Hesten wrote:
Are FFXIII a game you can just sit down and play though without any guides, or should you have a laptop ready with guides and documents and checklists at all times to get the most out of it and get the best weapons?.
Just keep clicking the A button to move from cut scene to cut scene. Sometimes you'll have to move your character to a little white circle which will launch your character up over a pile of trash or something.
While we'd be hesitant to use the word "failure" in relation to Final Fantasy XIII, "disappointment" works just fine. If only Square had known people outside Japan wouldn't like the game before they released it! Oh, wait. They did.
The latest issue of Game Developer magazine has a fascinating insight into the development of Square Enix's latest role-playing epic, which despite costing millions and taking years to develop, wound up letting many fans down thanks to its linearity and regressive game design.
While there's talk of engine troubles and the lack of a creative vision for the game, most interesting is the developer's revelation that a decision to test the game in non-Japanese markets was only made at the 11th hour.
"Even before the current generation of consoles was introduced, it was obvious that the game market in the West was gaining momentum, and we couldn't ignore it", write developers Motomu Toriyama and Akihiko Maeda. "The sentiment that stood out the most to us at the time was the increasingly harsh criticism towards JRPGs."
"Linearity and command-based battles were two of the features being perceived negatively. This was something that the team was very conscious about, and there were concerns about whether JRPGs would still be accepted in the West. Because Final Fantasy XIII's mission was to succeed worldwide, we could not ignore this issue, as we felt it could deeply affect the future of the franchise."
So focus testing sessions were held in Western markets. And they achieved...well, nothing.
"Unfortunately, we were already quite far along in development, and knew it would be too late to implement most of the feedback from the player test sessions. Even so, we still signed up for the opportunity, as this would be our only chance before the game's release to see how Western players would respond to all that we had been working on."
"There were some minor hiccups, as we did not have much time to prepare for the focus group sessions, but we were able to successfully conduct player tests and interviews globally. Even though it was too late to apply the majority of the feedback, most team members felt the tests were worthwhile, as it gave them insight into what players wanted globally."
Despite feedback from Western gamers coming too late to make fundamental changes to the game, it still caused problems back at Square Enix, as the new information "resulted in conflicts within the team on whether it was worth forcing certain changes into an already tight schedule".
What. A. Hot. Mess. And Square have nobody to blame but themselves. Even the most basic form of focus testing would have involved looking at how well-received Final Fantasy XII had been with Western media and consumers. How did they think scrapping the radical changes made to that title and reverting to a more traditional style of Japanese role-playing game would go down?
I honestly liked this game. Sure it wasn't my favorite in the series but I don't see why everyone feels it was a massive flop. It looked great, it's storyline was on par with any of the other games, it took a fair amount of time to beat, there are plenty of extras to do if you want, and it was more challenging than any of the FF games since the Nintendo days, imo.
Hesten wrote:
Are FFXIII a game you can just sit down and play though without any guides, or should you have a laptop ready with guides and documents and checklists at all times to get the most out of it and get the best weapons?.
Just keep clicking the A button to move from cut scene to cut scene. Sometimes you'll have to move your character to a little white circle which will launch your character up over a pile of trash or something.
Well, im a bit into it now, got the Shiva sisters and around 1 hours gameplay after that.
Its beautiful, but WHY the hell did they decide to drop the "story" idea about the game ,and put all the story in data log entries instead, youre supposed to play games to get a story, not read it in random data logs as you progress!
Oh, and emo boy needs to die, Vanille dont bother me, but that emo kid better die horribly later in the game
"Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich"
Hesten wrote:Well, im a bit into it now, got the Shiva sisters and around 1 hours gameplay after that.
Its beautiful, but WHY the hell did they decide to drop the "story" idea about the game ,and put all the story in data log entries instead, youre supposed to play games to get a story, not read it in random data logs as you progress!
Oh, and emo boy needs to die, Vanille dont bother me, but that emo kid better die horribly later in the game
Haha! Emo boy hasn't died yet and I'm almost done with the game. Vanille doesn't bug me either, her voice sounds like a porn star imo, which is perfectly ok
OK, one question:
I just got the Upgrade feature, so i can upgrade my weapons.
Any tips on that? Should i just use all my materials on the beginner weapons, save up for later, save up and use it all on the beginner weapons later on? So far i just used what i had to get my 3 main chars weapons levelled up to level 3.
"Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich"
Hesten wrote:OK, one question:
I just got the Upgrade feature, so i can upgrade my weapons.
Any tips on that? Should i just use all my materials on the beginner weapons, save up for later, save up and use it all on the beginner weapons later on? So far i just used what i had to get my 3 main chars weapons levelled up to level 3.
Each character has like 3 options of ultimate weapons, which are upgraded from specific weapons. I would look up a guide online, thats how I did it.
Amazon really, really wants you to buy Final Fantasy XIII. For the millionth time this year, the retailer has cut the price of the PS3 version of the game for its Deal of the Day promotion -- this time around, you can grab the lengthy JRPG for $18.99, more than half off the usual cost.
Once again Sony Computer Entertainment Japan has dished out prizes for top selling titles in the region with Final Fantasy XIII taking the prestigious Platinum award. Square Enix's RPG was the only winner in the category this year.
Awards are broken down by sales numbers as follows:
Gold: 500,000 units
Platinum: 1,000,000 units
There are also awards given based on player votes (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 took the prize) and prizes given for top PS Store titles as well. Check out the results:
User Choice Prize
* Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
* Final Fantasy XIII
* Monster Hunter Freedom Unite – PSP the Best reprint
* Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition
* Demon’s Souls – PS3 the Best reprint
* Yakuza 4
* God of War III
* Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
* Hatsune Miku: Project Diva 2nd
* The Legend of Heroes: Zero no Kiseki
PlayStation Store Special Award
* Wizardry: Dungeon of the Imprisoned Souls
* Hatsune Miku: Project Diva additional song collection deluxe pack
* After Burner Climax
* Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Dreamy Theater
* Weekly Toro Station
Gold Prize
* Phantasy Star Portable 2
* Monster Hunter Freedom Unite – PSP the Best reprint
* Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep
* God Eater
* Yakuza 4
* Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage
* Metal Gear solid: Peace Walker
* Monster Hunter Diary: Poka Poka Felyne Village
Platinum Prize
* Final Fantasy XIII
Call of Duty was a surprising choice in Japan. What do you think of the results?
I think the true backlash of FF13 will be felt with the next FF sales numbers (not online, although the disappointment with 13 may have been a factor there).
If a game is good, it's numbers should climb with each sequel. Look at everything from Halo/CoD to things like Assassins's Creed and GTA. It works both ways though. I have a feeling the next FF will see significantly cooled sales figures. In the same vein, I think Forza 4 numbers will go up and GTA 6 numbers will drop. InFamous 2 sales will go up along with LBP 2, but I don't think Resistance 3 will sell that well because the second one was horrible and pissed a lot of people off.
"There is at least as much need to curb the cruel greed and arrogance of part of the world of capital, to curb the cruel greed and violence of part of the world of labor, as to check a cruel and unhealthy militarism in international relationships." -Theodore Roosevelt
I think the true backlash of FF13 will be felt with the next FF sales numbers (not online, although the disappointment with 13 may have been a factor there).
If a game is good, it's numbers should climb with each sequel. Look at everything from Halo/CoD to things like Assassins's Creed and GTA. It works both ways though. I have a feeling the next FF will see significantly cooled sales figures. In the same vein, I think Forza 4 numbers will go up and GTA 6 numbers will drop. InFamous 2 sales will go up along with LBP 2, but I don't think Resistance 3 will sell that well because the second one was horrible and pissed a lot of people off.
LOL
I think Fair is drunk again this morning.
I've got 99 problems and I'm not dealing with any of them - Lay-Z
I really don't know where you get your news... But the opinions of people on sites like Kotaku are completely irrelevant and not worth talking about, ever.
That aside, the next FF game is FFXIII Versus. I already expected it to do better, because from what I understand it is going to basically be FFXIII with some of the more classic FF elements tossed back in (more open, towns, etc).
There is nothing wrong with GT5, and the series as a whole will not see a decrease in sales, especially worldwide, I can all but guarantee you that.
The second Resistance was not horrible, not sure where you got that from. Single player might not have been anything groundbreaking but it was fun enough for me to play all the way through it, and the multiplayer was a blast.
Man, I think Resistance 2 is a pretty bad game. I have not played multi player at all though. Maybe I'll give that a try later. Is the community still active?
Really? I'd think MAG would be rather low. Although with the game going for $20 maybe some people gave it a shot. Personally I'll pass on a shooter that is online multiplayer only.
Fairweather Pure wrote:Man, I think Resistance 2 is a pretty bad game.
Did you even play it?
Looking at your PSN profile, it doesn't look like you have.
It also looks like you only played FFXIII for less than a half hour(1 trophy)
And it looks like you disappointment with GOW3 was also based on 20 minutes of play (1 trophy).
And did you even play GOW2?
edit
Oh shit, add God of War 3 to that list. I'm not sure how I could forget that one. After playing through 1, then part way through 2, I jumped right into 3 on release day only to fight the exact same enemies I had in the first and second, while using the exact same combos.
Partway through GOW2?
You didn't even get one trophy.
You're so full of shit
I've got 99 problems and I'm not dealing with any of them - Lay-Z
I think I have an hour of Resistance 2? I don't think it's any fun. /shrug
I'm surprised I made it through 30 minutes of GoW3 TBH. I'm about half way through part 2 and find it hard to go back, but I will eventually. I stopped playing 2 to get into part 3 and played the same game with better graphics. It was really disappointing. This was coming off of a large amount of action games I played in a row though, so I'll revisit the GoW series again soon.
And FF13 I would say I have about 2-3 hours? I think that is about equal to 20 minutes of actual game play though. I couldn't get into that at all. I felt like I was on rails. I'll go back to this one eventually too. When I do, I'll likely just start over.
None of the sequels to these games will get a day 1 purchase from me. Cheapie bin or other deal? Sure. Throw Killzone 3 in there too. I'm struggling with 2 mainly due to the horrible control scheme. Graphics are great though! Actually, that can be said for most of the above...
I got Resistance 2. It just didn't do anything for me so haven't been back to it. I think I got to the point where there's some stupid eels in the water and I couldn't make the jump or something and kept falling in and dying and was like.. Fuck this. Everything is too dark for my liking and I didn't see any sort of brightness/contrast/gamma setting in there. Or at least none that made a difference. I'm not going to manually adjust my monitor settings for a single game because the developers didn't want you to brighten things up.
Killzone 1-2 are some of the best shooters ever made, and possibly my favorite fps games ever. I certainly know they are the ones I've spent the most time playing. Killzone 2 was fucking awesome multiplayer, the controls helped make the game feel more realistic I think.
It also had the most mature audience of any shooter I've ever played, and had the least amount of douchebaggery and cheating as well.
The maps are big, classes are varied, plenty of challenging trophies and shit to go after. I really don't see how you couldn't like this game. That being said they addressed the controls issue for 3, even though I don't think they should have, so it will play more twitchy like CoD/Halo if that's what you want.
Well that's why they make so many different types of games and different games of the same type. Differenet strokes for different folks.
Personally, I couldn't handle the controls of resistance or killzone but I think it's more the playstation controller. I also couldn't finish GoW, didn't keep me interested, but I'd like to finish it to try 2 and 3.
Darksiders was fun, though!
so it will play more twitchy like CoD/Halo if that's what you want.
It is my opinion that CoD/Halo couldn't play more differently from each other.
Dakanaf wrote:Well that's why they make so many different types of games and different games of the same type. Differenet strokes for different folks.
Personally, I couldn't handle the controls of resistance or killzone but I think it's more the playstation controller. I also couldn't finish GoW, didn't keep me interested, but I'd like to finish it to try 2 and 3.
Darksiders was fun, though!
so it will play more twitchy like CoD/Halo if that's what you want.
It is my opinion that CoD/Halo couldn't play more differently from each other.
I agree CoD and Halo play differently, I was just commenting more on the control sensitivity. In Killzone 2 you could turn very fast, so if you had to spin around and shoot someone behind you it took a second. In Halo/CoD/pretty much any other shooter you can twitch around and spin really quick if you want.
BTW, FF XIII-2 was announced for later in the year. I guess it didn'that bad saleswise on the 360 since it will be released on XBOX again as well. PS3 (and PC) can keep their broken FFXIV!
Their numbering system sucks. Why did they make the MMO one FFXIV?
