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[ThLunarian]

FF13 was really frustrating for me because I could tell there was a cool story buried in there somewhere, but the presentation was just so awful and hard to follow that it got lost in the shuffle.

Someone pages ago said that 13 has no sense of place, and that you never spend any time anywhere. I think that criticism is really on point. Everything is always a rush... gotta hurry up and get to the next place! No time to take a breath and figure out where we are!

Because of that, I remember almost nothing about the story or about what was going on, and it makes me feel like I missed out, except that it wasn't my fault.

I wish it were possible to remake FF13. They wouldn't need to change the graphics or music, or even the back story or plot. They could just slow the pace down. Let you explore the places you were going. Let the backstory of places flow through conversations - even with NPCs!

They would have to re-write and re-record basically all of the dialogue and completely redesign every location in the game though, so that's not happening I guess.

 

[Carl7]

I"m Playing X right know and I was thinking the same thing. I am enjoying the game but Final fantasy x is a corridors game that only opens up after 25+ hours. I never played FFXIII but maybe they just tried the same formula.

 

[charsace]

I never understood the love for 10. Thought it was a mediocre game with a bad romance story at it's heart.

 

[Lumination]

I'm 20. I don't have an amazing amount of experience with the mainline final fantasy games (I've played 9, 10, 12, and 13), but I *do* have a lot of experience with the JRPG genre. (SMT, Persona, Trails, Pokemon, Dragon Quest, etc.)

I'd like to think that this is enough experience to say that final fantasy X isn't very good combat wise, due to being slow paced and not very dynamic. (... Wow that sounded kind of sarcastic, I swear I don't mean it to be)

What is your opinion of DQ/SMT combat vs FFX? Personally, X has ruined the turn-based systems where you have to input your entire party's commands first and then wait for the speed + some RNG math to determine turn order. Being able to see how turn order is calculated and given the ability to manipulate said order was so important to me. Thinking back, I find this feature to be a more defining characteristic than the party member hot swap RPS feature most people bring up.

I can never go back to DQ where I had to balance the risk of overkilling something and skipping my turns defending and just not killing the thing because damage is also slightly variable. Same for SMT except it can be worse in some cases where your extra attacks might hit some enemy who reflects/absorbs/gains a smile/etc.

 

[OrionX]

X has possibly my favorite video game story. I don't hate XIII but that story definitely doesn't have a special place in my heart.

Besides that, X let me play at my own pace by allowing me to backtrack to most locations, and had legit towns with npc's you could interact with. XIII was almost constantly driving me forward, treating locations like fragmented levels instead of presenting an interconnected world.

 

[SuperStiltzkin]

World building, characters, pacing, and story are all better than XIII.

 

[Betty]

Things FFX has over FFXIII:

- Better characters.
- Far better realised and fleshed out world.
- Better story.
- God-like combat, maybe the best in Final Fantasy's history.
- Better pacing compared to FFXIII's RUN, RUN, WE CAN'T STOP HERE!!! RUN, RUN, RUN!!!
- Better music.
- Better bosses.
- Better villains.
- Ability to backtrack to earlier areas.
- Aeons are really helpful whereas in FFXIII the summons are really useless
- Better main character, I don't hate lightning but she's just a boring version of Cloud, at least Tidus has more going on and shows actual emotion on the journey.
- A greater feeling of fellowship between the main cast, although FFXIII isn't bad in this area.
- Vanille isn't in the game

FFX is just great.

 

[DeathbyCheerios]

I beat FFXIII to completion much more recently than FFX and here is why I consider FFX better.

FFXIII:

Spoiler

is a story about a few people with odd names and weird marks on there hand going to kill some pope guy to save a world but there is another world that doesn't matter much and the main world crashes there or something? Dude also had a chocobo in his fro.

FFX:

Spoiler

A dude named Tidus' has his city destroyed and he gets brought into another world where he joins a babe named Yuna to stop the creature known as Sin from destroying the world, this is an event done every so often. They run into a blue haired weirdo named Seymour Guido a few times and he tries to marry Yuna but fuck that shit. They find a way to rid the world of Sin for good but it means Tidus vanishes cause he never really existed in the first place. They defeat Sin who was once Tidus' dad Jecht and the world is saved. Oh there is also Bltizball which is cool and Auron is pure bad ass.

and FFX has one of the best ending themes in a game ever.

I can remember a lot more about FFX in detail than anything in FFXIII. The story was no gripping, They had like...1 or two interesting character and basically made female Cloud to try and hype it up.

 

[Zugma]

Pacing. Well, story too, but mostly pacing. XIII is a looooong game that features combat and cutscenes, and that's about it. It takes dozens of hours before they even throw a small amount of side content the player's way, and by then they are so fatigued to even care. Final Fantasy X breaks up the combat/cutscene loop with towns, side content all throughout the game, and the temple puzzles. XIII had a good enough combat system, if the pacing had only been better, we could have had a very solid entry in the series (even with the bad story).

 

[Whompa02]

Story made slightly more sense and was paced better.

Voice acting was...not as good but the writing was much better.

 

[HeelPower]

Granted, one of the rare exceptions to the rule of FF villains having nonsense motivations was only a year/game prior.

Seymour has perfectly logical motivations. Dude was half human and half non human and was caught up in Spira's racial,religious struggle and was pitted against sin as a child.

If only people would know what they're talking about before criticizing.

Ditto character motivation and background. Take Lightning for example. Instead of establishing what sort of women she is through her actions, slowly teasing elements of her past out for you, they just have to give you this info

They literally tell you she called herself that to "outgrow painful memories". That's because they don't know how, or don't care, to establish this as part of Lightning's character through dialogue.

She literally has a long ass scene in the sewers where she explains this(the origin of her name) to hope to get him to stop seeking revenge.

Half the people here criticize the games with very little actual knowledge.

 

[danm999]

She literally has a long ass scene in the sewers where she explains this(the origin of her name) to hope to get him to stop seeking revenge.

Half the people here criticize the games with very little actual knowledge.

That is telling, not showing though. A character explaining their origins like she does is garbage. Contrast that with say, how Auron's origins are revealed.

 

[Innolis]

-Better Story
-Better Characters
-Better Combat System
-Better Summons
-Has Auron.

I like XIII for what it is, but X is miles ahead.

 

[LastGamer84]

I gave up on the series at FFX....do I dunno OP.

 

[Loz246789]

What is your opinion of DQ/SMT combat vs FFX? Personally, X has ruined the turn-based systems where you have to input your entire party's commands first and then wait for the speed + some RNG math to determine turn order. Being able to see how turn order is calculated and given the ability to manipulate said order was so important to me. Thinking back, I find this feature to be a more defining characteristic than the party member hot swap RPS feature most people bring up.

I can never go back to DQ where I had to balance the risk of overkilling something and skipping my turns defending and just not killing the thing because damage is also slightly variable. Same for SMT except it can be worse in some cases where your extra attacks might hit some enemy who reflects/absorbs/gains a smile/etc.

Being able to see the turn order to some extent is definitely something I appreciate when it exists, although I can respect the game design decisions behind not including it.
That being said, if the turn order isn't immediately obvious (either through FFX's method, or ATB bars, "There's only two characters on screen gee I wonder", or something like that), then at the very least I want to be able to see who's turn is coming next. I want to know if I need to heal now, or if I can wait for my white mage equivalent to have a turn, or if I can just kill all the enemies before hp is an issue. Ending up dead due to not knowing what's going on isn't fun.

I thought it was a neat inclusion in FFX! I'd agree that it's more inherently interesting than the party member swapping, and it seems to have had a lasting effect on the genre (see: the trails games), so I'm grateful for that. I have a few nitpicks, but nothing that effected my opinion of the game, so good inclusion (tm).

Dragon quest, yeah I'd tend to agree with you to some extent regarding turn order. It's telling that for some games, whenever you end up in a boss fight, the game just goes "yeah ok, fixed turn order, this thing can kill you". Not a deal breaker for me personally, but I'm not happy with it either. As for the overkilling thing, I greatly appreciate any game that lets me see the enemy's hp, and it's really not that big of an advantage. Do I expect it fixed though for Dragon Quest? Nah. A good part of the core audience would probably miss it.

SMT's fundamentals, since the details vary by entry... the press turn system is a love/hate relationship, and I don't think I'm alone here. Enemy advantages in particular are pretty bullshit, and will just outright kill you 90% of the time when they happen with a bad enemy combination. When they're avoidable, that's one thing, when they're random, that's pretty bad design. But when the system isn't killing you, you're abusing the system to take out enemies before they can even get a chance to kill you, and that's a lot of fun. I think a "mitigated bullshit" press turn system has a lot of potential to be a great battle system. As a general rule of thumb, my thoughts regarding battle systems are that I should ideally constantly be in danger of death, but if I play well I should never actually die. Press turn accomplishes the former, and the latter depends on the game. Often not perfect.

I prefer SMT's fundamentals over FFX, but my ideal game would probably be somewhere in the middle, I'd say is my answer. Give the player a bit more to work with to avoid bullshit, but keep the fast paced, "You'll actually be punished for slipping up" tension of SMT.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Pacing. Well, story too, but mostly pacing. XIII is a looooong game that features combat and cutscenes, and that's about it. It takes dozens of hours before they even throw a small amount of side content the player's way, and by then they are so fatigued to even care. Final Fantasy X breaks up the combat/cutscene loop with towns, side content all throughout the game, and the temple puzzles. XIII had a good enough combat system, if the pacing had only been better, we could have had a very solid entry in the series (even with the bad story).

FFXIII is incredibly polished. Thats the frustrating part. It looks amazing, or at least it did. Its controls are spot on and the battle system is rather fun... but mostly at the post game. If this was inserted into a more interactive and better realized world, and if the writing and storyline was a notch better then FFXIII could've been great. The chains should've been broken far earlier as well, you can't even set your own party until you're over 20 hours in the game. You can't even really upgrade your stuff too (because the loot and gil just isn't there yet, and you can't go to areas you aren't good enough for yet).

The game is polished, so light on content and devoid of freedom to the point that you absolutely can't break it afaik. There was the Death trick on adamantoises, which could make you rich somewhat earlier. Money is everything in FFXIII (you buy your way to the ultimate weapons) and thats why its so hard to come by. And its boring as well. There is no hidden enemy or sidequest that drops an amazing weapon.

Some parts had potential, such as Taejinn Tower and Oerba. I liked those. But they had almost nothing to offer as well.

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

If you like X more than XIII thats fine, but are we really going to pretend like X's combat is better than XIII? C'mon guys.

 

[JBwB]

At least for me I prefer X over XIII mainly because of the story, characters & setting.

The story is just easier to follow, the characters are more relatable and I find the setting to be a lot more interesting than XIII's.

I have to admit though that I do find XIII's combat system more enjoyable.

 

[ULTROS!]

If you like X more than XIII thats fine, but are we really going to pretend like X's combat is better than XIII? C'mon guys.

I like XIII's battle system more because it's easy to grasp, difficult to master, and it's fast paced. In fact I'll go to say XIII's battle system is my favorite in the FF series.

 

[TheChillyAcademic]

FFXIII Wasted Jihl.

JIHL.

A character who was set up in the pre game novels to be actually quite awesome.

AND WE ALL KNOW WHERE THAT WENT

Fuck XIII

 

[The Last One]

X has the best story in gaming.

Also the laughing scene.

 

[yanipheonu]

Going on a pilgrimage is a far better narriative device for explaining linear progression than "they just ran away aimlessly and ended up places".

 

[Papo Swing]

To me it's because it has a better or better narrated and developed story and the gameplay was good and closer to other FF games.

I dislike 12 because I see it as a huge missed opportunity in so many unforgivable spots.

The main character and focus on story sucked, but tou saw shades of greatness.

The gameplay was cool, but felt too automatic/incomplete.

The summons, a staple for me up to that point sucked. It was the game that killed GFs. Every game after that has been weak in thar aspect. Even 15 which had great looking ones kind of sucked.

It just felt like a game that could have been so much better than I tend to focus on that.