I can't believe I just quoted Bill O'Reilly, even if it was in mockery.
10:04 AM - I'm sort of responding to my own post that preceded this, but I figure that it might be best to just go ahead and call it as I see it. I'm all set with the caffeine I need to make it through this. Green tea Amp is awesome, I should mention.
So we just got finished trampling soldiers with a power loader, bursting through several fences along the way. I've found about 5 save points in 15-20 minutes, which doesn't make any sense considering that you're given the option to retry battles if you mess up. I suppose that Squeenix has determined that the audience must have the same levels of ADD that their characters do. Oh yeah, they all decided to change their minds again. Sure, they've all decided they're going to save the world, but a little bit of resolution and organization might have helped the cause. Just a thought.
10:39 - "Magic and mumbo jumbo"
Really. You've only been casting magic through pretty much the entirety of the game and you're calling it a bunch of imagination. I bet those troopers you were torching earlier would agree with you that it was all just a dream. And your name is Lightning. And you just fought and captured Odin. And you've been cursed by a god-like being, or whatever the hell those things above are described as. No, really, I'm with you 100%.
Speaking of Odin, it has finally reached the point where life/progress bars are more important than the damage numbers flying around, which makes absolutely no sense, because it's one giant clusterf*** of numbers after another. If you're not supposed to be paying attention to them, why even bother? It makes no sense.
Also, I just realized how much XIII's battle system borrows from Dissidia at times.
10:55 - Well that didn't take long. First, it just has to be mentioned that Vanille is beyond the help of rehab. That girl has drugs in her system that would make Keith Richards drool with envy. Also, as if the story wasn't making any sense to begin with, her and Sazh are now discussing the possibility that Hope is on his way home, and they are happy with this thought. Immediately after they say this, they suddenly remember that they would most likely be lynched the second they came within site of "home", but can't seem to piece the two thoughts together.
"Yes, I hope he made it home. I mean, he'll totally get killed and all, but at least he's home."
11:01 - So I saved my game, watched a cutscene, and what do I find? A save point. This is getting ridiculous.
11:20 - It's been well over a hundred battles into the game, and I still can't figure out exactly what it is that IGN and the rest of them seem to like about this battle system. It seems completely the opposite of what intelligent design would suggest. Let me first say that despite my bias, I'm not actively looking for faults. I just haven't found anything particularly good to talk about. I'm going through a segment of the game with lounge/jazz music playing in the background, and the setting is pretty much the equivalent of a junkyard. I really don't get it. It doesn't make sense, and it doesn't sound good.
Anyway, back to the battle system.
So far, it's absolutely terrible. There seems to be this massive focus on micromanagement, but in reality, it all seems very...fake. In fact, I've sort of mulled around about how best to put this, and that's the best I can come up with. If you were to take Xenogears, Dissidia, and XII's battle systems and throw them all together, you get XIII. The reason why I scratch my head is that, yes, this sounds good on paper. In the board meeting, somebody obviously said, "let's take the best of all those battle systems and make a really good, all inclusive, fast paced way of fighting."
OK, great. Except it's just not that great. So far, I can't think of any part of this system that says, "You know what, this is the way RPG's should be." It's actually quite the opposite. It's not that the system is particularly jarring, even though it takes some getting used to. It's just that it all seems to be needlessly flashy, complicated, and stupidly simple at the same time....none of which are really good qualities in a battle system. I don't see how it is anything but pretentious. Sure, the reviewers don't have a real problem with the it, but I stopped and asked myself, "If this the best way to have gone about it?"
My answer was a definitive "no." It doesn't feel fun, and I'm sorry IGN, but you're full of shit when you say that this battle system breaks up the monotony of fighting.
12:13 - 8 hours into the game, and already, the love story has gone above and beyond what VIII managed to do with an entire game. So it's got that going for it. Which is nice.
12:44 - In the Whitewood, and just like the last....ok, just like every part of the game, it's just one long road in gauntlet fashion. I'm beginning to realize that this just isn't an RPG anymore.
1:16 - I'm going to catch hell for saying this later, but I'm not exactly sure how a couple things in this game actually work. I just stomped the shit out of a pretty beefy field enemy with some creative uses of my Paradigms, and it was a very efficient battle. I only healed once, and I exploited the enemies "stagger" point a couple of times. I got 3 out of 5 stars for that battle. The very next battle, I made some late decisions in a fight full of weaker enemies, wasn't efficient, had to heal a lot, and didn't own the fight. I got 5 out of 5 stars for it.
Second, the whole preemptive strike thing. I jumped a field enemy from behind without alerting him, and I don't get a free shot. I walk face first into an enemy that I alerted, and I get the first shot. It just didn't make sense.
I'm sure there are proper formulas for this, and I'm sure I'll figure out the trick later...so that's why I anticipate someone telling me that I'm just not doing something right. Also, I'm still walking on the exact same road I was walking on 30 minutes ago (granted, I had a couple 4 minute phone calls).
1:47 - Any minute now, Hope is going to turn to the dark side. He's got that teenage Anakin vibe at the moment....
7:19 - Fell asleep. What did you expect, being up for way over a day? Proceeding....
8:07 - So far, the "sphere grid" has been pretty, but useless. It's a manual level up system that, only so far at least, offers no choice. I turned around and "grinded" for all of four extra fights, and by doing that, I've maxed my grid out. It's a disturbing trend that I have to preface every complaint with, "at least in the beginning...". About the only thing that I really feel as if I am directly manipulating is the equipment upgrade system. So far.
8:18 - No, no, you can't be serious. We stumbled across an area filled with dead bad guys, and one of them dropped a recorder or something that we clearly see in the cutscene. The cutscene ends, and the bodies all disappear! Nevermind that the "area" we found them in looks exactly the same as everything else has for the last hour or so, but come on. At least force us to leave the area or something. Don't just show us this little piece of information then make it vanish.
1:19 - Friends visited and watched, and all of them decided that the game sucks. Saved someone from wasting $60 in the process, as he came to check out the game before heading over to Gamestop.
Really, at this point into the game, there's no way that I can say that things are going to get better. Over a dozen hours, and this battle system had proven itself to be absolutely horrid. Whoever reviewed this over at IGN needs to be fired immediately. It's not fun, and it it gets better later, well, that's still doesn't make a fun game. Whatever you've heard about this battle system is just plain wrong. This doesn't feel like an RPG, it feels like something you need ritalin to get through alive.
No one had anything good to say about this game, and this is coming from a pretty diverse group of RPG players. No more updates on this post. Digg It Stumble it ! Reddit
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