"the linear hallways!!1!" is one of those things that i heard nonstop about this game until i finally played it for myself last year, and honestly? the environments are fine, X was far worse with linearity. no, where this game shits the bed is in its battle system. you can only control one character, and if they die, game over. at least shin megami tensei (usually) gives an in-universe reason for your character's death being an insta-game over. here? no fucken special reason. and considering how often you'll end up relying on the AI to heal you with their horrible prioritization that you can never change, you can expect a lot of game overs because of things out of your control.
not to mention the fact that the auto-battle function completely invalidates having to think for most of the combat. just mash x during every encounter, occasionally you'll need to paradigm shift to a different party setup, but otherwise you're just mindlessly watching the game play itself. people levy that exact same complaint against XII, but you had two remedies to that: a. you weren't mandated to use the gambit system and b. the game accommodated for people not using gambits by letting you pause the game mid-battle to decide what to do. here, if you're not auto-battling, you're often just doing things that you would otherwise be doing, the dominant strategy, slower and less efficiently, and with the "your character's death results in game over" thing, there's a fire under your ass to handle encounters as quickly as possible, but for the wrong reason.
you'd be shocked to find that the characters here are actually likeable and dare i say, strong. i wouldn't say it has the strongest cast, but considering i like all of them and find most of their inner conflicts to be compelling, it just feels like an otherwise great FF character roster was doomed with a horrible gameplay system. i wanted to like this game very badly but i cannot deny that the lion's share of my playthrough was just tedium. i have never played a FF game that demanded so little of me yet wasted so much of my time.
not to mention the fact that the auto-battle function completely invalidates having to think for most of the combat. just mash x during every encounter, occasionally you'll need to paradigm shift to a different party setup, but otherwise you're just mindlessly watching the game play itself. people levy that exact same complaint against XII, but you had two remedies to that: a. you weren't mandated to use the gambit system and b. the game accommodated for people not using gambits by letting you pause the game mid-battle to decide what to do. here, if you're not auto-battling, you're often just doing things that you would otherwise be doing, the dominant strategy, slower and less efficiently, and with the "your character's death results in game over" thing, there's a fire under your ass to handle encounters as quickly as possible, but for the wrong reason.
you'd be shocked to find that the characters here are actually likeable and dare i say, strong. i wouldn't say it has the strongest cast, but considering i like all of them and find most of their inner conflicts to be compelling, it just feels like an otherwise great FF character roster was doomed with a horrible gameplay system. i wanted to like this game very badly but i cannot deny that the lion's share of my playthrough was just tedium. i have never played a FF game that demanded so little of me yet wasted so much of my time.
pretty cool if you've ever been a basketball coach for a group of small children that don't listen to you
my god. 10 hours in and still so linear
When you think about it, this really was "The Final Fantasy XIII."
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.
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.
there are two characters in a scene. someone points out an uncomfortable truth. the second character reacts, their every movement and vocalisation dripping wet hot melodrama. before the conversation can continue, something explodes and we are now in control of a party of two different characters. we play as them for an hour. we fight a miniboss. only then do we return to the first duo, who resume their conversation as if it had been a week ago.
my 3rd time trying to finish this game i finally did it during this lockdown. overall yes the game kinda too linear to a fault and the charaters unlikable.but as it goes on they get more fleshed out and i ended up liking most of them. the plot is so so but the bosses were atleast cool. the games main draw is its stellar ost and beautiful areas that still look good in 2020. great art direction and world. eventually the padgrim system does click with you and when you get to use all characters at once finally u can make some neat padgrims given the situation and swap between. it can be fun but it still never becomes the most engaging combat system. overall when i finished it i would say i enjoyed it but still think its only a decent game. i can see why at the time and now people dont like it but its not the total disaster people made it out to be at the time. i hear xiii-2 fixes alot gameplay wise and has more open areas like the one part in this. so im excited to try that. you can sort of semi focus and tune out and play this so i did sort of vibe with that. if you have the time i wanna get this off your ff to do list its not so bad, but its still a stepdown overall compared to most of the series. but still id say i enjoyed it even enough i didnt regret my 50 hours. there is a hump that you need to get over and you might not.
my views on this section of the final fantasy franchise don't line up with everyone else and i know that, but oh well LOL. worth trying, even if you decide it's not for you.
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.
Hardcore fans might be disappointed by the abandonment of open worlds, town exploration and complex mini-games.
I used to hate this game, but over time I really warmed up to it. While I still dont outright love it, the characters and the combat system have grown on me, and I actually appreciate the linearity now after having seen so much open world bullshit.
I still don't like the story or the antagonists though
I still don't like the story or the antagonists though
The game drags a lot but once you give it a chance XIII becomes pretty fun to play and the characters start to grow on you
I have beaten this game twice. I have to say this is one fo the most gorgeous games I've ever played on the PS3. But it is also a very polarizing game to the FF community. There is the side that will most certainly throw this in the trash and the other side that's like it isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Well I'm on that other side.
To me, this game isn't that bad. It drags a bit. Especially with all the straight hallways you're running through. Yes the story definitely isn't the best. But to me it has it's moments plus there are characters that I myself like aside from Sazh Katzroy and Snow Villiers. The game does take too long to open up to you. It really wait til borderline the last 3 to 4 chapters to be like "Here's that open field and side quests you been waiting on". That's the one part I really did not like. The battle system is extremely different from what I expected on my very first run but learned to work with it. But let me ask this.
Should you start here if you are looking to play a Final Fantasy game? No. There are plenty out there for you to try before trying this one.
Is this worth a playthrough? I'd say yes. After you have at least two others under your belt.
This is not for everyone to get into. But if you wanna experience the game that some parts of the fanbase want to pretend doesn't exist then by all means come play this. It's not a horrible game but the decisions made leading to how this game turned out can be off putting to an extent. Some of the characters may not sit well with you. The story isn't the most coherent thing in the world. But it's a game that I think isn't the worst you can play for an RPG.
To me, this game isn't that bad. It drags a bit. Especially with all the straight hallways you're running through. Yes the story definitely isn't the best. But to me it has it's moments plus there are characters that I myself like aside from Sazh Katzroy and Snow Villiers. The game does take too long to open up to you. It really wait til borderline the last 3 to 4 chapters to be like "Here's that open field and side quests you been waiting on". That's the one part I really did not like. The battle system is extremely different from what I expected on my very first run but learned to work with it. But let me ask this.
Should you start here if you are looking to play a Final Fantasy game? No. There are plenty out there for you to try before trying this one.
Is this worth a playthrough? I'd say yes. After you have at least two others under your belt.
This is not for everyone to get into. But if you wanna experience the game that some parts of the fanbase want to pretend doesn't exist then by all means come play this. It's not a horrible game but the decisions made leading to how this game turned out can be off putting to an extent. Some of the characters may not sit well with you. The story isn't the most coherent thing in the world. But it's a game that I think isn't the worst you can play for an RPG.
Not a flawless game but definitely one of the better FF mainline games. A lot of the criticisms against it are bad faith, imo.
It does a lot of interesting and good things, the world building is unique and interesting, it an fun idea that humans could be pets to some sort of deity. It also has a very fleshed out lore. The art is really cool too and they made a few interesting characters. Lightning is a good lead protagonist, because she is a driving force. Not like a lot of protagonists who are just being pushed around by everyone else.
But the games combat is kinda lame, and they went great lengths too making it that way too.
The game also becomes very grindy.
But the games combat is kinda lame, and they went great lengths too making it that way too.
The game also becomes very grindy.
Couldn't get pass Barthandelus.
10/10
10/10
Honestly it's not as bad as it's famously known for, but it's nothing great either. Common joke about this game is that it's "always hallways", which is pretty accurate when you compare it to other entries in the franchise. Visually this game is stunning, but in story it's a little lacking. If you're interested in getting into the XIII trilogy, prepare yourself for a non-traditional black sheep entry in Final Fantasy.
You know, for a game that's super linear at the beginning (and for 3/4 of the content in the game), I actually came to enjoy this a lot more than I expected based on the popular reputation. I grew to really like the linearity. It gave the game a very carefully guided balance curve, and while it took so so long to fully unlock all the options, once it got there, there was an enjoyable combat system to slot into the linear, yet tightly controlled, experience.
The game really fell apart for me in Chapter 11, or when you enter the open world section. Yes, I feel directly opposite of the popular consensus. The open world section is terrible, and completely destroys any sense of momentum, combat progression, or combat balance. I spent about 3 hours in the Gran Pulse plains before hacking my save file to give myself maximum CP. I was told to expect a fairly steep combat requirement in the final act, which is why I did that, and boy am I glad I did. Because even after hacking my save and making a bee-line for the next quest marker, it still took me 5 hours to get out of this open world zone. It contains some of the worst feeling encounters in the game because the last 20 hours have given you this linear experience, but now you have to do side quests and backtrack for asinine puzzles in order to progress.
Once I was out of there, it was another quick 7 hours to finish the game, and the ending was fine. Not much to see.
Overall, I think this game is very interesting and ambitious. I respect the forwardness to make a deeply linear game with a linear story, but not so much the open world design they tried to go with. An interesting failure, I'd say.
The game really fell apart for me in Chapter 11, or when you enter the open world section. Yes, I feel directly opposite of the popular consensus. The open world section is terrible, and completely destroys any sense of momentum, combat progression, or combat balance. I spent about 3 hours in the Gran Pulse plains before hacking my save file to give myself maximum CP. I was told to expect a fairly steep combat requirement in the final act, which is why I did that, and boy am I glad I did. Because even after hacking my save and making a bee-line for the next quest marker, it still took me 5 hours to get out of this open world zone. It contains some of the worst feeling encounters in the game because the last 20 hours have given you this linear experience, but now you have to do side quests and backtrack for asinine puzzles in order to progress.
Once I was out of there, it was another quick 7 hours to finish the game, and the ending was fine. Not much to see.
Overall, I think this game is very interesting and ambitious. I respect the forwardness to make a deeply linear game with a linear story, but not so much the open world design they tried to go with. An interesting failure, I'd say.
I've played through this game twice. It is a visually magnificent game, but I can't get past a number of unlikable characters and some of the strictest linearity in any FF game ever.
It's really noticeable when you first reach the Gapra Whitewood early in the game and see a number of branching paths going into the forest -- of which you can't take any. It feels like there was a lot of ambition on hand and things got in the way of execution -- maybe they ran short on time or spent too much budget on pretty-ifying the game? Needless to say, the first ~25-30 hours of the game are like this. Then it commits a deeper sin.
[SPOILERS (minor) AHEAD, READ AT YOUR OWN PERIL]
Once you touch down on Gran Pulse, the game gives you the illusion of freedom by letting you wander out into the world in any direction you desire -- except that if you don't head directly toward a certain group of monsters, any other encounters are likely to annihilate you on contact. Gran Pulse essentially becomes a trial-and-error test of which encounters are the ones that are okay to fight and dictate which area you should be in until your party becomes hardy enough to take on the next big threat.
[END OF SPOILERS]
I wasn't fond of the Eidolons or Paradigm system, either -- but these issues (for me) were negligible compared to the sheer linearity imposed on the player with a ragtag crew of (mostly) frustrating characters.
It's really noticeable when you first reach the Gapra Whitewood early in the game and see a number of branching paths going into the forest -- of which you can't take any. It feels like there was a lot of ambition on hand and things got in the way of execution -- maybe they ran short on time or spent too much budget on pretty-ifying the game? Needless to say, the first ~25-30 hours of the game are like this. Then it commits a deeper sin.
[SPOILERS (minor) AHEAD, READ AT YOUR OWN PERIL]
Once you touch down on Gran Pulse, the game gives you the illusion of freedom by letting you wander out into the world in any direction you desire -- except that if you don't head directly toward a certain group of monsters, any other encounters are likely to annihilate you on contact. Gran Pulse essentially becomes a trial-and-error test of which encounters are the ones that are okay to fight and dictate which area you should be in until your party becomes hardy enough to take on the next big threat.
[END OF SPOILERS]
I wasn't fond of the Eidolons or Paradigm system, either -- but these issues (for me) were negligible compared to the sheer linearity imposed on the player with a ragtag crew of (mostly) frustrating characters.
eh
Unlikeable characters follow an impossibly badly told story through endless corridors, and then when it opens up it's not all that much better.
A game that takes ~30 hours to "get good" is a game that has wasted 30 hours of your time.
has some of the best characters in the series, and a really cool world. unfortunately the plot is pretty standard, the antagonists suck, and the gameplay progression is way too slow
Excelente, aunque melodramático, desarrollo de personajes.
In an era of open-world upgrade crafting loot based blah blah AAA bullshit, FFXIII was a breath of fresh air. It was a hallway, sure, thank fucking Christ it was a hallway. That kept the pacing perfect, the XP always right on the mark. I adore every character. To say it's too melodramatic is to be dishonest; so is every other Final Fantasy.
I get to halfway through the game and just get too bored. Final Hallway XIII, and the actual fights are just auto-battle, auto-battle, paradigm shift, auto battle...
This game sucked, why it got 2 sequels is beyond me.
This game sucked, why it got 2 sequels is beyond me.
I wish the characters were in a better game
It has some really great music and visuals. The story is convoluted but isn't the worst. I just hate the gameplay and how disgustingly linear it is.
Has fantastic visual design and music but is let down by shallow gameplay, an incomprehensible story, overly linear design and several extremely unlikable playable characters.
meh