Defending XIII, not hating any other titles

foevanimeboi

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I'm starting this thread to talk about good things and bad things about XIII. I encourage people who are open minded to discuss this topic, and if you're bias about your dislike toward this title for whatever reasons, then you shouldn't talk here (because you're never gonna change your mind). I'm not starting this thread to bash haters. This thread is about XIII (Not bashing other titles either, I love other Final Fantasy titles too). I'm sorry if my thoughts are everywhere, I started this thread while I was at work and started on it again at home.

I personally like XIII for many reasons, but lately I've been so annoyed by all the hate it's getting. I understand people having different opinions and expectations for the game as Final Fantasy title. I've played many Final Fantasy titles (II, IV, VI, VII, VIII, IX, XIII, didn't play X, XI, and XII cuz I didn't have a ps2 back then). I find it funny how most of the reasons why people hate it so much is the total opposite of what it is. Here are some reasons why people hate XIII, according to all the comments and discussion i've come across.
- Too linear
- no world map, npcs, side quests
- battle system
- light story (Not the Dark type of story)
- characters
- unrealistic expectations
- too different from the older titles

I'd say the majority of the dislike has to do with it being too linear and yes, I also don't like that either. RPG games should have more room for explorations and stopping at one place and going back to it. The fact that it's linear isn't really a reason why people should hate the whole game though. The game has a lot of NPCs (Cid Raines, Rygdea, Yuj, Maqui, etc...), so I don't know why people would complain about that. The game did some side quests, but it only until you reached the Archyte Steppe, so I don't know.

As for the story, a lot of people didn't like it because they either didn't understand it or they just thought it wasn't dark enough. I found the theme of defying fate to be pretty good. I didn't care whether the story was dark or not, I don't know if it matters. People didn't like the characters for whatever reasons, but I think they were well developed, they each have back story and how it all connects is interesting. Lightning was a good protagonist, going from being cold and unsympathetic to a person who cares for her comrades and being more friendly. So overall, I think the story is good. (That's just my opinion), I think it mainly has to do with fact that the characters talk, instead you having to read the dialogue, but only the old generation of games have that, now we can hear them talk :))

Ever since the game came out, people have had too much expectations for the game to be super good or being something like one of the older titles. I think the expectation was just too high, and as a result, they were just disappointed and started hating on it because of that. Not only was the expectation too high, but then Versus XIII was announce as well (I blame SE for announcing it a little too early, they should've waited till now to announce it). XIII was different from the older titles, but that's what makes it good. If you just have the same thing over and over again, it'll be boring as crap. People complain that the battle system only lets you control one character and the you press the X (I have a PS3) over and over again. Well...isn't that the case with the other Final Fantasy titles? At least you you have to press R1 to change paradigms, so I don't think you button mash X over and over again. As for not being able to control more than one character, you still have to set their paradigms, so it's not like they just do whatever it is they do without you setting it up for them. Many people want it to be turn based, but I think the graphics and enemies moving at that time frame won't match the old type of game style.

So yeah...let me hear you thoughts. I know I'm missing some stuff or the thoughts are everywhere, so don't blame me hahah...!
(The reason I don't want people who just come here to bash me to respond is because I've bumped into a lot trolls lately, it's kinda annoying. I wanna have a respectful and thoughtful discussion)
 
What your post implies is that you want to hear responses from people, however you don't want any "bashing" or "trolling"; the definition of bashing or trolling can differ from person to person, sheer animosity and aggressive responses is bashing and trolling, however other people might consider simple criticism bashing and trolling as well. So I am at a loss as to what I can openly comment on without appearing to be a "troll" in your eyes. To the point you make about some of us being biased, please elaborate. I find it tough to believe that a fan of the series could like or hate one game or the other for other reasons beside the fact that the game was compelling or substandard (that is an opinion, however).

Other than that I would just like to comment on one point that stuck out like a sore thumb, and that was a comment you made about the fanbase having unrealistic expectations. The game had been in development since 2004, by one of the most important developers in the market (the most important in the RPG market), a multi-million dollar budget , a huge investment in man hours into a brand new and shiny game engine, with a huge campaign of marketing and hype behind it and you say that people had unrealistic expectations? In the end all we got was a game with pretty graphics, bland and linear story-telling, and a 50 hour long "fight-hallways-cutscene-fight-hallways-cutscene..." type game with boring and annoying characters. Unrealistic expectations? Most would not agree.
 
I didnt like XIII not because i had too high espectations, i pretty much knew that the game will had great graphics (Pretty much Squaresoft standards) but for how much the game took to develop, SE always offered good graphics on their games so there is no excuse whatsoever to came up with a battle system that pretty much could finish the battles by itself (most of the time), but unlike FFXII you didnt had too much control over how that IA would act in XIII was pretty vague while in FFXII you can assign the character to do some very specific things pretty much like assigning your commands before the battle started, as for linearity well FFX had it but it was overlooked for its excellent gameplay, its cool Sphere Grid and excellent plot wich FFXIII failed on those regards, the characters in XIII are either annoying (Hope), Cliched (Snow), insuferable (Lightning), the only respetable characters were Zasch and Fang but for FFXIII standards even a Silent Protagonist had better personalities.

Unlike you i dont like VA because i dont need VA to find a character personality so VA can only either enhance the experience or completely destroy it wich FFXIII made the former.

I think you should work more on your post to properly defend this game because if your porpuse is to change people perception of this game, you are on a HARD quest.
 
This thread isn't to change peoples opinions. It's to discuss FFXIII and it's sequels without the "Foaming at the mouth" hate we usually find. He's asking us to be respectful and calmly debate the fact that there are some good parts to FFXIII, and to not go: "It sucks because I hate it and because of (insert here) and if you don't believe me shut up your wrong" which is what usually happens when XIII is mentioned.

HE also doesn't want people going: "Defending XIII? :rolleyes: Blasphemy! He is EVIL" which is also what happens.
 
I liked the brother;y like relationship Snow and Hope gained within all their troubles. Snow feeling guilty about letting his mum die and Hope having to deal with the grieve and anger towards loosing his mum and Snow for letting him being soft towards Hope's Mum's so called " riskiness " and " toughness "

I loved it when Snow piggybanked Hope like a little brother and how Hope and Snow forgave each other in the end. It was sweet.

Also Fang is one of the best Final Fantasy XIII females to ever be created and waltz into a FF game. Welcome to the "awesome FF females " team Fang ! (y)
 
This thread isn't to change peoples opinions. It's to discuss FFXIII and it's sequels without the "Foaming at the mouth" hate we usually find. He's asking us to be respectful and calmly debate the fact that there are some good parts to FFXIII, and to not go: "It sucks because I hate it and because of (insert here) and if you don't believe me shut up your wrong" which is what usually happens when XIII is mentioned.

HE also doesn't want people going: "Defending XIII? :rolleyes: Blasphemy! He is EVIL" which is also what happens.

Well by defending the game he surelly hope to change our stance from total BS tittle to well acceptable, either way i dont see his arguments acmplishing that.
 
Look man people are going to either like or hate the game. I like this game, you are just going to have to accept it as it is. I try to defend this game when I can, but in the end, people have their right to bash this game if they hate it like we have the right to praise the game because we like it.
 
Okay. I want to anser you, but I'm replaying XIII and am trying to give it a second chance, so for now I'm staying away from things that will make me talk about how much I hate the game because I want to be fair to it this time and not let my dislike take over whilst I'm playing. So far it's not too bad, I'm trying to focus soley on the story and really am trying to get into the characters because really that's the only hope I have for this game. Story is something I hold highly and there's nothing else I like in the game, so if I can't like the characters and story then there will be nothing, just like last time. However, I think it's looking better this time than last time...hopefully. I'll come back here when I'm finished and give my thoughts on it then :)
 
This thread isn't to change peoples opinions. It's to discuss FFXIII and it's sequels without the "Foaming at the mouth" hate we usually find. He's asking us to be respectful and calmly debate the fact that there are some good parts to FFXIII, and to not go: "It sucks because I hate it and because of (insert here) and if you don't believe me shut up your wrong" which is what usually happens when XIII is mentioned.

HE also doesn't want people going: "Defending XIII? :rolleyes: Blasphemy! He is EVIL" which is also what happens.

Thank you!
 
Yay @ this thread!

While FFXIII was indeed different in some ways, it was honestly more of a reskin than anything. All of the same elements from older FF games are there if you look for them, just packaged differently than people are used to. And the things that are truly different are perfectly acceptable because every other FF game was very different from the others, too. I think there was too big of a time separation between XII and XIII, not to mention platform separation. By the time FFXIII came out, every game from XII and previous--and especially from IX and previous--were thought of as the classic Final Fantasy games. Because of the collective way in which they were viewed, people forgot about just how big the differences between games was. And as far as disappointment goes, well, if you don't like IV, you just try V--it's already there for you. When XIII released there was no newer alternative, and those that it didn't work for lost hope too quickly because of the longer wait.

At least that's my analysis.

Bottom line is, it's not so much about XIII being any worse than other FFs than it is about some people just being in the wrong frame of mind to accept XIII for what it is. There have been well-accepted linear games, well-accepted light stories, and so forth in the past. XIII is definitely a worthy effort due some good reception even if it is not the most fantastic FF ever to hit the earth.
 
I dont like it because the game held no gameplay value. There was no room for optimization the way the others allowed. Overall the characters were unbarable. Im sort of happy most of them died in the sequel. But the thing i hate most was the lack of free roam. Because every ff "needs" it. At least on the first installment. They introduce a new world in the ff series and we only get reports. No room to explore it.

Plus the world wasmt that consistent. It was an acid trip. No real consistency in design. Some part look futuristic some parts look fantasy like.

And no LukeLC...there were little to no strong features. You had no free roam you had no minigames and no optimization. Packaged differently? Yes but its still lacked some key features
 
At least for me, all FFs have fails present however for example if you disliked the plot then the gameplay made up for it, you dont liked the characters you had the plot, at the end FFXIII failed (for most people) because you couldnt shelter on any of those aspects: Story quite uninteresting unless you read the datalog, gameplay wehre the player doesnt matter at all, characters overlly cliched or annoying so no redeeming qualities whatsoever for me (emphazize in FOR ME)
 
I liked FFXIII. It's not the best FF game, but it doesn't deserve the hate it gets. It had a story line and good characters. (I remember reading somewhere Lightning was supposed to be a like a female Cloud.) It included background info on each character somewhere in the menu, and had occasional flashbacks to add to the story.
I will agree that it was a bit too linear, and the free roam was practically missing. You kinda got to free roam at chapter 13 or 12, and even then it felt restricting. Couldn't go to places you've been to in earlier chapters, and the new place that you could explore had a lot of emptiness.
There are very few redeeming characters and lightning isnt one of them. Such as sazh and hope. Vanille no matter what wasnt enjoyable. She sounded fake for everything even when she was real. Lightning was way too cold and you really dont get a satisfying answer. Oh her parents died.

It is definitely hated for a reason. The gameplay was also restricting. This game is all about restrictions. You only control paradigm shifts while pressing same button. It would been much more affective by allowing switching characters and not being AI. Also add more specific attacks so that you cant kill monsters by using same attack over and over.

And again lack of consistency. The world of XIII continues to vary. Its hard to understand it. Has no specific style. All cieth look the same but Fal'cie look like giants with random designs?
 
And again lack of consistency. The world of XIII continues to vary. Its hard to understand it. Has no specific style. All cieth look the same but Fal'cie look like giants with random designs?

Aren't Cieth are akin to zombies in XIII? All zombies generally look and do the same thing: shuffle around and decay like dead bodies. It makes sense. Of course, there are different kinds of Cieth, and you have different types of people made into zombies: Tall, short, black, white. etc.

Fal'cie are akin to deities/supernatural beings in XIII- do all deities in mythology look the same and act the same? Nope- many act/look completely different to others.

Looking at it in this light, I think the style makes sense.
 
Aren't Cieth are akin to zombies in XIII? All zombies generally look and do the same thing: shuffle around and decay like dead bodies. It makes sense. Of course, there are different kinds of Cieth, and you have different types of people made into zombies: Tall, short, black, white. etc.

Fal'cie are akin to deities/supernatural beings in XIII- do all deities in mythology look the same and act the same? Nope- many act/look completely different to others.

Looking at it in this light, I think the style makes sense.
But they have a consistent design? Im not saying they need to look exactly the same. Do egyptian gods have a distinct style? Yes and so does greek.

But this looks like a mix of differemt myths from different places when it comes to design. They all dont have a distinct feature that all fal'cie have.
 
But they have a consistent design? Im not saying they need to look exactly the same. Do egyptian gods have a distinct style? Yes and so does greek.

But this looks like a mix of differemt myths from different places when it comes to design. They all dont have a distinct feature that all fal'cie have.


Actually, the Fal'cie do have a distinct style: They're all machines. They all are mechanical- just like the egyptian has their own style. Sure, the fal'cie take inspiration from other myths and throw them together- but so does many other religion and mythology in existance. Look at the Greek and Romans as a prime example, with the Abrahamic religions as another.

And I refered to Cieth as zombies, not some sort of Mythological creature. Nevertheless, the Cieth all do have their own design that is similar to each other- the rotting design and the general distorted crystal shit on their bodies.

It doesn't matter if Fal'cie and Cieth don't look the same- they're taking two different designs on two different ideas. It's the same with other games.
 
Actually, the Fal'cie do have a distinct style: They're all machines. They all are mechanical- just like the egyptian has their own style. Sure, the fal'cie take inspiration from other myths and throw them together- but so does many other religion and mythology in existance. Look at the Greek and Romans as a prime example, with the Abrahamic religions as another.

And I refered to Cieth as zombies, not some sort of Mythological creature. Nevertheless, the Cieth all do have their own design that is similar to each other- the rotting design and the general distorted crystal shit on their bodies.

It doesn't matter if Fal'cie and Cieth don't look the same- they're taking two different designs on two different ideas. It's the same with other games.
It does matter because it may not be the same part idea but are part of a bigger one. And no not all of them are mechanical but lets say they are.we have mechanical beings that turn people into l'cie and somehow turns them into zombies or crystal.



13 looks random with its key features

Usually final fantasy has more consistency. This is exactly why i say this game is an acid trip. The game doesnt have a distinct world we can understand. Just an acid trip. I feel completely dosconnected from it. Especially when its so linear. Making it even harder to conmect with the world.
 
It does matter because it may not be the same part idea but are part of a bigger one. And no not all of them are mechanical but lets say they are.we have mechanical beings that turn people into l'cie and somehow turns them into zombies or crystal.



13 looks random with its key features

Usually final fantasy has more consistency. This is exactly why i say this game is an acid trip. The game doesnt have a distinct world we can understand. Just an acid trip. I feel completely dosconnected from it. Especially when its so linear. Making it even harder to conmect with the world.

It doesn't have to made of metal to be a machine, any type of tool is technically a machine. Nevertheless, they all have mechanical designs- so that is they're forte. Though, I would like examples of the non-mechanical ones- Barthandulus's human form is just a desguise.

Well, you COULD place the whole creation of zombies into the idea of Supernatural "bosses" creating henchmen.

It isn't that random- in the idea of a Religion, we are under a higher power. As such, they can control us. In the same sense, Fal'cie control humans in XIII. The form isn't what is important(With the Crystal Motif being a general design trend in the Fabula Nova Crystallis series anyway) but, you can relate it back to the fact that Fal'cie's themselves have a crystal core.

That being said, XIII is a fairly confusing world in mythological sense- but that is what the Datalogs are for. ANY mythology that has been delved into so deeply needs reading up on. Not all FF's have such a deep history. As for Cocoon and Pulse themselves- one's a metropolis and the other's a wildlife plain.
 
It doesn't have to made of metal to be a machine, any type of tool is technically a machine. Nevertheless, they all have mechanical designs- so that is they're forte. Though, I would like examples of the non-mechanical ones- Barthandulus's human form is just a desguise.

Well, you COULD place the whole creation of zombies into the idea of Supernatural "bosses" creating henchmen.

It isn't that random- in the idea of a Religion, we are under a higher power. As such, they can control us. In the same sense, Fal'cie control humans in XIII. The form isn't what is important(With the Crystal Motif being a general design trend in the Fabula Nova Crystallis series anyway) but, you can relate it back to the fact that Fal'cie's themselves have a crystal core.

That being said, XIII is a fairly confusing world in mythological sense- but that is what the Datalogs are for. ANY mythology that has been delved into so deeply needs reading up on. Not all FF's have such a deep history. As for Cocoon and Pulse themselves- one's a metropolis and the other's a wildlife plain.

Thats where XIII fails. Even with datalogs they dont completely connect visually and it doesnt help that its an acid trip to see

And yes the form is importamt. If you dont think so then thays pronably where the line is between you and me. I hate how random the design is. I cant get a grip on the world of final fantasy XIII. Datalogs dont help. We cant experienxe anything first hand on the game.
 
I am 10 hours into the game and it is TERRIBLE. I can't believe they even released this crap.

The battle system alone makes this game unbearable. Who the hell wants to spend ages pressing the same button over and over again? For crying out loud, why couldn't they see how boring and annoying this is when they were testing the game? Then you have the rubbish characters, they are not quite a bland as Final Fantasy 12's characters to be fair, but they are just as uninteresting and impossible to relate to. I haven't cared about any of them or their pasts, and I don't care what happens to them either. The soundtrack sucks as well, no catchy themes, just dull music. Nice job Square Enix. The only good thing about this game is the graphics and to be honest, I'll take NES graphics over that if they can at least give me an interesting story with good game play.

Grhhh. I don't even have the words to describe how annoyed I am at this games existence.

It's obvious Square have completely lost their touch and don't know how to make good FF games anymore.
 
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