The soaring violins really go well with the general aesthetic of FFXIII where youre always fighting battles with these enormous beautiful backdrop sceneries
Of all the criticisms made about FFXIII, I've never heard anyone criticise the music and for good reason. The music is, in my opinion, the best aspect about the game by far.
Masashi Hamauzu was the composer for Dirge of Cerberus, World of Final Fantasy, and the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy. He also worked on Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy VII Remake. His personal touch stands out more in the Yuffie DLC because it contains some Dirge of Cerberus themes.
Not to diminish anything about Masashi Hamauzu (he's great) but when you said "the composer" it implies you think he is the chief composer of the FF13 trilogy? FF13-2 was a collaboration (so was 13-3 and Hamauzu has less credits there), including Naoshi Mizuta, and Mitsuto Suzuki. Naoshi had the lions share of new tracks in 13-2 and wrote music for most of the main characters and scenarios (Serah, Noel, Caius etc) Hamauzu is mainly credited because of his music in FF13 being reused in 13-2 and 13-3. Mizuta also wrote most of the music in FF11. I think Nobuo contributed a lot to the base game, but everything past the base game was purely by Naoshi Mizuta, iirc
I have the platinum for all 3 games and don't regret one second of it. The Pokemon crap in part 2 was pretty mid and I still don't like.Caius, but Noel was genuinely one of the best male leads in ages.
I legitmately have not seen ANY FFXIII hate online at all in the past ~5 years. It's exclusively comments like yours that say the hate is unwarranted and the game is underrated. Well, after hating the game initially, and then seeing this new wave of positivity for it, I went back and revisited it. The game fucking sucks. The "soulless corridor simulator" critiques that people levied against the game on release still hold true. I finished the game on launch and disliked it, and will never go back to it. I'm not trying to yuck your yum here, I'm just trying to offer what I now view as the underrepresented viewpoint - that the game is *severely* flawed and the strongpoints of visuals, musical composition, and character design are all but wasted on that husk of a game with that borderline offensive storyline. As gimped as XV was with its story, XIII is somehow just as gimped. My love for games comes from character drama, storylines, and gameplay. XIII lacked all three. XIII did however have excellent visuals and music, as stated earlier. It just depends on what you prioritize as a gamer. I will say that building different rosters of teams and having to switch between them did get more fun in later boss fights, but we are talking about, like, 30+ hours in before the fights get fun, and the journey to get to those fights are never fun, it's just a slog of a straight line of constant nonstop encounters
My favorite series right after 7. Think i’m the only one with that top 2 lol. 13 has a beautiful dynamic world. Esch installation brought us to a new world and every characters had good growth and you could relate to them
I’ve never found any Final Fantasy battle theme to be boring… Given that I tended to grind a bunch, I’d say that they can’t be that bad… Then again, I am easily amused and don’t get annoyed with many things as much as others >_>; Personally, I probably prefer the FF7 battle theme most… Man with the Machine Gun from FF8 is always a joy… I don’t know if I’d say this is one of the best, necessarily, but then you have two or three that are amazing, then everything else is pretty great lol… Although, if you include boss battles, I’d say this fails off pretty sharply…. Still pretty good either way
@@GameslordXYI heavily disagree with that, but it's your opinion. I personally love all the battle themes. The only one that gets slightly annoying for me is maybe FF1, and that's only because it's so short
@@GameslordXY You're entitled to your opinion, but just to provide a counter opinion for people who haven't listened to it yet, I have to say I strongly disagree. FFXs Battle Theme is fantastic on a melodic level, shifts and changes in style throughout, and even has a number of cool time signature changes. As a musician, I'm in awe of how they composed it. I also just re-listened to it because you had me doubting myself, but nope, it's still just as fantastic as I remember. It reminded me of how addicting it was to hear the battle theme and the little post battle jingle - up there with FF7's battle and jingle. I used to love FF9 and FF10 battles so much and I think it's largely down to their battle themes.
FF13 is a really divisive entree. But to its credit its got godlike music amazing production values, very great graphics for the time that hold up well, and a great battle system
It’s as much a ramrod railroad as 10. Yet for some reason 10 gets massive praise when 13 gets slammed. Hope and Snow are awful, but there are wonky characters in all FF games. The 13 story wasn’t the best, but it’s not worse than 8 or 12.
I haven't owned Playstations up until the PS4, so i was more than happy when they announced FFXIII would be coming out for the X-Box 360, because up until that time, i had only played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Which i loved, dearly, it's still one of my fav games ever, but it wasn't a main entry to the series, of course. Then XIII came out and i barely made it six or seven hours into the game or so before i dropped it, because i couldn't stand it at all... i'll admit thought, the music is great, the graphics were, too, and i really like Lightning. I am glad though that my next foray into the series were XIV and VII Remake, they definitely salvaged my bad first experiences with the main series...
@@BlakeAustin2011 Nah, 13 is bashed hard because it's a tragedy novel in ways that just don't mesh well as a videogame. If it was a book, it probably wouldn't feel as poignant as it does. Ultimately the gameplay and the story just don't mesh together particularly well, so the hallways feel like more of a chore. But frankly the comparison to 10 is good, and more than that, a good point can be made towards a lot of other FF titles! The problem is the presentation of the gameplay, mixed with a plot that's a downer for like 80% of the game, with a gameplay that's deceptively complex but doesn't open up to that control until way way way later into the game... ultimately it feels like a drag in several levels. I dunno, I love it and hate it at the same time. It's got potential, but it's got its interesting points. ...XIII-2? Lightning Returns? _No, silly, there was only one FF13 game._ q^q
I dunno. I always found the music in FF13 to be a bit... repetitive. It seems like there were only 2 or 3 tracks they played at 3 or 4 tempos in 5 or 6 styles. his reaction 'oh, its already looped' is basically my reaction to most of the music unfortunately.
@@BlakeAustin2011 my issue is that ff13s linearity is very poorly masked, not that it's linear. There are lots of things and side quests to do in FFX. You can go back to almost every area eventually and do something different there , you can customize your weapon and accessories with almost every status element in the game, the sphere grid allows for characters to take on any skill with some planning, there are secret summons out of the way of the main plot you can completely miss etc With ff13 it's almost the complete opposite. The crystarium is locked by story progression on a specific track, so you can't grind or decide anything specific, all moves are specific to the character via class even when you open up all the class types. Most of the game railroads you into not having your whole team available for team usage so your forced to play in the way the characters available dictate. There is not even an illusion of exploration as all the shops that would otherwise be in towns which also don't exist are confined to a menu in the save station, NPCs in general are otherwise completely non existent outside of like 1 area in the game and even then you cant directly talk with them. Even inside the shops all your doing is buying selling and breaking down generic scrap to funnel into getting your weapon to max damage rather than the freedom to customize your load out further. That leaves many people with the sense that all your doing is running from story cutscene to story cutscene with nothing in between. Even when granpulse opens up all your doing is hunting monsters. The surface level appearance of "linearity" may be there but how both games execute is completely different.
FF13! Always a great day to see more ff13 here. Edit: Yes, Hamauzu did alot of the arrangements for FF7 Remake! Prior to 13, Hamauzu helped Noubu quite a bit on games like ff10.
Not even the best track on the ost, it's popular because most people didn't play the game long enough to hear the other bangers, but it is the main battle theme, so🤷🏾
honestly, you can have your own fun with this battle music in the game. I remember timing the biggest moments in battle.Staggering, launching, buffing/debuffing, summoning and finishing moves... all of these could be perfectly timed with the climax of the track to give a feeling of awe and wonder in battle.
I love how quickly Street Fighter 6's music has been incorporated into the channel. Can't wait to hear some proper track reactions from you on some of the character themes!
2:50 "13 is such an oddball when it comes to soundtrack". Wait until he listens to FFXIII-2 lol xD. That game has all kinds of music genre! In addition, it has the best OST in the FF series if not gaming history! Never i enjoyed OST in any game as much as in FFXIII-2!
Hamauzu was main musical director for Remake and wrote a lot of the new music. XIII was 2009, and yeah there's XIII-2 and Lightning Returns, both also mainly composed by Hamauzu. He is beyond genius. He was also main composer of Dirge of Cerberus Final Fantasy VII, World of Final Fantasy and a co-composer in Final Fantasy X. For me, he's the peak of FF music.
He is certainly overlooked by a lot of fans imo. I love his work in FF13 and especially his contributions to FFX, which is one of my favorite soundtracks in all of media.
Not the main musical director for Remake, just one of the main composers alongside Mitsuto Suzuki. Keiji Kawamori would be the music director/supervisor. He's also not the main composer anymore in XIII-2 and Lightning Returns, and the games' composition is shared more equally with Naoshi Mizuta and Suzuki. So similar to his role in FFX as a co-composer. Nevertheless, he's one of my favourite composers.
Naoshi Mizuta was the main composer in FF13-2 (as well as another composer that is rarely mentioned). He wrote music for the main characters and the main scenarios, and actually numerically has the most tracks credited to him as well People who just say Masashi Hamauzu is the sole composer for the entire trilogy didn't do any proper research
How I managed to miss this is beyond me, FF13 has one of my favorite OSTs of all the games, IMo the most uniquely fused vibes of classic and modern FF music at the time. They have continued to use styles and themes from this game's OST in every FF since
XIII's entire soundtrack is absolutely incredible- playing the game right now and I like it a lot. I see why people were upset when it came out originally, but it's actually a really fun game and story separate from the context it came out in
It gets a lot of unwarranted hate of it being a corridor simulator yet ffX is just as much a corridor simulator as 13 is take off those rose tinted glasses and look at 10 objectively and 10 has exactly the same style maps
@@christopherstanley9997 ffx is pretty linear, but ff13 is on a whole other level. Also the nature of how FFX's story is told makes it work in its favor.
@@JoseOrtiz-bx3vl They have near equal linearity. When FFXIII opens up on Gran Pulse, it begins to remind me more of FFXII, especially with the hunts. Although I remember being overwhelmed by it the first time through. What works in FFX's favor is the ability to travel back to old areas and the addition of towns and many more NPC's to interact with. FFXIII didn't have much of that, and I think it just felt odd to people.
The monster placement as well as the thin corridors practically made it impossible to avoid combat. The other divisive thing was how XIII’s story is told. It required datalogue reading to understand. X’s story kept you engaged the whole way through.
I like FFXIII. Is it perfect? No. But I think the writing is solid, the characters felt like real people. And the battles were entertaining. It was just an entertaining game to play. And of course, the music slaps. And the visuals still hold up today, I'd say. So even if there are areas where it could be better, you've got writing, gameplay, audio, and video. Those are the four pillars of a game right there.
Hamauzu Masashi has easily become one of my favourite Final Fantasy composers. I'd love to see (or hear) another game that prominently features his music. I do know that he worked on FF7R, so there's a good chance that we'll get to hear more of him in the next two games. Blinded by Light is the main battle theme, there are several battle themes but this one in particular is used for the vast majority of fights. The pacing of it is really well done with the intro being used to establish the fight and then once the violins come in you've gotten into the swing of things and your characters attacks are coming out. It is a little on the repetitive side, due to how short it is. But that tends to be the case with a lot of battle themes since you'll be listening to it at many different lengths throughout your playthrough.
Little interesting thing about this track: The composer didn't add the violin until her daughter heard the song and told him that he probably should add it to the melody.
I was searching for Genshin Impact's music reaction, and I found one of the videos from your channel. Then I stumbled on this video, and reminded me about looking for a reaction on this favorite battle theme of mine. Thank you.
This is one of the standard battle themes, and one of the main songs they use to represent this entry in Distant Worlds concerts, at least the ones I've been to. The trilogy includes FFXIII, then FFXIII-2, then Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (sometimes called LR or FFXIII-3 for short), and there are a lot of interesting design differences between them, including their musical styles. I platinumed all three and they have different pros and cons.
My favorite series right after 7. Think i’m the only one with that top 2 lol. 13 has a beautiful and expansive dynamic world. Each installation brings you to a new world and every character had good growth and you could relate to them
There is an Unreleased Soundtrack for XIII. It includes the original cut for both Blinded By Light and Saber's Edge as well as the English versions of other songs in the game. Do recommend checking them out. Blinded By Light was cut down because the battles would end too quickly before the climax of the song. The original had a much longer build up.
"Blinded by Light" is utilized as battle music a lot, but it's also the theme for the main character of the XIII trilogy, Lightning Farron. She's the second female lead of a main line FF title, the first being Terra from VI (technically Lightning's sort of the third if you played a female character in the FF mmo XI). But her theme is sorta' a reverse of Terra's theme, because it is used as battle music while Terra's theme was used a "World music", ie the music played when you're wandering around the world map.
Even not counting the player character. Every XI expansion storyline had a main Heroine lead. Prishe for CoP, Aphmau/Nashmeira for ToAU, Lilisette for WotG, Arciela for SoA, and Iroha for Rhapsodies.
@@Volkaru Heck, even most of the time the heroine of the game is more important to the story than the hero. Aerith is more important than Cloud, Rinoa than Squall, Garnet than Zidane, Yuna than Tidus. The girls are the one that carried the heavier burden than the boys (Aerith being last of the Cetra, Rinoa being Ultimecia in the future, Garnet being one of the last summoner, Yuna being The Summoner).
XIII is a trilogy (XIII, XIII-2, Lightning Returns). All three games have amazing soundtracks, with XIII-2 in particular being very unique within the wider Final Fantasy soundscape. (I'll also fight and die on the hill that all three games are among the best non-MMO games in the franchise!)
One thing I'd like to note is that there's another version of this track that takes a bit longer to hit the climax of the song, if memory serves right said version does play during a part of the game and while not part of the OST it was made available along with other few tracks in a separate soundtrack. And if I may, I'd also recommend checking Dissidia 012's rendition of Blinded by Light if you have the chance.
I haven't actually played through many of the ff games but the few that I have, I have loved and the 13 trilogy is no exception. Yes 13's composer is part of the composers who work on ff7r's ost. And yeah 13 is super linear except for one big area near the end of the game. 13-2 was a nice sequel gameplay wise but wasn't really needed. It improves a quite a bit on what 13 did so most people seem to like it over 13 bc of that. Lightning Returns is 13-3 and was definitely not needed but just as 13-2 it's gameplay was another big step up and is super fun. It essentially feels like the basis/stepping stone to what ff7r's combat is now. Despite feeling the sequels to 13 weren't needed, im glad they exist if only because of how much I love their osts.
For an OST with surprisingly minimal loop this theme is banger and I didn't get bored listening to this. For the boss battle I suggest the Dissidia 012 version
Fun fact : there are two versions of Blinded by Light (ingame I mean). A short version (the one you listened) and the long version, both are named the same, but it's used in different battles in the games. And since the battle becomes longer and longer, the longer version is appreciated ^^
Fun Fact: Final Fantasy VII Remake's Stagger Gauge system is from Final Fantasy XIII, and the 3-part story that FFVII Remake has with the upcoming FFVII Rebirth and the forthcoming game after that is also inspired from FFXIII's 3-part story.
Ff13s battle theme and boss battle theme really took the cake for the game's ost. Side note: I hear that SF6 music in the beginning intro lol. Hope you get to reacting to those in the future too
13 introduced a lot of good songs, but a lot of my favorites are in 13-2 and Lightning Returns. Yusnaan's night theme the Ouroboros festival is one of my recent favorites because of it's very unique sounds
Hamauzu is really underrated when it comes to Final Fantasy composers, FFXIII's soundtrack is so great, Hamauzu has always been a master at his craft, I think his style is pretty hard to replicate, it has some strong identity and he also manages to create diversity while doing his own thing His harmonies and chords are just so jazzy and colourful, I love it (And FFXIII is not a bad game at all, FF *fans* just like to hate on everything new in that series 👀 Whenever FF tries to be different, at least from like 7 or 9, they just go Berserk 😂 I mean the game has flaws indeed, but as all FF games do so yeah, let's just enjoy this series for all the great moments and memories it gave us and allow new things, that's already a huge accomplishment that it existed for more than 35 years)
One thing about FF13 Trilogy soundtrack, they are one of the best Soundtracks catalogue in Final Fantasy Franchise. Most people agreed that the Soundtracks is banger eventhough people use to hate the game before And it also have Metal Chocobo theme
This is one of my favourite FF battle themes, even though you hear it very often ingame, it never got boring for me. For me the composer of FF13 Masashi Hamauzu is one of the best that Square Enix has. You can usually tell when he’s worked on a soundtrack, as he uses a lot of very bright instruments.
XIII all in all is a good trilogy. It was hit with the “New Final Fantasy so it must be bad” stick for a few years out of spite. Just like everything else however these remarks came from those who have only seen or heard reviews about the games. The soundtracks however have all been well acclaimed. I especially love XIII-2 and Lightning Return’s OST.
13 was certainly a mixed bag, I didn't beat the first one, but I did play 13-2 to completion cuz I enjoyed that particular story and its gimmick(s), and then did not play 13-3, cuz buying three full-priced games is a big ask. Music was always wonderful which feels like a moot point at this point (Final Fantasy music is good? Who would have thought!?) Still listen to 'Yaschas Massif' and 'Run!' over and over to this day.
I really like how Hamauzu uses the violin to represent Lightning. Lightning is one of the most iconic female protagonists in the FF series and even in the game's history.
The game is very divisive yes. I couldn't bring myself to finish it and thats never happened since FF4 to me.. But the OST is amazing. XIII-2 is EXCELLENT in contrast.
You know what's a weird circle of events? I just literally finished listening to Eternal Wind from World of Final Fantasy, which was one of the three tracks you just reacted to, and that version was composed by Masashi Hamauzu 🤔
13 is one of my favorite final fantasy games sadly the hate for it is halting a remaster or re-release on playstation 5. One interesting music fact for you is that this is the only final fantasy game to not have the prelude in it.
FFXIII is definitely very divisive. I'm personally not a fan of it but I think everyone can agree on one thing: The music fucking slaps, just like every FF game.
I like XIII even it has it's flaws and it is PS3 game, I wish it could have remaster or something for the PS5, all three games, XIII, XIII-2 and Lightning Returns and OST is awesome 💕✨
This is a pretty good one, and thankfully so since it's the song you'll hear more than any other in FFXIII. I definitely think the game gets more hate than it deserves. I admit, for me it was hard coming off of FFXII, with it's exploration and freedom, into FFXIII's *very* linear style. But after focusing on what it was, rather than what it wasn't, I had a lot of fun with the game. I wouldn't rank it in my top FF games for sure, but I cannot say that I don't like it. There's definitely some great songs in the game, but I feel much more strongly about the soundtrack of it's sequel, FFXIII-2, which I feel is absolutely amazing. I can't speak much on Lightning Returns though, as I've never played it.
FF 13 is actually a trilogy… 13, 13-2 and Lightning Returns is essentially 13-3… Originally 15 and type 0 or whatever were part of the 13 world or something too, I think, but things got shifted around a bunch… The 13 series is kinda weird… Some cool ideas, but not necessarily what fans wanted… They would be fine as their own game, but as a Final Fantasy? And then they did a weird thing that often lead to people auto attacking through fights, rather than strategising as much… I think the kinda formation job system helped mitigate that issue, but it wasn’t popular with many fans… 13-2 improved the town aspects, but damn that ending lol. People often say Lightning returns is much more fun as combat, but some felt insulted by the story… Some weren’t fans of Lightning and got annoyed about how much she got pushed for games lol… Oh well… It’s not that bad, but certainly has issues
There's Final Fantasy XIII (I liked it! It was weird!), Final Fantasy XIII-2 (A direct sequel! It was really frickin' weird! I kinda liked it!), and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (Another direct sequel! It was really weird! I really liked it!) But I don't know if I could recommend them to anyone, despite how much I enjoyed them. As I said, they're weird - the first one's the most "grounded" (which I'm sure will come as a shock to anyone who's only played the first game) and it's probably the easiest to recommend. All the weirdness comes from typical Final Fantasy plot and storytelling stuff - I _still_ can't tell you what a L'cie and a Fal'cie are and what the differences between them might be despite that being what the game is about. It's one of those 'if everyone would stop speaking in vague allusions it'd be fine' kinda games, I think. 2 is just... strange. Bizarre plot, crazy visuals. Centred around, like... time and dimension travel? There's some cool stuff in there, but wow, I still only sort of get what happened in the middle. Lightning Returns was a fun experience for me, and I can honestly recommend trying it out to anyone. It's _also_ really weird, but there's no time travel (... I think?), so that helps.
XIII rocks. It made a bad first impression on a lot of people because the structure is initially very linear (X also got flack for this, but with less fury), and the story goes hard on a lot of proper nouns that are hard glean the meaning of through context alone.
I played the first 2 games of the xiii trilogy last year (i..have yet to go back to LR),and while I can absolutely see the complaints with the game(s) ,I still had great fun with them. Also FF13 murdered the A button of the controller I had at the time. Though that was admittably a super cheap controller .
13 is a lot different than most Final Fantasy games. I think it's disliked mostly because it's much more linear. I really liked the story, with a couple of caveats. I loved the battle system, which is another thing a lot of people disliked, I think.
I hate the term usually but I really can't find any other way to describe my feeling about how I think of this game other than that: mid. I don't hate it, I don't love it. It's just somewhere in the middle, and one of the positives was DEFINITELY it's amazing soundtrack, I still listen to it today. But I've never touched 13 series after I've played all of it through one time. And it's the only entry in the franchise that I've never ever replayed.
Steps to enjoying FF13 1. It's linear, don't even try to wander off the beaten path even when the game opens up, it's a waste of your time 2. It's got a lot of vocabulary, figure out lcie, cieth, falcie, sanctum and eden immediately or you'll just be lost. 3. The battle system isn't picking attacks, its picking jobs Do all those things and you'll always have fun with ff13
This is just outright wrong, some of the best battle content in an FF game is gained through exploration when the game opens up, and the battle system rewards picking your own attacks, if you take the time to learn what each attack does it gets very rewarding to use each in the right situation and to juggle bosses while staggered to achieve the 5 star rankings on each encounter.
@johnnyshins511 the game doesn't open up until post game. As an aside: Pulse isn't "opening up", you can functionally go where the game wants you to go or you can get your ass handed to you by stuff you have no business being near. Autobattle always selects an attack the enemy is weak if your character knows one, and if it doesn't, it cycles through attacks both magical and physical till it finds something effective or you can libra and force it, thus the actual attack doesn't matter outside of ultimate attacks like death/army of one/last resort, all of which are near end game anyways, which is why the job matters not the attack.
I prefer the Dissidia version of this track. They replaced the heavy guitar and drums with techno. It kinda fits way better with that adding to the playful melody of the song.
As much as I complain of XIII, the music was as beautiful as always. It cannot be other way with Final Fantasy, I suppose. There is always at least a couple of songs from each game that just get stuck in your mind.
"the game is kinda divisive" Man, I love XIII, but a lot of FF "fans" have made it their mission in life to tell people how much the game "sucks" in their opinion. It's exhausting 😮💨
The comments are full of people doing this, yeah. 🤡 🤡 It's a reaction to a piece of music, and they can't help themselves (most of it being nonsense of course)
13's Battle themes are pretty solid. Main issue with most of the rest of the OST is that they use the main theme faaaaaar too much in the rest of the OST.
Final Fantasy XIII is still one of my most loved FF games in terms of setting, visuals, and music. Not to mention, it was the first game in the series where a full orchestra was used.
I really loved FFXIII when I first played it but it kinda lost its luster as time went on. I think it does some things really well, the soundtrack is certainly one of the best in the series IMO, and I think the characters have interesting dynamics but the story is just a mess that doesn't make sense the more you think about it. I still don't understand the choices the characters made at the end of the game. Maybe I should replay it now that I'm older but yeah FFXIII is when I started to question the series.
On 13: Pretty much everyone agrees that the graphics and sound are amazing for this game. The game is 13 years old and the graphics still hold up. On why it's divisive, it usually comes down to the battle system, how linear it comes off, and the story-telling. The first two are personal preference things, and the third, there's an in-game Encyclopedia which is basically required reading to understand the plot, as terms and certain storylines are not directly explained to the player. I like it but it's probably in the lower half of FF games for me. On Blinded By Light, it's mostly a battle theme. The main motif appears in other songs as well in 13, which is probably why it was chosen. For 13, there are 3 games in the series. There is 13, 13-2, and 13: Lightning Returns. 13-2 is, IMO, one of the best FF games there is, which was poisoned because of how many people didn't like 13, so it doesn't get the respect it deserves. 13: Lighting Returns is, while I don't want to say outright bad, probably the worst received main FF game there's been, and justified IMO, for a lot of the choices they made design wise. Also, when 13 came out, there were plans to have a bunch of games set in the same universe, the Fabula Nova Crystallis series, where they would share terminology but be independent games. Due to a ton of behind the scenes issues, Final Fantasy: Type 0 is the only game that was released in this series. Final Fantasy 15 when it started out in development was initially Final Fantasy 13: Versus, but got rebranded with how long it was taking to come out, and ended up not having the terminology or lore that the 13 series and Type 0 have.
I know people don't like the linearity and how the story goes, but look at it from this perspective; the group is being hunted by their own government. They're fugitives on the run, they can't really go and explore every nook and cranny of every area and explore the entire world at their leisure (like in most FF games). I think people tend to forget that. And anyone who says 'its just press X to win' never got to the Sahz/Vanille section lol.
I personally do not understand disliking the Paradigm system. I loved how it forced on the fly strategy changeups and how different characters were better/worse at certain roles. The forced parties worked out really well.
@@Dimumouto Linearity is never a problem. The way it's HANDLED is everything. FF7r is very linear. And it does get complaints about it, but nowhere near on the level 13 does. FFX same thing. Linear progression is VERY common, but when you dress it right nobody cares. 13 didn't dress it right at all. It is linear and it FEELS linear. You aren't just effectively going down a corridor, you're literally going down a corridor. Even when it opens up it feels like a corridor, either because you've been trained to feel constrained or because there's nothing of interest in the expanded area. An improvement, but not a solution. Speaking of the corridors: the graphics. They're great. But thats a double edged blade because it highlights the really poor art design. Everything looks so bland. The only things that got care and attention were nonsense monsters. Which there's nothing wrong with nonsense monsters, every FF has em and they're great but... they can't be the only thing that got an ounce of fun put in em. Being pursued by the military could have been so cool. But it didn't feel like you were pursued by the military, because all you do is long jog to the next cutscene. Which happens to be in the direction you haven't been before always. Which is to say, if the military wasn't hunting you you would probably be doing the exact same thing anyways. Perhaps even with a modicum of wiggle room to get attached to this place you're supposed to want to save. But definitely don't. And yeah the combat is definitely not easy, especially if you take on some of the challenge fights. But it's not especially hard either. And the most important part is whether you found it fun. And some people absolutely did. Most didn't. Neither are wrong about that. It's an interface, mileage will always vary. For me I found it incredibly unsatisfying how matter of fact and pizzazzless it was. Why did my sentinels take less damage? Low art forcefields. Why do ravagers build stagger fast? Cuz the game said so. What kind of damage is this enemy weak to? Blue damage. The one to the left is weak to red damage. The next one has no weaknesses so pelt it with whatever food coloring you like. This is another example of poor art design btw.
@Reshapable I have no qualms with the lack of explanation for the paradigms (I mean, how the hell does Cloud summon small meteors from the sky with his LB despite not even having Comet equipped? It's magic, yo), I gotta say, the food coloring analogy killed me. I personally enjoyed the game, but I can see why others didn't, even if I don't agree with them. Call it shit taste if you gotta, but it's MY shit taste lol.
@@Dimumouto For sure. And for clarities sake, my complaint wasn't the how of it, but of the depiction. Cloud summoning meteors is whack, but at least it's a spectacle. I'm totally down with the jobs doing what they do, it's an effective system (not my favorite but it has it's own charm, similar to 12). But give my eyes some candy! Make that forcefield growl, make that magic... Well magic lol
I like the music in this game but I severely have to separate the music from the game itself because I vehemently loathe the story of the game to the point where it turned me away from FF games as a whole for many years and made me not touch any game that Motomu Toriyama was involved in with a ten-foot pole. But the music be boppin though.
i hate that the game starts to really get good once you get full customization of your party but then there's not much you can really do with that (its like 3/4 of the game at that point)
Thats a great kingdom hearts song! Although for some reason the violin makes me think of the violin version of green hill zone. Weird i know but it tickles the same part of my brain
I have tried and failed to complete this game at least five times - probably no more than halfway on any one run. It is one of my most listened to soundtracks - it is so rad from start to finish.
The soaring violins really go well with the general aesthetic of FFXIII where youre always fighting battles with these enormous beautiful backdrop sceneries
Of all the criticisms made about FFXIII, I've never heard anyone criticise the music and for good reason. The music is, in my opinion, the best aspect about the game by far.
Masashi Hamauzu was the composer for Dirge of Cerberus, World of Final Fantasy, and the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy. He also worked on Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy VII Remake. His personal touch stands out more in the Yuffie DLC because it contains some Dirge of Cerberus themes.
Not to diminish anything about Masashi Hamauzu (he's great) but when you said "the composer" it implies you think he is the chief composer of the FF13 trilogy?
FF13-2 was a collaboration (so was 13-3 and Hamauzu has less credits there), including Naoshi Mizuta, and Mitsuto Suzuki. Naoshi had the lions share of new tracks in 13-2 and wrote music for most of the main characters and scenarios (Serah, Noel, Caius etc)
Hamauzu is mainly credited because of his music in FF13 being reused in 13-2 and 13-3. Mizuta also wrote most of the music in FF11. I think Nobuo contributed a lot to the base game, but everything past the base game was purely by Naoshi Mizuta, iirc
I personally think FFXIII, despite its flaws, gets more hate than it deserves. At least everyone can agree that the soundtrack is an ansolute banger 😊
I have the platinum for all 3 games and don't regret one second of it.
The Pokemon crap in part 2 was pretty mid and I still don't like.Caius, but Noel was genuinely one of the best male leads in ages.
I legitmately have not seen ANY FFXIII hate online at all in the past ~5 years. It's exclusively comments like yours that say the hate is unwarranted and the game is underrated. Well, after hating the game initially, and then seeing this new wave of positivity for it, I went back and revisited it.
The game fucking sucks. The "soulless corridor simulator" critiques that people levied against the game on release still hold true. I finished the game on launch and disliked it, and will never go back to it.
I'm not trying to yuck your yum here, I'm just trying to offer what I now view as the underrepresented viewpoint - that the game is *severely* flawed and the strongpoints of visuals, musical composition, and character design are all but wasted on that husk of a game with that borderline offensive storyline. As gimped as XV was with its story, XIII is somehow just as gimped. My love for games comes from character drama, storylines, and gameplay. XIII lacked all three. XIII did however have excellent visuals and music, as stated earlier. It just depends on what you prioritize as a gamer. I will say that building different rosters of teams and having to switch between them did get more fun in later boss fights, but we are talking about, like, 30+ hours in before the fights get fun, and the journey to get to those fights are never fun, it's just a slog of a straight line of constant nonstop encounters
@@_badmadsadlad you haven't looked for very hard then
@@_badmadsadlad Then you haven't looked enough. There are a ton of hate still.
My favorite series right after 7. Think i’m the only one with that top 2 lol. 13 has a beautiful dynamic world. Esch installation brought us to a new world and every characters had good growth and you could relate to them
If you haven't heard it yet... The sunleth waterscape is a really good one... just note that there is a few versions of it.
Can confirm
The one from XIII-2 is a banger
Imo one of the best battle tracks in FF. At least its one that never gets boring.
I’ve never found any Final Fantasy battle theme to be boring… Given that I tended to grind a bunch, I’d say that they can’t be that bad… Then again, I am easily amused and don’t get annoyed with many things as much as others >_>;
Personally, I probably prefer the FF7 battle theme most… Man with the Machine Gun from FF8 is always a joy… I don’t know if I’d say this is one of the best, necessarily, but then you have two or three that are amazing, then everything else is pretty great lol… Although, if you include boss battles, I’d say this fails off pretty sharply…. Still pretty good either way
For one of the best games in the series too
@@KitsyX
Final Fantasy X Battle Theme is immensely boring.
A fantastic game with fantastic soundtrack,but main battle theme is immensely boring.
@@GameslordXYI heavily disagree with that, but it's your opinion. I personally love all the battle themes. The only one that gets slightly annoying for me is maybe FF1, and that's only because it's so short
@@GameslordXY You're entitled to your opinion, but just to provide a counter opinion for people who haven't listened to it yet, I have to say I strongly disagree. FFXs Battle Theme is fantastic on a melodic level, shifts and changes in style throughout, and even has a number of cool time signature changes. As a musician, I'm in awe of how they composed it. I also just re-listened to it because you had me doubting myself, but nope, it's still just as fantastic as I remember. It reminded me of how addicting it was to hear the battle theme and the little post battle jingle - up there with FF7's battle and jingle. I used to love FF9 and FF10 battles so much and I think it's largely down to their battle themes.
FF13 is a really divisive entree. But to its credit its got godlike music amazing production values, very great graphics for the time that hold up well, and a great battle system
It’s as much a ramrod railroad as 10. Yet for some reason 10 gets massive praise when 13 gets slammed. Hope and Snow are awful, but there are wonky characters in all FF games. The 13 story wasn’t the best, but it’s not worse than 8 or 12.
I haven't owned Playstations up until the PS4, so i was more than happy when they announced FFXIII would be coming out for the X-Box 360, because up until that time, i had only played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Which i loved, dearly, it's still one of my fav games ever, but it wasn't a main entry to the series, of course. Then XIII came out and i barely made it six or seven hours into the game or so before i dropped it, because i couldn't stand it at all... i'll admit thought, the music is great, the graphics were, too, and i really like Lightning. I am glad though that my next foray into the series were XIV and VII Remake, they definitely salvaged my bad first experiences with the main series...
@@BlakeAustin2011 Nah, 13 is bashed hard because it's a tragedy novel in ways that just don't mesh well as a videogame. If it was a book, it probably wouldn't feel as poignant as it does. Ultimately the gameplay and the story just don't mesh together particularly well, so the hallways feel like more of a chore. But frankly the comparison to 10 is good, and more than that, a good point can be made towards a lot of other FF titles! The problem is the presentation of the gameplay, mixed with a plot that's a downer for like 80% of the game, with a gameplay that's deceptively complex but doesn't open up to that control until way way way later into the game... ultimately it feels like a drag in several levels.
I dunno, I love it and hate it at the same time. It's got potential, but it's got its interesting points.
...XIII-2? Lightning Returns? _No, silly, there was only one FF13 game._ q^q
I dunno. I always found the music in FF13 to be a bit... repetitive. It seems like there were only 2 or 3 tracks they played at 3 or 4 tempos in 5 or 6 styles. his reaction 'oh, its already looped' is basically my reaction to most of the music unfortunately.
@@BlakeAustin2011 my issue is that ff13s linearity is very poorly masked, not that it's linear.
There are lots of things and side quests to do in FFX. You can go back to almost every area eventually and do something different there , you can customize your weapon and accessories with almost every status element in the game, the sphere grid allows for characters to take on any skill with some planning, there are secret summons out of the way of the main plot you can completely miss etc
With ff13 it's almost the complete opposite. The crystarium is locked by story progression on a specific track, so you can't grind or decide anything specific, all moves are specific to the character via class even when you open up all the class types. Most of the game railroads you into not having your whole team available for team usage so your forced to play in the way the characters available dictate. There is not even an illusion of exploration as all the shops that would otherwise be in towns which also don't exist are confined to a menu in the save station, NPCs in general are otherwise completely non existent outside of like 1 area in the game and even then you cant directly talk with them. Even inside the shops all your doing is buying selling and breaking down generic scrap to funnel into getting your weapon to max damage rather than the freedom to customize your load out further.
That leaves many people with the sense that all your doing is running from story cutscene to story cutscene with nothing in between. Even when granpulse opens up all your doing is hunting monsters.
The surface level appearance of "linearity" may be there but how both games execute is completely different.
FF13! Always a great day to see more ff13 here.
Edit: Yes, Hamauzu did alot of the arrangements for FF7 Remake! Prior to 13, Hamauzu helped Noubu quite a bit on games like ff10.
Masashi Hamauzu actually great composer. I love all of his soundtrack.
Blinded By Light: A song so popular that its in almost every mod pack for every Smash Bros game.
Not even the best track on the ost, it's popular because most people didn't play the game long enough to hear the other bangers, but it is the main battle theme, so🤷🏾
Is that true ? What about sabers edge?
honestly, you can have your own fun with this battle music in the game. I remember timing the biggest moments in battle.Staggering, launching, buffing/debuffing, summoning and finishing moves... all of these could be perfectly timed with the climax of the track to give a feeling of awe and wonder in battle.
Waaait, what?! People complained about XII music? How possible? it's one of the best FF OST with many great background themes - and I Love it! :D
I suspect that it's called "Blinded by Light" because it uses a motif from Lightning's theme, at least that's how I connected the dots in my mind.
FF13 had a Stagger meter in its combat system and it often hit just as the music began to swell.
I love how quickly Street Fighter 6's music has been incorporated into the channel. Can't wait to hear some proper track reactions from you on some of the character themes!
2:50 "13 is such an oddball when it comes to soundtrack". Wait until he listens to FFXIII-2 lol xD. That game has all kinds of music genre! In addition, it has the best OST in the FF series if not gaming history! Never i enjoyed OST in any game as much as in FFXIII-2!
I don't remember much from FF13, but I remember this song vividly
This *was* previously my all-time favorite battle theme in FF.
Then 16 happened. But it's still top tier, the string section just hits me so hard.
Hamauzu was main musical director for Remake and wrote a lot of the new music. XIII was 2009, and yeah there's XIII-2 and Lightning Returns, both also mainly composed by Hamauzu. He is beyond genius. He was also main composer of Dirge of Cerberus Final Fantasy VII, World of Final Fantasy and a co-composer in Final Fantasy X. For me, he's the peak of FF music.
He is certainly overlooked by a lot of fans imo. I love his work in FF13 and especially his contributions to FFX, which is one of my favorite soundtracks in all of media.
Final Fantasy games have made alot of missteps in recent years, but thei music is always great
Not the main musical director for Remake, just one of the main composers alongside Mitsuto Suzuki. Keiji Kawamori would be the music director/supervisor. He's also not the main composer anymore in XIII-2 and Lightning Returns, and the games' composition is shared more equally with Naoshi Mizuta and Suzuki. So similar to his role in FFX as a co-composer. Nevertheless, he's one of my favourite composers.
Naoshi Mizuta was the main composer in FF13-2 (as well as another composer that is rarely mentioned). He wrote music for the main characters and the main scenarios, and actually numerically has the most tracks credited to him as well
People who just say Masashi Hamauzu is the sole composer for the entire trilogy didn't do any proper research
How I managed to miss this is beyond me, FF13 has one of my favorite OSTs of all the games, IMo the most uniquely fused vibes of classic and modern FF music at the time. They have continued to use styles and themes from this game's OST in every FF since
XIII's entire soundtrack is absolutely incredible- playing the game right now and I like it a lot. I see why people were upset when it came out originally, but it's actually a really fun game and story separate from the context it came out in
It gets a lot of unwarranted hate of it being a corridor simulator yet ffX is just as much a corridor simulator as 13 is take off those rose tinted glasses and look at 10 objectively and 10 has exactly the same style maps
As usual FF13 is a fantastic game but absolutely did not live up to the hype that every FF game gets.
@@christopherstanley9997 ffx is pretty linear, but ff13 is on a whole other level. Also the nature of how FFX's story is told makes it work in its favor.
@@JoseOrtiz-bx3vl They have near equal linearity. When FFXIII opens up on Gran Pulse, it begins to remind me more of FFXII, especially with the hunts. Although I remember being overwhelmed by it the first time through.
What works in FFX's favor is the ability to travel back to old areas and the addition of towns and many more NPC's to interact with. FFXIII didn't have much of that, and I think it just felt odd to people.
The monster placement as well as the thin corridors practically made it impossible to avoid combat. The other divisive thing was how XIII’s story is told. It required datalogue reading to understand. X’s story kept you engaged the whole way through.
I like FFXIII. Is it perfect? No. But I think the writing is solid, the characters felt like real people. And the battles were entertaining. It was just an entertaining game to play. And of course, the music slaps. And the visuals still hold up today, I'd say. So even if there are areas where it could be better, you've got writing, gameplay, audio, and video. Those are the four pillars of a game right there.
Heck yeah!! Love this song and glad your eye is doing better.
Hamauzu Masashi has easily become one of my favourite Final Fantasy composers. I'd love to see (or hear) another game that prominently features his music. I do know that he worked on FF7R, so there's a good chance that we'll get to hear more of him in the next two games.
Blinded by Light is the main battle theme, there are several battle themes but this one in particular is used for the vast majority of fights. The pacing of it is really well done with the intro being used to establish the fight and then once the violins come in you've gotten into the swing of things and your characters attacks are coming out. It is a little on the repetitive side, due to how short it is. But that tends to be the case with a lot of battle themes since you'll be listening to it at many different lengths throughout your playthrough.
never played a mainline FF game (Dissidia ftw) but I always loved the violins in this track
Little interesting thing about this track:
The composer didn't add the violin until her daughter heard the song and told him that he probably should add it to the melody.
I was searching for Genshin Impact's music reaction, and I found one of the videos from your channel. Then I stumbled on this video, and reminded me about looking for a reaction on this favorite battle theme of mine. Thank you.
This is one of the standard battle themes, and one of the main songs they use to represent this entry in Distant Worlds concerts, at least the ones I've been to. The trilogy includes FFXIII, then FFXIII-2, then Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (sometimes called LR or FFXIII-3 for short), and there are a lot of interesting design differences between them, including their musical styles. I platinumed all three and they have different pros and cons.
My favorite series right after 7. Think i’m the only one with that top 2 lol. 13 has a beautiful and expansive dynamic world. Each installation brings you to a new world and every character had good growth and you could relate to them
Love to see some love for ff13. It's not the best but it really doesn't deserve the hate it gets.
There is an Unreleased Soundtrack for XIII. It includes the original cut for both Blinded By Light and Saber's Edge as well as the English versions of other songs in the game. Do recommend checking them out.
Blinded By Light was cut down because the battles would end too quickly before the climax of the song. The original had a much longer build up.
"Blinded by Light" is utilized as battle music a lot, but it's also the theme for the main character of the XIII trilogy, Lightning Farron. She's the second female lead of a main line FF title, the first being Terra from VI (technically Lightning's sort of the third if you played a female character in the FF mmo XI). But her theme is sorta' a reverse of Terra's theme, because it is used as battle music while Terra's theme was used a "World music", ie the music played when you're wandering around the world map.
Even not counting the player character. Every XI expansion storyline had a main Heroine lead. Prishe for CoP, Aphmau/Nashmeira for ToAU, Lilisette for WotG, Arciela for SoA, and Iroha for Rhapsodies.
@@Volkaru
Heck, even most of the time the heroine of the game is more important to the story than the hero. Aerith is more important than Cloud, Rinoa than Squall, Garnet than Zidane, Yuna than Tidus. The girls are the one that carried the heavier burden than the boys (Aerith being last of the Cetra, Rinoa being Ultimecia in the future, Garnet being one of the last summoner, Yuna being The Summoner).
XIII is a trilogy (XIII, XIII-2, Lightning Returns). All three games have amazing soundtracks, with XIII-2 in particular being very unique within the wider Final Fantasy soundscape. (I'll also fight and die on the hill that all three games are among the best non-MMO games in the franchise!)
One thing I'd like to note is that there's another version of this track that takes a bit longer to hit the climax of the song, if memory serves right said version does play during a part of the game and while not part of the OST it was made available along with other few tracks in a separate soundtrack. And if I may, I'd also recommend checking Dissidia 012's rendition of Blinded by Light if you have the chance.
I haven't actually played through many of the ff games but the few that I have, I have loved and the 13 trilogy is no exception. Yes 13's composer is part of the composers who work on ff7r's ost. And yeah 13 is super linear except for one big area near the end of the game. 13-2 was a nice sequel gameplay wise but wasn't really needed. It improves a quite a bit on what 13 did so most people seem to like it over 13 bc of that. Lightning Returns is 13-3 and was definitely not needed but just as 13-2 it's gameplay was another big step up and is super fun. It essentially feels like the basis/stepping stone to what ff7r's combat is now. Despite feeling the sequels to 13 weren't needed, im glad they exist if only because of how much I love their osts.
For an OST with surprisingly minimal loop this theme is banger and I didn't get bored listening to this. For the boss battle I suggest the Dissidia 012 version
Be sure to do it's tag team partner - Saber's Edge in the future!
He actually did Saber's edge already a while back. You can search it up
Fun fact : there are two versions of Blinded by Light (ingame I mean). A short version (the one you listened) and the long version, both are named the same, but it's used in different battles in the games. And since the battle becomes longer and longer, the longer version is appreciated ^^
Fun Fact: Final Fantasy VII Remake's Stagger Gauge system is from Final Fantasy XIII, and the 3-part story that FFVII Remake has with the upcoming FFVII Rebirth and the forthcoming game after that is also inspired from FFXIII's 3-part story.
FF13’s music is underrated. It’s really good.
Underrated? It's like the most unanimously praised aspect of it with Blinded By Light being the most popular.
@@wulf8889 is it? I only ever hear people talking trash about 13 with no mention to the music. I guess in my circles.
Pretty much the track I think of 😊 when I think of this game
After getting the platinum trophy for 13, I never went back. This song brings back PTSD! LOL
Ff13s battle theme and boss battle theme really took the cake for the game's ost.
Side note: I hear that SF6 music in the beginning intro lol. Hope you get to reacting to those in the future too
I'm already familiar with so I can't react, but I'm thinking of making a video breaking it down one day.
Ohh sweet, be looking forward to a breakdown of that in the future. Keep up the good work, Jesse!
13 introduced a lot of good songs, but a lot of my favorites are in 13-2 and Lightning Returns. Yusnaan's night theme the Ouroboros festival is one of my recent favorites because of it's very unique sounds
Hamauzu is really underrated when it comes to Final Fantasy composers, FFXIII's soundtrack is so great, Hamauzu has always been a master at his craft, I think his style is pretty hard to replicate, it has some strong identity and he also manages to create diversity while doing his own thing
His harmonies and chords are just so jazzy and colourful, I love it
(And FFXIII is not a bad game at all, FF *fans* just like to hate on everything new in that series 👀 Whenever FF tries to be different, at least from like 7 or 9, they just go Berserk 😂 I mean the game has flaws indeed, but as all FF games do so yeah, let's just enjoy this series for all the great moments and memories it gave us and allow new things, that's already a huge accomplishment that it existed for more than 35 years)
One thing about FF13 Trilogy soundtrack, they are one of the best Soundtracks catalogue in Final Fantasy Franchise. Most people agreed that the Soundtracks is banger eventhough people use to hate the game before
And it also have Metal Chocobo theme
Honestly surprised that only 1 person requested this as this is THE FF13 song
This is one of my favourite FF battle themes, even though you hear it very often ingame, it never got boring for me. For me the composer of FF13 Masashi Hamauzu is one of the best that Square Enix has. You can usually tell when he’s worked on a soundtrack, as he uses a lot of very bright instruments.
The original Dissidia had a remix of this that is my absolute favourite.
FFXIII has no flaws and deserves nothing but praise.
It’s a good game
XIII all in all is a good trilogy. It was hit with the “New Final Fantasy so it must be bad” stick for a few years out of spite. Just like everything else however these remarks came from those who have only seen or heard reviews about the games.
The soundtracks however have all been well acclaimed. I especially love XIII-2 and Lightning Return’s OST.
One of my favorite battle themes
FFXIII is a gem. FF heads talk about linearity. But it is hit and miss. It deserves respect also.
13 is my go to soundtrack if I am on long car rides.
Ahh.. FF 13 immediately what comes to mind are sunleth scape and serah theme.
13 was certainly a mixed bag, I didn't beat the first one, but I did play 13-2 to completion cuz I enjoyed that particular story and its gimmick(s), and then did not play 13-3, cuz buying three full-priced games is a big ask.
Music was always wonderful which feels like a moot point at this point (Final Fantasy music is good? Who would have thought!?) Still listen to 'Yaschas Massif' and 'Run!' over and over to this day.
My fav ff game. More than XIV, just as much as IV
one of my favorite FF battle themes and i never understood the hate the XIII series got because i had fun with them especially the 2nd one
13 is fricken amazing and I hope they remaster it.
I really like how Hamauzu uses the violin to represent Lightning. Lightning is one of the most iconic female protagonists in the FF series and even in the game's history.
The game is very divisive yes. I couldn't bring myself to finish it and thats never happened since FF4 to me.. But the OST is amazing. XIII-2 is EXCELLENT in contrast.
You know what's a weird circle of events? I just literally finished listening to Eternal Wind from World of Final Fantasy, which was one of the three tracks you just reacted to, and that version was composed by Masashi Hamauzu 🤔
That one's SUCH a good rendition of Eternal Wind!
@@Namadu7 It is, the cello at the beginning sounds glorious
13 is one of my favorite final fantasy games sadly the hate for it is halting a remaster or re-release on playstation 5. One interesting music fact for you is that this is the only final fantasy game to not have the prelude in it.
i really liked the recordkeeper version from the medley more than this one, probably because of how it starts
FFXIII is definitely very divisive. I'm personally not a fan of it but I think everyone can agree on one thing: The music fucking slaps, just like every FF game.
I like XIII even it has it's flaws and it is PS3 game, I wish it could have remaster or something for the PS5, all three games, XIII, XIII-2 and Lightning Returns and OST is awesome 💕✨
This is a pretty good one, and thankfully so since it's the song you'll hear more than any other in FFXIII. I definitely think the game gets more hate than it deserves. I admit, for me it was hard coming off of FFXII, with it's exploration and freedom, into FFXIII's *very* linear style. But after focusing on what it was, rather than what it wasn't, I had a lot of fun with the game. I wouldn't rank it in my top FF games for sure, but I cannot say that I don't like it.
There's definitely some great songs in the game, but I feel much more strongly about the soundtrack of it's sequel, FFXIII-2, which I feel is absolutely amazing. I can't speak much on Lightning Returns though, as I've never played it.
You ain't seen nothing yet, FF XIII's soundtrack goes everywhere from funk to jazz to rock to EDM to solo piano pieces. It's wild lol.
FF 13 is actually a trilogy… 13, 13-2 and Lightning Returns is essentially 13-3… Originally 15 and type 0 or whatever were part of the 13 world or something too, I think, but things got shifted around a bunch…
The 13 series is kinda weird… Some cool ideas, but not necessarily what fans wanted… They would be fine as their own game, but as a Final Fantasy? And then they did a weird thing that often lead to people auto attacking through fights, rather than strategising as much… I think the kinda formation job system helped mitigate that issue, but it wasn’t popular with many fans… 13-2 improved the town aspects, but damn that ending lol. People often say Lightning returns is much more fun as combat, but some felt insulted by the story… Some weren’t fans of Lightning and got annoyed about how much she got pushed for games lol… Oh well… It’s not that bad, but certainly has issues
There's Final Fantasy XIII (I liked it! It was weird!), Final Fantasy XIII-2 (A direct sequel! It was really frickin' weird! I kinda liked it!), and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (Another direct sequel! It was really weird! I really liked it!)
But I don't know if I could recommend them to anyone, despite how much I enjoyed them. As I said, they're weird - the first one's the most "grounded" (which I'm sure will come as a shock to anyone who's only played the first game) and it's probably the easiest to recommend. All the weirdness comes from typical Final Fantasy plot and storytelling stuff - I _still_ can't tell you what a L'cie and a Fal'cie are and what the differences between them might be despite that being what the game is about. It's one of those 'if everyone would stop speaking in vague allusions it'd be fine' kinda games, I think. 2 is just... strange. Bizarre plot, crazy visuals. Centred around, like... time and dimension travel? There's some cool stuff in there, but wow, I still only sort of get what happened in the middle. Lightning Returns was a fun experience for me, and I can honestly recommend trying it out to anyone. It's _also_ really weird, but there's no time travel (... I think?), so that helps.
XIII rocks. It made a bad first impression on a lot of people because the structure is initially very linear (X also got flack for this, but with less fury), and the story goes hard on a lot of proper nouns that are hard glean the meaning of through context alone.
Yep and if you can make it through the 30+ish hour tutorial then the game opens up and theres lots of things to do...
Is there a request for Sunlethe Waterscape?
Best battle theme ever
Should give Will to Fight and Saber's Edge a go.
I played the first 2 games of the xiii trilogy last year (i..have yet to go back to LR),and while I can absolutely see the complaints with the game(s) ,I still had great fun with them.
Also FF13 murdered the A button of the controller I had at the time. Though that was admittably a super cheap controller .
I strongly recommend you listen to the themes for FFXIII's final boss (it has two phases so two themes) if you haven't already.
This is the regular battle theme
FF13, 13-2 and Lightning Returns are all part of a trilogy
13 is a lot different than most Final Fantasy games. I think it's disliked mostly because it's much more linear. I really liked the story, with a couple of caveats. I loved the battle system, which is another thing a lot of people disliked, I think.
I hate the term usually but I really can't find any other way to describe my feeling about how I think of this game other than that: mid. I don't hate it, I don't love it. It's just somewhere in the middle, and one of the positives was DEFINITELY it's amazing soundtrack, I still listen to it today. But I've never touched 13 series after I've played all of it through one time. And it's the only entry in the franchise that I've never ever replayed.
Steps to enjoying FF13
1. It's linear, don't even try to wander off the beaten path even when the game opens up, it's a waste of your time
2. It's got a lot of vocabulary, figure out lcie, cieth, falcie, sanctum and eden immediately or you'll just be lost.
3. The battle system isn't picking attacks, its picking jobs
Do all those things and you'll always have fun with ff13
It's been a while, but l'cie are the branded, cieth are the turned, and falcie are the branders right? I forget what sanctum and eden are
This is just outright wrong, some of the best battle content in an FF game is gained through exploration when the game opens up, and the battle system rewards picking your own attacks, if you take the time to learn what each attack does it gets very rewarding to use each in the right situation and to juggle bosses while staggered to achieve the 5 star rankings on each encounter.
@johnnyshins511 the game doesn't open up until post game. As an aside: Pulse isn't "opening up", you can functionally go where the game wants you to go or you can get your ass handed to you by stuff you have no business being near.
Autobattle always selects an attack the enemy is weak if your character knows one, and if it doesn't, it cycles through attacks both magical and physical till it finds something effective or you can libra and force it, thus the actual attack doesn't matter outside of ultimate attacks like death/army of one/last resort, all of which are near end game anyways, which is why the job matters not the attack.
I have a question. Did any songs that you listened to by mili get copy strikes?
Jesse will you play FF7 Rebirth when it comes out?
I prefer the Dissidia version of this track. They replaced the heavy guitar and drums with techno. It kinda fits way better with that adding to the playful melody of the song.
While the game is divisive, many fans of the series agree that it has great music
As much as I complain of XIII, the music was as beautiful as always. It cannot be other way with Final Fantasy, I suppose. There is always at least a couple of songs from each game that just get stuck in your mind.
"the game is kinda divisive"
Man, I love XIII, but a lot of FF "fans" have made it their mission in life to tell people how much the game "sucks" in their opinion. It's exhausting 😮💨
The comments are full of people doing this, yeah. 🤡 🤡
It's a reaction to a piece of music, and they can't help themselves (most of it being nonsense of course)
13's Battle themes are pretty solid. Main issue with most of the rest of the OST is that they use the main theme faaaaaar too much in the rest of the OST.
Final Fantasy XIII is still one of my most loved FF games in terms of setting, visuals, and music.
Not to mention, it was the first game in the series where a full orchestra was used.
I really loved FFXIII when I first played it but it kinda lost its luster as time went on. I think it does some things really well, the soundtrack is certainly one of the best in the series IMO, and I think the characters have interesting dynamics but the story is just a mess that doesn't make sense the more you think about it.
I still don't understand the choices the characters made at the end of the game. Maybe I should replay it now that I'm older but yeah FFXIII is when I started to question the series.
FF13 is underrated
Its bad reputation is kind of overblown, mostly due to the fact that the first half of the game is super linear.
On 13: Pretty much everyone agrees that the graphics and sound are amazing for this game. The game is 13 years old and the graphics still hold up. On why it's divisive, it usually comes down to the battle system, how linear it comes off, and the story-telling. The first two are personal preference things, and the third, there's an in-game Encyclopedia which is basically required reading to understand the plot, as terms and certain storylines are not directly explained to the player. I like it but it's probably in the lower half of FF games for me.
On Blinded By Light, it's mostly a battle theme. The main motif appears in other songs as well in 13, which is probably why it was chosen.
For 13, there are 3 games in the series. There is 13, 13-2, and 13: Lightning Returns. 13-2 is, IMO, one of the best FF games there is, which was poisoned because of how many people didn't like 13, so it doesn't get the respect it deserves. 13: Lighting Returns is, while I don't want to say outright bad, probably the worst received main FF game there's been, and justified IMO, for a lot of the choices they made design wise.
Also, when 13 came out, there were plans to have a bunch of games set in the same universe, the Fabula Nova Crystallis series, where they would share terminology but be independent games. Due to a ton of behind the scenes issues, Final Fantasy: Type 0 is the only game that was released in this series. Final Fantasy 15 when it started out in development was initially Final Fantasy 13: Versus, but got rebranded with how long it was taking to come out, and ended up not having the terminology or lore that the 13 series and Type 0 have.
I know people don't like the linearity and how the story goes, but look at it from this perspective; the group is being hunted by their own government. They're fugitives on the run, they can't really go and explore every nook and cranny of every area and explore the entire world at their leisure (like in most FF games). I think people tend to forget that.
And anyone who says 'its just press X to win' never got to the Sahz/Vanille section lol.
I personally do not understand disliking the Paradigm system. I loved how it forced on the fly strategy changeups and how different characters were better/worse at certain roles. The forced parties worked out really well.
@@Dimumouto Linearity is never a problem. The way it's HANDLED is everything. FF7r is very linear. And it does get complaints about it, but nowhere near on the level 13 does. FFX same thing. Linear progression is VERY common, but when you dress it right nobody cares. 13 didn't dress it right at all. It is linear and it FEELS linear. You aren't just effectively going down a corridor, you're literally going down a corridor. Even when it opens up it feels like a corridor, either because you've been trained to feel constrained or because there's nothing of interest in the expanded area. An improvement, but not a solution.
Speaking of the corridors: the graphics. They're great. But thats a double edged blade because it highlights the really poor art design. Everything looks so bland. The only things that got care and attention were nonsense monsters. Which there's nothing wrong with nonsense monsters, every FF has em and they're great but... they can't be the only thing that got an ounce of fun put in em.
Being pursued by the military could have been so cool. But it didn't feel like you were pursued by the military, because all you do is long jog to the next cutscene. Which happens to be in the direction you haven't been before always. Which is to say, if the military wasn't hunting you you would probably be doing the exact same thing anyways. Perhaps even with a modicum of wiggle room to get attached to this place you're supposed to want to save. But definitely don't.
And yeah the combat is definitely not easy, especially if you take on some of the challenge fights. But it's not especially hard either. And the most important part is whether you found it fun. And some people absolutely did. Most didn't. Neither are wrong about that. It's an interface, mileage will always vary. For me I found it incredibly unsatisfying how matter of fact and pizzazzless it was. Why did my sentinels take less damage? Low art forcefields. Why do ravagers build stagger fast? Cuz the game said so. What kind of damage is this enemy weak to? Blue damage. The one to the left is weak to red damage. The next one has no weaknesses so pelt it with whatever food coloring you like. This is another example of poor art design btw.
@Reshapable I have no qualms with the lack of explanation for the paradigms (I mean, how the hell does Cloud summon small meteors from the sky with his LB despite not even having Comet equipped? It's magic, yo), I gotta say, the food coloring analogy killed me.
I personally enjoyed the game, but I can see why others didn't, even if I don't agree with them. Call it shit taste if you gotta, but it's MY shit taste lol.
@@Dimumouto For sure. And for clarities sake, my complaint wasn't the how of it, but of the depiction. Cloud summoning meteors is whack, but at least it's a spectacle. I'm totally down with the jobs doing what they do, it's an effective system (not my favorite but it has it's own charm, similar to 12). But give my eyes some candy! Make that forcefield growl, make that magic... Well magic lol
Imo this may be the best FF battle theme in any of the games and the XIII trilogy has one of the top 3 osts in the franchise.
I like the music in this game but I severely have to separate the music from the game itself because I vehemently loathe the story of the game to the point where it turned me away from FF games as a whole for many years and made me not touch any game that Motomu Toriyama was involved in with a ten-foot pole. But the music be boppin though.
i hate that the game starts to really get good once you get full customization of your party but then there's not much you can really do with that (its like 3/4 of the game at that point)
It's still great before that
Thats a great kingdom hearts song! Although for some reason the violin makes me think of the violin version of green hill zone. Weird i know but it tickles the same part of my brain
For all its flaws, the 13 series has one of the best osts in the franchise
13 has one of the best soundtracks in the FF universe. I use to sit and watch my brother play it just to listen to the music when it first came out.
I have tried and failed to complete this game at least five times - probably no more than halfway on any one run.
It is one of my most listened to soundtracks - it is so rad from start to finish.
👍