Final Fantasy XIII (2009)

I was finally able to get around to finishing Final Fantasy 13. It is a game I have always wanted to play even when it was initially released. It is pretty well documented how I feel about the series as a whole. I tend to be a bit of an “all final fantasy games are good” truther. Of course I have my favorites and ones I don’t like as much but otherwise I think the series is on par good. Final Fantasy 13 is one of the black sheep’s of the series. I think most people think all “modern” Final Fantasy games are bad and I really disagree with this but I know that comes down to my personal taste. So where does that leave me with 13? It leaves me very torn because I love the characters and story of this game a lot but I had a very hard time with the structure of how the game is set up and how much that structure can mess with the experience overall.

I want to start with the characters because 13 might have my favorite party in terms of story relevance and dynamics. In reviews at the time it came out and since people have felt strong opinions about this cast but I really love how the cast grows and learns over the game. For example Hope starts off as an angsty 14 year old who watches his mom die at the hands of Snow’s reckless rebellion. Throughout the game he learns to copy Lightning’s violent persona in order to harbor feelings of revenge against Snow. It is great to see Snow and Hope as foils for each other. It is great to see how Lightning teaches Hope and then sees the consequences of her actions towards Hope in the story. It is great to watch Vanille and Sazh Operate together as well. Even Feng, who is a late addition, compliments the party perfectly. These are strangers bound by fate who all have their own motivations and goals and it is great to watch them clash with each other and bring out their worst qualities before they tend to get their shit together. Again I feel bold for saying it is probably the best in the series but I get that people are put off by them. This game takes time and reveals itself accordingly.

The story I thought was also wonderful. Final Fantasy has always flirted with defying fate in the past and it is probably the series signature theme if we are being honest. Here it is no different as our heroes are branded as l’Cie who are enemies of Cocoon and have been given a focus lest they become mindless monsters. I don’t particularly think the story will be super surprising but I like some of the tones and thoughts it has about revolutions against an oppressive government. The game literally starts with People of Cocoon being purged to Pulse for coming into contact with the fal’Cie, the thing that makes and gives l’Cie their focuses. I know that was a lot of nouns I just threw out there but the game is evoking imagery of forced evictions from settled land at the forefront. It also clearly does not have any qualms about revolutionary violence against an oppressive state as evidence of Snow’s group NORA who pose an armed threat to the purge of the people from this town. I like that the game focuses on this and questions Snow because he needs to learn to be more judicious and he can’t just rush in without causing massive losses and making no actual gains or change. I think the game ends on something that reminds me of End Times Fascism where the ruling class and Capitalism as a system writ large are pushing for us to use AI even at the cost of the planet which can only accelerate the climate crisis. The game asserts that we should not throw away a certain group of people just to survive and continue the system but we should save everyone. Of course this does not mean that no loss will occur but the party defies the simple outcome of letting certain people die. I know I'm extrapolating from a broad text as games made by corporations are not going to say anything too damning of the system but I think broadly Final Fantasy 13 does believe in revolutions.

The gameplay and structure side of this are where this game falters for me. There is a moment in this game where the game stops being linear and then opens up for you to do sidequests and this is where I think progression and combat doesn’t hold up as strongly as I would like it. It is here where you can continue to press on with the story but doing so will cause you anguish. If you proceed like I did, every fight feels like a fight for your life where even the enemies that litter the hallways can take out your party in seconds. It makes me wonder what the game would have looked like. I know people at the time didn’t like the linearity but I think it is probably the best part of the game. It has a relatively brisk pace with no overly long segments until you get to this chapter.

The combat system is something else I have some gripes with because it's cool in concept and makes sense but lacks the execution I think it needs. For example, you use the Crystarium like the Sphere grid in Final Fantasy 10 but eventually you can have people fill out all combat roles. This was similar in 10 but the Crystarium is much simpler. When the game lets you experiment and assign points to all roles, you can realize how certain people are really only fitted to certain roles. This is pretty obvious from the previous chapters of the game but I wasn’t expecting the total points to get someone to level 1 of a new class to be so steep. It just felt like I shouldn’t waste my time.

Another gripe I have with the system is that the stats don’t feel like they do anything. Of course your number goes up, it isn't as broken down as in 10 where you clearly see what you are leveling and getting. Of course you see the skills you are getting in 13 as well but I was curious if attack influenced anything other than attack, the same for magic and health. I also found a lot of the upgrades to be pretty inconsequential for the party characters. For example Snow is very early on introduced to the Sentinel class which is a very defensive class. The game treats him like a tank based character and that is backed up by the amount of health he gets. By the end of my run he had so much more health than the others but I never used him in the final at all because his extra health didn’t matter. Enemies can still cut him down if they focus on him and it just feels like the stats you are upgrading don’t feel like they have as much impact as you might imagine or want where in 10 when you increase someone's defense, you know they are more resistant to physical damage.

Add to this that there is a weapon and accessory upgrade system that feels completely optional. You unlock a lot of shops that feel so unnecessary. These were all things I didn’t engage with very much as I only upgraded when I felt stuck on a boss or during chapter 11. I just can’t help but think how this game might be if it was even more linear. I'm sure people don’t feel the same as me but still.

The actual combat of the game is very fun and satisfying for the most part. I love creating paradigms and shifting between them in battle. It makes battle feel flexible and engaging. It truly is a system that is very unique and cinematic. The thing I found disappointing was that once you learn how much debuffs can turn the tide of battle easily, the game can feel like it has lost its challenge. I know people who play a lot of RPG games have their favorite and least favorite part members but there is a very clear path to success in 13 and it revolves a lot around Feng, Hope and Vanille. That just leaves the other characters on the sidelines and it's a bit of a bummer. I remember swapping a bit in 10 and using all the characters in the final fights. Here it really came down to 3 party members and everyone else on the bench. I just think there could have been a better and more balanced implementation for this system as it was fun to play with.

It doesn’t help that most of the chapters in the game have you only using 2 out of three party members when you get your powers. These chapters are good for character interaction but it always feels like you are missing a piece in certain areas or fights. It’s tough because I am not sure what you change here. It is good for the right reasons but not always fun to play. It isn’t glaringly poor or anything either but its a build up of small misses that make me feel less than happy.

So that leaves me feeling conflicted about this game. Time and time again I am a story over gameplay kind of person. This game feels like it provides a very good story with a cast of unlikable characters who are bound together to change the world. I think that ultimately feels human to me. Like in Valkyria Chronicles, we don’t always get a choice about who we storm to battle with but we can try to learn and teach others to grow and change and if we are fighting for the same dream whether it is liberating a country or toppling an oppressive regime that has to count for something. I have been trying to learn from a friend to meet people where they come from so we can try to continue growing. It’s why at the end of the day I do like Final Fantasy 13. It’s why I like playing these long RPG’s in general.

Final Fantasy XIII has a lot to love. The story is really great, featuring a desolate world lorded over by cruel mechanical gods and a strong cast of fun, well developed characters to support it. The combat is a fresh take on the franchise staple ATB system that evolves the active time mechanics from past games in meaningful ways, offering a new sort of depth. The game also looks amazing. I genuinely can't believe this came out on the Xbox 360. It has to be one of the best looking games from that generation, and there is some stiff competition if you ask me. It could fairly easily pass as something from the generation after and even then it'd still stand out as gorgeous.

I think someone would be justified though, in pointing out that the game makes some odd design choices, some of which hamper it to a degree. The majority of the game's areas are very linear, leaving you feeling more like you're exploring long extravagant hallways instead of cities, forests, and lakes. The enemy encounters in the second half of the game feature a lot of odd sudden difficulty spikes that feel more unfair than challenging. Also the decision to hand the player a Game Over screen when the party leader dies feels cheap mechanically and makes zero sense in-world when the entire party is demonstrably capable of reviving each other with both spells and items.

The story of Final Fantasy XIII is rather bleak, but I appreciated that. The main cast live in a dying world where cruel godlike beings essentially keep people as pets. They provide for them but also use them as tools on a whim, with no regard for their puppets' wants or needs. Lightning is a great protagonist. She doesn't feel like she soaks up all the spotlight but does go through a lot of growth over the course of the story. Hell, every one of the party members does. Their personalities and the way they play off each other provides some light in an otherwise depressing dysfunctional world. Each feels very well written, realistic, and essential to the way the story plays out.

The voice acting is also very good (in the English voice over, anyway), though Vanille stands out as maybe one of the most grating characters I've ever had to listen to. She's constantly making these weird whining and grunting noises during combat as well as some cutscenes. Ugh.

Speaking of cutscenes, the prerendered ones are pure eye candy. The series became known for its fantastic cutscenes back with Final Fantasy VII and the thirteenth entry only continues to impress. I would gladly watch a movie with this art style and level of fidelity.

I don't feel as if the notorious linearity of the game's areas bothered me all that much. As long as the story beats kept coming I was able to focus more on the developing plot and how the party members interacted with each other. It also provided a sense of comfort that I wasn't missing anything. Items rarely lay far off the main path and you'd have to go out of your way to avoid the enemies in front of you to be underleveled in the first half of the game. As I forged onward through these "hallways" I was treated to stunning landscapes and detailed character models which kept things fresh even with the simplistic design of each level.

I found the combat system to be an engaging evolution of the classic ATB system that takes some notes from the previous game by having allies be controlled by AI. Only this time you can't give them direct commands, which can lead to some frustrating moments where, for example, you need your party leader healed and your healer prioritizes someone else, making you lose. When the AI is working well though, combat feels great. Only needing to issue my leader commands (or hit Auto to have it do it for me) allowed me to focus on the top-down strategy of the battle, so to speak. I spent more time thinking about how I needed to switch my party members' jobs mid combat to adapt to what the enemy was doing rather than micromanaging my attacks.

That said, the game also is painfully slow to introduce combat elements, which makes many early battles feel like you can just mash the Auto button and succeed. It's a pretty funny joke then, when a bit past the halfway point of the game where it finally takes the training wheels off and pushes you out into the first wide open area, the game also spikes in difficulty out of nowhere. Suddenly you realize you need to make better use of all the tools the game drip fed you the last 27 hours in order to so much as survive the ferocious beasts that lie in wait in the latter half of Final Fantasy XIII. Mashing 'A' just won't cut it anymore. This is where the combat starts to shine in its complexity and also sour a bit due to some questionable encounter design.

Even though I did feel I had a good grasp of the mechanics and tried to use them well before this point, I found myself taking many many tries to overcome certain enemy combinations. This was where things started to feel more unfair because while the combat continued to scale in difficulty as expected from a damage/HP numbers standpoint, it also felt like when I did lose a battle it wasn't because I did anything particularly wrong-- I was just unlucky.

A decent deal of my losses came from total RNG. If a group of enemies just so happen to randomly decide to stunlock the wrong party member, well, tough luck. There's not much to do about that. Try again. Remember how I explained earlier that the party leader dying means a Game Over screen? Wouldn't you know it, the final dungeon contains a ton of enemies that use moves that can one shot you or inflict the Death status effect, which if it lands just kills you. I had an attempt on the final boss that was going very very well cut short because he just so happened to smack my party leader with a Death spell, rendering my full HP party moot. This also of course is one of the few Final Fantasy games where there is no way to fully nullify the Death status effect as far as I know. Not cool.

At least I had some awesome scenery to look at while I got my ass handed to me.

I can see why this game got the reception it did back when it came out. It falls short in some aspects that people view as essential to a great JRPG. But I was very surprised to find a very solid game here still. It's far from my least favorite Final Fantasy taken as a whole, and the story alone is probably one of my favorites so far in the franchise. I very much look forward to seeing more of the world of Cocoon and Gran Pulse in the sequel.

One thing before I start with this doozie:

The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon is that cognitive bias that happens when you learn something new (words, most of the time) and you feel like you start seeing them everywhere, when it is only your perception of the thing what it is enhanced. Last month I learned the word "Sehnsucht" and now I feel like half of German-Speaking music is called some variation of that.

Well, I started FF13 last year for the first time in my eternal quest to catch up on videogame history and since then I have not stopped seeing retrospectives, reddit posts, tik-toks... Heck, even Hard Drive came through with a joke post about it. My first thought was "well, it is 2023, maybe there are a lot of revisions because of the 10-year anniversary" before realizing that Final Fantasy THIRTHEEN came out in 2009 and I am stupid.

Spot on joke, no notes.

I tried my best to not let this retrospectives alter my views on the game, which I think it came trough fairly well almost unitl the last part. I was also fairly unaware of the state of affairs back when this came out and I have not looked almost anything about FFXIII-2 and Lightning Returns, apart from their existence and that they form the Fabula Nova Crystallis thing, so, let's start with the review proper:

Oh whew, holy shit.

Final Fantasy XIII was the first game I started playing since I open this cute Grouvee account, so my experience playing it was somehow affected by the perspective of writing this. I am by no means a professional reviewer, but I tried as best as I could to put my feelings in paper (or at least express them out loud) so I could construct a cohesive argument in the review. It derailed spectacularly and in the end I have to gather my thoughts piecemeal while trying to remember the overarching themes that I wanted to touch in a more profound way, making a mess of everything.

Just. Like. This. Game.

Ok ok, that was a bit to harsh. Hear me out: Final Fantasy XIII is a good game, but a bad Final Fantasy. Do you know what I mean? I feel like if Final Fantasy XIII was named... I don't know "Grissblue: Tales of Revengia" or "Faerie Tactics RPG" or some shit like that it would have been remembered as one of those forgotten jewels of the PS3 era, as a flawed game with interesting ideas and a really enjoyable time altogether. But the fact that it is called "Final Fantasy" condemns it to carry a baggage way to heavy for its fragile neck.

Let's get the obvious out of the way: the linearity problem.

I don't think linear games are a problem, in fact I am more than okay with some games being linear, story-base games in contrast with the "Everything needs to be open world or sandbox" trend that has taken over for the past fifteen years. I think is a nice change of pace, and allows you to focus on different things during your playthrough. But linearity and level design are two different things, and the level design of this game BLOWS. I took diligent notes during my first twenty hours of play and by hour thirteen I literally wrote "Is there anything else about this game apart from chasings and hallways?". I feel like it is absolutely possible for a game to be heavily linear without feeling like and endless "Press forward" button, and this game fails spectacularly at that. Arriving at the Archylte Steppe felt like a breath of fresh air and you only do that almost at the end of the freaking game. That is not right.

This last part ties with something that I also felt was a mayor problem with this game: pacing. If we split FF13 into a three-act structure, Act 1 is more than half of the game, while act 3 feels like it resolves in five hours, and you feel like "ok, that was it?". You see the story of the characters resolve one by one (in order: Sazh, Hope, Vanille/Fang and Lightning/Snow) instead of organically and you don't have time to really get into the skin of the characters because just when you are starting to get comfortable boom!, change of POV: "Are you having fun with Sazh and starting to like Vanille as a character? Ok, good so now is what everyone else is doing and you won't see these two people in like five horus". The fact that after any plot-related scene you are faced with the endless hallway really does not help either.

After nearly thirty years of existence, one has come to expect certain things of a Final Fantasy game, certain... structure, to put in a way: Act 1 when everything is presented and you get to advance the story to a point. Act 2 when you unlock the world-map and are able to roam around, sidequesting and grinding and shit. Act 3, when the game concludes. I am really not one of those weirdos that always want the same kind of experience and berates a game when devs try something new, but the attempts made in this game just... fall flat. I don't agree that this game changes the classic FF narrative formula in any way, just makes it weirder.

One of the aspects why I don´t think this game is not as innovative as it pretends comparing to old FFs? The story.

For anyone that has played more than one Final Fantasy in their life, it is plainly obvious that the main hook of those games is the story. Not the only hook, sometimes not even the best hook, but the biggest one. I can recite the plot of FFX by heart and I remember most of the plot of FF7 twelve years after playing it last time. Heck, I can still remember most of the plot of FF8 and why is so... let's say, divisive. Like those games have a natural way of engaging you into the story that FF13 sorely lacks. I played this for more than 120 hours last month and for the life of me I cannot explain the story of this game without heavily metaphorizing it or having to go into a three hour discussion about its extremely esoteric lore. It took fifteen hours of gameplay to parse the difference between L'Cies, Fal'Cies and Humans and Monsters and Pulse and Cocoon, and I feel like the overall structure of the world was not given to me by the narrative, but by the bits of text in the game. You can play almost any other FF and understand its overarching story just with dialogue without even opening the freaking menu, I don't think you could do that with this one.

Part of this "esoterism" comes with a minor thing that bothers me to no end: naming conventions. I started this game with English VO because it is the standard and I didn't really thought about it that much, but halfway through the game I found honestly funny that these evidently native English speaking people wouldn't just laugh out loud calling each other "Vanille", "Fang" and (the worst one) "Hope". What the fuck is a L'Cie? what is the ethymology of that? why L'Cie and fal'Cie instead of, I don't know, WARRIORS AND CRYSTALS OR SOME SIMPLE SHIT LIKE THAT?. Why do you write a character that is the embodiment of "an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in one's life or the world at large" and decide to call him FUCKING "HOPE". Bit on the nose, ain't it?

This naming thing was tamed a lot when I changed the VO to Japanese but the narrative decisions made in this game are so baffling, dude, which leads to:

THE CHARACTERS

Okay, I am gonna list this from worst to best, because I don't want to be overly negative. I really enjoyed this game at some points, I swear.

Snow: One of the notes I took before stopping altogethere was: "If I have to hear this guy Snow screaming "Serah!" one more time I am FUCKING uninstalling". That sentence in itself explains very well how I felt about Snow. Freaking grunge Zell Dincht without any charisma or fun quips. He starts as a "hero" doing stupid shit being its only trait his devotion for Serah and ends up a "hero" devoted to Serah. Boring design, boring weapons, stupid-ass name. Might as well be called "White dude".

Vanille: I hate the manic pixie people trope. Just can't fucking stand it. I can't say for sure if it was a VO problem or a character problem but I always felt that Vanille never answered or talked like a real person but more like a projection of a type of person, an incomplete parody of what a human would be. At the end I started to feel for her but then the game ends and I'm like "Well, that was cut short".

Hope: Another one that never talked like a real person. I feel for this guy more than the other two because it is all too common for kid characters in media to be ostracized for "acting like kids" when like... they are. On top of that this poor kid loses his mom in the first hour of gameplay and is thrown into a conflict that he barely undestands immediately after, and truth be told he is never as annoying as other kid characters are (I defeated Vercingetorix with him on the team, fuck yeah). But still his dialogue is stilted AF and I CANNOT LET GO OF THE FACT THAT HIS NAME IS HOPE ESTHEIM, WHO NAMED THIS KID? JK ROWLING?

Lightning: Ok so it is reaaaaaally easy to fall into misogynistic arguments with Lightning, especially with a videogame series that has been so Dude-Centric as FF, so I tried as hard as I could to really explore my feelings for Lightning taking into account that. First: not all taciturn soldiers are Cloud clones, that comparison is one of those by-products of this game being a Final Fantasy that I find the most annoying. For all her faults Lightning has a clear objective and a stand-out moral code from the beginning of the game, and her progress as a character encompass more than just "finding the right thing to do" instead of connecting with the people around her. She has the real "zero to hero" narrative in the game and I think is fairly well managed. I like Lightning, her only real problem is... I don't know how to put it into words but the closes thing I can say is: Charisma. She is not charismatic at all, as a person in-world or as a character. This is specially notorious when she is in the same game with

Fang: Now we start with the good stuff. The first time I saw her I though she was going to be the villain. She had all the sauce and demeanour of a classic FF villain and I was really happy because so far the lack of saucy villains in this game was appalling. Then she joined my freaking party and I was even more glad to have her on my side. Sharp, mysterious, skillful, with some trusting issues but with a clear moral code and willing to give it all to protect her own. You can see how she was meant to be the protagonist and I howl for that missed opportunity. No disrespect to Lightning but is just... you can see the potential. Fang is such a cool character that she makes you forget her FUCKING NAME IS FANG, JESUS H CHRIST.

Sazh: Sazh is just the best. He is so good that I feel he was the only character that I missed when I switch to the Japanese VO. I really came to like his voice and quirks in English. I love how his story evolves from "Ok, who invited this guy anyway?" to "OMG Sazh get them! Get them all and get your cute little kid back" and in the mean time you got to experience some of the darkest plot points in FF history. Man that scene in the "Gold Saucer" like city that I cannot remember? Afther getting Bruhnild? SHHHHHHHHH.

He definitely is a comic relief but one of those with substance, he is never makes a dumb out of himself on purpose or anything, my man is just to old for this shit of God-fighting and crystal destroying and progressively grows into some sort of dad-like figure in the group. And he has a freaking Chocobo in his hair. Good stuff.

Special note - Serah: This game really does a poor job with Serah, freaking textbook McGuffin. They really wanted to hype her into being the protagonist of the second part without actually showing why we should care about her apart from being the sister/girlfriend. Why do I, the player, have to care about her? Why is everyone in this game seem to be obssessed with her? Is it because she is voiced by Laura Bailey? Do the people in this universe know how awesome Laura Bailey is? Give me something here, Square!

And here would be the part when I talk about the villain of this game but... There is none. Barthandelus was annoying at best and the fal'Cie things are just like... rocks. There isn't a personal connection to any villain apart from the evident and the game just sits around a vague concept of "the whole system is wrong" without really delivering on that premise. I know the whole concept behind it was some sort of inevitability of fate but like without any grounding it just feels like going trough the motions, and the "going through the motions" thing is already more than covered by the freaking hallways so I felt like I needed more than that. I really missed having a strong, equally commited villain in this game. Orphan looked cool and had great potential but got the "Ultimecia" treatment and really felt like an afterthought.

I have been rambling for more than two-thousand freaking words. Jesus.

Ok, so to close things up: Final Fantasy 13 attempted to do really cool things. Some felt good, a lot of them felt flat. I think it was also bumped into a set of expectations built on a franchise that, by the time FF13 came out, was already thirty years old and that in a lot of ways had shaped the ways on how video games are perceived. Some criticisms of the game that I have seen online I feel miss the mark by a bunch, but I do feel that it has a lot to be criticized and that its divisiveness its a symptom of a game that bit more than could chew, which in a sense lets you feel that there is a daring feeling within. I personally prefer a game that tries and fails rather that one that just regurgitates the same old shit all the time and expect your attention (and money) nonetheless.

I spent 125 hours so I don't have to play you again yet I salute you. You weird, daring game

Final Fantasy XIII sticks to the Final Fantasy X formula of… walking through a corridor, and plot happening around that idea.

I am not really a big fan of that, but the game does deliver a complete experience. By the time you are allowed to “move freely” you really want to move on.

The plot was intriguing, but the narrative isn’t at its finest. As someone who has played the three games in the trilogy several times, plus reading the novels, I can say it is has great world-building, but it isn’t explained in a way that can be appealing to a lot of people.

The cast is kinda meh, they do have fleshed personalities, but party interactions seem to be there for the sake of plot rather than character development. Without Lightning I don’t feel the game would be the same.

The bad guys are very undeveloped and their motivations are explained in a very uninteresting way.

Said that, the visuals are stunning!

The music is SUPERB, one of the best in the series.

I recommend it for Final Fantasy fans who are there for the ride rather than the small details.

For the first time since it came out I have fully replayed FF13. It's been on my replay list for a while, I remembered liking it when it came out, but then as I discovered more and more JRPGs I realized how maligned this one is. I decided I wanted to try it again after playing some other JRPGs and see how it holds up.

Overall I would say it holds up pretty well. If you are looking for quick thoughts, it looks amazing, sounds even better, and has some really nuanced characters and story telling. I like the battle system, but it isn't for everyone. Its a linear game, which is a positive to me, but might not worth for other people.

If you are looking for deeper thoughts strap in!

Visuals This game is stunning. I could not believe that it is over ten years old. Granted I am sure the steam version has had some updates, but even so! The character models and scenery is amazing to look at.

I will say that the specific steam punk/mechanized vibe of a lot of the enemies wasn't my thing. Sometimes it really worked, but other times it wasn't quite my thing. The Eidolan (summons) which normally are a huge visual draw for Final Fantasy games I think were very hit or miss, and transforming into vehicles doesn't work conceptually or in visual ways.

I still loved the visuals, but they aren't perfect.

Sound Wow this might be one of the best video game soundtracks I have ever played through. The use of specific tracks is so purposeful and used in specific emotional moments to give them even more meaning. The Fight tracks are varied and really get your amped , and the boss tracks were spectacular.

I find myself still listening to the OST just while working and doing other stuff, so that is a sign of a great OST!

Story and Characters I really enjoy the way this story is told. It uses a narrative device common to a lot of stories, throw the audience in, and through flashbacks and reveals they play catch up to figure out what is happening. I think it works well, exposition is trickled to the player. I have heard people describe the story as confusing, I could see that at first, but as it goes I didn't experience much confusion that I don't think was purposeful as a narrative device.

It also helps the themes of the game, acceptance, adoptive family, processing loss, all to come through as we witness our various characters experiencing these things.

I think FF13 really handles the trope of one major event connecting a group of people together, whether they like it or not, amazingly well. Our characters do not get along at first, they don't trust each other, and it makes sense. Some of them have conflict with each other.

As the game progresses, our character learn from their experiences, they change and develop in rally nuanced and rewarding ways. I really appreciated Hope's arc in particular. I remember him irritating me on my first play through, but I think the ways he worked through his grief felt very authentic. Sazh also stood out to me as particularly great as a character.

The characters aren't perfect, I liked Lightning, but she felt very typical JRPG. She had some development, but nothing to major. Snow I appreciated what they were trying for, but never quite worked for me.

I think the first 1/2 of the story works amazingly well, but the second half is a bit less strong. The final arc I found to be particularly mediocre. After spending so long with just our main party, having a few NPCs popping up and having stuff happen to them just fell a bit flat for me.

Great character and development, decent story.

Gameplay

The gameplay takes a while for player choices to really feel impactful. But once it gets going I really enjoyed the paradim system. It felt like what FF7 Remake sort of wanted to accomplish, but just done better.

I wish Eidolans could be used by not the leader, or that you could swap leaders mid-battle, but other then that I liked the battle system.

Gameplay is linear, there isn't much exploring or figuring out where to go, minus some maze-like dungeons. I liked this, I don't like spending hours wandering the wilderness in JRPGs, but I know this isn't for everyone.

If I have one big complaint about the gameplay it is the way item upgrades are handled. They get SO prohibitively expensive that the game is really pushing you to use the same characters the whole time once you can. I feel like with such a well developed cast this was a shame.

Overall, I really enjoyed my time with FF13, it isn't my favorite JRPG, but I think it deserves a play through from fans of the genre.

I decided that I am going to move forward with the goal of beating 360 Xbox 360 games. Each game will be picked randomly and this is where I will write my reviews for them

Game number 2 was chosen to be Final Fantasy 13. This is a turn-based, action RPG. It was somewhere between a turn-based and an action RPG. The game is extremely story focused and sees the player going through 13 chapters fighting enemies and learning about the world of Cocoon/Pulse. I have been a long-time fan of the Final Fantasy "series," its more like a genre or theme than an actual series, for as long as I have been playing games. I have beaten 1, 3, 7, 10, 15, and now 13. I enjoyed this game, but there are some glaring issues with it.

Graphics/Sound: I don't know how to get across the quality here. I think that this game may have the best graphics on the Xbox 360. The quality is so high that I was astonished. The sound is also amazing. I love the whole soundtrack, but the chapter 7 and chapter 11's Vallis Media area were my favorites. Honestly I wish I could give a 6/5 here... but. (5/5)

Story: The Gang, Lightning, Sazh, Snow, Vanille, Hope, and Fang, are living on a planetoid called Cocoon. This was made by sentient god-like creatures called Fal'Cie. Cocoon is held in orbit above a planet called Pulse and all the people of Coccon are afraid of Pulse. The members of The Gang (yeah that's what I am referring to them as) become branded by a Pulse Fal'Cie, which has come to Cocoon. This essentially gives them magical powers, but forces them to be a slave to the Fal'Cie. They then go on a journey to figure out what the Fal'Cie need and potentially stop the end of the world. I enjoyed the story in this game and I don't think it was as difficult to follow as some of the reviews and discussion online. Where I do get a little frustrated is how much story there is and how a lot of it is pointless. It seems like every 5 steps I take there's another cutscene. There is one spot in the game right before the final boss where the gang approaches a door, opens it in a cutscene, then control is given back to the player, they walk through the door, and another cutscene is played. Why did I get control for 2 seconds? That could have been 1 cutscene just showing the gang walking through the door. I have other issues with the story: Hope, Lightning, and Vanille. Hope and Lightning start the game as insufferable characters who do nothing but whine and complain. Eventually they do get some character growth and I liked both of them at the end of the story. I understand that characters have to start poorly to be able to grow, but I couldn't stand them being on screen. Also, Vanille was overly sexualized throughout the whole story and it made me feel really uncomfortable because she is a child. Overall, story was pretty good, but it had glaring issues. (3/5)

Gameplay: The gameplay in this game is so deep and really engaging... but you only get to experience it fully after 20 hours of play. I am so glad that its been about a week since I actually beat this game because I would have rated it higher upon first completing it, but I've had time to remember the whole journey. Combat is focused around switching different character classes (roles) mid battle. No, the combat does not play itself. I think the worst thing that Square-Enix did for this game was name the main attack button "auto-battle." That insinuates that the whole battle is fought for you and pisses players off because they do not want to do that. It should have been named "auto-fill" or "auto-assign" or something that better explains what it does. It fills up the attack bar with actions. The combat is too fast paced to actually pick your own actions in all but the most specific of circumstances, so this auto-battle button is almost necessary (it was for me at least). I thought that the focus on buff/debuffs was a welcome change to the franchise, where attacks have historically been prioritized. The summons in this game were lackluster and did little damage, but gave a full heal in a pinch. I wish they did massive damage like other FF games. The game is extremely linear, which isn't a bad thing, but the ONLY thing that is done in this game is fight enemies. All the player does is walk forward and fight enemies and I felt like there was some needed variety in my 35+ hour experience. Combat could have been great, but there are many reasons that it falls short in the end. It's not accurate to judge the system based only on what it is at the end of the game: an impressive 4 out of 5. (2/5)

My Journey: I am actually very happy that I got around to playing this game. I want to beat all the main FF games at some point and honestly thought this game was good. I liked the main story and enjoyed the combat system. It took me 36 hours, 12 min, and 42 sec to beat this game, which seemed like it was on the fast end; however, I wasn't speeding through it or anything. (4/5 for enjoyment)

Overall: The graphics and sound are amazing and the artists who worked on this game should be proud of themselves. I enjoyed the story, but it was bogged down by some poor character choices and pointless cutscenes. The gameplay was ultimately fun, but I felt insulted at how slow features opened up to me. It was like Square-Enix thought that I couldn't handle it or something. New features should have shown up for about 4-5 chapters and then I should have had everything. In the end, the game is not as bad as the haters say, but it's not as good as the fan's would like you to believe either. (3/5)

So far I have spent 45 hours and 49 min on the challenge.

Next Game: Transformers: War For Cybertron

Well, that's it folks, I've reached the post game for FFXIII. And thus ends a whirlwind and enjoyable ride through Pulse and Grand Cocoon over ten years since I last played the game. And I loved every moment of it. Every character, every event, every serious and silly moment, the beautiful corridors, the wonderful character development, the story that is far less complicated that people like to say it is, the best battle system to grace a Final Fantasy title, and a general all around fantastic game.

Is it the best Final Fantasy installment? I don't know, those things are highly subjective. Is it my favourite Final Fantasy? You bet your Chocobo it is. FFXIII is a deeply underappreciated, and probably deeply misunderstood title. As Heather Alexandra has put it when arguing in defense of FFXIII,

while Final Fantasy XIII was so frustrating that I literally gave up playing it the first time, closer examination reveals that its greatest crime wasn’t a radical departure from the series’ norms. Many of its structural elements were beta-tested in previous games. The semi-automated combat is a slightly more active take on Final Fantasy XII’s autopiloting. The Crystarium leveling system, where players unlocked nodes granting bonuses, was not so dissimilar from Final Fantasy X’s Sphere Grid. No, Final Fantasy XIII’s crime was not that it was somehow magically different from everything else. Its sin was that it simply wasn’t what gamers wanted.

The fact that Final Fantasy XIII was not Final Fantasy VII has followed the game ever since and colored conversation around it. Lightning was conceived by the game’s design team as a sort of “female version of Cloud,” and the game’s return to a science fiction setting after years of higher fantasy recalled Final Fantasy VII’s steampunk world. The idea of Final Fantasy XIII being a return to the days of the “best” Final Fantasy games was an intoxicating notion that didn’t quite happen. Fans took issue with the corridors, the cast—especially the women—and the combat. Why couldn’t Square-Enix give us our childhoods back?

Like FFXV it has some fantastic character development, with characters that actually have interiority, and personal motivation that stems from their own fears, anxieties and personal traumas than it ever does from the external forces of the game. And like every Final Fantasy, its story is merely a vehicle for the action and characters. In FFVII it's a vehicle for a story of environmentalism and the human tendency to bleed the earth dry. FFXIII has a story that plays backdrop to a human story, one about personal demons, obstacles and what it takes to reconcile oneself with both. It's a Final Fantasy game that places female characters front and centre, and gives them personal internalized motivations that are not tied to many of the stereotypical motivators women are given in video games. Few of the Square games I've played do that, with Chrono Trigger being one other potential exemplar. FFXIII gives us what I think is the best team in Final Fantasy history, a group of likeable characters who actually grow throughout the course of the game. And that growth is central to why FFXIII works for me.

I love this game. I am glad I finally replayed it after all these years. It's better than I remember, the characters mean more to me that I think they did a decade ago, and I think this is an absolutely pinnacle of Final Fantasy games, one that unfortunately too many people pass up thanks to its sorted, and frankly undeserved, reputation.

Final Fantasy XIII has all the ingredients you need for an amazing JRPG: a good story with interesting characters, a detailed world to explore, gorgeous music and visuals, and a fun combat system with a decent amount of complexity.

This game's strong suit is its story, which serves primarily as an allegory for how society treats deviancy. A contagious curse is thrust upon our protagonists and a manhunt ensues. They are said to be enemies of the people. Everything from society's fear of the unknown, to the instrumentation of that fear by elites for societal control is explored. It would be a huge omission not to mention the obvious gay subtext here. There are multiple scenes in the game that read as an allegorical gay coming out. On top of that the genre typical destruction and recreation of the world, that forms the climax of the game, is perpetrated by two characters of the same gender and results in them being eternalised in their affection for each other. This reading makes other major themes of the game such as that of chosen/found family and the rejection of one's own script as laid out by society all the more potent. It is however unfortunate that all of this messaging remains within the realm of allegory, especially when the only romantic (and of course straight) relationship in the game is portrayed in an incredibly kitsch way. Another strength of the story are the very interesting characters with their different and often contradictory goals. Seeing those conflicts play out and be resolved for the crew to unite against their common enemy over the course of the game is very rewarding.

Overall the game has a very linear structure. Some might lament the lack of towns and NPC interactions, but I think it fits thematically with the protagonists constantly being on the run. In fact when the protagonists choose to reject their fate and the manhunt ends, the game does open up for a while, until the party initiates the counterattack. I would have preferred this linear part of the game to be a bit more compressed though. The game builds a very rich world, but I think this partially works against it. Not only does the somewhat unconventional structure of the game not allow for a detailed exploration of that world, but it also hurts the detail in which the characters can be explored, which otherwise form the centre pieces of the story. Instead of showing how the characters relate to the world, the game gets seemingly hung up on a filling backstory and unnecessarily complicated terminology (e.g. Fal'Cie, L'Cie, Cie'th).

Visually the game makes a very good case for the hardware at the time. The game employs gorgeous looking skyboxes, fascinating geometry to spice up its various locations and pre-rendered cutscenes with great detail. Despite being over a decade old now, this game holds up visually. Music-wise this game is one of the best sounding JRPGs to date. A lot of games in the genre made the shift towards a hybrid orchestra for their soundtrack at the time. FF13 was one of the first and nails it. Especially the usage of electric guitars during battles makes this game's soundscape very modern and enthralling.

For this game the series typical Active Time Battle (ATB) is back with some twists. Additions like the combo meter and dynamically adjustable combat roles are very welcome. Now with most games in the genre (including the Final Fantasy series itself) using some kind of direct action battle system, having a combat system that doesn't require constant button pressing and good reflexes was a highly enjoyable change. Here the game's visual excellence shines even further. It is just really fun to watch characters move across the battle field and execute given commands. Furthermore the different roles that can be dynamically assigned to characters during combat allow for great diversity of play and since these roles are quite narrow in scope, they also allow for an AI that almost always does what you want it to. It has to be said however that this diversity of play is greatly limited for the first half of the game and generally mechanics designed to further facilitate this approach to the game, like accessories and role upgrades, seem more like a distraction. One thing that I found very annoying with this combat system is that there are enemies with AOE attacks but you can't directly control your character's positioning. As a result a strong AOE attack might wipe your party when you are unlucky with how the characters have decided to arrange themselves on the battlefield based on their given commands and vice-versa you might get lucky and survive such an attack. I'm not against chance in an RPG battle system, but this seems very excessive at times and is the kind of randomness that you can't really plan for—either it works or it doesn't.

Overall this is a good JRPG that I think time will be a lot more generous to, than contemporaries were at release.

In summary: 7/10

I've had a long history with the Final Fantasy games, starting back with 7 when it first released. I played 3 and 5-9 back in the day. I loved the series at first, and then not so much... so I barely touched it for over a decade (almost 2? good god). I finally played FF12 Zodiac Age earlier this year to see if it would rekindle my childhood love. It didn't. So I figured, what the hell, I'll play the game that long time fans of the series seem to hate the most. After all, I loved FF8 and hated FF9, so I guess every day is opposite day for me when it comes to Final Fantasy.

So, here are some thoughts in no real order:

Linearity: I was fine with it. Exploration in most other Final Fantasy games wasn't that interesting to me anyway. I play this type of game for the characters and the stories. I appreciated just getting to the point for the first 10 Chapters. Also, the hallways are goddamn beautiful and have great music, so that's cool.

No Towns: Why would you go into town when you're on the run? I legitimately thought it gave the game a really cool feeling of actually having to operate outside of society. Also, much like not caring too much about exploration in other Final Fantasy games, I never found towns that interesting to explore. I find that most JRPGs don't do a great job of delivering interesting side stories or fun flavor dialogue anyway.

Battle: By far my favorite mainline Final Fantasy system. I like Tactics more, but that's probably not a fair comparison. Dancing between the paradigms to get just enough healing, buffs and debuffs in while 5 starring everything I could was a great time. Making hallway battles potentially lethal in quite a few parts of the game made battle much more exciting. The only thing that really annoyed me was how slow the menus felt... the game is far too fast paced to faff about individually selecting abilities in most cases. Still, operating fast and furious at a slightly higher level of control kept me entertained throughout the game.

Characters: I liked them. I actually liked watching Hope grow as the game progressed. Dude was 14 and he figured out some heavy shit. Watching Lightning "lighten" up a bit was rewarding, too. Snow was the shounen protagonist I wanted and deserved. And Sazh was the man. Definitely the most relatable Final Fantasy character ever. Vanille was a fine character, though the voice acting was certainly interesting...

Story: I enjoyed it from the beginning. I didn't find the jargon that frightening. The plans on of the big bad were crazy but made sense by the end, like other Final Fantasies. Overall, the story was decent to good.

Crystarium: Ok, character advancement was a bit boring. That said, I liked that each character had a solid niche. I also liked that the vast majority of abilities were useful throughout the game. I didn't mind having 'level caps' throughout the story, either.

Items and weapons and stuff: Yeah, they dropped the ball here. It didn't have too much of a negative impact on my experience, but having better customization options through itemization (and leveling) would have definitely elevated the game.

Game Length: It took me a little under 45 hours to complete the main game + 25 or so hunts that were convenient to do along the way. Overall, the game really only felt like it dragged on in a couple of places (Chapter 7 and especially Chapter 10) to me, which is pretty good for a JRPG. I was ready to be done when I beat the last boss, but didn't feel like it was a chore. I may go back and try to do more of the hunts at some point, since I enjoy the game play, but the backlog never ends...

Conclusions: The things that people hate about the game generally just didn't matter to me, or were actually positives from my perspective. With how much I liked the battle system, characters, visuals and music, I think it's replaced FF8 as my favorite game in the main series. It doesn't quite make my "All Time Favorites" shelf, but it was a darn good experience from where I'm standing. FF13 has successfully rekindled my interest in the series. I'll be playing the rest of the trilogy and several other FF games over the next few months (years?).