1Up - The RPGs of March

1Up's The Grind column has a roundup of the March RPG "storm". Let me be clear, these are almost entirely jRPGs of which I have no clue but I thought it might be worthwhile peering over the fence at the neighbour's lawn. Apparently FFXIII, Yakuza 3, Resonance of Fate, Infinite Space, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, DA: Awakening and others are all expected this month.
More information.

For some reason I was hoping from the name that Infinite Space would be some sort of roguelike. But it sure wasn't.

Hmm. I was aware FFXIII and DA: Awakening were coming in March, but I wasn't aware of all the others. Busy month for JRPG fans.

Uhm, when did the Yakuza go from an action/adventure brawler game to a jRPG? Almost as bad as Fallout 3 being a FPS.

dawn of war 2 but no mention of mount & blade warband…

I wonder if Final Fantasy XIII can still be called a jRPG. From everything that I've read about it, it's become just a dungeon crawler with amazing graphics. With no towns, no side-quests, no world exploration, will this still feel like Final Fantasy? I hope so, but most reviewers agree that this could've been much better.

Originally Posted by Thaurin
I wonder if Final Fantasy XIII can still be called a jRPG. From everything that I've read about it, it's become just a dungeon crawler with amazing graphics. With no towns, no side-quests, no world exploration, will this still feel like Final Fantasy? I hope so, but most reviewers agree that this could've been much better.

Actually, FFXIII is split into 2 parts. The first half of the game takes place in a huge city, and is exactly as you describe. The second half features a large explorable world.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Actually, FFXIII is split into 2 parts. The first half of the game takes place in a huge city, and is exactly as you describe. The second half features a large explorable world.

Yeah, that was something that confused me. I read the RPGFan review and it mentioned that. But then it says that there are "practically no sidequests," no towns and is basically linear all the way through. If the game is split up like that, as they did in Final Fantasy 6, I believe (I never played FF6 up to that point), then that's clearly not true. So why say it?

I'm afraid that the "explorable world" you mention will not be that explorable after all.

Thaurin, apparently FFXIII is very linear for the first 20-25 hours, but then it opens up, including exploration and sidequests.

Here's a piece from a (very critical) review:

The first 25 hours of the game are one long corridor of palette-swapped enemies, fights that never quite find the right level of challenge, and cutscene after cutscene (after cutscene) leaving your joypad entirely idle.

Then it all goes right. Your party decamps to Pulse, a sprawling, slightly-more-open world beneath Cocoon, and the real FFXIII begins to emerge. [….] For around 20 hours after your arrival on Pulse, FFXIII hits a sweet spot, the relentless pull of the narrative dissipated over hunting side-quests and the simple joy of exploring to see what visual marvel is around the next corner.

http://www.edge-online.com/magazine/…iii?page=0%2C0

Supposedly, they had to cut a lot of content so it could fit in 3 DVDs for the Xbox version, "enough content to make another FFXIII" if I remember correctly. Maybe the content they removed was the side quest/side areas parts.

Originally Posted by wolfing
Supposedly, they had to cut a lot of content so it could fit in 3 DVDs for the Xbox version, "enough content to make another FFXIII" if I remember correctly. Maybe the content they removed was the side quest/side areas parts.

I had an Xbox 360 before my PS3 and, frankly, I like it more, but this makes even me a Xbox 360-bashing PS3 fanboy. Final Fantasy is a Playstation thing, damn it! But who can tell if this is really true, stories like that fly around all the time.

But good news, I guess. It doesn't really sting as much, knowing that the game *does* open up and shows its true heritage half-way through.

Originally Posted by wolfing
Supposedly, they had to cut a lot of content so it could fit in 3 DVDs for the Xbox version, "enough content to make another FFXIII" if I remember correctly. Maybe the content they removed was the side quest/side areas parts.

Eh, I smell PS3 fanboy bullshit. It is the cutscenes that take up the disc space, not sidequest/area content, so if they had disc space considerations, it would make more sense to eliminate a few cutscenes rather than huge swaths of game content. Plus, there are any number of huge, non-linear game worlds that fit on a single 360 disc.

p.s. And I've read elsewhere that S-E decided to put FFXIII on this path long before they decided to take it multiplatform.

I've heard of no content being cut for the Xbox. It will simply be on more discs.

I've heard that the cut-scenes on Xbox 360 are simply lower-quality (more compression, lower resolution?) than the PS3 version. Makes sense…

It came from an interview with Square Enix art director, here is a post that references the interview, but not the interview itself (which might be in japanese I guess) http://www.product-reviews.net/2010/…m-content-cut/

Originally Posted by wolfing
It came from an interview with Square Enix art director, here is a post that references the interview, but not the interview itself (which might be in japanese I guess) http://www.product-reviews.net/2010/…m-content-cut/

Nowhere does it say in that summary that they cut it to make it fit on three Xbox 360 DVD's. I think they just cut it for design reasons.