An interview with Square says that there was enough left over material for an entire game that was edited out of the new Final Fantasy game. http://www.destructoid.com/final-fantasy-xiii-deleted-a-full-game-s-worth-of-stuff-160357.phtml The PS3 fans are screaming that this was due to the 360 port. However, having played and beaten the game, I can say that the game has a perfect pace and length. Additional levels would of course add more gameplay but probably would have made the game drag quite a bit. Also, maybe the extra levels needed development time which would have delayed the game even further, which nobody wanted of course. Reminds me of Shenmue's development when Shenmue 2 scenes showed up in the first game's footage. So should a developer just throw everything and the kitchen sink into a game or hold off?
I did enjoy it quite a bit, though I will let you know I've enjoyed recent Square games like Final Fantasy 12 and Crisis Core. Square essentially took the JRPG format and streamlined it to the nth degree to make it as fast moving and immersive as possible. No more fetch quests or wandering around wondering what the heck to do. Its mostly a single path with save points acting as stores as well. There are no towns so you won't be wandering around looking for that one person you have to talk too. There are people around some of the paths but they are there to add to the environment. The turn based battle system is fantastic and the battles are alot of fun. Each character has a particular job, one is an attacker, one is a blaster (projectile, magic) etc. During the battle you switch the jobs as needed. It makes battles very fast and never boring. You only directly control one person (kingdom hearts anyone?) with your other two party members as support. I think it will probably polarize the jrpg crowd who prefer the more traditional suikoden, early final fantasy experience, since it is so stripped down from that. But I found the changes refreshing. Story wise its very good also. Its about 40 hrs long straight through with grinding. There is a more open area that comes up during the game (won't spoil) that has mini missions you can do after beating it.
Thanks for the information. This will be the first Final Fantasy that I will skip (aside from 11) until it is dirt cheap, even maybe then too. I want to know who at Square decided that every Final Fantasy needs to be less and less "Final Fantasy".
Sounds SO BAD! T_T YET ANOTHER INTERACTIVE FILM FROM SQUARE damn now i'm pissed at them, the last real rpg they released is romancing saga remake on ps2... i'll check it out of sadness when i'll find it at around 30...
apparently it's pretty shallow when it comes to giving that "live world" feeling. The place feels really bland and the fact that you need to purchase a license to use abilities..w/o any indication where that license is you' ll just be wasting currency unless you a) reset the console and try your luck again, or b) download a guide online for where to find the correct license for the object/magic you have acquired. I didn't like the characters either. It's not a bad game if you're into RPGs/FF, which I m not, but it's nothing to write home about. I personally think Blue Dragon was more interesting.
Thats a good question, but I think I will. I did like the story and battle system so it will be fun to experience again. I think Square is being daring by shaking up the formula and modifying it. What I think is great about this game is there is not a dull moment anywhere. For jrpgs, wandering around towns and clicking on endless dialog boxes while then going out into some field to encounter some random battle you never see coming gets a bit stale. I think Square got that and wanted to make a great experience, which they did.
Let's once again take a winning game formula and throw it out the window for the sake of change. :banghead:
Square cant win if they do the same thing, but they cant win if the change. Cant please everyone I suppose.
Sure they would, they just have to ignore all the reviewers (who probably don't normally play RPG's) who say the games "are just the same thing" as they were before. People forget that gamers generally want the same thing over and over.
Blue Dragon kept the same combat system of yore and livened it up a bit with some new(ish) ideas. You would hope Squeenix could do the same thing without repeating the abortion that was the combat in FFXII. I want total control of my teammates, I want to choose every attack, I don't want to rely on pre-programmed AI even if I can change it on the fly.
