There might be an FF13 sequel.

[TheGunheart]

Problem is, most powers are still centered around making a health bar go down, or making yours go down slightly slower. Only Charge really changes the nature of the game. As feynman said, it provides a forward momentum that's completely absent from the cover shooter genre. But higher difficulty levels take it away, leaving it once again just a shovelware shooter with dialogue trees.

[Feynman]

Aside from the fairly basic TPS gameplay, I found the dialogue trees pretty basic as well. Mass Effect as a series is lauded for having CHOICES YEEEAAAHHH, but it doesn't really have all that much choice at all... at least not significant choice.

There are only really two basic routes to take through the game(s): alien-lovin' saint or human-centric jackass. Due to the way the paragon/renegade systems work, you are very much encouraged to pick one and stick with it for the entire time... trying to be a saint in some areas and a jerk in others will result in paragon/renegade scores too low to do anything useful.

Essentially, you only make one significant choice; Am I going to be a paragon or a renegade? You then spend the rest of the game following the colored text that reinforces the one decision you made at the very beginning. Oh, you might squeeze in a bit of the opposite side here and there, but 90% of the time, you're going to be concerned about making sure the right colored bar is filling up... and thanks to the color-coded menu options and interrupts, that doesn't require any real thought whatsoever.

In Mass Effect, the player decides on an alignment, then spends the rest of the game selecting dialogue that supports that alignment. Compare that to Planescape: Torment, where you simply make individual choices, and your alignment shifts along the law/chaos good/evil axises based on your behavior. It's not perfect and has a lot of loopholes that you can exploit, but it's a lot more interesting and fun. Or even take the Witcher, which does away with the moral slider entirely! Geralt in The Witcher is a genuinely good guy, and every choice in the game can be considered a "good" action, based on perspective. Every choice in The Witcher ends up hurting someone, and your task is to pick what you consider to be the lesser of two evils (a strong recurring theme in the stories the game is based on). Your decision has no impact on a good dude/bad dude meter, the decisions are made simply based on your views, and the consequences are yours to live with.

Granted, it's kind of neat how some of the little things you do in Mass Effect carry over into the sequel, but for the most part, the consequences of the player's actions up to this point have been largely cosmetic. The decision to save the council or sacrifice them in the first game should have have a major impact on the galaxy, what with it being the largest system of government around for thousands and thousands of years. Yet that choice has a laughably small impact on how Mass Effect 2 plays out.

Yeah, there's the whole "wait and see how Mass Effect 3 handles things" argument, but I really doubt they're going to pull something that amazing out of their collective asses for the next installment... they'd more or less have to create two or more entirely separate campaigns based on decisions across the first two games, and I highly doubt that's going to happen.

Mass Effect as a series (and particularly the sequel) offers a cinematic experience, but as an RPG (from both the mechanical and decision-oriented schools of thought) it is extremely shallow. The Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest of western RPGs, if you will. That isn't necessarily the scathing criticism it sounds like, because the games were fun enough to warrant at least one playthrough, and they're very popular among shooter fans looking for at least a little more substance to their shooter plots beyond "these are the bad guys shoot them in the face." As 'cinematic experiences' within the world of games go, it's better than most. but the games are hailed as these massive achievements in the field of RPGs, despite other games - sometimes a decade old or more - that are significantly stronger RPGs in every aspect.

BioWare needs to decide if the game is going to be a TPS or an RPG. Given the gameplay progression and increased popularity of Mass Effect 2, I would say that TPS is the more logical choice. They can still have dialogue trees and all that, but crap like their filler hacking minigames, boring planet scanning, and lame skill point system that they have to try and appeal to the RPG crowd is totally half-assed and not worth the time they spent developing it. The shooter gameplay suffered as well because of the resources invested in the RPG aspects. If they ditch the RPG aspects, keep the dialogue trees, and develop Mass Effect 3 as a TPS/visual novel hybrid, which is practically what ME2 is already (you can even pick a character to sex up), they would end up with a much stronger game. The RPG bits are just dragging it down at this point.

[Weasel]

All the analysis is well and good, but that doesn't change the fact that it's still a (relatively) fun game. As in, I enjoyed playing it.

[alan01987]

FFXIII-2 Announced, Armored Lightning crossing swords with a mysterious man.
Toriyama is the director again, Japanese fans on suicide .



The Duke Nukem Forever of FF


Type0

[susanismyalias]

Thread relevant again! HAHAHA


(in b4 pitchfork)

[Super Orbus]

They also renamed Final Fantasy Agito XIII to Final Fantasy Type 0, and it's not part of FF XIII anymore.

I really don't think Square has any idea what they're doing anymore.

[susanismyalias]

Square has had very little idea what is going on since like, FFIX.

[Deleted]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't FFX-2 the product that bankrupted Digicube? What on god's earth is Square thinking?

[Haz]

I gotta say Versus XIII, despite being based on KH's battle system (has some added TPS gunplay, though it seems) still looks pretty bitchin'.

Type-0 also looks pretty nice. I like this ARPG focus they have going on here with these two.

However, I don't give half a shit about 13-2.

[chevluh]

Jan 18, 2011 12:03:54 GMT -5 @jasonx said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't FFX-2 the product that bankrupted Digicube? What on god's earth is Square thinking?

No, digicube had been on the slipping slope post-FF8 already due to internet walkthroughs, and it's FF12's delay that prompted them to file for bankruptcy. X-2 sold around four million copies around the world, which was crazy profitable because it cost very little to make, as it reused tons of assets from X.

[Deleted]

Hm, I could have sworn I read something that said it was X-2 that did them in. Interesting to hear that the game sold so well, though, considering the reaction it received over in America.

[9inchsamurai]

I gotta say Versus XIII, despite being based on KH's battle system (has some added TPS gunplay, though it seems) still looks pretty bitchin'.

I totally agree. The gameplay trailer looked pretty damn cool. Hopefully it isn't a button-mashing snooze fest, but it looks promising.

As for a XIII sequel, I would have greatly appreciated a prequel that helped flesh out the setting/lore a bit more. That was really the thing I liked most about XIII, it's just too bad the actual game did a horrible job of making it seem interesting. I doubt a straight sequel will do what I want though, but I suppose it's possible. Maybe they'll fix some of gameplay problems?

[Warchief Onyx]

Versus XIII is going to either be an amazing game or terrible. I can't see there being any middle ground.

[Snarboo]

Jan 18, 2011 14:52:19 GMT -5 Warchief Onyx said:

Versus XIII is going to either be an amazing game or terrible. I can't see there being any middle ground.

Agreed, but for once I have to say Square-Enix has my attention. I love the standard Squeenix scifi aesthetics mixed with more conservative character designs and a focus on action.

[Deleted]

80 more hours of Snow. 80 more hours of Vanille. 80 more hours of Hope.