Zero Punctuation: Final Fantasy XIII

[yourbeliefs]

really? You reviewed FF13 before god of war 3? Though I must thank you for reminding me why I quit playing the FF series after 10.

That's probably because FF13 came out before GoW 3.

OT: Not too surprised with this one. While playing it I thought "This is a JRPG-hater's (aka Yahtzee's) nightmare of a game." Not having the option to play with Japanese dialog does not help as all the characters look very cheesy having Japanese style emoting with English voices, and the voicework so far is rather standard, or maybe this is the result of playing ME2 to death beforehand and being used to Bioware's exceptional voicework. In any case a good review.

 

[Skops]

Meh, expected better.

 

[40winkz]

Yahtzee's gonna have 8 pages next week (i think).

Edit: nope two weeks

 

[Jamesigh]

Never played a FF game in my life, but that was as predictable as they come. Even before seeing the same point re-iterated for the fifth time with different wording.

If Jim Sterling got flak for only playing up until the last boss fight, I wonder how much flak Yahtzee will get

It's Yahtzee, people will tell him he's a unique genius and boycott the game.

This. As much as I like Yahtzee, I'd like to see people start thinking for themselves instead of hanging on his every word.

ITT: Yahtzee fans.

Not ITT: Final Fantasy Fans.

i'm a FF fan, and i was actually excited about this review. but meh.

 

[Furrama]

Well, it DOES get better as you go. But yeah, it should have been better from the beginning. Too bad you didn't find the strength to play further in, (lol).

 

[Eruanno]

Everything said here is true. (I have so far played about 8 hours of FFXIII. I have yet to understand what the fuck is going on as well.)

- The whole combat system business is SHIT. Why can't I walk up to people and hit them by pushing a button? Why must I remote-control my stupid-ass character to do stuff?
- All characters suck, except Lightning (because she hits people when they start talking too much bullshit) and maybe Sazh because he doesn't whine so much. But EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER is a complete fucking whiner. Especially Hope. I "Hope" this annoying bastard falls off a cliff and dies at some point in the game. At that point, I will throw a freaking party. (Okay, there was a point where Lightning left Hope on a rock in the middle of nowhere - unfortuantely the others came to the rescue... BAH!)
- Endless fucking corridors. Why am I even playing these? I just walk from point A to B and bonk some random enemies over the head, and there is ALWAYS a cock-block boss at the end of every
chapter which is ten times harder than what I've faced previously.
- Vanille's VOICE! Vanille TALKING AT ALL! AAAAHHHHH!!
- The cutscenes when the characters talk. WHY MUST THEY TALK! All they do is spout clichés like "Heroes don't run from fights!" and "We can't give up now!" The most useless ones are the ones where they just stop to say "Oh man, I need to rest *heavy sigh, sits down*" and then tell eachother how tired/old/young kids they are.

Sometimes I think FFXIII would've made a better movie. If nobody ever talked, because the writers sure as hell don't know what they're doing.

And why do I keep playing? Because I'm a sincerely hoping for that part when the game actually picks up and I know what the fuck is going on (and when I get out of the stupid damned Corridors of Endless Doom...

 

[StarofAzura]

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?

 

[dubious_wolf]

There is the Yahtzee I know and enjoy. loved this episode so much. the last few were good but this was awesome. good show.

 

[adam5396]

Nice review, time cards broke the flow a bit but it was good.

I've never really liked any final fantasy's after 10, if you could only ge through 5 hours on 13 I don't think I'd make it to the first boss battle.

 

[VMerken]

I approve this review.

Thank you for saying this out loud. I bought FFXIII on launch day, played it for about 8 hours, then put it aside because quite frankly, all of my JRPG senses exploded and need a couple of weeks/months of repairs before they can function again.

What is the point of sticking a 20 hours linear dungeon corridor hand-holding beat'em up in front of what is supposed to be a RPG? And to introduce us to an "Easy Automatic" battle system and a set of awful, papier mache characters? Drive-by dialogue what? This is supposed to wow us and make us play on? Or is it some kind of "filter" to weed out the amateur masochists from the pros?

Still. Paid good money for this game. So *sigh* I will probably digest it completely over time. But, the intial part certainly has to be swallowed in small doses. Especially when things such Vanilla and Hope are hopping down the dungeon corridors...

 

[Harmondale2]

Congrats on the Mana bar!

I liked how he bashed up the ditzy ***** in the end credits, don't blame him shes as annoying as hell

 

[Vorpal Chill]

Yeah, I thought Final Fantasy VI was the peak of the series too.

Ditto.

 

[Phoenixlight]

If Jim Sterling got flak for only playing up until the last boss fight, I wonder how much flak Yahtzee will get

Who's Jim Sterling?

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Like Dragon age FF13 is a more simple than it should be action game disguised as a AAA RPG............

Yeah, I thought Final Fantasy VI was the peak of the series too.

Ditto.

FF9 was the best mechanic wise FF6 story wise.

 

[AnariaConner]

I honestly agree with a lot that was said. The pacing for the first 10-15 hours or so is absolutely horrible, and you have little to no idea of what is going on.

Right now I'm 15-16 hours in, and the characters are (finally) starting to flesh out and have some substance other than the obvious stereotypes. That being said, it taking that long was a bad choice, but I still enjoyed it.

Loved the review! funny as always.

 

[Axzarious]

I played for 30 hours, because I was really anticipating the game and oddly I enjoyed it, I intend to complete it too, someday.

But even I would be lying if I were to say that Yahtzee got most if not all points right on the money on this one.

Although I would've preferred an opinion built up on a worthwhile amount of time spent with the game.

Granted he hasn't got the time in a week for the full 50+ hour experience but somewhere between 10 and 15 hours would've been reasonable.

As for the exposition:

Spoiler: totally with him on that one...

Yes I am aware it's in the game manual and the datalogs, but that doesn't excuse a lack of in-story exposition on the matter.

Nice comic, I remember that part well, but I only died once there against Superpope. Anyways, am I one of the few people that actually had the plot put together by the time you were given the ability to shift through padagrims of whatever they are called? Heck, I didnt even have to read the primers to understand it.

 

[TacoBob]

Ugh, Thank ye gods I was able to trade this turkey back in and get MOST of my money back. I've played FF games since the first one came up and I have to say, this one was a bore. Boring combat, plus very long and boring cut scenes and HORRIBLE characters. On a plus side, the graphics are nice (Even more so on the PS3 version).

 

[DeLukas]

I love it when Yahtzee completely destroys a game. . .

Except he didn't. He just basically said, "I hate JRPG games and didn't have time this week cause I was helping people get drunk*. Still, I'm under contract, so take the bland repeat of me talking about hating JRPG games."

There have been games he has done a good job taking to the cleaners (see Tabula Rasa or Spore or SSBB) and this isn't it.

*A noble effort and a much better usage of time than any game.

 

[I am AFK]

how did you go with out chewing off your face

 

[NickCooley]

I don't care what game it is if you have to trudge through 20+ hours for it to get good (as I've heard from other reviewers not just Yahtzee)it's a terrible game.