The Very Big Final Fantasy XIII Thread

[Ape Boy]

Originally Posted by Regulus Tera

Ironic considering FFXIII's metacritic is lower than FFXII's.

Also metacritic is like the worst way to base your decision on a game purchase.

I didn't say anything about XII vs XIII, I said I loved both.

Know what XIII's score is higher than, though? Tales of Vesperia.

Going by the straight MetaScore, I agree. I suggested reading a ton of reviews though, which are easily collected for link clicking at Meta and GameRankings. I always use a large sampling of reviews to aid my game selection.

As for Hope and his dad, I had no problem simply chalking that up to petulant teenage angst and senseless "YOU NEVER UNDERSTOOD ME" hate. Hope seeming pathetic because of it made perfect sense to me, because Hope WAS fucking pathetic. I actively keep him out of my party permanently, and I hope he grows up to get testicular torsion.

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Ape Boy

I didn't say anything about XII vs XIII, I said I loved both.

Know what XIII's score is higher than, though? Tales of Vesperia.

Going by the straight MetaScore, I agree. I suggested reading a ton of reviews though, which are easily collected for link clicking at Meta and GameRankings. I always use a large sampling of reviews to aid my game selection.

As for Hope and his dad, I had no problem simply chalking that up to petulant teenage angst and senseless "YOU NEVER UNDERSTOOD ME" hate. Hope seeming pathetic because of it made perfect sense to me, because Hope WAS fucking pathetic. I actively keep him out of my party permanently, and I hope he grows up to get testicular torsion.

Hope got better after meeting his dad. At least by my estimation.

Also, he's one of the strongest characters in the game. He replaced Sazh as my synergist once he manned up and learned haste. Less upgraded weapon and less offensive accessories and he still beats out Sazh's magic by leaps and bounds.

You know who stays out of my party forever, though? Snow.

I didn't bother looking up ages or whatever, but Snow looks like he's in his mid twenties, and Serah looks like she's like 15 or some shit. Every time they were together in the flash backs all I could think was "Please lord, make the pedo stop. Please.

Also, I, unlike some people who have been hating the game since a year before it came out, wasn't completely certain Sazh wasn't dead. Aeris was a main character too, guys. And her death was a lot less dramatically interesting than Sazh's would have been had they let him pull the trigger.

Also, I've spent a lot of time with games/series that aren't afraid of certain tropes. So I'm a little less "Oh, s/he's a main character, s/he CAN'T die." (DRAGON AGE AWAKENINGS SPOILER) Hell, Awakenings killed off a character billed as one of the main characters within the first hour of the game in an entirely non-dramatic fashion.

Further, I get that it's like, trendy to hate on Final Fantasy, but really: Name two JRPGs that don't have all the story telling problems you guys are bitching about.

Sequels/Spin-offs don't count, so no being like "Persona 1, 2, 3, blah blah blah"

It's not like Final Fantasy, or Dragon Quest, or Star Ocean, or Atelier Iris, or the Tales series or... well you get the idea--it's not as if games are created to the same literary standard as classical literature. This SHOULD be obvious, as that you're getting works written by 9-5 folks who wouldn't be writing for video games if they could make a living writing novels. And then they're translated.

And it's not even just jRPGs. Fallout 3? Oblivion? Hell, even Dragon Age is full of literary pitfalls and writing issues. Even KotoR and the first two Fallouts (that were actually made by Black Isle). Even Bloodlines. And every GTA game that tried to have a serious story?

Yeah, they all fail if you're holding them up to the literary standards of classic literature, or even television.

And FFXIII still does a better job of story telling than Moby Dick. Hell FFVIII does a better job of story telling than Moby Dick.

Games tell stories in an entirely different way than movies, TV series, and works of literature.

That's not to say the game is perfect by any means.

Weapon Upgrading, for instance, is a huge pointless mess of a chore, and I've yet to find a weapon whose special abilities (quick stagger, stagger lock, etc.) are worth the flat magic/strength trade off you have to accept to use them. Especially considering that by the time you get them you've already put a lot of time and money into upgrading your old weapons so they're going to be universally a downgrade until you can rake in about 200000 bucks to buy upgrade materials.

And money is far too rare.

I also didn't like the massive dick move of "Oh yeah, you can now level everyone in everything, and that artificial ceiling on stat bonuses we've given you the entire time that made grinding completely pointless/useless is now more or less gone. HAVE SOME ADAMANCHILDES AND SHIT THAT BLOWS UP AND DOES MORE DAMAGE THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY HAVE HPS AT THIS POINT! ENJOY YOUR GRINDING!"

And the 'random encounter' difficulty wavers between being fun--because they're all difficult--and just being kind of a chore because sometimes the 'random encounters' (adamanchilde/juggernaut) are more difficult than the bosses (any boss in the game).

I also liked that you get rated at the end of battle, but didn't like that it's basically useless unless you're summoning eidolans left and right, which are, themselves, basically useless except as a way to heal your party, as that my party members, universally, do better damage than their eidolans do.

However, none of these issues make it a terrible horrible game like a couple people seem to want to make it out to be.

Originally Posted by Mirai Gen

Hope is still making an enormous fucking deal out of it.

He's 14. It's what 14 year olds DO, man. They hate their parents for stupid reasons.

P.S. Guys--Thirteen days. Flashbacks. 11th day.

Hope: Whaddya wish fer, mum?
Nora: Somethin' about your dad being here or some shit.
Hope: HE'S NEVER BEEN AROUND WE DON'T NEED HIM

His reasons are explained in the game. It's right about when Sazh and Vanille find him pouting because Lightning left him behind in the giant junk pile if I remember correctly.

[Azisien]

As eloquently put and logical as your rant is, Krylo, there is a special chill I get watching FFXIII cutscenes that I don't normally get in other games.

I mean it's writing is certainly on par with games that have bad writing, Gears of War 2 comes to mind there. But Gears had co-op with a buddy and like, chainsaws on guns! Chainsaws!

FF balances by having a rather fun combat system. I am at a point, however, where story is second or equally important to gameplay in single player games. I could care less about story in multiplayer (see: L4D) because I can make my own crazy stories with friends.

And FFXIII? That is some shit story. Up to Chapter 9 anyway.


Case in point: At least games like KoToR or Dragon Age sort of teach you about the world and the powers that be. They've got relatively wide personality ranges for characters. FF has a cast of people that frown and pause in stoic silence. I rationalize it by figuring entire manuscripts were lost when they sent the Japanese scripts to be translated into English. I have learned a bit about the world now in FF but holy crap I've been playing for 20 hours. There was a 10 hour period or so where I'm sitting there, enjoying the combat mind you, but being like "What the FUCK is going on?" followed by "And why do I care?"

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Azisien

And FFXIII? That is some shit story. Up to Chapter 9 anyway.

Explain how it is worse than KotoR's YOU ARE THE REVAN! M. Night Shalamadingdong style twist. or or Dragon Age's Oh, BTW, one of you has to die now, completely out of left field. BUT WAIT, here is a convenient loop in your hole! Which is another 'twist' that was completely worthless/pointless. Or my Dwarf Noble character's complete inability to tell Bhelen is full of shit. or Fallout 3's COMPLETE lack of characterization for anyone, except, arguably, your father, whose characterization was still terribad. You learn nothing of no one's motivations or the reasons that anyone is doing ANYTHING they are doing. The goddamn COMPUTER has better characterization than the vast majority of actual characters you interact with.

I don't think the story here is shit. It's not going to win any prizes, sure. There's issues here and there, sure, but the issues are no worse than any other video game ever.

Edit:

Originally Posted by Azisien

Case in point: At least games like KoToR or Dragon Age sort of teach you about the world and the powers that be. They've got relatively wide personality ranges for characters. FF has a cast of people that frown and pause in stoic silence. I rationalize it by figuring entire manuscripts were lost when they sent the Japanese scripts to be translated into English. I have learned a bit about the world now in FF but holy crap I've been playing for 20 hours. There was a 10 hour period or so where I'm sitting there, enjoying the combat mind you, but being like "What the FUCK is going on?" followed by "And why do I care?"

Never felt this way, but them I'm arguing with people who are complaining about Hope hating his dad for no reason/no reason ever being given, when it is literally right there in the game.

So maybe it shouldn't surprise me that this is the issue.

And no, I don't read the datalog. I didn't feel as compelled to as I did with DA:O/ME. In which, yes, you actually needed to in order to know what the fuck was going on with, say, every Turian in the game hating the shit out of you.

[Mirai Gen]

Originally Posted by Krylo

Yeah, they all fail if you're holding them up to the literary standards of classic literature, or even television.

Twilight has a great story compared to Zelda: Wand of Gamelon.

[Bells]

I just must Ask... what happens to Jihl in the game? Before launch, all eyes were on her, and now that the game is out there is not a word

[Kim]

She shows up in three or four cutscenes, and then gets killed by the main villain in a cutscene without you ever having fought her.

[Kim]

I vaguely recall the cutscene your referring to. I'm trying to find it on Youtube currently, and will get back to you once I do.

I know it'd make your job of just plain ignoring my opinion that much easier to simply attribute all my complaints to "Well he decided to hate it", but I'm pretty sure the nice things I've said should get in the way of that. As in how I've pretty consistently said the gameplay is great in spite of its flaws, or that Sazh is a great character, etc.

My Problems

Everyone who isn't the main cast doesn't feel very well fleshed out

The story feels aimless and like it's intentionally drawing things out at times

I feel they skipped an important step. I liked Wakka as a character in FFX because they went out of their way to make you like him before introducing the character flaws that would make you dislike him, and then worked on him overcoming them. FFXIII, with the exception of Sazh, cuts out that first bit, and as such I'm not fond of the characters, and the events surrounding them don't have the impact they otherwise would.

Serah's "death" was poorly executed in my opinion, because it was shoved in the very beginning without getting you attached to her or the party first. In contrast, Dahj's "death" was done better because it got you attached to Sazh before showing it.

Certain plot points don't make sense without reading the datalog, and I still think both the actions of the villain ( for revealing his plot) and the party ( for fighting what the villain wants them to do by doing what the villains wants them to do) don't hold together too well under scrutiny.


I think all of these are fairly valid complaints, and that it's at least pretty easy to see why I'd be of this opinion even if you disagree. Saying it's all "because it's trendy to hate Final Fantasy" is a bullshit argument and you know it.

[Kim]

People liked Dragon Age's story? Mind = Blown

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by NonCon

People liked Dragon Age's story? Mind = Blown

Man, if that's all you've taken from that dissertation... *sigh*

This is what I meant when talking with Nik.