I saw this in a comment in kotaku and it is an absolutely perfect dissection of ff13:
I don't believe FFXIII was a success narratively at all. The entire game's story is annoying cryptic and lacking in any sort of genuine human pathos from the majority of the cast to make anyone give a damn about them.
Allow me to break down just ONE character, the "central character", and show you why she is emblematic of an entire problem in the game; the game as a whole is reflective of Lightning, and it's as subtle, intelligent, and believable as Lightning is... which is to say, not at all.
Lightning - Let me start with a very simple question: Why did Lightning become a Soldier? That's not a question to brush aside easily; that's WHO SHE IS, and her being a soldier defines much of her behavior and personality. But what was the reason she made that decision?
The game doesn't really tell us. It doesn't tell us many things. So she's introverted and closed-off to those around her... but WHY? Toriyama asked Nomura to create a "female Cloud", and superficially they are very similar. They look similar. They're both soldiers that join a rebellion. Their roles in combat and their use of weapons are similar. Even their aloof and cold personalities are similar.
But pause for a second and look at some VERY key differences, ones that show why Cloud is a good character with development and why Lightning is a shallow character of shallow writing.
Cloud in FF7 is FULLY EXPLORED in the game. The game slows down and gives us hours of flashback material that we experience (and not just watch), showing Cloud in his childhood, his friendship with Tifa, his promises as a youth, his childhood dreams and ambitions, his connection to his mother and the rest of the time. We hear him tell us clearly why he wants to join SOLDIER, why he looks up to Sephiroth, and why he carries such a desire to make Tifa see him with admiration and pride.
And then we see how Cloud failed that obligation. His promises were not kept. His dreams didn't pan out. We see him return to his hometown in shame, humiliation, hiding away behind his helmet. We see how he creates a fantasy world for himself where everything he wanted happened, taking the spot of Zack and imitating a true hero, only to have a powerful, game-defining confrontation with the ghosts of his pasts later in the game. Cloud sheds the skin of his past mistakes and embraces, for the first time, through the help of his friends, his true identity, his true path in life. He is utterly, completely changed through this experience.
But we understand Cloud's meager origin, his great adversity, and his eventual triumph. That is the "Hero's Journey" in a nutshell.
Now look at Lightning. Where is she from? Why does she want something different? How does she even know Snow? Why does she disapprove of him? Why is she so aloof to her sister? Why does she feel she should be a soldier? What specifically causes her protection of Hope to change her? Where are the moments that showcase that internal conflict? Where are the scenes that show her trial-by-fire? Unlike Cloud, we are never given a breakdown of Lightning that takes her, breaks her into her identifiable parts, and then analyzes who she is. We do not get an origin for her. We do not get an ENDING for her. We get her stuck in the middle, in the struggle, but it's not even HER struggle; it's the struggle the l'Ceith curse stuck her with.
You say she has a "character arc" of going from a total cold ***** to "forgiving Snow"... but that's just it; Snow did nothing wrong. There was nothing to forgive. Becoming "less self-reliant" isn't a character arc; that's just necessity and common sense to help and get help from others against problems to big for you to handle. If the problem was something she thought she could honestly handle on her own, would she genuinely ask others to help her?
If she was not cursed, would she still fight for her sister? For her friends? I don't know. The game doesn't bother to ask or answer these questions. She's shallow, entirely written as an emotion and not a character. She punches her friends, not because she's "strong", but only because she's "angry" and has absolutely no other way to express it because the writers don't have the talent or skill to show her with an ounce of nuance.
There's a scene in Final Fantasy 9 where the child mage Vivi realizes what death is. No words are spoken. He does not sob. He does not cry. We only see his eyes, bright yellow eyes in a sea of black, and we KNOW, through the writing, through the music, through the lighting and camera angles, that his innocent child has just realized he, himself, is going to one day die, and the horrible impact this has on his fragile soul hits him, and the gamer, right to their core. It's subtle, brilliant.
Lightning has no such nuance. She is a woman entirely of emotion, not thought, entirely of physicality, not introspectivity. She is blunt. She is shallow. She is the Michael Bay heroine, not the Hironobu Sakaguchi-created being of complicated thought, action, or morality (see Faris, Rydia, Terra, Celes, Garnet, Yuna...)
The rest of the story is no better. Do you know who Yuj is? Why is he in the game? Or how about Jihl? What reason does she have to EXIST in the game? I could go on and on about how the pacing of the game was horrendous and restrictive, how enemy motivations lack clarity or common sense, how nearly every single character is devoid of a backstory (Does Sazh have a wife? Who is his child's mother? How did he wind up on that train and why was he in that city in the first place? Compare that to Barret from FF7, who gets a backstory on how he got a daughter, lost his hand, and was driven to being a terrorist.)
The game, as a whole, is like Lightning; too busy fighting, too focused on the final destination, and no concern for stopping to share intimate human details amongst each other (and thus the player). They remain characters that thrive on their costumes and designs, but when looked at too closely, we see very little there. They have little substance, little history, little intelligence, little evolution.
Unlike Cloud in FF7, who received an entire hours-long chapter dedicated exclusively to his past, his dreams, his relationships, his fears, and his future, we don't get that.
What is Lightning's past? What are her dreams? What are her fears and humiliations? What is the context of her relationships? How does any of this affect her PRESENT, let alone her future?
I want these answers. The game didn't give them. And for a character-driven game, that's unacceptable. 2/01/12 1:00pm
I don't believe FFXIII was a success narratively at all. The entire game's story is annoying cryptic and lacking in any sort of genuine human pathos from the majority of the cast to make anyone give a damn about them.
Allow me to break down just ONE character, the "central character", and show you why she is emblematic of an entire problem in the game; the game as a whole is reflective of Lightning, and it's as subtle, intelligent, and believable as Lightning is... which is to say, not at all.
Lightning - Let me start with a very simple question: Why did Lightning become a Soldier? That's not a question to brush aside easily; that's WHO SHE IS, and her being a soldier defines much of her behavior and personality. But what was the reason she made that decision?
The game doesn't really tell us. It doesn't tell us many things. So she's introverted and closed-off to those around her... but WHY? Toriyama asked Nomura to create a "female Cloud", and superficially they are very similar. They look similar. They're both soldiers that join a rebellion. Their roles in combat and their use of weapons are similar. Even their aloof and cold personalities are similar.
But pause for a second and look at some VERY key differences, ones that show why Cloud is a good character with development and why Lightning is a shallow character of shallow writing.
Cloud in FF7 is FULLY EXPLORED in the game. The game slows down and gives us hours of flashback material that we experience (and not just watch), showing Cloud in his childhood, his friendship with Tifa, his promises as a youth, his childhood dreams and ambitions, his connection to his mother and the rest of the time. We hear him tell us clearly why he wants to join SOLDIER, why he looks up to Sephiroth, and why he carries such a desire to make Tifa see him with admiration and pride.
And then we see how Cloud failed that obligation. His promises were not kept. His dreams didn't pan out. We see him return to his hometown in shame, humiliation, hiding away behind his helmet. We see how he creates a fantasy world for himself where everything he wanted happened, taking the spot of Zack and imitating a true hero, only to have a powerful, game-defining confrontation with the ghosts of his pasts later in the game. Cloud sheds the skin of his past mistakes and embraces, for the first time, through the help of his friends, his true identity, his true path in life. He is utterly, completely changed through this experience.
But we understand Cloud's meager origin, his great adversity, and his eventual triumph. That is the "Hero's Journey" in a nutshell.
Now look at Lightning. Where is she from? Why does she want something different? How does she even know Snow? Why does she disapprove of him? Why is she so aloof to her sister? Why does she feel she should be a soldier? What specifically causes her protection of Hope to change her? Where are the moments that showcase that internal conflict? Where are the scenes that show her trial-by-fire? Unlike Cloud, we are never given a breakdown of Lightning that takes her, breaks her into her identifiable parts, and then analyzes who she is. We do not get an origin for her. We do not get an ENDING for her. We get her stuck in the middle, in the struggle, but it's not even HER struggle; it's the struggle the l'Ceith curse stuck her with.
You say she has a "character arc" of going from a total cold ***** to "forgiving Snow"... but that's just it; Snow did nothing wrong. There was nothing to forgive. Becoming "less self-reliant" isn't a character arc; that's just necessity and common sense to help and get help from others against problems to big for you to handle. If the problem was something she thought she could honestly handle on her own, would she genuinely ask others to help her?
If she was not cursed, would she still fight for her sister? For her friends? I don't know. The game doesn't bother to ask or answer these questions. She's shallow, entirely written as an emotion and not a character. She punches her friends, not because she's "strong", but only because she's "angry" and has absolutely no other way to express it because the writers don't have the talent or skill to show her with an ounce of nuance.
There's a scene in Final Fantasy 9 where the child mage Vivi realizes what death is. No words are spoken. He does not sob. He does not cry. We only see his eyes, bright yellow eyes in a sea of black, and we KNOW, through the writing, through the music, through the lighting and camera angles, that his innocent child has just realized he, himself, is going to one day die, and the horrible impact this has on his fragile soul hits him, and the gamer, right to their core. It's subtle, brilliant.
Lightning has no such nuance. She is a woman entirely of emotion, not thought, entirely of physicality, not introspectivity. She is blunt. She is shallow. She is the Michael Bay heroine, not the Hironobu Sakaguchi-created being of complicated thought, action, or morality (see Faris, Rydia, Terra, Celes, Garnet, Yuna...)
The rest of the story is no better. Do you know who Yuj is? Why is he in the game? Or how about Jihl? What reason does she have to EXIST in the game? I could go on and on about how the pacing of the game was horrendous and restrictive, how enemy motivations lack clarity or common sense, how nearly every single character is devoid of a backstory (Does Sazh have a wife? Who is his child's mother? How did he wind up on that train and why was he in that city in the first place? Compare that to Barret from FF7, who gets a backstory on how he got a daughter, lost his hand, and was driven to being a terrorist.)
The game, as a whole, is like Lightning; too busy fighting, too focused on the final destination, and no concern for stopping to share intimate human details amongst each other (and thus the player). They remain characters that thrive on their costumes and designs, but when looked at too closely, we see very little there. They have little substance, little history, little intelligence, little evolution.
Unlike Cloud in FF7, who received an entire hours-long chapter dedicated exclusively to his past, his dreams, his relationships, his fears, and his future, we don't get that.
What is Lightning's past? What are her dreams? What are her fears and humiliations? What is the context of her relationships? How does any of this affect her PRESENT, let alone her future?
I want these answers. The game didn't give them. And for a character-driven game, that's unacceptable. 2/01/12 1:00pm
