If you've played Final Fantasy XV for a reasonable length of time, then you'll be all too familiar with the woes of Chapter 13. The momentum sapping sequence is comfortably one of the worst portions of the game, owing to the fact that it randomly decides to change the entire tone of the experience, swapping out open world gallivanting for linear pseudo-survival horror.
It's awful and even Square Enix seems to acknowledge that fact, with the firm going back to the drawing board and making some changes to the section. Starting from 28th March, a new patch will be made available "enhancing" the latter stages of the story, including the aforementioned atrocity. Gladiolus will become playable for a short period at some point, though it's unclear if this will occur during Chapter 13 itself or at another moment towards the tail of the campaign.
It's a bit bizarre this, isn't it? Like, on the one hand, kudos to Square Enix for continuing to improve the game – but most fans have already played through the story, so we're not exactly sure who these enhancements are for. Surely this kind of time and effort would be better invested in some kind of sequel at this point?
[source gematsu.com]
Comments 34
I agree that this chapter was linear, confined and too long. However, I really enjoyed the survival horror aspect and the fact that you are stripped of your weapons. This switches up the gameplay quite nicely. It was way too long though.
It is a bit weird that Square is implementing these changes months after release. I can't be the only one who's finished the game and has no desire to play through it all again?
gives me a reason to use the New Game + mode i guess
I didn't mind it. Was different definitely, but it didn't bother me. Very weird if it's changed massively as anyone who really cared has probably experienced the way it is!
I liked it haha. Probably because I expected the worst. But it wasn't THAT bad, come on.
I actually enjoyed that chapter yeah it was a tad too long but it made sense from a story perspective and made you miss your friends as Ardyn torments you. I have too many games at the moment to be replaying this but may blast straight through the story on new game plus if it's substantial enough
Guess I'll stop playing and wait a while then.
I stopped playing the game at chapter 8 after hearing there would be a patch to make the later chapters better but now I'm wondering is it worth waiting for or just getting on with it?
Unfortunately this isn't going to fix the fact that the entire back third of the game left a bad taste in my mouth.
Well that tells me i'm ok waiting awhile if they plan on revamping entire sections of the game based on poor reception. No biggie.
I barely started the game, so this works out great for me!
Well i'm still at chapter 2 so no problem, i'll just take some time to pass everything 😂 i'll engage on side quests, i'm loving the game so much, i've played for 4 hours now 😄
I'm in the middle of chapter 10 and this game is losing me. Anybody want to play a really open world game go play XCX, it actually is an open world.
I knew I should have waited for the Definite edition, but no, I have to get it for Christmas. Don't think I can hold off on chapter 13 until the end of March. Though w/ that weird Umbra dog mechanic I suppose I can. Used it for the first time last night to go bet on arena battles - lamest minigame ever I thought it was going to be like DQ8 arena on PS2 - but I'm worried about continuity issues.
Anybody make use of Umbra? I still have almost all of my bounty hunts left, I could probably just do them until March 28th, I only play about an hour a day 5 nights a week. I'm not really sure why they gave us a time traveling dog - I suppose it will become important later please no spoilers - rather than just giving us a flying ship to go where we want. Now I'm stuck on a train driving thru Westworld and the station is surrounded by a invisible wall. ugh
I honestly think this patch is less for the players, and more so for the developers themselves for their own sake and/or satisfaction. At least, I know what if feels like to want to improve something I've created just for the sake of satisfying my own wants.
Either way, this will definitely suit someone such as myself who has already bought the game but have yet to even download it.
Kinda glad that I didn't pick this up last year. I'll get it when it's finished.
Square stop this nonesense and just get cracking with the ff7 remake.
I actually liked Ch13 the way it was...I don't want to spoil anything but I think it made perfect sense with the narrative and character growth at that particular time. To be fair, I had more troubles to digest the stitched train chapters...too short, too disconnected. From Ch 13 to the end the game actually won me back.
That said why would this be bad? I didn't see anyone getting mad at CD Project RED when they changed the way the main character controlled, the font size, the whole user interface (1 year later) or Triss merigold's romantic cutscenes...
@themcnoisy Different team, I guess? I don't actually know though.
This chapter is too long yeh, but I don't understand how they can change the game play and still get across the message of noctis being alone and powerless...
I think you mean the BEST chapter
@rjejr I really liked XCX, but whenever I played it I just felt frustrated. The Wii U really drags it down to be honest; the game could have been absolutely huge if it were not limited by the Wii U. That's just my opinion though.
Castlemark Tower was definitely worse. It makes chapter thirteen look like a masterpiece by comparison. It was absolutely terrible...
@Constable_What "absolutely huge"
There were 5 continents, a fully sized city and a big spaceship, I don't think XCX had to get any bigger than it was. FFXV may be bigger on the map but there are so many places you can't seem to get too and it seems very flat, XCX had layers upon layers.
I'm only about 2/3 thru FFXV but I always feel like their are boundaires, always, in XCX all boundaries were removed once my skell could fly. So I really don't think Wii U held it back at al. Well except for the lack and collision detection in the city, there simply wasn't any, kind of strange. I do like the characters better in FFXV, but if I could have those 4 guys and that story on the XCX map w/ the obviously inferior graphics I'd take it in heartbeat.
@rjejr The size isn't at all what had me frustrated. It was the fuzziness of the landscapes and the textures. It really bothers me, it personally irritated my eyes. Also the pacing in that game was very inflated with a whole bunch of either unfun or pointless fetch quests that relied on finding things in certain areas that either would or wouldnt be there. I personally got my skell and stopped playing once I got it. That was like twenty or thirty hours into my playthrough and then Tokyo Mirage Sessions came out.
That was the general consensus between my friends and I that bought the game was that the game was pretty great, but it was incredibly frustrating that it's could have been so much better on the Wii U. Of course my friends and I all have gaming PCs and PS4s as well, so when we played XCX it just felt (FPS) and looked(Graphics, resolution, post processing, AA) terrible that combined with some very repetitive quest design and it being on the Wii U (Mainly I have to turn on my Wii U) has mad It hard for me to pick it up again.
That being said, I do plan on going back to it eventually. I would even say that I think it is a better game than FFXV which makes it all of the more frustrating to me that if it were on any other console (or PC) it would be so much better. I would even say as far as open world RPGs go I would place just a few tiers under the Witcher 3 in my opinion.
I'm just disappointed in the Wii U. Hopefully the Switch will be better, as I will need to get one once a new Fire Emblem or Monster Hunter comes out.
@Miles_Edgeworth If they made it so Noctis didn't have to slowly walk through a lot of the early sections that alone would make that dungeon much more tolerable. Because the first half of the dungeon was really boring, but the second half picked up a lot more.
@Constable_What I got XCX Christmas '15 and my PS4 Christmas '16 so far me I thought the graphics were great, some of the best the Wii U had. Probably helped that I only played XC about a year before that, so going from XC to XCX almost back to back XCX seemed really impressive graphically though the story sucked. Bayonetta 2 was much better, I only played that last fall. I'd say B2 could pass for a PS4 game and if they ported it they wouldn't need to change much.
I know what you mean about the story in XCX, but getting the skell really opened things up, and then of course when the skell could fly you could really get around. Worst music in a videogame ever though, not sure what they were thinking, and XC was some of the best.
Well I'll reserve judgement until I'm done w/ FFXV but as it sounds like it's going to get worse here on out I'm thinking I'd recommend XCX over FFXV. Maybe XCX will get a Switch port, XC made it to New 3DS.
@rjejr I actually liked the music is XCX. I never played XC because it was on the Wii, and I hated the Wii. I mean you can think the graphics are great more power to you, butI thought they were pretty bad. Most things on the Wii U look really bad to me. Bayonetta did look good for a Wii U game, but I definitely don't think that game could pass for a second as a PS4 game if they ported it. The story does kind of suck in XCX though.
I mean the Wii U was my first Nintendo home console since the Gamecube, so I was really just dissapointed with it. Not that it matters anyway.
@Constable_What that's a good point. The fact that you couldn't sprint was really irritating
Although the chapter was far too long, I still enjoyed it. It was one of the more memorable parts of the game because
A. The pace and style were changed and B. I died a lot, which gave it a much higher spike in difficulty. Glad they are still trying to improve the game though!
@themcnoisy
I completely agree
@rjejr @Constable_What having finally completed XCX, I found it pretty darn good as a game but I don't know...it feels a little hollow? XV has way more ambitions and more wrinkles but it's much more endearing in the end and will be more fondly remembered imho. The guys, the pictures, the campfires, the banter, the art direction and music...I could totally be biased having completed XV before XCX, though: I can imagine it having a bigger impact on me had I played it before.
@Feena I need to finish XCX to have a more substantial opinion. I want to like it so much. Maybe that's the problem...
I did really really like XV though. It had an impact on me and I did enjoy almost everything that game had to offer.
@Feena "hollow"
Is that an XCX pun?
Story and characters are better in FFXV, I was talking about the openness of the world. In FFXV I feel like I am always blocked by short rock walls or outcroppings or 2' of water or just plain old invisible boundaries - first train station in Chpt 10 you can't walk behind the train. Still can't get behind Old Lestallum on the left, only the right. Lots of little fences everywhere Nocits can't jump over. I don't care abut not driving the car off the road, Chocobo took care of that, but there are still a lot of places even they can't go. Still have half the game left so maybe I'll get over it, but not if the game is going to get even more linear and cramped as it goes on.
@get2sammyb @ShogunRok Heres how bad my timing was for this update.
Last night I was in chapter 10, thought I'd mess around a bit doing sidequests waiting for the update. Played for 2 hours tonight I'm somewhere in the middle of Chpt 13. How did that happen?
I looked at my old saves - I'm a save nut when I play JRPG I have 4, 2 auto, 2 manual - I kept a manual save outside the lighthouse in Caem right before getting on the elevator. Says Chptr 8 43 hours. Now my other save is Chptr 13 49 hours. So it took me 43 hours for 8 chpts, 6 hours for the last 4. That's nuts, they just took FFXIII and reversed it. Who asked for this?
I have to say Chptr 13 isn't as bad - so far - as you guys made it out to be. Don't know if either of you are old enough for Xenogears but there was literally a 5 hour hallway, near the end somebody in your party actually says - "Wow, this hallway is too long, it goes on forever." So rather than being a really bad chapter I think it's just an homage to bad JRPG videogame cliches. I think all of Chpt 11 - all 8 minutes of it - was actually a recreation of The Bouncer on PS2. That entire game was 20 minutes and all I really remember is on the train roofs.
So anyway, you guys want to play a better JRPG, chip in, get yourselves a Wii U, and get XCX. I'm done w/ FF after I finish this game. Level 5, Monolith and Kingdom Hearts 3 should do it for me. OK maybe I'll play FFVII remaster, if it actually ever releases, I have my doubts.
3 more Chptrs to go, no spoilers please. I'm not sure why I think it's 16 chapters, I may have saw that flipping thru the hardcover guide I haven't read yet. Maybe it can wow me still.
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