What worked in this game

[Slothy]

I'm aiming this at all the FFXIII haters out there, myself included. I've stated numerous times that I consider this to be one of the worst games I've ever played. A bold statement to be sure, but let's dispense with the hate for a moment since that's best left to the census reveal.

For those who didn't like this game like myself, what did work for you. What do you consider it's redeeming qualities? What made you feel like you wanted to like this game in spite of it's issues?

Of course, people who did like it can join in as well. Just tell us the one thing that really sold you on the game.

For me, it was definitely Sazh. I knew there was something special about this guy the moment I saw his Chocofro. That is a bold fashion statement if ever I saw one and I'm the guy who's five pairs of shoes all have toes. (http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/index.htm)

But I really feel like Sazh was a character made for an older gamer like myself. Granted, I don't have a kid I need to protect and take care of, but I do have a wife and I have the responsibilities that come with being an adult. I've got a family I care about and have to provide for on some level, and when bad stuff happens and my life gets turned upside down, I do what any reasonable person would do and get freaked the hell out by it. Sazh's motivations made sense to me. His reactions to the awful situation he and his son were in were believable. And perhaps more than that, I can understand being so overwhelmed that he'd just want to put the gun to his head and pull the trigger. He was a cool character that made me want to like the game a lot more.

And side note, but am I the only one who kind of wished he did go through with his suicide and that the game actually dealt with the fallout of something that's fairly unprecedented (or at least uncommon) in gaming, to say nothing of RPG's?

[ReloadPsi]

I liked Blinded By Light or whatever it was called, I think it was meant to be the standard battle theme. I have actually jogged to it on account of it matching my most comfortable pace, I just like it that much.

That was it. I found everything else about the game (for the three hours I played) incredibly f***ing offensive. I'll be playing a couple more hours in the near future just so my friend and I can record my reactions to that as well, but then I'll finally leave the game behind me forever.

[Del Murder]

The graphics. Also the characters were diverse, I'll give them that.

[milliegoesbeep]

I actually liked the battle system of the game, really. It was a refreshing and much needed change to the old system. When they tried to revamp it in XII, as we all know it sucked wasn't all that well put together. FFXIII managed to pull off the change as well as redesigning the levelling system, most probably taking off from the sphere grid in X. The crystarium and the paradigms really sold it for me and the look of the game in general. It's so pretty @_@

[Jiro]

The crystarium was very linear but at least you didn't run the risk of completely nerfing yourself. I loved the characters though; I enjoyed seeing them go through trials and challenges and how they interacted.

[Laddy]

The characters were simply marvelous. I didn't like all of them all the time, but none of them annoyed me. And they had a role in the fucking story. If the story was similar but had more "off-time" (towns, them just hanging out) the cast would probably be the best. Sazh is a Top 5 best, imo.

And the battle system was good. I'd prefer more paradigms, or at least different versions of them. The Crystarium was uninspired but harmless. The actual combat itself though was one of the better ones.

The graphics and music were damn good too. While the music wasn't Uematsu-caliber, that's for sure, it served its purpose and grabbed my attention.

To me, XIII is a collection of gold in a sea of dirt. I honestly wish they would remake, or reimagine rather, this game with a similar, but redone plot, a similar, but redone battle system, and more open-endedness in the level design. Also, towns. This game has promise all over, but the execution and some downright stupid design choices make it fairly average.

[Raistlin]

I am extremely critical of some of the things FFXIII tried, but I thought some stuff did work.

1. Character development, for the first 7-8 chapters at least, was very good. You really got to know every character, and the game delved into their backstories. Sazh was the best example of a understandable character who reacted surprisingly realistically for a hero in an RPG. The gameplay, of course, was crap during that time, but each character's story was developed very well.

2. I actually like parts of the battle system. It was new and for much of the game fairly engaging and involved some level of strategy. While not as good as FFXII's system overall, I thought each game did certain things well. It tried to simple things down from FFXIII, but ended up going TOO simple. It definitely needed something more control options, such as more paradigms and an ability to control the AI if one chose to (sort of like an optional gambit system), but overall I thought it was mildly enjoyable, and warrants a little slack for being new and different.

[ReloadPsi]

I don't know why everyone raves about the battle system. Did they not play FFX-2?

[Hollycat]

The graphics.
What happened to the battle system?
We could just copy the ffxii system. NO THE LEVELS ARE LINEAR ENOUGH TO BE CALLED LEVELS!
We could just copy ff X-2's system. NO THAT WOULD BE TOO EASY AND TOO AWESOME!
I know, lets make a battle system where you can only pick from a few jobs, have to preset them, half of them can't attack, make it where you only control one character and the other characters will stop doing things if you leave the controller alone and make it so that only the party leader is smart enough to use items, so if they faint, it's game over!

[Jessweeee♪]

I don't know why everyone raves about the battle system. Did they not play FFX-2?

I did and I thought both of them were great :confused:

[ReloadPsi]

I don't know why everyone raves about the battle system. Did they not play FFX-2?

I did and I thought both of them were great :confused:

My point is that the battle system plays like FFX-2 yet somehow more streamlined. I think HC's post above counts the ways well enough.

[ShinGundam]

I don't know why everyone raves about the battle system. Did they not play FFX-2?

I did and I thought both of them were great :confused:

My point is that the battle system plays like FFX-2 yet somehow more streamlined. I think HC's post above counts the ways well enough.
Streamlined? I don't know about that but what makes it impressive to me is, In all versions of ATB prior to FFX-2 if one character/enemy took an action that action animation would finish playing before another attack happened.

In FFX-2, for example, with fast command input you can have multiple characters acting at the same time, even killing an enemy as it is moving in to do a physical attack for example, if I recall. At the very least I am positive in many cases multiple actions at the same time are possible which mean you don't need auto/preset combination attacks that many RPGs do when you can time and chain your commands at will.

Simply, Older games fallow simple event driven flow while X-2 (and XIII) are more realtime flow.

In XIII it is the same somehow with ability to execute or cancel string of commands but battles built around stagger bar and launching enemies, i think.

[ReloadPsi]

By "streamlined" I meant "cut down" like "we are streamlining our staff."

Yes, I'm totally referring to the way FFX-2 had multiple actions going on at once, but FFX-2 let you control all three characters and individually switch to any job you wanted rather than setting up specific combinations of three. The Paradigm Shift isn't a new idea; it's taking an older idea and choking it. Removing control over the rest of your allies was a dick move too; now the entire game plays like it's an escort mission, and I hate escort missions.


and make it so that only the party leader is smart enough to use items, so if they faint, it's game over!
In fact I worded the above slightly wrong: it plays like a game where YOU are the one being escorted!

Anyway, I'm taking us off the point of this thread: we're meant to be talking about what worked in this game and all I seem to be doing is shooting down people's claims about what did work and explaining why they didn't. Naughty Simon!

[ShinGundam]

By "streamlined" I meant "cut down" like "we are streamlining our staff."

Yes, I'm totally referring to the way FFX-2 had multiple actions going on at once, but FFX-2 let you control all three characters and individually switch to any job you wanted rather than setting up specific combinations of three. The Paradigm Shift isn't a new idea; it's taking an older idea and choking it. Removing control over the rest of your allies was a dick move too; now the entire game plays like it's an escort mission, and I hate escort missions.
Changing a thematic class mid battle is nothing like functional duties of a whole team in XIII. XIII shift focus on macro level management and designed encounters around it where. Also, Paradigms are nothing like Garment Grids.

I don't think ability to control more characters mean a lot here because i don't think characters will be on standby mode or something.

[ReloadPsi]

Well now I just have this idea of next time I play FFX-2 I'll impose a limitation on myself that every time I spherechange, I have to spherechange the whole party and I'm only allowed to change to particular sets of three as determined by some lists on a post-it note on the side of my screen.

Or maybe I'll play FFXII on a gambits-only game (i.e. no inputting individual commands for anyone but my leader; hit Reset whenever s/he dies.) That sounds like a very unfrustrating way to play a game.

[Hollycat]

Well now I just have this idea of next time I play FFX-2 I'll impose a limitation on myself that every time I spherechange, I have to spherechange the whole party and I'm only allowed to change to particular sets of three as determined by some lists on a post-it note on the side of my screen.

Or maybe I'll play FFXII on a gambits-only game (i.e. no inputting individual commands for anyone but my leader; hit Reset whenever s/he dies.) That sounds like a very unfrustrating way to play a game.

Except for the reset thing that sounds Like I how I played the second half of the game My first go through.
That reset would be murder.

[krissy]

Or maybe I'll play FFXII on a gambits-only game (i.e. no inputting individual commands for anyone but my leader; hit Reset whenever s/he dies.) That sounds like a very unfrustrating way to play a game.

it's how i beat the final boss

i had no problem with it. but i'm a programmer sometimes so

and i've never played ffx-2, but i've never played ffx either so i don't think i ever will

[Rocket Edge]

The graphics were fantastic. There was moments where I stopped and just took it all in. Sazh was a good character all right. The music was average. Apart from that I genuinely wasn't happy with any aspects of the game. I still hold onto the thought that this is the worst game I have ever played and the disappointment was immense when I played it. I'm hearing rumours there will be a sequel to XIII-2, dear god.

[Jiro]

Very few of the other entries in the series would have a thread like this. Why is it that everybody's first instinct is to ask "okay so what didn't suck?" The game is far better than you lot seem to give it credit for, and damn near all the actual fans keep their mouths shut because they fear some ungodly judgement for enjoying a game for what it is worth instead of seeing it as a failed attempt to meet some imaginary guidelines established by its place within a series. If Final Fantasy XIII wasn't a main instalment then you lot probably wouldn't have said boo about it being bad. You'd've said "it's not a main instalment so it's a) not worth my time; or b) not bad for a spin off." Instead everyone comes in here ragging on shit and the couple of people who like it and aren't afraid to stick their head out of the grass are forced to salvage it. Maybe we should try and be truly positive about things instead of facetiously so.

[Slothy]

If Final Fantasy XIII wasn't a main instalment then you lot probably wouldn't have said boo about it being bad. You'd've said "it's not a main instalment so it's a) not worth my time; or b) not bad for a spin off."

I'm going to have to disagree with you here Jiro for the simple reason that I don't generally consider the worth of a game as part of a series but on it's own merits. I don't think FFVIII is a good FF title for instance, but I still enjoy it on several levels and appreciate much of what it was trying to do even if it stumbled frequently along the way. But I consider FFXIII to be hands down one of the worst games I've ever played. In my eyes it is a complete and utter failure on almost every level, and that's not because I'm comparing it to other FF titles. It's because I spent 30 hours with it which let me dive deeply into it's story, characters, and game mechanics and I realized quite quickly that there isn't even much of a game there. You could take away the FF title and I'd still think it was a terrible game because it's game mechanics created gameplay which is almost the exact opposite of what I consider to be good. If anything, it carrying the FF title had me playing far longer than I wanted to and giving it more of a chance than I think it actually deserves.


Maybe we should try and be truly positive about things instead of facetiously so.

I was actually trying to be somewhat positive about the game with this thread. I grew tired of discussing just how bad it is quite some time ago and felt like discussing the better aspects of the game. The very existence of Sazh demonstrates that the game wasn't a complete lost cause and could have been much better than it was. There was some potential for something better there if the development had just gone a lot smoother, and I wanted to find out what others, including those who hated the game like I did, thought the better aspects were.

But then you had to go and ruin that didn't you? :doublecolbert:

[Jiro]

I just wanted to antagonise people a little :monster: I enjoy FFXIII far more than I should given my position on the Census Committee but it just astounds me at how much hate there seems to be.

[dunk]

I personaly found it was an amazing game!

I can't believe what i'm reading when you guys say this battle system sucks, it so totaly does not! The only reason you think it sucks is because of the way you have the OPTION too abuse the system, theres no harm in scrolling down too abilities and choosing them, nothing stopping you.

Also, if you replaced auto battle with general attack, tell me what the difference is? you would still be mashing that button like theres no tomorrow anyway. The ONLY way this is different in the commando role atleast is the name attack is replaced with auto battle.

As for the other roles, this just saves you time in tight squeezes. And as far as i know, there is no major fights bar maybe the first couple that lets you get away with mashing that auto battle anyway, so realisticly its a same battle system as any other, only more fluent and in a way too make you react faster.

What pushes this system into a + is the fact that if you are going too grind away levels, or have too fight through too many random battles it lets you get away with not getting over exhausted by it, and at the same time is not letting you get away with free xp as your time is spent on it.

It then goes EVEN FURTHER with the paradogrim shifts ( i don't know how its spelt so ignore that), but by pushing this new element of switching your roles from tanking, healing, buffing and debuffing along with general damaging and stagger pushing roles it hits whole new levels of statergy.

This in turn makes the crystalrium thing even better, because if you play final fantasy like me ( i dont endlessly grind, nor do i skip as many battles as possible) your choices when making these improvements depend entirely on what fighting style YOU want.

So tell me how you can say that this system is shit, when all proir battle systems dont even begin too touch the elements of this one. What you don't realise is that you pushed through the game your way on your terms with your style, everyone has there own and this diverse combat system allows us too exploit that.

Rant over LOL.

[Wolf Kanno]

^ I would totally take apart your comment but Vivi22 said I have to be nice and staff says I'm on a parole basis for this forum, cause now that seiferalmasay32 is gone, I probably hate this game more than anyone else on this forum. That said, think happy thought WK...

I'll second Sahz, despite the sheer lackluster idiot party that is given to you, Sahz is actually completely likable and probably the most sympathetic to the player. His story is also one of the simplest, well defined, and well executed. I also wish he killed himself, simply cause it would have made me respect this game a bit more, but also cause it would have saved Sahz from having to pretend to star in the second half of the game when the plot went to shit. He is honestly a really good character and I feel he really deserved to be in a better game.

I like the concept of the armor/weapon combinations creating special effects, but Dissidia did it a hell of a lot better. It's honestly really badly done in this game. Still a cool idea...

I do like the idea that Squenix is trying to get around power-leveling by placing caps, but the new weapon/armor growth systems pretty much destroys the intention since you now spend more time leveling equipment than your party, especially since your gear is actually a bit more important.

I like the concept of the l'Cie, maybe because it's kind of a modern take on FFIII and FFV's stories but I honestly liked the concept til the game ruined it at every turn. In fact, one of the reasons why I'm looking forward to Type-0 is because they also use the l'Cie concept but from what I gathered, it's a hell of a lot more interesting.

[DMKA]

Everything worked. The characters were great, the soundtrack was awesome, the story was solid, the battle system was satisfying, the visuals were orgasmic, and the game was just overall amazing.

It's one of my favorite games ever and I hope SE makes more like it. <3

[dunk]

I like the concept of the armor/weapon combinations creating special effects, but Dissidia did it a hell of a lot better. It's honestly really badly done in this game. Still a cool idea...

I do like the idea that Squenix is trying to get around power-leveling by placing caps, but the new weapon/armor growth systems pretty much destroys the intention since you now spend more time leveling equipment than your party, especially since your gear is actually a bit more important.




Hmm .. ill be honest with you, i never bothered with the weapon upgrades, i maybe threw a few items out on this and that, but i never pushed it too an extent. But like i already said, it allows us too do that. You pushed your equipment too its best, i didn't, a playstyle choice. We still both got too the end. Never played dissidia so i can't really comment on the comparison.

[Jinx]

I like moombas.

[Wolf Kanno]

Hmm .. ill be honest with you, i never bothered with the weapon upgrades, i maybe threw a few items out on this and that, but i never pushed it too an extent. But like i already said, it allows us too do that. You pushed your equipment too its best, i didn't, a playstyle choice. We still both got too the end. Never played dissidia so i can't really comment on the comparison.

Yes, but picking and choosing how to play the game is not unique to XIII, of anything XIII restricts your options by creating a fairly linear experience in both dungeon design, story progress, and leveling. You're only option for most of the game is forward.

I honestly rarely used the weapon upgrade system as well. I honestly only needed it to do it for one fight cause I absolutely ignored it until Chapter 9. Then again, I never said it was good, just an interesting concept.

[dunk]

Hmm .. ill be honest with you, i never bothered with the weapon upgrades, i maybe threw a few items out on this and that, but i never pushed it too an extent. But like i already said, it allows us too do that. You pushed your equipment too its best, i didn't, a playstyle choice. We still both got too the end. Never played dissidia so i can't really comment on the comparison.

Yes, but picking and choosing how to play the game is not unique to XIII, of anything XIII restricts your options by creating a fairly linear experience in both dungeon design, story progress, and leveling. You're only option for most of the game is forward.

I honestly rarely used the weapon upgrade system as well. I honestly only needed it to do it for one fight cause I absolutely ignored it until Chapter 9. Then again, I never said it was good, just an interesting concept.


Unfortunatly, this was too strengthen the plot, the game opens up when you get too pulse and ultimately break free from the fal'cie control, everything before that is closed and only one way too move- forward, the way the fal'cie wanted.

It worked very good i think in a such a story driven game. There are times i wished there was more freedom in the citys too explore different nuts and crannys but i can forgive that with such an amazing story experience.

That being said, i didn't once find the gameplay boring or linear... if anything the only thing i didn't like was you could literaly walk past 90% of the fights in the game which makes it a lil easier and quicker, but costs you if you hit a hard fight without prior exp.

what seperates it from other games is the roles, and how you can only increase in one roll. It's simular too x-2 but cuts the crap that came with it. I liked that.

Some of the other games things like haste ect or buff's and debuffs are usualy a skill given too all. I think ff10 conquered this area though a bit better then 13. The new tanking role wasn't fully needed and would of been better if it was, but was still a pleasure too try out and use in tight spots.

[Wolf Kanno]

Unfortunatly, this was too strengthen the plot, the game opens up when you get too pulse and ultimately break free from the fal'cie control, everything before that is closed and only one way too move- forward, the way the fal'cie wanted.

It worked very good i think in a such a story driven game. There are times i wished there was more freedom in the citys too explore different nuts and crannys but i can forgive that with such an amazing story experience.

See this is where we differ, cause I honestly disliked the story, and I hate most of the cast. So the linear story driven experience makes playing through the first 11 Chapters a complete chore. Even Pulse itself proves to be a shallow and empty experience once the visual awe wears off, sometime around 15th Mark Hunt mission. The battle system itself suffers from being given to the player piece meal with the first several hours accumulating to wasting your time and then sticking to a Commando/Medic team for most of the early chapters.

Even the plot structure and pacing is off with the game throwing you into the story in medias res, but then taking it's sweet time to finally explain everything that happened before, making you not really sure why you should give a dman about certain people until hours after their personal trauma is over. The early chapters could be edited down considerably by making shorter dungeons and more concise and to the point dialogue, rather than the long drawn out 30 hours of your life til you get to chapter 9 and the plot finally begins. Even the plot itself is pretty anti-climatic with the writers making it pretty damn apparent who the bad guy was from the beginning and then the final chapters are the party finally just giving up and giving into the villains demand and getting a deus ex machina to give them a happy ending which just cheapens the whole experience. None of this is helped by the Datalogs telling the story better than the cutscenes.



That being said, i didn't once find the gameplay boring or linear... if anything the only thing i didn't like was you could literally walk past 90% of the fights in the game which makes it a lil easier and quicker, but costs you if you hit a hard fight without prior exp.

what separates it from other games is the roles, and how you can only increase in one roll. It's similar too x-2 but cuts the crap that came with it. I liked that.


I actually prefer the X-2 system because it gave me more control, it gave me a ton of more options, and I feel it was overall a more rewarding experience than just playing captain and ordering my troops to play specific roles. Which is saying a lot because I also feel X-2's combat has lots of problems and I am certainly not in-love with it like the majority of the forum is. FFXIII's combat is the only thing to entertain you besides the plot, but it gets old pretty quickly and I feel the sacrifice of control for speed kind of makes the designers forget what the point of gameplay is in a game, made worse by the game completely making death trivial. At least in XII I could customize the A.I. to me specifications rather than rely on what the game has pre-set for me. I just got bored changing A.I. scripts, and the Roles themselves are so shallow they don't offer anything more than playing the NES entries in terms of combat options so even actually inputting the commands gets boring early on.

I am being pretty honest when I say there is very little in this game I truly enjoyed. Like Vivi22, I don't think it's just a bad FF, I feel it's a bad game in general. :eep:

[ReloadPsi]

Ooh, I remembered the other thing I liked.

The way the party members wandered and bantered. It was way more original than the party-in-my-pocket or caterpillar approach, but then it was only truly possible in a game as linear as this one which really just speaks of the piss-poor design even more. Oh well.

[krissy]

nah, ff13-2 did it just fine, and uncharted series does it pretty well too. but i agree that it's one of my fave parts of modern gaming

[Raistlin]

It worked very good i think in a such a story driven game. There are times i wished there was more freedom in the citys too explore different nuts and crannys but i can forgive that with such an amazing story experience.

I have no idea what "amazing story experience" you are talking about; we must have been playing different games. I will say that I thought the characters' back stories were developed very well in the first 7-8 chapters, which is the only part of the game where the writing can be praised even slightly. The "story," what little there was, after the overplot was introduced in chapter 9 was just a joke. Really, absolutely the worst I've ever seen in a JRPG. You have the entire plot spoon-fed two you in several few minute conversations with the main villain, who also conveniently introduces himself to you as the villain as he tells you his secret plan. It's like a bad James Bond film, fantasy style.

That bugged me even more than the obnoxiously linear gameplay. And the only time the gameplay was remotely interesting was when I first started exploring Pulse, which was interesting. But then you're shoved back onto the narrow pathway to continue the very specific path the game draws out for you. I simply cannot imagine what anyone could get from a replay.

[krissy]

westly get out of this thread >:{

[DMKA]

It worked very good i think in a such a story driven game. There are times i wished there was more freedom in the citys too explore different nuts and crannys but i can forgive that with such an amazing story experience.

I have no idea what "amazing story experience" you are talking about; we must have been playing different games. I will say that I thought the characters' back stories were developed very well in the first 7-8 chapters, which is the only part of the game where the writing can be praised even slightly. The "story," what little there was, after the overplot was introduced in chapter 9 was just a joke. Really, absolutely the worst I've ever seen in a JRPG. You have the entire plot spoon-fed two you in several few minute conversations with the main villain, who also conveniently introduces himself to you as the villain as he tells you his secret plan. It's like a bad James Bond film, fantasy style.

That bugged me even more than the obnoxiously linear gameplay. And the only time the gameplay was remotely interesting was when I first started exploring Pulse, which was interesting. But then you're shoved back onto the narrow pathway to continue the very specific path the game draws out for you. I simply cannot imagine what anyone could get from a replay.
I'm on my fourth replay. You and your silly opinions. :p

[Raistlin]

I worry about you.

[Wolf Kanno]

Don't worry. we have an intervention planned. ;)

[Slothy]

Did they change the name of the ban button to intervention button?

[Julie]

This is by faaaaar the worst ff, I've ever played, and I've played...well, them all! Only good thing I can think of is the info on characters and events in the datalog as well as nice graphics (but I'm not too bothered with graphics). The negatives are numerous - from major annoyances to minor. Got ff13-2 waiting for me when I finish this so please tell me it's better than ff13....

[Flaming Ice]

Obviously the graphics was one but the way they made the summons into vehicles was pretty interesting to watch :) (though they failed a bit on summons lol)

[Cloudane]

I loved it, but it came after XII (which I hated) so a big part of it was relief - to see that they can do interesting characters still.

So yeah, +1 to the consensus early in the thread... the characters. They were interesting, believable and had good character development.

I include Hope in that for sure - I know a lot of people hate him for being "whiny" and coming close to murdering Snow etc. I'm sorry but he's a kid who is already at a very emotionally driven age, just saw his mother die and got whisked off and given a ticking time bomb tattoo without a moment to breathe or grieve. What do you expect? :| Eventually, hey, he broke down and let his emotions out, got over his grudge and became a nice lad. Seems a nice story to me.

I agree it would've been compelling if, during that really dark low point of the game, Sazh really had killed himself. I honestly thought he had, at first, and it was like "whoa...", biggest shock since FF7, bigger with it being self inflicted and with him having a child. I guess they decided that was just too grim, and can't blame them. Plus let's be honest, we would've lost the coolest character.

The graphics and landscapes - breathtaking.

Some of the music (Blinded by Light and the boss music), great.

Enjoyed the story, even though the "hey let's kill Orphan anyway and rely on hope/destiny" ending made no sense at all. I don't know if -2 resolved that as I haven't finished it yet.

Yes it's extremely linear - on the positive side of that though you always know where you're going.

[Edge7]

I think I would've loved the cast of FFXII had the original director carried on to the end (not his fault, the stress of the project made him ill); the only real problem I have with the cast is Vaan (I don't even mind Penelo). They're drier than previous characters, but 5 years after buying the game, I appreciated the subtlety they put in the characters.

FFXIII on the other hand took a handful of characters and applied one basic feature to them.
Lightning-Confident (but to the point she comes off as stuck up)
Snow-Shounen Hero
Vanille-Perky
Hope-Adolescent (which implies impressionable, emotional, with need for a parental figure)
Fang-sassy, I guess? (I felt like she was done a little better than the rest)
Sazh-Old/aging. (As much as I like Sazh, I think it's less because "he's a very well written character", and more because "he's one of the smarter characters". But he attributes everything about his character that I liked, to being old).
___________________

Well, that was my rebuttal, here's my concession.
-Graphics, moving on
-I liked the stagger system; it was probably my favorite feature, although I wished it varied from enemy to enemy. So, rather than just using magic to increase the gauge while physically attacking to stabilize it, change up the enemy weaknesses. Another thing I'll admit is that staggering enemies with a party of ravagers (especially when it was just Sazh and Vanille) is about the most satisfying feeling ever; because that requires timing.
-I liked the concept of different moves costing different ATB gauge chunks, but I imagined that would lead to more varied fighting. Instead, it just means attacking 4 consecutive times. To clarify, I originally pictured a system similar to FFXII (except the ATB gauge fills when a decision is not being made) where, if you felt so inclined, in one turn, you could attack, then cast a low level spell, and maybe follow up with another low level spell. Or you could use a medium level spell, then use an item (which could also vary in the amount of ATB gauge each item costs costs). This was what I pictured back in 2007 though.
_______________

Oh God, I hope it doesn't seem like I was complaining too much. I really do like these things, it's just that I'm saying how I think the ideas that I did like could be improved upon.

[Dr. rydrum2112]

I really enjoyed the music in this game.

[Forsaken Lover]

Barthandalus' introduction (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BAbPc5WFJ0&t=1m44s) was quite dramatic and impressive.

His death wasn't too bad either. If only they had actually foreshadowed his motivation, I might have liked him more.

And I liked Snow's and Hope's character arcs.

Eden Under Siege was awesome.

[krissy]

This is by faaaaar the worst ff, I've ever played, and I've played...well, them all! Only good thing I can think of is the info on characters and events in the datalog as well as nice graphics (but I'm not too bothered with graphics). The negatives are numerous - from major annoyances to minor. Got ff13-2 waiting for me when I finish this so please tell me it's better than ff13....

it is way better

[blackmage_nuke]

I assume everythings been said but
Aside from there being a remix of the main theme every 5 minutes, this had the best non-nobuo FF music.
Great story and character development for about the first 9 chapters

[Goldenboko]

I assume everythings been said but
Aside from there being a remix of the main theme every 5 minutes, this had the best non-nobuo FF music.
Great story and character development for about the first 9 chapters

I'll agree with the music, watching the Lightning Returns trailer made me decide I did love the Battle Theme of this game and will likely get the OST.

[krissy]

i talked to a pal irl the other day
and found a copy of ff13 on his desk
and we went on about how good it is

JUST LETTING YOU GUYS KNOW

REAL PEOPLE GETTING INTO FF VIA FF13