Sunday, September 12, 2010

Final Fantasy XIII First Impressions

I'm one hour or so into Final Fantasy XIII.  That's nothing as far as these games are concerned - many Final Fantasy titles can take 40+ hours to complete, and that's just straight beating the game, not even including all the various side quests that are out there.

Still, it's enough time for me to get some first impressions...

  • Production values + visuals are amazing, which is to be expected from the series. So pretty
  • Enjoying the story and the characters so far. It does frustrate me, in 2010, to have so little control over the action...
  • It's very early in the game, and I'm sure customization and more battle options will become available later, but for now it's on auto-pilot
  • There's actually even an 'auto battle' option, so I'm just clicking that, tapping it over + over, except maybe to use a potion now + then
  • It's a turn-based RPG, so I know what I'm in for, this ain't my first Final Fantasy by a long shot, but c'mon, let me 'play' this bitch!
  • I would love for a new Final Fantasy to employ a battle system based off of Final Fantasy Tactics (classic for the original Playstation, find it and play it if you haven't!), where you have to position your characters...
  • ...Make decisions about where they should go, navigate the terrain, as well as attack. Actually affect how the battle plays out
  • Anyway, as it stands right now, Final Fantasy XIII is more like an interactive movie. A pretty awesome one, but still
  • I'll end my bitching with this - I just saw my character piloting a badass hoverbike. I will be pissed if this game does not let me fly it
  • It was all the way back in Final Fantasy VII when they broke up the RPG-ing with some action sequences. Don't tell me we went backwards  
  • Story involves the government supposedly rounding up dangerous people and exiling them to another land, when really they're just executing them, mass genocide.  Blondie up there is Lightning, former soldier for the government, now knows the truth and is working for the 'rebels' / 'resistance' / you know

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