The story is mostly told through the unlimited cut-scenes, but there is also a synopsis of each chapter available plus lore. The terms Cocoon, Pulse, Purge, Focus, l'Cie and fal'Cie are used many times, and while I understood them, the execution of the plot is shallow. Quite simplistic really.
What bothers everyone more, including me, is the absence of towns, a world map or the actual feeling of not being alone in these otherwise bland locations. Interacting with stuff was very largely missing, and the shop system was wrong.
As YouTube reviewer The7thLevel once said, the game plays itself. Well, almost. You walk through linearity for the first 10 chapters for what seems to be a twisted long prologue towards Chapter 11, where you will finally be able to traverse a large map in your own way. NPC's are almost extinct, and I only saw them at Chapter 9 at the earliest.
The only sidequests are missions where you must find special enemies and defeat them, hence, this means more of the same battles. Speaking of which, the battle system comprises of Paradigm Shifts, Auto-Battle, special techniques and most of the time only 1 summon per battle.
Libra, the most common technique, automatically scans weaknesses and adjusts your tactics towards exposing them every time you re-encounter the particular enemy. Auto-Battle then works around doing just that, meaning that you will be pressing a lot of X's only through the whole game.
Paradigm Shifts means that you are able to switch roles between characters, and later on, all of the roles become accessible towards everyone. A Saboteur for example debuffs enemies, while a Ravager chains the Stagger percentage of enemies.
If the Stagger meter is complete, you will deal extra damage. The paradigms are shifted by the use of the L1 button, and customization is normally automated, so are the tactics. Shifting paradigms, building up the stagger meter and healing will be the main things you will be focusing on to drag further.
You are able to manually order the characters around, but why do so when the battles are fast-paced and the Auto-Battle button is there? This creates an ironic moment when you consider the opportunity to do battles manually as well.
But unless you know exactly what you're doing with swift actions, things will get unnecessarily harder. It's better for most of us to stick to the very conventional automatic mode of which I can almost call the Audience Mode instead.
The Crystarium system is similar to the License Board and Sphere Grid from FFXII and FFX, but this time, because of the various paradigms or character roles, each paradigm per character has it's several spheres to be leveled up by the game's CP points.
Sure the graphics are pretty and prettier like the Final Fantasy games are nowadays associated for, but their stories and characters have made a huge fallout for far too long now. The variety is largely missing as sidequests, non-linearity and other extra's are just missing out.
FFXIII is only fightings, cut-scenes and bosses(more fightings). This isn't the epitomy of RPG games Squeenix! They have also always been about exploring their worlds, the plot progessions through overcoming more than just battles and actually caring about what's happening and what is available to do, which hasn't been effective in years.
You still do exploration and still uncover more about the world, but the way it was designed just is by far not as exciting as other RPG's. Ever since part VII, the playable cast has been given more personality because of the graphical capabilities and eventually voice acting as well. XIII's cast isn't the worse that I have experienced, but it's still a long mile for me to get to really care about them, minus Sazh, an odd fellow with a good personality.
Barthandelus, the main antagonist, was convincing with his motivation for empowering the playable cast of XIII and in the end his ultimate goal of destroying Orphan in order to reset the world. Taking on the appearance reminiscent of the pope and talking religiously with his supernatural powers, he was both memorable and a dangerous opponent.
But apart from those two characters and the difference of the swift battles, there isn't much else to hang onto. Some songs such as the battle theme were decent, and bosses became considerably better for being tricky.
Final Fantasy XIII is a mediocre and alienating game to crave momentum from. The overall pace is slow and it wasn't designed with balance in the sense of variety. there was too much emphasis on what was available.
But don't listen to me, because a sequel is already out and another one is coming. Were the global sales towards this entry really that impressive?
Rating: 6.3
Final Fantasy XIII-2
I am able to review the first sequel, so I wonder, what did change? Well, plenty did actually. Quick Time Events, or Cinematic Actions called here and Live Triggers that give you different sentences as a choice like modern Western RPG's tend to do are present now.
You have a way more interactive world for being able to talk with people for real now. The map system has been updated with fog present if you have not located the actual map in an area yet, plus new information such as the locations of Chocobos or a Moogle that accompanies Serah as a morphable weapon, which can scan hidden items or be thrown around for more hidden items.
The story focuses on Lightning's sister this time. Guiding and guarding her will not be Snow, but Noel, a time traveller from a period where he is the only surviving human left. Lightning herself seems to have passed away(The ending of XIII is slightly and quickly altered here in regard to her status), but only the main characters know that she is still somewhere, somehow.
It gets more weird, as space and time have interferred here greatly, not only as 1 time traveller is present, but objects appear and reappear at certain times as well. Plus, creatures seem to be coming from the Void now, a new area. Somehow, I wondered how the story would go further.
Perhaps that would be the first sign of the game having potential, plus I was getting content with the things that have changed around the gameplay aside from the story already. So that's good. However, as I came further, the latter wouldn't hold the momentum much longer.
The story is convoluted involving inconsistent usage of themes such as time travelling, paradoxes, dimensions and deus ex machina's appearing such as Noel. Sure anyone can toy and experiment with stories, but putting this one up above the one established by Final Fantasy XIII already felt just like a huge mess to me.
It is so radically different from what was established in XIII that it doesn't work for me. All those era's, and then the whole time traveling factor, it was a nice try, but in the end is a huge departure from the previous world so to speak.
The soundtrack is noticably different, more upbeat, energetic and perhaps even inappropriate, but it worked for me for the most part. Re-using songs and enemy design from XIII felt lazy, but I will let it slip.
Pre-emptive strikes are executed better here, and it's easier to avoid monsters. Chocobo's are also more accessible and earlier to get, plus this time you can collect and train monsters on your team and level them up in the Crystarium much like the 2 main characters.
Traveling through the different timelines is fresh, but as said before an odd concept after XIII. The order also seemed weird, but alternate timelines are given amongst other topics as explanations. It's nothing exciting like Chrono Trigger, but it does make for a rather different sequel.
Caius as the villain was lame, but atleast had a good motivation for his reasoning. Actually, it goes the same for Noel as well. Serah seemed to take things for granted rather easily, although there are the Live Trigger moments where you can choose the outcomes, sometimes serious, sometimes comical.
Puzzles were also present, and I really liked the clockwork ones. One thing I didn't mention in the previous review is that XIII had save points with not one, but all of the shops available. This was a poor design decision in my opinion and in this game it's replaced by a fellow time traveller called Chocolina, who acts as a merchant, although a strange one.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 is a weird sequel with a dissapointing plot, but it makes up for it with an improved battle system, a more navigational map, entertaining side quests such as the casino area( the chocobo races return!) and if you've got the time, I heard that it has like 8 different paradox endings to get.
Rating: 6.5
It turns out that I will have another month of PS3 reviews because I simply have beaten quite many of them next to these featured in february. I don't know what month it will be, but I do know that they will be published before the summer at the least.
2 comments:
Final Fantasy 13 is a typical experimental product that is consumed by an audience with the wrong mindset. Though your review is filled with correct observations, they merely scratch the surface of this product's offerings. In the context of an industry focused on creating the next forgetable cash cow for an immature audience combined with shallow critic systems, it is quite sad to see this experimental product being bashed because of its deviances both to its genre and to the series name.
I personally liked the fresh touch to the fundamental systems of an RPG. For me this resulted in a nice, tranquil experience that cannot be described by a bulleted list of observations. Sadly, FF13 has become a notorious love-or-hate title that is even hard to ignore for new players, stripping many of the right mindset to experience this product in the right way.
I respect your opinion and understand that Final Fantasy 13 is a new approach towards the genre that has captured the hearts of many fans so to speak. Emotionally however, I wasn't impressed by it.
It's true that I tend to prefer giving observations towards reviews rather than letting my feelings speak, but this is how I like to write them.
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