Final Fantasy XIII [PS3, Xbox 360]

[EOJ]

This just got a release date - 12/17/2009. I preordered it out of curiosity. FFXII was OK, but I lost interest halfway through and never finished it. Same thing will likely happen here, but I like to give these games a chance before I toss them. Some hands on impressions of the most recent build:

http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2009/09/09/ffxiii_impressions/

[SinHo]

Now that is good news ...

[EOJ]

Anyone get this? I happily cancelled my preorder last week. The more I saw of the game, the less it interested me. And from what I've read on blogs and forums since its release the game seems very linear and similar to FF-X2, which I thought was garbage. No thank you.

[adverse]

I'm a little tempted but I'm going to wait to hear more impressions from people who aren't S-E idiots.
The Last Remnant was utter trash, and so was Infinite Undiscovery (though I didn't play it). 

The last S-E games I enjoyed were Subarashiki kono Sekai (The World Ends with You) and FFXII (I liked this one quite a bit, hated the story though).

[EOJ]

As for recent S-E games (excluding Dragon Quests), Saga 2 for the DS was really good, I played that from start to finish. Final Fantasy Gaiden DS was horrible.
I haven't played a console S-E game since FFXII, which I thought was average, but not terrible.

[EOJ]

For some weird reason, I just preordered the upcoming JP X360 'International Hits' version that include the new 'easy mode'. I never played the PS3/X360 original, but I'm intrigued by big name JP-exclusive games with extra features on systems JP players generally don't care about.   Reminds me of the 3DO getting the first port of Super Street Fighter II Turbo (which I played to death back in the day).

[njiska]

Reminds me of the 3DO getting the first port of Super Street Fighter II Turbo (which I played to death back in the day).

Which I still have and is by far the best home port until HDR.

[EOJ]

Shame about the lack of parallax in the backgrounds, though.

[EOJ]

I got this earlier in the week, JP X360 Ultimate Hits International version. I've played 2.5 hours, and so far I'm enjoying it. Easy mode is nice (quick battles, nice item drops, better AI). I don't like the English voice acting, but the option to play with Japanese text is nice (you can play in English text too, if you want).

[brokenhalo]

The game is one big corridor 95% of the time. i finished it, but it gets a solid 5/10 from me. mediocrity at it's prettiest. the endgame gets old fast too when you realize that you can spam death and kill any megaboss with one successful cast.

[EOJ]

I'm about 8 hours in, up to Chapter 6. I really like this game - it's not a traditional RPG, it reminds me more of adventure games and visual novels. For me, that's great. I play a lot of those types of games, and I really enjoy them.

I think the game is a lot better with Easy mode on (JP X360 exclusive feature), than with it off, as it makes battles faster, significantly reduces the amount of grinding, gives better item drops, and makes staggers trigger quicker. You still need strategy to beat the bosses, or you'll get mauled. Without Easy mode, I'm not sure I'd push through to the end of the game, but with it, I'm really loving the game, and will definitely finish it.

[Shalashaska]

Glad to hear I'm not the only one that liked it. It received a bashing from the FF crowd but I enjoyed the game quite a bit up until the final area which I found tedious and uninspired (but that's true with many FF games). I was skeptical when I read about all the major changes the game was introducing (I like the more "traditional" games) to the FF formula but after playing it I really dug the combat. And while the story definitely isn't the greatest, it kept me intrigued enough to want to see what would happen next.

The one thing that I really didn't care for though was the summons. The transformer thing, IMO, was retarded and no real explanation as to why they turned into vehicles was given (that I can remember anyway). Also the summons, for the most part, are once again useless like in FFXII. There is some strategy to using them in a few fights but most of the time they're not even worth bringing out.

Besides the Easy Mode, what else is different about the International release?

[EOJ]

Besides the Easy Mode, what else is different about the International release?

Japanese text option, and some preorder bonuses. That's it.

[drunkninja]

Yep, I'd love to just have classic-style summons again, or at least use them the way they worked in FFX.  For summons being such a series staple, they've kinda backpedaled on them in the last few entries.

[njiska]

Glad to hear I'm not the only one that liked it. It received a bashing from the FF crowd but I enjoyed the game quite a bit up until the final area which I found tedious and uninspired (but that's true with many FF games).

I have to agree with you on this point. I've never been a big fan of RPG games, but this one i kind of liked. The only problem is there's still that boring tedium. You get sparse moments of interesting story and then like an hour of jerking off in a corridor. I had to quit in Chapter 10 because it was just too pointless.

[EOJ]

I finished the JP X360 version tonight. Took me 33 hours from start to finish (perfect length for an RPG), but I did no grinding other than the first six missions on Gran Pulse (that took about an hour). The later boss fights were a good challenge - not too hard, not easy. 'Easy mode' really makes this game fantastic because you don't have to deal with the grinding BS but you still need strategy and (some) proper equipment to beat the game.

I've played FF2 (SNES), FF6(SNES), FFXII, and FFIII. I only finished 6 and 13, the other two were a bore. I think I like 13 a bit more than 6, so I guess it's my favorite FF game. Wow. Never thought I'd say that.

But really, I enjoyed this game a lot. It stripped out all the annoying crap from JRPGs, streamlined everything, but had a really addictive, fast-paced battle system. I liked most of the characters (especially Fang and Lightning), and while the story was the same old cheese, it was still fun. It's also pretty much the only JRPG I'd rather play with English VA.

A couple things I didn't like:
-Most of the stores/inventory were completely useless. I didn't buy a single thing until right [spoiler]before the last boss, when I bought two cherub crowns[/spoiler]. After that I had 40K+ in the bank still.
-I prefer getting stronger weapons instead of upgrading the initial weapon to different tiers. When I found a new weapon in the game, it was completely underwhelming and I used NONE of them.
-I don't like how [spoiler]the crystarium can only be maxed out post game[/spoiler]. I never do post-game content, total waste of time IMO. There are a hundred million other awesome games out there to play, when I finish an RPG (and when the credits roll, it's finished), I move on to something new.

[StarCreator]

[spoiler]Maxing the crystarium is a huge massive grind anyway, and as you've found, completely unnecessary to defeat the final boss.  I see the end stage crystarium as more a device to give further play value to the post-game content, for those that enjoy that sort of thing.  For those that don't, it can be safely ignored.

There are a pretty good deal of epic fights in the post-game though, as well as some neat character snippits you don't otherwise see.  I only got about halfway through, but I'll probably go back and finish it someday.[/spoiler]