I've never really agreed with or understood this take. Spamming one button is what you do in every Final Fantasy game against trash mobs. Attack, Attack, Attack, Attack. I don't even generally let my mages use magic on trash mobs because it's a waste of MP I might need later on.
"If you can literally just spam 1 button and
be as successful if not *more* so than using basic strategy for more than half the game, you done fucked up your game." Re-read the bolded part. Yes, you can "spam" the attack button in earlier Final Fantasy titles, but very quickly you will find that you are wasting a *lot* of time. Using even the most basic of strategies can allow you to finish fights in a far faster, more efficient manner.
This isn't the case in FFXIII. Spamming the Auto Battle Button is just as successful, if not more so, for more than half the game. Even past that half way point, you can still freely spam Auto Battle with the rare paradigm shift
"You have to heal, too!"
Yeah, and you have to heal in XIII. In XIII if you time a heal wrong, it will destroy your party in record time.
This has literally never happened to me. There is no strategy or skill involved aside from 2-3 fights in the end game/hunts section.
XIII is more about timing and actual time with it's battle system than it is about resource/MP management and getting to the end of the dungeon with limited supplies. It's a different game than that, and if that's what you're judging it's merits on, then of course you'd be disappointed.
Except it isn't. There is no timing needed. Spend a few seconds in one paradigm, buff/debuff, heal in another paradigm, attack in another. Its the most simplistic and brain dead of the combat systems.
You can beat a lot of trash mobs with Auto Battle, sure. The strategy comes from doing it efficiently. Defeating an enemy that you could beat with Attack in a minute with a Paradigm that allows you to win in ten seconds. Analyzing strengths, weaknesses, immunities and vulnerabilities to debuff/buff more efficiently to end battles quicker. Coming up with an equipment and Paradigm deck to farm Adamantoise enemies (with several million HP) when your strongest party member has 8k. This game treats most every encounter like a mini-boss and a puzzle.
Auto Battle literally defeats the vast majority of the game as fast, if not faster, than trying to manually choose abilities. It takes seconds to set up paradigms and there is literally almost no thought to them aside from a few end-game optional bosses/enemies. We literally have a decade of data on this already that can easily be found with a quick google search and going into GameFAQs. The only time the battle system actually requires thought is near the tail end of the game. That is over 30-40 hours into the adventure and it is *fucking abyssmal*.
You can brute force the most safe/boring/repetitive action in any game. You can beat your head against a wall and after enough times, it will break. But the notion of "This game is super boring and lame because I don't want to engage with it's systems," is weird to me. It's not my favorite FF, but it is one that I feel get mischaracterized because people judge it for what it isn't and not what it is.
There is no point in "engaging with its systems" when it offers a way that is as good if not better for the majority of its run time to avoid them. That is the fault of shitty game design.
