Members see less ads - sign up now for free and join the community!
I think the major problem with discussions like these is that it often goes into opinion territory.
"VI is the best"
"NO! VII is the best one 5eva"
"omfg, XIII characters have no personality"
Lots of hyperbole. Lots of subjective (even within the 'objectiveness') Often times, people make statements with no discernible basis, and it really makes it not worth reading. I'm not saying that's the case in this particular thread (though I spotted a bit of it lolsorryguys), but it really often ends up turning into something devoid of intelligence.
It'll be nice for a change to have a forum where things don't go the same way.
I've liked XIII so far. Some things I disliked and others I didn't. It's not a perfect game. But it was entertaining.
All that said, every Final Fantasy has had people complaining about some aspect of it. XIII is just the new one on the chopping block. Specially so because Square hasn't released a new mainline game in years. It's like all the poison has found it's target in the XIII series.
I could be wrong, but the Fal'cie didn't really care about human life, so they just made lots of L'cie with unclear Focus just to weed out the weak. If the person failed, then they just moved to the next group.
Some just gave them impossible Focus for some reason only to have them die (they destroyed life on Pulse because of this)
No kidding, the XIII threads there....just a mess.
This is exactly what I was thinking when that scene happened. I'm so glad someone actually drew this lololol.
"VI is the best"
"NO! VII is the best one 5eva"
"omfg, XIII characters have no personality"
Lots of hyperbole. Lots of subjective (even within the 'objectiveness') Often times, people make statements with no discernible basis, and it really makes it not worth reading. I'm not saying that's the case in this particular thread (though I spotted a bit of it lolsorryguys), but it really often ends up turning into something devoid of intelligence.
It'll be nice for a change to have a forum where things don't go the same way.
I've liked XIII so far. Some things I disliked and others I didn't. It's not a perfect game. But it was entertaining.
All that said, every Final Fantasy has had people complaining about some aspect of it. XIII is just the new one on the chopping block. Specially so because Square hasn't released a new mainline game in years. It's like all the poison has found it's target in the XIII series.
I could be wrong, but the Fal'cie didn't really care about human life, so they just made lots of L'cie with unclear Focus just to weed out the weak. If the person failed, then they just moved to the next group.
Some just gave them impossible Focus for some reason only to have them die (they destroyed life on Pulse because of this)
No kidding, the XIII threads there....just a mess.
You wanna know what my favourite thing is from FFXIII?
Likes:
Sapientia
Yeah, I never even finished XIII. I got stuck at the first Barthandelus fight, got really annoyed because I was too stubborn to backtrack, traded it it, and then watched the rest on the internet. And I call myself a fan... Still, I intend to pick it up again if I ever have money so that I can go farm before the boss and then do it right.
Well, um, I'm just gonna put my thoughts on the first game here... (haven't played the second yet)
XIII is one of those games I really enjoyed, but would never play again. The initial ride was enjoyable enough, but playing through it again wouldn't really yield any more enjoyment out of me. I enjoyed the battle system for what it is, and didn't mind how linear it was (and I thought the sudden open-ness of Gran Pulse was a bit overwhelming), but I did not enjoy half of the characters, and I thought the general plot got a little murky after a while.
XIII is one of those games I really enjoyed, but would never play again. The initial ride was enjoyable enough, but playing through it again wouldn't really yield any more enjoyment out of me. I enjoyed the battle system for what it is, and didn't mind how linear it was (and I thought the sudden open-ness of Gran Pulse was a bit overwhelming), but I did not enjoy half of the characters, and I thought the general plot got a little murky after a while.
Oerba (the next area) and Chapter 12 will definitely help you stand on your feet regarding leveling up by farming. You won't have much trouble though with the last boss, he is not that difficult, but the last tower of the final boss... That's touph, even for an over-leveled team...
Likes:
Sapientia
The way the story explains it is that the fal'Cie are these highly advanced beings where humans can only interpret their thoughts through the hazy images. When the Focus is supposed to be the very will of the entire race of fal'Cie and they're extremely desperate to have these Focuses carried out., it makes absolutely no sense that they would risk having a 50/50 chance that this wish would be carried out.
Thanks for the advice on FFXIII, guys. I'll have to work on leveling after I'm done with some other games on my list.
Thanks for the advice on FFXIII, guys. I'll have to work on leveling after I'm done with some other games on my list.
I have to say that I enjoyed the 13 games, but they have obvious glaring flaws, but I was able to overlook them but many can't and didn't , no one can really say the series is mostly loved or hated, I think it is the definition of polarizing.
I liked 13 more than I liked 13-2. 13-2 "fixed" some issues from 13 but the difficulty was way too easy to truly enjoy the battle system.
Now with LR, I see a lot of potential with the gameplay, from everything I've read, if its done right there's a chance that it could be my favorite battle system in the franchise (and I'm say this with a clear mind). The story so far doesn't seem that bad( then again I never thought the previous stories were bad either, just the execution of it), I actually think I'd like it better than 13-2. But I can only tell in 4 months time
I liked 13 more than I liked 13-2. 13-2 "fixed" some issues from 13 but the difficulty was way too easy to truly enjoy the battle system.
Now with LR, I see a lot of potential with the gameplay, from everything I've read, if its done right there's a chance that it could be my favorite battle system in the franchise (and I'm say this with a clear mind). The story so far doesn't seem that bad( then again I never thought the previous stories were bad either, just the execution of it), I actually think I'd like it better than 13-2. But I can only tell in 4 months time
I love the FFXIII saga. I've played all the final fantasy series, and I think this is the most beautiful, and well made saga ( especially the story behind it). Yes, I do think ffXIII was very linear, but I don't think they could have done it other way, if they wanted to have 3 games only, and also not surpassing the budget. They had to tell a lot in the first game in order to unfold the main story later. It is a huge world, with a very complex story (mythology) behind it. This was the first FF that made me wonder about the world, its mythology and its past. I also love the characters, they felt more human to me than any other FF character. I saw them growing, questioning their believes and focus, I saw the uniqueness of their personalities, the reason behind it, and the reason of their change. I just think they should have added more hours, sidequests, and text, for people to really understand the complexity of the story behind the game ( and not just add it to the FFXIII books)
XIII failed to meet my expectations, and I wasn't even all that hyped. A lot of people are saying it's a good game, but a bad FF. It's not even a good game, in my opinion. Actually, I'd hesitate to even call it a game. It's more like a poor movie.
There's lots of things wrong with XIII and, I hate to be your Average Joe, but the gameplay was the main problem. It wasn't even so much that it was linear, but that it was corridor. There excuse that they were trying to tell a story, or that western fans don't understand it is bull, you can tell a story and still have areas that aren't corridors. The only areas in the game that were somewhat interesting were Oerba and the Crystalized place. They were both fairly linear, yet they were intresting enough to even make me stop and take in the atmosphere in Oerba. Those are both examples of linear areas that are interesting but don't have to be a corridor. The areas in the game should have been like that for 90% of the areas you were in. I didn't even like Gran Pulse. It was just one giant boring green plain, although the giant enemies were cool. The sidequests were mind-numbingly repetitive, too.
Other aspects of the gameplay were also poorly done. The crystarium allowed absolutely no customization what so ever. You just hold down A and watch the fancy colours. And it does the worst thing a leveling up system could do - limit your character growth, basically limiting you to what the games wants you to do. And then when I thought the crystarium was getting better when it made it so that all roles were open to all characters, I realized that it made no difference, I'm just needlessly putting points into wasted space, there was no need to have several people with the same role. One sentinel was enough to defend all of your characters, with two healers. That was it. I suppose if you wanted to very quickly and unecessarily apply all the buffs/debuffs, it would come in handy. The crystarium rarely ever branched off, and when it did, it was like for two HP buffs or something, it's not a hard decision, most people just got eveything. It's not like in other games where you have to choose between two power-ups or anything. There should just be an "apply all" button so I don't have to sit there holding down the button.
Don't get me started on the Weapon upgrade system. I think it's universally accepted as the worst thing ever, though, right?
My next major problem with the game is the characters. Snow, hands down, is by far the worst character in the history of anything, and manages to add another 20% to the XIII hate meter. He's annoyingly cocky, I can't take him seriously, he's just annoying and should go away. I hate to...hate something for a rather circular reason, but Hope is whiny. Why should I care that his mother died? She, and Hope, had no development whatsoever. The incident that made him all whiny happened at the start of the game and his whinyness lasted near the whole of the game. Fang and Sazh were the only bearable characters. I didn't mind Vannile, at least she had plot relevence and some intresting backstory.
The battle system. I would actually like to praise the battle system for the "Paradigm Shift" feature, which was actually pretty intresting. I enjoyed trying out different combinations of paradigms. However, this was the only thing the battles had going for them. It was just auto-battle after that. A lot of XIII fans say, oh, you could just, like, not use auto-battle. Well, it's there for a reason and that reason is to cover up the fact that going into your abilities is absolutely pointless now because the abilities have been half-chosen for you. If you're in Sabetour then there's no point in manually going into abilities because you're only going to get sabetour abilities and the structure of the battles is flawed and allows you to cast multiple magics at once, meaning that there is absolutlely no viable reason to manually go into abilities and select a specific one. Truthfully, there are a few smalls things like casting Haste first so that the rest of the magics are cast quicker, but all in all, very little depth. And also, blitz is the most retarded move ever. If I manually go into abilities (I tried this method because fans kept harping on about it) and select Blitz, by the time the bar's went up the enemies moved, because eveything jumping about in this weird flashy pseudo battle thing. And if it's going to be pseudo-action, at least make an ability to dodge/block/move your character out of the way of obvious attacks.
The story has a nice setting, history, and character background, but the majority of the scenes is senseless. Literelly 90% is just wondering where they should go, with poor attempts at making the characters have intresting conversations. How about instead of pointless conversations, the writers actually explain some of the important lore, backstory, and properly explain stuff like the mythology, the Falcie, etc?
All in all, the game was very streamlined with little control. The graphics and cinematography were undeniably perfect though. Music was decent. Just decent.
There's lots of things wrong with XIII and, I hate to be your Average Joe, but the gameplay was the main problem. It wasn't even so much that it was linear, but that it was corridor. There excuse that they were trying to tell a story, or that western fans don't understand it is bull, you can tell a story and still have areas that aren't corridors. The only areas in the game that were somewhat interesting were Oerba and the Crystalized place. They were both fairly linear, yet they were intresting enough to even make me stop and take in the atmosphere in Oerba. Those are both examples of linear areas that are interesting but don't have to be a corridor. The areas in the game should have been like that for 90% of the areas you were in. I didn't even like Gran Pulse. It was just one giant boring green plain, although the giant enemies were cool. The sidequests were mind-numbingly repetitive, too.
Other aspects of the gameplay were also poorly done. The crystarium allowed absolutely no customization what so ever. You just hold down A and watch the fancy colours. And it does the worst thing a leveling up system could do - limit your character growth, basically limiting you to what the games wants you to do. And then when I thought the crystarium was getting better when it made it so that all roles were open to all characters, I realized that it made no difference, I'm just needlessly putting points into wasted space, there was no need to have several people with the same role. One sentinel was enough to defend all of your characters, with two healers. That was it. I suppose if you wanted to very quickly and unecessarily apply all the buffs/debuffs, it would come in handy. The crystarium rarely ever branched off, and when it did, it was like for two HP buffs or something, it's not a hard decision, most people just got eveything. It's not like in other games where you have to choose between two power-ups or anything. There should just be an "apply all" button so I don't have to sit there holding down the button.
Don't get me started on the Weapon upgrade system. I think it's universally accepted as the worst thing ever, though, right?
My next major problem with the game is the characters. Snow, hands down, is by far the worst character in the history of anything, and manages to add another 20% to the XIII hate meter. He's annoyingly cocky, I can't take him seriously, he's just annoying and should go away. I hate to...hate something for a rather circular reason, but Hope is whiny. Why should I care that his mother died? She, and Hope, had no development whatsoever. The incident that made him all whiny happened at the start of the game and his whinyness lasted near the whole of the game. Fang and Sazh were the only bearable characters. I didn't mind Vannile, at least she had plot relevence and some intresting backstory.
The battle system. I would actually like to praise the battle system for the "Paradigm Shift" feature, which was actually pretty intresting. I enjoyed trying out different combinations of paradigms. However, this was the only thing the battles had going for them. It was just auto-battle after that. A lot of XIII fans say, oh, you could just, like, not use auto-battle. Well, it's there for a reason and that reason is to cover up the fact that going into your abilities is absolutely pointless now because the abilities have been half-chosen for you. If you're in Sabetour then there's no point in manually going into abilities because you're only going to get sabetour abilities and the structure of the battles is flawed and allows you to cast multiple magics at once, meaning that there is absolutlely no viable reason to manually go into abilities and select a specific one. Truthfully, there are a few smalls things like casting Haste first so that the rest of the magics are cast quicker, but all in all, very little depth. And also, blitz is the most retarded move ever. If I manually go into abilities (I tried this method because fans kept harping on about it) and select Blitz, by the time the bar's went up the enemies moved, because eveything jumping about in this weird flashy pseudo battle thing. And if it's going to be pseudo-action, at least make an ability to dodge/block/move your character out of the way of obvious attacks.
The story has a nice setting, history, and character background, but the majority of the scenes is senseless. Literelly 90% is just wondering where they should go, with poor attempts at making the characters have intresting conversations. How about instead of pointless conversations, the writers actually explain some of the important lore, backstory, and properly explain stuff like the mythology, the Falcie, etc?
All in all, the game was very streamlined with little control. The graphics and cinematography were undeniably perfect though. Music was decent. Just decent.
Likes:
Azuardo and Kagari
I think that another reason to not use Auto-battle is for me...
1) You can often shorten/cancel your attacks, which makes for faster attacks. Say, an enemy has only a tiny sliver of HP left. Well for some, they may not care if they shave off a bit of time, but for me, I'm always aiming for five stars, so I would shorten/cancel out any extra inputs with Y/triangle. IMO, it makes for much smarter and efficient battles.
2) for whatever reason, the game will stack up the "-strike" and regular Ravager attacks, like so~
Thunder+Sparkstrike+Thunder+Sparkstrike+Thunder, yada yada.
That wastes a lot of time for the animations to switch, especially for Lightning, who usually does her little step-back animation. It's much faster to manually select your attacks and choose either or instead of wasting several seconds. Again, maybe others don't care, but that's another reason not to use Auto-battle.
3) Sort of related to #1, you can sometimes use the cancel attack button to "dodge" attacks from enemies. For example, I always use Lightning as my leader, so if a Gorgonospid (don't care if that's spelled wrong) starts to rush forward as Lightning is running forward to execute her second Attack, I can cancel that out, and she'll usually backflip, and oftentimes out of harm's way. It's just a nifty trick that most people don't ever bother to learn how to do.
4) It's just boring to use Auto-battle. Reminds me of simply selecting enemies in FFI and sitting there, waiting for my "turn" to go. Boring, IMO.
5) There's also the option to automatically start battles with the cursor on "Abilities." That will save time.
6) It doesn't always stack up the perfect set of attacks, like I mentioned in #2. Depending on my set-up of Paradigms, I might want to do something that deals a higher area damage than focusing on one enemy. And you'll never get to use the ATB skill attacks like Army of One if you use Auto-battle.
1) You can often shorten/cancel your attacks, which makes for faster attacks. Say, an enemy has only a tiny sliver of HP left. Well for some, they may not care if they shave off a bit of time, but for me, I'm always aiming for five stars, so I would shorten/cancel out any extra inputs with Y/triangle. IMO, it makes for much smarter and efficient battles.
2) for whatever reason, the game will stack up the "-strike" and regular Ravager attacks, like so~
Thunder+Sparkstrike+Thunder+Sparkstrike+Thunder, yada yada.
That wastes a lot of time for the animations to switch, especially for Lightning, who usually does her little step-back animation. It's much faster to manually select your attacks and choose either or instead of wasting several seconds. Again, maybe others don't care, but that's another reason not to use Auto-battle.
3) Sort of related to #1, you can sometimes use the cancel attack button to "dodge" attacks from enemies. For example, I always use Lightning as my leader, so if a Gorgonospid (don't care if that's spelled wrong) starts to rush forward as Lightning is running forward to execute her second Attack, I can cancel that out, and she'll usually backflip, and oftentimes out of harm's way. It's just a nifty trick that most people don't ever bother to learn how to do.
4) It's just boring to use Auto-battle. Reminds me of simply selecting enemies in FFI and sitting there, waiting for my "turn" to go. Boring, IMO.
5) There's also the option to automatically start battles with the cursor on "Abilities." That will save time.
6) It doesn't always stack up the perfect set of attacks, like I mentioned in #2. Depending on my set-up of Paradigms, I might want to do something that deals a higher area damage than focusing on one enemy. And you'll never get to use the ATB skill attacks like Army of One if you use Auto-battle.
You are right about all the above, and about XIII-2 that was so damn easy that pressing Auto-Battle just made things easier.
Well, you should not expect that every player should think about this kind of things. Besides, it's obvious that the above commentor really hates whatever is related to XIII, and of course it's his opinion, and for him is the right one (I try to not trigger another conflict here)...
What I did not understand though is this...
@Mark
As far as I can recall, he stopped whinning around much earlier, and to be exact, in the early stages of the game, in Palumpolum. Which is some days after his mother's death. It's still too quick, but also I was glad that this story ended up quickly enouph as that led him show his potential.
and @Mark explain please this too if you please...
Ok I may sound a bit subjective here and pardon me for that, but seriously? XIII saga OST so far is one of the best of the series. Unless you find this OST decent compared to other games but FFs... In this case I would still disagree but I would also take in consideration other things too before I would state a fair opinion.
Likes:
Sapientia
I'm starting to wonder if the battle systems used in FFXIII and FFXIII-2 could have had a further mechanic built in that allowed the player to determine - even if it's in the most minimal, passive way - the positions of party members in a fight.
It's irritating when certain characters who may be relatively low on HP, and are not Sentinels, wander stupidly towards the line of fire when an enemy casts an area effect ability. That's the most annoying part of the battle system, because there's no reason why someone like Serah or Vanille absent-mindedly walk right into the enemy's face, instead of sticking I dunno, farther back. It's even more annoying when the more vulnerable characters are hit, but someone who can afford to tank the hit points has narrowly avoided it because he or she is fortunate enough to be just outside the attack radius.
FFXIII's OST is definitely one of the better points about the game. I maintain that "Blinded by Light" is one of the addictive tracks to listen to - and I have to love it, because I've been loving it since 2006. I think "Dust to Dust" is my personal standout from the soundtrack because of its powerful, soothing ethereal nature that compliments the location of Oerba - probably the best looking area in the FFXIII games thus far in my opinion...for some reason.
However, I never grew to appreciate FFXIII-2's soundtrack as a whole. I don't doubt that there are some gems here and there, but sans Caius's theme (which I think starts off well, then just falls flat after 35 seconds into something almost Disney-like?), most of them seem oddly forgettable. It's one of these times when you have such a strong recollection of what you didn't like about the soundtrack that it spoils the overall product because it's all you can remember from then on. I never found FFXIII-2's soundtrack to be a beneficiary of a more experimental approach, because to me, I just see an incoherent mix of styles that don't fit. Like, why is there that rap track early on in the Bresha Ruins?
It's irritating when certain characters who may be relatively low on HP, and are not Sentinels, wander stupidly towards the line of fire when an enemy casts an area effect ability. That's the most annoying part of the battle system, because there's no reason why someone like Serah or Vanille absent-mindedly walk right into the enemy's face, instead of sticking I dunno, farther back. It's even more annoying when the more vulnerable characters are hit, but someone who can afford to tank the hit points has narrowly avoided it because he or she is fortunate enough to be just outside the attack radius.
FFXIII's OST is definitely one of the better points about the game. I maintain that "Blinded by Light" is one of the addictive tracks to listen to - and I have to love it, because I've been loving it since 2006. I think "Dust to Dust" is my personal standout from the soundtrack because of its powerful, soothing ethereal nature that compliments the location of Oerba - probably the best looking area in the FFXIII games thus far in my opinion...for some reason.
However, I never grew to appreciate FFXIII-2's soundtrack as a whole. I don't doubt that there are some gems here and there, but sans Caius's theme (which I think starts off well, then just falls flat after 35 seconds into something almost Disney-like?), most of them seem oddly forgettable. It's one of these times when you have such a strong recollection of what you didn't like about the soundtrack that it spoils the overall product because it's all you can remember from then on. I never found FFXIII-2's soundtrack to be a beneficiary of a more experimental approach, because to me, I just see an incoherent mix of styles that don't fit. Like, why is there that rap track early on in the Bresha Ruins?
Indeed!!! Dust to Dust is the best of the OST and I would really be satisfied if we had more things to do in Oerba! Such a beautiful place!
That's indeed the case. A deep connection between them. To be honest, it was Hope who actually made me love Lightning. He changed her, he extracted all her imprisoned emotions... I'm really curious about these two in LR. I believe they will strengthen their relationship now that only Hope is by her side and that may be the catalyst for Light's decisions in her last fight... I dunno, I hope!
That's indeed the case. A deep connection between them. To be honest, it was Hope who actually made me love Lightning. He changed her, he extracted all her imprisoned emotions... I'm really curious about these two in LR. I believe they will strengthen their relationship now that only Hope is by her side and that may be the catalyst for Light's decisions in her last fight... I dunno, I hope!
Likes:
Sapientia
1) You can still cancel your attacks with auto-battle. Like I said, yes, there are slight exceptions, (like using haste first) but canceling your attacks to save you maybe 2 seconds isn't my idea of a good battle system. But yes, I did that often although sometimes I misinterpreted it and ended up wasting more time.
2) Yes that is actually a legitimate reason to use it but I never found the need to do so, and again only saved you about 2 seconds of time. The game gives the illusion that you need to fight the battles really quickly to try and make it seem more exciting, when in reality it's just trying to cover up the fact that the battle system is bad, in my opinion. Yeah, sure, if you get five stars if you do it quickly, but what does that even mean. The loot you get is RANDOMIZED. It should be set depending on what star you get. I can't tell how many times I fought the admontoise without getting the special loot thing, no matter how fast you done it. And I did it really fast, considering how much I don't care for the game.
3) I have no idea what you're talking about here but I suppose I'll have to believe you. It seems to be a rather niche move that wouldn't be used often and I doubt even the creators know of it.
4) To be honest, I'd rather just use auto battle and concentrate on listening to my music, which was what I did for the majority of XIII fights, minus boss fights and such, (I'd rather take in the atmosphere)
5) Are you serious? I'm sorry but that's one of the most nonsensical reasons to do something.
6)"I might want to do something that deals a higher area damage than focusing on one enemy"
Although you do have the option to do this and it is sometimes slightly useful, like I said, the structure of the battles ruins this, with the enemies jumping about the place all the time, even when you have to wait for a bar to load. So by the time that bar has loaded the enemies quite possibly moved (and it happened a lot to me).
"And you'll never get to use the ATB skill attacks like Army of One if you use Auto-battle"
This is more of a reason than anything else you mentioned. Army of One was actually quite useful as soon as you staggered an enemy.
Instead of trivial reasons such as those you mentioned, I'd rather not use auto battle for normal reasons like there's actually specific abilities to use in certain situations/specific enemies/postition/weapon choice etc,
And I personally liked the micro-managing of FFXII, and it never forced it on you. It really gave you the option to completely customize the characters so that battles went quicker.
2) Yes that is actually a legitimate reason to use it but I never found the need to do so, and again only saved you about 2 seconds of time. The game gives the illusion that you need to fight the battles really quickly to try and make it seem more exciting, when in reality it's just trying to cover up the fact that the battle system is bad, in my opinion. Yeah, sure, if you get five stars if you do it quickly, but what does that even mean. The loot you get is RANDOMIZED. It should be set depending on what star you get. I can't tell how many times I fought the admontoise without getting the special loot thing, no matter how fast you done it. And I did it really fast, considering how much I don't care for the game.
3) I have no idea what you're talking about here but I suppose I'll have to believe you. It seems to be a rather niche move that wouldn't be used often and I doubt even the creators know of it.
4) To be honest, I'd rather just use auto battle and concentrate on listening to my music, which was what I did for the majority of XIII fights, minus boss fights and such, (I'd rather take in the atmosphere)
5) Are you serious? I'm sorry but that's one of the most nonsensical reasons to do something.
6)"I might want to do something that deals a higher area damage than focusing on one enemy"
Although you do have the option to do this and it is sometimes slightly useful, like I said, the structure of the battles ruins this, with the enemies jumping about the place all the time, even when you have to wait for a bar to load. So by the time that bar has loaded the enemies quite possibly moved (and it happened a lot to me).
"And you'll never get to use the ATB skill attacks like Army of One if you use Auto-battle"
This is more of a reason than anything else you mentioned. Army of One was actually quite useful as soon as you staggered an enemy.
Instead of trivial reasons such as those you mentioned, I'd rather not use auto battle for normal reasons like there's actually specific abilities to use in certain situations/specific enemies/postition/weapon choice etc,
And I personally liked the micro-managing of FFXII, and it never forced it on you. It really gave you the option to completely customize the characters so that battles went quicker.
On the topic of the soundtrack, XIII's does have some nice tracks but for me the over all package isn't as memorable as some of the past entries in the series. It's certainly not one I keep in my playlist and if XIII songs do get in there, it's only because they're apart of some other compilation of music such as the Theatrhythm OST or Distant Worlds. I guess I just wasn't gripped by it due to the lack of stand out "themes" I suppose. Uematsu is a lot better at composing specific melodies where as Hamauzu is definitely more of... I guess you could say ambient feel kind of composer.
"Ambient" is indeed the word to describe Hamauzu's music the majority of the time, and that's definitely what XIII's OST is. Some of my fave tracks in FFX were by Hamauzu, but again, some of them are more ambient than catchy, too. Reminds me that Zelda: Skyward Sword went the path of ambience, as well. It's not to slate XIII's OST in any way - because I really liked a lot of the music on it - but it's not one of those you really can blast out through your iPod and hum along to most of the time. Always refreshing to see/hear something different, though, and even if it doesn't end up as something comparable to Uematsu's great OSTs, it still ends up being one of the standout aspects of the game (though depending on your overiding opinion of the game, this either gives or doesn't give the OST a lot of credit, heh).
Likes:
Sapientia
Although this should be something worth considering, it's not in XIII. This ideology only applies to normal fights, not bosses, as most bosses didn't have elemental defences. So for your normal fight, once you've staggered them, they're pretty much dead anyway, so hassling yourself to select fire over and over again is kind of silly, (and should be apparant anyway). You could, alternatively, just cast libra, which is actually probably more effective than trying to figure out each enemies elemental status.
Maybe not consciously, but it would certainly contribute to their overall enjoyment of the game.
Not true. I dislike the game, and I suppose I do hate the game to a certain extent for, in my opinion, ruining FF and needlessly puting the spotlight on itself that would better be applied to other games, but I do, as I've already stated, like certain aspects of the game such as the Paradigm Shift system, some of the music, the graphics and the cinematography.
He may have stopped whinning then, but he was still a bit over-emotional little boy (I kind of rolled my eyed when he wanted to kill Snow, which, as much as I would want that to happen, I know he could never do) and when he did stop whinning he turned into the typical "I'm all grown up!" boy. "I need to be stronger!". "I can do this!", "Let me take point, their guns are worthless against my boomerang!". It's cliche and it annoyed me.
I said the music was decent. Apart from Born Anew, Blinded by Light, Dust to Dust, Fighting Fate, and Sabers Edge, nothing really stood out. Born Anew is by far the best track, and even still it's not exactly the best thing I've heard.
And seriously, I just cannot fathom the love for XIII-2's OST. I honestly can't. Apart from Noel's Theme -"The Future"-, I can't think of any tracks that I like. That peice fitted perfectly with the area, and I even liked just sitting there taking in the atmosphere.
Maybe not consciously, but it would certainly contribute to their overall enjoyment of the game.
Not true. I dislike the game, and I suppose I do hate the game to a certain extent for, in my opinion, ruining FF and needlessly puting the spotlight on itself that would better be applied to other games, but I do, as I've already stated, like certain aspects of the game such as the Paradigm Shift system, some of the music, the graphics and the cinematography.
He may have stopped whinning then, but he was still a bit over-emotional little boy (I kind of rolled my eyed when he wanted to kill Snow, which, as much as I would want that to happen, I know he could never do) and when he did stop whinning he turned into the typical "I'm all grown up!" boy. "I need to be stronger!". "I can do this!", "Let me take point, their guns are worthless against my boomerang!". It's cliche and it annoyed me.
I said the music was decent. Apart from Born Anew, Blinded by Light, Dust to Dust, Fighting Fate, and Sabers Edge, nothing really stood out. Born Anew is by far the best track, and even still it's not exactly the best thing I've heard.
And seriously, I just cannot fathom the love for XIII-2's OST. I honestly can't. Apart from Noel's Theme -"The Future"-, I can't think of any tracks that I like. That peice fitted perfectly with the area, and I even liked just sitting there taking in the atmosphere.