Final Fantasy XIII
My spoiler-free thoughts on Final Fantasy XIII:
I'm really torn in deciding whether or not I liked the game. I mean, ok, I guess I liked it, but it was no Final Fantasy VII or Final Fantasy X. I really loved the characters. All the characters, in fact. Hope and Vanille were disgustingly annoying at the beginning of the game, but by the end I really empathized with both of them, and to anyone who knows how I play the game, it should at least be apparent that I like Hope at least a bit, because he's in my main party. While I did think that Sazh was a bit trope-y in being the Sassy Black Character (TM), he did provide good comic relief and he did have a pretty serious storyline. Your heart breaks for all of the characters, and I was far more emotional at the end of the game than I thought I would be. While all of the characters fit nicely into their boxes, I think they all brought out the better parts of their tropes, and most of them avoided a lot of their tropes' downfalls.
I also loved loved loved the music in this game. The score was amazing, and I really did like the selection of Leona Lewis' "My Hands" as the International Theme of the game. Would I have preferred they just kept the original? Well, I haven't heard 「君がいるから」 but I feel like it would have had the same... gravitas. I'll have to acquire it and decide once I hear it.
I loved/hated the battle system in this game. I loved that it made the game fast-paced, and while it wrestled some of the control out from under me, it really did streamline the game and definitely made it more fun. HOWEVER, while I appreciated the Paradigm/Role system, it did have its flaws. While I understand limiting to only 6 paradigms, I think there should have been a few more. 8 maybe? 9? I just feel like there were more role combinations that I would have liked to use but was unable because of the limited number of paradigms. Now, I realize that adding more paradigms would make shifting take longer and would be a bit more cumbersome, but in the end I think it would be worth it. Also, I would like some sort of augmented gambit system from Final Fantasy XII. While that game was not very good (in my opinion, as I gave up on it maybe 5-10 hours in), the fact that you could set priorities for certain abilities was amazing. Sometimes Hope wastes all his time casting buffs when all I want is Haste and Protect! IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK!? I think not. All in all, though, the system works fairly well.
What else did I love/hate? SO MANY CUTSCENES. I mean, I get it, Final Fantasy games are known and renowned for their cutscenes, but I mean, COME ON. If I had wanted to watch a movie every five minutes, I would have caught up on some of the TV I'm behind (thanks to playing this game), or watched a movie. I mean, seriously. They were pretty, they were nice, but in the end I felt like they detracted from the game, because the game relied too heavily on them to tell and advance a nonexistent plot. And speaking of that plot...
What did I dislike about this game? The plot. It made absolutely no sense. Even at the end I was scratching my head, saying "Yay! They saved the world! I don't understand what they saved it from though..." I feel like, in FFVII and FFX, you knew who the villain was RIGHT AWAY in the story. There was always a clear narrative, and whomever the antagonist was, they were omnipresent and always served as the motivation for your actions. FFXIII was weak in this regard because the plot basically boiled down to, "We have to do this? Why? Because we have to! But we don't want to! BUT WE HAVE TO." The central antagonist doesn't reveal him/herself until Chapter 9 or something, and even then we don't know what his/her motives are. It was all just a confusing mess, and it really felt like the plot was an afterthought. Like I said, I loved the characters, but I felt that the whole l'Cie/fal'Cie/Cie'th construct was just too... non-motivational. And in the end, the plot just didn't make sense. I mean, they don't want to destroy Cocoon, but their focus is to destroy Cocoon, so in the end they willingly go back to Cocoon to destroy Orphan, knowing that will destroy Cocoon, even though they're trying to save Cocoon. IT MADE. NO. SENSE. NO SENSE AT ALL. Barthandelus kept telling them to go to Cocoon, and they kept saying they wouldn't, and then they did! And at the end it was the power of love/friendship/hope/believing in yourself THANKS SAILOR MOON that saved them and Cocoon and yay! I was really, really happy that Dajh and Serah were resurrected, but I wanted Fang and Vanille to be too. Sadface. D: I sat through the final cutscenes going "Man, this sure is pretty. Too bad I don't understand any of it." The characters had great depth, great personality, they just had zero motivation to do what they were actually doing. Add in a few heaping helpings of Deus Ex Machina at the end, and you have Final Fantasy XIII!
So, I guess what I'm trying to say is, I really wanted to love this game. I wanted to so much! I love the characters to death... but the plot just didn't hold up, and so I have a hard time saying I loved it. Clearly I liked it enough to play 55 hours of it, and I'll gun for that 1000G, but would I play it again? I'd rather play FFVII. Or FFX. Or FFVI because I haven't played that one yet. Or Fallout 3/Dante's Inferno/God of War/etc...
I'm really torn in deciding whether or not I liked the game. I mean, ok, I guess I liked it, but it was no Final Fantasy VII or Final Fantasy X. I really loved the characters. All the characters, in fact. Hope and Vanille were disgustingly annoying at the beginning of the game, but by the end I really empathized with both of them, and to anyone who knows how I play the game, it should at least be apparent that I like Hope at least a bit, because he's in my main party. While I did think that Sazh was a bit trope-y in being the Sassy Black Character (TM), he did provide good comic relief and he did have a pretty serious storyline. Your heart breaks for all of the characters, and I was far more emotional at the end of the game than I thought I would be. While all of the characters fit nicely into their boxes, I think they all brought out the better parts of their tropes, and most of them avoided a lot of their tropes' downfalls.
I also loved loved loved the music in this game. The score was amazing, and I really did like the selection of Leona Lewis' "My Hands" as the International Theme of the game. Would I have preferred they just kept the original? Well, I haven't heard 「君がいるから」 but I feel like it would have had the same... gravitas. I'll have to acquire it and decide once I hear it.
I loved/hated the battle system in this game. I loved that it made the game fast-paced, and while it wrestled some of the control out from under me, it really did streamline the game and definitely made it more fun. HOWEVER, while I appreciated the Paradigm/Role system, it did have its flaws. While I understand limiting to only 6 paradigms, I think there should have been a few more. 8 maybe? 9? I just feel like there were more role combinations that I would have liked to use but was unable because of the limited number of paradigms. Now, I realize that adding more paradigms would make shifting take longer and would be a bit more cumbersome, but in the end I think it would be worth it. Also, I would like some sort of augmented gambit system from Final Fantasy XII. While that game was not very good (in my opinion, as I gave up on it maybe 5-10 hours in), the fact that you could set priorities for certain abilities was amazing. Sometimes Hope wastes all his time casting buffs when all I want is Haste and Protect! IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK!? I think not. All in all, though, the system works fairly well.
What else did I love/hate? SO MANY CUTSCENES. I mean, I get it, Final Fantasy games are known and renowned for their cutscenes, but I mean, COME ON. If I had wanted to watch a movie every five minutes, I would have caught up on some of the TV I'm behind (thanks to playing this game), or watched a movie. I mean, seriously. They were pretty, they were nice, but in the end I felt like they detracted from the game, because the game relied too heavily on them to tell and advance a nonexistent plot. And speaking of that plot...
What did I dislike about this game? The plot. It made absolutely no sense. Even at the end I was scratching my head, saying "Yay! They saved the world! I don't understand what they saved it from though..." I feel like, in FFVII and FFX, you knew who the villain was RIGHT AWAY in the story. There was always a clear narrative, and whomever the antagonist was, they were omnipresent and always served as the motivation for your actions. FFXIII was weak in this regard because the plot basically boiled down to, "We have to do this? Why? Because we have to! But we don't want to! BUT WE HAVE TO." The central antagonist doesn't reveal him/herself until Chapter 9 or something, and even then we don't know what his/her motives are. It was all just a confusing mess, and it really felt like the plot was an afterthought. Like I said, I loved the characters, but I felt that the whole l'Cie/fal'Cie/Cie'th construct was just too... non-motivational. And in the end, the plot just didn't make sense. I mean, they don't want to destroy Cocoon, but their focus is to destroy Cocoon, so in the end they willingly go back to Cocoon to destroy Orphan, knowing that will destroy Cocoon, even though they're trying to save Cocoon. IT MADE. NO. SENSE. NO SENSE AT ALL. Barthandelus kept telling them to go to Cocoon, and they kept saying they wouldn't, and then they did! And at the end it was the power of love/friendship/hope/believing in yourself THANKS SAILOR MOON that saved them and Cocoon and yay! I was really, really happy that Dajh and Serah were resurrected, but I wanted Fang and Vanille to be too. Sadface. D: I sat through the final cutscenes going "Man, this sure is pretty. Too bad I don't understand any of it." The characters had great depth, great personality, they just had zero motivation to do what they were actually doing. Add in a few heaping helpings of Deus Ex Machina at the end, and you have Final Fantasy XIII!
So, I guess what I'm trying to say is, I really wanted to love this game. I wanted to so much! I love the characters to death... but the plot just didn't hold up, and so I have a hard time saying I loved it. Clearly I liked it enough to play 55 hours of it, and I'll gun for that 1000G, but would I play it again? I'd rather play FFVII. Or FFX. Or FFVI because I haven't played that one yet. Or Fallout 3/Dante's Inferno/God of War/etc...