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Why is Final Fantasy X considered much better than Final Fantasy XIII?

Back in the day I hated FFX's linearity. I thought it did a poor job of masking it compared to previous games because of the dumping of the world map and because the move to full 3D graphics made the environments look more obviously linear. That said though it's linearity is still handled way better then XIII as at least it has towns and access to an airship.

I much prefer the battle system in FFX too.
 
I don't really look back fondly on FFX--it was linear, the plot never really grabbed me, and I didn't like the rock/paper/scissors combat. But I do rate it higher than FFXIII because I felt like XIII was worse in about every way. Both games were linear, but XIII didn't even try to make it feel like you weren't just walking through hallways with barely any divergence left or right. How many times were you essentially just walking on a raised platform over or through a themed zone? Too many times.

The focus more on paradigms and less on individually controlling characters wasn't my cup of tea. The plot felt like it relied really heavily on you reading the codex to have any idea of half of what they were saying. And the characters felt very one-dimensional, Vannile and Lightning getting hit with this the worst.
 
It would be quicker to list the things that XIII did as well as or better than X and that would just be graphics

I'm replaying VII atm and honestly the world map isn't something I miss
 
I beat Final Fantasy XIII once when it came out and I can honestly don't remember much from it, such a forgetable and bland game.

Final Fantasy X, while a downgrade(in some ways) to the PS1 games it followed. I still enjoy, and replay it pretty often.
 
Does FFXIII have a cool guy like this? Didn't think so.

Dz0c.jpg
 
Personally, I liked XIII for the challenge, incredible OST, unique battle system, and the cast. I understood X's plot just fine, I just didn't really care for it.
 
jrush64 said:
Let's see... Better characters, Better story, equal music (except to Zarnakand is better than almost every Final Fantasy track), Better battle system, better overall gameplay, better and more immersive world.
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I'd also add the following: Better pacing, better ending (I know you said better story but I feel like this needs to be singled out because it's a pretty important detail), and better art style.

Obviously this is all subjective, but you asked for opinions and, well, there you have it.
 
For me it came down to the battle system only, and maybe to some extent the characters. Snow and the younger girl were very irritating. And the dude with a bird in his afro, mental.
 
Freeman76 said:
Outside of GAF, it probably isnt. GAF has an unrealistic hatred for some games, and FF13 is one of those.
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XIII is universally disliked by FF fans. I have a friend that played it through during a weekend after getting his wisdom teeth taken out, and he said even a steady dose of potent painkillers couldn't make him enjoy that game.
 
I like both games but Final Fantasy XIII beats Final Fantasy X when it comes to graphics, soundtrack, and battle system (especially the battle system, FFX's battle system is basic as hell in comparison).

FF X wins by a landslide when it comes to the story, exploration, characterization, and the Sphere Grid was a lot more interesting than the Crystarium.

They both have their pros and cons and FFX is not the landslide winner here.
 
For me FFXIII's battle system is the goal to archieve as a turn based saga of games. Multi actions per turn, action cancels for better timings, job change in spot, combos, defense breaks, the amazingly good use of buffs and debuff, special habilities that can be used with that "limit" bar, summons...XIII-2 did the base even better allowing us to change the leader during battles (is there a mod for XIII PC to do that? I would buy it RIGHT NOW).

Why was it so hated? Because people never disabled the auto-combat option as I did just at the start and the "is just press X to win" meme hurt the game so bad.

Best combat system of the whole saga followed by X-2 (yes, hate me, you know It's true (.
 
FLAguy954 said:
I like both games but Final Fantasy XIII beats Final Fantasy X when it comes to graphics, soundtrack, and battle system (especially the battle system, FFX's battle system is basic as hell in comparison).

FF X wins by a landslide when it comes to the story, exploration, characterization, and the Sphere Grid was a lot more interesting than the Crystarium.

They both have their pros and cons and FFX is not the landslide winner here.
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FFXIII is just auto pretty much everything. You don't even do anything battle wise for 95% of that game and you only control one character. Oh and if said character dies it's game over.
 
bigbaldwolf86 said:
FFXIII is just auto pretty much everything. You don't even do anything battle wise for 95% of that game and you only control one character. Oh and if said character dies it's game over.
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You'll never finish it if you play it that way. The Barthandelus fight had me on my toes the whole time.
 
I love X and dislike XIII. X has far better world building, more to do and the sphere grid adds much more than the crystarium. Esp. Expert grid.

XIII is just boring. The first 20 hours are essentially useless, can't see myself play that ever again.
 
I think, in response to the OP's question, sure, if we objectively compare them today, we could actually pick out similar points of critique for both games.

But if we look at it from their respective eras as well, FFX was phenomenal at release; a majority of game featured VA (rare for the time), impressive 3D environments, insane production values, breaking away from the ATB system with fairly fun results, and a generally well-regarded narrative.

I personally think FFXIII was in some ways a natural step in the direction of FFX's design philosophy, except the narrative was never quite as well-regarded, linearity was somehow more enforced to serve said narrative, production values were no longer represented by the insane gap in quality of past FFs, and in general the perceived loss of engagement in combat with the auto-battle option.

Today, both games has lost some of its luster since release; so in general, because of the narrative and better perception of FFX, and the international version having a ton of side-content, FFX is usually regarded as the better game.

Also, since we're on this topic, I honestly believe nothing in FFXIII has a number on "To Zanarkand".
 
FFX had unique characters, some you loved, some you hated.

FFXIII had bland as hell characters who all looked similar and were barely memorable outside of Lightning & Fang.

Even the costume designs, every party member in FFX had their own identity that showed through in what they wore. The outfits were bright and out there in their design.

For me it just all came down to characters and I'd take Wakka's ridiculous accent over anyone in XIII.
 
Pretty much everything has already been said.

I'll just say that FFXIII's 20 hours long tutorial doesn't do it any favors. You are stuck with only 2 characters for way too long.

Also, Lightning is just unlikable. The story's focus is on her (even moreso in the sequels), while she does everything to make herself unsufferable. And she was choosen as the game's "main" protagonist anyway. She is the perfect example of how not to write a main character: she is bitter, annoying, self-centered, aloof, violent (physically at least), snarky (but not in a fun way), she doesn't think things through (she basically throws a tantrum and just moves forward because she is vengeful and doesn't want to stop and think about all that happened ~ not until Palom-Porom anyway), she treats others (including her own family) like shit, and so on.
Were it not for the fact that, gameplay-wise, she is a powerhouse, no one would have kept her in their party.

Finally: the villains are stupid, the story is non-sensical, and they had to pull a Deus Ex Machina (litteraly) to make it work through a Retcon. That's some really bad writting there.
 
The characters. The story.

Spoilers :
In FF XIII, the "Ennemies of Cocoon" always state that "We choose our own destiny, we choose to be free of the fal'Cie !" when in fact, everything they accomplish in the whole game is exactly what the bad guy wanted them to do. The whole "choose our own destiny" line is pure garbage.
 
I have a lot of issues with X, and think it fails in many of the same ways.

However, the story is clearer, more easy to follow, and probably just all around better, and the characters are more relatable. Also, X came first, and was kind of a new thing. But when the same formula is made again, except in an even more restricted way, and with a story that is a bit nonsensical and with characters that people don't like as much, then you have a problem.
 
I liked the story and overall world in FFX better. I also enjoyed the battle system a lot more, the one in XIII isn't bad but for like the first 20 hours it's extremely limited and you can just blindly press X and win most if not all battles, later on it opens up and is pretty enjoyable but it should have been like that from the start.

Finally, I think X does a better job of hiding it's linearity with stuff like towns, minigames, puzzles and NPC's. In XIII you just go from one hallway to the other , there is almost no other characters to interact with and you are even buying gear from some flying orb, so while the level design is equally bad in both FFX does a way better job at not making it feel like on giant linear path.


With that said I don't hate XIII. With all its issues I kinda still likes it better than XII, that offline MMO feeling just wasn't for me.
 
Nohar said:
Pretty much everything has already been said.

I'll just say that FFXIII's 20 hours long tutorial doesn't do it any favors. You are stuck with only 2 characters for way too long.

Also, Lightning is just unlikable. The story's focus is on her (even moreso in the sequels), while she does everything to make herself unsufferable. And she was choosen as the game's "main" protagonist anyway. She is the perfect example of how not to write a main character: she is bitter, annoying, self-centered, aloof, violent (physically at least), snarky (but not in a fun way), she doesn't think things through (she basically throws a tantrum and just moves forward because she is vengeful and doesn't want to stop and think about all that happened ~ not until Palom-Porom anyway), she treats others (including her own family) like shit, and so on.
Were it not for the fact that, gameplay-wise, she is a powerhouse, no one would have kept her in their party.
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I liked that about her. It was a nice change of pace. She's imperfect, and she changes along the way. Beats having yet another shonen hero.
 
Better story(or at least it makes sense) and far superior battle/gameplay systems.
Characters-meh kind of crap but jesus they're still a world better than 13s.
 
Because FFX is much better than XIII.

The story is better, the dialogues are better, even the voice acting is better which is just crazy. XIII's writing is just pitiful, nauseating even, by far the worst part of the game.

The pacing in X is ridiculously good, with combat, dialogue, cutscenes and minigames used with a perfect balance. Which is why it doesn't really matter if it's "linear" (really, its main fault is the lack of overworld exploring/manual ship flying) because it is still really fun to play.

The combat is not super complex or amazing but at least it's not annoying and frustrating and it doesn't get in the way of enjoying the game.

The music is kinda meh in both compared to other entries of the franchise, though.

And no, this is not nostalgia talking. I replayed X on PS4 recently and I liked it way more than I thought I would.
 
FFX had a better story, better cast, back tracking, level up system, battle system and blitzball. Spent hours on it and even recruited Wakka as a player eventhough he was horribly underleveled in blitzball. It has towns and exploration that distracted me from going down hallways.
FFX's story is much easier to follow compared to FFXIII.
 
For me FFX is among my top 3 FF games in terms of story,characters,pacing,battle system and skill progression.
FFXIII is near the bottom in those departments.

Even world design feels much less linear in FFX than FFXIII.

The only redeeming qualities i can think from FFXIII is art direction (mostly the environments) and the music.But then again FFX was also great if not better in those departments.
 
Personally, I prefer XII to both and I think the criticism levelled against that particular entry is asinine at times. Vaan is not tied into the story as strongly - so what? Not every character needs to be personally invested in the main on-goings at a deeper level.
Also this is barely true for Vaan since he had beef with Basch because of Reks's murder, though I think they could've given a stronger sense of antagonism for some extended period of time.
I also kind of prefer the combination of levelling up and the License Board to both the Sphere Grid and the Crystarium (though the former has a bit more to offer than the latter), but I'm also not big on VIII's GF Junction system.

With that being said, X is better to me because it manages to pull me into its world much more than XIII. This has probably already been said, but X manages to show its world and its inner workings (esp. the constant threat of Sin and the place of Yevonism in society along with its practices) much more and gives you a sense of realism that XIII never accomplishes. I also like how the entrance scene - "Listen to my story" - gives off a strong vibe of how this is Tidus's account (which is one of the things X did better than XII - we never get Vaan's commentary on the events)
, though I have to say it is also very reminiscent of Tactics's opening where Arazlam Duraj reveals the existence of the Duraj Papers
.

Barthandelus is one of the worst FF villains to me. He reveals himself with insane, but ultimately meaningless grandeur, than vanishes and does the same thing twice over until he's beaten.
Also can I just say screw the revelation that everything in the game was machinated by him - probably the most cheap-ass cop-out of a "twist" (of which this game tries to have too many anyway (*cough*reviving Raines*cough*) to tie the seeming random-ness of the first half together.

I also really don't like the combat in XIII - probably the most telling thing is that unlike X, XII and XIV, I could play the game only for one to two hours at a time before feeling exhausted. It's just too busy, yet feels nowhere near as tactical as X's or XII's or just as plain fun as XIV's.

Also, XIII's soundtrack is boring and limp.
 
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