I Don't Get the Complaints around XIII

I suggest you look at the other thread, the poll one. XIII rates by magazines and users, overwhelmingly bottom. I didn't have time to compare everything, but it is bottom and that's that. Even IGN gave it less than 9 and that's a first for a main FF game.

I didn't pay for this game no, but it is my right to criticise and that's tuff ma boy ;)

a. I once loved this series as a whole and it is going down the drain, that's why I am "worked up".

b. Hit and miss. yes, XII, X-2, XIII and all these cash in spin offs have been largely miss if the majority are to be believed.

How much more miss do you think is acceptable?

Up to Final fantasy MCMXCVII perhaps?

6,7,8,9,10 weren't hit or miss so again this is another of your diversions....

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Originally Posted by champagne supernova

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Originally Posted by Dignified Pauper

BTW, you can have really solid character develop when they interact with one another, but that doesn't make the story make sense. It just makes the characters believable, but it falls apart when the story itself doesn't really explain itself or make sense.

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Finding the game too linear is a personal preference. I will agree with you on items and customisation - I really didn't bother with that at all. But I found the battle system quite enjoyable. I think that if you have levelled up your characters, it could be very stale, but I finished the game with not one role completed for any character.

But you're going to have to be more specific why the story doesn't make sense. I found it fairly comprehensible from the dialogue apart from (SPOILER)Vanille pretending to be Ragnarok - didn't catch that being mentioned .

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the Fal'Cie dynamic really did not make any sense. Since Fal'Cie were built for one purpose, why was Pulse ever created by the Fal'Cie. How did they somehow "break" their purpose. Or is it analogous to Christiandom that Lucifer had a purpose, and it was to eventually turn against God (something fabricated by John Milton).

I mean, the over-all arch of the characters and why they were on the mission they were on made sense, but the premise of the missions necessity and why the Pulse Fal'Cie wanted to destroy Cocoon made absolutely not sense. And Barthandalus, while having the best boss music for an FF in a long time, made no sense as a villain in theory, because, as a Cocoon Fal'Cie, why was he trying to destroy everyone to bring back the Goddess. Was that his purpose? I thought Fal'Cie didn't have free-will, per say.

And Orphan was just stupid. The fact that he existed inside the dreams of Eden. I mean, it was just so full of meta garbage that wasn't explained.

And the way the story was told through the log was a terrible decision. Exposition should have been woven through the dialogue. It was just bad story-telling.

And as far as battles, they were boring whether you leveled everyone up or not. And the premise of if the leader falls in battle, you have to restart is just so silly. I also didn't like that I couldn't change my leader mid-battle. The paradigm system was cool and all, but the fact that I used auto-attack almost exclusively wasn't something I'd call gameplay. Granted, neither was any previous FF title, since it was all just menus, but at least I manually selected the spell.

I did appreciate the flashiness of attack. But as a personal note, I'd rather have had cooler magic abilities. Even though magic was important to break monsters, it wasn't nearly as cool. It was also terrible in XII too. But that's just because I like pretty things that make big explosions.

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Originally Posted by Dignified Pauper

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Originally Posted by champagne supernova

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Originally Posted by Dignified Pauper

BTW, you can have really solid character develop when they interact with one another, but that doesn't make the story make sense. It just makes the characters believable, but it falls apart when the story itself doesn't really explain itself or make sense.

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Finding the game too linear is a personal preference. I will agree with you on items and customisation - I really didn't bother with that at all. But I found the battle system quite enjoyable. I think that if you have levelled up your characters, it could be very stale, but I finished the game with not one role completed for any character.

But you're going to have to be more specific why the story doesn't make sense. I found it fairly comprehensible from the dialogue apart from (SPOILER)Vanille pretending to be Ragnarok - didn't catch that being mentioned .

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[/QUOTE]

the Fal'Cie dynamic really did not make any sense. Since Fal'Cie were built for one purpose, why was Pulse ever created by the Fal'Cie. How did they somehow "break" their purpose. Or is it analogous to Christiandom that Lucifer had a purpose, and it was to eventually turn against God (something fabricated by John Milton).[/QUOTE]

I'm assuming you mean Cocoon. i think you're being a bit too limited on the single purpose. Phoenix's purpose was to create light and fire. Eden's was to control knowledge. Barthandelus to act as an intermediary between Fal'Cie and humans. There must be some leeway in their purpose - Phoenix can do it in the sky, Eden in a city etc.

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Originally Posted by Dignified Pauper

I mean, the over-all arch of the characters and why they were on the mission they were on made sense, but the premise of the missions necessity and why the Pulse Fal'Cie wanted to destroy Cocoon made absolutely not sense. And Barthandalus, while having the best boss music for an FF in a long time, made no sense as a villain in theory, because, as a Cocoon Fal'Cie, why was he trying to destroy everyone to bring back the Goddess. Was that his purpose? I thought Fal'Cie didn't have free-will, per say.

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The reasons behind the Pulse Fal'Cie's motives were explained in the datalog - [SPOILER] There were in fact a God and a Goddess. The god created the Cocoon Fal'Cie who believed the only way to call him back was through sacrifice. The goddess created the Pulse Fal'Cie who believed they could find a route through the world to find her (hence the continuous terraforming). It was the Goddess who stopped Ragnarok from destroying Cocoon. Whether the two gods are two elements of The Maker is ambiguous, but it is clear that either they or it are constant throughout the story.[/QUOTE]

Barthandelus' purpose was to interact with humans. That is all he could use his magic for. However, he was also the leader of the Sanctum so he could devise a plan to use L'Cie to do his work. So the Fal'Cie were bound to a purpose like a L'Cie were bound to a purpose. They could still have thought against their purpose. And it was not the Cocoon Fal'Cie who created the focus, nor did they do anything deliberate to bring destruction to the world. What they did was manipulate events - it's a subtlety but think it works.

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Originally Posted by Dignified Pauper

And Orphan was just stupid. The fact that he existed inside the dreams of Eden. I mean, it was just so full of meta garbage that wasn't explained.

And the way the story was told through the log was a terrible decision. Exposition should have been woven through the dialogue. It was just bad story-telling.

And as far as battles, they were boring whether you leveled everyone up or not. And the premise of if the leader falls in battle, you have to restart is just so silly. I also didn't like that I couldn't change my leader mid-battle. The paradigm system was cool and all, but the fact that I used auto-attack almost exclusively wasn't something I'd call gameplay. Granted, neither was any previous FF title, since it was all just menus, but at least I manually selected the spell.

I did appreciate the flashiness of attack. But as a personal note, I'd rather have had cooler magic abilities. Even though magic was important to break monsters, it wasn't nearly as cool. It was also terrible in XII too. But that's just because I like pretty things that make big explosions.

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I don't think Orphan lives in Eden's dream. It isn't quite so simplistic as that. Just read the locale and Orphan's Cradle exists in another dimension. This dimension is apparently Eden's true form. But I don't think that counts much against the actual story, although it does become metaphysical nonsense.

Apart from the thing about the God & the Goddess and the location of Orphan's Cradle, everything else was made fairly clear through the dialogue (with the one exception I noted). The datalog was designed to just keep everything together and give extra information about locations etc. That's my opinion though.

Finding the battles boring was a personal preference. In the flaws thread, I listed the next 2 faults you have with the battle system, so we're in agreement there. And then for the final fault, I think that I'd rather have the computer automatically select what I was going to do anyway than have to manually select Attack 5 times thirty three thousand times throughout the game. Which is basically what you do in most FFs (or a specific spell if you're in an area where the enemies have elemental weaknesses) for 80-90% of the game.

And yeah, they could have included cool spells like Meteor and Ultima. And the Eidolons were a bit pointless (although, if we're going to be honest, that's been true of all summons since VIII, with the possible exception of IX - possible because I haven't yet played it so don't actually know. Downloaded it off PSN now so that will quickly change).

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Originally Posted by Dignified Pauper

the Fal'Cie dynamic really did not make any sense. Since Fal'Cie were built for one purpose, why was Pulse ever created by the Fal'Cie. How did they somehow "break" their purpose. Or is it analogous to Christiandom that Lucifer had a purpose, and it was to eventually turn against God (something fabricated by John Milton).

I mean, the over-all arch of the characters and why they were on the mission they were on made sense, but the premise of the missions necessity and why the Pulse Fal'Cie wanted to destroy Cocoon made absolutely not sense. And Barthandalus, while having the best boss music for an FF in a long time, made no sense as a villain in theory, because, as a Cocoon Fal'Cie, why was he trying to destroy everyone to bring back the Goddess. Was that his purpose? I thought Fal'Cie didn't have free-will, per say.

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Cocoon was not created by the fal'Cie but by the Goddes Lindzei. She created the Cocoon fal'Cie, while the Maker (most likely a he) created the Pulse fal'Cie.

The reason why Lindzei created Cocoon but datalog entries hint that it was build to counter a threat from somewhere else. The Arks below Cocoon were presumably built for the purpose to act as a training ground, basically making the place a giant military where people could live and be prepared for a war. This is most likely why Lindzei is portrayed as being vile. She offered the people from Pulse to live in a paradise while she actually wanted to use these individuals for her own ends.

Anyway, eventually all the Gods departed from Pulse (all except one) and disappeared to a portal that lies beyond the plane of mortality. The fal'Cie get upset on how the world and the people have gone wrong etc etc and they want to make anything right again to summon the Maker.

Meanwhile, the Pulse fal'Cie Anima launches an attack on Cocoon. Fang and Vanille join in with the fight and Fang get's turned into Ragnarok and shatters Cocoon's shell.
Then the Goddes of death, Etro, interferes. She had been around since the creation of the world but never created or desired anything. She only looked on in her sorrow and pitied mortals as they were destined to die. Therefore, she decided to intervene in the hour of their greatest peril.

She makes Fang human again and turns every L'Cie left on Cocoon to crystal. Then for reasons I forgot (though I'm pretty sure it is explained) the Bodhum with Anima, and Fang Vanille get transported to Cocoon. Anima get's into a coma and the Vestige remains there for several centuries.

Then Anima awakes and the events of Final Fantasy XIII happen you know the story. It actually makes a lot of sense when you sit down and read those damn analects. :p

As for Fal'Cie dynamics, they don't have their own free will. They have great power but are bound to their eternal Focus. They have their own desires but can't pursue what they really want and that is the reason for their suffering.

As seiferalmasy would say it: the story makes sense and that is a FACT. The only difference is that I'm actually open for counter arguments instead of playing a game of really valid point and i'm impressed by your thinking. and selective memory loss. :)

No, the Fal'Cie made Cocoon. Check the Histories and stuff in the data log. But basically everything else is right.

Heh, I'm pretty sure Lindzei made Cocoon.

Right here:

And lo, the viper Lindzei bore fangs into the pristine soil of our Gran Pulse; despoiled the land and from it crafted a cocoon both ghastly and unclean.
Lies spilled forth from the serpent's tongue: 'Within this shell lies paradise.' Men heard these lies and were seduced and led away.

(SPOILER)

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Originally Posted by Datalog: History and Society: Pulse Fal'Cie

Fal'Cie are an existence beyond human comprehension, possessed of incredible magic power. The ones responsible for Cocoon's construction are protectors of humanity, but there are others of their kind as well: the fal'Cie who dwell on Pulse and name themselves enemies of Cocoon.
Humans who encounter Pulse fal'Cie are cursed, being turned to l'Cie and ordered to destroy Cocoon. It is for this reason that most ordinary citizens support the Purge - anyone who may have come into contact with one of these fal'Cie represents a dire threat.

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I don't know if Lindzei actually existed or whether it was a lie that the Pulse Fal'Cie spread. But if you read the last three analects, you get an idea of what is going on.

(SPOILER)
XI. Hypothesis of the Hunt
Obtain: Clear Mission 63: Crushed by Doubt
We've long held the goal of the fal'Cie's endless excavations to be the expansion of the world's inhabitable space-the creation of new lands with which to honor the gods. But I contend this to be false. Their methods lack the order one would expect if that were their purpose, and what's more, they gods they would honor have long since departed this world.
I propose a different explanation: the fal'Cie are hunting. Whether they seek a way to recall the gods or to journey to their side I cannot say, but I do believe the fal'Cie seek their lost deities. They search the earth, the skies, the waters, and even the deep places, seeking a gateway to the Divine.
-- On the Nature of Fal'Cie

XII. The Door of Souls
Obtain: Clear Mission 63: Crushed by Doubt
When our earthly vessels meet their end, the souls they housed must leave this world. Would the path of their migration not be the same one as our departed gods? Must they not pass through the same doorway the Divine employed to reach that place that lies beyond?
If this is the case, it stands to reason that, should a great many lives at once be cut short, a flood of souls would surge through the aforementioned portal. The Door would be thrown wide, and perhaps we might even glimpse the gleaming light of Divinity beyond.
-- On the Nature of Fal'Cie

XIII. Fabula Nova Crystallis
Obtain: Clear Mission 64: The Doomherald
Children of Hallowed Pulse scour earth, searching substance for the Door. Those of Fell Lindzei harvest souls, combing ether for the same. So have I seen.
The Door, once shut, was locked away, with despair its secret key; sacrifice, the one hope of seeing it unsealed.
When the twilight of the gods at last descends upon this world, what emerges from the unseeable expanse beyond that Door will be but music, and that devoid of words: the lamentations of the Goddess Etro, as She sobs Her song of grief.
-- Author unknown

So the Cocoon Fal'Cie believed that the only way they could bring back The Maker through sacrificing humans (XII) and therefore created Cocoon basically as a human breeding ground (that's why they basically created an utopia for humanity).

The Pulse Fal'Cie believed that they could find a way to find the Maker, hence their continuous exploration (XI).

The ambiguous question is whether the Pulse Fal'Cie wished to destroy Cocoon because they were in the same scheme as Barthandelus or whether they wished to get the raw materials of Cocoon (as it was created out of Pulse resources) so as to see whether the key to finding the Maker was in it.

See, that makes no sense. And that IS the story. And I still have a problem with it being spelled out the way it was in the datalog, instead of, you know, actually being part of the game.

But yeah, the story's arch was weak. Again, character build and motivation was superb, but only if you took away the silliness behind the story.

Also, I believe Lindzei is considered to be analogous to Lucifer, because it is occasionally referred to as "The Fell" or "fallen" Lindzei. It just seems ridiculous.

And if Eden IS another dimension, then it's equally stupid. But i thought Eden CREATED that dimension for Orphan.

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Originally Posted by Dignified Pauper

See, that makes no sense. And that IS the story. And I still have a problem with it being spelled out the way it was in the datalog, instead of, you know, actually being part of the game.

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We're just using the datalogs to justify our points. I remember there being some dialogue where they say explicitly that Cocoon was fashioned by the Fal'Cie out of Pulse. But I don't understand why the story doesn't make sense. (SPOILER) Cocoon Fal'Cie want to call back the Maker by sacrificing many people. They therefore make this utopia in Cocoon and breed people with the aim to later send it crashing to the ground. And they believe (or have justified) that what they are doing is right: only by calling back The Maker can the world be saved. The stuff in the spoiler may not be provided to the player explicitly, but it is fairly clear. And it's not spelt out in the datalog either.

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Originally Posted by Dignified Pauper

But yeah, the story's arch was weak. Again, character build and motivation was superb, but only if you took away the silliness behind the story.

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A story isn't just plot. Some of the greatest novels focus much more on character development than plot lines. XIII is a character driven story and so they succeeded in the main objective: making the characters likeable, believable and then develop them through the external forces of the plot.

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Originally Posted by Dignified Pauper

Also, I believe Lindzei is considered to be analogous to Lucifer, because it is occasionally referred to as "The Fell" or "fallen" Lindzei. It just seems ridiculous.

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Yes, and their both associated with snakes etc. But whether there is a God called Lindzei is totally up to speculation. These are Pulsian humans who wrote these analects so they are biased. As both Pulse and Lindzei left, it is more likely that they are both either different manifestations of The Maker or just twisting of facts later on.

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Originally Posted by Dignified Pauper

And if Eden IS another dimension, then it's equally stupid. But i thought Eden CREATED that dimension for Orphan.

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No, Eden isn't another dimension but exists in another dimension. If you ever read Terry Pratchett there is something similar in Thief of Time where a clock is built that exists simultaneously in numerous dimensions. Even religions suggest that humans live in more than three dimensions simultaneously. Our physical form resides here but our soul exists in another dimension (which obviously cannot be seen) and is released when the physical form dies.

EDIT: The data log is a bit flawed. Just read it now. Here it is.
(SPOILER)This is the dimension created by the fal'Cie Eden at the command of Barthandelus. The very structure itself is the true form of the being that sits at the center of Cocoon, overseeing the endless functions that keep the floating city running.
The sea of data flowing through Eden has materialized as physical matter, forming a shell that shelter the sleeping Orphan in a space that hovers between reality and dream.

There is a contradiction as Eden cannot create something if its true structure exists within it. Unless Eden created it and then moved across. Regardless, it isn't really important to the story side of things. I agree with you that basically they just created Orphan's Cradle to look cool and then worried about an explanation afterwards.

Off the topic, don't you think that there are similarities between The Matrix and FFXIII. [SPOILER] Human farming, machines with purposes (much like the agents), even the Narthex looks like something that could've come out of the movie (The Architect's kind of building).

EDIT 2: Found some trivia. Maybe Squenix did put some thought into Orphan's cradle.

Trivia: Unusually for a final dungeon, the main body of the area is in fact just one room, the Tesseracts, which reconfigures itself several times. A tesseract is the four-dimensional extension of a cube, sometimes known simply as a hypercube.

Hmmm, that last bit of info is cool. But still, i just feel like the story fell short of a believable concept.

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Originally Posted by Dignified Pauper

Hmmm, that last bit of info is cool. But still, i just feel like the story fell short of a believable concept.

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Hey, it is a fantasy game. It's not going to be believable. The ending may be a little bit confusing (SPOILER) when the characters go from C'Ieth to L'Cie, but I reckon that this is the Maker's intervention and not them reliving their memories.

I think the story is believable because all the characters are acting out in a way that is consistent to the way they have been built up in the game. There are some concepts that are still vague. Do all Fal'Cie have conscious thought? What are their purposes? How did they manage to create Cocoon in the first place (and there I think the designers had some debate, hence the lack of clarity on the matter)? But these are superfluous to the actual story.

My two cents think that the plot is simplistic. But as it is character driven, I don't want 43.4 million plot twists either.

Hmm, that part about the Pulse fal'Cie searching for the portal makes indeed no sense.

Though I'm sure the fal'Cie didn't create Cocoon for soul harvesting because they simply didn't exist before it was created. They were purely made to maintain Cocoon and their creator was a goddes who crafted them after the image of the Pulse fal'Cie who in turn were made by the Maker.

Then again, perhaps Barthandelus is able to create new things for Cocoon? His focus is to be its architect after all. Though I'm sure Lindzei lay the foundation for his work.

They say the fal'Cie made the Arks in preparation for battle against the menace that lurks beyond. Where is this "beyond" of which they speak? Do they mean Cocoon, and the demons that dwells within? If so, they are mistaken. The legends of the Arks date far before that sphere was even crafted; whispers even hint at Arks displaced around the time of Cocoon's creation, spirited away to be hidden in its shell.
What, then, is the "menace"? What distant threat confronts us, and to what purpose? The gods vanished from this place. Are they now residents of the "beyond"?

Cocoon was built in order to counter a threat from "beyond".

Sorry for the quoting all the time. :(

Cocoon was made by the Fal'Cie. That is mentioned in the game and by that Pulse Fal'Cie data log entry in History & Society. The analects must all be taken with a pinch of salt because they are written by individuals who can distort facts.

Barthandelus never mentions Lindzei. He only refers to The Maker. Therefore it is unclear whether there is actually a God called Lindzei. It is also unclear whether there is a Goddess called Pulse. Lindzei is also never referred to anywhere on Cocoon. It would be more likely that Lindzei (who is basically Lucifer) was an idea created by the people on Pulse to further fuel their hatred of Cocoon.

The Pulse Fal'Cie looking for a portal or key to finding The Maker is perhaps unrealistic. But then again, we don't know what the purposes of these Fal'Cie are. Perhaps the Pulse Fal'Cie were given the purposes of terraforming and therefore they can only explore, whereas the Cocoon Fal'Cie were given the tasks of looking after humanity, and therefore can breed them.

The analect you refer to talks about the Fifth Ark. But the party, while there, believe that Barthandelus deliberately brought up the Fifth Ark to Cocoon in case he would ever need it. Cocoon is built from material from Pulse, so it is fairly easy for them to steal stuff.

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Originally Posted by champagne supernova

Cocoon was made by the Fal'Cie. That is mentioned in the game and by that Pulse Fal'Cie data log entry in History & Society. The analects must all be taken with a pinch of salt because they are written by individuals who can distort facts.

Barthandelus never mentions Lindzei. He only refers to The Maker. Therefore it is unclear whether there is actually a God called Lindzei. It is also unclear whether there is a Goddess called Pulse. Lindzei is also never referred to anywhere on Cocoon. It would be more likely that Lindzei (who is basically Lucifer) was an idea created by the people on Pulse to further fuel their hatred of Cocoon.

The Pulse Fal'Cie looking for a portal or key to finding The Maker is perhaps unrealistic. But then again, we don't know what the purposes of these Fal'Cie are. Perhaps the Pulse Fal'Cie were given the purposes of terraforming and therefore they can only explore, whereas the Cocoon Fal'Cie were given the tasks of looking after humanity, and therefore can breed them.

The analect you refer to talks about the Fifth Ark. But the party, while there, believe that Barthandelus deliberately brought up the Fifth Ark to Cocoon in case he would ever need it. Cocoon is built from material from Pulse, so it is fairly easy for them to steal stuff.

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I don't know. It's a bit silly to neglect the analects since it would be unneccesary complicated to provide false or inaccurate information. I'm sure this is how the story writers intented the story to be like otherwise there would be no point for the player to read them as they won't add anything to the story.

The reason that Barthandelus wants to bring the Maker (which is Pulse by the way ;)) back and not Lindzei is because she abandoned them at some point, making them orphans. Though I'm not sure if this happend before or after the Gods departed, but probably before.

As for the fal'Cie making Cocoon, well it's also possible that both Lindzei and the Cocoon fal'Cie created it. As I mentioned before Barthandelus is Cocoon's architect so he probably could make "stuff" as well. fal'Cie can't change their given Focus as that would openly condradict pretty much the entire game. It would be really dumb if nobody had noticed that huge gaping plot hole before the game was released. I think.

As for the Arks, they already existed before Barthandelus since they date back from the moment Cocoon was made. He didn't create them, as least not the very first ones and most likely not any at all.

I like your point about the terraforming fal'Cie. That seemes to make sense.

I'm not saying we should neglect the analects but rather treat them as one would any historical record. It just is strange that both Pulse & Lindzei both left the world. It is also strange that Barthandelus never mentions either Pulse or Lindzei. So I would think that this record, as it is written by people from Pulse who hate Cocoon, has twisted the truth. So, either there was never any God called Lindzei (and he was made up by Pulse) or there is a God called Lindzei who is one of The Maker's forms.

The Cocoon Fal'Cie didn't create it out of nothing. They used Pulse materials. That is why the analects you refer to has Lindzei sinking her fangs into Pulse - imagery suggesting that they tore up Pulse to gather the materials to build Cocoon.

Although your idea that Cocoon was created by The Maker (or was commissioned by The Maker) has many merits - especially when one thinks how well the different Fal'Cie integrate with each other. Perhaps a thread should be devoted to this though because this has gone way off topic.