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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.
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![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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.
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.