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Was Final Fantasy XIII Worth It?

Demon_Skeith

Demon_Skeith

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In one word, "no".

When Final Fantasy XIII was originally revealed, it was slated as a PS3 exclusive. Square Enix was adamant about it. Incredibly adamant.

Then, at the E3 gaming expo in July 2008, the inevitable happened: Final Fantasy XIII was coming to the Xbox 360, but only in Western markets. The game was getting a PS3-only release in Japan. Gamers were sent into a tailspin, with players in Japan wondering if the game was in fact truly a PS3 exclusive.

In an interview that July with Dengeki Online, FFXIII producer Yoshinori Kitase quelled fears and stated clearly, "In Japan, a Xbox 360 version will not be released." That same month, Square Enix's Shinji Hashimoto said, "There are no plans whatsoever" when asked if the game would be released on the Xbox 360 in Japan.

Square Enix remained steadfast on the PS3's exclusivity and even went as far as including "For PlayStation 3 Only" after trailers for the game in Japan.

In August, Final Fantasy XIII director and writer Motomu Toriyama was likewise crystal clear when told Dengeki PlayStation magazine, "There will absolutely not be an Xbox 360 version of Final Fantasy XIII for Japan." Earlier that month, the Xbox Taiwan head Grace Chou reportedly confirmed the Asia release (Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong) of Final Fantasy XIII — causing speculation that the game could be played on Japanese Xbox 360 consoles. Microsoft, later, played damage control.

Then in summer 2009, Xbox Japan "accidentally" uploaded a Final Fantasy XIII page to its Japanese language site.

This summer, a list of Xbox 360 Achievements for Final Fantasy XIII appeared on the Xbox LIVE site. There were 35 Achievements, all localized into Japanese. In August, Kitase said he "couldn't say" whether Japan would be getting FFXIII on the Xbox 360 or not.

Then the game was finally penciled in for a Japanese release. This December after years of build up and expectation, Final Fantasy XIII was released in Japan. a budget version and priced at ¥4,980 (US$59), which is nearly half of what it cost on the PS3. Dubbed "Final Fantasy Ultimate Hits International", the game features a new "Easy Mode" as well as an English voice option. Microsoft launched a television campaign promoting the game's Xbox 360 release.

In its first week on sale in Japan, the PS3 version sold over 1.5 million copies. A year later after the hype and ballyhoo died down, the Xbox 360 version sold less than 22,000 copies. It didn't even crack the top twenty and actually came in at number 39. Granted, the Xbox 360 version might have done better if it wasn't released a year later.

The most disturbing thing is that DLC seemed to have been teased for the game. But those plans went out the door. Toriyama apparently told a Japanese game magazine, "We had plans for DLC, but those plans disappeared. Apologies!" One can't help but wonder if those plans went out the door when focused shifted to releasing the game on the Xbox 360.

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this sucks, I have three PS3 games. FF 13, valkyria chronicles, and Naruto storm 2. and only valkyria had DLC. I was screwed -__-
 
Square has got to stop making things for the 360! And I can't see DLC for it anyways; I just don't see how it would add anything.
 
Demon_Skeith said:
I think the story could have been a bit better and the game could be less linear.
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I liked the story. I agree with it being too linear for a Final Fantasy game (even though VII was kind of other than the Open World part, and X was also linear). the only thing that I was greatly annoyed by how annoying Vanille and Hope were, and the difficulty.
 
GracefulAssassin said:
I liked story. I agree with it being too linear for a Final Fantasy game (even though VII was kind of other than the Open World part, and X was also linear). the only thing that I was greatly annoyed by how annoying Vanille and Hope were, and the difficulty.
Click to expand...

the difficulty actually added some reality to the game.
 
Eh, for me FF13 wasn't very good at all. There were only a few parts that were hard and even then it was more of a nuisance factor than anything. (Getting the Eidolons was the tough part, and it was way tougher than was worth it since the only Eidolon I really used was Bahamut and that was for farming Trapezohedrons and platinum ingots from the adamantoise. The rest of the time it was just quicker/easier to use normal attacks.)

The game was too linear for too long and even when it did open up in chapter 11, it was almost too late. Though even though it did open up, it sort of didn't feel like it since it was only really 1 side quest. (But it was kind of long and parts were really repetitive. Namely the titan trials... )

And the auto battle... That sort of makes the game too easy since all I ended up doing was letting the computer choose my actions since most of the time it'd take longer for me to pick the attacks, then the target, then confirm than was worth it. (Since there is no way to really stop the time while I made decisions it meant everything had to be done on the fly which mean the computer is at a distinct advantage because it can very quickly/easily select things without wading through the menu system.) Plus I was still getting attacked while making decisions, which wasn't something I liked.

The upgrades also felt way too linear too. I mean there was no way you could branch off like in FFX and no way to improve the crystarium grid so once you finished the trip around the grid that was it. Yeah, it meant battles were more tactical then brute force. But it sort of took away from that feeling of: "I'm over leveled and now I'm unstoppable."

Those are just my thoughts though.
 
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