I know that by now Final Fantasy XIII has done its circuit on the controversy and fanboy circles, so there isn't a whole lot more to be said on the subject, but having just finished the game myself (the entire extra content as well, hidden bosses and all) and having put sixty plus hours into the damn thing, I have just one thing to say.
I just wasted sixty hours of my life.
The first question you're undoubtedly going to ask is, "ClanCrusher, if you hated the game so much, then why on earth did you keep playing it?" Two reasons actually.
The first was that I saw many people write off Yahtzee's review on the basis that he played five hours. As for me, I did my time in the trenches so people couldn't throw that in my face so easily.
The second, was that I wanted to like this game. Desperately so. I've loved (or at least somewhat appreciated) every single Final Fantasy game to come along since VI (or III if you're picky). Some games were definitely better than others, but I could always look back on them and point out at least one or two things that I really liked about each one.
Final Fantasy XIII had nothing. I look back on the time I spent playing this game and I can't point out a single solitary thing that I enjoyed or appreciated about this game. I didn't even realize it until someone just flat out asked me "Was there anything you liked about the game?" and I couldn't think of anything.
After that conversation, I tried to break it down and analyze exactly why the game failed so badly in my eyes. With that said, let's take a look at what I believe are the 'core' elements of an RPG.
1) The Story
I'm about on the level with the guys at "Extra Credit" when it comes to story importance. If you can tell a good one, then you can forgive a lot in an otherwise bad game. So why does this aspect of Final Fantasy XIII fail?
Personally, I think that it's the sheer confusion that comes from trying to separate the nouns so early on in the game. Tell me, in the first couple of hours, could you honestly tell me what the difference between a Pulse le'cie, a fal'cie, and cieth were? I mean, what was the point of giving all of them 'cie' in their names?
Take a look at Final Fantasy X for a moment. The major factions in that game (arguably) were Yevon, the Al Bhed, the Guado, and the Ronso. And for the record, those names have NOTHING in common with each other.
Secondly, the narrative never takes the time to explain itself to the audience. You get that from a built in glossary and helpful loading messages which explain to you what you were SUPPOSED to get from the scenes you just watched. Everyone talks like they already know everything, and they expect you to as well. In Final Fantasy X, you were literally a newcomer to the world you were in, so you had things explained to you (in painstaking detail at times). Sure, Spira might not have made much sense even after the explanations, but I could fathom it a bit better than...whatever world Final Fantasy XIII was trying to push at me. Even Final Fantasy VII explained things, either through dialogue from NPCs or Cloud outright explaining them to his party members.
2) The Characters (And Development)
Here's a question for you. Do you know why the other Final Fantasy games had things like towns, castles, inns, and other such rest stops? Because it was the best place to develop characters. For those of you who don't know, Final Fantasy XIII has no such accommodations, instead they give us hastily traded dialogue while exploring the dungeons, and rushed cut scenes during the transitions between dungeons. Every location is a new dungeon with random encounters. Every place will eventually have you doing the same jaunt down a liner-esque corridor while dodging the not-so-random encounters.
As you can probably guess, this doesn't give a lot of time for character development, nor does it present good storytelling. Every Final Fantasy game had these core 'towns' if you will. Places where you can take a break from the tiring combat and catch your breath, talk to NPCs, or even partake in pointless minigames. The fact of the matter is, you can't run full tilt through a story like this one without breaks. It's exhausting. Several people (like Yahtzee) claimed that they were only able to play the damn thing for a few hours before giving up on it, and the reason why is because this game simply doesn't have anything to fall back on it other than the next major problem.
3) The Combat System
It's easily one of the more important aspects of any RPG. Chances are, you'll be spending a lot of time doing combat one way or the other, and mastering that system is usually essential to beating the game as well. So no matter how good or bad it may be, you have to master it (or at least tolerate it).
Final Fantasy XIII actually does its best to make the combat completely intolerable. How? By making each and every combat excruciatingly long or incredibly difficult. I won't go into details about their incredibly broken Pardigram system, but recall if you will the combat systems of the other Final Fantasy games. On average, I remember most encounters (not boss fights mind you) usually taking less than a single minute. Oft times they were less than thirty seconds. The average fight time in Final Fantasy XIII for me was well over two minutes for the standard encounters, and even longer for the mid-level enemies. And trust me, there was never any lack of enemies in any dungeon.
This is also coupled with the absolutely ABSURD amount of hitpoints some of these enemies have. You remember the soldier in Final Fantasy VIII that had 26,000 hit points? OF COURSE NOT! You remember how every enemy in Final Fantasy IX had to be knocked off balance before you could do any real damage to them? HELL NO! Do you remember how long it took you to beat Sepiroth in the final confrontation? Well, unless you had Knights of the Round then probably about 15 minutes tops. You want to know how long it took me to fight the final bosses in Final Fantasy XIII? THIRTY GOD DAMN MINUTES! In order, these guys had 5,000,000 hit points, 7,000,000 and 3,000,000 hit points along with a bullshit invulnerability shield. This wasn't as much of a boss fight as it was an endurance test.
There was an article posted recently on the Escapist on how fully healing your party after every battle was a method to make sure that every combat could be as difficult as the developers planned it to be regardless of what condition your party is in. What this really translated into though, was that every single encounter had the possibility of killing you, and every fight could turn into a fight for your life if you weren't careful. Considering the sheer number of fights you had to go through though, this also fell under the 'exhausting' category. Hell, I feared more of the random encounters in the final dungeon than I did the bosses in that place.
4) The Exploration
Perhaps it's not the biggest crime an RPG can commit, but I've always believed that if you're going to go to the trouble of creating a world, then you should let the players explore it. Final Fantasy VI, VII, VIII, and IX all had airships and world maps you could explore. Final Fantasy X, while not really having a complete airship exploration system, still managed to make itself feel open to me by the numerous amounts of locations you could re-visit and explore. What does XIII get you? A grassy field twice the size of the calm lands and a few linear corridors that you could walk up and down till you were numb in the thumb. Hoo-ray.
5) Etc.
After the core elements, there are still several more things that I can complain about, such as the stupid weapon level up system, the completely retarted summon boss battles, the needlessly flashy level up system, and the few and boring enemy designs, but why bother? Final Fantasy XIII has failed me on every core aspect that makes up a good RPG. Nothing after those is going to change the fact that this is one of the worst games I've ever played.
But wait! How well did this game score?
1up.com: A-
Eurogamer: 8/10
Famitsu: 39/40
Game Informer: 9.25/10
GameSpot: 8.5/10
GameSpy: 4.5/5
GamesRadar: 10/10
GameTrailers: 8.6/10
GameZone: 8.5/10
IGN: 8.9/10
X-Play: 4/5
Escapist Magazine: 4/5
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the final nail in the fantasy. Apparently I'm one of the few people in the world who thinks this game sucked. The question is, why? What am I missing? Why are people on the Escapist saying that this...thing is worthy to stand among titans like Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X? I just don't get it!
So please Escapist Community, please tell me why I should care about this game. Please tell me what I missed that makes this game so great as to get a god damn 9.5 out of Game Informer (which gave Brawl the same score). And for the love of god, please tell me what in the hell justifies this quote from John Funk who did the review for the Escapist:
"But then, there is a moment where the game - like its cast - suddenly comes together, and finds its purpose. It becomes truly enjoyable; it becomes a title worthy of standing along the other giants in the series like FFVI and FFX."
My Final Fantasy XII Ranking: 4/10
I just wasted sixty hours of my life.
The first question you're undoubtedly going to ask is, "ClanCrusher, if you hated the game so much, then why on earth did you keep playing it?" Two reasons actually.
The first was that I saw many people write off Yahtzee's review on the basis that he played five hours. As for me, I did my time in the trenches so people couldn't throw that in my face so easily.
The second, was that I wanted to like this game. Desperately so. I've loved (or at least somewhat appreciated) every single Final Fantasy game to come along since VI (or III if you're picky). Some games were definitely better than others, but I could always look back on them and point out at least one or two things that I really liked about each one.
Final Fantasy XIII had nothing. I look back on the time I spent playing this game and I can't point out a single solitary thing that I enjoyed or appreciated about this game. I didn't even realize it until someone just flat out asked me "Was there anything you liked about the game?" and I couldn't think of anything.
After that conversation, I tried to break it down and analyze exactly why the game failed so badly in my eyes. With that said, let's take a look at what I believe are the 'core' elements of an RPG.
1) The Story
I'm about on the level with the guys at "Extra Credit" when it comes to story importance. If you can tell a good one, then you can forgive a lot in an otherwise bad game. So why does this aspect of Final Fantasy XIII fail?
Personally, I think that it's the sheer confusion that comes from trying to separate the nouns so early on in the game. Tell me, in the first couple of hours, could you honestly tell me what the difference between a Pulse le'cie, a fal'cie, and cieth were? I mean, what was the point of giving all of them 'cie' in their names?
Take a look at Final Fantasy X for a moment. The major factions in that game (arguably) were Yevon, the Al Bhed, the Guado, and the Ronso. And for the record, those names have NOTHING in common with each other.
Secondly, the narrative never takes the time to explain itself to the audience. You get that from a built in glossary and helpful loading messages which explain to you what you were SUPPOSED to get from the scenes you just watched. Everyone talks like they already know everything, and they expect you to as well. In Final Fantasy X, you were literally a newcomer to the world you were in, so you had things explained to you (in painstaking detail at times). Sure, Spira might not have made much sense even after the explanations, but I could fathom it a bit better than...whatever world Final Fantasy XIII was trying to push at me. Even Final Fantasy VII explained things, either through dialogue from NPCs or Cloud outright explaining them to his party members.
2) The Characters (And Development)
Here's a question for you. Do you know why the other Final Fantasy games had things like towns, castles, inns, and other such rest stops? Because it was the best place to develop characters. For those of you who don't know, Final Fantasy XIII has no such accommodations, instead they give us hastily traded dialogue while exploring the dungeons, and rushed cut scenes during the transitions between dungeons. Every location is a new dungeon with random encounters. Every place will eventually have you doing the same jaunt down a liner-esque corridor while dodging the not-so-random encounters.
As you can probably guess, this doesn't give a lot of time for character development, nor does it present good storytelling. Every Final Fantasy game had these core 'towns' if you will. Places where you can take a break from the tiring combat and catch your breath, talk to NPCs, or even partake in pointless minigames. The fact of the matter is, you can't run full tilt through a story like this one without breaks. It's exhausting. Several people (like Yahtzee) claimed that they were only able to play the damn thing for a few hours before giving up on it, and the reason why is because this game simply doesn't have anything to fall back on it other than the next major problem.
3) The Combat System
It's easily one of the more important aspects of any RPG. Chances are, you'll be spending a lot of time doing combat one way or the other, and mastering that system is usually essential to beating the game as well. So no matter how good or bad it may be, you have to master it (or at least tolerate it).
Final Fantasy XIII actually does its best to make the combat completely intolerable. How? By making each and every combat excruciatingly long or incredibly difficult. I won't go into details about their incredibly broken Pardigram system, but recall if you will the combat systems of the other Final Fantasy games. On average, I remember most encounters (not boss fights mind you) usually taking less than a single minute. Oft times they were less than thirty seconds. The average fight time in Final Fantasy XIII for me was well over two minutes for the standard encounters, and even longer for the mid-level enemies. And trust me, there was never any lack of enemies in any dungeon.
This is also coupled with the absolutely ABSURD amount of hitpoints some of these enemies have. You remember the soldier in Final Fantasy VIII that had 26,000 hit points? OF COURSE NOT! You remember how every enemy in Final Fantasy IX had to be knocked off balance before you could do any real damage to them? HELL NO! Do you remember how long it took you to beat Sepiroth in the final confrontation? Well, unless you had Knights of the Round then probably about 15 minutes tops. You want to know how long it took me to fight the final bosses in Final Fantasy XIII? THIRTY GOD DAMN MINUTES! In order, these guys had 5,000,000 hit points, 7,000,000 and 3,000,000 hit points along with a bullshit invulnerability shield. This wasn't as much of a boss fight as it was an endurance test.
There was an article posted recently on the Escapist on how fully healing your party after every battle was a method to make sure that every combat could be as difficult as the developers planned it to be regardless of what condition your party is in. What this really translated into though, was that every single encounter had the possibility of killing you, and every fight could turn into a fight for your life if you weren't careful. Considering the sheer number of fights you had to go through though, this also fell under the 'exhausting' category. Hell, I feared more of the random encounters in the final dungeon than I did the bosses in that place.
4) The Exploration
Perhaps it's not the biggest crime an RPG can commit, but I've always believed that if you're going to go to the trouble of creating a world, then you should let the players explore it. Final Fantasy VI, VII, VIII, and IX all had airships and world maps you could explore. Final Fantasy X, while not really having a complete airship exploration system, still managed to make itself feel open to me by the numerous amounts of locations you could re-visit and explore. What does XIII get you? A grassy field twice the size of the calm lands and a few linear corridors that you could walk up and down till you were numb in the thumb. Hoo-ray.
5) Etc.
After the core elements, there are still several more things that I can complain about, such as the stupid weapon level up system, the completely retarted summon boss battles, the needlessly flashy level up system, and the few and boring enemy designs, but why bother? Final Fantasy XIII has failed me on every core aspect that makes up a good RPG. Nothing after those is going to change the fact that this is one of the worst games I've ever played.
But wait! How well did this game score?
1up.com: A-
Eurogamer: 8/10
Famitsu: 39/40
Game Informer: 9.25/10
GameSpot: 8.5/10
GameSpy: 4.5/5
GamesRadar: 10/10
GameTrailers: 8.6/10
GameZone: 8.5/10
IGN: 8.9/10
X-Play: 4/5
Escapist Magazine: 4/5
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the final nail in the fantasy. Apparently I'm one of the few people in the world who thinks this game sucked. The question is, why? What am I missing? Why are people on the Escapist saying that this...thing is worthy to stand among titans like Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X? I just don't get it!
So please Escapist Community, please tell me why I should care about this game. Please tell me what I missed that makes this game so great as to get a god damn 9.5 out of Game Informer (which gave Brawl the same score). And for the love of god, please tell me what in the hell justifies this quote from John Funk who did the review for the Escapist:
"But then, there is a moment where the game - like its cast - suddenly comes together, and finds its purpose. It becomes truly enjoyable; it becomes a title worthy of standing along the other giants in the series like FFVI and FFX."
My Final Fantasy XII Ranking: 4/10
