Interesting insight into the FFXIII's development.

[Slothy]

Gamasutra - News - Exclusive: Behind The Scenes of Square Enix's Final Fantasy XIII

Saw this article on Gamasutra the other day and thought I'd share it with folks here. I've certainly made my feelings on the game well known in the past and can't say I'm that surprised to hear any of the stuff they talk about. Maybe a little surprised that it took them until the demo to finally buckle down and really start making the game, considering it shows a stark contrast to how things are usually done in the West where prototyping and play testing throughout development are pretty standard.

One thing that particularly caught my eye that I had to laugh about though was this:

Linearity and command-based battles were two of the features being perceived negatively. This was something that the team was very conscious about, and there were concerns about whether JRPGs would still be accepted in the West. Because Final Fantasy XIII’s mission was to succeed worldwide, we could not ignore this issue, as we felt it could deeply affect the future of the franchise.

The part about not being able to ignore criticism of linearity and command based battles in particular is my favourite bit since they basically did exactly that. I have no issue with command based battles or linearity done right, but if they were trying to avoid either then they did a terrible job.

[Flying Arrow]

What's interesting is their concern about JRPGs being accepted in the West. I genuinely see no reason why the JRPG genre can't still have an audience here. Bad fifty-hour CG movies with a combat system, though...? It's almost as if they don't want to acknowledge the disconnect between what a JRPG used to be and what it is now. As far as mechanics go, the same principles might be there, but as an overall experience the then and now are absolutely worlds apart.

[Depression Moon]

Oct 2010 issue of Game Developer - Postmortem on Final Fantasy XIII

Didn't feel like quoting his whole post.

[Jessweeee♪]

FFXIII is a success!


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Final Fantasy XIII (X360) Sales Data - VGChartz

They are very close to making their goal of 6 million if that is at all accurate.

[Wolf Kanno]

Its a financial success, which frankly no one really thought wasn't going to happen, but its critically not as successful cause the game has had the largest and most notable negative feedback of any entry in the series.

[DMKA]

Its a financial success, which frankly no one really thought wasn't going to happen, but its critically not as successful cause the game has had the largest and most notable negative feedback of any entry in the series.

You should read some of the reviews for Dirge of Cerberus and The Crystal Bearers if you honestly think that...

Playing through the game it's pretty clear the development of it was a complete disaster. In a nutshell, according to this article, they spent so much money and time bickering amongst themselves that they ended up not finishing half the crap they wanted to. That would explain why so much content was cut (which, according to SE, is enough to make a whole other game) and why throughout the entire game you see what is the beginning of deviating paths but they cut off. It's like they just hacked off all plans for the world map at the last minute to make one straight path because they just didn't have the time or money left to finish.

Despite all this, I, and other people, really enjoyed the game, and despite what people keep telling themselves, it was indeed well received, and it sold faster than any other FF game has. As of May, which was only about six months, it had already sold 5.55 million copies. Considering that in the first month it had only sold less than two million, all those other people had plenty of time to know about the game's reception, and that it "sucked", so apparently they did in fact do something right.

I wouldn't mind another FF like XIII, personally, but I would enjoy more to do than just fight. Also, please give me the option back of being able to tediously overlevel myself early on, pretty please?

[Bolivar]

Read it earlier, and was not at all surprised at how fractured the team was, and what a nightmare it was to develop the game. It was very clear before the game released that 4 years into development, the game was being rushed. That has to be a worst case scenario for any developer.

When you look at events like (SPOILER)Sazh & Vanille spending that time in that large city, with the chocobo mini-game, it was so random and never came back up again; it's obvious they probably had towns and such with non-battle events to do; it's obvious they just ran out of time and could only make levels with no purpose other than to populate it with enemies.

Do I wish it was a better game, a better FF? Of course, but I've been entertained on a linear succession of cutscenes with nothing to do but battle for 40 hours and still going strong, I can't wait to see how it all ends.

[Rostum]

Its a financial success, which frankly no one really thought wasn't going to happen, but its critically not as successful cause the game has had the largest and most notable negative feedback of any entry in the series.

*cough* FFXIV 4.0 *cough*

[Wolf Kanno]

According to Kitase, the biggest mistake may have been waiting for Crystal Tools development to utilize for the game.

It made development take much longer cause they were working out the bugs of the game and the new development software at the same time. Its no wonder the games priorities are everywhere.

As for your comment on people buying despite the negative feedback DMKA, I would like to believe that most savvy gamers don't allow reviews to hold sway on them about a title. I bought the game myself in the midst of its PR Review bashing, it just happens that I ended up agreeing with the reviews when I finished the title. Cutscenes and a bare bones combat system are not my idea of a good 40 hour investment, especially at full price. So I would say that reviews have little sway on a gamers choice especially when said game is part of a famous franchise. Halo Reach could have gotten abysmal reviews and I doubt it would have stopped fans from buying it.

[BG-57]

This has been discussed in all places, TVTropes. So the article isn't news to me.

Frankly the linearity doesn't bug me half as much as the hand-holding the game does. Want to develop your own paradigms early on? Want to to decide your party composition? Tough, we'll let you when we're good and ready.

Then suddenly you get to (SPOILER)Gran Pulse and suddenly you can wander right up to an Adamantoise. Talk about whiplash.

This is both the easiest and hardest FF I've played. I've lost count of the number of times I've gotten killed, yet the game instantly lets me try again from right before the battle instead of back to the last save. It's maddening but highly addictive, especially since I can finally start wandering around doing side quests.

[Jessweeee♪]

Its a financial success, which frankly no one really thought wasn't going to happen, but its critically not as successful cause the game has had the largest and most notable negative feedback of any entry in the series.

I know you were around for FFVIII and FFXII

FFXIII just happens to be a hot topic because it's the newest.

[VeloZer0]

Though fan review was just as controversial as always for FF# it was only FF13 that managed to not ace all the review scores.

[Wolf Kanno]

Its a financial success, which frankly no one really thought wasn't going to happen, but its critically not as successful cause the game has had the largest and most notable negative feedback of any entry in the series.

I know you were around for FFVIII and FFXII

FFXIII just happens to be a hot topic because it's the newest.

VIII and XII actually received good reviews from the press, it was fan feedback that was a bit more bitter but even then the games had more of a polarizing effect. XIII is the same way with fans but from professional sites, it was getting beaten up everywhere.

[Raistlin]

I agree, I think XIII is the first FF I've seen that got largely critical media reviews. VIII sucked hardcore, but maybe Square could do no wrong back then.

[AntagonistGB]

Crippling linearity is a feature now? Hot-damn, here I was thinking it was a glaring oversight, but it was intentional all along! Far out! That makes the game... still suck. In other words, nice try, Square, but nobody's buying your BS.

I never really got the criticisms of the battle system though. Sure, it's not as fun as any of the battles systems from FFI-FFX, but I still had a lot of fun playing with it. It seemed at the very least more genuinely difficult than most of the games, rather than pathetically easy (ie- most of them) or hard for the wrong reasons, to the point of sadism (FFXI or FFXII, for example)