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Quite a good list in my opinion (even though I've not played over half of them, nor do I even remember that games like Chocobo Tales even exist...). I was expecting something potentially hyper-controversial, bearing in mind the state of the FF fanbase nowadays, but that's a very fair list. Even if I struggle to countenance the thought of FFXIV 1.0 being THAT bad that Dirge and After Years are lesser offenders on the list.
FFXIII has become a weird case for me when I try and re-evaluate it these days. I've reached a point where I think FFXIII-2 is assuredly the better game out of the two, but FFXIII is still the better product in spite of its nightmarish development behind-the-scenes. Ideally I'll be judging based on the former and not the latter, but I have a thing for evaluating things as the total sum of its parts, sooo...
Man, oh man. I knew All The Bravest would parachute straight into the top spot. I can think of nothing redeemable about it, aside from the criminal fact that they actually put effort into creating excellent FFVII-XIII sprites, so I can't even berate this "game" for being a totally 100% lazy cash-grab. I can now only call it a totally cynical cash grab with SOME good effort gone into it!
The only other good thing about it now is that it's free. They had the sheer gall to charge you upfront for it for the first few months or so, on top of all the enticing the game does to you to drop some change on hourglasses or some characters. Additionally, I have seen people say that if you steer clear of the IAPs, you can find some fun in this. If they have found some fun in it, good for them. I personally don't see the fun factor of mindlessly swiping the screen to see a seizure-inducing cacophony of colours and effects as your sprites lunge at a monster - not even if I'm actively trying to bore myself.
Going by @Kagari I presume that recently-released Pictlogica mobile game is also an excellent contender for one of the top three positions as well.
FFXIII has become a weird case for me when I try and re-evaluate it these days. I've reached a point where I think FFXIII-2 is assuredly the better game out of the two, but FFXIII is still the better product in spite of its nightmarish development behind-the-scenes. Ideally I'll be judging based on the former and not the latter, but I have a thing for evaluating things as the total sum of its parts, sooo...
Man, oh man. I knew All The Bravest would parachute straight into the top spot. I can think of nothing redeemable about it, aside from the criminal fact that they actually put effort into creating excellent FFVII-XIII sprites, so I can't even berate this "game" for being a totally 100% lazy cash-grab. I can now only call it a totally cynical cash grab with SOME good effort gone into it!
The only other good thing about it now is that it's free. They had the sheer gall to charge you upfront for it for the first few months or so, on top of all the enticing the game does to you to drop some change on hourglasses or some characters. Additionally, I have seen people say that if you steer clear of the IAPs, you can find some fun in this. If they have found some fun in it, good for them. I personally don't see the fun factor of mindlessly swiping the screen to see a seizure-inducing cacophony of colours and effects as your sprites lunge at a monster - not even if I'm actively trying to bore myself.
Going by @Kagari I presume that recently-released Pictlogica mobile game is also an excellent contender for one of the top three positions as well.
There's something strange about how I feel about Final Fantasy XIII. I honestly like the game a lot and while not even in the top 5 of the franchise, I think it's a very strong game. At the same time, I quite understand when people critizice it for being too linear, confusing in narrative or for having a battle system that allows the game to play itself. This is all true but let's go back for a moment to 2001, when Final Fantasy X came out. That game killed the world map for the first time in the franchise, a world map that gave you a false feeling of freedom (because ALL single-player FF games are actually very linear, XIII is just too obvious with it). FFX was exactly the same as XIII in terms of how its story goes forward. You just walk, fight, watch a cutscene, keep walking and fighting, repeat. Now, FFX is one of the strongest titles in the series and everyone who has a brain loves it. So I honestly don't get why some gamers bitch about XIII being linear but love X at the same time.
In fact, ever since FFVII, most games allow you to win just by grinding and mashing the attack command. Trust me, I love VII, IX and X as much as you all do but most of the abilities in those games are useless and that is an undeniable fact. XIII, while it does have the all-hated Auto command, forces players to switch Paradygms all the time because only attacking with the Commando won't win you any fights. FFXIII also has level caps all over the main story that stop you from becoming over-powered, at least until the final battle. FFXIII also has those camera changes, cinematic attacks and a feeling that made fights look more awesome. To me, those were very welcome changes and I honestly liked them a lot.
Then we go to the technical stuff. Even today FFXIII looks fantastic graphically and allows us to visit some of the most beautiful locations in gaming. Sunleth Waterscape, Gran Pulse, Lake Bresha, Bodhum, etc are very beautiful places. The music is one of the strongest not only in the franchise, but the entre gaming generation. I still listen to it almost every week. It's that good.
So, long story short. I just think that gamers worldwide were too unfair when critizicing FFXIII. Like I said, it's not the best JRPG ever (it's not even in my top 5 FF) but the positive things it has outweight the negative ones, like most good titles. Also, I just can't bring myself to accept people who play linear garbage like Call of Duty to come to my face and talk about FFXIII, seriously. Just my two cents.
In fact, ever since FFVII, most games allow you to win just by grinding and mashing the attack command. Trust me, I love VII, IX and X as much as you all do but most of the abilities in those games are useless and that is an undeniable fact. XIII, while it does have the all-hated Auto command, forces players to switch Paradygms all the time because only attacking with the Commando won't win you any fights. FFXIII also has level caps all over the main story that stop you from becoming over-powered, at least until the final battle. FFXIII also has those camera changes, cinematic attacks and a feeling that made fights look more awesome. To me, those were very welcome changes and I honestly liked them a lot.
Then we go to the technical stuff. Even today FFXIII looks fantastic graphically and allows us to visit some of the most beautiful locations in gaming. Sunleth Waterscape, Gran Pulse, Lake Bresha, Bodhum, etc are very beautiful places. The music is one of the strongest not only in the franchise, but the entre gaming generation. I still listen to it almost every week. It's that good.
So, long story short. I just think that gamers worldwide were too unfair when critizicing FFXIII. Like I said, it's not the best JRPG ever (it's not even in my top 5 FF) but the positive things it has outweight the negative ones, like most good titles. Also, I just can't bring myself to accept people who play linear garbage like Call of Duty to come to my face and talk about FFXIII, seriously. Just my two cents.
There was nothing wrong with enjoying XIII. But there is nothing wrong in hating it (or what the franchise has become). Many people would argue the negatives DO outweigh the positive aspects of the game. It doesn't help that many people have a strong dislike for the cast and the story (and for good reason). While I enjoyed XIII, I don't like what the series has become. I'm just glad it's about to finish. I think LR should never have existed.
PD: I play and enjoy Call of Duty, they are vastly different games, just because I enjoy one doesn't mean I can't form an opinion on the other.
PD: I play and enjoy Call of Duty, they are vastly different games, just because I enjoy one doesn't mean I can't form an opinion on the other.
The thing is that most of the "gamers" that bitch about FFXIII's linear gameplay are people who became "gamers" this last generation, which means they didn't enjoy the previous titles in their time and are obviously not knowledgable about the genre. At the same time, they run to pay vast sums of money each year to buy and play Call of Duty, a game franchise that is even more linear and prescripted than FFXIII ever was. Yet, they come to our faces to call FFXIII a bad game because of it. With this, I'm not trying to say the typical "I liked FF before it was cool" because I myself became a fan with FFVII, just like most of us did.
I also tend to believe a lot of people who don't like FFXIII story simply didn't understand it very much. I do get that it can be confusing and it overcomplicates things by putting weird names on them but I honestly believe the story and cast were pretty good. I played a LOT of RPGs this last gen, from crap like Hyperdimension Neptunia to excellent games like Deus Ex: Human Revolution and I can say FFXIII offered the best plot and universe of all of them.
I also tend to believe a lot of people who don't like FFXIII story simply didn't understand it very much. I do get that it can be confusing and it overcomplicates things by putting weird names on them but I honestly believe the story and cast were pretty good. I played a LOT of RPGs this last gen, from crap like Hyperdimension Neptunia to excellent games like Deus Ex: Human Revolution and I can say FFXIII offered the best plot and universe of all of them.
I greatly enjoyed XIII when I first played it, but... it's really not something I'd ever play again. Hell, even helping my boyfriend beat a boss felt like a slog to me. Looking back, I enjoyed it because it *looked* like an interesting new world to learn about (not explore; I knew about the game's linear nature and was fine with it), but unfortunately the ending parts felt rushed and I really couldn't tell what was going on after a while. I still enjoyed it more than... well, some Final Fantasies, but there you have it.
Also, Chocobo's Dungeon I haven't played yet, but it seems like a fun enough game. It is a rougelike, after all, so I'm not expecting amazing looking dungeons or anything
The plot, though? Really stupid. Like crazy stupid.
And yes, The After Years sucks. God that is so terribad. Describing the plot as "a bad fanfic" is very appropriate, too.
Also, Chocobo's Dungeon I haven't played yet, but it seems like a fun enough game. It is a rougelike, after all, so I'm not expecting amazing looking dungeons or anything
The plot, though? Really stupid. Like crazy stupid.And yes, The After Years sucks. God that is so terribad. Describing the plot as "a bad fanfic" is very appropriate, too.
I'll just copy and paste what I wrote on a different forum.
To me, linearity is either a bad thing or something that goes unnoticed. In this case, it going unnoticed would be the good thing and what everyone should want.
Linearity should go unnoticed because it can be a distraction to the overall experience. Players shouldn't be focused on it. It shouldn't even cross their minds. Instead, they should be focused on the world itself. They should be having fun and not be thinking about things like that. There is nothing wrong with linear game design as long as it is covered up and doesn't ruin the fun. Disguising stuff like this is the fine art of game design and it's important.
If you look at Final Fantasy for example. All the main entries are linear. You still go from point A to point B. Start to finish. The earlier Final Fantasy games did a good job covering it all up. If players noticed, it wasn't something that greatly bothered them and ruined the experience they were having.
Later entries like Final Fantasy XIII for example, made it stick out like a sore thumb. The problem with FFXIII wasn't the fact that many areas were just long tubes. Sure, that's one thing. But the big issue was that the game was devoid of content. No sense of exploration, mystery and discovery. No side quests and mini games. Can't revisit areas on Cocoon. The game just kept forcing you to move forward with no breaks. No sense of participation either. Not much to do really besides a shit ton of fighting.
The absence of these things simply made the linearity stand out and bad for a lot of people. It made it worse. If these things were not absent, then the tube like structure probably wouldn't be so off putting. It wouldn't be as bad.
There are plenty of linear games out there that don't bother people. Some do a good job disguising it. Some don't. That's what it comes down to. Does Call of Duty's linearity really bug a lot of people out there? Or does it not bother them because the game does a good job making them heavily focus on the overall experience instead?
Repetition, something we do a hell of a lot of in videogames, is another one of those things that needs to be covered up as well. If you don't cover this one up, people will get bored and stop playing. That's called bad game design. Remember the FFXIII players who said that they were struggling to beat the game? That's because all that fighting we did in the game wasn't covered up well. They really felt it this time around. Of course, that was complemented by other things too such as bad storytelling.
To me, linearity is either a bad thing or something that goes unnoticed. In this case, it going unnoticed would be the good thing and what everyone should want.
Linearity should go unnoticed because it can be a distraction to the overall experience. Players shouldn't be focused on it. It shouldn't even cross their minds. Instead, they should be focused on the world itself. They should be having fun and not be thinking about things like that. There is nothing wrong with linear game design as long as it is covered up and doesn't ruin the fun. Disguising stuff like this is the fine art of game design and it's important.
If you look at Final Fantasy for example. All the main entries are linear. You still go from point A to point B. Start to finish. The earlier Final Fantasy games did a good job covering it all up. If players noticed, it wasn't something that greatly bothered them and ruined the experience they were having.
Later entries like Final Fantasy XIII for example, made it stick out like a sore thumb. The problem with FFXIII wasn't the fact that many areas were just long tubes. Sure, that's one thing. But the big issue was that the game was devoid of content. No sense of exploration, mystery and discovery. No side quests and mini games. Can't revisit areas on Cocoon. The game just kept forcing you to move forward with no breaks. No sense of participation either. Not much to do really besides a shit ton of fighting.
The absence of these things simply made the linearity stand out and bad for a lot of people. It made it worse. If these things were not absent, then the tube like structure probably wouldn't be so off putting. It wouldn't be as bad.
There are plenty of linear games out there that don't bother people. Some do a good job disguising it. Some don't. That's what it comes down to. Does Call of Duty's linearity really bug a lot of people out there? Or does it not bother them because the game does a good job making them heavily focus on the overall experience instead?
Repetition, something we do a hell of a lot of in videogames, is another one of those things that needs to be covered up as well. If you don't cover this one up, people will get bored and stop playing. That's called bad game design. Remember the FFXIII players who said that they were struggling to beat the game? That's because all that fighting we did in the game wasn't covered up well. They really felt it this time around. Of course, that was complemented by other things too such as bad storytelling.
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Fleur
Agreed. It's chiefly the element of an illusion of freedom that plays a decisive role in this. A good JRPG should in my opinion offer enough agency to the player to interact with the game's world, but stripped bare and FFXIII seems to take place in a series of setpieces than a grounded world . This was especially a headache for me when we shifted from location to location on Cocoon and I had (and still have) no clear idea of where anything is in relation to anywhere else. I mean the only thing I'm certain about on Cocoon is that Eden's floating somewhere.
Linearity as a concept itself is of course not inherently bad and not the core problem. It's how you dress it up that can make or break a game for many. FFXIII boldly tried to strut out naked which we all know led to enough backlash that FFXIII-2 and LR have frantically tried to cover by throwing in layers of clothing to make up for it. In Lightning Returns's case, probably too much clothing, looking at Lightning's ridiculously huge wardrobe when there's less than a fortnight left of existence. I will stop it with the terrible clothes analogy now.
Okay, time for me to say something potentially quite controversial. I think FFXIII is marginally a better game than Crisis Core. I just think it is even though logically even to myself, this shouldn't be the case. I normally love action battle systems, but the execution of Crisis Core's combat rubs me the wrong way with its shallowness and a baffling decision to take all agency from the player in terms of summons and Limit Breaks in favour of an annoying slot system that's only there for the novelty. It made me realise how much I actually prefer the paradigm deck system. FFXIII's story fails under my scrutiny and I can pick so many holes in it that the entire plot can fall apart right there, but it doesn't damage any pre-existing story that has come beforehand. Crisis Core is one of those moments when you ask "yes, it can be made, but why should it have been made?" because you have moments like a Goddess deciding to bestow mercy on Genesis of all people instead of oh I dunno, Aerith canonically later on or step in the wake of a world-destroying meteor. Still, I do prefer Zack as a protagonist than Lightning.
tl;dr, I would actually replace FFXIII at #10 with Crisis Core by possibly a whisker or two. I remember the lofty scores CC received and I still can't fathom why today.
Linearity as a concept itself is of course not inherently bad and not the core problem. It's how you dress it up that can make or break a game for many. FFXIII boldly tried to strut out naked which we all know led to enough backlash that FFXIII-2 and LR have frantically tried to cover by throwing in layers of clothing to make up for it. In Lightning Returns's case, probably too much clothing, looking at Lightning's ridiculously huge wardrobe when there's less than a fortnight left of existence. I will stop it with the terrible clothes analogy now.
Okay, time for me to say something potentially quite controversial. I think FFXIII is marginally a better game than Crisis Core. I just think it is even though logically even to myself, this shouldn't be the case. I normally love action battle systems, but the execution of Crisis Core's combat rubs me the wrong way with its shallowness and a baffling decision to take all agency from the player in terms of summons and Limit Breaks in favour of an annoying slot system that's only there for the novelty. It made me realise how much I actually prefer the paradigm deck system. FFXIII's story fails under my scrutiny and I can pick so many holes in it that the entire plot can fall apart right there, but it doesn't damage any pre-existing story that has come beforehand. Crisis Core is one of those moments when you ask "yes, it can be made, but why should it have been made?" because you have moments like a Goddess deciding to bestow mercy on Genesis of all people instead of oh I dunno, Aerith canonically later on or step in the wake of a world-destroying meteor. Still, I do prefer Zack as a protagonist than Lightning.
tl;dr, I would actually replace FFXIII at #10 with Crisis Core by possibly a whisker or two. I remember the lofty scores CC received and I still can't fathom why today.
I think XIII's linearity is a very tired discussion, so I'll just express my opinion based on my own experience. I'll write down what I personally feel.
XIII brought me into the FF franchise for the first time. Not that I never played an FF game before, but XIII made me a fan, enough for me to play through I, III, V, VI, VII, XII, XIV: ARR, Tactics, XIII-2, and now LR: FFXIII. I live in Malaysia and most of my friends, who don't dabble in the internet's opinion of the game, love XIII. Not many have played XIII-2, and they think LR is a good game but too short.
Forgive me if I do get angry when people scream about how XIII was a bad game, because it is the reason why I've invested so much in Final Fantasy in the first place. If you'd like to know which games I disliked, they would be I, III, VII and XII, in no particular order. I think VI is the best out of the entire franchise, Tactics being astoundingly Shakespearean, and V having the most interesting job system of the classics (which makes me happy that Bravely Default is using this). I thought XIII had incredible visuals, with Gran Pulse leaving me in awe. The gameplay was deceptively simple, boasting quite a bit of depth later on, though I wish the game was more open to customisation.
And that's how I personally feel. I have personal reasons for disliking VII, which are mostly technical issues involving exploration. If anything, the game was giving too much freedom for a focused and linear storyline. In the end, I'd often feel that trying to progress with the story was like finding a needle in a haystack (the same experience I had with III).
XIII brought me into the FF franchise for the first time. Not that I never played an FF game before, but XIII made me a fan, enough for me to play through I, III, V, VI, VII, XII, XIV: ARR, Tactics, XIII-2, and now LR: FFXIII. I live in Malaysia and most of my friends, who don't dabble in the internet's opinion of the game, love XIII. Not many have played XIII-2, and they think LR is a good game but too short.
Forgive me if I do get angry when people scream about how XIII was a bad game, because it is the reason why I've invested so much in Final Fantasy in the first place. If you'd like to know which games I disliked, they would be I, III, VII and XII, in no particular order. I think VI is the best out of the entire franchise, Tactics being astoundingly Shakespearean, and V having the most interesting job system of the classics (which makes me happy that Bravely Default is using this). I thought XIII had incredible visuals, with Gran Pulse leaving me in awe. The gameplay was deceptively simple, boasting quite a bit of depth later on, though I wish the game was more open to customisation.
And that's how I personally feel. I have personal reasons for disliking VII, which are mostly technical issues involving exploration. If anything, the game was giving too much freedom for a focused and linear storyline. In the end, I'd often feel that trying to progress with the story was like finding a needle in a haystack (the same experience I had with III).
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