FFXIII: Hills and Lines

[Savannah]

Hills and Lines: Final Fantasy XIII « Chungking Espresso (http://simonferrari.com/2010/03/31/hills-and-lines-final-fantasy-xiii/)

This is a really great defense of FFXIII from a geographic/mathematical perspective. Don't get me wrong— I loathe almost everything about FFXIII so far, but I still thought this was a very interesting examination of it. I think the decision to push through with this concept was an admirable one, and perhaps with better dialogue and storytelling it could've been much more effective, but in the end I just don't think it worked.

[Moon Rabbits]

that is as they say
t
l
;
d
r.

[Flying Arrow]

Really interesting article. While reading it, I found I noticed quite a few of the points the author brought up when playing the game myself (particularly in regards to the progression of challenges), but he articulated it far better than I could have.

This piece almost makes a compelling case to wade through XIII again, if only from a dry, intellectual standpoint. I find that XIII's design is more workable with a 10-hour action game than a 70-hour RPG - there just isn't enough there to keep a player enthralled for the ludicrous amount of time that most RPGs require to complete. But even good action games know to tighten the experience up, with God of War being my favourite example. Say what you will about hills and lines, but XIII takes far, far too long to become interesting from a mechanical stand-point, and then far, far too long again to build on that initial base of interest.

Also, I contend that the farther one gets into the game, the less satisfaction one gets out of defeating enemies. The more complex the strategy, the more I realized that the AI was handling most of it, but not always efficiently and not always satisfyingly. In the end, it doesn't matter what kind of weakness an enemy has - they're all just weak to Saboteur. Once the SAB nails them, it's back to the general strategy of switching in and out of formations (which is still surprisingly fun). Synergy is the same deal because it's essentially a Make Party Better button. This just is not always satisfying, especially when the game is pushing you down a path for same-ish fight after same-ish fight. Sure, the game does a good job offering up different enemy formations (credit where credit is due), but each of these encounters still essentially boil down to switching to the same Make Party Better/Make Enemy Weaker jobs. There's not a lot of conscious strategy on the part of player here - or at least not to my liking, which is completely subjective. Pulse changes things up combat-wise, but, of course, the game takes far too long to reach that point, and still stats generally determine battle success (killing a behemoth king at low levels requires a quite a bit of effort, but not so much once you're beefed up).

The crystarium compounds the SAB/SYN issue particularly. Since one generally gets all the abilities as they become needed (carefully planned out by SE) with little in the way of choice or prioritizing, the individual abilities almost become pointless. Allowing the player access to Protect and Shell in this system is almost redundant, and they may have well been consolidated into a single "Beef" spell. The lack of choice and resource management, I feel, is what keeps this game from being interesting, and what makes other RPGs/dungeon crawlers good. Sure, certain characters have specific abilities for a while, but the game is never designed in such a way where you have to make due without certain buffs or debuffs.

In theory it's a solid series of challenges (as the writer of the article says), but in practice it's actually kinda tedious and... not very challenging.

[seiferalmasy2]

I am afraid that is all a load of waffle. I don't play games to go into the logical structure of it or think about this in some kind of pseudo scientific way (which is what this is). I play a game to have the illusion of freedom (not in XIII), exploration (dumbed down in XIII), choices (pretty much non existent in XIII), side quests (few and far between), minigames (virtually non existent) and all the other stuff that adds to the world such as NPC and Towns.

I really love how criticism of this game, and extremely logical and impossible to counter arguments, have led to people now trying the most laughable and desperate types of defence. What a load of waffle!

The main point here is that this game became this way because the devlopers had a hard time making their precious HD work with traditional elements (not to mention as they stated themselves, they used graphics to attract casual gamers). I doubt they sat down and said "hey you know what, wouldn't it be good to think about this in terms of psuedo science"

"you mean hills and lines?"

The mind boggles.

[demondude]

Yep, and they are rolling. in. money. It's business and they do it good.

[Flying Arrow]

seifer: Not sure if he's defending it necessarily as a good or fun game. He's just analyzing the logic and progression of the design that the game actually exhibits.

Of course, you wouldn't have any first-hand experience with XIII's design logic and progression since you've never played it.

[seiferalmasy2]

seifer: Not sure if he's defending it necessarily as a good or fun game. He's just analyzing the logic and progression of the design that the game actually exhibits.

Of course, you wouldn't have any first-hand experience with XIII's design logic and progression since you've never played it.

As you keep reminding people, and as I keep reminding you, watching hours of video and reading tons of reviews means that I can criticise it fairly. I don't need to see the contents of a nappy to know what lies therein, nor do I need to understand the logical structure of the game to know what the devlopers have said.

[Flying Arrow]

^ Well his critique is about the progression of battles from minute 1 to the endgame. So unless you've watched Youtube clips from the opening to closing cutscenes, including the set-up of each individual battle formation, you probably haven't the adequate experience to counter his analysis (which is, in fact, an analysis and not a critique of what the developers were too lazy to include in their RPG adventure - a point you continue to bring up, and which generally has no relevance to what XIII actually is).

And are you really saying that by reading reviews and watching clips on Youtube you can criticize something fairly? Like, really? Are you kidding?

[seiferalmasy2]

So let us get this straight, you think I have to watch every battle to know battle structure? That I have to watch every paradigm in action to know the paradigm system? That I have to see every cutscene to know that it is bloated graphic fest?

And that I have to play the game to know what devlopers and the vast majority of fans (even those that like it) are saying?

I don't suppose you understand why we actually have review sites? Well, see, I decided against FF13 based on my amazing and almost god like ability to see through the words and match up tons of them to paint a fair picture with a quite incredible logic. I was able to do this. I then went onto youtube and watched tons of cutscenes and saw that I wasn't going to like either the story or battle sytem or the presentation.

After all that, I was able to meld all of this data together, my experience of XII, all the reviews and all the video's and the devlopers comments.

After this, my brain had painted a picture good enough to criticise a lot of the game. The only thing I cannot criticise is the story but given what I know about the melodrama I have already seen and of views from those I consider to have similar tastes to my own- again my amazing logic sprang into action.

To cut this process that happens in my brain down to a sentence:

I accumulated multiple data on this game and decided that it was :bou::bou::bou::bou: and I would not like it. That saved me 50 quid, and gave me another 200 when ps3 was sold.

That is as far as I am willing to go on my thought processes. I suggest you try it in future, it really is a money saver and will seriously develop you a new kind of sixth sense to whenever a bad smelling fart like XIII is heading for your wallet.

ON the other hand you may actually do this and come out with the opposite view to me and get a game you enjoy.

[kotora]

^ Well his critique is about the progression of battles from minute 1 to the endgame. So unless you've watched Youtube clips from the opening to closing cutscenes, including the set-up of each individual battle formation, you probably haven't the adequate experience to counter his analysis (which is, in fact, an analysis and not a critique of what the developers were too lazy to include in their RPG adventure - a point you continue to bring up, and which generally has no relevance to what XIII actually is).

And are you really saying that by reading reviews and watching clips on Youtube you can criticize something fairly? Like, really? Are you kidding?

Stop the personal attacks, they just make you look like one of those 'tarded fanboys that stick up for the game without any real arguments against the critique. I've played through the entire game and got about 40 of the 64 hunts. I even got the 'superstar' trophy, so obviously I'm a superstar at the game. And I say that the guy is right on every point.