What Did You Really Think of the FFXIII?

[GranFran]

Well, I finally finished the main part of the game this morning after beating Orphan (at last).. And I'm wondering (without giving any spoilers away) what everyone thought of the storyline? Personally, I was disappointed and rather annoyed with the ending, it was not what I expected to happen..

If someone took a vote on FFXIII I would definitely not list it in my top five favorites of the series, that's for sure.. Yes, the graphics were, as always with SquareEnix, beautiful, but graphics alone does not make for a great game.. I did not find the characters very likable, with the exception of Vanille (a bit whiny though) Fang and Snow, although he was hardly given a decent part in the story (he reminded me of Kimarhi in FFX, he should have been a powerhouse in the game but was not)..

As in FFXII the story, to me at least, was given the short end of the stick, while graphics was where the designers chose to put most of their efforts.. I also found the Crystarium a bit of a bore and cumbersome to boot.. That damn controller constantly backing up and going down or up the layers and not being able to see at a glance any unused crystals without backtracking was frustrating too..

The weapon and accessory upgrading was horrendous and I still don't understand it well even after playing the game through.. I only ended up upgrading one weapon per character and a few needed accessories..

All in all, it will be a long time, if ever, before I would want to pick this game up and play it from beginning to end again as I have done with other FF games, although I will probably continue to play it now for awhile just to complete the rest of the missions (I did about half of them before taking on Orphan)..

This Final Fantasy falls far short in story and characters then any that I can recall and I've played them all since the first one came out for the old NES back in the early 90's.. It's a shame, this is such a beautifully visual game but with not much else to recommend it..

This is just my opinion, I wouldn't for a moment expect everyone or even anyone to agree with me..

[SeeD Squall]

I really enjoy the game, specifically the post game.

The story was awful. It was very far under par to the other wonderful games of the series. After chapter 10, the story became very predictable. I found myself more concerned about just finishing the game to get to the post game aspect of the hunts.

I have not done much item lvl. I am looking forward to that.

I love the battle system. The crystarium is awesome, and the combat is great as well. The class system they brought back is great.

Hopefully before they end the series, they will come out with a more traditional type final fantasy game.

[Food]

I wished they would've done a better job on explaining the concepts of the story. Until around chapters 5 or 6, I had no idea what the Purge, Fal'Cie, and L'Cie were.
Later I found out that there was a whole encyclopedia in the Datalog. (which I never even bothered to look at)

Other than that, I think it the story was.. ehh, interesting enough for me to play through without getting bored.

[final fantacy_tifa]

I can't realy say I hate it or love it cus all the new games that r coming out r getting lamer n lamer but its ff so it has to be at lease a little good

[Furore]

I like everything about it other than how linear the first 30 or so hours are.
Probably my favourite new FF game since FFIX.

It had a great story, a likeable cast and a battle system favouring strategy as well as quick thinking in some cases. It also wasn't FFXII and that's certainly a big positive in my book.

[Mythgraven]

i thought this game was awesome. in the 1st 10mins i was addicted.

[Meteo x -9999HP]

They were a bit lazy on some aspects, but I did finish so I guess I don't hate it that bad...

[Andromeda]

I found the game to be highly addicting to play. Even after I finished the game and started to move on to other games I hadn't finished I found myself easily getting lured back to complete the extras in the game. It is also probably the first game that I'm going to get a Platinum Trophy on my PS3. So I think that says something about keeping you interested and involved. Despite the frustration at times with bosses I kept coming back knowing that I just had to think different.

When I gets some time again I'll probably run through it a second time for the story again. I really enjoyed the characters and story, just wish there was a cutscene and music viewer like in FFX.

[GranFran]

I found the game to be highly addicting to play. Even after I finished the game and started to move on to other games I hadn't finished I found myself easily getting lured back to complete the extras in the game. It is also probably the first game that I'm going to get a Platinum Trophy on my PS3. So I think that says something about keeping you interested and involved. Despite the frustration at times with bosses I kept coming back knowing that I just had to think different.

When I gets some time again I'll probably run through it a second time for the story again. I really enjoyed the characters and story, just wish there was a cutscene and music viewer like in FFX.

The music didn't impress me as much at FFXII, I bought the album for that game.. It would have been nice if Square would have started a trend with being able to revisit a 'movie' viewer the way they did in FF10 but guess not..

[davfra]

This is the first FF game I have played. I think it's awsome. I didn't understand the story, but so what? And the weapon upgrades were a real puzzle.
The graphics are fantastice and the characters too (except whingy Hope).
I'm going around again now, and I've learnt quite a lot from the first time around.
Best game since Baldurs Gate 2.

[Nunubx]

As for me, I loved it. It had a good story, great cast of characters, a battle system that made you shift characters classes on the fly therefor, changing your strategy as well, amazing music, and it was just all around good.


I'm having a hard time seeing why anyone would hate this game just because of it's linear nature, I mean it make sense plot-wise(Lighting and the crew are Pulse l'Cie and everyone wants their heads, why the hell would they want to talk to townspeople?). If I wanted exploration, I'd play Castlevania/Metroid. If I wanted a huge world, I'd play a sandbox game. People need to play games for what they are, not for they what should be.

[GranFran]

As for me, I loved it. It had a good story, great cast of characters, a battle system that made you shift characters classes on the fly therefor, changing your strategy as well, amazing music, and it was just all around good.


I'm having a hard time seeing why anyone would hate this game just because of it's linear nature, I mean it make sense plot-wise(Lighting and the crew are Pulse l'Cie and everyone wants their heads, why the hell would they want to talk to townspeople?). If I wanted exploration, I'd play Castlevania/Metroid. If I wanted a huge world, I'd play a sandbox game. People need to play games for what they are, not for they what should be.

Oh, I was probably a little strong using the word hate, I didn't hate it, I just didn't love it like I do most of the other FF games.. I put it in the same category as FFXII and like that game, I probably wouldn't play this one again anytime soon..

My hope now is that Level 5 is going to come out with Dark Cloud 3 soon..

[Josh_R]

I really enjoyed this game. After the first battle I found myself addicted to it.

There are so many aspects that are great about this game. The storyline. The storyline of XIII was probably my 2nd or 3rd favorite in the entire FF series. The characters were very well thought up, and the background on each was great. My favorite thing about this game was definitely the battle system. It wasn't random battles like the older ones which was nice, cause if you didn't want to battle you simply walk around. It was fast paced which is what drew me in to the battles. It requires quick thinking. If you don't think fast your ass is dead.

Overall FFXIII is number 3 in my book.

1) Final Fantasy Tactics
2) Final Fantasy VII
3) Final Fantasy XIII

[Deathbringer]

In my opinion, this was one of my favorite FF games of all time, if you compare it with the earlier Final Fantasy XII. Almost everything was changed since FF XII. Battle system, storyline, characters, crystarium...everything was perfected in this game.

[palette]

I thought that the characters were interesting enough. I thought the battles were too easy. The exploration was kind of linear.

The graphics were good but could have been so much better if not ported to the XBOX 360. (Square finger tips!??, sooo last generation gaming!)

I thought leveling up was a little tedious.

I however did not mind the changes the game put forth to the franchise. Every Final Fantasy game has contributed something new to the franchise and this game is simply just a leading extension of that.

The games truly have a nature to change.

[Furore]

The graphics were good but could have been so much better if not ported to the XBOX 360. (Square finger tips!??, sooo last generation gaming!)

You do realise that FFXIII was designed for PS3 and the 360 port was made later likely meaning no concessions for the 360 hardware were made, right?
Just personal opinion but I found the game to be one of the better looking games on both consoles.

[palette]

You do realise that FFXIII was designed for PS3 and the 360 port was made later likely meaning no concessions for the 360 hardware were made, right?
Just personal opinion but I found the game to be one of the better looking games on both consoles.

I respect personal opinions.

I didn't play it on the 360, and I hadn't known that. My brother is a Xbox lover and I am a Ps3 lover...so you can imagine the rest. We used to fight over it, but that's not the honest reason I hold a grudge on ports, and apparently without any real reason to do it.

The game looked good on the Ps3, but one of the reasons I bought a Ps3 was just because i intended to play Final Fantasy games on it. I've been waiting to see how awesome a PS3 Final Fantasy game would look, and to be honest having played games like Heavy Rain I wasn't personally blown away at all.

[Furore]

Play it on the 360 and you'll really be underwhelmed then.
They were faithful in terms of content but it's noticable that the 360 runs at a lower native resolution. The cinematics in particular are noticably different if you flip between versions on the one TV.

And I know what you mean about Heavy Rain. Madison's tits had to be the most realistic tits I've ever seen in a videogame.

[palette]

:

And I know what you mean about Heavy Rain. Madison's tits had to be the most realistic tits I've ever seen in a videogame.

To be honest, definitely enough to over whelm me too!...

[PeorthRose]

while this game will never be at the top of the list, I don't think it was completely sucktastic. I do wish the tutorial was shorter and they didn't streamline so much of the battle system, but every game is going to have it's flaws.

[Unknown Entity]

I finished FFXIII the other evening. I can't say it was my favourite Final Fantasy game, but it wasn't the worst. I found it highly addicting in almost all aspects, especially the battles. It got to a stage where I was engaging into battle every time I saw something to fight... that failed with the Adamantoise the second I landed on Pulse, but hey, I got a few cheap giggles. ^^;

I only have two issues with it, however. I don't think the story was explained properly from the start. I had no idea what was going on, and I felt like I was chucked too quickly into the action. Secondly, why the hell would they take out the best CP farming areas once you defeat the final boss? Sure, to add more of a challenge, but are you ****ing kidding me? I racked up 999,999CP before the final boss in preparation for Stage 10 of the Crystarium (I'd finished everything up to that point, even the extra roles), and that was just enough to cover a primary role and half of another primary role. It'll take a further 999,999CP to finish the primary roles, and Bob knows how much more to finish the others.

I miss ******* Cradle - The Tesseracts. Just under 200,000CP in less than 8mins per run...

[Dodie16]

Well, I'm not crazy about it, but I don't hate it either...so I suppose I'm the middle choice? I feel I like it more than just "take it or leave it" though.

I'll have to say that the action scenes at times were a bit too "flashy". It was hard to focus on what was going on sometimes because there was soo much to see. I was having to take breaks from the game when it got to be too overwhelming for me. Given the events of the storyline though, it's supposed to be "chaotic" during those times, so it's not a big deal.

The main characters were fleshed out well, and I grew to like a vast majority of them, far more than what I can say about any other FF game. The battle system was great, and extremely addictive, though I wish that when your lead character got knocked out, another one took his/her place, but I suppose that's just part of the challenge.

So...it was a great game, and I'm going to play through it again sometime.

[Xithor]

I extremely enjoyed FF XIII right from the minute that I put it in my PS3 and started playing it at 12:30am back in March haha. The characters all matured and grew and created bonds with each other and it was great to watch and very enjoyable. I liked a lot more characters in this game then I have in other Final Fantasies.

The scenery and FMV's were simply amazing and transitions between game play and FMV's were also a great thing to watch. I liked almost all of the voice actors, there was only one that was not my favorite at first, that being Vanille, but I think that later in the game when more is known about her story her voice does fit the character in my opinion.

Battling was addictive and I loved the system with paradigm shifts and essentially a job system which I missed from the older Final Fantasies being able to assign jobs to different characters. The only thing that bothered me about the story, because it was a fantastic story, was that it took a long time to not only develop but to understand what was going on. I didn't understand everything just by listening to the characters interact until 6 or 7 + hours into the game, things such as the Fal'Cie weren't thoroughly explained and so I had no understanding of what we were fighting against for a while lol.

But overall and wonderful game that I greatly enjoyed playing.

[Ashura]

I guess Final Fantasy XIII was a pretty decent game. Like others might have said, I'm not hyper and crazy about it. The graphics and gameplay was alright, the story never really drew me in though, but it also wasn't a bad story either. Yeah the characters were creative, though the worst one I'd say would be Snow. I never liked his voice acting, or his appearance for that matter, though the gameplay was a winner.

I liked roaming through the areas too, but that's just me talking. I also have to mention again I never really liked Vanille's voice actor too, her accent just confused me. But overall it was a good game aside from those. I wouldn't call FFXIII one of my favorites unfortunately, it's simply another FF game I have shoved somewhere to play again sometime.

[Zargabaath]

Well I've completed this game twice now and I have mixed feelings as to where I should put this on list; I generally know where on the list - the lower end - but is it more in the middle or the lowest of the low?

Final Fantasy XIII is a very restrictive game which hurts its replay value; usually I don't put much stock into more conventional replay value standards, however, the player won't be able to choose their party, have the full crystarium grid to choose from till chapter(s) 10/11. The same enemy groups will be at the same place every playthrough - some randomnization would have done good. The Crystarium grid is ok but nothing great; it too is very linear that adds to the restrictiveness of this game; the divergent paths - even at their max - are pretty short and only take time due to the amount of CP required.

I like Lightning's development as I found it to be well done; I could understand her pain of not trusting Serah when she came for help and how Snow - whom she feels is not so great - stood by Serah & tried to protect whilst Lightning said she would hunt her down if Serah truly was a L'Cie. I would also like to point out that in the Gapra Whitewoods, Vanille narrated that it was hard to point out something wrong in somebody else - Hope - when they suffered from the same irrationality - Lightning; I find this a bit weird because Lightning's target was the Sanctum, the Cocoon Fal'Cie yet at the time that was seen as "irrational" but in chapter 9 whom/what is the party's target - the Sanctum (Dysley) and at the end of the game it was challening Barthandelus & all the other Cocoon Fal'Cie who wanted Cocoon's destruction. What I'm getting at is that Lightning had the correct target the whole time and her reasoning wasn't that far off so she could've b**ch-smacked Hope.

Fang and Sazh were also good characters though I didn't really buy that Sazh was ever going to shoot himself - the opening FMV shows Sazh present later in the game & I knew SE wasn't ballsy enough to kill off a sixth of their cast. I did like Fang's inner conflict of not wanting to see her friend(s) turn Cie'th. She didn't get much time with that conflict yet it was done well for me.

The last three members I got some beef with - some major beef. My biggest gripe with Snow is that he said that the deaths in Hanging Edge and Nora were his fault. Umm... didn't that robust man volunteer to fight, then others joined in saying that they too wanted to fight? And didn't Nora go up to Snow, who had his back to her, and say she too would fight? And didn't Snow ask if she was sure? Shouldn't Snow have known that by volunteering to fight that they knew they could die and that they were willing to die for their freedom? Yet he takes the blame; it could be reasoned that he should never have allowed them to fight to begin with, however, they knew the possible consequences of taking up arms and were willing to fight to protect themselves - Snow shouldn't have felt any regret or sorrow; he should've felt proud for those who would risk their lives to protect themselves.

Which also leads into somebody telling Hope that his mother VOLUTNEERED!! She too knew what could happen to her but accepted that because she wanted to protect her son, but nobody says that. It doesn't help that Hope conviently doesn't say that the lady was his mother - so they could keep that sub-plot going - which adds to the stupidity of it all. I also like how Lightning says that the whole point of the Purge was to kill off everybody yet Sazh translates that into they just wanted those "infected" away from Cocoon be it in death or exile - why didn't he say it was a full-fledge massacre? That way Hope would have known that they were going to die anyways? That his mother was trying to defend their lives, which would have ended the whole Hope wants to kill Snow sub-plot? Why didn't Lightning say that in the Gapra Whitewood? Yeah she said that the Sanctum was his enemy yet she didn't smack the idea of getting revenge against Snow out his head. The SnowxHope sub-plot was poorly done aided by the ineptitude/stupidity of the other characters faciltied by the silence of them as well - poor writing. More poor writing on Hope's end was how he was all motivational speaker in chapters 9 & 10 but then the writer(s) were like "Oh crap! Hope needs his summon!"; so right after giving a great pep-talk Hope gets all depressed and his summon comes forth - very poor writing. His summon should have came in chapter 7.

Vanille. Vanille. Vanille. If only you would have spoken up possibly some of the questions I needed answering would have been, but silence was your ally and questions on the whole plot structure surfaced. One thing I "like" about Vanille is how in the Sulya Springs we get a flashback of Serah telling Vanille that people shouldn't keep secrets from others, that people should tell them in a mannered time, yet Vanille lets that advice go in one ear and out the other. I find that weird that they would show that then because it is after the fact that her whole charade has been revealed, which leads into more poor writing by the director. Once both parties met up on the Palamecia, Vanille said to Fang that she needed to tell her something - before that she told Sazh that she would run no more and that she would rescue Fang - but Fang says at a later time - Oh Motomu Toriyama do you work wonders. So they meet Dysley and he gives a speech which reveals some stuff to Fang and Vanille is like "No!!!! My friend. His words hurt her." Ummm, Vanille... you were going to say that and more to her just a few moments ago; you told Sazh you were going to reveal all to Fang, so why are you like, "OMGIIIIEEESSS!!!"???? Of course, Toriyam probably realized that Vanille didn't have her Eidolon either and needed to reverse direction with her as well, similiar to Hope - once again great writing.

All could have been forgiven if the plot of the game was better. I would be in chapters 4 and my friends would ask what has happened and I said "nothing really, just some character development." I would be in chapter 5 and the same question would be asked to me and the same response would be given. Chapter 6 the same thing. There barely was a plot as it started a bit in Chapter 7 but really kicked off in chapter 9. Chapter 9. That is too late in the game. But the plot hardly gets touched on except for a segment in Ch. 10, Ch. 11, most of Ch. 12, and some in Ch. 13. I liked the final two chapters as it was the climax of the story, it had that Final Fantasy "nearing the end" feel to it but I thought, "I feel the climatic nature of these scenes, yet there was hardly anything epic in nature to say wow I'm at the end". Which took away a bit of the climaticness of the final two chapters. The beginning of the story was good (Ch. 1-3) but the middle had no meat as it focused too much on the characters. They still could've focused on them but added more plot besides running without any real danger, like running with real danger. Because the antagonist of this game were very poor and could've been so much better. Do not mistake that I don't want character development however the characters can be developed all you want but if very little happens in the story then it is hard to feel for them, for me.

I loved Ch. 11 because I was finally able to have some freedom. I was able to pick my team, advance any role in the Crystarium Grid, and do the missions though some diversity in them would have been a touch nicer. However, the reasoning behind going to Pulse and the whole story on Pulse, was extremely weak and poor. I also felt that Toriyama kind of pushed Pulse on the story because he needed Pulse so the players could explore and whatnot, to give that FF exploration feel. It was unrealistic of a goal used as an excuse to go to Pulse but what made it a bit worse is that nobody was there. Devoid of human life, they kept on pushing to Oerba because that may have a clue though Fang nor Vanille mention a molecule of evidence that somebody back in their day knew on how to get rid of their marks.

Final Fantasy XIII has some things that I like a lot but there are a lot of mediocre things and some plain bad things. My problem is: do those good things place it above the early Final Fantasies? The first three have many good/great things but they are of a smaller scale whilst FF XIII's good/great things hold more weight but FFXIII has multipe negative things. Final Fantasy XIII is somewhere on the lower end of my favourites but my feelings on the game fluctuate making it difficult to accurately pin down.

[Lily]

Ahhhhhh dunno what I pressed but I just lost my poooosssssst how annoying

Ugh

Anyway, Im kinda on the fence with XIII, can't say I hated it, but it hasn't left any kind of impact on me either, though I did enjoy the story I beat it and haven't looked at or really thought about it since other than thinking maybe I should go crack on with a couple of missions...

I didn't think I'd mind how linear it was, but it got abit irritating, I like to be able to wander off and get stuck into a sidequest/mini game when I need a break from the story D:

Also, I liked the battle system, it was nice and new. But it soon got old when the battles were lasting 50 years just for a bloody regular encounter

[Iconoclast012]

Loved the game but it's not perfect...

The cons?

It's way too linear for the first half. I don't mind linearity, but this was just ridiculous... This game was playing me not the other way around. I'd say it starts getting really good and more open ended at the beginning of Chapter 7....everything before that is just a long hallway and cutscenes. The linearity is a shame because they created such a beautiful almost psychedelic world with some of the most epic scenery I've ever seen...BUT...you can't explore any of it! Nope! When I was in chapter 12 for example on the skybridge, you can look below you and see this enormous futuristic star wars style city of Eden with countless buildings and obstacles and when you realize it's only a picture to look at....it's kind of disappointing. It's understandable though because designing that entire city would not only have taken up 3 discs by itself but it would have destroyed the frame rate. The frame rate even drops a bit on the archlyte steppe, so with graphics this amazing there's probably a good reason most of the areas are so constrained and claustrophobic.

Too many series staples removed. Such as certain spells, gear, items, names, enemies, minigames...things like that. Where is Mimic? Steal? Ultima? Meteor? Vanish? Drain? Gravity? Holy? Flare? Sleep? Confuse? Berserk? Reflect? And dozens of other spells.. They removed a bunch of items too. A card game or some other type of innovative side game would have been nice too considering every other game in the series had this stuff. The missions were a nice edition, but they all felt the same. The missions should have been ONE of the extras....not all of them.

I also think it's kind of silly that the final stage of the Crystarium isn't unlocked until after you defeat Orphan. I mean, you can go back to Pulse at any point during Orphan's Cradle and basically finish everything....but I can't continue advancing my characters until I kill the boss? What? The only reason they did this is because you would have been overpowered against the final boss. If that's the case, why not just give it more HP?

It would also be nice to be able to L and R back and forth between my three party members, the same way as in Star Ocean TLH for example. I don't see how this would throw the battle system off at all? I mean, for the most part, the AI does what it's supposed to, but I don't like relying on AI for things I prefer to do myself. Buffing and debuffing for example. The AI is too slow at it. I can switch to Hope as a synergist and have everyone buffed up in less than 30 seconds. When the AI is doing the buffing, it takes a few minutes....and they don't always use every buff/debuff they have either, seems to be basing it off of what libra tells them. This removes the control from the player and kinda disappoints me...

Also, the storyline, while excellent and almost overwhelming at times is a little too incomplete. When I finished the game I just shrugged my shoulders and started asking myself questions of logic about this and that and the amount of questions I found asking myself about the storyline was so immense that it's as if Square wanted to just provide a dreamlike experience and let you decide for yourself what was really going on. The game doesn't do a very good job at tying up loose ends, and this is strange considering they added a datalog to record everything that happens, yet at the very end of the game you still find yourself asking dozens of questions about what happened with this and that...

I know it sounds like I don't even like the game but I do. The graphics are incredible, the artwork is some of the best I've ever seen, the music and soundtrack is excellent, the controls are excellent, everything is very streamlined and conveinent and the production values are through the roof. Everything in this game reeks of style and quality from the menus to the graphics to even the smallest details. A job well done.

[SuperSabin]

I liked the game, but now i'm in the mood where i could care less about it. I don't hate it but theres a reason i cannot get myself back into it. So I just watched the final battle and ending to see what happened (i'm just on chapter 11) and be done with it. It was a nice finishing touch but I think I prefer the other FFs now.

[TLO]

Personally I liked it, but not loved it, here is why:

I loved it because of the Paradigms, the way you can shift them at will to change your battle style and making it unique, but I wish you could control all three to make it really fast paced. I liked the Crystarium however the camera angle got to me a couple times, but that's not a big deal. I loved the story, it was original like it always is and the ending def threw me for a loop until I realized the symbol was in front of me all along. The composition of characters was pretty good, they all had some strengths and weaknesses that were brought out in the hardship, especially Hope. I also like all of the missions and how some are easy but many are hard... like Mission 55 and 62, and the trials were pretty fun as well =]

I didn't like how the story forced you to move along until I believe Chapter 9 or 10. For me, FFXII was awesome because of the free mobility, at any time could you go back and do a guild quest or go back to Rabanastre and shop and all that fun stuff, here you can't really do that.

It was a good game overall, it is Final Fantasy, but I think for XV if they make one, since XIV is online, I hope it goes back to the free roam of XII but the epicness of battle style and graphics of XIII

[luckenbill56]

I believe Square started to tinker with the FF franchise. Beginning with Final Fantasy X. From that game forward big changes have taken affect. Personally in my point of view this latest FF was not near the quality of the others. Square has started following the other game companies. Less story, cut out goodies i.e treasure boxes(a FF staple)and more graphics for the oh wow effect. This particular game was my least favorite of the enitre series.