F**k! F***ing! Final! F***ing! Fantasy! Yeah, I said it, I jut told the longest running, most influential and most loved RPG franchise to go f**k itself. Way back in the third generation of video game console the first Final Fantasy was released to much appreciation on the NES. The reason it was called 'Final Fantasy' was that the developers Square thought that their "fantasy" would be their last. To be honest, I wish it would have been.
Now, I'm not highly educated on Final Fantasy, or any RPG for that matter. I've played FFVII and FFX, and I party enjoyed them; they are amazing for their time, a gripping and compelling story, a genre defining battle system and massive sprawling environments. FF13 seems to forget most of this. Now don't get me wrong; the massive sprawling environments are there, it's just that you don't really get to explore and exploit them until hour 25. And yes, the environments look amazingly awesome. There are moments where you just want to stand still and move your camera around, just to take in all the vastness. The game runs at a perfect 60 frames per second and at a full 1080p and it is honestly worth just renting or borrowing the game just to see the absolutely fantastic work that has been put into the graphics and sound.
Teenage angst and the ATB in action
Right, now down to the gritty stuff, gameplay. We all know that the greatest looking and sounding games with an epic and gripping story are nothing without a great and varied amount of gameplay. This is where Final Fantasy XIII falls apart. The main thrust of the game is the ATB, or Active Time Battle. The ATB is partially in real time where you queue up fighting, healing or magic moves, and it works, possibly one the best RPG battle systems I've played, with the possible exception of Fallout 3 VATS system. Each of characters also has a choice of "jobs" or "classes" that can be tactically switched n the fly depending on how the battle is going, again this is also great as it allows for battle to be approached with a great deal of tactics. However, this can sometimes become overwhelming and difficult for some to understand.
Okay, characters. The action jumps between various teamings of various characters. Ergo, you are forced to play as certain character classes; for example, about one third of the game as a medic and a ravenger (a magic man) which I didn't find fun. Finally at hour 19 I got to pick what my battle team was; which is fucking stupid, in my opinion. Imagine playing a old school Pokemon game and having 6 awesome levelled up 'mon; but not getting to choose which ones you use in battle until playing the game for almost 20 hours.
The main massive problem with all the gameplay is the horrid linearity of the whole thing. The first eleven out of thirteen chapters is involves running with the stiff animation from point A to point B with random battle every 30 seconds. No side quests, no branching paths, no towns, no puzzles. This is lack of gameplay variety makes 70% of the game seem long tedious and down right boring. Now Square's excuse for this is that they did it for the sake of the story. Which is my next complaint.
It begins with an unfunny comic relief character and a typical hot chick full of teenage angst taking on a giant robo-scorpion thing. Then you thrusted words like Pulse, L'cie, Fal 'cie, Cocoon, Psicom and Pulse l'cie in your face. It's highly confusing, unless you sit and read he massively long multi-layered in game encyclopaedia. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't want to sit and read when I'm playing games, that's just not fun.
To go with the unfunny comic relief and the hot teenage angst, is a gun-wielding self proclaimed hero who is actually more of douchebag. A small boy who's emotional growth into manhood makes me sick. A mysterious woman who explains herself almost instantly and a red headed whiny bitch in a short skirt, whose voice makes me want strangle the voice actress. Because you switch between the characters the story is constantly but it unravels very slowly and very tediously.
Overall, no matter how great the game looks a sounds, and how game changing but confusing the ATB is, the game is essentially terribly boring. Sorry JRPG nerds.
While FFVII ranks highly, there's more to the series than one game. Here's Chit Hot's picks for the seven best Final Fantasy characters.
Alex Donaldson: "Hindsight is a hell of a thing, however, and in the years since Final Fantasy XIII, my respect for the decisions its developers made has skyrocketed. In the two Final Fantasy titles since we see both the brilliance and the folly in alternative approaches - and in Final Fantasy VII Remake, we get a more nuanced understanding of what FF13 was trying to accomplish from many of the same development leads."
FFXIII is actually one of the best Final Fantasy games.
I also sort of was disappointed at the time, never as much as the bandwagon. But really all the fantastic 3D rendered cutscenes and I actually liked the characters and the story though convoluted was actually fantastic and the ending was extremely emotional. So much budget and time were put into that game Square had such big plans, I actually have always felt kind of bad for how things played out.
I have been thinking for years how great it would be to get all three games on one disk for PS4 or 5.
Gotta take off the nostalgia glasses. It's the worst FF. Shiva as a bike, I mean come on.
Shiva as a bike is strange but saying FFXIII is the worst FF is not at all a fact, that's simply your opinion.
When I got my series X a year ago, I bought FF13 for nostalgia reasons but ended up being disappointed. When I first played it around the time it launched, I didn't have a lot of experience with final fantasy games, so I enjoyed it. Fast forward to when I played it again, I found that the game had many unnecessary filler moments instead of just giving us meaningful content.
The game is also very linear and a quote on the article said it best. "It is like a sewage pipe that leads to the ocean until it opens up on Grand Pulse."
The story didn't make much sense either and I believe it is my mistake as I played the FF7 remake on PS5 prior which is a night and day difference in terms of pacing, storytelling and likeable characters even though cloud is aloof.
Probably was a mistake to play any of the golden era FFs first (e.g. FF6 through FF10), it makes it harder to enjoy some of the FFs that aren't as good. I think FF12 was where major issues with the series started becoming apparent, and it just got worse from there.
I didn't really care for it that much, the only saving grace was that it had a better story than 15 (overall it was better than 15) and possibly 12, and even then, you had to read some of it through primers, like reading a book. Plus the battle system was reasonably fun for what it was, even if it was more the spectacle that was exciting for me (e.g. summoning). And to be fair, the 13 trilogy got better with every games, I still don't like Snow though.
Ff13 is only good if you haven't played a ff before, or any other games that are decent for that matter.
It is in fact no way the best Final Fantasy game, it's one of the worst
Linear corridors, Cutscene, Fight, Cutscene...rinse and repeat
Dialogue and characters are pretty bad, especially Lightning as the main FF hero, they literally said they tried to make a "Female Cloud" and they failed.
Story was pretty awful
I could go on
I think the only alright thing that came from the game was the music.
That's not a fact that's your personal opinion. The game sold 11 million copies between its 2009 release up until 2014 including critically reviewed as an 8 out of 10 or an 80 out of 100. The game does have some issues but it's not at all a fact as one of the worst FF games.
i liked the game alot but i didnt like how they handled the terminology.
i dont mind reading data logs but it had soo many.
but i always loved the music and how it looked. the battle system wasnt too bad either.
but i like 13-2 more :)
i still dont understand why we never got a remaster of the trilogy
Xbox kinda did. Besides the video files of course which are still best on PS3 due to bluray.
XIII is a pretty solid game, but XIII-2 is WAY better. XIII-2 was one of the few games I decided to go for a Platinum trophy in, early on. Had so much fun the entire way through getting it too!
I hated this to when it released. I haven't much liked a ff game since ff10 as much , aside from ff7remake. I decided to give it another shot on my series x since it's not on a current ps and was liking it quite a bit(just takes me some time to get over things ) until star ocean 2 remake came out I was all over that.
Square should definitely remaster it or something for ps4 ps5
Square Enix Blog: "How do you compose iconic songs that help define a legacy? We speak to legendary composer Masashi Hamauzu about his work on Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy XIII, and Final Fantasy VII Remake, and how to make unforgettable music."
Kind of hard to take your review seriously when you title it like that. It sounds like maybe you are just bitter because you were incapable of understanding the game.
"The game runs at a perfect 60 frames per second and at a full 1080p"
Further evidence that resolution and framerate are just another instance of "The Emperor's New Clothes" and that most people can't tell any difference between resolutions and framerates.
10 Graphics
9.0 Sound
8.0 Gameplay
4.0 Fun Factor
wat