Poll: Is Final Fantasy XIII/XIII-2 The worst Final Fantasy games?
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The worst ones? Eeh, that's really more toward FF2's territory, since that has a gameplay system that was panned by bloody everyone (for good reason).
Personally speaking, I do like the aesthetic design of FF13's world and characters and, honestly, I've heard so many people saying that the story is both hard to follow and that the story CAN be followed if you put some effort into it. Of course, a lot of people are gonna pull the "We shouldn't have to do extra homework in order to understand the plot!" card, and yes, I do agree that it is bullshit if you have to do homework in order to understand why people are doing whatever, buuuut I am willing to give them that if the ending plot is good.
And despite what Yahtzee, Spoony, damn near everyone has said, I do have a lot of close friends that swear, up and down, that FF13 has a story that is both coherent and interesting, so I feel that, eventually, I'll have to concede and try playing the game.
As for Final Fantasies that are bad, honestly, that's more to personal opinion if anything. I know a lot of people hate FF10's story and characters, but (Tidus's more annoying moments aside) I liked both FF10's story and its gameplay system. The design of Spira, imo was FANTASTIC. FF10-2, despite having some... interesting changes to Yuna and Rikku, made up for it with some really great gameplay (although I won't deny that FF10-2's story is pretty shite... when it even bothers to advance it). FF6 is my personal favorite, but I do think that every Final Fantasy has its specific niche that pleases the certain individual.
Except 2. That can go burn in a hole.
Personally speaking, I do like the aesthetic design of FF13's world and characters and, honestly, I've heard so many people saying that the story is both hard to follow and that the story CAN be followed if you put some effort into it. Of course, a lot of people are gonna pull the "We shouldn't have to do extra homework in order to understand the plot!" card, and yes, I do agree that it is bullshit if you have to do homework in order to understand why people are doing whatever, buuuut I am willing to give them that if the ending plot is good.
And despite what Yahtzee, Spoony, damn near everyone has said, I do have a lot of close friends that swear, up and down, that FF13 has a story that is both coherent and interesting, so I feel that, eventually, I'll have to concede and try playing the game.
As for Final Fantasies that are bad, honestly, that's more to personal opinion if anything. I know a lot of people hate FF10's story and characters, but (Tidus's more annoying moments aside) I liked both FF10's story and its gameplay system. The design of Spira, imo was FANTASTIC. FF10-2, despite having some... interesting changes to Yuna and Rikku, made up for it with some really great gameplay (although I won't deny that FF10-2's story is pretty shite... when it even bothers to advance it). FF6 is my personal favorite, but I do think that every Final Fantasy has its specific niche that pleases the certain individual.
Except 2. That can go burn in a hole.
Haven't played 1-3, but 4-10(XII too, kind of) are awesome games which I spent a lot of my childhood/very early teens with. Replayed 7-10 again for the first time in close to ten years recently and they were still great.
XIII/XIII-2 are probably fine as a JRPG, but I wasn't very fond of either. On played through them once, close to release date, so I really don't remember much other than that I didn't like them.
So based on the ones I played they're definetly the worst. Story, combat, world... all at the bottom.
XIII/XIII-2 are probably fine as a JRPG, but I wasn't very fond of either. On played through them once, close to release date, so I really don't remember much other than that I didn't like them.
So based on the ones I played they're definetly the worst. Story, combat, world... all at the bottom.
I know, I just wish they kept with Balthier/Basch. I mean think about it; after the opening sequence and Reks' bit where the Archadians meant for there to be a living witness to what appeared to be 'Basch' betraying the king, you can literally skip straight ahead to when Balthier and Fran come into the story and not miss a thing. Vaan and Penelo slow/hinder the narrative more than help it whilst contributing nothing because they are so far removed from the high-stakes political intrigue going on in this game. There was a way to make them work within the narrative if Square really wanted to keep these two and it annoys me that the opportunity was missed. If those two were immediate family to any of the key players, but still a little out of touch with the situation enough to be an audience expy, kinda like Captain America was in the Avengers movie, this would've been fine and they would've actually had relevance.Neronium said:
Don't even bother dude, people who think Square is going in the right direction with FF now aren't worth arguing with because they have such a small perspective. You can't describe the stunning beauty of a misty sunrise in the mountains to an ant.Mangod said:
I've played a lot of them (I think the only ones I haven't played are IV and V), and I have to say, I enjoyed XIII plenty, enough to get the sequel and I'm really enjoying it, too. Apart from II, where the levelling system, while making sense, is so painfully slow, I've enjoyed all of them.
I agree with this, except the rushing part. You need to learn what all the roles can do for you and get used to changing them when needed, and that is why the party gets separated like this, with the leaders changing every time. So make sure you take your time, until you're sure you've understood them (took me way too long to realise Saboteur have the same effect as Commando on the stagger gauge, for example).omegaweopon said:
Final Fantasy 13 is actually among my favorites. I was actually surprised when it was so universally hated by gamers after the positive reviews.
Favorite FF games:
1) FF6
2) FF2 for SNES (I think it's FF4 but I get that one mixed up)
3) FF (NES)
4) FF 12
5) FF 13
6) FF 10
7) FF 7
From here I'm not crazy about the series.
I've played every release but FF 8 and FF 9.
I liked how FF13 focused on the story and the party characters. I LOVED how it minimized the senseless grind that the series is known for. Walking down straight hallways is fine by me when that's essentially how I played every other FF up to this point. I'd deviate from the path on occasion but I still played those games by it's intended route. The combat system in FF13 is the best the franchise had to offer and had me hooked. My gripes with the game was the crazy long tutorial (especially on multiple playthroughs) and the non-sensical 'meh' storylines that the franchise can't seem to shake off.
Final Fantasy 13-2 on the other hand is quite possibly the worst of the franchise.
It'll stand tall along side FF 10-2. I give 10-2 some slack because it didn't try to be serious.
Favorite FF games:
1) FF6
2) FF2 for SNES (I think it's FF4 but I get that one mixed up)
3) FF (NES)
4) FF 12
5) FF 13
6) FF 10
7) FF 7
From here I'm not crazy about the series.
I've played every release but FF 8 and FF 9.
I liked how FF13 focused on the story and the party characters. I LOVED how it minimized the senseless grind that the series is known for. Walking down straight hallways is fine by me when that's essentially how I played every other FF up to this point. I'd deviate from the path on occasion but I still played those games by it's intended route. The combat system in FF13 is the best the franchise had to offer and had me hooked. My gripes with the game was the crazy long tutorial (especially on multiple playthroughs) and the non-sensical 'meh' storylines that the franchise can't seem to shake off.
Final Fantasy 13-2 on the other hand is quite possibly the worst of the franchise.
It'll stand tall along side FF 10-2. I give 10-2 some slack because it didn't try to be serious.
FF 13 is a good game, if a bit back-heavy. It takes a long time to really get moving - it spends a lot of time introducing and developing the characters. Several characters start off fairly annoying, but grow into people you like and care about.ShadowRatchet92 said:
It has several flaws, and it had very linear dungeons which really pissed people off (even though FF 10 also had very linear dungeons and no one seemed to mind).
Of FF 10, 12, and 13, I'd put FF10 as best, FF 13 as 2nd best, and FF 12 as a stain at the bottom of my toilet (I hated FF12).
As for FF 13-2 - it is one of the top five best Final Fantasy games ever made. It fixed ALL of the problems with FF 13, had complex dungeons that were interesting to explore, and encouraged exploration and side-questing throughout the game. It is a masterpiece - far better than FF 13 itself.
Even if you don't much like FF 13, you should slog through just so you can play FF 13-2.
As bad as it was (and it was certainly bad, in many ways) there are "worse" Final Fantasies. Particularly 2 - awful skill system, awful spell level up system, boring plot, boring characters. 4 is also on the brink - it "had" a story but the story was very cliche and love triangles are cheesy, but the game was also bogged down with one of the worst class systems in the entire franchise (characters glued in to a role with no real way to change how they played).
13 made the mistake of pretty cutscenes and boring linear hallway festivals and combat that wanted to involve the player as little as possible. FFX is where that godawful linear corridor trend started, but FFX at least had some redeeming elements. 13... doesn't, really. So the only games that are "worse" are the ones that are just all bad, all the time - like 2 and 4. And x-2.
13 made the mistake of pretty cutscenes and boring linear hallway festivals and combat that wanted to involve the player as little as possible. FFX is where that godawful linear corridor trend started, but FFX at least had some redeeming elements. 13... doesn't, really. So the only games that are "worse" are the ones that are just all bad, all the time - like 2 and 4. And x-2.
I'll go even farther than naming FFXIII the worst FF title and say that I consider it one of the worst RPG's I've ever played. It tries to distract from that with a decent level of polish, but shiny or not, a turd is a turd.
The gameplay is some of the most shallow, mind numbingly stupid stuff I've ever seen. You will make a grand total of three or four distinct choices in battle, all of which are fairly obvious, and that's it. That is the most choice you have in the whole game. The leveling is on rails, the levels are basically corridors, and the battles are so mind numbingly stupid in their lack of complexity that aren't bored in five seconds then you either have a very high tolerance for playing games where you just do the same four things over and over again, or you're just slow enough not to realize that's all the game is.
We can add onto that the fact that the story makes no real sense. Even if you read the datalogs to get the all important back story that you won't get from just playing the game like a normal, sensible, human being the various twists that the story takes, and the choices characters make literally do not make sense. There is only one character that ever does anything that makes sense and that's Sazh. The rest of them are a tangled mess of them choosing to do things for the dumbest reasons imaginable, and then often pulling a complete 180 for even worse reasons. They're inconsistent, unbelievable, and possibly the only thing dumber than the people who designed the battle system. And it's not just limited to the main characters. The villains are often just as bad, enacting plans that make no sense to achieve goals that they spend half the game trying to prevent you from achieving.
And if that weren't bad enough, FFXIII is also one of the ugliest AAA titles I've ever seen. Now the characters are certainly passable, and the environments, though bland, aren't completely hideous most of the time. But the enemy designs, and the art style applied to them throughout the game is some of the ugliest, most unreadable, inconsistent piles of crap I've ever seen. I honestly would like to know if the person/people responsible were fired, because if not they should have been. They had absolutely no design sense whatsoever and seemed to spend most of their time adding details that worked against the flow of the creatures bodies, and often made them such a cluttered visual mess that you couldn't even be sure what they were right away.
Long story short, skip them. They are some of the worst games I've ever played. They try to cover it up under some flashy graphics, but no amount of shine is going to cover up just how bad they are. FFXIII is basically a game that languished completely directionless in development hell for years until the team was forced to make a demo about a year and a half before it released. They rushed something out, and then rushed the game itself out in a bit over a year. Until that point, they had no idea what they were doing or what the game would even be, and it shows. It was so haphazardly slapped together that it's pretty much unmistakable that they just slapped some disparate ideas together, refined nothing, and shoved it out the door.
The gameplay is some of the most shallow, mind numbingly stupid stuff I've ever seen. You will make a grand total of three or four distinct choices in battle, all of which are fairly obvious, and that's it. That is the most choice you have in the whole game. The leveling is on rails, the levels are basically corridors, and the battles are so mind numbingly stupid in their lack of complexity that aren't bored in five seconds then you either have a very high tolerance for playing games where you just do the same four things over and over again, or you're just slow enough not to realize that's all the game is.
We can add onto that the fact that the story makes no real sense. Even if you read the datalogs to get the all important back story that you won't get from just playing the game like a normal, sensible, human being the various twists that the story takes, and the choices characters make literally do not make sense. There is only one character that ever does anything that makes sense and that's Sazh. The rest of them are a tangled mess of them choosing to do things for the dumbest reasons imaginable, and then often pulling a complete 180 for even worse reasons. They're inconsistent, unbelievable, and possibly the only thing dumber than the people who designed the battle system. And it's not just limited to the main characters. The villains are often just as bad, enacting plans that make no sense to achieve goals that they spend half the game trying to prevent you from achieving.
And if that weren't bad enough, FFXIII is also one of the ugliest AAA titles I've ever seen. Now the characters are certainly passable, and the environments, though bland, aren't completely hideous most of the time. But the enemy designs, and the art style applied to them throughout the game is some of the ugliest, most unreadable, inconsistent piles of crap I've ever seen. I honestly would like to know if the person/people responsible were fired, because if not they should have been. They had absolutely no design sense whatsoever and seemed to spend most of their time adding details that worked against the flow of the creatures bodies, and often made them such a cluttered visual mess that you couldn't even be sure what they were right away.
Long story short, skip them. They are some of the worst games I've ever played. They try to cover it up under some flashy graphics, but no amount of shine is going to cover up just how bad they are. FFXIII is basically a game that languished completely directionless in development hell for years until the team was forced to make a demo about a year and a half before it released. They rushed something out, and then rushed the game itself out in a bit over a year. Until that point, they had no idea what they were doing or what the game would even be, and it shows. It was so haphazardly slapped together that it's pretty much unmistakable that they just slapped some disparate ideas together, refined nothing, and shoved it out the door.
Well, FF13 is fucking atrocious.
Comparing "apples to apples", it's a close nose between FF13 and FF2 (the actual FF2, which was a series of increasing "FUCK YOUS" because the producer hated the player).
But if I were to involve the MMOs, FF11 is by far the fucking worst.
It's an inhumanly boring grindfest with no purpose beyond incrementing numbers in a goddamn database, where failure punishes the player far too much. (yeah, I could rant about it and if you enjoy it, sorry but I cannot pretend to understand how)
Though one could make a very strong case for FF13 even there; at least FF11 has gameplay where player agency has consequence; FF13 does everything it possibly can to eliminate player agency.
Comparing "apples to apples", it's a close nose between FF13 and FF2 (the actual FF2, which was a series of increasing "FUCK YOUS" because the producer hated the player).
But if I were to involve the MMOs, FF11 is by far the fucking worst.
It's an inhumanly boring grindfest with no purpose beyond incrementing numbers in a goddamn database, where failure punishes the player far too much. (yeah, I could rant about it and if you enjoy it, sorry but I cannot pretend to understand how)
Though one could make a very strong case for FF13 even there; at least FF11 has gameplay where player agency has consequence; FF13 does everything it possibly can to eliminate player agency.
Oh, heavens no. There's a little game called FF10-2 that broke the scales of the shit-o-meter so thoroughly that scientists are still struggling to understand it.ShadowRatchet92 said:
That said, it's up there. The problem is that it feels like a really bad rip off of all the other FF games. Entire character designs are lifted from other games, as if they just stuck random characters from other games into it. The story also rehashed old plotlines. It literally feels like a bad FF fan-fiction got made into an official title. The game play is boring, and the level design is horribly linear. You're basically walking down painted hallways for 50 hours, and despite the linear nature of the game the actual level designs feel uninspired. This would be bearable if the story was good, but again, it basically ripped of other titles in the series. It feels like the little kid in the series trying to fit in with the big boys. The characterization is painfully bad.Everyone acts, for want of a better word, "emo." It's very melodramatic.
Now for the good. It may have the best graphics I have ever seen on a console title, period. The art direction is gorgeous, which is good, because of your going to walk down a hallway for 50+ hours it may as well be pretty. It's atleast as good as Bioshock Infinite visually, if not significantly better. Unfortunately that's the only strength, and once you realize it's all style and no substance you quickly get bored, as there's nothing to break up the monoteny besides the next cut scene. I say you should skip the title, you're not missing anything.
If you want a FF game then try FF7, which you can find on Steam and PS Network for about ten bucks. FF4, 6, and 10 are also okay, and can be found on PS Network and at GameStop. Chrono Trigger is also good, and by the same company.
Thoughts on series entry by entry:
1: Perfectly fine, though hasn't exactly aged well.
2: Just a plain wonky entry.
3: Like 1, but it has aged better due to its class system
4: Where the series started having a more involved plot and characters. Very well paced with a good cast. Also had a bunch of side quests that really expanded the world
5: Not as good story-wise as 4, but definitely better mechanically. The game also had a ton of side stuff to check out and a great world to explore.
6: Definitely one of the two titles I'd called a legitimate epic in the series. Great narrative with a stellar cast, good mechanics, and a rich world to explore. Its issues are that some party members can be useless due to lackluster special abilities, the lack of a true main character, and the fact that Kefka (entertaining as he is) is a very shallow villain.
7: The best of the series by far which along with its mechanics, narrative, characters, and world, also had some surprisingly interesting and mature themes beneath. Add one of the most iconic villains of all time and it's obvious why it's a classic
8: Albeit 7 was one of the toughest acts in history to follow...but 8 still sucks. The narrative makes no sense, the characters are either annoying or boring, and the mechanics are just a mess.
9: Definitely better, but (mostly) good characters can't hide the obvious narrative flaws, pacing, and wonky mechanics. The world is interesting at the very least.
10: Gets a lot of flack, but it's nowhere near as bad as some people say. Tidus isn't that annoying, though his romantic partner is wooden as hell, thus making him come off bad. The world is linear, but it's not ramrod straight like XIII at least. The battle system is also arguably the best in the series.
12: A HUGE missed opportunity. This could have been THE game changer for the series, but unfortunately executive meddling damaged it. The characters just didn't work, the narrative was boring, and the combat insulting. The world was cool, but ultimately everything else just damaged it. It could have been great due to its director-writer Yasumi Matsuno, but he jumped ship after getting cockblocked. Such a waste.
13: Basically the same as 12; bad characters, bad story, and bad fighting as well as adding its just plain lack of exploration. Not a good sign for FF
Tactics: Okay, probably the best narrative of all the spinoff games. Its class system is also great. Thing is it's pretty easy to break the game if you put the effort into it. It also has some weird difficulty spikes.
1: Perfectly fine, though hasn't exactly aged well.
2: Just a plain wonky entry.
3: Like 1, but it has aged better due to its class system
4: Where the series started having a more involved plot and characters. Very well paced with a good cast. Also had a bunch of side quests that really expanded the world
5: Not as good story-wise as 4, but definitely better mechanically. The game also had a ton of side stuff to check out and a great world to explore.
6: Definitely one of the two titles I'd called a legitimate epic in the series. Great narrative with a stellar cast, good mechanics, and a rich world to explore. Its issues are that some party members can be useless due to lackluster special abilities, the lack of a true main character, and the fact that Kefka (entertaining as he is) is a very shallow villain.
7: The best of the series by far which along with its mechanics, narrative, characters, and world, also had some surprisingly interesting and mature themes beneath. Add one of the most iconic villains of all time and it's obvious why it's a classic
8: Albeit 7 was one of the toughest acts in history to follow...but 8 still sucks. The narrative makes no sense, the characters are either annoying or boring, and the mechanics are just a mess.
9: Definitely better, but (mostly) good characters can't hide the obvious narrative flaws, pacing, and wonky mechanics. The world is interesting at the very least.
10: Gets a lot of flack, but it's nowhere near as bad as some people say. Tidus isn't that annoying, though his romantic partner is wooden as hell, thus making him come off bad. The world is linear, but it's not ramrod straight like XIII at least. The battle system is also arguably the best in the series.
12: A HUGE missed opportunity. This could have been THE game changer for the series, but unfortunately executive meddling damaged it. The characters just didn't work, the narrative was boring, and the combat insulting. The world was cool, but ultimately everything else just damaged it. It could have been great due to its director-writer Yasumi Matsuno, but he jumped ship after getting cockblocked. Such a waste.
13: Basically the same as 12; bad characters, bad story, and bad fighting as well as adding its just plain lack of exploration. Not a good sign for FF
Tactics: Okay, probably the best narrative of all the spinoff games. Its class system is also great. Thing is it's pretty easy to break the game if you put the effort into it. It also has some weird difficulty spikes.
This is how I rank the series so far:
6>4>5>1>2>8>10-2>12>9>10>3>13>7
I haven't actually finished 13, or played 13-2, and I will not bother with 13-3 either. But even so, 7 is the worst FF game I've ever played. Its one of the worst games PERIOD that I've ever played. And I still got KotR out of some level of OCD masochism that truly frightens me when I reflect back upon it.
I also dodged 200 lightning bolts in 10...and I only rented it. Twice. I didn't like it enough to buy it.
I actually really like FF1, and FF2. Though I think I like the guest characters that seem to end up dead considerably more. Which makes Soul of Rebirth extra cool.
6>4>5>1>2>8>10-2>12>9>10>3>13>7
I haven't actually finished 13, or played 13-2, and I will not bother with 13-3 either. But even so, 7 is the worst FF game I've ever played. Its one of the worst games PERIOD that I've ever played. And I still got KotR out of some level of OCD masochism that truly frightens me when I reflect back upon it.
I also dodged 200 lightning bolts in 10...and I only rented it. Twice. I didn't like it enough to buy it.
I actually really like FF1, and FF2. Though I think I like the guest characters that seem to end up dead considerably more. Which makes Soul of Rebirth extra cool.