Zero Punctuation: Final Fantasy XIII

[Hayate_GT]

that was good...watched it twice in a row...and thank you fellow escapists i honestly thought i was the only person in the world who never wanted to touch any one of those f*cking games...angst angst...kook kook...now back to half-life...

 

[Rinshan Kaihou]

Yahtzee, I'm not a huge fan of Final fantasy, and I will agree that that first couple hours are pretty slow. But about 10 hours in it gets much better. Even sooner, the hope kid gets useful, and becomes an interesting character. The combat is VASTLY improved over previous games. Though Vanille is the most annoying character in any game I've ever played, ever. It is terribly linear, but the story is interesting enough to keep going with it. Lightning takes a while to be warmed up too, but when she did she became my favorite character. I'm actually about 18 hours in, at the part where most people consider it "Better", but I think it picked up the pace pretty well after the Lightning Eidolin fight. Much better than FF X, I actually like this one.

 

[trent08]

good luck with the bar

 

[Burst6]

Nice episode, made me laugh.


Now, if you dont mind, ill go back to crushing giant dragon/wolf things that can stand up on 2 legs and turn their horns into giant swords.

 

[LazyAza]

Yep ff13 is a steaming turd, awesome review Yahtzee.

Its crazy that their are actually people out there who enjoy and defend this game, like wtf. Then again theirs been like two or three good jrpgs in the span of 15 years so eh I guess the genre just caters well to people with terrible taste in everything from gameplay to story to characters.

I am not an anti-anime person, some of my favorite series/movies ever are anime but fuck I've had more illnesses I've enjoyed than I have jrpgs.

 

[nyysjan]

Well, the only really unexpected thing about this that Yahtzee actually reviewed FF XIII instead of it being another april fools joke, it was a funny episode, but in a totally unsurprising and expected way.
I'll probably buy the game at some point soon, and i probably will complain, a lot, about linearity, lack of side quests and totally unsurprising characters/plot twists, and when thay release the next Final (totaly, next time they'll mean it) Fantasy, i'll probably do it all over again.

 

[dex-dex]

COCONUTS?

a Monty python reference i see!
i guess they could not get a horse.

 

[ShibuyaRiver]

Yahtzee talks about how linear FFXIII was, and brags about most of the content not being unlocked 20+ hours in.

But then turns around to say FFVI was one of his favorite games, maybe the most linear of all the earlier Final Fantasy titles, and, it's another example of content being unlocked, that's a major focus on combat and stat growth... GASP! 20+ hours into the game! NO NO NO!

I know I'm not supposed to take this guy seriously, but when his fans go off on a huge circle jerk with every single video he posts, I find it alittle hard to believe.

Though, then again, this is the guy who played Left 4 Dead on multiplayer, saying that's how the game was intended. Then turned around to play Borderlands and Bad Company 2 in their single player aspects.

 

[AndrewOfHell]

First thing I thought when I saw this was "Oh Christ some games anus is about to be torn...".

Surprisingly this was all spot on, and bloody funny ^^

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

I know putting any kind of comment in what quickly is becoming the Dark Knight of his reviews (I.E. it is getting lots of reviews very fast) is going to be noticible as pouring out a glass of water in the middle of the pacific, but I been wondering, anything interesting happen in the first week of the Mana Bar Yahtzee?

 

[blalien]

I'm getting a slight hunch that Yahtzee is not a fan of Vanille.

Who the fuck is a fan of Vanille, besides those gamers who think mindless, kooky, underaged girls with no visible contribution to the storyline are cute and thinks they're comic relief. They're not comic relief, they're annoying and more of a joke. The only thing I see from the "Kooky spices" are as further bait to satisfy the hungers of perverted fan-artists.

If you are a fan of Vanille or will otherwise prove me wrong in some fashion, I have no reason to respond back because this is what I consider as fact. I do not want fillers/filler characters in my games or in my animes. Also, if there's some good explanation as to why she acts like that, then please reply back as to how she also contributes heavily to the storyline outside gameplay.

Relax, I am as much a fan of Vanille as you are of anger management.

 

[Snotnarok]

Fantastic video, I knew he was going to tear it apart but I didn't expect him to leave nothing left but confetti...that's on fire. The game looked terrible but the like that I heard both from Yahtzee and a friend "Game gets better 20 hours in" is exactly what I said "NOT A GOOD SELLING POINT" 20 hours is nearly a day and I have better things to play that are great from the start.

 

[Aptspire]

Well, I never did understand the FF characters to begin with, so I'm starting off poorly
oh and good on you Yahtzee to not try an early April's fool joke...unlike SOME people

 

[Dexs]

I watched G4's review of this game and Adam Sessler said something about how the game doesn't even become "fun" until after the first 24 hours....

I don't think I'll ever waste my money playing this game unless someone's paying me and I still won't wait 24 hours.

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

Awesome!!!
Actually, a very good idea. If a game is crap during first 5 hours, sane person shouldn't try it at all.

 

[zmin]

i've got a lovely bunch of coconuts dididididi, said patsy

 

[ShibuyaRiver]

Again, this whole '20' hours thing has been blown out of the water as well.

The game is actually pretty fun and opens up within the first four hours. Jesus. Stop being sheep and listening to everything your internet celebs say.

 

[MatsVS]

Now, he did have some very valid complaints about pacing, and the fact that the game was ridiculously linear.

Actually, that's not even nearly a valid complaint, seeing as linearity is a design choice. Not necessarily a choice you need to agree with, but a choice none the less. Reading just a single review of this game would also inform you of said linearity, thus rendering all ensuing complaints void of validity. It is akin to complaining of too much driving in a racing game, as in stupid. Really, really stupid.

Not sure if I agree with you there. Using that logic everything is a design choice and would be defined as beyond criticism, thus there would be no reviews or room for opinion. I do tend to agree with him (Yahtzee) that this part of the game was a problem, and that they made the wrong desician. Whether you and I agree or disagree on that paticular point, I think that was one of the few times in the review he bothered to address Final Fantasy XIII specifically which is why I mentioned it.

Basically what it comes down to is that even if he pans the game, I think he should do a more professional job than this. I mean work is called work because it's work. It seemed to me that he was dialing this one in because he didn't want to work on the subject. A lot of what he said could very easily have been taken from other reviews verbatim, I saw very little personal commentary on the game, and more of a general JRPG/Final Fantasy rant, and an expression of his well known hated of turn/stat based battles... and honestly he didn't even bother to try and compare the Final Fantasy XIII battle system to OTHER turn based battle systems and how it stood up within that context. Okay granted, you control one character, have an auto attack/quick combat thing (which he insisted on using), but if you actually play it how does it stack up to say Knights Of The Old Republic, or Dragon Age where you also have limited control over AI teammates when the violence starts....


I'm not picking on Yahtzee's review simply because I'm a Final Fantasy faboy, but simply because I expected more. Heck if he's going to rip the game to pieces, at least he should do so as opposed to dialing in a generic JRPG rant for most of it. I realize what Yahtzee does for this site's popularity, but I still think his bosses should call him on this one.

Oh yes yes yes, please, don't misunderstand, I agree completely. This review was so far below what I have come to expect from Yahtzee I actually took the time to feel slightly disappointed. As for the first part, I suppose it comes down to a question of rhetoric as we try to separate complaints from criticisms, which could be interesting, if we took the time. It's Easter, though, so let's not.

 

[sivlin]

I thought the review was funny and I loved FFXIII. It was quite different from all of the other Final fantasies but thats kinda what makes Final Fantasy awesome that it keeps changing from one installation to the next. I am a little sad that Yahtzee only played 5 hours of the game :/, for something like this game which takes about 40-50 hours to complete unless you are just jetting through the game, thats like the equivalent of playing for like an hour or less on a regular game which really doesn't tell you just about anything about the game imo.

 

[SAMAS]

Yep, no surprises there.

That's it, no more JRPGs for Yahtzee. The reviews are sounding as samey as a JRPG hater who's never played one.

Also, no Western RPGs, FPS', or Adventure games for the next one. Do something of a genre that isn't one you've:

A -- Done half a dozen times before.

B -- Professed your hatred for half a dozen times before.