Coming Around

Just a little bit.

As most people have said, FF13 gets better the further you go through it.

I still don't think this is a game worthy of the Final Fantasy moniker though.

I'm currently about 15 hours into this game and the sheer linearacy of this game is baffling. I'm also starting to clue in to a number of rather blatant franchise ripoffs. Because of this, I'm halfway wondering if Square-Enix just threw this game together on a whim because it had been 2.5 years since FF12 was released.

That or they spent too much time on the visual presentation and forgot to actually make a game.

Eidolon Gestalt modes?

Transformers: Beast Wars/Machines ripoff.

PSICOM soldier gear?

Straight out of Star Wars.

Even most of the characters are very similar to previous characters.

Lightning - Squall (VIII)
Vanille - Rikku (X, X-2)
Fang - Paine (X-2)
Snow(e) - Zell (VIII)
Gadot - Wakka (X, good thing he's a minor character thusfar...they didn't even bother to make him look incredibly different...).

...and the list goes on.

I'm not saying it's wrong to draw upon characters that struck a chord with fans over the years (as most of those did to some extent), but that sort of stuff should really be limited.

I came to the conclusion last night that, while the game is getting better about actually letting me play it instead of watch it, it truly feels like I've played through this game before and that's not something I've experienced in any Final Fantasy game. Even as horrible as I found X-2 to be, it still didn't feel like I had played through it before.

Anyway, I'm on Chapter 8 now. Not sure how many chapters are left as I refuse to read anything on the net about it hoping that there's some sort of huge surprise or twist or something that actually makes me appreciate this as a game worthy of the "Final Fantasy" title. I'll probably get through another couple chapters tonight.