Final Fantasy XIII - What's Your Opinion On Characters?

[Dominic Crossman]

The 6 mains of XIII -

Lightning: Overly moody like Cloud (who never cheered up in my playthrough as I never completed VII) the straight (wo)man, eventually develops character over the 3 games.
Sazh: Funny, likeable, 3-dimensional, but has overly dark moments. XIII-2 could've been his game as far as I'm concerned.
Snow: Pretty much your stereotypical white male protagonist, cocky and overconfident, much like Nathan Drake.
Hope: Whiny little git. Didn't improve much over next two games.
Vanille: Overly happy, but liked her despite that, probably because wasn't miserable like Light or Hope.
Fang: Super kick-ass, wise cracking, female who should've had a MUCH larger focus.

2 mains of XIII-2

Serah: Toned down version of Vanille, friendliest character in the series.
Noel: Overly moody like Cloud and Light, but has the same character development in 1 game that Light has in 3.

 

[ChristopherT]

In 13 I liked the characters, they're not great, they don't get to develop too much, they're a little flat in the long run, but they had set traits, personalities, even though they weren't fleshed out. They seemed like each one just needed one more level added to their character to make them interesting.

Lightning is all "grr, blood is just weakness leaving the body! GRR!"

Snow is all muscle and no brain, but I found him fun to have around, yeah he's kind of like Goku, but it can be fun to have the dumb fighter along for the journey. If he had one more touch, just a little more thought put into him, I think he would have been a pretty good character. If he was given a little more comic relief, or a stronger sense to prove himself to Lightning that he'd make a good husband for Serah, or was an actual capable leader. I think all he really needed was that little boost.

Sazh I like, he tries to be a good father, look after his son, and be responsible, that's his character. I think his relationship with Vanille really helped his character for me.

Fang I don't really remember much about, at all. I remember where she is from, her relationship with Vanille, what she looks like, and that's about it.

Hope, I appreciate Hope. I can understand Hope being upset over his mother's death, and then turning the anger outwards at a target. And it's nice to even see something like that attempted. It may not have been told the best, but they actually tried a character whose first opening hours of a video game is him trying to deal with his mother's death. And he only came off as whiny to most people? and that's a failure?

Vanille is bubbly, she is an airhead, she doesn't shut up, okay I'm stupid and I like her. But then, she the reason she's that way is revealed, and she's only acting that way because she feels responsible, that she is at fault, and if she doesn't try to fix the situation, if she doesn't try to be the cheerleader they need in their dark hours, if she let's them fail she may not be able to live with herself Cie'th be damned.

13-2 is a story I'm more on board with, time travel yah! So, Lightning is still Lightning, only now she's a warrior princess ruling over an empty land, and she's slowly realizing here and there that people care about her. Then Snow's even more head strong, and Hope is the only other one that makes that much of an appearance. Which, Hope grows up and wants to protect Fang and Vanille, good boy.

 

[debtcollector]

I liked most of 'em. Lightning wasn't spectacularly original, with her "stoic badass ex-soldier" schtick, but she was far more understandable than the "chosen divine warrior" persona she's apparently adopted since then.

Snow was occasionally annoying ("He's warm and chummy from the get-go, thinks he's everyone's pal. Never liked him much.") but he's Troy Baker, who is just a really great voice actor. When he isn't doing his "hero" monologues he's a refreshingly likable guy.

Sazh is the best, obviously. Honestly, a middle-aged black single parent is kind of a unique character for Final Fantasy, and he really knocked it out of the park. His story was probably the most emotionally compelling.

Vanille is adorable. I thought she would be intolerably peppy, but her interactions with Sazh are a treat. Honestly, her goofy lines are just fun to hear when everyone else is trying to be all grim and serious. I thought her confrontation with Sazh in Nautilus to be the second-best moment in the game.

Fang was aight. I could never grasp the nature of her relationship with Vanille (Sisters? Lovers?) and she didn't really emote that much beyond being a cocky badass, but damn me if she wasn't one of the most valuable teammates in the game.

Fuck Hope. Just fuck him. He spent the first half of the game declaring vengeance on a guy after deliberately making the decision to not talk it out like adults and feeling sorry for himself. He spent the second half making cheesy inspirational speeches that he was completely unqualified to make. Fuck him.

As for side characters, Cid Raines was cool enough, but his tone and voice cadence ensured that I didn't trust him one bit, which kinda screwed the pooch on the plot twist.

Nabaat and Rosch were pretty one-dimensional villains, but I would have liked to fight them at some point. At least Rosch directly acknowledged that his actions were reprehensible.

Dysley is boss as fuck. His slow, deliberate cadence is just super fun to listen to, and he's also a damned intimidating god-machine. I consider his reveal as Barthandelus the best part of the game.

I liked NORA as well, but I wish they were utilized more. They had some decent character designs that probably could have seen more screentime. I kinda wonder if they were meant to play a larger part but were cut midway through development.

 

[Arina Love]

I like Vanille, Fang, Lightning, Serah and Sazh. Snow, Noel is alright and i don't really like Hope.

 

[loa]

Saszh is pretty universally liked by most players of XIII because his story actually has some coherency and is relatable.
Of course for squeenix that means they have to break the sound barrier dropping that character to shove other ones no one cares for in our face in the sequels absolutely no one asked for.

 

[Vivi22]

Honestly? With the exception of Sazh, the cast of FFXIII is one of the worst written and developed casts I've ever seen.

They're a ridiculous mess of difficult to believe reactions to the absurd situations they're in, frequently make decisions which make no sense given what they know about the events going on and their established characters, and frequently change their minds on decisions they made for absolutely no reason. And it doesn't help that the story itself frequently makes no sense.

The only character who makes any sense in the game is Sazh. He's the only one who seems even the least bit bothered by being afflicted with what's considered just about the worst thing you could have happen to you in that world, he's the only who's motivation remains consistent during the early section of the game, and he's the only one is believable in any way.

 

[Artemicion]

Lightning: She's as cold as ice and has the dry wit to accompany it but, being given pretty much the shortest stick in the entire universe, it makes sense. Because of this icy disposition she's one of the most misunderstood characters in FF, where most people see her only as a brooding anti-hero Cloud clone. Lightning's got a lot of emotional depth and can be very interesting, but her writing in LR: XIII isn't the best (read: kind of terrible).

Snow: HEY YOU GUISE LET'S APPROACH EVERY SITUATION WITH RECKLESS ABANDON AND THEN CRY WHEN SOME TAKE UMBRAGE WITH OUR ACTIONS. He's at his best when his cocky demeanor is in full swing, but any time he has portray emotions other than "confident" he sort of falls apart. I don't much care for him but I see why people like him.

Sazh: Sazh is the best character in XIII, hands-down. He's the everyman just looking out for his son, and brings a lot of light-hearted charm with it. When things do invariably go to hell, he stands firm and sticks to what needs to be done.

Hope: He's incredibly obnoxious for a good deal of XIII but he's a kid, so, you know. In XIII-2 he becomes a total badass and I became quite fond of him. When he's not upset about something he shows real intelligence and aptitude. He's okay in LR. Some people find his being in your ear at all times to be annoying but I never became annoyed. Overall, an alright character.

Vanille: The polar opposite of Lightning: They've both got the weight of the world on their shoulders, but Vanille hides it and instead puts on a smile. Her aloofness can be jarring - especially in situations where happiness shouldn't be the first reaction to a situation - but, like Lightning, the reasons for why she acts the way she acts are understandable.

Fang: She's okay. Mostly she just sort of goes with the flow of things and offers advice on what to do next, but doesn't really advance the plot. She does what she's there to do and looks out for Vanille and that's that.

Overall the lineup isn't the best, but it's not like the characters are bringing anything to the table that hasn't been seen in Final Fantasy before. Same writers, same motivations, same tropes. The amount of hate this particular crew gets is a bit strange - I draw characterization parallels to other games (including fan favorites like IV and VI) in the series for pretty much all of these. Maybe the advancement in technology and voice acting is finally letting people see how bad the character writing in these games has always been.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Lightning: Female Cloud (aka, the director's "Mary Sue Waifu")
Basically, "Cold psychotic ***** masquerading as strong independent asskicker"

Snow: American caricature. Has a hero complex and is supremely stupid.

Hope: Annoying, whiny little fuck.

Vanille: Malfunctioning Realdoll.

Fang: She's alright. Well, apart from transforming into The Furry of Ultimate Destruction.

Sahz: The only character that resembles a human being. And he lets a bird live in his afro.

I've heard the characters are supposed to be filters of the various "humors" (personalities or philosophies) and how they might handle the same hopeless scenario/crisis (which is why the party splits into three pairs after becoming L'Cie).

But if that's the case, the character flaws are either too exaggerated (Snow especially) or the scenario is too badly written that it's just aggravating to watch.

 

[BrotherRool]

Overall the lineup isn't the best, but it's not like the characters are bringing anything to the table that hasn't been seen in Final Fantasy before. Same writers, same motivations, same tropes. The amount of hate this particular crew gets is a bit strange - I draw characterization parallels to other games (including fan favorites like IV and VI) in the series for pretty much all of these. Maybe the advancement in technology and voice acting is finally letting people see how bad the character writing in these games has always been.

I don't think it's really the technology or the voice acting or even the characters themselves. This might sound a bit dismissive of me, since a lot of people in the thread have voiced very valid problems, but I think the amount of hate the XIII cast gets is everything to do with the quality of the game itself and the pacing of it's story.

If the game had made people like it more, and if the story gave the characters more context and a sense of progress then we'd have been more favourable to the cast. And most of all if the story had either filled in the 30 hours between events or not made us wait tens of hours, then we'd have been more patient and happy to see the character evolve over the course of the game instead of being stuck with their first impressions (which were meant to be flawed characters at the start of a journey)

We're humans right? We view everything in context, playing The Walking Dead when I was shut up in my room after an awful long low period is a very different experience to playing it when everything in your life is going right. Watching The Musketeers immediately after weeks of dragging myself through Agents of Shield even though I didn't like it made me a lot more favourable to the Musketeers.

I'd even argue that having to put yourself through one of the most grey and outright (deliberately) miserable levels of gameplay with lots of very intense and difficult fights, over several hours, did not put people in the right frame of mind to be receptive to Mass Effect 3's ending. After doing all that hard and tense work, you want to feel rewarded and when the game refuses to acknowledge that desire you start to look at the details and rip them to shreds.

Context is especially important in games because the player has a lot more downtime to think in a videogame, and also goes a lot longer without fresh story input. Stories don't need to make logical sense, they just need to create a followable chain of events and emotions that puts the viewer in the right place. So when a film actually has a plothole, it doesn't matter as long as you are too engaged to notice. But games have a lot more time to spend for the player to lose engagement and start breaking down events and characters. Because the game of Final Fantasy XIII lost the players attention and goodwill, people start to analyse the flaws in the characters and question if they're really good people or not. Whereas FFX and FFVII and FFVIII allowed people to ignore the bad elements and concentrate on the good

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Not too much that others haven't already covered in detail, but I often wonder if people might look at Snow in a more positive light if he was thought of as an 'official' version of 8-Bit Theatre's Fighter. Same intellect, both the physically toughest characters, and ironically both the most traditionally heroic of the entire cast. Give him red hair and armour and see if people approach him more favourably.

Captcha: swirling vortex of entropy

 

[Amethyst Wind]

I didn't think much of any of the game at all, though Fang made me laugh a few times and Snow's a damn idiot. The rest didn't leave a lasting impression.

I stopped liking Vanille the moment she forgot how to attack with her awesome whipstick.

 

[Alistar_Helloise]

Good believable characters that were perverted by bad dialogue and a marketing company that thought throwing them in your face "Hey you guys love lightning right!? Not really!? How about 2 more games!? " and stupid concepts that just didn't work.