A good nights sleep and a day in which to do nothing but play my extensive back catalogue. I feel I need to pursue my FFXIII experience further. Perhaps I was too harsh on it last night?



The first thing I notice upon loading my game is that it gives you a story synopsis of everything you’ve experienced so far. This scrolls up the screen at quite a pace, and can’t be stopped or rewound.

Most interestingly, I noted that I knew none of this. I’d picked up bits and pieces of what was going on from things Snow and Lightning said, but otherwise I was merely glossing through on an “Ok, so this is happening in some place to some people for some reasons I don’t yet know” kind of mind set.

I pretty sure I’m missing something here. I explore the in game menu, and find a tab marked “Datalog”. Inside is a veritable plethora of information regarding Pulse, Cocoon, the characters and the story so far. Hmm. I am most perturbed.

While I appreciate all this info being in one place, I would have preferred it to be explained in game! I sincerely hope it does, because I really don’t want to be going back and forth to the datalogs, reading pages of summary and explanations, just to keep track of wtf is happening in the story. That’s just lazy writing. But we’ll see.


Picking up where I left off with Snow and Co. Another long pathway of enemies to fight i.e. be defeated by X.

X X X X X X O! Nah just kidding, it was X again.

One pleasant surprise was to see exotic black haired chick IS still with us. I could have sworn she ran off to help the refugees. She’s an awesome fighter to watch, very sensual. She even has this sexy hip gyration when she uses a potion. Man, it’s a shame she won’t be around for long.

Ahem, moving on. Defeating more enemies with X, until I come across another Boss. It’s a giant dog thing with the head of Advent Children’s Bahamut and covered in armour. He’s pretty nasty… in the sense that I actually had to use one potion during the fight, inbetween pushing X.

How are these even considered boss fights? There’s no skill or strategy involved at all! Why can’t I target specific areas on my enemy? Like the armour, legs, head, chest. This combat at it’s most basic, watered down form. Impossible to lose, and assuming you keep pushing X, plays out exactly the same way every time. Even FFX’s combat entertained me more then this early on.

Another thing that’s bothering me about the combat that I haven’t mentioned yet: the ratings. Every fight has a rating. WHY do so many JRPG and J-Brawlers need a rating system? I mean, it’s nice I can achieve a 5 star rating just by pushing X, but what have they got planned further down the track? Are the super enemies not going to drop decent loot unless I get a high rating? No thanks. Most tough enemies I’m just glad to kill; I don’t want to have to worry about making it an A-1 perfect battle too. Hmph.

             


Around 10 minutes of cutscenes which, thankfully, did explain some of the stuff described in the Datalogs. Not very thoroughly, but it’ll do. This is interjected by another Boss-ish fight with Lightning and Sazh. This guy was mean. I had to use another potion.

Then it’s back to Snow for some more cutscenes and fighting.


We are now in control of some new team characters; Hope, the blonde boy who just watched his mother get owned, and Vanille, the red headed girl narrating the story. I already hate them both. Well, Hope hasn’t said much, but I know he’s going to be a whiny brat. Vanille… my god. Who ever wrote her dialogue needs a snap-kick to the head. I wonder if it’s possible to kill off team members? Where’s Sephiroth when you need him?

Another cutscene, and it’s time to explore the mysterious fal C’ie thing where Lightning and the others were headed.

Whoa. Hope has a Boomerang as a weapon. And Vanille’s wielding some weird staff that shoots out cutting wires. That’s pretty cool! Except wait, no, Vanille runs like an absolute spaz. Her list of annoyances is growing. What the hell kind of accent is her VA using anyway? It sounds like it’s trying to be… Australian? No way… can’t be. That’s just atrocious. We sound nothing like that. She sounds like an American chick speaking a mangled form of British/Aussie/Kiwi. I’m so appalled.

This is the first “Open” area we’ve been allowed to explore. The mini map clearly shows the layout, as well as enemy locations. This is handy. Another tutorial message has popped up explaining Aggressive and Preemptive strikes. Oh thank god! They do exist! In other words; approaching the enemy from behind will take them by surprise and result in their “stagger” bar being very high at the start of the battle. Attacking head on will just be a battle like any other.

Hmm. Something else about the battle system I actually like: thanks to the action queue system, if an enemy dies to one action, yet there are two more remaining in the queue, your character automatically jumps to the next closest enemy, without the queue resetting. Now that I like. Well, in the sense that if I have to put up with this form of combat, at least this is making it a little more streamlined and useful.


Ah poo. I went the wrong way and hit a point of no return before I’d explored everything in the room. I HATE when that happens. Guess I’ll have to stop and reload, though now I’m to annoyed at how horrible Vanille is to play any more.

I’ll play something else and come back to it later.


This is going slow. Very slow. I mean most of the FF’s are slow to begin, but they’re punctuated by tons of exploration, talking opportunities or side quests. Even before the main story starts.

It’s not great when a game fails to maintain my attention for more then 30 minutes at a time (I’m not just doing so for this blogs sake, I’m genuinely getting tired and in need of a break). I blame it mainly on the combat… and the fact that I don’t like the characters… and that I still feel like I have no real idea what’s going on or why, even after reading the Datalogs.

Urgh. Probably just my general impatience. A break and a different game might allow for a more optimistic outlook when I come back. I hope.