FINAL FANTASY XIII

I wanted so much to like Final Fantasy XIII; to my very core, I wanted it to be a hidden gem that was falsely maligned upon its release, back in the days when people didn’t know any better. I hoped that in these more enlightened days, it could be appreciated rather than denigrated for its strange design choices. But no, it wasn’t falsely maligned; people back in the day did know what they were talking about because it was absolutely maligned correctly. Final Fantasy XIII is one of the most abjectly dull and frustratingly tiresome games I have ever played in my entire life.

Some of my favourite games are the weirder Final Fantasy titles; Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age is legitimately my favourite mainline Final Fantasy game. Final Fantasy Tactics is probably the game I heartily “wasted” the majority of my youth upon, so you’d think Final Fantasy XIII, with its quirky battle system and, uh… never-ending hallway gameplay, would be another hit with me. But the hallways are as bad as you’d expect, and the battle system just isn’t that interesting. When that is quite literally all the game has going for it, you’ll find you’re just not in for a very good time.

Final Fantasy XIII is a game about magical robots called Fal’Cie and the curses they give to the general populace of the world of Cocoon who happen to accidentally come upon them. The curses brand a person with a strange symbol whilst also giving them a vague vision as a “focus”, a task which they must complete, otherwise they’ll become a mindless System Shock-style zombie. The problem is, there’s no real positive to completing the focus either, because if you do, you’ll end up as a big lump of crystal instead. Quite literally a lose-lose situation, but then I suppose they don’t call it a curse for nothing.

You initially play as Lightning, a woman who is as one-dimensional as she is handy with a sword. You’ll eventually play through the game as various different one-dimensional characters along the way too; however, none of them are interesting enough to make spending time with them particularly enjoyable. In fact, I’d say some are merely tolerable, and the rest go downhill from there. Sazh is actually one of the more likeable characters – a gun-toting everyman with a baby Chocobo nesting in his afro. Snow is built like a brick shithouse but is unendingly annoying, Hope is an aggravatingly obnoxious little pissant, Vanille is gratingly cloying, and Fang – well, I didn’t actually get far enough to unlock Fang. You’re often stuck playing with just two of the characters, and you don’t get to pick your party until much later in the game.

I had been warned that the game is just one long hallway simulator, and I didn’t mind this in the beginning. You don’t always need an open world; in fact, I can sometimes find open-world games grating with often too much to do, ruining the flow of the story. But Final Fantasy XIII takes this too far the other way. Times when you can leave the beaten track are few and far between, and even then it amounts to at most a few seconds of walking to open up a treasure orb before you’re making your way back down the main corridor again. And these corridors are long. Each area somehow finds a way to outstay its welcome multiple times; when you think you’re finally out, it just seems to go on and on, switching you to different characters who get to experience the drudgery too. The problem here is, even once you’re finally out of an area, nothing breaks up the corridor gameplay because you’re thrust straight into another linear space with the same cast of unlikeable characters – this time it just looks ever so slightly different.

The battle system is the one shining, admittedly very dimly, light of Final Fantasy XIII. Again though, the main problem is you’re sent down a two-hour corridor before you’re able to start using it properly. The first two hours of the game are legitimately spent with only being able to attack; it’s not until after this that your characters are cursed, and the ‘Crystal’ levelling system and abilities are opened up. Even then, there’s not much skill involved; you switch up between different class-types depending on if you need to stagger an enemy or heal, and it’s all mostly automated apart from this. The Final Fantasy XII Zodiac Age system it is not, though, and it could have benefitted massively from introducing ideas from this into the XIII battle system.

Performance-wise, Final Fantasy XIII does not run the greatest on the Steam Deck. There seems to be an issue where, rather than scaling fps, Final Fantasy XIII will jump from 60fps to 30fps with nothing in between, depending on how busy the screen is. It feels a bit jarring, and I ended up playing with it pinned to 30fps just so I didn’t have to experience it flipping back and forth between frame rates. It’s a lovely looking game sometimes, though; however, spending hours upon hours walking along identical-looking corridors does not a feast for the eyes make.

I am slightly annoyed that I couldn’t push myself to finish Final Fantasy XIII. It’s the first game in a good while I haven’t seen to the end; however, when asking others when the game opens up, people generally said it was closer to the end when the game comes into its own. When quizzed on when Final Fantasy XIII “gets good”, though, I was mostly just met with empty looks.

https://questtozero.com/game-review/final-fantasy-xiii-review/

I played the Predecessors almost all at the Release only not this Part because I didn't have a Console at the time because I was happy when I got FF13 for the Birthday day because I could now catch up on The Triology. To the first part of The Triology I can only say that he is not recommended for sure had the predecessors also weaken all but they were at that time when they were published real Milestones of the Gaming World. At FF13 it was really hard to lose until the end not completely the lust. However, this was not due to the Story, which is really good again, also Graphically the game looks top. It was more the Character, the Combat Mechanics and the Levels that made it difficult for me, above all, that I think the Game was good. Of the Characteren I honestly liked only one and that was Catch, the rest was no monition to say the least not well written. Snow a Wooden Head and check victims. Lightning An Aroma chic. Vanilla makes your impression rather than if it has remained a little after it mentally through its Childlike art, I know that this is childish with intent though .. ne sorry. Sazh at the beginning I thought that it's an old Buddy of Light and then turns out that they just know each other a few minutes. And his Depri art ... After he's bored, also gin on the Biscuit. Hope... Hope... Hope......... I hate him... At the beginning you can't take it off because it is a little Howl and the development it goes through ahhh I have never so much wanted the death of an ingame character (except with God Eater 2 Romeo). I mean he will be from ner ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ to hard howling and nothing of either can be taken seriously. Catch the only normal one in the Group!!! The Level Design is like it from FF kenn Linear but this time I found the Levels to be really exhausting and boring, not because of the Graphics the is top but repeats so much. For Example, the Level in which you travel with Lightning and Hope is this Bioweapons test Area. Background is the same one you run in a really small hose down unt drives at the end with a Lift to the next section which then looks the same and then you ride again with an elevator. This repeats some times. When I reached the Steppe after just under 15-20 Hours I thought to myself only "why not sooner as now?" I mean her comes to a huge Area in the Sidequests etc are distributed. aaaber that doesn't last long and the listlessly crafted hose levels are back again. My biggest Criticism, however, is the Combat System, it is just boring 90% of the Game you play by simply (A) pressing through the is no Kidding, because with this you confirm the Auto Chain function where your Characters automatically use the ability the most Damage. From time to time you also have to switch to a Healer then press Short (RB) and let yourself be fully healed and switcht again. What has bothered me is that I no longer have freedom like Me what Skille (Spell, Bestia) everyone has their prescribed 3 Rolls at the beginning however it is no longer possible to take Control of his companions as before one has only control over Lightning which also contributes to the Fact that the combat System is so boring. I like to freess how I Equip my Characters with Spells or Bestia this has been taken from ME with FF13. All in all, I can only recommend FF13 to the people who, like me, really want the Series to be complete or are interested in the Story and cope with the boring Combat System.