In Defense of Final Fantasy XIII

[Hulyen]

I took that to mean you don't want future FF games to "try and make a completely new type of game." Right?

Actually, I'd like to point out that Square does this all the time with its non-core Final Fantasy games (ie Tactics, Dissidia, etc), with mixed reception. I'd also like to point out that they have done this exact thing before with 11, which was an MMO, and still got less flak than 13 did.

Edit: Clarified what I meant by 'core games'

Right. You're very much right, Hulyen. This builds off the "Lighting's Quest" line I wrote in the article, though, right? Even if FF13 had just named itself a "secondary" (or "non-core") entry in the series, it may not have gotten as much flak from some. Would it have gotten more flak than if it had changed the name entirely? Of course, but it'd lie in this sort of "half Final Fantasy" state, in the middle ground between the two options (i.e. being a core entry and being a new IP entirely). At the same time, it probably wouldn't have sold as well as a "non-core" entry as it did as a "core" entry.

It wouldn't have gotten as much flak simply because it wouldn't have sold as many copies. My point is that Square already HAS a vehicle for 'new genre' Final Fantasy games, so them complaining that the core series has no way to innovate (which is untrue) is just silly in my opinion.

Understandable. And you're right in that, naturally, it's "more money, more problems" for the franchise with regard to the amount of flak they're going to get. I suppose I don't like the fact that they have to have a separate vehicle for "innovative games," then (although they're not the only studio to do this). But agree to disagree. Thanks again.

A valid point of view, and agreed! Thanks for the civil discourse.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

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.

Did you even read my post? I said I wouldn't care how they made the game as long as the game was decent, but it wasn't. It was terrible. The story was convoluted, the characters were unlikable, the combat was over simplified and button bashy and the 'game' consisted of watching a movie.

If it wasn't a Final Fantasy game, I still wouldn't like it.

Multiple times. That line was in response to this:

If you are going to try and make a completely new type of game don't make it a sequel.

I took that to mean you don't want future FF games to "try and make a completely new type of game." Right?

From a business point of view it makes no sense to try something so radical with such an old series. People have come to expect something from those games and when you radically change that you are asking for trouble. There's no reason why they couldn't release it as a new IP if they were looking to establish a new style of game.

People end up paying for something they didn't want if you do that. The same thing happened with Dragon Age 2. If you are going to do that then at least be honest about it and make sure people know ahead of time that this one will be different.

Being dismissive of valid complaints about the game and gathering everyone under the banner of 'not wanting progress' is kind of ridiculous. Especially since that 'progress' isn't an improvement but a backwards step.

 

[Canadish]

Every Final Fantasy game brought a load of change.

The issue wasn't "change".

If everyone was complaining about it going from Fantasy to Sci-fi, like with from XI to XII, THAT would be an complaint about change.

But FFXIII was just a worse game. Period.

It was that the game was focused on style-over-substance and was a vapid, shallow, BORING experience.
Repetitive, simplified combat was all there was to this game. There was no variation at all.

The characters were unlikable cardboard cutout's that didn't develop properly.
We never got an Act 1 in order to get to know any of them or establish them in a normal situation. Their peril had no weight to it because of this. We have no idea what they've lost or seek to regain, except via a hand full of cut-scene flashbacks.

Nothing was gained. All that was improved on was the graphics.

That's the issue.

 

[Dice Warwick]

I agree In full.

I always liked how "FF" did thing differently in each game, with a new story each time, but at the same time it annoyed the hell out of me that they never kept any of the good stuff they were able to do. But to me FFXIII was an astounding fail at all level, the game ply was a glorified autopilot, the story was mixed up and made me feel annoyed, and other then Fang, the characters just did not connect with me at all. It's good that they tried something different, but with FFXIII, if felt like they forgot to check with the fans, and by the time they remembered about them, it was to late and they had to finish the game.

to me Square is dieing from the inside, fans are trusting them less and less with every game, and it seems that Square dos not care.

 

[xyrafhoan]

I'm surprised the Escapist let this article on the site considering how much the community here "Likes" Final Fantasy XIII, but as a fan of XIII I'm glad to see it and I think you made some very good points. However, I still don't see how people found it confusing. Compared to VII's "Clouds a clone" and VIII's Time Compression I found it very easy to follow as long as you paid attention to the dialogue (and no, I didn't look at the encyclopedia thing once as it all gets explained in time.)

Okay, I'm going to agree with you that VIII's Time Compression was just weird as hell, Cloud admitting he lived his whole life as a lie pretending to be someone he wasn't was the moment where he went from being a shallow character to someone I actually cared for. I'm more bothered that Square doesn't remember Cloud's vulnerabilities in any meaningful way in any of the FF7 spinoffs. Sephiroth's existence is much more confusing than Cloud's character arc.

FF13 could be followed easily enough even with all of its terminology. L'cie, Fal'cie, and Cie'th were not hard terms to follow along with considering how long the group talks about their fate about becoming l'cie. It's a minor gripe when many games are much more confusing about their terminology (Tales of Abyss, anyone?) The real problem is that the villain's plan in FF13 is a complete mess that makes my brain hurt just trying to figure it out. I didn't understand the whole final gambit until I read through TVTropes... and even then it still was incredibly hard to comprehend a plan so stupid. Characters who died are brought back only to die again like 5 minutes after they come back. Characters who weren't developed at all keep coming back and I wonder how they survived being gunned down/shot down in their plane/etc. The game was clearly developed in separate segments and then was woefully stitched together so they could have cool cutscenes with little regard for continuity that makes a lick of sense.

To reiterate: Motivations of the villain are bad, treatment of minor characters is completely nonsensical. I didn't even mention combat or linearity, which weren't that bad though it requires almost no input from the player. Paradigm shifts are clunky the first time you shift, putting you in a damned if you do damned if you don't scenario with such a long delay where you are definitely not invincible and time is still moving. I don't really care about the linear hallway design, as Shin Megami Tensei is almost nothing but narrow hallways, and less detailed ones to boot. The lack of variety in gameplay really hurt FF13 too. Even if a lot of the minigames in FF are of questionable quality, it's something that breaks up the pacing and leaves you refreshed, even if the minigame left a negative impression. In FF13, the only thing to do is walk around and get into into battles (which all play pretty much the same), and watch cutscenes.

Two activities in a 40 hour plus game.

I realize nothing else like FF13 is on the market, but unique does not equal good. Persona has been telling better character-focused stories for years, and Tales in general has focused on strong stories building up a whole world. FF13 had weak gameplay (which was remedied in FF13-2 by fixing that awful 2 second paradigm shift delay), a confusing story that was hard to derive satisfaction from, and an utterly forgettable cast of characters beyond your party members, the main villain, and Serah. There's no excuses to be made for FF13's failings and I am glad that FF13-2 took the problems to heart and at least polished the gameplay and brought in new elements beyond "walk down corridor and kill everything... Oh hey chapter 10! Now walk around the big plain and kill everything!". FF13-2 was not a step backwards towards safe territory. It only acknowledged that FF13 was a shallow game, too focused on style and not enough on function.

 

[Plinglebob]

I'm surprised the Escapist let this article on the site considering how much the community here "Likes" Final Fantasy XIII, but as a fan of XIII I'm glad to see it and I think you made some very good points. However, I still don't see how people found it confusing. Compared to VII's "Clouds a clone" and VIII's Time Compression I found it very easy to follow as long as you paid attention to the dialogue (and no, I didn't look at the encyclopedia thing once as it all gets explained in time.)

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?

The funny thing about Snow is the way he acts (I'm the hero, getting people to fight with him, jumping head first into every battle) is pretty much how the player usually acts in RPGs (more specifically WRPGS). Its just while the player is good at it/destined by fate, Snow just really bad at it. Like Vanille, its taking a standard character convention of the genre and twisting it slightly to show you the darker side.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

Woah, woah, woah...Final Fantasy's VII-XIII were video games? Could have fooled me.

 

[Truniron]

It was not bad, but lots of the element from previous games in the franchise have either been changed or gone to waste. The good things about the game is that the random encounters, which I actually miss, but when I don't have to worry about being forced to battle every 4th step in a cave, I say it's OK. The cut scenes could have been without all the whining and all the grunting sounds, sometimes, it's too much. The Square-Enix franchise is taking a different line from how the Squaresoft FF where, but like everything (except war according to Fallout) it changes. If this is how Square-Enix FF games are gonna be, it's OK, but please. At least once, or twice, I hope that they take inspiration from one or more of the previous games and make a game reminiscing to the classic style of FF games.
Overall, not a perfect game, but can be entertaining to the right audience

 

[newdarkcloud]

Final Fantasy 13 should not be like Call of Duty where it feels like (at least from my perspective) that you are doing the same thing year after year.

However, what we got was more like Call of Duty suddenly becoming a puzzle game. It doesn't make sense and felt kinda wrong.


I also dislike being on auto-pilot for a good half of the game. FF13 was more than just bitching fans. There are many legit criticisms of it, and that's why many changes were made for 13-2.

 

[Skyy High]

I can't agree with the premise of the article, I just can't. FFXIII wasn't "innovative", at least not in any direction that we should be encouraging. It took the fairly standard linear cinematic experience that has come to define the JRPG genre, and amped it up to 11, at the cost of every other part of the game. 20 hours of pushing a character forward on a set linear path with zero choice involved in how you build your character, your party, your looks, or even which enemies you fight is NOT "innovation", it's just stripping out what makes JRPGs fun and not replacing it with anything worthwhile.

Oh, the combat system was innovative, particularly for a FF game. Needless to say, the combat system is the part of the game that I liked the most, because it was clear that they were trying to iterate on the tired FF formula to get something new and better. Every other aspect of the game, though, doesn't show signs of innovation; it shows that Square-Enix just wanted us to sit down and watch its goddamn terrible movie without having much, if anything, to say in the matter. _That_ is why it's hated; not because it's not a FF game, but because it's just not fun to have close to zero involvement in your character or the story, particularly when that story is completely nonsensical anyway.

 

[DjinnFor]

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

No, not at all.

Here's the two cents I posted a while back:

Here's my two cents:

I just lost interest at about, I think, Chapter 12. If I recall. Whichever chapter gives you access to the fairly open, non-linear map where you can start doing missions.

Here's my problem: I was pretty bored overall with the game until I hit that point. At least the linearity of the game focused me enough on a clear goal that I could pave forward despite my boredom. As soon as I realized that the game was about to give me twenty different goals to complete (in the form of 19 missions to 5-star and 1 path to progress forward) I sort of just said "Screw it". I knew I'd have to grind up myself some levels and I couldn't face the prospect of doing so given my current opinion of it.

Basically, I recognized that the combat system was fairly shallow and it wasn't going to get much better, and the story itself just wasn't interesting me.

You see, I didn't want to sit there facing jellies and penguin-bird-things all day, so I figured I'd take on some Wolves or Greater Beast(-y thingies). Of course, the game has absolutely no penalty for failing over and over, so I figured I'd master taking on extremely tough enemies until I could 5-star them. Of course, its more luck than not, but it's doable given the right timing if you can just stagger the right enemies at the right time. Chain-launch the Greater Beasts and you can take them out before they stand and heal themselves.

On one hand the battle system creates an illusion of complexity, but on the other its just a glorified "Simon Says" game. Simon says, switch to MED/MED/SEN. Simon says, switch to SAB/SYN/SEN. Simon says, switch to COM/RAV/RAV. Simon says, switch to RAV/RAV/RAV. Simon says, switch to COM/RAV/SEN. To make sure of the job, of course, be sure to switch paradigms every ten seconds so your ATB bar gets a free refill, and auto-battle by default since no human can input commands as fast as the computer can, unless it's just to spam a single move (blitz-blitz-blitz). Even if you know the enemy is weak to lightning but don't have it scanned, you're wasting valuable time where your ATB bar doesn't fill while you sit there dilly-dallying.

You know exactly how to win every battle at the outset, and given a particularly tough battle, victory is a combination of luck (the enemy doesn't hit you anything particularly dangerous) and timing. 5-staring battles underleveled is basically a "sprint for the finish, all or nothing, no healer or buffs" dash where you retry the moment anything goes wrong. 5-starring battles overleveled is a combination of (ab)using particular equipment that doesn't increase the maximum time... and a "sprint for the finish, all or nothing, no healer or buffs" dash.

Was there a sweet spot I missed? Perhaps. Sometimes buffs are important: your default position is usually "buffs on", but most battles are 5-starred without them once your timing is down.

Overall, the story itself has its ups and downs. Vanille is everyones least favorite 21-year-old voice actor trying to play a 14-year-old sounding girl (that's really 19 years old according to the manual). The other characters do develop somewhat: Snow warms to the player with his badass "fall fifty feet then carry someone on his back five miles moment", Hope goes through an uplifting transition but only really because that's the only direction he could have gone (it's not like you could have made him more whiny and annoying), Sazh has a mini-struggle beneath his calm and positive demeanor... but the female cast is lacking. Vanille is pure eye-candy with a backstory added for the sake of completeness, Fang has no real role (so far), and Lightning just sort of stays aloof except for one moment when she cries to Hope about her feelings.

The story is still a definite improvement over 12, which just gave each character an intro and a little motivation for joining the group, and then went off in some long-winded plot tangent that was completely irrelevant as far as most of the characters were concerned or bothered to express. I suppose I'm used to traditional Final Fantasy where the hero gets their spotlight throughout the story, and secondary characters get a bit of an introduction as they are introduced and some development along the way in the form of dialogue and commentary, with some extras and optionals thrown in to flesh them out. That was a fair way to do things: from what I see, 13 gives the characters some more introduction and some meaningful development along the way, but its sandwiched in the beginning and middle. The old FFs were episodic in a sense: they created their main interaction between characters by introducing some sort of small challenge or goal in the context of a larger goal, and having the characters talk about it and share their opinions as they overcome it. This allowed them to actually develop as characters.

This one splits up the characters and has them do some really exciting things right away, but I find myself missing the moments like the Black Mage village of FF9 or being trapped in the Casino in FF7: a change in scenery, pace, and mechanics. More memorable are the moments where you return to an area you previously visited and do things even more exciting, like in FF7: going back into that portside town where you originally took the boat ride and being captured/trying to escape, or returning to Midgar and fighting the Weapon.

FF13 does away with the "overall, fairly clear goal" and "episodic challenges" that you see in FF7 and FF9 and goes for a more "changing or unknown villain" and "fairly linear path" method of FF8 and FF12. The overall motivation is fairly unclear, and even the protagonists are slightly confused as to what to do, so the game has to give you a straight line from A to B to walk along in order to keep you motivated. Where FF7 was well-paced, with the episodic challenges varying in importance and climaxing at about every half disc, FF13 is almost a roller-coaster ride that always falls down: by the end of it you're bored. It just rises and rises in impact and significance and almost never slows down for a moment: you really have to give the player a reference to compare to, a moment in the story where things are slow and lackadaisical, or funny and joyous, for those action-packed or tragic moments to hit hard.

FF13 just struggles at basic storytelling conventions where its predecessors excelled or at least functioned (depending on who you talk to), and when the gameplay isn't much it's hard to appreciate it.

In any case, I'm bored of FF13, and I probably won't get back to it for a while.

 

[AbstractStream]

Jeff Dunn, I like the way you think. Good article even though there are 3 pages of hate (for the most part).

 

[Sylveria]

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.

I struggle to see how FF13 gave us anything new.

A game that was mostly cutscenes? Been done. The difference is that usually cut scene heavy games are still games. FF13 would happily never let you touch a button.

The combat system? They mashed together "action rpg" combat and "Turn based/Active Time" combat with an audible clunk to give us twitch-based menu navigation.. which isn't new either.. FF11 was essentially the same system just with only 1 action at a time being picked. 12 could be played in a nearly identical fashion to 13 if you were mad enough to not use gambits. The whole Paradigm system exists to mask them being too lazy or inept to create an AI that can competently use a wide variety of skills or give the characters any real concrete characterization to match their skill set. That's not new, that's failure.

The Characters? Worse than the "Staff girl, Sword guy, etc" tropes because while they don't fit those profiles, they still fall into the "tough guy/tough girl, kookie girl, emo git" just without any of the secondary characteristics like a set of abilities that actually match what they do or their personalities. Let us not forget that most of the characters have an "ultimate ability" which tells you they do have a "class" it's just so vaguely defined to be inscrutable.

The story? Big Bad Evil Guy wants to bring down civilization for kicks. Though making the BBEG a transforming mecha-pope is kinda new I guess.

If anything, FFXIII is a regression rather than an innovation. The players control over the game is minimized. Where limiting player action used to be the result of tech limits, now it's just for the heck of it.

I finished FF13-2 not all that long ago and found it to be superior in every way; they built upon the ultra-restricted system and improved it. It still isn't that good and probably never will be cause it has so many inherent flaws, but it shows they were at least thinking. It also had, what I feel, was superior story structure. FF13 had no driving force beyond an unseen ticking clock where as 13-2 had an antagonist who was a legitimate threat in person, but also the idea that the whole of creation was starting to unravel around you and if you didn't move your ass everything was going to come crashing down (literally and figuratively). Not to mention the game actually let you play it from the word go, no 15-20hr long tutorial section.

Lastly, I really find the idea of blaming the legacy holding the series back preposterous. FF13 isn't so widely loathed by fans of the series because it's different, it's loathed because they think it is a bad/boring/unenjoyable/flawed game. Innovation and refinement are fine, but here's the issue, those changes need to be provide something superior than the old way. Failure to do that is still failure and that failure is only magnified when there's a history of exceptional product.

I also find the idea of saying "it didn't intend to be an RPG" a total cop out defense. I've often called the justifications/defenses of FF13 to be desperate, but that takes the cake. Like someone above me said, it's like Timmy Wisaeu saying "The Room" was supposed to be funny after everyone started laughing at it. I guarantee that if FF13 didn't have "Final Fantasy" in the title, no one would be defending it. It would get laughed off the stage and buried in obscurity ,but it has that legacy that the article is so quick to criticize to use as a crutch.

 

[Tarkand]

Maybe I'm weird, but I don't feel like FFXIII tried something 'new' or 'different', has much as it just finally reached a 'critical mass' of Final Fantasy-ness and imploded on itself.

Pretty much every iteration of FF has had plots that got more and more complicated and non-sensical. People's hair has gotten more and more spiky. The characters become more and more annoying. Gameplay has gotten less and less involving. The world has shrunk. The game becomes more linear.

So FFXIII isn't so much new... has the conclusion of that trend.

 

[BabuNu]

If they tried so hard to break from the Final Fantasy M.O. why did they bother putting "Final Fantasy" in the name. If they wanted to make a different game, MAKE A DIFFERENT GAME! Don't try to increase sales by slapping "Final Fantasy" on the title. Almost everything that defines a Final Fantasy game has been cut from this, either bring back the world map or give it a new title!

 

[Hashbrick]

When I first played FFXIII so long ago on launch I was so so disappointed. Weeks before FFXII-2 came out I decided to sit down to play FFXIII all over again, from start to finish. I realized I was a lot harder on the game then I should have been, it's not that it was a bad game but it was so different in linear that I hated everything it ever stand for. Playing it my second time through was much relaxing and satisfying. I started to appreciate the story that was told and the characters that were telling it.

The combat system was never about choosing "Fira" from a menu, it was about switching to paradigms at the right time and knowing how to endure the battles that would come. Each character played an important role in your party to survive, which many FFs could say otherwise.

If you asked me what was my favorite FF, well you'd be surprised to know it wasn't FFVII of FFVI or FFV, no it was FFXII. So many fans hated FFXII for what it achieved, personally I thought it achieved greatness. The battle system was something to behold, the world was elegant in its own way, and the characters felt alive.

13-2 improved on the 13 system, the battle system is tweaked to really make the battles more fast pace and intense. The creature catching, chocobo racing, slot machine fenzy, fragment collecting, notorious monster, multiple ending, time traveling game was a worthy stand in the FF line up. It was what the fans were asking for, something more than just the story. I don't see how any fan wouldn't be happy with 13-2 and maybe just maybe they will appreciate FF13 more after playing it, I know I have.

 

[Raika]

Vanille and Hope were completely unlikable.

So the only characters with any development or depth were unlikable? Okay. Have fun with that.

 

[mireko]

A little side-note: Dark Souls has some huge differences from Demon's Souls. They have the same combat system, but where Demon's Souls uses a mission hub and fairly straightforward levels, Dark Souls is almost completely open-world. You could argue that each "zone" is the same thing as a level, but when they're all stitched together then it's still a major difference, not an incremental change. If a game like Uncharted had all its zones be interconnected and allowed the player to travel in them as they please, it would completely transform the game.

But yeah, I agree with some of the points made here. I've been thinking about how they could've salvaged Final Fantasy XIII, and I've come up with one thing that would've magically changed it from a mediocre game to the game of the year, and here it is.

The voice actresses/actors should've been drunk and added a ton of ad-libbed lines. There. Now it's a satire. Motomu Toriyama's hack writing is so bad that if it got that extra little push into the uncanny, it would become brilliant. Lines like "BECUZ IM A HERO LOLZ" and "MOMS ARE TOUGH LOLZ" would've immediately become parodies of the dialogue, and it would have all that post-structuralism stuff you hipsters love so much.

Another option would've been to employ someone who isn't a horrible writer.