Post by Dwz on Mar 5, 2010 10:21:43 GMT
Mini Review:
So I'm just about halfway into disc 2 as I've been told by a mate who finished the Japanese version and it's quite good so far.
The graphics look outstanding, characters move their heads, lips, arms and the rest in real time as replies to any other NPCs that stand around and chat and it's just pretty to stop in a dungeon and play around with the camera to observe the characters talking. The environments are renderred beautifully, there's a lot of color and detail and some miniscule effects in the air like crystal dust in a crystal lake
The battle system is fun and most importantly challenging. You are never sure that you will go into battle, mash a few buttons and win because it just doesn't work that way. Enemies take away good portions of your health with their attacks while you don't. Gives you a feeling that you're not an overpowered killing machine but rather just simple people with weapons. The auto-suggestion system works nicely with suggesting attacks that will do the most damage depending on your magic/strength value and enemy weaknesses as well as healing the character that is in most need of it depending on whether he is being targeted by an enemy or not and by how much health he/she has left.
My only complaint up to this point is that the game is STILL completely linear and has no sidequesting or path splitting whatsoever. Although I have been assured that all the grinding and sidequesting will take place in disc 3 as the first two discs are mainly just story.
Speaking of which. The story is told in a very nice way with flashbacks to thirteen days before the game starts explaining many details to different characters as well as events that shaped the start of the game. My personal preference would be to NOT have to walk for 15 minutes to watch another 15 minutes of story but it's quite fine as the story is enjoyable and really fun to watch.
The abundance of towns may put off some players as you do all your shopping at a save point of which there are tons but it works well with the story flow and even if there were towns you'd still have trouble with buying tons of stuff because Gil is quite rare out in FF13, you can only get Gil from selling battle spoils of which there aren't that much and equipment that you find in chests (now they're floating spheres ). There is a nice feature of leveling up your weapons with various materials that give you a set amount of exp. You get those materials from battles mostly but they can also be obtained by taking apart and destroying an old weapon or accessory. From what I hear a weapon leveled up to a certain point will change an appearance and you will receive a slightly better default version of your weapon that can then be leveled up even further than your current one which I find fun and have yet to experience.
Traditional levels are gone (then again they were gone since FFX) and instead you have a system that resembles the sphere grid of FFX where you learn all your stuff. I was dissapointed that there are little variables to upgrade
but I'm still hoping for more as the game progresses.
So I'm just about halfway into disc 2 as I've been told by a mate who finished the Japanese version and it's quite good so far.
The graphics look outstanding, characters move their heads, lips, arms and the rest in real time as replies to any other NPCs that stand around and chat and it's just pretty to stop in a dungeon and play around with the camera to observe the characters talking. The environments are renderred beautifully, there's a lot of color and detail and some miniscule effects in the air like crystal dust in a crystal lake
The battle system is fun and most importantly challenging. You are never sure that you will go into battle, mash a few buttons and win because it just doesn't work that way. Enemies take away good portions of your health with their attacks while you don't. Gives you a feeling that you're not an overpowered killing machine but rather just simple people with weapons. The auto-suggestion system works nicely with suggesting attacks that will do the most damage depending on your magic/strength value and enemy weaknesses as well as healing the character that is in most need of it depending on whether he is being targeted by an enemy or not and by how much health he/she has left.
My only complaint up to this point is that the game is STILL completely linear and has no sidequesting or path splitting whatsoever. Although I have been assured that all the grinding and sidequesting will take place in disc 3 as the first two discs are mainly just story.
Speaking of which. The story is told in a very nice way with flashbacks to thirteen days before the game starts explaining many details to different characters as well as events that shaped the start of the game. My personal preference would be to NOT have to walk for 15 minutes to watch another 15 minutes of story but it's quite fine as the story is enjoyable and really fun to watch.
The abundance of towns may put off some players as you do all your shopping at a save point of which there are tons but it works well with the story flow and even if there were towns you'd still have trouble with buying tons of stuff because Gil is quite rare out in FF13, you can only get Gil from selling battle spoils of which there aren't that much and equipment that you find in chests (now they're floating spheres ). There is a nice feature of leveling up your weapons with various materials that give you a set amount of exp. You get those materials from battles mostly but they can also be obtained by taking apart and destroying an old weapon or accessory. From what I hear a weapon leveled up to a certain point will change an appearance and you will receive a slightly better default version of your weapon that can then be leveled up even further than your current one which I find fun and have yet to experience.
Traditional levels are gone (then again they were gone since FFX) and instead you have a system that resembles the sphere grid of FFX where you learn all your stuff. I was dissapointed that there are little variables to upgrade
You can only upgrade strength, magic and you hp aside from abilities
but I'm still hoping for more as the game progresses.