Final Fantasy VIII vs. Final Fantasy XIII

[Forsaken Lover]

Me and Wolf once argued about this and I recently got into this mood because of some revelations that happened.

Here's the thing.

I came away from my one and only playthrough of FFXIII thinking it was a decent enough game. Flawed yes but okay overall. Then I learned that everything I was told was wrong. Everything Cid said was bulltrout. Humans and fal'cie were NOT made by the same being. There is not just one God. There is in fact a whole cosmology that the game never properly eludes to. In fact, the game never even so much as mentions the name "Etro" EVEN THOUGH SHE'S THE ONE WHO SAVED EVERYONE IN THE ENDING.

So, after being told all that, I ended up despising FFXIII because I felt like a fool. I thought I knew things but it was all just misinformation and not explained and I didn't know anything.

Then more recently I learned that NO, what I was told by people was not correct. See, Lindzei DID make people. He did it with Etro's blood. Which means Cid wasn't lying.

But guess what?

I don't blame those people who tried to help me. I blame Square Enix.

And here is why.

For those not in the know, this guy is reading an official video made by Square to explain the cosmology of FFXIII. This is what the good people of another forum linked me to in order to help me understand all those years ago.

Only...notice something? Notice how the tell-all video doesn't say a goddam thing about Lindzei using Etro's blood? You will only find that information in a book. Yes, the tell-all video meant to...tell all omits a very relevant detail that left me and others confused for years.

Because I thought Cid was right until people told me he was wrong. But then I learned they were wrong because the video Square posted was wrong. But then i learned about the book that gives details that explain Cid was right which means I was wrong to think all those people were right. Which means I was wrong to criticize FFXIII's writing only i was right to criticize the writing but for the wrong reasons and....


Now...with that out of the way.

FFXIII's plot might be a disaster but so is FFVIII's. The difference here lies in the fact FFXIII at least gave some love to its playable cast. There are entire sub plots and arcs devoted to developing them! Amazing and revolutionary, I know. Giving Hope and Snow their little vendetta and helping them both grow was truly inspired and something the FFVIII writer never could have.... Wait, Nojima wrote FFVII and FFX.... I guess he could have thought of it but he just didn't bother. I guess I can't blame them. I mean, what can you do with Zell and Irvine? They just smurfing suck plain and simple.

FFXIII honestly had a really well-done party while FFVIII has by far the worst playable cast in the series. We're talking NES levels of personality. Just because they say more doesn't mean they were actually saying anything. I think it's very telling that Quistis will get added dialogue at certain moments that develop her character bu I usually use Selphie and she never says crap.It's like Nojima was saying "this character is kinda important and these others....not so much."

So i stack them up as this:
FFXIII has a better cast.
They both have awful plots.
FFXIII has a far better battle system with unique characters. In fact, let me go off on another tangent here.

Who the smurf thought it was a good idea to introduce level scaling IN THE ONE GAME WHERE LEVELS DON'T MATTER? I mean, did they just have two different teams developing the combat? Junction and Level Scaling DO NOT WORK TOGETHER. If you put "heroes at level 50 so enemies will now be level 50" in literally any other game in the series, it might be interesting. But here, in the glorious travesty that is FFVIII, it doesn't matter because stats are determined by Junctions more than levels. Those enemies will be Level 10 in response to your Level 10 party....only you have Level 100 stats because of Junctions. This game actively encourages you NOT to work at anything. Just say as low level as possible while slapping on 100 Curagas to HP from Tents and congrats, you have beaten the game.

How do you...how do you do this??? How do you introduce two completely incompatible systems to your gameplay mechanics?

Music is...whatever, both are good.

And that is my piece. These two are by far the worst numbered entries in the series. But now you must choose.

[Ayen]

Disagree, disagree, disagree, disagree, disagree. Did I mention I disagree?

FFVIII cast was fine. I don't mind if more focus was on a couple of characters than the whole cast. The support cast played their roles fine. Not every game is going to be able to develop every single character. Not every game can be VI.

No, I don't find a single character in VIII annoying. Not as annoying as Snow was. Snow had me wanting to tear my ears off my head and throw them into a garbage disposer. Maybe I'd like him more if he didn't have a voice, or maybe I'd like him more if their voice direction for that game didn't suck monkey dick. X was decent for their first VA filled game, and XII showed they were getting better, and then they somehow botched a decent cast in XIII. Makes no sense.

I'm not going to sit here and pretend that the story made sense, but VIII was fun and memorable. FFXIII was boring as hell and that's the worst thing a video game can do IMO. I felt no drive to play it any further than I did and I took that thing back to Blockbuster the day after I rented it, and that's something I can't say for any other game I've ever played. Period.

[Fynn]

To be fair, the level scaling was implement precisely so you would have to find other ways to be better than enemies than simple grinding. I quite liked that, and unless you're a serious min-maxer, there really is no need to keep your level as low as you can.

Sorry, this is no contest for me. FFVIII was a really good game, while XIII was a pretentious mess. Sure, FFVIII had glaring plot holes you could fly a jumbo jet through, but the character interactions in XIII you mention with such fondness seem to be written by someone who was basically just told how human interactions worked but had never experienced that miraculous phenomenon themself. And I like Snow and Hope back when their names were Shinjiro and Ken.

Toriyama needs to smurfing stop making games. Seriously.

[Karifean]

FFVIII's cast is fine. Sure, Squall and Rinoa and maybe Quistis are the only characters I actually care for story-wise, but I felt the other characters were more relevant than just "being there", they just didn't influence the main plot much. They still had defined personalities and I liked how it was done.

I feel similarly about FFXIII's cast, but in that game there *is* focus laid on all the characters even during the main plot. That's a good or a bad thing depending on if you like the cast or not, I'm rather indifferent towards it. I also never cared that much about XIII's mythology. I do usually like stories that don't tell you everything outright but expect you to invest in the story and find your own personal interpretation/understanding of its deeper parts... but I didn't have that kind of motivation for XIII.

It's one of the reasons I liked the R=U theory back when it was new, because I find the prospect of an entire extra layer to a story that you can just miss if you're not paying attention and putting in the effort to find it yourself very interesting.

Gameplay-wise both games were pretty fun. I love the Junction system because you can have so much random fun with it, and Triple Triad is the god of FF minigames. The Crystarium was... okay I guess. I liked how even with only six classes just about every character had a noticeably different variant of each class, and the whole Paradigm System was awesome. It had its flaws, but it made the game very enjoyable to play through.

And the soundtrack? It goes without saying that both OSTs are wonderful, but FF VIII in particular has the best soundtrack out of any FF, and is up there as one of the best soundtracks out of anything.

In my eyes Final Fantasy VIII was a really great game, while Final Fantasy XIII was a good, enjoyable game. It's the worst in the series for sure, with a story that isn't memorable beyond a few standout points, but I don't dislike it.

[Pumpkin]

In my eyes Final Fantasy VIII was a really great game, while Final Fantasy XIII was a good, enjoyable game.

This sums up my opinion. Final Fantasy VIII is my third favourite game ever, I love the protagonist, the love story, the story in general, the world is one of my favourites in the series, the gameplay was fine, and overall I had a lot of fun with it.

I like XIII fine, but not compared to most games in the series. I love the Paradigm system and I like the world and about half the cast. The story had potential but wasn't told in a good way

[Forsaken Lover]

Way too much FFVIII love going on in this thread. Way too much.

It's a bad game and you should feel bad. There are objective, unarguable reasons why it is a bad game too. The combat system is broken to hell, characters have even less stat differentiation than in FFVII,there are entire subplots that come up out of nowhere and then go absolutely nowhere... I mean, smurf, if you aren't going to develop any of your playable characters or give them any story relevance, at least give them some unique gameplay! Everyone is the goddam same.

The game is a mess of bad ideas C.led together to make one Supremely Bad Game.

[Ayen]

Way too much FFVIII love going on in this thread. Way too much.

It's a bad game and you should feel bad. There are objective, unarguable reasons why it is a bad game too. The combat system is broken to hell, characters have even less stat differentiation than in FFVII,there are entire subplots that come up out of nowhere and then go absolutely nowhere... I mean, smurf, if you aren't going to develop any of your playable characters or give them any story relevance, at least give them some unique gameplay! Everyone is the goddam same.

The game is a mess of bad ideas C.led together to make one Supremely Bad Game.

There's no such thing as objectivity in video games, I'm sorry to be the one to tell you. Telltale games can be glitchy as all hell and some times down right broken and they still receive critical acclaim.

Try again.

[Fynn]

According to postmodern thought, there is no such thing as objectivity. You're pretty bad at this. First Silent Hill 3, now this.

This just won't do. I feel someone needs an attitude adjustment.

[Wolf Kanno]

No, I do believe FFXIII is objectively the worst and the rest of you are simply suffering from Stockholm Syndrome from playing it too long.

Both games have troutty plots, but I felt that the exploration of Squall's story trumps the game's poor plot and was handled far better than the nonsense of XIII's cast. I'll take watching Squall grow from a distant aloof asshole into a less aloof but more honest asshole over Lightning's fits of Rage and Snow and Hope aping the better written Shinji/Ken story from Persona 3. At least P3 had the guts to go there whereas SE's track record made it obvious it would sort itself out.

Laguna and his cronies are far more charming than all of XIII's cast combined. Sure VIII has a bizarre Gainax inspired ending that set off a thousand weird fan theories, but that's better than XIII's Deus ex Machina tripe, that gets explained by forking over more money for the sequels and Ultimanias. VIII's plot failed, but at least it tried to be something amazing. XIII's problematic plot is the result of someone who was full of themselves and wrote it purposely for sequels and extra merchandise being required to actually understand it all. The game has even more plot holes than VIII did and its final ending after three games is still ridiculous and apes the better Chrono Cross.

VIII also just had better gameplay, I'll take broken game mechanics with the option to explore and see the world over the RPG equivalent of a rail shooter with a combat system that does more to remove the player from the actual experience of playing the game than actual immersion. I can at least explore Balamb and Dollet as opposed to being trapped seeing the highlight of Palumporom and Nautilus. VIII didn't need to have a smurfing sequel made to remember what genre the series is.

I'll take Laguna's lost love and renewed life choices after the war over Fang and Vanille whining about being plot devices. I'll take Zell fighting with Seifer and letting his hotheadedness get the party in trouble over Snow using his catchphrase of "I'm the hero" for 20 hours. I'll take Irvine choking at his assassination attempt on Edea which hints to the second most bizarre and BS plot twist in FF history; over Sahz choking on his attempted suicide that very few people believed would happen and was already spoiled by trailers and box artwork showing him in Pulse. I'll take Rinoa's whiny "damsel in distress" role over Hope's muddled and childish hatred that Ken Amada performed so much better. At least interesting things actually happen to Rinoa, keeping her relevant as opposed to wishing Hope would shut his damn mouth for five minutes about avenging his mother, and actually do something about it. Lightning and her story is basically the same as Squall's, except lacking the internal monologue insight and trading Squall's apathy (used for great comic relief) for Lightning trying so hard to use every male action star trope to hide the fact she's a woman. She has so many anger issues she needs to dress in raven power armor and battle Old Snake while screaming RAAAAGGGGEEEE!!! every 15 seconds for all the meaningful character development she got in the first game. At least Edea and Seifer are interesting antagonist, unlike Cid, whose development comes about five minutes before the plot removes him from any relevancy. Edea was mysterious and interesting, making you wish to learn more about her; not like the Pope dude, who wore "I'm evil" so hard he might as well had sported an old twirly mustache and tied Serah to some train tracks, so Cocoon could run her over.

Seriously, for whatever VIII's cast lacked, at least it wasn't filled with poor shallow characterization and disappointing conclusions that were scared of actually doing something drastic and unexpected. VIII's plot is troutty but I feel it is at least interesting to watch unfold, if only because it's so bizarre. XIII's plot at the end of the day is just an excuse to watch six shallow characters angst for 30+ hours so the story gods can resolve it nice and neat until the second shows up to retcon everything that happened in the game before.

VIII may not be the best FF entry, but at least it tried to be. XIII tried to be its own franchise and it screwed up because it lacked any strong foundation to give a smurf.

[Forsaken Lover]

If you write a book full of typos, I feel it's perfectly within my right to say it's objectively bad. There's no excuse for it.

The same is true for a game with broken gameplay. It's just a fact beyond dispute, like the fact gravity exists or we need oxygen to survive.

[Forsaken Lover]

persona 3 is that dating sim right

sorry wolf but this conversation is about rpgs.

(SPOILER)Or maybe it was Persona 4 that was the dating sim. Either way.

And Squall is just one character. Unless he's the best written protagonist ever, he cannot salvage an entire playable cast of unnecessary and unlikable assholes. I have never seen a worse cast in a JRPG with the exception of Star Ocean 3. Oh and Squall is decidedly NOT the best written protagonist ever so he does not save his game.

[Pumpkin]

[VeloZer0]

Way too much FFVIII love going on in this thread. Way too much.

It's a bad game and you should feel bad.

I keep wanting to jump into this thread, but I really don't have the time nor motivation to type enough to do the topic justice. But this can be my tl;dr version.

[Ayen]

If you write a book full of typos, I feel it's perfectly within my right to say it's objectively bad. There's no excuse for it.

The same is true for a game with broken gameplay. It's just a fact beyond dispute, like the fact gravity exists or we need oxygen to survive.

You have the right to say it, but that doesn't make it true. I don't find your comparison that good considering more goes into game design than spelling in a book.

Some of us managed not to abuse the Junction System. Also, anything you say about characters and story are 100% subjective so including them in a list of alleged 'objective unarguable reasons' is flawed. But at this point we're just arguing semantics.

Furthermore, you pitted this game against FFXIII. Not sure what you were expecting...

[Fynn]

persona 3 is that dating sim right

sorry wolf but this conversation is about rpgs.

(SPOILER)Or maybe it was Persona 4 that was the dating sim. Either way.

Oh my God


Did you just



You're losing more and more cred with every post, mang