FFXIII, PSN and Xbox360 9/3/2010

[Skullator]

Yea don't take my word for it, give it a go. Providing english dub isn't terrishit it should live up to the hype.

Truthfully I'm very critical of console games, I wouldn't give approval lightly just because of the brand. As I said earlier, I didn't much enjoy FFX, think the only good thing to come from X-2 was some art and piano music.. and flat out disliked every aspect of 12.

Oh and to anyone interested, here's some facts I jotted down and posted on another site during my first couple days play-

Random musings as I get them-
- After each fight, you get a rating out of 5 stars and some points. I'm not sure what the points are used for, but they aint EXP points. (Figured out their use, see below)
- Quicker you get done with a fight, the better your rating. So pretty much don't heal unless you need to, and pick the correct attacks to do well.
- You don't level up through grinding in this game. Ok so just not in the traditional sense, you do sphere grid tho through battles tho.
- Most characters have either a single target attack, or a slightly weaker AOE attack which damages multiple enemies close to it.
- After each fight, your party is fully healed. Any dead characters are bought back to life.
- You can't use items outside of battle, but you don't need to since you pretty much catch a megalixer after every battle.
- Enemies in the field are free roaming, if you approach one it will chase you and if it catches you the fight begins and the game switches to combat mode. You can avoid alot of fights by dodging enemies.
- If you sneak up behind an enemy in the field, then touch it to initiate the attack before it notices you, you score a pre-emptive attack in the battle.
- You only control one member of your party at a time, the actions the other members will take are based on the roles you give them.
- There are a number of roles you can assign to each character, and you can advance your characters ability in each role by spending CP. You need to pick and choose which roles you want as abilities you learn are specific to each role, so if you spend points learning an attacker skill, then switch to a different role later on, that skill will no longer be available to you. So it becomes the players choice to either have the characters master a single role each, or spread their CP across multiple roles to have the "Jack of all trades" mentality going.
- The basic "Potion" item in this game will heal your entire party on use, instead of just one member.

The 6 Main roles and what they do-
Attacker - Focuses on Physical attacks
Blaster- Black magic and focuses on long lasting chains
Defenders- Guards against enemy attacks, can act as a tank
Healer- Heals party using white magic
Enhancer- Buffs party members
Jammer- Debuffs enemies

- If you die, you no longer have to fall back to your last save. The option to restart from just before your last battle has been added.
- Turns out the points you earn from battle are useless at the start of the game, but after a key event takes place they become CP used to advance your skills and attributes, so yea you do level up from grinding.
- Characters have 1 weapon slot, and 1 accessory slot. (Found out as you level you unlock more acc. slots)
- Switching Optimas (changing roles) mid battle often leads to a lower battle rank being given. Scratch that, it just makes for a slower fight. You can switch optima alot and be quick and still get a 5 star rank.
- Certain characters only have specific roles available to them at the start of the game, however as the game progresses I am to believe every character can have every role unlocked.
- Save points start out being used purely to save your game, but before long they also become shops you can use to buy items and accessories. I hear futher down the track they can also be used to upgrade your weapons with materials similar to in Final Fantasy 8.
- The yellow arrow icon on your minimap marks "The way" to your next objective. So if you ever come out of a battle and aren't sure which way you came from, just follow the yellow arrows direction.

- As you level up, you unlock additional accesory slots, max is 4 per char.
- You have a special bar in battle called TP, it fills very slowly (Can take 20 - 30 battles to fill the bar from empty back to lvl 5) and is used to do special abilities such as scan. As the game progresses you learn that TP is needed in order to cast summons. Initial summons drop the bar 3 out of 5 levels. I have only encountered one boss battle which was long enough for me to use a summon twice in one fight (i.e, enough time went by for the bar to go from lvl 5, down to 2, then back up to 3 again for a second cast)
- Casting a summon will revive any dead party members you have in that fight with you.
- The counter which shows total time spent played pauses when you have the game in the pause state.

- You can level up all weapons and accesories in this game. Increases stat bonus \ changes attributes.
- After a weapon achieves it's maximum current level (Most weapons cap at lvl 20 or 40) you can use a special rare item to upgrade it to a Tier 2 weapon.
- Once you have a tier 2 weapon, you can level it again.
- A maxed tier 2 weapon can be leved into your characters Best weapon, every tier 2 weapon variant will become the same tier 3 weapon for each character, but the t3 weapon will have different bonuses \ stats based on which weapon you leveled to begin with.
- So yea.. Lightning has 10 tier 1 weapons, 10 tier 2 weapons, but only 1 tier 3 weapon (Omega weapon) but the stats and abilities of her tier 3 weapon are completely different despite it having the same look based on which you lvld.

[zos'la]

Holy shit Skullator.. you're even more of a fanboy than me haha your room looks insane, wish I could do that to my room as my GF won't let me have other girls in it!!!! hahaha

anyways FF series have always been one of my favourite jrpgs and in saying so I have as many copies of FF series as you including the odd breath of fire series, dragon quest, Suikuden, star ocean etc etc.

I would have to say FF7 is my favourite due to its first of a kind at the time and its breath taking story line. Nowdays most rpg's have great graphics but lack gameplay, story and such. I agree with you totally that no FF series since 7 and maybe 8 was any good. I will definitely give this a try along with start ocea the last hope.

[stereomonkey]

So it has automatic version of the Gambit system XII had?  Or do you have to earn that again, lol.

[geneterror]

Yea don't take my word for it, give it a go. Providing english dub isn't terrishit it should live up to the hype.

Truthfully I'm very critical of console games, I wouldn't give approval lightly just because of the brand. As I said earlier, I didn't much enjoy FFX, think the only good thing to come from X-2 was some art and piano music.. and flat out disliked every aspect of 12.

This concerns me. I loved FFXII. Didn't really think much of XIII or IX, I hated whichever one of those where you had to keep drawing your magic from the enemy, I think it was the one with Squall and the gunblade. I liked X and both my fiance and I really enjoyed X-2 and XII.

I'm still fucking hyped though.

Nice collection though, I should post up a pic of our Final Fantasy couch pillows.

[samurai black]

I hated whichever one of those where you had to keep drawing your magic from the enemy, I think it was the one with Squall and the gunblade.

so blasphemous. FF VIII is my absolute favourite FF game. its so awesome they even rejigged seifers design for XIII 

[stereomonkey]

You must obviously know the entire lyrics to that shit love song in that game too.

[Skullator]

Good shit Andy ;]

Stereo, it's like an automated gambit system.
Your other 2 party members will always automatically do the best things available to them BASED on the role you have currently assigned to them. The optima switching part of fights is really fun.. basically lets you switch from healer back to attacker.. back to enhancer etc mid fight. Every character has 3 main roles, and the 3 additional roles they don't have only become available to level very late in the game, and require alot of grinding to max (Optional content, everyone only needs 3 roles for final boss)

Gene, we can't all like the same things. I know I'm in the minority for not liking the ps2 games, I'm sure if you enjoyed X you will love the shit out of XIII as imo it's just flat out improved in every aspect.

And yeah Samurai I like FF8 just as much as FF7, magic was just very optional in that game.. only use it to get 100 stock and junction to stats haha.. Junctioning 100 Ultima to resist = win

[stereomonkey]

Sweet, the gameplay is sounding more and more better every moment.  Bloody too bad the Japanese won't have an xbox version to download buy.  Might give the english dub a go anyway.

[samurai black]

You must obviously know the entire lyrics to that shit love song in that game too.

bro, you know you love eyes on me. im more a simple and clean guy from KH

and the leona lewis song in XIII got me HYPE

[Skullator]

Whenever sang my songs, on the stage, on my own.
Whenever said my words.... wishing they.. would be heard.

RINOA X SQUALL FOREVER!!!!!!!!!

haha

[zos'la]

LOL that Faye wong song.. i was really suprised when they used that song as the theme song though it does sound good when it was actually used so yeah xD I actually learnt the lyrics and went Kareoke with it!!! Of course I can rememebr how to sing it but no.. im not going to here LOL.

Faye Wong is a HK celeb singer/ actress, she's got some nice songs in chinese xD

[HoneyBadger]

Whenever sang my songs, on the stage, on my own.
Whenever said my words.... wishing they.. would be heard.

RINOA X SQUALL FOREVER!!!!!!!!!

haha

I'm guessing that this game is a good game that isn't very kawaii goraindu since you clearly don't know FF very well hahahaha

[samurai black]

Whenever sang my songs, on the stage, on my own.
Whenever said my words.... wishing they.. would be heard.

i was under the impression she was singing 'i never'

cause you know, it makes more sense.

[Skullator]

So was I, until I googled the lyrics to post that
http://www.lyricsdownload.com/faye-wong-eyes-on-me-lyrics.html

And Smoof, let's hope so.
Genuinely interested to see what you guys think about it.. I've had nobody at all IRL to talk about the game with for obvious reasons.

[fluxcore]

The internet is always right