Zero Punctuation: Final Fantasy XIII

[Phantom_Natal]

Thank you for it not turning to be a april fools present.
3 disks running a corridor... honestly, I don't blame you for quitting the game after 5 hours.

 

[outcast_within]

Shocking, he didn't like ffxiii.

 

[Astralpulse]

As far as it getting good 20 hours in not being a good thing...I'd say it is, quite frankly.

20 hours in order to get into a story is not acceptable. Not for a book or game. 5 hours should be quite acceptable to at least get a good grip on the story. FF XIII did not do this very well, at all, unless you read the datalogs, which is an extremely poor way to give story information for a game.

Just because some people don't have the patience to make it that far doesn't mean it's a point against the game. Most of the characters are likeable enough from the start...and those that aren't grow on you as they change and develop, a fact Yahtzee completly ignores because what he's done here is jugding an entire novel by its first few chapters.

No. No no no no no no. No. The outro to this video, where he killed off Vanille about 5 different ways? Hell yes. Vanille, Snow, Fang, Lightning, Hope; all terrible, all the the way through the game. Sazh was the only good character in the game. I kept thinking as I was playing, "they'll get better, I'm sure they will." Next thing I know, lolcrystals, TEH END. Worst characters in any FF game.

It might be funny in places, but it's useless to anyone who actually wants to use this as a hint about whether the game's any good or not.

I can partially agree here. Anyone who frequents here knows Yahtzee hates JRPGs, so it would be much better to go read the thousands of posts on other forums saying some of the same things Yahtzee does here.

This game was the worst in the FF franchise.

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P.S: Great video. Please kill Vanille in more ending shots.

 

[ArmorArmadillo]

Excising all fanboy back and forth: I think his review was good, not just as comedy, but about its review. I think it's refreshing to see someone tear FF down because this series, and Square as a whole, has been coasting for a long time on their massive egos.

I think it's completely fair for him to have only played 5 hours, because 5 hours is a LONG TIME TO BE PLAYING A VIDEO GAME, especially when it isn't even fun: Hell, it's more time than he put into Portal. It only even seems unfair because Square made their game a bloated freak. When you don't bother making your game good into 20 hours in, you run the risk that people are going to lose interest and stop playing before that point...but FFXIII treats itself as an obligation and the fans agree. How DARE you not keep playing this game? It's Final Fantasy! I don't care that it is utterly boring and uninteresting and that playing it for 5 hours has been torture, you must keep playing.

Not to mention that Square-Enix pretty much encapsulates everything that is wrong with JRPG storytelling: Bloated visions of epicness that confuse complexity and depth and don't even attempt to draw in the player, utterly awful pacing, and shallow stock characters...considering how much this series sells itself on story excusing crappy gameplay, you wonder why they'll never fix it.

And, for the record, I have liked JRPGs, particularly Grandia II...an actually good example of how to weave epic plot into a manageable and good storyline that grips you from the beginning; contrasted with Grandia III, in which Square-Enix took over the property, got rid of everything good, and then replaced everything with unfulfilled concepts of unmanageable epicness and turned it into a FFVII clone, a game whose awful story has been inexplicably copied.

Of course, many Final Fantasy fans seem to enjoy this stuff, so maybe it's an alien concept to me.

 

[Lady K]

I say if Yahtzee doesn't like Turnbased stuff like Final Fantasy, he should try something like the Tales series, since that series plays more like a fighting game. But regardless it's still a JRPG so expect some whiny drama and long cut scenes...

 

[Woem]

Perhaps Final Fantasy XIV will feature Dissidia's combat controls. You know: walk up to the enemy and press X to punch him in the face.

 

[Bran Mugen]

I'm not alone! I thought I was the only person left from the old Final Fantasy Series. Seriously though, FF7 ruined the series quite spectacularly, as if the newer games weren't enough they actually are considering remaking FF7, the fools.

 

[Wounded Melody]

C'mon 1000 posts...

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

I will go as far to say that VII accidentally started to mess up the series and a lot of JRPGs in general because they started to use the game as a Rosetta Stone for everything post-PS1 era due to the fact that it's still the most successful JRPG in history. Yeah, Cloud was angsty but he also had a sense of humor, cared about at least one of his friends, and was fully aware of things beside himself (even if he was schizophrenic). Heck, I bet he wants to smack Lightning upside the head and tell her to get over herself. At this point Mr. Strife is probably knocking back shots with the guys while Tifa looks after the kids.

 

[essexfuzz]

He pointed out everything that I hate about JRPG's. They are so annoying to me now, and I used to love the FF series.

 

[Neurowaste]

I honestly don't understand the appeal with FF, the only ones i played were on the NES and SNES,and those were pretty fun,but all the other ones, will somebody please explain? Anyways, good review Yathzee, as a fellow non J-RPG'er this would have probably been my reaction too...

 

[TheodoreLuke]

I only liked Crystal Chronicles and X-2.

I hated CC only because its like they were trying to use the MUCH better Secret of Mana system to try and con us mana fans into playing the FF series (And the fact it had a game ending glitch... which I got...)

BTW., you have some hot second lips that you play instruments with

What Glitch?

>:3

 

[li-ion]

Good review.

I've never played any FF. I was thinking to give FFXIII a go to see what all the fuzz is about. But after reading in a couple of reviews that it only gets 'good' after at least 16 hours in, I decided not to. I don't have that much spare time. And don't want to go on holidays for playing a video game. If a game isn't 'good' after the first hour already, I don't see a point in keeping playing.

Maybe I'll try FFIV on DS later this year.

 

[sfried]

I'm tired of people saying Final Fantasy stop being good around VI

You know it to be true. The only reason FFVII became popular was because of FMV TECHNOLOGY. That, and essentially the disc-based medium contributed to the kind of linear-corridor dungeon creation we see in todays "Tetsuya Nomura's fashion show XIII".

I blame the Playstation for ruining the series.

 

[St. Neon]

I have become so bored of the Jarpeg (J-RPG for those critically non-humor attuned) staples. I believed that I grew to hating them. When I dissected the obvious parts of these staples, I found two games that I loved, but never really looked at them with comparison to these cliches: the crazy looks; turn based game play; lots of stats; items named ether (which should be spelled aether and a really dopey, lovey-dovy, friendship based, emotional plot.
If you didn't think of Pokemon when reading those staples of Jarpegs, look again. Every pokemon is just as crazy as an anime hair-doo. The characters don't fair any better. That turn based game play hasn't changed since the beginning. There is an item... named ether (again, aether.) Hell, the game is completely centric of friendship! How has this game survived while basically changing NOTHING! Don't get me wrong, I have a Pokewalker strapped to me right now and I caught a flying Pikachu, it's just that I over looked the horribleness when I found the game to be FUN. Weird, how that's all Jarpegs needed. All a game needs to be is fun, and I'll over look the worst.
Game developers... Square Enix... are you listening?

 

[intersteller9999]

i love this dude he is fucking funny but i would like him to review final fantasy 9 i played that game and that game go back to the final fantasy game such as 6

 

[ArsenalMark]

I actually thought this one of his worst reviews. I know it's not meant to be serious but c'mon. He's only played 5 hours of the game for starters, which is pathetic in itself, since he managed to play Dragon Age: Origins for 25 hours without his eye sockets exploding.

Also, why does he have it for Xbox 360, I'm pretty sure he has a PS3, since he has reviewed PS3 Exclusives before. Shouldn't he review it for the console it was made for?

Almost almost every game is linear, that INCLUDES Final Fantasy, and they all open up towards the end, just like XIII, so I don't know why he's complaining about that. Footstep thing is true though >_>. If he actually bothered to play the game he would learn about the damn characters and a bit of their backgrounds.

XIII isn't really turn based and more takes off XIIs combat system. Yup, VI Was the best. It's hardly a badly designed interface, it's pretty damn simple, and the more ATB bars you unlock the quicker you get attacks back.

Along with his problem with Turn Based Combat, and now the transition, why doesn't he like XII, apart from the characters, the story in XII is quite far away from other FF's, the combat is very different, and some people even say it should be a spin off rather than main stream, and also, DA:O is basically a rip off of XII except that it sucks for a PS3/360 game *Yes, I know it's a PC port, but atleast try and make bearable graphics* and XII was actually good for a PS2 game.

I like his reviews normally, even if they are very biased but this one just took the biscuit of fail.

 

[boholikeu]

Almost almost every game is linear, that INCLUDES Final Fantasy, and they all open up towards the end, just like XIII, so I don't know why he's complaining about that. Footstep thing is true though >_>. If he actually bothered to play the game he would learn about the damn characters and a bit of their backgrounds.

I think he's referring more to the way that FF doesn't "hide" its linearity like other recent games do. It's true that most games are nothing more than "running down a corridor" when you get down to it, but in FF it's just much more noticeable.

 

[Z(ombie)fan]

anyone else notice the similarities between the HOUR X from this review and the DAY X from five days a stranger?