I'm playing through FFXIII for the first time and I decided that you fags get to suffer with me.
Day 1: 10/16/10 - 10/17/10
Hour 1:
You know I expected going into this to not get what was going on in the story for at least a few hours. What I did not expect was that EVERY SINGLE LINE OF DIALOGUE IS AKWARD AND HORRIBLE. Having played other FF games I had prepared a language buffer going into this, I was ready for some clumsy sentence structure, but what the the *crag* is this? It's like these people aren't even talking to each other. The juxtaposition between the terrific graphics and facial animation and the *crag*ing horrendous vocal deliver is incredible. How did they *crag* up this badly?
Also I guess the Holocaust is going on or something. NO ONE IS GOING TO PULSE TODAY.
The story seems kind of interesting, but I'm sure this will be some FFX bull shit where I won't get what is going on or what the *crag* the simplest terms mean for quite awhile, but I'm okay with that as long as they actually try to explain it and don't make me fish through the data log.
What is with the combat by the way? Is there a reason it is real time when all it does is make everything annoying? I just want to throw grenades at these dudes, but by the time my action timer runs down and they keep *crag*ing running around so now my grenade only hits one *crag*ing guy instead of the three I wanted it to. They keep tossing around all these terms that make me think of DnD except DnD is *crag*ing turn based. I guess it's kind of cool that the characters are all jumping around and shit, but that doesn't make it any less self defeating.
Maybe it will get better, probably not.
I'm glad I rented this.
Hour 3:
I should note that Hour 1 was more like 30 or 40 minutes in. From now on I'm going based on in game clock time.
Okay so, the story is finally starting to pick up. I did finally breakdown and look in the datalog so I could find out what a *crag*ing Fal'Cie is. They do kind of explain it, but I probably wouldn't have caught most of what was said if I hadn't known before hand.
The battle system has opened up from "Keep hitting A and sometimes Potions" to "Keep hitting A and sometimes potions, you might want to have a tank and healer for boss fights." I have magic, but it still seems so *crag*ing awkward to actually strategize against multiple targets that I've pretty much resigned myself to using the Auto-Battle function. I guess the standard fodder enemies aren't supposed to be that difficult in the first place, but it's still really annoying that I can't just line up a *crag*ing area of effect attack when I want it. My main problem with this whole system is that when there are four or five targets on screen all bouncing around it can be difficult to single out the one you want. This is especially frustrating considering how much of a *crag*ing nightmare it is to navigate these menus while fighting them. So far the few fights where there has just been one big enemy have been the best simply because I don't have to deal with that kind of shit and can actually fight in a strategic manner.
I dunno, it's getting slightly better. I don't know how I've stuck with it this long considering that I literally have just been hitting the A button over and over and over for every single battle. I guess the story is intriguing simply because so much is unknown, though i doubt it will deliver on my expectations.
I hope this is *crag*ing entertaining for you people.
Hour 4:
I figured out that by using Libra a lot and picking off the weaker DPS enemies first I can five star almost every battle and just keep clicking A.
Good times.
Hour 5:
So the game is getting a little harder now, though it's still kind of the same bull shit only now I hit LT sometimes.
Let me tell you about my good friend the Paradigm Shift.
Paradigm Shift is here to replace all the strategy from those out of date, worthless, piece of shit RPGs you used to play with reflex based menu selection.
HOORAY!
Basically every character can switch between several classes, though each of them still has unique abilities only they can use, for instance I have two Synergists (Read: Buffers) but one of them focuses on buffing defense while the other focuses on buffing offense. A Paradigm Shift is a command you make in battle to have everyone on your team switch to a new load out. For instance you may want more Ravager (Read: Black Mages) if you are trying to take down an enemy, but if a character gets low on health you may want to quickly switch to a Medic (Read: Medic) to restore some health.
This has resulted in combat now becoming a cool looking quick time event where I have to switch to a medic load out fast enough otherwise my character will die.
In other news they are actually explaining the story. I guess as it goes along more past events are going to be revealed through flash backs, and as I said before I was expecting that so it's all good. I've gotten used to the voice work at this point (oh god) so I've become a little bit more invested in the characters now that I'm able to funnel all the *crag*ed english coming out of their mouthes into something intelligible passively as I am watching the cutscenes. I'll have to come up with a name for this psychological process.
Really the story is the only reason I've probably stuck with it thus far. The battles are definitely getting harder, but I'm still pressing that god damn A button like there is no tomorrow. Well, whatever.
Let's run down the list of characters and what they are up to.
Lighting: Is a bitch so it really is a shame that you have to play as her for such a large chunk of these first five hours. I mean I get the whole military stereotype they are trying to play up here, but hell even Cloud wasn't that stoic and he saw some *crag*ed up shit. Seriously go play Crisis Core. That ending is *crag*ed up.
Savh: Is probably one of the only reasons I am sticking with this game. That dude is just so chill all the time. He didn't want any of this shit, he was just on a train waiting to be taken to the gas chambers when some crazy bitch started killing shit. Now he has magical cancer, but he's still just chillin'. It's all good bro, I've got a bird in my afro.
Vanille: STOP TALKING GOD *CRAG*ING DAMN IT YOUR VOICE *CRAG*. Why does this character even exist? WHY. It's like she was created just so you could have a fifth party member at the beginning of the game and serve as a convenient plot device. God damn she is so annoying jesus shit.
Hope: Is less annoying than Vanille which is surprising considering that all he does his melodrama all the time. It really isn't bothering me as much as I thought it would, and he seems like the type of character that is at least going to get some decent emotional development as the story progresses, OR MAYBE NOT! I don't know. Let's find out together.
Snow: This guy is just *crag*ing insane. Or retarded. But he is a hero. And he does have a bitchin' motorcycle made out of twin lesbians, so I guess that's okay.
I probably could have touched on a lot of this stuff earlier, but hey I got it out of the way so whatever. You may have ntoiced that I'm intetnionally being vague about the story, and that is because I'd like to keep this relatively spoiler free incase A. Someone wants to read this and not get spoiled, or B. I post it somewhere else once I finish it and they don't want to be spoiled either.
Spoiled is a pretty stupid word, it's kinda sad that I have to use it.
Anyway I think I reached a good stopping point, but even if I play a bit more this will probably be the last update for tonight. I've touched on all the big concepts in this post I think so I should be able to go a few more hours without having to post.
That's kind of a sad resignation all this shit isn't it? I get to hit A for two or three more hours before I get to come back here and write some more.
Whoooooo.
(For those curious I am currently on Chapter 4: I Wanna Be Purged)
Hour 7:
Okay so it turns out some shit happened.
I got item upgrading. It looks really complex but it's really kind of just for show. You basically dump all the vendor trash you get off monsters into your weapons and they treat it like EXP and level up. I really don't know why they just didn't let them upgrade through use, this is all just kind of needlessly stupid.
Also summoning happened, so I guess this is considered spoiler territory from here on out.
So I already got Shiva with Snow, but you don't get to actually use them in Combat so I never really went into how that whole system works in my previous posts. Basically you aquire whatever they are calling summons now through combat based puzzles as a part of the standard story path (Because "Down this corridor." totally isn't the only path. Sometimes you go down canyons.) Once you beat their challenge by building up combos or healing your allies or whatever you get a totally bitchin' ride that you can then summon into combat at the cost of technique points which you can only regain through battling well.
If this all sounds extremely complicated, well it is. Notice I still have not yet explained combos yet. Maybe I will someday.
Despite all that I am still pressing A a whole hell of a lot.
Anyway, once you do all that shit Odin comes into battle and you have to help him build up combos to fill your Gestalt meter so you can he can turn into a horse and perform special attacks.
So yeah it was cool, and considering I am still five staring almost every fight by pressing A I guess I will be seeing him again very soon.
Fights are graded by the way.
Maybe I'll go into all this other shit in a later post, I guess I need to get back to the game.
The combat and story are finally getting a little better. The combat is still only hard because I have to time class switching though, and that isn't what I'm looking for in what is still basically a turn based RPG.
Hour 10:
GOD *CRAG*ING DAMN IT THAT SEGEMENT TOOK FOREVER
ALL I DID WAS WALK DOWN A STRAIGHT PATH AND FIGHT THE SAME MONSTERS FOR LIKE TWO HOURS GOD DAMN IT
The boss fight at the end was cool, and actually proved that this system has some merit to it, but it was not worth the *crag*ing trip there.
So the game got harder but I figured out a new way to cheat everything so it's okay. So I said I would explain combos, we'll here it comes. Basically every attack from you or an ally on the same target counts towards a meter called Stagger. If you keep attacking this target then eventually you will stagger the enemy and cause it to take huge amounts of damage as well as making it more vulnerable to certain attack interrupts. If you stop attacking the enemy to heal or buff or whatever it starts to drain, rather quickly I might add.
What they don't bother to tell you about all this, and what I had to figure out on my own, is that physical attacks slow the meter from draining while magical attacks fill the meter up faster. Throught this bio-enginerring lab level thing the game stuck with a part of Lightning (Fighter) and Hope (Red Mage-ish?) so what I basically did was have Lightning hit a target with a single string of physical attacks, switched her over to magic until the Stagger meter was full, and then switched her back to physical attack because she has a kick ass passive skill that launches staggered enemies into the air so they can't attack while I pummel on them. Rinse and repeat for two hours.
In short, I hit the A and LB buttons a lot.
As I said though, the boss was kind of cool. It was difficult and I almost died a few times, but I felt like the challenge came more from the time constraints rather than any strategy. All I did was buff my characters and then do my rinse repeat strategy that had worked on everything else.
HERE IS THE PART WHERE I PROVE THIS GAME IS STUPID IN A LOT OF WAYS
So this boss has multiple stages right? About midway through the battle or so he changes color and gets all red and shit, so I decide to use the RT button (Whoa now, what's this RT button business. Are you saying you used a button other than A or LT? Yes, dear reader. Yes I am.) to check out his elemental weaknesses. Oh hey they changed. I remember when this happened in a lot of other RPGs, and it probably would have been difficult if MY ATTACKS WEREN'T AUTO SELECTED.
Maybe I shouldn't use Libra all the time. Have I broken the game somehow?
All I know is that the game told me to use Libra so I used Libra. A lot.
And if anyone was dying to know I have Lightning focusing primarily on the Commando role with a decent amount of Ravager and Hope is a bad ass Ravager with a good amount of Synergist because I wanted the +1 accessory.
I haven't decided what to do with Sazh and Vanille yet, though I did just get to a new section with them so they should be in for a big dose of dat sweet crystal as soon as I feel like playing again. I think 10 straight hours of FFXII is enough for awhile.
Also Snow is a huge dick apparently.
So yeah, at this point I'm 10 hours in. Legend says that the game actually gets awesome at about 30, though I have to say that I do not think the ride will be worth the price of admission. I think I've reach the point where the prologue has ended and now I get to go through corridors for 20 hours following the same exact attack patterns and wishing I hadn't bought this game.
Except I haven't bought it yet so I guess I have a leg up on the people who did.
Go me!
Yeah, I'm going to like sleep now or something. I wouldn't expect another huge group of updates like this because now it is Sunday and I have not the time nor energy to pull another all nighter.
Maybe I'll end up buying it and actually continue with this through the end.
Probably not though.
Day 2: 10/18/10
As I finally find some time to sit down with this beast again, I'm hoping to get around 4+ hours in today which should put me at about the half-way point of what I guess is called "The Tutorial."
w00t.
I've been thinking a lot of XIII over the last few days, but also Final Fantasy in general. I watched some of the GameTrailer's Retrospective of the series which, beyond just being really well produced, has just given me a new appreciation for the series that perhaps I didn't have before. I mean as we speak I have just finished re-installing FFVIII onto my PSP, and I don't even like FFVII.
FFXIII has just been a chore up to this point and I'm really just disappointed when I think back to how previous titles in the series just seemed to instantly enthrall me. I think that people who say they have grown out of Final Fantasy are quite simply wrong, Final Fantasy has grown out of it's comfortable niche and into something barely recognizable as an entry in the series. I mean i just played FFVII through to completion for the first time this year, and I loved it. I remember the first time I played FFX and how it just gripped me for days at a time. Hell, I remember when I sat down with the original FFI, and that was more engaging than this.
I just don't know what to do with this *crag*ing game.
If anything, I'll say that the world they have created is very interesting. The lore is fantastic, and I think it was really only the gameplay that drops the ball. The gameplay is what is artificially lengthening this *crag*er out and forcing exposition that could take A cutscene to be spread out over an hour of corridor running. I desperately want to know more about this world, but the game seems to defy that want at every turn.
I really just don't see where they thought they were going with this. I'm just really *crag*ing depressed about the whole thing.
As I write this I am about to enter the eleventh hour, perhaps quite literally, of FFXIII and the trial of my patience. My rental is up, and with Fallout: New Vegas coming out tomorrow and Costume Quest AND Super Meat Boy coming later this week I'm not sure how much of my time I'm going to be willing to devote to this game.
I think that at this point I'm just going to buy the *crag*ing thing soon, I've become too invested in this stupid project to back out now. I've looked around and GameStop has it used for $40, so that's probably a good estimate of the starting point for pre-owned copies.
Well, whatever.
It's time to explore the forest with Savh (YEA!) and Vanille (*crag*).
Hour 12:
I've gotten to the point where I'm running past the monsters to avoid battles.
This is extremely atypical of me, especially in modern RPGs. In games with random encounters I often ran away from battles simply because I found the whole mechanic rather annoying; now I am running away because I find these battles rather annoying.
Apparently i'm supposed to avoid some these monsters (I guess it's a puzzle or something?), but I've just been avoiding a lot of the regular enemies as well for several reasons.
A. They aren't challenging at all.
B. They take too long.
C. EXP is basically worthless to me at this point because I've filled out most of the skill tree thing, or I've at least filled out the parts I want.
D. There is no Run option once you are in combat, either that or the game never told me how to do it so either way their bad.
At least this section was shorter, hopefully this will be a continuing trend.
For those who care I just finished the forest section also known as Chapter 6. (At least I hope I am, it prompted me to save so I'm sure that's what it is.)
Sazh continues to be the most interesting character in the game and he now has a side plot that I actually care about, so maybe that will keep me going. It porbably has a lot to do with him and his son being tied into the lore of the world with the Sanctum and the Fal'Cie, but I just find his plight very endearing and Sazh himself is one of the few believable characters in this entire god damn game. It has a very Pursuit of Happyness Will Smith and his son vibe except I don't feel like I may have wasted my time after watching it.
Oh yeah and Vanille is from Pulse. Maybe i would have been suprised by that if they didn't spoil it IN THE OPENING CINEMATIC.
In terms of character development I'm splitting Vanille down the paths of both Saboteur and Medic (Which kind of sucks right now because Sazh is my only Commando so she has to be my main Ravager most of the time) and Sazh is going almost full Ravager because I want him to be the bad ass mother *crag*er he deserves to be.
Yeah so, getting kind of bored with this combat. It isn't even that it's monotonous, it's just boring. I'm still just pressing that god damn A button most of the time and having to switch Paradigms ever so often.
Something awesome better happen soon, this shit is getting super weak.
Hour 14:
Everything is getting a the slightest bit better as I inch ever closer to that fabled time slot of 30 hours.
The final class type was JUST NOW INTRODUCED in full force. I got to try it out for like ten *crag*ing minutes at the beginning of the game, but now that i have it it has certainly added something to the system. The Sentinel is basically a Tank. He can take a ton of damage and, in certain cases, dish it back out again. The only two Sentinels in the game, Snow and this new chick named Fang, have come into the fold and I am just now getting my hands on them. Snow feels like the main Tank. He has a ridiculous amount of Health and his Sentinel abilities seem more geared towards sponging up huge amounts of damage while Fang does some weird healing move. His character hasn't changed much though so meh whatever. HE'S A HERO YA'LL!
Fang is much more interesting. She is apparently from Pulse and has a connection to Vanille (VANILLE IS FROM PULSE WHAT!?) so hey that's neat. System wise she seems to be the only character in the game that is completely devoted to physical attacks and little else. I don't think she actually has any magic skills outside of her healing shield thingy and some awesome Saboteur moves like Slowga.
Story is picking up a bit. Hope is still melodrama-ing all the time, Snow is still *crag*ing retarded, and Lightning is either slightly less of a bitch or has gone completely bat shit insane so we'll see how that turns out.
Oh, and apparently the game isn't going to end with everything dying because apparently people turn back from being crystal after they fufill their Focus given to them by blah blah blah blah by they damn game.
You know as much as I love the lore, try to explain all this shit to an actual human being in a face to face conversation would be the most akward thing ever. "No dude, it's like the Fal'Cie are kind of like this mechanical demigods, right? Well sometimes they choose human to fufill a pact with them called a Focus, but they don't tell them what it is. If they don't fufill the focus they become a horrible, mutated thrall, but if they do fufill it they become encapsulated in crystal for all eternity. No, seriously. It is super cool."
I'm actually wondering where they are going to go with this thing next. I have to assume that the wide open area I'm going to reach and apparently love the game when I reach it is Pulse, so I'm probably going to leave Cocoon at some place.
Did I ever mention that this planet they are on is called Cocoon and that the planet below it, Pulse, is feared and reviled by the people who live above it as they believe it to be a land rife with hideous beasts who seek only to skewer the Cocoonians and devour their innards?
Probably not.
Anyway so yeah, the Sentinel is kind of cool. Basically I have to time blocks now when I see an enemy is about to cast a dangerous spell. I mean I guess that's kind of cool, but isn't this just a really convoluted way of doing what Kingdom Hearts and Devil May Cry and God of War and Bayonetta have all been doing for quite some time? I mean I guess there are some RPG trappings to it all, but really the combat system is starting to feel more and more like some weird action game.
Well anyway, I think Snow and Hope have to go fight a boss now or something. I hope this is the end of this chapter. I was going to wait until after beating it to type this up, but I may just literally pass out as soon as I get the save prompt.
I suffer for you people.
Hour 14.5
Hope called Snow a poser and then Snow went crazy and then explosions happened.
It was pretty great.
Also, I should mention that this will be the last update for awhile because mother *crag*ing games are coming out and this mother *crag*ing game has to go back to the mother *crag*ing Family Video. I'll probably either rent it for another weekend or buy it eventually so I can finish this up, but as of right now don't expect any new updates until this weekend at the earliest.
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