Final Fantasy 13 Fastest Selling in Franchise History

[BreakABone]

I guess going multiplatform has worked out for Square Enix. FF 13 has sold more than one million copies in its first week.

Final Fantasy XIII, the latest installment in Square Enix's seminal franchise, has sold over one million units in North America in its first five days -- the company says it's the biggest first-week performance in franchise history.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27750/FFXIII_Achieves_1_MillionUnit_FiveDay_Sales.php

Shall be interesting NPD since has 3 weeks after release.

[DarkMaster]

At least we know they'll continue to make Final Fantasy.

[TheSlyMoogle]

At least we know they'll continue to make Final Fantasy.

Yeah after this epic failure of a game. :(

I expected more from you square.

[Typhoid]

I think this game is really, really great.

[TheSlyMoogle]

I think this game is really, really great.

I found it to be short and boring. I was fairly excited for what I would find in the end game section, and was fairly disappointed to find nothing. :(

No ultima weapon, no omega weapon.

Trust that I understand they spent a lot of time on the crystal engine, and the game is very beautiful.

I found the majority of the characters to be dull, and the good characters happened to not be the main characters.

Sazh and Snow were highly likable, but basically their part was over by chapter 9.

Unfortunate.

[Typhoid]

To each his own.

[BreakABone]

I still don't get how you call 40-ish hours short, I mean how long do you want the game to be?

[Typhoid]

I still don't get how you call 40-ish hours short, I mean how long do you want the game to be?

And technically, if you want to complete everything, it's much longer than that.

[BreakABone]

And technically, if you want to complete everything, it's much longer than that.

Which he is, I think he mentioned last night, he was around 60-ish hours in or so.

I don't know on what scale that is considered short, he must hate those 10 hour games.

[magus113]

Which he is, I think he mentioned last night, he was around 60-ish hours in or so.

I don't know on what scale that is considered short, he must hate those 10 hour games.

I think the length of games depends on the genre to be honest with you. Look at the God of War series for example. You can't spend 15-20 hours just hacking and slashing your way through everything. It gets tiresome and it's hard to keep a good pacing.

Most RPGs are very time consuming and technically a short RPG would be probably about 15-20 hours (which I find usually occurs on most handheld RPGs, save the Final Fantasy ones). 35-40 for the main quest sounds about decent.

[TheSlyMoogle]

Which he is, I think he mentioned last night, he was around 60-ish hours in or so.

I don't know on what scale that is considered short, he must hate those 10 hour games.


1st off Earl, I could have beaten the main game the first time through in under 30 hours. At chapter 11 I decided to grind, which was definitely not needed, as the game gives you the perfect amount of enemies to max out your crystal grid by the next boss that expands it.

I spent around 5 hours in chapter 9 grinding enemies for credit chips and Incentive chips to get money and upgrade my weapons to 2nd tier.

I spent another 7 hours or so doing missions and gaining cp in chapter 11.Which I now feel upset about as I found out after I beat the game that the only thing left to do is those missions.

I didn't need to do any of this in order to complete the game, In fact ryan bill finished in 31 hours because he didn't level up weapons or grind for levels. And I do believe I was really wrong about 60 hours. Probably only going to take around 53 hours to complete this game and that means do everything. Around that time in any other FF game since 7, you might have beaten the story part, maybe. There's no way in hell you were anywhere close to doing the end game stuff. Maxing characters, secret bosses, ultimate weapons. Hell you probably were going to spend a good 100 hours at least and you probably still weren't close to doing everything. In 13, it should in no way take more than 65 hours for anyone, even someone who had never played an RPG before, to completely destroy the game, main story, maxed characters and all missions complete.

There were no towns, 1 sidequest (takes maybe 5 minutes) and 1 other side-part to the game that requires you to kill monsters that's it.

I'm sorry but 60 hours to do everything in a final fantasy game is just silly. They completely cut out everything that brought joy to a final fantasy game over the past 12 games. It streamlines you head on into a game that is not even standard FF fare except for the graphics. The music was basically terrible, hamauzu was like "let's put shitty vocals in everything, including chocobo song" the only time I enjoyed the music was when the battle theme was acceptable.

The battle system would have been pretty good if they didn't spend the first 12 hours of the game explaining how it worked when it really wasn't that complex. I mean the game finally picked up a bit after you could choose your own characters around hour 20, but by then the game was almost done. There was absolutely no exploration whatsoever, there were no dungeons, no puzzles nothing in this game was final fantasy.

I thought the CP grid was pretty well done as everyone had their own thing, and when everyone can finally cross over into other grids there are characters who just wont learn things, like snow can never have haste.

The story was ok, except seriously it had been 90% done before in Final Fantasy 10 except with a few changes. Seriously. At the end of the game my jaw dropped and I was like "Shameless, this is just shameless"

Look I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it. Like I said before "A decent RPG, but a Shitty final fantasy"

Like this is just not what I waited many years for. Not even close. I just can't see how anyone who has played a final fantasy game before doesn't feel very cheated by this game.

[Typhoid]

31 hours is considered a long game for most people.
I don't know what games you're comparing it to - but if a game has over 1 full day of gameplay before you can actually complete the game - that's a long goddamn time.

I'm curious, John - what do you consider a good length for a JRPG, for you to finish the storyline, and only the storyline?

Because most people don't have more than a few hours a day to play a game - with work and school. So if you work, and go to school - and only get in, let's say 2 hours a night somehow (and only play this game, and no others), let's say 4 days a week...that works out to the game being complete in roughly a month.

[TheSlyMoogle]

31 hours is considered a long game for most people.
I don't know what games you're comparing it to - but if a game has over 1 full day of gameplay before you can actually complete the game - that's a long goddamn time.

I'm curious, John - what do you consider a good length for a JRPG, for you to finish the storyline, and only the storyline?

Because most people don't have more than a few hours a day to play a game - with work and school. So if you work, and go to school - and only get in, let's say 2 hours a night somehow (and only play this game, and no others), let's say 4 days a week...that works out to the game being complete in roughly a month.

For main game at least 45-60 hours. Which is basically what most JRPGs have been. I can't say I've ever heard anyone complaining about a final fantasy game being too long.

Besides pretty sure most people who play RPGs make a lot of time to play them when they know they're coming out especially FF games. I know a lot of people who have taken off work/made an excuse to miss classes for final fantasy games.

It is what it is.

[Typhoid]

Final Fantasy 13 is between 50-70 hours for everything.
Final Fantasy 12 is about 50 hours for everything.
Final Fantasy 10 is between 50-70 hours.
Final Fantasy 9 is around 40 hours for everything.
Final Fantasy 8 is a little over 40 hours for everything.
Final Fantasy 7 is about 40 hours for everything.


So I don't know how this game is magically shorter than everything else, nor do I understand your hatred of the linear game play considering every Final Fantasy game is linear until a certain point. What is that breaking point in this game? Pulse. You can choose to keep going, or to roam the lands. If you choose to keep going, then yes - the game seems amazingly linear. Just as if you choose to run straight to each destination in FF7-9 and not explore the world, the game would seem just as small.

Most people I've read posts from said they beat 13 in around 60 hours. So maybe you just played the shit out of this game, and spammed a single party/ upgraded only 3 people's weapons as much as you could the entire time opposed to changing parties and leveling up equally and experimenting. Who knows.

As you said "it is what it is", but by no means is this a 'short' game.

[TheSlyMoogle]

Final Fantasy 13 is between 50-70 hours for everything.
Final Fantasy 12 is about 50 hours for everything.
Final Fantasy 10 is between 50-70 hours.
Final Fantasy 9 is around 40 hours for everything.
Final Fantasy 8 is a little over 40 hours for everything.
Final Fantasy 7 is about 40 hours for everything.


So I don't know how this game is magically shorter than everything else, nor do I understand your hatred of the linear game play considering every Final Fantasy game is linear until a certain point. What is that breaking point in this game? Pulse. You can choose to keep going, or to roam the lands. If you choose to keep going, then yes - the game seems amazingly linear. Just as if you choose to run straight to each destination in FF7-9 and not explore the world, the game would seem just as small.

Most people I've read posts from said they beat 13 in around 60 hours. So maybe you just played the shit out of this game, and spammed a single party/ upgraded only 3 people's weapons as much as you could the entire time opposed to changing parties and leveling up equally and experimenting. Who knows.

As you said "it is what it is", but by no means is this a 'short' game.


WTF are you smoking? What is your definition of "Everything"?

12 was at least 120 hours to max out your characters, collect every weapon (That's if you weren't retarded and missed the zodiac spear the easy way), and beat the Ultima and Omega weapons. The Omega weapon alone was nearly a 3 hour boss fight.

The estimated time to take everyone through the sphere grid in FFX is close to 150 hours, and that doesn't include the optional bosses and the secret dungeon.

Chocobo sidequest, getting the ultimate weapons, the card game to get better stuff and to max characters, Ozma the secret boss at the end, you're looking at almost 100 hours in ff9.

FF8, to fully complete the game, max everyone's stats, you have to do a no level run through of the game, which is kind of a bitch because it's a lot of drawing magic, then stat maxing, getting the best weapons (AKA getting your final limits), The Ultima and Omega weapons, at least 80 hours. Oh forgot the card game which unlocked some cool stuff too.

FF7 did you ever try to max out every materia as well as fully leveling characters? Then Ruby and Emerald weapons, as well as doing everything possible? Probably at least 100 hours there.

As far as completing the story, yeah you can generally get away with 40-50 hours in any of the final fantasy games if you don't sidetrack yourself.

The issue here is there's nothing after the end of the game for you to do other than the missions. As far as the missions go when you do get to chapter 11 you're looking at maybe being able to go up to Mission 14ish before you're going to just die. Don't remember what mission it was but you pretty quickly run into an enemy that does like 5-7k a hit. Maybe mission 16. You can't progress the missions either until you do progress and expand the crystarium again. So yeah they force a limit on the amount of progress you can make on pulse as well before there's nothing to do but proceed.

As far as that goes, Up until chapter 10 I used the teams I was forced to. In chapter 9 I upgraded all 6 characters weapons to 2nd tier with stars in about 4 hours.

After I could pick my leader and other members I used Snow, Fang and Lightning, and eventually near the end of chapter 11 switched to Fang, Lightning and Hope even though everyone was maxed in their innate grids, because in this game it doesn't matter who you use, everyone gains the same amount of cp whether you use them or not. So when you max 3 characters you in turn maxed the other 3.

This isn't some argument over whether games like this are linear, they all are as there's only one way to beat the game. Usually there's lots of stuff to do in between the linear shit. This was forced linear paths. In other FF games you could goof off in towns, explore what you could on the world map etc. often leading to money, items and equipment for your troubles. There was none of this in 13.

And yes this game is short considering that doing everything you possibly can in this game doesn't take over 60 hours, yeah hella short.

[Soviet Stinger]

jrpgs ಠ_ಠ

[DarkMaster]

To be honest, SlyMoogle, we all pretty much knew you hated the game even before you played it. I'm not too sure why you even bothered to play it, considering you hate FF10, didn't bother to play FF11, and judged FF12 to be a mediocre game based on some other person's playthrough. So we can assume you've been waiting since FF9 for a good Final Fantasy game? Personally if I hadn't enjoyed a franchise in over 10 years I'd probably stop caring about it.

I want to be frank and say that I agree with most of your criticisms, not quite done the game yet, but there's definitely some things I would've preferred they'd done differently. To say the game is short, however, is pretty ridiculous, especially when you consider this generation's games. Has there been any other title with this game's level of production values that has come even close to being more than 15-20 hours long? I was actually incredibly surprised to see that I've played for 40 hours and am still playing the main part of the game, 90% of other games this generation would've been done and over with loooong before 40 hours.

Not that I complain about short games, I actually love short and sweet games that I can rent and beat in a few days, but I have to appreciate what they've done with this game in terms of insane, ridiculously beautiful graphics and locations, as well as serious game length.

On another note, it's really interesting to see, not just here, but all over the internet how widely discussed this game is. Whether people hate it or not, it stands as a huge testament to how much people care about Final Fantasy. Wasn't sure if it'd still receive such massive discussion now that we've entered the Modern Warfare era of video games. I hope that it shows developers that a ton of people still care about these types of games.

[TheSlyMoogle]

The funny thing is, you seem to think I hate the game, but I don't. I liked it well enough. I enjoyed the time I spent with it.

You're right I hated FFX, I still beat it though, just to make sure I hated it.

I did play FFXI, but like I said don't know why we're considering an MMO as a final fantasy game, except for the fact that it has the name final fantasy. I don't know anyone else who considers it part of the series. I played FFXI for like 2 days honestly. I have 3 or 4 friends who play it, I though the concept was awesome. All my favorite job classes and I could make a cute little bear thing, or a giant bear thing, and play as them, in any class. The game was just trash though. I tried to play it by myself for a few hours and I tried to play it with my friends the next day. Even with a party of 4 (They started new jobs to level with me), it wasn't fun. For a lot of people it was I guess, but I'm just really not going to play an MMO, think the concept is silly of a game you have to pay to play, and when DLC is released you usually have to pay a premium price to get that too.

And yes I was there the entire time watching my friend play FF12. I actually would have enjoyed it, except I watched him play the whole thing. I saw all the big boss fights, all the story scenes, i even played a little for him during the end game stuff (Omega weapon took almost 5 hours to beat, so people needed to eat.) You honestly don't need to play an FF game if you watch the whole thing to say whether or not it's mediocre.

And you're wrong I started out extremely excited for 13. As reviews and impressions poured in I started to lose my excitement, and when I played the game I started to just realize how much this game was a failure at being a final fantasy.

As far as this game being short, for a final fantasy it is.

[Typhoid]

WTF are you smoking? What is your definition of "Everything"?

I didn't come up with those times, PR/developers/whoever for the games did.
"Everything" to them means beating the game and side-quests, not fully-leveling up on top of that.

I ask you this, John - is your crystarium, for every character - and every class - max leveled, and on top of that having all of the weapons in the game max leveled, at the 50 or so hours you're at? I can guarantee you that it's not. Seems asinine to complain about time, when you consider the length of a game 100% completion to max out everything, and you haven't even done that yet.

Get back to me when you've completely leveled up everything, for everyone, and upgraded every weapon as far as it can go - considering that's how you classify a long FF game.

I can guarantee you you'll play well over 100 hours if you try to accomplish all of that.

[TheSlyMoogle]

I didn't come up with those times, PR/developers/whoever for the games did.
"Everything" to them means beating the game and side-quests, not fully-leveling up on top of that.

I ask you this, John - is your crystarium, for every character - and every class - max leveled, and on top of that having all of the weapons in the game max leveled, at the 50 or so hours you're at? I can guarantee you that it's not. Seems asinine to complain about time, when you consider the length of a game 100% completion to max out everything, and you haven't even done that yet.

Get back to me when you've completely leveled up everything, for everyone, and upgraded every weapon as far as it can go - considering that's how you classify a long FF game.

I can guarantee you you'll play well over 100 hours if you try to accomplish all of that.

I'm at 52:39, with the entire Crystarium grinded to max for all characters, all missions completed except for 63 and 64, and all at 5 stars.

I'm in the process of getting enough money and catalysts to finish out the weapon upgrades, but every character has their best weapon max upgraded. I just need to upgrade all weapons to level 2 since they're all different, and upgrade a few accessories to complete the achievement. After that I'll do the last 2 missions until I 5 star them.

Adamantoise always drop platinum ingots (150k gil). I estimate 56 hours to complete everything.

[TheGame]

I haven't gotten into a game enough to where I wanted to beat it like that in a LONG time.

I did play FFXI, but like I said don't know why we're considering an MMO as a final fantasy game, except for the fact that it has the name final fantasy. I don't know anyone else who considers it part of the series. I played FFXI for like 2 days honestly. I have 3 or 4 friends who play it, I though the concept was awesome. All my favorite job classes and I could make a cute little bear thing, or a giant bear thing, and play as them, in any class. The game was just trash though. I tried to play it by myself for a few hours and I tried to play it with my friends the next day. Even with a party of 4 (They started new jobs to level with me), it wasn't fun. For a lot of people it was I guess, but I'm just really not going to play an MMO, think the concept is silly of a game you have to pay to play, and when DLC is released you usually have to pay a premium price to get that too.

With how hard FFXI is, I'd figure it'd be right up your alley. Though being a perfectionist in that game is quite dangerous. I completed the first 3 expansions's stories, it's a pretty cool epic story.. it just takes TOO much time.

I quit about 3 years ago.. But I'm considering playing FFXIV when it comes out. I just don't like how the classes have been re-labeled.. they should have kept the classic job titles. :(

[TheSlyMoogle]

I haven't gotten into a game enough to where I wanted to beat it like that in a LONG time.



With how hard FFXI is, I'd figure it'd be right up your alley. Though being a perfectionist in that game is quite dangerous. I completed the first 3 expansions's stories, it's a pretty cool epic story.. it just takes TOO much time.

I quit about 3 years ago.. But I'm considering playing FFXIV when it comes out. I just don't like how the classes have been re-labeled.. they should have kept the classic job titles. :(

Haha oh no doubt the game is hard. I had a friend that sat camped in a spot for 2 weeks waiting for a boss to respawn so it might drop the best bow (Think it was a bow) in the game. :s He even packed his laptop to classes to keep the game on so he could kill the boss if it spawned in class. Obessed haha.

My main problem with MMO games is the pay to play aspect. I just feel like it's throwing away money. I figure the story in FFXI is decent, but I agree it takes too much time.

I like RPGs to be long, but not 8 hours a day for 6 months long. That same friend is still playing FFXI, has maxed all jobs, and has logged something ridiculous like 2 years worth of time into the game when we divided out the hours he spent playing.

I just don't see why wanting the game to have more content is a bad thing. Especially with the way the game ended, there could have been 10 more hours of story that would have worked out well.

[TheGame]

Yeah it's not worth the time... The funny thing is, they just raised the level cap to 99. If there was any hope of me coming back, it's out the window now. :lol:

I just hope Final Fantasy XIV finds a balance between XI and Warcraft.. Warcraft is almost TOO quick on the updates, and the gear rewards are all normalized and there's nothing special anymore that exists within that game... while Final Fantasy makes you earn your keep a lot more, it makes the goals almost TOO time consuming to the point where you can't be elite in that game without wasting your life away.

Here's my wishlist:

Keep from FFXI:
-21-24 hour Notorious Monsters (and 4-7 day HQ ones), and the insanely diffucult ones.. just keep the fights under 3 hours. lol
-The awesome story telling and cutscenes
-The Awesome Music
-The somewhat realistic setting
-Special over-powered items that can be progressed towards daily

Keep from WoW:
-The balance of classes, limited damage dealers, more tanks and heals
-Instances/badges
-Freedom of movement.. jumping/swimming
-Strong Solo game and quests.
-Additional content added quarterly.. not the level cap raises, but maybe new stories and quests for lower levels to inspire you to level different classes.

New for both:
-More variety in gear.. keep WoW's vast selection of gear, but add more "stupid" or "specialist" gear like FFXI. Like an epic item in WoW with all attack power.. no stamina or anything, for example...

The only way I'd play a new MMO is if a game at least tries to find the middle ground between the extremly progressive always changing WoW game, and the overly conservative never changing FFXI game (well, until recently.. but I'm sure they won't add enough content to support the level cap raise..just quick money before FFXIV).

[BreakABone]

Has there been any other title with this game's level of production values that has come even close to being more than 15-20 hours long?
Off the top of my head would say the Bioware games (Mass Effect 1/2 and Dragon Age: Origins), Fallout, Borderlands, Lost Odyssey, so there has been a few, but its a rarity.


On another note, it's really interesting to see, not just here, but all over the internet how widely discussed this game is. Whether people hate it or not, it stands as a huge testament to how much people care about Final Fantasy. Wasn't sure if it'd still receive such massive discussion now that we've entered the Modern Warfare era of video games. I hope that it shows developers that a ton of people still care about these types of games.
Final Fantasy is the exception not the rule.
The same way that new Super Mario Bros Wii was heavily discussed and sold over 10 million copies, but we won't see a revival of 2D platformers or 2D games in general.

It just goes to show what name brand recognition gets you in this day and age.

[DarkMaster]

Off the top of my head would say the Bioware games (Mass Effect 1/2 and Dragon Age: Origins), Fallout, Borderlands, Lost Odyssey, so there has been a few, but its a rarity.
Not arguing those games quality, but in terms of production levels, they do not come close to Final Fantasy XIII. Which is saying a lot, I know, because especially in the case of Mass Effect, those games are pretty damn slick.