The gameplay isn't great, its good, but its not great. I think the battle system is fine, the problem is the combat isn't challenging until much later. The game gates off your characters progression for the first '20 tutorial hours' which essentially tells you be this level if you're taking too much damage or not doing enough. That coupled with the fact you're limited in your classes and characters to who you're given there aren't any options. This makes the combat in these first 20 hours incredibly tedious and repetitive. Of course once you get past this, you're free to have any class/character setup you want and the combat does become more fun. But that's 20 hours of boring and tedious gameplay. The story is awful and the characters are one of the worst JRPG casts I've experienced (not quite Star Ocean 4 tier though). Graphics and music are amazing though.
As for the other games, XIII-2 to me was an improvement pretty much everywhere, although again the story and characters were bad, and the game was way too easy, but the rest was good. Lightning Returns is okay. They massively botched the graphics on that game and although I appreciated the open nature of the game, the side-quests were pretty uninteresting. XIII-2 was my favourite of the three, but even that still wasn't an amazing game.
The characters and dialogue made me cringe uncomfortably throughout. They were abysmal. Just terrible. As bad as star ocean 4 in my opinion.
The game itself was dull to play. Just walk down the path. It's clearly modelled after ffx, which was actually a pretty similar experience. The difference is that ffx had enough variety and little side stuff that it kept it from being quite as noticeable. They should really play ff 6/7/8/9 and take more cues from that.
Well, FFXIII certainly had its issues but IMO they were mostly present in FFX too but I don't hear people hate on FFX the way they hate on FFXIII which baffles me. If you're going to say FFXIII is a 1/10 because it's linear, no exploration, characters are annoying, and story is confusing, then FFX also gets a 1/10 in my book.
I've never played the older games and need to go back and play them, definitely.
Difference is that X had a much more interesting story and more importantly characters. To me, FF a lot of the times story/characters matter the most because I'm going to be using them for 40+ hours. XIII was just diabolically bad in that regard. It might have gotten a lot better, but the characters were so bad I couldn't even push forward a second time around after playing for several hours.
Gameplay is pretty good as far as I was, but the fantastic graphics/music couldn't push it enough.
5 points to music.
1 point to gameplay if you're being super generous.
-1 to story, the writing is terrible (commits multiple writing sins) and the voice direction is pretty awful as well.
1 point to graphics. They were pretty good on release, till you realized it was because they put you in a cage. Any game can look pretty good if 95% of the 'environment' is just window decoration to a corridor.
So there you have it, a solid 5-6. Not shit but seriously not a good game and definitely a terrible Final Fantasy.
The presentation is immaculate and the combat is sometimes good. By no means is FF13 a bad game, but I do not have the willpower to complete it. The game is all about walking in a straight line and fighting monsters. Gets old after 30 hours.
The soundtrack is really good. I'm playing through Theatrhythm: Curtain Call right now, and some of the FF13 tracks are among my favourites, even if FF4-10 get more love in general.
The battle system is also strong, but is held back by the stupid development decision to wait over 20 hours before giving the player full control over character progression. Until you get to Gran Pulse, FF13 is one of the most constricting games in the series.
Considering the budget of the average JRPG on PS3, it's hard to be too disappointed with the visuals. Monster designs were cool (especially Gran Pulse), the main characters might wear goofy clothes, but they are at least well modeled/animated.
The story was pretty terrible. All of the villains were terrible, as were most of the minor characters. I was really shocked at how bad the dialogue (and therefore voice acting) was in this game considering how strong it was in Final Fantasy XII.
If the battle system opened up in a reasonable time frame, and if the first half of the game wasn't a series of linear hallways, I would probably give the game a 7.5, even with the shitty story/dialogue.
So many times I felt the urge to make a thread about this: for the first time in a FF game getting the enemy's HP to zero was not the goal. The goal of this battle system is speed. It's even in the tutorial, minutes from the beginning of the game. You have to kill the enemy as fast as possible to get a higher rating and raise your chance at better drops which becomes absolutely critical during bosses and especially post end game. There's no mana points so push comes to shove you can just turn to a healing / defensive paragrim and you're done. Yes, you can just push "X" until the end of time and autobattle your way through alot of the enemies but this is an anti grinding game and the edge is really given to you through item and weapon upgrading, achieved through rarer drops.
The same people who made the profound realization that pushing X is all you had to do, are the same people who couldn't get past boss fights.
Story
Every single time I hear someone using the words confusing or convoluted I know Watanabe and Stellavista did something write. The story, the concept and the symbolisms are what make this game truly timeless. There is no fayth to magically appear and narrate (spoon feed) everything to you. Half the people who complain, admit to never really playing the whole story and the other half (of people who complain) didn't notice fundamental plot points -for example-
the party's marks went white during their fight with Orphan.
Characters
Snow was the reality version of past FF heroes. He had the will to lead and solve everything but in a gust of pragmatism enemies and obstacles cannot be miraculously done away with through some hidden power or overdrive. Plus the most obscure and unique relationship between Fang and Vanille to happen in a genre so full of cliched romances.
Towns
There was indeed a lack of towns but it was a none stop game, from Hanging Edge to Lake Bresha to Palamecia to Cocoon to Oebra to Eden. There was no need for a junction like location to traverse between places. And trade-wise, there's no need for shops either because essentially all you do is upgrade your weapon of choice, you don't really find stronger ones. If anything XIII-2 had poor excuses for towns proving further that this particular game was not build to accommodate towns but do away with them.
It's a flawed game not necessarily because of linearity but because it has atrocious pacing during the first 18 hours of gameplay, feeling like an endless tutorial and because it underutilized the battle system for a big part of the game. Post endgame it's the best non-monster hunter monster hunting game. FF XIII is a solid 8 out of 10 game but the things it does right are far more important that its failings.
yeah it was a solid 7/8 for me, i had fun with it, i barely play rpgs so it was really accessible for me and that was key, i guess thats why some hated it, to easy?
i also liked the characters, expect Hope, that little kid can gtfo and never return, not even in spin off games , just leave.
hy·per·bo·le
hīˈpərbəlē
noun
exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
synonyms: exaggeration, overstatement, magnification, embroidery, embellishment, excess, overkill, rhetoric; More
More like 3/10. Biggest disappointment ever for me. There are no words for how much they botched it. Also, 10/10 for gameplay? Nope, it's terrible too.
No. I'm sorry but dear god no, not even close to being semi-decent.
Visuals - stunning, but aesthetics is like the one thing SE managed to carry on from Squaresoft without shitting the bed.
Music - Has decent tracks but completely overshadowed by the "tongue in cheek" cringey stuff like the metal chocobo song and that horrid fight the power track.
The complete game-breaker for me though is the irredeemable trifecta of bad characters, abhorrent dialogue, and shit story. Sorry but this is an RPG, and one in particular that throws exploration, towns, pacing-balance and game-play all to the back-burner in favor of a "cinematic experience." How they royally fucked up that aspect of the game when they sacrificed all the other features for it, is beyond me.
Then SE spent an entire generation (one that happened to be extra long to boot) trying to make Lightning happen, and churned out 2 sequels that almost no one wanted.
Awful game that turned into an awful saga and era, and could have easily thoroughly ruined the entire franchise single handedly had FFXII and XIV-1.0 not contributed to the downward spiral already.
(Fwiw, I don't wanna rain on the parade of people that really like it. More power to them, but I can't personally ever call this trilogy anything better than repulsive.)
So happy this dragged out messy chapter is over. Cannot wait to delve into Type 0 and FFXV. Bring on the redemption!
Well its best game in a mediocre series overall. Final fantasy was never that great before aside from 6. Though I hear good things about 5 and its job system.
Pretty big part of the reason the FF fandom became a laughing stock. Everything's either the best thing ever or absolute shit. lol no towns, didn't play, 1/10.
No it's not over. It's coming on the PC. You still have that romantic idea that Square was misguided by a false perception of Lightning's popularity. Truth is that Square wants to avoid AAA production.
No it's not over. It's coming on the PC. You still have that romantic idea that Square was misguided by a false perception of Lightning's popularity. Truth is that Square wants to avoid AAA production.
I could not get into the music at all. It felt way too much "pop music" for my tastes. I don't understand the praise that Sunleth Waterscape receives. That track single-handedly made me play the rest of FF13-2 on mute. All of the songs with vocals had cringe-worthy lyrics to me. I'll take the more classical stylings of FF4-9 soundtracks any day.
I could not get into the battle system, either. I absolutely hate any battle system where I'm timed and/or getting attacked while trying to navigate through shitty menus. And the instant-loss on leader death, inability to change characters, and awful AI positioning did it no favors.
On top of that, I felt the game lacked any real sense of progression. I never felt like I was accomplishing anything. Leveling lost a lot of its impact due to enemy scaling, or the limits placed on how far you could get during a particular chapter. By the end of the game, all that's left to do is fight monsters for materials to craft weapons. Once you craft the weapons, there's nothing left to use them on, because you already fought all the monsters to get the materials.
I'm fairly forgiving of bad stories, but I couldn't care less about the FF13 cast of characters. Vanille and Hope were the worst, partly because their voice actors grated my nerves. Sazh was the only character I found decent. The linearity of the story meant that I never stayed in one area long, or even revisited it for new content, so most of the areas were forgettable, and the lack of interaction with other characters just couldn't get me to care about the world.
FF13 destroyed the FF brand to me, to the point that I don't even have any interest in FF15. I wouldn't call it a bad game, but it certainly isn't good. However, it made it quite clear that the series just isn't for me anymore.
I can stomach the worst gameplay if I'm invested in the story and characters. I stuck with FFXIII to the end and bought the sequels (I actually think Caius is the absolute best thing to come out of the XIII saga) so it must've done something right. Trouble is, I can't think what.
Sure it looks nice, but the designs are a mess. It's just layers and layers of things that don't form a cohesive world.
This is The Hanging Edge. The first area of the game. Nowhere in-game is it stated what The Hanging Edge actually is and why it exists. It's briefly mentioned in the datalog as located near Cocoon's outer rim along with a few shoddy details of its past, but Cocoon is said to be a sphere, how is there even an outer rim? It serves only as a corridor to the next dungeon, the Pulse Vestige. The entire game is structured like this. Somehow the end up on a frozen lake that leads to...the garbage lands? This isn't a world, it's a level, and it takes me right out of the story.
Fake Edit: I suppose the Outer Rim is near the cracked part of Cocoon, but at that point in the story we didn't even know Cocoon was cracked.
My main problem with the gameplay is that there is no long term challenge anymore. After every battle, your health replenishes and you continue on as though nothing happened. You don't figure out how to battle bosses anymore, you press R1/RB to view it's weaknesses and how to stagger it. There are no interesting bosses, it's the same strategy every time. Buff > Stagger > Beatdown > Heal > Rinse > Repeat. Compare that to FFXs Spectral Keeper battle where you have to carefully choose your battle position or you'll be blown up by mines and you'll see the comparisons to FFX as a whole don't really add up. Some of the enemy design was pretty cool though.
Okay, I have to admit I don't hate the story. I hate the way it's told and I hate the characters, but the overall story had a decent enough premise. How do you deal with a fate you don't want? That's a very interesting theme and we see characters go about it in their own ways. From Lightning's
"I'll go to Eden (the city) and destroy Eden (The Fal'Cie)"
to Sazh's more...permanent resolution. (serious spoilers for probably the best scene in the game.) Instead we wade through animé tropes and Troy Baker doing his best "big dumb hero" act. But you know, I could forgive it. I can overlook the clichéd characters and uninteresting story. But I can't overlook how it fucks up it's own lore in the sequels.
See, magic doesn't exist for humans in XIII. Only l'Cie can use it and that's why they're regarded as such a big threat. But in XIII - 2, both Serah and Noel can cast Firaga out their ass seemingly for the fun of it. The only explanation we're given is (predictably) in the datalog (SPOILERS FOR XIII):
'Magic' is the ability to draw on the crystal power residing within oneself and make possible all manner of incredible feats. This power was once only the province of l'Cie, but since the catastrophe and the migration to Pulse, some former citizens of Cocoon have suddenly developed the ability to wield magic. Serah is one of those people.
Many of those who now command magical energies are simple civilians, and have never had Serah's experience of once being a l'Cie. It is theorized that the move to Gran Pulse has awoken these abilities, and people are beginning to see magic as just another tool in their everyday lives. Noel is also capable of casting spells, but doesn't seem to think of himself as anything special.
What the fuck? This is not good storytelling! Stick to the goddamn lore you created! I have other issues with half-baked ideas but I'll leave it here for now. I'd be here all night complaining otherwise. Same goes for the characters. Only likeable cast member was Sazh, yet he never got any character development outside of "I want my son back!"
I enjoyed the music for the most part. Particularly Born Anew and Fighting Fate. Hell, even playing Dissidia 012 makes me a little nostalgic when hearing Blinded By Light and Sabers Edge. They really delivered on this aspect and it's the only reason I feel the urge to pick the game up and play through the final boss again every so often.
I thought it was alright. A solid 7 for me. It really does get better later on. But I find it very hard to recommend because of that since you're better off playing other RPGs or other entries in the series that wastes less of your time.
Truthfully, I have never gave XIII a go besides the demo, the only one of the trilogy I have played is XIII-2. If I had to rate XIII-2, I'd personally give it an 8/10. Probably one of the better JRPG experiences on Playstation 3, at least for me.
Besides the soundtrack, the aspect of XIII-2 that stood out to me was the monster capturing system, and I so wanted it to return to Lightning Returns, but alas everything was Lightning. Even though I enjoyed XIII-2, the story was not the best, and combat was too easy, it also didn't do much to stand out. I cannot remember anything from this game besides the soundtrack, but I did have fun playing it. Maybe I should give it another go to see if my opinion has changed?
EDIT: This whole XIII series is just a bunch of missed opportunities, so much more could have been done to make the characters enjoyable while providing a well-written, engrossing story and lore. I hope (and truly believe) FFXV will make an effort to mend this.
The hate it gets is completely baffling to me. While I admit it's not te best FF I kind of feel like nostalgia clouds some problems with the older ones and gave people weird expectations with this. I dunno what it is really, but I loved the game. Absolutely loved it. I'd say it's a solid 8.5 for me.
This is The Hanging Edge. The first area of the game. Nowhere in-game is it stated what The Hanging Edge actually is and why it exists. It's briefly mentioned in the datalog as located near Cocoon's outer rim along with a few shoddy details of its past, but Cocoon is said to be a sphere, how is there even an outer rim? It serves only as a corridor to the next dungeon, the Pulse Vestige. The entire game is structured like this. Somehow the end up on a frozen lake that leads to...the garbage lands?
Some FF X places was also structured like that, it doesn't give an exact sense of scale or location. The lake is frozen because of Pulse Vestige & Anima falling into it. Hanging Edge is not on the "surface" of Cocoon, thus the hanging part. The Vestige was actually found in the "garbage lands" because it was Pulse garbage. Noone said it was an easy concept. That's why it's so awesome.
Eden, the Capital for example is hanging in the center of Cocoon.
You can rinse and repeat whatever you like. From the very beginning the game tells you that your goal is not to merely kill the enemy but to do it as fast as possible. This game simply does not work like a usual rpg. It's not about XP, there's minimal grinding, it's all about upgrading your weapons and items.
You're right on the money here. The "sequels" were not really sequels but spin-offs and were made after the game was completed. Outside of the original game, there is no cohesive lore. As you know the reason the party can cast magic, is because they are given a fragment of a chrystal when they became l'cie. In XIII-2 they (Watanabe, Toriyama) quite simply made shit up to cover for the fact that the cast was no longer l'cie, they seized to be after the ending of the original game.
It was immensely disappointing in every respect that wasn't graphically and party A.I. in my opinion. Pacing, story, characters, difficulty curve, and overall game design were utterly lacking.
The gameplay is the most simplistic I've ever played in a Final Fantasy game. It was nothing but auto > auto > auto > auto > paradigm shift > auto > auto > auto > auto > repeat
I would actually agree. While the sequels make the series unbearably bad, XIII on it's own is a decent game. Sure, it's a much weaker title compared to the previous games but that doesn't mean it's a bad game, it just didn't live up to the hype.
It still had a good OST, fun battle system and interesting but executed terribly plot. Not all the characters were bad too, Fang and Sazh were great and Vanille was one of the more interesting characters even if her voice acting was messy.
Because of this thread I decided to give the game another go.
My opinion is also that this game is a 7-8/10 type of game.
Graphics are a 10/10. Even now, on the eve of next gen, the game looks amazing. And it is running on PS3. The art direction and production values are top notch. So I cannot fault graphics.
Music is also extremely well made for this game. It has some gorgeous themes and while not perfect, I still cant find a lot of faults regarding this. 9/10
Gameplay is a bit more complex. The battle system is , IMHO, good. It is extremely fast paced but still retains strategic input for the player. Switching paradigms, making custom formations and decide which works best is quite enteraining. The combat looks to have a magnificent flow with a lot of amazing moves and effects filling your screen. It is so fast paced that someone who hasnt played the game looks at you as if you are that insane tetris dude pushing buttons in ridiculous speed.
And here lies though lies the problem. While the combat and battle system is good, it is rarely put in good use. Most encounters in the game are a matter of seconds and dont require any kind of strategic element in them. Bosses and Eidolon fights are a joy (most of them) but the random encounters rarely provide a challenge. And with so many random encounters, this hurts the game. Especially early in the game where you dont have full control over the battle system and party configuration.
But when you do get full control and late game encounters are indeed challenging, to me, the battle system and consequently gameplay, shines.
Another thing though that hurts the gameplay is the complete lack of towns, types of side quests and minimum exploration. If the game had at least a few towns and some sidequests for variation it would be so much more enjoyable. I mean they crafted an artistically beautiful world and yet they dont let you explore it, or find out more about it. That was the absolute most stupid design decision they took with this game.
So all in all, great battle system, rarely exploited though, lack of serious exploration and ugly pacing. I would grade gameplay a 6/10.
Story. Now a lot of people will have different opinions on this but I thought that the main story of this game is good for the most part. I dont enjoy some of the flashbacks and some of the events in the game, but the CORE of the story is good. Nto great. But good.
THe cast is the problem. I love certain characters, I do not like others and I simply despise some. I love Shaz and Fang, I only like Snow (he started off like an arrogant prick, but it was just his way of dealing with his issues and I liked his development along the way) , I am indiferent about Lightning because she is as interesting as a stone, I do not like Hope but atleast I dont despise him, like I despise Vanille...
Oh my God, Vanille.... I know some people here love that character but I just cant bear her... I actually had to mute the sound of my TV a couple of times. She is unbearable... the voice acting... that fucking voice.... THAT VOICE... my God... I have no words. Never mind how completely and utterly retarded even for a "kid" her reactions were. Even for a kid that supposedly has this "philosophy" on life, good spirited and full of optimism. So poorly executed...
So yeah, cast overall is not that great. And story overall suffers because of it, even if the core plot, i repeat is good. So I give the story a 7/10 and the cast a 5/10. Overall a 6/10.
All in all FFXIII aint as bad as a lot of people think it is. At least not to me that is. Yes it takes a long time to appreciate in full the battle system, yes the pacing is horrendous in some parts with no challenge at all and yes the cast is not something to write home about.
But when the game actually worked, it worked very well. It had an amazing art direction, a beautiful world and when you could explore there was finaly the feeling that you are free at last (and that reflects on the story itself at that point) it had beautiful moments, a good core story and a great battle system that was very enjoybale in certain fights later in the game.
All in all I agree with OP i would give the game a 7.5-8/10 (and in pure IGN fashion, this is not a cumulative score)
I enjoyed the game and was looking forward to finishing off the missions however..
A bit OT but
I am horrifically stuck on the last boss.
It just seems no matter what I do I am getting dropped by it.
First section is fine, the second section isn't...
Because of this I will not start XIII-2 at all.
Which I was looking forward too.
The worse part for me was the lacie or falcie or any other made up words that they tried being clever with just seemed to ruin the story in a big way too.
