Reflections on the japanese version
So, i finished the japanese version of FF 13 a couple of days ago.
It was a long and tiresome journey from day one due to it's repetitive gameplay and many cutscenes.
I love cutscenes and most of them are really well made, but i dont like it when you have a cutscene run for 10 sec and then there's another leangthy cutscene.
Instead of writing a long text rambling on about the game i'll just divide it all into a couple of smaller sections, so. Here we go... Also, may contain some smaller spoilers
First impressions(First 5 hours): The introduction of this game is just awesome and the CG is just breathtaking, however early in the game you switch between characters almost every 5th minute making this game really frustrating and cracky. One second you control Lightning and is 100% in the game and the BOOM, you control Hope.
This just made me irritated, i like following my characters from point A to O without an interuptions except for cutscenes.
Also, at one point you get to follow Sazh and Vanilla fighting against some machines, this was just horrible, every fight took me 3 minutes and both of them had no effective attacks whatsoever. I even found myself doing sit-ups and making coffee during these fights.
Characters: The fems are cool, the guys are annoying and the villains are all awesome...
I won't say anything about the girls cause well, there isn't really anything to be said about them.
Snow and Hope are worthless, for the first half of the game there wasn't a single cutscene without Hope whining about something and Snow making a cheerfull speech, for the second half of the game, Hope joined Snow in his speeches.
Sazh is kinda cool thou i never really used him.
Cid is probably the coolest character of 2009 alongside Nathan Drake.
Level system: It's kinda the same as in FF XII, grid system.
However you can also level up your weapons and items, and this is just pure math. ex. you can buy XXX for 100 gil and it gives you 10 exp, but YYY costs 150 gil and gives 30 exp.
However there are also bonuses to be had, like if you use 10 XXX you get 3x the normal upgrade exp next time you upgrade, but if you use 10 YYY you only get 1.25x the normal exp next time.
However this is not as hard or annoying as it sounds, also some items are made to be sold. Might give you 1 exp when upgrading but can be sold for 100.000 gil.
If you want a good way of how to upgrade your weapons and items, just send me a pm
Battles/Battlesystem: They are abit onesided and repetitive at some points, especially while grinding.
I still prefer this over the FF XII and X-2.
However some of the opponents have one hit kills and this is really frustrating since you get a game over when your party leader dies.
Maps: This game is linear, however there are some hidden paths in some of the maps. Also chapter 11(out of 13) is a open world map where you can do up to 65(?) missions. Also after completing mission 14(?) you can ride chocobos giving you access to new parts of the map.
Story: Not bad, but it's also not epic.
Overall: The graphic and the quality overall is just awesome, however it have some flaws with annoying characters and feels abit slow at some parts of the game. However i never felt that i wanted to put my controller down and say "fuck you, i'm calling a friend" .
So for me it's a clear must play, and a solid 4/5
Best part: Beginning of chapter 12, drooling
