FFXIII storytelling approach sucked.

[reinward]

they dump you into a chaotic crazy scene using terms like L'cie, Fal'cie, etc expecting you to know wtf they are talking about

i thought X had it down perfect. tidus knows nothing about spira. when wakka first tells him about Yevon he's like WTF, and so was i. wakka had to explain it to both of us. i liked that, also led to lots of funny moments while XIII was almost completely devoid of any humour

thoughts?

[VeloZer0]

I wouldn't hold up FFX as a example of great storytelling, but I think the general consensus is that FF13 did a poor just of fleshing out the world.

Datalogs are mostly relied upon to develop the world, which I think is a huge cop out.

[leftay]

i agree >.< the cut scenes in ff13 were so dramatic but they didn't tell you anything

[Mo-Nercy]

I'm actually glad that the game tried to throw us right into the middle of the action without bothering to set the scene. I think the FFX excuse of 'being transported to another world' is about as clichéd as the main character having amnesia. And I didn't mind the datalogs, per se.. but they could've cut back on them a bit, I suppose. You don't need to read them to understand the story though, because the story's not that complicated.

As Velo has said, the datalogs seem to be there more to develop the world's backstory and immerse the player in the characters', Cocoon's and Gran Pulse's histories than to explain the story, but walls of text just aren't very good at that by nature.

But if you're like me, and you were only interested in the central story anyway and not really inclined to go into the datalogs to read about towns you know you'd never get to visit again, the game does a decent job of storytelling.

[Wolf Kanno]

I am in agreement that I wouldn't put in X as a shiny example of how to do things but also, I'm like No-Mercy and don't mind the story throwing you into the thick of things without explaining everything (hey, these characters should know what half this stuff means) but I definetly agree that the Datalogs did a poor job of well... everything.

I couldn't tell you how often I would sit there bored in a dialogue scene with Lightning being a droid, Snow being an idiot and Hope whining like a little bitch only to read the Datalog entry for the scene and have it this massive wall of text explaining the emotional turmoil and dynamics that I felt were lacking in the scene.

I felt the DataLogs told a much better version of the story than the games cutscenes and acting did but it also got really annoying when Chapter 11 starts and the Datalog drops a huge plot twist on the player that has no reference to anything spoken of in the game (SPOILER)(for those wondering, its Vanille claiming she was Ragnarok during the last war and was the one that damaged Cocoon, which is revealed right at the start of the chapter despite Vanille ever saying such) . Like it was speaking of a scene that was edited out throw in the fact its used as a catalyst for a scene that is mostly pointless in terms of character depth for her and used mostly as an excuse to use get her summon to appear and I feel its time to just give up on the games story ever returning from B-Movieville.

I feel the other problem with the plot is that the first half of the game is soley dedicated to the characters and telling their emotional tale of coming to terms with everything. Personally I felt it was all dragged out really long and in some cases I felt characters got better while others got worst but it all ends in some pretty great story segments in Chapter 7 and 8. Then the game remembers it needs to have a plot and that's when everything pretty much falls apart.

Chapter 7 was hinting to some pretty mature stuff that would make resolving the story a lot more complicated and not end in solely in pyrotechnics but then we have to introduce a real villain who was not exactly a surprise and then reveal his nefarious plan which reeked of being taken directly from previous installments (X and XII to be exact) an then the plot just kind of crashes and burns from there with predictable plot twists, boring Checknov's Guns, and mostly dumbing down the plot to give it an easy ending that results in a climatic battle to save the world with a generic evil boss.

Not to mention the game does nothing to make you even care about its world, I find the author dropped the ball into justifying to the player why Cocoon should be saved beyond appealing to the idea that's what we're expected to do. Then the game throws out one of the most BS endings in the series just so it can end happy (bittersweet if you actually cared) and yeah, the game has a terrible story... The most annoying thing is that it had a lot of concepts to work with that could have made an engaging story but it sorta chooses to back peddle away from darker more mature elements and go the easy way out instead.

[Future Esthar]

Agreed.
For instance the way Chapter 11 ends (oerba included) was nonsensical.

[Eagle299]

I think the way the game opened was good. I can't bring myself to complain about being dropped head first into the action. However, it did not continue with what was good from there. The story never explained what a Fal'Cie or l'Cie or Cie'th was. You HAD to look that up in the datalog to have clue 1 about what's going on. X did it right there. It provided a character with an outside point of view to explain things to. The story in XIII did not. It provided no explination for the audiance what so ever that didn't require us to read up on the background manually.

[VeloZer0]

I think one of the strengths of the FF series is the fact that they drop you right into the action. As far as I am concerned starting out as a young lad in a perfectly peaceful village is an exceptionally poor way to start a game, even if it wasn't cliche. (I blame Tolkien for its prevalence)

It's how the world develops after that that is important. Time was you ran around town and talked to NPCs to flesh out the world. Personally I though stuff like Dr. Gast's video recordings in Icicle Inn were a great mechanic. If you just want to blast through the game with a basic understanding of the plot you just pass them by. For those who want a deeper understanding and are searching out all the locals they visit they are presented with a veritable treasure chest of world building.

It's no secret that one of the major factors in FF13's glacial release speed was the amount of effort put in to graphical apeal. Is it any surprise that they chose to display optional world fleshing out details in an entirely non graphical method?

Then the game remembers it needs to have a plot and that's when everything pretty much falls apart.

No need to repeat this, I just like the quote.

[black orb]

>>> Yep, the storytelling is the game`s major flaw.. I think the story focused too much in Serah, I never cared about the girl (and i think im not the only one) but they just kept going Serah, Serah, Seraaah!!! WTF?, I dont give a damn about the girl, I want my main characters care about saving the world..
The other flaw is the lack of a serious main villain/antagonist, someone like Sephiroth or Kuja..

I dont know who wrote the script for this game but that person should be fired..

[VeloZer0]

I think the story focused too much in Serah, I never cared about the girl (and i think im not the only one) but they just kept going Serah, Serah, Seraaah!!! WTF?, I dont give a damn about the girl, I want my main characters care about saving the world..

Totally. We probably needed a few hours to get attached to her if they really wanted us to care. (Not that I probably would have, but at least I would respect the effort)

[Eagle299]

>>> Yep, the storytelling is the game`s major flaw.. I think the story focused too much in Serah, I never cared about the girl (and i think im not the only one) but they just kept going Serah, Serah, Seraaah!!! WTF?, I dont give a damn about the girl, I want my main characters care about saving the world..
The other flaw is the lack of a serious main villain/antagonist, someone like Sephiroth or Kuja..

I dont know who wrote the script for this game but that person should be fired..

Barthandelus tried to fill the roll of major villain, unfortunately, he was introduced too late in the story and did very little other than tell you about his evil scheme. Which didn't suck as evil schemes go, but still didn't compare to moving the three goddess statues or summoning meteor.

[Future Esthar]

The three statues concept appear on the game though.