Squeenix Spoony plays Final Fantasy XIII

[Jick Magger]

Well that was...unexpected. Was he even anywhere near the endgame?
Seriously, I know he usually takes fucking ridiculously long to get these reviews done, but I didn't think he'd just straight-up quit.

 

[Fat Dragon]

Entertaining video for the most part but was that 5 minute skit in the middle really necessary? They're not even close to being funny, why does he still do them?

 

[felipepepe]

I like the Sphere Grid and the License Board, fucking retard (althoiugh FF13 lv up is really meh)

Was he even anywhere near the endgame?

He was around 60% of the game, I belive, quite close to when they leave Coccon and the games vastly improves.

 

[evdk]

Was he even anywhere near the endgame?

He was around 60% of the game, I belive, quite close to when they leave Coccon and the games vastly improves.

I have to repeat Spoony's statement here: "Why can't the game be good now?"

 

[felipepepe]

Well, I found it good at that moment, and better later... definetly not ragequit-worthy like he does.

 

[sea]

Entertaining video for the most part but was that 5 minute skit in the middle really necessary? They're not even close to being funny, why does he still do them?

Yeah, Spoony is hit and miss like that. He admits that sometimes stuff is a lot funnier in his head than it is when he actually acts it out. It happens, especially as it's not like there is any pre-screening for his videos or anything.

That said his rage-comment about "leaving the developers in the mountains with their assholes sewn shut until diarrhea leaks from their eye sockets" was pretty good.

 

[evdk]

Well, I found it good at that moment, and better later... definetly not ragequit-worthy like he does.

If you already enjoy the game then it's probably not such a big deal, but you have to agree that "it gets better four fifths of the way in" is not such a great argument to convince a person who's disliked the experience so far to continue. (And I'd say that even if I enjoyed the game I would be pissed off that it was not so good as the last part all the time.)

 

[DraQ]

Entertaining video for the most part but was that 5 minute skit in the middle really necessary? They're not even close to being funny, why does he still do them?

Well, it certainly was very... demonstrative.

That said his rage-comment about "leaving the developers in the mountains with their assholes sewn shut until diarrhea leaks from their eye sockets" was pretty good.

P. codexian too.

Well, I found it good at that moment, and better later... definetly not ragequit-worthy like he does.

If you already enjoy the game then it's probably not such a big deal, but you have to agree that "it gets better four fifths of the way in" is not such a great argument to convince a person who's disliked the experience so far to continue.

Sounds like Baldur's Gate.

 

[evdk]

Sounds like Baldur's Gate.

Sure. If you did not enjoy trekking through the wilderness maps I would question the sanity of anyone trying to convince you to stick with the game until BG proper. But the game at least isn't a one big corridor until that part.

Spoiler

It is a series of empty rejected Command & Conquer maps

 

[aris]

"nobody likes the sphere grid"


the "what's a paladin?" from ultima 9 embedded into FFIV really cracked me up though :D

 

[felipepepe]

Well, I found it good at that moment, and better later... definetly not ragequit-worthy like he does.

If you already enjoy the game then it's probably not such a big deal, but you have to agree that "it gets better four fifths of the way in" is not such a great argument to convince a person who's disliked the experience so far to continue. (And I'd say that even if I enjoyed the game I would be pissed off that it was not so good as the last part all the time.)

Is not that it suddenly becames a magical perfect RPG, completly different from the rest of the game... it just does what most FF games do, at around 60-70% of the game you get an airship can go anywhere, do some side-quests for ultimate weapons, learn some secret stuffs... here, instead of a airship you get Chocobos and can warp freely between zones.

"nobody likes the sphere grid"

Yeah, stuff like this and this entire video makes me think Spoony is just a narrow-minded guy that played FF games in the 90's because they were popular but completly hates jRPG and keeps calling everything shit because it doesn't fit his personal tastes.

Easy to see why the Codex likes him so much.

 

[Falkner]

Final Fantasy XIII is not a good game. Seriously bro, what's next? "Oblivion is just a matter of personal taste"?

 

[aris]

It's not a good game, but it's not as horrible as people like to make it out to be either. FFXIII-2 on the other hand... It's the only FF-game I've started that I could not finish, and probably never will.

 

[MicoSelva]

I did not expect him to quit in the middle, but I guess he has the right to do it, if he feels that continuing would be a waste of time and he would prefer doing videos on something else. I wonder if he will do FF XIII-2 next? I'm guessing not, because there would be continuity issues.

I liked Dr Insano's scene, although it was much too long and Spoony is not really very good in this type of comedy. He is at his best when he analyzes the shit out of things or fakes over-the-top rage at stupid things (IMO he does that better than AVGN).

I've never played any FF beyond the PSX era, but if Spoony's presentation of plot, design and characterization of FF XIII were accurate, it must be one shitty game, and I am not sure whether to lauch or cry at the review scores listed at the end of the video.

 

[felipepepe]

Final Fantasy XIII is not a good game. Seriously bro, what's next? "Oblivion is just a matter of personal taste"?

Is not the abomination people love to bash, biggest flaws in FFXIII are the linearity and the Kojima-level of cutscenes, but apart from that is a very decent jRPG, nothing catasthrophic like "let's make Fallout an FPS!".

Spoony already proved he is not a fan of the genre, FFX is a great game and he does nothing but mock it, so of course FFXIII will be horrible for him. That doesn't mean it will be horrible for people that actually like jRPGs and experimentations.

 

[tuluse]

The story of FFX sucks, and the battle system is overrated. I found it to be very average.

 

[Rahdulan]

I did not expect him to quit in the middle, but I guess he has the right to do it, if he feels that continuing would be a waste of time and he would prefer doing videos on something else. I wonder if he will do FF XIII-2 next? I'm guessing not, because there would be continuity issues.

I'd actually like it if he did FF12. He mentioned he likes the game, but it had its problems and his opinion about it seems to vary depending on what argument he's using it in. Then again I guess he won't because it's a game where he can just rage at.

Spoony already proved he is not a fan of the genre, FFX is a great game and he does nothing but mock it, so of course FFXIII will be horrible for him. That doesn't mean it will be horrible for people that actually like jRPGs and experimentations.

He did? I remember him talking about the Persona series and how he could be playing that instead. Not sure what that says about him because he was referring to P4, though.

 

[MicoSelva]

Spoony already proved he is not a fan of the genre

I think You may be wrong here, unless by "genre" You mean modern FF games.

 

[Falkner]

Final Fantasy XIII is not a good game. Seriously bro, what's next? "Oblivion is just a matter of personal taste"?

Is not the abomination people love to bash, biggest flaws in FFXIII are the linearity and the Kojima-level of cutscenes, but apart from that is a very decent jRPG, nothing catasthrophic like "let's make Fallout an FPS!".

Spoony already proved he is not a fan of the genre, FFX is a great game and he does nothing but mock it, so of course FFXIII will be horrible for him. That doesn't mean it will be horrible for people that actually like jRPGs and experimentations.

The linearity and the amount of cutscenes are very impactful flaws, considering how much of the game they constitute. Add to that the fact that the cutscenes also tell a terrible story, a bad levelling system, combat that is "meh" at the very, very best, the completely forgettable/terrible art design (a very Japanese thing nowadays, sadly) and... I don't even remember the music, just that the battle theme annoyed the fuck out of me. Well then, what does it do well? And yes, I know that JRPGs have declined as much as WRPGs, but does that excuse FFXIII? I don't think so. I played it when I was much more receptive to JRPGs and even kinda looked forward to it (I know...) but even then I found it absolutely terrible.
As for Spoony: I remember him gushing about the SMT games for the PS2 and how much he liked them, he may have even said something about Persona 4 being his favourite console RPG or something like that. He also obviously likes the earlier Final Fantasy games and mentioned Chrono Trigger as a positive example in this video. I never really got the impression that he hates JRPGs as a principle. And the games he attacks do have major flaws and I have to agree with him on most of them (even though I liked FFX a bit more then him, because the battle system was pretty enjoyable).

 

[felipepepe]

I liked the combat system, on both FFXII and XIII Square-Enix had the guts to try new things, and both of them had nice pay-offs. Sure, is not as tight as the ATB system in FFX, but that one is being worked on for 20 years now... The story didn't bother me as well, they did a nice twist and most of the game you're the bad guy with a quest to destroy the world, until the plot twists and you see you really have to destroy it, because it's corrupted. It was over-extended and with a bad pacing, but not bad per se.

I get pissed with how people love to cry about jRPG being boring or lacking innovation, when they shun down all attempts at innovation and keep asking for a FFVII remake... Dragon Quest is the cookie-cutter series of SE, with the gameplay almost unchanged since the NES days, and DQ VIII is a fantastic classical-style game, but of course, it passes completly unnoticed by "jRPG fans" that only play FF and hyped stuff like P4... they are thew 90's version of modern "RPG fans" that only know Mass Effect and Skyrim... fucking posers.

 

[Grunker]

I'm playing Final Fantasy X right now (or I would be, see below), thanks in part to felipepepe. The sphere grid is cool.

I got to the point where I had to start playing blitzball. I threw the controller into the wall, shut down my PC and started making dinner. Since then I've tried getting back into the game around 4 or 5 times. Ragequit every time.

Fuck blitzball, fuck the horse it rode in on, and fuck my completionist 'spergin'.

 

[Jasede]

That's Final Fantasy X. It's easy to tell the difference: IX is actually good...

 

[Grunker]

That's Final Fantasy X. It's easy to tell the difference: IX is actually good...

Woops, corrected my mistake. And fuck no it isn't. I played 1/3 or more before smiting every bit of that game off my hard drive. I think I actually spent more time in FFIX waiting for combat intros to play than I did playing the entirety of the rest of the game.

Game had a few good bits, but for me it was overall unplayable to various moronic design decisions.

FFX on the other hand so far has a bullshit story and bullshit characters, but Spoony is correct that it has one of the best FF combat systems, and the sphere grid is a pretty cool meta-game. But fuck blitzball. I need someone to teach me that shit so I can bypass it.

 

[felipepepe]

Yeah, lame mini-games should be just lame mini-games, not plot points that you're forced to do... I remenber a friend wathing X-2 trailer and making fun that there would probably be a karaoke battle in the game or something.

 

[Jasede]

Different folks, different strokes. The story and voices make X unplayable to me. The combat is good but the encounters aren't. Everything can be beaten the same way. The encounters were so boring that when I tried the game, I started fleeing from every single fight 25% into the game. I still beat all the bosses, except for the final one, and then only because I didn't want to extend my rental duration.

If I can make it to the final boss while avoiding 75% of the combat then the game was too easy.
I effectively low-levelled that shit without even wanting to, just because I hated the constant encounters (encounter rate felt higher than what I was used to).

I've never had a game with a more plodding, horrible plot, chock-full with pointless mini-games, boring bosses and absolutely insufferable encounters than FF X. 9 at least had furries in it so you'll understand if I'm a bit more forgiving as to its (numerous) flaws.


Contrast Persona 4: every day was a joy for me, a chance to hang out with more of these likable young men and women that it was incredibly easy to relate to. Now that game has characters I don't want to punch to death every time I see them.

Also, what good is a good combat system when I hate the Sphere Grid and the encounters and the boss fights? It's no use. And you play to advance the story, but I hated hearing or seeing more of the story and its characters. And what's the point of levelling up when you don't have to do it for the main game anyway and can just cheese through with eidolons and consumables?