Replaying FFXIII

[Wolf Kanno]

Pray for me.

[Loony BoB]

I hope you like it better the second time around xD I still have fond memories of this game.

[Wolf Kanno]

I don't think that's going to happen for me.

I'm on Chapter 2 and already bored and wondering why the game is even bothering with tutorials at this point because there is nothing gameplaywise to discuss.

Not only that, but I also forgot how grating the NORA/Snow "hero" spiel can be. Furthermore, I'm rolling my eyes as hard as I did listening to Zack and Angeal talk about a "SOLDIER'S Pride" from CC. The whole thing has been really awkward so far. I also forgot how cringy Hope and Vanille are in general. Their scenes together feels like two kids on the spectrum trying to help each other learn how to emote. Like seriously, I feel Hope's portrayal in the cutscenes, don't quite match up to what the Datalogs says is going on. Lightning and Sahz are the least grating so far, even if poor Sahz has been written as an Eddie Murphy character. I keep half expecting Lightning to say, "Donkey, can't you just shut up?"

The most impressive thing about XIII so far is, unsurprisingly, the graphics. The game honestly looks a bit better than XV, I dare say. I also forgot how cinematic the UI was with the status screens. I only wish I liked Hamazu's style enough to enjoy the music more. Likewise, I am also grateful I chose to turn on the subtitles, because there is a lot of dialogue that gets missed because it plays over some explosion or other dialogue. I forgot that Vanille sometimes gives you her thoughts like she's retelling the plot to you.

So far, the two biggest issues for me has been how boring combat is, and how over bloated the first two chapters have been. So far, Chapter 2 has just felt unnecessary. Like it's just three groups wandering around the Vestige regurgitating what they already were talking about in Chapter 1, and nothing interesting is really happening. As for combat, I just don't really understand why we couldn't have introduced more of the equipment aspect already? Like let us upgrade weapons a bit, or introduce the fact that combining certain accessories together confer up extra bonuses. The fight before the PSICOM Armored captain Lightning and Sahz fight would have been a perfect time to introduce how equipping two Iron Bangles gives you a 3x multiplier for health that Lightning might need, since this boss hits hard. Or Lightning explaining to Sahz how he's going to need to upgrade his guns if he wants to keep tagging along.

I am also disappointed that we never got to really play with the MagDrive gravity controller. That has so many possibilities to enhance gameplay, and it could have been an introduction to the Tech Bar.

So yeah, XIII is already turning into a rough experience for me. But was anyone really surprised?

[Loony BoB]

Once I accepted the "Hero" thing as a dumb jock stereotype/parody thing, Snow quickly became endearing to me.

I really like Vanille, but I couldn't stand Hope and actually hoped (heh) he would turn when he almost did near the end of the game, so we'd have to fight him, and it would hit home that the characters are fallable. But it never happened so oh well.

I still say FFXIII is for me the most interesting of the combats I've played in the mainline FF series because it's the only one that was capped so that I couldn't simply level up a bit more and steamroll everything. Most games in the FF series I have managed to win by just holding X to win, while in FFXIII you have to paradigm shift and then hold X to win. :p I think I would find the other games a lot more interesting if they also did level capping per area. I'm guessing you push ahead faster than I do because otherwise you'd probably see the enemies in other games as just cannon fodder too.

[Vincent, Thunder God]

The only thing I remember about this game is Vanille and her sister.

[Fynn]

XIII’s start is one of the most baffling moments I’ve seen in a video game, yeah. So many tutorials for a nothing battle system and then you also don’t get experience. Bullshit.

As I’ve said in my marathon, I’m a bit less hard on the game after the second run, but it’s still a bottom tier FF for me. I think I’d honestly like it more if they just didn’t use the brain dead combat system that they did. It’s one of the many reasons I actually genuinely enjoy Lightning Returns

[Loony BoB]

brain dead combat system that they did.
It will never stop blowing my mind that people think FFXIII is braindead when all the other FFs I've played are literally hold X to win. I used to not even watch the screen while leveling up.

EDIT: Actually that's probably not fair to FFXII and FFXV and the MMOs, where you have to position too. But all FF's I-X were all hold x to win for me.

[Wolf Kanno]

brain-dead combat system that they did.
It will never stop blowing my mind that people think FFXIII is brain-dead, when all the other FFs I've played are literally hold X to win. I used to not even watch the screen while leveling up.

EDIT: Actually that's probably not fair to FFXII and FFXV and the MMOs, where you have to position too. But all FF's I-X were all hold x to win for me.

That really comes down to what you do in battle with earlier entries. I like to use skills a lot, and that's something XIII is kind of lacking in terms of skills that don't just do the same thing. I like having Steal, Manipulate, and other quirky abilities to play with.

Honestly, I finished Chapter 3, and even with the Crystarium\/Paradigm System unlocked, the game is still fairly lackluster for my taste in terms of combat. I'm waiting the equipment mechanic to unlock because that's the feature I'm going to focus on more this time around. It's not helped by how limited it at first, especially since the game won't let you control who is in your party despite having a surplus.

I do find it interesting how much Fang and Dysley were foreshadowed before they appear. Furthermore, I still feel that Cocoon society doesn't really make sense to me, nor does the fal'Cie's plan.

Sahz has definitely been the highlight of these early chapters, being the only real voice of reason among a party of kids hooked on feelings. Lightning and Snow only bother me due to their utter lack of self-awareness. Like these two can't seem to notice they are the creators of all their drama. Hope is obnoxious, but I find people who feel the need to hoist blame onto others as a default defense mechanism for trauma to be incredibly annoying. Vanille, just doesn't make sense to me. Like, I don't understand why she dragged Hope with her to the Vestige. I don't understand why she's sticking with the party. I don't understand why she isn't making more of an effort to look for Fang. She's just weird, and feels like Rikku without any of her redeeming qualities.

We'll see what Chapter 4 has to bring.

[Fynn]

brain dead combat system that they did.
It will never stop blowing my mind that people think FFXIII is braindead when all the other FFs I've played are literally hold X to win. I used to not even watch the screen while leveling up.

EDIT: Actually that's probably not fair to FFXII and FFXV and the MMOs, where you have to position too. But all FF's I-X were all hold x to win for me.

I don’t think it’s braindead. It is braindead to me. And mg experience is very fresh in my mind, so there’s very little room for ambiguity here

[Loony BoB]

I will concede on the steal part, WK, as I always miss that in games it's not included in. Although it's not the end of the world for me, I guess, because the game gives you enough in the rewards to make it even out anyway. But generally speaking, pretty much all the other games I still held X to win unless I was farming items.

I don’t think it’s braindead. It is braindead to me. And mg experience is very fresh in my mind, so there’s very little room for ambiguity here
But is it any more braindead than the FFI-X? I am serious when I say I held X to win for 95-99% of my battles in those games. FFXIII level capping me made things so much more interesting, it meant I had to pay attention to paradigm shifts in a decent number of the battles, and almost every single boss.

I agree Sahz was a major plus point to the earlier parts of the game. I do like a voice of reason, as you put it - the 'straight man' I think is the trope name?

I honestly forgot about Dysley. He was such a meh villain for me.

As for Vanille, I figure it's like a lost puppy kind of thing, they latch onto someone they feel will keep them safe when they lose their initial parent/owner/guardian/leader.

[Wolf Kanno]

I've been avoiding some of the more nitpicky stuff I would like to bitch about, but at the rate the game is going, I may have to unload eventually. Almost done with Chapter 4.

[Wolf Kanno]

WK's list of minor annoyances about FFXIII

The game feeling the need to notify you in the menu that you obtained another item, even if you already have twenty of them.
The fact, the Datalog has this tendency to regurgitate the same information over and over again. The chapter summary for Chapter 1-3 all feel the need to explain what the Purge is, despite their already being an entry there.
The menu for the Crystalium is very tedious for no reason. Like, you can switch between character with the shoulder buttons, but the game still wants you to click on them before letting you choose which Role to upgrade.
Is it me, or are the step sound effect unnecessarily loud?
After Chapter 1 and 2 feel super short, Chapter 3 and 4 feel unnecessarily long.
Why is the strategy guide for this game as big as the one for FFXII? Like the amount of gameplay content in XII dwarfs XIII's, and you can tell by how pointless a lot of the guide is. The author must have been paid by the page.


At this point, the gang has split up into Team Serious Business, and Team Silly Business. Everyone has at least three roles for Paradigm play, and I've unlocked the ability to upgrade gear.

The gameplay of this title is just baffling to me. It's like the design team looked at Xenosaga Episode II, Persona 3&4, and Suikoden IV's quirky gameplay ideas and decided to merge them all together without their redeeming traits.

First off, I hate grading systems in games, because more often than not, the only thing that matters is speed, and that just doesn't really promote tactical know-how. It just tells you to blitzkrieg your way through every situation. If a party member gets K.O. because all the enemies dog pile them in the first round and I still manage to finish the fight under a minute, I shouldn't really get a 5-star rating for that. If the point of this system is to promote better involvement with battles, I should be ranked on more factors than just speed. Especially since this limits any real defensive game. Like I get punished by the ranking system for using a Sentinel or Synergist role because they shave off precious second I could be using to murder enemies, and that just doesn't feel right to me.

Killing the team leader = Game over also doesn't make any sense. At least with SMT/Persona, there is an in-game reason for why this mechanic is a thing (SMT= Your demon allies are more mercenary than actual friends. Persona = Your MC is intricately attached to the final villain in a way where their death just skips you to the bad ending) but there is no real reasoning for it in XIII other than to create some fake difficulty. Hell, at least in SMT/Persona, you have more control over your MC's development and load out so that you can limit MegaTen deaths to freak accidents. I'll admit I've died like three times so far, but they feel empty because I never felt like I died because I messed up, all three times have just been due to the enemies dog piling on my leader at the same time. There really wasn't much I could do in those situations, so the death feels more outside my control than usual. Secondly, I just respawn right outside the battle anyway, so it hardly feels like a real setback. The challenge of this game just feels hollow to me.

Finally, the game has an awkward equipment system. Leveling gear feels tedious and unnecessarily convoluted for its own good. I'm already getting flashbacks to the horror of farming items to sell, so I can buy XP bonus items that are too tedious to farm on their own, so I can get the 3x XP bonus that allows me to use all the good XP items I've been hoarding around for chapters to finally stop wasting space in my inventory. Likewise, the Synthesis System is just baffling to me because in addition to the game never explaining it to the player in any clear terms, the bonuses they offer have no middle ground of usefulness. They are either garbage skills you'll never use (reduce damage by 5hp), or some endgame sorcery needed to get that Platinum Trophy (Occasionally ignore all Physical or Magical damage). It's a shame too, because much like Suikoden IV's funky armor set mechanics, this is probably one of the more interesting gameplay mechanics XIII tries to offer but fails to make it robust enough to warrant being used.

It's just been weird for me.

[Loony BoB]

WK's list of minor annoyances about FFXIII
The game feeling the need to notify you in the menu that you obtained another item, even if you already have twenty of them.
Is it me, or are the step sound effect unnecessarily loud?
After Chapter 1 and 2 feel super short, Chapter 3 and 4 feel unnecessarily long.
Why is the strategy guide for this game as big as the one for FFXII? Like the amount of gameplay content in XII dwarfs XIII's, and you can tell by how pointless a lot of the guide is. The author must have been paid by the page.

Killing the team leader = Game over also doesn't make any sense.
Finally, the game has an awkward equipment system.
Yes, the menu alert thing always annoyed me when it includes stuff that is just constantly changing instead of restricting itself to stuff I actually care about. Hated clearing the items. Games that do this, along with games that notify you every time there is a minor update to a bestiary like "oh we know another weakness now" annoy me a lot.

Yeah, I feel like a footstep volume control would have helped me enjoy the music a lot.

The chapters are definitely varying in length, but I didn't care too much because chapter change times mean nothing anyway.

The strategy guide if I recall correctly was mostly about how to 5 star enemies and how to find items or something like that. Also compared each character in different roles showcasing which did better in what and why, which got which magic, etc. I do have it but can't be arsed checking. It was a nice guide, though. Didn't have the FFXII one so can't comment there.

I haaaaaaaaated and never understood that killing lead = game over.

And yeah, the equipment system reminded me a very large amount of FFVIII's equipment system and I didn't like that either.

[Wolf Kanno]

The other thing I forgot to mention concerning the combat is something BoB mentioned, which is how he liked the fact the game makes you pay attention, but I disagree that this is a good thing.

The issue I have is that normal battles just aren't engaging. Most of the time I'm just paying attention to the Stagger counter while occasionally glancing at the party health to see if I need to switch to a medic. So much is going on the screen, half the time it's hard to follow. XV has a similar issue where combat almost felt like you were watching one of those old cartoon fights where everything disappears into a giant dust cloud as fists and lightning zap out of it. So nothing is really happening during combat, but you have to pay attention in case the enemies decide to gang up on the party leader. So combat gets a bit more tedious and boring for me because it's not engaging enough to hold my interest, but I'm forced to pay attention anyway. Random Encounters feel like school work to me, and it is draining.

Boss fights can alleviate this, but there are surprisingly few in the game so far.

[Psychotic]

Why are we calling him Sahz?

[Wolf Kanno]

Why are we calling him Sahz?

Because that is how my brain wants to spell it. Sort of like my tendency to call it Midgard and not Midgar.

[Loony BoB]

Every time I spell his name I have to think about how to spell it, and my general go-to is to just scroll up to see the last mention of him, and I just trusted WK on this one xD


The issue I have is that normal battles just aren't engaging. Most of the time I'm just paying attention to the Stagger counter while occasionally glancing at the party health to see if I need to switch to a medic. So much is going on the screen, half the time it's hard to follow. XV has a similar issue where combat almost felt like you were watching one of those old cartoon fights where everything disappears into a giant dust cloud as fists and lightning zap out of it. So nothing is really happening during combat, but you have to pay attention in case the enemies decide to gang up on the party leader. So combat gets a bit more tedious and boring for me because it's not engaging enough to hold my interest, but I'm forced to pay attention anyway. Random Encounters feel like school work to me, and it is draining.
Were there random encounters in FFXIII?

Can you give examples in the Final Fantasy series where you don't have to spend all your time paying attention to bars? I know in FFXIV you have to pay attention to the enemy for tells on what it's going to do next, but FFVII Scorpion "attack while the tail is up" meme aside, I honestly struggle to remember much about that kind of thing. Especially outside of boss battles.

[Psychotic]

Why are we calling him Sahz?

Because that is how my brain wants to spell it. Sort of like my tendency to call it Midgard and not Midgar.Fair enough! I thought I had missed a Bartz/Butz/Batz Lenna/Reina Terra/Tina type situation.

[Wolf Kanno]

Every time I spell his name I have to think about how to spell it, and my general go-to is to just scroll up to see the last mention of him, and I just trusted WK on this one xD


The issue I have is that normal battles just aren't engaging. Most of the time I'm just paying attention to the Stagger counter while occasionally glancing at the party health to see if I need to switch to a medic. So much is going on the screen, half the time it's hard to follow. XV has a similar issue where combat almost felt like you were watching one of those old cartoon fights where everything disappears into a giant dust cloud as fists and lightning zap out of it. So nothing is really happening during combat, but you have to pay attention in case the enemies decide to gang up on the party leader. So combat gets a bit more tedious and boring for me because it's not engaging enough to hold my interest, but I'm forced to pay attention anyway. Random Encounters feel like school work to me, and it is draining.
Were there random encounters in FFXIII?

Can you give examples in the Final Fantasy series where you don't have to spend all your time paying attention to bars? I know in FFXIV you have to pay attention to the enemy for tells on what it's going to do next, but FFVII Scorpion "attack while the tail is up" meme aside, I honestly struggle to remember much about that kind of thing. Especially outside of boss battles.

The first four entries if I'm playing OG. Oh, and I guess FFX and XV... ;)

Honestly, most of them I don't spend too much time looking at the bars all the time since I'm likely more in a menu screen. But the action is usually slow enough to where I can enjoy the fighting animations at least. In XIII, it really depends on who is in the party and if I have a full party or not. With two characters it's easy, but I noticed that Vanille and Sazh have slower animations, so I can actually view it. Lightning and Hope, on the other hand, must be drinking Monster and Red Bull between battles, because they zip around like they're on drugs.

Even then, I would say XV is a bit worse since the focus is mostly on Noct, and if you're fighting an enemy that's pretty big, the camera has a fit.

Speaking of, I hate XIII's camera. It is not smooth at all, and you can tell the devs were originally going for more of a fixed camera type deal like in the Spira entries, but likely had to implement a free one based on feedback. But that camera really doesn't like being moved around. Almost reminds me of KH1's camera, but at least XIII doesn't have real platforming, nor is it an action-RPG.

****************************************************************************
In update news, I'm now in Chapter 5, which I distinctly remember being the chapter where what little shred of both Lightning and Hope's likability died for me. This is also the chapter where I feel like the Datalogs start to really do the heavy lifting of the story since they allow you to be privy to the parties internal thoughts more since only Vanille seems to be able to have internal monologues.

In the previous Chapter, I finished up what I generally find to be the last time the game will offer some form of interactivity in the game world that isn't the base battle system. At least until Chapter 11 I should say. Hope gets his quirky moment with the Dreadnought, while Sazh gets to do the simplest puzzle in an FF for a while. I did try to raise more equipment levels for everyone, but I don't have enough XP rate boosting materials because I'm mostly just fighting machines that drop the better XP items.

Even with 5-Star combat ratings, I find it annoying the game is stingy with item drops. In addition to raising but not guaranteeing a drop, you often only get one or two items at most. Fine for the pure XP materials, but it would have been nice to get more of the XP Rate ones. Treasures can sometimes offset this, but it is still few and far between. I really need to fight more human opponents who actually drop the items good for resale value, but I think I'm still a few chapters too early for that. There is a good leveling spot in the current chapter, so I may grind a bit to max out Lightning and Hope's Crystariums. Especially since I'm in one of the awful sections of the game where the story insists on making Hope the party leader. So cheap deaths abound. Likewise, the enemy group I can farm has XP Rate items, so that may help me out in the long run, since Team Silly's section in Chapter 4 had mostly enemies that drop XP items that I have plenty of.

[Loony BoB]

Ahhh, I get what you mean now! Yeah, I agree on that part then. There is a lot of fast stuff that you don't get much opportunity to really watch. Although having said that, I still remember pretty much all of their animations but that's probably just because of all the insane levels of equipment gear farming I did to platinum the game. FFXIII is simply a really fast battle system which has pros and cons to it for sure.

I definitely agree FFXV is worse on that front for the reasons you mention.

I can't remember much of FFXIII's camera in all honesty, but I will say that I find the cameras in around 50% of the games I play to be at least a little annoying, so it wouldn't shock me if it is indeed annoying and I've just tuned it out like I have with every other game. xD

I might be misremembering, but don't the buff items drop more often when you're playing poorly (1 star rating) rather than when you're playing well? I think it was some kind of handicap thing to help players who kinda suck. But again, might be misremembering. Perhaps it was for other kind of buffs than XP, too.

[Wolf Kanno]

I can't remember much of FFXIII's camera in all honesty, but I will say that I find the cameras in around 50% of the games I play to be at least a little annoying, so it wouldn't shock me if it is indeed annoying, and I've just tuned it out like I have with every other game. XD

I think part of my issue is that I'm jumping from XV, which had a fairly decent camera unless you were fighting something big on the screen. XIII's feels jerky in comparison, but it was likely because there wasn't much reason to make the camera free-form.


I might be misremembering, but don't the buff items drop more often when you're playing poorly (1-star rating) rather than when you're playing well? I think it was some kind of handicap thing to help players who kinda suck. But again, might be misremembering. Perhaps it was for other kind of buffs than XP, too.

Yes and no? I've heard the same thing, but I've honestly won them with 5-Star ratings as well. I'm guessing you always have a chance for them to drop, but the chance rises with a lower score, just as normal drops rise with a good score.

But I'm looking for biological materials that raise the XP potential of items. They're the items I wish would drop more. I get like maybe two from a battle if I'm lucky. I would prefer if they dropped in stacks of five tbh.

[Loony BoB]

Not sure this is what you're talking about or if it helps, but here's what the good book has to say, took the photos for ya just now (https://imgur.com/a/87kZwsi). :aimkiss:

Personally? I don't think I did much of the item upgrading until I was no longer level capped. Basically did just enough and not anything more. Honestly for a long time I'm pretty sure I just didn't understand it so left it alone.

[Wolf Kanno]

Oh, I understand how the mechanics work, my gripe is just the grinding for materials. What the guide fails to mention in the link you sent is that materials come in four forms.

Organic (XP Boosters) - Claws, teeth, pelts etc
Inorganic (Huge XP) Circuit Boards, Engine Cores, Metal Scrap etc.
Mineral (Item Catalyst for evolution)
Monetary (should be used for getting Gil) - Credits, Perfumes

So Organic materials give awful XP, but they can raise how much XP an item is worth by up to 3x. But you need to feed the item a lot of them to get this boost. With 3X XP, some low level Inorganic materials can raise an item by several levels with minimal cost. So like a Bomb Core that normally gives 525 XP will now give 1575 XP.

The problem I'm having is that Organic components are not easy to come by. Sazh's section mainly had him fighting machines, so I was earning no organic components. Even in the current chapter where I am fighting organic enemies, they drop one or two of their items at most with a 5-star rating in battle, but I need something like 10-20 of the item to get that 3x boost. I only get that much if I find a treasure sphere that contains it, which is rare and often not the best components, or if I buy them, of which I still haven't unlocked the shop that sells organic components.

So for the moment, in order to really delve into equipment, I have to grind a little excessively for my taste to earn enough items to make weapon crafting worth my time. Eventually, you do gain two shops that sell the best components from either classification, but these items are stupidly expensive. So endgame turns to you grinding monetary items to sell back for gil, so you can buy the best components, so you can raise the item levels more efficiently.

This also falls into my argument about how XIII is still an excessively grindy game.

[Loony BoB]

I agree it's grindy, but I still think that this isn't the right point of the game to be worrying about leveling up the equipment to max level. You can easily just breeze your way through to later chapters on existing gear, and then level it up then.

It's kind of like saying that FFVII is grindy because I want to be level 99 when I'm on disk one.

[Wolf Kanno]

I agree it's grindy, but I still think that this isn't the right point of the game to be worrying about leveling up the equipment to max level. You can easily just breeze your way through to later chapters on existing gear, and then level it up then.

It's kind of like saying that FFVII is grindy because I want to be level 99 when I'm on disk one.

It's not like I can evolve any gear. I've had one item and already used it to evolve an Iron Bangle into a Silver Bangle. But my goal is to explore the mechanics of the game more, and I'm desperate because there isn't much else to deal with. XIII's gameplay is too streamlined.

[Wolf Kanno]

Chapter 5 is finished and eh... Watched Lightning be a bad surrogate mother by poisoning a troubled youth with her toxicity. I love how the Datalog gives you the impression she's concerned about this, but her one actual spoken dialogue felt half-hearted at best.

Hope on the other hand is doing his best impression of an internet politician and jumping to any conclusion he can to pin the blame on Snow for everything that has gone wrong, even blaming him for Serah and Lightning getting involved in all this nonsense, when technically Serah (and Vanille) were the ones who started this whole mess. I'm betting, with enough time, he would eventually blame Snow for why the automated weather control of the fal'Cie is causing global warming on Cocoon, or how he's responsible for schools on Cocoon to teach kids about woke culture. :roll2

I'm also a little annoyed because they skipped over one of the Thirteen days segment showing how Snow and Lightning met. The read shows it was from Lightning's perspective, which means it's probably not a fair assessment. Likewise, the whole NORA/Nora thing still feels silly to me. Now I have the silly Martha scene from Batman v. Superman to compare it to.

On the bright side, I finally got the shop I needed to buy Organic materials, so now I simply need to farm gil supplying items. Unfortunately, I don't really remember those becoming plentiful before Chapter 9. We're moving back to Team Silly soon, so at least that's a relief.

[Wolf Kanno]

We're now onto Chapter 7? Yeah, finished Chapter 6, and it's a mix bad. On the game side of things, the stage overstays its welcome, it introduces tanky enemies that are annoying to fight, but at least make the Saboteur/Synergist roles no longer dead weight. Also, I think the theme of this stage is one of my least favorites from this game, and for some inexplicable reason, SE loves it and always features it in games utilizing XIII's music in some way.

On the other hand, we got some great character development from Sazh, and I'm reminded why he was my favorite character in this game. While trauma should never be a pissing match, in the case of XIII's cast, I feel Sazh has it the worst. If each character was given an emotional theme for their character arc, Sazh would easily be despair. The only real beef I have with the chapter is that it overstays it's welcome, and the weather changing mechanic is kind of a pointless mechanic that doesn't really add anything to the stage.

Chapter 7 is a wonderful example of the Datalogs telling the plot better than cutscenes. Up until Lightning has her epiphany (which is still an awkward and unintentionally funny scene for me) so much of the dramatic build up for her speech with Hope is really told through the Datalog, which is why the scene doesn't hit right. In fact, I find any scene where Lightning has to emote anything more than Stoic badass tend to fall flat with her, and Hope is no better. There always seems to be a disconnect with what the Datalog is saying is going on, and what's presented on screen. At least Sazh and Vanille are consistent.

At least I'll finally get Snow and Fang in this chapter. Of course, I should brace myself because Chapter 7 and 8 were the high points of the plot if memory serves me correctly. So I should probably savor this while I can. Also, the human opponents in this area drop money, so farming shall commence.

[Fynn]

Get ready for Sazh’s kid getting taken away from him or somehow lost in any way every single game :monster:

[Wolf Kanno]

Get ready for Sazh’s kid getting taken away from him or somehow lost in any way every single game :monster:

Yeah, the writers really don't know what to do with him. I kind of feel the sequels focused on characters based on the Japanese fanbase's taste more than others. I get the impression Sazh was more popular in the West than in Japan.

[Wolf Kanno]

Still working on Chapter 7, been farming a little bit for money drops. Also debating about what weapons to prioritize and build the characters around. It's a shame Synthesis Abilities are dropped for Ultimate Weapons. Synthesis Abilities are one of those weird mechanics where when you stumble onto something good, you love the mechanic, but most of the time, they're just garbage. Snow has been rocking this chapter because his starter weapon unlocks a nifty synthesis ability called High HP if he's equipped with two Iron Bangles. This skill gives him a boost to his power as long as he has full health, so he's been a beast in battle with Hope's spells. Sadly, most of the skills you get tend to be either Physical/Magical Wall, of which both skills subtract anywhere from 5 to 25 HP from physical or Magical attacks the character receives. Nifty four chapters ago, pretty fucking useless now.

I am also annoyed that while Snow has been accumulating a butt ton of CP from all the chapters he's missing, Fang starts with a paltry amount. She feels weak in comparison, and it's weird because researching her build options, Fang is stupidly overpowered. Like, barring her specialty Commando, Fang is surprisingly good at all the other roles. I think her worst role looks to be Synergist.

I'll do a more thorough breakdown of the Chapter after I finish it.

[Psychotic]

I get the impression Sazh was more popular in the West than in Japan.The anti-Lightning, if you will.

[Loony BoB]

I get the impression Sazh was more popular in the West than in Japan.The anti-Lightning, if you will.
He is rather grounded.

[Wolf Kanno]

Chapter 7 is complete, and certainly the high point of the plot so far, at least in regard to Snow, Lightning, and Hope. It starts off really awkward, though, and I still find the "we're pets" scene to be more unintentionally funny than thought-provoking. But at least it gets Lightning into a better place, where she can feel likeable. I always forget how much I like Fang though, she is definitely the most charismatic character in the cast, and her dynamics with Lightning and Snow make both of them feel more likable in association.

I still see Snow as being a deconstruction of a character like Sabin. Another happy-go-lucky character holding trauma, and throwing caution to wind (along with punching it in the face) when confronted with adversity. I still feel that Hope/Snow is nowhere near as enthralling or gut-wrenching as the Ken/Shinji dynamic in Persona 3. Probably because there is a bit more trauma and twisted aspects to the P3 version, whereas XIII's sill has to play second fiddle to other plot elements like the l'Cie thing that is used as a blanket excuse to resolve the conflict.

I also forget how much I like Hope's dad, and the intriguing plot directions he presents that I know will never go anywhere in this plot once Barthandelus hijacks the story. Rosch is an intriguing antagonist as well, who is more cutthroat than I remember him being. Of course this, and Chapter 12 are the only times he factors into the plot. I will say that the Calvary, and Cid, are still poorly explained or utilized in this plot. Yes, the Datalogs provide all the information I mean, but they largely feel like this intentional big good created to be a deus ex machina to get characters out of sticky situations the writers can't figure out how to get out of. So I am digging them less and less every time they show up. Especially since we've had maybe one scene to really introduce them, and it was ambiguous at best.

In gameplay, this chapter brought back all the roles, which was nice. I hate that one Gatling gun aircraft unit, though. The best part was having enemies drop money items while also giving me better access to organic materials through the shops, so I could raise weapon levels. Snow, Fang, and Lightning are all still using starting weapons with low XP thresholds for levels, but Hope, Sazh, and Vanille are all using specialty weapons that have ridiculous XP level needs. I am annoyed there are not any good synthesis abilities available at this point of the game, but I shouldn't be surprised since there are barely twenty in the game overall, and half of them are sort of useless. The only two I've taken advantage of is Snow's High HP skill with his starting weapon, and Sazh has a fire elemental one he's using to help bolster his less than stellar Ravager role while also giving him better survivability against all the fire based enemies in his chapter.

I am now off to Chapter 8, which I remember being the last real good chapter of this game before it really all goes to hell for me. So we'll see.

[Wolf Kanno]

Stalled a bit in Chapter 8 due to having a good grinding spot to get a decent XP Inorganic material and some decent CP gain. Not helped that Sazh and Vanille's XP cost just got ludicrous for no good reason. I do think the Eidolon parade creates more questions than answers.

[Wolf Kanno]

Chapter 8 and 9 are finished.

Chapter 8 is overall a pretty decent chapter. Nautilus is definitely one of the locations with lots of potential that the devs didn't do justice to. The FF references were nice, but the place is short and back loaded. Sazh does prove to me here that he's honestly the best written character in all of this mess. I understand why all the characters act the way they do, but Sazh is the only one that has managed to garner any sympathy from me.

Vanille on the other hand is just the worst, and I feel she gets off too easy in this story for the amount of trauma and nonsense she causes. The only other part I hate is the fake out suicide attempt at the end. Like seriously, SE, you think for a moment I would believe you would go through with that? It still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Chapter 9 overstays it's welcome. Like the story beats work, but the dungeon is unnecessarily long. At least I finally got my items for Gil. The Dysley reveal also feels a bit flat, I mean the party already knows the fal'Cie are screwing everything up, so what does it matter that he's one as well? Honestly, it might have been more interesting if he had been an l'Cie, but he's also such a flat character that probably not. Again, though, I fall into one of the biggest problems with this game and its stakes, I don't really care about Cocoon. So the revelations about their Focus being what they said it was from the beginning has no real bearings for me. I'm like, "Yo! Just pick up Serah, Dajh and Bartholomew, then blow up Cocoon, and retire in Pulse with Fang and Vanille" easy-peasy. I mean, the game hasn't really done much to make me care about the place, and frankly most of the playable cast seem to either hate the place or have no real ties anymore to it, so what's the problem here?

I'm going to wait until Chapter 12 to dive into all the holes in the fal'Cie's plan.

Now, the biggest issue with the gameplay has to be the awful economy of it all. Like the last few chapters have been handing out new weapons and accessories left and right, but since materials are hard to come by, gil is even harder to come by, and the more interesting stuff gets released towards the end, there is no real reason to engage with the equipment system. Just level up their starting weapons until you get to Chapter 12 and can finally get money and materials easier, and even then why bother? Most of the neat equipment won't really have much value until the post game anyway, making the whole system largely pointless until then. Like, I got two superb weapons for Snow and Lightning in the last few chapters, but I don't want to bother with them because I've leveled up their starting weapons too much for the new gear to catch up quickly. Not helped that every weapon with a specialty ability cost 3x as much to level up, which just deters the player more from bothering with it. It's honestly a broken system that basically encourages you to ignore it until the end of the game, and by that point, why should the player bother to invest? Even FFX's stupid gear mechanics had a little more usefulness throughout the game.

Now it's time to play my least favorite chapter in the game. :cry:

[Loony BoB]

Congrats on completing the tutorial!

[Wolf Kanno]

Chapter 10 done.

Such a pointless chapter. The Fifth Ark looks like a sewer level, with subway sections and metal pipes everywhere. Cid Raines, is easily one of the weakest Cid's for me. Guy barely shows up in the game, and then the game tries to get this emotional twist of his reveal of being in on the plan from the beginning, and I'm like, "So what? I figured you were in on the plan" then he does this odd "sacrifice" if we want to call it that, and I simply look at the screen with a blank stare thinking to myself, "Was I supposed to care?"

Easily, the biggest writing mistake in FFXIII is how poorly utilized its supporting characters are. All of them are one
dimensional cardboard cutouts designed to keep the plot moving on, but nothing about them is fascinating when everything is said and done. Granted, they all have potential to enrich the narrative, but so far no one has managed to really step up to that lofty goal.

After getting through the resource rich Chapter 9, Chapter 10 is surprisingly skimpy on giving you anything good. Some enemies drop good things, but the previous chapter sort of proved that the most efficient way to build better gear is through cold hard gil. Something this chapter is lacking. The CP gains are also not much better than earlier chapters, and the current Crystarium upgrades are ludicrous in terms of cost. I am largely ignoring the secondary roles that unlocked because the cost to benefit ratio is not worth it. I could spend 6000CP to either give Vanille a +5 in Attack, or I could spend 4000CP to give her a +15 in magic. That's a no-brainer. I don't really understand why the secondary roles are so janky in execution, outside of railroading you into sticking with everyone's main three classes. I mean, at this point, they might as well have just let them unlock after you finish the main game once.

Anyway, it's time to go to Gran Pulse, where I must face off with the true evil of FFXIII, The Grind.

[Loony BoB]

Chapter 10 done.

Such a pointless chapter. The Fifth Ark looks like a sewer level, with subway sections and metal pipes everywhere. Cid Raines, is easily one of the weakest Cid's for me. Guy barely shows up in the game, and then the game tries to get this emotional twist of his reveal of being in on the plan from the beginning, and I'm like, "So what? I figured you were in on the plan" then he does this odd "sacrifice" if we want to call it that, and I simply look at the screen with a blank stare thinking to myself, "Was I supposed to care?"

Easily, the biggest writing mistake in FFXIII is how poorly utilized its supporting characters are. All of them are one-dimensional cardboard cutouts designed to keep the plot moving on, but nothing about them is fascinating about them when everything is said and done. Granted, they all have potential to enrich the narrative, but so far no one has managed to really step up to that lofty goal.
yesyesyesyes

[Wolf Kanno]

Minor update:

Mostly grinding in Pulse. Unlocked the first Undying mission and farming him for Bomb Cores and his accessory drops. Pulse is a bit more underwhelming than I remember it. Probably not helped by me coming from FFXV. The one feature I miss from XV is the ability to switch my map marker to show me the direction to other things than the next plot point. It would make hunting down all these marks easier for sure.

I will also say that the shops in this game are pointless. You really don't need to buy any weapons or accessories, since the game will supply most of them to you. And once again I need to rant about the game's awful economics. Shit in this game is too expensive and the selling price of items are awful. Rhodochrosite is a low grade material used to evolve your accessories, mainly early stuff like Silver Bangles into Tungsten Bangles. Rhodochrosite costs 8000 Gil to purchase. The Tungsten Bangle I can evolve my Silver Bangle from using said catalyst costs 1500 Gil. Meaning I can buy five of the Bangles I can use this catalyst for the same price as purchasing it. Even if I sell the Rhodochrosite, I will only get 2000 Gil back for it. That's messed up, and a wonderful example of how broken the gameplay is. Hell, the rare and sought after Trapezohedron used to make ultimate weapons? Costs 2000000 Gil to buy, sells for 70000. :mad2:

[Wolf Kanno]

Haven't gotten too far. Did a few missions, got to the point where Vanille earned her Eidolon. Mostly grinding and trying to level my gear. I'm annoyed that while Pulse is great for getting CP and some mid-tier XP items, it is seriously lacking in dependable cash options. It seems like the developers made sure you could never grind for either. More annoying since, as I've mentioned before, Gil is King in this game. So I've reached the level max for a few pieces of gear, but I don't have enough cash to purchase the evolution materials. Most of which are dropped by enemies in the last chapter. XIII seriously railroads your ability to play it.

As for the few plot beats I've had, I almost miss Hope being mopey, because his new optimistic outlook is even more grating. I also really don't care for Vanille, and I still feel she gets off way too easily from all the carnage she causes or dumb reasons. "Oh no, I can't let Fang know she was the one who turned into Ragnarök and damaged Cocoon! It will hurt her feelings" meanwhile, Fang is the first one to suggest they just drop Cocoon like the rock it is and move on. If there was anyone in the party who couldn't care less about Cocoon, besides me of course, it's Fang. So this whole secret just feels like forced drama. I also think Hope should have unlocked Alexander earlier, and I feel Fang should have unlocked hers last.

[Wolf Kanno]

Finally, out of Gran Pulse. After dicking around for a while and trying to do as many Mark Hunts as I could, I finally pushed myself to follow the plot and leave this place. Gran Pulse is a bit disappointing. It's basically a super version of the Calm Lands without the mini-games, combined with a very uninspired version of FFXII's Mark Hunts.

The Hunt dialogue boxes give some interesting insight into the setting, but really just reinforces how much the fal'Cie are jerks. The fights themselves are less engaging. I find the main reason why they work better in XII than in XIII and XV is because XII gives you enough gameplay options to give real variety to them. XIII's combat system largely follows a very set formula and won't alternate from it much, so even though some of these fights might have unique skins and weakness, you'll never notice them feeling any different from any other version of the enemy you fought before. In that regard, they're like even crappier versions of the Monster Arena fights from FFX.

In fact, that's really the best way to describe FFXIII's overall design, it's really just a weaker and less thought out redo of FFX. The battle system trains you to fight based on a simple formula that feels tactical at first, but eventually just gets even more hum than the typical "Mash the Attack button to win" of other games. The Crystarium is just the Sphere Grid with all of its good ideas stripped away, and the overall dungeon design is a very linear path with a late game open area that has nothing fun to do in it. I'm going to laugh if I get to FFX and learn to appreciate it more after suffering through all this.

Chapter 11 is also just another pointless story chapter, nothing fascinating happens in it except to set up the next two chapters with the bad guy explaining all the more interesting stuff that's been happening off-screen. Like, this game is terrible about telling you stuff instead of showing it to you. The most interesting parts of this chapter is just piecing together what has happened on Gran Pulse since the War of Transgression through the Analects. We also get our foreshadowing of Etro, but I find it annoying that no one in the plot acknowledges her. Like the Analects spell out the fact that Etro intervened, and yet the fal'Cie don't acknowledge this, and even though the party is allegedly collecting these Analects, none of them are asking who this person that interfered is. Would have made this whole chapter have more purpose if the writers decided to actually bring Etro into the plot early instead of downplaying her for the purpose of the Deus ex Machina at the end. Even Chrono Trigger actually acknowledges the idea that some higher power is helping the party screw with time. Even more interesting is that Yeul is the one recording the Analects, so we get our hint to the sequel.

Thankfully, the next Chapter is fairly short and then it's just the final dungeon. I do have that one grind spot to abuse in Chapter 12, but I've also acquired Death, so I could always grind Adamantoise if I need to. At least I'm nearing the end.

[Wolf Kanno]

I spoke too soon. Ugh, I forgot Chapter 12 is, like all the other chapters, unnecessarily long. I still haven't even reached the final boss fight for this chapter, but dear god, I spent a whole evening just wasting time through this Xenosaga wannabe scenario. Once again, the other members of NORA reappeared, and once again, I had completely forgotten about them. ^^;

I also discovered, to my horror, that unlocking the tertiary roles for characters is an absolutely fucking bad idea. Whenever the game tries to build you paradigm sets, it always chooses the worst options. Like having Fang be a medic, Lightning a Synergist, and Hope a Sentinel. These are all their worst roles. I restarted the first fight in this chapter simply because it threw a weird party combo at me, and then proceeded to give me the shittiest paradigm selection I could ask for. :mad2::mad2::mad2:

So this is turning into a much slower process than I would care for, and it's really starting to eat into my desire to bother with the sequels. :(

[Loony BoB]

But just think! The sequels were better, right? May as well play them while t's an uphill moment for you!

I maintain that the biggest issue you're experiencing throughout this seems to be that you spent so much time trying to grind when you weren't even at the endgame. There's no need to grind beyond maxing out the Crystarium, really, unless you're wanting to 100% the game. It feels like you've deliberately extended the time you've spent playing a game you don't enjoy and that certainly strikes me as peculiar to say the least.

Also, despite me enjoying FFXIII and you hating it, you've played it more often than I have. This amuses me xD I do want to play it again someday, but I can say that for so many games, I suppose.

I hope you haste your way through to the end so it doesn't drain you much longer!

[Wolf Kanno]

But just think! The sequels were better, right? May as well play them while t's an uphill moment for you!

I maintain that the biggest issue you're experiencing throughout this seems to be that you spent so much time trying to grind when you weren't even at the endgame. There's no need to grind beyond maxing out the Crystarium, really, unless you're wanting to 100% the game. It feels like you've deliberately extended the time you've spent playing a game you don't enjoy, and that certainly strikes me as peculiar to say the least.

Also, despite me enjoying FFXIII and you hating it, you've played it more often than I have. This amuses me xD I do want to play it again someday, but I can say that for so many games, I suppose.

I hope you haste your way through to the end, so it doesn't drain you much longer!

The irony is that I haven't really grind as much as you think. My long absences are often me getting distracted by other games because this one couldn't hold my interest for long, so I tend to take breaks between chapters to play MGS or BoF. Hell, I just finished BoF1 between Chapter 11 and 12. I have hit the Crystarium limit a few times, but honestly, it doesn't take that much grinding to do so, and after that point, battles are wastes of time unless you are trying to get certain item drops.

My longer time with the battle system was often to really explore all the options and discovering, to my dismay, that there really isn't much to the game mechanics. Like it sounds way more interesting on paper than in practice. As you point out yourself, too much of it is back loaded as well since the game really can't open up until you beat it, which I feel is an awful design choice. My biggest grind spot in the game was in Pulse, and it was just because I was frustrated that weapon growth was going so damn slow, so I farmed a specific Mark in order to farm Bomb Cores and the Teiatric Crowns it dropped, so I could get Sprint Shoes. Even then, I only farmed enough to get my main three the item. Funny enough, I have largely been ignoring the tertiary jobs, because fuck trying to max those out. It's not worth it until post game.

But I am also someone who likes JRPG mechanics most of the time, and I'm trying to give this game a chance to impress me, and instead it's just disappointment. I mean, the plot stopped mattering three chapters ago as well, and I'm currently just stuck wondering why we're even doing this farce anymore?

[Loony BoB]

I agree with you about a lot of what you say about the design choices about FFXIII, to be fair. Most things you say are spot on, especially about grinds and bad mechanics.

The only things I really notably disagree with you on are that the battles are more brainless than other FF games (I disagree, I think other games are more brainless than FFXIII, excepting the MMOs) and general opinion of certain characters and the overall story. I enjoyed the story well enough, and my favoured characters are possibly the opposite of yours... although I think we both dislike Hope and like Sazh?

[Wolf Kanno]

Yes, we both dislike Hope, but enjoy Sahz. :lol:

I'll do a major write-up when I finish where I'll discuss more of what I mean about brainless combat, and what I feel would have made the game more fun and interesting. I will say, my biggest beef with the combat and the heart of my issues is with Break mechanics in RPGs. It is a style of gameplay I get no enjoyment from, and I feel it makes games into a formulaic mess when they try to implement them. I didn't like it Xenosaga Episode 2, hated in XIII, and didn't like it in VII Remake. I just hope that XVI doesn't have a form of it, because it will likely sink my enjoyment of the gameplay considerably.

[Loony BoB]

I will say I don't care much about the Break mechanic in RPGs either, when it becomes something that is effectively a required thing. But when it comes to "oh, you just have to hold X to win" which people often say regarding FFXIII, it baffles me because I feel like that sums up the previous games even more than FFXIII.

Looking forward to the write-up, dude! You're definitely doing something I'd never do, replaying them all. I still need to finish FFIII (final dungeon reached) and still need to re-start FFIV because I've basically forgotten everything. But even if I finished them I don't think I'd ever bring myself to replay FFI-III. The first three games just don't grab me like the rest of the series do.

I feel like since Yoshi-P ran FFXIV, he'll have more variation in how fights play out. Hopefully, anyway. Because FFXIV fights can vary a lot.

[Wolf Kanno]

I wouldn't say it's "hold X to win" but I would say it's not exactly a battle system that requires much thinking either. It's very formulaic, and once you know the formula, every battle feels the same. It has the old school FF issue of being more challenging in the first half of the game than the second half.

I am the opposite of you, though, I think I'm looking forward to the 8-bit entries the most for this play through. I'm less looking forward to the XIII sequels, but I am looking forward to FFXII next. I need to start XI again soon as well.

[Wolf Kanno]

Finished. Orphan was even more of a joke than I remember. I think the boss just before Barthandelus was tougher. I didn't even use Poison or Death, just curb stomped him with Fang, Lightning, and Hope. Hell, it was embarrassing to sit through the gushy ten-minute cutscene between his first and second phase, only to wipe his second phase out in a little over a minute afterward. Still think the whole final sequence is more gnarm than charm. Still feel the message of the game is undermined by Etro's involvement. I'll do the write up later when I have a moment to gather my thoughts.

[Loony BoB]

Orphan is one of my most disliked final bosses. It should be my most disliked, but Final Fantasy as a series has an absolutely awful habit of going "psych! you thought the main boss was the one we were showing all along, but it is not! it is this enemy! haha! bet you didn't expect that!" I absolutely hate this choice in every game I play. The reason we all got such satisfaction beating Sephiroth is because he was in our faces the entire time. Same with Kefka. We got to grow a hatred for the character. Orphan? What? Am I supposed to feel angry at this thing? This is dumb. So it's equal with all the other bosses that are like this. It might even still be the worst in the series because at least some of the other "surprise!" ones mock us a little or something. This felt like fighting an object.

[Wolf Kanno]

Well, for anyone thinking a fresh replay of XIII would soften my stance on it, I'm here to douse those flames of hope. XIII is still my least favorite mainline game. I feel the replay simply reinforced most of the issues I had with it. I think the only real change I got from it was softening my stance on a few characters, but otherwise, I don't feel the replay changed much of my first impression with it either.

One of the biggest things I got from replaying the game is how obvious it feels half finished. This is a hill I am going to die on, but XIII was a game that needed another two years at least to get its ideas into a better working order. The difference between it and say FFXII or XV is that those games feel like titles where the devs were trying to cram everything in up until the last minute, and even after the fact in XV's case. XIII feels like a game where the development phase was cut short by a year and then in the middle of just making sure everything worked, they were told they had to get the game out in six months, so they chose to stop finishing anything and just polished whatever they had actually gotten done. Everything from game mechanics, to level design, to the plot, to character arcs feels either half finished or feels like it was just a first draft attempt. Granted, XIII had a terrible development history. SE made the awful mistake of trying to build a game and a new engine for it at the same time, which any game dev will tell you is a terrible mistake.

Story wise, I feel XIII is confused about what it's message is, and what it wanted to do. Like, you can see where the devs were trying to go, but XIII never gives it enough time to develop properly. You can tell the priority was for the personal story arcs of the characters than the main plot, which many fans would argue was the better choice, but so much of the main plot kind of undermines these elements because the personal arcs finish halfway through the game. It feels like the reverse of FFVI's design, where the main plot pretty much ends halfway through because it simply boiled down to "go kill Kefka" and so the second half of the game is dedicated more towards tying up all the characters personal arcs. The problem is that XIII probably should have ended at Chapter 9. Nothing after that chapter has any bearings on the plot. Even all the stuff with Cid, who is easily one of the weakest in the series for me, he's on the same playing field as OG Cid from FFII in terms of how much I feel he matters to the story and how tragic his death was for me. This is one of the issues with the story is how poorly utilized the secondary characters are. Only Dahj and Serah manage to escape this because their presence still remains throughout the game due to dialogue, but even they are both fairly flat characters who only serve to spur the actual main cast forward. Rosch's revelations in Chapter 12 would feel more impactful if we were given more time with him. Instead, it feels like a last minute attempt to give him some characterization and make you feel bad for him, but it falls flat because the audience isn't given enough time with them to grow attach. Guy is an utter douche for three of the four times you encounter him, and his only redeeming traits are inferred from the Datalogs. The issue this really causes is that these tertiary characters are really the ones needed to sell the main narrative for us. Characters like Rosch, the Calvary, Cid, and Jihl could have helped us understand the greater picture here, and the complicated nuance of the cast's terrible Focus. If you want to know the telltale sign of the story's unfinished nature, then I simply point to the Datalogs, which often tell a far more gripping tale than what is presented on screen. The Datalogs often give the player far more insight into what's going on as well.

The other aspect that frustrating is how much the game downplays Etro's involvement. Granted, her existence in the plot sort of undermines the themes of the game about fighting fate, and humanity's unlimited potential; but hindsight does make it very obvious that she's acting behind the scenes, being responsible for the end of the War of Transgression, and being responsible for all the Deus ex Machina happening during the ending. The other issue at hand for me is that I still feel like Barthandelus' plan is too contrived. I get that his plan initially failed with the War of Transgression, but I feel like the story should have made it obvious that it has failed more than that. There should have been a reference to Barty having predecessor l'Cie who opted to kill themselves or go Ceith rather than the plan. I also don't necessarily understand why the Pulse fal'Cie would even give a trout about Barty's plan enough to go along with destroying Cocoon. The fal'Cie as a whole are such a non-entity within the story, that it gets confusing whether the Pulse fal'Cie are in on Barty's plan, or if they are simply an accessory to his manipulation. I feel the main evidence for why I don't feel they care about the plan is due to their treatment to Pulsian humans after the War of Transgression. You would think that after failing, they would have kept them around and kept attempting to destroy Cocoon with them. Instead, they just wiped them all out by either making the planet too harsh to live, or by turning everyone into low rank l'Cie with dumb tasks. And here's the main problem with Barty's plan and the whole plot, there are too many contingencies that could have made this whole thing blow up in their face. If the party had simply chosen death, he and Orphan would have been screwed. And that's part of the reason why the story is kind of dumb, the plan isn't well-thought-out, and while it opens up for some drama, a little logic undermines all of it. The sad thing is that there are tools within the plot that could have made it work, but they are never utilized beyond their face value.

The gameplay is easily the biggest point of contention I have with people who like XIII. The battle system is too simple, and the secondary elements are all poorly thought out and utilized. Which, again, reinforced my belief that the game was rushed out the door too quickly. I touched on this earlier, but, the battle system is boring. Mainly because the break mechanic focus of the game makes it too formulaic. Battles blend in, and it's rare for me to remember any of the bosses of the game because so few of them have any features that make them stand out, because battles all devolve into "buff party, stagger enemy, do lots of damage, repeat until dead" with the occasional heal and debuff thrown in where needed. Hell, I ended up using the same five paradigms for most of the game, barring when a Sentinel wasn't available in the early chapters. The game is also not hard, it's cheap, but not necessarily difficult. Difficult would be like trying to beat Mt. Gulug in FFI, it's a long dungeon, with damage floors, high encounter rates, and enemies that can do AoE attacks. It's a grind that requires proper preparation and resource management. An example of cheap difficulty, the boss of the Ice Cavern from the same game, which is a group of enemies that like to spam Death, which you have no defense against. So your success is completely contingent on RNG. XIII doesn't really have the former, it has plenty of the latter. It's hard to agree the game is hard when the majority of your deaths are the times the party forces the character with the lowest HP as your party leader, in a game where the enemy A.I. tends to either go after the character with the lowest HP or the Party leader exclusively. And then give the player no real method of controlling aggro. The majority of my deaths in this game were largely when Hope or Vanille was forced as my party leader.

The party leader equals death, rule is dumb in this game. I know most players would say it's always a dumb rule, but seeing how they likely stole this idea from SMT, I would point out SMT is smarter about it. First, there is usually a story reason behind it. I mean, you're usually a dude with demons you bribed to help you, they are not going to stick around when their benefactor is eating dirt. Secondly, SMT usually balances this out by giving the leader character perks that usually guarantees they will be the last person standing in most battles. XIII doesn't do either of these. Which just makes the rule frustrating.

Another problem with the battle mechanics is the Battle Score system. Just to get it out of the way, I don't usually like scoring systems like these, mainly because speed ends up being the only element that really matters. Now logically speaking, one would argue that having mastery of the battle mechanics would mean playing efficiently enough to always finish the sequence quickly, which is not wrong; but this also means you can play recklessly as hell and compensate for other deficiencies in your strategy by taking advantage of a bad scoring system tha is mainly contingent on one factor. I shouldn't be getting S ranks in a stealth game by going Rambo in every mission. Likewise, I shouldn't get a five start rating for beating a tough boss that killed two of my party members and I have an inch of my life left. That doesn't seem like "mastery" to me. Even worse is the terrible rewards for bothering. Some argue that doing poorly is better because Shrouds are way more useful as an item in the game, which isn't wrong, but more importantly the rewards for getting a five-star rating are not any better. All it does it net you a bit more TP, which is not a useful resource, and it raises the drop rate of rare items by 5x. Which sounds great, and is extremely important in the post-game, but is mostly useless in the main game proper. I would also point out it only raises the probabaility it doesn't guarantee you'll get a drop. I got rare items from fights I got one star in, so really a little tedious grind is going to happen either way.

Most items worth getting from enemies tend to be 100% drops from bosses. The stuff from regular enemies may seem useful, but due to the awful economic systems in place in this game, are utterly worthless in the long run. The only thing worth getting drops from are items that can be converted into cash, because you need to buy the other stuff in bulk if you want to bother making any use of it. Most items enemies drop don't offer any real value unless you have a lot of them, and even trying to grind for them is inefficient because you'll need up to 30 to 50 of an organic item to get that X multiplyer for XP, and most of the XP items are terrible except for a few you need to purchase for an exhorbitant amout of gil. Even worst, the sell price of most items, outside of the main ones designed for this specific purpose, are awful. This greatly hinders oen of the game's secondary game mechanics which is leveling up equipment. This mechanic is one of the main factors that determines how easy of a time you'll have with XIII. If you bother to keep your gear leveled, you'll often find the game is easy breezy, lemon squeezy. In my first playthrough, half of my player deaths was due to just ignoring this mechanic because it was too tedious to bother with, but in this playthrough I had little problem because I kept up with the upkeep.This may largely explain why the devs made it so difficult to do so for most of the game as well, because you get disprapotionate returns on your investment, which wouldn't happen if the game had been balanced properly. Instead the game actively discourages you from using its mechanics, stifling any enjoyment it should bring.

The Synthesis mechanics are another missed opportunity, I actually enjoy stuff like this, and it's a feature I love in Suikoden. Basically, certain weapon/accessory combinations will confer special bonuses, extending the life of certain items and expanding on customization options. The issue with XIII is that it never explains this to you, the synthesis abilities available whip lash between useless Wall skills that delete a total of 5hp of damage from certain attacks, to overpowered end game shenanigans like total immunity to physical or magical attacks. The main problem is that their is no real middle ground. The wall skills are neat at first but don't scale well with the ludicrous math involved in calculating damage. The end game stuff is neat, but largely stuck in post-game nonsense and involves dealing with item leveling which is difficult to do until endgame. So it's easil a feature that most players probably never noticed unless they were using a guide. It also factors into what you should bother making into an ultimate weaponbecause the ultimate weapons trade better stats and an extra bar segment for the ATB gauge for sacrificing the Synthesis class. The ones that make you immune to certain types of damage? Gone. Likewise some synthese skills can be broken, like Lightnign has one with one of her weaker weapons that gives her an insane speed advantage if you build her right. She has another that gives her weapon a passive drain effect as well. The synthesis system is the only thing that offers some interesting customization, and yet the game does everything in its power to undermine it. Again, proving my point this game was likely shipped out before things were thought through. I imagine it was meant to be a bigger deal in the initial development phase and was largely downplayed when the team lost their chance to do a thorough play test. Hence the lopsided nature of what we do see.

I feel I've talked enough, and I'm not going to regurgitate the major talking points we've all heard to death about linear design, the underwhelming Crystarium system, and some of the more questionable story moments. Overall, I feel XIII is a halfbaked endeavor polished to a fine sheen to create the illusion of depth and quality that it is lacking. It's a flash in the pan type of game that I don't feel measures up very well on subsequent playthroughs or deeper analysis of its mechanics and story. It is still my least favorite FF by a large margin.

[Loony BoB]

From the perspective of someone who may not dislike this game, but definitely has played games he didn't enjoy: I'm glad you've finished it. ^^;

[Fynn]

Sequel time ;)