Zero Punctuation: Final Fantasy XIII

[Dr. Crawver]

I am genuinely suprised he reviewed it. He is right, it is far too long, with far too much padding, but I still liked it, and am currently on my 33rd hour on the second to last level

 

[Sholokov]

The big thing that has always turned me away from J-RPGs is the need for a lack of social life to complete within a reasonable time frame, otherwise you are stuck there for several months playing the same gorram game.

Sure you get your money's and yes i do like somewhat long games, but going 40-50 hours is pushing it.

Was i going to play the game before this review, no, do i intend to afterwards no, but really guys a lot of his reviews from my standpoint are spot on when it came to games I have played before (and with his accuracy thus far im not going to start questioning it now), but if you are watching for entertainment value then you are missing the point, and shouldn't get upset when he tears into your favorite game.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Well theres bits i do agree with and bits i dont agree with.
And i hardly call it a fair review of playing 5 hours of it. (Yes he was busy and all that blah i know ¬¬)

I mean if they guy can play through Heavy Rain then he should pull up his big boy trousers and stop whining about the old days! Its modern day, things need to change and hey at least Square have tried!.........though they have lost their way when they merged with Enix.

Dude.. Enix is like the best company, mainly for their Star Ocean games, and I like the combo, you know, X-2 and shit. EH.

Meh if you like those games, thats fine with me.
Just merely pointing out how the level of awesome dropped when that merge happened. Think about it

In terms of FF, yeah maybe, but in general older games tend to be better than new ones. Also there were alot more FFs before the merge than after.

But still, FFVIII is one of the best, so your right in that respect lol

But still, FFVIII is one of the best

wat

You heard me. Final Fantasy VIII. Is one of the Best. Final Fantasys

FF8 is to complicated and the magic system sucked, the story was kinda better than any of the rest if you can cut through the wonky romance focus.

disappointing. i was looking forward to this review, but only playing five hours of the game makes it completely pointless.

Unless nothing changes like several people who have commented said.

And other people said it does change for the better later on. I was hoping to get something out of this review but at only 5 hours what's the point?

Something Yahtzee has always said is "it gets better later" isn't a decent excuse. I tend to agree with him, and really, how many of us are going to play a game that we hate for five hours?

Typically professional reviewers do. I guess its my fault for thinking he may be that.

"Professional" is a very interesting term since getting paid for something typically indicates a profession.

He is also right. It gets better later is not an excuse. Especially if the beginning of anything is as painful as this game. There are several other points of terrible writing/storytelling that show up in my 16 hour mission.

Twice Lightning tells another character to just call her "Light". WHAT?! you've already changed your name once. You don't get to get other people to just call you by something else. That's retarded. Especially when we know she gives out her real name later.

When Lightning meets Fang, and they are discussing the progress of the brand, Lightning shows her's to Fang. Which is right on her chest. We as a viewing audience don't get to see. The proverbial ten minutes later we are introduced to a character who wears a tie in such a fashion it might as well be a giant arrow right down her boobs. They are hiding something to be revealed later at some kinda climatic moment.

Well Lighting is reikari or something in Japaneses and they like to make nicknames for friends,ect and such. So it could be a poor translation issue call me rei instead of reikari. It may make more sense to translate it as ligh instead of light...but meh domestic translators have no imagination...

 

[K1LLSVV1TCH]

Finally... Someone who feels the same way about JRPG's.

 

[MonkeyPunch]

I know some things are to be left to the imagination, but I have an urge to see the character in the credits set alight.
Make it happen.

...though looking like a Cirque de Soliel member who just ransacked Elton John's closet...

teehee

 

[Carnagath]

I do not get everyone's hatred of the story. Seriously, it's a dual, completely fictional world, you can not even begin to explain it all in "weaved" form in a video game. That's why that Datalog is there. If you don't understand what a l'Cie is, and you see that it's something critical that is repeated a lot, TAKE 20 SECONDS OF YOUR TIME and look up the 8 LINES OF TEXT in the datalog that explain it. It's pretty simple. Hell, it was EXACTLY the same in Mass Effect 1, and noone whined like a ***** there, did they? No, cause that one's sacred Bioware and we all sat our asses down and read up on the lore and journals for hours and hours and then came back to say "that was a good game". Fucking ridiculous.

 

[Mirroga]

Well theres bits i do agree with and bits i dont agree with.
And i hardly call it a fair review of playing 5 hours of it. (Yes he was busy and all that blah i know ¬¬)

I mean if they guy can play through Heavy Rain then he should pull up his big boy trousers and stop whining about the old days! Its modern day, things need to change and hey at least Square have tried!.........though they have lost their way when they merged with Enix.

Dude.. Enix is like the best company, mainly for their Star Ocean games, and I like the combo, you know, X-2 and shit. EH.

Meh if you like those games, thats fine with me.
Just merely pointing out how the level of awesome dropped when that merge happened. Think about it

In terms of FF, yeah maybe, but in general older games tend to be better than new ones. Also there were alot more FFs before the merge than after.

But still, FFVIII is one of the best, so your right in that respect lol

But still, FFVIII is one of the best

wat

You heard me. Final Fantasy VIII. Is one of the Best. Final Fantasys

Actually, two reasons that makes FF8 NOT the best FF is because:
1. The story or the romance in the story is unnecessary and very awkward
2. Out of all the combat systems, FF8 was the most unfriendly of them all. They didn't even state facts that junctioning magic is necessary and you need 100 of those magic to junction.

 

[GundamSentinel]

And that is officially the end of Yahtzee as serious game critic (No, wait, that was a long time ago). Still has the comedy value though, why else watch it?

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

No surprise there.

Personally, I think that Yahtzee has to put his prejudice behind him and listen to the characters, because everything that is described in the datalog is told to us in the cinematics. Also, the story is NOT going to make sense in 5 hours. The characters need the 20 to become likeable as you see their personalities unfold.

I can understand that Yahtzee likes jumping right into the action, not listening to a semi-complex drama.

That's garbage and you know it. Modern Warfare had me liking Gaz and Price within the first 2 Missions (Including prologue 'training' episode).

Harrison Ford as Han Solo gave me boycrush within 10 minutes when he lasered through Greedo (or whatever).

William B. Davis as 'Cigarette Smoking Man' (AKA C.G.B Spender) in X-files' Pilot only took one episode (in which he has no dialogue and just smokes a cigarette whilst resting against a filing cabinet) exerted quiet autonomy from everybody else and already created an air of thespian charm at first glance.

If you can't make a character relateable (or even somewhat likeable) in 5 hours of exposure maybe you're a complete failure as a writer and a human being.

Factor in bad gameplay.

Factor in crappy story.

A bad game is a bad game ... Yahtzee merely shoots from the hip rather than commenting on other aesthetics. Now lets all put Final Fantasy to rest. If each game represented a year in the life of a dog, it would be dead.

Perhaps the merciful thing is to give it a shot of potassium and cease the pain.

 

[gim73]

Disappoint? Not really.

I will say that this is hands down the most DIFFICULT final fantasy of all time. It doesn't help that you game over when your main guy dies no matter how the rest of your party is doing. Enemies PUNISH you on a regular basis. Eilodon fights are rather difficult to figure out on the first go and even then you have NO time to experiment because of the doom counter on top of your MAIN CHARACTERS head. The scoring system is unnessesary and insulting. Seriously, what are these points for? I know that you get your TP back faster if you score high, but I generally don't care enough to die in order to pull it off.

Combat comes down to some simple mechanics. If the enemy is not staggered you will do crap for damage, so punish a single enemy until it is staggered. Later you can launch it in the air and juggle it with spells and attacks until it is nothing. You can't actually chose your leader until chapter 10, so whoever the game wants you to play, you are stuck with him (like hope or vanille). Paradymes are nice, but whenever the game switches some vital characters into your party you gotta remake the ones that are actually good.

The story is pretty good. The whole '13 days' thing confuses the crap out of you for a good chunk of the game. Cinematics are all top notch. Eventually everyone gets connected in some way. While Hope seems like a useless twit for much of the game, most of the others grow on you. You actually get a much better idea of who these six characters are in the first 20 or so hours than you do in the entirity of ffxii for vaan and penelope. For much of cocoon your team is not united in cause or even traveling together. You can't really hang out and shop in towns because of the story. Monsters don't drop gil so you have to sell items or find it in the chests, which are floating spheres (?). All shopping is done online at the save terminals. Some would argue that you don't even NEED to shop through all of cocoon.

Is it linear? Until you reach pulse it's almost exclusively linear. There are some diverging paths for treasure, but you pretty much are heading towards a single goal along a narrow path (that is usually too narrow to avoid enemies). Does it really make sense to be linear? Most of the time yes, but there are a few examples where they COULD have let you do more exploring.

Casting without MP? They completely did away with MP. You can cast all you want as long as you have segments to cast with. Also your HP all come back when you finish the battle and everyone gets CP whether they lived or not, or even if they were not in your actual party when the battle happened. It feels odd to come back to a previous characters story and have 10000 CP waiting for you before you even fight anything, but I'll never turn away free CP.

I enjoyed playing the game. It's highly frustrating at times. It's very nice that when you game over you can restart just before you enter the battle rather than going back to the save point. That would have been a deal breaker if it would have been the case.

 

[James Hueick]

Sillly Yahtzee you've got to stop breaking the fourth wall.

 

[JakeX]

Well theres bits i do agree with and bits i dont agree with.
And i hardly call it a fair review of playing 5 hours of it. (Yes he was busy and all that blah i know ¬¬)

I mean if they guy can play through Heavy Rain then he should pull up his big boy trousers and stop whining about the old days! Its modern day, things need to change and hey at least Square have tried!.........though they have lost their way when they merged with Enix.

Dude.. Enix is like the best company, mainly for their Star Ocean games, and I like the combo, you know, X-2 and shit. EH.

Meh if you like those games, thats fine with me.
Just merely pointing out how the level of awesome dropped when that merge happened. Think about it

In terms of FF, yeah maybe, but in general older games tend to be better than new ones. Also there were alot more FFs before the merge than after.

But still, FFVIII is one of the best, so your right in that respect lol

With FFVIII i think we have established a point of agreement
Respect to you mate.

 

[BurroDiablo]

Screw bias when JRPG's are involved. I always hated them and I always will. Hail Yahtzee!

My thoughts exactly. FF has always been an entirely subjective game, the only people I know that play it are the ones who are totally immersed in Japanese culture. I'm not immersed in Japanese culture in the slightest... I played one Final Fantasy at a friends a few years back, I don't know which ridiculous Roman numeral it was, but it was pretty confusing, and the turn based combat was just crap... certainly didn't make me want to rush out and buy it for myself. Its a very fan based game, its one of those games that get the 'If you like the last ones, you'll like this one. But if you haven't played or don't like the others, don't bother with this' treatment. The only thing I kept from my last FF experience was Skies Above by the Black Mages.

 

[Xirdarch]

Well another review, though i don't think anyone was expecting Final Fantesy 13 to be you know, good. Your right in that its all been done before. Those blokes and Square need to lets the good damn series die.

 

[Ghostkai]

Was anyone realise surprised he'd give this a negative review? Really?

On the side, I was pleasantly surprised he gave a well deserved shout out to FF VI.

 

[Lithium_Lollypop]

I can see where Yahtzee's coming from, unfortunately. At least for every Final Fantasy I've played and beaten (VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, X-2 and XII), it didn't take 20 hours for the story to come around and introduce itself. I'm on hour 12, and the only way I'm getting through this is that I can hear voices coming from the end of the tunnel, and I'm hoping they'll point me in the direction of the story.

Lightning at least makes the game bearable. My face lit up when she decided to play rock-em sock-em robots with Snow's face.

 

[Tiesonthewall]

I do not get everyone's hatred of the story. Seriously, it's a dual, completely fictional world, you can not even begin to explain it all in "weaved" form in a video game. That's why that Datalog is there. If you don't understand what a l'Cie is, and you see that it's something critical that is repeated a lot, TAKE 20 SECONDS OF YOUR TIME and look up the 8 LINES OF TEXT in the datalog that explain it. It's pretty simple. Hell, it was EXACTLY the same in Mass Effect 1, and noone whined like a ***** there, did they? No, cause that one's sacred Bioware and we all sat our asses down and read up on the lore and journals for hours and hours and then came back to say "that was a good game". Fucking ridiculous.

I actually agree with you. I thought the Datalog was a great addition. Especially since a lot of the time, there was information in there that wasn't said in cut-scenes. It was nice to be able to learn a little more through the Datalog.

Ohh, and I would have to go through it anyway lol, I can't stand those little icons blinking at me...

 

[josh4president]

Yahtzee doesn't like a Final Fantasy game?

Apocalypse! Ragnorok! Armageddon!

I kid, really, he makes good points. I still enjoy the game but I was definitely more into twelve than this one.

And it is now indisputable fact that Final Fantasy 6 (or 3 in the U.S.) is the greatest and best Final Fantasy game of all time forever.

And if you disagree, Yahtzee will personally come to your home and punch you in the stomach while you're brushing your teeth.

 

[AxelxGabriel]

Yes! Thank you Yahtzee for saying what was on my mind the whole time! I admit I'm a fan of most JRPGs, and yes even FF. But XIII was crap! I honestly agreed with every point he made on how bad the game was, and worse still because I'm a Fan of FF, I feel like SquareEnix betrayed me somehow >.<

Just wanna say thank you Yahtzee, for letting the truth shine past all the other reviews which I honestly thought were bullshit.

 

[shadowstriker86]

heh, thought i was the only one that liked final fantasy 6