Final Fantasy XIII (13)

[NintendoCN]

I recently got back into playing FF13 as of late, and I don't see why people hate it so much. Last time I checked, there are multiple paths, to a degree, and "open world" is there, you just have to work for it, kinda like in Zelda, You cant just go anywhere without obtaining certain gear right?

Don't say you hate, it nor say you love it. Just tell me what you like, if anything, and what you dislike, for me I love the battle system and hate the XP system, easy to understand, but if you use a class that you haven't put points in, well...

 

[Dio]

What I like is the graphics, music, voice acting, story and characters.

What I dislike is the combat. I would have liked the gameplay to be similar to Crisis Core or Kingdom hearts. The hybridized turn based gameplay of FF13 I found tedious and boring. Many fights were repetitive and or too hard (The first time I faced Barthandelus I fought him over 20 times with no victory) requiring me to level up through more repetitiveness. I just wanted the fights to end as soon as they began. Despite this, the story compelled me to complete the game and spend over 70 hours with it.

I would also say I disliked that there were virtually no NPC's to interact with like you could in previous titles. Shops were just floating consoles this time around.

As much as I liked the story I could not bear to play through FF13-2, the idea of more gameplay like 13 was offputting. I am glad that FF15 looks to rectify the problem by having gameplay that I like.

 

[Jeffers]

I also really enjoyed FFXIII. The impression that I get is that people hate it because of how linear it is, but I guess since I new it would be pretty linear going in, I was able to focus on enjoying the story and characters, which for me at least is definitely the best part of the game. As far as the gameplay goes, I really loved the idea of the paradigm shifts with the different roles, but a lot of the battles seemed really repetitive and it would have been nice if there were situations that called for some of the abilities that I feel like I never used (curse, entrench, etc.) I do wish the post-game stuff was a little more interesting; I get sick sometimes of doing nothing but grinding through the Faultwarrens over and over and over and over. But overall I liked the game - not very open-world, but a really great story and I liked all of the characters except maybe Hope - it didn't really feel like he needed to be there.

 

[Kylo Ken]

I liked Snow, he's my favorite FF character, way cooler than any other ones. Him and the black guy was cool. The battle system was not something I expected the game to have, but it was kinda cool, a kinda action/turn-based was a fresh idea, at least to me it was. I can see why people didn't like the skill tree system, but I didn't mind it too much. The game just wanted certain characters in certain roles, that's why they made it hard for any other character to become that role. Then again, I don't care what they want, I want Snow as a friggin healer, just let me do it. The graphics, omg, if you wanted a game that looked like real life, that's it. The close-ups on the characters are so good, I saw a picture of one

When it comes to what I don't like, it's mostly the characters and story, and it's game breaking. With the characters, like I said before, I like Snow and the black guy, that's it. Oh, and the chokabo in the black guys 'fro, I like her too. Literally every other character than them, I wished for their demise, ESPECIALLY Lightning, she's a *****. She's just selfish and has very bad character development(which is saying something, because they all do to a degree). And then there's Hope, who's just a whinny little pansy who can't stop crying. Like, dude, I don't care that your mother just died, she was in the game for like, 5 minutes. Then there's the chick from Australia, who's so forgettable that it's not even funny. There's also the short girl, who pretty much caused the mass suffering of everyone on her planet(spoilers). That's five, but I want to say there were six characters, oh well. So yeah, I only played hoping that everyone but Snow and black guy dies because they're so annoying. The villians sucked too. They had a Pope wannabe that wants to enslave people because he's secretly an angel/demon or something(it's been while). Under the Pope, we have a bunch of villains that looked so much alike, I didn't even know there was more than one until they all started dying, and it was so dramatic the way they die, I thought I missed a cutscene or two explaining why they're so important (they're not). Combine all those ****ty characters with a horrible plot about CHANGING FATE, OMG SO ORIGINAL, and you get a snooze-fest.

 

[Ver-go-a-go-go]

I feel like I could write a small book on FFXIII. My opinion of it didn't change drastically over the years since I first played it in 2009, but I've had a really weird journey with it. I recently just beat it again this summer when I marathoned the entire XIII series from start to finish so I could cement my thoughts on it. I'll try to quickly sum it up in three points:

I feel like it properly deserves most of the criticism it gets when it comes to structure in general - it's just a weird continuation of a series that was starting to get back on track with XII when it came to going back to the series' roots. This is mainly seen in its incredibly linear structure, something that did start in FFX, but was so much more blatantly obvious and apparent in XIII. FFX also had the benefit of the traditional turn-based combat system that the series began with, and, in my humble opinion, is a perfection of that now distant-past style of game. FFX also wasn't just hallway after hallway, as FFXIII clearly was throughout a vast majority of the game. FFXII made great strides to present vast and open areas, which made XIII's hallways just that much stranger. People had a right to get super upset over that.

I don't think it deserves the vast amount of hate it gets for the story. Is it the best FF has to offer? Not by a long shot. It's got quite a few plot holes, an extreme amount of untold information that the player has to hunt through the datalogs to find, and its characters are a huge step back from the likeable and believable bunch of heroes we've had in the past. But is it the absolute worst thing ever like some seem to think? I'd say no. It's still pretty simple to understand - Fal'Cie are trying to use their servants, L'Cie, to bring about vast death and summon the Maker. L'Cie are forced to do the Fal'Cie bidding because if they don't, they turn into hideous monsters. That's pretty much the plot in a nutshell, and I think it's enough to keep things interesting and keep me wanting to keep going through the game.

One thing I absolutely disagree on is when people claim the battle system was a complete miss. Auto-battle makes it look bad, but the strategy that the game is built on isn't dependent on manual inputs of basic magic or the like. It's based completely on the paradigm system; the player needs to know which characters fit which role best, which combinations of which roles are most effective, and at which time to use with said roles are most strategic in a given battle. The game gets really complex in the later stages when the difficulty is amped up, to say nothing of the post-game which you really need know what you're doing with in order to even scratch the surface of success.

tl;dr on FFXIII - It's not the terrible monstrosity that people make it out to be. It's kind of lack-luster when compared to the games before it, but that doesn't automatically mean that everything in it is bad and should be rejected.

 

[NintendoCN]

I liked all of the characters except maybe Hope

I kinda liked Hope, when he wasn't whining he was being a medic, I always play the medic in RPGs.

I liked Snow, he's my favorite FF character

I really HATE Snow, but, to each their own.

Combine all those ****ty characters with a horrible plot about CHANGING FATE, OMG SO ORIGINAL, and you get a snooze-fest.

I did fall asleep against the final boss, despite downing 2 liters of game fuel, but I was streaming it live for 4 days non-stop... sort-of

tl;dr on FFXIII - It's not the terrible monstrosity that people make it out to be. It's kind of lack-luster when compared to the games before it, but that doesn't automatically mean that everything in it is bad and should be rejected.

This is what I keep telling people, which they then rant about VII (7) or X (10) and I just ignore them.

This thread was to take an underrated game, and see what was good, and what was bad. In order to better understand what exactly people want in a similar game. But if you haven't posted yet or have posted and want to post something else go ahead, more data is always welcome.

 

[Jeffers]

I kinda liked Hope, when he wasn't whining he was being a medic, I always play the medic in RPGs.

Oh yeah gameplay-wise Hope is great (although there are some situations where Vanille seems to be a better choice for medic), but as far as the story goes he was my least favorite of the six main characters. It just felt like he had the least amount of reason for being there; he was really only in it for the sake of revenge until eventually he just ended up sticking around because by that point he had been established as part of the main cast.

 

[Jirohnagi]

I thoroughly enjoyed FFXIII it was a nice game, good concept to be honest to too far off the base storyline all FF games since FFX have followed, my only real issue was to do with certain boss fights... Barthandelus and dahaka come to mind... where you need to have a specific setup to do serious damage or to win, But aside from that i did enjoy the fact the game was linear but it opened out significantly in the 2nd half, you had a whole world to explore! The Cieth missions were the best in my opinion especially when you fought the super cieths such as Atticus ^^ or that Tonberry battle.

 

[Jeffers]

I thoroughly enjoyed FFXIII it was a nice game, good concept to be honest to too far off the base storyline all FF games since FFX have followed, my only real issue was to do with certain boss fights... Barthandelus and dahaka come to mind... where you need to have a specific setup to do serious damage or to win, But aside from that i did enjoy the fact the game was linear but it opened out significantly in the 2nd half, you had a whole world to explore! The Cieth missions were the best in my opinion especially when you fought the super cieths such as Atticus ^^ or that Tonberry battle.

The second Barthandelus fight was the worst

 

[NintendoCN]

my only real issue was to do with certain boss fights... Barthandelus and dahaka come to mind... where you need to have a specific setup to do serious damage or to win

Those fights made me buy the official walkthrough, and watch an LP to devise a working strategy since maxing out the crystarium didn't work... for Barthandelus anyway.

The Cieth missions were the best in my opinion

No argument there! Most of the rewards were almost crucial, at least they were fun.

 

[Jirohnagi]

The second Barthandelus fight was the worst

Those fights made me buy the official walkthrough, and watch an LP to devise a working strategy since maxing out the crystarium didn't work... for Barthandelus anyway.


No argument there! Most of the rewards were almost crucial, at least they were fun.

For Barthandelus i was generally forced into leveling up Ravager Commando and Sentinel, healing really didn't help for me at all, due to the amount of ridiculous damage inflicted before the healers run, First Barthandelus i managed to win with just a RAV RAV RAV combo and the 2nd was a mix of Rav, COM, SEN. I may go back to FFXIII someday.

Loved those Ceith Missions so much ^^, The rewards for the Ceith Ring was calculated evil, i mean c'mon admantoise and adamantortoise replaced by Long Gui and Shalongui? just not fair. My question here is how many people managed to 5 star Vercingetorix the 64th mark and Orphan? I do tons of damage in any role and maxed out my weapons yet for Orphan i am too slow (i think it's due to my slow speed with stagger) and Vercingetorix just takes a ridiculous time for me.

 

[NintendoCN]

Loved those Ceith Missions so much ^^, The rewards for the Ceith Ring was calculated evil, i mean c'mon admantoise and adamantortoise replaced by Long Gui and Shalongui? just not fair. My question here is how many people managed to 5 star Vercingetorix the 64th mark and Orphan? I do tons of damage in any role and maxed out my weapons yet for Orphan i am too slow (i think it's due to my slow speed with stagger) and Vercingetorix just takes a ridiculous time for me.[/QUOTE]
The walkthrough goes over all of that, and more. Without a walkthrough it would take days of trying to 5 star Vercingetorix to get even a 3 star ranking. Since I only managed, even with the walkthrough, to get 5 stars after probably 132+ attempts. (I stopped counting after 132).

 

[NintendoCN]

My question here is how many people managed to 5 star Vercingetorix the 64th mark and Orphan? I do tons of damage in any role and maxed out my weapons yet for Orphan i am too slow (i think it's due to my slow speed with stagger) and Vercingetorix just takes a ridiculous time for me.

I did with the walkthrough and 132+ tries, since at that point I was already in a catatonic like state where everything else just, disappears and all that matters is victory, the key is using Lightning, fang, and Hope so you have access to the best Commando, Ravager, and Medic. And a maxed out crystarium (for everybody) and buffing and debuffing. If you're good 3 stars, if you're lucky 4 stars, if you do it perfectly (or are a god), 5 stars.

 

[Jirohnagi]

I did with the walkthrough and 132+ tries, since at that point I was already in a catatonic like state where everything else just, disappears and all that matters is victory, the key is using Lightning, fang, and Hope so you have access to the best Commando, Ravager, and Medic. And a maxed out crystarium (for everybody) and buffing and debuffing. If you're good 3 stars, if you're lucky 4 stars, if you do it perfectly (or are a god), 5 stars.

See my entire Crystarium is maxed and i haven't tried Lightning Fang and Hope, my main team just focuses on staggering the foes but it tends to be slow. My current average is 3 stars on Vercingetorix and rarely 4 stars on Orphan, i can kill Orphan in under a minute but it's not the right speed i've never gotten orphan's achievement for 5 starring that fight and Vercingetorix is just a health tank.

 

[CrimsonCavalier]

FFXIII was one of my most anticipated games of all time. But as with many of those types of games, this one disappointed me a lot. It wasn't how linear it was, although that did grate me a little. It just wasn't fun. I never got into it. The characters didn't interest me. The story was ... meh. I can't make a thorough and in-depth response because eventually, I ended up returning the game. I was that disappointed with it.

In a generation where I was able to play Lost Odyssey and Xenoblade Chronicles, a game like this really underwhelmed. I'm a big Final Fantasy fan, though, and I do regret selling the game. Sometimes games get better the 2nd or 3rd time you play them.