Final Fantasy XIII Retrospective - A Game Fighting Fate Against Itself 

easily one of the best battle themes ever, if you hear it once it will be stuck with you for quite a lot of time

@@Quiqueleal85 bro j was like 8 in 2013-14 and i had a ps3. I got it for christmas and got final fantasy xii. I forgot the name of the game until recently and just now found the song ive been looking for over 6 years 💀

"Final Fantasy XIII Retrospective Review" by Resonant Arc (2018): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-t3RFSsErDF8.html

FFVI is light years better

I listen to Snow's theme often and I feel like I'm on some real hero mode ish when I do. Great soundtrack, though I have FFX's soundtrack as my personal favorite out of the entire series. XIII's is in the top 5 though.

I'm playing the game now on Xbox live and it is gorgeous, especially on an OLED screen.

It's visually impressive even now for sure, but I disagree about the music. There were a few great tracks (some of the battle themes and that Oerba music, wow),but imo most of the music was forgettable, bland electronica.

@@fabesey2016 The Gapra Whitewood, Dust to Dust, The Archylte Steppe, March of the Dreadnaughts, and Lake Bresha send their regards.

It's definitely an iconic ost. But everything sounds grand all the time even for non grand moments. It all starts to sound the same.

@@Ren-gk2tg Dust to Dust was my favourite track in the whole game; was genuinely moved by it. Was one of the few times where I felt Hamauzu recaptured his form from FFX. I can't tell you what to like man, but I didn't care for the other tracks you mentioned, they were just....fine. I'd probably like this OST a bit more if the melody of The Promise grabbed me, but it doesn't really so the bunch of motifs of it didn't do much for me personally.

Now as an adult I want amazing cinematics and a great story, I don't make trade offs, I only add

this is so real. i remember begging my dad to watch the cinematics of this game to convince him to buy it 4 me

@@dream6562 I enjoyed ff13 when it came out and if they would sell it on the store I'd buy it and platinum it now. As for the sequels probably not.

I’m found the game so boring. i had to force myself to complete it. the characters, the story were forgettable. i was so pleased when it was over and i never play it again.

Absolutely haha, OP was spot on describing me as a kid when he said the thing about hearing the PSX loading up a cinematic, I'd get so fucking hype

Yeah, Hamauzu is amazing. I think Sigma Harmonics' OST is a perfect showcase of his work and one of my favorite OSTs ever. It's so good, and his identity is really present too.

My favourite tracks in 10 are his work, I was very pleased he was chosen to do the entire 13 soundtrack. He did some great work in VII Remake as well!

The guy knows how to create an ambience.

Truly something else, plus he can effectively make use of lots of different musical genres and instruments and still be amazing at doing it. For example the jazz tracks in 13 and 13-2 are smooth af

Specially now that open world games are everywhere, I enjoy a linear game once in a while

To me it's just me being sick of every game trying to be the next Skyrim

@@RaidenKaiser I was thinking fallout, but same dif

You can't really say that when FF13 takes, like, 50 hours to complete. Linear games are just as good as open world games, not disagreeing there, but if you don't have time for an open world game you still won't have enough time for this.

@@lethauntic Meant more in general rather than FFXIII specifically, but I more so mean it's easier to just play for an hour or two here and when I come back I can just keep going on the same path. Maybe it's just me but I find it a lot harder to come back to an open world game after a while of not playing. Tend to just feel lost and usually end up restarting rather than picking up where I left off, which can be frustrating and is the reason I haven't finished a lot of open world games that I otherwise enjoy. Whereas with a linear game I can just pick it back up and don't really have to worry about what I was doing before because there's a clear path ahead of me

Thanks, it means a lot. While it would be nice to get a ton of views, my main goal was getting a message across, and I've gotten a lot of supportive comments from people, so I'd say I hit my goal. Ultimately these are the kinds of videos I truly feel passionate about making, so I'm gonna keep on making them!

Look who showed up here.

Ey. I was also wishing to offer words of encouragement and other person I like shows up. Eeeeyyyy. Also subscribed. Continue with the deep dives you have an eye for it.

A million views

@@BrandoSP and this is why you're the realest person on RU-vid and the community is amazing

Why? The Archylte steppe theme is yet another rearranged version of the main theme which by this point you're already tired of hearing. The music is good but they abused that leitmotif way too much.

@@MASJYT it just hit different to me okay?

@@MASJYT People are allowed to like things without having to explain themselves to everyone. Sometimes, there aren't any reasons for liking something, you just do. Get off your high horse. You aren't special.

It was because of lightning on the cover, wasn't it?

.. Because you didnt listen to anyone and your FIRST-choice was awful rotting-garbage like 'ff13.'' Any other choice in the world and you chose that one, Every copy of it need's to erased or burned in fire.

​​@@eveningrice That and seeing the graphics being better than 99% of xbox games at the time.

What's wrong with you?

@@Ebi_fuwafuwa No one knows who your referring to.

Damnit you brought it up in the video never mind lol

Yeah, in addition to that she has I think 400 HP to start the game, which is the most of any character. When the party turns to L'Cie, they all gain 100-150 HP or so compared to the previous chapter. This is before you spend any crystarium points. But Vanille doesn't gain any extra HP.

@@stanm4410 I didnt notice that either! lol

I realized it some time after finishing a game. I was doing something thought a bit about a a game and than it hit me.

And you can see her mark even if on a first playthrough you wouldn't notice it

What I found interesting upon replaying the game years later, is that Snow actually *did* feel quite bad about that and actively doubted himself. Only for his yes-men/woman to cheer him back up, prompting him to put on his mask again and avoid the subject. For Snow, it was in a way a good thing that he was separated from his buddies. That group was a cycle of bad influence.

It's that part of hope's character that I despise but understand completely. I just wish it didn't drag on for too long you know?

@@TirOrah When Hope questioned him about it before trying to kill him, Snow just completely dropped any facade. He said it himself, all he can do is keep going while admittimg he doesn't know where to start or say when messing up that badly in other's life.

@@thespectaculargamernerd8114 Yeah! That was a huge moment for him. I was quite shocked I didn't remember that from my first playthrough; it was a great scene.

same, I was confused as to why the vid creator didnt even touch that

What an absolute legend, he and Woolsey were truly the forefathers of JRPGs' genesis into the western world

"and he went on to influence for the better how localizations were handled at Squaresoft." God no. He's the reason almost all of their games are now infested with hammy accents and massive alterations. Because of what he did on Chrono Cross and Dragon Quest. Other Square games he didn't work on had fine translations. Translations would have improved over FF7 given the rising success of the games. But he is an example of going too far into the other direction. Altering characters and the plot just on his own whims. He literally added accents to Chrono Cross and Dragon Quest VIII just because he was "tired of American accents." That's his own words. Not because it would improve the characters or story. Not because the original creator envisioned those dialects (Yuji Horii has gone on record saying he doesn't like it). Just because he personally wanted to do something different. And that's the worst thing you can do as a localizer.

Tbf, until VII the money made from JRPGs in western markets were pretty much negligible. I know VII had that big marketing campaign going with being released on PS, but I'm pretty sure it's success in the western hemisphere blew everyone's mind and came unexpected. If they had some kind of quality management in the localisation and expected the success they wouldn't have allowed the chappy localisation that VII came to be. Also I'm pretty sure that at this time game designers were not aware of the dangers that came with localisations. Studio Ghibli had to make the same experience with Nausicäa and its original release in the US, when the whole movie was butchered by the company that translated ( and cutted) the movie TO DEATH. Ghibli were passed as fuck and from that on went not to bring their movies to the west anymore, until they eventually did, but they had their hands on every aspect of the translation ever since then.

You could say he got... Mad skillz!

​@@homerp.hendelbergenheinzel6649 I wouldn't call Pokemon Red and Blue negligible money

"and still did everything they could." They spend the entire game trying to work out what their "focus" is. You know, their motivation. The thing the writers were supposed to come up with. Clearly that motivation was to save Cocoon (or the people inside it). They attempted to achieve this....by blowing up Cocoon with everyone inside it, with no plan. The writers then decided that this just works for some reason. Despite repeatedly stating, that they did the thing, that villain wanted them to do, and that would kill everyone. Your favourite thing was that the characters behaved like psychopathic morons and were rewarded for it? I did like the music though.

@@wjd23104 Except they didnt kill everyone in cocoon and the alternative was what exactly? I am confused as you clearly read what I said yet somehow missed the part where I said they had no happy ending win or lose? My favorite thing was exactly what I said. You are attempting to twist it in a way that doesnt actually relate to anything I said. Their focus is not their motivation. Their focus is their reason for existing which was to do exactly what they did. Their motivation was not turning into slaves that didnt decide their own fate. Next time try using proper definitions and pay attention to what was actually said if you want to attempt to make a counter argument.

@@PaulSmith-nb6md "Except they didn't kill everyone in cocoon" Why was that exactly? Was it due to a well thought out plan? No, it was because the writers said so, after explicitly stating such an action would lead to everyone dying. "the alternative was what exactly?" Help ferry people out of Cocoon, down to Pulse. Instead of doing something that they thought, would kill everyone in Cocoon? "yet somehow missed the part where I said they had no happy ending win or lose?" Imagine I strap a collar to your neck and I tell you that it will explode, if you don't do what I say. I then tell you to attend a crowded stadium and that I intend to blow you up at that stadium to kill people. You could A) Do what I said and get yourself and others killed or B) Refuse and just get yourself killed. Now you'll say but You also threatened to start a huge fight in the stadium, that will destroy it even if you don't come. Right but for my plan to work, I clearly needed you, that's why I repeatedly tried to get you to do what I wanted. Why do what I want in that situation? "My favorite thing was exactly what I said. You are attempting to twist it in a way that doesnt actually relate to anything I said." Lets go back to what you said "and still did everything they could" They blew up Cocoon. The place they were trying to save. They did that intentionally. I am pointing out that what you said was stupid. Instead of realizing that what you said was stupid, you argued that I was twisting your words. "Their focus is not their motivation. Their focus is their reason for existing which was to do exactly what they did" Wow. This is the definition of motivation: "a reason or reasons for acting or behaving in a particular way." Their focus explicitly, according to the game, was to destroy Cocoon. That is the focus of both Fang and Vanille initially and later the rest of the group receives the same focus. "Their motivation was not turning into slaves that didnt decide their own fate." They literally would have turned into zombies if they had 'decided' to purse a fate, that was different from the one, their master branded them with. The slavery metaphors were not subtle but the writers were so stupid, they couldn't find a way to write their characters out of their slavery, without them doing their master's will. "Next time try using proper definitions and pay attention to what was actually said if you want to attempt to make a counter argument." I suggest some careful self reflection on your part.

@@wjd23104 No one said they had a plan. Why do you keep bringing that up as if someone said that? Again nothing to do with what i said and braking my reply down the way you did apparently hasnt helped your ability to comprehend what i said. Perhaps you simply cant read? Either way they didnt kill everyone. So bitch all you want.....but it didnt happen. How exactly were they gonna ferry people out of Cocoon dummy? What resources did they have to accomplish this task? How much time did they have to accomplish this task when it was against their focus....which would have turned them into monsters had they not completed? So again what was the alternative dummy? Even your analogy doesnt make sense. What does this collar have to do with what they did? Was their fate to blow up a stadium? Was their fate death should they not compete their task? No. It was to wander for eternity as a monster....which could still be used to destroy cocoon. So i guess the only option is to do what I want and take a chance i dont die....but killing the person who put me in the predicament. Just like they did. What part of did everything they could didnt you understand? You quoted it so that implies you at least recognized i said it but fail to grasp such a simple concept. What i said wasnt stupid what you just said was because you arent even taking what i said into account to make a counter argument. You're just talking and missing the point so how exactly was i supposed to realize what i said was stupid....stupid? They fought....because that was their only option....hence the phrase they did everything they could. Motivation is not the same as someone's reason to exist. They had no motivation to destroy cocoon. That is the reason they were made L'Cie. Their motivation for accomplishing said focus was not becoming monsters. How exactly is this too complex for you to understand? No they wouldnt have turned into zombies if they pursued their fate. They would have turned into crystal....the same thing that happened to Sazh's son or do you not know the difference between accomplishing one's focus and failing it? Again something stupid you just said. They did accomplish their focus so why would they turn into zombies? Their writers arent stupid, you are because you seem to have things backwards and somehow dont realize that. So exactly why do you suggest self reflection again? Through your stupidity you have failed to make a valid point again.

@@PaulSmith-nb6md Your sad attempt to protect weak writing of ff13 is so bleak compared to his arguments.

The video was great. The game was god awful. If they had explained the backstory and the plot as simply and gradually as this author, then it could forgive them the unimmaginative landscapes and enjoy it. But instead, the game devs did an absolutely shit job explaining ANYTHING in their game until the very, very, VERY end. Meaning that basically everything you did was a question of "why the hell...?" and simply just taken as "Stuff to do so you don't die." Not "Here's a creative reveal of a millenia long battle between gods, using humanity as puppets." If the writter of this video wants to help SquareEnix get their heads out of their asses and write a game that FINALLY makes any goddamned sense after 20 years, I'd be happy to support him. Because he can break things down in a meaningful way that SE just hasn't been able to do in FF for way too damn long.

How did you like this game in any way shape or form

But that end game is fire to me as a jrpg fan, the ceith stones that lead to those trials you do fighting monsters at different tiers is my favorite part and the "will to fight" is a effin amazing song!! Such an amazing ost and lets go moments, my top 5 easily!!! and not even talk farming for a certain item fighting a certain monster over and over but what a game changer once you understand it, I love the grind this has

@@rabidhellhound9714 This comment is so funny, because I find out that, in Japan, a couple's months before the releasing of the game, Square Enix published a novel detailing the thirteen days before the game starts, and they did the same for the next two games lol. It was until 2017 that the novels got a official translation.

@@tylersmith9868 Because she's not you, fella. People like different things, you know?

You can switch your party leader after chapter 10. I feel like this was mostly done so you can a full feel for every character and their unique perks before you choose your best team

I actually think this game is horrible, feels like a chore where you barely interact with anything and the story when it isn't confusing and is not making much sense has the worst pacing ever in any rpg.

​@@ryancoughlan7205I know this comment is a year old, but I was specifically talking about during battle. If I'm playing as Lightning and get ko'ed, it's a game over, despite having a healthy party and Phoenix Downs to spare.

People shit on the 13 trilogy for being linear but they'll blow smoke up ff16s arse 😂

​@@UnjustifiedRecsThe gaming world is a pretty fair place, huh? lol

@@UnjustifiedRecs people definitely shit on FF16 for a few notable reasons, idk what you're smoking... I just think that people criticize FF13 for feeling confined. It wasn't the linearity, MOST final fantasy games are linear in design, but keeping people from that feeling is what often differentiates them. And lots of people shit on the trilogy for writing choices.

@@DanielLopez-ob9jz I'm not even going to dignify that with an answer 😂

@@UnjustifiedRecs 🤡

Its got a lot in common with X due to its linear level design and few open areas. But the story was disjointed in comparison. Core narrative. Beat Sin. But along the road there are steps to accomplishing that goal and personal quests the group want to complete. Add to that the core group are friends and those that join are not angry angsts ridden mother avengers… X had smaller steps that contributed to the larger journey. XIII gave the player a quest on an implied ticking timer that ran at the speed of plot… everyone talked about it and how bad it was… but the lack of escalating dread failed to hook me. The main narrative wasn’t well interspersed with smaller steps. It was a story that overstayed its welcome.

Its pretty. And terrible. It's not x. X doesn't suck

@@andy2069 That's the point. X did it better. XIII aped some aspects but failed to bring it together as a cohesive narrative game experience. Tidus being the fish out of water, and thus the players POV character opened the world to the player. In XIII they tried to have a Cloud figure... But failed to compensate for the players. The party can't well talk to one another when they split into three groups after all, and the ticking clock of impending doom just falls by the wayside.

​@@davfree9732 I think XIII is good. Even one of my favorites.. However in terms and in the least biast way i can try describe it. It's not like any of the others.. Except for the spells and or enemies you meet in the game. Such as the Behemoths. Story was defenitely interesting for myself personally, but sometimes it drags on. Sometimes even a little cringe. The OSTS they used however is among i'd say the best. Really good soundtrack that doesn't seem to get boring for a long while. The characters are also a nice twist, you can't generally change their class (Like Type 0, each character having a different class / weapons). But the world feels dead. There's not much excitement when it comes to lore exploring. Like you said, talking to your party split into groups. In XIII-2, the ticking clock was weird. Suppose it's for the story, but a lot of newer players would rush it due to that time ticking down, missing out on sides and areas that are hidden. Rating XIII an 8.5 / 10 Rating XIII-2 a 7 / 10.

Easy to do when it’s basically just a cutscene and you only have to render a hallway

The world was great. The songs were nice. The characters, except Snow, were pretty good. The lack of magic and the summons were absolutely dreadful. Soulless. The story was okay except it got a little too other world-catholic-y by the end of FF13-2.

I never thought about this correlation. Very neat thought. Thanks for sharing.

@@bm001 I can only assume they meant the worldbuilding and setting lore rather than, well, the actual map that everybody gladly shits on.

This is why I prefer liberal translations. Just give translators something to work with to make it fit better for western audiences instead of trying to adapt japanese sensibilities. Though I guess that would be bad for you.

@@RU-vidCensors That's actually pretty much what _is_ happening. Localization work is relatively liberal and free-form already - which is also why computer-generated translations often suck so bad. Direct translation is clunky at best) - excluding stuff like certain terms needing a very specific translation. Like system terminology, for example. "Sensibilities" is a minute challenge in localization. That's more a Dev-side thing rather than Loc-side, like deciding to turn blood green or add some "convenient censorship" if necessary.

@@RU-vidCensors This was what made Working Designs so good, when they were at their best, though they often laid the cheese on pretty thick.

@@TheRawrnstuff Sensibilities can be horrible. Entire plotlines can be sliced out, fundamental aspects of characters can be altered (famous classical examples being making transsexual characters cissexual - contrasting modern examples where the OPPOSITE happens: recently, Trap has become a dirty word.) It's even worse when it effects the original script too. Bridget in Guilty Gear is the most notorious example. He was an escaped abuse victim who was groomed into thinking he was a girl by a superstitious village who saw identical twins as a bad omen. He got into bounty hunting to show how manly he was. The latest Guilty Gear threw that out the window in an era where there are more David Reimers every day and had him finally accept what his village imposes on him. Maybe the publisher wanted a higher ESG rating.

@@RU-vidCensors I prefer to have the contrast in cultures not be gatekept by anybody, myself.

This. While I like complex stories and contextual storytelling, FFXIII is straight-up obtuse with how its story is told. There is no good reason the story as presented in the game should make this little sense.

THIS SO MUCH. When XIII haters say you can’t understand the story without the datalogs, they are both right and wrong just like XIII fans who say you don’t need the datalog to understand the story are both right and wrong. It’s not necessarily the datalog that is the issue here, it’s the information within the datalog. You can go through the story without looking at the datalog and understand it, but you are literally insane if you can sit there and tell me your first playthrough before at the very least Vanille and Sazh get captured, you were able to follow the plot 100% without being confused. However it’s also dishonest to say that you need to constantly read the datalog to have any idea what’s going on, because the game does do a decent job at explaining things. The problem is as you said, things are explained waaaaaaaay too late to the point that by the time you get the full picture for said concept, most people have either lost interest or given up fully on the story. FFXIII, despite how much I adore the narrative, is a masterclass on how not to write a story/convey information.

If you have to do supplemental reading to understand not the worldbuilding but the story, you have fucked-up as a storyteller

On that same note it was a mistake to make Serah the main driving force of the story, an absent character we ultimately don't know or care about. There's a whole universe to explore, and the writers seemed absolutely uninterested in exploring it. 'A utopia floating in the sky governed by god-like beings and populated by humans who don't know cold or hunger because everything has been provided to them since birth, paranoid and fearful of the world below which they perceive as hell'. I mean give that premise to a competent writer and they could do WONDERS with it. Instead we got endless meandering and Snow screaming SERAAAAH!!! for 45 hours.

@@MASJYT a clear goal should have been presented quite early on. FFVI didn't have this problem: evil empire, probably gotta thwack it at some point. More stuff branches from that. Due to the nature of the brands the main characters in XIII had, side questing wasn't a practical inclusion, and yet they still pissed about.

13-2 and LR deserve a chance too

My condolences for this being your first FF. Obviously the older games were in several regards better, especially the "prime" games VI-IX. After that the Tales of games started massively to improve. At least we got a FF7R/Sequel.

@@MilesCW No condolences necessary! If you had read my entire comment, you would have seen that I was absolutely obsessed with the game and praising it. It’s a pretty fun title regardless of predecessors and I’m glad it’s my first entry. It’s not bad.

I totally agree, minor gripes I had were having to read the datalog to get crucial story info, lack of good dialogue between the characters and making them feel relatable. With that being said, this has one of the best gameplay mechanics in a FF title, up there with FFV and VI for me, I don't think linearity and lack of exploration/deep customization is a huge issue, as long as you have good level design and can engage the player wgich I can see why many people dislike this title, they just don't feel any connection to the characters. Even with the negatives, this is definitely one of the better Final Fantasy games, for those who can appreciate Square Enix attempting to keep each title fresh and distinct. Everyone should formulate their own opinions and not drop this just because of the popular opinion.

@@ninomontalvo12345 at least u don't have to read any datalog on the next 2 games (just a bit but still)

I'd say it started with X-2 having the real time system that allowed chaining attacks and performing combos with proper timing. A lot flashier without just being spectacle and feels like an attempt to create a true real time system while remaining somewhat turn based in design but allowing turns to overlap, combo and even interrupt with good timing and strategy. 12 was the major departure but X-2 was a major evolution on ATB style gameplay in a way that the Stagger mechanics of the 13 trilogy and 7R, as well as the latter's fully real time combat further developed.

They would be relatable of any of them even sort of resembled a human being or talk like a normal person that wasn't an idiot

@@LargeInCharge77: So many words for crap take, move along.

Yeah listening to The Promise always calms me down

I love final fantasy 13 the problem was the development of game

They were weak.

Yeah I liked it alot too. All 3 of them.

isn't that a perfect game ? i loved all chars bar hope and vanile

Glad you enjoy it!

The whole trilogy is peak ff to me, especially the ending of LR, that ending screams ff

@@nicogalax it’s so cheesy and over the top to kill god with a sword made from your friends souls I don’t know why people hated it then I fucking love it

@@kenzie2191 ofc, the whole of humanity was on that fight xd epic

I personally think a balance is best. I don't want a game with no choice of direction as at that point I am watching an interactive movie however a game that is too open I feel lacks direction or a compelling story. I generally like the approach of "gated exploration" where you complete a story beat and it opens up several directions and options however you don't unlock the entire world all at once. The main story still needs to be the driving focus but at the same time it's nice to be able to take a break from the story and just wander around doing miscellaneous other things. I think the problem with FFXIII is excluding Pulse there was nothing besides the main story. You could grind or you could continue on with the story.

xiii-2 and xiii are kinda equal in my book, xiii-2 had more replay value with the monster catching, rare monsters, arena, secret endings and mini games but xiii had the better overall feel, more story, cutscenes and all the ceith missions. xiii-3 LR is the weakest for me but still all 3 of them are some of my favorite games ever. They need to do a remaster one day.

Hi! I had a different experience. "FFXIII Versus was main reason I wanted a new console" T___T Not saying XIII was bad. My first game, or at least I vividly remember was playing FFX at my friends house. That really got me into JRPGs. After watching this video i'd say I missed a lot during my playthru. I put in a decent 100+ hours, killing the big turtles with Fang was my favorite :) But Prior to FF-XIII, a lot of the lore, terms, such as summoner, were explained explicitly during the gameplay. I didn't even realize how much information was in hidden in the menu deep deep in XIII. Explaining all the vocab. This video def gave me a different perspective. I think there are games that work with that type of story telling (Dark Souls), I never realized XIII also tried this. BUT I was SHOCKED that they announced XIII-2 and even more angry when XIII-3 was announced. Lighting Returns XIII-3....I got soooooooooo angry because where was XIII Versus??? What did Square do to Noct? Put him in a box? I assumed "fabula nova crystalis" were suppose to be 3 games, not 3 FF XIII games. But ur right about the music, the battle music was amazing! I would farm all day just for that. I agree, XIII shouldn't have this taboo around it, but I think the fact Square made it 3 times without fully explaining "fabula nova crystalis" just put fuel on the fire

@@MrYoshigu The whole idea of the Fabula Nova Crystallis, IMO, had a good line of thinking (thematically connected titles that each do their own take on a common mythology), but the execution was _very_ much botched, in due part thanks to Square Enix having a _lot_ of internal issues in developing XIII, Type-0 and XV. Which I think is a real pity, because I think the idea really could have been improved and refined further, but things went out of control, and the whole idea ended up becoming a stillborn.

Yall thats all nice. But ff 13 is complete garbage written by an idiot. The premise and the characters are horribly written in every conceivable way. There isnt a single good line of dialogue in the game.

"Final Fantasy XIII Retrospective Review" by Resonant Arc (2018): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-t3RFSsErDF8.html

And I loved FFXIII-2 A LOT (almost as much as the first) and I welcomed all of the changes made to it with open arms. However, I definitely remember feeling disappointed that some of the charm the game had was lost and that it was trying to move closer to appealing to a different kind of audience that wasn't me - an audience that didn't fully appreciate the first game. I don't know how to explain it, but XIII-2 to me felt like it was fighting with itself to become a game that it wasn't. It was obvious the developers knew how disappointed a lot of fans were with XIII, so they were trying extra hard to not replicate those same "mistakes" with its sequels, but by doing so they moved further away from the vision they had with the first game. XIII-2 is still a game I adore though, and I can't wait to hear your thoughts about it!

I didn't even bother with Lightning returns after 13-2 13-2 ruined everything and anyone who was there att remembers it being the train wreck it was that ruined its own story.

Funny 13-2 to me is a phenomenal FF and could easily place it top 3 if I bumped FFX out and I might do that honestly. 13 and 13-3 on the other I disliked and hated respectively

It was my first ff too and it definitely gets so much more hate than it deserves. It's incredibly fun, and I will admit it's not very good final fantasy, but it's a damn good jrpg

We call that baby's first FF. Nothing is immune to criticism so you gotta deal with that. If you enjoyed it, trust me, more power to you. These new approaches for broader audiences shows me that capitalism is at framework here and I do loathe it.

The sad thing is xiii being your first ff experience. No hate for the game but it just was lacking many things the franchise was known for. And the battle system felt so restrictive at times. The fact that you have these beautiful enviroments, and you can't explore but a couple hallways. The amount of cutscenes was too much for a ff game too. No overworld map, the "main character in battle dies and you lose". The game world kinda opens up really late. At least the graphics were great. Just not the direction every ff fan expected after years and years of development.

god i wish there were 13 KH games atleasat 13 before 3 came out and was a huge disappointment they did the same thing to KH 3 as they did to 15 spent too much money making it look good and not enough making it play good

You didn’t like the combat from the first minute? Cloud is just absurdly fun to me. Especially when he gets parries etc

@@morriganrenfield8240 Cloud wasn't in XIII

@@TheFrostedfirefly i think i was tired when reading the combat and saw his reference to remake and thought he was talking about it in the latter part of the comment

Combat gets MUCH better in 13-2.

The "combat" is an auto battler, the "lore" is a confusing senseless mess, why not talk about the level design, which is just a never ending line, by far the worst FF.

"Its not a question of can or cant". I like this dialogue in this game.

Lol 🤣

Great opinions here. They were some of my favorite across the board characters. When most FF have only a few characters that I liked.

" I liked the theme of finding hope in what is truly a hopeless situation for them as L'cie." They suicide bombed Cocoon...They blindly and stupidly decided to do something, that would get everyone killed (after being repeatedly told that this was the case) and then...the writers decided that they saved everyone.

@@wjd23104 I think you forgot the faction that was lead by Cid Raines team that was earlier stopped from killing Orphan and told to work with Psicom and Guardian Corp to evacuate the citizens off Cocoon and onto Pulse. Lightning's group got the go ahead so that Falcie could never interfere with them again. The only contrivance was the Etro deal at the end where they were freed from the crystallization.

You could watch ffx13-2 story on youtube from the point where you stopped playing, the game was meh for me too, but I'd really recommend Lightning Returns. It's the most open world one, battles are very different than on the previous titles (for me it's much better, as it requires some reaction time and more skills) different equipment sets give a LOT difference in battles, and the game really makes you feel important as you're a goddess and it really makes you want to save the world. You might feel some pressure because there's a time limit, but it's really enough to do everything, there's no pressure when you know it.

It hasn't. ff7r is a sequel. Any chance for an actual remake are gone on the alter of changing the story.

Thats dumb

Tell me something about Oerba

@@adamH.1 like the video said, it does a lot of visual story telling of what Pulse was like centuries ago. Additionally the build up to it was amazingly heartbreaking. You hear how beautiful Oerba is and your first glimpse of it is from afar, covered in snowlike crystal dust. You felt how Vanille and Fang felt in that moment. And the music in Oerba is perfect. It encapsulates the overall air of Oerba being a quiet ghostown overtaken by C'ieth that were once the inhabitants. There's no battle music, just Dust to Dust playing in the background. And the lyrics for it are perfect.

Well said. I couldn't agree more about your takes. Its my favorite game ever too.

Omg I've literally never seen anyone who's favourite game is final fantasy 13

@@anarche8127 well, newsflash, FF13 is my all time favorite game too

I missed out on lightning returns, my console at the time broke, now I can’t find a copy of the game anywhere

@@DjVader112 on xbox you can buy it in the store it even had an fps and graphic patch

@@DjVader112 it's on Steam

I'm kind of glad it never really took off because the combat for both of these games is very tedious, and gets tiresome after a while. LR went from very difficult, overly-long battles (every battle) to just non-challenging button mashing battles after getting a decent weapon and armor. There was really no in between. FF7R drove me nuts that everything shared the same action bar and you were forced to attack a few times before being able to do any other action. Plus the transition between characters was terrible because you basically had to pause the game to do it. They could have easily made it seamless like practically every other modern game does. Not to mention the whole "break" concept being horribly executed (one of my least favorite modern gaming trends). Funny thing is FF13 is the only game I've ever played that has executed it well.

I agree! I'm on a third play through, first time in 5 years I've played it, and I am playing it the most thorough than ever before. I loved this game when it came out, and I love it even more now! Graphically and musically it still holds up to modern consoles.

I prefer the true turn based FFX system but the FFXIII system is at least better than the hybrid systems of the majority of the series.

The combat is the diamond among the mediocrity that plagues this game. Linearity and pacing being the big turds that make this such a borefest and candidate for worst entry in the series.

@@nolimitzgw2832 still a better game than 15 though aleat it had the heart 15 ONLY looked good the story was trash and the gameplay sucked ass they spent so much money paying designer clothes companies to design outfits for their shitty characters that they shouldve just spent on making the combat feel like you were just hitting the exact same button over and over and over again there was absolutely 0 strategy to play 15 just hack and slash

@@Mstrskeletor89 meh 15 was stuck in development hell. Still churned out a decent showing combat was simplistic but fun with an annoying cast. 13 cast is just straight up anime/kdrama trash character tropes. The coming of age story is washed up and only works when you create interesting characters and almost every single one in that game missed the mark.

@MVPugsley Meh, sure FF XV had a needlessly convoluted plot, boring characters, cringy character designs and a tedious combat system. But at least everything fit well together. No good or interesting aspects that seemed out of place and disturbed the whole picture.

Sad.

I did not realize it even had forty hours of gameplay.

@@icesword77 35 hours of cutscenes/Walking Sim, 5 hours of gameplay

@@icesword77 So I probably spent hours grinding before the end just to prepare for the boss fight because I didn't do that in FFX and regretted it

@FoxMcCloud64 you might want to look up what that means. I did not replace the argument of game length. And even if It is somehow a strawman, Is FF13 the kind of game worthy of defending semantics over?

Your complaints on the writing, yes yes yes I agree! I like this game, and on occasion really really *really* like this game. But the writing is what keeps me from loving it tbh. And I didnt think that would bother me, and at first it didnt. But fans that loved the story and felt it was genuinely brilliant oddly enough helped me realize and accept that I just couldn't see whatever they were seeing. Imo, I dont think its that bad (a decade later). Does it deserve a 2nd chance? I'd say so, in the form of a port or remaster. Some fans would love a remake to be that 2nd chance, and I'd be up for that, but I feel like a remake done well would in a way end up validating people's blind hatred of the og game. Cause then in their mind its finally fixing a terrible game, and simultaneously rendering said original game that was terrible worth playing even less. If any of that made sense.

i wouldn't even say that the premises and story is actually good, but the pacing is really bad

Personally found gameplay boring

the premise and the story itself is actually S tier IMO, its just that..... they absolutely fucked it up when it comes to the pacing and the finer details and the absolute dumpster fire of a localization. ALOT of the problems people have with the story, is actually a problem they have with the localization without them realizing it.

@@TheHappyCatsTail so you say it's better in Japanese? Have you played it and understood it in Japanese? You're right things can get lost in translation when moving between JP and ENG, or whatever language it was localized to, so it's definitely possibility. But I personally doubt it was the case.

You could repeat them?!?!?!? I always felt like it wasn’t worth it to do anything other than auto battle because it’d waste too much ATB to curate your attacks every term You my friend gave blown my mind

I got stuck on Barthandelus because of this lmao, but I watched HCBailly (classic JRPG youtuber) and in the first episode he explained this exact mechanic and I was finally able to beat the game.

I played the whole game without knowing this lol

That's been a trick ever since the ATB gauge. Set cursor to "memory" and just hold down x. Maybe even before that.

Thought this was self explanatory. Didn’t know there were people who didn’t know this.

I’m sorry but thinking about an art museum as soulless is crazy 😭 that makes zero sense

​​Or u can use it brain and realize he didn't mean it like an actual museum in the real world... But the game itself felt like a dead, dull museum in a virtual space.@@DisastrousCake

@watchmehope6560 Honestly I caught what OP was doing but it could’ve been worded a bit better. Also don’t play the “brain” card when you couldn’t manage a simple sentence.

Please play 7 and 9, especially 9 it's incredible. And when I say play 7, play the original the remake screws up the story. If you love 10 you'll definitely love those two as well.

There is no need to farm at all prior to chapter 11. With a minor exception of shrouds, if you want them.

@@heritage106 same I beat bosses fine just going thru no backtracking

What is funny for me is that I was like that for years but after playing so many amazing open world games I am actually fine with a fully linear game nowadays to mix it up a bit

They will

@@Riku-Leela it's not like there's nothing in between FF13's level of linearity and open world. you can have a game that's not open world but still allows you to explore a bit off the beaten path, backtrack, etc.

I tried really hard to like this game but couldn't.

I didn't realize it was so poorly received until now. I just enjoyed the game for what it was.

Yes final fantasy 13 is good the problem was the development of thr game

I loved the 13 series

cool =]

The story was excellent. The graphics were excellent. The gameplay was excellent. My favorite FF (and I’ve done them all). I really thing FF13 was the first case of « someone on Internet didn’t like it so I shouldn’t say otherwise. ». What is ironic though, is that it was criticized because the first half of the game were long corridors, and then came FF7 remake, with nothing except corridors areas, but is considered now a masterpiece.

They need to remake or remaster 13 series

@@mikemattingly3956 nice

100%. I’ve been telling my gaming buddy the same thing. 13 lended so much to FF7 but felt like that’s what they were always going for but didn’t know quite how yet.

110%. They hadn't yet figured out the perfect mix of real time action/the ATB system/turn based combat. Remake is about 90% of the way there, I think Crisis Core Reunion and FF7 Rebirth are gonna have damn near perfect systems.

If you played FF7 Crisis Core this is nothing new.

@@gaspenpayne6755 crisis core remaster was kind of a disappointment. Basically nothing changed from a ten year old game definitely something to pick up on a sale tho

@@nickcarballo6039 I was talking about the combat system not the overall game, the combat system of FF7R is nothing new if you played Crisis Core.

13-2 is a must play tho, if u are playing every numbered ff

Sad thing is, after the auto battle variant that they put into 15, I'm still feeling burned from 13 and not convinced that we won't see more of the same battle system that turned me off in 13 when 16 finally comes out. Also being old school, with 4 and 6 being the first titles I played, I've always been a bit turned off when they go too sci-fi or contemporary with the settings of the games (so I didn't care for 7 or 8 back in the day either) and with 13 and 15 being modern/futuristic that was something that was going to turn off a sizable number of players too, even if others really wanted that setting.

That's probably why this game was such a visual masterpiece.

@@kamii_999 That's funny.

The people that are negative about the game are giving it the fairest possible shake. Im sorry but ff13 is horrible, some of the worst writing of all time.

"Final Fantasy XIII Retrospective Review" by Resonant Arc (2018): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-t3RFSsErDF8.html

I have a love hate relationship with this game, the intro i didn't like, but boss fights and the last 1/3 of the game i enjoyed with fond memories trying to beat the dinasours on the open plains and getting gold nuggets good times

@@LargeInCharge77 FFXV was worse I can't believe I wasted my money on that game. I would of rather had a FFXIII remake

@@LargeInCharge77 This is terrible thinking. You're just shitting on other people's opinions by acting like you are superior and that what you say goes by acting like this. It's awful, and shameful.