Honestly I think you nailed it at the end. I think most people take a character they don’t like and decide it must be a bad character because that validates their opinion. But good characters can be unlikeable. I think we’re far more willing to accept that in an antagonist.
For all the issues I do have with XIII, Hope was never really one of them. He's not my favorite character in the series, but I never understood the hate he got either. Like how dare a literal child be upset about his mom dying, and then be forced to work with the guy he thought murdered her initially. Between him, Sazh, and Vanille, I feel they were better written characters in the game.
I imagine those expectations might come from how often children and teenagers are depicted as competent and mature in JRPGs and anime. A child that acts like a child is fairly rare. Though maybe that also comes off as a bit jarring alongside Snow's almost cartoonish heroic optimism. When I played it back then, I remember not liking him for most of the story, because his attitude seemed somehow more immature than that of the actual child, given the death and doom that they were constantly facing.
I remember before playing 13 for the first time hearing how much people complained about the characters but even as I was playing I instantly understood what the story was going for, albeit with a very chaotic opening level and introduction. My favorite 'aha' storytelling moment was like you said, seeing Lightning learn to actually care about Hope then having that 'Oh Shit' moment when she realizes her initial advice to Hope is sending him down a really dark path. Never seen anything like that before in a FF game where two of the main characters synergized in a Bad Toxic Way and then struggle out of it. Same thing with Sazh and Vanille's relationship and how it evolved past the lies and truth. XD
Hope gets even better in 13-2 since he grows up and actively takes the traits from lightning and snow, then applies his personal strengths to them to be the actual best character in the series.
This was nothing short of amazing and thought provoking. I might actually have to play through XIII again, despite me kind of not liking the combat, just so that I can really take in the story this time with open eyes. Thanks for the lesson today, Game Professor.
2:53 - "The Final Fantasy playerbase has a long and storied history of reducing its characters down to 2D stereotypes." - HELL YEAH!! CALL US OUT PROFESSOR! Excellent video professor! I missed you!
@@twilightvulpine I disagree. Cloud comes off as traumatized in AC to me. Being helpless to save two of his best friends from death, he then becomes attached to an orphan who is dying and again he feels helpless to save. We get more of his usual self later in the movie as his friends slowly build back his confidence and hope.
I recently replayed Final Fantasy XII and I don't think Vaan is THAT bad. He actually has some interesting development all while being very brief and not particularly relevant to the larger story. He's more interesting if you consider him an introductory character to the world whereas Ashe becomes the main character when she finally arrives a few hours into the game.
Vaan is actually a good character in that his desire for revenge for his brother mirrors Ashe's character arc, just her's is on a larger scale. Concerning the fate of Kingdoms instead of one family. But there is a key moment where Vaan expresses to Ashe that he realizes his quest for revenge won't bring his brother back, and he come to accept that. After that happens, Vaan can no longer see the ghost of prince Rassler that Ashe sees the Dynast King's tombs. The issue is that Vaan's character arc is more or less complete like 30% into the game. Which makes him and Penelo feel much less important than the other characters and that they are just along for the ride.
It doesn't help that you're forced to play as Vaan in towns and places without combat. It communicates to the player that Vaan is supposed to be the central character that you focus on the most.
@@imveryangryitsnotbutter Yeah, I agree that was a mistake by the developers. It's kind of an unwritten rule in these JRPGs that the character you run around as is the main character. Like Cloud, Squall, Tidus, etc. What they should have done was change the character you control in the towns to Ashe after you recruit her. Then people would think to themselves, "The main character changes about 20% into the story" instead of thinking that Vaan is just a boring main character.
Maybe I'm too forgiving, but I don't even have a problem with Vaan. As for XIII, I like it very much and the character dynamics is one big reason why. Precisely as you said, the fact that this group of RPG protagonists doesn't like each other is interesting, it's refreshing, and it also makes the payoff when you finally see them resolve all this and act as a team all that much sweeter. Shame that the sequels didn't continue with that writing quality...
I liked 13 way more than 13 2 but I truly think Serah was a better protagonist than Lightning it just wasn't enough to make the game better than the OG. I think the OG had more great characters and a meaningful story.
@@dankdilly I'd have to play through both again to really compare the sisters. Two things killed 13-2 for me - Caius and Mog. Mog, with his stupid "kawaii" big head design and goofy voice, chiming in to every cutscene destroyed any chance of me taking the story seriously. Caius was...too much of a one-note bird. As much as people like to give shit to characters like Hope or Squall for being brooding, angsty, moody teenagers, Caius really IS that, even at several hundred years of age. Blatantly overusing him as a boss battle doesn't help. Seriously, I wanna say that half the boss fights in 13-2 are Caius, and I don't think it'd be much of a hyperbole. If they used him more sparingly, I might like him more. As is, it's a waste of Liam O'Brien.
Didn’t even need to watch this to like it. I’ve always liked Hope as a character, and I honestly never knew that people hated him because of his character. He’s just a kid, and I actually like how whiny he is in the beginning BECAUSE he’s a kid and is faced with trauma that he can’t handle other than being whiny, scared, and angry at everything. Yes, he wanted to murder Snow, but it was because he never had a chance to REALLY process his grief, so in the spur of the situation, the next right thing for him was to avenge his mom. And once he realized that Snow didn’t murder him on purpose and that his mom’s wish for Snow was to was to bring him home, Hope was able to not only forgive Snow for his mom’s passing, but he was finally able to appropriately process his grief, especially once he got home and talked to his dad. And what makes him an even better character is that he learns how to be brave and get through his trauma through Vanille, Lightning and, even Snow. And eventually, in the other two games, he becomes a leader in his own right and becomes a guide and even a leader to LIGHTNING, the very same person who guided him and was like a big sister to him. He’s such a great character, and his development was one of the things that I love about the FFXIII trilogy. 👍
Hope and Vanille were my favourite characters and I was horrfied when I realised that people not only hated them but also honestly thought they were badly written. Bad faith readings of characters I like always hurt. Same thing with Tidus from FFX. People mistaking their dislike for a character for the character being badly written.
I feel like the negative bad faith criticism of the characters of this game is mostly just projection of their disappointment in the game as a whole. People don't like the game and so it's not just the things they have legitimate criticism about, it instead spreads to every other aspect of the game too. "I hate this game, therefore it must be the characters are written bad too!" I personally am not a fan of 13, as a game I find it pretty miserable, but the character writing is amongst the series' best.
Same reason people dislike Shinji Ikari so much, in my opinion. I didn't care for XIII as a game but out of the cast, I liked Snow and Hope the most. I always thought the hate directed at Hope was because people have unrealistic expectations for how people, especially kids, react to trauma. They want an emotionless wall like Master Chief rather than an actual realistic person. He's extremely well-written and I think that a lot of people don't like Hope because he's a reminder of how so many of us haven't dene the best under stress and suffering. But he gets better, which is the whole point of the character and of the game overall (from what I understand). We get hurt, we suffer, and we screw up dealing it but then we can start dealing with it correctly and get better.
The reason why a lot of people find Hope annoying is because there is a disconnect between WHAT HOPE SEES and WHAT THE PLAYER SEES. This video explains it pretty well: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fygjInoHQCs.html Long story, short: Nora's death is not shown from HOPE's perspective. We--the audience--very clearly see that Snow did not ask for Nora to join in the fight, and he was not the one who caused the bridge to collapse; we see that he was trying to save Nora, but failed because she went limp (i.e., she presumably died from internal injuries suffered in the explosion) and her hand consequently slipped from his grasp. The player CLEARLY sees that Nora's death was unintentional, and that Snow did everything he could to try and prevent any harm from befalling her. Hope--watching from a distance however--could not tell that she was already dead. From HOPE's perspective, it appears as though Snow dropped Nora; letting her fall to her death so that he could save himself. BUT THE PLAYER DOESN'T KNOW THAT THAT'S WHAT HOPE SAW. Because of the way the scene is shot--we see Nora's death and Snow trying to save her UP-CLOSE and then IMMEDIATELY cut to Hope's horrified reaction--the viewer is left with the subconscious impression that Hope saw EXACTLY what we and Snow saw (this is a phenomenon in filmmaking called The Kuleshov Effect: how the shots intercut with each other affects the viewer's perception of the scene/characters). As a result, Hope's brooding over Nora's death and his hatred of Snow feels completely unjustified because the player does not know that Hope does not know that Snow did not intentionally drop her. It's a perfect example of how bad scene direction can fundamentally warp how an audience perceives a character in unintended ways. The problem isn't Hope's character arc. Conceptually, there's nothing wrong with it. The problem is the execution. The scene which kicks off his arc does not present things from HIS perspective. It presents them from Snow's perspective. Ergo, the viewer does not empathize/sympathize with the mood or motive of the former.
i get what you're saying. But no media is perfect. the people who made it even less so. So sometimes, to take in the good stuff, it takes some effort in the part of the audience. Some art challenge, even with boredom, unintentionally even. Sometimes we can only look past it's shortcomings if we want to see its real value. FFXIII might be those things, but it also is different from most FF games and has writing that is not seen in other JRPGs. Its uniqueness is reason to celebrate (and merits the attention of content creators).
I agree with this to an extent. But to say that Snow isn't at fault at all absolves him of responsibility too much. Mike is missing a key detail in his video. Snow gave Nora a gun in the first place and allowed her to join the battlefield. Snow is partially responsible for her fate from that point forward. He's not at fault in the moment for when she falls, because he does everything in that moment to help her stay alive. But Snow is 100% responsible for allowing her (an untrained civilian) to pick up a gun and join the fight in the first place. He is at fault for putting her in that dangerous situation to begin with, otherwise she would still be standing next to Hope and not in the danger zone where the brigde collapses. Snow knows he's at fault for getting those civilians killed and he admits as much later on in the story.
@@LightiningHobo If I have to do heavy lifting to make a narrative work then that is a major failure on the side of the media. The writers should know what they are showing to people and from who's perspective the audience is seeing things from. I'm sure they learned in school the influence perspective can have on a narrative. Besides even this explanation is far far far more forgiving than I am because my problem was never that he was grieving or emotional but that it doesn't make sense for him to blame Snow AT ALL for his mother's death given that he was on a train to deathsville before Hope arrived. She picked up the gun to try to save him and he was too scared to fight with her. He knows, and only has it hammered home while going along, that everyone in his hometown was looking to kill him. If I'm a kid and I see my mom go out like that I'm going to blame the people who sentenced me to death not the only people who still see me as human. At worst he should be blaming himself.
I don't think there's a way to tell a complicated story like this, with multiple character POVs, without differences in perspectives coming into play. The player/audience is ALWAYS going to have more information about the overall scenario than the characters do. And that means sometimes watching characters make mistakes because they don't know crucial information. You can still emphasize with their situation, even if you have more knowledge than they do. And, really, that plot device is at the root of pretty much all tragedy. The tragic hero makes a mistake that the audience already knows is a bad idea. The horror of "Othello" is watching Othello kill his wife, while knowing that she's innocent. That's basic drama.
Hopes reputation is a victim of the time the game came out. I’m sure if FF13 came out for the first time today we’d be talking about what a great himbo snow is and lightning is a girlboss and how pog it was to have 2 lesbians as a part of the main cast and how relatable sazh is and so on and so fourth
Honestly yeah. The characters were great, it was the gameplay and railroad plot/level design that dragged it down. It would be a better game if made today or made 10 years earlier
@@XgamerdaveX Mine was the 60 gig as well, that really sucked, lol. And I totally agree, summons in 13 are there to look really flashy without doing much of anything. 😂
This was an interesting and well argued video. I don't agree with most of it, but it is still refreshing to get a new perspective on this game that so many just dismiss. Personally, I agree regarding Hope. I tend to give him a pass by virtue of the fact he is a child who just lost his mother right in front of him. The trajectory of his character makes the most sense, to me, at least. I think a lot of the bad game mechanics skew people's view of the characters. They're already annoyed that you don't really play the game so every little thing they don't like about a character gets amplified. That being said, I wholeheartedly disagree when it comes to Snow. Sure, the characterization of him being a himbo who just wants everyone around him to be happy isn't wrong, but he also doesn't grow as a character. His introductory scene is him playing hero and getting everybody killed. And he doesn't feel any remorse for that. Sure, there's that scene immediately after where he looks sad, but again, he's a himbo. He has the emotional maturity of a cocker spaniel. Once the scene ends, the dead are out of sight out of mind. He pretends to be the righteous leader, but he never has a plan. Never. He continues to pretend to be a hero and act just as recklessly as he always does having learned nothing from what should have been a defining tragedy for him. He was probably friends with those people for years. If not, he had to know them long enough for them to decide he was a good pick to be in charge. That would have taken at least some amount of time. And they're just never mentioned again. HE gets distracted by the next shiny thing and it's off to the next mission. The only reason he remembers Hope's mom is because of Hope. That scene picked out where Snow and Hope meet for the first time doesn't show Snow trying to be a responsible adult. It shows he prioritizes being seen as a hero over actually being a hero. A real hero would have made the sacrifice to get these two innocent children to safety before going to accomplish their own personal mission. In this case, it would have provided the opportunity to fulfill another heroic role he was charged with by Nora. He would have saved two kids AND been on his way to keeping his promise. But, no, he decides to pretend everything's fine and that going to find his girlfriend will play better for his audience. Lightning was absolute right about him. She shouldn't have blamed him for her sister's situation, but she was right about everything else.
Hope is so interesting to me because I could not stand him for the first part of the game - I was trying to remind myself regularly that he is a child who has gone through a trauma and lost his mother in the midst of this horrific situation, but he still just absolutely grated on me. Until I think the bit when we get to his house, when we saw him start to grow and mature - and when we saw him telling everyone else to just leave him behind and go on without him because the lives of other innocent people mattered more than his did, that was the moment I realized that oh, I think he’s become my favorite? Anyway yeah, I love Hope’s development and he’s one of my favorite characters in this game.
One thing people forget is that the cast of ffxiii was literally the worst kind of people chosen by barthandalus specifically to ensure that they do not resist their focus. The ffxiii characters don't start out as just being 'flawed' heroes, but their flaws are literally their defining characteristics and the reason why, had life continued on cocoon as normal with no purge happening, all of them would be failures as people, let alone be heroes. On top of their flaws, they were all also 'failed by the system', further ensuring bart that they would have every incentive to destroy cocoon as per their focus. Lightning is an orphan who had to join the military early in life to provide a decent life to her and her sister. Unable to deal with such a life, she chooses to bury all her emotions and thinks a stone cold fighting machine is a good identity and what her sister needs. Snow is also an orphan but one who grew up in a troubled streets rebelious thug life, constantly clashing with authorities over anything and nothing along with the NORA gang. His very serious flaws (recklessness and so) are covered in the video. Hope is a whiny teenaager who's parents have some sort of conflict but he sees his father as the aggressor and his mum as his literal one and only (we never really know what the family issues are), and thus he has alot of angst built up. His angsty tendency were only exacerbated by the purge and seeing his mum die. Sazh is a pessimistic old man who can only see the worst outcome in every possible event and would easily choose the easy way out rather than fight for anything. Vanille is a pathological liar who'd rather put on a happy face than face any of the very real problems with very real consequences she is facing, and would rather avoid any kind of taking responsibility for any of her actions until forced. And Fang is the ultimate case of one-itis, typically portrayed as a good thing in games and JRPGs, but ffxiii shows how terrible such a mentality is. Consistently through the game, it is shown that fang cares not for anything, good or bad, life of herself or any others innocent or not as long as she can keep Vanille safe. So of course the cast of the game doesn't start out likeable! This is not a 'crystals chooses a party of heroes to save the world' story; it is 'crystals blackmails a party of awful humans into destroying the world' plot. The magic of ffxiii to me is how the combination of these characters and their interactions manages to let the all grow as people, and turn their characters around far enough to actually choose to fight for the system/populace that not only failed them in their lives, but also fights them throughout the game.
I never played 13, but my younger sister played as I watched. I think she wanted me to have an open mind and before starting, she pleaded with me to not hate anyone right away. At one point, she literally asked me if I hated anyone and my answer shocked her. No one. Sure, I had favorites, but I didn't hate any of them. I agree with you completely, you explained it very well. If there is one thing that this game taught me is to keep an open mind. Also, I can sympathize with Hope because I lost my father when I was young. And yeah, as a child, I did not take it well. So yeah, you nailed it on the head!
When people hate character like Hope, I often get the feeling that they are hating the possibility that they can be like him, Tidus was kind of treat the same for similar reason, in a lot discussion about them I often see them being denigrate for reacting in a logical way to their circumstance then being compare to a way "cooler" character or how they should have handle it. I think a lot of people came into games like this expecting a bit of a wish fulfillment and seeing characters acting realistically to those situation(and so in way closer to how the player would react IRL rather than how they wish they would react) can't of destroy this expectation.
You do have a point about some people being unable to accept characters that don't fullfil their power fantasy and that's their choice but I find that so narrow minded. Having said that, I absolutely love Tidus (whole FFX cast is superb) but I didn't like anyone in FFXIII all that much, the game was very boring to me. 🤷♂️
I think it's in poor tone and really unreasonable to make sweeping personal generalizations about the audience like that. Just like we can't make assumptions about an author just because of what they write, it's only more true to a large audience of different people. It's impossible to have reasonable discussions about media when they depart from the assumption that whoever disagrees is just insecure. And I say that as someone who liked Hope. Nevermind also that the logical reasonable way to act in a fantasy story can vary wildly.
@@twilightvulpine Sweeping generalization? Where did I said everyone who hated him is insecure...this isn't necessary about being insecure, it can't be just a reminder of how they used to be and not liking how they were...and this is a totally normal thing to feel and not something to be ashamed of...it's pretty much a part of growing up for a lot of people...I know I felt like this in the past about some character and I'm not ashamed of it (and yes some people hate him for completely different reason) I get the feeling that you took what I said as some sort of attack against Hope's hater, it's not...and I disagree that it's stop reasonable conversation , it can depending on the people in the conversation but I had several discussion in the past where that didn't happened and with people admitting that hate/ used to hate because of reason like this. If we can talk about how a characters is loved because he/she's a power fantasy/wish fulfillment we can't talk about the reverse, if we can't do that then we can't really talk because we censor a possible reason why a character is hated... I will maybe give you the poor tone....English not being my first language, I sometime focus to much how my message being clear and it may end up lacking some nuance and tact because of it.
@@exizel2124 But to think of it as "a reminder of how they used to be" you have to assume that the critics were immature in the same way that he was, and that their complaints come from personal regrets rather than character preferences or writing criticism. This is what I'm talking about. My point is that you don't know anything about the personal lives of those people to be able to say this, and it's condescending, dismissive of the possibility that they might really have their own reasons for disliking him. I agree with you that some people could learn to appreciate these dramatic situations rather than only wanting smooth power fantasies, but that doesn't need to involve personal assumptions.
FINALLY, someone who gets it. No joke hope is LITERALLY my favorite character in ffxiii, there's so much I like about him. People hating on him is nothing short of hypocrisy. The thing is, people don't hate hope because he's a whiny bitch, but because he's not a badass or a cute girl.....that's right folks I have cracked the case. But in all seriousness, I can't even begin to describe my utter disdain for snow. "Real heroes don't need plans" my ass.
I was a sucker for Hope right out of the starting gate. I found the prospect of him hating Snow very entertaining. I didn't like Snow, he didn't like Snow. But through him I did actually come around to like the idiot before the game was over. I thought the pay off later in the game was fantastic. I know a lot of people hated him but he was such a huge part of the game for me. His scenes with Lightning and Snow were so emotionally charged. I loved it. My complaint was more with how bland Fang and Vanille were and how badly the voice for Vanille was cause every time she opened her mouth I wanted to scream. I get that they were supposed to mirror Lightning and Serah as sisters but I just ended up hating both little sisters in the end. I also still tip my hat to Japan for giving me such a great black male character. It was nice that he wasn't some dead-beat dad or the sole comic relief. Thanks Japan, you did us a solid.
Yeah, I feel like Snow and Vanille are both interesting examples of writing characters who are trying too hard. They both put on brave faces to cover up inner doubt, but come off as kinda awkward because it's forced. But that is a super nuanced level of character writing that's really hard to convey with limited graphics, and it may have been a bit too ambitious for the PS3.
XIII-2 is highly under-rated. Serah is best girl of the trilogy. Not to mention it's the best time travelling game since Majora's Mask. It's so hard to write good time travel stories that don't have major plot-holes! And the soundtrack was beautifully experimental for a FF game.
I still think Vanille is the best character of the trilogy but I think Serah was one of the best protagonists of the whole series and she was way better than Lightning to me.
Its often times I wonder if people have replayed these games. I had played FF13 on launch, and I was 21 thought I knew more, and did not understand its story. I read the datalogs and did not process it. I replayed it like 3 years ago and realized with help from reading the wiki for years out of boredom, that the story is in fact really well made. It is one of the better games(Not my favorite though that has got to be 5)
Funny, I played XIII for the first time a couple months ago, and I 100% agree. It has a few missteps, but I honestly thought it was one of the best-written JRPGs I'd ever played. It felt like it was written by an *adult,* with complicated characters working through complicated situations in believably messy ways. And I loved that the group didn't immediately become BFFs. Yay character arcs! Plus the overall scenario seemed very well thought out and structurally sound, aside - arguably - from overreliance on Deus Ex Machina in the final act. (Which is part of the reason I was so disappointed in the sequels, which revert back to the worst sort of making-it-up-as-we-go plotting and poe-faced exposition dumps you expect from bad JRPGs and anime. XIII-2 even managed to squander the basically great idea of reversing Lightning and Serah's roles, so that Serah's the one saving Lightning this time. Sigh.)
Maybe part of the problem was up to this point jrpgs had a long history of children going thru unimaginable trauma and not reacting to it in any real or meaning way. Players of the genre as a whole had been conditioned to not even consider the realities of such things.
Great breakdown of Hope, Professor! The character personally never bothered me. And while his response to the situation seemed immature, that actually made it feel more realistic and compelling to me. Other people are really bothered by the character and it's fine if that is how they feel. But really that just their preference. Like you mentioned in the video, I don't really see much objective criticism of the character outside of a few scenes and lines of dialogue that probably could have been delivered better. (I don't actually think Vaan sucks though, he's pretty decent actually. Although I know that part was in there for humor mostly :) ). As a side not about FFXIII in general: Something I've observed frequently when this game comes up, is that very often both the supporters and detractors simply lack the vocabulary or understanding to effectively express to the other side what they actually like/dislike about the game. They just know how the game made them feel, and they feel very strongly about that first experience they had with the game. But very few of them will actually take the time to really define their critique in a way so the other side can engage with them in a discussion and come to a better understanding. So now people still continue to argue about the game over a decade later, but very few of them have really tried to refine their praise or criticism past the most surface level feeling the game first gave them. People said the writing was "objectively bad", using meme-worthy lines like "Moms are tough" and "Worst Birthday ever" as their evidence. And while those are good examples, what people actually didn't like about the writing was it's overall style and tone, Which uses a very "anime" or "Soap-Opera" like approach where character are very melodramatic and tend to exposit how they feel out loud to the audience. It's a kind of anime writing style that they probably tolerate or even enjoy in other media, but they didn't like it here in a fully voiced FF game. It was their preference that bothered them, but they felt the need to prove it was "objectively bad" in order to justify their dislike of the game (and by extention, their love of the previous FF games). People also said they didn't like the linear game design, and called the game a "Giant Hallway". But then supporters would counter back with "FFX was just as linear and you liked that game, you're being a hypocrite". (Which was not a productive response.) But really, "linearity" wasn't the core complaint that actually bothered people. It was a lack of gameplay variety combined with long dungeons. The core issue is that there's no meaningful way to engage with the game other than combat. People who loved the combat didn't mind, and those who disliked it literally had nothing else happening to keep them entertained. So the level design stuck out as a sore thumb when really it's not the biggest issue to the gameplay experience. FFX was just as linear in it's level design, but people didn't notice it as much because the game had other ways to engage with it besides combat. This is not to say that all criticism surrounding the game is undeserved or shallow, it's just more often than not I see people talking past each other on this game because they haven't really thought very hard about the core issues the game has. They just know how the game made them feel, found a popular forum post or youtuber who was able to describe the same feelings, and now they parrot those same sentiments over and over whenever FFXIII inevitably comes up in conversation again.
I agree Hope seems immature because he is immature..I don't really understand how people wanted a scared 14 year old boy to react to being thrown into a fucked up situation ? 🤔
I'm glad 13 is getting attention, I always appreciated just about everything from ff13. The cast characters vibe and theme is absolutely some of the best (but I don't think we needed a 13 2 or LR BUT that's a different story even if 13 2 was really fun) Vanille sazh and hope 4 life
Finally someone said it!! I think 13 has plenty of flaws for sure, but it’s character dynamics weren’t one of them. It was really exciting to see a cast that actually had to work to come together, and Hope’s growth was such a special part of that. Thank you for this.
I played the PC remaster long after they or the original came out. the only criticism i remembered was that there were no towns and everything was one long corridor. I loved this game. Maybe I've matured. Maybe my sensibilities in my 30''s are just different than what reviewers had at the time. Maybe there's just some other cultural signposts that are acceptable today that were not present at the time. What i want to say is: This game is the most Fast and Furious JRPG I can think of. And at the time, that franchise was not considered good. Today people love it, and maybe they could love FFXIII too. I've also been watching the FFVII remake playthrough and I feel there's a lot of lessons taken from 13 in it's storytelling. Might be just an impression.
Thank you for this video. I've always had a MAJOR issue with the reception of the Final Fantasy XIII cast, and ESPECIALLY with how people talk about Hope. Not only is he the most powerful Ravager & Medic in the game, but he's a well-written character with a dynamic arc. The Hope at the end of the game has experienced so much character growth, and is no longer the scared, angry kid from the beginning. I've always been mystified as to why he's so reviled by the fandom.
thank you thank you SO MUCH for this, i needed this for years! i played FF13 when a i was 14 years old (yes, the same age Hope was in this game), and at first i was annoyed by Hope, but after Hope tried to kill Snow and fail, Snow save him, and then Hope tried to keep Snow safe alone until Light and Fang arrive. That's was the moment when my perception of Hope changed entirely, only then i realized that if i was on Hope's shoes i wouldn't be able to do anything. And then, he grown up so much from this point that's insane. i love Hope, he's my favorite character from all FF's franchise, and i love FF13, so it hurt me so much that both have such a bad reception from the audience
I don't think I've ever met a character that had me complaining about how useless and whiny they are, despite that being probably like. The biggest reason a lot of young boy characters might get huge amounts of flak. I was 12 when I played this game for the first time and I was like "haha cool boomerang weapon go brrr" lmao Anyway, good video, so true bestie. I love this game
Always wanted to play XIII, because it looks really cool and like no other game, but the general reception always kinda stopped me from trying it. Might give it a shot after this video though.
It's worth a shot! It's definitely flawed (mainly that the plot is confusing and the gameplay takes waaaaay too long to ramp up), but one of those games that's really worth it if you can meet it on its terms.
I'm starting to realize more and more that 13 made some pretty unique jumps with its storytelling. The character moments seem so far removed since a lot of the early vital information for their backstory and how the characters should feel about each other is in codex cutscenes instead. It makes sense for Lightning to be upset with Snow over him being a big helpful idiot, because she was a soldier and they didn't take any of that crap. Hope being a child processing grief was uncomfortable, but it dragged on for what, Seven-ish chapters?... A lot of their story moments could have come sooner, and instead of feeling final fantasy, it feels more DnD. It's good writing, but bad delivery, y'know? The characters are well written and while it makes SENSE for them to bottle it up... It's hard to care for the payoff when it happens so far in to a game whose structure feels more like a tutorial. You spend enough time ruminating on their last actions that these misconceptions are based off of what we spend more of the game focused on. Lightning is always hitting Snow, Snow is always trying to be the hero, Vanille is too carefree, ect. ect. Obviously they're much more than that, but that payoff doesn't come fast enough. You spend so much time with the characters putting on the acts that *when* they all break free, most people have already either given up on the game, or the people are so uninvested in the stakes that when the moment comes, it doesn't have that catharsis.
Facts. I couldn't care less about the characters or their motivations while I was playing. The only thing that kept me playing was wanting to see how they would get out of being L'cie.
@@SteveJubs Writing is the text itself, Delivery is how it's conveyed through the vocal performance. Which in FFXIII is often awkward due to the English voice directors insisting that the English performance stay as close to the Japanese as possible. Which makes it feel unnatural. It's also on the voice actors to some degree. It may sound strange, but some tweaks to delivery and a more talented actor could actually pull off a line like "Moms are tough" without it feeling so awkward. Or at least a lot less awkward. In any case, writing and delivery are 2 separate aspects of storytelling. Both are essential, and if one is bad it drags down the other. Like a song can have good lyrics (writing) on paper, but still be ruined by bad delivery of the vocalist.
I disagree strongly, if it wouldn't have taken it's time, it would have lost it's authenticity. Such matters aren't resolved that quickly. In such a case it would seem trite.
@@AndreasFleissner I agree that some matters would have been ruined by speeding matters up, but there are character moments that could have happened in between to help develop the cast. Snow showing a sign of weakness instead of appearing as a genuine himbo throughout... Even thinking about the volunteers that died under his command, and by extension Nora, around Lightning, or Fang. An admittance of guilt or a glimpse into his mind would have done wonders for the audience's perception of him. Vanille's act, however, infuriates me. I feel she should have dropped the act much sooner, as her whole jolly demeanor is uncomfortable, especially since she's often paired up with Sazh, the most "normal" party member. It takes up until she meets Fang to get her arc resolved, and until then, I find her insufferable. She's written well, with good motives and intentions, with terrible delivery.
Being real, one thing I have learned across multiple series, is that if the standard is to have 'big cool guys' and then you later have a male player character is actually portrayed as weak or fallible in some way, they're immediately the worst. Tidus suffered from it too, but I can also think of Geo Stelar in Mega Man Star Force - a new main character in a sequel series to one which starred an exceptionally standard Shounen Lead. ...And naturally, a huge part of the fanbase loathed him initially, precisely because he actually, y'know, had fears and emotions, he had trauma and grief he was dealing with. He was called weak and whiny and a handful of slurs - despite undergoing more actual character development in one single game than the lead of the entire multimedia, multiple game spanning franchise he was succeeding. Over time that response to Geo has largely died down, and people look back on him more fondly - hopefully at some point Hope gets treated much the same.
An amazing analysis. I sometimes think about something similar for Squall and Cloud. Several people see them as emo/effeminate characters just because they are distant from the classic dominant male figure usually portraied in stories, without considering that Squall, for example, is 17 years old, no more than a teenager, he has been through a lot, and during the game his personality development is one of the best ever made. Cloud too was extremely insecure, plus Shinra exploited his body for their experiments. I hope characters such as those two will be positively reconsidered, maybe the movements in favor of minorities and lgbtq+ will open minds much more in this sense
Thank you so much for this. Hope is my favorite character in FFXIII. The scene where Snow saves him from the fall always brings me to tears! The grief, the regret, the true heroism, and the resolve. Just thinking about it makes me emotional.
FFXIII is one of my absolute favorite games, and I've never understood the hate for it. I think people took all their gripes about the game and just shoved it onto Hope, which is a real shame because he's an incredible character with a very satisfying narrative arc. The whole main cast of XIII is stellar, and I really wish more people would give this game an honest chance, because it's SUCH a good story.
My first inclination is to say that you've picked out interesting, and admittedly good, story beats and divorced them from the writing which fleshes them out into the story we all played through. Admittedly, I haven't played FF13 since it came out, but I was about Hope's age, then. I shared all the common complaints and criticisms of FF13. Maybe it's the dialogue, or maybe it's the acting, but I recall the main cast, excluding Sazh, coming across as incredibly unlikable. I'm sure my opinion would change, to some degree, if I went back and played it, but that aside? You've convinced me that he's an interesting and thought-provoking character concept, but I've not been convinced he's well written. Good video, though. Honestly.
I liked Hope and Lightning because they were the only ones trying to do something resembling a plot. Sazh and Vanille peace out to go to Final Disneyland to watch the summons electric parade and play with the chocobos. Then they get captured by the pope's henchwoman as punishment for wasting everyone's time. Snow stayed in the desert trying to move Sarah's crystallized body until Fang kidnapped him back into the plot.
I would say this allll the time! Hope was the most interesting character to me, he was dealing with so much crap. I hated how people would call him whiny and a brat. Like, wouldn't you? In that situation? At that age?!
Final Fantasy XIII wears its troubled production history on its sleeves, and on the whole I don’t think it ever comes together… but Hope’s character arc just isn’t one of the problems the game has. His deal is well established, flows logically from beginning to end, and every major beat is given attention and space to breathe. It’s purely people taking something they find personally annoying and trying to claim it’s *bad writing* and not their own personal taste. Which sadly is way too common in shallow internet ‘criticism’ Love seeing you cut through that to actually pay the game some of its due.
I really enjoyed his story. I loved the character pair up with Lightning. It was so cool to watch them together with her getting along with him for his edgy and rebellious attitude but then realising that she needs to help him and guide him, and in doing so her also letting go of her anger. Loved it.
Impeccable timing with this video, as I’ve recently picked up FFXIII for the first time. It has its rough spots, but I’m enjoying it. Hope’s journey is a highlight for me.
Hearing someone defend FF13 is new but welcome, I feel this balance takes are needed in media. I would honestly love to see you explain how FF10's characters are great as any other title.
Hope does gets some real nice moments from there after. Though it does depend on the level of patients one has while playing, considering that the level design and gameplay made things feel monotonous (on top of lore being mostly relegated to data logs). Otherwise, yeah the characters are solid in their own right when you dig deeper and look at the broader picture (Sazh is a personal fave of mine).
I agree that the fandoms tend to have a really aggressive and sometimes violenta responds to "breaking the formula" thing...and is a pretty interesting phenomenon of taste and his agents when you see this shift of popular "undisputed truths" change. Like i just get the last year that FF8 is now a beloved game when in his time it was HATED a lot.
I’ve recently played through the first few hours of FFXIII, and I was genuinely surprised how easily you can slip into this world. This game has a very strong opening! The characters are immediately doing interesting stuff, Snow acting like he’s from a completely different genre & having his naive expectations shattered by getting a bunch of his people killed is really well done, and Hope being mad at him has always been described to me as irrational or whiny but it makes perfect sense in context. Hope isn’t swearing revenge or anything, he’s just grieving & confused & yet unable to confront Snow for his culpability in Nora’s death. This is good character writing! FFXIII is fascinating, a wildly successful game, panned hugely on release, and now with the benefit of hindsight it’s getting these interesting reevaluations.
I actually think Hope was one of my favourite characters in the entire game. He feels very realistic because of the way he deals with his situation, if you watched your mother die before your eyes while also being caught in a battlefield yourself don’t actually tell me you’d handle it any differently to Hope. ESPECIALLY If you are just a lonely child who has just been forced to go along with some strangers to survive.
Yeah, I never got how Hope's critics failed to consider how him being a literal child will affect his decision making; I was like 10-12 years old when I watched a play-through, barely understanding what was going on, but still caught how his age affects things.
I don't disagree with this reading of these isolated character moments. But I feel like this kind of analysis cherry picks the best bits from anything to paint an incomplete picture that can make *anything* look a lot better than it is. No amount of sad boy points Hope could earn would make up for the very difficult-to-follow buzzword filled like... first 3 hours of this game. If the opening really was just what you've cut it down to-- yeah, that absolutely would have been taken better. But if the introduction is... muddled, at best-- then the rest of this has no footing, and would obviously be lost on people.
I think one big problem with people understanding JRPGs character development is the length of the games, these characters take a long time to develop and grow, by the time snow and hope have their moment they are about 20 hours or so into the game... So i think a big chunk of people play these games for like 5 hours, decide they dont like it for whatever reason, totally normal, but then act like they understand the characters just from their initial scenes and criticise them based on that first impression... Cloud being a anti social emo, Squal the other anti social emo, tidus the goofball, lightning the heartless robot etc
It’s funny cuz FF13 isn’t a bad game. If it had been called anything else besides Final fantasy I don’t think the criticism would’ve been so harsh. It was a decent rpg. But when compared to most of previous entries in the series it’s a step down in character dialogue, writing, and world building. At least in my opinion and obviously most the fan base too. I grew up playing all the originals and almost every time someone spoke in 13 I cringed. I don’t hate the game but it’s definitely my least favorite
I think a part of the reaction is due to the often young age of protagonists in jrpgs and anime. A teenager who actually acts like a teenager is not the norm. This is not a criticism of young anime/jrpg protagonists who act older. I understand why they are a thing and have no issue with it, just an observation.
Hope’s arc is good in theory, but in practice he’s just TOO unlikeable, they went a bit too far with it. Plus, you just know it’s not going to happen. There are no stakes in this conflict, because you know how it’s going to play out the instant it starts.
FFXIII was my big learning curve in media, I'd never been so hyped for a game and then felt so let down. After replaying it with incredibly low expectations, I rather enjoyed it. Always thought Lightning and Hope were good together with decent character arcs. Snow, however, remains unbearable for me. I've always thought this was more so because I'm English, and he strikes me as the most American character in any FF. His "I'm the hero, I'll save everyone" stuff with no thought to the consequences of his actions gives me PTSD. Can't remember how many Americans (and Brits who bought into it) used this thoughtless, naive attitude when justifying illegal wars across the globe. Good video though, I'm always a sucker for sober analysis of a controversial game. I agree with comments saying other problems with the game (plot, pacing, gameplay) make people overly critical of aspects of the game that are actually good.
I think you almost got it by the end there, FFXIII is drastically different (gameplay-wise) from other entries. Suffice to say I don't think anyone gave it a fair shake. Another great example in my opinion is FFXV. Good or bad, I think the public outcry is people who didn't finish the game.
It's not my project, actually! Like I said, it's on Librascope's channel, and a link is in the description! It's like 4 hours long and a remarkably thorough dissection of the game. It's good stuff!
@@GameProf rewatching this video as I get ready for my return to 13 after my first playthrough so long ago and finally seeing this reply. No idea how I missed that detail about Librascope in the first 30 seconds of the video. I'll check it out! :)
REALLY GOOD video, though of course I'm biased since Hope was my favorite in XIII hahaha. Thanks for giving these characters their due, made me wanna replay the game. Great content as always!!
Awesome that you are going to tackle FFXIII. Although I only played it on release, I always liked the story. Hopes arc was logically, yet a bit predictable. But the behaviour was relatable, I agree. I'm curious what comes next ...
FFXIII's major flaw was the localization. The localization team wasn't given the time, money or resources to do a better job. The voice actors, while all of them talented, weren't given the proper direction for their characters and many of them feel very soap opera-ish because of this. I always tell people to play FFXIII with Japanese voices because it'll be the same text, but the voices better match the emotions in each scene. Honestly, XIII is one one of my higher rated FF's BECAUSE of the amazing writing. I also appreciate the combat system, though I also understand how it doesn't really work for many people. And lastly, I really don't like how a lot people call it a "hallway simulator." The restriction on the gameplay during the Cocoon section was the way it was for a very important story reason; it's restrictive because that's how the characters feel during that time. I admit that maybe the design team could've done a better job with environments because yes, some of those sections do go a bit too long and look too samey, but the fact that you feel restricted during that whole section was the creator's intent to make the player empathize with the characters more.
I prefere Troy Baker as Snow. His seiyu overreacts his hero personality, but completely fails when it's about emotional moments (when he asks Serah what's her forcus, he's yowling at her). Troy Baker is on point every time. But besides that, I agree. They should have had Hope's VA as Bhunivelze, but completely destroy the payoff of his character arc when they chose an other VA.
People just hate "Whiney" characters because in anime, grieving is just a 2-5 episode fad. Players seem to expect like "I cant believe my entire family was butchered in front of me and I had to watch... Welp Im over it now because more than 10 minutes of emotional instability or an over the top reaction is bad :D"
Something I experience with ff13 along with other FF games is I had trouble following the storytelling while also being uninterested in it. That might be where people shallow criticisms come from as well.
Yes, you're right. Hope was the worst character for me, but you're right. He's a decently written little kid who just lost her mother and is now in danger of losing his life. I guess the 2 sequels did not help in my perspective on all the characters and the overall story. Also, Snow was the only character I liked in the cast (because he at least tries to fix things, and I liked the fact that he acted like all could still be saved, while he was desperate as much as the others), so maybe Hope was not in the best position to be on my good terms. Also...I was 17 the first time I played it.
Great video. I can really relate to the 2 dimensional interpretation of characters in Final Fantasy being frustrating. Cloud is one of my favorite characters ever, and Tidus is one of the best parts of Final Fantasy X in my opinion. I haven't played Final Fantasy XIII but Hope genuinely seems like one of the most interesting characters in the game, maybe even the entire series.
something unrelated: you should totally play "the talos principle" and do a video about it. it touches themes like what is human, what is reality, purpose, I'm near the end (I think), I haven't finished it yet, but I find it very interesting and I thought it would be perfect for your channel and how you analyze things. I'd love to hear your opinion about it.
Every Final Fantasy has an annoying quirky younger character. VII has Yuffie, VIII had Selphie, IX had Eiko, X had Rikku, XIII has Vanille AND Hope. I don't know why Hope gets so much hate - he's just carrying on a series tradition.
G o d. FFXIII, the series I stare into the middle distance about for all of the interesting ideas it could never quite pull off. That I do think improved with each game for as much as a cluster fuck even Lighting Returns is, for having one of my favorite combat systems in all of final fantasy. Let me actually watch this, but I will say I am one of those people who didn't like Hope much in the first game, but more out of apathy than malice. I just wanted more from other characters that got eaten by his screen time. But then I love the very interesting if not the best executed character arc over the next two games. First the amount he did with just human ingenuity vs supernatural skill, and him further flinging himself across time in the name of his friends while dealing with the messianic characters his society tries to make him. And then *man* his role in Lightning Returns. He shot up to one of my favorite characters in the cast after that. Edit: I do agree there's a lot of good writing actually in the first game just oh my God the pacing kills it all. It does a bad job of jumping between the cast, and the fact we spend 80% of the game on tutorial on how to play it without at least a full three person party is maddening. It feels like both the plot and gameplay are hostile to the player with how it keeps playing keep away.
You keep saying it’s “good writing,” but what you mean is that there’s a good underlying concept/dynamic/structure, and I agree with that. But execution is a huge part of writing, and the execution here is severely lacking, so really, it just isn’t “good writing.”
I’m so glad someone finally said this. He’s my favorite character in 13 and has been since day 1 but like someone how people never got it? It’s wild. Great video. I think people hated seeing a male character expressing emotions that aren’t overwhelmingly macho
I remember being a dumb teenager when this game , my first and only final fantasy game, came out, and I have to ask: was I just being a dumb teenager? or did the unfamiliar terminology make it hard to understand for my tiny teenage brain at the time?
This one in particular is kind of famous for its overall plot making very little sense, hampered by a friggin glossary of terms that are included in the game, but not explained well in the story itself. So no, you were probably right to be confused lol
Hope makes sense as a character. It’s just that the game he’s in is so unbearably boring it *literally* set off my neurospicies. I didn’t even think that was *possible*.
