That's right, it's late but I'd written three quarters of it and thought I might as well finish it.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD. you have been warned. more technical spoilers rather than plot. Still, if you haven't finished it, I wouldn't advise you to read it - I don't wanna influence what you think of the game while still playing it! That just destroys the fun ^^
What I did like:
In-game Graphics: Just wow. Who’s to complain? Transition into FMV is so smooth now, gone are the days where FMV scenes would be a treat, a time to put down the controller for awhile, sit back and enjoy. There’s so much detail everywhere I’m afraid to miss anything - that, or I’m subconsciously trying to search for a mistake/glitch or a bug somewhere, but I could not really spot anything! Some small things I noticed that I liked, the character’s ankle (and you seldom get a chance to see the character’s feet when you’re playing outside battle) bends/responds accordingly to the uneven ground; characters actually have a sense of weight when they’re walking, mouths and lips are synched with the words as best as possible. And the big one: Facial expressions! I especially loved those little eye movements or lips parting slightly when the character is just thinking or listening.
Battle gameplay : A lot of work must have been put into this (I say ‘must have been’ because I wouldn’t know better, I have absolutely no knowledge of programming and game creating what not) because whilst you are only given control of one character in the battle, there’re a lot of calculations going on at the same time. For e.g. how does the other CPU-controlled characters select which ability to perform to best fit the situation? And this all happening in real-time (not turn-based gameplay). Although when I first saw the Auto-Battle function, I was thinking “Whoa, what are the people at Square-Enix thinking?? Is this game really that easy that I can just choose that option and enjoy the show?” The battles do get tougher eventually, with strategy playing a bigger role (since your stats progression is conveniently limited, as it is known that players if they could, would just LOVE to grind their characters till they were unbelievably too strong for the monsters…can you say satisfaction?). Still, there’s some really good stuff (calculations) happening back there.
Voice-acting: Loved it, though at the very beginning, Vanille’s voice got me cringing; it grew on me eventually. But overall, the best voice acting (English) in the FF series so far.
What I didn’t like:
A very personal/sticky camera: Throughout most (like 98%) of the game, you’ll have the view of your character’s back facing you as you are controlling him/her and IMO, this gives a very limited, very ‘cropped’ view of what the world of FFXIII(as created) actually is! The only time I remember the camera actually moving away from that position was in Pulse where you rode those elevator-like contraptions or at Yaschas Massif. It wouldn’t hurt to have the camera pan out more often to get a much wider look at big ol’ Cocoon. So much effort was gone into rendering the surroundings but I feel as if I’m only allowed to take in a tiny bit of it, and that I think, that contributed to that feeling of linearity of the game (probably affecting the designs of the areas too? – straight paths with occasional tangents to get to a dead end that most often has an item, after which you return to your straight linear path and move along, towards the marked Goal. Other than some parts of Gran Pulse, in other areas, the character will always be sandwiched between ‘walls’ on either side, forcing the player to just proceed forward). The grandeur of the world was lost, and with it the story.
The world: [This one will be more of a rant rather than a valid point] The world of FFXIII design-wise was very visually-pleasing of course but sadly, not memorable. I have to say Sunleth Waterscape was my favourite just because it looked really pretty. Taejin’s Tower was nice too. The rest were pretty flat and kinda..meh, probably due to…a lack of culture? But the biggest disappointment to me, and I’m just being nit-picky over here, was Oerba..Fang and Vanille looked very different to the people on Cocoon – they had a more tribal look going for them, and yet when you finally do get to Oerba, it looked…pretty similar to Cocoon, more advanced than I’d thought with blocky concrete buildings. But then again, I suppose the concept was that Cocoon and Gran Pulse have similar if not the same roots/origins, and the only difference was their ’geographical’ location.
The directing and script: Note, it’s not the story I’m complaining about. Coming up with a story as complex as this (and it IS complex, I mean, just look at all those things you have to read up under Datalog! ...yea..so.much.reading.) is not easy, I would think. My problem with it is that it could have been a really well told story. However, that wasn’t the case for me when I found myself thinking that reading the chapter events (when loading a saved file and again in Datalog) seemed to unravel new information to me that was not presented clearly or at all during the cutscenes i.e. Voice in my head: *reading the chapter* “ohhh,…wait, really? That happened?” - Not a good sign. And I wonder how many times the characters said “We’re Pulse l’Cie now, enemies of Cocoon” – more than necessary, I say. I felt that the dialogue during the cutscenes were spent a lot on team building and creating a sense of togetherness and hope, rather than explaining more of what’s really happening – BUT imo, this was probably a good idea.. and best portrayed then. My main qualm would be the lack of information via …
The script of non-playable characters i.e. the citizens of Cocoon: It was pretty cool that if you go close enough (just by running by them), it’ll activate their speech, with distance recognition! However, what they had to say, you can totally ignore, because they are just whining (except in Nautilus) in the background i.e. those NPCs played no role except to show that Cocoon is in fact populated (in case you had begun to wonder) and I think this was such a waste. A lot of information, small ones, could have been included in their script to make the world more immersive. Any (not so very) interesting or plot-related conversations are instead bundled up into those cutscenes, which you know are bound to happen anyway thanks to those little markers in the map- kind of like ‘finish lines’. Also, eventually the story builds up to the point where destruction of Cocoon was likely, however this felt very..thin. Why? Because there is a lack of atmosphere. And imo, NPCs play a great big HUGE part in creating this atmosphere of fear and doom – conclusion: they did not get enough screen time and only used as extras.
One-off characters: Cid and that blonde girl with glasses. Nope, I did not bother reading them up in Datalog. They felt like characters that just came and went. Sure they played a part in the plot, but their roles were poorly portrayed.
Lack of sidequests/freedom: Nuff said. I would usually put in great effort to at least obtain the final weapon for the main character, but this time round, I couldn’t really be bothered.
Additional stuff that didn’t fit into the above 2 categories:
Music: It would be unfair to completely dismiss the music just because it’s not very memorable except for a few (like FINAL FANTASY –The Promise – and the battle theme). What Masashi Hamazu brought to the game was definitely different from what Nobuo Uematsu had done in the past FF and I will admit, not the kind of music I would put on loop on my playlist. However, Final Fantasy XIII piano collections are due out and personally, I can’t wait to see how those grand music compositions of his (most that barely carry a tune to hum) are transformed into notes on a staff.
Final Thoughts: All in all, Final Fantasy XIII was kind of like a visual novel but in a 3-Dimensional third person view (minus any sort of freedom in decision-making). For me, at best, FFXIII was something to enjoy and pass the time. 10 years in the future, I will look back to it and when asked what it’s about, I’d say that it was the first FF game on the PS3,with graphics that blew my mind (at the time)…oh? What’s it about…urm…2 worlds and a bunch of people trying to save theirs. To play and complete this game, what you need is PATIENCE and a little bit faith and hope – which I still have..for Final Fantasy versus XIII. Bring it on!
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