knight of 6
SVER True Blood
General Tso's Alliance
1389
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Posted - 2014.02.13 19:12:00 -
[1] - Quote
I've always thought that the FF games were really pretty, had cool box art, and neat character design. FFXIII kept popping up on my dashboard so I downloaded the demo. the FFXIII demo was my first and probably only foray into the FF universe.
DISCLAIMER: FF fans I'm gonna bash your game now. they are my opinions, they will be honest and without hyperbole. like I said this was my first FF game I don't know the story, I had to learn the mechanics, and I have no investment in the characters. please don't unleash the hounds on me for my thoughts
the high points:
holyshit dem cut scenes!
it showcases the graphical power of crystal engine very well
the outfit changing system: functional, seems like a legacy feature in place of a party. added different attacks without convoluting the controls horribly.
the low points: (these will get a short explanation so hopefully you can see where I'm coming from)
the music: did nothing to enhance the mood of the game. it feels like a holdover from previous games in the series and not the good kind of legacy feature. I feel it distracted from the seriousness of the game and the overall mood.
the camera: the camera has one job, show everything that needs to be shown. the entire demo I was wrestling with the camera. the FoV was too narrow (especially in cut scenes) and i got motion sick because of a game for the first time ever. often monsters were just off screen. and the one sort of ladder climb puzzle thing was really difficult because of the camera.
control scheme: the buttons need desperately to be rebound, switch outfit on (R2, L2) light attack on X, the monster info button on the D-Pad so I never accidental it again. to someone who has played the previous games the control scheme probably makes perfect sense right off the bat but to someone new to jrpg's (me) it was extremely confusing. who spams circle anyway?
the battle system: it seems like the only reason I couldn't run past all the enemies is that the door wouldn't open until they were dead. I had to search rooms endlessly looking for the last little **** I left alive because he was hiding slightly off camera. once i was in combat (and had a loose handle on the wonky keybinding) it was simplistic. in my opinion it lacked even pokemon's depth. the heaviest weapon did the most damage and took the most stamina, lighter weapons did less damage and required less stamina, no weapon was noticeably more effective against different enemy types and there didn't seem to be any real strategy besides "spam light attack and screw blocking" up until the boss fight(don't worry that gets it's own category).
the boss fight: challege level: none except for that provided by my poor knowledge of the controls. number of times I hit the monster info button while trying to switch outfits: OVER 9000. the boss was a smug dragon that couldn't fly. the fight took place in a hallway but as soon as you got into the fight portion it became a room with ample space to walk around the flightless dragon. I said there was a strategy to this fight and I didn't lie, the stratagy was to beat him into submission with a pointy axe thing then change outfits and whale on him while he's down, by the time he gets up your stamina is full with the point axe again. wash. rinse. repeat. if you happen to screw up because you opened up the monster info tab or something then the dragon will attack leaving you with 2 options if you have the pointy axe thing you counter attack him for eleventy bazillion damage, otherwise you facecheck the dragon attack and continue to whale on him. upon finishing the boss the told me I could retry and do it faster if I wanted, I said no because the challenge of a bossfight shouldn't be how fast he dies and finished the demo.
this concludes the review portion of the post
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honestly I didn't like it as much as I had hoped to, I really wanted to fall in love with the game but the only falling that happened is when it fell flat on it's face.
the demo is supposed to showcase everything good about the game and if this demo is all the game has to offer... well it's not my cup of tea. If someone gifted me the title I'd play it but after that performance I don't think I'll be spending 60 dollars on the full title.
thanks for reading this very long post : )
TL;DR not me.
GÇ£The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.GÇ¥ ~ Kurt Vonnegut
Ko6, scout.
CLOSED BETA VET
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