Hoping to make your life's design a bit more dynamic!

http://www.rpgfan.com/news/2009/643.html

I just read this story and its definitely contributed to some mixed feelings I have for this game. The thing that worries me the most is how little room there is to explore in the game and that it basically shuttles from scene to scene. There appears to be no towns in the game, very few NPCs to talk to and very little in the way of weapons and armor. I'm pretty sure there is no experience from battles in the game and I don't think you get money after the battles either. While I'm sure the game will still be enjoyable, it seems like its becoming more like a movie instead of having a new world to explore and the freedom to do it.

Anyone else have thoughts on this game?

Well, after reading the article, I have two things to say:

First -> The most dificult Final Fantasy(on main series) is FF2 for NES. Don't trust in the PSX remake, it's much easyer.
Second -> I really hate FFXII gameplay system.

Seconded: FFXII's gameplay was terrible. And the story wasn't even remotely interesting enough for me to play that awful gamplay system they devised.

I have no problem following a very linear path... But NO TOWNS???!! WTF! I was looking forward to this game until I started reading all these negative reviews... I'll still get it, but now I won't rush through White Knigth Chronicles, World Destruction, etc. in order to play FF13 when it's released.

I'll have the Japanese version here shortly so I can contribute some informed opinions but until then I'm going to state my uninformed opinion that I think people are making WAY too big a deal over this linearity thing. I just played a bunch of Dragon Age and while it does a great many things that give the illusion of non-linearity and branching progression, in a lot of ways it's still a linear story. In any playthrough you always have to visit the same places, the same major story events happen, and the differences in the endings are basically who lives and who doesn't. Is this a non-linear game? In some ways, ok sure, but at it's core, NO. It's not some kind of sandbox game, it's an RPG, they are linear. You go from this town to that town, or this even to that event. Read through a walkthrough on any RPG out there on Gamefaqs. They are a list of the places you go, in order, because the games are designed so you go to them in order. Final Fantasies (is that how to pluralize that?), from the first one on, don't open the world map to you until later in the game. They progress one step at a time to tell a story. Sound familiar?

What stood out to me in that linked article were the words "risk" and "innovation". Any time you try to do something new you risk alienating someone expecting something familiar. Taking risks and trying new things is not always good, but in the case of Final Fantasy it has paid off over and over again, not because the games are all good, but because they don't stagnate. I thought XII was a great game. I loved the battle system. I loved the story. I loved the character designs (for the most part). The main place it failed is that you don't care about any of the characters. There is no back story and no reason for you to like them which is too bad because it could have been the best FF to date. As it was it was a great but imperfect game.

Anyway, I'll have FFXIII probably next week so I can give you an informed perspective. In the mean time I wish people could exercise some prudence before jumping to conclusions based on the assumptions of people who haven't even played the game. Doesn't a series as well respected as Final Fantasy deserve to be judged after giving it a chance, not before hand?

The article is from a person that is playing the game and is at least at the 30 hour mark for a game that I believe was supposed to take 40-50 hours. So I think it at least brings up some interesting information to discuss. Of course none of us know how exactly it will be so I hope no one thinks I'm making some kind of final judgment on the game. I'm sure it will still be a good game mainly because of the music, characters and the story, but that writer's article also leaves me with mixed feelings as well.

I think RPGs can be arranged on a spectrum of how linear they are and I agree that in some ways all RPGs are linear, but there is a big difference between games. For example some games like Ultima 7 or Might and Magic 6 let you explore most of the world immediately and take on all kinds of sidequests whenever you want. I can decide to go to one of many dungeons including very dangerous ones where I may need to sneak around more. Some games let you choose party members or go down an evil route. Games like FF12 would be more linear but still have a lot of freedom for players to take on side quests, go back at any time to older areas and explore. In Star Ocean 4, obviously there is always the next main objective waiting, but I can still go back to old planets, harvest resources, visit the player coliseum, engage in item creation and take on all kinds of side quests. From reading the article, it seems like FF13 is extremely linear (at least the first half to 2/3 of the game) where the author describes it as a series of tubes/maps mostly unconnected to each other with few side quests, no towns and few NPCs to talk to. It sounds like the 2nd disk of Xenogears. Hopefully it opens up a little bit because the world itself (the Cocoon) sounds intriguing. Regardless, its an interesting article to hear opinions on.

Definitely would love to hear your opinions on it Filler when you get the game.

Maybe it has something to do with how it'll be handled on XBOX360.

I mean, since X360 media is much smaller than PS3 one, SE would need to use various DVDs to store the game. They're trying an improved form of compression, but it should not be too strong, or it can compromise loading times.
The basic logic is that, when you're in DVD 3, you should not be able to go a place you were on DVD 2(because the absence of DVD 2 data on DVD 3). So, it ended up making the game very linear.

I know the version launched was not X360, but the PS3 one, but since they'll launch it for both systems, they took the "easy approach": Making it easyer to run on X360 media, since PS3 media already can handle it.
It's cheaper to make just one game, than having to do a lot of adaptations to launch it on another system.

Well, tha's my opinion, feel free to disagree.

That's very interesting. I hadn't thought of that but it's possible, and I kind of like blaming the 360 for things. I remember FFIIX was on several discs and that limited what you could do to a certain extent. I think once you put the last disc in you couldn't go back.

BTW: My copy came in! So far, very linear. But I've only played for like 1 hour. I'll play more over the next few days and give some additional impressions. So far though it's been typical FF, a Star Wars based story/world with a band of trendy teenagers fighting against oppression. The dialog is a bit hard for me to follow, they use a lot of words I don't know, but the combat seems pretty streamlined and simple so far. My roommate was playing FFXII in anticipation of FFXIII's release in the US so I got to see the two games one after the other. It's NUTS comparing the graphics between the two! The difference 4 years made is really incredible.

I'm at around the 4 hour mark and still getting tutorials. This is still the beginning of the game. However, I've formed a few ideas about the game thus far.

It seems like pains were taken to cut some of the fat away in terms of battle and other RPG "chores". I've though of this a couple of ways so far. One is a way that the first Final Fantasy did the exact same thing. In Dragon Quest every time you want to talk to an NPC you bring up the menu, then choose talk. The first Final Fantasy improved upon the immediacy and intuitiveness of this action by simply having you walk up to the character and hit a button, no menu required. XIII represents a continuation of this effort to minimize the amount of busywork required to accomplish your goals.

Another way I've thought about this is Resident Evil 4. RE4 updated Resident Evil by coming up with new, more streamlined ways of doing things from the older games. For instance, inventory management and the "item box" system was thrown out in favor of a "case" that Leon carries around and into which you must arrange your items. As you go you are able to buy bigger cases and other stuff from this (totally contrived and silly but great) "merchant guy". Games are games and they strive for some kind of balance between simulating some kind of realism, and just being a game system. The "merchant guy" kind of breaks the realism, but works for the game. FFXIII strikes a similar balance where certain things are very immersive and realistic, other times you can see the man behind the curtain and it's totally ok.

There is a point when one of the main characters does something and I was like "Finally...this cold b***h shows some emotion." and it made me realize that I'd actually been tricked into believing this character so much that she seemed like a cold, unfeeling woman, rather than an emotionless 3D game character. The facial expressions are so well done that you don't question the humanity of the characters.

I just got to a point were I'm being introduced to the crystal points system which is like the sphere grid, etc... systems from other FFs which should be familiar to players. Also there is an "optima change" system for swapping your parties roles when you are in a crisis.

A friend of mine introduced me to an interesting article on the maturation of game genres and it basically goes like this: As genres and even individual games series mature, they inherently become more focused on giving the existing players a more challenging experience and thus as they mature, the more "casual" players that enjoyed the original game eventually get turn off by the series once it reaches a point where it is too challenging for them. You may react to this with distain, obviously someone who can't keep up with a series because it's too "challenging" sucks at games right? But I've experienced this over and over again with various games. Let me illustrate and example or two.

Street Fighter: I LOVED Street Fighter II. I used to play it at the arcades and at home against my friends all the time. I rented Street Fighter 4 not long ago and I seriously could not beat the game on the lowest difficulty setting. To put this into perspective, there is an easy setting, then there are two lower difficulties than that. It's like easier and easiest or something...I was on easiest. And I chalked it up to all the crazy hardcore SF players that I can't keep up with anymore. So now I cannot enjoy SF.

I've seen this happen with RPGs as well. Some of the battle systems in these games are just too much for me. I think it was Xenosaga or maybe Xenosaga II where I was like "Wha-?", I can't do this any more. What happened to those simple RPGs I used to play? Magna Carta, really hardcore. And I know there are RPG fans out there that love that, but not everyone does. So what do you do? It's a difficult dilemma that any long running series faces. Final Fantasy I believe tries to stay fresh so that not only an ever dwindling hardcore base of fans are the only people that play the what...13th in the series? The same with RE4, they took a chance at altering the formula and widened their audience not narrowed it. I guess what we don't know is if it paid off this time or not.

Anyway, sorry this is so long and kind of stream of consciousness. I'm still putting thoughts together and I just wrote a lot of stuff down. I'll keep some more impressions here as I go. I'll also be writing a review on Playongo sometime in the near future. I'm planning to stream the game on Sunday the 17th I think so anyone that wants to see me play can check it out then. I may stream a little before that too for one of my friends to see.

Filler,

How would you compare the challenge of FF13 compared to other Final Fantasies and other JRPGs in general. I think in many ways I am happy that they made it more challenging, I just hope its not more challenging in "cheap" ways. What do you think of the soundtrack, I saw several reviews giving high praise to it.