Zero Punctuation: Final Fantasy XIII

[Beauwight]

You know this video reminds me of something I see more and more of these days: gamers are sensitive little bitches who complain about every last goddamned thing. For example, Yahtzee pointing out a "weak" character like Hope carrying around a weapon-grade boomerang. Back in the day we would just file this sort of thing under "videogame weirdness" like Samus turning into a ball or Mario's raccoon tail allowing him to fly, then proceed to enjoy the hell out it. But now people nitpick everything for "breaking immersion" or some other such nonsense.

If SMB3 were released today with no franchise history there would be 10 page dissertations on the internet screaming about how the warp whistles "ruin the game" and endless threads about how Luigi is an "Emo ******."

Hear, hear!

 

[MrDeano89]

i totally agree, i gave it time (11 and a half hours to be exact and to be fair thats more than enough) and it really is a pile of shite, the story is weak and the characters are shockingly annoying, theres no attatchment to the characters like you got from some of the other final fantasys, all it feels like is the producers saw the gameplay as getting in the way of the story so put as little effort in as possible to focus on the fucking cutscences, which are also shit.

 

[Kermi]

Althought I lost interest in FFXIII well before it came out and have been hearing that I'm really not missing anything, I think I still would have liked to see Yahtzee finish the game then[i/] tell me it doesn't make any sense.

Then again, considering that you can win the game just by queueing auto-attack for 100 hours or whatever, he probably got everything he needed to from the gameplay and could have based his review on someone else's writeup of the story.

 

[Velocity Eleven]

but thats what I dont get, how do the characters look even remotely alike? he compared cloud to squall, where's the similarity? he compared barret to amarant... again, what is he talking about? rikku and vannile? just because they're both "happy" in nature? I dont think i've seen a series that varies as much as the FF games do... I just dont see this "genericness" people keep talking about

yes FF13 you do use auto-fight a lot, however thats not where the strategy lies. you have to switch between paradigms, taking in to account the situation with the health, status effects and the enemies' stagger bar... you have to arrange the paradigms effectively. If an enemy's not staggered I end up switching between paradigms quite a lot, and it gets really tense, trying to think so quickly. Even if the enemy is staggered I sometimes have trouble deciding what paradigm to switch to if I'm damaged

and FF games have never been about the exploration, they're about the leveling, the customisation etc. I do think FF13 lacks in that area which is its downfall but Yahtzee's complaints were just "anti-jrpg rage"

RPGs are always very different, sure you always use attacks and magic and potions and so on, but thats just scratching the surface... what about all the varying development strategies? any genre can be seemed to be made bad if you just scratch the surface... its like saying mario and sonic are exactly the same cause you jump

FF13 is slow at the start. Even if you liked the game its hard to deny that. Did you really think Yahtz would get over that considering he has an attention span less then my three year old?

its not I suppose it's quite slow... most people Ive noticed have an incredibly short attention span... I know somebody who played FF7 for 3 hours and complained cause he only had 3 materia... people expect games to just hand you everything at the start, and if they did then it degrades the value of those features... imagine FF7 if you started with 30 materia, collecting them wouldnt feel as good anymore

besides what about FF6s start? you dont get the espers for a good while, the espers being one of the biggest gameplay elements of the game

 

[saphiren]

Did he say he loved FF6, yet shown a image of FF 3? or did i miss something? xD

You didn't miss anything, Final Fantasy 6 was the remake of Final Fantasy 3.

 

[Oskamunda]

Or rather, FFVI was released in America as FFIII on SNES.

 

[StarofAzura]

There's a new JRPG game, Yahtzee hates it and all the fanboys have sand in their vagina. Who could have seen that coming?

Seriously, it was enjoyable as always with a few new unexpected nuances. Keep up the good work.

LOL. Most excellent way to put it, friend.

 

[Beauwight]

@beauwight

Perhaps if there were an italics or bold option, then ALL CAPS wouldn't be necessary...it's kind of like when you raise the volume of your voice to create inFLECtion? I would have thought that people would still be getting upset over posts that weren't ALL caps.

Oh, and just so you know, THIS

You could have at least played the whole game you lazy fucking twat. Get your dick out of your mouth, stop licking your own asshole, have your spine replaced since you had to have it removed to get your huge mouth down to your taint in the first place and play the game.

...Yeah, that might sum it up.

is not the utilization of witty banter, no matter how you preface it with, "hmm...how would he say it?" That's just a cover so you can say whatever you want with impunity, and it would be better for you to be mature and admit it rather than play it down as though your nobility wins through. Again, the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory at work.

Good bye.

Ok, so I'll admit the all caps line was a lame shot. I still don't understand why you're all up in arms towards me. I never requested nor wanted impunity. I just wanted a review of a fully played game--just as you did in your first post. I hold Yahtzee's work at a high standard because of past experience, just as we 20-year FF veterans would like to hold the series up to a high standard. I was simply exercising my opinion, just as you exercised yours when you expressed your dislike of FFXIII. I felt his review of the just first five hours was below expectations. Even though I don't have a right to demand this, I hope for it all the same.

 

[vviki]

Shut up! He is!
Many laughs to be had here to be sure. I never even touched an FF game and I'm now please with myself. For me the only turn based strategy that works is HOMM III. Anything else (that I've played) is total fail.

 

[mechanixis]

Never played a FF game in my life, but that was as predictable as they come. Even before seeing the same point re-iterated for the fifth time with different wording.

If Jim Sterling got flak for only playing up until the last boss fight, I wonder how much flak Yahtzee will get

It's Yahtzee, people will tell him he's a unique genius and boycott the game.

What kind of smug planet are you on?

 

[kuzaro]

Soon after final fantasy 10 was released square merged with enix to become square enix, a company that was cursed never to release a decent game. The curse continues!

On a side note final fantasy 9 is and probably will always be the best game ever.

Ah hah hah!

You actually attribute the merger to the lack of good games from Square Enix? Both companies were going to go down the toilet for odd reasons, Square's being the mediocre cinema bomb Spirits Within. Enix was the side that was hesitant to merge, but they did so for monies.

And in my personal opinion, Square Enix lives on through Enix and the Dragon Quest series. Dragon Quest VIII, yo.

Since becoming square enix it is no surprise that the last 2-3 final fantasy games have been very different in style and quality to the first 10. Only about 10% of the people that made final fantasy 13 were involved in any of the squaresoft games. Especially with the company director Hironobu Sakaguchi resigning. Therefore people shouldn't be too dissapointed that the series went downhill.

Maybe I over-exagerrated about square enix games, I haven't played most of them and for all I know dragon quest could be great.

 

[uran00b]

you're a noob. go play some more call of duty.

 

[JackVykios]

Are people REALLY complaining that Yahtzee isn't reviewing the game correctly by playing only the first 5 hours? The fact that any of you care about his skills as a reviewer baffles me.

Isn't he more a parody of a reviewer? He almost always gives negative reviews, even of good games. I take his stuff as entertainment, not as a compass informing me about what not to buy (otherwise...the compass would be the type that avoided pointing north unless ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY).

I mean, yes, as a reviewer he does tend to make valid points, but so does Jon Stewart with regards to the news.

 

[Andronicus]

I'm glad I didn't waste my time with this dreck. I usually take this man's reviews with a grain of salt, but you know what? I'm going to trust him on this one. I'm sick of all the angsty emo crap going on in these games.

You're going to trust Yahtzee completely based on his impression of the first 5 hours of gameplay? Each and every character plays an integral part to the overarching storyline; 5 hours is barely enough to introduce the characters (and, in Fang's case, simply not enough). The only character whose mood is angsty by default is Lightning, and at least she changes her tune later on (this is called character development, for those whose idea of a dynamic well-rounded character is the Master Chief). Hope lost his mother in the first 1-2 hours. I'd like to see how you feel when your mother dies.

Funny that Yahtzee complains about betrayal twists in XP, but doesn't even bother to see where FFXIII story goes. The least he could do is wiki it and run through the summary.

 

[Mstrswrd]

Anyone else notice that when he said Final Fantasy 6 it showed a Final Fantasy 3 game?

Final Fantasy 6 was made into Final Fantasy 3 outside Japan because, originally, the rest of the world never got FF 2, FF3, or FF 5, which meant that 1 was 1, 4 in Japan was 2 everywhere else, and 6 became 3. At 7 Square corrected the numbers, and has since released all of them with their proper numbering.

 

[Phlakes]

The best part of my Wednesday, coming home and listening to Yahtzee bash games. And for all you people whining about how he should play through the whole game, he (I think) has said before that even if only the first part of a game is unenjoyable, that still means it's unenjoyable.

 

[Caiti Voltaire]

Yeah ... I have to agree with Yahtzee, in a form. The early FF games were great and fun, then Square Enix got into this rut of remaking FF7 over and over with increasingly shameless lifting from their previous games. It kind of seems like they are toying with us, trying to see how much shit they can get away with before we stop buying this shit.

 

[senlis]

Anyone else notice that when he said Final Fantasy 6 it showed a Final Fantasy 3 game?

Here is a handy chart to clarity what other people have responded.

Japan -> America
---------------------------------------
(NES)
Final Fantasy -> Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy II -> Not released
Final Fantasy III -> Not released
(SNES)
Final Fantasy IV -> Final Fantasy II
Final Fantasy V -> Not released
Final Fantasy VI -> Final Fantasy III
(PS1)
Final Fantasy VII -> Screw it, we'll call it Final Fantasy VII

After that, all FF games had the same name in Japan and in America. Did you ever wonder why the last game on the SNES was called Final Fantasy III and the first game for the PS1 was Final Fantasy VII?

 

[tobyornottoby]

There's a new JRPG game, Yahtzee hates it, all the fanboys have sand in their vagina and all the Y-fanboys forget the meaning of opinion. Who could have seen that coming?

Completed

 

[MegaManOfNumbers]

you're a noob. go play some more call of duty.

excuse me, YOU ARE A NEWB. your first post and that's what you say? we're on the subject of Final Fantasy, show some respect and don't insult others without reason.