lestatdark said:
Your "Auto" argument to explain that FF is being simplified holds no ground. |
“Auto” has been around since mid 90s in RPGs (Beyond the Beyond 1995). it’s usually a sub option to get past random battles or weaker enemies. Final Fantasy XIII introduces Auto as the main option. Manually selecting commands is intolerable. The spells and techniques are all bunched up, and navigating between them is a pain. It’s not even approachable. It’s like SE wanted the players to stick with auto. Plus, by the time I’m done selecting my moves manually, my comrades have already finished the battle for me. I just don’t find it fun when I’m not even participating or strategizing the battle. I can’t even see what’s going on when I manually select commands because the fight is finished before I can even select anything. The only time I could see what was going on was in dragged out boss battles … and that eventually made me go back to using the auto command because of the “staggered” feature. Like I said, SE is promoting the auto system. The only way to stagger an enemy is to land rapid attacks (combination between Physical and magical attacks) and the quickest way to fill up the stagger bar ,which depletes gradually if you don’t attack fast enough, is to use the auto command.. In a nutshell, I couldn’t even get through the game using the commands manually because the game wasn’t designed for it, especially during boss battles.
I know that the formula changes with each Final Fantasy. However, some elements that defined the game as an RPG were completely removed in this one. The obvious one was the absence of an open world. Not even a town to take a break from all the grinding. it was a nightmare. Walking endlessly in a straight line for 30 hours mashing the action button to get through battles … comparing that to previous FFs definitely makes them more complex by a mile. My honest opinion is that too much time was spent on the visuals and the gameplay was neglected. What also made FF a FF despite the “formula” was its unique battle system with each series. Final Fantasy XIII failed miserably with the battle system in XIII. I wasn’t a big fan of the gambits but boy it was a lot better than the pedigrams shifts ( I think that’s what it was called)
I am the black sheep "of course I'm crazy, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong."-Robert Anton Wilson