burnside986 said:
and still waiting for the game to start.
Seriously? Seriously? I was hooked on this game twenty minutes in. How can you still be waiting for the game to start when the pace of the first ten hours is almost frenetic? Or do you mean, "I'm still waiting to find something I like about this game," and you just carefully phrased your sentiment to make it sound like more of a let-down than it really is?
I used to consider myself a Final Fangirl, but after the gossip surrounding this game's release, I'm afraid to be bear the title. Like, do all the self-proclaimed "true fans" have a collective case of ADD? Every time a new Final Fantasy comes out, they will pick it apart bit by bit, bitch and scream about the parts they "hate hate hate hate hate hate hate!!!1" and then when the
next Final Fantasy comes out, they'll bitch that the new one wasn't
exactly like the old one, because even though they
HATED it, it's now nostalgic and Squenix is now just "disrespecting its fans by leaving behind what has come before." Like, what the fuck?
I mean, what about this game is too linear? It has no world map? Neither did FFX, and I've heard people call that the best Final Fantasy ever made. Okay, so there's no world map to "explore." There was never anything to explore in the world maps to begin with!! Final Fantasy was
never the go-to franchise for branching plots, or even good side-quests. Even with a world map, every game always consisted solely of "Go here, now go here, now go here." They were
all linear; the only difference now is there's no world map to get lost on (and you've all gotten lost at least once in one game at some point). Or do you miss the world map because it made it easier to grind? Do you really not remember how much you pissed and moaned about
having to grind in the earlier games? And now Squenix gives you a game where you stay
ahead of the leveling curve until the last quarter of the game, and even after that you never really fall behind, and now you're pissing and moaning because you don't
need to grind anymore? And, I'm sorry, but why the hell would I want to grind through the first chapter, earning 10 CP a battle that won't take me anywhere after the next chapter? They knew the only reason you'd ever "need" to grind is if you want to go trophy-hunting, in which case you need to wait until the Crystarium's completely open anyway, and as soon as that happens you get a nice big pretty world to explore with a piles of monsters that give you the shit-ton of CP you'll need. So, where's the problem?
And since the beginning of time, fanboys and -girls around the world have been complaining about characterization. Most of the characters are either generic or trite, and even the ones with personalities have no development. And even the ones that develop don't develop believably (*cough-CloudSquall-cough*). FFXIII actually wrote three-dimensional characters who develop organically, have real emotions and believable dialogue, and for the first time in
ever it seems they actually know how to use an ensemble cast
properly, and I've
never heard more people screaming, "GIVE US BACK OUR KEFKA!!!1"
You can't play arcade games, or card games, or blitzball in FFXIII, but really, did they ever pull any of these off well enough to bother trying again? This isn't "Final Fantasy for Dummies," like some people are claiming it to be, it's "Final Fantasy Distilled." Squenix
finally realized that they're really only good at two things: story, and battle; so they cut everything else out of the game and focused on those two. The story (plot is arguable and has to account for personal taste, but the actual method of storytelling) is the abso-fucking-lutely best it's ever been, and even though the battle system is a bit out of sync with the earlier titles, it's fast-paced and
fun, and actually incorporates a
little more strategy than its detractors are giving it credit for. There's a legitimate complaint in that you can only summon the party leader's eidolon, but beyond that:
almost every complaint anyone has about Final Fantasy XIII boils down to blind nostalgia.
