I'm going to start playing Final Fantasy XIII at some point. It'll be my first foray into the world of Final Fantasy. Ought to be interesting.
I'll put it simply, XIII CAN be enjoyable, but it's not the game in which you want to start your Final Fantasy carrer since it's not really a traditional RPG, which was what FF used to be about.
As I've said before you could buy IX out of the PSN for real cheap, might as well get yourself introduced to FF that way.
I'm going to start playing Final Fantasy XIII at some point. It'll be my first foray into the world of Final Fantasy. Ought to be interesting.I'll put it simply, XIII CAN be enjoyable, but it's not the game in which you want to start your Final Fantasy carrer since it's not really a traditional RPG, which was what FF used to be about.
As I've said before you could buy IX out of the PSN for real cheap, might as well get yourself introduced to FF that way.
In what ways is Final Fantasy XIII different from other Final Fantasy games?
The reason I like XIII and I find all other Final Fantasy's 'meh'. Its more of an action adventure game than a real RPG. I've only played bits and pieces of VII, X and a few others because I simply couldn't enjoy them.
XIII has a lot of emotional value for me because of the events that played out at the time I played it. I could really just forget about all of that and merge with the game. It's music, characters, environment and the utterly awesome story. To me the game is perfect. The battle system is fun and addicting, its linear so no getting lost in a world where everything looks alike or boring fetch quests. Everything is just so incredibly great! I've cried my eyes out during the ending, its one of my favourites.
Then came XIII-2 which pretty much changed everything that didn't need to be changed. The story had a rat’s arse to do with the XIII plot. Not a word about Fal’Cie, baddies or allies from XIII-1. It was more like:
‘’Hey, guys. Gimme a sequel to XIII.’’
‘’But we didn’t leave anything open for a sequel’’
‘’So what? Make something up about time travel, goddesses and other things that were never mentioned in XIII. Oh, and I wanna play as Serah. Not Lightning. And not to forget, no more memorable orchestra music. I want western techno and grunt. They’ll love that crap!’’
As you can tell I wasn’t amused by that game and I don’t see it as canon to XIII. But yesterday I got XIII-3 and I’m loving it so far. Better than XIII-2? Hales yes, how could it not be? Better than XIII? I’m only about 5 hours in, but nothing beats XIII. Not even a game where you play Lightning only. (which is probably the best upgrade since XIII-2)
The battle system got a make-over and its really fun. Its familiar, yet fresh. The music got back to the roots, but there’s still a little of XIII-2 left in it. The story again has nothing to do with XIII’s plot and actually.. not much with XIII-2 either. Let me explain this confusion I have now.
In XIII there are various Fal’Cie that are seen as gods. They created Cocoon and Gran Pulse, sounds pretty god-like to me. In XIII-2 a different goddess was introduced, Etro. She controlled time and did a ‘certain thing’ that caused a butterfly effect. In XIII-3 there is another god called Bathesda (or something like that) who is the all mighty rules, simply referred to as ‘god’. I don’t get it… so there’s three of em now? I know there’s thousand of years between the games, but still. Changing from a religion 3 times seems like over-kill.
I'm going to start playing Final Fantasy XIII at some point. It'll be my first foray into the world of Final Fantasy. Ought to be interesting.I'll put it simply, XIII CAN be enjoyable, but it's not the game in which you want to start your Final Fantasy carrer since it's not really a traditional RPG, which was what FF used to be about.
As I've said before you could buy IX out of the PSN for real cheap, might as well get yourself introduced to FF that way.In what ways is Final Fantasy XIII different from other Final Fantasy games?
I'll try not to repeat what Heather said too much (although her reasons for liking the game are the reasons I dislike it):
- Lack of content outside the main plot - May I remind you this is an RPG, where stuff like this is pretty much required.
- Battle style - It likes to think of itself as an Action RPG, but what it fails to do is give me total control over my character. I didn't want an action RPG to begin with though, if you wanted to make one so badly, Kingdom Hearts 3 would be a good start. It's also annoying that when the party leader is KO'd it's an instant Game Over. Because the other 5 guys left can't put up a fight, right?
- Linearity - I'm just holding forward during the first 6 hours of the game, much rather be fighting some dragons in ancient temples than exploring some random hallways.
- Bad characters - This one is heavily opinion based, but I find every single character in this universe completely desinterested and boring (except for Lightning when she was trying to save her little sister).
I guess that's it, wasn't expecting this list to be so short, but maybe I have to replay XIII again to make it longer.
Those are all good arguments from both of you. But for practicality reasons, I think I'll just stick to FF XIII for now, and see what I think.
What Darkstar said is true. Final Fantasy XIII is a game on its own, not really a Final Fantasy. Doesn't take away the face that you should totally try it out!
In de meantime i'll try and beat this hard mid-boss in XIII-3. Can't go back to grind or do some Side quests. Probably have to wait until the doomsday clock calls it a day. Makers me sad 
(Excuse my iPad typos once again)
