XIII: The Flaw thread

[Skyblade]

You know, if I wanted to read a novel, I would have gone to Barnes and Noble and bought one.

As a B&N bookseller:
Your patronage is very much appreciated.

But, yeah, I agree with most of the points made here. The game is one dimensional. I just hope Square learns from this experiment and doesn't repeat their mistakes.

[Rocket Edge]

And what we'll counter-argue (continuously if need be) is that every single Final Fantasy since VII (at least) has followed the exact same formula. Run down to a certain area, fight a boss, cue FMV.

I'll quote reinward here:

i have no problem with a game being linear if its done right. FFX was linear and i loved that game, but there is absolutely no sense of immmersion in this game.

There really isn't. The whole world seems so dead. Where are all the people who you could strike up a conversation with at will? None. All it is is you and the enemy. There is no time to stop and say, maybe I'll explore this place or town before I go on with the story. Maybe even grind a bit to get some more gil, etc. In this game there is nothing like that. Just a straight line from A to B. It's incredably boring.

Maybe XIII doesn't have as many areas off the main road, but neither does any FF. There may be a greater illusion of choice, but that is all it is at the end of the day: an illusion.

That is so wrong. Name me one FF that you can't wander around at will within the first hours of the game and do your own thing. I mean c'mon, it takes you til' chapter 4 or 5 to get to your first city and its still a straight line with no interaction whatsoever with the city-folk and no ways to even go down a different street to look at shops or whichever. That's another thing, they took out all those little things like shops to make it as linear as possible. Hell even a big open area would be nice now and again.

And I loved the previous FFs. One example I keep citing is VIII, because of the amount of stuff you can do in the villages and just the vast number of side-quests in it. This is just a different type of experience.

My favorite FF was VIII. But I'll agree this is a different kettle of fish altogether. Maybe I'm daft for not liking it but I find the game just so boring.

I'm playing IX at the moment and I would not tell you how much I would give to have the XIII battle system at the moment. Yes, I will agree that there should have been an option for greater control when you want it, but when I have to wait half a minute for a battle scene to load (because it has to pan around the environment) then push X repeatedly for a minute, before seeing people jump around, I realise that there was something fundamentally wrong with previous FFs.

Um, IX was on the PS1 and was released over 10 years ago. Of course the fighting system is going to come along over the years. Thats like saying the first Call of Duty was crap because it doesn't play like Modern Warfare 2. I personally didn't like XIII's battle system. The chief reason was because it lacked any customisation that previous FF's has in abundance (and what personally always drew me towards the games). Whatever happened to all the status ailments? Or the steal command for example? I could sit here all day and name off some others but I won't. For what it's worth, I thought FFXII had the perfect battle system.

So, I think XIII is a step in the right direction. It was very linear and the battle system did not give you enough control when you wanted it (boss & difficult battles). However, I think it is a step in the right direction (albeit too large a step) and future FFs will benefit from this experiment. I am placing great hopes on Versus judging from XIII and the noises coming out of the Versus camp.

I hope to god your right, because if the next FF is anyway as bad as this I won't be getting it, and I've purchased every FF game to date and loved them all.

They begin right in the middle of the action, and everyone seems to know everything... everyone except you, the player. Right off the bat, they start throwing all these foreign words at you like "L'Cie", "Fal'Cie", "Focus" as if you're supposed to know what the hell they're talking about.

Unlike VII where you start off on a train (hehe, I love the little hints to previous FFs in this game) and have people accusing you of being the enemy because you're SOLDIER. And you're blowing up a mako plant.

To be fair every FF I've played I have had no problem in picking up on the story, because at the start everything was well explained and kept basic. Why did I have such a problem with picking up on XIII? It was too confusing. I'm at chapter 6 or 7 and still don't know what a L'cie, Fal'cie or whatever fully is.

And the datalog was a wonderful addition for people who may take a few days off the game (perhaps because they have work etc) and then can come back and get a quick recap. It is not required to follow the story, if you're paying attention.

Not so more an addition but more like compulsory. I think it would be very safe to say everyone who has played the game for the first time has had to go back over the datalog to understand whats really going on. I sure did. And a wonderful addition is where Marquis Ondore recites the games ending chapters to you in XII. The datalog was more like reading homework.

[Elpizo]

XIII hate has already gotten old. Bring on the complaints about how XV is the worst ever, please.

[Shin Gouken]

XIII hate has already gotten old. Bring on the complaints about how XV is the worst ever, please.

You're complaining at FFXIII hate when your in a FFXIII hate thread lol. Perhaps you could go revive the love thread

I think most if not all of the complaints regarding FFXIII are justified though.

FF's are known to make changes from one game to the next, scrapping some bits and trying new things, which is perfectly fine. But FFXIII is as far opposite as is possible from the last numbered game. I still believe that this game could have been given any title as it certainly doesn't resemble anything FF

[Elpizo]

I'm not saying anything about XIII, or if it's hate is justified or not. I'm just saying it's already gotten old, since this topic gives no arguments of hate that haven't been given before. They could easily have been placed in the Flaw Thread instead of creating another topic dedicated to pissing on XIII as if it's the unholy antichrist itself. That's all.

And I thought the same thing back when hating XII was "in", too, so it's not as if XIII is special for me like that. And I already know it'll be the same when XIV and XV will be released. Yay.

[DarkOrigins]

XIII hate has already gotten old. Bring on the complaints about how XV is the worst ever, please.

You're complaining at FFXIII hate when your in a FFXIII hate thread lol. Perhaps you could go revive the love thread

I think most if not all of the complaints regarding FFXIII are justified though.

FF's are known to make changes from one game to the next, scrapping some bits and trying new things, which is perfectly fine. But FFXIII is as far opposite as is possible from the last numbered game. I still believe that this game could have been given any title as it certainly doesn't resemble anything FF

Agreed, FF's change things gently as each game goes on, FFIX jumping to FFX was a huge leap. But I disagree with you saying FFXII is completely opposite to FFXII. If anything, they are very very similar.

Battlegen system = Crappier Gambit system
Storyline = Same. Fal'Cie = Occurians, L'Cie = Crystal bearers
Hunt sidequest = Hunt sidequest

It's all very similar. The problem with the last two FF's, FFXII and FFXIII is that Squenix have been influenced by the growing multiplayer craze in the world, making FFXI and trying to make FFXII and XIII feel like a multi-player game while being a singular, even to having characters pretend they're "Scouting ahead".

[Del Murder]

Merged reinward's thread with the flaw thread. Let's keep this as the general 'why we hate FFXIII' thread.

[Cloudane]

Your patronage is very much appreciated.

I read that in the voice of Rin

This was almost going to be a spam comment (tut tut) but actually it illustrates a point I was making earlier. It's not so much structural linearity (although it undeniably exists) but again, ever since XII, a lack of things that added depth, immersion and plain old fun.

Whether it's meeting recurring characters like Rin, Maechen, Don Corneo, Bugenhagen, Growly stomach rebellion guy, good guys called Cid (annoys me that he's become throwaway or evil or both), the named moogles etc etc... there was always something memorable about those... or the various little activities you can do to feel more involved with the world like chocobo breeding, playing cards, helping the Moogles to send letters, learning Al Bhed...

What is there like that in XIII? Pretty much nothing and nobody. A few recurring characters pop up in cutscenes, the only things to do aside from battling are preparing for battle (customising weapons, growing the crystarium, exploring for things to customise your weapons with). Battle battle battle - that's what's wrong with it. The only real sidequests we get in XII or XIII is marks. Yay! More battling! :rolleyes:

[ChickenHeart]

Heres something that ticks me off atm, i've started the game again. And i'm up to the Sunleather waterscape whatsit. I grinded Light and hope on the previous chapter but... The crystaliruim (Major spelling fail there) system is one of the most annoying things i've found so far. In other FFs there was more freedom, with lots of grinding you could get better spells etc. But with this one...you're stopped. It justs shuts down. I hate the fact that at the end chapters the crystaliruim gains a new level.

[Lexy]

I'm so sick of hearing the argument that all the other FF's gave the player the "illusion" of choice, therefore FFXIII isn't any more (or significantly more) linear than the other FF's. Are people who claim this even being for real?

[champagne supernova]

I'm so sick of hearing the argument that all the other FF's gave the player the "illusion" of choice, therefore FFXIII isn't any more (or significantly more) linear than the other FF's. Are people who claim this even being for real?

Play Elder Scrolls. Play Fallout. Those games have true choice. I haven't played any Fallout, but I have played Elder Scrolls (and will soon play Fallout) and know that you don't have to follow the main quest if you don't want to. And you can join certain guilds. You can end quests in certain ways. Apparently Fallout is even more so (which I hope to start playing soon).

Same with Heavy Rain. Every single choice you make in the game influences events later on. That is why you have different endings. That is choice.

Illusion of choice is by making the world slightly bigger and letting you have side-quests etc. XIII had very little illusion. But no modern Final Fantasy (and apart from VI, I can't think of any FF) that has given you much in the way of any real choice in what you did.

And I'm not disagreeing that XIII is linear. I'm just illustrating that structurally every FF is linear with a greater illusion of choice. Whether this is now a flaw or a decision made by the designers to emphasise the story is where the debate should actually be headed (as this is a flaw thread).

[Rostum]

And I'm not disagreeing that XIII is linear. I'm just illustrating that structurally every FF is linear with a greater illusion of choice.

I haven't played FFXIII so I can't comment much. But honestly, give me the illusion of freedom than no freedom at all.

[Lexy]

Yes, all of the FF's are technically linear, but XIII is completely linear in the strictest sense of the word. In the other FF's, I have a choice of what I want to be doing at any given time. There is none of this in XIII, that is why it is truly a linear game. You do not merely have the illusion of choice while playing, say, XII, you have total choice over what you want to be doing while you play. It is linear in the sense that you have to do certain things to advance the story, if you even care about finishing the game (where's the fun in that?), but you have tons of choice over what you want to do in between all the story bits. And yeah, there are games that don't even make you follow a specific story line, but obviously that's not FF. That doesn't mean that everything but Elder scrolls is totally linear, there are wildly varying degrees of linearity.
Other than while you're on Pulse, you can't even revisit any area in the game! That's gotta distinguish it as vastly more linear than any other FF.

[champagne supernova]

You can choose to chill in an area in XIII, view all the sights from every single angle, beat every optional battle and get every single chest. I'm still arguing that it's linear, but I don't see how you can argue that being able to backtrack through areas or go through past areas to kill monsters creates game choice.

To be honest, VIII made me revisit many areas. I enjoyed it because in the context of the story, it made sense to use areas you had connected with (those who've played it will understand what I mean). But someone could just as easily counter-argue that VIII showed a lack of inspiration and general laziness in not creating new areas.

And you cannot argue that the fact that XIII has no distractions (in the form of side-quests etc) is a flaw. A game that actually requires these side-quests (as in, the main gameplay has become dull) would be considered flawed. Side-quests are merely there to augment the game, not make the game worth playing.

So by becoming linear, it only removed many of the augmenting features that we associate with a Final Fantasy. But Final Fantasy VIII is not about the Shumi tribe or Triple Triad, and VII is not about chocobo breeding and snowboard racing, and IX is not about their inferior version of Triple Triad, and X is not about Blitzball and XII is not about mark hunting (or fishing - most pointless side-quest ever). So, XIII decided to purify the core experience by removing anything that could distract the player from the main storyline. That is a design choice, not a flaw.

It only becomes flawed when the main experience can no longer carry the game (which some people feel it hasn't).

But the main issue I have here is people mentioning this and that Final Fantasy and saying how non-linear it is relative to FFXIII when it is clearly not. Lack of linearity implies choice, and choice only has meaning when it influences something else. Whether I choose to go left or right has no influence on the world. Whether I choose to breed chocobos or not has no influence on the world. VII is the last FF which I think had any meaningful choice, and that had to do with the dating game. Since then, nothing you chose to do has influenced the world at all.

[Lexy]

When I think linear, I think a straight line making you go from one place to the next, with no backtracking, and no choice as to what you want to do- you have no place to go but forward in the game. I don't associate linearity with changing the game world or effecting the outcome of the game. For me, games are just about having fun every moment you are playing the game. If I am playing XIII, for the majority of the game, I have to do what the game is telling me to do at that moment. In XII, if I get sick of being in a particular dungeon, I can leave, go to an orange crystal and teleport somewhere else and do whatever I want, be it trying to see how many mobs I can chain, hunt some marks, try to gather materials for bazaar stuff, etc. I love going to some cool looking location like the stillshrine of miriam and just trying to chain as high as I can. That has absolutely no effect on the game world, but it's my idea of a fun Saturday night! I think honestly what you are describing as linear...isn't there another name for those sort of very open ended games? I don't play them, so I don't know. I just don't think of linear the same way you do. Maybe I need to look it up.