I've been mulling over making this thread for a while now, because i've been worried that people would not understand my point, but i decided i'd just go for it.
The comparisons of Final Fantasy 10 to 13 are something i hear every time either is brought up, whether in a positive or negative light and i've always been confused by that.
This is because when people bring up the comparisons between them, its usually about some false notion that they are both simply straight lines, or that they both play themselves and thusly are right to be compared.
In my opinion, this could be nowhere further from the truth, and i will attempt to set out some examples of my argument.
1. Sphere Grid Vs Crystarium
Sphere Grid Illustrated here.
Crystarium Illustrated here.
On first glance, like the rest of the game, these upgrade systems seem to be the exact same. You move your cursor via a menu system to an icon until it gives you an upgrade. However upon further inspection...
We can see how much more freedom the Sphere grid in particular gives you over the Crystarium.
For example, unlike the Crystarium, which generally is only a single path with a few icons occasionally to the side, essentially forcing you to only gather your movesets in the way the game feels you should, the Sphere Grid gives you complete and utter control over how you choose to upgrade your character, which is expanded in the Expert Sphere Grid setting.
You might say “well the class system of XIII gives you control too! You can choose and upgrade everyone to be any class!”
That is semi correct, however....each skill set is predeterminedly laid out for each character, (more importantly, you are blocked off from even choosing certain classes for a big portion of the game).
And due to the artificial capping of leveling around story based sequences(just so you don't beat the old guy in one hit I suppose), it disallows you from freely experimenting with the other class sets.
Even in the case that you max out each level, its unfortunate that certain abilities are still locked off from certain characters simply based on the fact that they are differentiated.
2.Weapon Tiering
Final Fantasy X Weapon buff menu Illustrated here
Final Fantasy 13 upgrade weapon menu Illustrated here
In Final Fantasy X, you are first given a sword by Wakka which allows you to, among other buffs, perform certain bonuses only associated with that weapon. As you gain weapons, the weapons vary from different afflictions, different stat bonuses and different properties.
Again, on the surface this may seem similar to FF13 where you can, in certain ways, gain access to different types of weaponry that allows you to choose between attack types. However...
Final Fantasy X's system, on top of this 'pick a sword' style of play, also introduced what I like to call the “Variable Mog” system.
With this variable system, as long as there is a empty icon next to the sword, you can essentially add whatever type of affliction or buff you can think of to any weapon you have equipped, regardless of whether or not it is a weapon that already has a buff attached to it.
Indeed, there are even weapons in the game which, among other things, exist for the absolute sole purpose of customizing freely to the player's own desire however they feel it should be done, and the items necessary to customize these weapons are easily found.
Compare that system with the weapon tiered system of Final Fantasy 13
In this system, the ability to flexibly customize your weapons with all kinds of special skillsets was essentially taken away, instead replaced by a more 'streamlined' system in which you buy or get 'ingredients' from battle, and level up your weapons via Souls Style +1 +2 until you hit the maximum level. There are no more properties involved to customize, no way to really build a weapon you feel fits the appropriate moment at a moments notice, just a pure strength and magic number.
There is an addition upgrade path, in which you apply a specific amount of ingredients to a weapon, and it changes into another weapon. However this is a very straightforward process, and essentially takes away your previous build anyway.
3.Character Formation
Final Fantasy X character menu illustrated here
Final Fantasy XIII character menu illustrated here
The character formation in these two games could not even be further apart. For example, once you have a full party in FFX, after Rikku joins, you are automatically fully able to freely change, mix and match, and customize your characters at the tap of a button.
You can trade leaders, you can trade supporters, and you can even do it mid battle, based on what type of back up you need. Unless a party member is dead and gone in the field of battle, there is virtually no penalty for switching out characters on the fly, and if one dies, that's fine, you can simply revive them and continue with as many as you like. You have full control of how your party plays.
In FF13, this is not so. If lighting, or whoever the leader is just happens to get taken out, the battle is over. Period. You absolutely have to protect the leader. This by default introduces stress upon the player because it gives priority to staying alive over creating a balanced unit.
Furthermore, you cannot control all of your party at all times. Yes, it is a consequence of no longer being turn based, however, it takes away full control of the player, and puts it in the hands of the AI in order to help out in the battle.
I don't know how many times I was killed when my dumbass AI party member refused to heal me right when I was dying and instead attacked or just stood there waiting for the gauge to fill up until they feel they can perform the next action.
4.The Aeons versus the Eidolons
The Summons in Final Fantasy 10 are some of the greatest things ever. Being able to blow the absolute fuck out of people with Bahumut? So much fun.
With Final Fantasy 10 in particular, you have the ability to upgrade these Summons at your leisure, not only with Health and MP upgrades, but also with all manners of spells, and special abilities far beyond their intial movesets.
This gives the player agency to customize these creatures to their own desire, and also allows the Aeon to compete in situations that they otherwise would not be able to survive(how would any of the non elementals manage to survive for long without the ability to cast the different tiers of cure for example?)
However, this was all changed with 13, as the summons are a timed thing, with their movesets limited to a certain amount of specific button presses to form attacks against the enemy.
Now this alone would not be so bad. But unlike FFX, which gives Yuna(and thus the player), the absolute control over which summon to call forth in what situation and how, your absolutely stuck with 1 Eidolon per leader character, with a limited moveset and only around 1 summon per battle based on your actual performance.
This in turn dilutes the actual point of summoning in the first place down to simply flashy movesets. If you can stagger your enemies much easier out of your Eidolon than inside of it, is there any real point to such a limited summon that can only be called every once in a while?
(I know i'm leaving out another portion of the Summon equation but that is for another bulletpoint
)
6.Map design, and actual general game world cohesion.
Final Fantasy X World Map Illustrated here
This is the main part where many detractors seem to get stuck on when they compare X and 13. “Well its just a straight line from one place to the other in both games with cutscenes!” They might say.
In the barest sense of the definition, this is absolutely correct. But again, take a slightly harder look and you'll find many different changes to the landscape in X, which essentially either masks the fact that your being lead to a specific area, or has tons more 'expansion' to it.
In Final Fantasy XIII for example, outside of the Archylte Steppe (which in itself is its own issue but i'll get to that later), every single area in Final Fantasy 13 is a path in which you are essentially walking forward with enemies in your way and virtually no one around but yourself and the straight path to the next destination. Your always facing forward with no real deviation in between.
Compare that to the hub areas of X, many of the temples for example, besaid island, the area outside of Yojimo's cave which have many rooms and areas you can walk into and talk to people, in particular, shops and different areas of civilization, which actually make the world feel more like a place that your staying in and occasionally resting.
It actually makes the game feel more like a journey in a place you can occasionally downtime in instead of a series of rooms that your running one to the next. The Archylte Steppe may be an “open area”, but its still an area in which you are essentially corralled into that you must stay in in order to not see tunnel vision.
Its more or less just a farming zoo, and the developers did nothing to actually mask this fact to the player, as there is nothing inside of it really beyond monsters to fight. Its a huge empty area.
Its simply a worse clone of the Calm Lands, however unlike the Archylte Steppe, there are plenty of other things you can find in the Calm Lands outside of monsters(i'll get to that later).
In terms of general world design as well. In the end game, you essentially have only two choices. Either go back to the Archylte Steppe and fight monsters, or go to Eden(for what purpose I have no idea). And if you choose none you go to the final area.
This is a huge HUGE step back from getting the airship, and having the complete freedom to literally go wherever you want in the world, your fully able to traverse to literally every area you've been in the game, visit any site you feel like, and enjoy your time leveling up your characters and seeing the sights as you please.
In comparison to that, only going back to 2 areas in FF13 is just claustrophobic as all hell, and a huge huge disappointment when you consider what there is actually to do after that which leads us to the final point I have to make here today....
7.ADDITIONAL SUBQUESTS AND SECRET AREAS
I think most of all, what differentiates FFX and FF13 is, among many things, the pure variety of things you can do in FFX that just breaks up the monotony of pure battles and grinding that FF13 makes you go through.
Don't want to fight right now? That's cool, let's play some blitzball and level out our players!
Full level maxxed your characters sphere grid? No worries, there's the secret weapons you can run around and find too!
Tired of the same five summons over and over? That's cool, take a visit into Yojimo's cave and pay him some money, he'll come with you. Go back to the very beginning area via the secret coordinates and get Anima, go to the secret area in the Calm Lands via the Chocobo and get the secret Magus sisters!
You can race chocobos!
Find secret treasures in hidden areas!
Beat secret dungeons and bosses like Omega in the Omega ruins!
Decipher hidden Al Bhed manuscripts!
Max out your overdrives!
Get all the recording spheres!
Go see the farm herder in the Calm Lands and catch every single monster in the world and fight extra secret ones in the arena!
And the list goes on and on and on. Infact, the international version(aka remaster) actually added even more on top of the original game like the Dark Aeons for example.
Compared to that...what does FF13 let you do end game? Fight monsters basically....finish every l'cie quest...which is just fighting a slightly different colored version of another monster...rinse...repeat..ad nauseum.
8.CONCLUSION
For the record, I would never say that anyone who likes any game is dumb or stupid or whatever. But the fact of the matter is, FFX is a completely different experience than FF13 in a majority of ways.
And I don't personally think that treating only the very smallest of similarities as huge mountains of copy paste is really the right thing to do either.
I hope this has helped someone in some way know why there are many who love Final Fantasy X a lot, but go on to consider FF13 a very mediocre production in their personal opinion. The two games in my opinion could not be any further apart in quality.
The comparisons of Final Fantasy 10 to 13 are something i hear every time either is brought up, whether in a positive or negative light and i've always been confused by that.
This is because when people bring up the comparisons between them, its usually about some false notion that they are both simply straight lines, or that they both play themselves and thusly are right to be compared.
In my opinion, this could be nowhere further from the truth, and i will attempt to set out some examples of my argument.
1. Sphere Grid Vs Crystarium
Sphere Grid Illustrated here.
Crystarium Illustrated here.
On first glance, like the rest of the game, these upgrade systems seem to be the exact same. You move your cursor via a menu system to an icon until it gives you an upgrade. However upon further inspection...
We can see how much more freedom the Sphere grid in particular gives you over the Crystarium.
For example, unlike the Crystarium, which generally is only a single path with a few icons occasionally to the side, essentially forcing you to only gather your movesets in the way the game feels you should, the Sphere Grid gives you complete and utter control over how you choose to upgrade your character, which is expanded in the Expert Sphere Grid setting.
You might say “well the class system of XIII gives you control too! You can choose and upgrade everyone to be any class!”
That is semi correct, however....each skill set is predeterminedly laid out for each character, (more importantly, you are blocked off from even choosing certain classes for a big portion of the game).
And due to the artificial capping of leveling around story based sequences(just so you don't beat the old guy in one hit I suppose), it disallows you from freely experimenting with the other class sets.
Even in the case that you max out each level, its unfortunate that certain abilities are still locked off from certain characters simply based on the fact that they are differentiated.
2.Weapon Tiering
Final Fantasy X Weapon buff menu Illustrated here
Final Fantasy 13 upgrade weapon menu Illustrated here
In Final Fantasy X, you are first given a sword by Wakka which allows you to, among other buffs, perform certain bonuses only associated with that weapon. As you gain weapons, the weapons vary from different afflictions, different stat bonuses and different properties.
Again, on the surface this may seem similar to FF13 where you can, in certain ways, gain access to different types of weaponry that allows you to choose between attack types. However...
Final Fantasy X's system, on top of this 'pick a sword' style of play, also introduced what I like to call the “Variable Mog” system.
With this variable system, as long as there is a empty icon next to the sword, you can essentially add whatever type of affliction or buff you can think of to any weapon you have equipped, regardless of whether or not it is a weapon that already has a buff attached to it.
Indeed, there are even weapons in the game which, among other things, exist for the absolute sole purpose of customizing freely to the player's own desire however they feel it should be done, and the items necessary to customize these weapons are easily found.
Compare that system with the weapon tiered system of Final Fantasy 13
In this system, the ability to flexibly customize your weapons with all kinds of special skillsets was essentially taken away, instead replaced by a more 'streamlined' system in which you buy or get 'ingredients' from battle, and level up your weapons via Souls Style +1 +2 until you hit the maximum level. There are no more properties involved to customize, no way to really build a weapon you feel fits the appropriate moment at a moments notice, just a pure strength and magic number.
There is an addition upgrade path, in which you apply a specific amount of ingredients to a weapon, and it changes into another weapon. However this is a very straightforward process, and essentially takes away your previous build anyway.
3.Character Formation
Final Fantasy X character menu illustrated here
Final Fantasy XIII character menu illustrated here
The character formation in these two games could not even be further apart. For example, once you have a full party in FFX, after Rikku joins, you are automatically fully able to freely change, mix and match, and customize your characters at the tap of a button.
You can trade leaders, you can trade supporters, and you can even do it mid battle, based on what type of back up you need. Unless a party member is dead and gone in the field of battle, there is virtually no penalty for switching out characters on the fly, and if one dies, that's fine, you can simply revive them and continue with as many as you like. You have full control of how your party plays.
In FF13, this is not so. If lighting, or whoever the leader is just happens to get taken out, the battle is over. Period. You absolutely have to protect the leader. This by default introduces stress upon the player because it gives priority to staying alive over creating a balanced unit.
Furthermore, you cannot control all of your party at all times. Yes, it is a consequence of no longer being turn based, however, it takes away full control of the player, and puts it in the hands of the AI in order to help out in the battle.
I don't know how many times I was killed when my dumbass AI party member refused to heal me right when I was dying and instead attacked or just stood there waiting for the gauge to fill up until they feel they can perform the next action.
4.The Aeons versus the Eidolons
The Summons in Final Fantasy 10 are some of the greatest things ever. Being able to blow the absolute fuck out of people with Bahumut? So much fun.
With Final Fantasy 10 in particular, you have the ability to upgrade these Summons at your leisure, not only with Health and MP upgrades, but also with all manners of spells, and special abilities far beyond their intial movesets.
This gives the player agency to customize these creatures to their own desire, and also allows the Aeon to compete in situations that they otherwise would not be able to survive(how would any of the non elementals manage to survive for long without the ability to cast the different tiers of cure for example?)
However, this was all changed with 13, as the summons are a timed thing, with their movesets limited to a certain amount of specific button presses to form attacks against the enemy.
Now this alone would not be so bad. But unlike FFX, which gives Yuna(and thus the player), the absolute control over which summon to call forth in what situation and how, your absolutely stuck with 1 Eidolon per leader character, with a limited moveset and only around 1 summon per battle based on your actual performance.
This in turn dilutes the actual point of summoning in the first place down to simply flashy movesets. If you can stagger your enemies much easier out of your Eidolon than inside of it, is there any real point to such a limited summon that can only be called every once in a while?
(I know i'm leaving out another portion of the Summon equation but that is for another bulletpoint
)6.Map design, and actual general game world cohesion.
Final Fantasy X World Map Illustrated here
This is the main part where many detractors seem to get stuck on when they compare X and 13. “Well its just a straight line from one place to the other in both games with cutscenes!” They might say.
In the barest sense of the definition, this is absolutely correct. But again, take a slightly harder look and you'll find many different changes to the landscape in X, which essentially either masks the fact that your being lead to a specific area, or has tons more 'expansion' to it.
In Final Fantasy XIII for example, outside of the Archylte Steppe (which in itself is its own issue but i'll get to that later), every single area in Final Fantasy 13 is a path in which you are essentially walking forward with enemies in your way and virtually no one around but yourself and the straight path to the next destination. Your always facing forward with no real deviation in between.
Compare that to the hub areas of X, many of the temples for example, besaid island, the area outside of Yojimo's cave which have many rooms and areas you can walk into and talk to people, in particular, shops and different areas of civilization, which actually make the world feel more like a place that your staying in and occasionally resting.
It actually makes the game feel more like a journey in a place you can occasionally downtime in instead of a series of rooms that your running one to the next. The Archylte Steppe may be an “open area”, but its still an area in which you are essentially corralled into that you must stay in in order to not see tunnel vision.
Its more or less just a farming zoo, and the developers did nothing to actually mask this fact to the player, as there is nothing inside of it really beyond monsters to fight. Its a huge empty area.
Its simply a worse clone of the Calm Lands, however unlike the Archylte Steppe, there are plenty of other things you can find in the Calm Lands outside of monsters(i'll get to that later).
In terms of general world design as well. In the end game, you essentially have only two choices. Either go back to the Archylte Steppe and fight monsters, or go to Eden(for what purpose I have no idea). And if you choose none you go to the final area.
This is a huge HUGE step back from getting the airship, and having the complete freedom to literally go wherever you want in the world, your fully able to traverse to literally every area you've been in the game, visit any site you feel like, and enjoy your time leveling up your characters and seeing the sights as you please.
In comparison to that, only going back to 2 areas in FF13 is just claustrophobic as all hell, and a huge huge disappointment when you consider what there is actually to do after that which leads us to the final point I have to make here today....
7.ADDITIONAL SUBQUESTS AND SECRET AREAS
I think most of all, what differentiates FFX and FF13 is, among many things, the pure variety of things you can do in FFX that just breaks up the monotony of pure battles and grinding that FF13 makes you go through.
Don't want to fight right now? That's cool, let's play some blitzball and level out our players!
Full level maxxed your characters sphere grid? No worries, there's the secret weapons you can run around and find too!
Tired of the same five summons over and over? That's cool, take a visit into Yojimo's cave and pay him some money, he'll come with you. Go back to the very beginning area via the secret coordinates and get Anima, go to the secret area in the Calm Lands via the Chocobo and get the secret Magus sisters!
You can race chocobos!
Find secret treasures in hidden areas!
Beat secret dungeons and bosses like Omega in the Omega ruins!
Decipher hidden Al Bhed manuscripts!
Max out your overdrives!
Get all the recording spheres!
Go see the farm herder in the Calm Lands and catch every single monster in the world and fight extra secret ones in the arena!
And the list goes on and on and on. Infact, the international version(aka remaster) actually added even more on top of the original game like the Dark Aeons for example.
Compared to that...what does FF13 let you do end game? Fight monsters basically....finish every l'cie quest...which is just fighting a slightly different colored version of another monster...rinse...repeat..ad nauseum.
8.CONCLUSION
For the record, I would never say that anyone who likes any game is dumb or stupid or whatever. But the fact of the matter is, FFX is a completely different experience than FF13 in a majority of ways.
And I don't personally think that treating only the very smallest of similarities as huge mountains of copy paste is really the right thing to do either.
I hope this has helped someone in some way know why there are many who love Final Fantasy X a lot, but go on to consider FF13 a very mediocre production in their personal opinion. The two games in my opinion could not be any further apart in quality.
