keeperols said:
Final Snippity XIII
edit:
Another note, everyone hates FF13's battle system.
Really? The battle system was just about the only thing I liked in the game, aside from the sound design and art direction.
OT: I only played X-2 for about two or three hours, but it never really struck me as
bad, it just didn't keep me interested. People could argue that that is the primary thing which makes a game "bad", but to me it simply felt more like the game could've used more editing and polish. Something to make it more into a real Final Fantasy entry rather than fan-service.
I loved XII, and in fact still have a save on my memory card where I have most of the ultimate weapons and characters leveled up to their 70's in hopes of attempting to finally kill Yiazmat. It's not without its flaws, obviously. Vaan was a particularly annoying character until close to the end and it certainly felt like the game would have benefited from having Basch or Balthier as the main character instead, or even Ashe. But I really enjoyed the combat system, the environments and character/monster designs were absolutely amazing for a Playstation 2 game, and I don't really have too much to say on the characters as they were mostly standard JRPG fare. Vaan was a cocky and self-absorbed version of Hope, Basch was the grizzled, hardened veteren, Penelo was cooky-spice, Balthier was the calm, collected, "cool" guy, Ashe was "the girl", and Fran was . . . actually a pretty good character. Who, again, would have benefited from the game being focused on Balthier instead of Vaan.
XIII . . . oh, what can I say that hasn't been said already? Nothing, really, as I've made my opinion on you quite clear multiple times. I don't typically like to use the word, but this is one of the few situations I approve of it: I hated XIII. It had a beautiful art design, and the sound design was very good as well. The combat system was . . . interesting, but terribly executed. To clarify, the combat system had an absolutely amazing thought behind it, but the way it was implemented simply made the gameplay even more repetitive than previous FF games (and I'm not kidding myself like most people do into thinking the other FF games were so much more than "Hit X to win"). The biggest problem to me with the combat system was that it only allowed you control of the party leader. The "Auto-Battle" crap was simply the final nail in the coffin. I didn't mind the Auto-Battle button, but it felt extremely cheap and when the game already felt like it hated the fact that I was trying to play it
outside of combat, letting the AI do all of the work
inside of combat sickened me.
The Paradigm system was, simultaneously, the biggest strength and flaw of the combat system to me. It was again a case of "Great thought, bad execution". Because even with the "strategy" introduced by switching Paradigm's mid-combat, the combat itself amounted to little more than "Bash the Auto-Battle button!" and it forcibly ripped me right out of the game world. Like I said, I'm not fooling myself: The other Final Fantasy games have never really had strategic and tactical combat. Most of the time it's "Tell Character A to melee, Character B to use Cure, and Character C to cast Firaga." But to me, that was the entire pull of the combat. In XIII, the combat is "Tell Character A's AI to use Auto-Battle! Oh, and the other two characters aren't under your control." As I mentioned already, outside of combat it felt like the game hated the fact that I was attempting to play it rather than watch it; Never allowing me to stray off of the strictly linear path, never having any contact with other friendly characters that weren't in the party except for flashbacks, not allowing for any amount of freedom of exploration. The stories of Final Fantasy games have always been incredibly linear, but they always allowed for a degree of exploration and side-quests, which XIII explicitly prohibits until the final Chapter.
Now, the final blow to me about why I didn't like XIII was the story. The story itself was fine, good in fact, it was interesting and well-thought out. But the pacing was the worst thing I've ever seen, and I've played the Metal Gear Solid games. I will say that I'm not the most qualified person to talk about the game, because I stopped playing after twelve hours, but after those twelve hours of plodding through the story I realized that I still had no idea what was happening, I had no idea what most of the characters' motivation was, and Fang had only barely been briefly introduced as a character that had captured Snow and then he had managed to break away somehow. The realization dawned on me that I didn't care if the game got better after another three, four, five, or however many hours. It didn't matter. I'm not of the opinion that every game needs to blow my mind from the second it opens to the closing of the final credits. But to me, Final Fantasy XIII was a chore. It was boring, it was bland, it felt like it didn't want to be a game. I'm all for games getting better as they go along, but it isn't worth it if they don't start out as being interesting to play. A great story will not redeem repetitive, poorly executed gameplay just as great gameplay will not usually save a terrible story.
