Poll: Is FF XIII a *bad* game, or just not as good as it could have been?

[Jackstick]

Topic title says it all.

This is really meant for people that have actually PLAYED Final Fantasy XIII for a decent amount of time, preferably finished it.

Do you think the game is bad? Like, really all-around horrendous? Or did it simply not meet up to the expectations?

I enjoyed the game, but I will admit that it could have been better. Especially the antagonists and the final boss - they're not all that memorable. But overall, I enjoyed the game. I liked the (not perfect) battle system, the characters, the story, etc.

 

[Inkidu]

It's a lobotomy wrapped in sparkly paper.

At least the sphere grid had multiple paths for each character. In XIII you just follow the lines for whatever skill you want to develop, and there's time to do them all.

Hell, they don't even trust you with an open world anymore. Damn it, Japan.

EDIT: They don't even trust you to move around in combat! I know 12 kind of dropped the ball, but they snatch it away like it was our fault.

 

[danintexas]

I loved everything about that game


Except having to shift 20 times every fight. Which made every single fight last 5+ minutes.

Which since fighting and the shifting thing is a huge piece of the game..... AND it seems they are keeping it for the next game


*sigh*

I am not happy

 

[SergeantAnt]

i felt the need to try to 100% it due to being a final fantasy game but there was no way.
it was a good game and i did almost all the hunts but it definatly had its fair share of problems.
it sounds like 13-2 is going to maybe fix some of them, like adding towns and a world map
also the combat system was flawed. all they would have to do is get rid of auto-battle, slow it down enough to input commands, and if done right let you control everyone(heard they might be letting you do that.)

but yeah good game, weak in most areas but still enjoyable.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

FF 13 is the best game since FF 10. It had solid character development and amusing, hectic combat.

It was leaps and bounds better than any other recent FF title.

 

[OptimisticPessimist]

Er, couldn't all bad games have been better? The distinction seems unnecessary. Just saying.

 

[Fanta Grape]

Bad and unused potential are not diametrically opposed. If this game was released standalone and not with the title of another Final Fantasy game, it might have gotten less flack, but it still would have been shunned for many of its flaws. Remember, those things that make the game not as good as it could have been, are actually FLAWS in the game.

 

[KefkaCultist]

I played the main game all the way through and did about half the "side missions" before I quit caring about it.

I really dislike the game. IMO it's one of the worst Final Fantasy games and I'd rather play Mystic Quest instead of XIII.

I hated:
-the obviously linear path
-the "open" area
-the unmemorable NPCs and bosses
-the annoying protagonists
-the super boring and annoyingly easy combat
-the unintuitive and hardly customizable leveling system
-the Gestalt modes of the Eons
-the fact that all the "side quests" were bland hunt missions
-the fact that there were barely any towns to explore and the 1 time you're in a big city you're subject to the horrible linearity again.
-the final boss. (seriously, anyone having problems with him just needs to equip anti insta-death accessories and you win)
-the ending and how the game just rewinds to pre-final boss so that you can go do "side missions"

I liked:
-Fang
-...Thats all...

I'm usually never one apply the term "hate" to a game because in most games I can find at least some enjoyment out of, but this game has nothing and I HATE it.

The game is a lifeless shell and merely a graphics display. 1/10 for me.

(again, this is my opinion. I realize others like the game, but I do not.)

 

[KefkaCultist]

FF 13 is the best game since FF 10. It had solid character development and amusing, hectic combat.

It was leaps and bounds better than any other recent FF title.

Actually, I quite like FF12. To be honest, I didn't like it AT ALL when I first played it when it came out, but I just bought it again recently to have another try at it and it's a lot better than I remember it being and I'm having a good time with it so far.

EDIT: Albiet, Vaan is extremely annoying... but Basch, Fran, Balthier, and Ashe are all good characters IMO.

 

[Seieko Pherdo]

The game could use a lot of work. However for me it's always been the combat and leveling up systems that made me hate Final Fantasy games, though for the little time I played it I felt disconnected from it and there was very little to hook me in for the rest of the game. Normally I would say, look back at the previous games but all Final Fantasy games make a lot of money since lots of people just buy and each one has it's share of issues that have been overlooked.

 

[Condor219]

I personally really liked the game. I saw the beginning 10 hours just as the creators intended it, as a time to set up story and demonstrate cinematics, and then I likes the more combat-driven part later on (and the combat system in those later battles was balls-difficult, and challenging. I was just disappointed that you didn't get to face the mountain-god or whatever).

I saw the game in good light. Was it flawed in some ways? Hell yes, every game is. But for my tastes, it was more than satisfactory.

 

[Jackstick]

I personally really liked the game. I saw the beginning 10 hours just as the creators intended it, as a time to set up story and demonstrate cinematics, and then I likes the more combat-driven part later on (and the combat system in those later battles was balls-difficult, and challenging. I was just disappointed that you didn't get to face the mountain-god or whatever).

I saw the game in good light. Was it flawed in some ways? Hell yes, every game is. But for my tastes, it was more than satisfactory.

That's pretty much exactly how I feel.

Btw the mountain-god is called Titan. ^_^ Yeah, would have been great if we could fight him.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

I'm going to mention one thing that I think Square could have done much better with the story, since others have discussed the linearity and combat system. They try to make a three-act story into a game with a five-act structure and don't even really raise the dramatic question until 20-25 hours into the game.

Break the game down into its most basic story components: each character is established, they meet, muck around in Cocoon, eventually get booted out to Pulse, muck around in Pulse, come back to confront the big bad. So, in essence you have a few hours of exposition, about twenty hours of rising action and a small plateau, more exposition in which the dramatic question is raised, ten hours of more rising action, then a climax and resolution: five-act structure. When in reality all that game play in Cocoon is really just exposition, the dramatic question isn't even raised until just before the party goes to Pulse, then after ten hours of rising action the climax: three-act story. Plus they even had the gall to tack on an in medias res opening to a game in which the dramatic question isn't even raised until twenty-ish hours afterwards.

Not to mention the characters aren't in the least bit sympathetic until they get to Pulse and figure out they need to get over their shit and work together. Then they're arguably even worse considering the ever-permanent "POWER OF FRIENDSHIP! GANBATTE! *Japanese Fist Pump*" in chapters 12-15. Argh.

Anyhow, where Square could have done much better was to have the characters become l'Cie, and Anima gives the mission to assassinate Dysley. At that point the characters still loathe each other and get chased to ground by PSICOM, then half-assedly attempt to assassinate Dysley; wherein he reveals himself as Barthandelus and readily delivers a whopping case of whoop-ass with Exposition 2: Convoluted Plot Boogaloo, which raises the dramatic question. The party escapes to Pulse, having just gotten their asses handed to them in legendary fashion, bringing us into Act 2 in five hours, tops.

Now, Pulse was fantastic. Easily the best-conceived and well-written part of the game, almost made me feel slogging through the previous 20 hours of crap was worth it. Expand that f*cker to about 25 hours, and have all that character background establishment, mutual loathing and attempts to off each other there, followed by reconciliation and team coagulation. They fight Barthandelus again and whoop up and make their way back to Cocoon, bookending Act 2 and introducing the climax which could have decently followed the game's structure.

 

[mireko]

No games are as good as they could have been. [/boring answer]

Anyway, no. It wasn't a terrible game. The writing was very poor and the story was kind of bland.. and the non-combat gameplay didn't have much else going on, the leveling system was a bit too minimalist and there were no meaningful sidequests until Gran Pulse (and even those were just monster hunts).

It felt a little like they'd started out from an interesting place (a tough, female protagonist! magical crystal lesbians! god is evil!) then printed the stock Final Fantasy story onto it. Once attached, the FF story behaves like any other parasite and gets to work sucking all the fun out of the game. Granted, I may be wrong here. Maybe the parts other people liked are the ones I thought were clichés (and vice-versa)...

Spoiler: ...some more text

I mean, people liked Sazh. I couldn't stand Sazh. He was supposed to generally be a nice guy, but where's the fun in that? Good people are only fun if you know how to write them, and Square-Enix proved they really, really can't. Then there's that scene where he threatens Vanille at gunpoint. According to the game, this is justified in the plot. It isn't. It doesn't even make any sense. He does an okay job the rest of the time, but he's two different people and it's actually kind of disturbing.

On the other side, a lot of people didn't like Lightning. I loved Lightning. At her better times, she punches and/or kills people. Nothing could be better. You put me in a Final Fantasy game and tell me my protagonist is a violent young woman with pink hair and a giant swiss army knife and I AM IN HEAVEN.

I'm exaggerating, of course. She's revealed to be a warm and caring person and so on, and that's fine. To be honest, though, wouldn't it have been better if she'd kept both the violence and the love? Allow me to rephrase that in a way that makes it sound less like I wanted her to torture people (although Bayo-style torture attacks would be the best thing, just the best thing): Lightning never gives off much of an antagonistic streak.

Yes, I know she's the protagonist, my point is that she never seemed as severe or stoic or PTSD..ish as the other characters seem to think she is. The only times in the story when I really believed she wanted to hurt anyone was when she repeatedly punched Snow in the face. Those face punches were glorious, but the rest of the time she just seemed kind of shy.

Somehow, I'm still optimistic. At least they had an idea at the start. At least there was a sign at some point that they wanted to do something that they hadn't done before. It's just a shame that they didn't follow through with it at all, and I think that's what made it crash quite as hard as it did. Until XIII-2, Versus XIII and Type-0, I'm just going to go ahead and blame Toriyama.

Other than that, the combat was fun (if a little slow), I liked the character designs [small](actually just Lightning)[/small] and a lot of the enemies and locales were pretty. Also there was a flan with a hardhat referred to as a "flanitor", which made me snicker and then feel ashamed about snickering.

Even with all the negative points, you could certainly do a lot worse.

[sub]It's 5 AM here. I kind of got stuck in suggesting various ways to improve the game by making Lightning and Serah the only characters and having them drink and commit crimes for profit.

After removing that, I still don't know if my post makes sense. Oh well.[/sub]

 

[Mouse_Crouse]

It's actually the first FF I couldn't make myself finish. Honestly what is the point of revive if the game ends when one of my people goes down. Not to mention it took something like 26 hours to get to where I get to choose my party... just silly design choices IMO.

Edit: cause some people are bringing the others up a lot. I LOVED X-2 and IX is my all time fave.

 

[Josh Horton]

I thought it was alright, they could have done way better with some of the boss fights and with it being linear til chapter 13.... That was horrendous on their part, I do like the thought put behind the grid system and some of the skills, but it could definitely be improved upon. I did like how certain characters had certain summons instead of one character being able to power through fights on their own.

 

[Trixsy]

I liked the game, to be honest. I don't see what's bad about a linear game. If I want to play something open world, there's tons of choices, but sometimes I don't mind a guided tour, so to speak. I would have preferred a bit more open world, and I'm hoping the sequel does that.

What I disliked the most, however, was after finishing the game, the pre-boss battle open world super happy fun time. If you beat the game, you know two characters would technically be absent from your party after... so the whole concept of going back in time to do random shit doesn't fly with me. To be fair though, I dislike when ANY game does that.

 

[Mungular]

it was a good game. just a bad final fantasy