Final Fantasy XIII is a pretty controversial JRPG. And it's definitely not perfect. There are things that it does right and there are things that it does wrong. JRPGs can learn from both the negatives and the positives of FFXIII.
Utilitarian design is smart for story focused JRPGs. In FFXIII, a normal forest is the staging for the character development of two major characters and it sets the stage for the next portion in the plot. Normally in a JRPG, areas like the Gapra Whitewood are merely filler with little to no contribution or relevance to the story (aside from maybe being interesting scenarios the characters encounter). By including cutscenes interspersed throughout the forest, it was able to make a meaningful contribution to the story. JRPGs can benefit from making sure all of the areas in the game are purposeful or meaningful.
Utilitarian does not mean bare-bones game design. In the very same forest, Lightning mentions that they should "follow the light to prevent from getting lost," but there is only one possible path. If the area were fleshed out it would be far more intersting and offer even more than the utilitarian design gives it. Being a story focused JRPG isn't an excuse for poor map design.
Short cutscenes can pack a punch.FFXIII utilizes a lot of very short cutscenes instead of very long cutscenes in order to tell it's story, preventing the overdrawn cutscenes present in games like MGS4.
But crafting a story entirely composed of short cutscenes isn't advisable. FFXIII seems to be designed with the notion that no cutscene int he game can exceed 3 minutes and there can only be less than 20% of the game time composed of cutscenes. The problem is that the story in FFXIII just needed more. There are going times when scenes just need to be longer, and a game just needs to take it's time or it'll end up rushed and it won't allow the story to properly develop, scenes to flow properly, and overall reduce the strength of the plot in the game. JRPGS shouldn't be afraid to slowly build up scenes.
Having game elements for the sake of having game elements is not good game design. FFXIII does away with having the player heal using MP, forcing the player to heal themselves after battle, or buy armor. In JRPGs where you have to buy armor at frequent intervals, enemies are balanced to make up for that armor. So what is the purpose of the armor? To fight the more difficult enemies. Why are there more difficult enemies? For the sake of including armor. It's just there for the sake of being there and isn't meaningful. By focusing on accessories that focus on different resistances (for example 20% physical resistance or 25% lightning resistance), FFXIII is able to take the concept of "armor" and turn it's on it's head, making it something meaningful that allows for player customization and even strategy for locations that might have lots of thunder based enemies and the like.
Buying potions is not a challenge.Likewise, forcing the player to heal themselves and resort to things like potions isn't a "challenge" it's just a mechanism that forces the player to grind in order to have the money in order to afford the potions. Final Fantasy is not Resident Evil. You cannot just "play better" and not take damage; You're going to take damage no matter what and in a system linked to gil based or MP based healing, it's just there for the sake of being there and bogs down gameplay. The trend that has arisen from this is that the actual gameplay is much less challenging to make up for the fact that the player is running on limited resources. FFXIII is able to create a greater challenge only because it does away with these constricting elements that really make no sense in the context of the gameplay. More JRPGS need to isolate the "challenge" to individual battles, rather than trying to provide a false sense of challenge through "micromanagement."
Hire translators who translate. One of the problems with FFXIII is that many of it's lines are not translations of the original Japanese. This means that FFXIII's English script often has it's own unique dialogue, which is both good and bad. In some scenes it adds "character." In others it creates very bad dialogue. When instead of translating the meaning behind the original line, you just replace it with whatever you feel the characters are saying, you are denying the writers artistic vision that you may or may not fully understand. Characters can become confused and the overall story of the game can suffer. It's best for translators to just translate what they're writing, instead of just replacing the story with what they feel should be said.
Log in to comment