sincere | Game commentary: Final Fantasy XIII

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Game commentary: Final Fantasy XIII

So, two years late, I finally finished FFXIII. I had about a 40% disapproval rating for the beginning of the game, and about a 75% disapproval rating for the end of the game. It wasn't stellar and for a while I resented it so much that I genuinely reconsidered my plans to get FFXIII-2, and thought about maybe leaving the unpaid-for pre-order sitting in the store.

I want to emphasize that the problems aren't with the characters or even the story. I like Lightning, Snow, Fang, Sazh. I'm okay with Vanille and Hope. I want to like Serah, a little more than I actually do. The story is interesting: ancient enmity between Pulse and Cocoon, struggle between powerful fal'Cie and the humans they treat like pets or cattle, we all might die if we don't obey those bastards, my sister's life is on the line here and I don't approve of her boyfriend, nothing is what it seems.

But the story-telling is deeply flawed. We start in the middle of the action and have frequent, disjointed, unpredictable flashbacks to fill in what we don't know. As a result, we don't have any reason to care about any of these people and it all feels really random.

And that never changes. Things happen to our heroes, and as time goes by you get attached to them or don't, but I found that the story constantly dragging me around on a leash prevented me from ever really getting to know the characters. The villains were all paper-thin and rarely even used. I had a surface understanding of my main characters and little interest in learning more. The pacing of the game never stopped being frenetic, on-the-run, death-just-behind-us, the main characters chased from one happenstance to the next, until pretty much the 12th of 13 chapters: with no downtime, I had no breathing room to bond with the characters.

Of course, it doesn't help that the entire game is a series of narrow corridors. It really contributes to the dragged-forward feeling of the constant tension by never having anywhere to go but straight ahead. Until chapter 12, when you get a big gorgeous field to explore, but again, there's still only one path that actually goes anywhere, and eventually you have to follow that path, and you get to the end, and then you go back to corridors.

...Then the 13th chapter happens, and it is just batshit crazy. I literally have no idea what happened in it. Here's my attempt to summarize the climactic dungeons of several video games.

Tales of Vesperia: In order to stop Duke from absorbing all of humanity to save the world from the Adephagos that humanity itself created, we head into Tarqaron to fight him. When we run into him, he reveals that he has no faith left in humans, who think nothing of ruining the planet for their own personal gain, and if we want to save both the planet and the humans, we'll have to fight him. We do. Duke is defeated and acknowledges this, but he stays to watch as Yuri uses Rita's invention to try and take out the Adephagos. They can't do it alone, but Duke lends them his power, and the Adephagos threat -- and the blastia threat -- is ended forever. We win.

Kingdom Hearts 2: We head into The Castle That Never Was and fight the remaining Organization members, reuniting with Kairi and Riku respectively, even though we now know that Riku looks like Xehanort, dun-dun-dun. DiZ realizes that he was wrong and narrow-minded and apologizes to Roxas, and Riku is turned back to normal as DiZ sacrifices himself, and loses his darkness-related power. We confront Xemnas and defeat him, but Riku and Sora get separated from the group and have to fight the remaining Xemnas phases themselves. They're still trapped after their victory, but they fight their way through the darkness to the dark shore, where they resign themselves to staying here forever. But a door opens and it takes them home to Destiny Islands, where all their friends are waiting.

Final Fantasy XIII: We go into Orphan's Cradle to try and... save Cocoon. I know we want to save Cocoon. But we're going to kill Orphan to do it? But killing Orphan is what the bad guy wants, which will destroy Cocoon, which will wake up the Maker? Something about Ragnarok, which turns out to be a pretty unimpressive legendary monster? Anyway, Fang turns on the party and then gets graphically tortured for like twenty minutes while our party turns into Cie'th monsters, but then we turn back for some reason. There are some speeches about how Barthandelus doesn't believe in anything?? Then we kill Orphan, but not the way the bad guy wants, I guess, and then Cocoon starts falling, I think. But Fang and Vanille sacrifice themselves... somehow, by turning into Ragnarok, maybe? No one really tells us, and then they slow and eventually stop Cocoon's fall, so... everyone is okay! Our entire cast turns to crystal, and then unturns to crystal, just because, except for Fang and Vanille, who are lesbians in crystal for the rest of eternity, just because. But then Serah and Dazh are there too, so... happy music plays! Hooray...!

See, some of those things sounded like gibberish. KH makes its plot out of gibberish. But at least I knew what was happening.

With that said, again, I liked the characters and some of the ideas. I liked the battle system. But I seriously just hated everything about the last chapter of the game, and I was seriously reluctant to play it, and I don't think I would have if

rainfall hadn't had the controller. The whole hatred thing caused me to question whether or not I wanted to buy FFXIII-2. Is it going to be all of that, plus time travel? That sounds like a recipe for the worst game ever.

But I told myself not to judge so fast. I'm going to buy the game and give it a shot. If it catches my interest, I will continue playing it. If it doesn't, I will leave it in a pile until April or so when I have more free time.

I will be... optimistic.

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Whyyyyyyynalfantasyxiii

Fingers crossed for XIII-2. Maybe there will (somehow) (despite the time travel) be less gibberish.

It could happen! Lea indicated that pre-reviews say a lot of the complaints were addressed?!

As much as I enjoyed it, FF13 could have really done a lot better at execution and narrative.

Now I don't know if they didn't have the time or something for it but the beginning would have been better if they had incorporated some of the prequel novel into it from the start. Basically begin as Lightning and see her as she used to be. Happier and devoted to her job aswell as get why she acts the way she does. Control her as she walked around the area so players could understand the culture and world better and easily do the tutorial by providing her with some enemies (she being a soldier this shouldn't be a problem) along the way provide some scenes of the others like Hope and his mom so you can see his established bond with her and problems with his dad. Then lead into the worst birthday ever and finally the train where she meets Sazh and then the plot hits.

At least even if it started out slow the player might have more time to absorb the situation and characters.

I also would have liked to see the part discuss what to do with Orphan more, rather than proving him wrong by doing what he wanted you to do. Even show Fang and Vanille plan to sacrifice themselves before hand rather than make everything seem like a spur of the moment thing. Challenging and changing your fate became, just wing it hope for the best cause it works.
Not only that but plot twists were revealed to us in a very lame manner. Cid explaining the mythology of the world and that being it seemed, anticlimatic. Actually much of the important things like Etro's involvement during parts of the game were left out of the in game story.

If I hadn't found sources like this: http://www.dualshockers.com/2012/01/12/from-shattered-shards-dissecting-the-mythology-of-fabula-nova-crystallis/
then the game's world would have kept being lost to me.

But I'm still looking forward to the sequel. The game mechanics look really fun and at least they've decided to look into the mythology more (plus I already spoiled myself on the ending and dug up info so I won't be confused like I was during the first entry).

Hope you enjoy the game.

I just wish they had started from the beginning instead of the middle. Day 1: Fang and Vanille wake up. Let's start there. Not only does this allow us to be presented with the information in a comfortable way, but it allows us to experience the traumatic events as they happen instead of watching the characters brood for a few hours, then getting a flashback to one scene that shows part of the reason why. Plus there would be downtime from the panic during which we could see our characters in their natural environments, being themselves. That's how we bond.

The end of the game feels really rushed (even moreso than the rest of it feels thematically rushed). A little more conversation would have done it a world of good.

I still don't understand Cid, just in general. He's a l'Cie, and he protects us, and he doesn't want to fight us, but he feels he has to, to defy his Focus, because that's the only way he can do that obviously, and then we kill him, but he gets better, and then he obeys the fal'Cie, and then he gets shot in the head? Oh. Okay. It all felt very cobbled-together, poorly-explained, and random. Like a lot of the game, sadly.

/clicks on that link
/immediately spoiled
/ \o/

I hope I enjoy the game too. I'll be looking forward to seeing how it is after work.

Maybe they thought we'd like being surprised more with flashback? Though interesting enough, Vanille was almost considered the main protagonist for IIIX but they decided against it because they had already shown Lightning first to fans.

I actually forgot Cid, lol did he come back? Oh I guess he did. Xp

I'm so sorry. >_< I didn't mean to spoil you. I hope I didn't ruin anything for you. I'll be more careful about links in the future.

I hope you enjoy playing more than the last at least.

You've prettyyyy much summed up my thoughts on this game :/ I like the story, the characters, the battle system, artistic style, music, all that shit. And I couldn't be less compelled to finish it if I tried. gdit why can't i get into you.

For what it's worth, all the info and previews for XIII-2 I've seen sound like they've listened to the complaints! Apparently there's a big focus on exploring and player choice and being open-ended etc. Fingers crossed!

I literally forced myself to do it because of FFXIII-2, but I didn't enjoy it. :\ But, hey, that's another notch off my unimpressive Backloggery.

/crosses fingers with

I'll keep everyone up to date on my experiences. :D

The party changed back because of The Maker. In the cutscene you'll notice that the crystals that Barthandelus indicated being The Maker's influence start to shine and move around right before the party transforms back into humans. This was obviously meant to indicate that The Maker disapproved of what Barthandelus was up to.

Fang and Vanille both turning into Ragnarok was what was intended from the very beginning. That's why they were both branded at the same time, this being the only way for them to have enough strength to both destroy Cocoon and save everyone inside. This is evidenced by Fang's lone attempt not working.

As for the party not staying in crystal sleep, yeah, sadly that's not explained. I'm hoping XIII-2 does something with it since the whole reason Lightning disappears is because she left to go find a way to bring Fang and Vanille back.

That's great! I'm sure a lot of people who also had no idea what was going on came together and assembled clues to figure that out. XD

But absolutely zero of that is explained, discussed, or even alluded to directly. After the Maker "takes action" ambiguously we still have a boss fight after that and then a cutscene in which the Maker does all of jack shit, so in that case, not only is it confusing and crazy, but it's also an extremely convenient (literal) deus ex machina that went away as soon as it was no longer needed and which no one ever noticed ICly so there was just no damn explanation, which is bad writing on a lot of levels. Similarly, Fang and Vanille gave no indication that they were supposed to become Ragnarok together; Fang's lone attempt could have not worked for a thousand reasons, and they literally have 2-3 conversations between Fang being tortured and the end credits, during which time neither of them ever indicate anything like that.

I'm certainly not saying you're wrong: now that you mention it, the Ragnarok thing makes a fair bit of sense, for what it was (which is still weird). I'm just saying that in a good game, those things would have been made clear. They don't have to be made obvious. It could've been done in a lot of ways, but the way that involved lots of flashy distracting CGI and a bare minimum of dialogue and no character actually knowing what was going on or, really, caring about why things happened the way they did -- that was the wrong way.

I'll be picking up FFXIII-2 after I get home from work today, and I'll keep everyone updated on my playthrough. Maybe you can explain it to me if I encounter any early "wtf just happened, that was retarded" moments.

Oh, I don't disagree. I was just providing an explanation.

I just got mine in the mail (and the soundtrack, artbook, and free Omega code, yay), so I'll be going through it too. I'm the guy writing the review for it at ye olde website, after all. That'll be fun.

Oh boy, good luck with that! (I'm mostly in it for the gratis Serah costume... I'm a sucker for alternate costumes, especially if they don't cost me money. That's why Tales of is the greatest game series ever.) I don't spoil myself as a general rule, so I will read what I can that is not spoiler-laden.

Yeah, I've only written two reviews up to this point, so a big title like this will be a challenge, but my boss (who was going to write it) has a family medical emergency, so it's up to me.

I spoil nothing in reviews, and everything on my DW will be under a cut, so no worries.

FFXIII-2 does actually explain it, apparently. I looked at a wiki that explains it, but I don't know which media the info is from. ...and that isn't why Lightning disappears, though you would think so from the promo media. >.>

I was gonna post a long comment but having read and re-read your entire post, all I can end up saying is: ♥ yes yes yes.

♥ I will keep you up to date~!

The problem with XIII is that the pacing is terrible (it's paced more like a movie than a game and that just doesn't work in an RPGs framework) and the fact that most of the damn story is stuck in the database and the light novels. :| Really, Squeenix, really?

You can find translations of the novels over here along with the creation mythology if you're interested. The mythology is actually really neat and explains thing so well. ~~Why the hell couldn't they put that in the game, jfc?~~

My take on the final chapter is that they were after Barthandelus and not Orphan. From what they discussed they seemed to think that Orphan really had no say in the matter (which is kind of hilarious and actually could have been brilliant if they had actually took the time out and used it to show just how very different fal'cie think from humans... lost opportunity). Then they knocked down Bart and discovered that yeah, Orphen really was on board for Lindzei's little plan to wake up the Maker. Fang actually trying to go after him on her own makes senses also because throughout the entire game it's very obvious that she cares more about her friends (and Vanille in particular) than the strangers that make up Cocoon. As for the final conflict with Orphan... *shrugs* they're only human, kinda hard to make a split second decision on whether to just let themselves die or fight back.

I don't think Fang as Ragnarok was ever supposed to be powerful enough to take down Cocoon. Vanille was probably supposed to be part of it from the get go, but Fang tried to do it on her own anyway ~~cause of twu wuv~~ because she didn't want Vanille to suffer with her. As for how they ended up saving Cocoon with the whole magma turning into crystal wtf crap... I'm just going to assume that was something to do with Etro's meddling and try not to think about it too much beyond that (because really, wtf?).

That's my take on it anyway. I really ended up liking the game once it was almost over, but the many, many glaring faults in it are still hard to ignore.

It would be great if any of that is canon. I mean, Fang is, but I wasn't confused about that part; I understood why she turned on the party, and it was clearly foreshadowed with her disinterest in saving Cocoon. It was pretty much the only part of the entire final battle/ending that I felt was solid. But the business with Orphan was never explained or even really discussed, and a lot of even what you were saying was conjecture.

I might take a look at that link when/if I finish FFXIII-2, since I'd rather have the presentation from the games before I read side materials. I'm sure a lot of what happened would have been clearer if I read the side materials, or more of the eight billion pages of encyclopedia in-game before I realized I was spending more time reading after every cutscene than actually watching the cutscenes themselves. But in a better game, I would have had everything I really needed to know from the narrative, and the side materials and encyclopedia entries would be just that: bonus for me to read when I was really invested in the world or the story.

I'm sure it has an awesome mythology. I hear lots of good things about it! But I don't want to have to read it all to understand what's going on. I don't even know who or what "Etro" is. That's why I hope FFXII-2's storytelling is a little better, lalala.

Yeah, I totally hear you. It irritated the ever living crap out of me as I was playing through the game that nothing was explained. Sure, we got the motivation of the party, but everybody and everything else? No, you had to read the database for that crap. It's just really ridiculous. They actually had very good worldbuilding and storytelling for XIII but you'd never know that unless you read through the database. Crap like that drives me insane. (It's part of the reason I dislike what Blizzard does anymore with WoW. I don't want to have to read the damn novels to know what's happening in the game.)

Hmm, well, in one of the trailers for XIII-2 Lightning mentions Etro, so I'm hoping they actually get into that stuff instead of just glossing it over again. Thinking back, I think the only time Lindzei was mentioned in XIII outside of the database is when you complete all the missions. That's so dumb.

I do like lore. I just have to like... more than the lore. ~~/lurks and watches Kingdoms of Amalur~~

Ehe, we missed a few missions at the start and never ended up going back because we just wanted to finish it, so. No completed missions for us! I heard it was a thing you should want to do, though.

But when I say "story-telling" I mean the narrative and the pacing and the delivery of information in the game overall, for the record. Since all of that was preeeetty bungled imo, "bad story-telling". Someday, when I work past my rage at the DLC, I will see if FFXIII-2 does better.

I was pretty eeeeeeeehhhh about the missions until I got to postgame because I was kinda crap with the battle system til around that point. Then I actually started figuring stuff out and then it started to actually be fun. Not exactly a good sign that it took all of the game for me to have fun with it... A lot of the missions can be really hard but with the way the roles actually work they can all be cheesed pretty hard with the right set up. ~~The last one which is supposed to be godawful hard can be nailed with just poison and sentineling the rest of the time... that's kinda sad.~~

Ah. *nods* Yeah, I definitely agree with that. :| I just did not like how the main story was given to us. Sure, it had some pretty good character interaction for the party, but that's about it.

While I hope they actually explain things in XIII-2, I'm of the opinion that they would have to fail so, so, so very hard for it be worse than XIII. ~~That and I kind of hope XIII-2 is just completely batshit plotwise. I did like X-2 quite a bit, but that's because it was freaking insane.~~

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Game commentary: Final Fantasy XIII

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