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[Tomasoares]

IMO, FFX has better story (but far from great, but honestly, this is for every FF game), better progression (still, linear), better evolution and weapon system (still not really impressive) and more stuff to do at the end-game. FFXIII is worse on all of this, but shines on one specific component that makes it for me better than FFX: The battle system, which is the best one from the series.

No, changing character and weapons in mid battle during FFX is not the same thing as the paradigm + staggering system, it's not even close. If you complain about auto-battle in FFXIII battle system then you don't understand FFXIII battle system. You're supposed to focus on paradigms roles, switching them in real time (if necessary, 5 times in 5 seconds), not just spamming attack, magic or cure button. It's by far the most dynamic and strategic battle system in any mainline FF series, going ahead from simple strategies like = "enemy is water type -> use thunder. enemy is resistant -> use heavy weapon", etc.

Also, blocking the Crystarium system until you defeat the bosses was a good decision, IMO. It means that you need to think and find a proper strategy to win the boss, and not just grind until death so you can do it. That's also the reason I love Chrono Cross

 

[Inuhanyou]

^ To people who like turn based systems, a lot of that really doesn't apply. Its simply streamlining things that did not need to be streamlined in an effort to be more accessible but ends up dumbing down all the mechanics of the game.

As someone said earlier, the role switching was just a weaker version of X-2's system.

 

[Gestault]

If you want a sense of the best the XIII battle system has to offer without a rubbish game pacing and structure hiding it, play XIII-2. Whether one game is similar to another almost doesn't matter when opinions on both vary so wildly.

 

[GhostWriter24]

X was the last truly great FF game. XII explored some interesting new territory but definitely didn't live up to the previous brilliance of the series.

XIII, though? What a fucking abomination, yeesh. Worst characters and story not only of the series, but of any game I've played. An utter mess.

 

[flkraven]

You have put a lot of effort into the OP, but I think the main point people make when comparing the two games is that it takes roughly 20-25 hours of straight walking before you really get to an 'open' area in either game. Very little side stuff to do along the way, no open travel, nothing. Just walk straight, fight, continue walking straight, cut scene, then 20-25 hours in you have some decisions to make.

 

[Puggles]

Has anybody played XIII-2? I hated XIII but decided to give XIII-2 on the PC a try since it was cheap and I'm really enjoying it! Areas feel open, there are towns, and the combat is fun from the very beginning. Characters are still lame though.

 

[jblank83]

I've never seen anyone say FF X and XIII are the same.

 

[DustyVonEric]

Never knew this was a thing.

Same here. This is the first I am hearing this comparison.

 

[itzknickknac]

The problem with FF fans/players is they're generally bias on one game over the other. For example:

The linearity, maybe?

Other than that, FFX is clearly the better game.

FFX
■ Likable characters.
■ Great story.
■ AMAZING battle system.

FFXIII
■ None of the above.(Arguably)

At the end of the day, this discussion will end in whatever is more favorable towards the players taste. There's no "better game" between any of the FF's.

X did a much better job masking the linearity than XIII. At the time, I didn't really feel like I was stuck on a straight line path. I just remember thinking it was shitty there was no world map.

I can agree to this. What XIII (actually, Toriyama) did wrong was the execution and story telling of the story. Bc of that confusing ass way of explaining the story, everyone looked to gameplay which, we all find to be very linear (maps). I too was blown at the lack of world map/overworld. I do like the appeal of the locations though

Who'd win in an arm wrestling contest: Tidus or Lightning?

My vote goes to Lightning. She's could even beat Snow in that match. Tidus is just a whiny little fuckboy. lol

 

[thewhitehawk]

I think Final Fantasy X and XIII share some similarities but they are different games. Aesthetically I think they share sort of similar visual palettes with bright colors and mostly cheerful environments and in terms of how you progress through the story most of the world feels very linear, similar to FFXIII.

I think that's where the similarities end though. Final Fantasy X, despite its weak writing, had a coherent story with a beginning middle and end. XIII doesn't. It's made out of table-scraps of what started off as a much greater vision, but what most players were left with is mostly inconsistent dribble. You need to do homework (read novels and wikis) to understand FFXIII's world and plot.

You have various ways to progress level and taillor your character (depending on what version you're playing). On XIII you don't, and your leveling is blocked until you the next chapters of the story.

I feel very weird right now defending a Final Fantasy game I don't like against a Final Fantasy game I hate, but at the end of it all, X is a much better game than XIII. The only thing I think XIII does better than X is voice acting, and of course it's more technically advanced but I'd much rather play X than XIII.

 

[itzknickknac]

I've never seen anyone say FF X and XIII are the same.

Same here. This is the first I am hearing this comparison.

Chances are, you haven't been in FFX/XIII threads long enough. What the OP is trying to say is every time one game is talked about, it is always compared to the other.

ie:
"XIII is linear. X is the clearly the best game."
"X is just as linear and has a whiny fuckboy as a main protag. Raitoningu is my waifu."

 

[Hibiki Kurosawa]

Sure if you get into the intricacies of the two there are differences that can be seen, but they still follow a very similar template, which is where most of the similarities are drawn.

 

[StylesClash]

Who the hell thought these were similar?

 

[Leafhopper]

Who'd win in an arm wrestling contest: Tidus or Lightning?

Lighting has twig arms (in her official art.) despite the combat training.

 

[TheSeks]

My main comparisons between the two is that they're both quite linear, have annoying ass characters, and a mediocre plot.

Pretty much this. The systems can be compared and contrasted with minimal changes. But FF13/-2 is basically a continuation of FFX's systems. Sphere Grid just moves you via grid points whereas the Crystarium lets you choose which job to fill that "sphere" on the grid at the moment.

Sure if you get into the intricacies of the two there are differences that can be seen, but they still follow a very similar template, which is where most of the similarities are drawn.

.

 

[Shion]

Well, they aren't exactly the same, but they do share similar design philosophies and you can draw many parallels between the two games in several key areas.

FF X has an amazing background, wolrd building and some genuily good characters.

FF XIII has none of these. None.

Meh, I think that the characters in FFX range from unlikable to downright obnoxious.

FFXIII is quite similar in that regard (though, it somehow managed to reach even lower lows than X). Snow, Vanille and Hope were garbage, but I'll take Lightning over an annoying kid like Tidus any day. Sazh was better than the entire cast of FFX and Fang was kinda like a female version of Auron (the only good character in X imho).

 

[DustyVonEric]

Chances are, you haven't been in FFX/XIII threads long enough. What the OP is trying to say is every time one game is talked about, it is always compared to the other.

ie:
"XIII is linear. X is the clearly the best game."
"X is just as linear and has a whiny fuckboy as a main protag. Raitoningu is my waifu."

Ah, ok. Guess that sums it up.

 

[Darrcyphfeid]

XIII doesnt work like that, you are constantly swapping between 6 different classes and you have to find your own combinations that you feel are useful to this battle.

Apologies if someone else commented on this and pointed out what I'm about to, however: This isn't true, unless we're talking end- and post-game.

For the vast majority of the main game the player does not have the ability to change party members nor party leader, characters only have access to 2~3 job classes, and those classes have very few skills/spells available. The end result is that prior to Chapter 10 (I believe), the game plays in a very specific way and there's virtually zero effort or thought required beyond "I need to increase stagger meter" and "okay it's been staggered, time to assault." This changes drastically once you reach Gran Pulse -- for better and worse -- and is responsible in no small part for the tremendous difficulty spike that caused/causes many people to quit.

For many players, then, FF13's battle system really was just some combination of Commander, Ravager and Medic, based on their level of understanding of the staggering system.

Edit: To compare this with FFX, the game has many different classes of monsters that are much easier to kill with specific party members. Auron against monsters with thick hides, Wakka for flying monsters with extreme evasion, or Tidus for land-based monsters with high evasion, for example. The battles within FFX weren't any harder, but simply smacking things indiscriminately would yield unfavorable outcomes -- not entirely dislike trying to play FF13 without making use of staggers, I suppose (and on that note, several bosses inflict Doom on players after 20 minutes so that's not a valid strategy at all).

XIII has the best combat in the series

This arguably becomes the case somewhere between 40 and 60 hours in, either right before the final boss is killed or at some point after. Once the player has unlocked and leveled their 3 "sub" (read: inferior, as briefly touched upon in the OP) jobs for their chosen party, which cost an exorbitant amount of CP, the battle system really opens up and becomes very enjoyable via certain high-end Cie'th Stones or within the Faultwarrens arena/gauntlet fights. With formations like Tortoise (Sentinel x3) available battles take on an entirely different approach, provided the thing you're fighting doesn't just fall over dead. Which, sadly, was usually the case even with Cie'th Missions; I personally felt that there wasn't anything present in the game that would allow a player to experience the fully unlocked battle system, which was further marred by the fairly irritating AI quirks such as:

- Commanders won't attack the same enemy unless the there's only a single enemy
- Sentinels won't move and have no situational awareness, frequently placing Medics in danger of the powerful (AoE) attacks they're meant to minimize
- Synergists have questionable, predetermined buff rotation orders
- Ravagers don't pay attention to a character's attack stat and will queue up both magical and physical attacks (animation times also vary greatly, which is decidedly bad)
- Medic's AI is (naturally) reactive and leads to problems in certain fights where over-healing would be preferable

...Which is to say that FF13 just needed the Gambit system from FF12, but then I think most people will feel that way about any game with AI-controlled allies after experiencing it.



To contrast the above, I felt FFX had very good pacing in terms of both Sphere Grid expansion options and the story itself. FF12 and FF13 left me wanting in regards to both, with FF13 ultimately becoming my least favorite in the series and something I would never try to replay. There are just too many hoops to jump through to get to the little bit of good game contained within. That 3-hour long corridor run in the chapter with just Lightning and Hope can bite me, too.

 

[ZombiePlatypus]

Really good read OP.

To me, XIII always felt like it was at some point striving to be a bigger, badder, nex-gen FFX, but somewhere along the line, it royally screwed that up in every aspect.

The linearity in particular, while it feels like a competent design choice that naturally complements the way the game's set up in X, comes across like a huge negative in XIII.

 

[Ralemont]

Has anybody played XIII-2? I hated XIII but decided to give XIII-2 on the PC a try since it was cheap and I'm really enjoying it! Areas feel open, there are towns, and the combat is fun from the very beginning. Characters are still lame though.

XIII-2 fixes everything I didn't like about XIII except for a nonsensical main plot. Still, Serah and Noel are surprisingly two of the most pleasant characters in the whole series. Mog sucks, though.

 

[King Gilga]

They both have shitty characters, a shitty story, atrocious dialogue, enjoyable battle systems and are pretty linear.

Like they have their differences but I can't see why anyone can't see why they're similar.

 

[Lothar]

They both have shitty characters, a shitty story, atrocious dialogue, enjoyable battle systems and are pretty linear.

Like they have their differences but I can't see why anyone can't see why they're similar.

The only thing right in this post is that they're pretty linear. And every Final Fantasy is pretty linear. I mean FFX has a great story with a great cast but the random battles are really repetitive and not that enjoyable with having to fight similar groups of enemies over and over and constantly having to switch out party members just for the sake of getting experience. On the other hand, FF13 is the opposite: weak story and characters, but the gameplay is nice and feels more strategic than FFX.

 

[badcrumble]

They're similar games to me with just one difference: FFXIII does everything better. It's a more balanced and polished game than X ever was. Well except for the upgrade system of the weapons that was probably thrown in during the last stretch of development. As for all the rest is more focused than X without boring or stretched sections to play. It's fun and engaging from start to end.Also the battle system is actually deep and well thought and not just a copy and paste of paper, rock & scissor.

Worse. It's a game of ravager ravager commando.

 

[HK-47]

If we are looking for FFs with terrible stories and great battle systems that redeem them, I'd much rather play FFX-2. Better system, a few great minigames, nonlinear mission choice, not serious (most of the time).

 

[badcrumble]

If we are looking for FFs with terrible stories and great battle systems that redeem them, I'd much rather play FFX-2. Better system, a few great minigames, nonlinear mission choice, not serious (most of the time).

+1.

FFx-2 and FFXII are probably, in terms of basic structure, the most fun FFs for a really long time. FFXIII-2 would be up there if they had a third human party member instead of the stupid/awful monster-catching shit.

Otherwise good games that do monster-catching/training poorly (like FFXIII-2 and Ni no Kuni) just break my heart.

 

[Robert at Zeboyd Games]

A big difference between the two games is that location actually matters to the events of FFX's story. In FFXIII, it doesn't. FFX felt like they created a world and then made a story to show off that world. With FFXIII, it felt like they created a bunch of art assets and then just had you go through them all.

 

[Inuhanyou]

A big difference between the two games is that location actually matters to the events of FFX's story. In FFXIII, it doesn't. FFX felt like they created a world and then made a story to show off that world. With FFXIII, it felt like they created a bunch of art assets and then just had you go through them all.

I agree. Its especially noticeable with the actual progression of events. In X for example your going along the path to the different temples, it feels like your on an actual journey going from place to place. With 13, each cut-scene essentially takes you somewhere completely different with no real consistency. Its separated by a movie and a loading screen.