Final Fantasy 13 OH HERE IT COMES ;D

[SinSin]

I have been waiting for so long for this game I cant wait
Anyone else getting this on release date
FF13
New battle system
Wooooo

[Bulbapuck]

wow, that looks lame..
Seriously, the trailer was a bunch of drama between characters I don't really care about set to fucking Leona Lewis. LAME!

I'll still buy it though, just because I really like 7, 9 and 12 (and thought 10 was okay, but only because of the end.). However the rest have been very dissapointing, and I fear this will be disapointing too.

[SinSin]

7 was incredible and 8 awful, 9 was good but Zidanes speech was poorly written. 10 is nice although Tidus was yet another poorly put together character, 10-2 hmmm to charlies angels, 11 OMG mmo How crap,  12 not played yet but my mate said it was ok, 13 Looks Incredible with the whole FMV straight to battle stuff   True tho I need to understand the story line more but I dont wanna spoil it for myself until the game is out.

[i stole your car]

It looks disappointing, but the biggest "what the fuck" was... Leona Lewis? It totally wrecked the atmosphere there.

Also I consider it to have reached it's peak around the 6,7,8 era, dropping off significantly from 9 onwards, although I did enjoy 9 also.

I have it pre-ordered but I don't hold high hopes.

[Calin Leafshade]

my favourites are 5,8, 9 and possibly 6 (US numbers)

8 was the first I played to completion and after 8 7 just seemed lame.

I find it hard to take the characters seriously when they look like popeye.

and incidentally Irvine Kinneas kicks your ass. pew pew pew!

[SinSin]

my favourites are 5,8, 9 and possibly 6 (US numbers)

8 was the first I played to completion and after 8 7 just seemed lame.

I find it hard to take the characters seriously when they look like popeye.

and incidentally Irvine Kinneas kicks your ass. pew pew pew!

I think 7 for its time was rather good (yeah fair enough polygons n that) but for a 1997 game it was pretty cool, much better than Crystal chronicals and tactics " stubbs fag out on them "

+ Leona Lewis ...WTF why is she even on it (apart from dragging her audience across maybe)

[Dualnames]

The best is 3 or 6 or whatever you call it. No question. Voted by IGN top 100 games ever in number 3!! Beaten by Zelda and Super Mario..(lame square just third..)

If you've heard games music, you're missing the best music soundtrack for the SNES ever!

[Charity]

Thirteen looks pretty.  Ish.  But it has failed to grab me--certainly not enough to grab some overpriced next gen console (this gen?).

A little put off by twelve, because yes, the battle system was amazing for those of us who have legitimate dread of the imminent carpel tunnel syndrome, and yes, the world was detailed and gorgeous and had a lot going on, but the game was like 100+ hours of

A to B*
A to C*
A to D*
A to E*
A to F*
*do a hundred sidequests.

with a story that had its moments, but was altogether too sparse and predictable to justify its length.  Almost made me miss the giant FMV festivals that were the previous 4 single player installments, but what it really did was make me wonder whether the enjoyment I'd gleaned from the earlier titles had been more a product of my own youth and lack of critical evaluation skills than of any inherent quality in their respective stories.  It's left me a bit skittish about revisiting old favorites of anything.

At any rate, I did enjoy the games when I played them, but the Final Fantasy name has lost much of its appeal to me since then.  Still, I would give it a try if I could afford it.

[Atelier]

I didn't like 7 because 7 8 9  :'(

[LimpingFish]

All the hate for number eight.

If it's main character had been a little more appealing, it would easily have been the best of the PS-era titles. It's certainly my favourite.

Tidus, the worst protagonist in the history of the main FF series, singlehandedly manages to sink number ten; although Wakku is almost as annoying.

Seven is too ensconced in fan nostalgia to be looked at objectively anymore.

Six was class.

Five and below are probably too archaic to be enjoyed today.

Of the offshoot series, only Tactics is worthwhile. Crystal Chronicles is hideous.

I will be purchasing number thirteen.

...

I still want a sequel to The Bouncer.

[Domino]

I have FF7, 10 and 12.

Yet, never beat any of them. But I will be willing to try out 13.

Why do I find Square-Enix games so damn hard?? I don't know.

[auriond]

8 was the first FF I ever played, and it got me my husband. So complete love for 8 above all other games in the world.

10 was fun.

7 is the game I know best without having ever played through to the end.

Couldn't even finish 12. Ugh.

3 was super fun (played it on the DS, but couldn't finish the last boss).

13 looks pretty, but it's just not giving off that FF vibe anymore. FF without Tetsuya Nomura and Nobuo Uematsu? Blasphemy. But I'll still buy it and play it, because it's pretty, and I'm such a sucker for the pretty.

[InCreator]

Lame Hair XIII

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Wow, all I can say is Square really loves the style over substance trip they're on.  Haven't been able to stomach any of their games since FF7 (with FF9 being a noteworthy exception).

The combat looks a lot like that horrible game they released last year, Last something...(can't even remember the name).  I guess Square thinks the western world isn't tired of the anime long-winded preachy narrative style they've adopted yet; me, I grew tired of it ages ago.


This teen angst anime orgy brought to you by Square and the number 13.

[xenogia]

@ProgZmax:  Your thinking of the debacle that is "The Last Remnant".  To be honest the Japanese gaming industry is slowly going down the tubes.  The Japanese even admit this themselves, and to be honest the gaming industry seems to be getting its best content from the Europeans of late.

[LimpingFish]

I think the problem is that, pre-1997, Japan made games almost exclusively for a Japanese audience. Final Fantasy was unknown in Europe, and only a handful of the NES and SNES-era games had seen a release in the US. Japanese games were sometimes re-written, or in some cases re-designed from the ground up.

Metal Gear had a whole new story and characters, Assault Suits Valken had a chunk of it's anime-trappings abandoned in it's rebirth as Cybernator, and Magical Hat Flying Turbo Adventure became, aesthetically, a completely different game (Decap Attack).

Though there was always a hardcore element of western gamers familiar with the Japanese scene, it wasn't really until the success of FF7 that the standard JRPG model was deemed mainstream enough to be released en masse.

Since that time, the largest Japan-based publishers (Square-Enix, Capcom, Konami, etc) now have as large, or larger, market interests in the West. The Japanese audience has taken a back seat to the notion of a worldwide audience.

This raises a number of problems; what flies in Japan doesn't necessarily fly in the US/Europe.

The problem with JRPGS is that the Japanese know how they like their RPGS. A moody hero, amnesia, a world on the brink of something, random battles, dungeons, hair, etc. The Japanese JRPG audience is inherently anal, and just won't accept the western RPG model in any meaningful way. We could write this off as xenophobia, and, if you look hard enough, you might reach that conclusion. The most popular types of western games (let's call them FPS and Sandbox) might be considered as niche to them as Sound-Novels would be to us.

So the publishers try to please both audiences. Resident Evil 5 had it's action content ramped up (in these post-Gears of War days, nothing else will do), and managed to ruin the experience for everybody. Western developers are handed IPs deemed suitable (Silent Hill, Bionic Commando, etc) and manage to entirely miss the point.

But the JRPG rarely changes. Despite the cost involved, these companies just can't seem to alter their archaic templates, created to please an audience that is, in a greater sense, becoming less and less relevant. Probably because the people who grew up playing these games are now making them, and it's just accepted that this is how things are.

As a whole, the JRPG is stale. If not creatively, then aesthetically. This doesn't stop people from enjoying them, and if you can get past the overwhelming sense of deja-vu you might find a lot to enjoy.

Though you can't really argue when others complain.

EDIT: Before somebody points out the obvious, yes, a similar argument could be leveled at FPS games. But FPS games are usually developed without factoring in the need to please the Japanese audience and most western publishers don't usually expect them to sell in any great numbers in Japan. With the rising cost of games like FFXIII, Japanese publishers have come to feel a greater need to generate revenue from western markets.

And for the moment, the JRPG seems to be the only Jap-centric genre to make little or no effort to appeal to western audiences, despite the heavier titles now seeing a worldwide release.

[xenogia]

I think the problem is that, pre-1997, Japan made games almost exclusively for a Japanese audience. Final Fantasy was unknown in Europe, and only a handful of the NES and SNES-era games had seen a release in the US. Japanese games were sometimes re-written, or in some cases re-designed from the ground up.

Metal Gear had a whole new story and characters, Assault Suits Valken had a chunk of it's anime-trappings abandoned in it's rebirth as Cybernator, and Magical Hat Flying Turbo Adventure became, aesthetically, a completely different game (Decap Attack).

Though there was always a hardcore element of western gamers familiar with the Japanese scene, it wasn't really until the success of FF7 that the standard JRPG model was deemed mainstream enough to be released en masse.

Since that time, the largest Japan-based publishers (Square-Enix, Capcom, Konami, etc) now have as large, or larger, market interests in the West. The Japanese audience has taken a back seat to the notion of a worldwide audience.

This raise a number of problems; what flies in Japan doesn't necessarily fly in the US/Europe.

The problem with JRPGS is that the Japanese know how they like their RPGS. A moody hero, amnesia, a world on the brink of something, random battles, dungeons, hair, etc. The Japanese JRPG audience is inherently anal, and just won't accept the western RPG model in any meaningful way. We could write this off as xenophobia, and, if you look hard enough, you might reach that conclusion. The most popular types of western games (let's call them FPS and Sandbox) might be considered as niche to them as Sound-Novels would be to us.

So the publishers try to please both audiences. Resident Evil 5 had it's action content ramped up (in these post-Gears of War days, nothing else will do), and managed to ruin the experience for everybody. Western developers are handed IPs deemed suitable (Silent Hill, Bionic Commando, etc) and manage to entirely miss the point.

But the JRPG rarely changes. Despite the cost involved, these companies just can't seem to alter their archaic templates, created to please an audience that is, in a greater sense, becoming less and less relevant. Probably because the people who grew up playing these games are now making them, and it's just accepted that this is how things are.

As a whole, the JRPG is stale. If not creatively, then aesthetically. This doesn't stop people from enjoying them, and if you can get past the overwhelming sense of deja-vu you might find a lot to enjoy.

Though you can't really argue when others complain.

EDIT: Before somebody points out the obvious, yes, a similar argument could be leveled at FPS games. But FPS games are usually developed without factoring in the need to please the Japanese audience and most western publishers don't usually expect them to sell in any great numbers in Japan. With the rising cost of games like FFXIII, Japanese publishers have come to feel a greater need to generate revenue from western markets.

And for the moment, the JRPG seems to be the only Jap-centric genre to make little or no effort to appeal to western audiences, despite the heavier titles now seeing a worldwide release.

Nicely said LimpingFish, I would definetly have to agree there.

[Dualnames]

Tell us more stories about Bad Nintendo master Limping Fish!

[Mr Flibble]

I loved the first six Final Fantasy games (with the exception of 3, which I only got to play recently, which I do now also enjoy) because of their atmosphere of adventure and slightly steampunk vibe. I'm not a fan of the fantasy genre by and large, but there was something very simple and honest about it back then. You had a sword, you had some magic, you stopped the ultimate evil, your battle system was very strategic about involved planning and menus and honest to goodness levelling up along fairly straight paths.

From 7 onwards (arguably from 6 onwards) the series got bogged down in a dystopian sci-fi vibe which was different, but worked, up to the abortive FF8 when everything went a bit iffy, and suddenly you weren't on a quest to save the world but driving around in a car getting paid a salary. Then we have the reprieve of FF9, a return to the original format and practically a gaiden of the first six games, and the last FF game I especially enjoyed.

From 10 onwards we have another change of direction, similar to the sci-fi narrative in 6-7-8, but this time for haircuts and swooshy visuals and the like. As with the last trend, the first game (10) was quite playable if you could get into it, but 12 and 13 suffer from its foibles tenfold: female characters who all look identical; massive hair; costumes which make the characters look as if they were getting dressed, forgot what they were doing, and started again; and a combat system designed to make battles faster and faster, with less and less player involvement.

[Privateer Puddin']

I'm getting it.. but kinda so I just know what my friends are talking about.