I’ve been waiting for this game ever since I saw the trailer on my FFXII bonus DVD. That’s been a looonggg wait. I, like many others, hoped this would be the biggest, best, and most amazing Final Fantasy to date.

But recent reviews have brought to light many changes that are not normal for the series: only controlling one character, linear design, no open world, few side quests. These have made me slightly wary, and more then a little sceptical. I go into the game now, prepared for anything, and hoping that I will not be disappointed too often. After all, being pleasantly surprised and actually loving the game would be the best thing to happen in the end.

This is a blog I’m keeping, more so for myself then other readers, though you’re welcome to scrutinize and comment should you wish. It will be interesting to see how my perception and attitude towards the game changes depending on the characters, story, outcome etc. Will it be indepth? Maybe. Will it be needlessly picky? Definitely? Will it be overly positive/negative? Most likely. Eh, that’s just how I work. I’ll be quite happy to admit if my immediate observations are proved wrong in the end.




Having booted up the game on my PS3, was surprised to find there was no install. Hmm. Interesting. As long as there’s no exorbitant load times, that should be fine. Immediately went to the options, switched on all the subtitles… and stopped. There seemed to be a distinct lack of language options. To my horror I realise that, blu ray or no blu ray, Japanese language was not included. I am stuck with English VO’s!!! :O

Things are not off to a good start.


Having seen the opening many times on the net, the cinematic was no surprise. I am impressed with the smoothness of character animations; very fluid and natural. Lightning is athletic, even if her name is stupid. That has nothing to do with anything, I just think her name is stupid, and thought I should get that out of the way early.

One thing I note is that the English VO’s aren’t quite as bad as I was led to believe! At least, the characters that have spoken so far seem ok. Sazh reminds me of Eddie Murphy, and hey, I can live with that! Lightning sounds like… cold, monotone, emotionless fighting character #37. Eh, at least she’s not grinding my nerves yet.

Graphics really are quite stunning. Glad I have a PS3 to take full advantage of them. I pity those poor 360 players (not really).


Now that all those overly sensitive 360 players have stopped reading, lets move on to the actual game. After the train crash, the Giant Scorpion fight starts, and I get my first taste of battle. I do the tutorial. Appears pretty straight forward. As soon as all the explanation windows disappear, I take control. I am confused.

Analog sticks and D-pads fail to move Lightning. She is stuck in a single position. Once again I realise I have not researched this game enough, otherwise I would have known that the mid-combat free roaming ability of FFXII was completely abolished, and replaced with the “your side, their side, ATTACK!” of the previous games.

Hmm. After 200 collective hours of FFXII over the years, only now do I realise how much I enjoyed running around the battlefield, smacking monsters in the face or butt at whim, fleeing freely, leading enemies around while my team attacked them, or merely moving out of range of a melee. Being stuck in one position now seems… so unnecessarily constrictive. Less immersive too. Having direct control over a character really upped the roleplaying feel.

People complained that FFXII “played itself”. By which they meant that if you set up your Gambits correctly, your party members would do exactly what you wanted at the right time, usually without fail. Even your main character could have these Gambits, meaning you could sit back and let the game play the battles for you. This was an understandable concern, but in reality it only applied to your run-of-the-mill monsters that roamed the various areas. Bosses and more powerful creatures required more strategy and skill.

I get the feeling FFXIII is going to be essentially the same. Even though the Gambits are gone, we now have an “auto” button, which queues up all your main (and only) controllable characters possible actions. This system checks the situation and acts accordingly: single enemy? Attack as per normal. Multiple enemies? Use a special skill that attacks them all at once.

So far, the battle system hasn’t quite been playing itself, but it’s pretty damn close. At the moment it’s defining “Push X to Win”. In fact, I was doing a few battles while writing these notes, just pushing the button continuously. I didn’t even have to look at the screen! Push X to win indeed. The whole “controlling one character” thing is a little boring too. Not being able to select exactly which spell or attack I want my team mates to do is going to take a lot of getting use to.

From what I’ve heard, the battle system expands more later with Paradigms, and a similar deal applies: you need to switch and manage your parties roles for more powerful enemies, but with smaller fodder it’s just a matter of attack, attack, attack.
Still, merely changing Paradigms is probably going to be a hell of a lot less micro-managey then directly controlling the actions of your entire team. Good or bad thing?

Well hey. It’s only 10 minutes in, and I’ve only had a few battles. Even FFXII was that basic in the beginning. It’d be silly to pass judgement so soon. Still, first impressions ARE important…

          


I like Sazh. Lightning’s a *****. She better grow somewhat in the game, cause at the moment her attitude problem is really making her difficult to like. Then again, even Cloud was a self absorbed, thoughtless, insensitive prick in the beginning.

I wish I hadn’t watched that IGN video with the joke English dubs. I keep expecting the baby Chocobo to say “Daymn!”. I get disappointed when he only cheeps.

Should mention the stores being an integrated part of the save points. It’s certainly handy and streamlined, even if it does take all the fun out of going to towns and talking to the locals, learning the history and the lore and perhaps engaging in some side quest. The license in my inventory suggests I’ll be buying access to more stores Mass Effect style.

Environment interaction is somewhat new as well. Or at least, more common now. It used to only happen in the previous games by going up to a suspicious looking area and exploring it, resulting in your character leaping around the screen along secret paths to treaure. Now Lightning jumps over everything. Showey, if unnecessary. Eh.

Actually Sazh’s constant narration is beginning to grind on me. I wouldn’t mind it if Lightning talked back, Uncharted style for some interesting, character building dialogue. But he’s just talking about nothing. Missed opportunity there.


A Boss that looks remarkably like the Judges seen throughout the Ivalice games. How intriguing. Here we learn about “battle chains” and “staggers”. By constantly attacking an enemy, they can be staggered, and made to take more damage for a short time. Not a bad idea. Reminds me of the “breaks” from the Valkyrie Profiles games.

Then we zip over to another character. Snow! He and various other people around him also have decent English VO’s. I’m so relieved.

However, I’m a little disappointed that I’m not actually able to talk to all the NPC’s. Walking past them generates an automatic spoken response, which consists of a single line. On one hand, it’s nice that I don’t have to press X yet again to activate them. On the other, I wish I could, and perhaps get a more indepth view on the story so far and situation. Also, walking past again triggers the same response. Easily spammed. Hm.

More cutscenes, where we meet Snow’s rebel team, called “Nora”. Seems to consist of a dude with a flaming hairdo, a blonde kid with goggles, and a rather exotic looking black haired chick sporting some interesting attire. Helllooo. Why isn’t she part of the main squad? She could easily be this game’s Tifa.

Unfortunately this where the English VO problems begin to show: not from the voice actors themselves, but from the writing. A clearly Japanese moment that would be fine and suited for the Japanese language, but when translated into English, falls flat and seems stupid. Damn, I guess THIS was what I was afraid of.


More battles. A whole long path of them in fact, which I once again defeated by pressing X with my big toe while typing up the previous analysis. I know, I know. The battles will get better.

We meet more fleeing rebels, and a few future team characters hiding under hoods. I’ve already marked a few as having the potential to “annoy the **** out of me”; namely the goggles kid, and the red head chick that appears to be narrating the game. “Bang”? Really? How old are you again?

After some more corny writing, Snow and Co. gallop off to fight some more bad guys. But I’m tired and can’t play anymore. Plus, the exotic black haired chick isn’t part of the team anymore, so my interest automatically waned. I guess I’ll play more tomorrow. Assuming Resident Evil 5’s new DLC’s don’t distract me.

General consensus so far?

After getting over the shock of losing my free roam and my Japanese VO’s, as well as the oddly (super) simplified battle system and main character I don’t immediately like, I guess it’s not bad. I’m not hooked: a really engaging game would have made me play without interruption, not feel compelled to get up and write a 4 page analysis in the middle of (and during) it. It also would have kept me up until 3 or 4am, instead of only 1.

Once again I’m finding myself driven by the “it will get better” promise. Which I’m sure it will. I mean c’mon, 30 minutes? That’s nothing in JRPG. It might be enough to finish half of Modern Warfare 2, but in a JRPG that barely covers the intro. If that! As we have thusly witnessed.

There’s definitely more to see, more to pick apart, more to be surprised by, or to change earlier conceived opinions. Either way, there will be:

More tomorrow.