FFXIII: Love It or Hate It?

While it is definitely not the best title that I have played, it is far from the worst.

The graphics are amazing, which is customary for any Final Fantasy title. The storyline is okay -- instead of focusing on a huge "Save the World" kinda deal, it was more about making decisions based on what the characters felt was important. It's definitely not perfect, but it's a whole lot better than what Square did with that Orphanage Scene in Final Fantasy VIII. The characters are pretty awesome, and so is the concept with the Eidolons.

There are some flaws with the battle system which I wish could of been made a bit better (Paradigm Shifting could have had some type of 'Formation' capabilities implemented imo), but for what it has done, Final Fantasy XIII has placed the ATB system from all previous titles (4-9, and perhaps X-2 and 12) on massive steroids, to where even time itself becomes a strategic element.

I'm not understanding why this title has received so much scrutiny when we've seen plenty of these elements in previous titles in the series...as for it's "incredible" linearity (Only as much as Final Fantasy X was linear) or the fact that there are no "intereaction" with Towns run by NPCs (Because we need more reasons to miss out on key important details of storyline, as in the case with Vincent and Lucrecia), or Mindlessly tapping X repeatedly (Which we've become so good at thanks to GFs in Final Fantasy VIII) doesn't really hold up against the elements of strategic roles of paradigms which completely compose the difficulty of the game itself. The weapon system (Which is probably what Final Fantasy VIII's upgrade system should of been) is actually pretty spot on with components giving EXP for upgrades.

I dunno what to say for the fanbase -- Final Fantasy has this interesting history of changing and evolving (As it well should.); I wouldn't expect much from XIV if you didn't enjoy XI or Versus XIII if you hate Kingdom Hearts style gameplay.
 
Love it or hate it...definitely don't hate it, so I love it, it has a good cast of characters, some good music, good gameplay/battle system, and the story is pretty good.

Yes, it isn't perfect, but then what is? It is a solid FF game in my opinion, I enjoyed it quite a bit, the Crystarium is alright, not my favourite system for strengthening characters and having them learn new abilities/magic, but it is acceptable.

On a less significant note, I really like those cool red ATB gauges when the leader has Haste status. :ryan:
 
I like the game, the battle music is some of the best yet, it just gets you pumped. the battle system is ok, i love the paradigms how you can just switch jobs faster than you can blink. probably a little too high paced. The bosses in this game were actually a bit of a challenge. The graphics speaks for itself. The summons sucked, they looked cool, but they sucked. And does anyone else hate the fact that if your leader dies its game over, other characters have raise, do they not? As for the side quests, actually quite easy. The FFX ones made me want to throw the system out the window. One of the best storylines in the series in my opinion.
 
Neither really, it has both its good points but also has its flaws. The storyline is solid up until Chapter 11 or so, I did like the ending though since it made you think rather than handing it to you on a silver platter. I do thoroughly enjoy the battle system, the paradigm system was definitely one of the more positive changes imo, it made the battles more tactical but also quicker depending on the paradigm. However, it was too linear, linearity was fine up until Chapter 11 because it was story driven. Problem being, imo, is that Chapter 11 is misleading, the whole it "opens up" isn't correct I don't think, you have the huge open plain but then all the paths that lead off are just as linear as the first half of the game, however, without anything driving it. The music actually seems "bleh" now compared to what I first thought of it, but then again I've just listened to the new title, NieR's OST, which is probably one of the best OSTs of all time. I don't hate it because it's a massive improvement on FFXII, but it's still no where near able to rival AAA titles.
 
Fleur said:
The battle system can be praised. It was more dynamic, albeit made a little easier compared to previous games.
Click to expand...
Agreed. There are many elements of FFXIII's battle-system that I love, and I think Square should hold on to them - like how unforgivingly fast-paced the battles are and how they keep you on your toes by forcing you to change tactics mid-battle, but it lacks depth, and for me, gets repetitive rather quickly.

It does have its fair share of annoying flaws, too - for example, sometimes your party members will maladroitly wonder into the path of your Sentinel, whose job it is to soak up the enemies' attacks, and consequently, they'll die. It's little things like this that detract from the overall experience. Not to mention the little annoying fact that when you die, the game automatically declares that you lose, despite the fact that your remaining party members could easily just revive you at the drop of a hat. It's a cack-handed oversight by Square, and ocasionally, made me so mad I threw my controller down in rage.

Then there's the niggling fact that the game doesn't keep a memory of your Paradigm configurations for specific party set-ups, which means you have to go through the invidious process of resetting your Paradigms every time you decide to switch your party set-up. All of my aforementioned quibbles dwarf in comparison to my biggest beef with the battle-system though, which is, its restrictiveness and the lack of player interaction.

I mean, to win 80% of fights all you really need to do is mash the X button and let your AI buddies do most of the work, like heal and draw the eneimes' attacks, weakening the challenge considerably and greatly diminishing the need for player interaction. Heck, as soon as you cast Libra your party automatically starts exploiting the enemies' weaknesess, as you sit back, mash X, and watch as the AI does most of the work for you. *Sigh*

It's pretty much the same story throughout the game - it eschews player interaction in the relentless quest to be a movie.
 
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Undecided

It is truly hard to say with 13. I certainly do like it, but i was disappointed in some fields like the cut of a free world map(but they cut this after 9 so i really shouldn't be that surprised. I really liked the battle system and way they game played out overall. The story was pretty ok and was an overall good experience. Just to me it didn't feel like a final fantasy like the others did(except for 12 , that felt like a random jrpg altogether). Just my opinion
 
I'm going to be honest, I almost didnt buy this game because of what all I heard from people who had the game. No towns, lvling system like 10, missions, chapters, I really almost didnt buy it. I thought it would be a heaping shit bomb of a game. But........

Boy was I fucking wrong, I love this game. I have played for 81 and a half hours, and currently doing a little CP building in the Orphan's Cradle where you can fight the Bandersnatch and Jabberwacky, that area. I have really never played a game that has gotten me hooked so much in along time. It's a game that I can actually play and enjoy and want to come back for more. Idk why people are so judgemental on this game and hate it, I think its a breath of fresh air and has been a successful "experiment" if you wanna call it that. And Lightning, well lets just say that I <3 her alot. This game I find very complicated as well, and I like that in a game. I hate an easy game.
Oh and btw Barthandelus at the end of chapter 11 can eat my dick. Doom and Daze is weaksauce.
So for me, I absolutely love this game!
 
20 reasons why Final Fantasy XIII is not a good Final Fantasy game

(spoiler)

1. No control of your 2nd and 3rd characters or at least the order of A.I. like FFXII's Gambit system.

2. If limiting user control to one character only, allow ability to change the characters during battle like, 8, X, and XII.

3. I NEVER changed my weapons. EVER. I upgraded them, but every weapon i found was virtually pointless aside from selling. The fist weapons you get end up being the best.

4. No minigames or REAL sidequests like 6, 7, 8, 9, X, XII

5. The chocobo digging is a pitiful glimpse of an attempt of what 9's chocobo digging was. And no chocobo activities compare to the difficulty and fun of 7's breeding and racing. Even X’s chocobo trials were better.

6. 3 of my Eidolons were only used once because 3 of my characters were never in my battle team and if they were, they were not the lead. Hell, Hope has been in my battle team since the beginning and he only lead twice, and one of those times was just to see what Alexander could do.

7. The world map is terrible, even if the plot IS about exile and isolation.

8. Seriously if i have to fight one more f***ing adamantoise.....

9. "Holy" has been in EVERY SINGLE FINAL FANTASY GAME except this one

10. So.... when someone turns to crystal their crystal form is nude. but when the awake they are still wearing clothes. There are many ways to do nudity and creatively not show "anything."

11. So… I don’t get to fight Titan?.... That’s a crushing blow to this game.

12. Being strictly linear maps, the fact that you can hear the nearby treasure chest eliminates all the need to search every last corner. If there is a stray path, 9 times out of 10 there is a treasure at the end.

13. Seeing as how several major enemies can inflict massive amounts of damage to my entire party in a single hit, why then won’t a medic class continue casting Curas after 90% health? The A.I. switches to casting single cures 1 at a time. WHY?!!!!! JUST HEAL ME AND BE DONE WITH IT!!!!

14. The Crystalarium allows no room for character personalization like such great FF titles like……all of them.

15. There was not a single puzzle or riddle to figure out. Trajen’s Tower is the closest the game comes to making you actually think but even that was handed to you with detailed instructions.

16. Im going to make the argument about no Towns for 2 reasons. The first being that even when Sazh and Vanille are nearing the parade, the town is still boring and LINEAR. AND At this point in the game you’re not known fugitives yet. The second reason is questioning why they couldn’t just put on disguises. I mean, the people of Cocoon didn’t appear to be very smart. They probably wouldn’t have noticed. Snow on the beach was about the closest it got.

17. No Gravity Magic

18. No Flare, Meteor, or any related massive damage Magic attack.

19. Seriously?.....a save point around every single turn?

20. The battle with Orphan consisted of Orphan doing the same move of taking me down to 1% life then allowing me more than enough time to fully heal and attack for 20 seconds or so then repeat. So disappointing.

BONUS: The game is so incredibly easy it’s insulting
 
I actually really loved XIII, it's in my top 3/4.

Yes, it's linear, but so what. FFX is just as linear, if not more so, and it's often called the best one in the series. Can't really criticize XIII and not X.

I thought it was a huge improvement on XII, which was criticized for lack of character-interaction. I LOVED that this game was full of it. Having two characters per team in each chapter for the most part worked really well. The Sazh/Vanille chapters, while somewhat frustrating to play through, really paid off - the story in those chapters was wonderful. I actually gasped out loud at the end of Chapter 8, I thought it was a really powerful moment.

I loved the battle system more than I expected to. This is the modernization to the series that XII should have been, and while I hope that the next main FF title allows you to control all three main party members again, I really enjoyed the battle system.

There were aspects I didn't enjoy, but, no game is perfect. And, overall, I enjoyed it far more than I disliked it, and like I said, it's in my top 3/4 FF games. I was impressed, I found it fun, interesting and engaging, and at the end of the day, that's all I really ask for in a game.
 
Despite a few minor things I love everything about it. I found the story extremely engaging and I was always eager to find out what was going to happen next. The characters were each very diverse and I actually liked all of them (although Vanille's voice got annoying occasionally). I thought the soundtrack fit in perfectly with the breathtaking setting and graphics (especially Cocoon imo).

The things I did not like were things like the strict party arrangement up until 75-80% through the storyline. I also didnt like the auto battle feature. Perhaps Square was looking to help the casual gamer/those who have never played an FF game but I thought it destroyed the aspect of strategy and made the game significantly easier (if you chose to use it). The boss fights didnt feel as epic as they did for me in other FF games and Dysley doesnt pale in comparison to other FF antagonists imo. The thing I thought was the worst was that after I finished the game I didnt feel like it was actually complete. It left me wanting more and maybe that isnt a bad thing but I felt like the character's journey shouldnt have been over quite yet and because of that I dont think any of the characters are quite as memorable. I hope they will make a sequel someday but we have versus and agito to look forward to as well.
 
While I didn't HATE HATE it, I certainty didn't like it so I'd have to lean more towards hate than love; I didn't like the plot and the characters annoyed me slightly (probably because I found them all cliched, I dunno), when I started playing I thought 'what's the point' and was irked by the way the game 'told' the story.

From a technical standing I gotta admit, the graphics were amazing, the music was just "eh" (if that makes sense), it just wasn't as memorable as the last FF games I guess. Also, at first I thought I'd like the battle system, but after hours and hours of playing a boring, repetitive battle system, I lost interest.

So yeah, it wasn't that good in my opinion and I would never play it again (and I regret even playing it in the first place), but I didn't hate it was a blind passion, it was just overall boring.
 
I loved it! The graphics were killer, and the battle system had me on the edge. It was exciting, really, and I found most of the characters to be very endearing. 'Course, playing the english version, I thought they could've done a better job choosing a voice actress for Vanille. I know it was Australian, but sometimes I didn't know what accent the VA was going for. Another beef I had was with Snow. I utterly HATE the whole 'hero' attitude of his, not to mention his yelling "SERAH!!!" every few seconds.....well not every few seconds, but you get the picture.

There's a lot of flaws in this game, but that's to be expected. No game can be perfect anyway. Still, if you look past that, then this is probably one of the best games we've actually gotten in years.
 
I found the game ok. If was fun to play, but I will probably not play it again.

I really liked all the characters (yes even Vanille and Hope) and they are the reason I completed the game. Lightning is one of my favorite female FF characters now. At first I was worried that Fang would be a Lightning clone, but she did have her own personality and made me laugh a few times. Sazh was different from what we usually get and was also quite funny. I even liked Snow, Hope, and Vanille even though most people don't seem to care for them. Hope had depth and does grow through the game. I usually like characters like Vanille and unlike most ff characters like her she also had depth. And I just liked Snow's personality.

The story was kind of a hit and miss for me. For the most part I enjoyed. I found it a little hard to follow and if I would put the game down I would often forget what happened last.

The battle system was strange to me. I would choose a paradigm and just hit A till I the enemy was dead or I needed a new paradigm. It was however fun.

The villians were forgettable. Even though you fought him 3 times, Barthalamus just didn't have the presence that earlier villians had, and I didn't feel any sense of danger with him. His battle form also looked ridiculous.

Battles could be very long. With random battles, I want to take out what I am fighting, get exp and move on. Some random battles I thought were more difficult than boss fights.
And it was a bit strange that the final boss, Orphen, could be easily killed with poison. I killed him both times in under two minutes when I realized this. Before I would beat on him for what seemed like a half an hour and lose.
You often just needed to figure out the trick to winning and then any battle was easy.

Setting was too dark. It felt like perpetual night at times. Grand Pulse was a breath of fresh air and was the part I enjoyed the most.

And some gripes: no FF main theme, no victory fanfare, and no crystal song.

The game wasn't addictive like earlier FF games. It felt more like a destination and not like a journey. It was fun though.
 
I loved it!! In my opinion, the storyline and characters are the best in any FF game so far. I liked the paradigm system and the fact that the battles are so fast-paced. Amazing scenery and good soundtrack (best one yet).

However I was dissapointed with the lack of side missions/interaction with other characters/not being able to contol all team members in battle etc.

I'm hoping for another strong female lead in the next Final Fantasy...Lightning made a nice change from the usual blonde spiky haired bore of previous Final Fantasys!:mrgreen:
 
I beat the game and I loved it. I even rewatched all the cutscenes XD the battle system was a nice change to previous games, it was fast-paced and I like how you needed different strategies for different monsters. The characters were likable enough (Fang <3). And even if it's very linear, it's not necessarily a bad thing because the game is much more streamlined that way and you get to focus on the story. As for FFXII, I don't even remember what I'm fighting for anymore.
 
I just finished up Chapter 13 and saved my game after the credits and I have to say.....I LOVE THIS GAME. :awesome: While I can agree with all the haters that the game for the most part takes on a very linear way of moving the storyline, it was still a very enjoyable storyline to be a part of. I also loved the battle system, it was quick and added a certain part of difficulty to the game. You really had to figure out exactly how you were going to approach certain battles, you couldn't just go in their guns blazing (most of the time), you had to have a particular plan.

I also enjoyed the Missions, I just recently started the Fault-Warrens so that is going to be a fun little adventure that I will enjoy to the end. The only real thing that I am not enjoying is the upgrading weapons part of the game. :ffs: It is proving to be extremely costly and time consuming, right now I am trying to get my six trapazodiens (how ever you spell it). All in all it is a great game that I will enjoy to the very end. And probably replay quite a few times.
 
I loved this game to the point where I found it difficult to go to bed on time because I wanted to keep playing!

I had really low expectations going into this game but I was really really surprised at how much I ended up liking the things that I initially thought I would hate. I loved learning the new battle system and how fast it was. I didn't mind level grinding in this game. In fact, every battle I repeated I would try to see if I could top my quickest time, made the grind less tedious. I really hope they bring back the active ATB with the sections in another game. I stopped using auto-battle really early and will probably never use it again

The character designs aren't near my favorite but this is the first FF where I found myself loving every character from the start. It was difficult choosing my party in later chapters because I wanted to play everyone equally. I actually didn't think any of the characters were annoying (there's always that one that gets on my nerves!)

The linearity didn't bother me at all this time. I thought it was nice that I didn't have to go back and forth through the same places several times in the story for once. It helped reinforce the fact that your characters are fugitives.

At first, I didn't think I'd like the summons (seriously, Snow is practically sitting on Shiva's face). But then when I started playing, and I slowly got everyone's eidolons, I really appreciated how different they were in this game. I don't think it would make the game any better to make Shiva the series's typical ice queen or Brynhildr another Ifrit or Belias. The vehicle side of the eidolons was quite comical, though.

Aaand, unlike FFXII where I can't even remember one songy, I can easily remember the main theme of FFXIII. The first FF with a bearable regular battle theme! As always, the sounds were high quality

And, months after finishing the game, I'm still thinking about the ending. One of the top 3 best endings in the series, if not the best~
 
Not impressed with how linear the game is and the fact that you can't control the supporting characters. I spend most of my time pressing X repetitively, which saddens me. The characters are irritating and the plot leaves a lot to be desired. I also miss the music of Nobuo Uematsu; the music in this one is pretty uninspiring and uncatchy.

That said, it's still FF, and I still love it in spite of its flaws.
 
Even though it was linear the cutscenes backed it up for me.........though most people got pissed off because of it!And another thing that also backed it up was the incredible graphics! Most of the time I couldn't even concentrate on the game as I was just looking around!So if that didn't make up for the linearity I don't know what did!

I really didn't mind the linearity of the game.......but most people didn't like it.....so for SE that is a serious problem......even though I didn't mind.

The game does open up after about 25 hours towards Gran Pulse but not much could be done their other than missions!Having NPC's,minigames,shops (not save spots, even though it's easier) would of been better! And maybe even a trip back to Nautilas because after you complete tha game you can't head back!...........so there are a few places missing!
 
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