I'm honestly not sure where to even begin with this game. There are so many things to love and so many problems at the same time. I haven't even really decided what the quality of the game is myself, yet I still ended up really loving it in the end. I guess I'll just go over every thing that did and didn't work for me.

Gameplay:

Final Fantasy XIII has one of the best combat systems I have ever played. It truly feels perfectly thought out and designed in every way. Battles control like your average turn based RPG, however there is no taking turns in this game. Your party as well as the enemies you fight have an action bar that charges over time, and you decide when and how to use that action bar. This is the best way in which I have ever seen an RPG make the player focus on timing that didn't feel a bit clunky; unlike some of the older FF games. On top of the amazing timing system, this game also introduces the stagger system, another one of the best RPG mechanics I have ever seen. Each character can switch between numerous different stances with different types of attacks. Some of these attacks focus on doing damage while others focus on charging the "stagger bar," Which significantly weakens the enemy and is often the only way to practically kill them. What all this means is that in every single battle, no matter what the enemy, having a real strategy is an absolute must. It makes it so that the game never feels slow or grindy as battles will always demand your full attention and be engaging at the same time. Additionally this game makes the excellent choice to replenish your health after every battle, meaning you never have to worry about resource management and can just focus on what's actually fun; the combat. The game also does an excellent job with its experience/level up system. Rather than there being actual levels, there is a crystarium that functions like a skill tree where you can choose what aspects of your character you actually want to upgrade. New sections of the crystarium with better upgrades are unlocked upon completing chapters, which prevents you from ever becoming too overleveled. This is just another factor forcing you to constantly use strategy in battles, and also actively discourages the player from grinding. All of these aspects combine to make probably my favorite RPG battle system ever.

Outside of the combat system, this game has one big, glaring problem that I'm a little bit conflicted on: it's linearity. It is a bit ridiculous just how linear this game is. Aside from one area, nearly every single level of this game is just a straight hallway where you walk directly to your objective and I understand why some people hate it, but here's the thing; I don't. I have to ask myself, does this game really need exploration? While it's true that the level design definitely could be a bit more interesting, it doesn't hurt this game too much. The most interesting part of this game is the fighting, and this linear level design ensures that the player is always guided to the exact area they should be in to fight enemies that are exactly the right strength for them. It also ensures that the story can be paced exactly how the developers intended, despite this game's story being a bit lacklustre in a few ways. The way I see it, the time you spend walking between battles is a bit of an intermission for you to observe the world around you and to connect everything in the game together, and that’s okay.

I think my one big issue with the gameplay and the reason that so many people have a problem with these levels and the lack of interactivity with the world is caused by the lack of mini games. Though the world looks stunning you almost never interact with it in any way aside from walking from enemy to enemy. There is exactly one minigame in chapter 2 of the game, and then you never see one ever again. It almost feels like there was a plan to include them that was just never executed for whatever reason. It’s not the end of the world, just a bit disappointing.

Story

This is by far Final Fantasy XIII’s biggest problem by a long shot. I’ll give it some credit in that the general concept of the world and its backstory is genuinely very cool, but it is executed and presented so bafflingly badly that I don't even know how Square thought it was acceptable to release in its current state. For starters, you are given no context on what many of the made up terms and nonsense story aspects are. Instead, you're expected to read an in-game dictionary to make sense of anything, however you'll often just have to read the game's wikipedia page. This game loves to tell you what happens in its story without actually showing it to you. What really doesn't help is that the dialogue in this game is some of the worst, most unnatural sounding I have ever heard. I have seen student films made by 10th graders developed on budgets of cardboard with better dialogue than this. The characters often barely feel like they're even talking to each other, instead just spouting random nonsense needed to progress the plot. There must have also been some sort of miscommunication between the writers, voice actors, and animators, because holy sometimes the editing for this game's cutscenes is actually so horrible. Characters will constantly cut each other off or have 2 voice lines play at the same time, and interrupt themselves constantly with their weird anime grunting. Each character is a fairly simple anime trope you've probably seen many times before and they are all pretty hard to relate to, which sucks cause the entire first 6 chapters of this game are dedicated to each character's arc, and none of them are good. Still, despite everything I just said, the characters (though bland) were consistent enough that by the end of the game I did find myself liking them and even rooting for them. Also, none of this story stuff would be nearly as big a deal if this game wasn't an RPG, one of the most story heavy genres in gaming. Even if you don't like the story, if you can look past it, the game is still playable.

Graphics

Graphically FF XIII is absolutely stunning. I have no idea how this was even released on PS3 because it looks better than many PS4 games I've played, and at a distance could even be mistaken for something that was released today. One advantage to this game's linear level design is that the developers can control exactly what you see and focus all their effort into making it absolutely beautiful. This game has so many interesting and incredible locations that would often make me take a small break from playing just to sit back and observe them. Interestingly the one area in this game that doesn't match the rest in terms of visual quality happens to be the one “open world” style area.

Music

I do not have too much to say about this aspect aside from the music being a little disappointing. Off the top of my head I can't exactly remember any of this game's music aside from one battle theme. I wouldn't care about this as much as I do if this were any series other than Final Fantasy, but as it is, I expected more.

Conclusion

I’ve definitely got a few more stray complaints and compliments I haven't mentioned in this review, but I feel I've properly conveyed my general feelings on this game. Despite being conflicted on many things I did enjoy Final Fantasy XIII quite a bit, and it might even be my favourite RPG in some aspects. If you're reading this wondering if you would enjoy the game or not, I really couldn't say. Some of the things that annoyed me about this game might be completely hated by someone else, or might be loved. I feel like this game felt really tailor made for me to enjoy in a lot of ways, so it really depends on your taste in games. Personally I definitely enjoyed it and will not be forgetting my time with it anytime soon.

It's hard for me to think of a more unfairly maligned game in recent memory than FFXIII.

The first (and only) mainline Final Fantasy game to release on Sony's PS3, XIII distances itself from its predecessors by taking a much more streamlined and linear approach to its design, to many fans dismay at the time. Gone are the towns, the shops & npc's, the overworld and many other jrpg genre hallmarks, in favour of a more direct and cinematic experience that somewhat redefines what a 'Final Fantasy' title can be.

Border-line avant-garde, seemingly dedicated solely to the premise of presentation above all else, XIII is a graphical and aesthetic tour de force. A daring synthesis of old and new, endeavouring to be different and drive the series in to uncharted territory, in a time when a safer follow up in the style of FFX would have been much easier pill to swallow for purists of the series. A ballsy move no doubt, but with hindsight one that I think pays off in spades.

Quite possibly the most breath-taking game ever made from an audio-visual standpoint (no small claim but something I stand firmly behind), FFXIII combines a kaleidoscope of beautiful sights and sounds to feast your senses on- from its jaw dropping backgrounds and lovingly rendered character models to its sweeping, luscious musical score and out-of-this-world FMV cutscenes, there's rarely a moment in this stunningly crafted title that fails to inspire awe from an artistic standpoint. These production values extend all the way down to the gorgeous UI and menu screens, which are animated with little visual flourishes that makes the presentation feel so polished and refined, making even the simple feat of navigating menus feel lavish and memorable- just look at this, and this.

So damn sexy.

Featuring a leaner, more responsive and dynamic battle system than seen before thanks to the new 'Paradigm' mechanic, which assigns each party member an offensive, defensive, or healing role and allows you to switch between them on the fly by executing 'Paradigm Shifts' to create various combinations of the three, combat feels immediate and exciting but also layered with strategy and easily rivals the best of the series previous offerings. These advancements to the battle system ultimately result in a delicate dance between you and your foes, with rhythm and timing playing key roles to victory. It's a seriously fun and addictive gameplay loop that rewards experimentation and finding optimal setups for each encounter. Helped further by the various quality of life changes, such as auto healing your teammates in and out of battle, and a generous checkpoint system, the game feels slicker as result and cuts out a lot of busy work, making tough battles and boss fights more forgiving and approachable overall while still retaining the strategy and challenge the series is known for.

And what of the story? Undoubtedly one of the most important aspects of the series. Well, it may not quite reach the heights of some of the heavy hitters in the franchise, but the world of Pulse is actually remarkably unique and offers a great canvas for the narrative and characters. Unfortunately, the story fails to completely land and at times character actions and motivations feel awkward and confusing- not helped by the fact the lore is buried under mountains of text and data logs. The characters are a mixed bag but generally likeable, and it's notable how their relationships actually evolve and change convincingly throughout the course their journey- shout out to Sazh in particular who steals the majority of scenes he appears in. The main antagonist is pretty forgettable by Final Fantasy standards but does at least offer a few particularly challenging boss battles. So really then, the uniqueness of the setting, some decent character moments and the fantastic presentation helps make up for any shortcomings I had with the story. The feeling of awe when landing on Gran Pulse after hours of navigating long, linear sci-fi corridors and being greeted by a vast open expanse of nature to freely roam around was a masterstroke of game design imo and well worth the long pay off.

I'll be the first to hold my hands up and say- I was wrong about this one and wish I hadn't listened to the general consensus for so many years. Maybe if people hadn't complained so much about XIII the series wouldn't be in the rut it is now, struggling to find an identity in the current gaming landscape.

I adored this game.

Disclaimer: The words 'fal'cie' and 'l'cie' will be etched in to your brain by the time the credits roll.

Once severely maligned by casual players and hardcore fans of the series alike, Final Fantasy 13 has been nothing but vindicated by the success of Final Fantasy 7 Remake. A hybrid combat system with both real-time and turn-based elements. A strong focus on characters and vistas. The presentation of the world as a sight-seeing tour through mostly linear corridors.

This might feel very contentious to a lot of people, but it’s true that a lot of 13’s DNA is present in 7R, and for the most part, 13 just does it flat out better. This game has a strong focus on its central mechanics - the combat system. It’s the central way of engaging with the game, and – spin-offs excluded – it’s one of the most combat-heavy Final Fantasy games to date, with even the more exploration-heavy areas having combat as their main reward.

The combat is designed really well - a very compact system that lets you do decisions about a meta-level of play that any sensible player already knows how to employ if they ever touched a turn-based combat system. As the developer correctly surmised, there is no challenge anymore in menuing to a Cure spell every other round to keep the party alive, especially for JRPG veterans. Final Fantasy 13 still seeks its identity in an idea adjacent to ATB, although the real-time component of older Final Fantasies mattered too little to actually make the quick menuing dangerous to your party. Final Fantasy 13 solves these problems: It relieves you of the burden to micromanage and additionally makes the real-time component integral to the challenge by constantly pressuring you to make quick decisions.

The focus in the battle system lies on choosing the correct strategy and not telling each character exactly what to do. These strategies are defined by the “roles” each character has, and these roles define what moves a character has and how they will behave. There are 6 roles in the game, each character has 3 of those 6 roles as their “main” roles, in which they excel. Each possible role combination of the 3 active characters is a “paradigm”. One of the genius parts of this battle system is that you can only choose 6 paradigms before each battle in your load-out, which means you have to leave a lot of possible options on the table and still have to be prepared for all eventualities that might occur in the battle. The game would arguable devolve into just another form of micro-managing if you could assign roles individually during a battle, so I welcome this limitation. There will always be some fights where you won’t have the optimal paradigms equipped, and still winning quickly despite that is what makes you feel like you really understood the ins and outs of the game.

During battle you only directly control your party leader, meaning the other characters behave autonomously according to their role and the current state of the battle. The fact that the automated characters almost always (and by almost I really do mean 99+% of the time) make sensible choices in combat is a testament to how simple the rules of menu-based combat usually are. Even for the party leader, the game gives you an option to preselect the character moves for you, still abiding by the thought that what you have before you is probably an easily solvable problem, as long as you have the correct strategy in mind. You can – of course – always manually choose the inputs of the party leader to optimize everything a bit further, and that is sometimes a key component of harder boss fights, but micromanaging one character in a tight situation is a far cry from inputting moves for every character each round regardless of the current battle complexity.

This all begs the question, if everything is automated, surely the game must not be very challenging? The answer is: Kind of. Final Fantasy 13 can be an easy game if you just try to play it safe and survive at any cost, but playing that way is highly discouraged through fostering intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The really smart thing about this combat system is how the game tries to get you to overextend yourself, and it has 2 main ways of doing this: The ranking system and the stagger system.

The ranking system is very simple, but elegant for this purpose: The faster you complete a battle, the better your rank is and a better rank means you get better items. This gives you an additional extrinsic motivation for optimization and going for offense, and it cost me quite a few battles just because I really wanted a full 5 star rating and made an unsafe decision because of that. It’s very to the point: “You could have been faster“, and holding this over your head alone is a great motivator and factor that keeps pushing you into new strategies.

The other way the game tries to goad you into making mistakes is the stagger system. Most modern Final Fantasy games have the stagger system as a bar that fills upon attacking the enemy until it – on completion – stuns the enemy for a brief period of time and gives you a damage multiplier on your attacks during that period. The interesting thing about this is that 13 is the first FF to ever employ this system, and it’s still by far the most interesting iteration. In this game it’s not only designed to give you catharsis through a bigger damage output through upon completing the bar, it actually has a few more purposes that feed directly back into the idea of letting the player make more mistakes.

The stagger bar in Final Fantasy 13 isn’t just a constantly filling bar that rewards you with a damage multiplier at the end, it consistently rises and increases the multiplier with each hit. The bar also constantly reduces (not the multiplier!) and only resets when you do a hit to the enemy. Upon the bar reaching zero, you lose the current damage multiplier and you effectively have to start your offense over again, only keeping the HP damage you did to the enemy up to that point. This, of course, means you have to constantly keep pressuring an enemy if you want to end up doing substantive damage, not to mention that keeping an enemy in check during stagger is much easier, since he is more easily interruptable.

Playing defensively is of course still an option, and having a paradigm only consisting of defensive roles is sometimes even necessary to survive, but keep that formation running for too long and you potentially nullify all effort you have put into the battle offensively. Again, this constant feeling of push-and-pull to keep going is great at getting you to overextend yourself and make bad decisions. You might be able to put all characters into an attacking role and fill the stagger bar before any of your characters die, but making the right judgment call when you go for the final part of the stagger bar is crucial. There are bosses in this game that attack relentlessly, finding windows to attack and quickly fill their stagger bar always feels like a gamble, but at some point you want to take the proverbial leap of faith and go into complete offense, lest you turtle even longer and lose that sweet 5 star rating. All systems in the game interlock masterfully to give you this one goal: Minimal defense, maximum offense.

Of course, all of this would be useless if every battle played the same. Luckily, the game understands this and has a wide variety of enemies and enemy formations that each require different strategies. The further you get in the game, the more enemy combinations make it hard to map out the encounter strategy in your head: Who should you deal with first? Can you get through this with a short buffing period? Should you have a safety healer on hand or just bumrush the enemies with a completely offensive strategy? Which offensive strategy? Is debuffing key here or not? These questions constantly turn up in play, and it’s basically guaranteed you will keep dying and learning to deal with new formations thrown at you throughout the whole game. As the game progresses, paradigm changes will happen quicker and you will sometimes change up the strategy to simply execute a single move and then move on to the next paradigm. The challenge escalates and the gameplay becomes more frantic as you go, which is an impressive feat for 30+ hour game.

One problem the game has here is that the pacing of the variation of combat encounters could be faster in a lot of chapters. There is a lot of monotony in certain locations, even with the whole idea of optimizing the battles. Some sections drag out too long and throw too many similar enemy formations at you to keep pace with player skill – which is a shame, considering that the chapter-to-chapter escalation is really solid otherwise. It feels like the developers wanted to play it too safe at some points or that they wanted to preserve the “feeling” of older RPGs where you fight each enemy more often.

The “RPG” part of the game is really digestible: All of the customization in FF 13 comes from equipment, and every character only has effectively 3 stats: Strength, Magic and HP. The lack of any defensive stat is welcome, since most RPGs don’t actually handle the potential tradeoff between defense and HP interestingly, and it only muddles the water in what the player should invest in. Some accessories grant you defensive boosts against certain types of attacks, but these correspond to flat percentage damage reductions and are therefore easily understandable.

The game is essentially one long ride from battle to battle with some sight-seeing inbetween, but I do mean that positively – mostly. The game still looks amazing, even by today’s standards, and it’s not only impressive what Square got out of 7th gen hardware, but also how fresh and unique the environments and characters in this game feel. Final Fantasy 13 presents a world that is torn between technology and naturality and everything about its visuals underscores this dichotomy. The “gods” of this world – the Fal’cie – do not fall into any standard depiction of supernaturality, they are machinistic and technologic at their core, giant and complex machines beyond our comprehension. The designs of these beings vary wildly, but they are all cohesive in that they feel fundamentally alien and slightly unsettling, almost like a mechanical version of Lovecraft’s elder gods or the often quoted “biblically accurate angels”. This is not only a very unique design choice, it also drives home the point that these beings are at odds with the natural order of the world and with the humans that reside in it.

Even the music hones in on this theme – Masashi Hamauzu created an incredible soundtrack that underscores this conflict between man and machine by mixing up electronic and orchestral music. Some of the best music in the series is here, the somber “Dust to Dust” being one of the most powerful ballads these games have to show for themselves. Hearing the haunting vocals in the melody of the games’ leitmotif while witnessing the desolation around you is a moment that will always stay with me. The main battle theme “Blinded by Light” is a triumphant orchestral piece that never gets grating and, even at the end, had me humming along with the melody. The pop track “The Sunleth Waterscape” is (in)famous for how schmaltzy it is, but that exact type of unapologetic commitment to a corny pop track is what ends up making it so charming, and it ends up being one of the highlights of the soundtrack for it.

The pacing and story of Final Fantasy 13 are probably its weakest part – many of the emotional beats miss their mark, because the melodrama has been built up in a way that feels too convoluted. The best example here is the emotional arc between Snow and Hope, which falls flat for several reasons; The biggest one being that Hope takes way too long to confront Snow about his anger and Snow making way too many convoluted and incidental remarks that specifically only serve to strenghten Hope’s grudge against Snow. While the player already knows how both characters feel, we are strung along for a very drawn-out conflict that resolves unsatisfyingly. That’s not to say that none of these emotional beats work – Final Fantasy 13 is at its best when it’s drenched in straightforward, unapologetic pathos. Each of the characters has their own moment when they decide that they “can’t run away anymore”, metaphorically speaking, and this works better for some and worse for others, courtesy of what these characters are actually running from. Sazh’s story of grappling with his feelings as a father is probably the arc that resonates the most, and the game’s theme of pushing forward is at its most personal here, and I would argue that it also has the fewest problems with its pacing.

Another problem with the story is that some aspects keep being weirdly underexplained, even if you sift through the written datalogs. Especially the character motivations of Fang are confusing – who has a crucial role in the games’ finale. Her behaviour takes quite a bit of the hype out of the climax, despite the otherwise great presentation.

Final Fantasy 13 is one of those games that really struck a nerve with me despite its obvious issues. It will stay with me for longer and give me more to think about than most other linear JRPGs, because what I see here is an extremely interesting and highly successful attempt at deconstructing menu-based combat and trying to translate it to a meta-level, making a point to be less about singular actions and more about character behaviours, and it succeeds marvelously at that. It presents an ambitious idea at a combat system for veterans of the genre that are a tired of just hitting obvious choices in menus and already think about each fight in terms of roles and tactics.

It’s a game that has a very strong visual and auditory identity on top of that, and I can’t really say I played another game that felt, sounded or looked anything close to it. It’s a unique gem in the JRPG sphere in both gameplay and presentation, and even if you don’t mesh with all the things I mentioned as much as I do, I would still recommend giving it a shot, because it does present something far away from the typical fare the genre is known for.

Alright, I've replayed it so let's try this again and see if we can keep it brief this time (...lmao).

Other than cutscenes and battles, FFXIII has gutted pretty much every conventional RPG element. Exploration is even less relevant than in the similarly linear (but far better) FFX, because of the absence of conversable NPCs, diverse treasures, and fixed camera angles. Resource management and character building are all but non-existent as party members are healed automatically before every fight and are locked in for the majority of the game, their equipment has been reduced to an afterthought (until post-game), and the crystarium offers almost nothing in the way of choice (again, until postgame, but at postgame you're just going to grind it out until you have everything anyway, now aren't you).

All of this means that the game HAS to lean completely on the two legs it actually has, its individual battles and its story. I will admit that in the past I have been overly harsh on them both, yet I maintain that both are lacking.

In its battles, FFXIII eschews the usual careful and proactive decision-making and instead goes all-in on reactive crisis management. It revolves completely around what we ancient World of Warcraft veterans would call "stance-dancing." Switch to buff/debuff mode when it's needed, switch to stagger-building mode as the default option, and switch to healing mode when the big damage shows up. If that sounds extremely simple, it's because it is. That doesn't make it easy to execute. FFXIII accommodates all of this auto-battle streamlining by ratcheting up the speed about a dozen notches. It becomes a game about reacting in the midst of a boss's attack patterns. Unfortunately there's no traditional "wait mode" so it suffers all of the old pitfalls of the ATB system more than ever before. It is a game of fumbling through menus, desperately trying to navigate to the right option at the right second, and if one's characters have chosen to automatically stand next to each other and get blasted by area of effect attacks, well I guess that's just too bad. There are merits in its ideas, but fundamental flaws render them doomed... at least until they achieve their final, radiant forms in FF7R. Against non-boss encounters (which obviously are almost all of them) the system fares worse. In most cases (not all, there are definitely some notable exceptions) the party will be in the Relentless Assault paradigm and the player will absent-mindedly prod at the X button throughout the fight, providing almost no input or thought other than maybe switching over to a heal paradigm if things get bad. In truth this would be functionally identical to MOST Final Fantasy games, were it not for that one crucial difference: resources. In the rest of these games, one must be judicious in their use of potions, ethers, and other assets while exploring their dungeons. It's a core, time-tested element of RPGs, and its absence here (among other absences) places a far, far greater burden on individual engagements to be... engaging. Most of them are not, and areas mostly consist of long, linear gauntlets with only these fights to look forward to.

Well... that and the occasional cutscenes, which are of mixed quality. To its credit, Final Fantasy XIII was then and is now, a gorgeous video game with a stellar soundtrack and an adequate English dub. To its detriment, its storytelling is a hot mess with baffling characterization and miserable pacing. Some scenes stand out as sincere emotional successes, but so many others fail to convey the inner conflicts that the game later attempts to spell out with ham handed bluntness in its datalog. Said datalog is a terrible crutch, used for critical exposition but drowned in redundancy. With or without it though, the middle of the story often feels like purgatory. The first few chapters are adequately paced with plenty of compelling developments, but chapters 4-9 (that's six out of thirteen, basically half the story) are often spent chewing the same bland melodrama with little to no progression in the plot. At best, character backstories are explored, but frontstories stand stagnant. Roughly half of the game's plot is comprised of the main characters fleeing pursuit and deciding what to do. It is aimless and dry in a way that is unlikely to connect with anyone in the way that other games in the franchise do. By the time things feel like they're picking up, the story's almost at its end. It's tempting to call it a more character focused tale than other FF games, but I would bluntly deny such a claim. The casts of Final Fantasy VII, IX, and X all achieve the same levels of character depth across almost all of their parties while still featuring a far more engaging plot and more elegant storytelling. Cloud is, to be perfectly frank, a vastly superior, more interesting character than Lightning ever becomes, and Lightning has three games to develop across. Vivi, Auron, Garnet and Yuna all obliterate the writing of every character in FFXIII with perhaps the possible exceptions of Vanille and Fang, but Vanille suffers from an awkward dubbing process and Fang shows up so late that she barely even matters. Hope especially, is apparently written by someone who has never met an actual child. I've worked in an elementary school, watched the passing childhoods of six nieces and nephews, and of course, have been fourteen years old myself. Even at that age, even under such emotional duress, the leaps of logic that are essential to Hope's character are utterly inhuman. They are conclusions that could only be reached by someone with either a debilitating mental illness or psycho-magical fantasy tampering, neither of which are implied by the narrative. There are traumatized children latching onto whatever they can, and then there are deranged, dangerous murderers. I can only empathize with the former, and the writers seem to lack any awareness of the latter. Lightning suffers as well. While this recent playthrough has done much to curb my visceral disgust at her general abrasiveness and her frequent incidents of physical assault against undeserving targets, I still can't find anything positive to latch onto in her character. She can usually be convinced to do the right thing, but only begrudgingly and in meager doses. She is rude, sometimes unfathomably so, but with none of the cathartic irreverence of Jack Garland. She is sullen, but with none of the lovable goofishness or many vulnerabilities of Cloud Strife. She entirely lacks the extenuating circumstances or subtle, observable arc of Squall Leonheart. As far as I can tell, her character development is intended to be triggered by two things: the visible parallels between her behavior and Hope's clear insanity, and some sort of adjacent nonsense revelation wherein she considers the nature of the world that she's spent her whole life in for the very first time and this leads to a reevaluation of her previous strange decisions? I can only wrap my head around the vague idea that the writers must have had for this character, not what they were really going for here or why on Earth they would choose to convey it in this way. The story as a whole feels as though it has some good ideas and no idea what to do with them, so for the most part what it actually does with them is... nothing. Cid Raines and his subplot feel like somebody tried to cut them from the game entirely and just missed a few pieces. The overarching conflict is only surreptitiously resolved through sudden, unexplained magic in the last few minutes after a final boss that lacks any kind of emotional crescendo, especially when there are SIX utterly misplaced cutscenes separating its phases, sucking any and all energy out of the proverbial room. It's just bad writing, and when that writing serves as the player's only reward for slogging through lengthy battle after lengthy battle, it's a bigger target for criticism than it'd ever be otherwise.

It is no exaggeration to say that before this re-visitation I hated FFXIII. I hated it for many years. I saw it as an emblem of a genre and perhaps even an industry in frustrating, heartbreaking decline. It was a message both loud and clear that Square Enix either had no understanding of what I loved about their franchise or simply didn't care. It seemed to be ashamed of everything about its forbears that I liked, and enraptured by trends that I despised. Final Fantasy XII had eroded some of my trust in Square Enix, but Final Fantasy XIII erased it completely. A Realm Reborn and Final Fantasy XV did little to win me back. It wasn't until FF7R demonstrated a complete and perfect knowledge of FFVII's tone, characters, and shitty minigames that I was again able to open my heart once again to Final Fantasy. In these recent years I have pursued a more legitimate critical voice for myself. Returning to FFXIII with this altered frame of mind has allowed me to more honestly entertain the game's ideas and discern the value in some of its intentions. Many of my old criticisms simply do not hold up to the game's realities. They were blown out of proportion by the disgust (and perhaps, more pettily, betrayal) that I felt at the time, or by my rigid teenage dogma. I can admit when I was wrong, and am interested in doing so because there is no worth in dishonest criticism. Even with these admissions however, Final Fantasy XIII simply has too many cracks in its foundation. It cannot and does not live up to the legacy of its franchises greatest hits. Even FFVIII and IX, two games whose incredible strengths are savagely undercut by the unfortunate failings in their gameplay feel like they're out of FFXIII's league. No, Final Fantasy XIII feels more at home with Final Fantasy III; a game which is serviceable, rigid, and often more than a little annoying, with no great strengths beyond this... only some interesting ideas to be realized more fully in later, better games.

In theory, in spirit, in abstraction, choose the inexact term of your preference, I really like this. The game honestly treasures its silly adolescent spirit, a spirit about people wanting to save the world from its, supposedly, destined doom. Not exactly the most original thing in the universe right (though I won’t stop liking it because of that), but there’s a bit more.

The reason why the group ends up deciding to attempt to defy a greater power, a colossal global act, takes root in a very personal and intimate place. It all starts from the desire of Lightning and Snow to save Serah, their sister and bride to be respectively. It’s not only them, Hope needs to find a way to move on after losing his mother and the other three characters also have the root of their cause in someone close, though they hide it for some time. The thing is that at the start of the adventure all of them are blinded and need to put the blame on whatever they have at hand. From self repulsion to putting all the weight in someone concrete that, even if still has some responsibility to account, isn’t the truly villainous force.

It’s not hard to understand why they point fingers so easily. The real culprit here is a more abstract force beyond any human, easy to guess they end up fighting godlike figures, because of course they do, though not necessarily religious gods. There are clear influences of religion here and there, but these forces are embodied in machinery monstrosities, beings that can literally produce food and other essential goods to keep humans happy. They also can curse the people in order to carry their will. At the moment that this curse is cast there are only two options: you fail at your abstractly told task and turn into a zombie or you succeed and gain eternal life aka turn into a crystal forever. A curse for eternity.

Talking about killing gods may sound like getting into unbearable pretentiousness (partially true, I guess, but also cool) that in reality ends up leading nowhere, but it never really feels like the game is trying to be smarter than it is. It’s not so much about screaming out loud about the possibility of change through a serious way, but about what comes before, the burning desire of that possibility existing. To believe in miracles just before fighting to make them come true. It is the moment the cast starts realizing that to save Serah or anyone dear to them the only real way is to fight for that greater shift that saves everyone.

Unfortunately, the game has many problems. I could start with everything related to combats, in short, they try something but it isn’t compromised enough nor good enough and ends up being a mess. In any case, what really keeps me from liking it is this messiness in other places.

It’s surprising to see how Hope's conflict with the loss of his mother is considerably well handled, letting see what goes on until he can come clear with himself and then have Sazh conflict. In about 30 minutes (of a really long game) a grown up guy, not a child like Hope, gets in a similar situation in which he blames someone that is just very partially at fault, then realizes that revenge will solve nothing, then thinks about ending his life in a small cliffhanger and the next time he appears he’s all cool everything clear. In a flashback showing Lightning’s birthday, the only moment where she tried to stop being a soldier and act as a human being, the gift that she receives from her just-cursed-about-to-be-married dear sister is… a combat knife.

Even the moments that work to some extent fall short of what I feel they should be. Watching Snow and Serah being together is cute, but with a couple around twenty years old planning on building a family and assuring that not even godly curses will stop their love, “cute” shouldn’t be enough. And it’s like that through the whole game, I keep coming back to its concepts, to the burning passion that is in its abstraction, but when I reach my hand to try to get a handle on anything, the game is, ironically, incapable of truly crystallizing.

I have a lot of thoughts on this, final fantasy XIII is actually the one in the franchise that interested me the most because of its very mixed reception and reputation, particularly in the west. It also interests me because of nostalgia, having seen a lot of gameplay and ads for this back in the day before I became an rpg fan and because it appeared to be very unique as a final fantasy game, with its one of a kind approach to combat and a colourful & futuristic setting. Upon finally getting around to playing it, I can surmise my thoughts as 'fun, but bizarre'. For what is actually a very successful entry that also spawned two of its own sequels, this turned out to be one of the least accessible and most uncompromising jrpgs that i've ever played.

First of all, the setting, premise and lore of this game are rich and substiantial, but don't do the best job of explaining themselves. Like any story, there is an element of mystery and intrigue as you unfold more about the world and its inhabitants, but ff13 leaves a lot to the imagination and the stuff it doesn't is filled into a 'datalog' that is essential to read if you want to properly understand anything. It doesn't help that many of ff13's key elements sound very similar - fal'cie, l'cie, c'ieth, of which there can be different types too, with each "fal'cie" (effectively the 'gods' of this setting) looking entirely unique with no distinguishing features and, seemingly, the ability to transform their appearance at will. This reliance on its own in-world jargon and lack of its own set of rules is combined with a decent share of awkward character writing and confusing, muddled motivations that result in an overall narrative that feels too big for its boots, though I have to admit its charming and silly enough to not be insulting. At the best of times there are some nice threads of things like drama and romance as well as some interesting ethical dilemmas which I respect, but the actual execution is kind of lacking in soul and, well, sense.

Respect is a key thing here, while I do think this deserves 3 stars as its a game with a lot of problems, I absolutely respect the hell out of this game. It is a big step forward despite its shortcomings, because risk-taking and confidence in your decisions is how progress is made and this game does a lot of things right. One thing I adore about it is its beautiful art direction and design, which seems to incorporate so many influences ranging from science-fiction to religion. FFXIII is filled with fantastic setpieces like the sprawling futuristic cityscapes of cocoon and the stunning landscapes of gran pulse where you have wide mountainous regions, grassy plains, canyons, snowy peaks and the ramshackled, dusty ghost town of oerba. There's also plenty of great looking inbetween areas like the dingy trash heap of the vile peaks and the mysterious, alien-like taejin tower, all crafted and textured beautifully. All this to say, for a game that came out in 2009, the visuals are among the best i've ever seen in the medium to date and it is clear how ff7 remake took a lot of notes from it. There's so much rich colour and so many intriguing tapestries etched into the environments, not to mention the character models and enemy designs are equally brilliant. The meticulous detail both in and out of its pre-rendered cutscenes is unbeaten for the time of its release, with super realistic hair animations, expressive facial features and excellent attack animations and particle effects in combat.

Combat is another huge plus that FFXIII has going for it, it might even be my favourite combat system in the series (of those i've played) next to FF7 remake. It is a massive step forward whilst still feeling like final fantasy and allows (though doesn't exactly encourage) extensive customisation and player expression through its paradigm system. I've never seen a combat system simultaneously take away control, but also be so involved at the same time, since it requires you to be reactive but also anticipate your next move. You only control one character but you also take a leadership role in determing which roles each character takes at any time, you also have control over when to use summons, items and other techniques. So while you're not controlling your full party at any one time, you also need to make sure each character is taking an active and necessary role at each moment. The challenge is also uncompromising at times, testing your initiative and encouraging you to be aggressive rather than hunker down - that being because of the 'chain guage', another unique mechanic that functions as a stun meter, only by building this can you really dish out damage, without building that meter you're effectively making the game 3x slower and 3x as difficult for yourself, so you need to be focusing on dealing damage as much as possible between heals and buffs/debuffs. Its all crafted so well and is an insane amount of fun to play around with, although it is held back somewhat by the difficulty since it can force you into particular playstyles. FFXIII is also frustratingly unbalanced, with certain party members outright outperforming others in the same role, limiting your freedom of expression massively, since there are certain difficulty spikes and particular bosses (looking at you barthandelus) that need to be approached in a particular way. You also cannot respec or reset crystarium (effectively this game's way of 'levelling up'), so if you have not built 'correctly' you can kind of just put yourself into a very tight corner. Even on easy mode this is still very much an issue, if the difficulty curve was better and each character could perform well enough in each role (some level of unbalance is fine to differentiate character strengths) it would just be a better time overall since it wouldn't limit your freedom and expression in your party - RIP sazh, I wish you were good but I still love you.

As for the games' shortcomings I won't go too deep into them since they've been said a lot but frankly, most of the cast are quite boring and one-dimensional (though I do love sazh and I like fang and lightning), the linearity is repetitive and frustrating, it takes about 15 hours for the game to really get going and become fun since only then do you get access to all roles and mechanics and the game does not genuinely open up until chapter 11 out of 13. Even then, its quite bizarre how it opens up and still retains a sense of linearity as you have the choice to basically either progress the story (linear), or complete a series of numbered 'missions' to grind and get rewards (also linear). The only non-linearity here is being able to explore in a direction that is not always just going forwards, but its a small part of a big game and its clearly not what the game is built for since the camera is awkward, there's not much to see or do and the stuff there is to see and do is the stuff you've already been doing this whole time. Frankly, FFXIII would really benefit from the kinds of pace-breakers we all know and love in jrpgs, like quirky npc interactions, fun little minigames and side objectives and party building moments where the characters bond by relaxing together or playing games or something - none of that is here in any form really, this is a game that wants you to keep going forwards all the time and that would be ok if it was paced a little better, otherwise I feel like im just doing cutscene - run forwards - battle on repeat.

Despite these shortcomings, this is still a gorgeous, enjoyable experience with some outstanding visuals and a soundtrack that shouldn't be overlooked, its got some really great tracks in there. Even though the story sometimes feels like complete nonsense, there is an endearing sentimentality to it and I can see why some people love it so much. I had to do a lot of googling to try and make sense of what was happening but in its core moments, there is something very sweet and humble about its message and its character interactions, it also often draws paralels to real life anxieties and corrupt politics which I enjoy. This is not a game I would highly recommend to anyone unless they knew what they were in for, but if you decide to give it the time of day, there's plenty to like and I do think it gets too much hate. For what it is, I do actually quite like this one and i'm glad I played it.

Opening thoughts/TLDR
This was something of a milestone for me. Some of my friends on here will have realized I only seem to play old games - this is simply because for the last ten years I haven't been able to afford either a new console or an upgrade to my potato laptop. I finally got a new computer, and so this 12 year old AAA-game is actually the most technically-advanced game I've completed. As such, my experience with this game reminds me of my experience as a teen watching the Star Wars prequels and Matrix sequels in theaters - I was blown away by the presentation initially, until the spectacle gradually faded and the whole package lost its luster. This is a damn beautiful game that dared to experiment, and the results can generally be summed up as "this is so cool, but..."

So much has already been said about this game's more divisive features, but I'm going to try to unpack my thoughts below.

On combat
The 'auto-combat' style is a common complaint against the gameplay, but I found it quite refreshing and deceptively deep. Much of the battles are spent watching and occasionally changing paradigms which sounds boring, but in practice it freed me up to observe the flow of the battle and make larger-scale decisions without getting caught up in micromanagement. Some ways into the game I started noticing small inefficiencies in the allies' (very adequate) AI and started choosing more actions manually, which added another layer of involvement to the battles. I also need to praise the difficulty curve and difficulty level, which was great for the most part; very little cheap jank but some surprisingly tough fights which I won by the skin of my teeth.

I do wish the game allowed me to switch which member I was controlling at any time instead of only the party leader - it would have allowed for more expressiveness in how to handle various combat situations as well as the opportunity to compensate for more of the AI's inefficiencies. I also wish there was a way to control the character positioning somewhat, as my designated tank would often provoke enemies to attack him but then stand right next to the other party members so they'd still get hit as collateral anyway!

Generally I enjoyed the combat, but it suffered from a more structural issue in the larger context of the game: the all-in laser-like focus on it. The infamous lack of towns or exploration or any sort of downtime for most of the game, while justified in-universe, made what would otherwise have felt like a refreshing combat system feel monotonous at times. It also meant the story felt like it didn't have time to breathe, which brings me to...

On storytelling
The story was quite good - while it gets a tad convoluted, that's par for the course for any FF game. The datalog was a nice touch, adding information about the lore of the world and summarizing key plot points the player may have forgotten, but it also proved to be a double-edged sword. Many of the cutscenes looked great but didn't always do a good job of conveying what was going on, while the datalog entries were usually more detailed and less ambiguous - this meant that for every cutscene that played I would need to open up the datalog to read about what just happened, which broke the immersion and bloated the experience somewhat.

I have to say I really liked the main cast by the end - they bounced well off each other, and each went through satisfying arcs and character development. Sazh was the standout for me, being immediately likeable and gaining lots of depth as the game went on. My fondness towards the characters also comes with a caveat though: they were kneecapped by the in-media-res opening. Starting the game right in the thick of the action was good for the spectacle, but as even their basic motivations weren't addressed until several hours into the game, most of them came across as unlikeable and opaque for much of the early game. Only revealing their backstories and motivations several hours in was a cheap trick to create the illusion of more character development, and one that I would say wasn't necessary given the strength of the cast and how much the writers had to work with.

On linearity
The 'corridor simulator' description is probably the most invoked criticism of the game, and while linearity doesn't often bother me, it is the in-media-res opening that exacerbates the issues here because it does a poor job of establishing anything about the characters, what they're trying to do or why we should care about them. Contrasting with say FFVII, which immediately establishes you as a mercenary working with eco-terrorists to bomb a reactor, the opening here saw you take control of five different characters trying to track down a being called a Fal'cie, each with their own reasons... but you don't know what they are until far later. This proves to be the pattern for most of the first 8 chapters (and there are only 13 in total): you're not trying to find the lost king, you're not trying to save your friend, you're just trying to get to the end point of the map for an unknown reason that the game will only tell you later.

The game does open up about halfway through but I actually also found that section rather weak for different reasons. A collection of fetch quests that didn't even try to hide that it was a collection of fetch quests, it was beautiful but mechanically dull. The game was at its best when it was linear and the characters were fully established, which unfortunately made up for just about 15% of my total playtime.

Final thoughts Final Fantasy has always been a series that loves experimenting. This particular experiment threw out very mixed results but that said I'm still looking forward to playing the sequels. Fortunately I've heard they aren't as long!

An Amazing Experience Marred by an Intentionally-Slow and Linear First-Half

Disclaimer: I played with HD Texture and Cutscene mods + Tweaked settings via Nvidia Profile Inspector + Reshade so I cannot comment on the performance. Only issue I had was 4 crashes through my 100+-hour playthrough

Final Fantasy XIII is an overall amazing game with an amazingly-written and grounded cast of characters. However, the first few chapters are slow by design and it definitely hampers the fun-factor of the game. It is also by far the least Final Fantasy-feeling game that I have played. Lack of towns/NPCs, an extremely-linear level design, auto-battle mechanic in combat, plot takes a backseat in exchange of developing the characters, etc. but In an era of open-world games, Final Fantasy XIII definitely stands out and feels refreshing in 2023. It is one of those games that unfortunately "gets better in xx chapters" but depending on your level of investment with the party and the world it portrays, it might give you a reason to play through the slog and have a surprisingly fun experience like it did for me.

Pros:
+ Interesting Lore and World-building. Datalog is fun to read through
+ Amazing character writing for the main party
+ Gorgeous Level Design and Animations
+ Fun and Complex Battle Mechanics by the end of the game

Cons:
- Horrible villains and underdeveloped side-characters
- Didn't care for the plot most of the time
- Extremely slow pacing in the first half of the game
- Voice audio can be low at times
- Combat takes a long time until it gets really fun and complex
- side-quests and crafting are extremely grindy and may require looking-up a guide to properly utilize it
- Personal Gripe: Vanille's constant moaning

Amidst all the cons listed above, the characters and the late-game combat are what really made me invested enough to go through all that and it paid off well. By the time I rolled credits, I am in love with Final Fantasy XIII and glad I gave it the second chance it deserves.

116 hours and 100% Achievement later, I give Final Fantasy XIII a 3.5/5

Somehow both too chaotic and simplistic for its own good, Final Fantasy XIII stands a definitive sign of its time and a harbinger of our current one.

For many, saying Final Fantasy XIII means saying 'failure' in the same breath. Even fans of the game will speak as if they're playing defense against some nebulous sense of disdain. Growing up, I only heard overwhelming derision when the game was mentioned. It seems that no matter who you are, you understand that XIII has a cloud of darkness looming over it. But why?

Evolution / Devolution
Well, it won't take long after pressing start to see for yourself. First, you'll be assaulted with barrage of proper nouns within moments of just loading in. Talk of Pulse, Purges, PSICOM, Focuses, Cocoon, L'cie, Fal'cie, etc. will disorient you to the point of indifference before you even learn anyone's name. But we'll get back to the story later. If this wasn't enough to set your alarms off, the combat encounters you're thrown into moments later should set you to DEFCON 1 instantly.

To start, Final Fantasy XIII has boldly opted to remove control of party members--meaning you'll be controlling one character and one character only. Consequentially, if that character dies, you'll be getting a game over...even if the other characters are alive and are capable of reviving you.
This decision alone spells ruin for even the most well intentioned of RPGs. Taking away options and methods for character expression should only be done when something else becomes complex enough to justify streamlining. Not to even mention how dangerous it is to leave players at the mercy of party AI. Anyone who's played similar games (Persona 3, etc.) can probably recall at least a few horror stories of negligent healers, absentminded mages, or unresponsive tanks that can still make their blood boil. God knows I can.

But hey, if we're only controlling one character then certainly the game has plenty of fresh rewarding mechanics to throw at us...right? Funny. Nearly every aspect of the game's battle systems have been dumbed down to new impressive lows. The usual RPG stats have been boiled down to merely two unique values (Strength and Magic). Mana no longer exists. Equipment is back to a simple weapon/accessory duality. And finally, proper levels/XP have been excised from the game entirely...just to name a few changes. Beyond player control, nearly every other avenue for unique expression has been reduced or removed entirely--offering the player mere mechanical scraps to work with.

Naturally, 'jobs' in the traditional FF sense are also dead in the water. Instead, players can take on one of six different 'roles,' although only three are available on a character by default. These rolls simplify RPGs to their most basic essence: attack, magic, tank, heal, buff, and debuff. Since you only have three party members, it's a given that you're able to switch roles during battle. However, since this is still Final Fantasy XIII, you can't quite switch roles on command. Instead, you must enter a special menu, create a limited list of pre-made role setups (paradigms) for your entire party. Then, during battle, you can access these paradigms and choose one on demand. In essence, these paradigms rob players of creating unique builds or strategies for battle--pigeonholing them into one of the six cliché and simplistic character roles.

What's in a Battle? / Why do we Battle?
So why do we even need six classes? Well, to be honest, we don't. For 98% of encounters you won't even think about using the tank, buff, and debuff classes. Most battles are simple enough and go by so quickly that you won't have to do anything beyond slap opponents into submission--something the game actively encourages. You heard me right: Final Fantasy now rewards players for finishing battles as fast as possible--meaning you're incentivized to essentially 'speedrun' every battle for the best reward. This change might sound interesting on the face of it. Giving every fight its own small meta-challenge could be good for keeping up player engagement. But unfortunately, the game's implementation of the concept, as well as how it ties into other mechanics, starts more fires than it puts out.

For one, it creates a positive feedback loop that I can only describe as brutally unfun and counterintuitive: Players who are already ahead get rewarded and put even further ahead of the curve. While players who are behind get pushed even further back unless they go out of their way to grind. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not a big fan of dynamic difficulty Left 4 Dead AI Director-type balance in jRPGs. Final Fantasy VIII already tried, and failed, to implement such a system. But the exact design of it in XIII shows, in essence, everything I hate about the bog-standard JRPG...or at least the image of JRPGs that most players have. It discourages experimentation, unique play, and plain-old dicking around in order to demand a consistent, bland, and efficient performance from players. And if you're not keeping on the up-and-up...well, then get grinding for all the rewards you didn't get! It has the appearance of a unique challenge, but in reality it's a cheap stat check. One that rewards players only if they've got enough damage to make quick work of enemies. After all, we've established there are virtually zero mechanical avenues for creatively taking down your foes.

This is all made even worse by the new Stagger mechanic that has regretfully become a mainstay of Final Fantasy games since. In essence, you now barely damage enemies unless you fill a separate stagger meter first. The meter slowly boosts your damage and eventually reaches a (temporary) fever pitch once you fill it. However it'll deplete back to zero after you fill it or if you fail to fill it to max while it slowly drains. Basically, you need to fill the meter and then do as much damage as possible within the timeframe before the meter depletes. You can do damage outside of the meter, but considering that you're able to get up to 999% damage with a stagger, it's going to be a necessity in all but the easiest of fights.

So then, how do we build chain? Keeping in line with everything above, you build them in the most boring, limiting, and boilerplate way possible. When it comes to damage output there's only two real options: Commando, who slaps enemies with strength attacks, and Ravager, who damages foes using magic spells. Since your party has three spaces it might sound like you have room to experiment...but somehow, even here the developers have forced you down one path the entire game.

For you see, these two classes affect the all-important chain meter in entirely different ways. Commandos will add very little to the chain meter with each attack, but they slow the meter's degeneration. Ravagers, on the other hand, will add a large amount of meter per spell, but will rapidly degenerate the meter. This might sound like game design 101--making players weigh the costs of different party organizations--but in practice it actually kills what little player freedom is left. The meter's design means that most enemies require you have both commando and ravager in the party at all times when you're trying to build stagger. Presuming we're not using tanks, buffers, or debuffers in our party since we're fighting simple battles, let's consider our possible party lineups:

Commando, Commando, Commando: This lineup is functionally worthless, as commandos don't build stagger meters in any substantial way. Unless the enemies have tiny amounts of HP (making the meter useless), consider this lineup a non-starter.
Commando, Commando, Ravager: Throwing a ravager in the mix means you can start to meaningfully build meter, which is good. On the other hand, there's not really any purpose in having two commandos. One is good enough to stop the meter from resetting. This setup is usable, but horribly inefficient most of the time.
Commando, Ravager, Ravager: Keeping two ravagers means that you can build meters quickly, making good use of a commando to keep the meter from resetting. This is the lineup you'll probably be using for 99% of the game if you want to make quick work of enemies. As long as foes require stagger to fight quickly, you'll have very little choice but to use this when on the offense.
Ravager, Ravager, Ravager: This lineup is great if you can reasonably build a full meter in one full turn. However, if you can't then the chain meter will basically reset instantly, as there's no commando to keep it from disintegrating faster and faster with every spell cast. This is an incredibly situational lineup that only makes sense if you either already popped a chain meter--meaning you just need to focus on damage output--or if you're in the situation outlined above.

Throw in a medic, or two into the mix and you've got yourself the party configurations you'll be looking at 99% of the game:

Ravager, Ravager, Commando - The ol' reliable (50%)
Ravager, Commando, Medic - Boring but safe (20%)
Ravager, Ravager, Ravager - Fast nukes, limited uses (15%)
Commando, Medic, Medic - Survive and keep stagger going (5%)
Ravager, Medic, Medic - Survive and nuke (5%)
Medic, Medic, Medic - SURVIVE (5%)

As for the other classes...they only become meaningful during boss battles or other 'large' fights that make up a miniscule amount of the game's runtime. Even then the playbook is braindead simple:

1) Start battle with buff (Synergist) and debuff (Saboteur) classes
2) Once buffs/debuffs have been applied, switch to regular fight lineups
3) If damaged, throw out a healer
4) If buffs/debuffs run out, GOTO 1

The tank (Sentinel) can also be thrown in whenever a tank is needed, but to be honest I barely ever used the class on account of its niche applications in a game this simple. After all, why have someone tank when a medic heals for better HP throughput?

This might sound like a lot to take in, but it's paper-thin to stretch out over a forty-plus hour experience. This tedium is compounded by the fact that several of these mechanics aren't even introduced until you're already hours into the game!

To summarize party mechanics: they're simpler than they've ever been (beyond games without any meaningful choices like Final Fantasy IV). Developer attempts to 'balance' party structure only lead to further reductions in options. This means every player is essentially forced to play the same boring lineups to cope with the game's barebone mechanics. Even considering the meager class lineup, half are highly situational and will only get thrown out for a cheap hat trick during boss battles or other high profile fights.

I have seen some praise the party system (and paradigm shifting) as a highlight of the game--allowing players to gracefully 'context switch' between several party styles on the fly. But labeling these mechanics as 'good' is completely missing the forest for the trees. The choices the paradigm system gives you--to be offensive, defensive, or some mix--are the basic macro choices all RPGs allow you to make. During battles, you will have to choose when to heal, attack, buff, tank, debuff, etc. The only reason it feels more 'clean' in Final Fantasy XIII is because they have taken away every single micro choice you can make. They've left you with only the macro choice of 'be a healer' or 'be fighter' without any of the finer nuances that make an RPG interesting or rewarding. To be clear, Final Fantasy XIII offers nothing new to the genre of RPGs. It only mechanically takes away what even NES games had already given us 25 years prior.

But the real coup de grâce that seals XIII's fate as one of the worst triple-A JRPGs ever made is the game's Auto-battle feature. As you can imagine, auto-battle picks a (near) optimal set of actions based on battle context. In many games this would sound silly, but with how comically limited XIII's mechanics are, auto-battle tends to do a good job. In fact, auto-battle is too good at its job. So good that there are rarely instances where the player needs to do anything but use auto-battle. The worst part is that auto-battle is the first menu option in combat--meaning the developers expect you to rely on it more than your own decision making! Combine this with the fact that paradigms are so simplistic, and the game quickly devolves into a tiresome combination of switching between a few basic paradigms and pressing X.

And boy, do I mean it. I genuinely spent more time looking away from XIII then looking at it--even during boss fights. The game was able to practically play itself, only requiring me to step in whenever I needed to shift paradigms to heal/buff. It's astounding that the game designers considered this acceptable for a triple-A console game--especially one meant to be their company's flagship title. To be honest, it barely holds up as a mobile game--an ecosystem where XIII's barebone mechanics feel more at home.

And sure, players who really wish to fight the tide can opt out of auto-battling, but you must remember the holy mantra of good game design--something that XIII and its fans have forgotten:

The path of least resistance must not be dull.

The 'World' of Final Fantasy XIII / The Light at the End of the Tunnel is a Train
But the dirty details of battle aren't where this story ends...hell this section isn't even where the literal story begins. Instead, we need to talk about the all-important vehicle for the gameplay and story in an RPG: the world. And believe me, if there's one place Final Fantasy XIII absolutely screwed the pooch, it would be here.

As anyone who lived through the early 2010s knows, Final Fantasy XIII has the exploratory depth of an elevator shaft. Instead of continuing Final Fantasy's tradition of building a complete open world--a trend which had also been gaining steam outside of RPGs--XIII opts for a collection of straight corridors that persist for (practically) the entire game.

I'm sure we've all heard the jokes about how XIII is just a 'tutorial' for 40 hours straight...but that feeling doesn't truly set in until you actually sit down to absorb those forty hours and see just how empty XIII really is. It seriously is just a collection of straight hallways peppered with lazily placed enemy encounters and banal 'branching paths' for treasure collection...for forty fucking hours. It's a completely on-rails experience that comes closer to a train ride through a barren desert than a Six Flags rollercoaster. There's no towns, there's no backtracking, there's no interesting optional areas, there's nothing. It's like one of those rhetorical games people create for the sake of argument. Imagine, if you will, an RPG devoid of all charming content--left with nothing but barebone stats, mundane enemies, and an endless corridor to "progress" down. Would RPG fans still stomach this if it had some cool character designs, fancy graphics, and a 'banger' soundtrack? Thankfully (or perhaps horrifically), you don't need to imagine any of this--Square actually made it.

Of course, fans will remind naysayers that the game eventually 'opens up' when players arrive in Gran Pulse near the 30ish hour mark. This claim is total horseshit. Much like the Calm Lands in Final Fantasy X, Gran Pulse is merely a single large, flat, and dull field that the player is allowed to dredge through before being thrown right back down the generic hallways encompassing the rest of the game. The game purports to 'come alive' in Gran Pulse, but this is only realized through half-baked XII-ian monster hunts that only happen during this one portion of the game. That's right, you finally get access to some piss-poor side content in XIII after about thirty hours of playtime. These hunts, essentially being the only optional content in the game, boil down to the exact same boring fights as the regular story--except now requiring you to walk around a big empty field to fight. It feels like the team realized too late into development that they had a total mess of a world and desperately tried to shove in anything to mix things up. Unfortunate for them, Gran Pulse is the spitting image of 'too little, too late' in terms of world and game design. Any would-be designers ought to take note: this is how not to design a world.

Upon release, the director (and the game's fans) rebuked criticism of XIII's world design with assertions that the game's hyper-linearity was actually a 'breath of fresh air' considering the (still) ever-expanding market of shoddy open world games. Now don't get me wrong, I despise generic triple-A open world games more than anyone else I know. Hell, I spend too much time considering how much better 99% of games would be if they were more linear. But in the case of Final Fantasy, Toriyama has managed to miss the point entirely. More than virtually any series out there, Final Fantasy had staked its claim on delivering players not just a game, but a genuinely unique world with every entry. Players want to live and breathe these places--and they derive a lot of enjoyment from exploring every dungeon, town, and weird spot on their own terms. Previous games were certainly focused on a story--but anyone who's played Final Fantasy I-IX can certainly recall fond memories of 'dicking around' somewhere in the world outside of the mandated story beats. Even Final Fantasy X (as incompetent and maligned as it was) tried to give you a 'sense' of an open world by letting you return to previous portions of the game--going as far to hide the occasional item/quest there. Sure it was 90% filler trash, and it still suffered the 'hallway' problem that XIII faces, but there was clearly an attempt to appeal to the core sensibilities of the genre, no matter how half-assed they were.

Growth / Harm
So the combat and world of XIII are shot to hell, but what about the final ludic pillar of RPGs: progression?

I'll let you guess.

But what's wrong with it and why did it end up that way? First, a short reminder of relevant history:

The traditional level system that defined golden age JRPGs was getting long in the tooth as the 90s came to a close. And so, many started to experiment. Final Fantasy VIII featured a leveling system that actually made the game harder as you progressed while Chrono Cross gated progression behind narrative encounters to discourage grinding. Of course, all of this stands in the shadow of the almighty sphere grid system from Final Fantasy X. Instead of conventional leveling, X gave you points to spend on a large grid where each node represented a stat boost or ability. The grid sounds great in theory but was awful in execution. In the most generous of readings, the grid was a skill-tree par excellence. But in reality it was yet another lazy way that X stretched out its runtime: transforming the streamlined process of leveling into a manual action that you suffered through--for all 828 nodes on each character's grid. Don't get me wrong, the freedom to customize your character is a good thing...but the sphere grid was a hyper-linear and progress-gated mess that forced you to spend more time menuing through UI and watching animations instead of strategizing or enjoying the actual gameplay. Despite a positive fan reception, the sphere grid disappeared in X-2 and was naturally absent in XII as well. But if XIII has somehow been a diluted X knockoff up to now…then it should be no surprise whose notes it was copying for a progression system.

Characters are given a significantly reduced 'grid' for each role they have. And although the general principle is still the same, the streamlined implementation means players will unlock dozens of nodes per role instead of hundreds. In some ways, this is a clear upgrade over X's system. I have to spend far less time thumbing around the UI and watching +1 STR nodes get slowly placed on the grid, meaning every node completed feels at least more meaningful than before...even if they are now mainly just +20 STR nodes instead. However, the new system has managed to make the whole upgrade process even more linear than before. Although the original sphere grid was primarily a straight shot with the occasional branching path (and constant level gates), there were a few items that allowed you to teleport around the grid in novel ways. It certainly didn't redeem the system, but it allowed for some remotely interesting options if you felt like going through the hassle. Instead, XIII's grid is a straight shot with the occasional node or two branched off. The distinction might not seem like much, but simply inspecting both grids should show you how much of a difference it makes. Even if the sphere grid was poorly executed, I could still understand the rough appeal, as well as some of the interesting ideas hidden underneath a layer of garbage. XIII's system, by contrast, is so streamlined it begs the question of why it even exists in the first place. Why take me out of the action and make me navigate menus and press buttons just to get the same garbage I would have gotten through a traditional level up screen?

The answer, funny enough, lies in XIII's most notable quality.

The Magic of Meters / The Malice of Mechanics
You might have noticed a trend in how I describe XIII's mechanics and what makes them bad: namely devolved systems, useless numbers, and filler content. But there is a greater element that ties everything together into a cohesive (and for some, attractive) whole: tactility.

Now forgive me for making up stupid terms midway through my review of a half-star game--but if you've read this far I presume you're willing to hear me out on the stupidest shit I could possibly say, so bear with me. Tactility--or "ludic" tactility if you want to appeal to the would-be academics out there--obviously exists in every game. After all, you need to interact with the game for it to qualify as a game in the first place. But games with a great sense of tactility make players feel the game in ways that go above and beyond. Having smooth animations, top-notch camera work, and synergistic gameplay is a good start, but it's just the entry point for having great tactility. I believe putting XIII under a microscope starts to reveal its significant connection to the concept. Let's consider some of the things it does different from its forerunners.

XIII isn't content with simply killing enemies--watching their HP slowly deplete during battle. Now, we must invent new meters that increase as we hit foes, watching numbers go up until we reach that holy 999% STAGGER! euphoria--allowing us a moment of condensed excitement and chaos before we return to the dull mundanity of battle, where we have to earn that moment of bliss all over again. The meter, the unique player/enemy animations, and the ludicrously high damage values make the stagger system the new method of doing damage in FFXII--and the new method for feeling it too.

XIII also isn't satisfied with simple level progression systems either. Merely earning stat upgrades slowly and automatically is boring and outdated. Now we need skill 'trees' that require our attention and physical input--forcing us to hold buttons, navigate UIs, and watch 'upgrade' animations as we see our characters ostensibly get the same rewards as in the old system--with roughly the same linearity too. The only notable difference is the number attached to those stats: now Lightning ends the game with a thousand strength instead of a hundred. Players are forced to interact with the game in ways they never did in the past--and are arguably 'rewarded' in new ways as well. Think about it--you never saw Squall get two-thousand strength no matter how many hours you spent wrestling with the junction system of FFVIII, meanwhile I can get Hope to double that with just the press of a button.

Battles can't be framed within a greater challenge anymore either. Gone are the days of utilizing resource management and dungeon design as another way to engage players in longform content. Now we need each battle to feature micro tasks that reward us every thirty seconds with a giant FIVE STARS reward. It doesn't matter that items are worthless and we auto-heal between fights for free. It doesn't matter that we're rewarded by actively speeding through the challenge--mindlessly spamming the auto-attack command instead of engaging battles on a more thoughtful level. Because... I mean come on, we gotta get them stars!

These distinctions of tactility might seem superfluous to you, but they genuinely matter to a lot of people. How many times have you written off a game as a pointless 'number go up' experience bereft of anything but hollow dopamine hits? I'm not going to name any names, but I'm sure you have your own list. But you need to understand that there's a chance a game you love is on my list and vice-versa. Moreover, the games that have the worst reputation for these sensibilities are often the ones that make billions of dollars from millions of passionate fans. Even if I'm willing to write a critical diatribe (and you're willing to read it), there's always going to be way more people who don't care about any of this shit--they just want that sweet five-star 'hit.'

And is there anything inherently wrong with that? Are players chasing a shallow sense of happiness under false pretenses? Are we all just rats in cages waiting for the next drop? I'll leave the thought as an exercise for you...but I don't really think so. Sure, there are systems that definitely abuse these aspects of human nature. (loot boxes will be regulated eventually...right?) But at the end of the day, we're all just looking for our own kind of 'hit' when we play games. So who's to say when the line is crossed between 'good fun' and 'societal ill' anyways?

But even if I don't hate the people who enjoy those experiences, their games are still shit in my book--and Final Fantasy XIII is nothing if not the granddaddy of them all. When I said the game's mechanics barely held up for even a mobile game, that was also a backhanded compliment of sorts. Because to be fair, XIII predates much of the mobile game boom--especially in the RPG/gacha genres--but manages to encapsulate a lot of the tactile sensibilities that dominate those multi-billion juggernauts to this day. Sure, it's a lot more awkward and incomplete compared to new shiny gacha games...but the core was still there waiting to be seized on.

Speaking to friends who do enjoy those experiences, many of them also enjoy XIII for much the same: it's a game where they can 'turn off their brain' and see some satisfying animations and big numbers go flying across the screen. In this sense, I suppose the developers of XIII should be commended. They achieved high levels of unique tactility--perhaps even pioneering a set of historic trends...trends that it would never meaningfully profit from. In other words, XIII crawled so that Gacha could run. Bravo Toriyama.

The Maximization of Fun / The Minification of Games
But if these newer gacha games get all the praise (and money), then why didn't XIII? The timing of the game's release and the contemporary market expectations paint us a clearer picture.

For one, XIII released in an era where there was still a clear distinction between the console, portable, and nascent mobile gaming markets. You're probably old enough to remember the nuances of these segregations, but their importance and influence on gaming culture, design, and history will be lost on future generations as we march towards greater market homogenization. You knew that if a game released on both the GameCube and the Gameboy Advance, they weren't actually going to be the same game. If you're on the older side (the GBA is old enough to drink!), you can probably even imagine what that GBA version of that game looks like compared to the home console original. Consequently, early smartphone adopters can remember exactly why Metal Gear Touch was no Peace Walker either. These days, a port usually just means downscaled graphics, 'Cloud Edition,' or just no port at all--even to markets as lucrative as the Switch. But back in the 2000s, entire industries were established to custom fit games for the habits and peculiarities of these individual markets.

It was only a matter of time before these ecosystems started cannibalizing each other's best elements, but Final Fantasy XIII released in an era far before this great merge. It's hard to say when this convergence really cemented itself, but it's certain that the release of the Switch blurred the line between home console and portable systems for good. Now it's all too common to find home console classics on iOS or gacha sensibilities in sixty dollar console games. The hyper-competitive nature of the mobile ecosystem has conditioned developers to fixate more on squeezing every drop of mechanical and temporal efficiency out of their game loops--aiming for very high levels of addictive tactility in the process. In the best case, it means that games are streamlined and have several layers of mechanical satisfaction. But in the worst (and I'd argue, average) case, it means games over-simplify and under-develop all in the name of 'bite-sized' rewards that amount to less than the sum of their parts.

You don't need to look at iPhone games to see what I mean. It seems that nearly every other property (Halo, Elden Ring (Soulsborne), God of War, etc.) has either transitioned to, or refined the same open world RPG designs to further exploit these sensibilities.Breath of the Wild dropped traditional dungeons in favor of tiny shrines--downplaying complexity and atmosphere in the name of approachability and instant gratification. Mario reverted back to Super Mario 64's design conventions in Odyssey to encourage a faster reward loop. The short 'runs' of Roguelikes have helped them explode in popularity in recent years. And finally, Final Fantasy XIII dropped nearly every good RPG convention in pursuit of maximizing shallow metrics of player satisfaction.

I made an offhand comment earlier about the treasures you can 'find' in the world, as well as the 'branches' in the upgrade tree, and when you think about it, they both tie into this philosophy in the same way. You're not actually meant to be exploring the world--there's fucking nothing to explore. But the designers have decided that rewarding you as if you actually did explore the world would be good enough. The same applies to upgrade paths. There aren't any actual meaningful decisions to be made. But by branching off a path, the designers expect you to feel like you made a decision. After all, you didn't actually have to get that +5 STR

Is this good design? Hell no. But it definitely seems to work for many people out there. To me, these systems violate the first law of game design: they don't challenge you in any meaningful way--they merely ask for your time. You can keep heading straight to advance the game…or you can waste a minute taking a dead-end branching path to get some shitty items. You can just keep using the regular upgrade path, or you can waste X points to get a 'branched' upgrade. If you dig deep enough, these feelings start to crop up in the battle systems too. So many fights don't actually require you to use your brain at all--they can just be braved using the auto-battle system. And yet, these battles will sometimes take upwards of five or even ten minutes of just hammering the auto-battle button. You might be thinking that I'm just "playing the game wrong," but each battle has a fucking par time and I'd often come minutes under par--getting rewarded with five stars even when playing like this. Don't be confused: this is how they want you to play. In lieu of any good design choices, Final Fantasy XIII opts instead to manipulate the easiest resource it can--your real life.

There's certainly a conversation to be had on how these trends have negatively affected the industry--maximizing short term rewards at the expense of longform content--but it is undeniable that modern players have grown accustomed to these systems. Based on sales data and critical reception, it's very easy to argue that they even adore them...But when XIII released, players were totally blindsided. They were, in essence, paying sixty dollars for a mobile game with very nice graphics. Perhaps they weren't looking for the mind boggling complexity of XII, but it's very clear in retrospect that the simplifications found in X were as far as fans were willing to stomach.

However, I don't think XIII would have the same disastrous reception if it were released today. In fact, it's easy to see a lot of XIII's DNA in a newer, far more successful relative--Final Fantasy VIII: Remake. Although there are certainly significant differences between the two, Remake shares strikingly similar upgrade systems, stagger mechanics, world design, and pacing. Playing XIII with fresh eyes in 2022, all I could see in it were the quirks I found in Remake. Which begs the question: are fans of Remake hypocritical for hating XIII? I'll leave that as an exercise to you...but I don't have to worry about that question--I fucking hate them both. One common thing I hate about both of them is their abysmal narratives, so let's finally rip the band-aid off and get to it.

Characters Drawn Together / Narrative Drawn Apart
I'm sure you're probably expecting me to tear this game's narrative to sheds, but I won't be spending that much time on it. To be blunt, it's just as bad as you're expecting it to be--frankly probably even worse than that. The dialogue is on par with Watanabe's Kingdom Hearts offerings and there's enough laugh-out-loud content to rival the worst schock out there. A special shout out here to Lightning's "worst birthday ever" and Snow's sick new hot rod.

Still, I'll take some time to point out the story's most egregious errors, but a point-by-point dissection is no more useful here than on Beyond: Two Souls or Mortal Kombat 4--it's so obviously bad that pointing it out is like explaining that the sky is blue. If you disagree...well I can't feasibly convince you otherwise: you genuinely think the sky is purple. Go pop on Kingdom Hearts and ride to Mickey's Dick Smasher world with Donald and Goofy instead of arguing with me. Still, if you've hate-read this far, feel free to send your death threats to my inbox.

Beyond the usual Nomura/Nojima/Watanabe shenanigans that plague XIII' (ultra-juvenile characters, excessive proper noun usage, convoluted plot devices, etc.), the game falls prey to the same flaw found in every Nojima-led Final Fantasy: inconsistent character arcs. One of Final Fantasy VI/VII's claims to fame was its quality arcs. VI might not have literally written the book on JRPG character arcs and pacing, but it certainly solidified conventions--all while featuring some of the genre's highest highs. Funny enough, the narrative framework I'm referring to is incredibly simple, deceptively so considering how many high-profile games still screw it up.

The first half of the game should focus on setting up intriguing characters, their personal challenges, and the interesting relationship dynamics between them. The second half of the game should fully resolve each character's distinct struggle--ideally with a unique, memorable, and emotional set-piece to back it up. VII refined this strategy in many ways. Iconic characters like Barret, Cid, and Red XIII underwent significant character growth and maturation as the narrative progressed--each getting their own classic set piece to boot (the showdown with Dyne, The First Man in Space, and XIII's quest to discover his origins, respectively). On top of this, it's important that following the arc's conclusion, the character changes in some clear way. You want to see new outlooks on life, new relationship dynamics, and even new entire personality traits that signify genuine character growth.

However, the fully Nojima-led VIII took a very different approach. Although there was still a cast of characters, nearly all focus was given to one or two of them over all else. Squall certainly has a complete and satisfying arc...but it came at the cost of everyone else. The other characters arcs range from half developed (Irvine's struggle to pull the trigger), barely started (Quistis' imposter syndrome), or non-existent (Zell certainly is a cool guy). Some characters have things happen to them (Selphie's school getting blown up), but--as we'll see in XIII--being bummed out for a moment doesn't constitute an actual character arc...especially if the character doesn't change in any meaningful way.

X would feature near identical problems. Characters may be strong personalities, but they're ultimately lacking in meaningful development outside of Tidus and maybe Yuna (if you squint). My favorite example being how Wakka's horrible racism is just never resolved. He starts the game as a racist, is racist, and then rides off into the sunset without any clear indication of regret or remorse. All he does is change the target of his racism from Al Bhed to Guado once he learns he is 100% justified in doing so. Oops.
Other characters like hot goth mommy (currently blanking on her name for obvious reasons) are only around for a combination of gameplay purposes (someone has to start off as a spellcaster!) and aesthetic values (once again: hot goth mommy).

You find these same issues persist in XIII, only far worse. For one, the (marketed) protagonist is probably the most unlikeable character of the bunch. She starts off hostile to the point of comedic absurdity ("Worst. Birthday. Ever.") and ends the game only ever-so-slightly less bitter. Meanwhile side characters are just as shallow as in previous Nojima-led games, but with far less personality between them. Snow is no substitute for Wakka, and Sazh is certainly no Irvine either. Characters with a greater sense of subtlety only work if you have the narrative depth to match, which is sorely lacking in XIII. If they were going to blow it, the least they could have done was give us memorable and zany characters a-la VIII and X. Instead we get black middle aged dad (lamer Barret) and some lady from…down under.

Oddly enough, Nojima and Watanabe find their greatest strength in the exact same character type they did the last two times: the young, conflicted boy who's forced to come-of-age. That's right, it's Hope that ends up having the most complete arc in XIII, much to my surprise. He basically spends the early game being a ten year old version of the Joker--but he ends up getting a series of notable moments (with lots of other characters)! Over time he slowly grows into the most mature member of the party. Characters like Lightning and Snow play off of Hope's journey to maturation...but it's very clear by the time Hope meets his dad that he might as well be the star of the show. And I'll admit it, by the end of the game I genuinely was invested in his story! Perhaps it was because of just how dire the rest of the narrative was, but XIII will need to take its W's where it can get them. One decent character arc out of several means we're at least batting at an VIII average (sorry Tidus).

The rest of the characters turn out just as you'd expect. Some have singular moments of intrigue before devolving back into the exact same character (shout out to Sazh's maligned suicide attempt), while others might as well not have an arc (sorry Fang).

I think it's clear by now how to have a conventionally 'good' character-driven RPG narrative:

1) Set up a series of interesting characters and their struggles in the first act of the game
2) Allow these arcs to develop through memorable set pieces while the party struggles to defeat their enemies in the second act
3) Complete each arc with its own set piece and let each character signify their growth in some clear new trait
4) Give our now-developed characters a satisfying sense of maturation and unification as they band together to defeat a common enemy

Reflecting on this checklist also makes it clear why the second half of this game is such a nightmarish slog. First, what little character arc content there is gets shat out mainly in the first half of the game. Two, there is no good 'common enemy' for the party (and the player) to band against.

That's right, one of the most essential parts of a great RPG is practically absent here: a great antagonist. It's true that many previous Final Fantasy games failed to develop a proper villain...but there's a reason why VI/VII have garnered their acclaim over the rest of the series. Even weaker titles like X or II managed to develop their own iconic bad guy while others at least created a memorable fake-out antagonist (VIII, IV). Instead, XIII finds our characters vaguely gesturing at entire nation-states as their enemy for most of the game. When we finally meet our proper antagonist--the fucking Pope--we know just as much about him as you know about your second cousin.

Not only is it hilarious that XIII's primary villain rips directly from X's side plot--where you also basically fight the pope--but it makes it even more clear how much more trite XIII is by comparison...and Jesus Christ is that saying something. As bad as X was, its attack on organized religion made sense--the game's entire world and story were centered around religion. We spend enough time digesting the religion in order to understand why it posed a real threat to our party and the world as a whole. Beyond that, X found some basic ways to invest players in the fight emotionally--as Tidus' romantic ambitions get tangled up with Seymour's plans to marry Yuna.

The combination of these two factors--screwed character arcs and failed antagonist development--cause the game to devolve from 'fun but entertaining mess' to 'all out nightmare.' It becomes more aimless and underdeveloped than any other Final Fantasy game so far--a very impressive feat considering its place in the series. This becomes all the more harrowing in retrospect--knowing that I still have two more games in this franchise ahead of me. Wait...Why the hell did XIII of all games become a franchise anyways?

Fabula Nova Crystallis: The Birth of a Franchise / Fabula Nova Crystallis: The Death of Final Fantasy
It's easy to forget now, but there was a time where XIII was proudly tied to the "next evolution" of Final Fantasy as a franchise. If you were tapped into media cycles around 2006, you probably remember the announcement of Fabula Nova Crystallis: a new shared universe that would tie together Final Fantasy games going forward. Now I'm sure I don't need to tell you how bad of an idea this was. But clearly some people (especially those who worked at fucking Square Enix) needed to hear this…so let's review, shall we? For one, an enduring appeal--hell, the brand identity--for Final Fantasy was its lack of continuity. It was a brilliant choice that made the series evergreen and allowed newcomers to hop in whenever they liked--a crucial appeal for a genre as unappetizing as JRPGs.

Even if the Crystallis games were only tangentially related by lore, it was always going to be a bad decision to market them as a franchise. Yasumi Matsuno pulled similar tricks with the Ivalice games, but there was never any shared marketing to make this clear to players. It's clear that Matsuno's world wasn't really planned as a corporate gimmick--it just happened as he created more games. Hence the odd inclusion of the non-Final Fantasy game Vagrant Story into to the world. It certainly helps that the connections between games were even smaller than in Crystallis. Tactics and XII technically took place in the same location, but if you weren't reading the greater subtext of that relationship then it genuinely had zero effect on the plot.

Instead, Crystallis comes off more like a greedy plan inspired by pure profit motive. The newly merged Square Enix clearly viewed the fresh design of every Final Fantasy as more of a liability than a boon. Why spend years crafting new worlds, art styles, characters, and story lines when you could pump out quick asset flips for the same profit? This isn't even a theorical question--Final Fantasy X-2 was essentially a shortened asset flip of X that sold nearly as well as Final Fantasy XII, a game that had a massive scale, huge budget, and a 5+ year development cycle. It was clear that attaching new titles to pre-established brands was the safer (and far more boring) financial bet--and so we saw the godawful Compilation of Final Fantasy VII as well as Fabula Nova Crystallis.

Of course, the problem with this strategy is that you need to have an already successful game to build your franchise off of. In the case of VII, I can understand where they were coming from--even if every spin-off they made was an unmitigated disaster. People would still buy them because Cloud and Sephiroth were on the tin. Crystallis, by contrast, reads like one of those classic New Coke disasters you learn about in business school. They genuinely thought they could sell a franchise with literally zero cultural capital beyond an attachment to Final Fantasy and Nomura/Nojima's names on the box. There's a reason why later titles like XV changed their name in a desperate attempt to minimize attachment to the trash-fire that was XIII.

The true Crystallis tragedy is the toll it took on the franchise as a whole. I mean, think about it: XIII and the Crystallis universe was announced in 2006 and we're still awaiting the release of the first mainline game to escape its influence. Even XIV originally started off being powered by the same Crystal Tools that ran XIII--a major selling point at the time. Considering single player games, that means we've been stuck in the extended-world of XIII for…about 17 years now. That's the time gap between the birth of Final Fantasy to fucking Final Fantasy X-2. If XII hadn't been delayed for so long it would also be included in this period. That means we've basically existed in two 'eras' for all of Final Fantasy's existence: The 'Classic' era (I-XII) and the 'Crystallis' era (XIII-XV). Now tell me, which era do you honestly think was better for gaming history/culture/design? Which era do you think produced the most iconic moments, heartfelt stories, and genuine honest-to-god fun?

There's a larger industry trend to consider here--but it's impossible not to see Final Fantasy as one of the flagbearers of this cursed ecosystem. Bloated development cycles, convoluted-yet-shallow narratives, and gameplay systems that fail to rival even NES games. All of these sacrifices in the name of graphical fidelity and a greater sense of 'cinematic realism.' I find it hard to take these cinematic qualities seriously, although I'm sure that's no surprise to you. It's not just because XIII is filled with dialogue that wouldn't pass in a two-star movie…but also because you're dropped back into the same generic hallway filled with mindless battles right after each awful cutscene ends. Perhaps we'd never go back to the Final Fantasy VI era of cracking out an entire masterpiece in twelve months…but certainly there is a far better middle ground to be found here. One that allows developers to approach lower-budget, smaller titles that encourage the creation of unique new IP instead of rehashing an already bloated franchise's worst traits. Frankly, the Final Fantasy franchise would be better served with another mainline title that featured such a development cycle.

The Fabula Nova Crystallis franchise makes clear that priorities had finally shifted within Square Enix. First, there was a need for each Final Fantasy entry to build a franchise--one that could run on its own. Spin-off games, marketable plushies, movie tie-ins, you name it. Second, the game needed to be an insane graphical showcase. Sure, the Playstation era games were graphically focused--but they were made with easily achievable pre-rendered graphics. All you needed was budget to afford the SGI machines and you were good to go. Creating the same spectacle with real-time rendering would be exponentially harder on all levels. We'd need to spend years building our own engines and tools to guarantee that the game looked years ahead of the competition. As a consequence, it didn't matter if we limited our game's world to endless corridors or removed core series functionality. We need our games to wow audiences with ultra-high-rez character models and hair physics. And finally third came…the game. That part didn't really matter as much. As long as characters are cool enough (and look good enough), then we could implement even the most laughable of combat systems and players would still part with their sixty dollars…and so…Final Fantasy XIII.

Vision / Indifference
In closing, I think I can express my hatred for XIII in one word: non-commitment. It's frankly hard to see a genuine sense of passion or thoughtful direction anywhere in XIII. Core aspects of Final Fantasy's appeal--like cities and towns--were cut from the game not because Toriyama wanted to make a statement…but because the graphical fidelity made them infeasible to optimize. Entire systems were removed or reduced too. Not because Toriyama wanted to make some bold statement about minimalist philosophy, but because they didn't know what to do with those systems. Just compare XIII to Hiroyuki Ito's Dungeon Encounters and tell me with a straight face XIII is anywhere near as committed to its design.

If you consider how to fix the game's shortcomings you'll quickly realize the core problem: fixing issues would require the game to commit to an idea. They would have to add on systems, mechanics, and design concepts. And if there's one thing that's clear--it's that Toriyama and Co. would rather die than do that.

Think about it…the world doesn't require you to explore it, the mechanics don't require you to learn/consider them, and the gameplay doesn't even require you to play it. Nearly every aspect of XIII has dumbed itself down to the point of insignificance. The game is fundamentally lacking in any true vision--be it from a unified team or from a singular director. And it sadly begs the question: why even have a game at all?

Just months before XIII's release, Toriyama was quoted saying:

"Even at a late stage of development, we did not agree on key elements of the game, which stemmed from the lack of a cohesive vision, the lack of finalized specs, and the remaining problems with communication between departments."

This chronic mismanagement--brought upon us from the top down--seems to be the exact reason XIII came to us as the disaster it was. It was designed as a franchise-starter first and a graphical showcase second--made by people who didn't even want to make a Final Fantasy game in the first place. It's a game that insists upon itself. One created because it had to exist for financial reasons, not because it particularly wanted to.

And so, I hate Final Fantasy XIII. It stands for nearly every single illness in this industry. I hate its hyper-corporate origins, maligned cinematic fixations, aggressively shallow skinner-box gameplay mechanics, and ultimate lack of artistic vision. These issues highlight many of the problems that still plague the industry…and in that sense, XIII is a pioneer--an avant-garde masterpiece. A true titan of the medium. Unfortunately, it didn't come to us as the vanguard of the future, but as one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
I pray that we may one day escape the shadow it has cast upon us all.

It did not get good 10 hours in. It did not get good 20 hours in. It did not get good 30 hours in. It did not get good 40 hours in.

It did not get good.

It's fascinating to come to a game like this for the first time. You know, one with the kind of baggage Final Fantasy XIII has, and so many years removed from its most heated discourse. It dawned on me very quickly during my playthrough that the criticisms I heard levied against this game were all indeed true. However, I also feel like they didn't tell the whole story. The reality is that when people painted the picture of what this controversial entry into the series entailed, they didn't do enough justice to how awful it truly is.

For example, when people describe the game as being "too linear" - often in a negative context - that doesn't get to the heart of the problem. Yes, it can sometimes be an issue, but other Final Fantasy games have been overly linear and haven't suffered nearly as much for it. Here, you'll find yourself trudging down the same hallway, looking at the same things, with nothing to break the tedium up, for hours at a time. When you couple that with FF13's braindead combat system, a pisspoor attempt to attract people to the genre during a time many were questioning what relevance the genre still had (especially in the West), you get a mind-numbing experience that offers little for the player to engage in. Let me tell you, I got some good Twitter scrolling in during the first 20 hours of this game.

And yet - AND YET - if it had merely remained that, I'd have walked away like a disaffected anime protagonist going "Whatever." I don't want to belittle this point, mind you - saying "It gets good 20 hours in" is a BIG ask. That's a lot of time to invest in something that isn't particularly compelling. But the real problem is that it got worse than that. Much worse. Pounding my head against my desk on the verge of pulling my hair out worse. When the credits finally rolled, I was thrilled that I would never have to play another second of this game again.

That part where everyone says the game gets good? A lie. Sure, after almost NINE full chapters, you get access to your complete party and see the true breadth of the combat system, but what you find is a game that substitutes basic RPG staples like resource management and strategy for a flowchart of your paradigm sets that require little thought process to choose the right one. Worse yet, as the game progresses, you realize the most optimal strategy is to switch back and forth between the same ones ad nauseam because there is absolutely no penalty for doing so and it's much quicker than letting your ATB gauge recharge. More than playing a video game, my time with Final Fantasy XIII felt like experiencing a simulation of one. You don't even have to execute commands - it's often better not to because the game simply moves too fast to fumble around in menus. Just make sure you're on the right paradigm set and you're good to go.

Well, except for that part where the game "opens up" - all five minutes of it, before you realize the one open area in the game is full of monsters far too powerful to fight at that point in the game. It then corrals you into yet another hallway for several hours, culminating in the game's ONE dungeon. You can tell this game was made during the period when they were ostensibly embarrassed to call this an RPG. All the while, FF13 tosses an overwhelming number of high-level enemies at you in standard encounters to create the illusion of difficulty, before it ends with a series of boss battles that required me to throw away the team I mostly ran with because they literally could execute the strategies required to complete it. Fucking lame. This was also the point in the game where previously minor issues - like enemies interrupting your attacks/healing or how it's an auto-lose if your party leader dies - become omni-present, resulting in a staggering amount of frustration.

Oh, what's that? What did I think of the story? I genuinely couldn't tell you. By the time Final Fantasy XIII started getting around to explaining what was going on, I was mentally checked out. The only thing I could tell you is that I disliked the majority of the cast, outside of Sazh and maybe Fang. (Sazh was genuinely too good for this game.) I do, however, think the complaints about needing to read the datalogs to explain the story are unfounded. That said, it is an issue that the game largely delegates worldbuilding to said datalogs. I never really got a good sense of the world around me from just experiencing the game. It's genuinely hard to tell how this universe operates from a visual standpoint; a lot is going on and very little of it is presented to the player without the additional reading.

I think it speaks volumes that the most fun I had with Final Fantasy XIII came in the earliest moments of its campaign. It opens in such a spectacular fashion that it imprints on you the feeling that this thing might actually beat the bad game allegations. And, for those first few hours, you can turn your brain off and go with the flow, but eventually, the thirteenth entry in the Final Fantasy series begins to reveal itself as perhaps the worst one. There are quite a few other games in the series I need to go through before I can definitively say that, but it's going to take a lot to outrank the misery and frustration I felt forcing myself to see this through to the end. It really wasn't worth it.

Does anybody else get exhausted of our cultural tendency to immediately lump any given piece of media into concrete categories like "good" or "bad", the latter often attributing a sort of spiritual disposability to said piece of media? Like, in a vacuum, I guess it's not the worst thing we can do, and it's something you shouldn't be ashamed of doing or something you have to stop doing outright if you just really love or really hate something, but it does tend to have this knock on effect where we don't have to engage with media once we've categorized something as either "peak" or "dogshit".

Because of that sort of black-and-white mindset, Gamer Discourse just ended up eviscerating all discussion of Final Fantasy XIII when it came out, and in all honesty probably bled into the potential enjoyment other people may have otherwise received from the game. I'm not a psychologist I can't prove that, but like, it happened to me for a long time until I broke out of that mindset! Not saying people have to suddenly like FF13, or that we have to completely flip the discourse around towards largely positive, but it's pretty cool that Final Fantasy XIII even exists imho!! Like, how many AAA sci-fi fantasy RPG epics were we even getting during that era of gaming? I won't say it's as overall satisfying or as complete feeling of a work when up against most other Final Fantasy titles, and maybe even other RPGs of similar budget and scope, but I enjoyed my time with it despite it kind of having a Wind Waker-ian malaise to it (I mean that in both a good and bad way, but mostly a good way!! btw while we're hanging out in the parentheses dimension misusing basic conventions of punctuation and general formatting, does anybody else want to eat the little spheres in the Crystarium? They look like tasty little candies to me, probably even tastier than materia).

The basic combat system is contentious for a reason, but it's kinda sick as hell in a way I both love and despise. It's like, attempting to replicate the feeling of turn-based combat -- which is a style of gameplay that typically abstracts interactions between entities for the sake of compartmentalizing actions to allow strategy to be coherent for the player -- while ostensibly (and correct me if I'm wrong about how this game actually functions) being an action game that the player only tangentially controls. Even in the event that the player has chosen to manually select abilities, the other two thirds of your party still remain uncontrollable, but they function within the specific physical minutiae of an action game that Square Enix has created but that we are not allowed to play directly. In opposition to similar systems like maybe Chrono Trigger or Dragon Quest IX, characters and enemies move in realtime, collide with other models, and can get hurt by splash damage (a particularly frustrating aspect of the combat system when afaik you cannot change the position of a character without making them perform an action that would require them to move); it's not always an immediately pertinent aspect of the game's combat, but it's something that remained on my mind consistently after I noticed it.

The result, along with its almost proto-Yokai Watch-esque approach to RPG strategy, is combat that can often make you feel like you just coached somebody else into getting a SSS rank in a Devil May Cry game, but equally ends up being probably the closest a video game has ever gotten to replicate the feeling of what it's like to drive a car in a dream? Idk if anybody else has dreams like that where you're in a dream, and you're trying to drive a car, and it is NOT working AT ALL, and you kind of just swerve all the over place and kinda noclip through dream terrain until it gets too scary and you wake up. Maybe that's just me?

Dream logic is also a pretty fuckin' apt way to describe Final Fantasy XIII's plotting and narrative delivery. Final Fantasy XIII is like an obscure OVA of itself that's been spread out across 40 hours? It's feeling abridged in this bizarre but kinda charming way like, damn I shoulda read the manga of this one before buying the VHS, I guess. So much of what happens on screen is just not explained diegetically at all, which I wasn't a huge fan of in Final Fantasy VIII either, but I heard you could go to Selphie's custom GeoCities site in-game to see what the fuck everything is and means. Never did it myself, but I love that there it's at least seemingly diegetic. To be clear, I think in-game encyclopedias are cool as hell and I'm glad it exists in Final Fantasy XIII, every game needs a Piklopedia-esque feature as far I'm concerned, but I kinda like ending up there out of curiosity and not so much obligation. Maybe it's because I have issues with authority? I don't like being told what to do? I dunno. For what it's worth though, I don't think it outright ruined my enjoyment of Final Fantasy XIII.

I probably enjoyed Final Fantasy XIII more than at least three or four other mainline Final Fantasy titles, and I think it's unabashedly one of the most Final Fantasy entries in the series. I love the character designs (Lightning and Fang in particular Appeal to My Interests), I had fun with the combat sometimes, music is sick as hell; the visual concept of Cocoon and Pulse is powerful shit, though it feels underutilized both functionally and thematically. The game overall has this really rad 80s/90s anime vibe but with those sleek 00s sci-fi aesthetic touches; it's almost like Toriyama and team were making a secret AAA Phantasy Star title. The game is way more gorgeous than it has any right to be, which is unfortunately sometimes all the game is.

I wanted to kick down the door and scream "IT'S NOT HALLWAYS IT'S NOT HALLWAYS" so badly, but unfortunately, it is definitely hallways. Which isn't inherently a bad thing, Final Fantasy VII Remake's also hallways! But I think what makes it particularly excruciating in Final Fantasy XIII is that that's kind of all it is, and many environments repeat ad nauseam (that fuckin' forest level was definitely overkill with the same exact environmental structures over and over with only a couple narrative chokepoints to break up the pace), an issue that I don't remember the other Final Fantasy with a similar structure, Final Fantasy X, really having. This isn't something that's necessarily new to Final Fantasy at least, I think my least favorite aspect about going back to the pre-PSX Final Fantasy titles is The Caves. I wanna say Final Fantasy V was probably the best about it, but it got really bad in Final Fantasy VI sometimes and that game manages to be good as hell in spite of that.

Except, Final Fantasy VI does share some other issues with Final Fantasy XIII, like awkward scripts and translation, but I suppose it's a lot more noticeable in Final Fantasy XIII when real people are speaking dialogue that no person would ever say ever. I think my favorite "this translator was maybe being overworked god I hope they paid them enough at least" moment was when a villain told one of the good guys that "the next time you open your eyes will be the last" which like, what does that even fucking mean in the context of English. Like I've taken a decade of Japanese studies so I know it's most likely a direct translation of a vaguely idiomatic expression for "waking up", but it's so fucking funny that it got to the voice actor phase and nobody questioned it. I'm not even like, clowning on it, it's just extremely interesting to me.

Either way, my point isn't to say Final Fantasy VI or any other Final Fantasy is actually the Bad Game, my point is that Final Fantasy XIII is a reflection of the games that came before it both conceptually and logistically and maybe we should give it a break sometimes because it's a decently enjoyable experience when you aren't being cranky about the parts that maybe aren't perfect. And I won't lie, I definitely got cranky a few times; ironically I got the most crankiest at the point of the game that most people claim is "when it gets good". Friend, the game was already good, putting in a Xenoblade level isn't gonna suddenly make the game worth it, you either bought into it by that point, or you didn't, honestly.

One more thing that's sorely missing from Final Fantasy XIII though: minigames or minigame adjacent activities. Like, I think in this game of all games, a little extra would've gone a long way cuz sooooo fucking much of the game is just fighting the same exact guys over and over. I don't even think there's puzzles? I hated the puzzles in Final Fantasy X, but by the end of Final Fantasy XIII I almost missed them. They also find ways to put more of the same enemies in levels that by all means should NOT have those enemies, and like I get it, it's an issue that Final Fantasy X ran into as well, at a high enough fidelity it's probably not possible to make enough unique models/enemy types to fill out an entire 40 hour RPG's worth of content, but the lack of variety is notably pretty rough in XIII. I think the best signifier of that is how early and often you fight behemoths, a mob that's typically reserved for like, the last few dungeons of a given Final Fantasy title if not the final level outright. Plus, battles end up feeling pretty exhausting like, at least in Final Fantasy X the bosses with a bajillion health points are being fought via a fully turn-based system; the battles are strategically more simple in XIII, but they always took a lot more out of me due to the relatively fast pace of the action itself and the amount of moment-to-moment babysitting you're engaging in.

I don't really feel like getting into spoiler territory for this one, not that I think it's even possible to spoil anything about Final Fantasy XIII that aren't things you'd find out in the first few chapters or so anyways, but either way, lemme awkwardly transition to a conclusion where I talk about Lightning. She's probably in my like, top 10 favorite fictional characters designs despite Final Fantasy XIII not even breaching my top 100 favorite games. She's like, if you combined Utena Tenjou with Cloud Strife and Squall Leonhart. She kinda sucks really bad as a person early on, but I like that she grows from her whole "being a cop who punches people for no good reason" phase after getting scolded by a lesbian for being that way. Pretty excited to see how they simultaneously ruin her characterization and make her even cooler in the other two games in the trilogy! Half expecting Lightning Returns to end up as my favorite of the trilogy since it looks like it's the funniest, but we'll see.

Also I originally had this whole bit at the beginning about the tangential relationship being Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) and Final Fantasy XIII, but I dropped it cuz I couldn't really work it into a broader cohesive point, but I think they're cool fucked up 7th gen console zeitgeist siblings, and my brain just associates them with each other cuz of that. Anyways, this discussion is pretty much pointless because we ALL know and have unanimously agreed upon as a culture that Final Fantasy XV is the actual best Final Fantasy.

i can't take this anymore. i will NOT finish this garbage excuse of a game. it's a straight hallway with no interesting story, no interesting characters except for MAYBE lightning, and the worst gameplay the franchise has ever seen, i haven't had the need to stop using auto battle for 16 hours straight, it's just a waste of time. ''oh but the graphics are so good'' I DO NOT CARE!!!! I CAN PLAY GOOD GAMES THAT ALSO HAPPEN TO HAVE GOOD GRAPHICS!!! IF I WANTED TO SEE PEOPLE THAT LOOK REAL I WOULD GO OUT OF MY FUCKING HOUSE! THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

There is a truly perfect game in here, somewhere within the knots and tangles of its narrative presentation - but alas, it exists in its current state as simply a very good one.

Still, I'm not going to complain about playing a great game! I think a lot of the critiques of FFXIII are more-or-less misguided, as I ended up either having no problems at all with or actively loving the parts that everybody complains about - namely the codex and the combat system. The codex means you have to stop every few hours to stop and read about the world, which isn't a problem to me because the world is so interesting. The gameplay is probably the best in the mainline Final Fantasy series (having finally perfected the ATB system after nearly two decades!) and is refreshingly hard, a surprise in a series known for being pretty easy to breeze through.

With this being said: there aren't many problems with FFXIII, but one of them is big enough to seriously dilute the experience. You hear a lot of people complain about the linearity but that really isn't the problem - the problem is that in a game so linear it still manages to have really poor pacing that simultaneously feels too slow and too fast. FFXIII is nothing without its characters and their internal conflicts, which are very well written and mesh with one another in a way that is perfect for the kind of story FFXIII is trying to tell. Problem is that the characters are exposited and fleshed out in a really rapid-fire way with so little downtime that all character development feels very abrupt and lacking in weight - it's more or less one dramatic scene and huge character moment after another, and as characters progress through their varying states of being it feels like you never get to really know who they are before you meet who they're becoming. Couple that with all of the actual plot developments and crucial world information being saved for the last five-or-so hours of the game and you have a story that feels rushed and way too slow at the same time - all of this only weighed down more heavily by bizarre and inexplicable difficulty spikes that leave you lingering further on moments that already overstay their welcome.

Even so, FFXIII is just a marvelous game to sit and exist in. The dual settings of Coccoon and Pulse are every bit as lively as they are beautiful - this is by far the prettiest game I've ever played both in terms of art direction and graphical fidelity, which is impressive considering this game came out in 2009 - and the atmosphere is bolstered even further by the phenomenal soundtrack. As poorly paced as the characters' personal arcs are, they're still extremely well-written on the whole and are all charming, likeable and memorable, with some seriously gripping character dynamics and relationships. Even when the writing's own convolution fails it, the Big Moments are delivered with a palpable heart-and-soul that I've only been really able to find in Final Fantasy games developed with Yoshinori Kitase and his usual posse at the helm. There were several moments in FFXIII that made me stop and remember why Final Fantasy is my favorite series, having been immersed in an intangible feeling you can really only get from this series (and Kitase's games in particular).

With themes, ideas, and characters this tight - as well as a near-perfect combat system - I imagine that with time the mess of FFXIII's presentation will long be overshadowed by the finesse of its actual substance in my mind, and that I'll only grow more and more fond of it as the years pass by.

Final Fantasy XIII is definitely a mixed bag and a game of two halves to me. The first half I had to force myself fight through it and the second half I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

The first thing is the games characters are very hit and miss on the like-ability and relate-ability. I found myself really liking a handful and wanting no part of the others.

The story while very rich with history and lore is also hard to digest. In the end it makes sense, well mostly, but the problem is how they present it. You are thrown into the deep end with rich lore coming in from every angle and so many terms such as gran pulse, pulse, la’cie, fal’cie, cocoon, maker, ce’ith, sanctum, Eden, and PSIcom are thrown around in the first hour like they are everyday words in your everyday conversation. By the end you are able to put almost everything into place but for the first several hours it’s very hard to keep track of what’s going on. It is the polar opposite of Final Fantasy X. In X, through Tidus, we have the world and its terms thoroughly explained to us so that it’s easy to follow along. XIII drops them on you and waits for you to piece things together. Which again goes into my two half’s. The first half I was just a jumbled mess but the second half I had a firm grasp on the world and its inner workings.

The gameplay is fun to mess around with the different paradigm shifts. At first you’re not going to get the most out of battles but once you figure it out it’s fun to strategize and maximize your characters potential.

Final Fantasy XIII is extremely linear but that has never been a problem for me. The world does open up but it doesn’t do it until roughly 2/3rds through.

While I enjoyed Final Fantasy XIII it is not a game I would recommend unless you are a hardcore JRPG fan. Because even though it is a good game, in the end you have 15 hours of gameplay before it really gets to the meat.

I would bet it all to smoke weed with Fang and Vanille in their dimly-lit bedroom full of empty takeout bags: I have never seen a burnout codependent lesbian couple depicted this plausibly. XIII is probably the first Final Fantasy to make intra-party dynamics a narrative priority, and the most successful in this. Good dub casting supports this, and it's the series title from which I came away most fond of the characters. Pretty much the gold standard of seventh generation console visuals, and the best version of the ATB system.

The Hanging Edge

The name shared by both the first area and its accompanying background music in FFXIII immediately transmit the sense of tension and exhilaration that both of them contain. As you gain control of Lightning, the area around you is chaotic, crawling with enemies, rife with conflict. The slightly panicked piano pops into your ears, compelling you to start to move forward. Yet then it is also a sweeping strings section that bursts in as well, conveying the scale of everything happening around you. It makes you want to soak in the stunning environment, the excitement of your surroundings. But there is only one way forward, and the only option left is to run.

It wouldn't be true to say that XIII is defined by freneticism necessarily, but it is such a striking element that it bears mentioning nonetheless. That first level sets a tone that doesn't let up for quite some time, one that deserves immense credit for how committed they were to it. The paths only have one way to go because it's the only way the characters CAN go. They are hunted by what feels like the entire world around them, while pitted against the ticking time bomb they've been stuck with, and still not even able to keep from fighting with each other. Needless to say, the design directly serves the story by adding that tension for them to spin great character moments out of. This is a group of people struggling against circumstance, compelled to keep moving forward when they don't really have a direction. Splitting the party up works great for this, as it allows for Lightning/Hope and Sazh/Vanille to play off of each other and simultaneously get strong character development. These sections work so well because of how focused they are, but the resolution is equally as satisfying too.

The thrilling nature of the story plays very well into the design of the combat system as well, contributing to the consistent sense of energy that the game has. The original ATB system was inspired by Formula One races, yet this system is the first time that dream feels fully realized. The segmented ATB bar gives that sense of actual speed, making it rewarding to act as quickly as possible. It also rewards attentiveness, as even with just auto-attack the timing of your actions is important. Strategy is more important than ever as well, due to Paradigms allowing for mid-battle adaptability. The stagger bar is a great mini-time limit that incentivizes all of these things. It all works quite excellently, and while it takes some time to fully unfurl it is easily one of the best battle systems in the franchise. If anything, I wish it could have been taking advantage of even more. The menus could be even snappier, the time between switching paradigms even faster, and even enemies with more emphasis placed on countering player inattentiveness.

I mentioned before that the fast-paced style of the game isn't the only one it has, and the marked shift it undergoes later is interesting in a lot of ways. There's an inherent satisfaction in stepping into a vast open area after hours of being essentially trapped, a really well done contrast that shows just how foreign Pulse is compared to Cocoon. However, it also feels disappointingly compromised in a lot of ways. A side mission based structure is a fun idea, but it mostly functions as a way to still lead you from point A to B rather than giving a real sense of exploration. Having a lot of enemies that are meant to be avoided is a neat idea for an area consumed by nature, but it also feels at odds with how enjoyable the freedom of the combat is. It also just feels unnecessarily trial-and-error heavy, which just feels like wasting time. Of course the dungeons at the end of this area are quite strong, but it still feels like it missed on the potential at hand and just went back to what works.

This is just one chapter though ultimately, so it's hard to say it ruins the game. One aspect that it does show that I found to be much more detrimental, however, is that the story starts to crack pretty hard around this point. The story thrives off character moments for most of its run time, but it feels somewhat aimless once it moves past that. Of course, this isn't to say it's bad or anything. Oerba is a particularly impactful moment, letting a long lost town just completely speak for itself for the most part is an excellent contrast to the excess of Cocoon. Outside of this though, the story fails to entirely deliver on the promise it makes. We know that Cocoon has elements of a police state, that people like Cid resist it, and that its citizens support its crimes, yet it never feels like we get solid resolutions to these aspects of the world. I don't think answering all of these necessarily makes for a great story, however I don't think pinning them all on the influence of a Fal'cie does either. The main villain has plans that are greater than we know, but that also makes it hard to get attached to the main characters fight against him. The idea that defying fate is the only reason you need to fight is a good theme, yet I don't think that means it couldn't have been more as a whole.

Even if it falls short of being my favorite in such a stacked franchise, I want to reiterate that I think XIII still resonates quite well all around. It's hard to not be impressed by how bold this game is when it pays off in so many ways. I heard most of my life about what a disaster it is, and now it feels like that just speaks to what a tough time it was for JRPGs to get a fair shake. Rather than a fundamentally broken mess, it's a game that could have tapped into its potential even more. Yet what is there is still quite special in its own way, and for that I hope it manages to get more recognition some day.

When you go into a corridor simulator hoping it's not really a corridor simulator so you can prove people wrong, but it ends up actually being a corridor simulator.

Final Fantasy XIII... one of the most discussed games in the series, and not usually in a positive way. I'd heard so many extreme opinions on this game that I really wasn't sure what to expect, who to believe, how exaggerated the opinions were etc etc—all I knew for sure is that it had a banger soundtrack and cool science fantasy aesthetic. So did I end up liking it? Yeah, mostly. People aren't lying about its flaws, and it's a very odd game in a lot of respects, but personally I think this is one of the better games in the series and has a lot of strong aspects that push through its weaknesses. Now, let's get into specifics!

Yep, corridors. Coming from FFXII, I wasn't exactly against a more linear game, especially after enjoying how FFX handled that, but... FFXIII is really fucking linear. Not only is almost every dungeon a corridor with the odd split to lead you to a dead end of treasure, but there are no towns, no minigames, practically no npcs to chat with, no real sidequests for the vast majority of the game—it's absolutely desolate. All you have is combat, combat, combat. It's a little much. The worst example of this is easily the Gapra Whitewood, an absurdly long and repetitive dungeon with little in the way of cutscenes or unique environments, and an area I could not blame anyone from dropping the game on the spot. I think all this would have been an absolute deal breaker if it weren't for two very important caveats: firstly, the presentation of this game is GORGEOUS. Each area looks beyond stunning and screams "this is what true fantasy should look like!" with its dazzling spectacles, landscapes, abstract fantastical constructs, and this is all further enhanced by the ethereal soundtrack that boasts some of the greatest music in the series with some of the greatest music in gaming.

Secondly, the combat is SO. GOOD. By the time I unlocked paradigm shifts I legit struggled to stop playing this game, the high level strategic depth of this combat is crazy and encourages a completely different level of thinking than I'm used to in other RPGs. Instead of instructing your party members in individual actions, whether via menus or action commands, you are instead instructing their job stances and rapidly adjusting these on the fly. There's the option to input your own commands manually for your lead character, but I imagine this is more useful for high level play, as I found auto battle to be very intelligent and did what I wanted 99% of the time. Unfortunately, FF13 kind of weighs down its own combat with its stubborn insistence on near-complete synergy between gameplay and story—the structure of its narrative inevitably forces you into specific parties, often duos of two, and after experiencing a party of three the battles feel so much worse, limiting you significantly in strategy. I assume part of the intention was to train you on the pros/cons of different role combinations and encourage mastery, but it's simply overkill how long it takes to get the training wheels off to return to a party of three.

Buuut on the positive side, this game is actually pretty hard. I constantly got close to/reached the crystarium cap for each section, and still had to think really hard on the bosses to not get absolutely swept. It forces you to engage in all its systems and not look away for a second, or else your party may find itself quite dead! In theory you would think that healing you completely after every battle and being able to instantly restart each one on failure would make the game easy, but this is the completely opposite, as the developers use this to make every single basic mob fight very challenging, emphasising difficulty less on resource management/stamina and more on in the moment strategy. It's actually pretty genius, and ticks off an important part of game design psychology that I feel many games do not understand—the easier and faster you make it for a player to continue after failure, the more encouraged they'll be to push through challenges. As a dopamine-deficient individual, that applies triply to me, making games with overly long restart times/punishing checkpoints nearly unplayable without save states, so I appreciate the lengths FF13 goes to offer a seamless experience.

Once you hit That One Area where the gameplay really opens up, well that's where it really shined for me, I spent like 15 hours in that place before moving on with the story. I'm really excited to get back and do the postgame hunts there, though I don't think I'm quite insane enough to 5 star all of them. It's also quite fun once you understand how the equipment system actually works (because the game sure doesn't do a good job at explaining it), and you can give your party members neat little abilities and stat boosts to enhance their combat. Not to mention the crystarium is deceptively linear, and actually gives you a decent bit of freedom in what to focus on, especially the further you get into the game.

So yeah, gameplay was a big hit for me. Big enough for me to spend like 35 hours in a corridor simulator and somehow enjoy it. Of course there's a few other weaknesses such as repetitive enemy designs, weapons that feel designed to make you hate playing as certain characters due to their negative synergy with said character, etc etc, but overall I don't think any of these were big enough to detract from my enjoyment of the overall systems.

Now... for the characters! And story! Uhhh, I'm not even going to bother talking about this without spoilers, so


SPOILER SECTION BEGINS HERE

I'll cut right to the chase: the journey of FFXIII is extremely character-focused, to the point of being actively detrimental to the world building, plot and lore. This is a very positive aspect of the game that enamoured me, as I love a good cast of flawed human beings that learn to be better through interpersonal conflicts and facing their worst fears in the worst manner possible. This is where FFXIII truly thrives, and I need to go through each character one-by-one to fully get my thoughts across.

Starting with Lightning, on the surface she feels like the sequel to Squall who was the sequel to Cloud, but this shallow preconception quickly vanished for me as it shone a light on her deeper issues. At her core Lightning is a person who wishes to come across as strong, craves a goal that will allow her to pursue a linear course of action without having to confront her inner demons, and deeply loves her sister—which causes her no end of grief when she's confronted with the fact that she didn't listen to her, and refused to help in her time of need. This regret is what drives her to seek revenge against the Sanctum, lest she drives herself to despair in self-loathing. Her arc throughout the game is less about her changing as a person, and more about her reconsidering her relationships with others: specifically Snow, Serah and Hope.

This leads right into Snow, Lightning's direct foil. Unlike her own cynical nature, his ideals are naïve to the point of being detrimental and hurting others, with both their stubbornness leading to many conflicts throughout the game. Lightning treats Snow as an outlet to blame for Serah's fate, but after their long journey together they develop an understanding and Lightning views Snow's unyielding optimism as a plus, accepting that him and Serah are a perfect match. A key moment for Snow is during the finale where he's confronted with his gang, and they judge him not by his status as a l'cie but by the hero they've always known—a theme I'll cover in more depth later.

Of course, you can't talk about Snow's arc without Hope. I sort of get criticisms of his arc to an extent, as yes it is born from a misunderstanding of Snow's intentions, but honestly I found it pretty organic and thought they did a good job at presenting the misunderstanding, as well as conveying why Hope would continue to blame Snow even after it becomes decently clear that he's a good guy that regretted the death of his mother. The build up of Hope's loathing for Snow leads to an absolutely fantastic climax where Hope is about to kill Snow, they both get blasted away, and Snow still saves Hope's life without hesitation after realising he was the son of the woman he couldn't protect, which of course forces Hope to understand Snow's true nature, while this entire ideal gets Snow to confront his naivety and admit he needs to change.

This all evidently mirrors the relationship between Sazh and Vanille: Sazh regrets nothing more than having his son become a Cocoon l'cie, and Vanille desperately tries to hide her responsibility in the matter. And it's not just a matter of her blaming herself for something that wasn't really her responsibility—no, Vanille indirectly caused this when she choose to lie to Fang, and set these events in motion. While you can't necessarily entirely blame her for the outcome, it's also clear that she holds some responsibility and should be held accountable: something she realises more than anyone. When Sazh is finally confronted with the truth after his son tragically turns to crystal, he in turn realises that killing Vanille will accomplish nothing, and she must atone for her mistakes.

Vanille's relationship with Fang is a bit of a similar story: as mentioned, Vanille hides the truth from Fang in a presumptuous attempt to stop her from feeling responsible for becoming Ragnarok, which Fang eventually works out on her own and hashes it out with her girlfriend, before they tearfully embrace. Now in terms of Fang herself, she's admittedly a weak link due to being more of an extension of Vanille than driven by a particular goal like other members of the cast, but I do think she gets a cool moment in the finale where she turns against everything they had built until that point in an attempt to save Vanille. Unfortunately the portrayal of this moment is... really bizarre, more on that later.

As I've just demonstrated, the strength of this cast is in the way they connect to each other—no character develops on their own, and their changes/personal revelations are instead the result of interpersonal conflicts that are born from many weaknesses. This may be a very fundamental aspect of storytelling, yes, but the way FF13 handles it is exceptional and is a masterclass in developing a complex cast with nuanced relationships that organically interweave with their growth. Oh and it has a found family dynamic. I love found family dynamics!

As for the rest of the cast... well they do exist. I think Hope's dad is a neat milestone in Hope's arc, and Serah is pretty fleshed out for her limited screen time, though perhaps more in terms of her importance to other characters. The rest... eh. They serve their roles, but they aren't much more beyond that. This applies to the antagonists: the most interesting one is probably Cid, but sadly he is rather limited in his appearances, so there's only so much I have to work with here.

This intrinsically links to two things—the rather... bizarre nature the plot unfolds, and the incredibly shallow world we are presented. Let's start with the latter: Cocoon does not feel lived in at all. This is potentially a consequence of not being able to explore any towns, but I think it goes beyond that—not only am I not given any reason to care about the citizens of this place, but I also struggle to even conceive their existence. What's the everyday life of a Cocoon citizen? How does their government function beyond providing necessities/convenient propaganda for good ol' Barty? What do the effects of the seemingly-advanced technology have on society? What's the culture of the world, is it monolithic or does each town have its own customs and heritage? While I understand that they are trying to portray Cocoon as a controlled zoo of the fal'Cie's making where humanity are simple livestock, there's only so much you can get away with before the citizens of the world literally stop feeling human and only exist as cardboard narrative props. It takes the advice "a story and its world only matter because of the characters within it" to its logical extreme by making it almost solely exist for the purpose of driving the characters along their journey, and doesn't feel like it exists outside of that.

That last part applies to the plot too. There are many developments in the plot, and a lot of them are pretty interesting, most importantly serving to give the characters chances at growth and to drive them to their destination. To an extent, the linearity of the plot makes sense as Barty is quite literally guiding their journey from start to finish, controlling their free will with the Focus they have been delivered, promising them a definite fate they cannot avoid unless they become mindless monsters. In a sense, Barty is quite a devious antagonist with how he gets the party to do exactly what he wants at every turn, but it gets to the point where it's really exhausting seeing this happen over and over again, and I really felt the lack of the party's agency in the world and its plot even in the final chapter, which is truly wild lol.

Speaking of the lategame plot... what happened? For most of the game the story does feel well constructed in the ways that count, but by the time I reached Oerba village, it started to wear thin and felt as if the budget was rapidly running out. The setting of Oerba is absolutely excellent, enhanced by the evocative Dust to Dust playing in the background, along with many many bits of flavour text to give you an idea of its past culture, but... is it just me or did Vanille and Fang barely talk about the place??? We never really get specifics on their lives there (beyond Vanille's cute robot quest), and Fang in particular I have zero understanding of how she lived there, it feels like only Vanille came from this place and Fang is her imaginary girlfriend. Super disappointing to be rushed through Oerba and get so little in terms of dialogue when it should have been one of the most impactful moments in the game (which tbf, it still is even in its gutted state).

This, however, is nothing compared to the finale that follows. We are rushed back straight to Eden, herded all the way to Orphan with some brief glimpses of the odd lucky side characters that don't get yeeted off screen (assuming they even appear at all), and whoop whoop, final dungeon here we go. It does make sense that Barty would construct their journey this way, but does it make for an interesting story? I sure don't think so. It especially bothered me how half-arsed Cid's 'conclusion' was, along with his vice-captain or whatever his name was, I guess he became one of those wacky death spamming monsters ¯\(ツ)/¯

The finale itself gives a frankly dissatisfying resolution for Barty (congrats on accomplishing your goal...?), Orphan appears as an interesting metaphor for an aborted fetus that represents the collective contradiction of all Cocoon fal'Cie and blablablabla, I wish I could care about it but the execution is so all over the place. The party are placed in the most impossible situation ever, even more so than before, making me wonder how on earth they'll make it out... and they just do??? Because they get the fancy Fang brand for uh, reasons. I had to do some research because these events left me so confused—turns out Fang likely intended to prevent the party from stopping her from killing Orphan, but her attack ended up being too powerful due to Orphan enhancing it (poorly signalled), which caused the party's brands to reach stage 13 (never explained in game) due to the physical/mental stress of the incident (poorly conveyed), and thus become cie'th. Then Etro (goddess only revealed in lore reward for beating superbosses) turns them back with fancy Fang brands that won't let them turn into cie'th (not explained and lazy deus ex machina), allowing them to defeat Orphan once and for all.

I think it's a cool idea that in the end they do end up fulfilling their inevitable Focus, but immediately after before turning to crystal they Cocoon, giving Fang and Vanille a huge moment before they turn to crystal in an eternal embrace, supporting the weight of Cocoon (as 'straight' 'friends' do). This is all awesome. But then after being turned to crystal, the rest of the party... get restored in hardly any time? The only possible way to understand this without getting into sequel shenanigans is through reading the in-game lore and ultimania, where you can work out that Etro once again deus ex machina'd them back to life, woohoo. I'm not sure what's worse, whether the scenario writers wrote themselves into a corner and made up Etro to solve it, or if they planned this all along and didn't deign it worthy to set up this rather convenient poorly telegraphed solution!

I guess I'll see if I feel differently after playing the rest of the trilogy, but from this game alone, the finale is such a disappointing clusterfuck after and otherwise strong story up until then.

SPOILER SECTION ENDS HERE

Music. The music in this game is absolutely incredible, Hamauzu proves himself as a very worthy successor to Uematsu with his unique style, further evolving from his work in FFX. Saber's Edge is one of the coolest boss themes I've ever heard, Sunleth Waterscape and Archylte Steppe are beautiful area music, and there's just so many amazing event themes that really set the tone. I can't wait to hear more of his work in the sequels, even if he isn't the sole composer for them. FF sure never misses on music.

But yeah to sum it up, I really like FF13. The gameplay is fantastic and unique, graphics are gorgeous, characters are all very well constructed and engaging, and the soundtrack is a masterpiece. It's unfortunate it has some really major flaws, such as a messy finale, shallow world building, corridor structure, and rather weak side cast/villains, that really bring a game that should have been so much better down, and I can see why this game is so divisive. Despite all that, it says a lot that I was able to write so much about the story, it shows I did genuinely care enough about it to feel strongly about my criticisms. I think I land more on the positive side overall in terms of opinions, but sadly not as much as I hoped going into this game.

Man, this game is a mess. For every awe-inspiring moment which captures what I really love about Final Fantasy there is something in response which feels like a de-evolution of it. I hesitate to call this "bad" as many detractors would proclaim but I can't deny if I said I do understand where that frustration came from. Let me be upfront; I think there's a very solid game buried deep within here.

The story about an unlikely group, barely getting along with each other and forced to under circumstances, who become fugitives on the run from a government that hates magic(?) is a really cool idea on paper. The futuristic dystopian backdrop setting to this seems like a cool-looking world to just immerse yourself in. The problem comes with the way this is conveyed and laid throughout the game. The opening to FFXIII is the best example for this, taking obvious cues from FFVII, which does an effective job of thrusting you right into the action where the party comes together. But then it starts to lose itself once you try to wrap your head around the many questions you have about the "why?" or "what?" of what's going on. Who are the Fal'Cie? What's a L'Cie? What's the deal with Vanille? What even is the Gran Pulse anyway? Not that Final Fantasy has never had a narrative that doesn't at least leave you stumped for how much is going on. Here though, this becomes a clear issue because the game almost expects you to know all this story and world-building beforehand. There's no audience surrogate to help ground the game and familiarize ourselves with these unclear concepts to really get the bigger picture through breadcrumbs. These questions do get addressed somewhat but by the time they do it's far too late into the story. And it becomes difficult to really get fully invested or engaged when there's this level of disconnect going on in the narrative. Besides that they're mostly explained through Datalogs rather than something naturally explored through cutscenes or dialogue. I wouldn't even call this badly written per say, because if you cut right through the plot there exists a solid story there, but the way this is handled doesn't do it much justice.

Having said all that, I think it's ironic that for a game about understanding yet defying destiny it's very scripted in how it strips player agency for a majority. You're basically stuck with training wheels for the way you can barely customize and progress through the game's notorious linearity. Which amounts to running through hallways to hallways, empty corridors to empty corridors, and narrow pathways to narrow pathways with nothing to do but a rinse and repeat of fighting enemies, finding a save point, and then a cutscene plays. I get this franchise has always been very straightforwardly linear but they usually do a good job of making up for the fact you're going from point A to B. From including overworld map environments, the quirky little towns or hubs you can visit, and the NPCs populating it which breathes life into the entire experience. FFXIII is completely divorced from this purposeful set dressing which was vital in engrossing you into the respective game's vibe and setting. And considering how very unique FFXIII's world is, this design choice makes the adventuring experience more detrimental than it could be intentionally beneficial to whatever the devs had in mind. Combine this with how restrictive the combat is until Chapter 9 (out of 13) and you end up with a very monotonous gameplay experience that leaves you wanting to just be the one in proper control for once.

And yet, as the party gradually reunites back in the latter half of the game, and you finally get more freedom to play how you want, it actually becomes a very decent experience all around. What I think FFXIII does an interesting job with, something people are understandably going to be split on, is its combat and how it differs from the way the series handled turn-based before it. I still have my gripes, like your party members being AI controlled, but the Paradigm system is a fair tradeoff for how deceptively deep it actually is. This probably makes the most engaging use of the ATB system from any Final Fantasy, or even RPG, I've played so far. Although you don't have complete control over your party members, you can change the playstyles or classes of your party every turn. Making you really consider the specializations of your party, like who's the best for debuffing or who's great at being a bullet sponge tank to draw attention from the others, and try to fight as one unit rather than individually. It easily makes it one of the most demanding RPGs combat-wise for how reactive and quick you need to be. It's not perfect as there's still quite a bit of a gradual learning curve to really get the feel for it and how monotonous it can still end up being fairly often, but I don't hate the concept really. It's actually quite fitting that for how much the game feels almost like the prototypical first failed attempt at remaking FFVII for the modern gaming generation that FFVII Remake ends up lifting a lot of the gameplay here to better refine it.

What surprised me the most from my experience throughout FFXIII was how I grew to really endear myself to its main characters. A lot of people really seem to hate them, which I'll admit they're lacking in certain character to really stand out stronger, but by the end of it I couldn't help but root for this likable bunch. I wasn't entirely fond of them from the get-go, since the game was reluctant in allowing you to really understand what their deal is, but I think around Chapter 8 is when I just really vibed with them mostly. Snow is just a really cool dude trying to be the hero that these dire situations need. Hope I was indifferent towards but I really liked how much he's matured. Vanille and Fang are very fun characters all around. Sazh might actually be one of my favorite characters in the franchise for how endearingly "normal" he is in trying to be a good dad while getting caught up in typical Final Fantasy bullshit. Lightning was the weakest link for me as she's clearly supposed to fill the Cloud Strife role in the game but never gets the needed depth to rise above -- "she's kinda there I guess. kinda boring tho". I still would've liked to see them have more going on than certain character moments to feel more well rounded but I think that ties back to the poor way the narrative is told.

Just having beaten the game, it really puts this into perspective how hard it is for me to recommend this or not. Because for one, this could be seen as too much of an unsatisfying departure in the series to plunge 50 hours into for really anybody to pick up. The gameplay is very limited for 2/3rds of the playtime, the story seems promising but can feel frustratingly underwhelming in its execution, and the pacing is very gradual and not in a way that justified its length (this should've been 20+ hours tops). But on the other hand, it's still even today a visually stunning game with often beautiful environments, the character writing can invoke the genuine goodness that this franchise can excel at, and the combat can have a lot going for it mechanically. Also, this might have the coolest renditions of summons by just making them into transformers you can fight with so maybe it's actually the best Final Fantasy after all.

Beauty in fantasy

I'm just gonna say it, I have a hard time trusting japanese role playing fans when it comes to genuine conversations about the genre in general. Despite the decade and the overall flak this game gets and the actual vitriol that comes from discussing this game, I finally got around to actually playing the game myself and seeing for myself what many people labeled "the worst Final Fantasy game". Now I get there are genuine criticisms about the game and this game isn't perfect by any means but it's a beautiful game. The linearity which I feel is the number one criticism doesn't really matter considering the whole package here and especially it wasn't even the first game that has done the linear approach in Final Fantasy and it fits thematically with the game itself here too.

While I feel the story is under cooked due to having to read a little in the codex, it was still decent and not too hard to understand. I admit that I got a little lost nearing the end but the ending itself was great but I think the best part is the whole journey of the game itself here. I really liked the cast here in the fact they feel like actual people barring one or two of them. I feel like each character has had their chance to shine and develop throughout the journey and it made for some great moments I didn't expect at all as they all become victims of circumstance and made for interesting dynamics between certain characters. I never really minded the linearity here due to the fact that the characters realistically didn't have time to partake in side stuff, time is running out and you're always running.

The paradigm system is honestly one of my favorite renditions of ATB so far in the series. My main problem is that it doesn't open up soon enough with the game not giving you the full customization until you're three quarters done with the game. Creating strategies for specific roles is something I really enjoyed doing here and it also rewards perfectly timed switching with a full ATB gauge after a certain amount of time too which makes it even easier to activate burst damage windows. I had fun with this system but the way the game creates these fights are a bit uneven. The game is mostly really easy until the game unlocks the ability to customize your characters and party and the difficulty ramps up pretty hard nearing the end. Fights that used to take 1-2 minutes had average fights taking 4-8 minutes in the final dungeon with mobs. You never really had to grind too much in this game fortunately from my own experience as the game rewards game knowledge over raw stats most of the time.

If there's one word I can use to describe Final Fantasy XIII: Beauty. The level design for almost each area is teeming with visual spectacle and variety. From the machine infused nature of the forest to a land forgotten by time itself, each chapter really managed to provide a unique atmosphere to each area that it's honestly impressive despite the approach to progression. The entire game is yet put into another plane with a serene and energizing soundtrack that focus on the elegance and beauty of the piano and the violin along with the occasional vocal track that really makes this easily one of my favorite soundtracks in a japanese role playing game and knowing the genre, it's really tough to be at that spot considering how good these soundtracks usually are. Two of my favorite tracks manage to build up and then unleashes a beautiful set of strings as the pay off and makes me remember why I enjoyed gaming sometimes. The game is still amazing to look at even today and even the FMVs are always a treat to see after a gameplay sequence that brings back the old days when technology wasn't there yet for the gameplay to match the viewing experience.

I feel like Final Fantasy XIII was meant to be a PlayStation 2 title because it has all the bearings of what would essentially be that. Experimentation of ATB, an incredible soundtrack, gorgeous visuals, linear design that wasn't even the first rendition of it albeit a bit worse. It's also kinda funny how much stuff from this game seeps into the real of modern Final Fantasy too which is surprising. I think even Square realized they had a lot of great ideas in this title and took them and improved them further in future and current titles. The game starts pretty slow and ends a bit too slow too but the overall package is pretty good for what feels like essentially another fun adventure in the series and honestly too overhated for what it actually is and what I feel Final Fantasy is: a fun and beautiful experience.

Game that gets a ton of shit for wrong reasons, the cast is the most consistent in the series as a whole and individually they all set a decently high bar. The ATB system coupled with the Paradigm Shift system for the battles in this game are very polished, unfortunately the main game does not really require pushing it to its limits or experimenting too far with it. The side bosses do however and going for 5 stars on all 64 missions + fighting Long Gui/Adamantoise was very fun. The crystarium is a budget sphere grid but that is a very high bar anyway, it's a fine level up system. The story itself is not too interesting on its own but when coupled with the world and characters you're in for one of the most engaging FF stories there is. Props to the graphics as well, not something I really care for in general but this game stands out and still looks amazing today.

Infelizmente me decepcionei muito com esse jogo, quando via os trailers e imagens passando na TV ficava louco pra jogar um dia e foi meu sonho por muito tempo, parecia coisa de outro mundo... Só parecia mesmo.

Começando pelo universo que é bem mal introduzido, junto com um elenco nada memorável de personagens, no máximo Hope ou Snow são bons como personagens, Lightning e os outros são puro design, sem carisma com histórias rasas e esquecíveis.

A história do jogo em si não é ruim, mas é tão mal executada e narrada que dá desgosto, demora muito pra acontecer alguma coisa que faça valer a pena passar pelas quase 40 horas de gameplay maçante. E claro, como quase todo JRPG, é cheio de bullshit e poderzino da amizade na reta final.

A pior coisa do jogo de fato é a gameplay, simplesmente a pior que já vi em qualquer RPG, se resume a combinar cores, clicar no inimigo que quer atacar e pronto, é essa gameplay por 40 horas direto. O level design também é péssimo, são corredores e corredores com um elevador ou outro, não tem variedade nenhuma, você anda em corredores na cidade, corredores numa base e corredores numa floresta, é ridículo.

Talvez a melhor e única qualidade desse jogo seja a parte técnica, os gráficos são muito bonitos, ambientação no geral é lindíssima e as cutcenes são impressionantes até nos dias de hoje, mas infelizmente para por ai, o jogo não tem nada mais a mostrar.

Final Fantasy XIII foi uma enorme decepção para mim, talvez a maior quando se trata de jogos, foi tortuoso zerar esse jogo, tanto que levei quase 2 anos kkkk.

final fantasy's very own milk toast, featuring:
armpits
a battle system made worse for no reason
dying randomly to targeting and aoe rng
armpits
hallway map hallway map and hallway map
arbitrary crafting/progression that adds nothing
and most importantly, armpits