Poll: What is everyone's problem with XIII?

[D_987]

I thought it was quite good. Especially the first half of the story, when it was focusing on the drama between Hope, Snow, and Lightning. That was some good freaking stuff. The battle system is one of my favorites in the series as well. The soundtrack wasn't Uematsu, but it was the best Non-Uematsu score the series has seen.

For that matter, I disagree with most criticism against the game. Sure, it was linear, but why is that such a terrible thing? Why do people simultaneously say "it was too easy" and "you never feel powerful?" And how do so many people miss the strategy of the game? The auto-attack is designed to direct your focus to the paradigm shifts, something it does quite successfully, and the paradigms are where the gameplay gets quite strategic and exciting.

I liked it. Not the best: that distinction goes to VI, VII, and X. But quite good.

Because the game is to easy...it takes no skill or thought and you rarely die, but that doesn't mean enemies don't take way to long to kill.

And you don't feel powerful in post-game...you still can't kill most enemies particularly quickly. [I like how you missed that bit out to make your point seem valid].

Paradigm shifts aren't strategic, it's extremely basic strategy; attack, defend or heal for the most part - the fact the game limits your choices within its own system for most of the game just emphasizes the point I made about linearity and lack of control.

Why is linearity a bad thing? Well when all you do for a 40 - 60 hour game is move in a straight-line and fight wave after wave of enemies to get to the next cut-scene, you tend to get bored. Especially if said cut-scenes are badly written, and the combat system is incredibly dull; as is the case with XIII.

 

[The Rockerfly]

do you mean this game?

I haven't met anyone who had a problem with it, it was a great game

 

[AlternatePFG]

I got tired of the drawn out fighting and constant battles that became more and more common as the game progressed. I wasn't a huge fan of the combat system to begin with, but as normal battles became more and more lengthy, I just quit.

The story was pretty mediocre too.

 

[Rofl-Mayo]

I have yet to play it but I heard it was too linear in game play.

 

[BlueberryMUNCH]

So. Much. Grinding.
Holy hell><.

But yknow, I pumped about 80ish hours into that game...
And I genuinely enjoyed it all, it was brilliant i.m.o.

Just wish...hmm...I don't know...
But the XP grinding was tiresome, and the strength of the enemies from endgame -> 'overtime' mode was insane in my opinion.

Mugh.

WAN PLAY IT NAO THOUGH D:< silly ps3 breaking:/.

 

[Delock]

Seriously i see more and more "omg ff13 is shit" rants everyday. Although i dont rank it as the best ff it was far from the worst and in some cases like the battle system improved on prevoious titles.

So I ask you was XIII a dissapointment for you? And if so why?

I found it a disappointment because it's just a really badly designed game; I cannot be bothered to type out a long rant explaining why so here is the bullet-point venison:

- Way to linear - no exploration, no feeling of progression.

- Terrible writing - "Moms are tough", "Seraph!!!" [Every 5 seconds] and all the other corny melo-drama in the game.

- Horrible characterization - Primarily thanks to the above.

- Massive plot holes that make no sense / Deus Ex Machinas - See Anima, see the ending, see Cid Raines.

- Pointless characters - the game only has a few named characters and yet at least 5 of them are completely irrelevant...

- Battle system plays itself - there is no thought or focus to playing that system, just mash auto-attack and you'll win 90% of the time.

- Items are useless because the game is very easy.

- Elevator music doesn't match the areas - gives the plot a childish feel.

- Lack of things to do after main game.

- Melo-drama for the sake of it - the game trying to trick you Sazh killed himself when within the context of the scene it makes no sense. Insults the players intelligence.

- Horrible voice acting - again thanks to terrible writing.

- Lack of progression when leveling - you never feel particularly powerful, even during the end-game and maxed out...

- Game hides the poorly thought out story in the data-log - player has no idea what's really occurring for the first half of the game.

I could go on if I wanted to...

Don't forget:

Forced tutorial until almost the final third of the game Not only does it force who I play as, but also force me to play entirely how it wants, regardless of what would be the best option.

Terribly paced difficulty curve

Horribly fakes freedom of stat and ability development where if you want to have a character do something else because they happen to be your favorite/have already been polished off enough, you'll need to spend beyond reasonable amounts of time grinding for a single level in another linear line of stats and abilities. Don't forget that the line itself is capped at each chapter, meaning you can't level up more to easily fight a boss, as is the normal RPG strategy. No, you've got to fight it exactly how the game wants just by doing this.

Disgustingly short amount of side quests and for the most part they are just hunting missions with no real reward other than money/single item.

Combat system needed more player control I have to depend on the AI if I want to not be in a horrible place, such as right in front of the beast that deals huge amounts of damage or on top of a tracking beacon the enemy will be shooting at. The worst part is that the battles are clearly designed so that moving around is the right way to fight (like Kingdom Hearts, Tales, or even FFXII) but it gives this to your main character. In addition, you can't take over other characters to give them directions (or to avoid a game over when your main character is low on health).

Overly Padded This is most apparent early on, a bad sign already

Lacks a lot of the FF charm The signature stuff, such as chocobos, cactaurs, moogles, reoccuring enemies, etc. either don't appear, you have to hunt for, or just get horribly forced in. The world itself also lacks the same sort of majestic quality that even Ivalice had (except for the first and last few levels from what I remember), with nothing about it screams a fantasy realm worthy of being in the poster child of JRPGs. Strangely enough, in trailers, all the elements were condensed together to do this, but they are so thinly spread over the real game that they're hard to even notice. Then of course you've got the Pulse, the place built up over the entire first half of the game as a place unlike any other that is basically just like a small section of a world map in any other fantasy JRPG.

BORING The plot, the characters, the drama, the combat, the customization, the side quests, the horrible grinding, Pulse (which the only reason it wasn't worse than what came before is that it was more open... at least a part of it was), the action, the entire world, and the main villain (who was as successful as Kefka, Kuja, and Yu Yevon. How do you ruin someone like that?!) were all absolutely boring. The only interesting parts were the design aspects (character, summons, architecture, etc.), which didn't make up at all for the rest of this.

 

[noodles loves you]

I thought it was pretty bloody great, but then I've only just arrived on Gran Pulse, so it could always fuck up before the end. Sure it's different, but believe it or not that can be a good thing when you look at how ruddy boring and stereotypical jrpgs are getting nowadays

 

[loc978]

Haven't bothered playing a Final Fantasy game since X. The series started down the slippery slope of flashy tripe with VII, and hit rock bottom with its first online-only installment. I really don't want to see where it's gone from there.

 

[D_987]

I thought it was pretty bloody great, but then I've only just arrived on Gran Pulse, so it could always fuck up before the end. Sure it's different, but believe it or not that can be a good thing when you look at how ruddy boring and stereotypical jrpgs are getting nowadays

Different doesn't always mean better; in fact it's really not all that different to any other JRPG on the market. The character stereotypes are still there, the world is generic and lifeless, the gameplay consists of tried and true Final Fantasy styles; there's a leveling system you have little control over; the game is linear to a large degree.

They didn't change anything from the fundamentals of the JRPG; just got rid of a whole lot of stuff instead and tried to fill that content with more cut-scenes and battles...and one of the worst endings this generation of consoles...

 

[RollForInitiative]

Boring, unimaginative, poorly told story, weak characters, weak combat system...but hey, it was pretty and that's enough for some people. I'm just not one of them.

 

[Diligent]

I just played a good chunk of FF IX, and its world feels bigger and grander in every way even though so much more artwork and processing power went into XIII.
Part of the draw of an RPG for me (Japanese or otherwise) is the ability to explore and discover the game world, and find those hidden nooks and crannies and all that good stuff.
Gran Pulse nearly did that, but for the rest of the game if you're just going to make me run a bunch of corridors, it may as well just be an action adventure game. And if it's going to be an action adventure game, the combat probably shouldn't be menu based.
Also the end fight was a stupid let-down to me.
I voted disappointed. (Meaning I didn't hate the game, but it could have been so much more, and I hope the next in the series either brings back the world map, or does what FF XII did and actually have a world to explore (or at least give you a better illusion).

 

[Aiden_the-Joker1]

I haven't played XIII but I think the reason you are seeing so many people going "OMG FF13 is a disappointment" is because not many people will be going "OMG FF13 isn't a disappointment"

 

[Vivvav]

The game's story is boring, five of the six main characters are uninteresting (the only interesting one is Sazh, if you're curious), there's no exploration, and the game's combat system is annoying and frustrating.

 

[megs1120]

There was no reason to care about any of the characters or cocoon. You see so little of the place that you never make a connection to it or the game world in general. The whole game is pointless.

 

[noodles loves you]

Whatever crap I just said

Different doesn't always mean better; in fact it's really not all that different to any other JRPG on the market. The character stereotypes are still there, the world is generic and lifeless, the gameplay consists of tried and true Final Fantasy styles; there's a leveling system you have little control over; the game is linear to a large degree.

They didn't change anything from the fundamentals of the JRPG; just got rid of a whole lot of stuff instead and tried to fill that content with more cut-scenes and battles...and one of the worst endings this generation of consoles...

Fair point, but the changes to gameplay (through the linearity and new combat mechanics) were nice and experimental. As for the ending... I'm gonna believe you on that, because I'm hours away from it.

(also I totally defended this just before Alexander handed me my arse 6 times in a row, so I clearly am wrong about the game being any good. I'm just intent on justifying it being the first 360 game I owned aahahaha..aha... ugh)

 

[Lukeydoodly]

Shit story, really annoying main characters, and no towns. It's just one big tunnel.

Where is the exploration? Talking to random people in towns? Shops?

 

[XT inc]

oh well damn I utterly misread the whole topic and voted incorrectly, I said it was pretty damn good, Now I thought we were talking about XIII the cel shaded fps. ff13 was a archaic, throwback, that takes too long to do anything, and is in my opinion a massive step back from the progressive nature of 12. You take the older plot lines, add them into open world and open character building, hell throw in a main character you fill in the blanks on who isnt so girly and revamp the combat and we'd be all good.

FF13 plays itself, takes the better part of 35 hours to open up, and is just a failure on all accords.

 

[Flamezdudes]

I enjoyed it incredibly much and found it hard to put down and to stop playing, I wanted to keep going.

I understand why some people hated it, but I enjoyed it personally.

 

[DirgeNovak]

At first I was thrilled by the presentation and the combat was great, but after a few hours I found out it was really shallow, repetitive and a little boring. So I traded it for GoW 3 and am now much happier for it. I'll pick it up again when it's in the bargain bin next summer during the release drought.

Where is [...] talking to random people in towns

So you enjoyed that tedium of having to press X next to every single fucking moron to read unimportant crap? Archades in 12 comes to mind. I want my hour back, Squeenix!

 

[SalamanderJoe]

I never played it. I've never got round to it. All I know is that XIII is my girlfriend's favourtire game 'so far'.

EDIT: Ooooo, Final Fantasy XIII...not, XIII. Nah we thought FFXIII was a disapointment. I didn't like how if you lead character died everyone died regardless of HP. That sucked.