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Final Fantasy XIII, out 12/17 in Japan
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Which is kind of odd, since something like mini-games probably take far less budget + time than making another zone with the level of graphic fidelity they're going for here.
I haven't heard much about completion time from people yet, but I'm leaning on 17 hours and only in chapter 7 (of 13, but I guess the later ones are much longer)...so I'm expecting to hit probably 35-40 hours without too much sidequesting which is about what I expect from a typical FF title. Previously, I think I've finished virtually every one of them in 25-35 hours except XII, which was much longer.
Pretty much. And much like FFX, XIII is completely driven by the story. There's really no downtime at all, certainly not enough for mini-games and sidequests.
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If there's a legitimate threat to the world right from the beginning of the game, I can understand why there's less focus on wandering around and more focus on pushing the party forward to eliminate the threat.
Aw man, I knew someone would say this!
But yeah, the "FFXII is shit" opinion (which, to a certain extent, I agree with...Gambits were basically the best thing since sex but most of the characters sucked, there's the aforementioned "3-4 environments" problem, and the story just falls the fuck apart halfway to three-quarters of the way through) is why I said "objectively bad", because even if you don't like it, you can't disagree FFXII is pretty well critically acclaimed and is liked by a huge section of the FF fanbase
Also I put in "objectively bad" because some douchenozzle will always try to argue like FFVI sucks or something like that
Are there really no sidequests or mini games at all? That was my favorite part of the past games. People ridicule me for the amount of time I put into blitzball.
Because 9% think it's too high, and shouldn't be cut! 9% of respondents could not fully
get their arms around the question. There should be another box you can check for, "I
have utterly no idea what you're talking about. Please, God, don't ask for my input."
Triple Triad, yay!
Blitzball? Boo!
I do hope we get some Ultimate Weapon pics soon.
EDIT: Dammit, I had to look...oh well. Looks like:
Tier 1 weapon at MAX level + Weapon Change item = Tier 2 weapon
Tier 2 weapon at MAX level + Trapezohedron = Tier 3 weapon = "ultimate weapon"
Therefore, you can create an Ultimate Weapon from any Tier 2 weapon.
I like the story so far. The grander plot isn't really jumping out to me as being totally awesome so much as the amount of interaction between characters. Almost every major event so far is about one or more characters confronting another, rather than faceless evil or some primordial enemy.
While there's plenty of non-human monsters and boss fights, the big story moments are all between human beings with surprisingly mature and developed personalities.
I'm not sure it has a lot in common with any previous FF story, especially with the focus being mostly on escape and eluding the government, rather than being driven forward by a desire to stop someone/something evil.
I know there's already been a lot of bitching about Hope, but I'm not finding much to take issue with. He's a child character, which is always a little iffy, but he has legitimate reasons for acting the way he does, and he's generally not an obnoxious brat.
In a way, I'd say this game is the exact opposite of FFXII. Where XII was a huge open world with a fairly bare plot and characters who spent little time dwelling on personal issues, XIII is a very driven, linear story and world where almost all of the dialogue is between party members....and it's often not very friendly at all.
These are not people who are lifelong friends on a journey together, but rather largely unrelated people swept up together and on the run, but with enough connections to create tension and lots of very interesting developments (largely revealed via flashbacks).
Yes, but only if you've already discovered it. If the AI uses fire on an enemy, it will record immune/weak/half damage on their information screen (which you can see by hitting R1). If you use Libra (a TP ability), it'll reveal all of that information at once.
Once that info is known, the AI will use the right spells (including using things like an anti-fire protection spell on your party members when facing an enemy that uses fire spells)
Yes.
So basically like Persona 3 except your AI partner doesn't magically "forget" that an enemy is weak/resistant to a skill they just used.
I'll buy that.
"No, Mitsuri, doesn't use the ice attack on the character who've just absorbed it 10 times in a row. No...don't use Marin Karin."
Apparently yes, if that blog by Jeremy Parish linked earlier is any indication
I'm not sure about exploiting vulnerabilities (largely because I have a hard time keeping track of everything happening, so I don't pay much attention to the damage numbers), but debuffs are very useful. Slow especially seems pretty successful in boss fights, but I haven't had much chance to use debuffs because I'm usually trying to heal through really hardcore attacks.