Playing Final Fantasy 13. Mixed feelings.

 I bought Final Fantasy 13 the same day I bought God of War 3 (the day GOW3 was released). I was so excited about both of these games. I got home and put in FF13 and played it for about 30 minutes. I thought the mashing of the X button was different and boring, but I figured I was just in the basics of the game.

I equate it to an MMORPG style beginning. The story was good, but the action not-so-much. Sometimes, especially with MMORPGs, take a bit of playtime to take off. If I did the same thing with let's say EQ, WoW, or DAoC, I would have never stuck with the genre. Let's face it, the first few levels of spamming 1-2 buttons are seriously boring in some games. Anywho, I took the time to stop for a while and put in GOW3, which I knew from the demo I loved. (I hadn't played GOW 1 or 2 because I hadn't owned any console apart from my Wii since I sold my PSOne in 2001 right before I bought my new PC for DAoC.)

I was thrilled with the gameplay, it was a blast and the story was great. (I didn't know anything about it at the time. I am just about to start GOW 2 as I just finished GOW 1 a couple of days ago. Since playing through GOW 1 and 3, I can guess at the general gist of GOW 2.) After finishing GOW 3 I went back to FF13. I played through for a couple more hours, getting through the tutorial of the Paradigms, and the story. I found the story great, but the actual gameplay boring. It's linear, not very FF like, but I don't mind that as much except for the fact that the combat has been boring me to tears. I pretty much just Auto-Battle and Paradigm shift when I need to heal, or just flat out use a pot because I want to finish faster.

I got to the first boss and beat him pretty easily, all I did was auto-battle and paradigm shift some more when I needed to heal. It wasn't hard. I googled some info on the combat system. Apparently the loot drops depend on the speed of the kill which is determined by how fast you can DPS it (obviously), but that has me feeling more like I am playing in a WoW raid against Rotgut rather than a strategic RPG.I do like the star system in concept though, I love a driving force behind doing better than just auto-attack. It peaks my competitive teet.

I somewhat miss the old style of FF combat, but from what I have read it does get harder, shifting gets more strategic, and the battles become fun. I am all for this and hope they are right. Possibly I am just not giving it its fair chance, and while the combat has changed dramatically, it is just as strategic and difficult(at times) as it has been in the past.

One can only hope this to be the case. Otherwise, quite honestly. I'll be disappointed.

 I bought Final Fantasy 13 the same day I bought God of War 3 (the day GOW3 was released). I was so excited about both of these games. I got home and put in FF13 and played it for about 30 minutes. I thought the mashing of the X button was different and boring, but I figured I was just in the basics of the game.

I equate it to an MMORPG style beginning. The story was good, but the action not-so-much. Sometimes, especially with MMORPGs, take a bit of playtime to take off. If I did the same thing with let's say EQ, WoW, or DAoC, I would have never stuck with the genre. Let's face it, the first few levels of spamming 1-2 buttons are seriously boring in some games. Anywho, I took the time to stop for a while and put in GOW3, which I knew from the demo I loved. (I hadn't played GOW 1 or 2 because I hadn't owned any console apart from my Wii since I sold my PSOne in 2001 right before I bought my new PC for DAoC.)

I was thrilled with the gameplay, it was a blast and the story was great. (I didn't know anything about it at the time. I am just about to start GOW 2 as I just finished GOW 1 a couple of days ago. Since playing through GOW 1 and 3, I can guess at the general gist of GOW 2.) After finishing GOW 3 I went back to FF13. I played through for a couple more hours, getting through the tutorial of the Paradigms, and the story. I found the story great, but the actual gameplay boring. It's linear, not very FF like, but I don't mind that as much except for the fact that the combat has been boring me to tears. I pretty much just Auto-Battle and Paradigm shift when I need to heal, or just flat out use a pot because I want to finish faster.

I got to the first boss and beat him pretty easily, all I did was auto-battle and paradigm shift some more when I needed to heal. It wasn't hard. I googled some info on the combat system. Apparently the loot drops depend on the speed of the kill which is determined by how fast you can DPS it (obviously), but that has me feeling more like I am playing in a WoW raid against Rotgut rather than a strategic RPG.I do like the star system in concept though, I love a driving force behind doing better than just auto-attack. It peaks my competitive teet.

I somewhat miss the old style of FF combat, but from what I have read it does get harder, shifting gets more strategic, and the battles become fun. I am all for this and hope they are right. Possibly I am just not giving it its fair chance, and while the combat has changed dramatically, it is just as strategic and difficult(at times) as it has been in the past.

One can only hope this to be the case. Otherwise, quite honestly. I'll be disappointed.

I got about 15 hours into FF13 and quit, I'm not waiting to be almost done the game for it to open up, I find the game to have taken a step backwards and just belongs in a pile with the rest of the JRPGs that have come out recently.
 
The Final Fantasy series used to be the high point in most peoples collection of RPG's but now is just turning into a milked series, the last decent one was 10 and I hope Square can make a come back, I thought that FFXIV (the mmo) looked promising until they fucked that up also with the fatigue system.

Yeah I have to agree. I didn't make it quite as far as you did, I only got to 6 hours and stopped. I really don't like the direction it went at all, it's way too linear, and the game play is so much different. Just not my cup of tea. 
 
The last FF I played before this was 9, and I found it to be solid and well made like the rest. I am really confused at this move in a seemingly wrong direction. And yeah, the new fatigue system just won't work here. Perhaps the Japanese won't mind that steep of a hit to XP gain, but I don't think that will fly with most Americans. The Japanese and Koreans make every single hardcore gamer look like casual players of the Life board game though, so like I said, maybe it will work there.

The game definitely takes a while to unfold. But when it does you'll notice that you're switching paradigms seamlessly, changing tactics multiple times in one battle, and refining your timing with everything.  IT's definitely not a game that you should just play and judge right away because it introduces things to you very slowly, and therefore is a very long game. I got a full 1000 Gamerscore in 150 hours, beating the game at around 70. There is tons to do once you beat the game and in my opinion that's where the game shines. The first part of the game, to me, is mainly for the story while the second half (once you get to the more open world part and post-game) becomes more about the fighting, character development and item synthesis.

The way I see it, the Paradigm Shift system puts you in more of a "football coach" position, rather than the "quarterback", which is what I feel like most games in the series (and most games in general) aim for. If you're cool with that, then you'll get a kick out of FFXIII, but if not, then you probably won't.

I had decided to rent the game even though I knew it started off slowly, but man... it starts off slow. I put in about 20 hours. I knew Brad said it opens up some more in the 20+ hour mark, I just couldn't force myself to keep playing some more. Even if it moves slowly, there was nothing that kept me engaged. I tried understanding the story and I suppose the refresher that appears at every load screen is nice but a majority of the game just flew right over my head. I've played several other FF games but this one didn't make things very clear. And the way you leveled up the character through the xp system to learn the new abilities, pretty but seriously, make the thing move faster.
 
My biggest problem with the game was the combat. I wasn't a fan of spamming Auto-Combat with a Paradigm Shift here and there to combat the tactics the bosses used against me but I guess I'm just a fan of the standard: 
Attack 
Magic  
Summon
Items  
 
I understand they wanted the combat to move along quicker but after playing so many years of FF games, I just didn't like the new system at all. In the end, a FF game I just didn't enjoy one bit.

recently saw the game out to the end and i thought the game/ ending sucked. its almost laughable how generic and uninteresting the characters are, and then there's the awful game play. sometimes you can ignore these things but when it all starts to stack up there is only so much you can take. snow = im a tough dude. I MUST MAKE RASH DECISIONS AND TALK LOUDLY <- ff13 in a nutshell

First rpg game that made me completely ignore the story in favor of the amazing graphics and delicious combat
 
This is the most fun I've had playing an FF game since FFT

Having just finished this game (at about 52 hours), I can say that the battle system is one of the things I enjoyed most about it. It's a much more faster pace than the previous FF games and completely different. I'm sure if they stuck with the same basic "Attack, Magic, Summon, Item" setup, people would be complaining about how they haven't updated it. So either way, people are going to complain. 
 
I have to admit though, that the linear gameplay can get pretty static. I do miss the exploration, going to towns, and talking to people that I have come to love in RPGs. From what I've heard though, Square wanted to make a game that "focused more on the story", which is why they made it so linear. Which in turn, makes players feel unconnected to the characters, therefore losing interest in the story.  
 
Personally, I've come to love the world, and have been spending time maxing out my characters, and taking on quests.