Giving the XIII Saga a new chance.

Members see less ads - sign up now for free and join the community!

  • This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn more.
Sep 26, 2013
383
288
34
#41
Hrm. Interesting to see revised impressions from someone who didn't initially like the title. I've been considering going back to these games as well since I no longer have astronomical expectations for XIII. I beat the game once before and ended up deeply dissatisfied. I'm wondering if without the overhype I might not have a better, fairer experience.
 
#42
So I've also dug into the game some time yesterday and finished what I presume was chapter 1. At least upon looking it up in the datalog, that's what I've found.

And my impression so far is "it's not bad, but far from great".

Question though: Does the Battle Rating influence anything?
 
Last edited:

Nora_Nightingale

Balamb Garden Freshman
Nov 7, 2015
34
19
33
#44
Hrm. Interesting to see revised impressions from someone who didn't initially like the title. I've been considering going back to these games as well since I no longer have astronomical expectations for XIII. I beat the game once before and ended up deeply dissatisfied. I'm wondering if without the overhype I might not have a better, fairer experience.
I honestly had doubts about FF13. it seemed like what we saw was changing drastically. And Lightning just didn't appeal to me.

IN my eyes, FFF13 was going to be a moderate game to have no expectations. But even after that. With my first playthrough, the story just had so many flaws in the first sequence of the game.

If this was for PSP, it would be one of the most exceptional FF games to be out there. But knowing its on ps3 shows "wasted" potential.
 
#45
I have now poured about ten hours into the game (Start of chapter 5) and my lukewarm feelings about the game still hold. The combat is iffy, and particularly the section with Vanille and Sazh made me a little furious because the battles tended to drag and I lost copious amounts of stars due to the fact that they couldn't be over soon enough, especially with the bloody bombers present that drop your HP by ~300 when using Explode, so I had to swap to a paradigm with a Medic and risk losing Shock damage because having only one Ravager blows. I'm fine with the Crystarium caps, though it'd be nice to level up as I please, particularly when I feel that even normal enemies give me trouble.

From a narrative perspective, the amount of things happening in this timeframe measured by the amount of cutscenes was next to nil. The point of the Pulse l'Cie being enemies of Coccoon is driven home ad nauseum and the flashbacks seem kind of awkward and misplaced. Sazh comes around as the most well-written character so far, though his interaction with Vanille is sometimes a little creepy, especially in one scene where he climbs up a structure after her. Not having a world map and progression between individual areas isn't something I'm hot about either. Yes, it may be an illusion to openness, but it gives the impression that this world you're in has a distinguished geography. So far, I've seen quite a few areas of Coccoon, but the lack of free transitions irks me.

The graphics are nice though, the Capra Wood I'm in right now looks absolutely gorgeous. The music is decent, but I feel that the themes so far haven't been that strong. The Japanese VAs are great, though Maaya Sakamoto drops her Lightning Voice from time to time and then my mind wanders over to Ouran High School Host Club.

Will play some more this evening. It's still not great, but I feel more like putting effort into playing it as opposed to back in 2012.

If this was for PSP, it would be one of the most exceptional FF games to be out there. But knowing its on ps3 shows "wasted" potential.
Eh, I have to disagree on that. You can make astounding RPGs for handhelds that are fully-featured, this being on PSP would've resulted in very little aside from the graphics.
 
Last edited:
Sep 26, 2013
383
288
34
#46
I agreed with most of your points when I played through but I have to say that I'm shocked you're struggling with the battles especially since it seems you implied you're hitting the level caps. Are you sure you're fully grasping the system? I found XIII's combat overly simple when I played.

The battles with normal foes definitely take too long, it's true, but it's as simple as using ravagers and staggering each foe and then rushing them down with commandos. You're aware you can swap paradigms on the fly in mid combat, right? I'd only ever be using a medic when my party was in immediate need of recovery.
 
#47
I do get the combat (I had no problems during the section with Light and Hope), however, even at maxed out stats (for the current time), both Vanille and Sazh have only about 450-600 HP, meaning a single Bomber can knock their HP down by at least 1/2 when using Explosion and hitting - and the bastards usually do hit at least one character.

I generally used a COM/RAV paradigm for the two (Sazh/Vanille for all the following combinations), switching to RAV/MED when needed to keep up Shock while maintaining HP. Tried tinkering around with RAV/SAB and SYN/RAV, but there is too little merit to using the buff/debuff roles when stuck with two characters. I think I might neglect these roles for the time being and focus on building up COM and RAV for Light and Sazh as well as RAV and MED for Vanille and Hope.
 
Last edited:
Sep 26, 2013
383
288
34
#48
If this helps, SYN/SAB are absolutely essential roles for success in combat. I would only really skip buffing and debuffing if you're decimating foes in a short time which by your admission you're struggling with a bit. Even with just two characters, this will probably make more difference than you might expect. It's been a while so I'm not fully familiar with Sazh and Vanille's movesets for the roles at that stage in the game but an En- spell and a deprotect/deshell can over double the efficiency of your characters. Meanwhile, SAB spells even affect the chain gauge similarly to RAV spells if not to the same degree.
 
Last edited:

LeonBlade

Administrator
Administrator
Moderator
Site Staff
Oct 25, 2013
2,026
1,864
32
Blossvale, New York
#49
I might give XIII another go here soon, I didn't get very far. I only have XIII though, I'm not going to buy XIII-2 or LR. Personally, I don't really hate video games for the most part and can enjoy something even if it's crappy. However, the one thing that matters is how well it can hold my attention. I stopped playing very early on in the game, I'll just be starting over again. I don't expect to enjoy it but I should at least beat the game since I have a bad habit of starting games (especially RPGs) and not finishing them.
 
Likes: Crystal Power
#50
I reached Grand Pulse about two days ago. After that, I stopped playing, will pick it back up in a few weeks (i.e. around christmas) to finish it. Currently, I'm not sure whether or not I'll just try to rush and finish it or beat it a 100%. My tendency is towards the former, as you may surmise from the following impressions.

In short, this game doesn't do it for me. At all. And it would be dishonest for me to consider anything this game does to be worth the praise given by the press upon its release, from both a gameplay and a narrative perspective. I'll start with the latter though. Also, I'll put it in spoilers for the sake of shortening this post as it is not my most important point.

Overall, the narrative isn't great and I doubt it'll be salvaged in the last few hours. It feels clunky and partly cliché, which is a shame considering the themes of the game should be material for a great narrative. The hours leading up to chapter nine are so free of any plot movement that it is mostly annoying to watch. What salvages at least part of this is - as I mentioned in an earlier post - the way Sazh is written and his interaction with Vanille. Lightning and Hope on the other hand, seem to ooze themselves in angst (and a lot of expository dialogue) and Snows "redemptive arc" due to his interaction with Hope is just... cliché. Fang comes off as a much more tolerable version of Light at least from what we get of her in chapter 7 and 9, as her relationship with Vanille largely mirrors that of Light and Serah (who isn't a character, she's a plot device) but done better. The grand revelations from both Dysley and Raines seem... meaningless and both of them are clunky and basically serve as additional exposition shoved in by the writers upon realizing they put themselves into a corner with what they did prior to that. Good twists - at least in my opinion - are hard to pull off and this is anything but a good twist. Before that, the cutscenes just bumble about and I think I already noted that the repetition of the L'Cie are enemies of Cocoon line gets stale the third time you hear it.

As for the characters - again - Sazh is my favourite. He could drop the "old man" act (seriously, the dude is fourty...), but the build-up to chapter 8 and his revelations are most likely the most well-written in this game, as he drops subtle hints to his own dilemma in his dialogue early on (right at the beginning of Piz Vile when he and Vanille meet up with Hope) and his interaction with Vanille even at the end of chapter 8 and during chapter 9 is pretty good, maybe even great.
Vanille is also decent. She is written as a happy-go-lucky-type with a dark secret which could be done much much worse, but I feel it was done well. What helps is that she is much more reliant on facial expression and body language (as seen in the final scene of chapter 6, but also prior to that) than the others, though her voice seems... off sometimes.
Fang isn't my favourite, but she's up there, also she has a much stronger personality and a great VA. Part of her appeal is how she's a sister figure to Vanille and comes across as such - whereas Lightning is a dick to Serah, her actual sister - willing to go to extremes for her.
Hope is... okay. His "revenge" arc felt kind of forced to me though he did get some good scenes at the end of chapter 7.
And now for Snow and Lightning. Hoo boy. I'll pair these two because I feel there is a striking similarity - both are incredibly anime-y. In the worst ways possible. Snow comes across as your average shounen protagonist (not helped by his VA, Daisuke Ono, who is the VA for a protagonist in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure) and his "redemptive arc" was just... meh. He's also the character with the most lines in total (I feel that way at least) and his mood swings during chapter 7 and 10 are irritating. If Snow would be a shounen protagonist, Lightning would be the protagonist of something like Sword Art Online. She is irritatingly bland, mary-sue-ish and, again, acts like a jerk for the sake of DRAMA. Her backstory seems interesting, but her behaviour towards Serah comes across as a little kid trying to be a hardass. If those two were characters in a game made by... dunno, the bad part of Atlus or the Tales team I wouldn't think twice about them. But the way those two are cliché sticks out like a sore thumb amongst the otherwise decent cast.

Presentation-wise, the game is gorgeously-looking, but the music is... well. To put it simply, it lacks impact. It's nicely done, never overinstrumented (unlike BDFF's music), but the more "cinematic use" of it doesn't make it all that memorable to me, not helped by the fact that the music changes multiple times during some chapters.

And now, on to the gameplay. As mentioned earlier, I put the game on hiatus and while the story isn't all that appealing to me, the gameplay was what made that decision easier. (It's a game, after all. Not judging it on gameplay would be silly) If I had to put a word behind it, it'd be "tiring". Yes. I felt tired after playing FF XIII only for an hour or two the last few days and wasn't really willing to go through longer sessions. Why? Partly because this game lacks any variety. Whilst I mentioned the lack of a world map as a means to present an actual geography, it also means that there is no change of what you actually DO. And this is where I feel FF XIII fails the most. There is no difference in what is going on all throughout the game from a gameplay standpoint - no change in how you interact with the scenery (because there are no towns and no world map), no change in how you navigate throughout the world and not even minigames or just joke battles like the quiz monster in FF IX. There is solely walking and fighting and by this point it has simply become tedious.

I want to like this game and I could even look past some of the bad writing. But this is a video game - and I have a hard time enjoying it as such.
 
Last edited:

Mistwalker

SOLDIER Second Class
Sep 20, 2014
313
161
38
Santiago de Chile
www.youtube.com
#51
I reached Grand Pulse about two days ago. After that, I stopped playing, will pick it back up in a few weeks (i.e. around christmas) to finish it. Currently, I'm not sure whether or not I'll just try to rush and finish it or beat it a 100%. My tendency is towards the former, as you may surmise from the following impressions.

In short, this game doesn't do it for me. At all. And it would be dishonest for me to consider anything this game does to be worth the praise given by the press upon its release, from both a gameplay and a narrative perspective. I'll start with the latter though. Also, I'll put it in spoilers for the sake of shortening this post as it is not my most important point.

Overall, the narrative isn't great and I doubt it'll be salvaged in the last few hours. It feels clunky and partly cliché, which is a shame considering the themes of the game should be material for a great narrative. The hours leading up to chapter nine are so free of any plot movement that it is mostly annoying to watch. What salvages at least part of this is - as I mentioned in an earlier post - the way Sazh is written and his interaction with Vanille. Lightning and Hope on the other hand, seem to ooze themselves in angst (and a lot of expository dialogue) and Snows "redemptive arc" due to his interaction with Hope is just... cliché. Fang comes off as a much more tolerable version of Light at least from what we get of her in chapter 7 and 9, as her relationship with Vanille largely mirrors that of Light and Serah (who isn't a character, she's a plot device) but done better. The grand revelations from both Dysley and Raines seem... meaningless and both of them are clunky and basically serve as additional exposition shoved in by the writers upon realizing they put themselves into a corner with what they did prior to that. Good twists - at least in my opinion - are hard to pull off and this is anything but a good twist. Before that, the cutscenes just bumble about and I think I already noted that the repetition of the L'Cie are enemies of Cocoon line gets stale the third time you hear it.

As for the characters - again - Sazh is my favourite. He could drop the "old man" act (seriously, the dude is fourty...), but the build-up to chapter 8 and his revelations are most likely the most well-written in this game, as he drops subtle hints to his own dilemma in his dialogue early on (right at the beginning of Piz Vile when he and Vanille meet up with Hope) and his interaction with Vanille even at the end of chapter 8 and during chapter 9 is pretty good, maybe even great.
Vanille is also decent. She is written as a happy-go-lucky-type with a dark secret which could be done much much worse, but I feel it was done well. What helps is that she is much more reliant on facial expression and body language (as seen in the final scene of chapter 6, but also prior to that) than the others, though her voice seems... off sometimes.
Fang isn't my favourite, but she's up there, also she has a much stronger personality and a great VA. Part of her appeal is how she's a sister figure to Vanille and comes across as such - whereas Lightning is a dick to Serah, her actual sister - willing to go to extremes for her.
Hope is... okay. His "revenge" arc felt kind of forced to me though he did get some good scenes at the end of chapter 7.
And now for Snow and Lightning. Hoo boy. I'll pair these two because I feel there is a striking similarity - both are incredibly anime-y. In the worst ways possible. Snow comes across as your average shounen protagonist (not helped by his VA, Daisuke Ono, who is the VA for a protagonist in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure) and his "redemptive arc" was just... meh. He's also the character with the most lines in total (I feel that way at least) and his mood swings during chapter 7 and 10 are irritating. If Snow would be a shounen protagonist, Lightning would be the protagonist of something like Sword Art Online. She is irritatingly bland, mary-sue-ish and, again, acts like a jerk for the sake of DRAMA. Her backstory seems interesting, but her behaviour towards Serah comes across as a little kid trying to be a hardass. If those two were characters in a game made by... dunno, the bad part of Atlus or the Tales team I wouldn't think twice about them. But the way those two are cliché sticks out like a sore thumb amongst the otherwise decent cast.

Presentation-wise, the game is gorgeously-looking, but the music is... well. To put it simply, it lacks impact. It's nicely done, never overinstrumented (unlike BDFF's music), but the more "cinematic use" of it doesn't make it all that memorable to me, not helped by the fact that the music changes multiple times during some chapters.

And now, on to the gameplay. As mentioned earlier, I put the game on hiatus and while the story isn't all that appealing to me, the gameplay was what made that decision easier. (It's a game, after all. Not judging it on gameplay would be silly) If I had to put a word behind it, it'd be "tiring". Yes. I felt tired after playing FF XIII only for an hour or two the last few days and wasn't really willing to go through longer sessions. Why? Partly because this game lacks any variety. Whilst I mentioned the lack of a world map as a means to present an actual geography, it also means that there is no change of what you actually DO. And this is where I feel FF XIII fails the most. There is no difference in what is going on all throughout the game from a gameplay standpoint - no change in how you interact with the scenery (because there are no towns and no world map), no change in how you navigate throughout the world and not even minigames or just joke battles like the quiz monster in FF IX. There is solely walking and fighting and by this point it has simply become tedious.

I want to like this game and I could even look past some of the bad writing. But this is a video game - and I have a hard time enjoying it as such.

...And I think this guy agrees almost to completion.

I'm still playing the games, though I got a little distracted in the way (too many releases recently, aside from my personal life).
 

Nora_Nightingale

Balamb Garden Freshman
Nov 7, 2015
34
19
33
#52
I'm surprised you gave such praise with Vanille.....I consider her to have the most lack luster of all. That and her voice really gets in the way. but not just her voice...she acts far younger than what she should. Even when reunited with Fang, her demeanor doesn't change. Its like she screams "Pedophiles, come after me!"
 
#53
Her voice and demeanor are indeed overly cutesy, but I'm writing this off as something that came with the game being very Japanese, which is particularly noticeable when you listen to the VAs in both languages. That kind of "kawaii" attitude is considered acceptable in popular culture in the land of the rising sun (no matter how old the character is) and as someone coming from anime I can just write that off as a quirk. But I admit, other people may find this more uncomfortable/annoying. But, as I said, for a game where everyone seems to have a lot of speaking lines, she is more about expressions and body language showing her discomfort with the tragedy built by her own lies and that's pretty rare.

Now, a scene that really bugged me was the flashback with Lightning's birthday. It got stuck in my mind, because it is such an obvious dramatic cliché - why doesn't Lightning believe Serah when she tells her she's become a L'Cie? There is no reason given and judging by what I can tell about the miniscule hints about Serah's personality, the only reason I think of as valid - her trying to do crazy stuff to get her sister's attention - doesn't work. I hope XIII-2 delves a tad bit more into the relationship between the two.
 
Likes: LeonBlade

Nora_Nightingale

Balamb Garden Freshman
Nov 7, 2015
34
19
33
#54
The way i interpretted it was that Lightning didn't believe it because she thought it was a ruse to receiving Snow's blessing into marrying her. Which is still far-fetched, she could've easily played along till the time came where the supposed truth came out.

I have a lot of gripe with Hope because he was so stagnant. He was depressing, to vengeful, to forgiving, and then hopeless again, and then strong. All these characters always feel like they are missing one or two important scenes. Its also stupid how they all connect to the exact same event and constant flashbacks to that same event over and over. Sometimes they are just meaningless.

Another point i want to make is that most of this story could've been avoided. If Barthandelus plan was to tell them directly what their focus is, why didn't he do it before? And why even do it again? The whole motivation between the antagonists was so bizarre, i couldn't wrap my head around what they were accomplishing. Data logs tell me nothing on how stupid they were.
 
Likes: LeonBlade

Nora_Nightingale

Balamb Garden Freshman
Nov 7, 2015
34
19
33
#55
In the battle system, its more entertaining for sure, but unfortunately Lightning Returns doesn't revolve around battles.

i just want to say something that i forgot to say, Vanille is an exaggerated form of kawaii....she's in the same group as Snow and Lightning, being these anime stereotypes.

XIII-2 gets slightly better gameplay, because at least you get to play around with the mechanics and see it work. the only reason why Lightning Returns is good is because they came up with a whole new system and its open world, but its something that was needed back in the days of XIII.
 
#57
I finished the story portion of Final Fantasy XIII a few days ago. There's still some stuff to do and I'll probably tackle that peu à peu as time moves on, depending on what I still want to do.

So here are some thoughts on the rest of the game (chapter 11 to chapter 13), most of the things I mentioned before remain valid save for one or two annotations:

First, I want to talk of the way the final chapters tied up some of the plot points that were running alongside the game's primary narrative. Two scenes in chapter 11 stand out in particular, the one where Fang confronts Vanille about her lies and tells her she knew all along and the scene where Lightning and Snow come to terms about their respective relationships to Serah and each other. Both of these scenes felt like they came out of nowhere and there was no building up to these points, almost as if the writers wanted to tie up these story lines as quickly as possible. Neither scene gives proper closure to the things it refers to and, for two key plot elements, I find that to be very disappointing.

Second, there's the villains in the game. I'll start off with Raines's resurrection and I honestly question this in the way it was handled and what the point of it was. First off, why does Barthandelus/Dysley tell the party of this? Wouldn't it have been better to wait until the party got back to Cocoon to discover it for themselves? And there is the way it is then handled in chapter 12. It has little impact on the overall progress of the plot and is concluded a short ways in and the party has nothing to do with any of it. The whole thing comes across as immensely pointless. Then, there's Rosch and I'll be blunt - he would've made a good party member. Not because of his abilities, but the conflict between his realization of the agenda of the fal'Cie, the humanity within the l'Cie and his desire to keep the citizens of Cocoon from harm would make something to be worth exploring over time as he travels with the people the public fears - similar to Steiner's relationship with Zidane during the first one and a half discs of Final Fantasy IX - and not speechifying it in a cutscene while he has no presence in the game save for two scenes, and then going out in a blaze of glory. The "rivalry" with Snow that was hinted at also amounted to... well, nothing. And finally, there are Barthandelus and Orphan. Barthandelus is by far the worst main villain in a Final Fantasy game from my point of view. His speeches are so... hollow and devoid of any hint of a greater personality that it's baffling he holds them in the first place (apart from clunky exposition) and Orphan is... bizarre. The speeches it holds are so bloated my mind turned itself off in the end, save for the confrontation with Ragnarök. And dear lord, that was so... stupid. If Orphan wants to die, why erect a shield? Why not just open up and let Ragnarök deliver the finishing blow? Its behaviour is beyond contradictory and enters the realm of the absurd.

Lastly... the ending. I was fine with it. I think the whole "party members become Cie'th and turn back through willpower" aspect was handled far too cliché with the flashbacks of all the events prior, instead focussing on the inner desires of the characters would've dampened the whole "power of friendship" criticism this scene has gotten. The final scene quite honestly made me happy and excited. Didn't expect that.

So, what do I think of Final Fantasy XIII overall? Well... yes, I don't think it's good. It's not the eldritch abomination of video games, but for all the production value it seems to have had, I'd expected more. The gameplay is fine in small doses, though the Gil farming is insane and I'm glad they ditched the ways to make money from this game in the sequels. Where it falls flat is in its story, world and characterization. There are moments in this game where better ideas shine through - Rosch's speech at the end, the hints that the antagonism between Grand Pulse and Cocoon might be the result of propaganda, humanity's dependency on the fal'Cie - I think that FF XIII could've been a very different beast altogether. As it stands, I feel a lot of more complex ideas were ditched for accessibility. And that, ultimately, is what disappoints me the most - the unutilized potential for greater things.
 
Jun 7, 2014
898
625
Poland
#58
I finished the story portion of Final Fantasy XIII a few days ago. There's still some stuff to do and I'll probably tackle that peu à peu as time moves on, depending on what I still want to do.

So here are some thoughts on the rest of the game (chapter 11 to chapter 13), most of the things I mentioned before remain valid save for one or two annotations:

First, I want to talk of the way the final chapters tied up some of the plot points that were running alongside the game's primary narrative. Two scenes in chapter 11 stand out in particular, the one where Fang confronts Vanille about her lies and tells her she knew all along and the scene where Lightning and Snow come to terms about their respective relationships to Serah and each other. Both of these scenes felt like they came out of nowhere and there was no building up to these points, almost as if the writers wanted to tie up these story lines as quickly as possible. Neither scene gives proper closure to the things it refers to and, for two key plot elements, I find that to be very disappointing.

Second, there's the villains in the game. I'll start off with Raines's resurrection and I honestly question this in the way it was handled and what the point of it was. First off, why does Barthandelus/Dysley tell the party of this? Wouldn't it have been better to wait until the party got back to Cocoon to discover it for themselves? And there is the way it is then handled in chapter 12. It has little impact on the overall progress of the plot and is concluded a short ways in and the party has nothing to do with any of it. The whole thing comes across as immensely pointless. Then, there's Rosch and I'll be blunt - he would've made a good party member. Not because of his abilities, but the conflict between his realization of the agenda of the fal'Cie, the humanity within the l'Cie and his desire to keep the citizens of Cocoon from harm would make something to be worth exploring over time as he travels with the people the public fears - similar to Steiner's relationship with Zidane during the first one and a half discs of Final Fantasy IX - and not speechifying it in a cutscene while he has no presence in the game save for two scenes, and then going out in a blaze of glory. The "rivalry" with Snow that was hinted at also amounted to... well, nothing. And finally, there are Barthandelus and Orphan. Barthandelus is by far the worst main villain in a Final Fantasy game from my point of view. His speeches are so... hollow and devoid of any hint of a greater personality that it's baffling he holds them in the first place (apart from clunky exposition) and Orphan is... bizarre. The speeches it holds are so bloated my mind turned itself off in the end, save for the confrontation with Ragnarök. And dear lord, that was so... stupid. If Orphan wants to die, why erect a shield? Why not just open up and let Ragnarök deliver the finishing blow? Its behaviour is beyond contradictory and enters the realm of the absurd.

Lastly... the ending. I was fine with it. I think the whole "party members become Cie'th and turn back through willpower" aspect was handled far too cliché with the flashbacks of all the events prior, instead focussing on the inner desires of the characters would've dampened the whole "power of friendship" criticism this scene has gotten. The final scene quite honestly made me happy and excited. Didn't expect that.

So, what do I think of Final Fantasy XIII overall? Well... yes, I don't think it's good. It's not the eldritch abomination of video games, but for all the production value it seems to have had, I'd expected more. The gameplay is fine in small doses, though the Gil farming is insane and I'm glad they ditched the ways to make money from this game in the sequels. Where it falls flat is in its story, world and characterization. There are moments in this game where better ideas shine through - Rosch's speech at the end, the hints that the antagonism between Grand Pulse and Cocoon might be the result of propaganda, humanity's dependency on the fal'Cie - I think that FF XIII could've been a very different beast altogether. As it stands, I feel a lot of more complex ideas were ditched for accessibility. And that, ultimately, is what disappoints me the most - the unutilized potential for greater things.
Well written. I agree with your thoughts, especially on FF XIII's wasted potential.

I believe that the premise behind the futuristic utopia of Cocoon floating over a wild planet of Pulse is one of the most fascinating ideas for a setting in the franchise. Unfortunately the game falls flat in the execution.
And I feel similarly about the villains, though the one I was particularly disappointed with was Jihl. Mostly because the promotional materials made it seem like she was going to be an important antagonist, while in the game she had maybe 5 lines of dialogue and didn't do anything relevant (not even a boss fight).
 

buddhafied

Sphere Hunter
Sep 30, 2013
241
126
Vancouver, BC
#59
This game generally speaking gets a bad rep, I think. There are certainly worse main-line entries, and I'd actually say some much-loved fan favourites (IE VIII) are worse overall on balance, even if they're better in places.
THANK YOU! Now, I have my share of disliking XIII, but boy I can't speak enough bad things about VIII :D