Towns and NPCs

[Ambios]

What's your opinion on the lack of towns and NPCs in FFXIII? Personally, when I got to Nautulis and found out all I could do is walk up to people and 'hear' what they had to say, I was disappointed. Most of the time they were one-liners, and most of the time I didn't have the patience to sit there and listen. "Wtf," I thought. This isn't a town. Maybe it looked like Esthar (FFVIII), but there were no shops, no people to talk to, no cool monorail; nothing like that. It was pretty much a room full of one-liner NPCs connected to a park. Lame.

On the flipside, it does save a lot of reading and walking around, and personally I believe S-E did try to speed up the dynamics of the series as much as possible with XIII. The battle system is a definite example of that. But any of the mini-games that might've showed up primarily in towns before (Triple Triad, Tetra Master) were non-existent.

I guess what I miss is walking into a shop, noticing a treasure behind the counter, and spending the next 15 minutes figuring out how to obtain it. Only to realize you can't. xD And the expanse of the towns, the interaction, the buying and selling (doing everything through a save point? come on!)... It was all missing in FFXIII.

 

[Æon Flux]

well for me I prefer towns and npc's to talk to I mean seriously what rpg dosent have them? But I think with this game they made it to appeal to a wider veriety of people and let go of alot of whatt the classic rpg style had...and in my case its a bad choice of judgment for them to have done this horrid thing.
I think the towns added alot to the feeling of the game in a way...In this game XIII since the only real contact with people you have,minimal as it may be, are people who hate you or are based on story line and dosent realy give you a good concept on why your bothering to save the turds...
I think its a fail move to take out the towns and shops...

 

[Linnaete]

You can sort of understand why there are hardly anything you can deem as a "town" in the game. Kitase's team behind the game obviously want the storyline to be the precedent focus for the player. The lack of towns mean that the story flows quicker. It also reflects well the fact that the characters are fugitives.

Nevertheless, the further I got through the game, the more I didn't like this absense of actual towns. Nautilus at least made me happy a little - it was the one thing that resembled a town the most. It seemed alive - it had actual NPCs to chat to (I quite like the fact that they were voiced - it did save a lot of reading and it was decidedly something new and brought sophistication to the location). You're right though - it still wasn't the kind of town we're used to.

I enjoy having towns in my RPGs. I love having them to roam around in, exploring and chatting to folks. It's one of the big reasons why I love the FF games. To have that aspect somewhat removed in FFXIII was a letdown for me. It is also one of the reasons why I find FFXIII inferior to FFXII. A JRPG with a lack of towns seems to be a semi-RPG. That is what FFXIII arguably is. A JRPG-lite.

 

[Darkobra]

As believable as the actual characters were, it missed that human touch. We needed towns in order to have the feeling of a world before Gran Pulse. We spent so long running and running that the game actually felt like one big straight line.

When I had heard we were getting close to a town, I had thought that we'd finally find some refuge. A place to explore. A place to shop. Even the place similar to the Gold Saucer of Final Fantasy VII lacked anything, really. Not even a few mini games to keep us entertained. It just felt like one big race to get from start to finish.

 

[chatua]

I don't mind there not being any legit towns, NPC interactions, and real side quests actually. My only incentive for playing this game was to finish the story, and if there were a bunch of towns, full of people you could talk to to get side quests, the main plot would've lost focus even more, considering how muddled it is anyways.

And for me, when I see a sidequest opportunity, I have to do it no matter how lame and boring it may be or else I feel like my life's not complete lol. So I'm actually better off with FF13 not having side quests. And besides, a pet peeve of mine with all other RPGs is how, say, the world is going to shit, but yet the main characters still find the time to go on a totally aberrant mission to kill 15 shambling skeletons and collect 20 shining orbs.

 

[Phoenix]

The lack of towns and NPCs that you can actually talk to in FXiii is one of the main reasons im not enjoying the game as much as I hoped. I would have prefered an actual text box that you read when talking to NPCs rather than just then talking when you go near them as Im never bothered to stop and hear what there saying. I love big towns that you can explore with lots of people to talk to as I see it as breaking up the time spend in duengons etc. I see having towns as a key aspect of any good rpg.

 

[DeadFantasy]

It bothered me a lot tbh. Town's and NPCs is what i loved about previous Final Fantasies. There was no wiggle room at all! I mean, no town's at all to stop by really ecxpet the one's you were required to go to. And even then, there was no NPCs to talk to DX you pass by and they say one thing--big whoop. It wasn't anything interesting either. >_>
It was part of other FFs so i don't see why they would stop doing that now. I loved that part of the other FFs.

 

[Aztec Triogal]

It definitely bothered me. It wasn't enough to affect my opinions on the main game, but it definitely felt like something was lacking. In fact, it seemed like all the areas were fairly arbitrary and underdeveloped until Gran Pulse. It was probably the only area I truly liked because it was the only one that was more fleshed out than a simple themed area. Every other area may have made for unique screenshots but they were never more than beautified hallways.

To digress, and I don't know why I can't help but think of Treno, but do you remember how much culture that place had? Not my favorite city in the FF series but do you remember the feeling you got when you walked into that place? It had life to it. It was kind of a pointless section of the plot and that fucker Gilgamesh stole shit from ya, but it had an incredibly strong presence about it. I really missed that in Final Fantasy XIII.

 

[GalaxyFlare]

The fact that they took Towns and NPC's out of this game just shows that they recognise something new needed to be added to FF but they got it wrong, without towns full of people its just Lightning and her bunch of freaks roamiing around until they turn into crystals.

Get it right before its too late S-E!

 

[CHIP]

I think I understand why Square left out towns and NPCs, because by never taking you out of the action, the pace of the game is kept fast and the strict linearity allows the developers to tell a more movie-like tale by taking freedom away from the player. Also, in the context of the story it makes sense, because they're being hunted, and so having them wondering aroud aimlessly would have destroyed the feeling of urgency that the developers were trying to convey. I think it's a case of the developers favouring the story over the gameplay. The game is beautiful, sure, you can tell a lot of love has been poured into making the game as visually awe-inspiring as possible, but it just lacks depth. It just metes out one walled-in, claustrophobic environment after the next, and you get assailed by enemies ad nauseum. It would have been nice to have an occasional respite from that, like a town. Just to give the gameplay a tad more variety. I think NPCs and towns served a vital purpose in previous games, because they immersed you into the game's world and made you feel like you were part of that world, rather than an outside spectator, just observing things and never interacting, like you are in FFXIII.