FINAL FANTASY 13 DELAYED

You know, I've only played IV, V, VI and VII to any real degree, and only finished VI.

However, the concepts in those games were all pretty good (espers, crystals, classes, materia).

The horribleness of FFIX can be broken up in to the story and the battle system. Both are horrible, and both make up the more or less the entire game.

The battle system still uses amazingly long loading times to start, and still pans around and shows us the "awesome" 3D visuals for about 20 seconds before the battle can even start. The encounters are also quite high. So in the time it takes one battle in IX, you could have done about 2 or 3 in IV and been on your way seeing lots of progress. The reason the Active Battle System started being bad (with VII, but the graphics were seemingly amazing then) was because of the focus on graphics and the general slowness of it all. It's still fine in IV to VI because it's nice and fast paced.

The second is the story. All other stories that IX was referencing had a point. I'm going to directly reference toadpole's review to give an example. In IV Rydia needs to use fire to get through an area. In IX, Vivi also uses fire to get through an area. In IV, this scene can only be done after Rosa joins the party, because she's more sensitive. The scene allows for Rydia to learn a new spell, a new area to be unlocked and for characterization on the two characters parts. In IX, the scene allows people to go "DUDE THIS HAPPENED IN IV! AWESOME!" It's the party's first time there. There's no adding of characters. And the characterization conversation is actually worse than the one in IV (when stories weren't the most important thing in the world). Everything is just a reference with no real meaning. It's like watching Family Guy.

Now, also the card game was a giant step down from VIII's card game. The towns and the dungeons were horribly designed (VIII's were as well though). Those are minor things though.

The only pluses I can see are first the graphics. They were amazing. The music was really good as well (at least I loved the opening song quite a bit). It was also slick. It has the stylings of a blockbuster movie. I can see how liking a story is subjective, but I can't see how the battle system can be liked and how it wasn't a total pain to get through. Games like IX are the reason there was all those editorials about random battle systems being archaic and how they need to be done away with.

Now this is quite long, so it may seem to I overly care about this or something. But, it's just I like debating, and it's rare I have a strong opinion in gaming, and I do about Final Fantasy IX. So it was fun to write. I don't dislike the series (Tactics is probably my favorite game, and IV, V and VI are really amazing). I could also (with a lot of fun) write a similar thing about Star Ocean 2 or Lunar 2 and talk about why they were so amazing.

The end.

It probably shouldn't... But it reminds me of Balthier and Barret put together.

@Canuck - I respect your opinion but that part about copying IVs gameplay aspect just sounded stupid. It was just like a homage to IV and it done it's job. To think less of a game over something as small as that is pretty ridiculous.. Also you forgot to mention it's worst fault, TRANCE >:(

Dirge of Cerberus is one of the worst 3rd person shooters to come out. The gameplay is absolutely horrid and cheap ass story doesn't help it either. It's like they intentionally set out to make a badly made game. Y'know something that was just annoying about it though.. The fact that it's cutscenes showed Vincent pulling off all these awesome moves, then as soon as you get in control it's like you've been crippled or something.

Well, I actually don't like the FFT games that much... But that's because I hate turn based strategy games in general. From what I played, FFT seemed like a very good offering of that genre, and would have been decent.

I am glad though that XIII isn't using ATB either. That battle system is sooooooo old....

haha not sure but according to the text on the picture that we can't read the character has a deep love for chocobos.

Salahhshzsalsa Killjoy looks like a really terrible character. 'I have terrible hair and a chocobo chick! And guns on my legs! And a jumpsuit!' I bet a major selling point is going to be RACIAL DIVERSITY.

I think he's quite a refreshing character because I guess someone (you, buddy) haven't been paying attention for the last several years to Final Fantasy character designs!

No, I'm not going to say you're racist.

However, my point was, I (and a lot of people) think the character design for FF (and Kingdom Hearts by extension) for the last few years was absolutely terrible, with each iteration bearing more retarded clothing choices that looked like a thrift store had an abortion. People are even making jokes about Nomura, calling him the 'belt and zipper' guy.

This guy is refreshing because he just looks like a black guy.

No, Luso's design is pretty fucking awful.

Is that a giant bong?