Fabula Nova Crystallis - Final Fantasy XIII & Sequels

[Colt47]

I never understood the whole datalog/critical info thing. My first playthrough I never touched the codex and had no problem understanding anything that was going on. On my second playthrough I started reading the codex for this critical information and found I was reading mostly what I already knew reworded.

OT: I feel that FFXIII was an ok series that had a lot of potential that wasn't fully realized. Although, I will say that FFXIII-2 improved on the gameplay a bit so I expect Lightning returns to do the same.

Screw it, I'm going to be lazy and say: Many other posters have already pointed out many of the pros and cons and I don't feel the need to be an echo.

Then you are psychic or didn't really mind the missing bits that much. It was missing a LOT of important information during the first half of the game.

 

[scorptatious]

I remember hearing a lot of hatred surrounding the game before I even played it. I was sorta meh on the whole thing and just ignored it while I played Final Fantasy IX for the first time.

Then I was watching HCBailly's lets play of Final Fantasy IX and during one part, he made a joke about FFXIII and then mentioned that he actually did like the game. Hell, later on, he did an LP of the game.

At the time I thought, well if someone who loves Final Fantasy IX as much as I do likes FFXIII, then there must be SOMETHING good in there somewhere.

So I bought the game and played through it.

I'll admit, some of the game's criticisms were true. It was very linear, and some of the most important plot elements were wrapped up in the little codex rather than presented through the story. Other than that though, I thought it was a decent game.

I liked the fast paced battle system, the characters were interesting, and it had an interesting lore. I only wished the story was a bit better written however. Some instances in the game didn't make much sense.

Spoiler

Like Sazh's supposed suicide. If you shot yourself in the head, your casket isn't going to be open. Dead giveaway that he isn't actually dead. Oh, and I guess him getting his eidolon didn't help matters either.

Besides that, I enjoyed the game for the most part. I still think VII and IX are much better games. But I don't think XIII deserves ALL the hate it gets.

 

[RyQ_TMC]

My relationship with XIII was kinda weird. I was fresh off a continuous 5-month DA: Origins binge and looking for something new to play. I had almost zero previous experience with FF, so I decided to get XIII shortly after launch.

After discovering that attractive women with gunblades cause an apparent shrinkage of my pants, and deciding I'm not that happy about this super-long tutorial, I went to the Internet for some answers. Apparently, the game ceases to be a long corridor after 20-25 hours. OK, no biggie, I've played longer games.

But playing in order to reach that promised open area just resulted in a massive letdown once I actually reached it. So, after the long, tight hallway with tedious combat and no interaction with the world, I could now... Run around a big area to engage in tedious combat and not interact with the world.

I stopped playing then and never came back. I don't hate XIII, I'm just apathetic towards it. I have no desire to play it again.

Recently, I spied XIII-2 on sale and, looking for a change, bought it on impulse. I like it much better than XIII, but it still didn't engage me enough to play all the way. Contrary to XIII, though, I feel like I will actually go back to XIII-2 and finish it one day.

 

[PokeGirl]

I never understood the whole datalog/critical info thing. My first playthrough I never touched the codex and had no problem understanding anything that was going on. On my second playthrough I started reading the codex for this critical information and found I was reading mostly what I already knew reworded.

OT: I feel that FFXIII was an ok series that had a lot of potential that wasn't fully realized. Although, I will say that FFXIII-2 improved on the gameplay a bit so I expect Lightning returns to do the same.

Screw it, I'm going to be lazy and say: Many other posters have already pointed out many of the pros and cons and I don't feel the need to be an echo.

Then you are psychic or didn't really mind the missing bits that much. It was missing a LOT of important information during the first half of the game.

Like...?

 

[Solo-Wing]

I should really write a quick list of all the reasons I didn't like FFXIII considering how often this game comes up on forums.

1. Loaded Gun that never gets used in the first part of the game again (Lightnings gravity defying device that I thought was actually going to be part of the combat system).
2. A codex of information to explain all the critical information that the game designers decided not to explain in the actual presentation of the game. This is possibly the laziest decision ever committed to paper. A codex is for expanding on subjects that are mentioned as part of an explanation that caught the users interest. It's not meant to cover things that were supposed to be explained to the player via the main story.
3. Never ending hallway.
4. Floating shopping balls... do people stop on the highway to buy from these things instead of going to stores? How do they even work? Why are they placed in dangerous locations where people would likely never stop anyway?
5. Lack of proper establishing shots. No context to figure out where the heck the player is, how the locations pertain to the world the player is roaming, etc. This is especially true when going through the early portion of the game.
6. A combat system that uses a rating system with no actual context to why the rating system is important. Also, the rating system is highly biased towards the amount of time it takes to defeat enemies, and there are some enemies that just take longer to kill than others, resulting in a lower star rating.
7. Combat system works fine for bosses but becomes exceptionally draining for standard enemies.

There's more, but needless to say it's the sum of all the minor problems that make the game unlikable. Final Fantasy XII had some issues, but it was still far more interesting than XIII.

Someone is a fan of Spoony I see. Almost of those are his complaints in the first 2 parts of his review.

OT: My only real problems with FFXIII was two things during the combat. The inability to move your character where you want to avoid attacks and Game over when the leader gets defeated. XIII-2 luckily fixed the second problem but I have seen many attacks that can be dodged if your characters were the right distances.

Also I hated Vanille's Voice in XIII. Not how it sounded but if you payed close attention to it you would notice something that drove me fucking crazy. Her Accent kept changing at parts of the game.

 

[Colt47]

I never understood the whole datalog/critical info thing. My first playthrough I never touched the codex and had no problem understanding anything that was going on. On my second playthrough I started reading the codex for this critical information and found I was reading mostly what I already knew reworded.

OT: I feel that FFXIII was an ok series that had a lot of potential that wasn't fully realized. Although, I will say that FFXIII-2 improved on the gameplay a bit so I expect Lightning returns to do the same.

Screw it, I'm going to be lazy and say: Many other posters have already pointed out many of the pros and cons and I don't feel the need to be an echo.

Then you are psychic or didn't really mind the missing bits that much. It was missing a LOT of important information during the first half of the game.

Like...?

What a Fal'Cie is, what a La'Cie is, and a general idea of where all this action is happening relative to the game world. Also, some information as to significance of the locations the player is wondering through would be nice.

It's been a while so I'd have to go back and play through the beginning again to make a more comprehensive list.

Someone is a fan of Spoony I see. Almost of those are his complaints in the first 2 parts of his review.

Actually, I had those complaints before even seeing his review. I was kind of relieved I wasn't the only person who thought this game had presentation problems. He exaggerates for dramatic effect and humor, though.

 

[Veldt Falsetto]

I'm also going to add that I LOVE that XIII basically forces you to NOT grind, I love JRPGs and I HATE grinding, another reason XIII rose to one of my favourites in the series

You're kidding right?

I'm playing FF13 right now as we speak and the grind to get the Treasure Hunter, Master's Seal, and Superstar trophies are incredibly insane.

The only thing making it even halfway tolerable is the growth egg and repeatable mission 7. I'm at 69 hours (An hour and 35 minutes less than it took for me to Platinum 13-2) played and it feels like I've made little progress towards Treasure Hunter because of the rarity of Trapehezodrons and the incredibly stupid toughness of the enemies that drop them.

OT: I used to be a huge FF fanboy until FF10. 10 was good but not as good as 9, 8, or really any that came before it. I got the Dragon Quest 7 CE just because it came with an FF12 demo and I hated that. So I went for years still bitter about the series until one day I decided "Screw it, 13-2 is $20 at walmart and I need a timesink". I fell in love with the lore behind the series and decided to pick up FF13 around xmas time.

I love the story although emotional bits seem to just come out of nowhere and for no reason sometimes. The corridor parts didn't bother me as much as I thought it would and once you get to Gran Pulse it makes you forget about them altogether. The first time walking out into The Archylte Steppe reminded me of the first time I set foot into Hyrule Field in TLoZ:OoT it felt so free and wide open.

Anyway, I feel like I'm rambling so yeah, I'm excited for 13-3 and I like the lore of the FNC saga, although it does feel like 13-2 should've been a Chrono Trigger sequel.

Captcha: don't waste time - I cannot help but feel even captcha is telling me to give up the grind for the FF13 platinum now, lol

I mean in the main game, end game content is different cause you're doing that through choice. In a lot of JRPGs you can over level your characters and make the bosses or rest of the game a cakewalk. XIII fixes that in that it caps your stat growth in each chapter. If you fight every enemy it's likely you'll be max or close to max by the end of the chapter which means bosses can always be legitimately challenging and never too easy. A genius move for someone like me who actually can't stand the grind a lot of games force upon you, even some in the FF series, which is why VIII didn't click with me, too much drawing to get my stats up and playing that card game so I can get more magic from the cards etc etc...ugh.

 

[bobajob]

I enjoyed the story, but afterwards going through gran pulse getting trophies, man it sucked hard.
In the back of my mind I knew I had finished the main quest anyway!
By the time I had figured out & done enough grinding/collecting to build ultimate weapons there was nothing left to kill.
Thoroughly disappointed in that regard.