I am enjoying Final Fantasy 13

[TheYellowCellPhone]

cool story bro Everyone has to admit that Square Enix's games look awesome.

For the game, well, everyone's entitled to their opinion

 

[MAUSZX]

Yeah I was skeptical because of the reviews and i rent the game and I enjoy the game so much, the graphics are pretty, the story is interesting, haven't finished, the game is long and fun.
It's not perfect, I mean the upgrading weapons, I thought it was going to be like the upgrading system in Castelvania curse of darkness.

 

[iamthelizardqueen88]

Personally I couldnt stand FFXIII for 2 very big reasons the battle system and the way the story was presented. Im not gonna do into detail about what I didnt like about the battle system just know its the only reason I traded the game in before I beat it and like you said datalogs defiantly should not be the may way to get the story across. That being said MOST of the characters were alright and the over all story was decent but I still believe it was one of the worst in the series (had FFVIII and FFXII not come around it would be the worst)

 

[Akihiko]

And honestly, it's an RPG in the slightest sense, if at all. Just because it's a Final Fantasy game doesn't mean it's an RPG. It's like if PopCap made a gritty FPS and everyone called it casual just because PopCap made it.

The problem stems from the lack of definition for a role-playing game. It's become such a vast genre that the original meaning has gotten blurred. I still consider it very much of an rpg, as it still contains a lot of rpg features, it just got rid of some exploration, which I didn't care for much anyway.

 

[Ace of Spades]

Then you and I are clearly very different types of players, because I detested FF13, from its under-developed characters, confusing story, and unengaging combat. If you're enjoying it, then more power to you.

 

[ProtoChimp]

I know, I'm shocked too. Let me explain why.

Previously I've ranted all over the internet about how much I hated Final Fantasy X and thought that the series has been in more or less a downward spiral since the success of FF7. Hell I feel like its in a downward spiral BECAUSE of the success of 7. For the same reasons that many other fans have stated - an over-focus on cutscenes, bad writing, million dollar visual effects, and overly catering to j-pop trash instead of the classic Final Fantasy Gameplay that made the first 7 or so games so fantastic to begin with.

As such I didn't even pick up Final Fantasy 13 when it released. The reviews, I felt, said all I needed to know. "A series of corridors?!? Using a Datalog to deliver exposition!?! No towns?!? Another plot that focuses on a weakling child as a character!?! A one-button automated combat system?!? A 20 hour long tutorial!?! You're DEAD to me, Final Fantasy!"

I knew I would eventually try it for myself, but I decided to wait until the price was significantly low or I had some form of disposable income that I could justify its purchase with. Well last week I received a gift certificate to Gamestop and picked up a stack of games, one of which was Final Fantasy 13. And honestly so far, it's the best entry into the series since Final Fantasy 7.

Okay yes, it does start slow and confusing. Datalogs should be supplemental to storytelling, never primary. However the game poses enough interesting story questions that I kept pushing forward to get answers, and by hour 4 or so I was only using the datalog as a supplement. The voice acting is fantastic and Vanille is nowhere near as annoying as previous 'zany' pre-teen female sidekicks. Hope needs to choke on a boomerang, sure - but I'll take weakling coward over arrogant prick (Tidus, Vaan) any day.

Games should offer the player some kind of control, and for the first two or three hours of FF13 you can more or less just push a single button to advance the game. There is no choice, there is no exploration. They made a real mistake drawing out the 'tutorial' this long. But yet again a few hours in I was past this complaint. Once they introduce classes, paradigms, and upgradeable equipment my 'customization' itch was getting adequately scratched. The game still has slightly less exploration than FFX (which started this whole 'corridor' trend in FF), but I can get past that.

Right now I'm about 7 hours into the game and I have to say it is a far better game than I was led to believe. The story is unique and bizarre without being laughably ridiculous, and I'm interested to see what comes next. The characters are the best the series has seen in many iterations, I feel like Lightning is exactly the kind of heroine Final Fantasy needed. The combat, once all of its aspects are 'revealed' is unique and engaging.

Oh and also, the game is absolutely breath-taking. The art design is fucking fantastic, and the j-trash costume design that's plagued the series since FF8 was relegated mostly to side-characters and pushed to the background.

Is it a great game so far? No, aside from the visual design nothing in the game leads me to believe that it will be a lasting classic. But it is far from the boring, series-worst, genre-killing abomination that has been described to me. Like I said, so far its my favorite game in the series since 7 - mostly because nothing has happened yet that has filled me with pure nerd rage, and none of the characters push my buttons like those in FF8-FF12.

I feel, literally, the same way and went through, literally, the exact same phase. It's only when I picked it up that it turned out "Hey this ain't that bad". Except I'm like 30 hours in AND I'M FUCKING LOVING IT, I'M LOVING ALL THE WEIRD SHIT GOING ON, IT'S JUST AWESOME.

 

[ProtoChimp]

Not to mention the fact that by the look of your achievements it's obvious you haven't played most of these "bad" jRPGs for more than five minutes.

I don't know about that, personally. JRPGs have some shitty achievement drips. Most of them are post-story content.

25 hours into Blue Dragon, I still only had 20 GS in it.

And 60 hours of Star Ocean 4 gave me around 350.

Yeah, I know, but apart from Lost Odyssey and Tales of Vesperia, he has either 1 (in Infinite Undiscovery, achievements aren't that stingy in that game unless you really suck) and 0 in Eternal Sonata (and that means he hasn't even finished one chapter of the game; hardly enough to judge). And he hasn't even played the rest of them.

I never managed to finish LO. The final dungeon pissed me off. Random battles in there were really long and really frequent.

I liked it a lot up until then....

You know maybe he just hasn't played them on his 360, maybe he played it on another console.

 

[Thaius]

Yeah, it's a lot better than the haters say. It was not perfect, but the battle system is actually quite deep and interesting, and the characters... People complain about Hope, but I thought the plot aspects involving his vendetta against Snow and Lightning's encouragement and such... All that culminates in a scene you probably haven't gotten to yet that is absolutely amazing. Not in my top three (those go to VII, VI, and X), but it's really good regardless.

Hope's mother CHOSE to go fight and when she died, it was her own doing (she let go). Lesson to Square, if you want the audience to feel empathy for Hope, don't let us see what really happened when she died. They could have shown us that scene from a distance (from Hope's view) and then later showed it to us up close.

Wait, so you're saying a young boy should be okay with watching his mother die because she went willingly to fight? Sorry, that just wouldn't happen. I don't care how justified her reasons were, a young boy would feel unimaginable grief and very possibly try to take it out on someone he could reasonably blame.

Plus, she didn't let go, <url=http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Nora_Estheim#Final_Fantasy_XIII>she fell unconscious from mortal wounds while Snow was holding on. It's not like she just let herself die.

Hope was a whiny brat and no one (including Lightning) set him straight even though she knew that Snow didn't "kill" his mother. They dragged the drama out far too long. I could understand Hope being upset but he should said something to Snow before Snow took off on the bike at the beginning of the game. It played out like a damn soap opera. Lightning should have told him that it was a misunderstanding but instead let him go on torturing the players.

Even if I were to agree that Hope acted like any kid would (I don't), it doesn't make good entertainment to watch. I guess if you like soap operas where they draw out a 5 minute sequence over a month then it works fine but how many gamers are fans of soap operas?

Maybe she didn't purposely let go but neither did Snow let her go.

Again, he was a young kid. He led a rebellion, she joined him and died. For a grieving child looking for some way to understand what happened, that's enough correlation to blame Snow in a desperate attempt to understand the loss of his mother. If you're judging by "entertainment" then no, maybe it's not. But if "entertainment" is more important than quality storytelling, why are you playing Final Fantasy?

As for Lightning, she was what took the conflict to the next level. She herself hated Snow, even before Serah turned to crystal, which is why her anger drove her to encourage and empower Hope. The conflict between characters in FFXIII was rather complex, pitting Lightning and Snow in direct opposition to each other even down to their base personalities (Snow as an optimistic idealist and Lightning as a cynical realist) so that Lightning would, in her hatred of Snow, actually encourage Hope toward his revenge. The character interaction is quite complex and interesting, really. It's not Lightning neglecting to set the brat straight, it's her being blinded by her common hatred of Snow and wrongfully encouraging Hope; this is what her later monologue is all about. It played out like a soap opera only in the way all Japanese stories do: it took a long time, it involved plenty of monologues, and emphasized the characters' turmoil. Difference being that it's actually intricate rather than superficial.

 

[jpoon]

How are the characters awesome? This game just isn't very entertaining to me. I would definitely rate it low, just as it was rated. At least I learned a very valuable lesson, never trust squeenix.

 

[warm slurm]

I don't play Final Fantasy for the story, I play for the battle system. In this game both were sorely lacking.

If you play games for the story, you should atleast recognize how badly this game told it's story.

What I was saying is that Hope came off as annoying but Square could have avoided that by letting us see her death from Hope's point of view. We would never hear her say "Get him home" and we would not be able to tell exactly how she fell. Having some doubt about how she died would have helped us feel empathy for Hope. Instead, we just wish he'd shut up because we already know what happened.

You play Final Fantasy for the battle system...? o_o whut. Sure, they're entertaining but the point of an RPG is to tell a story. I think you're missing the point of them.

And your points about Hope are stupid. The people who think he's whiny because he hates Snow for a little while (not even for half of the game, really) and he's... oh, y'know. SAD ABOUT HIS MOM BEING DEAD. Not to mention him having a crap relationship with his dad. I find it disturbing that people call him whiny/emo, to be honest. Anyone who isn't a total psycho would react the way he did if they thought someone let their mom die.

 

[zHellas]

I'm playing it too, and I like it.

On the 2nd Disc in the forest.

The only thing I don't like is the voice acting(sometimes) and how linear it is.

 

[AcacianLeaves]

The thing is though, it's still much better than any JRPG that's come out on the 360 with the possible exception of Tales of Vesperia. Other JRPGs may have more exploration and character development, but they're so mired in cliches, terrible acting, and bad design decision that FF13 has been a welcome improvement.

Lost Odyssey is the best jRPG this generation and it's on the 360. Sorry that you haven't played it.

Edit: wat, you have played it and you think FFXIII is better? Lost Odyssey has fantastic writing for a jRPG, really great voice acting, hardly any cliches (there aren't even any teenage characters, which is the usual way to go with jRPGs - everyone but Cooke and Mack are at least 20+) and the design of everything is gorgeous. Your taste is terrrible.

Not to mention the fact that by the look of your achievements it's obvious you haven't played most of these "bad" jRPGs for more than five minutes.

Lost Odyssey was a travesty. Two of your main characters are children. Not 'children' in the typical JRPG sense but actual fucking 8 year olds. Kaim spent most of the game openly weeping, and people call Squall 'emo'. The main villain was the most bland, dull, Mr. Satan looking doofus I've ever seen in a JRPG. Jansen is exactly the kind of shoe-horned 'comedy relief' that made Jar Jar Binks so unbearable. The game started with an interesting premise but then just went fucking nowhere.

Also the fact that I have those games listed on my profile should be evidence enough that I've played them, I just tend to share most JRPGs with my wife's account. Its nice to know you cared enough about insulting me to do a thorough background check, though.

 

[Thaius]

Yeah, it's a lot better than the haters say. It was not perfect, but the battle system is actually quite deep and interesting, and the characters... People complain about Hope, but I thought the plot aspects involving his vendetta against Snow and Lightning's encouragement and such... All that culminates in a scene you probably haven't gotten to yet that is absolutely amazing. Not in my top three (those go to VII, VI, and X), but it's really good regardless.

Hope's mother CHOSE to go fight and when she died, it was her own doing (she let go). Lesson to Square, if you want the audience to feel empathy for Hope, don't let us see what really happened when she died. They could have shown us that scene from a distance (from Hope's view) and then later showed it to us up close.

Wait, so you're saying a young boy should be okay with watching his mother die because she went willingly to fight? Sorry, that just wouldn't happen. I don't care how justified her reasons were, a young boy would feel unimaginable grief and very possibly try to take it out on someone he could reasonably blame.

Plus, she didn't let go, <url=http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Nora_Estheim#Final_Fantasy_XIII>she fell unconscious from mortal wounds while Snow was holding on. It's not like she just let herself die.

Hope was a whiny brat and no one (including Lightning) set him straight even though she knew that Snow didn't "kill" his mother. They dragged the drama out far too long. I could understand Hope being upset but he should said something to Snow before Snow took off on the bike at the beginning of the game. It played out like a damn soap opera. Lightning should have told him that it was a misunderstanding but instead let him go on torturing the players.

Even if I were to agree that Hope acted like any kid would (I don't), it doesn't make good entertainment to watch. I guess if you like soap operas where they draw out a 5 minute sequence over a month then it works fine but how many gamers are fans of soap operas?

Maybe she didn't purposely let go but neither did Snow let her go.

Again, he was a young kid. He led a rebellion, she joined him and died. For a grieving child looking for some way to understand what happened, that's enough correlation to blame Snow in a desperate attempt to understand the loss of his mother. If you're judging by "entertainment" then no, maybe it's not. But if "entertainment" is more important than quality storytelling, why are you playing Final Fantasy?

As for Lightning, she was what took the conflict to the next level. She herself hated Snow, even before Serah turned to crystal, which is why her anger drove her to encourage and empower Hope. The conflict between characters in FFXIII was rather complex, pitting Lightning and Snow in direct opposition to each other even down to their base personalities (Snow as an optimistic idealist and Lightning as a cynical realist) so that Lightning would, in her hatred of Snow, actually encourage Hope toward his revenge. The character interaction is quite complex and interesting, really. It's not Lightning neglecting to set the brat straight, it's her being blinded by her common hatred of Snow and wrongfully encouraging Hope; this is what her later monologue is all about. It played out like a soap opera only in the way all Japanese stories do: it took a long time, it involved plenty of monologues, and emphasized the characters' turmoil. Difference being that it's actually intricate rather than superficial.

I don't play Final Fantasy for the story, I play for the battle system. In this game both were sorely lacking.

If you play games for the story, you should atleast recognize how badly this game told it's story.

What I was saying is that Hope came off as annoying but Square could have avoided that by letting us see her death from Hope's point of view. We would never hear her say "Get him home" and we would not be able to tell exactly how she fell. Having some doubt about how she died would have helped us feel empathy for Hope. Instead, we just wish he'd shut up because we already know what happened.

I recognize that XIII didn't do very well in terms of its grand narrative. It relied a bit too much on expository reading to explain the story's world (which was actually very interesting) and, in the end, did not make nearly as much of its interesting world and premise as it could have. But the character drama was, in my opinion, some of the best in the series. And I'll take strong character-driven storytelling at the expense of the grand narrative over the opposite (read: Final Fantasy XII) any day. And yes, I do play Final Fantasy for the story. I play video games as a whole for the story.

You can't criticize Hope's drama based on the fact that we knew how it actually happened. This is a character drama, not a mystery story. You may as well criticize Inception for being a terrible romance story. It wasn't about whether or not Snow was responsible, it was about a young boy trying to cope with his mother's death. It doesn't matter that we knew the details of her death, it mattered that he didn't. Our own knowledge is irrelevant; are you actually suggesting that our empathy towards a character be based on knowledge that we have, regardless of whether he does? That doesn't make any sense. Characters feel emotion based on what they know, regardless of what we know.

 

[AcacianLeaves]

Hope is actually one of the better "emo" characters from Final Fantasy, it's just that people can't stand realistic characters. Seriously, his mom died and he's trying to exact revenge on the person who he has to travel with, who despite being responsible for his mother's death still acts like a child and calls himself a hero. I don't know about you, but I'd be fucking pissed if that happened. I'm not Cooke and Mack, I can't bounce back in a few minutes after a crappy torch lighting minigame considering my mom died.

Honestly, all of the characters are pretty lame at the beginning, but the point of Final Fantasy XIII is character development over anything. Every single character has a significant change in their personality throughout the story.

The story just falls flat on its face at the end, you'll be very disappointed and confused. It's an interesting enough concept and the mythos is quite interesting, but the ending is so nonsensical that even the game script can't follow what's happening.

And honestly, it's an RPG in the slightest sense, if at all. Just because it's a Final Fantasy game doesn't mean it's an RPG. It's like if PopCap made a gritty FPS and everyone called it casual just because PopCap made it.

People who defend characters like Hope and Tidus with the 'they're realistic' argument fail to understand something fundamental about character design and storytelling. Realism does not automatically make a character relatable or interesting. Yes, the fact that Hope spends most of the game moping about his Mom dying and planning revenge against her perceived killer may be a realistic reaction, but it doesn't mean its something that is interesting or worth writing about.

We expect our heroes to be heroic and to have interesting or unexpected reactions to events of the story. A kid mourning the loss of his mother for 12 hours is not necessarily a compelling story, especially considering his mother was just one of thousands killed in what was essentially mass genocide. Also the fact that we witnessed her volunteer for service, willingly risk her life, and sacrifice herself to save Snow. We KNOW that Hope is misdirecting his hate, we KNOW his desire for revenge is misguided, and we're still expected to sympathize with him? His reaction to his Mom's death isn't interesting to me, it just seems childish - like he's throwing a tantrum at Snow.

 

[MadSquabbles]

I "liked" XIII while I was playing through the game, until the near end (probably around chapter 11 or so) but then my opinion really started going downhill for some probably silly reasons. I have no real issues with the characters or storyline (except for me not having any effing clue as to what things meant or what was going on for the first couple chapters, due to me not reading that Datalog thing) but oh my god did I hate how the endgame went down.

I generally enjoy Final Fantasy because of how when I was younger, I was incredibly amused by the challenge and loads of optional content you could do with a maxed out party, or rather just what you needed to do to GET a maxed out party (like collecting ultimate gear and abilities). I feel that how this was done in XIII was just absolute garbage. To me, XIII's endgame was composed of slaughtering overgrown turtles for 60+ hours. With each fight giving just a CHANCE to get 1 of an item that you needed 30-40+ of. This didn't come off as fun at all to me, and I have no idea why they thought it was a good idea. The turtles weren't challenging (cept the blue ones) so it's not like I enjoyed the fights, it was just the only *real* way to get the funds necessary to progress my party's strength.

So while when I was playing through the game I thought it was great and awesome, and now that I've gotten the Platinum trophy and done everything I could do, I think the game is a steaming pile of shit that has me looking back and asking why I even wasted all that time to begin with. Must have been because I've scored 100% in every other FF to date (aside from X and XI) and something deep down told me to do it for this one too.

 

[Steve Fidler]

I don't mind people enjoying the game, but I fail to grasp the notion that the game becomes good because you're allowed to run about in a plain at some point doing swoosh swoosh swoosh. I'll never play it, it's just morbid fascination.

It doesn't become good then...It become open.

If you still hate it after chapter 4 (about 4 hours in), you're not gonna like it.

I love it. It's now my favorite FF by far.

The combat is immensely satisfying and unique. Toppling the final boss was immensely satisfying after 30 minutes of fighting the second form alone. 3rd form was too easy, though...

Are you trolling? Please tell me you are trolling.

I fought the final boss in FF13 by accident. I had planned to do as much of the Gran Pulse stuff as possible before doing the final boss but had decided to do a little more storyline to break up the monotony. Then suddenly I was watching the end credits. I had no idea that that easy, boring fight was the final boss. I spent more time, deaths, and strategy on mini-bosses in Chapter 6.

 

[warm slurm]

The thing is though, it's still much better than any JRPG that's come out on the 360 with the possible exception of Tales of Vesperia. Other JRPGs may have more exploration and character development, but they're so mired in cliches, terrible acting, and bad design decision that FF13 has been a welcome improvement.

Lost Odyssey is the best jRPG this generation and it's on the 360. Sorry that you haven't played it.

Edit: wat, you have played it and you think FFXIII is better? Lost Odyssey has fantastic writing for a jRPG, really great voice acting, hardly any cliches (there aren't even any teenage characters, which is the usual way to go with jRPGs - everyone but Cooke and Mack are at least 20+) and the design of everything is gorgeous. Your taste is terrrible.

Not to mention the fact that by the look of your achievements it's obvious you haven't played most of these "bad" jRPGs for more than five minutes.

Lost Odyssey was a travesty. Two of your main characters are children. Not 'children' in the typical JRPG sense but actual fucking 8 year olds. Kaim spent most of the game openly weeping, and people call Squall 'emo'. The main villain was the most bland, dull, Mr. Satan looking doofus I've ever seen in a JRPG. Jansen is exactly the kind of shoe-horned 'comedy relief' that made Jar Jar Binks so unbearable. The game started with an interesting premise but then just went fucking nowhere.

Also the fact that I have those games listed on my profile should be evidence enough that I've played them, I just tend to share most JRPGs with my wife's account. Its nice to know you cared enough about insulting me to do a thorough background check, though.

Yeaaaah, because two minutes to look through someone's played games is totally thorough. And even if you didn't think the story/characters were any good in Lost Odyssey, the TYODs alone make it a thousand times better than FFXIII.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

I don't mind people enjoying the game, but I fail to grasp the notion that the game becomes good because you're allowed to run about in a plain at some point doing swoosh swoosh swoosh. I'll never play it, it's just morbid fascination.

It doesn't become good then...It become open.

If you still hate it after chapter 4 (about 4 hours in), you're not gonna like it.

I love it. It's now my favorite FF by far.

The combat is immensely satisfying and unique. Toppling the final boss was immensely satisfying after 30 minutes of fighting the second form alone. 3rd form was too easy, though...

Are you trolling? Please tell me you are trolling.

I fought the final boss in FF13 by accident. I had planned to do as much of the Gran Pulse stuff as possible before doing the final boss but had decided to do a little more storyline to break up the monotony. Then suddenly I was watching the end credits. I had no idea that that easy, boring fight was the final boss. I spent more time, deaths, and strategy on mini-bosses in Chapter 6.

I kinda just rushed to the end. And didn't use a Synergist...Probably could have had an easier time if I used Hope, but his low HP always bothered me.

 

[Defense]

People who defend characters like Hope and Tidus with the 'they're realistic' argument fail to understand something fundamental about character design and storytelling. Realism does not automatically make a character relatable or interesting. Yes, the fact that Hope spends most of the game moping about his Mom dying and planning revenge against her perceived killer may be a realistic reaction, but it doesn't mean its something that is interesting or worth writing about.

Realism makes a character more relatable. And it's supposed to be based more off of how he interacts with other characters because of what happened. Yeah, a 15 year old moping over his mom's death for 15 hours isn't fun by itself, but it's more interesting when he has to travel with the person [that he believes is] responsible for his mom's death.

We expect our heroes to be heroic and to have interesting or unexpected reactions to events of the story. A kid mourning the loss of his mother for 12 hours is not necessarily a compelling story, especially considering his mother was just one of thousands killed in what was essentially mass genocide.

Different strokes for different folks. I actually like when my hero acts more like a normal human than an indestructible badass.

Also the fact that we witnessed her volunteer for service, willingly risk her life, and sacrifice herself to save Snow. We KNOW that Hope is misdirecting his hate, we KNOW his desire for revenge is misguided, and we're still expected to sympathize with him? His reaction to his Mom's death isn't interesting to me, it just seems childish - like he's throwing a tantrum at Snow.

People think based off of emotion rather than logic. Snow was still responsible for encouraging her to fight.

And his childish reaction may be due to the fact that he is a child. Snow was still partly responsible for her death, at least in his eyes.

Exactly! Also, we can't really care about the loss of his mother either, we didn't even know her. She is introduced and killed quickly at the beginning of the game. It wasn't like with Aeris.

She wasn't supposed to be like Aeris. Her point was to move the plot forward and nothing else.

 

[icame]

I bought it despite people saying it was horrible about 2 weeks after release. They couldn't of prepared me for how horrible the game was. There is not a single solitary good thing about that game other then that it looks nice, and even that is only okay because the actual creative design part of it sucks. Oh what I could of done with that $60...