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1) I don't know either.
2) Too true.
3) I wish they would move on, too, if not for the fact that I personally liked the cast and I want closure for them. As for shoving Lightning down fans' throats, as I liked the cast, that doesn't affect me, but I can see why people don't like Lightning. Still, if they didn't get any advertising, no one would buy them, even though it probably doesn't need as much as it's getting.
2) Too true.
3) I wish they would move on, too, if not for the fact that I personally liked the cast and I want closure for them. As for shoving Lightning down fans' throats, as I liked the cast, that doesn't affect me, but I can see why people don't like Lightning. Still, if they didn't get any advertising, no one would buy them, even though it probably doesn't need as much as it's getting.
Absolutely. I'm not against having novels to further expand certain parts of characters and the like (see the novels relating to FFVII AC... which is justified for a movie sequel of a game that came out 8 years before; doing novels for a brand new game is not justified), but they shouldn't be so integral that people almost need to read them. It was another reason I wasn't particularly fond of so much story being shoved in the Datalog; you actually needed to read that continuously to understand what on earth was going on.
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Likes:
Fleur
When one of the Datalog entries specifically mentions that Sazh and Vanille are wandering around aimlessly, there's an issue.
Likes:
Misty, Fleur and Azuardo
FFXIII's very DNA, its game design, has turned out to be the antithesis of what I want in a good RPG. It's a rump of a package, and a huge personal disappointment to me because at the time, a next-gen Final Fantasy title ought to constitute something bigger and grander than even FFXII. I thought the game would bring me that when I first saw the early trailers, especially the one with a gorgeous CG Gran Pulse, and the camera pans in to Vanille gazing outward. THIS was next-gen, I excitedly said to myself, and it would be glorious.
The game is just completely woeful with world-building, which is an intrinsically significant part of any RPG in my opinion. To deliberately design a game where all the red meat is cut off as much as possible, leaving only a barebones corridor experience that makes even FFX look grand and open in scope leaves only a world full of pretty, albeit mostly lifeless wallpaper tubes that sadly all you can do is pass through. The player doesn't even seem like an integral part of the experience, or in the driver's seat. I feel like a very passive actor in all this because the game is just so restraining and claustrophobic. The game design just does not accommodate much room for world-building when the player simply feels like a passive actor. What scant NPCs there are, you only overhear them, and they're usually so few and far in between that you even forget that you're supposed to be in a dynamic, living and breathing world. And it's not. It's a wallpaper world.
The way the narrative goes for half the game - you're fugitives, now run! means there's no reason at all to slow down and take in anything around you. Because like I repeat, it's a wallpaper world anyway. No reason why you would want to revisit half these locations, even if the game would let you. The game just does not bother, or want to, show you the world. The most it can do is to put everything in a datalog. Now, there's nothing actually wrong with putting lore and bits of information in encyclopaedias because everyone does that, but I take issue with the fact that the game makes barely any effort to communicate with the player or properly convey exposition across to them that after nearly every cutscene, a big beacon on the top right corner is asking the player to turn to page 32 and read what JUST happened. Instead of the cutscene or an in-game opportunity to get the information across, you are compelled to read the datalog instead. As a result, I can only really know the world through encyclopaedia entries. I don't SEE any of this. I have to be TOLD. Why should I care about this world and its denizens if I don't actually properly see any of this?
FFXIII actually has the very intriguing idea of starting in media res before showing to the player chronologically disjointed bits and pieces of a backstory for them to piece together. It's a very interesting idea, and I quite liked it. I suppose if I walked into the game with absolutely no idea of anything of what was going on, then I would level at it being a bigger problem than it is, but I'm actually mostly content with it. But the underlying problem is the very logic of the story. I am supposed to believe that despite Fal'Cies being demigods with unimaginable power, and so determined to see something particular happen that they ask humans to be slaves to get around this divine programming of not to harm their land, that they are incapable of properly telling the L'Cie what they should do? Just a vague, dream-like vision? I am supposed to believe that Barthandelus bothered to put the main characters through such trials and paces in the first half of the game, wasting time instead of just bringing them to his front door and openly telling them that they should destroy Orphan? I am supposed to believe that Barthandelus predicted he would find six available L'Cies despite instigating a total mass extermination of anyone coming within five miles of any Pulse Fal'Cie? I am supposed to believe that no one bat an eyelid at the very ominous-looking Bodhum Vestige for so long? I am supposed to believe that the party unanimously agreed to take down Orphan and doing exactly what the villains wanted because...they believe in a miracle?
Now, I'm going to turn to FFXIII-2, because I don't want to write about EVERYTHING I've ever written about FFXIII. I'll be here all day and this post would spread to the size of a novel.
I did not like FFXIII, but I was open to the idea of a sequel. I pictured a future story depicting new life on Gran Pulse, and all the hardships, chivalry and grand tales of a very shaken and worn populace trying to adapt to life on a primal and unforgiving new world. I did not however, want a sequel that decided to take the concept of Chrono Trigger, and half-bake it. I was not picturing a sequel that takes everything established by FFXIII, and hurtling it into this odd new direction of time travel, Chaos, timeless Voids, and paradoxes. As much as many of you believe this is quite in tune with the Fabula Nova Crystallis mythology, I'm just sitting here scratching my head and still wondering how on earth we got from FFXIII to where we are now with the beginning of Lightning Returns. It's becoming perhaps the most bizarre and incoherent trilogy I have ever seen.
FFXIII-2 seems in many respects, better AND worse than FFXIII. It's definitely more fun to play, is more of an actual game and less of a cinematic, passive trek through tubes, and has a surprisingly rather likeable protagonist in Noel (though really, I only really like Noel because there's nothing offensively bad about him?). But I take issue with the fact that it's very visibly a halfhearted product. I see every available effort being made to recycle assets as much as possible. Yaschas Massif or the Bresha Ruins miraculously look 90% the same as they do hundreds of years apart, only with different climates or weather. That just throws me out of this world because I know it's not an organic nor coherent world. It's just a series of set-pieces that you can only access through a godawfully bad Historia Crux interface.
I see things like the Live Trigger, which I am almost certain was only put in there because the producers thought taking an element from something popular like Mass Effect was what people wanted. That's all well and good to an extent, but they had absolutely no idea how to properly implement that system into the game. Dialogue "choices" just amount to superficially tiny things (the funny ones just make Serah look and sound like a moron, which I admit, were sometimes amusing), and affect nothing in the long run. Just to show how clueless they were with what to actually do with the Live Trigger, the game even has a few moments when you had to choose a particular option to even proceed through the game. Why put this feature in when no one has a clue how it's done in other, more popular games, and how to properly marry it with the game? You see what I mean? I just see a game that went through a lot of focus testing-related tickbox checking. It's not a cohesive project, but something chameleonic and confused.
I can't find much to care about the premise to Lightning Returns now when I've wrestled for a whole game a story that is just pure nonsense, also in terms of its underlying logic. I am supposed to believe that Etro was just okay with giving Caius the very thing that could kill her and doom the whole world, purely because she was moved by him? I am supposed to believe that Etro was so bad at her job that she never saw the consequences of what would happen if she saved everyone at the end of FFXIII out of pity? How did Snow get branded as a L'Cie again? By whom? Why does the game flat out not tell me? What actually becomes of Alyssa, because the story just forgets about her? Did anyone even consider the possibility that by changing the future, Noel's existence could be erased? Why was Serah even branded a Seer anyway? What exactly are paradoxes? The game talks about paradoxes as if they were just some form of supernatural phenomenon. Paradoxes just became the game's equivalent of a wizard doing it. Even something like a virus-affected server in the Augusta Tower was down to a paradox, for instance.
I've made up my mind now. It looks like I will check out Lightning Returns eventually. Not immediately, but somewhere down the line. I will check it out because I think it has enough potential to be a decent game, or at least a half-decent Final Fantasy game to close this generation off. I will not be going in there to see the story come to a close. Because at this point, I just don't care anymore. It's been a car crash.
Aaaaanywho, I'll stop for now. If anyone wants to rebut me a bit, my door is open~
The game is just completely woeful with world-building, which is an intrinsically significant part of any RPG in my opinion. To deliberately design a game where all the red meat is cut off as much as possible, leaving only a barebones corridor experience that makes even FFX look grand and open in scope leaves only a world full of pretty, albeit mostly lifeless wallpaper tubes that sadly all you can do is pass through. The player doesn't even seem like an integral part of the experience, or in the driver's seat. I feel like a very passive actor in all this because the game is just so restraining and claustrophobic. The game design just does not accommodate much room for world-building when the player simply feels like a passive actor. What scant NPCs there are, you only overhear them, and they're usually so few and far in between that you even forget that you're supposed to be in a dynamic, living and breathing world. And it's not. It's a wallpaper world.
The way the narrative goes for half the game - you're fugitives, now run! means there's no reason at all to slow down and take in anything around you. Because like I repeat, it's a wallpaper world anyway. No reason why you would want to revisit half these locations, even if the game would let you. The game just does not bother, or want to, show you the world. The most it can do is to put everything in a datalog. Now, there's nothing actually wrong with putting lore and bits of information in encyclopaedias because everyone does that, but I take issue with the fact that the game makes barely any effort to communicate with the player or properly convey exposition across to them that after nearly every cutscene, a big beacon on the top right corner is asking the player to turn to page 32 and read what JUST happened. Instead of the cutscene or an in-game opportunity to get the information across, you are compelled to read the datalog instead. As a result, I can only really know the world through encyclopaedia entries. I don't SEE any of this. I have to be TOLD. Why should I care about this world and its denizens if I don't actually properly see any of this?
FFXIII actually has the very intriguing idea of starting in media res before showing to the player chronologically disjointed bits and pieces of a backstory for them to piece together. It's a very interesting idea, and I quite liked it. I suppose if I walked into the game with absolutely no idea of anything of what was going on, then I would level at it being a bigger problem than it is, but I'm actually mostly content with it. But the underlying problem is the very logic of the story. I am supposed to believe that despite Fal'Cies being demigods with unimaginable power, and so determined to see something particular happen that they ask humans to be slaves to get around this divine programming of not to harm their land, that they are incapable of properly telling the L'Cie what they should do? Just a vague, dream-like vision? I am supposed to believe that Barthandelus bothered to put the main characters through such trials and paces in the first half of the game, wasting time instead of just bringing them to his front door and openly telling them that they should destroy Orphan? I am supposed to believe that Barthandelus predicted he would find six available L'Cies despite instigating a total mass extermination of anyone coming within five miles of any Pulse Fal'Cie? I am supposed to believe that no one bat an eyelid at the very ominous-looking Bodhum Vestige for so long? I am supposed to believe that the party unanimously agreed to take down Orphan and doing exactly what the villains wanted because...they believe in a miracle?
Now, I'm going to turn to FFXIII-2, because I don't want to write about EVERYTHING I've ever written about FFXIII. I'll be here all day and this post would spread to the size of a novel.
I did not like FFXIII, but I was open to the idea of a sequel. I pictured a future story depicting new life on Gran Pulse, and all the hardships, chivalry and grand tales of a very shaken and worn populace trying to adapt to life on a primal and unforgiving new world. I did not however, want a sequel that decided to take the concept of Chrono Trigger, and half-bake it. I was not picturing a sequel that takes everything established by FFXIII, and hurtling it into this odd new direction of time travel, Chaos, timeless Voids, and paradoxes. As much as many of you believe this is quite in tune with the Fabula Nova Crystallis mythology, I'm just sitting here scratching my head and still wondering how on earth we got from FFXIII to where we are now with the beginning of Lightning Returns. It's becoming perhaps the most bizarre and incoherent trilogy I have ever seen.
FFXIII-2 seems in many respects, better AND worse than FFXIII. It's definitely more fun to play, is more of an actual game and less of a cinematic, passive trek through tubes, and has a surprisingly rather likeable protagonist in Noel (though really, I only really like Noel because there's nothing offensively bad about him?). But I take issue with the fact that it's very visibly a halfhearted product. I see every available effort being made to recycle assets as much as possible. Yaschas Massif or the Bresha Ruins miraculously look 90% the same as they do hundreds of years apart, only with different climates or weather. That just throws me out of this world because I know it's not an organic nor coherent world. It's just a series of set-pieces that you can only access through a godawfully bad Historia Crux interface.
I see things like the Live Trigger, which I am almost certain was only put in there because the producers thought taking an element from something popular like Mass Effect was what people wanted. That's all well and good to an extent, but they had absolutely no idea how to properly implement that system into the game. Dialogue "choices" just amount to superficially tiny things (the funny ones just make Serah look and sound like a moron, which I admit, were sometimes amusing), and affect nothing in the long run. Just to show how clueless they were with what to actually do with the Live Trigger, the game even has a few moments when you had to choose a particular option to even proceed through the game. Why put this feature in when no one has a clue how it's done in other, more popular games, and how to properly marry it with the game? You see what I mean? I just see a game that went through a lot of focus testing-related tickbox checking. It's not a cohesive project, but something chameleonic and confused.
I can't find much to care about the premise to Lightning Returns now when I've wrestled for a whole game a story that is just pure nonsense, also in terms of its underlying logic. I am supposed to believe that Etro was just okay with giving Caius the very thing that could kill her and doom the whole world, purely because she was moved by him? I am supposed to believe that Etro was so bad at her job that she never saw the consequences of what would happen if she saved everyone at the end of FFXIII out of pity? How did Snow get branded as a L'Cie again? By whom? Why does the game flat out not tell me? What actually becomes of Alyssa, because the story just forgets about her? Did anyone even consider the possibility that by changing the future, Noel's existence could be erased? Why was Serah even branded a Seer anyway? What exactly are paradoxes? The game talks about paradoxes as if they were just some form of supernatural phenomenon. Paradoxes just became the game's equivalent of a wizard doing it. Even something like a virus-affected server in the Augusta Tower was down to a paradox, for instance.
I've made up my mind now. It looks like I will check out Lightning Returns eventually. Not immediately, but somewhere down the line. I will check it out because I think it has enough potential to be a decent game, or at least a half-decent Final Fantasy game to close this generation off. I will not be going in there to see the story come to a close. Because at this point, I just don't care anymore. It's been a car crash.
Aaaaanywho, I'll stop for now. If anyone wants to rebut me a bit, my door is open~
I like the XIII games pretty well. Nothing like how I love VI-X but I thought they were very enjoyable. Definitely underrated, too. I was shocked to see some of the same review sites/magazines give XIII-2 a lower score that the first game, when it's glaringly obvious how much trouble Square went through to please everyone with 2. I mean, they pretty much addressed every major complaint, didn't they?
The only things that keep me from really loving the XIII games are the characters and the story. I never really was able to care much about the characters in either game and they definitely could have used a better main villain... one you can't decide whether you love or hate. And while I understood the story I didn't didn't find it all that interesting.
I really like everything else, though. If they ever did a VII remake I would love to see them marry the characters, story and music of VII with XIII's battle system and menu's... and do the whole thing Advent Children style.
The only things that keep me from really loving the XIII games are the characters and the story. I never really was able to care much about the characters in either game and they definitely could have used a better main villain... one you can't decide whether you love or hate. And while I understood the story I didn't didn't find it all that interesting.
I really like everything else, though. If they ever did a VII remake I would love to see them marry the characters, story and music of VII with XIII's battle system and menu's... and do the whole thing Advent Children style.
Likes:
Nikolasvanitas
Part of the problem there is nestled in a couple things: first, FFXIII was reviewed higher than it should have been by some outlets due to brand name. This tends to happen a lot with any big franchise... For example, GameInformer gave it a 9.25 but then they gave FFXIII-2 an 8 citing it was better than the first game. I can think of a lot of "big name" games scored higher by big outlets than they should have been. Bioshock Infinite is a great recent example of this.
Secondly, XIII-2 did fix some of XIII's problems but it also made some of them worse - namely the story and the reduction of difficulty. People who were satisfied with XIII thought things like that a negative, so I can see why the score was lower based on those alone.
Secondly, XIII-2 did fix some of XIII's problems but it also made some of them worse - namely the story and the reduction of difficulty. People who were satisfied with XIII thought things like that a negative, so I can see why the score was lower based on those alone.
@Fleur I like you. Haha. Hit the nail on the head on so many points. It actually makes me so much more disappointed with the games the more I read the problems with them.
Snow's L'Cie branding was covered in his story DLC. Oh wait... Nope, they fucked us over with that, too, and we probably won't find out until LR now. Or you know what, they just won't tell us again and hope we forgot.
Oh god, those damn Live Triggers. So laughable. What the hell was "Live" about it that wasn't when I was playing it a second earlier? And fricking QTEs. What did they call them in XIII-2? Cinematic Action Sequences, or something? Die.
Snow's L'Cie branding was covered in his story DLC. Oh wait... Nope, they fucked us over with that, too, and we probably won't find out until LR now. Or you know what, they just won't tell us again and hope we forgot.
Oh god, those damn Live Triggers. So laughable. What the hell was "Live" about it that wasn't when I was playing it a second earlier? And fricking QTEs. What did they call them in XIII-2? Cinematic Action Sequences, or something? Die.
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Likes:
Fleur
"killing FFs personality" - if I even read nonsense like this....
Is the FF XIII hate really this bad on these forums too? I always thought the Nova Crystallis community was the one online community that wasnt engaging in the stupid XIII and Lightning hating, which was one of the major reasons I joined this forums. I thought it wouldnt be like on the other forums. But reading all the bashing, whining and ranting in here makes it look like its exactly the same as on the other sites. What a shame...
Is the FF XIII hate really this bad on these forums too? I always thought the Nova Crystallis community was the one online community that wasnt engaging in the stupid XIII and Lightning hating, which was one of the major reasons I joined this forums. I thought it wouldnt be like on the other forums. But reading all the bashing, whining and ranting in here makes it look like its exactly the same as on the other sites. What a shame...
Opinions? There are aspects I like about the games. There are aspects I don't. And I firmly believe that they drew too much of the wrong inspirations from particular Western games, whilst at the same time removing or forgetting about the things that defined FF in the past. FFXIII in particular is missing a lot of core FF definition and personality. In my opinion (it's a shame I feel like I need to add this on to every post these days).
Feel free to post what you do like about the games, as I have done already.
Feel free to post what you do like about the games, as I have done already.
Likes:
Nikolasvanitas
Opinions is one thing but this FF XIII thread is just turning into the exact same thing that I have witnessed on all other forums - a bashing thread. Just another vehicle for all the haters. This is not an actual discussion thread anymore, you just meet here to bash the game. Criticism is one thing. I´ll do that too. But what you guys are doing here is far beyond appropriate criticism. Its a hate parade. I thought people in this forum are better than that.
Likes:
Caius
and under normal circumstances I would love to say what I think about XIII, but everything I say will just be taken apart by the haters piece by piece and commented with sneer and bashing and I really dont need that again. I have been through this tiresome and exhausting "war" before on other forums. When it comes to FF XIII so many usually civilized and respectable fans for some reason just turn into unreasonable poison-spewers. Reading the comments on the Nova Crystallis site for news on Lightning Returns which had lots of people who were very poistive about XIII and not hating in it was a breathe of fresh air for me from all the poisonous fumes of hatred in the other forums. Its a major reason why I joined this forum. Its utterly disappointing to me that apparently this forum and the community present in the news comments are two entirely different entities and this forum is just what all others are.
I don't understand. Why are you conflating legitimate criticism of the game(s) with mere "bashing"? I'll tell you what I think "bashing" is, and that is if someone is just drive-by posting "lol, FFXIII sux" without actually making a proper point or argument. What is the point of a good discussion if you only want to hear the opinion of one side?
It sounds to me that you just can't accept criticism of a game you really like. And that is not a healthy attitude. I wholly invite someone who is a fan of the games to respond to the people they don't agree with. Then we can have a good discussion.
It sounds to me that you just can't accept criticism of a game you really like. And that is not a healthy attitude. I wholly invite someone who is a fan of the games to respond to the people they don't agree with. Then we can have a good discussion.
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Likes:
Azuardo
I think if someone doesn't like something and is disappointed with something, or even hates something, then it will sometimes come across to someone that disagrees with that opinion, or likes or loves that something, as personal and perhaps offensive. It's a clash of opinions, and those that feel passionately or strongly about one opinion that they disagree with will likely find it difficult to take. If someone feels strongly enough to post why they hate aspects of this game, they should freely do so. This topic is, after all, to share our thoughts on the games - good and bad.
Whoa, have you checked out the comments from the fans of XIII in this thread? There hasn't been a single person replying back with a "bash" or ridiculing them for their opinion. Just go ahead and post your thoughts! You're just looking at the posts from the people that have issues with the games and taking it personally, when you really shouldn't be. You can't expect everyone to have the same opinion. Just post what you like and you'll see that people agree with you.
Those that disagree still respect everybody's opinions.
Whoa, have you checked out the comments from the fans of XIII in this thread? There hasn't been a single person replying back with a "bash" or ridiculing them for their opinion. Just go ahead and post your thoughts! You're just looking at the posts from the people that have issues with the games and taking it personally, when you really shouldn't be. You can't expect everyone to have the same opinion. Just post what you like and you'll see that people agree with you.
Those that disagree still respect everybody's opinions.