vicissitudes
Banned
Bought it day 1 back in 2010, was obviously a bit disappointing but still had fun, put in about 45 hours but never beat the final boss.
After all the FF Type-0 and FFXV news, I decided to go back and finish the game.
Play this in the background for maximum effect: FFXIII Opening
Now, for the past few years people rag on this game like it's the worst thing ever. Going back, the first thing I noticed about the opening sequence is that the game is still gorgeous with a really cool world design. Let's break it down a bit more:
Graphics
They nailed this one. Final boss design was excellent and way better than what we got in FFXII. Overworld is gorgeous. Enemy designs were for the most part, very well done.
Gameplay
Again, they really nailed this part. For those who complain that it's "auto-win", you realize that FFXII required even less input from the player, right? (and I loved FFXII's battle system) Let's look at the battle system for the past 3 games:
FFX - press X, select attack, press X, press X, press X, select attack, press X, press X, etc. It's okay I guess, but pretty boring for the most part.
FFXII - once I got some good gambits set up, I never touched a button for all the battles or ever entered a manual command, even for the final boss. I thought this was pretty cool, but it's not for everyone.
FFXIII - similar to FFXII, but I had to constantly shift paradigms, especially for the harder bosses. Streamlined for the player, but with more input than FFXII. Instead of starting out a battle and manually casting protect/shell/whatever, simply switch to COM/SYN/SYN and the system casts for you. Then switch to COM/RAV/RAV to slow stagger bar, then switch to RAV/RAV/RAV to stagger faster. Just like the traditional battle system except you don't have to manually select each magic spell painstakingly; the system does it for you. Setting up the paradigms and figuring out how to level your characters and choose spells to maximize paradigm effectiveness was really fun too.
Story
Okay this I admit this part was lacking. Confusing story that could have been handled better. The basic gist from what I got was (minor spoilers)
. Whatever, I'm not playing a video game for a Shakespearean storyline. -1 point on this front.
Characters
First of all, the character designs were pretty great for the most part. I didn't like Hope's design too much but that's about it. It's really the poor characterization and dialogue that makes you cringe. Whatever, they were bad in FFX as well. Never cared for Waka or Lulu and Tidus was a dork. Lightning for me was fine as a character in FFXIII. I only dislike her because they put her in every other game after and made all those sequels. But looking at FFXIII independently, she wasn't bad. -0.5 for characters.
Music
They nailed this one. Let's be honest.
World
Really cool designs and ideas. Most people complain about the linearity but FFX was also super-linear. I feel like people don't remember this because they hadn't played it in so long. Both games were really long corridors, except FFX had wider corridors and a couple of towns in between. Just turn off the world map if it really bothers you that much. -0.5 for linearity.
Towns
Didn't really bother me too much. Does it really matter whether you bought items at a save point or if there's an NPC that says some generic crap then you buy the items? Pretty much the same thing. I guess it would have been cool to have something like Rabanastre from FFXII. -0.5 for lack of towns.
In conclusion, it's a flawed game that got a lot of things right. If you set your expectations properly it's a lot of fun. People talk about FFXIII like it's the spawn of satan and single-handedly destroy the franchise, when in reality it's about a 7.5 and FFX is about an 8. I even wondered to myself how I was able to put ~50 hours into the game until I went back to play it and said "oh yeah, they did a lot of stuff right." Hopefully people can set their expectations better and then they won't inevitably be massively disappointed by FFXV.
TL;DR:
Gameplay: 10/10
Graphics:10/10
Music: 10/10
-1 for story
-0.5 for dialog
-0.5 for no HD towns
-0.5 for linearity
7.5/10. It's flawed but fun. It's not the worst game ever made.
After all the FF Type-0 and FFXV news, I decided to go back and finish the game.
Play this in the background for maximum effect: FFXIII Opening
Now, for the past few years people rag on this game like it's the worst thing ever. Going back, the first thing I noticed about the opening sequence is that the game is still gorgeous with a really cool world design. Let's break it down a bit more:
Graphics
They nailed this one. Final boss design was excellent and way better than what we got in FFXII. Overworld is gorgeous. Enemy designs were for the most part, very well done.
Gameplay
Again, they really nailed this part. For those who complain that it's "auto-win", you realize that FFXII required even less input from the player, right? (and I loved FFXII's battle system) Let's look at the battle system for the past 3 games:
FFX - press X, select attack, press X, press X, press X, select attack, press X, press X, etc. It's okay I guess, but pretty boring for the most part.
FFXII - once I got some good gambits set up, I never touched a button for all the battles or ever entered a manual command, even for the final boss. I thought this was pretty cool, but it's not for everyone.
FFXIII - similar to FFXII, but I had to constantly shift paradigms, especially for the harder bosses. Streamlined for the player, but with more input than FFXII. Instead of starting out a battle and manually casting protect/shell/whatever, simply switch to COM/SYN/SYN and the system casts for you. Then switch to COM/RAV/RAV to slow stagger bar, then switch to RAV/RAV/RAV to stagger faster. Just like the traditional battle system except you don't have to manually select each magic spell painstakingly; the system does it for you. Setting up the paradigms and figuring out how to level your characters and choose spells to maximize paradigm effectiveness was really fun too.
Story
Okay this I admit this part was lacking. Confusing story that could have been handled better. The basic gist from what I got was (minor spoilers)
Something about Cocoon and they were fated to become crystals and traveled to escape that fate
Characters
First of all, the character designs were pretty great for the most part. I didn't like Hope's design too much but that's about it. It's really the poor characterization and dialogue that makes you cringe. Whatever, they were bad in FFX as well. Never cared for Waka or Lulu and Tidus was a dork. Lightning for me was fine as a character in FFXIII. I only dislike her because they put her in every other game after and made all those sequels. But looking at FFXIII independently, she wasn't bad. -0.5 for characters.
Music
They nailed this one. Let's be honest.
World
Really cool designs and ideas. Most people complain about the linearity but FFX was also super-linear. I feel like people don't remember this because they hadn't played it in so long. Both games were really long corridors, except FFX had wider corridors and a couple of towns in between. Just turn off the world map if it really bothers you that much. -0.5 for linearity.
Towns
Didn't really bother me too much. Does it really matter whether you bought items at a save point or if there's an NPC that says some generic crap then you buy the items? Pretty much the same thing. I guess it would have been cool to have something like Rabanastre from FFXII. -0.5 for lack of towns.
In conclusion, it's a flawed game that got a lot of things right. If you set your expectations properly it's a lot of fun. People talk about FFXIII like it's the spawn of satan and single-handedly destroy the franchise, when in reality it's about a 7.5 and FFX is about an 8. I even wondered to myself how I was able to put ~50 hours into the game until I went back to play it and said "oh yeah, they did a lot of stuff right." Hopefully people can set their expectations better and then they won't inevitably be massively disappointed by FFXV.
TL;DR:
Gameplay: 10/10
Graphics:10/10
Music: 10/10
-1 for story
-0.5 for dialog
-0.5 for no HD towns
-0.5 for linearity
7.5/10. It's flawed but fun. It's not the worst game ever made.
