Final Fantasy XIII is one of the worst games ever made.

[chrisora2066 26]

Every character has three classes they are suited for, and three they are not. You still have to choose. You also need to balance them, since only making Lightning a commando isn't a very good idea, she's a perfectly good ravager, and a decent backup medic as well. Similarly, Hope is a great medic, and also an excellent ravager.

There are choices to be made.

 

I guess.. for most of the game I had Fang as Commando, Lightning as Ravenger or Medic and Hope as Ravenger or Medic

[dusk 910]

I really, really couldn't be arsed staying on this board long enough to be known, it wouldn't have changed the response in the slightest. I'm well aware of how infatuated this board is with FFXIII, that's exactly why I posted it here. I wanted at least one person to give me a good response, to counter my argument with something solid and not just blind fanboyism. This is inevitably going to offend someone but at this point I'm hardly going to care; kh13, and by extension the general KH community is (collectively) without a doubt one of the worst communities on the internet. Never before have I come across a community so chock full of mindless children, who obsess so much over franchises they know next to nothing about and in many cases haven't even played, who blindly worship a company who has repeatedly firetrucked them over harder than EA firetrucked the Bioware fanbase. It goes without saying that this doesn't apply to every one of you, far from it actually, but as always it only takes a few retards to ruin it for everyone. Take that as you will.

 

KH fanbase is the worst?

have you ever checked out what COD fanbase is like?

 

FF XIII wasn't as good as other FF games, but XIII-2 worked already lot better, fixed lot of prolems FF XIII had..

Only thing which bothered me in FF XIII really was that you could every battle just by choosing auto-battle command. It would have been lot better without it, it just makes it too easy.

I don't think it is anything weird that people whose first game was XIII is also their favourite, because: they don't have anything what compare at.

Edited June 23, 2012 by dusk

[Jackho 8]

For future reference you should avoid replying in that manner again if possible, this is probably going to be bollocks to read. Went over the allowed number of quotes apparently so what should be quotes are in italics instead.

 

"The characters are poorly designed This is purely your aesthetic tastes talking here,

idioticNo please, don't actually explain, just use adjectives! I don't need any context! Honest!"

It isn't. I think someone else mentioned it in this thread but the outfits are needlessly stylized (and in the case of Vanille at least, overly sexualized which is depressing since she's like 15 or something). They're supposed to stay discreet yet in any urban areas, like in nautilus park for example everyone's dressed fairly normally and vanille's prancing about in the open with her tribal outfit and fishing rod. I know outfit-wise FF has never been the most consistent series but this is just ridiculous, especially considering how realistic they tried to make it feel in other aspects. I was expecting the characters to change clothes at least once to throw off the search parties (when they stay in Hope's house would've been a good opportunity).

 

"Fang is Freya What. No seriously. What. Besides using lances, they have nothing in common."

 

firetruck, I meant to say Kimahri here (as in being overly protective to one char and a dick to the rest of the team) but I'll come clean and say she's not much like him either, and Sazh isn't much like Barret. I didn't put much thought into the character comparisons other than Lightning's as a sort of test to see if anyone else on this firetrucking board knew the series well enough to catch on. In truth I kind of liked Sazh and Fang, more so than the rest of the cast at least.

 

"But that was intentional. You should know that."

 

As I said before intentionally annoying is still very annoying. She was supposed to be irritating but she didn't need to be, if they had changed most of her dialogue to something more bearable she would've been much more likable and the plot wouldn't be affected. All they really needed was a better voice actor.

 

"The pacing sucksThis one is just objectively wrong. The pacing is done well, simply because the crystarium growth is locked at a point where you'll be well matched against the bosses of the area. It never really gets unfair until the final boss, which is kind of a Final Fantasy tradition at this point.."

 

Plot-wise the pacing is out the ass. You constantly get bogged down in exposition which is rarely relevant at all and cutscene after cutscene. I sat through the entire Metal Gear Solid franchise without ever complaining about the abundance of cutscenes, but this game seems to be specifically designed to piss me off. Most of what's important is pushed to one side in the log instead of relayed to you through the characters.

 

Also I never mentioned the bosses or difficulty at all, but for reference I've played through the entire main series and most of the spinoffs and (save for the original NES trilogy) I've never had to grind and never had a problem with the final bosses, it was always the mid-game bosses that gave me the most trouble. I didn't have a problem with XIII's final boss or general difficulty either, mind. The only times I died was when either I decided to trust the AI or when my party changed and I didn't get a chance to set up paradigms beforehand.

 

"The story isn't the worst, but it's far from capable of carrying the game on it's ownDepends on what you want from a game. Most people on this site are only concerned with the story of a game, and how they can ship new yaoi pairings."

 

Read a book instead then? Don't get me wrong if I were to make a list of my top 10 favorite games most if not all of them would be there mainly because of the story, but they all had the gameplay to back it up. Considering most games have poor writing (my favorite FFs being no exception) it's just daft to soldier through mediocre or outright bad gameplay for a decent plot. Whatever floats your boat I guess. Explains why Days is so popular I guess.

 

"Or people who can't decide if they want an action game or a turn based RPG."

 

Well they'd best keep searching because this game is neither of those nor a hybrid of either. It could hardly be considered action, more like a streamlined turn based system. Crisis Core or, you know, Kingdom Hearts would be more logical choices.

 

"You can only control one character for no real reason There's a pretty good reason. This combat system would NOT work if you could control everybody.,"

 

It would. Slow down the enemy's ATB a little, ditch the paradigms and let the player command everyone and maybe alter/remove the stagger system. It would be pretty much identical to any other ATB system, but it would work.

 

"So you'd think the other characters would prioritize your health, right? Naw, I just switch to the salvation paradigm and have a healing orgy. "

 

 

Which would be fine if that paradigm set wasn't unavailable for the vast majority of the game or the game actually let you choose who to control for most of it either. You have to keep in mind there's huge segments of the game where you have to rely on just one AI-controlled medic. If I could set up paradigms how I wanted there would be no problem, the AI's stupidity is only apparent when the game forces you to rely on it.

"This is a gargantuan defect in the battle system ​I thought you didn't like the game playing itself?, and to be honest it's really the only one that breaks the game. ​I thought the game had no redeeming qualities? If only one element of the combat is bad to you then..."

 

 

Not sure what you're getting at with that first comment, but I said it's the only defect that BREAKS the game. Obviously there's countless other problems weighing it down but for the most part they don't stop it from being functional, they just stop it from being good.

"Most bosses have at least one immensely powerful attack that can send your whole team into critical healthAnd these moves always function exactly like gravity spells in classic FF. They don't kill you, they reduce your health by a percentage.. "

 

 

Nope, they can kill you. All of the Barthandelus fights had one that could kill you, as well as several other bosses and even a few regular enemies.

That's not the point though, even with just the gravity style attacks (which I thought were overused but whatever) the medic AI is a major problem. Unless your leader has the lowest health after the hit your medic isn't going to heal you first and you'll be killed by the next attack. They should ALWAYS prioritize the player's health.

The only exception is when you have a sentinel, they'll heal them first regardless of the other character's health. For example if you're in critical health and your SEN is at half health the medic will still heal the sentinel first. How does this make any shred of sense? Sentinels are almost invincible, the game ends if you die. Why the firetruck would they prioritize the sentinel then?

"Unless you choose the medic role yourself, and manually choose who you want to heal. "

 

 

If they actually let you, sure. Considering only three characters can use the medic role and only two are good at it you'll be relying on the AI most of the time.

"Because those characters totally don't contribute anything. Like damage, or healing, or whatever."

 

You're completely missing the point again, the game ends if the leader dies and I'm absolutely firetrucked if my medic dies, so why does the third character, who is the least important, always get #1 priority and the most fail safe back up commands? This only really applies to the segments where you're stuck with one medic but it's a crippling flaw regardless.

 

"I'm pretty sure you can set things up differently in a menu, or something. I dunno. "

 

You can't. Like I said it's not a large flaw but there's absolutely no reason not to include a focus fire command.

 

 

"Gotta call you out here. There is no enemy in this game that is as obvious a 'flame demon' unlike previosu FFs, which had clear elemental enemies."

The flans are the most obvious answer but I can't blame Square for including those. I'm wondering how long it's been since you played this game, as the vast majority of enemy's weaknesses are almost immediately apparent, whether it's their aura, attacks or just general design (fish monsters, earth monsters, bird monsters etc.). I will say though it seemed to have the most non-elemental enemies of any FF in recent memory, mostly due to the abundance of human enemies.

 

"This is because decreasing attack power is more likely than disabling it. The AI is conservative as a saboteur. It goes for the most likely move to succeed, the moves on to the next, rather than endlessly trying to use a move that has a 0.0% chance of success, even if it's better. That's simply because if it worked the way you want, Vanille would spend all of her tim spamming death on the enemy, most likely never succeeding."

Obviously I don't expect them to use a move that has 0 chance to hit, that's why I said WHEN AVAILABLE. Pain usually has a 20-30% chance of hitting when it's available, considering you have 5 ATB slots by then they're most likely going to hit at least once. I spent most of the last few hours playing as a saboteur which I quickly discovered was the most overpowered class as they rendered most enemies completely defenseless, up until then I usually had a saboteur in my party but when controlled by the AI they consistently done just two things (jack & shit). For the record Death is a full ATB command which can only be used by the player, not the AI.

"use a combination of MED/SYN/SAB or something similar when I'm hurt, to heal, buff and debuff at once while still keeping the enemy's stagger up. That's not practical. That's the prupose of a commando. I use that paradigm a lot to give a quick shot in the arm, however."

It was extremely effective actually, once I had full control over my party I switched between that, COM/RAV/RAV and SAB/RAV/RAV along with a healing paradigm and mopped the floor with most bosses, including the optional ones.

"That happens once. In the final boss. Don't try to act like that is a regular occurrence. Still cheap when it happens..."

I didn't even realize it could happen during the final boss. I was more referring to the Barthandelus fights among a few others.

"XIII's eidolons are almost useless entirely and were barely explained (story-wise) Because they weren't the focus of the game, unlike X.. "

They don't need to be the main focus to be explained. In VIII for example, they've got nothing to do with the plot but they're still explained (albeit poorly). I found it frustrating that eidolons seemed to be common knowledge in XIII but no one bothered to explain to the player. Then again I didn't bother to read through the log so it could well have been there.

"​Because grinding. This game had an obsession with making everything in-universe make sense, which included not having human characters level up, and not having weapons simply level up. It's part of the context of the story."

...but that's exactly what does happen. The humans (l'cie, whatever) inexplicably get stronger, it's just through the crystarium instead of levels, license board or sphere grid which doesn't make any more sense.

"BWAHAHA! I'm sorry. FFX was many things, but most of it is ugly."

Dude what. Not as aesthetically pleasing as IX or XI but X looked great throughout, I'd say it easily looks better than XIII other than the archylte steppe and very few other locales.

"The linearity is not what I was hoping fro, but it works perfectly well in this game. What with the modern setting and on the run theming. You can't really use the excuse that other characters in other FFs were on the run but could still visit towns and such, every other FF is set in a neo-medieval setting with widespread communication and surveillance is difficult (Besides perhaps FF VII. I dunno about counting VIII, but I guess I throw that in there as well)"

Yes it made sense, but there's no reason they couldn't have had some imagination and worked around that. You could've stealthily explored towns keeping out of sight of civillians, trying to blend into crowds or use disguises. It would've been something new and interesting. I honestly thought that was what was going to happen when Lightning & Hope first arrive in Hope's home town. Sure it wouldn't have been very FF-like but neither was anything else in this game so who gives a shit.

"Gonna take a quick aside to ask if you know the reason why towns aren't in XIII. Namely, that they couldn't figure out how to make high quality towns that still had regular interactivity. A purely technical problem."

Can't say I knew that but I'm not quite sure what you mean there.

"For most of the game you aren't even allowed to choose your party.You can't do that at the start of most FF games. And honestly, I prefer that. Party management is busywork I can do without in a FF, where the plot tends to suffer dramatically when you aren't forced to have specific party members."

Yes, you can't do that at the *start* of most FF games, not for the entirety of the first two discs and a meaty chunk of the third.

Of course I understand when the plot demands it or characters are split up it makes sense to be forced to use certain ones, but it's beyond frustrating when you have 4 or more people in your party anyway but can't change your battle team, or when you have two characters together and can't choose which you want to control. There's no reason for this.

I understand too how you may want to let the game choose for you, but there's no reason not to let the player change it as they please afterwards.

"we would be better off with just a notification every now and then saying you have unlocked such and such an ability Again, true, excpt that the crystarium lets you decide which paradigm to focus on so.... "

It's not like there's much difference, the majority of the crystarium are just stat boosters and you're going to have it maxed out or close to it at the end of each chapter. They could have organised the abilities into once linear succession and it would play out identically.

"Oh yeah. 'copy/pasted' listen, don't mess with that part of the game, okay? There was a tonne of effort put into the actual areas you explore. You shouldn't be able to knock the artists and modelers of the game with something unfair like that."

I played through a good chunk of the game last night to refresh my memory, and that forest part in particular really was just copied & pasted. Sorry but it is. You run along an identical path with a samey background for hours upon hours on end. The art direction for the most part was good by all means, but some sections couldn't possibly be any more uninspired.

"It would have been infinitely better if the cutscenes were implemented into the gameplay somehowr why? No seriously, why does every game seem to think that being able to wander around during a cutscene automatically make it better?, "

When did I mention wandering around during them? A huge portion of the cutscenes are just plain conversation back & forth, there's no reason that couldn't have happened while you were running along those straight paths, especially considering the other characters are actually present in the field, and all dialogue in the field is either meaningless or stating the obvious.

Then there's for example the barthandelus fights which have loads of petty insults and statements along with a plot point or two before the battle, why not have this conversation during the fight?

One thing that would be cool is if you had some options for what you wanted your current leader to say, which could affect your character's relationships and trust. You could even have that carry over into combat where if two of your characters end up with a strong dislike of each other they'll be less likely to heal eachother or something.

"You do realize you basically just aked for every change that gets made in XIII-2, right?"

Not every change, but although I still think it's shit XIII-2 is a major improvement combat-wise. Haven't played it enough to judge the rest of the game.

[Oblivion445 0]

Also anyone notice that heartless never again showed up in destiny island after kh1? Even in kh2. I mean the keyhole was never sealed.

[Jackho 8]

KH fanbase is the worst?

have you ever checked out what COD fanbase is like?

 

The CoD fanbase is chock full of screaming children and for the most part consists of people who don't try anything other than FPSs and don't bother other userbases, I find that preferable to a fanbase who obsesses over characters and games they know nothing about, though that's more so square's fault for being awesome and including often bastardized FF characters in KH. And I said ONE of the worst.

[darklunatic 81]

jackho that was to much to read to i just looked at some parts most of the comments are crappy and ff13 is extremely crappy in my view as well besides that most of the people answering back to you have not played all of the ff games to see the whole page besides hat ff13 had no original characters in my view and it was plan lacking and another point i was hopeing 13-2 was going to be like 10-2 but it just let me down more thats y i didint buy them with my own money i played my freinds

[Gxmwp 28]

lol i feel the same as you on points but thats becous im so used to the orginal FF games i didint like all teh tech and such they added into ff13

 

so your more old school?

 

 

 

Much like the game, amiright? Whatever man, nice yaoi signature.

 

 

 

And what exactly did you like about it?

 

You're free to like the game of course, I've just been a huge FF fan all my life and am merely comparing it to the previous installments which I believe are vastly superior in every way and are much more deserving of XIII's praise, success and sequels.

 

quick question. Did you like final fantasy X?

[Gxmwp 28]

 

 

And this my friends is one of the main problems I have with a quarter of the Kingdom Hearts fanbase! Sure most of you are alright but to the ones who claim they know this and that about a franchise (of kh or ff mind you) when they havn't even hit puberty yet and don't have a notion on what they are talking about are free to firetruck off and die! One other problem I have to say I have with the fanbase as a whole is the defence to it. I firetruckING LOVE Kingdom Hearts! But it does have its flaws and if some people can't accept the flaws and get all defensive if someone mentions it then they really should firetruck off from the internet! By the way just have to say Days has the worst gameplay in the series I don't care what people say its shit and every defense for the gameplay I've heard has been horrible as for the story thats pretty good!

 

Rant on the fanbase now over

 

Days story= pretty good Days gameplay= WHF WAS THAT

[Marth 338]

your opinion...why should i care?

[Jackho 8]

quick question. Did you like final fantasy X?

 

Yes and no. I absolutely hated the characters, the plot was batshit yet overall mediocre (but interesting enough to keep me going), the linearity sucked, the minigames absolutely sucked and the setting was interesting at first but ended up being contradictory and confusing. At it's core though, I consider it the ultimate Final Fantasy and by extension the ultimate JRPG. The CTB system is fantastic, the sphere grid is great, the Aeons were amazing, the equipment/ability system was awesome. If they had kept those elements FF would probably still be my favourite series. Lost Odyssey stuck with the CTB system and added the ring system to make it more interesting and I love it for that alone.

[LightningXIII 310]

This thread has turned into a war zone.

[hatok 6,413]

the setting was interesting at first but ended up being contradictory and confusing.

 

This is honestly how I'd describe you...

[chrisora2066 26]

^THIS! Most Definitly This!

[Jackho 8]

This is honestly how I'd describe you...

 

Elaborate.

[hatok 6,413]

Elaborate.

 

Your post started off interesting, but ended up contradictory. And a little confusing.

Like in one post you say you hate the sphere grid, in another you say you love it.

Not that big of a deal, considering the point s you have tend to be pretty intelligent.

BTW, you never had problems with FF final bosses?

You never got cheapyl killed by Necron's status effect spam? Or by Orphan's attack that has a 60% chance of inflicting death on its target? You never got stuck healing and reviving Rosa and Rydia because Big Bang dealt 2000 damage, and they didn't have that much?

[Jackho 8]

Your post started off interesting, but ended up contradictory. And a little confusing.

Like in one post you say you hate the sphere grid, in another you say you love it.

Not that big of a deal, considering the point s you have tend to be pretty intelligent.

BTW, you never had problems with FF final bosses?

You never got cheapyl killed by Necron's status effect spam? Or by Orphan's attack that has a 60% chance of inflicting death on its target? You never got stuck healing and reviving Rosa and Rydia because Big Bang dealt 2000 damage, and they didn't have that much?

 

The sphere grid thing is the only legitimate contradiction I could find and that's because I meant to say I disliked it *at first* as it just felt like you were following a straight line for most of the game with each character's development set in stone, but the crystarium took that to a whole new level. And no, I've never had much of a problem with final bosses in FF games. I think Jecht is the only one I lost to several times but that was more due to shitty tactics on my part than being genuinely difficult.

 

Necron was a cakewalk, I don't think I've ever lost to him despite beating IX at least 4 times. I beat Orphan my first try which seemed to have been luck more than anything, and I don't remember much of IV but I beat it when I was 7 or 8 so it couldn't have been too bad.

[hatok 6,413]

The sphere grid thing is the only legitimate contradiction I could find and that's because I meant to say I disliked it *at first* as it just felt like you were following a straight line for most of the game with each character's development set in stone, but the crystarium took that to a whole new level. And no, I've never had much of a problem with final bosses in FF games. I think Jecht is the only one I lost to several times but that was more due to shitty tactics on my part than being genuinely difficult.

 

Necron was a cakewalk, I don't think I've ever lost to him despite beating IX at least 4 times. I beat Orphan my first try which seemed to have been luck more than anything, and I don't remember much of IV but I beat it when I was 7 or 8 so it couldn't have been too bad.

 

BWAHAHAHA! JECHT? OH MAN. Jecht is like... the easiest FF final boss ever. (Not counting silly bosses like Yu-Yevon)

But seriously. Necron. Grand Cross. Can inflict instant death on your entire party if you're unlucky.

I'm actually starting to theorize that you're just luckier than me in general. I never used saboteurs because even when somethign had an 80% chance or whatever, I'd more often than not just NOT get the status, ever. Ended up wasting a lot of my time, so I just stopped using them

[Jackho 8]

BWAHAHAHA! JECHT? OH MAN. Jecht is like... the easiest FF final boss ever.

 

Not if you go right in there with no grinding, celestial weapons or Quick Hit. But as I said I never had much of a problem with any of them.

Edited June 26, 2012 by Jackho

[hatok 6,413]

Not if you go right in there with no grinding, celestial weapons or Quick Hit...

 

I had none of those things. Jecht is pathetic.

Though that reminded me. I loved the clestial weapons, and the sheer power a character could obtain through the sphere grid (I find it hilarious how easy it is to get Yuna or Lulu doing 99999 damage with their basic attacks)

[ZLGNF 33]

I'll just leave this here...

 

[media=]

[/media]

[hatok 6,413]

I'll just leave this here...

 

Why?

[ZLGNF 33]

Why?

Because what they were screaming in the video was exactly what I was screaming while playing the FFXIII-2 demo...

And I find it funny...

[XIIISwords 1,059]

Wow you must have really looked at a game you hate in depth in order to write this long post. Comments inside.

Final Fantasy XIII really does have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The characters are poorly designed, idiotic, bland, annoying and completely unoriginal. Sazh is Barret (stereotypical, gun wielding black man who's main inspiration & motive is their child). Yet you ignore all of Sazh's redeeming qualities like his inability to lose hope, and his wonderful sense of humor. And the compassion that he showed Vanille. Snow is Zell but somehow even more obnoxious.Zell wasn't half as memorable as Snow. Fang is Freya. Lightning is Squall/Cloud (as in the angsty bitch that cloud has become, not the smug badass he originally was) Cloud began as an obnoxious conceited character and turned angsty. Lightning was motivated by her sister's death and made a transformation into a powerful supporter of her team. Similar? Not so much. . Serah is a Mary Sue. I would say Vanille is Rikku (who, in turn, is Selphie), but it needs to be said that Vanille is by far the worst incarnation of the ditsy annoying bitch archetype I've ever see How would you feel if you woke up 500 years in the future and had to lie to everybody about your existence? Vanille hides secrets and has so many emotions, she's more complex than anyone!. The combat is truly horrendous, one of the worst systems ever conceived, if not THE worst. The summon system sucks. The equipment system sucks. The linearity sucks. The pacing sucks. The crystarium really, really sucks. None of the music has that same energy as the older titles (entirely due to the fact that Nobuo Uematsu wasn't involved) Blinded by light is a big highlight,as are Snow's theme, and the main theme, and many more. I knew I'd love the game the moment the first notes played on the title screen. . The story isn't the worst, but it's far from capable of carrying the game on it's own. I can go into more detail if you want.

Let's start with my most hated aspect; the combat. It plays itself. It's built for god damn retards.

You can only control one character for no real reason, and the game ends if they die. So you'd think the other characters would prioritize your health, right? Well it just so happens that the AI is monumentally awesome. The Medic AI most of all. Medic is possibly the most important role since it's the only one who can really pull you out when shit hits the fan, and it's in the hands of an AI I can't tell what to do. This is a gargantuan defect in the battle system, and to be honest it's really the only one that breaks the game. Read an AI guide and it'll tell you about AI mannerisms in the game. Not complicated if you have the right Paradigm.

Most bosses have at least one immensely powerful attack that can send your whole team into critical health. Unless your leader just happens to have the lowest HP you're already firetrucked though, since medics will only ever target the character closest to death and more often than not results in the leader being killed by the next attack. Why the actual firetruck is it programmed this way if you get a game over when the leader dies? Because of that you should ALWAYS have top priority, at least when your health is low enough to be wiped out by any attack. Different Paradigm... Why aren't you the medic?

Then there's the raise ability. Why did they even bother? If you die your medic can't revive you, and if he dies well obviously he can't revive himself either. So this ability is only there for this ignorant pansy firetruck of a third character who always gets priority over the one person who actually firetrucking matters: the player. Furthermore they will never even cast raise unless both remaining characters are at 100% health, and it never uses esuna (gets rid of status ailments) unless you're at full health either. So if you're firetrucking poisoned instead of curing you then healing they just firetrucking repeatedly cast cure to no end. Bizarre. You be the medic...

 

Sadly it's not just the medics that are bloody stupid though. When you have another commando they ALWAYS attack whatever I'm not targeting. This is clearly intended and easy to work around, but why the bloody firetruck can't I decide whether to focus fire or spread out? All it would take is one button. The battle system constantly reminds you that you're not allowed to decide how you want to play the game. It's the AI! Commandos never target with other Commandos. The best offensive Paradigm is Relentless Assault (RAV RAV COM), because then you target the same one.

I really don't know what the firetruck they were thinking when designing the Synergist, considering it's possibly the easiest class to not firetruck up stupendously. For some unholy reson the Synergist always buffs the 3rd party member first (i.e not you), then the leader, then himself. WHY? It doesn't firetrucking matter if dipshit #3 dies, the game ends if I die and the synergists themselves (Sazh and especially Hope) have by far the lowest HP and die very easily if not buffed.

On top of the AI being brain dead every single battle plays out identically, starting with a commando or saboteur with two ravagers, stagger, go all out. Take damage, just switch to medic. Tough enemy? Just buff yourself first. No variety or strategy required beyond the first few bosses. To make it even worse several bosses have millions upon millions of HP and drag on forever. Considering the commando is the only class that moves, that's a long ass time to sit watching a few characters grunt and flail their arms about. Especially when the boss is likely to target your leader with a cheap one-shot-kill attack at any moment. Which happens a lots.They usually buff depending on Roles...

The summon system couldn't possibly be any more bland. Why not keep FFX's system? X's was superior in just about every way, X's Aeons were directly controlled by the player and had their own abilities, limit breaks and improvable levels/stats. Each new Aeon felt like a new character and a valuable asset to the team. XIII's eidolons are almost useless entirely and were barely explained (story-wise). They provided little more than an annoying boss battle. Plus the transforming vehicle thing was really, really firetrucking dumb. Summons have never been gamebreakers. At least they're better than the old FF summons....

The equipment system. In the other games it was just a case of getting the next best weapon(although in X weapons were defined by their special abilities and had identical damage output for the most part, another reason they should have kept X's formula), but the armor you found generally had unique uses and would aid you against specific enemies. In XIII the vast majority of accessories are completely useless, and each character's starting weapon was their best as it was generally the most balanced and focused on the characters main strengths, whereas the rest of the weapons focused on one area and was severely crippled in others making it pretty damn useless if you actually plan on getting anywhere. The upgrade system was dull, why not just level the weapon I'm using instead of making me collect and convert materials to do the same thing? Not a huge problem, but a problem nonetheless. Like getting the Ultima Weapon in KH...

Oh god the Linearity. When FFX came out it was the most linear game in the series, but it still had splitting paths, open areas and varied environments with the (beautiful) scenery changing every couple of hours at least. XIII on the other hand is a single, straight path from A to B in the same repetitive, grey hallways with the odd "hidden" chest here and there.

It's not just the poor level design either, the monsters you face and the battles themselves are already set in stone, even the crystarium is linear and limits how strong you can get in an attempt to stay challenging. What the hell kind of RPG has a linear skill tree? For most of the game you aren't even allowed to choose your party.

The Crystarium offered so little choice it may as well not even be there, we would be better off with just a notification every now and then saying you have unlocked such and such an ability. Setting up materia was one of the better things of VII, and customization is pretty much a requirement of RPGs. As much as I disliked the sphere grid it at least let you develop your characters however you want. Also it shouldn't have been 3D, it just made what was practically a straight line needlessly hard to navigate Understandable, but I enjoyed the linearity. It gave the game better focus.

No towns or NPCs either. A lot of people say "Well they're on the run, the couldn't walk through a town" but that's bullshit. Part of VI and disc 1 on IX had you on the run, but you could still explore towns because they characters weren't firetrucking stupid and stayed subtle. If XIII's cast of twats didn't insist on displaying their L'Cie brands so prominently they could have easily explored some villages and the residents would be none the wiser. They could have even turned it into a sort of minigame with a dialogue system where you can be found out by asking the NPCs shitty questions or something. True.

The pacing. So much time is spent endlessly slaughtering the same soldiers over and over. The first ~25 hours consist of running down the same hallways and hardly anything substantial happens plot-wise until you fight Barthandelus, and afterwards there's a little under 10 hours of the characters being unsure of what to do next and end up just wandering about and not doing anything in particular. The characters actions and motives never have any weight behind them. One early part in a forest with Lightning & Hope in particular made me want to bang my head against the walle. The same copy/pasted level just went on and on with several cutscenes explaining that Hope is an angsty bitch and Lightning is indecisive. I don't give a bloody firetruck, just do something already.

Hope absolutely refused to confront Snow about his mother's death for no reason other than to pad out the game. Constantly collapsing to the ground to whine and moan. I somehow forgot to mention him before, but Hope is an irredeemably bad character, easily one of the worst in the series. Now that I think about it, all 6 main characters have little to no backstory either. It flashed back to the 13 days way too often and tried too hard to build up an overall uninteresting coincidence(all characters being in the same place 13 days prior to meeting) with needlessly long and complex cutscenes. Hope was the best thing in XIII. His growth was phenomenal. Let your mother fall off a cliff and see how you react. And he's just 14 and had an extremely close relationship with his mother and almost none with his father. Then he grows out of grief and bitterness to become a courageous character and the best Spellcater in the game! And Vanille and Fang had immense backstories. All the rest didn't b/c they were NORMAL PEOPLE. Shocker. Did Squall have a backstory... No. Did Firion... No. Did Vaan... No.

It would have been infinitely better if the cutscenes were implemented into the gameplay somehow, as they are they're dull, monotonous, always needlessly long and rarely actually meaningful or important. Most of the villains are thrown in from out of the blue too, why the hell weren't these people introduced a few hours ago when absolutely nothing was happening? They could've at least tried harder to give us some direction.

So yeah, Final Fantasy XIII is a horrible game in every aspect. Rant over.

 

This was the first FF game I played and it hooked me. It's story was beautiful, and the characters were great together. What sounds like happened to you was that you were a victim of bad Paradigms. COM/COM/COM is ineffective, as is COM/COM/RAV. You should have at some point read a guide to AI behavior and made better Paradigms. Also, try being the Medic yourself.

 

I've played other FF games since, and none have moved me as much as XIII.

[hatok 6,413]

Wow you must have really looked at a game you hate in depth in order to write this long post. Comments inside.

Final Fantasy XIII really does have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The characters are poorly designed, idiotic, bland, annoying and completely unoriginal. Sazh is Barret (stereotypical, gun wielding black man who's main inspiration & motive is their child). Yet you ignore all of Sazh's redeeming qualities like his inability to lose hope, and his wonderful sense of humor. And the compassion that he showed Vanille.That sounds awfully naive... it's also very subjective. I don't considering those things redeeming qualities, for example (Though Sazh as a whole is one for me) Snow is Zell but somehow even more obnoxious.Zell wasn't half as memorable as Snow.While I agree, you aren't exactly backing your statements here... Fang is Freya. Lightning is Squall/Cloud (as in the angsty bitch that cloud has become, not the smug badass he originally was) Cloud began as an obnoxious conceited character and turned angsty. Have... played VII? Lightning was motivated by her sister's death and made a transformation into a powerful supporter of her team. Similar? Not so much. Lightning was literally meant to be a female Cloud. And she fills the part. In fact, think about this; both of them developed as characters in the game they originated from, then completely regressed into something else for their sequels. Eerie, right? However, I've gotta say something. Lightning is completely irrelevant to XIII. She's meant to be your conduit into the game, but she has just enough personality to make that impossible, at least in my opinion.

. Serah is a Mary Sue. I would say Vanille is Rikku (who, in turn, is Selphie), but it needs to be said that Vanille is by far the worst incarnation of the ditsy annoying bitch archetype I've ever seeHow would you feel if you woke up 500 years in the future and had to lie to everybody about your existence? Vanille hides secrets and has so many emotions, she's more complex than anyone!. What does complexity have to do with what he said? The combat is truly horrendous, one of the worst systems ever conceived, if not THE worst. The summon system sucks. The equipment system sucks. The linearity sucks. The pacing sucks. The crystarium really, really sucks. None of the music has that same energy as the older titles (entirely due to the fact that Nobuo Uematsu wasn't involved) Blinded by light is a big highlight,as are Snow's theme, and the main theme, and many more. I knew I'd love the game the moment the first notes played on the title screen.You literally just listed the ONLY themes in the game. Every memorable theme is a remix of Blinded by Light, the Main Theme, or Snow's Theme, besides the final boss and Barthandelus' Theme.

. The story isn't the worst, but it's far from capable of carrying the game on it's own. I can go into more detail if you want.

Let's start with my most hated aspect; the combat. It plays itself. It's built for god damn retards.

 

You can only control one character for no real reason, and the game ends if they die. So you'd think the other characters would prioritize your health, right? Well it just so happens that the AI is monumentally awesome. The Medic AI most of all. Medic is possibly the most important role since it's the only one who can really pull you out when shit hits the fan, and it's in the hands of an AI I can't tell what to do. This is a gargantuan defect in the battle system, and to be honest it's really the only one that breaks the game.Read an AI guide and it'll tell you about AI mannerisms in the game. Not complicated if you have the right Paradigm. Augh! I can barely see! Anyways, that's silly. You should be requried to consult a guide just to play the game properly

 

Most bosses have at least one immensely powerful attack that can send your whole team into critical health. Unless your leader just happens to have the lowest HP you're already firetrucked though, since medics will only ever target the character closest to death and more often than not results in the leader being killed by the next attack. Why the actual firetruck is it programmed this way if you get a game over when the leader dies? Because of that you should ALWAYS have top priority, at least when your health is low enough to be wiped out by any attack. Different Paradigm... Why aren't you the medic?

 

Then there's the raise ability. Why did they even bother? If you die your medic can't revive you, and if he dies well obviously he can't revive himself either. So this ability is only there for this ignorant pansy firetruck of a third character who always gets priority over the one person who actually firetrucking matters: the player. Furthermore they will never even cast raise unless both remaining characters are at 100% health, and it never uses esuna (gets rid of status ailments) unless you're at full health either. So if you're firetrucking poisoned instead of curing you then healing they just firetrucking repeatedly cast cure to no end. Bizarre. You be the medic...

 

 

Sadly it's not just the medics that are bloody stupid though. When you have another commando they ALWAYS attack whatever I'm not targeting. This is clearly intended and easy to work around, but why the bloody firetruck can't I decide whether to focus fire or spread out? All it would take is one button. The battle system constantly reminds you that you're not allowed to decide how you want to play the game. It's the AI! Commandos never target with other Commandos. The best offensive Paradigm is Relentless Assault (RAV RAV COM), because then you target the same one.

 

I really don't know what the firetruck they were thinking when designing the Synergist, considering it's possibly the easiest class to not firetruck up stupendously. For some unholy reson the Synergist always buffs the 3rd party member first (i.e not you), then the leader, then himself. WHY? It doesn't firetrucking matter if dipshit #3 dies, the game ends if I die and the synergists themselves (Sazh and especially Hope) have by far the lowest HP and die very easily if not buffed.

On top of the AI being brain dead every single battle plays out identically, starting with a commando or saboteur with two ravagers, stagger, go all out. Take damage, just switch to medic. Tough enemy? Just buff yourself first. No variety or strategy required beyond the first few bosses. To make it even worse several bosses have millions upon millions of HP and drag on forever. Considering the commando is the only class that moves, that's a long ass time to sit watching a few characters grunt and flail their arms about. Especially when the boss is likely to target your leader with a cheap one-shot-kill attack at any moment. Which happens a lots.They usually buff depending on Roles...

 

The summon system couldn't possibly be any more bland. Why not keep FFX's system? X's was superior in just about every way, X's Aeons were directly controlled by the player and had their own abilities, limit breaks and improvable levels/stats. Each new Aeon felt like a new character and a valuable asset to the team. XIII's eidolons are almost useless entirely and were barely explained (story-wise). They provided little more than an annoying boss battle. Plus the transforming vehicle thing was really, really firetrucking dumb. Summons have never been gamebreakers. At least they're better than the old FF summons.... What makes you say that? FF X's and FF IV's summons are BY FAR the more useful ones. Also, pretty much every summon in every other FF I have used far more than the ones in XIII.

 

The equipment system. In the other games it was just a case of getting the next best weapon(although in X weapons were defined by their special abilities and had identical damage output for the most part, another reason they should have kept X's formula), but the armor you found generally had unique uses and would aid you against specific enemies. In XIII the vast majority of accessories are completely useless, and each character's starting weapon was their best as it was generally the most balanced and focused on the characters main strengths, whereas the rest of the weapons focused on one area and was severely crippled in others making it pretty damn useless if you actually plan on getting anywhere. The upgrade system was dull, why not just level the weapon I'm using instead of making me collect and convert materials to do the same thing? Not a huge problem, but a problem nonetheless. Like getting the Ultima Weapon in KH... Your point?

 

Oh god the Linearity. When FFX came out it was the most linear game in the series, but it still had splitting paths, open areas and varied environments with the (beautiful) scenery changing every couple of hours at least. XIII on the other hand is a single, straight path from A to B in the same repetitive, grey hallways with the odd "hidden" chest here and there.

It's not just the poor level design either, the monsters you face and the battles themselves are already set in stone, even the crystarium is linear and limits how strong you can get in an attempt to stay challenging. What the hell kind of RPG has a linear skill tree? For most of the game you aren't even allowed to choose your party.

The Crystarium offered so little choice it may as well not even be there, we would be better off with just a notification every now and then saying you have unlocked such and such an ability. Setting up materia was one of the better things of VII, and customization is pretty much a requirement of RPGs. As much as I disliked the sphere grid it at least let you develop your characters however you want. Also it shouldn't have been 3D, it just made what was practically a straight line needlessly hard to navigateUnderstandable, but I enjoyed the linearity. It gave the game better focus.

 

No towns or NPCs either. A lot of people say "Well they're on the run, the couldn't walk through a town" but that's bullshit. Part of VI and disc 1 on IX had you on the run, but you could still explore towns because they characters weren't firetrucking stupid and stayed subtle. If XIII's cast of twats didn't insist on displaying their L'Cie brands so prominently they could have easily explored some villages and the residents would be none the wiser. They could have even turned it into a sort of minigame with a dialogue system where you can be found out by asking the NPCs shitty questions or something. True.

 

The pacing. So much time is spent endlessly slaughtering the same soldiers over and over. The first ~25 hours consist of running down the same hallways and hardly anything substantial happens plot-wise until you fight Barthandelus, and afterwards there's a little under 10 hours of the characters being unsure of what to do next and end up just wandering about and not doing anything in particular. The characters actions and motives never have any weight behind them. One early part in a forest with Lightning & Hope in particular made me want to bang my head against the walle. The same copy/pasted level just went on and on with several cutscenes explaining that Hope is an angsty bitch and Lightning is indecisive. I don't give a bloody firetruck, just do something already.

 

Hope absolutely refused to confront Snow about his mother's death for no reason other than to pad out the game. Constantly collapsing to the ground to whine and moan. I somehow forgot to mention him before, but Hope is an irredeemably bad character, easily one of the worst in the series. Now that I think about it, all 6 main characters have little to no backstory either. It flashed back to the 13 days way too often and tried too hard to build up an overall uninteresting coincidence(all characters being in the same place 13 days prior to meeting) with needlessly long and complex cutscenes. Hope was the best thing in XIII. His growth was phenomenal. Let your mother fall off a cliff and see how you react. And he's just 14 and had an extremely close relationship with his mother and almost none with his father. Then he grows out of grief and bitterness to become a courageous character and the best Spellcater in the game! And Vanille and Fang had immense backstories. All the rest didn't b/c they were NORMAL PEOPLE. Because normal people totaly don't have pasts or anything

Shocker. Did Squall have a backstory Yes ... No. Did Firion It's an NES game ... No. Did Vaan... No. Yes. Even if you're one of the people who doesn't like Vaan, everybody ELSE has a deep backstory anyways

It would have been infinitely better if the cutscenes were implemented into the gameplay somehow, as they are they're dull, monotonous, always needlessly long and rarely actually meaningful or important. Most of the villains are thrown in from out of the blue too, why the hell weren't these people introduced a few hours ago when absolutely nothing was happening? They could've at least tried harder to give us some direction.

So yeah, Final Fantasy XIII is a horrible game in every aspect. Rant over.

This was the first FF game I played and it hooked me. It's story was beautiful, and the characters were great together. What sounds like happened to you was that you were a victim of bad Paradigms. COM/COM/COM is ineffective, as is COM/COM/RAV. You should have at some point read a guide to AI behavior and made better Paradigms. Also, try being the Medic yourself.

 

I've played other FF games since, and none have moved me as much as XIII.

 

Have you only ever played Dissidia? It seems like you don't know much about Final Fantasy at large...

[Dave 5,715]

You never got cheapyl killed by Necron's status effect spam?

 

Oh, dear God, yes! The SOB would turn my party zombie, and of course I'm spamming Curaga like mad, so I wind up self destructing in ten seconds.

 

Edit: Withdrew notes and thoughts in order to make a more coherent post later on.

Edited June 30, 2012 by Dave