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[crowe]

You can only go on auto-pilot if you know what you're doing. If you set up your gambits correctly, the party will auto-address problems without you needing to jump into a menu. If your gambits are wrong, your party will fall apart the moment an enemy does something you didn't account for. Your job is to program your party and then navigate the dungeon, and marvel at the architecture while you seek out the next save point.

It was intentional and it worked, it just might not be what you're looking for in a game. It was more appealing to the sort of person who might find Spacechem amusing, albeit much easier unless you go after the optional bosses.

You can say that, but there are dungeons that are literally three hours long in which you walk down a linear path and order no commands because your characters can do it for you. One notable offender is the Ogir-Yensa Sandsea, the only area of the game I remember the name of because it was literally two and a half fucking hours walking on catwalks over a desert with zero plot or gameplay challenge. Halfway through I started holding down the FLEE button because I realized that it was the only way I would get through without going insane.

Anyone who defends Final Fantasy Twelve played it so long ago they have forgotten how fucking awful playing through it actually is.

[Trevor Dunbar]

I just want a decent final fantasy game or more chrono trigger/cross/whatever, but no, square-enix just can't deliver like they used to about 14 years ago.

They have to have these awful new games with terrible dramatic soap-opera plots and dumb characters I couldn't give two hoots about. The entire package has to be so overwrought with melodrama and self-seriousness, it makes me sick. Any plot twist you will see coming from about 10,000 miles away, when it does finally happen, you listen to your self shouting at the TV: "Oh, yeah...I TOTALLY DIDN'T see THAT coming!"

Final Fantasy 6/3 is still my favorite game ever, so it's no surprise I'm so vastly disappointed with the direction they have gone in for what seems like an eternity now. I want to take the scenario writers/directors of these new games and strangle them. ALL this time, SO much wasted creativity and potential. Square-nix needs to just fade away- they, like Sega are dead to me.

I would take a new game from a team of 200 monkeys slamming their heads into their keyboards to create a new game over whatever the clowns at square-enix are doing nowadays.

Give me the next Chrono game on my 3DS for fucks-sake. I'd pay $60 on-the-spot, no questions asked. Hire akira Toriyama to do all your art, I don't care if all the characters end-up as unoriginal dragonball rejects. Just do it....

[SirNiko]

The Sandsea was a notable exception because it had very little variety to the monsters and terrain, and the monsters it did have were extremely easy to kill. I remember it dragging on as well, but it was also the area where I realized that I wasn't going to get anywhere if I didn't completely automate my party. Once you do that it's just a matter of quickly moving through the area, killing the monsters, and filling out your map.

Most of the dungeons are extremely varied, with several different kinds of monsters and gorgeous visuals. The lighthouse dungeon at the edge of the huge waterfall was particularly breathtaking.

What really got me, though, was the fact that I didn't have to keep sitting through cutscenes. The game would give me a short scene, point me towards a new, uncharted area and let me get to playing for several hours at a time. I could kill monsters for an hour, spend a little time fidgeting in the menus to unlock some new skills, then go back to killing monsters. When I got to town, I had a pile of loot to sort through to see what new equipment I could buy. If there was an optional boss to fight, I could easily sink an hour figuring out where they were hiding and another hour trying to find a strategy to kill them.

It was the complete opposite of FF13, where I was stopping every ten minutes to watch a cinema scene and whenever I got to a checkpoint I had nothing of interest in my inventory. I thought the game was excellent and would love to play another with a similar style.

[crowe]

By "quickly moving through the area" you mean moving through the area in two hours instead of three or four, which is how long it takes if you control people manually.

The forest, later on, is also the same. Many areas are.

[tha_Chiller]

Anyone who defends Final Fantasy Twelve played it so long ago they have forgotten how fucking awful playing through it actually is.

I lol'd hard, that made me think about it like "shit..." but still that doesn't mean the narrative was as dull as 13

[C.A. Sinner]

what WAS the narrative in ff13? i played up to the "open world" part but i dont remember any of it. idk like there were a bunch of characters with ridiculous names and no personality and they... uh... did something i guess? not even trying to be sarcastic, im seriously drawing a blank here.

[kummerspeck]

ff12 is only really good up until after the first dungeon but it's my baby anyway

[SirNiko]

SPOILER

The Narrative in FF13 is that if the heroes don't destroy their home world they die. Which was kind of a cool plot.

The heroes go back and forth about their motivations. Snow thinks they're mistaken, and that they need to save the world not to die. Lightning gets angry and decides to destroy the world just to get revenge. Fang wants to destroy the world just to save her buddy Vanille.

Then the whole thing falls apart at the end where the heroes start fluctuating between destroying or protecting the thingie that makes the world run, and in the end just sort of arbitrarily start a boss battle with it and everything just turns out okay in the credits for some reason.

Up until the end, though, the story was pretty clever and I was dragged through wondering how the heroes would learn to cope with their little problems relating to their curse, and hoping for a really clever resolution.

[Faust06]

Another one, hell - http://www.destructoid.com/a-new-final-fantasy-xiii-project-is-in-development-232336.phtml

[man of doom]

Okay so roughly how long is FF13 worth playing for? Like how long does it take for the bulk of the game's features and stuff to have opened up, and to have a decent idea what's going on?

My rental copy arrives today and I want to know how long I need to play it so I can be qualified to call it shit rather than just relying on what other people have told me.


Just to add:
I like the Gambit system of FF12, and the setting. That was about it though, and I got bored after about 10 hours.
I don't really know what Squeenix could do to make an FF game I'd like any more, because I think I've outgrown them. JRPGs don't really do it for me any more, which I suppose does save me a lot of time, but as  teen I was crazy for them.

[C.A. Sinner]

My rental copy arrives today and I want to know how long I need to play it so I can be qualified to call it shit rather than just relying on what other people have told me.

took me 25 hours to get to the "open world" part of the game iirc. i played that for a bit then stopped.

[man of doom]

Christ that's a long wait. I'll see how it goes but the game may turn me off before I even make it there.

[C.A. Sinner]

haha yeah. the open world half of the game is probably better than the linear half, but by the time i got there i was already so sick of the game i didn't put much time into it.

[tha_Chiller]

Christ that's a long wait. I'll see how it goes but the game may turn me off before I even make it there.

You should play other Major RPGs dude, I wouldn't say 13 is a waste of time but there are better ones worth your hours - "Lost Odyssey" for starters, also Katherine, Demon/Dark Souls, The Witcher 1 & 2..etc etc

[SirNiko]

The open world part is a little more fun because you get a sense of progression without constantly being interrupted by cutscenes, but once you go through the open world segment you hit another linear bit that ends with the boss of the game. Then you literally just have two portals, one to the boss of the game and the other that goes back to the open world bit.

The most fun I had with the game was enjoying all the really beautiful, varied environments. You'll go from industrialized tracks to ancient temples to a frozen sea to a junkyard in just the first few hours, which is really nice. You get a sense that every inch of the world was hand crafted, and unlike FF10 you have a free-floating camera to look at every detail. At the end, when you get to the open world segment, there are a couple of really beautiful areas with ancient ruins that are the best in the game. Even then, you'll get to enjoy this almost from the get-go.

If you don't complete the game, don't feel too bad about it. The last half of the game feels pretty much the same as the first half, with the exception of a bunch of optional boss fights in the open world bit (most of which are more powerful than the boss of the game, and are intended to be fought afterwards when you unlock the last segment of your crystal upgrade thing).