Hey ya'lls!
FINALS ARE OVER!!!! YES FINALLY. Actually they were over last week Wednesday. But I was busy doing fun things... since you know... it's Spring Break. :D
Anyways, got my grades back, two As, and two B+s, so I am somewhat content with myself. Also - my Typography portfolio got submitted for Best of Quarter. I am super excited. If I get it, it'll be my second one! Should get a letter in the mail this week if I get it.
Also... I've been spending some quality time with my new significant other... FINAL FANTASY XIII! :lol:
I love it! Yes... surprisingly so, I love it. I have a few gripes with it, but other than that, it is a good game. There are things about it that keep it from being GREAT, but I am enjoying it none the less. I am about 20 hours in, at Palumpolom with Lightning and Fang.
Which by the way, I love the fact that FFXIII has two VERY strong female characters. I appreciate that a lot, Lighting and Fang are quickly becoming my favs. Along with Sazh of course. Snow and Serah can go die in a pit - I like Vanille better than those two, THAT'S how much I hate Snow and Serah.
Does anyone else think that Snow is a major pedo for dating Serah? She looks like she's flippin 15. If my Photoshop was working I'd totally photoshop a pic of Pedosnow but alas, I cannot.
So things I like about the game:
- Most characters, and the excellent character development
- Story
- Battle system
Things I dislike about the game:
- Three characters that I wanna kill
- Music (it's not good, and REALLY not fitting at times)
- Battle System
You're probably wondering, how can you like and dislike the battle system? Well let me tell you...
I do love how fast-paced the battles are. Even though you run into a lot of them during the game, the most any one of them will take is about 2-3 minutes, which isn't a lot of your time. You get the option of picking Auto-Battle or to run the battle yourself. And of course you get the traditional options item and technique. However, upon thinking and dwelling about the battle system (probably too much too), I got a bit uncomfortable with Auto-Battle, and the fact that I rely on it so much (kinda like the heavy reliability upon gambits in FFXII). After this, I began playing the game sans Auto-Battle and found it to be a bit difficult because of said fast-paced battles. So upon relying on auto-battle, the only decisions you really have to make (and therefore strategize with) lie on setting up your deck of Paradigms and which deck to use in battle.
So this brings me to a thought: rather than really playing the battle yourself, are you, the player, more of an overseer? I feel like you are just watching over the characters, making sure to switch ****s at the right time, rather than picking and strategizing the battles yourself. And for some reason, I have a bit of a problem with this.
Even though FFXII relied heavily on Gambits, I still picked the Gambits myself, so in a way, it was me who was picking the abilites, and attacks that the characters did.
I also have a huge problem with relying on the AI so much. There are a lot of times where I have wondered why my Medic healed themselves instead of me - the party leader. And if the party leader dies, it's game over, regardless of how well in shape the rest of your party is.
With this in mind, I decided that I was glad that the battles are so short, since they mostly consist of you mashing on the X button (if you are on a PS3), and then hitting L1 whenever you need to switch paradigms. But I still can't irk away the fact that I am not in complete control of my party and their decisions. Even if I wasn't using auto-battle, the AI is in control of my teammates, and not me.
Also, I wish that the battle score system had more of an impact in your game. I understand that the better the score, the better the spoils that you get. But this is not so all of the time. There are countless of times where I've had a perfect 5-star rating and still didn't receive anything for a spoil. I don't know if that's just because I have bad luck, or if that is how the game works, but that almost makes me not want to care too much for my rating.
I also wish that the points would accumulate in some way (maybe the game would keep track of them in the main menu) and reward you after you hit a certain amount of points (say at 50k you get 10 potions, etc.), kind of like the Clan points in XII.
Also, the way weapons are upgraded could have been handled better. In FFVIII, you collected items (and used gil, I believe) to upgrade weapons. I kind of wish XIII would've gone in this direction. It would have been even cooler if the items used had to do with the weapon itself. I know that in XIII, organic items will increase your multiplier and give you little experience and non-organic items will decrease your multiplier but give you more experience. I see the strategy there but I still wish SE would have pushed this concept further.
Anyway... these are just SOME of my thoughts so far. My bf and I had a great conversation earlier today on the faults of FFXIII and our gripes with it (mostly, the battle system). I think once I get further in the game I want to write all my thoughts down and write a very lengthy and detailed review.
So now... tell me what you think of the game! And PLEASE remember that I HAVE NOT FINISHED IT YET AND AM ONLY UP TO PALOMPOLUM SO NO SPOILERS PLEASE.
Thanks guys ;)
- Celes