I... really like FF13... am I weird?

TT Kairen

New member
Nov 10, 2011
178
0
0
I'm currently nearing the end of the game in Final Fantasy XIII, and I honestly can't see what all the hate is for. Is it flawed? Oh hell yeah. But it is by no means the absolute cesspit of gaming that I keep hearing. Then again, I'm the weirdo who thinks Final Fantasy VI isn't the grand masterpiece THAT'S made out to be either (just finished that before starting XIII).

I'm currently playing through all the Final Fantasy games I missed over the years, if anybody is wondering.
 

ScrabbitRabbit

Elite Member
Mar 27, 2012
1,545
0
41
Gender
Female
No, you aren't, your opinion just doesn't line up with that of a lot of Final Fantasy fans. I didn't like XIII; I found the combat really dull and repetitive, the world restrictive and I wasn't very keen on any of the characters for various reasons, amongst other things. But that's just me. It's OK to like a game that other people don't.

Personally, I don't think VI is all it's made out to be, either. It's doesn't really pick up until you're nearing the end of the World of Balance. That's way too far into the game. I mean, it's alright before that, but no better than any other decent JRPG. Never been keen on the ATB combat system, either. Only IV and V did it well, I think.
 

go-10

New member
Feb 3, 2010
1,557
0
0
XIII wasn't bad it was convoluted yes but at its core it was a simple game. The problem most people have is just that, if it's a Final Fantasy game it can't be simple, there needs to be multiple paths and things to explore if they try to change the formula the game is immediately labeled as shit. Which XIII did by making the game a single linear path and adding auto battle command, I mean sure you could deviate here and there and chose not to do auto battle but the fact the option exist makes the game shit

XIII-2 was the same deal, good game but old school fans hate it because they're entitled. XIII-3 is great and you can wear a chocobo on your head... nothing else needs to be said go and buy that game!



as for you not finding VI a masterpiece... there might be something wrong with you, I still prefer VII over VI, but that's because at the time in my life when I played it, I connected with it on a different level than video game = fun, it became something greater for me... also Tifa made me realize that girls were awesome and I should start paying more attention to them, and wouldn't you know it not only are they awesome but they are born with and develop some of my favorite things :D
 

TT Kairen

New member
Nov 10, 2011
178
0
0
GZGoten said:
as for you not finding VI a masterpiece... there might be something wrong with you
Care to qualify that statement? The combat was completely one-dimensional, there were no choices to be made when leveling up (not saying many exist in 13 either, however), and outside of Locke, Celes, Cyan, and Edgar (sort of), the characters are shallow and stereotypical. They literally tell you from the outset that the main character doesn't have a character.

CAPTCHA: Return to sender. Wish I could.
 

Mysten

New member
Sep 28, 2008
142
0
0
Nope. XIII is my favourite Final Fantasy (replacing IX, my previous favourite) and one of my absolute favourite games of all time. I'm definitely in the minority there though.
 

Maximum Bert

New member
Feb 3, 2013
2,149
0
0
Well at least you are giving yourself a perspective I always find it funny how people say the earlier final fantasys are the best even though most people have never played them.

My thoughts on XIII echoed XII only less drastically as I at least thought XIII had nice art direction and it doesnt take quite as long to get going as XII only 40 hours or so compared to 66 (I remember the XII one perfectly as it was the first time I thought the game was fun so I looked at the clock). However the end game in both games is great fun its just a shame the rest is such a slog.

I must admit though I didnt really like XIII overall I am currently playing through XIII-2 and im finding it slightly better but certainly not a classic.

VI is overated btw so is VII and on this site IX also Ocarina is overrated and Planescape Torment and pretty much any classic game but I think thats down to inflated expectations also VI and Planescape are much more cult than VII and Ocarina so they have a few ardent fans but nowhere near enough to annoy enough people for a counterclaim like in VIIs or Ocarinas case.

Dosent matter what other think though your playing it your enjoying it good for you and count yourself lucky that you have two sequels.
 

havoc33

New member
Jun 26, 2012
278
0
0
You as well, huh? I'm nearing the end of chapter 11 myself as we speak ;)

Although I have enjoyed parts of it, I gotta say I'm disappointed overall. Sure, the game is linear (it does get much better after you reach Gran Pulse), but my main problem is that I find the characters to be unlikable. The story is also pretty rubbish and poorly executed, which is a massive problem since this is a RPG. At this point I'm finishing the game because I'm stubborn, and not because I really wanna find out how it all ends. Basically the game is not giving me any reason to care, as the story and it's characters has failed to grab me in any way.

The positives is that the game looks amazing still, and the battle system is actually quite nice. A bit too much auto fighting, but I found the steep increase in difficulty when I reached Gran Pulse to be very refreshing, as the game now forced me to pay real attention to my paradigms, especially during boss fights. Without the right setup, you stand no chance, which shows that there certainly is some thought behind it all. Great soundtrack too by the way.

Hopefully SE can give us what we all want with FFXV; a big world to explore, world map (or at least something like FFXII, which had huge connecting areas), sprawling towns with loads of sidequests and shops (I cannot understate this), a decent story and MATURE, interesting characters.
 

remnant_phoenix

New member
Apr 4, 2011
1,439
0
0
As an "FFXIII hater" who has conversed with many others of his kind, here's why people tend to hate the game:

=====

-The battle system is doled very slowly over time.

By the time you get to Chapters 9-10, you consistently have a three-member party and all characters have access to all six roles. At that point, the battle system is, in my opinion, actually pretty good. There were several later boss battles where I thought, "Oh...now I see...THIS is what they were going for with the battle system." But for the 8 chapters (~20 hours) up until that point? You're usually stuck with a two-member party and even when those two-member setups you don't have access to Sentinel (in the case of Sazh/Vanille) or Sentinel AND Saboteur (in the case of Lighting/Hope). What this means is that, for me and several others who have grown up with Final Fantasy and/or JRPGs in general, that the first 8 chapters are boring, repetitive time-sinks. Most of the battles are too easy and take too long. In short, FFXIII doesn't have a difficulty curve so much as it has a difficulty wheelchair-ramp.

=====

-The story wasn't presented in a way that was palatable to a great many in the target audience.

Every other game in the Final Fantasy series that came before had a story that was fully presented within the dialog/cutscenes; Final Fantasy XIII doesn't present all of its necessary exposition within the dialog and cutscenes.

Most other games that have a "datalog" (The Clan Primer in FFXII, the Codex in Mass Effect/Dragon Age, the Jiminy Journal in Kingdom Hearts) don't make it required reading to understand the story; Final Fantasy XIII requires the player to read the Datalog to understand the story.

When you consider each pair of facts side-by-side, it's not hard to see why the story has so many haters. Those that couldn't be bothered to read the Datalog didn't understand the story at all and were alienated from it (this was me when I first played the game), and those who felt that they shouldn't have to read it to understand the story, but read it anyway, resented having to do so (this was me after I finished the game; I can't tell you how many times I would come across any interesting story bit and ask myself, "Why didn't they include this in the cutscenes?!).

=====

-The game was extremely linear.

If the above two problems had been fixed, I would've liked the game, maybe even loved it. Despite my antipathy towards it, I can recognize that it had so much potential. But with such a repetitive and dumbed-down battle system in the first 8 chapters and a story that didn't engage me, the series of tubes that is FFXIII's "maps" really started to feel monotonous, even to me, a person who doesn't at all mind linear games.

I really liked FFX. Because I liked its story and battle system, the linearity didn't matter to me. If FFXIII had given me a battle system that wasn't "meh" for the first 20 hours and story that drew me in, I wouldn't have taken issue with the linearity at all.

At the same time, the linearity was a big problem for a lot of people.

Just look at the series itself: FFX's linearity had a large amount of haters back in its day as well; when you consider that FFI-FFIX had fully explorable world maps and FFX does not, that actually makes sense. Then, coming off of FFXI (which was an MMO) and FFXII (which was set up like an MMO in its openness and freedom), FFXIII was even MORE linear than FFX. For those fans who really liked "exploring a world" as part of why they liked the older Final Fantasy games, FFXIII's linearity was bound to draw criticism.

And then, when you look outside the series, for people who prefer Western RPGs, FFXIII is pretty much everything that they DON'T want in a game.

=====

I hope this helps you understand why the game didn't work for me and so many others.
 

shrekfan246

Not actually a Japanese pop star
May 26, 2011
6,374
0
0
Everyone is weird. It's more to what extent than "am I at all?"

I maintain the belief that while I hate it as a Final Fantasy game, I don't think it's a bad game in itself. With another name, without all of the things that were generally associated with the Final Fantasy brand previously, I probably would've enjoyed XIII just fine, though Sazh is still the only character I had any fondness toward.

Lightning Returns just looks like absolute tripe, though.
 

scorptatious

The Resident Team ICO Fanboy
May 14, 2009
7,405
0
0
I didn't think it was nearly as bad as most people say it is. Yeah, it was incredibly linear (at least until you get about halfway through the game) the story's somewhat convoluted, some of the characters I felt were somewhat annoying, for every annoying one though, there are at least a couple of somewhat likable ones though. And the battle system actually does get kinda interesting partway through.

So is it flawed? HELL YES. But overall, I don't think it's a bad game.

Still, I vastly prefer IX over it. Hell, I vastly prefer IX over all the other FF games I've played. But that's just me.
 

Eclipse Dragon

Lusty Argonian Maid
Legacy
Jan 23, 2009
4,259
12
43
Country
United States
It's not a bad game by any means, but as a Final Fantasy game, it had tons of potential that it completely dropped the ball on. To me, and probably a few others, it represents a vision Square has lost over the years in favor of cutting edge graphics, the highest of high budgets and movie making.

-They tried a more abstract story and I can appreciate that (even though it was poorly executed, but that kind of story is hard for anyone to write).

-I found the characters to be at least as likable as the characters in any other Final Fantasy Game (they have their tropes and 13 doesn't make many efforts to not conform).

-I liked the concept of the world, although I wish Cocoon had been more open like Gran Pulse.

-I greatly dislike the sheer lack of exploration on Cocoon, the almost complete absence of cities and interactable NPCs (we're shown Cocoon to be a highly populated place, I wouldn't know that based on the environments).

-I don't like the new incarnations of the summons, but that's a minor nitpick.

XIII represents to many Final Fantasy fans what Cars 1, 2 and Planes represents to Pixar fans, it's guilty of being that game that looks like a complete loss of vision and enthusiasm, where once there was love, now it's just labor.
 

Smooth Operator

New member
Oct 5, 2010
8,162
0
0
Well from the way you described it this sounds like a mission of revolt, public said one thing and you are in it to prove them wrong. Hey as long as you enjoy yourself along the way why the heck not.

I honestly can't tell if the series is going up or down, the shit is so odd and convoluted it just doesn't make sense on any level for me.
 

Eclipse Dragon

Lusty Argonian Maid
Legacy
Jan 23, 2009
4,259
12
43
Country
United States
TizzytheTormentor said:
Interestingly, I heard so much was taken from the game that the game is an inkling of what it was supposed to have. I heard there was exploration, towns, extra dungeons and all that good stuff, but it would have been on like 3 blu rays.
And if it had included all those things, it would have been amazing. It seems like in this case, Square lost track of what their fanbase really wanted, or they really found themselves over their heads and ended up releasing a half finished product, which wouldn't be a surprise at all considering how many developers do exactly that.

On a side note: It's taken them eight years of working on Final Fantasy XV. If XV is all that they originally intended XIII to be, it will easily be the best of the series and well worth the wait. I can dream can't I?

Maybe they're capable of learning from their mistakes, maybe after the XIII reception they told themselves "No let's not rush this one, let's take our time and do it right, people are really excited for this game, let's not disappoint them". After all, Final Fantasy IX followed a similar path, it was originally meant to be a spin-off and they decided instead to make it a full fledged title.

Or maybe XV has just been floundering in development hell all these years and pigs have no chance of flying.
 

RJ 17

The Sound of Silence
Nov 27, 2011
8,687
0
0
TT Kairen said:
Then again, I'm the weirdo who thinks Final Fantasy VI isn't the grand masterpiece THAT'S made out to be either
Blasphemy! Kill the non-believer!!!!

:p

Just kidding, on a more serious note, though, I made a survey that got WAY more responses than I imagined it would regarding people's tastes in Final Fantasy games. I'm still compiling all the data with the bits of free time that I have, there's a LOT of cross referencing and such that I have to do. Once it's all done I intend to make another topic to lay out my findings.

What I can tell you is that so far there are definitely some trends of taste that I'm seeing with regards to age groups and locations and which FF games they like. That said, I can promise you that you wouldn't be alone in saying that you really enjoyed FF13. To answer your question, however, the reason every hates on it is because of the obscene levels of linearity within it. The infamous "Hallway of Eternity". Granted, most FF games aren't really "open world" in the sense that GTA or even Elder Scrolls games are, but you could still go pretty much anywhere you wanted, visit various towns and cities and such. FF13 is just a walk down a hallway. That's all you do. You see every monster before you fight it, there's no choice or fork in the road (save for little branches that might lead to a treasure chest or something), there's absolutely no sense of exploration. You're just walking down a hallway.

That and the story makes absolutely no sense when you stop and think about the details. Do you have any idea how many innocent police officers your party just absolutely slaughters? It's not like they're some evil empire, the majority of the populace actually ENDORSES The Purge and such. You're literally playing as a mass-murdering terrorist group. :p

For more information on why the game is hated on so much, go to spoonyexperiment.com and watch his playthrough of the game. He sums up pretty much everyone's gripes about the game. And it's pretty damn funny too. :p
 

Sniper Team 4

New member
Apr 28, 2010
5,433
0
0
I liked XIII much better than XII. Man, did I hate XII...

But no, you're not weird. Just a minority on the internet it seems. I had fun playing it, although it could have been a lot better. I feel they addressed some of the concerns in XIII-2, and while I haven't playing XIII-3 yet, I did pick it up and I'm looking forward to playing that one too.
 

Ryotknife

New member
Oct 15, 2011
1,687
0
0
Meh, im in the same boat as you OP. I liked 13 (not great mind you, but I wouldn't mind playing it multiple times) and didn't like 6.

the main characters in 6 were boring with the possible exception of Celes, and lets not even get started on the train wreck that was the second half of the game.. If it wasn't for Kefka, I would label FF6 as the worst (remembers X-2)...second worst in the series. Kefka held the game up on his broad immaculate shoulders like the mythical Atlas, and unlike Sephiroth has gotten even better with age.

The storyline of 13, while convoluted, was not nearly as confusing as FF7 or tactics. Ive played both of those games multiple times, and I still have no idea what was going on. Especially Tactics. FF13 I could actually follow.....well until the very end when it went full blown bizarro.
 

Chaos Isaac

New member
Jun 27, 2013
609
0
0
Nah man, it's not weird. You most likely just aren't perceiving it like many others. Or just enjoy other aspects/facets of the game that can redeem it's shortcomings.

Myself? I personally hated the characters since asides Fang and Sazh, the rest were just... wastes of time. Not to mention the heroes literally do what the bad guy says, and don't just... have coffee and prevent the destruction of cocoon. It just wasn't a very engaging/interesting world or story either.

Then again, I didn't hate 13, just kinda eh about it and let it go. The game has had worse entries, like FF IV. IV is so dumb and bad I don't even.
 

T_ConX

New member
Mar 8, 2010
456
0
0
I remember watching GTs 10 worst FFs and getting a little peeved at XIII getting the tenth spot. I didn't think it was that bad, but I guess they could only find 9 FFs that sucked harder.

Of all the FF games I've ever played, I'd have to say XIII falls in the bottom third. I thought it was pretty good, but it certainly has it's issues. It's way too linear, and once it does open up, it's obvious that it's run out of ideas. There's nothing to do besides explore the ruins of Pulse, grind, and do the hunting quests. It's a metaphorical ghost town, complete with an actual ghost town named Oerba.

That's probably the main issue. Once you fly through the story, there's little else there besides the end-game content, which requires way too much grinding.

XIII-2 was better. Haven't touched Lightning Returns yet.