Why FFXIII is a GOOD game

Sabriel said:
And it's just, no offence or anything, but you westerns would prefer western freedom rather this restricting and linear JRPG. Meh, I like it both ways.
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Stereotyping much?

No, I can deal with linearity (Some of my favorite games, such as most games released in the early 90s and before, are incredibly linear, and I'd consider RPGs such as Oblivion and Fallout 3 to be ruining the genre, as they're focusing on massive amounts of content as opposed to, you know, role-playing; where is the choice and consequence that made REAL RPGs such as Deus Ex memorable? It's gone, and this is the reason the WRPG is dying; they're turning in to dumbed-down sandbox action games); as mentioned in the post above me, FFX is incredibly linear, but at least it's enjoyable, and that's because it has this little thing called depth, and another little thing called replay value. FFXIII is just a poorly-designed game, plain and simple; I don't know if it's due to laziness or the fact that Square is no longer talented (Though if they're lazy enough to release something like FFXIII, then that's definitely a sign of a major lack of talent).

It isn't the worst game ever, but it certainly isn't a good game, and it's a sure step backwards for the series. Why, with the incredibly progressive for Square's standards FFXII, would they make something so conservative in design? And even worse, why couldn't they pack in some depth (After all, Lost Odyssey is an incredibly traditional game, but it still manages to feature some depth and replay value)? Is it pure corporate greed; the evils of capitalism trading in fun for profitability (Because they know that if they make the graphics as pretty as possible, it'll sell; I dunno which Square-Enix employee made the comparison, but he's right about FFXIII and James Cameron's Avatar. Little does he know (Or refuses to acknowledge) that the two have far more in common than just pretty visuals)? It simply baffles me to no end.
 
I've been reading the last couple pages of posts since my last visit, and I just wanted to make this comment.

In addition to the various components I put into the first post that started this thread, I think what it really boils down to is whether or not you (as the gamer) made an emotional connection to the game. Which I did. And that was what I was trying to capture with the starting post for the thread. I was trying to identify why I had such a strong attachment to the game and why I enjoyed it so much, so that I could relay that information to other FF fans to see why this game gets such a terrible reputation from other reviewers/gamers/FF fans.

I'd like to push my point with a counterpoint. FFXII was one of my least favorite of the series, and mainly because I didn't have any kind of emotional experience during the game. It was an interesting story that had depth, and I absolutely loved the magnitude of the story (a story about international politics and rebellions was a nice change of pace from the rest of the series). I respected that, but again, the lack of an emotional connection hurt my opinion of the series.

So yeah, I guess my main point with this post is that, bottom line, I think that FFXIII was good at creating that type of emotional connection, making it a good game, or at the very least, undeserving of the massive amount of negative criticism it gets.
 
I like this game less than I did immediately after finishing it.No doubt part of it was desperately wanting to like it,but I've also simply had more time to think about the flaws.

The number one thing for me was simply the massive ammout of expectaion this game got.I mean,so very many nerds wanted this game for four long,hard years,and Squeenix really tried their best to make us desperate to play this game,but...We get...This?

I would not neccessarily mind Square putting out a game like this,if they were modest in their claims.But this just isn't the masterpiece we were expecting.

As for the individual elements...The story was...Okay...I liked the whole concept of l'Cies("Either become a tortured monster or do something you'd rather not do and become a crystal forever"sounds like it has some story potential),and even though I didn't like half the characters,I thought Hope/Sazh were alright.

Gameplay-at first I really liked it because of the newness of it,but when you only really need to use the same strategies again,and again,and again...It gets tiresome.I never really hated it,though.And the fact that the entire game is completely and totaly linear except for some boring"kil-the-monster"sidequests and areas you wouldn't explore apart form said sidequests...Ugh...

Music-I don't even remember any of the music in this game,other than"My Hands"(I don't think it was a good idea for Square to use a previously-existing song as the standard);it was altogether below par for the man who composed some of FFX's best music.

Visuals-superb,but to whom does that matter most of all?And this is clearly what Square spent the most effort on.Probably one-half the man hours were spent on everything else in the game,as compared to graphics.

I would give this game 5/10,because while I don't think it's worthless,I still wish I could get those thirty hours of my life back.I try to appreciate as wide a variety of things as I can,and I always think it's sad whenever I find something I can't like.

If you love it,though,that's great!:D
 
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Thing is, strifehart, is that more important than the emotional connection you get to the game is why you get that emotional connection in the first place. A game can have a nice plot, but if the interactivity is terrible, then the plot isn't quite going to do it any good. Look at Heavy Rain; heavily story-focused and with deep character development, but at least it handles interactivity/gameplay in an interesting way. Another example would be Deus Ex, which inarguably has one of the greatest stories gaming has ever told. They handled interactivity in fantastic ways.

The Final Fantasy games did, too, weaving in cutscenes and plot points at appropriate times with gameplay elements evenly distributed throughout, creating a nice collage of entertainment factors. FFXII didn't have a good plot--Square-Enix merely stole all the characters from Star Wars and tried assembling something with them--but at least the interactivity was fine, with its explorable environments, challenging optional bosses, interesting combat system and immense replay value. That's why FFXII was a good game. With FFXIII, however, Square-Enix seemingly forgot that they were supposed to make works of interactive entertainment and put all of their budget in to the cutscenes, and even those weren't very good.
 
strifehart said:
So yeah, I guess my main point with this post is that, bottom line, I think that FFXIII was good at creating that type of emotional connection, making it a good game, or at the very least, undeserving of the massive amount of negative criticism it gets.
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You have your opinion, which is great... BUT... games aren't reviewed solely on whether you have an 'emotional connection' or just the story or characters. The majority of people don't give negative criticism JUST because they didn't like the story or characters. The game lacked in a fair few areas: the OST wasn't all that, the battle system was poor and button mashy, paradigm system was simplistic, extreme linearity, lack of towns/shops etc thus lack of things to do outside of the story etcetc.

Storylines and characters are about as subjective as you can get in a game but in a Final Fantasy title it's not the be all and end all of the game. If you played the game solely for the storyline then fair enough, but not everyone did.
 
o0PinkSquid0o said:
I'm sorry but all that is your opinion... I actually think the Plot, Characters and Game Play were terrible.
I really didn't notice too much character development either D:

The music was ok besides the battle music which was repetitive, and the graphics were good but overall the game was bad
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it is all personal opinion. personally i found the beginning of the story amazing. but it soon became boring and too... predictable. graphics were amazing which is the only good thing i can say about this game. paradigam soon became repetitive when i thought at first amazing. ability to control a single character reminded me of FFXII, and if your main character dies, you can't use others to heal, soon became kinda annoying.

overall it was amazing at first, but soon became kinda a thorn, music was lovely though!
 
My BIGGEST complaint with the game was the battle system. I could almost swallow the melodrama, the linearity, and the lack of towns if it wasn't for the battle system.

Hell, X was very linear, had some fairly over the top melodrama, and somewhat lacked in towns, but I loved that game. All because of the battle system (well, and the characters. X had much better characters than XIII, imo). I don't think I've EVER hated a battle system quite like I hated XIII's.

Most of the Final Fantasies were fairly decent at covering up the fact that you were only hitting "x" to win, but XIII took it to another level. You literally have the game playing for you. You control one character, if you call hitting "auto-battle" control, and every single battle eventually amounts to "Use Commando/Ravager, switch to Medic, switch to Commando/Ravager, etc, etc" and it gets very tedious and boring. The battle system is what broke the game for me.

The story was...okay. I mean, it had more depth than, say, Final Fantasy I, III, or V, but that's not saying a whole lot. I'm indifferent about the story. It wasn't strong, but it wasn't weak.

The music was forgettable. VII, IX, X, and XII had better music, imo. The same guy who did X did this game, correct? I thought he did a much better job on X.

The graphics were fucking amazing.

Combining the fact that this game takes a minimum of 30 hours to complete (and that's rushing through) and how bad the battle system was, I just couldn't finish it. I'm on like, Chapter 10 or maybe 11, and it's just sad that this is the only Final Fantasy that I've dreaded finishing. I just can't stand it. And it's the only one I'm not planning on doing anything extra. Even with the trophies and other unlockables, there's just not a strong enough desire in me.

tl;dr: Battle system sucked. Story was okay. Music was lackluster. Graphics were awesome. I couldn't make it through the whole game.
 
For the record, I agree that a lot of my points have been opinion based, but you can't really have too many objective points to give, since a lot of reviewing/discussing games is opinion based. I tried to give as many specific examples as possible in the original post.

Lots of people have been posting about how lackluster the battle system was. While I agree, that it wasn't as involved as VII, VIII, IX or X's battle system was, I will say that it was leagues better than XII's completely hands off approach. So to me, that represents a step in the right direction. Hopefully the next installment will continue the trend to move back towards a more involved and interactive battle system.
 
strifehart said:
I will say that it was leagues better than XII's completely hands off approach.
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I'd like to argue this point. Too many people claim FFXII's system was hands-off, and I don't really see why: sure, if you take the immense amount of time to abuse the gambit system to its fullest (Or look online to find already-made gambit setups, which is kinda like cheating), then the battle system could be considered "hands-off," but otherwise, there was far more input than in FFXIII's battle system (Which required virtually no input aside from spamming auto-battle and paradigm shifting when the main character's health was low).

FFXIII played itself, whereas FFXII required some thinking (For either playing normally or thinking up a way to force the gambit system in to allowing the game to play itself).
 
I'll add a little bit to what Mr. Gorilla is saying.

FFXII's system was not "hands off" and it doesn't play itself...unless you want it to. That's the beauty of the gambit system. You want to control one character and let the other two be automated with gambits? You can do that. You want to control two of the characters, with one using gambits? You can do that. You want to control all three, with no gambits? You can do that. You want the game to play itself (essentially)? You can do that.

The idea that the game is "hands off" as you say is completely grounded in the choices you make. The game was only that way because YOU chose to make it so. That's what's so wonderful about the battle system and the game itself. It's exactly what you want. You don't have to even use the gambits. It can be, for the most part, turn based, or it can be ATB (or DTB I think is what they called it) and be really quick. Again, it's exactly what you want.

Final Fantasy XIII, on the other hand, took control almost completely away from the player. You can pick paradigm combinations and when to execute them...that's it. There's no way you can possibly think quick enough to not pick "auto battle" so...you really have no control. You're simply waiting for the right time to switch paradigms, switching, then waiting again for the next time to switch while you mash X. I've never experienced a battle system so devoid of thought and control. It just...irks me so much. Completely turned me off of the game. If they somehow slowed the battles down, gave control of the commands back to the players, then I would say that the battle system is well-thought out. But this drivel is for those shooter fans that can't sit and think for 5 seconds. It's disgusting, especially considering you have to play at least 30 hours to finish the game.
 
I personally don't consider XIII to be a good game at all.

Too many bad points like:

Whiney ass characters - besides Sazh I hated all the mains
Terrible story - it was not well executed and seemed somewhat contrived
Linear as hell - There no towns and backtracking to past areas alllowed
Non custimizable characters - I am angry that you couldn't basically setup your party the way wanted too cuz the game wouldn't you.
Boring samey sidequests - Meh, killing monsters is not my idea of sidequests
No minigames
Terrible batttle system - Its just broken beyond belief.
Keep getting game over every time the MC dies - Why couldn't XIII by like the rest of the games in series, where you only got game over when your party dies

As far I am concerned XIII is a terrible FF game and is just as not as good as VI, VII, IX and X which are superior to XIII in every way,

Even as a standalone game, XIII is average compared to other RPG's on the PS3.

More so if you are a multi console owner like. I own a 360 and a DS, soon to own a 3DS. There are far better RPG;s this gen than XIII. That is for cert.
 
I agree with the above poster. The claustrophobically hemmed-in environments ruined the game for me. Final Fantasy games have always been linear (FFX was very linear) but FFXIII just didn't give the player any respite from the linearity and threw enemies at you ad nauseam. The best bit about the game for me was the micromanagement before each fight. Conscientiously adjusting my characters' set-up to have the best possible advantage before the fight. It was fun. However, that's where the fun ended for me. The story was dull, characters annoying, battle-system was too repetitive and restrictive, and graphically, sure it was stunning, but who cares about graphics when the gameplay is so depressingly shallow and void of substance? The worst thing, above all else for me though, was the lack of interaction with the environment. It felt like I was in an oil-painting. Furthermore I echo the sentiment raised by the person in this thread a page ago, being that Square focused so much on the graphics in favour of the gameplay and depth as so to suck as many gamers in as possible and ensure maximum profit at a time when game-development costs are rapidly spiralling and publishers are finding it increasingly harder to make a profit. It's not desirable, but it's to be expected, isn't it? Final Fantasy games have always set the benchmark visually for other games, but FFXIII unforgivably scarified the series core aspects, like freedom, towns, exploration and scale for visuals, and dumbed-down the game to sate action-centric time-poor gamers to maximise its profits, and by doing that, it turned its back on its core fan-base.
 
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so you dislike the game, but you agree that Sazh is one awesome dude. i can dig that. mini-chocobo ftw.
 
This is an opinion coming from a fan of the original games...I loved this game.

I mean when I sit down to play a final fantasy game...my objective is to the the catalyst of everything in the game and enjoy the story along with the playability.

Regardless this game was more linear...and I love free will and open maps from other FF titles...but this game, didnt make me miss those things that much. Honestly the game kept me excited with the stories that peiced together in quite a "balanced way" and the battle systems kept me from missing the towns or other things.

The battle system was very awesome, I find that this game kills me more than other final fantasys because I get distracted checking out the beauty of almosy every fight, and the way your characters level and upgrade you have a chance to see almost all of the spells and attacks used at somepoint with less tedious effort and more guidance.

This game was great, It really made me feel like I was playing a story, action,plot,action with no rest. The paradimes were great, the characters were just fine, and the story was intriguing and new.

I would like to see them expand off of this by substituting more freedom but using the same battle systems and visuals during battle.

And I will also add....if you think the voice acting was bad or horrible.....get a japanese version with english subtitles....you will change your opinion.
 
I liked how the relationships between the characters developed. They were not just a random bunch of people, where everyone is only connected to the main character if that, but a group of people who all had specific relationships with each other, started to like and also protect each other.

Take Lightning. Taking responsibility for Hope really made her open up.
Sasz and Vanille had interesting issues and had too much of a bond to let it get between them.
Fang and Lightning also relied on each other at points, while Snow and Lightning balanced each other. I also liked how Snow and Hope interacted.
 
Final Fantasy XIII is a good game, because of its graphics, I thought the game had a very good amount of detail.

Alot of effort was put into the cutscences, which I think is pretty amazing.

Well whatever anyones reasons, its their personal preferance ;))
 
Good: The ending, graphics, and Sahz.

Bad: No Towns, No Light hearted parts(too much drama), Linear.

As far as a regular game goes 8/10
but to Final fantasy standards 5/10
 
I like XIII, it doesn't have towns, but if I spent all my time thinking about what each Final Fantasy doesn't have I'd drive myself crazy. But what it does have for me is a hugely engaging storyline with an interesting back story, mythology and setting, characters that all have a reason to be there and fit well in the plot, though they all come from different angles, amazing graphics, top-quality cut scenes which are completely cinematic and just amazing, a fast and fun (although it sometimes gets repetitive) battle system, and a really fun leveling system. I really enjoy it, so I'm not gonna let myself get too peeved there are no towns and the battle system could be a bit more tactical.
 
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