Final Fantasy 12's Party vs. Final Fantasy 13's Party

[Forsaken Lover]

Come at me.

Let's seriously examine this for a second. I noted back when i played FFXIII that it was trying really damn hard to be different from XII. The linearity is one major difference of course but the other is how both games deal with their cast.

Let's face it - FFXII did a horrible job with its party. Party members are largely irrelevant for most of the game, with Fran, Vaan and Penelo just taking up space. Basch suffers that too as after Vossler dies, he becomes totally superfluous until the frickin' final dungeon. Balthier too only does anything of note once you reach about the halfway mark of the game. Ashe is the only consistent character.
No, the real stars of FFXII were the antagonists. They moved the plot, they got most of the character exposition and development, and the whole game was really about them.

FFXIII averts this by having three, maybe four, antagonists and they only come into play like 10 hours or so into the game. And even when they finally do show up, they don't stay very long at all whereas every other cutscene in FFXii showed the bad guys.
Final Fantasy 13 is definitely a game about the heroes and how the heroes are dealing with the crappy situation they find themselves in. Not once does any of them feel out-of-place or unnecessary and they all get some development.

Vanille > Penelo - Duh. Vanille is sexier and actually matters.

Hope > Vaan - Vaan has a terrible voice and design. He also does nothing for most of the game except serve as comedic relief.

Sazh > Basch - only because Basch does jack for damn near the entire game.

Lightning < Ashe - Although I will admit, Lightning being the first main female with no love interest whatsoever is something. Shame everything else about her sucks and Ashe beats her in voice, look, motivation, backstory...

Snow = Balthier - I liked them both. Snow did more for the plot but that's just because FF13 treated its party better. Once Balthier actually does anything of importance (ie. once you head for Archades) he helps shape one of the best subplots in the game.
They're also alike in that they both have orgasm-inducing voices. And don't forget their common bond of being confused as to their role in the narrative.

Everyone in FFXIII >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Fran. Fran is garbage, pure and simple. At least Feng actually succeeded at her fanservice. Fran's voice was so terribad that it ruined any attempt at sexiness and she was only in the game for that "sexiness."

[Quindiana Jones]

FFFFFFPFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT.

[Del Murder]

Balthier has some of the best one-liners of any video game character ever. I would compare him to Sazh rather than Snow. Basch beats Snow by a mile. Why does anyone like Snow?

I would rate the casts pretty even between the two games. It's true the FFXIII focused a lot more on its primary characters but that wasn't always to the game's benefit. I would have liked to see more prevalent NPCs in that game.

[maybee]

FF12 coz Fran. Enough said.

[Wolf Kanno]

Well part of the issue here is that FFXII is a plot driven game whereas XIII is a character driven piece so it makes more sense that XIII would focus on the characters more and not so much the antagonist (unless they had a personal history with one of the characters which XIII didn't do) whereas XII focused more the story and the story driving villains (cause heroes are traditionally reactionary, while villains are proactive) would get more focus in XII. So a big part of the rift in how both games have their characters written is due to the games being different types of story focuses. Its kind of like poor FFV when people compare it to FFIV and VI, IV and VI are character driven, whereas FFV is more story driven, hence less of a need to go into any deep character development cause how Bartz feels about his past isn't going to help the party beat ExDeath, Whereas Cecil and Terra coming to grips with who they are and their pasts is a major focus and explains what drives them to continue on the good fight for/against *insert generic FF plot*.

When taken into the context of how they were written I feel both games have some issues but I genuinely prefer XII's cast over the oversaturated melodramatic wankfest of the XIII cast.

Ashe coming to grips with choosing to be a wise ruler or a mourning widow is far more complex, better paced and told than Lighting realizing she's a bitch with anger management issues.

Basch choosing to keep his vow of protection of Ashe and Dalmasca despite both hating him and choosing to be an honorable stoic knight is a much more original and well told story, than Snow realizing that he's a gung-ho idiot that causes more problems than solves.

Sahz is certainly a high point in XIII but considering how much he's downplayed beyond the two chapters focusing on him and how he's relegated to comic relief background character halfway through the game so angry bitch and heroic moron can take center stage shows that XIII can't even utilize its best asset well. Baltheir also doesn't get enough air time but at least XII recognizes that he's a charming and amusing character who plays the serious/comic relief card better than Sahz does.

Vaan is bland but he's a bit of a non-traditional heroics youth in that his he doesn't completely overtake the plot as the lead and his growth is more gradual and organic(something The Last Story could have used with Zael), as opposed to Vanille who is a stereotypical genki girl who serves mostly as a giant plot device who spends 3/4ths of the game acting like she's on shrooms and the other 1/4th being in despair about the problems she causes and how utterly useless she is.

Hope... is a poor Ken Amada substitute who acts way too young for his age, and lacks any kind of middle ground, largely jumping from the extreme emotions of despair, hatred, and Friendship is Magic.

Fang has no character development, besides being overprotective of Vanille what growth does he get? Even Fran gets a touching moment about her past and learning she abandoned her family and people to see the world and live in freedom, even Penelo is justified as being the key to a peaceful future with Archades due to her friendship with Prince Larsa, whereas what purpose does Fang serve in the plot? She can actually be totally written out and nothing would have to be really changed except the logo and not having to suffer one of the most painful scenes in the game that serves more as a giant plothole/"wtf were the writers thinking?" moments in a game filled with plotholes and WTF moments.

So yeah... XII is better.

[Pete for President]

When taken into the context of how they were written I feel both games have some issues but I genuinely prefer XII's cast over the oversaturated melodramatic wankfest of the XIII cast.

Ashe coming to grips with choosing to be a wise ruler or a mourning widow is far more complex, better paced and told than Lighting realizing she's a bitch with anger management issues.

Basch choosing to keep his vow of protection of Ashe and Dalmasca despite both hating him and choosing to be an honorable stoic knight is a much more original and well told story, than Snow realizing that he's a gung-ho idiot that causes more problems than solves.

Sahz is certainly a high point in XIII but considering how much he's downplayed beyond the two chapters focusing on him and how he's relegated to comic relief background character halfway through the game so angry bitch and heroic moron can take center stage shows that XIII can't even utilize its best asset well. Baltheir also doesn't get enough air time but at least XII recognizes that he's a charming and amusing character who plays the serious/comic relief card better than Sahz does.

Vaan is bland but he's a bit of a non-traditional heroics youth in that his he doesn't completely overtake the plot as the lead and his growth is more gradual and organic(something The Last Story could have used with Zael), as opposed to Vanille who is a stereotypical genki girl who serves mostly as a giant plot device who spends 3/4ths of the game acting like she's on shrooms and the other 1/4th being in despair about the problems she causes and how utterly useless she is.

Hope... is a poor Ken Amada substitute who acts way too young for his age, and lacks any kind of middle ground, largely jumping from the extreme emotions of despair, hatred, and Friendship is Magic.

Fang has no character development, besides being overprotective of Vanille what growth does he get? Even Fran gets a touching moment about her past and learning she abandoned her family and people to see the world and live in freedom, even Penelo is justified as being the key to a peaceful future with Archades due to her friendship with Prince Larsa, whereas what purpose does Fang serve in the plot? She can actually be totally written out and nothing would have to be really changed except the logo and not having to suffer one of the most painful scenes in the game that serves more as a giant plothole/"wtf were the writers thinking?" moments in a game filled with plotholes and WTF moments.

So yeah... XII is better.

I agree with all of this and the bold bit sums it up nicely. APPLAUSE!

[Tonberry Time]

Snow = Balthier - I liked them both.

Wait what? You like Snow? I question your existence.

Back on topic, in my opinion both of these games have issues with their cast of characters. In FFXII the only party members which I genuinely thought to be interesting was Ashe and Balthier. Basch was inherently an interesting character as well, but after a short while he for some reason permanently loses the spotlight, and would've ended up a rather forgettable character had it not been for the rest of the cast, which is bad to say the least. Fran is there for obvious fan service, but I didn't find her design particularly alluring, nor does her voice acting do her any favors. She's just Balthier's sidekick.

On to Vaan. He suffers from the same problem as Basch, about 1/3 into the game it's painfully obvious that he has nothing more to contribute to the story, and he eventually ends up as just the guy you hear talking in the back during cutscenes together with Penelo. Who doesn't matter AT ALL, and she has a shockingly bad character design.

Ashe and Balthier ends up as being the only interesting characters in the main party. Ashe, since THE STORY IS ABOUT HER, WHY ISN'T SHE THE MAIN CHARACTER??? And Balthier because he's witty and has an interesting backstory. What really plagues FFXII in my opinion though, is that none of the characters have a particularly good design. They're all simply a bit... Gray and lifeless, in my opinion.

Moving on to FFXIII, I actually found Lightning to be an overall good character. Her personality kinda reminds me of Cloud's, and if I had to put up with being around SNOW all the time I wouldn't probably have severe anger issues as well. Sazh, I liked him too, but has been said countless times already he eventually ended up as a background character. And there's a chocobo living in his afro. How can you NOT like a guy like that?

Fang and Vanille earned a spot on my team simply because Sazh wasn't a terribly good combat character, and the other choices where Hope and SNOW. The kawaii-desu factor of Vanille would have gotten on my nerves in just about every other game, but in this game they were a pleasant respite for listening to the endless arguments with Hope and SNOW.

Which brings me to Snow and Hope. The insane amount of cutscenes between those two characters nearly caused me to break my vow of never skipping cutscenes the first time I'm watching them. And they're all about the same thing, that Snow is somehow responsible for his mother's death, when he knows Snow couldn't possibly have done anything about it. And that's Hope's entire reason for being there too. And Snow, Snow is in my opinion the absolute worst character of the entire series. His design(and voice) simply makes him seem like the greatest douchebag that ever lived, and he never offers any sort of cohesive plan other than "YEAH LET'S DO IT".

To sum up, I'm glad both of these games have a party limit of 3, so I can let the background characters in FFXII slide back to the shadows where they belong, and so I don't have to spend more time watching Snow or Hope than what I was forced to in their grotesquely awful cutscenes. But if I had to pick either, I would have to go with FFXIII, simply due to more vibrant and interesting character designs.

[Forsaken Lover]

A lot of people like Snow. he's easily the most likable party member in XIII.

You have PMS Lady, Whiny Kid, Offensive Black Guy, Moe Girl, and Feng. (Feng doesn't dserve a mocking name because that would imply she left an impression on me)

And then you have a guy who is trying to give a bunch of people resigned to death some hope while also looking to save the love of his life. He makes some mistakes along the way but he owns up to them and grows.

I really don't see the problem here. I would have much preferred Snow be punching Lightning instead of the other way around.

And don't count out the power of a good theme song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FaZQoZf4OY

[Tonberry Time]

How is Sazh offensive? And Lightning is badass, PMS Lady would imply she's all over the place while she's just generally angry. Your other characterizations I can't really argue with.

And with Snow I guess it comes down to personal opinions really, I saw the first cutscene and hated him right off the start.

[Formalhaut]

I've heard everyone's piece on these games and so here's my opinions on them both. I'm knackered, so I can't be asked doing a long-ass essay on em.

With XII, the character designs are more subtle. I wouldn't go as far as say muted, but there's definitely a decorum and civility about all the characters. This is probably in part due to the world in which FFXII resides in. While there's obviously fantasy elements, the society is very typical of 19th century eras, where the humes speak in aristocratic styles of language. Of course, not all races do this, but certainly there's an undercurrent of civility in this game. This reflects in the characters. Ashe is a noble princess, Balthier is a suave, smooth-talking sky pirate. Hell, even Basch, who looks like he resides in Nalbina Dungeon with that hair, speaks in eloquent, formal language and tone. Even Vaan can be surprisingly respectful. In contrast, XIII is set in high modern fantasy, and is quite futuristic. Morals are loosened somewhat then. You would never come close to seeing a Snow like character in XII, but in XIII, sure, he's very brash and annoying, but he lives in Cocoon which is decidedly less... "posh"? I can't think of another word. Also in XIII, everything's very animated, colours are enhanced and bright.

But that's enough of the world and how they shape the characters. What do I personally think about them? I'll begin with XII's cast.

Vaan essentially reflects XII's world. He is a subtle main character who's purpose is to act as the gamer's eyes, commenting on everything he sees. He is the small orphan child who normalises all the political drama for us. It's a very unappreciated role. While I used to hate Vaan, I've grown a slight respect for his role. His abdominals are still torrid though. But while Vaan has the excuse of being the audience's anchor, Penelo, sorry to say, has no clear role. It is a shame, because they could have expanded on her alot more. I guess she does have some weight in being Larsa's friend, and in a round about way links Dalmasca and Archades in a positive way, but seriously she could have been an NPC and done the shame. I love Penelo, but she has no real role to speak of. A great shame.

Fran is interesting. It is easy to say she is mere fan service, she's actually more pertinent to the story than she lets on, again another example of subtlety on the part of the developers. She is actually quite important in the Eryut Village, and throughout the game I feel she is almost like a tour guide. She appears to know alot about the mythology of FFXII and frequently tells Vaan, sometimes in a annoyed voice, about different locations. Sure, she's really not important to the overarching plot of the game suffice for the Golmore Jungle and Mjrn section, but she is a lovely background adviser. Shame the game makes her stats terrible. Meanwhile, Balthier is the dashing sky-pirate who I obviously love. This is in part because of his witty, clever one-liners that are sometimes genuinely funny, but he does have a serious side, and a good clear head on his shoulders. He is like a mentor to Vaan, which actually brings Vaan's importance up slightly, while also being quite important once the game heads north. After that, his revelation as a former judge is surprising, and his relationship with his estranged father brings along a family relationship not really seen in XII, as everyone's either an orphan or their relatives are dead or unknown. So yeah. Great overall character.

The last set of characters are Ashe and Basch. Basch, at first sight, appears to be a rough, gruff, tough guy who could be mistaken for a evil henchman or thug, but beneath that lies a deep loyalty to Dalmasca, something that is reiterated many times throughout the game. His relationship with Gabranth is another rare family relationship in XII and is quite touching towards the end. While he is perhaps not the most important main character in the game, he is definitely up there. Ashe however is the de facto leader of the party and main character. Her struggle is both real, and also underplayed somewhat. While XIII is happy with big, crescendo string music, characters crying, and Sazh pointing a gun to Vanille's head while thunder and lightning are going off, when Ashe is visibly moved, it's with relative silence, and a deep understanding of her plight. Again, subtlety. I like Ashe. She comes off as brusque and slightly rude at times, specially towards Vaan, but this is just a character flaw that eventually her softer side is revealed.

Now for XIII. Lightning is essentially Ashe but with more license to smack people, and just generally be more animated. She is essentially Cloud without the schizophrenia, and possesses some of Balthier's witty humour. When i compare her to Ashe, I can't help but prefer Ashe. I'm not sure why exactly, but I find Ashe has more going for her. What Lightning does have however is a greater connection with her fellow characters. Lightning and Hope have an interesting mentorship going on and in part helps Hope grow up, which in itself is admirable. Lightning and Snow is just plain annoying but at least there's a connection. In fact, the only character Lightning doesn't really fully interact with is Vanille. Snow is very easy to dislike, but very easy to like. You either hate, or love Snow. I'm more indifferent. He's the archetypal loud fellow who frequently irritates everyone. He's abit like Barret, but without the swearing. Were Snow to raid Shinra, he'd be take the go in gun's blazing approach. Like many characters, his strongest trait is at it's peak in the beginning, but he does lessen slightly towards the end. But I don't really have much of an opinion on him.

Hope is also very polarising. Do you hate or like him? This is another theme throughout XIII. I am of the opinion that Hope begins as an impeccably annoying character who redeems himself around chapter 7. His relationship with Vanille is touched upon, and is interesting how he eventually disregards her in favour of Lightning. Later in an optional scene, he forgets about Vanille's promise, which is very telling. He still likes Vanille, but Lightning's influence has strengthened him so that he doesn't need his shoulder to cry on. Meanwhile, Sazh is rather unfortunate. He is the most grounded character here, playing almost like Vaan in that regard. He is the comic relief of the game, often exasperated with everything, but like Balthier he does have some very dark scenes that help shock the audience. What's more surprising than everyone's funny man with a baby Chocobo point a gun to his companion? It changed my opinion of him. Like Vaan however, he does lose relevance to the overarching plot. By Chapter 8, his storyline is effectively over.

The two Oerbans are very different. Vanille is what you could say the typical ditzy, giggly girl who go around having fun. However, unlike some such as Selphie or Penelo, the developers do try to include her in the story, and her scenes with Sazh in Nautilus are actually quite sad, mainly because their friendship (at the time) is broken, and it's like pointing a gun to a child. She never is the most important character, but she definitely has something about her. She is annoying, but forgivably so in my opinion. She's like a more fleshed out Penelo. Finally, Fang is like the matriarch of the group. She comes in very late at Chapter 7 sort of like how Amarant comes in very late in IX. However, Fang has more about her. She sort of takes over from Snow's brashness (Though more calculated and serious) and Lightning's seriousness, allbeit more muted versions of both. I think she symbolises passion. She fights for what she believes in and strongly defends Vanille. I like Fang. She's actually quite important to the story not just because of Ragnarok, but she also breathes new life to a story. Her introduction in chapter 7 refocuses the story back to Pulse and mythos, rather than in-character relations.

Overall? Hard to say. I'm tempted to go to XII though because while the main characters are good, the NPCs also make new connections. Montblanc actually has some backstory to him and the reasons for making the clan, while every person who posts a mark has their own sorry tale to tell. It's nice, and makes Ivalice feel busy and wholesome. XIII's best attempts at that are cutscenes, and very rare auto-interactions with the public in Chapter 7, or talking to your characters at the beginning of Chapter 9. It's very few and far between.

Edit: Drat. Just realised I went ahead and make an essay anyway. Sorry guys.

[JaymeNoel]

The problem with XII is that there is no closeness there between the cast. Sure, there's the small closeness between one or two members (Penelo and Vaan, Balthier and Fran, Ashe and Basch, Balthier and Vaan), but overall you don't see the group being the typical Final Fantasy cast.

Take a look at Final Fantasy VIII. Squall eventually opened up to every member. Even in Final Fantasy IX, Zidane and Steiner opened up at one point. Even Quina and Steiner had moments where they talked. In Final Fantasy XII, you see Bash and Penelo talk maybe once that I can recall. And I don't think you ever see Ashe talk to Fran except maybe in Eryut Village.

XII remains my third favorite F.F. title, but the cast, while interesting as individuals, really really.... well, sucks.. together.

[Formalhaut]

The problem with XII is that there is no closeness there between the cast. Sure, there's the small closeness between one or two members (Penelo and Vaan, Balthier and Fran, Ashe and Basch, Balthier and Vaan), but overall you don't see the group being the typical Final Fantasy cast.

That's actually a very good point. You basically have three camps within the entire party:

Vaan / Penelo, often just staring in the background twiddling their thumbs

Fran / Balthier

Ashe / Basch

There are other smaller ones, like Vaan and Basch, but really, the party is very disjointed. Say what you will about XIII, at least they knew how to put a party together.