Freedom Or Prison?

[Forsaken Lover]

I don't know if you guys know my general opinion of XIII but it's this.

The game was good when it was about the characters. That was everything up to the Palamecia.
After this, the story barges into the foreground and most character development ceases/is finished. This marks when I gave up on the game.

It also marks a sharp divide I have with some others in the fanbase. The way I hear it, some people, when they reached Pulse, were like "yessss, FREEDOM!!!"

Me? I didn't react that way at all. In fact, Pulse and its godawful tower are the worst parts of all of FFXIII in my opinion. The fact is, I had been conditioned by 30+ hours of game to just follow the hallway. I had long since abandoned any kind of interest in side stuff. When promptly dumped out in this huge area and told "you can do these Cie'th quest things!" I was not pleased. I was irritated. This was not what I had been playing for and I had no interest in it. The game was wasting my time.

An analogy came to me as I reflected on this, hence the title of this thread. You know that a lot of people who spent a good deal of time in prison DON'T WANT to leave. They would not say "FREEDOM!" when released; quite the contrary in fact. They would be scared and confused and do whatever it took to get back to what they know.

That is how I feel about Pulse. It's scary and it's unfamiliar and I don't want that kind of free roaming in my FFXIII. And it's FFXIII that made feel that way.

So yes, the question. Do you prefer the first half of XIII or the second?

[fat_moogle]

First half, all the way! I honestly didn't mind "corridor simulator" (as I often see others refer to it as...) because like you say, it's where all the good stuff happens. Even the best bit about Pulse was coming back to Cocoon, gate crashing Eden on the Eidolons! I LOVE THAT SCENE SO MUCH. To be fair though the second half does have some good moments, just nothing as stand-out-ish.

[SapientiaXIII]

I like both halfs but moreso the latter part of the story, especially after the Fifth Ark. The linearity of the first fifteen hours or so was fine with me since it tied in nicely with the story of fugitives running for their lives with no time to take the scenic route through anything. Plus, the fantastic art direction always meant that every sight was stunning. Only parts of the first half I didn't like were forcing me to play as Snow and Hope in Palumpolum. That was god-awful. Those two do not work well together. I also couldn't stand playing as Sazh and Vanille, even if I liked their story arcs. It was really hard to do much damage if Sazh wasn't leveled enough as a Commando. >.<

As for the second half, I loved Gran Pulse. I was thirteen at the time I played the game and hadn't played a current-gen game (at the time in 2010) at all. I was still playing on my PS2 for the most part. So, when I got to Gran Pulse and saw this huge open world for me to explore, I was so thrilled. Collecting all of the treasure spheres, seeing my first chocobo for the first time...I was having the time of my life. Hell, even getting my ass handed to me by the Adamantoises was awesome, haha. There were also several really nice character moments, like Hope and Vanille in Yaschas Massif, Vanille assaulting that poor sheep near the Ochu enemy, Fang and Sazh by the chocobos...

I didn't really like Taeijin Tower either but jogged through it pretty quickly, only revisiting to finish up Marks. In some ways though, I kinda like it because it's a great place to power level your characters. I can get why some people wouldn't like it, though. The tower is pretty dull. Doesn't help with that music, either.

FFXIII did restrict your freedom for awhile, but that was kind of the point. They could save on resources and pour attention into the artistic design of the levels, then suddenly dump a huge world on the player to explore at their own pace. And of course, returning to Eden is sort of a return to the "linearity" of the first half of the game, though it's not too long of a segment anyways. I was happy with both.

[Mirage]

Pulse was slightly better than Cocoon.

I don't care if it was "the point" or not to restrict exploration. That doesn't make it any more fun. Doesn't matter if they put more detail into the environments when you never could do anything but to look at them from afar anyway.

[SapientiaXIII]

I'm not speaking for anyone but myself. I liked the restrictive path during the first half of the game, but obviously a lot of people don't. I enjoy artistic direction and design, so FFXIII is a real treat for me to play. I'd describe it as walking through an art gallery. That's something I personally appreciate in a game, that attention to detail.
I also liked the battle system, so I was always having fun during the first half, bar the sections I mentioned above.

[Mirage]

The combat is all right, but you can get too much of the good stuff too. I thought it was just paced terribly.