Final Fantasy 13 is criminally underrated

I got a little bored of replaying FF6 - 12 for the 20th time so I decided to finally give FF13 a fair shake. I'm currently on chapter 4 and It's freaking awesome. The atmosphere, environments, characters, combat system, music, story, lore, my god. Why the hell did this game get such a bad rep? Because it's linear? The auto battle system which is far superior to just mashing attack in practically every Final Fantasy before it?

Kinda annoyed I let people with bad taste persuade me to skip out on this game for so long. If you've also avoided it due to it's bad rep, give it a try. If you liked FF10, 13 is like 10 on crack.

The only flaw is I gotta listen to Soy Bakers voice, but Snow's awesome so I can look past it

Never let people persuade you from trying a game.... with that said, I'm glad you enjoy that terrible game.

The Xbox 360 version running on the XB1X looks gorgeous. I enjoyed it.

On PC in 4k it looks better than most games released this gen

Lol sorry, but the media have spoken. You are clearly wrong.

No, no it's not.

Yeah, never played that one. But sounds like my opinion on Final Fantasy 15 which doesn't seem much loved here or anywhere for that matter. I really enjoyed what it was, but have to say, it does piss me off that it had the potential to be so much more. Instead, Square just had to try to nickle and dime it by splitting everything up into episodes (which made the main game feel incomplete in nearly every way) instead of releasing it as one full complete game, which it appear they still haven't learned their lesson with FFVII Remake (Lucky for them, the name itself would most likely sell it). I already know its fate, but I'm still hoping by some miracle, that they finish what they started with FF 15 one of these days...

Agree, never understood all the hate that game got, enjoyed it a lot and definitely way better than FF15...

Yeah, simply yelling out "it's linear" was always a dumb crit. Think a lot of gamers knew they disliked the game, but couldn't articulate why. And this was at a time when being linear was frowned upon for whatever reasons. Most games, including most of the best games out there are linear lol.

Just about every stretch of every FF game is linear with varying degrees of wiggle room. Some do give a better illusion of freedom than others, FFXIII doesn't even flirt with that. Aside from one late game chapter, you pretty much know you're in a hallway at all times.

For me, the real issue was that the game was too damn restrictive in pretty much every way. Not just environments/exploration. Equipment, character growth, and combat flexibility were also strangled. Felt like every avenue in which previous games gave the player some degree of agency, FFXIII just snatched it away. Most systems felt railroaded for a majority of the game.

Remember a lot of people saying the game felt like one long tutorial. In a way, I get it tho. The opening act of every FF game is pretty restrictive and FFXIII maintains that feel for about 2/3 of the game (haven't played it since launch, hard to be specific).

I see where you're coming from on the combat. Spoilers, the combat blows in most FF games. Mash attack, heal when needed, occasionally wipe a mob with your strongest magic. Maybe get hints of something cooler in a boss battle. So it's not like the Paradigm system was a step back. If anything, I saw potential in the system that was never fully realized in the game. Still better than most of the previous games.

I think my biggest issue across the board was that this game was the follow up to FFXII. Another game hated by a lot of fans, but whatever. It was the most open ended FF game in all ways. Had a slick combat system that you're in full control of in a game where all of your skills could be of use. Being in control of the micro rather than XIIIs approach of guiding the macro. Both automated, but one giving the player a much greater degree of influence.

Aside from gameplay stuff, FFXII actually having good writing and VA, as well as a (relatively) mature story.

Just seemed like the series was really moving up and then FFXIII comes along with the polar opposite approach.

Anyways, cool that you're enjoying it. Definitely bump this thread with a verdict when you finish it up tho. I vaguely remember enjoying the earlier game too.

FFXIII is criminal.

You were so very close.

I enjoyed it, along with part 2, but couldn't get in to part 3 at all.

Final Fantasy 13 felts pretty close to the formula of previous games. Not sure why it specifically was hated upon.

I'm genuinely curious. For me it was my PC elitism bias (when it was a console exclusive) so I kind of joined the hate bangwagon. I wonder if the people who played it and still hated it didn't take the time to read the lore being added to the datalog. It's interesting as hell and, along with the music, creates an atmosphere John Carpenter would be proud of. So far (still on chapter 4) It's just as good as FF8 and 9 imo

@pinkribbonscars: I love the FFXIII series but the first game does play itself for quite a bit. I enjoyed the characters and graphics but you can only wish the game opened up as quickly as FFVII. Thankfully Lightning Returns goes semi open-world and in my opinion the best gameplay of any FF game except maybe Remake.

I really enjoyed it as well along with FF13-2, had a lot of fun with both. Played some of Lightning Returns but I just never stuck with it. I really need to get back to that one and try to finish it up. Maybe much of the hate came from it being a game that went multi platform. There was quite a bit of that going around back in the day.

@Archangel3371:

Yeah, true. A lot of fanboys instantly disowned the game when the multiplat announcement happened. And even after release, they blamed the 360 for all of the games faults lmao. Legit blaming design choices on hardware, even though the hardware was every bit as capable. So dumb.

The only FF i ever beaten. It was shit, real shit. Abby's sex scene>FF13 any day.

I thought it was good. The characters were way more mature on the whole than past characters. The individual stories of them were great. And the world had a kind of oppressive dark feel that past games just didn't achieve. I was digging it.

@ConanTheStoner: Yeah there was a whole hell of a lot of salt going around back then with a number of big games going multi platform, most notably this and Devil May Cry 4, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to me that a lot of the hate for the game was derived from that.

I enjoyed it

Something felt off about it though

It was pretty clear that at some point they changed their mind about the direction they wanted to take, and as a result kind of locked-down the style in a way that came off as bare minimum in terms of exploration, world interaction, etc. And yeah, it gave the game a sort of "off" feel here and there. But it was still pretty good overall I think.

Its criminally crap. One of the worst triple a titles I've ever sank time to. I waited and waited and waited for the game to get good, and people even assured me it gets good 30 hours in or something ridiculous like that. I shouldn't have to wait that long for a game to actually not be an on rails title with a coherent story, but I sincerely doubt all the characters die off at that point given how little I warmed to any of them so how can it get good with this? Pretentious guff. Hated it. Hate.

And Square were so stubborn and in denial that they made three games of this one, where you only usually get 1 or 2 at the most.

Graphics were decent, although given the world is one huge on rails skybox that's not a surprise. Ghastly game, I'm so glad many agree with me.

This is some straight up bullshit.

There are many reasons people did not like this game, and they are entitled to their opinion. Most people, the overwhelming majority, don't get involved in system wars. They don't care. They don't care about exclusives, and they don't care about a console they don't have getting a game that they already do on their chosen console.

Whether you agree with our criticism of the game is one thing, but I call horse shit on your reasoning given for that criticism.

@DocSanchez: Of course there are many reasons that people don’t like the game, I never said otherwise. Just saying that there was a lot of hate going around about these games going multi platform and that it wouldn’t surprise me if some of the hate for the game stemmed from this. Of course this is all just my opinion so whatever. 🤷‍♂️

@subspecies:

Yeah, feel like they over-committed to avoiding the series formula. I remember in some pre-release interviews, they seemed so proud about how they got away from having traditional towns, shops, side activities, etc. A lot of things that typically served to change the pace and break up the monotony.

Which to me, sounded good on paper. Seemed they just wanted to make a tighter game, remove the bloat that so many RPGs have. Just felt like they went overboard with streamlining every aspect of the game. And personally, the resulting formula felt tiresome by mid-game and mind numbing by the final stretch. Just push forward and grind through enemies until you reach the next area to do it again. Not a problem in itself, just didn't feel the combat system was nearly strong enough to carry the entire experience.

Seems like the entirety of FFXIII was a direct response to fan complaints about FFXII.

Or, ya know, it can be both.

I don't like FFXIII and I consider it one of the most disappointing sequels I've ever played. The systems these games are on don't mean shit to me, my opinion is based on the game itself as well as how it stacks up to previous entries.

But denying the fanboyish backlash that surrounded this game, come on now lol. This shit happened at the height of rampant fanboy shit, when people still thought devs were supposed to be "loyal".

lol, y'all really diggin' up the old glory days. :D

The classic :D

@ConanTheStoner: I hope to god he is pretending.

@ConanTheStoner: A true classic. 🤣🤣🤣

lol that dude probably posted here...

Oh he is lol. However, it's pretty much spot on for how fanboys were reacting. In many cases, was worse than that on a lot of forums.

Between FFXIII and the DMC4 petitions, shit was just too wild. Fun times tho.

We (The people that have signed this petition) feel very left out in your decision to make Devil May Cry 4 a Multi-Platform title, and hereby agree to boycott your sale of Capcom affiliated games. This is due to your decision to turn your back on your most faithful gaming company. For years we have enjoyed games, we have reaped the benefits of your committment to Sony. We find it absolutely demoralizing for not only the gamers, but also Sony itself. We want you to know that will not, and should not stand for your actions, and therefore withold our option of buying your product.

Which of course if you're that emotionally invested in a game, you're definitely buying it day 1 regardless.

FXIII basically is a combination of X and XII but it actually manages to be worse. It manages somehow to be even more linear than X, after XII that is basically an open world filled with loading screens, and then it takes XII's combat that a lot of people didn't liked because of the big levels of automation and leveled it to 11, I suppose that at least it doesn't feel like XI's MMO style that XII suffered from.

As a Final Fantasy game it was terrible. The characters were extremely bland and generic with zero personality. The story was a absolute joke, however on a positive note the gameplay was pretty fun.

FF13 will always be garbage

Huh? Yeah, if you like 30 hour tutorials and shitty characters from your JRPGs. Ho boy! The game got better when it opened up, but by then, it was too late to salvage any praise to give to it. I remember Square/Enix saying something to the likes of wanting to make an FF game that appealed to gamers that played FPSes... I still have no idea what the **** they were talking about. I guess the initial linear structure of the game? I don't know. It was stupid... it made the game bad.

FF13 is one of the worst entries of the series.

The whole series must suck then because FF13 is just as good as the rest so far

Seriously, the atmosphere is oppressive as hell. Like FF7 post meteor summoning levels of oppressive. It's so awesome.

I agree the games pacing is a little off, especially with introducing new mechanics (the entire Hanging Edge section is a slog gameplay wise), but the combat starts to shine once you unlock the paradigm and level up systems. And shitty characters? Are we playing the same game? The way they intertwined, and the constantly shifting of focus between them is incredible. Easily as good, if not better, than the way FF9 did it. And they're all likeable and interesting, yes even Hope despite how frustrating he can be at times. I'm a little bias though since I think he's cute as hell lol

FFXIII was the end of FF. It started with XII, but at least I could stand that game...

I enjoyed the combat, but they wasted it on too many braindead filler fights. It really shined during some of the boss battles - certainly more so than the complete garbage that was FF15's combat.

The music was also good, and it looked great.

Still...the characters were unbearably awful and the story was shite. That took a lot of shine out of the game.

It was one of the biggest letdowns in gaming for me. I didn’t like the structure of the first 20-25 hours, I hated the combat, the story felt contrived, and the characters were just ok.

But hey, that’s just my opinion and I’m glad you liked it.

^That's the key, there. "Currently on chapter 4." Please update us when you've been doing nothing but battling and watching cutscenes 30-40 hours from that point.

That said, if you like the game, good on you. While it personally made me want to gouge my eyes out, it was very clearly made with a lot of care and attention to detail, so logic would dictate it was made with somebody in mind. Perhaps you are in that subset of gamers.

It was the first FF I tried and gave up after literally 5 mins I got control to never to touch any FF game ever again.

@pc_rocks: FFXIII is the worst possible introduction to the FF series. Have you tried any of the earlier FF games?

Nope. That ATB in FF13 was enough to put me off.

Haven't touched the FF games beyond 7/8 and not sure where to start really.

Have to try very, very fucking hard to be worse than 8.

@pc_rocks:

Well it's understandable man. I was a series fan from nearly the beginning and no matter how much the games would change over the years, I usually found something to like. Even appreciated the drastic changes at times. But FFXIII was the one to sour me on the series. I think there were some good ideas there, but the execution was just... wat.

Then again, if you disliked it that early on, you might not find anything to like about the other games either. A lot of FF games have a slow start.

The games issues (for those who consider them issues) magnify over the course of the game. It wasn't the strongest opening, but I considered it a decent enough start. The problems really begin to sink in mid-game and by the final stretch it's just wtf why did I play this. You just keep waiting for things to open up and get better like a lot of the previous games do, but that payoff never happens. You get a brief glimpse of how things could be, before being funneled into the final hallway.

It's a good game, but to be honest the only outstanding feature i can think about it is that it has beautiful graphics; it has some good music but most songs are pretty forgettable, the world and story starts interesting but by the time all the cast appears, both became nonsensical and speaking of cast definitely the worst i have seen in any numbered Final Fantasy game.

@adsparky:

Yeah it was definitely a looker. The creature design and especially some of the environments were like damn. Felt the character designs were mostly shit, but even then the actual models looked technically great for the time and probably still hold up well.