Battle Systems for FF13 and Versus Revealed

[Kuya]

Wow I thought I was one of the only ones who was generally disappointed by FFXII.

The general gameplay was enjoyable but I do agree with the general tone of the thread that isn't was not anything remotely special, it was the story line that really pissed me off.

Just seemed like the characters were as thin as a piece of paper and the usual 'epic struggle' and 'hero' characters that I love so much weren't there. To be honest the characters made me hate playing through the game and by the end every time a CS triggered I cringed.

Heavy emphasis on real vocal dialogue being the only medium (with text to narrate with it in some cases) drastically reduces the potential depth of a game. In older games when you could have a 15-20 minute character developing text discussion that you could take at your own pace (however fast you read) was great and really helped me get into the game, but having voice actors that don't fit the characters / have annoying voices talk at you for 15-20 minutes for a casual conversation just is not going to happen.

Bring back the text

As soon as i read the part where you implied the voice acting was bad, i desired nothing but your untimely demise.

I wouldn't say that I'm psychic, but I'm getting a very strong sense of imminent anal rape radiating from you.

On a related note, brb going to your house

There's rape for everybody in this tropical island of mine.

[GRT]

i don't think FF13's battle system will be anything like FF12's

if you want a taste of it, try to look up gameplay preview of game called "white knight," that's what FF13's will be like

can't wait for that (if we ever get it), Level 5 are getting better and better everytime they bring a new game out

(Rogue Galaxy feggin owns)

well ps3 games have no region restrictions :D

[Xavier]

FFXII has a nice idea though. I like gambits, I love the liscense grid, everything there is good imo.

Yeah........I liked being able to go afk for literally 20 minutes in a room full of mobs and my characters still be fighting for me, at full health, or the boss be dead, because of gambits too. I also liked how every single one of my characters were exact replicas of the other in the very beginning of the game to the very end because of the shitty license grid FF12 had.

I hope the people doing the systems this time won't make those same mistakes again. Gambits were kind of cool, yes, but they made the game boring. And I know I didn't have to use them, but I did, and that was my impression of them.

FF10's grid was so much better.

Gotta agree here.

Also, am I the only one who kinda played through FF12 and instead of gambits wished you could have more than one player? Felt like it would've been a bit more exciting to be able to use the second controller to actually have a friend play too. Would've needed to make a seperate menu for the extra controller but for some reason, I like the idea of gamits, just as long as the gambit is named Tom and hes sitting right next to me.

Secret of Mana(?) did this fairly well, if I remember correctly. If the FF series is really going more action-rpg, I'd rather see something like this than a better AI.

[Priran]

And since when does FF change things? Have you ever played 1-10? Aside from adding job classes / materia / draw system / etc, theyre all still random encounter battles, FF12 was the first change.

...wut

[Lbelle]

Wow I thought I was one of the only ones who was generally disappointed by FFXII.

The general gameplay was enjoyable but I do agree with the general tone of the thread that isn't was not anything remotely special, it was the story line that really pissed me off.

Just seemed like the characters were as thin as a piece of paper and the usual 'epic struggle' and 'hero' characters that I love so much weren't there. To be honest the characters made me hate playing through the game and by the end every time a CS triggered I cringed.

Heavy emphasis on real vocal dialogue being the only medium (with text to narrate with it in some cases) drastically reduces the potential depth of a game. In older games when you could have a 15-20 minute character developing text discussion that you could take at your own pace (however fast you read) was great and really helped me get into the game, but having voice actors that don't fit the characters / have annoying voices talk at you for 15-20 minutes for a casual conversation just is not going to happen.

Bring back the text

As soon as i read the part where you implied the voice acting was bad, i desired nothing but your untimely demise.

Agreed. The voice acting in FF12 was one of it's redeeming qualities to me. I thought 95% of the characters VA's were really, really spot-on. Especially Balthier, Fran, and Penelo.

And Elcura, I liked that they implemented something new into the FF games. I'm just saying that personally I hated gambits and thought they made the game almost mind-numbing in certain points.

I don't know, I was really disappointed with FF12's gameplay overall. The graphics, acting, and music were all amazing...but the story, characters, and gameplay were lackluster, TO ME. I think that I'd need to hear many reviews, from Americans, before I would even consider investing in a PS3 for the new game(s). Famitsu giving a game 10/10 has no meaning to me anymore after they gave it to 12. 12 left so much to be desired.

[Maguspk]

FFXII has a nice idea though. I like gambits, I love the liscense grid, everything there is good imo.

Yeah........I liked being able to go afk for literally 20 minutes in a room full of mobs and my characters still be fighting for me, at full health, or the boss be dead, because of gambits too. I also liked how every single one of my characters were exact replicas of the other in the very beginning of the game to the very end because of the shitty license grid FF12 had.

I hope the people doing the systems this time won't make those same mistakes again. Gambits were kind of cool, yes, but they made the game boring. And I know I didn't have to use them, but I did, and that was my impression of them.

FF10's grid was so much better.

Gotta agree here.

Also, am I the only one who kinda played through FF12 and instead of gambits wished you could have more than one player? Felt like it would've been a bit more exciting to be able to use the second controller to actually have a friend play too. Would've needed to make a seperate menu for the extra controller but for some reason, I like the idea of gamits, just as long as the gambit is named Tom and hes sitting right next to me.

Secret of Mana(?) did this fairly well, if I remember correctly. If the FF series is really going more action-rpg, I'd rather see something like this than a better AI.

There was a 2 player option in FF9. :D One of the kewlest features it had, and a reason why it's one of my favorites, Just chillin at my friends house and he'd let me control his Vivi or something and I'd just nuke shit :D I guess the 2 player thing was experimental back then and they must've abandoned it because I don't think we've seen it since. It'd be kewl to see this though, especially since it makes alot more sense with FFXII's battle system. I totally agree.

[Quicklet]

Yoshinori Kitase, producer of Final Fantasy XIII, pointed out that, for example, enemy battalions will be made up of individual soldiers, each with his own history and character.

I'm half expecting the game to give a message when you kill a soldier saying "You've just killed Bob from the 5th Batallion. He was only 2 weeks away from retirement. He leaves behind a wife and two children."

There was a 2 player option in FF9.

I think FF6 had a 2 player option as well, at least in the SNES release.

[Charla]

Voice Acting: FF12 did it well. FF10 did it not so well. Some games (like anything from Nippon Ichi) did it well on the JP voices and a lot worse on the English voices. It's true that it can sometimes get in the way of drawn-out character development sequences, but there are ways around that. For one thing, the majority of text in the game is still text only, because they save the voices for cutscenes and major or early game events. Anything post-game, which is where I tend to spend the majority of the time, is usually text only by default.

Changing stuff: "adding job classes / materia / draw system / etc" were all major changes to the basic formula, and they made each game significantly different from the others. That's part of the reason why everyone seems to have such different opinions about each one, especially the later ones (7-10). They changed a lot of stuff between each game, both engine elements and story elements. I would hold that the change from customizable and therefore interchangable characters to unique characters (8 to 9) and back again (9 to 10) was almost as significant as the change from crash screen encounters to 12's encounter system. And of course, Changing stuff every game might not even be the best approach, because DQ is still pretty big (in Japan).

Plot stuff: if you don't like epic stories that eventually turn convoluted, JP CRPGs might not be the sub-genre for you.

[Elcura]

Wow I thought I was one of the only ones who was generally disappointed by FFXII.

The general gameplay was enjoyable but I do agree with the general tone of the thread that isn't was not anything remotely special, it was the story line that really pissed me off.

Just seemed like the characters were as thin as a piece of paper and the usual 'epic struggle' and 'hero' characters that I love so much weren't there. To be honest the characters made me hate playing through the game and by the end every time a CS triggered I cringed.

Heavy emphasis on real vocal dialogue being the only medium (with text to narrate with it in some cases) drastically reduces the potential depth of a game. In older games when you could have a 15-20 minute character developing text discussion that you could take at your own pace (however fast you read) was great and really helped me get into the game, but having voice actors that don't fit the characters / have annoying voices talk at you for 15-20 minutes for a casual conversation just is not going to happen.

Bring back the text

As soon as i read the part where you implied the voice acting was bad, i desired nothing but your untimely demise.

Oh god, I have to say go back to the stone age, where games were all text based and there were nothing but b/w silent movies with subtitles. VA in 12 was fucking great, the scene when you reached the top of Pharos Third Ascent simply took my breath away (Gabranth and Reddes were especially awesome).

If you can't keep up with voice acting how the hell do you understand anything at all? I admit, even though the VA in XII was fantastic, the old English dialogue did make some parts hard to keep up with, if you had the subtitles on and the VAs started ad-libbing (I think that's what it's called) then you could get screwed up. Best advice is to turn of the subtitles, or leave them on and get a dictionary. >.>

@Lbelle

I was mainly pointing out your gripe with the non-unique characters, when a lot of FF's had non-unique characters. 9 was the only one lately that's had that.

Again, like you said it's all about what you like. Famitsu giving 12 a 10/10 seems worthy to me, because I think 12 was amazing.

anyway, I didn't mind the random encounters so much as the actually crash screen into the fight. Those annoy me to no end, especially when you're trying to farm/level up/skill up/whatever having that screen every 2 steps is gay. When you're going through a dungeon and you've JUST finished a battle, you literally take 2 steps into another fight. You really don't progress at all do you? And you know I'm right, it's happened to all of us, the only people who like it are masochists.

Like I said before, some RPGs will have a traditional (sigh lazy) way about them, they won't try anything new, or dare to change anything in fear or getting rejected. But why why WHY do people want the same shit? You want to continue reliving the past experience you had with the old days of gaming? Here's a tip, go play those games and leave the new ones alone.

12 was a change, for better or for worse it's still paving a way to greater things, seeing what people like and disliked about it (seems to be the gambit system love/hate relationship, personally I wouldn't care if they took it out even though I liked it).

Edit: Charla, how did 8 have unique characters? It's basically a materia system (GFs being the slots and the skills being materia). All characters had/could have the same magic, all characters could have a skill if you wanted them too, you could change who had what junctioned and what they had junctioned to what stat. There was about the same uniqueness as in 7.

[Akiyama]

I pesronally enjoy the gambit system, but I understand how that can make the game boring. I PERSONALLY love the liscense grid over the sphere grid system. Granted I wish the Liscense grid wasn't so small, which is what sphere grid had an edge on.. with it being so massive and all. I dunno. I dunno, there was just something I enjoyed about the liscense grid. Storyline I like, but it's a bit small. I mean, I'm sure you could rush through it and beat it in ~30 hours if you wanted. Also, something I thought of.. the Neguulmar(sp) trick is what really puts the gambit-afking thing to the test.. heh, so funny.

I too miss the multiplayer RPGs. I don't understand why exactly they don't put in the option to control more than one character or anything, what could it hurt? I suppose it's easy enough to just swap controllers with someone.. maybe they'll add it to the coming ones, who knows.

I've seen the stuff for White Knight. Looks awesome. Maybe FFXIII will fail, or maybe it won't. Guess we won't know until we all play through it. Videos always excite me, but that's their purpose so meh. Still hate that the main character is named Lightning. >>


Also, torwards Elcura: Your opinion about 8 imo is true. FFVIII's characters were really close to FVII too along with the system. FFIX had the nifty "You have to equip certain things to learn them, etc" while FFVIII you just threw certain GF's on certain characters you feel needed it.. magic in the slots, and what not. Didn't help that Squall and Cloud are like cousins or something because GOD can they both whine. Random battles are also annoying, but part of that "traditional" thing. I personally like how FFXII handled it with the monsters/marks/rare monsters. Respawn times on them by zoning through a couple zones first, killing others.. that was fun. Having them break through your screen ever 4.5 steps gets aggrivating.

[Elcura]

The problem with multiplayer RPGs I think is that you can't always control the character. I mean, sure it's fine for dungeons but what after that? Do you wanna sit around watching your friend talk to random NPCs and buy potions?

I think multiplayer is great for systems that demand them, or can work with them. Something like that is probably best done in a bonus dungeon or area (like how Star Ocean has the Cave of Trials). Also, with the random battles, it just breaks up the multiplayer gameplay way to much, you'd be fighting for a while, the battle ends and you see player 1 controlling the avatar until you got into a fight, what's player 2 gonna do?

Now, admittedly, games that focus on multiplayer in an RPG setting would have to be like 12 in terms of mechanics, but if it's just a hidden feature (it's nice I guess) it probably just takes up space that doesn't need to be taken up.

[Julian]

It's an RPG, of course player1 is going to be controlling everything outside of battle. Letting another person control a character or two with a different controller is just a small fun thing to do.

Like I said before, some RPGs will have a traditional (sigh lazy) way about them, they won't try anything new, or dare to change anything in fear or getting rejected. But why why WHY do people want the same shit? You want to continue reliving the past experience you had with the old days of gaming? Here's a tip, go play those games and leave the new ones alone.

Just because I don't like some of the changes they're making, I'm not allowed to want new games that follow the same formula that has always worked?

[CaptainN]

It's an RPG, of course player1 is going to be controlling everything outside of battle. Letting another person control a character or two with a different controller is just a small fun thing to do.

Like I said before, some RPGs will have a traditional (sigh lazy) way about them, they won't try anything new, or dare to change anything in fear or getting rejected. But why why WHY do people want the same shit? You want to continue reliving the past experience you had with the old days of gaming? Here's a tip, go play those games and leave the new ones alone.

Just because I don't like some of the changes they're making, I'm not allowed to want new games that follow the same formula that has always worked?

Nope, because in other genre of games people scream for new gameplay or a new system. RPGs have to follow the same suite as everything else if the gameplay doesn't evolve then all RPGs feel the same except for a different story. I think someone already said this but Zelda seems to be the only game that can do the same thing over and over and over for years and people still buy it, and wont bitch about the same gameplay. I personally am a little tired of zelda gameplay, even the Wii its the same shit except I swing my arms :D

[Xavier]

The problem with multiplayer RPGs I think is that you can't always control the character. I mean, sure it's fine for dungeons but what after that? Do you wanna sit around watching your friend talk to random NPCs and buy potions?

For FF12, I've been playing the game with Nikkei. That is, we basically just take turns playing while the other watches, and progress through the game. The one thing I noticed is that it'd be a lot more fun/interactive, if say, I could pick up the controller, turn the gambit for one of the characters off, and play it alongside her.

FF12 def. has the game design to support something like this, and I think it would've made the combat a lot more fun in the end. I don't really have a problem watching someone else talk to NPCs, buy potions, etc, because it honestly makes very little difference if I'm the one hitting the X button or another player, so long as I get to watch the story unfold.

[Matricide]

Agree ff10 vs 12. I don't know, but FF12 just got boring for me, I think I'm near level 40 and i just lost interest in progressing further into the story. The sad part is i FEEL it has a good story and i'd like to see the rest, but I dread actually playing it. I think the gambit system is stupid and mindless, it takes away from the interactivity of the game--at the same time it's practically required because of how the battle system and mobs are, and the loot system of course.

I liked 7, 8, and 10.. 9 I disliked because of the characters and setting so i couldn't get into it. 10 had the best aspects for me. I hope 13 is not too similar to 12 personally. I'd like to see a combonation of 10 and 12.. stick to the roots but get rid of this ff11/gambit bullshit, I just simply don't like it. I love the world and the 'map', and other things however.

i dunno, just a ramble.

[killerx]

yah i used to have all the classic RPG"s there was allways a new one to buy now im kinda like fuck theres just nothing like there used to be. FF's Dragon quests and alot others. I think the only thing to look forword too is what FF and..... heck i have no idea kinda bumed i've allways liked the ATM gages

[Exoduso]

I think FF12 was extremely boring until just before Pharos and up until the end when the storyline got interesting and actually reminded me of a Final Fantasy...

It had way better voice overs than FFX did, even if the quality wasn't so great due to compressing issues.

But with FF13 it won't be a problem, so as long as they do a good job on them it should be fine.

[Elcura]

The problem with multiplayer RPGs I think is that you can't always control the character. I mean, sure it's fine for dungeons but what after that? Do you wanna sit around watching your friend talk to random NPCs and buy potions?

For FF12, I've been playing the game with Nikkei. That is, we basically just take turns playing while the other watches, and progress through the game. The one thing I noticed is that it'd be a lot more fun/interactive, if say, I could pick up the controller, turn the gambit for one of the characters off, and play it alongside her.

FF12 def. has the game design to support something like this, and I think it would've made the combat a lot more fun in the end. I don't really have a problem watching someone else talk to NPCs, buy potions, etc, because it honestly makes very little difference if I'm the one hitting the X button or another player, so long as I get to watch the story unfold.

I totally see your point there, but the main reason is, sure it might be fun to do it once in a while, but creating a game and having a sole mechanic of being able to control a certain character in battle doesn't seem logical. Another problem comes from if 2 people are at different points in the story, one guy is way ahead of the other, does the one behind have to watch and get confused, should the one infront skip the story for the others' sake?

While I really think if 12 had multiplayer it would've been great fun (but the issue of camera vs split screen etc) but in general, it's a hard thing to do and always an afterthought. Usually there's a lot to think about, and it really all comes down to IF your design allows you to incorporate something like that into the game, I'd say most times it doesn't which is why you don't see it very often.

The only game I could say with confidence that could've used a 2p in it's system was Star Ocean, it just seems like a perfect system for 2 people to play. 12 would've been high above the rest, but they'd have to split the screen or do a system link (which I personally hate).

In general though, about traditional RPGs, I'm just bored of them, I'm sure we've all played a ton to last a life time.

[Lbelle]

FF12 could have had the exact same multiplayer system that games like Tlaes of Symphonia (or Abyss) had, and been the exact same game but more fun. Those basically did what Xav wants, and that is 1st player controls EVERYTHING outside of battle pretty much, but other people can join in during the fights as whichever character they want. They totally could have done that for 12...but I don't really mind one way or the other.

And Elcura, FF9 is my most favorite game in the entire universe, and I love how you keep pointing out how good it is/how they did things right.

Also, I was thinking about this. In FF10 if you want all your characters to have the same sphere grid you need to work for it. Since you NEED locks to get to certain parts, and like a LEVEL 3 SPHERE GRID MARKER thingy to unlock certain things, that meant you had to go to places and farm for them for sometimes hours just to get 1 little thing. It took work. Unlike in FF12 where all you have to do is buy 6 TPx2 trinkets or whatever and just go to an easy zone and put your lazymode gambits on for 20 minutes in order to get like 400 TP. To use in the exact same spots on all your characters.

Yeah you don't HAVE to put the shit in the same spot, but why wouldn't you get +HP for each character, and more STR for each character etc.?

[Elcura]

FF12 could have had the exact same multiplayer system that games like Tlaes of Symphonia (or Abyss) had, and been the exact same game but more fun. Those basically did what Xav wants, and that is 1st player controls EVERYTHING outside of battle pretty much, but other people can join in during the fights as whichever character they want. They totally could have done that for 12...but I don't really mind one way or the other.

And Elcura, FF9 is my most favorite game in the entire universe, and I love how you keep pointing out how good it is/how they did things right.

Also, I was thinking about this. In FF10 if you want all your characters to have the same sphere grid you need to work for it. Since you NEED locks to get to certain parts, and like a LEVEL 3 SPHERE GRID MARKER thingy to unlock certain things, that meant you had to go to places and farm for them for sometimes hours just to get 1 little thing. It took work. Unlike in FF12 where all you have to do is buy 6 TPx2 trinkets or whatever and just go to an easy zone and put your lazymode gambits on for 20 minutes in order to get like 400 TP. To use in the exact same spots on all your characters.

Yeah you don't HAVE to put the shit in the same spot, but why wouldn't you get +HP for each character, and more STR for each character etc.?

FF9 also happens to be my favourite as well. If for anything it was because the characters were unique inside a battle and out.

Otherwise, I do agree with what you said, it did take work to customize the sphere grid, and surely a lot more could've been done to make each character unique, the main way would've been to make each character's sphere grid different. give them all different skills/magicks/augments etc. Of course, XII took long enough to come out, doing something like that would've taken it longer, XII was rushed hardcore in the story and someplaces the gameplay too.