Final Fantasy XIII

• Genre: RPG
• Time Played: 60 Hours
• Too Short/Long: There are parts that drag on, both in the beginning, at at the end, so for that, I'd say it's probably too long. It should maybe be closer to the 40 hour mark.
• Pleased/Disappointed: It's not perfect but I'm pleased with it overall.
• Why I played: I've been meaning to finish XIII for a long time. I've started the game new three times since it was released, and this last playthrough I started 4 years ago. Once we moved I only managed to pick it up for a brief hour-two each year since then.
• Recommend to others: I actually do, I like Final Fantasy XIII a lot. It's in my upper half of Final Fantasy games. My first two false starts were 15-30 hours each, so I've played this one quite a bit.

I started Final Fantasy XIII before I moved. I also started it before I officially began keeping track of the games I complete, as a means of self-regulated accountability. I've only used this blog for the better part of two years, but I've been keeping some kind of record since 2020. In fact, this game was probably one of the ones I originally considered when taking this on. That said, for year 1-2 I didn't do a full write up, I merely logged the game down in a "Beaten" list.

The third time I started the game, I believe I partially started from the beginning because Alice was interested in the game and wanted to see it. I do like the game, so I didn't mind losing nearly 30 hours progress. Also, if you pick up the game without playing for years, nothing makes sense. What the hell is a l'cie, and a fal'cie and if they don't follow their focus they'll become a cei'th?

The game tries to combine it's very unique setting of Pulse and Cocoon (a normal planet(?) and people who live in like, the inside of a mini-moon that hovers within the planets atmosphere ) with norse mythology. The whole thing is about a "Ragnarok" of sorts and there a bunch of analogs for characters. It can be a bit clunky in the story telling when you haven't fully immersed into the world yet.

While I do think the story is good and fun, and really enjoy some of the characters, and other aspects of the game, I do think it tries a bit too hard, and because of that, I can see why it would fall flat for other Final Fantasy game enjoyers. There just isn't enough that's relatable and a lot of the other Final Fantasy games have aspects of the story telling that ground it in something similar to reality at times. Final Fantasy XIII just doesn't do it enough.

Combine that with the fact it takes at least 6+ hours for the game to introduce you to the full combat mechanics, and there only being one direction for you to travel for that duration, making that immediate gameplay loop a slog, despite jumping right in to the deep with some intense cinematics. It doesn't match it's energy. So while I am a Final Fantasy XIII apologist/sympathizer, I also empathize with people who say they couldn't get far in it.

I don't empathize with people who say it's a bad game. First off, 15 years later, it's still gorgeous. Yeah maybe the quality of the character models didn't hold up and don't still look "just like real life" like someone may have said 15 years ago, but even the worst of it is passable. It really shines in it's scenery though. It's a shame I can't take screenshots on PS3 like I can on modern consoles, there were so many times I wanted to get a screenshot of the gorgeous environment.

I think when the PS4 came out, I mocked the share button. I will fully admit, I was mistaken on that one.

Besides the looks though, the music is fantastic, but I think that's a given with Final Fantasy.

I love some of the cast, there a couple fillers, but I do hate Hope. I did the first time I played and I still do now. I also hate most "little boy" character archetypes, but he just pushes my buttons in particular because he's a such an ass. By the end of the game, he's fine, really, kinda matures or comes to the right conclusions etc to go along with the party and everything happening, and throws in a couple inspirational quotes, but all his character development is just centered around what a little shit he is and he doesn't do much to make up for that.

The combat is excellent once you get into the fully realized system. I don't know if it's just me coming right off of Xenoblade Chronicles, but I do feel like you should be able to control each character to a degree. FFXIII has characters other than the one you are playing automatically act based off the paradigm use hotswap during combat, which basically different class formations. Characters don't have access to their full moveset at any given time, instead you spend the battle shifting classes. The strategy of it, is having set up formations that work well for the battle.

I really have only two gripes with the combat system, because overall I think it's rather unique and fun, and they're kinda the same complaint. You can only use unique specials and summons from the character you are actively playing, and you can't swap characters you are playing mid-combat. Maybe they did it for balancing? Like it would be TOO powerful to let you summon all your summons, and use all your specials? I don't think it would be because I don't find summons to be overpowered, and because of the TP system, you'd at most, only be able to summon 2 summons in especially grueling battle. Also, the specials I don't think are super overpowered either, in fact, because they're specialized in how they act, it's not always advantages just to spam the specials, so it would really open things up end-game. 

I can understand maybe not wanting the party-AI not just spamming specials, but maybe that's why you use one of those damn back buttons or something to hotswap who your party "leader" is. As much as I like the base of the combat system, I think this improvement would have made the game far more engaging. I can see how in 2009 they were like "whoa whoa, that's too much to manage". But again, I'm coming pretty hot off a Xenoblade game, so I often felt like I had "too little" to do, and it was always when I wanted a different character to perform a specific action. Otherwise, the party AI is pretty good at doing what is usually the most advantageous procedure.

Another small gripe is how they handle the mission system. You can't take on multiple missions at once, and a large percentage of missions are locked out until you complete prior missions. If you don't put at least some focus into doing missions as soon as you get them, then you'll miss out on even getting access to certain extremely valuable missions(unlocking warp points). Where the game does makeup for it, and do something I appreciate though, is that nothing in the game is fully misable(as far as I know) and you can fully backtrack anywhere (almost)anytime once you reach a certain point. Having those warp points would super help with that though, so, definitely gotta unlock them via mission progress.

I also think every RPG should have mini-games. XIII doesn't really have any. It's not the only Final Fantasy that doesn't by far. But when the game is 40+ hours of selecting words from menus, I just like to mix up the monotony.