Final Fantasy XIII - Afterthoughts
Final Fantasy XIII, which apparently holds the title of "most polarizing Final Fantasy game" now, wrenching the title from whichever game held it previously. (My guess would be VIII. If not that, XII.) I'll start out by saying this is a ridiculously pretty game. The environments look great, especially the Sunleth Waterscape, Yaschas Massif, and Archylte Steppe. The soundtrack is also very good. Square Enix really outdid themselves on those. I have a lot more to say about the narrative than the gameplay, so I think I'll start with gameplay first.
Overall, I don't mind the battle system at all. Auto-battle, IMO, isn't all that bad because it's not perfect. It doesn't always make the best choices, especially when it comes to buffing and healing, but it usually picks decent enough ones. Even with Auto-Battle, I find XIII's battle system a lot better than XII's. (Which is the most similar to XIII's, and also happens to be, in my opinion, the worst battle system in the series.)
Where the XIII system fails though, is in the paradigms. The biggest flaw in it is that you cannot tweak your party's AI. Each paradigm comes with a set AI behavior for your allies and it's not always the best. For example, if you have more than one Commando in the party, they will always attack different targets unless there's only one target. This is not a good thing because the number one way enemies in FFXIII try to kill you is by ganging up on one party member. And you're boned if it's the party leader because FFXIII has We Cannot Go On Without You, which is a gameplay mechanic I wish would go away forever in JRPGs. Lightning, you know Raise why can't you bring me back up? This is probably the biggest area where XII shines over XIII - it's not over until everyone is dead and if your party leader falls, someone else takes over. XII also has the tweakable AI behaviors. (Which turn out to be too good and the only way you'll ever die is if you run into something that heavily outguns you) The key to winning fights in FFXIII is effective crowd control. Figure out what needs to die first, which will change depending on what you're fighting. In some cases, the strongest enemy should die first. In others, it should be the little guys because the big guy is much easily handled if he doesn't have minions to pick you off. Still others could be enemies that buff or debuff. So if I have more than one Commando in the party, it's because what I'm fighting dies faster when you punch it. I do not want you to attack separate targets.
EDIT: OH AND ONE MORE THING I FORGOT. Targeting your allies for healing/buffs is VERY VERY ANNOYING because while there's a list to choose from, it's kind of just there for show. When you first choose your spells, either manually or with auto-battle, the game will highlight what it thinks is the best target. Which is very often not the best target. If you push up and down, the game will target who's in that direction relative to where that character's standing, and with people moving around in battle constantly, it's annoying as hell when the cursor points at Lightning then at Snow then back to Lightning when the one I want to target is Hope. You have to use left and right for less fuckwittery and even then it's still awkward and jumps around. This is a huge problem because FFXIII battles are real time, you need to get your buffs and healing on someone RIGHT NOW and not three seconds later when they're dead. Targeting enemies works the same, but it's less of a problem since what you're going to do is just gang up on one guy until it's dead then move on to the next one.
FFXIII heavily favors offensive playstyles with the grading system and with many enemies that can and will overpower you unless you overpower them first. You're not going to kill many things sometime this year if you don't stagger them first. (Which is probably why everyone except Fang has Ravager as a primary role. Snow is pretty subpar at being a Ravager though even though it's one of his primaries.) If you have the choice of healing your half health party or staggering the boss, go for the stagger. That doesn't mean that there's no room for defense - most enemies are much more easily handled if you can get your protects, shells, and bar- skills up. It's especially effective against big groups that will otherwise kill you before you can kill them and reduce the amount of time you need to heal. A sentinel will make many fights a lot easier. Generally though, you want things to die so you can get some breathing room. When health gets low, you want to heal as fast as possible so you can go back on the offense, so usually the efficient thing to do is have one main defensive/healing paradigm (Combat Clinic, Medic/Medic/Sentinel is my personal favorite because of the Sentinel attracting attention and providing the defense boost and you never need three medics ever) and switch to it for a few seconds while your healers heal and then go back to your offensive paradigms. Balanced paradigms that don't particularly favor offense or defense are mostly used for bosses that just hit hard period so you can actually get hits in without getting murdered.
AI aside, my other big gripe is the party limit. Three party members sometimes just isn't enough, especially when you consider the restrictions on roles and how many paradigms you can have. (NOT ENOUGH) A lot of the time you have to consider what you want to sacrifice to fit in someone who can use the skills you need to get through a boss. Since my party was often without a Saboteur, boss fights sometimes dragged on like hell. And also the number one thing I hate: take too long on a boss, and you automatically get hit with the Doom status, which means that battles effectively have a hidden time limit on them. Why does this feature even exist? If I'm underprepared for the fight, but am slowly making progress, why punish me for that? The battle is already hard enough because I have low stats/bad equipment/bad paradigms/etc. I was also pretty disappointed with Eidolons, because summoning is so limited due to the fact you only have access to one during the battle, and it might be the wrong one for it and they're very hard to use effectively. They're awesome storyline wise, though. The Crystarium reminds me of the Sphere Grid, except less dumb because you don't eventually end up with carbon copy party members like you do in X and to a lesser extent, XII.
Speaking of characters, Final Fantasy XIII easily has my favorite cast out of all the FF games. If there's anything FFXIII got right, it's the characters and the interaction they have. There's some cutscenes in the game that are optional, don't advance the plot, or even have much of a point to them and I like them because they showcase the relationships between the characters very well. Lightning is the "official" main character of the game, but she isn't in the spotlight significantly more than the rest of the party. Even when you finally have a full party and can choose the members and who's leader, Lightning only is the party's leader in the sense that she's the boldest and most headstrong, so she naturally takes the helm in combat and action situations. When things are more peaceful, other characters take over. Unlike most other FF games, the story doesn't revolve around a central character, but rather the party as a whole. One major failing of past FFs is that one character ends up stealing the spotlight, a couple others that are closest to that character take on supporting roles, and everyone else in the party end up just being tagalongs who are just there once their one arc is done. FFXIII avoids this pitfall by giving everyone roughly equal amounts of attention and their own various motivations to keep them going in the story. There isn't a sense that one character is significantly more important than the rest and that they're a cohesive group where everyone has something to contribute to the party's dynamic and how they help each other grow. I got the most enjoyment out of the game just watching everyone interact. I could probably write entire essays on the two man parties (Lightning-Hope and Sazh-Vanille) of the game. Fang said it best: the party eventually became a family and I like to think that closeness continued after the game.
It's for this reason I'm pretty disappointed that the individual soundbytes go away after you get a full party. Without these, the party seems less real when you can't hear the worry in Lightning's voice when she heals Hope or Vanille trying to keep Sazh's spirits up during battle.
Now, the plot. I think FFXIII had a good idea of a plot, it was just executed kind of badly. It reveals what the plot really is a bit too late, and while I was perfectly fine with it, I know others would have lost interest in the story long ago because it seemed like there isn't a story until Chapter 8 or so. FFXIII relies heavily on its character interaction to keep the player interested and while it gripped me, I know it didn't grip others, especially when it's easy to hate pretty much everyone at first, as the first half is when everyone's worst traits are on full display. It's worth it though, to sit through Snow's obnoxiousness, Hope's blind rage, and Lightning's coldhearted indifference to her companions, because you'll eventually get to see them face these flaws, see the reasons for them, and watch them work through them. FFXIII's story really isn't about the Fal'cie plot and why Barthandalus won't just SHUT UP GO AWAY GAWD, it's about how what happened forced each party member to mature. The story is about how they learned to not hate each other, realize the problem was with themselves and not everyone else, and find the strength to go on. FFXIII is an extremely character driven story, and for that, I can forgive the kind of weak and not-very-well executed plot.
Which brings me to the dreaded l word: the linearity. Probably because I'm more interested in the plot when I first play a game and do sidequests and optional stuff later, linearity has never bothered me in video games. It is true that FFXIII is one of the most linear JRPGs I have ever played. But really, most JRPGs are linear as hell, sure you can go explore to this or that place, but you can't actually do anything there until the game says you can, blocking you with either murderbeasts or event triggers. XIII just doesn't give you the illusion of freedom like other games do. Everyone is familiar with linearity making sense in the plot, etc. etc. so I won't mention that. The one thing that puzzles me though, is recently I've seen people saying that in X (the most linear FF after XIII) "at least lets you backtrack to the previous area." This confuses me because...why? Why is this even a noteworthy point? There are only two reasons to backtrack in X before the last stretch of the game when you get an airship: to get missed treasure chests and to hit up a shop. X is just as linear as XIII, the fact that you can backtrack to an area that has literally nothing for you to do in it doesn't mean anything. What are you going to do, run around a town for an hour? Even things like the lightning dodging minigame aren't good reasons because you can't even use the noteworthy prizes for them until endgame anyway and it's not worth running back to the Thunder Plains from, say, the Calm Lands just to do that.
In summary, I really liked FFXIII, though I'm happy enough to admit that it had its share of annoyances. I could do without the battle problems and the weak plot and the fact that I can't revisit Cocoon areas let me go back to the Sunleth Waterscape omg, but I would definitely play it again just to watch the characters become a family all over again.
Nothing will ever convince me that Hope didn't have a puppy crush on Lightning.
This entry was originally posted at http://brightwing.dreamwidth.org/1210.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Overall, I don't mind the battle system at all. Auto-battle, IMO, isn't all that bad because it's not perfect. It doesn't always make the best choices, especially when it comes to buffing and healing, but it usually picks decent enough ones. Even with Auto-Battle, I find XIII's battle system a lot better than XII's. (Which is the most similar to XIII's, and also happens to be, in my opinion, the worst battle system in the series.)
Where the XIII system fails though, is in the paradigms. The biggest flaw in it is that you cannot tweak your party's AI. Each paradigm comes with a set AI behavior for your allies and it's not always the best. For example, if you have more than one Commando in the party, they will always attack different targets unless there's only one target. This is not a good thing because the number one way enemies in FFXIII try to kill you is by ganging up on one party member. And you're boned if it's the party leader because FFXIII has We Cannot Go On Without You, which is a gameplay mechanic I wish would go away forever in JRPGs. Lightning, you know Raise why can't you bring me back up? This is probably the biggest area where XII shines over XIII - it's not over until everyone is dead and if your party leader falls, someone else takes over. XII also has the tweakable AI behaviors. (Which turn out to be too good and the only way you'll ever die is if you run into something that heavily outguns you) The key to winning fights in FFXIII is effective crowd control. Figure out what needs to die first, which will change depending on what you're fighting. In some cases, the strongest enemy should die first. In others, it should be the little guys because the big guy is much easily handled if he doesn't have minions to pick you off. Still others could be enemies that buff or debuff. So if I have more than one Commando in the party, it's because what I'm fighting dies faster when you punch it. I do not want you to attack separate targets.
EDIT: OH AND ONE MORE THING I FORGOT. Targeting your allies for healing/buffs is VERY VERY ANNOYING because while there's a list to choose from, it's kind of just there for show. When you first choose your spells, either manually or with auto-battle, the game will highlight what it thinks is the best target. Which is very often not the best target. If you push up and down, the game will target who's in that direction relative to where that character's standing, and with people moving around in battle constantly, it's annoying as hell when the cursor points at Lightning then at Snow then back to Lightning when the one I want to target is Hope. You have to use left and right for less fuckwittery and even then it's still awkward and jumps around. This is a huge problem because FFXIII battles are real time, you need to get your buffs and healing on someone RIGHT NOW and not three seconds later when they're dead. Targeting enemies works the same, but it's less of a problem since what you're going to do is just gang up on one guy until it's dead then move on to the next one.
FFXIII heavily favors offensive playstyles with the grading system and with many enemies that can and will overpower you unless you overpower them first. You're not going to kill many things sometime this year if you don't stagger them first. (Which is probably why everyone except Fang has Ravager as a primary role. Snow is pretty subpar at being a Ravager though even though it's one of his primaries.) If you have the choice of healing your half health party or staggering the boss, go for the stagger. That doesn't mean that there's no room for defense - most enemies are much more easily handled if you can get your protects, shells, and bar- skills up. It's especially effective against big groups that will otherwise kill you before you can kill them and reduce the amount of time you need to heal. A sentinel will make many fights a lot easier. Generally though, you want things to die so you can get some breathing room. When health gets low, you want to heal as fast as possible so you can go back on the offense, so usually the efficient thing to do is have one main defensive/healing paradigm (Combat Clinic, Medic/Medic/Sentinel is my personal favorite because of the Sentinel attracting attention and providing the defense boost and you never need three medics ever) and switch to it for a few seconds while your healers heal and then go back to your offensive paradigms. Balanced paradigms that don't particularly favor offense or defense are mostly used for bosses that just hit hard period so you can actually get hits in without getting murdered.
AI aside, my other big gripe is the party limit. Three party members sometimes just isn't enough, especially when you consider the restrictions on roles and how many paradigms you can have. (NOT ENOUGH) A lot of the time you have to consider what you want to sacrifice to fit in someone who can use the skills you need to get through a boss. Since my party was often without a Saboteur, boss fights sometimes dragged on like hell. And also the number one thing I hate: take too long on a boss, and you automatically get hit with the Doom status, which means that battles effectively have a hidden time limit on them. Why does this feature even exist? If I'm underprepared for the fight, but am slowly making progress, why punish me for that? The battle is already hard enough because I have low stats/bad equipment/bad paradigms/etc. I was also pretty disappointed with Eidolons, because summoning is so limited due to the fact you only have access to one during the battle, and it might be the wrong one for it and they're very hard to use effectively. They're awesome storyline wise, though. The Crystarium reminds me of the Sphere Grid, except less dumb because you don't eventually end up with carbon copy party members like you do in X and to a lesser extent, XII.
Speaking of characters, Final Fantasy XIII easily has my favorite cast out of all the FF games. If there's anything FFXIII got right, it's the characters and the interaction they have. There's some cutscenes in the game that are optional, don't advance the plot, or even have much of a point to them and I like them because they showcase the relationships between the characters very well. Lightning is the "official" main character of the game, but she isn't in the spotlight significantly more than the rest of the party. Even when you finally have a full party and can choose the members and who's leader, Lightning only is the party's leader in the sense that she's the boldest and most headstrong, so she naturally takes the helm in combat and action situations. When things are more peaceful, other characters take over. Unlike most other FF games, the story doesn't revolve around a central character, but rather the party as a whole. One major failing of past FFs is that one character ends up stealing the spotlight, a couple others that are closest to that character take on supporting roles, and everyone else in the party end up just being tagalongs who are just there once their one arc is done. FFXIII avoids this pitfall by giving everyone roughly equal amounts of attention and their own various motivations to keep them going in the story. There isn't a sense that one character is significantly more important than the rest and that they're a cohesive group where everyone has something to contribute to the party's dynamic and how they help each other grow. I got the most enjoyment out of the game just watching everyone interact. I could probably write entire essays on the two man parties (Lightning-Hope and Sazh-Vanille) of the game. Fang said it best: the party eventually became a family and I like to think that closeness continued after the game.
It's for this reason I'm pretty disappointed that the individual soundbytes go away after you get a full party. Without these, the party seems less real when you can't hear the worry in Lightning's voice when she heals Hope or Vanille trying to keep Sazh's spirits up during battle.
Now, the plot. I think FFXIII had a good idea of a plot, it was just executed kind of badly. It reveals what the plot really is a bit too late, and while I was perfectly fine with it, I know others would have lost interest in the story long ago because it seemed like there isn't a story until Chapter 8 or so. FFXIII relies heavily on its character interaction to keep the player interested and while it gripped me, I know it didn't grip others, especially when it's easy to hate pretty much everyone at first, as the first half is when everyone's worst traits are on full display. It's worth it though, to sit through Snow's obnoxiousness, Hope's blind rage, and Lightning's coldhearted indifference to her companions, because you'll eventually get to see them face these flaws, see the reasons for them, and watch them work through them. FFXIII's story really isn't about the Fal'cie plot and why Barthandalus won't just SHUT UP GO AWAY GAWD, it's about how what happened forced each party member to mature. The story is about how they learned to not hate each other, realize the problem was with themselves and not everyone else, and find the strength to go on. FFXIII is an extremely character driven story, and for that, I can forgive the kind of weak and not-very-well executed plot.
Which brings me to the dreaded l word: the linearity. Probably because I'm more interested in the plot when I first play a game and do sidequests and optional stuff later, linearity has never bothered me in video games. It is true that FFXIII is one of the most linear JRPGs I have ever played. But really, most JRPGs are linear as hell, sure you can go explore to this or that place, but you can't actually do anything there until the game says you can, blocking you with either murderbeasts or event triggers. XIII just doesn't give you the illusion of freedom like other games do. Everyone is familiar with linearity making sense in the plot, etc. etc. so I won't mention that. The one thing that puzzles me though, is recently I've seen people saying that in X (the most linear FF after XIII) "at least lets you backtrack to the previous area." This confuses me because...why? Why is this even a noteworthy point? There are only two reasons to backtrack in X before the last stretch of the game when you get an airship: to get missed treasure chests and to hit up a shop. X is just as linear as XIII, the fact that you can backtrack to an area that has literally nothing for you to do in it doesn't mean anything. What are you going to do, run around a town for an hour? Even things like the lightning dodging minigame aren't good reasons because you can't even use the noteworthy prizes for them until endgame anyway and it's not worth running back to the Thunder Plains from, say, the Calm Lands just to do that.
In summary, I really liked FFXIII, though I'm happy enough to admit that it had its share of annoyances. I could do without the battle problems and the weak plot and the fact that I can't revisit Cocoon areas let me go back to the Sunleth Waterscape omg, but I would definitely play it again just to watch the characters become a family all over again.
Nothing will ever convince me that Hope didn't have a puppy crush on Lightning.
This entry was originally posted at http://brightwing.dreamwidth.org/1210.html. Please comment there using OpenID.