XIII: The Flaw thread

[seiferalmasy2]

I don't mind people liking the linear nature of it, I do mind people who think that is how it should be ...to be forced on everyone. VII and the others allow you to choose whether to stick to a linear game or to explore. In other words they give you a degree of choice.

It is this that annoys me, because whilst it is perfectly fine to enjoy a linear game, it is not fine to believe that everyone will, or that by taking away choice this is a superior design move.

liking something is a personal preference, however, even someone that likes linear nature or something else should concede that this isn't a good design choice when you are forcing that on everyone, and not giving them the choices they once had. You can enjoy something and still see it as a design flaw.

The 2 are independent.

Taking away things from a game, particular things that make an RPG cannot be called anything other than a design flaw. That doesn't mean that some people won't prefer that, of course they will, this forum has proven that, but it doesn't alter the fact that it is a flaw, and that it is severely restricting things for a large section of fans.

if I took away the story completely, I can gaurentee you that a section of people would be saying "I like it better without a story thanks, more gameplay please!" and others would be "this hasn't got a bloody story! this is an RPG"

That is where balance and CHOICE come in....choose to skip it, choose to go into it more by sidequests (or in MGS' case codecs).

But forcing it one way or another is a design flaw. In XIII's case, they spent too much time on graphics and were not prepared to put more effort into making traditional towns. It wasn't even a wanted design plan, it was there because they HAD to choose 1 or the other and they decided they would rather have obscene graphics and squander time and money (see polishing rocks for 3 days), to toning down the graphics and placing that effort into towns /minigames etc.

They have said this is the reason.

Why did they do that? Because graphics SELL. It isn't a business flaw, therefore they accepted the design flaw. If more people thought like me, then it would be a business flaw as well, and thus the design flaws would get plugged.

Well, they are laughing like Mr. Mcscrooge from Duck Tales now aren't they (my personal analogy) as they swim in their profits? Because they have still sold 5.5 million copies and that will tell them to continue in this fashion.

[finaloblivion]

fair enough. you're right, not everyone has to like it, but many people did. many of those people always played the games that way and rather appreciated it when that decision was made in the development. i personally disliked the "openness" of say, XII, being forced on me so i do see where you're coming from. i don't think it's necessarily a terrible game but definitely one of my least favorite FFs. Versus should have more of something for everyone though, if you still have the faith left to try it.

[seiferalmasy2]

It's too late now really cause the PS3 is gone but they may be making it for xbox now to maximise their profits so possibly.

And yes I agree with you , XII was TOO open...or should I say, it was open without anything going on and the pacing was like an ant pushing a brick across a desert (yes I know I stole that one). I think XII had the best potential of all FF games and it was totally and utterly squandered.

Love your sig btw :P

[finaloblivion]

i think the whole xbox thing was just a statement by Wada that was a little misconstrued, but honestly I wouldn't be suprised if at this point they made it multi-platform. he said that any game, not just Versus, is not set in stone as far as platform goes until a formal announcement is made. however...

all this talk about squeenix's project X? i do believe it could be the mult-plat announce of Versus. i have my reasons, but it could be. or it's something compeltely different.

as for my sig seifer...y'know, i gotta show my love and stay true, just like you. like everyone's been throwin back and forth throughout all these arguments, there are gonna be those people that despise this game (you) and the ones who support and love it (me) and that's just how its gonna be. ya can't change it. but seriously the argument wasn't goin anywhere so we might as well just agree to disagree and move on, yeah? at least we both have our reasons for disliking XII :P

[reinward]

never before have i actually disliked a FF game, until this one.

my favorites were IX and X, but VI, VII, VIII, XII were all still good games

XIII has the most pathetic world i've ever seen. i have no concept of what cocoon really is, since the entire time we are running though metallic corridors with monsters running around. i have no problem with a game being linear if its done right. FFX was linear and i loved that game, but there is absolutely no sense of immmersion in this game. Also, the story sucks. For a game that has this many cutscenes possibly rivaling FFX for the most cutscenes ever in a FF, the story does not progress very well at all, all we get are scenes of Lightning bitching, and the villians? c'mon... Barthandelus makes Ultimecia look like Kuja (the best FF villian ever). i get that the game is more focused on the big picture but give some kind of scapegoat

the battle system is OK, i dont really like it but i dont despise it either. i just wish they would go back to the turn based system of X...

Part of what made FFs great to me was their ability to drag you into their world. conversing with townspeople and exploring cities gives you the sense that you were part of the world. this is something i though XII did very well, despite XII being one of my least favortie FFs (but still liking it), but you get NONE of this in XIII. how are there no tribes or clans of people on Gran Pulse?? completely unacceptable..


and some other minor things which drive me bonkers. i hate this games upgrade system. i hate the "treasure chests" floating orbs..wtf??? this is final FANTASY not final sci-fi...i want treasure CHESTS! i hate when games make stupid electrical items like idk i cant remember like spark plugs and crap like that. whats more exciting finding a bunch of eletric crap and upgrading it at a save point or exploring a mysterious dungeon for the legendary ultima weapon?

and what is the point of the crystarium system. i bascially is a freaking straight line (with a couple of tiny branching paths) why not just go back to the traditional level up/exp system? its just exrtra pointless work to advance crystarium.

this last complaint is directed at both XII and XIII. HUNTS AND MARKS ARE NOT SIDEQUESTS!!!! we are doing the EXACT same thing that we've been doing the entire game.. killing monsters!!! lets see something, ANYTHING else to break up the action. chocobo racing, card games, blitzball, chocobo hot and cold were all good ideas but hunts and marks SUCK.


i have a lot more complaints with it, but cant remember them all. im at chapter 12 and i have very little motivation to finish this game and most likely wont.


this is the only FF i can say i dislike (i wasnt crazy about XII, but i still liked it)

who else that this game is god awful?

[theundeadhero]

how are there no tribes or clans of people on Gran Pulse??

Storywise, because after the last war they killed each other off fighting for the necessary resources to survive.

HUNTS AND MARKS ARE NOT SIDEQUESTS!!!! we are doing the EXACT same thing that we've been doing the entire game.. killing monsters!!! lets see something, ANYTHING else to break up the action. chocobo racing, card games, blitzball, chocobo hot and cold were all good ideas but hunts and marks SUCK.

In FFXII, the Marks were the only things that kept me going through the game. I progressed the storyline to level up so I could kill the next one. I didn't even do most of them in FFXIII though. I hated the FFIX card game but loved the FFVIII one. Blitzball was alright but I pretty much hate all the chocobo sidequests from each game they're in.

[Madame Adequate]

You're gonna get on well with seiferalmasy xD

[seiferalmasy2]

Unfortunately, the author will have to contact me in PM as I have been gagged by the mods from directly commenting or from criticising.

I look forward to sending this poster some links later which will cheer him up

[Shin Gouken]

Unfortunately, the author will have to contact me in PM as I have been gagged by the mods from directly commenting or from criticising.

I look forward to sending this poster some links later which will cheer him up

Well niether of you are alone, i'm along your line of thinking regarding FFXIII too. I agree with most if not all both your complaints.

The only thing i'm going to disagree with is FFXII Marks. I think i already gave my thoughts on them in another thread somewhere so wont go into any detail here.

But you're right about FFXIII's marks. You read a simple piece of text telling you someone failed to kill something so you decide to go kill it. Walk to wherever it tells you the mark is located and then fight the same enemies you've already fought with little to no difference, even to the point where some marks are the exact same battle. They aren't fun, too few of them are actually challenging (even to 5 star) and the rewards aren't nearly enough incentive to force yourself through them.

[Rocket Edge]

I fully agree.

(Something I posted in a different thread. It deserves another post for however missed it due to the great review I was quoting from)

This game was a massive disappointment. I got to chapter 7 and literally, no matter how hard I persevered with this game could NOT bring myself to play it any further. I was looking forward to this game for so long, and tracked its progress for equal measure. This person perfectly sums up my feelings about what ticked me off so much about this game:

'Lets start from the beginning. Months prior to this games release I would hear and read time and time again on review sites, forums, everywhere... the word "linear." "This game is too 'linear'. Linear this and linear that." I got so sick of the word. It has to be some memetic mutation, an exaggeration, I thought. It can't be that bad....

It really is that bad.

All these beautiful scenes CGIs, vistas, environments, all amount to... well, a facade. You get to look at these things but you don't get to explore them. It's like uh, a looking at a pretty picture. In fact you don't get to decide anything at all. This is where the word "linear" comes in. Pretty much every place they drop you in is a just a straight path from A to B. Now I understand that most JRPGs are linear. They all amount to going from point A to point B overall, but they tend to have something in between that makes you forget that. This game, though, it's like they didn't even bother... they might as well just strap you to a bullet train, because it feels like you're just along for the ride.

You see, the majority of the game basically consists of you traveling down a hallway towards the next cutscene. I'm not even exaggerating. Everywhere is a basically a curving hallway, then cutscene, then they drop you in another hallway. At one point there was a forest, and I thought "hmm maybe I'll get to explore this time since, you know, IT'S A FOREST." Nope, just another hallway in the trees. You know, I get the feeling that these developers, deep down, just wanted to make another movie. Well they should have just made another movie and gotten it out of their system.

What is the point of the Crystarium other than to give you something else pretty to look at? This thing tries to trick you into thinking it's going to give you choices; they have a bunch of branchy looking things to that effect. You have to unlock one node to get to the next one, whether you want it or not. You get more paths to fill up later on, but by then, when you have Hope as the most powerful mage for example, what point would there be in filling his Commando path? There are no choices. If they were just going to string us around with this thing, they might as well have just had some normal level up system from 1 to 100. At least it wouldn't have been an insult to my intelligence.

The weapon's system is yet another head-scratcher. You get a weapon and you level it up with some materials you find. Then you find another weapon, but by the time you find it you've already leveled up your weapon so much that it's already better than that new weapon. Well then what's the point? I don't know whether I have to wait for new weapons or level up this one so I can be strong enough for the next boss. Was it really so hard just to have a weapon that's better than the one you have in the next shop or treasure chest? This is just too confusing.

The thing it seems they screwed up on most with this game is the storytelling, believe it or not.

These characters are so plastic and stereotypical. Vanille has the most girly little noises and gestiticulations she does that are just so damn irritating. Even Sazh, the most realistic, sensible character in the game has the most ridiculous afro, with a chocobo nesting in it... major facepalm moments here.

Maybe I would care about these characters if they had actually made the story somewhat engaging. Here's why the storytelling fails:
They begin right in the middle of the action, and everyone seems to know everything... everyone except you, the player. Right off the bat, they start throwing all these foreign words at you like "L'Cie", "Fal'Cie", "Focus" as if you're supposed to know what the hell they're talking about. Eighty percent of the time I have no idea what is going on in this game. All of a sudden I have to go to Paloompaloompa or whatever it's called. Why? All of sudden this guy wearing a wedding dress is my enemy. Why?
Everyone has a Focus, and they don't know what their focus is. But it seems that they have to figure out what their focus is or these Gods called the Fal'Cie are gonna turn them into zombies. And if they do complete their focus they get turned to crystal. Okay, so let me get this straight. These all powerful Fal'Cie decided to brand these people on their asses, make them hated by society, all to give them this task that they wanted them to do so badly. And for some reason they decided not to tell them what this task was. Not even a clue or hint, because ooooh they're so mysterious... Nice job guys.
You know how I even know all this? It's not like the characters discussed it in a conversation. You see, in the menu they have this "Data Log" you're supposed to read that tells you everything. It's literally pages and pages of information that updates every so often just so you can know what's going on. So instead of having a little exposition and character interaction to let you know all the background details, they throw a book at you. I understand they wanted to get right into the action real fast, but this is the worst way they could have possibly done it. It's like you go to a movie, and they hand out these 200 page brochures you need to read just so you can understand what's going on in the movie. You know, if I wanted to read a novel, I would have gone to Barnes and Noble and bought one. This is how you alienate your audience. This is really basic stuff. When you tell a story, you have exposition to let the audience know what's going on. I don't get why this was so hard for Square this time around. It's like they didn't even bother, just like with the linearity. In fact I heard they had a bunch of novels on their website just to explain the characters' backgrounds. Come on Square. I have a life, you know.
.
I can't even sit down to play the game for more than an hour or two because it's just so boring, nonsensical, and thanks to Vanille, irritating. I have to sit down and read paragraphs, when I just wanted to play a videogame. Do you begin to see what happened here? The developers tried so hard to turn a game into a movie, that they failed at making either. Whatever this thing is, I can't bring myself to finish it.

I know people would say "Wait till you get 20-30 hours or so into the game". Get to chapter 11 or whatever, then it opens up and gets good. Now I can understand some games starting off slow. I'm willing to wait like an hour or two, maybe three, for a game to get good. BUT 30 HOURS? You mean to tell me that I have to wait till near the END of the game for it to get any good? Why can't it be good now? Why can't it be good from the start? I just don't get it. I'm no great philosopher or logician, but I'm pretty sure a 6 year-old could tell you that that if only 10% of a game is good, then the game is bad.' - My feelings perfectly.

Why on earth they had to change it so much from the previous FF's in this regard is beyond me. I just find it so unbelievably boring. I think they forgot this was a video game and not a movie. This game doesn't even deserve a 2/10. Well maybe I'd give it that for the beautiful graphics alone. Still, a major blip in the series, and I hope for the life of me it gets back into the swing of things for upcoming Final Fantasy games.

[champagne supernova]

And what we'll counter-argue (continuously if need be) is that every single Final Fantasy since VII (at least) has followed the exact same formula. Run down to a certain area, fight a boss, cue FMV.

Maybe XIII doesn't have as many areas off the main road, but neither does any FF. There may be a greater illusion of choice, but that is all it is at the end of the day: an illusion.

And I loved the previous FFs. One example I keep citing is VIII, because of the amount of stuff you can do in the villages and just the vast number of side-quests in it. This is just a different type of experience.

I'm playing IX at the moment and I would not tell you how much I would give to have the XIII battle system at the moment. Yes, I will agree that there should have been an option for greater control when you want it, but when I have to wait half a minute for a battle scene to load (because it has to pan around the environment) then push X repeatedly for a minute, before seeing people jump around, I realise that there was something fundamentally wrong with previous FFs.

So, I think XIII is a step in the right direction. It was very linear and the battle system did not give you enough control when you wanted it (boss & difficult battles). However, I think it is a step in the right direction (albeit too large a step) and future FFs will benefit from this experiment. I am placing great hopes on Versus judging from XIII and the noises coming out of the Versus camp.

They begin right in the middle of the action, and everyone seems to know everything... everyone except you, the player. Right off the bat, they start throwing all these foreign words at you like "L'Cie", "Fal'Cie", "Focus" as if you're supposed to know what the hell they're talking about.

Unlike VII where you start off on a train (hehe, I love the little hints to previous FFs in this game) and have people accusing you of being the enemy because you're SOLDIER. And you're blowing up a mako plant.

And the datalog was a wonderful addition for people who may take a few days off the game (perhaps because they have work etc) and then can come back and get a quick recap. It is not required to follow the story, if you're paying attention.

[Rad Bromance]

BAAAAWWWWWWWWW! THERE'S NO MEN THAT LOOK LIKE WOMEN AND NO AREAS I CAN RUN AROUND IN WITH NOTHING TO DO IN THEM! BAWWWWWWWWWWW!

[Clo]

Fans of 90s RPGs are going out kicking and screaming. It's sad to watch.

Everything changes. For better or for worse.

[Mirage]

Actually no. There's plenty of better RPGs than FF13 between 2000 and 2010. Try harder next time!

[asukaevaunit02]

Firstly, I'm surprised by how much and how strong the hate for XIII is.

That said I agree with what the opening post and Rocket Edge said. I didn't really enjoy the game. It started out alright, but after a while say 20-30hrs it just felt dragged out and confusing what exactly what was going on and what the aim was, it switched too often on who the group waas going to destroy to save themselves or Coccon.
By chapter 10 or 11 it was just grinding to push on to say I finished the game... which I paid $95 for

I have no intention of replaying either, because its so slow and time consuming to get anywhere.

I also like the term of referring to XIII as a movie, because thats what it felt like, most of the time you are watching what is going on, I didn't feel like I was appart of the game/world very much at all.

There I put my 2 cents worth in finally!