Final Fantasy XIII-2, Chapter 1: A Wacky Time-Travel Adventure!

Fear not my intrepid readers, for this blog is not dead! You could I say I got side-tracked with a side-project that I ended up dumping a lot more time into than I originally intended. The good news is... that side-project involves a game, and I'll be blogging about that soon as well!

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On to the next game, the sequel to the much maligned Final Fantasy 13. At the time it was released, interviews made it seem like Final Fantasy 13-2 was meant to "make up" for the mistakes of 13, and give the fans what they really wanted. I'm curious how Japanese fans felt about 13, but I haven't been able to figure that out. I would just peruse Japanese sites, but, alas, I don't speak the language. I wonder whether Japanese fans had the same complaints as US fans about 13, or if the new game was purely an apology to western fans. The good news is, I think the improvement is noticeable from the get go. I felt 13-2 was a much better game the first time I played it, and about ten hours into my second trip, I still feel the same.

The start screen.

The story movement is a bit strange, and at times hard to follow. The story and gameplay uses time travel as it's main device. This includes an altering of the timeline. Despite Lightning being on the cover and in the intro movie, her sister Serah is the main character, controlled by the player. Lightning is now the servant of the goddess Etro in a place outside of time called Valhalla. The gods were mentioned slightly in the first game, mostly in Datalog entries, however, I still think this game isn't related thematically to the first. 

A "Beginner's Primer" is available to catch the player up on the events of the first game.

In Final Fantasy 13, there was very little NPC dialogue, with most messages just popping up as you walked close to an NPC. There were only a couple times in the game where the player could walk up to and choose to talk to someone. Pleasantly, 13-2 has a lot more NPC interaction. I'm certain there is more player driven NPC action in the first area of 13-2 than there is in the entirety of FF13.

Serah and her companions, Noel and Mog, on the beach of New Bodhum. The icon over Noel's head indicates he can be talked to by the player.

13-2 also introduces a level of dialogue that is new, as far as I can remember, to the Final Fantasy series, multiple dialogue options. These are called "Live Trigger" events. It's not much, but it's a welcome bit of role-playing. The player usually only gets to pick one option, then, depending on what they pick, different items become available as "Live Trigger Rewards". So, not only is it a nice bit of role-play, but it also adds some re-playability to the game, with the ability to try different options on future play-throughs.

Not a lot of really different options in this one... but it does show what the live trigger screen looks like, kupo! Source

The game begins with Serah waking up from a dream in her village that has been dubbed New Bodhum (named by Snow). She dreams of her sister Lightning fighting with a purple-haired man in a mysterious city. Serah also has memories of seeing Lightning alive after the crystal pillar saved Cocoon, but... no one else remembers. As far as everyone else is concerned, Lightning holds up the pillar along with Vanille and Fang.

Before the events of the game, good ol' Snow was the only one who believed Serah, so he set out on a quest to find Lightning. Serah had since continued her life as a school teacher in New Bodhum. One day, as the game begins, a swarm of monsters attacks New Bodhum! In the confusion, a young man mysteriously appears, his name is Noel. Noel says he was sent to find Serah by Lightning, by way of a mysterious place called Valhalla. After a bit of convincing, Serah comes to believe Noel, and decides to join him on a wacky time-travel adventure to find her sister!

This post has been one of the toughest to write, probably because I've been away for a few months. So, in the interest of getting some momentum back, I'm going to call this good!

Welcome back friends... to This Bard's Tales!

Estimated Total Play Time: 2 hours
Estimated Time to Write Post: 2 hours 



Original Neverwinter Nights - 1: Original, or Extra Tasty Crispy?

Neverwinter... that legendary city of Faerun, acting as a haven for adventurers on the edge of the Savage Frontier. A new would-be hero approached the palace of Lord Nasher, a former adventurer himself. This young half-elf had dubbed himself the "Knight of Neverwinter", but only time would tell if he could live up to his self appointed title.

The young man, standing tall with pride, his hand on the hilt of his short sword, entered the palace. The regal Nasher, being constantly approached by adventurers, would not be bothered to rise from his seat. "I am Lord Nasher. Welcome to Neverwinter my friend."

Our hero took a long, deep breath, then shouted "I am the Knight of Neverwinter, and I shall liberate this great city!"

Lord Nasher's eyes grew wide momentarily, but his response calm,"Uh, ok... go forth and explore new lands. Good bye." Nasher then turned away to resume a conversation with one of his assistants.

Satisfied with his entrance, our hero nodded, then ventured forth, to adventure!  

Note: To hopefully avoid confusion, I'll refer to the versions of Neverwinter Nights as Original Neverwinter Nights (oNWN), FRUA: Neverwinter Nights (F:NWN), and Forgotten World (FW).

This is not the Neverwinter Nights I'm playing, sorry if I got your hopes up.

While I was playing Final Fantasy 13, it was definitely in the back of my mind that I wanted to continue to intermix Gold Box game posts in with the FF stuff. It's been a while since I'd played any of these games, which always takes a second to reintegrate. I ended up having some technical difficulties with Forgotten World that will probably get ironed out, I'll talk about that in my next post on that game. 

While I play Forgotten World, and F:NWN, whenever I encounter something frustrating, I often think, "Was the original game really like this?" The only thing stopping me from playing the original is that the only version I've seen does not allow the player to save, necessitating a restart every time they open up the game. This "offline" version is available at what is probably the most comprehensive oNWN archive site, at Bladekeep.

Something I realized a little while back is that this offline version assumes the player is a GM, and thus contains debug powers, allowing you to teleport, edit your character, skip combat and all that jazz. It occurred to me that one might be able to "save" by screencapping their character than editing it on the next load. Turns out that is totally possible! (DOSBox save states would probably be even easier, but I'm comfortable with the version I'm using now.) So here I am, now playing no less than THREE iterations of Neverwinter Nights at one time! Given the nature of these games, that is "open world" and with relatively slow character progression, they are going to be games that I play for a long time, playing and posting periodically among my other stuff. I mean, I've put in 20-30 hours each on FW and F:NWN, and have barely scratched the surface of exploring the available areas. That sounds like a compliment, but really it's because at the lower levels you can barely survive anywhere. Obviously I still have hope for them though, because I'm still playing.

Here we go again!

After trying out a Ranger/Mage build in FW I've decided to go back to my original idea, the Cleric/Fighter/Mage. The Ranger overall survived much better, however, the lack of spells made it very hard to win tougher combats without the disabling abilities of the mage. This would all be fine once the build is complete, however, that means building a Ranger to level 10 and a mage to level 11 before your character is all that viable. I'm not willing to wait that long. The issues with the C/F/M are slow progression (Exp. is divided by 3) and low Hit Points (Also divided by three). However, the character is more "viable" as a solo while you're still building levels, in my opinion. As far as I know FW was gracious enough to throw out the humano-centric AD&D level limits, but being an official product, oNWN of course has them. That means my Half-Elf C/F/M will max out at levels 5/8/8 instead of 11/12/11. Bummer, but I weighed the options and decided it was still worth it.

You'll pay 20 gold for my spetum? Gross, man. I hope it's for science and not something sexual.

Oh! You mean this thing.

 

Not surprisingly since this is the official release of the game, I find it plays the smoothest, and seems the most balanced from an encounter and treasure standpoint. Each of the versions has their benefit though: oNWN has pro-polish, FW has online play, and F:NWN allows one person to control a whole party.

So far I've played this version for about 6 hours, I've only gotten my character's feet wet in the wharves. One good thing about these games is that, I'm not sure exactly why, but exploring and grinding in the same 16x16 square area for 6 hours doesn't get all that boring. It's a testament to the Gold Box games that this is true. With a game like this, it's also quite viable to watch let's plays or catch up on Netflix at the same time you're playing, which helps too.

Poor Bill, human trafficking is wrong.

 

There are a few things I've noticed so far about this version of the game. First off, turning undead causes them to flee. Some Gold Box games make them simply disappear, but the disadvantage to that is that you don't get experience for them. I prefer the disappearing for the high level games where the exp. isn't all that important, and the fleeing for the low level games. The "timer" from the original game is also intact. That is, if you take too long to make your move in combat a timer starts ticking down, and you "pass" when it reaches 0. This was in there to keep the game from bogging down during multiplayer, and it's presence here isn't a big deal. The game clock is also similarly not based on the player's moves and resting, which is different than most Gold Box games. FW uses a server clock based on actual time. Since oNWN is "offline" I'm not sure if it uses the player's computer's time, or simply it's own internal timer.

Guisarme, Bill's grandfather. That's all the pole-arm jokes I have... for now! 

As I've been exploring the wharves, I noticed after certain encounters I would get a "complete (number)" message after winning certain combats. I assume this is related to getting a reward from Lord Nasher for "clearing" a block, ala Pool of Radiance. I've found five of these combats, but have yet to get any new messages from Nasher. After trying a few things, such as not leaving the area until I'd won all the combats, and doing them in order, I hadn't made any progress. If you've read my posts on FF13, you know how much I love "trial and error" gameplay, so I decided to look for an FAQ or walkthrough. (For those of you who think that's cheating, I've come to terms with it like this: If I'm stuck on one thing for 1 or 2 hours and can't think of anything else to try, I'll look it up. Life's too short to fiddle too long with suspect game design.) I couldn't find anything specific to this quest unfortunately, but I did find a decent FAQ in an archive!

I made a joke about encountering these guys in F:NWN. They're not nearly as funny as a solo character.

 

For a while now I've been trying to figure out how encounters respawn in FW, which applies here as well. I figured some were keyed to the day/night cycle, and that they respawned by stepping on those squares. However, my science couldn't yield conclusive results. The FAQ spelled it out for me succinctly, different encounters have different requirements to respawn... Derr... why didn't I think of that? So, I figured out that while I'm going to be grinding anyway, I might as well figure out how each encounter works. That being said, I've just started this, and once again... nothing conclusive yet!

Sweat dripping from his brow, and his breath heavy, the Knight of Neverwinter grunted as he removed his trident from the neck of the now dead crocodile. This adventuring thing was a little tougher than he had at first imagined he though, but the challenge only strengthened his resolve to live up to his title. For more of our hero's adventures, come back soon... for This Bard's Tales!

Total Game Time: 5.5 hours 

(Oddly enough, I missed keeping track of my play time. By using decimals instead of minutes, I've made the bookkeeping more manageable, so it's back.)

         

Final Fantasy XIII: Summary and Rankings

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Final Fantasy XIII
2010

Developer and Publisher: Square Enix
Director: Motomu Toriyama
Producer: Yoshinori Kitase
Programmer: Yoshiki Kashitani
Art Director:  Isamu Kamikokuryo
Composer:  Masashi Hamauzu

Director Toriyama has been at Square since 1996, and is responsible for much of the notable scenes between Aeris and Cloud in FF7. His directorial debut came on FF10-2. According to his wikipedia page, he has some... let's say "interesting" ideas as it pertains to the Final Fantasy series: "Toriyama believes his strength is in directing games that are very story-driven. He also thinks that it becomes very difficult to tell a compelling story when the player is given a huge amount of freedom to explore. According to him, the most important aspect of a Final Fantasy game is the characters. Toriyama has stated that the aim of the linear game design used in the first half of Final Fantasy XIII was to feel like watching a film. This was done to absorb the player into the story and to introduce them to the characters and their battle abilities without becoming distracted or lost. He is interested in using first-person shooter games for inspiration rather than Western role-playing video games, as he believes they give a better sense of tension during battles."

Here's some inspiration for you aspiring RPG designers out there.

Let's take a closer look at these statements. I agree the series is character driven. I think 13 had good characters when you couple the game with the Datalog information, but if you're just reading the dialogue, they seem shallow, underdeveloped. I agree to tell a compelling story the game is going to need to be more linear than say, The Elder Scrolls, but there are plenty of great examples of how to balance story and choice out there, and this is not a good one. I think we all know the potential pitfalls of approaching a game as a film. The previous Final Fantasies toed this line pretty well. 13 was the first time where instead of being like "Oh cool! A cutscene," I was like "Another one? Get on with the game already." I think the craziest thing he says is using first-person shooters for inspiration more than RPGs, for an RPG. No... just, no. The good news is, Toriyama generally redeems himself as director of this game's two sequels.

We know producer Kitase as director of FF10, and he was also director of the fantastic games FF8, FF7 and Chrono Trigger. He was producer on FF10-2.

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Art director Isamu Kamikokuryo is a relatively recent addition to Square, his first project being FF10. He deserves some major props, as the art in FF13 is probably it's greatest asset.

Masashi Hamauzu was apparently hired as a "trainee" by the master, Nobuo Uematsu at Square in 1996. He was one of the composers on FF10. I think he does a most impressive job on FF13. Hamauzu is able to, much as Uematsu could, create excellent tunes in a very wide variety of styles, from classical and opera all the way to jazz and pop.  

I said early on that I wanted to run this game through The CRPG Addict's definition of an RPG and see how it fared. It is, somewhat disappointingly, definitely an RPG by this definition. However, I think it would not do well in the GIMLET system, which well fits with my ideas of what makes a great RPG. I won't bore you with a full on analysis, but by my estimate FF13 would receive about a 28/100, with most points garnered in graphics/sound and inputs. This is totally subjective of course, but non-the-less abysmal for a modern game. FF13 lacks most of those little customizable options and choice that, in my opinion make an RPG fun. I'm down for a good story, but this game's story comes nowhere near making up for it's lack of options, side-quests, and NPC interactions. 

I wanted to do FF13 directly after 10, thinking I might like the game better with new perspective. I knew what to expect this time around, so my likes switched. I enjoyed the later game better than the early, rather than vice-versa the first time around. I was continually disappointed by it's lack of Final Fantasy conventions as I got further in the game the first time, but already knew they weren't happening on round two. However, in the end I liked the game even less the second time around.

Although I've been very negative about this game, I hope I've made it clear it's not 100% garbage. It's about 66% garbage, which with the amount of money, time, and talent that went in to this game, is pretty shameful.

I'd say the development team actually accomplished what they set out to do, from my understanding. They wanted it to look great; traditional "towns" were abandoned because the team couldn't make them look as good as the rest of the game. They wanted fast battles, reminiscent of Cloud's battle with Sephiroth in the Advent Children movie. They wanted hybrid action gameplay, taking inspiration from shooter games. All accomplished. Somebody just needed to stand up in those meetings and say "Dudes, this is all okay, but don't forget our first priority is to make Final Fantasy 13 a GOOD GAME!"

I think you get the point about how I feel about this game, let's get on to the rankings!  

Mechanics - Some have touted FF13's battle system as it's best component, enjoying it's speed and simplicity. I agree this can be nice in simple random battles, but for the most part, I miss the lack of choice and control of my characters. Also, given my love of turn-based games, speed isn't a big bonus for me, and often I found the speed to be overwhelming. Mechanics wise, there isn't much to talk about in FF13 other than combat.

1. Final Fantasy 10

2. Final Fantasy 10-2

3. Final Fantasy 13

Storyline - For a good portion of the game, I think FF13's story is really solid. I especially love when the Primarch is revealed to be a Fal'Cie. However, it can't overcome its simplistic dialogue and fuzzy logic in the end. It's not even close to FF10, but I'm willing to put it over 10-2. 10-2 is just hard to take seriously.

1. Final Fantasy 10

2. Final Fantasy 13

3. Final Fantasy 10-2

Atmosphere - I basically have the same feelings in this category as I did in storyline. 10-2 is just too goofy to really create much in the way of atmosphere, and 13 is crippled by it's dialogue faults.

1. Final Fantasy 10

2. Final Fantasy 13

3. Final Fantasy 10-2 

End Game - 10-2 can keep this category, because it leads up to such a satisfying battle. Given that 10 ends in some of the lamest final battles in the whole series, I would be willing to put 13 above it. However, that would be if the bosses in 13 represented a good challenge, instead its a great displeasure and annoyance to fight them, so I feel comfortable putting 13 at the bottom.

1. Final Fantasy 10-2

2. Final Fantasy 10

3. Final Fantasy 13

Difficulty - 13 tops this category hands down, because the strategies to many of it's battles are just so damn hard to figure out.

1. Final Fantasy 13

2. Final Fantasy 10-2

3. Final Fantasy 10

Balance - This category will remain the reverse of difficulty, because the number of times I was shocked and blindsided in battle by 13 outweighs the same in 10-2.

1. Final Fantasy 10

2. Final Fantasy 10-2

3. Final Fantasy 13

Music - I personally think 13's music is one of it's strong points. It uses a number of themes throughout very well, and also includes a wide variety of styles effectively. "The Promise" is one of my favorites, and I really enjoyed each incarnation of that melody throughout the soundtrack. You can check them out on YouTube. Turns out this video doesn't include the Sunleth Waterscape, which is one of my favs, don't judge me. Others found the addition of lyrics in some of the background music distracting, but I found it pleasant. Barthandelus's operatic theme is also a high point. Altogether, the soundtrack is pretty epic. The other two are decent, but just don't bring it like 13 does.

1. Final Fantasy 13

2. Final Fantasy 10-2

3. Final Fantasy 10

Art - Credit must be given where it's due, and Final Fantasy 13 may be the most beautiful game yet produced. It is stunning (or should I say dazing?) to look at, that cannot be denied.

1. Final Fantasy 13

2. Final Fantasy 10

3. Final Fantasy 10-2

While I think my screenshots are decent, they don't do true justice to how good this game looks.

Best Villain - I think this category has to go to Barthandelus. He is introduced early as the Primarch Dysley, then haunts the characters throughout the story as Fal'Cie. He's the kind of villain players love to hate. He's not quite interesting enough to dethrone Yunalesca, but he's certainly a more exciting villain than Shuyin.

1. Yunalesca (FF10)

2. Barthandelus (FF13)

3. Shuyin (FF 10-2)

Don't step to P-Dizzle unless you ready to get that ass blasted by Destrudo, L'Cieeeeeeeee! Is not the internet grand? Source.

Worst Villain - This one I'm definitely giving to Sweet Tits. Uhh... I mean Jihl Nabaat, sorry. Not because she's a bad villain, but because she's such a missed opportunity. Just as I was thinking, "Wow, this character is very intriguing," splat... she's toast. These worst categories are harder to rank because I'm ranking whose the "most worst." In this case, Jihl is the least offensive.

1. Yu Yevon (FF10)

2. Leblanc (FF10-2)

3. Jihl Nabaat (FF13) 

Jihl in 2D.

Best Ally - This one is easy, Sazh. He is easily the most likable character, and the easiest to relate to. Most importantly, I think he's the only character whose actions and thoughts make any damn sense in this game. He's not as badass as Auron, not as spunky as Rikku, but fits comfortably in the second slot for being a high point in 13's group of otherwise lame-duck characters, I say.

1. Auron (FF10)

2. Sazh Katzroy (FF13)

3. Rikku (FF10-2)

When I searched for "Sazh Katzroy" I was surprised to find "racist" come up in the search options, because despite fears upon seeing his afro, I think he deftly avoids any stereotypes. I think this is one more great thing about the character. Click on the source link for a little more discussion.

Worst Ally - Ladies and gentlemen, I present Hope, the whiny, revenge obsessed child who just may have what it takes to go ALL-THE-WAY in the category of Worst Ally! All joking aside, he's much less annoying once the revenge story arc works itself out, but before that, every time he opens his mouth is an exercise in anger management for the player.

1. Hope Estheim (FF13)

2. Dona (FF10)

3. Beclam (FF10-2)

Best Enemy - The enemy I found most interesting and intriguing was Dahaka. There was a sufficient build up to the battle, and it was always satisfying when I got to defeat one of the powerful Fal'Cie. A contributing factor is that the accompanying dungeon, Taejin's Tower, is also possibly the most creative in the game. As a bonus, that makes 2 of 3 of our Best Enemies come from Zoroastrianism. Point for obscure religions! Yojimbo is too cool, Dahaka and Angra Mainyu are close, but I'm feeling Dahaka in second place.

1. Yojimbo (FF10)

2. Dahaka (FF13)

3. Angra Mainyu (FF10-2)

Worst Enemy - There are at least ten monsters in FF13 that are far more annoying than anything in 10 or 10-2. Since I've got to pick only one, it's a simple choice, Cid Raines, since he gave me the most trouble. His tendency to go Chuck Norris and roundhouse kick the S out of me was a B to say the least. Like I said, numerous monsters in 13 were far worse than the other games, so he goes straight to the top.

1. Cid Raines (FF13)

2. Guado (FF10)

3. Claret Dragon (FF10-2)

Best Mini-Game - Final Fantasy games are usually loaded with side-quests and mini-games, especially since the Playstation debut. However, this one is not. I recall getting a chocobo and doing a treasure hunt in my first playthrough that was really the only full on mini-game, but I didn't do that this play through. That leaves the short sequence where Hope drives a juggernaut in the Vile Peaks that can destroy enemies with it's arms, the deplorable chocobo chick finding mini-game, and repairing Bhakti in Oerba. If the player has Vanille and Sazh in the party, they can pick up old parts and use them to repair Vanille's robot. The robot then gives the player some information about exploring Pulse. I didn't mess around with him much, but this is definitely the best thing FF13 has going as far as mini-games. It could end up being cool, but for now it sits in third place..

1. Blitzball (FF10)

2. Cavern of the Stolen Fayth (FF10-2)

3. Bhakti (FF13)

Hope doing his best juggernaut jockey impression.

Worst Mini-Game - This is hands down the chocobo chick finding in Nautilus. As a player the first time through I expected FF7's Gold Saucer, and I got Hi-Res hide-n-seek. This little "game" is pointless filler, and really lame to boot. So this mini-game is lame, but at least it's only a moments distraction, not soul-crushing hours like lightning dodging.

1. Lightning Dodging (FF10)
2. Spherebreak (FF10-2)

3. Hide-n-Seek (FF13)

Side Quests - Since FF13's side quests are entirely hunt missions, it drops straight to the bottom here.
1. Final Fantasy 10-2
2. Final Fantasy 10
3. Final Fantasy 13

Overall - If you read my posts, you know what's going to happen here. I think I've already said plenty to justify the placement.
1. Final Fantasy 10
2. Final Fantasy 10-2
3. Final Fantasy 13

Average Ranking -
1. Final Fantasy 10 (1.72)
2. Final Fantasy 10-2 (2.1)
3. Final Fantasy 13 (2.16)

In closing, unless you are a dyed-in-the-wool Final Fantasy fan and just have to experience them all, you're safe in skipping this game. If you're not a regular RPG player, I'd be curious to see if you like this game; if it really does have a wider appeal to non-Final Fantasy fans. However, if you're not a regular RPG player, you are most likely not reading my blog, but, if you are, thanks! Come back for more... to This Bard's Tales!

Total Play Time: 61.25 hours