Final Fantasy XIII Review - The Cure For Stockholm Syndrome

Meet Lightening. She Doesn't Remember Much Of Her Past. She Has Pink Hair And Belt Straps On Her Boots. This Must Be Final Fantasy.

 

Being a JRPG made by Square-Enix means never having to apologize to your fans. Think about it. How many times have you picked up a core Final Fantasy game only to 'convince' yourself that it isn't as bad as you thought it would be. No? Oh well then you are like me. You've grown use to the zippers, haircuts and unintelligible tales being strummed out of the platinum pens of Square-Enix's finest writers. Final Fantasy XIII had to pass through hundreds of hands for several years and I'm sure when this project landed on a lucky developers desk, there was a lot of weight and stress that came with it. I see on message boards and read tweets of my friends falling deeply in love with Final Fantasy XIII. Sadly, I am very far from one of those people. I feel deeply to sleep.

At its best, Final Fantasy XIII is an odd tale of patience. You star as Lightening, the female protagonist and silly haircut wearer of this harrowing tale of, well, I wasn't quite sure. Apparently, no one told Motomu Toriyama, or any of the other writers over the past four years of development, that creating a story with a clear "us versus them" scenario necessitates that the us's and them's be clearly defined. The game starts with an escape similar to both Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X, where you and the allies you collect [conveniently] abscond the city of Concoon from an evil extermination squad. 

The Art Design In Final Fantasy XIII Rivals That Of VIII and XII. Unfortunately So Does The Story.

Still with me? Your character party consists of Sazh, an emotional blend of Danny Glover from the Lethal Weapon movies and Chris Tucker from the movie Fifth Element. Not the worst depiction of black people in a Japanese-made game, but his knack for shouting and always being afraid of just about anything lends him to being a dated comic relief character. Rounding out the 'Cast of Grand Annoyance', as I call it, is Vanille.

Vanille serves no purpose in Final Fantasy XIII. You can fight me on this one, but if you took Vanille out of this game, the story would progress with a slightly less annoying Austrailian voice actress constantly reminding you how wonderful life is. Hope is your emo child looking for a reason to be, but never achieves his goal on account of him crying anytime anything of significance occurs. The story isn't absolutely abysmal. Much like recent Final Fantasy's the story is convoluted and the plotting is horrifying. The voice acting doesn't do much better, but there are moments where you forget that the story is just as ridiculous as the hairstyles.

Protip: You See That Map In The Upper Right-Hand Corner? See How It Only Goes In Two Directions? Get Use To That.

When you have to shoe horn summaries and recaps during the load screens as a result of not being able to effectively communicate the story, then you have to reevaluate what the goal of your RPG is. Final Fantasy XIII is one of the most visually striking games I've ever had the displeasure of playing. The rumors are true, you will have to walk on a path for about 20-plus hours in order to make it to the point of the game replicating what Final Fantasy was so technically proficient at; giving users freedom of movement. Even then you have to decide, is it worth grinding your way through Gran Pulse in order to boost your party's skills. 

One Of The More Interesting Aspects Of FFXIII Is The Paradigm System. Very Useful When You Get Bored Of Pressing X or B Depending On Your System. Also Useful In The More Complex Battles Nearing The End Of The Game.

Everything is so sleekly designed. The character menu setup feels expensive [if that makes any sense]. The Paradigm Shift battle system is the best fighting system I've played in a core Final Fantasy title. There is a flaw with the battle system, you are completely restricted from experimenting with it until halfway through the game. Anything positive done in favor of me recommending this game is completely dragged down by the punitive design. You could make your battles interesting by figuring out what Paradigm Shifts work best with your particular team, but in most cases you could just press the auto-anything button and let the game figure it out for you. You never have complete control over every party members actions which begs the question, is Final Fantasy XIII even a role-playing game?

There are glowing cities you will visit, populated by chatty people that you will have limited to no interaction. This $70 million dollar game feels like a gutted fish. Incredibly detailed vistas and rolling hills that you will never be able to fully explore. The Final Fantasy XIII experience has characters that don't ever seem to really like each other -- collected in a game that holds your hand more than half of the time you play it. There were moments where the voice acting and story came together. I really wanted to know what the fate of a l'Cie would be. I wanted to see how the triangle between Lightening, Snow and Hope would eventually play out. The music is probably the best I have ever heard out of Masashi Hamauzu and should be commended for contributing one of the few saving graces of this game.

The Most Suprising Aspect Of FFXIII Is How Unsurprising The Story Is. You Never Fear For The Heroes' Safety. There Is No Addictive Mini-Game. Its Beautifully Sterile.

Final Fantasy XIII served as a wake-up call for me and I'm hoping RPG creators -- Western and Japanese alike. Pouring money and years into a game only for it to patronize the player and essentially demean the studio creating it is a feat in itself. Apologist and die-hard fans will get what they can out of the complex battle system and incredibly demanding battles that occur much later in the game. Me, I've fortunately been jerked out of the spell the Final Fantasy series had cast on me some 15 years ago.

It takes a lot to convince a victim that they are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. Part of being a good fan means knowing the strengths and weaknesses of a what you are supporting. Final Fantasy XIII is a story you've played before with characters you've met before, only this time they aren't interested in playing with you.

I Give Final Fantasy XIII...

 

Oh Look, Someone Cut Brian Posehn's Face In His Head.

The "Unfortunate Haircut" Award

Comments

[JKC]

Well... Shit.

No wait! I've figured it out! I realized why JRPG's (and Japanese games in general) are failing so much.

It's because the Japanese business model of promoting from within is a completely outdated model.

These people are placing guys who have worked for the company for years as character designers, in charge of coming up with stories and gameplay mechanics They've been doing this for years and it's getting progressively worse. How can someone who has been working on the same games for a decade in one area be expected to come up with unique and compelling ideas in areas in which they have utterly no experience? It doesn't even make sense.

Unlike in America, where a kid who is an artist might also dream of being, say, a stage designer for a 3D platformer, many people in the Japanese development community DIDNT EVEN WANT TO MAKE GAME IN THE FIRST PLACE. That's some telling shit right there. I can't help but think that Tetsuya Nomura just wants to design clothes for teenage girls in the year 2030, and is stuck making games in the meantime.

Seriously, for a while there I was thinking that maybe Japanese game makers were just tapped out of ideas, and satisfied with cranking out superficial nonsense stories wrapped around simplified systems loosely based on old ideas. Then I realized... okay, that was true. But THEN I realized that there were still very interesting, very creative manga, anime, cinema, and novels coming out of Japan. So what's the problem with their games? Why are their games becoming so awful?

It's because they refuse to outsource. The American and European developers have slowly begun to reach out to artists, musicians, and most importantly, writers, to create some of their most compelling games. Reaching outside of their in-house staff, to people with unusual talents. The Japanese still haven't done this to any extent. They really have been quite stubborn about it. How hard is it to reach out to some young manga-ka and ask him to design some characters for you? Why not ask the author of a decent sci-fi novel to take a look at your next games scenarios, and punch them up a bit so they don 't read like a five year-old was trying to adapt the New Testament?

[Isaiah T. Taylor]

On one hand I look at a game like Resident Evil 5 and Lost Planet 2 and say, "Damnit Jason...you gotta good point." Whenever the attempt to evolve an established series with new and/or 'Western ideas' the result is a game with something that features that feel shoehorned in. "Kids love the Co-ops! Why not give them a Co-op game that is more cumbersome than fun!?"

But then I look at a game like Bayonetta and think. Okay...flawed, but headed in the right direction writing-wise. Maybe its a case of the more well established Japanese game makers vs the smaller companies who are willing to be more experimental with their limited funds.

[jezzyjezzz]

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