since its been at least 2 days since its release like to get those who have played it thoughts on it so far.

Myself i am about 6-7 hours into the game so far, and i am enjoying it a fair amount. The new battle system from what i have seen and used from it so far is a lot better then i thought it was going to be.

more to come once i get farther.

Please tell me that it is better than 12. Nothing is more annoying than seeing a trap and very carefully dodging it just to have the last person in the group NOT FUCKING CARE AND RUN RIGHT INTO IT!!!! >.<

AI is good....so long as it's above the level of a child with down syndrome.

haha so far i find it much much better then 12. You have much more control of the AI and they are much more useful this time around

So far my only thoughts on FFXIII are that amazon is sucking ass and taking their damn sweet time getting it to me.

Still can't decide if I should get it. I probably should. Loved 7, 10 and 12 (I thought gambits were great). 8 didn't grab me though.

I already beat it. Shit sux.

Really? 8 was easily one of my favorites. Gambits are kinda cool....sometimes. But other times they get on my damn nerves. Like when I've got an opponent down to about 1/4 power and one or two of my allies turn around and start attacking another opponent just because they got a bit closer -_-. Concentrate and eliminate I say....but my fkn allies don't agree with me >.<


Oh, and gokou. We're talking about a video game which would take many hours, not your peen which takes but few seconds.

LOL

I got it a few days ago but I haven't even opened it yet. I also bought the guide, it's been a long time since I've played a Final Fantasy game. Hopefully I could get started on it tonight with TheDarkMessenger.

Granted, it's been a while since I frigged with FFXII, but I'm pretty sure there's a gambit for that.

If so, then I haven't found it...or bought it

An 'Ally > attack same opponent as your team leader' gambit would rock for me.

Actually, you want Foe: Party Leader's Target

edit: You just want to make sure that your party leader doesn't have a gambit making him jump around (Like Foe: Nearest Visible or Foe: Targeting (leader, self, ally))

The problem with that though is that I normally don't want to go after the leader first ....unless it is something weak like an alpha wolf. But then there isn't much point since it's only one or two attacks for each enemy.


Despite being the type that 12 doesn't appeal to I am still looking forward to playing 13...even if it's not for another 6-12 months.

Nah, Foe: Party Leader's Target means that if you attack, or steal from, an enemy, the rest of your party will focus their attacks on that enemy as well.

I always liked Foe: Lowest HP myself.

Oh yeah, 13, haven't played it yet, but I'll get around to it.

You're completely missing the language of the gambit. It's not targeting the foe's party leader (if such a thing actually exists) it's targeting the same foe as the party leader (in your party).

o.O

Yeah....that was kinda explained by Lotus....>.>
I honestly do get it now though, where as I clearly misunderstood it before, so truly thx
I might actually get around to finishing the game.

I would love to say I could enjoy the game WAY more now, but I undoubtably know that the fact that my teammates will still run into the traps(combined with the fact that I don't yet have float which would apparently avoid them) will still piss me off.

Yeah, the traps were a bitch around the part of the game where you get Larsa as a guest. Everywhere else, they're either not as prevalent or flat out weak. IIRC, some of them actuallly restored MP.

First 2 hours through the game and I'm not impressed... The game's all eye candy and no gameplay. And that "Advent-Children-like" battle system? It's almost a mutilated copy of Xenosaga's

Quite a flop after the awesomeness that is FFXII. Yeah, I think I'll go play that instead.

Reading the reviews it seems that the game drip feeds you the battle system over about the first 10-15 hours before you have full access to everything. Not sure that's a smart way to design a game.

Hyperbole.

Honestly, after they made 11 and online game, and how annoying 12 was I'm not expecting much of anything from 13. The only interest of mine that the final fantasy name can really catch these days is when it involves remaking one of their earlier titles.

That's really how I felt about the game for about 4-5 hours after starting it. Last Monday, I had the day off and Chris didn't so I spent all of it playing FF13, and I couldn't stop. Once you get past the initial tutorials (OMG, ten hours into the game...) and you start getting Eildions, the game gets much better.

10 hours? That sounds horrible.

It really was. I mean you can skip past them, which is awesome, but you still have to hit that point in the game in order to get that ability. It took me several sit down sessions and then the final one in which I decided to just push through. From what I have read, it gets A LOT better in the second half of the game once you hit the open world and start doing missions.

This game, by far, has the longest ramp up to get to the actual full game and I hated it.

Yeah, but a girl sitting down and playing a Final Fantasy game for 10+ hours is so fkn hot.

I've only played up to chapter 4 so far and won't get to play it for awhile.
What can I say..?

It looks great but the only character I really like is Lightning.
I don't much like the story and I had hoped they'd keep the FFXII battle style.
While this one is still alright, I don't like how they've made it so you automatically have full health after each battle.
Nor do I like the lack of Gil, free roaming, world map and the majority of everything that makes a Final Fantasy game worth playing.
The graphics are undeniably great but it takes more then that to make a good game.
All bitching and moaning aside, I still can't wait to play it some more

[/EDIT]
And 10 hours?!
That is fucked.. -_-

I checked and it took me pretty close to 7 hours to get past the tutorials, as far as I know. I played some more and didn't have any more come up. I read a little more and found out that you don't hit open world for 25-30 hours. I like the game, but I'm torn. I don't like that the stores are useless because you don't have any money. I don't like how you have to wait for levels in your crysthiaum (or whatever) to spend more points. I don't want to spread my characters out too much so most of them have a few grand worth of points to spend. The storyline was confusing until I read some of the datalogs, which seems silly to have to do to get the storyline of the game. Datalogs should only be if you want to know MORE, not if you want to know what's going on period.

I do like how pretty the game is and I totally dig the battle system. I wish I could somewhat control the other people if you needed to, but the battle system at least gives you the ability to change how they respond/act.

It'll take a bit more to see if I'm going to go through with the 30 hours of gaming just to get to THE GAME. I mean, right now I don't even have a choice between characters yet.

This is the first FF game i've cared to get into since 7 & 8. 9 was decent but didn't care to finish it, and i've had zero desire to play 10,11,or 12. So far I am extremely impressed with the battle system which i do admit is like Xenosaga (which makes it so damn great, Xenosaga = greatest RPG everzzz). Great eye candy, but haven't played enough to know enough about the ongoing plot. I am sad to hear that its going to take me fucking 10+ hours to actually get into the game, I don't have that kind of time damnit!

One question. Does anyone remember the original trailer with the badass d00d in black holdin down the fortess with multiple swords? Probably one of the most badass video game videos i've ever seen. Wuts his story? He suppose to be the end boss or something? When I first saw the vid, was REALLY hoping he was a playable character. But guess not.

^^^ Him

Crisis Core was also awesome.

That's Noctis, the main dude from "FFVersus XIII", which is coming out later.

speaking of versus xiii, is there any new news about it? i haven't heard anything about it for quite some time.

anyway, i am about 13 hours into FFXII and i am really enjoying it. i like that the random battles are tougher. it makes level grinding much more interesting instead of just "run in circles, then hold X". however, i am not really feeling the plot so far. the game seems to assume that i have lived in cocoon my whole life, so the characters will discuss things when i have no idea what they are talking about.

Not a ton, but there's been a couple trailers and stuff that have me interested in the game. It's hard to say anything substantial about it since there has been no released gameplay footage or screenshots to my knowledge but Tetsuya Nomura has stated that it will be a "realistic derivation" of the Kingdom Hearts battle system. Not sure how loosely the word realistic is being used there though. lol. It does appear to be a lot darker than your average FF title though and it appears more violent than what you'd expect as well. One of the nice things it will feature though: a return to the use of a world map (and of course an airship).

Storyline wise though, Noctis is a prince and last heir to the throne in an isolated city-state that houses the only remaining crystal controlled by man. The story picks up at the end of a cold war-like time and one of the trailers features a lengthy discussion between Noctis and the heir to the throne of Tenabrae, Stella.

Supposedly the game is set in the same universe as FFXIII and Agito XIII (another title in the works) but is completely unrelated and doesn't tie in with XIII in any way.

Extended Trailer
More revealing trailer released with Advent Children Complete. Shows some in-game footage.

There was apparently a short gameplay trailer released at the Jump Festa in Dec. but it was played in Square's closed mega theater so there was no leak of it that I can find.

The second of the two videos is displayed with the video flipped for some reason. That's the only way I've been able to find it. Not sure why.

I'm so glad that I wasn't the only one. I really thought I had totally missed something at the start.

no you are not the only one. however, after spending about and hour and a half reading through the datalog, i found the the general gist of the things that the characters are talking about are written about there. i really wish that all of that information could have been somehow given within the game itself instead of making me waste my time just to understand the basics of the plot. a simple monologue befor the opening cutscene could have done the job in about a minute and a half.

I'm at a little over 16 hours now and I have some pros and cons of the game:

Pros:
-Amazingly beautiful
- Battle system is a blast
- Storyline gets a lot better as you progress


Cons:
- Teams getting chosen for you
- Slow weapons upgrade system
- Too difficult to grind levels ATM

I think the biggest thing that I'm disliking at the moment is the teams being chosen for you. The game is already pretty linear but if they had afforded us the freedom of choosing teams earlier, I would rate this game a 9, easy, but as it is I am stuck with teams like Hope/Light and Light/Fang which totally screws up the plans that I had for their leveling. I wanted Light to be Comando primary Ravenger Secondary but when they stuck me with her and Fang I had to invest in Medic because Fang doesn't heal either and she's a Commando so to get Chains I had to invest more into Ravanger then I wanted to at the time.

Where I am at in the game:



I probably won't be investing any time in the game until next Saturday because Web works and I don't. Right now I'm doing 4-6 hours at a time and I don't really WANT to stop when I stop, so I guess that says something for the game. I'm really just pushing myself to get to the open map faster. I want to grind and collect parts for upgrades because right now all my stuff sucks.

So there's my 16 hours in review.

Roughly 25 hours in and I am still not in open world...

From what I've been told, "open world" in the game is pretty much just like the Calm Lands area in FFX. Which was all the "open world" that one really had too.

I just want something other than corridors and 'oh this area of the map goes no where... oh surprise a treasure chest' and also an easier way to level. I like power leveling type crap and this game just isn't providing. I WILL KEEP EVERYONE POSTED ON ANY BREAKING NEWS.

So I have gotten to Pulse and well.. I feel like this game was written in some sort of Whitest Kids You Know Sketch.



That being said, I like playing the game. I don't know if it's the need to push it forward to see if it starts to all make sense or if it's just my usual drive to level up and see what my characters do. I would play a shit game if it meant leveling. I love leveling and I don't know why.

What team combos are you guys using?

Now that I have my PS3 back so I can play the game (the GF had been borrowing it since the copy of the game belongs to her and as such she had first rights to play through it. lol), I've been working on it pretty heavily. About 50 hours played now and am currently in Taejin's Tower after I spent some doing about 1/3 of the extra mission things.

Overall I'd say I have a lot of problems with the game. There's a ton of things that could have been done better/improved upon (which is sad considering how long it was in development) but I'm finding myself enjoying it none the less (most of the time). And god damn is the game beautiful. I've never considering graphics to be overly important, but this game is so good looking that I can't help but give it favorable points for that alone. XD

As for characters/Paradigms, now that the game has stopped holding my hand and allowed me to pick my party myself I've been using Lightning (leader), Vanille and Fang. Works well despite the lack of a Synergist. Had been using Hope originally, but I find him annoying and said screw it.
For Paradigms I mostly just need Relentless Assault (Rav/Rav/Com) and Aggression (Com/Rav/Com) and that is enough for most regular fights. If healing is needed I'll use Solidarity (Com/Med/Sen). If I feel the need to get some debuffs going I use Safe Subversion normally (Med/Sab/Sab). If I need serious healing (rare) I use Combat Clinic (Med/Med/Sen).

Battles seem pretty straight laced. Either they're rather easy, or they're overly hard and meant to be done later (ala harder Missions). Overly hard being the thing one shots people thus ending the battle immediately should they choose to target your leader. >_o
Can't really complain about that too badly though since restarting means you get thrown in the spot you were before initiating combat so you don't worry about losing anything by trying out a new and mysterious battle.