We Were All Wrong About Final Fantasy XIII 

That’s a powerful “we” Please speak for yourself, I rode the trilogy from start to finish.

I have been a lorediver for the Trilogy for over a decade now, and I have devoted so much work and time to study these games, the details, the connections, the symbolism, the story beneath the surface. There are finer points in here that I would personally go over more in-depth, lore-wise, but I have been there and I know it would take much more than three hours, so your work will definitely reach much more people who might want to give the Trilogy a shot. For so long, we have been screaming into the void, and what we could do individually was very limited-but with people with a larger audience spreading appreciation for this criminally underrated and mind-blowingly complex and deep story, I believe there will be a day in which the finer points will reveal themselves by others' curiosity. So I thank you for taking the plunge and lending us your voice. :)

Just watching all the footage, it's astounding how good this game still looks. As good if not better than many games coming out today

This is it. This is THE FFXIII video essay. FFXIII has long been my favorite FF game for all the reasons you laid out. While playing it, the story and gameplay and legit woven so TIGHTLY that you can feel the intention of each character. I cry every time I play this game several times because of how much emotion each character has. Also the ending hurts my very soul knowing that in an instant, Lightning disappears.

You missed an important thing with the accessories system: Equiping similar accessories, or accessories in a set, can yield secondary bonuses (like physical wall +5 or +10). This actually showed up in your video while you were mixing and matching accessories. As an example of how useful this can be: In the section in Palenpoem where you control Snow and Hope, there is a regular enemy that can one-shot Hope with an attack that deals a ton of small hits. Preach in his recent playthrough had to deal with this and kept getting destroyed. Putting the Physical Wall ability on by mix/matching accessories made it much more tolerable for Hope to survive this ability.

My uncle gave me this game because he liked it, and I let everyone tell me how bad it was until my boyfriend made me play through the entire trilogy. 13's story is AMAZING

This is quite honestly the most outstanding FFXIII video essay I’ve seen. Thank you so much for making it. I feel incredibly vindicated knowing that someone else saw what I did in FFXIII all those years ago when I played it as my first FF. I was ridiculed everywhere I went for proclaiming how this game had an emotional impact on me. I’m so happy this stigma is finally starting to be chipped away at.

One point I'm glad you mentioned in this has been the fact that the characters are actually acting normal per their stimuli. I wholeheartedly agree with this. While this is not my favorite final fantasy, my favorite ff character, Hope, is in it. The way people treat him about his own stimuli on his actions baffle me. Honestly, he acts more like his age than anyone else. He is 15. That age, I was dealing with a l9t and ended up picking up this game as an ff fan. I found kindred spirit in him and his growth helped me quite a bit myself.

Absolutely the best video essay on FFXIII on RU-vid. This was actually my first Final Fantasy game and I love it to bits. I didn't think anyone else thought about this game and every aspect of it as much as I have, but I'm happy to be proven wrong. Great analysis and takeaways. Here's to a hopeful re-release of this game on PS5 and Xbox, even just with 4K/60fps options and a few quality of life improvements. Fingers crossed!

It took time and a decade of exhausting open world games fatigue but people finally understand and started to appreciate XIII’s.

As someone who loves the lore of this whole trilogy, we need a 13-2 video. Fantastic work!

I'm gonna politely ask everyone in the industry to stop using the acronym "CP" for in game resources

The cost of secondary roles is criminal.

The game over music happens after Brynhildr fight. I think there's a 3rd one but I don't remember where. Also, a bit sad you didn't talk much about chapter 12's context. The hatred and fear against Pulse the governement put in its citizens heads came to fruition. 3 armies (our group, the PSICOM/Guardian Core and the Cavalry) that have the same goal (to save Cocoon) are against each other thanks to the Fal'Cie's manipulations. It's an all out war between 5 sides (Cocoon Fal'cies, Pulse L'Cie, Cocoon Army, Pulse Army and the Cavalry) whom I know no story that did the same. It's further shown in the gameplay with many triangular battles and unreachable fights.

“My own personal Final Fantasy 7” hits me in the feels.

Pro tips: the auto battle commands puts in all the optimal battle commands depending on the targets. Meaning you and your A.I. controlled party might accidentally heal the enemies if they're using random attacks. To prevent this, LIBRA EVERYTHING. Libra and Librascope are your best friends. Unlocking weakness and knowledge on enemies will allow auto battle and party members to perform optimal actions and not throw out random stuff.

Oh, if anyone is going to replay this game... Two tips. Lightning: Look into making her a Sentinel. There's some nasty builds where she's practically untouchable. Snow: Funny enough, due to animation speeds, he's one of the best Ravagers in the game. He can fire off more spells per second because he finishes up his animations faster.

I started XIII on a whim after seeing it sit in my Steam library for a while, and I came out thinking "....wait, this was the FF title that everyone said was mostly a big interactive cutscene?" I loved the style most of all, and didn't mind the linearity since there was generally still a challenge that needed to be overcome. "Mash auto-battle to win" is a myth that got passed around by casual observers and others that wanted to be funny over factual. I mean, I told some of my family members, who weren't interested in FF to begin with, about this auto-battle feature and presented it in the way the memes did, and it was fun to watch their reactions thinking that it was "stupid" to have a video game where you click a button, click an enemy, and then sit back and watch the game play itself. I feel bad for writing this game off for the longest time as if the devs mistakenly thought that players just wanted to click a button and watch all of these flashy moves be performed by characters after offloading all thought and strategy onto the game itself. I'd love to see the detractors try to take down an adamantoise on their own without looking up a way on how to cheese the fight.

You could classify Vanille as the Ravager instead of another Saboteur because her every action, and inaction, unwillingly make things worse for everybody around her. She was an engine of destruction who chose to run away and/or hide things from others for fear of bringing further ruin upon them, as was her nature. This leaves Fang as the Saboteur, which is obvious from her purposeful and direct approach in dismantling the obstacles standing before Vanille and herself - infiltrating Cocoon and attacking Kujata at Euride Gorge, working with Raines to crush the Sanctum Fal'cie and destroy Dysley's status quo, becoming Ragnarok, etc. Vanille cannot be another Saboteur because she is not a willing participant in the misery she causes, whereas Fang consciously engages in it and eggs the others on in their rebellious campaign to veer off the path set before them by the machine gods and fight fate. Even in Lightning Returns we see Vanille's efforts bringing calamity and Fang stopping at nothing to get in her way. Ravager and Saboteur.

I love FF13, I read all Ultimania, have the soundtrack listening nearly every week since its release, fantasize about living in the world. I like Oerba village a lot, I go there to relax sometimes

6:10 - In the example you gave about the man saying he's not a l'cie, the alternative _isn't_ him describing the l'cie on screenーit is the story _showing or hinting to us_ what a l'cie is or what makes a l'cie scary, thus indicating why the boy is scared. The guideline often cited is "show, don't tell". Of course, XIII eventually does that. People forget that this opening is meant as a narrative hook, to get the audience to ask those very questions, like "what is a l'cie?" or "why is this man saying he's not one?", etc. I do think the game's narrative has an execution problem regarding how much important info is relegated to its menu lore book. Of course, if you stay up-to-date with it, like reading, and are invested in the story the game is trying to tell, the game is probably one of the most compelling FF stories ever told (imo). But if you find any of these things hard, uninteresting, or perhaps were ignorant that you were supposed to be reading them, I think it's completely valid to find the overall game's narrative more lacking.

Ten seconds into the video, and I'm already amused. Man made us read an excerpt from the crystarium journal lore at the top of the video.

While FF XIII isn’t my favorite game in the series, I don’t think it deserves the hate. A lot of the complaints I’ve heard could also be applied to other JRPGs. Especially in the FF series. “It’s too linear!” So is FF X, but no one complained about that. Yes, you don’t get a lot of freedom to explore different towns like in X, but it’s like you pointed out: it makes sense with the narrative. Hell, even when you were a fugitive in FF X, no one really treated you like it, so it didn’t have much weight to it. “The characters are annoying” I’ve heard similar complaints about VIII and XII, but those got ported to modern consoles. “The combat sucks!” It’s not that different from the combat that’s been around since FF IV. Auto play? Don’t like it, then don’t use it

As someone who has multiple XIII themed tattoos, it's actually really gratifying to see someone that basically gets this entry in a pretty similar way that I do and appreciates this game for the Good and the Messy. There's so much to love on this game, a lot of heart clearly went into this game despite its troubled development and it always sat wrong with me how the game often has a lot of detractors repeating criticisms of the game that are actually factually untrue. Personal point of annoyance has been a bit of the music. The OST can be really incredible but it relies really heavily on motifs in a lot of it's tracks. The main melody of "Promise" features a lot and echoes around a lot of games areas. "Blinded by Light"s beats are repeated in a lot of basic tension tracks and Hope's theme feels universally applied to a lot of the more emotional scenes. It's likely the reason why the OST kinda blends together for myself, you, and a lot of others. Despite the sequel's flaws, I will give it to that game that it has a lot more track diversity that keeps the soundscape fresh (even if there is a lot of motif repetition in that as well). Another bit I really like is how the mechanics of progressing through the Archlyte Steppe and surrounding areas really reinforces the theme of Pulse. You are at the bottom of the food chain fighting for survival as you start off fighting easy plant-life, moving onto small wolves, needing to take advantage of 3-way fights to get the upper hand, to fighting behemoths and monstrosities unaided. I think it really does convey the feeling of rising to the top in a fight for survival in a pretty organic way.

This analysis is such a loving tribute to my favorite Final Fantasy game. I never thought of it as being overly dramatic because all the characters are struggling with grief, and its fairly easy to see myself and my own grief in someone like Lightning. Thank you for a lovely video

Always loved this game. As an orchestra nerd growing up I fell in love with all of the arrangements first.

The last great FF title imho. The combat system is vastly misunderstood. Just watch HCBailly's LP. The challenge lies in speed. Ending combat as expeditiously as possible in order to obtain a high rating and better rewards. When gameplay opens up, you ain't gonna be fast enough always manually selecting commands, balancing paradigms, building stagger and doing everything as fast as possible. The point at which auto battle isn't required is while you have no commands to really select from anyway. Try taking down a Long Gui quickly manually selecting every command and never touching auto battle, getting five stars every time.

It warms my heart that more people than me like the FFXIII series. Thank you :)

I think the combat system is the reason why I never finished this game back when it was released. It was just really new to me, and my fish brain did not get it then.

I don't think auto-battle is really a problem. I finished the game a couple of times and i really like the battle system a lot. I actually think they made it worse in XIII-2. Selecting commands manually is like starcraft korean level of skill given the amount of time, maybe not at the start but definitely later when you have access to many commands. I consider auto-battle a tool to streamline the fight. The real meat is in selecting the right paradigm shift at any given time to make the fight as efficient and fast as possible.

My problem with XIII isn't linearity, is that there wasn't anything else to do except fight. And since I though the story was mediocre it's reason for not having any side content didn't endear itself to me either.

Finally, somebody who thinks rationally! lol I love this game so much. It pains me how much people completely miss the point. Even way back when I first played it I could feel the reason for the linearity was story-related. Everyone had a singular mindset, a single goal. And they were rushing headfirst into it as hard as they could. By the time things open up a bit, their mindset had been shaken up, the illusion cracked and almost destroyed. And by the end, it returns to that linearity, but this time with more of a clear head and better focus. On their own terms. Doing what they believe is right opposed to what they are told to do. Is it perfect? I still think that's subjective. While I do like it, personally, I completely understand people who want a more open experience. I was so worried going into this game when I heard Nobuo Uematsu wasn't doing the OST, but I was more than pleasantly surprised. This is one of my favorite OST in video games and really fits the game imo. Thank you so much for this video! The amount of time and work that went into it is very evident, so kudos for sticking through it. It's refreshing to find a video that doesn't just trash it outright while still pointing out the good and bad. P.S. I still couldn't like Hope by the end (though I do feel bad for him in that scene when everybody is reunited with their loved ones and he's alone.) He's just super annoying to me. And I feel so alone, too, as I feel like I'm the only person who likes Snow. LOL

About Hope and Vanille side cutscene, Vanille mentions it in the first chapter of the game. But you can completely miss what she meant if you don't watch the cutscene in Yaschas Massives.

What a great video dude. Watching the rest at work rn.

I loved this game from the very first moment and I couldnt understand that it gained so much missunderstanding, because it is so very well written. It's just sad, that people were expecting so much from this game and didnt gave it the chance to see how amazing it is. Like you said - it is straight forward because you are chased by the whole army of Cocoon. You don't have time for sight-seeing. It's only natural that you are able to "see through more than a tunnel", when you reach Pulse, where is no army behind you. And what you are finding on Pulse is so heartbreaking, when you hear Vanille and Fang talking about the blooming Oerba - that is nothing more than dusty void. No life. No Colors. I also want to mentioned ... that Fang & Vanille forming a bridge between the two worlds is more than just a beautiful symbol. Fang and Vanille "hate" Cocoon, they didn't know that none of the people up there had any idea what the Fal'Cie were doing to Pulse. Stealing their supplies, relics, culture, ending lifes... through their journey with the others they reached each others hands - overcome their believes and gifted them a new future. The worst part of FFXIII is... that there is XIII-2 and -3, where they killed all the personalities of the characters. No one is acting with sense/naturally anymore. I am glad that SE admitted to some point, that the sequels are just an alternate universe and that you can ignore them, if you want to. And yes... I really want to do that.

much appreciated for another hour plus long video essay on a subject I love, it makes getting art done so easy.

1:19:53 one thing I learned while on a replay of the game is that Lighting and even Fang do in fact have access to her physical attacks. she uses her gun while Fang throws her spear but for some reason the game defaults to magic

Earned a sub out of me my guy. Truly captivating stuff. I've long since been a staunch defender of Final Fantasy XIII. It's a great feeling to no longer be alone.

Havoc Skytank is the only enemy in the game who's long ranged. And since it's a long ranged battle, Lightning has a special way to use her Attack animation (though you can only use it if you manually select Attack) : Lightning will shoot at high speed with her gun. This is the fastest attack animation in the game by no small margin.

My personal theory on the L'Cie 'focus' is that there simply isn't one. I think that what happens is that whatever fragmented vision they are shown is them seeing a glimpse of their own future and they are manipulated by the Fal'Cie into believing that this is instead a purpose given to them and that whether they become Cieth or turn to crystal or more to do with their own state of mind. If they think they have failed or have become doomed to fail then they'll become Cieth, if they think they have succeeded or reach a level of personal satisfaction then they turn to crystal. It is the Fal'Cie that muddy the water about what is actually happening in order to manipulate the L'Cie due to not wanting their human weapons to realise just how much free will they retain. The reason that the 'focus' of a L'Cie is so fragmented and vague is that it is not actually what it is claimed to be. As an example - when Serah turned to crystal Snow claimed 1 purpose for her focus and Barthandy later claimed another but their is no proof to either and it is just as possible that it was simply a result of her mental state as her fiancee and sister both appeared together to save her when she was lost and alone. With the vagueness of everything about being a L'Cie it is relatively simple to confuse the truth and create a fiction about how it works. Vanille and Fang are/were fated to become Ragnarok, it is/was in their future, but this does not mean they are fated to do what Barthandelus says they are. He is just doing his best to make them _think_ that they are. This is my head canon at least... Probably influenced by the Legacy of Kain series where such manipulations are all aimed at making those with free will not realise that they have it.

This is the best FFXIII retrospective on the Internet. Thank you.

As someone who has never seen this video game before, it looks so good. If this was the style of combat that had continued to exist for other Final Fantasy games, as they gradually introduced towns and the like and refining the kinks, this could have been great for the series as a whole.

Really wish Square enix would rerelease this Trilogy on modern systems.

Final fantasy XIII is the one game in this IP's series that deserves a renaissance imo.

This was my first Final Fantasy game! I stopped the first time I played it in chapter 1 because I didn’t understand what was going on at all, but went back to it and learned what was going on as I played and fell in love with this game. Love Lightning and am sad this game and its sequels have a negative reputation, I liked the whole trilogy and love the lore and backstory of this world, it feels very rich which i appreciate as someone who loves story

I loved these games, and it’s a shame that they’re the only mainline final fantasy games unavailable on PlayStation store and PS4/5

Had to comment just to say, during the Havok Skytank boss, you can actually cue 'attack' commands manually to utilise Lightning's superior strength stat, and it uses a pretty cool animation that I'm fairly sure was exclusive for this battle where she shoots the target

I know FINAL FANTASY 13 isn't everyone's favorite, but its my FINAL FANTASY.

Started playing this game for the first time. It’s one of the few I hadn’t played, I was worried about spoilers and got a full paradigm shift tutorial. Thanks 👍🏽.

When describing each of the characters into their signature roles, I'd argue that Lightning is the RAV and Fang is the COM by the end. Lightning definitely *starts* as a COM, but the story pushes her to using her strength and abilities to support others to grow. Her signature ability (that is RAV), Army of One, encapsulates that, making the stagger gauge raise incredibly fast and synergize incredibly well with a few of her weapon abilities. She ends up as a *decent* COM at the end, but not the best. The best COM by the end is Fang. Her connection to Vanille is evident in her SAB ability to slow enemies, which is an incredibly useful ability, but she grows into the true lone wolf, attempting to turn on the party not once, but twice (even by the end of the game) to do what she feels needs to be done. Her signature attack (from COM), Highwind, is something she even uses against the party to instantly end that "conflict." The rest of the roles are definitely spot on, tho I sincerely wish their signature abilities were made according to their role like Lightning, Vanille, and Fang. Give Hope an instant, teamwide 100% ress/heal. Snow can keep his Sovereign Fist, just give it the properties of instantly Taunting all enemies with 100% success rate so it's not left up to chance. His face so punchable, after all. Then Sazh would absolutely love an ability that gave a unique party-wide buff that only he can give. This way, everyone would have a legit reason to be the party lead in different scenarios.

The acronym for "crystal points" has always been funny to me. Imagine wanting to gather as much of this resource as you can.

Glad to see the revisionism for FFXIII, its honestly a great game despite its many flaws.

Just a correction on Steelguard: It has a ramping damage resistance which makes it really good against attacks that have multiple hits, like guns. The resistance resets when the character drops the stance, but with good timing against something that goes full auto you can get full damage immunity for the rest of the duration.

After all these years, I feel incredibly validated personally about loving a game with almost everyone parroting how crazy I was for doing so. The work you did here is incredible and put into words what I couldn’t all those years ago; good or bad. Amazing video.

1:20:26 Lightning can use physical damage here! This is the only fight she uses her gun blade as just an actual gun! It’s pretty cool

Please keep it up man. Your vids are really good!

A few Bosses that have interesting mechanics that you didn't talk about : - Aster Protoflorian is the classical changing weaknesses Boss. Except that Lightning doesn't have access to Blizzard and Hope doesn't have Bar-Thunder and Bar-Water. - Dahaka can also change element resistances (and debuffs immunities) with its different storms... who also triggers Dahaka to use -ga spells (Aeroga can be considered as a game over nothing less xD ). This is canceled when Dahaka is staggered (down Dahaka has his own stats). - The second fight against Barthandelus can be tricky if you're underdevelopped and/or play way too defensively. Barthandelus casts Doom after 20 minutes (Cid Raines, every Bart fights and Attacus cast Doom after 20 minutes, Vercingetorix and the first Orphan after 30 minutes). So you have a timelimit for all of this fights. - Orphan 1 has 3 phases with different patterns and attacks. The most annoying one is Progenitorial Wrath who has 50% chance to one-shot the target. Orphan also has the most convulated AI in the game (for example, Progenitorial Wrath targets the Medic or Sentinel in the group during Consumate Light, the target is random during Extreme Opposite and most importantly doesn't care at all of the Provoke/Challenge). You're lucky to have never seen that, Orphan is one of the most unfair Final Boss in the series.

I cannot wait to get out of work and watch this! Your videos are great!

FF13 is, for better or worse, an unique game. It can be a disappointment which alienated long-time fans but also a decent enough blockbuster with fascinating concept. I think both have a point, which makes FF13 even more interesting.

Pro tip: always pair a Ravager/Blaster with a Saboteur/Jammer. Debuffing spells slow the rate at which the stagger bar drops while Rav/Blasters kick it up and break through while they're debuffed and opened up. Third party members would be like Sazh handing out Haste and buffs at the beginning of battle so that your party can run circles around the enemies all yoked up.

This is just a great video! I loved how you chose to go with the flow of the story, because that's exactly one of the strongest elements of the game to me

I still can’t believe that the voice of hope is also phineas’s voice😂

I personally always loved final fantasy XIII when it came out I played it start to finish both me and my brother used it as a competition to see who can always get further which was me because little brother always win. But over the years I fell more and more in love with the game I bought it when I still had my PS3 and I own two different copies of it I also bought it on my Xbox series s because I couldn't give it up I still play it till this day

Once again I have to say "You mean, You/Yall were wrong about FF13 and or FF7 Advent Childen" Because I was all about it back in the day and tried to tell people how they missed the point on it. It's the same everytime, gotta let people sit on something for long enough until they see it differently. Wake me up when "We Were Wrong About: Final Fantasy Spirits Within" bro.

Duuuude, I absolutely LOVED this video essay! (Granted, I can't include myself in the "We" because after I finished XIII, I was preaching the gospel LOL). There's sooooo much good stuff you touched on! I'm so glad you purposely took time to discuss the combat, but specifically Sazh's storyline. Though I'm not a father, I'm a teacher and big brother/big cousin. On initial playthrough, I couldn't stand him. But after I played the game a second time (and to completion), I *really* appreciated Sazh's character arc. He's a 40yo widowed father who lost the one thing that kept him going. He bumbles through the beginning and, rightfully so, because he's trying to keep up with the teens/young adults (especially amidst their angst). Yet, he ends up developing a lot of love for the crew (it helped me appreciate the narrative decisions to have Sazh and Vanille being paired together). In that lens, I really appreciated the decision to keep things linear, explore character progression through parity, and truly dive deep into healing strained relationships. Light learning how to be a big sister and to lean on others through Hope (aptly named), Hope needing guidance and working through his rightful resentment with Snow, who's so optimistic that he doesn't quite grasp the impact of his actions on others. (I'd also argue Hope was exploring his own sense of boyhood to manhood, especially with his relationships w/ Snow, his dad, and being granted Alexander). Sazh unintentionally filling his longing for Dahj and stability while with Vanille, while she's grappling with hiding the truth of her actions to someone who's in deep pain. You gave me more insight on Fang, as I wasn't the biggest fan of her initially. The combat is chef's kiss. I'm a fighting game player, so the combat reminded me of a fighting game but also the stocks from Xenosaga 2. Once I made that correlation, I sunk HOURS into combat just to explore strategies. A buddy of mine worded it perfectly for when I first played XIII - "I see why you like it! It's a working man's Final Fantasy!" I laughed, but it's true. Each boot up, you get a good recap of what's happening in the game. And because I enjoy reading (and, like you, am not the biggest fan of unnecessary grinding), I would read through the Datalog, play after work, and never felt too lost in the story since it was straightforward. Plus, I loved X, so the linearity didn't bother me at all. In truth, I think it truly set the tone for the current games, particularly the FF7-Rs. I can ramble all day about my love for XIII, but this video was so wonderful and truly, THANK YOU for all of your work on this! Truly looking forward to supporting your channel!

easy sub. great video!

Great analysis. The story/gameplay cohesion of ff13 seems really interesting. I'll definitely be rewatching this one, if only to try and figure out the whole fal'cie l'cie pulse cocoon thing.

This game had some pretty great music in places and was a fun time in general. I liked it a lot.

I know this is weird, but this video made me cry. This game has flaws, but this story - these characters - are something so special and I’m just … really glad there’s people out there who see that. Each of the characters resonated with me so much and it gets tiring hearing that they were terrible or had no character development (what?!), or that I’m not a “real Final Fantasy fan” - whatever tf that means - because this game is my favorite. Thank you for loving this game as much as I do.

you just showed me i've been playing this game wrong for years great work!

To me the ff13 trilogy suffers from 1) screaming you won’t kill orphan while killing orphan 2) the “choice” at the ending, also why didn’t Caius just end himself? Why drag everything out? 3) that awful stressful time mechanic.

The thing I most desire in my life, an FF13 remaster

I'm sure this comment section will be full of healthy respect for everyones' opinions. As has always been the case for the many discussion of this game.

Glad to see more people wake up

It’s really funny is I was re-watching that video analysis last night

I always loved XIII. Played it on release as a teen and didn't really get it, but I loved the paradigm system and the ending HIT. I was so confused when i heard about a sequel coming since the game wrapped so completely, and then the sequel ending with a TBC felt like a CHOICE. Never ended up playing Lightning Returns, but XIII-2 was honestly kinda great, too. I didn't realize how much Etro was there in the first game. Guess I never got those secret reports. Great vid, definitely earned my subscription!

*I* love it, lmao. You're not alone

Haven’t watched the video yet; haven’t viewed this channel before, but at the time of this comment, it says that it was uploaded “13 Days Ago,” and I thought that was amazing 🤣

I never understood the hate for the combat of this game. Most FF before it had a similar system in practice. Even though the combat of FF7 is completely open at the beginning, most peoples experience was the equip the best gear and then spam attack for the rest of the game. So when I played it, the first 20 hours didn’t feel that different. Most of the fun happens outside of battle, in preparation. That’s how it’s always been.

Been loving FF XIII since day 1 and I'm just glad they never ruined the game by making direct sequels that crap on the characters or throw in dumb plot retcons via time travel. Nope. Not a single one... Square Enix would never destroy such a perfect ending for a money grab... Nope... Seriously, Square Enix wouldn't bait and switch us on a sequel from having Lightning as a main character to giving us a Doctor Who plot... Nope.

The trilogy was fun! Lighting Returns is such a weird unique game but i love it!

I love FF13. It’s one of my have games ever. Beat it 9 times. Can;t have enough of the battle system.

My issue with 13 was that it was made during a time when Square was really insecure about their games. Anti jrpg sentiment was at its peak, and they made this game out of a fear of not being "mainstream."

About chapter 13, the 3 first Bosses have their own battle mechanics that are interesting to get a look at. Each one of them stops you to do something you normally do in the game, so you have to adapt to a new situation. -Bandersnatch is immune to Physical Attacks -Jabberwocky is immune to Magical Attacks -Wladislaus is "immune" to stagger -Flying Tiamat is immune to all debuffs -Ground Tiamat Dispels every buffs on the party with every attack that hits. To go a bit further, the game has ways to deal with each of this problems : -Bandersnatch/Jabberwocky : The party full-ATB skills and Eidolons' Gestalt mode ignore physical/magical resistance/immunity. -Wladislaus : since his level is not above 50, he's not immuned to Random Instant Chain -Tiamat : a bit tricky but you can kill Tiamat before he lands... or if he does, you can stop it from attacking long enough to stagger it (that's a very hard and RNG thing to do).

I forgot how well Lightning and Hope's relationship is developed, and really I'm so happy to see the focus on it since Lightning became such a representative of "Character who talks a lot but doesn't have personality" for detractors online

The song that plays at 2:38:09 had me in tears when I first heard it smh. Dust to dust

It was an amazing analysis, keep up the good work, (no pressure, but would love to see xiii-2 and lightning returns analysis)

First FF game entry in mt childhood, and still is my favorite (well, it's actually 13-2) The combat and paradigm system were all GREATNESS

well damn i wasn't expecting this

I don't get why people have a problem with the game dropping a term that creates questions. I think people have forgotten the difference between curiocity, and confusion. I don't think it's a bad thing to hear a term, and respond with what is that. Among other questions that may arise based on that.

I’ve played and beaten every numbered Final Fantasy. I really enjoyed 13 and it is in my Top 5, possibly Top 3. Great video.

Great video also don’t know if anyone else has said it but in Chapter 7 for the final boss Lightning can actually use her gun as a physical attack. You just have to manually select it and it’s quicker and does way more damage

I really appreciated this video. I'm a big fan of the Final Fantasy series, and I've always loved XIII. This video does a great job of highlighting the game's strengths while acknowledging its flaws.

The best grinding spot fight is Shaolong Gui (who needs a very advanced party to stand a chance lol) : 120000/minute or so. Shaolong Gui is also the strongest enemy in the game... and one of the most annoying one too when they decide to be a jerk.

Ive been grinding out this video off and on with my dtive to and from work, and i loved it. Ive always been a fan of the 13 trilogy, got the platinum on all 3. I long ago stopped telling people its not as bad as people say, but its not worth it. If someone else doesnt like it, thats cool. I'll keep enjoying it in my small bubble.

13 Ride or Die Since Day One

ff13 was my first final fantasy game, it was a gift from my older sister and i LOVE the trilogy!!

One thing the game doesn't teach you and you'll just have to notice it while playing, is that debuff spells have a much higher chance of sticking to targets the higher their stagger percentage is, especially if they're broken/staggered. Which is why Ravagers/Blasters and Saboteurs/Jammers are a match made in heaven. Vanille's Marlboro wand (evolves from a Belladonna wand) is one of the best weapons in the game with its unique properties for higher chances of debuffs sticking so that you waste less time coughing and farting on enemies.

I remember this game has Mecha Pope the best FF villain.

The 13 trilogy was perfectly fine and imo, great. People created this hivemind hatred for it and I'll never understand why.