In Defense of Final Fantasy XIII

[Suicidejim]

Do I dislike FFXIII because it didn't feel like what I had come to expect from the Final Fantasy series? Sure.

Was it still a bad game anyway? Well, yes.

Ironically, I was in denial of this for so long after buying the game, it was my love of FF that stopped me from hating the game, and made me defend it to people. But after I finished it, I was just underwhelmed. The battle system was largely rather dull, there was very little scope for character customization, the game was mostly quite linear, the story didn't hook me in, and none of it ever came together for me.

Although it was pretty, I'll give it that. Veeeery pretty. And I did like the sub-plot between Sazh and Vanille, that was one of the few parts where the story did actually catch my interest.

Also, I actually don't hate Vanille.

 

[Frylock72]

All I know is I literally fell asleep while playing FF 13. I've never done that with any other game. It was the dullest experience of my life. I'd rather sit through my cousins piano rehersal. If it wasn't trying to be an RPG, that's cool; but whatever it WAS trying to be it did that really poorly.

I thought I was the only one. I rented it from GameFly, then about an hour in on the bridge that falls apart at the beginning I just got so bored I turned off the XBox and went to sleep.

Also, Zell was a fine character. I'm not sure I'm interested in you as a person, author.

 

[omegawyrm]

I'm not really sure you're "defending" FFXIII just because you disagree with one of the criticisms of the game, that it wasn't trying to be innovative, but agree on all of the other complaints, and think it was crap as a result. That's not a terribly good defense.

And I did actually read that 1UP article before the game came out over here and thought the game accomplished pretty much everything they said they wanted it to when I actually got to play it.

 

[Lvl 64 Klutz]

The mistake in the article is that Final Fantasy is *exactly the same* as CoD and those other franchises. It's not the fans of any of these franchises that criticize it for being too "samey" all the time. It is, however, the fans that lament when there is a drastic shift in the formula of their beloved series. If Call of Duty suddenly changed into an RTS or something, you can bet that it's fanbase would be out with torches and pitchforks.

But yes, I agree that it's shocking people couldn't seem to grasp the fact that a project literally called "The New Crystal Story" was trying to reinvent a stagnate franchise.

 

[90sgamer]

Mr Dunn, I am sorry to say you are off point in every area. People who hate FFXIII hate it because it's not a good game by its own merits. Some of those same people *also* hate it because it is not true to the Final Fantasy formula, if there is such a thing any more. It seems you spend three web pages rebutting a very slim and specific group of people who take issue with FFXIII solely because of the latter, which is an entirely unproductive endeavor because you are addressing the minority. Your accusation of hypocrisy is also unwarranted. People detest Call of Duty because it makes no changes to its formula--only the setting ever changes. FFXIII did not change its formula, it changed its genre, a point you argue for. Apple to Oranges, bud. In any case, you are assuming some who hate Call of Duty are the same people who hate FFXIII but provide no evidence to support this assumption. Since the RPG genre is nothing like the FPS genre I doubt your assumption to be true.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

If you are going to try and make a completely new type of game don't make it a sequel. That aside the things the article is completely dismissive of are big issues. The unlikable characters, the terrible combat, the movie like gameplay.

I can play a linear game and be happy, Dead Space or Crysis 2 for example but the fact is that if that linear experience is horrible why would I want to endure it.

It seems like you are making flimsy excuses for a bad game.

 

[medv4380]

Come on,
the issue with FFXIII is not and never was an issue with it's history or namesake.

FFXIII can best be described as an interactive movie, and not as a game. The creator described it more like an FPS. Sure, I'd describe it like that if I cut out all the actual game play of Master Chief and left a small hallway for the player to run down before the next cut-scene takes the control away. It wasn't innovative any more then just taking the control away from the player putting them on YouTube and letting them watch someone else play FF7.

I watched interviews with the creator and when he described it as an interactive movie I was not expecting him to deliver it. I was expecting him to say whatever hype he needed to to sell another RPG with the Final Fantasy Franchise label slapped on it. The very nature of a franchise is to create a look at feel that can be replicated and carbon copied again and again. If I bought a Halo game and was given a JRPG instead I'd be a little offended.

I bought FFXIII expecting a Game and was given a Movie.

 

[jurnag12]

He said he liked FFIX over FFXIII because he didn't want to murder all the main characters. I can relate to that.

And there you also have my reason for hating VIII and X. They'd have been decent if Squall and Tidus hadn't been the 2 most annoying and whiny f*cks on the face of the planet.

Agreed. I actually really like Zidane from FFIX, simply due to the fact that he is neither whiny nor a depressing little shit. He was just a normal guy (albiet with a tail) that liked to have a laugh and stab the crap out of wildlife. Cloud, Squall and Lightning all fall under the depressed teenager category for me, which just isn't fun to watch. Tidus and Vaan from FFXII were basically the same whiney characters. If Square Enix want to create something unique, maybe they should start giving their main characters new personalities?

Giving them new personalities?! Next you'll be asking that they make their next game without androgynous teenagers as main characters!
And yeah, I'd forgotten about Lightning. Christ, the only person in XIII that managed to out-annoy her in my eyes was friggin' Snow (Who, together with Hope, needs to die in some sort of grisly accident involving chainsaws, napalm, and a morbidly obese walrus).

 

[ElPatron]

snip

Didn't they also say that you can't tell a compelling story on an open world game?

Perhaps he never heard of Grand Theft Auto... or previous FF games...

 

[starhaven]

the reason cod doest change for the people whining about it not changing is because they are not the ones who make the game money its the millions of people who like cod they way it is who make it money.

its the same or any game that has not changed much and when these games do change its slowly so people can get used to it ff12 was a change. one that i hated at first with the weird tacitic system for my ai allies rather than full control as i was used to and the no ramdon encounters was kinda fun once i got used to it.

the ff games where changing (albit it slowly) and i enjoyed the change then ff13 game out and even removed the gamit system any type of smblence to any other ff this ofcourse angered those very fans who make squre enix MONEY if you wanted to try somthing that diffrent and new dont slap it on a existing IP because your just gonna piss people off you would have been better off making a whole new game to test the waters.

 

[tetron]

In defense of FFXIII, I didn't care about the linearity, and I don't care if I can't run around in the forest outside of town for hours this game is no less linear than every other FF game. Doesn't matter how many sidequests you do you still have to go to the next town to kick off the story, and chances are you won't be coming back to that town anytime soon once you're done with it. As linear as the game was at least it made sense. You're criminals on the run, you don't really have time to stop and smell the roses.
There may be a lot of hallways but at least they're pretty hallways. Have any of you ever taken the time to stop and actually look at what's going on in the background ?

The story, characters, and soundtrack were phenomenal. Nothing more to say on that because if you disagree then ok then.

So with that I give FFXIII the highest praise I will ever give an FF game besides IV. Best FF since IV, excluding tactics of course.

 

[Atmos Duality]

This is what really got me. Also, I thought that "change is scary" thing was kind of a shot at people.

I like change. I like new ideas and I like things that break out of the mould. But perhaps the 13th core installment of a long-standing traditional rpg is not the best place to do it. I'm not sure this is at all about change, it's about fans expecting an RPG series to continue to be an RPG series. This isn't unexpected. It's not unreasonable.

Aye, not all change is good.
"Bold but random/stupid" isn't the solution to "Safe but stagnant/overdone".

It's much better to have some actual vision for the project, rather than changing shit just to make it look like you're making progress...I saw enough of that in the 90s.

See I do not understand why people were confused by the story either. I just throught it was a shit story with really bad characters. You like it and that's fine but tell me that Snow is not the biggest douche in fiction?

I don't think he's isn't even remotely close to that title. Then again, "douchebag" used in this sense isn't exactly well-defined.

My brief take on Snow:
We hate him because he's ignorant and naive' and has an overwhelming hero-complex.

To me Snow wasn't a "Douchebag". Seifer was a COLOSSAL douchebag. Way worse than Snow. But people don't hate Seifer because he isn't a player character; you not only get to witness his hubris, you get to administer it personally.

Zell, to a lesser extent, was a douche. Zidane was a borderline Douchebag, but I let it go because he was more carefree than obnoxious and stupid. (still didn't like him much, try as I might)

Snow came across more as an overly eager puppy. One who was about to learn a very harsh lesson about reality. If there is one thing I appreciated about Snow, it's that he wasn't another wet blanket downer nor a nasal imbecile like the previous two FF protagonists (Tidus and Vaan to a lesser extent).

Incidentally, I hated Vanille because she's just ridiculously creepy.
Like the Goddess of the Uncanny Valley.

 

[Ashoten]

Sorry you lost my interest towards the end of the first page. FF 13 wanted to be a movie that resented being a game. I couldn't get past 2 hours of its tedium. The game play just wasn't engaging enough to keep me going from movie clip to movie clip. Glad I was playing on a friends copy instead of spending my own money.

Yeah Kingdom Hearts 3 would be a nice.

 

[T'Generalissimo]

I haven't played FF13 so I can't actually contribute anything meaningful to the conversation, but I was greatly amused by the idea that fans might have a pretty solid preconception of how a game called Final Fantasy XIII should play. What a tremendously unreasonable thing for them to do. Especially given that the FF series doesn't have a single story or setting to unite it, it depends entirely on the gameplay and aesthetics to make it feel like a Final Fantasy.

 

[kurupt87]

The mistake in the article is that Final Fantasy is *exactly the same* as CoD and those other franchises. It's not the fans of any of these franchises that criticize it for being too "samey" all the time. It is, however, the fans that lament when there is a drastic shift in the formula of their beloved series. If Call of Duty suddenly changed into an RTS or something, you can bet that it's fanbase would be out with torches and pitchforks.

But yes, I agree that it's shocking people couldn't seem to grasp the fact that a project literally called "The New Crystal Story" was trying to reinvent a stagnate franchise.

How was the franchise stagnant?

XIII was stupidly succesful despite it being a shit game purely because the franchise was anything but stagnant.

-

A really big factor is, I think, the loss of control of the characters. People hate, or at least I do and I commonly see others moaning about, AI controlled teammates. So why the flaming fuck balls do they impose AI on us when we had a perfectly functional system before?

 

[Rad Party God]

My first Final Fantasy game, heck, my first RPG was Final Fantasy VII and I don't regard it as the best of the series and I certainly don't expect every RPG I play to be similar to FFVII.

I haven't played XIII yet, but I seriously can't think of a better way to keep the game retain the Final Fantasy name without changing too much, I agree that it should've been named differently.

 

[Laughing Man]

The conclusions and defence of FF13 are wrong, essentially the article can be summed up as the fans didn't like it because while it tried to make significant changes to the expected FF archtypes this is the exact reason that the long term fans hated it and that had the creators stuck to the FF formula then the fans would have loved it.... well that's kinda wrong.

Firstly despite what Square Enix would have you believe FF13 was NOT a huge change from the last FF game, in fact the FF games have slowly been evolving towards the linear limited, control, streamlined and for quite a while. I joined the FF series with FF6 and have played and completed all of them up to FF11.

The movement towards what we saw in FF13 started with FF10, yes you could select where you wanted to go in the world but travelling there was essentially a process of you walking down a straight linear corrider, it was a huge set from the massive free to go anywhere worlds of FF6, 7, 8 and 9.

FF11 on the other hand brought back some the open world and in turn tried it's hand at limited character control, allowing you to only control on character with the AI doing the job for the other two.

FF13 then decided to take these two factors, essentially the worse aspects of the game and then refine them to some how make them even worse. Yes FF10 had the linear go in one direction travelling but it managed to mask it very well, FF13 didn't. Yes FF11 had the single player controlled character but it left a wealth of options open to the player in the set up and behaviour of the remaining party members, FF13 just plain dumbed it down to the point that you could enter a battle and hit auto battle until you won.

FF13 didn't try anything new, it took questionable ideas that had appeared in the games that came before it and decided to make them a key feature. FF11's one character control was brought forward and put on display by the fancy cinematics, that added nothing but removed just about any real feeling that you, the player, were controlling what was going on when your party entered combat. FF10s linear go here before you can go there was implemented becaue the game wanted to force feed you a story in such a way that you had to go in the direction it told you to, but some how FF6 - 9 managed epic and complex stories without noticeably forcing you to go in a single direction, yes when you look at it you logically had to go to point a then point b then point c and you could only really go that way for the stories to progress BUT all the other games hide it behind a disguise of open world freedom where as FF13 totally failed.

So FF13 didn't bring anything new to the table, it didn't try to take the FF series in a new direction because it didn't do anything that previous FF games hadn't tried before, all it did manage to do is highlight that the poor ideas that previous FF games HAD tried had been very well hidden behind much better and much more involving games.

 

[Jeff Dunn]

Whew. Okay, first, thanks everyone for the feedback. I love you all. Even (Especially) the ones who disagree with me. That you guys are engaging with something I put a good amount of time and thought into means the world to me. It's a special feeling, so thanks guys.

That being said, I'm going to get to responding to some choice complaints. I feel like John Marston right before he dies at the end of Red Dead. Anyways, this is going to be a MEGA POST, so here we go...

There's a reason for that, though: Final Fantasy XIII wasn't really an RPG. Nor did it ever want to be.

What? You mean it's unreasonable to assume that the thirteenth installment in one of the most famous series of RPGs in gaming ISN'T meant to be an RPG?

This reminds of when Tommy Wiseau went back and claimed that his atrocity of a movie (The Room) was was actually meant as a "comedy", when the tone clearly isn't intentionally humorous at all.

EDIT:

Final Fantasy XIII gave fans something new. And it was vehemently hated as a result.

Actually, the whole time I was playing FF13 (brief as it was), I could not stop thinking of another game that had similar problems: Xenosaga Episode 2.

It had very similar gameplay related problems and an overwrought story.

No, I don't find that unreasonable Atmos, not at all. But when the guy who makes the game tells you this before the game comes out, I think you should adjust your expectations accordingly. The interview I referenced came before the NA release of the game (or at least right around the same time), so it was before all the backlash. Also, "something new" up there refers to it being new relative to the franchise, not to the genre as a whole.

I read the whole article but I still think it is only being devil's advocate to try to defend this game. How are you suggesting that the game was never supposed to be an RPG and the players just didn't get that the game tried to be better by being different? Such comments anger me, really. And I don't listen to each and every one of the producers giving speeches about the genre of the game they are making to check whether it matches with the genre I expect. Those producer speechers usually contain a lot of useless stuff, anyhow. All in all I'm still mad at anything Final Fantasy XIII.

Oh, and I never found Zell annoying... Why did you suggest that?

Ah, "devil's advocate." I was hoping to avoid that. Oh well. I see your point. I'm not suggesting that it wasn't supposed to be a (full-fledged) RPG. "You don't have to take my word for this." The guys behind the game said so themselves.

Also, never said that it was trying to be "better" per se, merely pointing out that the Final Fantasy name is an anchor around the developers' collective neck. I'm trying to put us in their shoes. Final Fantasy makes money, lots of it, because everyone is content with its formula, its consistent way of going about things. FFXIII was different, I don't think anyone is going to disagree here. So the team behind the game decided to change things up. Now, if you're a developer, wouldn't you grow tired of rehashing a similar project repeatedly?

What we're essentially arguing here is the validity of "The customer is always right" policy. At what point do developers have to make an effort to nudge the fanbase along into accepting something different? Think of what happens if FF keeps doing its standard thing over and over. Are we saying that people wouldn't deride them at some point for making the same thing repeatedly? Would we really always be content with just incremental changes and new stories (all of which tend to focus on the same themes)? Some of you may very well be, and that's perfectly fine. But, for me, and I think many others, the series needs to take more risks, like they did with FFXIII. Now, FFXIII didn't exactly succeed, which brings me to my next rebuttal...

If you are going to try and make a completely new type of game don't make it a sequel. That aside the things the article is completely dismissive of are big issues. The unlikable characters, the terrible combat, the movie like gameplay.

I can play a linear game and be happy, Dead Space or Crysis 2 for example but the fact is that if that linear experience is horrible why would I want to endure it.

It seems like you are making flimsy excuses for a bad game.

My point was not to say FFXIII is the "BEST GAME EVAR," I didn't want to spend an article responding to forum rants about the game. That's what this forum is for. I merely wanted to point out that people have come to expect a certain thing from this franchise, and that expectation naturally breeds stagnancy. I know FFXIII wasn't a great game. It wasn't a bad game though, but it received a whole lot of backlash despite being a decent title. Now, Jessica, you don't want drastic changes in your FF games, and that's perfectly fine. I don't really want to say that's some horrible blight on the gaming community, although I do think we should demand newness and freshness in our games.

But, and this applies to a lot of y'all, if you genuinely believe FFXIII was a bad game, and your pre-determined expectations of the game, based on its status as a Final Fantasy title, had no bearing on your judgments, well then there's not much for me to say. But that's not my point. I didn't think it'd be interesting just to write "NO FFXIII IS GOOD! IT'S GOOD!" in 1500 words. I did think that the complex relationship between the series' developers and its hardcore fanbase, and how that affects what kinds of games come to be created, would be interesting...

Sorry you lost my interest towards the end of the first page. FF 13 wanted to be a movie that resented being a game. I couldn't get past 2 hours of its tedium. The game play just wasn't engaging enough to keep me going from movie clip to movie clip. Glad I was playing on a friends copy instead of spending my own money.

Yeah Kingdom Hearts 3 would be a nice.

...which I guess it wasn't to Ashoten. Sorry you feel that way, man. Hope I can get you with the next one

Mr Dunn, I am sorry to say you are off point in every area. People who hate FFXIII hate it because it's not a good game by its own merits. Some of those same people *also* hate it because it is not true to the Final Fantasy formula, if there is such a thing any more. It seems you spend three web pages rebutting a very slim and specific group of people who take issue with FFXIII solely because of the latter, which is an entirely unproductive endeavor because you are addressing the minority. Your accusation of hypocrisy is also unwarranted. People detest Call of Duty because it makes no changes to its formula--only the setting ever changes. FFXIII did not change its formula, it changed its genre, a point you argue for. Apple to Oranges, bud. In any case, you are assuming some who hate Call of Duty are the same people who hate FFXIII but provide no evidence to support this assumption. Since the RPG genre is nothing like the FPS genre I doubt your assumption to be true.

They're a very vocal minority then, wouldn't you say? The internets be full of people trashing the game. Again, see my above point, my intent was not to tell you that your judgment of the game was wrong, unless you thought it was trash because it didn't do what you expected a FF game to do.

Also, I'm getting two different reasons on why people hate COD. Some saying it's because it doesn't innovate, some saying it's successful. I focused on the former. Oh well.

I think the "bizarro world" quote confused some people. Besides making a reference to the "Bizarro Jerry" episode of Seinfeld, what I meant there was that FFXIII is the same as COD, just for a mirrored reason. Whereas COD is bemoaned for not changing, FFXIII is bemoaned for changing. That's all I meant by that, really. Also, I could have polled everybody who hates COD and everybody who hates FFXIII and see if they overlap, but I had to make deadline. I know lots o' people dislike COD, and lots o' people dislike FFXIII. I'd venture to say there's an overlap there. Gamers, I hope, typically don't restrict themselves to one genre, especially in this case when it's two massively successful franchises like COD and FF.

Now defend XIII-2 cutting the ending from the game completely and releasing it as DLC.

Well, when I play FFXIII-2, I just may. xD

In Defense of Final Fantasy XIII

The legacy of the Final Fantasy name is what?s preventing the series from progressing in any meaningful way.

Read Full Article

I was waiting for someone to say it.

Fucking thank you.

No, thank YOU.

Oh, and Zell is a tool. You guys can't change my mind there. Think of hanging out with that guy. I guess I'm a little like Seifer then.

Well OKAY. I'm never doing a post this long again. Hope I gave some insight, though. Again, thank you all a ton for giving my article a once-over. It's huge to me (That's what sh...no, nevermind). If I didn't get to any points, and you want me to that bad, post again, and I'll be back. Though I won't write a thesis next time. Later, my friends.

 

[Sandytimeman]

Thanks for writing on Final Fantasy XIII and being open about why people feel so divided over it. For what it's worth, ever since Final Fantasy became popular in America (around FF6/7, depending on who you talk to), the next one's always been a bit polarizing. Folks who liked 7 disliked 8 or 9, folks who liked 8 hated 10, folks who liked 10 hated 12, and so on down the line. I'd actually argue that 12 and 13 aren't that far off mechanically, since both had little programs for your guys and they were on some sort of auto-pilot. If anything, the menu-based system that's become ubiquitous in most JRPGs was more apparent in 13 than 12. I will agree that the legacy of the series name is troublesome. While there are some expectations for staying the same, Final Fantasy implies a somewhat new system and other innovations every game, and these innovations aren't always welcome. Basically, no game bearing Final Fantasy is ever going to be 100% accepted because we have these weird convoluted expectations. 13 and 13-2 are just the latest to bear the bulk of the grudge.

It's okie, I loved 6, that was my entry into the franchise and HATED 8, 10, 10-2, etc etc all the way through. Hell I even hated the Final Fantasy movie.