Final Fantasy XIII

Elder god tier
>Lore
>Art direction
>Soundtrack
What went wrong?

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The writing.

>Lore

so you think the datalog is god tier

This might be the stupidest reply I've ever seen on this board, not gonna lie.

>30 hour intro level
>Every character grunting with every muscle movement
>Lightning shit character protagonist

Those are the primary 3 things that annoy me.

This fucking thread every day. I can't believe they rused me into downloading 50gbs to give it another shot. I uninstalled after an hour. I have never met a worse cast of characters with worse dialogue. I had to skip every cutscen because it's so fucking cringey.

First Final Fantasy I see.

not an argument

the "lore" is just the datalog

Decent Tier
> Fang

Bad Tier
> snow
> Sazh

Shit tier
> lightning
> hope

Worst than even Shit Tier
> vanille

That doesn't make sense, the medium of the game's lore has no effect on the lore itself.

I refuse to believe anyone is this dumb.

>the medium of the game's lore has no effect on the lore itself


You should take a look at yourself before calling others dumb

It being in a datalog does not effect the contents of the lore, you seriously are the dumbest person I've seen on here.

The characters are well developed but their dialogue is too on-the-nose and they don't do anything likeable, let alone, heroic or inspriring. They also bet the entire story on the party and had a linear story with no sense of pacing.

the fact you have to read it to understand the lore is the problem

they throw terms at you with zero explanation and just expect you to get through walls of text

this games presentation is terrible and you're a massive retard for even trying to defend it

How can you like Fang but hate Vanille. They are a fucking package deal.

>He doesn't like Sazh
Oh, I see. You're retarded.

That isn't an issue with the lore numbfuck, that has to do with writing and presentation.

You seriously are the stupidest person I've seen on this board.

he's just a tool trying to go against the norm

when the game hit PC people just started randomly pretending it was good just because it's on pc

hallway for 20 hours
and then you NEVER get to go back to the previous areas
in a fucking FF game

that second one is a characteristic of like every piece of japanese media ever

Everything else.

That music was fucking amazing though, and I miss something as good in FF15.

the lore itself is terrible though, so how do you explain that

pretty terrible - at the very least XV let's you go back via some memory bullshit

>the fact the terrible lore is poorly presented isn't an issue with the lore

next you'll say those things being able to talk the entire time is a-ok

>the lore itself is terrible though
I already know you're a fucking idiot but christ.

>Sazh
>Bad
He's LITERALLY the only likable character in the game you insufferable fuckwit.

His music is too good youtube.com/watch?v=mbLsiXE437A

>keeps doing nothing but throwing insults while defending XIII and never actually explaining what makes the terrible lore good

keep it up

>Lore is elder god tier

What?

Lore is shit, I'm not talking about datalog either. The lore is shit because it basically isn't there. It's all extremely ambiguous and not fleshed out.

Soundtrack has a good songs but the rest are SERIOUSLY fucking bad. The good songs are the promise, saber's edge and blinded by light. rest is forgettable trash, never heard a song drop the ball so much like nascent requiem.


As for what went wrong: It's ridiculously linear, to the point where even your progress is capped. It takes 20 hours to be able to switch parties. You control ONE character (so whats the fucking point in having a turn based system?). Battles drag for way too fucking long and the paradigm shift system was extremely shallow.

Story was shit. There is NEVER a clear direction for the cast. Not even the antagonists are aware of what's going on exacly. The final boss jumps out of nowhere and nobody knows who he is. There is no "oracle" character in the cast or even a virtual medium that can reveal the mystery to the players.

Also the insufferable cast. Lightning is an uninspired protagonist. Devs actually refer to her as "a female version of cloud" during development

>Soundtrack has a good songs but the rest are SERIOUSLY fucking bad.
Not gonna lie it's impressive to be this wrong, the rest is all right though.

I forgot what they're called Fail'Ce or some shit.

I had to rage quit the game when it was revealed they could talk the entire time.

Yeah, the idea was that XIII-2 revisits the areas in different eras. But even then they're still different.

Why not /ss/?

Despite people complain about "lore" because of datalog, I want to say that its lore is "average" at best but what kills the whole series is the characters and the story revolving around them.

Let's look at the motivation of the story first. L'Cies are tasked with a purpose. Fulfilling this purpose will make them a crystal or if not they become monsters. So almost the entirety of the story the characters are trying to fulfill something that ultimately is hopeless. In the end, they all become human again because Deux Ex Machina? This is inconsistent with its own lore.

So why was the characters involved in this game?

> Lightning, Snow is basically dragged into this mess because of Serah.
> Hope is there because of him losing his mother and wanting to help.
> Vanille and Fang wants to complete their focus again and find out why they are revived
> Sazh tags along to find his son

The problem with this is almost everything is laid out to you from the start. Instead of convey their motives through actions and leave nothing for you to decipher. Which in turn leaves no mystery around any of these characters. Fang and Vanille might be the only character that had any mystery to them, but how little screentime Fang get and how insufferable Vanille is, made the whole duo unrelatable. Every one's backstory motives are either shown to you explicitly or give to you in a flashback.

Nothing is explored about Fal'cie nor Cocoon. People complain the game is linear but the main problem is that almost nothing of Cacoon is shown to you. And when you do visit Cocoon, you couldn't interact with anything. No sidequests, no worldbuilding. Every NPC feels like robots instead of characters with personality. Cocoon is such a cool planet, but you don't even see that. Why not show how you are living inside the shell of a planet like a cocoon instead of the towns and places looking like every other town in any ff game? We only see a few Fal'cies and no depth were put into them.

>when the game hit PC people just started randomly pretending it was good just because it's on pc

I still laugh when threads like this pop up though.

"bad" songs?

What are these standards?

Terrible story
Terrible direction
Characters ranged from absolutely retarded to utterly wasted with only the jokey black guy being competently written and likeable.
The battle system is an outright travesty.
The game is a clusterfuck of bad ideas.

> Muh wife's son
> Hey look at me, I got a chocobo chick in my hair
> I'm gonna pretend to kill myself LUL I WAS JUST KIDDING
> Hey lightning? I know we just met but I'm gonna tag along with you. For no reason
> Fuck you lightning! Why did I decide to follow you you made me into a L'cie!
> L'Cie are monsters! But don't mind my son

desu, the moment I stop liking him is that fake suicide thing. That scene was so cringey and lame... well, not like every other scene in this game wasn't cringey

>The battle system is an outright travesty.
t. Shit at the game

> Apply Buffs
> Stagger Enemies
> build damage multiplier
> switch to damage with commandos until stagger is complete
> repeat

WOW, such deep battle system.

>they throw terms at you with zero explanation
This meme needs to die. Stories(much better stories than XIII) do this ALL THE FUCKING TIME. It's not bad writing. In XIII it's not even that bad -- it's just "an ancient evil awakens"(the Pulse fal'Cie) mixed with "chosen by the gods"(l'Cie, foci). Any idiot who's ever watched or read any fantasy anything ever should get the gist within minutes.

The real problem is that the game never attempts to make the characters likeable/relatable enough, or the scenario and plot twists intriguing enough, to draw the player into the world. Even if for some reason you forcibly subject yourself to it, the lore still sucks. It talks a big game but never really amounts to anything. We know just as much about the fal'Cie at the end of the game as we do at the beginning -- they're weird inscrutable gods that want to destroy the world for what amounts to "t3h lulz," and the final climax/resolution is a LITERAL deus ex machina non-ending, acknowledged BY THE CHARACTERS THEMSELVES IN THE GAME, and then further cemented by all the tacked-on shit from XIII-2 and LR.

In summary, XIII is an absolute trainwreck of a game with horrible presentation AND lore. But none of that has to do with linearity or an "inaccessible" plot. Furthermore, it bothers me that this caught on so strong, because I think it's pretty obvious that a big part of why XV seems to be allergic to cutscenes/exposition is fears of a repeat of XIII.

>A good player
youtube.com/watch?v=IEKw49zS1lU
>You
youtube.com/watch?v=yuNdQUVbt3w

Also hate to break it to you but that's every Final Fantasy, except most don't even require buffs/debuffs.

You literally proved my point.
Your "good player" just did exactly what I described.

Which is every Final Fantasy game, is this the only one you've played or something?
You also fail to ignore the ATB refresh, action cancels and paradigm buffers he does.

: ^ - )

>Sazh
>bad

Chicken nigga was one of the most based characters in the entire franchise.

Also has one of the most based songs - youtube.com/watch?v=ZXc0npBEKpA

He did just prove your point.

Fal'cie never say shit. The small bit of info they reveal is completely irrelevant. By the ending, the LITERAL ending cutscene, nobody is still sure of what the hell just happened. that's terrible storytelling for a fantasy RPG.

>Contrarians

Kill yourselves already, 13 was one of the worst entries

>muh wife's son
It's literally his biological son. Or are you so underage that you just spout memes with no context or understanding?

> Hey look at me, I got a chocobo chick in my hair
I don't even understand how this is supposed to be a criticism.

> I'm gonna pretend to kill myself LUL I WAS JUST KIDDING
That was admittedly overdone. But it's more an issue with the way the story was presented than Sazh himself.

> Hey lightning? I know we just met but I'm gonna tag along with you. For no reason
Nice job missing probably the most telegraphed plot point in the entire game, dumbass. He had to go after the l'Cie to try and save his son, even if it was hopeless. Lightning was conveniently there but he'd have gone either way. He hems and haws because he's an old man and a comic relief character, but that doesn't mean he's any less resolved/serious. If you don't at least understand this on an intellectual, if not empathetic, level, then you really are underage.

> Fuck you lightning! Why did I decide to follow you you made me into a L'cie!
What? This is Hope's schtick. I don't even remember Sazh complaining about this.

> L'Cie are monsters! But don't mind my son
He was obviously projecting/compensating, both out of fear/shame for his own condition as well as anger at whatever was responsible for it(i.e. the Pulse fal'Cie/l'Cie). Also if you were paying attention, he delivered that line in a shaky tone of voice, as if he was saying the words more to reassure himself than to actually attack Lightning.

It's not alone at least.

This

You can't say ATB refresh or cancels are part of the core battle system. They are exploits found by people after the game is release. A person who plays it blind will not know these "mechanics".

Second, what makes Turn-based RPG fun is playing with counters. Its why people like pokemon, you see a red monster so you switch to a water pokemon to do water damage. Except, everyone is just a role with no discernable difference. V is probably my favourite in terms of gameplay and every character can be made into any class. There is so much agency in that game. You can make a Monk with white magic or a thief with warrior like strength. Even FF VI which had set classes allow you to play with what kind of magic to learn for each character. XIII has almost no variety in terms of game play.

Also, notice how the "good player" did exactly what I said. While the other player did something different and you mocked them for "playing it wrong". Are you fucking serious? The whole point I was making is that there is only one efficient way to play the game making it boring. All you do is try to stagger them and finish them off after. The second guy was trying new techniques, and look how punished he got. The fact that there is barely any other way to play the game makes it boring not the other way around.

There is no black, white, red mages. There is just mage or savager. Even in the first FF, you either have to choose to have red mage that can cast both black and white spells or have a pure white mage that can gain access to the higher level white spells.

I remember playing to the partial overworld and one scene inparticular bothered me.

It was when Lightning was being her usual cunt self, and while her and Hope are running through the imperial ship or whatever it is, Hope says or does something, and Lightning makes a complete 180 in character, becoming overly caring and compassionate.

Again, it's been a really long while since I played, but was there any explanation or build up for this?

The game was fun if you aim to 100% everything. Took me 4 years to realize it and I still come back to hear the battle music.

Cancels are explained to you in chapter 1 and refresh is in the official guide.

Each role clearly corresponds to a traditional FF class except SEN.

You were shit at the game, get over it.

>no variety
God could you be any more wrong? Each character performs each of the six roles differently meaning the team for each battle varies.

Finally an user with patrician tastes. Its really good considering the games that came after it.

>They are exploits found by people after the game is release.
You're just further showing your stupidity user. Action cancelling is one of the first tutorials you get and ATB refresh is not an exploit what the fuck are you talking about?

Doesn't feel like a final fantasy game.

> You're complaining because you're bad
I play exactly like how your "good player" plays. Just because I criticize the battle system doesn't mean I didn't exploit it as well.

Its more that paradigm system is boring and there is only 1 technique that is good. Which is shown on your video. SEN is almost useless unless you are fighting an enemies with some named skill, otherwise you're best bet is just to stagger as quicky as possible and deal damage will it is stagger rinse and repeat.

Usually I get amazed when I see a good player do things so well but that clip you showed me does nothing. Its literally how you play the game.

Compare to variety in IV or V or VI? There is basically none. A commando basically has the same role which is deal damage. A savager always do the same thing. A fire spell that hope does or firestrike by lightning is almost the same. Unless you are manipulating character placement (btw you barely do that in this game either) there is no difference between any of those character and any of those roles. The only variety is probably Sazh or Hope on their buff skills, where I think Sazh gives Haste and all that good shit.

FFXIII has a lot of problems. Battle System is also one of them unfortunately.

Look man, I haven't played the game in a year but I know that some things are explain in the tutorials and some things aren't. I think cancels might have but I don't remember well. One thing I do remember is that ATB refresh trick is not explained at all. Nowhere does it say that in the tutorial. Same with paradigm animation cancelling.

Idk man I prefered every other FF but 13.

Its a shame it was such a slog. If I could find more interest in the cast I might be able to get over it but its just too much for me.

This game could have really used a turbo button. FF9 was already my favorite and Turbo on Steam made it True Elder-god tier. Now I can finally get Excalibur 2.

Also I looked more into ATB refresh trick and it seem it just the normal refreshing while you change paradigm. It could be just using the ATB charge time to change animation or what not, I thought it was a exploit to get extra ATB. But my point still stands and none of you have addressed it yet.

The battle system is too rigid and there is never an alternative way to win the battle. Staggering is just too OP. SEN is almost never used. You start battle by buffing and then proceed to fill the stagger meter.

The ending to XIII-3 might be the most retarded thing I've ever seen.

I'll give you V, that game is great for customization.

But for IV and VI you have to be kidding, VI is just spamming your most powerful magic the entirety of the game and most of the cast is garbage anyways. If you seriously think people think VI is a masterpiece because of it's combat you're either a nostalgiacuck, troll or moron.

Each character has spells for RAV and casting animations, for example Hope is best at dealing damage from within the role but Snow has the faster cast animation.

Same with SYN and SAB some characters have other abilities that are better suited for certain types of enemies, also their inherent stats play a role in this too.

Yes those mechanics should've been better explained but you can't just ignore the fact that they're there.

The problem with XIII isn't the battle system it's that the enemy design doesn't do enough to take advantage of it.

Could you be anymore obvious with your samefagging.

At least VI gives you the option to further customize your character. IV and VI also had so many different animation for their moves. Like doing a suplex on a train or chainsawing the enemies. IV gives you unique skills for each character, like Jump for a dragoon or kick for a monk that isn't instantaneous like other attacks.

The cast time of RAV is not even noticeable. The only thing you need to worry about is not casting at the same thing as others well your main is a RAV because you want to stack the stagger meter.

One thing I do agree with you is the enemy design. It doesn't give you any room to play for your paradigms. That's why stagger and kill is mostly the only way to play this game. There is no enemy like in the old games that you is puzzle bosses. Like one guy (I forgot his name) in the old games where he cast reflect on himself so you can't do any damage to him. So you have to damage yourself to do any actual damage, which was so cool of a enemy design.

If they wanted variety they should've done this. Have certain character be able to cast only certain elements.
Maybe Sazh for Fire and Earth, Vanille for Wind and Ice, Hope for Ice and Water, etc.. So you if you want to kill adamantoise for example, you must bring only this person or else the game is harder.
Also maybe make buff and debuff not a part of the ATB but work instead on alternative ATB system. Where you can pick and choose want to cast as Buffers instead the fast paced ATB system. Also Haste is completely broken, maybe make haste a shroud only spell so that you can only use it sparingly. Or make haste available and even faster but only if you have to permanent keep your SYN on the field. If you switch that character out, your haste is gone.

The characters. Sazh was the only good character in that game.

>The cast time of RAV is not even noticeable.
Kek
>There is no enemy like in the old games that you is puzzle bosses.
Kek

Also the Proudclad has it so that if you Stagger him during certain times it will drastically fuck you over, making for an interesting fight.

>Kek
Nice counter argument.

There's no point in arguing something that is 100% false. "Puzzle" bosses, you've got to be kidding me, every Final Fantasy is an absolute joke in terms of difficulty and yes cast animations make a huge difference.

If you want well done turnbased/menu micromanagement go play EO.

fucking stop bumping this thread. Its fucking dead.

also > saged

I saged you faggot. Shup up.

Wew

>Lore
>Good

It's literally generic FF with a bunch of nonsense words.

Also

>Fal'Cie
>false gods actually called "falacy"

you think your point makes sense but you just linked two random concepts together because they vaguely sounded the same.

What does the word "Fallacy" have to do with the Fal'Cie in any way

They're worshipped as gods when they're literally just rocks that want to die.

>Sazh
>bad

Fuck off, he's the only character who wasn't a shitty animu stereotype.

Still better than:
>muh stronk woman who throws tantrums on her birthday and abandons helpless children because she's too busy being strong and independent
>muh retarded dudebro manchild who causes more deaths than he prevents
>muh whiny mommy's boy (Final Fantasy staple)
>muh lolsorandumbXD genki girl (another Final Fantasy staple)

Fang was okay though.

>Lore
literal dog shit

>What went wrong?

Lightning.

She encapsulates everything wrong with the game, if not the series. An utterly bland to downright hateful character who accomplishes absolutely nothing in the plot, except splitting the group up early on; leading to the story and gameplay dragging on to holy hell and back. She stands at the front, makes all the speeches, but nothing about her is essential to the group, or the villain's plans, or anything. She is a Vaan trying DESPERATELY to be a Squall. And since Motomu Toriyama unironically thinks Lightning is his waifu, she hogs up a disgustingly large amount of the game, making the actual goddamn story take a back seat until over half way through the fucking game.

Then you have her waifufag fandom, an army of Toriyamas going around claiming HER GAME is perfect because they worship a flavourless Toblerone with a pink wig and armpits.