Despite seeing negative reviews on the new battle system and lack of exploration. I still played the game anyways. It’s one of those epic games where you just play for the sake of playing because it costs so much to make and it looks so damn good.
It started out a bit slow, and I found myself struggling a bit to understand this new world, the warring factions, the characters, the battle system. Learning curve x1. The game feels a bit linear and restrictive the first few hours, but after a while you just settle into the way it’s played, and go along for the ride. It feels more like a 3rd person action RPG than it’s traditional turn based roots. The developers mentioned they wanted the game to feel like Advent Children. It sure does.
After about 6 hours into the game, with way more options and classes opened up, I’ve come to enjoy the new battle system a whole lot more. I don’t like how the summons become funny looking vehicles they can ride around in, and the weak amount of damage they do. Purely eye candy. Apart from those, i’m liking the new paradigms battle system of on the fly switching. Timing becomes a sort of priority now, as battles happen in real time now instead of turn based.
The biggest change now is that you can only control 1 character at any one time, while the rest are AI controlled. I found this annoying at first, but later on when things got more complex, I realized it would be impossible to keep up with sending commands to everyone in combat. The pace is, actually quite fast.
Battle system aside, the sheer amount of detail they put into creating the worlds and monsters made me want to just play on to see what else they created, even though at some points the action got a bit slow. The character story also develops over time, and it just pushes you along the game to see what will happen next.
Overall I’m not sure if FF13 is as epic as any of it’s older series, but the visuals alone makes the game worth playing. It’s hard to find any other game (maybe God of War, but that’s a different genre) that comes close in terms of beautiful characters and worlds. Then again, not a lot of other companies have 60 million dollar budgets and years of development time :D
Blizzard! ehhe But i think SC2, +D3 + WC3 still < 60 millions. Maybe the server is more expensive.
More beautiful scenery to come. I love the battle system. Some of the challenging hunt missions kept me hooked again even though I’ve already completed the story.
@jm – I think those 3 games add together more than FF13. D3 has been in development for like, 900 years already? lol
@erik – Wa yea man i heard about the hunt missions. Can’t wait to see what it’s all about ^-^