Yes, I know I'm late to realise these truths, but that's because I have things like a degree to be getting on with.
Hidden after the jump to protect anyone who doesn't give a shit about this.
1 - One can only control one character at a time
thereby eliminating any sense of the team play and value of friendship that is a central theme of all other games in the series
2 - The battles go far too quickly and eliminate any strategy
The AI implemented plays the game for you. I have literally defeated bosses while eating a bowl of pasta or in the mid-consciousness state passing out on the sofa at 3 in the morning.
3 - When you die in battle
you get the option to retry from the beginning of the battle. NO PENALTY
4 - Similarly, health is miraculously regenerated after every battle
Characters come back from the dead without even a phoenix down. Aeris is rolling in her grave.
5 - No MP
In fact no limits on magic at all. This totally breaks the overarching lesson of all Final Fantasy games that Magic is a wild and powerful force that cirrupt eveil dictators and allows the Designated Hero to overcome evil.
6 - Furthermore, there are only three stats
Attack, magic and HP. Any attempt at customisation in blown out of the window by a ridiculous weapon upgrade system that makes no sense.
7 - Whenever there's something you can interact with
in the environment (a rare occasion) there a big fucking sign that tells you where it is and what button to press, thereby eliminating all sense of challenge
8 - The game is racist
Playing to one of the most obvious Black Man stereotypes, Sazh (you know he's Black because of his afro) is the only character with guns. His associated Eidolon/GF thing transforms into a pimp lowrider. He says "aww yeeeah" a lot.
9 - It takes roughly 25 hours
to be allowed to change the team around. Up to that point the menu icon exists but says you cannot do it yet.
10 - The mythology is total bullshit
I mean, Fal'cie? L'cie? Crystogenesis? This makes no sense. I still have no idea what the Sanctum is (despite the fact that they're clearly the totally evil benevolent faction). I do not know where Pulse is, or even what it looks like, despite it being the Designated Enemy and home country (city? town? planet?) to two of the playable characters.
11 - Snow is the most annoying douche ever
and has dialogue ripped straight from a 14-year-old's Livejournal Macros.
 |
| Seriously, look at him |
12 - Characters are very quick to have a complete change of heart
Despite living under protection the supposed Good Guys all their lives, the "player" "characters" suddenly decide it is their destiny to overthrow the establishment based on a half-remembered dream an many wild logical leaps.
13 - There are no people in the game that you can talk to
Shopkeepers don't exist, as all shopping is done at the save points. Occasionally more shops and goods become available for no reason, although there's little need to buy anything other than Sturdy Bones and Ring Joints for upgrading equipment (see point 6)
14 - All enemies can be defeated
by simply hitting them with a sword a few times. Status effects are rarely useful, and often barely noticable (see point 1).
15 - While the game looks incredibly pretty
it doesn't feel at all bad about hitting you with invisible walls or bizarrely shaped running paths all the time. It's possible to run on the spot on the edge of a precarious cliff. This ≠ immersiveness.
16 - Characters don't gain levels as such
instead increasing stats and abilities through by spending "crystal points" through a fairly linear system called the Crystarium that gets increasingly expensive for no reason at all. All characters invariably end up roughly equal in all jobs, and cannot be further customised.
17 - The music is honestly terrible
It really sounds like a bad Disney ride. I'm not even calling for the glory days of Nobuo Uematsu - expectations of big-budget video games are too high for the low-fi directness of Still More Fighting etc. Since video game music relies on ability to be looped, it has by necessity to be different from a film score. As such, blending a film score's typically lush orchestration with the structural difficulties ofa video game rarely works, as the texture is too consant. That battle music plays so often it grates.
18 - That cringe-inducing advert
with Leona Lewis reading off a script about the "Strong Female Protaganist". We all know that Lightning is a "Strong Female Protaganist" because she is cold, distant and has mean-looking eyebrows.
19 - For all the pretty graphics
All the enemies look the same. 50% of them are soldiers with various types of guns, 25% are weird warmech things that make no sense and 25% are these shitty zombie things call Ci'eth. How do you even say that?
20 - The level design is uninspired
When you're not walking along a straight road high above a mysterious area, you're trapped walking in a linear path that bends round corners. Dead ends are obvious and 98% of the time have an item at the end of them. I can quite seriously play this game with my eyes closed; all it takes is to press Forwards the whole time and then press X when the music starts. And that makes me sad, because it's clear that a lot of people worked very hard on the shading of any one particular rock, say, and I'm not even noticing the effort.
In fact I'll go into this one a little more clearly. There have been criticisms that Final Fantasy games are always linear anyway, since the aim is always to get from point A (i.e. Midgar) to point B (i.e. Northern Crater). However, the key point is getting there - an RPG is necessarily a lesson in development, statistically (as you gain levels and items), narratively (as you gain friends and understadning) and geographically. This last point is key: playing the game should give players the illusion of choice and this is best expressed through multiple pathways and large 2-dimensional planes. Consider the first time one starts out on the World Map in Final Fantasy VIII (very early on). Of course, the game wants you to travel to the Fire Cave, and nudges you in that direction by dint of there not being much else around. But instead the player can turn right instead, and go and look round Balamb. Or perhaps head off to the nearby forest and kill some caterchipillars. Or even go back inside and play cards.
Final Fantasy X and XII didn't have the World Map, but X circumvented this to some extent by having an airship that could fly anywhere, while XII was an entirely free-roaming excursion that brilliantly gave the entire world a sense of space.
Indeed, it's the lack of "space" that really lets down Final Fantasy XIII on all fronts. Most of the early part of the game takes place inside, and when you finally see sky there's no way of telling where it is in relation to the starting area. I don't even know what the planet looks like. As such, it becomes very hard to care about any of the people who live in this world, including the playable characters. Place names are talked about all the time and I don't know where they are or what they look like.
21 - No Tonberries, Cactuars or Moogles
I mean, how could they?
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Finally, I now leave you with some terrible fanart.
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