Teaching gamers: Final Fantasy 13 as a super tutorial

via Examiner.com: "Throughout the game’s long playtime -- nearly 60 hours for a single playthrough of the campaign, many more including side-quests -- Square-Enix uses an incredibly small amount of traditional techniques, like pop-ups. Almost nothing is spoken about paradigms or its deeper layers of strategy that are all but required near the middle of the game. Did Square-Enix fail to realize how complex their game really was?"

[ClownBelt]

" Did Square-Enix fail to realize how complex their game really was?"

Can someone just slap my face with their feet right now? Please...

[Dragun619]

Press agree if you caught on pretty quick with FFXIII's Battle System.

Press disagree if you thought it was confusing and it took you awhile to figure it out.

I agree, I caught on to the battle system pretty quick along with the Paradigm Shift. Plus there was an auto battle option. Can't see what was confusing about it. It seemed pretty straight forward to me.

[Tomdc]

pretty simple. Juist annoying how they didnt explain some stuff ever that wasn't to hard to figure out but still annoying. I'm talking about how ravagers result in ATB gauge going down quickly as well as charging more and a lot of the time you need a commando or something to balance the increase out.

[iamtehpwn]

the hardest thing in the game was constantly holding the analog stick forward seeing as how that was the only direction you could go for half the game.

[Redrum059]

lol
good one.
it was also hard on my ears with countless hours of hearing vanille's high pitched emotionless never changing voice.

[guitarguy1181]

I may be in the moniority here, but having played all of the FF's (minus 3), I found XIII to be the hardest since the original FFI on NES. I found 7-12 to all be fairly easy, and 2-6 quite a bit tougher.....but only XIII and I have I died multiple times at more than a few bosses......

[Shang-Long]

Well...
You see what happen was...
It's not like...
Nvm I got nothing

[bakasora]

HARD!?
The hardest part is to keep smashing the X button, only to feel the thumb is aching.
The hardest part is having to sit through Vanille irritating moan and VA.
The hardest part was to found out the 13th variation of Final Fantasy has lost its FF spirit.
The hardest part is $quareenix becoming a shitty company as Wada leads the way.
Rants finish, lets condemn $quareenix

[Spydr07]

Possible small spoilers if you haven't completely finished games FF 7-13 (save XI, which is harder than all other FFs combined).

I suggest you attempt the grind and fight Long Gui. Without the right planning and setup, you will die every time. He was harder than any boss in 7, 8, 9, X, X-2, or XII. All of those could be cheaply defeated with ease.

Knights of the Round + Stop summon raped Ruby and Emerald. Hero/Holy War killed everything in 8 (or just max out chars and give a very high amount of luck). Nine was a joke if you had Thievery, frog drop, and the like leveled up. Final Fantasy X's boss, Nemesis was an utter joke with Quick Hit and Aeon sacrificing...you never even took damage. Then there was Cat Nip and Trigger Happy for X-2. Being able to leave and come back after healing removed the difficulty in FFXII against its hardest boss. Omega Mark XIII was a joke because he hit too slow.

No FF game (7+) has required much thought to beat the hardest battles once the cheap trick was figured out. At least Long Gui and XIII's final mark required solid execution throughout the fight to win. Miss one SEN/SEN/SEN shift on Whicked Whirl and you'll likely wipe to Vercingetorix.

The main game was very easy and did nothing to prepare you for the speed and pace you must move thru the paradigms to beat the hardest optional enemies. This just made them that much more annoying.

[ExplosionSauce]

FFXIII complex?
lulz

[ll_UNDERSCORE_ll]

lol and you got disagreed, that show's the morons playing games these days.

[ExplosionSauce]

Yeah. And I'm a big FF fan. But XIII was pretty easy to me overall and felt like I needed little strategy to complete each battle.

[IrishAssa]

Libra and Auto battle and heal every once in a while was basically the whole game. So yeah it was SO complex

[Relin]

The whole game up to the last dungeon or so, yeah. You can't get to Orphan's room like that, though.

[Dacapn]

I did. Here's how you play FFXIII:

1. Autobattle

2. After you can pick your party, decide whether a sentinel is needed...then auto battle

All the strategy is in actually choosing your party and paradigms, which is pretty shallow. The actual battles consist of auto battle.

**SPOILER**

And yes, the game is one big tutorial. You don't even get full access to the crystarium until you beat the fucking game. As if that isn't bad enough, you don't get "limit breaks" until the last couple of hours of the game.

[A LIVING LEGEND]

If COM/COM/COM with genji/kaiser or SEN/SEN/SEN with imperial/entite is 'complex' or confusing......wait until SAB/SYN/SAB rolls in......with all of it's 'complexity.
FF13 complex .......no,just rather easy and mundane.

[Relin]

If you ever, EVER used SEN/SEN/SEN for more than jollies, you're doing it wrong.

Then again, I could have misunderstood your post. I'm honestly not sure what you said.

[MoneyMeng]

most boring, linear FF ive ever played!

[Greek God]

linear yes boring no
ok it was if you mean the sidemissions
whatever goes back to FF7

[A LIVING LEGEND]

SEN/SEN/SEN against Shaolongs is perfect for opening and great for Ultima sponging imo.It works for me.Other than that....I would be lying :(

[Relin]

I guess I can see that. For me, I almost never used the Sentinel -- they don't put out enough DPS for them to be useful in anything but drawn-out boss battles -- so hearing someone say they used THREE just boggles my mind.

My typical opener was COM/SAB/RAV. Builds combo incredibly fast and gives you some breathing room against tougher enemies.

[Spydr07]

The reason for 3 only applied for completionists of the game and is only used quickly before strong attacks like some of the final marks or Long Gui. It's changed out of immediately after the attack. For those who didn't play or didn't get that serious about it, you can youtube MasterLL.

He has many great vids for RPGs (some of the most complete files I've ever seen--truly dedicated to the genre) and his FFXIII vids are great and show the setups and great strategy for every difficult boss in the game.

Here's the link for Vercingetorix (final mark in FFXIII). He has a JP and NA file for the game with the JP being his most complete one.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[USEYOURFIST]

long and complex errm nope. jurnos also becoming casual gamers destroying the indusry?

[labwarrior]

And there are no side quests, there are actually no quests at all in FF13, just missions

And avove all, FF13 is not a RPG, it is an action game with stats

[A LIVING LEGEND]

Yea,I liked com/sab/rav the most for MOST fights.Damn Shaolongs open with quake which hurts(I equipped all str/mag boosting accessories lol) so opening with SEN/SEN/SEN was my savior..
I agree tho,other than that sentinel is not very useful.Equiping a com with a bunch of dam/mag res armlets works wonders :)

[yewles1]

Super tutorial? I didn't know SEX ED. was that important in this game...

[Nicaragua]

The reason most people dislike the game is because the tutorial is absolutely unnessecary. Its easily the most basic RPG game i have ever played and the fact that SE forced a 25 hour tutorial on you was patronising and insulting to gamers.

The game is a turd.

[Game-ur]

It's so straight forward it would have made a perfect on rails kenickt game

[PirosThe4th]

They tried to localize it to America using the 360 as a trojan horse.
The tutorial in the game was idiot proof... They think Americans and westerns are idiots and cant play a game for themselves... I blame Wada... He has it all wrong...

[A LIVING LEGEND]

Well,you can't 'on rails' defeat vercingetorix or a long gui....or 5 star all missions but yes,it is extremely straight forward 95% of the time.

[Troll-without-Bridge]

FFXIII integration of the battle system is smarter than other JRPG'd, because everything is blended perfectly as the story unfolds, instead of those kids having magical powers or learning everything for some mysterious reason other than "just because"