| arcelonious said: I think you're getting too caught up on the issue of manual vs automatic, when the game is also about elements like paradigm shifting, staggering, chain bonus, and so on. While I'm not saying the battle system is without its flaws, I simply think that the battle system had the mechanics to offer interesting combat, which worked in the more difficult fights, but there simply weren't enough of them for most people to appreciate it, especially with the main content. Edit: I guess I'm thinking of battle system design and encounter design as separate entities, which may mean a part of this debate is due to semantics. |
I've beaten the game. I'm not forgetting about anything. Paradigm shift is implied as it's required. You don't do it throughout the game, throughout even some normal battles in the game, and you're not going to finish the game.
And aside from that, the same strategy can be done on just about every single boss battle. It's not like because FF13 has a fast ATB system and paradigm shift is required that it gives a lot of depth to the strategy. The strategy is minor. Press Turn SMT games as well as many other games with different types of turn based combat, required more strategy as turn based games on normal battles than Final Fantasy 13 does on most battles.
On Final Fantasy 4, with Rosa on the party, I'd cast slow on many random enemies, not just boss battles. Rydia's stop is often times more useful than casting any other spell in the game. End game on Final Fantasy 4, one of your regular battles would be two red giants. Cast stop on one, slow on the other, as Cecil, Edge, and Kain are attacking the one that is stopped, when Rydia's turn comes around again, cast stop on the other. On a Behemoth, have Edge cast pin or Rosa cast hold, with Cecil and Kain attacking. Another strategy to that same battle would be Edge casts image and Rosa casts blink, having Cecil attack and Kain jumping, while Rosa casts blink only to restore anyone who has lost the spell. There's far more strategy on FF4 than there is on FF13, and this is both random encounters and boss battles. So saying Final Fantasy 13 has a bit of strategy on boss battles only is nothing. It's like saying 1% of the game is playable.
