[spoiler]I liked the story, I really did, until the end. It may just be because I like Vanille and felt bad for her (and I shamefully admit to slight mental Hope/Vanille shipping), but the whole thing smacked of Deus ex Machina, and not in the acceptable way either. Also, I was convinced Cacoon was in orbit, apparently there was a fal’Cie controlling the anti-gravity drive or something.
Did anyone else feel that the last boss was… anti-climactic? I mean, I was worried on Orphan there for a second, but then I actually staggered him and he was a total pushover.
As for the final few moments of the story, I guess I just felt that everything after you enter the Cradle was just… meh. It seems like they absolutely had to use everything they mentioned, they almost tried to put every alternate ending into one coherent line. Cie’th, Ragnarok, decrystalization, it was like they said “oh hey, this can theoretically happen, better throw it in!” Not to mention the level design of the cradle was just sloppy imo, every single enemy was a demonic spider. It was probably the first time in the game that I was actively avoiding battles because they were so bleeding tedious. The mini-bosses were okay, but then they ruined it by throwing them in as regular enemies.
I might pick it up again and do missions 30-whatever the last one is, but I doubt it. I don’t have the will to grind trapezeohedrons (or whatever) and the fact that an adamantoise (the tusked ones) can almost insta-kill a fully shrouded full tier-9’d party is… disheartening.[/spoiler]
It can be difficult if you’re unlucky… he has a chance to cause instant death when he hits you, which can be game over if it happens to your leader.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
Adamantoise aren’t bad once you get the hang of them (gaia rings are vital). Even with a fully-equipped and leveled party I still only win against Long Guis about a third of the time.[/spoiler]
Question - how does FF13 hold up for someone like me who greatly prefered the “classic” Final Fantasies (1-6,9)? If it’s anything like 7* or 10, I don’t want to go near it
= not that 7 was by any means a bad game, it just didn’t really have a Final Fantasy feel to it. And 10…well, if you can’t say something nice…I also haven’t played 12 yet, strangly enough.
I’ve heard it described as having the setting of XII, the story structure of X, with a battle system amalgam of XII and X-2. Not sure how accurate that is, someone else can confirm, but it’s up to you to know if you’d like that.
Calling it the “setting of XII” is completely off - different worlds, different forces at work, etc. No real reason for that comparison. It does, however, have some similarities to X’s story structure, and the battle system comparison is as close as you’re going to get, I think.
This is definitely -not- oldschool final fantasy, and if I had to pick an FF game that I think it most resembles, it’d be FFX.
I am, amusingly, not really familiar enough with VII to say. I’ve absorbed that game by osmosis, rather than actually playing it.
In any event, the folks who worked on the first half dozen or so FF games are no longer with Square/Enix so the odds of any new FF games recapturing whatever was unique and good about those seem pretty small. More likely, you’ll find that ‘feeling’ in other titles.