The Very Big Final Fantasy XIII Thread

[Kim]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

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

This is what I meant when talking with Nik.

Do you mean the first dissertation where he said stuff and I made my point afterwards, or do you mean the second where his point was "FFXIII's story isn't worse than these stories" and I said "Wait, people actually liked the story you're saying it isn't worse than?" Maybe it's just me, but that seems to address the point pretty clearly. "It isn't worse than these stories." "Yes, but those stories aren't very good either." Though I can't really speak for KoToR since I haven't played it.

Unless of course you mean the stuff he edited in after I made my post, in which case you're looking for reasons to hate me now.

EDIT: Actually, the part I'm talking about isn't until closer to the end. And no I don't speak Japanese. I'm just that lazy. I'll go into more detail about the plot points that don't make sense to me without the datalog once you beat the game. As for characters not starting off likable being hated forever... maybe. I'm trying to think of a counterexample, but you might be right on my reasoning. Of course, I wasn't really attached to any of the party's endgame personalities either, so that might be playing a role, too. I dunno, I'll think on it more. As for the Serah death thing, I actually have an idea on how a couple things like this could have been done better, which I'll go into more detail when I have more time on my hands. Lastly, I don't think I said anything positive or negative about FFVII here. I don't remember it well enough to think fondly or poorly of it, so all my memories are of Advent Children and Crisis Core. Oh well!

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by NonCon

Unless of course you mean the stuff he edited in after I made my post, in which case you're looking for reasons to hate me now.

To be fair, Azi edited that in while I was making mine!

Lastly, I don't think I said anything positive or negative about FFVII here. I don't remember it well enough to think fondly or poorly of it, so all my memories are of Advent Children and Crisis Core. Oh well!

You didn't, but FFVII is one of the most loved FF's. I would have used VI or XII, but, well, I think they DO have better stories than FFXIII (though VI is probably like 90% nostalgia on my part), but FFXIII has better/more realistic character growth for most of the characters, so.

Also, my issue isn't with saying that the story has problems, it's with the tone of some of the posts that make FFXIII out like some horrible terrible game whose only saving graces are Sazh and the combat system (which I'm kind of torn on, it's fun, but I see so many ways to make it BETTER, and there's that 'no more FF's like this one' rumor going around that makes me feel like they won't).

The story's not the best thing ever, no. But it's also not the WORST thing ever, and FFXIII is a pretty decent game, and has a story that is also pretty decent when compared to the competition within the same media.

Edit: Also, to be honest, even though Sazh is one of/the most likable character, I don't think he's the best or even one of the best characters. He forgoes any character growth at all. He has to come to terms with Vanille/Fang being at least partially responsible for his son become L'Cie and then crystal, but I don't think he really changed as a character because of it. The way he dealt with it was very... him. Right down to forgiving them and going back to being Surrogate father for Vanille. If anything I think he got over it too quickly.

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by NonCon

Do you mean the first dissertation where he said stuff and I made my point afterwards, or do you mean the second where his point was "FFXIII's story isn't worse than these stories" and I said "Wait, people actually liked the story you're saying it isn't worse than?" Maybe it's just me, but that seems to address the point pretty clearly. "It isn't worse than these stories." "Yes, but those stories aren't very good either." Though I can't really speak for KoToR since I haven't played it.

Unless of course you mean the stuff he edited in after I made my post, in which case you're looking for reasons to hate me now.

No, I actually missed the following discussion somehow and just assumed it was a reply to the big long post.

In any case, I'm going to have to side with Krylo on this one. He makes some very good points and I find myself agreeing a lot with his assessment, because, as I said a year ago, you weren't giving the game a chance long before it came out, so the fact you hate it now is zero surprise.

See, I know you review games and all, but I've said time and again that you need to review the game when it comes out and not before, much less an entire year before. Cuts down on the preconceived bias. A year's worth of bias, well, let me just be honest and say I by no means can call FFXIII perfect, but it really shows in your frequent, vocal, and often overblown complaints. I know a lot of what you say is true, but the proportions you make out of it makes it sound like simply inserting the DVD into the slot sends a shower of white-hot shurikens flying at you. I can agree with many of your points, but I can't agree with your scale.

[Krylo]

Was hoping you guys would post so I didn't have to edit this in:

Originally Posted by NonCon

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 tried too.

I found it in JAPANESE, with japanese subtitles, but I don't think any of us speak/read japanese, do we?

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.

Not really.

You decided to hate it, and big surprise you hated it when you played it.

It's hard for anything, whether it be people, games, or movies to overcome first impressions. When you go into something thinking it's going to suck, you're going to notice every single flaw. It is how the human mind works.

It's great that a few of the better parts of the game managed to break past that for you, but it doesn't change that, no, it totally doesn't get in the way of saying you probably just hate it because you decided you were going to hate it a year ago and spent the last twelve months thinking about how much fun you're going to have hating on it.

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.

I never liked Wakka, but I think what you're describing here is a problem I have with a lot of game players.

If a character isn't immediately lovable they hate them. Forever.

Alistair in DA:O is an emo because everyone he's ever known was killed in front of his eyes. Would this preconception still exist if it had happened 8 hours into the game instead of one or two? Hard to say. I do know that the fact he only bitches about it three times ever is pushed aside for the fact that our first few interactions with him after the joining are about it.

Tidus in FFX is an emo because he was stolen from his posh life and thrown to the dogs. No one cares that he mans up and sacrifices his life to break the cycle of death on the planet. Nope, he's a weak emo because that's what he was at first.

COULD the writers of FFXIII have been more cognizant of the way gamer minds work? Probably.

Does the fact that they weren't make the story weak/shitty?

No. No it does not.

There's more character growth in this game, and realistic character growth at that, than you'd get playing DA:O ten times over.

Sorry Azi, but 'hardening Alistair' doesn't count as realistic character growth.

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.

Eh, I don't know. I was too busy going "Ew ew ew, pedo" at Snow during that entire scene to make a good call.

Sazh's was definitely more emotionally viable.

However, putting off Serah's death wouldn't have worked from the perspective of the over all story and plot arc, so I don't think this is really a good complaint. They did as well as they could without moving it back ten hours and fucking up the driving motivations of most of the characters.

Certain plot points don't make sense without reading the datalog,

I disagree. I've understood every plot point and have never looked in any of the story sections of the datalog. Looked in a few of the gameplay sections to see if I was doing Gestalt mode wrong or something, because it seemed to pretty much suck balls and I figured they couldn't have ACTUALLY made it suck balls. But they did.

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'm right at Orphan's Cradle currently, so I don't know if things change, but up to now the main villain telling them what's up was part of his plan. He's breaking down their hope. This is also why he sends them to Pulse. They're looking for a way out of their focus, so he sends them there so that they can discover there IS no way out of their focus.

They then go to Orphan NOT to kill it and do what he said, but to stop the cavalry from doing the same--as he said they'd do it if the L'Cie didn't. When they get there they're locked in.

Like the load game screen says--all Bart has to do now is break down their hope so one of them succumbs to their focus. He manipulated them into going where they need to be and as slowly stripped away all their hope. If he had lied to them about their focus, or what he wanted them to do, they might think they have a chance at overcoming it.

By doing the opposite and telling them exactly what he wanted out of them he set the idea that there WAS no escape from their fates in their minds. He's playing a very subtle mind game with them, and I'll probably see how that turns out tonight.

Unless I do more C'ieth stone missions.

I think all of these are fairly valid complaints,

They are, but none of them make the story shit like Azi just said or like you seem to be implying.

They certainly don't make it worse than say... Final Fantasy VII.

and that it's at least pretty easy to see why I'd be of this opinion even if you disagree.

Yeah, but it's also pretty easy to attribute it of 12 months straight of wanting to hate on the game.

Saying it's all "because it's trendy to hate Final Fantasy" is a bullshit argument and you know it.

Maybe.

[Azisien]

The "prepared to hate the game" thing works well for like, NonCon and Tera, but I didn't really have many preconceptions going into the game. At least few enough that I could set them aside and try to judge the game based on my pure emotional reactions to the content.

The only thing I was concerned about going in was the "30-hour-long road" and it did bug me for a while. I eventually settled on the reflection that most FFs ever are just Town A->Town B->Town C->Town D->Town E too which is also horribly linear. At least world maps gave me a better visualization of moving around the world.

Originally Posted by Krylo

Alistair in DA:O is an emo because everyone he's ever known was killed in front of his eyes. Would this preconception still exist if it had happened 8 hours into the game instead of one or two? Hard to say. I do know that the fact he only bitches about it three times ever is pushed aside for the fact that our first few interactions with him after the joining are about it.

Yes, first impressions matter. They always matter. Human nature, as you say, has nothing to do with gamers. Can richer experiences down the road pay dividends to initially frowned-upon impressions: of course!

Can any particular scene I've come across in FF be called rich? Um...the poly counts are rich?

Do any video games ever do this? Not really, not any mentioned anyway.

The difference? Well I liked Alistair. The difference is that he was likeable almost out of the gates for me. He was sarcastic and told jokes and poked fun and argued with people.

And a designer's goal isn't to make me like ALL characters. In fact, that would probably suck. Negative emotions can be good too, it's okay to hate characters. I don't like Sten or Morrigan. Yet Morrigan has some depth to her, it's almost a good not liking. Sten I just really don't like but that's okay because I found SOME characters to like. But I don't find myself bonding with any FF characters. I'm as bonded to the chocobo chick as I am to Lightning.

And no, the WHOLE story isn't shit, I'm handing out hyperbole left and right as per usual. I really genuinely didn't enjoy the first significant number of hours. Contrary to what you say, Krylo, the game hands out very little information about anything unless you go read the Datapad or load screens. It weens you on little bread crumbs of information while throwing around l'Cie and fal'Cie like it's World Apostrophe Day, yet immersion was a problem for me because I had no context.

Hell yes it gets better later on. Precisely when the characters start talking more after my 15-hour mark and I start to GET some context. But what was sacrificed? My first impression, and that definitely matters. So no, the game's far from horrible. I've got no regrets purchasing it even, but it's an uphill battle in terms of impressing me now.

And if I came across liking the combat system a little too much then that's wrong too, it has its share of problems. I'm finding a lot of monsters are becoming less interesting monsters to fight and more giant vats of Hit Points. Also, every area seems to be the same 9 or so monsters with little coloured textures. Yes yes, I know, PSICOM bio-research bullshit excuse, the end result is the elves on level 9 look the same as the elves on level 6 as the elves on level 2. It's a titch dry.

Edit 1: This should be prefaced with "I'M ONLY ON CHAPTER 9 GUYZ"

Edit 2: Also Fallout 3 story DID suck, but at least it's sandbox nature almost almost reached my multiplayer fuzzy zone level of "make your own adventures"

[Krylo]

I guess I can't really argue with you, 'cause I don't know where chapter nine is in the story, and even if I did I kind of have a feeling that any arguments I make would rely on character growth that happens over the course of the game.

But I will say that Hope, whom is probably the least likable character, has at least as much character depth as Morrigan does. He goes from Whiny brat, to determined revenge driven teen, to feeling the fact that he's the youngest and (logically, but not in terms of game mechanics) the weakest link, to becoming one of the most driven characters even overtaking Snow in his ability to keep people moving in the right direction. And this growth is organic and comes alongside you learning how his mind works.

Morrigan, on the other hand, goes from damaged woman with no conception of love, friendship, or even kindness, really, to an incredibly loyal sister/lover character, depending on gender and whether you romance her/are nice to her at all. Alternatively, she can stay just how she started. Again, the growth is organic, and comes alongside you learning how her mind works.

Don't get the 'chill' factor, either--unless you're talking about the Snow/Serah pedo thing, but I did look up the ages a little bit ago, and I guess Serah is 18, but jesus they could have done a better job making her look it.

S'rsly guys, was I the only one creeped out as all fuck by that?

And SOMEONE tell me what they needed to read in the datalogs to understand. Preferably Azi as he's less far than I am, and won't be mentioning things I haven't seen yet.

I noticed more of that in DA:O and ME than in FFXIII, as I said.

[Azisien]

Originally Posted by Krylo

And SOMEONE tell me what they needed to read in the datalogs to understand. Preferably Azi as he's less far than I am, and won't be mentioning things I haven't seen yet.

Perhaps it's not so much needing to read the datalogs to understand anything, as I said, being starved of context. I'm referring mostly to the introduction, which is a good five or six hours long. But more then enough time to form my initial impression.

The characters don't talk that much in the beginning. You know, its kind of understandable at least. They don't know each other, they're all pissed/driven, why talk? That's fine, I get it, but I also get bored.

I just wanted context. At the beginning they just throw around l'Cie and fal'Cie like I'm supposed to know what they are. Cocoon and Pulse. What are they? Is it the city they're in? A quadrant of the city? I have no idea and, I think I was sober at the time, because I don't recall the game elaborating until hours later. I did go into the datapad a few sparse times just to try to find some answers. This never happened to me in DAO or ME ever. I checked the codex out of genuine interest, moreso in ME, possibly because I'm a sci-fi nerd over a high fantasy nerd.

It's not so much the content taken as a whole as the speed of the delivery. The start is SLOW and I didn't like that. Square had whatever reason they wanted. I didn't find the ratio of content richness to speed of delivery to be satisfying. What was said could have been done in much less time, and probably not on one long winding road too, that would have aided in context. Some of that may be my fault, I didn't use the map much, but as far as I saw there were no world map pictures either.

To their credit at least the cut scenes are nicely spaced between monster segments, but often again I feel like whole scenes go by and nothing happened in them.

And I brightened slightly too when Hope started to gain some character. I've seen like half of what you described in his development, Krylo, and yeah it's better than the beginning. Wish I could say the same for the rest of the cast. And oh I hate Hope. Not because he's poorly developed, just because I hate him.


EDIT: I feel like now that, more recently, I'm feeling starved for a proper villain. Villains don't even seem to be introduced, I went several scenes before even figuring out that big-titted librarian colonel's NAME. It's starting to feel like the start of the game again.

EDIT 2: To give less numbery context, I'm just past the part where Dajh crystals and the other chunk of the party is raiding that big flagship thing. The polytamymeciasndndsf.

[bluestarultor]

I dunno why everyone is saying you need the datalog for context. Phantom didn't. You can't even make the argument that I already knew all the crap from being on FF Wiki, because I made a point to keep a lid on any and all spoilers. He never checked the datalog once and didn't have a problem with it, and he wasn't even particularly excited about the game after his experience with XII. He actually picked it up for my sake, popped it in on a whim, and barreled on through of his own accord.

Really, if you just pay attention to what's going on in the story, the datalog is entirely redundant. Phantom's assessment was that it just was repeating stuff he already knew. He didn't bother after the first few. We're now in Chapter 11 and piling up on Missions, so unless there's something in the last two chapters that really biffs it, I'm counting the datalog as not as necessary as people seem to claim.

[Kim]

Blues, you don't know my scale. You've seen what I say when I write posts, a lot of which I don't devote the proper amount of time to. Furthermore, the things I like about the game don't get nearly as much attention because I'm not the sort of person who is usually inclined to post and say "The combat's... pretty good!" unless I have very little else to say. You see my arguments as shrunken down to one or two paragraphs, and I'll be the first to admit they don't paint a clear picture.

Aside from that, talk shit on my preconceived bias all you like, but you had one, too, and that colors your current impressions, just like Krylo had his, and Azis had his, and Tera had his, because unless you literally haven't seen a single cutscene or heard a single thing about the game or the franchise it is a part of, you are going to have some sort of preconceived bias. Even if you aren't immediately aware of it, it's there. I know my preconceived bias. I have a pretty decent idea of how much it colors things. I went into FFX after years of not playing it because I had no interest in it, and thinking I would hate it. I literally played the game because I thought I could get a hateful review of it. Of the story centric Final Fantasies, it ranks as my third favorite in spite of its flaws and my complaints. I think this says a lot.

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by NonCon

Blues, you don't know my scale. You've seen what I say when I write posts, a lot of which I don't devote the proper amount of time to. Furthermore, the things I like about the game don't get nearly as much attention because I'm not the sort of person who is usually inclined to post and say "The combat's... pretty good!" unless I have very little else to say. You see my arguments as shrunken down to one or two paragraphs, and I'll be the first to admit they don't paint a clear picture.

Aside from that, talk shit on my preconceived bias all you like, but you had one, too, and that colors your current impressions, just like Krylo had his, and Azis had his, and Tera had his, because unless you literally haven't seen a single cutscene or heard a single thing about the game or the franchise it is a part of, you are going to have some sort of preconceived bias. Even if you aren't immediately aware of it, it's there. I know my preconceived bias. I have a pretty decent idea of how much it colors things. I went into FFX after years of not playing it because I had no interest in it, and thinking I would hate it. I literally played the game because I thought I could get a hateful review of it. Of the story centric Final Fantasies, it ranks as my third favorite in spite of its flaws and my complaints. I think this says a lot.

Non, you have no idea what I'm saying, do you? I'm saying you're the boy who cried wolf. You have sacrificed your reviewer's integrity in the eyes of the public on this game over the past year by ragging on it at every turn. Yeah, everyone has a bias based on what they see, but you've spent the past year establishing and reinforcing your own.

I'm saying this because I care, man. That's WHY I kept saying not to review the game until it was out, because you have some great points on it. But now everyone's inclined to write them all off, because they figure you've decided to hate the game no matter what.

See, Azi made a good point. You and RT didn't just come in with a bias, you both came in with a whole year's worth of hating on the game in a very strong and vocal manner. Azi's hating on the game based on its own merits. And there are good merits to hate on it for. The uber-long intro nearly killed it for Phantom and me, to be honest, and the first boss battle with Barthandelus took us somewhere like 20 tries, during which Phantom nearly broke the controller at least once and swore off the game twice until I could get tactics and finally a GUIDE for him. It pissed us off to no end that Snow was off dicking around for half the game and Hope is easily in the top 10 most annoying characters of FF.

See, I can say all that and have people listen, because I didn't establish a huge negative bias over the thing. I LOVE the game and even I'm saying rent before you buy.

The way things are coming off on your end are "I've hated the game for over a year now and I'm just going to keep on doing so, but, hey, there are a couple good things that I'll admit in between that." You've strongly established your bias over the past year and it's probably not going to go away for this round. On the other hand, I'm hoping you can learn from this for other games. It's not a matter of being positive about every title before release, or even trying to insulate yourself from it, but more about keeping a bit more of the appearance of an open mind, which is what this discussion has been suffering from over the past year.

I mean, yeah, you can write this off as being blunt and rude and wrong, but I didn't have the balls to say it before now and I really wish I had. I gave Dojo every one of its logos and wrote reviews for you, and even though I'm not still involved, I do still want to see it succeed as much as possible. Which is why I'm saying that you're lacking in professionalism, here. Maybe it won't show on Dojo, but it really shows on NPF.