easy".
 
N

nelsonroyale

Member
got the demo, played some of it...enjoying it for sure, although do agree with the extreme linearity of the environment ie can't dodge fights, but this is the start of the game so its pretty much expected...visually its very impressive, although a little (ridiculously perhaps) disappointed that some of the distant buildings are not modelled, although there isn't really a reason too...virtually no loading and the cutscenes really show of the engine... I can only imagine how great some of the bigger environments and cities are going to look...
 
S

Shadow780

Member
LiK said:
the Advent Children fans unite! ^^^ :p
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We are better than that!

Nomura whores UNITE!

Kagari said:
Thanks. Have you read the On the Way to a Smile at all? I'm interested in the Turks story :eek:
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Nope, I'll wait for fan translated versions, or maybe they'll release the English version here like in that AC collector's edition :p


rataven said:
Wait a sec.....is that a new updated Ultimania?? I have to buy it again?
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Yes, for the third time.
 
Z

Zanasea

Member
Teknoman said:
Nice, Square enix does points stuff now? Time to put S-E members account to use.
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It's been quite a while, 3 years I think. The first time I got a card like this was in the FFIII DS soundtrack, so in 2006.
 
M

MiloFoxburr

Member
Hey guys someone in this thread mentioned that the movie plays on PAL PS3's is this confirmed? Want to buy for the film and the demo but don't want to pay €55 and only have the Demo work.

Thanks
 
T

Teknoman

Member
Zanasea said:
It's been quite a while, 3 years I think. The first time I got a card like this was in the FFIII DS soundtrack, so in 2006.
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Oh, thought it was new since the NA site recently updated with the points as well.
 
N

nelsonroyale

Member
With games like this, RE5 and MGS4 hopefully people can quieten down about all Japanese devs being behind the graphical curve... This is definitely the best looking rpg out on any system so far... ive played ME and TLR and Fallout 3 on pc, and this game is quite alot more impressive than any of those...of course it also probably has 10 times the budget...also the opening cg is absolutely jaw dropping...
 
N

nelsonroyale

Member
MiloFoxburr said:
Hey guys someone in this thread mentioned that the movie plays on PAL PS3's is this confirmed? Want to buy for the film and the demo but don't want to pay €55 and only have the Demo work.

Thanks
Click to expand...

pretty sure it has been confirmed to work by others, but I ll give it a shot tomorrow and check it out
 
S

Spoo

Member
Muffdraul said:
That's the primary reason I think they really did completely get rid of Items, at least within the battle system. They designed the system to move constantly and move fast, so they don't want players scrolling up and down a huge Item menu that's 40-80 items long. Most seem to think "There are no items because it's a demo... they'll be there in the finished game." I don't think so. They've clearly designed the system to no longer need them (i.e. Cure spells now work on 0 HP KO'd characters).
Click to expand...

I'm tempted to agree that you're right about this. But I mean, I'm looking even further than the issue of items: if you had a bunch of spells - like say 12, this shits going to get difficult to manage without a system that's fairly smart in terms of context (ie, you cast "clean" on a target with confusion/some-other-ungodly-debuff, and you're back to normal -- and even then, buffs and debuffs should have their own "magic entry").

Basically, the thing to wonder (worry?) about is, will the speed of the system (which I like) provide a problem with menu management. If they make smart usage of context and gui design, maybe not. But it's a problem for sure -- I even see it stacking up a tad in the current demo. When I got 'glitched' by the boss, I had to be quick at those menus to stay alive, and occasionally would just push the wrong thing.
 
M

Mamesj

Banned
It's kinda tempting, but I'm not that crazy about demos (and I'd like to experience something like this completely fresh.) I'd rather have the extra $$ from keeping it "new." I'm already losing some money on it...
 
E

Ether_Snake

安安安安安安安安安安安安安安安
I'm pretty sure you will set up a list of "equipped" spells, and not have access to all spells ate once in a fight.

Also, for all they might be doing to make the battle system fast, the transition phase and stats menu (which we agree is done to make up for design issues, not memory issues, mainly to reposition the characters and prevent the player from attacking the bosses from behind) really slows it down.
 
B

BlazingDarkness

Member
Good impressions there

just to let ya know, Team Nora, or Maqui, at least, aren't dead after the demo
at the end of the Jump (i think?) trailer, you can hear him talking and freaking out about being cursed and turned into l'Cie, which obviously as we know must take place after the events of the demo
 
D

Darkpen

Banned
TheChillyAcademic said:
I'm almost certain this was a glitch of some sort. I've gone through the demo about 400,000 times and the launch fest happens nearly EVERY time.
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I keep hearing about this, yet it never happened to me :/
 
D

Darkpen

Banned
If there's something I don't get about ACC and its upscaled DVD scenes, is... didn't this movie get a limited release in theaters in Japan? Surely it must have been put on cellulite and rendered appropriately for the medium? If not... then what the fuck?
 
Â

∀ Narayan

Member
Kagari said:
D: I tried out the English option on the movie...

...

Turned it off after maybe 5 minutes.
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Yeah, it's horrible.

Will the US release of ACC have Japanese voice with proper lip-sync and English subtitles? If so, I'll probably just buy the US version and replace my Japanese disc. If someone wants my Japanese disc, just let me know.
 
R

rataven

Member
Darkpen said:
I keep hearing about this, yet it never happened to me :/
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This finally happened to me today. And the scorpian thing at the beginning of Lightning's part always launches me too. Is there anyway to recover from it? It's kind of frustrating :/
 
D

Darkpen

Banned
Kadey said:
I wasn't home to sign for my stuff. Bummer. Oh well. At least I can bring this out of display in the mean time.

mt6qex.jpg
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where's that giant sword from? D: And is it just a short stand, or a full-length sword? D:
 
D

Darkpen

Banned
Kagari said:
D: I tried out the English option on the movie...

...

Turned it off after maybe 5 minutes.
Click to expand...
Only 5 minutes? Seriously? :/

While the general localization and script is realy poor, the only part that sucks the most ass is whenever Rufus talks. Other than that, most of the film is pretty bearable.
 
Synless

Synless

Member
Himuro said:
Alright. I got my copy today. I just dusted off FFVII: Advent Children Complete. I'll start with that that. Sorry if these impressions are badly worded and stuff, as I'm pretty tired for some reason right now.

FF7:ACCC - Overall, I think this is a much better film than the original cut. The new scenes to the movie make the plot feel more cohesive. In the original cut, I liked the idea of Geostigma and Denzel but it was hard caring.

For one thing, Denzel's role felt minimal at best despite being a major character in the film. ACC remedies this by not only giving him a back story, but by also making his relationship with Cloud and the gang seem stronger. By the end of the version, I actually cared about the kid. This is helped by the fact that the effects of Geostigma are shown as pretty damn harsh in ACC, where as in the original cut characters inflicted with the disease merely had black marks on their infected areas.

Another issue with the original cut I had was that, while I felt the action was pretty good, the amount of action ruined the story pacing. Every other scene you would have a fight, with almost no dialgoue. In ACC -- in the first half at least -- fights are well paced between interesting character bits of character development and story development.

Finally, my biggest problem with FFVII AC was the treatment of Cloud. Near the end of FFVII, Cloud is born again hard. He sees things from a completely different light and is that much stronger after conquering his fears and past. In AC he's once again brooding and I didn't feel it fit the character. There were some new things, like the flashback with Zack, that helped flesh this matter out. While it didn't completely make me feel alright with what they did to Cloud in AC, I think he's a lot more bearable in the Complete version.

ACC doesn't only make the movie feel more cohesive, but it also draws parallels to other FFVII related media like Crisis Core. It makes the project feel less ham fisted, more complete. At the end of the day, I think all of these changes help form a much better movie that should have been the original cut to begin with. If you even barely liked Advent Children you should check it out. It's not Kingdom of Heaven Directors Cut (the directors cut to end all DC's) but it's a vast improvement.

Final Fantasy XIII - When you first get to command Lightning against the robo scorpion, the game feels quite hands off. It takes a whilte to charge a full ATB bar, you can't control the other party member...It feels weird at first, to me at least, but eventually I got used to it.

There's definitely a learning curve. I found my attacks getting interrupted by enemies constantly. Then I realized that if I waited for them to attack, and then unleash my string of attacks I did much better. This was especially true with the first enemy in the game, the giant robot that smashes the train Zazh and Lightning are riding in.

You will barely do any damage at all to that boss due to its hard shell. The one opportunity to do major damage is when it opens its shell, exposing its weak point. The flipside to this is that when it does open its shell, it's preparing for a huge multi-hit attack on the party. You must hit its weakpoint before it unleashes the attack since once it does hit, you lose your command stock completely due to the damage. You have to start all over and by that time, its shell will already be closed.

Timing is key in these battles, and I like the direction.

It definitely feels like FFX-2 on steroids, but it's far more slow than that game. Probably in part that the AI takes care of the extra party members in the demo.

I even had a game over in the demo. In the fight against the Behemoth he nailed Snow for 700 hp damage when the Behemoth used a launcher and my guys couldn't heal him in time. The fight definitely managed to keep me on my toes and I can't really imagine some of the fights in the full game do the fact you won't have magic at this point.

Like I said, there's definitely a learning curve. By the end of the demo though, I was doing crazy combos and getting ranked 5 Stars. It's extremely fun.

I'm impressed, highly. Especially with the graphics. I think this is the new high standard for Japanese rpgs if this demo is any indication. There's a difference between the fmv and in game graphics, but even that's not that large of a gap anymore.

While it's true the entire demo takes place on one long linear train track, the attention to detail makes up for this. There's a million things to see in the demo; multiple scripted events occur. Whether they're planes flying overhead shooting at the party, explosions that throw Zazh into a panic, your enemies arriving at a specific battle spot a la Chrono Trigger, or even seeing a boss you will fight later on in the demo take out a bunch of people on a bridge below while you sit there completely helpless.

The atmosphere is insane and usually these events are shown from a specific camera angle where the player has no input in camera control. None of these take you out of the action, and it feels straight out of a game made in the west to me. Japanese tend to keep things like this self contained within cutscenes, especially if it's an rpg.

This is definitely Square. They did the same things during the psx era. Remember how say, in FFVIII, where an fmv would pop up and you could move Squall? It makes me feel like that, except there's no fmv doing these events at all. It was impressive then and it's equally as impressive now.

Finally, I'd like to talk about the story. I'm really feeling the cast. Lightning and Snow are both mature characters, and their personalities are immediately likable to me. It's nice to have a mature main character in the series again, which has been a long time coming. Zazh is comic relief, for sure, but to me he feels like a normal guy thrown into a crazy situation. It's obvious he's green.

After playing the demo, I get the feeling this game is going to have quite a bit of death in it. The ending to the demo was pretty touching, I thought. I hope team Nora are dead after that fall.

I can't wait for the full game. At the beginning of the game's development I was skeptical but, I'm after playing the demo I'm glad they're making something actually resembles a Final Fantasy. It's been 7 years (almost 8) since FFX, and I'm hungry.
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I just wanted to add one more thing I've noticed about ACC. As I was watching I realized that they added a few new sound effects and little music differences throughout the movie. The best effect however I think with sound is this new humming like noise that Sephiroth's sword makes when he swings it around now, it's really badass.
 
S

StuBurns

Banned
Y2Kev said:
So what do we make if the evil looking female in the intro video?
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The one by the ship at some sort of castle?

I'm calling the main antagonist until the 'real' one is revealed four fifths thru the game.
 
Y

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
Hmm, interesting. Just like how FFXII had
Balthier and Cid.
We need some biological linkages. linkage linkage linkage
 
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