Final Fantasy XIII Noob

[Xanatos]

Bought Final Fantasy XIII today, and while I don't plan on playing it just yet I do however have several questions on my mind, just to get the gist of what I'm heading into.

First of all, I've seen the entire walkthrough by "HassanAlHajry" when this game first came out, was solely interested in story and characters at that time so my questions are mostly gameplay related.

- Compared to other games in the series how challenging Final Fantasy XIII actually is?

- On first glance its battle system looks confusing to be honest, is it hard to get into and how much freedom over character development does it offer?

- Gameplay wise which Final Fantasy would you say it resembles the most?

- Overall, how much content does this game offer?

I could of course look up all of this online, but I prefer help from fellow TFF members, thus I appreciate anyone who decides to help me, and if it happens you have some tips and tricks of your own feel free to add.

[Andromeda]

I've talked about the challenge of the game in the past. I'd say that FFXIII is one of the more challenging FF games, this is partly due to the fact that unlike every other FF game, MMO ones not counted, you have to use debuffs in the game, especially against bosses, which goes against expected behavior for a FF. You expect bosses to be immune to most debuffs, but it is the way to way. Buffs and debuffs are very important. Plus they game is more macro focused than micro focused, like past FF. So it is more about the long game rather than the short game in combat. Your focus should be on what roles people are in more so than specifically selecting every single attack you make. It rewards smart play over spam play.

Combat wise the close game is FFX-2, but FFXIII is very unique in combat unlike any of the other games. X-2 is the only one close to it.

Content-wise there is a fair amount of stuff end game and post game, but not a lot through the first part of the game. When you reach Pulse everything opens up.

[Kurt Zisa]

I've not long owned this game, but I can tell you that although the battle and level up system looked confusing at first, they weren't too hard to get the hang of. There's plenty of tutorials on how to understand the battle system, and like Andromeda said, it plays a lot like X-2 with a few elements of XII thrown in.

I wish I could be more help, but yeah I'm only about 10 or so hours into the game.

[HeroZero]

I put it at moderate difficulty. I do like the fact that early on you cannot just sit and power level (as you run into temporary level caps) because I always feel that ruins games and can make you worse by the time you reach end game when you can't just overpower everything.

Something that is of note is that the first part of the game is similar to an extended tutorial, You are given different class combinations to pick from with the different storylines forcing you to become a little more diverse in your combat styles.

In terms of freedom of character development each character has their forte roles, which is to say their starting three. Lightning has Commando, Ravager, and Medic, and Sazh has Ravager, Synergist and Commando. They obviously have different strong roles but even past that they will learn some different abilities for their commando role (or ravager) and/or learn the same abilities at different points in their paths. At end game all roles are open to all characters, but are relatively expensive to develop as soon as you unlock them. I guess what I am getting at is rather than customization per se, it is more like you pick the characters that you like their abilities.

I feel as though I have gotten long winded and perhaps not said anything useful. But it is definitely in my top three favorite games (probably top two of FF games) and I highly suggest playing it.

[Sang Hee]

I found the game pretty easy though I hated the pretty much all the game mechanics, from shops to item handling to upgrading.

The battle system is ok, never had a problem with it in terms of difficulty. Though compared to other games it takes much longer to kill an enemy. It's more about staggering in most cases so it's more strategic overall.

From the looks of it I'd say 13's similar to 12 but I've never played it, just watched.

It's Final Fantasy so the content is plenty and after finishing the story you can return to the open area and do more questing and leveling. Not sure if there's more than what other games have to offer.

[Sheechiibii]

- Compared to other games in the series how challenging Final Fantasy XIII actually is?

It can be quite difficult at times because the game caps your development pretty much constantly until late in the game so you can't level up to be stronger than the game wants you to be. On the other hand, with the right paradigms and autobattle you can breeze through a lot of the game just tapping X.

- On first glance its battle system looks confusing to be honest, is it hard to get into and how much freedom over character development does it offer?

Pretty much no freedom at all. You have no choice for most of the game over which character fulfils which roles and you have no choice over how strong they get either since the game only lets you level them so far. Eventually you get access to the other roles, but by that point your character is going to be the best at what they're already doing. The battle system isn't too hard to grasp, mostly because a lot of the game is spent taking you through tutorial after tutorial,and eventually you'll have seen enough tutorials for you to understand how it works.

- Gameplay wise which Final Fantasy would you say it resembles the most?

Emm, probably X-2 because you can swap roles during battle. But that's really the only similarity, it's very different to all other FF games.

- Overall, how much content does this game offer?

A lot of story, a lot of pretty graphics. Not much else, sorry.

[loaf]

The problem I found with XIII is the fact that every single battle has a certain strategy to do it in order to get that 5 star, there are other ways to win but not many for a perfect 5 star.

Character development is kind of free. You can either focus on 1 role or split it up between each character, eventually it'll go down to everyone has everything in their own way.

I feel it's in it's own new type of Final Fantasy, it's the Next Gen of Final Fantasy, so I feel it's the first type.

the content is pretty good, once you get to the "World Map" you have a lot of stuff to do I feel.

8/10 Wouldn't play a 3rd time.