Final Fantasy XIII Date announced, $56.99 at Amazon.

[quote name='InFlames215']Reading the description of FFXIII, it sounds like it is more like FFX than anything. I don't think you will be disappointed.

One of the best things I've heard of about the new game is that you encounter enemies Chrono Trigger style: you see the enemy on the map, when you engage it that's when the battle starts. An integrated battle sequence + no random battles = win. I mean, I'm fine with the random battle aspect of RPG's, but there are so many of those that flood the market as it is. It is nice to see something different once in awhile.

I totally agree with your opinion that square hasn't made anything great lately (except FFXII imo, I've already said that a couple times in this thread). But Final Fantasy games have almost always been good, and I doubt this will be any different.[/QUOTE]

I always wondered why more developers didn't use Chrono Trigger's style of battle. I always loved it. It saved me the hassle of having to run in circles constantly, hoping to run into some enemy in some random battle, while not turning the game into an Action RPG by making a nice transition between encounter on the field to battle. That kind of takes my excitement for XIII up a bit, as I found XII's battle system a bit lacking.
 
I think people should stop thinking XIII will be bad because (they think) XII was bad. The development teams are completely different between the two games. XIII's staff looks more like X's.
 
I already have this pre-ordered, and I have a question for you guys. I have loved all the final fantasy games since 7 (though I agree that as the number goes up, I seem to enjoy it less).

I've been wanting to give XI a try, but as a long time everquest player, I have many worries. Can anyone tell me what state the game is in these days? Population? Ease vs. Difficulty? (I like a challenge!)

I am considering picking up the new ultimate collection that just came up, and I figure since it comes with a month of time, 19.99 isn't too bad. Just wondering how popular it is these days. I don't know a single person who plays it, or even gave it more than 5 minutes of a chance.
 
[quote name='TheOmegaSoldier']I already have this pre-ordered, and I have a question for you guys. I have loved all the final fantasy games since 7 (though I agree that as the number goes up, I seem to enjoy it less).

I've been wanting to give XI a try, but as a long time everquest player, I have many worries. Can anyone tell me what state the game is in these days? Population? Ease vs. Difficulty? (I like a challenge!)

I am considering picking up the new ultimate collection that just came up, and I figure since it comes with a month of time, 19.99 isn't too bad. Just wondering how popular it is these days. I don't know a single person who plays it, or even gave it more than 5 minutes of a chance.[/QUOTE]

It's got a huge following in the Asian market. While I was playing EQ, my brother tried to get into a bunch of other MMOs like SW: Galaxies, and eventually spent a little time with FFXI. I wasn't too fond of the way they handled items/materia, but I've heard interesting things about the boss encounters: namely that they can take HOURS to complete, as opposed to the much shorter bosses of EQ/WoW.

I could also be mistaken on this point, but much akin to EQ, I believe many of the world bosses are not instanced, so there's not a chance for everyone to get a crack at it.

I'm a veteran EQ player (actually been trying to find a new MMO that's not WoW to go enjoy with my friends, but little seems to recreate that EQ experience) and there were quite a few things in the UI and general playstyle of the game that really turned me off. I'm sure they offer some kind of free trial so you could experience what I mean.
 
[quote name='Nirron']It's got a huge following in the Asian market. While I was playing EQ, my brother tried to get into a bunch of other MMOs like SW: Galaxies, and eventually spent a little time with FFXI. I wasn't too fond of the way they handled items/materia, but I've heard interesting things about the boss encounters: namely that they can take HOURS to complete, as opposed to the much shorter bosses of EQ/WoW.

I could also be mistaken on this point, but much akin to EQ, I believe many of the world bosses are not instanced, so there's not a chance for everyone to get a crack at it.

I'm a veteran EQ player (actually been trying to find a new MMO that's not WoW to go enjoy with my friends, but little seems to recreate that EQ experience) and there were quite a few things in the UI and general playstyle of the game that really turned me off. I'm sure they offer some kind of free trial so you could experience what I mean.[/QUOTE]

FF11 is indeed not quite light-user friendly if they intend on taking on the uber endgame bosses; the more recent 'impossible' bosses are item trigger-spawned so they don't require people camping spawn for days just to try them, but instead take several months of collecting all kinds of duds for one crack at it. If you don't mind slightly less difficult stuff it's actually quite readily available.

The ironic thing about 11 is that the story is probably its biggest strength. Quality varies by nation, but the Windurst missions (as well as the 'past' windurst missions in the new expansion) are definitely on par with the better FF releases story-wise... just that they still require you to have multiple max-level characters, something that could take a few months if you're starting out anew. Once Square moves on to 14 for its bread-and-butter profit source I wouldn't be surprised to see an offline version of 11 of some sort.
 
[quote name='Ryuukishi']I always kind of wished they would release an offline, single-player version of FF11. The monthly fee MMO thing is just not for me, but I hate to miss out on an entire Final Fantasy story.[/QUOTE]

Agreed. I can't even tell you how many times I've picked this up from the store shelf and looked at it, and then put it right back down because I can't bring myself to pay the monthly fees to play.

[quote name='Nirron']I've heard interesting things about the boss encounters: namely that they can take HOURS to complete[/QUOTE]

Ugh, ok, now that would probably just annoy the hell out of me. I only have so long an attention span for boss fights before I just get bored with them and want them to end so that I can move on with the game. More than about half an hour on one battle and I just lose interest. But then, in general, I tend to play RPGs for the stories, not for the combat.
 
[quote name='muumuu'] *snip* Once Square moves on to 14 for its bread-and-butter profit source I wouldn't be surprised to see an offline version of 11 of some sort. *snip*[/QUOTE]

Pretty cool to hear about the story. I loved the locations in EQ, and as I have played the RTS games for years, the lore in WoW was fun for me to find in quite a few of the quests, but I'd love to see a great stroy integrated to an MMO.

As to the part I quoted, that leads me to ask: Have they announced anything about the people in FF11 regarding FF14, i.e character transfer/integration, etc? I always at least respected FF11 for how different its approach was from all the other MMOs (appreciated much more after Blizzard kept dumbing down part after part of their game), so I'm actually semi-interested in 14.
 
[quote name='punkmaggit']Me too brother.[/QUOTE]

+1.

Having to pay money to play a single game is not worth it IMO.

if anything, i would rather use that money for xbox live.
 
[quote name='JaroldL']+1.

Having to pay money to play a single game is not worth it IMO.

if anything, i would rather use that money for xbox live.[/QUOTE]

They have a fee to play ff11? I didn't know that. That's lame. It's the same reason I don't play WoW.. plus I like having some kind of a life.
 
[quote name='Nirron']As to the part I quoted, that leads me to ask: Have they announced anything about the people in FF11 regarding FF14, i.e character transfer/integration, etc? I always at least respected FF11 for how different its approach was from all the other MMOs (appreciated much more after Blizzard kept dumbing down part after part of their game), so I'm actually semi-interested in 14.[/QUOTE]

I'm almost positive that the wikipedia article on XIV says something about it. I'm too lazy to check for sure.
 
[quote name='InFlames215']I totally agree with your opinion that square hasn't made anything great lately (except FFXII imo, I've already said that a couple times in this thread). But Final Fantasy games have almost always been good, and I doubt this will be any different.[/QUOTE]

I worry that people often confuse titles developed by Square-Enix with those published by them. SE as a company develops a very low number of the titles it actually publishes (as opposed to a publisher like Bethesda, which is probably closer to 50-50). Besides the Crystal Chronicles series, very few recent games published by SE were actually developed in-house. On the PS3 and 360 (in other words, what I would consider to be the core consoles of this gen, and I'm sure most would agree) that number is exactly one: The Last Remnant. Granted, that game was a mess, so I guess if we extrapolate from that... :D

My point is, Square Enix simply doesn't develop many games themselves these days, so while its technically true to say they haven't made anything great lately, that's also because they haven't really tried.
 
[quote name='bvharris']I worry that people often confuse titles developed by Square-Enix with those published by them. SE as a company develops a very low number of the titles it actually publishes (as opposed to a publisher like Bethesda, which is probably closer to 50-50). Besides the Crystal Chronicles series, very few recent games published by SE were actually developed in-house. On the PS3 and 360 (in other words, what I would consider to be the core consoles of this gen, and I'm sure most would agree) that number is exactly one: The Last Remnant. Granted, that game was a mess, so I guess if we extrapolate from that... :D

My point is, Square Enix simply doesn't develop many games themselves these days, so while its technically true to say they haven't made anything great lately, that's also because they haven't really tried.[/QUOTE]
Yeah its true that most of their bad games are not developed by them, but for a company that used to be so trusted for quality, they should have a quality assurance test on the games they publish. What bugs me is how the were making a FF game almost every year on the ps1 and they were all incredible, now they take 4-5 years to make one like ff12 and it wasn't even good. Square will always be one of my favorite developer because FF7, FF8, and FF10 are in my top five, but they take too long to make games that aren't worth the wait. But hey here's hoping FF13 is good.
 
[quote name='jason506']Yeah its true that most of their bad games are not developed by them, but for a company that used to be so trusted for quality, they should have a quality assurance test on the games they publish. What bugs me is how the were making a FF game almost every year on the ps1 and they were all incredible, now they take 4-5 years to make one like ff12 and it wasn't even good. Square will always be one of my favorite developer because FF7, FF8, and FF10 are in my top five, but they take too long to make games that aren't worth the wait. But hey here's hoping FF13 is good.[/QUOTE]


I'm no expert, but read up on the staff changes when ff12 was being developed. The fact the game came out at all, with high production values and some people actually enjoying it(me) is amazing when you read what a freaking monster that game was to finish.

And complaining about wait times is a little bit..old. Sure some companies still keep the pace, but I can't imagine it's easy. The better the tech gets and the more critic we all get the harder it is on the developers, this generation must suck for everyone but the absolute top tier studios.


That said, I finally read my 200th game informer(WOW I WOULD HAVE KILLED FOR THE FF6 COVER INSTEAD OF TETRIS) and I don't know why, but I loved seeing the small 2 page entry on ffxiii. I'm keeping my nose clean of a lot of details, but seeing a few screenshots got me excited. Even if the game is average in every detail, it just looks so gorgeous, that will keep me going. I'll just have to hope the rest falls into place.
 
Can you guys please continue the discussion on FFXIII/V in the FFXIII/V General forum? This thread is for discussing the deal from Amazon.

It's unneeded to keep bumping this & cluttering the deals forum, when it's not deal related.
 
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I'm not so much complaining about long developement times, I'm more complaining about the time not transfering into quality. Also I agree FF12 had high production values but there were far too many flaws in the game.
Edit: seen the post above this will be my last rant here, it is getting a little off topic.
 
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