Wild Arms: XF trumps FFT

[Genosync]

And even if I typed all the reasons why, you wouldn't believe me anyway.

1. No class is overpowered
2. Strategy is key (I killed a Lv20 mob with 4 Lv2-3 characters, lol)
3. Non-story battles are fast paced, fun, and rewarding

WINNN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN and this is just the tip of the iceberg

Play it. Crisis Core is still a quality game, but WA:XF just won sleeper hit of the year from me.

[Julian]

olde news is old, but WA:XF is an awesome game and it does deserve its own topic so I approve

3. Non-story battles are fast paced, fun, and rewarding

Sorry but I'm gonna have to disagree with that point, most non-story battles are pointless and they reward such tiny amounts of exp that they're not worthwhile (except for a select few of them, of course)

I don't consider that a bad thing though, fuck exp grinding, it's not needed at all in this game. (CSP on the other hand.. but that's easy in that one level with the wanderer or w/e, forgot what its called)

And to add to this topic: Levin is a fucking beast, that is all. <3 Levin

[Charismatic]

I haven't had a whole lot of hands-on time with it yet, playing through Tales of Eternia (Destiny 2) again, and to be frank I'm having more fun with an old game that I've beat 8 times than Wild Arms XF.

Not to say that it's a bad game, but I don't think it's all that.

[Krandor]

My only complaint with the game, is characters being stripped of items along with equip on class changes.

The equipment makes sense, but items gets annoying since I forgot to refill that alot.

Otherwise, it's a really really good game, it's a shame "professional" reviewers have been destroying the game.

[Marcin]

Out of my curiosity, since i'm trying to get more psp games to have something to do in between class breaks. How's the story? How does it compare to a story like FFT since you're saying it 'trumps' the game? I found Jeanne D'arc and FFT interesting because the stories motivated me to keep playing them.

Would you say it's right up there with them? Or better?

[Viq]

It was good, and I'll agree that it's better than FFT. It's still not the best SRPG on PSP, as Jeanne D'Arc holds that honor.

My biggest beef with WA:XF is that story maps got too large. I'm of the belief that SRPG's are more enjoyable when maps are kept to limited scale (Jeanne, Shining Force 3). Typically, the larger the maps get, the more downtime there is from basic movement (WA:XF, Front Mission 4). As the game went on, the maps got bigger without getting much more difficult or requiring larger amounts of strategy. As a result, the game boiled down to running an army of Geomancers with Elementalist Originals coupled with Fantasticas with Dandelion Shot Originals to simply speed up battles that would otherwise take forever with slower moving classes.

[Julian]

@above: learn2levin

Out of my curiosity, since i'm trying to get more psp games to have something to do in between class breaks. How's the story? How does it compare to a story like FFT since you're saying it 'trumps' the game? I found Jeanne D'arc and FFT interesting because the stories motivated me to keep playing them.

Would you say it's right up there with them? Or better?

ugh, I personally don't think WA:XF is better than FFT but you can't really compare them, they're completely different games. FFT had its own great story and great gameplay and job system, and WA has a different style of gameplay, and its own story style.

I liked the story, it started out simple, but stuff happened and it got a bit more complex. (I'm a sucker for these war-type stories though <.<)

[Marcin]

ugh, I personally don't think WA:XF is better than FFT but you can't really compare them, they're completely different games. FFT had its own great story and great gameplay and job system, and WA has a different style of gameplay, and its own story style.

I liked the story, it started out simple, but stuff happened and it got a bit more complex. (I'm a sucker for these war-type stories though <.<)

Main reason I added FFT in there was because of the op's title, hard to trump a game that had an awesome job system and a rich storyline. I'm a sucker for war-type stories too, which is why i've always been so into FFT and thought FF12 was entertaining. Howeverrrrrrrrrr, I don't wanna keep replaying SH:Origins on my psp, but at the same time I don't wanna purchase a game that has a cheesy storyline.

But if WA:XF's story ends up becoming more complex, I guess i'll see.

[Vinen]

I enjoyed WA:XF a lot more then I did Final Fantasy Tactics to be honest. Then again, I found WA:XF to actually make me think once in a while (although, that thinking was more ohh... I need to have 3 of X class instead of 4!!! or... so the game never told me I could one shot shit by teleporting it from one leypoint to an opposing leypoint) unlike FFTactics (which I found to be incredibly easy... outside of 1 or 2 battles). FFTactics was a zzz even when I first played it in terms of difficulty. WA:XF while easy still caused me to lose more then a handful of battles.

[Sasarai]

How does it compare to Vandal Hearts 1 and 2?

[Kaelan]

I've only started playing XF a few days ago but so far it hasn't been holding a candle to FFT. The jobs look extremely simplified, the game seems to have a tendency to railroad me into using the strategies, the equipment and going to the places the devs want me to go and the dialogue has been horrible so far. So far to me, XF has been the checkers to FFT's chess. The music is nice but that's about it. But I guess we'll see, I still have to get further into the game to see everything there is too see first, maybe it gets better.

[Krandor]

Jeanne D'Arc is way way way way way too fucking easy to earn the distinction of best PSP SPRG. The game is good yeah, but it feels like the Ratchet and Clank of the RPG world (shiny graphics, fun gameplay, but mindnumbingly easy once you learn the basics).

I however, need to get back to this game. I bought a PS3 with my tax return and haven't touched XF for a few weeks because the mission to enter Elensia is fucking brutal (and I don't feel like cheesing the game with the Creeping Chaos "trick")

[Genosync]

Things don't have to give you actual statistics, items, and etc. in the game to mean they're rewarding to you.

These are short, smaller conflicts that take less time to actually take care of, and you're guaranteed to get one no matter what location you're going to... go to the location, choose to enter it, if it's not a current story location/town/other things, you automatically get a fight with a random (well, kinda, it picks from certain sets of mobs) group of enemies. It doesn't take long, you get a little bit of a boost from it, and you get to have fun.

Instead of cheesing the fuck out of the level up system by hitting/healing your own dudes.

And to whoever only was playing with Fantasica(DS OCs) and w/e the fuck you said, try doing something else. There's tons of things that work, and obviously you're not even bothering to figure them out.

This game has quick content available in short spurts (and thus the focus of portable gaming) that is a lot of fun, and battles themselves are not as long and drawn out as some of FFTs (unless you cheese the hell out of the game and abuse jobs). I thought FFT was really kinda zzz to me too, but that was before I got on Adderall.


Oh, and actually seeing the Game Over screen in a game?

Dude, if I actually try to do something, and get a few Game Overs on one fight, that makes me rate the game higher in my head. Things like the 'break these people out of teh prisonz' mission don't count, but the ones not involving that definently do. I got a few kinda being lazy and not preparing properly (the bulk of the strategy for this game takes place in preparation), then making one or two stupid mistakes made me fail.

[Viq]

And to whoever only was playing with Fantasica(DS OCs) and w/e the fuck you said, try doing something else. There's tons of things that work, and obviously you're not even bothering to figure them out.

You completely missed my point. I agree with you wholeheartedly that short-spurt gameplay is key to an enjoyable handheld game. I agree that the random battles offer that. My issue was that the story battles are not much harder than random battles, they simply spread units out over larger maps. All this does is artificially lengthen battles, and goes against the pre-established fundamental short-spurt enjoyment of a handheld game.

The reason for using the Geomancer + Fantastica combo is because it's the best way I've found (since I can't clone Levin) to speed up story battles. I know other classes are playable, and I know there are ways to do battles with almost any combo. The problem is that I don't want to spend twice as much time on a story battle than I need to just because it's on a giant map.

[Genosync]

And to whoever only was playing with Fantasica(DS OCs) and w/e the fuck you said, try doing something else. There's tons of things that work, and obviously you're not even bothering to figure them out.

You completely missed my point. I agree with you wholeheartedly that short-spurt gameplay is key to an enjoyable handheld game. I agree that the random battles offer that. My issue was that the story battles are not much harder than random battles, they simply spread units out over larger maps. All this does is artificially lengthen battles, and goes against the pre-established fundamental short-spurt enjoyment of a handheld game.

The reason for using the Geomancer + Fantastica combo is because it's the best way I've found (since I can't clone Levin) to speed up story battles. I know other classes are playable, and I know there are ways to do battles with almost any combo. The problem is that I don't want to spend twice as much time on a story battle than I need to just because it's on a giant map.

Story battles can be harder if you don't take the easy way to win.

[Genosync]

bumping because some moron thinks that portable games don't really have that much gameplay or varying content because they have to make room for graphics and sound.

[Kenai]

Otherwise, it's a really really good game, it's a shame "professional" reviewers have been destroying the game.

It's really not surprising. Quite a few games I ended up loving were also ones that I almost didn't play because of the reviews (two off the top of my head are BK: O and Etrian). I enjoy feedback from forums like this to get a better impression on whether or not I'll actually enjoy the game.

I'll be sure to pick this up whenever I get around to picking up a PSP. It will happen someday I'm sure, there's a nice little bit of RPG goodness building up on it.

[Genosync]

Otherwise, it's a really really good game, it's a shame "professional" reviewers have been destroying the game.

It's really not surprising. Quite a few games I ended up loving were also ones that I almost didn't play because of the reviews (two off the top of my head are BK: O and Etrian). I enjoy feedback from forums like this to get a better impression on whether or not I'll actually enjoy the game.

I'll be sure to pick this up whenever I get around to picking up a PSP. It will happen someday I'm sure, there's a nice little bit of RPG goodness building up on it.

If you're thinking Crisis Core is actually good, you'll be disappointed.

The only reasons it's even managing the 7.5/8s it's getting from professional reviewers is because it's Squeenix and it's FF7. Honestly, I'd give that game a 7 at best, and that's being generous due to the lack of fun in the gameplay. Krandor only finished it to see the story, and I'm having issues even wanting to get off WA:XF long enough to do that.

XF is fucking godly. Get a PSP for this game, not for stupid Crisis Core.

[Ryushii]

Otherwise, it's a really really good game, it's a shame "professional" reviewers have been destroying the game.

It's really not surprising. Quite a few games I ended up loving were also ones that I almost didn't play because of the reviews (two off the top of my head are BK: O and Etrian). I enjoy feedback from forums like this to get a better impression on whether or not I'll actually enjoy the game.

I'll be sure to pick this up whenever I get around to picking up a PSP. It will happen someday I'm sure, there's a nice little bit of RPG goodness building up on it.

If you're thinking Crisis Core is actually good, you'll be disappointed.

The only reasons it's even managing the 7.5/8s it's getting from professional reviewers is because it's Squeenix and it's FF7. Honestly, I'd give that game a 7 at best, and that's being generous due to the lack of fun in the gameplay. Krandor only finished it to see the story, and I'm having issues even wanting to get off WA:XF long enough to do that.

XF is fucking godly. Get a PSP for this game, not for stupid Crisis Core.

Bitter much? You sound like the FF7 franchise killed your girlfriend or something. Seriously, cut the unnecessary game bashing if you want people to respect your opinion. You can dislike a game and express that dislike without sounding like it caused bodily harm to you.

[Genosync]

take ff7 away from crisis core and tell me what you have left

I'd much rather have crisis core's storyline with just readable dialog, I should go check gamefaqs to see if someone's transcribed it yet.

this isn't unnecessary gamebashing, this is pointing out the fact that the stupid 'omg ff7' fanboys need to get off the damn game and realize why they liked FF7 so much in the first place (and I'm going to be the first one to say, the graphics were not the main reason you played the game).

Graphics this, graphics that. OMG, voice acting so important.

I'll take a much higher percentage of games from NES/SNES and play them compared to most of the garbage called games that we get now-a-days.

I'm not just bashing FF7:CC, and if you'd like, I'll mark them out for you:

- People who think graphics are extremely important for handheld games

- Games that sacrifice gameplay for graphics, story, or other content (you're playing a game--if you want another aspect of this other than gameplay being the most important part, why are you playing a game?)

- Games that have good gameplay, but however fail in all other areas at the same time (having a bad story, doesn't necessarily completely kill a game... ex. Grandia Xtreme is a very good example here, because while story was poor and voice acting was deadly to the ears, graphics were pretty good at release, and the small soundtrack is utterly amazing)


My problem with gaming overall in today's scene is the fact that companies, as well as the gamers, are starting to focus so much of the development time and process dealing with fixing people's cravings for these visual/audio stimulations and they're failing, quite often, to refine the gameplay. Look at gaming, starting with NES anyway, and do a fair assessment of what it's become. There's so few games that, at least myself, personally, enjoy that come out, and the sad part is... most of them are on portable systems.

Of course, you've still got your FPSes, which do sometimes evolve, and have decent hooks and well implemented features. I really should play some FPS, but don't want to sit at the PC too long (and refuse to play FPS with a controller). Those are still pretty decent, but the RPG market has kinda... crashed a little. =/ They make a lot of games too easy and don't really add much extra challenge (ex. hard to progress through story, endgame content akin to Cave of Trials [SO2], SRPG with multiple win conditions for missions). idk, I think I'm really rambling at this point, but what I'm basically trying to say is this...

Gaming has lost its roots and changed from being gameplay focused to graphics focused, and it happened with most of the general public not even being able to see it, because they don't really care.

end

ps: Wild Arms: XF however is a breath of fresh air and is quite gameplay focused, and has some challenges even starting on the second story battle.