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[TheInfamousKira]

Okay, so there's been a (rather surprising) amount of Final Fantasy XIII talk on GAF lately, so I'm naturally going to add more because new, fresh topics are encouraged and I value good discussion. Actually, it's because I just finished another playthrough of FFXIII completely coincidentally to the resurgence of discussion about it, and I've been wanting to share my thoughts about the entire title in one place for about a year. This will be a long post, so if it's not your cup of tea, sorry. I welcome some good discussion about it, but if you just want to shit post and drive by with THIS GAME IS THE SUCK LOL then go ahead and do that, too. I don't mind.

My history with this title: I attended the midnight launch at my local GameStop with a few friends, buzzing my ass off on the ganja after watching the "reinvisioning," of Alice in Wonderland. I had been on the hype train since the reveal trailer in '06 (I bought a PS3 for Versus XIII, lulz) and I was quite excited for this game as (based on the trailers) it was styled very similar to FFX, which was in my top five FF titles. I even took the time to read Lissar's translations of the prequel novella, Episode 0. The game came out, and I was...lukewarm. it wasn't BAD, but it didn't immediately grip me like FFVII, IX, and X had. It just felt a bit...dry?

But in the year of our Lord, 2021, I've since had about four full playthroughs, and enough supplemental reading about the dev cycle, cut content, fan and critic opinion, etc to have what I consider a better rounded opinion of it all. This last playthrough, I finished the storyline, fully upgraded two weapons, completed all the Mark missions, and leveled up all of the main roles in the Crystarium for everyone. The only things lacking were a completed bestiary, a Long Gui fight, four more upgraded weapons, and a maxed Crystarium.

This is *not* a perfect game. At the same time, however, I think it's undeserving of all the vitriolic ire it attracts. It's linear, yes. The only towns you visit are essentially dungeons, yes. It created proper nouns, yes. There's an auto-battle option, yes. But in a lot of ways, I feel like this game

 

[TheInfamousKira]

Okay, so there's been a (rather surprising) amount of Final Fantasy XIII talk on GAF lately, so I'm naturally going to add more because new, fresh topics are encouraged and I value good discussion. Actually, it's because I just finished another playthrough of FFXIII completely coincidentally to the resurgence of discussion about it, and I've been wanting to share my thoughts about the entire title in one place for about a year. This will be a long post, so if it's not your cup of tea, sorry. I welcome some good discussion about it, but if you just want to shit post and drive by with THIS GAME IS THE SUCK LOL then go ahead and do that, too. I don't mind.

My history with this title: I attended the midnight launch at my local GameStop with a few friends, buzzing my ass off on the ganja after watching the "reinvisioning," of Alice in Wonderland. I had been on the hype train since the reveal trailer in '06 (I bought a PS3 for Versus XIII, lulz) and I was quite excited for this game as (based on the trailers) it was styled very similar to FFX, which was in my top five FF titles. I even took the time to read Lissar's translations of the prequel novella, Episode 0. The game came out, and I was...lukewarm. it wasn't BAD, but it didn't immediately grip me like FFVII, IX, and X had. It just felt a bit...dry?

But in the year of our Lord, 2021, I've since had about four full playthroughs, and enough supplemental reading about the dev cycle, cut content, fan and critic opinion, etc to have what I consider a better rounded opinion of it all. This last playthrough, I finished the storyline, fully upgraded two weapons, completed all the Mark missions, and leveled up all of the main roles in the Crystarium for everyone. The only things lacking were a completed bestiary, a Long Gui fight, four more upgraded weapons, and a maxed Crystarium.

This is *not* a perfect game. At the same time, however, I think it's undeserving of all the vitriolic ire it attracts. It's linear, yes. The only towns you visit are essentially dungeons, yes. It created proper nouns, yes. There's an auto-battle option, yes. But in a lot of ways, I feel like this game

LOL three quarters of my post got eaten.

Edit: I'll update this thread as time goes on, once the pit in my stomach from typing about a game that everyone hates for two hours and having it be unceremoniously deleted before my eyes subsides. In the meanwhile, you have your sequel hook. Find out what I feel like this game is next time on Dragon Ball Z.

 

[Cert.in.Death]

Conceptually, there is something redeemable in the OG narrative’s plot.

But my god the characters. From the antagonist to party members to the tertiary filler, the game is disastrous.

 

[ParaSeoul]

I always thought the 360 bundle of this was pretty aesthetic for some reason

 

[Kev Kev]

its a good FF battle simulator, but it misses the mark on so many of the "FF things" that its hard to even call it a mainline FF. i just did a LTTP in the FF community OT, you can check it out there to see specifics on how much i liked/didnt like the game.

overall i think it had the best laid out story out of all the FF games ive played, i thought the battle was pretty damn good for what it was trying to do (but it wasnt my cup of tea), and it had other bright spots like Sazh (great character with a great VA), and Gran Pulse (coming out into that part is like a top 5 FF moment for me, it was so glorious) and other things.

but with out towns, puzzles, mini games, NPCs that are interesting and lead to more puzzles and mini games, a proper open world to explore (fuck linear hallways to death, fuck them all, i hate them), no exploration and just no fun-to-find hidden stuff, the game just feels like a glorified battle sim with a good story running in the back ground.

oh and the cut scenes are top of the line as far as FF goes. top notch work there, some of the best in the series

so it was good and bad, and i totally get why people say its the worst FF (it certainly is my least favorite), but in the end all that matters is if you enjoyed it or not. fuck everyone else. glad you enjoyed it! lets hope FF16 can bring the community together with a compromise that works for all of us FF fans (although im going to hold off on playing FF16 until well after it releases, to get a vibe for what kind of game it is, the things it does right/wrong, and to make sure they have fixed any bugs and shit.... which is sadly par for the course in todays games industry. i may even skip FF16 entirely, i dunno, we'll see... im just kind of over square's bullshit atm).

 

[TheInfamousKira]

Okay, so there's been a (rather surprising) amount of Final Fantasy XIII talk on GAF lately, so I'm naturally going to add more because new, fresh topics are encouraged and I value good discussion. Actually, it's because I just finished another playthrough of FFXIII completely coincidentally to the resurgence of discussion about it, and I've been wanting to share my thoughts about the entire title in one place for about a year. This will be a long post, so if it's not your cup of tea, sorry. I welcome some good discussion about it, but if you just want to shit post and drive by with THIS GAME IS THE SUCK LOL then go ahead and do that, too. I don't mind.

My history with this title: I attended the midnight launch at my local GameStop with a few friends, buzzing my ass off on the ganja after watching the "reinvisioning," of Alice in Wonderland. I had been on the hype train since the reveal trailer in '06 (I bought a PS3 for Versus XIII, lulz) and I was quite excited for this game as (based on the trailers) it was styled very similar to FFX, which was in my top five FF titles. I even took the time to read Lissar's translations of the prequel novella, Episode 0. The game came out, and I was...lukewarm. it wasn't BAD, but it didn't immediately grip me like FFVII, IX, and X had. It just felt a bit...dry?

But in the year of our Lord, 2021, I've since had about four full playthroughs, and enough supplemental reading about the dev cycle, cut content, fan and critic opinion, etc to have what I consider a better rounded opinion of it all. This last playthrough, I finished the storyline, fully upgraded two weapons, completed all the Mark missions, and leveled up all of the main roles in the Crystarium for everyone. The only things lacking were a completed bestiary, a Long Gui fight, four more upgraded weapons, and a maxed Crystarium.

This is *not* a perfect game. At the same time, however, I think it's undeserving of all the vitriolic ire it attracts. It's linear, yes. The only towns you visit are essentially dungeons, yes. It created proper nouns, yes. There's an auto-battle option, yes. But in a lot of ways, I feel like this game

gets a lot of flak for the expectations that were thrust upon it. I feel it's judged a lot for what it isn't, versus what it is. I often see sentiments like "If it were a new IP, it would be amazing, but it's a bad Final Fantasy," Now, not to attempt to rouse or offend people with that opinion, this is all just conversation, but I've never had this issue with the game. Final Fantasy, being an anthology series as it is, has essentially reinvented itself sixteen times (hundreds if you count side content) and within the series structure, I really appreciate the different flavors. Not many franchises can make products so radically different from one another and place them under the same intellectual umbrella with quite as much pride as Final Fantasy. Of course, this means that purists of type A will hate type B and be disappointed by type C, and so on and so on, but I figured one more drop in the opinion bucket couldn't hurt. Maybe I can give someone a new appreciation of the game, or maybe I can really cement the reasons it sucks to someone else. Regardless, I'll give my thoughts on every part of this game in the following posts (because fool me once, shame on you when it comes to massive OPs) I'll be regarding the game's faults and strengths based solely on the game itself, and promotional material directly preceding the release. I.e. FFXIII, the demo, the trailers, Episode 0. I won't be considering the sequels or the sequel novellas for this series of posts.

Let's break it down.

-Music and Sound-

We'll start with a simple one. Sound design. Soundtrack. That deal. I say simple, because the OST to FFXIII is pretty much highly regarded across the board. Even haters seem to enjoy it. Masashi Hamauzu is pretty great. I believe the first Final Fantasy project he touched was Final Fantasy X, as a co-composer to Uematsu. Could be wrong, don't quote me. I next saw his name in the OST for Dirge of Cerberus, which I thought was kind of samey and boring, but I really enjoyed his work in FFXIII. The menu theme, Promise, the battle theme, Lightning's Theme, Hope's Theme, Sulyya Springs, Orphans Cradle. There's a lot of cool stuff here. Very diverse, with a lot of hints and nods to musical genres, without any attachment to one specifically. Less catchy and melodious than Uematsu's work, but overall it gave the game its own personality. The only big complaint I have is the Western version replacing Kimi Ga Iru Kara and Eternal Love with My Hands by Leona Lewis. Yeah, they're both typical pop songs, but one is composed by Uematsu and one isn't.

Anyway, more to come.

 

[SantaC]

It is a better Final Fantasy than XV. The enviroment in XIII atleast feels like fantasy and not like the copy and paste gas stations in an american wasteland.

 

[fart town usa]

FF XIII is an awesome game, full stop.

The story is really great once the characters start to actually develop, the OST is one of the greatest in any medium that involves music. Battle system is fun. It's linear as shit but I didn't mind, the one place you eventually go to functions as a world map to explore.

A lot of the hate came from it no longer being an exclusive to PS3 and everyone viewed that as FF13 being restrained to be playable on a 360. I don't know how much truth is in that and didn't really care.

This is still a classic image from back then, lol.

 

[Captain Toad]

I never got the love for X, but hate for XIII. They're similar style games, but I like XIII better on just about every front, especially battle system and OST.

At any rate, XIII is a hundred times better than XV.

 

[EDMIX]

Okay, so there's been a (rather surprising) amount of Final Fantasy XIII talk on GAF lately, so I'm naturally going to add more because new, fresh topics are encouraged and I value good discussion. Actually, it's because I just finished another playthrough of FFXIII completely coincidentally to the resurgence of discussion about it, and I've been wanting to share my thoughts about the entire title in one place for about a year. This will be a long post, so if it's not your cup of tea, sorry. I welcome some good discussion about it, but if you just want to shit post and drive by with THIS GAME IS THE SUCK LOL then go ahead and do that, too. I don't mind.

My history with this title: I attended the midnight launch at my local GameStop with a few friends, buzzing my ass off on the ganja after watching the "reinvisioning," of Alice in Wonderland. I had been on the hype train since the reveal trailer in '06 (I bought a PS3 for Versus XIII, lulz) and I was quite excited for this game as (based on the trailers) it was styled very similar to FFX, which was in my top five FF titles. I even took the time to read Lissar's translations of the prequel novella, Episode 0. The game came out, and I was...lukewarm. it wasn't BAD, but it didn't immediately grip me like FFVII, IX, and X had. It just felt a bit...dry?

But in the year of our Lord, 2021, I've since had about four full playthroughs, and enough supplemental reading about the dev cycle, cut content, fan and critic opinion, etc to have what I consider a better rounded opinion of it all. This last playthrough, I finished the storyline, fully upgraded two weapons, completed all the Mark missions, and leveled up all of the main roles in the Crystarium for everyone. The only things lacking were a completed bestiary, a Long Gui fight, four more upgraded weapons, and a maxed Crystarium.

This is *not* a perfect game. At the same time, however, I think it's undeserving of all the vitriolic ire it attracts. It's linear, yes. The only towns you visit are essentially dungeons, yes. It created proper nouns, yes. There's an auto-battle option, yes. But in a lot of ways, I feel like this game

FFXIII is not that bad of an RPG, gamers just exaggerate too fucking much. According to the cult, no Final Fantasy is good, I'm 99% sure you'll find some of them literally telling you how trash FF1 is and 2 is da real, real..REAL Final Fantasy lol They are the "we love it so much, we fucking hate it" crowd.

When they tell you something like "i've been playing it since" this is when its time to consider ignoring lol They'll always use this dumbass gatekeeping, seniority, fanfiction hierarchy to pretend as if them playing a lot of them, MUST mean they are right and you must hate all Final Fantasies they hate, but this can be stated about any IP.

Be like "The last real, I mean real...REAL Final Fantasy is V, when they go back to that, that is when Square will not go out of business"

"The last real, I mean real...REAL Resident Evil is Code Veronica, when they go back to that, that is when Capcom will not go out of business"

"The last real, I mean real...REAL Call Of Duty, is COD1, when they go back to that, that is when Activision will not go out of business"

"The last real, I mean real...REAL Battlefield is 1942, when they go back to that, that is when EA will not go out of business"

"The last real, I mean real...REAL Monster Hunter is Monster Hunter 1 on the PS2, when they go back to that, that is when Capcom will not go out of business"

lol

There is nothing you can do with cult like people like this, they believe they know what is best for any IP and they alone can tell you what is fun and what is good game or not etc. FFXIII is simply not that bad and I feel some of the most extreme FF cult members don't fucking really know what bad is.

Metal Gear Solid turned into a zombie online game, they fucking made a pachinko MGS game, we've see worse offenders in gaming and i think the community is too spoiled to see that FFXIII simply isn't one of em.

 

[Danjin44]

FFXIII has solid combat and great art direction and the problem isn't that the game is "linear" lot of JRPGs are linear, My problem is that they were trying make the "cinematic" RPG because at those times Uncharted games were popular and because of it the pacing and its structure heavily suffered for it.

 

[A.Romero]

Good timing for this considering it is on Gamepass including the sequel.

FF XIII is an awesome game, full stop.

The story is really great once the characters start to actually develop, the OST is one of the greatest in any medium that involves music. Battle system is fun. It's linear as shit but I didn't mind, the one place you eventually go to functions as a world map to explore.

A lot of the hate came from it no longer being an exclusive to PS3 and everyone viewed that as FF13 being restrained to be playable on a 360. I don't know how much truth is in that and didn't really care.

This is still a classic image from back then, lol.

Funnily enough the PC install is 30 fucking GB because they make you download all the languages.



Personally I didn't finish it but not because I found it disgusting. It's pretty different from other FF games but not a bad game at all. I enjoyed it more than FFXII I think. It's a pretty decent game on it's own.

 

[cireza]

Pretty good game, I enjoyed it. However, I largely preferred XIII-2 and particularly Lightning Returns. They are now 4K@60fps on Series X, and they are fantastic RPGs.

 

[fart town usa]

Good timing for this considering it is on Gamepass including the sequel.


Funnily enough the PC install is 30 fucking GB because they make you download all the languages.



Personally I didn't finish it but not because I found it disgusting. It's pretty different from other FF games but not a bad game at all. I enjoyed it more than FFXII I think. It's a pretty decent game on it's own.

I forgot about that PC install, lol. I remember reading about that at some point.

 

[EDMIX]

FFXIII has solid combat and great art direction and the problem isn't that the game is "linear" lot of JRPGs are linear, My problem is that they were trying make the "cinematic" RPG because at those times Uncharted games were popular and because of it the pacing and its structure heavily suffered for it.

EXACLTY, this IP literally has zero fucking history of being "cinematic" all of sudden the want crazy set pieces, voice acting, a story, explosions and shit smh, look what Uncharted did the series omg /s

So.....let me ask you this and careful think about this one dan, are you 100% sure FFXIII is this way because of Uncharted?

Quantify what you are saying instead of buzzwords. Actually really define what Uncharted did that was brand new in gaming, that Square applied to FFXIII that was never done to this series before, before making such claims. I'd be willing to even say that it is Square's deep history of cinematics that have paved the way for the likes of Uncharted in the first place. I'm out here waiting for you to just post (/s) to show you are joking or something as I don't know how one can make a claim like this when FFXIII was in development for years before Uncharted released.

 

[A.Romero]

EXACLTY, this IP literally has zero fucking history of being "cinematic" all of sudden the want crazy set pieces, voice acting, a story, explosions and shit smh, look what Uncharted did the series omg /s

So.....let me ask you this and careful think about this one dan, are you 100% sure FFXIII is this way because of Uncharted?

Quantify what you are saying instead of buzzwords. Actually really define what Uncharted did that was brand new in gaming, that Square applied to FFXIII that was never done to this series before, before making such claims. I'd be willing to even say that it is Square's deep history of cinematics that have paved the way for the likes of Uncharted in the first place. I'm out here waiting for you to just post (/s) to show you are joking or something as I don't know how one can make a claim like this when FFXIII was in development for years before Uncharted released.

I think they tried to bring gameplay to FMV level. I remember the first trailer and everyone was arguing if it was real time or not. The hype was real back then.

 

[EDMIX]

I think they tried to bring gameplay to FMV level. I remember the first trailer and everyone was arguing if it was real time or not. The hype was real back then.

Agreed. I think if in like 8 years you get some remake of this, I think they'd easily be able to capture that CGI trailer stuff as I'd argue what we have on PS4 is beyond that stuff.

I'd say FFXV is the first to able capture a lot of those ideas in real time vs always having some CGI thing, so I believe in the future we'll continue to see more of those in game assets used and not have this massive difference in models.

 

[A.Romero]

Agreed. I think if in like 8 years you get some remake of this, I think they'd easily be able to capture that CGI trailer stuff as I'd argue what we have on PS4 is beyond that stuff.

I'd say FFXV is the first to able capture a lot of those ideas in real time vs always having some CGI thing, so I believe in the future we'll continue to see more of those in game assets used and not have this massive difference in models.

FFVII Remake looks great too, at least at character level.

With current tech art direction can elevate the technical aspect because the computing power is already there for this stuff.

 

[Fbh]

Didn't hate the game as much as many back then but I still don't think it's great.

The combat is fun but takes waaaaaaaay too long to take off the training wheels, the characters are very uneven (Vanille and Hope in particular suck) and it needed more variety. FFX is actually pretty linear too but they mask it way better with towns, minigames, puzzles, sidequests, etc. FFXIII for like 90% of its runtime is running down a corridor occasionally fighting monsters.

The story had some great concepts, I think the whole idea of trying to fight the gods but knowing that by killing them you'll doom your world was great. But it gets ruined by cringe melodramatic writing and a stupid and unsatisfying ending.

 

[Pejo]

It's not a bad game on it's own, it's bad for the legacy of the series it represents though. I played through it in its entirety at release, and I really hated the battle system above all. It feels like a game that I could write a program for that could 100% the game without any decision making or thought. You could literally do that in FFXII but even that was more fun for me than "playing" FFXIII's battles. Then, there's stuff like lack of towns for that much needed reprieve, the forced party member segments with level caps that just goes on and on and on and on, the complete lack of exploration, the stagger system (that still haunts the series). I just didn't care for any of it in a vacuum, and then you add in the extra disappointment from being from (at the time) my favorite video game series, it created a strong negative opinion for me.

I thought for a time that I was just a shitlord for not liking a female protagonist, but the more time I spent in retrospect, it wasn't that I didn't like a female protag, hell I even enjoyed FFXII-2 amongst many other female led games. It was that Lightning was really one of the first of the modern 'female lead' fictional character archetypes. You know, super strong, stoic, always knows the right thing to do. No weakness, nothing to overcome, just setting up things in front of her and knocking them down. It's been a number of years since I played the game, but I don't think she had a single bit of character growth throughout the whole thing. Maybe through XIII-2 or LR, but I dared not waste money on those games after the disappointment I felt with the first game.

At the end of the day, sometimes I think about replaying it to see if my memories/original opinions are off, but then I think about my huge game library of games I haven't played once yet, or favorites that hit all the right notes for me personally. Then I say "fuck it, I'm never touching that shitty Toriyama fap material ever again".