Final Fantasy XIII

[maf-me-quick]

i find 13 a good game but it's not without fault. it has many. many, many in fact. but i think it was a good go at modernising the JRPG genre. the battle system for example is still deep but helps the game fill more action orientated, it's very much like 7 but no waiting around and your imagination doesn't have to fill in the blanks of why people are standing around taking it in turns to hit each other. plus, think of how long it takes to beat 7, imagine how much of that time is spent waiting for the ATB gauge to fill. far more waiting than should be necessary, really.

they did away with the billion different items a party needs to carry round. no more softs, maidens kiss', tents, ethers and all that other rubbish. making your team much more self sufficient i think is a wonderful idea. not because it makes it easier (which it does do) but also eliminates the need to keep stock and manage your inventory. it's made even better by the fact your completely healed after every fight. they do have all them different materials to power up your weapons with, but they all do the same thing and i never had to buy any once, you just select a weapon and tap X until your weapon is stronger. no doubt there is some technical stuff behind it, but i never felt the need in wasting time to figure it out. i didn't even work out how you can transform your weapons.

the point i'm trying to make is mechanically, it's far superior to most JRPG's out there. i expect 99% of people don't want to run around in circles for hours and hours grinding, or having to talk to every NPC in the game for worthless text boxes just in case you miss something, or playing dumb mini-games. these games are so story focused that i only want to get to the next cut scene. i think they could stream line the experience even more and just do away with levelling completely.

the game could of probably done a better job with some smoke and mirrors to cover up the "25 hour corridor" but honestly, even if it was the most expansive world ever i would still be heading for that orange way point anyway.

now i'm not saying the games not without fault, but just in terms of mechanics FF15 should just take these ideas to the wall. but next time wrap a better structure around it, eh?

[Pious the chosen]

If Square truly wanted to see how to modernise the JRPG they should have asked Sega how its done as Valkyria Chronicles is the best example of modernisation in the genre.

[maf-me-quick]

i liked valkyria but that game was too strategy heavy for me. like playing pokemon and advance wars all in one.

[hazeyhaze]

Well I love FFXIII personally. 4 chapters in, and as a non-RPG gamer it's perfect the way things have been drip-fed to me. Maybe these are the things that long term fans gripe about but funnily enough my brother and also my sister's boyfriend, both massive FF nuts for many years, rate it very highly indeed.

Takes all sorts..