Final Fantasy

[ArsenalMark]

It's up on the US Store at the moment, due on Europe today. It is a pretty long battle, so it's worth the download IMO (1.5gb)

Random battles is not as it seems, it is not pure random battles from old FF - it is a hybrid of the two, when a monster wants to engage it appears on the world screen, you can chose to run into it - causing a battle. Whack X and hit it - causing a pre-emptive strike for you, or you can choose to run away from it. I like it. It's a hybrid of the two. It's still not as good as having enemies just be there though, like in XIII.

The battle system is the same with QTEs, which makes it worse. There's no need to throw in QTE's, it just breaks up the flow of the battles, even at these early portions of the game. I can imagine them being really annoying later on during big boss battles where you're not just hitting auto-battle. Also 200% Rare Item + Regular Item drop for 5* rating.

The big thing - monster capture and battle with monsters at your side... It is... disappointing, to be frank. They just seem to be a limited 3rd party member. You basically get a random chance of obtaining them after battles. You can level them up by collecting items and using said items on monsters. That's not my issue. My issue is that they just seem to be a limited 3rd party member. You can equip 3 at a time - and each one has 1 paradigm. This is my issue. A regular 3rd party member would have all 6 available to him, these guys only have 3 between them.

Freedom is available right off the bat, it's pretty good, there's a small hub you start in, freedom also continues through out the portions where you're going towards your objective, which is very good. Whether or not it's linear depends on your view on the word "linear". There's multiple paths that end up at the same goal, which is good, but I haven't played through the game to justify whether or not it's linear in the larger scale.

Jumping would add a bit too this freedom - it's in the game by tapping O, but there's many many invisible walls, which prevents you from jumping over things like fences and etc to get around quicker. It's very annoying, and just seems useless, as in XIII it was just automatic, now it's manual with no bonuses.

A really neat thing was that you can make a decision in the demo to either fight a boss - or take time to go to an alternative path and make him weaker. I chose the second and the boss fight started with him on very little health, I haven't done the second option yet, but I will do later to see how much different it is.

You can talk to people -- you can't reply, but you can tap X to talk, some people give quests, some just give random information. Whenever you engage in talking there's a really short animation, but it's really annoying and puts me off from talking to people.

Crystarium Levelling is linear once again. Similar-ish to XIII's except everything is on the same board. When you get Crystarium Expanded you get an expansion bonus with some tough choices which I am going to hate. I hope we can eventually chose them all xD

At the end of the demo you have to do a puzzle, which has a really, really, really, annoying non-displayed time limit per attempt. Try it - go forward and just stand there for 5 seconds, there's no reason for it - especially as you can't even see the entire puzzle from the start.

A few more niggles: Kupo is annoying, and from someone who didn't mind Hope too much... Yeah. The mini-map is way way too big and the only option is to turn it off. I also preferred XIII's triangle menu.

I also noticed something with an accessory "limit" or something. Didn't check it out as I only obtained a single accessory in the demo.

Final Thoughts: It's hard to call it an improvement as the meat of the game (battling) has gotten worse, IMO, monsters are neat and pretty cool, but they are not as good as a regular 3rd party member. Maybe later on some of them have 2 paradigms rather than the one which would make it more interesting. QTE's were, as I thought when they announced it, a terrible decision. There is however more freedom and exploration throughout the game.

[kiwiatlarge]

Agree with pretty much all you said... the only thing I would say with the monster paradigns is I guess in the full game once you've unlocked more, you will have more roles at your disposal... but, like you say, you will be limited to 3 you can use for any major fight...

So.. I'm guessing you use them for roles best suited for CPU, like buffing, debuffing, sentinel, medic... and take your pick from commando and ravager when you want more simplistic, attacking paradigns...

[Domino2097]

I've also heard that battles no longer end if your party leader dies I never found this out since I never let Serah died but I read that some people had it automatically swicth to Noel/Serah once the leader went down.

I don't really care if there is no 3rd party member and I don't hate Mog (not Kupo) either actually I thought she was kinda cute when you could ask for her opinion.

Also the first option for the Atlas battle result in immediate death in the demo this is probaly just for the demo though since the full game may let you level up quicker.

[ArsenalMark]

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Domino2097 wrote:

I've also heard that battles no longer end if your party leader dies I never found this out since I never let Serah died but I read that some people had it automatically swicth to Noel/Serah once the leader went down.

Also the first option for the Atlas battle result in immediate death in the demo this is probaly just for the demo though since the full game may let you level up quicker.

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My god, if they've done that it will be awesome, I still wish they added a pause option to the combat, so you didn't just have to whack auto-battle if you couldn't navigate menus quick enough.

Ah, that will be sucky if it's in the full game. I really hope not.

According to the save data there is 160 fragments - which if I recall correctly are monsters. So collect them all

Found a couple new things while checking out - hitting R1 mid-battle brings up bestiary entries, I don't recall if XIII did this . Hitting R1 on the field makes Mog do some thing, which makes the ghostly treasure orbs show up.

[Kiez]

Agree with what you said pretty much, though I find the monster feature pretty cool. Like you said though, them being limited to one paradigm is disappointing. Pokemon

Mini-Map is annoying (if you can call it a mini map).

Jumping is useless.

I kind of like Kupo, he/she made me laugh and I like how you can find hidden treasure with him/her.

Also, you can change party leader during battle. Only between Noel and Serah though.

[steveeire]

well its better than XIII

and thats not saying much

[Domino2097]

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ArsenalMark wrote:

Found a couple new things while checking out - hitting R1 mid-battle brings up bestiary entries, I don't recall if XIII did this .

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XIII did do that I always used it to check how much HP bosses had left.

[bible-man]

I'm not sure if I am going to try the demo. Mainly because I know I will get it and I don't want to be put off before it comes out

[JB-Burgess]

I'm only 10 hours into XIII but so far it's a big improvement. Love Moogle, The Live Trigger, Cinematic Action and adding monsters to your party, Cait Sith was helpful is brilliant!. Did anyone take on Atlas without making him slow? 

[ArsenalMark]

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JB-Burgess wrote:

I'm only 10 hours into XIII but so far it's a big improvement. Love Moogle, The Live Trigger, Cinematic Action and adding monsters to your party, Cait Sith was helpful is brilliant!. Did anyone take on Atlas without making him slow? 

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Someone stated above that if you try too it's an insta-death. I really hope it's either a one off or just the demo.