I Don't Get the Complaints around XIII

[Dignified Pauper]

It just isn't a concept that makes sense. I think I also have a hard time dealing with the premise of gods doing anything toward intervention in general. But, that said, it's just ridiculous that there is that much confusion.

I personally think that the analects were a great way to tell the story because it does allow for complete misinformation to enter historical record. The authors put the analects in there to deliberately confuse the player. The datalogue is just bad story telling form. It really should have been put into the story better.

But, again, the story just has so many gaps. If the Cocoon Fal'Cie were just trying to wipe out humans because they believed humans were a scourge to existence, I'd believe that more than some silly God idea. Especially because they were created by the maker to build Cocoon, as I understood it, and they did, and so, where did this awareness come from for the Fal'Cie.

[Rozaheku]

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.

Well, I'm just quoting what the game tells you, and there is no real reason to believe otherwise in my opinion. Keep in mind that the creation of Cocoon happend long ago, and that Barthandelus had never a reason to mention Lindzei in context with the story, and that's why she is merely mentioned. And the game just doesn't make sense otherwise.

I think I also have a hard time dealing with the premise of gods doing anything toward intervention in general.

I think I kind off agree with you here. Though on the other hand, only one god actually interferes, and that was because she pitied mortal beings, though I don't know if that is a reasonable explanation. It makes her come off a deux ex machina which is true I suppose.

But, again, the story just has so many gaps. If the Cocoon Fal'Cie were just trying to wipe out humans because they believed humans were a scourge to existence, I'd believe that more than some silly God idea. Especially because they were created by the maker to build Cocoon, as I understood it, and they did, and so, where did this awareness come from for the Fal'Cie.

The fal'Cie believed that the portal to which the Gods departed to is the same as where all the souls leave the mortal plane. The fal'Cie's logic is, that when Cocoon is destroyed, a flood of souls will go through the portal and throw it open wide and they hoped to catch a glimpse of that what lies beyond.

As for the awareness of the fal'Cie, all life is self-conscience, even plants are, though not the same why as animals and humans. fal'Cie are alive, they have a conscience, and therefore they exist. If something has no self-conscience it cannot be alive. Gods create life and not machines. Most of the time.

Then again, you could argue that the Maker should have given the fal'Cie the conscience of a plant, but the tasks that they have to do require just that. You can't expect for example Barthandelus to be Cocoon's overseer without that aspect, and neither can you expect Bismarck to guard the waters of the Sulyya Springs without it.

However, I believe there are also fal'Cie who's only task is to open doors or something trivial like that. But you could say all fal'Cie are designed like they are because only then they could overcome certain problems that might come their way? As an attempt to make them 100 % effecient? Of course, being 100 % effecient doesn't mean someone is completely perfect as XIII's story shows.

[Lamia]

I'm not bugged that I am on a linear path that I cannot deviate from, because I had to get over that when I played FFX years ago. In fact, I remember being pissed that there wasn't a world map, but I got over it. FFX only had one dungeon, and it was optional. Everything else was a trail, a cutscene, a trial (a sphere/glyph puzzle followed by an Aeon battle), and another boss. However, the game had a fantastic battle, and weapons customization system. Break HP and damage was a welcomed addition and the sphere grid lead to many possibilities.

The boss battles were also more strategic than they had ever been.

FFXIII takes some getting use to as well but it does contain the innovation that FFX and even FFXII also had.

FFXIII's battle system is the most intense yet.

Monster groups in FFXIII are strategically designed, requiring different tactics for each battle.

Some would look at the lack of towns and a vast empty "explorable" area as "cutting the fat" rather than a technical error. Personally, I would have liked the design to have at least give the illusion of a big, open world, but imho, this is a very minor flaw.

There is some worry that FFXIII can no longer be considered an RPG, but some hardcore RPG fans don't even consider the entire FF series an RPG. This type of evolution in FF gameplay is logical.

Elder Scrolls, Final Fantasy is not.

FFXIII boss battles are EPIC. Period.

The story is fast-paced and plot driven. There is also depth to characters unprecedented in any FF game. The graphical potential of the 7th generation consoles give FFXIII characters life-like facial expressions that bring them to life.

The design decision was bold and I think the right one. The games content and design has become very controversial. What would of happened to the series if the game was just another FF game, with the same ol' same ol"?

[Rocket Edge]

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.

[VeloZer0]

I thought it deviated just as much as FF12 did.

[Shin Gouken]

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.

I agree with every.single.word

And that's only half of this games problems. This guy having not finished the game can't even comment on the bull ending, the stale battle system that sacrafices 90% of interaction your supposed to have with flashy graphics. The tedious grinding you must endure for the ultimate weapons which it then discourages you from using because you'll never see a 5 star after battle ranking while using them. The single "side-quest" which not only isn't a side-quest as it's intended to be additional content for after the main story, but also is just a lazy version of FFXII's far superior version. Jee-zuss i try to be respectful to people who enjoy it but this "game" is just god awful and a 2/10 is far too generous

[finaloblivion]

to the people debating on fal'Cie and such, there is a thread I started a while ago (On Orphan and Barthandalus) that has the same discussion going on in there, as well as the thread "About the Gods". go in there and discuss some more because that's one of my favorite sides to this game and (really) I do think it makes sense, but the Analects are a little cloudy and open for interpretation - as is actual history (or the Bible, to be broad). There are answers to be found, you just have to read everything very carefully. and again, a lot of it is open for interpretation. BoB especially has a good theory as to the meaning of The Maker, Pulse and Lindzei. Supernova, you should go check it man.

As for the other responses on this page, I'll say it again...I enjoy this game very much. one of my favorite entries in the series, I think it's exquisite. again, and this argument has been had many a time, it's all up to personal preference to the different systems. it's very different than previous FF titles, but i would be truly disappointed if they were all the exact same. i've already stated my reasons and arguments for liking this game, so i won't go too much further.

[black orb]

>>> I finally was able to play this game im in chapter 10 right now.

Is not a bad game, in fact this game would have been great if they didnt name it "Final Fantasy", the game just doesnt feel like a Final Fantasy and of course is not up to a FF game in terms of quality (the story/plot has lot of flaws).. The game has lot of potential but Squarenix just got lazy and didnt put enough effort on it, they probably thought that awesome graphics and a decent battle system were enough to make a FF game..

[Eagle299]

Things I liked about Final Fantasy XIII;

Most of the cast. Especially Lightning and Fang. Lightning is probably my favorite Final Fantasy protaganist since Cloud. I also liked Sazh and Vanille as their backstories came out.

The Combat. Its fast paced. Fluid. The AI characters generally do a pretty good job of their various rolls (I'm a better Synergist than the AI, though, since I'll cast every spell I can in one turn). I don't mind that I'm only controlling my leader. Its the same thing I get when I'm playing Mass Effect or Tales of Vesperia (though in the latter I can switch which party member I'm controlling on the fly).

The graphics. Easily one of the most beautiful games I've ever played. I think Bioware still beats Square Enix in the department of human skin, but at the same time, Square Enix definitely makes the best hair I've ever seen. And I never get bored looking around Gran Pulse.

Things I could take or leave;

Snow. Guy's more or less a lovable idiot. Good intentions, but if this were not Final Fantasy, he would have gotten his little rebel group killed in about 30 seconds. He has is uses taking hits for the more useful characters. But keep him away from any sort of leadership responciblities. And sharp objects, he might hurt himself.

The Story. Not exactly bad, but not great like the classics that are IV, VI and VII.

Things I hated;

The level design, or lack their of. The straight line you're kept on for 90% of the game is just plain boring. Being able to see the enemies is meaningless as you can't avoid most of them even if you wanted it, and its stupid to anyway, since that's less CP and items you may be getting. Only when you get to Gran Pulse is this problem rectified.

Hope. I hated this whiny little bitch with a passion. Like I have hated no other video game character I can think of. He spends most of the game harboring a grudge against a guy who went out of his way to save his mother's life. And when he does get over that, well, he still does nothing to redeem himself in my eyes. The only thing that made his portions of the game tolerable were being partnered with Lightning. I'm only glad that following the battle with his Eidolon, I was able to put him in the back of the party and pretend he no longer exists.

The Sentinel roll. A complete waste of space. No offensive benefits at all, and I hated that certain battles pretty much require you to have a Sentinel to survive. If an enemy is really hitting me that hard, the proper solution should be merely sacrificing 1/3 of my offensive capablities to having a Medic to keep everyone healthy, not having a meat shield around. The proper way to do a Tank in video games are things like Fawkes from Fallout 3, Grunt from Mass Effect 2, or Shale from Dragon Age: Origins. Characters who can take the abuse, and hold the enemies attention because they're busy killing them.