Alright, another day, another attempt. Thankfully, this time the game advanced in leaps and bounds for its combat system (thank god). Characters and story still aren’t really grabbing my interest, but at least I finally have the ability to customize them. Things are looking up!



Before playing again, I had a quick look at my game guide, just to see if I could derive some sort of expectations of what’s to come. Surprisingly, everything seems to happen after the main story finishes. The Hunts, the Chocobo treasure hunts, the weapon construction. It all seems very odd. They couldn’t find a way to incorporate it?

At least we won’t have anything like story to interrupt our pursuit of extra content, right? Hmm. Anyway.


The next hour was spent inside the strange Fal’Cie place, switching back and forth between characters. No further gameplay actions were revealed, so not much to talk about. Majority of the team meets up at last, we find Lightning’s sister / Snow’s fiancée, and then we lose her again.

The story is explained a little bit, but still not in the best fashion. I don’t know if they’re leaving it purposely vague in order to build tension. I spend a good portion of time in the Datalogs, researching. It gives you a pretty decent overview, but I’m really beginning to hate the words “Fal’Cie” and “L’Cie”.

So everyone gets pissed and decides it’s time to kick this super powerful Fal’Cie being’s ass. Cause you know, nothing could go wrong with that idea. The creature itself turns out to have the name of an Aeon that we’ve seen in a previous game, though obviously we don’t get to use him after defeat. And thank god! It’s a multi-part battle! You need to attack his arms first, then body. Sweet. I really hope there’ll be more bosses that require this kind of thing.

The chapter ends with a number of cutscenes, explaining the relationship between Snow, Lightning and Serah (the sister), as well as a dramatic finale for the Fal’Cie casing. In super hi res graphics, I might add. They really are superb. Watching an entire lake freeze into crystal is just mind blowing. God I love the PS3.

            


Wow. FINALLY, the more intricate battle system starts. And it’s fairly decent too. Each system is slowly revealed  over a number of battles, so as not to confuse anyone. Much of this hour is spent evolving my characters, making new Paradigms, and exploring the longer (but still narrow) first section of this chapter.

Thanks to their earlier actions, the entire team has now been made into the Fal Cie’s minions (known as L’Cie). If they don’t do what it wants them too, they’ll be punished in a rather nasty fashion. On the upside, they can now use magic, improve their skills, and have different jobs in the battle system.

The first few tutorials cover a number of things, though I’ll start with the jobs each character has, since that’s kind of needed to explain Paradigms.

Each character has new roles in the party. Some, like Snow and Hope, have three different possible roles so far. Sazh, on the other hand, only has one. Each role is named for the actions it involves: “Commando” means the character goes it for hard hitting melee attacks. “Ravager” makes the character stay back and unleash spells. “Medic” makes the character focus on healing and removing status effects. Snow and Hope also have their own unique ones; “Sentinel” which makes Snow draw the enemies attention, yet massively boosts his defense, and “Synergist”, giving Hope the ability to cast status boosting spells (Haste, Bravery).

Each job can be upgraded/evolved by using “Character Points”, which you earn through fighting. The system for this is designed as a series of crystals connected by lines. To acquire new skills and character boosting traits (more health, more strength etc), each crystal need to be connected together. You do this by moving along the lines, which requires a certain amount CP to do.

Phew. A lot of info. But it’s all good. The new character building system seems to be a nice balance between the ones of the previous game; not as confusing or involved as the FFX system, but not as general and plain as the FFXII license board. It’s good, I approve. I actually want to pop back to the menu every few fights and boost my character, which was nothing but a pain in FFX.

Ok, so now, finally, onto Paradigms. These are the much needed change to the battle system that finally gets rid of “Push X to Win”. Hurray!

Paradigms are created by mixing together the different types of jobs mentioned above. Which jobs are available depends on who you have in attack-party-of-three at the time.
As an example; the game forces you to use Snow, Lightning and Vanille (ugh) for the first section of this chapter. This means you have Commando, Ravager, Sentinel and Medic jobs to choose from.

Paradigms allow you to quickly and effectively change all your characters jobs at any point during the battle. Each Paradigm is named differently, depending on what jobs it’s comprised of e.g. Commando + Commando + Ravager = Paradigm named “Relentless Assault”. This means the team will attack continuously in an effort to wipe out the enemy fast. In doing this, however, it’s likely that your team will sustain damage.

To counter this, you push the Paradigm button (L1 in the case of PS3),  and select the Paradigm named “Solidarity”. This immediately changes your team to Commando + Sentinel + Medic. Your Commando will continue the attack, your Sentinel goes into a  defensive stance and draws attention, and your Medic heals everyone up. Once you’re healed, switch back to Relentless Assault, and continue the attack. Later you can freely mix and match combinations in the menu, and create new Paradigms for use in battle.

So this is the big combat change I’ve been waiting for. Is it effective? Well, yes. The game makes sure you have a need to use them straight away, by throwing a large number of enemies at you per battle. This impresses me greatly. You can literally have upwards of eight or nine enemies in a single fight (perhaps more, that’s the biggest I’ve seen so far). Most consist of a few weak enemies and one or two more powerful ones, meaning you get hit hard and also hit often. Master the Paradigms early is imperative to continue.

Personally I’d still like to have direct control of the characters… but I’m starting to see that it wouldn’t work in this particular game. The battles are extremely fast paced and relentless. Enemy recharge times are miniscule. It’d simple take to long to micromanage everybody, especially given how fast your HP gets whittled down. Given the circumstances, Paradigms are indeed the most effective method.

Having learned my new battle system, and glad that I now actually have to pay attention in order to win, the game has now become quite a bit more involving. I no longer need to take extended breaks in order to recharge my interest, so things are looking up!

        


We’re treated to a lot more cutscenes that are both beneficial and detrimental to the characters in equal parts. As an update on my opinions of each of them so far:

Lightning - Still angry, still self absorbed, still a *****. Her moments of softness are always followed by moments of irrational violence. I wonder when her “growing” into a caring character will start. At the moment, she’s a frustratingly moody and giving everyone the silent treatment. But at least the other characters aren’t afraid to tell her this too.

Snow – While I did like him initially, he’s getting a lot louder and more annoying as the events unfold. We can understand; he just lost the love of his life. He does drag it out though, yelling about saving the world and rescuing her. Less talk, more action Mr. Hero. I’m hoping he’ll return to form later on.

Sazh – Still my favourite so far. He’s a voice of logic and normality among a bunch of people that seem to have a lot of issues. An older character that’s less prone to impulsiveness, he’s an important part of the team, and gives the player a break from all the over dramatised dialogue of the other characters. Go Sazh!

Hope – Hasn’t done much except cry and try and work up the courage to kick Snow in the nuts. Fairly whiney, as predicted. His “growing” experience better start soon to.

Vanille – Eehhhhh… Vanille. God I hate her. I gather she was meant to be the typical, high voiced, erratic Japanese school girl type, that just doesn’t  translate well into English. Her moods and actions make little to no sense, and the game would have benefited from her not existing at all at this point.

One nice thing that I touched on back in the first blog that’s getting used more now: in game banter. While Lightning is running around, no longer is the team a mysterious part of her that pops out for battle. Now they run around the area, exploring and chatting to each other. It’s nice to hear, even though Lightning remains the hardened mute and refuses to join in. Also, we learn that Lightning is only a code name, not her real one. Hmmm interesting. I wonder if her real name is any better?

Much of this hour was spent once again exploring, character developing, and experimenting in battle. We learn two new elements that I approve of:

The first is Tactical Points. This take a long time to explain, despite the TP bar being below Lightning’s health bar from the start of the level. TP is used for special skills, and is fairly limited. You have a maximum of five points (so far), and unlike health they don’t recharge automatically after battle. Instead, you have to earn them by doing well in fights. It might take two or three high rated battles to recharge one point, so obviously they’re not meant to be spent frivolously.

So far, the only skill we’ve been able to use with TP is “Libra”. FF veterans will recognise this as the skill that reveals enemy traits and weaknesses, though this time it has more effect then ever before. Using Libra on an enemy not only reveals it’s information, your team immediately takes advantage of that info by changing their tactics accordingly.

This is absolutely brilliant, as anything that makes your AI team mates smarter is a blessing. If the enemy is weak to a magic element, such as Water, and one of your team possesses that skill, they’ll automatically start using it for maximum effect. Likewise, if your main character possesses that skill, the “Auto queue” button will begin to queue that particular skill when targeting that enemy. Very clever and useful.

Once again, I hit a point of no return before fully exploring an area, so I had to end it there. Three hours of constant play is probably enough for now anyway heh.


Better! Much better. At least in the battle system department. I’m beginning to understand the reasons for the choices they’ve made, and that’s a good thing. It’s just a shame it took two hours of forced X X X gameplay to get there.

I’m also very pleased that the character development system is so straightforward and effective, as that was a main concern of mine from way back.

The drive to play it is growing, even if the story and characters are still fairly weak. The graphics are incredible, and starting to be flaunted more often, as hoped. Yeah, things are looking up. Hopefully the next blog will be full of more positives as well!