I, Final Fantasy fanboy, hated Final Fantasy XIII; confessions of a disappointed gamer.

[ShadowKatt]

FF XII ruined Final Fantasy for me. My expectations right now are so low I couldn't really be disappointed in it. I weigh this against the feelings I have for TransFormers: War for Cybertron, which I've actually lost sleep over in excitement, and the only paralells I have for that would have been FF VIII and IX which I played for stretches of upwards and above 16 hours at a time or more, and as far as XIII goes, I barely have it in me to utter an exasperated "Meh". Still, I will get it. I want it to be good.

 

[CmdrGoob]

The list of what's wrong with FF13 is so long I find it almost impractical to list it all in detail.

But the biggest, most common theme throughout the whole game is that it's all just empty spectacle over substance and at heart it's just so shallow and boring.

The combat, the characters, the map design, the character levelling system, the story, the weapon upgrading all just far too shallow spectacle over substance.

 

[XAEnimaX]

The very fact that you can't even control your other two party members is a complete testament to what you said. The system has the basis of strategy, but it's completely lost in its almost 'mandatory' auto functions.

Funny though, you couldn't really control the other players that well in FFXII but I enjoyed that...honestly though, I've only played like 5 min of XIII so I don't really have an opinion on it yet. It sounds like you would you say that XIII was a crappy game even if you didn't have to deal with the big let down. At least that's the impression I'm getting...
But even if the gameplay is bad would you say that the storyline is at least good?

 

[XAEnimaX]

Jesus christ dude, I forgot how painful that scene was. I think X is ok simply for the gameplay but there isn't a single character I could relate to or genuinely like.

Yeah I didn't play the game after that. I facepalmed at it.

I still think FF8 was the best. Followed closely by FF7. FF7 changed the way the games were being made, but FF8 improved on those aspect and created something perfect. Perfect story, perfect characters, everything.

Some might say Squall was stupid in terms of how oblivious he was about Rinoa, but that was he character development that made him special. He had to open up by the end to her which made it more romantic.

I adored the story, the characters and the enviroment of FF8. The story was very mature (similiar to Final Fantasy Tactics, another of my favorites) Combat was even neat with the different characters limit breaks requiring inputs and Squall's gunblade shot that required you to push R1. Sure the draw system was a bit flawed but what game doesn't have some flaws...? It really is a great game that just get's a lot of crap that it really doesn't deserve at all.

 

[Vancifer]

Completely agree.

 

[Tdc2182]

You sound like you are suffering from a case of Hypies.

 

[XAEnimaX]

XI doesn't count since it is an mmorpg.

Sorry to ignore the vast majority of your post.
I always feel sad whenever someone says this. The world of Vana'diel is so well expanded and characterized with so many especially enjoyable characters, very large plots that bring around a feel of fantasy that Twelve and Thirteen rather stumble with, with a great variety of classic monsters, Avatars, it's own nations and religions, weaving them into the world that fits with the stories.
Of course that might just be being gushy. I can't honestly expect people to cough up monthly fees and so many more hours than other games just to see them, but XI feels much more "Final Fantasy"-like than any of its sequels, for whatever that is worth.

I never played XI but your description makes me wish I had!

 

[Delock]

I didn't clarify this in the article, but FF9 is actually my favourite, FF7 was my 'dawn of a new era' moment.

I, a gamer who has played all but three of the FFs, actually was ok with 13. Not going to say that it's one of my favorites, but I've realized that I got my hopes way too high and should have accepted that. One thing I liked, and I know people are going to disagree with me a lot over this is the villain. He's one of the few really successful ones in the series, on par with the true villain of 10.

Spoiler

X's villain, in a desperate attempt to win a war, created a beast of absolute chaos. Then he created a religion that could keep people safe from the beast, but in truth, all it did was create a new one in it's place while creating a temporary peace (and this beast was the result of the deaths of a summoner and their guardian and probably best friend by that point in their journey, only for the guardian to become the very beast). Over time, this religion of his became so entrenched in the very workings of the government and the world that it could not be removed, even thought its very practices were keeping the monster alive.
XIII's villain raises humans like pets, but also prepares to use them to bring back his old "caretaker." He's successfully controlled the world of Caccoon for its entire existance, and just like X's villain, has made the government so entrenched that it cannot be taken away, as doing so means that the sources of food, water, and sunlight itself will vanish. The people blindly fear the outside world because of a war between it and Caccoon, which turns out was his fault. He brings in several of his enemies for the sole purpose of having the citizens reactions to them force them to accept their fate to destroy the world of Caccoon (which they already had to do because of how they were chosen). Did I mention that he's not only tried to destroy Caccoon by this method, but it's also strongly suggested (atleast from what I saw) that he indirectly caused all humans in the world below to die out (by having them turned into Pulse L'cie, where they were unable to destroy Caccoon). That's right, he's destroyed the wild half of humans, and is working on the civilised half behind the cover of ruling them. I'm sorry, but Sephiroth's Meteor and Ultimecia's... whatever plan she had that was poorly thought out don't come close to his bastardness. To make matters even worse, he truly looks like the type of guy that you expect would be getting played by the pretty boy true big bad. He also has some of the best fight music in the game (but that's to counteract that he's one of the toughest bosses, but it's good to have tough boss fights in the FF games).

As for why I quoted you, 9 was my dawn of a new era and possibly my favorite as well.

 

[Ayzahar]

I stopped caring about Final Fantasy much after 7, which was cool, and new, and fresh, but after you start getting together some cooler PS1 games back in 97' final fantasy 7 kind of fades away to memory. Final Fantasy 8 was the beginning of the end. 9 kind of brought back the old nes and snes roots, but it was no where near what it was once before. 10 killed it for me. I was really REALLY surprised by how good 12 was.

Then I saw a concept art piece for lesbian mecha-shiva motorcycle and I was like yeah okay I'm pretty much calling it quits with the genre for good.

Final Fantasy 6, without a doubt, the best in the series, when put into proper context (Snes era, and limitations of the graphical systems, and sound systems.

 

[imPacT31]

I could go into depth about why I liked certain elements of Final Fantasy XIII that you didn't or how you've left some of the points you make completely unexplained (why have you "never disliked a main character in a Final Fantasy game as much as Lightning"?) but really I've only got one question?

You say this game was "the biggest disappointment in your life as a gamer"; you think it only has one "slightly redeemable" character; you call the story "unbelievably boring", complain about the game's lack of depth in battles and say Square Enix have "broken [your] heart, and turned a brilliant franchise into an underwhelming and stereotypical JRPG".

So why "wouldn?t [you] go so far as to say Final Fantasy XIII?s a bad game"?

 

[Cheesepower5]

This is a completely new, and totally not over-done topic.

But sarcasm aside and in all fairness, there are plenty of perfectly valid reasons laid out here(and everywhere else) for why FFXIII was quite disappointing. But really world; get over it, it's not that big of a deal and FFXIII is far from the worst game ever developed, I doubt it's even bottom half.