Which genre is FFXIII?

[Zeromus]

Sorry if this was already posted here in this forum. I never come here to the FFXIII forum because I didn't like the game. I made a search about this, but didn't found a thread about it.

For not important reasons, I was googleing about FFXIII. And I found a lot of people is wrong when talking about the genre of the game. When they say it is not purely an RPG, they say it is a Dungeon Crawler D:!
...Why do people call it a Dungeon Crawler? WHY?!

FFXIII IS NOT a Dungeon Crawler.

One of the main characteristics of a Dungeon Crawler is the immersion and exploration factor of having labyrinthic and enormous maps. The dungeons of this type of games are so big, and the games lack so much (in most of cases) of story that the genre have just a few followers. Maybe that is one of the reasons why I haven't seen people complaining about this SO wrong definition of FFXIII.
Having FFXIII a corridor-like map almost in the 80% of the game, and a full of cg-movies story can't be a Dungeon Crawler!

Being a dungeon crawler lover, I'm so mad about people saying FF is one of those games. But, I'm not sure if I wanna call it an RPG.
I know we all here are players of the RPG series named Final Fantasy... But, what do you think about it? It this really an RPG? (I know the genre thing has been a theme in other forums like Gamespot and stuff, but I would like your opinnion, guys)

I won't say it is not an RPG, I'd maybe say it is a Bad RPG, a wrong made RPG. But that is a subjective definition. How would you define the game objectively?

[Jiro]

It's not a dungeon crawler, it's just fairly linear.

[kotora]

If I'm not allowed to call it a ty game, I'd say it's an on-rail RPG. Or a tunnel crawler.

[Zeromus]

Yeah, Tunnel crawler sounds better!

[Shaibana]

i know RPG is Role play game...
but what does RPG really say? is it becaus u can play with more character?
whats the definition of RPG? :$

[ZeroFusion]

For me, FF13 just fits well to the J-RPG genre - it's different from W-RPGs in many ways (though not that many as previous installments) and I'm probably one of the few people who didn't mind the linearity. What really disappointed me was the Crystarium - it offers no real choices to develop you characters to suit your needs! It's just a crippled offspring of FFX's Sphere Grid.

And yes, I did miss the world map, but Gran Pulse made a good just substituting that. In my opinion, world map in previous Final Fantasies only provided an illusion of freedom - you more often than not were restricted where you can go early in the game (either by strong creatures you can't kill without insane grinding or just by natural obstacles like mountains) and by the end, you always had some means of quicker movement (airship, chocobo, teleports, ...).

[Mirage]

RPG-themed rail-grinder.

I'll take my illusion of freedom over walking down a corridor with a steamroller behind me any day of the week.

[VeloZer0]

I don't see how you can't call it a JRPG. It is at the extreme linear section of it for sure, but I can't see how people would say it doesn't fit at all.

[Wolf Kanno]

It's a middle management movie. The best way I can describe XIII is that it's like going into a movie that looks promising with its flashy explosions and sexy characters and even has a few big names behind it. Then you quickly discover it's actually more of soap opera drama where the characters spend more time repeating over and over their terrible problems until you lose all sympathy for them. Made worse by the fact it uses great actors but obviously the writers and the director were purchased from the bottom of the barrel to pay for the big name actors to appear. The actors sometimes do moving moments but the script is awful and often times comes off more unintentionally funny and pathetic rather than actual dramatic. It's not even B-Movie "so bad it's good" it is just kinda hard to watch cause everything is done so over-excruciatingly dramatic and the plot never goes anywhere for what feels like hours. Even when you finally get to the most talked about portion of the film, you've been barely paying attention so the lack of context and sheer mental strain of the awful story just makes the whole scene fall flat and have you wishing you were watching the credits instead of the scene in question.

As you're brain slowly tries to shut itself off, you start to look around you, and notice the person sitting in front of you is in the same boat. Except this guy has the bright idea of pulling out their cell phone and playing some Pac-Man, so now you find yourself half paying attention to the film but constantly being distracted by the guy playing Pac-Man cause sadly it's more interesting than what is going on the screen so you start watching him play Pac-Man. Occasionally you point out times he should go a different direction to avoid ghosts or grab a power pellet. Sometimes he lets you play, but doesn't hand you the cell instead, making you reach over the seat and play over him until he gets annoyed and you both agree it's better to just let him do all the work, while you watch and give some insight. Course the other patrons get annoyed at the whispering and spectacle and force you to stop interacting with the guy in front of you and forced to watch the film for 10-20 minutes before you both get bored and Pac-Man is out once again, you play until the other patrons yell and go back to watching the awful film. This pattern continues until the film is over.

Extend this scenario for 40 hours and you pretty much have the FFXIII experience.

[Flying Arrow]

And yes, I did miss the world map, but Gran Pulse made a good just substituting that. In my opinion, world map in previous Final Fantasies only provided an illusion of freedom - you more often than not were restricted where you can go early in the game (either by strong creatures you can't kill without insane grinding or just by natural obstacles like mountains) and by the end, you always had some means of quicker movement (airship, chocobo, teleports, ...).

I'm certainly not calling you out or anything, but this is a comment I see made often and I'm not entirely sure it's warranted. I would argue that while the older games gave you a wide open world map to explore, none of them ever attempted to provide any kind of illusion of "freedom" (if by "freedom" you mean open-worldiness in the Elder Scrolls sense). Rather, they just wanted the player to feel as if they were embarking on a world-crossing adventure. Final Fantasy (and JRPGs in particular) has never been built to allow free-roaming exploration. That's just not in the design philosophy.

Anyway, where FFXIII is considered - it is most certainly a JRPG. It's no less linear in its storytelling as any other game (all stories are linear) - it's linear in the sense that it is almost entirely a straight line from beginning to end. Hold up on the joystick and deal with battles as they come - end of FFXIII. On top of being a hallway, XIII's world design never really changes up the formula at all. There are no towns, no reprieves, and no areas to stop and take in the sights or discover the world via NPC interaction. Of the maps that require more than just traveling forward, very few of them require any kind of mental labour on the part of the player. It's just the same over-the-shoulder adventure game view right up until the end. Older FFs never tried to deceive the player into thinking they were freer within the game world than was possible (despite what game critics have been saying, the ignorant louts); it's just that they gave players stuff to do and to check out in their worlds and XIII... pretty much doesn't.

My verdict: straight up JRPG that happens to have very simplified map design. It's certainly not a dungeon-crawler for the simple facts that 1) the areas aren't varied enough to be considered dungeons, and 2) there is absolutely no resource or survival management that the player needs to worry about in order to continue discovering more of the game world.

[LunarWeaver]

It's a middle management movie. The best way I can describe XIII is that it's like going into a movie that looks promising with its flashy explosions and sexy characters and even has a few big names behind it. Then you quickly discover it's actually more of soap opera drama where the characters spend more time repeating over and over their terrible problems until you lose all sympathy for them. Made worse by the fact it uses great actors but obviously the writers and the director were purchased from the bottom of the barrel to pay for the big name actors to appear. The actors sometimes do moving moments but the script is awful and often times comes off more unintentionally funny and pathetic rather than actual dramatic. It's not even B-Movie "so bad it's good" it is just kinda hard to watch cause everything is done so over-excruciatingly dramatic and the plot never goes anywhere for what feels like hours. Even when you finally get to the most talked about portion of the film, you've been barely paying attention so the lack of context and sheer mental strain of the awful story just makes the whole scene fall flat and have you wishing you were watching the credits instead of the scene in question.

As you're brain slowly tries to shut itself off, you start to look around you, and notice the person sitting in front of you is in the same boat. Except this guy has the bright idea of pulling out their cell phone and playing some Pac-Man, so now you find yourself half paying attention to the film but constantly being distracted by the guy playing Pac-Man cause sadly it's more interesting than what is going on the screen so you start watching him play Pac-Man. Occasionally you point out times he should go a different direction to avoid ghosts or grab a power pellet. Sometimes he lets you play, but doesn't hand you the cell instead, making you reach over the seat and play over him until he gets annoyed and you both agree it's better to just let him do all the work, while you watch and give some insight. Course the other patrons get annoyed at the whispering and spectacle and force you to stop interacting with the guy in front of you and forced to watch the film for 10-20 minutes before you both get bored and Pac-Man is out once again, you play until the other patrons yell and go back to watching the awful film. This pattern continues until the film is over.

Extend this scenario for 40 hours and you pretty much have the FFXIII experience.

You need a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or somethin', man!

[Jessweeee♪]

When I hear dungeon crawler I think of RPGs that don't have a deep plot. Like Pokemon.

But seriously smurf genres.

[ShinGundam]

Active Time Battle + Beat'em up

I won't say it is not an RPG, I'd maybe say it is a Bad RPG, a wrong made RPG. But that is a subjective definition. How would you define the game objectively?

It is an RPG, An RPG doesn't necessarily have to be the equivalent of a Choose Your Own Adventure or be non-linear. I think FFXIII's main problems is that the game bet too heavily on focusing exclusively on a tiny number of elements/contents but i don't think it is a bad RPG.

My verdict: straight up JRPG that happens to have very simplified map design.

I don't think it has to do with FF13 but you have described most of the modern single players campaign. Games now are straight up because gamers don't want to get stuck in games/ get lost/ replay the level from the start, they want to have the full experience of their games without any frustrations. plain and simple.

[kotora]

My verdict: straight up JRPG that happens to have very simplified map design.

I don't think it has to do with FF13 but you have described most of the modern single players campaign. Games now are straight up because gamers don't want to get stuck in games/ get lost/ replay the level from the start, they want to have the full experience of their games without any frustrations. plain and simple.

While I think it's a sad state games have gotten into, I still love posting this pic.

[ZeroFusion]

I'm certainly not calling you out or anything, but this is a comment I see made often and I'm not entirely sure it's warranted. I would argue that while the older games gave you a wide open world map to explore, none of them ever attempted to provide any kind of illusion of "freedom" (if by "freedom" you mean open-worldiness in the Elder Scrolls sense). Rather, they just wanted the player to feel as if they were embarking on a world-crossing adventure. Final Fantasy (and JRPGs in particular) has never been built to allow free-roaming exploration. That's just not in the design philosophy.

Anyway, where FFXIII is considered - it is most certainly a JRPG. It's no less linear in its storytelling as any other game (all stories are linear) - it's linear in the sense that it is almost entirely a straight line from beginning to end. Hold up on the joystick and deal with battles as they come - end of FFXIII. On top of being a hallway, XIII's world design never really changes up the formula at all. There are no towns, no reprieves, and no areas to stop and take in the sights or discover the world via NPC interaction. Of the maps that require more than just traveling forward, very few of them require any kind of mental labour on the part of the player. It's just the same over-the-shoulder adventure game view right up until the end. Older FFs never tried to deceive the player into thinking they were freer within the game world than was possible (despite what game critics have been saying, the ignorant louts); it's just that they gave players stuff to do and to check out in their worlds and XIII... pretty much doesn't.

My verdict: straight up JRPG that happens to have very simplified map design. It's certainly not a dungeon-crawler for the simple facts that 1) the areas aren't varied enough to be considered dungeons, and 2) there is absolutely no resource or survival management that the player needs to worry about in order to continue discovering more of the game world.

All good points, I agree. I liked world maps - I just wanted to say that people might be unjust by objurgating FF13 for the absence of it. Having a world map in a Final Fantasy game feels right, but not having it doesn't mean the game is bad. I personally liked FF13's approach much more than FFX-2's "let's teleport here now and let's teleport there after that".