Game Thoughts: Final Fantasy XIII
One of the many things I've been working on during my Spring Break is the recently released video game, Final Fantasy XIII. For a number of reasons (chief of which, pre-occupation with other stuff), I am only eight hours into this game and perhaps a third of the way into Chapter 4.
Its been...several years since I've played a video game, so I'm a bit rusty. Don't misunderstand--over the last few years I have played (and beaten) a number of video games, but they were ROMs emulated on my PC, and I haven't played a next-gen RPG (anything past PSOne) in years. This is my first PS3 RPG ever, honestly. So hopefully you'll understand if, maybe there's some new rules to my favorite genre I don't get.
Final Fantasy starts with an introduction that really should grip most people from the start. Last I checked, RPGs were about saving the world, and that always begins on a smaller scale (to see if you can handle it)--so when your story starts out with a bunch of terrified people on a train and a squad of what appears to be an oppressive military force taking them somewhere against your will, your hero instincts (you ARE playing a hero) should take over and you should want to DO something. (If you don't, why are you playing an RPG?)
Fortunately, unlike a lot of RPGs, your main character isn't a complete weakling, and kick-starts everything herself. In a beautifully animated sequence, she takes out all the military (you eventually find out they're a group called PSICOM) with the smallest bit of help from a gun user named Sazh. Of course, I've never seen an operation that goes perfect for heroes, so its about this time that someone blows up the rail for the train, knocking everything off-course, and we're left with our heroes--Lightning and Sazh--trying to escape from the military after helping the others on the train get away.
I can't make a complete judgment as of yet, being so early into the game, but what I HAVE noticed is quite the amusing irony: Despite Final Fantasy XIII apparently being the most linear game ever created (that IS what people keep complaining about, at least), the story is told in a completely unlinear fashion, jumping around to various points in the characters' pasts to explain just how each of them end up in their current situation. I guess it could be hard to understand...but only if you're a complete fucking idiot. (That having been said, they rely on the game's Datalog a bit too much. I didn't know who NORA was supposed to be until I looked it up. I thought they were a resistance group but they turned out to be a peacekeeping militia force until the purge.) There's a lot of discussion of Pulse, Cocoon, L'Cie, Fal'sie, Cie'th, Focus, and so on... And at first you have no idea what it means, but that changes somewhere around the first hour of gameplay. By the end of Chapter 2 if you don't completely get what's happened to that point you shouldn't even be playing this game. You should be somewhere coloring. (Hoping your next drawing will make it on the refrigerator. But it won't, because elephants aren't orange you idiot. © Daniel Tosh) To be honest, by the start of Chapter Four I was quite tired of them explaining everything to me in an expositionary fashion.
Speaking of which, I have to say Final Fantasy XIII has devised the most clever alternate method of getting their heroes to save the world I have seen in some time. Final Fantasy Thirteen's world is split into two sections: Cocoon, which is where normal society lives--literally a cocoon in which people have crafted a world, and Pulse, a world outside of Cocoon, frequently described as a horrible place in which humans couldn't survive two minutes. Their society is protected by the Cocoon's Fal'cie, a magical being of great power. But there's also the Pulse Fal'cie, seen as enemies of Cocoon, made ever more deadly by the fact that Fal'cie can, at any time, turn humans into L'cie, cursed humans that are forced to fulfill a Focus--a goal--given to them by the Fal'cie. If they cannot fulfill the Focus, then they are turned into Cie'th, monsters beyond becoming human ever again.
....So, yeah, you guessed it, your characters become L'Cie. Because of the enmity between Pulse and Cocoon though, L'Cie are thought to be enemies of Cocoon, who exist only to destroy the peaceful society that exists in Cocoon. The starting events of the game come from a Pulse Fal'cie being discovered in a city inside Cocoon, and the panic that occurs just from the POSSIBILITY the people in the town may be infected leads to the military first sealing off the town, then rounding up everyone in it and "purging" them from Cocoon and taking them to Pulse. (Should you check the datalog, you'll discover that Pulse looks...suspiciously like Earth, by the way.)
So two chapters in, you've become a L'Cie, which comes with the ability to use magic, and assigned the goal to save Cocoon (who all hate you). If you do not...well...in Chapter Two you get to SEE the failures before you even become a L'Cie. So what awaits you is obvious. Great motivation, really.
The battle system, initially pissed me off. With only a limited number of options, I found myself just pressing X a lot for Auto-Battle. (Before you complain, this was the natural progression of the Gambit System, which many people either loved or rationalized into a good idea, which it was.) Once you develop magical abilities though, battle difficulty changes and you find yourself glad that you are not able to control your other characters (the AI's smart enough anyway). My only complaint is that we aren't allowed to move around. While this rarely helped me dodge in 12, the illusion was nice.
I would comment on the graphics, but, c'mon. Its a Final Fantasy. You know its beautiful. Square is always pushing the boundaries of what can be done with a given system graphically.
This is running a little long, so I'll wrap it up by saying thus far, this is a great game, if not a perfect one. Even the characters are cool, aside from Hope. (Whiny brat.) Lightning's an example of altering a trope by changing one aspect (she's female) but she's still...interesting, if a bit too enigmatic, Sazh is comedy relief without being stupid, Snow's the idealistic hero without being a 15 year old teenage boy who knows jack-squat about the world, and Vanille's...I don't know WTF is up with Vanille, to be honest. Though I can't shake the feeling she's a girl from Pulse.
In any case, despite being a decent game, I'm sure plenty of people will find a reason to hate it. They always do. Final Fantasy's been a polarizing franchise since VIII. There are STILL people saying the last good game for the franchise was six, and yet with each new iteration they complain as if its a new disappointment. Others simply look for reasons to hate FF games, so any bad review will instantly result in an, "I KNEW I was right!", despite never having spent even a few minutes playing the game. Can't help the stupid, I guess.
Anyway its day...six of my Spring Break and I'm kinda slacking on getting stuff done. *Ninja Vanish*
Its been...several years since I've played a video game, so I'm a bit rusty. Don't misunderstand--over the last few years I have played (and beaten) a number of video games, but they were ROMs emulated on my PC, and I haven't played a next-gen RPG (anything past PSOne) in years. This is my first PS3 RPG ever, honestly. So hopefully you'll understand if, maybe there's some new rules to my favorite genre I don't get.
Final Fantasy starts with an introduction that really should grip most people from the start. Last I checked, RPGs were about saving the world, and that always begins on a smaller scale (to see if you can handle it)--so when your story starts out with a bunch of terrified people on a train and a squad of what appears to be an oppressive military force taking them somewhere against your will, your hero instincts (you ARE playing a hero) should take over and you should want to DO something. (If you don't, why are you playing an RPG?)
Fortunately, unlike a lot of RPGs, your main character isn't a complete weakling, and kick-starts everything herself. In a beautifully animated sequence, she takes out all the military (you eventually find out they're a group called PSICOM) with the smallest bit of help from a gun user named Sazh. Of course, I've never seen an operation that goes perfect for heroes, so its about this time that someone blows up the rail for the train, knocking everything off-course, and we're left with our heroes--Lightning and Sazh--trying to escape from the military after helping the others on the train get away.
I can't make a complete judgment as of yet, being so early into the game, but what I HAVE noticed is quite the amusing irony: Despite Final Fantasy XIII apparently being the most linear game ever created (that IS what people keep complaining about, at least), the story is told in a completely unlinear fashion, jumping around to various points in the characters' pasts to explain just how each of them end up in their current situation. I guess it could be hard to understand...but only if you're a complete fucking idiot. (That having been said, they rely on the game's Datalog a bit too much. I didn't know who NORA was supposed to be until I looked it up. I thought they were a resistance group but they turned out to be a peacekeeping militia force until the purge.) There's a lot of discussion of Pulse, Cocoon, L'Cie, Fal'sie, Cie'th, Focus, and so on... And at first you have no idea what it means, but that changes somewhere around the first hour of gameplay. By the end of Chapter 2 if you don't completely get what's happened to that point you shouldn't even be playing this game. You should be somewhere coloring. (Hoping your next drawing will make it on the refrigerator. But it won't, because elephants aren't orange you idiot. © Daniel Tosh) To be honest, by the start of Chapter Four I was quite tired of them explaining everything to me in an expositionary fashion.
Speaking of which, I have to say Final Fantasy XIII has devised the most clever alternate method of getting their heroes to save the world I have seen in some time. Final Fantasy Thirteen's world is split into two sections: Cocoon, which is where normal society lives--literally a cocoon in which people have crafted a world, and Pulse, a world outside of Cocoon, frequently described as a horrible place in which humans couldn't survive two minutes. Their society is protected by the Cocoon's Fal'cie, a magical being of great power. But there's also the Pulse Fal'cie, seen as enemies of Cocoon, made ever more deadly by the fact that Fal'cie can, at any time, turn humans into L'cie, cursed humans that are forced to fulfill a Focus--a goal--given to them by the Fal'cie. If they cannot fulfill the Focus, then they are turned into Cie'th, monsters beyond becoming human ever again.
....So, yeah, you guessed it, your characters become L'Cie. Because of the enmity between Pulse and Cocoon though, L'Cie are thought to be enemies of Cocoon, who exist only to destroy the peaceful society that exists in Cocoon. The starting events of the game come from a Pulse Fal'cie being discovered in a city inside Cocoon, and the panic that occurs just from the POSSIBILITY the people in the town may be infected leads to the military first sealing off the town, then rounding up everyone in it and "purging" them from Cocoon and taking them to Pulse. (Should you check the datalog, you'll discover that Pulse looks...suspiciously like Earth, by the way.)
So two chapters in, you've become a L'Cie, which comes with the ability to use magic, and assigned the goal to save Cocoon (who all hate you). If you do not...well...in Chapter Two you get to SEE the failures before you even become a L'Cie. So what awaits you is obvious. Great motivation, really.
The battle system, initially pissed me off. With only a limited number of options, I found myself just pressing X a lot for Auto-Battle. (Before you complain, this was the natural progression of the Gambit System, which many people either loved or rationalized into a good idea, which it was.) Once you develop magical abilities though, battle difficulty changes and you find yourself glad that you are not able to control your other characters (the AI's smart enough anyway). My only complaint is that we aren't allowed to move around. While this rarely helped me dodge in 12, the illusion was nice.
I would comment on the graphics, but, c'mon. Its a Final Fantasy. You know its beautiful. Square is always pushing the boundaries of what can be done with a given system graphically.
This is running a little long, so I'll wrap it up by saying thus far, this is a great game, if not a perfect one. Even the characters are cool, aside from Hope. (Whiny brat.) Lightning's an example of altering a trope by changing one aspect (she's female) but she's still...interesting, if a bit too enigmatic, Sazh is comedy relief without being stupid, Snow's the idealistic hero without being a 15 year old teenage boy who knows jack-squat about the world, and Vanille's...I don't know WTF is up with Vanille, to be honest. Though I can't shake the feeling she's a girl from Pulse.
In any case, despite being a decent game, I'm sure plenty of people will find a reason to hate it. They always do. Final Fantasy's been a polarizing franchise since VIII. There are STILL people saying the last good game for the franchise was six, and yet with each new iteration they complain as if its a new disappointment. Others simply look for reasons to hate FF games, so any bad review will instantly result in an, "I KNEW I was right!", despite never having spent even a few minutes playing the game. Can't help the stupid, I guess.
Anyway its day...six of my Spring Break and I'm kinda slacking on getting stuff done. *Ninja Vanish*
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