I’m on my way through Final Fantasy XIII and considering a number of people are still asking me about it, or at least sitting through my unsolicited tweets, it makes me think it’s worth reviewing.
All told, it gives me a sort-of Greatest Hits vibe. Like, Square is going back to a number of more successful wells while still advancing the ball further down the field.
After the ubiquitous disappointment of the previous entry: XII, a lot is riding on XIII. More than sales or cross-platform performances; perhaps the very soul of the franchise — or at least its place in the hearts and minds of a generation. Which sounds important, but really only to those of us “heads” who want to enjoy future successes.
So let me muse for a bit about what works about this game, where it seems to be coming from, and my overall boner for the series as a whole.
Sounds fun, no?
No?
Oh, well, I’m doing it anyway.
Level Design: X
I hope you like crooked lines that lead directly to your goal, b/c that’s what we have here. Only with the detail and setting design from, say, XII. Which isn’t faint praise, XII’s problems were neither design nor detail. Still, you’re mostly on rails, walking in some variation of straight line to the next fight or destination.
The occasional sidetrack or alternate path might show up, but that’s how you know where the chests are. Sometimes these tangents allow you to get the jump on a set of enemies, but even that is predictable. I understand wider, opener plains await further down the road, and I do hope so, but there’s nothing wrong per se with controlling the player’s path.
I think my only problem with it, is that in X the long road was part of the very fabric of the game. You were on a pilgrimage, and that presupposes a long road. It might even mean that in some long forgotten language. Here it’s more a minimalist way to usher you from trigger to trigger, which is fine, if more transparent.
One of the things FF has always done so well is couching it’s gaminess in a bed of context. Even going so far as to refer to Sphere Grids as if they are Real Things that everyone in Spira deals with.
Anyway, this is suitable but not very inspired.
Gameplay, Storytelling: Final Fantasy VI, IX, and X
Another element cribbed directly from X’s playbook: walk and fight for a spell, interrupt with some expositiony interaction, repeat.
Whereas X mastered this trick, this one is occasionally wrong-minded. At times resembling the bounciest part of IX’s Active Time mini-games when you really just want to find a save point and go to bed.
Beyond that, the girl “lead” isn’t the only thing in common with VI. XIII borrows the ensemble storytelling over the single-viewpoint favored for the last… oh… 20 years.
There are a lot of POV changes, including dictating my party, and their roles. Eventually this will be something I control and for now I appreciate the way it’s handled.
The POV switches become more spaced out over time, but ~15 hours into the game I still control three separate parties. Harkening back to the first third of VI where the party splits up to set out on your world-wide purpose; gaining allies, righting wrongs, and spending way too long on the Veldt. This game takes that and does one better by putting my various parties at cross-purpose, and that’s pretty cool. I look forward to gaining more control over my play experience, but I’ve only been mildly frustrated by that lack so far.
Now onto the warts: The lack of connection or context from XII rears its unfortunate head. You’ll be bombarded with made-up words and concepts (instead of just saying “Magic Users”, y’know, so we can all understand), and these made-up words will greatly inform the motivations of the various characters.
At the height of my frustration I noticed that while loading the game from a save, some text would come up explaining what was going on much better than the game had.
That’s a handy feature and all, but the save points are frequent and I like to play for epic stints, so I’m missing a lot of these breakdowns. Ah, that’s b/c they’re all stowed away in a menu-driven codex. So I have to read the story you’re telling me, instead of, you know, you showing me!
Who, what, when, where, and why were the big problems with XII, and probably the leading disconnect with that game and pretty much everybody. I rarely knew quite what I was doing, or why. Here you have clearer motivations, but between the flurry punches of nonsense-words and the naturally terse character depictions, a lot is left unsaid.
Now I know l’cie are magic users chosen by fal’cie (creepy godlings who support dueling states), that frighten the populace with their very existence and turn into monsters if they’re not careful. Or that Pulse is a place. A place opposite of Cocoon, and thus similar to the Al Bhed, and whatever they were called in VIII. So now I have a much greater understanding and appreciation for the story. I just wish they had put more of that in the mouths of the characters.
To risk repeating myself: the reason so many RPG characters are orphans, amnesiacs, and hicks are so that my main character can ask a lot of stupid questions and unlock some necessary exposition. It may seem clumsy at times, but no clumsier than clicking through a menu and reading when I really want to be kicking epic ass.
Gameplay, Combat: VII, X-2, XII, and Penny Arcade: On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness
As usual, the combat is “all-new, all-different”.
XIII is deceptively simple with alarming, vertigo-inducing depth as I get further in.
The effects of pushing the buttons call to mind the high-stunt combat of VII or VIII, but the control is wildly different. Its closest parallel is probably X-2; (suck on that haters) especially if you mucked around in the Via Infinito, where every fight demanded your full attention.
X-2 mixed with the fire and forget auto-pilot from XII. Only you really don’t want to do the “forget” part. The combat is going to need your eyes open and your fingers ready at all times.
Even the most mundane of battles can turn on you, and quickly. I got chumped four times in a row by a set of soldiers b/c I refused to sit up and take it serious. Considering the first menu choice is “Auto-Battle” (and means just what it says: the computer picks from a limited menu and launches your character into the fray) you might think I’m crazy even once you’ve been given these Paradigm thingies. Believe me, it’s oh so much more than that. If you’ve ever played the Penny Arcade RPG, it has a lot in common. You’ll be actively marshalling your forces and never able to just put down the controller and walk away.
RPGs are always struggling to keep combat from feeling like a chore, and FF usually excels at doing just that. From the grind porn of VII to the RoShamBo of X. Not every one was a winner but I often found myself going out of my way to get into fights, whether for the XP, AP, rare items, or to simply get better at it. This game is no exception. Technically you can avoid some fights, but I never want to.
The Auto-Battle system is pretty smart, and hasn’t betrayed me yet. If a creature is known to have an elemental weakness (discovered through Libra/Scan), you’ll exploit it and/or avoid the element that gives the fiend its life back. Without fail.
As a healer, you’ll heal whoever needs it more, as a buffer you’ll spread around the love, etc. You mostly let the characters fight as their jobs dictate, but you tell them what job to be and when.
And yes it matters, it matters a lot. Even off the street encounters can benefit from job—er, Paradigm—management, and it’s damn necessary in the boss fights.
Speak of which….
Summoning/Eidolons: IV, and XII
This feature comes with a lot of Bullshit™, be warned.
Much like IV and XII, you must first defeat the various Eidolons for their respect. Unfortunately fighting them means whatever Square wants at a given moment, and you better have the book or your internets nearby. In the tutorial it explains you’ll want to use Libra and that will outline how to beat them.
Except it doesn’t and have fun dying.
Example. The first Summon, Shiva (sisters), shows up and pick a fight with you. You Libra like a good boy. It says she “respects chains”. You’ve gotten good at chains, you think, so you commence t’wailing on her. This gets you stomped often, only to be healed by the non-combatant sister, revealing this as some cruel game they play. Once you’ve nary moved her “acceptance” bar, time runs out, and you’re presumed dead.
Good job, sucker. Wanna try again?
Wanna know how you have to beat her? I’ll seriously just straight tell you.
Battle starts: Use Libra, once that’s done, switch Paradigms (a feature you’ve yet to have to use) to Sentinel, you will then shoot off three useless attempts to Provoke. You have to do this apparently, even though it won’t work and wastes time.
Then you’ll start using Steelguard, which essentially covers your face and takes Shiva’s mean-spirited pounding without retort. Ah, but even that isn’t so simple. You need line up your guards to her attacks to make sure you get it all, or at least most of it. Which means you’ll want to use the Y (or Triangle) button to cut off your ATB and do the moves already queued up, or X (Square) to cancel, start over, and better line up with her attacks.
Mind you, you haven’t been taught that Y or X do these things, nor the importance of trying different Paradigm combinations, nor that “respecting chains” means, “turtle up and take it, chump-lick”.
Square has made it increasingly essential to buy books to crack their bizarre, tangential sidequests, or sort out how to beat the best of the best. This is the first I can remember needing the book to beat an unavoidable joust in the first quarter of the game, however. I am not amused.
The next Eidolon battle is slightly more straight-forward insomuch as it actually wants you to fight back this time (but still uses that “respects chains” line, which leads me to thinks these guys are all just kinky). You’ll want to remember to bring Protect(ion), or it’ll be over in seconds. Good luck with that one too.
After all that, I haven’t had cause to actually summon one. Even the larger bosses are better taken down by frequent Paradigm shifts.
When and if you do summon one, it’s the replace your party method of X and XII. More like XII only it sucks less. Those of you who played XII know exactly what that means.
They fight with you, and if you’d like you can turn them into a motorcycle or a pony (yeah, no, really) and unleash another set of powerful attacks.
It’s okay, but again, not a lot of call for it yet.
The characters/design: VI, VIII, and XII
With not-quite Quistis, and not-quite Seifer as your main characters, VIII is the obvious choice. Beyond that, everyone has a realistic build and design.
Their motivations are VIII as filtered through XII. Subtle and in no rush to put themselves out there just yet. However, each character is already clearer than XII ever got.
Everyone has some surprise in store ranging from the fairly obvious to the likely world-shattering. I’m expecting at least one or two “Yuna’s going to what?!”-level turns sooner or later, which will be welcome.
Yes the annoying girl is annoying, but that’s by design. Yuffie, Selphie, and Rikku are annoying if slightly more endearing to start – although, at least you didn’t have to hear Yuffie grate on your nerves.
The boy, Hope, is actually a decent turn of a character, and I’m appreciating his arc so far.
Sazh and Snow are more surficial characters but there’s some decent depth – or at least the illusion thereof.
Lightning is Cloud or Squall redux, which is perfectly fine. Someone needed to be the terse, battle-jaded warrior, and I’m glad it’s a chick this time, instead of a dude who looks like a chick.
Another woman I’ve met but haven’t had the pleasure just yet.
All told it’s a decent enough cast with some tension between the characters, which is rare in your average world-saving JRPG.
So far so good at least.
Greatest Hits: Final Thoughts
Which is as good a place as any to illustrate one of the reasons I enjoy FF as a series so much: the recurrences.
Not just Chocobos, or Airships, or Cid, or Moogles. Similar models, characters, struggles, and themes, recast in new worlds and new contexts.
Back when they let you rename the characters, I would reuse the same set of names and got to thinking of the series as performed by an ensemble cast of actors. Terra from VI (or Newt as I called her) went on to play Tifa in VII, Rinoa in VIII, Garnet, Yuna, etc. While this progression isn’t always a straight line, it brings me joy, and you can shut up about it.
You can often see how they have taken apart old concepts and put them back together in alien configurations like so much Legos. A kingdom becomes a technological Empire becomes a corporation, and so on. I find that hint of familiarity really endearing, while always ending up as something else entirely. Even the hated XII, I at least appreciate as something different (too different perhaps?).
The Verdict (so far): This game is giving me just enough of the familiar. Some mild bullshit aside, I think this one is already a winner. Will it go down as a Greatest Hit, like VI, VII, VIII or X? Or will it fade in with the enjoyable but less-so entries like IV or IX. Or will it come to be regarded as a flaming turd, a la X-2 (which I loved and will bare knuckle box all y’all heartless assholes) or XII?
I still have a lot of miles in front of me before a final determination, but so far, I think it’s edging it’s way closer to the former.
Oh well, back to it. These fal’cie aren’t going to fight themselves.
