Final Fantasy XIII demo on the way (to Japan)

[Lizard_King]

Impressions, etc (http://ps3.ign.com/articles/970/970920p1.html).

[Hunty]

I enjoyed XII a lot, but I lost momentum pretty drastically about halfway through - mostly down to my gamer OCD, and Final Fantasy games being designed to expressly punish me for it. That Zodiac Spear thing was absolutely mental. I used to adore them from VII to X (having never had a system that played them prior to that), but that's when I had a lot more free time and a lot more willingness to sit there churning through ridiculous grinds with a guide next to me, powergaming it for no real reason.

I'm kind of looking forward to this, but I don't know if my tastes have changed to the point where that anticipation is more trying to recapture how much I used to enjoy them, rather than how much I'll enjoy the new one. Wow, that sentence is a mess. But you get the idea.

[Rock8man]

I enjoyed XII a lot, but I lost momentum pretty drastically about halfway through - mostly down to my gamer OCD, and Final Fantasy games being designed to expressly punish me for it. That Zodiac Spear thing was absolutely mental. I used to adore them from VII to X (having never had a system that played them prior to that), but that's when I had a lot more free time and a lot more willingness to sit there churning through ridiculous grinds with a guide next to me, powergaming it for no real reason.

I think the fact that XIII will go back to turn-based combat will really help with this Hunty. At least I'm hoping so. I agree about XII, it turned into a real grind. I didn't think X was that way. In fact, with the ability to flee out of any battle, and the fact that the boss battles were the most challenging and fun if you were a little under-leveled meant that I got through that game pretty fast the first time, and that was the most fun way to do it.

The MMO-style combat in XII, while initially appearing as if to save you time, actually ended up being much more of a constant time sink in every single area. Sure, the party automatically took care of the monsters, but it still took some time on each monster, and I thought that was much more of a grind than in FFX, where in several areas I would just flee from monsters when I didn't feel like fighting until the next save point.

I think I played FF XII the same amount of time that I played X, and I didn't even get half-way through XII. It was just so grindy. It really felt like I was playing some kind of single player MMO. It just go so boring I couldn't go on anymore.

[Hanacker]

I thought FFX12 was the least grindy in the series and wish they would stick with that style of combat.

[Hunty]

The MMO-style combat in XII, while initially appearing as if to save you time, actually ended up being much more of a constant time sink in every single area. Sure, the party automatically took care of the monsters, but it still took some time on each monster, and I thought that was much more of a grind than in FFX, where in several areas I would just flee from monsters when I didn't feel like fighting until the next save point.

I think that's a really good point. If you were rushing through an area in an earlier FF, you might get lucky and maybe have one or two encounters, which you could run away from if you wanted. In XII, you were always chopping through stuff. I think the encounter length and encounter frequency were significantly higher even if they were more hands off, which made it grindier.

A more personal bugbear for me is that a lot of the best rewards were tied to really, really grindy stuff. That whole system of kill-chaining, for example. Whilst I very much enjoy fair, balanced multiplayer stuff, I have to do my best to reign in my rampant munchkinning in a solo game - a hangover from the first time I got to the end of FFVII at level 55 and couldn't beat Sephiroth, I guess! I'm better at it now, but when I was playing XII it was a real slog to get the best stuff, and the processes seemed even more esoteric and poorly documented than usual. I mean, all the games usually have some grindy horrible min-maxy thing thrown in (like morphing the beasts on the Gelnika in VII, for example), but XII seemed to have one for pretty much everything, and it was just killing me to have to cut and run on stuff all the time or go insane.

These days I'm older and wiser and a bit more philosophical in my attitude, which might let me skate over any grindy stuff a bit more easily and just enjoy myself. Turn-based will help with that too, I think.

[Tyrion]

Grindiness isn't really determined by the style of combat. There are turn-based games that are nearly grind-free (or grind-optional) like most strategy RPGs, and there are real-time games that are grind-heavy (most of them). FF12's grindiness was a function of other things--the encounter rate, the character growth/XP system, the design choices that Hunty referred to, the general thinness of interesting content (and the profusion of filler), and so on.

On another topic, what does everyone think of the fact that the party automatically heals after every battle? Personally, I like it. While it removes the resource-management aspect of using spells/items in between battles, it also makes encounters easier to design. Final Fantasy Tactics did the same thing, and it worked great there.

[Lizard_King]

My favorite aspect of FFXII was the ability to program my party with ideal, unstoppable basic scripts (unfortunately withheld until pretty far in the game). My least favorite part was the stuff that really felt straight out of MMOs (or the worst stereotypes of them, anyway), such as the "loot" system or the absurd chains or the rare instances. The Zodiac Spear was a damned disgrace, although to be fair it's not like we we weren't warned by the predecessor (http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/file/197344/13491) (everything on that list makes me want to puke blood).

I summarize the problem with FF and jrpgs influenced by it with a simple phrase: one-time opportunities that no ordinary player would get a chance at. In fact, I wonder what the feedback loop between the worst excesses of MMOs and jrpgs like these looks like, and who came up with the most inane time-intensive ideas first.

All that said, I am looking forward to FFXIII. It's not a point of pride, it just is.

[Miramon]

XII had a notoriously broken story caused by the CD change in midstream, didn't it? I finished it, but quit doing optional content about halfway through as I lost interest in exploring and the stupid conditions for bringing out the hunt monsters were so arcane they absolutely required a hint book.

It really was a beautiful achievement in terms of art direction, overall ensemble production quality, and in squeezing out every last drop of PS2 power, but the lame optional-content gamesystems and the way they just totally forgot about the story half-way through was annoying. Remember how whenever you went anywhere in the first N hours there was another cut-scene, another narration, and things seemed to be actually happening in the world? And then after a while, all that just turned into "gj, go to the next dungeon, k?"

I also thought it was pretty dumb that you could unlock all the important parts of the skill grid only halfway through the game, and so there was nothing left to do to improve the party for much of the rest of the game. The final combat was a total joke, the end boss couldn't hurt me at all, and I really didn't do a lot of groveling around the game to gain extra power.

Anyhow, hopefully they've learned from XII as regards those weaknesses.

[Hunty]

Absolutely spot on stuff Miramon. I was just starting to get inklings of that shift when I stopped - kind of glad I did.

As for you LK, if you think that list is bad, check this (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LostForever) out. One of the most horrible things a game can do, I think. I wonder if there is a link between MMOs and JRPGs, or whether the developers in each genre just had similar objectives (lengthy playtime, grand scope, lots of power creep) independent of each other and happened upon similar mechanics.

[Warning]

I thought FFX12 was the least grindy in the series and wish they would stick with that style of combat.
Yeah I loved it as well. I think I loved it so much because I'd played all the other ones so much that it seemed like a breath of fresh air.

Miramon, I think you might have a different FF game in mind. FFXII came on one DVD.

[Miramon]

Miramon, I think you might have a different FF game in mind. FFXII came on one DVD.

Duh. CD = Creative Director. I think they fired the first one in the middle of development, which might explain why only the first half of the game has a story.

[CLWheeljack]

Duh. CD = Creative Director. I think they fired the first one in the middle of development, which might explain why only the first half of the game has a story.

He left due to health reasons. Then they gave it it the guy who did the SaGa games, who is a blight on humanity.

[unbongwah]

He left due to health reasons.
Yasumi Matsuno (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasumi_Matsuno)
Then they gave it it the guy who did the SaGa games, who is a blight on humanity.
Akitoshi Kawazu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akitoshi_Kawazu)

[Hanacker]

I summarize the problem with FF and jrpgs influenced by it with a simple phrase: one-time opportunities that no ordinary player would get a chance at. In fact, I wonder what the feedback loop between the worst excesses of MMOs and jrpgs like these looks like, and who came up with the most inane time-intensive ideas first.


Is the Zodiac Spear the one where you need to leave a certain chest (or set of chests?) unopened until the end game to be able to get it? That kind of stuff doesn't really bother me, but I never got that far into the optional content. Do you need it to beat some of the final optional bosses?

[Lizard_King]

Is the Zodiac Spear the one where you need to leave a certain chest (or set of chests?) unopened until the end game to be able to get it? That kind of stuff doesn't really bother me, but I never got that far into the optional content. Do you need it to beat some of the final optional bosses?

No, you don't really need it for anything. The mechanics of the game are such that it becomes progressively less dominant as you keep going. You don't need the ultimate weapons in FFX, either. The part that bothers me is the fundamentally unreasonable mechanic behind acquiring it or them. Much like the random element in the Chocobo races in FFX (where there is a solid chance that a perfect race can be ruined by an unavoidable final bird), it's simply there to encourage the most masochistic behavior possible in gamers.

Minigames and sidequests certainly have their place in games such as these, but I feel like the emphasis at Squenix has never really gotten away from absurd "fuck you" mechanics like the ones listed in that link of abominations that Hunty provided above.

[Lizard_King]

Eurogamer FFXIII demo hands on (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/final-fantasy-xiii-hands-on).

The thing I was most curious about that the extensive Edge cover story this month did not seem to cover was how the transitions from cutscene -> to gameworld -> battles were handled, since that was something FFXII addressed but not in a manner I was thrilled about.
The way that the game segues almost seamlessly from cut-scene to battle to exploration is extremely impressive; one second you're watching, then there's a subtle change of camera angle and you're back in the game. Run into an enemy and there's nothing more than a brief pause before the battle commands blink onto the display and you're into the fight. It's incredibly sleekly designed, beautiful to watch as well as play, and unexpectedly immersive. There's a fast-paced, action-game feel thanks to all the explosions and firepower and unnecessary air-launching of enemies.
Interesting.

[Kraaze]

Minigames and sidequests certainly have their place in games such as these, but I feel like the emphasis at Squenix has never really gotten away from absurd "fuck you" mechanics like the ones listed in that link of abominations that Hunty provided above.

I think those mechanics have their place, but Squenix misuses them. If intended to extend the replayability of the game by adding some new challenges to a "new game +" scenario then they are fine. I'd love them if they abided by two simple rules:

1. Not available in a first playthrough.

2. Revealed during the first playthrough.

That would ease the burden on my gamer OCD and I wouldn't feel like I had to scour guides for all the gotchas on my first play through. I'm currently early in Last Remnant and my gamer OCD is making me twitchy, so I'm feeling this pain right now. I've probably literally spent more time reading guides than playing the damn game at this point. I wish it didn't have to be this way :(

[Lizard_King]

I think those mechanics have their place, but Squenix misuses them. If intended to extend the replayability of the game by adding some new challenges to a "new game +" scenario then they are fine. I'd love them if they abided by two simple rules:

1. Not available in a first playthrough.

2. Revealed during the first playthrough.

That would ease the burden on my gamer OCD and I wouldn't feel like I had to scour guides for all the gotchas on my first play through. I'm currently early in Last Remnant and my gamer OCD is making me twitchy, so I'm feeling this pain right now. I've probably literally spent more time reading guides than playing the damn game at this point. I wish it didn't have to be this way :(

That's a good point, and I think in general Final Fantasy should get on board with the new game + mentality versus the "let's have a billion absurdly grindy sidequests available before the end of the game that manage to completely break the final boss in a ludicrous manner". I don't know the acronym for that problem, but it's one that should be targeted directly.

To your ideas, I would add that (3) the majority of extra content should be accessible via an expanded or evolved or upgraded version of the core mechanics of the game (you know, that thing they actually playtested the shit out of versus what the lead designers nephew was working on over summer break).

(4) When you do make something dependent on an additional mechanic, it should be accessible through a variety of those additional mechanics that allow the player to focus on their strengths, and never have a permanent fail condition that can trigger without you being aware of it.

[Rock8man]

I think those mechanics have their place, but Squenix misuses them. If intended to extend the replayability of the game by adding some new challenges to a "new game +" scenario then they are fine. I'd love them if they abided by two simple rules:

1. Not available in a first playthrough.

2. Revealed during the first playthrough.


That's actually a really good idea. In FFX, I ignored anything except the main story in the first playthrough because I was renting the game, and it was the BEST playthrough. The boss battles were perfectly balanced (translation: really challenging), and an absolute blast.

The second time I played through it, I actually got all the Aeons, all the ultimate weapons, all the sidequests, and although the extra stuff was interesting, the main storyline's boss fights were complete rubbish. I mean the main story was not interesting at all. At all. There was no challenge, and worse, sometimes the bosses even died before I saw any of their special abilities that made them challenging in the first place. I feel pity for anyone who tried to play through the game that way on the first playthrough, it completely ruined the game.

[Brad Grenz]

Well, it sounds like people just need to take control and not let their gamer OCD ruin the experience for them. I love having side content as an option, but I just do some of it when I want a break from the plot. Locking that shit away until a second play through would suck. Can't blame the developers for bad design because a tiny percentage of gamers are completists who can't help themselves. Few enough people ever even finish games these days. No sense putting half your content in a vault.

[Lizard_King]

Well, it sounds like people just need to take control and not let their gamer OCD ruin the experience for them. I love having side content as an option, but I just do some of it when I want a break from the plot. Locking that shit away until a second play through would suck. Can't blame the developers for bad design because a tiny percentage of gamers are completists who can't help themselves. Few enough people ever even finish games these days. No sense putting half your content in a vault.

The reason Kraaze came up with that proposal is because, as noted by a variety of people in the thread, FF side content tends to break the main game along with requiring a disproportionate time investment at awkward points in the main story plot (eg, when you should just be moving along with the main idea). Since that kind of stuff is going to be in there whether we like it or not, it would make a lot more sense to include it as part of a new game + or postgame, which for some reason FF seems very resistant to. I don't necessarily think requiring a second playthrough from beginning to end to see all content would be optimal in such a heavily story driven game, but it would be preferable to the status quo so long as it is carefully designed for with gamer incentives vs. simply starting again with a blank slate and a little more knowledge.

Have you played a lot of FF, or are you theorizing generally? Because the fact is that the games already do "lock" away a lot of their content as a general rule, but they put it behind completely irrational barriers that no reasonable person would be likely to figure out on their own or require repeated participation in a minigame that does not hold up well that is likely to have a vast component of chance alongside skill for success.

Either way, how can you criticize me or others for OCD and then demand all of the content in a Final Fantasy game, of all things, be democratized to the point where people who rarely finish games can access it? I'm sure there will be plenty to offer that demographic regardless, since you guys don't give a shit about the details or don't have time for them anyway. This isn't a discussion that affects you in any practical way.

[Brad Grenz]

Yes, I've played lots of FF. I'm a fan of the series from the very first game. My point was that all these side tasks are completely optional. Many of them are so obscure you wouldn't even know they exist unless you get the official guide or play with a GameFAQ next to you. You can throw off the balance of any game if you spend hundreds of hours power leveling before moving the main plot quests forward. But I think it's great that, when I get bogged down and needs some levels I can go on a few hunts rather than run in circles looking for random encounters. Or if I start to burn out on the story I can take a break to hunt down some super powerful weapon of summon. I just don't see it as a design problem when a player willfully throws off the balance.

[Lizard_King]

I just don't see it as a design problem when a player willfully throws off the balance.
That's your call. You're dead wrong in the inferences you are drawing, and the only reason our play styles raise any sort of conflict is because you've deluded yourself into thinking that anything we are talking about would affect your ability to keep doing exactly what you describe to the extent you are talking about. Did you casually wander into the Zodiac spear when you got bored of the main plot in FF12? Did you stumble into the fun diversion of getting your chocobo race time below 0 seconds in order to qualify for the ultimate weapon reward? Perhaps dodging lightning 1000 times in a row was more to your liking? Maybe doing and redoing the digging game in order to find the choice items in FF9 was the entertainment of choice between bosses?

Normal hunts, for instance, are not the issue. That's actually a great start. Hunts where you have to chain an absurd number of the same kills in order to trigger the instance of the monster are the issue. You're not going to be doing these things anyway, so why would you care?

The base game can remain the same experience, but if Rez can master a basically scaling boss for discretely different levels of performance, I don't see why FF can't do the same and even link it to the story if need be.

Many of them are so obscure you wouldn't even know they exist unless you get the official guide or play with a GameFAQ next to you.
But you're perfectly ok with this content being "locked away" for all practical purposes. It will still be just as far outside of your experience, except those of us who prefer to deal with our JRPGs obsessively will have a less frustrating experience.

[Kraaze]

Well, it sounds like people just need to take control and not let their gamer OCD ruin the experience for them. I love having side content as an option, but I just do some of it when I want a break from the plot. Locking that shit away until a second play through would suck. Can't blame the developers for bad design because a tiny percentage of gamers are completists who can't help themselves. Few enough people ever even finish games these days. No sense putting half your content in a vault.

Yes, yes you can blame developers. Why did they include that shit in the first place if they weren't catering to a completionist playstyle? If they are catering to a completionist playstyle and then someone playing that way doesn't have fun, they have failed to cater to it properly now haven't they?

[KaoFloppy]

As for you LK, if you think that list is bad, check this (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LostForever) out. One of the most horrible things a game can do, I think. ...
Thank you for ruining my life. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife) Or at least my work day today. Hopefully just today.

[Brad Grenz]

Yes, yes you can blame developers. Why did they include that shit in the first place if they weren't catering to a completionist playstyle? If they are catering to a completionist playstyle and then someone playing that way doesn't have fun, they have failed to cater to it properly now haven't they?

No, I just think it's silly for the completists to be surprised when the boss battles are easy for them. If the completists were really completists they could complete the game normally to see the game as intended for most players and then play through again to find all the hidden shit. I just think it's ridiculous to whine that the game is broken when you broke it. This can be accomplished without sequestering all those tasks in a "new game+" mode. Obviously something like the Zodiac Spear can be blown very early in the game if you open the wrong container without knowing. But there's plenty of other stuff a person might want to try without the additional burden of having to complete a 50 hour game once before they are even allowed!

[Lizard_King]

Yeah, you keep restating that. You keep conflating a number of different issues that are raised and then highlighting your favorites hyperbolically, as if anything we are talking about would interfere with the ability of Brad Grenz to do that one sidequest that one time when he's feeling a little froggy. Which it wouldn't. At all. In any reasonable way.

Nothing would be kept from you that isn't already, but we're the obsessives, right? You can't imagine a demographic that FF has explicitly catered to for years having their content modified to meet modern tastes because THAT would be whiny.

[Lizard_King]

Also, to be clear, what Kraaze and I are suggesting are not ideas in the spirit of keeping content away from you: it's to have the extra content exist in a manner where a completionist could access it without necessarily having a guide cracked open on his lap the whole time. New game + and suggestions like that are tied into the idea that what FF does right now, which is provide no bridge between a second and first playthrough, is not really a player-friendly way of handling it. The new game + is not there to restrict content so much as provide an incentive for continuing on after the basic playthrough is over, whether it's in the form of a postgame as simple as reopening the world after defeating Sin in FF10 or an actual new game + as in such poorly regarded titles as Chrono Trigger.

In addition, the complete absence of in world cues and guidance for much of the content is simply obsolete and bad game design. Even on a second playthrough without a guide you would likely be no closer to getting much of the side content. I don't understand why that is a satisfactory state of affairs for you, or why it's problematic for you that it isn't for us.

[Kraaze]

No, I just think it's silly for the completists to be surprised when the boss battles are easy for them. If the completists were really completists they could complete the game normally to see the game as intended for most players and then play through again to find all the hidden shit. I just think it's ridiculous to whine that the game is broken when you broke it. This can be accomplished without sequestering all those tasks in a "new game+" mode. Obviously something like the Zodiac Spear can be blown very early in the game if you open the wrong container without knowing. But there's plenty of other stuff a person might want to try without the additional burden of having to complete a 50 hour game once before they are even allowed!

I think we are fundamentally misunderstanding each others viewpoints here. I don't understand why you keep blaming players for the sins of developers. It's the RPG version of "You can't rape her because look at that skirt, she obviously wants it." Except, this being the JRPG version, you have to imagine the rape victim as androgynous and having very large eyes and head.

[Brad Grenz]

Well, if we're misunderstanding eachother, I'm sorry. I was just reacting to this sentiment expressed by you guys:

That's a good point, and I think in general Final Fantasy should get on board with the new game + mentality versus the "let's have a billion absurdly grindy sidequests available before the end of the game that manage to completely break the final boss in a ludicrous manner". I don't know the acronym for that problem, but it's one that should be targeted directly.

I didn't think the implication that Square's design is poor was fair. If you played the game in a severely atypical manner, that the the boss battles ceased to be very challenging is perfectly forseeable. Maybe a new game + mode is the answer to your complaints, but it sounds like all you really want is for a new option to appear at the title menu. But it might as well included for placebo effect if that's enough to convince completists they need not do everything their first time through.

But maybe I'm just having trouble envisioning what Kraaze has suggested. I think the design problem is a nontrivial one. Enemies that scale with your progression is actually something I dislike because it's like running on a treadmill. You can spend hours and hours grinding through a game but you never seem to get more powerful since the rest of the world is pacing you. And I've said I don't like the idea of gating access for certain hardcore tasks. We aren't talking about a short action game here.

[Miramon]

I played the FFXII in a very straightforward manner, and blew off most of the side stuff because it was stupid, and required a hint book even to activate. The final boss fight was a joke. It couldn't damage me at all. It was badly designed.

[Cubit]

This is launching in North American for PS3 and 360 on March 9th of next year.