Gaming FFXIII: what did(n't) you like about it?

[Pedeadstrian]

I just finished the game. It exceeded my expectations, but because of this and other gaming forums, I had a rather low expectation of it. Almost every mention of it I've seen calls it terrible, worst game of all time, etc. What in particular did you like or not like about it?

A coworker told me it was awful. One of his complaints was it being short, while I spent almost 50 hours on it, and that was without doing all of the side stuff. He also thinks Skyrim and Fallout are awful too, so I take his criticisms with a grain of salt, but I'd like to hear what you guys think.

Also, if you played the sequel, how would you rate it compared to the first?

 

[ShadowSoldier]

Combat was a mess. The story was completely weird and confusing. The game has a 20 hour tutorial. Horrible characters that nobody can relate to. And the game is basically just one long ass hallway.

 

[BrunoAlvesMontei]

Well i haven't finished it yet, but i'm on the last disc.

Things i didn't like:
- Linear
- combat system
- level up system
- does not have an open world
- does not feel like RPG
- Carry the Final Fantasy brand

 

[Arras]

I somewhat liked it, but I'm not particularly sure why. I can give some reasons why people wouldn't like it though:
-Hope and Vanille's voices. AGGHHHH
-The combat is basically: apply buffs at start, wail on enemy until he dies, heal if needed, rebuff if needed. (although a tank might be useful against some enemies and I used one for most of the game I found not having one was actually more efficient at the end of the game)
-Corridor Simulator 2010
-Sidequests are basically "go here and kill this dude"

Honestly though I didn't mind the linearity. A game that's too open tends to make me lose interest within roughly an hour or so.

 

[Paarish]

I enjoyed it somewhat.
I thought some of the character development and story was good but the gameplay itself was a real let down. Not much exploration until you reach Gran Pulse and then it really opens up, but even then you can only go so far considering the crystarium prevents you from fighting any of the harder enemies. Though I guess some people might consider that a good point since your stats would be even with future enemies and bosses.
I think the best way to describe it is that it's a good game but not really much of a Final Fantasy. (Then again, this isn't the first time people have been let down with FF titles so I'm sure eventually it'll be embraced with all the other not-so-good titles)

 

[RikuCrafter]

I love the story and combat, and I got really invested in it. Definitely one of my top three Final Fantasys (personally). I have played all, and the political and grown up nature of the plot was wonderful. The graphics were downright gorgeous.

I didn't like the linearity, though.

Hated XIII-2. Played it for three hours and returned it.

 

[GameWinner]

The first two post nailed how I felt about the game.

 

[Pedeadstrian]

Okay, so it seems like the complains seem to be concentrated and not just all over the place. Most of the complaints I actually agree with, except for the dude who didn't like Vanille's voice. I loved it, but then again I loved Fran's from XII as well.

 

[mkdms14]

While not the worst Final Fantasy game ever, no that is reserved for "Final Fantasy All the Bravest". It had some good things going for it. I remember seeing a trailer for it for the first time and I almost crapped my pants, because the game CGI cut scenes looked absolutely spectacular. Then I started to play the game and start to develop a dislike for most of the character. Especially for Vanille whose voice was pretty annoying. Snow was the only character that I could actually tolerate. I didn't hate the linear path as much as everyone else did because to be fare most video game stores follow a linear path of some kind difference is in others you could back track, where here you were not given that option.

 

[somewhereovertherainbow]

ffx13 is like walking down a escalator. It was pretty like a movie. Cause it played.. like a movie. Like Uncharted 3 . People is pissed cause its not a FF game in any respect .
FF before was about adventure, puzzle, exploration, depth outside the heroes path, gain feelings for NPCs and the World.

 

[Drink the Bleach]

I think the reason 13 gets such a bad rep is because people have a poor idea on how to string words together to form an expression. There are several dozens of unique FF titles, but people that call themselves fans, only seem to like but a few titles and bastardize all the rest. At the same time they use inappropriate extreme terms to describe titles they like and titles they didn't like, so at the same time every Final Fantasy title is apparently both the best and worst Final Fantasy of all time.

What both works for and against Final Fantasy as a brand is how diverse and unique the titles are. Though each game shares the same things and often similar themes, each game is radically different, but that doesn't stop people from comparing titles that have no business being compared in the 1st place. This is detrimental to general opinion of a title because people refuse to learn that the next newest FF game will be nothing like past titles they enjoyed, but its good for the series because how the games are played never get stale. So even the objectively best games in the series has haters.

Bring in the silly 1-10 rating system and you'll often find that anything less than 8.5 is considered the worst game of all time by people who wouldn't know a truly awful game if it bit them in the ass.

 

[Foxi4]

This will explain everybody's issues with FFXIII far better than a single post possibly could:

http://spoonyexperiment.com/game-reviews/final-fantasy-series/final-fantasy-xiii/

Also this:

 

[Pedeadstrian]

1) Holy necromancy, Batman!
2)

Also this:

Seriously, I'm stupid enough as it is, did you really need to make me watch that crap?

 

[Terenigma]

The big sins were:

- It was WAY too linear
- No open world or map system (altho admittedly this has been pretty much lacking since 9)
- Towns didnt feel homely, it didnt have that "ooo i reached a town, lets explore it" feeling.
- I didnt like any of the characters at all
- The story was weak
- Lightning. She is the most forced character in the history of gaming. They are trying so hard to make her the next Cloud or Yuna but she just simply isnt. I wish they would just stop trying to milk her for sales and just make a new game.

 

[Depravo]

It strange that all the major criticisms (linearity, whiny voices etc) were present in FFX but people still bum that game.

The 'linearity' was integral to the pacing of the game/story. As Final Fantasy games are basically a story with the occasional random battle an open world would just have distracted from this. When they tried to address this 'problem' in FFXIII-2 by giving you a choice of places to visit/quests to tackle it just felt disconnecting.
The characters/acting/story were certainly up to the standard of previous FF games.
The 'paradigm' combat system is the best turn-based/menu-based combat system I have ever used bar none. It seamlessly combines strategy/action.

I liked it and when I'm done playing FFX/FFX-2 HD I'll be getting Lightning Returns whereupon I will replay the whole trilogy.

 

[Pedeadstrian]

It strange that all the major criticisms (linearity, whiny voices etc) were present in FFX but people still bum that game.

The 'linearity' was integral to the pacing of the game/story. As Final Fantasy games are basically a story with the occasional random battle an open world would just have distracted from this. When they tried to address this 'problem' in FFXIII-2 by giving you a choice of places to visit/quests to tackle it just felt disconnecting.
The characters/acting/story were certainly up to the standard of previous FF games.
The 'paradigm' combat system is the best turn-based/menu-based combat system I have ever used bar none. It seamlessly combines strategy/action.

I liked it and when I'm done playing FFX/FFX-2 HD I'll be getting Lightning Returns whereupon I will replay the whole trilogy.

Final Fantasy X was the first Final Fantasy game I ever hated when I played it. Linearity wasn't really the issue, though, since most Final Fantasy games suffer from "linearity." Even if you have a big, open world, for most of the game you only have like, 3 choices max. Either going back to where you just were (which is often pointless), going to where the next part of the story takes place (which happens even if the game is completely linear), or going to the one random town/cave before going to the next part of the story. And, if there's more than those three choices, the other areas are often full of enemies that are too strong for you anyway, so again, it'd be pointless.

I actually enjoyed the "exploration" in XIII-2 when you went to different areas of spacetime, but it did get annoying after a while when you were trying to do side stuff and there was no way of knowing where exactly you needed to go.

I wasn't a fan of the combat system. The game was at the level of difficulty where, even if I needed to switch from a pure-attack group, all I did was buff myself, heal, then go back to that pure-attack group. That was the vast majority of the game.

Of course, you're entitled to your opinion, as I am mine. I loved FFVII and FFVIII when I was a kid, but if I never played them back then and played them for the first time as an adult, maybe I'd hate them but love FFXIII. I need a way to erase memories from my brain... gaming (and life in general) would be so much better...

 

[Black-Ice]

• The story was interesting, I engaged with it.
• I like Lightning. Unlike most FF women, Lightning can actually stand on her own 2 feet, despite their cliche's I liked all the others too, but then again every FF has cliche characters too.
• I don't really get the whole "Linear" stuff coz every single other FF is linear. The only difference in XIII is that you can't backtrack (until you get to pulse) but thats because backtracking simply doesn't make sense to the story.
• Graphics & Music <3
• I thoroughly enjoyed the combat system.
• Everything Depravo said

XIII has to be one of the most unjustly hounded games I've seen in a while, especially when I see people being slightly hypocritical

• X had dry characters, Tidus is by far the worst in FF history imo
• X-2 was also a pointless sequel with no story but at least XIII-2 was somewhat interesting. X-2 seemed more like a mishmash of mini-games that could have been in X
• People say Lightning has a monotone personality, yet everyone loves Cloud, Squall, Sephiroth (Even in crisis core before he was evil, Seph had no emotion)
• "You couldnt explore anywhere" -- You can, every area had a fair amount to explore and once you got to Pulse exploration became immense, but i'll assume not many people got that far.

Also this talk about how it shouldnt carry the FF brand, its in line with what I've seen across the forums where anything that's different to how it was when you were 7 years old is a travesty, any kind of change is shat on rather than looked at: (Pokemon BW, SSB Brawl,) even that Sonic Boom reveal where everyone was shooting out the game coz Knuckles looks different when they haven't even played it yet. Change is ok, especially when it takes a series to different levels. Final Fantasy has always been about a long adventure accompanied by a great story, XIII is that imo.

 

[Sefi]

Loved the open world part, even if it took forever to get to that point. It had me wishing the entire game was like that since I loved FFXII.

 

[Ace Overclocked]

Most people who hate on it are just bandwagoners, though some have a valid point.
The XIII series as a whole exceeded my expectations, XIII's problem was especially at the beginning of the game where they picked the chars for you and combat was a bit messy (argh those vanille/sazh chapters), combat was more fast paced and much more strategic which was awesome for me
the game redeems itself completely once it opens up when you go down to gran pulse but most people only play it for a little bit and judge it
If you thought the story was confusing then you obviously don't play many RPGs (seriously, it's nothing compared to kingdom hearts)
Overall i loved the game and got its platinum trophy, though it was insanely hard
Edit: It makes sense they won't be exploring the towns and talking to civilians (although they went to palumpolum and nautilus, and then eden) , they're fugitives for fuck's sake
It was way too linear? i don't see people complaining about X being too linear but it was an huge hallway too with admittedly a little more town and those annoying puzzles at each temple

 

[Gahars]

Why did this, of all things, need a bump?

Well, while we're all here...