Actually, I'm kind of worried about how good/bad FF13 will be when it comes out. Take FF12 for example, it was a great game and pretty ground breaking in terms of how RPG genre fights were handled. Make no mistake, FF13 will be breathtaking graphically and I'm pretty sure it'll be very innovative from what we could deduce from the fighting system we see in the previews.

Here's where I'm worried though. Back in the hay-day when there were no concerns for graphics, a RPG usually had a very indepth story. FF6, Chrono Trigger, Xenogears comes to mind as the top three. Fast forward to now and with the release of 12, sure it was astounding graphically and innovative, but the story itself; while intriguing, fell flat on it's face in character development and focus. The focus was purely on the war and the political intrigue. I absolutely had no emotional investment in the characters themselves, I could've cared less what happened to any of them.

I worry this is the direction that they'll take with this new generation of Final Fantasy because as far as they are concerned, 12 was a hit and it just might become the formula for future Final Fantasy's to come. I'm still waiting for Square Enix to actually release something that was on par or far above what they've released in the past.

Final Fantasy 13 and Versus, I hope and I pray, will actually have a main character who's interesting and worth a damn.

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"The internet is where men are gullible, women are men, and children are FBI agents."
"The day you get Apocalypse will be the day I quit." ~Scorsese

So true. FF7 was my first one, and while it looked great to me (my first rpg) the story was the main thing. Took me like 2 years to finish it but each time I was able to play it I was thinking whats going to happen next /panic. I also liked FF8's story. Felt sorry for renoa (? forgot the name) and kinda liked the antisocial behavior of Squall (was interesting to me, and not common from main characters). I remember that part where they put on a show and squall was in it. Hah, I felt shame although it was squall. I was getting into it. And darn that part where you went drifting into space to try to rescue Rinoa. I also liked the teams splitting up in ff8 which I found out later ff6 did it too. Gave things a epic feeling (1 team go here, other team go to this area all the way over there type, not ff7 final boss type). I'm probably out of space soon so yea, I wish they started focusing on the story more. Even if that vagrant story dude did leave in the middle of ff12 they should have been able to do something be

I thought FF8 had a good story behind it, I think the problem was it had a antagonist that just showed up out of nowhere and there was no buildup. It kinda felt like they just tossed them into the story just to have a final boss fight.

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"The internet is where men are gullible, women are men, and children are FBI agents."
"The day you get Apocalypse will be the day I quit." ~Scorsese

The first FF I played was the original FF waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back on NES. I actually bought the PS1 version of the Origins game so I could get it again because I liked it so much.

In terms of story, I thought FF8 had by far the most real characters of any of the FF's. If not because of the graphical presentation of the characters, then definitely because of the way they acted (Squall has always been my favorite char, even though he was kinda emo). Cloud never seemed to have an actual characterization, Zidane was kewl but I didn't like how he was just a number that was produced (sry for spoiler), and Tidus, my gawd don't get me started (FFX prolly had one of the best soundtracks other than 8 though, so that was a +).

I think FF13 is gonna open up a whole new world (see: Aladdin) of stories. Remember how happy everyone was when Nintendo made an adult Link for OOT? I have a feeling people are going to fall all over the characters in the urban environment of FF13. The new lead seems so badass (for the FF13 side-project) and I think that's going to play a lot into the way that people read this game. After FF9, the whole series seemed to dwindle a bit until FF12, which I found so engrossing I quit FFXI for like a month when it came out. Anyway, the story is what always attracted me to these games. I bought the first FF because I had heard the story about why the game was created, and I figured that it would have to be checked out if it were the last Squaresoft game ever produced.

I've never actually played Xenogears, but I have Xenosaga and I can tell you that it sucks mightily. I haven't ever been so disappointed with a game as I was with that. The battle system, the characters...none of them seemed to really grab what Xenogears had done (again, I base this on assumption through reputation).

Basically what I'm saying is, let's go back to the old FF style. No one cares about your rainbow-clad environments (sry Scor) or your sexy pixelated characters. Give me some story at least....even FF12 was devoid of a real story. Saving the world in FF7, 8, and 9, was definitely the way to go as far as storyline. An oppressive king or something does not fit the grand scale of the way FF games should be conveyed. I love the idea of legendary weapons, the "hidden" super-hard boss, and other things that have made past FF's great, but BRING THIS SHIT BACK FOR FF13 PLZ, thx.

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Tread softly because you tread on my dreams-

Lies are a funny thing,
they slip through your fingertips because
they never happened to you.

lol you had me at "a whole new world (Alladin)". Disney pwned back then, good times. And yes bring the story back SE.

of all the games i liked FF8 the most. The story was awsome for the most part, true the end was kind of thrown together it seemed, but still was awsome. I loved the characters cause they had personalities rather then the just lame OMG LETS SAVE EVERYONE AND BE ONE HAPPY WORLD. I hope that 13 will delve back into player development and story quality. just wish it would come out soon, not many good games for ps3 that i'm into however this one i cant wait i want it NOW

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yeah... i've been playing the FFs since FF7 (it was my first - i had it for pc since i didn't have ps) it got started on the rest of the series. starting for from III you can really see square focused on improving stories + combat system for each game until 6 (one of my all time favorites). 7 was different, you can feel like there was more focus on the graphical aspect of the game (which you must admit, it did look pretty damn good at the time, and it was huge too). I don't really feel like tried to give as much developement concerning the script. 8 was a whole new style. trying to aim for more real characters with lots of developements. it was a nice balance of 7 and 6 (graphical improvement while still feeling that the script was something they put a lot of priority in). 9 i don't have much to say, it was a good game, but i don't really feel like the development team tried to push the bounderies on anything like the previous games did. 10 was beautiful in terms of graphic and music, it feels like 10 was kind of the step from 6 > 7 again, less focus on the script, but you are putting a lot of effort into the other aspects of the game for further games. (i'm skipping 11 because it's a mmo - though you can see the influences from the other games in it). 12 tried to take a different step in terms story, it wasn't something you see often in a game, and it kind of failed lol, but the game was great for it's fighting system and graphics.

i think honestly, 13 will be great. caus if you look at the evolution of the games, you go 1-2 > 3-6, 7 > 8-9, 10-12 > ?

each few game you had one game that was different and laid the way for good games after it. i think the dev team has gotten plenty of experience with 10 and 12, so we can really expect something very good from 13.

FF's sometimes just have shitty stories
10-2
shitty story
12
shitty story
7, 8, 9, 10, all badass stories
they make flaws, and yeah they made two consecutive issues, but simple with the maps and shit ive seen about the game, it looks like it'll have a good story. Especially how there's 13's in the same world with two seperate stories yet in the same time period. It means there's some major things that they have to base both games off of, meaning big stories. The problem with 12 was everything was so meager, nothing was a HUGE fucking deal, it wasnt any end of the world shit like the other FF's were, or wasnt really anyone taking over teh world to destroy everything and shit or w/e the other FF's were. If there's something big enough to base both games off of then it must have a huge plot.

Ooooh snap! I read somewhere that there will be a "FFXI-esque renkei (skill chain) battle system". If they also bring FFXII"s kill chain as well as more added depth and strategy of FFXI and original new stuff I'll be in heaven. I loved FFXII's fighting, just wish it was deeper and had more scary HNM like fights.

I'm going to play FFXII again. Stopped because of FFXI stuff and when I moved to PS3 (save file stuck on ps2). Now I don't have my ps2. Starting fresh. I will post more stuff when I get to a PC.