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Asterite34 posted:10 and 13 are both linear, but in 10 you have a mission you're on, a narrative you're following, everyone understands their goals and you don't mind going in a straight line because it's just the shortest distance to your ultimate destination. In 13 nobody knows what the gently caress they're supposed to be doing or what their mission is, and they're just going down the hallway because it's the only way the game lets them go and what else are you gonna do, play something else? I mean there are two groups while the characters are meaningfully split up. Lightning and Hope are heading towards the center of Cocoon so they can kill the Fal'cie there and complete their focus, Vanille and Sazh are running as far away from that exact location as they can because they don't want to do that. Of the two only the latter don't really know what they're doing besides running away.
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Jul 5, 2022 02:59
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13's narrative fails it every single opportunity it can, which is why I will accept a remake that just does the story over again from scratch and makes a handful of small mechanical changes
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Jul 5, 2022 02:59
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13 would be a better game if it had a different story, characters, setting, and combat.
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Jul 5, 2022 03:04
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I think FFXIII was also hurt just by having a whole lot of Proper Nouns that are left opaque for majority of the game. It's almost the World of Warcraft problem in that you spend 90% of the time trying to figure out what is going on and why you should care and why it feels like you're missing something. I spent majority of my time in FFXIII thinking "was there a cutscene I skipped or something?" I always felt like there was a 5-10 minute portion of the game that gave any information/context to what was happening. It felt like the characters knew what was going on and what was happening, but they talked around it in a way that kept the player in the dark. I'm getting angry again.
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Jul 5, 2022 03:05
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Barudak posted:13's narrative fails it every single opportunity it can, which is why I will accept a remake that just does the story over again from scratch and makes a handful of small mechanical changes The premise is fine: group of people think they're defying fate when in reality they're lead around by the nose by pope guy. It just completely fails to execute because it lacks the illusion of choice needed to build that narrative and stick the reveal.
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Jul 5, 2022 03:07
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HD DAD posted:13 would be a better game if it had a different story, characters, setting, and combat. Disagree 100% on the last two. Its a good and interesting setting and the best combat in the series, its just chained to thankfully 100% skippable garbage
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Jul 5, 2022 03:07
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Mordiceius posted:I think FFXIII was also hurt just by having a whole lot of Proper Nouns that are left opaque for majority of the game. It's almost the World of Warcraft problem in that you spend 90% of the time trying to figure out what is going on and why you should care and why it feels like you're missing something. This conversation has happened over and over again and it is factually straight-up untrue. They explain exactly what the Proper Nouns during the opening areas of the game. Sazh literally explains everything and I checked and he even does that in the English version. I feel like people mistake "I was bored and not paying attention" for "The game didn't say something." And "I was too bored to take in details" is a reasonable criticism but not "The game didn't explain things it actually explains onscreen." This is the frustrating thing about discussing FF13's flaws, a lot of it is couched in "I didn't enjoy the game so I must exaggerate its flaws until people are repeating things because everyone is saying them and not because they actually happened in the game. A lot of the discussion feels like old FF7 discussion where people discuss the game in their minds and not the game that actually exists. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Jul 5, 2022 |
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Jul 5, 2022 03:08
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Hey yeah wasn’t 15 originally going to feature a bland blonde skinny lady different from the bland blonde skinny lady that actually is in the game?
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Jul 5, 2022 03:08
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it’s fine that the game is linear it’s just that there’s nothing to break up the pacing at all and a bunch of chapters are padded to hell with copy/pasted areas and encounters
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Jul 5, 2022 03:09
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Calaveron posted:Hey yeah wasn’t 15 originally going to feature a bland blonde skinny lady different from the bland blonde skinny lady that actually is in the game? Yes, they had to change her name because she was such a different character (who died 5 minutes after you meet her.) There's no meaningful difference between the characters except the FFXIIIV one was stated to have a bigger role, but a bigger role in a game that doesn't exist isn't much different from a smaller role in a game that does.
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Jul 5, 2022 03:12
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stella had more cool moments in the short teaser trailers for a game that was never made than Luna had in the entire FFXV Extended Universe lol
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Jul 5, 2022 03:19
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What a bizarre choice
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Jul 5, 2022 03:19
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FFXIII would be improved if Tuff Mom took Lightning's place.
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Jul 5, 2022 03:19
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Leal posted:FFXIII would be improved if Tuff Mom took Hope's place.
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Jul 5, 2022 03:20
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Asterite34 posted:10 and 13 are both linear, but in 10 you have a mission you're on, a narrative you're following, everyone understands their goals and you don't mind going in a straight line because it's just the shortest distance to your ultimate destination. In 13 nobody knows what the gently caress they're supposed to be doing or what their mission is, and they're just going down the hallway because it's the only way the game lets them go and what else are you gonna do, play something else? FF10 was perfect, while it's a very linear game, the world feels completely believable. it's fleshed out, visually consistent, and feels alive. There is tons of lore and history presented to the player through NPCs talking to you, cutscenes, and visually as you explore. All of the characters develop and grow as well, even the villians, and some side NPCs grow alongside you. It's such a beautiful gameworld.
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Jul 5, 2022 03:24
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Leal posted:FFXIII would be improved if Tuff Mom took Lightning's place. Angus posted:FFXIII would be improved if Tuff Mom took Hope's place. You are both correct.
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Jul 5, 2022 03:28
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Hell, I'm in an effortpost mood so I'll go out. Final Fantasy 13 isn't really a game with a flawed concept, characters or plot. The core concept is actually incredibly strong. "We are a group of more or less random people who have been given an impossible task we must complete or die." That's a nice mythological concept that works just fine. That's aces for a JRPG and you can describe a good chunk of JRPGs as following a more or less similar concept. The cast have strong personalities and motivations and tend to be fairly proactive in what they are doing, with the two 'weakest' ones being Sazh and Vanille, the former who is defined as just a dad who wants to save his doomed son and the latter is responsible for everything terrible that happened. Likewise the cosmology within FF13 itself not counting the sequels is entirely reasonable and well executed and the core twist of the game actually is genuinely a neat way to handle the concept. Humanity exists in a floating sphere above a deadly world protected and guided by robot gods. However the robot gods loving hate being robots and are unable to go against their programming even to self-terminate. So the major conflict is that everyone in the game is some form of slave and trying to find a way to get around that. The idea of an entire race of gods who are fettered to serve humanity but not willingly is a really neat idea as is the idea that they have to effectively try to set up loopholes in their own rules to find a way to escape that. The big problem with FF13 isn't that the idea or characters are flawed. Almost every plot beat and every character point is pretty reasonably written and acted on. Even the frustrating things like "Cid comes back to life" could have been handled better if they actually worked through it because painting Cid as this tragic figure who isn't allowed any rest even in death and has to betray everyone around him until the gods actually let him die is perfectly neat as a villain concept. If you write out FF13's plot and character beats on paper they look fine. Even the ending descending into "the power of friendship and anime" is eh but the power of friendship and anime is 9 out of 10 JRPG endings. FF13's flaws are more difficult to pin down because on paper it does everything right to be a fine JRPG, and there are people who it works that way for. You can't just say "DO X" to fix something because there isn't really a core problem that FF13 has the way certain other games do. Even the linearity isn't necessarily a flaw as FFX shows that you can absolutely make a game that is literally a straight line and do it well enough people don't mind. FF13 would probably feel less bad if you could just point at something and go "that is the mistake!!" which it really isn't. You could hand everything FF13 has to someone and have them make an excellent game. The pieces just aren't put together right in the one that exists.
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Jul 5, 2022 03:31
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⬆️ This is a really good post. ⬆️ I think, if say, hbomberguy was to make a video about what's wrong with FFXIII, it'd have to be just as long as the DXHR one, because the problems are so granular and interdependent that it would just take that long to tease the threads out. NikkolasKing posted:This, petty much. Linearity has never been the problem. FFXIII cares about nothing - not its world, nots its plot, nothing - except the six playable characters. The main villain has one of the best scenes in the game but otherwise it's the main party's show to the detriment of literally any other character. Nobody matters except them and it sucks. Yeah, a big part of my problem with FFXIII is that I want to explore more of the world, but I can't. Also, are you talking about the Barthandelus reveal? ImpAtom posted:I feel like people mistake "I was bored and not paying attention" for "The game didn't say something." And "I was too bored to take in details" is a reasonable criticism but not "The game didn't explain things it actually explains onscreen." Thank you for putting it so succinctly. Augus posted:it’s fine that the game is linear it’s just that there’s nothing to break up the pacing at all and a bunch of chapters are padded to hell with copy/pasted areas and encounters I disagree with this. One of the things FFXIII did very well - and was able to do very well because of its design - is its encounter design. Each encounter in an area raises the stakes a little more. I said come in! posted:FF10 was perfect, while it's a very linear game, the world feels completely believable. it's fleshed out, visually consistent, and feels alive. There is tons of lore and history presented to the player through NPCs talking to you, cutscenes, and visually as you explore. All of the characters develop and grow as well, even the villians, and some side NPCs grow alongside you. It's such a beautiful gameworld. This is a really good summary of FFXs strengths compared to XIIIs. Agents are GO! fucked around with this message at 03:39 on Jul 5, 2022 |
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Jul 5, 2022 03:34
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Agents are GO! posted:This is a really good summary of FFXs strengths compared to XIIIs. Thank you! I love Final Fantasy X a lot. It was my first PlayStation 2 game, and it's my favorite Final Fantasy. Tidus is my son too, and I don't ignore him.
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Jul 5, 2022 03:35
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Agents are GO! posted:Yeah, a big part of my problem with FFXIII is that I want to explore more of the world, but I can't. Yes. https://youtu.be/H3UT8g3jQG0?t=99 Everything about it is so good. The voice-actor, the music, the shot of our heroes' faces, the transition into battle... It's been built up and built up the power of the fal'Cie and now we're thrust into battle with one. He is an interesting villain in concept, too. The whole idea is that the fal'Cie are not as all powerful as they seem. All this guy wants to do is die, as do all of his brethren. They've been trapped for ages and ages, prisoners in god-shaped shells to use a term from SMTIV Apocalypse. Of course none of this is ever properly explained or explored.
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Jul 5, 2022 03:57
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ff13's main issue is being a big budget 7th gen game
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Jul 5, 2022 04:38
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Motto posted:ff13's main issue is being a big budget 7th gen game 
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Jul 5, 2022 04:54
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Something I always thought was really weird about FF13 was that Lightning’s legs are, like, extremely skinny. It was very off putting to me, but I otherwise really liked her character design.
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Jul 5, 2022 05:14
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Mordiceius posted:I think FFXIII was also hurt just by having a whole lot of Proper Nouns that are left opaque for majority of the game There are 3 fantasy terms that aren't generic FF poo poo and they're explained to you in annoying painstaking detail over and over and over from minute one. PLease my god read any book with at least 3 proper nouns in it this won't be shocking to you. The first time you see Cie'th in Anima they go over that they're failed minions of the Fal'cie Gods. Every time you bump into them post branding everyone's like "We have to fufill our jobs as L'cie otherwise we'll become shambling monsters like those guys" over and over and over. Half the loving hunts in the game are given to you by the remains of one of them or is fighting one them. You can't escape the game explaining this poo poo over and over. I beg you just actually read words because they keep making these games repeat themselves more and more and you still miss it. ZenMasterBullshit fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Jul 5, 2022 |
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Jul 5, 2022 05:32
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:There are 3 fantasy terms that aren't generic FF poo poo and they're explained to you in annoying painstaking detail over and over and over from minute one. PLease my god read any book with at least 3 proper nouns in it this won't be shocking to you. This isn't a book though. You have to balance being dropped into Proper Noun territory while also dealing with an extremely diffrenet battle system from any other FF to date. So you gotta remember what Sanctum, Guardian Corps, PSICOM, Cocoon, fal'Cie, l'Cie, Pulse, Vestige, etc. all mean while also retaining Paradigm Shifts, what each role does, stagger, and so-on. All on top of having three separate little groups of characters, each doing their own thing. It's a hectic, cluttered mess unlike any other in the franchise.
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Jul 5, 2022 05:38
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NikkolasKing posted:This isn't a book though. You have to balance being dropped into Proper Noun territory while also dealing with an extremely diffrenet battle system from any other FF to date. That still isn't a massive amount of information and the game in tutorial and dialogue and incidental chatter goes over it over and over. Like I said, you learn all this poo poo at the start of the game, not even counting the in game codex, through the obnoxiously slowly paced prologue. These are not terms 'left opaque for majority of the game' they're poo poo the game hits you over the head with from minute one both directly explaining what they are and then showing htem in the context of the world so you can put 2 and 2 together. Half the poo poo you've listed are loving Location Names, one is a military you can figure out because you're fighting dudes named poo poo like PSCICOM OFFICER in military tech and the other three are mythological terms the game goes out of its way to explain constantly. This isn't difficult. If you can get a hold of SHIN-RA, AVALANCHE, Materia Lifestream Mako SOLDIER, 1ST-CLASS, Sephiroth MIdgar you can figure this poo poo out. ZenMasterBullshit fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Jul 5, 2022 |
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Jul 5, 2022 05:40
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I feel like this is a great assessment of it and helps me rethink my feelings on the game. ImpAtom posted:I feel like people mistake "I was bored and not paying attention" for "The game didn't say something." And "I was too bored to take in details" is a reasonable criticism but not "The game didn't explain things it actually explains onscreen." I also blame not having played the game in a decade and just going from what I remember. Maybe I'm just bad at articulating it so I keep pinning it on the story/writing, but I feel like for everything in the game, I just wanted more. I feel like there are the bones of something interesting but it is just far far too lean in places. We've all been discussing the similarities between X and XIII in structure and I think the thing that X did well was just giving you time to hang out and just inhabit the space. It's been a decade since I played FFXIII but I never really remember just having time that was "chill." FFX is linear, but when you're in Besaid, in Kilika, in Bevelle, etc, you're given time to just hang out. Whereas, all I remember from FFXIII was the characters always being on the move. The ticking clock aspect of "complete this task or die in <x> amount of time" is cool, but it by its nature changes the pacing of the game. You can't have a Gold Saucer in FFXIII because the characters must constantly be moving.
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Jul 5, 2022 05:43
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I'm still not sure why or how Lightning was able to ask that door to open. I'm positive it's never explained in a cutscene, maybe the prequel novel or the datalog explains it but not the actual game. Also loudly shouting PREEMPTIVE STRIKE when you catch an enemy unawares. The beginning of XIII is such trash.
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Jul 5, 2022 05:48
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:in game codex I'm also literally never going to open an in-game codex/encyclopedia for any game ever.
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Jul 5, 2022 05:50
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NikkolasKing posted:I'm still not sure why or how Lightning was able to ask that door to open. I'm positive it's never explained in a cutscene, maybe the prequel novel or the datalog explains it but not the actual game. the only possible interpretation i've ever managed to piece together is that it was just going to open at that moment anyway and her apologizing to it had no effect and was just a coincidence even that paints her as completely insane though because this wasn't a spur of the moment, desperate "oh god please just open" like a very stressed out normal person might say, she specifically asks sazh to cover his ears. it was planned out at least 30 seconds in advance and she clearly thought it was going to actually work.
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Jul 5, 2022 05:56
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It's almost unfair to compare XIII to X. Like, X isn't my favorite in the series or anything, but I have to give it big credit for being one of the most clearly focused, fleshed out, well-realized stories and worlds in the series. Your mission is clear the whole time; everyone's motivations seem pretty clear the whole time. Everyone is more or less on the same page. And even though your path is linear, you are constantly hitting inhabited environments with NPCs that clearly spell out the stakes, what the world is like, why your characters are the way they are, why places and events are important to the people and the world. XIII by comparison just seems kinda unfocused and meandering. As people have pointed out, you basically hit no patches of civilization and interact with almost no people. Rather than fleshing out the world, your characters just have long bouts of inane chatter that don't do much to take advantage of the potential that the mythology and world have. I think if they'd kept the same world, gameplay, characters- it would've been fine, maybe great, if they could've integrated the plot into the actual world better, by having you interact with the people and civilizations all along the way, like X did.
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Jul 5, 2022 06:44
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Mordiceius posted:I feel like there are the bones of something interesting but it is just far far too lean in places. We've all been discussing the similarities between X and XIII in structure and I think the thing that X did well was just giving you time to hang out and just inhabit the space. This. This right here. I wanted to learn more about Cocoon - it's a fascinating setting (one I'm actually considering borrowing for a tabletop campaign.) The game is actually miserly with information about the world - even in the Datalog where you could easily shove non-essential information for people who want to know more about the world. What's the general populations opinion about the Fal'Cie? The Sanctum? Do people trust their government? Are there people who questioned the official historical account? Are there anthropologists? How much do people know about how the world works? Who loving knows move move move! One of the things I really loved about FFXIIs bestiary is that they give you non essential but fascinating information in there. Even FFXs Libra/Scan spell gives you flavor text and you can scan party members and even they have flavor text. Final Fantasy Tactics lets you get help text about almost everything in the game, which is sometimes used for some proto-Souls-style world building. Mordiceius posted:I'm also literally never going to open an in-game codex/encyclopedia for any game ever. This makes me sad, but I feel those things should be a bonus, giving me extra nonessential information as a reward, they shouldn't lean on it as a crutch like FFXIII does. Mordiceius posted:The ticking clock aspect of "complete this task or die in <x> amount of time" is cool, but it by its nature changes the pacing of the game. You can't have a Gold Saucer in FFXIII because the characters must constantly be moving. Actually there is a "Gold Saucer" in FFXIII! It's the amusement park where Jihl Nabaht captures Sazh and Vanille. You get to do exactly one side activity and then the plot must progress. ZenMasterBullshit posted:I beg you just actually read words because they keep making these games repeat themselves more and more and you still miss it. Oh my God, this. ZenMasterBullshit posted:If you can get a hold of SHIN-RA, AVALANCHE, Materia Lifestream Mako SOLDIER, 1ST-CLASS, Sephiroth MIdgar you can figure this poo poo out. Look, if there are words I don't know it's basically Dark Souls storytelling. <  >You know, for the longest time I wondered why more games don't do more exotic, interesting settings like Morrowind. I don't really wonder that any more. Agents are GO! fucked around with this message at 06:54 on Jul 5, 2022 |
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Jul 5, 2022 06:49
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Sometimes I wonder if FFXIII would work better if the party were only fugitives on the run for the second half of the game as you backtrack through locations from the first half, only for NPCs you interacted with to now be hostile to you. But then pretty much everything about the game would need to change to accommodate this. Or maybe the issue is that the game starts in media res and throws a lot of terminology at you in the first few hours and expects you to run with it, I'm thinking if the first few hours were in Bodhum a week before the events of the game actually start and you do a few combat tutorials with Fang and Vanille as they try to infiltrate the place and get introduced to the cast and world that way, before things go to poo poo would have helped.
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Jul 5, 2022 07:46
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I agree that a decent chunk of the problem is that we never see the world "at rest" and get a sense of what life is like when the characters aren't dashing from setpiece to setpiece. Overall I'd call it a story with poor connective tissue.
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Jul 5, 2022 07:48
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There are a lot of ways to fix FFXIII but they all require a pretty ground up redo of the story. Which is why SE should hire me to lead this cursed project Final Fantasy XIII v2_Final_Final.exe
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Jul 5, 2022 07:53
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You can see the issue a bit when you compare XIII to other games with a lot of lore dumping. Say Mass Effect: After that game's prologue the game lays open to you to explore it and its lore at your own pace. The pressure to proceed the story is superficial and you can dally all you want. In XIII you don't get that option. It's fight or flight for a long time with little chance to take it in.
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Jul 5, 2022 07:58
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Really, imho, the only thing they'd really need to change is how good the military is at tracking them.
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Jul 5, 2022 08:07
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When you measure XIII to the other RPGs that released in that same period, Mass Effect 2 and Xenoblade, it feels hopelessly sparse and outdated. It was one of those duds that takes the shine off a franchise, and mainline Final Fantasy has been in a rut ever since. XV had a similar hosed development and I don't if know if the sub-franchise was an attempt to put the cart before the horse, of simply because the Devs knew the final game would be incomplete and they'd need to cover their asses.
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Jul 5, 2022 08:54
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Inspector Gesicht posted:and mainline Final Fantasy has been in a rut ever since. hmmmm.
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Jul 5, 2022 08:56
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Inspector Gesicht posted:When you measure XIII to the other RPGs that released in that same period, Mass Effect 2 and Xenoblade, it feels hopelessly sparse and outdated. It was one of those duds that takes the shine off a franchise, and mainline Final Fantasy has been in a rut ever since. I actually think the FFXIII-FF Type Zero-FFXV hosed development can be considered one long continuous smear of hosed development, since FFXV was originally FF Versus XIII and Type Zero was originally something like FFXIII Agito, and they were originally supposed to be set in the same world in different eras. I kind of feel that the wheels started coming off at Square-Enix during FF12s development with Matsuno's breakdown and they didn't start to get their poo poo together again until the late 2010s. I think FF14 has been a mixed blessing, because it kept the company going, but it also allowed them to get away with a poo poo ton of behind-the-scenes dysfunction.
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Jul 5, 2022 09:17
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