Vivi22 said:
FFXII was honestly the best FF since IX as far as I'm concerned. It had an incredible world, great gameplay, and was a much needed breath of fresh air for the series.
FFX-2 had a great battle system and not a whole lot else going for it.
FFXIII on the other hand single handedly managed to be one of the worst games I've ever played. Terrible story, a mind numbingly dull and simple battle system, and characters who are at best inconsistent in their motivations and characterization, and at worst fly through some character development that makes little sense, all while being annoying as hell. I'm not sure how there's a real competition here.
I'm going to have to second this stance myself:
XII was fantastic, plain and simple. A nice amount of challenge, some optional content that could be quite difficult dependant on what you wanted to do with it, an intereting story (some people decry the story as not epic enough, or boring... this is becuase it was a bit political and required a little bit of thinking, which is often beyond a lot of gamers...). the world was well designed, and was a good answer to the complaints of previous games about a linar path world space. The gambit system gave you options, since you could choose how much you wanted to use it: players who like tactical preparation could crate vastly complicated and clever systems to invent controller-down strats for even the hardest content, while others who prefer more direct hands-on play could disregard it entirely, and everythign in between. The CHOICE was the beautiful thing there.
Also I like Moogles, and XIIs were some of the nicest renditions yet.
X-2 was, when taken as a game, completely stripped of its skin and paintjob, a fantastic game as well. The girlpower j-pop inspired insipiness made my stomach turn at times, but int erms of the gmae itself, the mechanics, the implimentation and execution, it was a really great game. It's unfortunate all that came in the wrapper that it did, becuase it meant that a lot of great things weren;t carried forward from it... I enjoyed the mechanics of hte combat system a grat deal, and I liked the sheer magnitude of optional and missable content; the game was almsot entirely side-wuest, with only the core thread of it being essential, and on its own only a tiny part ofhte full game. That was good.
Game was unfortunately sickening and unpopular becuase of its wrapping, which was a shame.
XIII: My summation of XIII goes roughly like this: Take as a metaphore, the FF series as this fantasic swingers party, that you've heard great things about, and have been invited to join by many of your friends... so one day, you bite the bullet and rock on up. Just as you walk inthe door, you hear a shout, and get hit inthe eye by a streak of somethign warm, slimy and entirely unpleasant, and then suddenly, you're turned around and pushed out again, because the party's over now.
That errant cum-splash was FFXIII.
The combat system was many major steps backwards from previous engines, especially in terms of the PArty-leader system, which often led to situations where the gmae would give you a game over, when, practially speaking, it wasn't game over at all. One of the precepts of FF games has always been teamwork, but this system throws that right out hte window by saying "The Leader IS the Party!! And if they fall, the rest of you are worthless and can't do anything." It's completely counter to something which has been a general atmospheric of FF games for the whole series.
The combat itself wasn't -bad-, per se, but it seemed far more concerned with being pretty than being informative or functional. Don't get me wrong, I LIKED the pretty... but pretty graphics and dramatic intent to show awesome graphical effect and thus obscure many of the thigns you'd like to be seeing, without the option to prevent it or turn it off.... that's a line. Pretty should never interfere with actual gameplay, and here it did.
Contra to X-2, I have to admit, the story here was one of the only things I did like about the game... sure it was a bit ham-fisted in palces (ok, -very- hamfisted in -many- places), but I, overall, liked it, and I was struck especailly by the sadness in Oerba, for example. A lot of people complain about the characters, but I would put forward this; if the characters had features pervasive enough to rise such ire in people, isn't that better than them being utterly unmemorable and flat? Personally, while there WAS a lot to dislike in most of the characters, I also found htat there was a lot TO like in them as well...
Let's take some examples: Most people ***** about Hope... I agree that the Hope we first meet is someone you just want to alternately slap and strangle. he's pathetic, whiney, slef-pitying and self-centered, but as you play, you get to see several aspects of that; he's led a privelidged life thus far, and is a smart kid, he's very rational where matters not related to emotion are concerned, and highly analytical... this is how he then tries to "cope", and he does grow substnatially by the end of the story... I'd say he grows far more as a character than anyone else in the game, and it's not instant; he clearly goes through several stages of coming to grips with himself, his situation and hte world, and it's only by the end of the game that he seems like a more likable person, largely because of where he's come from, to who he is then. Also, I tend to want to give him a bit of apass on the "whiney self-centered" card because, well, he's a barely-teen boy who just saw his own mother die right in front of his eyes... I'm willing to cut him some slack over it.
Snow is the other one people complain about a lot, but I don't know... it's another case of a character seeming shallow and utterly detestable until you learn more about the thought processes underneath, driving that behaviour. Once again, I can't help but -LIKE- Snow, for who he turns out to be underneath the bravado, all the while without that confident positivity ever going away entirely. The scenes between he and Hope throughout Palum-polum, especially endeared him to me, and yes, they weren't by any means subtle, and it was rather beating you about the head with what it was trying to communicate, but I found that I didn't mind that at all, because the circumstance allowed for it.
Lightning was, sadly, the flattest, most two-dimensional character of the lot, and I can't realyl find much to like about her, overall... this is unfortunate, since she is the lead role for the game, and is supposed to be the one we know the msot about. that said, it could be argued quite capably that Fang and vanille were the real central protagonists of hte game, and htat it was ultiamtely -their- story... I actaully agree witht hat assessment personally, but that isn't how the game was pitched, and if it were, there'd be no role for Lightning to fill at all... that is the ultimate telling mark on the flawed design of lightning's character: without being set up as "the Protagonist" she doens't really feel like she serves and reason or purpose for beingthere at all... Sazh had a more conducive reason for continuing, and a better developed character htan she did, and he was "supposed" to be the comedic relief.
Some complain that Fang's character developement is largely non-existnat becuase despite having the messsage beated into her a few times she never seems to learn for next time... but the thing is, that actually fits her quite well: she IS stubborn and self determining in everything she does, and is exactly the sort of character who doesn't learn the first time.
Also, anyone who tries to claim that Fang and Vanillie's relationship is not the intimacy of lovers is either very naive, or is fooling themselves...
Unfortunately, just as a great game system can't completely win over and make up for a terrible wrapping (X-2), equally so, an enjoyable story can't make up for a game which, as a game, is as terrible mechancially and functionally as XIII was.
So, which was the worst? Overall, XIII by a very long way.
-Harla
