View from the Road: The Lesson of Final Fantasy XIII
- Thread starter John Funk
- Start date
I am a huge Final Fantasy fan, but the worst part about FFXIII is that they stripped all the best parts of Final Fantasy out of it!
Good story: GONE! (this is just my opinion, but I'd prefer a story where all the characters are not depressed over being devoured by a terminal illness the entire time, it's a little hard to enjoy the story when you're constantly being reminded "oh right, none of this matters because I'll be dead in like 3 days")
Exploration: GONE!
Sidequests: GONE!
(Exploration and sidequests came into play when 95% of the games main story and narrative was done, even then, it was just exploring small patches of grassy wilderness and taking "go kill this" quests from FUCKING STONES, seriously, who at Square came up with THAT one. I would have loved to visit an actual shop at an actual town and see some normal NPC's that weren't trying to throw me in jail so I can spend the last six days of my life before I become a monster in a jail cell! JUST ONCE! I never thought a game could make me miss traversing towns filled with mindless NPC's, but somehow FFXIII achieved that.)
Oh, and this isn't a main point, but from my experience, Final Fantasy has two great equipment systems:
1.) The materia system (FF7)
2.) The Job System (FF Tactics Advance 1&2, and FF9?)
They should stick with one of those.
The ONLY redeeming factor was that you were healed after each battle, but when talking about major issues like the above, that's nothing. It's like having your legs eaten off by wolves, and then given a lollypop, the candy does NOT make up for the fact that you just had your limbs ripped off by a pack of savage animals!
For basically the entire game I was waiting for that I'M OUT OF MIDGAR! WOOOOOOOO! moment where it stops being linear and you're free to explore a giant world and take on meaningful missions, and when it never came (not in any significant way, it only existed as a half-square mile of grassy plains populated by rocks that just felt tacked on), it just left me going "what the hell was that!?" when the game ended.
I kept wondering, why was the game so linear? Until I saw the article with the rediculous statement that: "A new FF7 would take 40 years to make". Assuming that is true, and that Square plans to release a new Final Fantasy every 5 years at the longest, that means that because of their graphical standards, they will never make a game with even ONE EIGHTH! of the content of FF7 ever again. (and that's not considering the fact that all of the groundwork for FFVII is completed, and balanced appropriately) I for one am not alright with that, JRPG's have been nearly killed by new Western RPGs, and if they try to cut the content down by 90% for the sake of graphics, they're screwed.
PS: I didn't think that restoration after battle hurt the "hardcore" aspect of the game, but only being able to control one character was stupid, and DID water it down.
Good story: GONE! (this is just my opinion, but I'd prefer a story where all the characters are not depressed over being devoured by a terminal illness the entire time, it's a little hard to enjoy the story when you're constantly being reminded "oh right, none of this matters because I'll be dead in like 3 days")
Exploration: GONE!
Sidequests: GONE!
(Exploration and sidequests came into play when 95% of the games main story and narrative was done, even then, it was just exploring small patches of grassy wilderness and taking "go kill this" quests from FUCKING STONES, seriously, who at Square came up with THAT one. I would have loved to visit an actual shop at an actual town and see some normal NPC's that weren't trying to throw me in jail so I can spend the last six days of my life before I become a monster in a jail cell! JUST ONCE! I never thought a game could make me miss traversing towns filled with mindless NPC's, but somehow FFXIII achieved that.)
Oh, and this isn't a main point, but from my experience, Final Fantasy has two great equipment systems:
1.) The materia system (FF7)
2.) The Job System (FF Tactics Advance 1&2, and FF9?)
They should stick with one of those.
The ONLY redeeming factor was that you were healed after each battle, but when talking about major issues like the above, that's nothing. It's like having your legs eaten off by wolves, and then given a lollypop, the candy does NOT make up for the fact that you just had your limbs ripped off by a pack of savage animals!
For basically the entire game I was waiting for that I'M OUT OF MIDGAR! WOOOOOOOO! moment where it stops being linear and you're free to explore a giant world and take on meaningful missions, and when it never came (not in any significant way, it only existed as a half-square mile of grassy plains populated by rocks that just felt tacked on), it just left me going "what the hell was that!?" when the game ended.
I kept wondering, why was the game so linear? Until I saw the article with the rediculous statement that: "A new FF7 would take 40 years to make". Assuming that is true, and that Square plans to release a new Final Fantasy every 5 years at the longest, that means that because of their graphical standards, they will never make a game with even ONE EIGHTH! of the content of FF7 ever again. (and that's not considering the fact that all of the groundwork for FFVII is completed, and balanced appropriately) I for one am not alright with that, JRPG's have been nearly killed by new Western RPGs, and if they try to cut the content down by 90% for the sake of graphics, they're screwed.
PS: I didn't think that restoration after battle hurt the "hardcore" aspect of the game, but only being able to control one character was stupid, and DID water it down.
They may not have been designed by the same people, but were they designed by people!?PedroSteckecilo said:
3/4ths of the ideas that went into this game were awful.
I disagree strongly with the main point of this article. The fact is that yes, designers had more leeway after healing players for every fight and capping their level progression until certain chapters. You know who has even more control over their audience's experience? Movie directors and authors of best-selling novels.
But I wasn't reading a book or watching a movie. I was playing a GAME. Developer control is something I could care less about. I want to be in control, and I wasn't in control of FF13. It sucked.
But I wasn't reading a book or watching a movie. I was playing a GAME. Developer control is something I could care less about. I want to be in control, and I wasn't in control of FF13. It sucked.
Hmm. I personally agree with Yahtzee on this one.
Of course, I also think that Final Fantasy instantly took a topple to the bottom of the trash heap after VI so...
Square's trying to drag it back up, but (again, IMO)just like VII dropped the series to a low point, XIII did the same. (I never played after X).
*Flees from FF fanbase*
Of course, I also think that Final Fantasy instantly took a topple to the bottom of the trash heap after VI so...
Square's trying to drag it back up, but (again, IMO)just like VII dropped the series to a low point, XIII did the same. (I never played after X).
*Flees from FF fanbase*
I didn't play all the FFs but I talked about FFXII positively to friends based on its story and setting. Although it does have some standard JRPG tropes, it feels less "juvenile", all in all, than the story in other FFs like VII. I also like the battle system and gameplay (although I didn't finish it yet). In my non-FF-fan perspective, I really don't know why people complain about XII so much.PedroSteckecilo said:
I fought everything in that Final Dungeon.
I figured, "If I can't handle this, how will I handle the boss?".
So, I fought them all.
Then spent 2 hours of dying and retrying on the boss, over and over.
Fang, Lightning, Vanille wasn't working...I actually had to use...HOPE.
Fang. Lightning, Hope. I went as long as I could without using that brat. Yes, I knew he was THE BEST medic and ravager in the game (Sazh is still a better SYN, imo)
Some say he grows on you. He never did for me.
I figured, "If I can't handle this, how will I handle the boss?".
So, I fought them all.
Then spent 2 hours of dying and retrying on the boss, over and over.
Fang, Lightning, Vanille wasn't working...I actually had to use...HOPE.
Fang. Lightning, Hope. I went as long as I could without using that brat. Yes, I knew he was THE BEST medic and ravager in the game (Sazh is still a better SYN, imo)
Some say he grows on you. He never did for me.
Woah, you must have played a different FF XII than I did, those villains were awful. I don't even remember their back stories or motivations at all.PedroSteckecilo said:
I'm not saying XIII had better villains, in fact I'm not entirely sure there even was a villain in that title.
All in all though, this thread proves that people don't like change. FF has constantly reinvented itself with each new title, but the hate remains the same.
Have fun playing the same FPS corridor driven frag fest, I'll be enjoying something different.
Interesting point, and I can agree on the part where cannon fodder in most RPG's can use a little beefing up, but I think that's simply a by-product of FFXIII's railroading.
It's not just health, it's how strong you were, it's what equipment you had, it's the spells and abilities and tactics available to you; everything in FFXIII was so tightly controlled that, unless you choose to royally screw yourself, you're always at the exact point the developers wanted you to be, which meant every fight goes about as well as they wanted it to go.
In another game, I would have praised the challenge, but in FFXIII I say they simply wanted more dramatic battles, because that's what this game needed, more cinematic action!
It's not just health, it's how strong you were, it's what equipment you had, it's the spells and abilities and tactics available to you; everything in FFXIII was so tightly controlled that, unless you choose to royally screw yourself, you're always at the exact point the developers wanted you to be, which meant every fight goes about as well as they wanted it to go.
In another game, I would have praised the challenge, but in FFXIII I say they simply wanted more dramatic battles, because that's what this game needed, more cinematic action!
To each his own, I suppose. Since Final Fantasy XIII didn't have towns (at least within the first thirty goddamned hours as far as I know), having your health refill is fine, but in the more conventional RPGs, you encounter an oasis/village/town every so often, and it's a lot more revitalizing if you didn't heal up after every battle; that a long crawl through a dungeon actually felt like it was a long crawl.
I'd prefer Hope to Vanille, at least he sort of acted like he was from some planet roughly resembling Earth. Vanille was either an alien or really, really high all the time.Onyx Oblivion said:
No what was obnoxious was that they confused "Hard" for "Lots of Health" no battle I encountered was hard just looooooong. I always had a strategy to beat a boss, I just died when I decided I didn't want to spend 3 hours doing it.
John, Id just like to give you fair warning that linking to TVTropes will soon be considered a crime against humanity, seeing as how it can cause workplace to grind to a stop as people open page after page, link after link, stopping our progress as a species until society collapses entirely.
Or something.
The part I didn't like about FFXIII battle system was that even if I had completely maxed my grid thingy for that specific area of the game, sometimes I come across fights that came purely down to luck. Anyone remember the Bomb enemies? Yeah if I wasn't quick with them they would self-destruct all at once, leaving me with no chance of surviving at all.
Or something.
The part I didn't like about FFXIII battle system was that even if I had completely maxed my grid thingy for that specific area of the game, sometimes I come across fights that came purely down to luck. Anyone remember the Bomb enemies? Yeah if I wasn't quick with them they would self-destruct all at once, leaving me with no chance of surviving at all.
Its articles like this that make me want to play this game less and less. I don't know what Square Enix thinks the point of games are, but I've always understood it to be freedom. You're free to walk over here, talk to this guy, or not talk to this guy. If you want to enter this house and look for treasure chests, you can enter that house and look for treasure chests. Is there something cool at the end of this hall? Let's go see. What happens if I use a bomb on this wall? Hey look, its a secret cave with an Ice Rod. That's where the sense of adventure comes from: a new world for to be free and play around in.
The more forced the experience feels, the less enjoyable the game is for me. I don't want to walk through a straight path knowing exactly that some developer explicitly to fight six toilet monsters and find exactly two pieces of toilet paper. I want to find the toilet paper myself, and kill the toilet monsters when I want to kill the toilet monsters. If by Mt. Gagazet I'm on level 70 or 20, it should be MY choice: I either level grinded like a maniac, or ran from every battle. It may not go like the designers wanted, but SCREW THEM. Their job is to make the world, the rest is my experience, my enjoyment, and my emotional reaction. A game is a two-part experience, the story is made by both the player and the writer. You can't just create the entire experience, or else all you've created is a movie with a few extraneous bits of interactivity.
This isn't something to marvel over, its something to puzzle over. Its so wrong on such a fundamental level of what a video game is supposed to be, that it may even be something to laugh over.
The more forced the experience feels, the less enjoyable the game is for me. I don't want to walk through a straight path knowing exactly that some developer explicitly to fight six toilet monsters and find exactly two pieces of toilet paper. I want to find the toilet paper myself, and kill the toilet monsters when I want to kill the toilet monsters. If by Mt. Gagazet I'm on level 70 or 20, it should be MY choice: I either level grinded like a maniac, or ran from every battle. It may not go like the designers wanted, but SCREW THEM. Their job is to make the world, the rest is my experience, my enjoyment, and my emotional reaction. A game is a two-part experience, the story is made by both the player and the writer. You can't just create the entire experience, or else all you've created is a movie with a few extraneous bits of interactivity.
This isn't something to marvel over, its something to puzzle over. Its so wrong on such a fundamental level of what a video game is supposed to be, that it may even be something to laugh over.
You forgot to mention the bone dry and incredibly boring plot.Carnagath said:
But yes, opinions. Potato, potatoe.
I really don't see it as an advantage. It's entirely possible to make mook battles challenging without having to regenerate the party's health and mana/SP/whatever after every battle. IMO it's just a side effect of FF13 removing practically every possible choice for the player.
If you (as a developer) need players to have certain equipment/healing items/level/skills/party members/etc. for a particular fight then put a warp point to the entrance right by it (Persona 3/4 does this).
If you (as a developer) need players to have certain equipment/healing items/level/skills/party members/etc. for a particular fight then put a warp point to the entrance right by it (Persona 3/4 does this).
That actually is a refreshing take from the old FF games. Being healed every battle really would help with later battles.
Though the game did have other issues.
Though the game did have other issues.
Yeah it all came together for me once i read that article as well. Another thing i noticed was that after a while i started getting "tunnel vision" and was paying no attention at all to the background graphics, i was just trying to get to the end of the tunnel. Which pretty much made all their effort making the graphics useless.danpascooch said:
It actually made me sit back think that i would have MUCH preferred less graphics for more open spaces.