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[Rodolink]

I despised most of the game, and its at the bottom of my FF games. All characters apart from Lighning didnt appeal to me at all, with boring plot and dialogue. Some enemy designs and their animations where ridiculous (I remember those bird like creatures dancing like stupids) and there was one boss that crushed me badly

that huge ship with a face, cant rememer the name

Only thing I liked was Lightning and the summons which were amazing. And was glad when I finsihed the thing. I am still looking for the next FF that feels like FFVII or FFVI.. Havent finished FFXV though but goign to do it soon.

 

[PumpkinPie]

I wouldn't have minded it if the battle system wasn't utter garbage. Actually that's a lie, I just remembered "moms are tough". Yeah, I hate it.

 

[mcz117chief]

Loved it from start to finish. I can't think of any single thing I didn't like about it.

 

[Azelover]

I love 12, 13 and 15, but I think 10 was the last real "complete package" Final Fantasy.

Yes. They're definitely good games, but considering the standards of the series, they could have been better. Even so, 13 and 15 were quite enjoyable. 12 is the only one I have a real problem with..

 

[lifa-cobex]

Played on release and took an instant dislike.

I tried it again towards the start of the year with a more open mind. (open mind is in, I knew what to expect and wanted to see why some people like it).

I can kinda see why people enjoy it......kinda?
I think Square gave the story a great deal of thought and really wanted to make a push of it.
But a game will generally boil down to basic elements to make it memorable or not.

It feels very messy. Like they had a solid platform of ideas but no real idea how to execute it.
Having a book to explain the world around you that is probably required to read is not a good idea for a start.
Game play was very flat. It just didn't challenge me at all.

When people say that ffX was linear too in comparison. They often miss out on that fact that you receive a great deal of distractions along the liner roads of FFX.
The world and story are explained in great detail. In fact they end up telling a story in of themselves about the very area you're in. Mini games and sub plots also develop along the roads too.
It gives the game colour and makes it feel lived in.

FF13 has non of that. Just a constant run to get to the end of the road. It feels dead.

Open worlds are free to explore for yourself if you want to learn more or you just rush through the game.
FFX made a character who knew nothing of the liner world. You learned along with him.
FF13 made a character who was already familiar with the world. You had to read a ton of info to catch up to her.
That's not good story telling. Something that Square is most notable for.

 

[greyshark]

FF XIII has one of the best battle systems in the series - I thoroughly enjoyed it in my multiple playthroughs of the game.

 

[kingbean]

Slightly more linear than FFX maybe, stupid story and boring cast but the gameplay and presentation was good enough for me to beat it twice.

Solid game, shit story though.

 

[mrpeabody]

A disaster on every level. A tech demo masquerading as a game. The worst, most repellent, least comprehensible characters in a major release, ever. The game where Square finally purged themselves of any memory of what players might enjoy about videogames, and replaced it with shiny pixels and a story they found in a dumpster.

 

[Ixion]

I feel like everyone forgot that FFX was incredibly linear too; even more so than XIII.
Saying XIII was bad because it was linear is nonsense.

You're both right and wrong. FFXIII isn't bad because it's linear. It's bad because it's one-dimensional. FFX was linear, but far more varied along the way. Explorable towns, temple puzzles, a full sport mini-game, a lot of NPCs to talk to along the "dungeon" paths, etc. FFXIII literally just had battles for 98% of the game. Plus, FFX's endgame is far more open than FFXIII's. In FFX you can explore the entire world later in the game whereas FFXIII just gives you one big field of battles. They're very different games.

Plus I'll add that FFX's storytelling was far better, and seeing as the story is a main element in both games, that's important. FFXIII's dialogue consisted mostly of emotional platitudes, while FFX was more lore and world based.

 

[Ten_Fold]

I wanna go back an replay the game, at first I didn’t like the game at first back when it released but I wanna say once I got to about halfway I started to really enjoy the game, I like the game a lot more than FFX and I would say I like I like it as much as FF15 (which I think is pretty solid not the best though). I really need to replay the game might check it out on ps now.

 

[zenspider]

Glad to see the polls not being overwhelmingly negative so far.

I will never understand the hate for XIII in relation to the love for X. They're structurally identical, and I think XIII has less fluff and less ambitions to seem like something it's not.

Ironically, I really enjoyed XIII until it "opened up". Capping levels at this point made it feel like a useless chore and I dropped off.

 

[Dada55000]

Horrid. Awful. Garbage. Narrative is a disjointed sloppy mess. Characters are trash, unreletable with laughable dialogue. They don't have a shred humanity, except Zazh. The comic relief black guy with the chicken in his afro. Gameplay is a shiny distraction with little real input, it exists solely to look good to the outsider and bedazzle the drooling idiots playing the game who won't notice the lack of their involvement. Only aspect of the combat with something to it is the paradigm system, which is still pretty shallow. It gets introduced so slowly though for no reason, but atleast it's there. Other than that, "gameplay" is you sitting on your ass for 10 seconds, queing up a few spells or attacks, pressing the go button and salivating on your shirt while the game plays itself. Rinse, repeat. Unengaging waste of time.

Funnily enough, don't have a problem with the linearity. The combat, story and characters are too terrible for me to care about railroadedness. Which is why I say that the whole "the game opens up after 20 hrs and becomes good" phrase is a gigantic lie. The game gets a static, soulles, open map and shit tier, lazy hunting quests. That's it. Everything else is still exactly as shit. Oh, but all the roles are unlocked for everyone! Yay, I can grind out Hope to be a shitty commando! Woohoo.

One of my most hated games of all time. I've never had contempt for a game like I did FF13. And the hatred crept up on me, one day I'm playing the game, putting hours in, not feeling anything particular. Next day, load my save, and soon as I hear the characters talk and then enter a fight, it just clicked, the game is a gigantic piece of shit. But I've also never had a genuine happyness at completing a game like I did 13. Mainly because Vanille and Fang got the fucking shaft. Oh yeah, they're doing the whole magic voice thing, we're now transcendent crystal beings or whatever. Shut the fuck up, you're dead you cunts. For the duration of FFXIII I developed a disdain for 'stralian accents. I've never had a problem with Aussie accents before or since then. Was positively euphoric that I could pretend they died. My kind of happy ending.

 

[TheUsual]

I had a week vacation in the winter a few years back and decided to give this a go as I had nothing else to do. Decided to power through it and beat it.
Don't remember much of the story but did enjoy my time overall with it. The battle system took way too long to fully open up but when it did, I had a complete blast with it. I would only recommend if you have too much free time on your hand and can play in long sessions. Too bad it took way too long to open up for the gameplay.

 

[Pejo]

Bad game on its own with a shit auto-play battle system, amplified by being a main entry in the FF series and having 2 spinoffs that almost nobody wanted. It also ate an entire gen of dev time for the FF series.

I will never not hate this game.

 

[Winter's End]

It's pretty shit but luckily SE came up with XV so the title of the worst game in the series now goes to it.

 

[#Phonepunk#]

voted "it's a good game"

admittedly it has issues. the story is entirely incomprehensible, i couldn't tell you a single thing that happened, despite spending dozens of hours with the game. also the single hallway thing is kind of lame, though tbh it doesn't really matter all that much, since the environments are all pretty wonderful. most game worlds that aren't open world are really very tiny so i'll let it slide.

the combat really drew me in. it was so satisfying to build up that bar and then wait for the right time to juggle enemies. really for most of these RPGs you are in combat, so as long as that's good, then most of the work is done. the cutscenes, while i had no idea what was going on, still looked incredible and stylish. FF series prides itself on polish and presentation and this entry was certainly in that tradition.

 

[MP!]

I've never had anything good to say about FFXIII...

There should be an option that says ... "It's Trash but has pretty good music" but just like the game even the music takes too long to get to the good parts.
I gave FFXIII 3 tries... I made it to about 30 hours and still didn't have a full team... the battle system was frustating constantly forcing you to play certain ways rather than allowing you to make your own decisions on how to fight. The grading system was frustrating as I never got 5 stars because I could never stagger the enemy quickly enough so I missed out on half of what the system has to offer by never having a full whatever gauge. I felt like I was constantly stuck on a treadmill when It came to getting good at the battle system. so I left and came back to it 3 separate times. After not being able to upgrade your weapons for the entire time and never having more than 2 people in your party, and running past enemies and chests to the next cutscene I finally said... "what am I doing?" and dropped it for good...

or Did I?

I thought I had but Over the break I beat FFXV and World of FF and I am making huge strides on Octopath Traveller... I am so stoked for FFVII IX and XII on switch... and I'm deep into a FF mood... lighning showed up in WoFF and the battle music played and I thought... hey ... maybe I'll give it a 4th try... maybe I'll read up on the battle system and try and actually figure it out. And maybe not fight against it. BUT THAT's it if It doesn't hit me then It will never get me. Believe me I've tried to like this game. haha.

 

[Montblanc]

I... liked the art style, character design and some of the music. The battle system and overall plot are interesting, in theory at least.

I hated the hallways, cringeworthy dialogue, lack of towns and side quests, Hope and Snow (ugh) and storytelling in general. Crystarium was meh, too many tutorials, summons were terrible... the list goes on. It was basically X 2.0 which I disliked just as much.

It's down there at the bottom with X and XV as one my least favorite mainline games. I'd still replay it over those, but not anytime soon.

 

[Shy Fingers]

I got the platinum, needless to say I really enjoyed it. XIII-2 went off the rails story wise, but improved the combat.

 

[Koala Driving a Ferrari]

Loved it from start to finish. I can't think of any single thing I didn't like about it.

Agreed. I originally shelved the game after only putting an hour into it. But after giving it a shot again on my X (once it was made backwards compatible), everything "clicked" and I ended up playing it through to completion. What a game.

 

[Paracelsus]

Terrible. It finished what FFX started, going from a corridor with a few branches (and calm lands at the end) and amazing atb to a single corridor (and not-calm lands at the end) with autoplay, so that nothing could get in between the player and the characters in their story. Clearly inspired by western design. Problem was: characters were nothing memorable, story was mediocre and the thing fell on its arse. Judging from FFXV, going open world would have not saved them anyway.

 

[nightfly]

There have been three new games that I bought at full price and traded away less than 24 hours later because I thought they were utter shit:

— Brütal Legend
— Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
— Final Fantasy XIII

I kept waiting for Final Fantasy to go back to its roots while making advancements that newer tech allowed Square to make... but after Final Fantasy X, it’s been a nosedive trajectory from awesome to crap.

I skipped XI because it’s an MMO and I don’t play those. XII has that MMO style of combat that feels awkward and unenjoyable, while featuring characters and settings that quickly became uninteresting. Then XIII came out, and that was that. Being a pretty game only masks so much. Mind-numblingly linear, no towns, dull characters, and being forced to endure the game for 25 hours before it “gets good” is just asinine. I made up my mind after two hours that this was an awful waste of $60 and traded it in toward Dante’s Inferno instead.

Then XV drove the final nail into the FF coffin for me. The series is dead. I won’t be fooled anymore. I still revisit the games that I give a shit about (IV, VI, VII, IX, X), but don’t bother with the rest of the tripe.

How can you not like Brutal Legend? The gameplay wasn't the greatest but the atmosphere, music etc. were top-notch!

 

[DonF]

I lacked many things that, to me, make a final fantasy. I liked the settings but the gameplay was too linear. It lacked hub worlds, challenge, quests towns, pacing, among other things. I ended up dropping it, never finished, but got to disc 3 on x360.

 

[Nymphae]

The systems are well designed and the graphics are great, but it's one of the few in the series I didn't care to finish. Characters and the plot didn't really do much for me.

3. The data-log removed the need for overly long detailed cutscenes, instead making the cutscenes a bit more vague and seemingly filled with holes without reading them, BUT giving us high-octane action scenes and establishing shots of the world of Cocoon and Grand Pulse. From Nautilus on Cocoon, or Byston Well down in Grand Pulses' Australian themed design, the cutscenes are good at establishing SETTING. The Data-log provides a way for the deeper details to be read and absorbed at the players own pace instead of thrown at you like a Tiger.

yeah because that's what I want to do in my epic RPGs, not watch kick ass cutscenes or have lore revealed through dialog in scenes or actions I'm taking part in...no, just dump an encyclopedia in the menu and I'll read all this shit off my TV screen when I have some time. Great world building.

 

[NahaNago]

It was a decent jrpg but a terrible final fantasy game. A bit too linear but it was alright again as long as I don't think of it as a main line final fantasy game.

 

[jshackles]

I never really understood what all the fuss was about - the game had great visuals, a pretty solid battle system (especially later on), and an amazing soundtrack like I've come to expect from the series. The characters were quirky sure, but interesting nonetheless.

I liked it.

 

[Aren117]

I sincerely loved the battle system on XIII and XIII-2. Took some time to start exploiting it with things like changing from RAV to COM during Army of One, or building more buffs into the characters instead of raw stats (things like ATB+something On Hit instead of weapons with better strenght or magic).

It was fun, and definitely not just Auto-Battle as some people like to say. The multiple endings on XIII-2 were fun too and some were even challenging to do. Those clockwork puzzles on Oerba were boring AF tho.

Anyway

Got the platinum on PS3 for FFXIII and XIII-2 (was doing LR too, but lost the save when the PS3 died).
Was going for the 1000G on 360 just these days (when it got BC) but man, the game is rough on the base Xbox One.
Was planning on playing the trilogy again on PC in 4K, even 60fps on LR (surprisingly good port).


And I'm not proud of it.

 

[120v]

game is a poster child for "what went wrong" with FF. aimed at 15 year olds, low quality writing (story board and dialogue), mostly out of touch with where the rest of the industry was

i mean it's still a decent game, by current jrpg standards i'd place it at 8/10 if you're down with that kind of experience. but play FF7 or 6 and then XIII, it's just embarrassing

 

[Durask]

Tried to get into it several times, finally gave up about 8 hours in.
Looked great but the story and the characters just did not interest me at all.

Just to put this into perspective - loved X for the story and XII for the gameplay, so I am not some kind of FF6 SNES purist. After X and XII it did not click with me, at all.

 

[wipeout364]

I can’t answer the poll, none of them feel right. To me FFXIII had a really cool and novel battle system that really opened up but it took a long time to, but was one of my favorite final fantasy systems.

I liked the art style a lot. I thought most of the characters, environments and enemies looked too notch some of the best stuff out of square imo.

The problem: For me an important part of an RPG is story and/characters. I absolutely hated the characters, personalities and voice acting it was terrible, it is still a painful memory. The story was absolute garbage giving you absolutely no reason to carry on because it was meaningless and not presented in any kind of coherent way.

For me the battle system and the art couldn’t carry that long a game without compelling characters or story.

 

[Zog]

This game came out almost 9 years ago and people are still arguing about it.

 

[SaviourMK2]

I really liked 13, I liked the graphics,and the music. It didn't bore me, confused me, but didn't bore me.

 

[shooter_mcgavin]

game is a poster child for "what went wrong" with FF. aimed at 15 year olds, low quality writing (story board and dialogue), mostly out of touch with where the rest of the industry was

Basically This!
What is funny is that, while not perfect, Final Fantasy XII was the right direction the franchise needed to make. The open world setting, the more mature (though still silly) plot, and less Anime approach was a handful of steps forward the franchise needed to take. Unfortunately, XIII undid that by taking a dozen steps backward.

Final Fantasy XIII was a bad game. It was a very polished bad game, but still a bad game.
For Final Fantasy standards this was bad ( and I've been playing the franchise since it the first one in 1990). With the exception of FFII (jp) this game was significantly worse than any of the previous games. In fact the way the game played this was probably a closer predecessor to Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest.

For a JRPG this was not good at all. This game came out around 2010 and there were much better JRPG's during that period (Lost Odyssey, Persona 3 and 4, Valkyria Chronicles)

For an RPG, besides JRPS's we also had Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Elder Scrolls.

So really in whichever context you look at it FFXIII was not a good game. It never was and I still haven't changed my mind.

 

[Halo0629]

Hated the combat, feels more like playing rock, paper, scissors with an enemy rather than actually strategizing to beat him. XIII was dumbed down to try to win gamers who never really cared about the series. You know how dumb down the combat is when I was able to beat a boss without even looking at the tv and was just tapping x the whole time while looking for something at the fridge.

 

[wzy]

Do you know what all the good discs of all the good Final Fantasy games have in common? Linearity. It's a quality that comes with dramatic urgency and tight pacing. FFXIII sucks because its combat is atrociously boring and it's story is confined to text-entries in a journal no one will bother to read. Linearity doesn't have anything to do with it. It's still a much better game than FFXV, a game so committed to non-linearity that it consists of 300 sidequests and one bad movie.

 

[ShirAhava]

I really really really hated 12 (I could write a book on why that game is an abortion and the worst FF game ever but I wont go into it here) so I would have taken anything at that point

13 was a fun ride nothing mindblowing but again 12 was so garbage 13 felt like a 10/10 AAA game but it was just a good Middle tier FF game

 

[nowhat]

"Help I can't breathe!!!"

...but you wouldn't hear it as I'd be in a vacuum.

 

[Fuz]

I really really really hated 12 (I could write a book on why that game is an abortion and the worst FF game ever but I wont go into it here)

Please do, I didn't like it either and I feel alone.

 

[Sakura]

I don't think it is terrible, but it's defintely one of the lesser entries in the Final Fantasy series. I feel like the series peaked at IX and then went down-hill from there, with each entry getting worse.
The visuals were great. I liked the gameplay. People complain about the linearity but most FF games are super linear, I don't see much difference in an 'open world', where you are required to go from area to area in specific order to progress the story and the linearity in FFXIII, the only difference is presentation. Other FFs give you the illusion that you are exploring, where as XIII does away with that. XIII's problem lies in its story and characters. If the game was engaging and the story immersed you, you wouldn't care that you were going from point A to B on a linear path.

 

[cometbus]

I bought it cheap after all the bad reviews, had played nothing but souls the entire ps3 gen. Actually bought my ps3 after playing demon souls at a friends.
Craved a Final Fantasy though.
Music was amazing. Beastiary and Combat were fantastic. Graphics and scenery beautiful.
I was confused with the story until I finished it, cast wasnt bad but wasnt great. Game world is a hallway with a playground at the end.
I thought it was a fun game, left me with good memories. I enjoyed the sequel more tbh gameplay, they have fun combat.
Game is still riddled with errors, mostly plot and lack of exploration (both imo are better in the second game)

 

[Conan-san]

Dyson are trying to disect FF13 to understand just how it is able to suck as hard and for as long as it does.

 

[Afro Republican]

I feel like that if say, 60% of the plot wasn't people splitting up and going in mindless directions with no story significant, the linear nature and the very modest stage "designs" wouldn't seem as bad. but I mean there's like 40 hours of nothing and even the GAME tells you in a datalog people were WANDERING AIMLESSLY.

Also the original main plot, which was based on the fact Fal:Cie can't talk and send cryptic visions of what you need to do or you turn into an enemy from Doom, was basically pointless as the Fal:Cie can talk and that whole mysterious angle of Human/Falcie relationships was thrown out the window for a plot of having to KILL the bad guy who tells you he WANTS you to kill him but also won't LET you kill him and makes to hard to do so. Which is funny because the whole starting plot was about figuring out what the focus was because of the supposed lack of communication, but nope.

And then you go to pulse and wander around aimlessly. Until the bad guy shows up and takes you BACK TO WHERE YOU ALREADY ARE, because he NEEDED YOU THERE to KILL HIM making the whole 30 hours on pulse pointless just like the 30 hour waste of time with group splitting up to chicken casino and the recycle plant.

I mean I'd say 75% of the game is nothing and has people wandering with no character development, nothing really going on, nothing happens, things that do happen have no explanations, and then once you're done wasting time you get your group sent to a new destination where plot happens for like 15 minutes, and you go and fight something plot relevant, only to end up wandering aimlessly again.

Rinse repeat.

I mean I challenge someone to say that 75% of this game is not wandering in a random direction with no goal. Go on where are you, I know you're there.

 

[Dontero]

Here is my opinion:

1. Game should start from actual start not from train. Retrospection completely messes with story and pacing and by the time you get final retrospection which explains why you even should care about story you are already bored to death by those cocoon linear paths.
2. Cocoon part of game should not be 60 hours linear garbage. It should be max 5-10 hour part where party gathers and then they go to Pulse which should be 90% of game. Final could be exactly the same. Party goes back to Cocoon.
3. Game should absolutely not feature minimap. Or give it only when you get to pulse. IT completely shows how fucking linear everything was.
4. Autoattack was mistake. Players should have full control of whole party.
5. Square should care about game instead of merchandise for game. Which means normal design for characters instead of them looking like they are k-pop stars.

 

[Enygger_Tzu]

The game was GOOD on its own, not the best but good, but what soured everyone was two unnecessary sequels.

 

[odhin]

It was OK. Beat it like 2 times.
Not as bad as some people make it out to be imo, but a disappointment nevertheless. Still better than FFXV...

 

[Starlight Lotice]

I did enjoy the game but the story was so confusing.

The Post-Game is essentially Monster Hunter with Final Fantasy flavour anf that was where I got the most enjoyment out of it, but the hardest enemy in the game is unbeatable if you pun out of Elixers (only 3 in the entire game!!).

If they kept the post game as either a separate game or expanded it to make it a Hunter/Gatherer FF game with a simple but great plot then I would have said it was a great Monster Hunter Clone with RPG elements but it's an okay Final Fantasy at best with those stupid linear paths.

 

[Afro Republican]

The Post-Game is essentially Monster Hunter with Final Fantasy flavour anf that was where I got the most enjoyment out of it, but the hardest enemy in the game is unbeatable if you pun out of Elixers (only 3 in the entire game!!).

What boss is unbeatable? Also I think there are 4.

 

[Starlight Lotice]

What boss is unbeatable? Also I think there are 4.

The Adamantortoise (14 million HP).

You essentially need an Elixir to survive it's strongest attack once in order to take it down.

You also need to exploit the Commando Death Spell Trick to do 999,999 Damage at Max Level.

Without the elixir it isn't possible to beat it as the attack is followed by another without a means to heal and you have no time to use your Healing Spells which is why the Elixir is needed in the game.

There is a guide online I followed which recommends this method to beat the hardest enemy in the entire game.

The other 3 are beatable without the Elixir as they have less HP and less resisitances.

The only other enemy that is very difficult and is based on Luck mostly is Gigancatctuar as you need a random instant stagger to beat it within 30 seconds as 10,000 Needles can two hit KO you.

 

[Afro Republican]

The Adamantortoise (14 million HP).

You essentially need an Elixir to survive it's strongest attack once in order to take it down.

You also need to exploit the Commando Death Spell Trick to do 999,999 Damage at Max Level.

Without the elixir it isn't possible to beat it as the attack is followed by another without a means to heal and you have no time to use your Healing Spells which is why the Elixir is needed in the game.

There is a guide online I followed which recommends this method to beat the hardest enemy in the entire game.

The other 3 are beatable without the Elixir as they have less HP and less resisitances.

The only other enemy that is very difficult and is based on Luck mostly is Gigancatctuar as you need a random instant stagger to beat it within 30 seconds as 10,000 Needles can two hit KO you.

You can beat it without an Elixir, the only time it may be impossible without an elixir is if you want to get a 5-star rating.

 

[Starlight Lotice]

You can beat it without an Elixir, the only time it may be impossible without an elixir is if you want to get a 5-star rating.

I don't think you need a 5 Star Rating on the hardest one as it's not a mark (one of the smaller ones are), but you get a Trophy if you beat it! The only reason I attempted it and it took a lot of fast thinking to achieve it.

Speaking of which, I need one last trophy in that game that requires owning every item in the game and I think I need Snow's Ultimate Weapon to get it. I just never got around to doing it! XD