Good price. Bought it. Finished XIII on PS3.
I know many people complain about cutscenes and i can agree with that but imo FFXIII cutscenes are sex in therm of quality. So if you are fag for good quality CG cutscenes then you are in for a fucking great threat. I mean there are no games with cutscenes in this quality currently beside it (and blizzard doesn't come close). So if you are new imo 10€ for few hours of fucking good CGI is woth it.
Now interesting part is that it comes with Japanese voices and soundtrack. So first of all most of problems with characterization should go ("moms are tough ! lol"). So if you actually want better game run with Jap audio and eng subs. Because voice work for characters like snow, vanille, hope are gross. I heard from few people that it really makes characters different. I bought Steam version because it has Jap audio and i couldn't bother to import earlier on console.
Probably the weakest part of FFXIII is story. Not as a base but how it is told.
FFXIII designers should simply roll 13 days arc lineary from day1 to 13 and then rest of the game.
Unfortunately they wanted something like in movies where story starts from middle and it is completed by retrospection's. Problem is that they did poor job with it. You don't even know why are you there in first place for like a 1/4 of game. Ton of character banter and events doesn't make you feel any emotion because you lack of context. This is especially problematic because as story unfolds it gets way more confusing with gods and L'cie. So for most of game you are trying to complete 13 days puzzle and for second part of game you are trying to figure out what the hell is this L'cie Falcie and so on which game doesn't explain you in good way.
Especially very start of the game where whole village is purged feels completely empty because you don't even know what is "purge".
It is when you replay game when you start to get game as you saw already all 13 days episodes and you can actually tell what is going on.
All in all imo it is great game. I know that line like "you need to get to end game to see what is this all about " is bad line to hear for many people but this line is true to FFXIII. Later hunts are simply fun and battlesystem with increased def of those hunts starts to show teeth.
Which is imo surprising because you would think game like FFXII would be better as it gives you more world and somewhat better characters but core of game is important and core of FFXIII being battle system + end game is actually better than FFXII core. IT just takes sweet long time to give you toys to play with.
Is Xenoblade comparable to 12 in terms of its world structure and aesthetic? I loved just dicking around in some areas, trying to get uniques to spawn. They did a good job with ambiance for the time, too.
Actualy that is good comparison. Problem is that Xenoblade is more or less quickly open with ton of sidequests (FEDex but still ...) where FFXIII for great time is literally corridor game filled with cutscenes. BUT when you reach certain place in story games open up to point where if you don't fallow minimap you can get easily lost and get hammered by way to hard monsters. First time when you reach it it isn't completely open up but there are already "hunts" later when you back to it then you have Xenoblade like experience when you are trying to do lot of random stuff and hunts.
Equipment gathering and those hunts are definetely strong part of FFXIII. Early hunts are easy but later ones require you to have best gear + good tactic. Small minus is that to fully develop characters you need to finish game first and then load a last save. Then skills system completely opens up.
Oh ya now that you mention it I rembmer hearing it gets good at around 90+ hrs. I am much too critical for my own good.
As a 250h veteran:
Yes. But it isn't 90h. More like 40h. So if you are first timer you can get your eyes blown by amazing CG cutscenenes which even today i think there is no match in therms of razor sharp full 1080p quality and get to good part with ease.
Problem is for people who want to replay it. Because if you tried late game first 40h is simply waaaay to long and you can get bored easily. Especially when game doesn't want you to either collect even low level gear or rise skills from start which is uber annoying.
The cutscenes are awful. The challenge is awful, that's why they added that stupid star system after battles. The paradigm system had potential, but without being able to control all 3 characters in your party, it falls short.
